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nocturna-starr · 4 years ago

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Intentional Creation

Prompter: @phantomphangphucker

Prompt: Danny created Phantom intentionally and knew full well what he was doing, the first time.

Words: 1508

In Danny’s totally unbiased opinion, his parents were naive. They were creating a portal to another world! Did they not expect said inhabitants from said world to make an appearance in the living realm? Or did they believe that somehow the very creatures they wanted to study wouldn’t be curious themselves?

“Don’t worry Danno! No ghost would dare cross through Jack Fenton’s portal!”

Sure.

“Danny, your parents are the experts, right? Just leave it to them! Everything will be okay!”

Yep… Nothing to worry about…

“Ghosts aren’t even real!”

Was everyone around him actually this stupid?

He should be playing the newest update for DOOM or studying for Mr. Lancer’s test on the Merchant of Venice. He should not be studying his parents research to make sure they didn’t blow up the house or contaminate him and Jazz again like they did the last time Jack and Maddie Fenton tried to invent a green energy source.

Suddenly Danny heard a knock on the door.

“Danny, it’s Jazz. Aren’t you going to get some sleep? We have school tomorrow!”

“Just looking over some papers.” Danny called. He heard his sister huff, but fortunately she didn’t push the issue forward. No doubt she herself would be up all night studying some new psychology book she had found in the library.

And she said that she was nothing like their parents.

He found himself glancing at the numbers. Math may not be his best subject, but to his untrained eye the calculations his mother made had no mistakes. The machine they were going to finish would certainly rip a hole into another dimension.

Then his dad would tell anyone and everyone who would listen that he would protect them from the threat he himself had created. His dad would go up against the wrong supernatural creature and…

Despite how much his father annoyed him, Danny loved the man. He couldn’t imagine a world without Jack Fenton. His mother, a former cop, might be able to handle the situation slightly better, but even she would become overwhelmed by the ghosts eventually. They needed someone who was on the same power level as the ghosts and who would protect humanity rather than harm it.

Didn’t his parents say that someone had gotten ectoradiation due to their naivety the first time they had built s portal? What was his name again… Paul… Chad? It didn’t matter. Maybe it was possible to replicate something like that! But instead of being contaminated, maybe one could fuse with the ectoplasm. But who could he convince to give up their humanity for the world?

Danny put down the papers. Didn’t Sam say she wanted to make a difference?

xXx

“Whoa! I can’t believe it dude! Your parents actually made a real portal.” Danny’s best friend Tucker Foley gawked at the expensive machinery in the wall.

“Yeah, if only it worked.” Danny eyed the knobs at the side of the portal. Everything was still in position fortunately. His dad for once in his life had decided not to fiddle with something he had not done.

“It’s actually pretty cool, even not working. Imagine the worlds that are barely out of reach.” Sam sighed.

Danny smiled. Sam was still innocent. He hoped that her optimism, despite being a ghost, would remain. It would suck if he had to repeat the experiment all over again. Tucker wouldn’t be as powerful a ghost. Anyone after that would be a malicious ghost that Jack Fenton would have the honour of destroying.

The goth gently touched the portal, as if it were something sacred. It was like she knew her place of death was here. Tucker snapped a couple of pictures. Danny watched them, noting each soft smile or excited look sent his way. Would they feel this way when the portal took everything they knew in a couple of minutes?

“Wanna look inside?” Danny asked. He felt his heart begin to race. This was the moment that would forever change humanity. In the future, kids would be talking about the origin story of Sammy Geist or Tucker Ghouly. Would they see him as a good person, or a mad scientist? Would they understand why he did this and not judge him only on his actions? Or would they allow his name to fade to time because no one would ever know that the accident wasn’t an accident?

“Sure Danny!” Sam grinned. Without a second thought she walked inside.

“I’m good dude. I’d rather not be inside, and the thing click on.” Tucker didn’t look up from his PDA.

Maybe he should have tried to get Sam to dress in a Hazmat suit. The extra protection could have led her into a false sense of security which would allow for mistakes to occur. The Hazmat suit also could have acted as a disguise. Sam Manson, Amity Park’s most famous goth, would never have been caught dead in one of those.

“What are all of these wires for? What about all these buttons? Tuck you’re the tech guru, you should really come inside.” Sam called.

“Actually Sam, I think you should get out.” Tucker warned. Did Tucker suspect something? Danny had never even written his thoughts down in a journal let alone share them with anyone else! How could his best friend even know?

Why did he suddenly feel so guilty?

“Just a sec Tucker!” Sam called. Her hand grazed a large red button. Danny wanted to tell her to push it or to startle her and cause her to “accidentally” press it. Yet the words refused to come from out of him. Why did he feel so terrible for wanting to save the world? What was one life to billions? It wasn’t like she was actually going to die!

Why was his life more important than Sam’s?

“Hey Sam, I want a turn to see!” Danny found himself calling. He watched as she safely exited the portal. He grabbed the suit his father had made especially for him and put it on.

Sam grinned, ripping off the picture of his dad’s face that he insisted on putting on everything. “You aren’t going in with that on, are you?”

“I guess not.” Danny tried to smile.

“Nervous? Just think of all the cool worlds that this portal can connect to.” Sam grinned.

He nodded, hoping to disguise his dread as minor fear. He took a step in the portal and began walking towards the button that Jack and Maddie Fenton in their infinite wisdom had chosen to keep. Time seemed to slow the closer he got to it. He could hear his own heart beat and feel every breath he took. Once he was transformed, would he miss feeling of breathing? There was no going back. If he chickened out now, Danny knew he would never build the courage to do this again. Then the world would be doomed.

Once he was close enough, Danny “tripped” and pressed the button. His walk of death couldn’t compare to the absolute freeze in time that occurred just after he pressed the button. The youngest Fenton swore he heard the phrase “All is as it should be…” before the light engulfed him into a world of agony.

He was glad that he didn’t force his best friends to experience it. His essence was ripped apart then sewn back together again. His heart raced before falling into a slow and steady rhythm. He was Danny Fenton, then he was nothing. He was human, until he wasn’t. Everything became dark.

He saw flashes of his life slip by and flashes of the future. He heard the screams of the dying and cries of those who were living for the first time. He felt sudden felt a weight that he had never known fall off of his shoulders. The freedom was only felt for a couple of seconds (or was it years?) before a much heavier weight was flung onto him.

He felt himself begin to walk. A light and a voice beckoned him forward. He felt something grabbing his leg, trying to keep him away. He knew he had to fight against it. If he stayed, then there would be no one to fight against his parents’ mistakes.

As he moved forward, the thing clutching his leg felt heavier and heavier. His steps became smaller and smaller. Maybe it was best if he stayed behind? Just as the it seemed that the thing would win, he broke free. He raced to the light, determined to not be trapped again.

“DANNY! DANNY!” Her heard a woman cry.

As he came closer, the light became a doorway. He smiled and stumbled across.

“Danny is that you?” Sam cried.

It worked?! Danny grinned. Everything would be fine now. Tomorrow there would be problems, but now there could be solutions. Ghosts would attack and he would be right there to stop them. The lack of sleep the previous night and the exhaustion of the portal claimed him. Danny fell into his last peaceful rest.

#phic phight 2021 #danny phantom #danny fenton #au

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ladylynse · 4 years ago

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Part 5 [FF | AO3] of Protocol: The world has changed since the Merge. Ghosts-threats-are everywhere, the Guys in White are in control, and trust is a risk when friends can so easily become foes. Dystopian AU (courtesy of competent, world-merging GiW)

Previously:

Red light engulfed Danny, and all Jazz could hear was his scream.

He dropped.

His screams cut off as he crashed into the ground, but they still echoed in her ears.

Jazz couldn’t breathe, but her eyes met Sam’s. Sam’s lip curled before she picked her way across the wreckage. “You broke protocol.” Sam’s voice was cold. Hard. Cruel. “You let that ghost separate us and then you pursued without waiting for backup.” She reached Danny and kicked him in the side, hard. Jazz winced. “Still animate. Come on. Let’s secure it.”

-|-

Fenton made no move to help her haul the ghost from their jet once they reached the base, but Sam wasn’t entirely convinced her sensibilities regarding it hadn’t been compromised. She’d once thought it a brother, after all. The betrayal of what it actually was should cut deep, but perhaps it was hard for Fenton not to see her brother looking out from the ghost’s lying eyes.

The ghost was conscious again, despite its ectoplasm leaking all over the previously-pristine containment cell on their jet. The other members of their team had paused to jeer, but Fenton had dismissed them with a bark, and they’d gone. Phantom had been their capture; no one else would share that glory.

Sam was only letting Fenton share credit because she’d distracted it in that critical moment.

Fenton took down other ghosts readily enough. She didn’t lack skill, not anymore. Sam knew she was still the better shot—she always had been—but Fenton could rival any of the senior staff at this point.

She’d be a good one to train new recruits, if anyone could convince her to step back from the field.

Not that anyone would. She was a Fenton. Her family name was well known now, and not just because of the abomination that had once been her brother.

It made Sam’s insides curdle, thinking that she had once called it a friend.

Thinking that she had helped it.

Repeatedly.

“Make the report,” she told Fenton. “I’ll get the ghost down to processing.”

Fenton met her eyes, knowing exactly what Sam was doing. “Are you sure?” she asked quietly.

“You’re still a good hunter.” Hesitation alone wasn’t enough reason for Sam to stab her in the back and report her. Even with that, Sam trusted Fenton more than she trusted the newer recruits. Someone with a sloppy shot would get her killed, and Fenton wouldn’t let a ghost attack her.

Besides, she was willing to let Fenton fudge the report for something as small as that. She wasn’t willing to swap places and let Fenton take the ghost anywhere while unsupervised, however many cameras were spaced throughout the facility. Getting the ghost to processing wouldn’t take that long, anyway. She’d be back before Fenton finished.

It wasn’t strictly following protocol, of course. They were supposed to make the reports together. But the higher ups would understand. This wasn’t a ghost she was willing to pass off to anyone else. Not before she got it to processing, anyway. She knew better than most how tricky it could be, but they’d be equipped to handle its tricks down there.

“Thank you,” Fenton whispered. Her eyes lingered on the ghost for a few more seconds before she turned her back on it and headed off. That technically meant Sam needed to get someone else to help her get the ghost out of the cell, but it was more for redundancy’s sake than anything else. She was content to have them watch her work.

The Guys in White gadgetry was simple to use. Intuitive. Besides, a good many pieces weren’t unlike the FentonWorks weaponry she’d once used. Considering all the Fentons’ designs had been turned over to the Guys in White, that wasn’t a surprise. After the raids on Vlad’s various secret labs, his technology had been appropriated, too. There were others, of course, but Sam didn’t trust anything that she knew came out of the hands of completely inept ghost hunters.

Just because they’d improved since the Merge, out of necessity if nothing else, it didn’t mean she’d trust their previous so-called research.

The ghost was still twitching from the electricity she’d run through it before opening the cell, but it was a simple thing to snap on the cuffs, attach a lead chain, and drag it to its feet. “You’re coming with me,” she told it as it blinked stupidly at her, sagging against the outside wall of the cell. She pulled, and it stumbled into place alongside her.

“Sam,” it croaked.

Did it think she was still its friend?

Maybe she should let it. The very idea made her nauseous, but if it thought it could trust her? If it thought she was just doing this for show? She’d get a lot more information out of it than if it knew the truth.

Or, rather, accepted the truth.

“Protocol,” she hissed, hoping it would take that to mean she couldn’t talk.

It blinked and nodded, but it had never been one to keep silent for long. It barely waited until they were out of earshot of the other agent before it asked, “Where are we going?”

“Processing.” She knew she should add I’m sorry or some equivalent, just for the show, but she couldn’t force the words past her lips just yet. She glanced pointedly at the cameras instead. It licked its lips and bobbed its head again.

“Do…do I want to know what’s involved in processing?” it ventured after a moment.

No. “Cursory evaluation, subject assignment, security recommendations. For your accommodations.” She put as much of a sneer into the word as she could muster. Let it think she hated that she was doing this. Let it think that she didn’t want to, that circumstances were forcing her to. Let it think her pretense was for a different reason. “It’ll mostly be to check a box than anything else. Your reputation precedes you.”

“Yeah,” it whispered. “I’ve been a target for a while. We all have.”

“You’re a bigger prize than some.”

“Which will make my escape that much more meaningful,” it said. It still spoke quietly, barely moving its lips even when she glanced at it, but it was able to put an impressive amount of force behind the words. It had only slightly turned its face towards her, but it looked…hopeful.

She stamped down on the disgust that rose within her and fought to keep her face and voice smooth. “It would,” she managed, which was as close to agreement as she could get. They weren’t going to just let it escape. None of their specimens escaped. Some had been destroyed, eventually destabilizing and turning into ectoplasm, but this one would be more resilient than that.

“So not right away, huh?”

It did think she was still on its side. Good. She gave her head a minute shake. “Not yet.” Not ever.

“Too risky, I guess.”

Was that a note of fear in its voice, buried beneath bravado and false acceptance?

“I’ll hold on, I promise. No matter what they do to me.”

They. How foolish it was, not to sort her in with the others, if only out of a sense of self-preservation. She could have told it that it was better to assume the worst and be wrong than to assume the best and be wrong.

It would learn soon enough.

Sam stopped in front of the elevator. “Processing is in the first level of the basement,” she told it as the elevator dinged and the doors slid open.

It followed her inside—it had to, as she still had it on a short leash—and waited until the doors had shut again before saying, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. When they attacked. I…I tried, but….”

“It’s okay.” When she thought back on it, the attack hadn’t come soon enough. She’d done so much for the rebels. Too much.

“Have you seen Tucker?”

Tucker. She still wasn’t sure if he’d come around to the right side, but after she’d come here, she’d sent word to have one of the other tech guys screen his communications. No guarantee, of course, if Tucker’s skills were better than whoever was trying to hack him, but Tucker was valuable, and she didn’t want him taken for questioning unnecessarily. If they hadn’t captured this ghost, she might worry more, but since they had? Tucker’s hands would be tied even if he did still want to help the rebels. The abomination would have been one of his last consistent points of outside communication, and without a leader, a face, a symbol, something to rally around, the rebels would crumble sooner rather than later anyway.

“Field agents don’t associate with the techies.”

It lapsed into silence, finally, as they arrived at the floor for processing.

Sam nodded to the agent at the end of the hall as they exited the elevator. “This is where I leave you. With Agent N.” Processing was contained, every square inch coated in phase proof finish or built from treated material. It wouldn’t be able to escape, even if Agent N displayed uncharacteristic incompetence. “I need to get back to Fenton. Jazz,” she amended too late, seeing the look that crossed its face.

“Right,” it breathed. “I…. I’ll see you soon, I hope?”

“I don’t know,” she said. Let him think they still kept her schedule in the dark, even though she wasn’t among the newest recruits. It was still looking at her, so she twisted her mouth into a smile. The best she could manage, anyway. “Sorry.” The word felt wrong. “Um…good luck.”

It snorted. “Thanks, Sam, but luck isn’t going to get me out of this.”

No, it wouldn’t, but luckily, she didn’t need to come up with a response because Agent N was in earshot. Not looking at the ghost beside her, she said to her colleague, “This is our latest acquisition.”

Agent N grinned at her and took the proffered lead. “We caught it at last.”

“We did,” she whispered, feeling its eyes burning into her. She stood her ground as Agent N took it in for processing. When it looked back at her, something inside her twisted, and she turned away.

(see more fics | next)

#danny phantom #dystopian au #sam manson #danny fenton #phanfiction #fanfiction #dp fanfiction #my writing #ladylynse

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dpjustified · 5 years ago

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Bingo #5

(disclaimer: fanfic not headcanon)

(#5 Themes: Tucker punches Vlad, Vengeful Babes platonic version don’t kill me, Ghost Hunger with Vlad instead, and Dissection)

Dani growled at the man in front of her from her prison cell.

He was dressed in a suit, as usual, and was eating a steak. This steak, however, was different in that it was glowing green.

“Ah,” the man said, exposing his fangs. “Are you hungry? I’m sorry, want a taste?”

He cut a square and walked over to the cell, sticking it through the bars. She knocked it away in disgust.

“How can you eat ghosts, Vlad? When did this...happen to you?”

“It’s no different than normal meat, my darling little badger.” For some reason, he started calling her that again. He hadn’t since...she called him Father.

A crumpled form in the corner spoke up. “What are you doing this for? Let us go!”

“Ah, Valerie. Don’t worry, I have no interest in human meat. You should try this too. Fresh from the hunt. This ghost had the power to switch human body parts. It was no friend of yours. In fact, I only eat predators these days.”

“A...” Dani took a moment to throw up.

Valerie exclaimed, “You eat humanoids?”

“Like I said, it’s perfectly normal. You don’t know what you’re missing. The taste of it on your tongue, the exuberance you feel, the power flowing in your veins-” Vlad was simply glowing until Valerie cut him off.

“I don’t care if you get a power up from these things or not. You’ve gone too far, Vlad. And you can’t kidnap us, people will find you!”

He snapped his finger and a ghostly clone pushed Valerie from behind right into the bars.

“Are they, really? Vlad reached through the bars and stroked her chin. “Maybe for you, my dear, but not for this street urchin. And besides, didn’t you two barge into my house talking about how you wanted revenge? After all I did to help you with your revenge, Valerie, I’m hurt.” He turned to Dani. “You should be grateful you get to live in the first place, Danielle. I made you.”

Dani wiped her mouth and went right up to the bars to stare him down, even though her courage was shrinking with each passing second. “Technically, without stealing Danny’s DNA you wouldn’t have been able to make me in the first place. And I was never the one you wanted. I was a mistake. Somehow you made a girl instead, and all the boys kept dying because they were less stable than I am. Than I...was before Danny saved me. We’re here to severe this bond, Vlad. And yet, you’re doing even worse things. Do you even have a heart anymore?”

“Ah, yes, of course I do. You know, this tears me apart more than you know. I’m doing this for your sakes, ladies. And I’ve always had such sympathy for you, my daughter.”

“I am not your da-”

“Unloved, unappreciated, without a home. We’re more alike than you know. And yes, if you can’t come to my side alive, then I shall have to kill you. I’ve always been curious about how your meat tastes.” Vlad wiped the drool from his mouth and Dani shuddered.

“Wait!” Valerie said, pushing away Vlad’s clone to wrap Dani in her arms. “I won’t let you do this. I am her family. Danny and his friends are also her family. She is not alone. Don’t you dare lie to her.”

Dani sobbed. After being on the streets for a few months, she had run into Valerie again, who insisted she stay with Valerie and her dad. It didn’t take long to convince him either. She was officially Valerie’s sister. But what Vlad did to warp her mind all this time, she couldn’t escape from it and frequently locked herself in her room to escape. Valerie thought confronting Vlad and giving him a good pounding would set Dani free. But this...was such a mistake. Did eating ghosts make Vlad stronger?

“Are you even half human anymore?” Dani cried to him.

Vlad looked down at himself and then back up. “Looks like it.”

“But, you have claws, and fangs, even in your normal form! Are you addicted? You’ve got to fight it!”

He reached over with one clawed hand before gripping it with the other. “Ah, that’s the problem. Once you start you can’t stop. Anyway, it’s time.”

“No!” Valerie cried. “I won’t let you.”

She got up as Vlad’s clone approached. She wrestled the clone before another one appeared, throwing her back and pounding her with fists.

“Leave her alone!” Dani cried, blasting at the clone. It blocked with a shield. The other clone pushed her down and kicked her until she coughed up blood. Then she felt a prick in her arm. Soon her vision blurred.

“Don’t worry,” Vlad said. “You won’t lose consciousness, but I have dulled the pain. I’m not heartless, honest.”

“Leave her...” She heard Valerie’s groans as a clone picked her up and put her on a table. With a shock, she was forcefully turned into her ghost form.

Vlad stood over her, leering with a sick look on his face while picking up a scalpel.

“What shall I have first...I suppose I’ll start here.”

She could only watch as he slit her upper arm. It was surreal, watching herself bleed without much but a dull sensation in her head.

It was only when he started slicing muscle that she screamed. He punched her.

Then, all of a sudden, arms reached behind Vlad and snapped on a belt.

Vlad elbowed behind him, and tried to tug it off. He looked low on energy.

“Who?” Vlad whirled around. “Why didn’t the security system notify me? Daniel? I thought I took care of you-”

“It was your plan, wasn’t it?” said Tucker, who looked a little scared standing there, even though he adopted a power stance. “Drugging Danny. He’d been sleeping all day. I’m so glad Valerie at least left a message on his phone, but no, no one counts on me, do they. And by the way, your security is a joke.”

“T-Tucker...” She could barely hear Valerie’s voice from the cell. “You...”

“Yes, I, Tech genius, has arrived! And I thought ahead too. I’m aware of what I can and can’t do. And right now, I can beat you.”

Vlad struggled to get up. His fangs and claws were still present. “Oh yeah? You and what army? You admitted to me that Danny Phantom is out of order, didn’t you. What can you, a spineless, no powered, geek, do to me?”

Tucker stared. “I can do this, you piece of trash!” He punched Vlad with enough force to knock him down. Vlad tried to sit up, but Tucker got on top of him and pounded him again, and again, and again.

“Don’t touch my friends, and don’t touch my Dani!”

“...My?” She managed to say.

“Hey, you’re cute. You didn’t know? I’ve been hitting on you for a while. But don’t reject me right now.”

She looked down from her position to see Vlad’s face unrecognizable. It was satisfying.

Valerie hobbled over to them. “Finally, with the clones gone I could pick the lock. Dani, you’re hurt!” Valerie grabbed a tablecloth and wrapped her arm in it.

“Oh, don’t worry Val, I’ll heal.” She tried to laugh.

Tucker and Valerie unbuckled her from the table and then fought over who was going to carry her. Tucker eventually relented and let Valerie have the honors.

She smiled. Before this, she didn’t really know how loved she was.

When they were moving to leave, a ghost in a fedora came out of the portal.

“You rang?” said Walker, staring right at Tucker.

Tucker pointed to the sorry state of Vlad on the floor. “Isn’t this guy committing some ghost crimes or something that you can take him in for?”

After eyeing the room, including the trash can full of rotting ghost corpses, and the presence of the transformation ghosts have when they become cannibalistic, he nodded. “Sure he is. Thank you for the report. We’ll have to take him in for intense rehabilitation. Once we drain him of his powers, he’s looking at a 5000 year life sentence.” With his powers, Walker generated a chain that wrapped around Vlad, then he dragged him into the Ghost Zone. He poked his head out of the portal again briefly. “Make sure you follow the rules, stay out of trouble, and eat your dinner on time.” Walker then left.

“Well, well, well,” Tucker said, facing Valerie who now had Dani on her back. “This is why you never should go anywhere without having a backup plan, wouldn’t you say.”

“Oh boy,” Valerie said, rolling her eyes. “I sure learned something today. And how did you call Walker anyway.”

“Oh, after some misunderstandings, apparently he’s my grandfather?”

Valerie blinked. “O...kay. Now let’s get home before my dad finds out.”

Dani managed a smile. “I love you guys.”

I really, really am loved, aren’t I?

(What, did you like it?)

#danny phantom #phango19

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goliath-de-senfina-sango · 5 years ago

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Fights, both physical and verbal, abound! Local Science Boy Tired of Friends' Arguement. Local Astronaut Trying Real Hard not to die Here. Local Ghost Hunting Family Talk SCIENCE and Local Art Boy Does Research

Danny and Tucker sat in the vice principal’s office. On the wall next to the door was an array of monitors that showed security feeds. Across from it was a desk with a globe and the filing cabinet that Lancer was going through at the moment. If Danny had to guess the chairs were intentionally made to be uncomfortable. An added punishment for even being there.

“Tucker Foley,” Lancer droned. “Chronic tardiness. Talking in class. Repeated loitering by the girls’ locker room. Danny Fenton. 34 dropped beakers in the last month. Banned for life from handling all fragile school property, but no severe mischief before today. So, gentlemen, tell me.” Lancer set down the folders he was reading from on his desk and leaned forward to yell in their faces. “Why did the two of you conspire to destroy the school’s cafeteria?”

“Dash started it when he threw his mud pie into the back of my head!” Danny was going to need a thorough shower later, but for now, turning his head to display that he’d been hit in the head with mud was enough for him.

“He literally tried to make Danny eat the mud.” This is why Tucker was Danny’s best friend. He and Danny were on the same wavelength.

“Besides, destroy the cafeteria is pretty hyperbolic, don’t you think?” Please lighten up on us because I used a vocab word.

“Mr. Baxter, as well as everyone caught on camera participating in the food fight is going to be punished for it. You two, however, are taking the first of it with him.” Lancer stood and walked out the door. “I’m going to fully map out your punishments when I return. Mr. Baxter, make sure they don’t leave.”

“We gotta find Sam!” Tucker got up and went around Lancer’s desk. By the time Danny was next to him, Tucker was already going through the security files on Lancer’s computer. “Do not ask why I have his password or how. We don’t have time for that. Oh, thank gods, this place has security cameras in the weirdest places.” On the screen, Tucker tracked the meat sweep through the school until it settled in one place. “Directly below us. Got enough juice?”

Danny closed his eyes and reached inside, stretching into the void of cold winds and vast darkness, and dragged himself into it. It swept outward over his body in a flash and for a moment he had to reorient himself. Danny grabbed onto Tucker and intangibility filled them both. They fell through the floors and stopped right above the floor of the basement. “Is this… a meat locker under the school?”

“See, this is the kinda stuff that Sam needs to get changed. Where they store their food, not what food groups are fed to us.” Tucker started walking, and Danny stood beside him.

“This is like the time she convinced our middle school teachers to hold a Sadie Hawkins dance when no one felt like doing a dance.” Danny rolled his eyes and looked around. “Except this time she’s the one who got kidnapped instead of her nabbing us. Also, repeated loitering by the girls’ locker room?”

“I figured that’d be a great place to meet someone to ask for a date.”

“How are you both a genius and a dumbass at the same time, Tuck?”

Before the geek could valiantly defend his honor, they heard a voice of strained cheer. “My dear child, meat is good for kids. It helps them grow and makes them smile.” The boys looked around the corner and saw Sam stuck in a pile of meat that was definitely inedible now. The Lunch Lady was floating in front of her, a fish and a chicken leg held up in either hand. “Why won’t you eat it?”

“We don’t need meat. That’s fact.” Sam never was one to back down when she was championing something. It was something that Danny admired about Sam. He never thought that food was the hill Sam was willing to literally die on though.

“Silence!” The ghost’s voice echoed and that wind picked up yet again. Danny wondered if he could call up special effects like that for Halloween. “You need discipline, manners, respect. You know where that comes from? Meat! Fish, or chicken?”

“Plus, most of the nutrients we need are in fish and chicken,” Tucker muttered. Or at least, he probably thought it was muttering. What it happened to be was loud enough for the ghost to hear them, eyes bright red eyes turned toward the boys.

“I’ll deal with the ghost, you get Sam out of that meat pile.” Danny ran as fast as he could. His fist reared back and collided with the ghost’s head harder than he expected it to. She was launched into the wall. Danny immediately followed up with a kick to the face. The Lunch Lady grabbed onto his ankle and held Danny up while floating upright.

“This is why you need meat! You’re skin and bones!” She then tossed Danny across the room, and at the last second, he phased through the wall. And the ground. It took a couple seconds of carefully making the tips of his gloves more - or less, it was still hard to tell - real to pull himself back up to the basement.

There, Danny found shish kabobs beings flung at him. Going completely on reflex, Danny separated his torso from his legs and the deadly food sank into the concrete behind him. There were even cracks in the wall. While Danny pulled himself back together, an enraged Lunch Lady ghost let out a furious roar, and all the meat in the storage locker rose up. Even the meat Tucker was pulling off of Sam in chunks rose up off of her and swirled around the ghost in a storm. Sam and Tucker got closer to Danny until they were in arm’s reach, and the 20-foot behemoth of meat with green torches for eyes roared down at them.

“Fuck no.” Danny grabbed his friends and the chill of invisibility and intangibility rushed through them all again. Danny pulled and snap the gravity tethering Danny and his friends to the Earth was undone, and Danny flew through the wall to the outside, flying faster when he heard a loud crash.

“Thanks, Danny, Tuck.” Sam shot them both a big grateful smile. “You must be exhausted, ghost boy. Fighting in ghost mode, yanking us through walls. Holy shit, Danny you’re flying!”

“What would give ya that idea?” Danny yawned in the middle of that sentence but felt it was irrelevant. But then, everything went dark as they tumbled into a heap on the grass. And then it went silent.

Tucker and Sam stare at each other. For a handful of moments, neither is entirely sure what they should do. Sam could've died. Her best friends could have died. How is a teenager even meant to process that? She wants to curl up on the ground and hide from everything in that moment, will all the nasty reality that is Ghosts away. But Tucker is bent over Danny, and Danny is out cold. So she packs away the emotions, cools her shit, and bends down. "You get his legs, I'll take his shoulders. FentonWorks?"

They get him there. Danny's parents are downstairs, working on something. They get Danny on his bed, and Sam slumps against the door. Tucker and Danny skipped a detention essentially and all three have skipped school. So Tucker goes down to erase the Fenton's voice mailbox and sends out a bug to his own. Sam has no clue why he has that ready but asks if he can do it with her folks' line. He asks for a few minutes. The silence passes, Tucker gets on Danny's laptop. He always fled to the tech when he needed somewhere safe. Eventually, he asks. "You ok? Today went to shit."

"No, I don't think I am. I’m pretty sure she was going to crush me to death under all that meat that should’ve been stored in a far more sanitary manner. I’ve got bruises and meat juice all over me and I need a nap and a shower, not in that order.” Sam checked Danny's closet and found something she'd left there a couple of months back. "I'm gonna do that actually. Keep an eye on him?" Tucker grunted in acknowledgment. That was the best she'd get so Sam grabbed a spare towel from the dresser and headed to the shower.

When Sam got back she looked over Tucker's shoulder. Images of old ladies in familiar-looking uniforms were all over the screen. "Looking her up?"

"If we know more about her then we can talk it out with her right?" Tucker's fingers paused over the keyboard. He stretched, looking over at her. "Right?"

"Probably. Looking to work that Foley Charm on her?" Sam elbowed him lightly in the ribs. Tucker clutched his chest as though he'd been broken. Thank gods for that smile on his face. "Tell me you aren't planning to flirt with her. Danny might get jealous." Tucker snorted.

"I don't think Danny is into old ladies who occasionally burst into flames." Tucker went back to typing and clicking, screen light glaring off his lenses. "So, my theory is that ghosts draw on ambient energy to sustain themselves. When we went into that fight my phone was on like… 50 percent. When we got here it was at 17. So maybe we should carry batteries on us?"

"And our wrist rays." Sam was never letting herself be helpless like that again. "what've you got on her so far?"

"She said the menu hasn't changed in 50 years and she wasn't kidding. So I'm looking back at people employed by Casper back when she was alive, and hoping I can recognize her facial structure."

"Impressive." Sam sighed and looked over at Danny.

He zipped up his suit. Sam made a face at him and pulled off the logo of his dad's face. "You can't go around with this on your chest." He agreed. If Danny ever met aliens of the extradimensional kind, he didn't want them to see his dad's face plastered on him. Danny walked into the tunnel that was his parents' ghost portal, looking all around it. The whispers of those other worlds called out in his head again. As he walked deeper into the portal, Danny saw nothing wrong. Not a nut or bolt out of place. He got to the end. It was dark. Too dark to see anything. Turning back, he kept a hand on the wall to steady himself. His foot hit a raised panel, and Danny leaned to the left for support. There was a click.

Danny opened his eyes and saw Sam looking down at him. Not unusual. The soreness in his muscles, however, was. Danny stopped mid-stretch and winced. "Oh. Right. 20-foot meat monster." Tucker was at his desk, turned around in the chair and giving him that frown he had when Dash had slammed Danny into a locker. "How long was I out for?"

"Four days." Tucker reached under Danny's bed and lifted up a bag of Nasty Burger.

"Four Days?!"

"Nah, like, 2 hours dude." Tuck chuckled and handed him a wrapped burger. "You need this dude, that fight took a shit ton outta you."

“Don’t I know it.” Danny unwrapped the burger and sank his teeth in. He'd been hungrier than he thought. It felt like a blink before the burger was gone. "Thanks, dude, I needed that. We basically skipped lunch, didn't we?" That thought had a horrible domino effect and Danny tore the burger wrapping in half. "Fuck, my parents are gonna kill me!"

"I erased the voicemail from your box, mine, and Sam's. Don't worry about that."

"Speaking of, how ya doin Sam?" Danny turned, looking his friend over and wincing at the bruises on her arms. “Fuck, the meat pile did that?”

“Yeah, turns out being grabbed up by a bunch of proceeded corpses can do some damage.” Sam shrugged. “It’s nothing I can’t fix with some concealer and sleeves.”

“It’s still warm though,” Danny said. “You good baking yourself?”

“The heaters in the school barely work, and it’s nearly October, Danny. Things have cooled down plenty.” Sam frowned and looked over to Tucker. “Do head injuries affect the perception of temperature?”

“I’m sure they can. If only someone hadn’t summoned up a meat-obsessed lunch lady with a menu change.” Tucker paused and raised a brow. “Actually, how in the hell did you even get them to change it? Nevermind the why.”

“The why, Tucker, is that schools need to promote healthier changes in the food we consume.” Sam had that fire in her eyes. Again. Danny let out a long sigh, which went ignored by his bickering friends.

“And removing an entire food group from the menu was your solution?”

“It’s one we don’t even need Tucker! Do you know how inefficient the transfer of calories from meat into our bodies is?”

“We need protein, Sam! If there’s anything that the Lunch Lady said truthfully it’s that! Look at Danny! He barely gets any protein, you can see how that’s turned out for him.”

“My dude, I’m not the only skinny person here.”

“And whether or not we have meat and protein isn’t your decision to make for us all, Sam!” Tucker glared balefully at the vegan and stood up from Danny’s chair. “You had to be an individual and have all your individual needs met over what anyone else wanted, didn’t you? No one but you even wanted this menu change!”

“The menu as it is now is far healthier for both us and the environment - and the ecosystems we tear down to sustain ourselves and animals that get butchered so people can enjoy the taste of their flesh don’t get a choice in what happens to them, so someone needs to make choices that help them out!”

“Oh, oh, so mud is healthier for me to eat than chicken? That’s fucking rich, Sam, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever fucking heard!” Tucker was now agitated enough to start ranting in Mandarin, which was great. “Actually, no no, the most ridiculous thing is that we’re equating the right to a choice in what we eat to an animal’s right to chose anything. Are you insane?” Tucker opened the door so fast the knob banged against the wall. “I’m gonna make sure this shit doesn’t last the week!”

“We are no more innocent than those animals and they’re lives shouldn’t be put on the line for us needlessly! And don’t you think you can go undoing all my hard work!” Sam barged out as well, completely forgetting Danny as she slammed his door shut. And Danny stared at that door for a moment before groaning into his pillow.

“This is going to be a whole thing, isn’t it?” For several moments, Danny laid there and stared up at the constellations he’d put up on his ceiling in glow in the dark stickers. His stomach reminded him of its existence, and Danny groaned again. He still had some allowance left, so he went out and headed to the Nasty Burger. Considering Tucker’s words and how much he’d done that day, Danny ordered a full meal.

After he’d eaten and walked it off on the way home, Danny let what had happened that day go through his mind. Even as he fought off a small angry blob with his wrist ray, growling at it. “Ghosts aren’t mindlessly violent beings. I know that.” He needed to believe that. “So, that means that she can be calmed, somehow. She kept going on and on about the benefits of meat, and she died years ago…” An email notification popped up on Danny’s computer, and he sighed. “Right, homework assigned by Lancer. What would I do without Tuck?”

The next day, Danny pulled on one of his darker shirts - a gift from Sam with some constellation’s accurately displayed - and some jeans. His parents didn’t come up to join him and Jazz that morning, which was likely for the best. Danny didn’t need their ghost radar pointing at him before he could figure out how to break their biases. The second his cereal was finished, though, Danny pulled out his journal and attached pencil. “No,” Danny snapped when he heard Jazz take a familiar breath. “It’s not a diary, no you may not read it. For the 11th time, Spazz.” One weird benefit of super hearing - I can tell when she’s about to speak. Everyone had different rhythms for when they spoke and when they were thinking etcetera. Danny knew his sister’s patterns almost as well as Tucker and Sam’s.

Danny wrote into his journal a goal of recording his encounters with apparently sapient ghosts and how quickly he managed to pacify them. If only he could think of how to pacify this one.

Once the hybrid got to school - later than he would’ve been had those damned blobs not been so interested in fucking with him - Danny groaned as he was dragged to the Vice Principal’s office. There he found Tucker, who was glaring down at the desk in just the right angle to look like he was glaring directly ahead. A trick he’d developed for gathering valuable passwords while tricking Lancer and other authorities into thinking he was just a semi-rebellious teen. Danny couldn’t tell what Tucker could be trying to gather from the desk now, but he may have just been scowling. Tucker was complicated that way.

“Take a seat, Mr. Fenton.” Danny obeyed and took his seat, looking steadfastly at the space just behind Lancer’s head. “Tell me, gentlemen, how and why did you leave my office when both of you were already being punished for starting a food fight in the cafeteria?” Before either could come up with an answer, Lancer slammed his hand down hard on the desk, and Danny flinched. “What could possibly have possessed you two to skip school for the rest of the day?”

Danny squirmed a bit, while Tucker took even, obviously measured breaths. He then looked up at Lancer directly. “We were worried about Sam, sir. She hadn’t answered any of her texts, and she always answers even when we’re fighting to make sure we know she’s safe.” Not untrue, Sam wouldn’t have been able to answer a text if they tried that. Danny nodded along to Tucker’s story.

“We left out the window to find her, which took forever since she had gone to find a way to help organize something for the school.” Danny put on his most apologetic face. “We’re truly sorry about ditching you, Mr. Lancer, but we had to make sure our friend was safe, you see. We wanted to make sure none of the jocks or anyone had gone and done something horrible to her as revenge for getting the menu changed for a week.”

Lancer glared between the two of them for several seconds more, and Danny fought to keep himself still. “Fine,” Lancer finally allowed. “I will be following up with Ms. Manson to confirm all of this, but you won’t be receiving too harsh a punishment for looking out for your friend. For endangering yourselves by leaving through the window, however, and for leaving without simply telling me, you will be serving both lunch detention and after-school detention. Do you understand, boys?”

“Of course, Mr. Lancer.” It amazed Danny, at times, that he and Tucker could speak in unison. They were like twins.

“Dismissed. You two best not be late to my class.”

On the way to class, Danny brought up his thoughts on trying to appease the Lunch Lady. “Her name is Agatha,” Tuck said. “Agatha Reece. And maybe you could, I dunno, teach her about the health crisis in America? Help me organize the school to reform the menu the right way?”

“You want it changed too now? I thought you were gonna get it changed back early, or something?”

“Oh no, the food around here sucks either way.” Tucker rolled his eyes. “I just wish we had like, a better storage of better food in general. I could recommend my uncle and aunt’s farm for fresh, nearby food products.”

“If only we knew how Sam had convinced the school to do this whole ‘veggie week’ thing.” Danny shook his head. “That’s what really doesn’t make sense to me. We’ve only been in school for like, a month or so. How the hell did Sam ‘wear them down’ so quickly?”

“No clue,” Tucker growled. For a moment the hair on Danny’s nape stood on end at the sound. “But, I’m going to make a petition, and head around the school getting signatures for a better permanent change decided on by the students.”

Danny patted Tucker’s shoulder and nodded somberly. “Leave some printer paper for the rest of us at least?”

Tucker raised his nose, Danny now straining to hold in the laughter in front of the door. “Sorry Danny, but a man on a mission has to go to all lengths to complete his quest.”

Danny bowed at the waist. “Of course, Friar Tuck, how could I possibly forget?”

“You are forgiven, peasant Daniel.” Tucker laughed and pulled Danny into the classroom. Things would be alright. Danny just needed to weather the storm and make sure both of his friends were still friends by the end of it.

It proved far more difficult a task done than said. The three had most classes together, but Tucker was busily writing something down every few seconds in a second journal in his desk while he worked. Tuck had the most fascinating form of ambidextrousness. He barely paid any attention to Danny’s attempts to start a conversation and crumpled up any notes about Sam he slid over.

Similarly, Sam was ignoring him almost entirely. She took her notes, but every time she caught him whispering to Tucker, she glared and went cold on Danny himself. Am I not allowed to talk to both of my friends?

Lunch came around, Lancer had them eating in his room, and Danny had never been more grateful to Tucker’s mom than he had been when Tuck handed him an extra bagged lunch. “Tuck, you are the best.”

“I know it, dude.”

“Gentlemen! This is meant to be a time of quiet reflection upon your misdeeds.” Lancer glared at them until the teens went to silently eating, and Lancer went back to whatever he was doing on his computer. If Danny focused on the man’s headphones hard enough he could pick up the faint sound of… blasters? Weird.

At the end of the day, however, while the two were meant to be heading to detention, Tucker was going around and asking groups of friends who were lingering about something and holding up a clipboard that Danny was almost certain he stole from his dad’s office. Along with that pen. Never was Danny ever earlier than Tucker to something, but apparently, detention was one of those things. Sam, surprisingly, was also there.

“Lancer got you too?” Danny asked as he swept a bit nearer to the goth

“I was gone all day.” Sam shrugged, pushing the few remains of grass and mud into a pile and then grabbing a dustpan. “Plus I wanted to help clean it up anyway. We need this place to eat in after all.”

“Actually, I heard Jerry and Katelyn at least were eating on the theater stage.” The two scooped everything up into a trash bag with the dustpan. “They were inviting some other people to bring sandwiches and chips and stuff.”

“Oh wow,” Tucker called out from where Danny was very sure he shouldn’t have been able to hear them. “No one wanted to eat garbage right from the ground? I’m surprised, shocked even.”

“Had you actually been there to see, Tucker, there were plenty of people eating peacefully in the cafeteria today!” Sam looked downright murderous and stomped off to clean away from Tucker. Danny sighed a heavy sigh and shook his head.

The detention had gone on for an hour, but it’d felt like forever. Danny watched both his friends march off in different directions and groaned. Another friendless night for him. After a trip to the Nasty Burger, Danny did a little walk around the city. A few ghosts that he could see when the world lost focus skittered away from him or ignored him entirely. Some attacked, but his wrist ray had yet to run out of juice even though he forgot to charge it last night. “Maybe something to do with my other-self. Gonna have to ask mom and dad about that.” A shiver ran down Danny’s spine, a puff of mist coming out of his mouth and he looked around, letting his senses shift into that surreal state of his ghostly self. He saw nothing out of the ordinary. Relaxing, Danny sighed and headed home.

"Danny!" His dad, Jack Fenton, only seemed to speak in exclamation marks. Danny wondered if he'd ever had an inside voice. "C' mon, dinner's ready son!"

Danny raised a brow. "Who cooked?" He'd eaten his Nasty Burger meal and was pretty sure he got all he needed.

"I did!" On the other hand, more food that wasn't infected with ectoplasmic residue sounded nice. Danny set down his bag and headed into the kitchen, where his dad had set out chicken, mashed potatoes, garlic bread, and spinach. His mom and sister were already sitting and eating, and Danny gave them both a wave.

"Hi, Danny! Juice is in the fridge. Jazz reminded your father and I that we need to refresh our minds with some air now and then. I thought, why not a family dinner?" Mom shrugged as she picked up a chicken leg. "Jack insisted on cooking."

"Mom," Jazz said in her best calming voice, "Dad never mutates the food."

While Mom and Jazz debated who had the bigger mishaps with ectoplasm - Danny felt the Christmas turkey and Dad dragging them into a world of blinding perpetual light ranked as the biggest mishaps period - Danny grabbed himself a plate and fruit punch. Jazz clearly grabbed some groceries before telling their parents to surface.

Halfway through his meal, a thought struck Danny. "Hey Dad, Mom? How does ectoplasm interact with electricity in its rawest most natural form? The ectoplasm, not the electricity."

Jazz stared at him in betrayal, Why written in her expression. His parents, however, jumped on the thought of their son having an interest in their work. Danny had never seen his dad swallow food that fast.

"Ya see Danno, ectoplasm as it is when we retrieve it is naturally an energy thief. In relation to electromagnetic radiation, it soaks in any and all of it from the area with the exclusion of green visible light. That's why it feels so cold."

"If we can refine our engines properly we can utilize the flip side of that natural state," his mom added, "We could revolutionize energy efficiency in technology around the world!"

"It can store up a lot of power, but once it hits it's maximum?" Dad held his hands together then spread them out so fast he almost smacked Jazz and Danny. "It all comes out in an intense burn! Ectoplasm is either plasma hot or cold as space. When it's cold, it'd drain the power out of everything around it."

Danny nodded, letting the info process for a couple of moments while he ate. "So if, say, a ghost was to eat human food…?"

"Well," his mom twirled her fork around. "It likely wouldn't, but if it did the ghost would soak up all the energy that could be gotten out of the material in the food, leaving nothing but ashes."

Danny nodded, curiosity satisfied, and steered the conversation elsewhere. Once he was done clearing off his plate, Danny was struck with a realization. It was the sort of thing that happened all the time, when a thought lingered in his head, waiting to present itself. Usually, that was artistic inspiration. Now he knew exactly how to calm down Agatha. Up the stairs, he ran to his computer.

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