Disclaimer: I do not own the Danny Phantom franchise or any characters from it.
-Mr. Lancer's English 4 Class-
Today was the first day of the new school year and the students in Mr. Lancer's last class of the day were being treated to his annual opening speech.
"Students, this is your final year here at Casper High and I feel the need to make sure you understand what that means for this class," said Mr. Lancer. "This year's lessons on more advanced forms of closed-form prose will be crucial to those of you who plan on applying to college."
His gaze fell on Dash Baxter playing tic-tac-toe with his friend Kwan in the back row. With a frown and vocal cords ready to be strained, Lancer decided that it was time to make his irritation at being ignored known.
"Mister Baxter and Mister Soung, what could possibly be more important than one of your famous bouts of tic-tac-toe? Please, let me know when you finish so that we may continue discussing everyone's comparatively unimportant futures at a later time!" he yelled.
Dash quickly put away the paper he and Kwan were playing on and sat a little straighter in his chair. Kwan mirrored his friend's actions and tried to look as apologetic as he could. Though the two jocks did not understand some of the words that Lancer used, any idiot could see that they were in trouble.
"Sorry Mr. Lancer, it won't happen again," Dash said.
"See to it that it doesn't, gentlemen," responded Lancer with a stern glare. "Now, where was I? Ah, yes…"
As he continued his speech, Dash's anger got the best of him and he decided to hit Danny Fenton in the seat in front of him right on the head. He whispered to Danny "Way to go, Fentoe-nail, you got me in trouble! You better watch your back because I've got a whole summer's worth of anger issues to let loose on you after class!"
Danny sighed and tried to ignore the pain in his right shoulder. After three years of Dash's bullying, he was used to this. To his left, his best female friend Sam sent him a look that he just couldn't seem to decipher. Was it sympathy? Was it pity? Who knew? Certainly not him. Danny gave up on trying to understand girls a few years ago. To his right was his other friend Tucker, who was currently fiddling with his PDA now that Lancer was facing the board.
He wished school were as simple as ghost hunting. Sure, you had to think on your feet to survive a fight with a ghost, but beating them up and shoving them into the Fenton Thermos was way easier than writing an expository essay using a college-level practice prompt. Danny eyed the chalkboard as he saw Lancer listing the major writing projects that they would be doing this year. Why did it have to be so hard to get into NASA? If he wanted to have any chance at being an astronaut, he'd have to first get accepted into the program. Unfortunately, "college graduate" looked much more convincing on an application than "average high schooler." So, getting into college was the next big milestone he had to reach in order to achieve his dream.
"Mister Fenton?" Lancer asked.
"Huh-what?" Danny responded with his masterful use of the English language.
"I asked if you were paying attention. I can see you were quite riveted by my speech," said Lancer, practically oozing sarcasm. "Please try to pay attention to this information. Excellent writing skills alone might not get you into NASA, but they certainly won't hurt to have once it's time to apply. Unless you've decided to pursue a career at the Nasty Burger, I suggest you put forth some modicum of effort into your schoolwork this year."
Evidently, Lancer had not forgotten Danny's dream of going to space since last year's career workshop.
"Sorry, Mr. Lancer. I was just wondering if we would be doing anything other than practice prompts this year," Danny lied.
"As a matter of fact, Mister Fenton, we will." Lancer responded. "While there will be plenty of practicing, you will also be learning how to structure your essays in a more college-level way. In addition, you will be writing one open-form essay this year that we will discuss at a later date." He then began walking to the front of the class as he resumed his speech.
Danny suddenly let out a small gasp as a blue mist escaped his lips seemingly by surprise. He knew what that meant. How could he not after three years of fighting ghosts? It was time for one of his clever escape plans to unfold so that he could deal with this ectoplasmic pest.
Danny raised his hand and exclaimed, "Mr. Lancer, may I please use the restroom?"
As he continued to talk, Lancer pointed to the bathroom pass – a brass key attached to a piece of cardboard that someone had written "Bathroom" on with a black marker – hanging by a nail near the door. Danny wordlessly got up, pocketing the Fenton Thermos that Tucker passed him, and left the room. Sam and Tucker were so used to this that it was practically routine and not really a very big deal anymore. He speed-walked to the men's restroom and entered an empty stall.
"I'm going ghost," he whispered to himself as he focused on the tingling feeling of transformation into his ghost half. Rings of white energy appeared around him, one above his head and one at his feet. As they traveled upward to meet near his abdomen they altered the molecular structure of his clothing and body, replacing his white shirt and jeans with an ectoplasmic body covered by a black hazmat suit with white boots, belt, gloves, collar, and a DP symbol at the center of his chest. Danny's skin became tan and his black hair turned white as snow. His eyes, formerly an icy blue, now resembled the neon green energy surrounding his hands. A moment later, Danny Phantom was flying through the roof of the school, intangible and invisible to all.
As Danny looked around he saw his old arch-nemesis floating about a two hundred feet above the school. Vlad Masters was a millionaire who gained his riches by possessing many business tycoons in the form of his alter-ego, Vlad Plasmius, and having them hand over their investments to him. Vlad was the very first half ghost hybrid, aka halfa, to ever exist and wore a primarily white outfit with black boots, belt, and gloves to go with his black hair, which was styled in a U shape. He had blue skin and fangs poking out of his mouth that made him look vaguely like a vampire, a comparison which did not amuse Plasmius in the slightest. The red-felt-lined white cape didn't really do him any favors, to be honest. He was also the mayor of Amity Park. Danny flew until he was at the same height, but kept a few meters of distance just in case.
"What do you want, Plasmius? Come to gloat about your latest plan to kill my dad and marry my mom?" Danny yelled out with no small amount of contempt.
Vlad smirked. "Alas, Daniel, I haven't quite worked out the kinks in my next plan. But do not fret, little badger, it will come through in due time. No, actually I was in a good mood today and wanted to extend to you my offer once more. Don't you see the possibilities of having real training from someone who understands you, Daniel? I know what it feels like, just as you do, to experience the difference between mundane humans and ghostly power! I could teach you things you've never even considered possible with that closed-minded mentality of yours. Besides, who cares if your father suffers a mortal injury or two along the way? It's not like he's making any sort of contribution to the collective intelligence of the world."
Danny yawned and placed his hands behind his head. "Blah, blah, blah. Can we skip to the part where I punch you?"
Vlad lost his smile and decided to let his fists do the convincing. "Very well, Daniel," he said. "Let's see how much you've improved since our last battle." He raced toward Danny and unleashed a pink beam from each hand.
Danny brought up an ecto-shield with his hands and phased through Plasmius's body a second before his fist met Danny's face. Becoming tangible once more, he grabbed Plasmius's cape and pulled, bringing his foe to a sudden stop. Quickly, Danny shot a beam of neon green ectoplasmic energy right at Vlad's back.
Plasmius screamed and escaped Danny's hold by becoming intangible. He turned around and landed a punch on Danny's left shoulder. Danny grunted in pain, but dodged the next kick. His reflexes had improved quite nicely over the past few years and Danny was taking less hits than he was dishing out. It looks like all that dodging he had to do as his parents shot at his ghost half came in handy.
He went in for a right cross, but Vlad phased through him and elbowed him in the back. "Not bad, Daniel, but you're not the only one who can go intangible." Danny fell a few meters before regaining his balance and shot an icicle the size of a baseball bat at Plasmius. Unfortunately, his nemesis waved his hand and conjured a pink, spherical shield around himself that protected him from injury. Vlad smiled then and shouted to Danny, "Time to stop fooling around, don't you think?"
Three doppelgangers appeared next to Vlad. Danny knew from experience that doing that split Vlad's power, but made him far more annoying to deal with. White energy surrounded him as he tried to even the odds a little. However, Danny still had not perfected his duplication ability and ended up with one clone who had no arms, a second head coming out of his right knee and four belts on each thigh.
"Aw, crap," exclaimed Danny with disappointment before getting blasted from behind by a pink ecto-sphere.
"Yet another thing I could teach you, if only you became my student. Let's see you get up after this little number!" Vlad yelled triumphantly. He held his hands out, pointing his palms at Danny, and fired a green ball of fire about the size of a car at him.
Thinking quickly, Danny breathed in as deeply as he could and blew an icy gust of wind and snow at the fireball. The two attacks met and created a hefty amount of steam, blocking Danny's vision. Two thin purple beams cut through the veil of water vapor and knocked Danny down to street level, where he crashed into a car in the school parking lot. Getting up, he saw Plasmius appear in a whirlwind of pink smoke.
"Isn't it exciting, Daniel?" Vlad asked with an elated attitude. "I've come across my innate elemental affinity to fire and it's so much fun testing my new limits!"
Danny looked at Vlad with an annoyed face. "It doesn't exactly light a fire in my heart, Fruitloop."
Plasmius snarled at the halfa that dared mock him with such a poorly thought-out pun. He stomped his right foot on the parking lot ground and caused a geyser of ecto-fire to erupt beneath Danny.
Had Danny not gone intangible, he was sure that he'd be sporting some nasty burns. He had to end this before any civilians got hurt. Danny shot forth like a bullet, ramming into a surprised Plasmius at max speed and carried him away from the school to the rooftop of the tallest skyscraper in Amity. The two halfas had just left the block when Mr. Lancer exited the school and arrived at the parking lot, only to see that his car was destroyed beyond repair.
"Alice in Wonderland! I just finished paying that off!" Lancer exclaimed as he fell to his knees.
-Skyscraper Rooftop-
Danny stopped on top of the skyscraper and backed away from Vlad, gathering energy into his vocal chords. Plasmius knew what would happen next and put up the strongest dome-shaped ecto-barrier he could muster before covering his ears.
The Ghostly Wail was Danny's strongest attack and the aftermath left behind after its use proved why he was one of the most feared ghosts in the Ghost Zone. The attack decimated Vlad's shield, throwing the evil halfa into a sonic vortex of ectoplasmic agony. He was screaming, but his pain went unheard as every window within a block of the skyscraper shattered all at once.
Fifteen seconds of unbearable torment later, Danny stopped attacking and fell to his knees in exhaustion.
"Well, at least it didn't take all my energy this time. Practice makes perfect, I guess," Danny muttered to himself.
Vlad was slowly getting up from his previous position on the ground, his suit torn and ragged.
"I will find a way to defeat that attack one of these days, Daniel! Mark my words! Then, you'll be helpless to watch as I kill Jack and make Maddie mine. But as it seems that day is not today, we will meet again!" Vlad yelled before teleporting away.
Danny took out an earpiece with the name "Fenton" on it from a compartment in his belt and pressed a button on it to turn it on. "Tucker, Sam, you guys there?" Danny asked.
He heard Sam's voice first. "What kind of question is that? Of course we're here. We've been waiting for you to call since you left Lancer's class!"
"Forgot to put on your earpiece, dude?" asked Tucker.
"No, I just didn't have time." Danny sighed. "Plasmius came to fight and field test his new fire powers."
"Are you alright, Danny?" Sam always worried for his safety.
"I'm alright. Exhausted, since I used my Ghostly Wail to end the fight, but I've been worse."
Tucker then spoke while making sure that his first aid kit was in his backpack. "That's great news, man! We've got your stuff by the way. We're headed to your house. Meet up there for a patch-up and debrief?"
"He's not a soldier, Tuck, he's a teenager who should be focusing on getting into college rather than fighting off ghosts. I still think you should let us fight with you again," Sam complained.
She and Danny had had this conversation many times before. "After the 'Dark Dan' incident, I refuse to put you guys in danger against enemies with powers that you can't defend yourselves from."
Sam sighed. "We'll talk later, Danny." She hung up.
"Later, dude." There went Tucker.
Danny sighed and flew back home to FentonWorks. Landing in an alley behind the house, he transformed back to his human form and made his way around the building to go in through the front door. He did not, however, notice the camera with the name "Fenton" on it attached to the second floor wall of FentonWorks that was pointed at that very same alley.