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Prompt by: Silverwing013
Danny's parents have kindly offered to set up a ghost shield generator for Casper High. Hijinks ensue as Danny attempts to handle the situation.

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Shielded From The Truth

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Danny groaned as he only half listened to his parents rattle off whatever ghost nonsense they were going on about as he ate his breakfast. A bowl of dry cereal because the milk was contaminated and he really didn't want to chance it giving him more than a stomach ache. This had become the norm this week it seemed as his parents seemed invested more than usual into the ghost shields that they had been working on and improving.

Why only shields? They would be installing one in the school soon… but beyond that? He wasn't sure. They probably told him, sure, but being a teenager and one that had parents that hated half of him, had the effect of making him only lightly listen to the weapons and things that were meant to fully kill him off. That and at least the ghost shields weren't usually a hindrance to him, in fact, they had proven themselves useful on a few occasions.

Plus he had the added advantage of being able to simply return to his human form and slip through the shield with little issue. Given his parents had no knowledge of half ghosts existing, at least he hoped not, they shouldn't be designing a ghost and human shield. After all, that would defeat the purpose, right? It wasn't as if Amity really had any human threats anymore.

Well, regardless of the eccentricities of his parents he could at least take some comfort in the fact that Skulker couldn't simply attack the school to get to him any longer.

Small mercies he supposed.

Danny blinked as his father said something to him before slapping him on his back causing the teen to practically choke on his cereal from the force of the smack. "Isn't that just great Dann-o?" the large man exclaimed happily before looking at his son expectantly. Oh great, he wanted him to ask something? Great.

"S-Sure" Danny choked out as he flailed, grabbing in front of him for the orange juice he had nabbed from the fridge, it thankfully hadn't been in there long enough to start glowing… yet…

He shook his head as he finally got his breath back without inhaling dry cereal pieces into his lungs. When he was sure he wasn't going to sound like some dollar store squeaky toy he tried to ask his parents a question, always a dreadful time if he were honest, but hey, he would usually be late for school anyway.

"So this will go around the whole school?" Danny tried weakly.

"Yep! And the best part is it'll sense where there's an evil ectoplasmic entity nearby and spring up instantly! We made sure there won't be a ghost within Twenty feet of the school before that puppy jumps up to the rescue! Like a big Fenton airbag!" Jack exclaimed all too enthusiastically for what the current time in the AM should allow a normal person to exhume.

Danny hummed noncommittally and sent a glance of 'help me' to his sister, who, in turn, rolled her eyes at her little brother. "And the shield even uses the ghost's power to run the shield right?" Jazz asked side eyeing her father from her own spot not wanting to fully engage in the conversation they were having.

"Oh, yea! That's the best part!" Jack practically cheered out.

"And the stronger the evil skum is the faster the shield will react and sooner it will be picked up. It will only go off on a level three or higher." Maddie explained with a pleasant smile as she sips at her coffee.

"And we got it all finished last night to be ready for you kids today" Jack added happily.

"Hooray, more fun on a Monday" Danny sighed out into his last bites of cereal. Jazz snorted but didn't comment, though Danny blew her a childish raspberry.

Jack continued to go on about the more intricate details of the shield they had put up though only one thing really caught his attention in the spiel, "-And Vladdie helped with the funding to outfit the school! Even helped us get the materials we needed to make such a large shield!"

"Ah, there it is…" Danny groaned letting his head fall forward onto the table in instant defeat.

"Danny! I really wish you would learn not to stay up so late playing video games! Look at you! If I get another call from one of your teachers about you sleeping in class-" Maddie started only for Danny to cut her off jumping to his feet.

"Yep! Thanks for that, mom! Look at the time! Love you bye!" Danny prattled off quick as could be before grabbing his book bag by his feet and bolting like a scared rabbit. After all, if his mother never finished that sentence when he inevitably fell asleep he couldn't be grounded… she never officially gave him the last warning…

That'll work, right?

It wasn't long when he was out of the house that he was at his usual waiting spot for Sam and Tucker. Unsurprisingly, Sam got there first though they didn't have to wait long for Tucker to lumber forward, half asleep to his friends, and together they made their way towards the school as a unit.

Things seemed well enough until he got onto the stairs leading up to the main doors. That was when all hell broke loose. A deep alarm sounded before his father's voice rang out from the speakers, in his over the top cheery way that only Jack Fenton knew how to pull off.

"Attention kids! Guess there's an evil spook nearby so we're deploying the shield! This ghost protection was brought to you by Fenton-works and sponsored by your mayor!"

Danny frowned. "My ghost sense didn't go off…" He mentioned quietly to his friends.

"Maybe the shield sensors are more sensitive than you are?" Tucker asked with a frown.

"Since when?" Sam argued incredulously.

"Well who or whatever it is, it isn't bothering me right now and no one's screaming, no one's panicking, so it can wait. I'm actually going to be on time for once!" Danny says waving the notion off.

He continues his trek up the stairs and towards the doors of the school, though when he reaches the threshold of the shield he finds himself having to really push hard against the thing. It was like hitting a wall of foam or Jell-O. He could push through if he pressed hard enough but it was not pleasant or as easy as going through the air.

Once through the initial shield wall, he blinked slowly feeling sluggish and as though all his limbs were moving through water. He even sort of felt like he was having to 'swim' as he walked like he was both heavier and lighter than he should be, but unable to find that buoyancy happy middle ground.

"Dude…" Tucker said smartly as he frowned at his friend's almost slow motion, yet stop motion like movements. It was eerie, to say the least, not to mention the more pressing issue that he noticed right off the hop, "Your eyes are shining, man. And your, um… Neck..."

Sam, ever prepared for whatever bull their lives seem to throw their way, slipped her bag around to her front and offered Danny a pair of sunglasses, which the halfa put on promptly, along with the spider webbed patterned black and silver scarf. "I mean, it's better," Sam argued, not even giving Tucker's look of disapproval her full attention.

"They're spider glasses." The boy states with a shake of his head. "Not really digging the whole-" Tucker waved his arm about Danny's head in little circles, "-pseudo goth thing" he finished finally. Though he had to admit it was at least marginally better than seeing his friend's glowing eyes and the electric scars showing up on his neck and disappearing under his shirt collar.

"Better?" Danny asked out sluggish, his voice almost sounding like it was being drawn out on a tape deck that was starting to lack battery power and not playing at quite the proper speed making the pitch and timing slower and lower.

Sam and Tucker shared a look before offering a thumbs up to their friend, both deciding it better not to address… whatever that was… The look they shared between one another spoke of their mutual hope that this would perhaps be one of those problems that simply go away on its own.

Ignoring the problems they have usually makes it go away… Yeah, that always works out.

Danny makes a grab for the door to pull it open again, having that weird slow stop motion effect, like he was flickering between blinks rather than making a smooth motion forward. "Ehm, maybe don't move around too much man… it's um… creeping me out." Tucker offers helpfully.

"Huh?" it took Danny a minute to process, as while he looked slow to them they seemed to be hyped up on caffeine to him… "Why are you talking so fast?" He wondered, his head almost appearing to glitch into a tilted and confused look.

"I think the ghost shield is making you go all slow motion. Just stop talking." Sam says forcefully before letting out a shudder of her own.

Sam and Tucker share a glance before they each grab onto one of Danny's arms and half drag him off to his locker. Despite his friends' efforts he still got many looks shot his way, and a couple of people started whispering to one another as he passed by them.

"How is this going to work if I'm already weirding everyone out?" Danny asked, voice still sounding like a slowed record as he blinked sluggishly and his head jerked almost unsteadily from side to side. From his perspective, everyone was speeding along and talking at 1.5 times the normal speed.

"Maybe I should look for the ghost that triggered this, maybe Tuck, can you look into this mess?" Danny asked after a moment of trying to figure out what was being said around him through the noise of the hall.

"Yeah that might be best…" Sam responded shifting from leg to leg as she locks eyes with a basketball jock who was staring at their group incredulously.

"I got you, man, I'll change everything to present and, block any 'call home' recommendations." Tucker pipped up already pulling out his PDA to set that up preemptively.

Danny nodded and let out a hum before glitching his way out the nearest exit and out of the shield's bounds. Once he slipped back out through the barrier, strangely enough, a harder feat than it was getting in, but that wasn't a problem he wanted to focus on, he already blamed Vlad so he would simply continue to do so until the fruitloop showed himself.

As soon as he was through the green line of the shield Danny practically fell forward in relief. That stifling feeling now gone from his core and bones making his movements fluid and normal, well as normal as a clumsy half ghost could be anyhow…

It was a moot point and not one Danny wanted to think on too long. He gave a quick "thanks" to his friends, before diving between the dumpster and the school's bricks, transforming into his ghostly alter ego and taking off into the sky. He would do a few laps around the school and city as he looks for whatever ghost set off the shield.

-BREAK-

It wasn't until lunchtime Danny returned looking much more windswept and all around more miserable. He entered the courtyard through the side joining his friends out on the picnic table they had claimed. He made it over to them, flopped down on the bench next to tucker with a groan before his head smacked into the table before him.

"You find them?" Tucker asked around whatever horrid monstrosity of a sandwich he was eating, spewing bits of half chewed bred at Danny's head.

"No" Came the muffled reply, filled with tired disdain.

"No ghost sense?" Sam wandered, flicking the bits of bread from Danny's raven hair and back towards Tucker.

"No"

"Huh… You think it was you who set off the shield?" Sam wondered with a thoughtful frown.

"When I went into the back end of the generator though it wasn't supposed to go off for anything that low, Danny in human form is like a two at best," Tucker argued spinning his PDA around to show what he'd found when he hacked into the motherboard of the Fenton's latest device.

Danny groaned. He supposed had he listened to his parents he could have been more prepared for whatever lunacy his parents' decided to toss his way but alas, his short attention span and teenage rebellion and lack of caring got the best of him yet again.

Joyous of joys.

He tuned out his friend's back and forthing for a bit, wondering if he could get away with smashing the device as Phantom when Tucker had his a-ha moment of discovery. Danny turned his head and raised a brow at his friend who was furiously typing away at his device.

"You were right about Vlad, Sam"

"Naturally," She agreed.

"Well, he had an over right line here specifically set for Phantom's ecto- signature," the boy states running his finger along the line of code he'd found in the program.

Danny's mood instantly brightened at that. "So then we just get rid of that bit right? And BAM everything's fine?" He asked. "Man, what happened to me? Why do I want to get into the school again?"

"To keep up the illusion of normalcy on this mortal plane." Sam supplied stabbing at her salad a little more forcefully than she probably needed to.

"Eh, yeah, I suppose." Danny agreed with a lacklustre shrug.

"There, that should do it" Tucker spoke, interrupting whatever tangent Sam was getting ready to spew off about how normalcy was only an illusion created by corporations or some other such thing.

"And just in time The bell just rang," Danny says with a small grin clasping a firm hand onto his friend's shoulder. "Nice one Tucker!" he cheered as the trio made their way over to the doors that would lead them back into the cafeteria.

Unfortunately, as soon as Danny's hand hit the door handle the shield once again sprung to life, though this time, instead of simply having a hard time passing through the shield, he was thrown back across the field earning a cry from several students who were following the trio.

"Grapes of wrath Mister Fenton!" Lancer, (of course it was Lancer) shouted out in worry, his shout even carrying over the prerecorded message containing his father's voice. Lancer half jogged half waddled over to Danny who blinked up blearily to his teacher, eyes flashing green for the briefest of seconds before draining back to blue.

"Leave it to Fen-turd to get himself possessed." Dash snorted from behind the pot bellied teacher earning a few nervous glances between the small crowd of gathering students. The mutterings of the students didn't take long to start up after that.

"I'm not possessed," Danny argued, though, it was rather hard to make said argument when the palm of his hand was burned and leaking ectoplasm from where he had touched the door.

"Course he's not possessed! He's a ghost himself!" Wes shouted pointing an accusatory finger at the youngest Fenton.

Danny glared. "Not the time Westly." He muttered under his breath as he was hauled to his feet by his friends. He tried to brush himself off only to end up smearing the ectoplasm from his hand onto his jeans, leaving a luminescent streak across his thigh.

Seeing his chance the ginger jock was all too eager to point it out. "See look! He's bleeding ectoplasm!"

"No, I'm not! It's from the shield! it sputtered out at me." Danny tried to protest, though even in his own ears it sounded like a weak argument.

"Really?" Wes argued and marched over to the shimmering shield. The teen waved his arms about freely in the shield's range hopping back and forth pointedly across the line of the barrier before showing his hands and clothes were completely clean of any glowing goo. "See! Ghost!" he accused again after he did a little pirouette to show his lack of ectoplasm.

"Yeah? Well, it sputtered at Danny only 'cuz it turned on with him in the threshold." Sam tried to argue back glaring at the ginger, venom in her gaze.

"Well then, why don't you just walk through the shield Fen-toad?" Dash said with a smarmy grin, ever eager to get his own jabs in and seemingly not wanting to be outshined by the ginger conspiracy theorist's bullying of his favourite punching bag.

"Fine" He spat back bitterly and marched up to the shield with a huff.

Sam and Tucker exchange a glance with one another as Danny presses his hand into the shield again. Thankfully this time there wasn't anything that blows him back but he also really had to try and push through the shield.

Danny could see out of the corner of his eye Wes's smug grin as he grunts and does his best to push through the shield. His persistence is rewarded and he falls to the ground on the other side jumping up and giving a quick 'HA!' as he faces the small gathering crowd of students shifting uncomfortably just beyond the shield.

Sam had a look of exasperation and she looked like she was trying to restrain herself from face palming. Tucker on the other hand had no such restraint. He was almost over eager to bury his face into his hands.

From Danny's perspective, he simply smacked into the ground and stood back up, but from the other students' perspectives, Danny fell into the shield but instantly slowed down, looking as though he were falling with the moon's gravity rather than the earthly speed everyone was used to. It also didn't really look to them like he had hit the ground, instead glitching his body back into an upright position before cheering in that low slow motion state as he had earlier.

And if that wasn't damning enough his eyes were glowing a lovely shade of ectoplasmic green.

Wes smirked, seemingly very smug and content with himself and this development. "See told you all he was a ghost!"

"T-that's enough Mister Weston… Right…" LAncer muttered to himself a few moments watching as Danny seemed to glitch about as he cheered before seemingly realizing something was wrong. "I think there was a procedure to depossess a student…I bet the teachers in Bridgestone don't have to exercise their students in this manner…" He complains. Sure they had gym class and he would appreciate the pun and irony if he wasn't so tired.

"I don't get paid enough for this," he muttered, ignoring the look of panic that spread across Danny's face.

It took some doing, a lot of flailing limbs and pressing himself against the damn shield, but Danny soon was through back out and free. His eyes still glowed brightly as he stared at his classmates looking very much like a deer in the headlights. Eyeshine and all might he add.

A few of the students were snickering, because only in Amity park could one get possessed by a ghost and have it come across as though someone had merely said something embarrassing or misheard an instruction and was now staring blankly ahead.

"Er…." Danny stared at his classmates half panicked before simply vanishing from view.

"Moby Dick!" Lancer exclaimed, almost dropping the book he was thumbing through from the Fenton parents. Sure it was a ghost, and could potentially be dangerous, but it wasn't attacking so there wasn't really anyone panicking.

Instead, the teacher simply felt tired. "Right, I'll call the Fentons and let them deal with this, Everyone back inside I do believe the lunch bell rang already!" the teacher called out shooing the students into dispersing.

Danny stood there invisibly and holding strong as he internally groaned. At least they thought he was possessed, that could be easily explained away but he was not looking forward to trying to explain it to his parents…

Still maybe if he gets ahead of this…

It was with that thought in mind that he bolted away into the treeline beside the school, transformed and headed off to his home landing in his bedroom only a few minutes later. He went human, back intangible and invisible came out the door, made sure the coast was clear before speeding his way down into the basement.

He just made it down the stairs startling his mother and father who blinked at him curiously, when the phone rang cutting off his mother's "Honey? What are you doing home so soon?"

"It's the school calling Mads," Jack says, sounding disappointed as the large man sent a look of disapproval to his boy.

"Wait!" Danny jumped forward answering the phone and instantly hanging it up.

"Daniel!" His mother exclaimed abashedly.

"I wanna explain first! Do you know how all your stuff goes off on me? Well, the shield at school started doing that and they think I'm possessed! I'm not, it's just the… ya know…" Danny rambled off hurriedly hoping against hope that his parents wouldn't try to send him to decontamination … again… (Thanks to his ghost half, it burned in places he didn't ever want to burn)

"You're possessed Dann-o?!" Jack exclaimed instantly pulling a Fenton gun from somewhere on his person and brandishing it towards his son.

Danny threw his hands up and waved them placatingly at his father. "NO! Just the normal stuff! The contamination from the portal accident set it off. I got too close to the sensor!" He says quickly ignoring how his parents seem to flinch slightly.

His parents shared a look before his father seemed to deflate, seemingly upset at the fact his son wasn't possessed. "I thought we fixed that... " Jack says with a frown. "But, we can't let the school know we may have messed it up! I know we'll just run the tests again and fix it in the night!"

"Yeah, that would be- Wait what?" Danny blinks. Why couldn't they just go down and fix it normally? Of course, his parents had to be weird about this too. "Thanks… Is there anything you need from me to help?"

And with those words said he almost instantly regretted it. "Well… We would really like to know why your ecto signature lines up perfectly with Phantom's but perhaps that can wait." Maddie offered with a small amused smile.

Danny sputtered at that, "Wh-What?"

"We set up a monitoring system so we can tell which ghosts most frequent the school… Phantom was the one that triggered the shield twice today. There actually wasn't anything else that did," Maddie explained with a deepening frown.

"You sure you're not possessed, son?" Jack asked again this time sounding almost defeated in how, well, normal a volume he asked that. The hidden meaning was all too obvious especially after he mentioned his accident…

They thought he was dead! The portal killed him! And as the growing pit of dread grew into Danny's stomach he couldn't help but feel awful knowing they were correct in that assumption, well at least half right anyhow.

"Yeah… I'm… I'm me…" Danny managed out his voice cracking

"O-oh hun..." Maddie sniffed.

"But it's not I… I'm me, I promise and I'm not all dead. I still have a heartbeat and everything!" Danny argued or rather tried to as his mother was quick to kneel before him taking his face in her hands as tears bubbled down her chin.

"Mom really I'm like … half at most. More human with a side of ghostly abilities ya know?"

"Oh, it's okay Dann-o… You're still my son, I know ya are. It's been almost a year since that accident and you're mostly still you." Jack said. "Just worse grades and more hormones and-"

"Thanks, guys really," Danny sighed in relief both at dodging the potentially awkward birds and ghostly bees talk as well as the tepid acceptance he was getting. Awkward though it may be it was still acceptance nonetheless. He was happy for it just the same.

"Maybe while we work on fixing up the shield to ignore Phantom's signature you can tell us about some things?" Maddie asked sniffling again as she looked over her son's face trying her best to hold herself together and not outright bawl at the thought she had killed her youngest child.

"Y-yeah… I've been wanting to tell you about this for a while now but, well, ya know…" Danny offered uselessly.

"I think it's us who should apologize for that, son but maybe we can just all go get some triple chocolate fudge milkshakes and go deal with that shield after dinner?" Jack offered with a smile, ever the one to break up tension.

"Yeah, yeah… that sounds good." Danny agreed. Well, it wasn't how he was expecting this to go, but he was kinda glad it ended up like this. Maybe now they could repair their strained relationship.

As Maddie ruffled up Danny's hair the teen offered her his first genuine smile in almost a year.

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Total words: 4245
Complete.