Danny sighed as he stared at his greasy burger with disinterest. He had barely touched the thing, and judging by the slightly grey sludge that was leaking onto the plate, that was probably a wise decision for his stomach.
Oh! But he was so tired. Danny didn't know he could be this tired. "It's what I get for insisting on flying 700 miles cross country instead of sharing the convenient atv next to me" he muttered to himself. His sour words were underscored by flecks of meat splattering across his cheek by his best friend sitting next to him. Unlike Danny, Tucker had no qualms about chowing down on a suspiciously grey burger in a rundown diner in literally the middle of nowhere.
Danny grabbed a napkin and wiped off his cheek. Across the booth from him sat Sam. She gave Danny a pitying look in between scathing glares at their mutual and often revolting friend. Sam was carefully picking at her baked potato, which was the only thing on the menu that was close to being on her strict ultra-recyclo vegetarian diet.
"Danny" she soothed, "While I can understand your dislike for that pathetic excuse for food, you need to eat something. You've been flying all day, and that's just after defeating a living rocket ship, and that following holding the Fenton jet invisible all the way to Florida. You have to take care of your body or it won't take care of you."
Danny watched her with a half smile then looked down once more at the burger wannabe. "I know Sam he muttered and tried to take a bite of grey-burger. Before it could get it to his mouth, Tucker slapped him on the back enthusiastically. "That's the spirit man. Keep up that strength with some protein." Danny could actually see a string of unidentifiable grey stuck between his best friend's teeth. That did it. No appetite whatsoever. He shoved the plate away and glared into the corner of the room where a small tv was playing some vapor drone.
Sam glared at her friend who looked between them both confused. "What?" he asked innocently. Danny rolled his eyes while Sam's stare intensified to a death stare. Tucker shivered before tuning them both out and reaching over to snag Danny's untouched burger. At this action the death glare coming from Sam was quickly entered the emanate destruction faze. "Well, if he's not going to eat it" was the sorry excuse he provided.
Before sparks started shooting out of Sam's ears Danny placed a gentle hand on her elbow and shook his head. Sam was about to turn her ire on him when she saw his face. In the shadows of the greasy dinner it looked gaunt and there were dark bags under his eyes. The bright sapphire eyes looked dim and his overall appearance was grungy. There were a few burns where the rocket propulsion had gotten the better side of his shirt and there were grease stains everywhere. Sam thought he had the appearance of a Victorian chimney sweep. All at once the heat left her feeling as tired and worn as her best friend looked.
She rubbed her face and followed his gaze. Where she thought he was watching the television she noticed that his look was locked onto an elderly couple sitting in the far corner perched on bar stools. There was an old man skinny as a rail digging into his burger with as much enthusiasm as their friend Tucker showed for all meat, if it could be called that. He wore brown overalls and a worn brown hat. From where she sat Sam thought looked bald as a baby and had about as many teeth to match. He would smack his gums and hum and mutter to himself as he ate clearly enjoying himself. Sam had to admit that the man made quite a spectacle.
But once she got over the slobbering mess of a man, Sam noticed that the old geezer was not alone. Sitting quietly and comfortably next to him was what appeared to be his polar opposite. There was a plump woman with thick fuzzy white hair. She wore a bright yellow dress and sat contentedly eating her roast and vegetables with a small smile on her face. She was also humming to herself, but unlike her counterpart hers seemed to have something recognizable as a tune. In her lap was a sleeping dog who was happy to watch the world go by so long as he could stay right where he was. He watched the people go in and out with half lidded eyes and a small wag of the tail when the old woman spoke to him.
"They're sweet, aren't they?" The sudden question startled Sam out of her momentary daze. She looked over at Danny and blushed just a bit at having been caught off guard. She quickly schooled her face and gave him a steely look but elected to say nothing. Danny chuckled quietly.
Of course, Tucker had to add his two cents worth. "Get a good look boys and girls. This is what happens to lovebirds when the get old." Sam was interested to discover that she had the ability to gain the ire and heat back near instantaneously when needed, even after believing herself to be drained to exhaustion. Her hand cocked back into the locked position on its own volition while her eyes took measurements and aim all within a second's time. Strike angle confirmed. Fire!
"Ow!" Tucker's head hitting the back of his seat made a satisfying crack. The sound had an immediate calming effect and she felt a great release of pent up stress leave her body. Danny was both amused and annoyed. "Can it you two. Tucker, be grateful that her hand was open and her combat boots stayed on the floor. Sam, I would really prefer if the only two allies I have in the world stayed conscious and concussion free for the duration of the cross country trip of horrors. Sam huffed and tucker sobbed silently rubbing the back of his head.
"I think it's about time we headed out. Get the gear together and use the restroom if you need to." Tucker needed no further convincing. He swept his stuff together and handed the majority of the bundle to Danny for safe keeping, not trusting Sam's temper. A few items though, he stuffed into various pockets, not allowing them to leave the safety of a two-foot perimeter of himself.
After a few *ahem* personal moments, Tucker studied himself in the mirror and adjusted his beret. With a sly look around Tucker applied a few squirts of Foley to the back of his neck. The rich undertones of musk combined perfectly with the sweet aroma of vanilla and, only because he couldn't find any cinnamon during development, there were trace hints of vinegar. How could anyone ever underappreciate his creation? He gave his reflection a wink and a click of the tongue and turned towards the door. However, what he found wiped the smirk from his face.
Danny stood in the middle of the café. Sam stood in front of him as though to block him from imminent danger. All around the room, the patrons were either peering from the corner of their eyes or openly glaring. Some were whispering to their neighbors or slowly pulling out phones. But Danny had eyes only for the old fuzzy tv tucked away in the corner. Through blurry speakers they could hear what was clearly a news report.
A pretty blond woman was on one side of a split screen. Her hair was perfectly coifed and she looked crisp and professional in a starched white a cream blouse and skirt. Her expression was serious and attentive to her guest. Opposite her a man with thick graying hair in a white suit and dark glasses sat on the other side of the screen with what appeared to be futuristic and complicated machinery behind him. There were intermittent beeping noises and occasionally a flunky in a lab coat would walk past the camera in the background with hurried steps. Underneath the screen was a banner scrolling the news that in ghost child Danny Phantom had been revealed as none other than Danny Fenton child of self-proclaimed ghost hunters.
The woman was now questioning her guest. "Danny Phantom has been a divisive figure for a year now. Some people have called him a hero, while others call him a villain. But with this new information, seeing that he is in fact the son of very well respected ghost hunters, can we be sure that he is a danger? He has clearly been living among humans for a while now. As far as all appearances can tell, he lives a fairly well adjusted life as a human."
"Kathy, the fact is we know very little about this particular situation. You have brought up several facts and I will try to address them quickly. First, Danny Phantom has been seen repeatedly putting the citizens of Amity Park in danger to further his own ends. His fights cost the city thousands of dollars of damage every month. So regardless of his status as a hero or villain, we do know that he is both dangerous and reckless.
"Second, as far as Danny Fenton is concerned, he comes from a family that is semi-capable at best. We of the GIW have found their tactics to be crude and unreliable. During inspections, we have found their laboratory conditions to be deplorable. One of our inspections discovered ecto sludge smeared across their work table!" Here the man's eyes bulged and a tick appeared at his temple. Kathy was staring at the camera and supposedly her view of the agent with narrowed eyes at the outburst. He took a deep calming breath and the crazy began to fade from his face. "Clearly these are unsanitary conditions for such delicate work" he continued.
"Finally if Phantom is just a misunderstood teenager, we would encourage him to turn himself in. We have actively been searching for him for the past year. He has evaded us with remarkable adeptness. We are the best ghost catchers in the world with the finest training and facilities on the planet. For him to have done so well, we believe this to be the working of a sociopathic mind. He behaves with a calm detachment to his surroundings and gleeful cheer when disrupting official government business. We once again urge the public to be on the lookout for Danny Phantom or Fenton. If you see him, contact us. Do not approach him…"
The television clicked off and silence permeated the room. Danny blinked a few times numbly as Sam continued to glare around her. Most everybody was staring openly, but anyone who caught Sam's eye quickly looked away. Tucker took the awkward silence as his own personal calling card. Many people thought that technology was his superpower. How wrong they were. His superpower was immunity to awkward situations. With a big grin on his face he walked up to the counter where the keeper was utterly uninterested in everything going on around him as he wiped down the counter with a greasy rag. Tucker taped on the bar. "I'll take the check please."
The beefy man looked at Tucker with a half amused smirk and slid the sheet of paper over to him. Tuck failed to notice the uncanny similarities the man had to an overweight hog as he took a look at the bill and pulled out a twenty. "Keep the change my good man as a token of appreciation for a man who knows his meats." This got a true smile out of the man revealing a few missing teeth and stressing his double chin. He tucked the bill away under what looked like a chopping knife. An extremely sharp chopping knife with a cold glint. Tucker passively noted that the location of change being under a rather dangerous knife would unnerve most people, but Tucker could appreciate the necessity for properly cared for utensils. After all, anything that tasted that good could be considered nothing less than a work of art.
He made his way over to his two friends with a pleased look. Danny was coming out of his stupor and adrenaline kicked in making him both jittery and anxious. "Guys, we should probably go." He was interrupted by a flash from a camera phone. That shook him awake. Suddenly anxiety became tinged with anger. He scowled at the photographer wannabe. Flauntingly, he took another blinding picture. Danny's face went deadpan. He raised one finger and unerringly shot the phone out of the man's hands with a green blast. The man hissed in surprise. Which unsurprisingly brought out a bunch more phones. Danny elicited a grown. "Look guys, unlike what the doofus in white says, I'm not dangerous, wreck less, or carless. How many phones am I going to have to break to prove it to you?" Tucker snorted at the ironic comment. A small electrical charge pulsed from Danny's center near his heart. It quickly spread through the room and every electrical device it touched sparked and went dead. "Sorry folks" he stated in a decidedly unrepentant way. "But all communication devices will be temporarily down for the next ten hours or so. Pardon the inconvenience." With a tip of an imaginary hat, he saluted the patrons and left with his two friends in tow.
The three friends left the dingy diner and took deep breathes of the cool clean night air. Evening had set leaving the sky a deep violet with a splattering of stars in the east. Danny hung his head back and soaked it in. Sam, not content to leave the poor boy in peace, poked him in the ribs. She most certainly did not giggle at his grunt. Goths do not giggle. "Come on Mr. Electric, we've gotta hit the road." Danny nodded and they made their way over to the two parked atvs. An exhausted Danny made no effort to protest when Sam pushed him to the back of hers. He had been going for about 20 hours straight.
After seeing that her bleary eyed friend was situated, Sam looked over to their techno geek. "Okay. So we made it from Florida to here. Next stop is Gothapaloza in Nevada. How far will that be from here?" There was no answer. Sam looked over at their unresponsive friend for an explanation and found a very foreign look on his face. If she didn't know better, she would have thought that it was befuddlement. "Tucker? Tucker. TUCKER!" The last one she yelled into his ear. He jumped and glared at her.
"What?" he demanded. "I was asking you how far we had to go. When will we finally make it to the darkest, most horrifying, and soul crushing event of the year?" Her voice got higher and pinched in her excitement of the dark wonders to come.
Tucker looked at her glee with detachment. "I don't know." He stated. It was blunt and cutting. It brought Sam up short. After a moment of continued nonspeech, Sam questioned, "What do you mean you don't know?" "Just what I said, Sam, I don't know". "Well what about Betty? Does she know?" Tucker's face morphed into a pained expression. "Betty's not talking to me" Sam simply raised an eyebrow. "Got in a fight with your girlfriend?" she jibbed. In response Tucker turned his pda around so that Sam could see the blank and nonresponsive screen. Sam rolled her eyes at her friend. "You forgot to Danny proof your latest and clearly most expensive piece of tech you own?" she questioned in disbelief. Tucker's face turned pink. "I would never. Danny proofing my tech is always my first priority just after uploading my personal anti-Technis firewall." "Then how do you explain Betty?" "Clearly this is a curse." Sam closed her eyes and bumped her forehead with her fist. "The only curse around here is you, Mr. Bad-Luck-Tuck. Just get on. Like Danny said earlier, you'll be back online in about ten hours. We can make it fine on our own until then." Tucker did not look convinced, but got onto the other atv anyway.
Danny seemed to be in a waking trance. His eyes followed Sam as she sat down in front of him, but he gave little in the way of response. She turned to look at him face on. "Danny, you can rest soon, but until we get to our next campsite I need you to hold onto me. Okay?" The nod in response was slow in coming, but when he did she gave him a smile. "Good boy". She slipped on her black faux leather jacket over her tummy shirt and grabbed both of Danny's hands. She placed them on her waist and kick started the engine. The four wheeler growled to life. Two atvs pulled out of the gravel parking lot and into the night.