Welcome to Plasma Shots! So far it's just the one one-shot, but I hope to write more in the future.
Fish
It started when his ghost sense went off while he was trying to sleep. Again.
This was not unusual. As the self-proclaimed ghostly protector of Amity Park, Danny rarely got an undisturbed night's sleep. The most stereotypical ghosts liked attacking at night anyway for the easy spooks, his regular enemies thought it was hilarious to make his life miserable, and the serious ones knew that depriving him of sleep would give them a better chance at winning. Generally, he just settled for getting sleep whenever he could. In this case he wasn't supposed to be sleeping at all, so the rude but quiet awakening was a mixed blessing. On one hand it spared him the wrath of Mr. Lancer reprimanding him for sleeping during his class; on the other hand he wouldn't be able to pay attention to the lesson anyway because now he had another ghost to catch. Fantastic.
Sam and Tucker were already looking at him to gauge his reaction and figure out whether he would need help. Danny subtly shook his head and raised his hand. The puff of mist had been weak, so he could take care of whatever it was himself.
Mr. Lancer sighed at the almost worryingly common occurrence. "Yes Mr. Fenton?"
"Can I use the restroom please?" The question brought on a few snickers from his classmates. He internally sighed. He really needed a new excuse.
"Hurry back," Lancer allowed with a mental eye roll, even though he knew it was pointless.
Danny was already out the door when his "Thank you sir!" Was tossed back over his shoulder. He could think of better excuses later. Right now he needed to focus on ghost hunting.
Ducking into the nearest alcove—which this time was an actual bathroom—he turned into Phantom and started trying to track the ghost. It had better not be the box ghost again. He'd just sent him back to the zone last night!
Then his ghost sense went off again. Two ghosts? Or was the same one just going in and out of his range?
The third time his ghost sense went off Danny was starting to get annoyed. The fourth time left him getting ticked, the sound of who let the ghosts out (to the tune of who let the dogs out) playing in his head not helping matters. By the fifth time he was getting worried. Really, who let the ghosts out? Was there a big natural portal nearby? Did his enemies wizen up and go for a group attack?
He exited the school to continue looking for what he now considered to be a full-scale enemy invasion. He was half right.
Fish.
They were everywhere. It looked like someone had turned Amity Park into a town-sized fish tank. Glowing green shoals meandered around trees and light posts. Individuals drifted through the occasional open window. Birds nipped at some that had gotten too close. Some of them bumped into things pointlessly while others phased through things in their way without care. But most importantly, there were too many to even count.
Danny almost dropped his thermos. There was no way he could get so many ghosts to fit in it at once! How had this happened?!
Meanwhile his ghost sense was practically constant. He could only hope it settled down soon before it masked a real threat. There was only one surefire way to get it to go away though. He needed to get rid of all these ghosts, one way or another.
Danny hoped he'd make it back to school before the end of the day.
He sighed and started sucking fish up into the thermos. Thankfully they were so weak that he didn't need to weaken them first, but there were so many and they were so fast that it was difficult nonetheless. Out of frustration he shot an ecto-blast at one and it evaporated into green mist.
Well. Looks like his job just got easier.
"Hey! Ghost buoy! Reef my fish alone!" An angry voice came down from above.
"Buoy?" Danny looked up to see who was responsible for all the sea life. Belatedly, his ghost-sense gave a particularly cold puff.
He was not expecting what he saw. The ghost in question looked like she had been swimming with the fishes for a long time, pun somewhat intended. Danny was reminded of the crew of the Flying Dutchman from Pirates of the Caribbean. She had gills on her cheeks, a shadow on her face that looked like a mask, webbing between her fingers and a fin on her back. To top it off, there was a crown of thorns starfish on her head. A single blue angelfish swam beside her.
She looked down at him angrily. "Yes, ghost buoy, I'm talking to you. Reef my fish alone."
Danny got over his flabbergasting. "Why should I? Now that I know who brought them here, they should be much easier to get rid of!" He lit his hands with ectoplasm and launched himself at the fish-like ghost. He had already wasted enough time fishing, he wasn't going to waste any more by stopping to chat.
The ghost's eyes widened at the sudden attack and she turned tail and flew, her angelfish right behind her. Danny wasn't about to let her get away that easily though, shooting ecto-blasts in the hopes of slowing her down. If he could defeat her, hopefully the droves of semi-transparent green fish would disappear too, and he could get back to class. She dodged the blasts and hurriedly changed direction, doubling back so Danny went right past her.
Danny turned to follow, but found himself face-to-face with a goliath grouper. He hovered dumbfounded for a moment at the unexpected intrusion to his personal space before he pushed it out of the way and continued on his original mission: catching that girl.
But where had she gone? There were so many fish in his way that he couldn't see through them! She must have somehow made them appear behind her to hamper his search. With that logic, she should be wherever the fish were thickest.
Sighing, Danny got to work, throwing ecto-blasts with one hand and sucking fish into the thermos with the other. Despite this newfound efficiency he wasn't even making a dent in the marine life's numbers. This was going to take a while.
The ghost checked behind her, seeing the coast was clear. With some relief she finally slowed down, ending up next to a shoal of chubbs by some apartments. She smiled a sharp-toothed grin and reached her hand out, petting the fish once they approached.
When Youngblood had said that the human world was a blast, she didn't know he had meant literally. Dodging ecto-blasts was the worst! She pouted to herself at her misfortune.
There was a shifting sound beside her, and a little voice came from the nearest window. "Who are you?" It was a little boy, maybe nine, looking out his window. He was home sick with a cold and had gotten to skip school that day.
"I'm Queen Angelfish! Do you like all my subjects?" She signaled to the chubbs to come over, so they swam to the window where the boy was.
"Uh…" The boy didn't know what to say. He had forgotten before, but now he remembered he wasn't supposed to talk to strangers. And weren't ghosts dangerous? Unless this ghost was good, like Phantom. She didn't seem like a bad ghost…
Angelfish saw that she was losing the attention of the boy she was talking to. That wouldn't do. "Don't clam up on me now! Uh…" she looked at her chubbs. "Hey! Hey hey! What's a fish's favorite food?"
"I don't know," said the boy. She told him her name, so didn't that mean she wasn't a stranger? She seemed nice enough.
"Watermelon!" Angelfish grinned like it was the funniest thing ever.
The boy was unimpressed. "That's a lame joke."
"No, I'm serious! Fish love watermelon! It's sweet and hydrating." She got a thoughtful look on her face. "I bet these guys would love it if you brought them some."
Now that sounded like fun, and easy to do since he was sick. "Okay!" He disappeared into the apartment to find some watermelon.
"Found you!" A body slammed into her out of nowhere. If she had been human she would've been winded, but as it was she was only surprised. She turned intangible and shook the offending person off, but they turned intangible too and grabbed her wrist. Ah, Phantom.
"Back to the ghost zone with you!" He pressed the button on the thermos, but instead of sucking the ghost up all he succeeded in doing was releasing all the ghostly fish he had caught. Perfect. Could this day go any better?
Angelfish saw her chance and took it. "I'm not your anemone! I'm a pacifisht. My fish are harmless, I prawnise!"
Okay, Danny was starting to get a little miffed about the puns. (He was not jealous, nope) Making puns was his job, but there was no way he could come up with fish puns to rival the ones she was casting out there. It was insmanatee.
"Ugh, if I hear you out, will you at least stop with the puns?"
"I promise nothing."
Well, she didn't say prawnise, so that was a start.
In the end, they worked out that as long as she didn't "disturb the peace" she was allowed to stay because she had no evil intentions. Loitering didn't count.
With that settled, Danny returned to the school only to find it in lockdown because of all of the fish that were invading. Wonderful.
It wasn't until a full week later when his parents happened upon the source of all the ghost fish that Angelfish allowed herself to be caught by Phantom and deposited back in the ghost zone. Much to the disappointment of children across amity park, the fish went with her.
A/N: Confession time: I don't like watermelon. On diving trips I always fed mine to the chubbs. It's so much fun! They do have sharp teeth though…
I like the idea of a harmless ghost invasion in amity park, especially since the fish poof out of existence when they're messed with. Imagine people trying to catch them only for them to poof! and be gone! Fish swimming through the air used to be one of my favorite things that happened in dreams. Thus, this was born.
I may have put a little too much thought into Queen Angelfish for her just being a one-shot character. Her crown of thorns starfish is there because she's a queen, and a queen needs her crown. She automatically creates fish wherever she goes, and they're absolutely harmless. She doesn't like when people try to harm them, (I say try because they'll poof out of existence rather than getting hurt) but she won't do anything about it because she's all bark and no bite, being a pacifist. The shadow on her face that looks like a mask references the fact that she was wearing a scuba mask when she died, probably dying in some kind of scuba accident. All of her fish are green except for one, the actual queen angelfish that represents her power. So yeah, I may have gone overboard, but at least it was fun!
