Undergrowth turned Sam into a halfa while he had her. Sam didn't know till the day after Danny saved her, When the GIW had burst in and detained her for experimentation and dissection. Danny had to save her AGAIN, but at the cost of his identity. Both of their parents were enraged.
They had originally made plans for Danny to run, but not Sam. They stuck to the original plan. Gotham was the only place they could go with enough ectoplasm to support a halfa.
They ended up finding a nice apartment on the outskirts of crime alley. It was a nice place but it only had one bed. Sam was fine with that. Danny was her best friend, her hero, and maybe she had danced around her feelings for him long enough.
Danny was working. He was the Ghost King, or Ghost King in training. He was learning and the Observants were nice enought to use some of Pariah's treasury to pay Danny for his work, but only minimum wage until he could handle more.
Sam was going through their paperwork Tucker had forged for them. He was strangely good at forgeries. She was now Samhain Nightingale with a Danny Nightingale. Oh Ancients! He made them siblings! Or so she thought, until she pulled out a marriage certificate...
Danny may be a Ghost Baby who feels like an Anicent, but his friends don't.
SO, we all know the Ghost Baby Headcanon by now right? The idea that Danny is literally a Toddler by Ghost Standards, but because of how powerful he is everybody else believes that he is an Ancient or a God who is hogging the Mortal World to himself.
But what about his friends?
They were right there when the Portal opened. No Hazmat Suits, no Cover, no Protection from the Dimension of Pure Energy that had just been opened right in front of them.
That has to have some kind of Side Effects!
And actually, we do know of a Character who was just standing in front of a Portal when it opened and still got affected by it. Vlad.
While Danny was turned into a Halfa instantly, his friends would be more similar to Vlad in that they are slow to transform.
It takes weeks, but eventually they become mini-halfas themselves. Except they didn't have an entire Dimension of energy pushed into them upon fully forming, so their Ecto-Signatures actually feel like the babies they are supposed to be.
So imagine this from the Ghosts perspective.
They meet this guy called Phantom, a Halfa who is Extremely Powerful, but nobody has seen him in centuries. He was known as a very powerful Protector Spirit for millennia, randomly showing up across history, but always helping others. And then he just vanished one day, not seen again for centuries.
Until recently, when he showed in the Mortal World, stopping any other Ghost from fulfilling their Obsessions with Humans. And by his side are 2 smaller Halfa's that feel like they must have barely formed. You can see where this is going.
They think Sam and Tucker are Danny's children.
It makes sense! A Powerful Ancient, known for protecting people, suddenly disappears for centuries and then shows up again with 2 baby Halfa's in tow? That sounds like a Protector Spirit who lost his will to fight, decided to settled down in the Mortal Realm, and then found out that 2 baby Halfa's were formed when a Portal was opened!
He isn't selfishly holding the Mortal Realm to himself! He's protecting the Fledgling Haunt of his 2 Babies! They must still have living Family, that's why he is so adamant that they don't hurt the Civilains in their battles!
Now they just feel like assholes for attacking the Baby's dad when he was just trying to protect their stuff.
Danny finds this both extremely infuriating, and also agonizingly hilarious.
She’s been agonizing for months about how she killed her best friend, and her only comfort was that it couldn’t be undone.
And then it was.
Everything was horrible and different and now it was all falling apart, sure, but look at him, he’s so happy and healthy and the bags under his eyes are only from stargazing, I can’t fucking take this from him, he’d never get out of this house out of this town I need to FIX IT
And jumps into the portal.
She calls herself Orchid Mantis, or just Orchid. Her parent aren’t neglectful enough to not find out what happened to her, and she lets them think she’s a full ghost.
Her funeral is nice. At least everyone wore black.
The Fentons, of course, go straight to prison.
The Foley’s and Mansons had been telling law enforcement for years that something was wrong in that house, but nothing was done for no reason more complicated than the system doesn’t work.
At least her parents agreed with her there.
They were seeing a lot more things her way now. Desperate to have her haunt their home, apologizing and apologizing well. Death brings a kind of clarity, she guesses.
She says ghosts need to live in the Zone at least part time she really just can’t live in that fucking house anymore, But she does want to visit.
Danny is mad. He doesn’t know what would have happened to him. That’s ok. He shouldn’t ever know.
Jazz is confused, but she isn’t stupid. Sam is dead, and even if Sam had jumped into the portal herself like Danny told her (and of course she believes him, she just knows she doesn’t have the full story), it would have still been her parent’s fault for putting it in their home in the first place.
Sam had once overheard Jazz telling her parents the basement needed a lock.
Sam had overheard Jazz telling her parents the basement needed a lock many times.
Tucker is just broken. Danny is locking himself in the guest room, Jazz is the only one he lets in, and she says he’s processing.
Tucker and Sam go on walks together, still play some two player co-ops, and he’s finally smiling again.. but Danny’s absence leaves a horrible cavity.
Sam tries to visit the house once or twice, but understands that Danny needs time. She doesn’t know if he’ll ever forgive her, and she doesn’t need him to.
She can live without him as long as he’s alive.
Her core is Light based, and she throws pink rings of ultraviolet ectoplasmic energy, healing any plant it touches, but slowly cooking any meat.
Even if she used it on “empty” landscapes, she would kill all the creatures that do manage to live there year. Bugs and all.
I don’t have much for how she’s living in her human form, but I’m imagining underground caves that are closed to the public.
Here is my second fic for @ecto-implosion! I was so excited to get @blonchie's art for this round. It is sooooo fun and silly and ah it made for such a great writing experience! Please do yourself a favor and CHECK IT OUT!
Thank you to @lexiepiper and @fridurwrites for betaing!
Characters: Sam, Danny, Tucker
Tags/warnings: No Warnings, Halfa!Sam (temporarily)
Summary: The last thing Sam expected to wake up to was her body frozen on her bed. But unfortunately, thanks to a certain jock's midnight ponderings and the interference of one wish-granting ghost, that was exactly how she started off her morning.
[read on ao3]
[part 2]
****
In a land far, far away, a figure sat on his bed staring wistfully out his window. The moon gazed back at him, bright and round as it was. A shining beacon of hope for all teen boys around the globe. A message that no matter what trials lay ahead, they could face anything.
This boy in particular didn't just hear that message, but he internalized it deep inside his very soul. He pondered it, he tossed and turned it in his head, folding it gently like a baker mixing fluffy, delicate cake batter. He tasted it, added a pinch of salt, some sugar, a little more flour, mixing—but not over-mixing—until the batter was just right.
It was a powerful feeling, these sorts of deep, poetic thoughts. When most of his day was spent replaying football plays in his brain, or thinking of nicknames for a certain, dweeby classmate of his, having moments where he could just be one with his deepest thoughts was almost meditative.
Not that he meditated, of course. Meditating was for hippies and girls, and he was neither of these things.
For he was strong, he was powerful, and he was truly the master of his own brain. This was why, as he pondered the essence of the Universe and all its inhabitants, he was so lost in thought that he nearly missed the shooting star jetting across the sky.
But, of course, he didn't miss that shooting star—which could have been an airplane, actually—because he could never miss such fine, delectable details about life such as that.
Well, it didn't really matter if that shooting star was moving far too slowly to be a shooting star after all. Perhaps it was a satellite?
This was a topic that a certain nerd would know. Not that this boy cared at all about that dweeb.
Most important, was addressing the reason for all his pondering in the first place. Which was the fact that the local ghost boy was, confusingly, very attractive.
Which made no sense. Phantom was dead. And also a boy. And this intelligent, strong, charismatic soul pondering out his window was a boy, too, and also very much alive.
Was it gay if he was dead?
Either way, it didn't make any sense for him to be attracted to that ghost. Even if they were both very amazing, handsome guys, and even if maybe it would be very cool to date a hero.
Well, as this charismatic and kind young teen stared out his window at the passing definitely-not-a-satellite shooting star and the full moon beside it, an idea suddenly popped into his head.
It was a great idea, really, following the storybooks.
And so, Dash opened his mouth and wished upon a shooting star, "I wish Phantom was a chick."
****
"So you have wished it, so it shall be."
****
Something was off.
That was the first thing Sam knew, even before she was fully conscious. She lay there in her half-asleep daze, trying to fight the looming dread of her morning alarm, and the only thing that her brain could think of was the ever-encroaching feeling in her chest and mind that something, somewhere, was off.
But her alarm hadn't gone off yet, so really, what was there to worry about? It was probably just the vestiges of her mother's voice from last night needling her brain. Sam couldn't even remember now what they'd been arguing about—probably about her wardrobe, again—but either way, it wasn't important.
So, she fell back asleep.
...
And shot up in her bed.
Wait, why did it feel like she was breathing ice?
That wasn't right.
She placed a hand on her chest, and something pushed back.
She froze. Her blood ran cold.
Literally.
She froze herself to her bed.
Sam stared down at her frost-covered legs, her blanket doing little more to keep her warm than acting as a decorative set piece. Her jaw unhinged in a manner that would have had her mom screaming at her to mind your manners, young lady—but her screams were silent, and each breath sent shards of microscopic ice from her lips.
Her room's temperature plummeted, surely, but Sam could hardly feel it. In fact, it felt better to her now that the air was cold.
And then, her brain caught up, too quickly, and began moving light-years beyond her body. Because holy shit, she'd seen this before, she'd heard of this before, from one person, from Danny.
This she felt in her chest was a core. A ghost core. And this frost was ghost powers, and her ice was ecto-ice, and everything about her screamed Danny's ghost powers.
She must have been dreaming. That was right, she was definitely dreaming. There was no way she was a ghost. She hadn't died! She'd gone to sleep last night healthy and happy—okay, she'd gotten in a fight with her mom. But still! Her mom was a total Karen, but she wouldn't have killed Sam in her sleep. She was crazy, but not that kind of crazy.
Before her brain could spiral too far, the cursed sound of her alarm snapped her back to reality. Except, her hands had frozen to her pajamas.
And she had no idea how to turn her powers off.
Great. So, not only was she dead, but she was also cursed to be the most obnoxiously annoying haunted-mansion ghost that Amity Park's ever known.
Perfect. It was just what every goth always dreamed.
How did Danny turn this thing off? His powers tended to flare when he was agitated, which meant she just had to calm down.
Okay.
Yeah.
She could totally calm down.
She sat there, head spinning, the alarm still blaring, and half expecting her mother to storm the gate that was her bedroom door and demand Sam get out of bed right this instant, but no, that wasn't helping.
So she closed her eyes and breathed.
Just breathed.
She thought of a warm day. Even if the goth inside her wanted shadows, she thought of the sun. A human sun, on a warm day, with a full-blue sky that turned into a warm, summer night. Peaceful, surrounded by nature, roasting vegetarian hot dogs around the campfire with her two geeky homebody friends who'd finally put down their technology to join her in this moment.
Her fingers wiggled, and it took Sam a moment to realize that the ecto-frost was gone. When she opened her eyes, her clothing and bedding were dry like the frost had never been there to begin with.
But before she could wonder if she'd gone crazy, she felt another pulse from that alien chill in her chest, and reality hit her like a truck all over again.
BEEP BEEP BEEP!
She shut off her alarm.
The world was finally, finally silent.
And Sam was afraid to move. Afraid that one wrong twitch would set off her new ghost powers again. Afraid that next time, her mother really was going to barrel through her door and gasp and faint because, "Oh, Sammykins! What happened to you?"
She looked at her hands, but human skin stared back at her.
Human skin. Not glowing, green-tinged ghost skin. Human skin.
She peeled back her comforter, but her legs didn't glow either. They were dressed in the same black and purple fleece pants she always wore to sleep. Not a ghost outfit, a human one.
What. The. Hell.
Without thinking, she grabbed her phone from her nightstand and swiped to the one name on her contact list she knew could help.
Or, she hoped.
The phone rang in her ear. One ring, two, then three. Sam's heart thudded in her ears. Wait, heart? Since when did she have a heart?
This idiot had better be awake.
Four rings, then five.
If she had a heart, then maybe she wasn't dead. Danny had a functioning heart, didn't he? Sam couldn't remember. His biology was so strange and inconsistent. Maybe he did, which meant that maybe Sam wasn't dead dead; maybe she was just a halfa!
But how?
On the sixth ring, he picked up. His voice was thick, full of unshed sleep as he mumbled in a scratchy, drawn-out voice, "Sam? Wha...?"
"Danny!" Sam could taste the relief on her lips. "Danny, I need your help. I don't—something—"
"Whoa." Danny's voice on the other end was low, and oddly alert.
But whatever issue he was having could hold off. "I don't know how to explain this! I just. You need to. Ugh, I don't know what's happening!"
"Wait," he said, almost distracted, as if he weren't actually talking to Sam.
No, her problems came first right now. "Danny, please!"
"Wait, wait, wait. Hang on, Sam, something—"
"I have a ghost core!"
"My core is missing!"
Silence echoed off the walls of the cell line between them. Sam's body was a cacophony of both wanting to breathe hard because that was what her body was used to, and also scoffing at the idea of breathing to calm down because breathing was pointless and she was a ghost, damnit! She could do better than that! Even though she wasn't a ghost. She was alive, she reminded herself.
Even if absolutely none of this should be possible.
It was Danny who broke the silence first. "Wait, what?"
Sam needed no further prompting to let the words spill from her mouth. "I have a ghost core now! I just woke up like this and I have no idea how it happened!"
To Sam's surprise, Danny began to laugh.
Genuinely laugh.
"What the hell, Danny?" Sam hissed. Around her, the lights flickered.
"No, sorry, it's just that I'm glad that this mystery is already halfway solved. If you were anyone else, I don't know what I would have done."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm saying my core is gone, Sam! Not off, but like, gone. It's not in my chest anymore. I'm human. But you have a ghost core. So somehow it seems like my core moved into your body."
Sam jerked back in bed, leaning against her disheveled cushions and scoffing. "That's ridiculous."
Danny didn't miss a beat. "Yeah, but my entire life is ridiculous. That's kind of part of the deal."
"Okay, fair. But still, what the hell am I going to do? I don't know how to use this core! I'm going to get discovered by first period!"
"Sam." Danny laughed. "Be real. I've transformed in the middle of the street and no one's ever caught me."
Well, he did have a point.
"Seriously, you'll be fine. And besides, even if you do accidentally turn invisible in front of someone, everyone in this town knows that when people get ecto-contamination, they sometimes show weird ghostly side effects. It wouldn't be too hard to say, oh I don't know, you accidentally dropped a beaker of one of my parents' inventions on you and you're just having some side effects while it wears off!"
If Sam wasn't trying to reassure herself that everything would be okay, she might have been impressed at how easily Danny thought of that simple lie. Impressed, and also maybe a little concerned.
"You'll be fine! Just hang tight ‘til we can figure out what's going on, anyway."
"Sure," she said. She breathed, releasing the knot in her stomach as she did. "Okay, okay, I'm good now."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Okay, see you in a bit."
She clicked off before he could respond, and her phone slipped through intangible fingers, bouncing against her mattress and settling next to her leg.
She had ghost powers.
Not just any ghost powers, but Danny's ghost powers.
Somehow.
Inexplicably.
Neither of them had a single clue why, but somehow, they'd managed to swap human-halfa statuses.
So, Sam had Danny's ghost powers. His Phantom powers. The powers he, an overpowered halfa, used to fight other ghosts. And now, Sam had them in the palm of her hand.
Literally.
And she had to act normal.
Right. Yes. Yup, that was fine. This was all totally fine.
"Sammykins!" the nails-on-chalkboard sound of her mother's shrill voice called from the bannister. "Get up! You're going to be late for school!"
Sam could feel the ectoblast tingling at her fingertips.
But no, this wasn't a dangerous creature. Okay, her mother was absolutely a dangerous creature, especially when given the power of the PTA on her side.
Sam shuddered. The PTA was everyone in town's worst nightmare.
But still, this was her mother, a human. A very annoying, preppy woman. Not a dangerous ghost. So, she squashed the tingling of the ectoplasm and jumped from her bed. "I know!"
Showering was odd. More than odd, actually, it was downright outrageous.
The hot water licked her skin like fire. It was muggy, and the humidity, once relaxing, suffocated her. Her internal body temperature rose with each passing second, and where she used to cry a defensive, "Goths don't sweat, we simmer!" to those who would poke fun at her not-so-summer attire, now, that simmering felt more like actual boiling.
Her hand shot out and yanked the lever to the cold setting. Almost immediately, the water went from trying to slow-roast her alive, to gently kissing her skin.
She sighed, both relief and horror filling her at once.
Relief because wow, this cold shower was seriously amazing.
And horror because to her recollection, the only people on Earth who enjoyed icy cold showers were male social media influencers who posted about waking up at five in the morning for the daily rise and grind.
If ghost powers turned her into a rise and grinder, Sam was going to kill herself.
Miraculously, she managed to get through the morning without her mother noticing anything. Well, probably because Sam and her mother rarely if ever interacted face-to-face in the morning. If they did, all Pam could manage was a comment about how Sam's outfit wasn't ladylike, while Sam could only respond with a scowl in her mother's direction. So, for both of their sanities, they found it best to interact as little as possible before they had their morning coffees.
Intangibility only caused her to drop her spider backpack once before she was able to sling the straps over her shoulders. It really was such a pesky thing, and she almost regretted all the times when she'd made fun of Danny's sudden clumsiness post-accident.
Almost.
But not quite.
Because what were best friends for if not to make fun of each other?
"Bye, Mom!" she yelled to the empty air and then stepped through the threshold of the door.
Or, tried.
She hadn't meant to literally step through the threshold. As in, begin sinking through the floor.
Heart pounding, she swung her hands out and caught the side of the doorframe. Using a mix of adrenaline and physical training, she pulled her body back up. Her legs returned to the world of tangibility, and she sat on the floor, breathing rapidly.
Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.
What the hell was that?
She'd just stepped through the floor. She'd just stepped through the floor.
"Sam!" yelled out a voice from the street.
She'd never been so thankful to see the obnoxious yellow of Tucker's sweater before.
She opened her mouth, but the words caught in her throat, and her vision began swimming. Had Danny told him? Or was Tucker blissfully unaware? How was Sam going to explain all this?
Thankfully, Sam was saved.
"Need some help?" Tucker asked. "Danny texted!"
Normally, she would have felt insulted that anyone dare ask if she needed help up. But this time? Screw it.
"Yeah, actually."
"Are you leaving?" Sam's mother called from the bathroom upstairs where Sam knew she was layering her face under a mountain of anti-ageing products.
"Yup! Going now!" Sam answered. "Tucker's here!"
"Tell him not to walk on the lawn! I just got it trimmed!"
Sam rolled her eyes, turning back to the sound of Tucker’s footsteps traversing up their flawlessly power-washed walkway.
"Here." He held out his arm. "Don't worry, no one's looking."
Once convinced she wasn't going to start sinking to the other side of the planet again, Sam gingerly stood and tested her feet against the floor.
Her brain was happy to report that the floor was, in fact, solid.
Thank goodness.
She made quick work of shutting the door behind her, darting off her property, and, most importantly, getting away from her mother's prying eyes.
Once they were safely on the other side of the tall, privacy hedges, she whipped around to face Tucker and said, "I don't know what the hell Danny told you, but I'm kind of freaking out right now."
"So is he," Tucker said. "He said he'd meet us at school, by the way. He's poking around in his basement for any leads and then is gonna get a ride from Jazz. But I'll be honest, I thought y'all were pulling my leg ‘til I saw you going through the floor."
"Yeah, this is legit." Sam stuck her palm out and let the cold crystals surface on her skin, gathering them until they formed a sheet of ice on her palm. She saw Tucker's eyes widen and heard a sharp inhale with her newly acquired acute hearing, but otherwise, he didn't say anything until she tipped her palm over and let the ice fracture on the ground.
"What the hell?" Tucker breathed.
"Right?" Sam groaned. "I don't know what I'm going to do! I only barely have a lid on these powers right now."
"You'll be fine. Danny was, wasn't he?"
"Yeah, but Danny's core was a lot weaker back then. I've got it at full power right now, and I have zero idea where the brakes are in this thing."
Tucker didn't seem fazed, his stride overly bouncy and dare Sam say joyful for the situation at hand. "Yeah, but you're way more athletic and into the whole occult thing than Danny is anyway. You're a goth! I'm sure you'll figure it out. And if it makes you feel better, Danny's transformed in broad daylight loads of times and nobody's noticed."
"Yeah, he mentioned that over the phone too."
"Right? You'll be fine."
"Thanks, Tuck," Sam said, then faltered, her body flickering out of visibility for a split second before she rounded on Tucker, mouth gaping. "Wait, were you, Tucker Foley, trying to make me feel better? Me, the ultra recyclo vegetarian? Doesn't that go against your meat code of ethics or something?"
"Yeah, I know, right? What has the world come to where I'm out here consoling you? Tragic times and all."
Sam slugged his arm playfully.
"Don't tell Danny or he'll never let me live it down," Tucker added.
Sam snorted, adjusting her purple spider backpack straps and bounding forward. They walked in a comfortable silence for half a minute before Tucker broke her tranquility to talk about some game he was playing (badly, Sam mentally thought). He narrated his great epic about how much he'd grinded until he found some hack—a hack that Sam knew he didn't actually find but probably read about on Reddit—and at that point Sam was forced to interject because if Tucker had just played the game's tutorial properly or not skipped over all the cutscenes, he would have known a far easier way to level up than grinding those low-level monsters he'd been fighting and—ugh, Tucker could be so infuriating sometimes.
"See, I know you're mad at me right now because your eyes are literally glowing."
"I'm not mad at you!" Sam argued, pinching the bridge of her nose like she'd seen Danny do dozens of times to calm his eyes down. It didn't feel like it was doing much for her, though. "I just can't believe you're seriously so inept that you're resorting to digging for hacks on Reddit instead of just playing the game properly! See, this is why you suck at gaming. I don't play video games nearly as much as you but I always kick your ass because I try."
"And I don't?" Tucker said, affronted.
"No! You just look for cheats!"
"Because I'm working smarter, not harder!"
"And that's why you never get any better!"
They rounded the corner, and the school campus began peeking into view.
"Oh shit, hang on. I need to make my eyes stop glowing." Sam turned around to face the window of a closed store. Her reflection was faint, but even then she could see her eyes glowing fiercely. "Shit. How do I turn this off?"
"Don't be such a hothead."
Sam stamped her foot. "I'm not a hothead!"
"Oh damn, what am I walking into?" said a voice that had never filled Sam with so much relief as it did now.
A hand touched her shoulder, and Sam peered through her bangs to see the bright blue eyes of Danny Fenton. She took a deep breath from her gut just like she'd always practiced in her weekly yoga classes and felt the power recede into her body.
"Hey, Danny," she said sheepishly.
"You looked like you were about to punch Tucker through the window."
"I did want to punch Tucker through the window."
"What did that poor window ever do to you?" Tucker quipped.
Sam rolled her eyes. "Yeah, it's the window I was arguing with. You were just the projectile, for sure."
"Seems like you got pretty good control over these powers, though," Danny said, eyeing her up and down.
Sam imagined he was expecting to find her in his typical state: covered in some amount of blood, ectoplasm, and dirt. Fortunately, she'd managed to make it to school unscathed.
"Oh no, you totally missed the part where she literally ate shit going through her door," Tucker cackled, wiping an invisible tear from his eye. "It was amazing. You should have been there. I've never seen our girl look so uncoordinated in her life."
Sam didn't even try to suppress the glow from her eyes as she rounded back on their very annoying friend and glared. "Another word and I will throw you through this window!"
"Yeah, yeah, sure you will!"
Danny stuck his hand out and flicked Tucker's cheek. "So, we going to class or what? Bell's about to ring and if I get one more tardy this week, Lancer said I'll owe him a Saturday detention."
Sam steeled herself, looking across the street at her biggest adversary this year: the school. "Fine, let's go."
****
Somehow, Sam prevailed through homeroom without falling through her chair. Although, her new ghost core had certainly threatened to send her ass not just through her chair, but into the goddamn floor multiple times.
She had also managed to weather their English written check-in on the assigned book they were reading. Or, the book that some of them had been reading. Sam, of course, was one of the people who had legitimately read it. Persepolis was an easy read, after all, with it being a graphic novel and all. And besides, Sam could never call herself a feminist if she neglected to read the stories of women from other parts of the world.
On the other hand, Sam was pretty sure that both Danny and Tucker had thoroughly failed the open response question, even with her giving a verbal synopsis of the book before class had started.
"Wait, who's Ebi?" Tucker had asked.
Sam wanted to throttle him. "He's Marji's father!"
"Who's Marji?" Danny asked.
"The main character, Danny. "
Yeah, they'd definitely failed the check-in.
But since the class had finished early, they had the rest of the period to chat. Or, in Sam's case, sit there trying to stay visible and in her chair.
"You have too much energy," Danny explained, looking thoroughly too unconcerned for their current predicament as he doodled spirals in the margins of his notebook. "You just need to burn it off."
"How the hell am I supposed to do that?" Sam asked. "We're in fucking school!"
"You can do it after school."
"Wow, gee, you're so helpful. I'm so glad you told me this at the beginning of the school day instead of, you know, texting me or something before school!"
"I forgot," Danny said, waving his hand as if to shoo her away.
"You're useless is what you are."
And he truly was. For as long as Danny had ghost powers, Sam realized that he didn't actually understand them to a shocking degree. Well, he was a boy after all, and boys could be a bit dense. Then again, there was a bit dense and then there was Danny, who seemed like such an airhead at times, that Sam was concerned that all those ghost fights had knocked all his brains from his skull.
"You'll figure it out," is what Danny said.
Sam did not win the fight to resist throwing her pencil at him.
Mr. Lancer, who seemed to have a knack for turning his head to see the exact moment when a student was breaking a rule, tilted his head in an expression that plainly read: are you fucking serious?
"Sorry!" Sam called. "Danny was being annoying!"
"When isn't Fentwerp being annoying?" Dash snickered.
Danny glared at Dash. "I'll stop being annoying if you take this pencil and shove it up your—"
"Boys!" Lancer's voice boomed through the classroom. "It's too early for this. Stop."
Dash grumbled something under his breath but otherwise turned back to his conversation with Kwan.
"And Ms. Manson," Lancer added, his expression rotating to its previous exasperation, "please don't throw pencils in my classroom."
"Fine, sorry," Sam said without conviction.
Apparently, though, that was enough for Mr. Lancer, who seemed content to return his attention down to the stack of papers and the red pen in his fingers.
"You are annoying me, you know," Sam told Danny. "Seriously, you haven't given me one bit of useful advice this entire day."
"Yeah, well, I don't know. I'm not a god, you know." Then he paused his doodling, chuckling to himself. "I'm not Clockwork."
"Clockwork, oh gracious god of time!" Tucker raised his hands up to the ceiling. "If you can hear us, please do grace us with your presence so Miss Sammykins can not eat shit on the floor! Even if from a purely objective standpoint that would be incredibly funny!"
"No it would not be!" Sam hissed.
Danny glanced up. "He's not gonna come for this, you know. He wouldn't even show up when Vlad had kidnapped me in his basement that one time."
Sam and Tucker rounded on him, simultaneously crying, "He did what?"
Once again, Danny looked far too unconcerned. "Oh yeah, he was trying to get my mid-morph DNA. Did I not tell you about that? The loser was using it for his stupid clone project. Seriously, he's such a creep."
"Oh, so that's how Danielle got stabilized? Vlad stole your mid-morph DNA after he kidnapped you?" Tucker asked.
"Yup."
Sam realized her mouth was gaping like a fish, and she forced her jaw back together. "Your life is so fucked up, you know that?"
Danny just continued doodling in his notebook. "Yeah, well, now you have my core so...good luck!"
If luck was what she needed, then she was about to cast every Wiccan spell she knew to get it.
Fortunately, she managed to stay mostly intact through the rest of the period. Though, her legs did flicker in and out of visibility a few times. They were under her desk, so no one could see. But for good measure, she stole Tucker's jacket to cover her lap like a blanket, much to his protest.
A blunt "you'll live" was just about all the sympathy that he'd gotten from Sam.
As the day droned on, Sam began to get used to the core in her chest. It was a constant cold presence that seemed to send chill gusts anytime it was looking to cause mayhem in the form of intangibility or invisibility. And once she recognized the feeling of that cool energy balling up, she began learning how to brace herself for when it striked.
Of course, she wasn't successful in stopping all the cool gusts of energy. She was a novice, after all. But she was very proud of herself that she'd managed to begin teaching herself the first steps.
And also, very annoyed because that meant Danny's nails-on-chalkboard advice of "you'll figure it out" actually had some merit to it.
Not that she'd ever admit that to him. He and his advice could eat rocks for all she cared.
Point was, she had actually begun to get a grasp on whatever the hell was going on with her body. In the half hour before the lunch bell, she'd even started to hone her new abilities enough to make tiny ecto-ice crystals in the palm of her hand under her desk. She was at least partially certain that she could make these crystals on a bigger scale given the opportunity, but for some reason, she didn't think her teachers or the school administration would appreciate a seemingly-human student erecting giant crystals of unmeltable ice in the middle of their classrooms.
Though, their reactions would be very funny.
When the lunch bell rang, Sam was—for the first time—the first person out of the room, darting through the halls as if she'd personally been victimized by that biology class. Which, given the amount of worksheets that teacher loved to hand out, wasn't actually too far off from the truth.
Regardless, Sam was already halfway down the hall before she remembered to sling her spider backpack over both shoulders. She was the first to claim refuge in the trio's normally near-empty table, and given her boys seemed to be really taking their time today, to refrain from squirming in her seat like a toddler, she hid one hand in her lap and willed an ice crystal to her fist. This time, she was testing to see if she could make a simple shape with it. A flat disc, she decided.
The crystal that formed wasn't exactly the smooth, flat disc she'd been envisioning. It was a bit rough, and it wasn't that thin either. But it wasn't like the round, perl-like ecto-ice that she'd willed to existence on a previous attempt. This one was different, and different meant that she was improving.
"You surviving?" a voice called over her shoulder.
She startled, getting so consumed by the ecto-ice, that she forgot that she'd been waiting for her friends to arrive.
"Barely, but I'm doing it," she responded to Tucker, who'd practically fallen into his normal lunch seat.
"Well, that makes one of us. I thought Mr. Falluca was actually trying to murder us with the amount of homework he assigned."
"Tuck, he gave time in class to do it."
"And I clearly didn't work on it during class. That's what I have you for!" He leaned forward and pressed his fingers into a prayer. "I have you here to lend me your answers!"
Sam frowned. "And what are you offering in return?"
"A free hug?"
"Yeah, I don't think so"
"I know, I was just messing with you." Tucker grinned. "How about the bio homework?"
Sam tapped her chin, pretending to think about it. "Well, well, well, Mr. Foley. You've got yourself a deal." She stuck her hand out, and Tucker was quick to grasp her palm and shake her one hand with his two in an exaggerated motion.
"Thanks, Sam! You're the best."
"Well," Sam said, taking her hand back. "Don't thank me yet. You still have to do the bio homework. Knowing that class, that could be a whole thing."
"It's fine. Bio homework is usually fast for me."
"We're talking about Bio?" Danny asked, placing his lunch tray down and taking his seat across the table.
Sam looked over, brightening. "Oh hey, Danny! Yeah, we are. Unfortunately."
Danny suddenly looked like he wanted to throw up. "Ugh, hate that class."
"Don't we all?" Tucker lamented
"I don't even know what we're learning right now," Danny said
"I don't think anyone knows," Tucker said.
"And you're doing my homework for me?" Sam asked as Tucker shoveled a bite of food into his mouth.
He chewed for a moment as if to be polite, and then decided to abandon that idea and talk with a full mouth instead. "Don't worry, I'll figure it out. I always do!"
"Gross," Sam scoffed. "I don't need to see your gory, spit-covered meat disaster."
"The school's gory, spit-covered meat disaster, actually." Tucker gestured to his lunch tray.
"That doesn't make it any better."
"Guys," Danny interrupted, his face contorting into that exasperated expression it always did when she and Tucker started fighting about food. "Seriously? If you two get into this, Sam's eyes are gonna turn green again."
Sam squeezed the edges of the ecto-ice in her palms, anticipation clawing at her skin. "Actually, I've made some progress with it."
Danny perked up. "With figuring out how to switch things back to normal?"
"No. Better! I've starting figuring out how these powers work." Sam presented her palm to the two boys, the misshapen ice-disc proudly on display.
It took Sam a moment too late to realize that she probably looked like a toddler presenting their scribbled drawing to their parents that could be either a human or a cat depending on which angle the parent was looking at the scribbles from.
And she could see in their faces that this was exactly how Tucker and Danny were taking it. From Danny, a police nod at her lump of ice, and from Tucker, a squint through his glasses and a look that said, "huh?"
"The ice," Sam explained. "I've started to figure out how to shape and size it."
"Oh, that makes a lot more sense," Danny said, clearly relieved.
"Yeah, I thought all that ectoenergy managed to loosen a few screws, if you know what I'm saying." Tucker circled his pointer finger around the size of his head in the universal crazy gesture. "But, uh, congrats?"
"That awesome, Sam! Jeez, you're picking this up fast. It took me weeks before I figured out how to not turn the entire room into a blizzard whenever I turned the powers on."
"If it makes you feel better, I'm just copying you." Sam shrugged, placing the ice on the table. She stabbed her lettuce with her fork and held it in the air for a moment, amusement seeping into her at Danny who scooped the ice up like a dog being given a new squeaky toy for its birthday.
He turned it around in his fingers, inspecting every scratch in the ice. "Hey, this is actually pretty good. It takes a while to get the hang of it. You really have to be specific on how you picture the item. Well, at first anyway. Over time, it gets a lot easier. But when I was first starting out, I had to clear my brain out before I made anything."
"Clearing your brain out? That shouldn't be too hard for you. There's nothing there to begin with."
Danny shot Tucker a glare. "Very funny."
"Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all night."
Sam ignored him. "I just need to practice." She shivered, and intangibility threatened to send her crashing to the ground. It took all her might to stave it off. "And, I need to burn this energy off. Hey, can you show me how right after school? Since we have no idea how long we'll be switched like this and all."
"Yeah, sure," Danny said.
Sam straightened, and began eating her salad with newfound vigor. She was going to burn the energy off regardless, but having someone there to coach her and help her control it would be immensely helpful.
All she had to do was make it through the rest of her school day.
I have a finished and finalised design for Sam in my Halfa Trio AU! I will also be including Halfa everlasting trio in most of my dp x dc crossovers (i will die with this ship, like they died with each other).
So welcome the duo sword wielding, supernatural expert and resident money-banks of the Phantom trio.
