Wow…it's been a while, hasn't it? (sweatdrop) man, I hate being so inconsistent…
Anyways, my apologies for having this chapter being so lame, however I figured that you had waited long enough and tried to update as fast as I could, so… enjoy!
To Love and to Hate
This. Class. Sucked.
Monday morning found Danny sitting, glowering and agitated, in Mr. Lancer's class. Chin resting on his desk, he struggled to pay attention to Mr. Lancer's droning, however his mind refused to work.
Why the hell was his life so darned screwed up? Ghosts alone had been bad enough…but now dragons and demons, too, for that matter…
Not to mention he could feel Drake laughing at him with those eyes…those strange and exotic eyes that seemed to attract a lot of girls, whom he very bluntly (and arrogantly) refused, eyes that sparkled with that something that let you know there was something more to him…
Senka was obviously hiding something, too; what the hell was HER power, anyways? She was obviously the weaker of the two, since she had gone to save Sam and left the fighting to Drake…That made sense, at least. Perhaps--
SLAM!
"Mr. Fenton!"
"Uh…?"
"I realize that the discussion of constellations and the stories behind them can be slightly taxing, however I would appreciate you NOT sleeping in my class!"
Danny shook himself out of his daze caused by the slammed dictionary that had suddenly appeared on his desk, and banished the sounds of his laughing classmates out of his mind.
He needed a vacation…
In what seemed like seconds later for his troubled mind, the bell rang and students began leaving the room, murmurs of fashion, sports, and other popular subjects permeating the air around him. Truly degrading to the intellect…Danny suddenly snorted in mirth, reminiscing how he, at one point, would have given almost anything to be popular and be respected.
He practically jumped out of his skin when a hand rested on his shoulder.
Miaho, now in his human disguise, smiled down at him.
"Come on, we need to start," he said simply.
"Start what?"
The dragon didn't answer, and only started out of the room. He paused in the doorway, looking over his shoulder. "Do you have anything going on after school?"
"Um…no…why?"
"I'll meet you at your house, then. Wear something that you don't mind getting a little dirty." And with that, he left; Senka following shortly afterwards after an apologetic look towards Danny, and a glare aimed at Miaho.
A dumbfounded Danny righted himself up from his desk. Arrogant bastard...
Sam and Tucker stared at where Drake had once been, both shaking their heads in confusion. "You want us to come with you?"
"No!" Danny immediately snapped, then, realizing how he must have sounded, he lowered his voice. "No…if these guys are truly dangerous, I don't want you guys to be in the crossfire." The ghost child heaved a heavy sigh, his brow furrowing and a determined frown molding his mouth. "I'm going alone this time, and finally find out what these guys are up to."
"They already told us on Saturday, Danny," Sam pointed out. "You are being a little quick to judge, I think."
"We don't know if they're actually on our side or not, Sam. They're not telling us everything…Can't you tell?"
Sam started to object, however her progress towards Danny was stopped as Tucker held his hand out, uncharacteristically silent.
Danny gave Tucker a silent thank you with his eyes, then started out after Miaho, his false mask of confidence more to reassure himself, rather than his friends.
"He's got this one Sam," Tucker said softly. "We'll only get in his way…"
Sam opened her mouth to retaliate, but then suddenly realized that Mr. Lancer was still sitting at his desk, apparently now reading some Shakespeare. Instead, she huffed, and followed Tucker as he left the room. For once, Tucker mused, he was glad he wasn't involved in a relationship…Sam's face resembled one that yelled "if he doesn't get killed I'm going to kill him when he gets back."
As he laughed silently to himself, Mr. Lancer glanced up from his book, Macbeth, and a small smile appeared on his features.
"Ah…things happen all too fast…" He laughed to himself, and continued to read on in the story, wondering if there might possibly be another wonder that would be remembered as widely known as Shakespeare…
Or, he suddenly thought, like Stalin or Hitler…
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Danny arrived to an empty home, so as such he felt absolutely no qualms about letting loose a large belch into the air of his house. He scratched lazily, still tired from his consistent lack of sleep, and let his backpack flop down on the floor carelessly. He actually had no homework immediately due, for once, and was looking forward to a nice night off…
At least after Drake had his little say…
That damned lizard hadn't really said when he was coming over: probably safe to assume later rather than sooner, since he, too, probably had homework to finish. He yawned; kicking off his shoes, and fell into the couch.
A light sigh escaped his lips, and he relaxed, sinking deeper into the sofa.
"Comfortable?"
Danny practically jumped off of the couch at the voice. He looked frantically around for the source of it, but his initial search bore no fruit. That is, until he happened to look up and see the smiling golden eyes on his ceiling.
"How are you doing that?" Danny asked.
"Doing what?"
"Hanging from my ceiling?"
The dragon smiled, his tail twitching in amusement. "Think of me as a…draconic-Spiderman…"
"You mean a waterlogged one?"
At this the dragon only shrugged, and dropped down from the ceiling, and after a flip, he landed on his feet a lot like a cat.
"We need to start."
"Would you quit that stupid ominous thing?" Danny practically snarled, "I don't understand what you're trying to tell me!"
"Ah, but what would be the fun in that?" Miaho grinned. "It's oh-so boring if I just told you right off…"
"You're getting me really ticked off…" Danny growled.
"Oh, don't get your panties in a bunch…" Miaho scoffed. "I know that you're confused about this whole thing, so, I'm going to give you any and all answers to the questions that you have."
Danny blinked. "That was rather blunt…"
"I'm known for that…" Miaho mumbled, but he quickly regained his composure. "However, we need a private place for me to…relay all of this…"
"Why did you ask me to wear clothes that I didn't mind messing up?"
"You'll see…"
"Oh, come on! You just said you'd answer all my questions!"
A Cheshire-cat smile appeared on the dragon's face. "But I never said when!"
"…"
Miaho laughed at Danny's fuming. "Oh, come now, you can't take a little joke? Besides, we need to move to a place that can take a little damage…"
"Like…?" the ghost child waved his hand in such a way that he obviously wanted the dragon to continue.
"The ghost zone."
Danny nearly jumped out of his skin at the new voice.
The dragon smirked, but then mock scolded the perpetrator of the voice. "Now, we don't need any of that, Senka. He's already scared out of his wits…"
The succubus shrugged as she exited her dark portal, closing it with the sound of a vacuum cleaner behind her. "I make the creepy entrances…"
Danny blinked. "What the heck was that?"
Both looked in confusion. "What was what?"
"That dark thingy that she just popped in through!"
"Oh, that would be a 'dark portal.'" Senka explained. "Think of it like a mage's portal."
"Ok…but HOW do you do that?" Danny rubbed his temples. "This is really confusing…"
"Look, if I just told you everything right now, you'd get all confused…" Miaho muttered. Then, after eyeing Danny, he added "Well…MORE confused…"
"That makes me feel SO much better…"
"Relax, Danny," Senka said. "We just need to get to a spot where no one can spy on us."
Flustered and practically pulling out his own hair, Danny took a deep breath as if to calm himself down, but then yelled a thundering "WHY!"
"You understand so little…" Miaho muttered.
"Because you don't tell me anything and keep up this stupid ominous thing that annoys the heck out of me!"
"He's got a point, Miaho…"
After a huffy scoff, he growled, "Just get us a portal, neh?"
"Fine."
Senka's eyes closed in concentration for a moment, before her hands took on the dark… "Aura" for lack of a better word, that Danny had seen them take on briefly before in with their previous encounter.
In a slow and deliberate motion, she opened her arms wide, as if to accept some long-forgotten lover back into her arms, before a slight rippled distended the air in front of her.
Nothing happened for a moment, but before Danny could point this out, a slight swirling black mass appeared at the center of the air distension, and expanded outwards much like a vertical hurricane.
Complete with its own set of light winds, too, Fenton observed.
Senka let out a light sigh, an indication that her work was complete, and waited for a moment. Miaho, without a second thought, progressed into the portal, the swirling black mass accepting his form greedily into its midst. Senka gave him a slight bump from behind. He turned back towards her in surprise, unable to hide his uneasiness about the vortex in front of him.
She smirked. "It's not going to eat you…at least not in the traditional sense…"
"What—"
Before he could fully respond, she gave him a light shove into the portal.
And into darkness.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"I'm a lumberjack, yes I am!"
GONK! "Hey! I was going to sing that!"
"Well, you can sing it AFTER I sing it."
"No fair, you JUST sang it!"
"So? I have a better vrebrato (sp?) than you could ever manage!"
"Not true!" Pow!
Gonk! Slap! Bam! Bam! Bam!
Dan rested his forehead between his thumb and pointer finger, an exasperated sigh escaping his dead lips. Those stupid bunnies were going to be the end of his sanity if they kept this up. If it wasn't their stupid bickering over the stupidest subjects, (such as Monty Python and/or Michael Jackson songs…) it was their quick make-ups and then make-outs shortly thereafter…
"Why do you keep them around? They're so useless…"
"Ah, Dan, that is why you were defeated by a child…" a smooth voice answered him. "Every plan requires its peons."
Dan winced ever so slightly at the mention of his defeat, but quickly put the feelings beneath him. "Just the same, they get rather irritating…"
"Sticks and stones to them. But we DO need them for our plans."
"Plans that you never share with anyone else, Daron."
The figure only shrugged, and turned back to a small laptop computer sitting in his lap. Daron's appearance screamed "elegance" to anyone who saw him: in his current form, that of a young and incredibly good-looking man in his mid twenties, any girl would have drooled at his immediate sight. Lean, though muscular, and long flowing locks of semi-wavy blond hair that fell about his shoulders, yet never frizzed or puffed. His hands were uncalloused, thin, almost like that of a woman's. His long red (and rather plain) robe; more for show than for actual practicality, hung about his shoulders and off his arms to a nearly ridiculous length, yet somehow he managed to never snag it on anything.
Show off…
Dan continued to sit, irritability radiating the air around him. Daron was the patient type, a perfect leader in many ways. Never rash…never jumping to conclusions, and his mind able to work on several different problems at once, it seemed.
The "most evil ghost of all time" had been told that he would be enlightened on the parts of the plan that he needed to know, as to prevent the whole thing from being discovered by these stupid kids that the were-chimera seemed to consider so seriously. Judging this elegant man's general attitude towards these new intruders, they had been the only ones in his past to ever defeat him.
Just like his own younger and weaker self had managed to defeat him.
Dan growled.
He looked up to see a rather sadistic plan-maker's smile beaming back at him. "This, my young friend, is the next stage in our plans…"
Dan looked as his counterpart swiveled the computer screen around to enter his vision. And as he did so, his eyes narrowed, partly in thought, and partly in discomfort.
Every being had its place in a plan: from the king, the rook, to the pawn, just like in chess. The only thing that disturbed him was that he still didn't know what part of the plan Daron considered him.
Was he a knight? Or just a simple pawn?
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
The darkness around them was rather peaceful, though still uncomforting at the same time. Instinctually Danny transformed into his ghost self, the brief light of his transformation doing nothing to abate the darkness around him. Neither Senka nor Miaho were in his line of vision, and briefly he wondered if he had been tricked.
But just as suddenly as the darkness had appeared, it began to dissipate, and something entered his line of sight, however it was blurry, though it was obvious about one thing:
It was approaching fast.
He squinted, and took a step forward on the black nothingness beneath him, trying to make out what it was. Was that…?
BAM!
Yep…it was a brick wall…
"I think that we should have told him about moving in the portal, eh?" A voice…Miaho's, stated. It was obvious that he was amused.
Of course, if you had just reappeared in the ghost zone and crashed into a brick wall within seconds of your appearance, it would have been funny. Just the same, Danny felt like killing something.
Peeling himself off of the ecto-brick surface, Danny shook his head to clear the stars from his vision, and turned around to absorb his surroundings.
The familiar green sky of the ghost zone hovered above them, a dull blanket of color as a reminder that they were no longer on the same world. All around them were ruins of some sort, devoid of anything other than black rocks that resembled the other black rocks all around them, a few puddles of water, no roof, and a great expanse of land around them.
"…THIS…is what you wanted to show me?" Danny inquired.
Miaho nodded.
Senka glanced at the water puddles on the ground, eyeing the dragon suspiciously. She was answered with a shrug, and she rolled her eyes before pulling out a book from her sleeve and sat over on a rock, legs crossed, now engrossed in a book that had a pink cover.
A rather amusing contrast to the jet black of her robes.
One of the dragon's clawed feet splashed slightly in one of the puddles, snapping the ghost child out of his thoughts.
"The reason why I brought you here was because you need training, Danny…So, I brought you here so that you and I wouldn't level Amity Park, eh?"
"Wait…level…?"
"If you're going to face someone like Daron, you need to be at the peak of your abilities. This isn't some stupid box ghost or something…"
Senka closed her book. "Just fight him so that we can go home, ok?"
Danny blinked. Miaho's arm raised high above his own head, a grin crossing his features. All around him the puddles began to vanish, the water within them literally floating up off the ground to float around in a lazy circle above the dragon's head.
One of the globs of water floated past Danny, and, curious, he poked it with a finger, watching it ripple as it continued on its path into the plethora of water balls floating around the dragon.
"Time for a rematch, Danny. Think you're up to it, boy?"
That arrogant…Danny's anger flared, taking the form of an energy ball in his right hand.
"YOU'RE ON!" he yelled, hurling the blast towards the smirking dragon.
Off to the side, Senka flipped another page of her book, looking up slightly with a look of annoyance crossed with impatience. "Men and their egos…" she muttered, turning another page of her book.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
I promise to update ASAP, please review!