Chapter Two: There's Something Off About Fenton...

Wes walked into the school with his held high. He was determined to end all of this by the end of the day. He would make them see how utterly stupid this was. He was a Weston... and Westons didn't let anyone make them look like a fool ("Unless we're given enough money, then we'll do whatever the hell anyone wants us to," his Dad used to say).

"Hey, Phantom!" Wes ignored Kwan as he walked to his locker. "Ghost boy!" Wes entered his locker combination, pulling it open slowly. "Are you deaf or something, Phantom?" Wes groaned as he pulled out his books. "Oh wait, I remember now. All of you is dead!" That wasn't even clever. "Seriously, Phantom, talk to me." Wes slammed his locker and kept his books close to his chest. "No, don't fly away! Ghost boy..."

Wes painfully tried to focus in history class. There were three wadded up scraps of notebook paper at the top of his desk; all of them were notes from other students. Wes had no interest in opening them because he already knew everything that they said. Probably something along the lines of 'Hey Phantom, how was your fight with Technus yesterday?' or 'You're so savage Phantom, you're my hero. By the way, my seven-year old sister wants to date you.'

Somehow, just somehow, Wes managed to suffer through all his morning classes. Finally, it was lunch time. Wes knew he wouldn't have to wait long, someone was bound to call him 'Phantom' any moment now. Wes was ready... he had prepared this rant all weekend. He even memorized it with some flashcards. It was now or never. Wes saw his chance when Dash started making his way towards him.

"Hey Phantom, you gonna finish your fries?" Dash put a hand on Wes's shoulder, "I mean, you're a ghost and ghosts can't eat."

Wes, a little terrified (and absolutely gobsmacked that he was about to do this), stood up to Dash. He pulled Dash's hand of his shoulder, and looked him dead in the eyes, "I'm done with all this Phantom shit."

Dash was taken aback for a moment. Nobody really ever stood up to him, and this Weston kid looked pretty pissed. After overcoming his initial shock, Dash narrowed his eyes: nobody talks to the King of the A-Listers like that. "And what're you gonna do about it, Phantom? Use your ghost ray on me? Possess me? Like anybody could possess Dash Baxter!"

(Halfway across the cafeteria, Danny Fenton snorted.)

"Stop calling me Phantom! It's not even funny that you're calling me Phantom when I don't even look like him!" Wes spat.

"But you do look like him," Dash smirked. "Do you not own a fucking mirror?"

"You clearly don't."

"Why you-" Dash grabbed the collar of Wes's basketball shirt. "Give me a reason why I shouldn't beat you up right here and now. Trust me, by the time I'm down with you, you'll be a ghost."

The A-List started to cackle with amusement. All of them thought this whole 'Wes is Phantom' ordeal was the best thing since Dash made Fenton eat his underwear. Wes eyed the popular group warily, he would make them understand.

"But Dash," Star said, her voice dripping with mockery, "Weston can't be a ghost. Ghosts are made of souls right? And he's a ginger... gingers don't have souls. Therefore, Weston can never be a ghost."

Once more, the cafeteria erupted in hysterics.

"ROASTED!" called many of the jocks.

In all the chaos, Wes managed to escape Dash's grip. Inhaling a large breath, he managed to scream over all of the roaring teenagers, "ENOUGH!"

Everyone's eyes flicked over Wes once more. By this point, he was visibly fuming. "I am sick and tired of all of you! Won't you just hear me out?! I don't look relatively close to Phantom, at all! There are many more people in this school who look more like that damned ghost kid! Why don't you make fun of some of them? Huh? Why's it got to be me? I'm on the basketball team, I'm not a stupid ghost! Why don't you pick some other loser to be your laughingstock? Someone who actually looks like God damn Danny Phantom!"

"Yeah," Dash crossed his arms, "and where are these other people who look like the ghost boy? I don't see them anywhere."

Wes smirked, "Well for one, there's Danny Fenton."

In one movement, all heads turned to face Danny Fenton, who was sitting alone with his two friends. The dubbed 'loser trio' of Casper High shared the same look of horror of having all attention brought to them. The accused boy didn't even have the chance to get a syllable in before Dash sputtered out with uncontrollable laughter.

"Fenturd – looking – like – Phantom..." he threw his head back, "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, and trust me, Kwan comes up with some crazy shit when he's drunk."

"Dash!" Kwan protested.

"It's true, Kwan," Star said solemnly. "I mean, I'm pretty sure we all remember the pretzel incident where you tried snorting crushed up pretzels so you could have, and I quote, 'a séance with Jesus, so you could find out who was in the Illuminati'."

Kwan shrugged, "It seemed reasonable at the time... and it's not like he was answering my prayers."

"You're such a dumbass, Kwan," Paulina said. "But you can play football and you have money, and that's why you're our friend."

"Anyway..." Dash turned back to Wes. "Look Phantom, Fenturd will never be cool enough to be Phantom. That's why you're Phantom! You should embrace it!"

A vein on Wes's forehead looked like it was going to burst, "But that doesn't give you a reason to call me Phantom! I look nothing like him! If you're going to call someone Phantom, at least do it to someone who looks like him!"

Sam, who unlike Danny and Tucker, had recovered her brief shock, intervened in all the chaos, "This is getting ridiculous. I mean, everyone knows humans can't be ghosts."

All the A-Listers snapped at her at once, "Shut up, Goth Freak!" Dash looked at the accused girl, "Well duh. That would be cool though," he added as an afterthought. "It's all part of the joke to make Phantom here," he cocked his head at Wes, "socially miserable."

And it was working, Wes thought, I am socially miserable. Today didn't make anything better, if anything it made it worse. And now that Fenton kid probably thinks I'm trying to make him suffer because of how I drew attention to him. Wes furrowed his brow in thought. But it was weird... nobody really seemed to care how much he looked like Phantom. Does he really look like the ghost kid, or am I losing my mind? Maybe I should ask around...

At this point, Danny had believed that nobody would come to recognize the similarities between Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom. Apparently, he'd been wrong. This Wes kid seemed to be more observant than he let on... but it wasn't like he could make the connection that his two identities were one and the same, right? After all, nobody had even agreed or seemed to care about Fenton and Phantom's resemblance. As Dash put it, 'Fenturd will never be cool enough to be Phantom'. As long as the students of Casper High and the rest of Amity Park believed that, his secret was as well as safe.

"Hey Justin," Wes asked his friend at basketball practice, just hours after the fiasco in the cafeteria.

"Yeah Phantom?"

"Ugh!" Wes screamed in frustration, "Not you too!"

Justin sheepishly grinned, "Sorry. Just felt like I had to. I'll try not to do it again."

Wes bit his lip. That was a lie. Justin was always bad at keeping to his promises, but he decided to let it go this time. "Do you think Danny Fenton looks like Danny Phantom?"

"Isn't that the guy you were trying to say looked more like Phantom than you, and therefore he should 'be Phantom'?"

Wes hesitated, "Yeah... that's him. Anyway, I felt really confident about it earlier, saying that Fenton looked like Phantom. But now I feel like I don't even know what I was saying."

Justin raised an eyebrow, "What are you trying to say, because I'm not following."

Wes sighed. "I had convinced myself that this Fenton guy looked like Phantom, but when Dash said it, he said that he looked nothing like Phantom and everyone seemed to agree. Was I wrong? Does he not look like Phantom? Am I going crazy?"

Justin shrugged. "I don't know man. I don't really pay attention to him, so I don't really know what he looks like much. But I think you may be onto something about the crazy part... but that's at least fifteen years old."

"Ha. Ha. You've humored me," Wes rolled his eyes.

Justin scrunched his face up in thought,"Wait a minute, wasn't he the kid who led us on that ghost pirate ship to save our parents?"

Wes looked at his friend oddly, "When did that happen? Are you sure that wasn't another one of Kwan's acid trips?"

"No." Justin said, "That actually did happen. A lot of us remember it, but Dash told us not to bring it up much. He said that Danny didn't deserve all the praise, or something stupid like that."

"Dash is such a self-centered ass."

"What else is new?" Justin laughed.

"But tell me more about that ghost pirate thing. Was Phantom involved? Did you happen to see the two of them together at any point? What did they look like side by side?"

"Phantom was definitely there..." Justin muttered, "but he only showed up after he saved Danny from being thrown off the ship."

"So the two of them were together?" Wes questioned.

"Apparently. I didn't personally see it though, so you'd probably have to ask someone else." Justin paused, "Why are you so interested in proving that Fenton looks like Phantom anyway?"

Wes scoffed, "I thought that was clear. I'm trying to prove to Dash that there are more people in this school that look like Phantom. If I can convince him that Fenton also looks like Phantom, maybe he'll leave me alone."

"Dude, I hate to break it to you, but that's never going to happen."

"Then it better damn well, because I'm not stopping until I get my dignity back."

The next day, Wes spent his time asking various people whether or not Fenton looked like Phantom. Most people had similar reactions to Dash: complete hysteria. There was one particular reaction that furthered Wes's interest. Something about it wasn't exactly right...

"Hey!" Wes called down the hallway, eyes trained on the back of a red beret. "Uh, Foley right?"

For a moment, the said boy appeared to almost jump out of his skin, like something about Wes's presence unnerved him. But Tucker Foley quickly regained his composure, and nodded politely at Wes.

"Hey Wes, what's up?"

Wes beamed. He hadn't called him Phantom. He's the first person in over a week to not call him Phantom. Thank God...

"I was just wondering if I could ask you a quick question."

"Uh – sure, alright," Tucker said hesitantly.

"Do you think your friend Danny looks like Phantom?" Wes pulled out two pictures from his pocket: one yearbook picture of Danny Fenton, and one action-shot of Danny Phantom.

Something about Tucker's demeanor had completely changed when Wes mentioned his friend. He quickly averted his gaze to the pictures that Wes was holding, and quickly looked back at Wes. "No! Not at all! That's ridiculous! Danny doesn't look like Phantom at all! I mean, Phantom has white hair and green eyes. Phantom is also... skinnier! Yeah, skinnier than Phantom. Not to mention his glowing green eyes. Can't forget those... hehe."

Tucker seemed pretty quick to deny Danny's resemblance to the ghost boy. His reasons were pretty thought out, almost as if it was something scripted. Not to mention that something about his reaction had been really weird... he mentioned Phantom's eyes twice, kind of like he was deliberately trying to convince Wes that Danny didn't look similar to Phantom. The question was why he would try to deny it though? He didn't have a reason to. If Danny looked like Phantom, it didn't really matter that much, did it?

As he tried to analyze what exactly Foley was trying to say in that strange encounter, Wes's mind backtracked to something Dash had said few days earlier... "Y'know, he has the green eyes, kinda like yours, except his glow. You can't really tell through all the news footage. I only know because I've met him in person before!"

So did that also mean that Tucker had met Phantom in person before? You'd assume if he had, he would've told someone about it. I mean, if people found out you knew Phantom, that could make you really popular. There was no way that if Tucker met Phantom he would keep it to himself. Unless... he didn't want to tell people he had met Phantom. But why would he do that? Maybe he knew something about the ghost boy that everyone else didn't... If that was the case, then maybe Tucker and Phantom were actually really close or something.

Something clicked in Wes's mind. Tucker is Danny Fenton's friend. Hypothetically, if he has a connection to both Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom – is there a specific reason that Fenton looks so much like Phantom?

Wes knew he was getting obsessive. But he had to figure this out! So he resolved right then and there, that he was going to keep a close eye on Danny Fenton whenever he could and try to figure him out. After all, Wes always did like a good mystery...

In Mr. Lancer's class, Wes habitually tapped his pencil against his desk as he examined Danny Fenton. From what Wes could tell, Danny was the perfect image of someone who didn't need to be paid attention. Average. Normal. Boring. But Wes was starting to question if that was some sort of act. While Danny generally seemed like a normal kid, from the five minutes Wes had been watching him, he knew that there was something off about him. He just couldn't place what...

Maybe it was the way he held himself in his seat; looking like he could jump out of it at any moment. Maybe it was the way his eyes darted around the room every few minutes, intently looking for something, before returning back to Mr. Lancer (who was in the middle of yet, another painful lecture). Or maybe, it was how whenever he started tapping his foot, it never appeared to make any sound. Wes could see there was something that made Danny... different. If only he just knew what! Wes put a list together in his head about what he knew about Danny, hoping that some of it would lead to an explanation for any of the strange things Wes had noticed about him and his resemblance to Phantom.

1) Ghost hunter/scientists for parents.

2) Led a rescue mission on ghost pirate ship.

3) Has a hella smart and hot sister.

4) Looks like Danny Phantom.

5) Friends deny any relation between him and Phantom.

6) Friends probably know Phantom.

7) Constant bathroom breaks in every class for no apparent reason.

8) Always looking around for something that isn't there.

9) Tries to blend in as much as possible.

Wes sighed. But how did that all connect together? He returned his gaze to Fenton, who had suddenly stiffened in his seat. He seemed a little irritated, but then raised his hand.

"Yes Mr. Fenton?" Mr. Lancer broke from his lecture.

"Can I be excused?" he asked sheepishly.

"Mr. Fenton, that would be the fifth time this week and last."

"Yeah, and it's not like I could help it," he gritted his teeth.

"Mr Fenton-"

"I told you that you shouldn't've drank that 32 ounce banana-Funyon milkshake, Danny," Danny's goth friend (the same goth girl who asked Wes about Phantom in the hallway) intervened.

"It – uh – seemed like a good idea at the time."

Paulina wrinkled her nose in disgust, "Did you say banana and Funyon?"

Mr. Lancer groaned, clearly not pleased with the situation at hand, "Fine. Mr. Fenton, you may leave. But I expect you to be back in under ten minutes. And in the future, you might want to refrain from drinking large quantities of liquids."

"I'll try!" Danny rushed out of the classroom door.

One of the biggest mysteries about Danny was where he was always going during class. Most people were aware that it wasn't the bathroom, but they still continued to tease him about his 'bladder problems'. Wes was more curious than ever what he did so frequently and why he couldn't just do it after school. He let his head drop on his desk. Wes knew that he was getting absolutely nowhere with this. All he needed was some kind of clue to fill in the blanks, but Danny seemed to be as withdrawn as ever.

Loud crashes echoed in the background, sounds of large masses being slammed into concrete. There was no doubt in Wes's mind that it was another ghost attack; just another everyday occurrence. Danny Phantom was probably already there, sucking the ghost up in his soup can (which in Wes's opinion, was the weirdest weapon ever). Wes mentally fussed at himself; he didn't need to be thinking about a stupid mundane ghost attack, he should be focusing on where Fenton ran off to!

Suddenly, something registered in Wes's mind. Danny's parents were ghost hunters, right? What if he was constantly running off during school to fight or observe ghosts? It sort of made sense... there were multiple ghost attacks a day, which would explain the frequency. But there were a lot of things that it didn't explain. For one, that theory didn't make sense because how would he know the ghost attacks were happening? There was plenty of ghost hunting technology that could detect ghosts, anyone could tell you that. But Danny didn't appear to have anything on him that actually could tell him where the ghosts were. Another reason it wouldn't work because Danny had never been seen at a ghost attack. He was always running away from the ghosts as well.

Wes lightly chuckled to himself... Maybe he is fighting the ghosts, but only in disguise. He relished his humorous thoughts before something dawned on him: there could be actual truth to that. Wes's eyes were saucers as the final puzzle piece fell in place.

Danny Fenton fights ghosts, but he is never seen fighting the ghosts. That's because Danny Phantom is the one that is always battling the ghosts. Danny Fenton looks like Danny Phantom. And that's because... Danny Fenton is Danny Phantom.

Muahaha Wes knows. This literally proves that all you need to figure out Fenton is Phantom is an ill-timed 'bathroom break' and common sense.