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They were not supposed to be here. They didn't want to be here. They hadn’t even tried to be here. Yet luck had never been on the Amity Parker’s side before, and they should have realized this would be no different.
It was their senior year and things around Amity had calmed down. Or at least everyone was used to Amity’s special brand of crazy.
He had told his parents about Phantom and they had helped hunt down the GIW. Most of Amity was discovered to be liminal and most of the young people had developed some basic abilities.
And then Mrs. Abernagaby decided that their science final would be a group project. This wasn’t anything new. Every year Casper participated in the Helping Intelligent Minds Be Outstanding competition–better known as the HIMBO competition.
And usually the smartest seniors would be picked to work on a group project to submit. Casper High had never won. So, this year Mrs. Abrnagaby decided that all the seniors could work on it together. Because more heads were better than one!
Obviously she didn’t remember what being part of a group project felt like. And she obviously didn't account for the fact that no one would care.
They weren’t even told what the award was since it varied year to year and was meant to be a surprise.
All they were told was that they had to design a new air filtration system.
So, being seniors who had survived ghost attacks, invasions, their town being pulled into another dimension, dealing with the GIW, and making it through adjusting to Amity shifting to the stranger side as everyone's liminality began to show, they did not try.
Which was how they ended up with this masterpiece.
The challenge was to design a new air filtrator. Which if they had wanted to, would have been easy since air filters that would reduce the amount of ectoplasm in the air had been designed before the residents realized it was too late to do any good, and so they had never been made.
They didn’t even submit a design; it was a paper mache volcano covered in everyone’s failed tests. The accompanying research paper they were supposed to submit had Dash’s and Paulina’s self-insert fanfics with– you guessed it– phantom as the love interest. Danny had tried to make them remove it since it was awkward now that they knew who he was, but they had claimed they wrote it before they knew. Danny knew this was a lie because they were lying liars who lied.
The paper also included one of Sam’s activist papers, Wes’s conspiracies about Bruce Wayne being Batman’s sugar daddy (now that everyone knew Danny was Phantom Wes didn’t feel the need to include that research (he also believed that Batman was Bruce Wayne but didn’t want to antagonize the furry who could ruin his life)).
Tucker had included evidence of a Pentagon hack he had done a few years ago, Mikey had drawn some incredible fanart about Green Lantern (he said this would have the greatest effect on Gothamites and Wes agreed saying Batman didn’t like Green Lantern. How he knew this, no one asked.).
And lastly, they attached a file of them doing the Harlem Shake.
Mrs. Abernagaby hadn’t even looked at it before sending it off.
And then of course they had won. And what a grand prize it was! They won a trip to Gotham to explore the various big businesses, as well as a chance to apply at those locations for internships. Yeah… Sam had found out all the other schools had dropped out after finding out the prize. No one wanted to go to Gotham. But the school said it was a learning opportunity! To see what it was like outside Amity! To see what normal was supposed to be like!
So, they were forced to go, but at least they got Mr. Lancer as their supervisor and they wouldn’t even have to take a long bus ride because Amity was friends with Gotham. Apparently there weren’t very many Living Cities and the two liked to talk. They also thought it would be hilarious if the Amity Parkers went to Gotham. So, Amity had temporarily turned the road that left the city into a portal that led to Gotham’s border, and at the end of the week Gotham would return them.
And that was how he had ended up here. In the back of a smelly van with a smelly bag over his head surrounded by smelly men probably heading to a smelly, sketchy location. All because these men were stupid and thought he was some Wayne kid.
Sure, he could have gotten out. But this was honestly more interesting than touring another boring building and having to almost get mugged again.