A story? I can't believe it either. I'm actually posting something! Well, this has been nagging at me, so I finally typed it up. Danny Phantom is one of my favorite shows next to Avatar, anyways!
ENJOY!
Disclaimer: I have no ownership of Danny Phantom whatsoever, if I did, we would still be watching new episodes every Friday night.
A Taste Of Revenge
Ominous storm clouds hung over the small town of Amity Park, home to resident ghost hero Danny Phantom. Some say that weather can foreshadow bad events to come, however, others will dismiss that belief as childish voodoo.
As the winds began to pick up, three young teens could be seen walking along the sidewalk, too involved in their conversation to give a thought to the weather.
The only girl of the group walked closest to the buildings, waving her hand in the air carelessly to emphasize a point. An African- American boy with glasses and a red beret walked along the curb, thus sandwiching their messy, raven-haired friend between them.
"All I'm saying is that Lancer seemed pretty ticked that you fell asleep again in his class." Sam explained, expressing her concern with a gesture of her hand. The young teen in the middle showed no sign that he heard her.
"Yeah, isn't that like the fifteenth time this week?" Tucker joked, however his eyes remained trained on the screen of his PDA that displayed little green ghosts meeting their doom thanks to the help of an ecto-grenade launcher.
When Danny seemed to not here Tucker's wisecrack, Sam's tone immediately conveyed her concern.
"Hey, are you okay?" She asked, the billowing winds blowing her black hair into her face. Danny's head snapped up at her question, apparently having heard her this time.
"Yeah, I was just up late last night. Skulker decided to drop by around two in the morning and use me for 'target practice' with one of his new toys." Danny explained, quoting the hunter's words. Danny noticed that his two companions winced as a mental picture came to mind.
Danny looked to his left, where one of his best friend's walked beside him, was Tucker Foley, self proclaimed Techno-Geek. His sense of humor could lighten almost any mood, or get him into trouble, usually the latter of the two. Danny noted that the game he was playing was the same one he had been playing in Lancer's class. That PDA was his lifeline.
Danny's gaze then shifted to his right, his blue eyes falling on the slender female keeping pace with him. Sam Manson had been his best friend since first grade, and his secret crush since third. She wore her usual outfit, a black midriff with a splash of purple in the center. Her black skirt was patterned with a green plaid design. Her purple tights led into her combat boots, which were her weapon of choice when it came to Tucker.
Danny's breath hitched in his throat when he realized he was staring. He silently hoped that the shadows cast by the buildings they were passing was enough to hide his flushed cheeks.
"So, what did Skulker use on you this time?" Tucker asked, breaking into Danny's thoughts.
"Oh, just some new ecto-cannon. I think it was another one of his upgrades that never really work." Danny replied.
"Were you able to catch him?" Sam inquired. Danny gave a snort of indifference, signaling that it was no problem at all.
"So, Skulker got in a few hits before one of your many mistakes turned out to work to your advantage." Sam summed up with a smirk.
Danny glared at her out of the corner of his eye, before regaining his composure. That was exactly what happened, it had been a lucky shot. That weapon of his was rather painful, not to mention difficult to dodge at some points. "But the important thing is that Skulker is back in the Ghost Zone." Danny declared with a sense of finality.
"Yeah, after he shot you in the back." Tucker pointed out, remembering the bruise Danny had told them about earlier that day from his late night encounter. At this moment, Danny found himself wishing he had a pair of combat boots.
"Hey, it did actually hurt. The least you two could do is show a little compassion." Danny defended himself. He was displeased to see that it only earned him mocking snickers from his friends.
Danny crossed his arms over his chest as the trio turned onto Elm Street, where a large neon sign hung in front of a brick house that announced Fenton Works to the world.
As he and his friends ascended the concrete steps that led into his house, they could hear people talking in the living room, which was unusual because his parents were usually in the basement.
The three teens clambered into the house rather noisily, having been waiting outside trying to figure out if it was safe to enter the domain. When it started to downpour, they figured they had no other choice but to venture inside.
The adults turned to the trio in front of them, wet leaves from the trees having been blown in with them.
Danny looked a his beaming father, to his less-than-hyped mother. He noticed Jazz sitting on the couch, a psychology book rested in her lap. Her face conveyed one of great annoyance.
Jack Fenton's bulk stood in the center of the room, his hand holding some kind of sealed letter in a fist that shook with excitement at whatever news that had yet to fall upon their ears.
"Danny! You're just in time!" Jack boomed. Danny could feel that familiar sense of dread well up in the pit of his stomach.
"Pack you bags kids, we're going on a ghost hunting camping trip in Illinois!" Jack announced excitedly.
"Illinois?" Jazz shouted. "Ghost hunting trip?" Danny croaked just loud enough for Sam and Tucker to hear.
"Yeah, some organization is hosting their annual Family Ghost Hunting Camping Trip, and the Fenton's have been invited!" Jack squealed. To Danny, the idea of other ghost hunting families on this trip knotted his stomach.
"That's great dad, but I had plans with Sam and Tucker…" Danny began, trying to quickly create a believable excuse. But before he knew it, Jack was beside him, the letter still clutched firmly in his hand.
"That's okay, they can come too!" Jack said, his voice still dripping with childish excitement. He didn't notice the three teens wince.
Jack's attention was then easily drawn away from his son when his wife placed the gadget she had been working on, on the coffee table.
The trio decided this was their chance to run, and they began to discreetly make their way towards the stairs. However, their plan was quickly foiled when Jack turned around, device in hand, and addressed the kids.
"Hey Danny!" Jack called, his mind already sidetracked. "Come test out this new invention. It's called the Fenton Ghost Xtractor! It will literally rip a ghost apart, molecule by molecule!"
Jazz noticed her brother visibly pale.
"Uh, that's okay dad. I think I'm going to go help Sam and Tucker pack." Danny said quickly. He then grabbed his two friends by their hands and pulled them out the door before they had a chance to protest.
Jack looked back at his daughter, who shrugged her shoulders sheepishly before quickly busying herself in her book. With a shrug, Jack happily began to tweak his invention. After all, he had been packed since the letter came that morning.
By six that evening, the storm outside had yet to wane. The mood that storms like this one set could accurately describe the attitudes of the occupants in Danny's bedroom. They remained in his bedroom while the adults got everything packed, half hoping that the "out of sight, out of mind" principle would work. However, the five minute warning was shouted up the staircase, and the teens knew they would have no such luck.
Danny was currently laying face first on his bed. He muttered a few colorful metaphors into his comforter incoherently every so often, just to vent.
Sam sat in his chair by the window, staring out into the rain, something that had always captivated her. By her feet was a black duffel bag, filled with what she would need for the weekend. Her parents had refused to let her go, but happily agreed with some invisible help.
Tucker had found a way to entertain himself by spinning in the computer chair, as if practicing so he wouldn't throw up again when they went back on the Vomit Vortex. His two bags were made up of what he would need to survive: clothes, toiletries, and all the geek gear he could fit.
Jazz continued pacing the room, believing herself to be the only one seeing a problem with this trip. Her bags had already been loaded into the RV when Danny got back with Sam and Tucker's things.
Danny sighed inwardly. Between worrying about this stupid trip, Jazz's pacing, and Tucker's spinning, he was getting a headache.
"Why do things like this happen to me!" Danny exclaimed, picking his head up and resting it in the palm of his hand.
"Come on Danny, it's just for the weekend. It can't get that bad that fast, now can it?" Jazz said, trying to be optimistic. Danny could hear Tucker sigh from his place by the computer, apparently having had enough spinning for the time being.
Before Danny could point out that bad luck seemed to follow them wherever they went, the teens heard the three words they had been dreading the entire afternoon.
"Kids! Let's go!" Came Jack's booming voice from the bottom of the stairs. The four of them all looked at each other, their faces expressing how they felt perfectly.
With a resigned sigh from each, they trudged out the bedroom door, down the stairs, and out to where the RV was parked out front. They gained some comfort in seeing that Maddie was driving, apparently knowing that Jack was to excited to pay attention to the road.
As they each took one of the randomly placed seats in the back, Tucker leaned against the window he now shared with Jazz for the ride, and pulled out his PDA.
"Let's just hope these people catch ghosts as good as your folks do!" Tucker joked. Both Danny and Jazz shot him a warning glare that shut him up quickly.
His head rested comfortably in his hand, protecting it from bouncing off the window whenever the massive vehicle traversed a bump. His thoughts were in another dimension, but that didn't stop him from hearing the only audible conversation in the vehicle.
"Don't touch that button either!" Jazz practically yelled at Tucker, who had been fiddling with the massive amount of buttons all over the inside of the vehicle. It must've been the seventh time his sister had told the boy not to touch anything.
"Is there anything I can touch?!" Tucker exclaimed exasperatedly. Whatever Jazz came up with for an excuse, Danny didn't catch. His gaze traveling over to the other occupants of the RV.
Jack and Maddie sat in the front, well out of hearing range, especially with the radio on. Jack still looked like a kid does on Christmas morning, even after two hours of driving. Maddie, however, looked a little more skeptical. Perhaps she had suspicions like he did, after everything that happened with that DALV trip.
His gaze fell on Sam, sitting in the lone chair across from him and the bench seat he shared with the others. She had her nose in some book she had gotten from her favorite book store, however, he couldn't make out the title in the darkness that enveloped the RV.
Danny sighed before readjusting his arm so it was on a safe spot on the window sill. He looked blankly out into the dark country side as it whizzed by, but took nothing in. His head was swarming with conflicting thoughts and ideas.
He wasn't sure how long he had zoned out, but when he became aware of his surroundings again, he noticed that Tucker and Jazz had stopped bickering, and that the techno geek had fallen asleep, along with nearly everyone else. Apparently having nothing better to do, Jazz had pulled out another one of those books that Danny hated, simply because whatever psycho-babble methods it told her to do, she would try on her "troubled" brother.
Sighing again, Danny leaned his head on the window. They definitely weren't in Pennsylvania anymore. His mother had told them that it would be at least a six hour trip, that they would get to the campground just in time for breakfast. By the looks of it, it couldn't be any later than two in the morning.
His eyes begin to droop, heavy with sleep as he watched the lines on the highway whiz by. He felt so tired just sitting there. His best friends were sound asleep and his sister was in her "zone". Staring out at the highway, he let sleep take him over, as if the interstate had put some kind of sleeping spell on him,
His last conscious thoughts before he slipped into the bliss of unconsciousness was that he really should learn to worry less, it gave him migraines.
A sharp sensation of pain shot through his head, jolting him awake from his much needed nap. Scowling, he brought his hand to his forehead, rubbing it ruefully where it had connected with the window.
Danny shifted his gaze out the window, hoping to gain some insight to where they were. The sun sat low on the horizon, letting him know it was too early on a Saturday morning to be up.
Conducting a quick inspection, he found that he had been the last one to be awoken. He flushed slightly at the idea that he had been so tired.
Sam still sat in the same seat she had thrown Tucker out of at the beginning of the trip, smiling sarcastically as Tucker complained about a "rude awakening" to Jazz.
"I don't care how loud I was snoring! You don't have to disassemble my PDA to wake me!" He complained, shoving the dislodged battery back into its rightful place.
"I didn't disassemble it, I simply did what I promised to do if you continued to snore. Take the battery out. I knew you'd be a total nut case without it, so I figured that would be the best way to get the results I desired." Jazz explained nonchalantly.
Danny shook his head at his sister's explanation. In his opinion, no psychology of any kind could figure out the relationship between Tucker and his PDA.
The RV jolted again, similar to the one that had awakened the young half-ghost. Curious, Danny peered out the window again, only to be met by wall-to-wall trees. Upon further observation, he was able to tell they had just transferred to a dirt road.
"Isn't it great? We're almost there!" Jack yelled from the front of the RV. The large man was oblivious when no one answered.
After a few minutes of driving down the narrow, unkempt road, they finally passed the sign welcoming them to the campground. Maddie pulled the RV into the nearest spot, and put the vehicle in park.
Without wasting a moment, Jack flung his door open and jumped out. Seeing no other option, the others followed suit. It wasn't long until all six of them were standing beside the RV, staring out at the campsites that looked like they hadn't been used in ages.
"Welcome to Camp Specter, in good ol' Wadsworth, Illinois. Let the ghost hunting begin!" Jack announced. He didn't notice that his voice seemed to echo through the desolate area.
Jack paraded to the other side of the RV to pull out everything they had brought, leaving the four teens alone.
"Why is it empty? I thought the brochure said it was supposed to be a prestigious event held for the nation's best ghost hunters?" Jazz questioned, her calculating gaze drifting over the empty spaces that were everywhere.
"It is, sweetie, we're probably just early. Your father was eager to leave early so we could be here on time." Maddie explained as she went to help her husband after she heard something crash. However, her voice seemed to hold a skeptical tone to it.
"I personally don't care if anyone shows up." Danny muttered so only those around him could hear. "A bunch of ghost hunters and Danny Phantom in the middle of nowhere doesn't sound like a very promising weekend."
Danny sighed in relief when his mother appeared from around the RV, saving him from his sister's monologue about the problems with having a negative attitude.
"Why don't you kids go down to the lake until we get set up here. Hopefully breakfast will be ready and the other ghost hunters will be here as well when you get back." Maddie said. Though her face carried smile, Jazz could see that it was a forced one.
"Cool! Maybe there will be cute girls there needing a little mouth-to-mouth!" Tucker shouted joyfully as he took off the way Maddie had indicated the lake would be.
Sam suppressed a shudder. "I think I'd rather deal with Skulker than witness that fantasy ever come true." She muttered darkly as they remaining members of Team Phantom were forced to follow their delusional friend into the woods that he had disappeared into.
A/N: Wow! It feels so good to post something again! Here's the first part of my Danny Phantom story, the only other decent show Nickelodeon made.
For those of you who are reading my Avatar story, I'm SO sorry I haven't updated that, this school year has been hell, there were a couple deaths in the family close together, and I have a major writer's block for it, to add on top of it all. As soon as that's through, I promise to update it!
The good news is that I already have half this story written out, so the only problem is finding the time to type it up and proof read it. So, hopefully updates for this will be more frequent. crosses fingers
Anyway, let me know what you think!