Me: Chapter 4 is here!
Danny: 4 is a nice number.
Me: I'm running out of things to say at the beginnings of chapters now…
Danny: So… on with the review replies?
Me: Yes! on with the review replies:
Sleepyreader13: You reviewed just in time! I was about to post the chappie and you would have missed out XD Thanks for the review!
Nycorrall: Thanks! I like that you like it!
SailorSea: Here's the next update! Thanks for your feedback :3
Esbmusic42: Seriously, I really like you. When people take the time to give me a full-on review like that, I take the time to go through every little bit and take in as much information as I can. People like you help me so much with my writing. And I have written a chapter where Paulina alienates everybody! It's the one after this (I guess great minds think alike, huh?). Oh poo, I just gave away a spoiler IGNORE THIS EVERYBODY! THERE ARE NO SPOILERS HERE, KEEP SCROLLING! Thanks so much and I'm really glad you like it!
Inuyuke: Here it is Inu! And remember, WE FAIL!
Oak Leaf Ninja: Tomorrow is here! Enjoy!
The whole street was awake by the time I arrived outside. Everyone was indoors, but I could see lights switched on in every house and curious but frightened faces of young children looked out of the frosted windows.
A massive crash came from my left and I whipped round, startled.
Jack and his wife were there, firing huge silver and green guns at something which I couldn't see through the smoke. They seemed angry – and the thing they were shooting at obviously was too.
A large floating figure emerged from the fog and yelled something furiously at them. It barely took me seconds to realise that the creature that stood before them was a ghost – and a powerful one at that. His entire body was cased in a metal suit, with the scalp and chin burning brilliant green fire. Attached to armour was loads of different gadgets. Most of which, terrifyingly, were weapons. I'd seen the ghost around Amity Park a few times before, and where ever he appeared the Ghost Boy wasn't far behind.
Danny's parents stood their ground. The weapons they were holding looked extremely powerful and hard to use, but they held them perfectly like they were tennis rackets. Judging by the fact they were scientists, I guessed that they had made them themselves. So did that mean… they studied ghosts? The guns were firing the same kind of neon green blasts that Inviso-bill shot when he was fighting, and it seemed to have some kind of offensive effect on the metal ghost. Although it wasn't much of an effect to be honest, as the rays kept bouncing of his suit and hitting various things lying around in the road.
"Skulker!" I heard a boy's voice from behind me. It seemed to echo slightly, and I couldn't place it. But I knew I had heard it somewhere before – a number of times, in fact.
Then a black and white figure flew past me in a blur and shot himself straight at the metal ghost, causing a huge shockwave to ripple through the ground as they both hit the floor at maybe a hundred miles per hour.
"It's that annoying good-for-nothing Ghost Kid!" I heard Jack shout. His voice was slightly muffled in the amount of smoke and debris that had by now multiplied.
I coughed as I opened my eyes. Did he just say the Ghost Boy was here? Was it him that just flew past me?
Looking around, I saw Danny's parents close by back in their original defensive positions, ready to shoot again if needed. Danny's mum looked so angry she was almost snarling like a wolf. To put it lightly, it was disturbing.
I took a few steps back, nearer towards the moderate safety of Fenton's house. The door was still open and I could hear the TV droning on with a soda advert, which just unsettled the eerie silence even further.
The sky was beginning to get lighter now, the stars fading away into the sunrise – but only slightly. I could still only barely see a few feet in front of me and the street lamps were out. The smoke obscured my vision even further and sometimes I had to squint or blink quickly to get it out of my eyes.
A tired sigh came from somewhere in front of me and I saw a pair of bright green eyes pierce through the fog. I knew straight away that they belonged to Inviso-bill. No regular person could have eyes that were such a brilliant neon green.
He looked at me for a second and recognition flickered across the Ghost Boy's face, but it quickly vanished when Jack appeared with his gun pointed directly in the middle of his forehead. Neither of them said anything, but the look of pure hatred in the older mans' eyes told me exactly what he was thinking – he wanted Inviso-bill dead. Or at least… gone. Could ghosts be killed?
I barely had time to think about my own question when the Ghost Boy disappeared into thin air as quickly as he had emerged, leaving Jack to curse in frustration.
Danny's mum – or Maddie, as I thought her name was, said, "he's turned invisible again. Looks like the brat got away." She lowered her gun to her side and removed her red goggles, defeated.
"Paulina?" I felt a hand on my back, "are you OK?"
I spun round to see Fenton staring back at me. His face was blank, if not slightly serious, but his tone of voice told me he was somewhat concerned.
"Who was that guy?" I asked him, suddenly confident he would know if his parents studied ghosts. I was sure he would have picked some of the information up.
"Don't you know? That was Inviso-bill, idiot. Amity Park superhero? Popular with the ladies? Ring any bells?"
"No, I meant the other guy. The fat metal one," I tried my best to ignore his last comment. Danny was a lot more sarcastic than usual. Why wasn't he like that at school? It was the second time I had thought about that now.
"Oh, you mean Skulker," Danny chuckled slightly, "he thinks he's the best hunter ever, but the Ghost Boy always manages to catch him somehow. Ironic, really. The hunter is always the one being sealed up in a thermos, not the prey."
Thermos? Wasn't that used for soup? Now that I thought about it, Danny's father was holding one earlier. So it could have been one of the Fenton's ghost-hunting inventions. But how and why would Inviso-bill get his hands on one?
"Skulker," I echoed, "that's a strange name. Although I heard someone shout it before that explosion."
"Meh," Danny replied nonchalantly, "I've heard weirder. It suits him though."
I shrugged, "I guess so."
"You want to come in and finish your coffee? Or have you decided to head home?" Danny wasn't looking directly at me anymore. He wasn't blushing like he used to when he saw me and I could tell his crush on me was gone and replaced with something else. What that was, I wasn't sure of. But I knew for certain it was something more complicated.
I continued to stare blankly into space, wondering if Dad was worrying about me at all. My hands were starting to get cold again and my breath was still visible but for some reason it didn't matter anymore.
"Paulina? You going to answer me?" Danny spoke again.
"Oh… um, yeah. Sorry, just thinking." I looked down at the floor, making a pile of snow with my boots. My toes were freezing to, even though I had a pair of thermal socks on. "If it's OK with you, I'll head back I think. I want to speak to my dad about some stuff. Sorry about not finishing the coffee. It was… nice," I said after another short pause.
"That's good," Danny replied awkwardly, "I think you should just do what girls do, y'know? Talk about their feelings and stuff?"
"That seems like a good idea," I said quietly, "but the problem is that I don't know how I feel at the moment."
What was I doing? Pouring out everything to Fenton, of all people.
"Listen Fe- Danny, I'm just going to leave now, OK? I know the way home, 'cause I can see Casper from here and then it's easy from there." I turned round again and began to walk off, feet crunching in the snow occasionally and hands tucked in my coat pockets for warmth.
As I was walking, Danny muttered something inaudible from behind me. I knew I had made a mistake looking for the Ghost Boy and now I was paying the price – a nerd knew my situation. Not that it wouldn't be all over the news tomorrow, Mum always was. She'd probably even make the front page of a magazine, a gossipy one that noses its way into people's private lives and spews out all their secrets into the public world. I wanted people to know me just like they knew Mum, but not as much as that.
Yes, tomorrow was going to be a hard day.
Danny: That's all for today guys!
Me: Be sure to leave a review and the check back tomorrow for chapter…5 is it? Wow, this is going quick! The fic will be done in no time!
Danny: Bye!