Another Phantom Chapter 3

Jazz stood outside Fenton works, tapping her foot impatiently. She had seen Danny fighting with Skulker and another ghost… after he had told her that there was no ghostly activity going on! Jazz jumped as she heard Danny's voice near her, "Jazz? What are you doing here?" he asked, sounding nervous. "What are YOU doing here?" she replied angrily, "and WHERE are you?" Danny faded into view, carrying a dark ghost slumped over his shoulder. He looked around quickly and said, "PLEASE tell me Mom and Dad aren't home!"

Danny laid the wounded ghost down on his bed. Erik stirred slightly, but remained unconscious. "Explain to me again why the creepy ghost gets to bleed all over MY bed…" Danny huffed, shooting an accusing look at Jazz. Jazz merely shrugged, "you're the ghost kid. You didn't want me in your business, so I'm not going to help you." Danny's temper flared for a moment, but he stopped himself before he could retort, and lifted his hands in weary resignation. "Look, I'm sorry, OK? I just didn't want you to get hurt." Jazz looked at him a moment before saying, "apology accepted," rather smugly. "So, who IS this guy? And why are you helping him?" Danny rubbed his neck, "well, Sam said that he was some character out of a book. His name's Erik…"

"The PHANTOM of the OPERA?!" Jazz gasped, utterly startled. Danny sighed, "why does EVERYBODY know who this guy is? … as to why I'm helping him… I don't really know. He did try to kill Tucker."
"Makes sense," Jazz shrugged. "SENSE?" Danny exclaimed. "How on earth does that make sense?"
"He had a really rough life…" Jazz started to explain, but Danny interjected, "yeah, Sam told me about it, I know. Something about how he's really ugly and can't get this girl and…"
"It's not like that at all!!" Jazz fumed, stomping on the floor. When Danny looked at her questioningly, she blushed and said, "I… I really like the book."
"Skulker must be a critic, then."
"Danny, this is no time for jokes!" Jazz scolded, "you should read the book. You'd probably like it."
"Well Mr. Creepy-Butt over there doesn't!" Danny snapped in an 'I-told-you-so' manner. "What the heck are you talking about?" Jazz asked, thoroughly confused. "The 'Phantom of the Opera' burned down a book store because his book was in it."
"What?! No way!"
"That's what Sam said. I had no idea what the guy was talking about."
"Well…" Jazz paused, "that makes sense too…"
"What is it with you people that have read this book?! You're like a cult!"
"Aren't we a bit off-topic?" Jazz pointed out airily.
"We've BEEN 'off-topic' for a while now." Danny replied through gritted teeth.
"Well I think it's time we got back there… don't you?" she countered smugly. Danny could do nothing but resign to her wishes.

"We CERTAINLY can't let Mom and Dad see him, but I don't know much about ghost healing. Do you?"
"Not anything serious" Danny shrugged. "And anyway, what happens after he's healed? I think he said he was lost or something."
"We have to do something quickly," Jazz said with a new urgency, "if he recovers before we have a plan, he'll NEVER accept our help! … he's very proud."
"Proud enough to "rot" forever in the human world that he seems to hate?"
"Yup."
Danny facepalmed. How could this kooky ghost have survived as a human? He was probably rich or something. Aristocracy can be a bit "eccentric".
"Well then, Miss Know-It-All," Danny sighed, "I suppose YOU have a plan?"
Jazz fidgeted, "umm…" When Danny smirked at her obvious befuddlement, Jazz indignantly snapped, "h-he's supposed to be a fictional character! Who makes plans for fictional characters?!"
Danny eyed the sleeping Erik warily, "if he wakes up, do you think he'll snap our necks?"
"Probably," Jazz said, not needing much consideration.
"Good to know," Danny replied, trying to work out how to get a handle on this dilemma. "Maybe we could ask Mom and Dad if there's any way to keep a ghost from attacking without hurting it…"
"You think they CARE if they hurt it? Did you really save Erik from Skulker just to have him be ripped apart molecule by molecule?"
"Hey, it was just a suggestion."
"… Well, it might work. But we'd need to ask Dad, and not say ANYTHING to Mom."
After a second, Danny gave in to his curiosity and asked, "okaaay… why?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Jazz lightly scoffed, as if to rub it in, "if we ask Mom about it, she might want to know why we're asking. But if we ask Dad he's sure to brag about anything and everything he can think of."
"That makes sense…" Danny decided, "but what doesn't make sense is that you're here at all."
"I saw you fighting Skulker. I wanted to be home before you were, so I decided that I'd come home before school even started, so I'd beat you here whenever you came! I was going to confront you about being such a jerk, but… well, you have a reason."
"What…" Danny said, befuddled, "… the teachers just let you leave?"
Jazz beamed, as if she were waiting for this moment, and proudly said, "it comes with being a good student!"

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"Your parents aren't home, right?"
"They're out on some… ghost hunting jamboree or something. It usually takes a while."
"So we don't have any protection from… uh…"
"ERIK?"
"Yeah, something like that."
"We've got Danny."
"What good did he do when we fought this guy? He was as useless as his dad!"
"Thanks, Tuck."
"Any time."

Erik awoke to the chatter of young, fretting voices. It reminded him of the dancers at the opera… his unusually sharp senses were dulled by pain, making him feel as if he has been a shark's favorite chew toy.  Opening his eyes slowly, Erik recognized the colorless lab from his first day back on Earth. Moving his eyes down, he saw that there was a glowing green substance radiating from a wound on his chest. It displayed the spreading patterns of blood, but…
"It's changed color!!" he shouted suddenly, and was vaguely aware of the frantic turning of heads and frightened expressions. Never mind that now…
"Wh… what's changed color…?" stammered the black-haired girl from the other night… ah, what was her name? Erik swore he knew it… oh well, it mustn't be that important anyway.
"My blood! It used to be red!" it occurred to Erik that he had not bled since he had become a ghost. "But nothing external has changed… such a drastic internal change should have noticeable effects. Now that I think of it, I cannot recall the transformation from human to ghost… green blood, green blood…" Erik snapped his fingers, "it may be possible to dissect myself now that I am a ghost!"
"Remember when he tried to kill me?" Tucker asked, "This is freaking me out even more."
"I expect it to be an effect of blood loss… can it even be called 'blood' anymore? What properties have changed?" Erik mused. The other four occupants of the room looked nervously at each other, unsure of what to do. "What IS that incessant jangling?!" Erik barked suddenly, somewhat amused by how easy it was to scare these "ghost-hunting" children. The children seemed nervous and unwilling to speak, like sheep deprived of their shepherd. "Ah, those would be chains," a black-haired boy stated, "you're chained to a wall." Erik looked at his wrists, finding that they were indeed shackled. "Ah. Very well then," he dismissed vaguely. "You're not mad?" the black-haired boy asked, surprised. "Not currently. I imagine that I will be furious eventually… you know, this room really is quite depressing. I am generally not one for color, excluding red, but this room would look better in even a bright pink."
"Scary ghosts redecorate?" the annoying one joked. "Why yes, of course. Didn't you know that?" Erik replied, "It's common knowledge, really. We often use humans, especially for paint. The stench is horrid, but given enough time, one can really grow to love the simplicity of natural decoration." The annoying boy's eyes grew wide, but he said nothing.

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"Should we leave him alone down there?" Sam asked the group as a whole as they trudged up the stairs from the lab. "Are you volunteering to watch him?" Danny replied sarcastically. "I'm volunteering Tucker," Sam countered, to which Tucker hurried through the exit and into the kitchen, "only if you want technologically savvy PAINT!" he objected. "I don't think he was serious," Jazz  added thoughtfully, "Erik sort of 'jokes' sometimes…"
"You're trusting an evil, creepy ghost's ability to JOKE?" Tucker shouted in an exasperated tone. "No, she's trusting her friends on Fanfiction.net," Danny tapped his head and winked at Jazz, "Miss Smarty Pants forgot to erase her web history." Jazz gasped and blushed profusely, "I-I-I was just doing RESEARCH!" she squeaked. Sam punched Jazz lightly on the arm, "I can't believe I have to tell YOU to focus. WHO was talking about how we have to hurry?"
"R-right!" Jazz said quickly, straightening up, "we can avoid any more conflict if we find a way to get Erik back into the Ghost Zone!"
"Back to where he was BEFORE," Sam added, "he said it's too big to wander around in, so he must have not moved much from one single area while he was there."
"It probably matters what kicked him out in the first place," Tucker interjected. "It might have left a physical or energy pattern different from the areas around it, due to the irregularity."
Danny blinked, "did you guys just have some sort of alien language convention?" Jazz smiled in a sweetly condescending manner and said, "and that, dear brother, is why you're the brawn of the organization."