Thank You for the reviews!! Just thought I'd add this in the first chap...

To Keep A Secret

Chapter 1

For the third time in as many days, Danny Fenton was attacked by three ghosts.

These weren't random ghosts. It was the same gang, each time: two girls and a guy. The women were identical. They had long, tattered robes, glowing eerily green, and eyes that sparkled like dangerous waters in a dead sea. An evil dead sea. To anyone other than ghosts, the eyes would burn into the soul and suck the breath out of their enemies (figuratively). They would be the living dead, in a way, because they were still able to function as an alive being, yet they would be utterly empty of anything. It would be better to be dead. However, they hardly met any humans while in the Ghost Zone, and their attacks were completely useless normally.

The man's appearance was nothing short of tramp-like. He wore baggy, green overalls, and had a liberal amount of dirt and dust covering his shabby coat. An eternity of prowling around the ghost zone had made him invulnerable to many attacks. Although he was not gifted with powers of his own, the toughness was like a shield. He was the perfect barrier, or distraction.

The ghosts had been especially selected by Vlad Masters, or 'Plasmius', which he preferred. Vlad was one of the sworn enemies of Danny, and he had made it his mission to either train the boy, keeping him as his own, or destroy him.

Although, maybe not, if it upset Danny's mom. The father he couldn't care less about.

The ghosts were almost completely useless when trying to get jobs elsewhere. They didn't have truly special skills, and were not really experienced. Les Souers de l'âme, as the women's title went, didn't really turn out to be that popular, and it was by luck that everyone banded together with Vlad. He managed to set them up with a kick-butt job trailing Danny. The pay was good, too. But the better part was that he managed to let them out of the Ghost Portal every once in a while.

Now was one of those times.

"Hey, Danny, you doin' anything tonight? Like with your folks? 'Cause you could come to my house. I just got that new game, it's awesome, but it's two players for the better parts," Danny's best friend Tucker said to him enthusiastically.

"I don't know, but I think Gran and Grandpa Fenton are coming. They were supposed to last week, but, you know, there was that plane delay," he replied with a casual shrug.

"Oh well. At least Sam'll come, right?" Tucker asked, pulling Sam back by her elbow and looking at her with pleading eyes. "Ah, come on, Sam. Or we could take it to your house, you've got that killer system…"

Sam looked at him almost pityingly. "What is it with you guys and those stupid games? I mean, all you ever do is fight computer-generated images of highly coloured and kind of stupid-looking people. Or monsters. Or whatever. And the images aren't even that good…" she paused, shut out by the conversation that had started up between the two guys while she had been talking. She tried again.

"…And you, Danny. I'd think you'd be kind of tired of all those ghosts and stuff. You fight evil, like, on a daily basis, practically." She flinched as she saw Danny's hand shoot up in front of her face, and cover her mouth.

"Keep it down," he muttered. "We're at school already." He didn't remove his hand for a couple of seconds, but in those seconds, Sam was thinking about his soft, soft hand, how it was so cool and firm… but didn't that counteract with soft? She didn't feel herself blushing until Danny's hand moved away, when the chill of the November air brushed past her flaming cheeks. She felt kind of embarrassed at her reaction, and muttered, "Stupid hormones…"

The three teens sloped up the stone steps to the school's main entrance. They stood in the doorway, safe from the rain that had started to fall. For the moment.

"Hey, Fenton."

Danny froze. Not because of the cold.

Dash was coming up to him, flanked by his jock friends. Kwan and another kid, Jamie, grabbed Danny and Tucker by the shoulders, and pushed them off the steps. They went sprawling into the tangle of bushes, quickly soaked by the wet leaves. Sam looked at them fall, and felt two hands pinch her shoulders, too. She wasn't pushed down, but was lifted up and flopped on the ground, next to the bush.

The three of them gazed reproachfully up at Dash and the others. The jocks turned around and started talking about the upcoming Winter Dance a month from next week, and the girls 'waiting in line for him'. Sam rolled her eyes, and grabbed Tucker and Danny's hands, pulling them out of the thorny branches.

"Jeez, Danny, you should at least let them have an accident." Sam sighed.

"Yeah, make 'em fall like us, or at least-" Tucker racked his brains for something good enough. "I don't know. Just… a failed test? Missing gym clothes? Something small, yet… um, well, revenge-ish."

"Guys, I couldn't. I'm not like that. Last year… well, I was experimenting. Now, I think, I'm better, 'cause I know what I will become if I slip up."

"Danny, that was stealing important test answers. That was bad, and it didn't really end up happening, right? Dash and his friends have been picking on you- on us- since grade school. I think its time we did something about that."

Danny looked at his friends' faces. Sam's was flushed, he supposed because of her determinedness on the subject. Tucker was shaking his head, looking up at the jocks and sighing heavily. Danny wondered whether he should tell them about that dream he's had that morning... but as soon as he opened his mouth Tucker spoke.

"C'mon," he said expressionlessly. "We'd… better go in, I guess. The bell's gonna ring in a second." He started walking towards another group of students, being pushed into the building through the side entrance. Danny and Sam followed. One of their teachers, Mr. Lancer, was chivvying the kids in quickly. His face was screwed up as he looked up at the three teens, trying to keep the rain from getting in his eyes.

"You might want to hurry up, Mr Fenton, Mr. Foley, and you, Miss Manson... I'm not going to stand out here for ever, you know."

Thunder crackled menacingly. The clouds that had, moments ago, been a pure blue, were swirling ominously and growing bleaker, greyer and thicker each second.

"Strange," Danny thought as he looked up. "I've never seen clouds look like that, before…"

His thought was stopped short as he felt an icy chill run up his spine, and along the base of his skull. A small spire of blue smoke crawled lazily out of his mouth, and he gasped.

Mr Lancer looked at him, curiously. "For Pete's sake, Daniel, it's not that cold. Wear a sweater, at least," he told him grumpily.

Danny didn't have time to turn around. He felt a small force collide with his spine, and gasped out again- in pain. Knocked into the door, Danny was pelted with more rain than his friends, who had turned around quickly, immediately assessing the situation. Lancer backed away rapidly, falling sideways as he slipped on a pile of dirty leaves. He was staring at someone behind Danny.

Sam and Tucker's mouths were open. For a split second, Danny watched them instead of turning around and dealing with whoever had snuck up behind him. He noticed a subtle change in the air-subtle, yes, but his body tingled with the force that it took out on his ghost half. The air thickened, the fog swirled around Danny – fog that came out of nowhere – and then he blacked out.

The last thing he saw was his best friends' eyes turning as black as coal. Then something familiar: a shining, ruby red.

Then everything seemed to cease to exist.

I'm not too pleased with this chapter, I had fun writing it but I think it could be more exciting... please review and help me out here! It's my first fanfic!!! Oh, and constructive criticism would be great, really appreciated, but no flares, thanks. Well, at least those guys/girls bother to read the stories! Anyway, I'm updating in about a week or so... when I get an idea of what to do next! I tend to have writer's blocks when I'm writing anything at all, and I usually give up on them. But I like the way the story is going...Disclaimer... I don't own DP!

I'm writing the next chap as we speak... here is a preview...

It had been a peaceful morning. Not like the past week, though. Sam had just about gone insane when those three goons had appeared again, on the steps to school. She had first thought, "How did they know Danny is… a human?" But then she realised that if word hadn't gotten around yet, then ghosts were pretty quiet most of the time.

And judging by the six-attacks-a-day for the past week, not to mention the appearances at every hangout that Danny always turned up at, that was definitely ruled out.

That part of the story comes later in the next chappie... but it's a part I've just finished writng... on to the edit-mobile!