Chapter Text
"Daniel." Vlad decides to speak up as they're working together on building a new ghost portal.
"Yeah?"
"I hate to say this, I don't want to restrict you, but I believe that it will be best if you try to avoid that robot girl." Vlad states.
"What? Why? I like hanging out with her!"
"I understand, Daniel. But there is something that you must understand, as well." Vlad starts.
"Which is?" Danny just stops working for the moment, looking to Vlad, arms crossed.
Vlad sighs. "You didn't notice, did you?"
This just slightly confuses him. "Notice what?"
"Your very presence around that girl is causing her to glitch. I don't know how she hasn't noticed, but I could certainly see it."
"What? But why would it-?"
"You're a ghost. And not just any ghost, but the one next in line for the throne at that, Daniel. A ghost's ecto-biology already messes with normal technology to begin with, but yours is more potent. For her own safety, Daniel, you must avoid her. Do you understand?"
After a moment, a dejected Danny just nods.
"...Why don't we just put this up, for now. We can continue another day." Vlad suggests.
At that, Danny quickly starts to leave.
"For what it's worth; I'm sorry, Daniel." Vlad calls out after him, but is only met with silence. He just sighs, "I truly am..."
Later that evening, Danny just flies, invisibly, above the town, having refused the limo driver adamantly as he was leaving, wanting to try and clear his head. And taking flight has always helped with that. But not this time, apparently. There's just too much on his mind right now. What if he accidentally hurts her? Just from being around her? It's not fair!
Danny soon spots a place down below by the name of Mezmers. Isn't that supposed to be a pretty popular place? While there will be a possibility of running into someone from school, Danny decides to take a chance. Hopefully he won't have any more breakdowns. He flies down into a nearby alley, turning visible again once he's sure that no one else is around, then turns back into his human self.
Heading into Mezmers, he looks around. Definitely popular. He decides to sit at one of the barstools at the counter, hoping that no one will notice him. He just orders a burger with a shake, his usual go to. After his food arrives, he starts in on it. Almost as good as the Nasty Burger. I should bring Sam and Tucker here, whenever they end up getting a chance to visit.
Though before Danny gets a chance to truly enjoy his food, the doors behind him slam open, and everything goes deathly silent. Which is never a good sign. Then what he hears annoys him the most.
"Don't stop the party on our account, we wanna have fun, too." An annoying voice calls out, as everyone either runs away or hides. Danny doesn't bother, though, he's seen the type before. Hell, he's even fought the type before. So, he just continues on with his burger, just trying to ignore them for now.
Until of course a large green arm soon appears around his shoulders. Green? It's not a ghost, not the same bright sickly green that a ghost would be, this green is more muted. Then what are they?
"Lookie here, girls! Looks like someone still wants to play! So, what's your name, kid?" The one with the arm around him asks. She's clearly the leader, then.
Danny glances around him to spot several fish-frog people. Are they some sort of mutant? Or maybe they're more alien in nature? And they appear to be wearing... biker outfits? That just confuses him further.
"Look, I'm really not in the mood right now. So, as long as you leave me alone, you can continue on with whatever you were about to do. Otherwise, we might just end up having a problem." Danny simply states, taking a sip from his shake.
"Oh, a tough guy, huh? Well, we can fix that." Danny can hear the malicious smirk in the biker frog lady's voice, and he just sighs.
"Alright then, I warned you." And his eyes flash green for a moment.
Jenny soon lands in front of Mezmers, hoping that she's not too late, and that not too many people had gotten hurt. But as she's about to go inside, Letta and her Space Bikers actually end up running out instead, looking more beat up then when she usually gets done with them.
"You can deal with that psycho in there, robot girl, I ain't havin' nothin' to do with him!" Letta calls out as her and the other bikers get on their bikes and speed away, much to Jenny's confusion.
"What?" Jenny starts to head inside, though more cautiously this time. Though as she does, and her vision starts to glitch out again. Oh god, is Danny in there? Is he okay? This time, though, it's even worse then before, and she ends up bumping into someone heading out. She tries to get her vision under control, but can't seem to. They say something, but the words just end up garbled, is her hearing glitching out now, too? Just great. And then the mysterious person ends up taking off. Flying! Who is this? "Hey, stop!" She takes off after the figure, though soon loses sight of it. So, she turns on her thermal vision. Though instead of finding a heat signature, they appear familiarly cold. No, freezing this time. This couldn't be... Could it? No, it can't be...
Jenny soon manages to catch up with them, flying above them, then attempts to slam into them in order to get them to land, but she ends up going through them, instead! "Just stop already! I just want to talk!" The figure says something, but it's still garbled, and then manages to speed away. Her vision returns to normal the further away they get, but she refuses to give up. She has to know who this is, and what they've been doing to her! So she goes until her vision starts to glitch out again, and then keeps on going. And she soon comes upon a huge mansion. Looking around with her thermal vision, she soon spots the freezing figure, along with an unnaturally burning hot figure, underground. Must be in some sort of basement, then.
Instead of trying to find the entrance, she just decides to make her own, and starts drilling down, soon enough breaking into an underground lab of some sorts. What is it with rich people and hidden underground labs?
Though she then starts glitching out even more then before. This amount of glitching is actually really concerning now. She can barely keep herself up now. She can hear the two practically arguing with each other, even if she can't tell what's being said, she still can at least tell that much.
Though Jenny soon ends up starting to shut down, as a safety measure, to try and protect against all the glitching. "Shit..." She collapses onto the floor of the unknown lab as all of her systems shut down.
"What did you do?" Vlad asks Danny angrily.
"I was just taking down some sort of alien biker gang, and when she showed up, she started chasing me down. Which I guess isn't exactly something new, being hunted down and all, but I lost her, I swear I did!" Danny defends.
"Well you obviously didn't! And now there's a huge hole in not only my ceiling, but also my yard! Which is a huge security risk, might I add."
"And a safety hazard." Danny points out.
"Yes, yes, that too. Anyways, what, praytell, do you expect us to do now?"
"I'll figure something out. Just... Just let me handle this, alright? I know her better then you do." Danny states.
Vlad just scoffs at that. "Barely. You've only known her for a few days, Daniel." Vlad points out.
"Just let me handle this, okay?" Danny snaps at him.
"Fine. But I will be nearby, when you end up needing me." Vlad informs him.
"Yeah, yeah." Danny says, rolling his eyes, going over to Jenny, thinking about how to fix her glitching in his presence. "How does he get his, well, everything down here in the lab, to work when he's around? ...Maybe I do need Vlad's help?" Danny then just shakes the thought from his head. "No. I can do this. I just need to focus." After some time thinking. "Maybe it has something to do with ectoplasm? If so, then mine would probably be the best to use, anyways, right?" He asks himself.
Danny soon opens a panel on Jenny's chest. "I really hope she won't be too mad..." He then starts to rummage around within her. After a bit, he finally closes the panel back up again. He then moves on, opening a panel up on the back of her head. "...Okay, this feels like even more of a violation of personal space then before. I'm sorry, Jenny, but this is necessary..." Danny then starts to work on ghost proofing her senses as well.
After a while, Jenny actually starts to wake up, and Danny then attempts to finish up what he's working on in her as quickly as possible. He finishes up just as she fully regains consciousness, but he's unable to close the panel back up before she jumps up in alarm, looking around. Feeling the panel on the back of her head open, she immediately shuts it, quickly turning around to see who had been messing around inside of her, she whirls around, readying for a fight.
Danny, still in his ghost form as he worked, puts his hands up in an attempt to show that he means no harm. "I don't mean you any harm."
"Really? Well you're the one who knocked me out, and apparently decided to go poking around inside my head. So forgive me for not believing you."
"That shutting down thing was your systems trying to protect themselves from further damage, or something like that anyways." Danny tries to explain.
"Yeah, damage from you!"
"Technically, yes. But not on purpose. I swear. I'd never do anything to deliberately hurt you, Jenny. Honest."
Jenny's momentarily taken aback by this. "How do you know my name?" She asks, almost accusatorially.
Danny then realizes his mistake, having forgotten that he never changed back. "Shit... Look, you can't tell anyone about this, if I show you, alright?"
Jenny just scoffs at that. "I'll be the judge of that."
Danny thinks for a moment. "...Fine." He then transforms back into his human form.
Jenny just stares at him in shock. "D-Danny? But... Why would you..."
"Jenny, please, hear me out. I was just trying to fix-" But Danny is cut off by her quickly flying up and out of the lab, creating another hole in the ceiling. "-the glitches..." He sighs. "Fuck...!"
"Butter biscuits, Daniel! Look what you did!" Vlad exclaims as he heads over.
"I know! I'll go after her!"
"Not that. Well, sure, that too, but now there's another hole in my ceiling. Do you know how much that's going to cost, Daniel?"
"Seriously? Our secret, and my social life, could be at risk here, and you're worrying about repair costs?! You're rich! Who, other then you, cares about the cost right now?" Danny rants at Vlad.
Vlad soon relents. "You're right. I'm sorry. Go after her. But remember. She may be a robot, but she is still a teenage girl. Tread carefully, badger." He warns.
"Right." Turning back into his ghost form, he flies up and out of the lab.
Danny flies around, invisibly, looking for Jenny. I should've told her sooner... He silently admonishes himself. He knows what keeping secrets like this from friends can do. But he was afraid of a reaction similar to his parents'. It was a silly fear, thinking on it now. And all he's accomplished at this point was upsetting her.
He soon manages to spot her through a large window as he's flying about. He flies intangibly through the wall to what appears to be her bedroom. Jenny is laying face down on her bed, very clearly still upset. I hope she won't be too angry over the intrusion, but I need to talk with her as soon as possible.
Danny soon drops his invisibility as he lands on the floor, though sticks to his ghost form for now. "Jenny?"
She immediately sits up when she hears his voice, looking over to him, an angry yet still upset look on her face. "What are you doing here? Go away!" She yells at him as she simply throws her pillow at him, which he merely lets go through him.
"Jenny, please, I'm sorry. Please let me explain!" Danny pleads with her.
"No! I don't want to see you right now!" Jenny then fires a laser from her palm at Danny.
"Woah!" Danny ducks under the laser, narrowly avoiding it, not having expected such an aggressive response. "Okay, okay! I'm going!" He then flies up. "I truly am sorry, though, Jenny..." He then flies intangibly out of the house.
Jenny just stares at the spot where Danny had left for a while, then looks down to the hole in the wall from when she had fired her laser at him earlier. "Shit..."
Danny, back in his human form, sits at his desk in his room, feeling rather dejected, head buried in his hands. He doesn't even bother looking up when he hears a knock on the door, just mumbles out a "Go away..." that would've barely been audible to anyone without super hearing. Though he hears the door opening anyways, and doesn't even bother looking up. Not even when he feels a familiar hand on his shoulder. "I really fucked up..."
"You were trying to help her."
Danny's finally looking up at Vlad now. "Well that's not how she saw it. I was literally messing around inside her head, Vlad! That... That's gotta be some sort of violation of privacy, right? Especially for a robot! I should've just let you do it, at least then she'd hate you and not me..." Though as Vlad just raises a questioning eyebrow at him, he backtracks. "Sorry... But, I mean, c'mon, she trusted me, and I broke that...!"
"She'll come around again, eventually. The reason that she was so hurt by your actions was because she cares about you, Daniel. You just need to give her a bit of time alone, first." Vlad tries comforting Danny, but since he's not had to do this before, he's not entirely sure just how sound his advice truly is. He's not going to key Danny in on that little tidbit just yet though.
"You really think so...?"
"Of course. Now, just rest up for tonight, my little badger, and we'll get you your private tutor back tomorrow."
"...Actually, I kinda wanted to return to school?" Danny asks hopefully.
"Are you sure? You almost had a panic attack last time, and were disassociating pretty hard." Vlad reminds him.
"I know. But... It won't get any better if I just hole myself up in the mansion for my entire life."
Vlad just smiles at him. "Alright. If that's what you truly want. Just rest up now." He then starts to head out, then pauses and looks back at Danny. "I'm proud of you, Daniel." Vlad then exits Danny's room, leaving him all alone with his thoughts once more.
Jenny, in her mom's lab with her checking her over, just rants at her. "I trusted him, mom! And he... he was rummaging around inside my head, literally! After he... well, I don't really know how he managed to knock me out, but he did! Is that what he's been trying to do this entire time? I should've known better..."
"Mm-hmm..." Is all Nora manages to get out, too busy trying to figure out what modifications that Danny had made to Jenny, and why.
"Mom! Are you even listening!"
"Of course I am dear, but I'm also trying to analyze what he modified within you. Though I may need some time to compare the before and afters. I should have an answer for you by the time you return from school tomorrow. For now, go to bed, sweetie, okay? I'm sure you'll feel better in the morning." She instructs Jenny.
"...I hope you're right." Jenny, after being closed back up and okayed to go, heads back to her room, her thoughts still on Danny. Why was she still thinking about him? She didn't want to be thinking about him, especially right now, before bed! She just flops down, face first, onto her bed with an exasperated growl.