"Danny?"
I stared down at my feet.
"Danny, are you alright, sweetie?" she asked.
Still looking down, I nodded.
My mom threw her arms around me and squeezed me so tightly that I could barely breath.
"Oh, my baby boy! Thank goodness you're alright! What happened? Where were you? You were supposed to be back over a week ago!"
"Umm… there was a change of plans."
"Well, both of you, come on in and you can tell us what happened." she said.
I didn't move, but Dani smiled and nudged me forward.
There was no doubt about it. There was definitely an awkward atmosphere in Fenton Works as we all sat down. Even Dani seemed a bit uneasy.
"Why didn't you tell us?" my mom finally asked.
I hadn't thought it was possible, but at that moment, I felt worse than before.
"I just wasn't sure how you would… react…"
"Danny. Oh, no, Danny. Never."
"All this time we've been hunting down Danny Phantom. We never wanted to hurt you. If you had told us…" my dad said.
"Well, you seemed so intent on finding Danny Phantom and ripping him apart molecule by molecule. I thought you might not… care… anymore." I looked around the room. There were no visible ecto-weapons, no G.I.W. agents.
"Danny, don't you know that we love you too much to ever do anything to you?"
I smiled.
"Yeah, I do. I was just being paranoid."
They smiled right back.
"And thank you, Danielle, for standing up for our son back at town hall."
"Any day."
Then, we heard a knock on the door. Jazz got up and went and opened it.
"Danny?" she called. She sounded a bit nervous.
"Yeah?" I asked, headed towards the door.
"I think its for you…!" Four guys in white agent stood at the entrance.
My parents and Dani all came to the front door.
"Get away from him." my mom said, stepping in front of me.
"Calm down, Mrs. Fenton. We're not going to do anything to your son."
I pushed my way back to the front.
"What do you want?" I asked bitterly.
"Mr. Masters has issued an emergency meeting regarding the debate over Danny Phantom and has ordered for both of you to attend." he said, grabbing Dani and me by the wrist.
Dani didn't say a word, just followed them into the car, as did I. Looking out the back window, I saw the other two agents leading my parents and Jazz into another car.
About four minutes later, we were at town hall.
Outside the building currently packed with people, one of the G.I.W. agents placed some kind of wristband on me.
"What are you doing?" I asked, pulling my arm away.
"It's anti-ectoplasmic. You can change to your ghost form, but you can't use any of your other powers." After a moment, it beeped and disappeared.
"Where'd it go?" Dani asked.
"Nowhere. All it's done is absorb your invisibility and intangibility powers. You still can't create ecto-energy, though."
I sighed.
"Twisted tricks, guaranteed." I whispered to Dani.
She nodded and kept walking.
As we walked towards the stage, and Vlad, the people in the isles stared at me.
"I don't like this…" I told her.
"It's okay. Neither do I."
We stepped onto the stage.
"Ah, so nice that you two could join us." Vlad said.
"Like we had a choice." Dani sneered.
Vlad pretended to be offended.
"Oh, come on, we're all friends here, right?"
"No." Dani and I chorused.
"Well," Vlad said, "everyone is entitled to their opinion. Which is exactly why we're all here."
"If ours mattered, we wouldn't be here right now." I muttered.
"What was that?" Vlad asked.
"Oh, nothing." I said, as cheerfully as possible.
I leaned in close to him and whispered, "Watch it, Plasmius. Your secret can be revealed just as suddenly and publicly as mine was."
"No! If we tell anybody, that will give him a way to be able to turn the whole town against us!" Dani said, pulling me away.
"But –" I started.
"Please?" she asked sweetly.
"Dani –" I sighed.
"No. If we tell the town that, Vlad will make it so that they will all think that we're lying, just to drag him into this."
Vlad placed microphone headsets on the both of us.
"Now, I'm sure you both know how this'll work. All of the people on the left side are for Danny Phantom, and all of the people on the right side are against." he said.
Dani groaned in dismay.
Almost three fourths of the people in town hall were on the right side. There were only about seventeen hundred people.
"Who would like to open the discussion?" Vlad asked the crowd.
Nobody said anything.
"Okay, then, I will." he turned towards us. "And in case you were wondering, I'm against."
"I think we got that." Dani said coldly.
Vlad turned back to the crowd of people.
"Danny Phantom has overstayed his welcome." he started. "Not only has he put nearly the whole town's lives at risk by challenging other ghosts to come to Amity Park, but when they do come, he is powerless to stop them!"
"How so?" Dani piped up.
"Dear girl," Vlad said, in a tone almost mistakable for caring, practically petting Dani "He may have corrupted you, but surly you can see that if he was so able to stop these ghosts, than we would not have any ghost problems, would we?"
"Corrupt…?" she said quietly.
About one hundred fifty of the four hundred twenty five people on the left side got up and moved to the 'against' side.
"Oh, and, did I mention that after everyone has moved from the left side, that wristband will get rid of Danny Phantom once and for all?"
"What?!?" Dani exclaimed. And for the first time since I had met her, she actually looked nervous.
She closed her eyes and sat on the floor of the stage.
"Dani? You okay?" I asked.
"Peachy." she mumbled, half into her lap.
"C'mon. It's not the end of the world." I said.
"Danny, these people are completely oblivious to the fact that you have been keeping them safe since you got your powers. Without you, they might as well drop a nuclear bomb on this town, 'cuz we're done for."
"You do realize that your headset is still on, don't you?" I said.
She checked the power switch. It was, in fact, on.
"Uhm…" she tried to cover up.
Excessive muttering was heard throughout the crowd.
There was another massive switch of people.
"Danny, can you get that bracelet off?" she asked, quietly.
I grabbed at where the wristband had been.
"No. My intangibility power must be making it so that I can't get it off."
Vlad continued-
"And, furthermore, Amity Park would not have any ghost problems if it weren't for Danny Phantom!"
"That is a total LOAD, right, Dani?"
She winced.
"No, Dani…" I moaned.
"Actually…" she trailed off as she looked at Vlad. "…he's partially correct." she covered her mike. "When you turned the portal on, you got your powers, but you also opened the rift between our world and the ghost zone."
He smirked.
"Not even one of his best friends can stand against that."
Ninety-seven people remained on our side.
"Look," Dani said, "I know that most of you don't trust him – or the fact that all he's trying to do is protect Amity Park – but he is the nicest person I have ever met. Now, what Vlad said about Amity Park's 'Ghost Problem' is partially true, but think about this," She said to the crowd, "Danny didn't have to dedicate his time to fighting ghosts to keep everyone safe. He didn't have to risk his life when the ghost king pulled Amity Park into the ghost zone."
"Yes, well, no one asked him to do any of that in the first place, did they?" we heard from above the crowd.
A copy of Vlad Plasmius floated over the pew-like benches.
Dani sighed as people broke out into panic.
"CALM DOWN!" I shouted into my mouthpiece.
So they did, despite the excessive nervous whispering.
"Look, Plasmius-" Dani started.
"You know him?" Vlad asked, acting surprised. She ignored him.
I transformed, not very surprised at what Vlad was trying to pull.
"-If I were you, I'd just go away, because if you do anything-"
"Alright, you carbon copy freak, I have had it!" I shouted, taking a running start to the edge of the stage.
"Danny! Stop! You cant-"
I leapt off the stage and fell to the ground before she had the chance to finish her sentence.
"-fly."
Plasmius swooped down, grabbed me by the neck and hoisted me some twenty feet off the ground.
I twisted and jerked, hoping that I could loosen his grip. No luck.
"Let… GO!" I shouted, the words echoing on the stereo system.
"Not a chance." He said angrily, as he waved his had over my face, causing an odd ectoplasmic substance to cover my mouth, stopping me from speaking. It creepily reminded me of Dan, and how he used a similar power to silence my friends, family, and Mr. Lancer when he strapped them against the vats of Nasty Sauce.
"Oh, for cryin'-out-loud…" Dani sighed as she morphed.
I heard many gasps and surprised cries from the crowd below.
She blasted Plasmius, who then let go of me, sending me falling to the ground.
Dani darted forward and caught me. When we had landed, the crowd was dead silent.
"Unbelievable!" Vlad exclaimed, with semi-genuine surprise. "She is also half ghost! And she is defending one of her own… kind."
Danielle turned around to stare at him. I swear, when she does that, it's scary. "Okay, look," she demanded. "I don't know who on earth you think you are, but you seriously need to stop trashing on Danny." she said, transforming back into her human form.
"It only figures that SHE could even possibly stand up for him." Vlad said to the shocked crowd.
"Trust me, Vlad – I would be here defending him whether I had my powers or not. He's been my hero since long before I got here."
"What has he done to be your hero?" Vlad asked.
"When no one in Amity Park even WANTED Danny here, he still protected you. This town made him public ghost enemy number one, he still protected you. You do realize, though, that if you keep this up, eventually, he may just give up, and when you need him, he may not be here.
"Your deterrence may give him reason to get rid of his gift." she said.
"His gift?" someone shouted from the crowd, "More like our curse!"
Dani took a deep breath.
"Okay," she sighed. "We may not all see eye to eye about Danny, But I've known him for a long time. And while other people might've reaped the benefit of having ghost powers – Going intangible during a football game, or floating during a cheerleading competition to perfect the move that they couldn't get – but Danny used his GIFT to help and protect the people he cares about."
"He held our last mayor hostage, stole from our banks and museums, and nearly cost my dad his job at Axion Labs!" Neither Dani nor myself saw who said it, but we had a pretty good idea of who it was.
"Val…" I started.
"Don't 'Val' me, you know what you did!" she said as she rose above the crowd on her hover board.
She wasn't going to listen. She was going to fight Danny Phantom.
Within seconds, she had one of her many ecto weapons aimed directly at me. It whined as it charged, getting ready to blast me into next century. I put my arms up to shield myself and tried to go intangible. As we both know, that didn't exactly work, so I ended up being hit with a good head on force that sent me backstage.
"Danny!" Shouted Danielle.
She started to fly towards me, but I saw Vlad catch her by her ankle.
"Ah, ah, ah. Let her do her job, hmmm?" Vlad said.
Dani turned around, and, with her free leg, kicked him in the jaw.
By that time, Valerie was getting ready to blast me again.
"Val, listen to me!"
"I'm done listening!"
"Val! How long have you known me?"
"What does that have to do with anything, ghost?"
"How long have you known me?" I asked again. "I mean really known me."
"Since that ghost king scenario. Not very long, I guess." she said.
"But you do know that I would NEVER want to intentionally hurt anyone, right?" I asked.
"No. You just want to use us to get what you want."
"No! What happened between us was a huge misunderstanding!"
"I told you, I'm through listening!" she shouted.
She blasted me again. I was about two seconds to unconsciousness.
Valerie recharged her weapon.
I wasn't going to fight back. I couldn't fight back.
