Phantom planet never happened. Danny was still a thing of mystery to most if not all of the world. But things have changed in the past few years, a lot of things.
School had changed, no that wasn't the best way to put it. The students had changed, not just because the new school year saw graduates leave and new faces arrive but the overall attitude as well. Since things had been changing, their small town was slowly expanding, more people were moving in.
Danny and his friends weren't "the popular" kids but they had gained a lot of respect. Tucker was considered something of a genius since he was an A student his looks had done him better to, not Jock standard but still doing good, Sam was an A student as well, smart and once puberty past she was better looking than Paulina, Danny for his part, was now closer to a jocks physique and with 2 helpful and smart friends he was sitting on a B average. To say the rest of their grade was regretting past decisions would be a lie.
Sadly, the trio didn't notice much.
"Hey, Danny!" Tucker had looked up from his locker to see his partner in crime walking toward him.
"Sup Tuck! Seen Sam around?" Danny waved before going to his own locker.
"Not yet, she said she had a surprise in a message she sent me this morning. I'm not sure what it is but I'm taking bets." Tucker smiled when he watched Danny struggle to open his locker.
"7 years of opening lockers and I still have trouble opening them." Finally giving up he reached in with his ghost hand to pry the lock open.
"At least you can do that. The rest of us have to suffer!" Tucker laughed before looking at his buzzing phone.
Danny grabbed his book, "Is it Sam?"
Tucker nodded before turning around, "Yup, and she needs a little help."
A frown "What's wrong?"
"Some Jocks are causing her trouble." Tucker started running.
Danny followed the techno Geek with ease "What? Why?"
"No idea, she just sent 'S.O.S Jocks'." Tucker huffed as he rounded a corner.
Danny followed Tucker down a few more halls before hearing some rather loud arguing.
"Come on! We too good for you?"
"Are you kidding? You're repulsive and younger than me. Besides I'm an ultra-vegetarian. Now get lost." Sam was on her last thread before someone lost an arm.
"Come on babe! We would be perfect!" A football player.
Danny slid to a stop looking at the 3 juniors trapping Sam in a corner. Tucker looked ready to beat someone with his PDA, and let's just leave that story at that.
"HEY!" Said geek took a step forward as all 4 of them looked over.
"Oh look! It's a nerd!" He seemed to be the leader, kind of thin for a Jock, in Danny's opinion.
The small group started laughing till they saw Danny following close behind the 'Nerd'.
"You're juniors?" Danny was standing at about a good foot over them all.
"Y-yeah! What's it to you?!" the biggest one said, funny his voice hadn't hit puberty yet.
Sam stepped around the 3 jocks to hug Tucker. "Morning, Tuck."
Said Geek hugged his little Goth before responding, "Good morning, my beautiful black maiden!"
One of the Jocks growled and grabbed Tuckers shirt, pulling him close, "Hey! We were having a conversation with her you little nerd!"
The 'Nerd' gave him a blank look, "Dude, she's my girlfriend and I'm pretty sure that wasn't a conversation."
Danny sighed hopping things didn't get ugly, because if the jocks didn't do anything other than weight training and football, they were going to get their butts whooped pretty hard. Danny being an avid ghost fighter was bad enough, Sam had convinced Tucker to take taekwondo classes with her last year, as of 2 months ago they were purple belts.
"Ew! You're dating this garbage?! I could be much better for you! Dump this trash and pick up something newer!" The ego on this kid might actually rival Vlad's and that is saying something.
Sam looked ready to punch the guy as she opened her mouth to say something, but Danny decided to cut in, "Hey," all eyes turned to him as he drew up to his full height "First: Tucker's a Geek not a nerd. There is a difference. Second: Gothic Vegetarians are high maintenance and require 5 times more than you could ever offer. Third: If you don't get out of here things will get ugly. Lucky for us it won't ruin whatever chance we have at a scholarship by getting a little scuffed up, but I don't think anyone will want you on their football team if you played too rough in high school."
The first jock squared his shoulders, but the other 2 behind him seemed to be reconsidering their involvement. "My father is the Dean at Central Lakes College! You can't touch me!"
Danny had enough, "Maybe you didn't understand," reaching to his Core with practiced ease he pulled a fraction of his power from its place in his chest giving his eyes an eerie glowing blue effect, opting out of using the ghostly green, "I'm telling you to get out of here. Now." With the last word he used the small wisp of power to create the feeling of fear. He didn't use it often not even Sam and Tucker knew about it, but he could use it now.
"DUDE RUN!" The smallest of them yelled before booking it down the halls, the other two hot on his tail as the guy holding Tucker dropped him and tripped on his own feet while trying to run. Once out of sight the small group of 3 started laughing.
"Oh, man! That was great!" Tucker held his stomach as he bent forward.
"That was pretty funny, I think that one dude pissed his pants." Sam was laughing a little calmer, but it was all real.
Danny for his part laughed hard before taking a huge gulp of breath, "That worked better than I had hopped!"
Sam jumped on him then, "What did you do anyway?"
Tucker straightened up calming down but the smile still in place, "Yeah, what did you do? First it was all calm and your eyes kinda got more intense before I got this awful feeling to run away from you."
Danny blushed, "It wasn't supposed to do anything to you guys, guess I put too much power into it." He started scratching his head in embarrassment.
"But what was it Danny? How did you do it?" Sam, the always-probing-to-know-as-much-as-possible was at it again, with Tucker the everlasting-nerd-on-ghost-research right on the train with her.
"I started calling it Ghost Fear; I kinda learned it on accident actually. See I was getting bullied by some thug in an alley after a fight with Skulker, he got some upgrades, and I was super tired and I used my ghost powers in my human form to scare him off and he dropped his switch knife and ran off screaming before I could stop him."
Sam punched him in the arm while her backup crew started yelling, "YOU WERE GETTING MUGGED AND YOU DIDN'T CALL US?! NO MESSAGE, NO PHONE CALL, NOTHING? AND WE ARE JUST HEARING ABOUT IT NOW? WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN!" Tucker breathed hard as he recovered from his outburst.
"SHHHH, calm down Tuck! Do you want the whole school to know? I was fine and it's not like I got hurt. Besides I didn't finish my story." Danny rubbed his arm on reflex, they couldn't hurt him with a hit like that but it's an old habit from years of pretending to be human all the time.
Sam huffed, "Fine, finish your story, but we are going to talk about your lack of contact as soon as you are finished!" A stern finger pointing to the face.
"Alright, alright. Anyway, I was in the bathroom later and I was trying to do it again, after a while I figured it was nothing because nothing was changing except my eyes, but then Jazz started pounding on the door really loud and I opened the door to her holding the Fenton blaster in hand asking me what was happening. We talked later in my room about what had happened before all of that and she told me to show her, so I did," Danny takes a breath, "She had screamed, and I was glad mom and dad weren't home and I had to calm her down before we could talk again. Eventually after some practice and some deep talking about it, we came to the decision that I could create a field around me that caused people to be scared."
Tucker and Sam stared at Danny with a dead look as they tried to process his half story half informative, but before they could say anything the bell rang.
Danny laughed "Well, we can talk after school! Good luck in Chem lab!" literally saved by the bell, the ghost child walked off to his first class.
