I just decided to stick the rest in here. 6 is a good number. Please forgive me for the unfortunate ending place.

I sat up, alarm blaring, only to find myself hovering two feet above my bed.

"What in the - aah!" I fell. Geez. That sure didn't make my leftover bruises from falling onto the ground last night feel any better. I rubbed my forehead and turned my alarm off. Could I go back to sleep...? A glance at the red numbers on the clock said yes, but my bruises said no. Oh well.

I slid from my bed and took the extra few seconds to find actually clean clothing. Usually, I just grabbed what was closest, since I was running late more often than not. If this floating thing insisted on happening every night, I'd start being on time. Ha, right.

Did Mom make breakfast every morning? I could smell potatoes and bacon and coffee. Wow, I was hungry. I made my way downstairs.

"Ghost detected," said a robotic female voice. I stopped and looked confused. It wasn't hard. "Ghost detected." Oh, wait, this was that one thing Mom and Dad had set up a year ago. I thought I had fiddled with it enough to ignore me, but apparently they'd made some upgrades.

Mom swung around and pointed a small ectogun at me. I flinched, but tried to hide it, instead just raising my eyebrow. The back of my neck prickled.

"Oh, it's just you, sweetie," she said in relief, then reached to switch the detector off. The gun disappeared somewhere into her hazmat suit. "You've been eating more cookies, haven't you?"

"Um, yeah?" I answered truthfully (for once), and finished entering the kitchen.

"Interesting. And they don't have any adverse effects?" Mom asked. She turned around again to stir the potatoes.

I thought quickly. Would she expect something like what Sam and Tucker had experienced? Since it had happened more than once, I decided to chance it. I poured some coffee into my rocket mug.

"Not really," I said carefully. "I'll go invisible for, like, two minutes sometimes, but that's okay," I hurried to add.

Mom hummed under her breath. "Maybe you should stop, honey. Ghost energy can corrupt a human."

Now that was something that hadn't come up before. "What? How?"

"Exposure to a lot of ectoplasm and ghostly activity can make people start to act more like ghosts, with violent behavior and disregard for other humans," Mom explained.

"So... shouldn't everybody in this town act violent?" I pointed out. "After all, everybody's seen plenty of ghosts. And we were all dunked into the Ghost Zone that one time, too."

Mom considered, pouring potatoes onto a plate for me. I should get up early more often, I thought, watching the potatoes. They looked good.

"I suppose you're right about that," she said. "But I still don't think eating those cookies could be healthy."

"Don't worry, Mom," I said, my mouth full already. "I don't eat that many." I couldn't help but think of the nearly-empty bowl hidden in the pantry. "And a lot of them really have run away," I added, for completeness's sake.

"Well, all right," Mom said. "I suppose you're old enough to make your own decisions... Just be careful, okay? I can't guarantee a cure for anything that might happen."

Cure? I snorted. "I'll be okay, Mom. Thanks for worrying."

I finished my potatoes and rinsed my plate, though I couldn't help but wonder if they would have tasted better with the glowing ketchup rather than the normal kind. Oh well. I threw together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (nothing glowing, unfortunately), then dashed out the door.

"Bye, Mom! See you later!"

I stuffed the lunch bag into my backpack, then found my bunch of bushes to transform. I didn't strictly need to today, but I had grown used to flying rather than walking to school. Plus it was more fun.

Today, though, I had to stop well before the boy's bathroom at school. I looked in dismay at the bright green dome the ECU had, apparently, erected around our school. Upon closer inspection, I realized they hadn't set up any of those ectocontamination detector doorways, so I was safe. I just had to transform and walk through the shield like a normal kid.

Oh well. Today, I fine. Plenty of time to get to class.

And, of course, that was when my phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Danny, where are you?" It was Sam. She sounded anxious.

"Um... walking to school. And on time for once," I said.

"No, not on time!" Sam almost shouted. "I can't believe you forgot!"

"Forgot what?" I asked. I started to speed up.

"It's fun field trip day! The class is going to laser tag! Remember, Operation Get Dash?"

I choked and ran faster.

"That's today?" Every year, Casper High funded one "fun" field trip day for each class, as a counterpoint to the few boring ones we had. We'd gone bowling, ghost hunting (that was not as fun), and even went to the local food bank. Now, we were going to laser tag. It was a senior year tradition, and Sam, Tucker, and I had been looking forward to it since freshman year.

"Um, yeah!" said Sam with a snark. "And we're lining up to get on the bus. Outside the new ghost shield, in case you were worried. So get your butt over here!" She hung up.

Now I was running flat-out to get to the bus on time. The potatoes I'd eaten sloshed around in my stomach, making me question my calendar-keeping skills. Out of all the things I had to forget, why did it have to be laser tag day?

I barely made it. I skidded to the end of the line, just behind Sam and Tucker.

"Well, Mr. Fenton. Glad you could make it on time. For once," said the teacher, Mr. Lancer, marking something on the clipboard in his hands. His uninterested voice was as monotone as ever. Did he ever have fun? I wondered sometimes.

I laughed guiltily. "Yeah, well, my mom made breakfast." Then I dashed up the bus's stairs before he could say anything else.

Inside, the bus was ridiculously noisy. The entire (fortunately tiny) twelfth-grade class was packed into one bus: A-listers in the back, then the B kids, and all the nerds and unpopular dorks in the front. Well, at least we didn't have far to walk, and we were a respectable distance from Dash and his cronies. Unfortuately, that also meant we were closer to Mr. Lancer than I would have preferred.

"Sorry I forgot, guys,"I said once we were sitting down. The benches were made for two people, but all three of us were pretty skinny and didn't mind squishing.

"You're here, dude, so who cares?" Tucker, as usual, got straight to the point. Then he took his PDA out and pulled out some drawing app.

"All right," he said seriously. "Let's get down to business. Operation Get - " he cut off, glancing at Lancer, who was talking to the bus driver. Tucker lowered his voice. "Get Dash. Anyway. I hacked the laser tag place's computers - their security was pathetic, by the way - and got the layout for the floor."

Sam leaned in from Tucker's right. "Not bad," she commented. "Glad to see this new hunk of junk is doing something useful."

"Oh, yeaahhh," Tucker smiled, patting the PDA. "Nancy's got beautiful 3D rendering, so I ran the layouts through those programs to get this." He scrolled expertly around the model on the screen, which was, indeed, a 3D version of what I assumed was the laser tag arena.

"So... we just hop around those walls and shoot each other with fake guns?" I asked. I had never actually been to laser tag before. Our family outings tended to use more ectoguns than that. I considered myself a good shot, anyway.

Sam and Tucker looked at me blankly.

"You've never been laser tagging before?" Sam said in disbelief.

I shrugged. "No. But Tuck's only been once, right?"

"Twice, but I see your point," Tucker answered.

Sam sat back. "No wonder you guys are so bad at Doomed."

"I'm good at video games!" I shot back, but Tucker interrupted.

"Anyway," he said, drawing the word out and shooting an annoyed look at Sam. "I'm thinking the Grab and Flea strategy."

"Um... Tuck?" I said. "That requires invisibility. And I'm not going to do that in a crowded room, especially a crowded room that probably has ectodectors."

"So? It's going to be dark," Tucker whined. I gave him a flat glare. "...But I guess we could always try the Duckling. That doesn't directly rely on any of your powers."

"You're forgetting that Dash is going to be surrounded by the football team," Sam interjected. "And very possibly the basketball team. We need to approach this differently. I recommend the Distracto Button."

"But that needs a fishhook. I don't wanna be the fishhook again," Tucker complained.

Sam rolled her eyes. "You won't need to be, Tuck. Dash is probably going to find Danny within seconds, anyway."

"I can't be the fishhook!" I burst. "That would only leave you two to fend for yourselves against the sports teams. Not happening."

"Danny, relax." Sam reached across Tucker to put her hand directly on top of my head, the way she did when she thought I was being overly dramatic. "It's not a life and death situation. Just a game. We're going to be fine."

"I do think it's the best choice," Tucker added. That didn't help.

I glowered. Even if Same was right, and this was just a game, I still didn't want to be the bait. "The Soup Can," I suggested surlily.

Sam sighed. "Thermoses don't work on humans, and especially not the entire football team in the middle of a field trip. And besides, you won't be flying."

"Butter Baby?"

"I seriously doubt Dash is going to want to talk to any of us long enough to fall for that."

"Cottage Cheese!"

"No ectoweapons, Danny! This is just laser tag!" Sam threw up her hands in exasperation.

"Fine. Distracto Button it is," I sighed.

Tucker piped up. "We can start out in Ninja formation. It works best when Danny isn't..." he looked around, realizing that he was being loud. "Uh, wearing shoes?" I winced at Tucker's attempt at a save. Luckily, it didn't look like we were being listened to, so I let it go.

"All right," Sam continued, all business now that she wasn't arguing with me. "First phase: Ninja, second phase: Distracto Button - Danny as fishhook, Tucker as the right wire, me as left. Oh, and if we add the Wedge to that beforehand, we should be able to get Dash alone. Then when that's over, another simple Ninja should keep us relatively safe until the end."

"Sounds like a plan," I agreed. Then sighed again. "I guess I'll just have to get over being the fishhook."

"Yep!" said Tucker happily. He shoved his PDA back into our faces. "Now let's figure out exactly where."

We spent a good five minutes finding the optimal place for our strategy, and even assigned a few backup plans in case the football team did something we weren't expecting. The probabilities of that were low.

"That wall should be good cover," I pointed out. Sam agreed with a nod and opened her mouth to add something, but we were interrupted.

"And what are you three discussing?" asked Mr. Lancer from right in front of us.

I stopped and exchanged a look with Sam. Tucker buried himself deeper into his PDA. How much had Lancer heard?

"Video game strategies, Mr. Lancer," Sam said nervously, though she did a good job of hiding it. He was fooled, and sighed.

"Even you three are talking about video games? I swear, those things have taken over the lives of every one of my students."

Unexpectedly, the bus lurched to a stop. The chatter on the bus grew even louder as the students realized that we had arrived. Mr. Lancer tried to stand and yell some instructions, but it was hopeless. He was the first off the bus, then tried to mark every student on his clipboard as they poured onto the street.

The class made a loud entrance into the building, filtering in two or three at a time. The school wasn't very large, thankfully. Tucker, Sam, and I were the front edge, far enough away from the A-listers that they didn't notice us, but close enough that we all got on a different team. All according to plan. The safety rule spiel was brief but firm, and to my relief, they didn't say anything about ghosts..

Tucker had to help me figure out all the straps and stuff on the vest part, but luckily for me, it wasn't that hard. The point systems weren't turned on yet, but the football team was having fun shooting lasers at each other. I rolled my eyes and shot at the wall. Apparently, I was lucky. My laser gun had pretty true aim, while Sam's was wild and Tucker's was just a little off. Oh well. We'd dealt with my parents' weapons before, and some of Dad's ideas involved a barrel pointing a completely different direction than where the projectile actually ended up going. "Confuse 'em," he'd said.

The class was let out into the big room where it all happened. Finally! It was darker than I expected. Just a few black lights and neon paints on the walls lit the place up. Somewhere in the distance, a fog machine hissed, and it got even harder to see. The fog-machine smell filled the air, and I wrinkled my nose at it. Bleh.

"These aren't ideal conditions at all," I grumbled as the class poured out of the small "armory".

"It's not meant to be," Sam said, a huge, uncharacteristic grin on her face. "It's a game!"

We hurried to the wall we'd chosen to begin at and took our places in the Ninja formation. It was stupidly simple, designed for those times I couldn't use my powers. Calling it Ninja had been Tucker's idea, like a ninja star. That had started a whole wave of naming our different strategies slightly nonsensical things, which I hadn't originally seen the point of. As our ghost fights got more intense, though, simply yelling out a word or three got a lot easier than taking a ten minute time-out to discuss strategies.

"All right, Casper High seniors!" A perky male voice came over the crackly intercom. Loud techno music started playing. "We're about to start round one of three! Remember: no running, no physical contact - " I snorted. Dash would break that rule in half a second. " - and have fun!" The music got even louder, making me wince. Our guns lit up and made sci-fi "booting up" noises.

"Here we go," said Tucker excitedly from behind me.

"Three - two - one - " said a robotic voice over the intercom. "Go!"

Almost immediately, I started to pump the trigger at the people around us. The gun didn't shoot as fast as I wanted it to, but I got plenty of people who just ran all over the place. Was this how they acted during ghost attacks? No wonder I had so much to do.

Sam and Tucker, their backs towards mine, started to move. We had a lot of practice understanding each other, so it wasn't very difficult to get from one hiding place to another. An entire minute had passed before I shouted over the din of music and recorded blaster sounds. At least the fog had started to disappear, since the machine had switched off earlier.

"We need to move out of cover!" I said. "The point is for Dash to find us!"

As expected, it took only seconds of us being out in the obvious open for Dash and the football team to come out of the fog. I pretended not to notice, but signaled my friends and moved away from them to make myself a better target. Geesh, I hated being the bait. Hooray for the Distracto Button.

"You're dead, Fenturd," Dash said. He smiled meanly.

"Real original, Dash," I muttered. I had stopped being intimidated by this guy long ago, but for some reason he still liked to try to hit me.

The football team fanned out inexpertly behind Dash. I was pleased to see that they took the exact places that Tucker had predicted they would. That meant this ambush would go even better than expected. We'd get to use our primary plans on, like, everything.

... of course, that meant a few new bruises for me. At least the ones from the snake last night had mostly disappeared.

As I looked around in fake desperation, I caught sight of Valerie. She was moving through the darkness with practiced ease, stalking the group of A-listers near the football team. I had to suppress a smile at the image of them being pounded by the Red Huntress. I hoped that having her there would make it easier, not harder, for Sam and Tucker to complete their parts of this plan.

Dash approached me alone, his laser gun forgotten by his side. I did my best to look scared and small, and apparently I did a good job. The other buff guys who had hung back chuckled.

"Looks like you're all alone. In the dark." Dash laughed. I was tempted to roll my eyes. That wasn't even funny. He reached for me and I shied away.

"No - no physical contact," I stammered. Dash's grin grew wider.

"And who's gonna enforce that rule, wimp?" Dash looked to the side. "Kwan? Butch? Nah, they won't squeal." He grabbed the front of my shirt and towed me in. I braced for impact.

Stars. Weird how a punch to the eye put me exactly in the place I'd always wanted to be.

I knew real pain wouldn't come for a moment longer, since this wasn't my first rodeo, but I played it up anyway. Dash wasn't nearly smart enough to realize that most punches didn't hurt as much as he thought they did, especially when his victim (me) was used to being literally tossed around by ghosts three times his size. And with a thousand percent more brains.

I fell to the dirty black carpet, Dash having pushed me hard. The laser tag vest was stiff and jabbed into my neck. It made a few half-hearted noises, like some scared animal. I glanced around, realizing that the football team had disappeared, courtesy of my friends. Sam and Tucker were closing in on Dash from behind. Valerie was standing off to the side, eyebrow quirked. I hoped she fell for the act I gave Dash, too. It wouldn't be that good if she knew just how far we planned this, and how often we'd used this sort of attack before.

Tucker caught my eye and signaled.

Finally, I thought. Fishhook time was over. I blinked my eyes hard a few times to clear them, then stood up with ease. Dash stepped backward on reflex, his expression dropping from intimidating to surprised. It was funny. I guess his usual punching bag (... me) didn't usually get up.

I quickly ran through what would happen next. If this was a typical Destructo Button, this would be about the time I would get a clean shot to the ghost's core from behind, but Dash wasn't a ghost. Nor was I a wire, not this time. I just held Dash's attention, and I think I kind of freaked him out with a bit of an unintentional cold ghost aura thing. Sam suddenly jumped out of nowhere, and she got the honor of pinning Dash behind a barrage of laser fire.

Tucker and I took our positions behind her, facing outward in our Ninja form again. The fog machine hissed on. I smiled maniacally with the thrill of our victory, even if it had been short. Sam continued to nail Dash over and over again, even as he tried to fight back and get to cover. He wasn't able to shoot back for a soldi few minutes. A few other students joined us, too, so Dash couldn't even start punching his way out. There were too many other people. Valerie stayed away, dodging my sad little gun's efforts. She preferred to pick away at the group from a distance, and got nearly everyone - including me, to my frustration.

A countdown over the intercom began, letting us know that round one was almost over. The revenge wasn't much, but it was definitely sweet, especially because nobody actually got hurt. Just Dash's pride. And had that been a blow.

The next round, we weren't as lucky. We couldn't use the same strategy twice in a row, particularly with Valerie watching us suspiciously, so we hid up on a platform and tried to snipe off those who came close. It would have worked if there had been one less ramp up to the platform us three were using as a nest. And if Dash hadn't been so mad that he set the entire football team on us. And the basketball team. As it was, we had to jump down almost five feet out of a window and hide. We had been able to hold out long enough, though, and the second round ended just when we had gotten away.

The third round was almost just as bad, but it was the most fun. Sam, Tucker, and I ran around like crazy, not bothering to employ any strategies besides a basic Ninja. Even that barely happened. Eventually, we got stuck behind some low-lying walls, occasionally popping out to shoot somebody.

"So what do we do now?" Tucker asked, smiling. All three of us were hunched behind a tiny wall, facing the back of the room. We were safe for the moment, if sort of squished.

Sam dropped down, having just pegged a few clueless students. "What would we do if we were stuck here with ghosts everywhere?"

I shrugged. "Erect a shield, go ghost, stand up, let loose... typical Bash 'Em and Run."

"Your favorite," muttered Tucker.

"That's not what I meant, Danny," Sam snapped with a joke in her voice.

"If we were really fighting ghosts, you can bet your butt I would use my powers!" I replied defensively. "But you're right. This is just laser tag. Crappy fake guns and black lights."

"And fog," Tucker added when the fog machine just above us started to hiss. Great. More of that fake chemical stuff. I poked my head above the short wall, trying to peer through the haze.

I saw Valerie's yellow hoodie approaching. As far as I could tell, she hadn't noticed us yet. Perfect. Time for some anonymous, but no less sweet, payback. I narrowed my eyes and aimed my gun, but before I could get off a shot, Sam pulled me down.

"Sam! I was just about to get Valerie!" I complained.

She didn't answer, but looked at me in the eyes with a stern expression. Tucker got Valerie instead, and Sam sighed in what I thought was relief.

"What was that about?" I asked, sulking.

"Dude, your eyes were glowing green," Tucker answered, coming back down to my level with wide eyes.

I blinked. "Uh... really? Usually that doesn't happen unless I want it to..."

Sam pushed my shoulder into the wall with annoyance. "Yes, really. You need to be more careful."

"You need to be more careful!" came a voice from just above us. We looked up to see Valerie standing there, grinning wildly. She shot all three of our vests quickly and disappeared, laughing, before I could get her back

"I thought you got her, Tuck!" I said in confusion.

"I don't know, I couldn't really see her! There's a freakin' heck of a lot of fog around here."

I tilted my head. "I could see her just fine..."

"Guys!" Sam hissed, her eyes barely above the wall. She probably blended in. "Football team, twelve o'clock!"

We all poked our guns out and shot in almost random directions. It was like the football team just ran into our laser beams, honestly. We laid waste to them. Twice. They found us, though, since our stupid vests glowed. Like, seriously, how did people think laser tag was good practice for ghost hunting? The football team looked... more angry than usual. Dash, in particular, glared daggers at me when he found me. My eye twinged. Great, like I needed another bruise. It was probably a good thing it was Friday - he wouldn't know that the bruise would be gone by tomorrow, since I wouldn't see him again until Monday. Hooray, I wouldn't have to use my fake-bruise makeup kit pilfered from Sam's eyeshadows!

... aaaand that's where I stopped writing a few months ago. It's got a fun voice, and some decent jokes. Way too much drama, though. :) Hope you had fun reading it!