Phantom gritted his teeth as he followed the trial of meat. Why, why, why did he let himself get distracted?!
He'd hung around lunch, floating just feet away when Dash threw his lunch on Danny. Seeing the quarterback bully the boy pissed off the ghost. He grinned in satisfaction at seeing Danny finally fight back and debated using his own abilities for some payback on Dash too. So focused on potential revenge and the absolutely glorious food fight, he barely registered the strange burst of cold air that leaked from his mouth. He crossed his eyes, trying to peak at the mist. What was that?
Then a crash sounded from the kitchen. Phantom whipped around. In a second, he was invisibly floating through the wall. His eyes widened at the sight; a grandmotherly looking ghost glared at Danny and his friends, green fire blazing around her.
"Run!" Danny yelled, yanking his friends to their feet. Just as the three disappeared into the hallway, Phantom turned visible. For a second, he tried to summon ghostly energy like last night, but no luck. Then the other ghost launched a stack of plates at him. Phantom flickered intangible, allowing the objects to sail right through him. Grinning in satisfaction, the ghost boy acted without thinking; he flew directly at the other ghost, body-slamming her.
"Why you little!" The Lunch Lady shouted.
Phantom smirked for a moment as he punched the other ghost. Then his eyes widened. Oh no. The Lunch lady grabbed his fist, causing the ghost boy to let out a startled yelp. He hit the wall with a crash and groaned. That was going to hurt in the morning.
Unsteadily, Phantom floated to his feet, shaking to clear his head. Wait. He looked side to side. Where was the other ghost?!
"Don't touch her!" Danny's voice rang from the hallway. Then a femine scream resounded. Sam! Phantom raced across the kitchen, not caring that he was visible. He poked his head through the doorway just in time to see the female ghost fly around the corner with Sam clutched in her hands. Danny and Tucker ran after the pair, clearly not seeing him. The ghost boy also followed, maintaining a shaky invisibility.
Then he froze, crouching against the wall to hide. Was that Mr. Lancer?! And Dash?! He suppressed a groan at the football player's smug face. What were they doing?! Didn't they see the trail of meat? Or the freaking ghost that had been kidnapping one of the students? They were wasting time! At hearing Mr. Lancer accuse Danny of starting the food fight, Phantom balled his fists. The nerve! He watched as Mr. Lancer started dragging Danny and Tucker to his office.
Now alone in the hallway, Phantom let out a sigh of relief. His face hardened in determination; he had a kidnapping ghost to find and a teenage girl to save. He half smiled; Sam definitely would hate being made a damsel in distress.
He continued down the hall, following the really obvious trial of meat. Until...it just stopped. Phantom scratched his head. Where did they go? He didn't hear any cries for help or ghostly rambling. Where would a crazy meat obsessed ghost take her vegan prisoner? The ghost boy's eyes widened. Oh, no. There was one place he could think of; he'd ran across it while exploring the school this week and it was a place of horror for veggie lovers and people with just a normal amount of common sense.
With shaky control of his intangibility (which again was weird, shouldn't he have more control of his natural abilities?), he sank through the floor and into... the basement, the creepy abandoned yet freezing cold basement. Phantom shivered, eyeing the huge boxes of non-perishables that looked like they had expired 15 years again. And was that a dead rat?! The shadows moved eerily as the dim fluorescent lights flickered. The ghost boy crept forward. And….he just flew through a cobweb.
As dread continued to build in his guts (did he have those?), Phantom spotted a heavy, metal door with a large latch. The freezer. Taking a deep breath, the ghost pulled the latch and floated through. The door swung closed behind him of its own volition. Panic swelled. Please, please, please don't let him be locked in.
With shaking hands, Phantom flickered on the dim light. A young female voice called. "Who's...who's there?"
"Sam." He breathed.
Facing away from him, Sam struggled, trapped in a pile of raw meat. "Ew, ew, ew, ew." She muttered under her breath, understandably disgusted, and giving no indication that she heard him.
As Phantom's eyes took in her hunched shoulders and disheveled hair, he didn't think about how she would react to him, a ghost. He just knew somewhere deep that he had to help, the drive moving him to act. Phantom might not actually be her friend but he did remember her best friend's life. And though he might just care about her because Danny did, he still did care deeply.
As he floated forward, Phantom felt certainty and a strange peace flow through him. He came to face Sam and his eyes glowed brighter. Sam's eyes widened with fear, though she stopped struggling as her mouth fell open.
Phantom smiled at her sadly, his hand in front of him in a clear demonstration that he was unarmed and meant no harm. His voice rang out, calmly, quietly. "It's okay, Sam. I'm going to get you out of here."
Sam said nothing, just continued gapping at the ghost who gently placed his gloved hands on her arm. With some mental effort, he turned her intangible and lifted her out of the pile.
Violet eyes meet neon green. "Hold on." The ghost instructed.
Without more warning, Phantom passed his weightlessness to her. The two rose through the ceiling, passing through solid matter which earned a gasp from the human girl. They stopped in the hallway above, coincidentally near Mr. Lancer's office Without another word, Phantom left her in the hallway and disappeared before Sam could get a word out.
He wasn't afraid to talk to her. No, nope, not at all. He...uhh...just needed to find the other ghost. And...he'd figure out what to do when he found her.
Meanwhile in Lancer's office, Danny and Tucker were freaking out.
"We gotta find Sam!" Tucker frowned. "For some reason, I feel like I got her kidnapped."
Danny crossed his arms. "Maybe because you told the ghost she changed the menu? Why would you do that?!"
"I was freaking out!" Tucker sputtered. "An actual ghost showed up and I panicked!"
The other boy sighed. "Whatever. We need to find a way out of here."
"Yeah." Tucker eyed the door. "How are we supposed to get past Dash though?"
At the question, Danny frowned also looking at the door. That was out of the question; there's no way they could sneak past Dash. He surveyed the rest of the room, eyes falling on the window. Maybe that would work? The blue-eyed boy stood up and walked towards the window.
Tucker raised a brow. "What are you doing?"
The other boy pointed to the window. "We're on the first floor. Let's sneak out here."
"Dude! Great idea." Tucker stood up as Danny pulled the window open.
Suddenly, Danny stopped, his eyes flashing neon green. The boy blinked and… he was somewhere else? The image shimmered, distant and distorted, as though viewed through a fishbowl lens.
In front of him, Sam struggled in a pile of raw meat, her eyes wide with fear. His own glowing gloved hands came into view as he raised them in front of him.
Trying to calm the girl, he gave Sam his best friendly smile. His voice echoed slightly. "It's okay, Sam. I'm going to get you out of here."
Then Danny blinked, the glow fading from his eyes. With a start, the boy found himself back in Mr. Lancer's office with his hands held in front of him- the same as in his...vision? Daydream? Waking dream? A freaked out Tucker waved his hand in front of Danny's face.
"Danny. Earth to Danny! You with me?" Tucker pleaded.
Wordlessly, Danny nodded, mind swimming with confusion as Tucker rambled panickedly.
"What the heck was that?" The barrett-wearing boy waved his arms. "You suddenly stopped and your eyes started glowing. You spaced out man! I tried to get your attention but it was like no one was home. And then you said something about Sam but your voice, it echoed. And you've got to tell me what the heck that was because I'm freaking out dude!"
"I...I don't." Danny stuttered, feeling panic rising. It...it didn't make any sense! What the heck had he just seen? What did he just do? It...it felt like one of the dreams he'd been having this week but he'd been awake! He was standing up in Lancer's office, for crying out loud!
At the same time, Tucker kept bombarding him with questions that he had no idea the answers too. "Seriously Danny! Your eyes were glowing. Was that some weird ghostly thing? But you got rid of your powers!"
At the accusation, Danny felt his heart skip a beat. "I...I wasn't being weird. I don't...don't know what you're talking about."
Just then Lancer opened the door, cutting off Tucker's other questions. The teacher's eyes narrowed at the two students standing in front of the clearly open window but he said nothing. Instead he motioned to the chairs again. Despite Danny's pounding heart, he took a seat.
Seconds later, Mr. Lancer sat behind his desk with the same folders. His eyes narrowed in anger as he lectured at the two students. The words- probably about responsibility and discipline and such- went in one ear and out the other. Instead Danny's mind raced with questions about what just happened to him. Just when he thought things were returning to normal, things got weirder and weirder since going through the ghost catcher. And Sam had been kidnapped! How the heck were they supposed to help her when Mr. Lancer was giving him and Tucker a lecture about something they didn't do?!
Now Mr. Lancer was standing up. "I expect to see both of you on Monday afternoon for detention. Now get to class, both of you."
The two friends followed the teacher out of the room. As Mr. Lancer stomped away, Danny looked down each side of the hallway. He glanced at Tucker with a determined look and the other boy nodded knowingly. As soon as Mr. Lancer was out of sight, the pair took off running in the opposite direction of their class. Despite the earlier freak out about his weird (possibly ghostly?) behavior, only one thought resonated in Danny's mind; they had to find Sam.
Ten seconds later, Danny and Tucker turned a corner and stumbled to a stop. The blue-eyed boy's eyes widened. Standing in the middle of the hall with a puzzled look on her face was Sam. The two boys ran forward.
Danny's eyes lit up as he smiled. "Sam! You're okay!"
"How did you get away from that ghost?" Tucker asked as he sighed in relief.
Sam bite her lip, looking at Danny strangely. Her eyes met his. The image of her fear-filled eyes as she struggled, trapped in the basement, filed his mind. His stomach churned with sudden nervousness; he glanced down, breaking the shared gaze.
Then Sam shook her head, her shoulders falling. She sighed. "Come on. We need to get to class."
The last class of the day passed awkwardly, fluctuating between worrying about the weird vision(?) he'd had in Lancer's office and wondering why Sam kept glancing at him strangely. Blessedly, the bell finally rang. With a wave of laughs and excited chatter, the students poured out of the school for the weekend.
Sam, Tucker, and Danny walked to their lockers together. The boys kept glancing at each other as Sam remained oddly silent, her face neutral. Uncertainty swirled in Danny's gut. What exactly had happened to her after the Lunch Lady kidnapped her, that had her acting so weird? He bit his lip, turning the dial on his locker; whatever happened, he felt like it was connected to him somehow.
"Let's go to the Nasty Burger." Suddenly Sam spoke. Her eyes feel on Danny's again, searching them. He nodded thoughtlessly while Tucker didn't notice the strange exchange.
"Awesome! I saw on TV that they have added a quadruple bacon burger! I need that after the disaster at lunch." Tucker's face fell realizing what he said but for once, Sam made no snarking comment about the boy's meat consumption. Instead she turned and started walking towards the door. She paused, noticing Danny and Tucker were not following.
"Well, are you guys coming?" She raised an eyebrow.
The boys nodded, following as Danny's neutral expression turned into a frown. The uneasy feeling he kept having since the ghost catcher had returned. And the surprisingly comforting presence of his ghostly stalker was absent; actually it had been since that ghost took Sam. He couldn't help but feel those things were connected, though he obviously knew his stalker, the ghost who had been overshadowing him was not the Lunch Lady.
In front of him, Tucker asked. "So are you going to tell us what happened after the lunch lady ghost took you?"
Sam glanced back at Danny strangely. Then she turned her focus to Tucker. "Once we get to the restaurant." She shook her head. "It's….well. I'll tell you guys when we get there."
Not liking how uncertain Sam sounded, Danny walked on, trying and failing to ignore the rising confusion and unease. Soon the boy arrived at the restaurant and joined the line to order with his friends. After getting his food a few minutes later, Danny sat down at a booth in the back corner with Tucker beside and Sam across from him.
As Tucker took a large bite of his burger, Sam picked at her salad. Danny glanced between the two, grabbing a small handful of his fries. After a few minutes, the technogeek wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "Sam. You're gonna tell us how you managed to get away, right? The suspense is killing me."
The girl frowned, biting her lip. "Someone saved me."
Tucker raised one eyebrow. "Really? Who was it? How did they manage to take on that ghost?"
The goth shook her head. "The creepy lunch lady disappeared after she locked me in the freezer, in a pile of raw meat." Now Danny wrinkled his brow; that sounded like what he saw in his vision. Sam noticed the expression and quipped, misreading his confused expression as one of disgust.. "Yeah, it was as disgusting as it sounds. But that's not the weirdest thing that happened though." With that, Sam put her fork down. She took a deep breath. "I was rescued... by a ghost. But he looked like Danny."
At that, Danny who had been picking up his burger to take a bite, dropped the sandwich right into his lap in shock. But it barely registered to him as Tucker chuckled humorlessly. "Really Sam? That's funny. But what really happened?" Sam's frown deepened, causing Tucker's expression to fall. "Wait. You're being serious?"
She nodded and continued. "The ghost looked like Danny. Or that weird ghostly form we saw right after the accident. White hair, green eyes, ghost hunting jumpsuit. And...he sounded like Danny too."
The aforementioned boy stared forward dumbly as Tucker sputtered. "But...that…"
"That's not all though. He knew who I was, Tucker. The ghost said my name and promised he would get me out of there. He turned me intangible to pull me out of the pile and then flew me through the ceiling but flew off before I could ask anything."
"But that doesn't make sense." Tucker furrowed his brow. "I mean it wasn't Danny. He was with me in Lancer's office. Although…." Tucker turned to stare at the blue-eyed boy. "You did start acting weird in Lancer's office."
Danny gaped and shook his head, unable to verbalize an explanation. Not that he had one. His mind ran in circles as Sam asked Tucker about what happened in Lancer's office. Only half of their words penetrated his mind. None of it made sense! He'd...he'd seen Sam, in the basement as if he was the one saving her. Meaning…? He couldn't seem to put the pieces together, though the explanation felt close enough to reach.
"May it was the ghost who possessed Danny after the accident?" Sam asked, the discussion continuing despite Danny's lack of input. Though Danny perked up at the mention of the ghost. It all seemed to come back to that. But why? And how?
"You said you thought he hadn't been possessed though." Tucker crossed his arms.
"Well Danny got rid of his powers so what other explanation is there?!"
"But….but why would the ghost still look like Danny? And why help you?"
The two look at Danny questioningly, who continued gapping. His stomach churned with confusion and a little panic as his hands started to shake. The boy opened his mouth to tell them about what he saw in Lancer's office, inevitably adding to the confusion.
But before he could speak, Danny felt his eyes burning- not with tears but...something else. Neon green reflected off the metal table as he glanced down. He briefly registered Sam and Tucker staring at him in shock before something like a flip switched in his mind. His heart started pounding and without thinking, the boy jumped to his feet and sprinted out of the restaurant. He had to get away now! They couldn't find him. No! No! NO!
Sam and Tucker called after him, but their pleas fell on deaf ears. Slamming the door to the employee's only exit, he spotted the dumpster in the alley. There! His mind and body screamed at him to hide. The black haired boy dashed behind the dumpster, his friend's worried faces the last thing he saw before he blinked and was somewhere else.
Danny raced across the empty football field as his head whipped side to side. No! NO! Where was he supposed to hide?! There! He dived for the bleachers just as a shot of neon green energy shot past his head.
"Take that, ghost scum!." The tall, orange clad man shouted.
The boy held his hands in front of him. "Please, I don't want to fight you! Just leave me alone!"
Below him, a man and women in full body jumpsuits just sneered and took another shot. Danny dodged, flickering intangible as he almost crashed into the bleachers. Instead, he sailed through the seats. He paused for a second, chest heaving with panic.
Above him, heavy steps pounded on metal. "We know you're here ghost! When I get my hands on you, I'm going to tear you apart!"
His whole body shook with fear at the declaration. Why? Why were they doing this? Danny shook his head, swallowing the emotional pain. He could do this; all he had to do was turn invisible and fly away. So the boy did just that but as he was floating out from under the bleachers, eyes behind red goggles fell on him. Not a second later, the woman cocked her weapon. Her face fierce with anger, she shot. "This is for possessing my son!"
Danny had no time to dodge. The ectoenergy slammed into his gut. He crashed into the bleachers, crumpling. His stomach burned, pain radiating from the fresh wound. He tried to curl in on himself, lying on his back.
His shooter continued sneering at him from twenty feet away as her husband came running up. "Nice shoot Mads! Now let's take out this monster."
The pair rapidly approached, still aiming their weapons, while Danny focused on their faces. The fury clashed painfully with the love he had always expected to see. "Mom, Dad. Please." He whispered but his parents, the ghost hunters, didn't hear.
With tears leaking from his eyes, Danny turned intangible, the hateful glares on his parent's faces the last thing he saw before the ground swallowed him up.
Danny Fenton came back to awareness with Sam shaking him.
"Danny! Snap out of it!" She pleaded as Tucker looked on with wide eyes.
As the green light in the boy's eyes faded, his gaze focused on the confused and distressed look on Sam's face. His brow furrowed; what just happened? And why was he on the ground behind a dumpster? Shakily, Danny tried to stand up but hissed as pain blossomed in his abdomen. He bit back a cry, eyes squinted in pain. Why did it hurt?! With a confused and distressed look, the boy lifted his shirt to find a fresh burn. With a weak hand, he reached to touch it, to confirm what his eyes were seeing. He hissed in pain at the contact.
"What the hell is happening?!" Sam demanded, with panicked anger.
"I...I don't…." Danny stuttered, confusion and panic silencing him.
Over Sam's shoulder, Tucker paced. With a shaking hand, he pointed at Danny's burn. "That...that just showed up, out of nowhere! You just got that burn out of the blue !" He yanked the barret off his head, gripping it with tight fists. "You spaced out again! And started talking to yourself! Something...something invisible threw you into the dumpster!"
Danny groaned trying to sit up more. He shook his head. "I..I don't know. I don't don't understand."
Grabbing his shoulders, Sam forced him to look at her. "Danny. Tell us what's going on."
The boy stared down at the dirty ground. "It's...I don't." A tear leaked from his eye.
Sam tightened her grip on his shoulders. "Damnit Danny! You've been acting weird since you got your parents to cure you! We know something weird is happening! Tell us what you know!"
More tears leaked. Before he could register what he was saying, the truth about all the weird things he'd been experiencing since the ghost catcher poured out. "I...I keep having these random emotions and thoughts that don't make any sense. And I'm tired all the time no matter how much I sleep. When I do I get these weird dreams about flying. And I can't focus. Half the time, I feel like I'm not here. Like I'm dreaming." He bit his lip, actually looking at Sam. "Earlier today I saw the ghost saving you. But like it was me, I was the one saving you. And just now I saw Mom and Dad chasing me. They were calling me ghost scum, saying I possessed their son. Then they shot me and now I have a burn exactly where they hit me." Danny sniffed and whipped his face, his heart clenching at the thought of his parents looking at him with such hatred. "But ...you guys… they weren't actually here. I wasn't over the football field...but I was. I felt like I was."
With that, Danny paused as Sam and Tucker looked at each other and then him. Confusion and distress marred their faces but they said nothing, clearly processing. The blue-eyed boy who was still on the ground, moved the stand up, though he winced from the quickly lessening pain on his abdomen. With wobbly legs, he made his way to his feet. Sam and Tucker studied him worriedly. Then Danny took a deep breath, finally gathering his courage to voice a final, potentially damning thought. "I think I'm...linked to the ghost who was overshadowing me, somehow. That's why all this weird stuff has been happening to me. We're connected."
His two friends gapped but after a moment, Sam's face softened in fearful concern, though there was a hint of curiosity. "But how? And why?"
Danny stood up straighter, a measure of determination entering his gaze. "I don't know. But there may be someone who does, if we can find them."
Tucker's eyebrows raised questioningly. "Who? Your parents?"
Danny shook his head. "No. We have a ghost to find."