The school day had been dull and seemed to drag on for all eternity to Danny. He fought to keep himself awake and battled coughing fits and sneezes. At one point in Lancer's class when Danny had failed to stifle a very bad fit of coughing in his elbow, Mr. Lancer had asked him if he needed a drink of water. Danny refused and again claimed it to be allergies and further insisted he was fine.
When lunchtime finally came, Danny sat down with his friends and passed them the newspaper he had with him. "Read the headline." he said simply. They did, and soon Sam smiled unexpectedly.
"Danny, this is a relief! You're being considered a hero! Huge difference from Amity Park's reaction. Why are you upset?" she asked. Danny shrugged.
"It's not that! I was hoping to stay unknown to them. Just to be safe. But I guess safety failed to exist once I got into that stupid accident."
"Still," Tucker said, "You think you could use your star power there to influence more meat dishes? They don't even serve fish there! The only thing I can eat while I'm there is sweets, because there's no meat dishes. Just...vegetables.Ugh."
Sam rolled her eyes. "Tucker, they're not people. They're natural herbivores..."
"Not so! I've seen them eat eggs before!"
"Mostly natural herbivores. Don't you remember our friends' reactions when they found out humans were a mostly omnivorous race? Oh man, Fluttershy was worried for a second you'd go after her chickens...that was funny, really. They were relieved to find out I was a vegetarian. Her face when you were served meat at the Far Frozen's that time we were there...poor thing. She moved down the table and sat by me instead."
"Guys, we're off topic. What about what happened?" Danny asked. Sam frowned.
"What's done is done, Danny. If you think about it, there was always that chance that you could be revealed; better now than later. I'm sorry about what happened, though." she said. Danny looked down at his food.
"Thanks." He didn't feel much better than he did before, but Sam was right; what happened happened.
After school they decided to head to Ponyville to talk about the incident with the group (Danny faced a detour with Skulker on the way, but managed to take care of him with haste) and they made their way. They met up with Twilight in her library. Twilight Sparkle already had the day's newspaper, and according to her, everypony did. The others came shortly to convene. When Spike saw Danny, he began to tease about the name, Dusky Phantasm, until Twilight told him to knock it off.
Rainbow Dash was the last to show up. When she came in, she looked to Danny and snickered. "What's up, Dusky Phantasm?" she asked, giggling. Danny rolled his eyes.
"Fine, laugh it up, Rainbow Dash."
"I will! Ha ha ha! Dusky Phantasm? Oh, that's perfect...I think it's way better than Danny Phantom...pfft..."
"Not as bad as what they called him in Amity Park." Tucker said. Rainbow smirked.
"I have to hear this one."
"Invisobil."
Rainbow and Spike paused for a second. Then they cracked up again even harder. Rainbow was howling with laughter. "HA HA HA! Oh my gosh...Invisobil? That's perfect...his name is now Dusky Invisobil Phantasm."
"Invisobil! Oh man, that's funny..." Spike laughed.
Danny's face turned red. A second later his nose twitched and he sneezed loudly. Fluttershy looked him over and frowned. "Oh, Danny, are you alright?"
"I'm fine, Fluttershy," he said tiredly, "just allergies."
"And a lack of sleep." Twilight remarked flatly. "I was doing some late night studying again and schedule planning and I just happenedto see a particular half ghost flying around in the middle of the night when he should've been sleeping."
"No way!" Pinkie Pie gasped, "Vlad was flying around town?"
"No, Pinkie, apparently Danny was up late. Unhealthy for a growing colt at that." Applejack said. Rarity sighed.
"Just look at these eyes. They're so sunken and gray. Daniel, you need beauty sleep. What gotten into you?" she asked. She began to pick through her bag to look for some sort of cream to put under Danny's tired eyes, and he frowned.
"I was just doing my duty! I was woken up at two by the Box Ghost. I decided to take a short detour to Equestria...just to make sure nothing was wrong, that's all."
"Ah yes, an hour detour is very short." Tucker remarked sarcastically. Danny groaned.
"I thought Jazz said she wouldn't tell anyone! Traitor!"
"She said your parents, not us." Sam said. "Danny, you're coming down with a cold. You aren't getting enough rest."
"It's not a cold, it's just allergies! Somepony's gotta keep everypony safe!"
"If you haven't forgotten," Sam mentioned, "We have finals in a couple of weeks. You're barely passing and you can't afford to fail any classes."
"WHAT?!" Twilight shouted. "Since WHEN did you need help with school? You've been failing classes?"
"Oh-h-h, you've done it now, Sam..." Spike trailed off. Twilight approached Danny.
"Danny, one of your friends happens to be the personal student of Princess Celestia! How will you ever become an astronaut, your special talent, if you don't have the best grades? Why did you not tell me? There is no way I'm allowing you to fail those finals! When are they?"
"...In two weeks? We still have time!"
"Barely!" Twilight said. "You have to give me a list of all the classes you have! We're going to study starting tomorrow! And-"
Danny had begun to back up nervously as Twilight berated him, and he bumped into the Fenton thermos as he backed up. His hoof hit the 'release' button by accident and the cap fell off. Skulker's laugh emerged as he was freed. Danny blushed and looked to Twilight. "Can we reserve this conversation for later? Going ghost!"
He transformed and Skulker fully emerged from the thermos. Notably, his appearance did not change- his exoskeleton was the same. It was not converted. He paused. "What? Where am I?" He looked around for a second. "This is unlike anywhere I've ever been. But I recognize some of the creatures." He turned and stared at the ponies. "From the attack just months ago. I must be in your home realm."
Danny flew up. "Better question: why haven't you converted? When the Box Ghost comes here, he turned into one of the ponies?"
"Don't know, don't care. You're still my prey, ghost boy, pony or not. And maybe I'll take a few others with me here; some ponies to add to my collection. They would make wonderful pelts, including the dragon."
"Okay, ew." Rainbow Dash commented. The rest of the ponies and Spike gave him a disgusted look.
"That's just disgusting..." Rarity muttered.
"I ditto that thought." Spike added. "Nasty."
Danny turned intangible and pushed Skulker out of the library. Tucker picked up the thermos with his magic and the rest ran out of the library. Danny let go of Skulker and launched a green blast at him, one from one hoof, another from the other. Skulker dodged the first but was hit by the other. Ponies in the town had noticed by now and were screaming and hiding. The attacking ghost pressed a button on his wrist and all sorts of missiles came up from his back and his wrists. He pressed the button again and they fired.
The colt panicked and closed his eyes and did something he didn't know he could do. His wings sprung open and each feather on the tips glowed either green or blue. Right as the missiles were about to hit, the feathers fired and the missiles blew up prematurely or froze and fell to the ground harmlessly. He gasped and smiled. "Oh, awesome!...How did I do that?"
Skulker was going to fire off another round of missiles, but a reddish blast came and hit him, throwing him back. Danny looked and saw that Twilight Sparkle had thrown a magic blast at him. Skulker paused for a second, suddenly feeling weaker. The skeleton had bright magical lines running through it, and the armor broke apart and fell to the ground, leaving a tiny green ghost left behind. Tucker opened the thermos and sucked a shell-shocked Skulker into the thermos.
The public began to emerge from their hiding spots and cheered. All citizens cheered and began to chant a name. "Dusky Phantasm! Dusky Phantasm! Dusky Phantasm!" they all cried in excitement. Danny blushed.
"Ah, citizens! You can just call me Danny Phantom."
The name they were cheering changed in an instant. "Danny Phantom! Danny Phantom! Danny Phantom!"
A few pegasi that could reach Danny approached with autograph books and pens, asking him to sign. Danny gave a nervous laugh. "Ah, guys, give the unicorn down there, Twi...I mean...some unicorn I don't know the name of...some credit. She used a spell to help me beat the guy."
As everypony began to cheer for Twilight, too, she blushed as well. Soon reporters began to swarm in- pegasus reporters swarmed Danny, asking all sorts of questions. Danny Phantom, how old are you? Danny Phantom, who are you? Danny Phantom, how did you get your powers? Danny Phantom, what are you?
Danny became overwhelmed. He disappeared from view and flew into Twilight's library. The rest followed and Twilight used her magic to teleport herself and Spike home. Danny was staring at his wings when they came in. "I have no idea how I did that or that I could even do that..." he trailed off. Twilight smiled.
"I'm lucky I knew that spell. I already knew a spell that could dismantle objects, but I wasn't sure it would work on him. Evidently it did."
"Dude, he was a tiny little frog-thingy! That was the best part!" Spike said. Danny frowned, thinking.
"But still...why didn't he change form like the others?"
"Well, he IS mostly machine," Twilight pointed out, "and the real him isn't human-shape much. I don't see why a synthetic item would transform itself like that. The other ghost, the Box Ghost, has more human qualities like hair and toes and stuff, even though he's really a ghost. Anyways, I have something from Canterlot I need to bring up. It's about the status of the portal. Rebuilding of the lock is taking place. The thermoses are being produced and are given to the guards as standard issue, and ghost guns are not quite ready yet."
Danny sighed. "Oh, that's nice. Well-"
"If you think you're going to get out of my rant about you studying, you're not going anywhere, Fenton. We are studying hard starting tomorrow after school. First I help you with your homework and then I help you study. There is no way I'm allowing you to fail. I'm doing this as a friend." she finished firmly. Danny groaned again.
"Why me?