Chapter Eleven: Nothing to Hide
Do you ever feel like you've accomplished something that seemed impossible for others to replicate, almost soaring up to could nine, only to be recklessly pulled to the ground in one gigantic sweep that makes you question what the hell you've been doing with your life? Like in Kindergarten, when you finally build the most impressive tower out of those cardboard blocks that look like neon bricks for some reason. You're convinced it's the new Empire State building, nothing can crush your pride. But then... that snot-nosed boy who sits across from you (and totally has a cooler backpack than you, but you would never admit it) walks right up and knocks it all down. And then what's worse – when your Kindergarten teacher doesn't even see anything and you're the one who gets in trouble for kicking the other boy in the leg.
That's exactly how Wes felt in Mr. Lancer's class when he gaped at Danny Fenton/Phantom... twice. How the fuck-
It had been a typical morning in English; a room of twenty-five semi-brain-dead teenagers, victim to the drawl of Mr. Lancer's monotone spiel. Most people had their heads down, like they were trying to glue their chins to their desk. Hell, Wes was near the back of the room, and he could hear Kwan snoring in the front row (he suspected he was still on a hangover from Halloween, despite the fact that it was over three days ago). While Wes was tired, he wasn't as out of it as Kwan, he still had the decency to pretend to be awake.
As he dully glanced around the classroom from time to time, Wes's eyes always seemed to be drawn back to Danny. He was just there, leaning on his textbook, watching Mr. Lancer. It was almost as if he was trying to act particularly ordinary today, and the thought of that unsettled Wes to the very edge. He's planning something, Wes narrowed his eyes, he has to be.
"And if everybody would now turn to page, 391..." Mr. Lancer droned. With a sigh of contempt, he flipped the page, but while doing so he never took his eyes off Danny. Wes noted that it took Danny about twenty seconds longer than anyone else to comply with Mr. Lancer's instructions. Something was clearly off today... he seemed to be having delayed reactions.
And that's when he saw it. For a moment, Wes's eyes flicked up, noticing movement in the window behind Danny. Wes's eyes grew tenfold when he saw Danny Phantom just floating (that overconfident, shit eating, intangible little bastard!) outside of his classroom without a care in the world. His glowing green eyes danced in amusement, and he did a quick backflip in the air. The most spine chilling part of it? Phantom was looking at him directly in the eye. What. The. Fuck.
With an overwhelming twitch, Wes's mind kicked into panic mode.How? What? Just... how are you doing that? Holy shit, shit, shit. What is happening?
Danny Fenton was still sitting at his desk, looking as bored as ever. He didn't even spare a glance in Phantom's direction, as if he was completely unaware of the ghost's presence. At the same time, Danny Phantom displayed a performance of complicated dives and loop-de-loops that could only be achieved by someone who could bend the laws of physics (and since he was a ghost, he could defy physics).
But none of it made sense! They were supposed to be the same person! How could Fenton be in class and Phantom be outside! It just wasn't possible for Danny to be in both Fenton and Phantom forms simultaneously. But what if... what if he had been wrong. No, Danny had to be both. There was no way that they could be different people, especially after all the evidence he had collected.
They had the same facial structure, body type, hair style, voice, and name. Until now, they have never been seen at the same time, but usually within a few minutes of each other. Fenton mysteriously disappears at all hours when there's a ghost attack. Phantom mysteriously disappears when there isn't a ghost attack. Phantom even sometimes uses Fenton Works inventions! There was Wes's experience with overshadowing a few nights ago, and the strange white light he keeps seeing. Not to mention everything that he had overheard Danny say to his sister and friends about ghosts and secrets and healing and – UHHH! Fenton had to be Phantom!
These thoughts rolled around in Wes's head as he watched the ghost-boy perform another loop-de-loop. He continued to taunt Wes until Paulina dramatically stood up and shouted, "IS THAT THE GHOST-BOY?!"
He vanished within seconds, leaving a majority of the class in a plight of confusion.
Two long weeks. Seventeen recorded sightings of Danny Phantom in Amity Park. Roughly thirty cups of coffee. Four completed homework assignments.
And one overbearing dilemma: were Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom the same person? Wes had been positive, completely sure that Fenton was 'Public Ghost Enemy #1'. But he couldn't figure out how Danny had done it! How was he able to be Fenton and Phantom at once? At a lost for answers, Wes started investigating other alternatives... the reality that Danny Fenton and Phantom were two different beings. Or another solution he didn't want to visit... had Wes been seeing things?
On that day, Wes found himself in the class where it all began, first period English, where Mr. Lancer excessively ear-raped them for a full ninety minutes. Wes hadn't paid attention to the material in weeks, he just couldn't find the point in doing it – he was going to make a poor grade no matter how much he tried. He had more important things to worry about, like exposing Danny as a ghost. It's not like he really needed to fight for good grades; his life was going one of two paths. He was either going to follow in his father's footsteps and get a job as a secretary (which he absolutely relented the thought of) or he was going to get a kickass basketball scholarship.
While Wes tuned Mr. Lancer out, he tuned in to what Danny was doing. For some reason, Danny seemed more awake than usual, and was actually playing Tetris on his BlackBerry under the desk. The black-haired boy smiled to himself as Mr. Lancer absently overlooked his phone. Immediately, a spike of anger rose up in Wes. He didn't really care that Danny was playing games in class, he just wanted to know why he had to look so fucking smug about it? The stupid look on Danny's face reminded Wes of someone who had just mooned the copy machine and got away with it.
Wait... copy machine. Copies. Holy sh – how could he have overlooked that? Why hadn't he thought of it sooner?
"OH MY GOD, GHOSTS CAN DUPLICATE!" Without even realizing, Wes had bolted upright in his chair and knocked over his reading material.
Mr. Lancer stopped talking, and everyone's eyes were on him. There was a familiar air of confusion that swept over the room, a look of bewilderment crossing every person's face (especially Valerie – in her perspective Wes was Phantom, so why the hell had he screamed "ghosts can duplicate"?). Picking up on the tension in the room, Wes quickly sat back down.
"Mr. Weston..." said Mr. Lancer.
"Uh, yeah?" Wes said, not even bothering to make eye-contact with the furious teacher.
"Please keep your outbursts to yourself. You can speculate about ghosts in detention."
"Yes sir," he mumbled. Mr. Lancer picked up his book once again, and resumed droning.
"Pssst, Wes," Valerie said from the seat beside him.
"Yeah, Val?" he glanced at her.
"What the hell?" she questioned, "You told me the other day you were working on duplicating. Did it suddenly occur to you that ghosts have that power and you're a ghost?"
"I – uh –" even if Wes told Valerie that he wasn't Phantom, she would never believe him. She was under the assumption that she had been allies with him for the past few weeks, but in reality she had been teaming up with Fenton. "– yeah, that."
"Dumbass," she muttered, before going back to following along with Lancer's reading.
Wes looked back at Danny, and this time, Danny looked back. He threw Wes a shit-eating smirk, and his eyes flashed a radioactive green for about three seconds.
A tsunami of anger overcame Wes, and he let out a defiant yell, "YOU PLANNED THIS, YOU SON OF A BITCH!"
Mr. Lancer threw down his book, raising his voice to rival Wes's, "DOUBLE DETENTION WESTON, AND SEE ME AFTER CLASS."
Messing with Wes Weston wasn't exactly something he had planned when he decided to practice duplication in class, but he had to admit, the principle of it was sort of funny. Ever since he had recklessly overshadowed Wes at the Phantober Fest, which Jazz had made him feel completely guilty about, there was no denying it; Wes obviously knew what had happened. Danny didn't know what had come over him in that moment when he had decided to enter his body, but he regretted it. He wasn't going to be overshadowing anyone for a long time, since he was ashamed of his thoughtless power abuse.
But, ever since that moment, the idea of convincing Wes that he was wrong... just felt pointless. At least Danny knew that with Wes's current evidence and failed attempts, nobody else was going to believe that he was Phantom anytime soon. He had just had to ensure that Wes didn't get any serious dirt on him, like a video of him transforming or something. After all, without physical proof, the truth is too far-fetched for anyone to even contemplate.
Of course, just because Wes officially 'knew', he wasn't going to drop all precautions – that was irrational. There were some people that might figure his secret out, like Valerie or his parents. But when it was between him and Wes... their relationship had evolved to the point where Danny felt perfectly comfortable with using some of his powers in subtlety.
Like the duplication fluke, for example. When Danny saw Wes start to look over to where he was floating near the window (he wasn't that good yet, so he had to keep his duplicates in a close range), he decided to stay where he was instead of recalling his duplicate. As Fenton, it took all of his will not to burst out laughing in class when he saw his horror-struck expression, and only dismissed the duplicate when Paulina had drawn attention to him.
For the next two weeks, he watched Wes become more and more unhinged, trying to determine how he had pulled off the duplication trick. Maybe, he thought, I've finally convinced Wes he's wrong! But, somehow, he had figured it out, when he screamed it at the top of his lungs. Finally realizing that it was a pointless attempt, Danny took advantage of the moment, made sure to look at him directly, and let his eyes turn green for effect. Once again, Wes flipped out and racked up two detentions.
So honestly, it wasn't that much of a surprise when Wes led a group of A-Listers and other students towards his lunch table two days later.
"And here comes the peanut gallery," Sam mutters, aggressively stabbing her salad.
"You gonna do anything, Danny?" Tucker asks.
"Depends on what he wants," Danny replied, as Wes finally reached the table.
"Hello, Phantom," Wes said.
"I'm not Phantom, Wes," Danny said, taking note of all the A-Listers watching him. "But if you're saying that I can pull off the superhero look, then thanks."
Star snorted, "Superhero of what? The only thing you're capable of saving is a word document."
Danny shrugs, "I guess. Now, Wes what're you going to accuse me of this time?"
"I have solid evidence," he claimed. "Look at these."
He brought out two pictures of Danny – one of Fenton, one of Phantom.
"That's a picture of me, and that's a picture of Phantom."
"No. Those are both pictures of you. One of them is photoshopped to look like Phantom. All I had to do was change the color of the hair and change the clothes."
Dash frowned, "That looks too real to be photoshop."
"Well," Wes said furtively, "I'm really good at photoshop."
"Then why does Fenton look like Phantom?" Paulina questioned, "He's not nearly as hot enough in real life, so it has to be fake."
"That's an ego booster," Danny muttered.
"Will you people take me seriously for once?!" Wes cried, "I'm showing you foolproof evidence and all of you are just ignoring me!"
"I'm listening Wes," Danny smirked. Wes's eye twitched for a moment, but before he could say something, another voice spoke up.
"I hate to break it to you," Tucker held up the picture of Phantom, "but this isn't photoshopped at all. This is a picture of Phantom that can easily be found online."
"No it can't," Wes declared.
"Uh," Tucker said, "yeah it can." He held up his PDA which showed a web-browser and the same picture of Phantom that Wes had claimed was photoshopped (little did they know that it was a fake browser and Tucker had inconspicuously scanned the picture when nobody was looking).
"Looks like you're lying, after all Phantom," Dash spat at Wes. The A-List walked away, chortling with laughter.
"I GIVE UP!" Wes screamed, drawing the attention of everyone else in the cafeteria. They quickly realized it was just Weston being Weston again, and returned to their lunches.
"Hey, Wes," Danny said, continuing to keep up the act, "better luck next time. But if you really want someone to believe you, you might want to ask the nerds. They're more open-minded to sci-fi."
"Is it really sci-fi when it's real life?" Wes argued.
"I don't know..." Danny said, letting on a little more, "but I'd say my life is pretty sci-fi. I mean the ghost powers and all fit the criteria, don't they?"
"You..." Wes muttered, letting blind rage best him. He grabbed Danny's shirt collar, only to topple backwards in surprise when Danny momentarily turned intangible.
"Danny," Sam hissed, "someone might be looking."
"I timed it when no one was looking," he reassured.
"YOU FUCKING DICKFACE!" Wes boiled with anger.
"WES WESTON!"
"Oh shit," Wes said. Ms. Merluzzi, one of the strictest teachers in Casper High was marching over to them.
"Weston," she said slowly, "I've heard of you having many unnecessary outbursts in the past few days. Explain the meaning of this."
"Fenton started it," he accused. "He was... provoking me."
"Fenton," she turned to Danny, "is this true?"
"Even if I say no, you won't believe me," Danny said. "No one really believes me anymore, but I'm used to it."
"Maybe it's because you have the reputation of one of the most troublesome students in this school," Ms. Merluzzi furrowed her brow. "Now, since it's the beginning of lunch I'll be a little lenient. The two of you will report to my room today and tomorrow for lunch detention. No 'buts'. A little disciplinary action doesn't hurt every once in a while. Now get moving."
Within four minutes, the two of them found themselves sitting next to each other in the geometry room in awkward silence. What was worse was that Wes was glaring at him the entire time. Danny managed to ignore the glares, until a cold sensation slithered up his throat and came out as a blue wisp when he exhaled: his ghost sense. He eyes darted around the room... if he could just figure out which direction it was – he could ditch Wes before he noticed and –
Somebody outside of the classroom screamed. "GHOST IN THE CAFETERIA! RUN!" You could hear the footfalls of forty to fifty students running down the hall at once. Danny groaned, this was not his day.
Almost reflexive (well, it was reflexive for Danny) the two of them jumped from their seats and looked out the door to see everyone running. Some people had random burn marks on their clothes... Danny figured that Sam and Tucker was holding the ghost off, and he needed to fly over and help them as soon as possible. The problem was –
"OH GEE, a GHOST is attacking," Wes gestured with his hands. "Looks like we could really use Danny Phantom right about now!"
Wes. The problem was Wes.
Danny kept a fairly neutral expression. He knew had to do something… when an idea popped into his head. He looked Wes straight in the eyes and smiling a little bit, "Y'know Wes? You're totally right."
Without a moment of hesitation, Danny lets the rings form around him, triggering his transformation. The rings split, replacing Danny's day clothes with Phantom's signature jumpsuit. Wes stared in absolute horror as blue eyes and black hair were changed to green eyes and white hair within seconds. A trickle of sweat ran down Wes's face, as he clenched his fists, did that really just happen... Wes's mouth fell to the floor when Danny gave Wes one last look before flying through a wall, "Bye!"
Holy. Fucking. Shit. He'd been right this entire time. He felt numb, and really, really angry. He didn't really know why he was angry when he was so numb, but all of Wes's emotions just jumbled together. Fenton was able to turn into Phantom by will. Those ring thingies and –
Fuck – he couldn't do this. He just couldn't. Sure, he'd already known Fenton was Phantom – but seeing it? He needed aspirin. Just remembering what he had seen seconds ago was starting to hurt his brain. He couldn't stay here – he had to get out. For now, at least.
He knew it probably wasn't a good thing, but Danny laughed immensely when he heard Wes had cut the rest of the day because he'd told the nurse he had a 'headache'. After school let out, he'd told Sam and Tucker about what he'd done, and they also seemed to think it was funny.
"So-" Tucker choked, "you just flew out?"
"Yep," Danny grinned, sipping on his shake from the Nasty Burger.
"What did his face look like?" Sam asked.
"Confused and angry," Danny said, "like Kwan whenever someone asks him a question in class."
"So the 'deer-in-the-headlights' look?" Tucker laughed.
"No," Danny explained, "it was more aggressive. Like this." He twisted his face into an expression of surprise and rage, making his eyebrows shoot up as high as they could.
"Isn't that the look Vlad gets whenever you call him a Froot Loop?" Sam questioned.
"No," Tucker replied for him, "that's more like this." He made the angriest face he could make, and lowered his voice, "I'm not a Froot Loop, I am an edgy vampire! I feast on the blood of kittens and homeless children!"
At that moment in town hall, Walter Weston found a fuming Vlad Masters glaring at a computer monitor. On it was footage from the Nasty Burger, focused on three teens exchanging laughter. Angrily, Vlad exited the browser.
"Walter," he drawled, "apparently your son has discovered the existence of half-ghosts. With this information, he could be very dangerous to me. Can you do your best to make sure that his research stays primarily on the case of Danny Phantom, otherwise known as Danny Fenton?"
Walter blinked, "The Fentons' son is a ghost? And Phantom? But didn't you try to experiment on-"
"We're aware of each other," Vlad said curtly. "I needed him for something, that time. Anyways, keep a close eye on your son. He already knows too much information."
Walter nodded, "Yes sir."
So Danny finally transformed in front of Wes. I can't believe we've already gotten to that part. I know a lot of you have been waiting for this for a while, and others might think it's too soon, but I think it's finally time for the story to move on. Yaay, plot progression!
Also, how the hell did I write over 3K words for this chapter? Damn...