Everyone was worried about entering a different dimension, some leaning forward in their seats to get through faster, others leaning back as far as possible to try and avoid going in at all, while Tucker just theatrically yawned and stretched his arms over his head. Danny and Sam leaned on the back rests of the seats. As soon as they entered the Ghost Zone, Danny felt instantly more alert and aware. The resonant ectoplasm in the Zone stimulated his ghost half, and made him feel more awake than ever.
It wasn't long until the class got over their sudden fear as curiosity overwhelmed them. Mikey was the first one to look out the windows. "What are those purple things up there?" He asked, pointing towards a group of floating purple doors. Danny knew they were the entrances to different lairs, but he couldn't say it.
"We don't really know, this is our first time here, too." Maddie said, peering through the windshield with wide, violet eyes.
Gasps were heard throughout the bus, they were with inexperienced tour guides! Danny scoffed at the panic in the front of the bus, he could travel through the ghost zone with his eyes closed. Sam and Tucker thought the reactions of their classmates were entertaining, too. Eventually, Maddie and Jack had managed to calm everyone down, and Mr. Lancer was back in his seat as well.
The trip went well for about ten minutes, then Danny's ghost sense went off. When is the Ghost Zone, his ghost sense only goes off if there is a powerful ghost nearby. Groaning, he looked out the window and, lo and behold, Skulker was flying towards them.
"Tucker, get the shield up." Danny whispered.
Nodding, Tucker ran to the control panel on the back wall of the bus. Quickly, he plugged in his PDA and started up the ghost shield generator.
Maddie and Jack looked at each other, a question, unsaid but understood, hung between them, Did you do that? Their confusion was quickly solved as a deep voice interrupted their thoughts.
"Hello, Whelp." Skulker said. "I have come for your pelt." Students looked around, wondering what unfortunate soul was the ghosts target.
"GHOOOOOST!" Jack screamed before pressing five buttons at once with his oversized fist. Gigantic blasters and ecto-foamers came bursting out of compartments in the outer wall, and each one aimed directly at Skulker.
Completely unfazed by the sudden overload of weapons, Skulker continued, "Ahh, yes. These humans do not know your identity, Ghost Child." He dodged a blob of ecto-foam, then shot out the blasters. "That will make the collection of your pelt that much easier."
Skulker shot missiles at the ghost shield relentlessly. He knew he couldn't break it, but he kept shooting in order to drain the craft of power. About fifteen minutes of one-sided warfare later, Skulker was confident he'd drained most of the crafts energy. The ghost shield started to flicker, and he managed to shoot the generator directly. With the ghost shield gone, Skulker would have no trouble capturing the ghost child. The craft started to descend, he could hear the children on board screaming. He was just about to fly down and take the whelp when he heard a jingle. Looking down at the PDA that was somehow still on his wrist, he read, "Go to library, take out book on purple backed gorrilla?" His booster rockets then protruded from his back, and he flew, unwillingly, to the nearest portal. As he flew, he yelled, "I thought I disabled that!"
Back inside the spectre speeder, Danny and Tucker high fived. Tucker had managed to get a hold of the signal from the PDA Skulker stole from him and hacked it, causing Danny's old schedule to override Skulkers systems. Their celebration was short-lived, however.
The Spectre Speeder Bus started losing altitude quickly. All Maddie could do was steer it towards a floating island and hope everyone survived the crash. The island came closer at a sickening speed, until the bus crashed and rolled into a large rock.
Inside, the students and Mr. Lancer were thrown against the side of the bus, since only the front seats had seat belts. The bus had, luckily, landed right-side up, so everyone could sit back in their seats.
Danny noticed that Star's arm was bleeding. He reached under his seat and pulled out the buses first aid kit, no point in wasting one of the ones Tucker had when there was one right there. "Star." Danny called out to her. "You're bleeding."
Star hadn't even noticed that her arm was bleeding until Danny pointed it out. Now that she knew she was bleeding, her arm really hurt. Danny walked over to her, first aid kit in hand.
"I know first aid, let me wrap that." Danny said. Slowly, Star held her arm out to Danny. He pried the first aid kit open and pulled out a roll of gauze and some disinfectant. "This'll sting a bit." He mumbled as he poured a small amount of hydrogen peroxide onto the cut. Star hissed as the peroxide dribbled onto the cut. Carefully and skillfully, Danny wrapped the gauze around her arm.
When he was done, Star's arm felt so much better. She examined the bandages, and as she did so, Mr. Lancer came over to her.
"I must say, Mr. Fenton, that is a very high quality job. I've only seen doctors wrap a wound so well." He commented.
Danny blushed slightly, "Uhh, thanks, I guess."
Maddie then came from the front of the bus. "That is very good. Where did you learn to dress a wound so well, Danny?" She asked, a hint of worry in her voice.
Danny's mind raced to think of an excuse. He couldn't tell them that he had practice on himself from the injuries he received ghost fighting for the past two years. He looked back to Sam, and an idea struck him. "Uhh, Sam wants to be a vet, so, she, uhh, showed Tucker and I everything she taught herself online." It wasn't a lie, Sam did teach herself first aid online, and she did teach he and Tucker.
Sam was quick to play along. "Yeah, Mrs. Fenton. I taught myself first aid a few years ago and showed the guys."
The answer had caused Maddie to lose the small amount of worry she had. "Well, that's good, then."
Jack then came from the front of the bus, a look of pure shame and defeat on his normally cheerful face. "I have some bad news, everyone. I can't get the speeder to start. That ghost back there drained all her energy. We don't even know if the atmosphere in the Ghost Zone is safe to breath, so Maddie and I can't go outside to try and fix her up." Maddie came and put a hand on his shoulder. "Even if we could go out there, we don't have any tools or materials to fix her."
"You mean we're trapped in the Ghost Zone!?" Dash yelled.
"With ghosts that want to kill us!?" Kwan added.
Students started panicking. Nathan fainted. Star screamed. Valerie seemed to be seething, probably because she can't use her Red Huntress gear without blowing her identity.
"Maybe Danny Phantom will save us!" Paulina gushed.
"That ghost kid's nothing but an odd manifestation of ectoplasmic energy and post-human consciousness." Maddie said, slightly upset by the teens trust in that wretched being.
Danny growled quietly at his mother's shameless insults. He walked to Sam and Tucker. "We'll need to lead them through the Zone, won't we?"
"I'm going with a definite yes." Sam started. "But how are we gonna explain why we know our way around the fucking Ghost Zone?"
"Yeah, dude, how will we explain that? It's not like we can just tell them the truth." Tucker added.
"Maybe we can." Danny said, having come up with an idea.
"What do you mean?" Tucker asked.
"We tell them what they need to know, but not what they don't. It's not lying, but it's not telling the truth, either." Danny elaborated.
"Considering that we almost always do that, it's definitely the most obvious answer." Sam commented. "Why didn't I think of that?" She muttered under her breath.
Danny's advanced hearing picked up on that. He smirked, but didn't say anything.
Slowly, he walked up to his parents and put on his best nervous act. "Uhh, Mom, Dad?" He asked timidly.
"Yes, sweetie?" Maddie answered. She turned to look at Danny and saw that his gaze was on the floor, refusing to meet her eyes. "What is it?"
"I, uhm-" He began, "I- I need to tell you something."
"What is it, Danny boy?" Jack asked, worry showing in his cobalt eyes.
Danny sucked in a big breath of air, then, all in one word, he said, "I'vebeenherebefore."
"Could you repeat that, sweetie?" Maddie asked.
Danny's gaze never left the floor, and his hands twisted nervously behind his back. The nervousness wasn't even an act anymore, he was sure to be in serious trouble when they got back to the Real World. He sucked in another deep breath, "I've been here before."
Maddie and Jack, along with everyone else on the Speeder, stared wide eyed at Danny. You could hear a pin drop it was so quiet. Danny rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous tick he'd inherited from his father.
Maddie was the first to recover from this news. "What do you mean you've 'been here before'? You've been in the Ghost Zone?!" She asked incredulously and on the verge of screaming.
"Uhh, y- yeah, I- I have." He wasn't even faking the stutter anymore. His mom was pissed and he knew it. "B- but before you freak out, I was in the spectre speeder each time and I took all necessary safety precautions an-" He was cut off by a hug from Maddie.
"Why would you go into the Ghost Zone? Why would you ever think that it would be safe to go to such a dangerous place by yourself? What if something happened to you? What if-" This time Maddie was cut short as she descended into sobs. Her baby boy could have been hurt or killed or worse! She should have had more safety precautions for her children other than 'stay out of the lab.' What kind of mother was she? She let her son go into an alternate dimension. She must be the worst mother ever.
"Mom, Mom, calm down. I'm fine. I'm not dead (mostly, Danny thought). No ghosts have hurt me. It's okay." Danny felt really awkward, Normally, the Mom calms down the kid, He thought. Eventually, Maddie let go of him. Danny rubbed the back of his neck again. "I, uh, I only told you because I wanted to let you know that the atmosphere is safe to breathe, and that I have a map that Sam, Tucker and I made." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He unfolded it, showing an expertly drawn Pariah's Keep in the centre of the page, surrounded by many other expertly drawn islands, each labeled with the locations title and the amount of time it took to get there from the Fenton Portal.
"Wow, Danny boy, you sure can draw!" Jack, ever so easily distracted, complemented his son's map.
"Uhh, thanks, I guess." Was all Danny could think to reply with.
"Danny. Why would you leave the spectre speeder when you had been here before?" Maddie asked.
"Oh, uhm…" He tried to remember the first time he was in the Zone. "Remember when you went to Aunt Alicia's house to celebrate her divorce?" At his mother's nod he continued, "Well, I was cleaning the lab after Dad went to chase after you, and I accidentally knocked his present into the Ghost Zone. I went after it using the spectre speeder, but the claw couldn't pick up the present, so I reached out the door, grabbed the present, and went back inside." He finished.
"Alright, then, sweetie." Maddie gave Danny a look that said 'We'll be talking about this later'.
Danny opened the door to the bus, and went outside, Sam and Tucker right behind him. Everyone else soon followed. Before anyone could do anything else, Danny, Sam and Tucker quickly took charge of the group. Danny assessed where they were in the Zone, not using his map since he only brought it should the humans need it. "Of all of my allies here, The Kingdom of Aragon is closest, The walk there will take about three days, so we'll be meeting Princess Dorathea then."
"Danny, you can't have ghostly allies, ghosts are putrid, ectoplasmic-" Maddie was cut off by Danny, and was slightly taken aback by the complete one-eighty her son's personality took.
"Mom,Dora is not bad in the slightest, infact, she holds me in high respects. Sam, Tucker and I helped free her and the kingdom from her brother. An evil ghost wouldn't knight a human. Now, repeat after me, Not. All. Ghosts. Are. Evil." Danny was not happy about his parents shameless bias against ghosts, and it drove him up the wall when they assumed that every ghost was inherently evil.
Maddie looked absolutely livid. "Don't talk back to me young man!"
Danny didn't pay her any more attention, and once again started telling people what to do.
"Why should we listen to you, Fenturd." Dash protested.
"Because, Dash. Sam, Tuck, and I are you're only hope of getting out of the Ghost Zone alive." Danny snapped. He could feel his anger rising in his chest. This was going to be a long trip.
Hey guys! I really appreciate the reviews, they kept me motivated to write this chapter. I'm pretty bad at staying focused on one thing, so this being my only ongoing project left me distracted alot. I really hope you like this chapter, I tried for a bit of angst in the middle (if that part with Maddie crying even counts).
- Can't wait to write the next chapter!
PhAnToMxGhoulkaneki - I love these field trip stories, too. I'm reading, like, four at once.
Before I go, who should Danny and (not) Friends meet in the next chapter? I'm thinking Danielle, but I might change that, and I would LOVE some suggestions! Thanks ahead of time!