I don't own Danny Phantom or Grossology. They are owned by their respective companies.
In the green and green shades of the Ghost Zone, denizens were minding their own business. Sometimes that meant bothering others, like the Box Ghost complaining to Skulker about using him as bait.
"You dare put me, The Box Ghost, in your iron cage box!?" The ghost in worker overalls yelled.
Skulker, the self-proclaimed greatest hunter of the Ghost Zone, has used the obnoxious specter, that he ignored him as he aimed a ray gun at the bait.
"Just get in the cage," Skulker groaned. "We both know you can't beat me."
"Like you can't beat that Phantom kid despite being a great hunter?" Box Ghost's tone was full of sarcasm.
But that need when he noticed the hunter disengaging his weapon with a snarl.
"Uh-oh, " the Box Ghost grimaced with an audible gulp as he realized what he said.
"That hurt, " Skulker cracked his knuckles. "So, I'll make sure this hurts more!"
The hunter raised both his fist to strike the shrinking specter when suddenly they held their noses and mouths in disgust. Turning greener by the second, the ghosts noticed the source, an oozing form of bile, bones, and filth, floating towards them.
"It's him!" The Box Ghost shouted as he momentarily released his face.
"Aaaah! Disgusting! " Skulker choked out.
The spirit paid no mind to them. He was used to such reactions. With a stench that could cause the paint to an entire town, no one in the Ghost Zone would go within ten feet of him unless it was to tell him off.
"Hey!" Skulker coughed. "why don't you haunted the other side of the Zone!"
The vile ghost didn't react with any gesture or expression.
"Or better yet, why don't you leave the Ghost Zone?"
The filth-riddled phantom stopped but shook his head in disagreement.
"Box ghost, no!"
The ghost hunter placed the obnoxious, box-obsessed specter in a chokehold. But it didn't last as the source of the pungent, putrid flew over in a rage. Halfway to Skulker and the Box Ghost, the scent had become overpowering as the two were on the edge of consciousness.
"I am tired of being told to leave! No one can predict when a portal to the human world opens! So, I. Can't. Leave!"
"There's...one that's...always open, " the Box Ghost managed to say through his coughing, wheezing, and choking.
For the first time since he arrived, the bile colored ghost was excited. "Where!?" he demanded as the barely conscious ghost was grabbed and shook.
With her overalls and shirt stained with the stench, the Box Ghost foamed at the mouth and could only point in a specific direction.
Not saying thank you, or anything, the specter slithered in the pointed path as his stench followed.
"Great," coughed Skulker. "Now, we might see him in the human world too." He collapsed afterward, floating in the Zone.
Jack and Maddie Fenton, being the ghost prioritizer they are, were working on their latest in ghost fighting technology: the Fenton Goop Cannon.
It was still in testing with bugs in the system, but Jack Fenton couldn't wait as he fired at the target on the wall. Moments later, the wall of the lab was caked in an anti-ectoplasmic goo that had harden into a rock-like substance.
"Perfect," the large man said with a grin.
"Mmmm...I don't know, honey. I think it needs a few more tweaks. The goo doesn't look that tough," Maddie remarked at the structural integrity.
Walking over, Jack curled his fist as he punched the hardened goo. With a pained groan and crack, he held his hand. Though luckily it wasn't broken.
"Jack, honey, are you alright?"
"Never better."
But before any first aid could be applied, the doors of the Fenton Portal gave a loud hiss as they fell off their hinges. An out came the filth-riddled ghost in his horrendous grossness.
"Ghost!" the couple cried as Maddie rushed to hit the ghost. Or she would've had the stench not have knocked her out. By the time it reached the other, it was too late as the man felt woozy.
"Ghost scent...too...strong. Must activate security systems. Voice command...activate anti-ecto defenses...Level: Spoiled Ham!" Jack managed to say before he followed his wife on the floor, passed out.
Anti-ecto cleaners activated. Initiating ectoplasmic disinfectant.
In seconds the built-in sprinkler system released a non-toxic liquid form of what the Fentons would call ecto-cleaner. With a hiss, the Phantom felt his sludge fall to the floor as the putrid smell spread.
Phasing through the roof, the ghost collected itself as he looked around town, examining his environment.
"Where am I?"
Meanwhile, Danny Fenton was at Casper High dealing with his day to day occurrence of Dash's bullying. This time, the blonde jock had failed another test and felt it best to take out his misdirected anger at the smaller boy, who was now running down the halls.
"Fenton!" the quarterback screamed.
"Seriously, " the boy deadpanned. This had become more of an annoyance than anything to be scared of. "Is this guy every gonna pass a test?"
Turning at the next corner, he noticed it was empty of students and surveillance, giving him the perfect opportunity to use his ghost powers and escape. Turning invisible, the ghost boy stopped, stepped to the side, and held his leg out. After waiting a minute, Dash had made it to the hall where he tripped over the hidden limb and fell face-first into the tiled floor.
Danny gave a small smirk in triumph and would've turned visible had not a teacher, Mr. Lancer, just walked by.
"Mr. Baxter, why are you on the floor?"
"It was that—"
Dash tried to blame Danny, but with no one in sight to take the blame, the teacher gave the boy a skeptical look.
"You tripped on your own two feet," Mr. Lancer groaned before muttered to himself. "No wonder the football team's on a losing streak."
As the quarterback stammered with trying to find an excuse to save his dignity, Danny walked away to rejoin his friends, Tucker and Sam.
"Wow, guess Dash is losing his touch," Tucker said with a grin. "Cause I don't think Lancer is giving away free passes anymore. I just wish I could've been there."
"You do realize Dash would blame you, and then you'd be in trouble, right?" Sam quipped.
Tucker pouted only annoyance. He wanted at least a few minutes before someone ruined the moment. Most likely a ghost.
The trio continued walking to the next class when suddenly they and the student body dropped their books and pinched their noses.
"What is that smell!? It's worse than Dash's lucky jockstrap," Sam covered her nose with both hands.
"Please don't remind me of that," Danny didn't want to remember how he had to eat it after losing a bet. But the smell was getting worse. It wasn't long before the underwear was a distant memory as the fire alarm went off, and students began racing out the door.
"Portrait of Dorian Gray! What is that horrendous odor?" Lancer cried out as he and the other teachers did their best to keep the students in line.
Eventually, someone pointed to the sky as everyone look upwards.
"Time to go ghost," Danny muttered to himself with a gulp. He really didn't want to test how much he could handle.
With the help of Tucker and Sam, the ghost boy managed to find an isolated area where he could transform. And within seconds, Fenton was replaced with Phantom, who soared heroically into the air at top speed.
Or at least he would have, hadn't the smell stopped him like a brick wall reinforced with steel.
"Oh, my this worst that the time after dad used the only working bathroom after Thanksgiving," Danny held his nose and kept going. His target was in sight as the only other ghost in the sky.
Charging his fists, the ghostly hero fired a few echo-beams as a warning. Though they mostly hit the specter. And by hit, it meant dislodging the layers of filth before they reformed.
Danny got a better look as he closed in, to the best he could muster, and saw how this ghost looked like a combination of the grim reaper and every kind of disgusting substance mixed into a greenish-brown goop.
"Wow, that's something," the ghost boy held in his gag reflex. "You look like you missed every bath and garbage day...ever."
"Where am I?" The murky ghost asked with a gurgle. He turned to the hero, giving him a good look at his face, which was more akin to garbage in muck with holes for his eyes and mouth.
"Where are you? Amity Park," Danny pontes to the town. "You're in Illinois. If you want a tour, I'd suggest the bath first."
"Where is Ringworm?" he gargled.
"I have no idea what that is, but you're not going anywhere but back in the Ghost Zone."
The moment Danny pulled out the Fenton Thermos, the ghost crazy as he zoomed through the air, the scent following him wherever he goes.
Fling his arms, globs of goo hurdled towards Danny, who swiftly dodged the unknown substance as he gave chase the best he could. But the smell was too much to get close enough or aim accurately.
Like an eel slathered in extra slime, the ghost slipped past and flew around behind the ghost boy. Holding his breath, the teen hero turned around to capture the disgusting spirit with the thermos. The filthy ghost, however, inhaled deeply before spewing out what could be described as the vile bile he kept inside.
Thinking fast, Danny let the vomit phase through him with none the smell. Though that didn't mean the smell was much better.
"If my life probably wasn't on the line here, I would hurl right now," he shuddered. He decided after the fight, he would toss his cookies, along with anything else he had for lunch. "Just who are you?"
"Joseph."
Danny blinked. "What?"
"Joseph. Joseph Gutchern."
Once again, the ghost boy blinked. He didn't expect to get a proper answer or a name like that.
"And don't worry," Joe said menacingly. "I won't stay for long."
Extending bits of his filth like string, Joe lassoes Danny before flinging him into the ground as he zoomed away. Into the school.
"Hey, come back here." Danny wheezed. Getting up, he quickly gave chase to this new foe. His stench was disgusting, and the ghost boy REALLY didn't want it all over the school. Especially if classes were to continue.
Following the trail of slimy filth, the ghost boy found himself at the library. Phasing through the door, Danny quietly drifted through the shelves of books, hoping to sneak up on Joe. To his luck, the ghost was occupied with one of the computers, typing away about his business, which hopefully would end soon. His stench was starting to meld with the room.
Danny held his breath as he aimed the thermos.
"I hope you remembered to sign off," the ghost capture device whirred to life. "Because you didn't sign up for extra time."
However, Gutchern has other plans, and from his back came a pile of goo that splashed everywhere as Danny braced himself. The combined disgustingness and stench overpowered the teen hero as he desperately escapes the library.
Catching his breath once more, Danny Phantom looks to see his filthy foe staring him down.
"I admit you got some guts handling mine, but this is where really fight dirty."
"Funny for a moment, you sound clean," the ghost boy quipped as he got up muttering. "Wow, that's ironic...I think."
Moments later, the sound of rounds blasted, from none of the ghosts became a distraction as Jack and Maddie Fenton stormed inside with gas masks and blasters. Their sights were dead set on the two spirits.
"Nobody move!" Jack shouted.
"As duly deputizes citizens of Amity Park, you two will be sent back from whence you came!" Maddie had her sights set on the two.
"NO!" Joe gurgled loudly. But his sudden shout had the Fentons blasting everywhere.
Danny phases through the floor, but Gutchern built-up bile in his stomach before vomiting it all over the hallways and the ghost fighting parents.
"You think everything, OK?" Tucker asked.
The answer came when the Fentons were blown out of the school with vomit exiting the windows and door shortly. The students, teachers, and other authorities stepped back in terror, and also in disgust as some to most couldn't hold themselves.
"Well, now that's an interesting sight," Sam commented as she noticed how some of the students, especially the popular kids, were in a vomiting frenzy. She almost found some entertainment in this.
"And you wouldn't believe what the ghost looked like," Danny surprised them from behind. "I think it's safe to say that's probably the most disgusting thing I ever saw. Or will see."
The ghost was gross, but those thoughts were pushed away when the boy remembered his ghost-hunting parents were hit. He ran to the front of the crowd and saw them with dark green blotches on their suits. It was a good thing they were fully covered. The two seemed practically unharmed until Jack and Maddie started sneezing and scratching.
Taking off their masks, it was made apparent that their protective gear didn't do a complete job. Thin green veins were breaking out on their skin.
"That ghost!" Jack coughed. He would have continued but was wheezing too much, and Maddie was in the same state. Danny and Jazz watched in horror. They wanted to make sure they were alright, but the veins were spreading as the two ghost hunters lost consciousness.
"Mom! Dad!" the two siblings cried out.
Moments later, paramedics arrived and scanned the Fentons. The school was surveyed as well and was closed for however long it would take to clean and sanitize it. And from what Danny could tell from the stench alone, which everyone from a five-mile radius could have smell if not for a tent placed over the school building, might be a few days. A week or two tops. While Amity Park was the most haunted place, the hospitals were not ready for this sort of ghostly affliction. There was only one place in town that could help them.
Danny and Jazz raced their parents to the ops center. The children donned hazmat suits as the parents were placed on medical beds and hooked them up to various anti-ghost machines. Within minutes and a few beeps, the monitors gave a display of their vitals.
"It seems you two will be fine...for a few days," Jazz explained. She wanted to believe that if she spoke, her parents would get up and try to shake things off. They were usually more resilient than normal humans.
Giving the parents some peace and quiet, Jazz walked downstairs to see Danny pacing in the living room. He seemed disgusted not only by the situation but from the fight as he stopped and shuddered every few seconds.
"I take it you're gonna track down this ghost, right?"
"I honestly want to say, 'yeah,' but I have no idea where he went," Danny said as he walked to the kitchen. "Do we have any steel wool? I really want to shower after that Gutchern ghost."
"Seriously? You're gonna shower instead of catching that disgusting creep?" Sam asked with some anger in her tone.
"Sam, Danny just said he has no idea where it went," the Fenton sister repeated. "So, a wild goose chase isn't going to help."
"More like a wild gross chase," Danny commented as he searched the kitchen, but a familiar stench lead him to the basement lab. He was horrified to see the same goo from Joe plastering the walls of the room, with a Jack and Maddie sized clean spot where his parents once laid.
"Mom...Dad..."
Danny grabbed a Fenton mop, which luckily was more than a mop with the name Fenton on it. The same couldn't be said for Danny's sense of smell. The ghost boy had to hold in his gag reflex multiple times before he started making any leeway.
"Hey! What's this?" Danny asked as he noticed a special mask on the workbench. It looked like a gas mask and had the name Fenton on it, so it had to be for ghosts. Nearby were some cleaning supplies that seemed to have been reconfigured similarly along with the Fenton Goop Cannon.
"Guess mom and dad made some special equipment before fighting Joe."
"Yeah," the son sighed as he picked up the mask. Jazz could tell her younger brother was troubled by all this. Not only did the ghost get away, but their parents are in quarantine in the ops center for who knows how long.
It was apparent Danny partially blames himself.
"Well, the good news is your folks will be out in a week. That ecto-cleanser thing they're hooked up to seems to work fine," Tucker said as he came down. "I mean, it could be worse."
And swiftly came a smack upside the head from Sam.
"Tucker, how can it be worse!?"
"Well, I mean, they could have something like ringworm, right?"
"Ringworm?" Danny said with a perplexed expression.
Jazz noticed as well.
"Tucker, that's treatable. OK? You just don't like it because you need to go to the hospital to get the cream for it."
"Ringworm. Ringworm," Danny repeated again. "That's what he kept saying."
"Who?" Jazz asked.
"Joe, that ghost. He asked where it was."
Rucker situated himself at the computer a began searching for anything related to Ringworm. Besides the illness.
"You said his name was Joe Gutchern?" the techno-geek asked.
Danny nodded.
Typing it into the search engine, the kids found nothing but links to surnames. The only bit of info was that Gutchern was a name used in Canada.
"Hmmm..." Danny thought to himself before he reached for the keyboard. "Search ringworm with Canada."
Sure enough, there was a city called Ringworm.
"Huh, who'd think it was a city," Tucker said for everyone in the room too stupefied to talk.
Within moments, the ghost boy snapped back to reality as he grabbed the mask and other weapons.
"Then that's where I'm headed. Ringworm," Danny sternly said as he packed the Specter Speeder with the necessary equipment. "You guys stay here."
"Excuse me?" Sam was not liking the idea of being left out of the adventure. Though no one would call it that.
"You guys stay here and protect the city while making sure Joe Gutchern doesn't cause any trouble. You saw what he did to my parents, someone needs to stop him, and I can't leave Jazz alone to care for mom and dad by herself. Please."
Sam and Tucker did not like the idea of their best friend going alone to a city in another country, granted it was Canada, but that didn't make a difference in their opinion.
"Sam, Danny's right. That ghost is not like the others, and it might be better like this," Jazz said as she placed her hand on the goth girl's shoulder. "Plus, I could use the help. My parents are fine, but not conscious right now. And who else can stop a ghost that is making it's way to a city Canada? Last I checked they didn't have a ghost fighting force."
The goth girl stomped and huffed awkwardly. Like she was Freakshow when he was in denial about a flaw, or just being overdramatic in general. As much as she didn't like her friend leaving by himself, and she REALLY didn't, it may have been the only way right now.
"Dude," Tucker spoke up as he turned to his friend. "just be careful. You saw what that did to your folks. And they had their gear."
"I know," Danny nodded. "But I can't do nothing. I'll be back after I capture this guy...and bury the thermos."
Jazz nodded and went upstairs to cook for Danny, Jack, and Maddie. And while she'd need to make more for her brother, the older sister was going to do her best to support him.
Within the next few hours, the Specter Speeder was packed with food and equipment. Danny transformed into his alter ego and hugged his friends and sister good-bye as he fired up the machine. As he hovered upward, the ghost boy looked to the ops center.
Mom. Dad. I'll be back. And I know you'll be alright when I come home.
Once the proper altitude was reached, Danny punched in the city Ringworm into the navigation unit and put the peddle to the meddle. Joe had a good headstart on him. Who knows how long it would take to reach him.
This is going to be interesting. Just what is it Joe Gutchern wants? Next time we get to see Ty and Abby. how will they handle aginst the gross ghost?