I DO apologize. I'm well aware that I was supposed to get this out yesterday. Unfortunately my school got in the way and then I had my swimming so I completely forgot. SORRY! In any case, this is the last chapter of Demonic Fears. Thanks for sticking with me throughout this story.
READ AND REVIEW KINDLY, PLEASE!
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Danny Phantom. I added the line breaks thanks to recent review by Nylah, who told me that the scene change was a bit too abrupt. I'm such an idiot!
Chapter 4: A New Day
Jazz yawned. "Good morning, Danny. How'd you—"
"Morning, Jazz!" Danny grinned as he bounded into the kitchen. "How'd you sleep?"
Jazz blinked at the difference in her little brother. "Danny?"
"You look tired so I'm guessing you didn't sleep well at all," Danny continued cheerfully, pouring himself a bowl of cereal.
"Uh, I was up." Jazz shook her head, comparing the new Danny to the one she had seen yesterday. "Worrying about you."
Danny stopped in the action of pouring milk into his cereal. "Really?" he asked softly.
"Yeah." Jazz smiled tiredly. "You haven't been sleeping well at all lately--getting nightmares, right? Normally that means you're repressing things that shouldn't be repressed. But not only that, you weren't telling us what's wrong. I did worry about you. Sam and Tucker, too."
Danny rolled his eyes. Even when she was expressing her concern over her half-ghost brother she continued to act the psychologist. Still… "Thanks, Jazz." He sat down at the kitchen table. "But I really am fine. I slept awesome last night." Actually, he hadn't slept at all. The only time he had slept it had been shrouded with nightmares. But since the angel had saved him, he had felt completely rejuvenated, equal to a full night's sleep.
"Is that so?" Jazz said. "Good for you then. I spent the whole night worrying about you for nothing then!"
"Maybe so." Danny finished the last of his breakfast in record time and phased through his chair, spinning around to rinse his bowl out and place it in the dishwasher.
"Danny!" Jazz hissed. "What about Mom and Dad?"
Danny cocked an eyebrow. "I'd hear them, Jazz. They're kinda loud if you haven't noticed."
"Right," Jazz muttered, leaning back into her chair, stretching. She yawned again.
"You going to school like that?"
Jazz opened her eyes to glare at her little brother. "What do you think? Just because I don't get a good night's sleep doesn't mean I skip school!"
Danny laughed. "Just kidding."
Again, Jazz found herself staring at Danny. He had changed so much over the course of one night. Before, he had seemed so tired and hopeless almost. What had happened to give him such a complete personality change?
She decided to ask. "Danny?"
"Yeah?" Danny poked his head through the kitchen doorway.
"Are you every going to tell me what exactly happened?"
Danny looked thoughtful for a moment. Then, he put up a finger, disappeared for a moment, and reappeared holding his schoolbag.
"Well?" Jazz prompted.
He grinned. "Maybe."
Jazz rolled her eyes upward. "You're never gonna tell me, are you?"
"I said 'maybe'," Danny repeated. "I might or I might not. Depends on what I think you should know…about my nightmares," he added.
"Riiight," Jazz said suspiciously. "There's nothing more to this than you told me, right, little brother?"
"Yep!" Danny lied cheerfully.
"Absolutely nothing?"
Danny was saved from having to answer this by a loud, big, and suited man in orange that was yelling at the top of his lungs.
"DANNY!" Jack shouted, clapping his son on the back. Danny stumbled forward slightly but regained his balance. "What's this about the Fenton Reflector being in your room, son?"
Danny noted Jazz's suspicious look and tried to scramble for an excuse. He was glad he had been saved from Jazz's interrogation but couldn't it have been done in a safer and nicer way? "Uh…"
"You're not hunting ghosts, are you?" Jack asked.
"W—what? No!" Danny tried to make up an adequate excuse. "I, uh, had it in my room because, er, I was trying to get the Fenton logo off of it!"
Jack looked confused. "Why would you do that?"
"I thought it would make the Reflector less effective," Danny said truthfully.
Jack laughed. "Oh, good one, Danny!" He stopped laughing and grinned. "But don't worry. Your mother and I are sure the invention works, with or without the logo!"
"Have you actually tested it?" Jazz asked skeptically.
"Well, uh, not exactly." Jack scratched his neck nervously. "We can never seem to catch a ghost you see…"
In an effort to cheer his dad up, Danny changed the subject."Are you guys making another new invention?" Danny tried not to sound too nervous.
"Nope!" Jack answered at the top of his lungs. "But I am putting together a new Fenton Bazooka!"
"Is that so?" Danny was interested. "What's the new one supposed to do?"
"Well, your mother and I agreed on the fact that the ghosts kept escaping from the Ghost Zone so we needed to figure out a way to stop them from coming back!"
Danny nodded, having this trouble himself but not liking where this conversation was taking them. Jazz looked both interested and mortified.
"Especially that dratted Danny Phantom!" Jack continued, banging his hand on the table and making everything on it jump about a foot in the air. "Anyway, this new and improved Fenton Bazooka doesn't send ghosts to the Ghost Zone anymore!"
"Really?" Danny said weakly. "Where does it send them?"
"It sends them to a containment field in nowhere!"
Danny and Jazz traded looks, horrified expressions frozen on both of their faces. Neither of them liked what it stood for.
"And, uh, what do you do when they're in this containment field?" Jazz asked, trying to keep the conversation alive for her brother's sake.
Jack seemed only too happy to indulge. "Your mother and I have the resources to open this containment field, granting us access to any ghost in it! After that, we can dissect and study it!" He sounded immensely proud of this fact. "And if we catch Danny Phantom in it, it's all for the better since he can't escape!"
Danny made a mental note to destroy the new Fenton Bazooka as soon as it was made. Never mind his own safety; it seemed immoral for him to stand by and allow his parents to dissect other ghosts that he was familiar with. He only hoped it wasn't going to be made from the only Bazooka they have.
"Uh, Dad?" Danny tried to sound interested and not as if he was plotting to destroy the new Fenton Bazooka the instant it was finished. "You're not making this from the other Fenton Bazooka by any chance, are you?"
"Of course we are, Danny!" Jack beamed. "What's the use of the old and outdated model then?"
Never mind scrapping the new weapon. He'd better scavenge the first one before it was damaged beyond repair. And from the look on Jazz's face, she was thinking the same thing.
"You haven't started yet, have you?" Jazz queried, sounding as if she was hoping they hadn't.
"We're starting the models!" Jack said proudly.
"You haven't built anything?" Danny asked.
"Nope!" Jack then looked puzzled. "Why?" His eyes then narrowed. "And why does your name sound eerily familiar to that ghost kid's?"
'Yipe!' Danny gulped and hastily scrambled for an excuse. "It's just…coincidence?"
Jazz jumped to his rescue. "Yeah, Dad! I mean, haven't you ever heard of the rock star that sounds exactly like my name? And she rocks!"
Danny had no doubt that there was no rock star that went by a name that sounded like Jazz. Meanwhile, he had to get out of here fast before Jack asked him more questions on why his name sounded close to Danny Phantom. He was saved by the arrival of his mother, who had more papers on the new Fenton Bazooka.
'And I'm gonna save the original before they get too far,' he decided, sneaking out of the kitchen. 'That one works better than the new one will anyway. Never mind a containment field—they're gonna dissect the ghosts they catch!'
"Prepare to have your pelt rest at the foot of my bed, whelp!" The Ghost Zone's "greatest hunter", Skulker, was facing Danny Phantom in a one on one battle.
Danny raised an eyebrow, merely turning intangible as several missiles shot his way. "Weren't you just saying that I'll be hanging on your wall?" He sighed. "Make up your mind, O Ghost Zone's greatest hunter!" His voice had taken on a note of condescension at the title.
"I am the Ghost Zone's greatest hunter!" Skulker snapped.
"Really? Then why am I not hanging on your wall yet? Or lying at the foot of your bed?"
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw both Sam and Tucker creep around behind Skulker, Sam with a thermos in her hands. He had a thermos himself strapped to his back but wasn't using it at the moment, instead insulting Skulker. He split his body in half at the belt when Skulker fired another ecto-missile and reformed, turning invisible as he did so.
"Show yourself, whelp!" Skulker demanded, shooting in the empty space where Danny had been. All he did was create a huge hole in a building and send people scrambling for cover.
Danny's disembodied voice appeared out of thin air next to Skulker. "Or maybe you need video games. I know several good ones that can help you with your gun obsession…"
Skulker scowled and whirled around, only to be met with the Fenton Thermos's beam. He was sucked in a moment later, completely stupefied.
"Hey! Nice job!" Danny transformed back behind a car and walked out as raven-haired Fenton, stopping by his friends' sides. "So how long did it take this time?"
"About ten minutes give or take," Tucker answered, glancing at his watch. He eyed Danny weirdly. "You're looking a lot better today."
"I feel better!" Danny said cheerfully, hoisting his backpack. Then he remembered something else. "What time is it?"
"It's…seven twenty-five." Tucker's eyes widened as he got where Danny was heading. "Oh no!"
"We're gonna be late!" Danny took both of their hands and transformed once making sure that no one was around. He took off in the air, turning invisible as he did so to make sure that no one would raise the alarm that Phantom was kidnapping innocent civilians.
Two minutes later, a windswept Sam and Tucker appeared out of nowhere, followed soon thereafter by a white-haired teen that flashed back to the familiar figure of Danny Fenton.
"You look a lot more cheerful," Sam observed, inspecting Danny's gleeful face. She straightened her hair out as she did.
"My beret!" Tucker cried, making sure it was still on his head.
"Like I said, I feel better, too," Danny repeated, grinning. "Now come on!"
"Are you going to tell us why you were acting so morose a few days ago?" Both teens refused to budge, looking at their half-ghost friend.
Danny hesitated a moment before shaking his head. "Not now. I might tell you or I might not."
Sam opened her mouth to object but Danny cut her off. "Please, Sam?" When Sam shut her mouth and looked resigned, he smiled and continued, "Now come on before Lancer gives us detention for being late. Again."
As his friends made their way up to the school, Danny hung back a bit, looking up at the blue sky and favoring the feeling of simply being alive. It was, after all, a new day.
And as he also climbed up the steps, he fancied he heard an angelic voice. "You have been blessed."
So...what'd you think? I put some humor in this last chapter in case you didn't notice. And who here caught the reference to Shinigami Phantom? Hint: Danny's talking to Skulker.
All in all, what did you think about Demonic Fears? Be honest, please! REVIEW KINDLY, PLEASE!
Thanks to xwickedxspiritx, TexasDreamer01, and Nylah for reviewing that last chapter!
Stats: Chapters: 4; Reviews: 14; Hits: 473; Favs: 2; Alerts: 4; Pages: 31; Word Count (excluding author's notes): 11,760.
