Author's Note:

AaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaa...: An Autobiography By Me

Lancer's eyes had changed, but not in a way that indicated possession — no. They'd grown wider, become wild and desperate-looking. The person the Fenton siblings were staring at was no longer the teacher they knew and "loved", but something else entirely, simply by the way it moved, and the way it spoke.

"That's not Mr. Lancer!" Jazz yelped, but Lancer rolled his eyes.

"Oh, you think? Whatever gave you that impression, girlie?"

Danny was far more on the business side of things than his rather startled sister. "Who are you?!" he demanded, pointing an upside-down finger at the man. "Are you a ghost?"

Lancer's face was buried within his hands already. "Goddamnit yes, I'm a ghost! And I'd rather not suffer the indignity of being identified while stuck inside this boring, balding little man!"

Danny opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it once more in order to speak. "You mean you're stuck overshadowing him?"

"I feel like I'm superglued!" the ghost hissed, using Lancer's mouth. It started to wave the teacher's arms around emphatically, as if to further its point. "Even worse, it seems to be I'm not even superglued on properly! He keeps regaining awareness and then I pass out! Not that silly little humans like you would ever be able to sympathise—"

"So, uh… wait up a second," said Danny. "The reason we're here is that he—" he gestured at Lancer and the ghost, as if this made much of a difference "—doesn't want you there. And if you don't want to be there either, then that sort of suits everyone, right?"

"… Right?" said the ghost.

"So… we'd like to try to help remove you?" Jazz tried, having finally surmounted her own terror.

The ghost that was unwillingly attached to Lancer crossed Lancer's arms, and tapped Lancer's foot. "And how do you intend on doing that, exactly?"

Danny and Jazz exchanged a glance. The small half-ghost bit down on his lip as he asked, "He's completely unconscious right now, isn't he?"

"Yes."

"You're sure?"

"Yes!" said the ghost, impatiently.

"Well, in that case…" Danny walked right up to the ghost. Jazz seemed to be almost biting her own nails, but it wasn't like it bothered him. He saw ghosts all the time — good ones, bad ones, and for the most part they just wanted to be left alone. This'd be a piece of cake, right? The ghost even wanted to be removed. How often did an opportunity to resolve things so easily just walk up and sit down right in front of him?

"What are you doing?" asked the ghost, a little urgently. Danny cocked his head — it wasn't like a ghost to be panicky at being approached by a human.

"I'm going to remove you."

"With your bare hands?!" it sputtered. "But how?!"

"Like this!" said Danny, drawing his right arm back and flooding it with ectoplasmic power. It willingly shifted to intangibility even while he remained in human form, and the ghost gave an audible yelp of surprise, but Danny ignored this. Best if he got it over fast. Best if he—

The ghost's stance changed. It was staring down at Danny, eyes wide with terror, as the boy's intangible hand raced towards its chest and made contact.

There was a sickening crack!

Jazz flinched away. Danny had two years of ghost fighting experience under his belt, and thus even in his human form, packed a fair bit of muscle that not too many people knew about. A sound like that did not bode well for the teacher's ribs, and Lancer did not so much fall backwards as he did get thrown.

Horrified, Danny checked and re-checked his apparently still-intangible arm.

That wasn't supposed to happen. You couldn't phase through ghosts, but humans were fair game. Danny was supposed to just collect the ghost and force it into intangibility and out of Lancer's body, while giving Lancer nothing more than a rather distinct feeling of total violation. But things hadn't worked that way — he hadn't been able to phase through Lancer. And now Lancer was on the floor, rolling around after receiving the punch of his life.

"Oh God, I'm sorry!" the boy finally spat out, running up to Lancer with his sister in tow. His arm remained in its intangible state; he seemed to forget about this. "Hey, hey! Are you all right? Is Lancer all right?!"

"Daniel Fenton!" Lancer gasped, and in only a moment Danny realised that his teacher was back in control. "What in the name of Nineteen Eighty-Four was that?!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, the ghost—" he had to stop mid-sentence, because his sister hit him.

"Your arm!" she hissed.

"—th-the ghost made me do it! It's still got me!" Danny sputtered, holding up the intangible arm as an example, and then began to throw it around unconvincingly as if he had no control over it. "I have to go back to the supply kit!"

And he did, managing to look as though he were running in several different directions as he went, while Jazz was left to tend to Lancer.

"Hey, it's going to be okay!" she told him, attempting to help the man up. He didn't seem keen on taking this help but he also wasn't keen on staying on the floor, and the messy result was a kind of reluctant attempt at sitting straight that ended with Jazz doing most of the work. "Just a — a slight setback!"

"A slight setback?" said Lancer, but with an awful wheeze. "Your brother's possessed!"

"It'll be fine! All in a day's work… haha…" she managed, looking nervously back in the supposed direction of her brother. "Right Danny?!"

"Something like that!" he yelled back from the other room, hidden and out of view. There was some strange and rather violent sounds coming from the source of his voice, followed finally by the distinct sucking sound of the Fenton Thermos, and finally silence.

"What in Gulliver's Travels is going on?"

Danny limped back into view, arm notably back to its regular state of total tangibility, holding the Fenton Thermos as if he'd done a deed of the truly brave that day. Jazz turned back to her teacher, with a long sigh.

"Sometimes I wish I knew, Mr. Lancer. Sometimes I wish I knew."