Amity Halloween - A Danny Phantom Fic

It's that time again. (For what; eat a steak? Sneak into a girls' bathroom? Play videogames ten hours straight until my eyes need new glasses?) No, Tucker… it's time for a Halloween fic. (Oh, cool! Candy!) Yeah, right… okay, Tuck; the disclaimer, please.

(Alright; DISCLAIMER; Ramiro doesn't own my pal Danny or any related character, all of us owned by Nickelodeon and created by Butch Hartman. By the way, Butch, in case you're reading this, -clears his throat- I'm an average teen no one understands… Mom and Sam and Danny always giving me commands…) Tucker, please, don't sing, and for God's sake, stop asking for your own fairy godparents. (But I want to wish for a hamburger the size of a van!) Go find Desiree then. (Are you kidding me? Knowing her, the meat will be raw and without catsup.)

Why do I even try? Okay, let's start this fic; on with the show!

-  Amity's Halloween  -

A Danny Phantom fic by Acosta Perez Jose Ramiro.

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"Zoinks!"

"Dude, you must stop watching those cartoons." The blonde said to his companion as he jumped behind him due the group of bats that exited the old, creepy, abandoned house they were about to enter.

"Okay, gentlemen, if you are done playing with the local fauna, I'd like to check this place." The teens moved aside so the bald man accompanying them could enter. "By the way, I want to thank you two again for coming with me; I need to evaluate the impact of this place's… improvements on average students."

"No problem, sir; I have a personal interest in this as well." The blonde said with his usual confident grin while his Asian friend followed him inside the house.

"Are you sure about this, man? I hate this kind of stuff."

"Friend, relax; we'll finish this in no time and be just in time for the party. It's not even seven yet."

The trio walked inside the house's living room that was pretty dark, just as the rest of the house.

"Darkness… expected; not really scary, but good for the atmosphere." The man said to himself, and then heard a soft and creepy music coming from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. "Mmm… and scary music; not bad."

"Kindergarten stuff," The blonde rolled his eyes before feeling a chill through his spine. "It's just me, or suddenly it's very cold in here?"

"No… I felt that too!" The Asian gulped and then looked at the man's direction. "This place has no… AAAAH!"

"'Great Expectations'! What happened?"

"The… kid… there was a kid floating next to you!" The boy said, visibly scared.

"I would have noticed that, don't you think?" The man arched an eyebrow at his alumni and then returned to his inspection, freezing at the spot when a couple of bright, green flames appeared in front of him, moving back and forth and all around the room.

"Now THAT is scary," the man said while the Asian and the blonde wide opened their eyes in surprise.

"It's done with mirrors, sir." The blonde said as he approached a door. "I don't see anything really scary here."

The moment he opened the door, however, the boy couldn't help but yelp in fear when a jar almost hit his head, as his friend and the man watched in awe as the object landed softly on a nearby table. The man approached the table and then picked up the jar, examining it closely.

"No strings or cables." The man placed the jar back on its place.

"Okay, I admit that surprised me, but, come on, just a jar?" The blonde recovered his irreverent posture that was short lived as virtually every object in the room started levitating and moving around. The Asian boy dashed under the table, closing his eyes and shivering.
"I WANT TO GO HOME!"

"'The Ghost of Canterville'! Levitating objects… this is good!" The man said in a mixture of awe and fear.

"It's just a cheap t-TRIIICK…!" The blonde yelled when being levitated him self; then, he was put upside down and started spinning at high speed before landing at a nearby sofa while all the objects returned to its right place.

The Asian, still under the table, closed his eyes even more tightly when hearing his friend's scream. He then felt a moist thing touching his cheek and jumped in fear, hitting his head with the table.

"OUCH! What was… hey, it's a puppy!" The boy calmed down when looking at a little green dog sitting next to him, giving him a happy look.

"Painting an animal green? I hope we don't get into trouble with the animals right's defenders." The man said while looking at the dog. The animal then seemed to look at something behind the humans, and a second later its eyes turned red and, in the blink of an eye, grew the size of an elephant and snarled at the people in front of him.

"'The Hound of the Baskervilles'!" The man yelled in fear as him and the boys ran upstairs.

"Now I know why everyone runs upstairs in horror movies… you are too scared to do anything smart!" The blonde, his courage completely gone, screamed in panic as the dog started following them; the trio tried to open a room to hide but all of them were locked.

"Hey, this one is open!" The Asian said when finally finding an unlocked door. The trio dashed inside the dark room and the man closed the door.

"Someone, turn on a light!"

"I think I found the switch… hey, what a weird light." The blonde said when spotting a bright and large green light, about the size of a door that floated right behind them. At that moment, the temperature dropped again and the scary music turned more intense.

"I chose such a bad day to not wearing underwear!" The Asian paled at the sight of the light.

"Too much information," The man said without losing sight of the vision in front of him.

"Funny; we say the same when studying for one of your tests." The blonde added while looking around. He then heard a breathing sound right over him, and, when looking at the ceiling…

GROOOOWWWLLL!

"AAAAAH!" The trio moved away from the dark, green eyed, long-claws beast right over them, and, without realizing, ran directly at the light. Next thing they knew, the trio was at the house's backyard, shivering in fear.

"So, Mister Lancer, did you like my haunted house?"

The trio turned and felt a huge relief when finding not a specter, but Danny Fenton, giving them a proud look. Lancer sighed and stood up, shaking the boy's hand in happiness.

"Congratulations, Mister Fenton; you really did a great job this year. Not as many holograms as last Halloween, but extremely scary as well. By the way, how did you do it? Got some devices from your parents?"

"Not exactly; I got some help from a few friends." Danny admitted.

"You have friends aside Miss Manson and Mister Foley?" Lancer got a puzzled expression.

"Believe it or not, yes, I do."

"Well, there are no rules against having any help. Okay, I'll call the other teachers and tell them they can bring the kids. Again, good job, Mister Fenton… and please, put a sign telling that underwear is obligatory to enter the house." Lancer gave a last look at Kwan and Dash, both of them still at the ground hugging each other, before the teacher left.

"I'll do, Mister Lancer. Happy Halloween," Danny waved bye to the teacher and then turned at the jocks. "Okay, Dash, guess I won the bet."

"Guess he's right." Kwan finally got his voice back. Dash pushed him aside and stood up, glaring furiously at Danny.

"Forget it, Fentonio! I'm not going to school tomorrow in a ballerina disguise!"

"You have too; remember, it was the ballerina thing if you lose, or me wearing a diaper and nothing more if I did." Danny reminded Dash their bet's conditions.

"Well, you can't force me!"

"If you don't do, I'll have to use the ultimate teenager weapon; blackmail." Danny pointed at one of the house's windows; Kwan and Dash looked up, and gasped when finding Sam holding a camera.

"Two boys hugging; perfect for the yearbook," Sam gave the jocks a little grin. Dash paled and looked back at Danny, who was giving him a smug look.

"If you don't have the outfit, don't worry; Sam's mom gave her one she never uses. It's a nice, pink one with some cute little ribbons."

"Catch it!" Dash looked back at Sam, catching a large white box. "You can keep it if you want; it doesn't fit with my style."

Groaning in defeat yet saying nothing, Dash walked away with Kwan right behind him. Once they were out of sight, Danny used his intangibility power to get back inside the house right when Sam was walking downstairs.

"Okay, everyone, great job!" Danny raised his voice a little bit in a cheerful tone; a moment later, several ghosts made them selves visible; a puppy, a kid in a cowboy outfit, a rocker girl, a nerdy-looking boy, and a werewolf.

"Did you see the face of that bully? Boy, it was priceless!" Poindexter laughed loudly.

"Funny." Wulf, in his very-short yet good enough English, said while petting Cujo, who was giving a happy look to both him and Danny.

"A ballerina? Dipstick, that was low… I love it!" Ember laughed as well, "And I thought you and Gothy here were just a pair of dull do-gooders!"

"Well, we're teens, what did you expect?" Danny shrugged.

"Fine, I admit it was funny and all, but where's my reward, pilgrims?" Youngblood smirked at Danny and Sam. "Maybe they do it for the kicks and the puppy for the toy you gave him a while ago, but I want the reward you promised."

"Don't worry; you'll get your reward in a few moments." Sam said, and, in a perfect cue, a little girl wearing a stylish version of Danny Phantom's outfit entered the room using her intangibility power, along with a certain geek boy wearing a zombie disguise, both of them carrying large bags.

"We missed it, right?" Danielle said in a slightly sad tone. "Tucker, I told you we had to hurry up!"

"Oh, don't complain, Danni; we got a lot of goodies in our way here." Tucker said as patting his bag and then looked at Danny and Sam. "See? I was right; a little girl in a Danny Phantom's costume is a gold mine when it comes to treat or trick."

"Talking about kids' exploitation, can you please pay Bloody The Kid?" Sam pointed at Youngblood, who was giving Tucker and Danielle, or, more precisely, their bags, a greedy look. Tucker nodded and took a smaller yet pretty loaded bag out from his backpack, handling it to Youngblood.

"As promised, no apples or toothbrushes; we saved the fruits for Sam and the brushes for Wulf."

"Good you did it; Fuzzy here is nice and all, but even when I change him back to human ghost, his breath remains the same." Ember smirked playfully at a shrugging Wulf while Youngblood opened his bag and started checking his candy.

"Talking about food, I must make a quick flight home and get the candy Lancer dropped there for the people coming to our haunted house." Danny said as changing into his Phantom persona. "Sam, you're in charge."

"Don't worry, we'll not leave. It will be nice to scare a few more humans without hurting anyone." Poindexter said.

"In my case, it's DESPITE not hurting anyone," Ember chuckled. "Oh, well; I'm thinking about that 'Phantom of the Opera' music in a remixed version."

"How about some polka?" Poindexter suggested.

"Nerd-o, I think that would scare even me." Ember shuddered while Wulf chuckled slightly at her look.

"Oh, can I scare people too, can I, can I?" Danielle said eagerly.

"Sure, no problem…" Sam was cut by Tucker.

"But it's not even 7:30; we still have time to visit a few more dozen houses!"

"Tucker, you already have more candy than Willy Wonka." The Goth girl groaned.

"Yes, but I want to have more chocolate than Switzerland!"

"How comes we are ghosts and he's the weird one?" Poindexter whispered at Danny, who simply shrugged at the nerdy ghost before leaving.

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Danny decided to take the panoramic route back home; with The Fright Night trapped in his pumpkin, his parents at home checking the portal (Jack was no longer allowed to be out in Halloween due the occasional mistaking a kid with a ghost) which meant they would be ready in case a specter escaped The Ghost Zone, and Valerie at Star's Halloween Party, there were few chances of Danny needing to fight tonight, so took the chance to relax and enjoy his flight, watching at all the disguised kids asking for candy; the closer he was to a real emergency was scaring away a few vandals throwing eggs at an old lady's door.

"Ugh; these eggs smell worse than yesterday's cafeteria lunch." Danny dropped the eggs, that evidently were more than a couple of weeks old, at Nasty Burger's dumpster; he was about to leave when his ghost sense detected a nearby specter.

"Oh, great, I'm going to be late again." Danny groaned as he started looking for the ghost. He noticed a mysterious mist flying at a very low height, heading to one of the city's most elegant neighborhoods. Danny made a fast cell phone call to Jazz, who was at home to give the kids candy and prevent Jack from eating it all, and told her he had to go ghost hunting, asking his sister to go the haunted house with the candy he was supposed to get; once that got settled, Danny started following the mist.

Danny soon recognized the route; it was the street where Paulina lived; even if Danny's crush on her was by now almost totally gone, and replaced with the occasional blush when looking at Sam and minor flirting with Valerie, he would find his way here even asleep. The boy saw the mist had stopped right in front of Paulina's house, and it slowly got the form of a ghostly woman; she was dressed in a quite elegant outfit, and despite the obvious being-dead status, Danny actually found her attractive; she probably was five or six years younger than Danny's mother current age when dying. Luckily, due the nature of the neighborhood, very few kids came here (many of these rich guys were also cheap-skates with non-high-classed children) so nobody was at the street at the time.

"Excuse me, ma'am," the woman turned at Danny, floating above her, his arms folded and alert in case she attacked him. "I'm sorry if I'm interrupting, but, as Amity's official resident ghost, it's my obligation to see if you're friend or foe. What are you doing here?"

"Oh… I didn't want to give any problems, kid." The woman said in a very calm and friendly tone. "Believe me, I'm not trying to scare or mess with anyone; I'm just visiting my daughter."

Danny finally noticed the very familiar look on the woman's face. He barely saw her a few times when he was a little kid, but he couldn't be wrong.

"You are Mrs. Sanchez?"

"Oh, you know me?"

"Well… I saw you a few times before, you know… going ghost." Danny landed next to the woman. He was trying to be as polite as possible since, for many ghosts, their deaths were quite a private and very personal issue. "And I had seen your daughter a few times as well."

"So, you know my Paulina? How cute!" The woman chuckled slightly. "She hadn't been rude with you or something like that?"

"No… actually, she's only rude with people at her school; with me, well, she's a very loyal fan." Danny rolled his eyes.

"About that, I hope you don't get a bad impression with her." Mrs. Sanchez said. "She used to be such a nice, gentle little girl… but, when I… went ghost, as you say, she and my husband were so devastated he did his best to compensate my absence, and, well, spoiled her a lot in the process. Luckily, she still remembers a few things I taught her."

The woman approached the house's window and turned invisible; Danny did as well, and looked inside, getting a surprised expression. He was sure Paulina would be at the party by now, but, instead, she was in front of a little home-made altar, with two little candles at its sides. Paulina was placing some dishes with assorted food in the altar, right in front of some pictures of her mother; thanks to her not totally showing her back to the window, Danny saw how the girl got a serene look and closed her eyes.

"She is praying?" Danny hardly could believe it; in his mind, he always figured shopping and fashion were Paulina's religion, and the mall, her temple.

"Old Mexican tradition," Mrs. Sanchez explained. "It's said that, in Halloween, or, more precisely, the Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, we, the ghosts, can travel freely between the spectral and the living worlds, and visit our relatives, who usually make a little offering for us, namely our favorite meals and other things we liked when living. I see my husband already put some of my favorite candy this morning; he usually returns much later this night to pray and talk to me privately; I can't interact with them or taste the food because, well, you know what happens when a ghost doesn't use a portal."

Danny sighed, knowing what she was talking about; the portals, either technological or natural, allowed phantoms use their powers to be either intangible or solid in the human world, just like in the Ghost Zone; the ghosts who could travel between worlds without doing this lacked this privilege, and only could look and listen without really touching or interacting in any way except, of course, with other ghosts, so they usually stayed invisible to avoid scaring anyone.

"If you want, I know about a portal we can use so you can visit your family." Danny offered. The woman turned visible to give him a little smile.

"Thanks, dear; you're a good boy… but, if we're thinking about the same portal, I already considered that possibility, and forgot about it. My time on Earth was great, and I miss my family a lot, but that time is over now; unlike many other ghosts, I accept I'm no longer part of this world. Besides, when my family think about me… I feel their presence, no matter where I am, and I'm not lonely any more."

Danny turned visible as well, and gave the woman a little smile; if she wasn't a ghost… Danny could only imagine what a good girl Paulina would be if her mother had raised her, instead of the vain, rude, and shallow person she became over the years that couldn't show real kindness to anyone but her family and only in privacy.

"Well, I have to go now. Nice to meet you again Mrs. Sanchez; take care," Danny said as waving bye to the woman and slowly flying away.

"You too, kid, and if you can, tell Maddie I said 'Hi'." Danny froze at the spot and turned back at the woman, who had turned invisible again but could still hear her voice. "And don't be that surprised; you're a real personality in the Ghost Zone… and I would recognize the eyes of that cute Fenton kid anywhere, no matter their color."

Danny chuckled a little bit before leaving the place. Of course he couldn't give that message to his mother.

But he would give her a very tight hug the moment he arrived home.

THE END.
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Hope you guys liked it. I wanted to keep this as a comedic story, but had this idea with Paulina's mother and couldn't resist. (And, besides the offering thing, there's any other tradition in the Day of the Dead?) Yes, we visit our dead relatives' graveyards to clean them and pray. (Nice… and scary) And we also have some candy; our traditional one is a chocolate/sugar skull with your name engraved on it. (Now, that's a totally nice tradition!) Thought you would say that.

For those wondering why Ember, Youngblood and Poindexter helped Danny here, that's a reference to some of my previous works, namely 'Kids' Game' and 'The Fugitives'. (Also, as a second disclaimer, Ramiro doesn't own the books mentioned in the story, or Scooby Doo, referenced here a couple of times, as well as my favorite movie character, Willy Wonka.) I thought your favorite was Jessica Rabbit. (No, I want to be Willy Wonka… but I would like to be with Jessica.)

Okay, thanks to all of you for reading this fic; please, drop a review before leaving. (And a few chocolate bars, caramels, and similar stuff as well wouldn't be bad!) I would hate being your dentist.

Keep the good writing.