"Are you ready Mads?" Jack asked. He stood by a console, pressing his thumb into a panel. At the end of the room, the portal doors shuddered to a close. They wouldn't need it for this experiment. In fact, it'd probably work better without the interference.
"Almost," Replied Madeline as she lit a candle. This wasn't one of their… 'normal' experiments. There weren't any test tubes or screwdrivers, just candles and a wooden board. An Ouija board, to be exact. It had been surprisingly difficult to find such an ancient paranormal communication device, even in a town as haunted as their own. Or maybe that was precisely why the search was so difficult.
Jack hadn't found it by himself, or at least not without a bit of accidental help. He overheard Danny's friend, Sam, complaining about a store she frequented called "Skulk and Lurk." Apparently they sold all kinds of paranormal stuff. Though from the sounds of it, most of their merchandise wasn't legitimate and was just for the "gothic aesthetic" as Sam said. Whatever that meant. Jack decided to try his luck and found a single board tucked away in the back corner. He'd gotten a lot of strange looks from the teenagers scattered around the place, but in the end he walked out with what they'd been searching for,
Maddie checked her watch, seeing it tick closer to 3 am. They weren't entirely certain why the time was relevant, but a small scribbled note hidden in the Ouija Board's box recommended it. Though there it had only been referred to as "the witching hour," and Maddie had to research exactly when that was.
With their combined interests in the paranormal and ectology, Jack and Maddie had long been fascinated by Oujia boards. But they could never bring themselves to actually try one out. Their concern was always that they weren't prepared enough. If they did manage to summon something malevolent to speak with them, they wanted to be able to protect themselves.
After success in their trials with small-scale ghost shields (and definitely not because it was almost Halloween), they had finally felt comfortable enough to try it out. One of their prototypes was sitting under the table, actually, and Maddie had the remote tucked into a pocket on her belt. In the very rare chance they got something that didn't try to attack them outright, they didn't want to scare it away.
Maddie lit the last candle and put them on the floor around the table they'd set the board on. The instructions said not to use a table and put the board on their laps instead, but honestly, neither she nor Jack wanted to subject themselves to sitting on the floor for an undetermined amount of time. So, table it was.
Finally, it was time to begin. Each Fenton took their spot at the table. The kitchen chairs they'd borrowed from upstairs squeaked horribly against the tile. They scooched in as close as possible so that their knees would be touching. The handwritten instructions had recommended it, though it seemed rather illogical.
The pair exchanged a look, lightly touching the planchette atop the board. It would supposedly move when they got in contact with a ghost. Both made a promise that they wouldn't move the thing on purpose. (If Jack moved it, one week with no fudge. If Maddie moved it, she'd have to watch a horror movie of Jack's choosing. The inaccuracies always made her cringe, so she normally avoided them like the plague.) And with that done, Maddie began to recite the speech scribbled in the instructions. She felt horribly silly doing so, but continued despite the awful poem.
"On this most auspicious night, we welcome all to join our plight. All are welcome, we invite. But accepted only are the good vibes." Maddie fought to keep from making the speech a question. Really, who would write something like this? Maybe it was a bat idea.
For a long moment, nothing happened. Maddie furrowed her brows and glanced over the instructions again, making sure to keep at least one hand on the planchette.
"Oh, we're supposed to put in on the G to start, and then move it around to 'warm it up' or something." Maddie said aloud. He did as she instructed. Maddie followed the pointer as Jack moved it around, though she was reading more of the instructions.
"Now we need to ask it a question, or I guess I need to ask a question since I started it." Maddie pondered what exactly to ask. Jack brainstormed in kind.
"We could ask what it's favorite fruit is?" He suggested.
"Ooh! Or maybe if it likes fudge! Then if it doesn't we could ask it to go away or find someone else for us to talk to. Because anyone who doesn't like fudge is crazy." Jack lit up, laughing at his own idea. Maddie had a few questions queued up, but asking Jack's first couldn't do any harm.
"I guess." She smiled. Maddie cleared her throat as she prepared to speak.
"To any spirit who had answered our call, there is a question we would like to ask. Do you like fudge?" She questioned. Madeline looked down at the board, waiting with bated breath for the pointer to move.
Something certainly happened, though not what was expected. Suddenly the board began to glow, pulsing with waves of green energy. Maddie gasped in surprise, exchanging grins with Jack across the table. The light brightened, casting dark shadows across their faces and the dim lab. Suddenly a chill went through the window-less room, blowing out the candles. It would have been plunged into darkness, were it not for the board's light. Suddenly a blinding flash of light erupted from the board, and Maddie remembered only at the last moment not to let go. By Jack's exclamation, he had been equally blind-sided.
Neither Fenton had expected what now floated above the board, suspended in mid-air. In fact, they stumbled backward in shock, abandoning the board.
"I'll have you know," Yawned the boy, "I was asleep a moment ago." He stretched and rubbed his eyes, joints popping as he did. The figure was clearly in his pajamas. His shirt was navy blue with a modern red NASA logo on the front, and his bottoms were plaid pajama pants. There was a faint trail of drool on his chin, illuminated clearly by the light which still emanated from the board beneath him.
Finally, the sleepy kid opened his eyes and there were no doubts as to his identity. Maddie's jaw practically dropped to the ground as she witnessed her glowing, floating, child. Danny seemed similarly startled. He looked back and forth between them for a moment, then grasped the hem of his shirt as though to check what was on the front. His shock dissolved into acceptance after a moment.
"Sh*t," He muttered. The automatic response bubbled out of Maddie without her approval.
"Language!" She exclaimed.
This was… not how Danny had expected his night to go. He had planned to get to sleep as early as possible, scribble out something for his English book report before leaving for school, maybe grab a shower if he had the chance, and then fly like hell to get to school on time.
The first time he had to divert from the plan was when Technus showed up. He had just donned his pajamas and crawled into bed when a shiver ran down his spine and his ghost sense went off. Apparently Technus had gotten another upgrade of some sort, which Danny didn't know how to combat. Technus just disappeared into the power lines when Danny tried to suck him into the thermos. Which also meant Danny had to get Tucker up and out of bed to go fight the guy. Half of the fight was just spent flying across town, trying to get to Tucker's house but also keep Technus from causing any major property damage. Technus had made his plan pretty clear from the start (some variation of world technological domination, again) but Danny still needed Tucker's help catching him.
Tucker managed to cause an overflow error or something in Technus' newest body's mainframe which made the ghost freeze and reboot. It gave Danny just enough time to get him in the thermos. Then he had to fly back across town to get Tucker home, and then all the way back to his own home as well. It was torture, and his bed had been calling the entire time.
He'd only gotten maybe an hour's worth of sleep before he was woken up by something else. Something different. At first Danny ignored it, blaming the ache in his chest on a weird sleeping position. He tossed and turned, half-asleep, trying to get comfortable. But the ache wouldn't stop, and a moment later he was racked with a series of horrible shivers. He pulled his blanket up to his chin, but the shivering wasn't caused by the cold. Or at least not from an external cold. It was when a strange, echoey voice called out that he finally gave in.
A loud announcement of how he just wanted to sleep died on Danny's tongue as he realized what exactly was going on. Something that had only ever occurred that one time Sam and Tucker got bored waiting for him to come back from ghost fighting on movie night and Sam had broken out an Oujia board.
"Who in the world is trying to summon me at this time of night?" He asked aloud. Danny desperately wanted to sleep, but he knew he wouldn't be able to ignore this. It would only get worse until the summoners stopped, and who knew when that would happen. With a groan of protest, Danny shoved off his covers and gave in to the tugging in his core.
A flash of white announced Danny's arrival, though he only caught the tail-end of it. He rubbed at his eyes, trying to get rid of the dark spots the flash had imprinted into his vision. Danny stretched lazily, letting himself float easily. He complained about the summoning almost absent-mindedly. At least, that is, until he opened his eyes.
Danny's parents stared back at him. Their eyes were wide in shock. A quick glance determined that yes, they were in the lab and also that yeah, it was already 3 in the morning. On a Thursday. Who stays up until 3 am on a Thursday? That was just weird. For a moment Danny was confused why they looked so shocked. It wasn't exactly weird for Phantom to show up in a summoning, was i- Danny wasn't in ghost form. Panicked, Danny looked down at grasped the hem of his shirt, hoping this was some kind of mistake. But no, he was really in his pajamas, as Fenton, and had just shown up to a ghost summoning. Not to mention that he was floating above the Ouija board of his own power.
Danny cursed under his breath, though apparently not quiet enough.
"Language!" Mom exclaimed. It seemed to break her out of her stupor.
"Daniel James Fenton, you have some explaining to do! Get down here this instant!" She demanded, pointing at the ground. And as much as Danny wanted to, he couldn't. Not while the board was still active. If he got any further from it then he'd be stuck with an achy core, which was never a good thing.
"I… can't." Danny said softly, scratching the back of his neck and averting his gaze. He was prepared for the next shout.
"Get down from there and explain, Danny." Said Dad. He was probably the maddest Danny had ever seen, which was a rare occasion in and of itself. It made Danny feel even worse.
"You gotta say goodbye on the board, or it'll keep bugging me." Danny didn't want to admit that this wasn't a first-time thing, but he needed them to understand. He didn't dare look his parents in the eyes. Even as they both came back over. Danny floated slightly to the side so they could reach the (glowing) board. He didn't know this much tension was possible in one room. But it was, and he'd never been this uncomfortable in his life. (Except maybe when Vlad flirted with Mom right in front of Dad, that was pretty high up there.)
His parents came over and moved the planchette to the "Goodbye" thing, and Danny felt immediate relief. But it lasted only a moment, as two glares were leveled at him. Wearily, Danny floated down to the floor. What he hadn't noticed, however, was that his parents had backed up a few feet. And Mom was pulling something out of her pocket.
A Ghost Shield sprung to life around him and Danny wanted to face-palm.
"Why do you look like our son, ghost." Dad demanded. They dropped all pretenses of 'believing' he was actually Danny.
"I am your son," Danny sighed. He considered stepping out of the shield to prove it, but he could already see them looking for weapons and he didn't want to come off as aggressive.
"Our son isn't a ghost. Try again." Mom said cooly. She didn't know what she was talking about, but that didn't make the tone hurt any less.
"I kinda am." Danny said sheepishly. All that earned him was glares.
"Uh- you remember that portal accident back in freshman year?" The glares turned slightly curious, but that was the only response.
"Basically ectoplasm and electricity combined and, bam! Half-ghost." That didn't elicit much of a reaction, so Danny kept rambling.
"I don't know exactly how it happened, but uh I have a core and cool ghost powers and I can look like a ghost sometimes too, and I uh didnttellyoubecauseIwasafraid- I wasn't sure how you'd react so I figured it was better to just not find out?"
"YoukindadidfindoutthatonetimewithFreaskshow- but that's not really important! All that's important is I'm still me, and Jazz can give you her psychiatrist-y signature on that, she knows much more about my deep-seated fears and inner psyche than I'd really be comfortable with, but she can verify that I'm still… me…" Danny trailed off, biting his lip. He shuffled a few steps until he was outside of the shield.
"Tada?" He declared, though it came out as more of a question.
Mom sighed deeply, hand coming up to pinch the bridge of her nose. Dad just looked lost and conflicted.
"It's too late to deal with this." She complained.
"Here's what we're gonna do." Mom declared.
"You're gonna march straight up to bed, and we're keeping you home from school tomorrow. We're all gonna get some rest and have this conversation when it isn't 3 in the morning. Got it?" She was very clearly waiting for an answer.
"Yup," Danny nodded enthusiastically.
"I'm sorry," He said quietly after. They must be so disappointed in him. And he messed up whatever they were trying to do. Suddenly a hand was laid heavily on Danny's shoulder.
"We'll talk about all this in the morning, okay Danno? For now get some sleep. You look like you've seen a ghost." It was only Dad's wink as he walked away that kept Danny going as he made his way up two flights of stairs to get to his bedroom.
Danny collapsed on his bed, staring up at his glow-in-the-dark stars with gritty eyes. Tomorrow was gonna be a loooong day.
Not to mention the book report he still had to get done. But hey, now he had the weekend to do it.