"Hey guys!" a voice called to Danny and Tucker. Both heads turned to see Sam Manson.
"I thought I'd find you two here. Why's Danny up so early though?" she ended in a question aimed at Tucker as she slid into the booth to sit next to Danny. Tucker snickered.
"He heard the news this morning about Phantom and bailed out of his house-"
"I didn't bail!" Danny retorted.
"Way to be impulsive Danny." Sam joked.
"My parents, mainly my dad, are starting this ghost hunter's camp in a few days." Danny said suddenly. His eyes had a slightly haunted look to them as he added, "They may ask me to help them by pretending to be a ghost or something. I saw this green costume in the basement; way weird."
Sam and Tucker exchanged a look. Maybe it was just an old costume from a past Halloween? Even still, working over the summer sounded pretty dull.
"Have your parents even mentioned this to you?"
"Not really. I was emptying the thermos into the ghost zone when they came down and only had time to make myself invisible. I just heard them talking about it as they were looking for an ecto gun or something."
"Are they trying to rebuild the suit?" Tucker thought aloud. Danny shrugged.
"Anyway, I gotta go guys. My parents will think a ghost kidnapped me if I'm gone for too long." Danny said, sliding out of seat and leaving the restaurant.
"I'll bet they think he's still asleep." Tucker said simply, taking a final large bite out of his meal. Sam groaned in disgust.
"Tucker, that animal you're eating used to be alive."
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Alex was forced to part with his game as the battery died. He checked the watch on his wrist. Only a few hours to go, he thought with a yawn. His head fell back against his seat, and he let himself fall into sleep, unaware of the eyes on him.
Jack, a plane over, was still asleep. Even in her dreams, she was wondering about what Amity Park would be like. Her minds eye pictured a scene filled with normal people, normally leading normal lives in the presence of not-so-normal ghosts.
Vlad Masters, a plane over from Jack and a few seats behind Alex, had just been rudely awakened by the flight attendant. The curse of getting the aisle seat! Couldn't the woman tell he had been sleeping?
"Would you care for a drink, sir?" she said sweetly, showing him a display of very small drinks; too small to be any sort of convenience. Vlad waved her away politely, trying to remain smiling even through his annoyance. He noticed, as the woman walked away, that the boy had fallen asleep. As much as Vlad wanted to, now that the boy was asleep and they were nearly there, he knew that he couldn't just phase out of the plane and teleport himself back. The rest of the guests would panic if he just left. Leaving through the cramped bathroom was out of the question too; someone would have to use it after him eventually, and then they would notice that he was gone.
He decided to just reread his magazine.
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Danny walked into his house, heading straight for the kitchen, where he devoured a cold pop tart. His parents walked in, bringing guests with them. A woman who looked only a little tired, and a boy about his height, looking like he was about to fall asleep, waved at him. Danny waved back weakly, not knowing exactly how to react. Maddie, his mother, came to the rescue.
"Hey Danny! This is Jack and Alex; they'll be staying with us for a while!"
"Hello, pleasure to meet you." The woman said, smiling and waving as she hid a yawn. Danny guessed that she was Alex, and the boy was Jack; it made the most sense to him.
"Nice meeting you too." Danny said in return before returning his eyes to his food. His sister, Jazz, appeared from behind the group of people blocking the entrance to the kitchen, squeezing past them to face them and properly introduce herself.
"Hi, I'm Jazz." She said, extending a hand in thanks. Jack returned the gesture.
"Hey, I'm Jack."
Danny looked up from his food. Her name wasn't Alex? Wasn't Jack a guy's name? Blinking, he asked the room, though he was mainly directing his question to his parents on the current situation,
"Are we related?"
Alex blinked, raising an eyebrow. "I'm positive we're not. We were visiting family here, but they must have waited for us at the wrong airport somehow." Jack Fenton nodded, smiling.
"Your mother and I were searching for that Phantom punk-"
Danny quickly looked away, and his father kept talking, not noticing.
"When we came across these two. Talking about ghosts! They didn't have a place to stay, so we invited them here; after all, we are the Fenton's! Ghost experts of Amity Park!"
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Alex sighed to himself. If only the Fenton's knew that he knew more about them than what he let on. Waiting for over an hour at the airport for Jack had given him time to think of a simple plan: talk about the ghosts, and wait for someone to overhear them. If anyone did, they could ask where they could find the Fenton's.
Alex figured that, because there really was no threat, there was no need to be discrete.
Luck was on their side when they ran into the Fenton's themselves. Mr. Fenton himself mentioned the upcoming mini camp, and invited them to attend. Jack told him that they were a little short on money.
"Could you tell us where the cheapest hotel is?"
Mrs. Fenton practically jumped at this.
"Why! We have this splendid Ops- center above our home; fully furnished with food, beds, showers, you name it! Why don't you stay there?"
Alex thought this was a great idea, but let Jack make the final call.
She accepted, and within a quarter of an hour, he found himself outside what was to be one of the strangest sights he would ever see.
The Fenton home.
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Alex yawned widely, looking embarrassed seconds after. Mr. Fenton suggested that he went up to the Ops- center to get some rest. Mrs. Fenton nodded to her son.
"Danny, why don't you show him where it is?" she said before disappearing down to the basement.
Danny's dad quickly ushered Jack to the basement to show her all of the hunting equipment after his wife. Jazz had vanished again, leaving Danny and Alex, who was still holding his bags. Danny picked up Jack's with ease, even though it looked like his thin arms wouldn't have been able to take the strain.
"It's this way." He said. Alex nodded, and they trekked over to the stairs. Danny began speaking over his shoulder as they left the main floor.
"Uh, I know this sounds crazy and all, but my parents tend to have random drills. You may hear sirens and stuff go off around here, but it usually isn't anything."
"What are the drills for? The ghosts? Have they always had drills?" Alex asked with a raised eyebrow. He still didn't believe in the ghosts.
"They've been having them since the ghost invasion thing a while back. You heard of it, right? It kind of long to explain."
"You don't have to tell me; I read about it and stuff."
"Cool."
The two turned silent, finally leaving the stairs to stand in front of the door to the strange addition to the brick home. Danny set the bags in his arm down to open the metal door. Alex was looking out a small window, and missed the small jerk of the raven haired boy as his ghost sense went off. Danny peeked past the door as he opened it and used his powers to locate the ghost.
"Hey Alex, want to see a ghost?"
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It was only the box ghost, caught in the act of stealing a cereal box. The small blue ghost blinked at the raven haired boy, and then at the new blond boy.
…A new face! The fearsome box ghost smiled evilly, making the boy pull a face and take a step back.
"BEWARE! FOR I AM THE-" he began howling, until Danny interrupted him with
"See, Alex, not all ghosts are dangerous…"
Danny had his head turned away from the offended ghost, who seized the opportunity to throw the bag of cereal from his new box at the back of his head. Alex almost laughed. Sighing, Danny turned back around and entered the room, pushing a red button set into the wall. Immediately, the Box Ghost was pelted with ectoplasmic goo. Danny then walked over to a counter where he picked up a small thermos and opened it at the ghost. Alex couldn't believe his eyes when the small object shot out a blue-white beam of power at the intruder, dragging it into the thermos.
"And I thought all of this ghost stuff was a load of rubbish!" he thought. Danny snapped the lid back down on the thermos. For some reason, he didn't feel all that embarrassed to show the many ghost hunting devises off like he just did. He had never really had someone his age, that he had never met, come into his house. Also, Alex was from across the ocean, so he had hopefully never heard of Phantom either. The halfa shrugged off the awkward silence and picked up the bags before leading Alex to a small set of stairs leading to the sleeping area. As he opened the door to the first bedroom and placed the suitcases inside the doorway, Alex asked a question.
"I heard about that ghost invasion. That Danny Phantom bloke sounds interesting; have you seen him before?"
Well, so much for the thought of him not knowing about Phantom.
"Uh, sort of. Sometimes." Danny stuttered. Alex shrugged, walking into the room. A window inside displayed a pleasant view of Amity Park. Unable to help himself, he yawned again. Danny took it as a sign to leave, which he was grateful of.
"Well, see you later. If you need anything, there's food and stuff in the kitchen."
Alex nodded, kicking his shoes off as the raven haired boy shut the door. Rubbing the back of his neck, Alex yanked the sheets of the bed away from the pillow and crawled onto the soft mattress. He was asleep in minutes. Jet lag or not, his flight wasn't that comfortable, and he was dead tired.
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Danny walked back to the kitchen, grabbing a small bag a chips and tearing it open. Within a minute, it was empty, and he threw the bag into a bland trashcan. Jack Fenton could be heard loudly from the ghost lab, happily talking about the ghost portal to the other Jack. Jazz was nowhere to be seen. Danny waved to his mom, saying he was going to meet up with Tucker and Sam.
"Okay, honey!" she smiled back. Danny walked out of her sight of vision before transforming into Danny Phantom and phasing out of the house. He quickly changed his mind about going to see his friends, and chose to just fly around. Within minutes, the cars in the streets were nothing more than ants, and clouds were dancing across his face. He never expected to run into anyone, he was in the air for starters, so he was surprised when someone materialized before him, setting off his ghost sense and stopping him with an outstretched hand. Danny pulled away, rubbing his nose and glaring at the only other halfa in the world, Vlad Masters, also known as Plasmius.
"What do you want?" He asked sourly. The older man smirked before replying,
"Nothing, yet, dear boy."
"Way to be cryptic. You still can't have my mom." Danny shot back. The older man only sighed dramatically at the jab before continuing.
"If it would settle your mind at all, which I doubt, your dear uncle could be kind enough to give you a small idea as to why he's here."
"I feel so special." Danny said dryly "Why are you here?"
Plasmius vanished in a swirl of pink smoke, returning in seconds with someone held loosely in his arms. Danny cried out and made to save the figure. The man smiled to Danny before he had moved, backing away slightly as he answered Danny's previous question.
"This boy is my reason."
Then he dropped him.
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Alex shivered slightly as a rush of air met his exposed arms. Had the window opened? His mind sluggishly began to turn over the possibilities. He wasn't even fully awake, yet he began to feel the coldness in his gut that told him one thing: something was wrong. He wasn't even in his bed! He began to force himself awake, an action his body protested to. A chilling voice met his ears.
"This boy is my reason."
"Reason"…?
Alex didn't have time to think the idea over. Whoever was holding him suddenly let go, and Alex felt himself falling. He should have hit the ground within seconds…
He kept falling. Cringing, he forced himself to open his eyes, allowing his sight to take in everything.
This has to be a nightmare! Alex tried and failed to reassure himself, but everything was too real. Above him another voice cried out, shouting his name. Alex twisted around to face the figure flying down towards him. How could this not be a dream?
A nightmare. This has got to be a nightmare!