Portals

Named

Danny and Randy bumped fists as they walked back into the school. Danny Phantom had stashed the candy in Randy's room before Danny Fenton walked in with Randy and Howard.

"I have to admit, that fight was awesome," Howard muttered as they climbed the stairs to get back to the science classroom. "And the candy is fantastic. But it was difficult enough to cover up for Randy. I don't know what to do with you, Fenton."

"Now I'm missing everyone knowing I'm Danny Phantom again," Danny muttered. "It makes life so much simpler."

"Simple isn't fun," Randy laughed. "Though it makes it easier."

"That still doesn't help me, Cunningham. I need to know what to tell our teachers when you two are off playing hero."

Danny blinked. "My sister Jazz used to point behind my parents and yell 'Ghost!' It always worked on them, but they're my parents. What's something your friends can't resist turning around to stare at?"

Howard wrung his hands. "I know just the thing."

"Great. Use it the next time there's a giant candy-breathing iguana outside." Danny glanced at Randy. "Does that, like, happen often, or...."

The Norrisville Ninja shrugged. "Three days ago it was a kangaroo with a flamethrower at the end of its tail."

Danny raised an eyebrow. "So the iguana was built in three days by this Viceroy guy."

"Yeah. Pretty much."

Danny fiddled with the collar of his t-shirt. "We need this guy on our side."

"He got a degree from Evil Scientist University. It won't be that easy. Plus, he kind of is evil."

"Are you sure?"

Randy reached forward and grabbed Danny's shoulders. "He locked me in a room with chickens, Fenton. Chickens."

Danny gave him an odd look as he pried himself loose. "Okay. Chickens. How devious."

"Have you ever looked into their eyes, Danny? There's. Nothing . There."

"Right." Danny nodded, but then a blank screen they had been standing under flared to life, blasting music with an elaborate graphic. The half-ghost frowned. "The Gossip Report?"

"Breaking news," a redheaded girl smiled, "we have Debbie Kang here with a special announcement!"

Danny glanced at Howard. "She looks a lot like you."

"She's my sister. And shut up."

The camera panned to an Asian girl with dark hair. She had a small mass of papers spread across the table in front of her and one of those fancy PDAs hooked up to a flat computer.

"Thank you, Heidi. Here we have a new hero." The laptop screen flickered on, and Danny chewed his lip as he saw himself with silver-white hair and the sleek black and white jumpsuit.

"Don't say it. Please don't say it—"

"I've decided to call him Invis-o-Bill."

He smacked his forehead. "She said it."

There was a loud guffaw behind him. Both Randy and Howard were doubled over, the Ninja bracing himself on his friend. "Invis-o-Bill? That was the best they could come up with?"

"No. That was the absolute worst."

"You need press, Danny."

"You think I don't know that?"

The girl onscreen continued. "He can fly, and appears to have teleportation or invisibility." She clicked the mouse and the screen flickered to a video of him grabbing the Ninja from behind and disappearing right before the iguana-bot slid where they were both standing, then blinked back into existence. "Most importantly, he seems to be friendly with the Ninja."

"You bet he is." Randy and Danny tapped fists, but the half-ghost was still frowning.

"Overall, Invis-o-Bill looks like Norrisville's newest hero."

Heidi's face appeared back on screen. "You betcha! That's—" she let out a screech as she fell out of the frame, then the Asian girl— Debbie— reappeared, her fingers smudging the camera lens as she turned it back towards her.

"Or— or!— he's another restless spirit like the Ninja, here to lead him home to the afterlife. Think about it! A Ninja, here for 800 years? How could he possibly be the same one? Now the spirit world has decided his time is up and relegated another spirit, one that knows he's a ghost, to bring him back." The screen flickered back to an image of Danny, but there was a big red shoddily drawn circle drawn around his ghost tail.  "When he completes his mission, we're going to lose our Ninja! Norrisville will  fall into chaos! We'll all get eaten by monsters and Mexican Death Bears!"

"Okay!" Heidi pushed Debbie out of the screen. In the backdrop Danny could just see the petite girl flailing around in the arms of a massive brunette jock. "That's all the time we have, catch ya later!" The screen cut to black, then static, then the Technicolor of a disconnected television set.

"Well," Danny tried, but there were no words to describe what had just happened on the screen. Howard and Randy were just as stupefied, a word Danny never thought he'd be able to describe them with. Slowly he raised a plastic baggie filled with colorful hard candy. "Anyone up for McDiddles?"