Chapter 2: Reunion
Danny and Jazz reached the Fenton household just as the streetlamps were about to turn on. They took off their helmets and quickly tidied their appearances.
"Hat hair," groaned Jazz. "always has been one of my worst enemies,"
"Better than mine," said Danny. "At least yours doesn't attempt to kill you."
He was about to go up the steps, but felt a hand pull him back.
Looking behind him in surprise, it was his sister, who had a crazed look of fear on her face.
"I just remembered!" she said. "We can't go this way! Let's go through the other way."
She attempted to pull him towards the back door.
"What's wrong?" he asked while being dragged, trying to free himself. "Seriously, if you're still worried about my eye, I have a great excuse for it...I can just say that while we were riding, there was this branch that was hanging a little too low, and -"
"No, I'm not worried about that!" she said in a panic. "I completely forgot...Mom and Dad...they installed another invention!"
"What's the worst that could happen?" asked Danny, literally prying off his sister's death grip. "It's not like anything bad might happen to me."
"No! Danny! Don't!"
"Relax," he said, nonchalantly, putting his foot up the first step.
Jazz put down her head and covered her ears. It was too late.
Suddenly, an alarm went off that blared throughout the whole neighboorhood. A voice accompanied the flashing lights and sirens.
"Warning...warning...ghost on premises...warning...warning...ghost on premises...this is not a drill..."
Before Danny could move backward off the step, he suddenly found himself surrounded by smoke. Then he felt himself being swung up from off the ground, trapped inside of a net.
Jack and Maddie Fenton burst out of the door while the smoke was still blanketing the area, and each raised an ectoplasmic gun at the capture in the net.
"FREEZE, GHOST!" yelled Jack Fenton, poised to fire, not knowing what was in the net because there was so much smoke.
"Don't shoot me!" said Danny, coughing through the smoke.
"Of course, that's what they always say," said Maddie, about to fire her gun.
"Dad!" screamed Jazz, running up through the smoke. "Let him out right now!"
"Are you kidding?" said Jack. "We've got a ghost trapped there in that net! Why should we let him out?"
The smoke cleared from the area as it revealed the one inside. "BECAUSE I'M NOT A GHOST!" yelled Danny, swinging upside down inside of the prison net.
But a voice in the back of his head added, "...Yet..."
"Oh, my goodness, Danny!" said Maddie, putting down her weapon. "Jack, get our son out of there!"
"Whoops," he said, putting down his own weapon and running towards Danny.
After they got him free, Jazz rounded on her mother while Jack apologized to his son.
"Sorry, Danny," he said, brushing dust off his son's shoulder.
"Ugh, I've had better days," said Danny. "What is this thing you've put up?"
"It's our patented Anti-Ghost Alarm!" said Jack, proudly. "It tells us exactly when a ghost is about to enter our property from the front door. Thanks to you, it looks like it works quite well."
"But also thanks to it," said Jazz, coming back, "not only did you give us a heart attack, but you almost fired a ray at Danny!"
"Besides," said Danny. "We've got the Ghost Shield. Why do we need an alarm system! How many barriers of defense does one need!"
"But this is State-of-the-Art technology!" said Maddie. She pointed to a newly installed computer that pulled out of the front door. "A hidden motion detector senses ghostly presence outside the front door, thus triggering the alarm. I still don't know why it reacted when Danny walked up towards the front door..."
Danny and Jazz gulped together.
"Oh, don't sweat it, son," said Jack. "There's still a few kinks to work out, and soon, it should be perfectly fine for weekly use! Sorry about that attack, still."
"Thanks," said Danny, rubbing his head and walking through the front door. It looked like he had to enter the house through the back porch from now on...
"What happened to your eye, Danny?" asked Maddie, now staring at him with motherly concern. "Did you get in a fight?"
"No," said Jazz quickly. "While we were riding home, this big branch that was hanging too low whipped into Danny's eye."
An uneasy moment of silence blanketed the room as the parents looked at each other.
Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, one of them spoke.
"Sounds reasonable," said Jack, shrugging.
Danny and Jazz sighed relief.
"Do you want something for your eye?" asked Maddie as Danny walked past her.
"No, I'll get some ice in the kitchen," said Danny
"Oh, yeah, dinner's on the counter, Danny!" yelled Maddie after him. "We heated it up for you!"
"Thanks, Mom," he yelled.
Danny took off for the kitchen. He was looking forward to eating that spaghetti he was told about.
But first things were first. He went to a drawer and took out a sandwich bag. Filling it with ice and covering it with a paper towel, he placed it over his swelling eye.
He saw a covered bowl on the counter. His stomach urging him to gorge on the pasta, he removed the lid.
The aroma of steaming marinara sauce reached his nose. It smelled delicious. He went to the drawer to grab a fork, thinking about nothing but eating that first steaming bite of pasta. He scooped up a helping and plopped it on a plate.
It was oddly glowing for some reason, but that didn't seem to matter. Danny stuck his fork into the pile...
The spaghetti screamed. "OUCH!"
Danny froze in terror.
"You dare stick a fork in me!" yelled the steaming pile of spaghetti. "Then take this!"
"GAH!" Danny yelled, as the pile of pasta suddenly grew a face and lunged at his face. Red marinara sauce splattered everywhere as Danny struggled to rip it off, completely forgetting about his black eye. He was more concerned with breathing.
"Take my carbohydrates of doom!" screamed the spaghetti as it attempted to wrap itself around Danny's neck.
"Someone please..." yelled Danny, trying to gulp air. "GET THIS OFF OF ME!"
"Danny!" yelled Jazz. She ran towards him and pulled him free from the killer food, tomato sauce splattering all over the kitchen walls.
The pile of spaghetti lay where it fell, and attempted to lunge towards Danny again.
Jazz, thinking ahead, whipped out the Fenton thermos and sucked the pasta inside.
"Oh, boy," said Danny, trying to catch his breath, and covered in sauce. "What was that?"
"Was your dinner," said Jazz, shutting the thermos. "Mom and Dad must have heated it inside that Fenton microwave again."
"You mean the one that they cooked hot dogs with and the food suddenly became evil from the heating ghost rays?"
"Yep," she said, helping him up. "Same one."
"Great," said Danny, walking with his sister. "I've suddenly lost my appetite for spaghetti. Maybe I'd better just eat a TV dinner..."
Jazz and Danny laughed together as they went upstairs to their rooms to change out of their sauce-stained clothes.
"Hey, what's this mess in the kitchen?" Maddie asked herself as she came into the room some time later. But judging by the stains, it became apparent.
"JACK!" she yelled.
"What is it?" he yelled back.
"You didn't by any chance use the Fenton microwave again to heat the leftovers, did you?"
"Uhh..." he said, uneasiness on his face. "...s-sorry about that, too."
Maddie put her hand on her forehead and proceded to clean the mess up.
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Danny was halfway through his (regularly) microwaved chicken pieces and with another bag of ice over his eye when Jazz asked him a question.
"So, Danny," she said, "Are you ever going to do something about this?"
"About what?" asked Danny, between bites of ketchup-covered french fries.
"About Desiree, I mean," she said. "What do you do with ghosts you capture?"
"Oh," he said, getting up from the table. "Let me show you."
He led his sister down into the basement, the thermos containing the wishing ghost in his hand. He went towards the Fenton portal and opened up the port for the thermos attachment. Removing a plastic cover from a red button, he pushed it, and the Fenton portal opened. Turning the thermos upside down and placing it inside the cylindrical hole, he activated the computer to drain the contents of the thermos to go back into the ghost zone.
A very glum-looking Desiree appeared in the portal as they watched her spirit being forced back into the place she had previously escaped.
"Wow," said Jazz. "That's all?"
"Yes," said Danny, "until the next time she escapes."
"When will that be?"
"I don't know," he said, taking the empty thermos out of the port. "With these ghosts, anything is possible."
Then he put the thermos with the evil spaghetti in the attachment and they watched it disappear into the ghost zone. Jazz had to laugh. By watching her brother putting evil food into the ghost realm, anything was possible.
And with Danny taking the second empty thermos in hand, they headed back up the steps.
"So what are you going to do for the rest of the night, Danny?" she asked.
"I don't know," he replied. "But Mom and Dad have been bugging me to clean my room for a while. I'll do that, and maybe I should start working on Lancer's poetry assignment for the weekend."
"But you fall asleep doing that stuff!" she exclaimed, surprised her brother would even think of doing that.
"Exactly. I'll just start working on it, and soon enough, I'll fall asleep, and when I wake up some of my work will be done. It'll be like killing two birds with one stone, or in my case, trapping two ghosts in the Fenton thermos at the same time."
Jazz laughed again as they closed the door behind them.
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Meanwhile, in the ghost zone, Desiree was still upset that she was defeated by Danny Phantom once again.
"Oh, until I get my hands on that kid," she said. "Oh, curse these powers of mine!"
She suddenly felt depressed.
"Cheer up, Desiree," said a voice behind her.
The harem ghost turned around. A group of ghosts was behind her, all previously shut in the realm by the adolescent half-ghost.
Among the group was Skulker, Ember, Johnny 13 with Kitty, the Box Ghost, and Technus. They were all bunched together, but as she looked at their expressions, they all had slight smiles on thier faces.
"Hi," she said to the large gathering. "But why should I cheer up? I was just shoved back into the ghost zone by that kid again."
"We all feel sympathy for you," said Skulker. "But seriously, cheer up!"
"Why do you keep saying that?" she asked, a little irritated now.
"Because we have a surprise for you," said the ghost hunter. "Everyone! Move out of the way!"
The entourage moved so that Desiree could see the surprise among them.
All that Desiree saw was another ghost...but then she took a closer look...her expression changed as she saw that the other ghost was dressed like...herself...
"Oh, no! It can't be!" she said in a half-surprised, half-joyous tone. "Is it...really you?"
"We found her floating around," said Skulker, "and she looked like you...and we knew..."
The ghost came out of the shadows so that Desiree could see her face clearly. When her face came into view, memories of Desiree's own past life came back to her...the personal life she had before she became the wish-granting ghost...the life she had left behind when she was banished from her home...
"Desiree..." said the other ghost, about to cry. "It has been...so long..."
"It is you!" said Desiree, flying up to her. "Oh my goodness...Renee...I thought...we'd never see each other again..."
Tears filled Desiree's eyes as she hugged her long-lost sister.
"Even in death, I knew we could never be apart, even if I was banished from the kingdom long ago...how was I supposed to know that that king had a wife?"
"That broke my heart, knowing I could never see my sister again," said Renee. "That was unfair for what they did to you. It was unfair for what that did to me. I fell into depression, knowing I could only see my sister in my dreams..."
"I, too," said Desiree.
"But now we're together again!" said Renee. "Thank you, all of you, for reuniting me with my sister."
The group smiled.
"So now they're together," said Kitty.
"Yeah, together, trapped in this ghost zone!" said Desiree.
"That's what this place is? A ghost zone? Who put you all in here, anyway?" asked Renee.
"He is a half-ghost brat named Danny Phantom," said Ember. "He's a ghost who uses his ghost powers for 'good.' He's been on our nerves ever since he existed."
"Half-ghost?" asked Renee. "So he's a regular human who transforms into some hero, fighting off ghosts, and putting them back here?"
The whole group nodded.
"So this is what happened?" asked Renee, her hands glowing the same red tinge as her sister. "You fought against him, and you lost because he beat you up?"
Desiree nodded, but didn't mention the other facts...
"No one harms my sister!" she said. "OK, I'm convinced. This Danny Phantom is trouble. You were all nice enough to reunite me with my sister, so it's fair that I help you destroy this character."
"One problem," said Desiree. "We need to escape this zone so we can even touch him!"
"Can't you do anything?" asked Renee, turning to Technus.
"Don't ask me," he said. "I may be powerful enough to manipulate electronics, but I can't do anything to activate the Fenton portal from here."
"Then how do we get out of here?" said Renee.
Just then, a door opened out of nowhere, revealing the Fenton lab.
Surprised, realizing the chance of that happening was one-in-a-million, the eight ghosts turned invisible and flew out of the ghost zone.
But they had to see what was responsible. A football was there, pressed down on the red button that a certain someone had forgotten to cover.
Danny came from out of the ceiling and picked it up, unaware that there were eyes watching him.
"Ugh...me and my intangible powers," he said to himself. "I really have to be careful with this." He once again put his hand to his eye, the searing pain coming once again.
Suddenly he felt really cold and started shivering. A whisp of ectoplasmic blue smoke, his ghost sense, emerged from his mouth, signifying a ghost was near...
The invisible group suddenly felt cold themselves.
"Damn!" said Skulker quietly. "Our ghostly forms are giving us away!"
Danny suddenly realized that the football had landed on the lock for the Fenton portal.
"Oh man," he said. "Something must have escaped! I'm going ghost!"
Two blue rings appeared around his body, and as they travelled in opposite directions vertically, his regular clothing changed into the familiar black and silver body suit, and his hair and eyes also changed color.
"All right," he said, flying around the room, "where are you?"
The group did their best to avoid him as he zigzagged in all directions, trying to locate the escapees. His ghost sense was going off like crazy. He was getting close...
"We can't do this forever," said Johnny 13, "one of us has to act as decoy!"
"But whom?" asked Desiree.
All eyes turned on one person. It was a pretty unanimous decision.
"But I don't want to go!" said the chosen decoy.
"Too bad!" said Desiree, knocking the Box Ghost out of the group.
"AHH!" he screamed. As he was flying, he lost his concentration of invisibilty, and appeared for Danny to see as he plummeted into a pile of boxes.
"There you are!" said Danny, smiling.
"Uhh..." said the bewildered spirit, looking lost. But then he saw where he had landed, and suddenly became very excited. "BEWARE! I am the Box Ghost!" He levitated the boxes and flung them at Danny.
"Same old, same old," said Danny, going intangible and watching the empty boxes pass through him. Then he charged up an ectoplasmic blast which he then fired into the Box Ghost.
In what appeared to be the shortest fight ever, Danny sealed him quickly inside the Fenton thermos and walked to put him back into the ghost zone, changing back into Danny Fenton as he did so.
Before Danny could sense them as well, the remaining seven escaped the building through the roof to go to a location far away so that Danny could not sense them.
"So that's Danny Phantom," said Renee. "Quite a remarkable being, even if he had one working eye."
"Yes, that's him," said Desiree. "So, what's the plan? In fact, you never told us your powers."
Renee, smiling, whispered a plan to the group.
The group nodded in approval. This plan seemed foolproof.
"But first things first," said Renee. "Can you do something for me, sister?" She whispered something else in Desiree's ear.
Desiree smiled. Her hands glowed red and her voice became the same ethereal one whenever she was about to speak her well-known line.
"So you have wished it, and so shall it be!"
"Perfect," said the ghostly sister of Desiree. "Now that that has been settled, why don't we have a little fun with this Danny Phantom?"
End Chapter 2
What are they up to? And what is this new ghost's hidden power? Once again, please send a review for the story to continue!