Hey guys...I had part of this written around the time I said I would, I swear! But it was...lacking. So, I thought about adding a few new concepts, shake it up a little bit. Let me know what you guys think, as Sam said in Lucky in Love, "It's kinda radical."

Okay, and now for the only thing you guys are actually going to read in this AN: the answer to the trivia question!

And the answer is...having cookies with Skulker!

This one was pretty hard to judge being that people had combinations or little errors, so unless it was perfect, I'm not going to take it...I'm sorry...Here are the winners!

lightshadow101

digimedas

CrackedCrow

Ani-DP-TT-PJ-H-Ben10 Fan

ItTicklesLikeCrazy

Congrats to all who got it and better luck next time for those who didn't.

Like always, I'd like to thank all who reviewed, favorited, and followed. You guys keep me writing!

I'd also like to thank my amazing beta reader Dragonian Master who puts up with my absenses and the two drafts for this chapter. Thanks!

Disclaimer: I still don't own Danny Phantom. Thank you for rubbing it in my face.

Sucked In

Chapter 7: Level 10: Human.

Danny's POV

All I could do was stare forward. Everything looked so...different, less detailed and duller...I guess I never really took the whole 'senses all enhanced' thing into consideration before now. My friends were yelling at me, but they sounded so quiet, I had to strain my ears to hear them. And everything was so warm!

"How do you feel?" Tucker asked. I swear, he was whispering, but his expression made me realise otherwise.

My mouth felt dry and I murmured—or thought I did anyway, "Human." The revelation hit me like a brick wall. I grabbed Sam's hand—I didn't get the shocking heat from her like normal, she just felt like the same warm as me. Her face twisted for a moment when she didn't feel my cold. We locked eyes, both trying to look collected for the other.

Tucker began murmuring—I'm pretty sure that he was actually murmuring—and I just kept looking at everything around me. Was this the way the world looked to everyone else? The weightless feeling I'd grown accustomed to (even in my human form) had abandoned me as well, and I found myself unable to move.

The world suddenly stopped around me as Sam looked at Tucker in shock. They were whisper-yelling again. I did my best to make it out by reading their blurry lips. "What did you do?" Sam asked.

"I made a fool proof wish to get us about ten minutes alone without anyone knowing. So don't worry, I scoped out any loop holes." Either he said that or something about going to see fools alone with fruit loops. I'm going to go with the first.

I groaned causing their attention to come flying back to me. They helped me off the ground and onto a rock. Everything began to slowly adjust and I could hear them better with every word they said as they argued about what to do. "Guys," I said, trying to join the conversation but failing.

"How is this even possible?!" Sam exclaimed, pacing in front of me and Tucker who had taken a seat next to me on the rock. "You're not even a ghost—her wish shouldn't have worked." Sam had a point: I wasn't a ghost, I was half-ghost. I looked at Tucker—it was almost like they were playing a game of ping-pong the way the conversation bounced back and forth.

"Right, but as far as Paulina knows he is and she made the wish. Though you're right, theoretically, it shouldn't matter," Tucker replied.

"He can't just un—half—die though...I mean, when you really think about it, the process only goes one way—it's impossible!" Sam sat down on an opposing rock, clearly frustrated.

They both chewed on this for a second until I said, "We're in a freaking video game, and that's what you're questioning?"

Though my explanation made sense, we all just kinda sat their thinking what the hell. Tucker broke the numbing silence asking, "What does it feel like?"

"Really...solid. I don't know how to describe it—it's like a weighted down feeling and its so fricking warm!" I said, attempting to throw my hands up in the air but the damn simulated gravity pulled them back down before I could.

Tucker laughed, "It's actually kind of ironic, being human not being normal." Sam and I both glared at him. "Geez, just trying to lighten the mood."

Sam snapped her fingers with an idea, "Maybe it's just blocking your powers."

"No, I've had that happen before from the Plasmius Maximus, and that definitely doesn't feel like this," I explained. They both chewed on this for a second.

"Maybe we could just wish you to be half-ghost again," Tucker said but then quickly added, "No, wait, that'd technically be undoing the wish—Paulina didn't want you to be any type of ghost which is probably why it worked in the first place. And to Paulina if you're not a ghost—"

"Then you're human," Sam finished, rolling the words around in her mouth like marbles.

I groaned and went to the labor of resisting gravity enough to rub my temples with my hands. "So basically, I'm stuck 'human' for all of level ten?"

"Sorry, dude," Tucker said.

"Welcome to the human club...again," Sam added.

"But if it makes you feel any better, you should be back to you same paradox-self when we pass the level." Somehow, Tucker's uplifting words didn't make me feel much better.

"Human," I murmured, rolling the word around in my mouth. Tucker's right, it was ironic. Be careful for what you wish. No shit! I used to crave this feeling, yet now all I wanted was that cold, weightless, comforting feeling of being, well, half-human. That's my normal, not this warm, heavy, suppressive sensation. It sucked—literally! I looked up at my friends, but they looked just as lost as me. Great confidence boost guys.

"Does it really feel that different from your 'normal'?" Tucker asked. I glared at him. "Is it really that bad?"

I sighed. "It's terrible...I feel so, well, no offence, weak."

Sam huffed, "Right, no offence." She rolled her eyes, "Get used to it: you have a whole level to get through, 'weakling'."

I bit my lip but then felt a tingling sensation around my hands. "What the?" A white-blue ring of light—like the one that comes between forms—manifested around my hands and moved about half-way up my arm. My friends jumped back at the sight and I squirmed: dead skin. Black, cracking, skin.

Sam approached first as I stared blankly at the two hands I couldn't believe could possibly be mine. She grabbed my hand but no feeling came to me. "Danny," Tucker began, "have you ever taken off your suit?"

I fumbled over my words, "Like in the game?" Tucker shook his head and I caught his drift. "No...Is this...this really what it looks like underneath?" Sam watched me as I raised both of the hands out of her grasp to examine them, not really noticing that I began to get over the whole gravity situation. I tried not panic, I really did. But, suddenly the words came pouring out of me like a torrent of rainfall. "I've partially changed back before, and this is not what happened! Then Frostbite took it off once of me to help me—when Undergrowth took over and I was just getting my ice powers, but I woke up afterwards in this solution-thingy...And-and my suit! I've gotten cut and yeah, I bled ectoplasm but I mean other than that I've never seen...I...I've never felt so dead." This time Tucker didn't take advantage of the irony.

Instead, the techno-geek looked at the Goth sitting next to him and then at me. Both seemed to be thinking the same thing, but I was not on the same train of thought. It had departed before I even got my ticket. "What?" I finally prodded, forcing my eyes of the dead hands to my friends.

"If Paulina wished you weren't a ghost anymore, but you weren't a ghost in the first place..." Tucker trailed off.

Finally, the train ran over me. "Then it would revert me to whatever I was before..." I, too, found myself unable to say it.

"Before you died." Sam had the nerve to say what we didn't want to face.

I cleared my throat, "It's not reverting me back to human form, it's putting me in the state I was when I was last truly alive." I stared at my numb, barely functioning hands. "So I'm going to be in the state I was in right before the ectoplasm entered my system...a burnt human husk." I spat out the last words, not wanting to remember that feeling of everything burning.

I stared at the ground. "This shouldn't be possible."

"It's what the game does, never mind actual logic," Tucker explained, focusing on the facts like he always does, "If a character were to wish for another who gained the ability to use magic for them to lose their powers, that character would revert, basically, to the state they were in right before they retained their abilities."

My eyes swelled, not wanting to relive that moment, on the very brink of death—when everything stood still and hurt like hell. I stared once more at the hands as they tingled when feeling came into them. A burning feeling. Amazing how something so hot can feel like the stinging of the cold. "I don't want to go through that again," I murmured.

By the looks of my friends, I hadn't showed them fear in a long time. I shut my eyes, not wanting to feel weak anymore. Not wanting to feel this human. Nothing I've ever known as been more human than death.

"We'll fix this, Danny. We'll beat the level and we'll fix this," Sam said, squeezing my oddly warm shoulder. I did my best to smile at her.

The field Tucker created around us began to gurgle and convulse, "Don't worry," he said, "they won't remember anything of this and they'll think your hands were like that before. Even our different positions shouldn't phase them."

"Good job, Tucker." I fought the urge to cry.

Valerie's POV

A dazed feeling came over me for a moment before I sharpened myself and took in the situation around me. Phantom was human...sort of. How that was even possible, I wasn't going to try and figure out. When thrown into a video game from a world filled with ghosts and half-ghosts, your sense of what's possible drastically changes.

I took in his appearance, trying to see through his melded form as to who he was. My mind remained ignorant to his identity, however. He got up with the help of Sam and Tucker. "Phantom?" Dash questioned. I don't think I've ever seen Dash look that meek. Then again, he did just watch his 'hero' crumble and turn human all because of one of his fake friends—I guess that might change a person.

Sam and Tucker met the jock's question with a glare, silencing him immediately. If only a glare would shut him up in school.

All eyes followed Phantom with worry except for a Paulina who had a small smile on her face. He looked so...fragile; nothing like the Phantom I knew who glowed so bright that his features were slightly blurry. It was weird seeing his face so crisp but everything about him seemed duller in comparison: he just seemed to lack that thing that made him Phantom, his eyes, his skin, his hair, his...hands. I stared at the charred masses. Never, in my short span of ghost hunting, have I ever seen something so morbid on a ghost. Skeletons, sure. Blunt cut offs where arms or legs should be, yes. But ghosts don't focus on the past. The death wound remains, but it's cleaned and smooth, as if they were villains in a children's show.

And true, I'd seen ghosts bleed ectoplasm and be destroyed by a 'mortal' wound in their ghost form, but they never retained a death wound. It went against their entire psyche. Perhaps that's another difference between ghosts and halfas. Halfas must remember vividly how they died. Now Phantom would have to live through that pain all over again because of a shallow prick. As much as I found myself with the urge to still detest Phantom, I couldn't help but feel for him: no one remotely human deserves that fate.

He took shaky breaths that looked painful. Tucker sat next to him and Sam across from him; I guess that proved that they really were friends. Finally, Dash walked over and again asked, "What are we gonna do?"

Tucker looked up at him in question, "What do you mean?"

"We...we need a plan," he replied. Dash Baxter, 'king of Casper High', stuttering with fear in his eyes to two geeks that he commonly picked on: now I've officially seen everything.

"And why does it fall on us to make the plan?" Sam asked. Phantom tried to get his word in edge wise, but I think he might be slightly overwhelmed at the moment. Just slightly. I watched his eyes: they were locked on his hands.

"Not you two losers!" Dash scolded, realizing who he was talking to, "Phantom!"

"Dash, does he really look like he can form a plan right now?" Sam asked. The girl rolled her eyes.

"But Phantom always makes a plan..." Star muttered, looking at her hero in shock.

"Well, maybe somebody should have thought about that five minutes ago," Sam said, throwing a glare at Paulina. The Hispanic girl huffed and turned away to examine her nails: how could she be so full of herself that she couldn't even realize the terrible thing she had done? "Seriously, don't you people ever think about anything except your sick, twisted needs! You're disgusting, the whole lot of you."

"Sam," Tucker cut in, trying to stop the angered Goth's rant.

"Let me finish, Tuck," she murmured, before raising her tone, "You call Phantom a hero yet all you've done—this entire time—is badger him and he doesn't have the guts to say anything to you because he's a nice guy. Then this happens and you want a plan! Do you care nothing about the unimaginable pain he's—"

"Sam!" Phantom threw his eyes up at her, pulling hers down to him, "I'm fine." Phantom locked eyes with Sam for a moment—if I hadn't been watching them so closely, I probably wouldn't have even noticed. He...diffused her...so to speak. Sam's been an outspoken spit-fire for as long as I could remember, never backing down from a fight, but when Phantom gave her that single, desperate this-isn't-the-time-for-this look, her shoulders shrugged and she closed her eyes. I could tell she probably wanted to bitch-slap Paulina to kingdom come—as well as most of the female population (subconsciously at least)—but Phantom stopped her. I've only ever seen one other person have that effect on her: Fenton. But that was absurd. Phantom and Fenton? The same person! Laughable! Besides sharing the first name of Danny, they had nothing in common. I pushed the thought from my mind once again and moved on to other possibilities.

Leaning heavily on Tucker and ignoring Dash's offer to help, Phantom stood with a cough and said, "Can we please just start moving? I don't want to be stuck like this longer than I have to." Everyone was struck slightly by his sudden bluntness and his weak suggestion instead of 'order' but nobody objected.

I may have been the only one besides his friends to notice, but the echo that usually rested on his voice fled with no returning address. It almost gave me the shivers more that his normal voice, and it had a certain quality to it that reminded me of someone. However, besides his previous words, he spared us no remarks and walked ahead, leaning heavily on Tucker. His left hand hanging down in a sickly fashion while the other lay flopped over Tucker's right shoulder. Sam moved next to them while the rest of us followed further back, most in shame and one—who I'm sure there's no reason to name—in irritation.

The trio ahead were murmuring something to each other but their voices rested far below what could register into any of our ears from behind them. Curiosity filled me, however, and I yearned to know what they discussed. Could it possibly be his identity? If he died by burning, that definitely narrowed down the possibilities once I could do some research, but until then I'd have to keep racking my memory.

We eventually reached a the edge of the cliff when I began to wonder the point of this level. I thought to ask, but I had not desire to hear another rant. It turned out that I didn't need to, because Sam and Tucker set Phantom against a tree to cradle his hands while they walked across a few feet to look for a way down.

The A-list moved themselves into a pod on some rocks a few paces away from Sam and Tucker. I moved myself into a sitting position in the grass a few feet from Phantom, not to stare but the hear if he mumbled anything to himself.

We never saw it coming. The whole level began to shake to the point that the buffer couldn't keep up with itself and blurring became a factor. I rushed towards Phantom's tree to hold on to something as Sam and Tucker rushed towards the rocks so as to not fall off the cliff.

Then, something only a video game could have created happened, the level split into two. A giant crack in the earth forced Phantom and my side away from their side. Suddenly, we found our half falling. I'd like to say I didn't scream. I must have hit my head when we landed because the next thing that came was blackness.

Good? Bad? Ugly? I won't know unless you review!

And this issue's trivia question's trivia question is...

In which episode does Sam go on a campaign to save the frogs? I need a name, not a description.

I really need to start coming up with better questions...

Updates, like always, are up in the air...sorry...

***IF YOU GUYS HAVE ANY IDEAS FOR LEVELS, PLEASE PUT THEM IN YOUR REVIEWS!***

Please review.

~Pheek out