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Chapter 6: Awakenings

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Danny and Jazz explained what had happened quickly. Sam and Tucker had less to fill in than Danny. They had been actually conscious of their surroundings up until the portal.

"You're sure this isn't Undergrowth, right?"

"Doesn't seem like Undergrowth," said Danny.

"That's a relief, I guess," said Sam. "It's too bad you don't know where this is, though."

Guilt squirmed in Danny's stomach. He really didn't want to say anything. Didn't want to put this into words. But he didn't keep secrets from his team. (That wasn't strictly true, but the other secrets were mundane things, birthday presents, what some of his nightmares were really about, that he liked to sing in the shower, not really worth mentioning.)

"That isn't quite what I said. I said that I didn't recognize where we were."

Tucker raised an eyebrow at Danny. He had been messing with his PDA, trying to get a signal. He wasn't entirely convinced that they were in the Ghost Zone. "Isn't that kinda the same thing?"

"Um. No. I think- I think that I know where we are."

"Yeah?" said Sam, curious.

Jazz, meanwhile, was frowning. She was probably wondering why Danny hadn't said anything.

"I think this might be my lair," Danny said finally.

"Wait," said Tucker, finally looking up from his PDA, "isn't that a good thing? I mean, doesn't that mean that you can, like, control everything here?"

"Not exactly. The lair connection is supposed to be all subconscious. It's more like this is a dream I'm having, than anything else. At least that's, you know, my understanding." He ran his hand through his hair. "I guess. I don't know."

"Okay, okay, we can work with this," said Sam.

"Yeah," agreed Tucker. "So... What's first, try to wake everyone up, or find the door?"

"Door, I think," said Jazz. "People will start to panic when they wake up. It'll be easier to get them to do what we want if we already have a way out and a plan."

Everyone looked at Danny, who briefly flicked out of view entirely, and then pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt. "I don't know where the door is," he mumbled.

"Really? What about your ghost homing thing?"

"God, Tucker, I thought we had stopped calling it that," said Sam, punching Tucker in the arm.

"Okay, okay, whatever, but, seriously? I thought that you could always get home?"

"Well, usually," said Danny. He glanced at the palm of his left hand, at the electrical burn that spread out from its center. "But, this is... You remember how I was right after, you know, the Accident? Like, I held it together at the hospital, but after that I kept falling through things, or going invisible, or hovering? I don't even know if my ghost sense is going to work properly."

"Well," said Sam, "heck." She bit her lip. "But, Danny, are you sure that you're okay? I mean, you aren't in pain, or anything, right?"

Danny shook his head. "Just sore and tired." (This was one of those lies that wasn't worth mentioning. Danny was not okay.)

(The looks they all gave him told Danny that they didn't buy it for one second.)

"So, should we start looking for the door anyway?"

"Shh!" said Danny suddenly. "Do you hear that?" He tilted his head, and cupped his ear. There was rustling, a voice, muffled, but plaintive. "People are waking up."

"Really? I don't hear any-"

There was a high-pitched shriek, and Danny was on his feet, running towards the sound. He avoided people who were still lying prone, and the backpacks and other debris from the school that were strew all over the ground easily. (A little too easily, really. He could see in the dark, but still.)

It turned out that Mia was the one who screamed. Mia was one of those girls who was neither popular nor unpopular, but comfortably in the middle of the spectrum. She could hang around, if not with, the A-list without being harassed, but she could also be found regularly in the library, volunteered at the community center, and played the clarinet in band. She was a few inches taller than Danny (not much of an accomplishment, Danny was the shortest in their class by far), had hazel eyes and long brown hair, and liked the color green.

Danny had no idea why she had screamed. She was holding her eye, though, so maybe she had hurt it somehow.

"Mia? Mia, what's wrong?"

The girl looked up. "Danny?" she said incredulously. "What? What's going on?"

"I'm not entirely sure," said Danny, kneeling in front of her. He could fake calm for other people. "Why did you scream? Is something wrong with your eye?"

"I-um." Mia was blushing. "I guess I just got freaked out because I woke up outside. It's kind of silly, isn't it? Like, this kind of thing happens all the time." She sniffed. "But then I rubbed my I and I think I tore my contact, and it really hurts."

Danny sighed in relief. He had been worried. "Do you need help?"

"No, I've got it."

Danny looked away when the girl reached into her eye to pull out the contact. He had literally given himself stitches before, but for some reason, contact lenses always made him slightly squeamish.

"Do you know where we are, by the way?" asked Mia. She was still holding the one eye shut. "We're clearly not in town anymore, but I'm not, like, super familiar with the, um. What do you call it? The countryside? The rural area? You know what I mean?"

"Yeah, um."

Thankfully, Danny was spared by Sam reaching the two of them. Bless her for good timing and being able to run really fast.

"Everyone is waking up now," she said. "You said that you and Jazz saw Mr Lancer earlier?"

"Yeah?" said Danny, wondering where she was going with this.

"Well, we should find him. Since he's going to be in charge and all. Because he's the teacher."

Danny stared at her blankly. He had thought that since they were in the Ghost Zone, his parents would probably take charge, seeing as they were supposedly ghost experts- His train of thought came crashing to a halt. Oh. Yeah. That would probably be a bad thing. Right. Wow. Okay. So she wanted to manipulate things so that Mr Lancer was in charge. Not his parents. That would be a disaster waiting to happen. Good thing Sam and Jazz (this was totally a Jazz thing) were 100% more sneaky than he was.

"Right," said Danny out loud. "Good idea. He was over this way, I think." Danny could, in fact, see Mr Lancer quite clearly from where they were, the teacher had wound up quite close to Mia, but he was pretty sure that no one else could. Danny waved at Jazz and Tucker, who were trailing some distance behind Sam, using their flashlight and PDA respectively to light their way. Then he stood, and offered a hand to Mia, who took it gratefully. By that time, Jazz and Tucker had caught up, and they were all able to walk together towards where Mr Lancer was now regaining consciousness.

Others were waking up, too. Some were demanding to know what was going on, others were assuming that they had been possessed again, and complaining about the inconvenience of being dumped on a random hill. One or two were trying to get their cell phones to work. Danny also distinctly heard Nathan and Lester, the twins, wondering out loud if stars could be green.

Even before their little group had reached Mr Lancer (going slow for Mia's sake, she couldn't see very well with only one contact, and her backup glasses were in her locker, back at school), the teacher had started to try to gather and take charge of the students. He really was making a heroic effort, but the other conversations and the darkness were making that difficult to do.

"Mr Lancer!" said Jazz as they approached. She would be the first one to greet the teacher.

"Night Watch! Miss Fenton! You nearly gave me a heart attack!" This was patiently untrue, but, well. Whatever. Mr Lancer was also the drama teacher, and this was kind of a dramatic situation. He was allowed to be dramatic. "Do you know what's going on?"

"Kind of," admitted Jazz. "But we should probably wait until everyone is here."

"Of course, you're right, Miss Fenton. Who else is with you? Ah, Mr Fenton, Miss Manson, Mr Foley, and... Miss Battaglia? Did you hurt your eye?"

"Just lost my contact," said Mia in a strained but cheerful tone.

"Oh. I see. I see." Mr Lancer then went back to trying to get everyone's attention. Most people were just straight up ignoring him, although Mikey had come over in the meantime. (Worth noting: Mikey was the second shortest person in the class. He beat Danny out by a quarter of an inch, having passed him over the summer. This meant that he was the second most likely person to be shoved in a locker by Dash.)

Danny was starting to feel bad for Mr Lancer when, without warning, the ground beneath them erupted with more of those brilliant blue flowers. Once Danny quelled his initial surprise, and relaxed from his fighting stance, he saw that the flowers formed a starburst centered on Mr Lancer. The sudden light combined with the combined shrieks of Mr Lancer, Mia, and Mikey managed to draw everyone's attention.

Mr Lancer quickly moved away from the flowers. Generally, in Amity Park, glowing = dangerous. He did, however, take advantage of the fleeting attention of his students. It turned out that he was pretty good at that. Take the time he had fended off the Box Ghost with a rolled up magazine and a hysteric rant about pathos in Cannery Row, for example. Everyone had gotten an A on that test.

Soon, everyone was gathered. "Alright students," began the teacher, "I know this looks like a bad situation, but we've all been in worse." There was a murmur of agreement. "I must admit that I don't quite know what is going on, so we must first try to piece together what happened. Now," Mr Lancer raised his voice to be heard over the buzz of renewed conversations, "the last thing I can recall before waking here is Mrs Fenton using that weapon on Phantom." All eyes turned to the Fenton's. Danny saw with a jolt of horror that his mother was still holding that thing.

Characteristically, the Doctors Fenton weren't paying attention. Instead they were scanning the crowd with frowns on their faces.

Then, Danny met his mother's eyes through the lenses of her red-tinted goggles. Maddie's face brightened almost immediately. "Danny! Jazz!" she exclaimed. "There you are!" She and Jack pushed through the crowd. Admittedly, the students didn't give them much resistance. Danny tried very, very hard not to cringe when they wrapped him and Jazz in a hug. He failed, however, when the chill metal casing of the Fenton Mortifier brushed against the tiny stripe of exposed skin between the bottom of his shirt and the top of his jeans. Maddie pulled back, holding his shoulder with her free hand and examining his face. "Are you hurt, Danny?"

"No," said Danny, looking away, "I'm fine."

Mr Lancer cleared his throat. "Yes," he said, "well. I would like anyone who has something to add to raise their hands." The last three words were almost shouted. Mr Lancer looked expectantly at Jazz, but she did not raise her hand. Danny, too, looked at her curiously. That wasn't like her. Mr Lancer sighed and called on Paulina.

"Oh, there was that technology ghost, and then my ghost boy came to save us, and then the Fentons shot him with that awful weapon, and then he started screaming, and I was trying to help him but that nerd Lester-"

"Be kind, Miss Sanchez."

"-got in my way, and I fell down, and then it got really, really loud, and the next thing I know, I was here on this gross hill."

"Mr Spengler," said Mr Lancer tiredly. "That is, Nathan."

Nathan gave a similar account to the one that Jazz had given Danny. The others in the class more or less repeated it. The only difference was that none of them knew what the green swirl over Phantom's chest had been.

From the frowns over his parents' faces, though, they knew.

Finally, after everyone else had gone, Jazz raised her hand. Mr Lancer called on her. "Do you have anything to add about how we got here?"

"Yes," said Jazz decisively. "I just wanted to make sure that I was right first." She took a deep breath. "That green swirl you all saw? That was a portal to the Ghost Zone. I believe that we are currently in the Ghost Zone."

Dash scoffed. "Yeah, right! I saw the Ghost Zone when that freaky skeleton army took over. It didn't look anything like this. It was all green, and swirly"

"Yeah," said Tiffanie, backing up her boyfriend. "And there were these floating doors everywhere."

"I know," said Jazz. "I think that we might be behind one of those doors."

A few other people started to argue. The Fentons jumped in in defense of their daughter. Before too long, Danny had had enough.

"Look!" he said loudly. Well, as loudly as he could with his throat torn up the way it was. Good thing he had something of a commanding voice. "Even if this doesn't look like the Zone to you, you've got to admit that this isn't a normal place."

"Oh, yeah? Why, Fentonio?"

"First off, the flowers. Secondly, and most of you probably wouldn't have noticed this, but stars can't be green."

Everyone looked up. After a few seconds of everyone agreeing that, yeah, the stars looked kind of green, Mr Lancer sighed, deeply, as if he were dredging up the very dregs of his soul, as if he was about to do something that he knew he would regret, both immediately and for the rest of his life, and said, "I suppose that since this is the Ghost Zone, and you two are the experts, Mr and Mrs Fenton, that I should cede my authority to you for the duration of this crisis."

"No!"

Every eye turned to Danny, who had clamped his hands over his mouth.

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