AN:
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
Here's a long chapter just for y'all for Christmas! Or whatever holiday you're celebrating!
I hope you all enjoy the chapter. It's kinda filler for what's coming up, but I still had fun writing it! I feel like it's just been Danny and his parents for a while, so here's some interaction with Sam and Tucker!
Just to clear up the timeline a bit, (mostly for myself) the Proto-portal explosion happened on October 28th, then the time skipped a bit over a month to the 2nd of December and the week or so after that, and now it is December 20th. I didn't really think of the timeline at the time, so I guess Halloween and Thanksgiving happened in the background. Christmas won't get skipped, though!
Things went well for a time. Danny would go ghost and sneak past Jazz into the basement to help his parents with their powers. However, with midterms coming up he broke the news that he wouldn't be able to come around for a few weeks. Not to mention the Holidays on the horizon. Danny was so proud of his parents, of how far they'd come. His Dad had gotten a good hold of intangibility and even had started on invisibility, which Danny was sure he'd have down in no time. Mom had her sights set on… other goals, but she'd still made a lot of progress. Her first endeavour was ecto-blasts, even though Danny had advised against it. In only a week she was able to get a flicker to form, and apparently, she'd practised while Danny wasn't around because she could fire blasts the size of golf balls the next time he'd come around.
Overall, Danny was fairly happy. Ghost attacks had started trickling off as the holidays approached and many were occupied with parties in the GZ. Danny had gotten an invitation from Dora for himself along with Sam and Tucker, so he had that to look forward to. Not to mention the official Christmas Truce party, for which Ghostwriter had been elected to host. Danny heard that he'd grumbled all the while, and had already threatened death to anyone who damaged his books, no matter if the Truce was in effect or not. Many more invitations had shown up on Danny's desk- most ghosts didn't care about going into his room, as Danny had disabled the house's defences long ago. However most just seemed like traps, so the teen set those alight with ecto-fire and dumped the green-tinted ashes into his trash can. The holidays seemed like they'd go well so far, but Danny couldn't be sure. He was just waiting for his parents to go on their normal Santa spiel, but they hadn't started arguing yet. He hoped that maybe they'd be distracted enough to not fight that year, but his hopes weren't very high. He did have things he was looking forward to, though.
Dora's party was on the twentieth of December, the same day school got out for winter break. Midterms had been on Tuesday and Wednesday, so Danny couldn't wait for the break. It was a god-send that the Friday before winter break was a 2-hour early release. The teen didn't think that he couldn't stand two extra hours at school.
Before lunch, Danny was sitting in English with Tucker on one side of him, Dash on the other. The teacher had done alphabetical order in columns, so it'd been pure luck-bad luck because Dash was there- that Tucker, Danny, and Dash had been seated by each other in a row. Sam was in the honour's class so they wouldn't see her again until lunch.
Mr. Lancer was droning on as normal. He'd gotten switched from a freshman teacher to a sophomore teacher over the last summer, and though Danny had a bit more respect for him after Mr. Lancer drove the teen and Jazz to the hospital, his classes were still as dull as a butter knife. The only time Danny had really enjoyed the class was the few days they'd gotten to watch To Kill a Mockingbird in class after reading the book. Of course, Dash had taken the chance to mess with Danny in the dim light, which included more spitballs than Danny cared to mention. He would've let them faze through him, but then they'd hit Tucker instead. Speaking of Tucker,
"Hey, Danny?" He whispered quietly. Mr. Lancer didn't notice, already deep into his spiel about some book called 'Animal Farm.' Danny looked at him and raised his eyebrows to ask 'what?'
"Do you think there'll be any hotties?" He questioned with a grin.
"Dude, they're ghosts."
"So? I'm not picky." Tucker wiggled his eyebrows pervertedly.
"You don't really mean that, do you?" Danny asked. Tucker shook his head gave a quiet snort.
"Nah, I just wanted to mess with you. Why so serious? You act like you're half dead or something." Tucker couldn't even keep a straight face during his attempted joke.
"That didn't even make sense this time, Tuck." Danny rolled his eyes. Tucker had quite an armoury of ghost puns, but he'd found a favourite in the 'half-dead' quip and tried to put it in every conversation nowadays.
The conversation dropped and it wasn't until about half an hour later that the bell rang and Danny sighed in relief. Lunch was always his favourite class, and English was just torture with a grumbling stomach. Tucker had his stuff together first but waited for Danny to get his own things together before they started off to the cafeteria. Unluckily for the pair, a certain bully was waiting just behind the door.
Danny and Tucker stepped through the threshold and Dash stuck a foot out in front of Danny, then Kwan knocked Tucker's phone-PDA right out of his hands.
"Hey!" Tucker screeched with a voice crack. Danny just barely managed to catch himself before he face-planted into the tile.
"Watch your step, Danielle. Psh, girls these days!" Dash and Kwan left, laughing their heads off as if Dash had told the funniest joke in the world. Danny muttered an insult after them under his breath but quickly turned his attention to Tucker.
"Is Jenny alright?" Danny asked, using the name he thought Tucker had assigned to the gadget.
"Her name is Madoka, and she is perfectly alright." He replied indignantly.
"Madoka? Where'd you get that from?" The easy conversation continued as Danny and Tucker started their way towards the cafeteria.
"An anime, if you need to know," Tucker said as he stuck his phone-PDA into his pocket.
"Weeb," Danny teased.
"Hey! You watched Sword Art Online at my house and I know you liked it." Tucker pointed out.
"It had magic and swords and stuff like that, how could I not like it?"
"Not like what?" Without even realizing it, Danny had Tucker had gotten to the cafeteria. Sam was sitting at the table and had asked the question. The boys sat down in the same seats they'd sat in for forever.
"One of the animes Tucker showed me. I called him a weeb."
"And I pointed out that he actually liked the one I showed him," Tucker argued.
"What anime?" Sam inquired.
"Sword Art Online," Tucker said as he took out his lunch. Sam turned up her nose at his roast beef sandwich and beef jerky but didn't comment. Danny was glad for that, he didn't feel like playing mediator again today.
"I've seen the first season. It's like the go-to first anime." Sam got out her own lunch of a salad with a few fruits on the side. Danny's own lunch was just a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an apple, a Pepsi, and a bag of chips. Tucker eyed Danny's drink and the halfa shook his head to say that Tuck couldn't have it
"Wait, you watch anime?" Tucker sounded dubious.
"Do you know how gothic some of them are? And they're still not mainstream enough to not be cool anymore. Haven't you ever seen-" Danny tuned out the conversation for the time. Sam and Tucker could banter on like that for a year, and as long as he added something to the conversation every so often it didn't much matter. In fact, they probably wouldn't look for him to make any input. But he didn't mind. Lunch was kind of his time to relax to himself, and for him relaxing included staying to himself and hoping that no ghosts showed up. They seemed to have learned his schedule and almost always picked his lunch period to make trouble. WHich was good, but it often meant he had to skip eating and things like that. Jazz still said he looked too skinny for her liking, even though he hadn't had to skip dinner in the past month. Lunch was a different story, but he was used to skipping.
"-Danny?" Snapping fingers in front of his face brought Danny out of his thoughts and he traced the gesture back to Sam.
"You okay?" She asked.
"Yeah!" Danny straightened.
"Just thinking." He opened the baggie his chips were in and munched on a few.
"Well, we were planning what all we're gonna do for Dora's party later."
"What needs planning?" Dora had invited them all, and Danny was just planning on taking the Spectre Speeder. His parents had been distracted from their inventions lately, partly because of him, and he figured they wouldn't notice the thing gone. After all, it pretty much always just sat in the weapon's vault since it took up so much space.
"Well, I know we were planning on taking the Spectre Speeder, but where are we going to park it? Dora doesn't exactly have a parking lot. And people might try to mess with it. I was thinking maybe it'd be better if we all fly there, at least if you don't mind." Sam and Tucker couldn't fly on their own in the GZ, but if they each held one of Danny's hands they could fly with him. It'd just be kinda awkward to hold hands like that for the half-hour or so it took to fly to Dora's kingdom. Though Sam had a point that the Speeder wasn't likely to be left alone, and he wouldn't have to dig it out of the vault. Hmm, awkwardness or work?
"You have a point, and it's fine with me if it's good with you guys."
"Shur," Tucker confirmed through the sandwich in his mouth, which earned a heavy eye-roll from the resident goth.
"Then it's decided. What time do you think we should get to your house?" Sam added.
"Well, it starts at seven until nine. Maybe about six or so, that way you guys have time to get ready before we need to leave. We're all going over to your house afterwards, right?" The last question was aimed toward Tucker, who nodded in confirmation.
"My parents think I'm just heading over there early," Sam said. They needed alibis for the time they'd be gone, after all.
"Mine think the same." They'd been more than happy to hear that Danny would be out of the house, though he could tell they were trying to hide it. Jazz would be staying at one of her friend's houses as well, so they'd have the house to themselves. He did not want to know what they were planning.
"I told my parents that I'm going over to Danny's house to help you pack stuff up and play Doomed for a bit," Tucker said lastly.
"Sounds like we're all set." Sam gave a thumbs up and went back to her lunch.
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The trio left the school amid a literal flood of students. Jazz had planned on driving straight over to her friend's house, but she'd offered to take Danny home anyways. But he wanted to walk with Sam and Tuck. It felt like they hadn't hung out in forever. They were pushed along with the crowd until it dispersed at the edge of the stairs. Everyone who wasn't riding a bus was rushing out the front door. Those who weren't headed for the parking lot were starting off down the sidewalk in some direction, and there were a lot of happy yells. A festive feeling permeated the area, and not only because they'd all just gotten out of school for Christmas break.
With a shock, Danny noticed that it was snowing! There wasn't much snow on the ground, and what had stuck didn't stay there for long. There was just barely enough to cover the grass. None of that stopped the outbreak of snowballs flying through the air, however. Chunks of ice, along with snowballs, were being hurled in every direction with returning fire filled the air. Suddenly something cold smashed into the back of Danny's head and he whipped around to see Sam with her black mittens on preparing another snowball.
"Sam! Don't you dare!" Danny ruffled his own hair to get the snow out of it, and some had even gone down his shirt. Sam only made a wicked grin in return, before she was smacked in the shoulder with a snowball. She and Danny looked around to see Tucker already booking it down the stairs, snickering all the way.
"I'll get you for that Tucker!" Sam chased after Tucker and Danny followed suit. The crowd quickly dispersed and he had a clear shot. He glanced around for a second for anyone looking in his direction and didn't see anyone even notice him running. With a grin of his own, he formed a snowball in his hands with his ice powers and chucked it at Sam. She screeched as it hit her in the back of the head and almost knocked her beanie off. Meeting Sam's gaze and still grinning ear to ear, Danny formed another snowball. It was even easier to do than normal since he wasn't wearing any gloves.
"No fair, Danny!" Sam yelled but ducked almost as soon as she said it as Danny's snowball went flying over her head. It smacked Tucker right in the face because he had stopped to see what was happening.
"You got my glasses wet!" He complained. He took them off and unzipped his coat to use his shirt to wipe them off. Danny was distracted by Tucker and was shocked when a snowball smacked him in the chest.
"Sam, duck!" Sam did as Tucker had said and his snowball knocked the one Danny was forming out of his hands.
"Team?" Sam asked, looking back at Tucker.
"Sure," Tucker shrugged, just as Danny launched another ball of snow in his direction. He'd packed that one especially hard, and it smacked into Tucker's coat. The geek used a gloved hand to wipe away the snow.
"Oh, now it's on." Tucker dashed behind a house that had been coming up and Danny knew he'd be making more ammunition. Sam followed after Tucker in a moment and Danny gave his friends a ten-second head start before following after them.
Sam and Tucker were no longer behind the house, but Danny could see where the snow had been disturbed. Two sets of footsteps lead all the way around the house. Danny's sneakers crunched in the snow as he followed the prints.
"Run, Tuck!" Danny went all the way around the white house -ducking under any windows- and saw Sam and Tucker booking it down the sidewalk. Tucker was carrying an armful of snowballs and dropped one almost every step. Sam had a grip on his hood and was pulling him down the sidewalk. Danny broke into a sprint with a laugh and followed them. The cold air hitting his face felt awesome, and Danny had a sudden urge to fly. But that would have to wait. He had some friends to catch and revenge to get!
An idea popped into his head, and Danny took a quick glance around the deserted street. Luckily, there was no one around. He shot a hand out and a mass of snow formed right above and in front of Sam and Tucker. They didn't notice in time and the mound of snow fell right on top of their heads. They were stopped in their tracks and Danny was able to catch up to them.
Sam was just picking herself out of the snow when he got there. She was trying to get the snow off of her clothes, but it was all over her. It was up to her knees, after all, and he could see as he'd run that she'd been knocked down by the snow. Danny could see just Tucker's feet sticking out of the top of the snow and grabbed one of them to pull his friend out of the mess. How he got upside down like that, Danny had no idea. The halfa couldn't help but chuckle when he pulled Tucker out and the first thing he did was try in vain to get the snow off of his glasses
"Just for that," Tucker said as he wiped more snow off of himself.
"Your new nickname is Elsa," Tucker said, pointing straight at Danny.
"Don't you dare! I will dump snow on your bed later!"
"Oh c'mon dude, let it go," Tucker smiled like an idiot, looking at Danny expectantly.
"I guess you do want snow on your bed later. I wonder if a pie of snow would look good in your dresser."
"Don't you dare!" Tucker's voice cracked.
"Guys, stop fighting," Sam interjected. It earned her two glares.
"The important thing here is," She turned to face Danny as she righted her purple beanie.
"You're a cheater." The goth crossed her arms.
"All's fair in love and war," Danny replied.
"And snowball fights are definitely war."
"This is true," Tucker added as he finally got to his feet.
"See?" Danny said. Sam didn't seem impressed.
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Danny was lying on his bed reading an article on an undiscovered planet when he heard something hit his window with a dull thud. He glanced over the see a bunch of snow plastered to the outside. He got to his feet and opened the window, not at all surprised to see Sam down on the sidewalk preparing another snowball.
"You'd better not be planning to hit me with that!" Danny yelled from his second-Story window. Sam glanced up from where she'd been packing another ball of snow and grinned.
"I would never dream of it," She dropped the half-formed ball to the grown and let herself right in. It had been many years since Sam was a "guest" to the Fenton house. She and Tucker had pretty much been in the family for years. Danny smiled at the thought of younger Sam with her pigtails and a pink dress covered in mud. They'd gone to the park and Tucker dared Sam to jump in the little creek in the small bit of woods the park had. She'd accepted the bet, of course, and her feet sank all the way in. Danny had handed her a stick to try and get her out, but when she started crying Tuck ran off to get her parents. They were horrified, and Sam had giggled her head off at their expressions once the ordeal was over.
Danny closed his window when he saw her disappear from sight -slightly saddened at the loss of the breeze, and went out into the hallway. He could hear Sam kicking off her snow boots and coming up the stairs. Danny followed her into his room and Sam dropped her coat on the back of his desk chair before sitting down. Danny's room was surprisingly clean at the moment, though that was pretty much only because he really wanted Doomed 2 for Christmas and needed to get on his parents' good side somehow. He still came home late most of the time, even though he hadn't had to in the last week or so. Christmas was turning out to be pretty good this year. He only hoped it would stay that way.
"Looks good in here, Danny. I don't think I've seen the floor since fifth grade." Sam jabbed.
"It wasn't that bad." He countered.
"One time I woke up from a sleepover to find a sock stuck to the floor beside your bed. Literally, like there must've been glue on it or something."
"His room has been pretty terrible." Danny almost leapt out of his skin when he heard Tucker's voice.
"Don't scare me like that! When did you even come in!?" Danny yeeted his pillow at Tucker, hitting him right in the face.
"Like you can talk," Sam snorted. Tucker ignored Danny and the halfa's racing heart, plopping down on the bed -with snow still all over his coat- before replying to Sam.
"Those mouldy pizza slices were a statement."
"Yeah, a statement of how gross your guys' rooms are."
Tucker didn't get to reply because Danny shoved him off the bed and Tucker rolled off the end, barely managing to catch himself. He banged his nose on the ground and sat up, rubbing it.
"Assault! That's best friend assault! I'll tell Walker on you!"
"Oh no, I'm so scared," Danny said sarcastically.
"Well," Sam said, getting to her feet. She held a bookbag in her hand.
"I'm taking over your bathroom to get ready."
"Okay, you know where it is."
"It'd be a miracle if I didn't at this point." Her voice was muffled as she shut the bathroom door.
"I bet you she'll take at least the entire half-hour to get ready."
"I bet she'll take even longer and we'll be late." Danny countered. Sam was only ever girly at all when she was willingly dressing up to go somewhere. After all, when Sam got something in her head she put all of her efforts into it. She was passionate like that.
"Deal." Tucker grinned, and they shook hands.
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Tucker made a face as he handed Danny a five-dollar bill.
"Told ya so." Danny grinned. The clock said 5:35 and Sam still hadn't come out of the bathroom. Tucker didn't reply at first, instead just looking sullen where he was still sitting at the foot of Danny's bed. He just hadn't bothered to get up yet.
"We probably need to get ready," Tucker said, standing up and going over to get his bag. He got out a t-shirt and put it on right over the one he was wearing. He turned around to show Danny his shirt and the halfa facepalmed. Tucker had seriously brought one of those t-shirts with a tux printed on it. And it looked stupid with his yellow long-sleeved shirt visible underneath.
"Really? We're going to a party in a ballroom in a castle and you're wearing a fake suit?" Danny told it how it was. Though his planned outfit wasn't exactly high-fashion, Tuck was just hitting a new low.
"Well, I figured the ladies in Dora's kingdom haven't seen anything like this before. They'll think it's neat!" Tucker tried to defend it, but it was a weak argument.
"I don't think that I will ever understand how your brain works when it comes to girls," Danny said, shaking his head.
"Well, it's not like your outfit will be any better. Are you even going to change?"
"Of course I am! I'm not gonna wear an old t-shirt and jeans to Dora's party. I'm just debating if I should go in ghost form or not." He hadn't ever really tried wearing anything other than his suit in ghost form, and he was about half curious what would happen to it if he took it off. Would it replace whatever clothes he put on if he changed back? It would make sense for clothes to work the same as his backpack, but he just wasn't sure.
"If you want to, man. It doesn't really make any difference to me." Tucker shrugged.
"Well, either way, You need to go so I can get changed."
"I'll be raiding your kitchen, just so you know." Tucker said as he stood up and went to the door.
"Just don't eat my Dad's fudge!" Danny yelled after him. Tucker gave him a thumbs up and closed the door. As Danny heard Tuck going down the stairs, he got up to lock the door and changed into ghost form. It'd been a long time since he'd said "goin' ghost" as he transformed, and whenever he thought about it he cringed.
It was a bit weird to be in his bedroom in ghost form. Usually, he only did that before going somewhere. It was going to be even weirder taking off his suit. Danny sat on the bed, sinking down a foot or so from where he'd started flying. He started with the gloves, pulling them off with a bit of difficulty. They came off and it was odd to see his skin so much tanner than normal. He'd heard his skin was more tan, but he never really noticed since he never saw his own face. The gloves glowed on their own when Danny set them off to the side. They were obviously ghostly so Danny would have to make sure to hide his suit well. Next, he removed the boots. They glowed as well and Danny was a bit surprised he had socks on underneath them. In a sudden memory, he remembered when he put the suit on in the first place… before the accident. He'd just put it on over his clothes. He wondered, were they still under his suit?
Danny yanked on the zipper at his neck but it got stuck and yanked on his skin. He had to unzip it slowly, even though he was anxious to find out. He did need to move quickly, though. They needed to live in a few minutes or they'd be really late. Danny unzipped the suit to his waist and was only half surprised to see a shirt underneath. It was just like the red and white one he had with the oval, but it had turned black and blue. He shrugged off the top of the suit and pulled his arms through before rising up into the air a bit to make an attempt at pulling the pants off. He managed it and kicked off the suit. Yeah, all of his clothes were still there. They were a bit small, actually. Though so were his normal ones. It made him wonder if he'd grow out of his suit and have to wear something else. Eventually, he decided.
Danny floated idly over to his closet and picked through the shirts to find the one he was looking for. He found a shirt that his parents had gotten him last Christmas. It was red with a cartoon Christmas tree printed on the front of it. He also got a green long-sleeved shirt to put underneath it. He also grabbed his only pair of skinny jeans, which were black. Then his trusty red high-tops and that was it. It only a minute or two to get dressed, and Danny heard a knock on the door just as he was tying his shoes.
"Danny? Are you ready?" Came Sam's voice through the wood.
"Yep," Danny said, finishing off the knot and going to get the door. He opened it and saw what Sam was wearing.
She had on a long-sleeved dark green velvet dress, with a pair of dark red leggings. She was still wearing her combat boots, of course. It looked like she had put on makeup as well, and her lips were a dark red to match tights and her black bangs were pinned to the side with a red clip.
"You look nice," Danny said.
"Well, thank-you. We probably need to head out, how are you gonna get your parents out of the lab?" Sam asked. Danny took a step back and she followed him into his room.
"I'm gonna tell them Tucker saw a ghost at the school on his way over here. Most likely they'll run over as fast as they can and we can go through. I'll just go invisible and check through the portal when we come back and probably call them to say I saw another ghost to get them out of the lab if it comes to it." He looked around his room and decided to just phase his suit and the clothes he'd had underneath it into the wall between his room and Jazz's. If his Dad went around practising intangibility around the house it wasn't likely he'd go through that wall, so it seemed like a safe bet.
"Why don't you just take us down there invisible? Then you don't have to mess with all that." Sam reasoned. He couldn't really tell her why, could he? She didn't know that his Dad has a ghost sense, and he sure wasn't going to tell her. But they did have inventions that could let them know he's there too.
"What if one of their inventions goes off when we're around? It's better to play it safe." He supplied. It wasn't technically a lie. He didn't like not telling her, Jazz, and Tucker the truth, but he was loyal to his parents too. Besides, what they didn't know couldn't hurt them.
"Well, you should probably go now, we'll be late."
"And just whose fault is that?" Danny asked with a smirk as he walked past Sam into the hallway and reverted to human form. He glanced down and saw his normal clothes and decided that his theory had been correct. Sam didn't reply, and Danny just figured that she was glaring at him as he walked down the stairs. They creaked as he went down them, like normal. What wasn't normal, however, was seeing his parents walk up the lab steps. He thought they'd be down there for longer! Danny's gaze darted around, looking for Tucker. They locked eyes when Danny spotted Tucker in the kitchen. They both froze until Mom spoke.
"Hi, Tucker. I didn't know you were here." She greeted. Honestly, she didn't seem all that surprised to see him there. Dad didn't even blink at the sight of Dany's best friend in their kitchen.
"Hi Mrs F! Sorry I didn't let you know, I- I just came to help Danny get his stuff together for coming over." Tucker lied not-so smoothly. But Mom didn't suspect anything of it.
"Yeah, I was just about to head out," Danny added, descending the last few stairs and stepping into the kitchen.
"You should've told us," Mom came over and kissed Danny on the forehead.
"Love you, and have fun," She said as she started towards the stairs. Danny hoped that Sam had heard their voices and was hiding. It'd be harder to explain why she was there too and might make Mom suspicious. Especially since she was all dressed up and even his parents knew that Sam didn't dress up unless it was for something important to her. Dad ruffled Danny's hair as he went past as well, and before he knew it both of his parents were upstairs… and out of the lab.
"Well, I guess you won't have to bait them out of the lab," Tucker whispered.
"Yeah, but now Sam's gonna have to sneak around them to get downstairs," Danny whispered back, hand half-covering his mouth.
"What if we go up there and she copies one of our footsteps or something, so they think it's just us two?" Tucker suggested.
"That's a good idea," Danny replied. They planned for a moment more on just how to do that, but it turned out that wasn't needed as an uneasy Sam descended the stairs. She was looking over her shoulder, but she seemed to have passed by unnoticed.
"Why did you risk coming downstairs? We were coming to get you!" Tucker exclaimed, though he made sure to keep his voice down enough to keep Danny's parents from hearing.
"I just snuck past them," Sam shrugged.
"They seemed pretty distracted. Why that was I don't know and I don't want to know. We do need to get going, though." Sam said. Danny nodded and Tucker picked his jaw up off the floor and nodded as well. He grabbed his coat that he'd set over the arm of the couch.
"Are both of you ready? Anything else upstairs?" Danny asked.
"All good here," Tucker confirmed.
"Well, I don't need anything. Let's go!" Tucker started walking towards the lab door and the rest of the trio followed after their resident techno-geek. They gathered in front of the portal and Danny hooked an arm around Tucker and Sam. His left went under Sam's right shoulder and her right arm went around his neck. Tucker's left arm was around Danny's waist and the halfa's right arm went around Tucker's waist, same as Sam.
"Here's liftoff," Danny said and lifted up a foot or so into the air. Sam's arm dug into his neck and he was sure Tucker was about to fall. But neither of them let go and Danny moved slowly the last meter or so into the portal.
Danny shivered as he passed through the rippling surface of the portal. It was like he'd clipped through something in a video game. Without any preamble, the lab fell away and an entire universe seemingly popped into existence at Danny's feet. He looked up with a sense of child-like wonder and was amazed that the portal frame was hanging in midair. He'd probably been through the portal at least fifteen times but the feeling just never got old. Seeing an entire dimension he hadn't known existed for fourteen years of his life was astonishing. It was like flying, he'd never get used to the feeling. However, it did fade after a moment and Danny took himself out of his head.
Both Sam and Tucker had grabbed his hands with their opposite ones. They could float on their own in the ghost zone, but it wouldn't be a good experience. It would be like they were stuck in space without any way to get back to their spaceship. They'd spin around and wouldn't be able to change their direction without grabbing onto something floating around the ghost zone. Danny was a bit like their spaceship, only if one of them let go he'd go after them.
The Ghost Zone was actually a lot like space, now that Danny thought about it. It might not have any planets, but it did have all of the islands floating around, which were kind of like planets. And doors were littering the sky, like stars. If one looked far enough out into the ghost zone, they would only see swirling greens, like the surface of the ghost portal except less… circular. It was a bit like fog, but green. There wasn't gravity either and the islands floating around took full advantage of the fact. Some of them were at really weird angles, with water somehow flowing in relation to however the island was situated. Each plot of land seemed to have its own gravity, and Danny didn't even want to start getting into the implications of that. So he left well enough alone and, with his best friends at his side, the half-ghost sped off into the ghost zone.