Chapter 1:
Coughing fit
Danny heard the shrill scream from behind him, and just a little to his right. It was followed by an even more shrill shriek, one that obviously belonged to someone else.Heturned quickly on his heel--quite the feat considering the fact that he was hovering above the ground--and sped off in the direction of the two screams. He didn't have far to travel.
Ahead of himwas a large shape, colored more of an indigo than a purple. The shape was all fur and feathers, with two immense wings folded above its long, twisty tail, which was tufted at the tip with a clump of furry violet.
The creature's back was turned, so those were the only recognizable body parts. Cowering against a large oak tree were two young hazel-eyed and freckled children. The oldest, a brown-haired girl, looked to be about ten or so. The younger blonde boy, who was probably a younger brother of the girl, was about seven. It was clear that it was they who had screamed.
The winged ghost raised its four-clawed paw, each talon as long as a butter knife, and swiped at the children.
Danny moved fast. He dove towards the children with all the speed of one hundred and twelve miles per hour, taking one with each arm and pulling them away, making them intangible as he did so.
Danny pulled up from the dive to hang a dozen feet in the air, still holding the siblings. They had been saved from any harm. However, the thin wispy tail that Danny's legs sometimes blended into--particularly when he was traveling at high speeds--had been nicked by a razor sharp claw.
Danny cursed and surveyed the damage. The top and part of the outside of his white boot was torn open, and his left foot bore a long, thin cut. Thankfully, though, it wasn't bleeding badly--hardly at all, in fact. It just hurt, really, in the stinging way a paper cut did.
Danny landed and gently set the children down upon the sidewalk, favoring his left foot slightly.
"You might want to head home," he advised the pair. They stared dumbly for a few minutes, until the older sister recovered, mumbled something indistinguishable, and grabbed her brother's arm to dash off.
"Well, then. It's just you and me now, you big...cat-bird-ghost, uh, thing," Danny addressed the creature, unsure of what to name it.
Looking at it face-on, now, the creature had a lethal-looking beak under piercing red eyes set in a face masked with feathers. In fact, most of its neck and front were dressed in purple down. Long pinions were evident in the spread wings, with an impressive wingspan of nearlythirty feet. The catlike body from the shoulders down was cloaked in richly purple fur. Razor-clawed hind feet that resembled a purple lion's raked at the ground, leaving sharp ruts in the grass, whilefurred forelegs bore talons closely resembling that of an eagle's. Danny didn't have to look hard to know how sharp those were; the pain in his foot was enough.
In short, it was a griffin; the mythological combination of lion and eagle embodied in ghost form.
It opened wide its beak to let out a challenging cry, halfway between a predatory felineroar and the piercing shriek of a diving falcon.
"What a lovely singing voice you must have," Danny commented. He fired a bright green ecto-blast from his hand, watching asit collided with the griffin's chest and knocked it beak over tail.
"This might be easier than I thought," the ghost-boy smiled. The griffin opened its beak yet again, but this time choseto retaliate with a bright blue blast of fire. Danny quickly dodged, but a few of his hairs became singed in the process.
"Or not." Danny raised his voice to reprimand his adversary, "Hey, don't you know it's dragons that're supposed to breathe fire?"
The griffin decided to ignore him and insteadsent another stream of fire his way. This time Danny successfully managed to completely evade it. Instead, the flames engulfed a tree behind him and began dancing as they swallowed leaves, branches, and the twiggy remains of an old bird nest.
Danny glanced behind him at the burning tree.
"All right, I guess I'd better end this before someone gets hurt!"
The ghost boy reached behind his back to pull out the Fenton Thermos. Quickly distracting the griffin with an ecto-blast to the wing, he snapped the lid off with a quick flick of the wrist and sucked the squawkingghost up into the murky depths of the device.
Screwing the lid back on, he landed, wincing as he put weight on his injured foot. Before he could find an abandoned spot to transform back to normal, a call from behind startled him.
"E-excuse me, Mr. Phantom?"
Danny turned at the sound of his self-appointed surname.
"Uh, yeah?"
A woman was standing there. Shehad the samestraw-coloredhair as the young boy that Danny had saved. That same boy, in fact, was standing shyly beside her, clutching her hand. The girl was beside her as well, although she had the dignity of not hanging onto her mother for assurance.
"I'd like to say--well--thank you, for saving Michael and Serena here," she said, her voice rich in grateful emotion. "I- well, if it hadn't been for you, they wouldn't be here right now, and, well, I'd like to say that you're not as bad as ghosts come, for however much that means to you." The woman looked to her children, who took the hint.
Serena scuffed her foot on the ground and mumbled a shy but polite thank-you. Michael actually met Danny's green eyes and stuttered a nervous, but heart-felt, "Th-thank you v-very much, M-M-Mister Phantom!" in his small and childish voice.
Danny was slightly taken aback by this. All anyone had ever given him before while he was in ghost mode was a scream (while running in the opposite direction) or a blast from a bazooka. It hit him--really hit him--that he was no longer the villain in the eyes of all ofAmity Park. He was the good guy now, the brave hero, and it took a shy, stuttered sentence from a little kid half his age to make him realize it.
Smiling inside, Danny regained his composure and gave the best reply he could.
"It means a lot to me. Really. But, please, call me Danny, okay?"
With that, he took off, turning to salute the three in farewell, then sped off to transform back into Danny Fenton and meet up with Tucker and Sam.
"You will remember my--cough--n-na--cough, cough..." the blue-haired ghost elapsed into a coughing fit, removing her hands fromher pinkguitar to cough into them.
"Ember! Are you alright?" the other ghost cried, with something reminiscent of concernin hisvoice. He was Ember's producer, a manager of sorts. He was a relativelyshort, colorless ghost, and wore something of a dark gray suit with a lighter tie. Gray eyes were obscured behind the thick black rims of glasses. He carried a clipboard under one arm, and clutched a black ball-point pen with his other hand.
Floating in front of the camera, he shouted at the camera ghost with a red hat and a green complexion.
"Stop the film! Cut! Cut! I said stop!"
"Jeez, you don't need to yell!" the camera ghost complained, rubbing a finger in his ear. "I think you just broke my eardrums."
"Yeah? Well, this isn't about you! It's about Ember. The only reason you have your job is because of Ember. This is Ember's music video, not yours, and if Ember wants it to be stopped, you stop. You understand?" the producer spat threateningly.
"Y-yes, Mr. Mortis!"
"Yeah?" Ember asked her producer. "Well, Ember didn't say stop, did she?" When she went without an answer, the musician pressed the question. "Did she?"
"N-no, Ms. McLean!"
"Well, then keep g-g-go- Ahchoo!" Ember sneezed. She sniffed wearily, sounding slightly, but unmistakably, nasally.
"Oh, what dipstick had the idea of a music video anyway?" she spat angrily. The manager, camera ghost, and the rest of the staff in the room knew the tone in her voice; no one really dared to answer. "Well? Whose idea was it?"
"Y-yours, Ms. McLean!" the manager stammered, hiding behind his clipboard.
Ember brought her guitar down upon the clipboard, breaking it in two with one blow. Mr. Mortis flinched, gritted his teeth,and held up the pen in defense, despite the fact that the protection it offered was laughable.
Ember, however, had dropped the guitar. She placed a hand on her forehead; was it just her, or had the room started spinning? She coughed yet again, feeling very faint all of a sudden, as if she were dehydrated on a very hot day. Her green eyes flickedshut, andshe fell to the floor in unconsciousness.
Everyone in the now strangely quiet studio stared. Ghosts simply couldn't faint; it was impossible. But there was Ember, on the ground, with no explanation.
A slight cough broke through the deadly silence. The camera ghost with the red cap was coughing, ever so quietly, but coughing sure enough.
That was another thing, too. Ghosts couldn't cough.
-E.P.