Breaking Dawn
An X-Men Evolution Fanfic by Quill N. Inque
I do not own Danny Phantom.
"You still have friends. You are not alone in this fight."-Gandalf the White, "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" (2003)
Chapter 4: Open Foes and Hidden Allies
Gym class, the final obstacle that had thrust itself between Danny Fenton and the sanctity of his home, was not the ghost boy's favorite cup of proverbial tea even on the best of days.
The battered, cavernous gymnasium, its once-varnished floors now scuffed and marred by countless skidding sneakers, had long been the undisputed domain of Dash Baxter and his cronies. The football, basketball and baseball stars that filled out the upper crust of the student hierarchy had ruled the gym with a collective iron fist, and many a teacher often failed to notice their brutal excesses in the course of the lesson. Dash and his cronies always tackled, shoved or pushed with more force than was necessary, and if the instructor was not willing to turn a blind eye to them, they veiled their regimen of physical intimidation in a cloak of false concern and meaningless, taunting apologies.
Danny's shoes made a sound reminiscent of a dog's squeaky toy as he headed for the boys' locker room with his regular clothes in tow, and he felt his eyes narrow slightly as he recalled, quite suddenly, just how many bad memories this enormous room held for him.
Danny had been altruistic enough to restrain himself from using his powers in the gym for quite some time. Though he was by far the strongest person in the entire school due to his enhanced physical prowess, Danny's conscience had not allowed him to use his ghostly abilities to improve his standing with the sports crowd. He didn't want to count Dash's friends among his own, and even if the acid of temptation had broken down his own moral code, Danny would have been wary of shattering the vulnerable and weak façade he'd crafted for himself. To show such stamina and strength so suddenly would have had people asking questions, and so Danny had happily put up with Dash's ceaseless torment for the sake of keeping his secret intact.
Not that any of these things mattered anymore. Danny's identity, that thing which he had gone to such lengths to conceal, had been cruelly exposed to the rest of the human race. The young man now had no reason or motivation to hold back during sports practice anymore, and to be honest, some rather petty and childish part of Danny had relished the stunned look on Dash's face when he had shown him what he could really do. Years of strenuous and almost-constant fighting had made Danny as healthy as a horse and honed his body into a weapon. Had he been wearing a more tight-fitting outfit than his gym clothes, one would have been able to clearly see Danny's musculature outlined beneath the fabric. But Danny, true to form, was a modest sort of fellow who felt uncomfortable with such overtly physical displays.
It was also Danny's rigid code of ethics that now restrained him from crushing Dash like a used soda can.
Thus, in summation, Danny had always hated gym class, but this particular class he had hated more than all the dozens that had come before it.
The reason was simple, really.
It was the scars.
Danny did not want the world to see the scars of hate and malice that Vlad Plasmius had left upon him. The young man's cheeks burned with a fiery heat as he shoved the door open, and steam from running showers made the air inside hot and heavy as the ghost boy took a seat on a nearby bench. Danny had avoided this at the beginning of class by darting into a nearby restroom stall to change when the chance had presented itself, but no such salvation now presented itself to Danny's seeking eyes.
As if I didn't need to give them another reason to stare at me, Danny thought bitterly, taking the white shirt and jeans out of the small duffel bag he had slung over his shoulder. The young man's teeth clenched like a vise as he averted his gaze from everyone, and he prayed no one would take the time to notice as he began to shrug off his uniform-
"Holy crap!" somebody shouted. "Look at Fenton!"
Danny felt his cheeks heat up again while his stomach churned with nausea borne from his humiliation, and his fingers itched with temptation to pull his now-sweaty and stained gym shirt back on to hide his injuries. His face utterly blank and carefully devoid of any emotion, Danny turned to retrieve his denim trousers from his bag to the utter horror of all those assembled.
Even the most hardened of men would have turned their heads away at the horrific toll Danny's exile had taken upon him. Many of the long, ropy lines of scar tissue that had been slightly raised above Danny's flesh still bore the remnants of pocked, even stitch-marks, and like jagged thunderbolts they criss-cossed Danny's chest and upper back in a bile-inducing, grisly spectacle. Down Danny's upper arms and legs the evil-looking wounds extended, and with such enormous trauma it was a wonder that the ghost boy's face as yet remained unspoiled.
Danny looked for all the world like a representation of Frankenstein's monster, forever bearing the price he paid for his valor and heroism in the form of the wounds that had been etched into him with all the permanence of a chisel chipping into stone.
"Oh, my God!"
"What the hell?"
"How did that happen?"
"Is that a bullet hole in his shoulder, there?"
"No way!"
"He looks like he's been sewn back together!"
Danny spoke without turning around. "I'm still here, you know."
The embarrassed silence that the young hero's unexpected utterance brought about was noticeably uncomfortable, and Danny's grin was bitterly amused as his raven-haired head emerged from beneath the collar of his shirt. His most recent indignity still rubbed against his heart like a cheese grater as he made haste for the door, but as Danny moved, Dash moved against him, blocking his way with his sheer bulk.
Danny phased right through him. Dash was the last person in the world he wanted to see right now.
"Fenton," Dash called after him, his tone conspicuously lacking its usual, jeering undercurrent.
Danny fought to control his exasperation, and his eyes threatened to flash a telltale green as his fists smoldered with ectoplasmic mist. Dash's petty bullying was one thing he did not need in the lamentable mess Vlad had made of his life. The enormous stress and worry that weighed heavily upon Danny's shoulders threatened to boil over like bubbling water as Dash's insistence stretched his temper dangerously thin.
"What do you want?" Danny asked finally, his voice weary after the colossal effort of smothering his anger.
"What…"Dash cleared his throat nervously, and Danny was mildly amused by the utterly thunderstruck expression on the football star's dim face. "What happened?"
"Fighting bad guys isn't as easy as it looks in the comics, Dash," the ghost boy replied dryly, poking gingerly at his still-tender shoulder. Lancer is the only one who seems to realize that.
Mentally, Danny's mind flashed back to the book that now lay temporarily abandoned upon the bleachers, and the corners of his lips twitched as he remembered one particular passage:
Thus while scarcely out of his boyhood Turin's strength and courage were proved, and he was ever forward in deeds of daring, and he received many wounds by spear or arrow or the crooked blades of Orcs.
Danny's expression split into a momentary grin, and he found himself relating to the fictional hero of Turin more and more with each turn of the page. Lancer, it seemed, had been extremely sage in the reading recommendation he had given his pupil, and the feel of the novel's weight in Danny's fingers was now somewhat and quite oddly comforting to him.
It was nice to have someone to sympathize with, after all, and Danny could not have cared less whether that someone existed in reality or only in the realm of the printed word.
The memory of that one passage, so poignant and reminiscent of Danny's own trials and heroism, served to bolster his faltering spirits. The ghost boy grunted with exertion as he hefted his obese book-bag off the ground, and the rubber soles of his sneakers bounced slightly as he made his way to the door, and to freedom.
The jarring screech of the final bell was, by far, the sweetest music Danny Fenton had ever heard.
Sam and Tucker were already waiting for him in the hallway as the floors became congested with herds of stampeding students, and Danny felt better just knowing that they, at least, would always be there for him. Danny's eyes softened in infatuation as he met Sam's eye, and Danny held her hand like a priceless treasure before leaning in to give her a gentle kiss.
Neither of them cared if anyone saw.
Tucker coughed politely into his fist, and Sam reluctantly pulled away as three old companions fell in step, her heavy boots clomping audibly even above the enormous racket.
"How was it?" she asked quietly.
Danny simply stared at her.
"That bad, huh?" Tucker's gaze was sympathetic.
"Worse," Danny muttered, glancing meaningfully at his mended shoulder. "Apparently I've gone from 'renegade science experiment' to 'surgical dummy.'"
"The scars," Tucker nodded understandingly. "That would make anyone self-conscious, including me, Danny."
"Anyone but Sam, you mean," Danny replied, a mischievous grin on his face. "I don't think anyone can make her feel self-conscious."
"True," Sam's grin was sardonic, but there was no malice in it. "Lancer seemed okay with everything, though."
"Wish I could say the same for Barousse," Danny's tone turned bitter. "She could do the work of two Dashes! She was on me the minute I stepped into the classroom!"
"Oh, God," Tucker's eyes widened with consternation. "It figures someone like Barousse would come gunning for you. She's even mean to the other teachers!"
"It's a good thing I don't eat meat, otherwise that cold, hypercritical fish would be the catch of the day," Sam snarled, before she turned serious. "You should tell Lancer about it. He's the only person who's been at Casper High longer than Barousse, so he might have some friends in the administration who could call her off your back."
"She can't get away with this," Tucker added.
"No," Danny shook his head firmly. "If I tell, she'll know she's won. I won't give her that pleasure, Sam. I'm gonna beat her at her own game."
"How?" Tucker asked, confused.
Danny turned somewhat sheepish as his palm pressed against the door. "I'm still working on it."
"Where do you think you're going, Mr. Fenton?"
The shrill, belligerent and utterly unwelcome voice of none other than Claudia Barousse herself stopped Danny cold in his tracks not one foot away from the door. To come so close to leaving the confines of this academic hellhole and then fall short was nothing short of cruel.
Barousse knew this. She'd actually timed it that way.
Danny turned around slowly, as if confronted by some dangerous animal, and he kept his tone carefully respectful before opening his mouth to speak-
"Be silent," Barousse snapped at him, her tone icy and her gaze disdainful. The teacher looked down the bridge of her beak-like nose at Danny as though he were something disgusting on the bottom of her shoe. "You have nothing to contribute."
Tucker discreetly tugged Sam a safe distance away as the Goth began to go positively rabid, and Danny, burning at the insult, nonetheless complied, to Barousse's obvious satisfaction.
"Now, as I was saying, I hope you aren't foolish enough to believe that you are dismissed from class," she continued, her tone sweet like poisoned honey.
"The bell rang!" Danny couldn't help but raise his tone at Barousse's proclamation,
"For normal students, yes," the teacher nodded. "You however, are not entitled to such privileges, and you have a detention to serve out, anyway."
"You never gave me a detention."
"I just did," Barousse's eyes glittered. "And I believe there's a mop and a pail over there with your name on it, Fenton. Scrub this place from top to bottom, and heaven help you if I come back and it's not done!"
"Go choke on your pantyhose, you crabby old sow."
A third voice, deep and gravelly and most certainly not Danny's caused the teacher to whirl around like a vampire caught in the sun's rays. Her expression indignant, Barousse tried to maintain an air of authority at the rather large man who had suddenly materialized behind her.
"Who are you? I'll have you brought up on trespassing charges, do you hear me? Leave the premises at once!"
A coffee cup sloshed in the ominous newcomer's left hand as his meaty fingers delved into his pocket. "See this?" he asked, waving a golden emblem in her face. "This is a 'do-whatever-I-want-and-get-away with-it' badge. Get the point?"
"I don't know who you think you are, but this does not concern you," Barousse hissed. "As you can see, I'm having a word with my student ."
"Just having a word with him, huh?" the man snorted derisively. "Right. And Larry King's the nephew of Justin Bieber."
Tucker snorted with barely-contained merriment, and the stranger glowered darkly at the somewhat-deflated Barousse.
"Get outta here," he spat.
Barousse merely glared at him.
"You got three seconds."
Still, she did not budge.
"I have a taser."
Barousse's feet seemed to grow wings as she fled back to the safety of her classroom.
"Damn," Agent Thomas Brody remarked, draining the last of his Java bean. "Known her less than five minutes, and I already hate her. How you been, Danny?"
The ghost boy, while obviously glad to see the venerable agent, was somewhat confused. "I thought you retired."
"I did," Brody snorted. "Briefly."
"What happened?" Sam asked.
Brody sighed and turned to the ghost boy. "You got no idea what the climate in Washington is like right now, kid. Your exposure was like kicking over a red anthill; everyone's up in a tizzy about whether to give you medal or strap you down for dissection, and from what I hear, the dissection vote is starting to gain weight. Congress is split almost clean down the middle about you. That's why I requested re-instatement in the Bureau, Danny. I wanted a job keeping an eye on you, and my boss was hardly able to turn me down after nearly thirty years working at the FBI. I've been keeping up with what's happened after that debacle in France, and I think you can use all the help you can get till folks come to their senses.
"You're in danger, kid," Brody added, his eyes turning cold. "There are a lot of wackos out there putting all sorts of creepy sites about you. Religious nutjobs claim you're the Antichrist, anarchists want to use you as a weapon, and hate groups like the KKK and the neo-Nazis want to lynch you. Then there's assholes like the GIW and even some of the Joint Chiefs who still think you're a threat to national security, and politicians who want to use your incarceration as a ticket to the White House. I wouldn't put it past any of them to try taking a shot at you, literally, and enough of my friends at FBI agreed with me to send me down here."
"You've got Skryme to thank for your troubles with the U.S. government," Brody added contemptuously. "I had him dishonorably discharged after the charges against you were cleared, and he's been whispering and lying about you in the ears of power ever since. He's taken it upon himself to wage a political vendetta against you, and he wields enough political clout to be a serious problem. I even suspect Skryme might be funding some of these groups through his office, but I can't prove anything yet. He is the biggest concern; Skyrme's so unbelievably petty that he just might pull a gun on you."
Danny's mind flashed back to the rat-faced, arrogant Army officer who had been with Brody during the agent's manhunt, and old anger simmered again as he recalled how Skryme had advocated his death even after Danny had nearly died in the fight with Vlad.
"So you think he'll try?" The ghost boy's voice was noticeably calm for one who had just received such grave news.
"I don't know," Brody sucked in a breath through his teeth. "Skyrme is unpredictable, and that worries me most of all…"
A/N: Well, that doesn't look too good! But Brody PWNED Barousse! XD And there's much more I have planned, but again I make no promises as to when the next update will be up. It was actually an effort to find enough time to type this update, but nevertheless I shall endeavor to have the next chapter up as soon as humanly possible. And PLEASE REVIEW! If you have ANY ideas or suggestions, LET ME KNOW!
Your humble servant,
-Quill N. Inque