AN: What proceeds is my first attempt at an actually postable fanfic. It's Shallow Sapphire, which is completely different from my usual Swagger Bishie shipping, but I'm just in love with this pairing at the moment and wanted to dive into a good, long fanfic to shake some of the cobwebs off my old love of this show. I'm hopefully looking to get some feedback- criticism is wholly welcome and begged for- and every comment is loved! I really hope the fact that this show ended a few years ago doesn't mean the fandom has gone dark.

Also, once this story is done with, I'm totally down for some advice on which pairing to take on next :).

If Danny had needed to breathe, the thick summer air would have caked his throat with moisture. It was a relief to take to the sky and get the breeze running through his hair, to have all the heat-generating systems in his body shut down and empty him out. The humidity settled over his mouth and nose and he felt nothing but sympathy for the sleepless, sticky people below as he crossed over the rooftops of Amity Park. He could hear traffic murmering from the downtown roads, their headlights rippling as if they were deep underwater. A dark shape cut him from the air and as the breeze whipped past him he let out a yelp and snatched up his thermos. He snapped around the face his hunter as the night sky lit with rumbling. Ghost motorbikes sounded exactly like regular ones.

"Alright, Johnny, for the last time will you stay in the Ghost Zone?" He turned himself upright and darted back and forth, trying to pick Johnny's shadow out from the backdrop of darkness. He saw it bolt out the corner of his eye and swung around, thermos raised, only to see Johnny himself meet him in midair, still on his bike, with his hands up.

"Woah, woah! Easy tiger, I'm not looking for a fight. Shadow's just tense, that's all." Danny kept his distance. Something bothered him about the way the other ghost looked. Johnny appeared as smug and untrustworthy as always but his face had a long-term fear beneath it that he hadn't caused.

"Where's your girlfriend? You have another fight?"

Johnny looked offended, his soft voice lowering. "What, you think just because we're not joined at the hip I've screwed up? She's just stayin' at her mom's, but seeing as I'm not welcome back there anymore I figured I'd kill time where it's safer, dig?"

"Where it's safer? Have I been getting soft on you lately?" Danny cocked his head, trying to read Johnny's sense of dread.

"Even when you do win -which ain't exactly a sure thing, pipsqueak- all you do is stuff me in a damn thermos and send me home." He raised an eyebrow, then paused. His mocking expression fell to one of shock. "Dude, haven't you ever heard of Mistvir?"

"Who?"

Johnny leaned against the handlebars of his bike and fixed Danny with a patronizing expression. Danny puffed out his chest. "You know how Skulker's all about being 'the Ghost Zone's greatest hunter' and everything?" Johnny made midair quotes with gloved fingers, slumping his shoulders with his eyes rolling in deep sarcasm. "Well imagine him but, like, with a reason to be pissed off. I didn't stick around for the history lesson, but he's a ghost on a one-man ghost genocide."

"Why would he do that?" asked Danny, fully involved with Johnny's story. He crossed his legs in midair and leaned forward. A breeze was beginning to pick up. It pulled away the heat that had settled on their skin and rustled through their hair .

"Because he's a nutjob- how would I know? I'm just staying the Hell away. Tell you what-" Johnny started his bike back up and prepared to slip away. "If you let me hang out here for a couple days until this all blows over, I'll gladly turn myself in the next time we cross. How's that for a deal?"

Danny was about to rebuff the compromise but caught himself reconsidering. His gut instinct told him the other ghost was being sincere. It wasn't worth the added struggle in a night as hot as this one. "Fine, but you've got to behave. No looting, kidnapping or turning human girls into girlfriend mannequins."

"Deal." Johnny gave him a mocking salute before tearing off through the air, his shadow in close pursuit.

Danny felt very uncomfortable around Sam's parents. He, Sam and Tucker would laugh about the way they thought he was a 'bad influence' when they were on neutral ground, and Danny liked the feeling of being disapproved of by a girl's straight-edge parents. However, when he was forced into their company the glares just made him shy.

"Guys, I'm serious," Sam held a leaflet like a dishcloth, flapping it about with wide, unhappy gestures, "I'm not going to this getaway camp by myself- if they're going to indoctrinate me I'm not going down alone." Tucker tried to follow the brochure's typeface but it moved too fast. He snatched it out of the air and unfolded it.

"Purity rings and oaths of loyalty? Count me out. I don't even love my own parents that much. Danny?"

"No way," Danny glanced at it, scanning down the cute characters and Bible verses. He could practically smell the coffee mornings. "As much as I'd like to spend a fortnight with your parents at some bizzare cult, I've got to stay here. This town wouldn't last five seconds without Inviso-Bill. Oh hey," he grinned at Tucker and pointed to a watercolour painting of a young man, "Sure was nice of them to include one black guy."

Tucker rolled his eyes. "Right?" After a few seconds he sighed and handed the leaflet back to Sam. "Fine. But you owe me something huge. I don't know what that something is yet, but I'll let you know when I think of it." Sam looked incredibly relieved.

"Thanks, Tuck. You can consider it my next three Christmas gifts."

"That depends. Do I have to get baptised?"

Danny watched them barter, leaning back on the tablecloth they'd spread on the grass. Tucker had been going through a weird baking phase that none of them quite understood and the shattered remains of his projects were laid bare to the sunlight in tupperware containers. They'd had to take the brownies, muffins and shortbread to the park- you couldn't take baked goods anywhere near the Fenton homestead when Jack was home. Sam's voice brought his attention snapping back. "It's not like it matters anyway- so you get wet; it's not like you'll be enchanted by the mystical powers of Holy Water." She stretched out with relief on the blanket. They were all feeling sick from the sugar but she took another brownie anyway. "So what's with all the freaked-out ghosts recently? I've never seen anything like it before." Danny winced as he watched her eat. The food was good- Tucker was by no means a bad baker- but enough was enough.

"Some scary ghost is causing trouble in the Ghost Zone, I don't know." His hand reached out by itself and picked up a vanilla muffin. He unwrapped it. "It's pretty spooky and everyone seems tense, but so what? We've seen this stuff before."

Sam crumpled up a wrapper and tossed it at him. It curved lazily in the air. "If something's going down you need to know about it. Especially if Tucker and I are stuck in Missouri learning about abstinence." Danny winced again.

"That is so gross. And don't worry about it- I'm on the case. I just want a couple of hours of peace and quiet, with no ghosts and no thinking about ghosts."

"Fair enough," Tucker said as he pushed a container away from his head. The grass was cooler than the tablecloth and he slithered over to it. "Hey, you wanna take any of these home?"

Paulina's squeal yanked Danny across Amity Park's skyline. It was another night where the cars bled heatwaves, where the total absence of any wind made the darkness stagnant and tinny, and he had just begun to be thankful for how silent the evening had been. He forced some wind to comb through his hair as he cut through the sky. He followed the cry of distress to one of the more affluent areas of town. Here the stores were made of red brick and lattice windows, which looked particularly delicate when they were smashed along the sidewalk. He saw her backed into a wall, shrill and terrified as the scariest man Danny had ever seen loomed over her.

He was a ghost. His hair was wild and he wore furs and leather around a massive body that bulged with strength and adrenaline. He glowed with a green aura and the skin of his hands and upper face- the only places where his body touched the outer world- was white. The moment Danny landed the man abandoned Paulina and rounded upon him, drawing up to full, towering height. It was as if he were looking into the eyes of a scorpion. There was no humanity in them, not even a glimmer of recognition. Danny didn't even have time to throw out a line of banter before the ghost had drawn out a sword. In such big hands it looked like a knife, and the intimacy of such a short weapon only made it seem crueler. "Uh, miss?" He kept eye contact with the hateful shade and began to tread backwards, like he was backing away from a bear. "You might want to hide."

Paulina had slid to the floor. She watched the Ghost Boy back away and picked herself up, dusting shards of brick from her calves. Footstep by footstep she edged along the building, staring at the two ghosts. Every move she made was slow and careful as scenes from Jurassic Park cropped up in her memory. This ghost was no reptile. She gave him time to act. He raised his massive arm with an inhuman roar and sliced his sword towards Danny. Danny leapt back, sucking in his stomach and only just managing to avoid being messily eviscerated.

"Holy-!" He looked up in betrayal, not used to things getting so serious so fast. The gigantic man looked grim and uninterested. He swiped again and Danny's feet left the ground. He didn't dare put too much of a distance between them in case this monster rounded again on Paulina. Energy swept down his spine and out to his dead nerve endings as he summoned a blast of energy. A flash of green light erupted from his fists and smacked into the ghost's chest. "Ha!" The blast did nothing. The man's clothing hadn't even been singed.

That was okay, Danny reasoned. That happened a lot. Some ghosts just had more armor than a skinny teenage boy in spandex. He had no time to think up another ideas, though, before the now irritated Norseman stabbed forward. Swerving far enough to avoid the blow sent Danny off balance and he was unable to find neutral ground in midair. He had no time to right himself, every second was spent trying to avoid the next blow. He twisted and flipped, scampering back as tiny chunks of hair and fabric was stripped from him. "Wait, hang on! Will you stop for just one second?!" he yelled. The ghost looked at him. His blade erupted in flames. "Seriously?!"

The ghost's voice was so low it sent vibrations through his gut. "I have no time for whelps."

"I could say exactly the same thing." He grasped the thermos strapped to his waist and pointed it towards him. He blinked and the force of a car crash rocketed up his shoulders. When he looked down there was no thermos in his hand. It landed with a clunk next to Paulina's feet. He wanted to scream at her to run but that would only remind this guy that she was there. They made eye contact across the battlefield, the titan standing between them, and he made a pleading look for her to flee down the street. The ghost followed his gaze and Danny let out a gasp of fear. He snapped forward, cutting through the air as the ghost strode forward with his blazing sword held high. Paulina's shrill scream sliced through his head again and he followed it like a wire strung through his ear canals. He reached her first and grabbed her shoulders. It would only take him a moment to turn intangible but as a black shadow fell across him he saw the blow meant for Paulina. Something hot and sharp hit his face. The pain was so sudden, so severe that all thoughts of escape evacuated his head and nothing was left but the existance of that pain. He saw green light, then white light, then Paulina's continued screaming distracted him.

"Fly! Get us out of here!" He blindly gripped onto her waist and shot upwards. Their bodies dispersed into the midnight air.