A/N: My first fic! I've been a part of the Danny Phantom Phandom for a good many years, and I've had an itch to write lately. I plan on this to be pretty long, and all of it will be interconnected in some way within its own universe. I'll be using the Inktober prompts for inspiration, but I'll be shuffling around and adjusting them to better suit the needs of the fic. The first few chapters will likely start out slow, but it should pick up later on.

As always, critiques, advice, and reviews are totally welcome! This is my first fic, so if you see anything OOC or wrong let me know, I take criticism rather well. Updates will be frequent, but sporadic, you might get another update tonight!

It's been a pretty normal few days for Danny recently, oddly normal if you'd ask him about it. Ghost attacks have been few and far between since Friday night and since it was already Thursday, that meant a whole 6 days without anything notable happening aside from the occasional wandering beast or annoyance.

Needless to say, the entirety of Amity was on high alert, waiting for the next 'Pariah Dark' or 'Undergrowth' to occur. You really couldn't live in this town without expecting a building to collapse or an entire road to be closed off every other day, so normalcy was… not normal, to them. A certain ghost boy, however, was enjoying his mini vacation.

"Cmon guys, it's not like the universe has the energy to curse us every week, I say, enjoy the relaxation while it lasts." Danny was leading the infamous trio to head to the Nasty Burger for after-school treats with a bounce in his step. He figured he deserved it.

"I'm not saying you shouldn't enjoy it, I'm just saying that you shouldn't let your guard down." Sam tilted her head to the side and shrugged her backpack on a little tighter, keeping her eyes peeled for any supernatural occurrences.

"I'm kinda with Sam on this one," Tucker looked up from his PDA to glance at Danny "don't you think it's weird that nothing has happened yet? I mean, not even Skulker has shown up since, what, two weeks ago?"

Danny started walking backwards to face his two friends directly "Yeah, and my ghost sense will tell me if anyone appears, and then I'll be on guard." He flips back around and shrugs. "Besides, I bet Friday the 13th had everyone pooped, I heard they had a huge rager in the ghost zone from Johnny, maybe they're still zonked out or something. I just know that I've managed to raise most of my C's to B's, and I think I even have an A- for once! I'm allowed to appreciate a break."

The group walked into the Nasty Burger, ordered their shakes, and grabbed a number for their table. Picking their usual spot, they sit down in the booth and continue their chat a bit more hushed.

"You're not wrong, I've been enjoying the time off too." Sam unzips her backpack, pulls out a giant, purple book, and places it on the table with an audible thump. "I've been doing a lot of research at the Skulk and Lurk about more ghost stuff, and I managed to find another book by Freakshow by asking the owners about their personal collection, which they're apparently allowing people to borrow from now." She opens up to a random page and runs her hand along the surface. "But it seems like it's all in a weird foreign language. I asked them what they made of it and they said it's a probably untranslatable dead language. I figured it might be something to look over."

Danny spins the book towards himself and looks it over, but Tucker raises an eyebrow at the goth. "Sam, it's not really a break if you're working during it. Why don't you take some more time to play Doomed or something instead of looking up ghost research?"

"Hey, I was into the paranormal since I was in grade school," she said, bringing a hand to her chest. "it's totally goth. I still consider this recreational reading." She looks towards Danny. "Well, if it can be translated."

Danny had been slowly looking over the text in the book as his friends were arguing. "No, yeah, this is definitely Ghost Speak, but I'm not fluent enough to translate most of this stuff. I think it's talking about how ghosts are created, and going by the table of contents it seems pretty in-depth- a lot of technical stuff." Upon seeing Valerie come out from behind the counter with their shakes, he closes the book and pushes it back towards Sam. "Seems more useful to my parents than me, but maybe you should check out if they have anything else?"

Sam returns the book to her backpack and nods "Yeah, I'll check it out this weekend and I'll let you guys know what I find. Meanwhile, you should catch up on your, uh… Spanish." She warily glances up at Valerie, who raises an eyebrow in response.

"Two chocolates and a strawberry for you guys. How're you doing today?" She places the glasses in front of the trio and looks towards Danny.

"Great, Val, how's it been with you?"

"Good, been a calm week, hasn't it? Haven't seen a ghost in awhile."

"Yeah, it's nice not having to run for our lives every other day."

Valerie laughs and rolls her eyes. "Very true Fenton, very true. I'll see you guys around, gotta get back to work." Valerie waves and walks back to the counter.

"See ya!" Danny replies. The three teens wave back.

The trio stares at each other for a moment, before Tucker breaks the silence. "Did she seem actually… kinda cool right then?" he takes a sip of his shake.

Sam shrugs "Well, I'm sure it is nice for her too. If Danny gets a break, that means she does as well."

"You're probably right." Tucker prods at the cherry with his straw. "I swear though, if everyone keeps talking about how there aren't any ghosts around, they're just going to jinx it."

Danny, who was busy stirring the whipped cream into his shake, coughs roughly as his breath mists in front of him.

"Tucker!" they both yell out. Danny groans and gets up, leaving his untasted shake behind with a look of regret.

"For the record, I blame you for this." Glaring at Tucker, Danny stalks over to the bathrooms.

"Bad-Luck-Tuck strikes again." Sam sings, while the rest of the restaurant jumps from the sound of a technogeek's head hitting the table.

TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

Danny flies up and around the Nasty Burger invisibly, searching the skies for any obvious impending doom. Upon seeing none, he phases back into visibility and charges up some energy in his palms. "Come on out, I know you're-"

Danny gets interrupted by an ectoblast to his calf before he can even finish his sentence. Looking down, he sees Skulker charging at him guns blazing and projects a shield, narrowly blocking the following attacks.

"You keep your eyes up, and I'll come from below, whelp!" Skulker zooms past Danny and spins around to face him.

Danny smirks "Wow Skulker, real impressive, you've managed to outsmart a formerly failing high-school student for a moment." he then flies out from behind the shield and charges up an ectoblast of his own. "You want some extra credit or something? I for one would jump at that." He fires it off towards Skulker, but the robotic ghost manages to dodge it.

Is he getting faster? Danny wonders, and his question is swiftly answered as Skulker barrels after him before he can react, slamming into him and smashing him through the roof of the Nasty Burger. The entire restaurant screams and scatters.

(One employee, however, takes a glance at the chaos and throws her hat on the ground in a huff, before stomping off to the back of the store.)

Danny sees Skulker charging up another round of ectoblasts and tries to get up, but winces at the increasing pain in his calf. What did he…?

"Enjoying the upgrades, ghost whelp?" Fortunately for Danny, before Skulker can attack, he's hit in the side by a few, smaller ectoblasts sent by Sam and Tucker.

"Leave him alone you outdated piece of firmware!" Tucker provides suppressing fire while Sam helps up Danny.

"You good?" Sam asks. Danny slowly gets to his feet but falters as soon as he puts weight on his injured calf.

"I don't know, he hit me in the leg with something, and it doesn't feel like a usual ectoblast." He levitates off the ground. "It's fine if I fly though, so let me finish this off."

Danny flies past Tucker and sends off some ice blasts towards Skulker, focusing on the joints of his suit. He misses most, but manages to freeze shut one of the hatches to his stronger guns, and considers that a minor victory.

"Ha! Even if you freeze half my weapons, that'll still be enough to hunt you, boy!" A familiar latch opens, letting loose almost a dozen missiles locked onto Danny's ectosignature. Danny, trying to minimize property damage (he's been working hard on this lately, the less he can get the town to hate him, the better) flies out of the Nasty Burger through the already made hole, and blasts the missiles out of the air one by one.

As he finishes off the last one, a blur flies past him again, and a sharp pain runs across his left arm. Looking down, he sees ectoplasm freely flowing down his arm from three deep slices despite its increased viscosity, and the tang of it burns his senses. Skulker floats high above Danny, green ooze marring his retractable claws.

He's being a lot more savage today, what gives?

The pain, surprisingly enough, isn't as bad as his calf currently is, but it's not like he needs more wounds to patch up. He turns towards Skulker again and growls, gripping his unmoving arm and simply decides to get in close-quarters combat to avoid his assortment of guns. Danny speeds up to him and furiously kicks and punches with his good limbs, covering them in burning ectoplasm to provide damage even on his missed shots.

This seems to throw Skulker off enough for him to fumble with the ghost boy. Danny manages to take out a good number of the weapon control systems on his arms before Skulker works into a flow of his own. Danny hisses in pain when a swipe at the feet hits his injured leg, and recoils from the following punch, sending him again hurtling towards the ground. He hits the roof of the Nasty Burger hard, and groans when he attempts to get up.

"Had enough, ghost child? Injuries getting too much to handle? Why don't you come into the peaceful confines of my cage and-" Skulker is interrupted when a missile flies in and hits him in the back, and the Red Huntress emerges.

"I was having a good day, ghost, and you had to go and ruin it!" Red follows up with a variety of furious ectoblasts and circles around Skulker like a shark and its prey.

Meanwhile, Sam and Tucker are looking for Danny in the alleyways beside the Nasty Burger.

"He fell Tucker, we gotta find him! He isn't looking so hot, I think that hit on his leg did something to him."

"I know, I know!" Tucker replies, who's glued to his PDA. "It says he should be right in front of-"

CRASH!

Danny crawls out from the stack of boxes he seemingly landed in, and collapses on the ground in front of his friends, panting all the while.

"Danny!" They say in unison.

Sam runs to his side and turns Danny on his back, trying not to disturb his many injuries. Danny looks at his hand, clenching and unclenching it, with lines of worry and pain etched into his face.

"I- ugh- I tried to fly, why wouldn't it work?" He looks up to Sam and Tucker as if they have the answer.

"I don't know Danny, but we've got to get you out of here. Do you think you can turn invisible so we can bring you to Tucker's? I can carry you if you cling on." Tucker nods with her.

"I think so… but no promises. I might just have to change back." He groans as he starts to stand up with the help of Sam and his relatively uninjured leg, and then wraps himself around Sam.

"Thank god you're lighter like this, or I'd have to get seriously buff to carry you around." Sam looks back at Danny and smiles before he vanishes. Tucker leads the way, picking up a light jog.

"Looks like your parents are on the scene with Skulker, so that should be enough to take care of him. What's up though? You usually never have a problem with him."

A disembodied voice responds with a hint of difficulty. "I don't know, he got a lucky first shot in when I first went out there, and it hit me in the back of my leg. I thought it was a normal ectoblast but it isn't healing at all. The slices on my arm are even closing up, but this one just feels like it's… spreading, or something." He sighs. "My powers have been acting funny too. I tried to phase through the Nasty Burger instead of crashing into the roof but couldn't, and when I tried to fly down to you guys… well, you know."

"Well, we're almost at my place dude. We can get you patched up and then we can see what's up. Maybe your body's not used to healing ectoblasts from the break or something."

Sam scowls at the concrete. "That's quite a reach, Tucker."

He shrugs. "I don't see you coming up with any theories."

"I'd put my money on Skulker inventing some sort of acidic compound he put into his guns, which means if we clean the wound out it should be better." she cringes. "Sorry Danny, that's probably going to hurt." a loud whine sounds out from behind Sam.

TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

Upon getting to Tucker's house (and distracting his mom with the baking of cookies) the three had managed to bandage and clean all of Danny's wounds, but his accelerated healing just wasn't kicking into the last one.

"It hurts a lot less, that's for sure." Danny tilts his leg to the side to get a better look at the damage. They had to cut his iconic HAZMAT suit to get better access.

"Yeah, but it still looks like a raw burn, well… a green raw burn." Sam pokes at the edges of it. "It's stopped spreading too, so that's a good sign."

Tucker peers into the modified first-aid kit they've been using and pulls out a familiar vial of green liquid. "Hey, do you guys think the ecto-dejecto would help? Maybe your body just needs a kick-start to take care of it."

"I mean, it's worth a shot. I'd rather not change back with a giant hole in my leg." Tucker passes the vial to Sam.

"Speaking of changing back, we'd better hurry. Who knows when your parents are going to show up at Tucker's door demanding to hunt the ghost in his house?" She uncaps the modified vial and starts to shake it.

"Nah, they're probably chasing down Val if they've already finished off Skulker. They've figured out that her suit gives off an ectosignature and want to run some tests, and you know that there's no way she'd agree to anything like that."

"Do they think she's a ghost?" Sam asks, and sprays the stuff on Danny's wound.

"Ah, that feels nice actually. And no, From the last two years of fighting with her they know that she doesn't react to ghost shields or any other weapons, and she doesn't have ghost powers like intangibility or invisibility. They probably just think she's contaminated or something."

"Well, if it keeps them off your back for a while then I don't see a problem." Sam pulls at the skin around Danny's burn and looks closely. "Tucker, I think you're right, it looks like it's working."

The three of them all crowd around Danny's wound and look closely. Sure enough, the skin begins to change back to its usual tan color and slowly closes around the burn.

"Man, I can't ever get over how freaky this looks- uh… no offense, Danny." he glances up at the ghost boy with an apologetic look.

"None taken Tuck. When the ecto-dejecto has to get involved lots of weird stuff happens." He pauses for a moment and then lies down, staring at the ceiling. "It kinda reminds me of bread baking sometimes."

The other two teens look down at the halfa quizzically, before Sam shakes her head. "You know, you say the weirdest things sometimes."

He shrugs. "Comes with the job, I guess. You know you love it." That devilish smirk reappears.

A dust of pink marks Sam's face, but Tucker's the one to respond. "I don't think if we were the ones with ghost powers we'd be anywhere near as weird as you, dude."

"Yeah, yeah. Is it done yet? Usually, this stuff runs pretty quickly."

"Just about." Sam stands up and rests her hands on her hips. "You can probably change back now, it looks like it'll only be tender in human form. How's your arm doing?"

Danny sits up and rubs his arm. "Probably just shallow cuts, they'll be faint scratches by tomorrow morning." He gets up and stretches, testing out putting weight on his leg. "I'll just cover it up with gauze, say I got hit by some rubble at the Nasty Burger. Val saw me there anyway so it won't be too weird." Danny takes one more look at his calf and tries to morph back. The familiar transformation ring appears, flickers, and then hesitates before spreading over his form to reveal his human half. Danny scowls.

"I... don't like that."

Sam gets up and looks him over. "You seem fine. Did it feel different?"

He looks down at himself and rubs his hand over his core. "It felt like my human self was harder to pull out, like I subconsciously hesitated before shifting back."

"Maybe you were hesitant of your injuries? We didn't really know what would happen if you tried to change with that weird ectoplasm eating away at you." Sam kneels down and pulls up his pant leg. "On the bright side, it looks normal now." She prods at it and looks up at Danny. "Does it hurt?"

"No, feels absolutely fine, not even sore or anything."

"The malfunctioning powers thing we might want to monitor, maybe you're just worn out from the fight?"

Just what I need, now I'm going to be worrying about this all night.

"Maybe..." Danny then tests out his many powers, and seeing them all in at least somewhat working order, starts to relax.

"Alright, why don't we start on our Chem homework since we're all here anyway?" Danny goes over to pick up his backpack Tucker managed to grab during the fight. "I was actually confused about-"

"Tucker! Cookies are ready!"

"Well, at least we can end the night off on a positive note. Coming, Mom!" Tucker gets up from his computer chair and heads downstairs, and the remaining two take out their homework for a calm night of study.