A/N: Here you go!
Summary: Another day, another conversation, another attack. But maybe this will be Kwan and Dash's chance!
~oOo~
Danny and Friends At Lunch...
"Wait... He did what?" Tucker asked, mouth gaping open and eyes open wide in astonishment. His fork, that had been so close to delivering a piece of ham to his mouth, dropped with a clang on his plate.
"Yeah," Danny nodded in confirmation, "I couldn't believe it, either! I really don't know what's gotten into him. It's really, really scary. And weird."
"I bet," Sam added, "Dash being nice is just as believable as me willingly putting on a cheerleader outfit and running around at a football game, grinning and screaming like a freakin' idiot. Are you sure you didn't just imagine the whole thing?"
"Yes, I'm certain!" Danny shouted at his friend's comment. This earned him many strange glances from the people sitting at tables near them. Danny ignored the odd looks, and continued, "He actually walked over to me in the middle of the hallway, with people watching, and picked up all of the books that Matt had knocked down! He even picked up my sketchbook, and was flipping through all of the pages. He then commented on how I was 'Really good, 'or something like that."
"Maybe he's being overshadowed by some hardcore ghost phan?" Tucker asked, his voice rising up at the end.
"Tucker," Danny rolled his eyes, "Hello-o! If it was a ghost, I'd know. Besides, as of right now, I don't think any ghosts like me... Besides maybe Klemper, but I'm not even gonna go there."
"Oh. Right."
"Maybe it was some sort of bet, like he would get a hundred dollars if he was actually nice to a nerd today!" Sam suggested, "That makes some sense, right?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"Well, is only Dash acting weird, or are other people doing it, too?"
Danny thought for a moment, "Well, Dash was the only one who helped me pick up my books, and he hasn't beaten me up all morning. In fact," Danny laughed a little, "Right when I got to my locker this morning, he and Kwan..." He paused for a moment, and took a deep breath. "Oh... Dash andKwan were both scared of me. Yeah. It's Kwan, too. He's also been avoiding me all morning."
"Maybe someone started that whole 'Danny's a Vampire!' rumor again," Tucker laughed, taking another bite of his ham.
"Wait... a Vampire? That's what that was all about?" Danny asked, remembering the few days where everyone in school was avoiding him and talking about him behind his back, and all of those girls were stalking him.
"Yeah!" Tucker further explained, "Every since that lab in Biology where you had to recorded someone's temperature and heart BPM and your numbers were all way too low, some really awesomely stupid rumors have popped up about you!"
"Aw, man, that is so stupid!" Danny smiled and let loose a few giggles.
"Yeah, anyways," Sam went to changing the subject, "What could've caused those two to start being nicer to you?"
"I don't know."
"Oh no," Tucker groaned over dramatically.
"What is it?" Danny and Sam exclaimed in worry at the same time.
"What if... What if maybe... They know?" Tucker gasped.
The table was silent for about five seconds, each one considering the possibility.
Then the two boys burst out laughing.
"Yeah right!" Danny gasped for breath in between each word, "Those two idiots? They couldn't figure out that the earth goes around the sun!"
"Yeah!" Tucker wiped a tear away from his eye, "Your IQ drops a few numbers by just walking in the same room as those two!"
Sam wasn't quite convinced, "Yeah, I guess, but what if thatis why they're acting strange? What if they have figured something out, even if it's not your whole secret?"
Danny calmed down enough, so that he was able to talk without hyperventilating. "No, Sam. Just trust me!" He smiled, "Tucker's right. There's absolutely no way those two ding-dongs have figured it out."
"Then why do you think they're acting odd? What else could it be?"
Danny and Tucker looked at each other, and at the same time, they formed deadpan expressions on their faces.
"Vampires."
"Yes. Definitely."
They burst out laughing again. Sam rolled her eyes, but she couldn't help but smile along with them.
~oOo~
Kwan and Dash at Lunch…
"Wait, you picked up his books for him?" Kwan yelled out, shocked.
"Shhh!" Dash warned. His eyes darted around the lunchroom, trying to see if anyone looked up at the shouting. After making sure that they were in the clear, he continued to whisper, "Please, don't draw any more attention to us, Kwan! We're already getting a lot of weird looks for not sitting at the A-list's table!"
"But you picked up Danny's books!"
"Yeah, I helped him pick up his books. So what?" Kwan was about to say something, but Dash cut him off. "And, yeah, I know that you told me to stay away from Danny, but you also said to be nice! And what was I doing by helping him? I was being nice! And nothing bad happened, besides a plummet in my popularity! So... Just thought I should get it out there before you start to scold me. I was helping Danny, just like you told me to." He added sourly, crossing his arms over his chest.
As the day progressed, the two boys had subconsciously decided to stop calling Danny just "Fenton". They were actually starting to think of him as a real person who was just as important, or, as they had discovered, even more important than most kids at their school. He deserved respect, just like everybody else, and that respect started by calling him by his first name. And, as Dash had said, by helping him.
Kwan shook his head. "No, no, no. I wasn't going to 'scold' you!" He placed air quotations around the word 'scold'. "No, Dash! Helping him… That was a good idea."
"It was?"
"Yeah!" Kwan nodded enthusiastically, "Now Danny has seen a non-mean side of you. He might not be so worried about us knowing his secret. If you had just walked away, then he would have no reason to trust you! Now, you're on Danny's good side!"
"I guess that's good, but don't you think that other people are going to use that to find some way to humiliate me?"
"Yeah, but they'll always find a way to make someone look bad. But you're Dash Baxter. With a little 'encouragement', they'll leave you alone." Kwan punched Dash's shoulder lightheartedly.
Dash smiled at that. "Yeah, I guess."
Kwan laughed, "Besides, it's not like you're gonna end up like-"
"-EEEEEEICK!"
An ear-piercing scream interrupted their conversation. The two boys looked up, panic written all over their faces.
"GHOST!" Someone else shouted.
"G… Gho-o-ost!" Dash wailed, pointing a finger to a glowing specter that had just appeared over the usual A-List's table.
The ghost looked like a weird cheetah/bear hybrid. As it landed with a thump onto the table, kids scrambled to get out of the way. The creature bared its extremely sharp teeth at the on-looking students, growling deeply. Then, it opened its cavernous mouth and roared its mightiest roar. That continued for a few seconds, but it soon fell silent, red eyes scanning the children rancorously.
Silence transformed into absolute panic in two seconds flat. Kids everywhere started screaming, and soon the noise became unbearably loud and high-pitched. Everywhere, people were running for cover, whether that cover be under a lunch table or behind an unusually large student or teacher. Kwan followed most of his peer's example and dove under a table, whereupon he met Dash, who was already hiding and shaking like a leaf.
Kwan chose to ignore his terrorized friend for a moment, and instead, he peered out from under the table as inconspicuously as he could. He panned the room, looking for someone in particular. And he saw exactly the thing he half expected to see.
Sure enough, two red tennis-shoes could be seen running out through the cafeteria doors, closely followed by a pair of black combat boots and some brown shoes.
Danny is leaving! Which means, if we're right about him, thenDannyis going to show up about right-
"Hey, Booboo Bear!"
-now.
A few claps and cheers rippled throughout the lunchroom as the famous silver-haired boy made himself apparent, but the praise quickly dissipated as the Bear Cat thing lunged at Phantom. A few kids yelped in fear for the benevolent ghost, who had just barely escaped the grasp of the beast. He still got nipped by a claw, though. On his arm, through the torn black jumpsuit, three gashes could be seen, dripping green ectoplasm.
"Now, you're gonna have to try harder that, you giant kitten!" Danny hissed out, only a little pain showing in his silly voice. The monster roared at the latest comment. But, no matter how fast that cat thing lunged, Phantom still found ways to elude capture while still causing injury to his opponent. All of this with sardonic comments threaded throughout.
Kwan and Dash listened in awe as Phantom… No, asFenton spewed off a strand of sharp-witted mockery. Not one shred of worry or concern lived anywhere in that echo-y hero voice. It was confident and full of humor. That voice should not belong to an insecure teenager. But, somehow, it did. And the two football players had the proof.
The fight quickly developed a rhythm, the pattern going something along the lines of: The ghost would jump at Danny, Danny would easily dodge the attack whilst firing a round of ecto-blasts that occasionally met their mark. That particular pattern didn't seem to get the two of them anywhere, but only a few minutes into the fight, Sam and Tucker joined in. Sam had her ecto bracelet thing, and she happened to have relatively good aim. And between Sam and Danny's hits, plus the energy that the ghost was using to attack Danny, the Cat Bear was starting to lose strength.
When Danny's friends entered the fight, the ghost began having a really hard time keeping its ground. Sometimes, he would get lucky and would claw Danny, but none of its attempts were as successful as that first lunge.
After a few minutes of raging attacks and dodges, the monster grew impatient, and just tried to grab Danny out of the air, but he missed completely, and his claws got lodged in a lunch table. Danny saw his already weak opponent in that fairly vulnerable state. This opened up an amazing opportunity for Danny to attack and to get rid of his rival once an for all.
With one final hard blow from the ghost boy, the monster fell in a heap on the floor, where Tucker decided to make his grand entrance with a certain thermos. There was a flash of blinding blue light, and then the ghost was gone.
Once making sure that the coast was clear, Kwan and Dash crawled out from under the table, and looked around the damaged cafeteria. Other people were also emerging from their hiding spots. They looked around in shock at the smoking holes in the table that were probably caused by Phantom's misfires.
Speaking of Phantom…
The attention of the entire student body quickly turned to the ghost boy, who had landed on the ground and was talking with Sam and Tucker. Many students started trying to mob Danny, who squirmed as someone started smothering him in a painfully tight bear hug. After Danny scrambled out of the suffocatingly tight grip of his phan, he gave his snickering friends rushed high-fives before flying off through a wall. everyone in the lunch room groaned in disappointment when he disappeared.
In the lunchroom, there was still a little distress and confusion from the attack. That, plus the chaos of the stampeding students created a perfect distraction. Kwan saw his chance. He ran.
After finally noticing his friend starting to leave, Dash soon followed. They darted out of the cafeteria double doors, and did a quick pan of their surroundings. All that met their line of sight was lockers and a few classroom doors. No sign of Danny. The two jocks jogged down the hallway to the right, in the direction that Phantom seemed to have flown. They rushed around the corridors for a while more, but still hadn't seen Danny. They were just about to give up and go back to their peers, when, right as they turned a corner, a bright light shone.
Dash jumped back and yelped.
"Ghost!"
He hid behind Kwan, who was hiding behind the corner.
The light had come from inside a classroom. As the two football players stared around the corner in wonder and fright, a certain raven-haired boy exited the briefly illuminated room. They gasped. Danny was cradling his arm, where three deep red scratches, much in the shape of claw marks, could barely be seen. Sure, Kwan and Dash now accepted how the two boys were one and the same, but deep down, they didn't quite expect that to happen.
The halfa stood, his back facing their direction, taking a moment to examine his wounds.
Dash pulled Kwan back by his arm around the corner, where Danny had no way of seeing them.
"Well?"
"'Well?' what?" Kwan asked quizzically.
"What about now?"
Dash looked at Kwan expectantly, but his friend just shrugged. Now's as good of a time as ever, He seemed to say.
Dash nodded at his friend in agreement. He took deep breaths, in, out, in out,trying to calm himself.
Well, this is it. This is our chance. Tell him now, or maybe never have another chance to tell him ever again.
In, out, in, out.
The two boys nodded slightly at each other, and took their first slow step around the corner in unison. They were moving! They were actually going to tell Danny that they knew! Dash took another deep breath, this one filling him up with confidence. Those aggravating butterflies that had been making his stomach squirm were slowly fluttering away. He smiled at himself.
Here we go.
They took another step towards the corner. They were so close now! Just one more step, then Danny could see them if he just turned around! They were going… they were stepping, they were almost there, they were about to reveal themselves to Danny, they were about to come clean, when-
"Mr. Fenton!" Someone out in the hallway barked.
Dash and Kwan froze in their -still hidden- spots, listening intently, trying to figure out who had called Danny's name.
No. No, no, no, no, no! Crap!Dash's inner voice shouted.That voice, it sounded just like…
"Um, yes, Mr. Lancer?" They heard Danny reply.
Kwan and Dash poked their heads out from behind the wall to get a better look. Mr. Lancer was walking as swiftly as his little legs could carry him over to Danny, who was still standing in that same spot, with his head hanging low. One hand was shoved deep in his pocket, but his other arm, the one with the claw marks, he hid carefully behind his back.
"There is a ghost attacking, and you are roaming around the hallways without permission, outside of the Cafeteria! Who knows what you were doing, or what could've happened to you!"
"Um, Mr. Lancer? The ghost's gone-"
"Paradise Lost, Mr. Fenton, don't interrupt!" Mr. Lancer yelled. Danny winced and rubbed the back of his neck. "It is unsafe for you to be wandering around the hallways without a go-ahead! You'll be having detention, in my room after school, for your complete lack of common sense!"
"But-"
"-Don't 'But' me, Mr. Fenton! Now, the bell is about to ring, so I want you to go immediately to your sixth period class, which just so happens to be one of my classes. So come with me, now."
"Um... Okay."
As Mr. Lancer walked away, Danny did a face-palm and followed his teacher, shaking his head in irritation.
Right when they were out of sight, Dash and Kwan emerged from behind the wall.
"Dang it," Kwan sighed, "Right when we work up enough courage to tell him that we know, Mr. Lancer has to show up and ruin everything."
"And now Danny has detention! He didn't to anything wrong!" Dash whined.
"Yeah, Danny has detention, just like us..." A smile crept on Kwan's face, "Oh man, it just had to work out like that, didn't it?" He laughed.
"What is it?"
Kwan shrugged, still smiling, "Well, let's just say that I've never been more happy to have detention!"
"Oh," Dash thought, trying to understand what his friend was saying. His eyes widened as it finally dawned on him. "OHHHH...!" His grin spread from ear to ear, "What a coincidence."
"Yeah."
~oOo~
A/N: MWAHAHAHAHA! … I'm sorry about that not being the end and all… No, wait…No I'm not! Ha! I just have too many ideas floating around up in my head!
And all of you guys freakin' rule! I asked for my story to reach 50 comments by the time I posted this chappie… you guys reached that goal in less than five hours! And then you proceeded to add another 15 plus comments! And now i have a new challenge for you! Try to help this story reach… oh, around 80 reviews…? Is it possible? Do you think you can do it?
OK, and the whole thing with rumors about Danny being a vampire, I read in another fanfiction called The Ghost Test. It's written by ProneToInsanity. Please go read it. It is truly brilliant!
Also, I know that the whole action sequence isn't all that good. But I tried, at least! Right? Was it really that bad? Oh well... Meh.
Oh, and thanks go to ghostanimal and sapphireswimming, my two amazing Betareaders!
Disclaimer: Now, let's try this again. Let's take it slowly. Repeat after me: Sarah. Haley. Does. Not. Own.