Don't Threaten Me with a Good Time

Chapter 20

The night was quiet. There was a restless peacefulness that could be shattered by the sound of a single pin drop. The occupants of Mount Justice could feel this, M'gann staring at her ceiling as sleep refused to consume her, felt it. Connor who had forgone sleep after five minutes and taken to wailing his problems on an innocent punching bag felt it. Even Danny, who was tossing and turning in his sleep could feel it.

Danny's subconscious mind was finding it difficult to differentiate between reality and fantasy. He was watching himself, of rather Phantom, on a platform above a crowd dressed as the grim reaper, his eyes glowing red. Then the scene shifted, and he was in a room surrounded by lava, and right in front of him was the image of Martian Manhunter holding up a lifeless Kid Flash. The bodies of Robin and M'gann lied unmoving at his feet.

At the shock of seeing his friends, friends? He guessed he consider them his friends, when did that happen? But at seeing his friends, dead at the hands of one of their mentors, he felt an ice-cold chill run up his spine, he felt an anger he had never felt before, a betrayal that shook him to the core. He then felt eyes on his, the almost blinding white of J'ohn was staring into in very soul. Danny failed to notice the lack of white hair and toxic green eyes.

Fear wracked his entire body when his eyes connected with the Martian's. There was a foreboding feeling in the back of his subconscious that this was his last moments.

The quiet of the mountain was interrupted by an ear-splitting scream. Danny had woken up from his nightmare with ice surrounding him, frost covered the walls making it look like an explosion of glitter had attacked the room. His pillows had frozen solid with an imprint of his head dented into them, his sheets were cold to the touch with a thin layer of ice covering them.

Danny was breathing heavily whilst he sat up in bed, all of it was a dream, everyone was still alive, he wasn't evil. Everything was fine. Wasn't it?

There was a soft knock at his door, that he chose to ignore, he hoped that whoever it was, definitely M'gann, would get the message and leave him alone. He was not up for talking, let alone turning into Phantom just to tell her to go away. Soon enough he heard a faint sigh on the other side of the door and footsteps leading away.

Danny then took notice of his bed, where did all the ice come from? He decided against trying to get back to sleep again, he knew that if he did the nightmares would only come back worse than before. So, instead, he opted for a warm shower to relax his muscles and wash away the remains of his nightmare.

Once out of the bathroom and in some comfier clothes, he decided to change his bedsheets. He found some odd satisfaction in crunching the ice on his sheets between his hands before throwing them into the wash bin.

Danny didn't want to think for the rest of the night, so instead, he worked on his homework, since the next day was Wednesday and thus a school day. Though he only worked on the homework that was due that week. Like a two-page essay of the Boston Tea Party for history, including a bibliography, twenty questions for calculus, and artist research for graphic design. Teachers don't ask for much do they, they have no consideration for the teens with a secret double life. At least the work was mind-numbing and kept his thought from wandering.

Time had passed so quickly for him that soon enough his alarm to get up for school was going off. He had already taken a shower and didn't want his skin to dry out, so he chose not to have another one, though he did put on a fresh set of clothes. He grabbed his backpack and changed into his alter-ego.

"Going ghost." Sure, he could change between his hero and regular persona without saving those words but saying them made him feel like he had control of it and more like the comic book heroes he used to read when he was a kid.

He didn't stop to check the rest of the mountain, see if anyone was still there. He took flight and headed for his usual alleyway a block away from the school. As he started walking up the steps to the school, he heard a car pull up on the road behind him. Not thinking anything of it, maybe just a teen getting dropped off, he continued walking.

"Little badger," Danny froze, a spike of dread and fear raced through his entire being, "walking away from me again?" He didn't turn around; he didn't want to see the look of satisfaction on Vlad's face that he had found him.

"What do you want?" He spat the words out with as much venom as he could muster.

"Don't get too comfy here in your so called 'new life', it's not going to last as long as you hope." With that, the car drove off, with Vlad inside.

For the first half of his classes, he felt disjointed, like he wasn't entirely there even though physically he was. His brain was still in the flight or fight mentality. He was running automatically so when a tray dropped down in front of him, he almost jumped out of his skin. When did he go to lunch? He took a glance to his left and saw M'gann and Connor talking to each other in hushed whispers.

"So, Danny." And there was Peter, the leader of the theatre club, "You haven't visited the club yet."

"Yeah, I've been a bit busy," Danny responded as he took a bite of his pasta? he sure hoped it was pasta.

"I get it, the first few weeks at a new school can feel like a punch in the gut." Peter sighed, "So if you need help, with like homework or coping, anything really, just ask."

"Thanks, I guess."

"Great! So, are you three going to the football match?" Peter leant back in his chair so that he could address M'gann and Connor as well as Danny.

"There's a football match?" Danny asked.

"What's football?" M'gann asked at the same time that Danny asked his question. Peter's jaw dropped and stared bug-eyed at the girl.

"Two teams are fighting over a dragon egg. They want to get it to their opponent's end to have it wreak havoc on their land." Danny explained nonchalantly as he dug another fork full of questionable pasta into his mouth.

"Not exactly, but two teams play against each other to win." Peter chipped in as Connor covered a hand over his mouth to hide a smirk that formed at Danny's comment. "Why don't you guys come to the game, I'll save you some seats." Both Connor and Danny were about to reject the idea, but M'gann beat them both to the chase.

"We'd love to! We'll see you there!" She exclaimed happily.

"Awesome. I'll see you there, and we can discuss you joining the club." Peter grinned at the ravenette, who was flushed under the elder's intense stare. Peter quickly picked up his empty tray, he seemed to have inhaled his food without any of them noticing and left the lunchroom.

"So, what time does this football start?" M'gann queried as she poked at her salad. She still felt too queasy to eat after yesterday's events.

"Normally an hour after school finishes, it gives people enough time to prep the field and the cheerleaders to get ready," Danny explained, he thought he had escaped football after leaving Amity. Though he did wonder who they would be playing against.

The bell rang signalling the end of lunch. The three waved their goodbyes to each other and promised to meet up after their final class since none of them had any classes together that afternoon. They agreed to grab something to eat before the game and went their separate ways.