A/N: Alright, really short authors note because I should have left for class like, five minutes ago. I'm am so extremely and terribly sorry for the long delay! I feel absolutely horrible! So, as an offering of peace, I've made this my longest chapter ever, one page in word for every day this was late (which is 20 pages). I hope this makes up the long wait!
Also, I'm planning on changing my screen name sometime in the near future to Darth Frodo - Chosen Wielder of the Keyblade, just so you all know. It may not happen for awhile, but I just wanted to get the word out there.
Chapter Eleven
Bully Problems
Danny awoke and looked around in awe, seeing that he was in his bedroom. Wasn't he just in the lab, forging that weird Ghostly Vow with Vlad? He saw sunshine creeping in through the breaks in his new blinds. Wasn't it around dusk when Vlad called? What happened?
He heard the door open and saw his sister walk in. "Oh thank God you're awake! Mom, Dad, he's awake!" she yelled out the door before rushing to his bed.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Mom and Dad went into the lab and found you knocked out on the floor. They brought you up here and you've been asleep ever since."
"What time is it?"
"You normally wake up for school in about fifteen minutes."
"It's the next day already?" he asked as he sat up in bed.
"Yeah, Danny what…"
"Danny! Oh you're all right!" his mother gushed as she ran over to him, giving him a hug.
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"What happened?" his father asked.
"Oh, I was fighting this ghost and he had this ability to…put people to sleep. I was doing a good job of fighting him off, until the end. As I was sucking him into the thermos he shot me with the sleep power as a sort of last hurrah. I guess then I just fell asleep on the floor."
"Are you sure you're all right?" his mother asked, concerned.
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"Alright, well I'll go make you some breakfast while you get ready for school."
They all left his room and Danny stood up, ready to get in the shower. As he changed out of his clothes he saw a piece of paper fall out of his pocket. He opened it and read the single line on the paper.
Call me when you wake up. –Vlad
Danny immediately grabbed the phone and dialed the number.
"Daniel? Are you awake?"
"No Vlad, I'm dialing your number in my sleep. Now what happened?" he asked in an accusatory voice.
"I think the transfer of energy left us weakened and we both passed out afterwards. I woke up before you did and left, and then I went back to sleep. But I've done some research and this is quite normal. Everything should be back to normal now."
"If it's not I'm so coming after you, and we don't need to do another Ghostly Vow for you to know that I'm not joking."
"There shouldn't be anything wrong. Everything else should be normal, well normal for us at least. But call me if anything weird happens and I'll do the same."
"Fine," he responded as he hung up, blaming Vlad for all of this. If he didn't want to do that stupid Ghostly Vow in the first place none of that would have happened. He would have been just as happy doing it in writing. Now they had some weird exchange of powers that might lead to some unfortunate consequences and not only that, but he slept his free time away so now he had to go back to school again, and it felt like he'd just left it! The next time he saw him, he was going to kill him.
"Danny, are you alright in there? I thought I heard you talking," Jazz questioned from outside his door.
"Well, I've been grumbling a little bit about sleeping all night and not getting any free time, but that's about it." He didn't think he needed to worry Jazz about this unless something bad happened. She'd probably lecture him for at least an hour about making this deal with Vlad even though they both knew how tricky and devious he could be.
"Oh, alright. Get into the shower or you're going to be late!"
"Alright, alright."
After spending time getting ready for his fun-filled second day of school he headed downstairs to quickly eat some breakfast before heading to school. When he went downstairs, he heard his parents arguing in the basement. He went down to the basement and stopped at the foot of the stairs, the room a complete mess.
"I could swear it was right here!" Jack complained as he continued throwing inventions around.
"You might have misplaced it," Maddie remarked as she too moved inventions around, obviously looking for something. "I mean, let's admit it Jack, you're not the most organized of people."
"I know I'm not, but I just saw this yesterday!"
"What's going on?" Danny asked.
"Oh, you're father and I can't seem to find the portable ghost shield we've been working on. It was here yesterday, but when we went downstairs and found you lying on the floor we noticed that it was missing."
"I didn't do it," Danny stated quickly.
"Oh we know you didn't sweetie. We weren't blaming you, we were just remarking that it went missing while you were asleep."
"Vlad."
"What?"
"Oh nothing, I need to get to school. See you later!"
"Alright sweetheart. Have a fun day!"
"Thanks!" he yelled as he headed up the stairs. So, there was more to Vlad's story than he told him over the phone. After he woke up he decided to steal the portable ghost portal before he left. He was so talking to him after school.
He grabbed a pop-tart as he and Jazz headed out to the car, picking Tucker and Sam up along the way. Through the car ride he was lost deep in thought. He felt totally fine and didn't think there was anything wrong, so maybe nothing bad had happened after all. Maybe Vlad was actually telling the truth for once, though it did seem a little suspicious that Vlad woke up so soon while it took him so long to wake up at all. And he failed to mention that he stole the ghost portal, so it was entirely conceivable that he failed to mention something else.
"Danny, are you okay?" Sam asked from the backseat, seeing his far-off look.
"Yeah, of course. Why does everyone keep asking me that?"
Sam gave him a stern look and Danny returned the look, gesturing slightly towards Jazz, whose attention was focused on the road, indicating to her that he'd tell her later when Jazz wasn't around.
They finally arrived at the school. This time, to Danny's great horror, he noticed that the parking lot was full of cops, and some reporters. Obviously they were depressed that they didn't get the previous day's events on film and decided to make up for it today.
As they stepped out of their car to the flashing of cameras, a few officers walked up to them.
"Mr. Fenton, we've been called in by the Principal to assist you in dealing with the other students. Do you require us to escort you to class?" one of them asked.
"Um, no, I should be fine thanks. Just, if you see a large queue forming around me and not allowing me to go somewhere, then you can intervene."
They nodded and backed off, leaving Danny feeling weird. Police men to escort him? And he thought he'd seen it all.
The four of them walked to their lockers, Jazz saying her goodbyes and wishing him luck as she walked over to her giggling friends, whom she reprimanded for being foolish. Danny smiled in spite of himself. Her friends had always thought of him as such a loser, and now they were giggling about him behind his back.
"So, what happened last night? We called your house and your mom said you'd fallen asleep in the lab and still hadn't woken up."
"I'll tell you at lunch. It's too long of a story to relay to you now."
As they began pulling their books out of their locker, talking about how the day might possibly run, Danny felt himself being jerked up by the collar and felt the familiar brush of metal hit his body as he was shoved into the locker. He heard Dash and his friends laughing from outside as everything became black, indicating that Dash had shut the locker door.
Danny sighed and turned intangible, floating out of the locker, a smug look on his face. Dash simply looked dumbstruck as Danny landed on the floor and turned tangible again with a triumphant smile plastered across his face. Dash just turned around with a growl and marched off, pouting.
"Well, that was interesting," Sam commented.
"What do you think the purpose of that was?" Tucker asked.
"Keep the tradition going, try to regain some of his pride and credibility, who knows," Danny answered as he pulled his books out of the locker and shut the door, heading off to class.
Danny, Tucker, and Sam walked to Mr. Lancer's class, finding it a lot easier to get there today. Obviously the actions of the police yesterday and their presence today calmed them down a bit. The rest of the class was already sitting there, like they were yesterday, and they all waved at Danny, pretending like he was their best friend. He also noticed with a jolt that they'd spread themselves out so their usual spot of three seats was occupied, and there was no other grouping of three. The class was getting smarter; they were going to force him to sit next to them.
Danny lingered in the doorway, not quite sure what to do. He was just about to try to ask them to move, even though he knew they wouldn't when he heard a voice from behind him.
"Is there any reason why the three of you are blocking the door?" Mr. Lancer asked as he attempted to enter his classroom. The three of them parted the way and as he walked in he noticed the problem. "Alright, I want this problem fixed in the next thirty seconds or I will assign each one of you a seat effective for the rest of the year, and I know you don't want that," he threatened.
The students blocking their seats sprang up and filled in other seats, much to Paulina and many of the other student's disappointment. Danny, Tucker, and Sam resumed their regular seats and Danny mouthed a "Thank you" to Mr. Lancer who smiled in return.
Mr. Lancer then started his boring lecture, but Danny was one of the few who stayed awake. He didn't intend to fall asleep in Lancer's classes ever again after everything that had happened. He figured he at least owed him that much for everything he'd done.
While Lancer was outlining the path of a Nasty Burger down the digestive track, complete with extremely detailed descriptions of what exactly happened to the "blob of grease and fat that they have the nerve to call a hamburger" Danny snapped to attention as his ghost sense went off. Mr. Lancer heard the gasp and stopped detailing the stomach's exploits of digesting the burger and turned to face Danny, as well as the rest of the class who seemed to now be wide awake.
"Danny, what was that?" Paulina asked coquettishly as she leaned forward on her desk.
"That was my…"
The door burst open. "Hey, this isn't the computer lab!" the nasally voice complained as he stood in the doorway.
"…Ghost Sense," Danny finished as the ghost flew into the room, his black coat floating behind him.
The ghost surveyed the room and he stopped as his eyes spotted Danny. "Oh no, what are the odds that out of all the possible rooms in this school I had to pick the one with you in it!"
"Obviously pretty good," Danny remarked as he stood up defensively. The white rings formed around his waist and transformed him into Danny Phantom. Squeals of delight circled around the room and Danny sighed.
"So the rumors are true. You have been exposed Ghost Child."
"Really? I hadn't noticed," Danny smarted back. "Is that why you're here? To test the rumors?"
"No, for I, Technus, have no care in the daily sufferings of your pathetic half life. I am here to place all the school computers under my control and augment files and information so it suits my plan to take over the…I'm doing it again, aren't I?"
"Yeah. I thought you'd gotten better?"
"So did I."
"Guess all that therapy didn't pay off then, huh?"
"No I guess it…hey! Who told you about that?"
"One good thing about the Box Ghost: he has a really big mouth."
"That does it. Change in plans. I'm going to take care of you and then I'll take over the computers!"
"Sure you will."
Technus raised his arms into the air as calculators, cell phones, and iPods flew into the air surrounding him. "Surrender now Ghost Boy or be demolished by my army of electrical devices!"
Danny smirked and turned intangible.
"Fool! That will no longer work, for I, Technus, have upgraded and now these shall go hit you even if you are intangible!"
"Really?" Danny asked as he turned tangible. "Thanks for the heads up."
Technus growled and threw his hand forward, signaling the charge. The electronics glowed green and shot at Danny, who flew up, dodging them. They turned upwards and started following him as he flew around the room, dodging as many as he could but being hit by a lot as well. It was almost impossible to continue dodging them all. Every student in the room had a cell and a calculator and the majority of them had iPods, which meant there were about fifty different devices flying about the room at any moment, all charging at him. Meanwhile Technus left the room in satisfaction. Danny tried to follow Technus out of the room, but the electronics blocked him path.
Finally he had enough. "Everyone get under a desk!" he commanded as he made up his mind. There was no way he could continue to save the electronics and stop Technus. This was not going to help his credibility at all.
"Why should we do that?" Dash asked.
"Because I'm not necessarily the best aim! Now do it!" Danny threatened as he held his glowing hands up and shot an ecto-blast at a small group of electronics.
"Hey, that was my iPod!" Star yelled as she stood up from under the desk and got hit in the arm with a speeding cell phone. "Ow!"
"Stay under the desk!" Danny yelled again and Star quickly returned to her safety spot, cradling her arm.
"Danny, just not the PDA!" Tucker yelled.
"Oh you've got to be kidding…" he started to protest as he was hit in the back of the head with said PDA. "Ow! Oh, that thing is so going down."
"No! I've only got one more payment on that…one," Tucker finished sadly as Danny blasted the PDA.
"Don't worry Tucker, we'll buy you a new one," Sam comforted.
"Yeah, just like you did last week, and the week before that."
"Well, it's for a noble cause."
Finally Danny had blasted away enough of the devices for him to fly out the room towards the computer room, where he assumed Technus was. Tucker and Sam jumped up and followed Danny out as Sam grabbed the thermos from Danny's bag. The rest of the students slowly emerged from under their desks and looked warily at the room around them and then at the hallway. A few exchanged glances before running out of the room and following the lagging electrical devices down the hall.
Mr. Lancer stood up and looked at his dismantled and now empty classroom. What were his students thinking, chasing after a dangerous ghost like that? They'd become far too conditioned to these ghost attacks and didn't know how to properly fear them anymore. And he was sure that their admiration of Danny didn't help either. Mr. Lancer headed towards the door and rushed down the hall, following his students. Someone had to protect them from their own stupidity.
Danny found Technus in the computer lab, hooking himself up to the central hub that fed all the computers. He blasted him away from the computer and an angry Technus floated back up and turned to face Danny.
"You're too late Ghost Child! At this moment my program is changing all the files in this computer which will affect every other computer connected to it, and there's no way to stop it!"
"I can think of one." Danny cupped both his hands together and shot a large ecto-blast at the computer, completely demolishing it, it's only remains a small charred base.
Technus stared from Danny to the computer in sacrilegious disbelief as he stuttered incoherently. "Ha-have you been studying computers?" Technus finally managed to sputter angrily.
"Since I met you, yeah. At least enough to know that a program can't run without a computer."
"Seriously Technus, it's not that hard," Sam remarked.
"I know, anyone could figure that out, even Danny," Tucker added.
"Hey, I resent that. I figured it out this time instead of just waiting for Technus to shut out the solution like usual."
"Hey, now I resent that. I may do it occasionally, but I would never scream out for you to destroy the computer! It's an unholy act and…"
Danny took the opportunity to suck Technus into the thermos as he was distracted with thoughts of destroying computers.
"You know, you could have distracted him without insulting me," Danny told Tucker as he turned to face him.
"Yeah, just like you could have unplugged the computer instead of destroying it."
Danny blushed. "Well, I didn't think that unplugging it would do anything. Who knows, it might have just started up again when we turned it back on."
"And that's the sign that you still have a lot to learn about computers."
"Um guys?" Sam interrupted.
"What?" Danny asked as he turned around to face her and noticed the student audience assembled around the door to the computer lab. Danny laughed nervously as he floated back down to the ground. "Um, why don't we…get back to class," he suggested as the white rings transformed him back into his human form.
"Ah, an excellent idea," Mr. Lancer agreed from the back of the group. "Everyone back to the classroom. We still have much to cover today and I will not let some ghost attack cut my lesson plans short."
He walked out of the classroom and some of the class followed him, but most of them rushed towards Danny.
"Danny, that was amazing!"
"You saved us from that ghost!"
"That was incredible!"
"Um, thanks, but…we need to get to class." He shoved himself through and started walking quickly towards the classroom as they followed behind him, complimenting him on his ghost fighting skills and drooling over the use of his powers.
He entered the classroom and quickly sat down as the students continued to pester him. He looked up at Mr. Lancer, his eyes pleading him to start the lecture. Mr. Lancer nodded his head.
"Alright, let's continue our discussion of the digestive track. We left off with the large ball of grease that you claim to be a hamburger as the acid in the stomach was attempting to digest it."
Once the bell rang to signal the end of class Danny grabbed his stuff and ran out of the room before he could be cornered again. Things were going so well all day. People weren't being overly obsessive or bothersome and he didn't have much trouble getting to class. Then the ghost attacked and he had to "show off" which started everything over again. The next time he saw Technus there would be no mercy.
He ran to his locker, grabbed his books, and ran off to math. He wasn't looking forward to spending more time with his horrible teacher any longer than he had to, but right now it was better than the throng of students heading towards him. Word obviously had gotten around of his "daring" fight with Technus.
Unfortunately, math didn't provide much relief for him. As soon as the rest of the class entered the room they huddled around him, continuously asking him questions about Technus and the battle.
"You seemed like you knew him really well. Have you fought him before?"
"Do you fight him often?"
"Is he hard to fight?"
"Does he always shout out his plans like that?"
Danny shut his eyes to try to block out the sounds, but to no avail. He just couldn't take it anymore. "Argh, will you guys just be quiet already!" Danny yelled in frustration as his eyes flashed green. "Look, let's get one thing straight. I fight ghosts, at least once a day, and I'll probably be fighting them for the rest of my high school career. And you guys, obsessing over every ghost battle, asking me constant questions about it, it's just not going to work and it's already gotten old. So, for my sanity, can we please just treat ghost battles like nothing special and get on with our lives?"
The other students looked at each other and then back at Danny.
"Alright, having said that, I'll humor you briefly. See, there's a rhythm to these things. My ghost sense goes off signaling there's a ghost, I go fight him, we talk, exchange witty banter, I kick his butt, and then I suck him into the thermos. That's about it. Nothing glorious, nothing special, got it?"
Some of the students felt satisfied and sat down, while others still seemed like they wanted to ask him questions, but sat down anyways.
"Nice one Danny," Sam remarked.
"Yeah, that shut them up."
"Yeah, and a good thing too. I think I was about to go nuts."
Then Mr. Dickens entered the room with a special glare for Danny, who glared back. Obviously their conversation after school did absolutely nothing, because it seemed like he still hated him.
"Alright class, let's stop fussing over our new celebrity and get to work," Mr. Dickens instructed as he opened his book. "Now, would everyone please get out their homework," he added with a smirk.
The shuffling of papers was heard and Danny, with a triumphant smile on his face, pulled out his completed homework. This would wipe that smirk of his teacher's face.
"Now, Mr. Fenton, would you care to read off the answer to the number twelve?"
"Of course. X equals plus or minus five."
Mr. Dickens stared at him, his smile faltering for a brief second, to Danny's great satisfaction. He walked over to Danny's desk. "Let me see your homework." Danny handed it over proudly and smiled at Tucker and Sam as Mr. Dickens looked over his paper.
"You do know, Mr. Fenton, that copying off another person's homework is cheating, even if you are a ghost."
"What? I didn't copy! Ask my sister or my parents, I spent all afternoon in my room doing my own homework!"
"Do not lie to me Mr. Fenton. Thankfully for you I will let it slide for today since you probably figured you are now above school laws, but continue to keep this up and I will be talking to your parents."
"Good, maybe then they could talk some sense into you," Danny muttered.
"What did you say Mr. Fenton?"
"Nothing."
"That's what I thought. Now, let's continue to go over the homework."
Mr. Dickens didn't call on Danny for the rest of the homework problems, but he did give him his share of evil looks and occasionally made references to example human students who didn't cheat and how Danny should try to act more like them, more human.
"Alright, and now I have some bad news. Thanks to our young 'hero' none of you have calculators for today's pop quiz. That's too bad, because they really would be helpful right about now."
The entire class groaned and some gave Danny an evil look. Danny meanwhile was furious. There was no reason that he needed to do this, and he probably just made the quiz up right after he heard about the destruction of the calculators, just to make Danny mad. Well, it sure was working.
"Mr. Dickens, aren't there general calculators that can be loaned to the students?" Valerie asked.
"No, not at the moment. They're all being updated with new programs."
That was a lie, and judging by the looks of disbelief on half the class' faces, they knew it was too, and they weren't happy.
"Now, take out a blank sheet of paper. I'm going to write the problems on the board and you need only to answer them on the paper. You need not show any work, so if you were fortunate enough not to be in class with Mr. Fenton this morning, you can calculate the answer straight off the calculator. For the rest of you, good luck and hope that you can do well enough on the other tests and quizzes to bring your grade up after this one."
He walked to the board and began writing immensely complex problems on the board with calculations that involved long and detailed multiplication and even longer division, not to mention problems involving sine and cosine for angles that could only be calculated with a calculator.
"Mr. Dickens, couldn't you use nicer numbers that are easy to calculate since we don't all have our calculators?" Valerie asked.
"No, because these numbers were chosen so that you learn how to do these problems without the benefit of easy numbers. You won't always be given nice easy numbers."
"Yes, and we can do those in our homework or maybe another quiz, but since the methods are the same regardless of whether the problem can be done with nice numbers of not, why can't we use those for this quiz?"
"I already explained my reasoning for that Ms. Manson."
"Well, you're reasoning is bogus. You just want to punish Danny for saving the day because you've got a grudge against him!" Many of the students murmured in agreement.
"Detention Ms. Manson, and this time, I'll make sure you don't get out of it."
"Fine with me. See if I care."
"Enough of this. You have fifteen minutes to take this quiz with the numbers and problems the way they are. Talk and you will receive an automatic zero. Begin."
This was impossible. There was no way they could finish all those problems in fifteen minutes without a calculator. Danny started rushing through his quiz, but finding himself forced to stop because he was unable to calculate the number needed to proceed.
Then, an idea struck him. It would require him to leave the room, but he probably wasn't going to do much better on the quiz sitting in the class than leaving it.
He raised his hand. "Mr. Dickens, I need to leave."
"We're taking a quiz Mr. Fenton. I cannot permit you to leave."
"But the new policy states that if I need to leave, you have to let me. Would you like me to get the Principal or Mr. Lancer to verify it?"
"Fine Mr. Fenton. You may leave, but you won't receive any more time to take this quiz."
"Fine with me," he answered as he ran out of the classroom. He burst into the math office, to the surprise of the teachers in there. "Sorry," he apologized. "We're taking a quiz in math and none of us have calculators. I was wondering if we could borrow some."
"You mean they were broken, right?" the teacher asked.
Danny blushed. "Has everyone heard that story?'
The teacher smiled. "Don't worry, you may. There's a bucket of some over there."
"Thank you." He grabbed the box and ran back to the classroom. As he entered the door to the classroom, eyes turned towards him, wondering what ghost he had to fight that time. When they saw the bucket of calculators in his hands, their faces brightened.
"Mr. Fenton, what is that?"
"Well, the Box Ghost was harassing the teachers in the math office. After I captured him I asked the teachers if they happened to have any calculators and they handed me this large bucket of them. Didn't seem to be any problem with them after all. Isn't that good news?"
"Extremely," Mr. Dickens answered through gritted teeth.
Danny started passing out the calculators and it seemed like the students gazed at him with more admiration than before, which Danny thought was impossible. They easily finished their quizzes with the aid of the calculators and class continued on with a very unhappy math teacher.
Danny, Tucker, and Sam sat at their usual table at lunch, after being asked by many people to join their tables. Surprisingly though, they were generally left alone, save for the occasional person asking a question or wanting an autograph, to which Danny found extremely unsettling.
"Man, if I would have known that my autograph was so popular I would have started signing all sorts of paper and selling them on Ebay," Danny remarked as he signed yet another piece of paper. "Do you know how much money we could have if we had done that?"
"Well, it's not too late. Set up fake accounts, make people believe that we don't know you, and I'm sure we could sell them like nobody's business," Tucker remarked. "Then I could have enough money to buy another PDA since you destroyed mine."
"God Tucker, can't you just let it go? I've already said I'm sorry."
"He's just trying to be a jerk Danny, don't mind him," Sam comforted as she gave Tucker an evil look. "I offered to buy him another one."
"But that one was special."
"Sure it was."
"So, what happened last night?" Sam asked.
Danny sighed and relayed the previous night's events. Sam looked like she wanted to interrupt him multiple times, but he told her to wait until afterwards. Then she could just get all the yelling out at once. When he finished, Sam and Tucker looked at him in disbelief.
"You have got to be the stupidest person in the world!" Sam yelled.
"Will you keep it down?" Danny asked as people stared at their table. "I get enough attention as it is without you making a scene."
"Danny, do you realize what you did?"
"Not really."
"Do you have any common sense in that brain of yours? Making a deal with Vlad? Making an unbreakable vow that will put you as close to death as possible if you break it? You seriously cannot be that stupid."
"Listen, you weren't there, all right. It seemed legit and Vlad looked just as nervous about doing it as I did."
"Why can't you just do it in writing?" Tucker asked. "I mean, did it have to be some weird exchange of powers?"
"Vlad wouldn't have it any other way."
"Which should have been the first clue that there was something wrong!" Sam yelled.
"Look, so far nothing's happened. I mean, I'm just as worried about this as you are. Believe me, I didn't want to do it in the first place, but I didn't have a choice. So will you guys stop lecturing me on how stupid I was and help me calm me down and give me that 'we can handle anything' speech?"
"Sorry," Sam apologized.
"Yeah, sorry Danny. "Don't worry, we won't let anything strange happen."
"Yeah, and if Vlad tries to pull something, then we'll expose him, because that's not against your vow."
"Thanks guys. Now, can we talk about something different, like…"
"Hey Ghost Boy!"
Danny turned around and saw Dash over at the table next to theirs laughing.
"Ha! He actually responds to it! I can't believe he actually responds to it! What else can we call him that he might respond to? Invisobil? Halfie? Freak?"
"Leave him alone," Sam threatened.
"Ooh, look at the little Goth Bird, sticking up for her half dead boyfriend."
"He/she's not my girlfriend/boyfriend!" Danny and Sam both shouted.
"Hey, wouldn't it be considered necrophilia if you dated him, since Danny's dead and all?"
Danny's eyes glowed green as he leapt up and headed towards Dash, an ecto-blast formed in his hand. Tucker jumped up and grabbed Danny's arm, which caused the ecto-blast Danny had just shot to fly over Dash's shoulder. Dash looked fearful as Tucker tried to hold Danny back, preventing him from actually hitting his target. But he forgot about Sam. In a blur of black and purple Sam rushed past them and tackled Dash to the floor, punching him in any spot she could find.
"Let me go Tucker."
"No way Danny. You could actually kill him."
"That's the point," he answered as he started walking towards Dash, dragging Tucker across the ground. Tucker dug his heels into the ground, but to no avail.
"Danny, you don't want to do this!" Tucker begged as he continued to be dragged helplessly across the ground while Sam continued to beat Dash, hitting anyone who so much as tried to come near them and stop her.
"What's going on?" Mr. Lancer asked as he heard the commotion outside and saw Sam on top of Dash, beating him black and blue, and Tucker attempting to hold back the angry Danny.
"Tale of Two Cities what happened here? Ms. Manson, desist this instant!" He ran over and started pulling Sam off of Dash, who came unwillingly, giving Dash the evilest of glares, a glare she usually only reserved for Vlad or Paulina.
"You crazy psycho!" Dash yelled as he started to back away from her. Sam tried to struggle out of Mr. Lancer's hold, but he held her tightly.
"Mr. Baxter, head to the room across from mine and stay there. Ms. Manson, Mr. Foley, Mr. Fenton, follow me."
He led them back to his room and sat them down in front of the desk.
"What in the world just happened out there?" he asked.
"Dash started making fun of Danny," Tucker, the only calm one, explained. "He started teasing them with the usual boyfriend girlfriend comments, but then…
"Then he said that it would be considered necrophilia if we ever dated because Danny's dead!" Sam yelled.
Lancer jerked forward in his desk. "Little Women! He said what?"
"He said that…"
"I know what he said. That was a rhetorical question. I'll be right back."
Mr. Lancer left the room. The three of them heard Mr. Lancer's loud voice from across the hall as he yelled at Dash.
"Hey, thanks for stopping me Tucker," Danny thanked.
"No problem. As much as I wanted to see you totally beat the crap out of him, I didn't think it would help your reputation if Danny Phantom murdered the quarterback of the Casper High football team."
"Yeah, probably not."
"And thanks for not stopping me," Sam thanked in return.
Tucker paused. "Was that sarcasm?" he asked hesitantly.
"Nope. If you had tried to stop me Dash wouldn't have been the only student murdered."
"Oh, good, I think."
Mr. Lancer walked into the room, his face red from yelling at Dash. "Alright, I think I've gotten things sorted out. Mr. Baxter has been assigned detention every day until he learns his lesson, which I'm afraid may be a long time coming. But, I think I drilled into him that if he doesn't start behaving there will be more serious consequences. I do hope that will help and that he'll stop these rude comments."
"Thank you Mr. Lancer."
"And I feel I must apologize again to both of you for his actions."
"Don't worry about it. I should have expected something like this."
"Well that's the thing, you shouldn't have to. Now, I believe there are still a few minutes left of lunch and I'd hate to keep you in here again like I did all day yesterday, so you are excused."
"Thanks Mr. Lancer," the three of them thanked as they headed out the door.
"Oh, Mr. Lancer, I think you may need to talk to Mr. Dickens again today."
Mr. Lancer sighed. "Yes, I figured I would. Believe me, I've heard of the calculator incident. It's already on my list of things to do after school's out."
Danny smiled and headed after his friends, cherishing the rest of their lunch hour before their next class.
Danny stood at his locker, placing his books in for the last time that day with great joy. Like yesterday, he just wanted to get home. The school days just seemed so long and tiring, like they drained all his energy and patience.
"I'm so glad today's over. I'm so ready to go home," Danny stated.
"Here here. It's a good thing Mr. Lancer got me out of detention again," Sam remarked.
"Detention again?" Jazz asked as she walked towards them.
"Yeah. I'm sure you've heard the story of the destroyed calculators."
"Oh, yeah."
"I got detention for sticking up for Danny and calling the teacher a biased jerk."
"Really?"
"Well, not in so many words."
Then Danny felt a tug at the back of his t-shirt as he was lifted off the ground and again saw the inside of the locker. As the door of his locker slammed shut he heard another three doors shut as well and heard shouts of protest from his two friends and his sister.
"Dash, isn't this getting a little ridiculous?" Danny asked from inside the locker, sounding exasperated. "We've already demonstrated that this does absolutely nothing since I can just walk right out, so how about we just stop? There's no point in continuously humiliating yourself."
"That's what you think," Dash remarked as Danny heard the click of a button. On the outside the locker glowed green before dying back down to nothing. Danny turned intangible and tried to phase through the bottom of the locker, but couldn't. Instead he felt a shock surge through his body as he gasped in both pain and surprise.
"See Fenton, I think I finally found a way to actually shove you into a locker by your definition. You said the point was to prevent the person from getting out, and I did."
"What did you do?" he asked angrily, the bright green of his eyes lighting up the inside of the locker.
"Portable ghost shield, and, since you're a ghost, you can't get out!"
"You've got to be kidding me!" Sam yelled from her locker.
"Wait, you stole it from my parent's basement!" Danny accused.
"Yup. I figured it could be put to a much better use, and look, it is! And you were right Danny, making sure the person can't leave doesn't take the kick out of it. It makes it feel a lot better."
"You jerk! I've saved your life! Don't you remember the time one of my dad's inventions shrunk us? I saved your life from Skulker, and this is how you repay me?"
Dash paused and turned slowly, like he was actually taking what Danny said into consideration. "Yeah Fenton, but you want to know something? You save us out of your own stupid hero-complex, not expecting anything back, so why should I give it to you? If there were a ghost attack right now you'd still save me, even though I just stuck you in your locker, because that's just the way you are."
"Actually Dash, I wouldn't because I can't seem to get out of my locker to save you because some idiot decided to put a ghost shield around it!"
"Well, not my problem. Let's see the amazing Danny Phantom and his friends find a way out of this one!"
Danny heard Dash's laugh trail away as he walked away from the lockers as the halls were silent. There was no one there.