School's in session... again...

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School Zone
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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Chapter 1 – Opening Bell

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My first mistake was opening the door. A teenage girl was standing just outside my house, staring fascinated at the ops center and muttering under her breath. Her eyes were half-squinting in the bright sun and she seemed oblivious to the fact that I had opened the door. “Hello?” I asked. Second mistake - I should have slammed the door shut when I had the chance.

She jumped slightly, turning her green eyes on me. “Danny Fenton?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper, and, without waiting for a reply, yanked a bent and beat-up envelope out of her pocket and held it out to me. “This is for you.”

I grabbed it and frowned slightly as a spark leapt from the envelope to my hand. “Thanks.” Turning to go back inside, I caught sight of the sad smile that was growing on her face. “What?” She just continued to smile at me. I shivered as a cold breeze blew over me and I gasped in realization. “A ghost!”

The girl’s eyes glowed ectoplasmic green for a second before returning to normal. “Welcome to ghost school Danny. I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning.” She winked at me once before fading out of sight.

Which left me standing in the doorway, staring at the crumpled envelope in my hand. The only thing I could think about was the fact that tomorrow was Sunday. Who has school on a Sunday?

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Early the next morning I actually looked at the envelope that I had tossed onto my mess of a desk. The envelope was, actually, not address to me. It wasn’t addressed at all. Even better than that was the fact that the inside held nothing but an old business card for a spaghetti restaurant downtown named Zambezi’s that had gone out of business years ago. On the back was written four words: Phasmatis Schola – since 1326. I decided to ignore the whole thing; it had to be a joke.

I flopped onto my bed, staring up at the ceiling. I had huge plans for today. I was going to go to a movie with Tucker, then we were going to rescue Sam from her mother and go hang out at Nasty Burger, then perhaps we’d go to the mall. The alarm clock next to my bed informed me I was going to be late if I didn’t get up and start moving. A few minutes later I was just about to get up and head over to Tucker’s house when the ghost-girl appeared beside my bed. I almost fell out of bed in surprise. How come my ghost sense wasn’t going off around her? It was beginning to drive me nuts. “Ready to go?” she whispered.

“You’re serious? Ghost school?” I couldn’t believe my ears. Who ever heard of a ghost school?

She just smiled sadly at me, and then nodded. She had white hair that hung in loose curls down to her shoulders; her green eyes glowed as she stared down at me.

“I already go to one school,” I said, standing up and starting to walk out of my room. “I’m not going to two schools.”

“You don’t have a choice, halfa.” I stopped and turned to stare at her.

“Why not?”

“Because of the Codes of Pariah Dark, that’s why.” She gazed patiently at me and waited.

Finally, I sighed and asked, “What codes?”

“Code six,” she whispered. Then, with a vague smile, continued, “and one reason to go to school would be to learn the seven Codes, that way you don’t have to ask useless questions.” The smile slowly left her face. “This Code says that a ghost, upon reaching his or her third year as a ghost, must attend a ghost school.”

I didn’t have time for this. I was late already. “I’m not going. Go tell… whoever… that I won’t be coming.” I closed my eyes briefly and focused, letting the cold, weightless feeling of Danny Phantom slip through me. When my eyes opened a split second later, I was floating slightly off the ground. I turned to leave, but found the girl in front of me. She stared sadly at me.

“You don’t want to do that. If you don’t go to school you’ll have broken one of the Codes.”

“So?” I snapped, “What happens if I break one of these codes? I’ve never heard of them before. They can’t be that important.” She blinked and floated backwards nearly a foot in surprise. So I snapped at her – who can blame me? She really was quite annoying. Not to mention being sad and depressing as well.

“The Codes are what hold the Ghost Zone together. Breaking a Code would be horrible. The consequences would be…” she trailed off. Somehow, she managed to convey the pure terror of that thought without adding any emotion to her voice.

I could see the fear in her eyes at that thought. My conscience chose that moment to wake up and poke my stomach. Wonderful. I rolled my eyes and knew what was going to come out of my mouth next. Always the hero, huh, Danny? “Alright. Fine. So I’ll go to this ghost school. How long could it take anyway?”

She tipped her head. “You go until you pass.” The last bits of her sad smile vanished at that thought. “You go until you pass.”

“How long has it taken you

“I’m on year 147.”

I shouldn’t have asked.

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I followed ghost girl all the way across town. She was very slow, seeming to wander across the sky rather than fly. This gave me time to call Tucker and let him know that I wouldn’t be going to the movie with him. Still half-asleep, Tucker muttered a “Yeah, whatever,” before hanging up on me. I thought about calling Sam, but she was busy with her mom and had left me strict instructions not to bother her unless it was an “emergency” that could get her out of the shopping trip.

Which left me with a lot more time on my hands. I could have flown to Wisconsin and back in the time it was taking to get across Amity Park! After I figured out which of the few clouds in the sky looked most like Paulina, counted every blue car for a seven block radius, and came to the life-changing conclusion that I would rather be doing homework that floating behind this ghost girl any longer, I started to wonder about the girl herself.

I mean, she was kind of cute – in a ghostly sort of way. She had pale skin and white, curly hair. Green eyes that always looked sad, and a vague, washed-out smile. She seemed to be lacking much in the personality department. She also was lacking a name.

“Hey!” I called, flying up next to her.

She turned to head to stare at me. “What?” she whispered after a pause.

“What is your name, anyway? I can’t just call you ‘ghost girl.’”

“It’s Cory.”

She turned her attention back to flying and left me floating in silence. Well. That had taken up a whole five seconds. I got a close up view of the clock on the town hall when she drifted lazily past. We’d been gone for over thirty minutes already. I could still see my house. I sighed.

After a few more minutes of silence, I couldn’t stand it any more. “Why do you fly so slowly?”

“Who says I’m flying?” she whispered, not even bothering to look at me.

“Fine. But why so slowly?”

She came to a full stop and stared off into the sun. “Are you in a hurry to get someplace?”

“I thought we were going to some ghost school.”

“We are. But do you really want to hear the opening speech? The teacher, Mrs. Bowls, has been giving the same speech since the beginning of time. I’ve only heard it a hundred times or so.” Her voice trailed off and Cory turned her eyes to look at me. A flicker of a smile crossed her face. “The rules say that we need to head for school starting at 9:45. I figured out about fifty years ago that it neither says how fast we need to be moving nor when we need to actually get to the school.” She was quiet for a moment. “But I suppose you’ve never heard the speech and want to be there.” She turned to contemplate the clock for a moment then twisted her head back to me. “We have a couple of minutes before school is supposed to start. We can make it.”

She started moving again – at a quicker pace and straight towards the old section of town. It took only a few minutes to reach a large, abandoned building on the outskirts of Amity Park. We were close to the open area where Freak Show set up his Circus Gothica tent the first time he rolled into town. Cory stopped in front of a sign that might have once said “Zambezi’s Restaurant” and gave me another of her sad smiles before phasing through the sign and into the building. With a quick glance behind me, I followed.

To be continued...

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Gar. This story will just be a bit of fluff – a way for me to bring in all of my favorite villains from the show. Gives me an excuse to play with the new UnderGrowth character.

Please read and send me some ideas before I get trapped into plot twists of my own creation…

Disclaimer: Never have and never will own Danny Phantom. Please enjoy my story.

Read and review, of course. :-) Thanks ahead of time!