He decided to go to school today. He didn't even know why. He just did. There was no logical reasoning as to why he went considering all that was going through his head at this moment. Even more considering the fact that he didn't sleep much. He tried falling asleep without the pills. Did not go well.
He sat at his desk, his hand on his mouth and his eyebrows furrowed in thought. His eyes were focused on Lancer's lecture, but only one ear was listening. The other was waiting for something that wasn't natural to happen. Something. Anything. He was waiting.
"Hope it's Skulker," he thought as the fist that was lying on his desk tightened.
"The two families in the play were what Mr. Fenton?" the teacher asked, making several students snicker. He had no idea what the subject was until he looked down at the Romeo and Juliet book that they had apparently been reading. He definitely didn't know the answer to this.
"I wouldn't know. I didn't read the book," Danny said moodily. The snickering grew in volume, but Lancer shushed them all. He stared at Danny and even though his head was slightly tilted downward, he could see the bags and dark circles under his eyes. Exhausted blue eyes, yet awake at the same time.
"Well, do make sure to come prepared next time," Lancer said simply. He didn't know how much longer he could give the teenager a free pass. He lost his friends and it seemed any care for anything else around him somehow diminished even more. Maybe a counselor would do him so good. At least until the deaths of these students were announced.
Some of the students looked at Lancer weirdly. Normally Lancer wouldn't miss an excuse to reprimand someone or give them detention. Then they looked over at Fenton. He looked dead tired. No different than usual. Them being tired never got them out of trouble.
When the bell rung, Danny was the first one out of his seat. But Lancer stopped him.
"Mr. Fenton... a word," Lancer said. Danny stopped in his tracks before grudgingly turning around to go towards the teacher. Several students smirked at the teen and he repressed an urge to fire an ecto blast at them. But he just focused on Lancer.
"Yeah?" Danny asked, expecting the man to rip into him for not paying attention.
"Are you ok?" Lancer asked him. That was not a question he expected. His eyes widened a tiny bit in surprise of the question, but it quickly disappeared.
"Yeah. I'm fine," Danny said.
"Mr. Fenton... I heard about what happened with your friends," Lancer said gently, causing Danny to stiffen. It was a reaction he expected and the flash of pain that appeared on the teenager's face made his look soften even more.
"Stupid ghosts," Danny said, the pained look disappearing on the spot. But the mental open wound still prodded him. "It's funny, huh? How the few friends I have in this world wind up dead?"
Lancer was silent. People that were close to him didn't die. They died of age, not through being murdered by supernatural beings.
"I'm sorry to tell you, but I can't pay much attention in your class when my mind keeps going back to that day. It happening is one thing. Being there to witness it is even worse," Danny said, fixing his teacher with a stare that shouldn't be on someone of his age. It even made Lancer uncomfortable.
"There will be a more formal announcement as to the fate of Mr. Foley and Ms. Manson. If you wish, you may give a testament as to what happened," Lancer told him.
"Don't hold your breath on that. But I do thank you for telling me," Danny said, nodding at his teacher respectively before pulling his bag more on his back and walking out of the classroom.
So there was going to be an announcement. Great. Just fate's way of pouring more salt into his wound, huh? That his friends were dead and were more than likely not coming back as ghosts because they didn't have obsessions. He didn't like the idea of having to put his friends back in the Ghost Zone anyway. But at the same time, the feeling of loneliness set in.
As if he visibly deflated, his shoulders slumped as leaned against the wall. The unmistakable cry for his name from Sam rang through his head as well as the sights of their bodies after the missiles hit. It's something he wouldn't care to remember, but it was stuck in his mind. And no matter how tight he gripped his head, the images didn't go away.
"Get a grip Fenton," he said as he opened his eyes. He ignored the strange looks that people shot at him before walking to his next class. But that didn't last long before blue mist escaped his mouth.
"Oh great," Danny thought before diverting himself into a bathroom stall. He placed his bag on the ground before transforming and phasing through the wall. Looking outside, he spotted Johnny 13 and his girlfriend. Without bothering with a quip in their direction, he opted for blasting them both in the back hard enough to send them flying into trees.
"Ouch," Kitty said, slowly turning over on her side as she rose to up to a stable floating position.
"You alright Kitten?" Johnny asked with concern before turning to Danny with an angry expression. "You're going to pay for that one."
Danny didn't comment, instead deciding on firing an ecto blast in his direction. Johnny managed to move out of the way of the blast before his familiar shadow came to his aid.
"Shadow! Attack!" Johnny said, sending his shadow in Danny's direction. But Danny, already prepared for this, blew out of a steady slew of ice breath at the shadow. It froze in place, staying up in the air by the steady momentum of his ice breath. Grabbing the frozen shadow, he hurled it at Kitty and it knocked her out of the air.
"Hey! What's with you?" she asked, her tone angry. Danny's eyes flared with anger before he faced Johnny, who decided on lunging towards him since his shadow was the main thing about him that was threatening. He went for a punch, but Danny ducked it, and suddenly with the grace of his skilled mother, punched the ghost in the throat before socking him across the face and kicking him to the ground. He plummeted like a rock.
Danny suddenly turned and his hand found its way to Kitty's mouth. He imbued his hands with ice energy and froze her mouth shut. He turned his head in curiosity, unsure whether he should hurt her or not. After all, she didn't exactly hurt him.
"Yet," he thought as an afterthought. He was brought of his pondered by her muffled, yet very heated yelling. His mind was made up, so he headbutted her in the face before sucking her in the thermos.
"Ki-" That was as far as he got before Danny blasted him into another tree. "Great. How about you just suck me in the thermos and get it over with?"
"Should I?" Danny questioned, making the ghost biker look up at him.
"Wait, you aren't-" The slightest hope that Phantom would let him go died upon said halfa hitting him with a blast that made his chest feel like his ribs got broken. Then he felt a hand on his throat as he looked up to see Phantom looking him in the eyes. He noted that one of his eyes looked slightly red. That did not look good for him.
"Should I send you back to the ghost zone? Or should I just throw you around a little bit more? I'm going to be late for class anyway and I don't mind taking out some aggression," Danny growled. A fist in his stomach took all of the hypothetical air out of Johnny and he would've fell to a knee if Phantom wasn't still holding him by the neck.
"I didn't make you angry," Johnny told him.
"That's why they call it misplaced aggression," Danny said before Johnny felt his face being jerked downward and directly into his knee. Ectoplasm flew from his nose before he felt a foot being barreled into his chest. He fell to a knee, but unfortunately, Phantom wasn't done. Ok, now Johnny could believe Phantom did the things Ember said he did. He was not happy. And obviously angry about something. And if they attacked, they were going to be his stress relievers.
"Stop ghosts!" a voice suddenly exclaimed. Danny halted from throwing another fist and turned his head idly. His parents were standing there, pointing guns at him. This had to have been a record for them getting here as fast as they did.
"Back off. Nothing around us has been getting hurt yet. If you don't mind, I have to teach this friend of mine a lesson," Danny said, the word friend absolutely dripping with sarcasm. But he knew his parents and he knew what their response would be. So he just opened for freezing them in place. His parents had the nerve to call themselves ghost hunters. Well, competent ghost hunters.
"Look, Phantom... how about you just..." Danny cut him off by punching him in the ribs.
"Hurt you? What an excellent idea Johnny. I didn't think you were capable of them," he said with a grin. Only, something about his grin creeped the full ghost out. He didn't know what it was. It looked the same, but it didn't feel the same.
"I was gonna say..." Johnny said, trying to recover from the pain that shot into his ribs. Man, Phantom punched hard. "...can you just shove me in that thermos of yours and let's be done with it."
"What do you think?" Danny asked, his fist crackling with green energy.
"I think... this is going to hurt a lot, isn't it?" Johnny asked.
"No, he's had enough," part of his mind said.
"Not nearly enough. Besides, taking the aggression out feels good. Just like with the Box Ghost," another part of his mind argued. He was having these wars with himself a lot lately.
"Save it for the person that deserves it." The lack of choice was over. He looked up at Johnny and decided to go ahead and suck him in the thermos, capping the lid shut firmly. Soon... soon Skulker would come back. He wouldn't be able to resist coming back to try and skin him for a pelt. And he would be waiting for him.
"What do you even plan to do? It's not as if it's going to take back what he did," he thought to himself.
That was a thought that drove him insane. What was he even doing this for anyway? Revenge? What kind of revenge can you do to a ghost? You can't kill them. They're already dead. Pointless. Utterly pointless. Then... an answer came.
"They can't die, but they can feel pain. They can feel the last bits of the life they have now crumble around them," he thought with vigor before immediately backpedaling. His thoughts were reaching something among the lines that Vlad would try to do. He didn't want to compare himself to the man.
"But it's true." As of now his mind wasn't acting like it was a part of himself waging war. No. This felt different. This felt like the ideas of a different person entirely. Yet... he couldn't help but listen. "You see, Ember cares more about her guitar than you. Skulker cares more about hunting than your friends. Walker cares too much about rules. They all have something they care about that keeps them here. If you take that away, well, I'd say you'd be even."
"Only Skulker. Only he deserves it," Danny told himself aloud, keeping his stance on the situation strong. "I'll deal with him, and... it'll be over."
"Getting back at him will be over, but what about the pain? The nightmares? The other ghost attacks. That won't fix it. If anything, it might make it worse. You need something, anything to give yourself an edge. These ghosts don't care about you and what they do to you. But you give them that courtesy. And why? They're ghosts. You're alive, even if only half. You have people worth caring about. And they'll try to take it from you."
Somewhere out there, someone made a quote about internal wars. Whatever they said about them, they were most likely right. It felt like he was thinking these things, but he didn't really believe them. They were not ever part of his thinking before. And it would stay that way. He refused to implement them. It would be on his mind, but he just wouldn't do them. I mean, he's roughed up a couple of the ghosts already, but that's no more so than usual. He didn't send them back to the Ghost Zone needing a gurney. On stressed days, he roughed them up a little bit more than usual, but he didn't go too far.
"They're ghosts. There's no such thing as going to far. They have the intent to hurt you and the people who are supposed to be among the living. There's a reason they keep doing it because you don't make them not want to come back."
Now he just had a headache. He didn't want to think about this anymore. Yes he was sad. Yes he was angry. But that doesn't mean he should have to change. Then again, it's also a perfect time to change for the better. For now, he'd just come up with some half brained excuse as to why he wasn't in class.
Fanged teeth formed into a grin as he sat in his spot with patience. All he had to do was wait...
"Ow! Ow! Ow!" Johnny exclaimed with a wince.
"Stop being a baby," Kitty said simply and very sourly too.
"You're in a bad mood," Johnny noted.
"Really? What gave it away?" Ember said sarcastically, causing Johnny to glare at her.
"Not my fault Phantom's hurting us more," Johnny said with another small wince as his ribs slowly began to heal.
"No, but it is Skulker's," Ember said, her gaze darkening.
"I still can't believe he did that to you," Kitty said.
"Phantom is by no means a white knight. He'll beat all of us just the same," Ember said.
"This is different. That qualifies as abuse," Kitty said.
"Abuse? Against a ghost? Besides you all, no one gives a rat's tail about me. Walker doesn't stick up for ghost's rights. Otherwise he'd be the one trying to correct the dipstick," Ember said.
"Yeah. At the rate he's going, he's going to send Walker back to his prison with his state of mind corrected," Johnny said.
"So what should we do? I do not want to have to patch Johnny up everyday as long as Phantom is pissed off," Kitty said.
"We could either stop attacking the town-"
"Like that's gonna happen," Johnny said with a roll of his eyes, making Ember glare at him hard enough to make him break eye contact.
"Or, I can wait until Phantom calls in his little request about Skulker's island, and then he'll be back to normal," Ember said easily. She put emphasis on request because she knew very well that she had no choice in the matter if she wanted to keep her guitar intact.
"Ember... it's not going to be that easy. This isn't something simple like them being kidnapped. Skulker killed his friends. You know that's bound to have a more permanent effect," Kitty said, actually somewhat frightened at the prospect of having a forever angry Phantom on their tails. There's also the chance he could even get worse.
"I guess, but still. He won't stay like this forever," Ember said.
"Ember, he used my body for some 'misplaced aggression.' I don't think this'll be over like you think it will," Johnny said.
"Personally, babypop did the world a favor by doing that. Maybe he can beat some semblance of good looks into you," Ember said with a smirk.
"You dated Skulker. Your perception of good looks is very, very skewed," Johnny retorted.
"Cut it out you two. I am not in the mood," Kitty said impatiently.
"Sorry Kitten," Johnny said apologetically.
"My back's still going to be sore for a while," Kitty said, putting a hand on her back. "Can't believe he did that."
"It's certainly not something I like, but it's something I understand," Kitty and Ember both looked at the biker strangely. "Well... let's say we put one of us in his shoes."
"You mean alive again?" Ember questioned with a raised brow.
"Very funny. No, I mean having to fight all of us. Every day or every other day," Johnny said.
"No one makes him do it," Kitty said.
"And if he didn't do it, we'd rule their world with no one able to stop us. Stands to reason he hates us. And he's put up with our crap for so long. I'm sort of trying to think like Phantom is," Johnny said, making Ember frown slightly.
"It's scary," she said.
"What?" Kitty asked.
"That your boyfriend is actually starting to make a little sense," Ember said, making Johnny smile. But it was replaced by a glare not long after.
"I'm not following," Kitty said.
"Since his friends are dead, he's found the perfect reason to not take it easy on us anymore. And he's most likely not gonna go back to his old sickening good hero ways," Ember said.
"So if we go back to Amity, I'm likely going to have to be patching up Johnny every time," Kitty said.
"If your boyfriend's right. I'm not holding my breath on that, considering who we're dealing with here," Ember said, making Kitty and Johnny look at her strangely.
"Um, need I remind you that Phantom nearly choked the afterlife out of you and beat the crap out of Johnny. If that doesn't say that he's changing certainly not for our better, I don't know what will," Kitty told her friend.
"I'm not saying that the possibility of it isn't impossible, but I'm saying considering who we're dealing with, it's unlikely to happen. Do you understand how insane it is to think about the dipstick ever wanting to hurt people as much as possible?" Ember questioned with a raised eyebrow.
"Ok, you have a point there. But I'm saying that out of all the things that we've put him through, this might push him too far. You know he cares about those two more than anything. I'm sure you out of all people know..."
"Don't even go there," Ember said harshly. "This is not about me. And that's completely unrelated."
"Depends on how you look at it. But hey. Nothing to do but sit back and wait. Just wait for him to get you, you tell him how to get past Skulker's crap, and he beats the living ectoplasm out of him. He either goes back to normal or just stays this way and makes attacking Amity even less fun once we lose," Kitty said.
"For our sakes and my ribs, I hope it's the first one," Johnny said.
A/N: Dropping a few hints as to what I'm doing with Danny.
