Author's Note: Hey y'all, it's the last year of the Halloween Unspectacular challenge, and this year thinks have been shaken up, and instead of four one-shots, I'm supposed to write one four-part story with the theme "Endings". So, what better way to end this tradition than going back to my favorite idea to stem from the challenge shots, cartoon characters in the American Magical Education System!
Endings
Chapter 1
All good things must come to an end
"Gentlemen, I've called you all together to rectify a great wrong!"
"This must be serious, sounds like Turner's broken out the Thesaurus." Manny Rivera stage whispered to his compatriots, Jimmy Neutron and Danny Fenton, as the fourth member of their group, Timmy Turner, paced in front of their breakfast table.
"The end of the school year is upon us, and what have we done?"
"Learned how to transfigure a piece of paper into a sheet of steel." Jimmy said proudly.
"Became a total boss at dueling club." Manny added his own achievements.
"Helped the school improve their ghost security." Danny chimed in.
"No! Guys, this is a school of magic!" Timmy shouted in exasperation, "We should be fighting trolls in the dungeon, finding Basilisks in the plumbing, solving mysteries and battling dark wizards!"
The others looked at Timmy for a moment before laughing.
"If you're using Harry Potter's life as your standard, you're setting yourself up for disappointment." Danny said.
"Guys, we have three days to have an awesome adventure!" the pink-hatted boy continued his rant as they all finished eating and headed out to the grounds (Finals were done, so they no longer had classes) "We can't rest! We have to search every nook and cranny of campus, investigate every weird thing, interrogate every…" Timmy trailed off as his eye caught something unfamiliar. "Suspicious person!"
"What the—" A boy with bushy brown hair and a blue trucker hat exclaimed as Timmy pointed an accusing finger in his face.
"You! Who are you? I've never seen you around before, and it's too late in the year for a transfer student! I bet you're a spy!"
"…A spy for what, exactly?" The accused asked in confusion.
"That's what I'd like to know! Talk!" Timmy pulled a green flashlight from nowhere and shined it in the boy's face.
"Back off dude, I've been going to school here for two years!" he pushed the flashlight up and out of his face, right as Danny and Jimmy pulled their friend back.
"Timmy, what the heck's gotten into you?" Danny asked.
"You're being completely illogical Turner." Jimmy reprimanded him "This is a big school. He probably just lives in the dorms on the other side of campus and you've never crossed paths before."
"Hey, sorry, uh…" Manny began to apologize to the stranger before realizing he didn't know his name.
"Dipper." The stranger supplied. Manny failed miserably to hide a fit of giggles.
Jimmy sighed and stepped forward. "I apologize for both my friends. I suppose we're all overly excited for the end of the school year."
"Uh, that's alright, I guess." Dipper replied, not really sure what to make of the situation.
Danny pulled Timmy away as Jimmy handled the diplomacy.
"What the heck was that?"
The boy scuffed his feet on the floor guiltily. "I got carried away, alright? I just really wanna do something awesome with you guys before I have to go back to being miserable in Dimsdale."
The older teen watched his friend walk glumly down the path towards their dorms. He knew Timmy's home life wasn't all that great, that was why the kid had fairies. Maybe Danny could figure out a way to give his friend an adventure before the end of the school year. He just needed to ask for a little help.
The boys all met up again for lunch later that day. Luckily Timmy hadn't jumped any more students.
"My parents should be arriving later this afternoon for the end-of-year celebrations." Jimmy told his friends excitedly.
"Really?" Danny asked, "My parents told me they wouldn't be able to get in until tomorrow."
The boy genius nodded, "That's because the school is staggering out when families can arrive and leave, so we don't have a mass exodus to the middle of nowhere in Nevada attracting the Muggles' attention."
"Oh. So where are your parents coming Timmy?" The raven-haired teen asked his other friend.
"I dunno. I wouldn't be surprised if they don't show up at all." Timmy said nonchalantly, although the others could tell he cared more than his tone let on.
"Pch, who cares if your folks don't show up?" Manny scoffed, trying to lighten the mood, "You don't need them to have an awesome time at the party!"
"Easy for you to say, both your parents are teachers here, you see them every day!" Timmy said shortly.
Their conversation was brought to an abrupt stop when Danny suddenly sat up straight and gasped.
"What's wrong, man?" Manny asked.
"It's my Ghost Sense. There's a ghost nearby."
Timmy's eyes lit up with excitement. "Where!?"
"But that's impossible!" Jimmy insisted, "You spent the entire first month of school improving the antispectral defenses yourself!"
Danny simply pointed to the northwest corner of the room where, sure enough, they glimpsed the tail end of a ghost just vanish through the wall.
"Oh my gosh!" Timmy jumped up out of his seat. "This is it guys! This is our big adventure!" He immediately ran towards the nearest door, pulling a large pink ecto-pistol out of nowhere.
"Timmy, wait! We need a plan!" Neutron ran after his eager friend.
"Uh, aren't ghosts your deal, dude?" Manny asked his taller friend, "Shouldn't you be the one chasing after that thing? I mean, Turner could get hurt or something."
"Let him have this, I'm sure he'll be fine." Danny said with a wink.
"Oooooh…" The shorter teen replied with an understanding smirk.
Timmy and Jimmy burst out of the cafeteria, the latter pulling his wand out while the former already had his pink ecto-pistol trained on the fleeing blur. The boys chased the ghost across the grounds, never quite getting a good look at it. It was fast, and mostly stuck to the shadows. Every now and then it'd go intangible and fly straight through a building, but it wasn't until they reached the main building on campus, the Administration Center, that it stopped.
Jimmy waved his wand, revealing the ectoplasmic trace the ghost had left. One trail going in, no trail going out.
"Come on, let's get that ghost and find out how it got on campus!" Timmy cried, ready to charge in guns a-blazing.
"Are we even allowed in there right now? Aren't they getting ready for the end-of-year festivities?" Jimmy asked.
"Oh, I'm sorry, do you want a ghost ruining those festivities?"
"Fair point."
The two charged in, statling a few teachers who had been putting up decorations around the doors.
"Alright, where's the ghost!?" Timmy asked excitedly.
"W-whaaat?" Ms. Fowl asked in confusion.
Jimmy sighed and recast the tracer spell, revealing a glowing green path going down the hall towards the stairwell. The two rushed after the trail and nearly tripped down the stairs. There they found their target.
"Danielle!?" They gasped.
The young ghost girl grinned sheepishly. "Hi guys."
"What the heck is going on here?" Timmy demanded.
"Well, you wanted an adventure, so Danny figured we'd give you one." She explained. "I'd pretend to be a rogue ghost that got past the shields, and you guys would have to figure out how I did it."
"Solving a 'mystery' made up by our friend out of pity is something of a hollow victory." Jimmy pointed out.
It was at this time that Danny and Manny caught up at their leisurely pace. The ghostly teen started when he saw his cousin talking with the boys. The shorter teen started laughing like a hyena at how horribly the plan was going.
"Danielle, you weren't supposed to let them catch you!" Danny reprimanded her.
"Sorry, I got distracted."
"Hahah, by what? This is an empty stairwell!"
"I thought I saw something, but it's gone now…"
Timmy suddenly grabbed her by the shoulders. "What? What did you see?"
Dani looked down, embarrassed. "It was nothing. I thought I saw a gorilla with long hair, but I blinked and it was gone. It was probably just my eyes playing tricks on me."
The bucktoothed boy immediately started feeling around the stairwell for an invisible something. His genius friend sighed and pulled him back up the stairs.
"Give it a rest Turner. Come on, my parents should be here in an hour, I need to get ready."
Later that day, in the dorms on the south end of campus, Dipper Pines had his head buried in his Intro to Runes book, with another, more worn book lying open at his side and a notebook on his lap. He looked up as two of his dorm-mates entered the common room.
"Hey Dipper, aren't you done with finals?" Phineas Flynn asked as he and his stepbrother Ferb Fletcher flopped onto the couch beside him.
"Yeah, I'm done."
"Then why are you still studying?"
"I'm not studying, this is for a personal project."
"Oh, ok then."
Dipper liked rooming with the Flynn-Fletcher brothers. Phineas and Ferb were both cool and smart, and most importantly, they respected his privacy. He continued comparing symbols in the journal to his Runes book while the two brothers pulled out a stack of blueprints they were preparing for the upcoming summer break. They were all so absorbed in their work they didn't notice someone sneaking up behind them.
"Boo!" A gruff voice yelled as a large, wrinkled hand grabbed Dipper by the shoulder. The boy shot out of the chair with a panicked scream. Phineas and Ferb also jumped, but more due to their friend's extreme reaction.
"Grahahahaha!" Stanford Pines chortled and wiped a tear from his eye, "Hah, still jumpy I see! I shoulda known school wouldn't loosen you up."
"Grunkle Stan, what—" Dipper asked with a breathless laugh, but the old man cut him off.
"Hey-hey, don't be rude, introduce me to your friends here."
"Oh, uh, Phineas, Ferb, this is my great uncle Stanford Pines. Stan, these are two of my roommates, Phineas Flynn and Ferb Fletcher.
"Nice to meet you Mr. Pines." Phineas said cheerily as Ferb waved, "Dipper speaks of you often."
"All lies, I can assure you." Stan said with a grin.
"So what are you even—" Dipper was interrupted once again when the door to the girl's wing opened. There was a squeal of excitement and suddenly his sister Mabel had tackled Stan to the ground.
"Grunkle Stan! Ohmygosh what are you even doing here!?" Mabel asked excitedly as she smothered the old man with hugs.
"Heheh… ow." Stan winced as the twins helped him up. "Yeah, I thought I'd save your folks some money on bus tickets and pick you two up from school myself."
"Yeah right," Mabel elbowed her uncle in his substantial gut, "you just missed us, didn't you?"
"Pft, what? No."
"Yeah! You got lonely with only Soos up there to keep you company! You couldn't wait two more weeks to see us!"
"Yeah yeah…" Stan pulled the twins in for some affectionate noogying.
Phineas smiled at his step-brother, "C'mon Ferb, we'd better give these guys some family time."
It was well past curfew, and most everyone on campus was in bed. Most, but not all.
"Timmy, I know you're set on having a big adventure before you leave school, but it's so late." Wanda complained tiredly as she and Cosmo helped their godson search the stairwell from earlier.
"Exactly!" Timmy replied, "All the best mystery adventurey stuff happens at night!"
"Are you comparing your life to Harry Potter's again?" Cosmo asked.
"Nnnnno." The pink hatted boy quickly slipped The Prisoner of Azkaban back into his backpack.
"Why don't you just wish for an adventure, sport?" Wanda asked.
"You heard Jimmy earlier, that'd totally defeat the purpose! Look, Dani saw something down here, then it disappeared. That sounds worthy of investigation to me."
The two fairies sighed, but continued to use magic to search for any trace of something that could turn invisible or disappear.
"I'm not picking up any traces of house elf dissaparation, or any ghosts other than the Fenton kids." Wanda said after doing a full search.
"Maybe it had an invisibility cloak!" Timmy speculated, "That wouldn't leave any magical residue, would it?"
"A gorilla with an invisibility cloak? Cool!" Cosmo grinned, remembering Dani's description.
"Hang on, that sounds vaguely familiar…" Wanda began to think, but she was interrupted by the sound of someone slamming into the door to the stairwell. The fairies quickly disguised themselves as a pink scarf and a green flashlight.
Timmy cautiously opened the door to find a teenager lying in a heap at the floor on the other side. He was tall with spikey blonde hair. The bucktoothed boy poked the prone figure with his toe.
"M'okay." The teen moaned, slowly sitting up. "Uhg… I got it, right Erika?" He took a closer look at the boy. "Oh, sorry Turner, hit my head pretty hard on that door, thought you were Erika for a sec."
"Who the heck are you!? How do you know my name?" Timmy demanded.
"Oh… well, your reputation precedes you." The mystery guy explained.
"One of the other seniors told you about me?"
"Yeeeah. Who do you know in the senior class?"
"Well… I kinda know Kim and Ron…"
"Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable, right. They told me about you." The guy smiled to himself, "Heh, they're such a cute couple."
Well, he certainly seemed to know Kim and Ron. A stranger would never guess they were dating.
"What'd you say your name was?"
"Didn't say. It's Dave Timens, nice to meet you in person Timmy." Dave extended and hand for a friendly shake. Timmy took it cautiously. "You seem tense." Dave said, noting the boy's apprehension. "Good night sleep'll probably help that." He pushed the kid up the stairs. "You really don't want any teachers catching you out this late." He continued to hint.
Timmy sighed and decided to take Dave's advice, for now. He was pretty tired… but first thing he was going to do the next morning was investigate this weird teenager.
Unfortunately, there was a more pressing matter waiting for the bucktoothed boy the next morning. Danny was waiting for him and Jimmy in the common room the next morning with a serious look on his face.
"What's wrong?" Timmy asked.
"Looks like you'll be getting your adventure after all. Manny was attacked by a Erkling last night."
Author's Note: Bum bum bum! I'm taking alot of inspiration from "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" this time around.
