Orbits of Glass

[sqweakie]

 

Chapter Nine

‘Ghost Patrol Headquarters’… a grand title like that should belong to a grand building with an ornate entrance leading to a precision department. To the uninitiated, the dingy doorway and claustrophobically narrow stairs to the basement hardly fit the adjectives of ‘grand’ or ‘ornate’. The steps were pragmatic and that was all. The steps also turned out to be useless to a half-ghost on a mission.

At the stairwell leading to the basement of the city hall he phased into the floor and hovered above the front desk. Danny took off towards the heart of the Patrol HQ unnoticed by the woman at the desk or by the hunter guarding the stairs. He drifted invisibly through rooms until the steady sound of a lecture caught his attention. Passing through the locker rooms and an office, he ended up in a large conference room. Normally used for large meetings and demonstrations, today it was home for Patrol Orientation 101.

Seven people sat in the room with notebooks and bored looks all around. At the front of the room stood the lecturer, a grey-haired man just inching past middle age and as skinny as a rail. The man had a slight accent when he talked, a hint at his British Heritage. He leaned against a desk dragged from one of the offices. The desk didn’t match the furniture filling the rest of the room, rich-looking wood out of place in the sea of grungy tables and wooden chairs.

The ghost paused in the middle of the room, trying to figure out his next step. He had to get the attention of the man at the desk. With no way of alerting the teacher verbally since there were seven witnesses in front in of him, Danny resorted to non-verbal communications. He flew behind the human and gently grabbed the shoulders with his deathly cold hands. The man under his hands shivered at the touch. None of his students noticed and the lecture ended quickly.

“Twenty minute break. When you all get back we are going to start the history and purpose of the Patrol,” the man said as he stepped out of Danny’s grip and away from the desk.

Seven bodies rushed out the door, leaving the ghost and one human in its wake. Dan sunk to the desk before becoming visible. The man did not react to the ghost; of course with his back to Danny there was no way to see the halfa on the desk. Danny grinned mischievously.

“You look lost, Thor.”                                  

The man jumped into the air and spun around grabbing at the gun that wasn’t there. “Why can’t you appear normally like any other ghost?” he inquired as he relaxed his defensive posture.

“That’s too easy,” he replied cheekily. “So why are you down here with the newbies?”

“My partner’s out with a broken wrist. Figured with a small class to weed out, I might as well teach them and be done with that wonderful duty.”

The half-ghost and human traded small talk while the clock counted down the return of the class. Thor looked at the time and sighed as it dwindled down to the last minute of the break. “Do you have to do this?”

Danny didn’t answer. He just dove into Thor’s body. The man’s eyes flashed green before settling into their normal brown color. Seconds after his possession, the first students filed back into the room. First through the door came a man close to Thor’s age (mid-forties) and a woman at least ten years his junior. They talked quietly as they walked to the front middle table. The woman took a seat while her companion took his seat at a table to the far left.

Once they settled in their seats the next group came through the door. Two men and one woman entered, the three in their late twenties. The girl plopped down at the back middle table while her escorts sat down at the back table to the left of hers. Danny covered up a snort at the three, the girl talked on her cell phone; she had been on it while walking to the room. The men caused a similar amusement. They had to be twins, they dressed and acted like it.

The last two men ran into the room right before the clock stopped at 7:45. They took their seats on the far right side of the room without looking towards their teacher. Danny took the time to study the class. Not everyone in front of him was destined to become a ghost hunter. This class, this orientation, began the first step in weeding out the potential from the misguided and the glory hogs (not that formula always worked, see Goldie).

A varied group sat before him and none of them had a clue about what would occur today. Danny gently stretched his back before leaning against the desk and starting his lecture.

“The Patrol, the leading defense against rogue ghosts, formed a year ago. The first members of the patrol came to Amity Park in November of 2005. They were the mercenaries of the ghost hunting world, some of the best. These hunters became the Ghost Patrol of Amity.

“Originally nine members made up the Patrol. Today there are thirty-two hunters and a larger number of supporting staff. Most of the hunters are part time, working various days, nights and weekends. A small few are full time, including myself.

“The main goal of the Patrol has always been the protection of Amity Park. This is done by the hunters, either working alone or in pairs. The Patrol also works with the local authorities to capture and restrain out of control ghosts. Supporting them is the rest of the Patrol staff. Their duties can range from research and development, managing supplies and bookwork, or even public relations.”

“I have a question,” the forty-something man on the far left interrupted. “Why was the Patrol created in the first place? Ghosts have been around for longer than a year.”

“True, but certain events occurred late October 2005. Jack and Maddie Fenton, the main ghost hunters of Amity, left the state for personal reasons. The other resident hunter, The Red Hunteress, disappeared and no one knew how to contact her. Malevolent ghosts discovered the lack of protection and acted on it. They overran the city without any resistance.

“The original members of the Patrol came to the city at the local government’s request. They pushed back the ghost invasion and brought back order. After that they took turns patrolling the city, even after the Fentons returned. The newspapers started to refer to us as the Ghost Patrol and the name stuck. During that winter we proved our worth to the city council and in May, six months after we came to the city, the Patrol became an official part of the Police Force.”

He took a pause to see if there were any other questions from his class. No one spoke up and the bored looks started to appear again. Only a couple actually paid attention. Without any more questions he continued on.

“There are three main objectives of the Patrol. The first is the protection of the citizens of Amity Park, which I already have mentioned. This is our most public goal and the one that is taken most seriously. We protect against ghost attacks and counteract the effects of various ghosts. This includes physical changes and mental ones. We will discuss those changes at a later time.

“The second objective is educating first responders. From there we train police officers, firefighters and health care workers in situations where they may come in contact with a ghost or their aftermath. We teach them the signs of a ghost attack and aftereffects of said ghosts.

“Finally, we train the next generation of hunters. Amity Park is the only place on the planet guaranteed to have ghosts. That alone attracts a lot of attention and possible hunters. Very few that come to Amity will become ghost hunters. Most leave…some become supporting staff. Those select few who become hunters don’t always stay here. There is a lot of money out there become a ghost hunter for hire.”

Looks of concern replaced the boredom at the last part of Dan’s speech. Most students that came to Amity assumed they would be out on the street in a couple of weeks toting ecto-pistals and saving the city. One reason Danny taught this small lecture to each class of hunters was to ruin the dream.

The other reason was a much simpler one. Some things about ghosts could only be taught through experience. As he continued to speak about the past year of the Patrol and the principles it followed, Danny watched the students. A couple of them started to shift in their seats. They knew something was wrong even though the lecture droned on like it had for weeks. All they had to do now figure out that their teacher was possessed.

Thor once joked that some hunters were born with an internal awareness similar to Spiderman’s Spidey-Sense. A hunter’s ‘ghosty-sense’ tingled when a ghost involved itself in a situation and the hunter didn’t consciously know that. Right now that tingling had to be working overtime.

Danny stressed it and the Patrol took it to heart: trust your instincts and act on them. Many students acted timid and never questioned the norm or the hunters. Right now a ghost overshadowed their teacher and his students sat there like bumps on a log, not reacting.

He knew one of the first lessons the Patrol taught students involved the basic ghost powers like flying, invisibility, intangibility, and overshadowing. The reason it was one of the first was to prepare them for actually experiencing a real possession. Contrary to movie lore, possessed people didn’t speak in tongues. Nor did a person’s head spin around on its own axis. They didn’t get turned into mindless zombies either. Most possessed carried on as they normally did. It was Danny Phantom’s job to demonstrate overshadowing to the newbies. Today, the class was one big test that the students didn’t know they were taking. And right now they were all failing.

“This is stupid,” someone to his right finally blurted. “Why exactly do we need to know this crap?” All eyes turned to the man who spoke out of turn. He looked around twenty but the shaved head and facial piercings made it hard to pin an exact age on him.

“Shut up, Ian,” his table partner whispered.

“Would you care to repeat that?” Thor’s clipped accent turned the attention to him.

“This is Stupid,” Baldy enunciated. Heads turned back and forth at the verbal tennis match.

Danny marched right up to the table and leaned forward on his hands whispering sharply, “Those who cannot learn from history, even one as brief at this, are doomed to repeat it.” The boy’s eyes widened and he jumped out of his seat in horror. Danny just made a huge mistake as his eyes flashed green. Instead of getting angrier, Dan calmly walked to the front of the class. Turning around, his eyes lost their green color, returning to Thor’s brown.

“Well, ghosts have nothing to worry about if this is the future of the Patrol.” His caustic words in Phantom’s voice caused pandemonium. Everyone jumped up and moved backwards. A couple of the students made a break for the back of the room and the only door. The first one reached for the door’s handle. A green blast shot past his groping hand and melted the knob. Everyone turned in dread towards the possessed hunter at the front of the room. An evil grin found its way onto a normally docile face and the glowing green eyes returned.

“Now what are you going to do?” he challenged the class.

“We get you out of Mister Thorton’s body,” said the bald guy confidently.

Instead of replying, Danny just grinned wider. He made the universal ‘come and get me’ hand gesture just to make his students angrier. They didn’t disappoint.

Ian grabbed a spare chair and threw it at the possessed teacher. Danny raised an eyebrow as the chair passed right though him and crashed into the desk behind. His attacker backed up. He made a grab for another chair before it flew out of reach, a green blast pushing a second chair into the man's stomach and dropping him to the ground.

Ectoplasm grew around his hand but stopped when a different man twisted him around. The green glow fizzled down as Danny stared at the man who managed to sneak up and grab onto his wrist distracting him. The only problem with the hunter’s plan was that Danny wasn’t just using a human’s body; he still had access to all of his powers.

Danny phased out of his grasp and kicked the man gently in the stomach, pushing him into the wall behind the desk. He slid down and seemed to be out of the fight. Next up came the redhead that sat next to baldy and the older woman from the front row. They moved to opposite sides of the ghost, trying to flank him. Danny’s head turned to the left and then to the right. The humans bent down and sprang into action, trying to surprise him. Danny crouched and at the perfect moment he flipped backwards and onto one of the tables. Out of their reach the two students collided. The male managed to grab the woman and the spun around because of their momentum. Danny laughed at the sight of the two serious-looking adults spinning around like little kids.

Over his snickering and curses from various downed hunters came the voice of the twenty-something girl. Danny snapped his head around when he caught her words.

“There’s a ghost in the Orientation room… Yes, I’m serious! ... No, he melted the door handle!” She stood near the damaged door shouting into the cell phone she brought into class. Between her and Danny stood the twins, identical faces matched with identical expressions and determination.

“Stop,” he ordered as he jumped to the floor. He didn’t need real ghost hunters rushing in, guns blazing.

The woman kept talking into the cell and overhead a voice called out a Code G (ghost in HQ). He walked through tables and overturned chairs. The Twins moved so they still stood between him and the girl, trying to block him with broken chair legs held like clubs. Taking in a breath he ran at the twins and jumped straight over their heads. He kept going and made a grab for the phone. Without looking, cell phone girl ducked. Danny ran right into the wall. The girl screeched and ran around a convenient table.

He staggered back and his second attempt for the phone was successful. He lifted the phone to his hear and spoke in Thor’s voice, “Sorry about the trouble, Molly. You can cancel the alarm.”

The alarms stopped and the code was cancelled overhead. The students pulled themselves up off the floor in horror. The backed away as Danny turned off the cell and slid it into the back pocked of his pants looking ready to continue the fight.

Something pounded on the door behind Danny before it was forcefully kicked open. The students’ prayers were answered. In the doorway stood a Ghost Hunter in full glory. His right hand was encased in a cast. His left hand gripped a shotgun and with a quick glance he trained the gun on the possessed teacher. All movement ceased as the large man slowly moved into the room, leaving the door open behind him.

“Mornin’ all,” he said with a feral grin. He stopped right in front of the overshadowed Thor, only a table separating them. The glared at each other, hunter and ghost. ‘Thor’ spoke first.

“Hey Gus. Heard you had some trouble with Technus. Something about a possessed toaster?”

The hunter groaned and shook his head with embarrassment. “No one will ever let that story die. How’s the afterlife treating you?” Jaws and make-shift weapons dropped. The possessed hunter leaned over the table to take the ecto-shotgun from Gus. He clicked the safety on and placed the weapon on the table.

“Can’t complain,” he answered. “I had the morning off so I figured I would visit. It shakes things up a little around here.” Gus chuckled before addressing the class.

“Everyone, I want to introduce you to Danny Phantom.”

Danny stepped out of Thor’s body and made a mock bow. Behind him Thor sighed wearily. “Did you have to destroy the door again?”

“Sorry,” Danny apologized sheepishly as he looked back at the teacher and the damage done.

“Take a seat.” The class followed Thor’s direction warily. He and Danny walked to the front and sat on the damaged desk side by side. “This was a test. The Patrol needed to know how you all would react to a real ghost threat and this is the best possible way to test you.

“So we get no warning?” accused the twin in the green shirt. “That doesn’t seem fair.”

“Duh, that’s the point,” Danny told the entire class. “Do you think ghosts normally schedule attacks?” The students didn’t have a response.

“It also gives us a chance to introduce you to one of the original members of the Patrol,” Thor continued. “Phantom’s played in an important part in this group since its conception.”

“You’re part of the patrol?” Ian asked, part amazed and part angry.

Danny nodded. “One of the original nine.” An uneasy silence followed Dan’s statement.

“How about we watch the movie?” Gus suggested, breaking the icy atmosphere. The students seemed confused by his request but Danny and Thor both knew what he meant.

“Whose desk is this?” Danny asked the teacher perched next to him.

“Smith’s…” Danny shifted over to the left and stuck his hand though the desktop. Pulling it out he came up with a soda, then a bag of popcorn, and finally a VHS tape labeled only with a date. He earned a couple of laughs from Gus and one of the students. The rest just glared at him, blaming him for making them look completely incompetent when faced with a ghost.

Thor took the tape and inserted it in a VCR that luckily remained unscathed through the fight. Danny relocated to one of the back tables with the popcorn. Thor joined him with a sad sigh. They both watched the video countless times, both the edited version and the uncut feeds from their headsets.

On the wall behind the desk a projector lit up and the screen divided into six parts, all black. The date appeared across the top three screens ‘1-12-2006’. It faded before, in smaller print, six names appeared on the screen.

Phantom------Anderson-----Smith

Jacobs--------Thorton--------Townsend

Gus stood in front of the screen, a single piece of paper materializing in his grasp. He lost his jolly expression. Newly sober he began the speech that Phantom and Thor wrote but both refused to speak.

“To all those who wish to become Ghost Hunters…

“This video portrays the darkest days of the Patrol. The Witch Doctor, a ghost previously unheard of in Amity, revealed herself to the city and committed one of the worst crimes in the city’s history. She kidnapped children right out their homes and attacked their families with her dark arts. Her Voo Doo protected ‘her’ children when the city’s hunters tried to stop her. She fled to the Ghost Zone, leaving behind broken families and the fear of her return.

“On January 12th, 2006 five humans and their ghost guide entered the Ghost Zone to rescue the fifteen missing children. They traveled alone without the hope of rescue if catastrophe fell on their mission. With no way of knowing the events that would follow, the hunters and ghost all wore mikes and cameras to record their entire journey. What follows is the only visual record of the Ghost Zone and the most complete footage of Ghost Fighting.

“If you have any illusions about the glory life of a ghost hunter, you’d better reconsider your reasons for joining.

“This isn’t a joyride, People…This is hell.”

The screens above each name brightened to show six different perspectives of the same room, a large lab with a glowing portal in one of the walls. A large metal contraption sat poised in front of the open portal. It looked just narrow enough to fit though the portal.

The movie started midconversation.

Chapter Ten

or

The Witch Doctor Incident