Slayer Anderson

Hive-Minded Part II

A Teen Titans/Danny Phantom Fanfiction

10/07/09

Chapter 2-Confrontations and Assimilations

Dear Mr. Fenton,

With the new term starting up in a scant few weeks, we wish to issue a challenge to all new and returning students. Consider this something of a summer assignment. You will need to liberate the contents of two bank vaults without drawing any attention to yourself from the local populace, law enforcement, or superheroes. You will need to present proof-of-theft at your Deception and Stealth 101 class.

H.I.V.E. Academy

He'd cashed the bus tickets in and decided to fly to California. Jump City, specifically, was this little no-name neo-metropolis city that wasn't particularly famous for anything. Well…

It wasn't famous for it, but it did evidently have the largest secondary school for super-villains on the North American continent. He'd puzzle that one out later, because he had somewhat more pressing matters to consider right now.

One of the principle reasons he'd decided to fly to California as Phantom was so that he could make a few pit-stops along the way. The reason he'd need to make pit-stops was to finish his 'summer homework.'

Which was turning into the biggest headache he'd ever experienced.

All in all, he had every right to be angry; he was a ghost, stealing was supposed to be easy! Heck, he'd even done it before! In fact, it was more than a little embarrassing not to be able to pull off a bank heist without getting caught.

He'd actually aborted his last two attempts a few towns ago when he'd set off a few motion alarms and a laser grid. It turned out, coincidentally, that even while intangible and invisible, his ectoplasmic body carried enough mass to disturb air currents and beams of dense light.

The second attempt had failed because someone had installed temperature sensors in the main vault and been very curious when the thermometer had dropped two dozen degrees. Evidently, his ghost form was a little cold.

…

Who knew?

…

To summarize, he was being blackmailed to attend a prestigious school for villains, had broken off any semblance of friendship with people who'd been there for him more than his own family, and…to top it all off…

He was going to fail his summer assignment!

Danny's face morphed into something ugly and angry.

Failure…

Would be equivalent to his family's death warrant.

Therefore, he'd have to pull out all the stops and think of a way to get into a bank, no matter what.

Vlad Masters would have cried tears of evil joy over the suddenly sinister expression Danny's face took on. Third time was the charm, after all, and if he had his way, and he would, the First National Bank of Dakota would be down a few thousand in just a few hours.

It took more than a few hours, but Danny Phantom was as good as his word. Get in, get the money, and get out. Of course, the letter had only mentioned that he couldn't receive any attention from the police.

It hadn't said that Carl Stevens couldn't.

Who was Carl Stevens, you might ask? He was a security guard at Dakota First National, which made him an ideal target to overshadow. The only reason it had taken him more than an hour to pull off the heist was that he'd never been especially tempted to learn the intricacies of overshadowing before.

He'd needed a little practice, but it had come to him easily enough.

Almost like…instinct, actually.

Then again, he was a ghost. Carl Stevens' body smiled genially as he sauntered out of the bank, a large sack slung over his should full of gold bars and emblazoned with the emblem of the bank on it. It hadn't taken long for people to realize that something was up with the person he was possessing, but he knew he'd be able to use his ghostly powers to move things along.

Ironically, that lesson was thanks to Vlad.

Without further fanfare, and before any real police could arrive, Danny phased his own body out of the security guard and grabbed the bag of money, taking care to remain invisible and intangible as Carl collapsed to the ground.

"Well that's something you don't see everyday: a bank bag just disappear into thin air. I think we've got more company than an unconscious guard, don't you Gear?"

Danny admirably refrained from cursing as he spotted what could only be the local superheroes. The one who had spoken was wearing a large blue coat over black pants and a white T-shirt with a lightning bolt piercing a circle.

"Running a full-range spectrograph, right now Static." The other one was wearing a green and white vest/pants combination and hovering on…rocket powered rollerblades? The sheer…strangeness of the moment gave Danny pause.

It would be his downfall.

"Backpack's got a hit!" Gear crowed proudly. "Abnormally cold spot of air right above the guard. Giving off some seriously weird energy, too!" The scent of ozone was all the warning he got before the-literal-shock of the attack brought him back into the visual spectrum.

Gear and Static stared at the white-haired, jump-suit wearing teen that emerged from nothing. The, admittedly mild, charge of electricity had dissipated over his form unnaturally quickly and they shivered as spectral green eyes locked onto them.

"You know," Phantom said as he dropped the bag and summoned ecto-blasts to his palms, "I wasn't looking for a fight. Now that I think about it, this would be a great chance to blow off some steam."

Static frowned. "In my experience, thieves never want a fight. They'd rather walk out with the goods unopposed."

"Besides," Gear cut in, "You look like you could use a good workout! You're so scrawny I'd worry about beating up someone half-dead."

Danny's face went cold as an old conflict rose up within him. One side told him just to clear out. After all, he'd already blown the assignment. Better to try again in another town than get in a pointless fight.

The other one, that usually sounded too much like Dark Dan for his liking, was tired of being pushed around, blackmailed, and shot with energy blasts! Normally, Phantom would be the better man and back down.

Normally.

Just like, normally, he would fire a warning shot or two to drive off whatever he was facing. Sam and Tucker normally attributed it to bad aim, but never had the insight to wonder why someone who'd spent an entire childhood around Fenton rifles, pistols, and miscellaneous weaponry would be so prone to missing shots.

The twin ecto-blasts hit the two heroes in the chest, knocking them off balance and away from him. Danny took to higher air and began charging another blast.

Static, however, had a faster reaction time than he'd expected and had shot out a bolt of electricity to grasp a parking meter and throw it in his direction. Danny snorted and phased into intangibility, letting it pass through him.

Phantom frowned as the meter left something behind as it passed through him. Later, he would equate it to an 'after-taste,' with Static's electrical charge tingling his ectoplasmic flesh.

"If that's your best shot, I've got a few tricks to teach you," Danny gloated as he waved his hand, dispersing a wide-area blast and forcing the two heroes to impact a nearby building.

"Oh yeah, skinny, try this!" Static yelled and thrust a bolt of lightning at the white-haired teen. Danny caught the full brunt of the shock and almost bit his tongue off as he fell out of the sky…

And through the ground.

Gear blinked. "Okay, so…that's bad. Think he's gone Virg?"

Static frowned. "I'm more worried about what he is, Rich, than were he is right now. He's nothing like a normal Bang Baby!"

Gear nodded. "Backpack is scanning for some of those wonky energy readings, but whatever kind of blasts he's using seem to bleed it off like radiation."

Static paled. "I don't need to worry about growing a third arm, right?"

Gear shook his head as they both kept one eye on their surroundings. Things were getting more and more tense the longer…whoever it was stayed hidden. "Nothing harmful and its dissipating quickly, just-Look Out!"

Danny emerged from the ground behind Static and threw him off his flying disk, towards the ground. The five-foot drop only stunned him momentarily and Gear moved to take up the slack.

The techie pulled two egg-shaped grenades from his belt and threw them towards the white-haired teen. "My turn."

"Go directly to jail, do not collect two-hundred dollars." Danny snarked and phased into intangibility as the two eggs exploded into wads of purple goo. Instead of reverting to his normal phase, Danny switched to invisibility also, appearing behind Gear and with a hand inside the computer on his back. "Game over, Hero."

Phantom ignored the splitting pain in his head from his conscience.

Even as Gear tried to control his landing, Static reached out with his powers to a series of vertical metal beams, uprooting them and pulling them towards Phantom. "Stay away from my friend, dirtbag!"

Danny's eyes widened significantly as he realized those metal beams weren't just freestanding-they were support beams! Without a second thought, Danny elongated his body into a mere spectral wisp and dodged the flying debris. He was already on his way even as a massive steel overhang started to give way…

Regardless of the teenage girl and eight-year old boy underneath it.

Even with an air speed of nearly two-hundred miles an hour, it would be close, but Danny beat the awning by a few microseconds. He swept the children off their feet as his intangibility flowed over them, too. Arriving on the other side, he set the kids down and gave them a once-over to make sure there wasn't any damage. Satisfied, he smiled down at them from where they were kneeling on the ground in front of him.

"You two okay?"

"Barbara! Thank God! Is Jim okay!"

Danny watched as a panicked woman, most likely their mother, ran over to the children, even as they gave him a hesitant smile. "Thank you."

It was the girl who said it, softly enough that he almost missed it. She had fiery red hair and brilliant blue eyes not so much unlike his normal ones. "No prob. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go teach some superheroes a lesson. Have a good day Ms…?"

"Mrs. Gordon," The woman said, bestowing wrenching hugs on both her children and then one on Danny himself. "Thank you so much, young man. I'm so glad this town has someone like you to-"

"Mrs. Gordon," Danny said, slightly flushed. "I appreciate the compliment, but I'm the bad guy here. Bank robbery and all that. If you'll excuse me now…?"

The Gothamite blinked in shock as the ghost teen stepped away from her to pick up a full bank bag and then marched over to Static, buried under the very metal beams he'd tried to stop Danny with. Looking into the Hero's eyes, he saw the impotent pain that he'd known all too well time and again.

He ignored it.

As stupid as he acted from time to time, he'd never been so impulsive as to put innocents in danger thoughtlessly. It made him angry that someone like this was allowed to be fly around picking fights with other humans while he'd been forced to stand against monsters that would crush these…these…children like Styrofoam.

It made him more than mad.

It made him furious.

He might not have been as impulsive as Static, but he had his own brand of recklessness that was all too evident in his words to the African-American meta-human. "The next time you play hero, try to remember who you're protecting before you remember who you're fighting," Phantom advised.

Static just growled at him.

Danny shrugged and flew away before Gear could get his senses back together. He was already standing up and would see to the mess Static had gotten himself into. The gold was heavy, but his heart carried little of the weight he'd thought it would.

He'd robbed a bank, but saved two lives.

He really didn't know how to feel about either any more. Good…Evil, it was all just so confusing. He sighed and resolved to think more on who he was…later.

Right now, he had a few more towns to try and rob blind.

And…figure out what to do with a bag of gold bars.

Danny smacked his forehead in exasperation.

"You'll need to fill out these forms."

The man(?) in the deep purple robe set down a stack of paper in front of him and walked away without another word. Danny, as Phantom, raised an eyebrow at the lack of recognition, inflection, or anything that would hint at the man having a personality. Currently, his vote was on robots…but he hadn't ruled clones out either.

Especially with his recent personal experience.

Danny raised another eyebrow at the forms as his eyes traced over the words. The questions were…strange, but he supposed he should have expected that. There were, of course, the standard 'name, course selection, and bunk assignment portions,' but…

Known Nemeses?

Are there any current bounties on your head?

Have you been involved in any violent public conflicts in the month before attending this institution? If yes, where and when? Is an arrest warrant pending?

The questions got stranger from there and Danny had to dig through his memory to find answers. Regrettably, he had to take extra space to list the people who 'wanted to see him killed, dismembered, or die a gruesome death.'

And, come to think of it, Amity Park never had rescinded that bounty on his head, even after the ghost invasion last year. He frowned, flipping through another few pages and finally down to his signature.

He paused and then, in his fastest, roughest script, signed Danny Phantom.

Another purple figure appeared as he set the pen down and looked over the mass of paperwork. Even though he (it?) gave no indication of it, Danny felt that he was distinctly non-pulsed at the fairly lengthy list of accomplishments.

The ghost teen didn't know whether to be proud or depressed by that fact.

"This way, Mr. Phantom."

The walk down the maze-like hallway was considerable as they passed through immense bunker-like doors, ID checkpoints, and a computer terminal hidden into the wall that took his retinal scan and logged it in the database. He was also presented with a thin band of gold and copper for his left wrist. His attendant had said something about a radio-emitter.

"This is Professor Chang, he will see to your needs."

Another, or the same, purple figure left him in a long hallway filled with every imaginable weapon he could recognize…and quite a few he didn't. There were guns, beam pistols, throwing stars, grenades, bazookas, and…was that a catapult?

"Ah, hello there, young man."

Danny returned his gaze to the stooped-over vaguely Asian man in the bulky white hazmat suit. Strange goggles were attached to the front of his face, looking weighted with technological oddities.

"Professor Chang," Danny greeted, his voice carefully neutral. The bizarre man gave off all the wrong vibes to his finely tuned senses.

"Welcome to my armory," Chang said proudly, waving at the weapons. "This is the general gallery, weapons available to the student body at large during training simulations and missions. If you have any weapons on you currently, I'd be happy to store them in a private locker for you."

Danny frowned, mindful of the footlockers in his pockets. He'd decided to come ready for anything short of a full-scale war; to that point, he'd 'barrowed' the Fenton Crammer and a good amount of his family's weapons store.

"No thanks," Danny replied evenly.

Chang frowned, but his gaze relented as he took in the identification bracelet the teen was wearing. "Very well, you're registered as an 'A' class student and therefore have the privilege of keeping weapons in your room. If you class ever drops below a 'B' however, I expect you to present your weapons to me post haste."

Danny nodded grudgingly. Of course, his performance was directly related to his family and friend's survival, which meant there was no way in hell that would happen. "Do I get any other…privileges?"

Chang frowned further. "Weekend passes, access to computers, weapons' repair stations, and you can requisition rare titles from the general library, but you'll have to talk to Brother Blood about that."

Danny stared. "I'll…do that." Yeah, right. He'd rather stay as far away from 'Brother Blood' as humanly possible. Or ghostly.

"You'll need to go to your room for the night," Chang stated, looking at the ghost teen's paperwork. "That will be on level three. Ask one of the Acolytes if you need help finding it. I have work to do!"

Danny shrugged and took his leave of the strange man. He'd rather not be around Chang any more than necessary, either. He knew that he was on level one and if the Hive was underground. Proving that he still lacked the ability to properly thing things through, Danny phased through the floor without another thought.

Danny was immensely thankful that he stayed intangible when he emerged on the other side of the floor...ceiling, now. Beneath him was an immense area tilled in yellow hexagons, packed with people on benches to one side, and...

There were three, students, he supposed, running through laser fire, projectiles, and grasping metal tentacles. There were two large metal poles on the opposite sides, which obviously meant...

Danny blinked.

It was a training area! Like the one he, Tucker, and Sam had created in the basement lab in Fenton-Works. Albeit, this one was much more advanced than their homemade one. In fact, this one looked kind of...

Fun.

Danny frowned at the thought. He was here, grudgingly, to learn. There wasn't any time for fun if he wanted to succeed in his classes, keep his parents and friends alive, and not turn into the embodiment of all things evil. For the sake of the world in general, not just his family; that last one was very important.

Thanking whatever deity was looking out for him, Danny initiated full invisibility rather than the translucent-ness of intangibility and dodged laser-fire through to the next floor. This time he was more cautious and poked his head out...

into an empty hallway.

Danny rolled his eyes and phased into the visible and material spectrums and looked at his room assignment card Chang had given him. 306...309...313! Danny frowned at the number, although he and Johnny were on decent terms nowadays the whole 'trying to date/kill you sister'-thing still rankled with him a little. He shrugged and resolved to make the best of a bad situation. Hopefully, Johnny wouldn't show up and demand his number back.

The inside of the room was fairly standard and had all the luxury of a prison cell.

In short order he managed to use the Fenton Crammer to un-cram his luggage, pack away some clothing, and make sure all of his weapons were available and unaffected by the cramming.

The crammer itself when under lock and key in a Fenton-vault he'd brought with him for storing some of the especially nasty gear he'd brought along. It was one of his parent's few inventions that he put any amount of trust into and that was only because it had been special-built for a military contract.

It was Ecto-shielded, made of diamond-layered titanium, and had been show to resist anything short of a direct hit with a ballistic missile. The lock was DNA encoded to his fingerprint and given his...unique genetic profile, that was saying something.

That said, he still didn't know what his parents had been thinking when they tied twin nuclear power cells into the locking mechanism.

He decided not to ask.

With his luggage stored Danny did a sweep of the room with his ectoplasm. Surprisingly, it didn't react to anything except the normal wiring, which meant there weren't any electronic bugs in the walls, ceiling, or floor. He'd thought an institution of villainy would be more...sinister.

Deciding to forgo more paranoia for the evening, Danny paused at his bed.

He was still in enemy territory, but no one was watching...

The ghost teen shook his head. Even if the Headmistress knew his identity, there was the chance of another student dropping by. That meant he'd need to be cautious when taking human form.

He shrugged, and lay down on his bed.

After all, how hard could it be to sleep as a ghost?

The answer, as he found out, is that it was very hard to sleep as a ghost.

In fact, he'd given up after lying there for two hours and pulled out a few textbooks that Hive had shipped ahead to prepare for classes and used the res of the night to study. Granted, eight hours of constant cramming (in the educational sense, not the Fenton one) he felt completely ready for anything the school could throw at him, but he also felt extraordinarily grumpy.

Grabbing his books, Danny stopped when he caught sight of the black trench coat that had been his father's attempt at a going away present. It was heavy, armored with ecto-reactive plates, bullet-resistant, and a host of other things that Danny couldn't bother to recite at the moment.

He'd worn it a few times to make his dad happy and gotten the surprise of his…well, not his life. More like the surprise of his week. The coat morphed with him. He'd never had any of his clothes do that before…

Much like his jumpsuit, it inverted color spectrums too, becoming an almost phosphorescent white and the attached belt turning a solid black. It was a mystery exactly how it did that, but he'd decided to take it…just in case.

That, and he thought it made him look pretty cool.

He slipped on the trench coat and shivered as he felt it ectoplasm drain into it, bleaching away the color. He grinned and stepped out into the hallway, ready for anything.

Or so he thought.

He'd had many…preconceived notions(at least, that's what Sam would call them) about thieves, super-villains, and outlaws in general. Some of them were from personal experience…others were from the various news reports concerning Lex Luthor, The Joker, and even that Ebon character he'd seen in Dakota before he'd left.

They were evil.

So far, he'd seen few of the evils that he'd expected.

Most of the students in the Hive were…just that, students. They wore costumes, were about his age, and carried around backpacks. If he didn't know any better, he'd think it was just Halloween at a normal school.

Then there was the way they'd greeted him.

He'd expected to be glared at. He'd known there was going to be some animosity between the 'real' villains and himself. Except…there wasn't.

"Oh. My. God! You're Phantom aren't you! I'm such a big fan! Are you going to school here, now! I have all of your newspaper articles! I even kept the ones that called you a-bleah-hero! I always knew you were on the right side, though."

Danny stared.

She was obviously a student and was wearing some kind of strange armor and wing costume. Her eyes were glowing with low-level yellow light and she had an immense smile stretched across her face.

"Listen to me, though, babbling on and on like this. I know you must need to get to class, but…if you don't mind…could you…"

Danny stared at the notebook and pen blankly. Almost dumbly, his hand reached out and he gave her a large scrawl of a signature. He put a little flourish into it just for fun. She squealed excitedly and hugged the notebook to herself, running off.

Danny Phantom had just given his first autograph.

Throughout the day, he was amazed that it wasn't his last. Everyone seemed to want to shake his hand, compliment his new look (the jacket), or just say 'hi.' A disturbingly large number of them were female.

Judging from everything he'd experienced so far, there could be only one answer.

He was popular.

The idea was so alien that he hadn't even considered it, dismissing the possibility even as he stepped into Deception and Stealth 101. It was listed as a basic course and actually sounded interesting. Come to think of it, a lot of the courses did.

"Well, well, well…it looks like we have a new student today, class. Isn't that purr-fect!"

Danny's eyebrow twitched ominously.

The teacher was wearing a tight body-suit of either spandex or leather that left nothing to the imagination. Actually, the word 'cat-suit' came to mind, seeing as her outfit came complete with ears and a tail. Her long, lean form was lying on the teacher's desk giving him an almost lazy stare.

"I apologize for being late," Danny said stoically. "I don't know my way around the school yet." He felt the autographs were best left unmentioned.

"That's alright," The teacher slinked off the desk and paced up to him. "As you may or may not know, I'm Catwoman and you would be Mr...?"

"Phantom, Danny Phantom."

Catwoman's eyes glittered excitedly. "Ah, Mr. Phantom...our new celebrity. I was just telling the class how much I was looking forward to grading your summer assignments."

Danny nodded and pulled out two bank bags from his backpack. He'd left the one filled with gold bars in his room as that, as per the assignment's rules, hadn't been successful. "I left a stack or two of bills in each bag and in the bank's wrappers. I hope that qualifies as proof-of-theft."

Catwoman blinked and took the bags, pulling out the few thousand dollars that was inside. Her face, even through her mask, was obviously blank with surprise. Danny was taken by surprise as the rest of class stared vacantly at him along with their teacher.

"Class, read pages one through twenty as I speak with Mr. Phantom. I'll be back momentarily." Catwoman stated curtly as she motioned for Danny to follow her. There was a small office walled off from the lecture area that was nearly invisible due to the hexagonal tiles covering building surface.

As the door slid shut, Danny couldn't shake the feeling of impending doom.

"Well, I have to say I'm surprised," Catwoman stated, her speech still velvety and soft, but now carrying an undertone of seriousness. "I gave that assignment on late notice to force some of these slacker students to realize the futility and stupidity of robbing a bank. Evidently, though, you didn't read the introduction to your practical manual."

Danny blinked. "Practical manual? I only got the theory text for your class, Ms….uh, what exactly should I call you?"

"Just Catwoman," She stated absently as she absorbed the information. "Let me summarize the manual for you. Thieves, especially beginners, do not rob banks, museums, or mansions. We make our living off middle America, which grows fat and soft with their big screen TV's, multi-thousand dollar computers, and pricy cars. All three of these are easily liquidated."

"I'd wondered what I was going to do with those gold bars," Danny commented idly, stuck by an unusual moment of common sense. "I mean, I can't exactly buy a donut with one."

Catwoman blinked again. "Gold bars? You really do have a pair of brass balls, don't you kid? Why didn't you hand in one of those, too? I would have given extra credit."

Phantom gaped at the course language as his teacher's grin grew to canary-eating proportions. "Sorry, I just didn't think you'd want me to report a failure."

"Failure," Catwoman said, curiosity spiked. "I wouldn't call a robbery that got you gold a failure."

"You did say we weren't supposed to fight superheroes, though."

Salina Kyle kept her face straight, even behind her mask. To not only have the balls to rob a bank, but succeed in spite of superhero intervention? "Which super tried to stop you?"

Danny frowned, drawing up the rather brutal throw-down he had back in Dakota. "Static and Gear, I think. They didn't seem very experienced, though, and put a lot of people in danger with how they used their powers recklessly."

Memories of similar, but less serious, events played out before his mind's eye. Mentally, he swore to himself that he would hold himself to a higher standard from now on. To be more careful with his powers, more aware of his surroundings.

Catwoman smiled even larger. "Well, I have to ask, how did you manage to pull off those heists."

"Overshadowing," Danny explained, only to be met with incomprehension. He racked his brain for a moment, coming up with a different term. "Think of it like a short-term possession. I heard someone once describe it as suppressing someone's mind and…taking control of their body. I really don't like to think of it that way, though."

It made him seem more like Vlad and his other self than he was really comfortable with.

"Possession," Catwoman said and he noted a certain…distaste for the ability in her tone. "Interesting. Well, if you can manage a bank robbery, without anyone noticing, you certain don't belong in a 100-level course. I'll give you credit for it, of course, but you'll need to attend the…"

Phantom watched as the teacher (it still felt strange to refer to one of Gotham's most famous rogue's gallery members as his teacher) shuffled through a stack of forms, looking for something. She smiled widely again as she pulled out a specific sheet.

"Attend this lecture/lab. It's a 300-level technologies course call Infiltration and Interrogation Gear. I think the Toyman is in charge of that class. Try to make it back next semester for my 300-level Terrain and Environment Awareness class." Danny's attention spiked on the mention of Catwoman's other course. Now that sounded like something he needed to take.

After months of Lancer, he knew a dismissal when he heard one.

Anyway, next class was…he took out his schedule 'Economics of Crime.'

Great. Idly, he wondered if he'd meet another legendary villain in that class.

Peace Out-Slayer Anderson!