Seeing Double

Duet With Myself - Part 6

The fight was short lived. Phantom's ecto blasts seemed to glide right off the band like bad lighting. Then he was hit with a pink beam that burst out of Ember's guitar.

He was thrown into the crowd and swallowed up.

Danny couldn't hear what Phantom might have said to Ember, the music drowned him out, but her response was crystal clear. She shouted it into the microphone:

"I'll see you all at the midnight concert!"

And she threw tickets into the crowd.

Everyone went crazy scrambling to snag one for themselves. Sam ducked down and pulled him with her.

She said something, but Danny didn't catch it. There was static in his ears.

"...hear me now? Fenton!"

He was still wearing the Fenton phones.

"Phantom? I can hear you!" Danny said. "Where are you?"

The music had finally stopped. Slowly the crowd loosened. Instead of being pressed shoulder to shoulder students wandered away from each other.

Teachers blinked and shook their heads.

"I'm floating above you, but I thought I should play it safe," Phantom said. "Don't know how a group like this would react to me."

"Is Ember still here?" Sam said. "Or also floating invisible?"

Danny opened his mouth to reply, but Phantom beat him to it.

"No, she's properly gone," Phantom said. "Guys she's ridiculously powerful. It's like she feeds off her popularity."

Danny blinked as Sam grimaced at the words. Oh, Phantom was broadcasting to both the Fenton phones at once. He didn't know that was an option.

He and Sam straightened up and watched their classmates drifting over the spot where her temporary stage had stood. There were tire marks in the grass.

"We need to capture her," Danny said. "If I could get close enough I could use the thermos."

"I can get you close," Phantom said. "At the concert we can-"

A blow horn blared and made Danny's ears pop. Lancer was standing at the school's entrance. He was still missing his shirt.

When he had everyone's attention he put the blow horn down and shouted "Everyone get back inside! Get to your classes!"

"Let's regroup when school lets out," Sam said. "We'll have a few hours before midnight."

And with that they trudged inside, following their dazed and dazzled peers.

oOo

He could almost pretend it had never happened. The teachers were back to normal (though it took Lancer a half hour to find his shirt) and though Ember's name was a mantra that echoed down the halls and showed up scrawled on bathroom stalls, it really felt like any other teenage trend.

Danny was tempted to take off the Fenton phones. They were the only reminder, conspicuously green at his ears, reflecting back at him in the bathroom mirror as he washed his hands. He could hear Sam and Phantom talking through them throughout the day. Though at first it had sounded like a one sided conversation Phantom was having with himself, Sam had shown him what button to press on his set to make it into a never ending three-way phone call.

"Fenton are you still there?" Phantom said as Danny stood there glaring at his reflection.

"I'm listening," Danny said.

They were supposed to be strategizing, but what more was there to say? The plan was simple. Sam would make a big show of how much she hated Ember's music, Phantom would try not to get blasted out of the sky again, and Danny would sneak up behind the stage and pull Ember into the thermos. So why were they still talking?

Sam was giggling and she whispered, "I think you finally got his attention."

The two of them were trying to distract Tucker from re-watching Ember music videos on his phone. They were playing some kind of prank using Phantom's powers.

Sam and Tucker were in American History together, but he was stuck in Chemistry. And, well, Phantom was in American History too. An invisible playmate.

Was it arrogant to have assumed Phantom would be following him?

He wanted the school day to be over already, so they could get on with capturing this stupid ghost and he could finally take the Fenton Phones off without risking fan-worship hypnotism.

oOo

When school was over he ran into Jazz. He didn't immediately recognize her. She was wearing thick eyeliner and dressed all in black, her crop top eerily similar to Ember McLain's. She squealed and grabbed his arm.

"Little brother! Look what I got for you!" Jazz said, holding out two concert tickets and waving them under his nose. "I almost got kicked in the throat, but I managed to grab an extra ticket! I was worried you'd get trampled in that crowd."

"Um, thanks Jazz," Danny said. "But uh... You know it's at midnight right?"

"Of course, it's called a midnight concert, silly." She was grinning at him with too many teeth.

"B-but it's a school night," Danny said. "And weren't we supposed to study for finals?"

She rolled her eyes. "We can study anytime!" she waved a hand. "But this concert is a once in a lifetime opportunity! We can't just sleep through it!"

Danny could only blink at her, speechless, and then jump as an invisible hand materialized on his shoulder.

Phantom's voice seemed to echo, and Danny realized he was hearing him through the Fenton Phone's and in person, though he murmured at such a low volume it was hard to make out. He said, "This is the most disturbing thing I have ever witnessed."

"W-we'll fix her," Danny said.

"We'll fixate on her," Jazz said. "I can't wait to see her on a proper stage!"

"Um actually, I'd rather stay home tonight," Danny said. "You should take Tucker with you. He's a huge fan."

"What?" The look on her face, it was as if he'd just recited 100 digits of pi by memory and she had to blink to make sure it was him speaking. "Danny you have to come with me. Don't you want to?"

"I don't like her music actually," Danny said. Phantom had a grip on both his shoulders now and he tried to give a warning squeeze, but it was too late.

"What do you mean you don't like her music?!" A passing student stopped to glare at him. It wasn't someone Danny recognized.

"He doesn't mean that," Jazz said. "Danny? You were kidding right?"

"I don't think he was kidding," Dash stomped forward and tried to shove him down the entranceway steps. It was impossible to do with Phantom at his back to steady him. "You're a fucking freak, it figures you'd rather listen to your outcast girlfriend over anything that's actually cool."

"Um, Sam's not my-"

"Let's just get out of here," Phantom said. "Sam meet us at your place."

Not bothering with subtlety, Phantom simply extended his invisibility and flew them away.