3:19AM. Again. Danny glared at the clock as though it was the source of his odd nightmare. It hadn't scared him as badly this time around, but the feeling of eyes on the back of his neck had grown stronger. He grumbled as he turned into a ghost, grabbed the Fenton thermos, and resigned himself to another sleepless night.
An idea had started to form in the back of mind. It stated that the box was the problem, and informed him that if he would go get it and bring it home, the nightmare would stop. It added that if he opened the box, that would be even better.
Danny shook his head, slightly disturbed. The voice that had come up with that idea did not sound like his own. In fact, it almost seemed like it was coming from outside his head. But that was ridiculous.
Wasn't it?
Of course, it was. A tiny voice in the back of his mind rose up to argue that there was a ghost involved in this somewhere, and he should stay as far away from that box as possible. It was overruled by a more reasonable sounding voice that decided he should go get the box and bring it home. He could always pitch it into the Ghost Zone if it turned out to be a bad thing, and wouldn't that be for the best? After all, he couldn't just leave something dangerous lying around where people could find it and release an angry fire spirit that would destroy the world.
Danny stopped and looked around. Where that thought had come from, he did not know. But he was relatively certain that it had not been him thinking it. He suddenly realized that he was hovering above the museum and rolled his eyes. He could not get that box out of his mind! He idly wondered if this was how Box Ghost felt every moment of his afterlife, then pushed the thought away. It couldn't hurt to just go look, could it?
Of course, not.
He became intangible and flew down through the roof and the second floor until he reached the glass case containing his destin-
"Would you just shut up already?" he yelled, clasping his hands to his ears and squeezing his eyes shut. "Get out of my head, whatever you are!"
I am yours…
That was the voice, he realized, the one that had been trying to convince to take the box home ever since he started this trip. He dropped his hands and slowly floated forward. The box seemed even more alluring than it had when he first saw it. All signs of age seemed to have vanished; the gold flickered and twisted hypnotically. Danny shook his head to clear it. "What are you?" he muttered.
I am yours…
He reached through the glass to touch the side of the case, and the whispering rose up in his mind again.
…an endless void…
…spiraling down…
…the fire, it burns…
…I was innocent…
…am I going to die here…
…your wish...my command…
…anything…the world…yours…
…anything…
…yours…
…I am yours…
Danny jerked his hand his away, but it didn't stop the last three words from echoing in his mind. He never actually made up his mind whether or not to take the box; he simply looked down and realized that he was holding it. There was nothing, this time. No whispers, no hypnotic swirling. He had made his decision and there was no more need for parlor tricks.
He flew home and hid the box beneath his bed, then spent the rest of the night playing solitaire. This time, he made sure he was back in bed before his parents got up.
School was, as usual, a treacherous affair. Between dodging Dash and trying to pay attention to his teachers, Danny was not having a pleasant day. He had not yet told his friends about the strange things he had experienced; in fact, he was not even certain that the whole event had not been some strange dream. The box had left him alone for pretty much the entire day; oddly enough, he missed it constantly butting in on his train of thought.
"Hey, Fentonowski!" yelled the obnoxious voice of school hero Dash. Danny slammed his locker shut and tried to pretend that he had not heard. It didn't work. Dash slammed his hand into the locker in front of Danny and leaned casually against it while Kwan walked up to stand behind him.
Danny sighed. "What do you want, Dash?"
"Oh, nothing, nothing," the muscle-headed jock answered. "We were just heading over to the Nasty Burger and thought we'd shove you in your locker on the way."
Danny abruptly found his arms pinned by Kwan, who lifted him up to shove him in the locker Dash had obligingly reopened. He growled irritably as they walked off laughing, and the box rose up in his mind. It seemed to mock him, to call him a coward. It seemed to wonder if he really was worthy of it, and he suddenly knew he needed to prove that he was.
The darkness of the locker was a perfect cover for becoming a ghost. Intangible and invisible, he threw himself out and dove into Dash. There was a moment when the host mind tried to throw him out, but he forced it down just like he always did. Any ghost could possess a person, but overshadowing them took talent. It was almost Danny's specialty.
He vaguely registered Kwan asking if Dash was okay, then turned wordlessly and punched him in the face. "Ow!" he yelled as he backed away and held a hand over his injured eye. "That hurt, yo! What was that for?"
"Maybe I don't like your looks," Danny answered, twisting Dash's lips into a sneer.
"Oh, yeah?" Kwan shot back, the epitome of brilliance. "Well, maybe I don't like yours either, yo!" As expected, he reared back a fist and punched Dash square in the jaw. Danny hopped out then to watch the fight that ensued. The box was pleased.
Eventually, Mr. Lancer arrived to pull the two boys apart and give them detention. They stalked angrily away in two different directions. The fight over, the spectators dispersed and Danny found a place to become human again. No sooner had he exited his hiding spot than he was found.
"There you are," Sam announced.
"Hey, Sam. Hey, Tuck," Danny greeted his two friends cheerfully. "Sorry, I was watching the fight."
"There was fight?" Tucker asked with great interest.
They started to leave the building together while Danny answered. "Yeah, Dash and Kwan got into to it for some reason. I didn't see what started it."
Sam scoffed. "Probably fighting over Paulina or something." She said the name with the utmost derision. "So you guys up for the Nasty Burger? They got this new veggie burger I'm wanting to try."
"Um, ew," Tucker replied. "Give me meat any day."
"Sounds great," Danny laughed. "Then you guys want to come play video games?"
Tucker declined on the grounds that he had been grounded. Sam shook her head. "Mom says I have to be home by five. We're going to some stupid concert or something."
"On a Monday?" Tucker asked.
"Yeah, it's some kind of mother/daughter charity thing or something. I wasn't really paying attention because I was too busy gagging at the little pink dress she's trying to make me wear."
The three fell silent as they tried to imagine Sam in a pink dress. They had seen her wear one once before, and it had been really strange. Thinking of it now, it had lost none of its shock value. "Actually, Sam," Danny began. "You look pretty good in pink."
Sam opened her mouth to retort, then changed her mind and blushed instead.
The Nasty Burger was, as usual, full of kids just getting out of school. The happy chattering of relieved teens made a nice contrast with eight hours of the seemingly endless droning of their various instructors. However, there was more to the Nasty Burger than a simple after school hang out. It was also where kids came to get the latest gossip.
On this day, the hot topic was last night's museum theft. Uninteresting by itself, it was made news worthy by the rumor that a ghost was involved. Danny paled, but tried to act nonchalant.
"Excuse me," he asked the girl who was spreading the news. "How do they know it was a ghost?" Although he tried to seem only passingly curious, he was uncertain how well he managed. Fortunately, the girl either didn't notice or didn't care as she turned bright green eyes in his direction.
"Well, they don't for sure," she confessed. "But there were no fingerprints, no signs of a break-in, and no way to get Pandora's Box out of its case without the electronic key. Unless, of course, you were intangible."
"Pandora's Box?" Sam asked skeptically.
The girl smiled slyly. "For a burger and drink, I'll tell you its history."
The three friends conferred for a moment and decided to take her up on her offer. "After all," Tucker pointed out. "If a ghost wants it, it must be bad news, right?" Danny gave a nervous laugh as he agreed.
Once they had made their way through the line and got settled in a booth, the girl stretched out her hands for each of the three to shake in turn. "Kat," she introduced herself. "And that's 'Katrina', not 'Katherine'."
Sam grinned; she liked the girl's wry yet cheerful attitude. "Sam. And that's 'Sam', not 'Samantha'."
"Never 'Samantha'," Danny finished for her. "I'm just Danny."
Tucker held the proffered hand a bit longer than was necessary as he said, "Tucker. Tucker Foley. But you can call me anytime."
Kat arched an eyebrow as she reclaimed her hand. "Right, then. Sam, Danny, and Anytime. So! The legend of Pandora's Box." She spent a few minutes eating before she began her narrative.
"It all started in the early fourteen hundreds. Everyone was scared of witches back then or something, because they were about constantly burning someone at the stake or something else.
"There used to be a little village in England. The last known witch burning to take place there involved some chick who supposedly cursed to the village to be burned to the ground. In response, the priest sealed her ashes in a box. It clearly didn't help since the village did, in fact, burn to the ground during the Crusades. Hence its place in the exhibit."
The three friends let the story sink in for a few minutes. Finally, Danny asked, "Why is it called Pandora's Box?"
Kat grinned impishly and made him wait while she finished her Nasty Burger. "Well, there were a few scraps of record lying around somewhere that implied it was found buried under the church inside a larger box that read, 'Beware Pandora's Box.' Or something like that anyway. I think it might actually have been longer than that." She stood and tipped a nonexistent hat to her momentary companions. "It's been real, friends. Cheerio!"
They watched as she turned smartly on her heels and left the Nasty Burger. "Cheerio?" Sam muttered.
Tucker blinked. "You know, I think I asked her out once."
"You don't remember?"
"Well, it was Halloween, and I couldn't actually see her face." He grinned and shook his head. "But I definitely remember that 'Cheerio'."
They chatted about inconsequential things as they finished eating and parted company. The day had not started out that great, but it brightened considerably. Danny chose to walk home simply to enjoy the weather for a while longer. When he finally arrived, his good spirits dwindling not at all, it was to see Jazz sitting on the front steps.
"I don't think you want to go in there," she informed him as he approached.
"Why not?"
She snickered. "Mom got the Fenton Goggles to work. They've spent the last thirty minutes trying to track down the source of all the ghost energy."
Danny sighed, then a thought occurred to him. What if they looked under his bed? "Uh, I'm just going to take the back way to my room then, and get rid of this stuff. Call me when they give up?"
"No problem." She stood to walk back in as Danny ducked around the side of the house to transform into his ghost form and fly up to his room. He peeked in through the window first; at their absence, he gave a sigh of relief and flew through the wall to dump his book bag on the floor and pull Pandora's Box from under the bed. He quickly ducked back out to head for the park.
It was pretty active for the hour, but with the bird's eye view accorded him by his altitude, Danny was able to spot a lonely little area right on the edge. He landed and changed back, then set box on the ground to examine it.
It really did seem to be just an ordinary box. Granted, it was a really pretty box, or would be if it weren't so beaten up. But just a box, nonetheless. He covered the cross with his hand; nothing happened. He peeked through the keyhole; only blackness met his gaze. The only odd thing happening, in fact, was the feeling of being stared at that had returned the second he landed. As he pulled his eye away, he thought he caught a flash of glowing amber, but he couldn't see it again.
"Okay," he said. Although it felt strange to be talking to a box, he knew this wasn't just a box. No matter how ordinary it did or did not appear to be. "I'm here; I'm listening. If there's anything you want to say, now would be the time."
Nothing.
Danny sighed and started to pick the box up again.
My power dwindles in the light…
He yelped and jerked back. "So you are in there!" he exclaimed. He put a hand on the box again.
Of course, I'm here, Master. I'm always here. But the light makes me weak. Under your bed was nice and dark; I could act from there. Out here, I can only speak, and then only if you're in physical contact with my prison.
Behind the words lurked the strange whispers he usually heard. He dismissed them and focused on what the voice was actually saying. "What's your name? And why does your power only work in the dark?"
Master, I am Pandora, an innocent victim of the worst kind of treachery. I was killed in darkness; therefore, in darkness my power is at its peek. Especially at night.
Danny considered that for a few minutes. "So…you're not a bad ghost?"
I seek merely to right the wrongs of the world. Through you, I may accomplish my task. Whatever you wish, I will give to you.
"Heh, you sound like another ghost I know. Her wishes never out that great. But…well, I guess if I could have one thing…" He considered for a moment. Did he really trust this ghost? Of course, he did. Why wouldn't he? "I wish Paulina liked me."
Return me to my darkness and fear not my discovery. I can keep myself hidden in the dark. Tomorrow your desire will be reality.
Danny smiled and flew back home without waiting for Jazz's call. He didn't really believe that Pandora could make Paulina like him, but it was nice to dream.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I just want to say thank you to all of you who are bothering to read this thing. This is officially the most reviews I've gotten in this short amount of time, and I love you all for it. Ialso wanted to address a couple of you in response to those reviews. So:
Gamaboi427: I have never played Death Jr., although I considered renting it. I don't think my Pandora is the same as their's, though. Mine isn's even the real Pandora; she's just a chick who knew the Greek legend and decided to emulate it.
JNgirl: But Hope did give in. She said, "If you want me to be evil, then your wish is my command!"
Krin: -shifts uncomfortably- Tangents? No, don't point it out. If I'm doing something right, I don't want to know. Otherwise, I'll accidentally stop doing it. But when this fic is complete, will you tell me?