The first sign of trouble came when Tucker was standing at his locker, trying to remember what classes he had that day. One minute, he was bemoaning the A/B schedule forced upon them this term by the ghost-induced teacher shortage, the next, something cold and heavy was draped over his back and shoulders.
His first thought was that the jocks had bought a bunch of bargain bulk ice from the corner store and decided to dump it on him all at once. But ice didn't shift its weight or say things like, "Hmm, Tucker, you're so warm," or "Tucker, are you sick? Do you have a fever?"
"I'm not hot, you're cold." Crap. "I mean, I am hot, but not, like, temperature." He wriggled around to face Danny.
Danny looked up at him (because the only person in their grade who Danny beat out in the height department was Mikey, and Tucker didn't think that would last much longer) with an expression that managed to be both dreamy and concerned, and a pair of massively oversized pupils.
"Tucker, you shouldn't come to school if you're sick."
"I should be saying that to you. Are you concussed?"
"Mmm?" said Danny. "Sorry, I couldn't hear you over the singing."
Yeah. Okay. He was concussed. Ugh. At least he wasn't prophesying yet. Danny's concussion-induced clairvoyance could get uncomfortable.
Tucker took him by the arm and pulled him into a classroom that hadn't been used since Mrs. Hogarth took early retirement way back at the beginning of the year. He led Danny to a desk and sat him down.
"I'm going to go get Sam, okay? Stay here, don't scare any freshmen."
"Uh huh," said Danny, leaning forward to stare at the table. "Wow, there are a lot of little dots here."
"Yeah, okay," said Tucker. "Just. Stay."
He peeked out into the hallway, hoping that Sam would magically be there, even though her locker was in a different hallway. She wasn't. Heck. He shut the door behind him and started power walking. He wanted to run, but he didn't want to get detention… or start a mini-panic because people thought he was running from something. Both things that had happened this year. To Tucker.
Jeez, he hoped Sam was already here. He did not do terribly well with concussed Danny. Then again, Sam didn't, either. No one did, except maybe Jazz. But he wanted the backup.
Luckily, Sam was there, glaring at her locker with the same sort of strained, half-awake confusion Tucker had been experiencing less than ten minutes ago.
"Sam, we have a problem," said Tucker.
"Huh? What?"
"A Danny problem."
That got a greater portion of her attention. "What happened?"
"I don't know yet. He seems concussed. Kind of, you know, help. Need it."
"Right," said Sam, ramming books back into her locker, heedless of bent pages or order. "Where is he? Locker?"
"No, Dash isn't here, yet," said Tucker. "At least, not that I've seen."
"Great." She slammed her locker. "Do you know how he got concussed? He was fine when we left last night, wasn't he?"
"Yeah, but he said something about doing another loop."
"But he didn't call us."
"I can't control that."
"I know, I know," said Sam. "Sorry. Where is he?"
"Mrs. Hogarth's old room."
"Great. That's out of the way, at least. And it's too early for the couples to start in on each other…"
"Uh huh," said Tucker, following her as she strode down the hallway. "Sure is." Like he knew when the couples 'started in on each other.' Actually, why did Sam know?
They got back to Mrs. Hogarth's room, and Sam walked right up to Danny, who was bent over the desk and was staring at it intently, his nose less than an inch from the surface. She knelt next to him.
"Hey, Danny?"
"Hm?"
"What happened last night after we left?" asked Sam, shaking him slightly to free his attention from the wood grain of the desk's veneer. "Who did you fight?"
"Didn't fight," said Danny.
"What?"
"What?"
"What did you do last night?" asked Sam.
"I went and played– I played with the wisps in the park. We had lots of fun. Mhm." He nodded. "They're my friends. They're– They're good friends."
Will-o-the-wisps were lovely, friendly ghosts. They attached themselves - socially, not literally - to more powerful ghosts. They filtered ambient ectoplasm and emotional energy into more readily usable forms in exchange for protection. They also cuddled, chimed, sang, ate candy and earwax, and played tag. They were multitalented like that.
However, when half ghosts were given lots of ghost energy at once they experienced some side effects. It was something to do with the interaction of their human bodies with their ghostly ones. If wisps weren't careful with their energy output, they could trigger those side effects.
That was to say, Danny wasn't concussed, he was high.
This was bad.
"How long did this take to wear off, last time?" Tucker asked Sam.
"I don't know," said Sam. "I was too busy to time it. Danny, when did you play with the wisps?"
"Huh? Sorry, the music is too loud, what did you say?"
"When did you play with the wisps?"
"Last night."
"When last night? Like, how long? What time did it say on the clock?"
Danny frowned at her for the first two questions, then brightened at the third. "Clockwork's my friend, too," he said. "But I didn't see him."
"Dude…" said Tucker. "Maybe you should call in sick or something."
"But I'm not sick," said Danny, "and I have, I have a test. A test. I can't miss tests."
"Danny, you are high. You can't stay here. You'll get in so much trouble."
Danny sniffled. "I can't miss tests."
"His attendance is really bad right now," said Tucker. "Remember what Lancer said a couple days ago about parent teacher conferences."
"Oh my gosh. Frick. Okay. We're going to figure out how to hide this."
Danny brightened. "Sam, you're the best." He leaned forward and planted a kiss on her cheek.
"What," said Tucker, before Sam could explode or immolate or however it was she was going to react to that, "none for me?"
Danny blinked up at him brightly, then stood up and walked right through the desk (and Sam's arm), and leaned forward to plant a kiss on Tucker's nose.
"You're both the best," said Danny, happily. Then he sat down on the floor.
Sam sighed. "That always feels weird. Do you have any hoodies? Mr. Falluca won't ask him to take down the hood."
"I might," said Tucker. "Let me go check." He dashed back across to his locker, and shoved his books to the side. There, under his chemistry text, was a hoody… an older one, yeah, and it could probably do with a wash, but it wasn't like Danny would notice until he was back to normal.
He freed it, shook it out a couple times, turned - and was knocked on his back by Skulker and Danny as they swooped by, locked in an aerial wrestling match. They zoomed down the hallway, then turned sharply right, phasing through the wall and into a classroom. An occupied classroom, judging by the screams and how people started pouring out. There were some more, more distant, more muffled shouts.
The courtyard.
Tucker grabbed his lipstick laser from his locker and started running to the doors at the end of the hall. Sam passed him, wrist ray active, but pointing steadily down at the ground. She burst through the door long before him. By the time he got out, Skulker had Danny-as-Phantom in a net and was alternately monologuing about how he was the best hunter ever and berating Danny for not giving him a good hunt. Typical, really.
Less typical was the way Danny let Skulker swing him around, smiling vaguely and humming all the while.
"Spectators," hissed Sam, glaring at all the other students in the courtyard. "I'm going upstairs."
"Got it," said Tucker, breathlessly, his PDA in his offhand. Skulker had gotten most of the Purple Gorilla malware out of his suit's systems, but not all of it. It was actually kind of funny. He must have rebuilt his suit a dozen times, and he got new tech and new software every time, but somehow, he always put something in that had the Purple Gorilla programs back into it. It'd be better for him to start from scratch, but of course Tucker wasn't going to tell him that.
There it was, the tiniest backdoor he could get into with just a touch of bluetooth.
Sam started shooting at Skulker from above. Good, good… He wouldn't be able to react nearly as quickly when Tucker did this.
Skulker's hand, the one holding the net, and, by extension, Danny, fell off. Danny stayed exactly where he was in the air, the net now hanging off him, and Skulker's mechanical hand hanging from the net.
"Aren't you supposed to be doing something?" Sam asked, frustrated.
"Oh," said Danny. "Yeah!" He pulled out the thermos and hit the suction button. The net was, of course, still in the way, so it sucked the net in first… But Danny was behind it, and the thermos was inside the net, so, effectively, all it did was tighten the net around Danny, who finally dropped.
Tucker continued to press buttons. One of these… No, one of these…
Skulker's fallen hand sprung open, and the net got sucked the rest of the way in. Danny pointed the thermos at Skulker, and he was promptly sucked in as well.
Then Danny stood there, blinking, in the middle of the courtyard, as various teens cheered and shouted things like "that's so cool, Phantom" and "you're the best, Phantom" and "date me, Phantom!"
And Danny wondered why Tucker got jealous. Like, Tucker loved the guy, but he didn't really do anything this time.
As Tucker watched, wondering when Danny would remember he had to fly off sooner rather than later, a tiny purple spark flew out of Danny's left ear, and a slightly larger red spark flew out of his right ear.
"Thank you for the music!" said Danny, happily, waving at them.
"You've got to be kidding me," said Tucker, watching the wisps fly away, out of the courtyard.
Danny's head snapped towards Tucker, and he flew over. "Hi!" he said, beaming, and planted a kiss on his eyebrow.
In the middle of the courtyard.
Right after a ghost fight.
In front of all the Phantom 'phanatics' who decided to come watch a fight Danny was losing.
Oh. Tucker was going to die. Killed by Danny's rabid fans. What a way to go.
Danny, for his part, drifted up and away, slowly fading out of sight, either ignorant or uncaring of the fate he had just doomed Tucker to.
Tucker scurried back into the building and down the hallway, and didn't stop scurrying until he was back in Mrs. Hogarth's room. Sam was, of course, already there.
"How do you always get places before me?" asked Tucker.
"I exercise. We really need to find out if ghost narcan is a thing."
"You think?"
Danny leaned forward and kissed Sam on the ear. He giggled. "They like- my friends, they like earwax."
Sam sighed. "We know, Danny."
"At least he waited until you weren't in front of everyone."
"Oh, yeah, speaking of which, any last requests before your untimely demise?"
"Wisps are banned from my funeral."