I'M BACK. With lots of help from Paige, as always. Seriously, this thing probably wouldn't exist without her help. In this chapter, you get to see just HOW messed up an event can be, especially against what the title is. And it will probably get worse from here.
Actually, scratch that. If this goes according to plan, it WILL get worse from here.
I don't own Danny Phantom. You should probably be thankful.
ENJOY!
ROYAL GAMES
'Duck Pond' was the most deceptive damn thing Danny had ever heard, including the terms 'it's not embarrassing!' during his 'birds and bees' talk, 'this won't hurt you!' to every invention his parents made since he was fourteen, every single time anyone said 'what's the worst that could happen?', AND when Sam and Tucker assured him nothing would happen if he went into his parents' supposedly malfunctioning ghost portal.
But let's go back to the beginning of the day.
Danny woke up in a relatively good mood. If there was one thing that was good about these 'games' it was the fact that, for whatever reason, the ghosts had not shown up for a fight and he could finally get a full night of sleep. He figured there was a chance that ghosts would start to show up during the 'Human Competition' part of the game, but that probably wasn't something to be overly worried about. After all, no one really messed with Observants, though Danny suspected it had more to do with the ghosts being annoying than any actual respect to their 'government'. Honestly he didn't really care for the difference much as he walked to his high school. So long as he kept an eye out for things (pun fully intended, thank you Observants) in case they got out of hand somewhere, Danny figured it would be fine.
Probably.
Pretty much all of the Competitors had turned up at the grounds for the Royal Games at about the same time, a little before nine AM, only to find things completely different than how anyone had ever seen the place.
The entrance to the grounds officially started in front of the school building, a large fence blocking most of the outside any view of the inside. There was, of course, a gate with two rather bored teens manning it. There was no cost to go in, the teens just stood there handing out cheap green wrist bands and programs with the day's events on it as well as a list of the Competitors on the back, complete with standard pictures of each of them. Danny wasn't sure how or why the teens were working at a ghost-hosted event, but at least they weren't possessed or anything as far as he could tell, so he let it slide as he let the girl slip the stupid ecto-green bracelet over his wrist.
Stepping inside the gate was almost unreal. The Registration Rent—the tent to register to rent a tent, go figure—was left immediately after the entrance, and to the right of the entrance was a large board with all sixteen Competitors' faces and names on it. There was no ranks yet, nor were any points given to anyone, so for now it was in alphabetical order with a large zero on the far right side of board for each name. Beyond the hence-dubbed Rank Board, the Question Tent sat, ready for anyone to come by. Beyond that, there was an entire sea of tents.
It looked like the entirety of Amity Park had all rented tents. Food stalls, game booths, even small stores selling who-knows-what were everywhere. News stations had tents scattered throughout, and some of the families and friends of the Competitors had tents to support them. Danny noticed that quite a few of the people weren't even from Amity Park, and he was fairly certain he just saw a 'World News' tent giving a live broadcast. The place was so massive that the paths had names as if they were streets, each section grouping together and holding similar things, and Danny found himself glad that the little program he held had a map—it even labeled the tents, which didn't surprise Danny nearly as much as it should have considering the fact the Observants probably already knew what tents would be where before they ever printed up anything, although it was still eerie. More towards the far side of the area, though still relatively close to the center, was the football field, though it looked more like a Roman colosseum than anything else at this point, and Danny decided he'd explore more on that later.
It was nearly nine, so Danny rushed through the 'streets', deciding he would get a better look at those at some other point, and hurried over to where the Competitor's Tent was located all the way on the other side of the grounds, fairly out of the way of other tents as well as from prying eyes and listening ears. He made it on time, even had some time to chat with Sam and Tucker, before two Observants, one of which was Tim, the human's bow-tied guide, walked in just as it turned nine.
"Good morning, you're all here," the Observant that had been acting as an announcer said. "As we discussed yesterday, today's event is called Duck Pond…"
And that's how one of the most messed up game that Danny had ever played started.
First, the ghosts had everyone change into orange swimsuits, everyone collectively deciding not to mention how these ghosts even got exact measurements of them all, along with a baggy yellow shirt. Then they all had to wear helmets with sun visors as well as overly-cheerful cartoon duck faces printed on them. After that they were given what looked like giant foam Q-tips and herded to the former-football-field-turned-colosseum-of-probable-doom. There was an oval building structure surrounding the whole place, a mess of hallways confusing everyone until they entered what was apparently now their battlefield. In the center of this field was a gigantic shallow pool. All of the Competitors were given a strange looking blue surfboard type thing, and told to put them in the water and stand on them. It was nearly ten at this point, and the stands around the field were filling up with spectators, watching the Competitors as they balanced, some more easily than others, on the strange boards.
At ten fifteen, everyone was settled and the announcer Observant floated over the center of the field, its voice reaching all corners of the area. "Welcome to the Royal Games!" it greeted. "This is our first Event Day, and today's event is Duck Pond! Before we start Duck Pond, we'll go over the rules. Understand?"
The crowd gave a murmur of yes, waiting impatiently for the start of the event.
"Okay then," the Observant said. "You'll notice that all of the Competitors are in the pool. They are our Ducks. They have to stand on those boards, which we call Duck Boards, and try not to fall off. When we start, the pool water will start to circulate, sometimes changing speed and/or direction with no warning. If you look closely at our Duck Boards, you'll notice a light at the front of the board and a button at the back. This light indicates if the board is in water, in which it will be a blue light, red if it's not in water, and finally, the light turns green if the board flips over. The button on the back will, when pressed, flip the board. When this happens, our Competitors must either find a way to stay on their boards, jump onto someone else's board and then back onto theirs, or steal another board by knocking the other Competitor off. The boards will also randomly flip themselves, however they are less likely to if you are at the edge of the pool. You're not so safe there, though, because any Competitors that fall off their board get to stand at the edge of the pool and try to take out other Competitors using their padded staff."
"Well, this sounds horrible," Tucker muttered to Danny, to which both he and Sam agreed with a simple nod.
Dash, who was located on the other end of the pool, seemed confused. "Can you, I don't know, dumb it down a little?" he yelled up to the Observant.
The Observant looked a little irritated, but responded all the same. "Don't fall off your board, try to knock others off theirs, the button on the back of the boards will unbalance your opponents. Simple enough?"
Dash nodded. Just be the last man standing, right? That's how he understood it, at least.
"Another thing before we start. You'll have noticed the board just inside the entrance gate. If you look at it, you'll notice it has a 'points' column on it. There are three ways for Competitors to get points. First, get votes in the Question Tent. Second, have a tent or have a tent run for you by someone else, letting its popularity as well as any money raised by selling things translate to points—this is monitored to stay fair to other Competitors. Third, participation in Events, Battles, and Public Interviews held by the news stations. The more points a Competitor has, the higher on the board they go. Beware, though. Being higher up might not be nearly as great as one might think."
After a moment of silence, Mikey piped up with, "What points could we get here in this event?"
The Observant perked up and responded. "One point is rewarded for staying on your board when it flips, two points if you steal another's board by knocking them off, three for flipping someone else's board with an extra bonus point if they fall off or otherwise knocking that person off their board, and four for winning the event. As you can guess, points are harder to collect than it would appear."
"Ten bucks says Paulina is in the top five," Tucker said to Sam.
"Top three, and you're on," Sam shook hands with the boy.
"Without any further ado, let's begin," the Observant said, floating off to a large booth-like place to the side. Danny lurched a little as the water gained a current and started moving them in a slow, clockwise circle.
Almost immediately, Nathan was next to Valerie, attempting to flirt and win her favor by saying, "I promise not to flip you, Valerie." Almost as immediately, Valerie calmly used her staff thing to push the button on the back of Nathan's board, making him fall off into the water with a shout. Next thing Nathan knew, he was outside the pool, staff thing in hand and Duck Board out of sight.
"Our first Competitor out of the Duck Pond is Nathan, flipped successfully by Valerie Gray and rewarding her with four points, putting her at the top of our rank!" an Observant said over a large PA system.
Things got a little crazy after that.
Jack got excited over the whole thing, waving his hands around and accidentally smacking Damon in the face and off his board. Vlad managed to hit Danny's board's button, trying to knock the younger halfa out of the 'pond'. Danny jumped off his board onto Vlad's, nearly knocking the man off before the millionaire (billionaire?) shoved Danny backwards and—luckily—back onto his original board. Jack chose then to get up to Vlad and try to say hello, accidentally pressing Vlad's button and flipping the unprepared man into the water. Jack was only able to get halfway through apologizing before Damon, who now stood outside the pond, managed to hit Jack's board and his button with his staff, causing the large man to tip over, causing a wave effect that unbalanced Mikey into the pond with him.
"This is rough!" Tucker complained to Sam. "Everyone's turned against each other!"
"Yep," Sam smirked before hitting the button at the back of Tucker's board, successfully flipping him over to join the others on the edge of the pool.
The pool then stilled for just a second before it started to go counterclockwise twice as fast as it had been going before. In Danny's flailing, he accidentally hit Star's board, flipping it. She managed to hop onto Paulina's and back to hers, but not before she declared vengeance on the boy. Paulina's board randomly flipped on its own after that, which she combated by knocking Star off her board and stealing it.
Sam made her way, slowly, over to Danny by pushing her staff against the floor of the pool, intent on flipping his board, but was stopped by Jazz suddenly hitting the board's button and flipping the Goth into the pool. Danny, on his part, decided to put the terrified-looking English teacher out of his misery and flipped his board, knocking Mr. Lancer into the water and out of the game. Valerie managed to sneak up to Paulina's board and flip it, sending the popular girl to the sidelines with a slightly-betrayed Star shortly after.
Dash decided the girls needed help, so he oh so kindly shoved Kwan into the water. Kwan, in turn, hit the back of Dash's board as hard as he could, managing to physically flip the board and take the blond out.
Duck ponds were supposed to be relaxing. This game was the exact opposite of that. And thus, the most deceptive naming ever, according to Danny.
Dash had just popped up at the pool's edge, which left the last four players. Valerie, Jazz, Maddie, and finally Danny.
Danny was not liking his odds.
Jazz's board flipped at the same time as Maddie's, but both managed to stay out of the water. Jazz's board flipped again when she strayed too close to the edge, her board's button being hit by Paulina. Danny watched as Valerie decided to stay close to the edge, fighting off the others with her staff thing as they tried to hit her board and surviving two random board flips before Maddie managed to knock the girl into the pool. Danny just tended to stay more towards the center and just risk possibly flipping versus dealing with any of his classmates.
Maddie scanned the pool, looking for others until her eyes fell upon her son. Her face broke out in a grin. "Danny, sweetie!" she called just as the pool changed direction, clockwise now, and moved almost at a standstill. She maneuvered her way to Danny, despite Danny's attempts to get away, considering the fact that they were the last two left. Just before she got to him, his board flipped, but he once again managed to avoid the water and jumped up, barely managing to stay on his board when he landed. Maddie's board did the same not even two seconds after, but she managed the jump and stay on her board much easier than her son did.
"Look at you, getting so far!" Maddie said. "I'm so proud!" She looked about ready to hug him.
"Thanks?" Danny said. "I have no idea how it happened."
Maddie's board flipped again, and this time she jumped from her board onto Danny's. Danny quickly jumped onto what was his mother's board and away from said mother, hoping to avoid an overbearing hug. There was a time and place for everything and Danny decided that proud motherly hugs were not exactly what he needed right now.
Danny had just about regained his balance when his mother hit the board's button, causing him to flip into the water and then to the outside of the pool in less than a second. The commentary that he had been ignoring suddenly rang in his ears as the Observant declared Madeline Fenton the winner of Duck Pond.
"Wha… wait," Danny muttered as he sat confused on the ground. "My own mother just… flipped me into the water? Out of the game?"
Sam walked up to him and clasped a hand onto his shoulder. "That she did, Danny. That she did."
"Don't worry dude," Tucker assured. "You still got pretty far."
"My own mother…." Danny said. "I feel betrayed."
"Go Maddie!" Jack yelled as the rest of the crowd was erupting into cheers for the first winner of the competition.
The rest was a bit of a blur for Danny as he suddenly found himself with the other Competitors standing in line on a stage just outside the arena area. Reporters crowded around, taking pictures of the Competitors and making commentary to the video cameras. Danny vaguely remembered to smile and wave a little, but it was fairly obvious that he was a little bit lost and a bit confused as to what the heck was going on.
Just as quickly as they had got on the stage, they had gone off it and were now in the Competitors Tent being told to change back to their normal clothes and give their event things back to Tim—who was still protesting his name—save for the stupid helmets. Apparently, they got to keep those as a souvenir. Danny didn't really care. He was still stuck on 'my mom betrayed me' and 'wait what's happening, where are we' to really comment on having such a stupid helmet to take home.
A few minutes passed and Danny collected his thoughts enough to talk to his friends without mentioning his 'utter betrayal' every chance he could, though he was still sending scandalized looks over to his mother on the other side of the tent (which she returned with sheepish smiles).
"Alright, good job everyone, you did spectacularly for your first day," the announcer Observant said, appearing at the front of the tent with Tim. "Although, not everyone did as great a job as the rest. Some of you now have a great start on the points while others… not so much… We'll get right to it. As you all can tell by looking around, no one got eliminated in Duck Pond. As much as we would love to not have to eliminate anyone on the first day… well, we must. Not everyone managed to get even a single point. In fact, four of you ended up with no points whatsoever, leaving it a tie to who will be eliminated."
"Oh no," Sam muttered. "This can't be good."
"Very not good," Tucker agreed.
"To remedy this, we have decided to have a secondary mini event in the afternoon," the announcer Observant continued, ignoring the groans that followed.
"But I'm tired, I don't want to do another event today," Star complained.
"Luckily for you, you barely managed to avoid the second event by having one point, so you're excused from the event," the one-eyed ghost said. "The four without points will have to try to not get eliminated in the mini event. They are going to go against the top four with the most points."
"Wait, who has the most points?" Dash asked.
"And who are the ones about to get eliminated?" Kwan seconded.
"Well," the announcer Observant said. "The four without points are Mr. William Lancer, Mikey Baker, Nathan Lester, and Tucker Foley."
"Aw, man," Tucker complained.
"The four that have the most points are as follows. Madeline Fenton with fifteen points, Jack Fenton with eleven points, Valerie Gray with ten points, and finally Daniel Fenton with nine points."
"What?!" Danny yelled along with about half the tent.
No one was really expecting that last one, despite Danny almost winning the game.
Danny looked around. He would have to probably team up with his parents and a scary-good ghost hunting ex-girlfriend to try to eliminate his teacher, two kids he barely knew, and his best friend. He was also amongst the top four with nine points which was earning him wicked glares from the A-lister crowd.
This… was not looking up for him.
ROYAL GAMES
Well, that's that! It's a little shorter, sorry about that, but not by all that much.
I tried to think of the most demented game of Duck Pond ever—with humans as the 'ducks'. Hopefully I succeeded?
Anyway, yes, there's a points system. And I did add up the points and that's really what I got. I didn't even manipulate them. That's honestly how it ended. To be clear, this order is as follows (any ties are in alphabetical order): Maddie (15), Jack (11), Valerie (10), Danny (9), Jazz (5), Paulina (5), Damon Gray (4), Dash (4), Kwan (4), Sam (4), Vlad (3), Star (1), Mr. Lancer (0), Mikey (0), Nathan (0), and finally Tucker (0). Any suggestions for points and earning them are appreciated as I'm still developing this thing and all its parts.
I'm using fake last/first names to fill in the blanks on some of the characters. So far Mr. Lancer has the first name of William (often used), Nathan's last name is Lester because he is, at one point, mistakenly called Lester instead of Nathan (Claw of the Wild, I think), and Mikey's last name is Baker for his voice actor, Dee Bradley Baker (who also does Lance Thunder and maybe someone else?). Also Paulina Sanchez because I think everyone's using it at this point.
Remember, you can suggest things using the Question Tent (the review box) (please leave a simple name for yourself if you do) or talk directly to the game organizers using Bow-Tied Observant Tim's Inbox (aka by PMing me). Anything else about it can be answered in the below author's note in Chapter 2- The Qualification Round (I'd suggest reading that before submitting anything, just to be sure). Seriously guys, I'm writing as I go, and while I have plans and certain plot points, there is lots (lots and lots and LOTS) of flexibility for you guys to work with and suggest.
Oh, and I'll try to add some QT questions next chapter. I just couldn't really find a place that seemed natural in this chapter. Rest assured, all your Lancer questions will be answered (no, seriously, everyone's asking about Lancer, it seems).
And yes, there will be a second event. It's smaller, and I have yet to decide how it will go or what, exactly, it will be (I do have a vague idea, but it's fairly vague), so suggest what you think should happen and who should be eliminated. It could even be Tucker, depending on the event and how I end up writing it out, so your suggestions would help immensely.
With all that in mind…
SEE YOU LATER, FRIENDS!
