(Hiya. It's me again. Hope you have enjoyed my story so far. Here's the next chapter. This one's dedicated to my friends Dannyghost and Jin-chan. Thanks guys. Well, here we go!)
The Ghost and the Kitten
Chapter Three
Meeting
He flew slowly through the city looking for the usual band of misfit ghosts. It seemed like as soon as the demons had appeared, the ghosts stop coming around. Were they afraid? He'd have to go to the Ghost Zone later and find out more. It was almost sunrise, usually the time that Danny would be flying back to his apartment to get some sleep. Jazz paid for the apartment. He had told her not to, but she said that he deserved to be taken care of since he was always taking care of the city. He smiled a little thinking about it now. His sister would always be protective of him, no matter how strong he got. He was heading towards his apartment when he heard a scream. Crime fighting wasn't usually his thing. He always figured that the cops would take care of the criminals while he dealt with the ghosts, but this voice was familure. He flew down to the ally way that the scream had come from. He landed in the damp ally and saw a large dirty looking man trying to rip the clothes off of a young woman.
"I called my boyfriend! He can hear everything that's going on! He use to be a football player! He'll kick your ugly butt!" came a Hispanic voice.
"Paulina." Danny mumbled.
In high school, he'd had a major crush on Paulina. His crush on her use to drive Sam insanely jealous. He thought Paulina was the most beautiful person he had ever seen, but now that he was older he realized what an airhead she had really been. This didn't mean he wouldn't help her though. He flew invisibly up to the dirty guy, and then when he was right in the guys face he became visible.
"Boo." he all but whispered.
The dirty man's face turned whiter than Danny's hair. He let out a girly shriek of pure fear and ran. Danny stood grinning as he watched the guy run. The wind was knocked out of him as Paulina tackled him around the waist. She wasn't strong enough to knock him to the ground. She looked up at him with her large blue eyes with a dreamy look on her face.
"Oh, Inviso-Bill. You saved me again." Paulina gushed making Danny flinch at the old name the city had dubbed him long ago.
"Uh, Paulina, for the millionth time since we've met, it's not Inviso-Bill. It's Danny Phantom. Danny." Danny said as he gently pried her arms from around his waist.
"Danny's such a nice name, but I knew a guy named that and he was a total loser." Paulina said.
"You were just too much of an airhead to see what he could truly be." Danny muttered with an angry snort.
"Excuse me!" Paulina exclaimed indignantly.
It was too much. All of a sudden the nights ordeals come back to slap him. The demons attacks, them planting the demon seed in him, and him having to destroy the bodies of his dead parents. All of the emotions from the whole hellish night come to a boiling point and Danny snapped.
"Excuse you hell! That poor guy bent over backwards to get your attention and you ignored him! You only paid him any attention when you needed something from him! You're nothing more than a pampered and petted stuck up snob!" Danny yelled angrily.
"I don't care who you are! You can't talk that way to me!" Paulina screamed on the verge of tears.
"I'm a ghost. I can say and do as I please." Danny retorted.
About that time they heard voices from outside the ally way. Paulina got a nasty look on her face that meant she was about to do something awful. She screamed as loud as she could causing Danny to flinch. About a minute later, Dash and a posse of his friends ran down the ally. Dash had his cell in his hand indicating that Paulina had indeed called him. He ran to her and put his arms around her.
"What's going on here!" Dash yelled as he glared in Danny's direction.
Unlike when he was a teenager, Danny didn't even flinch at the look. He just glared back at Dash waiting for Paulina's answer.
"He...he...he tried to rape me!" Paulina sobbed as she buried her face in Dash's coat.
"Isn't that the ghost boy?" Kwan asked from behind.
"Yeah. Man I haven't seen him since high school. Didn't think he was a bad guy though." came an answer from one of the others.
"He looks bigger. A bit bulkier and older, but I thought dead people didn't age. How can he look older?" asked another.
"I don't give a rat's ass. He's some kinda freak. I always knew it." Dash growled.
"No you didn't. You use to think of me as a friend, I guess." Danny finally spoke up
"I liked you as long as you were saving my ass, but you cross the line when you try to rape my girl." Dash said pushing Paulina away from him so he could stalk towards Danny.
"You're girl is lying. I didn't try to rape her. Hell I don't even want her." Danny said with a look on his face that seemed to convey disgust at the thought.
"You think you too good for her, ghost-boy?" Dash asked mockingly.
"No. She's just not my type. I like my women with a little more in their heads than in their bras." Danny said.
He didn't even have time to go intangible as Dash's fist connected with his jaw. Danny's head snapped back painfully, but he didn't go down. He turned and faced Dash as his eyes started to glow a brighter poison green than normal. He and Dash were almost the same height, but Danny wasn't as broad shouldered. So the two stood almost nose to nose as they prepared to fight. Dash grinned evilly as he dug in his pockets and took out a pair of gloves. He put the gloves on and Danny instantly recognized them. They were new Ghost Gloves. Jazz had invented them so that regular humans could fight ghosts easily. He was suddenly very angry with his sister. Even more so when all of Dash's friends also dawned the gloves and stalked towards him. Danny started to go intangible and go through a wall, but Dash grabbed his arm and yanked him back. Then it was on. The whole group started to pound on Danny. He tried to fight back, and got in a few good shots, but there were just too many. He didn't want to hurt them. He would if he used his powers, but the stupid ghost gloves were blocking his ability to go intangible. He was about to bite the bullet and throw the ignorant basterds off of him, when he heard a sound like an angry panther. The men stopped beating on the ghost and looked up to see a demon with cat ears and a tail standing on the roof of one of the buildings. It's eyes glowed silver as it threw a ball of Hell's own flames up and down as if it were nothing more than a baseball.
"Now, now, Boy's. This fight is hardly fair. Leave Phantom alone, or I'll have to come down there and let you find out how it feels to be outnumbered." the demon purred.
The men yelled out in fear as Dash grabbed Paulina and they fled in terror. Danny slowly stood up and patted the dust out of his clothes as the demon jumped down to join him. Danny turned to look at her, a plasma blast ready in his hand. Then he saw who it was and the plasma blast disappeared as his eyes grew large in shock.
"Kari? What are you doing here?" Danny asked.
"Looks like I'm saving you once again. Come. It's not safe here. We'll go back to my place." Kari said.
Danny didn't get a chance to decline as Kari leapt back up to the roof and took off. Danny sighed and followed her. They finally got to the apartment that Kari lived in. She jumped in through the open window as Danny flew in behind her. Danny looked around and saw that there wasn't much to the apartment. It had a table with expensive looking lab equipment, a chair next to the table, and a bed against the far wall facing the window.
"Welcome to my humble home, Phantom. Make yourself at home. Is your wounds already cured?" Kari asked.
She almost seemed to be gushing and it made Danny a little uncomfortable. Reading his mind, Kari's ears turned down as she looked away from him sadly.
"I'm sorry. I've just wanted to meet you and bring you here so bad. I got excited. I'm sorry." Kari said.
"Oh, no. It's not that. It's just when you gush, you remind me of that bitch Paulina." Danny said.
Then for the first time that night, he actually chuckled. Kari's ears perked back up as a small smile appeared on her lips.
"What's so funny?" she asked.
"I use to have such a crush on that girl, that I'd have beaten the shit outta anyone who would have called her that. It's funny." Danny said with a smile.
"I know. I never could see what you saw in her." Kari said almost shyly.
"I can. All she has is a pretty face to hide an ugly heart." Danny said as the smile dropped from his face and his eyes blazed green fire. "I was so into looks and material things back then. I never knew what was truly important until my parents died."
He leaned against the wall beside the window and gazed out at the city below. The thought of his parent's corpses attacking him playing in his head once more.
"No, don't. Don't think of it." Kari whimpered as she put her hands to her head.
Danny turned to look at her a little surprised.
"I can see your thoughts when I chose to..." Kari began.
"Then if you don't want to think about something, stay out of my head." Danny snarled almost animal like.
He grabbed his chest in pain and fell to one knee. His chest was burning like an inferno. He wanted to scream. He clinched his teeth, gritting them almost, as he waited for the pain to pass. When it did, he slowly stood back up.
"I...I'm sorry, Kari. I..." Danny started to say.
"Don't apologize. You're right. I'm sorry for the games mother is playing with you. She'll continue to do so until she gets what she wants." Kari said sadly.
"Mother?" Danny asked, but before he could get an answer, an alarm went off. "What's that?"
"Oh, just the dinner bell. I need to go feed." Kari said.
"Uh...feed?" Danny asked looking a little sick.
"I feed on soul energy. I'm supposed to consume the whole soul because of the type of demon I am, but I refuse to harm anyone. So instead, I feed on a little of the soul's energy. It only drains a year off their life. I never do it to the same person twice." Kari said.
"Kari, that's still harming people. What gives you the right to do that?" Danny asked.
"What gives you the right to tell me I should starve?" Kari asked back simply.
"I didn't mean it like that." Danny said defensively.
"Don't worry about it." Kari said waving it off.
She was disappointed that their whole time together, actually in the same room together, was being spent by fussing with one another. She knew that as the demon seed in Danny grew, the moodier he would get. She sighed and turned to leave out through the window when an ice cold hand grabbed her arm gently. She gasped and looked at Danny who was looking at the moment like a very lost, and sad, puppy. Did he know how cold he was? She shivered and he instantly took his hand off of her.
"Sorry. I forget that people have to get use to me touching them. It didn't take Sam and Tucker all that long. Maybe you'll get use to it soon too." Danny said with a shrug.
He looked so sad and down at that moment that Kari couldn't help herself. She embraced him. Pushing her warm body against his cold body. She was surprised when he put his arms around her and hugged her tightly. She shivered a bit but didn't complain. The chill was actually starting to feel sort of good. A purr escaped her throat making Danny chuckle a bit. She thought it was sexy. She mentally shook herself. She shouldn't be thinking that at a time like this.
"I was wanting to meet you too, back then, when I thought you were real. I thought of how beautiful you would be. I loved the secrets we shared. The stories you told me were so fantastic. I missed you when you were gone." Danny confessed as he breathed in the sent of her hair.
"Did you? Really?" Kari asked as tears filled her eyes.
She jumped when he put an icy hand under her chin and lifted her face to look at him.
"Yeah. I did." he murmured.
Then without another word, he captured her mouth with his and kissed her deeply and passionately. She felt her legs go weak, and she would have fallen if Danny hadn't put a hand to her back to hold her against him. The warmth of her body felt so good, he never wanted to let her go. Too bad she finally broke the kiss off and backed away to stair up at him with wide silver eyes as she put fingers to her lips.
"I'm sorry." Danny said.
"No. It's just no one has ever done that to me before. It felt nice." Kari said blushing crimson.
"Oh. Alright then. I just didn't want to offend you or anything." Danny said.
Before he could say anything else he was tackled down to the ground as molten silver eyes looked down into shocked large poison green eyes. Kari smiled and latched her mouth back on his as he wrapped his arms back around her.
"Show me more." she whispered.
To Be Continued...
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Next: The Ghost and The Kitten: Chapter Four: Into the Ghost Zone
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(Heh. Sorry for the fluff. Hope you enjoyed it. Please read and review! Ja ne!)
