Chapter 2:
(This One's for my sis… And if you see tears on your screen, it's because this plot is hitting too close to home for me.)
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The shadow peered out after the three teens as they headed to the food court. She had been waiting for her revenge for far too long. Twice the ghost-kid had ruined her plans. If she ever wanted to obtain her immortality, she would have to take him out of the picture first. He was too powerful to fight head to head. Logic would dictate a mere half-ghost should not have the power to overcome such monsters as Skulker, the Fright Night, or Pariah Dark. But Danny Phantom was not just a half-ghost, he was also the son of two inventors, and besides using their inventions on the sly, he'd seemed to have also developed his own impulsive form of battle strategy, able to turn a fight to his advantage by pulling an unexpected and dirty trick.
She growled to herself. She'd had him in her grasp twice, and both times he'd managed to wriggle free and humiliate her.
A green ghost materialized behind her.
"You got it? She asked him."
"Right here," he held up a jar. Inside a small green light buzzed around, whispering. "It wasn't easy sneaking it away from Skulker."
"Good." She took the jar from her minion. She held it up to her face. "He won't be able to escape me… even in his dreams."
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"Are you paying ANY attention to what I'm trying to tell you?"
Marz pried his eyes away from Jazz's rack. It just wasn't right for tutors to look that good. Marz rubbed his temples.
"Yeah. I just… need to stretch my legs." He got up, doing just that.
Jazz stared in amazement as he actually lifted his leg straight up past his head. He then stretched it the other way.
"So you're saying that we act different ways around different people in order to gain acceptance?" He asked, trying to remember what she had been explaining before her shirt had shifted.
"Yeah, that's one of the first things I told you." Jazz rolled her eyes. "I then spent about half an hour giving you examples."
"I remember a lot of big words."
Jazz growled a bit.
Marz stretched his back, reaching for his toes. Jazz looked away, holding her face in her hands.
"Are you quite done yet?"
Marz stood up straight, stretching his arms behind his head.
"Yup." He plopped back into the seat, crossing his arms back over the backrest.
"Good. Now let's look at these exercises…"
"I do exercises all the time."
"Not that kind, Marz!" Jazz groaned.
He grinned. He'd been joking, of course. Jazz was so easy to get a reaction out of.
"Hey Jazzerincess!" Jack Fenton boomed from behind Marz, causing him to jump.
Jack stared at the boy in confusion. "Who's this?"
"Dad, this is Marz Stanton. I'm tutoring him."
Jack Fenton got up in Marz's face, studying him closely.
"He seems human." Jack decided. "But better safe than sorry. Maddie!" He yelled down the stairs. "Get the Fenton Finder!"
"The Fenton Finder?" Jazz asked, mortified.
"We fixed it so that it will detect ghosts overshadowing humans."
Maddie Fenton ran up the stairs, carrying a small handheld device with bars on the sides, which lit up and gave off a soft buzzing sound.
She swept it up and down the length of Marz's body.
"He's giving off very low ecto-readings. He's safe." She declared.
"And it's very nice to meet you two too." Marz grinned.
"Hey Jazz, we want you to see our latest invention though." Jack said, practically bouncing. Marz's chair shook with the floor.
Maddie picked up a box off the floor where Jack had dropped it. She pulled out a power pack, which she strapped to her back. Out of the sides of the pack were plastic tubes, which ran down to fingerless leather gloves. Maddie pulled on the gloves and strapped the loose tubes to her arms with smaller leather straps.
Jack fiddled with a few dials on the power pack. Green light flowed down the tubes into the gloves. Maddie's hands began to glow green. The glow intensified into a glowing green orb.
Marz and Jazz stared wide-eyed as the green orb grew larger and brighter. The orb then exploded into a ray, blasting a hole in the ceiling.
"Hmm, we still need to work on controlling the energy levels." Maddie mumbled to herself.
"What was that?" Jazz asked.
"We call them the Ecto-Gloves. They make it so that you can throw balls of ectoenergy like a ghost can!" Jack swelled with pride.
"But we're still trying to figure out how to control the blasts." Maddie added.
Plaster sprinkled down onto the table.
Jazz groaned and buried her face in her arms.
Marz just grinned.
Line Break.
"…And they keep them pumped with these hormones that make them grow unnaturally large so that they can't even stand. And if they fall over or get injured, the workers will pick them up by the neck and then beat them againt the ground and throw them into a bin…"
Tucker and Danny were already green from listening to Sam's latest litany on the cruelty of slaughterhouses.
"Sam, we're trying to eat, you know." Danny interrupted.
"By buying that chicken sandwich you're supporting this cruelty!" Sam argued.
"Do we really need to have this fight again?" Tucker asked, biting down into his sandwich.
Danny looked at his own sandwich, then pushed it away, his appetite fading fast. He could of taken Sam's lecture, but when she had nabbed Tucker's PDA and forced them to watch the video… well, that was a little too much.
Sam looked triumphant.
"Dude, Sam, you made Danny sick!" Tucker scolded her, crumbs flying out of his mouth.
"Oh yeah, well maybe he'll think twice before supporting slaughterhouse cruelty.
"Great, not only have I lost my appetite, but I'm getting a headache." Danny mumbled as the two friends took up their age-old fight. He had thought they had finally settled that particular fight after the Lunch Lady's first attack on the school.
Lifting up his head, he noticed small smiles on both their faces.
Danny rolled his eyes. It was just another one of their play-fights.
The friendly bantering was cut short as Danny gasped, a small wisp of blue breath escaping from his mouth.
"Um, guys, I gotta go…"
"The bathrooms are next to the Patty-Palace." Sam reminded him, knowing fully that that was the last thing on his mind.
Danny ran over to the bathroom.
Moments later Danny Phantom peeked invisible, through the wall of the Patty-Palace.
"Those are Guccis, you jerk!" A feminine voice screeched.
"I AM THE BOX GHOST!" The blue specter replied, shoeboxes circling around him.
"I don't care if you're the Ghost King, you're not removing that merchandise without paying first!" the girl yelled back, throwing a foot-measure at the Box Ghost's face. He responded by making the shoeboxes pour their contents out on her head.
"Come on, Box Ghost, What's with the Guccis today?" Danny asked him, appearing from the floor.
The Box ghost turned to face him. "I AM THE BOX GHOST!" He yelled.
"And I'm Danny Phantom. Remember, I fight you about twice a week? Do you really need to keep introducing yourself?"
The Box Ghost stared at him blankly for a moment.
"BEWARE!" Boxes of sneakers rose up out of their piles.
"Nike! Now that's more like it!" Danny laughed, going intangible as the boxes flew right through him.
"Quit cracking wise, idiot!" The shop-girl poked her head out from under the pile of shoes. "Make him stop tearing apart the store!"
Line Break
"Now, while he's distracted!" the shadow shook her assistant. He opened the jar, the light shooting out rocketing towards Danny. It hit him in the back, causing him to cry out in pain. He shook it off quickly though, and just in time to dodge a show the shopgirl had thrown at his head and pull out the Fenton Thermos, sucking the Box Ghost into it, ending the fight.
Line Break
"There, happy?" Danny phased the shop-girl through the pile of shoes. She dusted herself off, giving him a death-glare that could probably put a couple of ghosts back in their graves.
"Look at this mess, jerk! If you'd wasted less time on the banter and had just sucked that idiot into that bottle ("Thermos," Danny corrected) then there wouldn't be Prada spilling out all over the- YOU THERE! Leave those Nikes alone! Yeah, you better run!" The shop girl ran after a couple of guys who had slung a pair of high-tops over their shoulders.
Danny took that as his chance to also escape the shoe-seller's wrath, turning invisible and flying out through the shop window.
Pathetic, you should have dusted the Box Ghost in seconds. You're a waste…
Danny shook his head, wondering where that thought had come from. He'd been messing around with the Box Ghost. He wasn't much of a threat, just a little annoying and at best a little entertaining on dull Saturdays.
You let a puny shop girl get in more hits than you, loser.
Danny ignored the thought, but it was disconcerting. He tried to ignore it, but the thoughts kept echoing in the back of his head.
The rest of the afternoon found Danny very quiet, something his friends didn't notice at first. Sam and Tucker had moved on from meat V.S. veggie to C.R.V. vans V.S. hybrid cars.
"Danny?" Sam finally asked as they were splitting for home, "What's up? You haven't said a thing since the mall."
Danny shook his head. "Nothing Sam. I'm just tired, that's all."
Sam gave her friend a look. Whenever Danny said that, it meant that there was definitely something up.
"I'll see you guys tomorrow!" Danny said in a forced voice.
All you do is hurt them. Whenever they're around you they get hurt. You drag them down. You're a plague on their lives. They'd be better off if you just died.
Danny turned from his friends a bit too quickly, running home.
"Something's up with Danny." Tucker noticed.
"Oh, you think?" Sam asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
Line Breaking Thingy…
(If you haven't already guessed who the "mysterious" villain is, then you just haven't been paying attention, have you now? I've done everything short of saying her name… Actually I did before I caught myself and changed it.)