Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire.
It was a calm Sunday. No ghosts, no question of being discovered, no weekend homework. Sam had invited Tucker and Danny to her house to- what else?- chill out and generally do nothing. They figured they deserved the rest, and no amount of boredom could tear them from it.
"Oh, God, I'm so bored. Let's do something."
Sam raised an eyebrow. So much for chilling. "Like what?"
Danny sank back down onto the couch. "I don't know," he groaned, "Anything."
Tucker slowly developed a grin. "I have an idea. You got a lighter, Sam?"
"In my room. What for?"
Tucker smirked. "Indoor s'mores."
"Tucker, that's the dumbest idea I ever heard."
---
"This is the coolest idea ever!"
Almost-empty bags of marshmallows, crackers, and chocolate were scattered all over Sam's kitchen counter. Melted and broken bits of s'mores snacks dripped onto the floor and filled the air with a delicious, hyperactive-state-inducing smell.
Tucker was holding Sam's lighter underneath the cookie she had put together, liquidizing the excessive chocolate she had pilled on it. When it was done, Tucker turned to Danny, who had gleefully been assembling his own snack out of the the few remaining ingredients.
Tucker, more hyper than usual, accidently offered the lighter a little too suddenly, and, startled, Danny fell backwards off his chair. He rubbed his head where it had hit the floor, and accepted Tucker's hand to help him up.
"Sorry, Danny."
He waved it off without grudge. "Do you guys even know what will happen if I catch on fire?"
Sam looked at him like he was a moron. "Uh, you'll get burnt?"
"Your mom and dad will kill you for wrecking your clothes?" Tucker piped in cheerfully.
Danny rasied an eyebrow. "I might disintegrate."
Shocked out of thier hyper state, Sam and Tucker listened closely to Danny's explaination.
---
A loud crash echoed around the empty street; a flash, a whoosh of air, a hybrid ghost boy slamming into a wall where there had, a split second before, been a spirit of malicious alignment.
Danny, without missing a beat, phased through the wall and into the gymnasium. The ghost was hovering near the far wall, readying a ectoplasmic blast.
It fired on Danny, but he was a step ahead. Intangible, he soared the length of the gym and tackled the ghost, shoving it through the wall and into the boiler room beyond.
He released his intangibility and pinned the ghost to the floor. He pulled back his hand to deliver a plasmic blast, but the ghost slipped free and knocked him to the floor. Getting up as quickly as the pain would allow, he flew at the ghost, grabbed hold of its wispy tail and flung it into the open boiler.
The flames burst into a glowing green bonfire before sizzling down to their previous state. A puddle of ecto-plasmic slime collected, bubbling, on the floor and faded out into nothing. Eyes wide with curiousity, Danny Phantom retreated back to his home, but not before taking one last backwards glance at the firey sparks of the boiler.
---
"You want to know... what, Danny?"
"Well, I was thinking about ghosts today, and I thought, 'What happens when you put a ghost in fire?' I wanted to ask you, since you know so much about them."
Danny Fenton looked up at his mom sheepishly, as though he thought his question was silly.
Really, he was a little worried about Maddie guessing his identity, but mostly embarrased that he knew far more about actual ghosts than she and her husband did, even though they had been obsessing about them for years.
She smiled and ruffled his hair. "Well, dear, I suppose I could run a few tests, though that is an odd thing to be thinking about."
'Sure,' thought Danny, eyeing her ghost-hunting-slash-lab suit. 'Of course it is.' He smiled back none the less.
---
Jack Fenton lifted his goggles from his face and, grinning with sucsess as usual, gestured for Danny to come into the room.
Danny looked down at the papers aranged near the lab equipment. "Did you figure it out?" He was eager to hear the answer, the question being so closely related to his still somewhat newfound powers.
Maddie grinned. "I think so!"
His parents explained that in order for spirits to interact with the living world, they had to take control of water particles in the air. This, they said gave the ghosts most of their abilities, such as flight, invisibility, and intagibility (part of which included possesion, or overshadowing).
"It's also the reason why they're so cold," Maddie told him, "They have to freeze the particles in order to keep them together."
"Like a cloud?" Danny asked, feeling he was getting the gist of it.
Maddie raised an eyebrow. "Sure. Ectoplasm is actually about eighty percent H2O, and twenty percent an other-worldy chemical that makes them glow."
"So, to answer your question Danny," Jack concluded, "If you set fire to a ghost, it destroys thier hold on reality and they melt into a puddle!"
He grinned, and, getting caught up in the subject, donned a ghost hunting machine and clicked the trigger menacingly.
Danny, slightly worried but satisfied, backed up from him and called his thanks over his shoulder as he went into his room.
---
"If I'd know about that I wouldn't've been that careless," Tucker said apologecticaly.
"It's fine. Besides, I don't want you guys thinking I'm some breakable doll that can't be taken out of the box," Danny added, gesturing with a annoyed-at-the-sky look on his face.
"I know how you feel," Sam replied, "My parents tried to home-school me until fourth grade."
Danny looked at her. "'Tried to'?"
Sam's eyes narrowed in frustration at a memory. "Don't ask."
"Anyway, I'm only a hybrid, so I might not be as effected. If I started to dissolve, I could just power down."
Tucker nodded. "True."
Sam looked at the clock above the sink. "You two should get home if you ever want to get to school in the morning. But first," she grinned evily, "how about you clean up this mess so I don't get in trouble."
"It's your house!" Tucker protested.
"It's you guys' idea."
Danny and Tucker relinquished and wiped off the counters, though after a while Sam picked up a rag so things would go quicker. When the kitchen was spotless, they all waved goodbye and headed for bed in a good mood.
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To Be Continued...