Chapter 1

School. Sucks.

Whoever invented school should be condemned to the ghost zone for the rest of their existence. Now that we all know that's a real place, that idea just got so much more possible, even though whoever invented "school" is probably already IN the ghost zone and has been for millennia.

But I wish he could see what it is today, I'm sure he didn't intend it to be a cage in which there's hungry, hungry bears like Jeff and fresh, tender meat… like myself.

This bear happens to be behind me right now as a matter of fact. I find these chases repetitive, exhausting and usually, in the end, very painful.

I slid around a corner and threw myself into an open door on the wall.

Storage cabinet? Is there a better option?

I flicked the light switch on for only a second before I saw what I needed to and turned it back off, leaping behind a vacuum covered in a protective cloth and slamming the door closed behind me so Mr. Hungry bear could follow my trail.

A couple seconds later, Jeff threw the door open, knocking over a pile of brooms next to it.

"Sharp!" He shouted. Raiden Sharp, by the way, nice to meet you, formalities later. And pushed the light switch up.

Then I turned the vacuum on blow, the sheet inflated instantaneously and I shrieked as high as my little pubescent voice could go, which, I'm sad to say, was still pretty high.

But, if there's anything nice about this situation, it was that Jeff shrieked higher.

"Ghost!"

My life was pretty awful most of the time, but there were some very lovely moments, I had to admit.

I waited a couple seconds for Jeff to close the door and run screaming down the hallway, then stood up when I couldn't register anything he said anymore.

I felt pretty inflated actually, usually this ended with a wedgie and a very sore arm, or a black eye, or any other number of awful things. This was a nice change.

I walked out the door, flipping off the lights and turned back around the corner.

Thus running smack dab into Christine. Ah Christine.

Aaaaand deflated.

Christine and I had a lot of history together, she really softened me up, by which I mean she made me more tender than most other girls, by which I mean she psychologically beat me to a pulp and tore my heart when she left me. Needless to say, I was completely and utterly silent for a moment. Christine looked up, considering that at 5'9" I was quite a bit taller than her at 5', and then down guiltily. She was a nice girl, and I suppose she knew how much she hurt me. But just because you're in love, deeply and truly, obsessively, pathetically, in love with someone, that doesn't mean they love you too.

The breakup wasn't too bad, she was very soft about it, she just also happened to hang around with the same people in the same places as I usually did, which made my semi-crappy life infinitely more craptacular.

SO of course I said something cool like "uuuuuh" before ducking my head, muttering sorry and running away with my tail wedged way between my legs.

Yes, just the kind of man she wanted.

I went back to the Chemistry room and picked up my backpack. The school day had ended about 20 minutes ago, but I'd stayed after in order to make up some work in the chem lab. Jeff stayed after to make up a LOT more work than I did, and now he was probably back in the main office calling the security guards.

All of the security guards carried a piece of Fenton artillery. Of course they couldn't have guns to fend off people, but ghosts weren't really considered people. And after Danny Phantom, aka Danny Fenton, saved the world and told everyone who he was, people pretty much flocked to the Fentons for ghost fighting equipment. Military, National Guard, Private and Public Security, Civilians, so many people wanted the Fenton's tech nowadays, they'd pretty much become billionaires.

Which made it much more dangerous for all of the ghosts who popped up. But their numbers pretty much negated the new weapons. After the ghosts used their ghost powers on the world, there have been a lot more openings from the ghost zone into the real world. The Fenton's theory was that the ghosts left some spectral trails or extra energy in our atmosphere and it manifested itself into ghost portals. Which means more ghosts come through, which means more portals are created. It kind of sucks like that. That was over a year ago, and they're still popping up out of the blue.

I walked out the front door into a full-fledged hurricane, the funnel of which was directly over the front lawn of the school. Admittedly, Wisconsin sees a lot of storm systems during this part of the year, but I can't remember the last storm we've had that was this powerful, or this concentrated over a specific area… or this green… or had a face.

"Humans! Tremble before the might of Vortex!" Shouted the storm at all of the other students nearby.

Jeff ran out the front door behind me with a group of the guards at our school, pointing at the ghost and shouting, "I TOLD you!"

The guards drew all of their Fenton tech, crazy looking white and green instruments. One of them looked a lot like a gun, another was a stick with a mass of wire like appendages and a Fenton face stuck to the middle of it, this would have been intimidating if it wasn't so ridiculous, and another was just a pair of glowing green nunchuks, which seemed a little stupid as well. Each one had a Fenton Thermos strapped to his waist.

The guards all jumped at Vortex simultaneously, they shot and struck and swung at him stupidly while he just beat them back. The first two guards went flying and landed in a tree, the third turned to face Vortex.

"Boo" he said. Dropping his nunchuks and thermos, the guard screamed and ran inside.

Well, what do you expect; public schools.

Now the storm, ghost, whatever, turned on Jeff and raised his fist like he was going to smash him into the school steps.

I really shouldn't have been that upset about this, but as much of a jerk as Jeff was, I couldn't let him die. I ran forward and tackled him out of the way just as Vortex fists crushed the first four stairs to the school as well as the iron railing. I was pretty small, about 120 pounds to his probable 240, but I was enough to get him a good 4 feet out of the way.

"Watch it, Sharp!" He screamed at me, pushing me off and getting to his feet.

"You're welcome Jeff." I retorted.

"Hey, Vortex. You look a little heated." Came a third voice. I'd heard it before, in interviews, on TV, even on the radio once or twice. But I'd never seen Danny Phantom until now.

I looked up, and he was floating there, his bottom half a quivering black cone.

I should have said something cool, but I could only stare.

"I think I feel a coldfront coming in." He shouted, flinging his hand back and then throwing it forward, a blue light flashing. Shards of ice flew out and impaled Vortex against the front wall of the school.

If I could just get to the Thermos I could-

Vortex roared and tore himself from the school, his green skin melding back together around holes in his chest.

Flying forward, he grabbed Danny and threw him to the ground.

"I think you need to chill out" Vortex shouted, holding his hands above his head as a huge ice sphere formed and grew spikes.

"Dude, really?" Danny said.

"What, what's wrong with that?"

"Oh nothing" I introduced myself into the conversation. "Just should have ended with something like 'Don't worry, there's a sunny side to every situation.'"

I clicked the Fenton thermos on and closed my eyes as it shook in my hands. Vortex screamed and the thermos vibrated, a flash of pale blue light and he was gone.

The clouds dispersed and the sun returned, Danny stood and walked over to me.

"Well, nice job I guess" he said.

"Thanks, I mean, I see you do it on TV all the time, I guess I just kind of know by seeing it happen.." I said back, holding out the Thermos for him to take.

"Yeah, not a lot of kids take on ghosts though, most still run."

"Oh, okay… so what are you doing in Wisconsin anyway, I thought Amity Park was in Minnesota."

"Well, yeah, I just was tracking Vortex down, he kind of took something of mine. There's a ghost portal nearby and it was just a quick way to get here."

While he spoke, Danny turned to Thermos over and flipped a switch, the thermos opened on the bottom and out popped a ring.

"Sam was missing this." He said, a small smile on his face.

That's right, the hero gets the girl. I guess I'm not really hero material then. Memories of Christine always found the weirdest ways to slide to the front of my thoughts. Flashbacks came out of the weirdest connections.

"Anway, I'll see you around I guess.."

"Raiden" I answered his unspoken question. "It's nice to meet you."

Danny smiled and took off, I guess I've seen it on TV too much, but seeing a person flying just didn't come across as all that strange to me anymore.

I couldn't help it, I knew I was just an avid fan boy who wanted to spend time with his hero, but I really wanted to find the ghost portal, I was curious. Delusions of working alongside Danny Phantom, how could Christine say no then?!

I ran to the parking lot and jumped into my car, turned the key and raced off after him.