Chapter 14

After a few hours of walking in contemplative silence Sam signalled the group to stop. Unquestioningly the group of confused and tired humans stopped and watched. Tucker was pointing to a floating door up ahead that was near the path, and the class and the Fentons only saw Danny nod before he raced forward and leapt off the path. The halfa's feet landed gracefully on the edge of the door frame and his hands attached to the door handle to stop himself from falling into the endless green abbiss.

Danny twisted the doorknob and swung his weight forward to open the lair. The lair was odd. It looked like a courtroom mixed with a movie theater. There were rows and rows of cushioned bench seats. All the seats faced away from the entrance of the lair towards a massive screen that was off in the absence of the ghost it belonged to. The room also had a very business like feel that was helped by the color scheme, or lack thereof, because everything was blindingly white. The halfa walked around a little bit and flew around the edges of the room, but once he realised there were no traps he dropped back to the floor and opened up the door. "It's all clear, Tuck."

The class watched quietly as Danny disappeared into the doorway and Maddie asked, "What's he doing?" She'd long given up any form of authority, and she knew that whatever Danny was doing she wasn't going to stop him, but he was still her injured baby boy.

Sam answered, "This is an abandoned lair. There are a bunch of them floating around. Danny's just checking if this one is safe for us to sleep in."

Mr. Lancer was startled by Sam's answer. He understood that they needed somewhere safe to sleep, but surely Sam or Tucker would have been the better choices to check if the place was safe at the moment. "Why didn't you or Tucker check?" Mr. Lancer asked Sam, "I would have thought you would have had Danny rest."

Tucker didn't look up from his PDA when he said, "Out of the three of us, Danny has the best reflexes. Even injured as he is there is very little chance that there is anything in there that poses a real threat to Danny."

Just then Danny's head appeared from the doorway and he gave the all clear. "Is there anything to help us get in?" Tucker asked.

Danny shook his head and said, "You'll just have to help me pull people in."

"Wait, you want us to jump to that door!? Not all of us are pretending to be total wimps. Some of us actually are." Nathan said. The A-lister's chuckled at the geeks expense and Sam cracked a smile. Tucker just sighed as Danny answered.

"Yes you are going to have to jump, but thankfully some of us were pretending to be total wimps." Danny smirked and said, "I'll catch you and pull you the rest of the way."

Nathan seemed slightly more at ease. For some reason he believed Danny when he said he would catch him. Maybe it was the way Danny said it, so matter of factly, or maybe it was the feeling of protection that Danny radiated, but Nathan knew Danny would catch him. The geek's thoughts were cut short when Tucker jumped forward exactly like Danny had just moments before, but instead of grabbing the door handle like Danny had, Tucker grabbed Danny's hand and let the obsidian haired boy pull him inside. "Alright who's next?" Danny asked the group.

Surprisingly Paulina was the first to walk forward. She was still in Danny's sneakers, but she wasn't used to this much walking and was more than ready to get off her feet. If it meant she had to jump a small gap then that's what she would do. Paulina took a little running start and jumped. Her feet didn't quite make it all the way to the edge of the door like Danny and Tucker's had, but it didn't matter. Danny and Tucker grabbed her out of the air and pulled her the last few inches forward and the cheerleader landed smoothly on the white carpet of the ghost lair. Star was the next up, never far behind her best friend, and she landed just as smoothly as Paulina even though she was in heeled boots. Kwan grinned at the challenging leap, but he managed to jump just as perfectly as Danny had. Danny caught the jocks hand like he had with Tucker, and pulled him in.

Dash was next. All the other A-listers were inside already, and he was the only A-lister left outside, but something was holding him back. The nerds, their teacher, and the Fentons were behind him waiting for him to jump up after his friends, but he'd seen Kwan go and Kwan had needed Danny's help to get in. All Dash knew was he needed to get in, but he couldn't get in without Danny's help, and if he was Danny he'd let himself fall into the endless abyss of the ghost zone.

Dash hesitated too long, and Tucker and Danny looked at the blond jock in confusion, but then Danny's eyes lit up in understanding and he said, "We don't have the greatest past Dash, but I wouldn't drop you in the Ghost Zone." Danny's cold blue eyes looked into Dash's own blue eyes and he said, "I'll catch you even if you wouldn't catch me."

Dash had the strangest feeling of vertigo as he both felt relieved and guilty from Danny's sentence. On one hand he knew Danny was telling the truth. Danny was too good a person to let Dash fall to his death. Danny was successful in reassuring Dash that he was safe, but he also posed the uncomfortable question in Dash's head, "Would Dash do the same in Danny's position?" Dash knew the answer, and so did Danny. If Dash was the only person who could lead his entire class and his parents to safety, he'd lead them, but he'd push the losers too hard, and he'd make sure they knew they owed him when they got back. Then if he was tortured and beaten, he wouldn't escape like Danny had. He wouldn't have saved the rest of the class, and it the rest of the class somehow escaped with him he'd probably have everyone do everything for him. He wouldn't ever be standing in a doorway helping his class jump up to safety, forget pulling up the nerds. If Dash and Danny switched positions right now, Dash would let Danny fall to his death before he pulled up someone he considered a loser.

That wasn't who Danny was though. Danny would pull Dash up, and when Dash finally followed Kwan and jumped, Danny caught his hand, the hand that had so often forced him into lockers, and Danny pulled his bully into the ghost's lair. Dash's eyes were dark with troubled thoughts as he stepped over to his waiting friends. Paulina was already chattering to Star and Kwan about how tired she was and that her skin would never recover from the abuse it was taking in this environment. Dash followed Star's example and tuned out his off and on girlfriend. The two blonds sat side by side and watched Danny and Tucker pull up the rest of the group one by one.

The blond cheerleader next to Dash was in just as much turmoil as the other quiet A-lister. "I'm leaving the A-list." Her sentence was spoken softly, but it stopped all conversation within the A-list. That was saying something, because it wasn't easy to shut Paulina up.

"What?" Dash asked shocked. In all his memory he couldn't remember anyone saying that sentence. People were kicked from the A-list, they didn't just leave.

Star seemed startled by Dash's question and said, "What do you mean what?" Silently she was wondering if she'd accidentally spoken aloud.

Paulina confirmed her fears by saying, "You said you're leaving the A-list." She laughed and said, "That's ridiculous! You obviously meant to say something else, right?" Paulina's voice sounded slightly doubtful at the end of her sentence and the A-lister's hadn't heard her so unsure since Danny had turned her down.

Star smiled at the head cheerleader sadly and said, "I didn't mean to say that out loud, but I meant it." She looked back to where Danny was pulling up Sam, who was the last person, and frowned. "The requirements to be in the A-list are money, good looks, and you can't be nice to losers." Star's aqua eyes flickered to her friends and they could see the turmoil within them. "I can't fill the last requirement anymore, because I'm never being mean to someone I think is a geek again."

The group was silent for a moment, but Dash surprised everyone more than even Star had by saying, "You don't have to leave the A-list Star."

"The rules are clear Dash." Paulina countered. She didn't want to lose her closest friend, but Star didn't want to pick on losers. Paulina didn't necessarily want to pick on the trio after this, but she was fine with playing with the rest of them.

"Then maybe the rules need to change, Polly." Dash said.

Paulina gasped, "What do you mean? We can't just change the rules!"

Dash looked the latina in the eye and said, "You and I are the king and queen of Casper. Why can't we?" Paulina opened her mouth to argue, but nothing came out, because what Dash said made sense. She and he were the rulers of the school and the A-list. Granted the A-list didn't make changes without consulting at least two other members besides the King and Queen, but Star and Kwan were here, so they could change anything right now. "That's what I thought." Dash said smugly after a moment of Paulina's silence.

"Fine. This is now an official A-list meeting. What do you want to change, Dash?" Paulina said falling into the bossy political voice she'd adopted for official A-list meetings.

Star rolled her eyes upon hearing the meeting voice, but she too was curious about Dash's proposal. Dash said, "Money and looks are still important, but I don't think we should torment losers, geeks, and nerds anymore."

"Really?" Every other A-lister spoke at the same time. Paulina and Star completely matched each other's shocked tones of voice, but Kwan sounded more hopeful than anything. It wasn't a huge secret that Kwan was almost a pacifist.

"Am I the only one who has watched my favorite punching bag and his not-really-loser friends do a complete one-eighty?" Dash asked rhetorically. "They were just pretending to be weak, and what would have happened if Danny had decided he was done? He could have taken me on any time he wanted. He probably could have put me in the hospital, and I would have deserved it."

Star and Paulina were silent in thought, but Kwan said, "Yeah."

"Yeah?" Dash raised an eyebrow at his friend's comment.

"Well, yeah. I mean, Danny's been taking your beatings for years, so yeah you'd deserve it." Kwan shrugged a little nervously.

Dash sighed, "Yeah." He agreed with his friend.

"It's not like he wasn't asking for it." Paulina said, "All those times he got between you and someone else."

Dash thought back to all the times he'd been picking on some little wimp when Fenton would try and tell him to stop. It got really irritating, and at the time all he could think was that maybe if he turned on the raven haired wannabe hero then Danny would stop trying to tell Dash what to do. Danny never did stop though, and somewhere Dash's purpose became muddled and he just started targeting Danny. It was like Danny had goaded Dash into making Danny his primary target, but that didn't make sense. Star was just as confused as Dash and said, "It's almost like he made himself Dash's favorite punching bag on purpose." Dash flinched slightly at hearing his activities stated so bluntly, but he knew Star was right. Danny was Dash's favorite punching bag.

Kwan spoke almost to low to hear, but the rest of the A-listers heard anyway. "He did."

"Who did?" Dash asked, "What? Are you saying Danny wanted me to wail on him?" Dash looked more confused than ever, and more than a little disbelieving. "That's crazy. Nobody's that stupid."

Kwan grimaced and said, "Danny is. I don't know why, but everytime he saw you picking on someone he'd distract you until you stopped picking on the other kid and turned on him instead. He just did it until you started looking for him before you picked on anyone else."

Once again the A-listers were silent in their thoughts. They were the only silent group in the room. Everyone else was talking amongst themselves, but the A-list for once was being completely serious. "You know," Dash said eventually, "I always thought of Danny as some sort of wannabe hero, and I thought I was doing him a favor teaching him not to be a hero. Guess the lessons were counter productive, because all along he's been protecting others from me." Dash sighed. This entire conversation was making him realize what a jerk he really was, and it was making him angry and depressed. There was no one to blame but himself.

"It's not your fault." Star tried to cheer him up a little. "You were just picking on a nerd. You didn't know he was actually some sort of hero."

"Yes I did. I knew he had a hero complex, and I tried to beat it out of him. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but no one could stop me so I did it anyway. It's completely my fault. Even Kwan would have stopped long ago if I didn't push him to help me." Dash countered immediately.

Paulina groaned loudly, "Urhg! You can't fix the past, so let's fix the rules now! No more bullying the losers! There, done! We've fixed it!"

Star smiled, both in amusement at her friend's exclamation and in happiness that she didn't have to leave the A-list. Kwan smiled wider than any of the other's had seen in a long while. He never had to bully another person again! It was one of his dreams come true. Dash smiled at his beautiful almost-girlfriend. She wasn't the smartest person, but she was a natural leader the way she simplified decisions and pulled her followers to do whatever she said. She was the reason the A-list would never break up. She was wrong on one thing though. "I wouldn't say we've fixed everything, yet, but it's a good start." Dash said with a small grin.

"What else can we do?" Paulina asked her favorite jock.

Dash frowned, "I don't really know, but Danny and his friends have saved our lives by leading us out of that prison. We owe 'em big."

Star hummed in thought and hesitantly said, "I think I want to propose a new rule in place of the old one." Her three friends turned to her to listen. "A new rule to help the losers. We've got the most status of anyone our age in our entire town. Surely we can do something."

Star knew that they were important in the town. They held power in the school, and sometimes even beyond the school. They should be able to do something. Dash and Paulina were 100% with her. They were the popular kids, and they could do anything they set their mind to. The problem was they'd never set their mind to help anyone before, and they were finding it harder than they thought. Kwan was the person to actually come up with the new rule, because he had thought about this topic before. "That's simple. The new rule is we make up excuses for the nerds. The teachers believe anything we say, so if a geek is in trouble we can just say it's not their fault." The idea was simple, and it probably wouldn't happen all that often, because most of the losers stayed out of trouble, but there were times that the four teens could imagine that rule helping more than just Danny, Sam, and Tucker.

"OMG! That's perfect, Kwan!" Paulina exclaimed happily. "You're so smart."

"So those are the new rules?" Star asked. It was almost too good to be true.

Dash was smiling broadly now. It was the biggest grin they'd seen him wear that wasn't because of some plot against a loser. It looked almost foreign on his face, and yet they knew it was a good thing. "The new requirements of the A-list are, you have to have money, you have to look good, and you have to help geeks and nerds out of trouble when you see it."

…..

Danny had helped the A-listers up into the room first, and they claimed two benches in the dead center of the room. The nerds planted themselves farthest from the door near the screen, and the teacher sat directly behind them. Jack and Maddie had come in last just before Sam, and Jack was already asleep on the left side of the room. As usual, when Sam was finally up, the trio placed themselves as far away from everyone else as they could be. Then Danny dropped into the bench in the far right, back of the room.

Danny couldn't stop the grunt of pain that escaped him when he sat down. His ribs were healing slowly, but he was low on energy, so it was slower than normal. He didn't have to say anything before a ration was shoved in his hands by Sam. "Thanks." They were silent for a while. Just enjoying each other's company and the first peace they'd really had since they entered the Ghost Zone. Sure there were other times that they'd been resting, but for once no one was watching them. Maddie and Mr. Lancer were lost in thought, and Jack was asleep. The A-lister's and he nerds were talking amongst themselves, and no one was watching the trio.

The trio wasn't letting this opportunity go to waste, and for the first time since they entered the ghost zone they were completely resting. They were safe, and it there were no more iment dangers between them and the Pandora's Palace. Danny ate his granola bar and drank down a full bottle of water. It wasn't much, but he could already feel his healing picking back up. None of the trio was going to keep watch. It wasn't necessary in an abandoned lair, so they quickly settled in to sleep. Danny was almost asleep when Mikey walked up to him.

"Danny." The ginger boy whispered frantically. "Danny get up." His voice was slightly scared and panicked.

Danny opened his bleary eyes to see Mikey leaning over him with a nervous, scared expression on his face. Mikey looked visibly relieved that Danny was awake and started rambling. Danny caught the words, "A-listers", "think", and "possessed". Those words were enough to get him up.

"Mikey, stop, slow down, and repeat." Danny said.

Mikey took a deep breath and then said, "I think the A-listers are possessed." His voice was full of urgency that wasn't necessary to get Danny's attention. Danny was alert at the word possessed. Danny's ghost sense hadn't gone off, so that was strike one against Mikey's theory, but Danny wouldn't take any chances.

He shot up ignoring his very sore ribs and looked at the A-listers. They seemed normal enough, but there were a couple sure fire tests. The first one was to check their eye color. Danny stood and walked directly to the A-listers, ignoring Mikey's panicky protests. The A-listers stopped talking to look at him. He had no reason that they knew to approach them. Their eyes were all normal, but that didn't mean much. A ghost could hide their eye color unless they were really angry, nervous, or happy. "Um, is there something you wanted, Danny?" Paulina asked politely.

All the occupants of the room, except Jack, Sam, and Tucker, who were all asleep looked to watch Danny's interaction. Danny's head turned sharply and he looked Paulina directly in the eye for any flicker of color change. It was entirely unlike Paulina to be polite to anyone. Paulina looked around nervous under the scrutiny of Danny, but her eyes remained their natural color. Danny took a step back and watch all of the A-listers eyes as he said, "I'm sorry I thought you might be possessed, and I needed to check." Normally a ghost being caught like that would flash their eyes in shock, but though all the A-listers looked shocked their eyes remained the same.

"Possessed!?" Star asked, "Why would you think that?"

Danny turned away from the A-listers, but he still watched them out of the corner of his eyes as he said, "I don't know. Why did you think they were possessed, Mikey?"

Mikey looked extremely nervous at being put under the spotlight, but all the A-listers looked toward Mikey and their eyes remained the same. Danny was really starting to doubt that the A-listers were possessed, but he was curious why Mikey thought so. "I, um, I-"

"Wait, you told, Danny we were possessed?" Dash growled.

"Well I overheard, your conversation, and it made sense." Mikey said hesitantly.

"Conversation?" Danny asked looking between Mikey and the A-listers.

The Kwan and Paulina looked confused, but Star looked nervous, and Dash looked pissed. "You thought we were possessed because we agreed to start helping you and the rest of the F-list!?" Dash almost yelled.

Mikey cowered behind Danny and Danny held out his arms to stop Dash. "Wait, wait, wait. What conversation?" Danny turned to Mikey and said, "It's obvious to me that they aren't possessed Mikey, so what made you say they were?"

Mikey stuttered out a few syllables, but Star got impatient and answered for the poor nerd. "We changed the requirements of an A-list membership. The requirements used to be money, good looks, and never being nice to a loser."

Danny's curiosity barely won out over his want to sleep as he asked, "What changed?"

Kwan answered with a proud grin, "Instead of never being nice to a loser we're going to help them out of trouble whenever we can."

Danny's mouth fell open in shock and Mikey said, "See! See! It's not normal! Nice A-listers! They have to be possessed!" The A-listers glared at Mikey. Then Danny did something no one expected. He started chuckling, then laughing, until there were tears rolling down his face as he was clutching his side in pain.

"Danny," Paulina hesitantly asked, "are you okay?"

Danny took a few deep breaths to stabilize himself and said, "S-sorry. It's just, Mikey literally thought you guys were possessed because you decided to do something nice." Danny chuckled again, "I can't wait to tell Sam and Tucker. They're going to think I'm lying." Danny smiled and started to walk back to his bench. As he walked away he said over his shoulder, "Good luck on keeping to your new rule."

With that final sentence Danny flopped down onto his bench and almost immediately fell asleep. Everyone watched Danny walk back to his make-shift bed and start to snore, then the A-listers eyes fell back on Mikey, glaring. Mikey chuckled nervously and shuffled back to Nathan and Lester, and the A-listers shared an exasperated look before they settled in to follow Danny's example. It had been a long day, and the nerds soon joined the rest of the class in sleep. Finally Maddie went to sleep, and only Mr. Lancer was left.

The bald teacher had far too much on his mind for sleep. He knew that the A-listers got special treatment sometimes for their academics and involvement in the school teams, and he knew the A-listers at times took advantage of that privilege, but he never thought they went out of their way to be mean to specific students. It was even a rule to be in their club! It was so bad that Mikey thought the A-listers were possessed for suggesting something nice! How long had it been going on? Maybe as long as the A-list had existed. That was a depressing thought, that all the kids lower on the social ladder could have been being severely bullied since freshmen year, and nothing had been done about it. At least the A-list had come to it's senses and was now changing the rules, but it shouldn't have been up to teenagers to fix the problem. The teachers should have fixed it long ago.

That seemed to be the true theme behind Mr. Lancer's unease. This field trip was making him aware that three of his students were more experienced than most adults. It was obvious to everyone now that those three had been through hell at some point if not at multiple points in time, and everyone had missed it. What had the secret trio been through to make them like they were?

Mr. Lancer started piling the facts he had in his mind trying to solve the puzzle. He knew all three of the trio lied constantly. That much was obvious. Danny didn't trust his parents, if them not knowing about his trips to the ghost zone were anything to go by. Danny trusted his two friends above anyone else. Danny often left in the middle of class, or came in late, and his friends sometimes were gone with him. The trio was scarred, Sam and Tucker less than Danny, but that wasn't saying much considering the condition of Danny's body. The trio was able to bounce back to acting normal almost immediately after a truly traumatizing event. It just didn't add up. It couldn't be drugs or a gang, because Danny and Tucker were too good for that, but what else was there that matched those symptoms. The questions were starting to drive the teacher insane, so finally he forced himself to sleep.