Mars

By JadeRabbyt

"Nobody understood him... That was all. He never found anybody to confide in after his friends were gone." –Alicia Carmichael

Danny tried his best to appear casual as he glanced over at Dash's table. The jock was messing around with his friends, six of them—plus girls, of course. They all sat hunched around the lunch table, discussing the latest trends, games, or gossip. Bunched up like that, they looked like a cluster of big blonde tomatoes. Danny grinned at the image. Actually, make that snickering blonde tomatoes; one of them had just accidentally-on-purpose bounced a couple peas off a girl's scarlet shirt. She squealed, brushed herself off and whirled around to slap at the pea-shooting offender, her silky brown hair quivering with indignation as the others laughed and poked playful fun at her.

Danny watched them for a moment more. He looked back at his own lunch, a mess of cafeteria food that would have been fresh in the Paleolithic Era. His peas looked more like discolored deer dooky than laughable projectiles. Danny was getting sick of eating with the Charity Crowd.

Across the table, Alicia pouted at the sight of his displeasure. Her paper bag rustled as she pulled out a sandwich. "Come on, Danny. You don't need them."

Danny grumbled something intelligible and popped a tater-tot in his mouth. It may be true that he didn't exactly need the popular crowd—although he'd really like to be in it, but he definitely didn't need Alicia or any of the other emotion leeches who'd gravitated to him over the last month. They kept trying to get him to 'talk about his feelings,' but so far as Danny was concerned there was nothing to talk about. At the beginning they had been okay, just people to hang out with, but they'd gotten bolder lately. Something bad had happened to him, but it wasn't like talking about it would change it or fix it.

But that didn't stop the Charity Crowd. In fact, it looked like Alicia was getting ready to start up on that same tired theme, again. Behind her coke-bottle glasses, her eyes were getting that wobbly googly look, and her hand had begun to creep toward his own.

Danny announced that he had to get something from his locker. "Sorry. Gotta finish some homework." He cleaned up his half-eaten lunch and stood.

Alicia sighed. "Alright, Danny." Her glance accused him of ingratitude and standoffishness before returning to her sandwich.

That was another thing that annoyed him. Alicia was nice… but jeez could she ever get nosey sometimes. At least Jazz knew when to quit. Danny dumped the rest of his food in the garbage and left the clamoring lunchroom, drifting through the halls with his hands in his pockets. He was really going to have to make some new friends.

XXX

"Get lost, Fentina."

"Dash, I was talking to Kwan. Besides, I just wanted to know if, I could, you know, hang out with you guys or something. We could go to the Nasty Burger, my treat!"

"Look geek, just because you had a little accident with your other friends doesn't mean I have to be all nice to you now."

"That wasn't my fault."

"Sure it wasn't, Butterfingers. You know there's a reason they won't let you touch glass in biology anymore."

"It wasn't my fault!"

"Dash, you're being really mean. Come on, knock it off and let's go."

"I wasn't talking to you Valerie. Besides, just look at him! Running away like a baby. I should kick his butt."

"What is WRONG with you? Danny's best friends were killed!"

"Pfft, whatever. He's being a wimp about it."

XXX

Danny went home and spread the blueprints over the table. He'd almost finished the wings. His desk, formerly junked up with everything from soda pop cans to unfinished or overdue homework assignments, had been devoted exclusively to miniature aviation. The desk, a hard plywood affair painted in glossy white, was poorly suited to the pricks of t-pins, which were required to hold down the blueprints and keep the wood from moving around as glue dried.

The yellowed blueprints recommended corkboard for the job. Danny didn't have any corkboard. One day, a slow day on a Friday, when everyone had their bodies in school and their heads in the weekend, Danny slinked into wood shop and, very discreetly, struck up a conversation with one of the kids in both wood shop and his English class. The kid almost blew him off. Danny's reputation for strangeness preceded him, but after explaining what he needed and what a minor task it would be, the kid agreed to help him. It took four lunch periods, less but for the clubs and social activities of his patron, but Danny managed to get a simple corkboard panel set up, mounted on plywood to keep it perfectly flat and perfect for plane-building.

He kept the instruction booklet and the tools in a cardboard box under his desk. The delicate balsa wood required only a pen knife, making the work quiet and relatively simple. The blueprints, when not in use, stood in a corner between the desk and the wall. The ancient fuselage hung from a wire from his ceiling, strung from a hook Danny himself had installed himself, and the unfinished wings lay spread across the corkboard panel atop his desk like the skeletal frame of a dinosaur.

When Danny got home from school that day, back to the house too new to be a home, he thumped up the stairs and into his room and closed the door behind him. Throwing his backpack on the bed he caught a flash of sky blue out the window and paused, perusing it, before moving to the desk. He pulled out the blueprints and the instruction booklet, searching for where he'd left off.

A tear dropped from his face onto the crinkled pages. Danny smeared it away with his thumb and reached for the toolbox under his desk.

XXX

Alicia brushed a stray strand of blonde hair from her eyes, assuming a casual stance against a locker next to Karen, an older student. A junior. Alicia's olive green purse dangled from her fingers as she watched the students pour by, looking for a certain fellow freshman and not finding him. Next to her, Karen dialed in her locker combination and popped it open.

Alicia had badminton practice in fifteen minutes, so this would have to be quick. "Hey, have you seen Danny around?"

Karen pulled out a couple textbooks and binders, cramming them into their backpack. "No." She groaned as she slung the weighty thing over her shoulder. "Ugh. Can you believe this? I have, like, six assignments in English and AP Chemistry. Good thing it's almost summer."

Alicia laughed. "No kidding. But about Danny…"

"Why? What's wrong with the little weirdo this time?"

"Hey, he's not a weirdo."

Karen rolled her eyes. "Look, I didn't say he was a psychopath. I just said the guy's a little… odd."

"I guess that's true." She had to admit, Danny had changed. Before his friends… left him, he'd been a much happier kid. Alicia could recall seeing him content or cheerful or worried in the hallways back when Sam and Tucker were alive, but lately he'd been far less emotional. Not robotic, just passive. He seldom laughed, and was pleased more than happy, perturbed more than upset. He'd also stopped trying to break into social groups; Danny didn't talk to people, and people didn't talk to him. While there were recluses running around the school, they'd been that way ever since anybody could remember. Danny, on the other hand, had acquired the habit over two weeks, and it was that more than anything that made him seem strange. Alicia had had to work in order to befriend him after the accident.

But lately, Danny had been leaving her in the dark. "He's stopped hanging out with me…"

Karen laughed. "Girl, you practically stalked him for a while there. Maybe he wants space."

Alicia shook her head. "Even you should realize that there's more to it than that."

"Even me, huh?" Karen turned, her straight blonde hair falling stringently around her face, her critical eyes and sharp, practical nose directed at Alicia. "Well, something pretty awful happened. Maybe something permanent happened to him as a result. So what? With the way he was before, something like this was pretty much bound to happen sooner or later." She slammed her locker shut. "Nobody's hopeful all the time, all their life."

"But the way he was before… It's just not right for him to be this way."

"You know, maybe Danny wasn't the only one around here with a nasty surprise coming." She put a hand on Alica's shoulder. "I like you, but you need to learn that bad things happen. You can't carry everybody's crosses for them."

Alicia pinched her mouth into a hard line. "Excuse me. I've got to get to practice."

Karen watched her go. "See you later."

XXX

While the high school roiled with its own eternal dramas, the mayor of Amity had become very unhappy for a very specific reason. His unhappiness, communicated to various members of his staff and the two ghost-hunting Fentons, arose from the general unhappiness of his own voting citizens. It seemed a virulent outbreak of ghost scares was sweeping the town, the reports of which he would never have taken seriously were it not for a previous incident involving the possession of just about every one of the aforementioned tax-paying citizens several months ago.

So the Fentons were the people for the job. The mayor had confidence in their ability to solve the crisis, given how the last time they'd been commissioned they had, apparently, come out successful. The details never came out, and that repugnant Inviso Bill had been left at large, but at least the problem had gone away. The mayor trusted that the Fentons could do the same, preferably in a more efficient manner, with the present situation.

Imagine his dismay at finding that the two people he'd hired to solve the problem were also its primary contributors.

Jack and Maddie sat in the stiff armless chairs as the mayor expressed his incredible displeasure. Several days later, they were sitting in court. On the mayor's recommendation a municipal judge fined them and forbade them from operating the Ghost Portal; also, they could not pursue their research or hold jobs in institutions which studied supernatural elements. The court issued an informal suggestion that they aspire to no more than the position of world's most overeducated TV repairmen.

Jack dragged himself home and flicked on the television. Upon hearing the news, Jazz nearly had a seizure. She shouted about her college and her future; Maddie let her shout; in the end Jazz flew up to her room and slammed the door. Danny took it better. He got the whole story from his mother, about the mayor and the ruling, then padded up to his room in that quiet way of his. He'd looked sad, but not overly depressed. Maddie could hear Jazz crying, but Danny's room was quiet—probably up there working on his plane. Maddie still didn't like that quietness. But she had gotten used to it.

Next, Maddie checked phone book and internet for a lawyer who might at least delay the ruling's provisions until she could get a plan together. Their income came mostly from grants, and with the research gone, so was the money. They owned a nice chunk of stock in companies which had bought the rights to a couple ghost hunting devices, but that wouldn't last long. Maddie would fight the ruling, but to be honest, she wasn't hopeful.

She could call it an honest mistake all she liked, but the fact of the matter was that both she and Jack had been irresponsible, and it had caused innocent people damage. She just hoped the city wouldn't make them pay for it.

XXX

After months of legal hassles, Maddie got a job teaching electrical engineering at a local junior college. Jack grudgingly entered the private sector as an automotive technician. The income went down, but the family survived. Jazz availed herself to a wealth of scholarships the following year, and Danny survived with fewer toys. Computer games and new clothes had become less important to him.

XXX

Danny held the remote in both hands, guiding the delicate plane in circles and dives through the air. He stood near the thin concrete runway, surrounded by a healthy field that shimmered in the light breeze while the distant sounds of the highway rumbling in the distance. The plane's gas motor buzzed, and the clear sky and bright sun made for perfect flying weather.

The plane had really turned out great. The painted flames looked really cool against its shiny black fuselage. This was its fourth time out, and he was getting better and better at landings. No crashes yet. Danny only regretted that there wasn't anybody else around. Not often, but every once in a while somebody else would show up with a plane, and then they'd have races or do tricks or just strut the talents of their machines.

Flying alone was alright, though. Danny had been trying to get his plane to do a loop-the-loop, but it was tricky. The plane kept wanting to angle sideways, and Danny didn't want to risk a crash. Aileron controllers weren't cheap.

"So this is what you do with your free time now?"

Danny jumped at the voice. He turned to see the fanged smirk of his former foe, Mister Vlad Plasmius.

Danny sighed and returned his attention to the plane. "What are you doing here, Vlad."

Vlad floated in front of him, his red and white cape rippling. "Is it true you've given up the game? That you've stopped fighting ghosts for good?"

Danny scowled at him and stepped to the side, back in sight of his plane. So much for a loop-the-loop. "'The game' stopped being fun a while before people started to die."

"You mean your friends?"

Danny didn't answer, continuing to thumb the controls of his plane.

"I see. So, you're not even going to try to help out your parents, miserable wretches that they are these days. You're just going to spend your life sulking, pursuing the promising career of checkout clerk, is that right?" Vlad laughed. "By the way, how is the supermarket industry doing these days?"

Danny jerked his head toward the plane. "It pays." He looked askance at Vlad. "My parents are doing just fine."

"I'm sure they are."

Danny was keeping an eye on him, but he was far more engrossed in that blasted plane. Vlad followed it around the sky, watching it dive and twist in the blue as Danny worked the controls, trying different spins and flight paths. The craft had a kind of dignified rattiness which characterized most home-built models, but it really didn't look all that terrible. "You built it?"

Danny smiled. "That's right."

"Are you going to be a pilot?"

He shrugged. "I don't know."

"Well, what are you going to do?"

"Why do you care?" Danny turned the plane in a tight circle. "Shouldn't you be trying to devise some evil plot to marry my mother, anyway? Holding up a bank or shoving old ladies out in traffic? Or was Dateline extra boring last night so you thought you'd drop by and harass me for a change." He shook his head, muttering just loud enough to be heard. "Like I don't have enough to deal with."

Vlad's eyes flashed. "So it's true. Instead of a bouncy little brat you're now a moody little brat. I bet you haven't 'gone ghost' in months, is that right?" Again, Danny didn't answer. "How'd you like it if I turned your little embarrassment up there into kindling?"

"Try it, and I'll break your legs."

Vlad chuckled. So it was possible to get a rise out of him, petty though it was. "I would love to see you try."

Danny glanced at him, wrinkled his nose, and stepped farther away, across the short runway. "You are such an idiot."

"Am I now?"

Vlad sent a bolt of pink ectoplasm flying towards the plane. Before he could blink a flash of green whisked by and smashed into it, erupting in a firework of both colors. The plane shuddered, righted itself, and continued unmolested.

Vlad gaped. "That's amazing! What else can you do?"

"Enough."

"Show me."

The plane came down, close to the runway. "I'm not showing you jack."

"I don't want to see Jack. I want to see your powers."

"Very funny."

"Well then…" A flash of pink hurtled toward Danny. He threw up a shield and blocked most of the blast, but the controller in his hands sputtered and smoked. "No!" The plane had been in the process of landing. The controller destroyed, it continued on its way, delicate frame flying at breakneck speed toward the runway. Danny leaped forward, flying now, and caught the thing a moment before it would have crashed. He flicked off the manual control switch and threw up a shield just before another explosion of pink erupted around him.

"Fight, you coward!"

Danny growled and set the plane down carefully before launching himself at Vlad, zapping to ghost in mid-flight. The old man grinned and split himself in four. Danny grimaced and copied the maneuver, his four selves throwing up shields against four more pink blasts. He curved off for a better vantage point. Danny didn't need to be reminded that close combat didn't work well against Vlad.

Then again, nothing worked well against Vlad. Danny hadn't fought him in eons, and now with the practice he'd been doing, they were equals at best. At worst, he'd put Danny in the hospital. And Vlad knew it.

"What's wrong? All talk?"

Danny had to win this fight, and he had to win it definitively, or all the ghosts would return to Amity and the whole nightmare would start up all over again. A cold sweat started on his arms. It wasn't that he was afraid to be brutal; it was that he knew he could be. All he had to do was 'express himself' with all the violence and anger he never could have shown Alicia, or anybody else for that matter. Other kids thought he was weird, and they were right to think so. Danny had never intended to test how 'weird' he had really become. How once or twice a week he woke up sweating, dreaming up a million ways he could have saved them and how somehow, those dreams had affected his skills in the waking world.

"No. Just thinking."

"Ha!" chorused the Vlads, their voices high and off-key. "The strain of it must be killing you."

Four Dannys made a snap decision and sent a quartet of plasma blasts at the Vlads. He—all four of them—blocked every shot effortlessly. "So you can kill your friends, but not your enemies?"

"Shut up!" Four more beams flew through the sky… and burned clear through four pink shields. Vlad yelled, clutching his arm.

"You miserable brat!"

Danny's fists quivered. He was tired of talking. All four of him dove down, dodging blast after blast with needle head turns. Shields blocked plasma but were a poor defense against fists. Danny fought, taking punches and dealing them, dodging and striking and winning.

Vlad wasn't prepared for it. Danny moved too quickly for Vlad to get a good hold on him, and he was too quick with shields to be burned away. But that wasn't the worst of it. Danny had also managed, somehow, to increase the power of his ectoplasm. Every time he landed a punch, it hurt like the devil.

And although he was clearly hurting, the kid didn't let up. Vlad remembered the rumors he'd heard, and suddenly he began to think that this wasn't such a good idea after all. "Danny…" Vlad took a punch to the gut.

"What?"

"You win…"

Danny backed off, moving them both out of each other's grips for the moment. Vlad caught his breath and looked at Danny. He looked away, wishing he'd never come. Danny stared back at Vlad with burned-out eyes and an expression of iron, a totem to despair. "No, Vlad." Danny's hands flashed with plasma. "I don't win."

He flew toward Vlad with the brilliant force of a judgment angel and the two engaged once more, Vlad growing weaker as Danny grew stronger, his fists flying faster, plasma burning deeper until Danny finally drew back his hand and plunged it into Vlad's chest. Vlad roared at the stabbing pain and moved to dislodge him, and Danny discharged a bolt of plasma which struck through Vlad with the force of natural lightning. He opened his mouth to shriek but the blast froze his muscles in a motionless seizure, and after a second or two, Vlad lost consciousness.

Danny dropped his body and retrieved the plane. He inspected it for burns or scratches, damage to the paint, but it had survived the ordeal in perfect condition. Danny gathered it and the ruined controller, wondering when the next bus came. He spared a glance back at the smoking Vlad. Danny walked back to him, standing over his body, watching the weak rise and fall of his chest, and served him a vicious kick in the side. Vlad moaned weakly.

"You stay away from me and my family, and you tell everybody else to do the same."


A/N: Yes, this story is back. Let me know whatcha think, por favor.