DP Part 3

It didn’t take long for Danny to hear his class shuffling behind him, apparently they wanted to get home more than they wanted to support Dash who, by the sound of heavy footfalls, was at the back of the pack. They were quickly running out of land on their little floating island and when they came to the edge the class started murmuring again.

“how are we-“

“there isn’t any land”

“are we stuck-“

“I knew following Fenton was a bad idea”

                Danny just ignored them and went to step off the edge, screams were heard behind him until his class mates notice that he was floating in mid-air.

“how?”

Danny smirked enjoying the bewildered expressions on his classmate’s faces. “Ghost zone rule number one, in here, humans are the ghost but everyone can fly.” Danny demonstrated this by making slow loops out in the open space of the ghost zone. Sam and Tucker joining him with little effort on their part. Some of his classmates started forward, excitement on their faces at the prospect of flying.

“wait!” Danny said everyone froze.

“everyone may be able to fly but you need to know how or you will plummet to the lowest reaches of the ghost zone before you can even blink, and trust me the ghosts that attack our town are nothing compared to the ghost down there.”

                Danny may have been telling a little lie, sure the ghosts down there were gruesome to look at but they were actually nice ghosts and wanted to be left alone, more than they wanted to attack anything. They still would if they were disturbed but otherwise they stayed out of each other’s way.

                “how are we supposed to fly, Danny?” a small girl, Megan, asked. She looked shy but the shyness was overcome with the excitement on her face at the prospect of flying without a machine. Danny smiled, she was a nice girl that loved to bake and would often pass around her confection to everyone, including the ‘losers’ and the ‘outcasts’.

“Megan, have you ever seen Peter Pan?”

She nodded excitedly beaming up at his still floating form.

“well instead to thinking happy thoughts, you need to think about your desire to fly, imagine the wind rushing through your hair and pushing you forward. Imagine that you are not bound by gravity and can soar where ever you want to.”

Danny could see Megan and a few others concentrate hard on the thought of flight and smiled in satisfaction when Veronica, Kailey, and Paulina started floating. When the boys saw that it worked and that Fenton was telling the truth slowly everyone started concentrating and one by one they all started to float lightly about the ground. Mikey was the last one in the air but it only took the class about twenty minutes to start to float. 

“Good! Now come out here” Danny said gesturing to the void of nothingness under his feet. Most of the class immediately fell back to the ground as their doubts consumed them, no way could they actually fly. Surprisingly it was Lester who first got up the courage and started floating out to Danny, when he finally arrived he clung to Danny like a life line but laughed joyously at the thrill of flight.

                Finally after much prodding and more proof that they could, in fact, fly the entire class was floating in a group around Danny. Dash, not wanting his authority challenged since he was the last one up started yelling at Danny.

“now what, Fenton?”

“now we fly, follow me” Danny slowly took off toward the river. He, Sam and Tucker could all fly well over 80mph in the ghost zone but they would have to take it slow if they wanted their classmates to keep up.

                When they finally made it to the River Acheron the class was stupefied at both the length of the river as well as the size. Most rivers in the human world were long and peaceful. Acheron was a surging horizontal waterfall, more water than they had ever seen before was being stirred up into white foam in front of them.

“how are we going to get across that!” Kwan asked, he had been quiet the whole time but now he looked like he was going to cry.

“anyone got a nickel?” Danny asked, the class turned to glare at him only for Sam to dig around the pocket of her skirt and hand him one.

“Here Danny, just call Cheron and get this over with.”

                Danny turned back to the surging river and tossed the coin into its depths. “Cheron, we ask thee for your service, please bestow us mere mortals with your presence” no sooner than he said that did a dark chuckle sound over the sound of the river.

“Now Danny, you know as well as I do that a mere mortal is what you’re not.” A small row boat pulled up to the side of the river bank (if you could call empty space a bank) a skeleton figure in a dark cloak sat in the boat with oars in his hands, the boat tilted dangerously to the side as he stood up to greet the new students, he slowly bowed low to the class.

“how may I be of service, my dear friends?”

Danny floated forward “Cheron we would like to ask for passage across the river.”

“Granted young Fenton, as long as you have proper payment.”

“I only have 3 golden sheckles.”

“Then only 3 may pass my river in safety. You know my rules young one, only those with proper payment may pass the river of pain.”

                Danny grimaced, at this rate he would never get his classmates home. Sam come forward and said “what about a trial? The hero’s of the myths were given trails to pass if they needed to ask for a favor. Can we do one of those?”

“A trail? Well I haven’t given one of those if a long time, such fun they were! Very well! I will give a trial and if one of you pass it I will carry you all across, no charge!”

Danny smiled about to say ‘deal’ when Dash pushed to the front of the group “Deal!” he yelled “I can pass any trial easily, I am the football star after all” Danny wanted to face palm to bad, but he couldn’t because the next second Cheron stepped forward in his boat and said “good, then the challenge will be, since I am the guardian of the river of pain, you must be able to stand pain. For the trail you must stand in the river Acheron a second for every person you want to cross.”

                Dash turned around and started counting heads. Danny could just see this going wrong, and his thoughts were confirmed when Dash started smiling. “Can I choose which ones can cross?” his voice raising in question as he stepped closer to Cheron only to quickly retreat when he saw how close he came to the ghostly skeleton.

“Of course” said Cheron

“Then I choose Kwan, Star, Paulina, Danny and myself. So 5 seconds should be easy.” Danny should not have been surprised that Dash chose him. First Danny knew the way out, second Danny was his favorite pushing bag so if he did this Dash thought he could bully Danny all the way back.

“Hey! What about us?” Annie said.

“Now, now” Cheron said “Lets just see if he can stand the waters of pain for 5 seconds”

Dash glided forward confidently he had barely stepped his toe in when he started screaming in pain and jerked back to the class. “5 seconds!” he yelled. It felt like forever to him.

Cheron chuckled darkly “No, dear boy that was not even one second. And you have to be completely immersed. Now would you like to try again? Or does someone else want to give it a try?” The look on Dash’s face was of agony no one stepped forward to take his place.

“I will, for everyone.” Danny said.

“young one, you know that will be 15 seconds in the river of pain, I add a second for every failure. You sure you want to take the trail?” Cheron was even doubtful that anyone could stand the river for that long.

“yes.”