Chapter 19 - Flaming Bunnies and Other Such Nuisances

The mood on board The Avenger had gone from an exited electricity to a hopeless fog. Slowly and somberly the massive ship plopped down on a small, forested planet which, if June read the Intergalactic Planetary Registry correctly, was uninhabited. After the crew had discovered that they had been chasing the wrong ship this whole time Betty had locked her self in her quarters, Phantom prowled the halls psychotically, snatching up any electronics left out, June sat in the bridge alone to land the ship, not wanting to deal with anyone. Jenny and Jake had decided to try and help Zib in the sick bay.

"Puny minded simpletons! You're stupidness is massive and… STUPID!" Zib shouted.

"Ooooookay." Jake replied, then turned to Jenny, "So how's this suppose to work, again?"

"Well, from the looks of it, when the PAK repaired itself it used some tech with faulty programming, so I just got to hack in there, fix the bugs, and he should get better or at least less crazy. I might also be able to install a program to help repair the mental damage, but that all depends on if his brain is attached to the PAK."

"Right, I think I've got it now, what do I need to do?"

"Just unplug me if my warning light goes off."

"What warning-" Jake stopped when a large police siren popped out of Jenny's head, "Oh, that warning light."

Jenny pulled a wire out of her head and moved towards Zib.

"H-hey." Zib said in his Dib voice, "This isn't gonna hurt, is it?"

"Uh, well, I don't- no, it probably won't, I mean, I won't feel anything.."

"Probably?" Before Zib could protest anymore Jenny shoved the wire into his PAK and both of them suddenly fell into a trance. Jake watched on worriedly for a moment before his attention was shifted to the sick bay doors as they swished open. Phantom stormed in with an angry sneer. His green eyes darted from Jenny to Zib and finally to Jake.

"Fixing bugs in his PAK?" He said in a tone that suggests he didn't care for an answer.

"Uh, yeah. So, what brings you here?"

"I need some equipment." He responded in a more no-nonsense tone than usual. Then without another word he began rifling through all the drawers and cupboards snatching up any electronics he found. Throwing medical supplies around casually until he found whatever devices he was looking for. Jake watched him, afraid to interrupt. It wasn't until Phantom had an armful of gadgets and was moving towards the door that Jake mustered enough courage to speak again.

"So, uh, what are you working on?"

Unexpectedly, Phantom let out a heavy sigh, and turned to Jake with a hopeless look in his eyes. "It doesn't matter. Nothing matters." then Phantom left without another word.

Jake looked around at the mess of gauze and bandages Phantom had left sprawled all around. Glancing over at Jenny and Zib -who were both still in a daze-, he began to put things away. Just as he was staking jars of some kind of medicine on the shelves he was startled by wailing noise and flashing lights. The siren on Jenny's head was going off. Jake leapt over to the table and yanked the chord connecting the two. Instantly the siren turned off and retracted back into Jenny's head.

"Hey, you okay?" Jake asked Jenny as she clutched her head.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I just got a little bad –TACO!- uh feedback. My anti-virus program should boot it out in a –doo dee doo dee!- few minutes."

Jake turned to look at Zib and began undoing the straps, "How about you, you okay?"

"Uh, actually, yeah, I do." Zib sat up, "In fact I-whoa. What happened here?" Zib said seeing the mess that Phantom had left.

"Oh, that. Phantom stopped by looking for who-knows-what." He turned to Jenny, "He seemed even weirder than normal."

"Is he all right?" Jenny asked with concern in her voice.

"Is there an 'alright' with Phantom?"

"I think I should go talk to him." Jenny said walking out into the hall. The closer Jenny got to Phantom's room the more concerned she became. She heard all sorts of noises coming from the room, from bangs to thumps to crashes, and she swore she heard a little explosion even. When she opened the door the air in the room was thick with smoke. Somewhere in the mess she could hear Phantom's voice.

"Auuuuggg! Dumb calibrator. Work you stupid thing! WORK!"

Slowly and cautiously Jenny approached. When she was close enough to see Phantom slumped over a table she spoke. "Uh, Phantom?"

His eyes gleamed at her through the smoke. "What?" His voice made it clear he did not want to be disturbed.

"Well, I- It's just- Phantom, are you alright?"

"Alright? ALRIGHT? I'M GREAT!" He shoved the contents of the table onto the floor. "I mean, it's not like I'm dying or anything! I sure didn't just loose the only purpose I had for the last weeks of my life! Oh, no! I'm fine! I'm just PEACHY!" Phantom slumped onto a nearby chair, looking defeated.

Jenny quietly walked towards Phantom and, placing a hand on his shoulder said, "It's gonna be okay, Phantom."

"Easy for you to say," Phantom said without even opening his eyes, "You going to be here long enough to catch the invaders."

"Phantom, I-"

"You what?" He said chuckling sarcastically, "What's the robot's wonderful, cure all advice for this, huh?"

Jenny had had enough of this. Grabbing him by the shoulders she lifted him up from the chair. "Hey! Listen! I'm trying to help you here! I'm trying to help you deal with this, but all you want is to be miserable. Why don't you just let yourself enjoy something once in a while? It's not like you've got anything left to lose!"

Phantom kept his eyes closed in silence for a while. Then in almost a whisper he spoke. "I-I'm sorry. It's just- there isn't anything left for me. I'm so useless right now. I told Betty that I'm dying and suddenly I have nothing."

"Don't say that Phantom, you're not useless. You're the one who gave me this awesome paint job!"

Phantom seemed to cheer up a little at this, "Yeah, yeah, I guess. Hey, Jenny?"

"Yeah?"

"Could you, uh, put me down now?" Jenny then realized that she had been holding him a few inches off the ground the whole time.

"Oh! Sorry! You're just so light and, you know, super robot strength and all." as the situation grew more awkward for Jenny she sought to change the subject. Pointing at the still smoking ghost portal she said "So, you said you were having problems? I do happen to know a thing or two about machines myself."

"Yeah, it's this stupid calibrator," Phantom said tapping a gizmo that seemed practically duct-taped to the rest of the portal, "I can't figure out what its problem is."

Jenny leaned in close to examine it and after a moment of consideration told Phantom, "That's because it's a can opener, not a calibrator."

"Ohhhh." Phantom replied sheepishly.

"But," Jenny added, "I think we can re-purpose it. But if I'm gonna help you I want one thing clear."

"What's that?"

"When it's done, we're painting bunnies on it."

"What?" Phantom replied indignantly, "If we're painting anything on this thing it's gonna be hot rod flames."

"Bunnies." Jenny said resolutely.

"Hot rod flames." Phantom corrected.

"Bunnies."

"Hot rod flames!"

"Bunnies!"

The two glares at each other for a moment. Then Phantom broke the silence, "How about flaming bunnies?"

"Mmmmmm," Jenny considered the proposition for a moment, then extracted a wrench from her wrist, "Deal. Let's get to work."

-CotB-

"And so that brings us to the bridge." Jake said. After Jenny left he had started to feel awkward with Zib and was completely freaked out by Zib's one mutant-alien eye. So he made the tactful suggestion to give Zib a tour of the ship. Zib had jumped at the chance and snatched up a notepad Phantom had left out to take notes.

"This is so amazing! I mean, do know how long I've waited to get solid proof of aliens? I have hundreds of pictures of spaceships but I never thought I'd actually be on one!"

"So, you a paranormal investigator?" Jake had caught onto that fact during Zib's rant about how he could find the Loch Ness monster.

"I prefer revealer of truth. I mean there are so many things out there that nobody wants you to know about."

"You mean like…dragons?" Jake wanted to make sure he didn't have another Professor Rotwood on his hands.

"Dragons? No, that's ridiculous. No, I'm talking, like, ghosts and Bigfoot and stuff like that."

"Bigfoot, huh?" Jake opened the bridge's doors and led Zib in, "Nice guy, after he took off that poison ivy diaper and stopped calling himself King Itchy."

"Yeah- wait, what?"

"You guys talking about Bigfoot?" June said, seeing the two come in.

"Yeah, I'm giving Zib here the grand tour." Jake replied.

"So," June said to Jake to avoid looking at Zib's mutant eye, "I guess Jenny fixed his, uh, weirdness?"

"Yeah, she's hanging out with Phantom now."

"Hey," Zib said, "That Phantom guy, is he really a ghost?"

"Oh, yeah totally, and he's a pretty powerful one, too." Jake answered.

"Tell me about it." The memory of June's fight with Phantom on Hannas-Barrbados was still fresh in her mind.

Zib turned to a new page on his note pad. "So, how did you get him here, is he haunting the ship or something?"

"That's a good question," June said, then turning to Jake, "How did Phantom get here?"

Jake scratched his head and started to think back. It seemed almost a lifetime since Phantom had attacked the Galactic Guardian Headquarters. "Well, it's actually kinda funny, Me Jenny and Betty were at Galactic Guardian H.Q. and Phantom showed up and was all like, 'Yo! I'ma need some gear, 'cause I'm after those fools that messed with Earth.' And we were all like, That's cool, but you be messin' with us, so we gonna take you down!' So we sucked him up into a dust buster and locked him up. Then we find out he's got a way to track the invaders so Betty pulled some strings and Bam! We're off. 'Course then we find out we just been followin' you all the time, so, uh, yeah."

Zib suddenly felt guilty, "Oh, I guess that's why Phantom seemed so upset."

"Wait, a dust buster?" June asked for clarification, "You sucked him into a vacuum cleaner? Does that even work?"

Zib spoke up again, "Well, actually most ghost catching equipment is based on the design of vacuums. In fact I saw this web video that told me how to turn any hose vacuum into an atomic suckula-" He was cut off when the bridge door slid open and Betty came in.

"Oh," She said glancing over at the others, as if she was surprised to see them there, "are Jenny and Phantom here? I want to talk to everybody."

-CotB-

In Phantom's lab Jenny had taken over the more technical side of the project while Phantom had been almost forced into doing the paintjob.

"And that," Jenny said, wiping some grease off her forehead, "should just about do it." She and Phantom took a step back to admire their work. "So, this is suppose to open a portal into another dimension, right?"

"Yeah, the Ghost Zone." Phantom replied.

"No offence, but why would anyone want that?"

"Well, you see… it's kinda of a… well… huh, you know, I'm not really sure. But, hey, why would anyone make a crime fighting robot a teenage girl?"

"Good point. Oh well, awesome flaming bunnies, anyway."

"Thanks."

"So what do say we fire this baby up?" Jenny asked moving towards the control panel.

"Uh, wait," Phantom stopped her, "in my experience, turning these things on for the first time usually causes problems."

"Problems like what?"

"Like giving people freaky ghost powers."

Suddenly the intercom crackled to life, and Betty's voice rang through, "Jenny, Phantom, I need you on the bridge immediately. I-I need to talk to everyone."

"Huh," Jenny said, "I guess we'll have to wait on the ghost freakiness. What do think she wants to talk to us about?"

"Beats me." Phantom lied. He had a guess as to what Betty wanted to announce. If he was right, it wasn't going to end well. The two rushed up to bridge. The moment the doors swished open and Phantom caught a glimpse of Betty, he knew something was wrong. She was no longer the confident, observant girl he had met at Galactic Guardian headquarters. Instead, sitting in the commander's chair she had the look of someone who had been defeated.

Somberly she acknowledged Phantom and Jenny. Then, after clearing her throat, she spoke, "I called you all here to make a few announcements. As most of you know, we no longer have any leads to find those responsible for destroying Earth. Our mission to bring them to justice…has failed. So, I guess it's time to come clean about a few things. I…lied to all of you. I lead you to believe that this mission was fully sanctioned by the Galactic Guardians, it was not. In fact, Phantom and I are currently on the Milky Way's Most Wanted List for Grand theft warship. Now I-"

"Whoa, whoa, wait!" June stopped her, "So you've just been lying to us this whole time? Just when were you planning on telling us this? Yeah, guys thanks for helping beat the invaders oh by the way, we're all fugitives."

"June, listen to me, I-"

"Listen to you? Why? We already know we can't trust you."

"But I-"

"Hold on Princess, before you go on does any one else want to do a shocking reveal? Anyone? How about you Jake? You wouldn't happen to secretly be an agent of the Dark Dragon, are you? Jenny? Are you some kinda killbot from the future? Phantom?"

The words spilled out of Phantom's mouth "I'm slowly deteriorating and in about two weeks I'll revert to a puddle of ecto-plasm."

June glared a him a moment, "Like I care." Furious, she began to storm out but stopped when a high pitched beeping emanated from the ship's console. "What now?"

Betty pushed some buttons on her arm rest. "We're getting a call." She answered listlessly. "From a Galactic Guardian Cruiser."

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