My sincerest apologies on letting it go so long. I haven't abandoned this story.
Jake woke up to someone tugging on his sleeve and poking his face.
"Hey, you up?" Danny asked as Dani gave his right cheek one more poke for good measure.
"Wha time?" he asked groggily.
"Six AM," Dani replied. Jake rolled over to go back to sleep. There was no way he was waking up at six on a Saturday.
"Oh no you don't!" Danny said grabbing his collar and pulling him into a sitting position. "You need all the time for ghost hunting training you can get. We're in trouble as it is only having today to prepare. Now get up!"
"Ghost hunting training?" Jake asked blankly. His brain was still hindered enough by seep that the words bounced of his brain and out of his mouth without being processed.
"Fighting ghosts is different from fighting anything else. You need to learn or you'll be completely helpless," Danny said.
"Yeah, and we don't need another damsel in distress. Got plenty of those as it is," Dani said. By now Jakes brain was functioning enough to recognize the insult which kick started his other cognitive functions in order to enable him to come up with an appropriate level of response.
"Hey!" he shouted, "wait, what was it you were talking about before? Something about fighting?"
"Oh good, you're awake. Who else will be coming to Amity?" Danny was incredibly serious.
"Um, a bunch of other dragons."
"Do what you can to get them all here as soon as possible, and when I say soon, I don't mean in an hour or two soon, I mean now soon. Like I said, fighting ghosts is not the same as fighting other things. You will all be prepared if you have any intention of setting foot on the battle field. And you will have basic ghost attack survival skills if you have any intention of setting foot in Amity."
"I don't know if I can-" Jake started. Danny abruptly cut him off.
"None of you knew about this situation until I brought it to your attention! None of you would be going if I hadn't! That means that while you're in Amity your safety is my responsibility. No one who hasn't had proper training is going. That's final. I'm putting my foot down."
"I'll talk to gramps."
A moment later, after Jake had finished getting dressed and speaking to his grandfather on the phone, he came down stairs. What he saw was his little sister dressed in camouflage overalls with a pink t-shirt and a matching camouflage hat with a pink star on it. She was standing at attention in front of the specter speeder and saluting.
"Um, what are you doing?" Jake asked.
"Duh, we're getting ready for training, slowpoke," DanI said.
"The outfit was my idea," Haley said, "perfect for training, right?"
"Gramps is talking to the other dragons and they should be here soon," Jake said, choosing to ignore his little sister's statement.
"Well, in the meantime let's get your training started. We've lost enough time as it is," Danny said in a serious tone. "The first thing your going to need an understanding of is the gear you'll need tucker and Sam will begin explaining that."
Sam stepped up, front and center with tucker and Jazz following close behind. Tucker was carrying a box and Jazz held a Fenton Thermos. "Alright newbies, listen up!" Sam started. Danny noticed something and had to interject before she could continue.
"Jazz, what do you think you're doing?"
"Helping," She replied quizzically.
"Hand it over, you remember what happened last time we let you handle the thermos."
"But!"
"Jazz, we don't have time for this. Now start acting like the mature adult you say you are and hand it over." She blushed and handed it over.
Danny noticed Jake and Haley's expressions and explained, "It's a piece of ghost hunting equipment. Last time, instead of catching the five ghosts who were causing trouble, she caught one ghost five times. Guess who." Danielle pointed at him with both hands.
"You had to say it, didn't you," their still blushing older sister said.
"Attention, PLEASE!" Sam bellowed. Jake and Haley snapped to rigid attention. "first off you got your specter deflector," She continued, tossing an electronic belt at each of them. "put it on. Turn it on. Don't touch Danny or Danielle while you got it on. It is designed to weaken and repel any ghost that touches you. This will get rid of weaker ghosts, but will only slightly better your chances slightly against more powerful ones." Jake and Haley obediently donned the belts.
"Now, this is your basic ghost hunting gun. Fairly simple, point and shoot, but you need to have good or at least decent aim before you face off in a real fight against a real ghost," Sam said tossing them a couple of weapons that looked a bit like the Sci-Fi equivalent of pistols.
"Before we go any further, you should have some target practice with those because their about the simplest thing we've got and your gonna have to keep building up from there. But first, see if those belts will fit you as dragons. The less vulnerable you can make yourself on the battle field, the better," Tucker said. The two dragons morphed and found that the belts still fit them in dragon form. As they were doing that, tucker had set up some targets. They were shaped like ghosts and hovered in the air. There were also a few that looked like humans placed strategically.
"All right," Tucker said, "Aim those guns and hit these targets as fast as you can. You want to be sure to hit a ghost before it gets you. But, and this is very important, do not hit the humans, unless they are holding guns and aiming at you. These things are designed to take out ghosts and compared to some ghosts, humans are like eggshells. After this you'll work with more extensive weapons training with Sam and me, close quarters combat with Sam and Jazz, aerial combat with Danny and DanI, virtual ghost hunting with me and Danny. That's as much as I'm going to say right now because it's probably for the best we don't get too ahead of ourselves."
An hour and a half later Two very tired dragons flopped down on the ground, panting.
"Good job. So far your up to the rank of holding your own against the Box Ghost," Danny said.
"Harsh, Dude," Tucker said. Jake and Haley groaned upon realizing that what Danny had said was apparently not praise on their fighting skills. Fortunately for them, the rest of the dragons appeared for training right then.
"What happened to you?" a yellow colored teenage dragon snickered upon seeing Jake collapsed into a heap.
"I'm going to laugh when you have hand to hand combat with Sam or aerial combat with the Phantoms," Jake groaned. DanI smiled brilliantly.
"Why don't you be in the first group to have aerial combat. You need a slice of humble pie, being arrogant and smug on the battlefield can cost you."
-13 minutes later-
"Oh, and we take care of our own." DanI finished her statement, looking down at the battered and very much humbled dragon. "Now the key is to be confident, but keep a realistic idea of your abilities. Now get up you got virtual ghost hunting with Tucker and then hand to hand combat with Sam, NOW MOVE IT! MOVE IT! KEEP MOIVING IF YOU WERE RUNNING FROM A GHOST IT WOULD HAVE CAUGHT YOU BY NOW!" Jake looked over smugly from the water break area as DanI shouted after the retreating form of the dragon.
The hard core training went on. Several dragons drastically improved when they found that the punishment for not taking it seriously was having to listen to the Box Ghost's whole entire speech (he had showed up to bug the Phantoms when amity become to dangerous for him). Several dragons worked their way up the ranks enough to practice fighting against a real ghost other than their teachers. For this they used the ghost that had been under Danielle's bed the first night in New York.
At some point during the training, DanI decided to choose a selection from her CD of Disney movie songs. It started out with drums.
Let's get down to business to defeat the Huns
Did they send me daughters when I asked for sons
You're the saddest lot I ever met,
But you can bet before we're through
Mister, I'll make a man out of you
"Danielle, this is serious," Danny said turning of the CD player.
"I know, that's why we need seriously awesome training music," Danielle replied turning it back on. Danny rolled his eyes and allowed it to play through a few repetitions of I'll Make a Man Out of You from Disney's Mulan. Danny was no where near as lenient about DanI following him and Sam around playing the song I Won't Say I'm in Love From Disney's Hercules, but that's a story for another time.
Slow as it may have seemed to the training dragons, the end of the day did eventually come. Training ended and Danny made an announcement.
"All right, you've all improved a good deal. A little more experience would be preferable, but I think you may just be able to handle yourselves in Amity. Before we leave tomorrow we're going to load you guys up with every super high tech ghost hunting weapon we got and have a little more weapons training before we get on the road. I'm optimistic that you guys will be fine with minimal involvement from us, but remember that there is no shame in coming to any of us should you find yourselves out numbered or otherwise in need of assistance," Danny said.
"Oh, and anyone who doesn't survive can lodge a complaint with us later. If I'm understanding the ghost zone's public enemy scale and workings correctly, we shouldn't be hard to find," DanI joked. Everyone looked at her with expressions that ranged from slightly nervous to on the brink of panic. "Joking."
"You'll be fine. Get a good nights sleep and be ready for action tomorrow," Danny was actually a pretty good speaker, he was able to calm the crowd a bit after the tension Danielle's joke had accidentally caused.