Holy crap. So I decided to forget about the chapters for a day to relax, and what happens? I get all these reviews. I wasn't actually expecting to get more than two reviews, but look what happened. Happy Dance! And there have been 182 views at the time of me writing this (that was just a grammar mistake, probably)! Whee!
So ShiroandFubuki recognized the reference. You get cookies I bought at the store! Cuz I think I could get sued if you died from my cooking… heh.
Straying Life pointed out that I really need to read over my work. Thing is, I kinda memorize things when I write them, so I have trouble weeding out mistakes. Yes, that's right folks. This is a call for a beta! So contact me via reviews! Moohahaha! Haha! HAHA! Etcetera.
And I'm also not sure if I was quite clear on this before, but Danny's ghost form's appearance (see! That's why I need a beta!) is taken from Zach's imaginary friend's appearance. Because he threw out some ghost energy to make room for himself, he had to contribute something.
Also, Zach is NOT half-ghost now. Yick. His ghost energy was dispelled to keep him stable, due to a chink in his genetics. (SPOILER! SPOILER! FIGURE IT OUT, FOOLS!)
This chapter was supposed to be a funny one, but that didn't work out too well. The first half of this chapter is crap, but the second half is okay. There's also lots of foreshadowing in all the chapters, especially this one.
Disclaimer would like to apologize for its behavior last chapter. It was drunk. So while it's passed out, I'll say that Danny Phantom does not belong to me, nor do any other shows mentioned in this chapter.
Danny Fenton, age 15 and a half, was royally screwed. There were six projects due on Monday, none of which he had started, all of which he needed an A on to pass his classes. His parents had gone berserko again this morning, complaining that he had to stop sneaking out of the house or he would be grounded for all eternity. And last but not least, Vlad Masters, his arch-enemy, was coming to stay the week while his mansion was repaired. Like I said; royally screwed.
Perhaps an introduction is in order. Danny is son of the two most prominent ghost hunters in the state. He is also part ghost, so even if he wasn't royally screwed because of reasons mentioned above, he'd still be really screwed because of his parents' obsession with tearing ghosts apart molecule by molecule. His hair is usually coal-colored, kinda long, and his eyes are icy blue. He finally grew some sideburns on him, the little dickens. He usually wears jeans, black sneakers, and a white/blue tee-shirt. When he goes ghost, he has pure white hair, light green eyes, and a sort of echo to his voice. He wears a black tee-shirt with his insignia on the chest, tan cargo pants, black gloves, and the same sneakers he wears in human form. His clothes were purchased at a store in the Ghost Zone that specialized in ecto-fabric, so the clothes wouldn't disappear whenever he went ghost.
"Danny, you're going to be late if you don't drag your butt out of bed this instant!" Jazz screamed up the stairs. Groaning, her little brother complied.
Today was Monday again. Danny hated Mondays, especially when he had been fighting ghosts all night, but last night was even worse than usual, mainly because he couldn't sleep when he remembered that his arch-enemy was in the ROOM NEXT DOOR! Twitch…
Uh, yeah… Danny kind of got angry when he told me about that, so I'm trying to show his emotions in all caps… He was angrier than that though, so just imagine a nuclear explosion multiplied times a million, and you'll be getting there.
Three Dannys split from the original, each rushing to get their jobs done, just like every morning. One took a quick shower, another got dressed, the third brushed his teeth and hair, and the last invisibly stood outside the door to watch for people coming.
The fourth noticed Vlad walking up to him, despite the fact that he was invisible. Vlad smirked and fazed through the door to the fourth Danny's surprise. "Aw, crap," he muttered, and quickly flew into the room after him.
The Danny that was getting dressed glared at the fourth Danny with a 'Why didn't you warn us?' look on his face. He shrugged, embarrassed.
"So you've finally managed to master duplication, son?" Vlad noted smugly. The first Danny, fresh out of the shower, whapped him on the back of the head. "Ow!"
"Can it, Vlad," he said, pulling the towel tighter around himself. He turned intangible to dry quicker, and then allowed the rest of the Dannys to mold back into him. Since all of them had done certain things, they now expressed themselves as one (if that made any sense). He was clean, had combed hair, and was dressed. Huzzah! It's a miracle!
"Watch it, Daniel," Vlad snapped. "I'm still way more powerful than you are. I could destroy you in an instant."
Danny rolled his eyes and fazed downstairs. "Yeah, you do that," he muttered.
"DANNY!" Jazz screamed again up the stairs. "Get down here now! We're gonna be SOO la--"
Danny poked her in the back of the head. She twitched. "For the record," she turned around, glaring, "I hate it when you do that."
"Duly noted," Danny grinned.
Jazz had changed drastically over the past year and a half. Her hair was cut short, and a piece hung in front of her eyes that was died neon green (that shall be explained later in the story). She wore a green tee-shirt with the words "Peas on Earth" emblazoned gaily on the front and her regular black pants. Her normal shoes had been replaced with tan ballet slippers, and a charm bracelet hung from each wrist. She also carried approximately thirty pounds of ghost-hunting equipment, hidden randomly on her person, for the times when she just needed to feel protected.
Toast popped out of the Fenton Toaster, barely in the air for more than a second before Jazz had stuffed it into Danny's mouth.
Choking on the whole wheat goodness, Danny coughed, "I hate it when you do that."
Jazz smiled sweetly, her pearly whites glinting a little bit mockingly. "Duly noted. Now c'mon, we need to move if we don't want detention."
"Hey kids!" Jack Fenton popped out of nowhere. Said kids nearly had heart-attacks. "What do you put in a toaster?"
"Um… toast?"
"Nope, bread. But what comes out of a toaster?"
"I'm gonna have to say toast again."
Jack grinned. "Yep. And, thanks to the Fenton Toaster 2.0, poisonous ghost toast!" He patted the toaster. "Had it installed last night."
Danny choked on his toast.
"Don't worry, its really healthy for humans. Why, if you were a ghost and a human at the same time, they would just cancel each other out!"
Jazz rolled her eyes and yanked her little brother who was actually taller than her now out the door.
"Bye Dad, love you, gonna be late!" she called out, slamming the door shut behind her. She whirled on Danny. "Gonna be late," she repeated menacingly.
Danny laughed nervously. "Well, then let's go!"
(SC)
Having picked up Sam and Tucker, the four were nearly to the school when Danny's ghost sense went off. "Problem, guys," he sighed. They nodded and watched him disappear to fight a ghost that turned out to be allergic to peanut butter.
Sam pulled back her long hair, nearly reaching her shoulders now, a frown on her face. She was trying to finish her English homework. She had gotten a little bit… tied up last night, and therefore had not had time to do much of anything.
Since last month, Sam had started wearing clothes that were… abit brighter. Meaning that she was wearing Pink, with a capital P. She'd lost a bet to Paulina. She also wouldn't tell anybody what the bet was. Suspicious.
Anyway, imagine a long-haired Sam in her regular clothes, but in pink/purple and sneakers. Her hair wasn't even black anymore -- she'd stopped dying it last year, so it shone with natural red-head-y goodness, except for a few strands she always brushed to the side. They were died green. Get the connection yet? No? Well okay then.
Tucker was a Ladies' Man. Honestly; I can't believe I just said that. But seriously, he'd hit a growth spurt, and BAM! One day he was weak and nerdy, and the next, a hunk. Yeah, I never thought anyone even remotely sane would say that about Tucker Foley either. But seriously. Unfortunately, he was just as much a nerd as he was before. Not that many girls at school cared about his personality.
He simply wore a blue jacket, jeans, and brown hiking boots. His beret had mysteriously gone missing a few weeks ago when Sam had been pissed at him, and any orders he placed in for a new one mysteriously disappeared from any databases.
This entire space of waste was also just used to get their descriptions out of the way. So nyah!
(SC)
At the moment, Danny Fenton was bravely fighting his worst enemy. The sides were uneven -- it was obvious who would win. And win he would, just as he had been doing ever since they met.
"Oof!" Danny's breath whooshed out of his lungs, sucking in a new breath as the light disappeared behind the locker door. Dash laughed from outside it, a mocking, hateful sound.
The laughter slowly faded away as he and his jock friends left for class. The bell rang.
Danny sighed.
He, Sam and Tucker were in different classes this period, so his friends couldn't help him out with an excuse for being late.
Fazing out of the locker, Danny barely spared a glance to the surrounding hallways as he drifted towards the general direction of his class. Something felt different around him. He'd gone through all the motions he normally would on any other day, but he felt a little bit detached, like someone else was doing it for him.
Once again a human, Danny entered the classroom. "Sorry I'm late," he said.
(SC)
One lecture from a teacher, two rants at how unfair it was from his friends, and one interesting little event involving Danny somehow turning a test tube into a dove later, school let out for the day.
"So what's up with you, man?" Tucker asked, pausing to wink at a couple of giggling freshman girls ogling him. "You've been a bit off all day."
He shrugged non-commitedly.
"Probably miffed because his parents won't let him out of the house for the All-Night Goth Jamboree at the park tonight," Sam snapped sarcastically. She'd been planning that event for the three of them for over a month, and she hadn't been happy when Danny had told her he had to cancel on her third period.
"Sam, are you sure they'll even let you in? You're not quite as Goth as you were a year and a half ago," Tucker noted.
Sam whacked him. He barely flinched, so she pick-pocketed his PDA. Heaven knows where she picked that little trait up. "I'm plenty Goth!" She defended, darting back and forth out of Tucker's reach.
"Yeah, the pinks and purples really bring it out!"
Danny watched his friends playfully tease each other, an almost curious smile on his face. He'd watched the boy's friends for a year and a half, and he still didn't have them completely figured out. They'd start a pattern, and then they'd just turn around and do something completely different and start a new pattern.
'…I think I've gone mad,' Danny thought to himself.
"What?" Tucker asked blankly.
He blushed furiously. "I didn't say that out loud, did I?" He was turning the most amazing shade of red, he was, a nice contrast to his eyes, watching them nod like that.
Taking advantage of Tucker's confusion, Sam started messing with his PDA.
"Don't DO that!" he protested at hearing the pained bleepbleep of his beloved machine. "You're going to break her!"
Sam stuck her tongue out at him, just out of his reach. She seemed to somehow be flipping through channels. "Pirated TV channels? I thought better of you, Tucker!"
"They're not pirated, they're just free!"
Danny's body laughed, even if his mind didn't feel like doing so. He listened vaguely to the short blurbs of sound as the channels flipped.
"--You're not getting away with this, Spec--"
"--tators roared as the bull--"
"--crap, Jeremy! I hate it when you lie--"
"--ing in wait for the mighty--"
"--William Shake--"
"--n, not stir--"
"--ring documentary on--"
"--Zachary Daniels woke up from--"
"--Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetle--"
"--is really an amazing creature--"
"WAIT!"
It took Danny a moment to realize that he had been the one to yell out. Sam and Tucker stopped bickering, staring at him with worry for him and his sanity.
"What?" they said in unison.
Danny tore the PDA from Sam's grip and started pressing the Back button.
"Hah! Danny's on my side!" Tucker obliviously cheered. Sam whacked him again, still staring at Danny curiously.
"--I repeat," Tiffany Snow replied on the tiny screen, her voice tinny thanks to the extra small speakers, "that Zachary Daniels, son of an apartment complex owner in Elmerton, woke from a coma last night when he impossibly heard a gunshot outside his door. The gunshot was from an unlicensed revolver, shot by Anna Michael, the nurse who had been taking care of him since he first fell into a coma a year and a half ago from ingesting rat poison. Nurse Michael had shot herself in the temple. A possible suicide note clutched in her hand read only that 'Zach be taken care of.' We now go to Lance Thunder, who is interviewing the boy as we speak."
An immaculately groomed newscaster grinned over-bearingly into the camera. His face was marred only by the long scar down his right cheek that he had gotten in a ghost attack months ago while he had been on the job.
"So what's it like to not remember anything for a year and a half, and wake up to see the woman who had cared for you for months dead by her own hand?"
A little boy appeared on screen, unnatural red eyes and white hair much friendlier than that of the near-perfect reporter. He smiled, as though he was a little confused. "Umm… okay? I mean, I'm happy to be awake again, but I didn't like to see Miss Michael like that."
"Did you cry to know that she had possibly loved you like a son, and she had taken her own life before you even met her?"
"Not really. I'm used to these kinds of things happening."
Lance chuckled. "Boy's obviously delusional," he stage whispered to the cameras. He turned back to Zachary, speaking to his face this time. "How did you feel when you woke up?"
"Eh…" Zachary rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably, a trait of Danny's. "Well, okay, I guess. And tired."
"Were you ever worried you never were going to wake up?"
Zachary raised an eyebrow. "Well, I was in a comma," he explained slowly, as though talking to an idiot. Ironically, he was. "Most people don't think when they're in commas. But I suppose I wasn't worried. I knew my guardian angel would get me out of trouble if I got into anything dangerous." He smiled sweetly at the camera. "He was supposed to be a superhero for Lizzy, but I messed up--"
Tucker snatched his PDA away from Danny's limp clutches, looking affronted. "Geez, Danny, you traitor. Helping Sam like that."
Danny stared ahead blankly.
"Danny?" Sam poked him, looking for a response. "You okay?"
"Oh my God…" Danny whispered.
And then he fainted.