Lancer had spent way too much of the previous night trying to figure out what connected the few dots he'd managed to find, and had gotten no farther in solving the mystery of Danny Fenton. He had stayed late into the night and had forced himself to leave the list on his desk as to keep himself from staying up all night trying to piece it together. It hadn't really helped, but he had to try. Lancer walked to his room, a little later than he'd like to be for morning tutorials, but he hadn't assigned any major projects, it was likely no one would notice he wasn't there anyway.
As he suspected, there were no students waiting to get into his room for some last minute tweaks on a project he'd assigned weeks ago. No, what met his eyes was a rather beat Danny Phantom standing at his desk, his left foot at an odd angle, holding his list of the oddities surrounding Danny Fenton.
"He's really trying to figure it out. I doubt he'll get any farther than mom and dad did." Phantom let out a short laugh before putting the page down and leaving. The teacher was confused, what did Phantom have to do with Fenton? It had to be something if Phantom knew what it was that Lancer was trying to piece together, but that didn't give the teacher any answers. It was something else to add to his list of oddities though.
-Connected to Phantom
He sighed as he sat at his desk, staring at the list for the twenty minutes before the first bell was due to ring. He was getting nowhere with this. He needed to get something out of Daniel himself. Just about anything would do, just about anything would help him. He knew there was something huge connecting these dots, but the English major couldn't spot it. Maybe he'd have to ask Danny during detention today. Wednesdays were the day Danny reported to Lancer for detention, his other teachers hogged him every other afternoon as he was missing just as much of their classes as he was English.
The bell rang and students started filing into his class. As usual, Danny was the last to walk in, though Lancer was thankful he arrived with the tardy bell rather than after it as Danny so often did. The boy walked in without that jacket today, but Lancer noticed a scar running down his right arm, one that had most certainly not been there last week, and the bruise he had spotted yesterday was gone. But how? A bruise like that should have taken days to heal, and scars don't appear over the course of a few days.
Then he noticed the slight limp Danny was trying to hide. It hit Lancer that Phantom had shown up with a clear injury on his foot this morning, but they couldn't be one and the same, right?
But what if they were? The teacher looked back at his list and decided it was worth adding; it would be easier to figure this out with too many points than with not nearly enough.
-Connected to Phantom
-Same injuries(?)
Lancer taught his classes with only half the enthusiasm as he usually managed, something he considered a feat as his mind wasn't truly in the material he was attempting to teach to the room of disinterested teenagers. Honestly, he was just waiting for the day to end so he could talk to Danny.
Finally, the last bell of the day rang, delivering a rather tired looking Daniel Fenton to Lancer's room. "Hey, Mr. Lancer."
"Hello, Danny." Lancer looked the boy over and noticed the limp he was trying to hide this morning was now gone and the scar he'd seen on Danny's arm looked a lot smaller than when he'd last seen the boy. This was rather odd...his injuries were healing way too fast to be normal.
"I have a proposition for you, Daniel." This perked the boy's interest as it was intended to and Lancer continued speaking. "I have some questions for you, and if you'll answer them I'll let you go early today."
Danny fidgeted a bit as he thought this over, but eventually gave in. "Fine, but I can't guarantee you'll like what I have to say." Lancer accepted this, he wasn't naive enough to believe Danny would just answer his questions without keeping some things to himself.
"I need the truth, Danny. What have you gotten yourself into? Is it drugs, gangs, abuse from your parents?" The ghost boy looked back at Lancer, disbelief in his eyes.
"Do you really think I'd get into any of that stuff? And my parents would never lay a hand on me." Danny looked away for a split second, and Lancer could have sworn he heard the boy mumble something along the lines of "not on purpose, at least..."
"If that's not it, then what is it, Danny?"
Danny shook his head. "If I could tell you, I would, but I can't. I know I can't stop you from trying to figure it out, but you're honestly better off not knowing."
Lancer stared at his student as he started to walk out. Danny was normally so easy going and care free, but his tone was so serious.
"Daniel, you haven't gotten yourself into any fights, have you?"
Danny stopped, then kept walking. "Bye, Mr. Lancer."
Lancer had another thing to add to his list.
-Gets into fights of some sort
Comments and feedback are as welcome as always!
Invisible One
