Thanks for the reviews! Here are the replies!
Unlucky Alis: I'm glad the last chapter was able to live up to your expectations :D I wasn't so sure when I was writing it, but its good to know it worked out :)
wiseguy2415: Yeah, that part was kind of obvious XD and I haven't seen the show you referenced, but I'll take your word for it that the characters have some similarities :)
Lexosaurus: Glad you think so! :)
Joy Phantom: We will see about that in the future! And nope, definitely not replacing Sam and Tucker. They are still very important, but I thought that it may be a somewhat realistic reaction for Danny to have. Since he has to hide so much from them, it's going to make them feel farther apart, like they don't completely know each other anymore, then there's suddenly this group that he doesn't have to hide from, and well, yeah. XD Lore will be included in bits and pieces along the way! Also, no no no no no no no, I LOVE reading your reviews! Sometimes you even get me to think of things I haven't even considered yet! They're very helpful with insight and motivation and never a waste of time :)
Dragon Historian: Glad you're liking this AU so far! And for the episodes, I'm not going to be going over all of them. Some happened very closely to how they happened in canon, while some are changed drastically or didn't happen at all, however, the basic premise remains, with the change of nobody knows and not all the ghosts are bad. :) Thanks for the input! I may go back and add in an episode or two like you mentioned, we'll see how things work out! :)
SraCaf33: Yep! and thanks! :)
Thank you all who read/follow/favorite/review! Enjoy the chapter!
Chapter 28
Doctor, Doctor
Summary: When all of Casper High gets infected with some ghost virus, it's up to Tucker to figure it out.
Tucker smiled as he stored his lunch in his locker and pulled out his own original cologne. He sprayed a bit on him in hopes of talking to one of those cute chicks in his first hour class.
"Dude! What is that smell?!" Danny suddenly asked from beside him, covering his mouth and nose.
"What? It cant be that bad. Its my own unique cologne, Foley. By Tucker Foley." he said with a smirk as he held out the bottle in display. Danny looked at it skeptically, "It smells like an animal died in here."
"Hm. I thought it smelled kind of like a walk through the forest." he commented.
"Yeah. A forest full of death."
"Whatever bro. I bet the ladies will love it." He said, putting the bottle away and picking up his backpack. Danny sighed while still covering his nose, "This is why you can't get a date Tuck."
As the duo started on their way to class, Sam suddenly ran up beside them. "Hey" she said before scrunching her nose up, "What's that smell?"
"Foley. By Tucker Foley." they both said in unison, one sounding enthusiastic, one disgusted. Sam shrugged, "Huh. Smells kind of weird."
They continued their walk to class and Tucker began to notice a bug flying around, then two, then three, and before they knew it there was a whole swarm going through the hallway. He looked around in confusion as some students started swatting away at the insects while others simply left or ignored them, "Dude! Where'd these all come from?!"
Danny was looking at the swarm with an almost exhausted look as Sam just seemed completely unimpressed, "What are they? They don't look like bees or mosquitos or anything."
The three of them snuck along the side of the hall where the bugs were less and thought they were in the clear until Sam cried out and slapped a hand over her arm. She began itching and scratching at it, "I think one of them bit me, or stung me, whatever they are."
"Are you ok?" Danny asked her. She nodded, "Yeah, it's nothing. Why wouldn't I be ok?" Tucker hid his smirk so that the two wouldn't see it.
"I don't know, it's just, uhh. Well, I've got to go to the bathroom before class, see you guys later." Danny said quickly before running off once again. Unfortunately, the two of them were getting pretty used to that sort of thing, so it came as no surprise, only a minor annoyance. Tucker simply sighed and glanced back down the hall.
As lunch hour came around, people had begun noticing the huge amount of students that were suddenly coming down with colds. Teachers were mildly panicked and the nurse's office was packed. The moment Tucker began to worry, was the moment that Sam came out and admitted she wasn't feeling so great. Sam rarely got sick, so the fact that she caught whatever it was only proved to Tucker that it was a real problem.
By the end of the school day the issue had only grown larger. A group of doctors had apparently been contacted to solve the problem and had taken all the students who had been infected to that creepy old hospital on the edge of town, the North Mercy Hospital. There were only around a hundred students in the whole school who had been left completely unaffected, thankfully two of them being Tucker and his best friend Danny. Although unfortunately Sam had caught it, causing the two of them worry to no end.
"How is everyone acting so calm about this? Doesn't it seem a little weird?" Tucker asked as they watched one of the doctors speaking with a group of parents.
"Could be overshadowing or mental influence." Danny said with his eyes glued on the doctor. Tucker quirked an eyebrow, "You're saying you think it could be ghosts causing this?" Danny shook his head and shrugged, "Wouldn't be the weirdest thing to happen. But I guess there's only one way to find out."
An hour later the two of them had made it to just out the hospital where they were crouched down behind some bushes, spying on the guards in front of the place. "They're ghosts." Danny stated. Tucker glanced between him and the guards, "How can you tell?" Danny pointed, "They have a glow, it's small, but it's there."
He adjusted his glasses and looked closer, this time noticing that there indeed was a tiny aura surrounding them. "Dude, I thought you weren't into your parent's stuff."
"I'm not." was the only answer he received. Danny suddenly sighed, "Tuck, I hate to say this, but I think I'm starting to get sick too."
Tucker's eyes widened, "What? No, nonononononono. Not you too bro!" Everyone else he knew had just come down with this virus within a day and been confined within this creepy hospital. Not to mention, there was now a good chance that this was all a bunch of ghost shenanigans. Of course he was worried.
"Calm down, this might work."
"What?!" Tucker yelled a little too loudly before Danny shushed him. "Listen, just pretend like you brought me here because I'm sick. Once I'm inside, I'll find Sam and figure out what's going on. Sound good?"
He hesitated, "It could be dangerous dude. You said it yourself, these are ghosts we're dealing with. Shouldn't we wait and let your parents, or hell, even let Phantom handle it?" Danny looked at him for a moment, "I thought you didn't trust Phantom."
Tucker sighed, "I don't. But- look, shouldn't we just tell your parents. They'd know what to do."
"Tuck, trust me. Please just trust me." He sighed and gave in at last. Danny pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to him, "Just in case." He recognized the item as one of the Fenton's lipstick blasters. They were great for subtlety and could pack good sized blast in comparison to its size.
A couple minutes later Danny had his arm around Tucker's shoulder as they walked up to the guards. Tucker put on the most convincing face he could manage, which wasn't too hard seeing as he really was concerned, and his friend really was sick.
When they reached the guards a portion of Tucker's confidence fled him. "H-help, my friend is sick, he needs to be in the hospital. Not me. Him." When neither of them made any sign of responding he became increasingly nervous until a voice from inside spoke, "It's alright guards, stand down. Tell me, has this young man been experiencing any ghost like symptoms?" the doctor from their school asked.
Tucker had just begun debating with himself what the doctor had meant by his last question when Danny completely disappeared for a second. Tucker's eyes went wider than saucers. "Oh you poor, sick human child, it's worse than I thought! We'll take it from here."
Sam was beyond suspicious at this point. She knew there was something going on in that hospital between the lack of information or treatment anyone there was being given, to their weird ghost symptoms they were all exhibiting. She had been unfortunate enough to be stuck having to hold herself down on the bed every couple minutes when her body tried to float straight up to the ceiling.
Shivers ran through her as she quickly gripped the sides of the bed once again.
"Oh, thank goodness, you're here."
She turned to her right to find a somewhat familiar face…or mask. Scrunching her eyebrows together she looked at the ghost, "What's wrong with your voice?"
"Doesn't matter. Do you know anything about what's going on here?" he asked her. She just shrugged, "Besides everyone here having some sort of ghost power, no. They aren't telling us anything, nor has anyone ever even checked on us."
"Has anyone…" his now quirky voice faded out and her eyelids began to droop. She faintly heard someone calling her name before passing out completely.
When Danny woke up in his human form strapped tightly down to a table, he tried not to panic. But it was hard not to at least a little. He'd remembered feeling really dumb when one of the doctors had revealed himself to be Bertrand, Penelope Spectra's snarky little shape shifting assistant. He would have at least punched him for everything he'd done to him in the past if it hadn't been for the gas forcing him unconscious.
When Spectra herself came in and started monologuing her big plan to use the best parts of everyone to create her own body to possess, Danny began thinking she just might be almost as fruitloopy as Vlad.
"Ok, I've heard of body sculpting, but don't you think this taking just it a little too far?" he asked her, receiving an almost feral growl in response.
"Keep in mind that as soon as I'm done with you, you're going straight to King Dark."
There was suddenly a loud beeping from the table across the room as Spectra hastily flew over to it.
"What is it? I'm busy."
"Uh, I'm sorry, it's just, we have a security issue downstairs." the voice over the intercom said hesitantly.
"Then take care of it you incompetent fool." she seethed.
"Well you see- we tried- but, we need your help-"
She slammed the off button on the intercom and turned to Danny, "I will be back to deal with you shortly, little freak."
As soon as Spectra slammed the door shut behind her, Danny began testing all of the usual escape methods. Spectra wasn't stupid so of course everything was ghost proofed, and since they were in the human world, human proofed as well. He tried reaching to undo one of the buckles, but that proved to be useless as well.
After a minute or so Danny heard the door carefully creak open behind him.
Tucker had just managed to break into the hospital, something he never thought he'd do, and was sneaking around in hopes of finding either Sam or Danny. He would've stayed outside, but as the time dragged on he became increasingly worried and had decided to do something about it.
He heard a familiar shout from nearby and poked his head inside a room to find, "Sam?" She looked, "Tucker? What're you doing here?"
"I was looking for you and Danny, I heard you yell" he said. "Yeah, that's cause Paulina here was being a whiney bitch" she stated, pointing to the curtain divider next to her, "wait- Danny's in here too?"
"Long story. We came here because he suspected ghosts were involved. A while after we got here he started feeling sick too so he said when he got in here he'd look for you, which I'm guessing didn't work out." Tucker explained.
"No, I haven't seen him, but everyone here knows ghosts are involved. No one's been helping us and we all have some sort of weird ghost symptom." Sam said before gripping the sides of the bed again. Tucker mumbled an 'I know', thinking of all the weird stuff he'd seen up to this point already.
"Phantom was here" she said, "I was talking to him, then I smelt something and just fell asleep out of nowhere, when I woke up a couple minutes ago he was gone."
He sent her a look, "Yeah, because that totally doesn't sound suspicious." She glared at him, "Not now."
"Anyways, speaking of smell, you'd be surprised how sweaty you can get from sneaking into a hospital" Tucker said before pulling his signature cologne out of his bag and spraying some on him. Sam coughed from the stench before noticing something on her arm. Tucker saw it as well as a tiny glowing bug phased right out of her skin.
"I…feel…normal now. That was it? Those stupid little bugs- they're ghosts and they're infecting everyone like that?"
Tucker watched the little bug fly off, "Yeah, but why would it come out now?" She looked at the bottle he was still holding in his hand, "Tucker, your cologne! They don't like the smell of it!"
He grinned, "Sweet! So it can attract the ladies and repel ghosts. I ought to patent this stuff." Sam rolled her eyes, "You think if we found an air vent and sprayed that stuff in it, that it would make all the bugs leave everyone?"
He shrugged, "Theoretically, yeah, why wouldn't it?"
"Then come on! We have a hospital to stink up!" she said, jumping out of bed and heading towards the door. Tucker suddenly heard a couple of voices in the distance and pulled Sam's hand away from the door knob, "Shh!" She sent him a quick glare before they both placed their ears near the door.
"Did you take care of the Fenton kid?"
"Yes, of course. I left him upstairs for Penelope."
"And how long is this whole operation we have going, going to take exactly?"
"We'll be done once she gets her perfect form, not that it should matter to you"
"Listen, I'm not in it for her personal wants, I'm in it for the reward. And the sooner we take that halfa to the kingdom, the sooner we get paid. So tell your lady friend to hurry it up, won't you?"
"Back off. If it were up to me you wouldn't even be getting a portion of the reward."
The two squabbling voices eventually faded away and Tucker placed two items into Sam's hand. She looked down at the bottle of cologne and the lipstick blaster in confusion. "I'm going to find Danny, you try and find an air vent to spray that into." She nodded in determination and they both snuck off, one to find a vent, the other to find the stairs.
After a few minutes, Tucker had made it to the second floor and was peeking in all the rooms. Most of the upstairs rooms were empty, although there were a couple cases where he'd almost been caught. There was a loud bang from downstairs and then he heard someone yelling from inside one of the nearby rooms and quickly ducked behind an old gurney. A moment later a demonic looking shadow lady stormed out of the room and slammed the door shut. Tucker waited until he could no longer see nor hear her before creeping up to the door and pushing it open slowly.
"Danny! Are you okay?" he asked coming up next to his friend before quickly working on undoing the buckles on the straps holding him down. "Yeah, oh man am I glad to see you, but, how'd you get in here?"
"Eh, I'll explain later, but for now we gotta go before she comes back." Danny nodded and got up as they both ran out the door and down the hall. "So we figured out that those bugs at the school were ghost bugs, and were literally phasing into everyone's skin, making them get all these weird ghost traits. And then we realized that my cologne can repel them and make them leave their hosts, so Sam's trying to find an air vent to spray some of it into right now." Tucker explained as they jogged down the hallway.
"Your cologne is a ghost repellant…somehow that actually makes a lot of sense." Danny said from just behind him.
They were half way across a hallway intersection when they both heard someone coming from the left. Tucker bolted ahead and ducked behind an old cart that had been sitting there. He looked behind him to find that Danny had instead backtracked and was hiding on the other side of the hallway. He motioned for him to keep going and Tucker reluctantly nodded before heading for the stairs.
On his way, he noticed there was an air vent in reaching distance and figured he'd tell Sam if she hadn't found one already. When he heard a sound and thought it was another person or ghost coming, Tucker ran faster and turned a quick corner, running straight into Sam. The two collided and both yelped before they realized it was just each other.
"Did you find him?" Sam asked. "Yeah but we got split up. He should be catching up any second now." Tucker said. She nodded, "I had to shoot at one of the guards and they've been chasing me since. I couldn't find any air vent on the way either."
"I saw one on our way back, it's not too far." he said before a strange, echoed voice called out from around the corner, "Where are you child? I know you're around here somewhere, you can't run forever."
Sam suddenly shoved Tucker's cologne back into his hands and charged up the lipstick blaster she was holding, "I'll distract the ghost, you find that air vent. Go." she whispered. Knowing now wasn't the best time to argue with her, Tucker ran back and found the vent before spraying a considerable amount of cologne into it.
By the time he got back downstairs again, there were several students already fleeing the building both from having been returned to normal, and from the very vicious looking ghosts that were around. Someone grabbed his arm and started pulling him with them towards the doors, "Come on!" Sam yelled.
They glanced behind them and both saw the doctor from before suddenly morph into this huge green tiger now complete with claws and sharp fangs. The large cat hunched down and shifted its back feet back and forth, preparing to pounce, when it was suddenly hit from the side with an energy filled green blast.
"Go! Get out of here!" Phantom yelled to them with that weirdly fluctuating voice. It was the first time Tucker had ever seen the ghost in person. After listening to everything Sam told them, all the news stories, plus all the school's gossip, it was weird to say the least. But there was no time to think on it then as the two of them bolted for the door along with the other students of Casper High.
So that's how it happened. Tucker's weirdest school day yet. Even later when he tried to remember everything that had happened it was all just so confusing. He doubted he would ever fully understand what went on that day, but that's what happens when you live in Amity Park.
A/N: Woohoo! Another 3000+ word chapter! Although I feel like this one was rather rushed...definitely not one of my best chapters, but oh well.
Omg! Only ONE left to go until the new story is going to kick off! I'm so hyped, I hope some of you may be too XD and just last night I came up with another storyline that I want to do in the future, although I know it's going to have to probably wait until these ones are done, but I'm kinda excited about that too XD
Ugh, what I'm NOT excited for is school. First day of junior year in high school starts tomorrow for me D: Because school is starting again, updates may have to slow down a little bit, which you all can probably understand. Good news is that I don't have as many hard academic classes this year as I did last year :D First semester I only have AZ/US History and Physics, second semester is English 3, but the rest of my classes are electives :D Lol last year I only had one elective the whole year, this time it's five XD Anyways, I'll stop rambling now XD
UP NEXT: The GIW enforce some new anti-ghost laws, and Jazz finds herself doing something she never would've thought she'd do.
See ya soon and please review if you have the time! Every one helps me massively with motivation and knowing what you all do and don't like about this story! :)
