The next day, Danny awoke feeling much refreshed. It wasn't until he attempted to bound down the stairs, causing his whole body to flare in pain, that he remembered the wounds he suffered yesterday.

Jazz was seated at the table, but the parents were nowhere in sight.

"Where's Mom and Dad?" Danny asked

"Probably downstairs." Jazz said. "Or somewhere testing a new invention. I haven't seen them. Ready for school?"

"Yeah." Danny responded. He wasn't about to tell Jazz about his late night meeting with Sam, she might get the wrong impression.

Sam was outside waiting of the school waiting as Jazz dropped Danny off at the door.

"You're earlier then usual." She noted. "Even Tucker isn't here yet." Danny went to his locker. "By the way, what happened to you yesterday."

"Some group of ghosts known as the Harbringers. There's at least two of them and they all wear these black robes." Danny informed.

"Never heard of them. Were they strong?"

"Yeah, and they work together." Danny reported.

"Well, you be careful. Don't rush into a fight." Sam stated the obvious, but Danny was glad to hear her say it anyway.

"I'll see if I can dig up anything about them." She offered. Danny thanked her, but he still worried. He had to deal with them sooner or later, and when he did, he'd like to have his internal organs intact. Separating them, and taking them out one at a time, was the most obvious course of action, but first Danny had to figure out how to hit them. He was able to attack once by distracting them, but the distraction was him getting beaten to a pulp.

Danny's suspicions about tests proved correct, and he inwardly groaned at his correctness.

"Cheer up, Danny, it's an English test. It won't be that hard. And it's Hamlet. Hamlet's the greatest piece of work Shakespeare ever made." Sam attempted to lighten the mood of Danny and Tucker, but it wasn't working.

"If by greatest you mean most boring, then yeah, it's way great." Danny noted sarcastically as they went to lunch.

"You've got to lighten up. If you take it like it's a chore, it'll be horrible, but if you approach it with interest…"

"Now, you sound like Jazz." Danny returned.

"Well, I guess we could all do it together." Tucker offered. "Maybe it'll be less of a chore that way."

As they entered the lunchroom, Danny turned to Tucker and asked what the menu would be today, but his ghost sense went off.

"Oh, shit, now during lunch." Danny complained.

"We've got you covered." Sam and Tucker started to hug, shielding Danny from the eyes of anyone. He quickly went ghost, and the three of them ducked off into the side to watch without being seen.

And not a moment too soon. For all of the windows of the cafeteria shattered. Only a ghost would do something like that.

"Danny, stay hidden until the ghost shows itself." Sam instructed. Danny nodded. And sure enough, Sam's prediction came true. One of the hooded figures came in through the window and floated above the crowd. For a second, the entire lunch room crowd sat there, staring. The destruction of the windows freaked them out, but ultimately, no one was hurt. But now this was amazingly strange. But they didn't have the time to gawk, for the ghost swept his arm in a large, graceful motion, and unleashed a rain of dark green plasma bolts onto the students. The lucky students were hit and simply collapsed. The unlucky ones had the bolts miss them, which caused the ghost to blast them with an ectoplasmic ray from his finger. Those unfortunate souls were knocked out too, but they usually slammed into the wall. Paulina was one of those unfortunates, and it took a lot of self-control from Danny, not to mention Sam's killer grip, to prevent him from exposing himself too soon.

"Where is this ghost boy?" The robed figure shouted.

"Here!" Danny Phantom sprung into action, flying at the fastest speed he could. The ghost has his back turned to Danny, and before he could turn around, Danny slammed into him with both fists extended, knocking the ghost straight into the wall.

"He is here." The robed ghost stated. He grabbed the hood of his robe and removed it, the entire robe fading from view. This robed figure looked quite different without his hood on. Now, he looked like an explorer of some kind, straight out of an Indiana Jones movie.

"I am the Harbringer of Pain." He said.

"Then I suppose you're no stranger to this!" Danny fired an ectoplasmic beam from his hands, but Pain simply blocked it with his hand, just like the other ones had done at the Nasty Burger. Pain sounded nothing like the two from the Nasty Burger, so there were still more.

"Where's your goon squad?" Danny taunted as he fired again.

"I don't need those other weaklings to destroy you. They move far too slow for my style." Pain returned by stretching out his hand, and firing separate ectoplasmic blasts in a repeated volley from his fingertips. Danny twisted and rolled to avoid them, but he still took several shots. Several repeated smaller blasts were much harder to dodge then one large one. Danny responded by going intangible and sneaking up behind him. But Pain anticipated this move and blocked the shot again.

"Dammit." Danny cursed.

"This is the ghost boy who has given so many great trouble? I thought this would be worth my time." Pain dashed forward and grabbed Danny by the neck of his jumpsuit.

"It's not worth the trouble to kill you." Pain stated.

"Let him go, you creep!" Sam shouted. She and Tucker grabbed the closest implements of silverware they could find and hurled them at the Harbringer, who simply turned intangible to avoid them.

"Two I missed?" Pain seemed upset that he didn't get everyone, but he attempted to remedy the problem by firing a powerful blast at Sam and Tucker. They dodged quickly, and Tucker winged a plate towards Pain, who fired at it to shoot it out of the air. The blast destroyed the plate, but was deflected.

"That's it!" Danny thought. He turned himself misty to escape from the grip of Pain, and dashed towards the limp figure of Paulina. He fished in her pocket for her compact, something she always carried with her. Opening it, he smiled at himself in the mirror.

"Uh…what?" Paulina stirred when someone touched her.

"Stay down." Danny told her calmly. "I need to borrow your compact to beat this guy." Paulina put on a seductive smile.

"Whatever I can do for you, Danny Phantom." She smiled. Danny smiled too, but when he heard the sound of Pain launching an ectoplasmic blast at them. Quickly, Danny grabbed Paulina's hands and willed himself intangible, saving the both of them from the blast. Once the blast subsided, Danny dashed towards Pain as Paulina lay back down, barely able to stay awake.

"Time for you to say goodnight." Danny threw the compact up and over Pain's head.

"You have lousy aim, ghost boy." Pain mocked, but Danny simply fired at the compact, trying to concentrate as much power as he could into his hands. The blast struck the compact and reflected straight into the Harbringer's back. Danny kept firing as long as he could, until the compact fell to the floor.

That attacked definitely seemed to cripple Pain, so Danny flew forward and fired again. Although Pain blocked the attack the same way he always had, it caused him to flinch, which Danny was waiting for, he charged and kicked as hard as he could, knocking Pain to the ground.

Danny punched Pain several times, furious that he would injure people like Paulina to get a shot at him. Once Danny was sure the Harbringer couldn't block it, he grabbed his Fenton Thermos and sucked the sinister villain inside.

"That was…awesome! I've never seen you fight like that." Tucker cheered. Danny was breathing heavily, with an angry expression on his face. He had never been so angry, not since Vlad planned to off his dad, or Spectra his sister. He de-transformed, and turned to Sam and Tucker, smiling. He looked a lot more relieved after beating one of these guys.

"Jazz was right, she told me once that you need to be tricky sometimes to win." Danny beamed with pride.

"When would Jazz say something like that?" Sam wondered, but she kept it to herself. That fight was pretty intense, and she had been praying fervently for Danny's success. There was no need to occupy his mind with Jazz-related news.

"Hey, it looks like everyone's getting up." Tucker noted. Danny went over to Paulina, who, although she had regained consciousness, was still out of it. That ectoplasmic blast had hurt her a little, and blood trickled from her mouth. Danny moved to clean her up.

"Hey, where is Danny Phantom?" Paulina questioned.

"He had to go, fight some more of those weird ghosts. But he did get them. He told me to help you." He moved to help her up, but Paulina slapped his hand away.

"No way, Fenton. But you can tell Phantom thanks for me if I don't see him." Danny sighed as he went back to Sam and Tucker.

"Won't it look suspicious that we're the only ones okay?" Tucker asked. Danny knew he was right, so he grabbed the two of them and went intangible, flying outside.

"I didn't get lunch." He bemoaned.

"It'll be alright, we can hit the Nasty Burger after school." Sam offered.

"Harbringer ghosts nonwithstanding." Danny accepted.


Unbeknowst to Danny, Sam, or Tucker, there was a fourth person watching their fight. Jasmine Fenton smiled, she was late to lunch because she had to ask some questions of her teacher, and she arrived in time to watch Danny fight. So that was what he was fighting. It may have been a little rough there, but Danny managed to win it through. But Jazz suspected things might have gotten a little tougher as Danny fought. She figured she should be ready. That Pain ghost or whomever he was seemed to have broken off from his group and attacked Danny by himself, if the conversation bits she heard were correct. If those ghosts attacked him together, Danny might need some secret help.

Jasmine Fenton did not like the thought that she was doing the exact same things her parents would have done, but she immediately hated herself for that thought. This was something any sister would have done. It didn't matter if she was fighting ghosts or Vikings or hellgods, she would protect her little brother from anything.

Danny would need help soon, and when that time came, it would be her to give it.