The odd trio of Danny, Sam and Tucker sat in the Nasty Burger, sipping at their smoothies. This on its own was normal, what was less normal was the topic of discussion.
"Wait, you're telling us your folks made a portal to the Ghost Zone in your basement?" Tucker asked, mouth half full of burger, ignoring the glare Sam sent his way.
"Yeah, but it didn't work. They've been kinda depressed since the morning," Danny responded, and stirred his milkshake with the straw.
"Can we see it?" Sam sounded enthusiastic, and Tucker coughed quietly, a reminder to her that it was a full moon that night and he needed to get home on time.
"I guess, but it's just a hole with circuitry anyway," Danny replied, shrugging.
"Hole with circuitry or not, it's still pretty cool," Sam pressed.
Tucker sighed in defeat at the spark of interest in Danny's eyes. Ah, the things teenage boys would do for their crushes - of course Tucker would never do such a thing.
Finishing off their meals, the trio set out from the fast food establishment, the warm breeze of early autumn carrying the scent of decaying flora through the air. The trees that lined the road had gained an orange hue, and rustled gently. Tucker enjoyed his time at the back of the group, taking in the smells and feeling of the air. The time before the full moon always heightened his senses beyond their usual superhuman levels, and he was going to enjoy it.
Suburban houses passed by until they reached the Fenton household, which stuck out like a sore thumb with its great big neon sign. Quite how it hadn't been removed as a public eyesore, Tucker couldn't be sure - perhaps because it was on private property. He was getting sidetracked. Noticing that his friends had now entered the house, he jogged after them.
The group made a beeline for the basement, Sam leading the trio. A circle drilled into the wall went along for an indistinguishable length, becoming submerged in shadows towards the end, with metal plating and wires along the interior walls. LED lights blinked in little gaps in the plating, and it looked like some sort of sci-fi prop.
"Woah," both Sam and Tucker breathed.
Sam brought out her camera, snapping a polaroid photo of the wall. "Hey, Danny, can you stand in front of the portal? Wait, is that a jumpsuit?" A black and white jumpsuit was hung on the right hand wall, next to a bunch of dials and gauges.
Danny sighed, picking it up off the hook. "Yeah, my parents made me a jumpsuit - in case I ever wanted to get into the ghost hunting business with them. Jazz already hid hers so they can't make her wear it."
Sam snapped yet another photo. "Want to check it out in that portal?"
Danny was reluctant. "I showed you the portal. Can we please get out of here?"
"Come on, Danny. A Ghost Zone? Aren't you curious? You gotta check it out," Sam chided.
Tucker gave a weak argument against Sam's points, "I don't know about this. It seems like a bad idea. You don't even know if it's safe."
"It seems safe, my parents are pretty careful about their designs. You should have seen the amount of calculations and work that went into this," Danny said after some deliberation. "Besides, who knows what kind of awesome, super-cool things exist on the other side of that portal?"
He pulled on the jumpsuit over his casual wear. A block colour design of Jack Fenton's face was plastered on the front of the jumpsuit, and Sam ripped it off. "You can't go walking around with that on your chest," she said.
Danny's face gained a pink tinge, and he turned to face the mouth of the portal. He took a step into the tunnel cautiously. His eyes were focused on the path ahead of him, and his gloved hand trailed along the wall, feeling every nook and bump on its welded surface. His hand seemed to tingle with energy as it passed over one of the lights, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
"Danny, I don't know if you should go in much further, it's pretty dark in there," Tucker called out, and as if on cue, Danny tripped over a loose wire. He caught himself, hearing a click, and looking up he saw that the 'on' button had been pressed.
"Guys-" Danny tried to call out, but his voice was drowned out by the whine of electronics starting up.
In an instant, his vision was obscured by green, electricity rocketing through his every cell, ricocheting around his body. The green grew more vibrant and Danny's vision began to fade. He could barely hear himself scream, but the strain on his vocal chords told him that he was screaming for all he was worth as it felt like every inch of his body was on fire.
And then it was cold, like frostbite. Danny couldn't stay awake any longer, and he stumbled along, hearing the panicked cries of his friends above all else, permeating through his suffering. Maybe if he could get to them they could get him medical help.
He fell onto the smooth floor of the lab, his last waking thought being that he didn't want to die.
Sam and Tucker weren't sure how to respond to the figure of their best friend staggering out of the activated portal, but with inverted colours, like someone had been playing around in Photoshop - but this was real. Tucker's first reaction was panic, pacing around in circles. Sam, on the other hand, was more accustomed to the supernatural, reaching out to try and touch Danny's shoulder.
Emphasis on 'try'. Her hand phased right through him, leaving a trail of ghostly wisps along the way. Her eyes welled up with tears, and she tried to vocalise the conclusion she had reached the instant she realised she couldn't touch him.
Still grabbing fruitlessly at her friend's shoulder, she let out a strangled cry, tears now pouring unimpeded down her cheeks. "Ghost, he's a ghost!"
Tucker stopped his pacing, blood draining from his face. "He can't be, right? There's got to be something we can do to help him."
"Guys, what's wrong?" A groan came from the ghost, who was now sitting up, hand on his head, nursing what must have been a splitting headache. He opened his eyes, revealing a toxic green that reflected off every surface in the vicinity.
"Danny…" Sam murmured sadly, her makeup smeared down her face.
Danny looked across the room at the shiny surface of one of the cupboards, and his breath hitched. His eyes met his reflection's and rove up and down the unfamiliar-looking boy sitting on the basement floor. "Oh, God!" he exclaimed.
Tucker raised his hands in an attempt to calm the terrified spirit. "We'll work this out, okay."
Danny was hyperventilating now (something that really shouldn't be possible for a ghost, Sam noted).
"I can't be a ghost. I'm not dead. I'm just fourteen," he pleaded, and as he closed his eyes tightly a bright light erupted from around his waist. Rings like galaxies travelled up and down his body from the centrepoint, changing his jumpsuit to regular clothes and sucking the light from his eyes, leaving them as their natural blue. Finally a ring passed over the top of his head, changing his hair from stark white to coal black.
Sam and Tucker didn't have any idea what was going on, but they weren't going to complain, both launching themselves at Danny to hug him.
Apparently this was the wrong thing to do, as he reflexively turned intangible and they went right through him, colliding into each other.
"Aahh!" Danny shrieked, and Sam and Tucker moved backwards just to see him sinking into the floor. They grabbed his arms on instinct, thankfully being able to contact him this time, and yanked him upwards. Once his feet were above the ground, Sam shouted, "Danny, focus on the floor being solid!"
Danny's feet touched down on the floor, and he gave a sigh of relief, before having a look of surprise. "Thanks, but how'd you know that'd work?"
Sam was panting. "It was just a hunch," she said, noncommittally.
Danny had a feeling that there was more to that story, but he wasn't going to press it at the moment.
Danny thought for a bit, still reeling in shock from what had just happened. Then, "how will i tell my parents about what just happened?!"
Both Sam and Tucker froze. "Oh, crud," Tucker mouthed.
"Um, maybe you could stay over at my house tonight? Just until we work stuff out?"
"You know what tonight is, right?" Sam asked incredulously.
Tucker nodded. "Yeah, but he's one of us now, isn't he?"
"What are you talking about?" Danny was feeling even more overwhelmed, if that was possible at the moment.
Tucker shushed Sam as she tried to protest. "We can't keep lying to him, especially not after this. Sam and I are members of the supernatural community."
There, it was out in the open.
"I'm a werewolf, and Sam's a witch. I'm sorry we kept this a secret from you for so long, I'd understand if you don't want to spend time with us after this."
Danny's mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, and he flickered out of the visible spectrum.
"Danny?" both Sam and Tucker exclaimed, and he reappeared, looking just as shocked as they were at his sudden disappearing act.
"I'll text my parents that I'm going round to yours." Danny fumbled for his phone, with it falling through his hands a couple of times before he managed to get a proper grip on it and type out a simple message.
"So you're not mad?" Sam asked, torn between being nervous and relieved.
Danny shook his head. "I don't know, I just need to know what's going on right now."
Sam nodded in understanding, wanting to know what was going on too.
The trio left the house after grabbing Danny's school bag and pyjamas, and a brief interaction with Jazz, who seemed none the wiser as to what had happened down in the basement (thank you soundproofing), explaining that Danny was going to stay the night at Tucker's in as short terms as possible.
"So,-" Danny tried to start up a conversation, but had his friends' hands slapped across his mouth, while Sam hissed, "not in public, wait until we get to Tuck's house."
The rest of the walk passed in stilted silence, all three parties on edge, preparing for some unknown foe to jump them.
"Tucker? Is that you?" Mrs Foley's face poked into the hallway as the trio entered the house, and she did a good job of hiding her surprise.
Tucker waved awkwardly. "Hi Mom. We kind of have a situation."
This sent a wave of panic through Mrs Foley, and she began searching outside the window. "Close the door, then explain," she snapped, and Tucker obliged.
Once the door was shut and locked, he launched into a high-speed monologue. "Okay so we were down in Danny's basement, and his parents built a portal to the Ghost Zone." Mrs Foley raised an eyebrow at this, but didn't interrupt. "And then Danny went to check it out, and I think it turned on when he was inside it, and he came out as a ghost, but then he changed back to normal, and we don't know what's happening, but this is probably the safest place for him right now."
Mrs Foley did her best to process what Tucker had just said before speaking. "Does he know about us?"
Tucker nodded, and his mother's eyes lit up a yellowish colour for the briefest moment, shorter than a blink. "Did you tell him?"
Tucker nodded again.
"How much does he know?" she asked cautiously.
"Just the basics, that I'm a werewolf and Sam's a witch. We were kinda freaking out after we thought he was dead." Tucker braced himself for an onslaught of words, only to be surprised when his mom went over and sniffed Danny's hair.
"He smells like a ghost," she proclaimed, and Danny's stomach dropped. "But, he's also alive."
Mrs Foley ushered the shell-shocked teen into the sitting room, glancing at the clock, which read 5 o'clock.
Danny collapsed into the armchair, and Mrs Foley went about checking his pulse and breathing, both of which were slower than they really should have been, but nothing dangerous. She then turned to Tucker and Sam. "What did you mean 'he came out as a ghost'?"
This time, Sam took her turn to explain. "Like, he had white hair and glowing green eyes, and he phased right through me. Then these rings of light appeared and changed him back to normal."
A moment of silence hung in the air before Mrs Foley reached a conclusion. "It seems to me that he's somehow ghost and human at the same time, as impossible as that sounds. Be glad he didn't die all the way." Mrs Foley gave them both a scolding glare. "I can understand why you brought him here after the fact, with his parents being ghost hunters and all, but why on earth would he have gone into a portal to the Ghost Zone of all places?"
Sam shuffled her feet guiltily. "That was my fault," she piped up. "I encouraged him to check it out." Tears were threatening to spill from her eyes again, and Mrs Foley's glare relented.
Her gaze softened when she looked back over to Danny, who seemed to have recovered a little from his shock, but unfortunately was moving onto panic.
"Shh, it's okay Danny, calm down," Mrs Foley said gently.
Danny, however, hardly calmed down.
"If Tucker's a werewolf, and I'm guessing you're a werewolf, does this mean you're dangerous?"
That came out a lot blunter than Danny had intended, and he mentally slapped himself for saying it like that.
Much to Danny's surprise, Tucker started laughing. "You've been watching too many horror movies. How many werewolf attacks have there actually been in Amity Park?"
"Um, none?" Danny questioned.
"Exactly," replied Tucker. "We're more just people who're part wolf. Well, that's not exactly it, but we're not monsters."
"What Tucker's trying to say," Sam continued, "is that the legends of werewolves being monsters are because of people's prejudices, and the small minority of werewolves who actually hurt others. People tend to fear what they don't understand, and the supernatural community's the most misunderstood of all."
Danny wasn't quite following, but got the gist of it. "What do you mean by the supernatural community?"
"Well, there are a lot more supernatural beings out there," Sam said, as though it was the most normal thing in the world. "I found out about it when I was five and Grandma Ida saw me making a plant grow with magic. Since then I met others in the supernatural community. There's a mutual agreement that we support each other."
Tucker nodded along. "Amity Park's a bit of a hotspot for the community, there's loads of us here. Just wait until we introduce you, the market's the best place in the world."
Mrs Foley coughed. "At the weekend. You and your friends have school."
Tucker groaned, but to his credit he didn't complain.
Danny looked just about ready to faint. "But, I'm not part of the supernatural community."
"Dude, you turned invisible and fell through the floor earlier, that's supernatural if I ever saw it," Tucker chuckled, looping an arm around his friend's shoulders. "Huh, do you think you could do that stuff now? Just think of all the pranks you could pull with powers like those?"
Mrs Foley coughed, and Tucker quickly added. "Not that we'd actually pull any pranks with them." He shot Danny a wink, and Danny snorted. As odd as this whole situation was, he couldn't help but find some sense of normalcy in Tucker's sense of humour.
"Um, how would I do it?" Danny asked. "I only did those stuff by accident before."
"I don't know, maybe just think about it?" Tucker suggested.
Sam interrupted. "That's terrible advice Tucker, there's no way that would work-" She was cut off by Danny's yelp as he fell through the armchair. The entire group rushed over to his side, where he was half in the chair, and half sinking into the floor as if it were a shallow pool. Tucker smirked victoriously, and Sam shook her head, a smile pinching at the corners of her mouth. They pulled Danny up and out by his arms, and he staggered a bit on his feet on they got him standing.
"Okay, first priority: get those powers under control. We don't want to get exposed," Mrs Foley commanded. "And you'll need to avoid blood tests until we know how it's affected you."
Danny nodded, not quite understanding the gravity of the situation.
The next hour or so was spent practicing turning intangible and invisible, until Danny could do it consistently at will. By the time dinner came around he was thoroughly exhausted, but rather proud of himself. He slumped into a chair at the table, mouth watering at the smell of the meatloaf Mrs Foley was bringing over to the table. Mr Foley was also sat at the table, but seemed to have been filled in on the situation, judging by his lack of protest to Danny's presence.
"So, what's this I hear about ghost powers?" he asked as his wife placed a meatloaf on the table.
Sam seemed to have produced a tofu dish from somewhere, and Danny wasn't going to question it. He'd just been displaying the basic abilities of a ghost, so this was relatively normal in his opinion. "I kinda was in a portal to the Ghost Zone when it turned on," Danny said quietly, the topic seeming almost taboo to talk about, though he couldn't quite put his finger on why - it was just a touchy subject. The electric shock seemed to simmer just below his skin at the thought of what had happened and it freaked him out. "Hey, Sam, Tucker," the two turned to face him, Tucker with his face full of meatloaf. "When I came out the portal, I looked… different. Do you think I can change my appearance?"
Sam hummed, a forkful of tofu halfway to her mouth. "Maybe, it's worth a try."
"I'm not gonna be much use from sunset, but I'll be there for moral support," Tucker chimed in.
"Thanks guys," Danny said before digging into his own plate of food, his appetite suddenly renewed with his mood.
After both Danny and Tucker finished their second helpings of food, the trio headed up to Tucker's room. The room was cosy, with a bulky computer sat under a desk in the corner, with an equally large monitor on top of the desk being the main feature of the room. Coloured wires were everywhere, and several video game cases were lined up along a shelf overhead.
Tucker flopped out on his squishy bed, bouncing his plush toys (which had tooth marks in them now that Danny looked more closely, like a dog, or rather, a wolf, had been at them) onto the floor. Danny made himself comfy in the red beanbag on a worn technicolour rug, while Sam sat cross legged on the floor.
"What did you do to change back after you came out the portal?" Tucker asked. "Did you just think about it or something?"
Danny nodded, and Tucker burst into a fit of giggles. "Are you kidding me? Do you just have to think about it for all of your powers?"
"I don't know!" Danny cried, clearly embarrassed by his friend's antics.
"Okay, okay," Tucker jumped up and closed his heavy curtains, "go for it."
Danny focused for what must have been a full minute before the rings of light emerged from his waist once again, enveloping his form, revealing a primarily black jumpsuit with white gloves, boots and collar. His exposed skin gained a tan colour and his hair turned a pure, snow white. His entire form was surrounded by a faint ghostly glow, which only seemed to become amplified when he opened his neon green eyes, shining towards his friends with both fear and excitement.
"Woah, it worked!" Danny looked down at his form, floating a few inches in the air. Sam and Tucker stared with mouths agape, their amazement almost palpable.
"Can you fly?" Sam asked, small vines roping around the bedpost in her fired up state.
"Uh," Danny said dumbly, and began gently drifting forward. It wasn't much, but it was something.
Tucker slapped the vines off his bed, shooting Sam a glare before speaking to Danny. "Do you think you can go faster?"
Danny focused, then rocketed forward, colliding with the wall and dropping to the floor like a badly thrown paper airplane.
"Maybe you should have gone intangible?" Sam suggested, which prompted a "duh" from Danny as he stood up and walked back over to the bean bag.
The next hour 45 minutes were, much like earlier, spent practicing ghost powers, this time with an emphasis on flying, and combining flying with intangibility, until Mrs Foley shouted from downstairs. "Tucker, get downstairs!"
Tucker glanced at the clock, and sprang up from his bed, where he had taken to throwing and catching his teddy bear. "Oh, it's almost night. Don't freak if a wolf comes back in here later Danny, it's just me. Oh, and you can have my bed if your want. Anyway, gotta go, Mom says full moons are family time."
Danny nodded numbly as Tucker ran out the room.
"I should probably go home now before my parents freak out. Have fun with Fluffy." Sam waved to Danny, before leaving him alone in the bedroom.
Anxiety pressed against Danny's throat, and he was half-expecting to hear screaming and/or howling from downstairs. Apparently he was wrong, and Danny passed the time in the quiet by continuing to practice flying. Out of all the powers he'd gained that day, flying was definitely his favourite, though the concentration needed to avoid crashing did put a hamper on the experience. He honestly wanted to go flying outside, but decided against it - he didn't need to go freaking people out on his first day as a ghost, half-ghost - God this was confusing. Why couldn't his life just be simple?
Danny changed back to his human form in mid air, landing on the bed below him with a thump. A glance at the digital alarm clock on the bedside table told him it was 9:28 pm. Each of his limbs felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, the day's exhaustion catching up with him, but he pressed through the drowsiness to grab his bag from the floor and head into the bathroom.
Pulling his pyjamas out of the top of the bag, Danny quickly got changed, carrying his day clothes in one arm back to the bedroom. It only now occurred to him that he'd forgotten a change of underwear, but at this point he was too tired to care, simply giving himself a small mental slap.
Danny noticed that Tucker was still not back in his bedroom when he pushed the ajar door more open, and he wondered if he was going to be sleeping downstairs until he heard the sound of paws scampering up the stairs towards him.
A wolf with markings like large glasses around its eyes was trotting along the landing, and Danny had to fight the panic that was rising inside him at the sight of what should be a wild animal approaching him. That was, until the wolf rolled its eyes and pushed past him into the bedroom. No, now Danny was fighting panic at the fact that his best friend was a wolf. He really shouldn't have been surprised - Tucker had told him that he was a werewolf, but it was still a shock to the system to see.
Danny followed the wolf, Tucker, into the bedroom, placing his bag in the corner and flopping out on the bed, trying not to show that he was very much out of his depth in the situation. Tucker settled down next to the bed on the rug, turning in a circle before lying down. Danny closed his eyes, then realised that he'd left the light on, and got up to switch it off before finally settling under the covers.
As much as Danny was utterly exhausted, his brain was just starting to catch up with the information of the day, and it hit him like a freight train.
"Hey, Tuck?" he asked, knowing full well that his friend was unlikely to be capable of a proper answer at the moment. "Am I not human anymore?" His voice cracked and tears began to pour down his face part way through the sentence. Danny wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, and lowered it just to find a cold nose poking his elbow.
Tucker scrambled onto the bed, and rested next to Danny, his warm, layered fur soft to the touch. Danny buried his face in his best friend's shoulder, letting the tears leave his eyes unimpeded, sobs wracking his form as he drew shaky breaths.
• • •
The beeping of an alarm clock brought Danny from the depths of sleep, and he glanced in the direction of the clock, only to notice that a very human, thankfully fully-clothed Tucker was next to him, trying to hit the alarm clock without opening his eyes (and missing repeatedly). The alarm clock seemed louder than usual to Danny, but that might have just been because he was unusually drained. Regardless, Danny's ears were ringing by the time Tucker finally managed to switch off the alarm, knocking the clock to the floor in the process.
Tucker stood from the bed, glasses on, which can't have been comfortable to sleep in, and blinked the sleep out of his eyes. He reached a hand out, lifting Danny out of bed, something that Danny was grateful for, as he hadn't been sure if his legs would work.
"Are you okay, man?" Tucker asked, genuine concern etched on his face.
Danny froze, recalling the events of the previous day. Oh, yeah, he'd totally been crying last night, in case the flakes of tears dried to his eyelids weren't enough to convince him.
"Yeah, I'm fine." A lie, a blatant lie.
"By the way, I don't think it matters whether you're human or not, but it can help to think of yourself as a mutant - like the X-Men," Tucker said, voicing the thoughts he'd been incapable of verbalising the night before.
Coming from a werewolf, this was probably to be expected, Tucker had been dealing with the dilemma of not being fully human his entire life. It was surprisingly good advice, sending a wave of confidence and comfort through Danny, enough to allow him to pull himself out of his thoughts. "Thanks, Tuck." A light smile spread across Danny's features, and Tucker's eyes creased knowing he'd been able to help with Danny's crisis.
"No problem. That's what friends are for."
The two boys made their way downstairs, tempted by the smell of pancakes.
"Thanks for the pancakes, Mrs Foley," Danny said, pouring syrup on his plateful.
"It's no problem, you're our guest," she responded, digging into her own stack.
"Yeah, she'd never go to this much effort if your weren't 'round," Tucker spoke through his goopy mess of a meal, ignoring the glare sent his way by his mother.
The end of the meal led to Danny realising that he'd also forgotten his toothbrush in his haste to leave yesterday, and he made a note to create a overnight pack for the future while using a new toothbrush that Tucker had given him from the cupboard. Apparently werewolves needed a lot of toothbrushes because they were a bit stronger than they realised in the time approaching a full moon and their teeth were both larger and sharper than a regular human's.
Danny wondered if his condition had any similar side effects, besides the slow breathing and heart rate Mrs Foley had commented on when he first arrived. He'd have to check later.
The entire walk to school Danny had wanted to talk about the supernatural, but bit his tongue, knowing that he really shouldn't in public. Talking about secrets in public was a surefire way to get exposed, and he wasn't even sure he could explain any of this stuff away to his own parents, forget about a complete stranger, without huge fear and risk.
Sam joined them outside the classroom, and they sat together in Mr Lancer's class, feeling a lot closer than they had previously, despite sitting in the exact same seats as usual. Keeping a mutual secret life away from others had that effect, Danny supposed.
Mr Lancer entered the room and seemed rather surprised to see Danny there. Okay, that was odd. Danny glanced to his side to see both Sam and Tucker had picked up on this reaction and were on edge.
The lesson seemed ten times longer than usual, and Mr Lancer's drone was less boring and more just incomprehensible with Danny's nerves jittering. By the time the lesson was finished, Danny felt like sprinting away, but was called out by the teacher. "Mr Fenton, may I have a word after the lesson. The rest of you may go."
Danny felt like he was walking towards the gallows as he approached Mr Lancer's desk, the swarm of teens leaving in haste moving in slow motion. Sam and Tucker adamantly stuck by his side as he stood in front of the teacher's desk.
"Must you two stay?" Mr Lancer asked Sam and Tucker, to which they promptly insisted that they did, in fact, have to stay. Mr Lancer sighed and rubbed his temples, before closing the door and locking it.
"Daniel, has anything happened recently that you might like to tell me?"
Danny's stomach dropped. Oh no, he knew didn't he. How did he know?
"No?"
Mr Lancer cocked an eyebrow, and sat forward, hands clasped on his desk.
Tucker patted Danny on the back. "It's okay Danny, Lancer's a seer, he probably already knows."
Mr Lancer nodded and spoke calmly. "That is correct, Mr Foley, and the fact that you are telling Mr Fenton this suggests that he's a member of the supernatural community. Care to explain why I saw Mr Fenton's apparent death?"
"The Ghost Portal," breathed Danny, and Mr Lancer gestured to continue. "My parents built a portal to the Ghost Zone, and it-" Danny felt his throat tighten up. Talking about this to the Foleys was one thing, it was a comforting environment, but to his teacher, it felt like too personal of a thing to openly share.
"It's okay, you don't have to tell me, I just want to know what happened afterwards. Are you well now?" Mr Lancer soothed, his eyes unblinkingly locked on the raven-haired teen.
"I'm part ghost, but I'm still alive," Danny said, unsure of how much his teacher already knew. "I'm fine now, really."
"A halfa?" Mr Lancer questioned, his eyes glazing over like marbles. "Well, I never thought I'd see another, but let me tell you, Daniel, you do not need to bear the weight of the world on your shoulders. My office is open to anyone who needs to talk.
"With that out the way, I would like to wish you a good day. I suppose you will be getting a formal introduction to the supernatural community at the weekend."
"How did you know?" Danny cried, "oh, right, you're a seer." This whole supernatural community thing would take a lot of getting used to.
"Thank you, Mr Lancer," he said as Sam unlocked the door with some sort of skeleton key, literally, it looked like it was made of bones. The trio left the classroom, making their way to their next lesson, which they were somehow not late for, arriving just as the register was being taken.
The rest of the week passed in an anxious blur, and by the time the weekend came Danny could hardly stand still. He'd been spending evenings practicing his powers in his bedroom, and was pretty sure he had a good grip of them now, being able to handle invisibility, intangibility and flight all at the same time. He even managed to fly a bit in his human form, though it drained him like a triple-A battery trying to power a car.
His parents had been equally ecstatic, though for different reasons. With the portal up and running (though they still weren't sure how it had happened) the Fenton parents had been down in the lab 24/7, coming up only to cook or check on the kids, not that Danny was complaining about suddenly being left alone most of the time - it did mean he had more time to practice his powers in private.
The doorbell rang, and Danny grabbed a bag containing the essentials, in case of another overnight stay, and sprinted down the stairs, practically flying over the last step in his excitement, gliding the last foot a lot slower than gravity would normally allow. As odd as it was that he suddenly had supernatural powers, it felt natural to use them, and Danny actually found himself having to suppress them in public.
Sam was at the front door, her Grandma Ida and Tucker in tow, and Danny ran out to join them.
Ida eyed Danny curiously, obviously sensing that something was off about him. She wasn't the only one, Danny had noticed that cats seemed to be unusually affectionate towards him since the portal incident, and dogs seemed fearful, which honestly hurt him a bit to see.
Once they were far enough from the Fenton household, Ida led them down an alley, the walls marked with various graffiti artists' signatures, and a peculiar insignia, which resembled an alchemic or summoning circle, with little glyphs around the edges. Surely putting a magical marking where anyone could see it wasn't a good idea. If the supernatural community was as careful as they seemed to be about keeping their secrets, this was foolish.
"Only supernatural beings can see it," Sam explained, as though reading his mind, though with how expressive Danny's face was if wasn't out the question that he'd simply looked really confused or sceptical.
Ida tapped in the centre of the circle with her walking stick, the tip lighting up a bright violet as she did so. The light spread out along the lines of the runes, then the entire circular section of wall moved downwards with the column of wall below it, revealing a long sloped path lit by blue flaming fixtures.
The group made their way down the path, and everyone's breath except Danny's began to fog up before their faces.
"Are you going to explain your friend, Sammy?" enquired Ida, curious eyes boring into Danny's very soul.
Sam glanced at Danny, recognising the fact that his breath wasn't visible. "Danny, is it okay if I tell my grandma?"
Danny nodded.
"He's part ghost, or as Mr Lancer said, a halfa. There was an incident with the ghost portal, and he gained ghost powers, so we're introducing him to the supernatural community."
Ida hummed. "It's about time he found out. You lot have been best friends for ten years and you never told him? I'd be disappointed if I didn't know how strict the council is about staying secret.
"But a halfa, you say, we haven't heard about one of those for decades." Ida looked deep in thought for a moment before snapping back to reality. "A halfa is someone who's half ghost and half human. That's a rare gift you have there, boy, use it wisely."
Danny would've thought that she was going to reference some prophecy if it weren't for the cheeky glint in her eye and Sam's stories of her grandmother's pranks (many of which, in hindsight, probably included magic).
"There are others like me?!" Danny shrieked, his veins bubbling with hope.
Ida smiled and nodded sadly. "Yes, many in the past, but there's only been one other in the last century. The circumstances for one to be born are incredibly difficult - a connection between dimensions doesn't appear every day. And unfortunately the only other halfa to visit Amity hasn't returned since, oh, I'd say fifteen years ago. He met with the council, then left when he didn't get what he wanted. Goodness knows where he is now."
"Grandma, we're nearly there," Sam interrupted, and Danny turned his attention away from Ida to focus on the path ahead, which ended in an archway lined with glittering gemstones, leading into a huge open area with a water fountain in the middle of the square. The fountain was extravagant, with glowing crystals forming the majority of the structure, and grey rocks with small fragments of gemstones embedded in them made up the rim. The tiled floor was embedded with various dents and scorch marks, that clearly came from the beings of various shapes and sizes that filled the area, passing back and forth, many with shopping bags laden with odd contraptions, bottles of vibrantly coloured substances, and other strange objects that Danny couldn't identify from a distance.
Some of the beings appeared human, but Danny couldn't be sure - he was pretty sure that the pale guy sipping from a glass of what was either red wine or blood in a nearby bar was a vampire, though he could just have easily been a regular human with how strangely the people here dressed, his Victorian garb seeming relatively normal. It was like someone had mushed together every culture and time period in human history into one place, and then some.
An ogre stomped past, clad in a kilt, a tote bag clasped in its beefy hand, as Danny tried his best to stick close to his friends and Ida in the bustling area.
"Just a little further," said Ida, more to herself than anyone else, as they rounded a corner into an alleyway. The stone walled buildings had thatched roofs, and now they were out of the crowd Danny took a moment to look up and admire the constellations of sparkling gemstones on the the ceiling, a large cluster descending somewhere further off from the group of mostly-humans.
Sam practically dragged Danny with them into a nearby little shop, noticing that he was gawking at the ceiling. "Just wait until you see everything else here, it's awesome. We'll stay out of the housing area though, that's probably not important for you unless you make friends with a troll or something."
The shop they had entered was a dingy bookstore, cobwebs reaching across the corners and bookshelves despite the rest of the shop being immaculate. Of course, being a bookshop, there were books covering every inch of the walls, and a couple of tables dotted the limited floor space. A bored-looking teen with huge bat wings sat behind the counter, horned head buried in a heavy, hardback book.
"Since you're new to the supernatural community, we figured you might like to be able to do some reading about our history, and I think there might be a book about ghosts here," Tucker suggested eagerly, picking one of the few books in the english off the shelf and offering it to Danny.
The title read 'The Encyclopedia of Magical Beings', and the book itself was at least 600 pages long. Danny took the book in both his hands, reading the back. 'Rottingham's guide to every known being in the supernatural community is a perfect read for children or adults seeking knowledge about those they live with, and their social conventions.
Each fact has been checked with the members of each faction to ensure that the information contained in this book is correct, and is the ideal way to learn about the interesting individuals that make up our community, with illustrations by Ivory Penscribe.'
"It's a good read," Ida said, peering over Danny's shoulder. "I got Sam a copy when she joined the community, she read it nonstop for weeks." Sam nodded in confirmation of this statement.
The group went around the shop, picking out various books that they thought might be useful, or just that caught Danny's interest, placing them on the counter with significant effort.
The teen scanned each book and then returned the price.
"Don't worry, I'll cover it," Ida interrupted Danny before he could even argue that he'd pay. Of course, he wasn't actually sure if they accepted US dollars in the supernatural community, and was surprised when Ida paid with a $50 note.
Catching onto Danny's shock, Sam teased, "you didn't think we used knuts, sickles and galleons, did you?"
Danny coughed, prompting laughter from Sam and Tucker.
During the time of this exchange, the cashier had bagged all the books, and Danny was left heaving a sturdy bag full of books.
"Hide them well when you get home," Ida advised. "Your powers should come in useful for that."
Danny nodded, already planning all the places he could intangibly slip the book into, mostly in the wall and floor, but the mattress wasn't out the the question.
The group left the store, which Danny saw was named the Skulk and Lurk. Huh, he'd heard Sam talk about the store before, but just assumed it was a regular book store. It somewhat saddened him to think about how much his friends hadn't told him, but he was equally grateful to be included now.
"So, where are we going now?" Danny asked, trotting next to his friends with the bag hurled over his shoulder.
"Hmm, we need to pick up some more herbs while we're here, but after that we'll give you a tour," said Ida, making her way back out of the alleyway and into the main road, which led into a market, brightly coloured stalls stacked with odd products, from vials to charms to fruit and plants. Ida and Sam approached one of the vendors, discussing what to buy and holding various dried plants and jars of, well Danny wasn't sure what they were, probably some kinds of magical plants, but they looked weird. One of the jars contained something that looked almost like beans, but with blisters along it.
"Slightly overwhelming?" Tucker asked, clapping Danny on his shoulder without the bag on.
"Yeah, a bit," Danny replied with a light smirk.
Tucker grinned back. "I know I can't really relate, since I was introduced to the community as a little kid, but you can go home or somewhere quiet if it gets too much. This place is kinda crazy."
"Thanks Tuck." Danny shifted the bag on his shoulder to a more comfortable position. "I'm fine, really. It's awesome here."
Sam and Ida returned, a woven bag filled with supplies in Sam's hand. "Do you want to get something for yourself?" Sam offered, and Danny politely declined (if he did buy something, where would he put it?).
They were about to leave the market for the underground town centre, when a familiar obnoxious voice called out to them. "Fenturd?! What are you doing here?"
Danny groaned, and turned around, seeing Dash Baxter striding towards them from the crowd, or at least, Danny assumed it was Dash. The broad-shouldered boy approaching them had large protruding teeth on his lower jaw, an oddly blue complexion, and a whip-like tail.
Sam and Tucker jumped to Danny's defense, standing between him and Dash. "What's it matter to you, Dash?" asked Sam, arms folded.
Dash huffed. "It matters because he isn't part of the community, he's just a regular human with freaky parents."
The argument was beginning to draw attention, a small cluster of beings stopping their shopping to observe.
"Actually, he is part of the community," Sam leveled Dash with a glare, daring him to argue.
Dash, being the fool he was, decided to question them. "Oh, yeah, prove it." He pushed past Sam and Tucker to grab Danny by the front of his shirt, only to don a look of shock when he couldn't lay a finger on the smaller boy. Crud, Danny had turned intangible on reflex.
Dash swiped through what might have well just been the air, his hand passing through Danny a few times before he staggered back. "You're dead!?" he cried, fear creeping into his voice.
"What? No," Danny started. The memory of the portal accident still fresh in his mind, he wasn't entirely sure that he hadn't died, but denial was as good as anything.
Dash wouldn't let him explain, cutting him off mid sentence. "You weren't solid, only a ghost or a spirit can do that, and I know you sure as hell aren't a spirit. Oh, God, why'd you do it?"
"HE'S NOT DEAD!" shrieked Sam, unintentionally drawing the attention of anyone who wasn't already interested in their conversation.
Murmurs passed through the crowd, and a stout dwarf stepped forward, speaking with a heavy Welsh accent. "She's right, lad. I can hear his heartbeat."
The whispers grew in intensity, and a few appeared to suddenly be struck with fear.
"A halfa!" proclaimed a fairy, who quickly slapped a hand across their mouth and dove back into the depths of the crowd.
Danny glanced around, Sam and Tucker at his sides defensively, expecting to be attacked, but no attack came.
The onlookers were now chatting wildly, and a few newcomers to the situation struggled to get past into the market.
"What's going on here?" came a stern voice, and the crowd parted to let a tall woman with bold red hair tied into a tight bun through. Glasses sat on her small nose, and her entire face seemed to be pointed.
Her eyes then fell on the group of mostly-humans, in the middle, inspecting them with calculating eyes. "Again, would anyone mind to explain what's going on here?"
"That boy there's a halfa," supplied a rock creature, with much too long arms that dragged against the floor as the creature stepped forward. "He turned intangible, yet he's alive."
The fox-faced woman stood still. "Is this true?" She directed the question at Danny.
Danny opened his mouth to speak, but not sound came out, so he settled for a shaky nod.
The woman hummed, Sam and Tucker shuffled closer to Danny in support. "Come with me, your friends can come along too," she instructed, striding past them and in the direction of the large cluster of crystals on the ceiling.
"She's on the council, this is either really good, or really bad," Tucker muttered to Danny as they followed the lady through the streets, the crowds splitting as they followed the strict-looking lady.
"Oh," Danny said, not quite sure what was going on, his mind was still stuck on his classmate's appearance. "What was up with Dash?"
"He's a changeling, he can change his appearance between that and a human disguise. Sorry I didn't tell you," Tucker explained.
"There's a general agreement that you don't out each other among the community," Sam elaborated, then scowled. "Shame others couldn't be bothered to keep it for you…"
"It's fine. It could always be worse." Danny kept his eyes focused ahead as not to get lost in the winding passages of the town. He wasn't really sure how he felt, other than the anxiety that gripped his gut.
Ida spoke up from behind them. "I wouldn't worry too much - most of the people here are just surprised to see a halfa. Lots of children grow up hearing about them as legends, and Plasmius wasn't exactly sociable when he visited."
"Plasmius?" Danny asked.
Ida nodded. "That's what the last halfa to visit before you called himself. Weird man."
The councilwoman turned around to address them as they neared a towering building, grand pillars lining either side of the broad entrance. The cluster of crystals practically touched the point of the roof, illuminating the tiling with its soft glow. "You're not in any trouble, I just wanted us to be away from the crowd for this discussion." She gestured to the doorway ahead of them. "I'll find us a meeting room."
Danny felt like a small child as she led them through the lobby, and through crisply carpeted corridors. Many of the people standing around the building greeted the councilwoman formally, to which she briskly replied, continuing to stride past.
They finally stopped outside a room with a sign on the outside that could be flipped between occupied and vacant. The woman changed the sign to occupied and invited the group in.
Several large sofas took up the majority of the space, and a coffee table with a tissue box and clipboard on sat in the middle of the chairs. The floor was carpeted much like the hallways, with clearly visible worn pathways around the room, areas almost worn bare in front of the doorway and chairs. A tall, ornate window gave a view of a forest, the evergreen trees blowing gently in a breeze as sunlight streamed in through the leaves in patches.
"Take a seat," offered the woman, sitting down herself in a chair positioned such that it faced all the others.
Danny took one of the seats opposite her, his friends taking up sofas on either side, while Ida chose one slightly further away from the councilwoman, relaxing as she sank into the leathery fabric of the cushions.
The councilwoman lost a lot of her stern demeanor as she surveyed the children. "I suppose I should introduce myself: my name is Miss Rica Kyuu, I'm one of the twelve on the Amity head council.
I would like to apologise for the behaviour of the citizens in the market, it was not appropriate of them to single you out like that for your race. Mister…?"
"Fenton. Danny Fenton," he said quickly. "It's okay, it's not their fault."
"Pardon me, Fenton? Like the ghost hunters who live on the surface?" barked Miss Kyuu.
Danny nodded cautiously, and Sam and Tucker mirrored his tension.
"Are your parents aware of your status as a halfa?"
Danny shook his head - words weren't quite working for him right now.
"Ah, well, that does complicate things. Typically supernatural traits are passed on genetically, but I assume you weren't born as a halfa."
Danny nodded again.
"Then I would like to take this moment to welcome you to the supernatural community. While I sincerely hope that you find this community to be accepting, we do have certain rules:
One, you are not to inform non-supernatural individuals of our presence. I'm sure you can understand why we have this rule in place for our own safety. The Salem witch trials are not something any of us wish to be repeated on a larger scale."
Danny gulped and Sam looked rather uncomfortable.
"Secondly, much like in any other set of laws, you may not cause harm to others or their property." Miss Kyuu quickly became bored with listing rules, instead choosing to summarise them, "etceteria, etceteria. Overall, our laws are not dissimilar to that of the USA as a whole, simply with additional strict laws preventing us from being exposed to the general population.
You may inform your immediate family of yourself and the community, but they will then be bound by our laws themselves, and punished appropriately if they inform others outside of the community.
With that out of the way, we have help available in terms of controlling abilities towards the front of the building, and I wish you a good day. Do you have any questions?"
"No thanks, I'm good," Danny managed to force out quietly.
"Very well then, shall we leave?" commanded Miss Kyuu, falling back into her strict facade.
The room was evacuated, and the sign flipped back to vacant. Miss Kyuu hastily walked away down the corridor, into the deeper recesses of the building, leaving the group to walk back towards the entrance.
"Man, I don't think I've ever heard of anyone being personally greeted by a member of the council," Tucker commented once Miss Kyuu was out of sight. "Should we be worried or honored?"
"Both. It's because, halfas have historically been incredibly powerful," Ida explained, broaching the topic slowly. "I wouldn't be surprised if she saw Danny as a threat of sorts."
Danny was dumbfounded. "I'm not exactly a threat though, am I?"
"Perhaps not, but the council have had a lot of tension over the years. They're all incredibly old and powerful beings, and they've likely seen previous halfas over the centuries," Ida sighed. "Try to keep a low profile and make sure to appear friendly. You seem to have made a good impression so far."
Sam interjected, "there's something else, isn't there?"
Ida gave a sly grin at the scepticism of her granddaughter. "They could also be trying to recruit Danny for the council when he's older. Either way, he needs to keep his wits about him."
Danny wasn't really happy about this. First ghost powers, then a supernatural community, then this. Danny's nerves jittered and a cold prickling sensation of ectoplasm reminded him that he was really out of his depth at the moment.
The walk back had an unspoken tension to it as the new information sank in.
A few people, mostly children, approached Danny to ask if it was true that he was a halfa. Apparently word had spread quick. At least the interactions were mostly positive.
As the group made their way back up the tunnel they entered through, Danny voiced one of the questions he'd had throughout most of the interactions with strangers on the walk. "Y'know earlier, how you mentioned Plasmius, what's he like?"
Ida back to him, leading the way down the path. "I didn't meet him personally, I just heard about him through the grapevine."
Noticing that all three of the children were interested, Ida continued. "Apparently he flew into the Crystal - that's the name of the building where we met with Miss Kyuu, Danny - and demanded a meeting with the council. They never said what happened in the meeting, but Plasmius stormed out like he was ready to kill someone. Then he just dropped off the face of the earth."
"And no one's heard about him since?" Sam asked, and Ida shook her head.
"No, and that was about fifteen years ago."
The path seemed to end, but as they approached the blank wall at the end it opened up like it had on the way in, leading out into the alley. It was now mid afternoon, and Danny recalled that he had homework to do for the Monday.
Saying their goodbyes, and Ida and Sam extended an invitation to Danny to visit their house, something that Danny readily accepted, excited to learn more about his friends' and now his world.