Musings in the second person. Lancer during Phantom Planet.

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"They never put this much effort in their schoolwork," you say, clapping as Tucker Foley and Danny Phantom finished their presentation. Another attempt to save the world.

You first suspected a very long time ago. Little things. It's always the little things that give them away. Watching an elbow fall through a desk. Hearing about how he TPed the inside of a student's locker. How his grades would tank around every ghost attack.

You knew the first time you heard his voice. Not Fenton's voice, Phantom's voice. Some people are good with faces, others with names. You're good with voices. You can pick the voices of every student you have out of a deafening crowd. It made your blood run cold the first time you heard Phantom scream in pain.

His own parents didn't seem to know. You checked, too. One good parent-teacher conference was enough for you to drop a few hints and get nothing but Jack's confused stare in return. An entire evening cooped up with the man while he blathered on about ghosts wasn't enough to distract you from the terrible truth.

Daniel Fenton was Danny Phantom. And his parents didn't seem to know. Worse, they hunted the poor boy. They chased him around town while he... what? While he what?

You weren't sure then. But as you watched him you began to see.

He purposefully scared away bystanders when it meant protecting them. He drew deadly fire away from people, knowing full well what could happen. He threw himself whole-heartedly into keeping this town safe from this... this curse that haunts Amity Park. And over the course of these past two years he's shown his true colors. The boy you tutored in Freshman Literature wasn't a masquerade. He has talent, gobs of it. He just... uses it for this.

The world is forced to rely on that talent now.

If this doesn't work... Well, you've seen the inside of the Ghost Zone. Once. If this doesn't work you'll be seeing it again for a very long time.

End