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Part Ten- Enjoy!
Dedicated to Matt
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The next morning, after having spent half an hour the night before reassuring her parents that she was fine, Alex woke up to a loud crashing sound from somewhere else in the house. The group had spent the night in the Ops Center and all were thoroughly jolted by the noise.
"What in the world?" Jazz asked moodily, brushing her bed-hair with a hand. She got up walking towards the entrance only to have to jump out of the way as Jack burst in, his usual grin wide as ever.
"Up and at 'em, kids! Maddie had to leave early to some meeting or other, so I made breakfast!"
Tucker gave Danny an exasperated look as Jack bounded away, "Let's hope your old man cooks food better than he builds weapons."
"Trust me…" Jazz muttered, "If we don't get attacked by it, you'll still never want to eat again. Let's feign our way through breakfast and I'll take us all to get something edible afterwards."
"Sounds good to me," Danny replied, then grabbing his pillow, playfully whacked Sam, who had her pillow clenched over her head and was groaning about the morning. "Wake up, Sam!"
A petrifying hiss came from under the pillow, and Danny sharply scooted back as if she had clawed at him. "Note to self—avoid Sam in the morning," he chuckled nervously.
After a while, they all got up and went downstairs to the kitchen. Upon entering, a rancid stench, somewhere between a boys' gym locker room after a particularly long blistering summer day and a single cat litter box that hadn't been cleaned out for weeks in a house with twelve cats, filled the air, nearly bad enough to make someone hurl. On the table was a plate with a stack of Jack-shaped pancakes that were slightly the color of moldy wax.
"Is it just me or is this thing glowing?" Sam asked, poking her pancake after they had all been served and were seated around the table.
"Ack!" Alex dropped her fork and recoiled, "I think mine just breathed!"
Jazz eyed her plate in disgust, "It's so wrong to eat pancakes that look like my dad and have eyes that are following me."
"This," Danny said, "is why we usually only eat cereal."
"You really weren't kidding Jazz!" Tucker put in. He was having a fork and knife fight with his pancake and the pancake was winning. It knocked away Tucker's weapon (the fork) and raised its knife with a growl. Tucker squealed.
Before the pancake could strike, Sam backhanded it and it launched across the table. When it landed, Alex swiftly grabbed its knife and impaled the pancake. It hissed and writhed as some goo oozed out of the wound.
"Quick! Let's get out of here while my dad is out of the room!" Danny leapt up and dumped his plate into the sink, turning on the disposal. The others quickly did the same, letting their breakfast be ground to a shrieking pulp.
"So did you kids like the Flap-Jacks?" Jack called from the living room. "HA! Get it? Flap-Jacks? Genius!"
Jazz rolled her eyes, but called back, "Yeah, they were… great…"
"Sure, great for battle training," Sam smirked under her breath and glanced at Tucker, while Jazz called back to her dad again.
"We're going out now, kay? We'll be back soon!"
"Nasty Burger?" Tucker asked hopefully.
"Nasty Burger," Jazz confirmed, snagging her car keys from their hook.
Apparently a lot of teenagers had the same idea on Saturday mornings. Rather than stay at home, where probably their younger siblings would get hyped up on sugar cereal and violent cartoons trying to imitate them, hordes of teens were lounging at the popular food restaurant.
"Danny, you go find us a table," Jazz instructed.
"I'll go with him," Tucker volunteered and the boys walked off while the girls got in line to order food.
Alex couldn't help but glance warily around at all the people, but to her relief, Matthias's unwelcoming face was nowhere to be seen. Sam looked at the breakfast menu and sarcastically said, "I bet we all want pancakes, right?"
"Blech, don't remind us or I won't be able to eat!" Alex made a face. "So… Attack of the Killer Comfort Food or whatever is normal for you guys?"
Jazz shrugged, "It's nothing compared to some of the other stuff that happens around this place."
"Nice," Alex raised an eyebrow mordantly as they reached the front of the line. They quickly ordered the food and joined Danny and Tucker in their seats at the table they had snagged.
"Tucker, you really need to lay off the read meat before you have a stroke or something," Sam observed cryptically as the self-proclaimed meat connoisseur took a huge bite of his triple beef omelet.
"Worry about your own food," he spluttered through the mouthful.
"Oh gross!" Danny said, wiping some omelet off his forehead. "Swallow before you talk, dude!"
"Sorry," he sprayed again.
"Tucker!" Jazz held up her hand to shield her face. Tucker swallowed and grinned apologetically.
"Hey, Fenturd!"
At the call Danny's eyebrows dropped into a sharply annoyed scowl. He turned to look over his shoulder, his voice cold, "What do you want Dash?"
A bulky jock came up, cuffing the back of Danny's head with his hand, "Don't give me attitude, geek."
"Back off, Dash. I'm not in the mood right now." Danny glared menacingly back at him.
"Leave him alone," Alex put in sharply.
Dash raised an eyebrow, "Who the heck are you? Hanging out with these losers makes you one of them…" He glanced at Jazz and added, "Except for you Jazz. You know, Paulina is still mad at me so I'm free for a date."
"In your dreams, Dash," Jazz retorted huffily. "And here's a little advice; don't beat up on people's brothers then try to ask them out."
"Whatever," Dash shrugged off the stinging rejection, "but you, Fenturd, cough up some dough. I need some cash."
"What? Why the heck would I give you money?" Danny snapped testily.
Sam flicked a wadded napkin at Dash, bouncing it off his forehead, "This inferiority complex of yours, Dash, must have hit rock bottom by now, right Tuck?" Tucker snickered as she glanced at him and nodded. Dash looked as if he didn't know what they meant and with a simple scowl he ignored them.
"Wow… On a scale of one to ten of being an idiot, your number must be too high for you to count," Alex said mockingly at Dash. Put that simply, he did understand what she meant.
"Seriously, who the heck are you?" the jock glared at, red faced with boiling blood, but she returned it with a smirk.
"Why do you care?" Sam answered for her. "Get lost, Dash."
Dash looked somewhat bewildered that they were standing up to him. With no witty comeback, Dash resorted to grabbing the only one he could really bully by the shirt. Danny. Under his breath, Dash hissed, "I'll make you pay for refusing."
"Save it for Monday, Buzzhead. I'm taking a break," Danny retorted.
Dash formed a fish an probably would have pounded Danny's face to if Kwan hadn't called him from a table across the restaurant, "Come on Dash! We're starving over here!"
Dash growled and released Danny resentfully. He fumed as he walked off. Danny grinned, "Thanks for backing me up, guys."
"No problem, squirt," Jazz smiled and ruffled his hair, getting her hand smacked away.
"Why do you let him talk to you like that?" Alex asked curiously. "You could take him out with any one of your powers. Why didn't you use them?"
Danny smoothed his hair and sighed, "I want to keep my secret exactly that—a secret. It's fun and all to be a hero, but I don't want to be looked at as a freak. Not to mention my parents. They are ghost hunters and they want to tear Danny Phantom apart molecule by molecule because they think he's—well, I am evil."
"Dang, that sucks," Alex muttered.
"Yeah. Besides, if I used my powers for stuff like that" Danny continued, "I'd be no better than the ghosts I fight; kind of how Matthias is using the fact that he's a ghost to scare you then feed on that fear."
"Thanks for reminding me," Alex replied sulkily. "Matthias wasn't like that though. He used to be my best friend."
Sam put a hand on her shoulder, "People change. I guess he's not the same person he once was."
Alex poked her food with her fork, "But… it is possible for ghosts to be good." She looked at Danny, "What if the Matthias I once knew is still in him somewhere?"
"It sounds like you want to be friends with Matthias again," Jazz said confused. "I thought you were afraid of him."
"Only of what he is, even if that doesn't make sense," Alex replied. "Like Sam said, people—or ghosts for this matter—change. Would it be possible to bring back his old self?"
"This is all sounding very Frankenstein-ish," Tucker put in. Having just finished his first omelet, he pulled out a second.
"Not bring him back from the dead, you dweeb," Jazz snapped, "More like, psychological rehab, right Alex?"
"It sounds kind of dumb when you put it like that, but yeah, I guess," she said.
Danny rolled his eyes, "Don't get Jazz started on all her idiotic obsessions with that psychotic junk."
"Just because you know it's all true doesn't mean you have to rag on it," Jazz smirked. "And yes, Alex, with the right knowledge and technique, it could be possible—even with a teenage ghost. Ever heard of mediums?"
"Or it might drive the ghost even loopier," Danny made a childish face and whirled a finger in a circle next to his head, Then, exhaling, a pale wisp of vapor blew out of Danny's mouth. "Darn it. I'll be back in a second," He jumped up and hurried toward the bathrooms.
Alex looked questioningly at the others, "What was that?"
"Ghost sense," Tucker said. "It let's Danny know when another ghost is near."
Then all of them were struck by swirling orbs of red ectoenergy.
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End Part Ten
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I like this story. I like it a lot.
Thank you to everyone who has reviewed
and/or has been a loyal reader.
Please R&R!
This chapter made me laugh so hard, especially the Flap-Jacks.
They came into being as a sort of
combination of Flap'jack' fentons (girls night out),
fenton toast (forever phantom),
and haunted Christmas turkey (the fright before Christmas)
and possibly the haunted weenies (
unknown episode, probably the halloween special)
Is anyone else curious as to why Paulina is mad at Dash?
Eh, just wondering. Just so you all know, I really hate Dash, if
Alex hadn't already given that away in the story. :D
Also there's a new 'screen shot' of when Alex meets Wulf
in the Ghost Zone on my DA page. My Username is Tesseri-Shira ;)
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