Gravitational Phantoms: After the Storm

Chapter Thirteen: Ectofire (Part One)

The person called Meredith is the old woman from the diner in "The Love God," who was supposed to be paired up with a girl but the censors changed it to a man.

Well, I think that that's stupid. So I changed it back to a girl. Because that's one of my OTPs, and you can't get in the way of true love.

I was also watching The Office while I wrote this, so... MEREDITH.

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Danny crept along the edge of the house, weapon in hand. He was ready to take one any challenge, and win. But he didn't notice the shadow steadily slinking along behind him in preparation to attack. The other figure readied its own weapon of choice and-

"Gotcha!"

Danny yelped and spun around, to late to escape the ball of mud that smacked wetly into his side.

He mock scowled at Wendy. "No fair!"

"Hey, I've been mud fighting near this old Shack since before you even knew that it existed. There's no way that you'll be able to beat me," The lumberjack girl boasted, lightly thumping her chest.

Danny stuck his tongue out at her and picked up another ball of dirt, but before he could fire it Wendy's phone rang.

She held up a finger. "Just a sec." She fished it out of her pocket and smiled at the contact name listed. Wendy clicked the "accept call" button and held the phone to her ear. 

"Wassup Dip?"

"Wendy, turn on the news. NPR, not the local channels. Now."

Wendy nodded to Danny and motioned for him to follow her. "Alright, keep your shorts on. I'm outside. Now I'm in the Shack, and now I'm in the living room. Aaannd now I'm turning on the TV-oh my god, what the hell is this?!"

She stared at the TV in horror and confusion. In the upper right hand corner was a picture of Danny in ghost form, small red words speeding across the bottom too fast for her to follow. A man in a pure white suit was smiling sleazily at the news camera and taking up most of the screen. 

"-Assured, we will not let the ghost menace that calls itself Danny Phantom continue to roam free. Our top agents are already on the case, and we now have a general idea of where it is. Once it is recaptured, we will make sure that it never escapes again."

"And what do you plan to do with Phantom once you catch him?" The reporter asked.

"Don't assign it a gender, ma'am. It's just an ectoplasmic piece of scum unfit to walk this fine earth. Once we catch it, we'll make sure that it remembers that."

Danny let out a small whimper, and the redhead noticed that he was shaking. She wrapped an arm around his shoulder as an image of four teenagers was thrown up on the TV.

"Phantom is responsible for the deaths of three teens named Samantha Manson, Tucker Foley, Jasmine Fenton, and her younger brother Daniel Fenton."

Wendy was seriously considering attacking this guy through the TV screen. She didn't even notice when Dipper hung up.

Danny was still trembling, neon eyes green instead of blue in his distress. The older girl turned off the television with hands that were shaking with anger.

How dare someone talk about Danny that way? She was going to rip the heads off of every single one of those scumbags and feed them to Rusty.

As she watched, the Halfa's legs crumpled beneath him and he curled up on the floor in a shaking ball. Wendy started to crouch down, but then something that the man on the TV had said came back to her.

"Our top agents are already on the case, and we now have a general idea of where it is."

"Shit," Wendy swore under her breath. She reached out and pounded on the wall. "Ford! Get up here! Now!"

About a minute later he walked through the door. "I hope that this is impor-what's wrong with Danny?!"

Wendy ignored that question and ran a hand over the ghost boy's shoulder, wincing as he curled away from her fingers.

"Can you shield Danny from a ghost tracker?"

"Well, yes, but why?"

"Do it. The Guys in White just went public, and they're after Danny."

Ford's hand clenched around the handle of his gun. "How do you know?"

"Dipper called me and told me to turn on the news. It was a guy in a white suit talking about how his agents were already on the trail of ghost menace Danny Phantom. They're coming for him, Ford, and we need to stop it." Wendy let out a growl and gently rubbed Danny's back. "It's alright," she murmured to him. "We're gonna protect you."

"Okay. Okay. I should be able to hide his ectosignature, but it will take me at least a day to get it set up. And he'll have to wear it on his wrist. But, yes, I can do it."

Danny slightly lifted his head up off of the floor. "You can't-you don't-they'll hurt-"

Wendy patted him on the cheek in a condescending way. "Do you honestly think that we'd just leave you to those monsters?"

He looked away. "I just... It won't only be the agents. M-Maddie and Da-Jack will be there too, and I don't..."

"Oh," Wendy murmured. So that's why Danny was so scared. It wasn't just the agents who were after Danny's head-it was his own parents too.

She called Dipper again. When he picked up, she left the room so that neither of the others would hear her and dropped her voice down to a whisper.

"Dips, Danny just had a bit of a breakdown. I need you two to get down here as fast as possible and help me whip everybody in Gravity Falls into a frenzy."

"Um, we are still grounded, you know that, right?"

"Then steal another car. Just get your ass up to the Shack so that I can use you."

"For the record, Mabel was the one who stole the car, not me. But we will get there, I promise."

He hung up, and Wendy sighed. It looked like it was time to use her influence.

Being the leader of a supernatural and paranormal police had its advantages from time to time. Like right now, for instance.

Wendy hit the contact for Pacifica. She didn't particularly like the younger teen, but that didn't mean that she was above asking for political favors. And the blond girl liked Danny well enough.

Next she called Candy and Grenda. Then Meredith and her wife Sally-their older daughter was a part of the police force.

Oh, Wendy Corduroy was going to raise hell on earth.