A/N: And here is Chapter 3! I hope you people are enjoying this Singles Awareness Day! I sure am, I spent it all with my Plot Gerbil/Muse/Thing that was created when my cousin ranted about how Plot Bunnies were mainstream and that writers shouldn't be mainstream. His name is Phil.
Phil: You have a weird cousin.
Torch: That I do! He also inspired the "she bent a doorknob" line and Kelsey's exploding when he told me of when one of his friends came to visit him, bringing with him his two cousins; a younger boy and an older girl. They spent the night, and during that night the girl apparently snapped. She also later claimed that she was doing what she did because they have hurt her cousins and insulted her. Now, my cousin had a friend over along with him besides the one that had brought the cousins. As his parents had instructed, the five of them were all in a camping trailer to sleep. The girl called her cousins to a room on one side of the trailer while my cousin took his other friend to the other side of the trailer. My cousin said that they then started to insult each other, and his other friend called the girl a fat chick. The girl then proceeded to run across the trailer and try to force the door open. My cousin and his friend who was with him weren't able to hold the door closed, so they wedged it with a piece of wood. The girl still broke in, marched up to my cousin, and was just about to punch him in the face when she relaxed slightly, smirked, and went back to her side of the trailer. My cousin looked out the door after she had left, and noticed that the doorknob was slightly out of place. The girl had bent the doorknob.
Phil: You assume everyone wanted to know that.
Torch: Yeah… If you know it, I don't own it!
Chapter 3;
I groaned as Plasmius disappeared mere seconds after past versions of Grandma and Grandpa Fenton arrived home. They jumped out of their RV, ghost weapons ready, while Kelsey and Darry tried to hide their Fenton Works weapons. I tossed Darry his Fenton Pistol back, and the three of us tried to look innocent and not be noticed.
Which, of course, we failed at. I blame Darry.
"Were you three after that ghost too?" Past Grandma Fenton- you know, I'm just going to go onto a first name basis with these past people and call her Maddie- lowered her ghost weapon and stared at the three of us expectantly.
"Actually, yes." Kelsey replied, while I exchanged a confused look with Darry. Kelsey had managed to somehow score over a hundred percent for a final mark in her Drama: Intro to Improv option last year, so we didn't doubt that she had a plan. It would help, though, if we knew what it was. "You see, the three of us work for the Moore Company, a company that specializes in training ghost hunters and..."
"They can babble on about ghosts with me!" Jack somehow managed to crush the three of us in a hug, even though I swear he was by the other side of his house a second ago. "And they can help experiment on Danny!"
Darry and Kelsey both paled at the mention of their future relative. "Um, pardon me sir, but could you put us down and tell us who Danny is?" Kelsey asked, putting her overly polite demeanor that was reserved for talking to people she had met for the first time into effect. "Is he human, or ghost?"
"I'm Danny," a voice called as the boy Vlad had been holding up stood in the doorway. Of course, we already had figured out that he was Danny, but not knowing him would make much more sense for whatever lie Kelsey was coming up with. Though, he did look creepily similar to Darry. It's not something we really noticed in our own time period, but now the similarities were incredibly obvious. "I've been overshadowed by a ghost, so I guess my parents want to run some tests, even though..." he didn't get to finish, because at that moment, Jack dropped the three of us and rushed over to give his son a hug.
"Danny-boy! You're normal again!" Jack cheered, and Maddie rushed over to join the group hug.
"Normal?" I rolled my eyes, "So I guess this is before they figure out about Phantom, huh?"
I should explain that line. From what I've learned about the subject, Grandma and Grandpa Fenton stopped saying that Mr. Fenton was "normal", instead saying that he was "himself" after they figured out about his ghost half. I don't really get why they made the switch.
"No duh," Darry snorted in reply to my comment, "he didn't even tell them until a few months after Jackie was born. If they knew, I'd need to go find a place to hurl. I mean, he's like my age or something."
"You guys, we're wasting our chance!" Kelsey groaned, "Let's get out of here before..."
"Would the three of you like to come in and help us test for lasting effects from our son being overshadowed?" Maddie asked, and Kelsey clenched her fists.
"Uh, sure, we need to contact our client anyway. I assume you have a phone we could use?" Kelsey replied leading the way into Fenton Works.
"Am I the only one who wants to know why they're being so nice to us?" I whispered as Maddie and Jack directed us to a phone in their kitchen. "And Kelsey, why did you want to use a phone?"
"I don't, I just needed something to say and that's what came out." Kelsey mumbled, "And personally, I think they're being so nice because Darry looks like Danny."
"Great," Darry muttered, shaking his head. "Even in the past I can't get out of his shadow."
"Uh, did you just say that even in the past you can't get out of someone's shadow...?"
The three of us spun around as someone spoke up, each of us slightly panicking in our own way. I felt my body tense, and then relax slightly as I realized who had spoken.
It was just Jazz. We might be able to bluff our way through this.
"Oh! Uh, hi, Mo... uh, Miss..." Kelsey mumbled, messing around with her hair. It was her nervous twitch, something that her future mother easily caught onto. So much for being able to bluff our way through this. "I, uh, never heard you come up..."
"That is what your friend said, isn't it?" Jazz crossed her arms over the book she was holding. "How far into the future are you three from? And why are you here?"
"Well, we've just created a temporal imbalance." I mumbled, "And now we're all gonna die. If not by drowning in the time stream, then by Clockwork or Tempest or some other time ghost coming to kill us off. Yay."
Darry looked around slowly before answering his future aunt's question. "Honestly Jazz, I'd tell you but I'm not so sure myself. All I know is that we're here because of Vlad Plasmius and some of our own stupidity."
"Speak for yourself," I muttered, and small smile twitched onto Kelsey's face.
"And besides," she mumbled, "I don't really want to be overanalyzed right now, Mom, or-" she clamped a hand over her mouth, "that didn't come out right."
Jazz raised an eyebrow, but didn't get a chance to ask another question before Jack showed up and proceeded to drag us all down to his lab. Danny was sitting on a table, looking at us with suspicion. I didn't mind, but from the look Darry was giving him in response I'm pretty sure he did. Jazz just kept shooting us confused looks, while I managed to keep up the ghost hunter facade.
"So," I started, "what exactly happened to... Danny, was it? He was overshadowed, correct? When did that happen?"
"I had my human body taken over by a ghost called Morphic while apparently my "spirit" hung out in the body of one of Danny Phantom's duplicates." Danny answered, crossing his arms. "By the way, he really didn't like it when you guys captured him."
"You guys captured Danny Phantom?" Maddie asked, her eyes wide. "How and why? ...But mostly how."
"Uh, we needed to get him away from the area." Kelsey spoke up, messing with her hair once more. "You see, we came here because of an accident with an invention created by my grandparents, and we still aren't sure what the effects will be."
Okay, I'll admit, avoiding the direct truth and not telling a lie wasn't a half bad idea.
"Does the accident have anything to do with the hole in the Nasty Burger's wall?" Danny accused, and Kelsey tensed. Darry shot a glance at me, and we both tried to think up an excuse. Thankfully, Jazz actually covered our tracks for us.
"When were you at the Nasty Burger, Danny?" she asked, and Danny shot his sister a confused look. After that, Jack and Maddie started their tests. I caught Maddie looking at us curiously a few times, but Jack seemed to have a look to him like he was just about to pronounce us ghosts.
It wouldn't be the first time, either.
After a lot of tests, mostly involving Danny freaking out around needles and Christmas-y coloured blood, Jack and Maddie announced that they were just going to be sure that no ghosts were present in Danny's system and they brought over the Fenton Ghost Catcher. Danny tried to protest, Jazz tried to protest, heck, even Darry tried to convince them not to. Even I had heard the stories about what the Fenton Ghost Catcher had done, and actually seen it once. "Fun Danny" and "Super Danny" were just plain weird, and it was a pain when we had to help put them back together. Plus I still had creepy dreams on occasion about "Fun Danny", he was literally very disturbing. I really didn't want to go through that annoyance again, and I could tell Darry didn't want to either. Obviously, Danny and Jazz were both against it, so what excuse could there be that would convince Jack and Maddie to put the Ghost Catcher down...
"If you don't mind, I have something that'll work just fine instead of that." Kelsey announced, pulling something from her pocket. "You don't need that... uh, sorry, I don't know what it is. However, I have my No Moore Ghosts Ecto-Tracer. Two O's in the Moore."
"A what?" Jack asked, and I shot a look at Kelsey. She was smiling, and holding the Ecto-Tracer in her hand.
"We normally call it the Ecto-Tracer. It'll be able to detect a ghost or a halfa-" Kelsey started, but a gasp from Danny interrupted her.
"It'll be able to detect a ghost or a what?" he looked like he was trying not to panic. I exchanged a glance with Darry. Kelsey was playing with fire, we knew she was. The Ecto-Tracer was meant to home in on the Ecto-signature of Danny Phantom so that we could tell if he was near and if it was really him, not track ghosts! And more importantly, it was only meant to track one halfa, but Jack and Maddie weren't even supposed to know that halfas existed yet!
...And the name she gave it was stupid. Why did she have to use my last name?
"A halfa? Whatever is a halfa?" Jazz was worse at pretending to be innocent than Darry was. Now I know where he gets his lack of skills from. "I've certainly never heard of a halfa!"
"I'd be more than happy to enlighten you, but that would be against the rules." Kelsey supplied, placing the Ecto-Tracer beside a very suspicious and confused Danny. "However, as you can see, the Ecto-Tracer is just plainly vibrating. That only means there is Ectoplasm in the area, which isn't a surprise. I'm pretty sure I'm standing in some. If the Ecto-Tracer beeps, we have either a ghost, a person being overshadowed, or possibly a halfa. Though, a halfa is unlikely, there are very few in existence. We've only met four."
"And what would you do if you found one of those?" even I could tell that Danny was trying to cover up his nervousness. "Would it involve... I don't know... ripping them apart molecule by molecule? Painful experiments?"
Darry rolled his eyes, "Wow, you're paranoid."
"I am not!" Danny protested, and I decided that now would be a good time to step in.
"Jack and Maddie, thank you for a wonderful experience, but we have to get going. Ghosts to catch, you know?" I grabbed Kelsey and Darry by their wrists and proceeded to drag them out of the lab, only to be stopped as Jack slid in front of us.
"But we haven't babbled on about ghosts together yet!" he whined, and Maddie came up beside him.
"I'm curious, what's a halfa?" all her question managed to do was cause every Fenton under the age of eighteen in the room to become very nervous and slightly annoyed.
Oh, and the Foley. It really managed to mess up the Foley.
"We can't tell you! I just said that we couldn't tell you! Did you people even listen?! No! You don't!" Kelsey shouted, and I sighed. Knowing Kelsey, she had just been noticing every little thing that went against what she felt was right and piling it up for when she exploded. This wasn't her explosion. This was her trying not to explode. But why was it directed against her future Grandparents? "Does it even bother you that your own son was just a test subject? No? In that case, goodbye." Oh, that explains some of it. Kelsey, for some reason, has a minor hero complex, a need to protect something, and a line between what's right and wrong. No one should cross that line, because Kelsey exploding can be terrifying. I've seen it once, last summer when some guy threatened her little brother, and I never want to see it again. She bent a door knob.
To this day, none of us can figure out how she did that.
"Uh, nice meeting you?" Darry tried to smooth things over as Kelsey took over the dragging, but I can't say if it worked. It probably didn't. Maddie and Jack just stared at us stunned, but allowed us to push past them. I grabbed the Fenton Thermos Mini right before we left, knowing it wouldn't be a very good idea if we left that behind.
Once we were outside, Kelsey looked like she was about to break down crying again. I rolled my eyes and turned to Darry, who was trying to get a good hold on his cousin's wrist. "Should we start running again?"
"What choice do we have?" he muttered, "Kelsey just shot down my grandparents, so no chance at a ghost portal for us. We'll just have to hide out somewhere until my dad shows his face. And by that, I mean his face after he finished puberty."
"...I'm not even going to ask." I rolled my eyes, smiled, and we were running again within moments.
...Only to crash into a Techno Geek and a Goth.
Sam and Tucker.
This is starting to sound like a running gag.
"Two times!" Sam shouted, causing the three of us to cringe. How is it that Darry's dad has the ghost powers, yet his mom is more terrifying than the entire family combined? Must be a Manson thing. "That's two times! What do you have to say for yourselves?!"
Kelsey and I both turned to Darry expectantly, who in response cleared his throat before he simply said, "Oops."
Which caused me, Kelsey, and for some reason Tucker to break out laughing.
Until Sam's fist met Tucker's shoulder, that is.
"Ow! Sam!"
"Shut it, Tucker." If looks could kill, we'd all be dead from the glare Sam was giving us. "You three. I know you know. Where's Danny?"
"Home, possibly still sitting in his parents' lab." Darry answered, shrugging. "You should thank us. We made sure that there wasn't another "Fun Danny" and "Super Danny" episode."
"You gotta love my Ecto-Tracer," Kelsey added on, holding up said invention, which started to vibrate. "Oh, cool. Your friend's like that one guy where you call his name too many times and he appears."
"Bloody Mary?" Danny's voice asked as he, in his ghost form, landed beside Sam.
Many palms met many faces.
"You're an idiot," Kelsey mumbled and then added on, "a paranoid one."
Danny raised an eyebrow, "Excuse me?"
"You are a paranoid idiot. I thought the message was clear." Kelsey shrugged, "Oh well. Come on guys, I want to check something out. Let's go downtown." She turned to walk away, but Danny teleported in front of her.
...I honestly did not know he could still teleport. Or would it be teleport yet?
"I'll ask this again," Danny muttered, "who are you three? Why are you here?"
Darry pulled his cousin back, "Phantom, that is none of your concern. We are here for our own reasons and our own problems. And in case you're going to ask, you more than likely cannot help us."
"Uh, Darry?" I rolled my eyes, "He could get us to a ghost portal, and to Clo- ow!" Kelsey cut me off by kicking my shin, and I toppled over in pain. "Do that again and I'll sell you out to Walker!"
"Liz, Kelsey, stop trying to kill each other." Darry groaned, "I've had enough of this. Bye, I'm going to take these two and leave before they do something stupid."
"This is coming from the guy who failed Chemistry," Kelsey muttered as I stood up, clutching my leg, "because apparently, periodic tables are for hipsters."
"O... 'kay then? Why do you need to get to a ghost portal?" Danny looked confused, but I can't say I blame him.
"To get to a ghost," Kelsey replied with a shrug, "duh."
"Would you mind saying which ghost?" Sam spoke up, crossing her arms.
Darry tensed, "Yes, we would mind. Now if you'll excuse us, we need to find a certain ghost who can get us home. Would you mind letting us pass, Phantom?"
"No problem, if you tell me what you know about halfas." Danny smirked, and Darry copied it with almost perfect accuracy. Must be a Fenton thing.
"A halfa is a human ghost hybrid. They can change between their human and ghost forms at will, though they will often revert back to their original form if they overly exhaust themselves. They can be created through cloning, extreme exposure to ectoplasm, certain ghosts giving humans ghost powers or ghosts human forms, and by birth right. A majority of the time, they turn out more powerful than other ghosts since they can absorb energy needed from their human side, thus giving them access to more powers that full ghosts. When overshadowed or anything along those lines, their human side will take the full effects while their ghost side is cast out into the Ghost Zone. However, if one side is controlled, the halfa can be controlled in both forms. While in human form, they can pass through ghost shields, are often still affected by certain ghost weapons, and can use weaker versions of some of their ghost powers. In both forms, they have weaknesses to things such as ecto-ranium and blood blossoms. Halfas are considered a scientific impossibility, yet I know of four. Also some who were halfas but lost their other form." Darry paused, "Wow that took longer than I thought it would. Liz, Kelsey, let's go."
I exchanged an alarmed look with Kelsey, but we followed Darry as he led us past a shocked Danny. I noticed Sam and Tucker were staring after us, and I started moving faster. After walking for a while in silence, I finally decided to say something.
"Well, Darry, you're an idiot."
"I'm going to agree with Liz on this one," Kelsey spoke up, "why did you spill everything you know about halfas to a halfa? More importantly, to your dad?"
"Hey, relax," Darry sighed as we came to a stop by city hall, "what's the worst that could happen?" he leaned back farther than should've been possible without anything to lean against. The DF charms around his neck took on a faint yellow glow. "He's a past version of my Dad, so he's on our side. It's not like he's going to come and kill us or something."
"...Darry, what're you leaning against?" so Kelsey noticed Darry's impossible leaning skills too.
"What do you...?" Darry trailed off as he looked over his shoulder, "What the heck?!" he looked as if he was about to fall over, but he placed a hand to steady himself against where nothing was, and oddly enough it worked. "Okay, that's not right."
I placed my hand beside Darry's. Where there should've been nothing, there was what felt like a wall. "This is weird. It's like there's an invisible wall. How does this...?" I trailed off when I realized that the charms I had on my wrist were glowing a faint green. "What the heck? The weird charms are glowing!"
"This is odd," Kelsey spoke up, moving her hand towards the invisible wall and then away from it. With her other hand, she had pulled the charms that were attached to her ponytail close to her face. "The charms glow green when I'm near the barrier, but when I move away, they stop glowing. I guess the glow has something to do with the wall."
"Bravo, Kelsey, I knew you'd figure it out." The one voice I really didn't want to hear called out, and the three of us turned to face Vlad Plasmius. "What do you think of those charms I supplied the trio of you with? They allow me to prevent you from leaving or entering wherever I so choose."
"I hate them," I replied, grinding my teeth, "what are you up to, Fruitloop? Why are we here?"
"Ah, all in good time Elizabeth." Vlad smirked, charging up a purple ghost ray. I scowled; I really didn't like my full name. "But for now, there's somewhere you three should be." He fired his ghost ray, and the three of us cringed...
...Only to be hit by nothing.
Vlad stayed in front of us, a look of confusion on his face. "Why didn't that hit any of you?"
I exchanged a confused look with Kelsey and Darry. Kelsey gave a small shrug and smiled, "We're ninjas."
Darry let out a small laugh and pulled out his Fenton Pistol, "Ninjas with ghost weapons. Run, Fruitloop, run."
Mark Foley, age seventeen, floated above Amity Park on his rocket sled. To most, he was the Shadow Hunter, ghost hunting apprentice of the Red Huntress. But right now, he was just Mark. He needed some time to think.
But then, who wouldn't if they had just been told that their sibling may have been sent through time? And if they hadn't, chances were that they had died?
Half an hour ago, he had received a call from his dad. Mark had feared that his father had found out about his ghost hunting, so he had landed in an alleyway and nervously answered his phone. The conversation hadn't been at all what Mark expected. Mark had expected lectures for ghost hunting, lectures for not telling his parents about it, lectures for the danger, and demands that he come home at once...
He had not expected his dad to be freaking out before spilling that there had been an accident at Fenton Works, and that his sister had been caught up in his Grandparents' newest invention during it.
So Mark sat on his rocket sled, high above Amity Park. His sister was gone, trapped in a Fenton Time Machine when a ghost turned it on. His cousin Darry had been inside, too, as had been Kelsey's friend Liz. The three of them were gone. Just... just gone.
Mark sighed, if there was anyone who would be able to help him figure out where his sister had gone, it would be one of the Phantoms. Three ghosts who had been "protecting" Amity Park for about twenty years. Well, Danny Phantom had, with Dani Phantom joining in about sixteen or so years ago and Jackie Phantom joining in thirteen years after that. It was about that time that the Red Huntress and him had been asked by the Phantoms to form a truce. Danny Phantom had apparently told the Red Huntress something hugely important, even with the fact that Mark had left in the hurry that he did from that meeting when asked to reveal his human identity, and now Mark couldn't hunt the Phantom three anymore. Well, it's not like he could hunt Dani Phantom anyway since she was somehow half human and a friend of his ghost-hunting uncle's, but whatever. Jackie Phantom owed him a favor, considering the fact that he did free her from ghost jail a few weeks ago.
That was also the time when he had inadvertently revealed to his little sister his side job as the Shadow Hunter. Amazingly, she had been perfectly fine with it. She hadn't threatened to tell their parents, lectured him about how much danger, or anything. Kelsey had said that he was one of her heroes.
Mark stood up on his sled, coming from his sister, who had once invented a fictional character when asked about her hero, there was no higher praise. He was the girl's- no, his little sister's- hero. She counted on him for protection. It had meant the world to him, and it still did. Not only that, but it made Mark sure of what he had to do; he had to get his sister back. Even if it meant working with Jackie Phantom.
Engaging his ghost tracker, Mark began to watch it for signs of the youngest Phantom's odd Ecto-signature. He started towards Fenton Works, a smile appeared on his face as Jackie Phantom was detected.
...And then seen lying on top of the Ops center.
Why is she hanging out so close to some of the leading experts in ghost hunting? Mark shook his head to dismiss the thought, it wasn't like it mattered. He'd be more concerned if it had been one of the more powerful Phantoms.
"Well, finding you was easier than I thought it would be." Mark called, and the ghost looked up in surprise as he landed.
"Hi, Shadow Hunter," She mumbled, "Listen, this isn't a good time. Could you come back later? I… I kind of want to be alone right now."
"Aw, is the little ghosty having a bad day?" Mark cooed as he jumped off his sled and landed on the roof beside the Phantom. "Listen, ghost, I don't really care about your problems. Something has happened to someone important to me, and you're going to help me get her back."
"Oh, did the great Shadow Hunter finally get a girlfriend and mess up like the failure he is," Jackie rolled her eyes as she sat up, "or did somebody steal your cat?"
"For your information, my dad is allergic to cats." Mark shook his head, "The girl I need to find is Kelsey Foley. Judging by the fact that you Phantoms pretty much stalk the Fentons, you probably have at least heard of her. She is Danny Fenton's niece and often hangs around with Darry Fenton."
"You're looking for Kelsey?" Jackie jumped to her feet, "Red-brown hair, semi-dark skin?"
"That sounds like her," Mark cautiously allowed, slightly concerned that Jackie seemed to be able to pick his sister out in a crowd. "So, what do you say? I was planning on calling in my favor, but if you're so willing, I need you to take me to a ghost that controls time. I think my uncle mentioned one once."
"You want to go and Clockwork and Tempest...?" Jackie looked like she was trying to think, "I want to take you, I really do, but my Dad will throw a fit. He's really upset about my bro- uh, Danny Fenton's son. He was fighting a ghost and didn't realize they were in the machine before the ghost turned it on."
"Danny Phantom was there?" Mark narrowed his eyes, "Why? What business did he have with the Fentons?"
"I don't know," Jackie sighed, "but listen, I'd love to take you to Clockwork's liar, but..."
"I'll call in the favor if you won't do it on your own accord, and you remember that you said I could have you do whatever I wanted for my favor as long as it was legal." Mark cut in, "Please, Jackie, just get me to Clockwork or whatever the guy's name is. The girl I'm talking about, Kelsey, means a lot to me. She knows what I do and stands by me through it all. And her family's a wreck. I'm, uh, friends with her older brother. He's worried sick and terrified for her." For a moment, Mark wished he had gotten his sister's incredibly high grade in improv, knowing that it would make his job a lot easier.
Jackie looked down, "We'll have to move fast, Shadow Hunter. If anyone who thinks we can't do this sees us, we're toast and jam. And once we get to Clockwork's, don't touch anything unless he says you can, okay?"
"Yes!" Mark fist pumped, "Thank you, Jackie Phantom! You won't regret it! Ever!"
"I sure hope not," Jackie muttered, shaking her head as she floated up to Mark's eye level. "I'm just going to create an alibi. You should, too."
Mark picked up his phone, "Meet back here in half an hour?"
Jackie nodded, "Meet back here in half an hour."
With that, the ghost and the ghost hunter flew off their separate ways to prepare for their rescue mission.
Torch: So, it appears that I can't write about Danny's parents "experimenting" on him. That is why I skipped it.
Phil: That or your horrible work ethic prevented you from writing a successful story.
Torch: …No… that's not why…
Phil: Really? Well, please explain why you have nobody to thank in this chapter, then?
Torch: …It's Singles Awareness Day?
Phil: …Yeah, whatever. To anyone reading this; please review, follow, favorite, or something while Torch still tries to figure out why she was sent a message a few weeks ago talking about how her stories are being noticed and well liked.
Torch: They don't appear to be either to me.
Phil: Just get out of your pity hole and go back to writing.
Torch: …I have a pity hole?
-Torch