So...it's been a bit, but chapter 4 isn't even close to done. But it has been over a month, so I thought y'all deserved a little sneak peek for your patience. Enjoy!
"...And these ghost candies have been in your pocket for how long?" Sam asked.
"Well, I got them in Colorado..."
"So, for about two weeks." Tucker raised an eyebrow. Him and Sam were looking at the green candies in Danny's hand like they were dead bugs.
"They seem fine to me." Danny shrugged. He decided Sam and Tucker didn't need to know that they'd probably been through the wash at least twice.
"Danny they're glowing."
"And you got them from a ghost, dude."
"Her name was Bernie, and she was very nice. C'mon, aren't you guys at least a little curious?"
"This seems like a bad idea," Tucker said, taking a candy "But I'll admit I am."
"Welp, we might as well all die together." Sam shrugged, taking a candy herself.
The three of them unwrapped the candies and popped them into their mouth.
Sam and Tucker immediately began spluttering and spit their candies out.
"That was the worst thing I've ever tasted!" Sam said.
"Agreed." Tucker nodded. "And the bar for stuff I'll eat is real low."
"How was it bitter and sour at the same time?"
"Maybe you guys are tasting the ectoplasm." Danny said. "I guess they are ghost candies."
"Danny, how are you eating that?" Sam gaped.
"Dude, those things taste like they hate you."
"It tastes kinda sweet." Danny shrugged. "It's not really a specific flavour, but it tastes like something I can't really describe. Kind of reminds me of Amity Park Park on a sunny day?"
"Ectoplasm tastes sweet to you?" Tucker asked, his face a mix of intrigue and disgust.
"Huh? Oh no, I think I just started noticing the taste of ectoplasm less when I became half-ghost."
"Danny." Sam put her hands together. "Why do you know what ectoplasm tastes like before and after the accident."
"I get blasted in the face with ecto-based attacks on a regular basis. Some of it ends up in my mouth." Danny raised his hands defensively.
"And before?" Tucker asked.
"Sometimes you're seven, and you dare your sister to eat some, but she'll only do it if you do too. Or you're three, and it a bright colour, and three-year-olds like putting bright colours in their mouth, or..." Danny trailed off when he noticed Tucker and Sam's horrified expressions. "Look, I was raised by two ghost hunters. It happens."
"How are you not dead?" Sam asked.
"I probably should be dead for, like, twenty different reasons, but eating ectoplasm isn't one of them. It's not poisonous, turns out."
"On that note," Tucker stood up "I have to go home and eat literally anything that isn't ectoplasm."
"What time is it?" Sam checked her watch. "5:47? Already? Jeez, it's almost my supper time too."
"Aw, why do you guys eat so early?" Danny winded as he followed them out of his room and down the stairs.
"Danny, most people have supper before 8:00. You're the weirdo here." Tucker said.
"Okay, first off, we eat before 8:00-"
"7:30's not much better dude."
"And second, I'm not weird!"
"Danny," Sam said, opening the door "You eat ectoplasm."
"You're misconstruing what I said! I do not eat-"
The door shut before Danny could finish his sentence. Danny grumbled to himself before sitting down on the living room couch.
Danny rolled the candy around with his tongue. He still hadn't figured out what the weird flavour was.
Whatever it was, it was bringing up old memories; like going fishing with Dad, Mom taking him to the park, and daring Jazz to eat ectoplasm.
As Danny got lost in his memories, the candy steadily got smaller and smaller. Eventually it disappeared entirely, leaving Danny with a strange empty feeling.
Danny was suddenly filled with the urge to go to the kitchen. His mind had drifted there a lot while he was sucking on the candy.
He hoped someone would be sitting there.
Sure enough, Dad and Jazz were both sitting at the table. Jazz was writing on a some papers, surrounded by a small pile of books. His dad had gutted some small device and was examining some of the wires.
Danny just stood in the doorframe and watched them for a bit. It was kind of nice how normal the scene looked. Well, Danny supposed most people's parents didn't wear neon jumpsuits at the kitchen table, but it was normal for the Fentons. There was a comfort in their special kind of normal that Danny hadn't really thought about much.
"Danny!" Jack beamed once he'd noticed Danny's arrival. "You're just in time! I need some help with this."
"Oh." Danny immediately tensed. "Um, what exactly is 'this'?"
Danny prepared for his father to tell him in great detail what horrors this new device could potentially afflict on him.
"He's just fixing the toaster." Jazz said. "No dangerous weapons, or anything that's designed to cause any harm to humans or ghosts in any way whatsoever. Theoretically, anyway."
Oh.
Danny felt himself relax again. It would be nice to not tense up every time his parents were working on something new. Especially since, being professional inventors, they were working on something new very often.
It would be a huge relief, a voice in his head said.
Then again, the only way to remedy that situation might cause his parents to start making new things specifically to destroy him, which would not be a huge relief.
"I need you to go to the basement and get me a screwdriver." His dad's voice snapped Danny out of his thoughts. "The one I had earlier is missing."
"Why can't Jazz do it?"
"Because Jazz is working on an important essay on the long term effects of suppression." Jazz turned a page in the book she was reading. "While Danny is standing there not doing anything particularly important right now."
Danny stuck his tongue out at Jazz.
"Love you too little brother." she said, not looking up from her book.
"That's the third misplaced screwdriver this week!" Danny said, turning back to his dad. "How do you keep losing them?"
"I'm not losing them, they're being taken."
"By who?"
"The rats!"
"Why would rats-"
"Ghost rats!"
"Ah, there we go."
"I don't know what those little creeps are up to," Jack narrowed his eyes at some point in the distance "But I just know it's something nefarious!"
"Right, right. I'm going to the lab now."
Danny grumbled as he dug through piles of tools and machine scraps. This lab was a absolute disaster! His parents could have made an effort to keep things at least semi-organized, but nope! The tables and shelves were filled with piles that all held new surprises every time you looked through them. Some of those surprises bit, too.
Finally, after at least ten minutes of searching (and no biting, luckily), Danny found a pile that contained a screwdriver.
"Ah hah!" he cried, triumphantly thrusting it over his head.
That was when his ghost sense went off.
"Seriously?!"
Danny quickly turned turned towards the portal, transformed, and floated into a battle position.
A familiar bird head popped out of the portal.
"Hey fellas!" He cried "It vorked!"
Two more bird heads popped out beside him.
"Really?" the one with the glasses said.
"Amazing!" the raspy voiced one said "Ve can finally get out of da stupid Ghost Zone!"
The vultures suddenly noticed Danny.
"Ay, ghost kid!" The leader greeted him as the birds entered the lab the rest of the way.
"How on earth did you three get here?"
"Good to see you too kid, tanks for asking."
"Ve've been vorking on finding your portal for months." The raspy-voiced vulture said.
"Oh yeah," Danny had completely forgotten about Vlad saying that he'd try to find a route. "Does that mean Vlad's with you?"
"Sorry kid, he's off on a business trip."
"Oh." That meant Vlad wouldn't even be at his house. That was a shame becasue Danny really wanted to talk about their conversation at the cabin. He still felt bad about that.
"If you see him, do you think you could tell Vlad I'm sorry about what happened at the cabin?"
"Eh, I don't tink you got anything to apologize for." the lead vulture said. "In my opinion, you seem to have done some good for Plasmius. He's finally dragged himself out of the lab and back to terapy like I've been telling him to do for veeks."
"Wait, he's gone back to therapy? What for?"
"For da whole friendship situation." the leader turned to the other two "Not the brightest, dis one, eh?"
"So, has the therapist been helping?" Danny asked, deciding to ignore that comment.
"It's a process." the lead vulture shrugged. "He seems to tink Vlad should stop hiding and just tell his friends vhat's going on. Of course, he doesn't know exactly vhat it is Vlad's hiding, but Vlad seems to think that he's talking sense."
"Wait, you mean Vlad's thinking about telling my parents he's half-ghost?"
"Aie," the vulture with the glasses frowned "You probably shouldn't have mentioned dat. You know Vlad's still figuring things out."
"Eh, da kid vas going to find out anyvay."
"Danny!" his father called down from the top of the stairs. "Did you find that screwdriver, son?"
"Sounds like dat's our cue." the lead vulture said as the three of them turned towards the portal. "Don't forget to change before you go up, yea?"
With that the birds flew back into the portal and Danny was left alone in the lab.
Vlad was going to tell them.
Danny stood there staring at the portal. After a few seconds, a wave of anger rose up in Danny.
For twenty years, Vlad had been too much of a coward to even speak to his parents, and now he was just going to risk it all and tell them everything?
Vlad had spent his time as a ghost hidden safely away in his stupid mansion. Danny was the one who'd risked his neck living under the roof of ghost hunters every day. What right did Vlad have to put them at risk like that? How could he-
"Danny?"
"Yup!" Danny transformed out of his ghost form. "I'm coming Dad!"
"I found a screwdriver." Danny said as he emerged from the basement. He hoped it wasn't obvious how perturbed he was.
"Excellent!" his father said, taking the screwdriver.
Good, it wasn't obvious. Or maybe his dad just didn't notice.
"When I'm done, this baby'll work better than ever before!"
"Great."
Danny glared at the toaster. For the past few months he'd had to tiptoe around countless of his parent's rogue inventions. Vlad had been to their house one time and decided that was all just too hard, apparently.
"You okay, Danno? You seem kind of off."
Jazz's eyes flicked up from her textbook at Jack's words.
"Oh, I'm fine, I just, uh..." Danny forgot how unreliable his dad's denseness could be. He needed to switch the topic to anything. "What are you doing to the toaster anyway?"
Jazz did something weird with her lips, then went back to reading.
"Well son, your mother was complaining about it not working properly earlier. I'm fixing it up to surprise her. Done!" Jack held up the toaster triumphantly. "Not only is it fixed, but I've implemented our new experimental ecto-based energy generator, so the toaster creates its own power! You don't even need to plug it in anymore! Now we just need to test it out."
Jack slid two sliced of bread into the toaster and pushed the handle down.
"Uh, are you sure that's a good id-"
The toaster began shaking violently.
"-and that's how I spent my evening fighting an evil toaster." Danny concluded.
Tucker was trying very hard not to choke on his sloppy joe. Sam was barely hiding a grin.
"And how long did it take you to subdue the toaster?" she asked.
"About an hour." Danny grumbled. He didn't think the situation was that funny.
"So it was just you, your dad, and Jazz running around your house for an hour trying to subdue a sentient toaster?" Sam covered her mouth with her hand "Because that is a very entertaining image."
"Pretty much."
Tucker and Sam burst out laughing.
It could've been faster if Dad and Jazz knew about your powers. A voice in Danny's head said. He pushed the thought away.
He'd had thoughts like that ever since the accident but, after Colorado, they were becoming increasingly hard to ignore.
Luckily, Danny's ghost sense going off provided a convenient distraction.
Danny stood up, but a flash of red out the window made him sit back down.
"Huntress on this one?" Sam asked.
"Yup." Danny said.
"You don't have to look so grumpy." Tucker said. "She's kind of doing you a favour."
"No, she's just moving the problem down the line." Danny said. "For some reason she doesn't capture the ghosts she fights, so that just means I have and deal with them later."
"At least they're not bothering you in school." Sam said. "I'm not sure your grades could take that."
"Hey! I'm making mostly A's these days."
"Your last report card was mostly B's, Danny."
"There were some A's on there!"
"You know, it might be worth just trying to talk to her." Tucker said. "Maybe she's friendly."
"And just how many ghost hunters have we met that have been willing to give a ghost a chance?" Sam raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, but it's not like we know that many ghost hunters." Tucker pointed out.
"Even so, I'm with Sam." Danny said. "The odds on 'friendly ghost hunter' are not great, and I have enough trouble in my life as it is, so I'd like to keep off of her radar for as long as possible."
The lunch bell rang. Danny realized he'd gotten distracted by The Red Huntress and had forgotten to tell Sam and Tucker about his conversation with the vultures.
He'd just have to tell them after school.
Valerie waited around the corner. She'd bumped into Tucker alone here after lunch on another Thursday, so maybe that would happen again.
"Bingo." she smiled as she saw him walking down the hall by himself, absorbed in his PDA.
"Hey Foley." she said, stepping around the corner.
"Oh, hey Valerie." Tucker looked up from his device. "What's up?"
"You're good with weird tech stuff, right?"
"The very best." Tucker beamed proudly.
"Right. And how good are you at keeping secrets?"
"I am also pretty good at that. Why?"
"I need a favour."
"What kind of a favour?"
"First," Valerie swung her backpack around and grabbed the zipper "You've got to swear you won't tell anyone about this."
Valerie narrowed her eyes at Tucker in a way that made his skin crawl.
"Y-yeah, sure. No problem. My lips are sealed."
"Good." Valerie's face morphed back into a smile as she unzipped and dug through her bag. "So is there anyway you'd be able to make this part of a glove?" Valerie pulled out a small green device.
"A Fenton Hand shield?" Tucker took the device from Valerie's hand. "Where'd you get one of these?"
"Where do you think?" Valerie raised an eyebrow. "Not like it was hard. The Fentons will literally just give them out to anyone who shows up at their door. I didn't even ask them for it."
"That's...not actually that surprising. But what were you doing at their door in the first place?"
"Yeah...now's not really the best time for questions. Fourth period starting soon and all." Valerie said, glancing at her watch. "Wanna meet up after school?"
Tucker looked at the hand shield. Something about this whole situation seemed kind of off. Then again, there was only one way to find out more about what was going on.
Besides, it was just Valerie. How much trouble could she possibly be getting into?
"Yeah, alright. I'll meet you out front after school."
"Great!" Valerie beamed.
Tucker didn't know how, but Valerie seemed to mould the environment around her with her facial expression. The world scarier wen she was mad at you, but also brighter when she smiled.
"See you then! Don't want to be late." Valerie waved, heading off to her next class.
"See ya!" Tucker waved back as she disappeared around the corner.
Tucker looked at the hand shield. He'd never wired electronics into clothing before, but the hand shield was a pretty simple device, so it'd probably be doable with a little online help...
The sound of the bell snapped Tucker out of his thoughts.
"Right! Class!" Tucker stuffed the hand shield into his pocket and sprinted off to class.
"Welp, see you guys later." Tucker waved to Danny and Sam as they exited the school building.
"Wait, where are you going?" Sam asked.
"I'm meeting up with Valerie. We're going to my house to, uh... work on a bio project."
Sam narrowed her eyes at Tucker.
"Oh, okay." Danny said. "See you later then."
"See ya!" Tucker waved.
Sam kept her eyes on Tucker as he walked away.
"He's hiding something." She said to Danny as they began walking home.
"Yeah?" Danny asked distractedly.
Sam raised an eyebrow at Danny.
"Clearly he's not the only one."
"What do you mean?"
"C'mon Danny, I've been your friend for long enough to be able to tell that something's on your mind."
Danny sighed.
"I was talking to Vlad's vultures yesterday, and-"
"Wait, his what?"
"I didn't tell you about the vultures?"
"No. No you did not."
"Well, anyway, he has these three vultures that work for him, and-"
"Vlad has ghosts that work for him? Does he pay them? And why vultures? I have so many questions about this situation."
"Sam!"
"Right, sorry, what were you saying?"
"They said that Vlad might be planning on telling my parents he's half-ghost."
Sam's eyes briefly widened before narrowing in anger.
"Seriously? I hope you told them what a stupid idea that is. Ugh, that's so selfish of him. Doesn't he care about the danger that puts himself and you in?"
"Yeah, it's just that, I've been thinking...maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing if my parents knew."
Sam stopped walking and gawked at Danny.
"Okay," she pinched the bridge of her nose and resumed walking "Is there some kind of brain-scrambling disease going around that only affects half-ghosts or something?"
"I know it sound crazy, Sam. It's just...sometimes it feels like there's this gap between me and my family. Not to mention there's a lot of situations where it would have been really convenient if they knew."
"Danny, keeping your ghost powers a secret is the best option. Best case scenario, your parents turn into pests that fuss over you every time you fight a ghost. And worst case scenario, they try to tear you apart molecule by molecule."
They stopped walking as they reached Fenton Works.
"I get having to tiptoe around them is annoying, but if you tell them, they probably wouldn't really get it, and it'd just be a huge hassle for you to deal with. It's just not worth it."
"Yeah, yeah, I get it." Danny said as he ascended the steps. "It was a stupid idea. I'll see you tomorrow."
He shut the door before he Sam could reply.
"Hello?" Danny called. No one answered. His parents were probably in the basement, and Jazz had probably decided to stop at the library before coming home.
Danny wished he could talk to Jazz about, well, everything. As much as he hated to admit it, Jazz understood his feelings better than even he did sometimes.
But if he told Jazz everything, she might think there was something wrong with him. She meant well, but Danny couldn't risk her worrying and going to Mom and Dad.
And...maybe it would hurt a little if his sister thought he was a messed up freak. Danny never really felt like a freak, but it would still hurt if the people he loved thought of him that way.
Danny sighed to himself and swung his backpack off of his shoulder. It had barely touched the ground before he felt his ghost sense go off.
"Seriously?" He groaned before transforming. He grabbed The Fenton Thermos out of his backpack and flew through the door. He floated above the house and looked around.
"I AM THE BOX GHOST!"
"Oh come on!" Danny shouted at the sky as the ghost flew up to his level.
"TREMBLE AT THE CAPACITY OF MY CORRUGATED CAPABILITIES!"
"Alright," Danny's fists lit up green "Let's just get this over with."
Before Danny could do anything, a pink beam blasted the box ghost from the side.
Danny looked over and saw the Red Huntress a few meters away on her hoverboard. She looked ready to shoot the box ghost again, but then she turned to look at Danny.
Uh oh.
"Don't shoot!" Danny raised his hands in the air. "I'm not with him! I swear!"
The Huntress laughed.
"Relax." she said. "I'm not gonna hurt you."
"You're not?" Danny cautiously lowered his arms. "But aren't you a ghost hunter?"
"Yeah, but I know you're one of the good ones. Danny Phantom, right?"
"You know me?"
"I AM THE BOX GHOST!"
Without looking way from The Huntress, Danny raised his Fenton Thermos and sucked The Box Ghost into it.
"Woah!" The Huntress exclaimed "What on earth is that?"
"Uh-"
"Hey, wait a minute," The Huntress's visor almost seemed to squint "Is that The Fenton Works logo?"
"Um..." Danny instinctively his the thermos behind his back. "No?"
"Do you steal the Fenton's ghost hunting equipment?"
"Hey! Why are you jumping right to 'steal'?"
"Please. Like those two would willingly help a ghost in any way."
"Okay, fair point, but I need this to catch ghosts. It's the only way to contain them and get them back to The Ghost Zone."
"Contain them, eh? You know, I could use something like that."
"What?"
"Something to contain ghosts. At this point I've just been scaring them away, hoping that that deters them from messing with anyone."
"Wait, you don't actually have a way to contain ghosts?" Danny rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Oh my gosh. You clearly aren't prepared for this at all. What made you think hunting ghosts was a good idea in the first place?"
"You, actually."
"Me?"
"Yeah. I wanted to fight evil ghosts and keep people safe, like you do. You kind of inspired me when you saved me from Axiom."
"Axiom?"
"Yeah. When that ghost dog showed up, I lost everything. I was angry and scared for a while, but now I can channel those things into something useful. My life may have been destroyed that day, but I've been given the chance to build a better one, and I'm going to take it!"
Oh no.
Danny knew that voice.
"Valerie!?"
"Didn't know you knew my name." Valerie casually remarked. "I'm flattered you remember me. Hey, I know technically I owe you one for saving me and my dad's life, but any chance you could hook me up with one of those thermoses? It would really be-"
"No way! This is the only one, and I need it."
"Oh. Well, maybe we could-"
"Sorry, I gotta go." Danny's head was swimming from the discovery he'd just made. "See ya."
"But, wait! I just-"
But Danny had already turned invisible and zoomed off.
"Man," Valerie said to herself "He was certainly in a hurry."
She checked the screen of her ghost radar, but there was no ecto-signature on it.
"Weird..." Valerie muttered to herself.
Maybe Phantom had just flown off really fast? He'd have to be going pretty fast to get out of her radar's range that quickly, but-
"Oh no!" Valerie was suddenly snapped from her musings "Tucker!"
Danny flew through his window and stopped above his bed. He transformed and let himself drop out of the air onto his mattress.
Valerie was The Red Huntress.
Danny pulled his pillow over his face and groaned.
Why'd it to be Valerie. Why couldn't it have been someone he didn't see in school everyday?
Danny reached for his cell phone, but changed his mind halfway through dialing Tucker's number. Tucker was studying with Valerie tonight.
"You could've picked anyone to be your bio partner, Tuck." Danny rubbed his face.
He thought about calling Sam but...
Yeah, Danny didn't really want to talk with Sam alone right now.
He'd just have to tell them tomorrow. This would be a better conversation to have in person anyway.
Of course that left Danny all on his own to ruminate on this new information. As well as the whole Vlad situation. And the voice in his head telling him how much easier it would be if he just told his parents-
Danny tossed his cell phone back on his night stand. Why was his life so complicated?
He dug his Game Boy out of his nightstand. He just a break from drama and ghosts.
There was already a game cartridge in the slot. Danny pulled it out.
It was Pac-Man Collection, his go-to game since elementary school.
Danny reopened his nightstand drawer. He was more in the mood for Tetris right now.
Aw, poor Danny's so stressed :(
Will the rest of the chapter be done by the end of April? Honestly, I don't know. I'm gonna try, but past experience has taught me that pushing myself too hard kills my motivation, so we'll see (life's a balancing act kids). I do have some stuff in the next chapter that I'm really excited to share!
**Spoiler alert: it'll be Valerie centric, and there may be a reveal or two.
Hope you have a lovely day and come bug me at my Tumblr if you have questions or anything:
blog/sunnys567