Disclaimer: This is a fan work created at no profit and for entertainment purposes only. The author acknowledges that Danny Phantom and related characters are property of Nickelodeon and many concepts used here are the creation of Butch Hartman.
The Phantom Reboot
Episode 7 : War of the Techno Geeks (Part 3)
"So your not-quite-cousin showing up was pretty lucky." Said Tucker as he and Danny left the lunch line. "Now you've got an excuse to talk to Sam again and maybe you two can clear all this up."
"Maybe." Danny said with a morose shrug. "It hasn't exactly helped so far. Sam's pretty much just been talking to Dani. The only time she and I really talked today was when I asked if she'd seen you."
Tucker leered. "Is that when you two got all googly eyed with each other?" Danny's only reply was to aim a glare at him that said 'not the time'.
Cowed, Tucker was quick to change the subject. "So... what's the lunch situation now that you and Sam have your shadow to deal with?"
"No idea. I guess we'll sit in the usual place and see what happens." said Danny.
There was a sense of defeat in his voice that made Tucker frown. That wasn't something one wanted to see in their best friend or part-timer superhero. Obviously, Danny didn't thing this turn of events was going to make things any better. He had to think of something...
"Oh!" If not for the tray in his hands, Tucker would have slapped himself on the forehead. "I forgot what I was going to tell you about earlier. And boy is it big!"
Danny absently used his hip to push open the door to the courtyard. "Big?"
"Really big! Like major colossal." Tucker said, following him out.
The door swung closed behind them and smacked into something unseen. Dani Masters became visible and tumbled to the floor along with her lunch tray.
"Dangit!" she muttered, rubbing her head. "If I hear some major colossal news, maybe Dad will up my allowance. Stupid, unreliable powers." Still muttering, she rolled over and started reassembling her dropped lunch. Luckily, the burger came wrapped and the plastic box the salad came in hadn't broken open. The fries were a total loss though. She scraped them back into the cardboard carton to throw away later.
"Need some help?"
Panic struck her and Dani leapt to her feet, using her flight to make it much easier than it should have been. "I wasn't spying on anyone!" she blurted out.
Sam, for it was indeed the female half of Dani's personal tour guide corps, raised an eyebrow, then noticed Tucker and Danny through the glass door. "Oh, of course you weren't." Her smugness melted into nerves soon enough however, "Did they say anything about me?"
It took a truly hero (villainous?) effort for Dani not to laugh at the turn in the Goth's attitude. "Not every word was about you. What the heck happened with you and my cousin anyway? Did you guys break up?"
"He's not my boyfriend!" Sam said automatically. Through the glass, she saw Danny get confused by whatever he was receiving through their link and look around.
"Well duh, not if you broke up." said Dani.
Sam shook her head both to clear her head of whatever stupid, Pavlovian conditioning that brought that outburst on and to tell the girl 'no'. "He was never my boyfriend. We were just friends... and not for very long either."
Dani's curiosity was piqued. If she could play this right, it was possible that was could get Sam to spill everything she knew about not just Danny, but what Tucker might know about the Fenton tech. "So... what happened? There's got to be a reason, right?"
'Oh sure,' Sam thought, 'I just turned into an in-driven monster that tried to kill him and made me realize that I'd be horrible for him. I'll just tell his cousin that.' "Um... let's just say it was all my fault and I might be more than a little terrified to ask forgiveness just yet."
Sensitive spot. Dani noted. Like an exposed underbelly. It was making more sense by the minute: why Danny was so hangdog, why there was such an awkward air between the two. Then something else clicked: Sam didn't have any friends besides those two. And Sam had no female friends at all.
And there was her in. How she was going to waltz not just into her 'cousin's' life, but into his inner circle. And then right down into the Fenton Works lab with an open invitation.
She put on her best sympathetic expression. "Wanna talk about it?"
"Not especially."
Dani shrugged. No point in pushing too hard too fast. She could tell by where Sam was looking that she could still see the boys through the window. "So what are we doing for lunch? Are we going to sit with them?"
"I've been sitting by myself mostly." Sam fidgeted with the tray in her hands. "I don't know... should we?"
"Well they don't exactly seem mad at you." Dani said brightly. "With luck, you might be able to get away with not apologizing at all."
Sam gave her a dubious look, which reminded Dani that such things were not to goal of normal people who weren't as smart as her and her dad. "I mean worry about them accepting your apology. Wanting to totally get away with your misdeeds would be wrong. Very, very wrong."
While Sam was trying to process what she'd just said, Dani grabbed her arm and dragged her out the door, depending on that good ol' awkwardness between Sam and Danny to get her out of that faux pas.
DP-DP-DP
"First of all," Tucker shifted his tray so he could carry it in one hand, then pulled out the Phantom Freezers. "Check these out."
Danny leaned forward, but with caution. "The Phantom Freezers? Didn't they leave my hands in a block of ice and short out the Ghost Battlin' Belt last time I used those?"
"There were a few minor errors in my understanding of ecto-circuitry. They're good to go now." Tucker said with pride.
"New weapon for the arsenal. Sweet." Danny said, only partly engaged.
"Oh come on, man. Think of all the ghost booty you're gonna kick thanks to these. Next time Dark Phantom shows up, you can lay him up in bed with a cold for a week. Also, we'll never have the drink warm soda again."
Seeing how hard his friend was trying to crack jokes, Danny made a game effort. "Well that would be pretty cool." After a beat, he added, "Get it?"
"That was awful." Tucker said, making a face. "Worse than your superhero banter."
"Hey, I'm trying here."
"Try harder." Tucker laughed. "But really, this isn't the colossal thing. It's how I got them fixed. Remember how I was working on the Fenton Portal this morning? You wouldn't believe what was wrong with it."
Danny's attention focused on this like a laser beam. After weeks of trial and error and relearning the principles the portal relied on, he hadn't had any faith at making the thing work at all. "Wait. Hold on. You know what's wrong with it? You can' fix it?"
"Can I fix it?" Tucker's chest puffed out. "Dude, I—"
"Hey guys!" Sam shouted from far enough away that a certain someone walking with her wasn't within earshot of their conversation. Tucker quickly stowed the Freezers in his pocket again, but not before Dani caught a glimpse at them.
"Um, hi." Tucker said, taking charge of the conversation as Danny didn't look up to it. "You guys eating with us?"
Not giving Sam a chance to refuse or flounder, Dani jumped in. She couldn't let a chance to worm her way into the group slip away. "I don't see why not. By the way, what do you guys usually do after school? We should all hang out."
She wasn't the only one that saw an opportunity in the situation. Although he knew he had to get back to Fenton Works to check on his new 'lab partner', Tucker could see how it would be a chance to get his two best friends to deal with their issues.
"Great idea. I've got some stuff to do first, but how about I meet you at the Nasty Burger and maybe we'll catch a movie after?"
Dani had no idea why Tucker was so eager, but she was glad for the assist. "Sounds great!"
Something in her father's teaching nagged at her and then she remembered one last thing. "Hey Danny, trade ya my fries for your chips." Never underestimate the joys of petty villainy.
DP-DP-DP
It had been hard work. The kind of work that even made a ghost tired, but Technus was now looking at the fruits of his labor.
A second Ghost Battlin' Belt lay on the table, this one with a stylized 'T' for Technus on the buckle, He'd built it as a test platform for the upgrades and fixes he foresaw as being important to giving him the power he desired. Neither that, nor the new and improved ecto-charger he designed to quickly charge the device were the creation he was admiring.
"Perfect!" He announced to no one in particular. Dramatic announcements and verbose speeches were necessary for science as far as Technus was concerned. "I am certain to have corrected the instability caused by trying to bond incompatible strains of ectoplasm. All that remains is sufficient mass of ectoplasm and testing. Then I, Technus, shall become the most powerful ghost since Pariah Dark!"
He cackled, raising up the device: a staff made of steel and composite materials that ended in what looked like a miniature Tesla coil. Exposed ecto-circuitry ran along its length, giving off a ghostly glow.
"Who's Pariah Dark and why's he so funny?" Tucker asked coming down the stairs into the lab.
"Eep!" Technus whirled around, trying poorly to hid the staff behind his back. "No one! How much did you hear?!"
Tucker gave him a level look. "Just the name and maniacal, mad scientist-style laughter. What are you hiding behind your back?"
"What, this?" Technus waved the staff casually. "Just something I've been working on."
The design rang a bell to the techno-geek. "Is that the same circuitry as inside the Ghost Battlin' Belt?"
"Maybe." said Technus, then stopped cold. "Wait a minute, child. Did you just say 'Ghost Battling'"
"No, I said 'Battlin'." Corrected Tucker. "With an apostrophe. Don't blame me for that, Jack Fenton named it."
Technus rubbed his chin with his free hand. "Yes, the lame naming skills of Jack Fenton are well known in the Ghost Zone. But why would it be called that? Do you battle ghosts?" He fixed Tucker with a glare.
"Only bad ones." Tucker waved him off, moving over to the work bench. "You know, the ones that just love terrorizing people or stealing stuff. Man, you know, they really set their sights low: with ghost powers, a guy could almost take over the world."
Very slowly, Technus's gaze shifted to the staff in his hand. As a mad scientist, he really only wanted ultimate power to show them—SHOW THEM ALL! But since he was on the cusp of it anyway... "Take over the world? How would one use ghost powers to take over the world... hypothetically?"
"Oh, all sorts of ways: mind control through overshadowing, generating those minions likes some of them can, heck, just being ludicrously powerful." Tucker said absently. "Hey, is this a new Ghost Battlin' Belt?"
Technus was imagining sitting on a throne, being presented with high density recording mediums by beautiful robot women when the question penetrated his thoughts. "Huh? Oh yes. I, Technus, recreated the device from your plans, but it was of no use to me. The flaws would make it too dangerous to use."
"Too dangerous to use?" Tucker asked in a panic.
"Well not for you, obviously." Technus shrugged. "But the belt infuses the user with ectoplasm and if the two strains are incompatible, the result would be highly unstable. It would give a human ghost-like powers, but can you imagine wanting to do something like that?"
Glancing from the new belt to Technus, Tucker's eyes narrowed. "What do you think it's supposed to do?"
The mad scientist sniffed. "Well obviously, it's an attempt at eco-manipulation to lift the limits of what a ghost is capable of."
"Or, you know, to let a human fight on par with those bad ghost I was talking about." Tucker pointed out.
"Well yes, there's that." Technus was forced to admit. "But mostly, it's to make ghost unimaginably powerful, right?"
"No!" Tucker said, throwing his hands in the air. "Why would I want to..." he stopped, looking at the staff Technus had been working on. "Let me guess: that staff is going to make you unimaginably powerful?"
Technus grinned. "In a word: yes."
"And you're going to try and take over the world with that power?"
The ghostly scientist shrugged. "Well I wasn't, but then you suggested it and it's a really good idea. Thanks, by the way."
"Don't mention it." Tucker deadpanned. "No, seriously, don't mention it. I'm never going to hear the end of this if Danny finds out."
"I think that might be a moot point, Bespectacled One. I suspect he'll find out sometime around the moment, I, Technus, Master of all Technology, takes over the Living World!" with that, he drummed the staff on the ground. The Tesla coil sparked and from it emerged a ring of scintillating, white light that expanded like a halo in the air above him and began to descend.
Just before it reached the top of Technus's head, however, the ring sparked, sputtered and winked out.
Technus blinked, looked at the staff, shook it a few times to not avail, then groaned, smacking himself on the forehead. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me! I forgot to charge this thing before going into my motive rant."
Tucker, dove under a nearby table and came up with the Fenton Ghost Gauntlets on his hands. "Yeah, and now I've gotta kick your butt, partner.
Tossing the useless staff aside, Technus glared at Tucker. "Oh, it might be true that I do not have the power to take over this world at the moment..."
He flew swiftly to the dormant Fenton Ecto-Skeleton and overshadowed the suit of powered armor. The white outer casing turned black with green outlines and the bubble dome projected an image of his face, all stretched across the glass. "But this will do to help dissolve out partnership."
As the possessed suit stomped forward, Tucker looked from the gauntlets on his hand to the gigantic ones on the Ecto-Skeleton. "This seemed like a way better idea when you weren't a giant robot..."
A/N
In the immortal words of Granny Weatherwax: 'I AN'T DED'
Sorry it took so long to update folks, but I'm just writing so many things right now, it's not even funny. That, plus I joined the first and only organization for writers of Superhero literature (The Pen and Cape Society, if you want to go check out our site) and I've had to redo a lot of stuff on my own site.
But anyway, onward to stuff you actually want to hear about:
Yes, Dani is evil here. I understand some people won't like that, but I implore you to give her (and me) a chance. Hey, at least she's got a recurring role here instead of just two episode, yeah? She was raised by a guy who loves transparent villainy—she really didn't stand a chance.
Another reason this took so long is that a cut version here exists where Vlad didn't trust Dani to get the job done and it turns out that Technus was working for him. I wrote part of that scene, but dropped it for a couple of reasons. One being that I like the idea of Vlad giving Dani a chance to run this game. Two is that given what I established Technus as knowing in the last chapter... Vlad wins if he learns it too. Like instantly. And we're at Episode 7 of 13.
Speaking of which, we're at the halfway mark for the season! Woo! More foreshadowing in this chapter. A very close reader might figure out one of the bigger secrets of the series from this one.
Finally, before I do the teaser, I'm sure a lot of you are already sick of Mopey!Danny. Yeah, I am too. IT's hard when characters naturally get to a place like this and sad to say there's one more chapter of that to go. But next episode is going to light a fire under his butt and put an end to mopificaiton and a beginning to Character Development.
Avante!
Next time, on The Phantom Reboot:
While Dani makes nice with Danny and Sam, Tucker takes on Technus in an all-out war in Amity Park. Meanwhile Vlad decides to add some pawns to his chess game: Axiom Labs.
