The Goth and the Ghost

a Danny Phantom fanfiction
by The Cinderninja

Chapter 3: Shadow

"Good morning sunshine!"

"How are we feeling today, Sammykins?"

Sammykins groaned. "What are you people doing in my room at this unearthly hour?" She growled, staring at her alarm clock, which told her it was still five in the morning.

"Now come on, Sam. That's not how you should speak to your parents in the morning. Remember-"

"Yeah, yeah. 'Attitude of Gratitude'. I know. Now you've got about ten seconds to tell me what you're doing waking me up at five in the morning, before I- auugh." Sam face planted into her pillow, far too tired to come up with any sort of threat or witty remark this early in the morning.

"Um... wow... Sam. What happened to you?" Danny asked, staring.

Sam, for her part, was a mess. Her stockings were bunched up around her boots, her skirt was tilted down on one side and hiked up on the other, and she was still wearing her black satin pyjama top. Her hair was frizzy and hadn't been pulled back into a pony tail, and she hadn't had time to put her lipstick on that morning. She was doing it now.

And, she was completely soaked. It looked as if she'd jumped into the shower fully dressed – or at least, as dressed as she was. What they didn't know was that that was pretty much what had happened. After getting up at five, Sam had argued with her parents for half an hour and gone back to bed. They woke her up again at six. She tried getting dressed, fell asleep again, and that was when her parents had picked her up and tossed her in the shower.

By the time she'd chased her toaster down (somebody had forgotten to tie it down last night and it made a break for freedom) and managed to make some sort of breakfast, she'd had no time to finish getting ready and had to run out the door to get to school on time.

"My parents happened." She answered, trying to run a brush through her hair and grimacing as it kept pulling through her tangled black mass of hair. "For some reason, they have it in their heads that I need to start getting up at five. I seriously need to get a lock for my bedroom door."

Both boys visibly flinched at her use of the 'f' word.

"Five? As in five in the morning?Is that even legal?" Tucker wondered.

Sam found herself grinning despite herself. "I doubt it."

"I kinda wish someone would bother to wake me up in the mornings." Danny mused. "My alarm clock has a really bad habit of not going off." Noticing the disbelieving looks the others gave him, he raised his hands defensively. "Well, not at five, obviously!"

Sam grinned as Danny held ran ahead and opened the front doors, holding them open for Sam and Tucker. "Who says chivalry is dead?" She asked, pulling her hair back and tying it into her regular ponytail. Danny flushed red and Tucker punched him, laughing.

The three walked on to their lockers, and this time, Tucker stayed with them. Sam definitely noticed that he was acting nicer around her and less suspicious. Which was odd, considering that after what happened in the cafeteria yesterday, she would have thought he wouldn't want be near her at all. Oh well.

"So, why did you bother rushing? I mean, you're not even dressed. I woulda figured you'd rather be late and actually get ready." Danny wondered from his locker. At least, he and Tucker usually had no qualms about being late. That is to say, of course they cared, but some days there was nothing you could do about it, and there was no point worrying over something that couldn't be changed.

Sam grinned slowly. "Oh, I really didn't want to be late for English today. Speaking of which, we should hurry." She added, shutting her locker and walking off down the hallway to their shared English class.

"You say that like today's special." Tucker said, frowning. He didn't remember there being anything different about today. "There's not like, a test or something, is there?"

"She said she didn't want to be late, Tuck. It's obviously not a test." Danny gave his friend a look of mock disappointment. "Uh, do we have a supply?" He ventured.

"Nope. You're both wrong." They walked the rest of the way to class with Danny and Tucker making various guesses as to why Sam wanted to be on time today, while Sam just grinned and refused to give them any yes or no answers. "You'll just have to wait and see." She gave them, finally, stepping into the classroom closely followed by the two other boys.

There was a few moments of silence as Sam finished reading. Surprisingly, it was the same silence that had prevailed the entire time Sam had been speaking. Most of the class was watching her in shock. Quite a few students had put there books down partway through the reading and instead watched Sam, caught up in her voice and expressions. She really brought the story to life.

Finally, Mr. Lancer broke the silence. "That was wonderful Sam. Thank you for volunteering to read for us today." Sam grinned self-consciously.

"That was weird!" Paulina said. She was creeped out, because even she'd gotten caught up in the Goth's reading. She'd actually... payed attention the entire class. And found it interesting. She wondered if maybe she put a spell on the class while she was reading. Just another not to trust the freaky Goth chick.

"That was cool!" Said the girl from the back of the room – Jodi.

"She's dreamy." Grinned one of the nerds, before the boy beside him cuffed him over the head. "Shut up, Mikey."

"That was awesome!" Danny grinned, giving Sam a thumbs up.

"Uh, Mr. Lancer..." Valerie raised her hand, but didn't wait for him to call on her before continuing. "Is she going to be reading the rest of the book in class?"

Mr. Lancer looked thoughtful for a moment before turning to Sam. "Miss Manson, would you mind reading like you did today for a few more classes, until we finish the book?"

"Uh, no! Not at all." She grinned, proud. She wasn't used to getting this much attention, let alone for just reading something out loud. Apparently these kids didn't get much excitement. And in a town with frequent ghost attacks, that was a little bit sad.

"Alright then. Let's take a vote. Who wants me to continue reading." No hands went up. "And who wants Miss Manson to finish the rest of the book?" Nearly the entire class raised their hands – even Dash. In fact, the only two hands that stayed down belonged to Paulina and Star. "In that case, thank you for volunteering, Sam."

Of course, Sam should have known that the day wouldn't have been a normal one. Not after her first two days here. It seemed like the other student might just be right about her being cursed after all. That was what it felt like to Sam, at least. This time, however, the spook didn't wait until lunch to show up.

Sam and Tucker were standing by Danny's locker before math class as he rifled desperately through the pile of papers stuffed into the bottom. "Aw man, it's gotta be here!" He whined. "I don't have the time to redo this assignment!"

"Translation? You're too lazy to do it again."

"Haha, very funny Tucker. Now get in here and help me look!"

Sam sighed. "Here, if it's that big a deal, you can just use mine." She pulled out a piece of paper from her backpack and handed it to Danny.

"What? Sam, I can't this. Then you won't have the math assignment. It's due today."

"Yeah, but I have an excuse. I'm new. Besides, we got home early because of ghost attacks two days in a row now. I think I'll be fine. Besides, I'll probably be able to redo it before the end of class." She handed it to him again, grinning.

"Sam, I-"

"Plus, she doesn't already have six other outstanding assignments." Tucker felt the need to add, looking smug with himself.

"Yeah, that too." Sam agreed as Danny glared at his so called best friend.

"Well... if you're sure..." Danny trailed off, staring at the paper in her hands. He was weighing his options in his head... It was Sam's work, she worked hard on it... but, he did his, too, for once! He just couldn't find it! And she said she'd be able to get it done again in class, he knew he wouldn't be able to redo it in time... Besides, she had an excuse. He had six outstanding assignments. That seemed to make up his mind for him.

"Thanks Sam!" He grinned, grabbing the work and folding into his math book as Sam and Tucker rolled their eyes.

Tucker grabbed his wrist. "Great, now that's settled, let's hurry up before-"

"Fenton!"

"We are so gonna be late for class." Tucker sighed.

Sam looked up, surprised, as Dash – she recognized him from English and math class - walked up and grabbed Danny, hauling him off the floor by the front of his shirt.

"Oh, uh, hi Dash..." Danny grinned. "What's up?" He winced as his back was slammed up against the wall of lockers.

"I don't have my English assignment for tomorrow."

"And this concerns me, why exactly?" Danny winced again as Dash pushed against him harder.

"Because I need yours, Fenton."

Danny actually laughed for a few seconds before answering. "What makes you think that I did mine either?

Dash scowled before dropping him to the floor. "Fine, but if I find out you were lying-"

"Jeez, Dash. Why not just do it yourself? It's not even that hard." Sam scowled at him.

He looked like he was going to say something back to her, before giving her a weird look and storming of down the hallway.

"What was all that about, anyway?" She asked, helping Danny back to his feet.

"Oh, that? That's just Dash being Dash." Danny shrugged.

"Yeah, he's always like that." Tucker agreed.

"Wait, you mean you just let him pick on you like that?"

"Uh, Sam?" Danny gave her a very deadpan look. "Have you seen him? He's like, twice my size. I wouldn't exactly call that 'letting' him. What else am I supposed to do?"

"Oh, I don't know. Tell a teacher? Or your parents?"

Danny shuddered at the mention of his parents.

"We do tell the teacher." Tucker said. "But Dash is star quarterback, so he never gets in trouble."

"And I'm so not getting my parents involved. It's not even a big deal, can we just drop it?" Danny asked, annoyed.

"No way!" Sam growled, grabbing his wrists. "That is like, totally unfair! Someone needs to teach him a lesson!" She was practically shouting, making Danny wince as she stared him down, fuming.

"Sam! Seriously! It's not a-" Anything else Danny might have said was cut off by a scream from around the corner. Danny groaned as the three exchanged glances and took off running town the hall – toward the screaming, of course.

"Why are we always running towards the trouble?" Danny complained as he chased his friends down the hall.

"Wonder what's going on?" Tucker wondered aloud.

"I'll give you three guesses!" Sam shouted as she turned the corner an skidded to a stop.

"Hey Sam, I think he likes you!" Danny grinned from beside her.

In front of them, the Shadow from the day before had Dash and two other kids cornered against the wall. Sam recognized them as Jodi and Mikey from her English class. Dash was holding Mikey out in front of him as some sort of human shield. Sam had to admit he had a point. The stupid Shadow kept showing up wherever she did. Like it was following her around.

"Hey, Shadow!" She shouted, turning it's attention away from the other kids. Jodi and Mikey grinned at her and took off down the hall. Dash gasped when he saw her. "You did this! You're a freak!" And then he too turned tail and ran down the hallway.

"Uh, good job distracting it, Sam, but now it's after us!" Danny cried.

"Yeah, I didn't think this far ahead!" They scattered as the Shadow shot another beam of darkness at the three of them, Danny and Tucker ending up on the opposite side of the hall as Sam. She rolled and got back to her feet, shouting again. "Hey, Shadow, over here!" but the Shadow was ignoring her this time around.

Trying to dial his cell phone, Danny yelped as the ghost shot it out of his hand. "Hey! I had pictures saved on that!" He suddenly ducked as another blast hit the locker beside his head, dissipating quickly in the light.

"Danny, you run that way!" Tucker shoved Danny down the hall, then turned around and started running the other way. The Shadow tried to grab at them, but got distracted when they split up and blinked in confusion.

"Hey, leave them alone!" Sam shouted again, still standing behind the Shadow and trying to get it's attention. It turned to face her, but instead of attacking, it just stood there, motionless. Danny and Tucker already started making their ways back to Sam, being careful not to draw attention to themselves.

"Get out of here!" She hissed at the Shadow. It didn't respond at first, but after a few seconds hesitation, it slowly started to dissipate. Sam's eyes widened in surprise, and so did Danny and Tucker's, behind her. "And stop following me!" she added, waving her fist, as the last of the ghost disappeared from sight.

"Uh, Sam...? You okay?" Danny asked, walking up to her.

"Yeah, I'm fine. How about you guys?" She finally took her eyes off of where the ghost had been standing and turned to face the two boys. "You're both alright?"

"Yeah, we're fine. But what just happened?" Tucker asked.

Sam paused. "I, I really don't know. But I think Danny was right, when he said that it liked me. Or something. It's like it's following me!" she sounded angry, and grossed out, as if she were talking about some sort of ghost stalker. "But, it was also like it was listening to me. It was really weird."

"That is weird." Tucker agreed.

"Uh, guys!" Danny suddenly shouted, jumping between them. He pointed at one of the clocks mounted on the wall.

"Aah! We're fifteen minutes late!" Tucker cried, grabbing Danny and Sam by the wrist and dragging them down the hall.

"Well, at least we didn't get sent home early again." Sam grinned as she helped Danny and Tucker clean up their Science labs. "We're already halfway through the week and this is the first Science class I actually made it to."

"Sorry if I'm not celebrating Sam, but the only reason we didn't get sent home is because that stupid ghost toasted my cell phone! My parents are going to kill me!" Danny moaned, sitting with his face on the desk. He held up his burnt out cell phone casing to prove his point.

She shrugged. "Oh well. We didn't even need them, anyway."

Tucker nodded suddenly, joining in the conversation as he piled up his books and shoved them in his bag. "Yeah, you just told it to go away. And it listened. What's up with that?" He asked.

"I don't know!" She cried. "I have no more idea what's going on than you guys do."

"And it keeps showing up whenever you get angry." He added, apparently ignoring her.

"Tuck, drop it." Danny warned him.

"What? You have to admit I have a point."

"So you still think I'm responsible for this thing? Is that it?" Sam growled back.

"No! Guys! Sam, calm down! Tuck, stop talking!" Danny jumped up in between the two, sticking a hand in each of their faces. "Seriously guys, can we just drop it?"

Both of them paused to take a look at Danny, who looked pretty much fed up with both of them, before they both sighed and turned away.

"Yeah, sure." Sam said.

"Whatever." Tucker agreed.

"Look, if we want to find out what's going on, fighting about it isn't going to help us. We should...I dunno, try figuring out what's going on."

Tucker and Sam both nodded grudgingly.

"You know, he's right." Sam said. "Look, Danny. Why don't we go over to your house after school?"

"What? My house? Why?" He was shaking his head, and hands, in a gesture that clearly said Bad-Idea!

"I thought your parents were supposed to be 'ghost experts'." She added air quotations around the words 'ghost' and 'experts', because she wasn't so sure they applied after actually meeting them.

"Uh, no. No. Bad idea! They're not really experts on ghosts. They're more experts on... destroying ghosts. They don't actually know that much about them. They'd never even seen a real ghost before they got the Ghost Portal working."

"Ghost Portal?"

Danny frowned and put his chin in his hands, looking gloomy. "Uh, yeah. Their 'Ghost Portal'. It's how all the ghosts keep getting out of the 'Ghost Zone'. That's where they're from. Apparently. So my parents thought it would be a good idea to make a great big doorway for them to come through whenever they felt like it. Look, I don't know that much about it anyway, can we talk about something else?" Danny asked, obviously irritated by the subject.

"Yeah, sure. Sorry." Sam apologized, trying to hide her grin. A real... Ghost Portal? That sounded pretty cool. Shaking her head quickly, she changed the subject for him. "Alright then, how about we go over to my house? I've got a few books that might be helpful... I dunno how useful they really are, but it won't hurt to look."

They all agreed, and just as the final bell rang. Putting their chairs up on the lab tables, the three of them ran out of the science room together and made their way to the front of the school. They passed Dash and some of his friends on the way out, and Sam heard him telling them about the ghost as she walked by. Apparently he blamed her for summoning it – again, and had spread it to all his friends pretty quick.

Suddenly grinning to herself, she stopped walking. Danny and Tucker didn't notice at first and were already a few steps ahead by the time they noticed. When they turned around, they saw Sam standing in front of Dash, Paulina, and Valerie, and a random assortment of other jocks.

"That's right!" She shouted at him, "and I'll sick him on you again tomorrow if you don't stop picking on Danny!" She put her hands on her hips, grinning widely as Dash and the others ran off, throwing back a few comments of "freak" among other insults. But ran off nonetheless.

After getting over the initial 'coool!'s of seeing her house – she inwardly decided it was a good thing they saw it now instead of after her parents started renovations – she had brought her friends in through the kitchen.

"Oh, Sam! You brought some friends home! How nice!" And abruptly froze as she heard her mother's voice.

"Oh no..." She shuddered, turning around. "Um, yeah. Mom. This is Tucker... and Danny!" She put on an overly cheery grin, twitching slightly, holding both boys out in front of herself, a hand on each of their shoulders. Both boys lifted up a hand and waved meekly.

"Uh, hi, Mrs. Manson...!" Danny grinned up at the woman in front of him, expression frozen in place. He would never have guessed that she and Sam were related.

"Hello Danny. It's nice for Sam to have some nice, normal friends. I'm sure you'll be a good influence on her." Her words sounded more like a warning to him. He twitched as Sam yanked him and Tucker both back, trying to back out of the room. "What are you kids here for?" She asked brightly. To be honest, it was creeping Danny out. He decided that, based on her previous statement, it was probably best not to tell the truth.

"Oh, we were, uh, just going to go up to Sam's room. And work on our English projects! Our, uh, normal English projects? For school!" He felt his face twitch again as he tried to hold his grin in place.

"What? I thought we were supposed to be reading about ghosts?" Tucker asked, obliviously.

"Oh, ha, ghosts! What a joker! He's joking." Sam corrected quickly, yanking both of them back quickly and running up the stairs to her room, leaving her mother behind in the kitchen.

"Jeez, Sam." Danny muttered once they were all sitting down on her floor. "You could have warned us about your mom."

"Oh, I dunno." Tucker cut in cheerfully. "She seemed nice enough to me." He was smiling innocently, and apparently genuine as well. The other two just exchanged a confused glance with each other and shrugged.

Standing up, Sam pulled a few boxes off of her shelves. She tossed one over to Tucker. "Here, these are mostly on ghosts, and all things supernatural'" She grinned, putting emphasis on the 'supernatural'. Help me look through them and see if we can find anything like what's been following me around the school. Danny- Danny? What are you doing?" She interrupted herself when she looked up at her other friend.

He was pulling a different box off of her shelf and looking at it oddly. "Uh, Sam? What's in here?" He asked her, turning around and holding the box up.

"I dunno. I think it's one of the ones my parents packed for me." She said, taking it from him. He held on to it after she grabbed it, and she had to tug on it to get him to let go before she could look at the label. On the side, someone had written 'Sam's Weird Stuff' in black marker. "Huh. I have no idea. You can go through it if you want." She shrugged, giving it back. Danny sat down on the floor and opened it, before starting to rifle through it's contents.

Turning back to Tucker, Sam found that he was already starting to go through some of the books and sorting them into piles. There was a larger pile, which he told her were 'pretty much useless' and another, much smaller pile, which he said might have something useful in them.

"We might be at this for a while." She added to the two of them, dropping another two boxes on the floor. "These are all of my books."

"That's alright." Danny said without looking up. "I don't really care. I don't have to be home until ten anyways." He had his own pile of stuff on the floor beside him. He didn't really seem to be looking through it though. He would pull out a book and toss it aside, pull out a handful of assorted stones and such, and drop them on top. There were also a few coins, a candle, a silver charm bracelet - "hey, I've been looking for that!" - and a small dragon figurine.

"Well, you have fun with that, Danny." Sam said, giving him an odd look as she slipped the charm bracelet on over her wrist. "Me and Tuck are gonna look through these." While Tucker kept separating the books into two different piles, Sam grabbed a book from the top of the might-be-useful pile and started flipping through it, leaning back against her bed.

"Hey, Sam? What's this?" Danny spoke up after a few moments of silence. "Huh?" She glanced up and looked over at him. He was holding up some black disk-like stone.

"Uh, Ida know. Lemme see it." Instead of tossing it over, he got up and walked over to her, dropping it into her open hands. It was some sort of obsidian pendant, with a ring near the top where a cord or something could be strung through it. Turning it over in her hands, Sam noticed a stylized 'DP' engraved on the side, but when she ran her hand over it, the surface felt smooth.

She couldn't remember ever buying it, and doubted her parents would have given it to her. She shrugged, handing it back to him. "No idea. I don't remember ever seeing it before."

"Oh." he frowned, looking disappointed. "Well, uh... I suppose I can help you and Tucker now. There was nothing else in the box." He jerked his thumb back over his shoulder and pointed at the pile of 'junk' beside the box. Sitting down, he pulled another book off the top of the useful pile and started reading, trying to hide his look of boredom. He kept playing with the stone absentmindedly with his free hand while he read.

By the end of the night, the three of them hadn't found any real information that might help them figure out what the Shadow from school might have been. "That's alright." Sam said, trying to hide her disappointment. "We've still got a lot more books to read. We can look over them some more tomorrow at school."

"Yeah, but in the meantime, we've got to keep you from getting mad." Tucker added.

Danny nodded. "Yeah, every time you get angry, that ghost shows up. So you're gonna have to make yourself stay calm until we can figure out what's going on."

Sam groaned. "Ugh. Yeah, yeah. I'll try. Hopefully we can figure this out soon." It would be a pretty tough week if she couldn't get mad at anyone all week. Or longer. Then again, it might not be so bad if the Shadow kept listening to whatever she told it.

"Well, see ya guys tomorrow." She said as Danny and Tucker left. Danny hesitated at her doorway before frowning, and putting the pendant back down on her table. He held it there for a minute before letting go and turning around. "Uh, bye Sam."

She grinned and watched him leave, before grabbing the stone and following him to the front door. "Hey, Danny?" She called just before he walked down her front steps. He stopped and turned around. "Uh, yeah, Sam?"

"Here." She grinned, holding it out. "I don't even remember getting it. You can have it." she snickered as he grabbed it from her and stuffed it in his pocked.

"Cool! Thanks, Sam!" He grinned, before waving and turning around again, running down her stairs. "See ya tomorrow at school!"

Mossmask: Alright, I've got a question in regards to updates. Would you rather see new chapters every week, twice a week, biweekly, etc. Would you rather if I updated during the week or on weekends, etc. I just wanna know everyone's opinion here.

Also, I have a random question pertaining to when you read. When you read fanfiction, do you hear all of the dialogue parts in the characters' actual voices? And do you visualize the story in the same animation style? Just curious as to how many people actually do that. xD

So there ya go, two questions, no reason not to review now. =3
Ah, and... I'm sorry if the part with Dash seems awkward. I put if off as long as I could, but I am going to learn how to write him eventually. I have an IMPOSSIBLE time trying to write him in character, so if you noticed anything wrong with what I wrote, or have any idea how to make it seem any less awkward, please let me know. I'm trying desparately to fix it.

Thanks all, cya next chapter. (~Cya on the other side~!)

~Dash Out :3