Thanks to Snickerer, Alana-StarSugarCat, Soul Eater, The Sorceress of Light, Cylon One, Coronadofwb, pieling, and Pterodactyl.
Chapter 5: Education
I do not own Danny Phantom, The Old Man and the Sea, the Foundation trilogy, Ghost World, "Tiger, Tiger," "Ode on a Grecian Urn," or "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard."
That night, William Lancer had just spread the latest history and English assignments out on his kitchen table when the blue mist reappeared and the temperature dropped several degrees.
"Um, hey?"
"Old Man and the Sea!" Lancer spun around. Phantom was floating in the doorway, hand
held in a casual wave.
"It's okay. I'm good, remember? I just came by 'cause I maybe ran out on you a bit soon earlier and figured you might wanna talk. I've kinda been avoiding you."
Lancer looked at him hard. This was not the immature Danny he remembered from class. This Danny was calm and confident, and acting well above his age. His life as a ghost had certainly made him much more mature. Probably too mature for a fifteen-year-old boy, actually.
"Look, I wasn't expecting Plasmius to find out about you for a few more days, though in hindsight I should have seen that coming. I'm sorry. I was planning on explaining things sometime tomorrow, when we'd both, um, recovered. Guess we'll just have to bump it up to tonight. I..."
"You knew who I was?"
"Yeah. I, uh, I saw you change back after the fight with Johnny earlier. I do think you're good, by the way."
Danny's getting much too good at lying these days, thought Lancer.
"Thanks, but look." Lancer felt the need to clear the air of lies now. "I know your secret too. I saw you transform just before that last fight today. So you can change back if you want, Mr. Fenton. And I appreciate you coming by, but don't you have better things to be doing on a Friday night? And do your parents even know where you are right now?" Danny sighed and floated down into one of Lancer's kitchen chairs and changed back to human.
"This shouldn't take too long," he said. "We were in the middle of a movie-thon at Sam's, when we decided to order in Chinese. It'll be about half an hour before that shows up, so we figured I should probably come over here..."
Danny sighed again. "So, where do you want to start?"
Lancer folded his arms above his stomach. "How did you really know who I was?"
"The same things that happened to you on Tuesday happened to me when I became a halfa." Danny noticed the confusion on his teacher's face. "That means 'half-a-ghost.' Do you remember how I kept dropping things and was really clumsy for a couple weeks last year?"
"Yes, that was right after your accident in your parents' lab, wasn't it?" Something clicked in Lancer's brain, and he continued, "Wait, the Portal... it happened the same way for you, didn't it? But I thought you were outside it."
"That's just what I told everyone after I'd realized what had happened," Danny admitted. "Guess you figured out how it happened to you, then."
"Not exactly. I just figured out the when."
"Okay, well, basically the shock when the Portal turned back on coated your DNA with ectoplasm, and you can choose whether or not to let the ectoplasm show openly or not."
Okay, thought Lancer bemused. So my DNA's been affected. That probably means it isn't reversible. Not that I'd want it to be, come to think of it.
Lancer spoke again. "What does this, uh, this 'Plasmius' want with you? I know he's evil, but why is he 'watching you'?" Danny fidgeted.
"Vlad's my archenemy. He's trying to take over the world with his ghost powers, or something, and wants me on his side." Danny met Lancer's deep green eyes. "He's probably going to try to get you too, so watch out. Vlad's pretty powerful and can do things even I can't."
Danny paused to let his teacher absorb the information before continuing. "Oh, yeah, and he's also a halfa. Most of time he's known as Vlad Masters, a 'friend' of my dad's. He's had a crush on Mom for years." Lancer's legs gave out at that and he fell into a chair.
Foundation Trilogy! Plasmius is Vlad Masters, the billionaire? And he has designs on Maddie Fenton? That can't be good. Once he'd gotten control of his muscles again, he asked, "So, how many 'halfas' are there?"
"Four, now," answered Danny. "You, me, Vlad, and Dani. She's a clone Vlad made of me. She hasn't been around in a while, but she's on our side, so don't worry. Vlad's the only evil one."
Lancer couldn't stay still any longer. His concept of the world was just changing too rapidly. He stood up shakily and walked over to the window, where he gazed out at the street below. All those people, living without even knowing how many times this boy had saved their lives. Poor Danny, not even being credited for his heroism. Lancer sighed.
Danny needed an ally, someone he could turn to, and Lancer was probably the only person who could fill the role. Besides, Lancer wasn't about to stop fighting ghosts if it meant making life in Amity Park more peaceful and easing some of the stress off Danny, and as such he'd need a lot of coaching. He'd fought so badly with all the ghosts so far, and Phantom had made it look so easy. There was no point prolonging it anymore. He would just have to ask bluntly.
"Will you train me?" he asked, turning from the window suddenly to make eye contact with his student. "I want to help protect the school, and I know I'm pretty green right now."
"Sure," grinned Danny, who'd been half expecting the question anyway. "You've got talent. It probably won't be that hard. We'll have to come up with a time, though, and an alibi."
"I'd be willing to tutor you a little too," Lancer suggested, squatting down stiffly to look eye to eye with his pupil, "to make up for the time you spend with me. That would give you a pretty good alibi, too." Danny's eyes shot wide open and his grin threatened to tear his face in half.
"You'd tutor me?! Wow. Thanks. Wait till I tell Sam and Tucker. And Jazz! Want to have the first session this weekend? Sunday, maybe?"
Lancer smiled at Danny's enthusiasm. "Sounds fine. I'll phone your parents tonight and suggest the session." He shivered and saw a blue mist like his coming from Danny's mouth.
"Danny, do you want me to..."
Danny ran to the window and looked out. "Nah, I should be okay. It's just the Box Ghost. Watch if you want, but don't join in. I'll be fine. Going ghost!"
He phased through the wall, and Lancer watched him until the Thermos came out, admiring Danny's work with a careful eye. Then he sat down and started grading assignments.
---
Mr. Lancer, newly created halfa, opened his door that Sunday to let his tutor in. He was feeling incredibly eager about his first training session, and excited to see what other powers he might have. He cracked a wide grin that seemed to frighten the boy on his doorstep.
"Hello Danny. Ready to get started?" he asked. The man was practically bouncing on his heels.
"Sure," the boy replied after a moment. "I, um, thought we'd work on seeing what exactly you can do, to start out."
"All right. How do we do that?" Lancer asked curiously as he shut the door to his apartment.
Danny gave him a list. "This is everything I know ghosts can do. We'll run down the list and see. It's mostly just concentration and will power, so we'll probably figure everything out pretty fast."
Lancer scanned it quickly. "Possession? Teleportation? Duplication? Danny, you really think I can do this stuff?" He looked up at the boy, who shrugged.
"We won't know until we try."
"Should I be in ghost mode for this?" Lancer asked, sounding more serious and businesslike.
"It makes doing stuff easier," Danny answered matter-of-factly, "so probably, yeah. Especially since we're going to have to fly out to a warehouse. We're going to be doing some pretty violent stuff."
Lancer paled a little. He wasn't sure he liked the sounds of that.
"Violent to things, not people," Danny explained. That made Lancer feel a bit better. If he wasn't going to get hurt himself...
"All right, then, Ghost World!"
Danny smirked. So Lancer already has a battle cry. He started his own transformation.
A moment later the recently christened Will Spirit was floating in Lancer's kitchen looking out of place next to the checkered tablecloth and Danny was hovering beside him, trying once again to get the image of his teacher in his father's trademark jumpsuit out of his head despite have the man flying beside him.
"Okay, Mr. Lancer, you can already go invisible, right?" Lancer did. "Okay. Great. Follow me."
---
On their way to the old industrial area of Amity Park, Lancer continued asking questions, and Danny answered them honestly.
"Do your parents know about you?"
"No. They think being a halfa's impossible. And they're actively trying to kill Danny Phantom too."
Lancer let out a low whistle. This kid really has it tough. I had no idea. "How long has Valerie been hunting ghosts? And where did she get the equipment?"
Danny barely even showed shock that Lancer knew about Val. "She's been after me for about six months. She only goes after other ghosts if they get in the way. She got all the weapons and stuff from Vlad. And before you ask, she thinks Danny Phantom ruined her life."
"Did you?" It didn't sound like Danny to do something like that.
"No. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. She doesn't believe me. Here we are!" Danny dove, and Lancer followed.
Once inside the warehouse, Danny took the list back from Lancer.
"Okay. So we already know you can do invisibility, intangibility, flying and floating, transformation, ghost sense, and ectoblasts." He checked them off with a pencil.
"Ectoblasts?"
"The rays from your hands," Danny explained. Lancer nodded.
"Anything I haven't listed?" the ghost-boy asked.
"I can form a tail with my legs," Lancer said proudly. He'd worked on that one part of last night. "And I made some sort of ball when I was fighting Shadow."
"'Kay, two more down. Anything you've seen that you want to try?"
"Whatever you did when Valerie attacked us in the cafeteria. I've tried it, but nothing happened."
"The ectoshield?"
"That sounds about right," Lancer agreed. "Who wrote 'Ode on a Grecian Urn'?"
"Am I supposed to know that?" Danny asked, surprised that Lancer was planning to do some tutoring of his own that afternoon.
"We went over it in class on Friday. Think about it."
Danny appeared to ignore him, and began explaining how to produce a shield.
"Okay, put your hands palm out in front of you. Good. Now spread them apart and concentrate on keeping some ectoplasmic energy between them." Danny demonstrated and Lancer copied his movements. He strained, but nothing happened. Danny noticed the unhappy look on Lancer's face and spoke sympathetically.
"I didn't get my powers all at once. They keep appearing over time. You'll probably get it eventually."
It surprised Lancer a little since he'd assumed halfas, or ghosts in general, didn't develop new powers after their creation, but it did cheer him up. There was still hope, then. Lancer smiled. That was a particularly useful power.
Danny thought for a moment, then handed Lancer his list again. "Here. Why don't you pick? Any order you want."
"Why don't we just test me in action?" Lancer asked, voicing an idea he'd had during the flight to the warehouse. "I was doing everything unconsciously that first day. Maybe new powers will show up if I'm not concentrating? If that doesn't work, we'll go back to the list."
"Sounds fair enough to me. I think my powers are the same. I don't realize I have them until they just show up. Okay, I'm going to toss stuff at you, then. Try to avoid it."
Danny lifted a fallen beam, and hefted it a little. Lancer's face registered amazement. How can Danny, the kid who almost failed the Presidential Fitness Test, lift something that heavy so easily?
Danny noticed Lancer's expression. "Ghosts naturally have greater physical strength than humans," he explained to his puzzled teacher. "Wanna try holding this?"
Lancer thought back to his childhood as a ninety-pound weakling. Then he thought back to the previous week, when he'd been forced to ask the young woman down the hall to move his couch so he could clean under it. He nodded.
"Absolutely."
Lancer took the beam from Danny. It was heavy, but not nearly as heavy as it should have been. He looked at it contemplatively, trying to take it all in. He tossed it back towards Danny, who went intangible, and it slammed against the wall with more force than he'd expected. Danny flew down and picked it up again. Before Lancer could register what he was planning, Danny threw the beam straight at him. Lancer took one look at the metal flying toward him and dove left in panic. Will Spirit dove right.
"No fair!" There was an edge of complaint in Danny's voice.
"What?" asked the two Lancers.
"I've been trying to do that for a year!"
"Do what?" asked Lancer One.
"That." Danny pointed.
Lancer turned and saw a mirror image of himself hovering a few feet away. He had to admit, from a distance, he looked a little ridiculous. The weight would be the first thing to go, in both bodies.
"You can duplicate yourself," Danny announced.
"And you can't?"
"Not yet. Vlad can do four at a time." The boy was obviously jealous.
Lancer flew over to himself. Then he drifted into the copy, and suddenly there was only one Lancer again. He shivered at the slightly unpleasant experience.
"I thought you were supposed to be one of the more powerful ghosts." Danny's no end of mysteries, is he?
Danny looked embarrassed. "Ghosts don't all do the same things. I can do things Vlad can't, so it goes both ways."
"Like what?" Lancer was intrigued. Does that mean I'll have powers neither of the others do?
"Ghostly Wail, for one. It's way too destructive to demonstrate for you, but you'll probably get to see it eventually." Danny paused. "John Keats?"
"Huh? Oh, yes, John Keats wrote 'Ode on a Grecian Urn,'" Lancer said approvingly. "How about 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard'?"
"Ummm ... Gray? Thomas Gray?"
"Good. Shall we keep sparring?" Lancer shot an ectoblast at Danny, who did a midair somersault to avoid it. As he was coming out of the roll, he sent two blasts back at Lancer. Lancer dodged right to avoid them, but wasn't quite fast enough. One of the blasts grazed his thigh and he winced. Suddenly Danny was rocketing towards him, and Lancer reflexively threw his arms in front of his face to protect it. Even as he did so, his mental voice censored his action.
Probably not the brightest thing to do, William. That won't stop anything.
When there wasn't an impact, he peaked out from between his arms. Danny was hovering a couple feet away and there seemed to be a wall of blue ectoplasm between the two of them. Lancer raised an eyebrow in awe and amusement.
So I can do the shield after all. Lancer dropped his arms and relaxed. The shield disappeared. Danny pulled out his list and made another checkmark on it.
"Who wrote 'Tiger, Tiger'?" Lancer asked him.
They continued sparring for another half-hour, until Lancer was too tired to do little more than fly. They hadn't discovered any new powers since the ectoshield, but Lancer had noticed more than before that his ghost half wasn't constrained by the physical problems his aging human body was. He was much more flexible and agile, he had more stamina, and his reflexes had improved dramatically as well. That, and he was a lot better at fighting than he'd ever thought he could be. Lancer had also realized that Danny was able to remember everything that had been covered in class, even though it may take him a while to do so. He was a bright kid, and it really was too bad being a superhero got in the way of his studies.
As Lancer and Danny flew slowly back to his apartment, Danny explained a number of his parents' inventions to Lancer, to get him up to speed on the sort of threat his parents posed to him and the rest of the ghost community. Lancer thought a few of them were silly and useless (like the Ghost Gabber), but agreed with Danny that others, like the Xtractor or the Peeler, could really be dangerous, especially to a halfa.
Once they had safely landed in Lancer's kitchen and changed back to human, Danny rummaged around in his knapsack and pulled out a Fenton Thermos.
"Thought you might want a weapon. Here." He handed the device to Lancer. "You take the cap off and press this button. The ghost will get sucked in, and it will stay there until you release it. It's gotta be pretty weak to be sucked in though, so you'll have to fight a bit first."
"Danny," Lancer began, in protest. "This is stolen property. I can't accept it."
"It's not, actually. Mom and Dad gave me a Thermos of my own a while ago, because of all the attacks at school. That's it. The one I use is 'stolen,' because they think a ghost took it. So, here. You'll need it." Danny pushed the Thermos into Lancer's hands.
"Thanks, then, and thanks for your help today too."
"No problem. Just stay away from my parents and don't go up against anything you can't handle unless you have no choice." Danny tossed his bag over his shoulder. "See you tomorrow, then."
"You too. And keep going over those poets. You're pretty good at English if you try."
Lancer shut the door behind Danny and took a book off the bookshelf next to it. He lay down on the couch, and didn't wake up until the morning.