CHAPTER 4

I am seriously disappointed in myself right now. I've always had a certain amount of hate against people who leave their stories on hiatus… Kudos to you guys who actually update in scheduled times. Wow. How do you do it? I mean, I left this story for more than a year, not even trying.

College life is a monster, I tell you. End of year assignments are just giants that trample you down for no reason. And I just started an internship. Being a PA is so tiring, hahaa.

But… thank you for the support. I tried my best, but I didn't really get the expectation I was hoping for. Tried the best I could, and I hope it gives you more answers, however vague they may be. And for;

1 One Piece Fan – I would like to meet this person who finds me to just feed me cake :D I don't think I'd mind that much, hahaha. I love cake! Cake is love. Cake is life.

… cake is already a year old. bleagh.

-000-

PREVIOUSLY:

"Dude," said Ben, his classmate, "is he talking to you? It looks like he's talking to you,"

"Yeah," said Danny, locking eyes with the ghost, "we've met,"

Suddenly, the ghost dove into the plane, eliciting panicked screams from his class and plane attendants, stopping just inches away from Danny's face, but he didn't even flinch.

"Let's play," whispered the ghost.

-000-

"Let's not," said Danny, pulling out a small ecto gun from his pocket, all the while thanking the gods above that it had stayed there and shot the ghost two times in the chest. It fell onto the floor of the plane, disoriented.

Before either of them could do anything else, a number of silver cables came flying towards the ghost and wrapped the tendrils around it, sending pulses of electricity, effectively shocking it.

Where the hell did Tucker get a Jack o' Nine Tails? And all the while Danny was thinking about this, the ghost was wailing like a little kid with a tantrum.

"Let me go! Release me now!"

"Not until you answer me first!" yelled Danny.

The ghost stopped wailing, somehow looking confused that he had actually listened to the teen.

"Okay, good…" said Danny, his eyes narrowed. What the heck? "Now, were you the one who took the plane down?"

There was a restless murmur in the crowd; he suddenly realised that there were so many people watching.

"Yesss…" it hissed reluctantly.

Keeping his temper in check, pinching the bridge of his nose, he growled, "Why? Do you know how many people could have died?"

"He told me to do it," the ghost pleaded.

Danny could feel his face paling even more, hearing his classmates gasp in disbelief, creating a panicked muttering all around them.

"What the hell?" yelled Dash.

"What does he mean by that?" said Nathan, voice in a higher octave than usual.

"Who the fuck told you to take down a plane full of kids?!" yelled one of the male flight attendants.

The ghost looked at Danny, a smile creeping onto his face, "He told me that he would help me if I did thisss… he said he would tell me my name," it rasped.

"Why would you willingly do all this for a name?" asked Sam, finally speaking after the panic had died down.

The ghost looked at Danny again, somehow able to pin Danny down with a stare, "I told you that time, he burnt my mind, and he would help me if I did this for him…" It lifted a finger and pointed it at the halfa, "You… remind me a lot of him,"

Danny gulped, hands shaking, "What do you mean?"

"You have the same scent," it rasped.

Danny gasped, mind going blank. It can't be him. Vlad wouldn't do something this stupid.

"Oh… you know who it isss, don't you young one?" it cackled.

"Fenton, what the fuck is he talking about?" said Kwan, eyes darting between the two. "Who is it?"

"Vlad," Danny gasped, "Vlad did this?"

"Vlad as in Vlad Masters, our mayor?" said another one of Danny's classmates, Jensen.

"No, he's not mayor anymore, remember? He was kicked out of office a few months ago!"

"No way! That doesn't make any sense!"

"That's bullshit!"

"STOP!" yelled Mr Lancer, trying to keep his rising panic at bay, "Moby Dick people! Please, just calm down everyone. We can get through this, just keep a level head," he then looked at Danny, whose face had gone ashen pale, "Now, Mr Fenton, whatever is happening here, you seem to understand more than we do. Please, if you have something to tell us, do it now,"

Danny shook his head, trying desperately to clear his head. When did everything get so blurry? He pressed his palms into his eyes, all the while taking deep, steady breaths; he would not pass out now.

"Okay Mr Lancer…" he muttered, finally looking at his class teacher. Damn, what a mess. "I'll tell you all that I can, just not right now. Right now, we have to concentrate on getting off this plane. I don't know if any of you have noticed, but water is still coming in fast. This thing is going to sink if we don't get off quick,"

Before anyone could say anything next, the bindings around the ghost snapped into pieces and it smiled at them. It was like déjà vu for Danny when he saw its jaw detached and elongate into the two-foot opening that he had seen in the mall.

Heart dropping to his stomach, he yelled, "Everybody, get down!" as the air was filled with a screeching wail that rocked the plane and the very waters of the sea. The occupants of the plane desperately tried to cover their ears from the deafening scream. They barely registered when the screams finally stopped, and when they looked up, the ghost was gone. Danny sighed; one problem solved for now.

"Shit!"

Looking over to whoever had just yelled, he took back whatever he just thought. Geez, didn't he ever learn? Whatever the ghost just did, it ripped another hole in the plane, and they were taking up water impossibly fast.

"Oh my God, what do we do?!" someone cried, their voice on the verge of breaking down.

"Hey! Uh, Mr Harrison?" said Danny, talking to the pilot, "Does this plane have a safety slide?"

The pilot, Mr Harrison nodded right away, wading through the plane and opening the cabin door and inflated the yellow safety slide. Danny was glad that he at least was keeping a level head.

Once the yellow safety slide was inflated, Harrison pulled on a piece of string hidden in the corner of the cabin door, successfully detaching the slide and making a raft big enough for all of them to safely float away in.

"Great Gatsby! Thank God! Alright kids, if there is anything that you can salvage, take it and get on the raft, quickly, quickly…" said Mr Lancer, ushering his students to the door.

Danny started wading through the waters – almost at his waist now – and started looking for his duffel bag. He hoped it wasn't too damaged.

"Danny!"

He turned, and to his surprise, his duffel was already in Tucker's hands, along with the rest of his own things.

"Great, thanks!" said Danny, shouldering his bag and leading his friends towards the exit. They were the only ones left on the sinking plane; everyone else was already on the raft ready to go.

"Mr Fenton!" yelled Mr Lancer, "Don't dawdle! Get on the raft now!"

"You heard the man," said Tucker, "let's get out of here,"

With that, they jumped into the water and swam to the raft that had already begun to float away with the currents. Since the raft didn't have any paddles, they had to swim six metres away from the plane, which was almost twenty feet. Danny helped Sam and Tucker get on the raft first before hoisting himself up on it.

The moment when everyone was settled inside the raft, it was like someone had cut a puppet string and everyone sagged into themselves, breathing and sobbing sighs of relief. Danny himself was laying limp on his back, his legs sticking out over the raft. God, he was exhausted. He needed to think, he needed to figure out what the hell was happening and he needed to do it fast but he just couldn't make himself do that just yet.

"That was fun," he groaned into the silence, closing his eyes.

Almost instantly, he felt eighteen pairs of eyes look at him like he had just said something against their mothers.

He snapped his eyes open, meeting the incredulous looks of his classmates and the adults. The first person to open his mouth was, unsurprisingly, Dash.

"That… you call that… whatthefu…" he spluttered, "FUN! He says fun…" Dash was slowly turning red in the face, but instead of blowing up like Danny was expecting, he was surprised when Dash started chuckling. It started off as just small giggles, but quickly escalated to full blown laughs.

"Um…"

Before Danny could say anything at all, next to Dash, Kwan started giggling into his fist, shoulders shaking with a sort of manic humour.

Okay, Danny thought, sitting up from his slumped position, this is getting scary. He started to get really worried when Sam, Sam of all people, giggled into her hands and all the while tears that were illuminated by the moonlight streamed down her face.

"Sam?" said Tucker worriedly, "Are you okay?"

Eyes still streaming with tears, she laughed, "Its n-not even f-funny," she spluttered, giggles still escaping her throat, "Why the f-fuck am I l-laughing?!" she broke off her sentence by laughing again.

Oh, look at that… Danny thought, laughter is contagious after all.

Slowly, laughs and giggles started spreading throughout the whole raft. Mr Lancer had tears in his eyes; the flight attendants were slumped into each other, holding their sides in pain, Mr Harrison was pinching his nose, vainly trying to stop the hysteric laughs aching to burst from his throat.

Danny and Tucker locked eyes, and for some reason, Tuckers lips were twitching into a smile.

"Dude, no, don't," said Danny, the beginnings of chuckles bubbling in the pit of his chest. Tucker's shoulders started shaking with silent laughs, fist shoved in his mouth to keep them from bursting out.

Danny suddenly burst into fitful laughs, holding his sides in pain at the sudden movement. And just like that, the raft floating in the middle of the ocean was echoing the seas with laughs of the newly stranded.

"It's just the shock right?" asked Mikey after gulping in deep breaths, "We're not crazy are we?"

"Ha ha ha! No, no, we're not crazy," said Mara, who was usually a quiet bookworm, was now wiping tears from her eyes, giggles still escaping her mouth, "W-we survived a fucking plane crash! Ha ha!"

That earned another round of laughs, and even a few whoops.

Finally calming down, Danny composed himself. Yes, he was exhausted, but complaining about it never fixed anything. Sitting up with a painful groan – he ached all over – he looked to his friends and was glad to see that they had composed themselves as well.

"Well Tuck, if that PDA of yours is still working; where the hell are we?" Danny asked. He noticed that most of his classmates had stopped with their laughing fits and now looking at the three of them intently.

Tucker pulled his PDA out of his pocket and opened up a few new windows. "Sam, you still have your phone with you?"

"Um…" she rummaged through the small spider backpack that she still carried around, "Yes!" she whooped, holding up her phone.

"Great, now switch it on," said Tucker, eyes never leaving the PDA screen.

"Done,"

"Um, excuse me," said Ben from a few feet away, "Care to share what y'guys are doing?"

"Well…" replied Tucker, "Nowadays, it's pretty easy to track the location of someone's phone, as long as you know where to go to look. I just need her phone to be switched on…" he trailed off, doing a series of clicks with his PDA pen, "… and, voila! I know where we are!"

"Excellent!" Mr Lancer crowed, "Where are we?"

Danny peeked in to the PDA screen and sighed, "Well, that puts a damper on my mood," he addressed the whole raft, "We are in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, which I'm pretty sure I knew already,"

Groans of disappointment filled the air.

But then Danny saw something in the PDA he didn't see before. He snatched the gadget from his friend's hand, ignoring the indignant "hey!" and looked closely. Sure, when using an atlas to find out where you are will get you nowhere, but since Tucker was using a live satellite feed, Danny saw a tiny blip on the radar, about a hundred kilometres away from their location.

He handed the PDA back to its owner and ignoring the aches in his body, stood up on the raft, causing it to rock dangerously.

"Hey!" yelped Jensen, a boy he was pretty good friends with, "What'cha doing there man?" he held on to the sides of the raft frantically, as did many of the others when it continued to sway.

Barely hearing the protests, Danny scanned his surroundings. It was times like these where he was thankful for his powers; using his ghost vision, he did a full 360˚ turn on the raft until he saw it – there – he could barely see it himself but it was there.

An island. Land.

He rubbed his forehead, heaving a sigh of relief. "Thank God," he whispered.

"Danny?" said Ben, "Um… dude, you wanna sit down?"

"Yeah Danny, you don't look too good," said Sam, reaching up to pull on his hand. "Did you see something?"

Sitting down with a heavy sigh, he nodded, "Yeah, there's an island, about 100 kilometres away from our position," he was tired and achy, and he couldn't care less about the people hearing into their conversation right now.

"Wait wait…" said Mr Harrison, "You're telling us you saw an island, one-hundred kilometres away, at night, with only your bare eyes?" he asked incredulously.

God, I am in so much trouble… he thought, holding his head in his hands. He was seriously thinking he needed to pass out for a bit.

"Yes, I saw a piece of land, one-hundred kilometres away, at night, with my bare eyes," he said, looking directly at the pilot, "It's a gift,"

Yep, as of right now, he really didn't care if he transformed into Danny Phantom right there and then. He just wanted out of this damn place.

Slumping down on the raft, he pointed to his left, "It's that way,"

It was almost funny when they turned their heads to the direction that he was pointing at, like cats would follow pen lasers and then look back at him in confusion when they didn't see anything.

"You sure you're not seeing things man?" asked Ben, his grey eyes standing out in the moonlight, "I mean, you were tossed around like a ragdoll when we crashed. Maybe you have a concussion?"

"Actually, yeah," said Tracey, Mikey's fraternal twin, "I was in the row next to yours, and you were sort of…hanging on for dear life when the plane went down, and –" she was suddenly aware that everyone was looking at her, "– and I guess you hit your head…?" she trailed off self-consciously.

"Alright, Mr Fenton," Mr Lancer interrupted, "I asked this question earlier, and I'll ask again now; what on Earth is going on? And what do you know that we don't?"

"Mr Lancer –" Danny started but was interrupted once again.

"And don't make excuses like 'there's no time', because we're stuck in a raft," he gestured to everything around him, "Time is all that we have right now,"

"Listen to me," Danny insisted, "It's not just something I can tell you, because frankly, this is bigger than all of you and I don't expect you to just accept something like this just like that! Heck, I'm still trying to make sense of it all, and this happened four years ago!"

There was a stunned silence in the group, and then –

"You can't just expect us to sit here without explanations! All of us could have died tonight, and that's the best you can do?" yelled Connor, the flight attendant, "We deserve answers," he finished determinedly.

"I'll tell you what I can," said Danny, glaring at Connor, "But only after we get everyone on that island because it's freezing and temperatures at the Atlantic are only going to get lower,"

"I think that's a great idea," said Mr Lancer, "How do we get there?"

"I have an idea, actually," said Tucker.

Heads turned to the techno geek, making him grin sheepishly, "It's simple; the technology on the Fenton Thermos is used to suck in ghosts like a vacuum. If I can reverse the mechanism, then it should turn into an aerodynamic motor of sorts," Tucker finished.

It didn't take Tucker any longer than five minutes. When he was done, he carefully stood up on the raft – making sure that he didn't rock it too much – and tested it out in the air. There was a sudden jolt as the thermos blasted out a blue-hued swirl of wind. Tucker tried in vain to keep it controlled, but the thermos was giving out too much energy and he spent a few moments stumbling on the already unstable

In fear of tipping the raft over, Danny quickly stood up and grabbed the thermos from his friend's hands and clicked the 'off' button. There was a moment of silence as they tried to gain composure, before –

"IT WORKED!" yelled Tucker.

Whoops filled the air as the others realised that they actually had a chance to get out of the water.

While everyone else was celebrating the small victory, Tucker whispered to Danny, "We do have one problem,"

"What?" the half-ghost whispered back.

"It's almost out of charge, it won't carry us the rest of the trip there," Tucker said grimly, "I know it's asking a lot, but there is something you can do,"

"Tuck, I'm on my last reserves here, I'll be completely useless after that," said Danny.

"Dude, I know, but we're desperate! We'll freeze if we stay here any longer!" the techno-geek half yelled, making sure he was not heard.

Danny sighed; he really hated it when Tucker was right, "Okay,"

Tucker nodded grimly, handing him the thermos, "You're navigating," he said loud enough for everyone to hear.

Danny braced himself at the end of the raft, thermos facing towards the sea. He willed the ectoplasm to surge from his hands to power the thermos. There was a momentary glow of neon green and suddenly it roared to life, jolting the raft and everyone in it.

There were several yelps of panic as Danny struggled to gain control of the small object in his hands – did Tucker have to make it so strong?!

"Everybody, hold on!" he yelled, thrusting the thermos forward and setting the raft in motion.

The still night was suddenly filled with yelps and screams again as they zipped pass the ocean at an alarming speed. Danny made sure that he kept with the navigation, all the while constantly making sure that he poured more energy into the thermos as they got closer to their destination.

The journey only took ten minutes in reality but for Danny, it was too long. When the island was finally visible to everyone's eyes, his hands were shaking violently and his eyes could no longer focus. He relied on only his senses to finish the journey and to make sure that everyone reached the island safely.

He could feel Sam and Tucker next to him, bracing their hands on his back when they felt him tilt to the side. When he felt the raft falter and the sound of sand filled his ears, he released the thermos and they finally stopped. A dizzy spell hit Danny again and he listed to the side, only to be caught by Tucker.

"You okay dude?" he asked as he held Danny steady. The halfa could only groan, slumping into his best friend's hold, too drained to do anything.

Thankfully for Danny, everyone else was too busy ogling at the fact that they had actually arrived at the island no one knew about. They made their way off of the raft slowly, feet thumping against the sand.

Danny was grateful that everyone was so distracted. He tried his best to regain control, but he was exhausted. His whole body was shaking, he could hear his shallow breathing and he was cold. Shivering; and that almost never happened. He could hear his friends quietly ask him if he was okay, gentle hands brushing against his body.

He decided then that it wasn't worth the effort. He's done with the day, and he was tired of fighting. With one last shuddering breath, he listed to the side and blacked out.

Tucker caught him.