Chapter Text
It’s funny, Dash thought. How sometimes you could look back and pinpoint the exact moments in your life that set you on the path to where you were today. Most of the time, you never even realized in the moment how significant it would be, but afterward, with the benefit of hindsight? It was like looking at a map, with each event marked out like stops along a train route.
The first such moment started out completely innocuously. Dash had been out for a late night jog, trying to take advantage of the last of the warmer autumn weather before the chill of winter started to set in. He’d had his headphones on, music cranked up high to drown out the sounds of traffic as he made his way down the sidewalk, completely zoned out. As a result, he didn’t notice the sounds of terrified screams and ectoblasts ringing through the air, sure signs of a ghost attack up ahead. He was already deep into the danger zone by the time he finally registered what was happening.
“Wha — oh shit!” he screamed, jumping back as a stray blast of ghostly energy scorched the pavement at his feet. He ripped the headphones off of his ears and stared up at the sky, his eyes wide and panicked. It took him a moment to spot the two ghosts flying overhead, but once he caught sight of them, the familiar black jumpsuit and head of snow white hair was easy to make out. Phantom’s opponent was a ghost Dash didn’t recognize, which either meant that Phantom would handle it no problem, or they were in for a new regular visitor to Amity Park. He just stood there for a moment, struck dumb, watching the pair dart around each other in the air, trading ectoblasts and one-liners.
But then another blast went wide and smashed through the shop window Dash was standing beside, and abruptly Dash’s survival instincts kicked in. He ran screaming for the nearest alleyway, ducking behind a dumpster for shelter.
And if it had been any other day, if it had been any other fight, that’s where Dash would have stayed, cowering in the shadows until the fight was over and it was safe to emerge. But this time, things went a little bit differently.
At first, when Dash heard the loud metallic clang, he thought it was just some spare debris getting blown into the alley to crash against the roof of the dumpster he was hiding behind. But then there was another clatter, and something silvery and cylindrical suddenly tumbled into Dash’s line of sight. He stared in blank amazement at the innocent object that practically rolled to a stop against his sneakers; like any Casper High student, he immediately recognized the familiar sight of Phantom’s ghost-capturing thermos. But what the heck was it doing here?
He had just started to reach for the thermos with shaky hands when he heard pounding footsteps just outside the alleyway. He whipped his head up just in time to see Sam Manson, one of the biggest losers at Casper High, rushing into the alleyway, her eyes searching frantically for something.
“There you are!” Manson shouted, before she snatched up the thermos. As she grabbed it off the ground, she caught sight of Dash hiding behind the dumpster, and her eyebrows shot up.
“Dash? What the heck are you doing here?” she asked, before giving herself a shake. “You know what, nevermind. Not important. Tucker! Tucker, I found it!”
Tucker Foley, one of the other members of the Casper High loser trio, appeared in the alley next, his usual red beret askew. “Awesome! Now how the heck do we get it back to Da — ”
“Phantom’s still in the sky, right?” Manson cut Foley off, her gaze flicking meaningfully towards Dash. Dash wasn’t sure what message she had been trying to convey, but Foley’s eyes went wide and he clammed up, nodding instead of speaking.
Manson bit out a curse. “Quick, check if any of these buildings have roof access. We need to get this back up to Phantom!”
Foley pulled out his little tablet, and started frantically typing away, but from the tight line of his lips, even Dash could guess what his answer would be. “No luck,” he said, confirming Dash’s suspicions. “Nothing we could use to get up there fast enough.”
“Ugh, and that stupid ghost is keeping him too busy to come down and get it,” Manson groaned. “How are we supposed to…” She trailed off.
Dash stiffened when he abruptly realized that she was staring at him now. “What?” he demanded, feeling defensive.
“Dash,” Manson said carefully. “How far can you throw a football? Accurately?”
Dash blinked, caught off guard by the question. Since when did Manson care about football? And what the hell did that have to do with anything?
Still, he was so startled, he found himself answering honestly. “At least fifty yards,” he said. “Easily.”
She grimaced, but held up Phantom’s thermos. “Think you can get this up to Phantom?”
Dash felt his jaw drop open. Was she serious? “You’re kidding, right? Of course I can!”
“Great,” she sighed, before shoving the thermos into his chest. He grunted, surprised by her strength, but grabbed the thermos instinctively as she let go. “Then get ready.”
Without waiting to make sure he actually was ready to go, she suddenly whirled and rushed to the opening of the alleyway, putting her fingers between her lips and letting out a loud whistle that would have made Ms. Tetslaff proud, before shouting up at the sky. “Phantom, incoming thermos!”
And hey, Dash was well aware he wasn’t the brightest bulb, but even he couldn’t miss a cue that obvious. So, stepping up next to Manson, he took a moment to take stock of the situation. His eyes quickly caught sight of Phantom hovering in the air above them, just above the lip of the five storey building across the street. He didn’t see any sign of the other ghost from where he was standing, but that didn’t mean it was far. Phantom was turned towards them, his attention drawn by Manson’s shout, his glowing eyes staring straight down at them.
Normally Dash would have taken the time to bask in having the local hero’s attention on him, but he’d been given a job to do; he had to make the throw. The usual calm that descended over him during football games made its appearance now, and Dash let out a slow breath as he calculated the distance, testing the weight of the thermos in his hand. It wouldn’t fly as straight and smoothly as a football — it wasn’t nearly as aerodynamic — but Dash was certain he could compensate for it.
He breathed in, his focus locked on Phantom’s chest, and then threw.
The thermos sailed through the air, straight and true as an arrow, and landed perfectly in Phantom’s waiting arms. And not a moment too soon, as the other ghost suddenly lunged out at Phantom from one of the nearby buildings, shrieking in rage. Phantom ripped the top of the thermos off and caught the ghost in its beam before it could finish its attack, his face tight with concentration as the ghost struggled and flailed, but ultimately failed to escape the thermos’ pull. As soon as it was sucked in, Phantom slammed the lid back on, trapping it safely inside.
Dash, Manson, and Foley erupted into cheers. “Yeah!” Dash hollered. “Way to go, Phantom!”
Phantom glanced down at them, and for a second Dash could have sworn that the teen ghost’s eyes lingered longer on him than the others. He tossed them a quick wave, and then was gone with a flick of his ghostly tail, vanishing along the rooftops.
“Wow. That was so cool!” Dash gushed, sharing a grin with Manson and Foley.
“Not bad, Baxter,” Manson commented, giving him a half smile and jabbing him lightly in the ribs.
He hissed and jolted away from her. It hadn’t actually hurt that much, but he’d suddenly remembered that these two were losers who he shouldn’t be giving the time of day. “Yeah, whatever, nerd. Of course I had to save the day. Who else was going to help Phantom, you guys?”
Manson’s expression flattened. “Wow, so much for that little moment of camaraderie.”
“Yeesh,” Foley agreed, wincing. “Yeah, that didn’t take long.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I guess you two weren’t completely useless,” Dash admitted, rolling his eyes. “Well, Manson wasn’t, at least. She came up with the idea. You did nothing, Foley.”
“Hey!” Foley shouted.
“Whatever dweebs, I’m out of here.” Dash pushed past them roughly, pulling his headphones back up over his ears. Now that the ghost fight was over and Phantom had vanished, there wasn’t much point in sticking around. He needed to get home and shower, anyways.
Still, the next day at school, when Dash passed by Manson and Foley by their lockers, he hesitated for a moment before ultimately deciding to let them go about their morning unscathed. They’d tried to help out Phantom, after all. They weren’t total wastes of space, if they were willing to run into a ghost fight to give Dash’s hero a hand. He could be lenient this one time.
He still made sure to let his backpack slam into Fenton’s head as he was walking by, just as the last member of the nerd trio had bent down to tie his shoe. Fenton hadn’t been there for the ghost attack, after all, probably hiding in some garbage can like the coward he was. Fenton was the biggest loser of the lot, and Dash was going to make sure he remembered it.
“Whoops, didn’t see you there, Fenturd,” Dash smirked as Fenton slowly picked himself off the ground.
“Good morning to you too, Dash,” Fenton groaned. Manson shot Dash a death glare, but he ignored it, already on his way to Kwan’s locker so he could fill his best friend in on how he’d saved Phantom’s ass during the latest ghost fight.
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The second moment was several weeks and several ghost attacks later. The school had been hit this time, which wasn’t that unusual — ghosts seemed to hate Casper High in particular. It was right before the end of gym class, and Dash had been in the middle of returning all of the basketballs to the storage room for Ms. Tetslaff since she’d caught him giving Mikey a wedgie and needed to punish him somehow so that the school’s blatant favoritism wasn’t that obvious. He had just been throwing the mesh bag into the corner, when there was a loud crash just outside the room, and suddenly something was slamming into the shelves of sports equipment next to him.
He screamed and jumped back, the bag of basketballs spilling out across the floor, as the shelving unit creaked, groaned, and ultimately collapsed. Dash only had a moment to register that the something that had crashed into the shelves in the first place was Phantom before the whole thing came down in a shriek of twisting metal, right on top of the ghost’s head. Dash flung his arms up to protect his face from any flying debris, tripping over one of the loose basketballs and falling on his ass. He ended up curled up in a ball, whimpering and hoping he didn’t get smushed next.
After a moment, though, the sound of falling shelving finally stopped, leaving nothing but a ringing sound in Dash’s ears. When nothing else seemed to happen, he dared to lift his head. The storage room was a disaster, shelving all knocked down and broken, loose sports equipment strewn about. But what was most alarming was the sight of a white glove, streaked green with spilled ectoplasm, sticking limply out of the mess of shelving.
For a moment, Dash could only stare at it in shock. That was Phantom’s glove. Phantom was stuck under all of that debris. But why? He was a ghost, why didn’t he just phase through it all?
But then, Phantom let out a low groan, and Dash decided it didn’t matter. His hero was in trouble, and once again Dash was in a position to help. He scrambled to his feet, racing over to Phantom’s side, and started hauling as much junk off of Phantom’s prone form as he could.
He’d managed to mostly unbury the ghost when a second pair of hands suddenly appeared in his line of vision. He stared in surprise as Foley grabbed a lacrosse stick off of the top of the pile and threw it over his shoulder, reaching for a goalie helmet next.
“What the hell are you doing here, Foley?” Dash grunted.
“I heard the crash and came to help,” Foley said simply, his expression tense. “What are you doing here?”
“I was putting the gym equipment away when he practically crashed into me,” Dash snapped.
Foley ignored him, instead reaching down to grab the edge of the shelf’s metal frame. He heaved back with all of his weak nerd strength, and sure enough the shelf barely even shifted. Still, Phantom let out a groan of pain, and Dash realized that he was mostly trapped by the shelf frame in particular.
“Get out of my way, nerd,” Dash ordered, shoving Foley aside. “You’re just going to hurt yourself.” And then, with a grunt of exertion, Dash heaved back with all of his might, lifting the twisted shelf frame up and off of Phantom.
Foley, to his credit, didn’t argue. Instead he acted as soon as Dash had cleared enough space, reaching down and pulling Phantom out from under the mess by his arms. As soon as he’d dragged Phantom far enough, he shouted, “He’s clear!”
Dash let the shelf crash back down against the floor, turning to kneel at Phantom’s side next to Foley. “Geez, he looks rough. What happened?”
Looking rough was a bit of an understatement. Phantom’s shoulders and back were covered with cuts that were oozing sluggishly, at least some likely from his crash into the shelving unit. But what was really alarming was the wound along the side of his face, extending up into his hairline. His eye was swollen shut, and his hair was stained with green ectoplasm. If Dash had to guess, he’d say that was probably why Phantom hadn’t just phased out of the wreckage - he was probably too concussed to think straight. The ghost hadn’t even bothered to move now that he was freed; he just lay on the ground and whimpered softly in pain.
“Not sure,” Foley admitted, “But I think I caught sight of Skulker earlier. Something must have chased him off, though, otherwise I’m pretty sure he would have shown up here by now.”
Dash figured Foley must have been right. The metallic ghost was a regular visitor to Casper High, enough so that everyone recognized him on sight, and even Dash knew that if Skulker was still around he likely would have tracked Phantom down by now and tried to finish the job.
Still, he couldn’t help but glance nervously towards the entrance to the storage room, half expecting to see Skulker suddenly looming in the doorway. There was nothing there, though, and soon enough, his attention returned to Phantom, who was finally starting to stir. Dash quickly grabbed at Phantom’s elbow, helping the groaning ghost sit up, Foley doing the same on his other side.
“Ugh, what happened?” Phantom asked, his hand coming up to rub at his head. Almost immediately though he pulled back with a hiss of pain, his gloves coated with more ectoplasm from the wound on his head.
“You got hit pretty bad,” Foley explained, his eyes darting between Phantom and Dash for some reason. “I dunno what happened after you got knocked through the locker room wall and into here, though. Maybe Dash can fill you in.”
Dash felt Phantom stiffen, and his head whipped up when he realized that Foley wasn’t the only one holding him. Dash had a second to take in the sight of unnaturally green eyes staring at him in alarm, before the sudden motion seemed to send Phantom’s head spinning. He moaned again and started to tip over, and Dash had to hastily grab him around the waist before he faceplanted onto the hard concrete floor.
“Whoa, man! Don’t move so fast, you hit your head!” Dash held Phantom steady until he was sure the ghost wasn’t about to fall over again, and then slowly helped him sit back upright. “Geez, you gotta take it easy, give yourself a second. Concussions can mess you up.”
“Concussion?” Phantom echoed, sounding slightly dazed.
“You think he has a concussion?” Foley asked. He stared at Phantom with a furrowed brow, as if searching for the word ‘concussion’ to be written across his forehead. “You seem so sure, but how can you really tell? Just because he got hit on the head, doesn’t mean he’s got one. I mean, come on, D — uh, Phantom gets smacked in the head all the time, usually he’s fine!”
“Trust me, I know the signs,” Dash nodded confidently. “Coach drills us on them constantly, given how often they happen in football. Memory loss, confusion, balance problems? Let me guess, you’re feeling kinda nauseous too?” Phantom nodded wordlessly. “Yup. You definitely have one.”
Rather than argue, Phantom just closed his eyes and sighed in resignation.
Foley gave Dash a considering look. “You know, I never thought about it, but you probably know a fair bit about injuries and stuff from all the sports, don’t you?”
Dash shrugged, feeling self-conscious for some reason. “I’m not just muscles and good looks, you know, dweeb. I know things.”
Rather than bristle at the admittedly weak insult, Foley just hummed, still studying Dash with that odd, thoughtful look.
Unused to being stared at like that by Foley of all people, Dash fought down the urge to squirm. He was seconds away from just decking the look off of Foley’s face when Phantom started to shift in his arms, weakly attempting to get up.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Where do you think you’re going?” Dash yelped, trying to keep his grip on Phantom, Foley forgotten.
“I need to get out of here,” Phantom grunted.
“Are you kidding me? You can barely sit up, let alone walk!”
“Good thing I can fly, then,” Phantom shot back, shoving his way out of Dash’s grip with surprising strength, given he’d barely been able to hold his head up a second ago. Sure enough, as soon as he was out of Dash and Foley’s arms, he started floating towards the ceiling.
“But you have a concussion!” Dash argued, jumping to his feet.
“I heal fast.”
“Hey,” Foley reached out and grabbed Dash’s shoulder. Dash whirled on the nerd, slapping his hand away with fire in his eyes, but to his credit Foley only flinched back for a second before he rallied his courage. “He’s a ghost, I’m pretty sure none of the usual treatments for concussions apply here, right?”
“The treatment is rest,” Dash snapped. “And lots of it. Ghosts can rest, can’t they?”
“I’m sure Phantom is going home to do just that, isn’t he?” Foley said, though the last bit was clearly aimed up at the ghost hovering above them, listing slightly to the left. “Especially given the school day is pretty much over and I’m sure no other ghosts will be attacking today.”
“Yeah,” Phantom agreed absently, still looking woozy. “I promise. I’m heading home — to my lair! — to get plenty of rest.”
Dash couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing something, some second conversation between Phantom and Foley that he wasn’t a part of, but before he could demand any more answers, Phantom gave them a sloppy salute, turned intangible, and then flew up through the ceiling, leaving him and Foley alone in the storage locker surrounded by the wreckage.
Foley looked around at the mess, whistled lowly, and then sighed. “Wanna get out of here before one of the teachers comes and finds us and makes us help clean up?”
“Huh, not a bad idea, nerd,” Dash agreed. He shoved past Foley to make it out of the room first, but if he didn’t push the shorter teen as hard as he usually would, that was no one’s business but his own. He didn’t wait to see if Foley was following, simply racing off through the trashed gymnasium to head towards the locker rooms to get changed. Foley was right, it was close enough to the end of the day that the rest of classes were almost certainly going to be canceled thanks to the ghost attack; there was no point in sticking around.
It wasn’t until Dash was almost home that it occurred to him that Foley had been wearing normal clothes the whole time. So what the heck had he been doing near the gym?
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The next moment in the chain was much simpler. It was once again during a ghost attack — hardly a surprise given that it was Amity Park. Dash had been hanging out with Kwan and a couple of the others from the football team at the mall, the four of them all just finishing up their lunch at the food court, when it happened. They’d been having a relatively quiet day in the city, all things considered, so really it didn’t come as that much of a surprise when the giant mutated ghost rabbits suddenly smashed through the wall and started rampaging through the stores.
Dash, Kwan, and the others, as Casper High students, were well trained in ghost attacks. They were already jumping up and grabbing their bags, leftover food abandoned, and calmly making their way towards the nearest exit. But the rest of the shoppers didn’t seem to be as experienced, with several people running and screaming in panic, tripping over tables and chairs and crashing into each other as they tried to escape. Dash winced, but figured it was their problem if they didn’t know how to get to safety, not his.
But just as he and Kwan had made it to the edge of the tables taking up the center of the food court, a familiar voice caught his attention, and he found himself instinctively looking over.
“We have to get these people out of here, or they’re just going to make this worse!” Manson growled, in the middle of helping an older man in a Hawaiian style shirt up off of the ground.
“Yeah, there’s too many civilians!” Foley agreed, jumping aside as a hysterical mother ran by with her son in her arms. “Once Danny gets here, he’s going to have his hands full if he’s got to protect people as well as fight off these ghost bunnies!”
For a split second, Dash thought they were talking about Fenton, before he realized there was no way that Fenton was going to be going up against ghosts. The loser was terrified of ghosts, he had probably been one of the first to flee in panic when the ghosts had appeared. That would explain why he was suddenly gone, even though Dash was pretty sure he’d seen Fenton sitting with Manson and Foley eating lunch earlier. No, though it took him a second to remember, he was pretty sure someone had mentioned once that Phantom’s first name might be Danny. That or he’d misheard Foley. Yeah, that had to be it. They were talking about Phantom, not Fenton.
Though hey, it had never really hit Dash before how similar those two names were. Weird.
Shaking the thought away, Dash realized that Foley and Manson were right. When Phantom showed up to fight off the rampaging bunnies, it would be so much harder if he also had to watch out for regular humans as well. They needed to clear the area, and fast.
“Kwan, Duke, Justin,” Dash called out to his teammates. “Hang on a sec!”
“What?”
“Dude? What the hell are you doing? Let’s go!”
“Dash?” Kwan gave Dash a worried look.
“Just hang on,” he ordered. And then before he could second guess himself, he stomped over to where Manson and Foley were still arguing.
“Oi, Manson!” he snapped, drawing the goth’s attention. She looked up at him in surprise, but before she could say anything, he asked her, “Can you do that super loud whistle again?”
“Buh? Uh, yeah? But why?”
“Just do it, nerd!” He shouted.
She jumped at his volume, but thankfully she didn’t question him further, just stuck her fingers in her lips and blew a loud, sharp, blast. It cut through the din of the rushing crowds and the ghost bunnies destroying a shoe store, drawing all eyes in their direction. The moment the chaos settled even the tiniest bit, Dash hopped up onto one of the food court tables and started gesturing towards where Kwan and the others were waiting.
“Alright, people! You know the drill!” he yelled, like he was delivering instructions to his teammates in the midst of a game. A shoebox soared towards his head like a rocket, but he just ducked out of the way without breaking his concentration. “Head for the nearest exit away from the ghosts! That’s that way! Don’t keep running in circles, go that way!”
And miraculously, the crowd listened. Instead of running in panicked circles, the mass of people all started flowing towards the far exit from the ghost bunnies, headed to where Kwan and the others were waiting. Thankfully his teammates had picked up his unspoken plan, and they started herding the crowd towards the doors, keeping everything orderly. Within a minute, the packed mall had emptied, leaving only Dash, Foley, and Manson to bring up the rear.
Just as they were leaving the food court, a black and white blur zoomed in overhead, pausing only long enough to get his bearings. Phantom looked mildly surprised to see the place all but empty, only the three humans below left in the building.
“You’re clear, Phantom!” Manson called up to the ghost, flinching a little as the sound of smashing glass filled the air from the direction of the jewelry store. “We managed to get everyone else out!”
“Thanks, guys!” Phantom grinned.
“Don’t thank us,” Foley responded, giving Dash that odd look again. “Dash and the other football players did most of the work.”
“Seriously?”
“I know, I’m just as surprised as you!”
“Hey!” Dash growled. “What the heck is that supposed to mean?”
“Boys! We can sort this out later, let’s get out of here so Phantom can deal with the ghosts, okay?” Manson suggested, her eyes darting towards where the rampaging ghost bunnies were starting to come closer. Without further warning, she grabbed both Dash and Foley by the arms and dragged them towards the exit. Once again Dash was caught off guard by how deceptively strong the goth girl was. Did she secretly work out or something?
He didn’t have time to ask, though, because almost as soon as they were outside, Manson shoved him towards where Kwan and his other teammates were waiting.
“Thanks for the help, again, Dash!” she called over her shoulder as she and Foley ran off to who the hell knew where. Maybe they’d gone to find wherever Fenton had stashed himself.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever nerd,” Dash grumbled, slouching his shoulders. Hearing them thank him didn’t make him feel all warm and fuzzy inside, no way. It must have just been something he ate.
Still, as he made his way back to Kwan and the others, he couldn’t quite shake that little glow of pride that Manson’s parting words had left in him. He’d helped. He’d helped Phantom, again. He’d actually helped people out, kept them safe, instead of just running and saving his own skin. It actually felt…kinda good to help.
Then it struck him how he’d turned himself into a giant target and nearly got taken out by a flying shoebox, and the adrenaline crash hit him like a truck. Kwan had to reach out and grab him by the shoulders as he felt himself sway a little.
“Dude, you okay?” Kwan asked him.
“I can’t believe I just did that. Kwan, what the fuck was I thinking?!”
“I dunno,” Kwan admitted. “But it was pretty cool seeing you stand up there and direct everyone. And hey, everyone made it out safe, only a couple of scrapes and bruises from the looks of things.”
“Yeah? That’s pretty cool,” Dash said weakly, leaning more into Kwan’s support. “Just do me a favour? If I try to do something stupid like that again, hit me.”
Kwan, the traitor, just laughed. “Sure Dash. If I see you trying to help people out again, I’ll definitely punch you.”
“Dick,” Dash told him, though the smile on his face undermined his words. He gave Kwan a weak punch to the shoulder. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”
“Wanna head to the theater instead?” Kwan suggested.
“Dunno, is anything good playing?”
“If there isn’t anything, at least they’ve got the arcade.”
“Yeah, alright. Let’s go.”