I think it's right. Not sure. AHHHHHHHHHHH THERE'S SOMETHING CRAWLING DOWN MY BACK! Wait... it's my hair... Well, that's a surprise. Ahhh noooooo don't make me go to school. I'm beginning to get slightly sleepy. Maybe I need more coffee. That would be nice. I had my last coffee... ten minutes ago, and before that... an hour ago, so if I wait ten more minutes I'll make myself another one :D And then I will be up ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL night :D I love the night. Best part of the day. I can never go to sleep early. Like yesterday, I ate something bad for dinner (and especially gross) and then I had a stomach ache and majorly throbbing headache but nevertheless I was up until 4am. I watched Bleach for a while and then I read The Vampire Armand. :) I haven't read that in a while. Now. I have an itchy armpit... haha, not really. But my arm is itchy because some stupid rank thing bit me. UGH I HATE WEDNESDAYS! I pretty much hate everything.

:) Read on my people... oh god my stomach doesn't seem to agree with what I eat. My stomach is beginning to feel slightly strange. Ah well, I shall keep writing!

The Beginning

Chapter Twenty

It Begins

Danny looked at the ghost cat angrily – it had appeared at the school soon after they had and had forced Danny and Kelly to run away to stop it from feasting on Jazz or Tucker. They had run to the front of the school and that was as far as they were going. He let out a deep breath and willed the transformation to occur.

"Ah child, you do remember those video cameras that the school installed, do you not?" The ghost cat reminded him smugly. "I'm guessing that the ghost hunter watching us is entertained by this strange occurrence, eh?"

Danny flinched and spat a curse at the cat as he willingly stopped the transformation. The only ghost hunters that would possibly be sitting in the surveillance room would be either the Guys in White or Valerie. Either way, it would be a disaster if they saw him transform into Danny Phantom. He would just have to fight this cat as a human.

He looked to Kelly and she nodded – they were about to start running again. Danny took off and Kelly followed. He had almost cleared the school grounds when he heard a yelp erupt out behind him. He turned around in panic and saw that Kelly had been injured and was on the ground, clutching her ankle in pain.

"I sprained it," she explained breathily as he bent down to examine it.

Danny nodded grimly. He wasn't about to leave Kelly nor was he going to stay and fight the cat. He would have to pick his girlfriend up and carry her in his arms. He was thankful that he had begun to take his training more seriously. Only four months ago he wouldn't have even been able to lift her in the first place, let alone run with her body.

He slid his arms beneath her body and heaved. But while he was focused on lifting Kelly's body up the ghost cat decided that it would strike. Danny wasn't prepared for the attack and was extremely vulnerable – he had his back to the ghost and was bending over. There was no way he could defend himself.

Within seconds he and Kelly had been swallowed up by the ghost cat and were stuck inside its belly.

Valerie was watching in shock. If that strange ring of light hadn't appeared around Danny's waist she would have rushed out and saved him and Kelly ages ago. But now she had the feeling that he could handle the ghost cat. There was something very suspicious going on with him.

She gasped as he picked up Kelly and the ghost cat snuck up behind him. "Danny, look up!" she cried to the screen as if she were watching a movie. But of course, Danny couldn't hear her and he didn't look up.

He and Kelly were swallowed by the ghost cat.

"He can handle it," she reminded herself as her finger hovered over the button on her watch.

And she was right. Only seconds later the ghost cat's stomach glowed green. It remained that way for a few suspenseful seconds before the stomach exploded. Pieces of ghost cat flew towards the camera lens and splattered all over the grass. Valerie was not going to clean it up – that wasn't part of her job. Danny and Kelly could clean it up – or Danny could get his 'ghost expert parents' to clean it up for him.

Danny and Kelly remained unharmed. Danny stood right where the ghost cat had once been, Kelly in his arms. She looked slightly surprised and in pain, though Valerie suspected that it was because she had injured her ankle. For a brief second Valerie could've sworn that Danny's eyes had been glowing a bright green but when she blinked they had returned to their usual cloudy blue hue.

"Suspicious," Valerie murmured as she took a seat. She had an urge to follow the two as they disappeared from sight but unfortunately she had to remain in the surveillance room for another twenty minutes.

"I will find out the truth," she spoke to the air in determination; the computer monitor's were her witnesses. "As soon as I get out of here, Danny, I will seek you out. I will not stop until I know your secret."

Danny placed Kelly on the grass beside his sister before glancing behind him to make sure that he had not been followed. Although his ghost sense was no longer going off he had the feeling that he was either being watched or being followed. He hoped that the school had not installed any security cameras in this area recently – he hadn't had much time to get acquainted with them yet and therefore didn't know exactly where they were. He had a basic idea, but was not entirely certain.

Jazz latched onto Kelly's ankle as though it were a holy item. She rubbed it carefully, hoping not to cause Kelly any pain. Danny smiled as his sister took charge of the situation – she was always the responsible one in these situations. He knew that she'd make a good mother. But that would be gross, Danny grimaced as he imagined Jazz having children at her age. No way.

"What happened?" Tucker asked, unsure of what he should be doing.

Danny looked back to the school before he graced them with an answer. "We led the ghost away, but we couldn't attack it because someone was watching the footage that the security cameras were picking up. So we continued to run, Kelly sprained her ankle, and the thing ate us. I exploded the stomach and we ran away. I just hope it can't like, regenerate or something."

"It didn't look very powerful," Jazz commented as she wrapped her headband around Kelly's ankle. "You shouldn't walk on it for a few days," she warned the younger girl.

"Oh, it's okay," Kelly assured her cheerily. "After all, my parents are pretty cool inventors. They'll have some sort of poultice or something to make this better."

"Did you find out where Vlad is?" Danny cut straight to the point before Jazz and Kelly could start a conversation about inventions.

Jazz looked to the grass. "I have bad news and good news," Jazz began. "Which would you like to hear first?"

"Good news," Tucker chose for them all.

Jazz smiled grimly at their eager faces. "I know where Vlad is. I picked up a signal on his ecto-energy fairly easily. Surprisingly, he's not in the Ghost Zone. And he's not in Wisconsin either. In fact, he's in Amity Park. At an abandoned hotel." She informed them.

Danny sighed in relief – it meant that they would be able to rescue Sam, and soon.

"What's the bad news?" Tucker persisted. It seems that he was the only one to remember the fact that Jazz had had both good and bad news.

Jazz bit down on her lip hesitantly before speaking up, a slight waver in her voice. "Sam's not there."

Keira put the video camera on the ground. She would return to it later. It wasn't necessarily important – she hadn't been able to catch any interesting footage on this tape. Luckily, she had gotten the tape of Danny Phantom transforming into a human at an earlier date. She had handed the tape in to her employer and he had asked for more. But now that the human had discovered something important, Keira was to complete her newest mission – to exterminate the ghost boy.

She was glad that she didn't have Fiona with her at the time – the other girl knew nothing of Keira's secret missions and her secret employer. She wouldn't enjoy explaining the truth to the other girl. Anyway, her employer had forbidden her to tell anyone of her missions. And she would follow his rules at all costs – her life was on the line.

Fiona was just a useless accessory, or even a prop. She wasn't needed in the ultimate scheme of things. Perhaps she would be destroyed at a later time but for the moment she was used to maintain the illusion of Keira being a normal girl. After all, Fiona had been made to think that she had been best friends with Keira for many years. It was all a lie.

Keira was a ghost.

"What?" Danny cried, outraged. He had been so foolish as to hold a small seed of hope close to his heart. That hope had been snubbed out like a weak, fluttering candle. He had thought for just a moment that it was possible to save Sam.

"I tried everything but I couldn't find her presence anywhere. And by anywhere, I mean anywhere in the entire universe. I even searched the ghost zone!" Jazz cried in frustration. She looked as though she were close to tears – after all, she did have a ton of pressure sitting upon her slender shoulders.

"It's not your fault," Kelly whispered. It seemed that they had all lost hope with that one sentence. It was up to Danny to restore it – he knew that without hope they didn't have a chance of finding Sam.

"We can still find her," a plan was beginning to form in his head. "After all, we know where Vlad is."

"And Vlad knows where Sam is," Tucker realised. "Danny, you're a genius!"

"But he's not," Danny concluded. "I bet he's found some way to hide Sam from our tracking device, but he didn't even think to conceal himself. Either it's because we're walking straight into a trap, or because he made a mistake."

"So be it," Kelly was beginning to regain her hope. "If it's a trap he's set, then it's a trap he'll get. Only we'll be the ones trapping him. We just need to figure out a way to reverse the trap."

"So here's what we do…"

Keira hid in the bushes as she heard the group of freaks discuss their discoveries. So they knew that Vlad was hiding Sam from them. And Vlad had accidentally forgotten to cover up his ecto-energy. He had probably concealed his human signature but not the ecto signature. After all, he had assumed that if he hadn't used his ghost powers while the group was searching for him, they wouldn't be able to get a reading on him. He had been wrong.

"Either it's because we're walking straight into a trap, or because he made –"

Keira almost shrieked as she felt a hand tugging at her arm. She felt herself being pulled back from the bushes and into plain sight. The hand on her belonged to none other than the pesky Fiona. If only she hadn't been given orders to preserve the measly human she would've killed her right there and then. She could've discovered a useful piece of information if not for Fiona.

"What are you doing?" Fiona hissed beneath her breath at the other girl.

"Um, listening to their conversation?" Keira didn't have the patience to be kind with the pathetic girl. "What's it got to do with you?"

"Keira," Fiona growled as she pulled her further away from the group of teenagers. "That's despicable behaviour! And what's it got to do with me, huh? I'm your best friend!"

"You'd like to think that, wouldn't you?" Keira sneered.

"What has happened to you?" Fiona asked quietly in her most desolate voice. "You used to be nice. You used to be my friend. But now, you… you're just a monster."

Fiona turned her back and briskly walked away. Keira grinned – she had gotten rid of the brat. If she so needed her again she could just apologise – after all, Fiona was just human. She would forgive Keira as soon as she was asked to.

Keira turned back to the area that the teenagers had been last seen. They had gone.

"Did you hear that?" Kelly interrupted Danny's plan-making. Everyone went silent as they strained to hear whatever it was that Kelly had heard.
"There are people behind us," Danny realised. "They're talking."

"Let's go somewhere else." Jazz suggested.

Kelly used Danny's shoulder to help her stand on her feet. He joined her and put her arm around his shoulder so she could lean most of her weight on him. "You guys can come to my house," Kelly suggested. "My parents won't mind."

Keira had returned to the abandoned hotel where Vlad was residing after she had lost sight of Danny Fenton and his friends. She had had more important business to attend to – she didn't have time to look for the four. She hadn't seen Vlad or the prisoner that day but she wasn't concerned and didn't go out of her way to find them.

She instead went to a room on the first floor. It was dark and damp, the sound of water dripping constantly in this room. There was a faint odor to this room – something like decaying animal carcasses. Keira didn't mind the smell – she'd grown used to it.

She grinned and laughed maniacally as she examined the room. She had lined the walls with ghost proof plastic and had gotten rid of the door. The ghost shield was activated by a button on the outside of the room. It was the perfect prison cell for a half ghost.

Dun dun dun! End of chapter!!!

Anyway. So it really annoyed me when I wrote this chapter. See, I am Australian. I have different spellings for my words. And I was using an american microsoft word sorta thing. And I couldn't be bothered changing it or anything. So each time I typed something it would automatically change it to the american spelling and I'd forget to change it back or I would change it back. But man it killed me. So that is why I switch between saying (this is an example, dunno if it was in the chapter) behavior and behaviour. Either way. Now. I need to finish doing whatever it was that I was doing before this. Apart from having coffeeeee :)

I shall write.

I AM NOW OFFICIALLY ACCEPTING:

COFFEE AND REVIEWS!

:D Love from the Kirstyn who is addicted to the amazingness of COFFEE. I'm surprised I haven't really used coffee in this story...