(This is today's second update! If you have not read Danny's perspective after the Tech-giant fight, go back!)

Chapter 9

Randy

"Alright, so… hey, Nomicon! I know I've been a little… absent lately. Not that I've been avoiding you! (You've actually been pretty quiet lately.) All your cliff-notes have been mega helpful and that buddying up with other solo heroes thing? Totally inspired. I still can't believe you taught me how to cheat better at video games."

Randy was back in the paper forest he'd been in last time, when he first got the "teamwork, solitude, blah blah blah" message. At his words, the leaves on the trees flashed a shade of red Randy usually associated with impatience. "Get On With It Red", if you will. Now that he thought about it, Randy wasn't sure he'd ever seen this part of the Nomicon before.

"Right, right. So me and my new pal had this idea – see, he's in a bit of a tight spot, and it's the Ninja's job to help people, right? So I figured I'd help him out, just this one time. Which – I know, I know," he waved a hand modestly, "what a great Ninja of me. But, see, I know it's the Ninja's job to protect Norrisville and all – and Norrisville will continue to be protected – but, see, this new Big Bad is uh… out of town."

He expected a negative reaction to the suggestion of being the Ninja of Norrisville outside of Norrisville, so when the trees suddenly moved in closer around him, he managed not to freak out too much.

"N-no I, I see what you're saying, but it's not like we're even going very far! Amity Park is right up the river. Which means, whatever bad thing is going on there could end up going on here. Thus causing chaos. Thus setting the Sorcerer free. You see what I'm sayin'? I'm still doing by solitary job as the Ninja, but I'm taking advantage of some teamwork, see?"

The trees stopped moving, much closer than before, and didn't feel any less foreboding. Randy took a deep breath and slowed down his frantic explanation/list of excuses.

"Listen, Nomicon, I know it's the Ninja's job to guard the Sorcerer and all, but isn't it also in the job description just to protect people? Like fighting McFist's robots! Maybe I am being a bit selfish about this; I just want to help my new friend. And we'll be leaving Norrisville in the capable hands of his friends, who are also pretty brucetastic. Friendship may be the weight that's making me put this on myself, but also friendship should be what's helping me take the weight off of Danny and… Wow, okay I'm trying to piece this all out into something elegant but all I'm really trying to say is: Can I go on a super bruce ghost hunting field trip?"

The trees had gone back to being green at some point during his poorly improvised speech. After he dropped his hands to his sides in defeat, all out of words, the trees in front of him slid apart. From between them a Ninja walked forward. Not one of the scribble or paper ninjas, but someone, taller than Randy, in an actual Ninja suit who used the scarf like a headband. Randy had seen this guy a few times, but if the Nomicon was trying to make a specific point by using him as an avatar, Randy didn't know what it was.

He stopped in front Randy and pulled a sword out from his back. Randy was almost afraid he was going to attack him with it, but instead he held it out between them. After a moment of being totally unable to read the other Ninja's expression – masks were wonk like that sometimes – Randy moved to take it.

The sword didn't look like his usual one. For one, while it wasn't any thicker than usual, the blade had a thin fork down the middle, almost like a fountain pen but deadlier, and several curved hooks closer to the hilt. The hilt itself was shaped like the neck of a dragon, with the hilt guard taking the form of the head so that the blade was shooting from the dragon's mouth. The scales were a sour shade of dark green, but the jewel in the eye socket was bright red.

"Woah…" was all Randy could say. Man, the Nomicon was always holding out on him!

When Randy carefully took it from the other Ninja, words appeared in the air around the blade. Randy read:

"The Ninja's blade was not forged for a single evil."

"Wha—" Randy looked up, but the other Ninja was gone.

A thick shadow fell over the trees. The leaves rustled and shook in a breeze Randy couldn't feel, but still sent a cold shiver down his spine. Then the shadow extended above the tree tops and formed into a looming silhouette that crowded the sky. Bat-like wings extended on and on from both sides and clawed hands the size of cars reached down toward Randy. As they fell, glowing red eyes took shape and before he could yell—

-Randy jerked awake, nearly falling off the steps he'd shloomped out onto. He balanced himself with one hand and stared at the other, which had been holding that wicked dragon sword. "What was that?" he said to himself.

The dry sound of the dregs of a near-empty cup being slurped through a straw came from behind him, further up the front steps of Norrisville High. Danny had his ankles crossed in front of him and crumpled up the wrapper of his breakfast burrito. As he tossed it into the trash pile that was left of the yard of the school after their fight the day before, he said, "So what'd your magic book say?"

Randy closed the Nomicon on his lap. "'The Ninja's blade was not forged for a single evil,'" he quoted.

Danny quirked and eyebrow at him. "And what's that supposed to mean."

Randy tapped his chin in thought. "I want to say that it's telling me to help fight your evil, and not just limit myself to the Sorcerer."

"So it said yes?"

"But knowing the Nomicon, it could turn out to mean something completely different and if I'd taken the accurate advice in the first place, it would have saved us a ton of trouble."

"Do you misread that thing a lot?"

"Oh, all the time. But, I also win all the time, so I'm gonna treat this a tentative 'yes' and trust that when I shoob it up later it'll work itself out anyway."

"So it's a yes?"

Randy put the Nomicon in his jacket and stood up. "It's a yes!"

"Excellent!" Danny bounced to his feet and tossed his cup on the trash pile. "Now what are we doing here again?"

Randy passed him on his way up the steps. "Getting your sword back."

S. Ward Smith was in his classroom that Friday morning, even though the entire rest of the building was empty, because of course he was. The school was still an absolute mess with the contents of students' lockers covering the hallways like debris from a tornado and teachers' desks half dragged across their rooms. Lucky for Randy, he brought a floating friend who could carry him down the halls by the wrists and nobody had to risk stepping on someone's underwear.

The door to Mr. Smith's room was closed. This would have struck anyone with a longer attention span than Randy as something strange, since all the other doors were open or hanging from their hinges. Randy had his mind on other things, though, like making dramatic entrances. He swung the door all the way open in one motion and as it banged against the inner wall he said, "Yo, Mr. Smi—yeek!"

A dagger had embedded itself into the wall six inches from Randy's face with a thunk.

"Ninja!" Mr. Smith scolded from the other side of the room. He had the forge door cracked open and three other knives, of wildly different shapes, in his hands. He pointed one of them over Randy's shoulder. "Your friend reeks of those new-fangled monsters."

"No, he's just—uh…" He looked to Danny who shrugged, wide-eyed. Randy took that as permission. "He's just kinda new-fangled monster. He fights them, though, he's one of the good guys!"

Randy wasn't sure how he could tell Mr. Smith was squinting behind his glasses. He said, "Hm," and he put the knives down so Randy was calling it a win.

They stepped all the way into the classroom and Danny shut the door behind them, probably as a precaution. Probably no one was in the halls, but they both had pretty terrible luck. Mr. Smith's room was slightly less of a wreck compared to the rest of the school, and he'd cleared off most of the floor and work tables already, but piles of metal still littered the room. It looked like student's projects had been tossed around the room and destroyed as welding equipment and tablets had flown out to join Technus' armor. If it weren't for the supernatural heat coming out of the forge, though, the place would almost seem normal.

Mr. Smith pulled something out of his apron. "This must be yours, then," he said and tossed it at Danny.

When he caught it, the blade of the ghost sword unfolded from the hilt in his hand. Luckily it was pointed away from him and he didn't get stabbed in the gut.

"Hope you don't mind I took a peek at the juice you're powerin' that thing with," Mr. Smith told him. "Smells just like ya."

Danny folded the sword. "Smells?" he asked. He gave Randy a weirded-out look.

Randy waved a hand in front of his eyes.

Danny's mouth formed an 'o'.

"Like burnin' acid," Mr. Smith went on. "Never smelled nothin' like that before. At least I thought I hadn't, till I realized I had. Comin' offa him." He pointed a gloved hand at Randy.

Randy poked himself in the chest. "Me?"

"Caught a wiff of it on the Ninja's suit a few times. First time musta been…" He turned around to go back to moving scrap metal around as he talked. "'92? What year is it now?"

"Why would there be ecto-energy in Ra—The Ninja's suit?" Danny asked. "It can't even touch ghosts. Well, it can touch me, but I'm, uh… special. That's why I gave him the sword."

Mr. Smith hmmed to himself as he single-handedly shoved what looked like two tons of scrap metal that might once have attempted to be a bird house off of a work table. The clang it made when it hit the ground was loud enough to wake the dead. Randy wondered if Danny would be offended by that metaphor. Before Randy could ask, Mr. Smith said, "Y'know that fireball magic ya got from the Tengu?"

"The crazy bird demon?" Randy said.

"Bird demon?" Danny asked, alarmed.

"Yeah, see there's this bird monster whose feathers are kinda built into the ninja suit? Simple version? I get to throw fireballs and makes me fire proof and it's the sweet cheese."

Mr. Smith scoffed.

Randy had been hearing scoffs his whole life so it didn't faze him. Instead, while Danny was looking at him like he'd lost a few marbles, Randy had an epiphany. "Wait, are you saying there's ecto-whatever woven into my suit?" Nobody said anything to deny it, so Randy cheered. "That's so bruce! Does that mean I can throw ecto-blasts like you do?" he asked Danny. "Can you teach me how to do that?"

Randy didn't notice that Mr. Smith had come back over to whack him upside the head. "Don't get ahead of yourself. There probably ain't enough to do more than protect you from other monsters like him." He jabbed his thumb in Danny's direction.

Danny didn't look too offended, but he did say, "Technically we're ghosts."

"So… what, the suit's been vaccinated against ghosts or something?" Randy asked.

Mr. Smith shrugged. "Or somethin'. I'm not the expert. Now get outta my shop! Students aren't supposed to be here today anyway!"

Back in the hallway, after Mr. Smith slammed the door on them, a thought occurred to Randy. "Wait, how am I gonna help you fight this ghost threat thing if I can't fight ghosts?"

Danny looked at him like he must be kidding. "Are you serious? You can't get hit!" He all but bounced on his toes with excitement. "Like a ghost to ghosts, but you're not even in the Ghost Zone. All you need is this." He tossed the sheathed sword Randy's way.

Randy caught it with both hands. He wasn't really sure what Danny was saying, but he figured he'd figure it out on the way. To ask the most immediate question, he said, "You're giving me this?"

"Well I'm not using it, and my parents have, like, twelve. Heck, when we get to Amity, you can take your pick. I'm sure they won't notice." Mostly to himself, he said, "Not like they notice anything else."

"Man, why you gotta be such a downer." He gave Danny a rough elbow nudge and gave his arm a round of light punches. "We're about to go on a monster-fighting road trip! Get excited!"

Danny cracked a grin. "Yeah, okay. Fate of the world is on us, but that's just Tuesday, right?"

"Now you're in gettin' it!" Randy made the first move to start picking their way back through the disaster zone of a hallway by jumping onto the remains of a teacher's desk which had cracked in half and was sitting sideways in the middle of the hall. "Denial: the true secret to heroism!"

Danny laughed and tapped off the ground to flout past him and the mess on the floor. "I think you mean sarcasm."

"No, no, you're right, that's definitely a factor." Randy started hopping between locker doors and backpacks like the floor was lava. Something cracked in one of the bags. Randy didn't worry about it. "But that's just a symptom. Clearly our lives are actually spent so deep in denial we forget what the real world looks like. I mean, come on, in what world would teenagers be held responsible for the well-being of entire towns? Entire worlds!"

The closest exit from the building was a back door; the same back door that lead to the amphitheater. They pushed the double doors open together and stood at the top of the theater. Clean up clearly hadn't started yet. It looked about the same as it did when they'd left it the day before. At least, if anyone had rummaged around in the wreckage yet, Randy and Danny couldn't tell. There were so many smashed electronics – TVs, a few refrigerators and an oven, hard drives, tablets, so many cables and wires – it was hard to make out where the actual ground was.

On the ground floor of it all, a giant hole in the earth had collapsed on itself. Randy wondered if the entire Old Gym had collapsed. Would any of the adults try to find out what was down there? If they got down there, would any of the hardware be salvageable? Could McFist's hoard of blackmail be recreated? Was is backed up somewhere? McFist couldn't go through with the plan while everyone was out of school – the Norrisville High students hardly paid attention to each other outside of school – but how long till they were back in session?

Randy and Danny would only be gone for the weekend – it was all Randy could get from his parents, who thought Randy was spending the weekend at Howard's; and it was the longest Tucker and Sam could cover for Danny with his own parents, who wanted him to focus on finishing school. If McFist's plan was still a Problem, they'd be back in town in time to make it a Not-Problem.

But was that enough time to fix Amity Park's Problem?

"This one," Danny finally responded. "This world is relying on teenagers."

Randy wasn't sure how to respond to that. He shoved his hands in his pockets. Sure, teenagers could do anything, but…

"If we really kick butt at it, do you think they'll let us celebrate with a drink?"

End of Part I

"You know alcohol tastes awful, right?"

"Well, duh, I watch 40 hours of TV a week, I'm not some band nerd. I'm just sayin', I'm pretty sure if this was France, we'd already be legal. I know a French guy, I'm pretty sure he's had alcohol. Say we use the flying powers of yours again, hop over to France, forget about monsters for a bit."

"And, what, go to a party?"

"I've always wanted to play Mario Kart while wasted."

How many of you forgot 'Chapter 1' was prefaced by 'Part 1: A Little Extra Help'? Also I meant to offense to band nerds in that epilogue bit, or at least not any more offense than I meant to myself for having been a band nerd in high school.

WE DID IT! Heroes Under Drinking Age: Alpha is over! BUT! Heroes Under Drinking Age is not over! H.U.D.A.: Beta, for one, has a mega-update and several more chapters left to go. When that's done, I'll begin re-reading these monsters for typos and small inconsistencies as i begin cross-posting on ao3. Then you guys can join me for the 4-way mega crossover, Heroes Under Drinking Age: Delta (so creative, right?)!

Did you notice the subtle Kim Possible and American Dragon: Jake Long references? The not-so-subtle ones? Well get ready for them to stop being alluded to and start actually showing their faces! I'll post an update here again when Delta starts (I'll probably post the first chapter of Delta here) as a final flag of saying "This fic is now being exclusively updated on ao3 because won't let me tag crossovers with more than two shows."

I just wanna thank you guys so much! For all of you who've left reviews, for all of you who've followed and favorited, for all of you who've prayed and sent good vibes my way. I wanna thank everyone who's read this once, who's read this four times, and especially who've been following me since day one, FOUR YEARS AGO, and have made it this far. This fic has meant so much for me to work on and I'll never be able to thank you all enough for helping me finish it.

tldr: HUDA Alpha will not leave this website, but will be cross-posted to AO3, where it will be continued in the sequel: Heroes Under Drinking Age: Delta. Delta will be a full-on crossover with Kim Possible and American Dragon: Jake Long. If you follow this story, I'm so exited to share this with you! If you're ready to hop off here, thank you so much for all the support you've given me this far. I cannot begin to thank you all enough.

Your reviews fueled me, and they always will

Cheers!

-Kinetic