Chapter 3: Meet Misery Vex

The four headed to the comic book store, Star riding behind Danny on his scooter due to lacking one of her own.

Of all times for it to not have one… She thought but decided she didn't mind, since she was close to her Boo.

"So, the ghost you fought was in a blue boiler suit with goggles and she made things come out of shadows?" Star asked.

"Yup." Danny said.

"Huh… that sounds like Shade. She's a bad guy from the comic." She said.

"Really?" Danny braked, allowing the other to as well. "Can you show us?"

Star nodded as she took the comic out of her bag, showing a page to them.

All of them saw were surprised to see the bad guys in the comic, looking just like the bad guys they recently dealt with.

"That looks just like her." Tucker said.

"And like the girl on the poster at the store." Sam said.

''And I should add someone like her to my comic..." Tucker said, which made Star remember something.

"Also… here." Star handed Tucker's comic back to him.

"Hey, my original copy! You read it?" He asked.

"Yeah." Star said, looking displeased.

"Huh, how realistic is it compared to Danny's comic?" Sam asked, curious.

"I think she means… we're in it, right?" Danny asks.

"Oh yeah, we're in it… for like the first page. At first, I thought we die, but it turns out we're still inside a giant robot, and I'm quoting here, "crying like little girls"..." Star said.

"We what?!" Danny and Sam asked, both of differing reactions.

"Well, not all of us… the, and again I'm quoting, "handsome superhero with the genius IQ" saves us." Star said, gesturing to Tucker with her thumb.

"What a shock…" Sam said, arms crossed as she glared at Tucker, who shrugged like it was no big deal.

"Come on, they say write who you know, so I used you guys…" Tucker defends himself.

"And you decided to save us. That's… neat." Danny said, trying to sound nice.

"Danny, don't defend him." Sam said.

"Come on… it's meant to be heartwarming when I save you all. Plus, I get to save the world and get the girls… all of them!" Tucker said, earning a glare from the goth girl.

"You made me cry like a little girl, Tucker." Sam said, glaring at him.

They resumed heading to the comic book store, with Tucker still defending his story.

"Tell you what, I'll make you my sidekicks in issue 2. Promise."


The comic book store

The four entered.

They looked around and saw that the Danny Phantom comic was on practically every shelf.

"Nothing but Danny Phantom comics? I know it made money, but this is such a lack of options…" Sam said.

''Not the time, Sam..." Danny whispered while his girlfriend went to the sales clerk.

"Excuse me, can you help us?" Star asked.

The men at the register only stared blankly as they pushed issues of Danny's comic to them.

''Welcome to Steven's, how can I help you?" He said in a monotone way.

"So… any interest in selling local indie stuff?" Tucker asks eagerly before Star pulls on his ear. "OWW!"

"Not the time, Foley." She said.

To her surprise, the sales clerk and the workers were still staring, as if they barely registered anything else.

The men continued to push issues of the comic to them.

"Uh… you guys okay?" Sam asked.

"Please buy the comic..." The guy said, as if he was in a trance, he didn't even look at her.

"With a piece of original art…" The other said, holding a picture of some of the villains of the book drawn on it.

Danny snapped his fingers in their faces.

"Nothing…" He said.

It was then Sam noticed something behind one man's head.

"Is there something on his head?" She asked before seeing it and her eyes widened.

"What is it?" Danny asked.

"A spider, a big one…" She whispered, pointing to the back of the man's head.

They took a look and saw it too.

A very large spider was latched to the man's head. They saw the other man, realizing he had the same kind of creature on the back of his head.

"OH MAN!" Tucker said, immediately slinking away from the spiders.

"Didn't that old guy say his son-in-law had a spider go for his head?" Star asked.

"I think so." Danny said. "We should stake the place out. Maybe whoever did this will be back."


An hour later

Danny and Sam watched the store from inside the backroom, hoping to see something happen.

"It's been a while...you guys wanna get a bite? One of us can go get something." Danny said.

"Right… then we leave this place. I don't think there's anyone in the world who'd like you this much." Sam said.

"Right, because Misery hates him." Star said from the back of the room.

"WILL YOU SHUT UP ABOUT THAT BOOK?!" Sam questioned harshly.

Star frowned and turned her head away, crossing her arms.

Danny didn't take kindly to that, elbowing her in the shoulder.

"Sam, leave her be."

"What did I do? She's the one reading bad fanfiction of you!" She defended.

Meanwhile, Tucker sat next to Star.

"Don't let her get to ya, Star. After all, Danny's the face, she's the edge, I'm the brains plus good looks while you're the athletic one." He said.

"What do you want, Tucker?" Star asked, knowing he wanted something.

''Oh, just remind you how much you help the team..." He said quickly.

"Sure…" Star said, not buying it.

"Speaking of you, I didn't take you for a comic fan." He said.

"A lot about me you don't know because you were busy looking for a pretty face." She grumbled.

Tucker ignored her as he held his comic up.

"So… as a fan of comics, I gotta know. What did you think of my story? Was it awesome or was it awesome?" He asked, grinning with enthusiasm

Star turned her head towards him.

"Should have known. Do you want the truth or a white lie?" She asked.

"Truth!" Tucker went.

Star looked unsure.

"Well…" She said, hesitating a bit.

"Come on, lemme hear how great it is." He said eagerly.

" … it sucked." Star said flatly.

It took Tucker a good few seconds for it to reach his brain, his smile never left.

"But like… ironically?" He asked, not wanting to admit it.

Meanwhile, Danny skimmed through a copy of the Danny Phantom Volume I collection, flinching at drawings of himself.

"Wow… the artist here really has no sense of consistency in the line art." He turned the page and cringed. "Is that supposed to be me?!"

Sam rolled her eyes as she looked over his shoulder.

"Danny, we're supposed t- GAH! My eyes!" She said, looking away.

No one can blame her since the drawings of Danny went from crude to ridiculous.

"Seriously… this suit of me from the future looked hideous… too much green, too bright… and why do I have anime hair?" He asked.

"And why are, what I assume are, your friends wearing your logo like the Autobots? Are you Danny Phantom or Optimus Prime?" Sam asked.

Back to Star, who was getting annoyed with Tucker's insistence of good feedback.

"Look! These comics are meant to have a sense of urgency! Your story has no conflict, by that I mean there's no danger. There's barely even a plot. It's just 40 poorly drawn pages with terrible pacing of you beating up monsters and making out with supermodels." Star explained.

Tucker looked offended.

"What's wrong with that?" He questioned, earning an eye roll from the blonde girl.

Sam then got up.

"They're leaving." She said.

''Huh?" Star let out.

She and Tucker got up and saw what was going on

The two comic shop workers got up from behind the counter and started heading to the door.

"Must inform Mistress… 50 issues sold." One said.

"100 art pieces sold…" The other said.

''They might lead us to who's behind this." Star whispered to her boyfriend.

"Let's get moving!" Danny said.


20 Minutes Later

The group followed on scooters, watching the men from a distance as they transported the comic books.

"So, while we're tailing them, any information on this Shade girl, Star? In case we run into her again." Danny said.

"Well… she's able to manipulate shadow, she's creative in her uses with it. Oh, and she has a thing for you." She explained.

"That part I learned first hand…" Danny said under his breath.

"What? Like Ember?" Tucker asks.

"No… Ember is more like if Danny was Batman, she'd be Poison Ivy, she has the hots for him but not afraid to cause physical trauma. Shade was more like Catwoman, in that she flirts with him all the time and he flirts back." Star explained.

"Wow… even in lame, unoriginal comic books, you're a sudden chick magnet." Sam commented.

Danny chose to say nothing as he looked towards the men, realizing where they were going.

"The docks?" He asked.

Speeding up, the four managed to find a place to park and follow on foot.

Little did they know, there were insects watching from above. Insects that flew into the storage unit on the docks.

As they entered, they merged and formed one large mantis-like creature with a more lizard-like face, which bowed to the figure in the shadows.

"I take it you found Danny Phantom, did you Swam?" She questioned. The one she called Swarm screeched to her before nodding. "Good girl..."

Unknown to her, Team Phantom saw this from a distance.

Star gasped when she saw what was happening.

"Guys..." Star whispered. "Look." She pointed to some nearby boxes.

Inside were hundreds of crates that had nothing but ink inside of them.

"The stolen ink?" Tucker asked.

"Did whoever unleashed these spiders do this?" Danny asked.

"One way to find out." Sam said.

Nodding, Danny morphed and flew out to blast one of the spiders off someone's head.

The person had been in a daze as he came to.

"Huh... what? What happened?" He asked as he looked around. "Where am I? I just remember-"

Suddenly, the other victims grabbed him by the arms.

"Hey, knock it off!" Danny said as he flew to them.

However, some of the hypnotized men got in his path, blocking while the spider crawled back onto the man's head.

"NO! DON'T! MAKE IT STOP!" He said but was too late as he fell back under control.

"Oh no!" Danny went.

The rest of Team Phantom came out. Star was armed with her saber while the rest had the wrist blasters.

"What just happened?" Tucker asked.

"These spiders are somehow controlling everyone here. Just like her!" Star said.

"Who?" Sam asked.

Everyone looked at Star.

"Y'know... uh..." She saw the scowl on Sam's face. "Mis...ery Vex..." She said slowly and unsure, recognizing that was the wrong name to say out loud.

Sam groaned and facepalmed.

"Star! For the last time! W-"

"Who knows my name?" A deep female voice asked.

Team Phantom, and the hypnotized men, all looked in the direction of someone in the shadows with bright red eyes.

She stood out, revealing herself. She stood about 7 feet tall, wearing a headdress with four long spider leg-like horns on it. She wore thigh-high green boots, a flowing green cape attacked to a duller green body shield with a spider-symbol on her. Her chest had a red diamond on the center and her belt was green with a web pattern on it.

This was Misery Vex, the villain in the comic.

As Sam stared with mouth agape, Star couldn't help but make a comment.

"So... the comic has an unrealistic depiction of Danny's life, huh?" She asked.

"Okay... you were right." Sam admits.


Special thanks to Flower princess11.

I'm also giving the villains new appearances, mostly because FP11 suggested it and also because, big shock, I hate their designs.

Invader Johnny: That was Shade he fought.

RonaldM40196867: It won't be as dark as Extreme Ghostbusters' Deadliners, that's for sure.

Luiz4200: Yup.

Leonardo: Probably not. I doubt the characters made by "you know who" without Nickeldeon's permission would appear. I doubt they'd have the license to use her.

hmilles02: Hmm... maybe? I was thinking Rebreather and the Faceless get mentioned.