Chapter 2

Once Danny got to the restaurant, he slid into their regular booth. He couldn't stop shaking. It was like he was shivering internally because he was so nervous. Or was he just cold?

He breathed a sigh of relief once he saw Sam and Tucker come in. They slid into the booth across from him.

"Hey! So what was so important you had to meet up ASAP?" Sam asked, eyes filled with curiosity.

"Yeah dude. What's up?" Tucker said.

"I did it. I went inside the portal."

"And?"

"Well -"

A waiter abruptly came up and asked for their drink order.

"Just water, thanks," Danny said quickly.

"Coke."

"Water."

Once the waiter walked away, Danny leaned in and lowered his voice. "So what happened was -"

A nerdy redhead - Mike - walked to their table.

"Hey! Have you guys started studying for the English test next week?"

Danny groaned internally as they were too nice to ignore him. Tucker replied. "Are you kidding? I haven't even started studying for the biology test tomorrow!"

Danny fidgeted with his hands. What if something happened right now and everyone saw? He should've met with them somewhere more private.

"Earth to Danny," Sam was saying.

Danny looked up. "Huh?"

"You okay? You look a bit pale," she said.

Just as Danny began to shrug, he gasped and cold air escaped from his lips. It was odd. The gasp was somewhere between a gut reaction and a hiccup. He began to shiver more and felt as if the whole room had turned to ice. Every hair on his arm stood up.

"Is it just me, or did it just get really cold in here?"

Mike shrugged his shoulders. "I mean, maybe a little breezy."

"Are you okay, dude? You don't look too good," Tucker said, looking concerned.

Before Danny could open his mouth to say anything, the double doors to the Nasty Burger swung open with a blast of cold air.

Two strange, green, floating octopus-looking entities entered the room. In a panic, customers and workers sprang into a frenzy and made a beeline for the nearest exits. Mike ran away with them.

While Sam and Tucker were fast to get up and follow the crowd, they realized that Danny was frozen in horror, staring at the strange entities as they floated specifically his way, eyes glued on him.

"Danny, come on!" Sam yelled.

He snapped out of his daze and nodded, but then he got very queasy. He sprang up from the booth and ran to the bathroom.

Tucker and Sam were scared out of their minds, hearts racing like crazy as they faced the monsters in front of them and started slowly walking backwards down the aisle between the rows of booths.

"St-stay back!" Tucker warned, holding up a plastic knife to try and intimidate the monsters to no avail.

Sam didn't say anything but gave the best death glare that she could muster up.

Meanwhile, Danny was in the bathroom having a meltdown. Once he closed the door behind him, he fell to the ground. His head was spinning and his vision was blurry. He felt this odd cold sensation in his gut. Suddenly a ring of light formed around his waist and traveled up and down his body, revealing the hazmat suit from earlier.

"But I took it off," he murmured, as he looked down at his torso and arms.

He then grasped the sink's edge and raised himself up.

He was a ghost again.

He cursed under his breath.

"Is someone there?" He heard a kid probably a little younger than him say from one of the stalls.

He gulped but didn't say a word. His fight or flight mode was all turned around. These ghosts were surely here because of him. His body didn't know whether to fight the ghosts or get the hell out of dodge...

But he felt a responsibility for the ghosts' presence. And even though he was completely terrified, he felt the need to protect everyone else. How he would do that was another problem.

He knew he could go intangible, become invisible, fly, shoot energy balls out of his hands...and that's all great and useful when you know how to use those abilities. But he obviously didn't. And the other issue was how he would get these ghosts back to the Fenton Portal because as ghosts, they couldn't just be arrested like people! I mean, come on! A ghost prison?

He decided not to overthink it and just cross that bridge when he came to it.

"Here goes nothing," he muttered to himself, trying to take flight and phase through the wall with a big leap forward, only to hit his face and fall to the ground. "Ouch!" He rubbed his forehead.

"What's going on? Who's there?" The boy from the stall called out.

Danny ran out the door on that note. Sam and Tucker were seemingly guarding the hallway to the bathroom. He was thankful for that but also nervous. What if they recognized him even in this ghost form?

He coughed to get their attention. "Thank you...uh...humans. I'll take it from here."

Sam and Tucker swiveled around, astonished to see another glowing being making its way to them. This one, however, looked like a boy.

Tucker couldn't help but find the ghost rather familiar, but he was sure he had never seen him before. After all, he had never seen a ghost. He couldn't quite place what about him was so familiar.

"Who are you?" Sam asked.

"My name's..." Danny pondered but just as he was on the cusp of a name, the ghosts leapt through the gap between Sam and Tucker at Danny who dodged by flipping backwards instinctively.

He lifted a hand out in front of him like he had done earlier but nothing happened. He shrugged and threw a punch at one ghost. It slammed into the wall. The other came for him, but he punched that one too, splattering ectoplasmic goo all over the wall. The other ghost had recovered and wrapped its tentacles around Danny's neck. Danny yelped but quickly backed the octo-ghost against the wall. When its tentacles came loose, Danny planted another punch in its face. Then he grabbed both ghosts by their necks and swung them over his right shoulder. "Catch ya later," he told Sam and Tucker who watched in amazement as he walked outside, carrying the two ghosts with little effort.

He was happy to see that no one was even close to the Nasty Burger so he had the opportunity to muster up the courage to try and fly.

He zoomed into the sky, and before he knew it, he was back home. He snuck into the lab and managed to toss the ghosts into the portal. He tiptoed out of the lab and up to his room, luckily not running into any trouble on the way.

Once in his room, he laid in his bed and breathed a sigh of relief. It had been one stressful afternoon! The ring of light formed around him, and he watched as his hazmat suit changed to his red and white T-shirt and blue jeans.

He rolled over in his bed and stuffed his face into his pillow. He then felt a couple of buzzes in his pant's pocket and felt a sudden rush of dread. Sam and Tucker were probably wondering where he was.

He opened his phone to see missed calls from Tucker and Sam and more than a few texts.

He called Tucker who picked up on the first ring.

"Dude, where are you?"

"Hey Tucker...Um, sorry. I saw those things, and my instincts just kicked in so I bolted away and ran back home."

"Wait, you're already home? How?-oh whatever. It doesn't matter. Dude, you are not gonna believe what happened."

"What happened?"

"This ghost guy saved us! You wouldn't have believed your eyes. Turns out your parents were right - ghosts do exist! It was the weirdest thing - like this ghost guy just came out of nowhere and took down those two octopus looking ghosts. It was crazy! I wish I had recorded it. Also, Sam says hi and thanks for ditching us. Wait, let me put you on speaker."

Danny swallowed hard, his throat tightening. "Wow. A ghost guy? That's pretty weird."

"You should've been there, Danny! It was insane," Sam said.

"Anyway, what did you want to tell us earlier about the portal?" Tucker asked.

"Um, yeah, about that..." Danny tried to bring himself to tell his friends the truth, but some weird nagging feeling was holding him back. "Well, it turns out my parents got it working. So the portal is up and running if you want to come check it out." He felt a twinge of guilt for not being honest, but he wasn't sure how to even say it. And he wanted to get a better handle on things first. It was all too new and too weird. Anyway, half of what he said was the truth.

"What?!" They both shouted.

"No way! Can we come see it? How about after school tomorrow?" Tucker asked.

School. Danny had completely forgotten. How could he go to school in his condition? What if he accidentally changed or became invisible?

"Yeah, after school, sure. Anyway, see you tomorrow."

"Okay bye!"

Danny hung up his phone and sighed deeply. What the hell was he going to do?

Then it occurred to him that his uncle could be helpful. He had confided in him more than a few times with extremely personal stuff that not even Tucker knew about. Uncle Vlad would understand.