3597 words. Rated K or very mild T


"Sam, Nathan, Valorie, Danny, Tucker, and Marie, you are assigned section thirty-eight. That is the section in between Lincoln and Sherman Drive."

Mr. Lancer pulled a bundle of handheld flags from the large cardboard box and held it out for their group to collect. Nathan stepped forward to claim the pack and began counting and passing them to their small group. After separating the flags into groups of ten, they found they had seventy flags to place in their designated section.

"Does everyone have their assignments?"

The four dozen students nodded.

"Okay, you have one hour to get to your section and place flags. Our teachers and volunteer parents, Ms. Tetslaff, Mr. Rode, Mr. Falluca, and I will all be supervising to ensure you stay on tract. Refer to your map for directions and find one of us if you have any questions. All our sections are on the east side of the cemetery. We are not the only school here, and there are people grieving their loved ones. Be quiet, respectful, and courteous; not only do you represent our school and state, but these people sacrificed their lives for us all.

Remain on your best behavior, and act like the adults you are becoming. Any misbehavior will be met with swift repercussions. Mrs. Balny will be here when you are finished, and you are to return here to await the tour. If you have extra flags after the hour is up, please bring them back here to give to the staff members so they can place them. The tour contains information needed for your final, so do take care to be on time and pay attention. Are we understood?"

The class collectively nodded, and some students murmured their understanding.

"Good. Be back here at 1:30 pm. Dismissed."

Sam, Tucker, and Danny immediately crowded around one map, turning it to find their section. Valorie showed her own copy to the two others in their group.

"Okay, if we go down this road, it will take us straight to our section. It looks like we're the closest to the visitors building."

"Nice, that's the shortest walk. We'll have plenty of time to get it done."

"Why don't Tucker, Danny and I start on the corner where Sherman and Lincoln meet, past Sheridan," she walked past the boys and pointed on Valorie's map. "And you three start on this end, and we can meet in the middle."

Valorie scrutinized the map for a moment.

"That's fine. We should start with the first three rows along Sherman on both ends, and meet in the middle before doing the back rows, that way we can ensure at least three rows are completely done."

"Sounds good." Danny and Nathan agreed, and the latter passed off half the flags to Tucker.

Marie nodded and started up the main road to their section. Nathan and Valorie walked with her, while Danny looked at their map a moment longer.

"Well since we're starting on this side, we should go around and walk this path. At our pace, it'll be faster than going all the way down Schley."

His friends nodded and they started off down Roosevelt Drive.

"Smart thinking, Danny. If we finish fast enough, we could walk back this road too and check out Kennedy's plot without it covered in students."

Weeks Drive came up quickly on their right, and — making sure they were exact with their directions — they turned down the next road. Sam took the map from Danny and perused it, looking at the other viable options for their time.

"We're not the only school here, I don't think we're getting anything to ourselves." Tucker pointed out, both literally and figuratively as they followed his hand across the west side of the cemetery.

Danny scoffed.

"You're not wrong, but we can definitely take a break from our class and Mr. Lancer's 'Bonus Poetry Tour.'"

"Somebody save us before Sam starts quoting Poe." Tucker lamented. Danny laughed, pushing him onto the final road. Sam followed, rolling her eyes; she elbowed the boy as soon as she could. Danny took the map back and folded it, pocketing it for later as they approached their corner of the thirty-eighth section.

"Shut up. I think we should either go down Curtis Walk and snag a picture of the house, or we just go back down Weeks and check out Kennedy's plot."

"Okay. I'll take the third row, with… Val's doing the third row. Can you hand me those flags, Tuck?"

"Yea, here you go. Sam, these are yours."

"Thanks, Tucker. Alright, the faster we do this the faster we can explore on our own."

"Yea, but, do it right still."

"Obviously. Students should be required to do this every year." Sam commented, walking off as she spoke, headed towards the first line of gravestones. Danny and Tucker exchanged unexpected glances and shrugged, starting their job immediately.

The trio worked quickly, hardly stopping between flag placements to bend down. They all worked a little differently; Danny took advantage of his powers and used his ectokinesis to place the flags into the stands while gaining some extra practice with his abilities. When he got close to the three other students in their section, he switched to the physical labor of bending down and placing the flags, only stopping when he accidentally dropped the handful he had left. Tucker moved from stone to stone in a near squat, taking wide steps while staying close to the ground as he placed each flag. Sam stood tall and proud, dropping the flags into their stands with unmatched precision, skilled enough to walk normally and maintain a decent pace.

Danny stood awkwardly in the line of graves, waiting for Valorie to catch up to him. He overtook the middle of their line easily, running out of flags several stones from the huntress, and now he had to wait for her to finish so they could start on the next line with her remaining flags. Sam finished soon after and joined him in waiting, though she had to fill significantly less time than the half-ghost. Nathan managed to move as fast as Valorie, and the two met up with the couple at the same time.

In an attempt to break away from the team, Danny and Sam offered to finish the last fifteen flags with Tucker so the others could head back early and have some free time at the visitor's center before it got crowded. Tucker and Marie met in the middle of their line a moment after Danny and Sam got to work on the next row. Convincing the others they were doing a nice deed, he took the seven flags from her and waved her help off, confirming he would happily handle the last of their section. Marie skipped off after double checking they didn't need any more help.

Danny looked around to confirm the students were gone and the teachers and volunteers were no where in sight. Taking the flags from both teenagers, he walked to the opposite end of the section and quickly separated the flags within his power, placing them telekinetically as he walked back to his friends. He passed them in between the fourth and fifth lines and they followed, chatting about the previous tour while Danny walked them back to their starting point. He placed the final flags and took a deep breath, feeling the slight tension of training his weak power.

"Sam, how much time do we have?"

"Thirty minutes, ghost boy; we might be able to do see both places before we have to get back to the center." She said.

Danny nodded and pulled out the map, unfolding it and turning it based on the road they stood on.

"Win-win. Nice. Are we doing the house first or Kennedy's grave first?"

"We should do the house first and then pass through Kennedy's section on our way back to the front."

The two agreed and together they moved down Curtis Walk, chatting about the things they'd seen on the trip.


"It's beautiful." Sam awed. The boys looked the building over with disinterest.

"It's just a big building. I don't see the appeal."

"Maybe there's something more interesting on the inside."

"You two dimwits need to look at the details every once in a while. The architecture alone commands attention and respect."

"Uh-huh."

"Okay, well, let's take a few photos out here, while the roads not crowded." Danny offered.

He took the camera from her and turned it around to face them. They smushed together for the selfie. Once the photo popped out of the vintage camera, they snapped some individual photos of each other and of the building for their upcoming reports. Tucker wrapped the camera strap around his neck.

"I'll carry it for a bit."

"Thanks."

"Come on, we should start back down." Danny checked his watch. "We've still got seventeen minutes."

They looked around as they walked, though Danny slowed them down— more aware than the other two of their surroundings. He stopped at the corner of Curtis and Sherman; his gaze narrowed at the section of tombstones they worked on, and he dragged his gaze across to the other sections where his classmates and teachers should have been. Tipping his head slightly he listened to the cemetery, shivering as the wind picked up around them. Danny exhaled his ghost sense, frowning as a chill climbed up his back. He blinked, and the ghost of another world laid atop the cemetery. Graves still remained, but the uniformity was gone. Each stone decorated and full of personality, with flags of different countries waving in a nonexistent wind as far as he could see. The humans milling about the gravesite vanished, disappearing in the sudden windstorm as the world flashed out of existence, hardly allowing him to process it. He stumbled back, and turned around to face his friends.

"Something's off. Where is everyone?"

"What? They're right there." Tucker pointed. Danny looked behind him and indeed, the students were there, along with two of the volunteers, roaming the cemetery streets. His jaw hung open, and he turned back around bewildered. He looked over the cemetery again, stepping around them to get a better view.

"Guys, I swear none of them were there a second ago."

"Your ghost sense went off— do you see one?"

"No, I don't."

"Alright, well which direction are they?"

Danny walked around again, testing the pull of his power.

"This way," he finally settled on, facing a large section of military graves.

The closest road cut down the south side, and a walking path separated the section from another to their left. Sam looked at the map.

"Are they even here? The ghosts we know don't go to cemeteries without a good reason."

"Yea, I can feel them. I think."

"What do you mean?" Tucker asked, checking something on his PDA. He put the device away and looked over Sam's arm at the map.

"It doesn't feel like my ghost sense; or it does but its distorted. It's almost like its… underwater."

"There's a pond all the way down that road." Tucker pointed to the left of where Danny was staring.

"Straight where you're looking, Danny, there's four different points of interest in that direction. We don't have the time right now to check them all out."

He bit his lips nervously; the half-ghost didn't expect a fight, not in a cemetery— and he was long past his punch-first ask-questions-later stance on ghost fights. His power fluctuated, spurring another hiccup of ice from his core.

A ghost in a cemetery. He should have expected it, though he thought he already filled the quota.

"Amity Park is fine; there haven't been any ghost attacks, since before we left."

"Well, they know I'm not there; plus, Frighty's guarding the portal on one side, and Jazz and my parents are watching the other. I didn't feel a natural portal open."

"What about a stable portal?"

"A natural, stable portal? I suppose that could be it. Maybe that's why my sense is kinda disoriented."

Sam put her hand in his, and pulled him down the road. Tucker followed, snapping a photo of them as he did.

"Danny let's go walk through Kennedy's resting place, and head back to the visitor's center, and on the way, we can keep a look out for it. Okay?"

"Okay."

He was unable to enjoy the rest of their little break, too unsettled by the power just outside his understanding. It was too strong, too controlled, and worse, he never heard of a natural portal as strong as this energy felt. Sidney Pointdexter's portal needed an anchor of sorts, something that had the ability to connect him to this plane of existence. But that was one ghost kid. Who —or what— needed an anchor in a cemetery, when anyone who would be here had a resting place?

They returned to the visitors center two minutes before their tour started. Although he was unable to shake the foreboding sense of the unknown tickling his skin, Danny looked forward to the next hour. Finding the ghost was a bonus, and Sam and Tucker pulled him out of his musings long enough to get interested in what they would learn. It helped that the three of them were so connected to the dead; touring a famous cemetery was relevant to the history of the Infinite Realms, and it would save him from a long-winded lesson down the line.

Danny didn't get a leg up on his ghostly quarry until the end of the tour. He stopped in the middle of the path, letting the kids behind bump into him. His ghost sense overwhelmed him for a moment and he bent over to hide his cold breath, coughing ice into his hand. Sam and Tucker looked him over, concerned. Mr. Lancer glanced to him briefly as he did a headcount of the students.

"Mr. Fenton, are you alright?"

"Yea— cough— I just—cough— forgot to breath."

Dash and Paulina brushed past the boy, hassling him under their breath and knocked him off balance. His teacher looked back at him once more and nodded.

"Alright, then. Everyone file in. Fill in all available space and remain quiet and respectful."

As soon as the coast was clear, Danny stood up and brushed the ice from his hand. He followed his classmates, sticking close to his best friends and he narrowed his sense to one plot just past the guards.

"It's here." He tilted his head up at the tomb, as the military officers began conducting a changing of the guard.

"The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier."


"You have ten minutes to use the facilities and get a snack. Remember you are still in a cemetery; please be quiet and courteous."

"I'll be right back."

"Are you sure?"

"Yea, just cover for me. I'll be back before the bus leaves."

Danny walked around the building, out of sight of his classmates. He turned invisible and flew to the guarded tomb. Floating just above the ground, he placed a hand on the stone. He could feel the rock— sturdy, but there was something underneath. Pushing intangibility through his form, the rock shimmered beneath his palm and understanding settled on his face as he phased through the rock layer and passed into the hidden portal just underneath.

Tranquility.

That's all he felt. It was as if everything heavy lifted from his mind, and his responsibilities were taken off of his shoulders. Danny exhaled, then took a few shaky breaths, overcome with emotion at the feeling of mental weightlessness. His eyes watered, and he hastily wiped them to look around the place.

He was definitely in the Ghost Zone, but not any place he'd been before. The swirling, green skies were comforting in a way he didn't expect and Danny stepped further in, dropping his invisibility. Pillars of carved marble framed the portal in the center of the wall behind him, depicting humans in luxurious suits and gowns that surely belonged in a castle or to be worn by royalty. The statues were stunning and kept his attention for several seconds as he took in the details. Turning around to look at the rest of the land, his jaw dropped at the massive horde of ghosts staring right back at him.

Every ghost as far as he could see looked as human as he did. If it weren't for the era-based clothing and the auras, he could believe they were still alive. He squinted his eyes, and on the horizon of the giant realm he could see another portal, presumably leading to the rest of the Ghost Zone. He couldn't fathom leaving such a calming space though; not that he had any time to explore before returning to Earth anyway. The few closest ghosts meandered up to him as he looked around.

"You're a little young to be here, don't you think?"

"Uh. I suppose. Where am I?"

"Arlington. Resting Place of the Unknown Soldiers."

"You mean the tomb outside? I – I mean, out there?" He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb.

"On Earth, it is a place of quiet rest and respect; but in here it is a party! You felt the pull to come here, did you not?"

"Sorta…?" He gestured with one hand.

"I don't think he's a fallen soldier, Bobby."

"Uh, no I don't think so." Danny parroted, getting a good look at the five soldiers in front of him. Each was dressed in a different military uniform, and all from different countries. The American's uniform wasn't even the right uniform for the current military; they must have been here for a hundred years. The ghost he thought was closest to him in age looked him up and down, and his eyes widened.

"You're not a ghost at all. You breathe still."

"I am, just, not completely… Um, why are you all here— what is this place?"

"This is where every soldier who can't move on, moves on to. Where the fallen find their names and heal. Where true world peace exists. Where—."

"Please don't go into your spiel again; nobody wants to hear it."

"You know you're a real buzzkill, Mac?"

"Guys, please. Kid, you don't look like a soldier, but you've definitely seen some kind of battle."

"Mainly ghost fights back home. How'd you know?"

"They way you stand. You carry yourself like we do; you're aware." Her gaze softened. "You're ready for a fight."

"I try to keep on my toes." He half-winced and half-shrugged, anxiously scratching the back of his neck.

The moment he felt the anxiety, the feeling lifted from his shoulders again, and Danny realized it wasn't a figment of his imagination. The ghosts seemed to recognize his confusion. The half-ghost teared up again; his heart ached at the recognition and connection he felt tying himself to this place and its ghosts. The weight on his chest lifted continuously as he felt it, turning into a repetitive circle of emotion and ease that disrupted his train of thought several times over. If he wasn't so overwhelmed by the sensation he'd probably be able to think more clearly than he had in years.

"Nobody can use their offensive powers in here, even for fun. And this realm absorbs any negative energy so ghosts can have time without those things keeping them stressed. You can't control what is out of your hands."

"Why?" Danny choked out, wiping under his eyes again. He didn't know what question he was asking, but the soldier understood and answered both.

"Because everyone deserves be remembered. And everyone deserves to rest easy."

"At the end of the day, aren't we are all the same?"

Danny nodded, understanding the scope of their words. A trumpet began outside the portal, startling him. He turned to look at the portal as Taps played on the other side. The first ghost to approach him, Bobby, stepped up and placed a hand on his shoulder. Danny looked up at him, searching his face.

"Come share your story when it's time; not any earlier. You know where we are."

"Go home, kid. Enjoy it for us."

"I will."

Danny turned invisible— partially to prove he was a ghost, but more so to not be seen exiting the sacred tomb— and walked back through the portal. He jumped into the air and sped to the visitors center, searching for his class. Mr. Lancer stood at the bus door in the parking lot, counting students as they filed in. Landing in a crouch behind the vehicle, he dropped his power and jumped into the class line.

"Did they recognize you?"

His friends asked after he slid into the seat between them. Danny sagged into the bench and gravity pulled heavy on his limbs. He shook his head.

"No, but I didn't show them either. They'll all know anyway, when it becomes official."

The weightlessness didn't leave as rapidly as he expected, but rather whatever numbed the battle prone part of his mind eased him back into the heavy weight of his duties. The sensation was soothing, but the discovery he made wore him out. He'd be wise to ask Frostbite about it when they got home.

"You okay?"

Sam asked, as Danny stared out the window, watching as they drove out of the cemetery and away from the portal. He leaned on her shoulder and sighed, closing his eyes.

"Yea, I am. And I know what I'm doing my report on."