Chapter XCV
Mr. Lancer had been a teacher at Casper High for twenty years. His experience had taught him many tricks of the trade that allowed him to develop close bonds with his students. One of those tricks was keeping a straight face and neutral expression while passing back tests. It was also quite useful in poker.
But the paraplegic English teacher almost lost his focus and frowned upon handing Daniel Fenton's paper back. Almost. With resolve unmatched by any other mere mortal, Lancer kept his face blank and his eyes forward as he wheeled down the aisle and handed Danny his test. His heart went out to the boy when he heard the disappointed sigh from behind him. It was not uncalled for. A twenty five percent on a test that he needed to get at least an eighty five on was nothing to be cool about.
"From tomorrow until the end of the year," Lancer consulted his desktop calendar upon returning to the front of the room, "which is now a week or so away, we'll be watching movies. You can all bring something in, as long as it's not R rated. Mrs. Ishiyama would have a fit."
The bell rang, and the students left the room at their own paces. Danny Fenton and his two friends stayed behind.
"Mr. Lancer," Danny started, "a twenty five?"
"I'm afraid so," the teacher replied sympathetically. "Now I know you've been struggling and we've already talked about this, but did you do any of the studying I recommended?"
Danny furrowed his brow. The Lunch Lady had decided to take a stroll through Amity Park moments after he had sat down to study. But how could he explain that to his teacher? "I guess I'm just not learning it."
Lancer watched the trio. Sam rubbed his shoulder comfortingly and Tucker, while typing away on his PDA, offered his condolences as well. It appeared he was looking for something online that could help his friend.
"Whatever the case may be, I've been instructed to notify your parents-"
"My parents?!" Danny cried.
"His parents?!" Sam and Tucker echoed.
"Yes, your parents. And no, they aren't going to 'kill' you. They sounded quite angry at first, but I was able to talk them down. Your sister helped too."
"Oh man," Danny sighed.
"Mr. Lancer? Is Danny really going to be held back?" Sam asked, fearing that she already knew the answer.
"No."
"No?" all three of the students asked simultaneously.
"No," Lancer confirmed. "I'll explain at Danny's house." Seeing the boy's confused expression, the educator grinned. "I was invited over for dinner."
"No?" Maddie and Jack Fenton looked from Mr. Lancer to each other and back again.
"No, Danny is not going to be held back." Lancer wiped the edges of his mouth with his napkin and ignored the feeling of paramnesia. "I will administer a make up exam, one I am sure Daniel won't fail."
"You bet he won't fail," Jack cast his son a sideways glance. "I'll sit on him if that's what it takes to get him to pass the makeup test."
Lancer chuckled. From Danny's expression, he guessed that the large man's statement wasn't entirely false. "I had something else in mind. I'd like for Danny to stay after school for two hours every day for the rest of the week. I will be able to tutor him and help prepare him for the test at the end of the week."
"Two hours?" Danny repeated with wide eyes.
"Every day?" Tucker chimed in.
"For the rest of the week?" Sam finished.
Jazz looked at the trio from her seat on the opposite side of the table. "If you think its boring this year, Danny, imagine going through it a second time."
"Danny is not going to get held back," Maddie said sternly, looking from Jazz to her son. "Get this straight, young man, you're a Fenton. Fenton's don't get held back. We get A's. Or, in your father's case, B minuses."
"Solid B minuses," Jack interjected, pointing his fork at the boy.
"You have nothing to worry about," Lancer said calmly. "Danny will pass, I know he's capable. With the extra studying, he'll pass the makeup exam with flying colors."
Danny slouched down in his seat, feeling everyone's eyes focus on him. He felt that his powers weren't the curse he had, it was his secret identity. If everyone knew he was Phantom, no one would have been alarmed if he suddenly disappeared. But it was Danny Fenton sitting at the kitchen table, unable to turn invisible or phase through the floor, because Phantom wasn't there.
The human Lancer is correct. You are capable; you just have to apply yourself!
You know, this whole situation could have easily been avoided if you had just aided him in memorizing the book.
You mean if I memorized the book and told him the answers while he was taking the test?
No! Wait . . . yes.
Daniel, we will eventually part ways. If you are dependant on us when that time comes, then you will be unable to function. The mental recovery process will likely deplete the energy needed to use your ghost powers until you are fully human again.
You mean I'm going to lose my powers after you leave?
Not unless you are able to operate without our interference. We enjoy helping you help yourself, but we cannot do it forever. If you are completely dependent on us when we leave, your mind will erase itself from the strain of trying to adapt. Your body, while alive, will be useless. You will be dead.
Danny froze as he brought a forkful of salad to his slightly agape mouth. The voices were right. He needed to study, to learn. By passing the test, he could prove to himself that he was not entirely dependent on the voices. He needed to learn how to save his life.
Technus finally gave up on dominating the world of DOOMED II: Back for Gore after he defeated the best players the game had to offer. An alliance that spanned several continents and consisted of the elite players from around the world gathered together to defeat him. They failed.
Once he realized he could not be defeated, the game quickly grew boring. The ghost traveled through servers, entering individual PCs and laptops and jumping from one to the next until he finally entered the Casper High mainframe. For an educational facility, the electronic systems were quite advanced. Then he remembered that Plasmius owned the building, and the security systems had been installed earlier in the evening.
The master of technology wove himself into the very soul of the machine, becoming its operating system. He rerouted all functions of the building to himself in a smooth, efficient manner. Plasmius would be none the wiser of his presence. After making himself comfortable, Technus ran through the security system's features. DalvTech, as it was called, was the latest and greatest on the market. While the name made little sense to the ghost, the advertisement slogan did. The building was practically alive with machinery. Every window, every door, every vent and desk and tile was somehow connected to the system; connected to Technus. The ghost would have smiled had he a tangible mouth. Walker wanted a trap? He would most surely have one.
The red eye that had watched Technus for so long finally stopped hunting him. The place it now resided, it was so familiar. The infrastructure of the building, the halls, the rooms, the lockers, they were almost like an old memory trying to resurface. But the organism was unable to recall those memories. Angrily, it continued onward.
Technus was not the only ghost capable of maneuvering through digital space. As he would eventually find out, he was not the best at it either. Unaware of the other presence in the system, Technus went about his business laying the trap for his prey. The red eye watched in fascination as the ghost spun his webs of treachery. Curious, it tapped into Technus' mind to see just what sort of quarry required such elaborate measures to capture.
That's when the organism's primitive mind flooded with images. A boy with dark skin and a red hat. A girl with a pale complexion and a Gothic disposition. A teacher in a chair with wheels. A slender woman with goggles and a large orange man with a winning smile. A tall boy with blonde hair. A girl with olive skin and long, wavy hair. Then the images took a darker turn. A ghost woman surrounded by meat. Another ghost woman with flaming blue hair and fangs. A ghost dragon with an appetite for souls. A knight powered by hatred. A genie with murderous intentions. A girl who turned into shadows. Another shadow, but one that fueled the evil inside others. A boy with a gun and the cries of a motherless daughter. Finally, two glowing red eyes looked right into the organism's essence and a woman laughed.
With a yelp, the organism pulled back from Technus' mind. It knew who it was, or rather, who it was supposed to be. Enraged, the ghost began to weave its own webs within the webs of Technus. Plasmius created it to be her own Phantom. It failed, it was to be terminated. Plasmius brought him into this painful existence of endless hunger. If she wanted Phantom, he would give her Phantom. More Phantom than she could handle.
The sound of the bell normally would have brought relief to Danny. Instead, it meant two extra hours in the school building. Yesterday had been the first day of his extra studying time. He noted with disappointment that the voices had receded to his subconscious forcing him to study alone. Surprisingly enough, he found that he was able to learn without them.
"You never stopped being smart," Mr. Lancer had said with a grin when Danny had brought it up. "You just put it on hold."
And now, three semesters later, Danny was finally taking his brain off hold. Death of a Salesman, however, wouldn't have been his first choice of a book to read to get his mind back in gear. At the end of his first day he realized that the book was rather depressing. This had elicited another grin from Mr. Lancer when Danny had talked about it.
"Yes, it is rather unsettling," he had said while rubbing his shadow of a beard. "But it is likely to be brought up in your English classes in college. Most of them have it on their required reading lists."
"Why this one in particular?" he had asked. "I mean, out of the millions of other books they have to choose from . . ."
"I honestly don't know. I never really liked it myself," the teacher confessed. "My grandfather died in an automobile accident just before I started high school, so this book always hit a little too close to home."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
Lancer had grinned at his student's sympathy. "You know what was in his car when the accident happened?"
Danny waited for the answer, but saw that the teacher's gaze was directed at the book he was holding. "This?"
"His copy of Death of a Salesman," he had confirmed. "It was on the floor in the back seat under a pile of junk. He obviously wasn't reading it, but still, I think it might have been a bit too coincidental to be a coincident. Life's just funny that way, I guess."
Life isn't going to be too funny for you if you keep reminiscing about the woes of yesterday, Daniel.
STUDY!
Sufficiently jostled from his reverie, Danny looked back at the questions he was answering. It was a copy of the test he had failed, but he knew he was doing better this time around. After finishing the essay on the back of the test, he stood up and confidently walked all of the three steps to Lancer's desk.
"Finished?" he asked.
"I hope so," Danny replied.
And so Danny stood next to his teacher as the man skimmed through the test, red pen in hand. To Danny's relief, Lancer only used it sparingly to mark just a few answers wrong. The grading process took much longer that he thought it should have, as he was eager to see how he did. Finally, Lancer realigned the pages so the front was facing up on his desk. The red pen came down, curved and crawled across the top corner of the page, and lifted off again. In its wake were two red numbers. They looked like twin vertical infinity signs, which felt like how long it took to go through the grading process. But Danny knew they were not vertical infinity signs. They were eights.
"Eighty eight percent? Eighty eight percent! I got a B!"
"Three percentage points higher than you need to pass," Lancer added with a smile. "You did it."
"I did! I knew I could do it!"
You did know you could do it.
I knew you could do it before he did.
Silence! You always knew you could, you just never put in the effort needed to actually do.
That's ancient history now. He did it! We're not going to be a freshman again!
"Thanks Mr. Lancer!"
"Don't thank me quite yet," the teacher said, holding up a hand. "Right now you have two options. You can take this eighty eight percent as your new grade. It will bring your overall grade up substantially. The second option; you can take this as practice. Tomorrow, you will have the two hours to study and as long as you need to take the actual makeup test. If you do better on the one tomorrow, you can keep that grade. If not, you can keep this one."
Danny thought about consulting his others, but stopped. This was the kind of thing they were talking about. He needed to be able to decide for himself; to make important decisions like these alone.
"I'll go with the second one," Danny answered.
"Wonderful," Lancer handed the mock-exam back to the boy. "Same time tomorrow, then?"
"You bet," Danny gathered his things and left the room in a hurry, hoping to catch his friends before he headed home.
Lancer looked out the window as he gathered his own belongings and chuckled as he saw Danny jump for joy outside. Sam and Tucker were following behind him, looking over his test. It was hard to tell from as far back as he was, but Lancer thought he could see smiles on the other two student's faces.
"The joys of teaching," Lancer said to himself as he wheeled out of the room.
"This is great, dude!" Tucker cheered upon being handed Danny's practice test. "You're gonna do it! No matter what happens now, you're gonna pass!"
"I'm impressed," Sam said after being handed the paper. "It only took you four hours to do what you've been trying to do for weeks." Danny scowled at the girl. "I'm not making fun of you or anything," she quickly added. "It's just that you really turned it around quickly."
"Well I used to get A's all the time," Danny reminded the others as he waked with them to the Nasty Burger. "But you know I've been preoccupied with ghosts and stuff. I haven't really had time to study."
"We'll think of something over the summer," Tucker said as he slipped his PDA back into his pocket. "But now, we celebrate."
"I'm paying," Sam said as the three came in sight of the burger joint.
"Fine by me," Danny replied. "This is the twenty first century, after all."
A shriek, followed by several explosions wiped the cheerful expressions from the trio's faces. A green ghost monster flew up from behind the Nasty Burger, screaming as it fled from the Huntress.
"I better go lend a hand," Danny sighed as he scoured the area for a good place to transform.
"Why? She's got this covered," Sam argued. "Besides, I thought you two hated each other."
"After the whole bounty hunter thing I think we really connected. You know, vigilante-to-vigilante bonding stuff," Danny explained. "I've run into her a few times since then and we just go our separate ways. No fights, no death threats, nothing."
"So she doesn't hate you for killing her mom?" Tucker asked. After receiving matching angry stares from his two friends he quickly corrected himself, "I mean, she doesn't think you killed her mom anymore?"
"I guess not. It feels nice, knowing I'm not in danger of being dissected every time I go ghost," Danny's eyes rested on an alley way nearby. Perfect. "Speaking of which . . ."
The boy left his sentence unfinished as he darted off. Sam and Tucker watched as a flash of bright green light shone from the darkness, indicating the transformation from Danny to Phantom was complete. The two looked to the skies as their friend blasted off after Valerie in her ghost hunting gear, leaving them behind.
"Beautiful day for a ghost hunt, isn't it?" Phantom asked as he flew up alongside the Huntress. "It's a little cloudy, but I can deal."
The Huntress grinned. "Nice to see you too, ghost. Ever catch this one around before?" she asked as she fired several shots off at a ghost that looked like a crayfish with bat wings and two squid tentacles in the place of its tail. And it was ten feet long.
"Can't say I've had the pleasure," Phantom reached for his Fenton Thermos and aimed it at the ghost. The silver lance of light missed as the ghost swerved off course, headed for the forest. Phantom knew that the woods in and around Amity Park grew denser the further away one traveled from the city. "But we better nab this one quick before he gets away."
The two followed the ghost, trying to land hits along its armored carapace. The few shots that made contact either bounced off or simply dissipated. The only noticeable effect was the creature's temper worsening. And the forest was growing larger and larger in the distance.
"Hang on, I'm gonna try something," Phantom told the Huntress as he slowed down a notch. He focused his energy into replicating himself and felt his sides become numb.
"Well done, Daniel," the Teutonic accented Tempest congratulated as he appeared. "You did not even require our assistance to split yourself."
"Less talking, more fighting!" Folium sped off after the ghost.
"Always 'to action!' with that one," Tempest rubbed his forehead. "It's maddening."
The two hurried to catch up with the Huntress and Folium, who they saw was engaged in a conversation with the girl.
"So you like fighting ghosts?"
"Yeah," the Huntress looked over at her companion. "Weren't you a bit scrawnier just a few seconds ago?"
"Yes, and I still am," Phantom said, coming up alongside his duplicate.
"There are two of you?" the Huntress asked in shock.
"Three, actually," Tempest corrected, flying into view. "Duplication is one of Daniel's many powers."
"Wait, who? Daniel? Who's Daniel?"
"Uh, that would be me," Phantom replied. "I prefer Danny, though. But just Phantom is fine too."
"How come nobody's ever heard the Danny part before?"
"W-well, I, uh, you, the people, never asked." Phantom cleared his throat. "Oh look, there's the ghost thing. Let's get it!"
Folium was already a step ahead of his original copy. The ghost mutant found itself caught in the snares of several vines that had sprung up from the ground. Phantom saw that Folium's fingers were dug into the ground, having elongated and spouted thorns.
Tempest wasted no time in striking from above, hurling electroplasmic bolts down from the heavens. The energy ripped through the ghost, pummeling it against the earth. Phantom, while intrigues by these powers, only hesitated for a moment before charging his fists with ectoplasm. The energy tore from his hands as he thrust his arms forward and blasted the ghost animal from Folium's vines. The creature smacked into a tree, cracking its shell, and slumped to the forest floor.
In a last act of desperation the two tentacles at the end of the animal shot forward, spraying acidic ink at its offenders. The Huntress, not wanting to be upstaged, tilted her board in front of Phantom and deflected the ooze into the ground. A blast from her board-mounted ecto-cannons finished off the creature. Phantom gathered the remains in his thermos and his duplicates returned to his body, fusing back together.
"That's a neat little trick, Danny," Valerie said as the last traces of the other two Phantoms disappeared.
"Hmm? Oh, yeah, that. Look, about my name-"
"You have some explaining to do?" Valerie finished.
Phantom thought hard about his parent's lectures and talks about ghost behavior. Picking the frequent topic of 'obsession', Phantom concocted an explanation he hoped would placate the Huntress.
"Well, you see, we ghosts are connected to this world by something we knew during our lives. It's kind of like an obsession. But I wasn't, like, killed or anything or died early. I'm just a kid . . . ghost. From the Ghost Zone. And since the first time I came to Earth was from the Fenton's Ghost Portal, and the first person I saw was Danny Fenton, I dunno, I guess I became obsessed with keeping him and his family and friends safe. But then I saw just how much harm my own kind was doing to this town, and I guess I just felt like I needed to do something. And since I owe it all to Danny, I guess I felt like he was part of the reason I'm here. So I took his name to, you know, honor him."
Phantom would have been sweating if his sweat glands worked in his ghostly form. Most of his bodily functions didn't work or were severely slowed in his ghostly form. He felt nervous, but his heart only beat as fast as a normal heart when he was nervous as Phantom.
"That's really . . . something," the Huntress said after a long pause. "I never knew that's how you guys worked."
Phantom pouted. "I'm not a robot, Miss. I'm a man."
"A boy," she corrected.
"Only if you're willing to acknowledge that you're a girl," Phantom countered.
"This," she said, gesturing to herself, "is one hundred percent woman."
"Percent!" Phantom's face drooped. "I completely forgot!"
"Forgot what?"
"Wha- oh, well, I gotta go do . . . ghostly things. For a certain percent of the day. In the Ghost Zone." Phantom grew even more nervous under the suspicious gaze the Huntress was giving him. "It's a ghost thing."
"Alright," the Huntress said slowly. "Well you go do that. But hey!" Phantom stopped mid flight and looked back at the girl. "Next time we team up; don't invite Tweedledee and Tweedledum to tag along. I'm starting to like us time."
Phantom grinned and flew off. "Hear that, fellas?" Phantom said as he traveled invisibly through the streets. "She likes us time."
Congratulations, Daniel. Valerie and the Huntress both like you.
Humph! She thinks Daniel is a puny little child! Phantom is the one she has fallen for.
"Speaking of Daniel and Phantom, any reason you decided to go and almost blow my cover?"
I did not do so intentionally.
He's so used to calling you 'Daniel' he's forgotten that it ISN'T YOUR NAME IN GHOST MODE!
It is his name in BOTH MODES, YOU SPITEFUL FUNGUS!
Ooh, name calling! I'm trembling! What are you gonna do, rain on me? You're nothing but a pretentious son of a –
"Guys," Phantom warned. "Cut it out."
My apologies. The stupid one is being obnoxious.
The obnoxious one is being stupid.
"God, I feel like a dad with two undisciplined, insubordinate babies. Can you behave yourselves, please?"
I will try.
All things considered, you managed to cover for Einstein Junior's idiocy quite well.
"You think so?"
Yes, you did. And we did not even have to assist you.
Of course if we had, you wouldn't have stumbled over your words like a fool.
"Thanks," Phantom growled as the Nasty Burger came into view.
He means nothing by it, but you could afford to vocalize your thoughts in a more organized and comprehensible manner.
He means 'learn to talk good'.
Learn to talk well, you dolt! You both could benefit from language improvement!
How is DOOMED?
"I don't know," Phantom grumbled, although he was happy that the subject was changed. "I haven't played it in forever."
Three days does not constitute as forever.
Silence, you fool!
"Ok, talk time is over," Phantom touched down in the empty floor of the Nasty Burger's bathroom and changed back to his human form.
Just know that we are here if you ever do need us.
Although we won't be here forever.
And you did an excellent job today without our interference.
We're proud of you.
Danny Fenton grinned. But the expression was smacked right off his face when he saw what was going on in the Nasty Burger.
To Be Continued
A/N: I noticed I hadn't exceeded the 10 page mark in quite a while. So I did. And I noticed I hadn't ended a chapter with a good cliffhanger for a while. So I did. I hope this pleased you. In a platonic way, of course.
Reality Wars is drawing ever closer. Since nobody has tried to beat out Optimus Prime from the 2007 film with another version of the Autobot leader, I figured he would ultimately (no pun intended) win anyway. If you want to try to vote him out of the top spot (by voting for Animated Prime, of course) you still can. The poll will stay up until the end of SEASON 1.
Want to see the lineup for the ultimate (no puns) crossover? Then head on over to my DeviantArt page by clicking the homepage link on my bio or by searching Grumbletron on DeviantArt.
Thanks to all my readers and reviewers, especially Vorago Atrox, darkbunny92, Thunderstorm101, MissMeliss4251, darkness over day, and inukagome15.
THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE – Written on money next to the presidents' faces. Can you tell that I'm running out of things to put here?!