To everyone who's been waiting for this, thank you for your patience. I've had this written up for a while, so I'll just keep this posted up for now. This story won't be regularly updated though, since each episode is going to be adapted part by part, and the chapters are ridiculously long as compared to some of my others.
Parkeratkinson: Thank you for the compliment. Anything you'd like to see in future episodes? I was aiming for something more subtle and slightly hints more at what Danny has to go through in the actual show since we never saw the first time he transformed, I thought it would be appropriate for both him and Dani to totally freak out.
Guest: Sorry if you wanted more of her. You'll see her more in future episodes, but until she learns the twins' secret, she'll mainly be featured as a side character.
Wishfull-star: I love you, in a completely platonic sense. You've been reviewing most, if not all of my stories. Again, do you have anything you want to see in particular for the future episodes?
Also, to everyone who's reading this, I'm just loosely following the original plot, and I imagine that the characters could have more character development than in the original series, so if you have anyone in the series that you'd like to see expanded upon, review, and I'll try my best to do as you wish.
Edit: 5th September 2018. Fixed a few grammatical errors and added a summary.
Summary: Danny and Dani have just started getting used to their powers, but it's not all roses and sunshine for them yet. There's been a change in the lunch menu at school, and a lunch lady isn't very happy about it.
"Alright kiddos, listen up!" Jack's powerful voice boomed in the basement beneath the Fenton household. The stocky man was holding a laser pointer and there was a movable whiteboard beside him, with crudely drawn sketches of the stereotypical bed-sheet ghost scribbled onto it. The ghost hunter had the red laser pointed at one of the ghosts and was going off a long, drawn out tangent about ghosts, mainly about how he would dissect them if he ever caught one. "And then I'll rip it apart, molecule by molecule!" Jack declared with a dramatic sweep of his arm, accidentally tossing the laser pointer at Danny. "Right Mads?" he hollered up the stairs.
"Yes, Jack!" Maddie shouted back, opening the door to reveal her jumpsuit wearing form.
Danny made a face and held his hands up as the laser pointer flew at him. His ghost powers activated on instinct, turning him intangible as the small thing flew right through him and clattered on the ground. Danny shivered at the sensation. "Well," he commented to his twin, who was standing beside him. "That went strangely well."
Dani faked a cough, gesturing to his lower half. She glanced away and refocused on her parents, who were talking at the top of the stairs, Maddie offering Jack a full tray of fudge.
Danny's brow furrowed and the boy glanced down curiously. What he saw made the raven-haired lad blush furiously in embarrassment. He reached down, quickly getting his pants and securing the jeans around him, cursing his newly-found powers. Buckling the belt, he straightened himself just as his father returned, gloved hands sticky with fudge.
"Now, where was I?" Jack muttered, picking up the laser pointer on the ground again. "Oh, right! Molecule by molecule!" he declared dramatically. "And I've just the tool to do it with!" He hefted up a silver and green machine, partially slung around his large form. "The Fenton Molecule Destabiliser!" he announced, pointing the vacuum cleaner-like nozzle at the twins, who winced and stepped back in unison. "This baby sucks the ghost through the head and ejects them as ghost-bits in the Thermos-sack!"
Jack patted the machine fondly, resulting in a loud 'clang-clang' echoing in the basement. Continuing to ramble on about the invention, he picked up a whiteboard marker and began to draw the invention on the surface, speaking animatedly all the while. The machinery of the Fenton Molecule Destabiliser was set down in favour of another machine, apparently called the Fenton Thermos, which was, appropriately enough, shaped like a Thermos.
While Jack was rambling, though, Danny was busy making sure that his pants didn't drop around his ankles again. A jab in the ribs by his twin quickly snapped the boy to attention, and as he glanced over at his sister, he saw her jerking her head at the Portal. "Uh-oh," he mumbled, stepping away from the closed doors. The portal was glowing green again, and the hybrid was seriously worried about it.
The portal's doors opened, two blobs of neon green shooting out of it. Thankfully, Jack had his back turned to the portal as he continued to yammer on about the inventions, and Danny shared a look with Dani. With a nod, both let the glowing rings appear around them, then bisect and transform them into their white-haired, green-eyed other selves. Almost instantly, Danny hovered in the air, and with a bit of concentration, so did Dani. The twins scrambled unsteadily in the air and headed for the blobs.
Gah! Danny thought, reaching out for his sister as the two suddenly shot at the ghosts, which had now taken a form that vaguely resembled octopuses. After the incident with the Ghost Portal that had granted them these alternate forms, they had found that their mental bond had crossed the line over into straight out telepathy. Dani, can you hear me?
Fine, Danny, Dani replied, a panicked look on her face as she tried not to smash onto the floor. She hovered unsteadily in the air for a while, her green eyes wandering over to her father, still cheerily talking about his inventions. I'm just trying not to fall flat on my face.
Danny snorted as he slowly crept up on the two 'ectopuses' with his hands out to grab them, completely forgetting that the green spectres could turn intangible. He grabbed at the things, which quickly faded out of the plane, escaping from his grasp and returning back to normal. Danny cursed, returning to his twin's side with a scowl. He gave his twin an aside glance, prompting the girl to try something too.
The white-haired ghost girl turned up her nose at her brother's signal, rocketing at the ghosts with her fists stretched out. When she was close enough, the ectoplasmic creatures shot off in two different directions and Dani would have crashed into the wall if her intangibility hadn't acted up and sent her careening through the metal walls. A couple of minutes later, she phased back through the wall, her white hair speckled with dirt.
Danny snickered.
The twins then spent several more minutes trying to get the slippery ghosts, until Danny's hand ignited with green energy that he flung at the two ghosts. The boy paused in his tracks, staring at his hand, which had thin wisps of smoke drifting from the palm. What?
Seems like some kind of energy attack, Dani deadpanned. Why don't you do that again, shouting out 'Sugar Sweetheart Mint Twinkle?
Danny called the energy back again and he blasted the ghostly octopuses with energy until one of them was smoking. Dani copied him, calling up the energy as well and attacking the remaining ghost until both fled back through the Ghost Portal. Their job done, the twins dropped to the floor, though not without accidentally sinking a few inches into the ground a few times until they finally managed to revert back to normal. That was eventful, Danny muttered.
Dani rolled her eyes and shook her head, trying to get any dirt out of her black hair.
"- and this baby can fire anti-ghost plasma! Isn't that cool, kiddos?" Jack boomed, turning back around with yet another gadget in his hands.
"Uh... yeah, dad," Danny said with a nervous smile.
Dani nodded, copying him. "Yeah dad," she said convincingly. "It sounds really cool."
The twins looked at each other as their father went on another tangent about the inventions again. Crisis averted.
The very next morning, the twins shuffled down the stairs, Dani first, as always, in their signature blue hoodie and red pants with the red beanie, and the white and red T-shirt and jeans respectively. Dani yawned, rubbing her eyes as she took another step down. Her powers kicked in, and as she attempted to walk down the steps, her foot passed through the ground, and she yelped, her feet pulling out as she tumbled down the stairs, strangely unhurt.
Dani? Danny called. You okay - "Whoa!" The elder twin shouted out his surprise as he tripped as well, though it wasn't from intangibility. Nope, his flight had him taking a step in mid-air and the next had his powers turning off, resulting in the inevitable fall. Strangely enough, neither of them were hurt, even though Danny's fall resulted in him nearly falling on Dani's head.
"Ugh," Dani mumbled. "This wasn't what I had in mind for my morning," she complained with a groan. "You okay, bro?"
Danny's hand raised slightly in a thumbs-up, signalling that, yes, the boy was fine.
Groaning, the twins leant on each other for support as they made their way towards the kitchen, where the smell of fresh waffles wafted out to the hungry duo. Dani headed for the table first, practically salivating as Maddie set down a plate of waffles and eggs in front of her. "Thanks, mum!" she chirped, already with her fork up and ready to dig in. Licking her lips, she reached out and got the honey that was put in the middle of the table, drizzling it over her waffles and eating.
Danny, on the other hand, took a seat at the table sometime after Dani had begun to eat, having a healthy portion of food set in front of him by their red-headed mother. As he reached for the honey as well, though, he sank a couple of inches in his chair, and he hastily jumped to his feet, glaring at the offending furniture like it was the reason he had trouble controlling his newly-gained powers.
"Danny?" Maddie asked, looking up from her makeshift workstation at the kitchen counter. Her gloves were on, and Dani had the sneaking suspicion that she was working on some kind of hare-brained invention that her father had started but had lost the interest in finishing. "What's wrong?"
Danny shook his head, running a hand through his black hair. "I'm fine, mum," he assured the woman with a smile on his face.
Dani snickered, earning herself a glare by her twin, but her expression promptly turned to barely disguised horror as her fork phased through her hand, hitting the table, though the waffles thankfully fell back onto the plate. She jumped a little when she couldn't see her hands anymore, and before her mother could see, hastily shoved both her arms under the table.
"Hmm," Maddie said, frowning at the twins. "Well," she started, carrying out a small device shaped like a phone. "The two of you should be more careful. Don't think I didn't hear that fork of yours dropping, young lady."
Dani blushed at the admonishment. "Sorry, mum. What's that?" she asked, eager to change the topic.
Maddie proudly set the phone on the table. "This is the Fenton Finder," she started with a smile. "Jack and I have been working on this for a couple of weeks, and now we're finally done!" She pressed a button, causing the screen of the phone to light up, beeping incessantly. "Ghost presence detected," it beeped out in a mechanical voice. "Two ectoplasmic sources in the room.
Maddie frowned. "That's not right." She held it out to just in front of Dani, upon which it beeped louder, the screen turning red. 'GHOST', it read. The woman tapped it several times. "You're not supposed to be registered as a ghost, Dani. It must be malfunctioning."
Dani opened her mouth, about to speak out to her mother and say that she was a ghost now, well, at least partially, but one look from Danny across the table made her stop in her tracks. Shouldn't we tell her? Dani tried. Her big blue eyes stared at her older twin, her lip quivering convincingly in an imitation of wanting to cry.
That's not going to fool me, sis, Danny bluntly replied. Besides, mum and dad are ghost hunters. They hunt ghosts. Ghosts like us.
The raven-haired girl winced at the reminder that she wasn't exactly quite human any more. But, she started once more.
Danny didn't let her finish. I want to tell them too, Dani, he admitted softly. But let's face it, we're in danger.
Dani sighed, hanging her head. Continuing with their breakfast, the Fenton twins stopped their telepathic conversation and kept silent for the rest of the half hour. A knock on the door caught Dani's attention as the girl moved to put her dishes in the sink. She saw Danny also stop in his tracks, tilting his head in mild confusion. Is mum expecting visitors? Dani asked her older brother.
Danny shrugged.
The twins hastened up the stairs to get their school things, letting their parents deal with the visitor at the door. When the duo walked down, they were greeted with the face of Valerie Gray. The green-eyed African-American teen was wearing an all-orange ensemble, complete with an orange headband in her black wavy hair. "Hey Danny," she greeted, though the twins weren't sure which one it actually was. "Dani."
"Val!" Dani squealed. She hugged her cousin tightly and pulled Danny over into the hug, even though the boy protested the action at first. "How've you been, Val?" Dani chirped animatedly. "I haven't seen you in such a long time!"
"Dani's right, Val," Danny replied thoughtfully. "We haven't seen you since you transferred to that private school over in that place - what was it called again? Beach City? Gravity Falls?" Danny shrugged.
"Dad and I moved back. Mum's staying in Jump City," replied the other teen. "I came over to see if I could walk with you to my new school. Casper High, I think it was."
Danny smiled. "That's our school too. Come on, we're going to be late."
Dani laughed, looping an arm around Valerie and Danny, though she had to stand on her toes to do so. "Let's go! Mr Lancer is going to give us detentions if we're late again."
The trio set off, Dani and Danny calling back to their mother. Dani could swear that she heard her father mumbling over some contrived reason why Valerie had to be a ghost - something about never wanting to walk with the two of them before - but she ignored it in favour of cheerfully chatting to her cousin with her twin. "So, Val," she started casually, a smile on her face.
Unbeknownst to the two half-ghosts, the portal in the basement opened up, releasing a ghost from the depths of the mysterious Ghost Zone.
Terrence Morris was not having a good day.
After narrowly escaping a detention for being late to school by the homeroom teacher Mr Lancer, he had gotten in the way of a fight between the two rival groups of A-list students - the Goths, headed by the ultra-rich Samantha Manson, and the Jocks, spearheaded by the incredibly intelligent and tech-savvy Tucker Foley. And then, he had to witness two of his very best friends, Danny and Dani Fenton embarrass themselves in class when their newly gained ghost powers kicked in, dropping Danny's jeans, and making Dani's shoes get stuck in the floor more than once.
Terrence was just glad that the two Fentons didn't blame him for their predicament.
At least, the blond boy considered, things couldn't get much worse, right? He sorely hoped that he didn't jinx himself there. The boy headed off to the cafeteria after shoving his Maths textbook in his locker and pulling out History. He had to study for that quiz later on, after all, and all be darned if he didn't manage to maintain his straight A record. Arriving in the cafeteria, meekly pushing open the double doors, the blond quickly slunk to a table in the corner that the rest of his group usually occupied.
To his immense surprise, the cafeteria was in complete silence, stripped bare of the usual noise that recess brought with it. Terrence warily took a seat at the table with the Fenton twins, Penny, Jazz, and the new girl Valerie, who was apparently the twins' cousin. Penny was looking at her shoes, and Jazz and Valerie were talking in soft. hushed tones. The twins were glancing around the room warily.
Terrence feared the worst. "What happened?" he asked, barely mustering up enough courage to speak. He kept his tone as soft as was possible, though, to avoid stirring up trouble.
"Penelope happened," Danny replied grimly. "You know how her parents are on the school board, right?"
Terrence nodded.
"Well," Dani said, continuing her brother's sentence, "she convinced them to change the lunch menu to serve vegetarian specials in place of the all-you-can-stand meat dishes." She winced. "The Goths are on our side, but Tucker wasn't very happy about that."
"Foley deserved it," Danny muttered.
Dani shot him a piercing glare, but she didn't say anything further. As if on cue, the temperature in the room dropped a few degrees, making the tension hanging in the air even more palpable. A thin wisp of blue smoke left the twins' mouths, alerting them to... well, something.
"Ghost," Danny and Dani hissed in unison. The boy stood, getting ready to leave the area, but a jock in a red and white letterman jacket shoved him back. Danny grunted as he very nearly fell onto the ground. "What's your problem, Baxter?" he ground out.
"Stay put, Fenturd," Baxter sneered. "Tucker doesn't want anyone to leave unless the menu's changed."
Terrence pitied the blond jock. The quarterback could have been one of the most popular jocks there, that was, until he messed up in the middle of a play, causing the team to possibly lose their chances to be in the tournament early in the year. He was currently trying to redeem himself in Tucker Foley's eyes from being a pitiful failure to returning to become a successful player once more.
The jock then slammed a tray full of the vegetarian stuff onto the table. "You know," he sneered. "I bet this is your fault. You and your weird sister, and your freak show parents must have done this. Why don't you eat then?" Reaching over, he grabbed a fistful of Danny's hair and tried to slam his face down onto the tray.
Danny instantly seemed to react, for his hair suddenly slipped through Baxter's hold, freeing him. "Look everyone!" he yelled. "Dash Baxter is starting a food fight!" He chucked a handful of tofu at someone... which turned out to be one Tucker Foley.
"Get him!" Tucker yelled, and the food fight commenced.
In the midst of the chaos, the group managed to slip away unnoticed. Jazz and Valerie excused themselves to talk, while Terrence and Penny followed after the twins as the duo headed in a certain direction. Terrence was giving short glares to Penny, who shuffled along guiltily.
"Sorry guys," she murmured. "If I had known the trouble you'd be in for this, I'd have told my parents to keep the meat."
Terrence shook his head. "Nah, Penny," he stated offhandedly. "We know you're allergic to red meat. It's not your fault." He was about to talk further, but both twins stopped in their tracks, then started to run hurriedly towards the area of the kitchen. "He-hey!" he yelped. "Slow down, Dannies!" Grabbing Penny by the wrist, they ran off, following the black-haired twins as the latter two sprinted faster and faster.
"Holy mother of spectres!" Dani's startled voice drifted over to them when the smart boy and the school marathoner, that was to say, Penny, reached the kitchen. "That's a..."
"Ghost," Danny ground out in a low voice.
By now, Terrence was timidly creeping up behind the two, Penny even more so as the human duo hid behind the twins. The boy stared in horror at the first ghost he had ever encountered - not including his half-ghost half-human friends in that category. It — he wasn't sure if ghosts could have a gender — resembled a lunch lady, oddly enough, wearing a white apron and rubber gloves of all things, though the green skin and red eyes made him completely wary of it.
It spoke, revealing an unsettlingly female voice that resembled the lunch lady from Casper High when he first visited the school as a child of no more than five for no particular reason other than boredom. "Hello dearies," it cooed, its voice sickeningly sweet. "Would you mind telling me if the menu has been changed?"
Terrence reacted first. "Samantha Manson changed it, ma'am!" he interjected hastily, drawing attention away from the uncomfortably fidgeting Penny. "She organized a petition to have the menu changed to Ultra-Recyclo-Vegan foods!"
"Ultra-Recyclo-Vegan foods?" the ghost repeated slowly, then again in anger. "Ultra-Recyclo-Vegan foods?" Its eye twitched. "This school's menu has been the same for the past fifty years!" it roared, incensed. "I'll show this Samantha Manson why you shouldn't mess with a fifty-year-old menu!" Suddenly turning all sweet again, sit cooed to Terrence, holding out a plateful of chocolate biscuits. "Thank you, dearie. Do you want some?"
Terrence held up his hands. "Sorry, ma'am," he apologized in as polite a manner as he could. "I've already eaten." That was about as much of a lie as he could handle, and the blond wasn't sure if he could eat anything at all. However, that was apparently the wrong answer.
The lunch lady flew into a rage, fire burning down its body as it screeched, "Reject my treats, will you? I'll show you how to appreciate my meals for what they are!" The plates in the cafeteria kitchen were enveloped in a green glow and sent crashing at the quartet, who hastily dove for cover. The school ovens levitated into the air, spraying green fire at the counters and scorching them beyond recognition. "Come out, come out wherever you are, children!" it singsonged.
Terrence sweat-dropped. Was the ghost actually mentally unstable? He hoped not. Dragging Penny into the area behind a counter, he kept her there as they waited for the ghost to pass. He held his breath, afraid that it might hear him breathing. The ghost floated past, but then, something else drew its attention.
"We're going ghost!" two identical yells came by the twins. The white-haired siblings shot into the air, both summoning green spheres into their hands. "Come and get us!" they yelled in eerie unison as they flew out of the kitchen and into the halls of the school. The two disappeared in two streaks of radioactive green, presumably trying to get away from the ghost as fast as possible.
"Don't you dare!" the lunch lady shrieked, gloved hands flinging up into the air. Meat, from the all-steak buffet in the teachers' lounge, perhaps, flew through the air, coalescing into the ghost. It melted together with the meat and grew. The meat covered it completely from head to toe, making it colossal in size, and probably enhancing its strength too. "Come back here!" it roared, voice now echoing menacingly around the building.
Terrence gulped nervously, butterflies in his stomach as he held Penny back, hoping that the ghost would leave them. When it stormed past, leaving globs of meat on the ground as 'footsteps', the blond grabbed Penny and ran out of the kitchen like bats out of hell, putting as much distance as was possible between them and ground zero. The blond pulled the Asian girl around a corner, keeping them hidden in the hallway, until a piercing shriek resonated from the school cafeteria, and then, both teens looked at each other, deciding upon their next course of action quickly.
They ran towards the noise.
Along the way, they met up with the twins, both flying in the air as they headed towards another hallway. "Where at?" Terrence asked, not really bothering to ask what was going on - logic was thrown all out when it came to ghosts, after all.
"Lunch Lady captured Samantha Manson," Dani replied, her eyes glowing green as she glanced around, her hands alight with green energy.
"And they're gone," Danny added with a frown, dropping to his feet and releasing his transformation. "Maybe she can sense other ghosts like we can?"
Penny nodded, a frown on her face. "Sounds legit," she supplied, trying to be helpful. "Maybe we could help?"
Danny and Dani shook their heads in unison. "Our ghost problem, we deal with it," they insisted, in the same, eerie unison.
Terrence and Panny glanced at each other. Creepy, was the message conveyed. "But we need to find them," the boy protested.
"Dani and I'll split up. We can cover more ground this way, so - " Danny stopped speaking, and Dani vanished from sight. "Mr Lancer!" he said, startled.
"Mister Fenton, Mister Morris," the balding teacher snapped, "and you, Miss Hadley! What are the three of you doing here? We have an evacuation! One of our students has gone missing! All students are to report to the field this instant!"
"Yes, sir!" Terrence snapped to attention, nervously laughing to try and cover up the fact that he had been the cause of Manson's disappearance. "We'll be right out, sir."
The English teacher shooed the three of them out of the building and as soon as he was out of sight, Danny returned back to his ghost form.
Terrence shivered. It was unsettling, looking at how Danny suddenly turned white-haired, and his eyes turned from bright, lively blue to a glowing, dead green. He remained silent, not mentioning the fact that the hairs on his skin were standing up.
Danny seemed to notice that, though, and simply gave him a short glance. The ghost teen hovered into the air, and spoke calmly, "Dani, you can come out now." He reached a hand into the walls of the school, phasing right through the walls, and tugged, pulling Dani back. The girl tumbled through, falling onto Danny with a short yelp. "Dani!" the boy complained. "Get off!"
"Fine!" Dani snapped, hovering to her feet. She looked around, a hand reaching to the back of her neck and absently toying with her white ponytail. "Where's Lancer?"
"Gone," Penny interrupted. "I don't mean to be rude, but we really need to find Samantha Manson before things get worse."
Dani snorted contemptuously at that. "Manson doesn't need saving. The Lunch Lady'll teach her good on why she shouldn't be around."
Danny gave his twin a very sharp look. "Dani," he started slowly. "Are you suggesting that we leave someone in the hands of a ghost that might be endangering their life?"
The white-haired girl stuck out her tongue. "So?" she mocked. "You know I don't like her."
Danny opened his mouth to start arguing, but Terrence cleared his throat. "Uh, Dannies," he started meekly. "I don't mean to interrupt, but Penny's right."
Dani scowled. "Fine," she muttered, "where is she?"
Terrence frowned for a second. "Can't your ghost-tracking skills find her?"
Danny shook his head. "It doesn't work like that," he explained.
"A ghost appears near us, then we sense it. We can't figure out where they are," Dani added.
Terrence frowned. "You got one of your parents' ghost sensing doohickeys around?" he asked reluctantly. The Fentons were eccentric inventors, and though their inventions worked most of the time, it was tricky getting out of the mindset of their few, yet spectacular failures. When Danny tosses a phone-shaped device at him, the blond caught it and immediately started re-calibrating the device to suit his needs.
Terrence Morris was no tech genius by any means, but the boy was the son of a technician and a programmer, so he knew his way around mechanical stuff. In a matter of minutes, he finished his work on the device and carefully switched it on. When it registered two green dots on the radar screen, he displayed a thumbs up to the twins. The boy tinkered with the menu for a bit longer, altering the range displayed until he could see the whole school on the screen. "...and they're in the meat locker," he informed, shutting the device and sliding it into his pocket. For now, he would hold on to it.
"Meat locker," Dani and Danny chorused in unison. "Got it." They duo dived through the walls, and after waiting for over half-an-hour, during which there were no teachers around, thankfully, the two flew through the walls again. To be more specific, they didn't use their flying abilities. They literally phased right through the wall, back first. Samantha Manson was lying on the ground, unconscious, right next to them.
"Ugh," Danny grumbled. The teen tried to get up, but in a split second, he just collapsed again.
Terrence waved his hand over the boy's face. No response. "He's out cold," he remarked. "Dani?"
Penny did the same. "Out like a light, Terr. The fight must've taken a lot out of them."
The two shared a look and sighed. They then went for the twins, Terrence picking up Danny with some difficulty, and Penny scooping up Dani. "Fenton's home?" Terrence asked, struggling a bit with Danny's weight. Even for someone who was slightly underweight, Danny still weighed a ton to the skinny tech geek.
On the other hand, Penny, a school athlete in peak physical condition for her age, was easily able to pick the also rather underweight Dani up in her arms. "Yup," she confirmed. She eyed Terrence for a bit. "Having trouble?" she asked, and Terrence could see her hiding a giggle.
"Nope," he grumbled, hefting Danny up. "Let's go."
Danny woke up in his bedroom, a splitting headache. "Ugh," he spluttered. "Why does my head feel like someone used a bus to ram it into a wall?"
Across the room, Dani slowly sat up. "Speak for yourself," she huffed. Raising a hand, she rubbed her temples. "I feel like Coach made us run ten laps around the field, do fifty push-ups, then had us do relay for ten miles."
The boy ran a hand through his hair then sat up as well, instantly regretting the decision and lying back down. "Okay, bad idea. How did we get back here, anyway? I remember we were at school."
"We had to carry the two of you back here," Terrence's voice was heard as the blond walked in, flexing his arms and wincing. Penny followed, quickly closing the door. "You've been out for two hours, by the way," he chirped, unusually bright. "School was cancelled early."
Penny was silent, perhaps still feeling guilt over what she had caused to happen.
Danny slowly got to his feet, stumbling a little, disoriented, and walked over to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, Penny," he started softly. "It's fine, we don't blame you for this."
"Yeah," Dani chimed in from across the room. "Besides, we can solve this together, can't we?" She turned, looking expectantly at her older twin, who nodded in agreement. "See?" she said, smiling at Penny. "Relax, Penny."
The next day, as the four were walking to school together. Danny and Dani stopped, gobsmacked at the enormous protest that was going on in the school grounds. In turn, Terrence and Penny crashed into them, sending all four sprawling to the ground. The black-haired teen got up and brushed off his clothes, helping his friends and sister pick up their thing before the group turned to the protest going on. "Anyone has an idea of what's going on?" he spluttered, utterly confused.
"Bring back the meat!" roared a group of jocks.
"Let the greens stay!" shouted another group, comprised of various cheerleaders.
"Bring it back!"
"Let it stay!"
"Back!"
"Stay!"
"Back!"
"Stay!"
Dani hid a snort at the way the two groups were doing their protest. The group of four carefully treaded their way into the school, hoping not to get noticed by the two popular teen leaders. No such luck. "Get 'em!" shouted two voices at once. A cheerleader posse got their hands on Penny and dragged her into the black and green rally set up by Goth leader Samantha Manson while two jocks grabbed Terrence by the back of his shirt and pulled him into the meat-themed protest of Tucker Foley.
"Uh-oh," Danny muttered, paling as the two sides cornered the twins. "We're in trouble," he confirmed to his twin.
"Yep," Dani agreed, sticking close to him as the two tried to find a way to slip away. "Uh, run?" she offered.
"Run," Danny conceded. The twins made a run for it as the two groups chased behind, yelling out, "Join us!" Danny tugged his sister out of the way as the Green Goths chucked a leek in the face of one of the jocks, nearly hitting her. The Meat Jocks retaliated by taking part of the usual meat served at lunchtime and throwing it right back in their faces. Danny had to turn intangible to avoid it, but luckily, no one noticed in the chaos.
"There you are, dearies!" an eerily familiar voice boomed from behind all of them. "I'll take that, thank you!" The meat was plucked from the Meat Jocks and the Green Goths' clothes by a mysterious force.
The twins had a bad feeling they knew what it was. After a wisp of frosty mist left their mouths, they knew it. "Dang it," they echoed in unison. The twins turned to see an enormous slop monster advancing on the school - just like the one they had fought the day before, but even bigger and with a multitude of mini meat minions by its side. Go ghost? Danny asked.
What do you think?
As soon as the rest of the school had scattered in panic, both twins transformed. Hovering in the air, the phantom duo summoned their energy beams and started firing away, zapping them one by one into ashes. "Contest, Dani?" Danny shouted, turning his back to zap a meat minion into blackened dust behind his sister.
"Fastest time or highest number?" Dani yelled back.
"Most in five minutes!" Dany charged his hands up with glowing energy and flew at the monsters. "Go!" It wasn't as easy as it looked. The twins were still practising their powers, and while flight was a trick they had mastered more or less, their invisibility and tangibility would randomly kick in or disappear. Luckily for them, the minions were very easily destroyed. In no time, all of the meaty helpers were reduced to smoking ashes. "Fourteen!" he declared, grinning.
"Fifteen!" Dani returned smiling as she folded her arms over her chest. Her green eyes suddenly widened. "Uh-oh," she muttered, her fingers lighting up with green. "Look behind you!" she shouted out, firing yet again.
Danny whipped back as her energy beam soared over his head and smashed into a meat minion, disintegrating it into ashes. To his horror and surprise, all the ashes of the burnt meat reformed into the blob-like minions again. "Seriously?" the teen snapped. The minions lunged at him and Dani, and in panic, Danny tried to activate his intangibility. Unfortunately, he didn't do that. He turned human, and the meat things caught him, throwing him onto the ground.
"Danny!" the white-haired girl yelled. Looking around, she cursed, trying to find something to help him. She zoomed down to the ground, avoiding the minions, and started firing away again. She tripped, falling face-first onto the ground as her foot caught on something - a bag. Danny's schoolbag, more precisely.
Danny had an idea. "Dani!" he yelled. "I have Dad's thermos in there! Maybe it can do something?"
Dani fumbled around, finally pulling the contraption out. "This one?" she yelled back, lifting into the air. "What can this do?"
Danny shrugged. "Just zap me free! We can figure something out!" Once he was freed by thin green beams of energy, Danny transformed and took into the air again. Taking the thermos from Dani, he looked it over. "So, how is this going to work?" he muttered, puzzled.
"Severing spooks!" the booming voice of their father cut sharply into the battlefield, and both teens turned to see their father staring at them. "Mads, ghosts! And they have the Fenton Thermos!" He shook his black-gloved fist at them. "Don't open the cap, you giggling ghosties!"
Oh, open the cap. Danny unscrewed the top and closed his eyes, holding it out in front of him as he pulled off the chrome cap. A sort of whirlpool effect happened — a green cyclone sucked in the monsters, though all the meat was left outside the Thermos, leaving a large splatter of meat slop on the ground. "Yes!" he and Dani cheered in unison. Quickly turning the Thermos onto the Lunch Lady Ghost, they had to wince as her shrill scream was heard when she was pulled into the Thermos as well.
As if on cue, the hiding teenagers slowly crept out of their hiding places. "Is the disaster over?" Tucker Foley whimpered, looking like he had wet his pants.
Samantha Manson peered out from her hiding spot. "Looks like it," she mumbled. "This is why greens are better!" she roared, finding her wind again. "Let the greens stay!"
It was echoed by her posse and the ones that had supported her protest.
"No!" Tucker shouted back. "Bring the meat back!"
In the chaos that arose once again, Penny and Terrence slipped from the amassed crowds and back to the twins, who managed to turn back into human forms unnoticed. "Well," Penny said to them, smiling softly as she rubbed her arm where she had been grabbed. "That was anti-climatic."
Terrence snickered. "You said it, sister." He glanced at the Thermos with a wary look. "You sure that's safe?" he asked warily.
Danny shrugged. "Probably," he muttered.
"Students!" the scandalized voice of Mr Lancer could be heard as the students stopped their protests. "What have you been doing?"
"... and that's our cue to leave," Dani deduced.
"Agreed," the other three chorused. They instantly weaved through the crowds and headed right into the school just as the bell rung. All four of the students hid behind the door, looking out through the windows at the fate that their peers were about to experience. Mr Lancer looked to be giving quite the tongue lashing.
"- and as punishment, all of you will clean this school head to toe! Ms Manson, Mr Foley, you two are exempted from this due to your fright yesterday, and your weak heart condition respectively. However, you will act as their overseers for the day."
Dani and Danny scowled in unison. The twins looked at each other and smiled. Once the two were glaring at each other next to a dumpster half-filled with meat and vegetables, the twins combined their powers, turning the dumpster intangible partially. It just so happened that the meant and vegetables had been separated into two piles, and each pile was dumped onto the popular duo. Samantha Manson and Tucker Foley shrieked, covered from head to toe in burnt meat and trampled greens respectively.
Snickering, the twins held their hands up and high-fived each other. Turning to Penny and Terrance, the twins set their arms around their shoulders, with Terrence on Danny's left and Penny on Dani's right, and the twins next to each other, and they headed off, laughing.
Danny and Dani looked over their shoulder in unison, smiling as their eyes gleamed a bright, glowing green.
The next episode: Parental Bonding. Cue dragons and just a really big social mess, coming up soon.
Kudos to anyone who catches the references.