savetheearth | everybody everywhere dig downwards [closed]

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everybody everywhere dig downwards [closed]

Who: Brooke Reynolds, Danny Fenton
When: The evening of December 3rd
Where: Brooke's apartment; then, underground
What: Danny's taking Brooke down to the big buzzing rock to see what either one of them can do to it.

Spelunking, huh? Wouldn't be the first time. Though it would definitely be Brooke's first time by way of intangibility. Just the thought kind of weirded her out, she realized, waiting outside her apartment in a black windbreaker that was probably way too light for the weather. At least she'd had the sense to wear slacks. She'd texted Danny to meet her outside her house, since it would probably draw less attention that way. A 24-year-old just chilling outside a high schooler's house would definitely raise a few questions.

That wasn't too long ago, but given that Danny could go intangible and, presumably, didn't have to worry about things like buildings getting in his way, Brooke had no idea when he'd actually show up. Or what he'd show up with, in case her powers couldn't do anything about the buzzing rock that she'd only heard about. She rolled an earplug between her fingers in her pocket and wondered if it would even help.

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Danny had been prepping for this ever since he came home from school. He put on what was rapidly becoming his Dodgy Network Stuff outfit of plain black clothes and a hat with his hair neatly tucked under it, and packed his backpack with some earplugs, earmuffs, and the last-minute addition of some of his parents' power tools. You know, just in case.

Once he gets the text from Brooke, he does a quick double check that he had everything, and then leaves the house, walking over to her place at a fairly brisk pace. (No intangibility though, he doesn't know if it has a limit any more but he doesn't want to use any of it before he absolutely has to.)

When he rounds the corner and spots her, he starts waving as he closes the gap.

"Hey! You ready?"

"As I'll ever be," she says, looking Danny up and down before closing her end of the gap as well. Maybe she should have dressed a little more inconspicuously. Then again, it's not like she has experience in shady dealings. Well, ones that involve other people. Well, ones that happen outside of work. Yeah, that's the ticket.

"So this is going to be interesting, huh? You got a place picked out?" Nothing but idle conversation, or at least that's what she hopes to anybody who might be listening in. She's trusting Danny a lot on this one, but she supposes he's trusting her, too. Interesting is too light a word.

Danny picks up on the vagueness of the conversation and responds in kind--a lifetime of dealing with incredibly paranoid people has given him a strong training in speaking carefully.

"Yeah, we should head over there. So that, uh, we're not late." He points a thumb over his shoulder down the block and starts walking in that direction, towards the Tuning Towers. He pulls out his phone as he walks and taps out a text that he doesn't send, showing it to Brooke: Let's try and find an alleyway or something hidden near the Towers that we can hide in when we go underground.

It's incredibly bizarre (and kind of uncomfortable) to be taking the lead on something, but he is the only one between the two of them who's actually seen the rock, so it makes sense. Kind of.

More sense than the alternative, at any rate. Brooke looks at Danny's phone and nods at him silently. She'd respond in kind, but her arm has made the capacitive screen on her phone kind of a pain in the ass.

But just a nod doesn't get all the information across, and with a subdued sigh she pulls out her phone and types out a message with her left thumb. Saw one w Rachel. Ill show you.

With the increased guard, it might be a little too close, the one she's thinking of. But it's a better lead than nothing, and just in case her powers turn out to be a wash, she wants to say she did something tonight. Hopefully the walk over would be uneventful. It'd be nice to have something go right.

And the walk over is uneventful, because this log has purpose and nobody has the patience to read a bunch of filler.

Danny doesn't talk much on their way over because it seemed that using her phone was kind of a hassle for Brooke, and he didn't know how much of what he said was safe to say in public (or if they were being followed or recorded at all), even if it does make for an awkward silence. When there's only a few blocks left to walk to the Tower, he starts looking around for a good place to duck into.

"So uh...is the place around here?" He turns to Brooke. So far, at least, he hadn't spotted an alleyway deep enough or a dumpster large enough to hide behind. If she already knew a place, that might be quicker and easier to deal with.

Okay, cool. No dogs in sight, no cop patrols to avoid—but just because she can't see them doesn't mean they're not there. Brooke jerks her head in the direction of a secluded spot behind a Chinese restaurant. "Down here," she says, and takes the lead.

It's dark and kind of creepy, but there aren't any windows that anybody patronizing the restaurant could look out of back there, and there's one of those huge shared mini-mall dumpsters for them to hide behind. It, of course, smells like complete garbage, but they won't be above ground too long so it doesn't really matter.

"Feels like the beginning of a horror movie," she mutters, coming around to the back side of the dumpster.

"Horror movie sounds about right, yeah..." He looks warily over his shoulder at the alleyway as he crowds into the space behind the dumpster with Brooke.

Now that they're hidden, it's time to get things started. Danny takes a deep breath and preps himself--his intangibility had improved a lot lately, and he even managed to get three people out of prison without it failing, but if it fails now, they'd both be trapped in the ground and probably suffocate and--

okay, no, not the time to be thinking about this.

"So, I'm going to hold onto your arm to do this, okay? Whatever you do, don't let go. And we need to keep quiet--we won't really be seen but we can be heard, so. Uh, yeah."

And with that precaution, Danny moves to grab Brooke's wrist and turns the both of them intangible.

"Got it," she says with all the finality of a nod. And then when she actually goes intangible? Well... she's kind of surprised to see that it doesn't feel as weird as she expected. They haven't actually gone through anything yet, though. That's probably going to be messed up.

In fact, with her free hand, she reaches out for the dumpster and very pointedly doesn't touch it. That part is weird. Like. She knows she should be meeting some resistance, but she just doesn't. "Whoa." And then she remembers what Danny said a few seconds ago about keeping quiet and puts on an embarrassed face. (Though she's not sure if he can actually see it.)

Bottom line, intangibility is weird and this party is ready to get started.

"Here goes," he whispers, moving forward and gently pulling Brooke along as he goes.

They sneak out from behind the dumpster and walk out into the street, where he walks carefully so as to not get spotted or accidentally possess some poor guy on the street. (He still isn't quite sure how that happens, honestly.)

They keep to the streets for about another two blocks, as they get close to the Towers. Danny wants to get as close as possible without having to navigate through solid dirt, but at this point he doubts it's possible to get much closer without getting caught, so he stops for a second, says "Okay, heading down now," and then proceeds to let the both of them sink through the ground.

It's difficult to see under the ground, what with there being packed dirt in every direction, but thankfully from here it's a pretty direct trip down.

"Okay...I think now that we're down here we can talk, but...it's gonna get a lot louder once we start getting closer."

Brooke keeps totally silent for the rest of the above-ground journey and braces herself for more weird sensations when Danny says they're ready to drop.

"Great. Just what I was looking forward to." Her tone is drier than various deserts. She can already tell from here that her earplugs aren't going to do her any good at all, so she just kind of forgets about them. Besides, they're on the same side of her that Danny's holding. She's confident in her earth-moving powers, but not when she's surrounded by the stuff.

Her big question (how Danny found out it was here) is already on its way to being answered as the buzzing keeps getting louder. She thought it was awful above ground, but this... this is something else. In fact, she nearly lets go of Danny to cover her ears before she realizes how terrible an idea it would be. "Crap. Sorry."

"I-it's fine, just. Try not to do that again, I guess." Danny does not know what would happen if someone turned tangible again in a space already occupied by stuff, and he certainly doesn't want to find out.

Once that's sorted though, they keep sinking down, occasionally leaning in a direction to more closely follow the sound. Danny, in fact, goes so far as to pull out his earplugs with his free hand and stick them into his ears. It may not help much, but it's better than nothing at least.

It takes a good fifteen minutes or so of following the sound, but eventually, when the buzzing sounds roughly like a jackhammer ripping into concrete, they stop sinking and hold steady in the ground. It's still not visible, but not much is, when you've got dirt right in front of your eyes.

"I THINK WE'RE RIGHT IN FRONT OF IT NOW, THIS IS AS LOUD AS IT WAS LAST TIME I WAS DOWN HERE!" Screaming is probably the best option for communication right now, with the volume of the buzzing.

"GREAT! AWESOME!"

Wow, she is not used to having to scream, and even then she doesn't know if she's loud enough for Danny to hear. Her throat's gonna be raw in the morning. Brooke extends her free hand and focuses on moving the dirt in front of them. Before exerting herself too hard (since she's never tried something so psychically demanding before), she yells a question at Danny.

"SO IS IT BURIED OR IS THERE LIKE A CAVERN?"

Probably should have figured that one out a little sooner.

"I'M PRETTY SURE IT'S JUST BURIED!"

Good god is it loud. He grits his teeth and focuses on just holding on to Brooke and keeping the two of them intangible while she works.

"GOT IT!"

All right. You can do this, girl. It's just some dirt, and it's not like it's going to suffocate you, either. All you need to do is focus on your powers.

Which would be a lot easier if the buzzing weren't so friggin' obtrusive.

Her hand still raised, she taps into the knowledge given to her by a previous echo and just sort of wills the dirt ahead of them to separate. She's surprised to find it's easier than moving rocks around, probably because it's altogether a bunch of smaller things, but she can still only clear a spot in front of them a couple feet tall by maybe a foot wide and deep.

She can't stop to let the dirt go (not because of her powers, but because of Isaac Newton). She's pretty sure, though, that she's found what they were looking for.

"IS THAT IT?" she shouts, now with clear exertion in her voice.

As Brooke moves the dirt out of the way, they finally have a little bubble of clear space in the dirt, and for the first time, Danny is looking at the rock from the outside of it, rather than staring at it from inside with his head partially shoved through it. It's certainly a lot easier to see it actually moving this way.

"YEAH, THIS IS IT! YOU THINK YOU CAN TAKE A CHUNK OUT OF IT?"

"LET ME TRY!"

She doesn't know if this thing is even earth at this point—earth isn't usually pink or moving. And she's already exerting a decent amount of her powers just keeping it clear. But she calls up what little she has in reserve and focuses on the rock, trying to get it to move, or break, or even wiggle a bit.

And she's not sure whether it's because she doesn't have enough spare power or because it's not made of earth, but whatever it is, she can't seem to get a hold on the rock. She gives it one more shot, but comes to the conclusion after about a minute that she just can't do anything to it.

"NO LUCK!" she yells, which is not the right method for communicating resignation, but it's still buzzing, so she can't stop.

"HUH." This is not what Danny expected. Brooke said before that she might not be able to do anything to it, but Danny figured that rock was rock, surely she'd be able to do something, right? Apparently not, for some reason.

"WELL I HAVE SOME POWER TOOLS WITH ME, WE CAN TRY AND GET A CHUNK OUT OF THIS THING WITH THOSE TOO."

"SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN," she says, though it doesn't sound like a very good one. But when has that ever stopped Brooke before? "I'LL KEEP IT CLEAR!"

Which she does, still with the same amount of exertion. Whatever power tools Danny's got—that he'll have to fish out with one hand, no less—at least they'll probably drown out the buzzing. Small favors.

It requires a bit of finagling with which arm to hold on to Brooke with as he removes one strap and swings the backpack around, but eventually he manages to pull out the reciprocating saw he stole from his parents' work kit.

"OKAY--HOLD ON TO ME, BECAUSE I'M GOING TO NEED BOTH HANDS FOR THIS!"

Warning out of the way, Danny turns it on and puts the moving blade to the rock, exerting pressure as he goes to try and get a shallow, but substantial, cut.

Brooke follows his directions and puts her arm around Danny's waist, certain never to lose contact with him. It seems like the best place, is all. Her other arm remains extended, though out of the way of the sawblade. Intangible or not, she's not a fan of ridiculously sharp objects.

She really hopes that this is going to work, because right now she feels kind of superfluous. Though at the same time, blindly cutting into dirt probably wouldn't be too great for anyone involved, so that's a small favor.

As Danny starts guiding the saw through the rock, he feels tremors and vibrations. He's pretty sure it's just the kickback from the saw's rapid motions--he's never used it before, so he can only guess. He expected some form of motion from it, but nothing this intense.

"JUST A BIT MORE..." A few more seconds and another strong push with the saw gets a hand-sized chunk of rock out, completely severing it from from the larger one. Before it can fall down, Danny swipes at it with one hand, making it fully tangible just long enough to grasp the rock before turning it intangible again.

"GOT IT!"

Next, he turns off the saw. "ALRIGHT, I THINK WE CAN....uhh...do--do you know what that's coming from?" He's pretty sure he still hears the sound of the saw vibrating, and he can still even feel it, but the saw is definitely off. He looks around for the source of whatever this sound (movement?) is.

Brooke hears and feels the vibrations, sure, but doesn't have any idea where they're coming from. "No idea," she says in what seems like a whisper for how much she's been screaming. Now that she doesn't need to keep the way clear anymore—good going on Danny's part, by the way, for being prepared—she lets the dirt fall where it may and focuses her powers around them instead, wondering if she even has the ability to tell what's going on.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's happening, and it barely even takes somebody with powers—but the powers help. "Danny! Get us out of here!" Brooke shouts, her eyes going wide. "It's an earthquake!" They might stand a good chance of surviving if they remain intangible, but she doesn't want to take that risk.

"A what?" He hears the words, but his brain is a few steps behind and only just starts catching up yet to process their meaning just yet. "An earth--oh my god!"

The last thing Danny ever thought he'd have to deal with in his life was an earthquake. Except apparently he was wrong, because not only is he dealing with an earthquake, he is intangible with another person a mile underground as it's happening. He frantically starts cycling his one free arm out in front of him, looking as though he's swimming. It looks incredibly stupid (or it would, if there weren't an earthquake currently distracting everyone from everything), but it gets the job done, pulling them several feet upwards with each 'stroke.'

"Come on--help me!"

He just hopes that, with the both of them pulling, Danny can keep them both intangible long enough to get them safely out of the ground.

Too concerned with self-preservation to worry about how stupid she looks, Brooke mimics Danny's motions and notices that they're rising faster. Probably not the best idea to focus on the physics behind it right now, Brooke. You're a mile underneath the city, intangible, clinging to a ghost boy who just sawed off a chunk of mysterious pink rock that you were keeping clear for him with your brain powers. Pick your battles.

Anyway, it's starting to look like the two of them are actually going to make it out. In between strokes, Brooke's simultaneously trying to clear the dirt out from around their ascent. It must be the theme of the night: Having no idea if something will work, but doing it anyway. It's terrifying, but also kind of exhilarating. Now she's got to get out of this thing alive just to have the story to tell.

With the both of them working to get the hell out of there, they're lucky to only need a few more minutes before they make it up to the top. By that point, the shaking has already stopped, but Danny kept clawing his way up regardless. Earthquake or not, that had certainly spooked him enough to not want to stay in the ground any longer.

They're also lucky that they drifted when going back up, so instead of coming out right in the middle of the Tuning Towers, they're actually about a block away in a small local park.

As soon as they're both above ground and Danny makes sure there are no limbs or anything still in the dirt, he drops their intangibility and flops in the grass on his back with his arms and legs spread out, panting.

"Let's never do that again."

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everybody everywhere dig downwards [closed]

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