And slowly the two worlds begin to collide. Anyway, thank you so much for the support you've shown so far! I would love to know your thoughts on this widdle ol' story, so pressing that review button would make me all kinds of happy!
There had never been a better way to unwind after a long day of school than to flop onto a saggy sofa at Tucker's house and play three hours of video games. Danny, Sam, and Tucker did have to endure a lecture from Jazz as she gave them a ride over, alleviated only by Sam's assurance that she had made Danny work on his homework already during study hall and he could therefore afford some down time, and from practically the moment they were dropped off, the three of them had their eyes glued to the screen over Tucker's oversized television, battling each other out on the latest Halo installment until Sam finally cut it off by leaving for dinner.
Danny reluctantly followed suit soon afterward, bidding Tucker good-bye until tomorrow and strolling back to Fentonworks. When he reached his street, he noticed another vehicle in the driveway, an old, deep-red El Diablo convertible with a bumper that had clearly seen better days. He bit back a groan; he could only imagine that it belonged to that researcher his parents were meeting with today. He had been certain that the man would have left by now, but apparently the man hadn't been scared off yet.
Well, he was already home, and he really had no excuse left to avoid going into the house, so he entered, deciding that he would just microwave something real quick for dinner and eat in his room, hopefully quietly enough that he'd avoid getting anyone's attention and having to meet the researcher, but those plans were dashed when he entered the kitchen and found it occupied – although, not by his family or the researcher.
Instead, two kids sat on adjacent sides of the table, their backpacks and school supplies spread out across the surface. Both of them Danny recognized after a few seconds' thought. At the far end of the table was the girl from his study hall, the one in the panda sweater, who had a history textbook open and was copying a passage down into a notebook with a glittering pink gel pen topped with a bouncing pom-pom, while humming some unidentifiable tune to herself just loudly enough to be audible. Beside her sat a boy Danny recalled from the trucker hat that now hid half his face as he bent over a sheet of graphing paper marked with a half-finished line graph, chewing thoughtfully on the end of a mechanical pencil.
The girl was the first to notice Danny's presence, and she looked up, her face immediately breaking into a wide smile. "Hey, I know you!" she said, her tone light and blithe. "You're in my study hall, aren't you? So you're Danny?" The boy looked up then as well, eyeing Danny up and down before silently grabbing his backpack off of the table and sliding it onto the chair beside him instead.
"Uh, yeah, I'm Danny," Danny replied slowly. Somehow, he noticed, even a few seconds' conversation with this girl was exhausting, and trying to ignore the wary gaze from the boy didn't help. "How did you know – ?"
"Well, Jack and Maddie said they had a son named Danny a grade above us, so, I mean, who else could you have been?" the girl said. "I kinda pictured someone bigger, actually, but I think that's just 'cause Jack was so big. I mean, he's like, huge, huh? Reminds me a little of our friend Wendy's dad. He breaks stuff in the house a lot, Wendy told me, like doorways and stuff. Although the doorways here all seem to be in good shape. Is your dad more careful, or are your doorways bigger? Hey, Dipper, how big are doorways, on average?" She addressed that last question to the boy at the table.
The boy – Dipper, apparently – seemed entirely unfazed by the girl's rapid jabbering. "Around eighty inches for interior doors," he answered. "But I think older buildings tend to have them little shorter, and newer buildings a little taller."
"That must be it," the girl said, clapping her hands together. "Wendy's house is pretty old. And this place is, like, a mad science building."
Danny narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms. "My parents aren't mad scientists, if that's what you're implying. And who are you, anyway?"
"Oh, I didn't mean anything bad by it!" the girl said hurriedly. "I meant it as a good thing. I like it. The building's so fun, and I love that glowy sign outside. More people should have those on their houses."
"You didn't answer my – "
"Great Uncle Ford is down in the lab," Dipper interrupted him. "Your parents said you knew he was coming. We're here because we wanted to come in and see it, that's all."
"I'm Mabel, and this is Dipper," Mabel added. She leaned across the table and wrapped an arm around Dipper's shoulder, squeezing him against her so that their faces pressed together. "We're twins, can you tell?" Danny could, actually, now that they were right beside each other. The two of them had the same round faces, their thick hair was the same brown, and their eyes were identical, even if it was disguised by the light mascara and pink eye shadow decorating Mabel's eyes and the noticeable bags and dark rings under Dipper's.
"Mabel, you're smudging my homework," Dipper grunted. Mabel settled back into her own seat with an apologetic smile.
Danny cleared his throat. "So, um, that researcher person, Pines, that's your uncle?"
"Yep," Mabel said. "Oh, and Jack said he wanted him to meet you when you came home." She swiveled in her chair so she was facing toward the stairs to the lab and shouted, with sudden and startling volume that made Danny clap his hands over his ears, "Hey, Grunkle Ford! Danny's home! You wanna meet him?!"
Danny heard the heavy thumping of someone bounding up the stairs, then his dad poked his head into the kitchen. "Danny-boy, about time!" Jack said with a grin. "Come on, I want Stanford to meet the whole family." He took Danny enthusiastically by the arm and pulled him to the stairs. "You're going to love him, Danny! He's a genius, a real genius, and man, does this guy have some impressive stories!"
He burst into the lab with all the force that usually accompanied Jack Fenton entering a room, Danny practically tripping over the last couple of steps to keep up. Beside the ghost portal, deep in an animated conversation with an attentive Maddie, stood the man whose face Danny recognized from the photograph he'd seen on Tucker's PDA. Stanford Pines definitely looked eccentric enough to be a ghost hunter, in his frayed coat that reached nearly to the floor, his mud-caked boots, and what looked to be a small harpoon gun strapped over his shoulder.
Jack announced their presence with a whistle through his teeth, urging Danny forward as Stanford turned to them. "Here he is, our son I was telling you about. He's a good kid, he is, but maybe you can help out a bit – we've yet to make a ghost enthusiast out of him."
"Now, Jack, Stanford's here to help with research, not with our kids' extracurriculars," Maddie said, shaking her head with a smile. "Danny, meet Stanford Pines. Stanford, this is Danny."
"Call me Ford," the man said, stretching out a gloved hand for Danny to shake. Danny did so, caught by surprise when the handshake felt off somehow, as if their hands didn't fit correctly into each other. It wasn't until Ford let go that Danny could see his hand in full, and he couldn't stop himself from staring at the extra finger.
"I see you've noticed my new gloves," Ford jested.
Danny quickly tore his eyes away from the hand. "Sorry, didn't mean to stare."
"No, no, think nothing of it," Ford said with a dismissive wave of the six-fingered hand. "I know it's unusual, and it's hard not to notice. Postaxial polydactyl, it's called. Six fingers on each hand, six toes on each foot. Really doesn't affect my life besides needing to have gloves custom made. Though I do somewhat regret never thinking to take up the piano."
"So, um, what are you working on with my parents?" Danny asked, deciding it would be best to change the subject.
"Ooh, it's fascinating, Danny, it really is!" Maddie answered before Ford could even open his mouth. "Ford here has worked with lots of different ghosts in the past, and he says the ones here in Amity Park are absolutely unique. And he thinks it might have something to do with the portal your dad and I built! Isn't that something!"
"You think mom and dad… what, created a new type of ghost?" Danny asked.
"No, no, not at all," Ford said. "But I do think they may have discovered a new type of ghost." He took a seat at a stool next to one of the metal lab tables and folded his hands in front of him. "If you consider them ghosts, that is. You see, the ghosts that have heretofore been studied in and around Amity Park appear to have the same origins and similar abilities as ghosts I've encountered elsewhere, but in structure and the strength of their manifestations, the differences are vast. It brings to light the issue of how post-conscious entities are classified, and whether the current listings of specter classes need to be adjusted or revamped entirely. Of course, though, that's all more a matter of phylogenesis."
"… Phylo-what?"
"The point is," Jack picked up, "Ford says that maybe it's because of the fact that we've created a nearby opening to the Ghost Zone that ghosts who form within a certain distance have a different structure than ghosts in other places."
Ford nodded. "Are you familiar, Danny, with the concept of demons?"
Danny's eyes widened. If this guy was implying what Danny thought he was implying… well, it had been hard enough to adjust to the thought of being half-ghost; Danny didn't think he could stand considering himself half-demon. "If you're saying that you think these ghosts come from Hell or something, I'm gonna have to argue with you."
"No, no, you misunderstand me," Ford said. "I don't mean demons in the traditional sense. See, throughout the multiverse, the term 'demon' is used as a shorthand to refer to entities who come from other dimsensions. And some of these dimensions are only reachable in certain manifestations, or are reached differently through different forms. For example, I've previously done some rather… intense research on dimensional beings who can only access our own dimension through the mindscape, through thoughts and dreams, rather than through a physical form. I theorize that when a person on earth dies and thus is no longer tied to a physical form, it could become capable of accessing a plane in this Ghost Zone in the form of a soul, a plane that cannot be fully accessed by a living human. And if it accesses this plane before settling into a more earth-centric manifestation, it will instead manifest in a way that is most effective for the Zone, which appears to be through a far more solid form of ectoplasm that is not indigenous to our dimension. Do you understand?"
"Uh, sort of?" Danny hedged, not wanting to admit that he had barely comprehended a word of the man's spiel.
"Well, it will make more sense once I've done some more observation and had time to collect my thoughts and findings into a research paper."
"And of course, he's going to need to get a better look at the ghosts around Amity Park," Maddie said. "See what makes them different, what makes them tick. So, that's where Jack and I come in. We're going to be stepping up our ghost hunting game."
Danny gulped. "Is that necessary? I mean, Mom and Dad have already done a lot of research on the ghosts around here. Can't you just go through their findings?"
"For something of this magnitude, I'd much prefer to get some firsthand research done," Ford replied. "Don't worry, Danny, I'm sure your parents are more than up to the task of capturing a few specimens for my studies."
"You've got that right," Jack said with an eager grin. "Trust me, with the Fentons on your team, you'll get your research finished up in no time flat."
"Right," Danny muttered. Great. Just great. Now not only did he have to deal with a new ghost researcher, but his parents were doubling up on their enthusiasm for ghost hunting. Any hope he had ever had for getting a moment's break from stress was vanishing before his very eyes.
"If you don't mind," Ford said, "Your mother was just walking me through the construction of your portal here."
"Why don't you head back upstairs, Danny?" Maddie suggested. "You could get to know Ford's niece and nephew a bit."
"I would appreciate that," Ford said, giving Danny a small smile. "We're all new in town, it could do them good to have a friend or two to spend time with. Don't let them know I told you, but they have a bit of trouble establishing new friends. Dipper especially is a bit on the shy side."
"Yeah, I kinda figured," Danny replied. "He seems a bit, um, defensive?"
Ford chuckled lightly. "Oh, I'm sure he won't keep that up too long. Just let Mabel do the talking at first, that's all."
"Go on, Danny," Maddie said, giving him an encouraging nod. "We'll come up when we're done in here."
"All right," Danny said, backing up toward the stairs. "Uh, nice to meet you, Ford."
"You as well, Danny," Ford answered, waving good-bye with six fingers as Danny disappeared up the stairs.