The Ghost-Zone was as endless a sea of macabre and darkness as ever, spiralling around on itself and filled with floating doors. Faceless spirits flew around, searching for an unoccupied residence. Other ghosts roamed the realms behind their doors. It was day-to-day life in the realm of the spirits. Except at Walker's prison, where the warden was supervising the moving of a high-security prisoner to a new cellblock. A large cage with little slits in place of bars held the prisoner as he was being moved on a track to the new cell. The cage was flanked by five guards on either side, all looking deadly serious. Even the other prisoners sensed that this wasn't a situation to joke about. Walker stayed in his office, watching the movement on the security cameras.
"Watch it!" he yelled over the intercom as the metal cage began to slip off the track. The guards on the right quickly moved up against it, pushing it back on. But the prisoner inside had sensed the disturbance. He began slamming himself around inside the cage, knocking it left and right across the track. The guards, caught by surprise, just stared in shock.
"Don't just stand there!" Walker screamed, "Use your night-sticks! Take that punk down!" remembering the weapons in their hands, the guards flew up against the cage. Some on both sides held it in place the best they could while the others fitted their nightsticks into the small slits, opening fire. The flashes from the green of their sticks and the howls of the prisoner poured out from the slits not crammed up with nighsticks. Yet the prisoner still did not give up. The ramming continued, and despite the best efforts of the guards, the cage still shook violently. One especially hard ram to the right, and the cage leapt off the track, rolled over the guards on that side, and skidded out onto the floor. It then began to blast forward, sparks flying out from behind and beneath it. The guards stared after it, feeling like idiots for not foreseeing this possibility. The prisoner was firing out energy blasts through the slits to propel the cage along!
"Get after him!" Walker commanded. But it was too late for the ten guards by the track. Those in the rest of the compound were placed on high alert, rushing out to the front of the building to head him off. They formed a wall of ghosts, their shields raised up as an added device to hold the cage back. Through the corner of his eye and through the slits of his cage the prisoner saw them. He increased the power and speed of his attack ten-fold, blasting towards them with such force that they went flying like bowling pins. Then the cage crashed into the main doors, flinging them open and shooting out into The Ghost-Zone.
"After him!" Walker cried. But now it was too late for anyone to catch up to him. The cage kept going on. And it just happened that in its path was a portal leading out into a lab in Amity Park. In this lab, Jack Fenton was hard at work on the controls to The Fenton Portal, whistling to the tune of "Dixieland." He had just finished re-setting the access codes and testing them out when the cage flew out of the non-open doors and skidded into the room, sending sparks flying and demolishing a table on the far side of the room.
"What the heck?" Jack shouted, "Maddie! I think we've got something!" he ran upstairs to get his wife. As he left, the prisoner began ramming repeatedly against the back of the cage; the door. He began leaving indentions and imprints in the door, then finally, adding in an energy blast, he blew it back into the portal, flying out into the middle of the room. His face was green, with more than a passing resemblance to that of Maleficent. He was draped in flowing black robes like the wings of a bat and in his hand held a sceptre, a black diamond mounted at the top. His name was Chimera, and at long last he had escaped from prison.
(He's a Phantom)
(Danny Phantom)
Yo, Danny Fenton, he was just fourteen
When his parents built a very strange machine
It was designed to view a world unseen
(He's gonna catch 'em all cuz he's Danny Phantom)
When it didn't quite work
His folks, they just quit
But then Danny took a look inside of it
There was a great big flash
Everything just changed
His molecules got all rearranged!
(Phantom, Phantom)
When he first woke up
He realized
He had snow white hair
And glowing green eyes
He could walk through walls,
Disappear, and fly!
He was much more unique than the other guy!
It was then that he knew what he had to do
He had to stop all the ghosts
That were coming through
He's here to fight
For me and YOU!
(He's gonna catch 'em all cuz he's Danny Phantom)
(He's gonna catch 'em all cuz he's Danny Phantom)
Gonna catch them all cuz he's Danny Phantom
What You LoatheIt was a normal day at Casper High. Mr. Lancer's second-hour English class was in session and, as was usually the case, half the class had tuned out Lancer's reading of The Curse of Capistrano. Danny was slumped down in his chair, his eyes half-shut and huge bags under his eyes. Tucker's head was resting on his desk, an annoyed look on her face. Sam had her back up against her chair, her arms crossed. They'd been like this the entire time. Those last 30 seconds of the class seemed to be taking forever to happen, and Lancer kept on reading. Finally, after what felt like ten minutes, the bell rang.
"I want a five-page summary what I just read you due tomorrow," Lancer shut the book, "Good day," everyone slowly pulled themselves out of the room and out the door. Lancer watched them head out, then sat down at his desk, going over his lesson plans, whistling to the tune of Lawrence of Arabia as he flipped through his papers. He was so caught up in this that he didn't notice the figure fly up outside his window, his robes flowing out around and under him like wings and a sceptre in his hand. Chimera stared into the classroom, eyeing the bald man and making motions with his fingers over the jewel in his sceptre. He did this for several minutes. The harder and deeper he looked through the glass and in on Lancer, the faster his fingers moved. Eventually a swirling, dimly lit mess of cloudy vapour began to form within the jewel. As he focused more and more on Lancer, the clouds began to take form. Soon after the ghost had decided he had all that he needed, and held the sceptre up to his face, his eyes going from Lancer to within the jewel. The image that he needed appeared before him. He smiled at what he saw. He then turned his eyes back to Lancer and spread his arms out, opening up his cloak like a bat unfolding itself for the nighttime flight.
"Tá mé go dona," he hissed. His body went rigid for a moment, then began to dissolve, first into the black silhouette of a bat surrounded by green, then a swirl of black and green that passed through the window and swept around the room. Lancer was blissfully unaware of its presence, still focused entirely on his lesson plans. The swirl of colours floated up and gathered itself at the ceiling; just above Lancer; before plunging into him. The second it had completely entered his body, Lancer dropped his papers, threw himself back against his chair involuntarily, and threw his hands to his head, screaming with agony. The swirl left his body immediately afterwards, assembling back into Chimera. Yet Lancer continued yelling and clawing at his skull, hoping in vain it would stop the sudden blaze of fire spreading through the inside of his mind. Chimera took in his pain with a sly smile. He turned his body to the door and, with a last look at his victim, flew out, dissolving back into the swirl of colour and heading down through the halls. Lancer was left in all his agony.
"Catcher in the Rye!" he managed to get out through teeth clenched shut. His legs began alternating from going stiff to kicking out like crazy and the fire in his mind was still in full burn. Yet something seemed to be shooting up from that fire. Thoughts were coming out from it. They had not only survived it, but also seemed to be burning with a newfound strength and clarity along with the fire. These thoughts were not the kind he usually dwelled on. They were thoughts of leaving teaching. Thoughts of dis-respecting the authorities. Thoughts of being rude. Thoughts of causing trouble. Of breaking the rules. Of leading others to do so…and worse. And it made sense why he didn't dwell on these thoughts. These were all the things that he hated! There was nothing he loathed more than a person who embodied all these traits. But there was something about them this time that was unusual. He didn't hate them any less. The way they were burning away at the inside of his skull with the fire made him hate them more than ever! And yet…
…And yet he liked it.
He liked the burning. He liked the presence of these thoughts. He liked how they couldn't get out of his mind. And he liked how they seemed to be taking over.
Part of his mind managed to hang onto sense, and as the fight between sense and insanity began, Lancer's kicking grew worse, and his body began going into spasms. The fire died down, but the war of thoughts in his mind took over. Thrown into the mix was a song. A loud, blaring, ghostly tune, courtesy of someone who not only embellished all the things Lancer hated, but managed to influence his students into trampling over his body on their way out of school. The three elements continued to fly around in his mind, the spasms of his body worse than ever and his screams loud enough to break glass when…it all stopped. His body relaxed, almost melting into liquid, and his mind emptied of all thought. Lancer leaned forward in his chair again, breathing heavily and soaked with sweat. He remained like this for some time. Then he began to laugh. It wasn't his laugh. It was a high-pitched, oily, wicked laugh that certainly didn't belong to Slade Lancer. As he looked up from his desk, the look on his face was one of pure, hate-made, evil insanity. Still laughing, he reached up with one hand to rip off his tie, the other hand knocking the entire covering of his desk to the floor.
