AN: Hey, guys! Guess what? Rawrz is coming to DANNY PHANTOM fandom! Yippee!
So this fic takes place after all the seasons, except PP never happened, so don't be surprised when our main character here doesn't experience brief intangibility as the Disasteroid passes through the Earth… Nope. Not happening.
That being said, our story doesn't involve everyone's favorite halfa until much, much later. Probably will never be in this story, but I have no idea. The story leads, I follow. Buuuuut... we might meet a few familiar ghosts in this fic… oh, and the Ghostwriter is scrambling all my chapter titles. Darn you little shit, Ghostwriter! I have no idea how to stop him, he keeps slipping past my editing… (Pssst! They're anagrams, he's obsessed with those!)
If you like Star Wars, you should go check out my other stories! But if you're cool with only DP, that's fine too, I guess. Then read on, and enjoy!
Chapter 1: Asrec
Maia stretched her arms and yawned exaggeratedly, causing Summer to chuckle.
"You look about ready to pass out from exhaustion," she teased. The blond-haired girl smirked as Maia groaned. "You're right, I am. Good thing today's the last day of school."
Maia pulled out her hair band and shook out her mane of dark hair. She pulled it into a ponytail and leaned against a nearby tree. The cars in the car line inched forward so slowly Maia swore that a slug could have had a race against them and won easily. A bright blue Toyota crawled by their waiting spot under the tree, and Maia sighed.
Sunlight filtered through the leaves of an oak tree, dappling the ground with uneven shadows. A pleasant breeze ticked Maia's cheek, and there wasn't a single cloud in sight of the beautiful sky. Perfect weather conditions for one who was an outdoorsy sports person, but Maia didn't really do sports. She excelled, rather, in arts. She also played flute.
Summer, on the other hand, was a hardcore soccer girl. She spent three out of the five school days practicing in her backyard with a soccer ball. She was on the school team and she loved it with every inch of her muscles.
"You'd think, as eighth graders, we'd finally be able to relax during the summer," Maia mumbled. "But nooo, there's high school stuff and all sorts of whatnot to be done." Summer laughed again.
"Nah, that stuff won't take up all 3 months of summer," she answered. "There'll still be plenty of time for hanging out together and stuff like that."
Maia closed her eyes as she lazily leaned against the tree, but the sound of shoes slapping concrete made her open them again. A boy was jogging over, panting as he did so. Black hair flopped haphazardly over his forehead and icy blue eyes and sweat beaded his forehead.
"What's that, Nathan? Ms. Chezin got you with that final class?"
Nathan huffed as he slowed to a walk and then a stop besides them. "You don't know the half of it," he grumbled. "Tennis is one thing, but dodgeball? I can't do dodgeball."
"Neither can I," Maia offered. "At least you have decent throwing skills. I can only dodge! You should have seen the looks my teammates gave me when I couldn't get them out of jail."
Nathan sighed and sat down, rubbing his temples. "I'm just glad I won't have to deal with that jerk Andrew anymore. You'd think he was some sort of kid king, the way he carries himself. Added up with a teeny little pea-sized brain and large muscles, you get the mess whose name starts with an A."
Maia frowned. Andrew and his gang were like an annoying swarm of bees that wouldn't leave them alone. He was constantly teasing and playing mean pranks on them, such as trashing Nathan's gym clothes while he was in the bathroom, or stuffing shaving cream into Maia's locker. Thankfully, Maia didn't use her locker too much, but it was hard to clean up all that foamy white cream, especially when the teachers had strict rules about "locker etiquette" or something like that.
Maia hated every second she had to stand in Andrew and his gang's presence. She wished she had some sort of super strength so that every time they came close, she could grab them and throw them five hundred feet away.
Summer shrugged. "I don't know about you guys, but Libby's been providing protection for me, at least." Libby was Summer's soccer team captain. She had been nice to them so far, but it was clear she didn't care too much about the bullying as long as Summer was able to play.
That left Maia and Nathan, the two punching bags for Andrew's Crew.
Maia sighed in relief when she finally saw her father's silver SUV enter the snail-paced line. It gleamed in the sun, dazzling her eyes. Her eye.
When she was young, she'd had an accident. She didn't remember it too clearly, but she could never forget the agony in her left eye, as though someone were trying to carve it out. She remembered flashes of metal, beautiful golden flames, and a wicked silver point. She remembered running around with her brother, laughing, and having fun, until it wasn't. No fun.
She remembered when Bryan had picked her up, screaming, yelling, a hoarse, pained voice dragging itself from the depths of his throat. She remembered the blood, pooling down from her face and soaking into the carpets. New, fresh white carpeting, barely a few days old. The stain would last for many weeks, until her parents changed the flooring.
She remembered a shiny white interior of an ambulance. She remembered large white doors marked with red stripes and letters her three-year-old brain could not yet comprehend. She remembered the black juice, dulling the pangs from the left side of her face. She remembered kind hands stroking her hair, her back, and faces half-hidden by baby blue masks. She saw the doctor, a man with large but gentle hands, and the low rumbling of concerned voices as he and her parents talked. She recalled the horrid scream her mother had made, though she hadn't realized then exactly why she had screamed.
Her left eye was barely usable, sometimes able to make out a blurred outline or flashes of color, but otherwise, the world was a tilt-a-whirl of color and motion through her ruined eye. Glasses helped, but barely. And they were awkward, perched on the tip of her nose, squinting through one of the lenses when she didn't need them for her right eye.
Maia learned to live with it. She learned that fate, in a cruel twist, had given her that, and now she had to get used to it. She was fine most of the time, but the Crew had also learned. Learned that she was blind on her left side, learned she was weak with her left eye. So they pestered and harassed, like a fly she could not swat away.
But she adapted, and had Nathan or Summer always walk to the left of her to help her watch out for the trouble that was in the shape of a large boy and his mean sidekicks.
"Dad!" Maia waved her hand in the air, and the window of the driver's door rolled down. Jonathan Sylvers waved back.
Summer helped Nathan awkwardly stand up from his spot by the tree, and had to stifle a giggle when his head crashed into a branch that happened to be above his head.
"Oops," she breathed, then burst out laughing. Nathan glared at her. "Not funny!" he growled, stomping his foot childishly and rubbing the top of his head.
Maia grabbed her backpack and Summer by the arm, and heaved her up. "Come on, you two," she said. "It's time to leave." She threw open the door of the passenger side, and tossed her backpack to her feet, leaning against the black leather, sighing. Behind her, Nathan and Summer piled into the back seats.
The ride home was quick and uneventful. As Maia and her friends burst through the front door, Maia's mother called, "Maia! I left some cookies on the counter, if you want them! I'm going out to buy some milk, so behave yourselves!"
"Sure, Mom!" Maia responded, and the three friends enthusiastically headed towards the kitchen counter as Jonathan went up the stairs. Well, at least her dad wasn't going to be a problem. He'd probably be taking a nap.
Maia scooped up two white-chocolate chip cookies and bit into one of them, savoring the sweet taste that filled her mouth. Besides her, Nathan and Summer were arguing over the last chocolate-chip one.
"It's mine!" "No, it's mine!" They yelled about it for a few minutes until with a sharp crack, the cookie broke in half and a very surprised Nathan and Summer stumbled backwards.
"Well, that solved the problem," Summer chuckled, practically inhaling her half of the cookie and the full one she'd managed to snag before Nathan had taken the rest of them. Maia sighed. Some things would never change with age.
The doorbell rang, and the three friends raced to get it, finally crashing into each other and landing in a tumbled heap of arms and legs a few inches from the door, laughing. As they untangled themselves, Maia opened the door, and noticed a large brown box sitting on the porch. The UPS guy was getting in his truck, and with a wave, he went on to deliver more stuff.
The girls hauled the box into the entrance hall, and Nathan eagerly ripped away at the tape. They tore open the box to-
"I AM THE BOOOOX GHOOOOOST! BEWARE OF MY CARDBOARD BOXES OF DOOOOOOOOOM! TREMBLE BEFORE MY AWESOME POWER OVER ALL THINGS CORRUGATED AND SQUARE!"
They jumped as a large, overweight, short wearing overalls man who was glowing slightly flew out of the box, waving his hands and screaming like a madman. Maia tentatively stepped towards the floating man, and asked, "Uh, who are you, and what are you doing in my mail?"
The man looked down at her, and seemed surprised, as though he hadn't seen her when he burst out of the box. In a bellowing voice, he shouted, "I AM THE BOX GHOST! WHO ARE YOU!?"
Geez, does this guy have an inside voice, Maia thought, covering her ears until the "Box Ghost" had finished speaking. "I'm Maia, those are my friends, this is my mail and you are IN MY HOUSE. Now PLEASE GET OUT." She reached forward to shove the floating man away, but to her utter shock, her hands passed through the man and she nearly tripped on the forgotten box. She shivered and stepped back towards her friends, who were staring at the "Box Ghost".
"WELL, SINCE YOU SEEM TO BE VERY UNWELCOMING TO YOUR DOMAIN, I, THE BOX GHOST, SHALL NOW DEPART FROM THIS PLACE! BEEEWWAAAAARE!" And with that, the man zoomed out the front door, pushing it wide open as he did so.
"Did you guys see that?" Nathan whispered, still staring at the spot where the Box Ghost had vanished.
"Yep, I saw a short-tempered, overweight, crazy floating dude shout at us that he's apparently some ghost and he likes boxes?" Summer ventured, confused at what had just happened.
Maia shrugged. This day was getting too weird for her comfort. She wrapped her arms around herself, hoping that it was just some crazy dream, but she didn't awaken. Guess I'm awake, she thought. And I hope that's the last time I see any "ghost" or that Box guy. Or have any weird experiences like that. I want this summer to be paranormal-free, and fun. Not filled with random floating people.
Boy, was Maia a terrible fortune teller.