Danny stood back and took in his opponent. She was taller than him by half a foot and had years of training on him. Danny's only real advantage was his ability to sense ectoplasm as her double-bladed sword was powered by ectoplasm. If his opponent were to attack from behind this ability might allow Danny to know the hit was coming.

Here it comes, Danny thought as a cold shiver ran across his left shoulder blade. He could squat under this strike and use his momentum to kick out into his opponent's front leg. Because she's leaning forward she'd fall off-balance without the support of that leg.

But his opponent knew he would sense it. And his opponent was smart.

Instead of ducking under and kicking out, Danny jumped up and retracted his own double-bladed sword. Just as he anticipated, his opponent changed positions just before she would have landed a hit where he was standing. She slashed downward to where Danny considered squatting down. Her blade found nothing.

Danny kicked off his opponent's back, reactivated his sword, and flipped into an offensive stance.

His opponent fell off-balance for a fraction of a second before somersaulting over. She righted herself almost faster than Danny could see and lunged forward.

Danny barely had time to move his sword to block her flurry of attacks. Danny's shoulders ached as each of his opponent's hits landed hard against the blade of his sword. Danny was so focused on not letting a hit get through to his person that he didn't realize he'd been backing up until Tucker called "Out!"

Danny looked down and sure enough, his mom had backed him over the boundary lines with her hits.

Danny and his mom both sheathed retracted their swords and latched them onto their belts. Danny grasped his mom's hand to shake it and found himself being flung over his mom's shoulder. Moments like these always reminded Danny how strong his mom was because although Danny could be weightless in his Phantom form, in that moment he was fully bound by gravity in his human form and his mom threw him as if she were throwing a sack of feathers.

Danny backflipped off of one arm and landed with his hands raised to block his mom's next move.

Maddie didn't attack. She just stood there with her hands at her side, waiting.

What does she want? Is she waiting for me to attack? Does she just want to see how long I'm willing to defend myself ? Danny stared at Maddie hoping to see some sliver of movement but his mom gave nothing away.

Then he heard the soft pew of a wrist ray go off behind him.

Danny dropped sideways to the ground and the ray grazed his shoulder. The sting of it caused him to flinch. Maddie attacked again and Sam continued shooting at him. Hand-to-hand training, dodging, and facing multiple opponents. His mother was a harsh teacher but Danny was thankful to have her.

"Transform," Maddie said.

Danny let the rings glide over his body as he dodged another ray.

His new outfit appeared in place of his red workout clothes.

At Maddie's suggestion, Danny added a hooded cloak to his Phantom form. Black on the outside with a white inner lining and ectoplasmic green trim. The hood covered most of Danny's upper face and ended at a point right under his nose. It bathed the rest of his face in shadow so the only part of his face anyone could make out clearly was his slightly blue-tinged skin around his mouth and chin, his sharp smile, and the green glow from his eyes shining out from under his hood. His suit looked mostly the same, just bulkier from the under armor his father built him. Watching Jack work with Frostbite to find a way to get the armor and cape to merge with his Phantom form had made all of the stress about telling his parents worth it. They almost got along too well.

Just as the rings of light faded, Sam fired another beam at Danny. Danny pulled the side of his cloak forward and coated it in ice. The beam glanced off the ice leaving only a small dent in it.

Then Maddie kicked out again. Danny turned intangible before the hit landed. Maddie expected it and lunged out again.

On and on it went. Danny turned intangible to avoid Maddie's hits and either dodged or blocked the beams Sam shot at him. Danny felt as invincible as Superman as he continued this.

"You have to fight back, Danny," Maddie said. "You can do better than this, honey. Stop being afraid of yourself."

Danny paused, he wasn't afraid of himself, was he?

Pausing was the wrong move.

Sam shot another beam and Danny went intangible to avoid it. Instead of going through him like his parents' older rays would, this one made contact right in the center of his chest.

"Gah," Danny rubbed his chest just as Tucker yelled "Out!"

"Good shooting, Sam!" Maddie called. "You and Tucker go get lunch while Danny and I debrief."

Danny threw his hood back and rolled his shoulders. Two months of training with his mom on top of his usual rogue fights left him with more defined muscle than he'd ever had but he didn't know if the soreness he felt in every part of his body would ever go away. At least in his Phantom form, he could float everywhere instead of having to move his muscles to walk.

"You're doing amazing, sweety," Maddie said putting a hand on his shoulder. "You lasted forty-seven minutes this time. Almost ten minutes longer than yesterday."

"I barely landed a hit on you," Danny broke eye contact with his mom. "How am I supposed to protect people if I struggle to do that?"

"This isn't about protecting people," Maddie said. "It's about protecting yourself."

Danny's core gave a jolt in protest.

Danny's face must have objected too because Maddie put a finger under Danny's chin and lifted it up.

"Look at me, Danny," Maddie said. "You do an amazing job protecting people from the dangerous ghosts from the realms. Better than even what me and your dad are able to do."

Danny opened her mouth to argue but Maddie cut him off.

"No, you do. It's not the ghosts that we're training for though. It's humans. Humans that have access to my weapons. I can't hide you away from them and I can't get all those weapons back, even if I could I'm sure they know how to replicate them by now. You do so well fighting your rogues because you know they can take it. You're a kind boy, Danny. I love that about you but you have to promise me that if it comes down to you making it out or not you won't hesitate to kill any human that's after you."

"I can't!" Danny objected. "I can't hurt people!"

"Daniel James Fenton," Maddie said. "You are just as much a person as any of them. They know what they're risking fighting a powerful ghost and they've chosen to anyway. They won't have the reservations you do. If it comes down to it, you've got to let those go too. Understood?"

Not understood, Danny thought.

"Daniel?" Maddie prompted.

"Understood," Danny said if only to get his mom to calm down.

"Good," Maddie said, pulling him into a hug. "Now let's go see what your dad made for lunch."

~Line Break~

Danny shoved his puffy red coat into his locker. Extreme temperatures didn't affect him much since the accident. His ice core kept him at a chill he'd grown accustomed to. Even the snowy February weather of Illinois Danny couldn't feel the sting of the cold. The coat was more for appearance's sake- and a way to keep concerned (judgmental) people off of his and his parent's asses.

"Mr. Falluca still insisting on that parent meeting after school?" Tucker asked as Danny grabbed his first-period books and slammed his locker shut.

"Yeah." Danny sighed. "It's nice to have my parents on my side for once. I just hope they can convince Falluca and Principal Ishiyama not to hold me back after I missed my math final last semester."

"They'd just be sending you back where you belong, Fenturd!" Came a shout from down the hall.

"I knew it was too quiet this morning," Danny said. "And here I was hoping to be able to enjoy some peace for once."

"Little baby Fentalina who was so so smart is finally falling to the level of the rest of us." Dash shouldered Tucker out of the way and pushed Danny into a locker. "The teachers told us you were special when you skipped second grade to be in our class but it looks like you washed out now."

Danny looked around for escape routes. If he were in a fight as Phantom he'd just try turning intangible and slipping away. No powers here though. He had enough muscle that he could probably take Dash in a fight even though the older boy had eight inches on him in height. No. He couldn't risk getting in trouble too close to his meeting with the principal.

He'd just take it until something else grabbed Dash's attention.

"Washed out?" A familiar drawling voice said from behind Dash. "You talking about your future career prospects, Dash?"

Dash spun around to face his new target and Danny took the opportunity to slip away.

"Once you're away from your cronies and your spot as the Freshman star of the football team you'll be thrown out with the trash." Every word that dripped from Sam Manson's purple lips caused Dash's eye to twitch.

Sam signaled for Danny to go on to class with a small flick of her hand and continued to dress down Dash

Danny considered staying to make sure Sam wouldn't be hurt before he decided Sam was fine on her own. Dash might not be the brightest lightbulb in the box but even he wasn't stupid enough to physically attack the only daughter of the richest family in Amity Park.

~Line Break~

For the first time all school year, Danny felt like the school day went by too fast.

The last bell rang and he trudged his way to the principal's office. His backpack felt like a weight pulling him down into the floor. If he let himself go intangible he'd probably learn if this section of the school had a basement.

Danny heard his dad's booming voice from the other side of the hallway.

"Are you sure you don't want some of my nine-layer cheese dip?" Jack asked. "You can even keep the Tupperware!"

Danny walked in to see his dad holding a giant container full of dip out to Principal Ishiyama and the math teacher Mr. Falluca.

The principal met Danny's eyes as he walked in. Her shoulders slumped like Danny had given her a rope to pull her out of a cavern rather than an excuse to get out of trying his dad's dip.

Danny personally thought she should have tried the dip. It was delicious. Oh well, more for him.

"Now that Danny has arrived we can get started," Principal Ishiyama said.

Jack took the lid off of the seat next to him and placed it back on the Tupperware and shoved it into one of his deep pockets.

Come to think of it, that chair should be occupied by more than a Tupperware lid.

"Where's mom?" Danny asked.

"She thinks she found a lead on our little research project," Jack's jovial voice bellowed. "She was so invested in it I couldn't ask her to step away so I told her I'd come her by myself!"

Right, Danny thought. The little research project to find out where he came from. Mom thought that finding the source of his original genetics would help with managing any new symptoms that arose from being half-dead. She insisted on taking care of him. Danny's assurances that he had a ghostly doctor only lead to an interrogation session for Frost Bite with Maddie Fenton as the leader of the inquisition.

Danny gave his dad a tight-lipped smile and sat down in the chair recently vacated by the Tupperware lid.

"I won't waste your time here Mr. Fenton," Principal Ishiyama said to Jack. "Danny's teachers have all reported disinterest and low grades for him. This is concerning for us because of Danny's amazing academic standing in middle school. While Danny managed to bring his grades up by the end of the semester, he completely missed his math final and therefore failed the course."

Danny closed his eyes and took a deep breath to keep himself from saying something he'd regret.

"Normally we'd have students repeat the class but with Danny already being a year younger than his peers we think it might be best to have him repeat the entire ninth-grade year."

"Well hold on just a second," Jack said. "That doesn't sound right at all! You saw the accommodations we filed for Danny's recent diagnosis didn't you?"

"Well yes, Mr. Fenton, but I'm not sure we can retroactively give accommodations for phasmophobia."

The fear of ghosts. Danny thought it was one of his mother's more clever ideas. Tell people he had a fear of ghosts and that he went to hide every time one appeared and voila! Nobody questioned where Danny went during a ghost attack! The biggest downside was that it gave his bullies more kindling for their fire of taunts.

"Sure you can't make up any class time Dann-o missed but if you check the news for the day of the math final you'll see that there was a ghost attack right outside the school. I doubt there'd be any objection if Danny were to make up the final that he missed, right Mr. Falluca?"

Mr. Falluca looked hesitant.

"And we could always look at how your poor accountability of your athletes' behavior leads to an improper learning environment," Jack added on.

"I think it will be fully acceptable for Danny to make up his math exam," Principal Ishiyama said.

Typical, Danny thought. Easier for people in authority to get people to shut up than for them to fix an underlying problem.

"What day next week would be best?"

"Tuesday after school?" Danny asked. "Jazz tutors in the school library then so we could walk home together."

Principal Ishiyama looked at Mr. Falluca. He nodded.

"Tuesday after class then. Don't waste this opportunity, Danny."

"I won't!" Danny promised.

And he meant it. Life was looking up. His parents accepted him, he had time to hang out with his friends, he'd be able to salvage his grades, and as soon as this meeting dismissed he'd get to eat nine-layer bean dip with his family.

Things couldn't be going any better!