Dani: *is well and truly knocked out from being hit with reviews*
BVQA: . . .well, hopefully she won't wake up until the story is over. I don't wanna die. Um. . . story! You! Read! Now!
Dani stood up with a bounce and a toss of her hair and swept over to the doors on the back of the van. She had no idea what was going to happen now, which she desperately tried to counter by acting like she was a princess and was completely in control of all that she saw. Even though that was nothing more than an act that wouldn't fool anyone that knew her.
The GIW might just buy it.
Dani fought the urge to squint in the bright light that poured in as the doors to the van were peeled open by a couple guards. Instead, she waited until they were just wide enough to accommodate her slim frame and then flounced out onto the road. There were scattered gasps at her sudden change in appearance and she smirked on the inside. Rather than let her smile show through she flipped her hair again, enjoying the grown-up feeling it gave her as it brushed the tops of her shoulders as lightly as the wind. She felt the sudden need to stand there all day doing nothing but shaking her head and feeling her hair run over her shoulders, but shoved it away with a promise to spend a lot of time doing so as soon as this was all over.
(AN: If you have long hair and get it cut short, it really is that distracting. I don't have Dani's strong will and I spent almost two hours after that particular haircut sitting in front of a mirror and flipping my hair around. I think that's how I lost most of my brain cells)
Well, you'll have plenty of time to do that in jail. The pessimistic part of her muttered in her ear, but she clamped her hand around the silver pendant around her neck for luck and began to stride down the road towards Amity Courthouse.
The building crouched at the end of the road like a monster under a bed. Dani had had plenty of time to memorize it when she'd been trying to get adopted by the Fentons, but she glared at it with new hatred now. A black shingle roof shaded an ugly, gray, squat little thing that looked like it had been stepped on by a giant. It was almost bulging around the edges, hideous and difficult to look directly at.
A hand on her arm. Dani turned with yet another hair toss and looked Agent K in the face.
"Yeah?" She asked with a calculated curl of her lip. Princess, princess, princess. . . She chanted in her head. He is dirt, I am gold. . .
It was working. The Agent almost looked ready to back down when he spoke.
"Where do you think you're going?" It was probably supposed to come out as a threat, but it just wound up sounding confused.
"My trial? You know, the one that you drove me here for?" Dani put a perfect measure of contempt in her voice, trying to send him the subtext of 'wow, you must be stupid if you've forgotten that'.
He was about to say something else, but Dani shook off his hand- not as difficult as it would seem, she was stronger than she looked- and continued up the road until she reached the ugly, ugly black double doors and reached out her slim hands to rest them gently on the doorknobs. This was it. She was either going to be saved. . . or she'd crash and burn.
After contemplating that for a few moments, she removed her hands from the door handles and simply kicked the doors down.
"I believe I'm expected?" She asked the stunned crowd innocently.
SNACK BREAK! I'MMA EAT CHIPS NOW!
Dani sighed and plopped her chin down in her hand. She kicked her feet up to hit the underside of the desk in front of her and- liking the sound of the thud- she kept it up, not caring that she probably looked like a two-year-old now. The only thing that had gone right so far was her smashing entrance to the bleak little courtroom. For a moment she'd felt supercharged with all the shock and awe emanating from the room's occupants and she almost felt like she was glowing again. . .
. . .and then Vlad had entered the building.
Dani grumbled something impolite under her breath and pressed her chin harder into her palm. The thuds of her boots against the desk grew more agitated and the older half-ghost currently sitting next to her glanced her way in annoyance.
He'd shown up and treated her like a naughty child, taking her by the arm and leading her to her seat with a thorough scolding. He knew just how to turn the crowd, the creepy fruitloop was a master manipulator. He'd turned her from a teenage force to be reckoned with to a little kid who needed to be disciplined.
Oh, how she loathed him.
Vlad reached over and placed his hand on Dani's knee, stopping her from continuing to pummel the desk. Her eyes narrowed and she smacked his hand away. It was as if he'd forgotten she'd ever been adopted by the Fentons and was no longer his 'daughter'.
He's treating me like I'm three. Dani thought with a scowl. He's off by about ten years. She deliberately turned her gaze over to the room in front of her.
Dani had always thought of courtrooms as places where the wise judges (usually imagined as having long white beards like Gandalf) rooted out evil criminals (generally resembling Vlad), dispensing punishment where necessary and freeing those who had been framed (like, say, her or her brother). What she hadn't pictured was a room filled with men in suits talking a lot and wrapping her in a net of lies.
". . .and as this eyewitness has just told us, Danielle was quite clearly at the scene of the crime." Vlad's lawyer was saying. "Can the defense offer any counterargument? Any alibi?" The eyewitness he'd been referring to- a middle-aged lady Dani had never seen before in her life- climbed down from the podium as the lawyer spoke. The lawyer, who Dani decided was probably evil incarnated.
He had greasy black hair slicked back from his head, a thin pointy nose, pale skin, and a jet-black suit and tie. The tie was black, too, rather than a fun color or some sort of print.
"As a matter of fact, we do." Dani glanced at the defense podium, where Sam and Tucker stood. Tucker looked extremely nervous, shifting from foot to foot and shuffling his papers, while Sam looked ridiculously overconfident. Both were dressed in their normal street clothes, and Dani felt herself relax at their non-formality. The atmosphere in the room was so thick she could hardly breathe, but her lungs loosened up when she saw that, in that one corner at least, normalcy lived on.
The crowd was behind her, so Dani couldn't actually say for sure that her family was there or not. But she could feel the electric spark in the air, a tingle that told her that the people she loved were in the same room as she was.
Even Danny.
And if she happened to notice a shimmer in the air over Sam and Tucker's shoulders, roughly the size of, say, a nerd from the sixties. . . and over by the doorway, a small bird skeleton seemingly perched on thin air. . .
Well, it wasn't as if she was about to tell Vlad that there were gatecrashers at this party, right? Maybe. . . just maybe. . . they'd give her an edge.
"We call Danielle Fenton/Phantom up to the stand." Sam said, and Dani felt her life begin to change drastically.
For worse. . . or better?
BVQA: Sorry it was short. But the next chapter will have the whole court argument thing in it, and we'll finally find out if she's guilty or not.
Dani: *still asleep*
BVQA: . . .well, it's going to get real boring real fast without her to bother me. Hmm. . . *starts singing old show tunes*
