Rushes of black and green dashed through the air. The former just nipping the latter's tail. Building to building they crashed and bounced off of, creating a light show that might be considered awe inspired. Well, if not for the fact car sized chunks of brick and concrete were raining down towards people below.
A large beam of cool white light flashed out encapsulating the emerald monster. A shriek came out as the ectopus tried to squirm against the vortex that dragged it closer and closer to Danny. The last thing it saw was the boys smiling face, then it disappeared inside the soup thermos the kid was holding.
Danny sighed and wiped his forehead. "There," he muttered. A frown played onto his face as he looked across at tilted buildings. People screamed in the streets, and someone leaned out a window to throw a luffa sponge at him.
"Can't I even take a shower without one of you ghosts intervening!?"
"Sorry citizen-- please, don't let me stop you." Danny gave his best smile and rubbed the back of his head in an apologetic motion.
"You can take your apology and shove it up your--"
"BOXES!"
That cry was starting to become like nails on a chalkboard. Phantom gave an unamused eye roll over to the cardboard factory. The whole thing had a green glow to it. Windows blew open, the brown shipping containers began to pour out of the building. Spinning around and toppling into each other as they flew high in the air. A short, stout man appeared in the center of them all. "I SHALL USE THESE BOXES! YES! I'LL SHIP THE EARTH A DISTANCE AWAY FROM THE SUN AND THEN YOU'LL ALL DIE FROM THE COLD!"
"Your all caps rage gets reaaall tiring." The voice appeared behind the box ghost. "People don't ignore you because you're too quiet, ya know. It's because we don't like you."
"Ha!" The man turned around, reaching into his overall front jacket. "Phantom! You can't stop me!" He pulled out a rock and threw it at the white haired ghost. "Take that!"
The glorified pebble was deflected by a ghost shield. "Not even your sticks and stones could break me, buddy. Why don't we get this over with. I've got a class to get to."
"No!! I will not go into your cylindrical death trap!" Retorted the box ghost, making gestures to help describe the thermos. "Not until I make a large enough box to box this giant cubic world!"
Danny pulled out his thermos, "Yeah, Yeah, what a wonderful-! What?" He shook his head, "I'm sorry. Did you just say the world was a box?"
"Well... Yes. Though I know it's not."
"Thank goodness. I thought for,"
"It's more like a very long rectangle. I mean, it's got to have some thickness to it, right? But it's definitely not of all equal sides. It's okay. We have rectangular shipping boxes." He put a hand up to his chin and rubbed. "Although, maybe I just need a large envelope. What do you think?"
Phantoms eye twitched. "You're... a flat earther?" Ghosts couldn't be flat earthers. They could leave earth and see for themselves. It's not like they needed to worry about suffocation or the cold. This was the worst enemy yet.
"Flat earther? No! I AM THE BOX GHOST! And I know the earth is long and shippable!"
"But..." Danny faltered. "You're..." it was bad enough when Dash did this to get under his skin. Was the box ghost being serious. These kinds of people really exist? "How do you explain the shadows on the moon!?" Danny's voice cracked, "They're curved! The earth is curved!"
"Ha! The earth is flat, but it's shaped like a circle! Have you never seen a flat circle ghost boy!?"
This wasn't real. Phantom felt a green tint cross his cheeks as anger boiled just below surface level. "No! What about star rotation?! How do you explain that?!" He threw his hands up pointing at a clear blue sky, "They change position, you know! Because of perspective! There are stars we can't see here that someone could see in China! The stars we see are in a different spot on the night sky for them! Because of perspective change!"
"What?" The boxes floated gently in the air, "What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about the facts!" Danny laughed. But it had a cynical tone to it, a slightly unhinged sound, like someone who spent one too many days trying to count how many pennies a bank had.
The box ghost gave a concerned look. Shifted a little. Then glared at Danny, "So am I!!"
Danny opened his mouth, "..." The anger dissipated from his body. Going further into his rage would only push the opposition away. He took a breath, body steadying in the air. "Sit with me?" He offered.
The box ghost looked around, checking for Sam or Tucker hidden behind a corner. "Why?"
"I just feel, when it comes to talking about these things, we shouldn't go at each other like enemies, don't you?" Name calling would only give the box ghost a sour taste in his mouth to the real facts. Didn't Plato say something about people being in caves and needing help to understand what things looked like? Danny was almost sure that yelling wasn't the way he'd get a satisfying victory in this battle. "Wouldn't you like to try and actually convince me how you could ship the earth away? And maybe I could try and show you all my thoughts too?"
After a second the box ghost nodded. His blue presence glided next to Danny's green one. They floated next to each other for an hour and a half.
"So you see," Danny smiled at the box ghost. "That's why you see ships sink behind the horizon. It's not because they're dipping under water, it's because of the curvature of the earth."
"Huh." The box ghost gave a nod, "Well. I guess shipping the earth is gonna be a little harder than I thought." He kept nodding to himself
Danny laughed, "Yeah, don't even get me started on the gravitational pull you'd be dealing with on that one."
"Thanks for the help on my plan. I'll calculate that into my box design. I think I need to regroup."
"Of course."
The two spirits shook hands. Then the older turned and began to float away.
A white beam shot out capturing the ectoplasmic form trying to leave. The box ghost let out a scream, arms reaching out to try and escape. His body was swirled up and shrunk into the canister.
Danny put a lid overtop his thermos. Sigh escaping, he chuckled. "You can do your regrouping back in the ghost zone." He twirled the soup container and gave it a hero's grin.
"Ahhh, Daniel."
Well, no good moment can last forever. Danny turned to face the vampiric styled ghost, "Vlad."
"I see you thwarted one flat earther. But I've set satellites into space, and none of your supposed 'logic' could--" a green ectoplasmic blast hit the man right in the blood sucking fangs.
Danny's eyes glowed an enraged green as he fought his third ghost battle of the morning.