The Secret Trio

Chapter 7

"Let this meeting come to order."

Everyone found a place to sit, on the bed or on bean bag chairs Danny had laying around the room. Eyes turned to Danny, and he cleared his throat. "Welcome to the first meeting of...whatever this is. We know we're being attacked by monsters, and New York is next. But most of you are unaware of who's behind it."

"Actually, we know." Randy said, waving a hand. Howard nodded.

"Yeah, his Nomicon already told us about this dude who got killed being the Ninja and went crazy." he said calmly. Danny blinked.

"Well, um..."

"We don't know." Jake said, "But it sounds like a ghost went crazy because of what they," He pointed to Randy and Howard, "said. And we need to stop him. What's this dude's name?"

"William the Forgotten. Clockwork told me."

"Who's Clockwork?" Randy asked. Danny frowned.

"The Ghost Master of Time. You'll probably meet him when he finally tells me where exactly this guy is."

"Hold up, you don't even know where he is?" Trixie blurted. Danny glared at her.

"Clockwork said that we had to learn to work together before he would tell us or something or other. I wanted to go after him too but he said no. So, no. The best we can do is just do our best."

Spud shrugged calmly. "Alright."

"No, it's not alright!" Trixie refuted, "How do we know this weird, mysterious ghost guy is actually gonna help us?" she questioned. Sam looked toward her.

"Clockwork has helped us before. We trust him. He knows what he's doing. How else would we have gotten to either of you groups of people?"

Everyone grumbled but didn't bother to protest further. Danny nervously clapped his hands together. "So I think we should meet and practice once a day. Maybe even get each other during the day if we get attacked to help each other. Those badges can help."

"We don't need to be practicing, we need to be fighting, and-" Randy's Nomicon glowed. He flipped it open and his face went blank and his head dropped into it. Everyone else just gawked at the scene.

"Is he-" Tucker was cut off by Howard.

"Just give him a few minutes, he'll snap out of it."

Randy fell through the Nomicon, yelling in surprise. Pictures and words flew past him as he crashed and groaned. He stood up, eyes narrowed. "Nomicon, what the juice? We can't waste our time, we have to go fight this guy right now! We don't have time to practice!"

Immediately words formed before him, glowing and beautiful. He read aloud. "Fighting without preparing results in inevitable defeat." The freshman scoffed. "Nomicon, come on, it can't be that hard to go in, fight, and win. We're wasting time."

The words faded and Randy was sucked back out the way he came, yelling all the while. He came back to the real world. As soon as he lifted his head off the book, it snapped shut and its glow faded. Everyone else just looked at him and Randy, embarrassed, shoved the Nomicon to his side. Tucker finally whistled.

"Wow, that book has an attitude, doesn't it?" he pointed out.

"It does not!" Randy was blushing. Howard snickered.

"It totally does. What did you do to make it mad?"

"Nothing! I just, um, said that preparation was a waste of time."