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It’s been all of 3 days into his junior year, and Danny can’t stop shivering. He’s not sure what it means, only that it’s sort of familiar and clearly ghostly in origin, which of course means he should probably ask his parents about it. He grimaces at the thought, already dreading the worried poking and prodding he’d inevitably be subjected to in the lab.
“You okay Danny?” Sam asks to his left. Tucker has also looked up from his PDA and is sending him a questioning look.
“Fine,” Danny sighs. “I just can’t seem to get myself warm.”
Sam gives him a disgusted look as she aggressively fans herself with a well-used notebook. “Are you serious? I’ve been practically overheating. These past few days have been horrible.”
Tucker rolls his eyes and turns his attention back to whatever new program he’s working on. “You’re both so weird. The weather conditions this week have been statistically perfect. It’s been like 70 degrees outside for days now.”
“What?” Sam twists towards him, bewildered. “No it’s not. It’s gotta be at least in the 90s right now.”
“Sorry Sam, but Tuck’s right. According to the weather app, it’s 72 today,” Danny says as he checks his phone before pocketing it. Tucker sends a victorious smirk towards Sam.
“I don’t usually get this warm though.” She frowns deeply at her own body, seeming strangely discomfited by this.
Danny shrugs unbothered. “You know as well as I do that I tend to run cold. This isn’t abnormal for me.”
Tucker laughs and shoves him in the shoulder. “That’s so true, dude. You’re like a human refrigerator.”
“It’s just how my body is built I guess.” Danny allows himself a private smile at the fact that the statement is more true than either of them realize.
He looks back at Sam, wondering why she hasn’t made another quippy retort yet and sees her still staring almost uncomprehendingly at her arms.
“Hey Sam,” he says. “You good?”
She startles at his voice, like she had forgotten where she was, and then shakes her head with a smile that Danny can tell is slightly forced. “Fine,” she replies. “Let’s catch up to Tucker. We don’t want to end up late for chemistry.”
Danny watches her, unsure, before letting it go. Whatever Sam’s dealing with, she probably needs time to process it before telling him and Tucker.
“Hey,” he calls out as she tries to speed walk away. She looks at him questioningly, and he takes advantage of her confusion to quickly hook their elbows together.
“Since I’m running cold today, and you’re running hot, we might as well take advantage of it, right?” he asks mirthfully.
“Right,” Sam repeats, staring at him blankly, though her expression is less clouded so Danny takes it as a win. Her face is kind of red though, so maybe Danny’s cold body temperature isn’t helping as much as he expected, but she hasn’t let go, so surely it’s helping some.
They just barely manage to get into the chemistry lab before the bell rings, which probably means Danny has used all his luck for the week. The labs are done in pairs, which would typically be a problem for a three-person friend group, but Tucker’s friend Mikey is in this class, so Danny ends up with Sam. It’s an easy lab about salts and precipitates, and Danny can’t help but feel nostalgic for his parents’ chemical experiments in the Fenton Works Lab. Recently, Dad has been working with Frostbite to make an ectoplasmic substitute that Danny can consume with his meals. Since ectoplasm is vaguely radioactive, it would be difficult to easily access during school hours, and Danny’s body is different enough from a regular ghost’s that he can’t absorb the ambient ectoplasm of the Infinite Realms as well as most of them can. The best prototype they’ve managed so far kind of tastes like a cross between wet dog and marshmallow, but luckily, Danny knows his family is still fine tuning it.
A crash interrupts his thoughts, and he snaps his head towards the sound. He’s more than a little concerned when he sees Sam staring at the rack of broken test tubes on the floor like she doesn’t know how they got there.
“Miss Manson,” Mr. Falluca yells from across the room, “Need I remind you this is the 3rd time in as many days that you have broken glassware in this class?”
Sam looks panicked, and Danny has to resist the urge to step between her and the teacher.
“I’m sorry,” she says hoarsely. “I don’t know why I dropped the rack, it’s just… really slippery, I guess.”
Danny frowns slightly, feeling a weird sense of deja vu. He doesn’t remember the Accident that made him half-ghost considering he was all of 6 years old when he snuck into the Portal, but his mom has told him his fair share of embarrassing stories from the period of time when he was still adjusting to his powers.
‘You’d keep doing this thing,’ she’d say between giggles, ‘where your hands would phase through your toys, so you would keep dropping them. And you’d get so offended at your hands that you’d just pout at them with your little squishy face.’ The offended noise he made caused her to laugh again and tease, ‘And of course, you were so stubborn that you refused to admit it was your fault. You’d always insist the toys were too slippery.’
He only knows the story secondhand, but he’s strangely reminded of it now, as Sam gawks at her fingers in thinly veiled horror and mild disgust. Maybe he’s reading too much into Sam’s sudden uptick in clumsiness, but he can’t help the feeling that something more is going on here.
Danny helps her pick up the glassware and throw it away, giving her a reassuring smile when she flushes with embarrassment. After that, he resolves to keep an eye on her for the next few periods they have together.
Things continue to be weird. Sam really wasn’t joking about the overheating it seems; the air around her is significantly warmer than anywhere else, enough that a noticeable heat shimmer emanates from her, and she keeps tripping on nothing, a far cry from the usually confident and elegant walk she has that betrays her identity as a secret millionaire. And, most concerningly, in English class there’s a point where she glares at Paulina during a class discussion, and the girl’s Stanley cup explodes like it’s been shot. Everyone reasons it away as excess pressure inside, but Danny knows better. He wonders if maybe a ghost is pranking her, but if that were the case, wouldn’t his ghost sense have gone off by now? Despite the probably supernatural chill that’s been following him around at school all week, he still hasn’t seen his breath mist up in the characteristic way that Danny associates with ghost attacks.
At lunch, Sam complains to Tucker about Falluca’s attitude, and Danny tries his best to pay attention and prevent his friends from coming to blows when Tucker starts making fun of her newfound clumsiness. He’s not really the type to say it to their faces but he’s missed this. The three of them haven’t hung out since the first month of summer, and he basically spent the whole rest of his vacation, feeling their absence like a phantom limb.
He’s just barely managed to get Sam to let Tucker’s head out of a headlock when Skulker shows up and starts generally causing chaos. Danny internally groans as he pushes his friends into the sea of people rushing to the ghost-shielded safe zones before disappearing into the crowd himself and turning himself invisible and intangible. He flies up to the next floor, out of sight of any human, before pulling on the cold sensation of his core and letting the transformation overtake him. He straps the Fenton Thermos to his back and puts a Fenton Phone in his ear, pressing the emergency comms button on the side.
“Danny,” his mom’s voice crackles through the earpiece. “What is it?”
“Ghost attack at the school,” he replies, clipped and to the point. “It’s Skulker.”
“Skulker?” his mom sounds bewildered as she apparently types something out on the other end of the line, probably an SOS to Jazz and Dad. “Didn’t you two have an alliance?”
“We did,” Danny growls, irritated. Ghost interactions are largely governed by respect for each other’s prowess and forcefully established boundaries, so Danny’s ghost half will never not be defensive whenever someone encroaches on his Haunt without permission.
He sighs, uncapping the Thermos and keeping it ready. “I guess I'll go see what he wants then.”
“Alright,” his mother responds. “Jack and Jazz should be on their way too. ETA is 7 minutes.” He can hear her stop herself from ordering him to ‘be safe’. He hadn’t appreciated it when he was a little kid, and he would appreciate it even less now as a teenage boy, but he respects the sentiment.
He dives back down into the cafeteria, aiming straight for Skulker as he sends them both careening into the ground.
Skulker tries to throw him off, but Danny pins the robotic hunter to the floor. “You will not stop me from completing my hunt!”
“You agreed to stop hunting me,” Danny hisses.
Skulker struggles under him, again to no avail. “I did,” he concedes, “but I am the greatest hunter in the Infinite Realms, and if I cannot have your pelt, the other halfa’s will be a fine alternative.”
“Other halfa?” Surely he doesn’t mean Vlad, considering that fruit loop supplies half his tech. Danny’s eyebrows furrow as he tries to figure out what the ghost is talking about. “Skulker, what-”
A loud gasp of panic cuts him off and he feels Skulker turning in tandem with him towards the sound. A group of the students is still standing in the corner of the cafeteria, perhaps eager to watch another one of the ghost fights Amity Park is so infamous for. Amidst the students, Danny realizes with dread, stands Sam and Tucker, the lines of their faces drawn in growing horror as they realize both ghosts now have their eyes on the crowd.
Skulker uses his moment of distraction to break free, taking off towards the students. Cursing, Danny flies after him, heading him off right as he aims a blast at the screaming teenagers and hastily erecting a shield just barely in time to stave off the attack.
The students stand below him openly gawking, no doubt excited to see the real life Phantom in the noncorporeal flesh, and Danny feels his eyes flash in irritation.
“What are you waiting for?” he yells at them. “Run!”
Just as he shouts out to them, the shield between him and Skulker shatters against his finger tips. Luckily, the group finally seems to realize the danger they’re in, because they scatter just as Skulker throws Danny against a wall. He takes a moment to feel relief that Sam and Tucker are no longer in danger before pain temporarily robs him of his senses. Irritatingly, the first thing he hears when he comes to is more of Skulker’s voice again.
“Stay out of my way, whelp!” the robotic ghost yells. “It’s true you aren’t my prey, but if you interfere, I won’t be so lenient.”
Danny tosses disks of ectoplasmic energy at Skulker, smirking slightly as they explode against the hunter’s metal suit and cause the other ghost to hiss in pain.
“Skulker, what are you talking about? What other halfa?”
“You can’t tell?” Skulker asks. “You’ve always been able to sense another ghost in your presence. Surely you’ve sensed this one as well.”
Danny’s about to retort that no, of course not he’d definitely have noticed if his ghost sense was going off all day, when suddenly he remembers the strange chill that’s been following him around all week.
Skulker notices the realization blooming on his face and smirks condescendingly, like the jerk he is. Taking advantage of Danny’s momentary distraction, he turns on his jetpack and flies off after the students that have run off. Damn it. Danny speeds off after him, hoping he can hold him off long enough for Jazz and his dad to get here. He compartmentalizes the ensuing freakout over a new hybrid for later. As much as Danny wants answers, he has to worry about saving lives first.
Sam presses herself against the corner of the closet, trying her best to not make a sound. On that front, she should be probably more grateful for the fact that she doesn’t currently need to breathe, but as it is, the lack of lungs in her current form only serves to freak her out a bit more.
She doesn’t really know a lot of what the conversation between Phantom and the hunter ghost was, considering they were too far away for normal humans to hear and only just within the range of her newly heightened senses, but she does remember the word both of them used: halfa. Really, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what it means considering her recent life circumstances. The hunter ghost is looking for Sam, newly turned half-ghost.
That’s what she’s calling it anyway. She doesn’t really know the science behind what’s happening to her and definitely doesn’t want to ask the only ectobiologists in town with enough expertise to probably know what this is. All she knows is that the day her parents dragged her to Axion Labs to look for anti-ghost defenses was the same day Technus decided to take over, and then subsequently blow up, their communications satellite. She’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and though she doesn’t know if it was her life-threatening injuries, the electrocution, or the ectoradiation that caused it, she does know that it means she now has to deal with random ghostly side effects, like suddenly going intangible without warning, getting heat flashes randomly in the middle of the day, and… this. The weird color-swapped ghostly appearance she’s still trying to get the hang of switching back and forth from.
The ghostly appearance that signals in no uncertain terms that she’s the one the hunter is looking for. The one she can’t transform out of fast enough when the door to the dingy janitor’s closet she’s in suddenly swings open.
One of the two people she’d prefer never sees this side of her stares at her ghost form with wide eyes. Neither Sam nor Tucker look away for a few long moments before his face hardens and he turns away.
“You’re who that robot ghost is looking for, aren’t you?” Tucker asks, his face stony and appraising. Sam has never seen him look so cold to anyone before, and it’s kind of terrifying.
She’s forgotten to answer, she realizes, but Tucker just scoffs. “Whatever. I don’t have time for this. My friend is missing, and there’s a crazy ghost on the loose.”
“Danny’s probably with his family,” Sam blurts in confusion, before closing her mouth abruptly. She hadn’t meant to talk to him, not while he clearly doesn’t recognize her. She feels her face flushing and realizes with belated mortification that her blush in this form is green.
“Danny can handle himself against ghosts,” Tucker says with a dismissive wave. “I was talking about Sam.”
Both of them stiffen simultaneously, Sam at the sound of her name and Tucker at some thought that seems to strike him at that moment. He turns slowly back towards her with some unreadable quality behind his eyes.
“Why did you think I was talking about Danny?” Tucker asks slowly. “How do you know my friends?”
He leans close and roams his eyes over her curiously, and Sam scrambles further back against the wall in panic. God, her face is so warm. If she were any more willing to engage with self-delusion, she’d blame it on the heat that comes with her ghost form.
“Uh,” she winces hard at her inability to come up with a convincing lie on the spot, despite years of experience doing exactly that with her parents.
Tucker gasps way too loudly as his eyes comically widen, and Sam panics at the sudden sound, slapping a hand over his mouth before he can be noisy enough to draw the other ghost here.
“Be quieter, oh my god. Are you insane?” she hisses at him, feeling a burn in her eyes that she suspects might be visually apparent too. “Do you want to get me killed?”
“Holy shit!” Tucker whisper-yells into her hand. “Sam?”
Sam freezes and eyes him warily before slowly pulling her hand away. “There’s no way you figured that out just because I yelled at you.”
Tucker shakes his head rapidly and gives her a smug look. “It would be weird for a ghost to know who my friends are, which meant you were someone who actively talked to me. And you assumed I was asking about Danny, who is part of a well-known local ghosthunter family and therefore accounted for, which meant you knew where Sam must be, ergo-” He waves his hand around in some incomprehensible motion that presumably is supposed to indicate his thought process.
“Wow Tuck,” Sam says, reluctantly impressed. “You can be really smart sometimes when you’re not making a total fool of yourself.”
Tucker grins, all ridiculous overconfidence and boyish charm, but the smile fades quickly. “Sam, if you’re a ghost, then-”
“I’m not dead.” She rushes to clarify before he can ask. “Or well, not all the way.”
Tucker looks disbelieving still, so she turns her focus inwards, concentrating on the dual pulsing of cold and hot in her chest. She pulls on the cold sensation, and feels her ghost form recede as a black ring passes over her. Tucker stares at her in unabashed awe, causing her to flush again, though red this time instead of green. She should have counted her blessings when she was in ghost mode, because now she feels woefully aware of how his gaze causes her heart to skip beats.
“I had an accident over the summer,” she explains. “I got too close to a Phantom fight, and apparently the aftermath… changed me. I’ve been trying to figure out how to deal with the ghostly side effects for ages now, but as you could see from my embarrassing stunt in Chemistry earlier, I’m not really doing great at it.”
“In Chemistry, you dropped the glassware,” Tucker murmurs in realization. “Was that because you accidentally went intangible?”
Sam nods, relieved he understands and a bit smug that now he can’t hold her moment of clumsiness over her head.
Tucker seems lost in thought as he wraps his mind around this, and then his eyebrows furrow.
“Wait, why is that robot ghost after you then? I thought he had some sort of personal beef, but if you’re a new ghost-human… thing, you can’t have met him before, right?”
“I’ve been calling myself a half-ghost,” Sam supplies. “And no, I’ve never met him. I do know he’s a pretty well-known ghost with an Obsession for hunting, though. And I heard him say something to Phantom earlier when he was fighting. He mentioned something about a halfa.”
“Halfa,” Tucker repeated thoughtfully. “What are the chances that word has nothing to do with half-ghosts?”
“Not very high.”
“Hey,” Tucker sits up in excitement. “You said he mentioned the word to Phantom, right? That means Phantom could know more information.”
Sam sighs. “That would be very helpful if finding him didn’t mean potentially running into that hunter ghost.”
She’s no more than said the words when suddenly a rush of heat surges through her and she coughs up ashy smoke. A chill emanates from the door, and Tucker moves quickly away from it to conserve body heat. Sam quickly transforms and bodily places herself between Tucker and whatever is coming through the door. If the hunter ghost wants her, she’ll at least make sure he doesn’t hurt Tucker. A hand phases through the door, followed by the face and body of-
Phantom, who immediately chokes as he coughs out what looks like a burst of frosty air. He looks up in bewilderment, his eyes only growing wider when he catches sight of Tucker behind her.
He turns back towards her, openly gawking as he says, “What the fuck.”
When Danny finally catches up with Skulker at the school gym, his family is already there, Jazz wielding a Fenton-brand jack o’ nine tails and his dad shooting Skulker with ectoblasts from a bazooka on his shoulder. He flies over, helping his dad keep Skulker distracted while Jazz pulls out a Thermos. With the three of them working in tandem, taking down Skulker is short work.
As Jazz is capping the thermos up, Danny lands but doesn’t turn back to his human form, something Jazz obviously notices considering her eyebrow raise.
“I need to go back,” he explains. “There’s a ghost here that Skulker was looking for.” He considers telling them that this ghost is another halfa but decides to hold off. After all, the ghost is apparently a student here and might not be very enthused by him spilling their secrets. He’ll have to get them on board with getting help from the Fenton family later.
His dad nods in acknowledgement. “You need me to tell your teachers you’ve been held up for further help with ghost containment and clean-up?”
“Yes please,” Danny replies gratefully. He knows his frequent acts of truancy to fight ghosts would be a lot less manageable if his family didn’t cover for him.
Jazz smiles knowingly at him, probably aware that he wants to finish this as quickly as possible and get back to his friends. “I’ll take Skulker back to the GZ,” she says, using the colloquial term for the Infinite Realms that both his parents refuse to say. “If some time in the thermos hasn’t chilled him out, I’ll drop him off at Walker’s. I’m sure he’ll agree this counts as breaking into another ghost’s haunt.” Though Danny’s made various alliances and tenuous friendships with a lot of the Infinite Realms’s citizens, ghosts tend to chafe against restrictions, so escapement into the human world for a bit of chaotic fun is common. Walker has been helpful in that regard, since he’s not quite as intimidating as the Observants but still has legal control over the part of the Infinite Realms where the portal entrance resides.
“Hey Danno,” Dad calls as Danny turns to head back into the school, “if you’re going back in, let the other students out of the ghost shields, will you? That’ll give our story with the teachers a bit more credibility.” Danny nods, acquiescing to the request. It gives him an excuse to meet up with his friends for a few minutes anyway so he can soothe the intermittent panic he always feels during one of these situations.
The three of them go their separate ways to do their allotted tasks, used to the aftermath of a ghost attack as they are. Danny changes back to his human form before he heads to the safe zones, ostensibly to calm down the students, but mostly to make sure Sam and Tucker are okay. Most of the groups leave the ghost-shielded areas in an orderly fashion and return to their respective classes, but some stick around to try and talk to him, a frustrating endeavor he barely puts up with during school let alone now when his friends are both MIA. His social credibility as a Fenton family ghost-hunter may keep Sam and Tucker from being the targets of harassment, but it also means people he dislikes always feel the need to ask him questions about his family’s work. He ends the conversation quickly in a way that could barely be considered socially acceptable, leaving before they can try to rope him back in.
He goes through the safe zone procedures in record time, with almost everyone accounted for. The ‘almost’ is what’s causing him to grow more antsy as time passes, because two of the few people that aren’t in any of the safe zones are Sam and Tucker.
After doing a very good job at fighting off his Obsession-driven impulse to set off a town-wide search and/or tear the school apart looking for them himself, he opts to turn back into Phantom and just case the area the normal way. He’s made it through one whole hallway and is six doors down the second one when he feels a chill in the air, though not one that has yet pulled frosted breath from his mouth.
He suddenly remembers the cold sensation that’s been following him for days now, the one he’d already hypothesized might be of ghostly origin. It isn’t a total activation of his ghost sense, but if Skulker was hunting a hybrid, then Danny probably walks by their human form everyday. Maybe that’s the feeling he’s been getting, a half-baked version of his ghost sense for a half-baked ghost.
As much as he wants to keep chasing down his friends, Danny knows that finding the hybrid is probably a priority; his family or even the school staff would be able to find Sam and Tucker, but only Danny’s had significant experience with deescalating situations with potentially flighty or dangerous ghosts.
Danny looks around, trying to figure out where they are when his eye catches a janitorial supply closet nearby. It’s a stretch, but considering he personally has used this closet for a quick transformation several times, he chances it and phases through the door.
He chokes out a chilly breath as he steps through, and sure enough, there’s a ghost on her feet with arms raised defensively whose ambient glow is throwing enough light around the cramped space that Danny can see everything easily. A pair of glowing violet eyes are staring back at him from under white bangs, and he can’t help but think they look familiar. He flits his eyes around to take in more of the space and notices a human standing behind her, one who Danny recognizes instantly.
He's not really sure what Tucker is doing here with a ghost, especially since Sam doesn't seem to be here with him, despite the fact that neither of them ever leave each other’s sides during ghost fights. That means Sam has run off on her own, but Tucker’s expression doesn't betray any fear or concern like he'd expect, only a protective wariness, which throws Danny off. Normally there's no need for people try to protect someone from Phantom, unless the person he's worried for is-
He quickly looks back at the ghost girl and stares. Her defiant stare with a hint of fear, her purple eyes and choppy bangs, he's seen them all before. In fact, if he thinks about it, the outfit she wears is familiar, especially if he imagines it as black instead of white.
“What the fuck?” He blurts out before wincing at his own words. He usually tries to not curse as his superhero persona, but he really can't wrap his head around this. At some point, one of his best friends turned into a half-ghost and he just didn't notice? Some hero he is.
He takes a shaky breath, despite the fact that it doesn't really do anything to his dead lungs. Still, it helps him calm down his thoughts enough to formulate some semblance of a plan.
“Can you change back?” He asks Sam. Right now, Sam and Tucker are missing, and even if Danny hasn't reported it yet, it won't take their teachers long to notice they haven't returned yet. If the faculty comes searching, he’d rather them see a seemingly human student than a potentially threatening ghost; unlike his parents, civilians carrying ectoweapons tend to shoot at ghosts first and ask questions later.
“Um,” Sam responds, sending a panicked look at Tucker. Danny frowns confused; is she worried that Tucker might find out who she is? But no, he looks equally panicked. Oh. They’re worried that he’ll find out her identity. It’s a little too late for that worry.
“Sam, I’m not going to hurt you.”
His two friends startle, and Sam smiles sheepishly. “So I’m guessing you know who I am.”
‘Of course I know who you are,’ he’s about to say before remembering he’s currently Phantom, a ghost whose only knowledge of the Casper High students is meant to be tangential at best.
She seems to take his silence as some sort of answer, because she continues, “Well, I mean, of course you know who I am. My parents are only the city’s biggest anti-ghost protesters after all.”
There’s a very clearly bitter undertone to her voice that unfortunately doesn’t surprise Danny. Considering Sam’s relationship with her parents can be generously called antagonistic, and the Mansons are notoriously very anti-all-things-ecto, it’s highly unlikely they know the details of whatever event changed their daughter. Danny can’t fault her for that, but it’s worrying for her to continue on like this without any adults supporting her.
“The Fentons do know a lot about ectobiology,” Danny starts, but is quickly interrupted by both Sam and Tucker letting out panicked yells.
“She can’t do that!” Tucker cries out. “The Fentons are ghost scientists. They’ll probably like… dissect her or something.” Danny bristles at his friend’s apparent lack of trust in his family.
“Aren’t you friends with their son?” He asks icily. The matching looks of worry his two best friends send each other hurts his core in an almost physical way.
“We are,” Sam concedes. “But… I don’t know how he’ll react. He doesn’t really talk about his family’s career with us, and I don’t know what that means for me. Is he fine with ghosts?”
“Yeah,” Tucker sighs. “I love him to bits, but even I was suspicious of her at first. What if Danny sees Sam as a ghost and hurts her before realizing who she is? Or what if he tries to send her off to the Ghost Zone without realizing she’s only half-ghost?”
Sam looks down at her hands with a sigh. “Or what if, even if I do tell him, he doesn’t believe I’m me anymore?” She looks up again at Danny. “I don’t know if I could handle that.”
The tumultuous fear and anxiety in her eyes causes his own hurt to recede somewhat. It’s difficult to feel upset when it feels like they’re almost parroting his own fears back at him.
He sighs and looks away, unable to keep making eye contact. “The Fentons have helped me and other ghosts out,” he informs them, “so you don’t have to worry about them trying to hurt you.”
He eyes the two of them hesitantly. “As for half-ghosts, you don’t need to worry about that. They’ve got experience handling that kind of situation too.”
Both of his friends gape, and Danny can’t help but feel a little smug about blindsiding them with that after they talked so much about distrusting his parents.
“There’s others like me?” Sam sits up hopefully. “I’ve thought this whole time that what happened to me was a freak accident.”
“It is a freak accident. Hybrids are rare, and even adding you, there’s only three that I currently know of. But the Fentons have had firsthand experience with both of the other hybrids, and I don’t doubt they’ll be able to help you too.”
Both Sam and Tucker look a lot less willing to jump ship, for which Danny is grateful, not only so Sam can get help, nor just because he hates them thinking his parents are secretly evil, but also because Sam and Tucker are both proficient escape artists in their own rights, and Danny doesn’t know if he can handle having to chase after them.
“You’re really going to have to change back to your human form before I take you out of here though,” he points out. “It’ll cause panic if a new ghost randomly starts appearing right after a reported ghost attack.”
“Right,” Sam acquiesces, clearly still nervous before she takes a steadying breath. A pair of black rings appear across her torso and split over her, turning her ensemble black once again.
“Hey,” Tucker says thoughtfully, “wouldn’t it be kind of conspicuous if we walk into class with Phantom on our heels?”
“You won’t be,” Danny says, grabbing the door handle and looking at it so he doesn’t have to look at his friends as he does this. He feels the cold rush out of him as white rings pass over him, ignoring the loud gasps they make in favor of opening the closet door.
“Like I said,” he says nervously as he turns back to meet their gazes. “The Fentons have quite a bit of experience with this sort of thing.”