Dash was following Fenton through the empty hallways. He was having a bad day and he needed to be near Fenton, but he didn't know how to do that without beating him up. So, here he was, on the hunt. Waiting for the perfect time to strike.
He followed Fenton down the hallway and watched as he walked up to a janitor's closet. What was he going in there for?
He opened the door and inside stood Danny Phantom. Dash walked up right behind them ready to start asking all sorts of questions when something he's never seen Phantom do before happened.
Phantom disappeared, but it looked like he morphed back into Fenton, like he was becoming one with him. It looked different than overshadowing though. Dash thought he remembered seeing the Wisconsin Ghost do something like this before. What was he doing again? He can't remember.
Then, Danny turned around to leave but he stopped moving when he saw Dash, his eyes widening. His mouth floundered for a moment before his words burst out of him.
"It's not what it looks like!" Danny spoke nervously. "I can explain."
Dash was still gaping at him. How was that even possible? Did he really see what he just saw?
"Phantom's just overshadowing me!" Danny laughed nervously. "It's part of our deal! I conceal him inside me, my parents think I'm ecto-contaminated, and he helps me get out of lockers when you stuff me in them!"
What was it that Dash saw the Wisconsin Ghost do? When a ghost overshadowed someone they just sort of. Went into your body. What Phantom just did with Fenton was different. What was it?
"Now, I think it really is time that you beat me up. I gotta get back to class, there's only one of me and that's where I need to be so you should make it quick."
Dash's eyes widened. That was it. He's seen the Wisconsin Ghost duplicate himself. When both his duplicates merged back together, that's what it looked like.
"You're Phantom?" He whispered.
Fenton's eyes widened even more. "What? No! How could I be Phantom? He's dead."
"But the way he merged into you. That's what it looks like when duplicates merge back together."
"What?" Danny looked taken aback. "How would you know what that looks like?"
"I pay attention to ghost fights when they're happening!" Dash said. "They're at the school, like, seventy five percent of the time. I gotta pay attention to something while I'm here and it might as well be the ghosts."
"That doesn't matter anyways. Phantom's dead, I'm alive, it's not possible."
"Clearly it is! I just saw it with my own two eyes!"
"No." Danny ground out. "What you saw was Phantom overshadowing me. You don't know what you're talking about."
Dash rolled his eyes. "How are you gonna prove that you and Phantom aren't the same if you aren't? Are you going to make another duplicate to pretend to be different people? That's not really going to prove anything if I saw it happen already."
Danny growled. He seemed to be giving up. "It doesn't matter if it's true or not because it's none of your business. You bully me. I don't have to say anything to someone who's going to spread it around the whole school because they hate me."
Dash's heart beat faster in his chest. He couldn't argue with that. It was the facade that he put on for the rest of the school. He had to convince both himself and the rest of the school that he hated Danny Fenton. So no one suspected a thing. But he had one caveat.
"I don't hate Phantom though."
Danny just stared at him.
"Phantom's so cool." Dash continued, getting nervous. "He saves us all the time, he's a superhero. He's even got a costume! He's really funny too. I could listen to his jokes all day."
"You do remember you were just arguing with me about how I'm Phantom, right? Why are you getting all day dreamy over there?"
Dash felt his cheeks flush and his shoulders hunched up as he tried to think of an excuse.
"Oh, I, uh, I don't know. Phantom's my role model and he's just so cool. I look up to him- you, I mean. I just- Yeah."
Danny stared at him for a moment before speaking. "That doesn't change the fact that you hate Fenton though."
Dash pressed his lips into a thin line. Maybe bullying Danny to try to hide his real feelings wasn't the best method. It was making this discussion a lot harder to have.
"What if I like Phantom more than I hate Fenton?" Dash asked, his voice getting squeaky at the end of his question.
"What does it matter?"
Dash groaned. "I'm not going to expose you to keep you safe. We all know what the GIW wants to do to you. What would we do without Phantom here to protect us? What would we do without Fenton?"
"You guys don't even like Fenton. You would do just fine without that part of me."
Dash sighed. "I like you a lot more than you think. I just have to keep up my image, you know?"
Danny scoffed. "Yeah, right. You're probably just saying that because you just found out that I'm Phantom."
"What, no. I'm trying to be honest here."
"Whatever. I'm going back to class." Danny walked past Dash down the hallway towards their class. "You better not tell anyone about this."
"I already said I wouldn't."
Danny walked away without another response to Dash. Dash's heart constricted but he knew why Danny didn't believe him. He wouldn't believe him either if the roles were reversed.
Dash started following Danny again. He probably shouldn't have followed him out of the classroom in the first place. Then everything would still be normal. But if he hadn't, he wouldn't have had his eyes opened.
Dash walked into the classroom and made eye contact with Danny when he walked through the doorway. Maybe he could get Danny to trust him. He had to try.