Chapter 10

Shock (v.):to come into contact violently, as in battle

...

Let's see… He had the powers, the costume, and according to Tucker, all he needed was the ability to fly and a cool sounding name for his alternate identity, and he would be a true superhero. Little did his best friend know that he had already achieved one of the two remaining 'hero criteria.' In truth, he really didn't like lying to his friends, but he didn't want to give them, especially Tucker, any more fuel for the fire.

He didn't want to be a hero. He just wanted to be normal again. He was absolutely certain of that.

These symptoms, not powers, still had a mind of their own, and while he was starting to understand their mechanics, they still had a tendency to go off on their own. Usually, they were brought on by a sudden strong emotion, although there were occasions that they'd just go off on their own, especially his intangibility. That symptom had a special love of occurring when he was using the stairs or was in his chemistry class. He still had no idea how he had not managed to not cause some sort of devastating explosion, even with his friends helping him out.

However, there was something that was bothering him, which was beginning to scare him even more so than his symptoms. It had started after he had discovered that he could fly. After curiosity got the better of him and actually practiced it, he discovered that it was actually thrilling, and, even though he tried to deny it, he had definitely enjoyed it. He knew he shouldn't nor did he want to… but it had happened.

If it was possible to get him back to normal, flying was definitely the one thing that he was going to miss. It was this thought that frightened him. If he was able to get used to one of his symptoms, then there was definitely the looming possibility that he could get used to the others. Would he get used to being non-human too?

He really didn't want to think about that possibility… Instead, he tried to push it from his mind as much as possible and, instead, concentrated on thinking about what could fix him as well as how to cope until he figured it out.

….

"Two more days, and it's done!" his mother stated suddenly after finishing some wielding work on a strange looking machine that just happened to be sitting on the kitchen table. Yep, it was just like any other day in the Fenton household, save for the fact that his arm had decided to vanish not even a minute before she had finished.

The invention, whatever it was, was probably just another strange cooking device that was powered by ectoplasm, so it really wasn't interesting enough to distract him from the problem of his missing arm until…

"It's done?" his father shouted excitedly as he scooped up the machine and proudly displayed it for all in the kitchen to see. "The Fenton finder is done! This baby uses satellites to lead you right to the ghosts!"

That definitely caught his attention. "It uses what to track what…?" he asked warily as he got out of his chair and began to back away from the table hoping that he had heard his parents wrong and hoping that he wasn't enough of a ghost to be picked up by the machine.

His hopes were immediately dashed when the machine, which talked the same way a GPS did, told his parents to walk forward, towards him. It told them to stop after they had cornered him against the wall, which caused them to stare at the machine in confusion for a moment. Thankfully, his symptoms decided to malfunction during that time, instead of while they were looking at him.

A moment later, he came back into the visible spectrum, causing him to sigh. It had been an entire month since he had been struck by his strange affliction, and it showed no signs of getting any better. His breaking point was coming, and after a split-second decision, he decided that he was finally going to tell his parents the truth about what happened. Well… he was until his sister decided that her unwanted psychoanalysis was needed to save him from being further infected by the insanity that came from their parents. She even decided that she was going to drive him to school… which was not something he was going to argue with since she was in her over-protective psychologist mode.

…

Once he got to school, he immediately found Sam and Tucker and filled them in on the earlier adventure. As they went up the stairs to their classroom the conversation had shifted to his thoughts on spilling his secret (which was followed by another incident) and his desire to be normal. That quickly got ignored after the conversation somehow shift to his friends' eating habit, which lead to the discovery that Sam had managed to convince the school board to try a new lunch menu, ultra-recyclo-vegetarian to be exact.

When lunch came around and they actually saw what they were going to be eating, he was absolutely amazed that Tucker, the self-proclaimed meat connoisseur, did not go into convulsions then and there. They were serving what honestly appeared to be grass on a bun and mud pies ("with mud, from the ground" as Dash so nicely put it later). Even after getting a close up view of the stuff, there was nothing that could convince him it was edible and therefore got dubbed "garbage" much to Sam's dismay.

As the argument was about to get underway about which one of their thoughts on the 'garbage' was right, a familiar cold sensation, followed by a gasp and shiver interrupted it. "Uh, guys… I've got a problem," he told them as his breath became momentarily visible.

Before he could say another word, something that felt a lot like mud nailed him in the back of his head which was followed by Dash shouting his name. "Make that two problems," he corrected as he turned just in time to see the bully march up to him.

Dash was definitely unhappy with the change in menu, and even though it wasn't his fault, Dash seemed to consider his closeness to the actual culprit reason enough for another chance to terrorize him. Although he was surprised that there was no actual beating this time, Dash's tone definitely indicated that if he didn't do what he was told and ate Dash's mud pies, he might be killed…. Well, made more dead.

That was a strange thought. Was it technically possible to kill someone who was already half ghost? If he didn't have Dash in his "I will kill you if you don't listen" mood right behind him, he might have continued to think about it.

He was about to do what he was told, but another shiver distracted him. Glancing up, he saw… something… an old lady maybe?... glide silently behind the lunch stand. Yep, there was definitely a ghost in the building. He had to do something. But what would distract every single person in the cafeteria long enough for him to get away?

He glanced back down at the 'garbage' on the table. That was it! "Uh…Um… GARBAGE FIGHT!" he shouted as he threw the plate of mud into Dash's face. That definitely got everyone's attention, and in the blink of an eye, every student had happily begun to throw mud around the room. He, along with Tucker and an irritated Sam, used the fight to crawl safely to the kitchen.

"You're gonna pay for this, Fenton!" Dash shouted after him.

"Great, I'm still his favorite," he muttered as he looked back long enough to see him get pelted in the head with mud. It was bitter sweet, in a way.

...

For what was left of his life, he had no idea what possessed him to go see what the ghost was doing. He just had to do it. Though, in truth, he had no clue what was going to happen when he opened the kitchen door. However, he knew none of his potential thoughts involved an old lady ghost just looking around. It was just too normal.

"Hah! It shouldn't be so bad. She looks a little like my grandmother…" Tucker said softly as they watched.

"Shouldn't she be haunting a bingo hall?" was his sarcastic reply. Right now, everything was good. He really had no idea what Tucker was indirectly suggesting he should do about her, but he definitely didn't want to do it, whatever it was.

"Hello children," the ghost said rather sweetly as she noticed them for the first time and floated closer to them. She made no indication on whether or not she had heard their comments or not. A worried expression crossed her face as she asked them about the menu for the school and if someone had changed it.

"Yeah," Tucker said as he pointed to Sam. "She did."

Apparently, that was not the answer the ghost was looking for as her sweet demeanor changed in a nanosecond to that of a crazed and enraged, you can't forget enraged, psychopath.

"YOU CHANGED THE MENU?" she yelled, which caused the three of them to back away from her. "THE MENU HAS BEEN THE SAME FOR FIFTY YEARS!" She then roared as she floated into the air and raised her hands.

Without even thinking, he jumped in front of his friends. "Get behind me!" he warned them as he watched the Lunchlady ghost's energy seemed to swirl around her. Sam said something sarcastic in response to him, but he didn't pay any attention to that. His friends were now in danger, and even if he didn't want to fight, he had to do something!

He raised his arms in the air as well as he shouted, "I'm goin' ghost!" And with that, he transformed into his ghostly half and shot into the air. He knew that he was going to have to answer an insane amount of questions from his friends, judging by the startled looks he had almost missed, but he couldn't worry about that at the moment. There was a much bigger problem.

"I command you to… go away…!" he told her nervously while attempting to look like he knew what he was doing. He had a feeling that wasn't going to work, but it was worth a shot. The ghost just glared at him before she somehow managed to levitate a bunch of dishes and sent them after him. Grasping his head in a protective way, he somehow managed to turn intangible long enough for all of them to pass through him harmlessly. That was definitely a relief!

The ghost was definitely not happy about her attack not hitting and sent another wave of dishes at both Sam and Tucker. Without thinking, he quickly flew down, somehow managed to catch all of them, and placed them down without breaking one. For someone as clumsy as he was, it was definitely an impressive feat.

"Well, if this superhero thing doesn't work out, I could have an exciting career as a busboy," he told himself as he glanced at himself in the plate he had just removed from his mouth. He hadn't been quite lucky enough to catch all of them with his hands. Who knew what had been on those plates?

Movement caught his attention. In the plate, he managed to catch the reflection of the ovens behind him that were currently attempting to break free of the wall due to an infestation of ghostly energy. Without a second thought, he threw the plate down and zoomed behind Tucker and Sam.

As he grabbed their arms, he concentrated as hard as he could on turning intangible. He knew that sometimes the things he touched when he was practicing would be affected by his symptoms too, so why shouldn't his friends? True, he had never attempted it with something as large as a person, but there was a first time for everything. And, apparently, this was that time.

He heard Sam and Tucker gasp, which caused him to quickly glance at them. It seemed to be working, but there was no time to be absolutely sure, the ovens had escaped and were flying towards them. It was definitely time to escape, and almost effortlessly, he pulled his two friends through the wall.

Author's note: And that seems like a great place to stop. XD I was expecting this to be the last chapter, but apparently, it had other plans, but there's defiantly only one more to go.

And, I'm sorry that this didn't get posted sooner. I'm apparently horrible at trying to stay on track.

Oops, and before I forget, the quotes used are from Mystery Meat. Yes, I've paraphrased a lot and left out dialogue, but that's done in order to respect the copyright.