(The beginning of this chapter was Heavily inspired by 'Heart of a Hero' written by DasChillyOne on Ao3. Check it out. It is really good.)
"Now kids, you're in high school now, so now you can help with ghost hunting." Jack Fenton started to lecture Danny Fenton, Tucker Foley, and Sam Manson.
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"But Mr. Fenton, There's no such thing as ghosts. Have you ever seen one?" Tucker asked. The Trio of teenagers were really trying to draw up an interest in the lecture of a ghost hunter with zero experience that they were trying to get through this and go to school.
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"Well no, but-" Jack turned to his lab table at the very moment the Portal door opened, letting out two ghost octopi, who fled out of the lab as quickly as they could. "- Maddie and I made this." He turned back around and held a silver and green cylinder in his hands and handed it to Danny.
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"What's it do?" Danny asked, slightly annoyed that the two ghosts ran off, or it flew off, before he and his friends could throw them back. His Father was just about to explain it when Jazz, his older sister, came down to get them for school.
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"It catches ghosts. We're calling it the 'Fenton Thermos' for now, since 'Thermos' has a trademark." Jack told his son. "Take it with you to school, but don't put anything liquid in it. We haven't tested if it can be used as a regular thermos." He warned.
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"Dad! There's no such thing as ghosts. Stop corrupting these young minds." Jazz told her father, snatching Danny's head to cradle. "There's no reason that he should need to carry around a ghost catcher powered by what you call Ectoplasm." She told him as the mother came downstairs.
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"It is Ectoplasm, Sweetie. We collected a bunch during our first attempt at opening a portal." Maddie got a sad look on her face. "Unfortunately, we had to stop after an accident happened to a lab partner and friend of ours." She told the kids.
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The Trio's ears perked up. Accident with a portal? "What happened to them, mom?" Danny asked what they all wanting to know.
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"He got these boils and pustules all over his body. He went into the hospital, and we haven't seen or heard from him again" Maddie told them with tears starting to form in her eyes. Jack went to comfort his wife.
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The kids decided to let them have their moment. The Trio decided to walk to school and let Jazz drive herself alone. "Ok, but don't take too long getting there. You don't want to be late on the first day of school." Jazz told them as she drove off.
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Unlike normal high school kids who talk about their favorite sports teams or the weather. Danny, Tucker, and Sam decide to talk about how one of them had a terrible accident and how it may have slightly killed him.
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"I should probably tell my parents about what happened in the lab last month. Shouldn't I?" Danny has wanted to tell them about it since the accident that may or may not have killed him but refrained after finding out about some of his powers. He wanted to wait to see if he was dying or if something else was happening entirely.
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"You sure? It's your secret man. We can't really tell you who you can or can't tell." Tucker told his half-dead friend, looking at Sam as he said it. "Onto a related subject, where are you at with your 'Not all ghosts are Bad' campaign with your parents?" He asked before Sam to try and unnecessarily bad mouth their friend's parents for something they haven't done yet.
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"It's going as well as it can be without a ghost to talk to." He told both his friends. Danny has been trying to hold a conversation with all the ghosts he ran into, but either they didn't want to talk or couldn't as they have mostly been animals and blobs. Some of the animals are nice and friendly and he plays with them a bit. "I got them to believe that there are good ghosts," His friends cheered, "but they think that the only ghosts they'll encounter are the bad ones because of the obsession rumor thing. They think that if an obsession is so great that you have to transcend dimensions, it can't be for good reason." He finished and his friend apologized for the premature cheer.
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"At least you're getting there." Tucker tried to cheer his friend up by clapping him on the shoulder. "Who knows, maybe the first human ghost you meet will be the one that gets you to your goal?"
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"Hello, what about the experimentation that people could do?" Sam asked, glaring at Tucker for not letting her talk. "They may not be the ones to do it, but they aren't the best at keeping secrets from other scientists." Sam pointed out. "We can keep your secret because no one will believe a couple of highschoolers about ghosts. We're losers, always have been, always will be."
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"Maybe not my gothic friend." Tucker smirked. "There is an influx of new students from Middleton High coming to Casper." He wrapped his arms around his friends. "That is an influx of people who don't know who we are. If we befriend the right people, we're golden." Tucker gave a smile at that.
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"That's also an influx of women to shoot you down when you ask them out." Sam said, humbling Tucker.
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"What are you talking about 'Influx of new students'?" Danny asked, feeling out of the loop.
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"Oh, right. All that happened while you were in the hospital." Sam said in realization.
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"The Middleton High science wing exploded. No one was in there, thank god." Tucker took off after seeing Sam not continuing. "But the explosion took out most of the school there and the school board decided to transfer the students instead of rebuilding the school." Tucker explained to his friend.
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"Yeah. I guess with everything going on with you, we really didn't think to mention it." Sam told her friends. "Anyways, back to the previous topic-" Sam started when a blue mist came out of Danny's mouth and the two ghost octopi from the lab rushed them.
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"Hey guys, sorry if it was scary back there." Danny started to talk to them after he transformed and caught them in each of his hands.
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'I wish I could speak to all ghosts' I thought before speaking again. "We won't hurt you if you won't hurt us." He tried to explain to them in what he thought was a gentle tone of voice. The octopi looked at each other and back at Danny.
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"Water." The two ghost octopi spoke to him with a weird reverb.
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"Water, you want water? Okay. Tuck, can you grab my bottles from my bag?" Danny asked, before turning to see his friends staring blankly. He whistled to get their attention because his hands were full. "They said they wanted water. Can you get some from my bag?" Danny asked them again, snapping them out of whatever trance they were in.
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"What were you saying there? I couldn't make out what language it was." Sam asked as Tucker did as he was told.
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Tucker set down two bottles of water on the ground in front of Danny. "Yeah, were you speaking some kinda ghost language? The octopi were speaking the same thing." Tucker asked before jotting it down in his PDA.
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The two octopi went for the water and drank greedily from them. "I don't know." Danny shrugged. "I just focused on wanting to speak to ghosts and I guess I did?" He told his tech friend while watching the octopi.
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The octopi finished their water and floated up to face Danny, who had transformed back to a human. "More. Water." The octopi said.
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"Come with us while invisible and I can help with that." Danny told them in his ghost speech. "School has a reservoir full of water you can drink from. We need to use fountains though." He told the cephalopods. The Octopi agreed and flew to Danny's shoulders and sat on them invisibly. He told his friends his plans "I think I'll take these guys with us to school and then home to show my parents all ghosts aren't bad. If they agree that is." Danny added, knowing they were on his shoulders
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"Are you sure that's a good idea? Bringing them to school?" Sam asked with concern. "I'm all for helping animals, but their ghost animals. Untrained ghost animals." She added with emphasis. "You can't really expect them to just stay put or invisible the whole day. What if your parents hear about them before you can explain?" She asked when they started walking again.
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"Yeah, with the way your dad drives, he could be at the school within a minute. The school is 10 minutes by car." Tucker agreed with his gothic friend. Danny just wouldn't budge on his plan.
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The Trio made it to the school with plenty of time to spare. As they were going to their lockers, Danny whispered to his octopi friends. "Stay with me hidden at all times. You don't need to be on my shoulder the whole time. Don't hurt anyone, no matter what." He explained to them why as he made it to his locker, a rusted old thing with its door almost hanging off its hinges.
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"Ghost. Mirror." The Octopi told him. Sure enough, there was a mirror inside. Before Danny could investigate, he felt a presence behind him.
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"Hey Fenturd. See you have a new locker, it's just like you, ugly and pummeled." Dash said, lifting Danny by his shirt collar.
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Danny could feel the octopi go off his shoulders towards the locker. He hoped they would listen to him about not attacking anyone. If they did, he would deal with the consequences. Dash was a freshman, but he already had a letterman jacket because the incumbent players were just so bad that 85% of this year's players were freshman, including 3/4ths of the starters.
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"Dash, this is high school. A place where we could start over and become better men." Danny tried to reason with him, even with him knowing the answer inherently, that he would never change. He has been bullying people since his growth spurt in elementary school, playing pee-wee football. Dash may have matured physically, but his bullying habits stayed the same all these years.
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"Yeah, I thought I would give out better bullying. Better quality and all that." Dash said, pushing Danny in his new locker. Danny couldn't feel the octopi, so he assumed they were not in the locker.
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"Leave him alone." An unfamiliar voice cried out from behind Dash, causing him to turn around to find a red headed girl with green eyes. She was glaring at Dash with some serious anger.
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"What's it to you? He's just a loser." Dash pulled Danny back out as if to show her who she was defending. As he did that, Danny sensed that the octopi were in his bag. Also glaring furiously at the jock.
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Danny was thinking of just going intangible to get out of Dash's grip but thought against it. Just because Dash's and the girl's attention was away from him, they would obviously think he had powers. Maybe not ghost powers, but powers.
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"I don't care what he is, that is not acceptable behavior. Now put him down." The girl said, emphasizing the last bit by putting her hands on her hips.
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"Fine. Fenturd's not worth my time anyway." Dash said, letting go of Danny and walking off.
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"You alright?" The girl asked, walking over to Danny while he was readjusting his shirt. She looked at his locker's state of being. "I'm sure we can get you a new locker if we go to the office." She told him as he was putting some of his stuff away.
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"I'm fine. And no, I'm good with this locker. It just needs a few small repairs and some cleaning, not particularly in that order." Danny told her, embarrassed. He checked on the octopi and they were back on his shoulders. He sighed in relief that they were still with him and didn't hurt anybody.
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Taking the sigh as one of anger at the bully, the girl decided to distract him by introducing herself. "Kim Possible, pleased to meet you." She stretched her arm out for him to take it. "Don't worry about that bully, he won't do that to you again if I have anything to say about it." She assured him
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Danny took her hand with wide eyes. "Thanks Kim. I'm Danny Fenton. Can I ask a question you probably get a lot?" He saw her sigh and nod. "How's traveling around the world like?"
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That question seemed to throw her. "I don't actually get that one at all. Maybe I could tell you at lunch since it's almost time for class?" She asked, looking at her watch. "My friend and I don't really have anyone we usually sit with at lunch." She said as they started to walk away from the lockers.
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At lunch Danny introduced Kim and Kim introduced Ron to Sam and Tucker. Tucker and Ron were excited to have more friends and Sam was suspicious of them like she usually is. Rufus, Ron's pet, introduced himself by trying to get their attention, pointing at the octopi on Danny's shoulders.
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The Trio was nervous, but Kim and Ron didn't seem to notice the naked mole rat's unusual behavior. Danny felt one of the octopi move one of its tentacles to its mouth, telling the rat to quiet.
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Kim was telling Danny about traveling the world. "It's actually fun, but that's usually the way we travel. When we travel, we don't usually get to sightsee. One time Ron and I-"
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Kim was interrupted by a Latina girl, Paulina, who smacked the table. "Hello Kim, I was just letting you know that you don't have to sit with these losers here." Both Kim and Sam glared at her at that statement. "You can come join us at the A-List table. You're a cheerleader. You should hang out with Star, Bonnie, and I, not associate with these losers." Paulina scrunched her nose at the others.
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"No thanks Paulina. Bonnie and I aren't exactly friends, and I don't want that to get between you and Star." Kim looked at Danny before looking back at Paulina. "Besides, I would like to make new friends here at Casper High. Anyways, I'll see you and Star at cheer practice anyway." Kim looked at her food as Paulina walked away from them in a huff.
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Danny's and Tucker's jaws dropped when Kim dismissed Paulina's invitation. Sam narrowed her eyes in suspicion of her. Danny could sense the octopi satisfied with the redhead at staying with her group. Danny wondered how he could sense their emotions, remembering their hate of Dash earlier.
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"You know that people would kill to get an invitation to the A-list table." Danny told her, worried she'll regret it.
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"Yeah, turning down the A-list is just not done. We even lost a few friends because they didn't want to hang out with the 'loser' crowd." Tucker said, looking at Kwan. "We've never had anyone stick with us after something like that."
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"You sure you want to do that? Turning her down like that could be problematic later on for you. Most people dream of being an A-lister, cheerleader or not." Sam got her own words in since the others were. Knowing sitting with them would not be good for one's social standing in school.
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"Yeah, if she's anything like Bonnie, and she seems exactly the type, then I really don't want anything to do with her. I've dealt with her for years; I don't need a second." She said, before taking a sip of water. "Even beyond that, they would never let Ron come with me. He's my best friend; I'm not abandoning him for some snooty rich girl."
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"Hey, what makes you think I can't be popular?" Ron asked, and Kim just gave him a look. "Alright fine, I get it."
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"Ron, you're great. You're not the A-list type, and trust me, that's a good thing." Kim said, patting her friend's back.
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Rufus decided this moment was great to climb up Kim and push her face to look at Danny, trying to get her to see the ghostly octopi. Rufus kept gesturing to Danny's shoulders repeatedly saying squid.
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"Woah, is your naked mole rat speaking?" Danny asked Ron, trying to divert their attention. Rufus didn't appreciate it.
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"Wow, no one's ever gotten what he was unless I told them." Ron said, sounding impressed. "We don't really know how he talks, I just got him from Smarty Mart, aisle 16." He smiled fondly, remembering when he first met Rufus. "Rufus is trained to be an emotional support animal, maybe he picked it up there?" He shrugged, not caring why his pet could almost talk.
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'But why is he saying squid while pointing at Danny?' Kim thought to herself, having known Rufus had good intuition. She filed this information for later.
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"Anyways, you want any of this Rufus?" Ron gestured to his Mystery Meat. Rufus resigned himself to not outing the octopi and decided to dig in.
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"It's probably inhumane for you to feed naked mole rats, whatever is in the Mystery Meat." Sam said, her gaze narrowing on the rodent.
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Danny took this moment to sneak off to feed and water the octopi, almost forgetting before seeing Rufus start to eat. Danny snuck off into an empty hallway without cameras and changed to his ghost form and flew off intangibly as well as invisibly to the roof where the octopi drank the water and ate the fruits Danny had on his tray. "So you can eat fruit, but not meat or vegetables. Good to know." Danny said to himself, writing down all he learned about the octopi.
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"You know? You're the first ghost I have seen to be nice to Ectopi. People just blast them away." A rather nasally voice told him. The person revealed themselves to be a ghost. He was gray and translucent.
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"Ectopi?" Danny asked, trying not to be surprised at the sudden appearance of the first human ghost he had seen. "Is that what you call them?"
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"That's what I've heard, they don't usually come here, in the human or ghost worlds." The nerdy ghost explained. "My name's Sidney Poindexter. I'm the ghost they warned you about." The ghost, now identified as Sidney, indicated the octopi, now called Ectopi.
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"Warned?" Danny asked worried that the first human ghost he meets is evil. "Can't we be friends?" Danny asked, still wanting to show his parents a good ghost.
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"No!" Sidney's eyes widened. "I mean yes, we can be friends. I didn't mean 'warn' as in I'm a threat, but just so you weren't surprised when we met face to face." The ghost assured Danny, sitting down with his legs crossed.
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Danny relaxed at that. He wanted to try something. "Can you understand me?" Danny asked in his ghost speech, wondering if he could only talk like that to ghost animals.
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"Yes but I can't really speak it. How can you? Most human ghosts never get the ability to speak 'Gholric'." Sidney said, astonished at a few words.
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"Gholric, that's what they are speaking." Danny said to himself, looking at the ectopi. "Sorry, They are more or less the reason I'm able to speak Gholric. I just focused on wanting to speak to all ghosts really hard and I just did. I didn't even know I was speaking it the very first time." He explained himself. Hearing the bell ringing for the end of lunch he packed everything up. "Sorry, but I need to cut this short, classes and all. Are you two ready to go?" Danny asked the ectopi just as they were on his shoulders and went invisible.
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"Wow, you trained them really well. Zone-born animals are hard to tame at all, and you have them so well behaved." Sidney complimented the ectopi. Danny could feel their pride radiating out of them. "I've been following you around all day, just to make sure they didn't hurt anyone, but they've been by your side all day."
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Ignoring the comment about the following. Danny flew back down to where he took off, glad he had used a less used hallway for the transformation. Danny de-transformed and went on to his class. He gave his friends an excuse, saying the Mystery Meat didn't sit well with him.
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School ended with Danny, Tucker, Sam, Kim, and Ron walking out of the school emotionally drained from their first day.
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Danny stretched, his ectopi moved to his bag, happy to finally be out of the dreary building that was the high school. "Well, that's our first day done and dusted. Anyone feel like celebrating, or is everyone too tired for it?" Danny asked the group as a whole.
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"I'd rather take a nap after all that." Tucker told his half dead friend, yawning to illustrate his point.
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"Yeah, I'd rather go home right now." Sam said in a tone that indicated she had a plan for her off time. "Besides, didn't you say you were going to talk to your parents about a squid issue?" Sam asked, knowing Rufus kept saying squid while pointing at Danny repeatedly.
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That got Kim's attention. "What kind of squid?" She asked, curious about her new friend. At this point, the ectopi chose to reveal themselves to Kim and Ron. Ron hid behind Kim and Rufus looked victorious.
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"These are ghostly octopi. Not squid." The Ectopi held up all eight of their tentacles. "They came to us on our way to school for water and decided to come with me." Danny pulled two bottles of water from his bag and gave them to the ghostly octopi, who guzzled it greedily.
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"Fascinating." That was all Kim could say. Wade told her that there were a couple of weird energy signatures near her but just thought it was interference from the old school. Two ghost octopi were not even close to the top of her list of what the signatures were.
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Sam looked affronted that Danny would tell them about the two octopi. "How come you told them? I thought the whole reason for them to be invisible was for no one but your parents knowing about them?" She asked her dead friend.
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"First, you were the one who said 'squid' knowing that was what Rufus was saying about me at lunch. Second, people were going to know eventually and intentionally showing Kim and Ron first is controlled and they won't let it get back to my parents before I'm ready to reveal them." Kim and Ron nodded at this part. "Third, it's not like I'm revealing my other secret while doing this. Which I will not say right now." He said the last bit to Kim and Ron.
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"That's understandable, we wouldn't want any of our secrets to get out either." Kim assured Danny. She was excited to find something impossible to exist with normal science. "How about we go to your place and make sure these two don't get hurt? I had heard today that the Fenton's were ghost hunters." Kim said, thinking the octopi were cute.
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"Yay" Both of the ectopi said in English and in unison.
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"So they can speak? Awesome!" Ron exclaimed, he moved out from behind Kim excited of now getting to see ghost hunters and hang with real ghosts. "Yeah, let's go to Danny's to make sure these little ones are safe."
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"I can do that. Each of you has had at least one class with me and can vouch that they didn't cause any harm in class. They did nothing but eat fruit and drink water during lunch today." Danny revealed that his excuse was false during lunch, but not that he was on the roof.
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At the Fenton's residence, Danny and company walked into his parents fighting what looked to be living food. Danny and Kim were about to jump in to help, when the two octopi charged in first. They used their tentacles to shovel the food into their mouths which were enlarged to fit the amount. After all the living food was eaten by the Ectopi, Danny and Kim jumped between them and the Fentons.
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"Before you go all 'guns blazing' remember that they just saved you from the food that was trying to kill you." Danny told his parents who lowered their weapons and their angry faces. The parents nodded and placed their weapons on the ground.
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"When did you meet these ghosts, son?" Jack asked his son, looking skeptically at the two ghostly octopi.
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"Just this morning, I saw a bunch of other animal ghosts over the month. They're the only ones that seem to want to talk. Even if it's just for water. Speaking of which, I need to get some more, they probably need it after eating all of that food." Danny went to get water for his ectopi. "I've really only seen them eat fruit, but that could have been the only edible food in the school cafeteria." He came back and gave them large bowls of water. "They are very well behaved; they have stayed with me all day and didn't cause problems at all. No one even noticed they were there, except Rufus, Ron's pet, and I was wondering if they could stay here as a study pet. We can observe them as a family or I could do it. Please let me keep them." Danny rambled, stopping after the Ectopi sat on his shoulders.
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Everyone in the room saw that Danny visibly relaxed when the ghosts rested on his shoulders.
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"I just really want to show you that not all ghosts you'll encounter will be evil. Please." Danny pleaded with his parents, unknowingly changing to Gholric at the end.
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"Okay. Friend. Calm." The ectopi told their new friend, stroking his cheek and back respectively. Sam and Tucker had panicked looks on their faces at the ghostly language.
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"They actually can speak. Amazing." Maddie was smiling brightly at the new research she could do with the new additions. She already accepted that they would be allowed to live here as Danny's pets of sorts after seeing them calm him down so quickly.
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"I know what you mean, Maddie. Wow." Jack had a huge grin on his face seeing his son having a genuine interest in ghost hunting, maybe not the hunting part of it, but that is ok. "Now that that is handled, who are the new faces here? I hope we didn't scare you too badly."
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"That's Kim, I'm Ron, and this little guy is Rufus." Ron introduced themselves.
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"What language were you speaking in? I don't think I've ever heard it before" Kim asked, confused. There have been so many new things thrown at her in a short time span.
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"It's called Gholric. A ghost kid I met told me the language's name. It's supposed to just be ghost-speak and human ghosts rarely get the power. He was really surprised when I spoke the language to him. He couldn't speak the language back to me. Odd that the three of us can speak it." Danny explained to the group.
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Danny and everyone chatted and found out that Danny's and Kim's mother's knew each other. They were even roommates in Upperton University. Kim left with a plan to tell her mother that she had met an old friend of hers.