BVQA: Thanks to your lovely reviews, I didn't kill Dani!
Dani: Yeah, but she did ground me for a month.
BVQA: XD Anyway, kudos to black robin for trying the F-U trick! Aaand thank you ALL for telling me which pairing you liked for Dani! ON TO THE STORY!
Out of all the things Dani didn't want to see when she got to the school- A fire, a massive invading army of ghosts, an earthquake, a massive invading army of reporters- the thing she most didn't want to see was a squadron of police cars, about thirty pairs of glowing handcuffs, Vlad the fruitloop and the GIW. It was, however, exactly what she saw through the dirty window of the school bus. Her immediate reaction was to tap Tucker on the shoulder and point out the window.
"You see that too, right?" She asked, nose smushed up against the glass in an attempt to see better. Tucker glanced out the window.
"Maybe they're not here to arrest anybody." He suggested. One of the GIW raised a megaphone to his mouth.
"You are under arrest!" He shouted.
"Well, maybe they're not here to arrest any ghosts." Tucker suggested again.
"All humans must leave the bus immediately so we can apprehend the suspect."
Tucker paused, then made a final, flimsy attempt at cheering Dani up. "Maybe they're here to arrest some other ghost."
"Danielle Fenton/Phantom, you are under arrest!"
Tucker sighed. Dani pulled away from the window and glanced at Danny. He looked at her with pity and mouthed, 'any idea what they think you did now?'. Dani shook her head no and mouthed right back, 'I might have forgotten to make my bed this morning. Think that's it?'
Danny smiled at her joke, but it didn't reach his eyes. Dani noticed that a stream of neon green was swirling around on the surface of his iris like oil on water. In a flash, it was gone, but Dani realized he must be really ticked off at Vlad for his anger to be manifesting in his eyes. She shuddered as the megaphone came again.
"Danielle Fenton/Phantom, you are under arrest!"
"Dani, why are they arresting you?" Dash asked. His normally obnoxious voice was hushed, fear taking the edge away.
Dani sighed. "Not that it's any of your business, but. . . they keep convicting me of robberies I didn't commit." Dani noticed the dull, glazed look in Dash's eyes and sighed, dumbing it down. "They keep saying I stole things I that didn't."
Dash slowly nodded. "And you don't want to be arrested?"
Dani sighed and, with as much sarcasm as she could muster under the tense circumstances, said, "No, Dash, I would love to be dragged off to jail for something I didn't do. That would be swell."
Dash scowled. "Jeez, sorry. I thought maybe you'd made a plan or something and you were going to let yourself get arrested to get into their base or something."
"I repeat, all humans must leave the bus immediately so we can apprehend the suspect."
Dani looked up at Dash, and noticed the oddest expression on his face. The vacant stare was gone, and he looked almost as if he were in pain. Then, it hit Dani.
Dash was thinking.
"They need us to leave the bus, right?" Dani nodded. "So what happens if we don't?" Dash asked. Dani hesitated. Had Dash just had. . . an idea? And a good idea at that.
Dani smiled. "Go for it."
LINE BREAK
The television screen held the face of an anxious-looking blonde weatherman who was standing in front of Casper High. The background noise alone was deafening, and the man had to shout to be heard above the clamor. "This just in! Breaking news!" Lance Thunder said. "I'm here reporting live from the scene, where the largest student protest since the Nastyburger incident is currently underway. When government officials attempted to arrest Dani Fenton, AKA Danielle Phantom, they clearly weren't prepared for the huge amount of support the young teen had managed to pick up in no less than a half a day of school. After clear instructions that all humans were to exit the bus so they could apprehend the ghost girl, the only one to exit was the bus driver. The directive was repeated several more times, until finally one student, Daniel Fenton, stepped up to the entrance and yelled that, quote, 'If you want to arrest my little sister, you're going to have to drag the whole bus to jail with her!'."
Lance Thunder began walking across the school grounds, the camera panning with him.
"When the government officials, the infamous Guys In White, attempted to do just that, a student known as Dash Baxter pushed Daniel out of the way and yelled to the children already in the school, 'Everybody come on! They can't arrest all of us!'. Children began pouring out of the school and onto the bus, to the point where there was no more room. Did this stop them? No! Other students began climbing on top of the bus, on the front, and even balanced in the windows. Mayor Masters, the man who created Danielle from Daniel Phantom's DNA, is currently attempting to calm the students down."
The camera panned over to a school bus with, as Lance Thunder had said, children on top of the bus, on the front, and in the windows. Only one window was left clear, and through it Dani Phantom herself was watching the crowd outside. One of the kids on the bus waved at the camera, and you could have sworn one said, "Hi, mom." Vlad Masters had his 'kind, loving mayor' face on, and was trying to reason with the kids.
Key word: 'trying'.
"Oh, come on, you can't stay in there forever." He said, and the camera turned back to Lance.
"Nonetheless, that appears to be what the kids are attempting to do." He said. "If this holds out, it's going to take an army to get those kids off the bus."
LINE BREAK
A bell rang from somewhere inside the school, the lonely sound of times with a little more order and a lot more sitting at desks and learning things. Dani glanced down at her watch- an action hindered by the hundreds of students currently invading her personal bubble- and noted that it was three-o-clock. It would have been time to go home, if they'd had school today. She couldn't even see Tucker or Danny or Sam, the bus was so crowded. It was sheer dumb luck that she'd managed to keep her window clear for a view of the cop cars pulled up outside. Most had left already, but the GIW were still there with their megaphone and handcuffs. Vlad was still there too, demonstrating his utter ignorance when it came to modern slang. That had gotten boring about two hours ago, and-
Wait a second.
The school bell had rung.
That meant that she didn't need to wear the ring anymore!
Dani smiled broadly, and slipped her hand around the tiny silver ghost pendant dangling around her neck for luck. Then she reached up with her other hand, and tugged the ring off. The affect was instantaneous.
Dani felt like someone had pulled a plug out of her heart, and pure energy rushed out of the hole, filling her with an ecstatic glow of power as it raced through her. She could swear that her veins flashed green, and she pulled from her core and let the white rings of her ghost self wash over her. She shut her eyes as the light reached them, not wanting to be blinded, and for a second the inside of her eyelids glowed green.
She phased out of the wall of the bus and waved to the students still onboard, grinning and shouting her thanks. Everyone waved back, and Danny let his eyes flash green for a moment in a show of appreciation for a job well done. Dani heard the sound of a weapon charging behind her and, without a second's hesitation, dove into the ground and began her way home.
LINE BREAK
It took hours, but eventually Danny, Sam, and Tucker joined Dani at Fentonworks. Sam flopped onto the couch, exhausted, and murmured something about the fourth amendment before falling asleep. Danny smiled down at her, then glanced over at Dani.
"It took forever, but Sam out-lawyered the GIW's lawyers and got you out of trouble, but I don't know how much longer she can keep it up." He said. "You need to tell me what's going on."
Dani sighed. "I wish I knew."
