Chapter 7
Danny had credit recovery second hour. Apparently there were some classes which you couldn't fail and still graduate. Since, as a senior, Danny had a vested interest in getting his diploma on time, he showed up in the library everyday he could for online classes.
The format was good for him. Online classes had a flexibility normal ones didn't, allowing him to learn anywhere anytime of day in whatever intervals he could fit in. As a result he was both learning more than he had the first time around and achieving a better grade.
Sam and Tucker didn't share this period with him. He supposed that whoever was in charge of scheduling knew that if the three of them were together nothing would get done. Initially, Danny had been mad about it, but now he was grateful. Now he needed some designated time alone.
Unfortunately, being alone meant being alone with himself, and he wasn't very fond of himself lately.
When he ducked into the library a few minutes early, the librarian nodded at him from her desk. She'd take his attendance. The room was about half the size of their gymnasium, and it was a maze of shelves. The computers were located in the back corner, huge and wheezing, one per little table. Every budget season, after all of the property damage and security cost was accounted for, there was never money left over for new technology.
Since Danny was the only student slotted to be here at this time, he got the spinny chair. He loved the spinny chair. The ragged, well-stained spinny chair.
While the program started up, he very carefully readied his books. If he played his cards just right, he wouldn't have to think about anything except Biology and American History for the next sixty minutes. And he really needed sixty minutes of not thinking.
The deck, however, was stacked against him. He'd hardly written down Chapter 7 at the top of a notebook page before alarm bells sounded. The whole school collectively groaned, but Danny was particularly vehement when he cursed whatever spectral being had decided to romp around the school that day.
A faint rev in the distance told him just which ghost it was too. His headache was back.
"Johnny, why?" he grumbled, rolling backward in his spinny chair with a flounce. With less haste than usual, he stood and began his walk toward the door of the library. Johnny wasn't a malicious ghost; as long as his girlfriend Kitty was safe, he usually just showed up to blow off some steam and cause general mayhem for the sake of it. He didn't set out to hurt anyone.
Bar random accidents, everyone was pretty safe.
When Danny strode past the front desk, he noticed that the librarian had already fled. He guessed she'd joined the throng of running and screaming people he could hear outside. Casper High kids, as citizens of Amity Park, would usually have reacted much more calmly to a mid-morning ghostly surprise. Something cold and grisly rumbled inside Danny when he realized what had set them so on edge.
When Danny raised a hand to open the library door, it flung into him on its own. The wood smacked him in the face and the metal handle was shoved harshly into his abdomen.
"Danny, wait!" two voices called out in unison.
"Tucker? Sam?" Danny asked, clutching a now bleeding nose.
His two friends occupied the entire doorway, gaping at him, for five full seconds before they descended upon him with relieved smiles.
"I'm so glad you're okay!" Sam remarked, pulling him into a hug.
"We were worried about you, dude," Tucker commented.
Danny returned Sam's hug with the hand that wasn't red with blood. "I was okay, before my face met the door," he snapped, continuing to pinch his nose, "Don't worry, I bleed easily. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some ghost butt to kick."
"No you do not," the girl fumed, grabbing his arm before he could walk out, "If you go out there, the only ghost butt that gets kicked will be yours."
He looked at Tucker to back him up; he didn't help. "She's right, we think it'd be best if you stayed out of this one."
Now it was Danny's turn to fume. "Guys, this is kind of my job, so—"
"This is not your job. Consider yourself unemployed, cuz you're not going."
"You're not my mother, Sam—"
"Yeah, right I'm not your mother, I'm just threatening to beat you, she'd actually literally shoot you!"
Danny didn't reply. Sam didn't say anything else. Tucker merely looked down uncomfortably.
Then Tucker's face froze. "Hey, Danny, did you notice you were freezing yourself to the floor?"
He hadn't noticed he was freezing himself to the floor. And that was honestly alarming. His body, responding to said alarm, completely without his permission, immediately became both invisible and intangible. Sam and Tucker cried out his name in unison, unable to see as he stumbled backward and half of him fell through the burnt orange carpet.
As quickly as he could, he rose to floor-level again and willed himself back to normal, gasping. His head ached terribly, and an electric sense of foreboding consumed him.
"What's wrong with me?" he gasped, voice raw.
Sam and Tucker exchanged a worried look. Each of them grabbed one of his shoulders and hauled him to his feet. There was an old couch nearby, covered haphazardly by a sheet. Danny recovered himself just enough to reach it without assistance, then promptly collapsed.
At least his nose had stopped bleeding. Still, he both looked and felt as if he'd been punched in the face off a building, minus the associated broken bones.
The sound of Johnny's motorcycle was getting closer. Sam and Tucker pulled ectoguns out of their pockets and assumed defensive positions while Danny curled up hopelessly helplessly on the couch.
In that moment he felt like the biggest failure in this plane of existence and the next. Something in his chest cracked, and he placed all of the concentration he could on keeping his body exactly as it was in the state that it was. If Danny could no longer protect the town, what good was he? What good was he to anyone as a weakling and a coward? There had been times when everyone in town (bar his closest friends) thought he was a villain and a demon. It sucked, it hurt, but he himself had known that he was valuable. That he was good, that he was helping. That all of his personal sacrifices were worth it if he could make people safer.
Now, that was gone. Soon everyone would know what he had done. Even if they didn't believe it now, he knew that they would. Guilt seeped into every cavity of his being and despair followed it. They would be right to hate him. They would be right to fear him. He was scary, he was dangerous, just as he had always known he eventually would be.
He held back hot, angry tears, and cursed his stupid headache!
The trio heard Johnny Thirteen calling out in the halls. "Where's baby Phantom? Doesn't he want to come and play?"
Determined and newly invigorated, Danny stood. White, glowing rings began at his waist and transformed him. Hands shaking, he wiped the still-red blood off his face and made his way towards the door.
"You're being stupid!"
"Do we stop him?"
"Hell yeah we stop him! You got a thermos, Tucker?"
Danny was hardly listening. That is, he could hardly hear them over the pounding in his head. Either way, he was determined to keep going. They didn't understand; they couldn't understand.
"It's...in my backpack. In the classroom."
The ghost boy phased right through the door at this point, and his friends ran after him.
"Come on, your parents will be here soon!"
"They'll take care of it!"
"Think of it as a sick day!"
Annoyed, Danny went invisible and flew in the direction of the noise. He found Johnny in the gymnasium, doing donuts on the basketball court while his Shadow threw hard orange balls at people. Frightened teenagers and staff were still scattered around the room, running every which direction. He saw Mr. Lancer yelling at them to use the fire exit, but no one was listening.
When they saw Phantom, every single one of them skidded to a stop and stared.
"Looking for me?" he asked bravely, raising his hands to lob ectoblasts at the intruder. Then he saw his hands; they were covered in blood.
Red, human blood.
The anger that had risen in his chest plummetted, the fire in his eyes faded, and forceful shakes overcame his body. Oh God…oh God, oh God, oh God…
The doors on the other side of the gym burst open. Jack and Maddie Fenton leapt into the room, suited up, weapons ready. The shock and rage on their faces dealt another devastating blow to the teenage hybrid.
Suddenly, Danny was on a motorcycle. Just as suddenly, a cannon-sized ectoblast originating from his mother's ecto-bazooka whizzed through the spot where his head just was. "Hang on," Johnny told him as they zapped out of sight and sped out of the school through the walls.
They jerked to a stop in the end zone of the football field, the motorcycle's wheels leaving ruts in the snow. Embarrassingly, Danny fell off almost immediately.
"Touchdown!" Johnny roared, formally dismounting his bike.
"What do you want, creep?" the ghost boy spit.
"Oh, just wanted to see what was bugging you so bad…" he explained cryptically, walking in a circle around a now sitting Danny.
"If you want to beat me up get to it. Unless my sister is possessing you for a change, I don't want to hear any psycho-babble-mumbo-jumbo."
I'm not here for anything concerning your sister. Shadow and I have just been hearing some rather disturbing things along the ghostly grapevine….or rather, Kitty has."
"If you have something to say, say it. If you don't have anything to say and you're not here to beat me up, I have schoolwork to do so…" Danny hauled himself to his feet and found himself face to face with Johnny.
"You look terrible, you know. Positively ill," he whispered, greasy orange hair and pale pimply complexion much too close to his face.
"Get. Out. Of. My. Face."
Johnny tilted his head to the side and squinted. His mouth opened, and his mouth closed. "I know what you did. I have to say, I'm shocked. But, you know, sometimes things get out of hand, people make mistakes…."
Danny raised a glowing, bloody hand and seethed, "I'm not in the mood!"
His last word came out much louder than it should have. In fact, it reverberated in the air around them and formed into a blast of its own. Was that a mini-wail?
Johnny stumbled backward and nearly fell. He exchanged a look with Shadow and climbed back on his motorcycle, revving the engine obnoxiously. Danny suddenly felt a milder version of the draining effect his ghostly wail always had on him. He bent over, placing his hands over his knees, and focused on breathing.
"By the way, stupid," the ghostly delinquent called as he prepared to leave, "I thought you might want your lunch back." Danny looked up just in time to see him pull a metal cylinder out of his jacket and toss it on the ground in front of him. "Later."
White rings encircled Danny once more as he zoomed away. The thermos. Johnny had a Fenton thermos? It didn't make any sense for a ghost who didn't want to catch a ghost to go out of his way to steal a ghost-catching device. Unless that was part of the fun. Maybe when opened the thermos released a fanged, kraken-sized iguana or something.
He heard people coming. His friends hopefully, his parents probably, and who knows who else. With any luck they hadn't seen anything they shouldn't have, but at this point Danny was too tired to care very much. Part of him considered phasing and sneaking away invisibly, but he was too tired to do that either.
So he sat. Sat in the snow drift and waited for people to come and make their own assumptions.
Sam and Tucker descended upon him first. Is there a word for a cross between relief and anger? he wondered idly.
"Are you hurt?" Sam asked, "You're bleeding."
Danny brought a hand up to his nose. Yeah, I am bleeding.
Cold water met the hand on his lap. When his other hand automatically reached for the first hand, it got a splash too. He looked up at Tucker, confused.
The techno-geek was putting the cap back on Sam's water bottle. "The blood, dude, you gotta wash off the blood."
He looked at his hands again and began halfheartedly rubbing them together in a scrubbing-motion.
His parents were there next. He could feel his mother's hands, feeling his head for a fever, raising a tissue to his nose, patting his back. He could hear his father's voice, asking if he saw the ghost, if he fought the ghost, where the ghost went.
When the teachers showed up he snapped out of it. Tentatively, he willed himself to his feet, clutching the thermos in one hand. His muscles protested, but eventually complied.
"Oh, Danny!" his mother cried, quick to grab his elbow in an effort to help him stabilize himself, "Here, let me help you to the Ghost Assault Vehicle."
Still, woozy, the teeanger shook his head. Sam was here; he needed to figure out why she'd skipped first hour. And he had to tell them both about what happened with Plasmius last night.
Was that really just last night?
It felt like it couldn't have been just last night. It felt like at least a week had somehow passed in the interim, and it left him spinning.
"I'm okay, really," he deadpanned weakly.
"Did that ghost do something to you, Danny-boy?" his father asked, ectogun still in hand.
"I think we should scan him for ecto-contamination," Maddie suggested, voice laden with concern for the well-being of her only son.
"No!" he protested too loudly, "I'm fine. Perfectly fine. A-okay, really!"
Neither ghost hunter looked convinced.
"I was just, um, uh, taking a walk to get some fresh air when I saw that ghost. That ghost on the motorcycle. The one with the shadow. And, uh, he, uh, went by really fast. I tried to chase after him and lost my footing." Danny was rambling now, and gesturing wildly with the thermos. He knew that he was, he just couldn't stop himself. His mother eyed the thermos and seemed touched; it really was a very convenient prop. Encouraged, Danny continued. "Yeah, I fell over. I'm just a little dazed. I think my headache is back. Maybe the stomach ache too. Didn't eat much today either. Blood sugar's probably low, I should go inside." For effect, he stretched a toothy smile across his face. It came out forced. He waited.
Silence. Awkward silence.
"We'll help him back to school, Mrs. Fenton," Tucker promised hastily, "We've got a math test next hour, he really can't miss it."
She didn't look convinced. After exchanging a brief look with her husband, she sighed. "Alright. But, if you feel too sick, call the house. Jazz should be there, she'll come get you. I'm afraid we're going to be pretty busy today."
She had to go. Had to go catch Phantom, had to catch the killer. And she didn't even know she had him by his elbow that very moment.
Danny was simultaneously terrified and longing. He desperately wanted the comfort of a mother, of his mother. He wanted to confess everything to her, then he wanted her to hug him and tell him that it was all going to be okay. That he'd done nothing wrong, that it wasn't his fault. But he had done something wrong and it was indeed his fault. If she only knew….she could never know. After what happened in the gym, he could never tell her now.
Mama...just killed a man.
Put a gun against his head,
Pulled my trigger now he's dead….
In his mind he could see her face. Shock initially, confusion. Then dark understanding. Hurt. Betrayal. Anger. No, he could never do it.
Tucker and Sam stood on either side of him now, slightly in front of him like they were trying to hide an expensive vase they'd shattered from their parents. And he was the broken pottery.
"Excuse me, Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, but if young Daniel here is quite alright, I'd like to know how your security system allowed for such a breach," the principal inquired indignantly.
His parent's turned to answer the query, giving the trio the perfect opportunity to scuttle off back towards the school.
"Dude, what happened?" Tucker asked in a hushed voice.
"You saw most of it," he relayed gruffly, "The entire disaster."
"We didn't even reach the gym til you were already gone," Sam imparted, irritated, "We heard everybody talking about blood on Phantom's hand, and we were obviously very concerned for your ungrateful ass."
"You're lucky we put two and two together, too," Tuck elaborated, "And got to you before your parents."
"Can you spell the word, 'Disaster,' Danny? Or maybe you want me to use it in a sentence?" Sam snapped, "Would country of origin help? What can we do to make you get this through your thick skull?"
It started snowing lightly. Danny wiped his nose on his wrist and examined his friends. "You guys must be freezing," he commented. They'd come out without their coats.
"Thanks for noticing, we appreciate your concern," Sam seethed, tiny white flakes settling on her face and in her hair.
"I got in there, got ready to fight, and realized my nosebleed had gotten all over my hands." He sighed. It wasn't as if he hadn't known from previous experience that his blood, once outside his body, did not undergo the transformation with the rest of him. "Next thing I knew, Johnny had me on his motorcycle. Then we were out there, and he was talking in circles. Soon people were coming, so he pulled out this thermos, lobbed it at me, and took off."
Sam stopped abruptly and snatched the thermos out of his hands.
"I know what you're thinking, you'd probably like to keep me in there for a few hours, but we really do have a math test in a few minutes."
"Guys, you know how I had that thermos? The one with Spectra and Bertrand in it?"
The two boys nodded.
"That thermos disappeared last night. My parents dragged me downstairs for a yelling match, and when I came back it was gone."
Tucker's eyebrows scrunched together. "So, you think…."
The three teens eyed the thermos suspiciously. If this truly was the thermos that contained Spectra and Bertrand, Danny had a mind to set it on fire.
"So Johnny stole it from you last night, only to give it to me this morning?"
"I didn't say it made sense. It'd just be an awful coincidence, right? One thermos disappears, then some ghost, a ghost who isn't exactly known for critical thinking, steals a random one for the exclusive purpose of giving it to you?"
None of them noticed Lancer walk up behind them.
"What in Jane Eyre's name are you three still doing out here? Did any of you bring coats to school today, by chance?"
"We'll be right in," Tucker chimed.
The middle-aged teacher shook his head, deciding it would be easier and better for everyone if he didn't argue. Away he walked. The trio followed after.
"Plasmius showed up at my house last night."
They stopped again.
"What?"
Though he'd brought it up, Danny suddenly didn't want to talk about it. "It's not a big deal. Just his normal crap."
"This hasn't been a very normal week, I highly doubt it could be just his normal crap," Sam snorted.
"He wanted to help," the ghost boy sighed calmly, "For a fee, obviously."
"A fee? Really?"
"An undisclosed fee," he continued, beginning to walk slowly forward, "And I had absolutely no choice in the matter, of course." He was beginning to feel like he'd never have a choice again.
His throat closed up a bit. He'd never in his life felt so boxed in, so trapped, and he'd been trapped a lot of times before. He'd even been forced to do things under the sway of mind control. This time, though, he'd confined himself. He'd walked recklessly into a corner, only to find that the walls were closing up around him. And no matter what he did, he couldn't stop them. No choice seemed at all viable other than the option to sit and calmly await doom.
His friends tried to coax answers out of him, but he remained quiet as they walked into the school. Second hour was coming to a close, and now Danny had a math test to worry about. A freaking math test.
All three of them were taking Statistics; Calculus was out of the question, and a senior math class was required by the state. Danny had actually been doing pretty well too, pulling low B's instead of his usual low D's. And it was making the teacher pretty mad too.
Quietly, Sam, Danny, and Tucker sat down in their regular seats. Much less quietly, the rest of the class filed in around them.
"All the blood—"
"Just gross—"
"Where do you think it came from?"
"Can't believe they haven't canceled classes!"
"We're obviously not safe…."
"I hope everyone has their calculators," the teacher rasped in his nasally voice, interrupting the numerous discussions going on around the classroom, "They'll come in pretty handy on the second portion of the test."
Danny didn't have his calculator. It was either in his backpack in the library or on his bedroom floor at home. And honestly he didn't have the energy to look for it.
"Mr. Fenton," he sighed, "Do you or do you not have your calculator?"
Staring down at his empty desk, he shook his head.
"No pencil either, hmm?"
Something was poking his back. Tucker stuck a spare pencil over his shoulder, and he took it without a word.
The old man lost interest in patronizing him then. "Alright, class, put everything but your calculators and your pencils under your desks. You may begin as soon as you get your test."
Eventually a paper packet landed on Danny's desk. Slowly, tiredly, he signed his name and tried to muster up the will to focus.
Stem and leaf plot….stem and leaf plot…
What on Earth was a stem and leaf plot?
The entire test went basically just like that. Some concepts he had vague recollections of, others could have been brand new. Despondently, he jotted down what he could.
Finally, staring at what he could have deemed the finished product, he felt the urge to cry. Or leave. Or cry and leave.
No. He'd worked too hard to give up. He'd worked so, damned hard. He wanted to be proud of himself, he wanted to know that he was doing well. At the end of the day he wanted to be able to pat himself on the back and not have to scrape the bottom of the self-esteem barrel in search of something, anything. At the end of the school year he wanted to receive his diploma with a smile. A hopeful smile.
And he'd known for a while that that was unlikely.
This was just the nail in the coffin.
Mama…
Life had just begun.
And now I've gone and thrown it all
Away…
Author's Note: Hey, everyone! Sorry for the wait. I've been pretty busy lately, but here you go, another chapter. Hope you enjoyed it.