The Secret Trio

Chapter 6

Danny found himself in an electronics shop. It was messy and quiet, and it appeared as if no one was in. A bit confused and worried that somehow the badge put him in the wrong place, he looked around a bit more. His eyes found the door, which had a bell above it to announce customers. Danny jiggled the door and rang the bell, and within seconds a short, elderly Chinese man hobbled into the room. He looked up at Danny with a smile.

"Hello! I am Lao Shi. Never had a customer, never had a sale. Are you looking for something?" he asked. He pulled a stool over and sat upon it, patiently staring at the boy. Danny shrugged awkwardly and forced a smile.

"Um, sir, is Jake Long available?"

Lao Shi raised an eyebrow. "He's busy at the moment. What is this regarding?"

"Oh...how do I say this? Ask this? Er..." Danny shrugged and cleared his throat. "I...I'm aware your grandson is the American Dragon." Unfortunately, that had not been what Lao Shi wanted to hear. His eyes widened and then he glared at Danny.

"Jake is busy." he repeated coldly, "What is your business and who are you? What do you know?"

Danny frowned. "I'm sorry, sir, I should've introduced myself first. My name is Danny Fenton. I'm from Amity Park." He looked around for anyone who might see and looked back to the old man. "I'm secretly Danny Phantom." With that, he transformed into his ghost half. Lao Shi stared at him without blinking. "And I'm here because I wanted to talk to your grandson about temporarily teaming up to fight off the monsters as of late."

Lao Shi, who had seen many magical creatures and things in his life, was not terribly shocked at all by Danny. However, he was undoubtedly suspicious of him, and he needed to know more. He raised his voice. "Jake!" he shouted. Almost instantly three teenagers ran in, and then stopped short and crashed into each other as Danny came into view. As they stared at him, wide-eyed, he waved, arm halfway up.

"Um, hi?" he asked more than said. "...Jake Long? The American Dragon?"

Jake's eyebrows were knit close and he frowned. "How do you know my name and who I am?" he demanded, crossing his arms. Behind him, Fu Dog peeked in from the back room and saw Danny. The dog walked out calmly standing on two legs. Danny jumped in surprise when he saw him. Fu smiled.

"Hey there, how ya doing?" he asked. Danny blinked, cocking his head to the side.

"You're...you're a talking dog."

"And you're a ghost. How about that?" Fu Dog patted him on the back and joined Lao Shi, who gave Fu a disapproving stare. Trixie placed her hands on her hips, giving Danny a stern but not aggressive look.

"How much do you actually know about the magical world, ghost kid?"

"Yeah, I mean, you just saw a talking dog and was actually really surprised." Spud pointed out. Danny shrugged.

"Not a lot." He transformed back into human form. "I've only been like this a year, half-ghost I mean, and I just found out about you guys today from another ghost. So...yeah."

The reaction to his true form had been significantly less dramatic than when he talked to Randy and Howard. Everyone seemed only mildly surprised, and even then they got over it almost instantly. Too long had they seen odd things, and Danny's secret was hardly interesting to them. In fact, the lack of reaction surprised Danny more than anyone else.

This resulted in Trixie giggling. "Look at him, he thinks we're gonna be shocked by this." She approached him and slapped him on the back. He grunted and Trixie looked back to her friends. "Isn't he just adorable, thinkin' he'd surprise us?"