"So after you left Dash comes up and I think he's gonna pound me, but he just takes my book, shuts my locker, and walks off." Danny explained the happenings of last period to his friends, gazing at them from behind his math book. "I stood there thinking 'He stole my book!' when he all of a sudden turns around and shouts at me to hurry up! He wouldn't budge from his spot until I was walking next to him. And the hall was such an eerie silent I thought the students all had a stroke."

"Dude, he's gotta be up to something." Tucker stated, while amusingly trying to stay as far away from the 'demonic cat' as the small room would allow.

"I thought so too, especially after class when he stopped me and offered me a ride home, in front of Star and Kwan and Lancer."

"He definitely had something planned for after school." Sam agreed.

"Probably some whale-on-Fenton-fest, good thing you turned him down." Tucker congratulated.

"Yeah, but it didn't look like Kwan or any of the other guys were in on it, they looked like he just quit the team!"

"Or offered a looser a ride home," Sam commented sarcastically.

"So you think he's gone solo on this plot?" Tucker questioned.

"Doubt it, he doesn't have the brains."

"So he's either suddenly sprouted intelligence or is working with outside forces." Sam scribbled down the answer to a problem before looking back at them.

"Or maybe…." Danny pressed his math book further against his face as he thought it over.

"Or what?" they asked in unison.

There was a long silence before he whispered. "Maybe he's trying to be nice."

Sam and Tucker immediately burst into laughter at the notion, Danny just continued to stare at his math book until the problems ran together and the page was as blurry as a fogged mirror.

Unconsciously he reached out to pet the purring cat in his lap. Why was Dash being nice to him?

-

Dash's bag dropped to the floor with a hollow "thunk", reminding him that there was a whole other floor beneath his feet and to please be quiet. He ignored it, kicking off his shoes like every other day when he came home. Pressing 'Play' on his remote, Dash dropped down onto his bed in the hopes of completing the movie he had started the previous night when he had returned from Fenton's house.

"Fenton." He growled out the name, it left a bad taste in his mouth since freshman year. He never knew why, but the kid had always rubbed him the wrong way. Whenever he had to reaffirm his place as popular athlete and head bully his sights always turned to Fenton, whenever he was too angry to really keep it bottled there was Fenton, whenever he just felt like hitting something for no apparent reason, just because it was fun, Fenton was there.

Sometimes he felt like hitting something simply because Fenton was there.

He didn't know why the teen's mere presence made adrenaline rush through his system, didn't really understand why touching him, looking at him, even being near him made every hair on his body stand on end and his heart beat faster, it gave him an empowering charge, like during a big game. Maybe he pounded on Fenton because he could fight back, challenge him, something none of the other kids did. Everyone else just kind of rolled over, Fenton fought back, or got even.

And when things seemed to go a little too far, the dope would apologize. He apologized! Dash shook his head at the notion of actually voicing his regret for picking on someone. Sure, he felt bad about beating on Fenton now, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to trip him in the hallway later down the road, or shove him in a locker sometime after this huge spectacle died down. And he certainly wasn't going to tell the looser he was sorry.

It was difficult to keep that energy and restlessness bottled up, he had to let it out, in any way he could. So most of the time Fenton was the recipient of this rupture, but he aimed it at other people and activities too. It's not like he targeted Fenton specifically.

Anyway, it didn't matter now, he was forced to help and be nice to the one person he hated, well, marginally didn't get along with, most, all because of a stupid accident. If he could, he would take his frustration out of some helpless victim, but that was out of the question now that the staff members would be keeping an extra eye out for any abusive or threatening behavior. Damn them. Damn Fenton, the school, and his own stupid guilt.

It's not like he did anything!

He was barely aware of the cry-me-a-river ending scene that normally had him bawling his eyes out with a box of tissue beside him. His mind kept wandering back to the locker room, back to the nurse's office. To the terrible dark bruises marring Fenton's pale chest. His story, exaggerated to a point, to help get Dash off the hook.

He didn't do anything! Yet that didn't man something didn't happen to him..and he could have lied and said it had been Dash, even though it wasn't.

Fenton could have lied. Told them Dash had beaten him, told them he had caused those horrible bruises and fractured his arm, told them anything! And they would have believed him without question, no matter what. Nothing Dash could have said would have changed their minds; they were already convinced he was guilty. They would have sided with Fenton.

But that wasn't the case.

Fenton had sided with 'him', had deliberately altered the story, however trivial, to aid 'him'. He could have gotten rid of Dash once and for all, but instead he helped him.

Perhaps that was why he had swallowed his pride and carried Fenton's books, waited for him, and even offered him a ride home. In front of his friends no less! Sure, he was still a little upset about the rejection, if you could call it that. More a small rebuff, but still he had refused the offer. Humiliating.

Regardless… For all his hatred, all his cruel acts, the years he spent beating, mocking, and pranking the smaller teen, didn't Fenton share his loathing?

Turning off the TV Dash lay back in his bed, his favorite teddy bear cradled against the crook of his shoulder. He looked outside his window at the neighborhood around him, still a bright afternoon. Maybe he could go for a jog, clear his head. Stop worrying about his reputation and his new task.

After all, it's only for a little while, and for all anybody knew he could just be setting Fenton up for the ultimate prank.

"Yeah, that's a good excuse. But only after Fenton's healed. Wouldn't want it getting back to him and make him worry about me more. Yeah, let them guess for a week or two." With a nod Dash sat up, and pulled his shoes back on. A nice walk would do him a lot of good.

-

"It's growing?!"

"Well…I'm not positive but I'm sure it wasn't this bad this morning." Danny lifted his white shirt to expose the purple and green discolorations slashing across his bare chest.

"Dude, it looks like you were—"

"Hit in the chest by a rocket? I know." He pulled his shirt back down to hide the damage. "I don't get it. Normally this kind of stuff doesn't faze me. I don't bruise, I don't scar, I rarely even bleed heavily. It doesn't make sense!" Danny let his head fall with a "thunk" onto the math book balanced on his knees startling the small cat lightly dozing between his legs.

"Maybe there's a problem with your ghost powers." Tucker offered. "Like when you went through puberty."

"Or maybe you were just hit harder than usual." Sam, the ever-valued voice of reason chimed in as she collected her books and glanced at her watch with a sigh. "We've got to get going. My mom's got this rally thing she wants me at and Tucker is my 'bring a friend' option." Before they exited, she turned back. "Remember what the doctor said? That bruising is normal, so don't go off stressing about it so much, it could be nothing."

"Or it could be something really bad." Danny mumbled after they had left his room.

-

"There. Finished!" Danny proclaimed as the book snapped closed, a finality that ended all homework completing missions around the world. Carefully leaning down he peered through the floor and into the kitchen underneath. Grimalkin watched with amusement as his newfound human kneeled with his romp in the air and his head through the floors.

Maddie and Jack were in the kitchen occupied with the many pet supplies, discussing some benefits to having an animal around as a living ghost detector. "Well Mom and Dad are occupied with the whole cat thing." He rose from the floor, shaking his head to readjust his ruffled hairstyle. "So long as they don't come up and ask my opinion I'm in the clear." He glanced at his door, "But just in case."

Walking over he flipped the electrical lock Tucker and he had made last summer down in the lab into place. If his parents came up and tried the door the lock would keep the door shut and play the chosen vocal recordings he made each day. He pressed the small green button, preparing his new recording with the keyword cat. If the chosen keywords were mentioned this recording would automatically play.

Between "I'm not hungry." For the words 'Breakfast', 'Lunch', 'Dinner', 'Eat', and 'Food'; and "I don't want to talk about it right now." For the words 'Talk' and 'Discuss', he recorded. "Grimalkin's fine, for now, can't it wait for morning?!" and "He just got here, don't overwhelm him! Wait till tomorrow! Sheesh!"

With a smile, hoping that they didn't ask anything that wasn't covered he turned to face his window. "I guess it's time for patrol."

As if it were his queue Grimalkin jumped up, wrapping himself around Danny's ankles, quite a feat for such a small creature, and purred like a Porsche turbo. I want to come! He called in his feline language. Take me too!

"What, you want to come?" Danny asked incredulous. The small animal called again, and Danny had to stumble back because he couldn't get his feet to move with the small sleek creature winding around his ankles like a python. "Okay, okay, sheesh." He rubbed the back of his neck nervously, "I remember the last time I worked with animals around ghosts, not the most pleasant experience." He put his hands on his hips and glared down at the miniature black creature who sat on his foot expectantly. Chartreuse eyes that took up most of the round black face looked pleadingly up at him, and he felt a bit of his resolve crumble away.

It didn't take long for him to break entirely and soon his shoulders slumped.

He was defeated, defeated by a tiny black cat that was too adorable for his own good.

"Well, damn. I guess you can come. Not like a little thing like you could cause much trouble." He rummaged through the chest at the foot of his bed, tossing out a few old videogames and some broken controllers he liked to use as spare parts until he found his bulky hiking fanny-pack and clicked it around his waist. When he transformed, it's ruddy brown color became a mixture of black and white, and the dull black zipper which stuck halfway through turned silver, and slid open to his touch as if it were oiled and polished. Now appearing as his ghostly self, with his new accessory a perfect match, he scooped the tiny cat up and fazed through his wall.

Grimalkin merely narrowed his eyes as he was placed in the pack. It would be a lot more dangerous tonight than the phantom expected, though he admitted, the costume change did impress him.

-

The air was thick with the smell of rain, the sky an ever-present blanket of grey upon grey, heavy with water and a strong need to relieve itself of its burden. Down below never ending scenery provided entertainment to occupy the uninterested mind of a cloud as it traveled across the sky.

At this particular time in the road trip the cluster of misty travelers gazed down at the dark city of Amity Park, silent and sleepy but for the Friday night daters out for fun. Bored, embittered, and sufficiently annoyed by the wild biting wind that tossed them across the sky the past few days they let loose with a downpour of water. Like a drunken egg, the clouds cracked open and vomited their contents on the city.

Dash casually strolled down the street from the Nasty Burger with some buddies of his, the taste of cheap, greasy fast-food still present in the back of his mouth. As an athlete, he knew the consequences of digesting the garbage fast food restaurants sold to unsuspecting customers as food, but he couldn't help but be drawn to the stuff occasionally. He recalled how he and his friends used to hang out and eat at the Nasty Burger more often than at their homes. Now they rarely set foot in the place.

With a wistful sigh he turned to gaze up at the night sky, starless due to overcast, but none the less beautiful. A continuous blend of purples, blacks, grays and blues, the wind mixing them all together like the blades of a blender, easily swiping away one color to replace it with another, swirling like a vortex of paint before moving on into the next phase of the dance around the world.

Silver-blue lightning arched across the sky like the winding body of an enraged dragon with a close following thunderclap at the exact moment the very first drop of rainwater splattered between the wide blue eyes of his upturned face. It sliced like a blade across the sky, illuminating the darkness for an instant in a hot white light, tinged with blue frost. Tendrils of electricity slashed out from the sides of the main bolt in an effort to flee from their beautiful, powerful mother. Like the roots of a small plant they connected the clouds to the ground in a delicate web of stunning command that once had people, long ago, falling to their knees in worship of their deities and their magnificent authority.

A drop of water landed on his forehead, right above his nose. He brushed it away and brought himself back to the conversation his friends were having.

He had managed to salvage his social life at the Nasty Burger as a few members of the team, both basketball and football, had gathered there in conference without his knowledge to discuss the sudden turn of events. He had been lucky to stumble upon them, even luckier to find an excuse come easily upon his lips.

Not exactly a lie, he figured Fenton was being beaten pretty badly after school by somebody else and had wanted to find out who was doing it. Really he had wanted to inform the teen about the principal's little scheme and set some ground rules, but there was no reason to tell these people that. So he had lied to his friends, not something that would bother him much, if they didn't accept it so easily. Like he was really some territorial jock who didn't want someone else stalking his prey. They should know that Dash didn't have a problem with other people picking on the guy, Kwan did it all the time, and Paulina too.

Worse off, they began discussing creating a bodyguard for hire business. What the hell? So suddenly he quits bullying and decides to help a kid and now they all want to? For a price of course. He couldn't help but realize his friends, even teammates, had such low morals as they discussed ways to bully kids into hiring "protection."

Fenton could actually be having some dangerous problems and all these kids could think of was how they could take advantage of it?

It hit him, sitting there half listening to the planning, how close Danny could have been to death today. He had tried to flee from his thoughts by walking, but they just became more determined to be noticed, heard, and acknowledged. And though he couldn't place every jagged piece of this complex puzzle together all at once he could build it up from the corners and slowly work in, like arrows pointing in the direction he would work towards the center, and the answer.

He wasn't very smart, he accepted that, and he would never call himself a caring person. But he was an athlete at heart, and by nature a team player. He knew when to take the lead and when to pass the ball. Right now he felt like a transferred player into a rival team, and he had to figure out how to earn the trust and acceptance of players he once called his opponents.

Maybe it was like Lancer said, maturity didn't just strike you when you became a teenager, or entered high school, or even graduated. It was something that grew with you, slowly bending and altering you based on the mold your decisions made for you. It would have been easier to judge people these past few years of high school if the molds that built them were a visible, tangible thing, like a clear, warped casing, hovering around a person so everyone could see what they were and may become. Dash imagined his would be pretty disfigured.

Turning away from that disturbing fragment of reflection, he trained his thoughts on what he would do to help Fenton and prove to the faculty staff, which would no doubt be monitoring his every move, that he had no intention of pushing his fellow student over the edge.

His pals and him called their farewells and dispersed as the full force of the shower began to crash down around them. He resolved to follow through on his earlier plan to inform his new ward of just what was awaiting him at school the next morning, no point in avoiding it, after all who knew what confrontation would get between them come school time?

Slowly he trudged on, with heavy rain and heavy conscience weighing him down, towards the Fenton's home, and hopefully a new piece to this conundrum.

-

Danny flew through the darkening clouds, it was a while after the sun had officially set in the City of Amity Park, but from his position he could still witness the last remnants. The clouds surrounding him were like a thick grey fog, tinged with a dark blue as the night crept closer and closer. He could feel the tension in the clouds, the misty essence around him clammy, the water in the air so heavy it was difficult to breathe and condensation appeared on his cool ghostly skin, a small drop rolled down his furrowed brows to fall from the tip of his nose to the world. He watched it travel, the single falling drop a leader in a march as directly behind it the clouds around him let loose with their army of watery soldiers to lay siege to the Friday night partiers of Amity Park.

The tension was building as he hovered somewhere between the starry night sky and the rain, the air as thick with anxiety as a brewing battle. The cat stuck its head out of his fanny pack and cried when the air around them seemed to sizzle with electricity. The atmosphere weighing down on them with force and Danny cursed, shooting from the clouds as fast as he could as the lightning bolt was birthed, nearly catching him in the current as it connected the earth to the heavens in a bridge of electricity. It had only been an instant but the motions were so smooth, so precise, that Danny could play it back in his mind with acute detail as if it had gone painfully slow, allowing him the privilege of observation.

The air that filled his lunges reeked of ozone and the water splattered against his face like bullets, piercing his body with needles of pain. He fell to the ground in a race against the raindrops, easily passing them with the added push of his ghostly power that drove him from the clouds to the ground with all the force he could produce in that instant reaction, except this time Dash wasn't there to catch him.

There was only a moment of fear as he tried to ease his fall, but he didn't have time and he met with the ground at the exact instant the thunderclap from the lightning bolt shook the quiet night.

-

He wasn't home; Dash knew that the moment he knocked on Danny's bedroom door. His parents, the crazy but endearing couple they were, had piled bags of cat stuff by the door because their son refused them entry, something he could never get away with at home. However, when they spoke through the door, Danny's voice could be heard, he didn't feel like receiving visitors.

Dash new that Danny wasn't in his room. Just knew it, because parents were used to the empty presence that lay beyond locked doors, because what teenager didn't sneak out? But Dash wasn't used to it, and he knew when a place was empty. So he left, silently wondering what he would have said if Danny had been home. Just like him to walk into a situation without thinking. In fact, it was just like him to not think, period. Unless it was about girls or football, but what high schooler didn't think about those?

When he did think, however, the complexities of his mind often surprised him. Perhaps it was all those game plays he had to run through, or maybe he was not some big idiot but really just a bit unmotivated in schoolwork, like all the teachers liked to say, but he knew they were wrong. He was plenty motivated, if he wasn't he wouldn't have overcome so many obstacles so get where he was.

He knew his problem; he was dyslexic, plain and not so simple. He worked all through elementary school with this difficulty before his parents finally figured out what was wrong and got him help. So people all over the city thought he was stupid so what? Lancer and Mrs. Tetslaff knew the truth, and in a way he was smarter then everyone. He knew the game plays better than his coach and Mr. Lancer worked hands on with him constantly.

The rain was pouring down harder, making him think of the tears he had cried during middle school when he had been kicked off the softball team because of his failing grades. The water on his face was cold and refreshing and brought him small comfort in the fact that he had left the old town flying far away like the clouds overhead to this small town where no one knew him as the stupidest kid in school, only moving on because his parents were rich and could buy his grades.

Here he had worked as hard as he could with his private tutors to keep up, no matter how confusing things got, and made the football team by sheer determination. Now, Lancer at his back for support he managed to keep his GPA just points above the dropping range and made his name in sports. He knew if he put his mind to it he could solve this puzzle, wasn't that just what he was good at? There was some pattern here and he would find it, but first he had to find Fenton, because, in the deepest part of his chest something felt wrong.

It only intensified as he saw a soaking wet black cat dart out of an alleyway and across the street, directly towards him. His felt like screaming as he looked into glowing green eyes before the tiny beast reared back on its haunches and launched itself right at him.

-

Danny woke to find himself sprawled on the wet cobblestone alleyway in the junction between two old apartment buildings from when the city was first built in the 19th century. Strange how that was the first thought in his mind, not the searing pain he was feeling, not the horrid smell of whatever got washed by the rain into the puddle he was lying in, not the fact that his cat may be friggen squashed beneath him. He was somewhere in the old part of Amity Park, just a bit to the north of where he lived, and he should be dead.

But he was ghost at that moment wasn't he? Ghosts couldn't die right? But they sure as hell could hurt. He struggled to sit up, feeling the assuring jolt of pain, much like that of the lightning that knocked him out of the clouds, strike through his body practically screaming that he was positively alive and could he please move a little slower next time, and that was all he thought before his mind went blank with pain again. He rolled to his side and clutched his throbbing arm, feeling as though some kind of monster was chewing on his left shoulder.

He took a deep breath, swallowing the groan before it was halfway up his throat as he shakily surveyed his surroundings. He saw a huddled group of the homeless watching him eerily from the shadows, a bit unnerving but understandable. He probably landed right in the middle of their shelter from the rain.

Problem was they weren't covered or even cowering in the shadows from the rain and the cold. They were standing in the middle of the alleyway, in the middle of the rain, without coats, without cover. Just staring at him, their eyes a bright, glowing green.

He sat up.

Green?!

He let the breath he was holding come out in a stream of cold mist as another frosty slash of lightning lit the night sky illuminating the alleyway and tinged his breath with the faintest kiss of blue. These weren't the clustered bodies of the homeless, but ghosts, and of a kind he'd never seen before. These were true horrors, clearly visible from the green glow now resonating from them as their powers became known.

They had to be ghosts, because no living thing could look…

so…

Dead.

The bright green glow of the eyes came from dark sunken sockets, decomposing flesh hung like rags from dark red bones, almost brown, like dried blood but slick and wet and dripping in the rain. They shambled towards him on limbs that no longer had the strength or, he noticed, muscle, to hold them up. They moved only by the ghostly will and power that drove all dead beings.

He stood, frightened, unaware of his own pain as he watched these dead creatures inch closer to him, decomposing where they walked, their decaying juices running down their morbid bodies to leave a stinking trail of rot from the scorched cobblestones where they had been standing to the few feet that separated them from him.

Some of them laughed, a cruel howling sound that not even the worst specter on the ghost zone could ever perfect. They laughed and screeched and pointed blaming fingers of accusation at him. Their faces were contorted in rage, their laughter gleeful moans of outrage and triumph. He never realized anything so happy could sound so resentful.

Danny stood and took a step backward, a shaky, stumbling step that bent his foot sideways painfully and shocked him into turning. He had faced many things, many, many things in the four years he'd been fighting ghosts, but nothing had ever appeared before him in combat looking so…terrifying. He turned from the fleshless, rotting horrors, the jutting bones, the spilling entrails, and ran…

And slipped…

And fell…

Hard.

Pain shot through his body and he was paralyzed. By terror, and pain, and the knowledge that soon those grisly, rotting creatures would be upon him, clawing at him with bloody fingers, bones like talons glistening in the reddish-brown ooze. The rain did nothing to wash away the gruesome trickle of fluid that pooled around their shuffling feet. As he turned to look at them over his shoulder he knew he wouldn't be able to move, he couldn't move.