"By Mice and Men..." The over-weight teacher said, folding his arms across his rotund chest. He stared down at the young boy in the black zip-up jacket and shook his bald head. "Mr. Fenton, this is the tenth time this week." The twenty or so teenagers, sitting in their desks, all rolled their eyes, uncaring to eavesdrop. This speech was a daily occurrence- Mr. Lancer getting more and more exasperated every day. The class knew how it would end. Their teacher was furious and would come down on anyone who remotely looked like they were going to start trouble. Eighteen-year-old Daniel Fenton, seated at his wooden desk, looked hurriedly out the classroom window, worry etched onto his face. The young boy was sitting on the edge of his seat, eyes searching the sky outside.
"Mr. Lancer, it's an emergency." His icy eyes glanced back towards the window. The teacher's eyes followed. He didn't see much, at least nothing out of the ordinary. There was construction outside; equipment and what looked like a wooden beam, pointed and covered in wire. The old teacher had heard rumors of new safety measures being put in place at Casper High. It didn't seem to be anything his troubled student should be staring at obsessively. Mr. Lancer raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure it is, Mr. Fenton." The student once again looked distraught. His blue eyes glanced outside again, and he looked back up to the teacher with alarm deep in his pupils. "Mr. Lancer, please..."
The aged teacher studied his student. He'd been educating the children of Amity Park for years, yet Daniel Fenton was still an unsolved mystery to him. The boy looked like any other teenager with midnight black hair and icy blue eyes. He knew, from being hip with the youth, that the boy wasn't that bad looking either. He was just... different, apparent from his frequent tardies, absents, and the overwhelming problem of his 'chronic bladder issues'. "Mr. Lancer," Daniel looked outside once more, as if the beam were the most terrifying object the boy had ever seen. It moved away from view, as pulley-ropes were hoisted up by workers on the roof. This didn't seem to calm him down. "I need to go."
The boys eyes were way too bright a blue, Mr. Lancer noticed: the color of crystal ice or winter snow. Mr. Lancer shrugged it off. "Ok Mr. Fenton, you may go." The boy slid past him, quick as an eel. The teacher watched carefully. He didn't like the lilt to his student's shoulders, the way he seemed to get more and more relived and anxious the closer to the door he went. Mr. Lancer couldn't think of a word to describe it. He sighed heavily, and went back to his paper-covered desk.
Outside, the sky was full of thick, puffy clouds. Cars doomed down the road, blurring the pavement into a multicolored racetrack of blues and blacks, bright reds and whites. Daniel Fenton, now out of the black zip-up jacket and jeans, shook his white hair, a smile playing over his lips. It wasn't always easy to get out of Lancer's room, especially when he knew he had seen Skulker fly up the side of Casper High while Lancer droned on about Shakespeare.
His acid green eyes scanned the rooftop, where construction workers, clad in hard-hats, appeared and disappeared through the roof entrance. There were ropes, wires, and tools everywhere, though Daniel could see no rhyme or reason to be putting up fencing on top of the high school...especially electrified fencing. He shuttered inwardly, feeling the barest vibration of electricity down his spine. The memories of the shock from the portal never truly went away.
His hands tightened into fists, and he began to fly toward the roof. Skulker had gone invisible, that Daniel knew. He was waiting, watching for the young boy to get close. Daniel glared, eyes scanning for any glimmer of metal, a flash of glowing green energy, anything. He couldn't see anything, in fact, he couldn't even see straight. Without realizing, he hit hard on the school rooftop, startling the workers he'd almost run into. His shoulder ached, his face was scraped, and his vision was blurry.
"What...?" Well, his pride hurt, that was for sure. His senses were scrambled, and the young ghost boy groaned. "What in the world...?" Daniel thought inwardly. He could feel his energy fading quickly, as if being sapped up. He noted, sadly, that the fence seemed to suddenly glow a dull green. "My luck." He thought sullenly, not even sensing Skulker anymore. He could only see a figure walk out of the school's rooftop entrance in front of him, clad in a bright blue jumpsuit. "Excellent, we know the Fenton Ghost Fence works. Do you like it, ectoplasmic waste? It will keep you from flying around the school and the children." Maddie paused, smirking. "Throw this scum here over the edge. I'd love to keep him for research, but it wouldn't be satisfying. I can't keep a specimen that I didn't capture with my own hands." He closed his acidic eyes, feeling rough, gloved hands pick him up. "What a terrible day for Sam and Tucker to be sick." He thought as he felt the cold wind rushing past him; he was tossed off the roof top of Casper High.
Lancer sat back down in his desk chair, leaning back as far as he was able. He had glanced a couple of times at his black computer screen, but he didn't feel like returning emails right now. In fact, he felt like doing the exact opposite. He noted, his head throbbing, that he really needed some coffee. He had given the students the rest of the class period to finish a small writing assignment, one that Daniel would be sure to miss, now that there were only ten minutes left until the bell rang, signalling the end of seventh period. The bald teacher sighed again. He seemed to do that a lot these days. Maybe after school was over, he'd go to the teacher's lounge to get his caffeine fix. He knew that his students all preferred that horrendous iced coffee, but to Lancer, nothing could beat a steaming cup of joe. "Yeah," The teacher thought. "That sounds nice."
Mr. Lancer had felt his eyes dripping slowly shut. Faintly, he could hear his students chatter increase. Words like "Ghost Boy" and "unconscious" were heard, but they seemed to echo in his mind. He was so drowsy. "Students, please..." The bald teacher thought. Again, voices rang through his brain.
"He's falling!"
"There's another ghost!"
"He has a gun. He's gonna shoot him!"
"Phantom!"
"Everyone run!"
He did seem to be in critical need of coffee, since he seemed to miss the windows crashing inward. Only one of his female students, Paulina, screaming, seemed to draw him out of his hazy state. "Moby Dick!" He shouted, and crouched under his wooden desk. There was a bit more screaming, some gasps, raspy audible breaths, and then the room was deadly silent. His eyes felt heavy, but the teacher pushed it aside as fear rushed through him. Lancer could almost hear his heartbeat in his portly chest.
With twenty-plus years of teaching experience under his belt, Mr. Lancer could honestly say he never had been this terrified. Usually, the scariest thing that happened in his classroom was reading one of his football students essays. The only thing that brought him up from under his over-sized desk was a strangled breath, one that sounded pained, and a mechanical whirring. He most certainly did not want to die under his desk, hiding like a coward. His eyes peaked over the worn wood.
The floor was covered in tiny bits of broken glass, and his students were cowering in various places around the classroom. Only a few seemed to have gathered enough courage to look up and survey the surroundings. His vision focused. A boy stood out against the sparkling pieces of the window. Of course, Lancer knew exactly who it was. He had seen this boy, flying through the sky over Amity, for years. Up close, though, he was beautiful. Messy hair nearly the precise color of arctic ice, his acid eyes were closed tight in pain. Black jumpsuit, the kind the Fentons would wear. White gloves covered his hands, which were twitching against the carpet flooring. Lancer's breath started to quicken in fear. The ghost boy didn't seem to be conscious, and the teacher was filled with a feeling of dread. Ghostly energy poured from behind him, where the hole in the windows was. It pulsed from behind him like a separate disembodied heart.
"Well well well, what do we have here?"
Mr. Lancer took a quick breath, and didn't answer. He had heard that voice before. The mechanical whirring, the guttural echo of the speech, it was a widely-known ghost, the metal one who hunts his prey. He'd been a common sighting in Amity Park for years, and Phantom had never seemed to have any major difficulty defeating his daily pursuer, but this time... Mr. Lancer eyed the unconscious ghost teen wearily. The balding teacher swallowed hard.
Through the broken window, debris, and heavily-tense atmosphere, the metal whirs sounded like a mono-toned beacon, drawing attention to it like ships to a lighthouse. It was no wonder every pair of eyes of his students were following the ghost as he moved, as if they were under a spell. The body armor he wore made the spirit weave around a few mangled desks, but slowly Mr. Lancer could see the metal entity in his peripherals, and then ahead of him.
The teacher's breath caught, and he stared. Glancing at the ghost from behind, all Mr. Lancer could see was flaming green hair and a wide torso. A belt hung low on the suit, and attached to it were various weapons. Sharp green blades, nets, and what looked like a modern hand gun, though the ethereal glowing made the teacher think it was anything but. In the ghost's hand, there was a deadly-looking dagger. All he could do was stare. The last thing he wanted was for one of his students to be cut by that, and Mr. Lancer got the feeling that if anyone interfered than that's exactly what would happen. He couldn't have said how he knew, but he did. He could see it in the way the metal ghost observed them, his careful watchfulness, sizing them up. He almost had a slinking grace to his movements. Apprehension began to burn inside the teachers chest, igniting the nervous feelings he already had.
The metal ghost reached the middle of the classroom, and was fiddling with one of the nets attached to his belt. The ghost looked like it was taunting the unconscious Phantom teen that was lying amongst the broken desks; he was taking his time, reveling in his opponent's inability to fight. It wasn't anything Mr. Lancer hadn't seen before, a hostile ghost upset with the town hero, but that made it even weirder that the metal ghost wanted a human audience. His grudge was with Phantom, wasn't it? So why had he attacked the ghost boy here, with the silent threat of a dagger to all the witnesses?
Mr. Lancer stood on tiptoe, trying to see over a particularly mangled desk that was obscuring the view of the small town's hero. Phantom still hadn't opened his electric green eyes. His breath looked ragged and quick, and the over-weight teacher was sure he had seen a small flash of blinding light coming from the boy's direction, but when Lancer blinked, the teen's white hair was the only bright thing he saw.
"Ghost Child, it's been a pleasure to have finally hunted you." The metal ghost taunted. It seemed like now should have been the moment that the teenager on the floor would open his acidic eyes and blast the metal ghost into next week, but the boy's face only scrunched up in pain, and a soft groan escaped his mouth. This seemed to make the hunter more elated. The dagger looked even more deadly now, as it was raised into the air. "I must be careful, though, young whelp. I don't want to tear up your pelt before I can hang in on my wall."
That seemed to be the end of the tense silence for his class. His students faces turned from worry to disgust, and Mr. Lancer found himself in agreement. Just the thought of their hero's skin hanging off some ghost's wall, it was revolting. "His pelt?" The metal ghost stopped, his glowing eyes directed now at the football player. Everyone was quiet. The teacher frowned at the boy. Dash had never been the smartest. The blonde jock, now though, looked braver than probably any of them felt, and he didn't look that brave in the first place. The metal ghost looked amused.
"Foolish human, I've been hunting this whelp for years. His pelt will now be mine, for I am Skulker, the Ghost Zone's greatest hunter. And this ghost boy," His face turned into a sneer. "He is my prey and my prize." Skulker seemed to be gloating at this point, Mr. Lancer figured, since he turned his attention fully away from the hero, Phantom, who still lay with his back against the broken wooden desks. The boy looked bad, though the balding teacher knew he's been through worse. His gloved hands were now twitching more frequently, and his head lolled to the side. White hair fell into his eyes. His skin looked better now, though, than Mr. Lancer had noticed when he had crashed into his classroom. It was returning to the normal, un-ghostly tan. He was healing.
The thought brought up the spirit of the old teacher. He would have smiled if it weren't for the fact that Dash was still distracting the ghost with the glowing dagger. Yes, Dash had never been the smartest. "But, why his pelt?" The jock questioned again. "That's really gross dude." Skulker didn't look the least bit offended. "Why should I be concerned with a human's feelings?" Mr. Lancer had to agree with the metal ghost now. Dash really was being foolish, though Mr. Lancer saw Phantom shift more abruptly, and he had a feeling he knew what the jock was trying to do, though incredibly idiotic.
"Isn't that why your in our world though?" Dash continued quickly, as Skulker had turned back around, facing his unconscious prize, who's eyes were flickering open slightly. Only Mr. Lancer noticed, as the young teen's head was tilted towards the teacher. His green eyes were dull, and Phantom didn't seem to register that Mr. Lancer was staring at him yet. "You want to take over the humans, don't you? You want to show us you're a scary ghost and not some wimp that gets beat up by Phantom every week. You do care what we think of you." Dash seemed to shrink back as what he said registered in his mind. He had just back-sassed a ghost, and not just some ghost either. A ghost with a glowing dagger. The football player gulped visibly as the mechanical ghost faced him again.
"You dare to insult me? I am Skulker- the Ghost Zone's greatest hunter!" The ghosts words echoed menacingly, though, he didn't raise the dagger he had been holding. The foolish human wasn't his prey. Instead, he fired a shot of green ectoplasm from his metal hands, and Dash's mouth was as good as taped shut. The football player's eyes widened, and his hands tore at the goo. You could tell he was shouting, but no sound was heard. Mr. Lancer was satisfied that the boy could still breathe, at least. You could hear the hurried breathes, through his nose, throughout the classroom.
Skulker looked proud of himself as well, Mr. Lancer thought, judging by the smirk plastered on his face. There was no other challenger to his authority over the human classroom, though he eyed the other jocks with a suspicious look. Kwan, always the right-hand-man of Dash, shrunk back, eyes to the floor. Skulker only smiled wider. The balding teacher looked to the young ghost teen again, pleading with his eyes. The acid green, that usually glowed as bright as a flashlight, was now dark and foggy. Phantom blinked once, still looking in the teacher's direction. His mouth opened slightly, and the overweight man swore he saw the boy mouth "Mr. Lancer?".
"Now," Skulker said to the class. "Anyone else to speak?" His outstretched hand was a warning to whoever was brave enough. The ectoplasm that glowed in the hunter's palm was pointed at Valerie, but she stayed silent as well. Skulker knew she would. She wouldn't expose herself to save her enemy. "I didn't think so. Don't make me silence the rest of you too." The threat sent shivers throughout the students and their teacher. Mr. Lancer saw Phantom grimace, and knew he had heard as well. Hope coursed through the robust man. "Please, Mr. Phantom." He thought. His heart raced as he witnessed the ghost teen, as silent as the wind, slowly sit up.