Guess who's back…Back again…Guess who's back…. blah, blah, blah. I was actually surprised how many people left reviews, I really do appreciate them. Matter of fact I appreciate everybody who read the story as well, y'all are OG's.
I did want to address a few things for those who do not skip these:
I have started to watch the series and one thing I picked up was that ghosts do know who Danny is in his human version. It was surprising to me since 90% of the Danny Phantom Fanfictions that I have read is the exact opposite, so I just assumed otherwise. This made me think a bit and develop some filler chapter ideas that could happen in the future.
I have also come to the conclusion that I won't join the two story idea's together for one big reason, that reason being that I would have to create a lot of OC's for the second idea and that would be a lot of filler chapters if you want to see this plots main story. So instead I will make another Danny x Paulina story. It will take the same joint project theme in the beginning but it will be much different than this current story. I'll probably post the idea within a month or two, not really sure because there are a couple tweaks I want to make before I post the idea. All I can say for now though is that it's a unique idea since I haven't read any story with that storyline or at least a unique idea within the Danny x Paulina community since something like that has probably been written by some author somewhere. Before anybody says anything about me taking on too many stories' all at once, it is very simple, most of my ideas were made before I even created a Fanfiction account, matter of fact posted on it. So I am not all over the show, I am just posting my future projects to grow an audience.
Lastly, does anybody know of any online grammar checking software that work well? I am currently looking into it and everything seems paid for, while the free ones don't really work well. If you do could you comment one or even shoot me a DM/PM it really would be appreciated.
Well that's all I have to say for now. Enjoy.
P.S. the beginning is just a couple formalities to set up the scene of the social scale while also starting to develop Paulina's character. The show (as far as I have gotten so far) really seems to have just given her shallow characteristics and just said "it's because you're rich and pretty." I understand that does happen a lot in real life, but I feel as if that takes away from developing her in any type of way. That's why I do want to develop her character and make people fall in love with her. As I said, I am aiming for the top, I'm coming for the best Danny x Paulina story crown.
Chapter 1: Old Enemies, New Partners
As Paulina had woken up to the blazing sun shining through her curtains, she made a mental note to change them to thicker one's after she got home from school. Looking at the time, she saw it was still 06:52, giving her enough time to stay in bed for a couple more minutes. She went about her usual morning routine, first checking her messages to make sure nothing had happened while she was asleep, then she'd move over to Instagram where she'd see who followed her, liked her picture and commented. Usually, nobody interested her, just random dudes commenting heart eyes while other females hyped her up as well. She had become so used to it that it no longer fazed her. The guys would not get a reply if she did not know them, in other words if it was not Dash or Kwan she would just ignore the comment. Over the years she had discovered that a simple "Thank you" could get to some of their heads and then all of a sudden there would be another guy talking to himself in her dm's for a couple of months if not longer. She would reply to the female's every time though, first thanking them and then hyping them back up, as long as she saw the message.
Her train of thought was interrupted when she had gotten two notifications. The first one was a comment from Star congratulating her for breaking the 100k followers mark. She hadn't even realised it but when she checked her profile she saw it, "128 pictures, 100k followers, 2361 following". A few years ago she would have screamed her lungs out and gone crazy, but she didn't for many different reasons mainly the fact that it was not a surprise to her, her page had started to grow as she started to go through puberty, she was very consistent with her posts and it was definitely not close to bad quality or the typical cringe teen feed as she was a model so she would not only get paid but have the highest quality pictures sent to her at the same time.
As she went to thank Star, the previous night started to fill her mind. She was less focused on being angry at Star than her actual curiosity towards Danny. She really did enjoy knowing everything and the fact that information like this was probably unknown to most of the school intrigued her more.
'Where did he learn how to fight? How was he that strong? Because that was definitely more than just good technique. Why would he still escort me home?' She let out a silent scream, as the only way to get answers to her ever growing curiosity was to actually ask him. Which she realized was not as easy as it could have been after she remembered their screaming battle to end off their night. That's when it clicked. She had an inside man, Dash. She would question him at school later to see if he had heard anything from Jazz. Satisfied with her scheme to achieve the information she looked at her phone and it read 07:19.
She decided to get done for school before heading downstairs where she would probably be interrogated for last night. She got up, changed into her usual attire. Went downstairs as she could hear the voice of her mother and her baby sister coming from the kitchen. Making her presence known she greeted the both of them while going straight to get the cereal. She might have been rich but her family was never eggs and bacon or pancakes every morning bougie. Just suggesting the idea would get her side eyed from her mother and she would be told that if she wanted it she would have to make it herself because she had two working hands. After that she would probably hear something on the lines of, "Imagine asking me to cook for you every morning when you barely have time to eat because you're almost late every day." So instead, she just stuck to what had been working her whole life.
As she looked poured the milk into the bowl filled with her meal she felt as if somebody was staring at her. Looking up she caught her mother's eye and she already knew what was about to be said. "Your father told me about last night. Are you okay, did you get hurt in any type of way?" Her mother approached her and was now standing right in front of her as she rubbed the back of her head.
"My head doesn't hurt at all; my back is a bit sore but nothing that I haven't dealt with before. I was more shook up by the actual encounter than the pain." Apparently that was the wrong answer because she suddenly felt her mother smack the back of her head.
"Ouch! Mama that hurts, why did you do that?!" She screamed as she held her head. "Good, maybe that will teach you a lesson before you go out on school nights again. What were you thinking and if it was not for that Fenton kid, Lord only knows what could have happened to you." Paulina didn't retort in any type of way as she knew this scolding was coming from a good place. Instead she just apologized and nodded, keeping quiet out of respect.
Before leaving the kitchen Mrs Sanchez kissed her daughter on the head before once again smacking it, while mumbling something about her child being a naïve young girl. "Mama, can you please stop. That hurts!" Once again holding the back of her head Paulina was starting to get a little irritated by the type of scolding she was receiving.
"Oh get over it. When I was your age I died and my mother told me to just walk it off, a love tap won't do anything to you." Paulina rolled her eyes as a small smile appeared on her face, loving the antics that the old lady would cause. As she proceeded to eat the rest of her breakfast she heard her mother scream from the living room. "Oh ya, Paulina! Your father said he would speak to you about your punishment later. Also, he wants to pick you up during the school day to take you to get checked so I will drop you off at school today after I drop your sister off."
Reminded of the small child across from her, she looked at her little sister and smiled at how cute she looked in her uniform, the primary school had decided to implement an actual uniform to stop kids from being bullied in any type of way as the gap between the rich and the poor was starting to grow even more after the gated community started being built, it was only another couple of months before they would move into their new house. Her parents did not like the fact that they would be giving their children another reason to become stuck up but a gated community would be much safer for them and their parents put their safety over everything else.
"You ready to go Lola?" Paulina asked as she finished her cereal and proceeded to put the bowl in the sink. "Mhmm. Paulina, who were you talking to last night?" Paulina looked back at her sister and once again the thoughts of the previous night plagued her mind, but she was smart enough to know that her sister wouldn't have woken up to the noise. As loud as they were, Lola had slept through construction workers drilling through walls on many occasions. Her mother had probably put her up to the task. After all, Lola was everybody's weakness between her cute smile and her innocent face Paulina struggled to lie to her, as if it would taint her precious sister. But one thing she knew was that her sister really struggled to stay on topic, once the topic changed she would usually go along with whatever the new one was if she had no interest in the previous topic.
So instead of answering Lola, she instead picked her up into her one arm while the other picked both of their bags up and threw it over the less occupied shoulder. "Please promise me that you will never grow up." Lola looked at her sister weirdly, long forgetting her original mission. "I don't think that's how it works." Paulina just smiled as she went to inform her mother that they were both ready to leave.
Paulina had finally arrived at school, saying goodbye to her mother she stepped out the car and made her way onto the school grounds. As she walked towards the building, she pulled her phone out to shoot Star a message but before she could finish her message a car came dangerously close to her. Looking up from her phone, she seemed ready to kill somebody until she noticed the car and then got angry all over again, it was Dash. "You fucking dumbass." Paulina whispered to nobody in particular as she started making her way to his car. Every step she took caused people's head to turn. Out of pure interest of what was about to happen.
As she reached the car, Dash seemed to have gotten out of his car at the same time. 'He is smiling. As if there was something humorous about almost knocking me over.' This seemed to have made her angrier and just as she was close enough to yell at Dash for his stupidity, the passenger seat door opened. It caught her off guard as her head rotated towards the opposite side of the car to see Jazz Fenton who seemed to be too busy screaming at Dash already.
"Dash are you crazy! You almost knocked her over, what if you lost control of the car or if she had tripped. Apologize now!" Dash still didn't seem to phased by any of this as the smile started to grow when he made eye contact with Paulina. "It's not that big of a deal, honestly. Hey, Paulina, tell Miss Grumpy that you're fine and that she needs to stop going on." Paulina refocused on Dash as she squinted her eyes and gave him a dirty look.
"Paulina, you deal with him the way that you want to. I can't deal with this so early in the morning." Paulina nodded in response after making eye contact with Jazz. Not trusting her voice enough to not sound irritated, she didn't want to give her the wrong impression. She usually wouldn't care what anybody had to think of her but Jazz and Dash seemed to be a serious thing meaning Jazz would be a constant in his life at least for a while. So it's much better for everybody if no unnecessary drama would start because of the tone of her voice.
Just as Paulina was about to once again start her rampage, the backseat door opened. As if the person was waiting for everything to die down before making their presence known. Danny Fenton stepped out of the car, closing both his door and Jazz's as he watched her storm off into the school building. "You better sort that out before the day ends. I am way too tired to deal with her attitude later."
"Danny, you don't even deal with it when you are awake. Last time she got angry, you laughed at her and made the situation worse for me." Danny started thinking as the memory of the three of them hanging out together started flooding his mind. "Yes and that's the way I deal with it, by making it worse." Danny was laughing. Nobody would think that Dash and Danny were once mortal enemies, they seemed so friendly with each other and in that moment Paulina started feeling as if she was the third wheel to their friendship.
As if Danny could feel the awkwardness radiating off of Paulina, he stopped talking to Dash and made eye contact with her. His smile faded away and just like that his walls seemed to build itself up again. The corner of his eyes was red, backing up the fact that he was tired. The way he looked at her was way different than he looked at her a few years ago. His stare was cold, it felt as if he was staring through her instead of admiring her. If she had not been around some of her father's business partners growing up, she would definitely have been intimidated. They seemed to have been in a staring battle, both thinking about the previous night. Unknowingly catching the attention of teenagers walking by, for one of two reasons. Danny Fenton had the guts to stand with two A-Listers who in the past had a kid suspended for just walking in their direction and Paulina was actually allowing him to look at her without any type of rebellion against it.
'I didn't expect to see him this early in the morning. Should I apologize for the way things ended last night. Maybe I should thank him. Maybe…' Paulina's train of thought stopped when Danny walked passed her without a word being spoken, 'He really was not lying about the fact that he wanted nothing from her. Papa will pay him back somehow he hates when he feels as if he owes somebody a favor, I just hope that I don't have to get involved to help him out. If he wants nothing, then the best option is to give him nothing.' As she turned back to Dash she put her thoughts aside coming to the conclusion that overthinking the situation would not get her anywhere.
"You dumbass! You could have knocked me over. What if you did and killed me. Both you and Star are fucking idiots." Dash was reminded about his little prank and started laughing again. "Hey as far as I know, you're the one who was on her phone in the middle of the road, you see that arrow that points forward? It's to direct cars, meaning that I can drive this way." Dash didn't seem to change Paulina's attitude as she just gave her normal glare which he had gotten so used to over the years.
"And since when do you transport Danny? Jazz I can understand, but you and Danny seem close all of a sudden. You replacing Kwan now?"
"I went to pick Jazz up and Danny just happened to be leaving, he seemed way more tired than usual so I offered a lift and no I'm not replacing anybody, Danny and I are just cool. There's no bad blood, we have our little banter and everything but we are definitely not as close as Kwan and I. Why's it such a big deal anyways?" Dash finally closed his car door and locked it, double checking the door to make sure it was actually locked. "Wait why did you not drive here, though? I drove passed your mother, did she drop you or something?" Paulina decided to tell Dash the truth, she had no reason to hide anything from him, especially since she wanted her own answers.
"I'll rather just give you the full story. So last night me and Star went to a party, Star ditched me half way through it and then I had to walk home. While I was walking I ran into Danny and we had a bit of an argument etc. then he told me he would walk me home and everything. While we were walking something happened and a guy tried to mug me. Danny however interfered and as far as I can tell he didn't get hit at all. Matter of fact he seemed to be playing with the guy, he controlled that the whole fight and it wasn't just wild lucky punches. He could actually throw a punch with power." Dash seemed to have pulled his face but didn't speak at all, one thing he knew was once Paulina started filling you in about drama you should just let her finish. As Paulina looked at Dash's face she realized that this information was new to him as well. "Skip forward we walk to my house. I might've stepped over the line and pushed him a bit too far when I asked him where he was going and then my father caught me trying to sneak back in and spoke to Danny for a short bit. Came back inside told me he would tell me what my punishment was later on and when I woke up my mother told me that he wanted to take me to the doctor during class so he did not want me to take my car. That's everything I think."
Dash took everything in as he started moving towards class and Paulina followed. He didn't speak as he just thought about the situation. "Fenton didn't even mention it in the car. Also he must have been fighting for a while to be able to fight as well as you say he can. I didn't check but I am pretty sure that his knuckles are not bruised. If his really punches that hard, his hands should at least have been sore but they are not. Maybe I will ask Jazz about it sometime." Dash was just voicing his thoughts at this point, his curiosity growing along with Paulina's as they entered the school building. Neither one speaking another word and just heading off to class.
Paulina gave Star the cold shoulder for the first few periods but after the peacemaker aka Kwan had gotten involved forced her to speak to Star she got over it and swept everything under the rug. Paulina went on to explain the whole situation that occurred after she had left the party and once she woke up this morning, also going into detail about how Dash almost put her into a casket. Which got her a "get over it" comment.
As class proceeded Mr. Lancer started talking about the new English group project that he would be assigning them. As he started breaking it down further, he explained that instead of being able to pick your partner, the Department of Education has implemented a new solution to the "lack of bondage amongst teenagers" as they liked to call. So instead of allowing kids to split themselves into groups the teacher had to pick a new way to split kids into groups.
Mr. Lancer really did change over the years, he started giving the sport players less special treatment after he became a principal-teacher. Danny also grew onto him over the years and even though he still gave Danny a harsh time it was more to push him to do the best that he could do academically than wanting to use his authority to push him down. Their constant back and forth had turned into healthy banter which would be on full display in class… well, if Danny was present in class.
"So there are actually a few ways I thought I could go about this. I could do it based on seating but most of you are seated around your friends so that would not really work. I could spin a wheel with everybody's name on it, but that would take a lot of effort." The class just shook their head in amusement at how contradicting Mr. Lancer was, he would always preach about giving everything 100% but then when he had to put in effort he would take the easiest option while abiding by the rules. "Instead, what I am going to do is simply take your position on the class list and match it up with your opposite for example, first will be with last, second with second last and so on."
Mr. Lancer went to fetch the class list on his desk and started reading out names before anybody could protest anything. "James you are with Amy…" a soft yes was heard in the background. 'Guess this system does not always work' thought Mr. Lancer as he continued to go down the list. "Star you are with Kwan…"
'Okay something is definitely wrong over here.' Mr. Lancer thought as the pairings was different but it was not unusual, everybody who ended up together seemed to be on extremely good terms.
As Mr. Lancer made his way to the next name on the list, he heard the door creak open. Glancing over to the doorway, he saw his mischief student the one and only "Mr. Fenton, glad to see you finally join us." Danny slowly entered the classroom while giving his version of an apology to Mr. Lancer, "Sorry for not blessing you with my presence earlier sir. I wanted to arrive on time but there's so many bald teachers that I kept getting you confused with them." This got a laugh from the rest of the class while Mr. Lancer slightly smiled and let Danny off the hook.
"I'll let it slide this time, but next time just follow the scent of an F and you'll find yourself in front of my class." Danny couldn't help laugh at that as well, he was not an F student anymore but the joke had stuck over the years and he would even admit that it was funny.
"Moving on. Where was I, before I was so rudely interrupted? Oh yeah the class list. Would you look at that Mr. Fenton, you had perfect timing because your partner is none other than Ms. Sanchez."
The class got quiet. Really quiet, it had been no secret that Paulina had hated Danny while Danny was "in love" with her but over recent years he seemed to just give up on her in general and started to go out of his way to not deal with her. So nobody had seen the two students interact with one another in a while, since most of them had not seen Paulina acknowledge his presence during the whole parking lot situation.
Mentally smiling at himself, Mr. Lancer was finally happy that he found a non-friend pair on the list. While he was celebrating in his head something else was happening in the head of the two victims of his glory.
Paulina had gotten over her curiosity and instead she was starting to wonder if somebody had it out for her. She was staring him in his eyes once again, already aware of the fact that people were watching the two of them have their stare battle. 'As grateful as I am for what he did last night. That doesn't mean I have to automatically like him. His still that nerdy geek who's obsessed with me, whether his playing the wannabe bad boy card or not. All it takes is me flirting and his feelings would be back, men ain't shit and even though he could be less shit. His still falls into that category.'
Danny on the other hand thought about something completely different, his mind was on what just went down before he arrived at class.
Flashback 25 minutes ago
Danny was walking down the hallway when smoke started coming out of his mouth. He sighed inwardly, as he fake yawned to hide the smoke from being seen as he started heading towards the bathroom.
He did not travel very far before he ran into his enemy of the day. Desiree. 'I am really not in any type of fighting mood but she won't be hard to deal with if I make this quick.' Danny thought as he started to stretch, feeling his muscles pull and then relax as he stopped stretching.
"I am not here to fight, young one. I am merely here to give a warning. I would have let things be but I am currently in your debt." This caught Danny's attention, nobody really headed out of the ghost zone to just give a warning even if she was in debt of him or not.
"What are you hinting at Desiree? I have places to be, as much as I like you I do need to be somewhere." The sarcasm could be heard from a mile away. Desiree was not surprised; it was common knowledge that the halfa had change. He cared less about the emotions of the ghosts around him, if they showed hostility towards him or Amity Park then he would not wait to show them what death truly meant.
"You're no fun anymore." Desiree said while she pouted, which earned her a blank stare before Danny's hand was covered in ectoplasm. "Okay, okay. Always so serious these days. There are two problems, now I only owe you one favor, so would you like to know the problem that will be occurring first or second?" Danny knew what Desiree was doing. She wanted him to ask about both situations and then she would ask him to do a favor for her in the near future. Either that or she wanted him to start the wishing game with her and every time that happened unnecessary problems would occur. So instead of falling for her trap he would rather focus on what his current problem could be.
"Technically it has started already. Last week a ghost wished that you would prefer to want to die than be alive but there's always a catch to everything so I manipulated it in a way where you would not get tortured." Danny was skeptical about the whole situation. He knew Desiree owed him but she seemed to be going over the top by actually visiting to give him a warning. She knew something that she was not telling him and he knew that she would not tell him even if he asked. 'I can't even fight her to get the information out because she would just open a portal to the ghost zone as soon as she felt any type of hostility from me. Mxm this annoying power of hers.'
It really had become harder to fight ghosts after the scientists within the ghost zone had come to the discovery that ectoplasm was not the only powers ghosts could wield. Danny did receive a big power boost as well, he out matched most ghosts in a regular fight while he was still figuring his powers out.
"Why did it take so long to kick in? Usually it's instant but this wish took a week long to kick in, this has not happened before. Desiree what are you not telling me?" Danny had given into his curiosity at that point, as much as he just knew he would not get anywhere he tried his luck, maybe Desiree would reveal everything.
"Goodbye for now Danny, be sure to call me if you need anything." Danny watched Desiree fade into the distance, knowing that she would not be dumb enough to start a pointless fight with random civilians. 'Wonder why she's staying on Earth. Oh well what can you do?'
"This is going to be a problem, and what was that long term situation… I'll leave it for now, might as well get back to class I guess." Just like that Danny Flew back to class and entered his intangible form when he went into the bathroom. He turned back to his normal form and just like that headed back to class as if nothing had happened.
Flashback ends
'So this is where it starts huh? A project, hopefully it only goes this far. No hate towards her, I would just prefer not to deal with her in my business since that means every A-lister could know within a second and then the school knows. Whoever made that wish, I hope I never see your face again, for your sake.' Danny finished off his thoughts as he realized he was still staring at Paulina while Mr. Lancer had just finished off the last name of everybody who had been grouped together.
"Danny I trust that you can relay the information to Sam and Tucker." Danny pulled a face while looking at Mr. Lancer, letting him know that Danny had heard none of what he just said.
"I said that Mr. Foley and Ms. Mason would be partnered up together. The assignment is due in two weeks' time so I expect a very detailed debate to occur. Off the recorded, you can have a prepared debate where you and your partner help one another, but to make it more interesting try choosing a topic that neither one of you see eye to eye on and come to class with facts researched while also adapting to what your partner said. This is to prepare you for the unprepared debates so be prepared and read the rubric. Things such as; shouting the same point louder will not raise your mark. This is not a how loud can my voice go competition, I want to see how well you can argue a point with facts, not just saying that you are right and that anybody who disagrees with you is wrong. That will definitely be a straight F."
The class seemed to accept it, everybody knowing that there was no reason to question Mr. Lancer, he would not change it anyways. So instead anybody who did not like it just kept quiet and accepted their fate.
Looking at his watch Mr. Lancer saw that they still had enough time left before the period to start a debate, "Let's practice and have a class discussion. Just remember to control your voices, next door classes still have lessons going on. Anybody have any argument in mind?"
Nobody seemed to have any idea. Everybody was quiet and looking between one another before a random kid raised his hand and spoke up, "How about the gap between the rich and the poor sir. Amity Park has a big difference." Mr Lancer waited a little bit to see if anybody objected to it. Instead he saw something he had seen millions of times before, Danny going to lay on his arms. 'I will get him involved later on in the discussion.'
"Okay, I'll start it off and then it will be in your hands. The gap between the rich and the poor. Does anybody think it is fair?" Mr. Lancer stuck his question out to the class to start the debate and every rich kid raised their hand.
"Star, take it away. Why do you think it's fair?"
Star cleared her throat, "It's simple. Our parents worked hard to get where they are. It is not our fault that their parents did not work hard." Nobody seemed to give their response to it. No surprise to Mr. Lancer there really was only three kids who would speak up against anybody associated with the A-Listers and currently only one resided in his classroom, 'The laziest one at that.' Sighing internally Mr. Lancer knew what he had to do.
"Mr. Fenton, what is your response to that?" Just like that Danny looked up, he had not fallen asleep yet so he knew exactly what was going on. Rubbing his eyes, he wanted a few seconds for his pupils to adjust to the brightness of the room as he stretched, the whole class just watched him as he went about his routine, everybody thinking the same thing, 'This just become a proper debate.'
"Yes and no. I agree with her to an extent. Most of them did work hard, that is true. They perfected their craft to an insane degree, but there are others who were born into wealth and have not had to lift a finger for generations." Danny stated while looking at Star.
"So, it's a dog eat dog world. How is it the riches fault because their grind is better." Paulina had gotten involved now, much to Mr. Lancers liking. They had to get into some type of debate at some point. He wanted to see their chemistry head on to know what to expect.
"I have a few things that I don't like about that statement though. Like the only reason we live in a dog eats dog world is because of the rich, let's be real the lower and middle class gain absolutely nothing from that type of world. Secondly the middle class has a lot of amazing hustlers but do you know why they can't exactly get passed an idea or a failed project?" Nobody answered as everybody sensed that Danny was asking a rhetorical question, "It's because of the higher class finding ways to keep their power. They either pay minimum wage or less than minimum wage in some cases and if and this is a bit if, if they can find a way to get through all of that and try to make their own business the ground that their business is being set up on gets bought up and then all of a sudden their rent is double or tripled and they can no longer afford to keep their shop open and fall even lower on the food chain. So the rich oppress the poor while putting on the front that they are these amazing people. I can understand why you cannot see it but from everybody else's perspective you can now understand why we have a problem with you. We do not just want a free pass; it is an unfair because there's less than a 1% chance to upgrade our live just so that you can keep the gap between us." Danny finished his statement and the rich kids were quiet while the rest of the class was silently giving their small, "His right", "He has a point" or "When the quiet kid talks he speaks facts."
Star didn't like the fact that everything Danny had said was actually factual. He straight up won the debate which was barely a debate at all, but she would not go out without a fight and looking at the rest of the A-Listers neither did any of them. Only problem the all seemed to have was that nobody seemed to know how to respond.
"So in other words you're saying that the rich should just hand everything to the poor? Then what will be the point of becoming wealthy in the first place? And also lets not act like being rich does not have its own downfalls. Some of us don't get to see our parents every day, we don't live in this fantasy world that everybody makes it out to be!" Star had started getting angrier and angrier as she spoke as if Danny had hit a nerve by speaking.
'Neither do I get to see them.' Pushing those thoughts away Danny took in everything she said before looking around once again before finally making contact with Dash who seemed to be sympathizing with the young teen. By his facial expression alone Danny could tell that Dash was apologizing on Star's behalf for her lack of thoughts before she spoke.
"That's true. Everybody looks at us as if we're the Gods of this school and that every time we want something we just yawn and it appears in our hand. It really is not always like that." Kwan had chipped in this time, to everybody's surprise since he usually did not voice his opinion on matters like this.
"That was not the argument though. The argument was never if wealthy kids live a perfect life. If Mr. Lancer will allow me to respond to what you just said I will but as I said this isn't the topic." Mr. Lancer just nodded towards Danny, he seemed to be invested just as much as the rest of the class.
"So about you having a perfect life. I do not think you do since nothing in this world is perfect. What I will say though is that everybody who assumes that you live this perfect life, only ever assumed that because of the actions you took. Your group created the A-Listers, your group kicked out a member when she was no longer meeting your standards, your group bullies people for not being on your financial level. There was a time I got thrown into a trash can every day for coming to school, if I was rich that would not have happened so you should ask yourself who actually gave the image that wealth means everything. You A-Listers like to blame everybody else for problems you caused." Danny finished off, he never seemed to raise his voice once while speaking confidently. The days where he shivered at the thought of not agreeing with an A-Lister long gone. Star was staring daggers while Paulina seemed to be trying to read him, showing no sign on whether she agreed with him or not. Kwan seemed to fade into the background since he had nothing to add to the argument.
Before the argument could go any further the intercom had turned on, "Mr. Lancer, is Paulina Sanchez in your class?" The class seemed to settle down allowing Mr. Lancer to answer the secretary. "Yes she is Mrs. Dominique." Everybody's eyes were on Paulina now, interested in the reason her presence would have been requested. "Is it possible for her to leave class? Her father is here to take her to the doctor." Mr. Lancer had excused her.
Before leaving the class she made eye contact with Danny one last time as the rest of the A-Lister's looked at the pair as well. Everybody knowing what her reason for leaving was while the rest of the students all looked on with concern written all over their face.
"Well that was a good debate. I want you to learn from it. Star did have very good points but Danny was right. She went off topic and she would have lost marks for that. Other than that it was a good argument from both sides. Maybe next week we can have a new debate. The bell will ring soon so you can pack up and get ready for your last class." Mr Lancer said as he went to take his seat.
The bell rang and just like that it was the last period of the day. Danny decided to go to class but fell asleep halfway through it. Unlike last time though he slept straight through the period before he was so rudely interrupted by the school bell dismissing everybody.
"Hey Fenton, you coming with me or you walking?" Dash screamed over the busy passage. "I'll go with you." Danny barely got the sentence out without yawning and just like that he seemed to be at home on his couch, taking his daily nap while Jazz and Dash did some cute couple things in the kitchen. They usually did that, after school if Dash did not have practice he would come over and they would be "all gross" as Danny would call it, around the house before Jazz would get Dash to finally do his homework while she studied.
Waking up from his nap Danny got up from the couch while rubbing the coil off of the side of his mouth. 'Damn my mouth is dry.' Danny thought as he made his way to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water. He must have been loud because he heard Dash scream from upstairs.
"Hey Fenturd you finally awake from your beauty sleep? I've told you a million times no matter how long you sleep you will still be ugly when you wake up!" No matter how much their relationship had changed, they would still make fun of one another. The only difference was that there was no hostility in the way they spoke to one another anymore. "Yes I am blondie, now what do you want? I'm losing brain cells communicating with you!" The only thing that could be heard was Jazz laughing in the background, which left Danny unsure of who made her laugh more.
"Paulina wants to meet at Nasty Burger around six to speak about the English project. She said I must give you the message." Danny switched his phone on and saw that he had another hour left before he would have to go. "I'm guessing I don't have a choice; tell her I will be there!" When he did not receive a reply he assumed that Dash would just let her know.
Danny went to relax for another half an hour, as he updated both Tucker and Sam with what they had missed while also asking them how they were feeling since they were both out sick for the week with a bad case of the flu.
"Might as well get done, don't want to leave the queen waiting." As Danny got up he went to took a quick shower before getting dressed. He said his goodbyes as he left and started walking towards Nasty Burger.
He arrived 5 minutes earlier so he went to sit at a window seat where it would have been impossible for her to miss him. 5 minutes turned into 10 and 10 turned into a 20. Before Danny realized it he had been waiting for over an hour.
As Danny kept waiting he saw Mr. Sanchez pull into the parking at Nasty Burger. "She's arrived." Danny spoke to himself in a dry tone, ready to get out of there as quick as possible. The longer he looked at the passenger door the more he started to realize one thing; Paulina was not going to show up. No matter how he flipped it he was going to be the joke of the day tomorrow, 'I would rather want to die than have to deal with tomorrow… Fuck, it really is that ghost's wish causing all these problems.' As he was about to give the thought up, the passenger door opened but instead of Paulina exiting the car it was her mother.
'Yup you definitely got stood up, Danny.' Danny rubbed his eyes as he internally started yelling towards himself.
"Hey, Mr. Fenton." Danny could not continue his train of thought as he was interrupted by Mr. Sanchez's deep stern voice. "Afternoon sir and you can just call me Danny." Danny said as he went to shake the awaiting hand of Mr. Sanchez.
"Oh is this the kid from last night?" A much sweeter voice came from behind Mr. Sanchez. As Danny looked at Mrs. Sanchez she seemed to be the polar opposite of Mr. Sanchez, she was the embodiment of niceness. "Sorry for that ma'am. I had no intention of waking anybody up. If I disrespected you in any type of way, I do apologize." Danny finished while rubbing the back of his neck and smiling nervously. "I am just pulling your leg. I should actually thank you for helping my daughter last night." Mrs. Sanchez said gratefully as Danny just nodded, showing signs that he was not going to verbally reply but acknowledging he heard everything she said.
"So Danny, are you still going to be stubborn and not accept any type of thank you?" Mr. Sanchez asked, hoping that the you kids' decision would change, but Danny's decision was still the same which he gave through a short "it's fine" statement.
Mr. Sanchez just exhaled deeply and decided to make other small talk while he waited for his order. "So why are you here alone? Waiting for a cute girl? You know back in my day I was what they call a player. So if you need any type of help with the ladies just ask."
Looking at Mrs. Sanchez, Danny could tell that she wanted to strangle her husband. "I am actually waiting for your daughter sir." The married couple had gotten quiet and both turned to Danny, Mr. Sanchez tilted his head a bit as if he did not believe what Danny had just said. "That came out wrong, I mean like Paulina told Dash to tell me that I should meet her here so that we could discuss the project that Mr. Lancer gave us today." Neither one of the adults said anything while they looked at one another. "When last did you message her?" Mrs. Sanchez said as she reached into her bag, probably to get her phone.
"Oh I don't have her number ma'am, she told Dash because his always by my house since his dating my sister. Honestly it really is not that big of a deal, she probably forgot or just got busy." Danny did not want to cause a scene and the anger radiating from Paulina's parents allowed Danny to know that if either of them got their phone they would shout everybody's ears off.
"She's not. She's at home laying on her bed waiting for us to bring supper home. You do not have to defend her she's in the wrong… Oh there's my phone, just excuse me for a second." Mrs. Sanchez tried to walk away to the car where she could yell at her daughter but she was stopped by Danny, "It's fine, it really is. Maybe I heard wrong from Dash. Plus, I need to leave anyways, there's no reason to cause a scene over a small problem ma'am." Danny started collecting his things as he stood up and said his final goodbye his stomach growled causing him to get more embarrassed than he intended to. 'Everything always goes wrong when old people are involved.' Danny thought as he left, ignoring Mr. Sanchez attempt at offering to pay for a meal.
"I'm going to kill your daughter when we get home." Mrs. Sanchez said as Mr. Sanchez could do nothing but shake his head in disappointment.
The drive home had been quiet. Neither one spoke, instead the radio just played in the background while they were both in their thoughts thinking about how disrespectful their daughter had been. As they took the corner towards their house that would soon be empty after they moved into the gated community Mrs. Sanchez started gathering all the packages with their food in, almost tearing the bag when she grabbed it.
"Just don't take it out on Lola please." No answer was given as Mr. Sanchez's wife exited the car and went straight for the door.
"Girls, dinner is ready." Mr. Sanchez shouted as he entered the house. The first one to come downstairs was Lola, who Mr. Sanchez took back upstairs with him after the two of them collected their food telling her that they could go watch Netflix to cover up his true intentions of taking her away from the drama.
When Mr. Sanchez passed his oldest daughter all he mumbled was a good luck before carrying on upstairs, never looking back when his daughter had asked him why he said that.
'I'll just move quick then.' Just like that she went into full spy mode. As curious as she was to find out the reason she was being told good luck she was more interested in making back to her room without any type of drama.
Nothing went as planned though. When she stepped into the lounge her mother was sitting on the couch. Staring at her series. "Your food is the last one in the bag." Her tone gave everything away, something was up and for some reason Paulina was at the receiving end of it. "Thanks." As Paulina made her way to the food she could see the finish line, all she needed to do was reach for the bag, turn around and then she would be on a straight course for her room.
She walked towards the food. 'Okay got the bag. Turnaround. Just focus on the stairs, baby steps. Nothing major. Reach for the door handle. Okay open it and you are out of this Paulina. You got this!' Just as she starting feeling as if she had achieved her goal her thought process was interrupted.
"Paulina, just wait a second please." Mrs. Sanchez said as she switched the TV off and looked at her daughter. 'Ahh shit! I was almost there.'
"Quick question, your father gave you your punishment right?" Mrs. Sanchez already knew the answer to this and Paulina knew that. She was just trying to torture her daughter by delaying the process.
"Yes, no partying until he says so. He took other things away as well but that was the main one, why?"
"Just asking. Last question, that Danny boy. We ran into him at Nasty Burger." Paulina's heart dropped after hearing that, "He said that he was waiting for his English project partner. Who's your partner?" Mrs. Sanchez put on her best voice to hide her anger but Paulina had known her mother long enough to know that she was about to get a whole lecture.
"It's me." Short and sweet that's all she would do in situations like these, never giving to much information up while also answering the question.
"Oh it's you. And let me ask, by any chance were you aware of the fact that he was there?" At this point Paulina knew that Danny had given everything up. Usually her parents would not get involved with her life when it came to curving boys but in this case it had to do with school and also it was the same boy that had saved her the previous night.
"Yes I was." Again short and sweet, she wanted her mother to just get everything out of her system.
"So, you let a boy sit there for at least an hour after you planned it. Not to mention the fact that it was the same boy who saved you from a horrible situation last night. Do you even realize how much indebt your father and I feel towards this boy? Paulina the boy was sitting waiting for you probably hunger but did not order anything for who knows why and when he told us the reason for him waiting there and we found out it was because of you, you know what his response was? He came up with an excuse for you." Paulina's mother had continued on for an hour, while Paulina just went from slightly nodding to giving her usual soft replies.
"… Tomorrow I want you to apologize to this young man, do I make myself clear? And also I don't ever want to hear you say that you could not go to something that you set up because you did not feel like it." Paulina again just nodded as she kept her head low just grateful that her scolding was finally over while also thinking about everything as the guilt had already taken over.
"Come here." Mrs. Sanchez could see that her daughter had taken everything in, she may have been harsh while speaking but everything needed to be said. So she made her way to hug her daughter as she felt her daughter hug her back she kissed her on the head knowing that there was no bad blood amongst the two of them and with that she sent her off.
"I know your food is cold now, sorry. You can go now." Paulina just headed back to her room. She reached for her phone in her pocket and saw that Dash had messaged her. 'I will deal with that later. Do not feel like going through that again right now.' With that thought Paulina got her laptop and went to watch Netflix deciding to deal with her problems later.
When Danny had arrived home he walked into Dash and Jazz enjoying horror movie. He tried to be as quiet as possible but Jazz asked him how his "date" went.
"It was not a date Jazz. Also she didn't show." Danny tried to move on with everything by walking to room but as he got out of the room he heard the TV stop playing. "She what?" Jazz seemed more pissed about this than him.
"It really is not that big of a deal. She just didn't show. Nothing to go on about. Dash tell her to go back to the movie please." Danny tried walking away but Jazz seemed to want to speak about it and Dash made no attempt to stop her.
"Danny I don't understand how you can be so calm about it. Honestly you can't still like her enough to just be fine with this!" Jazz was getting angrier and angrier. "She's my friend and I would have been angry with her. Especially after the way you saved her yesterday." That caught Danny's attention. "She told you?" Dash just nodded as Jazz looked on waiting for either one of the boys to give up more information. Danny made no hint that he would and left everything to Dash.
"Last night Paulina got attacked. Danny apparently saved her, she said he fought well. Better than me. Like his been doing it for years." Danny could feel the question hidden behind his statement. He wanted to know how Danny had become so good at fighting but Danny completely avoided it by going back to the previous topic.
"Why is everybody so uptight about it. First her parents went overboard and now the two of you. The reason I am so cool about it is because I do not care about it. Whether I am angry or not life moves on. So I am moving on, I will just ask her the topic at a later stage is all. I am not dating her or anything I don't care about it, now if you will excuse me I am starving and I promised Tucker that I would be on the game soon." Dash dropped everything while Jazz seemed to still be annoyed that her little brother just let everything slide so easy.
"Jazz, if I am being honest right now. I think Paulina is in a lot of trouble right now. I know how her parents can get and after last night they probably feel as though they owe Danny and then they run into him and find out that their daughter is wasting his time. I will send her a message as well but what I am saying is that she's not getting off Scott free right. Drop it for now we can always talk about this later." Dash had made his way over to her and started caressing her face as she slowly started to calm down and head back to the couch with him. Before they started the movie again Dash typed out a message to Paulina, first asking her if everything was okay on her side and that he would call her later on.
'Paulina why do you always have to be a dumbass when the A-Listers are not involved.' Dash thought as he pushed the thoughts aside and focused on the movie before starting a make out session with Jazz.
Once Danny had gotten to his room smoke left his mouth and before he could turn ghosts Skulker made himself known.
"Long time no see halfa. We have much to discuss." Skulker finished off as he looked at Danny in his human form with his trusty axe in his one hand and his chain in the other.
And that is it ladies and gentlemen. I just want to mention once again that I do appreciate the support you give this story. I want to keep each chapter between 5k to 15k word (big gap I know but some chapters will have a lot have explaining while others might just be filler chapters), while every 10 story based chapters have to have a minimum of 75k words. It's not too short but it's also not too long.
I also want to give every chapter a title, it's not always easy to come up with but it would sound much better than "Chapter 1" or "Chapter 2", it'll also give the cartoon vibe since every episode that wasn't a continuation had its own name. Lastly, after writing a couple chapters then I'll probably insert a Table of Content for… Honestly it will just look more professional is all.
I am trying to keep the clichés to a minimum but let's be real. It won't be super easy to do that because for them to get closer some type of cliché has to happen at some point.
Lastly by the time I have the next chapter up I should have the complete outline for the DxP pairing in the new story I want to make. It won't be updated for a while just like my Akame Ga Kill fanfiction, it's just going to be there for a very long time but there is a very is another big reason I could be persuaded to do 2 Danny Phantom fictions at the same time but I will explain that next chapter. Thanks for reading I really do appreciate it. Enjoy your day further.