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ghostruly · 8 years ago

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chasing ghosts

Lil fic I wrote on a whim, I think it came out aight

Status: complete

Warning for mentions of blood and gore

Summary: "You're... real happy for a dead man." Sam said. Somehow, he had the audacity to laugh. "Me? Happy? Sure am. I don't know about 'dead', though. Ghosts are a little out there, don't'cha think?" "You'd be surprised, Danny. Some people still believe."

Sam thought for sure she saw him. He was a flash of an image, a vague impression of a person branded into the background of the nightclub – someone there and suddenly gone, a hallucination in the flashing strobe lights.

He was something of a daydream – the result of either one too many drinks or an overactive imagination. She thought it the former but with about as much weight as the latter, so perhaps it was both. He looked the same as he ever did: flyaway dark hair absurdly wild around a boyish face, high cheekbones bearing the promise of masculine aesthetics after the grand leap of puberty. Clad in his trademark red hoodie, Sam could recognize him anywhere.

She took off like a shot, pushing past the crowds of obnoxious people, shoving and breathing and yelling just too loudly, she was halfway certain she couldn't hear herself think. Her breaths came out in thick, powerful pants as the darkened bodies pressed in and the lights seemed to flash brighter than normal. Sam's heart was pounding, blood roaring in her ears. She was seeing his face everywhere, on everyone. She thought she ran into him once, but it wasn't him – the club goer pushed her away with a snarl. She returned it, and continued onwards.

Sam really didn't have any idea where she was going. She only had an image to go off of, something of a flash, some kind of pressed afterimage ever-present in her memory like stars in one's concussed vision. She allowed her gut to pull her forward, saying nothing to the group of people she came with – no way of farewell, nothing of a wave or even a "one sec". She was desperate, driven by both the desire to follow the image and her constant repulsion towards people and crowds.

She was antsy as it was - this was her salvation, chasing strobe light afterimages based on gut feeling alone as she dove through the crowd.

The thick turned into thin and the thin turned into nothing and eventually, Sam was outside the club, panting, wheezing, holding her discarded black heels in one hand and her clutch in the other. She was in the back, alone in an alley near the dumpsters. The cold mid-November air bit at her form and she felt it meld into her bones, biting, becoming a part of her.

She looked up, eyes searching, hoping to find something, anything, to reward her chase.

At this point, Sam could have taken his discarded sock and have been this happiest nineteen-year-old on the planet.

But there was nothing. It was dark and damp and cold from the recent Chicago showers, the freezing temperatures biting at her bare legs as she stood before an abandoned dark alley, quivering and suddenly very, very still.

Still to a point.

After a moment, Sam let out a long breath. It was hopeless. He wasn't here. She didn't see him. She had to stop hoping for better, had to believe that he really wasn't coming back.

She had to stop chasing ghosts.

"If you stop chasing ghosts, Sam, how will you ever find any?"

Sam bit back a scream. She whipped around, dancing wildly as her bare feet patted against the cold, harsh concrete.

Then, she saw him. Her eyes blew wide, disbelief and unbridled shock running rampant throughout her form, shaking her to the core. Because sitting there, on top of the closed lid of the dumpster, sat a boy who's crystalline eyes made it look as if he had never missed a beat – as if he had been present, somehow, for the last five years of Sam's life.

As if he had never died.

As if he had never been mourned for.

As if the closed casket funeral hadn't been words enough as the town wept for the boy who's life was cut too short.

As if he were oblivious to it all.

"You were never good at keeping your thoughts to yourself, you know." He continued, waving a hand conversationally as if this were all very normal, as if he hadn't been gone for five years.

"It's not a bad habit, per say," he said. "You just say what's on your mind. You think it and suddenly blah, it just comes out. Not like blah, blah – more articulate than that. It's like… a sophisticated blah. You know? You know."

"You're…" Sam struggled to find the words, heels having long since fallen from her limp and dangling arms. She pushed a hand through short black strands, running along the back of her neck. It was a habit. One she picked up from him. "You're... real happy for a dead man."

Somehow, he had the audacity to laugh. "Me? Happy? Sure am. I don't know about 'dead', though. Ghosts are a little out there, don't'cha think?"

"You'd be surprised, Danny. Some people still believe." Sam's voice had turned into a mutter now, her gaze roaming over him hungrily. She had lost him when they were fourteen. There had been an accident, something horrible and gruesome that had haunted her nightmares to this very day. She could swear to the high heavens she could sometimes hear his scream in the wind as it rustled through the trees, scraping the sides of her dorm room as she ducked under the covers in hopes that her roommate wouldn't see her shocking display of cowardice.

His body had been burned beyond recognition. Black and charred and laying bloody and raw on the basement floor after the accident, she saw a paramedic retch at the sight of the body. He was dead at the scene.

But here he was, all lean muscle and skin as if he had never left. Time seemed to have treated him the same as it treated her and the rest of the world, looking at him now he almost wasn't recognizable.

In the nightclub, she saw him as he was. A combination of memory and flashing lights distorted his image into something different. Now, this was almost a completely different person. He was taller, leaner and masculine like his bear of a father before him. His hair was the same as ever – flyaway and unconstrained by gravity. His eyes were just as blue, just as shocking as she remembered. The bags beneath them were heavy and defined, his cheekbones high but his face gaunt and hollow.

Sam felt a pang of sympathy for him. And for once, she was at a loss for words.

Danny let out another laugh. It was more of a bark than anything else, the sound croaked and harsh on the ears. "Last time I checked that place out, you'd never know."

"…How." Sam finally decided, the word a hard statement rather than a question. She had a million questions firing through her head, her thoughts breaking from their paralysis and driving up her heart rate in her chest. The one word though, was all she could get out.

"How'd I get to Amity Park?" Danny asked with a playful smile. "I walked. Took a bus or two. Didn't find you guys anywhere, so I moved on. I didn't take you as the Chicago type, Sam. Always thought you'd end up in college somewhere in Colorado. Somewhere nature-y. You've changed, Sammy."

"Speak for yourself," Sam bit out, put off by the fluidity in which he dodged her question. Dodged her accusation, more accurately. "Last time I saw you, you were dead. Burned black, blood everywhere. I don't think you had any skin left on your body."

Danny winced, cringing as she described the scene of the accident. "…Surprise?"

"Danny, how are you back?!" Sam suddenly shouted, her previous sympathy suddenly drowned out by a stroke of red-hot rage. "You were dead! I saw it. We had a funeral, Daniel Fenton. Your family mourned for you. Tucker mourned for you. I mourned for you. And you just show up, five years later? In the middle of some nightclub in the middle of Chicago? Explain this, Danny." She sighed. "Please."

"I…" He started, faltering as his words shook, his previous confidence gone. "I… I don't know what to tell you, Sam. It was years ago. One minute I was in my parents basement, and the next I'm somewhere in Mexico. I don't know what happened." He shook his head, struggling to remember. "My hair was white. My eyes were green. Sam, I wasn't myself. I wasn't human."

"You're a ghost." Sam stated, heart sinking. She wanted to believe that he was real. That her best friend was really alive and kind-of well, sitting on a dumpster before her on some random weekend in the middle of November, outside some random nightclub not too far from her college campus. Sam desperately wanted to believe it was a coincidence, them running into each other.

But she wasn't that naïve.

To her great surprise, he shook his head. "Sam, listen. I don't know what you saw that day. But whatever it was, that wasn't me. Maybe some parallel-universe-kind-of-fucked-up version of me, but that wasn't me. I dunno who you buried. I don't know if it's a Schrödinger's cat – some dead version of me – but whatever it was, it was a lie."

"Then why didn't you come back?"

"What, come back some mutated half-ghost freak?" His tone was bitter, now. Biting. The words hurt like a physical force against her. He scoffed, rolling his eyes. "No. You know how my parents would have seen me? They would have shot me on the spot."

"Danny, they're your parents."

"They're ghost hunters. I'm not dead, Sam. But I'm not alive either."

"You look alive to me."

Now his laugh was three times louder – high pitched, barking and wailing. He shot her a look that sent chills up her spine, his iconic blue eyes a piercing, eerie shade of deathly toxic green. They were glowing, all consuming; something of a nightmare, something out of a horror movie. But at the same time they were flat, haunting, dead. "Does this look alive to you, Sam?"

Choking down her initial response to get the hell away, to retreat back into the nightclub and utilize her fake ID to drink away her sorrows, Sam instead resolved to look Danny straight in the eye and shoot him a grin. "Looks a little goth, actually. Didn't realize I was rubbing off on you."

Obviously not expecting the response, the green faded back into blue in a second as he raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"But alive or dead or not," Sam said, "why didn't you come back? At least tell us you were around? Why come back now?"

"I…" He swung his legs off the side of the dumpster and landed on the ground soundlessly. He drew closer to her, his form dwarfing hers by several inches. She felt suddenly exposed in front of him, as if his gaze could tear holes through her. "I wasn't ready, Sam. I couldn't face everyone. Not you or Tucker or mom or dad or Jazz. Ghosts, they… they follow me. Wherever I go, they pop up. I couldn't bring that to Amity Park."

"Then why find me now?" Sam asked, her mind going numb at the events that had been transpiring before her.

"Because you weren't in Amity Park." He admitted simply, tearing his eyes away from hers. "I was finally able to go back. Five years later and I finally had my… my powers under control. If the ghosts followed me, I could fight them off. I could protect everyone. I just couldn't keep staying away, but…"

"We were gone." Sam finished.

"You were." He said. "I tracked you and Tucker down, after finding out that everyone thought I was dead. I didn't want to face my family after that, after so long... I didn't want them to see me like this – so I let them be. I found out that you went to the University of Chicago, so…."

"Here you are."

"Yeah."

"Now what?"

He chuckled, bowing a chunk of dark hair out of his face in the process. "Honestly? I don't know. I didn't think I'd make it this far."

Finally, Sam laughed. She found the irony of it all hilarious. "Typical."

He stuck out his tongue, at a loss for what to do. Sam could see it written all over his face.

She didn't know what to do either. She was stuck, gutted, and it seemed as though this moment were frozen in time forever – two friends, reunited after five long years of mourning and loss.

She wanted to tell him to find his family and tell them he was alive - they've mourned for far too long. She wanted to tell him to find Tucker, who was a freshman at MIT in Massachusetts. It was a few states over, but Tucker took the loss pretty hard - they were best friends for the majority of their lives. They practically shared the same crib. Sam's measly six years of friendship with Danny couldn't hold a candle to that.

But she didn't do any of that. Instead, she just stared at him, jaw hanging slightly agape as she truly took in the sight before her - Danny in all his glory. Before she knew fully what she was doing, she had grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him down into a tight hug, clinging to his form like a lifeline.

"... I missed you, Danny. I missed you so much."

He was hesitant at first, but his hands found their way to her back and he lightly held her back, his grip tightening as he realized that she wasn't going to let go. Danny returned the hug with full force, burying his head into her shoulder, his breath light and cold as it ran down her back with every exhale.

"I... missed you too, Sam. God, you have no idea... I-"

His words broke off in a gasp and he stiffened suddenly, his form going rigid, muscles taught as he gripped Sam. She felt a rush of cold send chills down her spine, raising the hair on her arms and blowing her eyes wide.

Danny broke the hug, hands on both of her shoulders. "I... I have to go. I'll be back, Sam, I promise. Just... please forgive me."

Just like that, he was gone. Vanished in a twist of smoke, like the ghost of a person Sam once knew.

And Sam was left to wonder if she really did have too much to drink.

So she was left staring at the place Danny once was, the memory of him fading like a strobe light afterimage in the dark, wondering if he were ever there at all.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #danny #sam manson #sam #phanfiction #phandom #my writing #drabble #phanfic #fanfiction #writing practice

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ghostruly · 9 years ago

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The Cake and the Cobbler Theory

Here’s a thought: If the GIW existed before Maddie and Jack broke a hole into the Ghost Zone, but were thought of as government-funded crackpots before that point, then it’s not too much of a stretch to think that there have been more accidents similar to Danny’s and Vlad’s. If that’s the case, then why are they and Dani the only three halfas on the planet? Why didn’t Danny and Vlad just die [completely] like anyone else in that situation? Thinking about this, along with craving cake, I baked this up. Enjoy~

Summary:

Who knew that a half-baked metaphor, some iced-to-perfection straight-A students, a sprinkle of basic yet uncomfortable questions, and a dash of lame baking puns were all it would take to explain Danny's very existence? But you know, that's just the way the cookie crumbles.

Part 1 of 1

Danny only showed up today because Tucker insisted on it.

Tucker mentioned the prescience of food – baked goods, some cooked fruit, and some sugary sweet frosting – but he didn't say much else, probably because the geek stopped paying attention.

Tucker had a chronically short attention span, unless the topic was either about the undead, technology, food, or girls. Sometimes all four, but those conversations were saved for when Tucker and Danny were alone as they quickly turned from petty discussion to dirty jokes and teenage boy nonsense. Sam would have punched both of their lights out – maybe locking Tucker in the Fenton Weapon's Vault and sucking Danny into the Thermos, but that depends on the situation and how much she hears.

Case in point, Danny only showed up for class because Tucker said there would be food.

And food there was, as he strode into his third period with the bell ringing in his wake – a loud, screeching sound that was just about five notches above "uncomfortable."

The classroom was littered with baked goods: pies, cakes, and cobblers. All different flavors, too. Danny spotted a half-eaten chocolate cream pie in the far corner and made sure to keep it in his sights.

"Told you to come," Tucker said with an easy grin as he held up a piece of chocolate cream in Danny's face. Ah, so great minds think alike.

"Alright, fine, you were right," Danny said with a mock defeated sigh. "Maybe Biotech Ethics wasn't such a bad idea after all."

Danny wasn't going to sign up for the class, normally. It was the beginning of their senior year and he was shoved into the class, needing another science credit to graduate, since the "Intro to Ghost Physiology" class he took his junior year didn't quite constitute as a hard science, officially.

When the administration told him that news as a justifiable reason to deny his transfer request (he'd so much rather take Advanced Placement Latin, since he was a linguist at heart and Latin was among the top three most commonly used languages in the Ghost Zone – along with Ghost Speak and Esperanto), he felt like laughing. Sam was angry when he told her the news – it was insulting to his very existence, after all – but Danny was just as content with laughing in their faces until the administration realized whom they were talking to. Hint: Danny Fenton.

That didn't change anything though, but he guessed he could live with it. Danny had skipped breakfast to shove Youngblood's bratty little butt back into the Ghost Zone that morning and that pie was looking mighty fine right about now.

"I grabbed you a piece, by the way," Tucker said, collapsing into his seat in the back of the room and pushing a sloppy piece of chocolate cream pie over to Danny. "Wasn't sure if you would be on time and that shit's going fast. Congrats, by the way. Slow day?"

"Just Youngblood and the Box Ghost," Danny said, taking the seat next to Tucker. "You should've seen Mr. Lancer's face when I showed up on time today. Priceless."

Tucker snorted, "Sorry I missed it," He yawned and stretched, "But I chose sleeping instead, and Shannon needed charging from our all-night Doomed-athon. We're going to beat Chaos if it's the last thing we do."

That, and Tucker just didn't feel like going to school. Senioritis was hitting the trio hard - primarily Sam and Tucker. Danny couldn't afford to miss more school than he already had to for ghost hunting – being Amity Park's ghostly superhero and all.

It was also funny to note that Danny's girlfriend was still kicking Tucker's ass at Doomed, even after Sam revealed her secret stash cheat codes to him.

"Can't say it's a bad tradeoff," Danny admitted, turning his attention to Mr. Lechuga as the short, squat teacher entered the room. Lechuga huffed loudly by way of greeting, a too-big mug of coffee in one hand and a slice of red velvet cake in the other.

"I'm glad you all are enjoying our baking party," He said when the room had quieted down. "And thank you to everyone who brought something in to share with the class." Lechuga sent a smile to the back of the room, where the cheerleading team members grouped together and giggled collectively. Danny guessed they were all in the class for the same reason as him – to fill the credit requirements. A few years ago, this class would have easily been Danny's favorite – Casper had always been known for having the best-looking cheerleading team in the state. Now, though, he didn't care. If anything, they made him slightly uncomfortable – he could practically feel the holes they metaphorically burned into the back of his head when they thought he wasn't paying attention.

"Now that you're all full and paying attention," Lechuga continued, "I want to link this little party we're having back to class." There was a collective groan that echoed through the class and Lechuga grinned in triumph.

"Now, now, first thing…" he said, scanning the room of students. "I don't really see the need to take attendance. I saw Mr. Fenton on my way in, so everyone must be here."

"I only came for the food," Danny said without thinking, before his face heated up with embarrassment. To his relief, the class laughed at his jab - including the teacher himself.

"Understandable," Lechuga said. "Well, Mr. Fenton, welcome to class, and thank you for not making me hand out any detentions today."

"Don't get your hopes up," Danny retorted. Now that he was going, he figured he might as well keep going.

"I wasn't planning on it, Mr. Fenton," Lechuga responded without missing a beat, sending the teenager a knowing wink. Danny grinned. He always liked Mr. Lechuga.

"Anyway, despite what you all might think, there is a point to our in-class bakery." Lechuga waved a hand at the various baked goods that lined the walls, and the students, now thoroughly bribed with food and sugar, nodded in rapt attention.

"I want to introduce you all to a theory that's now under discussion in the scientific community. It's a new phenomenon, and I would like to hear your thoughts." Danny raised an eyebrow. There were plenty of new sciences out now, with paranormal science speeding to the forefront of the science world within recent months.

Put simply, more portals have been opening around the world recently, and no one thought the people of Amity Park were crazy anymore.

"It's called the Külomn Theory of RNA Splicing." Lechuga continued, "Commonly called 'the Cake and Cobbler Theory,' it illustrates the complications of unnatural or artificial genetic splicing." He set his mug of coffee onto his desk and tapped a finger against his double chin in thought, "'Splicing,' refers to the action of combining one's DNA with materials not made inside the body. You all might want to write that down, it'll be on the final."

Danny didn't need to write it down, he knew what it meant. He wasn't sure how he felt about the direction this conversation was taking.

"How many comic book readers do we have in here? Fiction lovers, sci-fi lunatics? Well, the Cake and Cobbler Theory might put some truth to all those mutant-among-us, supernatural-powers, X-Men mumbo-jumbo the media's been feeding us since the dawn of Superman." The students in the class were staring at Lechuga now, eyes wide in anticipation. The supernatural was a normal topic of conversation in Amity Park, but sci-fi? Not as much.

It was because of this that Danny had gone a little pale – he didn't think science was this far along.

"The theory states that in nearly all living beings, our DNA is like a cobbler. Cobbler is stable and unmoving until moved to a plate, when it falls apart. It is functional until it is moved – or, until it is changed. If you were to take a deer and alter its DNA by splicing it with wolf's genes on a molecular level, it will work for a little wile. You would certainly have a messed-up and miserable deer, but it will only live for a month or so. Since its DNA has been changed, the deer will eventually die. The cobbler has been moved out of the pan, and it will fall apart. Make sense?"

There were a few nods. But in the front of the room, Mikey Davis raised his hand, "How, realistically, will it die? I thought science could keep hybrids alive. Like mules, right?"

"Naturally created hybrids, yes," Lechuga said, "However naturally created hybrids can't reproduce, but that's a topic for another time. Taking an organism's DNA and mixing it with something unnatural after it is fully developed is like mixing sand with rocks. You get a heterogeneous mixture and the combination will fall apart. The DNA will unravel. The organism will die."

Danny shuddered. Great, looks like Mother Nature might have her way with him after all.

"The scientific community originally believed that all organisms DNA behaved like this. They believed that Mother Nature was all-powerful... until now." Lechuga clasped his hands together, an excited smile coming to rest on his face. "Now that genetic research has catapulted us into the next practical millennium, scientists have discovered that not all living beings fall under the 'cobbler' category. Although this 'cobbler' metaphor is true for about 99.999% of all living beings on the planet, that other .001% would be represented through the 'cake' metaphor.

"When baking a cake, one would add various ingredients to the batter and bake them to create a new result. These ingredients can vary drastically, however the end result will always be a cake. Taking my deer example from earlier; if one were to splice a deer's DNA with wolf genes, and if that deer happened to fall in that .001% of 'cakes,' then that deer's DNA will not unravel from the splice – rather, it would adapt to the changes, thus producing an entirely new 'cake.' You'd have an unnatural, self-sustaining hybrid, and over time, you may have a completely new species on your hands. Unsurprisingly, those who fall under the 'cake' category inadvertently carry nature through the process of evolution."

Dash's hand shot up. Danny hadn't even realized that oaf was in this class. Whoops. The jock didn't wait for Lechuga to grant him permission to speak, "Never mind deer, what about people?" Dash practically spat the question at the short, salt-and-pepper haired teacher.

"There's the question," Lechuga pointed at Dash for emphasis. "Is there such thing as a 'cake' among people? Nobody really knows, however we speculate the number to be somewhere within the relative range of 0.0007% to 0.00085% among all human beings on the planet, assuming there are about seven billion people alive today. I'm not a math teacher, anyone got the number for that?"

"Fifty thousand," Tucker said from next to Danny. He looked about as spooked as Danny felt. "It's fifty thousand."

"There you go," Lechuga said. "Worldwide, about fifty thousand people fall under the 'cake' category. Their DNA can be altered without grave or otherwise detrimental lasting effects."

"Is there any way to tell one way or the other?" Danny found himself asking. He felt that he needed to know.

His hands felt cold and clammy and he knew his face was unnaturally pale. Is this why he survived the Portal Accident from four years ago? Because he's one of that select group of fifty thousand people across the world that can survive genetic splicing? Then, that brought up another question, something that he's wondered since the day after the accident itself: Are there more people like him? Other than Vlad and Dani, that is.

Lechuga laughed. "In short, no. The only way to tell would be to artificially splice someone's DNA and wait around for the results. As of now, human experimentation is considered illegal."

"Wait," Mikey spoke up. "You said this theory applies to all living organisms on Earth… What about ghosts?"

Danny coughed. Although this conversation was interesting, it was starting to hit too close to home for comfort.

Lechuga shrugged, "We don't have any idea. However that is an interesting topic of research, if you chose to look more into it. My guess? The amount of 'cakes' would probably go up since ghosts can't exactly die." He looked to Danny for confirmation. Honestly, Danny didn't know what to think. He, in the short four years of this new existence he's found himself in, has never questioned his state of being as much as he was now. Danny shot Lechuga a dull nod.

"I don't know how you'd mix a ghost's genes with anything," Said a redheaded jock from the far right corner of the room. He was a basketball player named Wesley Weston. Danny didn't know him well, just that he was one of the few people left in Amity Park that stubbornly held onto that biased, inaccurate belief that all ghosts were evil – including Phantom. Him and Valerie were the most vocal students in Casper High about their hate for Phantom. So, yes, Danny knew of him. He didn't really want to talk to him, though, the reasons being obvious. "And I don't know why you'd want to," He continued, tossing a hand through his artfully unstyled red hair. "Ectoplasm is ectoplasm – it's all the same. Plus, we don't need more of those monsters running around."

"Exactly my point," Mikey responded. "Ectoplasm is mostly the same – substance-wise, but my question is if it's possible to mix ectoplasm with something that isn't ectoplasmic - if ghosts in general would normally be categorized as 'cakes'."

"Never thought I'd ask myself the question: 'Can a ghost be a cake?'" Tucker muttered, which made Danny crack a grin despite the enormous amount of anxiety this conversation was starting to put on him. He wondered if he should jump in – he knew Sam would have by now, if she were in this class. Unfortunately, she was in Environmental Science and was currently unable to help.

"I think it's all in the phrasing," Lachuga said. There was a mischievous glint in his eyes that made it obvious that this was the type of discussion he wanted to get his class involved in. Biotech Ethics was a seminar-style course – that was one of the reasons Danny both liked and hated what few classes he showed up to. Lachuga didn't believe in "busy work" and he wanted to grade tests and quizzes about as much as the class wanted to take them. Participation alone was your entire grade, here.

"The question Mikey here is asking, and correct me if I'm wrong, is if ectoplasm and organic matter can merge. If so, would this splicing have a 'cake' or a 'cobbler' effect?" Lachuga looked to Mikey for approval and the ginger-haired nerd nodded with a smile.

"But that's suggesting the impossible," Wesley spoke up, scowling at the front wall of the classroom. "That's asking if something alive can be simultaneously dead, which isn't physically possible. You're either alive or dead, you can't be both. It's a stupid question."

"Ever heard of Schrödinger's cat?" Danny muttered to Tucker, who snorted.

Then the conversation took an unexpected turn. But in hindsight, Danny should have seen it coming. "Why don't you just ask Danny?" A blonde girl from the front row asked. Danny felt the blood drain from his face as he and the rest of the class stared at her.

The girl blushed from the sudden attention. Clearing her throat, she twisted around in her seat and jabbed a thumb at Danny. "I mean, he's a Fenton," She clarified with a shrug. "Don't your parents study this stuff for a living?"

"Nobody said they were any good at it," Dash snorted from his place near the cheerleaders, who giggled in agreement.

"They're paranormal scientists," Danny said, a little miffed at Dash's comment. "And they're ghost hunters. They've saved lives."

"Not as many lives as Phantom," Paullina spoke up in a dreamy voice. Wait, Paullina was in this class, too? Danny didn't particularly care – she didn't make him nearly as hot and bothered as she did their freshman year – but it was still interesting to note.

He should have known though; when there are more than three girls with a set of pompoms in any given place, Paullina appeared. It's like some nonverbal summoning spell. Danny was beginning to suspect that the cheerleading squad was capable of witchcraft. Or, as Sam would call it, "Bitchcraft."

"We're not talking about Phantom," Wesley nearly spat the name. Danny glared at him. No, wait, he has seen Wes more than in just passing. He's saved this kid once or twice as Phantom. He stopped a ghost from killing everyone at a basketball game once. Sure the basketball game was cancelled, the school was evacuated, and Danny was blamed for ruining a regional-level school-sporting event but that was better than the alternative. You know, everyone dying because he wasn't there to help.

Mikey was about to say something else when Lachuga spoke back up. "No, no, you know Mr. Weston over here is absolutely right, we weren't talking about Phantom in specific and this is a rather farfetched subject. But that leads me to a point I want to help you guys understand by the end of he semester: Science has the ability to make anything possible. I heard Mr. Fenton over here mention Schrödinger's cat," Danny suddenly blushed. He hadn't realized Lachuga had heard him. "Which is a great way to scientifically explain the problem Mikey has presented. Although we know theoretically that nothing can be dead and alive at the same time, that still doesn't answer whether or not organic matter can successfully take on ectoplasmic qualities and what that would look like. These are good questions, and I want to encourage you all to keep asking these kinds of questions."

Lachuga thought for a second, taking in just how focused on their discussion his class seemed to be. He plowed on, going on a limb and bringing up another question, "If ectoplasm and organic matter were combined, what do you think that would look like? I'm curious."

"Nothing good," Danny heard Wes mutter bitterly from his spot in the back.

"Ouch," Danny retorted to Tucker, who heard Wes's comment too.

Tucker laughed, "Ruthless."

"If we're using humanoid ghosts as a template," A small Asian girl said quietly from a seat closest to the door of the room, "It might be a human-like ghost, or a ghost-like human. Assuming they didn't die from… you know… splicing. I mean, assuming they weren't… cobbler?"

Lachuga nodded thoughtfully, grabbing a marker and scribbling down a list on the board. Danny, for one, felt the intense urge to both flee and vomit simultaneously. Despite this, he kept himself rooted to the spot. He could veer this conversation off a cliff if he needed to. Or, better yet, a ghost could show up and cause the school to evacuate and this whole problem would be over. But his luck was never that good.

"A ghost with human-like qualities… well, that begs the question of what makes a ghost, a ghost."

"They're evil," Wes spoke up again. Danny just wished he wouldn't talk. The boy was infuriating. "They're dead, they're evil."

"Not evil," Danny said. He had his eyes pulled down to his hands, which sat in his lap, clenching and unclenching with pent-up stress.

Normally, he wouldn't have said anything, but this was such a common misconception and it never failed to irritate him. "Not all of them, anyway. Most of the ones we see around here don't have a lot of empathy for human life. The ones that do, though, know not come into our world." Danny shot Wes a scowl. He's had this argument before, and he could almost see Wes's next point forming on his lips.

"Although they can't exactly die, they can still feel pain." Danny made sure to keep any emotion other than mild irritation out of his voice. This discussion should be about as personal to him as it was for everyone else – not very. However, it was getting too personal.

"Well, what do you know, huh Fenton?" Now Wes spat his other name too. Danny tried to ignore how alike they sounded. Hopefully no one noticed.

"Somebody's not paying attention," Danny muttered with a smirk. Several other people throughout the class laughed too. "Parents. Paranormal scientists? Ghost hunters?"

Wes's ears turned pink, but other than that he just looked pissed off.

"Oh!" Star jumped up from Paullina's side, "Ghost's don't, like, sleep or eat right? Like, not human food. And like I don't think they breathe. And like, they need to go back to their world sometimes. Oh and they like, glow. And they're cold, and they make like everything else cold too."

Lachuga listed those items on the bored. "So we're looking for a ghost that doesn't have these qualities? One that eats, sleeps, and breathes, to start. Mr. Fenton, is that possible?"

Well, he certainly needed to eat, sleep, and breathe. Danny almost chuckled to himself as he took another bite of his pie, finding the irony of it all to be almost painful. "I don't know. Personally I haven't seen a ghost eat human food or stick around long enough to take a nap, but I guess it could happen."

"Not like you'd know anyway, Fentina," Dash barked in laughter, elbowing Kwan who sat silently beside him. Asleep, Danny realized. Dash's elbowing rudely jostled the Asian-decent football player awake and he shot up with an indigent snort. "You always run off whenever a ghost shows up!"

"Self-preservation and a timely bladder, Dash. Not my fault that ghosts like to attack while I'm taking a wiz." Danny shot off automatically.

Tucker bit his lip. He was seconds from losing it.

"Ghost's also fly," Said another jock, a burnet football player that sat on Kwan's right. "They've also got like… powers. And shoot glow-y stuff."

Danny bit his lip and scribbled on one of the napkins Tucker grabbed for them: "That's my power of choice… shooting the glow-y stuff." Tucker made a deep 'pffft' sound before regaining his composure.

"You think an organic life form with DNA spliced with ectoplasm would have powers?" Lachuga asked. "Well, it would make sense wouldn't it? I believe ectoplasm has its own properties, I'm not sure how organic life would alter that."

He wrote the words "Ectoplasmic superhuman properties" on the board.

"It would probably be solid, too," Lachuga continued, more to himself than the rest of the class. "More stable, more attached to this plane."

"Not evil," Said a nameless boy on Danny's left, "Ghosts have a mean-streak a mile wide but they're not necessarily evil."

Danny wanted to applaud the boy for paying attention.

"So now our build-a-ghost has a moral compass…?" Lachuga asked as he wrote the words "moral compass" on the board. He underlined them three times.

Lachuga inspected the board closely. He had a thoughtful expression on his face and Danny felt himself start to dread the following minutes of class. He recognized that calculating look on Lachuga's face. That was the look of a scientist in the midst of solving a problem. Danny would know; he saw it on his parents nearly every day. He often saw it in the mirror.

Lachuga's face suddenly lit up as he came to a realization. "I thought this looked familiar!" He said suddenly, turning back to the class. "Class, we're building the ideal ghost, but what - or, who - does this remind you of?"

Danny wanted to barf.

A moment passed of the class being in complete silence. The moment stretched on for what felt like an eternity. Everyone was thinking the exact same thing as they peered at the list before them of everything a ghost/human splice could entail.

Sleeps

Eats

Breathes

Empathy

Moral compas

Emotion

Can feel pain

Cold

Lacks need for Ghost Zone substance

Ectoplasmic superhuman properties

Solid

Lachuga added one item more after a moment's hesitation:

Ages

Lechuga took a bite of his red velvet cake, glancing up at the clock and seeing that the bell was about to ring. He sighed. He was finally getting somewhere with these kids, even if it totally missed the lesson's mark. Discussion was more important to him than material. If students could hold an intelligent conversation, then who cares what they were talking about?

He left his students to come up with their own conclusions, instead choosing to close class with some words of wisdom. "You know, class," Lachuga said, "The world is a great, exciting place. But it might not be ready for an undead 'cake.' I think we need to get our minds wrapped around the zombie apocalypse first."

And for some reason, Danny's internal angst melted away and he exploded in a borderline hysterical laughter that was drowned out by the bell.

And Lachuga wasn't wrong. The world wasn't ready for a ghostly cake - like himself. Not until he did something drastic, something fantastic, like saving the world.

Danny snorted again and put that on his list of things to do.

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