Mr. Lancer was curious. He couldn't help it; he was only human, after all. Oh, he would never have been one to buy a supermarket tabloid, but having confiscated no less than fifty-three copies of what was reputedly Danny Phantom's journal had made him wonder exactly what about it made everyone lose their minds.
Yes, he was a hero. Yes, he was a ghost. Lancer wanted to believe that people were simply looking to humanize the ghost boy, somehow. Perhaps they sought to put a more familiar face to their oft distant hero. Then he saw Paulina and Rick arguing about who Phantom would rather go out with and remembered that they were all teenagers. For the great majority of them, it was pure sensationalism.
Still, he had to confess to certain thrill at the thought of what those pages contained. Phantom had saved his life more than once from the myriad ghosts that insisted on rampaging the school, and he did simply want a deeper look into the hero's psyche. It was of endless fascination to him that anyone with the maturity level of a fourteen-year-old boy would willingly choose to lay life or existence on the line to save people he had never met. Like Phantom or hate him, there was something almost…philosophical about him.
Consequently, he found himself almost unwillingly flipping through the stack of pages during his free hour. There was no one else in the teachers' lounge; he wasn't sure he wanted to know what his colleagues would think to see him stoop so low. They had all read it, so why shouldn't he? Surely, simple curiosity was nothing to be ashamed of. Maybe just one entry…
'Oh, this is just what I need. Ghosts on one side, and ghost hunters on the other. I just got back from 917, and I have no idea how I'm going to handle them when they attack. I mean, I beat off Pariah's skeleton ghosts, but that was different. Those things didn't think, they just attacked. This haunting team can think, though. They won't just rush at me; they'll use strategy. I don't think I trust this Ghost Master at all. There's something off about him.'
Lancer looked around almost furtively. He half expected the ghost boy himself to suddenly appear in a flurry of ghostly anger, and he honestly couldn't decide whether that would be a relief or not. It was a complicated feeling and difficult to properly articulate.
'Ghost Master attacked today. It wasn't too bad, actually. I had more trouble with the PS. That alligator of his was attacking them, and then he tried to hold Sam hostage, but she's okay. Then this weird gypsy lady showed up and tried to convince me to join them which I'm not going to do. Then they all just left. I was kind of surprised, actually. I expected them to give me more trouble than that.'
'Now, I know not all ghosts are evil. Hey, I'm not, right? But I never actually expected to meet other ghosts who weren't evil. I'm still not too sure about them, but I think they just want to have fun. Of course, their idea of fun is going around scaring people, but at least they're not trying to do any damage.
'I had a nice long conversation with a few of them when the PS captured us. They're all musicians in some way, which is actually kind of cool. Apparently, that's why they're a team in the first place, that and the fact that most of them were killed by the alligator at some point. They were actually pretty friendly. I was surprised. Then the PS tried to kill us, but Mom saved us. That was weird actually. I wonder why.'
The doorknob rattled. Wonderings of why it was strange immediately forgotten, he quickly shoved the paper to the side of the table with the others and pretended to have been working on something else. "Ah, hello, Charles," he said, attempting to sound bored.
"Yo!" the "cool" teacher replied brightly, dropping heavily into a chair. He sounded amused, but as long as he didn't say anything…
Lancer repressed a laugh and looked up. "Is it really so difficult to act your age from time to time?" he asked, affecting disapproval.
"It gives the kids something to laugh at behind my back, and that makes them more inclined to pay attention to what I'm saying." Then he smirked and leaned back. "That a prob, old man?"
"Well, as long as they're learning…" Lancer allowed, choosing not to hear the "old man" comment.
The two colleagues sat in relative silence for a time, both wondering if the other would speak first. Lancer, of course, had no intention of drawing attention to anything dealing with ghost boy. That might lead to his fellow teacher realizing that he had been participating in an act he had previously condemned, if the man didn't already. He probably did. "So you read it yet?" Charles asked, the knowing tone as obvious as a white crow.
Lancer cringed inwardly and was rather proud of himself for keeping a level tone. "I believe I made my views on that subject quite plain."
"He said, pointedly avoiding the question."
"Why do you see fit to narrate everything anyone says?" Lancer demanded. It was one of the man's more annoying qualities.
He shrugged and stood. "Why do you see fit to deny that you're curious? Later!"
Despite his relief at the sudden change of subject, Lancer couldn't help but ask, "Leaving so soon?"
"Hour's almost up," Charles pointed out, laughing. "Time flies when you're reading someone else's diary, doesn't it?" He slid out the door while the surprised English teacher was still trying to think of a comeback.
'I just got out of the hospital. No one seems to remember what happened, but there were dead bodies lying everywhere. The news people said it looked like corpses had clawed their way out of the cemetery, but that no one actually died. That's good, but I wonder what happened exactly. Kat's about as helpful as usual.'
Valerie scoffed bitterly; she could have filled in the blanks for him. A giant dragon ghost made of ethereal bone had stolen life from the living and used it to raise an army of zombies. Andrew Phantom, or Sandruu as he called himself, had come back in time to stop something from happening. He had said he needed to stop Necrowind from being summoned a second time in his future, but she had begun to wonder about that. She had no doubts that he believed that, but it was too contrived, too convoluted. It made no sense.
Andrew Phantom…or was it Andrew Fenton? He'd had that same black hair, those same blue eyes. At least, the one that wasn't a red square of futuristic technology was blue. He had said that his father was a ghost, but that he wasn't. She never did ask him about that. She didn't ask near as many questions as she wanted to, respecting his fear that he would erase his existence. Consequently, he was one big puzzle. There was Phantom's suave certainty in one second, followed in the next by Danny's nervous laughter upon realizing he'd stuck his foot in his mouth again.
She could never decide who the mysterious cyborg reminded her of more, steadfastly refusing to settle on the obvious compromise of both. At the time, it didn't much matter. She had decided that she liked Sandruu no matter whose child he was. It was hard to fight alongside a person without coming to some kind of understanding, after all. Still, it had taken time to decide that. He'd been so endearingly absent-minded at times, only to spout the ghost boy's favorite line of "Not all ghosts are evil" and remind her once again of her sworn enemy.
"Do you have any idea what it's like to be forced to help your father's murderer?" he had demanded, when she first voiced her theory on his parentage. "Not only that, but to hear to the insults, the hatred, and be forced to ignore it?"
And suddenly, the world slammed to a halt as she remembered the rest of that conversation. "Because of you, my father is now a mindless murder victim. He doesn't even recognize us anymore; all he cares about is revenge. And right now, I'm half tempted to get it for him, consequences be damned!"
And when she pointed out that the boy had tried to kill her: "He always held back when he fought you! …Always. I watched him. I know. But when you found out he was...doesn't matter...never mind. You don't care; you never did."
He hadn't been sent back in time to stop someone from resurrecting the Bone Dragon. He'd been sent back in time to stop a young ghost hunter named Valerie from killing the ghost boy, Danny Phantom.
…Danny Fenton…
Valerie bolted from the classroom, heedless of the teacher calling her back.
