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Chapter One

The Dark Knight

"Come on Danny, my feet are killing me, can't we go home?" Tucker whined for nearly the billionth time.

"We would have been able to if you hadn't of dropped the thermos, again!" Sam shouted back.

Above their hands came a sudden "shhh!" and they hid behind a rusty, smelly dumpster. The alley was abandoned and pitch black and it was nearly midnight. They hadn't even finished their homework let alone battled ghosts with their paranormal friend. But they had been walking around the darkness for about three hours.

"Danny, what is it?" Sam whispered. Danny had gone intangible, but they searched everywhere for him anyways.

There was no reply. Pushing back her black hair from her eyes, Sam sighed. Now that they were at last exhausted, there was a ghost to fight.

"Danny? Hello?!" Tucker shouted.

"Tucker shut up," Sam whispered. Her violet eyes were nearly forcing themselves to close and the only reason she had not to fall asleep right then and there was the safety of her friend and the care taking of Tucker, the naïve.

"Sam, where did he go?" Tucker asked, snapping Sam from her thoughts.

"He went intangible remember?" she snapped, looking into the sky.

"Oh, yeah," Tucker said. He remembered the great feeling of being able to become nothing; it had been fun....for a while until he had turned on Danny. But it had been nearly four weeks since then.

"BOO!" Shouted someone behind them. Tucker and Sam both screamed bloody murder and flipped around.

"Danny, oh, you—"Sam began, panting.

Danny stood behind them, laughing his head off. Sam was lost for words, still shaken, and Tucker was laughing along with his friend.

"That was good, Danny. Got to admit. Did you hear Sam scream?" He slapped Danny's silver gloved hand.

"Yeah, but she has an excuse for screaming like a girl," Danny said, still laughing.

As Tucker gave him a dark look, Sam found her voice at last.

"Danny that wasn't funny," she said.

Danny tried to look at his gothic best friend without laughing but couldn't pull it off. As he burst into laughter, he was rewarded with a playful punch on the arm.

"Ow." With ease, he turned back into his normal self. Jet black hair and blue eyes. He had been getting used to changing back and forth now that there were more ghosts around lately.

"Oh, I didn't hit you that hard," Sam gasped as he changed.

"Hey, I turned on free will thanks," he said. Usually he only changed back on accident when he was badly injured.

"Yeah, whatever Danny," she said, smiling.

"Hey, love birds can we go home now?" Tucker whined.

As Sam looked menacingly towards Tucker, who took a step back in mock fear, the overhead light went off.

All three jumped.

"Well, that was nice," Danny said. He couldn't see a thing in the dark and was suddenly afraid of what might be lurking in the dark. He slapped himself in the head, knowing that they couldn't see him. He was Danny Phantom. The halfa boy. He shouldn't be afraid of the dark. He should be worrying about the other lives at stake. The lives that he cared about...the lives that didn't have to worry about having powers, or battling ghosts, or saving lives....

"Let's go back shall we?" Tucker said.

Sam and Danny grunted in reply. But before they had even taken a step, Danny gasped.

A blue colored stream of air came from his mouth, lighting the only way for a millisecond. Icy jets of coldness spread throughout his body.

"Danny-"Tucker warned.

"I'll take care of it guys, you go on home," he said, shivering.

"Danny, we can help," Sam pleaded as darkness fell again.

"Yeah," Tucker agreed (not a common event).

He couldn't see his friends' faces, and knew they were set on determined, but even if he sent them away, they would come to help him anyways.

"Fine. Just stay out of trouble." He didn't want to sound rude, but he didn't want them hurt.

With Danny leading, Tucker and Sam tiptoed, following him.

A green light shot out of nowhere, missing Danny's head by a centimeter. He looked forward, alert, while Sam and Tucker ducked.

The ghost moved forward and Danny heard his friends gasp at the sight.

He traveled on a deathly dark red horse with glowing red eyes and carried a glowing sword and shield. It looked like a knight, except for his faint yellow-green aura.

Gracefully, he lifted his glowing sword and pointed it straight at Danny. Danny dived quickly as an icy blue light shot from the tip.

But not quick enough. It barely nicked the top of his foot. Danny fell to the ground and twisted around fast.

It wasn't broken, but he couldn't move it. Immense cold spread throughout his body rapidly. It was some kind of freezing energy light.

"Danny, are you okay?" Sam shouted, rushing to him.

"Tucker, hurry give me the thermos!" Danny said, feeling the cold reaching towards his chest.

Tucker ran over and tossed him the thermos and with difficulty, Danny turned it on. He could already feel his shoulders become numb with freezing cold.

"Say bye-bye sir knight," Tucker joked as the ghost was caught.

The knight swirled inside the daze, but jumped off. His horse was sucked into the thermos, and he remained.

"Paderaina! You're mine now child!" the Knight said with a British accent.

"No!" Sam said, standing up furiously.

He pointed his sword at Sam, who stood firm. Suddenly the thermos reopened and the Knight swirled inside.

Sam turned around, with Tucker's help; Danny was getting him into the thermos.

Before the Knight was sucked into the thermos, he pointed his sword threateningly at Sam and a dark red light shot into Sam, who fell onto the ground.

Danny slammed on the thermos lid, and was automatically relieved of his coldness. He and Tucker ran to where Sam still lay on the ground.

"Sam, ya' alright?" Tucker asked.

"What? Oh, yeah, I'm okay." She sat up with difficulty.

"Who was that?" Tucker asked to no one in particular.

"A Knight...a brave knight..." Sam replied, her eyes glazed. When Tucker and Danny looked at her strangely, she said, "Well, it's true."

"What did he do to her?" Tucker asked.

"Probably hit her head with like memory blast," Danny suggested.

"I just feel really hot," she said, standing up.

"Look, he left his sword behind," Tuck said.

"I'll keep it at my house, maybe send it for the Box Ghost to keep," Danny said, laughing as he picked it up.

"How about I take it? I mean, my parents won't ask any questions right?" Sam said.

"Good point." Danny handed it to her. "What?" Sam was looking at him weird.

"Nothing," she said, sounding almost angry. She grabbed the sword from him and held it possessively.

"Sure you okay Sam?" Tucker asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Lay off," she said.

"Can we go home now?"

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Danny drifted in later that night into his bedroom, exhausted. Fighting that ghost and nearly getting beat like a lot of times lately, had taken a lot out of him.

The room was dark, but he could still make out his astronomy and NASA posters on the wall. If he wasn't dead by the time he was twenty, he wanted to become an astronaut.

At that moment the door burst open and someone walked in.

"JAZZ! What are you doing?" Danny threw himself onto the bed and pulled the covers over his head. He hadn't turned back into his norm and the bright blue lights would give him away if he did now.

"Danny, did you take my Geography book?" his red haired sister asked, absentmindedly turning on the light. "I need it by next Thurs- what are you doing?"

"Looking for a gun to shoot myself. What does it look like I'm doing? You turned on the light and I was asleep. I'm trying to get the light out of my eyes. Why are you up this late?"

"I have a History test to study for next Monday."

"That's in a week and a day, why don't you wait until next Sunday to study?" he said, making sure his white hair was completely covered.

"Because, I'm not lazy," she said. "Danny, why is it so cold in here?"

He tried to hide the quiver in his voice. Being half ghost had its disadvantages like being cold every single moment and usually chilling others.

"I had the window open."

"It's winter. It's -2 degrees outside."

"Yeah, well I was hot," Danny replied annoyed. "Your book isn't in here. Can you leave now?"

"Yes. I suppose. But if you took it I swear.... Goodnight Danny. And...Danny?" she began.

"What Jazz?" he asked.

"Be careful."

He had no idea what that meant. She turned off the light and closed the door behind her.

He crawled out of the sheets and turned into his human self. That was close. Last week's experience with Spectra had been close too. Jazz had been close to becoming a ghost with him. But he had saved the day for once.

After changing, he climbed into bed and graciously went to sleep.

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Jazz hadn't been looking for her geography book. She had been waiting for him. She knew he had gone because he had declared to his parents around nine that he was "going to bed early."

It had only been a week ago since she had discovered his secret. However, she didn't think that he knew she knew. Ever since then, she had been watching him and noticed many things that she didn't notice before. Like when her parents started talking about a new ghost invention that would help locate or attack or hunt down or whatever, Danny became extremely uneasy. Or that he seemed to just appear sometimes, or when he got nervous, a part of or all of him would disappear; or angry, his eyes seemed to glow green. Now everything weird that had ever happened since his accident made sense; his pants falling down, his friends' concerns and mysteries, his midnight sneak outs, his short-term locker problem, his sudden exhaustion and injuries. She still had yet to figure out how he come so close to seeing the gorilla without getting killed when no one else but Sam and other environmental people dared to.

She worried about her brother and she knew she shouldn't. Danny was fourteen; he probably had no problems taking care of himself.

Tonight she had the perfect excuse to go in his room, after hours of listening in the next room for movement noises. Finally, around one o'clock, she heard someone walking around, and burst into the room.

Her eyes had been adjusted to the dark, but she pretended to be fooled anyway when her brother had covered himself up with his blue bed sheets. She had seen the edges of his spiky white hair. She hadn't figured out exactly how he could do it, but he could turn into a ghost.

She had pretended to look for her geography book, and had seen him every once in a while peek out from underneath the covers. But after satisfying herself, left with her evidence.

Her brother, even with all of his weirdness, was a hero. He had saved her, and probably others, too. She would just have to wait until he gave up and told him.

"Goodnight Danny," she whispered to the dark room.