Bonjour, mes chers! Sorry for such the long wait! I was getting back into school and my job and boy is life getting exhausting! Midterms just passed, however, so let's hope I can get a little bit of a routine going here again.
Just a reminder, I've made a new blog to support me and keep up with all things Guardians! It's a tumblr blog under the name theguardiansseries and it contains chapters, art, and everything else Guardians. It also contains behind-the-scenes drabbles and snippets from other character's point of views - all of which can be found under the tag 'ftb excerpt'
You can also consider joining the group chat I made for all things Guardians at d.i.s.c.o.r.d. gg/mnDVQXa (FFN is being quite the sourpuss, so remove the spaces and dots as needed!)
With that out of the way, enjoy the chapter!
"Have a good day at school!" Yelling back a garbled-out goodbye through whatever he had shoved in his mouth, Danny quickly made his way down the front steps of Fenton Works before running towards the school. As much as he would love to fly there, it was way too cold to even bother with this early in the morning.
God, winter break was both too short and too long, sometimes. It seemed like both minutes and lifetimes ago that Danny's winter break was starting, and he had been trying to ignore the holidays with everything in him. Maybe he was under some Christmas curse and learning Ghostwriter's lesson had finally broken it or something. Ugh. He'd have to wait an entire year to find out.
It felt like way too long since he had been back to school, though, and a small part of him was honestly looking forward to just hanging out with his friends and being a normal teenager – well, as normal as a teenager could get considering the ghost powers and everything.
Idly thinking on maybe going back to visit Ghostwriter when he needed help on his homework, Danny didn't slow down his quick pace until he was getting close to the school steps, catching his breath as he felt every inch of happiness leave his body as he stared up at the now familiar building. He was definitely back at high school, at least.
"Incoming!" That loud cry was all the warning Danny was given before he suddenly had a best friend wrapped around his shoulders. Danny was eternally grateful for his ghost strength, because otherwise he and Tucker would both be collapsed in a pile of snow. "Danny! Buddy, pal, friend, chum, sport-"
"Who did you piss off and who are you hiding from?" Danny probably shouldn't encourage Tucker's crazy behavior, but it was hard to hold in laughter when Tucker was shifting and moving around him like a demented squirrel.
"Me? Piss someone off? Danny, please, come on. I'm the most likeable person in this entire school. I really don't appreciate-"
"Foley!" Biting his cheek to stave off his laughter this time, Danny felt Tucker slap him on the back before he was given a crazy grin.
"And that's our cue to get to homeroom!" With that, Tucker was pulling him along, Danny easily letting him as he kept an eye out for the color black. Somehow, even with him keeping an eye out, Sam still managed to sneak up on him enough to almost give him a heart attack.
"Jesus, Sammy, are you trying to make me use my ghost powers?" Danny accepted the hug anyways, getting a face full of a furry hood that was attached to a coat and had a sheen to it that made it look like it was forever stuck between being black and being purple. It was probably some fake fur made of human skin or something like that, too. "At least Tucker gives warning."
"And I give you impromptu training. You're welcome." Damn. He really had missed these two. Like, yeah, okay, he hadn't been that long since he had seen them, but still. "So, I believe you were catching us up on some ghostly poem drama last night before we ended the call?"
"Oh, yeah, right. There's not much to it." Danny used the rest of the walk to class to quickly explain the basics of what had happened over Christmas with the whole poem incident. When they dropped into their seats in homeroom, he was completely unsurprised to see that Tucker was holding back laughter and Sam was looking offended.
"A ghost messed with my memories? I mean, I'm glad the town didn't really remember that mess and they don't hate you again or anything, but is that why I can barely remember what I did over the holidays? Oh, that's so-"
"Hey, hey, Ghostwriter isn't all that bad." At the look he was given, Danny gave a weak little shrug and half of a smile. "What can I say, I made a new friend. Doing the whole apology thing and spending time at that library probably made it the funnest winter break I've ever had."
"Dude. Now I'm offended." Tucker, very dramatically, held a hand to his chest. "You don't count our winter breaks as fun?"
"Last winter break you almost had us thrown in juvie." That had been an interesting one to explain if nothing else. It made kind of a funny story. At least, to them, it did, but not so much for their parents when they had picked them up at the local courthouse jail or whatever it had been. "You have your own category of fun."
"I still can't believe there's a ghost out there that can control us all like that." Leave it to Sam to stick to the heart of the matter. "Are we sure he isn't going to do that again? I mean, we can barely even remember what he did."
"You'll probably be fine as long as you don't piss him off," Danny shrugged. "I don't know about you, but I'm pretty good with never again angering the guy who can control reality, although Clockwork did mention there were limits to his powers."
"It's because he'd be overpowered, otherwise, and the universe knows that isn't fair," Tucker said solemnly. Danny was a little disappointed that Sam beat him to it when it came to kicking Tucker's chair. "Hey! No kicking in class!"
"You don't have any proof." Sam crossed her arms and smirked at Danny. "Let's get back to the true heart of this matter where you befriended a guy version of Jazz."
"I did not!" Thinking on his week with Ghostwriter, though, and what he had learned about the guy, Danny supposed that maybe he kind of sort of maybe kind of had. "Shit. I totally did, didn't I? Well, you know what, he might be a kind of friend, but he's still annoying!"
"Hey, at least you have another ghost that isn't out to hunt you down or kill you or anything." Tucker finally got his chair perfectly straight before Sam nudged it just a bit to the left. "Dammit, Sam!"
"It is nice to have another friendly ghost on our side. Like, yeah, okay, he's a little weird, but… He can actually be pretty fun." Danny hadn't thought discussing books could even be fun until he and Ghostwriter had almost destroyed a couch arguing about one of the books.
"Fun, huh?" Sam raised a single eyebrow which, really, how the hell did she even manage that? Danny bet she practiced it in the mirror. "I can tell since you spent an entire week with him."
"Whoa, hey, no, I spent five days with him." That didn't really sound all that much better, but Danny was on thin ice to begin with.
"That's a school week," Tucker piped up. "It counts and there's no way I believe that you were just 'organizing books' for an entire week at that place. Spill it. What else did you do over break?"
"Settle down, students." At Lancer's voice, Danny let out an explosive sigh and slumped in his seat. Thank God.
"I never thought I would say this, but thank God, class is starting." Both his friends choked on a laugh, Danny smiling himself. It was nice for things to be normal, again. "Hey, wanna hit the mall after school?"
"Oh, hell yeah! I hear Techtopia has a sale going on." Oh, Tucker. He would never change. "I'm sure there's probably a deal going on at the Hot Topic there, too."
"Please," Sam snorted, looking toward the board at the front of the class before glancing back. "There might be a new year sale going on, actually."
"Mall it is." A little time to be just a normal teenager was just what the three of them needed. Besides, after ghost hunting, the mall was harmless as could be.
::
"Right. Note to self. The mall is never harmless." Danny dragged himself out of the pile of store merchandise he had crashed into it and waved at the scared cashier at the counter. "Sorry about that. Send a bill to the mayor, I guess? Sorry!"
"None can stop the all-powerful Technus 2.0!" Oh, God, Technus was worse than ever before. Danny seriously might lose his mind if he had to keep this up for too long.
"Yeah, yeah, all hail the megadork. I seriously can't believe your upgraded form is just you with a mullet. Where are you from, the eighties?" Dodging the electronic wires that came after him, Danny grinned at Technus and tried to make himself as annoying as possible. At least he was used to being used as a target, unlike everyone else here. "Ooh, did I hit a sore spot?"
"You will be the first to be crushed under my might, ghost child!" Eugh. That was probably the most annoying moniker he had yet. Well, he guessed his break really was over now. It had been nice while it lasted.
"Yeah, yeah, master of technology. Hey, you know what? It'd be more impressive if you actually ever managed to win!" Quickly dodging a blast of energy, Danny gulped as he felt the searing heat just barely brush his arm. God, he really needed to work on never getting hit by those because they hurt-
"Ah!" At the cry of pain, Danny quickly snapped his head around, eyes wide at seeing Valerie on the floor and sitting up with a hiss of pain.
"Oh, I'm gonna break you in half!" Feeling energy pour into his hands, Danny unleashed half a dozen blasts all at once, viciously pleased when most of them managed to hit Technus on at least some part of his body. "Well? You're after a fight, aren't you!"
So, alright, maybe Danny had the tendency to jump the gun and get too angry and protective and all that, but he was trying to keep the ghostly stuff away from his friends! They shouldn't have to worry about stuff like this when he was supposed to be here taking care of it!
"C'mon, Technus! You wanted a fight, didn't you?!" Readying more energy, Danny narrowed his eyes when he saw Technus looked intrigued. That was never a good look. He would know, too, after growing up with scientists his entire life.
"Interesting." Technus' gaze flickered to Valerie and Danny was attacking again at once. The last thing he wanted was for ghosts to put together that Valerie was the Red Huntress. They were less forgiving on ghost hunters than they were on him. "Oh, don't worry, ghost child, I haven't forgotten about you."
"Dude, could you sound any more like a super villain?" Dodging the wires that snapped for his ankles, Danny grunted as he was hit with a blast strong enough to send him crashing into a huge stack of boxes and god that fucking hurt. Pushing himself up and catching his breath, Danny frowned when he saw he had changed back. "Ugh, why do you never work when I need you to?" Stupid powers.
"Danny?" Freezing at the voice, Danny blinked up at seeing Valerie looking down at him with raised eyebrows and, yeah, right. Phantom crashed and Fenton appeared. Right.
"Ah, hi, Val. So, uh, hey, those ghosts gone yet? I was trying to find Sam and Tucker and suddenly boxes were falling on top of me."
"Yeah, they're both gone." Valerie gave a laugh and held her hand out, Danny smiling as he let himself be pulled to his feet. If nothing else, Valerie had a nice laugh. "You okay?"
"Just another day in Amity Park, I guess." Danny gave Valerie a quick once over, relaxing when he saw that she was just fine. Technus' blast didn't seem to do any real harm to her, which, good. "You good? I saw you go down from that one ghost's attack or whatever it was."
"Knocked off my feet, I guess, but I'm good." Valerie's smile seemed to soften before she suddenly stepped back and dropped Danny's hand and oh, yeah, that- Huh. He had forgotten they were even holding hands in the first place. "So, uh, you were looking for your friends?"
"Yeah- Yeah. I was. Sam and Tuck. My friends." Danny really wished he could clone himself some days, just so he could slap himself. He just was never sure how to act around Valerie some days. She was kind and sweet and friendly and had a pretty sharp wit and she was also a ghost hunter who absolutely hated his guts with everything in her.
"Right." Valerie looked away and Danny was about to move before he heard her clear her throat with a rough cough. "So, um… You're good at Chemistry and everything, right?"
"What?" At the dry and sour look he was given, Danny gave a slow nod. "I mean, yeah? I usually get by with a low A or sometimes a high B. Why?"
"I was wondering if maybe we could meet up in the library some time and you could run me through a few things? Petricoff is making it way harder than it needs to be."
"Ugh, I know, tell me about it." Danny loved science, don't get him wrong, but that demon that taught the science classes as Casper was pure evil. She probably really was a demon. Danny wouldn't have been surprised. "But, uh, yeah, sure, I can help."
"Great. Exchange numbers?" Valerie was already holding her phone out with a new contact pulled up, Danny fumbling to do the same with his own before they swapped. "Thanks. I know I haven't been the nicest friend lately."
"We all have our rough spots. I mean, it is high school." Was he alive? Did Technus' last hit kill him? Because he was exchanging numbers with one of the more popular girls in school and she was honestly smiling at him.
"Tell me about it," Valerie laughed, taking her phone back and tossing Danny's to him. It was a close save to keep it from dropping, Danny slumping in relief as Valerie laughed. "Hopefully having scientist parents pays off."
"Yeah." Okay, so, yeah, maybe Valerie was the Red Huntress and all that, but she was still pretty amazing, and she actually seemed to like Danny. That alone was an impossible miracle considering the only people who had ever really liked him in his entire school career was Tucker and Sam.
"So, hey, do you need to meet up with your friends right this second, or do you maybe wanna grab a bite to eat real quick? I was about to grab something before the whole dick measuring fight took place."
Choking on a laugh, Danny silently nodded as he followed Valerie back towards the food court. Sam and Tucker would be okay for a while yet, and, well, maybe it was time to move on from his puppy crush on Paulina. Valerie's dad had taken her suit away after that whole Pariah mess, after all, so Danny would be perfectly safe dating a ghost hunter.
Heh. Dating. It was the time for New Year's Resolutions and all that Jazz stuff. Maybe he could make a resolution to try a little bit harder to be a normal teenager. Sure, he should probably be worrying about Technus getting away, but he could let his parents handle it or something. They were the professional ghost hunters, after all.
"You know what, Val? Grabbing a bite to eat sounds great right now." Food did sound pretty great but being just an average Amity Park teenager sounded even better.
"You're pretty chipper all of a sudden. Should I worry about you being possessed by a ghost or anything?"
"Nope. Just possessed with some good company." Grinning at Valerie's startled laugh, Danny felt something in him relax.
A little time as a normal teenager was just what this new year could use.