Chapter 2

Back in Danny's room, the lights had been switched off. The only light came from the steady glow of the computer screen, on which two characters were frozen, no doubt paused mid-battle.
"How long've you two been here?" he asked, watching as Sam leant over and picked up her controller too, ready to resume gameplay.

"Twenty minutes," she replied in a bored drawl, "what kept you?" She crossed her arms, her expression typically stubborn.

"Mr. Lancer, who'd you think?" Danny groaned, "Always nagging, nagging, nagging, and everything I slip up, he starts over!" He looked to his two friends. "It's not fair. I'm Danny Phantom, I have responsibilities."

Sam didn't answer. For a moment, she swore her friend's eyes flashed green. His eyes were only green while calling on his ghost powers. Inwardly she shook the thought off. Trick of the light, she told herself.

"We know, man," Tucker replied, "you just gotta hope for better times. Winter break'll be starting soon; look forward to that."
Danny opened his mouth to reply, but before words could come out, an eerie blue vapour did. The three friends exchanged glances. That meant only one thing; a ghost was nearby.
Danny stood up rapidly, glad of the distraction, and strode over to the window. A confident smile curled his lips. He crawled onto the ledge, staring over into the night. He put one foot out. Then-

"I'm goin' ghost!" he yelled, and jumped. As he did, two rings flashed at his hands, rushing down to his feet, and the latex-clad Danny Phantom plunged into the sky. He veered up, and for a moment, he could see nothing. Then –

Rearing out of the darkness ahead, came a ghostly figure. A woman, dressed in rags and with a complexion that strongly resembled lumpy sea soup. She was garbed in tacky, pawn-shop gold jewellery; huge bangles, hoop earrings, and mountains of necklaces trawled around her scrawny neck. For a moment, Danny halted in mid-air. Then a familiar malicious expression stretched across her face, an expression Danny knew all too well, and he leaped into action. He threw himself forward, his hands already glowing with ecto-plasmic energy.

"This'll be easy enough," he muttered. After all, this was just some random rogue ghost that had wandered through Dad's portal; it wasn't Skulker, or anyone else out to get him.

He created a ball of energy in his palms, aimed, fired-

At least, he tried to.

Before the ball had even left his hands, a beam of energy had ripped through the air, straight at him. He didn't have time to dodge; it smashed into him with frightening ferocity, sending him crashing backwards into the sky. The woman's raucous laugher rang out in front of him; Danny clenched his teeth furiously.

"I don't have time for this!" he yelled, and hit back rapidly, firing one ghostly green beam after the other in quick succession. The woman seemed to evade each one miraculously; each one rocket straight towards her head, only to…miss.

Again, she attacked, but Danny was ready this time. He threw his body, so lithe and limber in latex, to one side, and it glided right past him. Danny grinned. "She may be fast, but I'm still faster." Her attack had been hesitant and sluggish; it almost reminded Danny of when he first got his ghost powers, over a year ago.

He fired more beams, flicking each one off the end of his index fingers like a gun-toting cowboy. Stiffling the urge to say 'yee-ha', he readied himself in mid-air. Again, they seemed to hit her – only for her to somehow avoid them at the very last second.

"Great Lord of the Flies!" Danny exclaimed – then slapped his hand to his face. "Thank you so much Mr. Lancer – not only do I have to spend every waking out-of-school moment with you, your stupid sayings are…catchy!" he muttered the last word with horror.

Danny didn't bother waiting for the ghost-woman to return an attack; he began gathering ecto-plasmic energy again, this time allowing the ball in his palm to grow, channelling all his strength into it. He bent his arm to throw, and-

Ka-PLOOO

-the ball exploded, hurling both Danny and the ghost woman at least a mile back.

Despite his surprise, Danny had enough intuition to turn intangible rather than crash into a large Amity Park billboard, and ploughed through the air unhurt. A moment later, he managed to right himself in midair. He was, thankfully, unhurt – if not frazzled. The ghost woman, Danny noticed, had not suffered a similar fate. The explosion had pushed her back with similar strength to Danny – but instead of straight into the sky, she had crashed into the pavement. A large, smoking crater lay where she fell, at least two or three metres deep.

Glass littered the streets; apparently the explosion had punched out most of the windows. He glanced around for Sam and Tucker, but there was no sign of them.

With a sigh of relief, Danny merged his legs into a ghostly, billowing tail and darted back to his window. After all, if they had been on street level when this had happened…

"Thermos?" he called, not unlike a doctor, and held his hand out at the window.

"Thermos!" Tucker replied, passing it over.

Danny gave the pair a thumbs up. As he glided away, Tucker and Sam exchanged glances.

"What was THAT?" Sam yelled, throwing her hands up in the air.

"What was what?" Tucker put down his Wireless Controller and looked at his friend. "So what if Danny's got a new move? Remember the Ghostly Wail? The Shield? This is Danny's… Demonic Bomb." Tucker burst out laughing, slapping Sam on the back. "Heh heh, that was a good one….wasn't it?"

Sam's face remained stony.

"Thing is, Tuck, those aren't exactly… town destroying. And that, may I point out, was an accident," she told him angrily. Tucker was about to retort when a familiar intangible head popped up through the ceiling.

"What was an accident?" Danny asked innocently, floating a few inches into the air before turning back into his boy-form. He dropped onto the carpet.

"Nothing," Sam and Tucker both replied in chorus. Danny's eyebrow raised, for a moment, then-

"Well, that's okay then! Let's play some videogames!"

Danny grabbed a controller, and leapt onto the computer chair.

Sam considered speaking up, but for now, she decided to let it drop. After all, Danny was tired. Stressed. She'd talk to him about it…tomorrow.

Next chapter up by the weekend!

Gwynevere, Horselvr4evr1, 23KILLERGRIM23, NeverLand5 and ShineForJesus; you're lucky, you get an early update! I won't normally be this quick, btw. And thanks for the comments! Means a lot to me!

KILLERGRIM23; Danny's fifteen in this story, but I didn't want to change the canon characters too much.