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Therapy	By : LaChatteNoire Category: +1 through F > Danny Phantom > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 3744 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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- 1-Therapy
- 1
Monday Jan 10, a gunman entered my old high school campus. A student brought a gun onto campus and threatened a small group of guys. It was loaded, it was a semi-automatic, it was a very real threat.

A couple of things about my old high school and high school shootings in general. When a student snaps and starts shooting others, they shoot members of three specific groups: the successful atheletes, the teachers, and the known academics. My mother is a teacher at my old high school, a very high profile, well known teacher. She is the coach of the academic team. My brother goes to my old high school. He is a known member of the academic team. And my old high school does not have successful atheletes outside of the golf and chess teams.

I wrote this story for therapy. I placed this story in the Danny Phantom fandom because I couldn't do this with original characters and I wasn't about to try. Also, I needed a way out while avoiding as much death as possible. I did need to kill someone, I admit, so I let the kid snap and stopped it when it started getting too far.

I do not own Danny Phantom. I do not want to own the plot, but it's mine none the less.

-----

The lunchroom was bustling with the normal amount of activity. The popular kids were at their own little table, laughing loudly at lame jokes bashing the losers. The various loser tables were populated with the usual: consumption of mass quantities, the Dungeons and Dragons game in the corner, the gathering of technogeeks around the one 220V outlet in the room, and the silent plotting of the semi-popular as they glared at the popular table. No one noticed the random loser in the doorway, not even when set his backpack on the floor and pulled something out of it.

They did notice the first shot.

The room erupted in screams as people turned to cattle, scattering in any direction to avoid the predator. Paulina was the only one who didn’t move; she remained sitting at the popular table, shaking as she clutched her bleeding arm.

The next two shots rang out and the room fell silent.

The gunman, a small freshman, a random loser, stood with his weapon pointed at the ceiling. It was an old style revolver, bullets too slow and clumsy to do much damage unless aimed correctly. He shouted at the frightened masses. “Not many of you know me. Why would you? I’m just a random loser, a loser among the losers. I’m not smart, I’m not pretty, I’m not geeky, and I’m not rich. My name is Brent Halloway. And I’m tired. I’m tired of being treated as less than human. I’m tired of being trod on, of being destroyed little by little. I’m tired of you. All of you.” He crouched down, still holding the revolver level, and pulled a semi-automatic out of his open backpack, a police special and much more powerful that the revolver.

Tiffany, a girl from the semi-popular clique, tried not to scream. “What are you going to do with us?”

Brent smiled, a sad look in his eyes. “I don’t know yet. The police are going to kill me when they find me, so what do I have to lose? Now, under the tables, all of you. NOW!”

There was a mad scrambling as people jumped under tables. For once, they didn’t care who they shared a table with. Geeks mixed with cheerleaders, gamers with jocks, the popular people were spread around the room and mixed in with the losers as everyone huddled together and for the first time truly feared for their lives.

Dash huddled under a table, oblivious to the mystery meat oozing between his knees and the floor. “What the hell? Why us?”

Danny looked over and realized he was sharing a hiding place with the blond jock. “I don’t know.”

Sam was sitting on the floor, arms wrapped around her knees. “Oh this is not good, this is so not good, Danny please do something, I’m not ready to join the Ghost Zone yet.”

A metallic thud sounded on the top of their table as Brent slammed the butt of the revolver on it. “Shut the fuck up. There’s nothing you can do so forget it. For now, we’re all going to wait. We’re going to wait until the outside world hears about this. Then when the police come, I’m going to execute certain individuals one at a time, beginning with Baxter here.” He pointed the revolver at the table where he’d heard Dash’s voice. “I’m going to take as many of you with me as I can. But for now we wait.”

Dash looked pleadingly at the others under his table, eyes wide with fear. They looked back at him with sorrow in their eyes and bowed their heads. Danny sidled up next to Dash and laid a hand on his shoulder. “It’ll be ok, man. Somehow it’ll be ok.”

Dash held back a sob, eyes glistening now. “I don’t want to die.”

“I know.”

On the other side of the room, Qwan looked at the layout from his table near the technogeeks. “Man, this sucks.”

Tucker glanced at him. “Of course it sucks.”

“No, I mean, look. We’re all spread out. If we’d stuck together we could have had a chance, but now look. The football team is spread throughout the room; we have no way of organizing anything.”

Gene, one of the other geeks, gave him a look. “Planning on being a hero?”

“If ever we needed one, now’s the time.” Qwan looked at Gene and saw an idea. He and the other geeks in the room all had their laptops with them and even the most power hungry machine still had twenty minutes of battery life left. “Gene, is the wireless hub still plugged in?”

Gene checked a couple of icons on his machine. “Yes it is.”

“Get a connection to everyone else in the room. We’re going to organize an uprising.”

Brent tapped his pistol on the desk above them. “Really, are you?”

“Shit.” Qwan whispered instructions into Gene’s ear as Gene typed furiously and sent the message just as Brent found the hub and unplugged it before stomping it with a satisfying smash.

“There will be no communications between geeks. I really want Baxter to die first, but if I have to I will start killing geeks.”

Gene nodded and smiled. The message was sent before the connection died.

Back with Dash, Sam opened her phone and checked the text message. “Good thing Tucker lets me into their network.” She slid next to Dash and Danny and whispered in the softest voice she could manage. “The other jocks have all been instructed to jump Brent at the end of lunch bell.” She checked and saw Brent in the corner harassing one of the cheerleaders.

Dash nodded, falling into the strategies of being quarterback. “That’s in 5 minutes. With any luck we’ll be too much of a distraction coming out of everywhere for him to be able to focus.”

Sam nodded and whispered into Danny’s ear. “It should be enough of a distraction for you.”

Danny’s eyes hardened and he nodded.

The lunchbell wasn’t a long wait. When it rang no less than 14 jocks leapt out of their hiding spots and hurtled themselves at Brent, but the boy was ready.

Shots rang out as the police special sprayed bullets into one of the attackers. The others stopped and bolted back into their hiding spots. Brent stepped forward and gazed down at the corpse of a short, stocky boy, James from the wrestling team. “This is what happens to heroes.” He kicked the body, blood flinging up around his boot. “Heroes die. They do something stupid and they die. Someone else does something stupid and they die. Honor, integrity, these are all illusions. In the end, the hero is still dead.” He listened to the muffled sobs throughout the room and smiled.

Dash curled up into a ball as he hid once again under the table with the mystery meat. He glanced around and met eyes with Sam. “Where’s Fenton?”

-----

Danny sat under the floor in his ghost form. A blue wisp of fog rose from his mouth and he buried his face in his hands. Someone he couldn’t save. Someone he would have been able to save had he…

No. He couldn’t do this. He had to save the rest.

But what about…

No. He shook himself out of misery and reminded himself that death is only the beginning. He was a living reminder of that fact.

He thought himself invisible and floated outside. Police were gathering and he remembered Brent’s threat. He had to do this. To prevent any other deaths, he had to do this.

-----

Brent smiled as he heard the first police megaphone ordering him to surrender. “It’s time.” He reached under the table and grabbed Dash by the collar, pressed the police special into the nape of his neck. He pulled and Dash allowed himself to be led on hands and knees out into an open area near the lunch counters. He kicked Dash in the hip. “Sit up on your knees.”

Dash raised off his hands and sat on his haunches. Tears fell down his face as he closed his eyes and waited.

Danny phased through the floor, invisible, and announced his presence with an ectoplasmic blast to Brent’s chest. He phased into visibility. “I won’t let you do this. I won’t let you take any more innocent lives.”

Brent picked himself up and raised his gun to Danny. “They’re not innocent.” He fired two shots into the spectre.

Danny didn’t flinch as the bullets tore harmlessly through his form and crashed through the windows. He knew the sounds of broken glass were a siren call to the police outside.

Brent lowered the handgun. “What are you?”

“A hero.” He swooped down and sent the boy flying into the kitchen. He popped out. “Everybody stay where you are! Dash, HIDE!”

Dash bolted under a table as Brent picked himself up and raised his gun again. “Don’t you know anything? All heroes die.” He set the handgun to automatic and let the bullets fly at the strange pale being.

Danny flew toward the ceiling, trying to keep Brent’s attention away from everyone else. He darted around as the bullets passed through his ghostly form until the clip emptied itself and then dived toward him, screaming.

Brent was thrown backwards as the ghost slammed into him, strangely solid. He knocked his head against an oven in the kitchen and felt consciousness leaving. “No. I’m supposed to die.”

Danny stood in front of him. “You wouldn’t like being dead. I know.”

Brent fell forward, bleeding from his scalp.

Danny stepped out of the kitchen and addressed the room. “Ok, I need football players up here now. Brent’s passed out but I don’t know for how long. I need you guys to hold him until the police get in. Nobody touches his backpack. You’re safe now.”

People started crawling shakily out from under tables as Danny checked the backpack just in case. It contained more clips for the police special, another revolver armed with silver bullets for some reason, a couple of books, a switchblade, and a PDA. He left the bag alone and faded out of visibility before flying under the abandoned mystery meat table and regaining human form.

Danny crawled out, scared and shaky like the rest of them. He nodded as he saw Qwan and another boy, Mark from track and field, holding onto a strangely quiet Brent. He sought out Sam and held her as she cried on his shoulder. He allowed Dash to wrap his arms around him and grip tight as he shook and cried into the smaller boy’s shoulder. He faded into the background when the police broke through the locked door. He allowed everyone else to tell the strange tale of the white-haired kid.

He mourned. He mourned James, the wrestler who died trying to save his fellow classmates. He mourned Brent, who died from his head wound. Somewhere, deep inside, he mourned the death of normality, because nothing would ever be the same again.

Ever.

End
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