~Chapter Eight~

I booked it straight back home, not caring at all that I hadn't seen Clockwork. Luckily, none of the other ghosts that would normally attack me crossed my path, so I was able to make it back home in record time.

I looked around the basement for the clock, sighing in relief when my eyes alighted on the glaring, red numbers of 9:55. Good. I'm on time for curfew.

I flew out of the basement, double checking that I was both invisible and intangible in case I ran into my parents by accident, and ducked into the alleyway nearby. Changing quickly back to my human form, I rushed to the front door to beat the clock.

I slammed the door open and looked widely around me for the time. I released another relieved sigh when I noticed that I had made it. Stupid Clockwork. Why did he have to bring me to his lair right before curfew?

"Good job sweetie. You made it on time today," I heard my mom say as she walked back into the kitchen after noticing who had made the racket. "Just don't slam the door next time," she said over her shoulder.

I hummed my agreement and went upstairs to my room. Hopefully, I could get some homework done before I was interrupted, as usual. As I reached for the doorknob leading to my room, I let out a gasp, noting the icy-blue mist that floated in front of me. I pinched the bridge of my nose, frustrated at how often I had to do this. Do the idiots not realize I have homework!?

After giving a quick cursory glance around me in case any humans were around, I morphed back to Phantom and flew outside.

The night sky was beautiful today. Even over the growing number of lights in the city, many of the stars were clearly visible.

Deciding to quit the stargazing, I shook my head and took on a more serious attitude. Scanning my surroundings showed that there wasn't a single person, ghost or human, in sight. I flew around the area in hopes of finding the ghost soon. It would be bad if my mom went up to check on me and found that I wasn't in the house after seeing me walk in. That was just asking for trouble.

"I AM THE BOOOX GHOOOST! FEAR MY BOXES OF TERROR FOR THEY WILL RIP YOU TO SHREEEDS!"

You have got to be kidding me.

I turned around, now facing the currently cackling blue ghost who was using his telekinetic abilities to hold up a very unintimidating box above his head. Rolling my eyes, I held a finger gun up and shot a weak ghost ray at the glowing box. The cardboard flew out of the guffawing moron, completely startling him. He looked at me for a moment in complete disbelief. He apparently couldn't consider the fact that I had the audacity to hurt his precious box. Where have you been Box Ghost?

The pudgy ghost then took on a face of complete rage, eyes flashing maliciously and hands crackling with his telekinetic abilities just waiting to be used.

I merely raised an eyebrow in return, unimpressed. Really?

The Box Ghost abruptly stopped in place with his glowing hands posed above his face. He floated in the air like that for a second, shouted his signature cry of "BEWARE," and then tried to fly away from me. Key word, 'tried.'

With practiced hands, I uncapped the Fenton Thermos that had been previously resting at my waist and pointed it towards the fleeing ghost. He wailed his revenge dramatically and prolonged it as much as he could until I recapped the Thermos.

Shaking my head at the ridiculousness of the entire situation, I made a quick sweep of the town to ensure that no other problems involving ghosts would occur and returned back to my house.

Should I put the Box Ghost back in the Ghost Zone? Nah. I'll do it in the morning. There was a good chance that he'd find a way out before it was time to get up.

I poked my invisible head into the kitchen, noting that my mother seemed to not have moved away from the room since I'd last been in the Fenton home. By the smell of things, she was baking cookies, which was the only thing she could cook without the family needing to fight possessed food. Dad was currently nowhere to be found, probably eating from his secret (no it's not) stash of fudge. Quickly morphing back to Fenton once I was outside of anyone's hearing/seeing range, I finally made it to my room.

I collapsed onto my rolly-chair and booted up my laptop. It had my logo slapped onto the top, courtesy of Jazz, after Dad attempted to paste his face onto it. If I remembered correctly, I had to do a bit of research for an essay that was due soon. The essay itself wouldn't be too hard, but correctly sighting all my sources was going to be a pain.


"Ow," I complained, glaring at the alarm clock that had so rudely woken me up. It formed digital-looking eyes where the numbers should have been and returned my glare with an irritated (I think) look of its own, ringing even louder than earlier.

I sighed and stretched out my back after getting my disheveled self out of bed. The little clock, that I had decidedly dubbed Hourglass, gave a ring of approval and floated back to its original place on my nightstand.

Whoops. You're probably confused about why my alarm clock was now a ghost. I should explain that.

I'm sure you remember when I nearly blew it up the day I found out about the Pokémon World. Well, somehow, it had gained sentience.

It freaked me out a bit in the beginning, but once I realized that the little clock was extremely good at keeping me on schedule when it came to practically anything (it had even tried to schedule bathroom breaks), I decided to keep it, treating it as a sort-of pet. I hadn't been late to school ever since Hourglass turned up.

My parents had been another matter. They'd noticed rather quickly (about a week) that I had been on time whenever it came to my first class at school. They were proud, but also suspicious of my sudden ability to be on time to school. They decided to investigate and found the little clock that was sitting peacefully on my nightstand. I'm sure you could guess how that went.

After a full hour of screaming, shooting, and general confusion, I finally calmed them down enough to explain Hourglass.

They had been immensely skeptical at first and decided to do a power reading on it. My new pet had a 0.1 level reading on the scale, which meant that the only ghost ability that it could possess was floating.

After noticing that Hourglass did seem to resemble the alarm clock they had purchased for me and after two full weeks of them being constantly vigilant with their concealed blasters, they finally relented and let me keep it.

My mom had been rather intrigued of how Hourglass had formed, but luckily wasn't interested in dissecting the clock as that would be rather unproductive, and would go on for hours about ambient energy and whatnot. Dad was just sad that he couldn't blast any ghosts.

And no, it's not weird that they didn't try to destroy Hourglass after that very nerve-racking discussion. Ever since Jazz started going on for hours about ghost psychology and a bunch of other theories and stuff that had flown over my head at the time, Mom and Dad had lightened up ever so slightly.

And Jazz thinks that she is nothing like Mom and Dad. Pfft.

I think Jazz was actually making progress with them! I seriously hoped that she was successful with this. I was getting sick of all the lying.


"Hey guys!" I greeted my friends with a smile, shifting my backpack to a more comfortable position.

"Hey dude!" Tucker said while walking over to my locker. Sam wasn't far behind.

"Any ghost problems?" Sam asked, glancing towards the more popular and rather loud group nearby with irritation.

"Just the Box Ghost. I even had time to finish most of that essay that Lancer gave us," I answered happily.

Tucker's jaw dropped as he looked up from the screen of his PDA. "Are you serious man? I haven't even started that stupid thing," he pouted.

Sam rolled her eyes and hit Tucker on the back of his head, causing the bespectacled teen to cry out in pain dramatically. "That's because all you've been doing is playing that new edition of Doomed. Of course you're not going to get anything done!" Sam deadpanned.

I rolled my eyes at their antics and closed my locker. We all heard the bell ring.

"Come on guys. Let's get to class. I don't wanna get detention," I told my friends while starting to make my way to our first class. Sam and Tucker quickly followed behind, falling in step with me.

"So," Sam started with a knowing expression resting on her face, "you went to that Pokémon place right? What was it like?" Tucker looked away from his PDA once again to hear what I had to say of the place.

I think my huge smile on my face gave a good indication of what that place was like.

"It was incredible," I exclaimed with glee. "I've already caught two other Pokémon and they're the best. My starter is great as well. You guys would love it there! Tucker, they have so much advanced technology! The Pokémon can stay in super small Pokéballs. You have no idea how high-tech those things are! And Sam, I'm sure you'd love the wildlife there. Their entire society is built on the Pokémon themselves. It's amazing…"

I kept gushing about everything I had experienced so far. My two best friends listened attentively, practically drinking in every word I said about the dimension up until we were at the door of Mr. Lancer's class. I shut up immediately right before I reached the door, not wanting anyone to hear about the place. That would be bad.


"Get back here ghost BRAT!" Skulker screamed in rage while I flew away with his dismembered arm, laughing at his face even though he had a rather intimidating, glowing knife protruding out of his still-attached arm.

"Oh please," I smirked, smiling smugly over my shoulder and waving his arm everywhere with sparks flying off. "Why would I do that?"

Skulker's eyes bulged out of his sockets (don't know how) as he continued to scream profanities. A large bazooka appeared out of the ghost's shoulder, shooting dozens of green-colored fireballs. I swiftly dodged around each one, looping expertly around some while batting the rest away with Skulker's arm and damaging the piece of technology even more.

"Now, now Skulker," I tutted, "don't you know it's not nice to say certain blasphemous words around children. I know I'm awesome, but I'm technically not an adult yet." I shook my head disapprovingly at the enraged ghost and used the mechanical arm as a pointer to emphasize my point. It creaked and groaned rather ominously if I do say so myself. "You should be ashamed of yourself," I finished, trying really hard not to laugh.

Skulker obviously couldn't take my sass anymore and decided to forego our very nice discussion by charging stupidly with his blade outstretched. I smirked again, already knowing that that had been coming. After quickly discarding his now-useless arm, I charged forward as well, smiling wickedly when I noticed the brief surprise cross the robot's face (again, don't know how).

I maneuvered my way inside Skulker's guard, using his surprise to my advantage, and grabbed onto his unoccupied shoulder (the other still had the bazooka). Using his shoulder the same way a gymnast would use a balance bar, I flipped head-over-heels over him, and ended up behind the hunter. The confused ghost hadn't turned around yet since he was still completely astonished, so at the end of my roll, I planted my feet on his back and kicked off.

Completely thrown by the sudden force, Skulker ended up face-planting straight into the ground. Sam and Tucker, who had both been observing the fight with slight boredom, ran over and quickly sucked Skulker into a Fenton Thermos, making sure to collect the unwanted arm as well.

I floated down towards the ground, landing softly on a part of the street that hadn't been wrecked by Skulker's face. I frowned. I needed to pay more attention to the damage I did. I should have been able to avoid any damage occurring to Amity Park in that fight, especially since Skulker wasn't all that imposing anymore.

"Great job, dude!" Tucker said with a grin. "Skulker seriously needs to up his game. The ghost fights with him are getting kinda lame."

I glared at him. "Don't jinx it! The next ghost I fight is probably gonna be a powerhouse now that you said that!"

"Yeah well," Sam deadpanned, "you know how this idiot is. He doesn't think and is pretty good at stuffing his foot into his mouth."

Tucker cried his outrage at the insinuation while I snorted at the insult. Somehow, their disagreement turned into a war between vegetables and meat.

Deciding to save myself from the headache I knew I was going to get, I called it a night. "Sorry guys, but I gotta go. Skulker will hopefully have been the last one. See ya," I said as I started floating and forming my ghost tail.

Both teens miraculously stopped fighting and turned to me with smiles on their faces. "Sure thing," Tucker said. "You wanna hang at the Nasty Burger? They have some new special I want to try out," the bespectacled boy said, licking his lips in savory delight.

"Sure," I exclaimed, glad that their bickering hadn't escalated into something more. I didn't think Casper High could handle another day of rivaling protests. I knew I couldn't.

I turned to Sam for her opinion and she nodded her agreement.

"Great," I exclaimed, floating even higher. "Bye guys."

I flew towards my house while my two best friends headed to theirs. It only took a few minutes to get to my room after making sure that Mom and Dad were still asleep. I changed quickly into some comfortable clothes after I morphed back to Fenton.

"Goodnight Hourglass," I said, smiling at the little clock when it rang its answer. I dropped onto my bed, falling asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.


I felt my mouth forming the end of a word. I couldn't tell what I was saying as my mind was still a bit foggy on the details.

My hearing returned to me first, allowing me to listen to the tell-tale signs of something smashing into something else, with a faint tinkling easily heard after the crash. I felt the breeze around me and could smell the salt in the air, cuing my understanding of what was going on.

My vision finally cleared and I was able to see a sight that I hadn't really been expecting.

The Cacturne was frozen solid. Its entire body lay flat on its back, completely attached to the ground by all the ice.

Oh sure. I knew freezing the opponent was a likely possibility when it came to some of the Ice-typed moves, but that didn't mean that I was honestly expecting it to happen during Mi's first true battle.

"Come on Cacturne!" Mikey pleaded. "Please snap out of it. If you can hear me, break the ice with Brick Break."

The silence echoed across the battlefield. I wasn't sure how long the wait was going to go, but if something didn't happen soon, then I'll tell Mikey to recall the poor thing. That couldn't be comfortable at all.

I watched as Mikey sighed and started to reach for a Pokéball, about to return his frozen Pokémon, but halted in his movement completely when an audible crack sounded on the battlefield.

Both us Trainers and one Pokémon looked on in disbelief as the Cacturne's arm started to glow white. The Cacturne remained in its frozen state for another moment, where hairline cracks started to inch their way across the ice. Then, beams of lights shot out of the many flaws on the frozen water, followed quickly by the shattering of the ice.

I shielded my eyes away from the explosion and felt many tiny ice particles hit my body. When I looked back towards the battle a second later, I found the previously-frozen Scarecrow Pokémon staring at my Feebas with hate-filled eyes.

Mi stared at the heaving Pokémon with surprise before shaking her head and focusing on the battle again. I gave an impressed look towards the Cacturne before returning my own focus on what my next command should be.

Mikey had snapped out of his shocked reverie before I had and was already capitalizing on his brief bout of luck.

"Awesome Cacturne," he said with a grin. "Use Sandstorm and then hit that fish with Energy Ball!"

My eyes widened at the sight of the sand tornado that formed out of nowhere, easily concealing the Cacturne. I could manage to see a dark silhouette deep inside the veil of sand, but that didn't make me feel any better.

"Mi," I called in panic, "use Rain Dance to get rid of the sand. Then use Double Team." Mi understood quickly and did as told right away. Her Double Team had already been completed before the rain even started, confusing her injured opponent when it tried to aim after getting closer to the water and readying the attack.

The battle between the rain and sand raged for a few seconds before the rain, having a lot more momentum with the help of gravity, brought down more and more of the sand to the ground with each drop. Unfortunately, the rain was coming down hard enough to dispel Mi's copies. The Cacturne immediately zeroed in on her stationary form and released the Energy Ball.

Luckily, I didn't have to say anything. As soon as the rain took control of the battlefield, Mi's Swift Swim kicked in, upping her speed tremendously and allowing her to easily dodge the attack.

I smirked at the Cacturne's admittedly astonished-looking expression and Mikey's gaping form before I decided to finish the battle with one last Ice Beam.

Mi complied, zooming out of the water quickly from the farthest side of the water with the Ice Beam completely charged. While moving forward…somehow, she let the attack loose at her still-stunned opponent. The Ice Beam gained in power and size as it collected the droplets on its path and barreled straight into the unprepared Pokémon. As the Scarecrow Pokémon started its path to the floor, Mi flew through the air, tackled the falling Pokémon, and landed in another body of water.

I gaped at her, not caring at all that the Cacturne had been defeated. I watched as Mi popped back to the surface of the water with a confused expression adorned on her face.

"Did you just… fly?" I wondered, completely befuddled by what I had just seen. Mi looked pretty confused herself.

I was brought back out of my reverie when I saw a red light in the corner of my eye, signifying the return of the Cacturne. Oh right, battle. I'll focus on an explanation for that later.

"Hey Mi," I said, hiding my amazement about her seemingly impossible feat. "How about we let Comet have a try? You battled so well! I'm proud of you."

My second Pokémon looked disheartened at first, but quickly forgot her sadness and preened at the praise. I smiled at her and returned her, bringing out Comet into the lessening rain.

Comet, just like Mi, was initially confused about what was happening, but quickly focused when she saw a Pokémon materializing out of the white energy in front of her.

Mikey's last choice coalesced into a yellow, humanoid Pokémon with a tail. I scanned it with my Pokédex. Judging by the electricity traveling across its fur and the lightning bolt-shaped, black fur on its abdomen, it was an Electric type. Great.

"Electabuzz, the Electric Pokémon. When a storm arrives, gangs of this Pokémon compete with each other to scale heights that are likely to be stricken by lightning bolts. Some towns use Electabuzz in place of lightning rods."

I paled a little after hearing that explanation, but was also excited for the challenge. If this species of Pokémon competed to get hit by lightning, then it had to be tough.

"Electabuzz," Mikey called, "use Thunder Wave."

"Go Ghost Comet! That could paralyze you!" I yelled.

As the Electric Pokémon prepared its attack, Comet faded from the visible spectrum, turning intangible simultaneously like I had taught her. The Electabuzz stopped, puzzled as to where Comet had gone.

"It's invisible," Mikey explained to his Pokémon. "Use Shock Wave."

The bipedal Electric type nodded and easily built up the attack. I winced, not sure how well Comet's intangibility would hold up against an elemental attack. Physical attacks were the easy ones.

Oh duh. This was an easy fix.

"Phase into the ground!" I commanded, hoping that she would be fast enough. As the Shock Wave traveled across the field, no cry of pain could be heard so I assumed that the dodge was a success. "Use Will-O-Wisp and follow it up with Screech. Then Hex!"

"Shock Wave again," Mikey yelled with fear in his eyes. The Electabuzz released a swift burst of electricity that spread everywhere and, after hearing a yelp of surprise, obviously hit my Pokémon. Comet appeared near the Electric type with sparks traveling along her form. Fortunately, she was able to manage a Will-O-Wisp through her pain before Mikey gave another command.

The Electabuzz was hit with the blue fireballs from Comet's Will-O-Wisp, badly burning the Electric type and giving Comet a chance to recover before she unleashed her Screech attack.

That completely disoriented the bipedal Pokémon, also succeeding in drowning out what Mikey's next command had been. The Hex attack that I had ordered came soon after in the form of my Shuppet's now-glowing, purplish-red eyes. The muddled Electabuzz gave off an erratic Thunder which Comet easily dodged, giving her the opening to hit her opponent with the Hex attack.

The Electabuzz ended up outlined in the same glow that had taken over the ghost's eyes, made even more powerful than usual because of its burn. The yellow Pokémon gave off a terrible cry of pain, its intensity rivaling Comet's Screech attack. I winced at the loudness.

"Electabuzz!" Mikey screamed in anguish. "You need to get away from there! Use Thunderbolt!"

"Use Shadow Sneak! Stay away from all its Electric attacks!" I yelled.

The Thunderbolt zoomed through the air as my Shuppet unleashed her shadow. Just like Eevee in her battle against Ash's Pikachu, Comet was still hit by some of the electricity when she tried to dodge. Dammit. There had to be a way to dodge these kinds of moves!

She got her bearings quickly and finished the Shadow Sneak, hurting the feline badly from behind. Both Pokémon slumped slightly after the attacks had been completed, finally showing their fatigue. This needed to be finished now before Comet was hurt even more.

"Shadow Ball!" I said, wanting this to be done and over with. Comet needed medical attention. Those burns from the electricity didn't look so good.

Mikey wanted another Thunder, but that wasn't going to happen. The Electabuzz started to charge up again, but the Shadow Ball hit it before the attack was even halfway ready.

I sighed in relief when I saw the Electric type slump to the ground in defeat. I really needed to find better ways to get around those speedy, Electric-typed moves. The competition would only get tougher.

My Shuppet floated slowly to the ground, her head-spike drooping. I ran to her and patted her head as she looked up.

"You did amazing Comet," I told the ghost with a smile. "Electric types are pretty hard to deal with and you were able to beat that Electabuzz! They're supposed to be really tough."

She smiled tiredly at me as I returned her. I clipped the Pokéball back to my waist and looked up when I heard footsteps.

"Hey," Mikey said while running his hand through his hair. His other hand had some cash held tightly. "Thanks for the battle. I learned a ton. You really have a knack with bringing the best out of your team. I know I still have a lot to learn."

"Thanks," I told him sincerely while taking the money. "I learned a lot from the battle too."

We both made some small talk as we headed to the Pokémon Center on the ship. All three of Mikey's Pokémon needed some recovery time. I think I just needed to have Comet go there, but it wouldn't hurt to give Mi a quick look over, just in case.


I walked through one of the areas of the ship that had many booths lined along it. Most of the stuff they were selling seemed kinda useless, so I quickly grew bored of the place.

I was still a little embarrassed about the whole 'my Feebas can fly' conversation I recently had with the Nurse Joy on the ship. It was very hard to hide my blush when the giggling nurse patiently explained how it was a normal thing that happened when it came to an out-of-water Pokémon with Swift Swim when it was raining.

The loud crowd that was flocking around a booth nearby caught my attention. I looked over towards what everyone seemed so hyped up about and was immediately annoyed by it. Another useless thing.

It was one of those dress-up booths for Pokémon. It was supposed to make them look pretty or something, but it really just made the Pokémon look grotesque and… weird. Whatever. It wasn't my problem.

I walked around the mass of people and continued on to see what other things were around here. There had to be something interesting.

My eyes were quickly drawn to a pretty lady manning a booth nearby with a sad expression. There was some kind of red, vulpine Pokémon sprawled lazily near the edge of the table. It looked like she was selling some kind of beauty product for Pokémon (not that I knew much about that stuff). That six-tailed whatever it is looked well taken care of, so maybe she knew what she was doing. Since my team consisted of all girls at the moment, I didn't think it would hurt to take a quick look.

But first, let's see what the Pokédex has to say about that fox.

"Vulpix, the Fox Pokémon. At the time of its birth, Vulpix has one white tail. The tail separates into six if this Pokémon receives plenty of love from its Trainer. The six tails become magnificently curled."

Okay, she definitely seems to know what she's doing.

"Hi," I said after walking up to the booth.

The lady's eyes immediately lit up. "Hello there young man," she said kindly. "Are you interested in any of our products?"

I looked at some of the shampoo-looking stuff and answered, "I was just looking around and noticed that your Vulpix looked really healthy. Did your stuff do that?"

She smiled widely and explained, "It's part of the reason. We believe that a healthy combination of inner and outer beauty really brings out the best of a Pokémon. By making sure that a Pokémon is receiving the correct nutrition along with a few other things," she gestured towards the relaxed Vulpix, "a Pokémon will look their best all the time. A strong bond between Pokémon and Trainer is important too…"

She continued explaining her methods for a few more minutes before she demonstrated one of her products on the Vulpix.

"First get a good amount of the moisturizer," she squeezed some of the creamy-white blobby stuff onto her hand, "and rub it a bit on your hands. Then start massaging your Pokémon like this."

She continued demonstrating and even tried the stuff on Eevee. Her coat immediately looked even healthier and I could tell by the look on her face that she had enjoyed it. After finding out a bit more about the product and how good this lady, who introduced herself as Suzy, really was (she'd won a ton of awards), I thought I'd give it a try.

They were a little expensive, but I think they were worth it. I got one kind specifically for Eevee and one for my Feebas. Each product was developed according to type and whether the Pokémon had scales, fur, etc. The Ghost type products were still in development, but it wouldn't hurt to give Comet one of those massages. My team would probably like that, with or without the products.

She complimented the bond I had with my Pokémon and reminded me that the products were nothing without that bond. After she gave me a few lists on nutrition and whatnot for each of my Pokémon, I thanked her and left, making sure I got her contact info in case my Pokémon really enjoyed the products. It looked like I had something to do now after all.

With one more annoyed glance towards the flashy stand that I had passed earlier, I headed back to my room.


Thanks for all the support!

Please review! I really want to hear what you all have to say about the battles especially. Many of the battles in the future will get longer and more complex as Danny's team gains more experience. Can you all follow the battles that I have written so far? Are Danny's Pokémon too overpowered? Anything that seems strange, please let me know! I really want to improve the quality of the future chapters!

Also, everything has already occurred except "Phantom Planet" in this story.

Reviews:

Bibbledoo (Ch. 7): Thanks! I tend to like the ghosts of anything because of DP as well.

Ninuhuju (Ch. 7): Yup. That kind of thing will tend to not have very good timing.

HowlingPassion (Ch. 6): Thanks. I'm glad you think so.

GirlFish (Ch. 7): Yeah. Danny is the kind of person to do that. Danny doesn't have his powers in the Pokémon World. I'm still debating on whether Ash will get to go there or not. There won't be a sequel for this story. I don't know yet. There's a lot I could do with that.

KaeterinaRomanov (Ch. 7): He's going to travel with Ash and the others for a bit, but beyond that I'm not sure. I'm leaning on just having Danny on his own the rest of the time, but I haven't completely decided on that yet.