I do not own Danny Phantom.
Healing and Answers
Sam groaned in pain as she held an ice pack to her black eye. Her nose had finally stopped bleeding and was bandaged up. Tucker was nursing his fat lip with a wet cloth and all three had been given painkillers to sooth the sting of their injuries. Danny gingerly probed the purple bruises on his face.
"Ouch," he whimpered after poking a rather impressive bruise on his right cheek.
"Don't poke them," snapped Sam. "That's only going to make it worse."
The nurse studied them in concern. "I need to do some paperwork. Will you three be okay?"
"We'll be fine," Tucker said. "Thanks for patching us up."
"It's what I do," the nurse replied before disappearing into her office, leaving the three in the small medical bay.
Sam waited until the nurse closed the office door firmly before speaking. "He'll definitely want answers. I can tell he doesn't believe the ghost story."
Danny grinned. "We could always say Dash and his morons beat us up."
Sam punched him in the shoulder, adding another bruise to his growing collection. "They were already in class by the time we got bashed up, doofus!"
Tucker thought for a moment. "Well, we could say we saw a pair of ghosts, and we decided to fight them so they couldn't do any damage. It kind of fits in with Sam's initial story. After a while we realized we didn't have much of a chance and she screamed, which sent them flying off."
"I don't know, Tuck," Danny said nervously. "He might find me out."
"Nah. Your parents are ghost hunters, so it's not odd that you show signs of wanting to follow in their footsteps. You have the gear to fight ghosts and you dragged your two best friends along for the ride. Lancer will never discover you're a ghost-human hybrid."
Danny hesitated and tensed when he heard footsteps coming closer to the nurse's station. "All right, but this better work!" he hissed.
Lancer walked in and studied his three charges. The swelling had gone down a bit and Foley's fat lip was looking better.
He crossed his arms and began the questioning. "Tell me the truth. Did ghosts really attack you?"
Tucker nodded. "Yes sir. But we fought them off."
"A-ha!" he cried triumphantly. "So in truth, you stayed and fought the ghosts instead of running away to a safe place for help, like a sensible person."
Danny felt like whacking Tucker upside the head. They were almost in the clear! All Tucker had to do was simply nod his head in response to Lancer's first question. Was that so hard? Now Danny was going to have to explain to his parents why he ghost hunted behind their backs, and brought 'inexperienced' friends along.
And he'd have to deal with the angry parents of Tucker and Sam. Thank you, Tucker, thought Danny in annoyance.
Tucker could feel his halfa friend's angry glare burning through his head. Him and his big mouth. Why couldn't he just have said 'yes, we were attacked by ghosts'? Why did he feel the need to add on?
Time to see if he could do some damage control.
"Well, sir, we didn't want anyone to get hurt, so we tried to stop them. Sam screamed, hoping to get help, and that spooked them."
"But someone did get hurt. You three. And in order to fight ghosts, I believe you have to have some type of ectoplasmic weapons."
His eyes roamed the nurse's office until his eyes fell upon Danny's slightly burned backpack. He strode over and picked it up.
"Hey! Isn't that, like, an invasion of privacy?" Danny cried.
Lancer ignored him and reached in, pulling out a silver Fenton Blaster and the Fenton Thermos. "I knew it! You three hunt ghosts, don't you?" He fixed the three with a glare. "Do you have any idea how dangerous this is? You don't see any other students risking their lives, do you?"
Sure do. And that one person wants me out of the picture. But no, you have to find us out. Valerie would never enter your mind as a ghost huntress. At least you didn't find out everything, Danny thought bitterly.
But he couldn't give up Valerie's secret, he wouldn't. That wouldn't be fair, even if she was trying to kill his alter-ego.
When the three did not respond, he sighed. "I know you're trying to be heroes, but you need to leave this type of work to your parents, Danny, and that Phantom lad."
Tucker's lips twitched, but a sharp glare from Sam caused him to quickly collect himself.
"At least this explains how you know so much about the ghosts in your report. But how did you get those artifacts?"
Tucker opened his mouth to speak, but Danny gave him a firm pinch, warning him to stay silent.
"They were dropped by those ghosts, and we've been holding them for a while, cause we weren't sure what to do with them, and we decided to use them for our report," answered the raven-haired boy. "By the way, did we pass?"
Lancer shook his head. "Yes, you did. But don't change the subject. I'm sorry, but your parents need to be notified of your activities."
The bell rang and the bustling of students could be heard through the closed door as they went to their second class of the day. Lancer set the Fenton ghost weapons back into Danny's backpack.
"All right, you may go. I will leave the fate of your ghost hunting job to your parents."
The three quickly left and Danny snagged his backpack on the way out. "Terrific. Now we need to explain to our parents why we're risking our lives battling deadly ghosts," he grumbled.
Sam snorted. "You have it easy. Your parents are ghost hunters. I'm going to have to use every weapon in my arsenal in order to get out of this one."
Tucker was going to comment, but he got whacked on the head by one purple-polished hand and one tanned.