Parent/Teacher conference
"I appreciate you coming here on such short notice, Mr. Lancer," Maddie stated, before scowling, "but do THEY have to be here?" Mr. Lancer sighed before stating, "This is something that SHOULD have been taken care of a long time ago and you know it." "You can say that again: I have every right to know what kind of trouble my daughter is getting into on account of that boy of yours," Pamela Manson exclaimed, before Maurice Foley quickly stated, "For the record, from the way it sounded over the phone, there was another party involved." "You could definitely say that," declared the voice of Dani as she faded into the line of normal sight.
"OLD MAN AND THE SEA! How did she… what's going on?" the Casper High Faculty member exclaimed, to which Dani winced. "Ok, NOW I know why my cousins' warned me not to stand too close to you when you're yelling: you're loud," she remarked. "Danielle: watch your manners!" Maddie scolded, to which the young halfa blushed. "Sorry, but in my defense, I've got your son's bluntness and Phantom's highly sensitive ears," she replied.
"Let me repeat after Lancer: what's going on?" Angela Foley declared. "Perhaps WE can explain," stated Danny from the doorway with Tucker and Sam. "I told you that you didn't have to be here if you didn't want to," Jack replied, to which Danny simply stated, "I know, but I figured that this would go easier if those directly involved did most of the talking." "Well, start talking, Fenton," Jeremy Manson declared.
"First off, he's not the only one who's going to be talking," Sam suddenly exclaimed, "and secondly, you can stop assuming that everything is the fault of my friends; I mean, you may not have noticed, but I was actually behaving a lot worse before I met Danny, or Tucker. So stop pointing fingers and let us talk!" "While I may not approve of your outburst, young lady, you DO have a point," Pam stated, "so let's just see if we leave this place without you needing to do a LOT more then wear a dress to even be living in this town."
"You want to know something funny?" Danny suddenly stated, "You could move as far away as Pluto and you'd STILL be in danger." "Are you threatening us?" Jeremy asked, to which he replied, "No, but the ghost whom your daughter, and Tucker, helped me escape from DID." Pam scoffed. "Please: WHAT are you talking about?" she demanded. "Shut up and they'll tell you!" Dani exclaimed, before groaning and stating, "Great: I've got my dad's temper."
"Please keep any thoughts on that comment to yourself," Danny declared, "Let's just say that up until recently she hasn't had too many good influences, and that came out worse then I meant it to." "Just start at the beginning," Maurice stated sounding like he was considering the Manson's plan of moving far away from this place. "Fine, but I need you guys to promise that you'll hold all questions and/or accusations to yourself until we're finished," Danny said with what sounded like a growl. Despite wanting to argue, they all felt that this wouldn't have been said without reason, so everyone nodded.
"Okay, here's all the info we've been able to gather," the Fenton's son stated, "A few months back, I went up to my room to unwind from a hard day at school when I noticed a young girl just sitting on my bed. She introduced herself to me as Danielle, saying she was my first cousin once removed and that she had run away from home. She also asked if she could have something to eat." Pausing, he glared at the twelve year old in the room. "Remind me how I was supposed to explain how half the food in the fridge was gone?" he lightly scolded his clone, to which she responded with a blush. "In my defense, all Vlad ever gave me was dietary supplements, so I was curious about what REAL food was like," she stated sheepishly.
"Who's…" and that was as far as Pamela got before Danny barked out, "Remember that promise to keep your mouth shut? I suggest you try keeping it!" After she quieted down, and directed her hardest glare at the boy, Danny continued, "To say I wasn't suspicious of her would be totally rubbish, but I DID find that there were a few moments where the two of us bonded. When she disappeared by the time morning came, I genuinely felt myself get worried. Little did I know that her safety, as well as my ability to keep the trust of my parents, were the LEAST of my worries."
"Once I was at school, due to some bad timing, among other things, I found myself on the ground in pain in front of a vampire-esque ghost, with my cousin standing/floating beside him looking like, well, Dani could you help me out here?" the boy requested, to which she nodded and transformed into her ghost half. "How'd…" Angela began, only to be cut off with Sam declaring, "The next person who interrupts is getting a one-way trip into the Ghost Zone?" Pausing, she looked at Danny with a slightly hopeful look on her face. "Sorry, Sam: I'm not taking the chance of anyone finding a way to destroy one of the friendlier specters," her friend said sympathetically, while at the same time looking quite serious.
"Seriously, though: try and stay quiet," the boy pleaded, "it's at this point in the story where I think someone else gets to narrate." "Got that right, cuz," Dani remarked, "Just before he passed out, I turned to the one the Fenton's know as the Wisconsin Ghost and simply asked, 'Did I do good, Daddy?' He replied positively, though looking back, I'm fairly sure he was thinking, 'Sucker.'" "That's where Tucker and I come in," Sam replied, "A bit earlier, one Dash Baxter had pinned the crime of basically destroying the cafeteria on us. I'm still mad at the school board for siding with a bully because they need him on the football team, but I guess in a way I'm sort of grateful that they're so dense. If they weren't, I suppose that we wouldn't have spotted a couple of ghosts kidnapping someone in broad daylight."
"Usually, seeing this would cause someone to run away, but during that whole business with the ghost king, as well as a few other major ghost emergencies, Danny has ALWAYS tried to put others before himself," Tucker continued, "We knew full well that if WE were in his place, he'd do EVERYTHING he could to get us back, so we HAD to do the same for him." "Fortunately, the Fenton's equipment has a weird habit of tracking him, so we decided to 'borrow' a few pieces of equipment for a rescue mission," Sam declared, before glaring at Tucker and stated, "Though SOME of us don't know the meaning of 'covert ops.'"
"Okay, fine: I shouldn't have called Lancer old," her friend groaned, "You happy now?" "Sorry to interrupt," Lancer declared, sounding sincere (and a little smug), "but if I may, why didn't you just tell me, or the Fenton's for that matter, about all this when it happened?" "Actually, I'm wondering that, too," Jack admitted. "We'll let THAT slide, right?" Danny inquired, to which his friends and cousin just shrugged with a look that said, "I guess." Sighing, Sam stated, "Reason we didn't tell YOU, Lancer, was that we didn't know if you'd CARE. I mean, in all honesty, would the disappearance of Danny Fenton cause any alarms to go off for any of the faculty?" Though he didn't like to admit it, Mr. Lancer knew the goth girl had a point.
"As for you two, Mr. and Mrs. Fenton," Tucker began, "It really came down to two things. One, we figured you weren't going to listen to a couple of kids who a faculty member had called you about. Secondly, like Sam mentioned before, this was meant to be a stealth mission, and we didn't know if you were capable of such: usually you guys are all 'shot first and ask questions never.'" At this, the two adult ghost hunters winced, knowing full well that both of these statements had some truth to them.
"Of course, Sam and Tucker didn't arrive until much later," Danny stated, "Anyways, they ultimately steered the Specter Speeder towards Colorado, where the Wisconsin Ghost had set up some sort of secret laboratory. I myself found out that I was already there when I woke up, along with a certain ghostly resident of Amity Park: I think you know him as Danny Phantom. By the way, he told me himself that he HATES the name 'Invisobill.'"
"At this point, I decided to find out what my 'dad' wanted with the two captives, so I spied on him while invisible," Dani remarked, "Truth be told, the Wisconsin Ghost, or Vlad Plasmius, as I know him, isn't REALLY my father: I'm just one of his attempts at creating what HE called 'the perfect half-ghost son.' Needless to say, while invisible I found out about his plan to perfect his latest attempt at such a being using a 'mid-morph DNA sample:' STILL have no idea what that means, honestly."
"I think I know the answer," Maddie replied, "He wanted to take this sample from OUR Danny, right?" "Yes," Dani said, sounding a little nervous, to which her original's mom replied, "Then this 'Plasmius' most likely needed a sample of someone who was about to morph into the afterlife. "Are you saying he was so obsessed with his goals that he was willing to push someone to the edge of their mortality?" Pamela asked, now sounding a little worried, to which Maurice replied in a similar tone with, "I think that's EXACTLY what she's saying, not to mention he doesn't care if they survive the process."
"I'm afraid you're all correct in your assumptions," Danny solemnly stated, "as I can tell you from experience. Seems that to make certain he got a proper sample, he put me AND Phantom into a pod designed to electrocute us until we either gave him what he wanted or simply stopped functioning: whichever came first. To be honest, I'm still not certain how either of us escaped, especially since he had one of the failed clones overshadow me to help speed up the process."
"I was nearby, but I was too overwhelmed by what was happening to be able to be of any help there," Dani supplied, "In any case, shortly afterwards, Vlad discovered my presence and, after telling me EXACTLY what I wanted to here in a quickly fabricated lie, he sent me after his captives to capture them." "She DID catch up to us," the Fenton's son declared, "but during this whole experience, the two of us had noticed something: every time one of the clones used up too much energy, they turned to goop. I'd be lying if I said I felt sorry for their demise, but my animosity towards them wasn't without reason: unlike my 'cousin,' all the other clones were simply drones. Danielle here was the ONLY one who could think independently, and due to this, we didn't really want to see her, for lack of a better term, die. We managed to explain that to her, showing her that we CARED for her."
"Not knowing what else to do, I pleaded with them to let my 'father' have the necessary data he needed, so I could live," Dani explained, "but they insisted that even if they did, I would still perish, which I obviously didn't believe. That said, I captured them, intent on proving them wrong." "I don't really blame her, to be honest," her original stated, "in a similar situation, I might have done the same. However, SHE was the one who was proven wrong. Seems that Vlad was willing to sacrifice his own creation to get his ultimate goal. Needless to say, THAT'S when she rebelled."
"In the end, it almost didn't matter," Danny admitted, "If Sam and Tucker hadn't have burst in a few minutes later with the Specter Deflector on them, none of us would have survived." "We managed to return a little after that," Sam stated, "and in case your wondering, Mr. Lancer, Danielle here overshadowed you and Mrs. Fenton to help us avoid punishment." "Sorry about that," Dani said with a blush, "but I felt that it was the LEAST I owed them for all they did for me."
An awkward silence filled the room. Finally, Jeremy broke it, saying, "I suppose we can't really blame any of them for what happened." A few pairs of eyes looked at him like he was crazy, but in the end, they had to admit he was right. The presence of ghosts in the story was almost irrelevant: the situation seemed like it could happen WITHOUT the presence of the paranormal. Okay, that may be a bit of a stretch, but even still, at this point any punishment they gave them would be in contradictory of one the basic things they had taught the kids: do what you thought was right. Besides, the only REAL criminal present in the room was already trying to make amends. Before the room was emptied out, everyone agreed on two things: they were VERY proud of their kids and those who didn't have one already were going to immediately order a ghost shield for their home.
Author's note:
Two down, one to go (hopefully); just so you know, last segment will involve Valerie; hopefully, it'll be worth the wait; until then, here's something to ponder: since humans are the ghosts in the ghost zone, does that make the ghosts who are already there human? (cue the theme song for "The Twilight Zone")