This was actually the starting ideas for Balance and Truth and Lies. With a little tweaking--it can be a new fic all by itself. I have never read the fic Epedemic by the way, and I wrote this way before that fic came up on the sight so this is not plagerising in any way. Again, oppinions are apreciated.
Phantom came to a stop slowly and looked back, finding to his pleasure that Valerie wasn't following him on foot. He floated there for a moment as pealed back one of his gloves to look at the watch Clockwork had given him as a gift. It had his D symbol on the front and he brushed some dust off of it as he flipped it open. Instead of numbers and hands, it displayed sections of the present he wanted to see. He saw Valerie take up her board and force it to fold manually as she became normally Valerie Grey again and was forced to take public transportation back home. The screen changed to the inside of Fenton Works. He didn't see anyone in the den so he switched it to the kitchen. His mother was sitting at the table, doing the crossword puzzle. He knew his father was in bed, Mom was always doing the crossword when Dad wasn't around to distract her. He closed the watch, pocketed it again, and flew home.
Danny Fenton walked out of his room a few minutes later and made a bee line for the kitchen. His mother jumped slightly when she saw him come in.
"Sweety, you scared me," she said putting a hand to her heart.
"Sorry Mom," he said opening the fridge. "You want something?"
"I'm fine dear."
Danny pulled out a piece of the chocolate cake while Maddie resumed her crossword puzzle.
"So, did you and Dad work on something new today?" he asked casually like it did all of the time.
Inside, he was quaking to see what kind of new weapon he would have to dodge or blow to bits before he could have a chance to find out exactly what it did. It was the only way he could avoid his parents as well as any other ghost hunter that came to Amity. The newbies—as Danny and his friends dubbed them—always came here to get the lowdown on the ghost that they were hunting. Danny always overheard every word or he joined the conversation when he wasn't satisfied with the information he received. Fenton had his advantages—being cute to adults to extrapolate information with authentic innocents saved his ghostly butt multiple times—but Fenton also had his limits. He was going to be seventeen soon and wouldn't be this 'cute'—for lack of a better term—for much longer. He would have to maintain an air of innocents and cluelessness probably for the rest of his life if he wanted Phantom not to be ripped apart molecule by molecule.
"Actually, no, not today," Maddie said, frowning at the ceiling as she tapped her pen to her chin in thought. "We got some new samples though and we've been testing them."
"What kind of samples?" it sounded off-handed but in his mind, he was waiting to get into the vault and destroy anything that would link him and Phantom together.
"Some from that Box-Ghost and some from Phantom; he leaves it everywhere. Box-Ghost is nothing special—don't need a sample to know that—" Danny chuckled at that, "but Phantom's makeup is much more complicated for some reason. We're running the first tests on the samples now; they won't be done for another two days though."
Two days to get rid of it, Danny noted in his mind.
"Oh, and the Guys in White are coming over again tomorrow afternoon for an update meeting," Maddie said without prompting. "They said that they may have something to share with us."
Code word for 'take any information on Phantom that the Fentons have'. What bone-heads.
"Okay, I'm going to bed."
He kissed his mother on the cheek before heading up the stairs. He heard the familiar sound of Jack's snores in the other room. The dark hallway didn't affect him like it would a normal human; his sight was just as strong in the dark as it was in the light. He made his way silently to his room and shut the door securely. He went over to the mirror and touched the frame delicately.
He looked sadly into the blue eyes of Danny Fenton even though he felt that they were the mask now instead of Phantom's green ones. Lately, he seemed to be more of Phantom then Fenton—that the personalities were now clashing together and one was beginning to be more dominate over the other. Fenton was now the façade, Danny found it harder to be the shy boy who was embarrassed by his ghost-hunting parents more and more. Well, the time Amorpho came into town was pretty embarrassing, but that incident would send any kid running for cover—undead or not.
"Who knew growing up like this would be so hard?" he asked himself. "Well, at least Valerie will be out of commission for a few days."
With that thought in mind, he crossed his legs in the air and began to doze. Resting was no longer a problem. Ghosts didn't need to sleep, but they did need to regenerate every once and awhile. Danny—being half-human—still slept, but it was almost like sleep walking for him (or sleep floating). It took three hours tops and he only needed to do it once a week now. When it first started to happen, he found himself unable to sleep for three days in a row, but he wasn't affected by the lack of sleep. Some research on the internet and some old books of Sam's made them realize what was going on and that it wasn't dangerous. If nothing else, it was helpful; without having to sleep as often, Danny could do his homework right after patrol, bringing his grades up tremendously as of last year.
His head snapped up suddenly and he looked at his clock. 1:48 PM.
It had only been about two hours since he dozed off, so why was he suddenly alert. Normally, he would be out for three to four hours, five tops. There it was again, that twinge in the back of his senses. He recognized it as something disturbing, but not ghostly. After haunting this place for two years, he became aware of almost everything that happened in town, and the towns surrounding Amity Park as well—not just ghostly, but human disturbances as well. Nothing petty as a break in, but murder sometimes and rape; sometimes it also had something to do with ghost-controlling objects, like Freakshow's staff or the Reality Gauntlet. He was never sure which it was until he checked it out.
He was about to change into Phantom to check it out when the feeling disappeared.
"Odd," he said, going over to his window to look out into the darkness, "that's a bad sign."
Years of being jinxed taught him never to handle something like this as if it was no big deal. When it came to the super-natural, nothing was to be taken lightly.
"Better make a sweep just in case."
He transformed and glided out of the window, heading towards Casemont, one of the smaller towns that surrounded Amity Park's larger girth. As he floated above the hum-drum town, he noticed that something did feel off here. To quiet. Normally, there would be a bunch of teenagers from the local high school having a good time in the fields with their beer and what not. Nothing was happening tonight though, and that had him a little worried.
Staying invisible, he flew down to one of the houses and looked in the window. The lights were still on and inside there was a woman crying her eyes out on the couch with a man looking to be crying as well. He sensed the whole town was in mourning over something, but what he couldn't tell. It was a great loss though, that much he was certain of.
Knowing he had stayed far too long, he reluctantly flew back towards Amity Park, still haunted by the feeling left in Casemont.
"So, what happened?" Sam asked him as they shared lunch the next afternoon.
"Not sure, but I'll get a look at a paper today and see if I can't find anything. If it's ghost-related, I'm going to be sure to do something about it," Danny answered, slamming his cup down on the tray with so much force that the durable plastic cracked in his grip. "Darn it! I still can't get use to that."
"Well, at least they won't miss a cup, or a tray," Tucker observed as he stared at his best friend. "You're not angry are you man?"
"No Tucker, just concerned about what happened last night. I'll be mad when I found out what happened. This was just an accident."
"Better throw that away before someone sees," Sam advised. "Lunch is going to be over soon and people are going to be flocking out the door. You can pass it away in all of the confusion."
Danny nodded, but he only did so out of instinct. What happened last night was still confusing him terribly and made him concerned. Why he didn't know, he just knew that he should be.
"Danny!" his dad blasted as he walked in to the room.
The GIW agents were sitting on the couch, across from his parents in the living room. Danny nodded curtly to the agents and mumbled an excuse to go up to his room. Once there, he locked the door and stuck his head through the floor to listen in on the conversation below. It was nothing new, just more prying and more blathering—just like always when the bone-heads came to visit. The agents were soon running out the door before his father could show them his newest invention.
"Poor Dad doesn't have anyone to blather to," Danny mused as he pulled his head back up from the floor. "Oh no—"
His door was knocked over as his dad came bursting in with a new found way to torture his ghost half. A good hour of smiles, false nods, and ooing and ahhing found Jack Fenton booted out of his son's room as his cell phone rang. Danny knew he would get over it . . . eventually.
"What's up?" he asked, knowing that his caller id had found Tucker's number familiar.
"Dude, did you see what's on the news?" he asked, rather flustered.
"No, Dad had a new invention to show off," Danny groaned.
"Oh, sorry man, but turn on your T.V. now. Channel 6—I think I know what happened last night."
Danny quickly bolted from his room and ran into the living room and turned the T.V. on—his mouth dropped when he saw what Tucker was talking about. The picture was a gruesome scene at the Casemont high school. It looked like nearly the whole school was being carted in ambulances and gurneys to the local hospital.
"Officials still aren't sure what caused the epidemic," said the reporter as the footage continued to roll, "but one thing is for certain, the illness is spreading. Some parents of the teens have been hospitalized along with their children, but the high school wasn't the only one hit. Many of the daycares and the elementary school are also closed down because of the mass loss of students and toddlers because of the sickness. At least five children were lost overnight to this and the count keeps rising as more and more people are rolled into the over-flowing hospital. Some of the less severe cases will be sent to Amity Park General, who has the highest rate of cures more than any other hospital in the US. Hopefully, they can find a cure before it spreads to the surrounding counties and maybe even the whole country."
"I don't believe this," Danny said, sitting down on the couch heavily, still speaking to Tucker on the phone. "Tucker, how can that just happen?"
"I don't know dude, but I hope you didn't pick up anything and passed it on to everyone else when you were at school."
"I don't get sick Tucker, you know that. My ghost blood takes care of the human illnesses and my human side takes care of the ghost illnesses, if there are any."
"Then you may be the only one not affected by this," Tucker started to sound thoughtful.
"If you're thinking of merchandising my blood as a cure, then you're dead meat," Danny warned.