Danny Phantom in: Spectre Rejecters

Part 9

Danny trudged downstairs and into the kitchen. He stood patiently waiting for the kettle to boil, and then made himself a nice, warm cup of coffee in a pathetic attempt to wake him up a little. He hadn't slept much the past night, not only because of what he did to Valerie, it was the dream. Deep inside he felt that teaching the huntress a lesson was the right thing to do to her… and the right thing to do for Danny himself; after all she had hunted him for so long and refused to listen to what he had to say. That was at the back of his mind however, what was really troubling him was the fact that each time the dream… the nightmare seemed to last a few seconds longer than the last time. He couldn't help but feel slightly scared. He sat at the kitchen table, resting his head on his arms. He fell into a light sleep but was awoken by Vlad smashing the newspaper onto the table with a smug grin on his face.

The headline read: 'Teenage girl driven insane by ghosts!'

Danny saw the photograph of Valerie with a few cuts on her face, and remembered the previous night. He still felt no guilt whatsoever.

"The girl was found bruised and beaten, and claims that she bumped into Danny Phantom, the ghost boy who has been missing for months, while hunting on her 'jet speeder' with her 'ghost weapons'. She says that she is a 'professional ghost hunter' and claims that the ghost kid did this to her. As of last night she has been admitted into Amity Park mental health unit and is under constant supervision."

Danny couldn't help but to smile. "I should feel guilty… but I don't…" Ella, Vlad's Christmas kitten jumped on the table and began fussing her face on Danny's hand until he finally agreed to play with her, or rather annoy her with a piece of string. "One thing's for sure though…" The boy began; "You were right about my father." He said, shifting his eyes to a random Anti-Danny Phantom advert at the bottom of the page.

Hearing those words coming from his once arch-enemy's mouth was rather strange; but understandable. Vlad knew the feeling of rejection all too well; his past seemed to be haunted by it. He looked down at the boy and the kitten, and saw how exhausted Danny looked. It wouldn't normally have concerned him too much, but it seemed to be worsening every day.

Danny sat in the living room reading a book about pirates that he stumbled upon whilst looking through Vlad's huge collection of books. It wasn't long before Ella joined him; she too seemed fascinated by the book. The skies had gone dark; Danny and the cat were sleeping. The book lay open on the floor; it had been this way since the boy had drifted off to sleep. He was rather abruptly awoken by the sound of the telephone ringing loudly. He tried to go back to sleep, hoping that Vlad would answer the phone. But he was wrong; Vlad had been in his lab virtually all day. He groaned and answered the phone. Before he could get a word in, Sam began screaming down the phone.

"I need Danny! Get Danny right now!"

"Sam…? What's up?" He asked, slightly panicked.

"It's been all over the news… Switch on the TV and…" She trailed off, before hanging up. Danny rushed toward the television, tripping over the pirate book and landing on the floor. "This is why I hate reading." He joked to himself, before getting up and switching on the TV.

Danny noticed that on the table, there was a glass of water. Vlad must have left it for him. He picked it up and took a sip; he hadn't noticed how very thirsty he was and feeling the ice cold drink run down his throat gave him great satisfaction. However the refreshing feeling left when he looked at the screen of the TV. His jaw dropped wide when he saw the Fenton works sign on the screen. But something had to be wrong, why else would they be on television? The camera zoomed out and showed the house: a pile of bricks and shattered glass, along with parts of broken ghost hunting equipment and such. He didn't have time to think, he had to get to Amity Park, and he had to get there as fast as possible. He looked down at the cat, "Tell Vlad I'm…" then paused mid-sentence. Why was he talking to a cat? He chuckled and stroked Ella's head before 'going ghost' and flying to Amity Park. Little did he know that his drink had been tampered with.

He finally landed at his house, and for some unknown reason felt particularly tired – it was probably the journey here. He let out a great sigh of relief when he saw his family were safe. He walked up behind them and greeted Jazz, who happened to notice something odd about the boy.

"Hey Danny! I'm so glad you're… Are you ill or something? You look awful!"

"Gee thanks, you look great too." He groaned sarcastically. "What happened here?"

"Mom and Dad had a fight… It's been like this since he found out that Mom approved of your ghost powers. It resulted in this…" Danny rolled his eyes, typical. His father always did like things to go his own way.

Vlad walked out of his lab. He was expecting to find Danny sleeping on the sofa, but was shocked when he found an empty room. His eyes moved to the news report, then to the half-empty glass of water. Danny had left, obviously to see if his parents were alright, but had also drunk the water which incidentally had a few sleeping pills in it. Vlad had noticed how tired the boy always seemed to be, and had suspected he wasn't sleeping. This was bad. The fire burned out and Ella looked up, just in time to see Masters turn to Plasmius, and fly off. She simply sat there and licked her paw. It didn't seem to bother her that both her owner and his "son" were half dead.