I can't even express how sorry I am for how long this took. Life got really hectic for the last few months, and I only recently managed to sit down and actually write this. It doesn't help that this chapter, despite being one i was looking forward to, was fighting me the whole way. In any case, I'm very sorry and I hope it doesn't happen again.

Please enjoy the chapter where Things begin to Happen.

Warnings: I can't think of any? Danny ist nur sein Danny, and some jerks show up.

The presentation took far longer than Danny originally intended, and not much was actually said that he hadn't already been over. In fact, other than a little more dodging of personal questions, the only significant difference was Danny's request that his parents were left out of the situation. A few people had asked him about that, but were appeased when he blank-facedly reminded them exactly what his parents thought of espers.

Despite that, he had sort of expected his parents to find out by the time he got home. As he often was when he followed the ways of Murphy, he turned out to be correct. As soon as he stepped through the front door, his father's bulky arm landed around his shoulders.

"Danny-boy, why didn't you tell us you were inventing ways to destroy espers?" Jack bellowed, beaming brightly, "I can see it now: you, your mother, and I! Side by side, eradicating the disease that plagues humanity! Maybe we can even convince Jazzerincess to join us, and make it a family thing."

Danny watched his dad warily as Jack waved his free hand through the air as if he was expecting a visual transition to some daydream world in which that was already happening. With a weak smile, he tried to correct the statement, "Actually, I don't think blindly killing people for something like having powers is a good idea. The limiters - who told you? - just restrict an esper's powers without hurting them."

Pausing and glancing at his son in confusion, Jack made a confused face and was about to speak when Maddie entered from the kitchen. She had evidently heard Danny's statement, but perhaps misunderstood it, judging by the look on her face.

Danny braced himself for another lecture on the 'inherent evils of psychic abilities and their holders', his eyes closed so he wouldn't need to her in the eye.

"That's a good idea, Danny!"

'Wait, what?'

Danny looked up at his smiling mother, who stood with her hands on her Hazmat-covered hips in a proud stance. He grinned back tentatively. "It is?"

"Of course it is, sweetie!" Maddie reaffirmed, clapping her hands in joy, "After all, we do need to preserve the subjects as completely as possible so that we can study them and learn how to stop them from being born in the first place! You're such a smart cookie."

Jack perked up at that. "Cookie?"

Maddie laughed and went back into the kitchen, with her husband not far behind. Their youngest child stood, shell-shocked, in the front hall. He was honestly surprised at how smoothly that went over, as well as how little of his time it took.

Well, he wasn't going to complain about that.

With very little hesitation, the esper fled up the stairs to his bedroom. It was with no guilt whatsoever that he locked the door behind him. He didn't want or need any distractions from his meager homework time.

Even with the extra precaution, Danny only finished half of his English assignment before he felt the familiar cold in his chest, radiating from his power core. With a sigh, he stood and phased through the wall into the relentless evening.

The next morning, Danny trudged into the school with trepidation. He, like every student in the school, knew that today would start with the individual scanning.

Danny knew there was no way he could be more prepared for this. He had Tucker ready to interfere with the machine. He had active limiters on his ankles, hidden by his jeans. He had inactive, nonfunctional limiters around his wrists in plain sight as a fake-out, so they wouldn't suspect he had more. He had even been sure to use up a little extra energy in his late night battles, and had all but guaranteed that his parents were too busy in the lab to show up at the school.

That being said, he was very familiar with Murphy's Law. Even if, somehow, he made it through the scanning without incident, something bad was bound to happen today. He just wasn't sure what.

With a heavy sigh and a shake of his head, the boy stopped at his locker, as usual, and was unsurprised when Tucker showed up soon after.

"Hey, Danny. Whoa, you look tired, are you okay?" The technopath greeted, absently jotting something down on his PDA without typing before he noticed his friend's slightly disheveled appearance. His response from Danny was a light glare.

"It's the same as usual, Tucker. A short guy in a high-tech battlesuit tried to hunt me for a few hours last night, then I still had to do homework." Danny sighed. After a pause, he spoke again, "I'll admit it, though- most of this is because I'm all stressed out over the screening they're doing today."

"Yeah, figures. You know that I can change the readings without a problem, though, so just relax! I've got this."

Danny's head dropped into his hands. "Tucker, oh my god."

"What?"

"You can't- you can't just say something like that! It's like the slightly less serious version of the phrase 'what could go wrong?' and you're asking for trouble." The explanation was given with distinct annoyance that covered up nervousness. The boys started the trek to homeroom.

Tucker blinked at that. "You believe in that kind of thing? Dude, you're from a family of scientists, shouldn't you be more… I dunno, scientific?"

"Tucker," Danny said with a blank face, "I'm a kid with superpowers. That we don't understand the origin of. And there's no explanation as to how the human body can handle them. Scientific? Please. Jinxing makes about as much sense as everything else."

"...Point taken."

The two strode in silence for the remainder of the admittedly short walk, and upon entering the classroom Danny cringed. Several people had turned to look at him as soon as he walked in, one of those people being Mr. Lancer himself. The overweight teacher smiled upon seeing that his whole class was on time for once.

"Hello, Daniel, Tucker. I'm glad you were able to join us on time this morning." Lancer commented, prompting an embarrassed response from Danny as the boy took a seat.

"Heh, yeah," Danny agreed, rubbing the back of his neck in vague discomfort, "I figured that today was too important to miss any of, so I sacrificed a little sleep to make sure I could get here earlier than usual."

Lancer nodded his assent, but then blinked. "Daniel, I'm afraid you can't be wearing a device that could interfere with the readings today. I'll hold onto your limiters until the scanning is over, and you'll get them back immediately afterwards."

"What? But they're not even activated…" Danny protested, if only to remain convincing.

"Even so, they could be turned on later. It's not that you're untrustworthy-" Danny held back a scoff, "-but it wouldn't be fair to the other students if you had access to a... " Lancer glanced at a book on his desk, "...sweet piece of tech that could give you a free pass."

Danny feigned a moment of thought, then sighed. "Alright, sure. As long as I'm allowed to have them back afterwards."

As Danny slipped the silver bands off of his wrists, Lancer nodded once more. "As long as I have them, yes. I can't say the same for the people who will check later, however…"

Danny froze, and the classmates who had been watching in silence began to murmur in nervousness and confusion at the teacher's words, everyone ignoring the warning bell. "Um, Mr. Lancer, what do you mean?"

"In short, if you're caught with a limiter anywhere on your person when they check, you probably won't be getting it back. For that matter, if anyone else has a limiting device, please hand it to me now."

For a long moment, no one moved. Then Danny placed the non-functional limiters on his desk and ever-so-slowly reached down and pulled up the bottom of his pants legs, revealing the working pair. People began to whisper louder, most wondering why he had a second hidden pair on in the first place.

With hesitation, Danny shut the limiters off, unclipped them, and placed them on his desk with the other pair. He couldn't let his only working limiters be destroyed, or worse, confiscated and tampered with by the government. Besides, he still had Tucker to cover up the real results of the test later, so it wouldn't matter too much.

At least, that was the case as long as this was the only bad thing to happen today.

Danny handed the limiters over to his blank-faced teacher, then made a show of turning out his pockets. "Nope, nothing but a few coins and some lint. I think I'm in the clear now."

With that, he settled into his chair and pretended not to notice the eyes on him, instead masking his observations under the guise of glancing at his friends. After a short but stifling silence, he cleared his throat and raised an eyebrow.

"Mr. Lancer, shouldn't we be heading towards, uh… wherever this scanning is supposed to be?"

The man blinked once, twice, thrice. Only then did he snap back into awareness and start moving. "Er, yes! We need to head down to the gymnasium. The machine has been set up already, so we can start as soon as we get there. Before we go, I am obligated to explain how this is… going to go down. You will enter a curtained-off area, then stand upon the designated spot and relax as you are scanned. The machine will beep when you are done. It will calculate your power level, if you have one, by factoring together your base energy output and the estimated diameter of your power core."

For the second time in ten minutes, Danny froze.

"The exact number will be put into the list for later evaluation, but the only thing that anyone else will know is whether or not you are above a level two. Those of you who are will be marked with a red stamp on your left hand, and then you will be put on an official list until you get a limiter and can be left alone about it. After the scanning is over, students are to wait in the cafeteria for more instructions."

"Oh, shit…" Danny mumbled, catching the attention of both of his friends. "Ohhhhh hell."

Tucker made a worried face and reached towards Danny in an attempt to comfort him, but Sam got there first. "Danny, are you okay? You don't have anything to worry about, you're not even a level one!"

"The power core, I never thought…" Danny continued, as if he hadn't even heard her. He didn't notice Tucker's physical attempt to help either, but he did react to his words.

"Dude, it's alright. I'm here, remember? I've got this."

"C-can you doctor a really specific photo very quickly without any idea of what the real thing would look like?"

"...shit."

Sam tried to speak up and ask what her two best friends were talking about, but Danny and Tucker abruptly stood and followed their homeroom teacher out the door before she could say a thing. The girl let out an angry huff of breath, clenching her fists before she followed them.

The short walk to the gymnasium was tense and quiet, as nearly everyone knew of someone that would be potentially revealed in less than an hour. Unfortunately, it became obvious when the class entered the gym that they were going to have even less time before the inevitable. Their class was the first to arrive.

With nary a word spoken by any student or teacher, the words of the white-suited government employee were heard clearly by all. "Good morning, students of Casper High School. Identify your homeroom number."

"2B." Lancer responded curtly, displaying his open dislike of the man. It didn't seem to trouble the agent, who just smiled in a way that made Danny uncomfortable.

"Single file, one at a time."

Danny found himself near the front of the line, with Mikey, Sam, and a few kids he doesn't know well standing in front of him. Tucker was about half of the way back, and when Danny glanced back at him, the other boy gave him a serious nod.

The wait was agonizing, even with the distraction of being checked for limiters and interference generators. Each person probably only took two or three minutes, but as the tense knot in his gut grew tighter, the seconds seemed to stretch unnaturally. By the time he was the next up, he was starting to consider that there might be some sort of illusionist messing with him, until, finally-

"Next."

It was his turn.

Taking in a large gulp of air in a vain effort to calm his pounding heart, Danny stepped forward and behind the hastily placed curtains. He noted that they were heavy, possibly designed to deafen the sounds from the machine, which was innocently humming away in the middle of the curtained-off area.

Heart thundering in his ears, Danny stepped into the spot under the scanner, a large metal object, and waited, his hopes resting in Tucker. If his friend was successful, then maybe, just maybe, he could pretend that he was a mostly normal kid. Maybe he could avoid the inevitable fallout that would come from the school knowing he was powerful.

Maybe he could avoid his parents' hatred, if he just got a clean result-

A low tone sounded. The humming stopped. Hesitantly, Danny opened his eyes and looked at the machine, and his eyes rested on the readout screen.

8.3. Tucker had failed.

As he stared at the flashing crimson number, he tried to ignore the crushing sensation of withering hopes. He stumbled out the other side of the curtained area, turning his attention to the agent waiting to stamp his hand.

"You've been confirmed as a potential threat. Hand, now."

The harsh tone snapped Danny back into reality. He couldn't see the agent's eyes, but the deep frown and rough grip on his thin wrist conveyed a type of hatred he had only ever seen in his parents. The stamp was pressed uncomfortably to the back of his hand before Danny was all but shoved towards the gymnasium doors.

Brow furrowed in worry and thought, Danny rubbed absently at his hand as he stepped into the cafeteria, where the rest of the students were to gather after the scanning. His thoughts were focused on the agent and his own future. What the hell was he supposed to do now?

He was so deep in thought that he didn't register the stomping of heavy shoes as soon as he sat down in the lunchroom. In fact, he didn't notice much of anything until-

"DANIEL JAMES FENTON!"

"Oh, jeez."

Word Count: 2488

There's the chapter I accidentally made you wait several months for... I hope it was slightly worth the wait? Jeez, I just want to get to the part where we reveal that (Spoiler). That's gonna be fun.

In any case, thanks for reading and have a nice day/evening!