Chapter 10
Danny yawned tiredly as he read over the question on his homework for the sixth time in a row. His mind kept wandering back to the events of the day. He had spent hours in the abandoned house with his friends, trying to get some sort of control over his newly discovered powers. They moved to the basement of the house, which probably wasn't the safest place if the house decided to come down on top of them, but they would avoid being seen, on the off chance someone decided to brave peeking into the house. It hadn't happened yet, but Danny felt a need to be cautious.
The training hadn't gone well at all. A flash of heat crept onto his cheeks as he remembered the embarrassing moments of running into walls when he tried to turn intangible. Tucker had a great laugh each time. He also had a rambling list of power ideas for him to test, but Danny could barely even get the intangibility to work on command. After a while, he had to stop. Simply trying to get the powers to work and being in that weird other form was exhausting, zapping out his energy fairly quickly. He was forced to sit and rest or risk passing out.
"We're here outside one of the facilities owned by the Manson family," announced one of the reporters on the television. Lance Powder, or something. Danny couldn't bother to remember the name when he usually only had the news on in the background while he did homework or studied. But the mention of Sam's family drew his attention, and he lifted his head to stare at the screen. "Let's see if the police have any information for us about the robbery."
Danny's elbow fell through the table, and he nearly banged his chin on it before he caught himself. He sat up straight, eyes darting around, but luckily he was alone in the front room for the moment. With a sigh, he relaxed, tension easing from his shoulders. He would have to be far more careful about not accidentally turning intangible when someone might catch him.
"Unfortunately," said the police officer who Lance Powder shoved a microphone in the face of, "the security cameras had their feeds cut prior to the robbery taking place, so we have no video of the culprit."
Danny recognized the man, even without the name being displayed at the bottom of the screen. Damon Gray was not only the well respected police chief but was also Valerie's father. Danny felt a little queasy thinking about returning to school on Monday. He escaped having to do anything for Valerie yesterday because of the field trip to Axion Labs, and he was still upset about missing out on all the space exploration stuff he would have seen. His hand rubbed at the back of his neck, tracing the jagged scar. Valerie would probably be expecting him to do something to embarrass the top A List women. Danny groaned, thinking about how Dash would be gunning for him if he did anything more to humiliate Paulina.
"Can you tell us what the burglar stole?" Lance questioned with a flip of his blond hair and a charming smile tossed to the camera. Danny rolled his eyes. He had never liked the reporter because Lance always seemed more interested in his appearance and looking good on television than the story he was supposed to be reporting. Lance just had that egotistical personality reminding Danny too much of the A List and rubbing him the wrong way.
"At this point in time, we are still assessing the situation and talking with the employees who were on duty during the time of the robbery," Police Chief Gray explained, not looking too pleased at having his work interrupted to deal with an obnoxious reporter. He turned his head away from the camera. "Sorry. It seems my men need me." He walked off without giving Lance a chance make any sort of response, leaving the reporter with no one to interview.
Lance laughed awkwardly after being abandoned. "Well, it seems the police chief wants to keep a tight lid on this incident." His expression suggested he thought Damon Gray was hiding something without needing to voice his opinion out loud. "I'll keep digging into this case and keep you posted on whatever I find out. This is Lance Thunder." He showed off another winning grin with his pearly white teeth flashing at the camera. "Back to you, Tiffany."
The television cut back to the newsroom where a perky auburn haired woman smiled at the camera. She launched into the next news story, and Danny lost interest in watching and turned his attention back to his homework.
"You were gone for most of the day," Jazz commented casually when she walked into the room a moment later. She came from the kitchen with a mug of steaming coffee in one hand and a thick book tucked under her other arm. Her homework was probably finished five minutes after they came home yesterday, and Danny felt an itch of irritation. The book she sat down with was her idea of reading for fun. Danny, meanwhile, enjoyed comic books and reading up on space.
"I was hanging out with my friends," Danny said, pondering over the question on his homework. Then he jotted down his answer, relief filling him when his hand didn't pass through the table or the pencil slip through his hand. "It is a Saturday. I'm allowed some downtime from homework."
"I'm just surprised you woke up so early." Jazz sipped at her coffee then leaned forward to set the mug down near him on the table. "Usually you're passed out until Saturday afternoon because you were up playing your games all night."
"I didn't play games all night," Danny grumbled, shoulders hunching forward. For once, it was true. He spent most of Friday night passed out after the accident in their parents' machine, but it was hardly restful sleep. "I worked on some homework then went to sleep. You know, you don't have to rush to get all your homework done at once."
"Ah, but see, if you did, you would have the entire weekend freed up." Jazz sat on the couch behind him, but Danny could practically feel her grin boring into the back of his head. "Then you wouldn't spend Sunday night rushing to finish everything due on Monday."
Danny sighed as he set down his pencil and turned around to stare at his sister. "If you're just going to lecture me, I'm gonna leave and finish my homework in my room."
"Don't be so pouty!" Jazz nudged him in the shoulder with a toe. "I only hound you about your homework because I know you can be smart when you actually apply yourself. I get worried when you slack off. I don't want you working some dead end job because you didn't put in enough effort during school."
Danny sighed. "Yeah, yeah. I know." He leaned against the table. "It's just we've done this conversation about a thousand times in the past. I do my homework. I get passing grades. You can relax on the whole worrying thing."
"Danny," Jazz reached up, drawing her long auburn hair back and tying it up in a ponytail, "if our roles were reversed and you were the older sibling, you would find that it's impossible to stop worrying about your younger sibling. It's just a fact of life." She tilted her head with a fond smile. "I worry because I care."
Danny groaned. "If you're going to be mushy and gross, I'm leaving."
Jazz rolled her aqua colored eyes with an amused smile as she poked at his shoulder with her foot. "Right. I forgot you get weird about mushy sibling stuff." She drew her legs up then opened her book. "Wouldn't you concentrate better with the TV off?"
"I could concentrate better without you talking in my ear." Danny made a face at his sister then turned his attention back to his homework.
He had a report to write, but he would need to get on his computer for that so he thought about completing it later, having already begun work on it. After he finished his physics, he still had a few more problems in math to do. At least he had the majority of his homework done. He nearly dropped his head to bang it on the table. He forgot Elle had called him yesterday to ask about having a tutoring session on the weekend until right now. The whole thing with the accident last night and discovering he could phase through solid objects had taken priority over tutoring. He pulled out his phone and made a note to remind himself to pay a visit to Elle tomorrow. It would look bad if he completely blew her off this weekend. Why would she want an unreliable loser like him being her tutor? He still couldn't answer why she would ask him in the first place.
"Actually," he said, closing his textbook, "I think I'll get that history report finished. That's going to take me the longest to get done, and the rest won't be all that hard to finish." He gathered up his things and stood.
"I hope you're not planning on doing things halfway." Jazz gave him a stern frown, her eyes like burning lasers of disapproval.
"How could I ever do things halfway with you constantly watching over my shoulder?" Danny teased then hopped away before his sister could kick him. "Ha, ha! You can't catch me!"
"One of these days, Gingerbread Man, you will meet your end, and it will be delicious."
"But that day is not today." Danny laughed as he left the front room, dodging the throw pillow Jazz tossed at him. He jogged up the stairs and headed down the hall to his bedroom. Dumping his bag by his desk and setting his books down, he flipped on his computer.
While the computer booted up, he walked over to his closet then yanked open the door. A full length mirror hung on the inside of the closet door, though Danny hardly used it. Now, though, he stared at his reflection. Boring, average Danny Fenton stared back at him, still dressed in his Casper High hooded sweatshirt and jeans. While at the abandoned house, he thought he might be getting the hang of summoning the shift in his appearance. It was about the only successful part of the day. With some concentration, the shift began, and he grew more accustomed to the odd sensation the more he pulled off the change.
"Oh man," Danny groaned, for the first taking notice of his clothes after shifting forms. His jeans had inverted from their usual blue to orange while his red hooded sweatshirt had turned green. He was surprised his friends hadn't laughed at him the entire time after seeing the awful color combination. Shaking his head, he focused on the rest of his appearance, now that he wasn't panicking. He stared dully at his face in the mirror. "I look like a freak," he muttered, pressing the fingers of his right hand against the mirror. He didn't even want to think of the insults Dash would sling at him if the jock could see him like this.
He didn't feel any different, and he wasn't sure if he should be concerned by that or not. Other than the strange appearance and intangibility, the accident didn't seem to have done anything else to him. He supposed he should consider himself lucky, but worry kept gnawing at the back of his mind. What if he had some sort of radiation poisoning slowly killing him without his knowing? The thought turned his stomach, and he thought his skin actually looked slightly greener.
He wanted to run some tests to see what the accident did to his body, but hanging out in the basement of an abandoned house, they didn't have any of the required equipment needed to run things like blood work and check on his vitals. Sam thought she might be able to sneak out some of the medical equipment from one of her parents' facilities. Danny froze as he recalled her mentioning that. The news report flashed through his mind again. Sam wouldn't stage a robbery of her own parents' facility, would she? Sam did like to rebel against her parents, but Danny couldn't imagine her going that far.
Reverting back to normal, Danny pulled out his phone as he walked over to his desk. After he hit Sam's number in his contacts, he pulled up the file with his history report. He would rather have a hundred English essays to write. The phone rang twice before Sam picked up.
"What's up now?" Sam questioned. "Discovered something about your, uh, condition?" Curiosity drove out any annoyance in her voice at the late night call.
"Ah, no, but," Danny leaned back in his chair, rubbing at his neck, "I saw this news report about a robbery at one of your parents' facilities."
"Oh," Sam responded less enthusiastically, and Danny could practically see her face with annoyance in her violet eyes and her lips pursed tightly. "My parents have been complaining all night about it, demanding answers from the police and why they haven't found the culprit yet and trying to figure out what was stolen."
"So you didn't do anything?" Danny cringed right after he asked the question, waiting on his friend to scream at him.
"Danny," Sam's dry voice made him swallow nervously, "do you honestly think I would do something like that?"
"W-Well, you did mention you thought you could get some stuff from your parents so we could try running some tests on me." Danny still thought using the equipment in his parents' laboratory was their best bet, but it would require them to wait for the perfect opportunity to sneak down there when his parents and sister weren't around to catch them.
"If I was going to take stuff from my parents, trust me," Sam's voice held a hint of a smirk, "they would never know about it. I definitely wouldn't pull a stupid stunt like that. Way too obvious. It's better to do things subtly so my parents will be completely oblivious to the fact that anything was taken."
"Ah." Danny felt even sillier for thinking Sam would have done it. "So do you have any idea what the burglar took?"
Sam sighed. "No. And if my parents have any idea, they haven't mentioned anything. The facility worked on a lot of different things that a robber might be interested in taking. Maybe the thief was looking for drugs. We had a lot of different stuff at that facility. Some of it isn't exactly stable either. If the person is planning on selling any of it, well, that could lead to lots of problems."
Danny gulped with an unsettled feeling, not liking the sound of that. "Well, I'm sure the police will find out who did it and have them arrested."
Hopefully before any unstable drugs made it to the general public, assuming the burglar stole drugs and not something else. The burglar could have just as easily stolen something else equally dangerous from the facility since, as Sam mentioned, the facility possessed many other things that could be sold for a fair price on the black market.
"I guess I better let you go now," Danny said, sighing internally at the thought of finishing his history report. "Boring homework to do and all." After they said their goodbyes, Danny placed his phone aside then cracked his knuckles before setting his mind on his history report.
Tetractys: 8D I thought it would be a fun idea, since Lancer swears in book titles and Vlad swears in pastries/baked goods. XD I liked the idea of Danny have those Lichtenberg scars in his ghost form. Give him more of that ghostly appearance. XD;;
The freedom girl: *celebrates* Took me a while to get to the accident. orz I guess you'll have to wait to find out the answer to that. Let's just hope Danny doesn't accidentally reveal himself before he learns to control his powers. XD;;
panfan87: That's was a lot of the inspiration! XD Since Danny Phantom already has a lot of similarities. I know. XD I was joking back. Well, if Tuck still has the hospital phobia, probably not from him. XD But Sam's parents (yeah, I'm changing it from canon) own some medical facilities, so they probably have the equipment. Though Danny's parents would be better for ecto-related stuff.
midnight: That's always good to know. XD He better get a handle on those powers, especially the super strength. He can't go around busting all the doorknobs. XD
ECTOglo: Who knows? Maybe sometime in the future, Danny will let his parents in on the secret. Right now, he's just a little freaked out about the whole thing.
Kitsu Maxwell: I apologize for my writing letting you down. I hope I won't do the same with this story. Though if you see me straying toward disappointing you or letting a subplot slide to the wayside to be forgotten, you're free to let me know! Sometimes, I get a lot of thoughts for things to include in a story, and I try to do it all, and I guess sometimes I just fail and let one plot slide in favor of focusing on another. orz I wish they had Danny cursing in space terms in the show! 8D It's so fitting for him.