Catchy
A Danny Phantom Fanfiction by Cordria
The chair was hard, rigid, and unforgiving, and it was only getting worse as time wore on. The glare of the computer monitor made his eyes burn. Danny stretched and groaned and felt his spine shift as he yawned, fighting to keep himself awake. Massaging his aching neck, he twisted around to look at the rest of the lab.
His mother was happily staring at a monitor on the other side of the lab, keeping track of every blip and blob that passed by. His father had commandeered the only comfortable chair in the lab (meaning: the only one that still had some padding left after months of ectoplasmic explosions) and was, at least if the snores were any indication, fast asleep in front of the third monitor.
"Mom?" Danny asked, trying his best not to sound grouchy after three-and-some hours of being trapped in a dark lab with his parents doing something pointless on a particularly nice June day.
"Yes, sweetie?" she answered, not talking her eyes off her monitor.
"Can we be done soon?" Danny glanced at the experiment he was supposed to be paying attention to. The computer screen showed an up-and-down zig-zag line that looked a lot like the line on those heartbeat monitors from TV shows. Danny was supposed to be recording the time stamps for any 'aberrations' that appeared in the pattern.
"Just a little bit longer, sweetheart. We're almost done."
Danny scowled and tried to slouch, but the hard plastic back of the chair dug uncomfortably into his shoulder blades and made him sit back upright. "You said that an hour ago," he muttered under his breath.
His mother leaned towards her computer monitor. "I almost have enough data for a correlation…" Her voice trailed off, busily scratching notes on her clipboard.
Danny's own clipboard was mostly devoid of writing. The pattern on the screen was erratic and twisting, making it nearly impossible for Danny to even tell when one of these 'aberrations' was occurring. Setting the clipboard down on the desk, Danny rested his elbows by the keyboard and scrubbed at his eyes with his palms. Despite the risks involved, Danny was very close to turning invisible and running away. The unconscious plea behind that thought had Danny's fingers starting to vanish.
Then he remembered why he was here: the weekend trip with Sam. And Tucker, his thoughts tagged on after a second. He would work a few hours in the lab helping his parents finish up this stupid experiment, and they'd give him the money to go on the trip. A whole weekend without adult supervision at a beach house. A whole weekend without ghosts. A whole weekend with Sam.
…and Tucker.
He forced his hands back into the visible realm as he grabbed the clipboard and the pencil and focused on the computer screen. The line on the screen – a line Danny still didn't understand what it was measuring or why, and he really didn't care to ask – zipped up and down and up and down and up and up and down…
He zoned. His eyes glazed over. The pencil in his fingers played a little rat-a-tat-tat on the clipboard as he struggled to stay awake and focus. He really wanted the money for that trip.
The tapping of his pencil was forming a pattern. Rap ta-tap-tap rap rap ta-tap-tap… Danny allowed a small smirk to flit across his lips. It was the drum line to that stupid song that was making its rounds in the ghost zone. Practically everyone was singing that silly Ember song. The one Sam would probably enjoy listening to, if she could ever understand it.
With a roll of his eyes, Danny yawned and hoped that Ember never caught him tapping out the beat to her latest siren song. He'd never live it down.
But it was catchy, in its own way. Even once he calibrated for her hypnotic overtones, it still had a catchy chorus. He tapped with the pencil, feeling his head bob, and hummed quietly.
"S'crezaat l'Portraq, nava k'yrecka seh ela," Danny sang under his breath, watching the zig-zag line flick up and down and up and down and the rap ta-tap-tap of his pencil against the clipboard. "S'vartlka l'Za l'maniita sn'Krecyf ken struktela…"
Completely unaware of the lights flickering to life on one of his parents' devices, Danny sank back in his chair. He was entranced by the way the little zig-zag line seemed to be moving in time to the melody of the song.
"K'ventra el seh, k'carvreta el seh, j'illuelmanipt m'Robwr yh j'maniitapt jn'Roobwr tret Nukch ezaleh…"
Danny was sure of it by now. The line was bouncing perfectly to the beat of Ember's catchy…
new…
tune…
"Proxana," Danny hissed, suddenly very much awake as he stared at the line zigging up and down. Ember! Somehow, this line was tracking the tune of Ember's song!
His brain spun, trying to figure out how Ember could be affecting the human world. Heknew she was in the ghost zone. Perhaps all the ghosts singing at once created some sort of crossover effect into this-
"Fear me!" the Ghost Gabber chirped. Danny's brain stuttered to a stop, twisting around in horror. Lights flickered on the device as it dutifully parroted the lyrics using his parents' bad translation program – and did it loudly. "I lost the promise, please you remove me from here. Fear me! I want the darkness to create my future you happiness. Fear me! Run with me, sing with me, we will break their world and we will create our home in shining pieces damn it! Fear me!"
Frozen in place, Danny stared at the tiny device. He hadn't even known it was there, much less on and working. And now-
"MADS!" His father's shout practically made Danny levitate, his heart jumping into his throat. Hadn't the man been sleeping? "GHOST!"
Danny looked up as his parents hustled towards him. His father scooped up the Ghost Gabber (version 1) and his mother the Fenton Ghost Locator (version 3). With excited grins on their faces, they twisted around, searching for any sign of the ghost that had set off the Ghost Gabber.
"The ghost is right in front of you," the Ghost Locator said snippily when Maddie pivoted on her heel until it was pointed at Danny. "You would have to be a complete moron to not see the ghost."
"Danny," his mother said, sounding very serious. There was a frown on her face as she stared from him to the radar screen and back to him.
Danny felt his heart stutter in his chest and his eyes widen. "What?" he whispered. His gaze skittered down to the radar and back to her face. There was no way she'd figured him out… not after all this time… not now…
"What? Fear me!" the Ghost Gabber chimed in unhelpfully.
A rather large gun appeared in his father's hands, pointed right at him. There was a whine as it powered up, the glow from the ectoplasmic power core casting his parents' faces in sharp shadows.
There was silence in Danny's ears as his heart seemed to stop. The blood drained from his face and the room spun dizzily. No way! They weren't actually going to shoot him!
"Don't be afraid," his mother said soothingly, bringing her own ectoweapon out of its holster and pointing it in his direction, "but there's a ghost right behind you."
Danny's heart restarted, thumping loudly in his ears. A ghost behind him. Not him. Relief made him feel weak. He moved his mouth ineffectively, wanting to say something, but not wanting to be parroted by the Ghost Gabber again.
"Go upstairs," his father said. "We'll make sure it doesn't follow you."
Nodding, Danny got to his feet and hurried towards the stairs. His shoes squeaked on the concrete floor.
"It must be a dangerous one, Mads," his father continued. "Did you hear it say something about breaking the world?"
"Jack," his mother said, concern coloring her voice. "Look at the radar! The ghost… it's following Danny!"
Danny didn't wait to hear anything more. He raced up the steps three at a time and vanished as soon as he was out of sight. Two seconds later he was airborne and through the roof and into the bright afternoon sunshine. Not wanting to find out what his parents were planning, Danny took off towards Sam's house.
He found himself humming Ember's catchy new tune and frowned. Sam and Tucker would have to help him track this down. Hopefully the fiery siren wasn't planning some sort of world domination via soundtrack again, but one couldn't ever be too careful.
And hopefully they'd figure it out before this weekend. Because Danny was really, really looking forwards to those two adult-free days at the beach with Sam.
…and Tucker.