On The Dark Side

Chapter 4

The bell rings and the three friends make their way to their lockers. Danny meets up with Sam first and they go to meet Tucker, hand in hand. They get some looks from their classmates but they don’t care.

“Another day of laying low?” Tucker asks when they arrive.

“Looks like it.”

“I just want to make sure that you guys are safe. We can’t go out hunting ghosts and monsters if they’re still looking for us.”

It’s difficult to argue with that. The bell rings and they join the rest of the student body in getting to their last class of the day. The three of them were at the door and about to walk in when Danny’s ghost sense goes off.

“Guys, we have company.”

Sam and Tucker turn away from the door as Danny goes ghost and they inspect the now empty hallway. So far nothing, but they know better. Tucker checks his PDA for any ghosts in the area.
“I can’t tell where the ghost is,” he tells them.

“What do you mean?”

“My PDA’s picking up the ghost energy but it can’t locate where it is!”

“How do you fix that?” Sam asks.

“I don’t know, it’s never done this before!”

“It’s fine, guys, let’s just focus on finding the ghost,” Danny interrupts. The two follow his lead and follow him as he floats down the hallway.

They stop at their lockers and grab some Fenton-Thermoses before continuing on. A laugh echoes through the hall before the ghost makes himself visible.

“Hello, ghost boy.”

“Skulker, you managed to escape the ghost zone. I thought you were too stupid to do that.”

“Enough insults, ghost boy! Now your pelt will hang on my wall.”

“Okay, gross!”

“Dude, you’ve got problems,” Tucker criticizes, his face twisted into that of disgust.

Skulker aims his blaster at Danny but he goes intangible. Some students gather in the doorways of the classroom but they stay inside. They know better than to get in the middle of a ghost fight.

Danny and Skulker repeated the attacks a few times, Danny throwing some energy blasts to the other ghost. Tucker and Sam stay in sight of the fight and Skulker smirks as he gets an idea.

“Maybe I can’t hurt you,” he says, flying over to Tucker and Sam, “but I can hurt them!”

He grabs the two of them and goes intangible, heading up to the roof of the school. Danny looks on with wide eyes before following them up.

He reaches the roof of the school and sees Skulker, still gripping his friends. Sam and Tucker struggle against him and try to reach the Fenton-Thermos.

“Let them go, Skulker!”

“Gladly.”

He floats backward so he’s in the air, dangling Sam and Tucker. They quit struggling against him and try to keep from falling.

“Wait!” Danny calls to him.

Skulker smirks.

“If you attack me, I’ll drop them. Turn human again, and I’ll set them down unharmed.”

Danny doesn’t want to listen to Skulker; he’d stop at nothing to hunt and capture him. But his best friend's lives are in danger, and he can’t let them get hurt. He knows they’re gonna tell him otherwise, but he has to listen to the ghost.

He’s about to speak and turn human again when he spots Valerie behind Skulker. She signals that she’ll catch Sam and Tucker and he grins.

“Yeah, because you always do what you promise, right? You’d say whatever you want to hunt me down. I’m not that dumb.”

“You’re putting your friend’s lives at risk to spite me?”

“No, but I’m not falling for your tricks. They’ll be just fine, even if you let them go.”

Danny looks at Sam and Tucker. They have looks of panic on their faces and they don’t seem to believe what he’s said. Danny winks at them and they seem to relax a bit.

“Oh really? Why don’t we see about that?”

Skulker lets go of their wrists and they start to fall, at least until Valerie flies close and catches them. Skulker notices and gets distracted.

Perfect.

Danny shoots a blast of ghost energy at Skulker and sends him flying. He flies over, being careful of any attacks. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Valerie setting Tucker and Sam on the ground. He feels better knowing that they’re out of danger.

“Clever boy.”

Danny dodges another blast from him and lands a punch on him. He reaches for the thermos but it’s not there. He turns intangible and searches for it. Then he spots two of them on the ground.

They must’ve dropped when Sam and Tucker were being dangled in the air. He goes tangible again and flies down to get one. Sam grabs a thermos and throws it up to him and he catches it. He turns in time to see Skulker flying towards him. He opens the thermos and traps the ghost inside. He lands and goes human.

“Guess that’s the end of laying low,” Danny says, looking at Sam and Tucker.

“Hey, we can all take care of ourselves. And I’m kinda glad to be fighting ghosts again.”

“Yeah! We’ll show that Monster King who he’s messing with,” Tucker agrees.

Danny smiles.

“If you guys insist.”

Sam takes his hand again and they walk back into the school. Danny throws the thermos into his locker and they head to class.

In the thermos, Skulker mulls over what he heard. Who’s this Monster King? Why were they laying low? He’d have to look into more once he’s in the Ghost Zone.