Hello readers! I will most likely not be updating for the next few days for a couple reasons - I don't have the next chapter finished yet and the next few days are really busy for me, so I won't get a chance to. Don't worry - chapter five will come! It may just be a little while.
I do not own Hanna is Not a Boy's Name or Danny Phantom.
Chapter Four - Some Things Never Change
After leaving the Nasty Burger, Danny and his friends walk to Sam's house to play video games - after all, she's the one with huge TVs and all the new gaming systems. Despite the attempts Sam and Tucker make to get him to relax, Danny's worrying about the paranormal investigators that Paulina's hired.
He knows next to nothing about these people, but isn't sure what that means for him. It's possible that they'd really only handled one ghost in their career, or maybe two - after all, vampires don't exist, so that first case was probably a ghost that looked like a vampire. Or maybe they'd dealt with so many ghosts that it wasn't worth mentioning them all. Even the possibility of the latter makes Danny nervous. If they find out his secret, will they tell others? Study and dissect him? Submit him to tests? Try to capture him? There's no way to know.
"Earth to Danny," Sam says, waving her hand in front of his face. Danny realizes he's still at Sam's house, with a video game controller in his hands. He looks to the TV screen and sees that Tucker hasn't wasted the time Danny was thinking about other things and has beaten him at the game. Danny can't bring himself to care.
"Maybe you should go home and get some sleep. We do have school tomorrow," Sam says.
"That's probably a good idea," Danny says. "Who know how much sleep I'm going to get with 'paranormal detectives' chasing after Phantom?"
"I'm sure it'll be fine, Danny," Sam reassures him. She looks to Tucker for confirmation, but he's already started a single player game and is totally absorbed in it.
"It'll be fine," Sam says again, but slightly louder. "Right, Tucker?" she asks.
"Huh? Oh yeah, I'm sure they'll be no problem for you, man," Tucker says halfheartedly before cheering as he reaches a new high score.
"Well, as reassuring as that was, it can't hurt to be prepared. See you tomorrow, Sam," Danny says.
"See you tomorrow," Sam says.
Danny leaves Sam's mansion and begins walking to FentonWorks. One good thing might come of leaving Sam's early - at this pace, he'll make curfew.
Danny's ghost sense goes off, and a wisp of bluish mist comes from his mouth.
"Just great, Fenton," he mutters to himself, running into an alley to go ghost. "You had to jinx it."
Danny reaches the alley and climbs over piles of garbage bags until he's far enough into the alley that he's sure that no one walking by will see him. "Going ghost," he mumbles out of habit. Pale bluish-white rings of light appear around his waist and split, one traveling up and one traveling down. As the rings pass over him, Danny's appearance changes. His T-shirt and jeans are replaced by a skintight black jumpsuit with white gloves, boots, belt, and insignia. His black hair turns white, his blue eyes turn a glowing, almost toxic green, and he begins glowing slightly. Once the rings pass over his entire body, they disappear, and Danny leaps into the air and begins flying, trying to find the ghost that set his ghost sense off.
It doesn't take too long to find the ghost, considering that it turns out to be the Box Ghost. He's talking to what appears to be an empty street until Danny spots a couple of people crouching behind a parked car. These people must have just moved here or something - no one who's been in Amity Park for any amount of time fears the Box Ghost.
"Not you again," Danny complains, drawing the Box Ghost's attention from the first people he's managed to frighten in months.
"I put you back into the Ghost Zone, what, a couple hours ago?" Danny asks, annoyed. He pulls out the Fenton Thermos and prepares to use it on the Box Ghost.
"Hah, that puny cylindrical container is no match for the sheer power of the Box Ghost!" the Box Ghost cries out.
"No match? I catch you in it every other day!" Danny says.
"But it cannot hold me for long!" the Box Ghost brags.
"Seriously? I once kept you in there for a week," Danny says.
"It does not matter!" the Box Ghost shouts, clearly upset. "It is no match for the mighty power of the Box Ghost!"
"Oh yeah?" Danny asks. "Then let me try . . . this!"
Danny quickly pulls the top off the Thermos and a beam of blue light comes out. He centers the beam on the Box Ghost, who is sucked into the Thermos, shouting, "Beware!" as he disappears into the small metal cylinder.
Danny slings the Thermos over his shoulder on its strap, relieved that this ghost encounter is over, and that it went so smoothly.
Relieved, at least, until his eyes land on the short redhead from the Nasty Burger earlier today, who is now standing in the middle of the road. The paranormal investigator.
The investigator who is now gaping with awe at Danny.
"That was amazing!" he cries, and Danny flinches at his enthusiasm. This guy reminds him of his dad when he's got a new ghost invention to blather on about.
Danny finds that, in fact, this man is going on and on in a way very similar to his dad. He tunes back in just as the rant dies down, and the redhead seems to regain his composure. He wipes some dirt off his shirt and stretches his hand out to Danny as though he wants to shake hands.
"I'm Hanna Falk Cross, paranormal detective," he says. "And you're Danny Phantom, right?"
Danny pauses for a moment, not entirely sure what to do. This guy isn't like any ghost hunter he's ever met before - other than his dad, at least - but he is here to find out Danny's secret. Therefore, Danny decides not to shake and crosses his arms over his chest, rising into the air and looking down at the investigator.
"I know who you are, and what you're here for," Danny says. "And I suggest that you don't try to follow me, or I'll shove you someplace worse than the Thermos." He lets his eyes glow a bit with the last words, and sees that the redhead is seriously freaked out, but now the other paranormal detectives are coming out from alleys and behind cars.
Danny floats a bit higher, glares at Hanna to discourage him from following, and then dashes off towards home, feeling conflicted about scaring the guy like that. He was bluffing through the whole thing, but the man - Hanna, apparently - didn't know that. Danny doesn't like the fact that he had scared Hanna, but if scaring the guy keeps him from following Phantom, it's worth a try. Danny flies towards home, knowing he's already late for curfew.
Again.
Apparently, there are a few things about hunting ghosts that never change.