[A/N: a prequel to a small tiny section that I mentioned here in Day 23 Lighting]

Today sucked. It was definitely an 'if it could go wrong, it did' type of day. He knew there was a word for that, but he was too pissed off to care.

He slammed the front door closed and threw his backpack on the couch with enough force to make it wobble. He marched towards the lab and made his way downstairs, he figured a nice stint in the ghost zone to pummel some dumb ectopie would help. Heck maybe he'd just go pick a fight with Johnny and his shadow, they were decent opponents. That or just find The Box Ghost.

Danny stopped short when he found his mom in the lab. Crud, he couldn't fly off into the Zone with her in the room.

"Oh hi, honey. How was school?" His mom asked before he could sneak back upstairs.

"Fine." He spat really not in the mood to talk, already going back up the way he came.

"Now wait just a minute." His mom set down her clipboard. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing! Can I go?"

"You're the one who came down here stomping up a storm."

Why did she choose today to be observant?

She easily closed the distance between them and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Oh sweetie, you're so tense."

He felt her eyes on him and he hated it. He didn't come down here to be examined, he wanted to punch something. His fists clenched reflexively.

"Follow me."

Danny relaxed slightly purely out of confusion but did as he was told. He followed her through the doorway that led towards a few offshoot rooms that weren't part of the lab. Past the storeroom where they kept their holiday decorations and seasonal clothes, past the laundry room, past the weapons vault, past the cursed objects room that Danny kept forgetting about for some reason, all the way to the last room at the end of the hall.

His mother's home gym.

The space was open, the floor covered in gym mats while half resembled a dojo the other half was a normal gym.

The dojo side held a large case showing off all her trophies and colored belts she had earned, along with her training uniform and most current black belt.

The gym side had a few machines and a rack of dumbbells and resistance bands.

But something else held his attention more.

"Why'd you bring me in here?" He finally asked, still staring.

"I've been meaning to for a while now." She walked towards the one piece of equipment that he'd been eyeing, "You're getting older and that means you're going through changes."

Danny groaned in embarrassment, was she really going to lecture him about puberty?

"Now Danny, what you're going through is perfectly normal. I just want to make sure you have a healthy way to channel it. You can't just carry all that anger around with you." She took his balled-up fist in her hands, "Trust me, holding on to all that only makes it worse. A person can only hold so much before they burst."

She gave his hand a tight squeeze before turning back towards the task at hand, "So whenever you feel like this, whenever you need to, I want you to come down here and take it out on Ol' Blue, alright?" She gave a pat to the big blue punching bag beside her. "But first I've got to show you proper form. Can't have you hurting yourself."

She gave a quick tutorial and once she was satisfied with his technique, she gripped the bag from behind and gave him the green light.

Twenty minutes later Danny was exhausted. He was covered in sweat, his arms felt like wet spaghetti, and yet he'd never felt better. For the first time in a long time, he truly felt alive.