THE PHANTOM'S REALM
CHAPTER SEVEN: HELPING SIR PHANTOM
"Okay guys, Dora's Kingdom is coming up soon and I don't want any of you shooting at her." Danny instructed. He watched as his parents nodded and he watched Valerie involuntarily nod also.
"When we get there we should be able to eat lunch and then get help getting to where we need to be." Danny continued. He watched everyone nod in agreement.
"Alright lets go then." Danny said with a smile. He, Tucker and Sam took the lead of the group again and continued walking.
"Are we there yet?" Sarah whined.
"No." Danny answered patiently.
"How about now?" Star followed.
"No." Tucker replied, a little annoyed.
"Are we there now?" Paulina asked, sighing dramatically.
"No!" Sam snapped. "And we aren't there yet now. Or now. Or now!" She continued. "We would get there sooner if we could concentrate on where we're going rather than answering your stupid questions! It's pretty obvious we aren't there yet." Sam ranted on to Paulina.
Most of the group murmured in agreement, getting sick of the Latina girls whining.
"Well if you were cooler and less freaky I wouldn't have a problem with following you." Paulina snapped back.
"For the love of Clockwork." Danny muttered before speaking louder. "We're not getting anywhere by throwing petty insults at each other, guys! Sam, if you thought Paulina wouldn't act just like back at school that's your problem because you should have known better. Paulina, your whining isn't helping anyone. Everyone is sick of the groaning and moaning. It is pretty obvious that we are not where we're going yet. So both of you knock it off before it gets any worse for everybody." Danny scolded.
Everyone nodded in agreement, sick of Paulina's complaining and Sam's yelling. The authority in his voice took most back, as nobody except Tucker and Sam had heard him speak like that as Fenton. Jack wasn't too surprised. If he closed his eyes he would swear up and down he heard Phantom speaking those words. Hell, he could even picture Danny with white hair and green eyes just looking at him. Jack knew he had to talk to his son soon. Maybe this 'Dora' Ghosts place would be a good place to tell Danny he saw the transformation.
Lancer was among the most shocked. The 'problem' child of his class was not only leading them all safely home but had spoken out against Paulina. Nobody did that! Except Samantha, but that was to be expected from couples. He, however, had never seen any authority in Danny Fenton what so ever.
Paulina was fuming. She was supposed to have all the attention on herself. Not Fenton and his Freak herd. Then Fenton, of all people, has the nerve to scold her, as if she were some child! Fenton should learn his place because he shouldn't even be talking to someone like her!
"Come on, Dora's Kingdom isn't too far up ahead." Danny reminded as they kept on walking.
About half an hour later, at twelve o'clock noon, they had closed in on the Kingdom.
Danny saw the familiar castle and walls ahead and noticed they had added a wooden door to their decor. Must have been very new considering he had been there sometime last week and it wasn't there yet. Although he remembered Dora saying something about wanting to get back the 'medieval' feel for the place because she felt it didn't feel as medieval as when time stood still. He had to agree, since time started moving it felt less and less like the standard castle from medieval times and more like a present day residence. Guess Dora would rather have the first one. She made a good call though, the wooden door than was probably a draw-bridge, or at least looked a lot like one, definitely helped get the medieval feeling back.
Danny led his friends, continuing their approach. He noticed the front wall of the castle had new banners. The ones there last, with matching swords pointing to the sky, were replaced. The one on the right of the wooden door had a picture of Dora's amulet on it with the princess' face in the center, most likely trying to mimic most Ghosts now-a-day who marked their lairs with a symbol of some kind. The one the left of the wooden door was his DP insignia. He mentally both smiled and sighed. It felt good to be recognized and respected but not worshiped over. Danny pushed those thought away. Dora wasn't worshiping him; she was probably putting that up as a show of gratitude since he had saved her Kingdom twice.
Besides a lot of Ghosts had his insignia somewhere like on T-shirts or somewhere on their lair. Some Ghosts had DP styled earrings. Even creepier was the infamous DP Toilet Paper that Tucker made as a joke, referencing his dad's 'Toilet Paper; Fenton ply' but it had somehow become an actual thing. Danny, Tucker, Sam, Jazz and even Danielle swore never to speak of it again and they recalled as much as they could. Danny was only about 4 seconds away from making those things illegal in the Ghost Zone.
Danny easily recognized the guards that stood before the large wooden door. They were taller than Danny was, not by a lot but enough for it to be noticeable. They each had green skin and wore suits of armor on that went with the grey walls behind them. The one on the right was Sir Martin Excaliver the third, the Royal adviser to Princess Dora and 4th in command, in charge of most Royal duties for the Princess herself. The one on the left was Phil. He stays at the Kingdom too.
Suddenly the wooden door opened, but it lowered down, like a drawbridge. Dora was really trying to lessen the modernization of her city. Once open Danny, Tucker and Sam saw the familiar figure of Princess Dora standing in the doorway wearing her pale blue gown and matching tiara and her blonde hair tied into a ponytail. Her red eyes looked out with fondness at Danny, Tucker and Sam.
"Sir Phantom! Over here!" Dora's voice called, waving Danny over.
Danny walked faster than he should have in front of his class to get to Dora before they made it over.
"Dora, I'm sorry if it's an inconvenience but could you possibly help us get to Phantom City by tomorrow?" Danny asked once he was close enough for her to hear.
"Well first, let's start with me saying it's good to see you too." Dora said, before she have him a gentle hug. Danny smiled a little as he hugged her back, knowing that her Kingdom could get pretty boring when he wasn't around.
"Sorry, I'm just a little on edge with them being here and I want them out as soon as possible. It's great to see you, Princes Dora." Danny said letting her go and watching her step back a few steps.
"It's no inconvenience at all, Sir Phantom. You know we'd drop pretty much everything for one of your visits anyway. We'll even have a feast for you and your humans while you're here." Dora said, clapping her hands together excitedly.
"Dora, you know that's not really necessary." Danny replied honestly. He felt bad enough showing up at her doorstep unannounced and asking for a favor already, he couldn't ask her to feed his entire class too.
"Tell me, when was the last time you ate anything?" Dora asked, raising an eyebrow. She knew he had a hectic schedule and got around four or five hours of sleep at night but it was another thing to eat every other day. Sure Ghosts could go longer without food but he was still half human.
"I had dinner Friday and coffee earlier at Death's. Everyone else ate around lunchtime yesterday." Danny told her. He didn't need to eat as often as humans since he was half Ghost and he wasn't even hungry yesterday.
"Sir Phantom you may be a half Ghost but you're still half human. You need to eat everyday." Dora said with an eye roll. It almost felt like she was talking to a toddler sometimes.
"No I don't. I wasn't even hungry yesterday and I was planning on eating something in the Capitol where I'm needed anyway. Ghosts only need to eat, like what, twice a week depending on what it is?" Danny countered.
Dora sighed. She loved the King like he was her own brother, since he was a better one than her own, but he could be so stubborn sometimes.
"I'll hear none of it and you know I won't. You and your friends will have lunch her with me in the dining room." Dora insisted.
"Fine. But can you help us get to the Capitol after lunch?" Danny gave in. Besides maybe he was a little hungry. Dora nodded with a huge grin on her face and turned back to enter her castle.
Dora knew he could have just ordered her not to feed him and his class but he wouldn't do that. He was too nice. Sir Phantom wouldn't even order Skulker to stop hunting him. That was why he was such a good King, because he cared, genuinely cared, about others happiness.
"Come on guys. We'll have lunch here and then we'll be on our way." Danny said, waving his arm in a gesture for his class to follow him.
"Good day, Sir Phantom." Sir Martin Excaliver and Phil said at the same time as Danny passed through the doorway.
Tucker and Sam followed a few steps behind Danny and a few steps in front of the others ready for anything.
LINEBREAK
'This is awkward.' Danny thought to himself as he looked around the banquet hall.
Dora was at the head of the table, despite her and her staffs requests that he sit there instead, with Danny immediately to her right. Down the right side of the table sat Tucker, Mikey, Valerie, Jimmy, Steve, Emma, Hailey and Jack, leaving one empty seat. Across from Danny sat Sam then Nathan, Dash, Kwan, Gary, Paulina, Star, Sarah Maddie and Lancer.
'We're all just sitting here eating and nobodies spoken up at all. Not even Dora. I told her this would be a bad idea.' Danny spoke inside his mind. He watched Dora awkwardly sip her tea. She looked like she expected someone to say something, anything, during the course of the meal.
Danny looked out at the rest of his class.
Tucker was stuffing his face with the steak on his plate like he wouldn't live to see tomorrow. Sam was calmly eating a salad, refusing to look up at anyone else. It was obvious they both had different ways of dealing with being stuck with their class longer than they needed to be.
Mostly people were just awkwardly looking down at their plates eating while they could except Valerie who was a little tense in the Ghosts' lair and Jack who was looking around, almost as if admiring the palace.
"Don't mind them, Dora. You know how people are around Ghosts." Danny whispered to Dora so nobody else would hear the conversation.
"Not a problem at all, Sir Phantom. Always a pleasure helping you." Dora dismissed but Danny could tell she too was uncomfortable with the silence. So Danny kept talking to her.
"Still this wasn't necessary and I appreciate what you've done for us. Do you have any idea how long do you think it'll take to get to Phantom City?" Danny asked Dora, keeping the conversation going.
"That depends on if you mean Phantom City or your Palace that's dead center in Phantom City." Dora replied.
"Wherever you're going to take us." Danny told her.
"Well seeing as I am on the Council and must attend the meeting as well, I'll take you all to the Palace, which will take about four hours." Dora responded back. Danny nodded his understanding.
"Since you're on the Council, would you mind telling me what this meeting is about?" Danny asked tentatively.
"Vortex didn't tell you?" Dora asked. She wasn't very shocked though; she almost expected that of Vortex and Nocturne.
"No. He just showed up, knocked Ember and Kitty out and fought me. Then when I won he told me I was needed in Phantom City for a conference involving Vlad." Danny told her with a scowl. Attacking Ember had really made him mad.
"He attacked Ember? Here I thought everyone in the Zone knew not to upset you." Dora muttered to herself before she spoke loudly to Danny again. "We're just meeting to discuss our plan of action for whatever we think Vlad is going to do." Dora informed him.
"Why do you think Vlad is up to anything at all?" Danny questioned, raising an eyebrow at her.
"Frostbite and I have gotten reports that Vlad was sighted near the outside of Phantom City yesterday and earlier today and the 4 accounts we've heard are too similar to be made up. We must take serious caution with Vlad in general let alone if he were to be at Phantom City." Dora explained.
"You're right. Vlad is crafty and manipulative and won't stop until he gets what he wants. I'm sorry I was upset with the meeting before. I know you have everyone's best interest at heart and wouldn't have called the meeting if you didn't think it was serious." Danny apologized.
He was really sorry. Before he got here he was angry that there had been a meeting called despite most Ghosts on the Council knowing of his situation but the way Dora put it he realized that they had been trying to do that is right to help others and that he was the one in the wrong.
"That's quite alright, Sir Phantom. Had it been me, I don't think I could have accepted it easily at first either." Dora consoled him.
Luckily for them everyone had been to busy eating and staring down at the table to notice their conversation. Aside from Danny's new resolve to get them to Phantom City by tomorrow being strengthened, nothing had changed since either Royal member looked out at the rest of the table.
"I think it's time to get going. It's one in the afternoon now so we could get there by five evening time if we leave now." Dora said standing up.
Danny followed immediately, seeing how awkward this was for Dora. Luckily Tucker and Sam did too so they mirrored him and stood up right afterwards. Soon Danny and Dora were leading everyone out of the castle again and towards what looked like a carriage but it was the size of a limo.
"This is what we'll all be riding in. Lucky too this is the only one we have available right now." Dora commented, letting everyone take in the mode of transportation.
It was long, definitely long enough to hold eighteen people, one Ghost princess and one halfa. The inside was set up with in rows like in a theater. In the front there was a window to see the direction they were going and a Ghost Knight who was driving from the outside.
"You've outdone yourself, Princess Dora." Danny praised.
"Please Sir Phan-" Dora started before she cut herself off, remembering the others were listening now. "It was nothing." She quietly mumbled instead before she made her way to the front seat inside the carriage.
Danny followed next, climbing up front and sitting next to Dora. Despite her good friendship with Tucker and Sam, Danny knew she felt more comfortable around him. Danny knew it was probably because he was a Ghost too but also because since the incident with Aragon, Dora had taken to looking at Danny as a brotherly figure instead of Aragon.
Tucker and Sam sat in the row directly behind Danny and Dora and somehow Valerie managed to weasel at seat in the same row, leaving Tucker in between two dangerous girls. Danny could practically see the nervousness coming off Tucker.
Behind Tucker's row Mikey, Nathan, Michelle and Nancy sat and behind them were Jimmy, Steve, Emma and Hailey. Paulina, Star and Sarah got the next row and Dash, Kwan and Gary the one after that leaving Jack, Maddie and Lancer in the last row.
'Maybe if they sat closer together instead of in separate groups they would have room to spare but if they all fit this way, fine.' Danny thought, shaking his head.
Social groups were a waste. What's the difference between the A-List and The Nerds and 'Freak Trio'? They were all people who were stuck with each other so they might as well get along.
That was why Danny hated it when people addressed him by his full title 'King Daniel Fenton/Phantom/Phazer of Amity and The Ghost Zone' because it made him feel like he was being treated as a better individual that others. He preferred 'Danny' or 'Phantom' to anything else but the surprisingly common 'King Phantom' had a nice ring to it. It wasn't as praise-y as the other and it sounded more casual. He figured it was a better title than anything else they had tried out.
Danny looked out the window and saw familiar sights. He saw Ghostly Falls, which was basically the Zones' version of 'Niagara Falls'. He had been there many times both with Tucker and Sam and with Ember, Kitty and Johnny. He had even hidden Bonnie and Clyde there once.
It had Ectoplasm instead of water pouring into the pond below and the rocks around it were an eerie grey color. There was a Ghost Eagle lying on its perch on one of the rocks making the scene look even more majestic.
Danny had heard from Mars that the Eagle stays there watching over the falls because when it was alive it lost it's life to a waterfall so it stay's there protecting others from the same fate. Danny would have thought that was very noble had the Ghosts in the Ghost Zone not been dead already.
"Danny! When are we going to get there! It reeks in here and that Ghost has horrible fashion sense!" Paulina's whine carried out through the carriage, breaking Danny from his sightseeing.
"We've been traveling for about an hour and a half so about 2 and a half more hours." Danny replied, giving Paulina a pointed look for whining again.
"And green and blue go wonderfully together." Sam commented for Dora, earing a grateful smile.
"What would you know? You don't wear anything aside from black and lavender." Paulina sneered.
"Pink is where the stuff is at." She continued in her 'I'm-so-much-better-than-you' attitude and making the A-List laughs at the Goth's expense.
"Not when it makes you look like a bimbo who can't handle walking for a half hour without complaining." Sam countered. Danny and Tucker couldn't hold back their snickering.
"Well it's freaky how you three know this weird place. Like, of course Freak Trio wouldn't be scared in the freaky place and of course they'd fit in like the freaks they are." Paulina countered back, directed more to the entire class than just at Sam.
Danny and Tucker's eyes narrowed, thinking the same thing. This was why they spend so much time in the Ghost Zone. People didn't appreciate them. Even now, leading everyone safely back home through the Fenton Portal they still get put down and insulted. In the Zone they were respected for what they did and they were known by almost everyone. On Earth they were unimportant nobodies who got picked on because they were different.
Of course they could change that and reveal everything but what would that solve?
Danny wouldn't have any privacy in either form, might get experimented on by the Guys in White and Vlad would no doubt be ready to build another crack-pot plan. Besides that everyone would be in danger. The Government would come after Jack and Maddie to get to Danny, Ghosts worse than Skulker would come for random citizens to get to Danny and it would just make his life worse.
Tucker could be locked up for hacking into so many different things for 'personal gain' despite having very good reason because people don't listen. He could be bullied even worse out of jealousy for being a part of Team Phantom or maybe even taken by the Government to reveal Danny's secrets.
Sam could very well by jumped by angry Phan-girls who are jealous of her closeness with Danny (ahem Paulina) and the Government could kidnap her too.
Jazz could be in trouble with Danny's parents for keeping the secret from them despite the numerous occasions they had tried to ask her about what was bothering Danny and be in trouble for 'spending so much time in the Ghost Zone'.
Dani could be seized by the Guys in White for 'painful experiments' and dissected for how a Danny-clone came out female and twelve. She could even be returned to Vlad since she is technically as much Vlad's as Danny's. After all, he did create her and who knows, that may be a viable reason in a court of law.
Worst of all they could be separated. Sam's parents would probably send her to boarding school in England away from Danny, Tucker would most likely be shipped off to college to keep him safe, Jazz could be grounded for life and Danny and Dani could end up in a lab somewhere.
Of course they were imagining the worst-case scenario here but was no way they would just come out and tell everyone. Clockwork had once told them "plan for the worst and hope for the best." And they all practiced that as well as they could.
And that's Chapter 7, guys.
What did you think? Leave your reviews!
So I was originally going to cut this chapter off after they got into the carriage so I could start Chapter 7 of Wizards in Phantom City but I wanted to give you guys an incite into Team Phantom's mindset so I let it go a little further.
Congratulations Exalted Demi-Soul who guessed the mysterious person Team Phantom was close too first and the answer was Sam's grandmother Ida Manson.
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There's your free soda, Turtle named Larry and a ticket to nothing! Sorry I couldn't do better :/
Next Chapter we get to Phantom City, Ember and Kitty return with Johnny this time, and we see Danny's palace. Maybe even see a little of what Vlad's plan is?