Hey all! I was actually able to update much faster than I had anticipated… (blinks) startlingly so…
Eh. Anyways, on with the chapter!
A "New" Kind of Foe…
"Get back here Dash! My pom-poms are starting to smell like beans!"
"Taking care of babies is for girls!" Dash screamed as he ran down the hall, an infuriated Paullina hot on his heals.
In their wake a strong wind whipped everyone's hair about in a gust, though no one really seemed to notice. The few that saw the little entourage screaming past at light speed just shrugged and went back to their own business.
"That was freaky…" Tucker muttered.
Danny sighed. "I really think that we all need to move somewhere a little more normal…"
"'Normal'?" Tucker cracked a smile. "Danny, the weird and strange follow you wherever you GO, man…"
His eyebrows lowered, and Tucker cringed slightly at the glare coming from the eyes beneath. "Thanks, Tuck. You sure know how to cheer someone up…"
Sam laughed a little as well. "Oh come on, it's not like it's about to get weirder any time soon, right?"
His glare softened lightly, but it was now turned towards her.
"What?"
"You realize that you probably just jinxed me again, don't you?"
"Oh come on, you don't honestly believe in that stuff, do you?"
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"You owe me money for that."
"How was I supposed to know that we'd be getting some new students today?" Sam defended. "We don't even know if they're weird!"
"We're talking about MY luck here, Sam," Danny retorted, before adding wryly "Knowing that they're probably some weird kooks that wanna make friends with me."
"And we're NOT weird?"
"Shut up, Tucker!" both of them hissed.
Said boy raised his hands in defeat, and began scrolling through his PDA files to clean up the garbage on his hard drive.
"I just don't want another Spectra thing to happen, ok?"
"Quit being so pessimistic!"
"Class," Mr. Lancer began, his words silencing the bickering students, "I'd like you to meet two new students today. Drake Arthan and his sister…" he leaned towards the short blonde girl standing next to him. "How do you pronounce your name again?" he whispered.
Sam noticed her resist the urge to roll her eyes, but she complied at answered "Karimia Arthan."
"Yes, well, please take your seats at the back of the classroom, and then we'll get started."
As they passed, Danny looked them over. Drake was a relatively tall teenager, though not nearly as big as Dash; Danny guessed him to be around 5'11" or so in height, a fairly muscular build, and dark, shoulder-length hair pulled back in a low ponytail. His face was strongly built, with a slightly prominent chin and medium cheekbones. His clothes were bland: a dark unmarked navy t-shirt with slightly baggy jeans. But perhaps the strangest thing about this guy that Danny noticed was his eyes.
They were so hazel, they were almost gold.
As he passed, Danny could have sworn he saw those eyes glint slightly, like a cat's eyes in light…
Karimia passed, smiling her hello both with her mouth and her snowy blue eyes at the three of them. Not quite as intimidating as her counterpart, her waist-length hair was also pulled back in a tight ponytail that fell in a mop about her backpack hanging from her shoulders. Her clothing wasn't particularly flattering; no where near as revealing as Paullina's "I'm always going to expose my stomach and flounce around my beauty so there" or any of the other popular girls' attire. It was much more simple, a black t-shirt that said "by reading this you have given my brief control of your mind" and black jeans.
She actually reminded him a lot of Sam, strangely.
Tucker smiled at her, and she smiled a hello to him before following her brother to the back of the class room into two adjacent seats.
Lancer began the lesson, but Danny's concentration was completely messed up. He couldn't concentrate, not when those golden eyes were burning into his back.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Lunch came around at its usual time, and due to the spring weather, the students had been allowed to go outside into the warm sunshine.
This period found Sam, Tucker, and Danny beneath one of the large oak trees in the field, tongues of shadow from the leaves above spread about them in some sort of perfect, yet undeterminable, pattern.
Sam had long since finished her tofu sandwich, though Danny hadn't even touched his food. He sat on a prominent root of the tree, deep in thought. So deep in thought, that he didn't notice Tucker's hand snake right under his gaze and snatch his lunch out of its bag.
"What's bothering you?" Sam inquired, leaning down on the grass so that her chin was propped up by one arm.
"The new guys. What else?"
"They do seem (gulp) pretty nice (bite chew chew) though," Tucker commented between, and during, mouthfuls of Danny's lunch.
The ghost boy grimaced slightly, but said nothing of his friend's eating habits.
"I just don't get it…it's like they're hiding something…"
"Not everyone is hiding ghostly qualities, Danny," Sam snorted. "Maybe they just have something in their past that they don't want anyone else to know."
"Maybe. But I still can't shake off the feeling that they're ghosts or something…"
Tucker glanced around a bit to make sure no one else was within earshot. "Well, (munch munch) they could be halfas like you, Danny."
Danny's eyes widened at that, his chin falling to rest on his palm in concentrated thought. "Do you really think so?" he asked, pondering slightly.
"I wouldn't dismiss that idea, Danny. I mean, Vlad has powers too, you might not be as unique as you think…"
"Did your (gulp) ghost sense go off in class?"
"No, and that's the strange part. (Tucker, stop eating my lunch…) Do you think that they're concealing it somehow?"
"Yeah, remember the princess thing? That one woman was using a ring and Danny couldn't sense her," Tucker pointed out.
"He was also drowning in estrogen and hormones…" Sam spat bitterly.
Her love interest could only shrug helplessly at that comment. "I'm sorry! I'm just a teenage guy with hormones, I can't change that!"
"Eh," Tucker shrugged. "It was fun while it lasted…" he added dreamily, eyes unfocused and gazing into la-la land.
A nerve throbbed on Sam's head, and she made a glare that would have made Vlad Masters wet his pants.
Tucker's face went into a blank state of shock, before he whimpered and ran behind the tree, peeking out around the edge in fear.
Sam shook her head slightly in an exasperated shame, and turned back to Danny.
"Well, what do you think we should do?"
"I think that we should…" as soon as the idea came to him, it sounded stupid, and he dropped it.
"Should what?"
"I was gonna say go over there and ask what their business is, but that sounds even stupider when I say it…" He groaned.
"Yeah, it kinda does, dude," Tucker snickered. "But then again I don't have anything better to offer," he added quickly in response to Danny's glare.
"Main thing is that we don't rush into anything here. The last thing we need is…"
"GET BACK HERE DASH BAXTON!"
"I DON'T WANNA SMELL LIKE BEANS!"
"…They're STILL running?" Danny wondered half to himself.
"It's almost like a broken record, only more annoying," Tucker observed.
"…Anyways…" Sam attempted to restart conversation through half-lidded eyes with her fish-eyed counterparts.
"They're made for each other," Tucker smirked finally.
Sam turned back to her friends as the strange pair disappeared into the distance. "As I was saying, the last thing we need to do is provoke them and cause some unwanted attention…"
"Why? If they ARE ghosts, then Danny can just kick their butts," Tucker pointed out.
"And what if they're not?" Sam pushed.
"Not ghosts?" both of the boys said at the same time.
"Well," Danny said as his scratched his chin, "I never really thought about it before, but I guess they COULD be…"
"That would explain why your ghost sense didn't go off," Tucker noted.
Danny nodded. "But that leaves the question…what exactly ARE they?"
"BRRRAAAAPPPP!"
"EW!"
GONK!
THUD!
The trio of friends looked over towards a nearby picnic bench to see Karimia fuming slightly, Drake sprawled out flat on the ground with a small cloud of dust settling around.
"Can't you just be civilized for ONCE!" she shouted.
He looked up at her for a moment, confused, then immediately switched his facial expression to one that was much angrier.
"What? I can't express myself?" he countered.
Somehow, Sam thought, it sounded fake…
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Karimia groaned in pain as the door to their apartment opened with a loud creak. Tempted to throw her backpack to the ground with a loud thud, she thought better of it because of the faulty condition that the floorboards seemed to be in.
"What a waste of a day," Drake muttered, his backpack dropping to the floor next to a ratty couch.
"Have a good day, I take it?"
From the kitchen, an older oriental woman, appearing to be in her early thirties, came over from her "post" in the other room.
"Of course, 'mom,'" Karimia said humorously.
"Keep up that mom line and I'm cutting off your allowance," she said sarcastically, and immediately pulled out a small handheld computer.
"You know, Sarah, you should really put that down sometime soon, you know that right?"
"Yeah, I know Drake," the woman snorted. "But, as your leader, I have to work things out. It's not easy to get fake IDs that go all the way back through your history."
"I don't really think we're gonna need something that goes back that far…"
"Kari, you're entering into a school system. If one thing looks odd, our cover is as good as blown. And plus we don't even know how long were gonna be staying here."
"We know who this 'savior' is," Drake grunted as he pulled off his shoes and socks, each coming off with an audible pop. "Isn't that enough?"
Sarah gave a look that said "you are the stupidest man on the face of this planet."
Both hands risen in defeat, he turned towards the fridge, snorting in disgust and annoyance when he found nothing but cobwebs in it. "Alright, what am I missing?" he called back over his shoulder.
"The unpredictable elements here. We really need to take things slow. The first thing's first, we need to start carrying out a plan."
Karimia looked thoughtful for a moment, though it was Drake who smiled first.
"I have the perfect idea."
"This isn't gonna resemble what happened at lunch with the belched fireball, is it?"
"What?" Drake started defensively. "That was Karimia! She just blamed it on me!"
The blonde haired girl blushed. "Well, it did sound like you did it…"
His eye twitched. "Fat difference THAT makes…" After all, he couldn't even USE fire…
Why did he always get blamed for everything?
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Ring ring!
Snore.
Ring ring!
"Buh…wha…?"
There was a pause, and the bright blue eyes were about to close again in sleep, before the telephone blared a gigantic siren that Jack had installed.
Danny screamed and leapt out of bed, then phased through it, falling into the bed. His head poked up, disheveled, eyes set low into his skull; he grumbled as he hopped up out of the bed, then crawled over to the phone.
"Yeah Tucker?"
"How did you know it was me?"
"You're the only one who's ever been able to get the Fenton phone alarm to go off before…"
"On orthodox, but it works…"
Danny flopped on the bed tiredly. "Why are you calling me right now? It's Saturday morning…" he whined.
"Well, it's sorta about Sam…"
"Yes…?"
"I don't know whether I should sorta tell you or if I should—"
"Tucker, quit the ominous thing, and just get to the point!"
"Ok! Ok! Sam was sorta kidnapped…"
Danny was immediately awake.
"WHAT!"
0o0o0o0o0o0
End chappie! Woo, I feel evil right now, heheh. Sorry for the poor quality of this chapter hangs head
Bleh, anyways, thanks all of the reviews so far, they really help keep me going!
'Til the next update!
Dak