A/N: and now, the plot thickens...yes, people, there is actually a plot to this. surprising, isn't it? and to cherryblossom51, I think this chapter will answer your question. And don't worry mazrad, Jack and Maddie will get suspicious, but not for a while. You have to remember, their first encounter with Brian as 'PhasoBill' wasn't under the best circumstances for observation, but I'll try and squeeze something in early for you. keep a watch next chapter, okay?
Chapter 4 - Beware the Big Mouth
"Hi you two, how was your day?" Valerie asked her two children as they came in the door.
Tucker Foley had regained his crush on the ghost hunter after they met up again at University. Valerie was a vet now, and shortly after she got her first job she and Tucker married. Unfortunately, during a ghost-hunting accident 9 years ago, she can't remain standing for too long. This made her hang up her mask, and she threw herself into her work and family as a result.
"Eventful, and we have a ton of homework so we have to get working, okay?" Lea felt bad about brushing her mother off, but pushed the feelings aside.
Leo took off to work on the hover board, while Lea set up a target and started practise with the small arsenal of weapons that came with her armour. It included: a regular ecto-gun that shot blobs of ecto-goop, an ectoplasm-infused knife, and long blades could come from her elbows and feet making attacks deadly.
One hour and a lot of holes in the wall later, Leo came barging into Lea's room and quickly had to duck an ecto-blast.
"How many times have I told you to knock?" Lea said, exasperated.
"Sorry, just thought you'd like to see your new hover board." Leo grumbled, holding out the yellow contraption. Lea's eyes lit up, changed to her armour (which she now called the Yellow Huntress, out of respect for her mother's title), and she grabbed the board. Lea opened her balcony door and climbed on.
It was magnificent! She now had complete control over the board just by thinking it. The neural interface was working brilliantly.
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"Brian? Brian honey, wake up, quickly!"
Brian rolled over groggily and opened one eye to see his grandma gently shaking him awake.
"Dear, did you forget to set your alarm? It's 8:40." Oh crap.
Brian bolted out of bed, ignoring his grandma's chuckles, and jumped in for the quickest shower known to mankind. Then he jumped out, got dressed, and scarfed down a piece of toast, grabbed his backpack and ran out the door shouting goodbyes.
Finally! It was Friday, and Brian had had one bad week. This one, annoying ghost just kept coming back! He called himself the Box Ghost and because of him, Brian had been late for every class this week! Lea had been a help, but she seemed to be ticked at him for some reason. Oh well. He would ask her about it later.
When he arrived in the school, most people were already in their classes. Brian opened his locker and shoved his books in, and just as he was about to grab the books he needed for Lancer's class he was shoved into said locker and locked in. From inside the small space, Brian heard Josh Baxter laughing at him, the rest of the brainless gorillas - oh, sorry, the rest of the Casper High football team - was chuckling too. He heard them running off to class.
Brian turned intangible and invisible and stuck his head out of his locker to see if anyone was there. Most unfortunately, right at that moment he started shivering and his ghost sense went off. Rolling his eyes and guessing who it was, he pulled his head back in the locker and changed to his ghost form, just as the bell rang.
Flying through to the roof of the school, Brian spied the Box Ghost flying over a small factory, obviously relishing in the fact that it seemed to be packaging things in boxes and bubble wrap. He was dancing on a large roll of the stuff, anyway.
"Come on, Boxy, we've done this at least 5 times this week! What do you say we just get you in the Pen and be done with it?"
"I am the Box Ghost! Beware! And my name is not Boxy!"
Brian rolled his eyes and moved his head to the side so that the cardboard box he tossed at him would miss. Sighing, he removed the Pen from his pocket.
"No! Those cylindrical contraptions are worse than the Thermoses!"
Brian stopped short. "You knew my father?"
"If Danny Phantom is your father, then yes! He was quite annoying on my quest of world conquest. Always putting me in those cylindrical prisons. BEWARE! I haven't seen him in a few years though. BEWARE!"
"You mean he's alive?"
"Of course he is! BEWARE! Everyone knows that!" Brian stepped out of the way to avoid another box. Just as he was about to ask where his dad was, a sort of intercom came from the pocket in the Box Ghost's overalls.
"Idiot! I told you to distract him, not give him information! Get back here right now!"
The Box Ghost seemed terrified. "Y-Yes sir, Mr. Skulker sir. I'll be right there, sir" but Brian didn't get a chance to question him further. A swirling green vortex formed behind the ghost, and something reached out and pulled him in.
Brian stared ahead. His dad was alive. Most likely in the ghost zone somewhere, judging on the way the Box Ghost said that everyone knows that yet nobody here knew it.
A loud bell brought him out of his musings. Students in the nearby Casper High all poured into the grounds, meaning it was a fire drill. Quickly locating Lea and Leo, Brian went invisible and intangible and joined them. At least, he knew he joined them.
"Boo." Brian said, smiling when they both jumped. Checking to see that no one was looking, (which they weren't, as a fire drill is an excuse to socialise out of class) he changed back.
"Brian, where have you been?" Leo whispered, while Lea just turned away.
"Box Ghost. What's with her?"
Leo looked at him strangely. "You don't know?" he asked incredulously.
"Know what? What's going on? What did I miss?" Brian asked, upset at being left out of the loop.
"Dude, she was right. You are clueless." Leo just shook his head and walked back in the school with everyone else. Shrugging, Brian followed him.
"So what happened that took you so long?" Lea asked him as they got their HELP things from their lockers.
"I got some nice information from the Bigmouth Box Ghost. I'll tell you at lunch."
The HELP lesson was co-ed today, in badminton doubles. Both Leo and Brian were surprised to find Lea already partnered up with someone, who Leo said was a new kid introduced in English.
His name, apparently, was Aaron Mattingly. He had black hair that hung around his shoulders, and wore black jeans and a dark blue shirt. One could see the back of a gold chain around his neck, but the rest of it was underneath his shirt.
Leo and Brian partnered up, both of whom glaring at Aaron for different reasons, and the tournament began. The only reason Lea and Aaron were winning was because Lea was really good - he seemed to be willing to let her do all the work. Leo and Brian lost early on because they were preoccupied.
After class, Brian, Leo, and Lea (strangely quiet) headed outside to get a table. They ate in relative silence, each contemplating their own problems, but then the silence was shattered.
"Hi Lea. May I sit down?"
"Sure Aaron. You know my brother Leo and my best friend Brian, right?" Lea gestured to her silently angry table mates.
"Yes, we have met." Aaron sat down beside her. A slightly awkward silence ensued.
"So, uh, Aaron," Leo cleared his throat, "how do you like Casper so far?"
"It is wonderful. Everyone I have talked with so far seems very nice." he said this with a not-so-subtle look at Lea, who ducked her head a little and blushed.
"You just have to remember that some people will befriend you, then stab you in the back if your not popular." Brian was glaring at Aaron while saying this.
"I assume your talking about this A-list I keep hearing so much about?" Aaron glared right back.
"Of course." Brian 'agreed'.
"Thank you for the warning, Brian, but I already have it all worked out. I won't be getting stabbed in the back," Aaron now turned to face a curious looking Lea, "May I have a word with you in private, Lea?"
They walked out of sight, much to the boys' annoyance. Leo told Brian that their dad was coming home next week, to see them before their first dance. Leo was really looking forward to getting his dad's opinion on some new cell phone upgrade he was working on. But then, a few minutes before the bell rang, Lea plopped happily into her seat at the table and started eating.
"What's gotten into you?" Leo asked his sister warily as he took a drink.
"Aaron asked me to the dance." she said happily. Leo promptly spit out his drink.
"What?!" Both Brian and Leo yelled. Lea merely raised an eyebrow and continued eating.
"W-Well what did you say?" Leo asked as if his life depended on it.
"I said yes, of course."
"But he's a slimeball!" Brian protested, before realising that this was the wrong move. She glared at him.
"Well maybe if you hadn't spent all of your time glaring at him, you would realise that he is a nice guy and treats me like royalty." Lea argued.
"Well maybe if you hadn't spent all of your time swooning over him, you would realise that the guy is evil!" Brian yelled back, before seeing that all this did was make one angry ghost hunter.
Narrowing her eyes, Lea stood up. "Well if that's how you feel, then I don't know why I waited so long anyway." and stomped away.
Sighing, Brian sat back down. "I said the wrong thing, didn't I?"
"Dude, your lucky she didn't kill you. And you guys just lost me 50 bucks!" Leo complained. Brian's gaze snapped over to him.
"What?" he hissed.
His eyes widened as he heard what he had just said. "Nothing!I'mnotamajorpartoftheFreshman'sSocialGamblingCommittee!I'mnotspyingonyourrelationshipwithLeainordertoprovidebettingtipsforcash!Iwasn'tpartofthehalfthatbetthatyouandLeawouldgotothedancetogetherandImostcertainlydidnotbetasmallamountthatshewouldgowithsomeoneelsebecauseyou'retooclueless!"
"What was that?" Brian asked.
"I'm not spying on your relationship with Lea in order to provide betting tips for cash?"
"No, not that."
"I'm not a major part of the FSGC?"
"No, no, after that, though I'll kill you for the others later."
"I wasn't part of the half that bet that you and Lea would go to the dance together and I most certainly did not bet a small amount that she would go with someone else because you're too clueless?"
"You bet on us! And what do you mean I'm clueless?"
"Sorry dude, Lea swore me to secrecy a month ago! I didn't even tell the FSGC that! If I tell you, I'll be number two on Lea's 'To Kill' list, and your number one right now! That's not a position I want to be in!" Leo stood up as well, and waited for his friend to get up too.
"Tell them what? And what am I going to do now! Lea won't want to work with me on ghost hunting, I'll have double the work!"
"Brian, you might want to skip math. She'll still be fuming." Leo advised solemnly. Brian shook his head.
"Nah. I can't, Mr. Falluca's going over the test results today. If I don't pass, I'm grounded."
"Well, good luck. I'm off to face a pack of wolves with bad news." Leo took the hallway to the computer lab.
Brian shook his head and got his books, wondering if he should simply hide Leo's PDA for a day to get him back. On the way to math, he wondered if he should apologise to Lea. That might give him a chance at getting his friend back. But he stepped into the classroom to find Lea sitting beside Aaron at the front of the class, all thoughts of apologising flew from his head, and he instead glared at them both, and instead stomped to the back of the classroom.
"Class, before I hand back your test results, we have a new student whose plane from Mexico City arrived late today, so would we all please give a nice Amity welcome to Hannah Ectora."
All thoughts of Aaron and Lea left his head at the sight of this new girl. Long, wavy black hair fell down to her lower back, and dark brown eyes glinted softly. A red jewel cut in the shape of a heart hung around her neck and reflected the light. She wore a form-fitting pink shirt that showed a curvy figure and bright blue jeans, and held some math books in front of her innocently.
"Why don't you go sit beside Mr. Fenton, Miss Ectora. Mr. Fenton, would you raise your hand please?"
So Hannah sat down in the desk where Lea usually sat, but that didn't occur to Brian.
"Hi, I'm Brian Fenton. Welcome to Amity." he introduced himself.
"Thanks. You already know my name, so there's not much point in telling you, is there?" she joked, a light accent touching her voice.
"So what brings you to Amity?" Brian asked, waiting as Falluca passed the tests back.
"My father got a promotion, so we have moved up here. It was hard leaving my friends back at home, but we plan to keep in contact. I'm just nervous because I don't know anyone here." Hannah shrugged.
"Now that's where your wrong. You know me!" Brian decided he really liked seeing her laugh.
"Say, uh, if you want I could show you around town after school?" he asked, wanting to spend more time with the new girl.
"I'd like that, Brian." she smiled, showing a perfect row of teeth.
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Leo watched as both Brian and Lea left with their dates, and shook his head sadly. He had bet that (while they were in math and he was in Comps) that they would come to their senses before the dance, but Hannah put a whole new number in the equation. And worse yet...
Leo was the only one without a date.