Chapter 10:
Tony POV-
It was about 10:30 by the time the seemingly endless press conference ended. The house was dark so I assumed that Danielle had already gone to sleep. I said goodbye to Pepper and decided to go to the lab.
When I got down to the lab, I immediately knew that something was wrong. All of the screens were black, like they had been turned off, even though I specifically remember leaving them on when I left for the press conference with Pepper. This made the already dark lab, feel even darker without the glow of the screens. I flipped on the lights wincing at the fluorescent lighting and went over to the computer.
"Jarvis," I asked, "Why is everything turned off."
"I don't know sir," he replied. I sat down at the computer and turned it on. It didn't take me long to figure out the problem. I had been hacked.
Needless to say, I was furious. Nobody hacks me! I'm Tony freaking Stark for crying out loud! However, no matter how furious I was, I was also somewhat impressed. Someone had actually managed to do the impossible.
"What did they hack into, Jarvis?" I asked.
"I do not know sir, I have no record of said 'hacker,'" he replied. This perplexed me. Jarvis had a record of everything and the fact that someone had managed to remove this from the record, made me somewhat more impressed. And the more impressed I became, also the more furious I became.
"Alright then," I decided, "I guess I'm going to catch this guy the old fashioned way." I immediately started frantically typing.
"With all do respect sir, when things were 'old fashioned' I must say there were far fewer hackers and much fewer ways of actually catching them," Jarvis said, and I rolled my eyes.
"It's an expression Jarvis," I informed my artificial intelligence system.
"Yes sir," Jarvis stated simply. A few seconds later, I found the source computer responsible for the hacking.
"It says that the computer responsible belongs to a Tucker Foley," I said out loud, "Jarvis do a search on Tucker Foley."
"Yes sir," Jarvis obeyed and loaded images of the kid on my screen.
"Wait a second…he's from Amity Park too? And he's a freaking kid? A fourteen year old hacked my system?" I exclaimed, outraged.
"It would appear so sir, should I offer him a job?" Jarvis suggested.
Ignoring that, I zoomed in on one a picture of the kid with his friends.
"Hold on…that's the kid that looks like Danielle," I realized when I saw a particular black-haired blue-eyed boy standing next to Tucker, "This just keeps getting more suspicious, and it's all somehow tied to Danielle, I just can't figure out why…"
…
The next morning, I was awoken by Pepper, once again, in the lab.
'Great,' I thought, 'Another night of sleeping in an office chair, my spine will never forgive me for this.' I stretched, a tightness in my muscles.
"Good afternoon Tony," she said, in a voice that was slightly less than her usual cheeriness.
"Okay, what's up Pepper," realizing that this probably meant bad news for me, whatever it was.
"So, do you know of Murphy's law?" she asked, uh oh, that definitely meant bad news for me.
"Yeah…that anything that can go wrong will," I said, suspicion apparent in my voice.
"And you know how you said that you didn't want to talk to Vlad Masters?" she asked.
"Yeah…" I said slowly, hoping she wasn't implying what I think she is implying.
"Well, guess who emailed me this morning," she announced, confirming my suspicions.
"You have got to be kidding me," I said and she shook her head.
"He said that he would be here at the end of the month and wanted to set up a meeting because he said that he didn't think that you two 'got to bargain' as much as he would have liked," she told me.
This time, I shook my head. "No, there is something else going on here. I got hacked last night."
Pepper's eyes widened in disbelief.
"And it was by a kid who lives in Amity Park and is best friends with that other kid that looks like Danielle," I finished.
"Well that's really…suspicious, or impressive?" she said finally, "So you think Vlad is somehow involved in this?"
"Well he certainly isn't coming here to do business, last time I turned him down he said something along the lines of 'Mark my words Tony Stark, no one says 'no' to Vlad Masters! You will rue the day you rejected my offer,'" I quoted.
"So…what now?" she asked.
"Well we have almost three weeks to prepare for whatever he is planning, but, in that time, we have to figure out what Danielle is hiding from us. This is all centered around her," I told Pepper.
"You know Tony, it might help if she knew she could trust us…you know, maybe if you told her that you are Iron Man—" she tried to suggest, but I cut her off.
"Oh no, we still don't know her that well. How do know that all of this," I gestured to the screen, "Isn't some kind of scheme to infiltrate Stark Industries?"
Pepper rolled her eyes, "Okay Tony, whatever you say. All I'm saying is that—" again she was cut off, this time by a police report on the screen.
"Speaking of," I said with a smirk, "Duty calls." Again she rolled her eyes, but this time she left the lab as I suited up. I flew out of the lab and downtown. I had only caught the gist of the article something about something attacking downtown blah blah blah.
"Jarvis, what am I looking for?" I asked.
"Something regarding a spectral image running amuck in the city," he told me.
I paused midflight, dropping a few feet in the air. "Wait a minute, are you saying I'm on a ghost hunt?" I asked in disbelief.
"it would appear so sir," he replied.
"Well, what am I even supposed to be looking for? I mean—AHHHHH—" I screamed as I was suddenly swiped out of the air by a large green paw that had come out of no where.
"What the HELL was that?" I asked Jarvis when I managed to catch myself and once again propel myself upward.
"It would appear that that was a ghost bear sir," he replied.
'A ghost bear, and hear I thought that I had seen everything,' I thought.
"Well, where'd it go?" I asked.
"I am picking up an electromagnetic field approximately twenty yards to the northeast from your position," he informed me. I turned in that direction, and not even a second later, the green form appeared out of thin air. It had it's back to me, so I figured that it would be easy to knock it out of the sky. I fired at it. The beams that shoot out of my suit passed right through it. The beast turned around then, shifting it's red-eyed glare to me once again, and charged, successfully knocking me out of the sky again.
When I managed to fly back up again. I spotted the bear again. This time, it was closer to the street, terrorizing several civilians on the sidewalk. I aimed my hands at it, this time determined to wound it, when I heard a voice behind me.
"That's not going to work," I stopped abruptly, turning toward the voice. There I saw a girl floating, yes, floating in the air, without even a suit or a jet pack or anything. However, that was not the only thing abnormal about this girl. For starters, she was wearing a spandex uniform, her hair, which was pulled back into a ponytail was snow white, and her entire body was glowing. The most eerie thing about her was her eyes. They also glowed, a neon green color that is not possible for any human to have naturally.
"Wait why? And who are you?" I asked.
"I'll answer your questions in a minute, right now I have to stop that thing," she said, and before I could argue, she had flown over to the bear and was hitting it with bursts of green energy that actually affected it. It only took a few minutes for the bear to dissolve, and not reappear. The girl flew back over to me.
"Okay, sorry about that, but, in answer to your questions, your weapons won't hurt it because it's a ghost and human weapons will pass right through it. And secondly, I am Dani Phantom," she said.
"But you're a girl," I said lamely. She gave me a 'you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me' look.
"Yeah, I know. Dani, as in Dani with an I," she told me.
"Um…okay, then what are you?" I asked.
"I'm a ghost too," she shrugged.
"But then why would you drive that one off," I asked, "shouldn't you too be on the same side?" I asked, still unable to believe that I was having a conversation with something that, ten minutes ago, I didn't believe in.
"I'm a good ghost, and, contrary to popular belief, we do actually exist," she crossed her arms, "Now, if we're done here, can I leave? I have places to be and people to see."
"Wait, can you tell me how to make weapons that are effective against ghosts?" I asked.
"Maybe another time," she smirked and vanished.
"Well, that went well sir," Jarvis said. I ignored him and flew back home where Pepper was sitting on the couch in the living room waiting for me.
Jarvis disassembled the suit as I entered and I leaned against the countertop looking at Pepper.
"So," she asked, "Do you want to pick up Danielle today, or should I?"
Dani POV-
It was the middle of eighth period and I was anxiously watching the clock instead of paying attention to the lesson like I should have been, when my ghost sense went off.
I raised my hand and asked to go to the bathroom. Issa shot me a knowing look as I walked out, and I subtly nodded in her direction. In the bathroom I changed into my ghost form and flew out. I arrived just in time to see the one and only Iron Man get tackled out of the sky by a ghost bear. He propelled himself back into the sky and aimed at the bear. Knowing that the beams would go right through the bear and possibly injure innocent people, I decided to step in.
"That's not going to work," I said. Iron Man whipped around, looking as surprised as a man in a metal suit can possibly look, he asked me,
"Wait why? And who are you?" in a somewhat metallic voice.
I told him that I would answer his questions in a minute and flew off to get the bear.
It put up a decent fight, but as far as ghosts go, it was one of the weaker ones, maybe a level two at most.
Eventually, seeing that it would not be winning this fight, the bear teleported away, hopefully, somewhere farther away where I wouldn't have to deal with it.
Then I returned to where Iron Man floated probably feeling somewhat stupid that I had just beat the bear when he couldn't. The thought gave me pride. I quickly answered his questions.
"Wait, can you tell me how to make weapons that are effective against ghosts?" he asked, catching me a little off guard. I decided that, right now, that might not be a good idea, especially considering that he doesn't know me, and could very well change his opinion on ghosts.
"Maybe another time," I finally answered, turning invisible and flying back to school. I entered the classroom again after I changed back in the bathroom. Unfortunately, the level of excitement of the lesson had not gotten any better while I was gone. I looked at the clock again.
'Only fifteen more minutes until the end of the day.'