- Mass Abduction.
"You're going to get in trouble, Freddy."
"Maybe, Billy, but then, maybe not," Freddy told his friend as approaching Jack and Maddie Fenton, who were looking around the school, right before the classes' start, for possible places to set and connect the alarm system, "I mean, we were told to not mess with their job, but nobody said we couldn't ask them about it."
"Whatever… just remember to be on time; the bell rings in less than ten minutes." Billy said while walking into the school. Freddy nodded to him, and then placed right behind the ghost hunters.
"Uh… Mister and Mrs. Fenton?"
"Yeah?" Jack turned and looked down at the kid, who couldn't help to feel slightly intimidated at the man's size, but resisted the urge to run away and cleared his throat to talk.
"Well… my name is Freddy Ortega, sir, and…" Freddy wasn't sure if it was a good idea to tell the hunters about him being Phantom's fan, so decided to tell a half-truth, "I am interested in ghosts, so I wanted to ask you something, if you don't mind."
"Sure, sweetie!" Maddie entered the conversation, talking in her usual motherly tone, while Jack gave Freddy a contagious smile that made him to lose any fear left, "What would you like to know?"
"It's about Phantom, you know, the ghost boy," Freddy told them, "I mean, you two are trying to catch him, and I'm curious to know if you consider him a hero or a villain."
Before Jack could answer, he felt Maddie tapping his arm, and turned to see her with a curious expression he recognized as a signal; the couple had already discussed the fact that many youngsters and even a large number of adults considered the ghost boy a hero, and, even if Jack and Maddie wanted to catch him, they realized they just couldn't spread negative speaking among the kids to avoid hurting their feelings or getting themselves a bad image. Jack nodded to her, so the woman knew he would be careful with his words.
"Well, little buddy," Jack kneeled to look Freddy face to face, "we, as ghost hunters, have the obligation to catch any ghost and study it, and, even if Phantom might not be as dangerous as other ghosts, we need to treat him the same. Better safe than sorry and, besides, thinking about ways to capture him is just so exciting!"
Freddy got a puzzled look at the way Jack's expression brightened at the last part; it was like the one him and his classmates got on their birthdays and Christmas. Obviously, Mister Fenton loved his job a lot, and considered hunting down Phantom both a duty and a pleasure.
"And… the things you are going to set around the school might hurt the ghosts?"
"We would like to set an anti-ghost shield for a better protection, but these alarms will serve as well," Jack said proudly, "Once we get the final authorization to put them, they will make a lot of noise to alert you and your teachers so you can shelter whenever a ghost approaches the school, plus probably scaring it away… and it will alert me and my wife at home, so, if we are fast enough, maybe we'll be able to catch the specter."
"On the meantime, sweetie," Maddie kneeled as well to talk with the kid, "just be alert and obey your parents and teachers' rules, and stay away from both strangers and ghosts, even if they look friendly, okay?"
"Okay, Mrs. Fenton," Freddy smiled at the woman, and started walking away, "Thanks a lot for your time; I'll better go now, or my teacher will give me detention."
Jack and Maddie waved bye to the kid, and returned to their job, while Freddy gave them a last look at a distance.
"They are nicer than I thought," the boy thought, "but I hope they realize Phantom isn't a bad ghost, and stop hunting him." Freddy then entered the school, him and nobody else noticing someone watching the kid at a distance, who smirked slightly and then walked away.
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"Okay, it's official." Danny told Sam and Tucker while taking a book out from his locker, "None of the known ghosts is behind the kidnappings, and, according to Frostbite, Vlad had been just too busy lately trying to fix his portal, so he's not responsible either."
"So we'll need to start checking those ghosts we don't know; how many are them, a million or two?" Tucker commented as Sam shook her head and Danny sighed tiredly. "Hey, relax, dude; at least it was funny when Spectra panicked after you threatened her with taking Jazz to her lair if she didn't cooperate; guess she still remembers about the time she peeled her with your dad's weapon."
"Using my big sister to scare mean girls… great, I'm eight again." Danny shook his head yet got a tiny smile.
"Maybe you should now focus on looking for clues at the missing kids' houses," Sam proposed, "I mean, you had limited to just flying all over the city and fight and interrogate any ghost you find instead of a deeper investigation."
"I know, but remember, there's the possibility of the kidnapper being a regular human, and, in that case, he or she might leave hair, clothing tissues or any other thing the police can use," Danny explained.
"And, if Danny isn't careful, he might destroy or mess with important evidence while searching." Tucker added.
"You two had been watching N.Y.P.D. Blues again, right?" Sam said, her tone showing it was more a statement than a question, making her friends to get a sheepish look; the Goth sighed and rolled her eyes, "Well, at least it has sense in this case… unlike the time Tucker suggested us to watch a Baywatch marathon to learn C.P.R."
"Hey, I was serious then!" Tucker defended, folding his arms, "The slow-motioned beauties in hot bathing suits were just an additional benefit."
"Anyway, maybe you're right, Sam, and I should start checking the kids' bedrooms, but staying intangible and invisible the whole time." Danny told his friend, "Talking about evidence, a sighting of Danny Phantom near the house of a possible ghostly abduction's victim would be a very negative one against me."
"Good point; and maybe you should do it during Valerie's shift at Nasty Burger to avoid another encounter." Sam added, and then wide opened her eyes at someone approaching them, "And talking about nasty encounters…"
"Fenturd!" Dash growled at Danny, slowly extending his arms to grab him, "You are in serious trouble, you dope!"
"Let me guess… failed Math again?" Tucker whispered to Sam while Danny backed away, getting ready to run.
"Come on, Dash, you can't just lock me every time you get a bad note."
"Oh, I'm not JUST locking you." Dash cracked his knuckles, smirking at the shorter boy, "I'll give you a beating, a wedgie, and then lock you!"
"Great; I'm getting the deluxe package." Danny ducked just in time to avoid Dash's attempt to grab him by the neck, and then sprinted down the corridor. Dash groaned in annoyance, and started chasing him.
Danny knew that, in human form, he didn't has the stamina or speed to avoid Dash in a long pursuit, so started looking for either a teacher to hide behind, or a place to miss the furious jock. His salvation came in the form of certain door that gave Danny a mischievous idea; Danny knew that the anti-ghost alarms were on the outside, so he didn't activate them when he was into the school as long as limiting himself to just minor stunts, so could use his powers to escape from Dash and giving him a lesson at the same time. Danny ran inside the room, with Dash just a few feet behind him; the jock was so furious and eager to catch his prey he didn't notice where he was entering.
"Dash, what you are doing here?!" Paulina yelled in anger and surprise, getting the attention of about every female around her, who immediately screamed and covered themselves. Dash gasped, realizing he was in the girls' dressing room!
"Uh… but… me… was chasing Fenton, and…" Dash, sweating cold, tried to explain everything, but, somehow, Fenton handled to get into the room and hide without the girls spotting him, so the jock had no way to excuse his action.
"You enter here, and want to blame Danny, you perverted wacko?" Valerie, already on her P.E. uniform, growled furiously and gave Dash a murderous glare. "Why, thank you, Dash… you just gave me two perfect excuses to do this!"
WHAM! POW! OUCH! ARGH! UFF! ZOCK! KICK! PUNT! PUNCH! NOT THE FACE! YEOWCH! ZOWIE! CLUNK! TROZ! NARF! POINT! EEEK!
Danny, who turned invisible the second he entered the room so no girl could see him (and the sudden opening and closing of the door only made Paulina to turn at it and see Dash before anyone else), phased out of the dressing room. Even if Valerie's anger and the screaming from the other girls prevented the huntress to hear her own ghostly alarm, Danny decided to keep it safe and turn visible outside, so it seemed he was among the many students who dashed around the room when hearing the girls screaming and Dash crying for mercy.
"Little Women!" Lancer's voice made all the students to move so the teacher could pass and knock the room's door, "What's going on in there?"
Lancer's question got answered a second later, when the teacher had to jump aside to avoid getting hit by Dash's body, literally kicked out of the room by Valerie and the other girls, who started attacking him after the Afro-American softened the guy a little… if damaged caused by a sharp bone breaking-like kick at the "family jewels" and some punches that would make Bruce Lee proud could be just called 'a little'. Dash landed face first, almost losing another tooth (he already had lost two); we was extremely bruised, his right eye was blackened, and his clothing was almost totally ripped, plus showing some large scratches at his left cheek, courtesy of Paulina's manicure.
"The Hunchback of Notre Dame!" Lancer exclaimed, looking at Dash and then turning to see Valerie and some other girls who were properly dressed to be at the corridor. "What happened here?"
The girls quickly explained Lancer what happened, and the teacher soon became pretty upset about Dash's behavior as well. Lancer asked Kwan, who was among the crowd, to get Dash to the infirmary, right after telling the blond jock that he would get detention for a whole month, football star or not.
"Oh, this is so priceless." Tucker, while he and his friends walked away from the dressing room, commented as checking a few pictures of Dash (and a couple from Valerie, Paulina, and the other girls who talked with Lancer) he could take with his PDA, "These are going right to the web… Dash's pictures, I mean; I don't want to anger Valerie."
"Yeah; one of us is enough." Danny chuckled while looking at one close-up of Dash's face, "She doesn't have a ninth degree black belt just to have a conversation's topic."
"You realize Dash isn't going to be exactly happy with you." Sam arched an eyebrow at Danny, even if she couldn't avoid getting an amused look after seeing Dash getting a well deserved beating.
"Yes… but I also realize he will not be at his top to chase or bully me for a while." Danny pointed at her.
"And you got to see Paulina and the other girls before exiting, right?" Tucker smiled slyly at Danny.
"Not really; I had to escape pretty fast so Valerie's alarm couldn't detect me," Danny admitted, "The most I got was a little view of a blonde, I guess she was Star, and a slight smell of Paulina's perfume."
"That's too much information, thank you." Sam got her emotionless gothic expression, "I mean, among all those girls, you still can recognize Paulina's scent?"
"It's not so hard; she practically baths on that thing." Danny shrugged, and then got silent; after a few moments, wide opened his eyes in realization, "I'm a fool!"
"Recognizing it is the first step." Sam smirked at her friend, who ignored the comment and slapped his forehead.
"No, I mean, about the lost kids," Danny whispered to his partners, "I had the solution yesterday right in front of me, and didn't notice!"
Sam and Tucker looked at each other, and then at Danny, puzzled.
"Can you translate, please?" Tucker asked.
"I'm telling you at lunch… but I guess I'm going to use that little gift I got yesterday sooner than I thought." Danny said as the trio entered their classroom. The Goth and the geek nodded to him, knowing that he would explain his plan later, whatever it was; right now, they had to focus on the class, and, in Tucker's case, get a fast second look to the girls' pictures.
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Freddy had spent most of lunchtime talking to his friends about the little meeting with The Fentons. Some of them were pretty scared about the idea of a ghost coming after them, so any positive information was a great relief, especially for those who were getting more strict rules and a closer surveillance from their parents at home.
"I just hope they catch the ghost soon," Melissa, a red-haired girl, commented while rolling her eyes, "My parents said that I can't go out of the house without my big brother, even if I just want to buy a candy at next block's store."
"You think you have it bad?" Ernest, an Afro-American kid, sighed in frustration, "I can't even go to my own backyard without my parents looking at me."
"I have it the worst," Peter, the tallest kid of the group, groaned, "I have to sleep with my parents, right in the middle of the bed… and my dad snores."
"You win." Every kid around Peter chorused in a half-dull, half-shocked tone.
"Hey, come on, this isn't going to be forever," Freddy smiled at them, "I mean, if the ghost hunters don't catch the ghost…"
"Danny Phantom will do it." Everyone chorused, rolling their eyes.
"I'm that predictable?" Freddy rubbed the back of his head while giving a puzzled look to the other kids.
"Yes, you are." Billy commented, placing a hand on his friend's shoulder, "But that's actually good because now we all know that anything Phantom-like will be a good birthday gift for you."
All the kids chuckled and returned to their regular chatting and eating. The cafeteria was a little crowded, so Freddy and his friends were eating at the schoolyard, as well as some other kids, with a few teachers watching them. They would feel a lot better once The Fentons could set the alarms; the school board approved the idea, and allowed them to start doing it the next day.
But it was one day late.
About a minute or so before the bell rang to announce the lunchtime's end, a couple of black spherical objects landed on the backyard, releasing a thick green smoke. The kids and the teachers started coughing, and soon felt extremely sleepy. Then, several hooded figures, all using dark masks and goggles that covered the face completely, popped from apparently everywhere, each one grabbing a kid. One of them, particularly large, ignored the children for a moment to recover the spheres, and then grabbed the closest kid, who resulted to be Freddy; the boy was pretty scared, but, just like his friends, vanished because of the fumes, so he didn't even struggle when the hooded figure carried him with one arm and used the other one to make a signal to its partners.
A few moments later, the smoke finally dissipated in the air… and the teachers that were inside the school dashed out to check out the unconscious children and colleagues.
It would take a few minutes to realize about the 8 missing students.