Chapter #3!
I did a blood test and the results just came in: I'm not Butch Hartman or Dreamworks, so I don't own Danny Phantom or the Shrek saga. I do own the OC that appears in this chapter.
Please enjoy a phasmaphobic Paulina!
A ravishing Latina of seventeen years promenaded through the torch-lit, concrete brick corridors of Casper's Detention Center, earning herself lustful stares from the jocks she passed by and glares of contempt or pleading looks from those imprisoned behind the bolted steel doors of their cells. The Latina's head was crowned with thick, wavy, lustrous, lower back-length, ebony locks. A floor-length, sequined prom pink halter dress with mauve pink accents hugged her finely tanned, svelte, pear-shaped figure quite nicely, a rivière necklace of diamonds hanging around her slender neck, making her brilliant teal blue doe eyes sparkle even more together with the pale yet vibrant lavender eye-shadow she was also wearing.
This lovely young woman was Lady Paulina Sanchez, Governess of Casper, and daughter of Lord and Lady Sanchez of Polter Heights, a filthy rich city-state far away from here.
Currently, the young governor was heading into the more… specialized part of Casper's big house, the one that had been converted to contain more… unique internees.
Finally, she reached a mounted set of great iron doors, a pair of jocks armed with bardiches standing infront of them. The jocks stood at attention as Paulina approached, stepping to the side and opening the door for her as she walked by them without so much as a thank you or even a sideways glance in their direction, and once she was inside the room, the jocks closed the doors behind her.
Captain Dash watched with a coprophagous grin as Kwan poured a jerrycan of anti-ectoplasm fluid onto a rag and shoved it into the face of a box-controlling poltergeist that had been caught but not deported just yet, especially considering how utterly annoying the spirit had been before and after his capture.
The detained specter in question resembled a short, pudgy, man with butch cut dark hair and beady red eyes, who wore aluminum gray set of ripped overalls and beanie skull cap, a torn hoary gray undershirt and gloves, and scruffed dark iron gray work boots. Currently the ghost was laying spread-eagle on a cold table of dented but sound metal and wood, manacled to it by glowing green restraints, gagging as he was waterboarded by the Asian jock.
Upon hearing the doors to this torture chamber close, both Dash and Kwan looked up to see Paulina standing at the top of the industrial grade steel staircase, her deep mocha-colored lips curled in a malicious smirk.
"Enough," she said in a honeyed voice to Dash, her accent of rich Hispanic, "I think he's ready to talk."
Dash nodded, motioning to Kwan to stop and step away from the ghost. The restrained spirit hacked and choked, droplets of phosphorescent raspberry fluid dripping down his corpse blue face as the Asian jock pulled the soaked rag out of it.
"Not so high and mighty now, are you?" Paulina asked, sneering as she approached the ghost. "Starting to wish you hadn't messed with our shipments of ecto-weapons now, aren't you?"
The shackled ghoul glared at Casper's governess.
"I am the Box Ghost!" He said defiantly, "And as soon as I am free from this contraption, you will all face my four-sided, corrugated cardboard wrath!" he spat on Paulina's pearlescent, ivory-colored slippers.
Paulina snarled in distaste. "I've tried being patient with you unsightly creatures for far too long," she hissed. One of Paulina's dainty, manicured hands grasped the faded, hamburger badge pinned to one of the suspenders of the specter's overalls. She began to tug at it, aiming to tear it off. "You had better start talking or I'll-"
"NO! NOT THE PIN!" The Box Ghost cried. That pin was an anniversary gift from his lover, the already deported Lunch Lady. "Not my pin!"
"THEN TALK!" Paulina commanded, releasing her grip on the spirit's overalls and backing away, allowing Dash and Kwan to flank her on both sides. "Where is the rest of your disgusting kind hiding?"
Before the box-controlling poltergeist could say a word, the doors to the chamber opened again. Paulina, Dash, Kwan and the Box Ghost looked up to see who was at the top of the stairs.
It was another Latina with helenite green eyes and messy wob hair the colour of double Dutch fudge. She wore the garb of a ninja, colored night black and lilac purple, complete with a dark gray vest with a design of stylized stems teeming with blooming belladonna flowers embroidered on it in silver and a flowing scarf of dark lavender covering her mouth and nose. A bimetallic black and wine purple recurve bow was slung on her back along with a metallic amethyst quiver filled with arrows fashioned from a dark metal, and hanging from a dark violet sash around her waist, were twin butterfly swords with jade gray blades , a dark steel gray and glowing plum welrod-style ecto-gun, and silver blowgun. She carried a dusty cedar scrip bag in her left hand and in the right, a barbed chakram that was also fashioned from the same dark metal as the arrows.
"Did you get it?" Paulina asked, not even bothering to greet the other Latina.
The ninja girl pulled down her scarf, coming down the stairs.
"Was there ever any doubt?" She replied, taking out a golden shaft and globe bottle with orange and red inlaid patterns and ruby chip studs from her bag, plonking it down on a nearby table. "One genie's bottle, as requested."
Paulina approached the table and grabbed the bottle. Grinning, she popped off the golden, ruby chip studded stopper. A ghastly green mist poured out of the bottle, the mist then coalescing into a ghost.
The spirit resembled that of a tall, slender woman, with olivine skin and an elegant, sable mane that extended below the waist, covering one of her eyes, a flowing, ghostly tail of corpse blue in the place of the apparation's legs with a metallic, silvery purple belt adorned by a single, circular angel blue jewel in the middle of it hanging over said tail. The specter's attire consisted of a strapless, Arabian-style crop top the same color as her ghost tail with silvery purple trim, metallic, silvery purple cuff bangles on both of her biceps and wrists, two turquoise blue gold bangle bracelets on her right wrist and one on her left, a silvery purple festoon necklace, and a slightly darker and more vibrant light blue headband. The ghoul's one, non-hidden, blood red eye watched Paulina nervously, silently floating a foot away from Casper's governess.
Paulina smiled at the ghost, "Desiree-"
"Don't tell her anything!!" The Box Ghost cried.
"Dash, shut him up," Paulina ordered, not even bothering to look at the Captain of the Jocks.
Dash sneered at the Box Ghost, pulling out an ordinary-looking metallic silver thermos with lime green details. However, when the blonde took off the lid and aimed it at the Box Ghost, a beam of bluish white light erupted from it, engulfing the box-controlling poltergeist.
"NOOOOO!" The Box Ghost screamed as he was sucked inside the thermos-shaped device, an audible whimper being heard a second after Dash screwed the lid back on.
"Now then," Paulina said, drawing closer to Desiree, "Desiree, is Casper not the most fabulous kingdom of them all?"
Desiree looked Paulina up and down before she answered,
"Well, technically, dearie, you're not even a princess."
Paulina scowled at the genie ghoul before a smirk graced her lips, "Dash?" She said, glancing at the blonde.
Dash flashed the young governess a malicious smile, completely oblivious to the green-eyed glare he was getting from the Latina ninja. He pulled out a futuristic-looking remote and pushed one of the buttons.
The fridge-sized metal tube that sat in the far corner opened up, revealing a strange tube of alabaster tinted glass. And inside that tube, pounding against the glass, was a hulking, medium aqua blue-skinned ghost in pink and white striped pajamas, with short blonde hair and friendly red eyes. It was Klemper.
"Can you let me out now?" The pj-wearing ghoul asked shyly in a polite tone.
Dash sneered at Klemper, pressing another button. The tube suddenly coursed with electricity, shocking Klemper and reaping a ear-splitting shriek of pain from him before the metal covering came back down, muffling the scream. Both Kwan and the Latina ninja winced and covered their ears upon hearing it.
"You were saying?" Paulina continued, looking back at Desiree.
"What I'm saying is you're not a princess yet," the wish-granting spirit clarified. "But you can become one; all you have to do is marry a prince."
"Go on," Paulina answered.
Desiree smiled at her, "What's the magic word?"
Paulina rolled her eyes at the ghoul's antics, "I wish for a prince."
A magenta mist enshrouded Desiree,"So you have wished it, so it shall be," the mist then clouded into a circle of swirling pale and dark magenta.
Suddenly, the mist circle brightened, and the image of a decrepit-looking mansion appeared in it.
"In a derelict great-house of rotting rough hewn oak and decaying cedar and maple not far from here…."
The image in the hazy circle then shifted to that of a monstrous, cynoid creature.
"Guarded by a great beast with fur of glowing green…"
The mist shifted once again to display the blacked-out silhouette of a male standing in the midst of a ramshackle hallway.
"You will find the young Prince Daniel." Desiree finished, the mist circle evanescing along with the mist around Desiree.
The instant Paulina's eyes landed on the wild-haired, slightly-built silhouette that was no doubt of Prince Daniel, her expression turned from studious to dreamy. Even though it was blacked-out, that hair still looked so wild, soft, and gorgeous, unlike Dash's or Kwan's, which was tame and plain. Obviously she couldn't tell if it was fair gold like Dash's, dark chocolate like the ninja's, fiery reddish copper like that four-eyed nerdy loser Mikey's, or fine obsidian like her own, but Paulina felt the abrupt urge to run her fingers through it. The young governess couldn't see Prince Daniel's eyes and thus wasn't able to know for certain if they were smaragdine green, cerulean, golden amber, moonlight silver, or warm chocolatey brown, but Paulina could swear she felt the gaze of those simmering eyes on her. A part of her wondered what in the world a prince was doing in a shambly dump like that, but the other part of the Latina told her that it didn't matter. All that mattered was in order to become Queen of Casper, she had to marry a prince, and there just so happened to be one not very far from here, one that was in a rickety old villa, waiting just for her.
"Prince...Daniel," Paulina sighed. She could practically feel the strong, lithe arms of her prince around her. "It's perfect."
"A great beast with fur of glowing green?" The ninja girl echoed. "That sounds like a ghost to me."
Paulina gave the other Latina in the room a glare for pulling her out of her daydream until she considered her words. This "great beast", whatever it was, would present a problem. Ghost or not, this creature surely wouldn't just let Prince Daniel go, not without a fight. That beast was probably the reason the young Prince was even there in the first place! It was keeping him prisoner! As much as Paulina wanted to see her future husband for herself, she wasn't going to risk being attacked by some abhorrent spirit and having her gorgeous hair or her flawless skin ruined. No sir-
"All I need is someone to bell the cat." Paulina said to herself, her glossy lips quivering into a smirk, an idea forming in her mind when Desiree suddenly spoke up again.
"But there is one little problem with him that I think you should know about-"
"I'll take it!" Paulina declared, interrupting the wish-granting spirit.
"Well, yes," The genie-like ghost started again. "But, you see, dearie, after sundown-"
"Silence!" Paulina ordered, cutting off Desiree once again. "I will make this Prince Daniel my king, and Casper will finally have the perfect ruler!" The Governess of Casper declared, exuberant. She snapped her fingers, "Captain Dash!" she called out, turning to the blonde jock, who stood at attention upon hearing his name.
"Yes?" The Captain of the Jocks asked.
"Round up your best!" The young governess commanded, smirking. "We're going to have a tournament!" she announced.
Desiree frowned at Paulina's back. She had been hoping that the Latina would listen to her warning so she would at least know what she was ordering before she got it.
Desiree's frown then vanished. She shrugged. Then again, they never did desire to heed her warnings, did they? Nope, they all chose not to read the warning label. They all failed to heed her warnings of the, more often than not, devastating consequences and side effects their wishes would bring. And they all blamed her for the misfortune that inevitably befell them, claiming she had twisted their wishes even though it was she who had warned them that this and that would happen. That was half the reason she made the switch a few decades back from simply giving people what they wished for, to telling them how to get what they wished for. Not only did it lessen the room for complaints of her supposedly twisting the wishes (a select few still complained that she was twisting them), but it was always interesting to see just what sort of hoops people would be willing to jump through in order to obtain their wishes.
In a satirical way it was amusing to see that mortals haven't changed in that regard.
At this, Desiree decided not to press the topic of Prince Daniel's "condition" any further. Why should she? It was abundantly clear that Paulina already had made up her mind about the matter and no amount of pressing would get her to change it.
Besides, this wish would mean Prince Daniel would finally be free after a long year of imprisonment by his own parents. Maybe he could find what he needed to "cure" himself.
The wishing-granting spirit glanced back at Paulina. Although most certainly not with the young Governess of Casper. That would be like a trip to the sun.
These were the thoughts of Desiree as she reverted into a fine mist of otherworldly verdant, snaking back into the bottle from whence she came.
Regardless of the outcome, the next few days were going to be very interesting.
Who is this mysterious ninja girl?
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Next Time on The Goth Girl and The Ghost Prince:
The Tournament and The Task