a/n: I FOUND IT! AND NOW I'M SO INCREADIBLY HAPPY THAT I MIGHT FLY! AND DO A FEW BACK FLIPS, AND JUMP OFF A CLIFF ONLY TO MIRACULOUSLY RECOVER, BUT I WON'T CUZ I CAN'T, AND I DON'T FEEL LIKE DYING! SO INSTEAD, I'LL CELEBRATE WITH ANOTHER CHAPTER! BUT ONLY ONE, CUZ THERE ARE ONLY 8 CHAPTERS! ALL IN THE SAME, THANX FOR SUPPORTING ME, I ACTUALLY WAS GONNA REWRITE IT, BUT NOW I DON'T HAVE TO, CUZ I FOUND IT! AND I'M SO HAPPY, CUZ NOW I CAN WRITE MORE OF MY NEW STORY INSTEAD OF REWRITING THIS ONE! BUT I'LL STOP BLATHERING! ALL I WANNA SAY IS WHEEEEEEEEEEEE! YIPEE! I'll start off somewhere around where I left off for a recap:
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I opened, and the door. The hallway wasn't as wide as I'd hoped, but it wasn't too bad. It was just plain white. I heard a beeping noise and saw a green blast hit my leg. It tingled, and tickled just a bit. The there was another blast. I flattened myself against the wall. It only missed me by a hair. I went back into the middle of the room, and flattened against the wall once more when it shot. This time, it scraped me. I shot the machine a brief look of anger, before returning to the middle of the hall as it shot once more; I quickly flattened against the opposite wall, sucking it in.
Chapter 5- Cherry blossoms and a talk with Phantom
The blast just barely missed me. I exhaled, before I heard a sharp stomp on the other side of the wall, and quickly inhaled once more, from surprise. I listened in again, as I heard many more wall stomps, as well as a few phrases of witty banter, that would probably make anyone but me shudder. As I was engrossed in listening to the voice on the other side of the wall, I didn't notice myself being hit. Then, before I knew it, the machine shut down, and a voice echoed through the hall, saying, "Level One." in a choppy voice. I exhaled slowly, with a disappointed slump; I trod over to the other side of the hall, and opened the door. Inside, was a book of crossword puzzles, a TV, and most importantly, fudge. I attacked the fudge so fast; that I swore more was forming on my plate. After I was done, I went to the TV. I searched through the channels, but there was nothing on, so I flipped through the crossword puzzle.
"OO! There's one on ghosts!" I said excitedly. I turned back a few pages to where I found it. All right then, I thought to myself. I read the first hint in my head. An eight-letter word for a haunter, that's easy! A specter! I chuckled to myself in vain. "Who's smart now?" I mumbled to the book. A new theory of a half dead, half alive hybrid, "That's completely ridiculous! Why haven't I heard about this?" I sighed softly, and clicked my tongue at the person who came up with this puzzle. They obviously didn't know ghosts very well. I went to hint three, town with most ghosts haunting to date. That's easy! Amity Park! I wrote it in the boxes. The door opened, and Maddie entered the room.
"We're done," She said softly. I got up from the table, and the undone crossword, but I read one last hint. Amity Park's ghost hero/ villain, Danny Phantom, I thought vainly. We walked out of the room, meeting the kids. Everyone had his or her videos. Maddie had mine. We all walked down to the small pond, and sat on benches, taking in the pleasant aroma of the cherry blossoms as we watched the petals fall. The pond wore freckles of petals, and the grass shown the same. I inhaled and exhaled slowly. (Bet that made you yawn. if it didn't, this will.) I yawned slowly, as my beautiful wife laid her head on me. I looked up to the canopy of redwoods. It was amazing. After about five minutes, Master Keign-rowe came once more. He looked as well rested as we were about to become.
"Hello," He greeted, bowing once more. "How were the tests?" He gave Maddie a look of utmost eagerness.
"I don't know," She replied, she looked to me.
"Uh, all right… I guess." I said, stumbling over the memories of how miserable I was at dodging. She looked to our children. Jazz smiled innocently.
"Uh… Same?" She said, in a tone of question. We looked to Danny; he shrugged casually.
"I… see." The master said. He looked a little disappointed in the lack of detail.
"Maddie, Jack, may I see you for a moment?" He moved away, motioning us to follow.
"I'm still worried about your son," he confessed. "You must try to see that video he has. It is of most importance to put some puzzle pieces together." He said.
"But, what if he doesn't give it to us?" Maddie asked.
"Then suspicions are heightened, and, though I hate to say it, you may have to steal it." He said, bowing his head in the pain of shunning honor. Maddie nodded, and left, me following at the rear. She suddenly stopped, and turned around, I barely kept my balance.
"Jack?" She started in a concerned tone, "I'm afraid." Her eyes teered a bit. "What if he has been keeping a secret from us, a really dangerous one." I patted her on the back.
"Now, hon, I don't think he'd do that, he's got your smarts," I consoled. She smiled up at me, and continued walking.
"C'mon, kids, its time to go," she said to them. They gave a teasing, "Awwwww…." But we were soon in the car, speeding down the highway, Maddie drove again.
"So wataya say we all watch each other's videos and have a huge laugh about it tonight?" I saw Danny's eyes widen in the rear view mirror.
"Huh?" He asked, hurriedly. Maddie's eyes seemed to narrow a hair.
"I mean, we can all trust each other, can't we?" She said, in an accusatory tone, probably more accusatory that she wanted it to be, but now, Danny's eyes were the ones narrowing.
"Well, yea, but do we really need to prove it?" He replied.
"No, but, it would be fun," She said innocently. Danny paused, staring out the window, pensively.
"But… I…" His face lit up for a split second, before his eyes narrowed once more. "Having your family laugh at you, because you hardly did anything before getting kicked out doesn't sound like 'fun' to me." He countered.
"Oh, but Danny, I did some pretty stupid things too, It's silly to keep things from your own family," She emphasized the last phrase.
"I just… I wouldn't feel good watching myself… mess up like that." He concluded. That was that. No one talked for the rest of the trip.
When we got home, we quickly departed to our own business.
Maddie and I retreated to the basement lab. Maddie was pacing, as I sat In a chair, and was once again consumed by the hypnotizing glow of the portal.
She started wording her thoughts.
"How'd this happen? Does Jazz know anything? I t wouldn't be right to go behind Danny's back, and steal the video. But what if it's hazardous to his health? He has been coming home with mysterious injuries. But he's smart enough to tell us if something goes wrong. But what if he doesn't even know?" I sighed, wishing I could just go upstairs and force the answer out of my son so Maddie didn't have to be tormented like this.
"I've made my decision," she said firmly, stopping her constant pacing. We went up to his room. He was at his friends' house, and wasn't expected home for another hour or so, but as we reached the top of the steps, we heard a loud bang from outside. We rushed out to see that we had stuck ourselves in the middle of a ghost battle between a white ghost in a tweed suit, and a cowboy hat, and Amity Park's own Danny Phantom.
I pulled out my ecto gun immediately, charging it, and getting a clear shot of the ghost boy. As this happened, the ghost boy pushed the other ghost back with an ecto ray and sucked it into… Did he have the Fenton thermos again? I shrugged it off quickly and concentrated on the task at hand.
"Your not getting away from me this time ghost boy!" But right when it was charged, and I was just about to regain all the respect a man could ever want, I heard my daughter call from her bedroom window.
"Dad! Wait! Stop! Please!" Phantom looked at me, then he looked at Jazz, and floated to the ground, keeping his hands up. I stood there, weapon still raised and aimed, baffled, as I had never seen this behavior in a ghost before. Obviously, my wife hadn't either, because she looked just as dumbstruck as I was. He moved slowly toward us, and as I realized him advancing, I raised my gun once more.
"Don't you come any closer, ghost kid," I said menacingly.
"Please!" He said in a voice that reminded me of someone, but I couldn't put my finger on it. "I need to talk. Peacefully."
"We don't have any business with you! You are evil!" Maddie said, raising her weapon once more.
"Please. I don't want to fight. I want to explain." We blinked at him, still baffled, as we let our guard down by accident. Ghost didn't want peace. It was a fact! His hands still raised, he had a serious expression on his face, but he could be acting.
"Why should we trust you?" I countered, trying to make his acting less convincing, but failing.
"Because… I trust you," He said plainly, face still serious. Now my gun, as well as Maddie's were dangling loosely by our sides.
"That's impossible!" Maddie murmured, almost too softly to hear.
"Fine, Phantom, you have five minutes, but if you so much as make one wrong move, we'll make the rest of your afterlife a living hell. And we promise that," I said.
"And we want to be able to ask questions before we are considered 'done,'" Maddie added. He nodded, and put his hands down slowly.
"First of all, I would like you to please not interrupt unless I'm done, or I let you. At the end, I will do the same, " He laid down these rules simply, without anything more.
"Second, well… I guess I'll get started. See, all those times that I've done things that were evil, I was either under mind control, or framed." He began. "I'm really not evil, and as much as you may not believe me, I try to protect this town every day… and I just want you to know that. Third, I'm not like other ghost in the sense that I'm not selfish or greedy. I don't want self-glory, revenge, and I don't have any dumb plots to take over the world. All I do is try to keep things in order. That's all I really need to say." We were still baffled that he didn't say "Fooled Ya!" and tried to blast us to smithereens yet, but it was our question period, and the last thing I wanted to do was miss asking all the questions zooming around in my head.
"So, why are you so human- like? How can you get that sort of feeling as a ghost? Helping is hardly possible for a ghost to comprehend," Maddie asked.
"I'm not the kind of ghost you see every day… in fact, there's only one, maybe two, like me in the world, and at least one of them is evil." He stated.
"So what would you classify yourself as?" I cut in.
"I have no clue." He said.
"What are the other reasons you might be separated from other ghosts?"
"I eat, sleep, most of the time, I breath, and I have a very, none obsessive, short attention span."
"One last question." Maddie said. "I really don't know why I thought of this, just a gut feeling that I should mention it…" She said. "When you died, did you ever find your parents again? Do they know your there?"
"Yes, and at the same time, no." He said plainly.
"What do you mean?" You could see his mind zoom, as his eyes darted to different spots on the sidewalk.
"I'm… invisible to them… I guess…" We both looked at him pensively, as he looked at us with a nervous smile.
"Is that it?" He said suddenly.
"Ummm… yea, I guess so," I said, glancing at Maddie.
"So… It wasn't a trick?" She asked. Phantom looked at her with a small bit of shock, but then changed to a sigh, mid breath, which made a weird kind of wiring sound.
"No…" He said in a flat tone.
"One more question!" I said quickly. I had just thought of it. He looked at me, his expression was changing again.
"How do you disappear whenever, even on radar, and then just pop up in places when there's a ghost around?" You could see him inhale rapidly as he found out what I was going to ask.
"Um…I'm afraid I can't answer that, it's my own secret." He said, feebly.
"But you promised," I said.
"But some things are worth looking for to find the answer, however, small things like this, are best to just keep unbothered," He advised, and like a rocket, he was off. I watched him go until the buildings covered his silhouette against the orange, evening sky. I shook my head for no reason but to straiten my own thoughts. It just seemed to jumble them up more.
END OF CHAPTER
Now that I'm calmer, I'd like to thank you all for supporting this fic, I hope it's almost as much of a relief to you, as it is to me, because we get to finish it faster. As for me, I'm off to finish my next story, and update this one, as well as read your reviews for this one. And when I'm done with the next one, I'll do the same! Hope you enjoy the rest of the story! Please R&R!