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Danny sighed as he flopped down at the picnic table outside the school where he, Sam, and Tucker regularly ate lunch, arms askew and face pressed into the wood.
“Tough English class?” Tucker asked teasingly.
Danny scoffed and sat up. “Yeah, right. Totally horrible, didn’t understand a thing,” he said sarcastically, complete with an eye roll. That was the one class he was actually doing pretty well in, given he’d had to repeat it. At least that meant none of the A-list was in it. Speaking of, “No, it’s the freakin’ A-list that has me out of sorts! I just walked by Dash in the hallway, and instead of pushing me against the locker he just gave me that odd look that was like a weird mix of fear and pity and guilt again.”
“Weird,” Sam said. “I’d say that he’s had a change of heart about his bullying ways, but…”
“But he still bullies all us other nerds,” Tucker said grimly.
“Yeah, it’s literally just me he’s acting differently about. In fact, the whole A-list has. Yesterday, I got distracted and dropped a book, and Paulina picked it up for me. Paulina!”
“That is weird,” Sam confirmed. “She never picks things up, not even her own things, she just waits for the kids with crushes to come to her aid.”
“I know right? And earlier today, Kwan gave me a copy of the homework worksheet I missed when I left first period early, and Star randomly gave me a sticker.”
“Star gives random stickers to everyone,” Tucker pointed out.
“Not to us! Something’s seriously up.”
“Sounds like they’re trying to be helpful,” Sam said with a contemplative look.
“But why?” Danny asked. “It makes no sense!”
“Unless…” Sam shifted nervously. “Unless maybe… they know?”
Danny shook his head. “I thought of that, but they’ve been doing that all week, and I’m pretty sure they’d be acting differently if they knew—you know Paulina would be all over me, Dash probably would be too, instead they’re treating me like, I dunno, like I’m sick or something?”
“Or like you’re dead,” Tucker said in realization, looking at his PDA.
Danny gave Tucker a deadpan look. “I am dead.”
“Not like that,” Tucker said. “Like, full-ghost dead. I’ve got their AIM log here. They think you died and are trying to hide it.”
“I mean, technically—”
“Okay, more specifically, they think you were murdered.”
“They what?” Danny said blankly, unsure what to think about that. How would they possibly reach such a conclusion?
“Murdered,” Tucker repeated. “They think you’ve become a vengeful ghost that’s gonna go Carrie on everyone—that’s Paulina’s words, by the way, we know you won’t go all Carrie on everyone.”
“Again,” Sam added with a chuckle.
“Again,” Tucker said with a nod.
Danny fondly rolled his eyes at the two. “Yeah, yeah. Anyway, how the hell did they conclude that?”
“Star caught you phasing out of a locker Dash shoved you in. Then they paid more attention and noticed other ghostly things, like glowing eyes and turning invisible and the chill you sometimes give off when emotional.”
Danny blinked. “I give off a chill?”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “Dude, the classroom was like 60 degrees yesterday after you got pissed at yourself for flunking that test.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Danny said sullenly; he’d actually managed to study hard for that one! And then the questions were different than the ones he’d studied for; that was so unfair…
“You’re doing it again,” Sam said with amusement.
Danny blushed. “Sorry,” he said, now noticing that yes, his core was flaring, making their surroundings cold. He stopped.
“No, don’t stop!” Tucker complained. “It’s unusually warm out today. The chill was nice.”
“Oh, I’ll put it back then,” Danny said, activating his ice powers. He had assumed it was chilly as it was the end of September; ever since becoming a ghost, he’d had trouble identifying temperatures, his ice core usually self-regulating his temperature to maintain a constant and comfortable 50 degrees when above that, and lower temperatures had no effect. The only thing that bothered him was extreme heat, as at that point his core would go into overdrive attempting and failing to cool him down. “I really should check the weather report every day.”
Sam gave a snort of amusement. “You really think that’ll help you avoid doing crap like going to school in short sleeves in the middle of winter?”
“Probably not,” Danny said with a chuckle, then swerved them back onto the earlier topic. “So, they don’t know I’m Phantom, then? Just the ghost stuff?”
“Yup,” Tucker confirmed. “So they’re being so nice because of pity I guess. And to make sure you don’t become the next Carrie.”
“More importantly, why do they think he was murdered?” Sam asked Tucker.
“Yeah, I’d like to know that too,” Danny said.
“Ah. Remember that summer camp we all went to a couple months back?” Tucker asked.
“Ugh, yeah, that sucked,” Sam said.
“What about it?” Danny asked. Their parents, and many of their classmates’ parents, had thought the month-long camp would be good for their kids for some reason. It had been run by Lancer and Testslaff, pitching it as a way for the kids to stay out of trouble, learn important skills, and get away from ghosts for a while—so of course during that they’d been attacked by Walker and his goons, although maybe that was a blessing in disguise given it had cut the camp off at just over a month instead of lasting the originally planned ten weeks.
“Well, remember the prank you played on Dash?” Tucker asked.
“Which one?” Danny flatly questioned. There had been a lot; Danny and Dash had kinda been in a prank war—well, more like Danny would play pranks on Dash, then Dash would get mad and try to physically harm Danny.
“The one when he threw you in the lake.”
“Oh, that,” Danny said. “That was a good one.” The two had gotten assigned as partners for lake fishing; in the middle of the lake, Dash had gotten angry for some reason and threw Danny off the rowboat into the lake, before rowing back alone; Dash had expected Danny to swim back, but Danny had decided to instead give him a scare and simply not come back up. Then he invisibly left the lake and reappeared behind a panicking Dash; Danny swore that the boy had leapt six feet into the air. Dash had chased him and given him a wedgie for it, but it was worth it.
“Wait, are you saying that Dash thinks that actually killed Danny?” Sam confirmed.
“Yup,” Tucker said with a smug grin.
“But why that incident?” Danny asked, mildly confused. “He saw me be fine right after.”
“Well, yeah, at first he thought it was fine, but according to the chat, when he thinks back to it, you were completely dry and not breathing at first.”
“Oh. Oops,” Danny said. He really had to figure out how to stop automatically phasing off water and other uncomfortable things; this hadn’t been the first time he’d confused people about being dry after being tossed in a body of water or getting caught in the rain. He had remembered to breathe though! …Apparently a little too late. He’d thought Dash hadn’t noticed that he hadn’t been for a moment.
“Yeah, so that’s why he’s giving you those fearful, guilty looks. He thinks if he upsets you too bad, you’ll take revenge on him for killing you.”
Danny narrowed his eyes, considering that, then grinned, all fangs and glowing green eyes. “Then let’s take some revenge.”
“Danny, no; we’re not killing anyone,” Sam chided deadpan, though she was clearly holding back laughter.
“Aww; not even a little?” Danny joked.
“Well, maybe a little,” Tucker chimed in, continuing the joke.
Of course, Danny obviously had absolutely no intention of actually killing Dash, or any human—but ghostly pranks? Definitely on the table.
Later that day, Danny passed Dash in the hallway, intentionally stumbling as he did so and dropping his books.
“What the hell, Dash?!” Danny exclaimed, turning to face the boy.
“What?” Dash said blankly.
“You tripped me!” Danny accused.
Dash’s eyes widened. “No, I didn’t, I swear!” he defended.
“Oh, like I’d believe that,” Danny said, snarling just enough to show the hint of fangs and making his eyes glow.
Dash gulped, face paling. “I-I’m serious!” He stuttered out.
“Oh, then what, a ghost did it?” Danny scoffed.
“Dash!” Kwan called, hurrying over. “Just help him pick up the books,” he said, as he began to do so.
“Right,” Dash said, helping too. “Sorry, Fenton,” he said as he shoved the books back in Danny’s arms. Then, he ran off.
Kwan gave Danny a mournful look and then hurried after his best friend.
Danny couldn’t help but laugh; this was going to be fun!
Later, in a class Danny had with the A-list, Danny stared at Dash the whole time. One of his little-used ghost abilities was to project emotions; all ghosts could do it, but usually only did so to cause targeted uneasiness or fear in people, in order to scare humans away from their haunts. Danny generally avoided using it, because it felt invasive to mess with people’s minds like that, but he could make an exception for Dash.
So, Danny projected an uneasy, creepy feeling onto Dash, mixed with just a tiny bit of paranoia. Dash, a few seats over and one row in front, glanced back at Danny occasionally with worried looks, during which Danny made sure he wasn’t breathing or blinking, sometimes flashing glowing eyes.
This went on throughout the entire History class; Danny absorbed exactly none of the information in the lecture, but it was totally worth it for the amount Dash squirmed and fear Dash was emitting. Danny momentarily wondered if he should be concerned that he found knowing that he caused that fear somewhat pleasing; it felt a little too ghostly to him.
After class, Dash ran right to the bathroom, and Danny, thanks to his enhanced ghost hearing, guiltily heard the boy crying within. Kwan quickly followed, putting an ‘out of order’ sign on it first, and Danny heard him talking Dash down from what seemed to be a panic attack.
Danny decided then and there that he was not going to use the emotion-projecting ability on a human again, at least not to cause any negative ones (projecting positive ones had been useful as a last resort a few times to de-escalate situations between humans; just because Danny’s main gig was fighting ghosts didn’t mean he couldn’t help in other situations too if he happened upon them).
The next day in gym class, Danny found himself one of the last ones in the locker room after running late due to a ghost fight. Dash happened to be one of the last ones out too, clearly waiting for someone to beat up, not expecting Danny to be the last nerd there.
Danny didn’t say a word, simply turned slowly from his locker after changing and looked at Dash with glowing eyes. Dash froze, wide-eyed as he stared back. Danny slowly grinned, wider than a human should be able to, showing fangs; he tilted his head a little too far to be natural, and flickered in and out of visibility for a few times while using telekinesis to flick the light switch on and off a few times before leaving Dash in the dark and staying invisible.
Danny then invisibly snuck over to Dash, who was still frozen, and whispered in his ear with a ghostly echo, “Boo.”
Dash screamed and ran out of the locker room, Danny laughing vigorously behind him while still invisible, echo still in his voice.
Kwan then exited the locker room bathroom to darkness and creepy laughter, and screamed and rushed out too, immediately causing Danny to feel guilty—he only wanted to scare Dash, not Kwan! Then again, Kwan was an A-list member, so maybe that was okay too.
Danny stayed after school that day, not because of something forced like detention, but rather by choice, in order to carry out a prank. You see, Dash was in charge of the team equipment that day…
Danny sat in the bleachers watching the football practice, giving Dash fanged grins whenever the boy glanced his way. Dash fumbled the ball much more frequently than usual, earning him a number of scoldings from the coach.
As the practice was winding down and Dash looked at Danny once more, Danny turned invisible, causing Dash to jump and then nervously keep looking around as he headed back to the school—rightfully so, as Danny was indeed following him invisibly.
The team changed and then left, leaving Dash alone in the locker room to finish putting away and organizing the equipment (the locker room doubled as the equipment room).
Perfect.
Danny had been practicing his telekinesis lately, and was getting a pretty good grasp on it, if he did say so himself. He activated the ability, moving the football Dash was about to grab ever so slightly.
Dash frowned, trying to grab it again, only for it to do the same. It happened a couple more times. “What the fuck?” he growled.
Using that as his cue, still invisible, Danny made everything in the room that wasn’t tied down float. At the same time, he sharply dropped the temperature, making frost grow on the mirrors.
“Wh-what’s going on?” Dash asked, teeth chattering. “Is that… is that you, Fenton?”
Danny didn’t say a word, simply twirled his hand, causing all the items to float around and rotate.
“Fenton, if you’re there, I’m sorry, okay? I was joking around, I didn’t mean it!” Dash pleaded. “Please don’t kill me!”
Danny couldn’t help but let out a small scoff. Dash honestly though Danny would do that? Also, did Dash really think ‘I didn’t mean it’ was a good excuse for, so he thought, murdering someone?
“Fenton? It is you here, isn’t it?” Dash asked warily.
Danny grinned, and couldn’t help but vigorously laugh again as he made things float around faster. Dash rushed to the door; Danny made it slam shut, and Dash began tugging at the handle and then banging on it. “Someone help!” he yelled.
Danny heard footsteps in the hallway; he abruptly dropped everything, resulting in loud bangs, and returned the temperature to normal. He did, however, stay to invisibly watch, holding in his laughter the best he could.
Coach Tetslaff pulled open the door. “What in the world is going on in here, Baxter?” she demanded, then looked around and frowned. “Look, I know you’re frustrated about messing up today, but that’s no reason to take it out on the equipment!”
“That wasn’t me!” Dash protested. “It was a ghost!”
“Sure it was.”
“Do I look like I can lift an entire metal locker and throw it?” Dash demanded. “It was a ghost, I swear!”
Danny looked around; huh, so the lockers themselves hadn’t actually been bolted down, although the benches had been. Well, that was the fault of the construction crew, as Danny was pretty sure they were supposed to be. He shrugged and flew off, uninterested in further watching the two argue.
A few days into Danny messing around with Dash, the majority of which was just locking glowing eyes with the boy, sometimes with a fanged grin or small wave, and doing ghostly things like shoving his hand through his locker door, flickering in and out of visibility, making the room cold, making random objects of Dash’s float, and even hovering above the ground a few times, Danny earned himself a visit from Sidney Poindexter.
“I thought you learned your lesson about using ghost powers to bully people,” the monochromatic old-school ghost student said with crossed arms and a scowl.
“It’s not bullying; I’m not touching him or even talking to him,” Danny argued.
“You’re still giving him a fright!”
“Yeah, a well-deserved one,” Danny spat back. “Seriously, I’m just reinforcing his theory that I’m a ghost; everything else is in his mind.”
“And why would you be doing that?” Sidney asked, still scowling. “Because from where I’m standing, driving people to insanity is no different than physical or verbal bullying.”
“Is it insanity if it’s true?”
“True or not, if you stopped to check his emotions, you’d see that he’s terrified to the point of paranoia! Why would you do this? I didn’t think you were that type of ghost, Danny.”
Danny frowned and argued, “I’m not that type of ghost. It’s not my fault he thinks he accidentally murdered me, and that I returned to seek vengeance on him.”
Sidney blinked, scowl fading away, apparently not expecting that. “Why would he think that he murdered you?”
Danny sighed, but decided he might as well explain. “He threw me in a lake and I might have stayed under slightly too long, then when I got back to shore automatically went intangible to get the water off and forgot to start breathing again… He dismissed the incident at first but then Star saw me use my ghost powers and reported it to the A-list, who concluded it must be from that.”
“And now you’re playing it up?” Sidney asked with disapproval.
“I mean, yeah? Dash literally thinks he murdered me due to bullying, and if you haven’t noticed, he’s still bullying other students. I feel like intimidation is more than a fair trade for that?”
Sidney paused at that. “You know, buster, you may have a point,” he eventually conceded. “If you can get him to stop bullying by doing this, that would be pretty swell… Okay, fine. I’ll overlook it for now,” he decided. “Just don’t take it further. Now, as you modern folks say, ‘peace out, dude’!” Sidney shot Danny a peace sign before retreating back to his locker.
Danny expected the weekend to be a small reprieve from Dash, but as it turned out, he encountered the boy at the mall, of all places. Danny had come there alone to buy a birthday gift for Sam—well, two gifts, because Tucker refused to set foot in the spooky store that sold every type of occult and creepy thing someone could think of, so Danny had to get a gift for him to give Sam as well.
There, Danny discovered four people he would never expect to find in such a store: Dash, Paulina, Star, and Kwan, the four huddled around a display of ‘anti-ghost wards’ of the more esoteric sort—you know, symbols, amulets, herbs, crystals, ‘potions’, and all that stuff, as opposed to the more scientific things Danny’s parents developed. Some of it worked, but most was total BS, and Danny would bet this display was the latter.
Danny silently and invisibly snuck over to them.
“This bracelet says it protects from all different ghost things,” Paulina said. “Look, each little charm has a different symbol!”
“Hell no!” Dash said. “You won’t catch me dead in a charm bracelet.”
“What about a necklace?” Kwan suggested, holding up a pendant featuring a circular piece of metal with a symbol surrounded by blue gemstones. “This one’s kinda cool.”
“No jewelry!” Dash insisted.
Kwan shrugged. “Suit yourself; I’m gonna get this one though.”
“How about a protective cologne?” Star suggested, holding up a small bottle.
Dash hummed. “Yeah, maybe that—”
“No way,” Paulina interjected. “It’s giving me flashbacks to that stuff Foley had.”
“Then it seems our only options are the strangely expensive bags of herbs to put in your pockets or the questionable vials of drinkable potions,” Star concluded.
“You whack? I ain’t drinking any possible poison!” Dash protested.
“Herbs it is.”
“You know, none of those things actually work,” Danny said from behind them after returning to the visible spectrum.
Dash screeched and ran out the door.
Danny watched him, confused. “What’s with him?” he couldn’t help but ask. He didn’t think Dash had become that paranoid around him.
Paulina gave Danny a shaky smile, seeming slightly scared of him too. “Oh, you know, he’s a little stressed.”
“Yeah, he’s been having some… Ghost problems,” Kwan settled on, less perturbed, though still gave Danny the usual look of pity he had lately.
“Ghost problems? Like, something’s haunting him?” Danny asked with a false veil of innocence.
The three stared at Danny, as if deciding whether or not he was messing with them, and if he was whether or not to play along. Danny wasn’t sure how much Dash had told them about his pranks.
“Well, he thinks so,” Paulina said. “We don’t know why this particular ghost would start doing it now, and honestly don’t think it’s actually true, but Dash has really been freaking out over it, so we figured why not see if we can find protective measures.”
“Ah. Well, hate to break it to you, but all this stuff on display? Useless.” Danny picked up one of the bracelets and squinted at the charms. “Pretty sure all these symbols are from a video game, actually.”
“Well, Damn,” Star said.
“I’m still getting the cool necklace,” Kwan said, and seeing it more closely Danny noted that for some reason Clockwork’s symbol was the feature of it, though there was no power to it that Danny could sense. Danny made a mental note to let the ghost know that the humans were selling illegal merchandise again.
“I think we should still get Dash something,” Paulina said. “I feel bad for him. Are you sure none of this works?” she double-checked with Danny.
Danny nodded, picking up a bottle of the cologne and sniffing it. “Yeah, it’s all crap,” he told them. “The only spray I’ve seen work is that thing Tucker made, which… Well. You’ve got experience with that.”
“Ugh, please don’t remind me,” Star said, fake-gagging.
Paulina sighed. “Well, do you have any idea of what will work? And before you suggest it, we don’t want to get Fenton merch—no offense to your parents, Danny, we know their stuff works, but we don’t want to actually hurt any ghosts, just ward one away. Even if there probably isn’t even a haunting.”
“Well, if you think it’s all in his head, why not just get an herb bag, then?” Danny suggested. “Sure they don’t work, but he doesn’t know that, right?”
“Oooh, placebo effect, good call,” Star said.
Paulina shrugged. “Works for me.” She grabbed a few bags of herbs and headed to the counter.
“Thanks, Fenton; you’re pretty cool,” Kwan said, then turned to examine some other jewelry, this time just generic gothic fashion ones.
“Uh, thanks?” Danny said, mildly confused at the compliment. “Anyway, I gotta go find something spider-themed for Sam—see you around, I guess,” Danny said before leaving them to their shopping.
“You know, he’s pretty cute,” Danny heard Star mumble to Kwan, Danny only hearing because of his enhanced ghost senses.
“He’s also a ghost,” Kwan replied quietly.
“So? If Paulina can have a ghost crush, I can too.”
Danny blushed and staunchly ignored the rest of the conversation, which ended up quickly escalating into something that was best left for non-public spaces. Ugh; Danny already had to deal with people saying that stuff about Phantom, he didn’t want them talking about Fenton like that as well! He truly cursed his ghost hearing at that moment.
On Tuesday, a week after Danny started tormenting Dash—because it honestly had started going beyond mere teasing and pranks, Danny reluctantly admitted, given the amount of fear and paranoia now constantly wafting off Dash and how concerned the rest of the A-list seemed to be for his sanity—Danny got called down to the Vice Principal’s office.
“Hi, Mr. Lancer,” Danny greeted, very familiar with the office. In addition to teaching classes of various subjects, Lancer was the VP, as the school was desperately short-staffed thanks to being so haunted. “And… Dash?” he asked in confusion as he closed the door.
“Please sit down, Mr. Fenton,” Lancer said tiredly.
“Last name, huh?” Danny commented as he walked over; usually these days Lancer called him ‘Danny’, indicative of how often he was here. “Damn, I must really be in trouble this time,” he joked as he sat in one of the chairs across from Lancer’s desk, next to Dash.
“Language,” Lancer chided, then sighed. “I will get straight to the point. Mr. Baxter here has… concerns.”
“Concerns?” Danny repeated, raising an eyebrow and glancing at the boy, who was looking away from Danny, an aura of guilt and general sadness wafting over him, along with some fear.
“Yes. He seems to believe you are a ghost.”
Danny blinked, brow scrunching into confusion. He knew that, but why would Dash tell Lancer? “What?”
“Well, more specifically, he claims that he killed you and you are now haunting him,” Lancer said calmly. Danny had a feeling Lancer didn’t believe Dash; in fact, he seemed to be in disbelief that they were even having the conversation at all.
Danny felt a little guilty about that, honestly; he hadn’t wanted to cause Lancer trouble. Lancer had known that Danny was Phantom since before the summer camp, and was literally the only human adult in Danny’s life that he could go to for support on that front. Lancer had even patched him up one day when he showed up bleeding before class!
Danny scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Suuuuuure I am,” he said, feeling a little rebellious despite the guilt. Teasing, yes. Haunting, no. “What would even be the point of that?”
“Well, according to him, revenge.”
“Uh-huh. For what? How does he even think he managed to kill me?”
“Drowning, apparently. During the summer camp. Bullying taken too far?” Lancer raised an eyebrow.
“Well… he might have tossed me in the lake, sure,” Danny admitted. “And I might have played a small prank, staying under too long and making him think I could have drowned. But I appeared back on the shore! Perfectly alive-looking. Well, except for not breathing. Kinda forgot to do that again. But I thought I’d started up before he noticed!”
Lancer sighed. “You said you were working on that.”
“I am! I usually remember! I just had to stop when I was underwater, and forgot to restart right away.”
“Huh? What’s going on?” asked Dash, looking confused. “Not breathing…?” He looked at Danny. “Wait, does Lancer already know you’re a ghost?!”
Danny then decided to have some fun, one last joke given that Lancer would definitely be asking him to stop taunting Dash. “Psh, don’t be ridiculous,” Danny said, gradually dropping the air temperature as he spoke. “If I were a ghost, I’d be able to do stuff like go intangible—” Danny swiped an arm through the back of his chair as he said the word— “Turn invisible—” Danny flickered out of sight a few times in rapid succession— “Fly—” Danny hovered above his seat— “and move objects.” He raised a hand and two sharp pencils moved off of Lancer’s desk to float in front of Dash, sharp points facing towards the boy’s face, his hand up in a way indicating he was ready to drive them forward into Dash’s eyes. Danny grinned a too-wide fanged smile as his eyes glowed a bright toxic green.
Dash gasped and shivered slightly. “D-don’t kill me!” he stuttered, looking cross-eyed at the pencils, then flinched and whimpered as Danny shot the pencils past Dash, brushing his hair on the way, to drive them deep into the wall behind him.
Danny took some slight delight in the fear, feeling it charge his core slightly—yeah, he might not like that he could eat it, and tried not to, but he was part-ghost, sometimes it was tough to resist the sweet taste of fear!
Lancer merely sighed, looking completely done with the situation. “Danny. You promised your ghost abilities wouldn’t cause issues in school.”
“They’re not!” Danny argued. “I can control them now. I haven’t broken a beaker in over a year, the stage curtain thing was just regular fire this time not a ghostly one, I swear that dodgeball last week was already on the verge of popping to the point that even a human throwing it would’ve done that, and I haven’t stolen anything from the vending machine in months! Not that I ever stole anything, and if I had it was only when I forgot money and I always put money in the next day.”
“Wait, did you say a year?” Dash asked slowly, coming to a realization.
Lancer replied to Danny, ignoring Dash. “Clearly your ghostly abilities are causing issues, if you’re using them to haunt another student.”
“I’m not haunting him!” Danny argued. “It’s only small pranks. If I were haunting him, I’d be following him invisibly everywhere and doing crap like whispering in his ear and causing lots of spooky stuff and all that. Like, compared to an actual haunting, this is super tame.”
“Hey!” Dash exclaimed. “Someone explain. You said a year! You’ve been a ghost since before the summer camp!?”
“Oh, yeah,” Danny said with a casual wave. “More than two years, actually.”
“No. No way. I’ve been wailing on a dead kid for two years?!”
“Yup,” Danny said, deciding to let Dash think he was a full ghost—less chance of him figuring out he was Phantom that way. “Truthfully, I’m the whole reason ghosts are even in Amity Park; without me dying, that portal wouldn’t have opened.”
Dash looked shocked. “Your parents sacrificed you to open that thing?”
Lancer, knowing the full story, sighed as he put a hand on his face with his elbow on the desk. “I’m too old to deal with this shit,” he mumbled.
Danny shrugged, finding himself enjoying this. “Hey, I’m not complaining; ghost powers are awesome, and the portal opening made life a lot more interesting, don’t you think? Well, afterlife in my case, but you get what I mean.”
“No, I don’t get what you mean!” Dash exclaimed. “You seriously think ghosts terrorizing the town is a good thing?!”
Danny grinned, showing fangs. “What, you don’t think all the screaming and chaos is fun?” He chuckled, having fun acting a little deranged—in truth all the ghost attacks were stressful and Danny wished they would stop, but it actually was true that he no longer regretted getting his powers or opening the portal. He’d started to make ghost friends, the Infinite Realms were utterly fascinating, and he wouldn’t give up being able to fly for anything.
Dash’s eyes widened as he realized something else. “Holy shit. You… you could have fought back whenever you wanted, couldn’t you? You even could have killed me! But you let me wail on you instead? Why!?”
Danny shrugged, telling Dash with more seriousness, “I can take it. The other nerds can’t. You do realize you punch pretty hard, right? You’re honestly lucky no one’s gotten dangerously hurt, especially with things like pulling kids up the flagpole—those ropes are not that strong, and if they ever broke, you’d be headed right to juvie.”
Lancer was now glaring at Dash. “You’ve been sending kids up flagpoles?!”
Dash chuckled nervously. “Uh, well…”
Lancer shook his head in disappointment. “I was hoping you’d improved, but I see you only got better at hiding it.” He reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a flyer. “Here. This is a program for anti-bullying counseling. It takes place on Saturday mornings at the county’s youth correctional center. You will be attending at least four of the sessions, more if I discover the bullying hasn’t stopped. If you fail to show up, you will be off the football team.”
“What!” Dash declared. “You can’t do that!”
“Sure I can; I’m the Vice Principal,” Lancer said.
“Well, that about Fenton, then? He was bullying me!”
“No I wasn’t,” Danny interjected. “I didn’t lay a hand on you, or say anything inflammatory. I was just being creepy, letting my ghost side show some. You’re the one who misinterpreted it as haunting you.”
“But it was targeted at me!”
Danny shrugged. “Do you have proof of that?” He grinned, showing fangs. “Besides, if I’m a ghost, I can’t help it, right? At least, according to my parents. Honestly, you’re lucky I’m not haunting you; according to the ghost research, I really ought to be, given everything you put me through.”
Dash scoffed. “90% of that ‘ghost research’ is BS and you know it,” he said, though seemed a little worried regardless. “Basically the only people in the entire town who still believe all that crap are your parents, the Guys in White, and the Red Huntress.”
Danny couldn’t help but laugh. “You’ve got a point there,” he agreed, then said with more gravity, “But off of that, the reality is kinda the opposite of the research. Ghosts are literally formed from nexuses of emotion, which significantly heightens their emotions and can make stronger emotional flares difficult to control. Making a ghost angry rarely ends well—seriously, you’re actually really lucky I’ve been able to maintain as much control as I have. A lot of other ghosts would have severely injured you, if not worse, after some of the crap you pulled.”
“Then why didn’t you?” Dash cautiously wondered.
Danny shrugged. “Like I said; better me than the other nerds. If I retaliated, not only would people learn I was a ghost, but you would’ve switched to bullying people who can’t take it the same.”
“But you did retaliate,” Lancer chimed in, reminding them he was there.
“Yeah but not with murder,” Danny pointed out. “And only because I realized he knew about me being a ghost. Which,” he turned to look at Dash, eyes glowing, “You and the other A-list members better not tell anyone about, or that might actually be on the table.”
Dash gulped, properly intimidated, but Lancer simply sighed and said, “Danny, please do not threaten to kill your classmates.”
“What about bodily harm?” Danny asked with a mischievous grin.
“No. Further threatening violence upon your peers will result in detention.”
“Aww, man,” Danny said with a sigh, dramatically wilting.
“Okay, I g-guess you’re joking,” Dash said, “But, um. I have to ask. How close was it really?”
“What do you mean?” Danny asked, confused.
“Well, what we did to you… Thinking about some of it, it was bad. Like, not just in degree, but frequency. Honestly it was sometimes worse than the documentaries they show us on what can lead to school shooters. Was it ever close? Or, if we continued, could it have been?”
Danny sucked in a breath. “No comment,” he said, recalling the dark timeline where his future self had… yeah, maybe Dash had a point; Danny was definitely capable of mass murder if pushed far enough.
Lancer frowned. “Dash, I’m assigning you 6 weeks of the anti-bullying counseling instead of 4. And your other A-list friends are all getting 3.”
Dash winced. “Okay, I guess that’s fair,” he conceded. He glanced at Danny. “Er. Aren’t you concerned though…?”
“He knows; I’ve talked to him about that before,” Danny told Dash. Lancer knew almost everything; he’d kinda become a de-facto therapist for Danny, given another hat he wore was that of school counselor, ever since the Spectra incident, plus Lancer was the only more neutral party, and only human adult, who knew he was Phantom. Danny had usually glossed over the bullying though, as he didn’t think it was that big of a deal comparatively, though from Lancer’s reactions to finding out more about it just now maybe it was as big a deal as the ghost stuff.
“Oh,” Dash said. “So then… you won’t shoot up the school?” he nervously asked Danny.
Danny rolled his eyes. “Dude, I was never at risk of doing that,” he said, and when Dash looked relieved, Danny gave a fanged grin again and said, “It would be more of a Carrie situation.”
Dash took a moment to process the reference, then his eyes widened and he made a squeaking sound, apparently unable to say anything.
Lancer merely sighed again, clearly tired of Danny’s crap. “A Clockwork Orange, Danny. Please stop giving me reasons to suggest inpatient psychiatric care.”
“Tch. Like they could do anything for a ghost,” Danny couldn’t help but say.
“Y-you’re insane!” Dash exclaimed.
Danny raised an eyebrow at him, eyes glowing as he said with amusement, being sure to show fangs and making his smile just on the edge of too wide, “What was your first clue?”
Dash squeaked again and scrambled up before rushing out the door, faster than Danny had ever seen him run.
“Hey! I was just joking around!” Danny yelled after him, then sighed. “Dammit. I took it too far, didn’t I?”
“I’ll say,” Lancer said faintly; props to him for managing to stay so calm. He took a deep breath and said firmly, “You do, however, have detention this Saturday—even if you didn’t cause physical harm, you cannot terrorize your fellow students, regardless of what they’ve done.” That was fair, Danny had to concede. He had a feeling that detention would likely turn into a therapy session though. Then Lancer added with a wry smile, “Although I daresay this will likely stop the bullying.”
Danny laughed. “And to think all it took was the bully thinking he’d murdered a kid and created a vengeful ghost who might go on a murderous rampage.”
Lancer smiled; having picked up some of Danny’s twisted humor along the way, he replied, “As though you would ever let that happen again.”
“So, what’s the situation?” Sam asked once Danny emerged from the school after swinging by his locker—he’d been called out of the last class period for the visit with Lancer, and it had lasted past the final bell. It seemed his friends had waited for him.
“Dash tried telling Lancer that I was a ghost haunting him. He confessed to murder and the bullying and stuff; really glad Lancer already knew about me!”
“So are you in trouble?” Tucker wondered.
Danny shrugged. “Kinda? I got Saturday detention. But, Dash got six weeks of anti-bullying counseling, while the other A-list people get 3! But, I really don’t think the bullying’s going to be an issue anymore, given Dash now thinks I’m a bonafide real ghost on the verge of becoming the next Carrie.”
Sam laughed. “Seriously? YOU?”
Danny laughed too. “I know, right? Been there, done that, definitely not up for a repeat.”
“Do you think the A-list will tell people?” Sam wondered.
“Nah,” Danny waid with a dismissive wave. “Pretty sure Dash is convinced I really will go Carrie if they tell anyone. The secret’s safe.”
“The weirdest rumor is going around town,” Danny’s mom commented at a family dinner a few nights later.
“It’s not true, Danny’s not a ghost!” Jazz immediately exclaimed.
Maddie waved a hand. “No, no, that one’s been going around forever, we know that’s not true. This one’s even more ridiculous—people are saying that in order to open the Ghost Portal, a human sacrifice was needed! Can you imagine?”
Jack chuckled. “Man, the things people think of! Next they’ll be saying there can be human-ghost hybrids! Totally ridiculous.”
Danny chuckled nervously. “Y-yeah, definitely ridiculous,” he said with a plastered-on grin that showed fangs (his parents somehow either never noticed, or noticed but didn’t care about those), loosely debating if he really should kill Dash after all.
Jack put a hand on his chin and looked contemplative. “Of course, we don’t actually know how the portal turned on… You and your friends didn’t actually sacrifice anyone, did you, Danno?”
Danny was unsure how to answer, but thankfully Jazz, whom Danny had not told about the sacrifice part, came to the rescue. “Of course not,” she said, leaning over and wrapping an arm around Danny’s shoulders. “Danny’s not a killer.”
“Yeah but I wouldn’t put it past that Sam girl,” Jack mused, coming a little too close to the truth, given what happened the time Desiree tried altering time.
“Sam’s not a killer either,” Jazz said firmly as she withdrew from Danny and returned to her dinner. “Nor is Tucker. They’re 16!”
“So was Carrie,” Jack pointed out.
Danny groaned. “Why do people keep comparing me to her?” he lamented aloud; sure, he had done it too, but his friends had done so first. “Seriously! I swear I’m not going to go on a murderous rampage!”
“No, you just need therapy,” Jazz commented. “Lots of it,” she muttered under her breath, audible only to Danny.
Maddie sighed. “Jasmine, for the last time, Danny is a perfectly normal high school boy. Having hormones and teenage angst does not mean he requires therapy.”
“Yeah!” Jack proclaimed. “Why, when I was a boy…”
Danny relaxed as his dad went into a long story about his youth, the potential crisis once again miraculously averted.