A/N: Thank you for your kind reviews, y'all are SO wonderful! Some really fun stuff, right? And it's going to be a fun ride, so I hope you stick with me! Now here is Chapter 2. Enjoy!
Rumor Has It –Chapter 2—The Trap is Set
As Danny, Sam and Tucker entered Mr. Lancer's classroom, they quickly noticed the rather large amount of notes and whispers that were flying around the room. They were far more than the usual that they expected in the normal course of the day. Sam paid special attention to the whispers and immediately her face skewed up with worry. There was obviously something very different about this buzz in the room. Not only were the whispers louder than any of the bees humming in their hive, but they were also accompanied by various stares and finger-pointing aimed at Danny. And, of course, there was that unusual rain of notes.
Mr. Lancer, however, seemed oblivious to it all and stood with his back to the class, writing on the blackboard.
The three friends sat down, and frowning with annoyance, brushed away any note that landed on their desks.
Mr. Lancer finally turned around and raised his voice in response to the airborne paper and chatter. "OK, people! Let's quiet down! We have work to do and have no time for rumors!"
After the slight decrease in the room activity, a girl student raised her hand and said, "But Mr. Lancer! Doesn't great literature often use rumors to give their story some excitement?"
Mr. Lancer cleared his throat in slight embarrassment over her legitimate point and remarked, "Well, yes, Daphne, you're right! But you're referring to ingenious conventional techniques, not cheap hearsay fodder!"
The class blankly blinked at his comment, completely at a lost of what he just said.
Then being a little more direct, he continued, "Now, I'm going to come right out and say it! I don't want to hear anything more about Mr. Fenton's being the Ghost Boy!" He chuckled a little and added, "That thought is so improbable!" Then he cleared his voice and said more seriously, "Besides, I have something more important to tell you about the future of Casper High at the end of class! So let's get to it!"
The class groaned, but Danny, Sam and Tucker didn't...
Time crawled as usual in Mr. Lancer's class, but finally, he covered all that he planned to teach to the deaf ears, and was about to make his big announcement when he was interrupted by the bell. The students raced out before he could say any more, leaving Danny, Sam and Tucker—who had been in shock since the beginning of the class when Mr. Lancer had blurted out the rumor—still seated at their desks..
Mr. Lancer walked up to them and dryly asked, "Is there something I can do for you three?"
They didn't answer at first, but then Danny was the first to 'snap out of it'. He nervously replied, "Oh, uhm, sorry, Mr. Lancer. We have to get going!"
The teen rose from his desk and quickly nudged his friends, who then 'came out of it'—a little. But since Sam and Tucker didn't really move much, Danny tried to stall for time until they could stir. "Uh, well, we just, uh, heard about the rumor and are a little amused by it, too!"
This time all three of the friends laughed nervously—though Sam and Tucker hardly did so— and slowly began to inch toward the door.
Mr. Lancer, however, was not amused and growled, "Well, I'm not! All that craziness took time away from my important announcement, and for that, I'm downright perturbed!"
Danny, nervously looked at his watch and resorted to pushing his friends out the door, just as he uttered, "Speaking of 'time', we gotta run or we'll be late for our next class! Bye, Mr. Lancer!"
He grabbed the still stunned Sam and Tucker and pulled them through the hall and into a nearby closet near Mr. Lancer's room. He quickly locked the door behind them, sighed in relief and said out loud, "Thank goodness we all have a free period right now!"
He turned to his friends but could see that they were still paralyzed.
Danny tried to jolt them back to reality, and shaking each of them he said, "C'mon, guys! I need you two here!"
But they still didn't move. He was particularly concerned that Sam hadn't snapped out of it yet, not knowing that it was because of what she had been reading—and believing—a little too much of lately.
Suddenly, an icy blue mist escaped from his mouth...
"Oh, great!" He groaned, and quickly transformed into his ghostly black-and-white-clad alter ego, Danny Phantom. He floated to the still-dazed-and-now-leaning Tucker and righted his friend. Then he became invisible and exited the closet, leaving his friends behind.
As soon as he left the closet, however, he noticed a few students had gathered around the closet door. He momentarily halted his mission and listened in.
Paulina pointed to the door and anxiously insisted, "I told you I saw him and his geeky friends go in there! Do you think they're planning something 'ghost-like'?" She immediately began to jiggle the locked door knob quite violently after her comment. The door squeaked loudly under all that jolting.
Danny knew this wasn't good. He gasped to himself, "Oh, no! I'd better get back here as soon as possible, or they'll see that I'm not with Sam and Tucker!"
He rushed off and phased to the outside of the school. His ghost sense was activated again and he strained to see any ghost. Getting more worried as time ticked by, he frantically scanned the area and finally spotted what was bothering his ghost sense.
He laughed when he saw the very tiny orange ghost worm inching its way toward the school building, chomping at whatever was in its path. He flew down and landed next to it. Stooping to pick it up with two fingers, he was unexpectedly jolted to the ground by the huge amount of ectoplasmic energy emitted by it. He landed flat on his back right next to the ghost worm, which resumed its eating.
Momentarily dazed by the shock, Danny pulled himself up on his elbows, and reached for his head with one of his hands.
"OW! What was that?" he blurted out and when he looked toward the worm again, he was astounded when it metamorphosed into an even uglier caterpillar-like creature with huge teeth, and grew to about his size. He tried to grab it again, and got an even bigger jolt. "Yeow!" he yelled, as he was riveted to the ground—again. He groaned, but this time it was in irritation with himself for trying to touch it again.
But the caterpillar merely turned its back to him and moved more quickly to the school. When it got there, it immediately began to chomp on the building.
Knowing that this was more complicated than it had to be and that he didn't have much time before the kids might break in the closet door, Danny uttered, "Great!" And I thought the jolt on the closet door was bad enough! Now I have to worry about his!"
He shot at the creature but his ectoplasmic rays were absorbed by it. Then a few moments later, another— not green, but red— beam shot back at him. The teen gasped and barely had time to wield a green ecto-shield. He breathed in relief when the shield didn't buckle, and was just as surprised that it refracted the red ray back at the giant worm, zapping it.
"That's it!" He thought and immediately yelled, "OK, Ugly, give me your best shot, 'cause you're going to get mine!"
And just as quickly, the young hybrid intensified his ectoplasmic ray from one of his hands and sent it toward the beast. He maintained his shield with the other hand, and waited.
A moment later, a larger red beam shot from the point where Danny's green ray had entered the creature and jettisoned toward him. The teen braced for the impact, and concentrated on the way he should hold his shield. The struggle against the red force was stronger than Danny thought it would be but then he only focused harder and pushed against it, angling the shield to where he thought it should aim. Finally, the red beam refracted back and hit the giant ghost creature, zapping it with such force that it leapt from the ground.
This time, it turned away from the school in anger, now determined to rid itself of the creature that just attacked it.
"Uhm," Danny said, "Maybe my best shot wasn't such a good idea after all!"
Meanwhile, back at the school's hall closet, Dash ran up to the crowd and yelled, "Hey! Danny Phantom is outside fighting a big ugly ghost thing trying to eat the school!"
Some of the kids started to run to the outside, but Starr grabbed the door handle again and excitedly answered, "Then, let's see if Danny Fenton is still in here!" She immediately started to pull harder on the locked door knob. Paulina and the other kids around her quickly joined in and tried to loosen the knob.
Finally, all the commotion outside the door finally snapped Sam and Tucker completely out of their shock.
"Uh, how did we get in here?" Tucker uttered.
Sam gasped at her next thought, which was not about how they got there. She then responded, "I don't know, but I want out! And where's Danny? We gotta talk to him about that rumor! I was afraid that this would happen!"
"Yeah, how did they find out? Did someone see him change or something?" Tucker asked, not catching her real drift.
"I don't think so, or at least, I hope not," She replied, still frowning with anxiety. "And I hope all that stuff doesn't come true!"
"Huh?" he blurted out, totally bewildered.
"Never mind! We need to find Danny!" she answered, her voice clearly ringing with agitation.
"Well, OK, I'm with you. Let's get out of here!" He said.
"OK. Let's go!" She agreed.
They approached the shaking door. But just before Tucker could unlock it, Sam grabbed his hand away and slowly uttered, "Uh, Tucker, let's wait a minute. I have a bad feeling about this."
Tucker skewed up his face and moaned, "Danny was right. Girls are SO fickle!"
Sam scowled in response.
The giant caterpillar-like ghost thingy moved quicker than Danny expected. The young hybrid darted just out of range just as it shot at him again. But its ray this time was blue, not red.
"Now, what does that mean?" The ghost boy thought. "But it doesn't matter! I'm taking way too much time with this thing!" He knew he had to come up with a quick plan.
But before he could react, a crowd of curious students happened upon the scene. But one of them inadvertently moved too close to the hostile creature. The giant caterpillar instantly spied the creature similar to the one who was attacking it and sped toward that unsuspecting human.
"Oh, no!" Danny gasped, and soared downward to the hapless student, just as another blue ray made its way toward that kid. Thanks to his super speed, Danny was able to get between the ray and the human and the young ghost took the brunt of the force of the blue ray. It stung a little but the jolt did not have the same kick as the one he had when he was zapped by the little ghost worm in the first place, or when it refracted his rays back at him.
Danny's mind raced with the thought. "So, I get it! It magnifies what's thrown at it! Maybe I can still defeat this thing, if I don't use my ectoplasmic rays! So, I wonder how it'll react to my ice power?" But then he thought about it again. "It'll just might throw an iceberg back at me, that's what!"
But his thoughts were suddenly interrupted as the body of the caterpillar suddenly began to swell and grow again.
"Oh, man!" Danny yelled. "Well, no time to think anymore. Time to act!" And doing just that—and acting on a desperate hunch—Danny willed his wulf claws to emerge; and then pouring on more of his super speed, he charged at the creature with his arms fully extended in front of him and thrust the talons right through the creature. It, in turn, immediately exploded and the force of the impact pummeled the boy to the ground. And before he could react, he was enveloped by a hefty blanket of what was left of the creature, orange goop and all.
Danny instantly flung the goo off and looked up. In the caterpillar's stead, a very large beautiful orange ghost butterfly hovered above him and it quickly flapped out of existence.
The crowd of students cheered at what they just witnessed, and Danny responded with an awkward, embarrassed wave of his hand as he acknowledged their attention. But immediately coming to his senses, he quickly soared away from the school with the cheers still echoing in his ears.
He then turned invisible and double-backed just as rapidly as he could to the closet he left Sam and Tucker in, just as the other mass of kids finally ripped the closet door open.