Yesterday I took a look at the last chapter, read the update promise, looked at some of my reviews, and was filled with a deep sense of shame. I picked up my notebook, saw the three sorry little pages I'd written, and proceeded to finish writing the chapter. Shame on me. Deep shame, and a thousand apologies.
So, slap on the wrist to me. I don't really have a good excuse--I just didn't feel like it. I've learned my lesson: no more update promises.
One promise, however, that I can make and will keep is that I will not abandon this story. It may take me ten years to write (heaven above, I hope not), but it shall be finished. As lazy as I am, I have been really enjoying writing it. And of course the reviews are lovely :).
Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom. I'd shout scandal and run about in mock anger, but it's honestly probably a good thing. If I was in charge there'd be about one new episode per year. That, and an angry mob would probably kill me. I quite like living, so I guess this one belongs to Butch Hartman.
Enjoy.
"Oh," said Tucker, staring at the be-plumed villain heading their way, "I guess Danny was telling the truth."
"Danny Phantom," the voice boomed again. "Show yourself!"
As one, Sam and Tucker stared at Lord-Spook-A-Lot, looked at each other, then glanced at Danny. As they watched, he slid down his locker with an agonizing groan, hit the ground, and seemed to crumple in on himself.
"Then again," said Tucker, staring down at Danny's prone figure, "I don't think that knowing the bad guy has a big hat is going to ultimately help us."
Sam was already crouching at Danny's side, but she spared a glance from her worried perusal of Danny's face to glare at Tucker. "Not helping," she hissed angrily, "What're we going to do?"
Around them the hall had burst into screams, students running back and forth as several collided rather painfully. But as chaotic as the scene was, it felt rather rehearsed. The students at Casper High were far too used to ghostly invasions to bother screaming with as much volume as they used to.
Lord-Spook-A-Lot didn't notice. He was rather pleased.
Paulina dashed by, moaning dramatically, and he grabbed her arm. "Lady," he said, and Sam gnashed her teeth, "Pray tell, where might I find Danny Phantom?"
"AAA!" she screamed. "A GHOST!" The student body, as a general rule, ignored her, quite aware that there was, in fact, a ghost in their midst.
"Yes," Lord-Spook-A-Lot replied, looking perturbed. "That is correct. Now, Danny Pha—"
"AAA!" she screamed again, and vaguely tried to pull out of his grasp. "Save me! Save me!"
"Gentlewoman, I mean you no—"
"Save me!"
"Really, that's quite—"
"Where are you Danny Phantom?" Sam, for the first and last time that day, found perverse pleasure in the fact that Danny Fenton was going nowhere.
"That's what I was—"
"Woe is me!"
"Now, really, I—"
"AAA!"
"THAT. IS. ENOUGH!" He finally roared, everything from the frills on his pantaloons to the enormous feather on his hat bursting into flames.
The entire hall froze.
He let Paulina go with a sharp jerk and she collided with Dash. She straightened and inspected her shirt. "Eewww, gross. He got, like, ghost spit on me."
Lord-Spook-A-Lot's eyebrows smoldered and burst into flames.
"QUIET!" he bellowed, and Paulina nearly fainted into Dash's arms. "DANNY PHANTOM! WHERE IS HE?"
Nobody moved.
"FINE. THE FENTON BOY, THEN. WHERE IS HE? HE MUST BE KILLED AS WELL!" he tried again.
Only this time, the entire hall full of students shifted a little to gaze unwittingly at the trio of well-known losers.
Tucker stared in horror, petrified. Sam, still kneeling at Danny's side, grasped frantically at some sort of escape plan. Her eyes darted around the hall and she spotted Danny's locker, the door still swinging on its hinges. In the next second she had grabbed the front of Danny's shirt and thrown him bodily into his locker. She slammed the door shut.
Lord-Spook-A-Lot, while he hadn't noticed the gaze shifting in the student body, couldn't but hear the loud slam in the eerily quiet hall. He stared at Tucker and Sam menacingly and seemed to grow larger.
Tucker finally un-froze. "Oh wow, Sam," he said, voice absurdly loud and monotonous. "Was your locker not shutting properly again?"
"Yeah," she replied, matching his volume, as she leaned stiffly on the locker door. "Sometimes I just have to slam it to get it to stay closed."
Lord-Spook-A-Lot narrowed his eyes suspiciously. Tucker and Sam stared at random points on the wall and the ceiling as though they hadn't even noticed the addition of a ghostly duke to the Casper High student body. He floated over, students parting like the red sea as they pressed themselves against the walls. He finally stopped, looming over Sam and Tucker. They dragged their eyes to look up at Lord-Spook-A-Lot.
Their classmates watched with bated breath. What horror was he going to visit upon them?
Lord-Spook-A-Lot leaned in until he was inches away from Sam's face. And then, he sniffed.
Sam glanced at Tucker, faces identical expressions of disbelief. It wasn't even an impressive sniff. No horror movie/Lord of the Ring type evil and ominous "I'm coming for you" heavy breathing. Sam sighed. Go figure—she goes up against the most ridiculous ghost they'd ever seen and he sniffs at her. Disdainfully.
Sam didn't know whether to laugh or scream.
Lord-Spook-A-Lot turned to Tucker who squashed himself up against the lockers, but he loomed closer and closer, little sniffs coming thick and fast. Suddenly, he smiled. It was undeniably evil.
Not the most reassuring thing Tucker had ever seen centimeters from his face, coupled with the still cheerily burning eyebrows.
"I got him," said the ghost with a knowing leer. "Didn't I?"
Tucker and Sam looked at each other and were afraid they knew exactly what he was talking about.
"I smell it," he said, eyes glinting triumphantly. "That boy's blood—unmistakable."
He spoke softly, but the entire hall, listening in fascinated horror, heard him anyways. Blood? Whose? Surely not that loser kid.
Lord-Spook-A-Lot's smile disappeared. "But what I want to know is WHERE IS HE!"
Tucker's hands shot to his ears. "Awww, man! Did you have to do that right in my ear? That's just rude."
Lord-Spook-A-Lot seemed to wilt. "Oh," he said, looking abashed. "Dreadfully sorry. A thousand apologies," he added with a slight bow, still looking ashamed. "I commit myself to a duel of hon—"
A muffled, slightly echoed groan cut him off. He whirled on Sam and the oddly noisy locker she was desperately and ineffectually crushing in the hopes that it would muffle any more additional sounds. Lord-Spook-A-Lot seemed to swell.
Eyes wide, Sam grabbed her stomach and leaned over dramatically. "Ooh," she groaned loudly, peaking up at the incensed ghost through her bangs. "I'm really hungry. Stomachs make the weirdest sounds when…well…just sometimes." She continued holding her stomach, but smiled up at Lord-Spook-A-Lot hopefully, teeth bared in a toothy, serial-killer type smile.
If Tucker hadn't known specifically that she was trying to smile convincingly at the over-bearing ghost, he would've sworn she was about to pull out a knife and murder them all.
Lord-Spook-A-Lot continued glaring suspiciously, and the flames around him grew.
"Do. Not. Lie to me. I can SMELL HIM, YOU FOOLISH CHILD! WHERE IS HE?"
Sam continued smiling, but her eyes darted over to Tucker in an "I'm out of ideas" plea. He stared back and tried to convey his own desperate lack of escape plans.
Her face barely changed, but her eyebrows dipped down so far that he realized, with a growing sense of fear, that if Lord-Spook-A-Lot didn't kill him, Sam would.
He looked down at his hands and scraped his brain frantically for ide—wait. His hands. The hand that grabbed Danny. The hand that was now covered with…
"BLOOD!" shouted Tucker, thrusting his hand into Lord-Spook-A-Lot's face. The shocked ghost jumped backwards and a sophomore girl behind him nearly became a smear on the wall.
"HERE!" shouted Tucker again, nearly hysterical as he waved his hand back and forth. "Here! Look! See? It's because I got some of his blood on my hand earlier!"
The hall burst into murmurs of horror, disgust, and, in most cases, disbelief. Tucker blinked and looked around, startled. He'd forgotten they had an audience.
And audience, mind you, that Danny probably didn't want knowing he was the ghost kid.
Tucker tried to hide his blood-smeared hand as though it would somehow make the suspicious mumbling go away, but Lord-Spook-A-Lot grabbed his wrist. Tucker felt the ice-cold sensation run through his arm as the ghost inspected his hand skeptically, at last sniffing once again. He relaxed his hold, and Tucker let out a sigh of relief.
He suddenly found himself six feet off the floor, his shirt clutched tightly in the balled fist of Lord-Spook-A-Lot. So this is what it felt like to be Danny.
Tucker found he didn't like it all that much.
"WHERE IS HE!" roared the outraged ghost as he shook Tucker by the collar. "TELL ME, YOU INSOLENT BOY!"
Tucker tried to speak, but choked as the collar tightened around his throat. He let out a strangled "Ga-cKlc!" and pointed down the hall toward the nurse's office.
"YOU TRY MY PATIENCE, BOY! TELL ME!" He shook Tucker harder, who had started to turn blue.
"He can't breathe, you moron!" someone shouted.
Lord-Spook-A-Lot whipped around, dropping Tucker in the process as he searched the hall for someone else to shake. Tucker lay sprawled on the ground, breathing hard and coughing, and Sam would have run to his side if it hadn't meant leaving her post in front of Danny's locker.
Lord-Spook-A-Lot turned back angrily, unable to find and punish the rude perpetrator. Before he could grab Tucker and inadvertently kill him, the techno geek in question shouted through gasps of air, "He went…"—gasp—"To the nurse!"
The ghostly fiend stopped his ominous approach toward Tucker and slowly straightened, feathered hat brushing the ceiling. He seemed to ponder this new statement for a moment. "Ah," he said at last, "he seeks medical aid. It will not help him. My righteous anger is not so easily assuaged."
Someone snickered softly, but Tucker and Sam exchanged worried glances. "Righteous anger," as dumb as it sounded, was probably not a good sign if Danny's inability to actually stand straight was any indication.
The locker groaned as if in agreement.
"So!" shouted Tucker, jumping to his feet as Lord-Spook-A-Lot turned a suspicious gaze toward Sam. "I'll show you the way to the nurse! Follow me!" He stood expectantly, poised to sprint down the hall. But Lord-Spook-A-Lot had already turned toward Sam.
They were going to die.
Or rather, Danny was.
He puffed up his chest as Sam glared defiantly, when, to the watching students' surprise, he dipped into a low bow, sweeping the hat off his head and nearly taking out a clump of freshmen who dove for cover as the gaudy feather zipped past.
"Apologies, my Lady," he straightened and turned to follow Tucker, but just as Sam was breathing again, he whirled and added, "And get a servant to bring you a meal. Tis' not wise to go on with such an empty stomach as yourself."
Sam stared dumbfounded as several students muffled their giggles. She rolled here eyes, and was about to turn to the locker-bound Danny when a nerd shouted, "Who are you?"
A knot of angry students were about to jump the unfortunate boy when Lord-Spook-A-Lot turned back, saving him from several kicks to the groin. "I," he stated, then noticed that he had an audience, and swelled majestically. "I, am Lord-Spook-A-Lot."
A silent second passed and it was obvious the dignified ghost was going to turn and stride dramatically down the hall when a nearly inaudible giggle broke the silence. The entire student body swiveled and stared at a girl who had desperately clamped her hands over her mouth and was shaking with badly disguised mirth. "He's," she said in explanation, "He's…" Giggle. "He's Lord…" Burst of laughter. "Sorry, I'm not laughing at you. Hahaha, actually I am…" More giggles. "He's Lord-SpoOok-A-Lot!" she finished, waving her hands dramatically, still giggling.
The hall was silent for another half second before someone else started to laugh.
"Well," came the unmistakable voice of Dash Baxter, "Now I'm really 'spooked-a-lot!'"
The jocks burst into hardy guffaws and the rest of the hall followed suit. Even Sam couldn't hold back a smirk.
Until she bothered looking at Lord-Spook-A-Lot.
She threw her hands over her ears a second before the ghost himself burst into flames, screaming, "YOU SHALL BE THE FIRST TO DIE!"
The hall emptied of noise immediately, and though it was clear from the way Lord-Spook-A-Lot's eyes swept the hall that he wasn't sure, exactly, who was going to be the first to die, Dash paled dramatically and hid behind Paulina, shaking violently.
"FINE!" he roared, and a deaf grandmother several miles away looked up from her knitting. "SO BE IT. I'VE DECIDED THAT YOU SHALL BE THE SECOND TO DIE!" He turned back to Tucker to find the techno geek staring at him incredulously. "WHAT'RE YOU STARING AT? TAKE ME TO THE HEALER!" Tucker jumped and did as he was told, half-running down the hall. Lord-Spook-A-Lot stopped one last time and threw a threatening "BEHAVE! OR YOU SHALL FACE MY WRATH!" over his shoulder before vanishing around the corner.
There was an undeniable temptation to laugh, but no one wanted to risk being the third person to die, and the hall remained quiet as they watched the flaming ghost's back finish disappearing.
The hall was chaos in seconds as students continued their rudely interrupted escape, and Sam breathed a quick sigh of relief before turning to Danny's locker.
"Danny," she said quietly into the slots on the locker door. There was no response. "Danny," she said more urgently. The locker remained quiet and she frantically grabbed the lock, ready to open it and carry off Danny herself.
Until, that is, staring at the lock in her hand, she came to the sudden and utterly horrifying realization that she had no idea what his locker combination was.
To my all my lovely reviewers: Thank you. Your reviews mean the world to me.
Ytak: I agree with your DS assessment (well gee, there's a big surprise :D ). DS is much more fun to write when they're running around going "I don't like like you!" and then sending each othe sly looks when the other isn't looking. That, and blatant DS-ness isn't actually in Danny Phantom, so who am I to mess with an awesome story?
Anomoly25: You chuckled when you first heard Lord-Spook-A-Lot's name? Yeah--me too. And then I found that I had to type it. Over. And over. And over again. Eventually I just copied and pasted it all over the place :). Good to hear they're IC. It always makes me feel good to hear that since it is, after all, what I'm going for :).
Mia The Storm Wolf: Actually, this story started out as a small blurb that boiled down to Danny being delusional in front of the majority of the school. Then of course I had to figure out why exactly he was delusional in front of the entire school...and it just went from there. Glad to see I'm not the only one really enjoying this :).
Lateraina Wolf: Your reviews rock my world. As do your stories. And...insert evil laughter here...I hope you enjoyed this chapter's cliffhanger. Mwahahahaha.
emera-fire22: I'd say sorry for making you feel sick, but your review made me too happy. It's great knowing that I was able to convey his sickness that well. Thanks!
Basser: Your review made me laugh. Just thought you ought to know :).
Rizzle: Thanks for such a great review. Could you let me know how they're being OC? I'd change it myself, but I wrote it trying to make them as IC as possible and am a little blind to my own writing, if that makes sense. And really, what's the point of a lovely chapter if you can't throw in a cliffhanger at the end? Keeps 'em interested... :)
Sila Ninque: Monty Python rocks. So that comment means a lot to me. Oh, and don't worry. Mr. Lancer shall be making a reappearance soon...
Thanks again! And I shall update when...well...when I update!