Here's the first edited chapter! All the grammar mistakes and (small) plotholes have been fixed, and it'll hopefully be much better. It's also longer, but the basic plot has not changed. Enjoy!
::IMPORTANT:: The reviewer responses have all been moved to a separate chapter at the end, following the Medical Reference Guide.
Disclaimer – I don't own DP. I don't own DP. I don't own DP…you get the idea.
Prologue -
From the outside, Amity Park looked like your average, ordinary, run-of-the-mill city. They had a few large retail stores, a decent-sized mall, and a large airport. The city crime rate was low, and the employment rate was high.
Seeing the crowds of people carelessly drifting through the mall, shopping for whatever odds and ends they needed, one might even think the cheesy entrance sign declaring Amity Park as a 'nice place to live' was true.
That façade of normalcy was broken by one thing – Ghosts.
If a person stayed in Amity Park for more than a week or two, witnessing a ghost attack or seeing one on the news was inevitable. Most of these sightings involved a white-haired, green-eyed, teenage ghost boy named Danny Phantom.
It took the people of Amity Park a while to get with the program, but after some time, the town accepted Danny as the hero that he was. Eventually, they stopped trying to hunt him down. Now when ghosts appeared, he would be the one to stop them.
'Now if only I could get them to stop trying to get my autograph or dissect me,' the aforementioned ghost boy thought sarcastically as he flew high over the city. He was currently searching for the ghost that he knew was there. That was one of the perks of ghost powers – he could sense when ghosts were around.
Danny wasn't a normal ghost by any stretch of the imagination. He was, in fact, only half ghost. Only four people in the city knew, but his real name was Danny Fenton. Like the city itself, Danny Fenton appeared to be an average kid on the outside.
"Whoa!" Danny exclaimed as he lost his balance in the air for the second time that day. He dropped down nearly ten feet before he finally caught himself. "Just great! My powers are acting up. Nah, I'm being paranoid. It was probably just the wind sheer or something like that," he tried to convince himself, brushing the slip from his mind as he focused on the more important issue at hand – finding that ghost.
"There he is," Danny whispered under his breath as he saw the ghost in front of him. A ghost named Skulker, who hid his diminutive form in a tall robotic-like suit.
"Hey ugly! I'm over here!" Danny shouted, getting the attention of the ghost zone's self-proclaimed greatest hunter, who was currently terrorizing a group of adults. The group of four had been minding their own business when Skulker had attacked them.
"I was wondering when you'd show up, whelp!" the 7-foot-tall robot smirked as he heard Danny's voice behind him. "At least now there's a real challenge, unlike these pathetic humans," Skulker said, turning toward Danny and giving the group of adults a chance to run for their lives. A chance they took with gratitude.
"Let's just get this over with Skulker. I don't have all day, ya know. Some of us have to study for Mr. Lancer's English test tomorrow," Danny said in a bored tone of voice, taking a thermos from his back and aiming it at the ghost. He tried to ignore the pain he felt. He couldn't be distracted if he was going to win.
"You think you can trap me that easily? Think again, whelp!" He shouted at Danny. "I'm Skulker! The greatest hunter in the ghost zone and earth," he declared, taking out another ecto-gun and aiming it at Danny. "And I swore that one day I'd be the one to finally defeat you!"
"Please, you have yet to even come close. Remember the shrink-ray?" Danny taunted. He dodged the few blasts Skulker sent at him, but just barely, and tried to ignore how tired he felt. 'I usually fly a lot faster. That can't be a good sign,' he thought.
Skulker's response to Danny's statement was two more blasts from the ecto-gun he now had on his shoulder, which Danny only just avoided.
"You can't run away forever, ghost child! I'll defeat you one way or another!" Skulker shouted as Danny swerved to avoid several missiles that the hunter shot at him.
"I'm not running!" Danny shouted back, shooting a few blasts of his own at his opponent. He didn't want to use his newly acquired ice powers just yet – he needed a few surprises to help tip the scale in his favor, after all. Catching an opponent off guard by using a new ability could be the difference between winning and loosing a fight.
Skulker seemed confused for a second as he dodged the two blasts easily, but then the look on his face morphed into one of arrogance just a few seconds later.
'Where are Sam and Tucker?' Danny thought while his fight with Skulker continued. He sent two more blasts at the ghost, but again Skulker evaded them. 'Skulker seems a lot tougher since we last fought. I think I'm going to need their help to defeat him this time.' He watched as Skulker dodged three more blasts the half-ghost had sent toward him. 'Crud! He's faster now, too! I've gotta pay more attention to the fight!'
Skulker pulled a bazooka from his arsenal of weapons and aimed it at Danny.
He managed to shoot the weapon one time before he was shot by another ecto-blast coming from behind him, causing him to loose focus. He never even got the see the blast hit its target.
"Who dares sneak up on Skulker, the greatest hunter there is?" he shouted angrily, turning around to face whatever opponent was stupid enough to sneak up behind him.
When he turned around, all he saw was a massive flying vehicle that was headed right for him. A vehicle piloted by two very familiar passengers.
"Tucker, now!" Sam shouted to the technology wiz from the passenger side of the Specter Speeder.
Tucker just nodded in response and pushed ten different dials on the complex dashboard only he knew how to fully operate, causing a myriad of weapons to appear - all of them pointing to where Skulker was.
"You'll never defeat me! For I am Skulker! Skulker! All will fear me!" he shouted at them. A second later all of the weapons fired, effectively destroying his battle suit.
"I think you're not as feared as you think you are," Danny said in a weak voice, coming up to Skulker and capturing him in the Fenton thermos.
"Danny, what happened to you?" Sam asked, running out of the Specter Speeder to check on him. Danny looked like he was in pain.
"Don't worry, Sam. I'm fine," Danny insisted. "But thanks for the save you guys. I don't think I could've won that fight if you hadn't shown up when you did," he admitted to both Sam and Tucker, who had finally joined them after shutting off the Specter Speeder.
Tucker looked at him oddly. "Dude, come on. It was just a fight with Skulker. You've defeated him at least ten times already. Why would this time be any differ - ow! Jeez, that hurt, Sam!" He yelled as Sam kicked him in the shin.
"You know that no ghost is easy to defeat, Tucker," she chastised, then turned to look at Danny, "But he really does have a point. why was this time so difficult?"
"I honestly don't know," Danny admitted, sitting down and trying to ignore the slight pain in his chest. "He just seemed to be a lot harder to defeat today for some reason. I barely dodged the rest of the shots, not to mention I got hit by that last one, and I didn't hit him once!"
"You do look pretty beat up, dude," Tucker said. "Are you sure you're going to okay?" he asked, now concerned for his best friend's health.
"I got hit with a blast from that bazooka, but it shouldn't be something that a little rest can't cure," Danny replied, trying to assure his two best friends that he was fine. 'Well, If I ignore how tired I am and the pain from where the blast hit, it really is true,' he thought to himself. He stood up and, doing his best not to wince in pain, slowly walked to the Specter Speeder. "It's like I'm in slow motion today or something. I could barely keep up."
"Let's just get you back to your place, then you can get some shut-eye. You probably aren't getting enough sleep or something," Sam said, looking at Danny worriedly. He sounded like he was in bad shape, but she knew he'd never willingly admit that something was wrong.
Danny just nodded in response and sat down in the back seat of the Specter Speeder. He de-transformed into his human self as soon as he sat down. As he buckled up his seatbelt, he couldn't help but curse the fact that his injuries hurt more when he was human.
The Fenton Household
"Danny, glad you're finally home before curfew!" Jack Fenton shouted from the couch as his son walked through the front door looking pretty beat up. "What happened to you?" He asked, seeing the shape Danny was in.
"Honey, what's the matter?" Maddie asked. She stood up from where she sat by her husband and walked over to where Danny was standing. She glanced worriedly at the bruises that were easily visible on his arm.
"It's just been a long day. I really don't want to talk about it," Danny answered, trying to get his parents off his trail. 'Can't I get a break? All I want to do is go up to my room and go to sleep until next week.' Unfortunately, he knew that wasn't going to be an option. He slowly walked over to the couch and sat down.
"Really, nothing's going on. I just feel really tired," Danny said as he noticed that his parents were looking at him. They all knew that that wasn't the full story, but his parents decoded to let it go for now.
"You should get to sleep, Danny. You look exhausted," Maddie suggested. She knew when to not press an issue, and this was one of those times.
"Thanks, sleep sounds really good right now," Danny agreed as he made his way to the stairs, heading to his room.
Maddie and Jack both looked at the clock, which displayed '8:00 PM'. They looked at each other in confusion. Danny never went to sleep before 11, ever.
THUD!
The sudden noise caused both of them to turn toward the stairway. "DANNY!" Maddie and Jack both shouted as they ran toward the place where their son now lay unconscious.
"Jack, call 911!"