Hello, all! I have to say, I was very pleased with how many reviews I received to start this story off. I would've updated sooner, but I couldn't find much time. And just so you all know, this fic does not follow from any of my other fanfics, and that includes "The Phantom Apprentice" trilogy. I'm just having it be sophomore year for the trio because I want it to follow from "Reality Trip", which had the end of the school year for them.
Now that all that's out of the way, here's Chapter 2! Will Danny's pals be crushed by the ceiling light?
Phantom Prophecy
Chapter Two: My Enemy and My Friend
Without hesitation, Danny abandoned the battle and flew towards Tucker and Sam, who could only look up at the falling light in terror.
He quickly grabbed Tucker's arm with one hand and Sam's arm with his other. Without slowing down his flight, he flew both of them away, just before the light crashed to the ground less than a second later.
Danny set them down near the wall, sighing in relief, "Phew. That was close."
Tucker smiled, "Thanks, dude. Since you saved us, maybe Valerie will reconsider her opinions on you."
Just then, a pink beam struck Danny in the back, knocking him down to the ground.
Sam then said sardonically, "Or maybe she won't."
Danny grumbled, "Oh, why is she so stubborn?"
He then flew back up into the air, where Valerie fired another pink beam from her wrist. Danny avoided the assault and responded by firing a ghost ray. Valerie quickly swerved her jet board to dodge that attack and it sailed over her shoulder.
Down on the ground, Walker looked annoyed as he spat, "I'm not letting that little brat get that ghost child." He then flew towards Valerie from behind her.
Seeing this, Danny shouted, "Valerie, look out!"
And as he did this, he also flew towards Valerie in front of her and grabbed her around her arms. She struggled in protest, but Danny quickly drove her down to the ground and away from Walker, where he set her down gently.
She then spat, "Let go of me, spook!"
Danny sighed in frustration, "I hate when she's like this."
He let go of Valerie and flew at Walker, giving him a punch in the face. Valerie then fired a rifle at Danny from behind, but he saw it just in the nick of time and dodged the attack. The shot hit Walker instead, driving him even further backward.
Danny admitted, "But she can be a help."
Not hearing him, Valerie fired from her ecto-grenade launcher again. Danny quickly flew up and the blast passed under him, nearly hitting a few students who were still in the cafeteria for some reason.
Danny called out, "Careful! Someone might get hurt!"
Valerie retorted, "Then care to explain why you were attacking in here?"
"Hello! They attacked me! I was just fighting back, including when you came in!"
"Excuses, excuses!" Valerie snapped, but she had to admit that he did have a point. With all the shots the both of them were firing everywhere, it was a surprise that none of the kids still in the lunchroom had been injured. Sam and Tucker had already just narrowly escaped being crushed by that ceiling light.
Danny flew to the two remaining guards and quickly trapped them in the thermos. After about a minute of hesitation, Valerie then flew back towards Danny in an attempt to ram into him.
Thinking fast, Danny charged a ghost ray in his hand. But he didn't fire it. Instead, he let it shine brighter and brighter. It looked something like headlights from a car when it was being driven right towards you. Finally, everyone was forced to look away as the light was nearly blinding them.
As they looked away, there was a flash, and Danny Fenton dropped from the light. Spotting Walker on the ground, he quickly sucked the screaming warden into the Fenton Thermos, leaving no more in the cafeteria.
As everyone rubbed their eyes, Valerie muttered angrily, "He ran away. How typical of him." She then spotted Danny trapping Walker and said quietly to herself, "Where did Danny come from? And how did he get a thermos?"
Without another word, she flew out of the cafeteria.
Danny put the thermos away as he walked back over to Sam and Tucker.
He whispered to them, "Did anyone see me transform?"
Tucker answered, "Probably not. The light was too bright for anyone to see. They all looked away, and that included us."
Sam nodded in agreement, and then asked Danny worriedly, "Are you okay? You took some pretty nasty hits out there."
Danny replied nonchalantly, "Ah, I'm alright. Nothing out of the ordinary."
Tucker looked around the cafeteria, "Maybe not for you, but the lunchroom has been totaled. Don't think they're letting school continue for today."
"Well, it's good the food didn't get destroyed. Wait, what am I thinking? It's bad the food didn't get destroyed."
They all chuckled as they walked out of the cafeteria.
Indeed, school was called off for the rest of the day. With nothing else to do, the trio decided to stop by Nasty Burger for a bite to eat.
"Two jumbo bacon-and-cheese nasty burgers with a side of chicken fries, and a root beer," Tucker said to the pretty cashier, and then added with a flirty smile, "And maybe your phone number as well."
She glared at him and responded, "That will be $8.43, sir."
As they stood behind Tucker waiting to order, Sam said to Danny, "You'd think that after a million failures, he'd have learned by now."
Danny scoffed, "And you guys think I'm stubborn."
While Tucker walked away sulking, Danny walked up to the cashier, only to see that she had left, and had now been replaced by a familiar black girl with curly black hair and a standard Nasty Burger uniform.
Valerie smiled, "Hey, Danny."
In surprise, Danny answered with a smile of his own while Sam rolled her eyes behind him, "Oh, hi, Val. What's up?"
"Ah, nothing much." Her voice grew cold as she added, "Unless you count that ghost boy tearing up the cafeteria today."
Trying to play along, Danny sputtered nervously to his would've-been-girlfriend, feeling very awkward as he did so, "Oh, uh, yeah. He really, uh…trashed the place."
Valerie suddenly regained her happy tone as she asked, "So how have you been?"
"Well, I've just…"
Fortunately, Danny was saved the trouble of a continued awkward talk as a hard voice rang out from the back room, "Gray! You'd better not be slacking off!"
Valerie called back to the voice nervously, "Oh, no, sir! I'm working!"
She then sighed as she asked Danny, "So what'll it be?"
"Just a regular nasty burger and fries will be fine."
She added up the price and said, "$4.13."
Danny paid with a five and got his change, and then said, "I'll see you around, Val."
She smiled, "Yep. See ya, Danny."
Danny walked off, distinctively hearing Valerie say, "Sam," followed by Sam saying, "Valerie," both voices in relatively cool tones.
As he waited for his order to arrive, Tucker said while standing next to him, "Not exactly the conversation you would prefer with her, was it?"
Danny scoffed, "Not really."
He then gasped as his ghost sense went off once again.
Seeing this, Tucker asked him, "Ghost time?"
Danny nodded, "Ghost time."
"Does this mean I won't get my order?"
The two of them then heard a loud whoosh. They turned to the kitchen and saw that the burgers were rotating around in a circular motion, with more burgers appearing by the second.
Just as what had occurred during Pariah's siege months ago, they finally formed into a large monster, made entirely of meat.
Danny said in awe as the people started screaming, "I'm getting a serious déjà vu vibe here."
"Not only that," said Tucker, "But this looks awfully familiar."
Danny gave him a scowl and then ran off to the bathroom, depositing a dime before racing inside. One flash later, Danny Phantom flew out of the bathroom through the wall and towards the meat-covered Lunch Lady Ghost.
She screamed, "Fear my high cholesterol of doom!"
With that she sent a shot of beef, sausages, and steak straight at Danny. He quickly put up a dome and the meat flew all around it, leaving him unscathed.
He then spoke with a smirk, "Like I should ever fear you!"
"You should probably fear me instead!" another voice rang out that took Danny no time to recognize.
He turned and once again saw Valerie the ghost hunter on her jet board, armed with her ecto-grenade launcher.
"Back for more, Phantom?" she snapped.
She then charged straight at Danny, but he quickly flew out of the way. The Lunch Lady took a swipe with her huge right arm and it struck Valerie, knocking her down.
Danny quickly muttered so no one could hear, "Just five minutes ago, she was having a friendly chat with me, and now, she's trying to kill me."
He then fired a ball of energy at the Lunch Lady, but she quickly grabbed Valerie on the ground and held her in front of the energy ball. It ended up hitting her instead!
Danny gasped, "Oh, man!"
The Lunch Lady then snapped, "Ha! You can't hit me without hitting her, can you, kid?"
Knowing Valerie, Danny was certain she thought he was hitting her on purpose. And sure enough…
"You're gonna pay for that, ghost!" Valerie yelled at him.
Danny ignored her and flew up toward the Lunch Lady's head, trying to kick it. But she quickly pulled Valerie up in front of her head, shielding herself from Danny's attempted assault.
He quickly pulled his foot back, not wanting to strike Valerie again. Instead he spat at the Lunch Lady, "Using a girl as a shield? Talk about cowardly."
As she watched this, Valerie couldn't help but think, Why isn't he hitting me? He should be attacking me, but why is he only attacking this freak?
The Lunch Lady snarled furiously as she ran at Danny and tried to stomp on her. Thinking fast, Danny flew away from her foot and flew around to the Lunch Lady's back.
Now in a position where she couldn't shield herself with Valerie, Danny fired a ghost ray in the middle of the Lunch Lady's back. It struck gold and a bunch of meat started falling off.
The Lunch Lady turned around and tried to grab Danny with her free hand, but Danny kicked the hand, knocking more meat off. He then flew at 112 miles per hour to her other hand, where he grabbed Valerie just like at school earlier and then phased her out of the ghost's grip, where he then flew her down to the ground.
This time, Valerie said nothing. She just watched as Danny flew back up and fired a ghost ray at the Lunch Lady with a look of intensity in his eyes.
As more meat fell, Valerie quickly shook off her look of astonishment and flew towards Danny. Danny quickly saw her coming and ducked. Valerie passed right over him.
Seeing she was heading right towards the Lunch Lady, she shot a pair of pink beams from her wrists. They both struck her and she stumbled backward.
Danny saw this and said, "So, what? You're helping me?"
Valerie snapped, "She was in my way. You're next."
Danny said nothing as Valerie pulled out a few more discs and threw them at the Lunch Lady. They crashed into her and sparks flew everywhere as the meat fell apart.
She was dazed as Valerie suddenly stuck her arms out. A bright flash appeared where her arms were, and then a blade glowing bright red took shape.
Danny gasped in awe at the new weapon that had just appeared.
Seeing Danny's look of amazement, Valerie said simply, "Just learned that trick. Cool, huh?"
Valerie held the blade like a pro as she shot towards the Lunch Lady. She swung the blade all the way around her head, and then swung it forward with a loud grunt.
SLASH!
The monster of meat broke apart completely, leaving the original Lunch Lady on her knees in pain.
Danny then seized his own chance and flew to the Lunch Lady, pulling out the Fenton Thermos and sucking her inside.
Valerie then aimed her ecto-grenade launcher at him and said, "Now it's your turn, spook."
"Not today!" Danny said as he phased through the ground and out of sight.
"Hey!" Valerie barked in anger.
She then grumbled, "Ran away again. Coward."
But at the same time, she thought, But why did he save me like that? Why didn't he attack when that ghost was holding me in front of him? And what happened to Danny during that time? And why did that jerk have a Fenton Thermos?
With a sigh, she flew away from the restaurant's wreckage.
Clockwork smiled as he watched the screen which showed the concluded battle in front of him.
"Those two are a great team. Pity that they often point their weapons at each other."
His smile slowly faded as he once again turned back to the paper on the other screen.
He knew there was a chance that whatever was written on this piece may or may not happen. Until then, no one had to know what it read.
Clockwork was so very caught up in this paper that he didn't notice that on the desk on the other side of the room, the thermos that Danny had given to him months ago was shaking around as it always did.
It wouldn't concern him if he did see it shaking, but if something happened that was out of the ordinary, that would probably get him a little worried.
And he might have been worried if he had seen the very small but very visible crack appear between the cap of the thermos and the thermos itself, while a very faint cackling could be heard from deep within.
Hmm…that's all for now! Boy, another unusually long chapter from me. Usually only a few of my chapters crack 2000 words, and both chapters in this story have done so.
Anyway, could Valerie be possibly having second thoughts on how she regards her teen nemesis? And what trouble could possibly be lurking within the master of time's lair? Chapter 3 is coming soon! R/R!