Hello everyone! Here's another oneshot/trio of short oneshots that I've been honing for a while. (I desperately wanted to do PhannieMay this year as well, but alas, grad school had other plans.) This is an exploration of small headcanon I thought of a while back and could potentially become a series exploring Danny's various powers, but no promises (or current plans).

A big thanks to RosyThorn for glancing over this for me!

Notes:

"This is dialogue."

'This is thought.'

This and THIS and *this* are emphasis. The *this* emphasis is more along the lines of the snarky or sarcastic.

Takes place around and/or after "Phantom Planet."

Je ne own-ez pas Danny Phantom.

First published: Friday, May 11, 2018

THE PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF GHOST POWERS

Controlled Invisibility

On a late fall afternoon, Jazz decided to indulge in a cup of pumpkin spice tea to jumpstart the approaching holiday season. She peacefully hummed to herself as she gracefully draped the string of the bag over the mug's lip and wrapped it around the handle for security. The kettle boiled and the water poured, soon filling the kitchen with the soul-warming aroma of nutmeg and cinnamon. Jazz couldn't help the comforted smile that overtook her face as she inhaled deeply and turned to go upstairs to return to her midterm preparation.

As she rounded the corner and passed Danny's room, she could hear the excited murmuring of her brother and his friends in addition to the shuffling of notepaper. A fleeting glance inside the cracked door made her think briefly that Danny had spilled red paint on his forearm, thus the commotion inside. Deciding the clumsy antics of her brother were ultimately beneath her notice, she moved to continue to her room.

"Jazz! Jazz!" she heard Danny call from down the hall. The girl paused and returned to his door, pushing it open as she entered.

"What is it, Danny?" she asked with all the interest of a seasoned elder sibling.

"Look!" he replied, a five-year-old's grin on his teenage face as he held out his left forearm. Sam and Tucker looked on expectantly from behind him.

Jazz slowly realized that it wasn't red paint but, in fact, exposed muscle. On his entire arm.

Her eyes widened, her jaw dropped, and the mug of hot tea bounced across the floor as an ear-splitting screech permeated the household. Danny, suddenly concerned, moved towards his sister and reached out to comfort her with the left arm. She screamed once more and and moved back, gripping the door jam for support as she tried to back away from her brother's skinless arm.

"Oh my god, Danny, oh my god! What happened, was it Skulker?!" she asked, eyes wanting desperately to look away from his arm but unable to.

"What? Oh, Jazz, no, it's nothing like that!" Danny assured. He looked down at his arm, furrowed his brow in concentration, and suddenly his skin reappeared. He looked back up at her shocked face while still holding out his arm for her to touch. Jazz slowly reached out, tapped it with a single finger and withdrew quickly. When it registered that the skin was actually there, she grasped his wrist and forcefully turned the appendage over to examine it, nearly bringing Danny to his knees with the force.

"What the actual hell, Danny," Jazz croaked. For a few moments, no one dared reply.

"I-It's a new trick!" Tucker nervously piped up from behind.

"Controlled invisibility," Sam added.

Jazz looked between the two friends and then back at her brother with tightly squinted eyes. He took that as a sign to explain.

"Yeah, so, I figured out that I could turn not just entire body parts invisible but particular systems, so I've been practicing and we're studying human anatomy in science so I realized-"

Amidst Danny's babbling, the fear and disbelief on Jazz's face immediately gave way to unbound fury. She balled her brother's shirt collar in her fists and lifted him slightly, pulling him in so close that their noses were almost touching. Jazz growled, "Do not do that to me again."

"But-!"

"I thought you were skinned alive, Danny! Oh my gosh," she yelled and then stepped back onto her mug laying empty on its side. "And now my tea is spilled. Great."

"Sorry, Jazz, I-"

"Just shut up, Danny. I hope you die the rest of the way." Jazz grabbed the mug and stormed out of the room, letting the door slam violently behind her. Danny sighed and rubbed the back of his neck as he turned back to his friends. He dejectedly plopped back down in his desk chair.

"Hey, Danny…"

Danny and Sam both looked to Tucker at the conspiratorial sound of his voice. A sinister grin split his face.

"What?"

"I just got the BEST idea...in the history of mankind…" Tucker typed momentarily on his smartphone and held it up displaying an ad for a particular traveling exhibit coming to Amity Park. All three friends giggled evilly.

"This is so creepy! Why did you guys drag me here again?" Jazz asked, trying to take up as little space as possible for fear of accidentally coming into contact with one of the exhibits.

"Like I said, Jazz," Danny assured with slight mirth, "I think coming to see BODY WORLDS may help you recover from the shock a couple days ago when I made my skin disappear. You'll see it's all just regular anatomy and cope a little better. You have to admit you've been pretty jumpy since then…"

"Well…that's true…" As she glanced around, Jazz tried to reassure herself with all the terminology she had studied to help people dealing with trauma and phobias, but the only thing that actually came to mind was the cynical term 'psychobabble.'

The four friends had arrived near the end of the day, so they were practically the only ones in the exhibits. Jazz seemed like she was finally adjusting to being around the exposed inner workings of a human body.

Before long, though, Tucker suddenly moaned loudly and fell to the floor, gripping his abdomen in pain.

"Hey Tuck, are you alright?!" Danny asked and knelt by him, concerned. Sam and Jazz looked on worriedly.

"The…p-pain…my intestine…" the techno geek managed to grunt, face completely contorted. "…Bathroom…" he finished.

"Oh my gosh!" Danny exclaimed. "Can you walk?" Tucker shook his head furiously, eyes still clamped shut. "Okay, don't worry, Tuck, I'll take you." Danny reached under his friends arms and lifted him slightly to drag him away. Tucker gripped Danny's signature red and white t-shirt like a lifeline. "Sam, stay with Jazz. We'll be back soon."

"You got it," she answered. The two boys disappeared down the path and into the shadows. Sam and Jazz were left alone. "Serves him right for not eating vegetables. Anyway, wanna keep looking around? Who knows how long the drama queens will be."

"Sure, I guess…" Jazz looked after the boys with one final concerned gaze before returning her attention to the posed bodies.

The room began to feel ominous and cold with just the two living girls left. The walls, ceiling and carpet were black, killing off any ambient light. The only full illumination in the room was what had been focused on the displays themselves. Sam and Jazz continued on for a few minutes.

"Hhhhhhhhh……"

The two girls froze. It had sounded like someone exhaling laboriously, but the two knew they were completely alone.

"Did…did you hear that?" Sam whispered Jazz with eyes as wide as owls'. The redhead nodded her head cautiously as if any movement would give them away. The two listened in petrified silence.

"Hhhhhhheeeeeeelllllllp………"

The two girls threw their arms around each other and pulled close, looking for the source of the throaty cry.

"Where's it coming from?" Jazz breathed in Sam's ear.

"I dunno…" she replied warily.

"J-jaaaasssssmmiiiinnnnnnne……………"

Sam felt like her rib cage was being crushed in the girl's embrace. Neither girl breathed or blinked for apprehensive seconds. Suddenly, they detected a slight movement behind them. It took a few moments of mental fortification before they were able to cautiously turn their heads and look.

One of the displays had come to life.

Jazz screamed shortly as the skinless body slumped out of its chair and dragged itself from the display like an impaired zombie. It then looked up at them and reached out a hand. It moaned in a husky whisper, "Hhhhheeelp us, Jasmine… We're… prisonerssssss………" It had no eyebrows or lids, but the girls could see the torment and panic in its eyes as the brow muscles contracted and jaw muscles visibly worked to move its mouth.

The girls stumbled backwards as the body advanced, but suddenly Jazz felt Sam shuddering in her arms. The older teen glanced over and saw that she was racked with suppressed, silent laughter. Jazz's racing heart slowed as realization dawned on her, and she shoved Sam out of her grip.

"Oh, okay, I get it. Ha ha, Danny, very funny," Jazz quipped sarcastically. While Sam struggled to control her snickering, the redhead reached down to help up the 'corpse' she now knew was her brother.

Weirdly, though, he didn't seem to be dropping the *controlled invisibility* or quickening his movements to stand.

"Jazz? What's going on?" Danny asked.

The two girls' smiles, one gleeful and the other rueful, dropped instantly at the sound of Danny's voice coming from not in front of them. They looked up, and further down the path, a figure lurked at the edges of the shadows. The two girls could recognize it was Danny by the white of his shirt.

"Danny?" Sam asked shakily. "You're not-?"

"Sssssammmannthaaaaaa…" the corpse hissed as it swiftly and aggressively grabbed her ankle.

The girls' screams assaulted everyone's eardrums with a vengeance as the two sped out the room, leaving Danny and the corpse behind.

Or rather, 'Danny' and the 'corpse' behind.

'Danny' sped over into the light and helped the 'corpse' stand, all the while struggling to function with the hysterical laughter afflicting both of them. Tucker, who had been masquerading as his friend, wiped tears from his eyes and peeled Danny's shirt off from over his usual turtleneck. Danny finally made the rest of his shirtless body visible, thus dropping any semblance to the exhibits, and rested a hand heavily on his knee for support before taking his shirt back from Tucker. The techno geek closed the recording of Danny's voice on his phone and put the device away.

"Oh man…we got them soooo good!" Danny cheered and wiped away tears of his own.

"Great idea to leave Sam out of Phase Two," Tucker assured, and the two boys fist-bumped.

"When I thought there would be changes after revealing my secret identity in the Arctic, I didn't think becoming a lab rat would be one of them," Danny muttered mostly to himself.

"Are you sure you don't mind, Mr. Fenton?" Mr. Lancer asked, giving the boy one more opportunity to back out should he desire.

Danny merely shook his head. "No, no, it's fine, Mr. Lancer," he replied, albeit very defeatedly. He stood and resolutely walked to the front of the classroom. Once standing in front of all the lab tables, Danny turned his back to the blackboard and tried to assume a confident stance as he stared definitively above his classmates' heads.

"Okay, class, this is the last warning for anyone who wishes to leave." The teens silently glanced amongst each other, searching for any coeds they'd perceive as weaklings for leaving for this particular anatomy lesson. At the lack of movement and speech, Mr. Lancer determined it was time.

"Alright. We'll start with the skeletal structure. Danny, if you please…" The teacher gestured to begin. Danny nodded. Layer by layer, the boy's bodily systems dropped from the visible spectrum until only the skeleton remained.

"Holy crap!", "What the FUCK," and "Duuuude…" were the three most common reactions from the students. Tucker and Sam watched on indifferently. Soon, just Danny's bones remained, only their slight swaying movement serving as a reminder that there was still a living boy standing there.

"The Invisible Man!" Lancer exclaimed. "This is incredible!"

"Pretty neat, huh?" Danny said cheerfully, the floating jawbone moving with his words as the eyeless skull turned to face the teacher. Lancer flinched slightly. A few forbidden smartphone cameras clicked as they took photos and video.

"A bit unsettling at first…" the man replied honestly.

"And creepy as hell, Fenton!" Dash quipped. A few other students murmured their agreement, but none showing true negativity or repulsion. Everyone gazed on intently.

"Let's begin, shall we?" Mr. Lancer suggested and extended a collapsible pointer. "First, take note of the natural shaping of the bones at the joints and how they form around each other to facilitate smooth, protected movement…" He jabbed the pointer towards the pelvis.

"Ow!" Danny shouted, and the skeleton recoiled even quicker than the horrified Lancer. "Look, just because you can't see my side doesn't mean it isn't still there!"

"I do apologize, Mr. Fenton!"

Danny sighed and shifted to rest his weight on one leg. The exposed carpals and phalanges hovered contactlessly over the iliac crest of the pelvis, the skeleton taking on the appearance of resting a hand on its hip. "No, it's fine, just keep that in mind, alright?"

"Of course."

Suddenly, the doorknob jiggled as someone began to turn it. The skull whipped to look at who it was before the entire skeleton slumped lifelessly to the ground. The class yelped slightly in surprise, and none other than Jasmine Fenton entered the classroom.

"Morning, everybody," Jazz greeted, not noticing at the heap of bones on the floor. A few students mumbled 'Hey Jazz' in reply. "Has anyone seen Danny?"

The stripped body on the floor started moving slowly and reached out a bony arm. "Jaaaaassmiiiiinnnnnne…" it moaned in the same hoarse voice as Danny had used at the BODY WORLDS exhibit. Even though the class knew it was Danny, a few people still shuddered at the haunting, disembodied voice and moving skeleton.

Jazz, apparently unfazed, merely rolled her eyes and walked over to the skeleton. She unceremoniously dropped a brown paper bag down next to the outstretched arm before turning to leave the classroom.

"Quit forgetting your lunch in my car."

And with those nonchalant words, the door shut undramatically behind her and left Danny motionless in surprise and disappointment.

In that moment, the rest of the class gained a new admiration and respect for the older Fenton sibling. They marveled at her complete indifference to what had just happened and what she had just seen. It must come with being a Fenton kid, they supposed.

After a moment's hesitation, Danny dropped his arm and used it to help him stand back up, all the while remaining mostly invisible. His classmates listened as he brushed invisible dust from the invisible knees of his invisible jeans, though all they could see was his hands swiping back and forth in midair.

"Damn it, she's gotten used to it now…"

END

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Ian out.