Summary: Of course ghosts are real! They visit every Monday, Tuesday, Wed...Well let's just say they never fail to show up the Nasty Burger at least two times a week. Aliens on the other hand...Well, next thing you know, his parents would be digging themselves out of that six foot hole. B10 Xover.
Disclaimer: I do not own either Danny Phantom, Ben 10, or any references to Fairly Odd Parents
Warning: Author is slow to update, unbetaed, possible OOCness, and mild language. Also this story may tend to be more Danny-centric as I've seen more of his series than Ben's and 'cause I just like Danny.
"Oh my god, it's Chip Skylark!" Was the only warning Ben got before he was shoved into his locker by a girl half his size. He sighed, "Let me guess. The rumors about him coming here were true?"
"Well, jeez. I dunno Benji, you tell me."
Ben had only just pulled himself out of the small, metal storage before the rest of the stampede caught up and pushed him back in. Man, what a day, pulling an all-nighter defending against another alien invasion, ripping his favorite shirt, getting grounded, and to top it off this. At this rate, he wouldn't even be able to catch a break at school, let alone at home - as after school hours were typically reserved for alien butt kicking, plumber kid recruiting, and occasionally the assignment due the day prior. He supposed it wasn't all bad though, at least he wasn't claustrophobic.
"Ugh, I don't think I'll last another week of this." The brunet winced as another shrill shriek pierced the air and echoed within the locker.
Kevin seemed to pity him and, when it looked like the coast was clear, braved crossing the hallway and pulled the shorter teen out of the locker. They barely made it back across the hall in time before another wave of insanity came. "It would look bad if word got out our so called leader got wiped across the floor by a bunch of airhead cheerleaders," the taller of the two explained in way of excuse.
"Very funny, Kevin. But really, of all the places he could have gone...now I'll have to deal with this everyday!"
"Don't worry too much Ben," Gwen said as she walked up. "They'll get bored eventually, well, until Chip releases a new album at least."
"I'm not too sure about that." The hype was pretty big and even on the off chance Skylark did decide to retire from his singing career; his looks were more than enough to carry his popularity through the rest of Ben's high school career. Two more years. How would he ever catch up on his sleep now?
Kevin slapped him on the back, "Look on the bright side. By the end of the day you two will probably be all buddy buddy. Certainly have a lot in common: emo, whiny, short."
"Kevin!" The red haired girl reprimanded him.
"I'm not short," yelled Ben at the same time. "I just have to drink some more milk, that's all. Belatedly he added, " And I'm not emo or whiny either!" Kevin just gave a knowing smirk in response.
Ben huffed and turned. Leaning against the wall he waited out the storm so he could actually get somewhere without being trampled. Idly he watched to see where they all went. "Wait! Is that my science class?!"
"I know isn't it great, Ben." Julie was now walking up. "To think, Chip Skylark in our school - no, wait. Better yet, he's in our class! Aren't we lucky?"
"Not you too, Julie?" His jaw was hanging, horror-stricken. The cult had even gotten a hold of his girlfriend.
What else could go wrong?
Julie frowned a bit at that, putting hands on hips defensively. "What? He's got a good singing voice." Kevin looked like he was going to make some smart remark about Ben losing his girl to Chip when Julie suddenly turned to Ben's cousin. "You think so too, right Gwen? You let me borrow some his CDs so I could burn them on my mp3."
"Gwen?!" Kevin choked shocked.
Gwen blushed a bit and shrugged a little as if it were nothing. "It's like she said. He's not too bad," she admitted.
"He's 'not too bad'? You've got to be kidding me." That made two now in the Anti-Skylark club. Ben stifled his own self satisfied smirk, a fellow victim of Chip's popularity. "Jealous much?" Ben couldn't help but ask.
"Whatever," the tallest scoffed, "I'm out. Have fun at school now and remember to play nice now. And be careful."
"Shut up, Kevin." The other teen just waved without turning back.
Gwen placed a hand on her cousin's shoulder to get his attention, "I'll be off to class too, now." Then she added in afterthought, "And be careful."
Ben raised an eyebrow. "Fan girls got nothing on the D.N. Aliens."
The elder girl shook her head at his naivety. "I don't know, Ben. You never know with those sycophants." Her tone was playful now. "Good luck surviving class."
"Why did you have to remind me?" Ben let his head fall in woe. The writhing masses still crowded the science class, girls and boys alike toppling over one another to get in. A few of the smarter ones had done as Ben and Julie had done and waited back. Some just wanted to get to class. Others because they just didn't want to endure another torturous session of this so called 'education'. And the worst of the lot, more fans that were merely biding their time to take advantage of the tired state their brethren would be in after.
Julie placed a comforting hand over his. "Wait here, I'll see if I can find us a way in." Much more graceful and smaller than the boy, she could move through the crowd much easier than Ben. So the brunet merely nodded and trusted her with the task. She could handle herself.
It was as he saw her melt into the crowd that someone else bumped into him, but not nearly as badly as with the fan girls. "Sorry about that, wasn't paying attention," the boy said from the floor, running a hand through his hair under a hood embarrassedly. Ben smiled, stretching out a hand to help him up, "No problem. At least I didn't wind up in a locker again."
The black-haired boy, at least from what Ben could see, gave him a sympathetic look and accepted the hand gratefully, "Thanks." He was about his height, Ben found. "What's with the rush anyway?" The brunet asked curiously. "It'd me a miracle if anyone could make it through that." Ben nodded a head to the chaos behind him.
"...or you'd have to be able to walk through walls," the other muttered. "Like a ghost?" Asked Ben, who was suddenly reminded of Ghostfreak. He felt a brief shudder run through him remembering the creature and failed to notice the black-haired boy's flinch at the mention of ghost. "Something like that," he muttered again. He spoke up, "Actually, I was having a little trouble with that crowd myself. The locker deal doesn't sound too bad right about now."
Ben was starting to get suspicious now. He leaned forward, trying to get a closer look at the guy's face. "What did you say your name was again?"
"It's D-Danny."
"It's D-Danny." He stuttered a bit before realizing that there wouldn't be any serious consequence in giving out the name. The other wouldn't think much of it once he figured out his current identity – which was bound to happen eventually, any second with now with his luck. Heck, he'd probably think it was just a fake name he tossed out to throw him off. Hopefully. Fenton couldn't exist because Phantom was a wanted ghost. The GIW had finally come to link two and two together. Well, it wasn't too much to worry about. Whatever, it wasn't anything he needed to worry about. Once the guy figured the 'big secret' he'd think that was all there was to it. Not that that wouldn't be inconvenient of itself.
The boy squinted with his eyes at him, as if that would grant him Superman X-ray vision to see through the hood, and continued to do so for several moments. And Danny couldn't help pull the hood further down self-consciously. He was finding himself believing for a second that he would too, so great the other's confidence was. "What about you," he said quickly, turning the conversation around. "I already said my name."
It distracted the brunet for a moment. "Right, that was a bit rude of me. Name's Ben, Ben Tennyson." This time Ben held out a hand to shake Danny's. "Well it was nice meeting you, Ben," Danny said.
"Wha-You going somewhere?"
"Omigawd, there's Chip Skylark!"
"Ha! I knew there was something funny about yo-!" For the other's sake, Danny had shoved him in a nearby trash bin – which was empty save for a few bags of chips he knew. Danny didn't want his fans to maim the only sensible guy left in the school, now did he? Seriously, why did he become a pop star again? Oh, right Vlad.
Anything goes wrong, it's Vlad's fault. Not probably. It is. Trust him, Danny knew from personal experience, after all. Being raise from infamous to very infamous with a million dollar bounty? Vlad's fault. Ghost assassins after your dad recently? Vlad's fault. See any clone versions of yourself running around lately? Also Vlad's fault. And you know that little thing called global warming? Yea, Danny would be willing to bet it was Vlad's fault too, figuring Vlad probably managed to piss off Vortex again.
Honestly though, it wasn't that bad of an idea – or it had seemed so at the time. How better to hide from the GIW than in plain view. They'd most likely thought he'd gone underground for awhile until the heat laid off. Never would they think he'd done the most idiotic thing of all and made a spectacle of himself. And on the plus side, if they did find out, they wouldn't be able to lock him up without some deal of trouble being a public and all. Plus his fan base. Worst comes to worst he'd sick them on the GIW and have just enough time for himself to make another getaway.
The rolling trash bin was enough to trip up some the onslaught, and keep the brunet inside from being crushed, granting Danny a healthy head start down the hall. "He's headed this way." He'd heard the excited whisper from around the corner and was able to break just in time as a jock the next moment came soaring past him in a tackle. Seriously, he needed to check with Vlad if he could get a few restraining orders written up. "CHIP!" Probably a few thousand, that sounded like a good number.
Danny practically flew around the corner – which he was sorely tempted to do right about now – past the girl that had probably hired the poor guy to capture him and ignored the yelling teacher. "No running in the halls!" Not like they'd likely remember him after running into the train wreck waiting to happen. Quickly he slammed the door as he entered the boys' bathroom and, before the sole occupant could turn to see him, phased through the floor.
The black-haired boy sighed in relief, the blessed silence of the earth and concrete calming his nerves. "Man, you'd think that time with Amorpho would've taught me something. Oh well, too late now, I guess." He flew lazily back towards the general direction he thought his class to be. Note to self, never be early to class. Nothing good could come of it.
Danny allowed his head to resurface a few seconds later to find himself right in front of the Room 1203. Bingo. He gave the hall a brief scan before he determined it was empty and flew out of the ground. "Fashionably late as always, huh?" He spoke aloud. It was freshmen year all over again, except with a little less of the hazing. Placing a hand on the knob, he cracked the door open. Instruction already started. "Mr. Skylark, I assure you it is now safe to come in." Way to make first impressions.
Blushing, he pushed the door open all the way and strolled into the class, as if the attention earlier hadn't bothered him. "Class, I would like to introduce you to your new classmate, Mr. Chip Skylark. Though I suppose you are all already quite familiar with him one way or another." Mrs. Pettigrew said eyeing the pack of giggling hyenas in the back row. "So let's skip the introductions. Skylark you'll be sitting next to Ms. Yamamoto. Ms. Yamamoto, if you'd please raise your hand." Danny, more than happy to oblige, quickly seated himself next to the girl with the bob cut and ignored the green-jacketed boy pouting at him.
"Nice to meet you," she greeted.
"Same," he said. She wasn't jumping him at least, that was always a good start. The girl looked like she was about to say something else when the teacher suddenly resumed her lecture, impatient to get on with the lesson. So Yamamoto gave up on it for now and took out a pink notepad. Danny did likewise pulling out his own blue notebook to eagerly take down notes. What could he say? Science was his favorite subject, most likely an influence of his parents. He could live without the dissecting though. After hearing his parent going on and on about what they'd do once they'd caught a 'live' ghost specimen…he shuddered.
Half an hour later, the bell ringed. "You okay?" Danny turned to the speaker, the girl he was assigned to sit next to. "Huh," he said intelligently. "You seemed really pale half way through," she said concerned.
"Oh, that?" He waved a hand dismissively. "That was nothing just thinking about some rather creepy memories that's all. Er…there aren't going to be any dissection labs, right?" He tried his best not to look too hopeful sympathizing with all the dead frogs and Sam's ultra-recyclo vegetarian views. The ghost boy understood too well what it was like to be on the wrong end of the scalpel. Well not really-yet, but the threat was still there at least.
The girl smiled knowingly "There are permission slips that need to be signed first so if you somehow forget or your parents just don't want to sign them…," she trailed off.
"First you shove me in a trashcan, and now you're making a move on my girl?" Despite the words, the tone was joking. The duo turned to face Ben.
"Sounds bad when you put it like that. Sorry about that, but it was better than you getting trampled was it not? Besides it was practically empty."
"There was that." Then Ben caught on. "Don't tell me you actually hid in there?"
"Been in worse spots," Danny said off-handedly.
Julie nodded in understanding, "I'd think so what with those fans of yours. They need to learn to control themselves. Besides if they wanted an autograph or something so bad that's not the way to go about it." She pulled out a disc case. "Would you sign this, please?"
He shook his head as he grabbed a pen prepared for such an occasion, "I see. So that's the reason behind the nice act?" But there was no real accusation in his voice.
"Half the reason actually, the other half is common courtesy," she winked and gathered all her stuff.
Ben put a sympathetic hand on the pop idol's shoulder. "Don't worry. She did the same with me when she wanted me to take care of Ship."
Danny raised an eyebrow. "Ship?"
"Er-Our dog," he said quickly and then continued more leisurely. "A real troublemaker, he likes to run around a lot. Wrecked a few of the carnival stands on our first date actually."
"Hah, seriously? Same here, except it didn't work out so well. Dog kind of turned out to be a gh- ghastly fiend." He got two odd looks at his wording. "Her thoughts not mine. She didn't like the dog too much." It wasn't exactly a lie. He was just omitting a few things like a certain something about the dog's 'condition' and his ex's profession…and how Cujo ruined her dad's business and her breaking up with him to protect him from himself, though she really didn't know about that last bit.
Danny switched the topic – best not to kill the friendly mood about how his ex went on a homicidal, ghost-killing rampage. Wouldn't want them thinking she was insane. Heck, he'd probably sound like a bit of fruitloop himself if he said it. "So you guys heading to the field?" he asked.
"Yup, part of tennis club."
"Soccer, myself. I'm the team's goalie." Ben pointed to himself with his thumb.
Pulling off his jacket he said, "Then I guess we're all going the same way."
"You're kidding, right?" Ben choked. "No offence but-." The cacophony of noise down the hall explained the rest.
Danny finished folding up the article and placing it into his side bag deliberately. "No worries. I got it all covered. You won't even see me." He winked. "Promise." Ben glanced worriedly at the approaching herd. The ice blue eyed boy game him a final smile, "See ya in a bit. Need to stretch out my legs a bit." And then Chip Skylark was off again.