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“Sweetie, come downstairs! We have a surprise” Danny sunk further under his covers, 7am and he already knew it was going to be one of Those Days; another wacky invention from his parents that would take up the rest of his week. The pit of dread in his stomach only worsened by the knowledge of the quiz that Mr Lancer had given them weeks to prepare for. Danny had not prepared. Danny had been fighting ghosts! Y’know, saving the town, banishing the ghosts, keeping everyone safe? That whole thing? That whole thing that had screwed his chances at passing said quiz? That thing? Danny pulled the blanket over his face and let out a long sigh, closed his eyes to steel himself, and kicked the whole blanket off with a thwump.
“Coming, mom!” Danny stood, rubbing the sleep gunk from his eyes, and went downstairs, expecting some behemoth metal contraption and his parents with that familiar hungry, hunter’s gleam in their eyes. Instead, he found his parents and sister sat around the table, in it’s centre a small bottle of... pills? Jazz shot him a look, brows furrowed in concern, a look he returned in kind.
“So, sweetie, in the spirit of keeping you kids healthy with all this ecto-contamination around the house-”
“I TOLD YOU!” His father’s voice boomed, his voice like a chisel to Danny’s poor freshly awoken brain, “they’re fine! We’ve been studying this ecto-gunk for years and nothing ever happened to us!” The fridge took that opportunity to shake with the wrath of last night’s casserole leftovers, “...but I can see why some preventative measures might be necessary...” Jack sulked.
“As I was saying, you kids are exposed to ectoplasmic radiation as a side effect of living in a house of scientific breakthroughs, so your father and I have created what we’re calling-”
“THE FENTON ECTO-UNMASKER CAPSULE!” Jack’s chest puffed, his face beaming with pride.
“An ectopreventative pill,” Maddie calmly corrected, “we don’t want to scare the kids out of taking their medicine, do we, honey?” Jack once again shrunk with a dispirited frown.
Jazz was the first to probe, “so what exactly does this do? I’d rather not put anything in my body that hasn’t been tried and tested in a controlled environment, and just think of what an unknown substance or vitamin could do to poor Danny’s puberty development! His hormone regulation!” Despite the validity of her question, Danny found himself rolling his eyes and cringing at the highlighting of his growth, but decided it was best to remain silent and wait for the answer.
“Understandable, sweetie, your father and I have been taking these once a day for the past week to test its effectiveness and have experienced no negative side-effects. All it should do is gather any ecto-irradiated cells in your body and enable them to disperse naturally.” This caused Danny the concern he had been expecting. If all his cells were ‘ecto-irradiated’ would this, like, melt him? Worse? Him and Jazz shared an even more concerned look that went unnoticed as their mother took two pills from the bottle and pushed them towards them.
“You don’t have to take them daily if you really don’t want to, but just take one today and we’ll monitor the effects when you get home from school.” Their mother’s pleading look tugged just enough at the heart strings, Jazz gulped, took the pill in her mouth and swallowed thickly. With that, every eye in the room turned to Danny who shifted uncomfortably on his feet.
“Oh... I’m not good at swallowing pills, sorry,” Danny scrambled to think of a more convincing rejection but drew a series of blanks and turned to leave and get ready for school, a bullet dodged.
“That’s okay sweetie! They’re dissolvable!” Maddie excitedly stood and drew a glass of water, popping the tablet inside which turned the liquid a troubling shade of murky green. She held the glass out to Danny with a patient smile and, out of options, he grabbed the glass, sniffing it with a crinkled nose, and downed it in one. Surely the prototype wouldn’t be so effective as to melt him on the spot, hopefully? He closed his eyes and waited to feel something, anything, but to his relief nothing came. Jazz similarly deflated in her seat in relief.
“See? Easy as pie, Danno! Another Fenton masterpiece!” Jack’s pride returned to him and he stood to usher the kids upstairs to prepare for the day. Though there was nothing that could truly prepare Danny, as the medicine began to settle inside him and slowly seeped into his bloodstream, connecting itself to his ghostly cells like a misguided parasite.
---
It was second period before Danny truly began to feel... off. It was like when he first got his powers all over again, he could feel ectoplasm pulsing through him and the urge to turn invisible or intangible was being beaten off by sheer willpower. As his feet began to tingle with that familiar feeling, he knew it couldn’t be avoided any longer and raised his hand.
“Mr Lancer may I be excused?” He hadn’t meant for it to squeak out, his distress made obvious. Sam and Tucker turned to look at him with worry but all he could do was offer an awkward, tight-lipped smile.
“Blood Meridian Mr Fenton, I suppose it must be an emergency,” Mr Lancer replied to a series of chuckled that made Danny blush, but he was already up and walking to the door before Lancer could finish his sentence, no-one but his friends noticing that the resulting trip and fall had been a consequence of one of his feet sinking briefly through the floor.
As soon as the door behind him came to a close, Danny took off in a sprint to the bathrooms past wayward students who simply dismissed his panic as typical Fenton antics. Darting into the bathroom and locking the door behind him, Danny’s sigh of relief was interrupted by arcs of ectoplasm creeping across his entire body like static shock, his body flickered wildly between invisibility, intangibility, and a mixture of the two. It took all his energy to not sink into the floor entirely, and holding his hands up close to his face and seeing a green glow reflected, Danny knew his eyes must be a vibrant green.
“Shit.” Danny’s body began to tremor and sweat as that buzzing feeling shifted from his feet upwards, “shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit-” he was interrupted as his panicked voice began to gain force, teetering on a ghostly wail, the bathroom door lightly tremored and he heard the hinges begin to vibrate and whine under the pressure. He felt his phone vibrate and took it out with shaking hands.
TooFine: You good dude? You left in a hurry, need us to escape math?
Ghastronaut: not good very not good powers going crazy took pill thismorning parentshelpcomenow
It was all Danny could say before the tremor in his hands rendered it impossible to type anything even close to legible. Danny curled up in the corner of the bathroom stall, ignoring the suspiciously wet floor, and closed his eyes tightly, trying to control his breathing and quell his rising panic. In his focus Danny neglected to notice tendrils of ice creeping out from beneath him, slowly freezing the ground beneath him in a low chorus of cracking and rumbling. By the time Tucker burst into the bathroom with such speed the ice almost sent him careening right into the opposite mirror, Danny was close to despondent, all of his energy and willpower concentrated in controlling his power just enough to prevent some kind of catastrophe.
“Dude? Hey! Can you open the door? What’s going on?” All Tucker heard in response was a quick series of mumbles ended by a low whine, no movement could be heard aside from the continued spread of ice across the floor and now trailing up the bottom of the walls, he pulled himself closer as the cold penetrated him and threw himself to the floor to peek under the stall and get a better idea of Danny’s situation.
“Shit! Dude can you move? What do we do?” Tucker was frustrated with his helplessness, as he watched his friend tremor, fingers digging into his arms enough to turn his skin pure white, Danny stiffly shook his head to the negative and looked up, meeting Tucker’s eyes.
Danny’s eyes were true, vibrant green.
“We gotta get you outta here man, c’mon, second period’s gonna end soon we only got until then.” Tucker gathered all his strength, very grateful he’d worn boots instead of sneakers today, and threw all his weight into kicking open the door to the bathroom stall, barely maintaining his balance against the ice now coating the floor. He hesitated only briefly before trying to pull Danny up by his shoulders, hissing and drawing back at the deathly cold that met his fingers.
“Sssssorry...” was all Danny could eke out before Tucker had drawn his sleeves over his hands and managed to pull Danny to his feet, guiding him carefully but quickly towards the door, briefly stopping to text Sam an update:
TooFine: powers going wacko meet us at the spot asap
AgriGoth: See you there.
They navigated the corridors as cautiously as they could, stopping at every corner so Tucker could check for truants/would-be-witnesses. Barely getting out of the fire exit in the gymnasium before Danny reeled back, pushed Tucker as far as his trembling body could allow, and released a wave of ectoplasm in every direction. The floor fractured beneath him as the door nearly blew clean from its hinges, Tucker collected himself from the floor ten metres away, about to scramble back to help his friend.
“N-no! Don’t come closer!” Danny squeezed out, head rising to meet Tucker, eyes still glowing but with a look of clear, pleading panic, sweat dripping from his brow but quickly freezing on his face, dropping to the floor like hail. Fate took its opportune moment as Danny’s ghost sense escaped his lips and his expression changed to one of desperation, instincts screaming to go, fight, save them. The choking pressure on his core becoming unbearable, the thrumming in his chest akin to that of a panic attack.
“It’s okay!” Tucker yelled from across the courtyard, “someone else can take care of it! We need to get out of here!” It was no use as white rings began to flicker to life around Danny’s torso, instincts warring with reason as his ectoplasm surged, yearning for release. Danny opened his mouth to speak, but could barely whisper without a powerful wave of energy bursting outwards. He took off with a thunderous boom, the ground beneath him cracking further and leaving Tucker on the other side of the courtyard, looking up at the sky, marred by concern and worry.
---
Technus had quickly seized control of the newly rebuilt electronics store, rebuilt from his previous seizing control of the newly rebuilt electronics store. The owner breathed a sigh of relief, grateful that he’d paid extra for better insurance premiums, and promptly ran away.
“It is I, Technus! Master of all things beeping and pinging! Behold my awesome electronic power and despair as I take over the world!” He declared, to no-one in particular. Technus had barely taken a step in his new mechanical armour before a streak of pulsating green slammed into his side, sending him flying a block over. He flipped onto his back, shaking his head from the force of the impact, and looked up.
Suspended in the sky was... the ghost child? His form was vibrating so aggressively he appeared to be a blur of black and white, sparks of ectoplasm and ice shooting out in destructive arcs as waves of pressure dissipated in every direction. His hair rose and fell with unreleased power like static before a lightning strike and his body moved spasmodically and awkwardly, forceful restraint clear in every fibre of his body.
“Ghost child! Don’t think that a little power boost will stop the Great and Powerful-” the Ghost Child’s eyes snapped onto his and for the first time in his existence, Technus was rendered completely silent. Blazing portals of pristine green bore down on him as the ambient pressure that had enveloped him before grew in strength, forcing him fully to the floor, unable to speak, unable to move, barely able to even think, Technus was filled with a primal fear that spoke to his baser ectoplasmic instinct to survive. He twitched and convulsed, desperately willing himself to move as the ghost boy hung in the sky like a dark sun, his lack of action Technus’ only saving grace, releasing any and all technology he had attached himself to in the hopes that the dropped weight would enable him to wriggle away from the looming threat.
Danny didn’t want to hurt anyone, ghostly or otherwise. He fought against the sheer unfathomable power that coursed through him, the internal battle setting every muscle in his body alight with a pain only akin to that of a portal opening inside your body, afraid to cry out in case a wail escaped that destroyed Technus and the surrounding buildings wholly. He fought against his core’s instincts to protect his people, to destroy the threat with full capability, as he felt exhaustion begin to worm its way from his mind to his entire body. The arcs of ice and ectoplasm became broader, slashing the road beneath him and decimating trash cans and post boxes as he willed them to remain within range, though the wayward strikes that cleaved windowsills and rooves petrified him. He didn’t want to hurt anyone.
The relief was palpable as Technus slowly crawled away, but the urge his core projected outwards to squash the threat only became more unbearable, which is why as Sam and Tucker came sprinting up the street towards them had Danny experience reprieve and dread in equal measure. Sam managed to barely dodge the sweeping bursts of power, pulling her Fenton thermos from her hip and capturing Technus in his weakened state; the threat was removed, and along with it his core silenced and the tension in his body released. The swift drop in energy hit Danny like a truck, his ghost form dispersing as he fell to the ground, his fall only broken by Tucker’s haphazard attempt to catch him, creating a pile of limbs in the middle of the street. Sam ran back to meet them and her and Tucker struggled to catch their breath.
“...Holy shit.” Was all she could say, and unable to gather any more context about the situation aside from the brief text Danny had sent about some mysterious medicine his parents had made, they called Jazz.
Safe to say after that Danny took his pills to his room to take, and swiftly crushed them and dumped them in his trash.