Unfortunately, the time for phasing out of existence had passed, and with it, all hope Danny had of getting out of this without at least detention. He and Tucker sat down at a couple of desks in Lancer’s otherwise empty classroom, Dash leaning against the wall, Po stood at the doorway with the other blonde in front of ver.
"Okay," she said as Mr. Lancer was rifling through filing cabinets. "So what is happening here?"
"Just one minute more Miss Smythe," Mr. Lancer cleared his throat, slapping a couple of folders down on his desk, and looked at Tucker. Raising his eyebrows as he spoke again, "Mr. Foley, chronically tardy, talking in class, loitering outside the girls' bathroom."
Danny also looked at Tucker, raising an eyebrow as Tuck smiled slyly, but snapped back to attention when Lancer looked at him.
"And Mr. Fenton, two hundred seventy-six accounts of dropped beakers in the last couple years, along with a recently passed ban from holding any fragile school property, but no major issues." Danny shrunk back into his seat as he felt the three teens near the door stare at him.
He heard Po whisper, "A full-out ban doesn't count as a major issue?"
If possible he shrunk down even more, shoulders sloped. Mr. Lancer crossed his arms. "So tell me, gentlemen, what was it that prompted you to conspire to destroy the cafeteria, AND SABOTAGE OUR BELOVED SCHOOL NEWSPAPER??"
"Dash started the food fight," Danny didn't feel bad in the slightest for lying since Dash was smiling at him so smugly. "And we didn't do anything to the newspaper!"
The blonde looked them up and down critically, "I don't think that these two could cause that big of a thud, they're too thin!"
"Practically sticks." Po nodded, giving a half shrug. "Especially Danny."
Danny wasn't sure if he was offended by being called out like that, or maybe a little excited that one of the popular kids knew his name and wasn't using it to outright curse him. Actually, he wasn't sure that Dash knew his first name so maybe that didn't count.
Mr. Lancer frowned at Danny and Tucker but seemed to be considering the Smythes’ input. So, like the fool he is, Danny pushed his nonexistent luck. "Dash-"
"Threw three touchdowns at our last game and is thereby exempt from scorn," Lancer frowned heavily. "But since you two have no other explanations I must insist that you stay here as I sort out your punishments." He looked at Dash, "guard the door."
Dash's smug smirk hadn't wavered a millimeter this whole time, he nodded and then turned back to staring, gloating, at Danny.
"Miss Smythe, Mx Smythe, if you wouldn't mind accompanying me? As they did also ruin your work it's fair you get input on the punishments."
As the Smythes left the room murmuring their agreement, Danny thought he heard Po hum in disappointment. Which was worse than Dash's gloating. Cause like, at least Dash's smug face was something he was used to. Dash continues to smirk, for some reason going outside the room to guard the door from the outside.
Tucker turned to Danny, eyes wide. "We've got to go save Sam," he winced, "for some reason, I feel like I got her kidnapped!"
Danny sighed. "Maybe because you told the ghost she was the one to change the menu?"
"I think it's just survivor's guilt," Tucker said, standing up with a shrug. When suddenly he sniffed the air. "Hold on, that steak is still in the building!" He sniffed again, frowning. "Two hundred yards, tops."
“How easily do you think you could track it down?”
Tucker tapped his nose. “This baby has never steered me wrong!”
Danny paused just before transforming again. “That,” he blinked, “isn’t an answer.” With a deadpan look, Tucker crossed his arms as Danny ‘went ghost’. “Easily. Whoa!” Tucker jerks as Danny grabs his arm, the both of them turning intangible and sliding through the floor. “Alright, time to start the search!” “What am I a bloodhound?” Tucker’s annoyance was short-lived as he and Danny touched down in a strange sublevel. “Closer.” He sniffed a few more times, looking around. “And a lot of it.”
“Sounds like the right way.” Danny frowned, continuing the search.
“Sweet mother of mutton!” Tucker might’ve started crying as they entered the food basement, Danny shivered in the cold. “I dreamed of it,” Tucker had pressed himself in a strange hug against the stacks of boxes labeled as different kinds of meat. “But… I never thought I’d live to see it!”
“You dreamed of a chilled underground meat warehouse, actually, never mind.” Danny glanced around. “Are you sure this is the place? I mean, there’s a lot of meat here.”
No reply.
“Tuck?” Danny glanced back at his friend as there was a small crash. He sighed. “How is it that I have the ghost powers and you're the weird kid?”
Tucker had pushed a stack of boxes over, crashing them into a set of shelves. Standing up he froze, “-uh,” he pointed at an approaching figure. Danny jumped a little as Po came fully into view. “What are you doing down here?”
“Oh, I’m just,” ve leaned against a stack of boxes which fell over and tried to remain casually leaning on nothing. "Taking a walk, in the dark storage room, like ya do. But, uh, what are you two doing here? Did Mr. Lancer change his mind about your punishment?"
"I-yES!" Danny shouted. "YES! That's it! We need.... to..."
"What? We aren't-" Tucker said, frowning as he looked at Danny, but correctly changed course when Danny elbowed him. "Right. We're doing... meat inventory."
“Yeah,” Danny smiled, edging away slowly, “and we should get going now.”
"Or we could not." Tucker did some strange smirk and finger guns at Po, who frowned briefly. Danny mentally sighed, facepalming, so much for survivor's guilt.
“That is an option, yes,” Po said, putting ver right hand on ver hip. Danny almost was sure that ve was going to leave any second, but suddenly ver expression changed, smiling brightly. “That I wholeheartedly support! We could talk, you know I feel like we don't talk anymore!"
"But we didn't talk that much-" Danny started.
"Which should change!"
Danny sighed because obviously Tucker was being rapidly swayed by Po’s argument.
"Talking sounds good and all, but what about some other time? When we don't… have all this… inventory to do?" Danny said awkwardly, because like, in the school ecosystem, he is being paid attention to by a big fish in a small pond. And he didn’t really like that he was tempted to take advantage of the situation to raise his social standing. Sam is probably fine anyway.
Who is he kidding, Sam probably is still provoking the ghost with zero sense of self-preservation.
Po spread ver arms. "I got it! How about we take inventory together? It'll get done faster and we can talk while we walk!"
"It would seem like a good plan,” Danny said, nodding before raising a hand. “But maybe if we split up then it'll get done even faster?"
"Listen, guys," Po said, sighing as ve crossed ver arms. "I know you're not here to do meat inventory."
"Wh-what do you mean?"
"If you really don't want to help clean up the newsroom that much Nood and I can have a talk with Mr. Lancer about it, you don't need to flee four floors below the school to live among the meat." Po rolled ver eyes. "Plus I'm pretty sure that the menu change won't last another day. The janitor would riot."
"Oh, OH!" Danny tried not to grin. "Really? You would?”
Po crossed ver arms, scoffing as ve said. “Duh, we’ve known you for like, fifteen years Danny. Even if we don’t get along, and you’re kind of a loser, and your pants fall down way too often to where it’s frankly concerning, and your dad did lock us in a cage in freshman year because he thought there was a ‘ghost’ at the school because something blew up in his basement, and-”
“Okay, I get it!” Danny held up his hands, kinda confused. “Thanks? I guess?”
“No more dirt!” Tucker cheered. He seemed to have sort of gotten stuck on that bit, which Danny couldn’t blame him for.
“So, you guys gonna… go now?”
“Uhm,” Danny looked around wildly, eyes locking on Tucker as he came up with an excuse for them to stay a little longer. “I think Tucker still needs some time here.”
“Oh.”
“Uh, alone.”
Danny ignored Tucker’s indignant shout as Po’s eyes widened. “Oh, ew, uhm. Bye, then. See you tomorrow in class.” Tucker watched as ve hurriedly walked away.
“Danny!” Tucker groaned. “Now all my hopes of getting an introduction to the cheer team are dashed!”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think they were that likely to begin with. Besides, isn’t the weird underground meat storage what you’ve dreamed of?” Danny said, raising an eyebrow. “And in case you forgot, we still need to find Sam.”
“I guess.” Tucker sighed, and they rounded the corner where Po had come from. “Oh hey!”
In a clearing from shelves, the Lunch Lady was removing an assortment of meat from Sam. Who seemed more angry than frightened. “I went through a lot of work to get my petitions and proposed menus accepted and this is the thanks I get? I’ve been working on this for two years !”
“My dear child...meat is good for kids! It helps them grow and makes them smile!” The Lunch Lady tutted, but Danny wasn’t sure what to do as she seemed to have calmed down, treating Sam like a toddler throwing a tantrum. And she was taking the meat off.
“We don't need meat. That's a fact!” Sam shouted.
“SILENCE!!” The Lunch Lady dropped the steak she’d just lifted. “You need discipline! Manners! Respect! Do you know where that comes from? MEAT!!” She took a deep breath, closing her eyes. “Chicken, or fish?”
“GET ME OUT OF HERE!”
Okay, she stopped taking the meat off. “I'll take care of the ghost,” Danny said. “You just find a way to get Sam out of that pile of meat!”
“Way ahead of ya!”
Danny did a double take as Tucker procured a knife and fork. “Have, have you been carrying those around this whole time?”
“Just since lunch, I was planning on breaking into the teacher’s lounge to investigate.”
“Ah, well, I’m going ghost!” Danny closed his eyes. Opening them to fly forward, giving the Lunch Lady a hard shove.
“I’ll have you free in no time Sam!” Tucker said cheerfully.
“Ugh,” Sam groaned as he just started eating. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Get, uh,” Danny landed in front of the Lunch Lady, who glared up at him. “Get out of here!”
“You barely made me budge!” She shouted. Danny took that personally. Rushing toward her to attack, she caught his fist before it made contact. “See this??” He blinked, now hanging in the air from where she held his arm. “This is why you need meat! You’re just skin and bones!” Danny felt attacked in more than one way as she threw him through the air, for one she just threw him against the wall, and for another, he knew that he wasn’t eating well and didn’t need the reminder. Nor did he need the Lunch Lady to just scoff and fly away.
Sam shouted again. “Danny? I’d rather not wait ten years for Tucker to finish!”
“Yeah, okay.” Danny frowned, looking up where the Lunch Lady had just… ascended? “Be right there.” With that said Danny winced, getting up and floating to the meat pile. “Hold still.” Quickly going intangible, he grabbed Sam and Tucker, flying up until they were outside. Letting go with a gasp, he fell to his knees and (de)transformed. Flopping back onto his back he groaned.
“Gee, Danny. Fighting meat monsters, flying through walls…” Sam frowned. “You must be exhausted.”
“What?” Danny forced a laugh, attempting to stand. “No of course not! What, would, give… you… that…”
When Danny woke up he was in bed, Sam and Tucker anxiously looking at him from either side of his bedroom, and they rushed over to the bed. “Ah! Aah! Wha? What's going on?”
Tucker sat down, brow furrowed. “You passed out! We took you home, you’ve been asleep for four days!”
Panic flooded Danny who rapidly sat up, how did his parents respond? What happened while he was out? Wh-oh. He noticed Tucker laughing. “Nah, it’s only been a couple of hours. And your parents seemed to be more worried about Jazz than you.”
Danny laid back, sighing. “Dad thinks she’s a ghost again.”
“Yep.”
“Knock it off, Tucker.” Sam put her hands on her hips. “This is the second time today your carelessness almost got him killed.”
“ Me? I almost got him killed? The only reason this happened is because you had to be ‘unique’. You had to take the meat away!” Tucker said, standing upright from where he was leaning on the bed. “And I’m gonna make sure we get it back!” With that, he stalked out of the room.
Sam’s expression darkened, and she shouted after him. “You want to change the menu back?? YOU’RE JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE! INCAPABLE OF CHANGING FOR THE BETTER!” She ran out the door after him, well probably to home. But she did leave after him. Danny sighed.
He looked at the door that had been slammed closed after her. “Oh well. I'm sure everything will be back to normal by tomorrow.”
“Or maybe it’s so much worse.” The next day Danny stood outside of the school, giant set-ups for both ‘teams’ on either side.
“Who,” The blonde girl, Nood, was wheezing with laughter. She, Po, and their friend the foreign exchange student were similarly caught between the two groups. “Hah! Who did this -hah!-overnight!”
Tucker’s voice blared out from speakers set on a stage, the cheer team was dressed in hot dog outfits behind him, dancing. “What do we want?”
“Meat!”
“When do we want it?”
“Now!”
Various students and a few adults that Danny didn’t recognize were in the meat crowd, chanting in response to Tucker’s lead. Vaguely Danny wondered how he managed to get so many people to follow him, then he remembered the universal outrage in the cafeteria yesterday. On the side of the schoolyard, Sam stood on a school bus surrounded by hippies and a few goths who looked mostly annoyed. They weren’t holding signs like the others but seemed to just not want to stand with the popular kids. Sam and her cohorts were chanting into megaphones.
“Veggies now! Veggies forever! Veggies now! Veggies forever!”
“What on earth?” Po was staring at the groups.
The foreign exchange student frowned, raising his eyebrows. “This is dumb.”
Danny didn’t have time to try and respond before Tucker and Sam were marching toward him. He shook his head at them as they glared at each other. “You guys put together two protests in one night?”
“Meat-eaters, Danny. Always ready to fight.” Tucker smiled smugly at Sam, still somehow glaring at the same time. “And our high-protein diets give us the energy we need to do it quickly.”
“-I already talked with the principal and teachers, and we agreed that it was wiser to go back to the old menu.”
Danny heaved another sigh as Po and company continued their discussion in the background, further proving this whole fight was pointless. “Guys-”
“Ultra recyclo-vegetarians are always ready to protest,” Sam growled.
“Guys.”
“And because we don't have to waste time cooking our food,” she said, with a sudden grin, “we can move even faster.”
“GUYS!” Danny threw his hands in the air, and Sam and Tucker turned to him abruptly. “Don’t you think this is a little extreme?”
“No choice-”
“- what in the sweet fresh world of madness YOU PEOPLE DON'T EVEN GO TO THIS SCHOOL?!” Tucker was cut off by Po’s shouting. “GET OUT OF HERE!” Sam looked very deflated as the majority of her rally disbanded. Danny shivered as a cold wind blew through, and his ghost sense went off.
“Okay guys,” The meat from the meat rally had swirled into the air, a giant Lunchmeat Lady standing. Danny gulped. “It’s time to make up.”
“IT’S LUNCHTIME!” She cackled.
Tucker fell to his knees as the meat rally also disbanded, with much screaming. “Meat! Why have you betrayed me?!”
“Now!”
Tucker stood, begrudgingly ‘hugging’ Sam to hide Danny as he transformed. He flew up towards the ghost, who was less ghost and more haunted meat at this point, squaring his shoulders. And getting smacked into the air. “AAAAAAHH-” Danny paused, “Wait.” He blinked. Struggling for a second. Before stilling “Oh wow, flying really helps with your momentum in the air. And I can see my house from here.”
He sped back down to the Lunch Lady, landing a solid kick in her… face? “Sorry, you seem like you need some tenderizing!”
His epic quips were cut short by a few screams, a food truck from the meat rally had launched into the air and was rocketing back down toward a group of students who were trying to scatter out of the way. Danny was really over all this, the menu was changed back anyway! He rushed over to turn the truck intangible, but unfortunately for the truck, he let go of it as it was partially in the ground. Danny winced as the concrete suddenly cracked. “Listen, Lady,” He dodged a volley of meat. “The menu-” he put his arms in front of his face. “-is fixed!” Flying into a direct impact with the meat monster resulting in meat flying everywhere.
Danny groans, slowly sitting up from where he had landed in a huge crater. The Lunch Lady peered over the side of the crater. “Oh, dear! What a mess! Are you okay?”
“Ugh,” Danny rubbed his left arm. “Yeah, I think so.”
“I’m sorry dearie, did I hear you right?” She sniffed suddenly in a way that reminded him of Tucker and beamed. “Oh, it is true! The menu is back to normal! Thank you, dear.” She hauled him out of the crater, pinching his cheek. And she flew away, through where Jack and Maddie were talking with Jazz a little ways away. They seemed to have completely missed the whole fight for some reason. Suddenly the Lunch Lady flew back. “Try not to let the menu get changed again!” And she sunk into the ground.
“Uh.”
“Danny!” Sam and Tucker rushed over to him. “Are you okay?”
“What happened?” Sam looked around. “Where's the ghost?”
“I guess all she wanted was the menu changed back.”
“G h o s t—s t r a i g h t—a h e a d.” The Fenton Finder’s electric voice rang out as Jack and Maddie came jogging over.
“Danny! Where’s the ghost??” Maddie was looking around frantically.
“Y o u—w o u l d—h a v e—t o—b e—s o m e—s o r t—o f—m o r o n—t o—n o t—n o t i c e—t h e—g h o s t—d i r e c t l y—a h e a d.”
Jack looked up from the Fenton Finder towards him.
“Ah, sorry Dad.” Danny smiled weakly. “You just missed her.”
“We got a runner!” Jack and Maddie took off again. Jazz had been standing behind them, arms crossed.
“Great.” She rolled her eyes, walking away. “Back to square one.”
“So, you're not gonna tell 'em?” Tucker said once the trio were ‘alone’ in the courtyard.
Danny shook his head, briefly glancing at where the Lunch Lady disappeared. “Nah. I think I might've finally figured out something, about the ghosts, and my powers. They make me-”
“In a world of trouble.”
Danny sighed, deflating as Mr. Lancer came over, scowling down at them.
Right.
Just his luck.
for https://archiveofourown.org/works/40659168
bc the old image link broke and I need to fix it. Who knew. Anyway.
