A/N: Well, I am back and thank y'all for patiently waiting for me!! And I hope you think it was worth the wait. Anyhow, I hope the story has given gives you a little chuckle while it's short ride lasted! Now, here is Chapter 9, and I, of course, don't dare own any characters. Enjoy!
Rumor Has It—Chapter 9—The Trap Unsprung
Danny riveted away just as the ghost caterpillar's tail crashed into the place just where Danny had been. The blow left a large hole instead of a squished Danny.
Desperate, the ghost hybrid ghost soared upward and twisted violently around in an attack position. He instinctively shot his ice rays at the creature, but it batted the beams away and the ice rays hurled right back at him! The teen reacted quickly enough to avoid the cold beams just as he frowned in frustration and muttered, "The way he throws things back at me makes me think that he must be related to the pip-squeak after all! But the 'not zapping me thing' is still good! So, there's only one thing left to do."
The boy charged down and pummeled the beast with his fists. But the caterpillar repelled him, swiping at him with its tail again. Danny rapidly recovered from the blow and charged back, feet first, but then the beast whipped its tail even more violently at the boy, this time making firm contact. In fact, the force of the blow was so intense that the young hybrid was thrown several blocks away and landed roughly at the edge of Central Park. He was momentarily incapacitated and lay still in a daze.
The caterpillar then turned toward the group of students who had been watching the entire fight between the two ghosts. The humans screamed in panic and ran back into the gym for safety. But soon, it would become apparent that this was not a good idea to everyone who did go back into the gym, because the caterpillar immediately resumed its approach to devour where the humans went.
Meanwhile, the dance had still continued in spite of what had been happening outside. And, fortunately, the Danny duplicate--who was now a popular Elvis Danny duplicate--and Sam had stayed on the dancer floor since they had gotten on it, which, fortunately again, had been long enough to keep Paulina and her goons from trying out any more traps. But, unfortunately, the last little complication in Danny's battle with the ghost-caterpillar suddenly began to affect his second self...
Sam, still dancing with Danny Phantom Elvis, immediately noticed the change in the double. She leaned toward him and whispered, "Danny, what's wrong?"
The duplicate, though phasing out a little, was still able to maintain his form. But his face scrunched up in alarm as he hurriedly answered her, "I don't know! But something tells me this isn't good! I wonder where the other me is?"
The original Danny Phantom, of course, was still recovering from the giant caterpillar's last effective assault. His head finally clearing, Danny gasped and raced away from Central Park and back toward the gym. And as he frantically soared back, he didn't realize that his plan to stop the rumor was at that very moment in jeopardy. His duplicate was quickly dematerializing now that Danny had momentarily lost his concentration.
His panic now in high gear, Danny Phantom Elvis desperately whispered to Sam, "Sam, I'm phasing out! Do something!"
She looked around for something, anything which might help her in this extremely tense situation. She could see Paulina, Dash and a few others following the Danny duplicate and her every move from the corner of her eye, but she tried to ignore them as she desperately scanned for a quick remedy to their predicament. Finally, she spied some things in the distance and an idea hit her. Grabbing Danny Phantom Elvis by his—thankfully—still tangible arm, she maneuvered among the dancers until they both reached Danny Phantom Tucker.
"Tucker, we need your help!" She hoarsely whispered to their friend. "Danny's phasing out!"
Tucker quipped, "That happens to all pop stars!"
Sam growled, "Just c'mon!"
As they neared a partition in a far corner of the gym, Sam grabbed the balloons she had spied along the way and dragged the barely tangible Danny Phantom Elvis behind her, with Tucker hot on their heels. A little relieved that they made it in time, Sam looked at the now empty Elvis Presley costume and quickly instructed Tucker, "Let's stuff the balloons into the costume. Maybe we can get away with pretending Danny's still in it for a while with all the confusing dance lights!"
"I don't know, Sam!" Tucker stammered.
"Well, what else can we do?" she demanded. "We don't know where the real Danny is or what's happened to him!"
Her friend shrugged and immediately began to stuff the balloons into the costume.
Finally, Sam commanded, "That's enough balloons!"
But Tucker added one more, and it squeaked as he shoved it into the torso of the costume. Fortunately, the noise they had created was drowned out by the blaring music. Unfortunately, the result of their work was barely passable.
Inspecting—and keeping it from floating away—Sam moaned, "It looks too fat!"
"Yeah, now he looks like a middle-aged Elvis Presley!" Tucker smirked.
"You're not helping!" she growled as they pulled a few of the balloons out. They quickly floated up to the ceiling.
She scrutinized it again and complained, "And he's not that muscular!"
She pulled out a couple more balloons and quickly placed the sunglasses and the wig on the balloon 'head'. The props shifted, but then she pulled some tape off a few of the signs nearby and realigned them on the dummy as best as she could. She then made a quick line for its mouth with some eye liner make-up from her purse.
Suddenly, she, Tucker, and the balloon dummy she was holding all jumped at the loud commotion in front of the partition. They could see that the dance lights were dimming and the music was slowing in a very weird way as the chomping ghost-caterpillar had now eaten enough of the wall of the gym that it was now affecting the wiring, and consequently, the electronics in the gym.
Hoping this was the opportunity she was waiting for, Sam grabbed both of her friends--erh, well, Tucker and the dummy anyway--and boldly stepped onto the dance floor with them.
Then she deliberately spoke very loudly to the dummy Danny, trying to create as obvious a scene as she could in an attempt to avoid any suspicion. "Oh, no, Danny! What's going on? What are we going to do?" The goth girl held onto the dummy as if she were getting protected by it, when in fact she was holding onto it to keep it from floating away.
Several of the students around turned to them, confused by her odd yell. But Paulina and Dash scowled in suspicion.
"Just what is she doing?" Dash asked Paulina. From where they were standing, they could not tell that Sam was grasping a dummy.
"I don't know, but…" the popular girl began, sweeping her 'princess' costume away from her feet enough to let her take a couple of steps toward Sam and the dummy.
But Paulina didn't get to finish her thought, as the whole gym and gym floor shook violently from the ghost caterpillar's next assault. With all that quaking, the 'princess' gasped as she discovered first-hand that the weight of her dress was too much for her. Paulina was thrown off balance and thrown against some nearby tables.
Dash, too, had trouble maintaining his balance. His 'knight' costume was also too heavy and before he knew it, he was being thrust toward the wall. He banged into it with an instant groan.
All the other students also fought to stay upright and the noise in the gym had an odd ring to it as warped music and human screams intermixed with each other.
In a moment, however, the vibration stopped and all the other kids in the gym kids quickly recovered and now only the sound of the odd music could be heard.
Sam, meanwhile, had no difficulty staying balanced while clinging onto the dummy and she sighed in relief when the quaking ceased. But, then, much to her dismay, she realized too late that she had held onto the dummy too firmly and one of the balloons began to fizzle-loudly!
Tucker cringed at this snafu and tried to be as nonchalant as possible, which, of course, was impossible. Everyone around him and his friends frowned in disgust.
Mortified by this unplanned development, Sam squeaked, "Oh, you poor thing! And now you have…an upset stomach?"
Before any one else could react to the goth girl's more unusual behavior, the original Danny Phantom and the large ghost caterpillar, entangled in battle, phased into the gym and crashed to the floor. But instead of running away in fear, the kids gathered around the scene and cheered the ghost boy on.
Paulina, however, was not happy about what she was seeing. She looked inscrutably at the Danny Phantom who was fighting fiercely with the beast and then back at the Danny-Phantom-Elvis-Dummy-trying-to-be-Danny Fenton and frowned in irritation.
She stomped up to Dash in her disheveled 'princess' costume.
"I don't know how it got around school that Danny Fenton was the Ghost Boy, 'cause there's the Ghost Boy…" she complained, pointing to Danny Phantom just as he fell at their feet after being repelled by the creature again.
They watched as the ghost boy quickly recovered and charged back at the ghost caterpillar.
Then she pointed to Danny Phantom Elvis Dummy and continued, "…and there's Danny Fenton the Geek Boy with his geek friends!"
But Dash, relieved that Paulina didn't believe the rumor anymore, was having a rare moment for the first time now that he actually noticed something awry about anything. His eyes widening then narrowing at how odd the Danny Phantom Elvis Dummy suddenly looked, he muttered, "Uh, I don't know about that!"
"What do you mean?" Paulina demanded, upset that he should counter her.
"It's just that,…" He began, and looked back and forth, comparing the two Dannys. He scratched his knight helmet, but he didn't finish his thought. Still not satisfied, he started to walk over to where Sam, Tucker and the dummy were.
Sam and Tucker—but not the dummy—gasped in panic when they saw Dash coming, but just as he drew near enough to get a better look, Danny Phantom, who had just been hit by the creature again, crashed into Dash, knocking the jock out cold. Obviously, his knight's armor had not done him any good in the situation.
Getting up off of the unconscious athletic boy, Danny grimaced and said, "Sorry!" And soared back to the caterpillar.
In the meantime, the caterpillar, thinking it had finally rid itself of the 'gnat' that was bugging it, suddenly noticed the other students. It turned completely away from where it had sent the ghost boy and focused on attacking them. This time, the kids screamed and started to run away, confusing the creature in its attempts to make contact with one of the other 'gnats'.
Using this opportunity of the creature erratic and distracted behavior, Danny willed his wulf claws again, and clasping his hands firmly together, with the hope that his combined claws would now act as a giant arrow, he charged at the creature's back. In a moment, there was a loud explosion when his plan worked; and the gym was now covered with orange goop. But as Danny flung the goo off of himself, he saw what was left. A very tiny, yet beautiful, orange ghost butterfly smiled and giggled at him and immediately flapped out of existence.
Struck by its oddity compared to the first ghost-worm he encountered, Danny muttered, "Go figure!" Then he soared away, as the cheers from the students echoed in his ears.
Meanwhile, Dash had finally regained consciousness when he was assaulted this time by the cold orange goo. Groaning, he finally remembered what he was going to do before he was conked out, and headed toward Sam, Tucker and the dummy again.
Sam quickly saw Dash headed toward them and groaned in dread. When he had come as close as she dared, she pulled the dummy behind her, playing for more time, but gasped when she caused another balloon to fizzle loudly.
Thinking quickly she warned, "Stand back, Dash! Danny ate something that didn't agree with him!"
Dash, undaunted by her excuse, moved even closer and said, "I know! I gave it to him!"
Just when Dash was about to pull Sam away from the dummy; and Sam, though she resisted, knew that she had to give it up, she and Tucker were startled by the groan that came out of the dummy.
"Hey, you're not a dummy!" Tucker blurted out.
Ignoring him, Danny groaned again, feigning feeling sick. He raised one of his hands to his forehead and said, "Ohh, I still don't feel so good. But wasn't that Ghost Kid great just now, Sam?"
Sam, now totally relieved, smiled weakly and said, "He always is!"
Then getting angry, Danny glared at Dash and seethed, "So, you were the one who made me sick? If I were feeling any better, I'd ask Danny Phantom to slug you!"
"You wish, wimp!" Dash answered, then added, "Glad to know that you're obvious reaction to that moldy jalapeño pepper almost proved to me that you weren't the Ghost Kid. But now…" He suddenly reached for and grabbed the wig and sunglasses off of Danny.
"Hey! Those are rentals!" Danny Fenton protested.
Throwing the items violently back at him, Dash commented, "Ugh! Geek gear! Now everyone will know what I knew all along. Rumor or no rumor! You are no hero and you definitely aren't Danny Phantom! How dare you even pretend you were!"
He stomped away back to report to his friends; and Danny, Sam and Tucker sighed in collective relief. They knew that Danny's secret was safe once more!
Meanwhile, Mr. Lancer, completely oblivious to everything that had just happened, turned off the still oddly playing music and made his excited announcement over the intercom. "And now, students of Casper High, it's time for snacks, complements of…" And as he pulled back the curtain from the stage, he shouted in trembling excitement at the last bit of his announcement, "Ms. Fanny Dempton and her 'Pot Roast Joy'!"
A very unhappy Ms. Dempton, who had been waiting behind the curtain through the last part of the dance and Danny's fight, stood shaking with embarrassment and fury, as she and her food were now covered in orange goo. She loudly shrieked, "It doesn't go with orange sauce!"