Chapter Text
Danny, with elbow on desk and chin resting on hand, sighed as his eyes wandered to the scene outside the classroom window: nothing but a beautiful sunny day. More importantly, it was the first chillier day they’d had in a while, minus a few rainy ones, so Danny had really been looking forward to flying around in it… Ugh, it was just so unfair being stuck in detention on such a day! Especially when it wasn’t even his fault for being late to sixth period; he didn’t control when ectopi attacked…
“Danny, do your work,” Mr. Lancer reminded him without even looking up from the papers he was grading at his teacher’s desk.
“Yeah, yeah,” Danny muttered, turning back to the (extremely late) homework assignment.
Dash snickered at Danny being called out by the teacher, but didn’t say anything—no surprise there, Danny figured, given that Dash had, surprisingly, actually received detention that day for his bullying of Danny. Kwan was there too for the same reason. The school could overlook a disturbing amount when it came to the jocks, but the two (well, mostly Dash; Kwan kept guard, unsuccessfully) being caught red-handed attempting to lock Danny in the cafeteria’s walk-in refrigerator was not one of those things. They claimed it was fine because, given it was the morning, the cafeteria lady would have found him before anything bad happened (which wouldn’t anyway, given Danny could walk through Antarctica barefooted and be fine, not to mention he could just phase out of the fridge, although they didn’t know that), but Lancer wasn’t having it—Danny had never seen the teacher so angry.
Also present in detention were Paulina and Star, who tried to use the chem lab without permission to create eye shadow and instead somehow created a gas that required the school to be evacuated and a hazmat team to be called (turned out it was largely benign, with the only effect being that it turned freckles blue, somehow, but best to be safe); the twins Nathan and Lester, who were caught running a trading card game gambling ring under the guise of a school club; and Valerie, who like Danny had been late, for the same exact reason as him (okay, so technically it wasn’t the ectopus that made them late, it was because they’d briefly fought afterwards).
“Ohmygosh,” Star suddenly proclaimed. “I just noticed that there are nine people in here! That’s super unlucky.”
“It is?” Kwan asked.
“Oh yeah. When nine people gather, one will die sometime within 27 months.”
Lancer sighed with tired exasperation. “The superstition, which I assure you is just a superstition, is related to dining, the number is thirteen, and it says the first to leave is the first to die but there’s no timeline. As we are not thirteen people gathered to dine, we ought to be more than fine. Now, please do your work.”
“No, that’s a different one!” Star argued. “This one’s because it’s three, which is a bad number by itself, times a whole ‘nother three! Super bad news.”
“Ooh, and 27 is three times that! Makes sense,” Kwan said with worry.
“Exactly!” Star said. “This is, like, really bad.”
“Ugh! Just shut the fuck up,” Valerie snapped. “Star, no superstition exists anywhere but your own damn mind!”
“Miss Gray!” Lancer scolded. “If I hear you using that language again, you will have detention tomorrow as well!”
“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” Valerie pointed out, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes.
“I am aware,” Lancer said cooly. “I have plenty of papers that I can grade; Saturday detention is perfectly fine with me.”
“Ugh, fine.”
Five minutes later, Danny decided that they were definitely very unlucky that day, whether or not Star’s assertion that nine people being there influenced that or not.
“What going on?” Dash wondered, others echoing him, as red light filled the room, emanating from a large circle originating from Danny, whose desk was in the center of the room, and encompassing everyone there. It was a pentacle shape with multiple symbols inside it, one which Danny somewhat recognized...
“Ohmygosh, I’m too pretty to die!” Paulina whined.
“See? Told you nine was unlucky!” Star said victoriously.
Danny simply tiredly sighed. Not again! Hadn’t people had enough of summoning ghosts?
The circle’s light shot upwards, enveloping everyone. Belatedly Danny realized that he was in Fenton form—not good. Well, hopefully the cult wouldn’t be anyone he knew, and they would buy a mispronounced name had gotten the wrong ghost; it had played out like that before when ‘Fenton’ was summoned.
“What the hell is this?!” came an unfamiliar screech as the light died down, revealing Danny was in a dark room, the red circle beneath him dimly glowing with candles surrounding it. Danny quickly ascertained that five people were around the circle, all wearing dark hooded robes that made their identities indiscernible.
The reaction was understandable; they had obviously expected Phantom to appear, only to get a scrawny kid in a NASA t-shirt and jeans sitting sprawled on the ground.
The light dimmed, so that only the candles lit the room, which from what Danny could gather was a large mostly-empty concrete-floored basement. Off to the side, further than a human would be able to see in this darkness, was what looked like a dead deer, the knife used to slit its throat next to it. Danny would bet that the sigil had been drawn using its blood (luckily dry now).
“Wh-where are we?” Dash stuttered out.
“This isn’t the classroom…” Kwan trailed, almost inaudibly.
“Yeah no shit,” Valerie replied.
“Language!” Lancer automatically scolded.
Danny froze as he realized that the person was not referring to him not being Phantom, rather was referring to the fact that eight humans were there with him, all on the ground given they were sitting beforehand. Eight humans that were very clearly panicking. This was unprecedented; Danny had absolutely no idea how to handle this.
“Ohmygosh, we really are gonna die!” Paulina lamented.
“I’m way too young to die!” Kwan wailed.
“Wait, is this a cult?” Lester wondered.
“A cult?! Seriously, Les?” Nathan told his brother. “It better not be a cult!”
“The aesthetic is really pretty,” Star marvelled, standing up and looking around the place, apparently lost in her own world. Danny wasn’t sure how the place could be considered ‘pretty’, but Star was rather unique, to say the least.
“QUIET!” the cult leader—at least Danny assumed it was a cult—shouted at them, and everyone obliged out of surprise. The leader turned to someone in the congregation. “Figure out why the hell this ritual summoned so many extras, none being the ghost we wanted!”
“None being ghosts at all,” someone else commented.
“No; at least one of them has to be a ghost,” another congregation member insisted. “The ghost must have been around these humans, and the ritual took them all.”
“Ghost or not, they’re still not the right ghost,” the leader snapped back.
“Does that matter?” yet another chimed in. “A different ghost could probably help too.”
The leader considered that for a moment, then asked the group, “Okay, then. Which one of you is the ghost?”
“None of us are ghosts,” Lancer said as he stood up, seeming like he was trying to stay calm but struggling to. “I am a teacher at Casper High in Amity Park, Ohio, and these are the students from detention, which I was supervising.”
“Incorrect; one of you is most definitely a ghost.”
“No, we’re—”
“Shut it. Maybe it’s a kid who’s been hiding that from you, or maybe you’re one and the kids don’t know. Either way, one of you is assuredly a ghost.”
“Dude, trust me, no one here is a ghost,” Valerie, also now standing, said flatly, glaring at the man with her arms crossed. “What do you even want a ghost for?”
“To help us rob a bank, of course.”
Danny scoffed. “Seriously? Could you be any more creative?” he sarcastically drawled, crossing his arms. He was still seated on the floor, not feeling like standing. The other students were too, though they seemed to be staying on the ground more due to nerves than anything.
“Danny!” Lancer chided. “This is not the time for sass!”
“Why do you even think one of us is?” Valerie wondered.
“The ritual wouldn’t have summoned you here if there wasn’t a ghost present,” the leader told them.
“Can we at least know who summoned us?” Star wondered, apparently entirely unafraid unlike her (human, non-ghost-hunting) peers. “Like, are you a cult, or frat boys, or just friends?”
“Star, they just said they want to rob a bank,” Danny said tiredly. This entire situation was so annoying!
“Well yeah, but come on, it would be super boring if they’re just basic bank robbers!” Star argued. “Like you said, they could be more creative.”
“...That was sarcasm, not a serious question.”
“Okay, I vote for her being the ghost,” one of the other summoners said.
Danny decided to name them using numbers to more easily keep track of them in his mind; the leader would be One, the one who just spoke could be Two. The one who suggested that one of them must be a ghost could be Three, the one who said the ghost didn’t matter could be Four, and the final one, who hadn’t spoken yet, could be Five.
“Ugh, I knew we should have brought an EMF detector,” Four grumbled.
“Wouldn’t work; we’d have to drag them to a different room one by one to test it, and that risks the ghost escaping,” Three said.
“But couldn’t the ghost escape now?”
Five finally spoke. “Obviously whoever it is doesn’t want the humans to know; if it’s a teacher and students, that means a ghost has been hiding among humans. If they’re from Ohio, that’s illegal thanks to the anti-ecto acts.”
“Hey, just wondering,” Danny said, “but why do you think the ghost will help you rob a bank? Isn’t summoning a bit rude? You’d have better luck finding a ghost and having a chat, plenty like causing chaos and would be happy to rob a bank.”
One scoffed. “We intended to summon Phantom, not you kids. Phantom’s done theft before, so clearly he would agree.”
“Actually, pretty sure Phantom was being controlled by Freakshow that time,” Danny told him. “I mean, they found Freakshow with all the gold and jewels, and he confessed to having a ghost-controlling staff that he used to steal it.”
“Oh yeah, the news didn’t report it but that was all over the message boards,” Paulina said with a nod. “I trust those more than the news.”
“And Danny would know; he was there,” Kwan pointed out. “My mom was there and said he, Sam, and Tucker caught the guy!”
“Actually, we only destroyed the staff,” Danny clarified. “The ghosts he controlled beat him up and left him for the cops to find.” Of course, Danny was one of those ghosts too.
“Hey, wait,” Dash said with realization, as he stood too; as everyone else started to stand as they saw he did, Danny did as well. “There’s nine of us and five of them…”
“Don’t even think about it,” One growled, lifting his arm; out of his robe sleeve poked something shiny and metallic, which Danny assumed was the barrel of a—
“Hold shit it’s a gun!” Dash gasped.
“Since when do cults have guns?” Danny wondered.
“Shut it, kid!” One ordered. “We all have guns, because we’re a crime syndicate, not a cult!”
“Don’t you need more than five members to be a ‘crime syndicate’?” Valerie asked, unphased by the gun.
“Well, we’re just getting started!” Two defended.
“Eh, I’d change that tune, you’re clearly more of a cult,” Danny told them.
“Mister Fenton! Miss Gray! Please do not antagonize the cult,” Lancer hissed.
“We’re not a cult!” One protested again.
“Dude, the robes and summoning circle say otherwise,” Danny told him, grinning slightly and raising an eyebrow.
One pointed his gun at Danny. “You want to be the first to die?!”
“You know,” Five said, “that could be a way to figure out who’s the ghost.”
“What, shoot them?” Three said.
“Yeah.”
“We ain’t committing mass murder if we can help it,” One said. “That’s the whole point of using a ghost and not running in guns blazing!”
“Then what about salt?” Four offered. “That allegedly hurts ghosts, right?”
“Did you do any research?” Two scoffed. “Ghosts have literally been seen eating ultra-salty foods like potato chips. Clearly that is a myth.”
“Then, iron?”
“There’s literally one that wears a metal suit.”
“Oh! What about burdock? That’s anti-ghost, right? I think the sub-basement has some!”
Two considered that for a moment. “Yeah, maybe.”
One ordered, “Go get it.”
Four scurried off.
Danny tried not to grin. There was a sub-basement, huh? Meaning it was safe if he wanted to… He glanced at Two, then from his foot extended intangibility in a line across the floor to underneath the cult member. Two gave a shout and vanished, then the floor became solid again.
Everyone swerved to look; meanwhile, Danny did the same to Three.
“Nobody move!” One said, holding his gun at the group. Five did the same. “If either of us goes through the floor too, the other starts shooting, got it?”
Damn; so much for that. Danny was not confident enough to do two at once, plus there was now a good chance that they’d shoot right as they began falling.
“So there is a ghost among you,” Five growled. “Who?”
The group stood silently, all looking around—at each other, not at the cultists.
Valerie summoned her own ecto-weapon. “Show yourself, ghost!” she declared.
“Hey! Gun down, girl!” One shouted.
“This is an anti-ghost gun, it doesn’t hurt humans!” Valerie told them. “I want to know who the ghost is just as much as you!”
“You’re siding with the cultists?!” Dash asked with disbelief.
“Bank robbers,” One corrected.
“If it is, prove it by shooting yourself!” Five insisted.
Valerie shot herself in the arm, to no effect, as she asserted, “Ghosts are more dangerous than cultists!”, ignoring the correction.
“But they have real guns,” Kwan countered.
“Ack!” Danny squeaked as One grabbed him by the upper arm and pulled him towards him.
One put his arm around Danny’s chest and pointed the gun at his head. “Reveal yourself now, ghost, or I shoot the kid!”
“We told you, there is no ghost here!” Lancer told the cultist, even though he must know that wasn’t true.
“Liar! Or did you not notice the other two go through the damn floor!? Now, ghost, show yourself if you want the kid to live!”
Danny decided he didn’t have a choice; either he revealed himself in a fun way, or he revealed himself by being shot and the bullet phasing through (or, actually getting shot and survive, probably healing fully in a few hours, but that would be painful). He decided to have some fun with it.
Danny grinned, eyes aglow, winked at his classmates and teacher, and fell back, phasing through the guy and delivering a sharp jab to a spot behind the neck that he hoped would knock the guy out, as it did in movies.
Thankfully it worked, and as expected once One crumbled to the ground Five panicked and shot at Danny, a few times in a row, but Danny was ready—the bullets passed harmlessly through him and buried into the wall. Danny laughed and flew towards the guy, phasing through him too and then hitting him in the same spot.
Then, Danny cried out, hit by something in the shoulder which caused him to tumble backwards in the air; he swerved towards where the shot had come from and put up an ecto-shield to block two more shots.
“What the hell are you doing, Valerie!?” Danny angrily shouted.
“You’re a ghost. Tricking the class. You need to go down.” Valerie raised her gun again.
“No!” Kwan yelled, tackling Valerie before she could shoot.
“Get off me!” Valerie complained as Kwan attempted to wrestle the gun from her.
“No! What is wrong with you?!” Kwan declared.
“He’s a ghost!”
“He just saved our lives!”
“Hey! What the hell’s going on!?” came a shout from the doorway, the voice of which Danny recognized as Two.
Danny swerved to find the other three members had apparently already made it up from the basement. Their guns were up, but were all pointing at him; Danny flew forward—
Instead of shooting, Three and Four tossed bags of some sort of powder on Danny.
Danny stopped in midair and coughed. “Wh-what is that?” he choked out.
“Hah! It does work!” Three cheered.
“I told you we should have added the barrier element to the sigil,” Two grumbled.
“Yeah, well, that took too much time,” Three testily replied.
“What did you do to the others, ghost?” Four demanded.
Danny blinked as dark spots danced across his eyes and the room spun. He felt weak, and very sleepy all of a sudden…
“Well? Answer me!”
Instead of answering, Danny collapsed onto the ground. He heard indistinct shouts from the direction of the circle, footsteps, indecipherable shouts from the cultists, the footsteps halting… Then nothing as everything faded into black.