Chapter 1:
'This, cannot end well.' Thought Danny as he stared in complete and utter disdain at the field trip form in his hands. Earlier that day, Mr. Lancer had handed his small English 11 class a field trip form to visit the ghost zone. The two who would be leading this trip, his parents, Jack and Madeline Fenton. 'Typical, just typical.' If looks could kill, Danny's glare would have turned the paper into a pile of smoldering ashes long ago.
Flashback to Monday
Vlad Masters had announced that after a meeting with the school board, they had all come to an agreement that students should begin to learn more about the specters that haunted the town. Later that day, when Principal Ishiyama came into the eleventh grade English class announcing that the junior class would be the first to go on this experimental trip, the majority of the class was excited from the possibility of seeing Danny Phantom, while a few students looked scared at the notion of going into a realm full of ghosts. Valerie in the corner of the room by the window just looked deep in thought as she kept shooting glances at Danny when she thought he wasn't looking. Sam and Tucker, next to Danny, had just looked as if they were ready to pass out from the previous nights busy ghost patrol. None of them had gotten home until the sun was almost up the next day. No one but Danny seemed to notice that the Principals eyes had been glowing a bright red the entire day.
It was now Thursday, and Danny could already tell that his parents were not going to let him stay home tomorrow, and his sister couldn't help him because she recently left for college at Yale. His only comfort was that both of his friends would be going with him. That plus, if anything were to happen, he and his friends were well trained and practiced in using the weapons and fighting the ghosts without relying on Danny's powers. About a week after the Danielle incident with Valerie, that had happened almost four months ago, Vlad came up with the Plasmius Maximus 2.9. Danny couldn't use any of his powers for eleven days, and by the end of day one, Team Phantom realized how much they relied on Danny's powers to handle the fights with the ghosts. By the end of day two, all of Danny's enemies in the ghost zone had learned about their little predicament, and by day five Team Phantom was exhausted.
Luckily they finally worked out a system to fight together and now they all share the workload. The ghosts learned quickly that the Trio suddenly became much more difficult to fight. It probably didn't help that Danny's powers went through a growth spurt about three weeks later. It had been a strong enough power spurt that his HAZMAT suit went through a change as well.
He was now wearing white combat boots that went almost halfway up his shins and they had black laces that were done all the way up, and he now wore black cargo pants with pockets to hold some of his smaller weapons and gadgetry. His pants were loosely fitted to allow free movement and they went down to cover the top part of his boots a little ways past where his ankles would be. On his belt loops was a single long thin silver white chain that wrapped around him loosely twice, allowing for it to dip down towards the back on the left side and a little bit of a dip towards the front on the right side. Because it wraps around him twice, it looks like two separate chains, when it's only one long one. Danny even discovered that it was an extension of him. With the same amount of thought that is required to move an arm, he could use it to tie up weaker ghosts. The Box Ghost had been the unfortunate soul to discover that Danny could also use it as a whip. His top is still mostly the same now, except that it's not as tight or form fitting as it used to be, and on the sleeves by the shoulders are two white bands tied off with a black buckle. His gloves are now separate to his long sleeves and even go over them where they are then secured in place by a black band with a white buckle.
Sam and Tucker thought his new outfit was cool and as a congrats gift they made him a new utility belt. It had originally been a black belt with white hooks and small white pockets, as well as his emblem colored white as the buckle, but when he put it on his ghost form seemed to accept it and it inverted colors and became part of the outfit. As a special feature it came with a small thermos that was twice as small and could hold four times more ghosts than the original thermoses could, and it could now handle ghosts twice as powerful. It had originally been a white thermos with black lines and trimmings so it stood out from the belt, but it too had inverted colors. Tucker had even thoughtfully put into the belt a specter deflector feature that recognized Danny's ecto-signature as well as their allies, so that it didn't shock friendlies, and the belt's buckle had a built in cushion to protect his lower abdomen since he was often punched in the gut.
Tucker had started inventing machines and gadgets that could help them while ghost hunting and his best feature was the ability to make things shrink down to sizes that should not have been possible. He had been inspired when he heard that Mrs. Fenton had sleeping bag capsules that would grow from pills to regular sleeping bags when water was added. His inventions can't shrink down to capsule size, however, the Fenton wrist rays, the Fenton Peeler, the Jack-O-Nine Tails, the Anti-Creep Stick, the Fenton Bazooka, the Booomerang, the portable ghost portal, and the Fenton Phones (now dubbed Phantom Phones) could now easily be carried in a pocket altogether without making the pockets bulge to tightly. The only down side is that he couldn't figure out how to make them weigh as little as their size, so it often felt like they were carrying around an armory 24/7.
Now they were always prepared and they all had on Specter Deflectors that Tucker designed to look like thin regular belts with their choice of color and style. They were all calibrated to accept Danny as a friendly and recognize his signature as well as Danielle's. Right now they were all in Danny's room making a check list of things that they would need to take into the Ghost Zone with them while Danny kept staring at the form in his hands willing it to disappear off the face of the planet. Since they were leaving on a Friday morning, the class was going to be spending all of Friday, Saturday and the first half on Sunday in the Ghost Zone. They weren't expected to come back until sometime Sunday afternoon.
"All right, ten pairs of Phantom Phones?" Sam asked.
"Checked and packed," replied Tucker.
"Ten sets of Fenton wrist rays?"
"Packed and ready to go," Tucker stated.
"Do we have enough specter deflectors for everybody, Tuck?" Danny asked as he finally put down the paper to help them pack the things they would need in case of an emergency.
"Yeah dude, I started working on extra ones three days ago when the field trip was first announced. Now we even have extras for if we ever lose any." He said in a calm tone.
"Danny, have your parents even ever been in the Ghost Zone?" Sam asked as she looked up from packing their weaponry into their bags.
"Nope."
"Wait, your parents built a portal to a pocket dimension of infinite realms in their basement, that they have supposedly wanted to explore since their college days and not once have they even poked their heads in to see what it looks like?!" Tucker asked with a look of scrutiny on his face as he stared at Danny waiting for a response. Danny replied with a dead panned tone and an expression to match it.
"Yeah, that pretty much sums it all up right now."
"And they are taking in a bunch of high school kids when they don't even know their way around." Sam asked but her tone said it was more of a statement of disbelief.
"Yep." Was the reply with the 'p' popped at the end. "By the way Sam, how did you convince your parents to let you go on this suicidal trip?"
"I didn't, they had seen Vlad make the announcement on the city news, and because it came from our rich and perfect role model of a mayor, they decided that if he thought it was for the best then they would give it a shot." Her words heavily laced with sarcasm. "Well, on the bright side of things, if anything happens, we should be able to handle it…even if it does raise questions of why we know how to fight ghosts so well. Hopefully it won't come to that though, but better safe than sorry, so it's a good thing that we're preparing for the worst-
"Now we just have to hope for the best." Tucker finished cutting off Sam. "Don't worry dude, whatever happens while we're in there, we'll be able to handle. I'm just finding it a little hard to believe that Vlad is funding this whole thing."
"Yeah, well what doesn't surprise me is when he came to suggest it to my Dad first, who was very quick to agree." Danny frowned at the memory.
"Don't worry Danny, we've all been doing this as a fair team for a while now. We're not the same freshmen who started out stumbling their way through things anymore." Sam put a reassuring hand on Danny's shoulder as she said this.
" I know Sam, and because of it, my grades and your guy's grades have improved significantly. I've finally managed to regain my original GPA of a 3.8 from before the accident, and I think that Mr. Lancer is happy. I still take my frequent 'bathroom breaks' but he's stopped getting on my case about my grades and I'm rarely ever late for school any more, so I hardly ever have detention now." Danny smiled, as he looked Sam in the eyes. About a month ago, they had finally started dating without anyone other than Tucker knowing. The Manson's already hate Danny for coming from a family of eccentric ghost hunters, they didn't want to give them another reason for hating him, or filing a restraining order.
"And whose help is making it possible for you to have a life again?" Sam smirked as she crossed her arms and looked at Danny waiting for the obvious answer.
"Yours and Tuckers." Danny looked down as he quietly answered with a tone of gratitude.
"Dude, we'll be fine tomorrow. What's the worst that could happen?" Tucker said as he went back to packing, not noticing the furious glares he received from his two friends as they both thought, 'great… Bad Luck Tuck strikes once again and jinxes us.' Danny just sighed as he muttered under his breath, "We're doomed."
