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Danny was not expecting any kind of excited exclamation when he told Sam and Tucker he’s not grounded anymore. As a result, it almost works when he tries to lie to himself that he’s not hurt when he doesn’t get one.
Of course they’re not excited. Sam’s been irritated he hasn’t talked with his parents since she learned he didn’t actually run away, and she’s made it very clear to him that she thinks it’s his own fault for having been grounded as long as he was. And Tucker’s been down in the dumps and upset about something for way too long for this to make a dent.
(Maybe he’s upset because you gave him a severe head injury, Fenton, you ever think of that?)
(But that doesn’t explain why he won’t look you in the eye anymore. Did you do something? Or well, do something else as Fenton?)
Look, it doesn’t matter. It’s fine. They’re going to Nasty Burger after school today, the first time without his parents in months. That’s reward enough.
Nevermind the fact that they’re probably going to be going on about how terrible Phantom is the whole time. He’s definitely used to that at this point.
He spends most of the day trying to force himself to look forward to it, and then feeling bad for having to force himself. As a result, when his ghost sense goes off during lunch, he’s almost relieved.
He mumbles some kind of excuse in the middle of Sam’s angry talking and pushes back from the table, then heads out of the cafeteria. The weight that falls from his shoulders the second he doesn’t hear Sam’s voice anymore almost makes him feel worse.
He shakes it off and slips down a hallway, then transforms and heads for the ceiling. There’s no screaming he can hear coming from anywhere in the school, meaning the ghost probably set off his sense due to being just outside of it.
Sure enough, as soon as he makes it outside, he sees Plasmius hovering just outside the school.
Danny raises an ectoblast on instinct. “What are you doing here, Vlad?” he snaps.
Vlad puts a hand to his chest as if offended. “Why Daniel, I’m clearly just hovering here minding my own business. Must you instantly jump to violence?”
Danny rolls his eyes. “Oh, of course. I know you for always casually minding your own business floating right outside my high school a state away from where you live. Silly me, why ever did I jump to the conclusion that you’re up to something?”
Vlad gives a way too overdramatic bow, spreading his hands in a “you got me” gesture. Before Danny can ask again what he’s doing, however, his thinking and interrogation is interrupted by a sudden ectoblast from behind.
Danny yelps and spins around, hands already going up, before he sees it’s just the Red Huntress. He hasn’t seen much of her lately. Nice to know she’s still around in some capacity, even if her timing is consistently bad.
But then, a second later, it’s suddenly not just her, as two people in similar looking suits fly up behind her.
Danny raises an eyebrow. “What, you got yourself some sidekicks?” He spares a glance over his shoulder back at Vlad, who for some reason hasn’t moved, and is still floating there looking at them.
“They are not my sidekicks,” the Huntress snaps, at the same time the new person in the purple suit snaps “We are not her sidekicks.”
“Well, whatever all of you are, I was kind of in the middle of something,” Danny says, glancing back and forth between them and Vlad. He doesn’t like the idea of having his back to any of the four of them. “What do you want, by the way?” he directs at Vlad.
Vlad raises a teasing eyebrow, rising to a standing position— or, a standing while still floating position.
“Why, I should be asking what you want, Daniel,” he says. “You’re the one who interrupted me.”
Danny snorts. “What, you’re taking requests now? How’s about back off?”
“Oh, of course,” Vlad says with a smile in his direction. “You look like you’ll have more fun with these three anyway, I think I’ll let you handle it.”
Danny grits his teeth and fires an ectoblast at Vlad, though he’s not at all surprised when Vlad dodges easily.
He is a little surprised when he spots another blast coming from the purple suited newbie, and only barely manages to dodge in time.
“Okay seriously, what’s with the newcomers?” he asks the Huntress, turning sideways so he can keep Vlad in his peripheral while talking to her. “I didn’t take you as the teamwork type.”
“Who says I am?” Huntress says, putting a hand on her hip.
“Hey! I’m here too you know!” Purple Suit snaps, and fires a blast at him that Danny dodges with a sigh.
“Okay, were you even trying with that one? I’m looking right at you, it’s way too easy to dodge.”
“They’re new,” Huntress says with obvious exasperation.
Danny laughs a little. “Aww, you’re taking up babysitting? That’s so sweet.”
That seems to piss Huntress off enough that she fires her own blast at Danny, which he dodges again. He moves to fly back far enough that he can keep an eye on Vlad and the three of them at the same time.
Huntress, however, seems to take it as a sign that he’s running, and so she fires up her jets and flies right for him, meaning he has to actually turn and fly off as a result. Dammit.
He hears more noise from behind him than earlier, meaning the two newbies are probably coming along for the ride too. Well, great. He’s definitely missing the start of next period now.
He keeps his gaze behind him as much as he can, but he still gets hit by a blast from Huntress, pushing him closer towards the ground. He gives a quick glance down, and after confirming there’s no one in the way, he turns intangible to avoid the next one. He turns back towards her in midair, but makes sure it’s a weaker blast that he fires back. For as much as she’s an annoyance, Danny’s pretty sure Huntress is human, which means she can’t take the same hits his ghostly enemies can.
Vlad seems to have all but vanished, which means he’s going to have no clue why he was here, and he’s probably going to accomplish whatever he’s trying to do while Danny’s running from Huntress and the two newbies who don’t have names yet.
He sighs. He’ll have to do some detective work later with Jazz.
“Hey!” he calls back to the three above him, turning visible so he can talk. “What are your names, newbies?”
“What the heck are you talking about?” Purple Suit snaps. New Red Suit doesn’t say anything, just looks away, which is a really bad idea during a mid-air chase.
“Well I mean, I could just keep calling you newbies,” Danny says, easily dodging another blast from Purple Suit. “But that feels kind of demeaning.” He dodges another blast. “Though it’s also kind of accurate. Who taught you to aim?”
“Shut up!” Purple Suit snaps again.
“You’ve got that whole Red Huntress thing going on,” Danny says, pointing at Huntress. “But I don’t think that’ll work for you two. I mean, you’re red too.” He points at New Red Suit, who looks away from him again. “And ‘Red Two’ also feels kind of demeaning, honestly.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not going to be around long enough to need a name for us,” Purple Suit snaps, and fires at him again.
Danny floats higher in the sky this time, still moving at a more casual pace so all of them can keep up.
Huntress clearly notices, however, and Danny’s not exactly surprised when she’s not a fan of it.
“You know what,” she snaps at the two newbies. “Keep up or go home.”
And with that, she aims her blaster at Danny, which Danny takes as his cue to stop messing around.
He darts back down towards the ground, and towards a couple of abandoned warehouses, zipping around them and turning intangible to fly through them, in order to throw Huntress off more. He hears her behind him as he flies through the wall of the last building, so he doesn’t slow down. He does, however, hear Huntress give an irritated growl, presumably when she realizes she can’t see him anymore.
Danny darts down a side alley and stops, which gets rid of any sound she could use to track him, though she stops at the entrance to the alleyway he’s floating in. Danny breathes in quietly and holds it, taking advantage of the half dead aspect in order to avoid necessary things like breathing.
“Ugh, where did you go?” Huntress says in frustration, as the two newbies catch up behind her.
Danny floats as quietly as he can up towards the top of the buildings around them. Before he can make it, however, a very familiar and annoying voice says, “Well hello again!”
Danny groans, audibly this time, and drops his intangibility as he turns to face Vlad.
Huntress and New Red Suit turns to Vlad, but Purple Suit immediately flies up higher towards him and fires a blast, which Danny dodges.
“Leaving already?” Vlad asks, raising a teasing eyebrow at Danny.
“Was planning on it,” Danny says. “Thought I might stick to the things I actually felt like doing today. I have some stuff going on.”
“Oh, of course, how inconsiderate of me,” Vlad says. “In fact, just to help you out with that, let me take care of a couple problems for you.”
He floats slightly higher and fires a blast right at New Red Suit.
Danny darts down on instinct, but apparently Purple Suit has the same idea, because she dives down and shoves New Red Suit out of the way just in time for Danny to slam into her, and for both of them to get blasted back into the brick wall by Vlad. Thankfully, Danny is the one who hits the wall, and Purple Suit just lands against him.
But then Vlad fires another blast, this time aiming at Purple Suit, and hitting the board she’s using to fly.
It sparks a couple of times, and then the jets give out, and Purple Suit starts to fall.
Danny dives for her on instinct, and manages to catch her a couple feet off the ground and set her down. “Are you okay?”
“Don’t touch me!” Purple Suit snaps, shoving him backwards, and Danny can feel her glaring at him even through the suit. She’s breathing heavily, and lifts an arm to aim at Danny, the slight shaking of the blaster she’s aiming revealing that she was at least a little freaked out by that.
Danny raises his hands in an attempt at a peaceful gesture, but before he can say anything he hears a startled cry from up above that sounds like Huntress, and turns to look just in time to see Vlad flying off with a smirk and Huntress having hit the ground, her board sparking in the same way as Purple Suit’s.
“Are you okay?” Danny calls, alarmed.
“Oh, don’t act like you care!” Purple Suit snaps, shoving her blaster into Danny’s face.
New Red Suit appears at her side, and grips Purple Suit’s arm tightly, but if Purple Suit gets what he’s trying to say with that, she doesn’t show it by moving at all.
After a second, however, New Red Suit tugs on her arm harshly and says, “Huntress is hurt.”
“So go help her,” Purple Suit snaps. “I’ve got him.”
Danny gives half a worried glance back towards Huntress, and finds herself pulling herself up using the wall. Purple Suit jabs her blaster into Danny’s cheek, and Danny hears it start to fire. He goes intangible just before it hits, and flies up above the three of them. He gives one last glance around for Vlad, but he’s gone. So, since it seems like Purple Suit and New Red Suit aren’t going to help Huntress until he leaves, he flies off back towards the school.
Some allies, huh. Maybe they should do some team building exercises.
About halfway back to school Danny slows down, and when he reaches the parking lot he stops. He flies lower and turns back into Danny Fenton, but doesn’t move any closer to school.
He’s definitely missed lunch, but Sam and Tucker are still in there, and he cannot think of anything he wants less right now than to find them in the hallway, and for Sam to start talking about did Danny know that Phantom was causing trouble over lunch again and wasn’t he just the worst, didn’t Danny think so?
Danny glares down at the ground and tries to shake the thought off. He’s supposed to find them after school, and they’re supposed to go to Nasty Burger, and he’s supposed to be looking forward to that. Sam and Tucker haven’t done anything wrong.
Danny looks up at the school again, and tries to force himself to step forward and walk towards the parking lot.
He doesn’t move.
“Uh, hi?”
Danny whirls around. Then he stands up straight and narrows his eyes in confusion. “Valerie?”
“What are you doing here?” Valerie asks.
“I could ask you the same question.”
Valerie looks behind her. “I uh,” she says, and then she turns back around with an angry look on her face. “I was ditching, but then my ditch buddies ditched me.”
Danny winces. “Man, that sucks.”
“What are you doing here then?” Valerie asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Uh,” Danny says, looking back at the school, and immediately feeling exhausted again at the prospect of going back inside. “Thinking about ditching?”
“You’re kind of on the wrong side of the street to still be thinking about it,” Valerie points out, walking up next to him.
Danny doesn’t say anything, just looks at the school and tries to come up with any reason at all to go back inside it.
Jazz is there? And he kind of needs to fix things with Jazz? A little bit?
“Hey,” Valerie says. Danny turns to face her.
“You look like you’d rather go anywhere else in the world right now than there,” Valerie says with a nod to the school.
“No, no, that’s not it! I just—” Danny looks back. “I’m supposed to meet…” he trails off.
There’s a pause.
“…You want to actually ditch with me instead of just thinking about it, and then we can go to the mall?” Valerie asks.
Danny glances at her. At least she didn’t say anything about Nasty Burger.
And he’s going to feel like a terrible friend either way.
Valerie raises an eyebrow.
Danny nods. “Yes, yes I do.”
Valerie smiles. “Cool. Let’s go.”
So they do.