"I'm concerned about this Ghost Club. Okay, not the idea of it, I mean letting Danny Fenton speak there. It's a bad move; some of those kids are going to think its a go-ahead to start fighting any ghost attacks on the school. Yes, having some kids with a better idea of what's going on isn't a bad idea, but what happens when they start smuggling in anti-ghost weapons bought from wherever or start leaping into those fights instead of following our safety procedures?"
- Mister Faluca, Casper High math and sciences teacher, to Mister Lancer and Missus Tetslaff in regards to the Ghost Club. Tetslaff then proceeded to chew him out for being meek about kids growing some spine.
Chapter 2
Casper High
"Oh crud," the Box Ghost said before being sucked into the Thermos again. Mikey was grinning widely as he figured out the device. The Box Ghost had been doing some basic left-right dodging maneuvers, but Danny had warned him that he would go ghost and beat the snot out of him if he tried to escape or counterattack, and made it clear to the others that if Danny went ghost they were to not fire the Thermos in case he got sucked into it.
"Nice shot," Danny congratulated. He had gone over the general gist of the powers, giving them a rundown of intangibility, invisibility, flight, and some of the more offensive powers like ghost rays, though he never fired any, he just told them how they worked. He was now going over basic gadgets like the Thermos. The Box Ghost had been sucked in four times already, and now it was Valerie's turn. Released again, the Box Ghost looked at Valerie and quaked in fear before she flipped the switch and sucked him in.
"Wow, he seemed freaked about you." Ricky pointed out as Valerie capped the Thermos with a smug grin that Danny put down to finally figuring out how to use a Thermos. Valerie raised an eyebrow before Kwan helpfully interjected, unaware he was breaking a train of thought.
"So, Danny," he asked. "Why don't you use this as an opener in your fights?"
"Ah, that's the question I was waiting for." Danny said as he released the Box Ghost and let the next kid take a shot with it. "The Thermos can suck anyone in; heck, it sucks me in too when I go ghost. Conventionally speaking, it just takes time to aim and charge and I usually send them back into the Ghost Zone before holding them becomes too much of a problem. But, the main reason I don't use it as an opener all the time is because not every ghost stays in there. With some time, a full strength ghost of sufficient power can break free with a little well placed power, unless they cooperate and don't try to break out." The Box Ghost was sucked in yet again, Danny glancing down on the capped Thermos as he checked to make sure it was still working properly. "If I tried to trap the Fright Knight in there without first beating him up, he'd probably break out within an hour or so, probably sooner."
"Don't they recover eventually, though?" Valerie asked as Paulina gave it a try and kept missing, Danny keeping a finger pointed at the Box Ghost ready to hit him if he tried something. "I mean, you seem to just keep coming for more from what the news shows."
"They do and yes, ghosts recover fairly quickly, but the Thermos impedes that. I mean, you try being crammed in there for a couple hours." Danny shrugged as Paulina finally managed to get the Box Ghost and suck him inside. "So, beating them up first then sucking them into the Thermos is my usual MO, then I just flush them into the Ghost Zone, though occasionally I have time to shoot the ghost as a starter."
"Don't they come back, though?" Ricky pointed out. "Strikes me like you don't really do anything to them but foil them and throw them inside."
"Yeah, but what am I going to do? Hold them prisoner at home?" He shrugged. "I hated those Masters' Blasters, but Vlad wasn't wrong about it being expensive to hold ghosts, especially ones as powerful as Undergrowth. Besides, the Ghost Zone has its own politics going on too, so they have to deal with their own home issues instead of just coming back for more on top of recovering."
"Still, it isn't really a permanent solution if they can just keep coming." Valerie cut in. "Chances are, with some of them we'd want that."
"Unfortunately," Danny answered. "There's some that I'd love to put down for a nice long while too. Either way though, the only permanent solution outside of long term entrapment in Thermos' and ghost shields that I know of is already used to contain Pariah Dark." He shrugged. "Besides, even if we got rid of all our portals, there's still natural ones on top of that, and some ghosts can make their own passages. So there isn't really a surefire way of separating everything." He glanced up as the Box Ghost was growling and his hand started glowing a light green as he charged a plasma shot. The Box Ghost stood still at the sight and was sucked into the Thermos by the next person trying.
"Alright. Let's give him a break." Danny said to the group. "Now, there's a few more pieces of gadgets I want to go over before this ends. One, ecto-weapons like the guns my parents make. No demonstrations for obvious reasons." He turned the power point back on and moved it to several pictures of various ecto-weapons and switched to Phantom. "The big selling point about these is that they don't just pass through a ghost when they hit." He glanced at Kwan. "Kwan, you have a hacky sack or something like that on you?"
"Uh, yeah." Kwan said as he rifled through his jacket and pulled the red sack out. "Why?"
Danny stood to make sure the angle was out of the way of anything fragile, which resulted in him floating a foot off the ground. "Throw it at me; aim for my chest or stomach."
The football player nodded after a moment and threw it at him with impressive velocity and aim. But, for all the velocity, it just passed through his ectoplasmic form without actually doing any damage to him other than a faint tickling sensation and hit the white board behind him. There was a brief whisper throughout the class before Danny dropped back to the floor. "Now, imagine that was thrown hard enough to break your bones or a sniper rifle out of Doomed. You'd have the same result, it'd just pass through." He picked up the hacky, switched back to his human form, and tossed it back to Kwan who caught it.
"Now, ecto-weapons would hurt instead of just passing through, whether they're made out of anti-ecto energy or an anti-ecto material. So, general rule of thumb is if you want to hurt a ghost, a twelve gauge with regular lead isn't going to do more than tickle them. Explosives..." Danny a tossed his head side to side as he weighed how much they actually did to him. "Well, it won't do a lot of actual damage and a tank firing at a ghost is more likely to cause collateral damage than hurt it, but an explosion can send ghosts flying if they're at point blank range from the actual explosion." Or if its Nasty Sauce... "That said, it doesn't matter overmuch if the ghost just turns intangible. As I mentioned earlier, it takes energy to do that, hence why they rarely do it constantly. Ecto-weapons take more energy to stay intangible through, so in general an ecto-weapon is better even if you can hurt the ghost with it."
"What about humans?" Mikey asked. "Don't ecto-weapons also hurt humans, or do they just tickle?"
Valerie was about to say something, having full experience with the matter courtesy of her own ecto-grenade launcher, but Danny cut in before she dropped an answer that could help someone put two and two together. "Yes and no." Danny explained. "No, they aren't as lethal as a bullet. Yes, they hurt like crazy, but it depends mostly on the level of charge. Take my parents; as much as they would love to hurt ghosts, they are somewhat concerned about collateral, so they'd use lower power settings. That said, the Guys in White tend to fire full power, which can cause a lot of collateral. It depends on the power of the weapon, obviously, but against humans ecto-weapons are generally thermal in nature. The worst you get out of it is a burn mark where you get hit for most, but I would still try to avoid getting hit." He tapped the mouse and the power point switched. "The reason for this is mostly because the energy fired by ecto-weapons is designed to sear a ghost's form. Obviously, ectoplasm and human bodies have very different natures." He shrugged and recalled what the next thing was. Specter Deflectors... he had a faint, mischievous grin as he realized that she was going to get a nice cheap shot.
"Now, Valerie, could you step up here for a minute?" He asked.
"Uh, sure." she asked in confusion, giving him a dirty look before raising her eyebrows in surprise. Danny grabbed the Specter Deflector. "This is a Specter Deflector; FentonWorks model, of course, but the GIW have their own version too. How does it work?" He gave it to Valerie. "Put in on, I'll demonstrate." He glanced at the Thermos and grabbed it before walking over to Ricky. "Could you hold onto this for a minute?"
"Sure," Ricky said, careful to avoid hitting the 'release' button. Valerie had finished putting the belt on and Danny, knowing what was about to happen, started reaching for her shoulder with as much of a stupid looking 'I got this' grin as he could muster while talking.
"Specter Deflectors are pretty much an anti-ghost generator. Ghost touches the wearer..." his hand had reached Valerie's and felt the shock shoot through his whole and yelped in pain. Some of the students pushed themselves up to respond before Danny recovered and grinned. "Well, it can tell if the wearer is a ghost even if they're a hybrid like me, and it shocks them." He padded his hair back down as Valerie disabled and took off the Specter Deflector. "Thanks for helping me show how it works, Valerie."
"No problem." Valerie answered, amused as she realized he was giving her a free cheap shot for all the times he had humiliated her in their duels. Or at least, that is what he assumed she thought he was doing (which it was).
"Now," Danny said as he took the Thermos back and moved the power point forward to an image of a deployed Ghost Shield. "Last thing before we go to some more Thermos practice and I stop yammering like Lancer on a bad day." That drew a couple chuckles from the crowd. "Ghost Shields; which are pretty simple. Sort of a larger scale Specter Deflector, though my dad made the original Deflector by cannibalizing parts of the shield for it. Ghosts who run into it get shocked and can't pass through. That said, half-ghosts can get through in human form."
"It's basically untouchable, right?" Kwan said. "I remember everyone hiding under it when we got sucked into the Ghost Zone."
Unbidden, he remembered the old, defenseless future version of Vlad describing how Amity Park had fallen: to a Ghostly Wail by the first halfa who had it... him. "Yes and no." Danny answered as he put the deactivated Specter Deflector away and tried to shove those thoughts aside. "Any ghost who hits it is going to be in a lot of pain. The shields are pretty much what you'd expect out of sci-fi: an energy field that stops things from passing through, but I've found that anyone who can dig through the dimensional barriers between our world and the Ghost Zone at will can also dig through a Ghost Shield. So while it does stop any ghost cold, I wouldn't rely on it entirely." Paulina raised her hand. "Yes, Paulina?"
"So, what happens when you get inside as well, a human. Can't you just turn into Danny Phantom after?"
"Normally, yeah. I don't know what Youngblood had on his ship to make it zap me trying to change without lighting his crew up like cannonballs." Danny shrugged, not quite sure why he was saying all that he was. Something to talk about with Sam, Tucker, or Jazz. Jazz would probably be able to psycho-babble about something that would explain it. "But generally, yes, I can go ghost and use all my powers once I'm through a shield. Any other questions?" There were none. "Alright, let's give the people who didn't have a shot a chance to use the Thermos, then I'm pretty much done with the presentation."
As the rest of the kids played Catch the Box Ghost with the Thermos, Danny talked with the various kids, trying to gauge a mood. What he found was not reassuring: a lot of them were eager for more and could not wait for him to come back. He constantly repeated that he did not want them trying to hunt ghosts themselves, warning them that ghost hunting was not as easy as trying to aim a Thermos at a ghost who had agreed to be a combat dummy. It fell on deaf ears, except for Valerie, who did not need the warning. Sighing as he packed up and the meeting ended, he and Valerie were the only ones left in the room.
"So," Valerie asked with amusement. "What was the cheap shot for?"
"Well, besides you knowing how to take a Specter Deflector off and actually shut it off, I kind of felt like I owed you a shot back after some of the things I pulled on you when we were after each other." He hooked the Thermos to his belt and glanced at the clock. Great, later than I expected. Not dangerously late, but I better hurry. "So, how many of them do you think are going to try something stupid?"
"Most of them." Valerie answered with a surprisingly deadpan, unsurprised tone. "You heard Ricky and Mikey seriously talking about getting a group fund to buy some of your parent's gear?"
"Yeah." Danny said worriedly. "My parents would love some more business on top of the usual collectors and to replace Vlad buying-to-reverse-engineer, but I'm worried that these guys are going to get hurt as amateurs."
"Think you can talk your parents out of not selling them anything?" Valerie asked hopefully. "Axion Labs probably wouldn't, but they don't make any toys that I would give someone our age without parents involved."
"I'll try to convince them to make it the novelty stuff like a Finder. I doubt they'd sell the ecto-guns, but a Thermos? That they would have no compunctions against, might even offer a rebate for bringing in a real ghost." That was not something Danny was looking forward to even in the hands of competent people. He looked at the clock. "Anyways Valerie, I need to get going. I have to drop this boxed up ham back where he was, then I have a date with Sam."
"Ah," Valerie said with a nod. "Enjoy."
"Thanks." He switched his form, turned intangible, and leapt through the ceiling and into the afternoon sky.
XXX
One Hour Later
FentonWorks
Danny dropped out of the portal as it shut behind him, landing gently and switching back to his human form. His parents were not in the lab. He walked up the stairs and found his parents in the kitchen working on various devices. They turned as he walked up and smiled. "Hey, Danny!" his father said as he turned from the gadget he was working on. "Word on the street is you were teaching kids all about ghost hunting."
"Eh," Danny caught himself, realizing the rumor must have spread faster than he expected it to. "Well, no, not technically." As his parents frowned at him, he had to explain. "It was meant to be an overview of basics with ghosts, not 'this is how you hunt them down'. Thing is, with the basics it meant that I covered things like what hurts them compared to what hurts a human, and I think a lot of them are looking at it like 'this is how you hunt ghosts'." Why am I even using the term hunt ghosts? I got hunted all the time; still am by the Guys in White. Should say something like 'stopping ghost terrorizing' or something... He dismissed that thought. Besides being a mouthful, there were various motivations for 'hunting' anyways.
"Well, we'd be happy to come in and show them things first hand," his mother said with a smile as she finished bolting down the last metal plate on what looked like an ecto sniper rifle.
"Uh, sorry. But Lancer made it clear I wasn't supposed to have you guys come in, and the club is kind of supposed to not be held back by 'older' lines of thought." Danny shrugged. "Personally, I don't see what they have against you guys, but I'm guessing it's because Axion Labs was the guys who gave the school the grant that let it happen."
"Course, Axion doesn't want those already set up to get the contracts..." his father spat in disgust. "I'm guessing that's why they'd like us to stay out of the picture..."
"Well... there are some members of the club seriously talking about buying some gear from you. And..."
"You don't want us to?" his father asked with a frown. "Why?"
"Well, I'm just worried they're going to jump headlong into one of our fights and get hurt." He shrugged awkwardly. "I mean, I can't really tell you guys to, but at the very least can you not sell them ecto-guns or stuff like that?"
"Don't worry, Danny," his mother said warmly, "We've only sold them to anyone who'd pass to buy a normal gun, or the military."
"Not that the Guys in White even wanted to try our stuff..." his dad said in disappointment.
"Anyways," his mother continued, "I don't think you need to worry about us selling anything too dangerous. The most we'll probably sell is a Thermos or a Specter Deflector. No bazookas, rifles, or Peeler suits."
"Alright, that's the most I can ask." Danny shrugged. "Anyways, I need to go get ready." He hurried out of the kitchen to get dressed for the date.
"Have fun!" Jack called as he went up the stairs.
XXX
"You sure we should just let that be?" Jack asked. "I mean, those kids are going to wanna hunt ghosts! It's a dream come true."
"Yeah, but..." Maddie answered, "I think we should let Danny handle this one. It's his friends, and he seems to be eager to keep them out of it."
"Why? I mean, don't he and his friends have so much fun doing it?" He was genuinely confused by the fact that his own son did not want to share the joys of ghost hunting, or why Maddie was agreeing with him. "Heck, he lead the kids on a raid once!"
"I have a feeling he figured that he could babysit them there, instead of them going off on their own. That, and everyone else was held prisoner on that ship so he was out of options."
"Alright. But we should still sell if anyone comes."
"I never said we shouldn't, but we should let Danny handle the Ghost Club on his own. Besides, maybe Lancer will think it's a good idea for actual hunters to come in later on."
XXX
Fifty Minutes Later
"So," Sam asked as their food after their served. "How was Ghost Club?"
"Not too bad," Danny said before taking a bite and swallowing. "Though, I'm getting worried about some of them. They're seriously considering putting a group fund together and buying Fenton gear. As in, Thermoses and Fishers."
Sam frowned as she swallowed a bite of her completely non-meat entree. "Seriously? Are they nuts?"
"No, just cocky." He answered closing his eyes, leaving Sam to wonder how much it had been eating at him since the meeting. "But I think I encouraged them even though I told them it was a bad idea."
"Presence?" Sam asked, catching on quickly.
"Yeah. I'm feeling like it was me just showing them basics that got them going. I'm worried that one of them is going to have to be seriously hurt for them to get the point, and if that happens..."
He did not need to finish the statement. Politics would come in, either with her parents or the parents of whoever got hurt, and then the whole thing would be a mess. Even if Danny was trying to discourage them from jumping into a ghost fight, she knew her parents rarely cared for such details like facts that ran counter to their views.
"Any of them mention Youngblood?" Sam asked. "Because that might be the big hole in your argument that they're using to justify the idea. You know, must say this for liability and that kind of stuff."
Danny paled momentarily before taking a deep breath and calming down. "No, but that does make sense." He paused again and smirked, "then again, hypocrisy-for-the-greater-good seems to be hero standard." He curled his lip. "Not that I like that, but sometimes..."
"Sometimes things get real and there's no choice. If anyone tries to use it, just... just say it was a last resort or something. I mean, it was shielded against you entering so you did need help." There was a rustle outside as Danny's ghost sense went off. The two looked to the window and saw Valerie, suited up, chasing down and fighting Ember. Danny sighed and started rising when Sam put a hand out to pin his to the table. "Easy Danny, Valerie can handle it. She phoned me before you got here and said that she'd handle anything that came up." With the obvious and unsaid caveat regarding a big attack.
"I dunno," Danny answered as he looked out at the spray of energy shots sailing into the air. Energy shots that Sam realized was not from her Technus based gear since it fired cyan rounds, not pink ones. "I feel like I need to jump in and help."
Valerie charged something on her wrist and hit Ember in the chest, shocking the ghost before shoving a thermos into her and sucking her in. Where'd Valerie get a Fenton Thermos that worked... oh. Right. Sam wondered how she forgot that detail so easily. Skulker and his attack at Casper High last week... "See?" She said with a grin. "Nothing to worry about. Now relax and enjoy the night with your girlfriend already." She pulled him closer, and he smiled as the two leaned over and gently kissed.
XXX
Outside
Valerie saw the kiss, of course. Not that she was trying to, mind, she was just flying away and strapping the new ecto rifle to her back with its magnetic clamp strap, but it left her wondering what could have happened had she not pushed Danny away to continue ghost hunting. When she was blissfully unaware that she was telling the person she was trying to hunt down that she was breaking up with him to protect him. The irony had smacked her in the face repeatedly ever since she found out that Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom were one and the same, and by that time he and Sam were in open love. Well, she admitted to herself as she flew off. At least the paparazzi... wait, she spotted an intrepid photographer on the roof preparing a reel and gently guided her jet sled down.
"'scuse me," she said to get his attention. The guy might as well have jumped a mile high in surprise before turning around and nearly dropping his camera.
"Oh, phew. Thought you were another ghost or something," he said in relief. "Don't mind me, I'm just getting a few pics for the National Enquireror for an article on Amity Park."
"With a bungee rope and remote pulley." Valerie answered, folding her arms in a lack of amusement. "Seriously buddy, bug off. Leave the two lovebirds alone."
"Or what?"
"Or I could tell building security that they have someone on the roof and provide a recording. I have a combat cam running in this suit, you know. And they hired some new guys from Elmerton for security."
That freaked the guy out and he started packing up his kit. Valerie smiled and put the jet sled in motion, balancing herself as it flew into the air. She hovered just out of sight, making sure he left, before heading home. I'll just pass the Thermos to Fenton in the morning, assuming I don't run into anything else.
XXX
Monday Morning
Casper High
"So, how much got sold?" Tucker asked worriedly as Danny was watching Nathan and Mikey talking about something that looked suspiciously like an undeployed Fenton Fisher.
"A two Thermoses and a couple Fishers. They wouldn't have gotten a single Deflector for the cost of that gear, though." Jazz answered. "Seriously, I don't get why our parents sold it to them."
"Well, we don't have Vlad buying up their stuff in secret to make his own duplicates, do we?" Danny pointed out somewhat angrily, "and the Jerks in White probably use their own tooling or do it through Axion Labs." The bell to get to class rang and he sighed when he started making his way to class when he nearly ran into Mister Faluca.
"Ah, Mister Fenton," the old math teacher said. "Could I have a word with you?"
"Uh, sure." Danny said, "You will write a pass, ri..."
"I told Mister Lancer that you would be late." He glanced up at Sam and Tucker, "Though, that did not include you two."
Danny glanced over, "I'll fill you in later, guys."
The two nodded and left while Mister Faluca lead him into a nearby room. "Now, Daniel, I know you don't mean to be getting those kids amped up to fight ghosts..."
"... but you want me to get away from the club, before they get any ideas." Danny finished. "Yeah, I saw the writing on the wall at the end of the meeting. But Lancer..."
"I spoke with Mister Lancer, and you don't have to go back, he's willing to consider your detention served."
Wow, Danny realized. Lancer must have seen the writing on the wall too to be willing to bend on detentions. "I... I appreciate it, but I feel responsible for them, like I need to keep getting them to not try and go hunting. I mean, they've put me on the spot a lot on Friday even though I wasn't guest speaking there."
"Maybe." Mister Faluca admitted, "And I appreciate your concern, but I think it might be better if you stay away for a while, let them settle into not having a famous star in ghost hunting around all the time and move onto things like dissecting ghost stories for the truth or whatever."
He weighed the options, then realized that it might be a better idea. "Maybe. But, for now, I don't think they're ready to leap in on their own yet, especially with that sentiment running around."
XXX
Noon
Casper High Cafeteria
"Oh you gotta be kidding me!" Danny shouted as he started going ghost, white rings passing around him and his white shirt and blue jeans were replaced with his black jumpsuit. "They had to change the menu because the FDA ruled Casper Meatloaf as a safety hazard on account of melting the metal and ceramics that it was contained in! Get over it, there's nothing they could do about it!"
He had a feeling that the ghost attacking the school this time did not care about it, but he had a job to do, and he had to do it quickly before real damage happened. The Lunch Lady was growling, a half dozen of her meat monsters with her as she stood between the kitchen and the array of tables. Students were running every which way in a panic, and he was pretty sure Sam and Tucker had ran off to get a Fenton Thermos.
"THEY CHANGED THE MENU!?" she shouted at the top of her lungs, "THEY WILL PERISH!" She pointed her fingers forward, and a hailstorm of dishes from behind the counter started flying towards him.
"Whoa!" Danny shouted as he rapidly brought up a shield of energy to block the projectile dishes, which shattered and dropped to the floor in front of him where there were no students. "Ease off, there isn't any garbage here to have a garbage fight with! The vegetarian menu hasn't come back for a year."
XX
"It's not garbage, it's-" Sam began shouting when Tucker grabbed her and pulled her down, a large projectile pizza plate speeding past where her head had been.
"Come on, we need to get the Thermos!" Tucker shouted and the two sprinted for the door, only to find a pair of meat monsters in the way.
"Danny!" the two shouted together to get his attention. He glanced towards them briefly and visibly freaked, but before he could act he was clobbered by a giant drumstick that came out of nowhere and was knocked into the wall.
"We have to get this door open," Sam said, "And I guess we have to fight!"
"With what?" Tucker asked, "I left my ecto-pistol at home and the guys in Ghost Club probably left their new toys in their lockers!"
Sam glanced at the various appliances lying discarded and remembered how Danny had taken out a half dozen of the monsters with a single circular kick. She grabbed the nearest tray, dumped the copious amounts of meat off (much to Tucker's disgust), and threw it at one of the monsters menacing Star. "With anything we can grab!" Sam answered as the tray caught the meat monster in the face and cleaved the upper half of its head off. Star ran away while Tucker grabbed a dish and hurled it like a Frisbee at the other ghost, cutting into its shoulder and taking an arm off. The monster charged him.
"Now what?" Tucker asked as it tackled him and Sam was jumped by a third monster. Two shots of green energy came in and blew the monsters apart and she looked up to see Danny floating above the chaos before offhandedly freezing another meat monster that the Lunch Lady had formed to replenish her casualties.
"Get everyone out of here, guys!" Danny shouted before he was tackled by another pair of meat monsters as the Lunch Lady began building a meat body around her.
"Working on it!" Tucker shouted back as the two rushed towards the door and started looking at what had happened.
"Gross," Sam said, "Jammed full of that disgusting meat. How many animals died to lock us in here, Tucker? How many were raised to be slaughtered purely for this?"
"I think we have bigger problems, Sam!" He paused a beat, then scowled. "And for the record, we did not get to the top of the food chain just to be vegetarians."
"I swear, Tucker if you ... Duck!" she grabbed him and pulled him down as a set of knives gone haywire from one of the Lunch Lady's missed attacks shot into the door. She looked up and saw Danny trying to stop the attacks as students were pushing on the other meat-clogged doors and trying to get open. He needs an opening... she looked over and saw Valerie blocking one of the meat monsters with a tray and cutting its arm off, saving Paulina and Kwan's sorry selves as the two were stuck in a corner. "Come on, grab something heavy and let's take the heat off Danny."
"What? He's taking heat for us! We have to get the door open!" Tucker threw himself at the non-knifed part door to no avail.
"And we can't get this door open, but a plasma blast might work." She grabbed another pair of lunch trays and tossed one to Tucker. "Let's go."
XX
"Oh great," Danny muttered as the Lunch Lady finished making her meat form. "It's Pizza the Hutt. Well, at least there'll be no bikini-" he was cut off by a large meaty fist punching him across the cafeteria. Grunting as he hit the wall and fell down he rubbed his head, muttering under his breath. "What am I saying, I'm a guy..."
He leapt back up and charged his ice, firing it at the meaty Lunch Lady. The first set of blasts were resisted easily. "This is not the freezer!" she shouted at him as he dodged another meaty punch.
"No, but meat goes bad if you leave it out!" Danny retorted as he turned intangible and leapt into the Lunch Lady's meat body before releasing all the cold energy he could muster from his core and phased out of the Lunch Lady. She had been frozen solid, but the meat monsters were still loose and seemed to be fighting with greater intensity. He came out lightheaded, but he still had most of his power left to fight and was recovering fairly quickly. He chalked it down to the full joys of halfa puberty.
"Danny!"
Jolted from his thoughts, he floated down and found Tucker and Sam cutting a meat monster's head off together with trays. He dropped down behind them and blasted a meat monster away. "What's going on guys? You should be getting everyone out of here!"
"The doors, we can't get them open!" Sam answered before yelling as she kicked a meat monster in the face and knocked it back. "HOW MUCH FREAKING MEAT IS THERE IN THIS FREAKING SCHOOL?!" she screamed in rage as the Lunch Lady started cracking the ice.
Danny looked down at his glowing green hands and focused, charging his powers before aiming for the main doors and blowing them off the hinges with a supercharged plasma blast.
"Hope we don't have to pay for that," Tucker said as students started streaming out, Valerie shouting over the chaos for everyone to get out of the cafeteria. "You want us to run?"
"Yes!" Danny called back as he grabbed a meat monster that was trying to clobber him with both hands with his own and froze it solid before shattering it with a single punch. "Get the Thermos!"
Sam and Tucker glanced at each other before they ran out with the rest as Danny turned to fight the Lunch Lady, who finally shattered the ice and scattered fast melting shards of it across the cafeteria, and the meat too. The Lunch Lady was still floating there, snarling in rage. "Fools, lunch does not end until twelve forty-five!"
Danny answered by blasting her with a ghost ray. "Yeah? Well maybe they're just bagging it outside!"
The Lunch Lady snarled and summoned another wave of silverware and fired it at him at high speeds. Spreading his spectral form, Danny dodged the various pieces of high speed utensils which embedded themselves or fell from where they hit the walls onto the floor, but when he pulled himself back together the Lunch Lady was blasting him out of the cafeteria. With a giant bucket of soup.
Crashing into a set of lockers and lying in a puddle of the brown sludge that was Casper High's soup option, Danny rubbed the back of his head as he looked up at the Lunch Lady, who floated up and looked at him sweetly, cake floating next to her. "Would you like some cake?"
"Uh," Danny said as he tried to find a witty answer. "No, I won't let them eat cake?"
The Lunch Lady glowered at him. "What are you, some French princess?" She then hurled the cake at him, though Danny dodged it easily when he noticed the meat monsters running after the fleeing students.
"Oh no," Danny said as he realized what was about to happen and shot after them...
XX
"Are you nuts?!" Valerie shouted as Kwan, Mikey, and Paulina came out from the hall connecting to the school atrium where everyone else was trying to force their way out of the meat-blocked door. The former two had those odd Fenton Fishers, while Paulina had a Thermos.
"We'll get that ghost!" Kwan shouted as he activated the fisher. "These are blob ones, right? No sentience but weak?"
"Probably!" Mikey answered with a vicious grin that reminded Valerie of the scrapper lock so many nerds got into when using light blade weapons in Doomed. "And these fishers are made out of an anti-ecto material!"
"What about the Lunch Lady?" Paulina asked as she looked at the Thermos, "Should I use this on her?"
"Probably a good call, I don't think these meat monsters will fit..."
Valerie gasped as she saw the meat monsters rushing them. Kwan shouted and charged into them like a football player, knocking through some of them with the Fisher while Mikey slashed his around like it was a sword, having tied the hook on the end to have it a training sword of anti-ecto material. She started pushing her way towards them through the crowd; those idiots were going to get themselves seriously hurt fighting those things. They were doing good, admittedly, but a meat monster tackled Mikey and slammed him into the locker, leaving him to drop unconscious and slide to the floor.
"NO!" she heard an echoing voice shout and turned to see Danny leaping into the fray, jumping in front of Mikey and knocking the meat monster away before his ghostly glow flashed briefly and a green wave of ecto energy shot out from his feet, sliding towards the meat monsters and knocking them away.
"Are you insane?!" Danny shouted at Kwan. "You're going to get hurt!"
"But..." Kwan tried to retort.
"No buts, grab Mikey and get him out of the way!" Danny shouted back, then looked at Paulina. "You too."
"But..."
A loud, ghastly roar cut them off as the Lunch Lady charged at them from down the hall. Danny turned and charged his own ghost rays, missing as the Lunch Lady brought up a bucket of what looked like a ghost pirate's gruel to block the attack (and splattered said ghostly gruel across the hallway) when a large burst of whitish blue light fired out and engulfed the hallway.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" The scream echoed throughout the entire school and everyone froze to see the latest catch from a Fenton Thermos, and who was holding it: Paulina.
Too bad that she had missed and sucked Danny Phantom into the Thermos, rather than the Lunch Lady, who turned towards the trio from the Ghost Club and a mix of various foods and knives rose around her. She was staring knives at the trio and Valerie realized they were one attack away from becoming human shish-ka-bobs.
And with Danny trapped in the Thermos...
XX
Paulina screamed as the Lunch Lady threw her attack at them, a scream that spoke of the worst nightmares of any student at Casper High. That one of their own would actually die in one of the many attacks that had become so commonplace and almost a daily occurrence in Amity Park.
"NO!" Sam shouted as she sprinted forward, trying to open the Thermos in time to get the Lunch Lady, but it was too late. Where's Danny, did that shallow witch suck him into the Thermos?!
"Paulina!" Tucker shouted from behind her as he was also trying to open a second Thermos in time.
But the knives never connected, and Sam saw that Valerie stood there, covering the trio of amateur ghost hunters from the barrage of attacks.
With her left arm covered in the black and red armor that Technus had somehow connected to her, generating some blue shield that pulsated as it took the attacks.
And whispers shot through the crowd, not unlike those that had shot through the crowd, reminding Sam of the alternate reality that Danny had removed, when the Reality Gauntlet had forced him back to his human form in front of everyone.
With this, another of Amity Park's ghost hunters had her identity revealed to the world.
XX
End Chapter
Author's Notes:
Thank you to those who have reviewed (Invader Johnny, Silver Sheryl, chadtaylor020). Constructive criticism and comments are a great help in getting feedback on what I'm doing so I can at least consider things that I might have missed.
As to Danny's commentary on ecto-weapons and how non-ecto weapons just pass through him, that's referring to how solid objects would pass through him, and usually without him trying (such as Sam tossing a book at him in 'Shades of Gray') yet other objects still hurt him (Valerie's shuriken discs in the same episode, the aforementioned Nasty Sauce, etc.). Also, Valerie had been shot once so obviously they were still dangerous to humans, but even Valerie's not tough enough to tank getting shot in the chest (see 'Flirting with Disaster') and walk it off if ecto-weapons were just as lethal to humans as they are ghosts. So, it's a balance act of an explanation, with the usual handwave of yields/power level.
And yes, given how the Thermos is shown to be easily capable of trapping powerful ghosts as an opener (see 'Reality Trip' where Danny sucks Freakshow into it without an issue, yet in most of his other fights it comes out at the end), there had to be a reason that was not the writers being lazy/trying to give us good fight scenes. The explanation here is still thin (though, as we've seen with the end of TUE, it has merit), but it at least justifies why Danny goes for beating up a ghost first before sucking them into the Thermos besides not having one with him/not enough time to aim. Ditto Danny not trying anything more to hold his enemies prisoner instead of just venting them into the Ghost Zone, though, it makes a lot more sense than not using the Thermos as an opener.
