"Samantha Patricia Manson!" Sam's mother crossed her arms. "You know you're grounded, young lady! And instead of staying in your room by yourself, you decided to invite Tucker and-" Mrs. Manson stopped herself when she saw Danny. "You're supposed to be missing."
"Um, hi Mrs. Manson," Danny waved awkwardly. Mrs. Manson's gaze shifted from confusion to a glare.
"Daniel Fenton, where have you been?" she yelled at him as if she were his mother, not Sam's. "The whole town has been worried sick!"
"I…uh…" Danny tried to thing of a quick excuse when Sam jumped in.
"He was, um, recruited last minute by some ghost zone officials for a study that required the…most average ghost?" Sam tried.
"Samantha, that is absolutely-" Mrs. Manson started.
"True!" Sam's grandma wheeled in on her wheel chair. "I saw it with my own eyes!"
"Ida," Sam's mom turned to her own mother. "And why would they do that? Especially without letting him notify his family?"
"Well, they are the Observants," Ida countered. "They really don't bother themselves with ghost's everyday lives."
With the word Observants, Mrs. Manson stiffened, her face painted with fear for a few moments before she regained her composure. "Well then, you'd better get back home then," she told Danny. "And you, young lady, are still ina world of trouble."
The trio sighed in relief before heading down the stairs to walk Danny home.
"So, what was that all about with your grandma?" Danny asked as he closed his locker. "I mean, she totally got me out of trouble with your mom just by mentioning the…what did she cll them? The Observants?"
"Yeah, I don't know, my grandma is kinda crazy," Sam sighed.
"Kinda crazy?" Tucker asked. Sam elbowed him hard in the arm. "Ow, sorry, but am I wrong?"
As the trio walked down the hallway, the other students all stared at them. Word had traveled fast that Danny had been recruited by the Observants for some study. Most of them didn't even know what the Observants were, but word also traveled quickly that they were apparently pretty powerful. Even though Danny was now all over the social radar, it wasn't necessarily a good thing. Nobody dared ask him or his friends about the whole ordeal, mainly because they just thought that Danny was some freak.
They walked into Lancer's classroom just as the bell rang. "Students, take your seats!" he called. "Today's lesson will be on the history of the ancient ghosts, including-"
Screaming from the hallway interrupted the teacher before he could finish. Star, one of Paulina's best friends, poked her head in the door. "There's a ghost hunter! Everybody, like, totally RUN!"
The first one out of the door was Dash, who ran as fast as possible followed by Paulina and everyone else in the class room except for Danny, Tucker, and Sam.
"Well, that's my cue," Danny transformed into his human form.
"Wait, but Danny, last time you tried to save the day, you disappeared for a week…" Sam worried.
"Sam, I'll be fine, trust me," Danny smiled a little bit at her.
"I know you will be but…" Sam was about to say something, but decided against it. "Just be careful."
Danny nodded, smiling at her and phasing through the wall and into the hallway, where a tall, thin man stood. His white hair stood straight up, and his eyes were barely showing through his magenta goggles. He smiled toothily, his pale skin stretching around his face. He wore a white lab coat with magenta accents.
"Hello, halfling, I am Technus, greatest technician in the whole WORLD!" he said in a loud, high pitched voice.
"What are you doing here? Do you work for Vlad?" Danny asked. The other ghosts in the hallway stayed to the edges, staying away from the exits due to the fact that they were blocked with a mess of wires that Technus must've planted there.
"Why, of course I work for Vlad! And I'm here to bring you back to him!" the ghost hunter answered.
"Then how are you here? Why aren't you vanishing like…like Vlad said your kind will?" Danny yelled, his anger boiling over.
"A serum, halfling! Very expensive to make, but very much worth it!" Technus bellowed in his loud, over the top voice. "And now, prepare to surrender to Mr. Masters!"
"Or, how about this?" Danny asked sarcastically as he pulled one of his parent's gadgets out of his backpack that he'd smuggled out of their lab. He shot the small handgun at Technus, and a ray of blue electricity shot towards Technus, who went flying back into the wall. Technus twitched as his clothes smoked and sizzled. He tried to open his eyes, but was instantly out cold. Around him, a swirling blue, yellow, and green portal swirled, closing within a few seconds, leaving a empty space where Technus had just been.
The whole hallway was silent for a few moments before Dash stood up tall, clapping his hands a few times. After a few moments, the whole hallway erupted in applause for Danny. He smiled a little bit, taken aback by the sheer volume of the hallway.
"Who are you?" Paulin asked once the applause calmed down a little bit.
"I- I'm…uh," Danny stuttered until he suddenly realized that they all thought he was a hero. He could be whoever he wanted, act however he felt. Danny stood up straight, smiling and puffing out his chest a little bit. "I'm Danny Fenton, and I'm here to keep you all safe," he said in his best superhero voice.
With that, he looked around one more time, nodding with a small smirk on his face, and phased through the ground, into the basement where he then phased back into Lancers classroom and turned back into his ghostly form. He ran out into the hallway, trying to look as normal and dorky as he assumed he usually looked.
"Phan-turd, you missed it!" Dash exclaimed, shoving Danny roughly against the wall before backing up and laughing at Danny's shocked expression. "This Danny Fenton kid totally saved the day. Where were you anyways, hiding like the wimp you are?"
"Yeah, something like that," Danny rubbed the back of his neck nervously, shooting a knowing smirk to Sam and Tucker, who were standing a few feet away, smiling proudly at their friend.
By the end of the week, 'Danny Fenton' had sent about ten ghosts back to the organic world, instantly making Danny Phantom's trip to the Observants old news. The whole school was buzzing with rumors about Amity Park's new hero. Some people, like Danny's parents, thought that this Fenton kid was just as evil as the rest of the ghost hunters that came through, but most of Amity Park couldn't stop talking about how great Fenton was.
A few ghosts had caught on about the fact that the word the ghost hunters had called him, 'halfa', meant that he was half human, half ghost, although most people didn't believe that theory. They all thought that it was way too out there and quite frankly impossible.
And where did that leave Danny? Well, the whole school was convinced that Phantom was a total wimp, running and hiding every time there was an attack from Masters' men, but Danny didn't really pay attention to that. He was too busy with trying to figure out how to balance school, his normal life, and his hero life, and honestly, he was failing pretty badly. His grades had dropped from C's to F's, and the only time he spent with Sam and Tucker was training and human hunting, although lucky for Danny, his parents hadn't caught on yet.
And that brings us to Monday, the day things got even more complicated. It all started out when the trio was walking to school just like most mornings, talking about human hunting strategies.
"So, if you do that, then you'll have time to catch up on your homework AND human hunt!" Sam finished.
"Sam, I'm not doing homework while I hunt," Danny said flatly.
"Why not? It's more productive than what you're doing now," Sam argued.
"Sure, and while I'm at it, I might as well tell everyone in Amity Park that I'm half ghost, half human, and that I go to the high school! Then, might as well hand my parents the dissecting tools!" Danny said sarcastically.
"Well, it was just an idea," Sam said, obviously upset that she'd been disproven. Before any of them could say anything else, a swirling blue and yellow portal opened right above the three, depositing a woman in a red jumpsuit with black accents. She fell on Danny with a thud, and struggled to her feet.
"Oh my gosh, Danny, I'm so sorry!" she apologized before helping him up. Danny took her hand and stood up before looking her over. Just like a lot of things, he had a vague feeling of daja vu, as if he should've known this mystery woman, but he couldn't quite remember her.
"Um, do I know you?" he finally decided to ask.
"Oh, right, you probably wouldn't recognize me," she pressed a button on her watch, the red jumpsuit folding off of her and leaving her in a pair of black pants and an orange shirt. Her coffee colored skin was just a shade lighter than her short cut hair, and her hazel eyes glittered with desperation. "I'm Valerie, Valerie Grey. And I'm here because I need your help."
Short short chapter, sorry. I've been really busy with school and the social life that I'm trying to maintain lately, so I really didn't have a ton of time, really sorry! But, after this week, I have a whole week off for MEA break, so I'll probably make a bunch of updated then.
Soooo, what do you guys thing? I know I ask literally every chapter, but I really like the input.
Also, it's my hope that this story will be pretty long, I've decided, since I really want to keep a few plot ideas I've been thinking of. Well, I probably wont update for another week, unless I'm pleasantly surprised, so I guess I'll so you guys then!
-Samantha
