"Are you sure this is a good idea?"
I knew Valerie had bad memories of the place, but I never imagined anything this bad. She was almost as nervous as I was on my first day of work.
"Don't worry, Valerie, I'm here for you!"
Apparently not bad enough that she couldn't give Tucker a beating for trying to make a move on her.
Luckily, the forest we were in didn't have any mosquitoes, and was big enough that we could hide our presence. That proved to be unnecessary, though, since the gardener was probably out hunting.
I brought the class into the Ghost Zone. More specifically, Skulker's Island.
"I think we've done enough training. If Casper High's so adamant about this being a Ghost Defense class, why not fight some ghosts in it?" My response was for Valerie, it was directed at Sam. She, too, was against bringing everyone here after only a week of training.
They were all equipped with ghost fighting armor, Valerie wearing her own. The armor let them touch ghosts, intangible or not. Next to the Fenton Ghost Catcher, the suits were some of the only things Dad made that did what it was supposed to. I was just in my ghost form, with my hair dyed black, and my blue contact lenses in. I told the class my jumpsuit had micro ecto-blasters in them in case I needed to use my ghost ray to defend the class.
I'd proven day after day that I was a better fighter than most of them, save Valerie, but they were still skeptical when it came to respecting me as what I was: their teacher, and a seasoned ghost-fighter. Made me wonder if I should've started demanding badges from every ghost I defeated to wear on my backpack. I figured some teamwork fighting ghosts would fix that.
"What was that?"
Apparently nervousness was contagious. Starr's shriek resulted in the entire A-List being more alert than they ever were at a football game. Or so I overheard Paulina say.
To Starr's side, there was a ripple, like when you look off into the distance on a hot day and can see heat waves, except these moved and were almost scorpion-shaped. The ripples weakened; and a ghost took its place, eyes – and mouth – fixated on the scared teen in front of it.
No way was I letting a ghost eat a classmate, no matter how much I disliked them. Almost 3 years with my powers taught me that the only ghost allowed to do harm to humans was myself.
"Special delivery from bee-hind," I yelled as I swooped in from – you can fill in the rest.
The ghost went flying into one of the trees, compliments of yours truly.
I flew back to my two best friends who were firing their ecto-guns at it.
"'bee-hind?' Dude, the guy's a scorpion." Tucker shifted his onslaught to me.
Of course I'd known that, but I didn't know any good scorpion puns, so I went with a bee one. "Really? Huh. I guess that explains the tail." I had a good comeback though, so I played dumb.
"I wish Danny Phantom were here," started Dash. "All we've got is Fenton."
I wanted to blast Dash with an ecto blast so badly. If it weren't for Sam catching on and holding my hand in disapproval, I would have.
"Let me show you how it's done!" Dash started running towards the ghost while Paulina and Starr held it still.
"Hey, purple-breath! You look a little stung up. Too much tail? Try a bit of… man, how do you do this without stuttering?"
His physical attack was almost as good as the verbal.
Purple-breath swung its tail and pushed Dash flying into a boulder, which conveniently was just within hearing range for me to taunt him.
"Should I be taking notes," I scoffed.
The creature's grunt was more scrapping than the dragon, Dora we'd fought: more fitting of a scorpion, though that seemed to be the least of our concerns.
"Now boys, can't you two get along just this once?" Mr. Lancer didn't seem to like that I was tormenting Dash in the middle of a ghost fight. Neither did Dash, for that matter, but who cares about Dash?
Dash looked up at me and did a passive aggressive pout, which disgusted me surprisingly more than if it were Mr. Lancer that had done it. Sorry if I gave you that image. He turned to where the scorpion was, emphasis on was.
"Wait, where's the ghost?"
Kwan was right. The ghost had vanished.
"It went invisible and ran away while you two were chatting," answered Paulina.
"Don't be so sure. Ghosts love sneak attacks."
Nothing happened for the next five minutes. The ghost had actually run away. I loosened my fists.
"You've done well as their teacher. You guided them through the Ghost Realm and taught them to work together. I think you've earned their respect, as well as your pay," started Mr. Lancer.
My eyes lit up. "Does this mean…"
"You can consider your job over. Now for the love of all books, Fenton, can you please take us home?"
This is probably the last chapter of this phic, let me know what you thought of the story as a whole!
Sorry it's not a strong finish, I'm trying to save all my ideas for another phic in the works, so don't think I'm coping out. :P