CHAPTER 15

Jack Fenton stared at the exam, whimpering at the grade. "I knew I should have studied more," he whispered. The large, red numbers were circled in more red, a fifty-three. An F, his parents were going to kill him as soon as they found out.

A girl behind him chatted to her friends, "It really wasn't that hard; I hardly studied at all! Now my English exam, that was hard!..."

He quit listening and stared in despair at his test.

Ian looked up at the first knock and then stopped his movement in hopes that his visitor would move on. They knocked again and again, and just as he was about to phase through the floor to get away, a voice called out.

"IAN! It's me…now open the damn door or I'm coming in!"

He sighed and flew to the door, unlocking it and twisting the knob just as Annie phased through the wall. "Well…why are you here?"

Annie sighed and dropped to the floor, "Vlad's moving the training grounds to Wisconsin…my favorite state in the whole USA! I heard that everyone who hasn't been initiated so far is going to be cut from the program."

"It's true…but that's good," the short red-head sighed, "Less people who have their lives permanently altered."

"Yeah…"Annie sighed, "So how's your personal training going?"

"Good…but it's hard, oh yeah! And there's one thing I wanted to show you, something I learned from Plasmius personally…it's called a sigma tap. Get up and transform." They both rose into their ghost forms and Ian, for the first time ever, went into ghost mode in front of his past student. His long, red hair was now green, and his eyes a fierce magenta. "Now…meditate."

Annie sighed but followed the instructions, clearing her head of all thoughts except Ian's voice. "Look into your veins and see all your blood, your heart, your lungs and organs. Now…starting with your heart, picture your blood turning black, and that ink is going and transforming all of your blood to black. Now all of your organs are turning black, everything is black.

"Concentrate. The black is oil, starting with your heart, picture it all going up in flame, your powers are at a peak. Everything is coming out!"

Annie opened her eyes just as Ian shouted for her not to; a bolt of green followed her gaze, and Ian's bed burst into flame.

"Oh crud."

Together, the two halfas destroyed the evidence of the burn markings, each throwing bolts of flaming ectoplasm onto the sheets. Luckily, there was a servant passing by with fresh laundry, and they stolea set of sheetsoff of her cart without her noticing.

Ian was clueless as to making the bed, so Annie was forced to tuck corners and fold over covers so that Ian could mess it up again and make it look normal. Vlad would never know.

"He wouldn't want me teaching you that," the redhead sighed after the fiasco was over, "he said that only three people other than him knew how to do the sigma tap. I guess it takes more control than power to master it."

"So…three…four…and you make five. Five people know about it. Vlad, you, Hugh…that leaves Danny Phantom and one other."

"Yeah, but who's he?"

Hugh tapped his foot impatiently as he stood outside the private plane; Annie was late, and he wanted to leave this place. Something about his father always made him nervous, trapped, and when he flew, that feeling went away.

His pupil finally appeared from the closest door of the training facility, and he sighed in relief, at the same time climbing into the cockpit and starting the engine.

"What are you doing? I'm not missing Cranfest this year!" Annie huffed as she threw her luggage into the passenger compartment and pulled out an I-pod. "And now where exactly are we headed?"

"Home," Hugh sighed and closed the plane door, climbed back into his, and prepared to take off from the runway. "I love Wisconsin; the huge lakes, dense forests, and best of all…the cheese!"

Annie climbed into the copilot seat and fastened her belt, "So…are you any good at flying this thing?" but Hugh was concentrating on getting the plane off the ground and paid her no attention. "Alrighty then."

The plane began to pick up speed, and both the passengers were pushed to the back of their seats. The nose rose as the greenery went speeding by, and slowly they rose into the air, a silver bird in a blue sky.

Hugh was yawning in an effort to make his ears stop buzzing, but this was Annie's first time in a plane. She was gripping the seats and leaving small dents where her nails cut into the leather.

"Don't scratch the seats," Hugh said as he started to relax, then pulled the plane up further into the atmosphere. "Just look outside and be amazed."

Annie peered out and then gasped in surprise; they were rising in a large spiral, and the training grounds looked as small as a matchbox car. They started to penetrate the clouds, wisps of fog flew by the two halfas, but only one was already lost in her dreams.

"Okay…when I said stare out the window, I didn't mean as if you could fly…actually, I'm going to circle for about ten minutes…go take a fly, but be back in seven minutes! I don't want to leave you behind, and I highly doubt you can catch up to 1 plane going over two-hundred miles per hour." Hugh pulled slightly at the controls and the plane began to circle steadily. "Seven minutes of cloud time."

Annie's eyes lit up as she transformed, now without her 'Ghost power, activate' cry, and flew intangibly into the atmosphere.

"Wow," it took half a minute for the Annie to slow down a bit. She flew up and down among the clouds, ignoring the bitter cold, concentrating instead on the strong sun on her back. "The sky is even more beautiful up close." She giggled and began to speed along the clouds, spotted the plane and tried to catch up to it, pouring Ian's sigma tap into the squiggle that her legs had become.

For one brief moment, Annie closed her eyes and concentrated on the black power, pouring all of her emotions into her speed. When she opened them again, her body was just behind the plane. With a little more energy, Annie turned invisible and flew just in front of the cockpit, noticing that Hugh had lost a lot of his interest in flying; instead, he was pulling out a CD book and selected one, placing it into a hidden radio in the floor.

Annie went intangible and drifted slowly back into her seat, then dropped the intangibility and remained staring at her instructor, who was now bobbing his head to Velvet Revolver's latest album.

"You done?" Annie whispered just as she became visible and her green sparks transformed her back into her normal self, Annie DuVale.

Hugh jumped and glared, "Wow…way to scare the piss outta me."

His pupil grinned maliciously and caught the beat of the song on the radio. "You should put in Homecoming."

He growled, "I left that CD back in Wisconsin; I just hope that you like rock and aren't going to try to sway me to becoming the next Eminem."

"I shan't…I like my rock, but no metal…it hurts my ears."

"That's good," Hugh sighed and settled back into the flying mantra and popping a new CD into the radio after the old one ended. Annie remained staring at the clouds and enjoying the music.

After about four hours, Hugh elbowed the dozing Annie and motioned for her to put her seatbelt on again; they were beginning the descent. As they emerged on the underside of the clouds, Annie gasped at the gigantic mansion underneath them. Hugh didn't care about the scenery; all he could think about was how he could land the plane in a way that wouldn't give his father a reason to rag on him.

The plane began to shake as they descended, coming up on the private landing strip. Annie gripped the seat again, trying not to puncture the leather again, but she closed her eyes and when they opened again, the plane had landed and was slowing.

"Well…that wasn't too hard," she said in a wobbly voice, then collapsed and fell through the floor of the plane in a dead faint.

Wow…talk about fear of flight! Please review if you love me!