Chapter Text
~ PART I ~
Mr. Edward Lancer was a simple man.
He liked his Shakespeare, his dry white toast by the poolside, and his job. He had a small house in Amity’s middle-class neighborhood and a cat that came and went as it pleased.
No loving wife (or husband—Lancer didn’t swing that way), no grandkids. No messy interpersonal relationships.
Everything had been perfect.
Now, Mr. Lancer was an English teacher, which meant that subtly executed past tense was not a typo.
Everything had been perfect, until he’d exited a particularly exhausting parent teacher interview on a particularly exhausting Friday night.
It’d been with two of Amity Park’s ghost enthusiasts, a Madeleine and Jack Fenton.
The parents had been discussing a certain wayward son of theirs, one who was barely passing half the classes in his senior year.
Mr. Lancer liked to think he didn’t expect much from his students. Just that they show up, be ready to learn, and strive for their absolute best.
One Daniel James Fenton, on the other hand, had been a completely different story.
The boy’s sister had been brilliant. Jasmine balanced extra curricular clubs along with after school tutoring, night courses, and a staggering overall average.
She’d charmed teachers and faculty alike, going on to pursue a promising career as a psychologist after high school.
Needless to say, when he’d first seen the name ‘Daniel Fenton’ on the attendance sheet for a freshman literature class, Lancer had expected no less than academic perfection.
It’d started out well. Young Mr. Fenton got passible grades in all of Lancer’s classes, excelling most in those of the math and scientific variety. He really was quite smart, quick thinking, and an excellent problem solver.
Which is why Mr. Lancer could still hardly believe the boy’s abrupt change. Almost as if someone had flicked a switch or pressed a button; suddenly Daniel was sleeping in class.
That is, sleeping when he bothered to show up at all.
From then on, it’d been only meager D’s and floundering F’s for the teen. Oh, how far the mighty had fallen.
Now, as Mr. Lancer fished his faculty keychain out of his pocket and locked the school doors behind him, he just wanted to go to bed.
Dealing with the older Fentons was exhausting on a good day. Telling them their son was failing half his classes and skipping more than a schoolgirl with a jump rope was absolutely mind numbing.
He grimaced, pulling his long overcoat tight against his chest to keep out the late fall chill. Why was he still thinking about the Fentons?
After school was his one respite from them, how dare his mind sully precious free time with work-related thoughts.
Resolving not to think about his biggest problem child for the rest of the weekend, he steeled himself and stepped around the school, heading in the direction of the staff parking lot, when—
A body slammed into him, long limbed and writhing. He stumbled as the air was knocked from his chest, lungs scrambling as they found themselves prematurely empty.
He managed to suck in one breath, then another, as the body in front of him finally stilled.
It was Tucker Foley, grinning up at him toothily and looking annoyingly unapologetic.
But wait…Mr. Lancer narrowed his eyes into the darkness surrounding them. For if Mr. Foley was here, that meant either Daniel or Samantha wouldn’t be far behind.
Sure enough, the sound of sneakers slapping against pavement echoed from around the corner.
“Danny?” A decidedly effeminate voice called into the stillness, the whack whack whack of shoes getting steadily closer. “Danny, where are you—eumph!”
Another dark blur, this one with significantly paler skin, collided into Mr. Foley, who then re-collided into Mr. Lancer, who—having no one to collide with—tumbled to the ground.
Grunting again as the breath was knocked out of him, he narrowly dodged an elbow to the face as both teenagers fumbled around him.
“What the hell?!” Samantha Manson, eloquent as ever, snapped as she tried to extract herself from their tangled heap. “What the bloody—”
The girl then managed to sit up, finally catching sight of who, exactly, she and her best friend had just bowled into the ground.
Even in the darkness of oncoming night, Mr. Lancer could still make out the slight flush that coloured her cheeks at the sight of him. “Oh. Lancer. I meant, uh, what the bloody heck.”
“Nithely done, Tham.” Tucker’s muffled voice was barely audible from where he lay, buried beneath his friend. “Wouldth you mindth getting off me nothw?”
“Oh.” The Goth flushed a little darker, though she quickly covered it up with her customary scowl. “Right, of course.”
She gingerly got to her feet, revealing the pancaked boy beneath her. Mr. Lancer watched balefully as she helped Mr. Foley to his feet, even going so far as to dust the other boy off.
“Well,” Tucker said, before spitting into the well manicured grass at his feet. “I think I inhaled some of your hair.”
Samantha wrinkled her nose. “Gross.”
“It’s your hair, stupid.”
“In your mouth, four eyes.”
“Ahem,” The deeply ingrained part of Mr. Lancer, the one that’d helped him succeed as a teacher, recognised the beginning of a fight when it saw one. “Would either of you care to explain just what, exactly, you are doing here?”
Both children swivelled around to stare at him, as if they’d forgotten he was even there in the first place. Honestly, teenagers these days.
He resisted the urge to roll his eyes, knowing such an action would only exacerbate the headache steadily blooming at the base of his skull. It was a juvenile habit, anyway. One he should’ve dropped ages ago.
The two troublemakers exchanged nervous glances, a whole conversation passing between the simple looks.
Ever since freshman year, the trio had been inseparable. It truly wouldn’t surprise Lancer in the least if they’d figured out how to communicate telepathically.
Them and Daniel were like the Three Musketeers, if the Musketeers had skipped class and copied off each others homework. Mr. Lancer was fairly certain he’d even caught them exchanging answers for one of his tests during said test.
The sheer audacity of this generation would never fail to astound him.
(He admired it, in a way. But that was one of many secrets he’d take to his grave.)
The two finished up their wordless conversations, once again fixing their apprehensive gazes on Lancer.
“Depends.” Mr. Foley finally ventured. “Would you believe us if we told you we were going for a midnight stroll?”
“Depends.” He crossed both arms over his chest, giving them his best ‘I’m very disappointed in you’ stare. “Are you telling the truth?”
Tucker seemed to flounder about for a minute, mouth wagging as he obviously sought to come up with a better lie.
Fortunately for the poor boy’s brain—it looked as if it were about to overheat and drip out his ears—Samantha smoothly picked up the narrative.
The girl always had been better at those creative writing assignments.
“We were looking for Danny, you see. He seems to have…” She ignored the frantic abort abort gestures her friend was making at her, instead pursing her purple glossed lips as she often did when wrapping her mind around a difficult question. “Gone…missing.”
Despite the late hour and his current apathy for all things Fenton, Mr. Lancer couldn’t help the small thrum of fear the words sparked in his core. “Missing?” He hoped neither of them picked up on the rising frantic tone in his voice. “Have you called his parents?”
Mr. Foley muttered something that sounded an awful lot like “Nice going” under his breath.
Samantha, on the other hand, seemed to be struck with sudden inspiration. “Yes—I mean, no, but we’re not going to call them. They’re…well…they’re part of who he’s hiding from.”
Tucker looked absolutely horrified. “Sam!”
She shot him a dark look, the meaning of it so clear that even Lancer could decipher it: Shut up. Then the Goth turned back toward him, hands fidgeting in front of her,
“As you probably know, Danny’s been having a bit of a hard time this year. What with grad just around the corner, and all these schools to choose from.”
The most unbelievable part about all this was Daniel considering his education, but Mr. Lancer graciously decided to hear the girl out.
“And then there’s the pressure from his parents, who want him to, uh, join the family business. Make, um, ghost tech. Become ghost hunters, like them.”
Tucker snorted, like she’d said something amusing, then quickly tried to cover it up with a cough.
An ‘inside joke’, perhaps? He heard lots of kids had those nowadays.
Samantha paused, voice dropping on octave as she studied the grass by her sneakers, lips pursed again. “He carries so much on his shoulders and thinks he has to do it all by himself. As if we wouldn’t burn the world if it meant helping him. As if he doesn’t want us to be bothered when all I’ve ever wanted to do is—” She cut herself off, scrubbing furiously at her eyes with a worn sweater sleeve. “All I’ve ever wanted to do is help him.”
“Hey now,” Mr. Foley murmured softly, looking wet in the eyes himself. He placed an arm around her shoulders, pressing his weight into her side. “You know he doesn’t really think that.”
This had taken a disturbingly personal turn and Mr. Lancer was half tempted to run for it. He could be home right now, sipping Chai tea and re-reading Pride and Prejudice. Not standing behind the school, dew clinging to his pant legs, listening to teenage angst.
But something made Lancer stay.
Perhaps it was the question he’d been asking himself since the first time Danny Phantom had appeared in their city. A question he didn’t even know how to begin. Something in the mannerisms and expressions of the ghost boy, in the way his mouth turned up in that mischievous quirk…
Or perhaps it was just his own damn curiosity.
(Oops, he always did his best not to curse).
In front of him, Samantha was now angrily staring at her damp sweater sleeve as if emoting was the worst thing since meat-filled cafeteria food.
“So yeah, we were looking for him.”
Mr. Lancer stared at her for a moment, flummoxed. With teaching, this kind of thing came easy.
Needed help with poetic devices? Lancer was your man. Classical literature analysis? Five-thousand-word essay? College entry paper? He could do it all.
But relational life advice? They didn’t exactly go over that in the teacher’s handbook.
Despite that, it went against his morals to leave a student high and dry. Clearing his throat, he decided to give it a shot.
“Erm, from what I can see, Miss Manson, Daniel cares about the both of you a great deal. I believe he, too, would ‘burn the world down’ for either one of you. That is no great secret.”
He studied their doubtful expressions, realizing he was going to have to say more than that if he planned to convince them.
“I believe a certain Walter Winchell said it better, ‘A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out’.” He made eye contact with them, noting the subtle changes since their first year.
Miss Manson still stuck out her chin, like she was just waiting for someone to come along and tear her down, but there was a strong softness about her that’d been lacking in previous years. No more did she fish for debate.
Foley was much the same. He stood tall, having grown considerably, and possessed a sense of hard-fought self. However, the boy still wore the same crooked glasses and easy smile. No more did he look outward for acceptance.
Mr. Lancer fought off a smile, knowing he would—against all odds, and there were a lot of odds—miss these students come next fall.
But for now, as they stood there watching him skeptically, he still had to find some way to console them. “If our friend Winchell is correct, I am of the opinion that you are two of the people closest to Danny. Meaning, I think your best bet would be to establish an open line of communication. To…talk, about what is bothering you.”
The goth was chewing on her lip again, staring at him with narrowed violet eyes.
At first, Lancer was rather certain he’d said the wrong thing. She was likely seconds from spitting in his face and calling it a day.
To his surprise, Miss Manson merely nodded briskly at him. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, Mr. Lancer, but I think you have a point.”
Well. Ouch. That hurt.
Leave it to Manson to veil a compliment in a well crafted and nuanced insult.
He didn’t ramble that much, did he? He’d always liked to think his lectures were very point-full.
“Yeah,” Mr. Foley acquiesced with his friend. “You’re not half-bad, Edward.”
Mr. Lancer sputtered, reeling at the use of his first name from a student. “E-excuse me, young man, you are not to be privy to such—”
“Oh, please.” The young man waved a hand, effectively cutting of his teacher’s burgeoning word vomit, “I’ve been browsing the deep web since I was in diapers. Finding your name was a cinch.”
Lancer pinched the bridge of his nose, internally begging the Lord and his angels for help.
Once he was significantly more composed, he opened his eyes again. “I suppose I’ll have to let it slide, just this once. But if I hear you using it in class it’s an immediate detention.”
“’Course, Ed.” Foley made some kind of gesture at him (‘finger guns’, perhaps? He’d heard they were quite popular with the youth nowadays), “I wouldn’t dream of sullying your good name.”
Mr. Lancer wasn’t sure if was all his time spent around the youth finally getting to him, but he found himself reverting to sarcasm. “I am so assured, Mr. Foley.”
He felt mildly disgusted as soon as the words left his mouth. What was he, some common wench?
With one last look over their shoulders, their eyes scanning the sky above him like they half-expected to see something familiar there (and were disappointed when they didn’t)—which, later, Lancer would notice was rather strange behaviour—they turned the corner, disappearing behind the school.
Shaking his head, Mr. Lancer pulled his keys out of his pocket and headed toward the staff parking lot, trying to push this latest encounter to the back of his mind.
The lights illuminating the parking lot seemed dimmer than usual, the air becoming increasingly cold as he approached his non-descript white sedan closest to the entrance. His breath misted in front of him, goosebumps trailing up and down his spine.
Strange weather they were having, but this was Amity after all. Strange was to be expected.
His footsteps echoed against the pavement, the sound nearly deafening in the silence.
As he stepped towards his car, keys swinging between his fingers, a chill rocked through him so hard that he gasped. The keys slipped from his grasp and hit the pavement with a rattle.
It wasn’t too strange for Amity’s temperature to fluctuate.
Four years ago, when ghosts had first started coming out of the woodwork, the whole city had become a little ‘screwy’, as his students would say.
Cold spots and odd chills were to be expected, though decidedly not welcome.
Reassured, he bent to grab his keys and reached toward the driver’s side door, humming to negate the dwarfing quiet of the night around him. It almost seemed as though the parking lot were waiting; breath bated.
...But that was just his mind being ridiculous. All that teaching on personification was clearly starting to get to him.
And then he saw the handle of his car door. Or, more accurately, saw what was coating it. Dripping from it, viscously.
Ectoplasm. A glowing, greenish substance that resembled blood a little too much for Lancer’s comfort.
The liquid was coating it, sliding down the previously clean side of his car. It looked like someone—perhaps something—had grasped the handle, leaving its ooze behind.
Swallowing, Lancer debated turning back to the school. Sure it would be dark and cold inside, but if there was any chance of a ghost being out here…in an abandoned staff parking lot…..
He shook his head, pulling himself back together.
There was nothing to fear here. It was probably just some residue from a low-level animal ghost, like that large dog he’d seen around with Phantom.
For all he knew, the goo could be from this morning. A ghost flying overhead; a complete accident he was only just now discovering.
That’s right. It was a coincidence, a little hiccup of fate. As his students would say, ‘no biggie’. Nothing to worry about.
Feeling much more reassured, he popped the door open—
And came face to face with none other than Phantom himself.