Sorry it's been so long. So here's the next chapter, hope you like it :)
Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans or Danny Phantom.
"Always me. ALWAYS me. Why can't someone else be the scapegoat of ALL THE BAD LUCK IN THE UNIVERSE for once? Why is it always ME?!"
Danny narrowly avoided the large missile heading for his head, interrupting his thoughts. Skulker had finally found him; and things weren't looking too good. He was currently fighting in a park, in public, which meant that the Teen Titans were a call away. While it would be nice to have someone take care of the ghost for him, it didn't help that he was targeting him. Which in turn would lead him to an interrogation from Robin, which he really wanted to avoid while he was here in Jump.
"Whelp! Show yourself! I know you are here!" Skulker yelled into the park, currently searching for Danny who was hiding invisibly behind a tree.
Screams erupted throughout the park; many of the people were too paralyzed to move, having never seen anything like the being that floated before them. He really couldn't blame them; he too was pretty paralyzed when he saw his first ghost. Even if it had been himself in the mirror.
Seeing a little girl cower by a bush as he flew toward her, he knew he needed to intervene. He may have been resisting his hero complex by staying indoors a lot, but there was no ignoring it now. He stepped away from the tree, and said:
"Hey rust-butt!" He threw a rock at his head, hitting it with a loud clang. "Looking for me?"
"Ghost child," Skulker said with his usual deep, sinister voice, with a strange hint of relief. What was that about?
"What do you want Skulker? This isn't Amity Park, so you know you can't just-"
"Titans, GO!"
Skulker was then assaulted by the Teen Titans attacks, barely dodging them out of surprise. Robin came in close, with his bo staff in hand and almost knocking off his robotic head. Starfire went above, aiming her star-bolts carefully. Raven telekinetically lifted a trashcan and aimed it at Skulker at alarming speeds. Cyborg swung a roundhouse kick; hitting Skulker's flank and making him fly to the ground. Danny had to give credit when credit was earned; these teens were good.
"ENOUGH!" Skulker yelled, turning intangible as Beastboy came running at him as a rhinoceros. He flew above the trees, shooting nets at the levitating Starfire and Raven, and missiles at the boys below.
They would have gotten all the credit if they could fight ghosts.
"I need to take this fight away from the Titans," Danny thought. He hid behind a tree to transform, then turned invisible.
"Skulker!" he shouted, bringing the ghost's attention to the empty air from where his voice came from. He flew off, hearing Skulker fly behind him. As soon as he was a good distance away from the park, he turned visible and landed a solid punch to his metal face.
"Listen up Skulker. I don't need or want you here, and I especially don't want to be around any ghosts right now. So get out of my face!" He normally wasn't this angry dealing with ghost other than Vlad, but after his ghost problems resulted in killing his family, he wasn't eager to take up fighting them again.
"You'll pay for that!" Skulker said as his ectoskeleton activated a dozen weapons all pointed at him.
"Whoops. Forgot that he had all those…" he thought. He was a bit worried; he hadn't been in a real fight for a few months, and he was pretty much living on pizza nowadays.
He ducked and dodged as the weapons fired at him. Several singed his exposed eyebrows and face, and bullets grazed his skin and tore his jumpsuit. He soared through the air at high speed toward Skulker, fist aiming to decapitate him and throttle the little green blob hidden inside.
"Wait, hold on," Skulker said as he deactivated his weapons. Danny stopped about an inch or two from his face, a confused and irritated expression settling in his features. He quickly zoomed back, crossing his arms as he floated there, waiting for an explanation.
"Attacking you is not the reason I came here, sadly," he said with a regretful voice. "I came to bring you news of your precious town you used to protect."
Danny raised an eyebrow. "Are you serious? You came to tell me about Amity? In case you haven't noticed, I don't have much of a reason to care about it anymore," he said as his face darkened. His ice powers were starting to creep up; his emotions made them hard to control.
"Well I thought you might want to know that the blankaj have overrun the place. They've been killing ghosts left and right."
"Blankaj? Is that Esperanto?"
"Yes. I believe the beast Wulf named them that. They are called the G.I.W. by humans."
"Oh really?"
"Yes."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Why? Well...because…"
"You actually think I would stop them?" Danny asked, shaking his head as his rage increased. "You made my life a living hell every day. You threatened me, my friends, and every person around me. What in the world made you think I would actually help you?"
Before Dan, he probably would have helped. But honestly, all the time he was spending around Jump, with someone else saving the day, he really didn't want to be involved at all with the hero business. It was an amazing change to just have a normal life at the restaurant.
"If that's all you came for, you can just leave," Danny said as he glared at Skulker. "I'm done dealing with ghosts."
"You are a ghost, whelp! You cannot run away from what you are!"
He narrowed his eyes, and they glowed blindingly with anger. He was done dealing with this hunk of metal. "Watch me," he said as flew up to him, bringing back a punch.
A loud snapping noise was heard through the park, along with a frustrated grunt. Starfire emerged from the crater she had created when she had torn through the net that the flying robot had fired at her. It was surprisingly strong; she had to weaken the net significantly with her starbolts before she was able to rip it.
"Robin? Friends?" she said as she looked around for her teammates. She had been blown back quite a distance.
"Starfire?" She turned to see Robin, slowly limping toward her. He was drenched in what looked to be green sludge.
"Robin! Are you unhurt?" she asked, concerned.
He smiled, albeit a fake smile. "Yeah, I'm fine. My ankle will be alright in a bit." She grinned, happiness filling her attractive features.
"It's good to see you guys are alright," Beastboy said. He had hint of a bruise under his left eye, though seemed fine. He was with a very aggravated looking Raven, who had some scraps of a similar net Starfire was in littering her cloak.
"Who was that? And did he have to fire a missile that dumped freaking green slime on us?" Cyborg said as he wiped his face clear of green.
"Better yet, what was it? It looked like a robot, but I've never seen anything like that before…did you see how it glowed?" Robin said.
"It was another ghost," Raven said, as she tried to keep her anger under control. "I knew I should have been more wary around the ice ghost…"
"Wait, ghost? Like...see-through, creepy, possessy ghost?" Beastboy said. "R-Raven, don't joke like that. There is no such thing as ghosts."
"And what do you mean ice ghost? You mean the guy who helped us defeat the flame monster?" Cyborg said.
"He was a ghost. One with ice-based powers. And as a matter of fact, ghosts do exist," Raven replied.
"No they-"
"Look, Beastboy. We need to trust Raven that she knows what she's talking about, and by the looks of it, we're going to need as much information on ghosts as we can get right now," Robin said.
When they arrived back at the tower, Robin immediately sent to work on researching ghosts. While the information Raven had provided was helpful, they were all vague. He needed more.
Putting the word 'ghosts' into the search engine, he looked through files of various websites, dismissing those that were just tourist traps with fake hauntings.
After about an hour, he came across a website for two ghost hunters. They had a few books published about their research, and the website had extensive knowledge about them. According to the website, ghosts were fueled by obsessions, and were all malevolent, non-feeling organisms that were made of ectoplasm. There were pictures of some ghosts, and one he recognized as the ghost they fought in the park. He was labeled "Ghost X" and records of any sightings were all in Amity Park, Illinois. It seemed that all the sightings of ghosts were in the same place.
He decided to search "Amity Park" and was surprised at what came up. The famed most haunted city in America, with daily ghost attacks and sightings. The two ghost hunters were from the city: Madeline and Jack Fenton. Recently deceased…
Recently deceased? Of what?
Danny jogged up to the pizza place, slightly favoring his right leg. He may have been a little hurt, but the number he did on Skulker didn't even compare. His ectoskeleton was in shambles, and he had thrown the little green blob all the way across the bay. He didn't have a thermos with him, or a ghost portal so it wasn't like he could send him back to the Ghost Zone.
"Danny! You were almost late again!" Martha said as he entered the store. "I know you like that dog, but you don't have to walk him for two hours."
"Yeah, I know. But I'm not late, right?" he said as he put on his uniform. "So no harm done.
"Alright, alright."
When the store opened, the first person through the doors was none other than Robin. Figuring it was too late to hide, he managed a weak smile and walked up to him.
"Hey there, Robin. What brings you here? And where's your team?" he said, slightly confused as to why he was alone.
"They're not here. And I have some questions for you."
"Oh fuck, here comes the interrogation," he thought. "Just be cool, and don't confess you have ghost powers or that you ran away from home to escape a billionaire villain who's obsessed with you for some reason…"
Wow. What a life he had.
"Sure. Let's go around back."
As he led them around back, he tried thinking up a good excuse. He had the suspicion that Robin thought he had powers, like a metahuman or something. He didn't really want to get involved with the Titans, so what would he say?
They rounded a corner, and he turned to Robin, bracing himself for any question-
"Are you Daniel Fenton?"
Except that one. "How did you-"
"Madeline and Jack Fenton, recently deceased along with their daughter and three others due to an accident with a faulty boiler. They had a son. Ran away about three months ago, hasn't been seen since."
He seethed, not ready to face the fact of his family and friends death head on like that. "And what if I am? Are you just going to announce my family and friends death right to my face and then leave? Or are you going to turn me to the police where they can ship me back to that stupid ghost-crawling city?"
Robin bit his lip, "And I'm sorry for that. But running away isn't-"
"Look, I've got a life here, okay? And frankly, it's a lot better than the one I would go back to over there."
Robin paused, contemplating. Then he said, "Alright, I won't tell anyone. Yet. Anyway, I was going to ask you something else though."
"What about?"
"About ghosts," he said. "There have been a few around here lately, and no one knows much about them."
Danny paused. Then he said carefully, "I don't know as much about ghosts as my parents did. Both me and my sister had our doubts they even existed for a while. And of course the general public mocked my parents for what they practiced in the first place." His face went into a slight snarl, thinking about all the crap their family got from the city.
"Anything you've got about them is fine," Robin said, and took out some papers. "Specifically on these ghosts."
Danny took the papers, looking through them. One was Skulker, labeled "Ghost X". It had a blurry picture of him, with a little information. The next one didn't have a picture, but was labelled "Invisobill". Great. Now he had to give him information about his ghost counterpart? Joy.
"This one's a hunter. He was seen with Phantom a lot in Amity, but all that's known about him is that he seeks rare and dangerous creatures to hunt." He put that paper aside, and took out the one on him. It didn't have much information, just that he was extremely dangerous and its abilities are not recorded. "This one, Invisobill, not much is known about him. He...fought other ghosts a lot, but when he wasn't fighting he was never seen." The less he knew about Phantom, the better. He liked it here in Jump City; he didn't want to leave just yet.
Robin took the papers back, and nodded curtly to Danny. He was about to leave when-
"Wait, hold on." Danny took the papers back, taking out a pen. He crossed out both the names, then writing "Skulker" and "Phantom" to replace them.
"Those names aren't accurate. You should at least know what to call them now," he said, handing them back to Robin.
Robin smiled, and thanked him. He left the restaurant leaving Danny to himself.
The one thing he thought was, "what have I gotten myself into?"
So that's that. Hope you liked it and I'll try to update a little sooner this time :)
