Songfic: Song belongs to Carrie Underwood. "Before He Cheats"

Danny flew toward the arcade, a look of determination on his face. He wasn't going to play games; less than ten minutes ago, he had received an anonymous text, telling him to go to the arcade with a post script saying, "Just thought you might want to know", whatever that meant. Whatever it was, it sounded ominous. Still, he had a gut feeling that it was worth examining.

He turned invisible and phased through the roof into the arcade, looking around. Nothing special here, as far as he could see; just the usual gaggle of kids and teenagers with pocket money to blow. Still remaining invisible, just in case the text was about a ghost, he flew around until he saw Sam playing a fighting game on one of the consoles. Thinking that he might say hi and ask if she sent the text, he began flying over, only to freeze midair when someone else walked up to her and hugged her from behind, and not in a platonic way by ANY stretch of the imagination.

It took Danny a moment to process what he was seeing—Sam, his GIRLFRIEND, was allowing herself to be practically fondled by some other guy. Sam turned away from her game and wrapped her arms around this other guy's neck and kissed him. Danny numbly flew closer to get a better look at the guy.

He didn't mean to channel Dash at the moment, but this guy looked like a total pissant wimp! He was one of those punk-Goth types that looked like he had an eating disorder, with spiked bracelets, a purple Mohawk, nose rings, the works. The kind of guy Danny could snap in two like a toothpick, since even though Danny often denied it on the principle of humility, he had buffed up a bit in the past two years of ghost fighting. He was no Dash, but he was no pushover, either.

Danny suddenly felt the weight of the situation fall heavily on his shoulders—his girlfriend was cheating on him. Fuck.

Without warning, all of the gaming consoles within fifteen feet of him frazzled out an began going haywire. Danny resisted the urge to Ghostly Wail everything into oblivion, and instead turned and shot out of the arcade like a bat out of Hell. He needed to destroy something, and not the streetlights and electronic billboards that were practically exploding as he flew past them. This called for something heavy. This called for Vlad.

He flew right to the mayor's house and right in, where Vlad was currently in the process of eating lunch, and made himself visible before shooting an ice beam at the other halfa's food.

Vlad jumped up by reflex and whipped around to see a borderline-homicidal Danny Phantom glaring at him and revving up his blue-and-green energy for another shot. "What on Earth…! What is YOUR problem today! I haven't done anything to you—this month!" Danny let out a cry of rage and took an ectoplasm shot at him.

"I DON'T CARE!" he shouted. "I JUST NEED TO BEAT THE SHIT OUTTA SOMETHING AND YOU'RE THE BEST I'VE GOT!" Vlad dodged another few shots before transforming and taking a shot of his own towards Danny. Danny dodged it and tackled Plasmius right through the wall and out into the open air.

"And you call ME the fruit loop!" Plasmius shouted, summoning a shield to avoid getting it with an ice shard. "The ONE time I'm minding my own business and YOU pick the fight!" He kept the shield up with one hand and began firing back his own ecto-blasts at the angry sixteen-year-old. Danny dodged the, then flew back a few yards and began inhaling deeply. "…Oh shi—!"

Danny let loose a large Ghostly Wail at Plasmius, who barely managed to teleport out of the way in time and appear behind Danny, who was still Wailing away like he didn't really care if he hit Plasmius or not. That seemed a trifle confusing for the evil halfa, but he pushed his confusion aside and ignored the ringing in his ears to snatch Danny from behind in a full nelson. Danny struggled in his hold like a feral cat, fighting like mad to get away, but seeming to forget that he could turn intangible.

The boy's obvious hazed state of mind did not escape Plasmius; he looked at the screeching boy for a moment before sending out a jolt to Danny, forcing him into his human form, then flew them both into his house and roughly deposited him on the floor.

"Calm down, Daniel!" Plasmius shouted, catching the fist the boy was about to drive into his face. "I refuse to fight you if I don't even know WHY you're so angry with me! I haven't DONE anything to you!" He practically threw the boy onto a couch, then transformed back into his own human form. "Start talking, or I swear I will call security on you and make you suffer the completely LEGAL way."

Danny glared at Vlad. They had a stare-off. Then Vlad was uncomfortably shocked when Danny suddenly burst into tears. Well, he thought awkwardly, this was unprecedented. He briefly wondered if Danny had actually lost his mind after all this time and debated calling the mental ward.

"She…" Danny's voice cut into his thoughts, bringing him back to the present. "…She cheated on me, Vlad…! She fucking cheated on me…!"

Vlad wondered what Danny was talking about for a moment, then realized that he was talking about that Goth girl he was always hanging out with, and was currently dating. He guessed the rest on his own—he caught her with another man, and decided to take his frustration out on someone else. Well, he thought dryly, if this wasn't ironic, he didn't know what was.

He tentatively sat down on the other end of the couch and eyed the boy cautiously to avoid getting shot with another ecto-beam. "Tell me," he said. It wasn't a question. He was surprised when Danny actually obeyed, and told him what happened in detail, starting with the anonymous text and ending with him attacking Vlad.

When it was over, Danny's fists were clenched and Vlad could see icicles forming around them. Vlad couldn't blame the teen for attacking him—mostly, anyway. Lord knew he felt like slamming his fist into something every time he saw Jack and Maddie together. And right now, he had his worst enemy/potential apprentice going through the same heartbreak he always felt, and practically asking for advice on the matter—after attempting to beat him up. Either way, Vlad definitely wasn't going to tell the boy that it would be alright, there were so many others out there for him, yaddeeyadda and etcetera. He knew that Danny really liked the Goth girl…maybe even loved her. Pretty, sugar-coated words were not going to help.

"…You know, Daniel," he said, getting a flash of inspiration and getting the boy's attention. He gave Danny a grin of mutual camaraderie. "When I'm feeling like I've just been betrayed, I usually imbibe in a healthy dose of revenge to help me feel better." He smiled and left Danny with the cryptic answer.

"Wait!" Danny said, standing up. "What do you mean?"

"I'm a very busy man Daniel, so you must excuse me." He turned to grin at the other halfa. "…You're a smart lad, Daniel. I'm sure you can figure it out." With that, he left the room, something telling him that this would be one of those rare events that Danny would talk his advice.

Later that evening, Danny had refused coming down for dinner and was sitting in his room, listening to his radio and staring up at the ceiling, trying to ignore the painful gnawing at his heart. He was also mulling over what Vlad had told him; quite frankly, he was surprised that Vlad had listened to him instead of kicking the shit out of him and throwing his remains to Skulker, let one giving him 'advice'.

….He had to admit, revenge sounded really good right about now. But he was above such things…

…Wasn't he?

He absently noticed that the song had changed to a genre he wasn't very fond of, but before could change the station, the words of the song captivated him. He sat and listened to the song for a moment before going to his computer and looking up the song. As he looked at the lyrics in word form, he swore his evil alternate future self made friends with Ghostwriter and they were writing out exactly what he wanted to do—and had the unquellable urge TO do.

He looked at the clock; 8:04. He only had to wait until midnight, then he would have his revenge. Until then, he downloaded the song into his mp3 player and went over his plan in his mind.

"Right now he's probably slow dancing with a bleach blond tramp,
and she's probably getting frisky...right now, he's probably buying her some fruity little drink cause she can't shoot whiskey..."

Danny walked down the street, completely invisible. He had his earphones in his ears as he listened to his favorite song of the night. In one hand, he had a small bag containing his instruments of revenge; in the other, his cell phone.

"Right now, he's probably up behind her with a pool-stick, showing her how to shoot a combo...And he don't know..."

Right in front of him now was his revenge. Sam's Sweet Sixteen birthday present—a brand new hearse-style Volvo 360, with a custom Prius engine for Miss Environmentally-Friendly. She was practically in love with this car, which was going to make this all the sweeter. No one was home; her parents were on vacation, she was probably out with HIM, and the nearest neighbor was too far to hear what he was going to do. So he reached into his bag and took out his ring of keys, and flipped through them until he found the biggest one—his house key.

"That I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped up 4 wheel drive,
carved my name into his leather seats..."

Without a second thought, he dragged his key into the paintjob, taking a euphoric satisfaction in the destruction. He made jagged lines across the whole of the car, not forgetting the roof. He wrote a few words that Vlad would blush at into the paint with it, too.

"I took a Louisville Slugger to both headlights, slashed a hole in all four tires…maybe next time he'll think before he cheats."

When he satisfied with the lovely designs he created, he dug back into his bag and pulled out a baseball bat, glad he was at least a good hitter in PE baseball games. And just for extra measure, he charged up the slugger with some ecto-energy and started with the windshield.

"Right now, she's probably up singing some white-trash version of Shania karaoke…right now, she's probably saying "I'm drunk" and he's a thinking that he's gonna get lucky…"

Not caring if he was actually going insane for doing this, Danny took one last hit to a side-mirror, watching it go airborne, and shot it with an ecto-beam.

"Right now, he's probably dabbing on 3 dollars worth of that bathroom polo...
And he don't know..."

Digging into the bag again, Danny took out a pocketknife his dad had given him and flicked it open, eyeing new tires with anticipation.

"That I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped up 4 wheel drive,
carved my name into his leather seats…"

Danny showed no mercy to the tires, and even made sure the shiny rims didn't escape his wrath, either.

"I took a Louisville Slugger to both headlights, slashed a hole in all four tires...maybe next time he'll think before he cheats."

When he was done with all four tires, he went intangible and phased into the interior to tear up the seats, neatly carving his trademark DP symbol into the driver's seat. He didn't care if the cops found out; they would be looking for Danny Phantom, not Danny Fenton. Nothing outside of the usual.

"I might've saved a little trouble for the next girl…cause the next time that he cheats...oh, you know it won't be on me. No...not on me."

After all was said and done, Danny stood back to admire his work. Demolition to be proud of. He felt no remorse whatsoever; in fact, he felt like he did after every major battle—the fight against Pariah Dark, outsmarting his future self, punching Dash out cold last year—he felt justified.

"'Cause I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped up 4 wheel drive,
carved my name into his leather seats... I took a Louisville Slugger to both headlights,
slashed a hole in all four tires…maybe next time he'll think before he cheats."

Well, he thought to himself, that was that. He took the last item out of the bag—a piece of paper—and stuck it on the crooked windshield wipers before picking the bag up and flying away.

"Oh, maybe next time he'll think before he cheats."

When he was over a clear spot, he tossed the bat into the air, froze it solid with his ice powers, then shot it to irreparable and unrecognizable pieces with an ecto-blast. Then he did the same to his house key (he had a spare at home) but kept the pocketknife; no one else but his dad knew he had it, and even so, Jack might've forgotten he gave it to Danny in the first place.

He pulled out his cell phone and sent Sam a text using Tucker's code for anonymity, and as he flew back home, he replayed the song, empathizing completely with the satisfied and justful tone of the singer. Justice had been served. No regrets.

Oh…before he cheats."

Sam felt a twinge of guilt as she kissed Drake goodnight. She knew that Danny would be heartbroken if he knew that she was cheating on him, but…things were so great with Drake! They had the same interests, the same values, the same goals in life—they just seemed to be more compatible that she and Danny were.

But she didn't want to hurt Danny. As Drake drove her home, she vowed that she would gently break it off with Danny tomorrow. Drake pulled up to her driveway and slowed down when he heard the unmistakable sound of glass under his tires. "Did something break in your driveway, Sam?" he asked her. Sam shook her head, then she noticed her car in the driveway and how it looked…not right. She got out of Drake's car and ran up to it, freezing when she saw the state that it was in.

It was demolished. Completely totaled. Hell, it looked like Skulker had been using it for target practice! She gaped in shock at the wreckage for a few moments before she screamed and threw her purse to the ground.

"Who could have DONE this!" she shouted, near tears. Her parents had gotten her that car for her birthday! She heard Drake get out of his car and stand next to her.

"Damn, Sam!" he exclaimed. "What the hell happened?"

"Someone trashed my car!" she wailed, stepping closer to take in more of the damage done to it. She felt her eyes water more at the foul words etched into the paintjob that were obviously aimed toward her. Hell, she knew that she wasn't popular at school, but she never thought that anyone would do this to her! She quickly retrieved her purse and pulled out her cell phone to call the police, and paused when she saw that she had two new text messages, both from an anonymous phone number.

I told him said the first one. Sam's hands shook; she knew exactly who this person was talking about. She shakily scrolled down to the newest message.

Maybe next time you'll think before you cheat.

Sam let out another wail and slumped to the ground, leaving Drake to call the police instead. After he told them what was going on, he noticed something on her windshield wipers and pulled it off. He read it for a moment.

"Shit, I always knew that guy was no good!"

Sam looked up, and handed her the paper, and she read it.

Courtesy of your friendly neighborhood Phantom.

The next day at school, before the first bell rang, Tucker avoided Sam like the plague until she stalked up to him and demanded to know where Danny was. Tucker only gave her a hard scowl.

"Whatever he did to you is your own fault, Sam," he replied coldly. "It's not my fault someone saw you cheating on him with Drake at the arcade yesterday and sent him an anonymous text to let him know…" He examined his fingernails as a look of realization came over Sam's face.

"YOU!" she screeched, pointing at him. "YOU told Danny!" Tucker rolled his eyes.

"As if I was going to let my best friend get hurt!" he shot back. "Maybe next time you'll think before you cheat, huh?" Sam shuddered with both rage and recognition of those words that would no doubt come to haunt her for days to come.

And speaking of being haunted…

Danny strode into the school, looking cheerful, chipper, and confident, and not at all like he was guilty of vandalism or suffering from heartbreak. He spotted his ex-girlfriend and gave her a sly grin and a friendly wave before going to his locker, reviling in the look of horror and fury on her face. Whatever, he thought, putting his backpack away. Sam couldn't prove it was him without exposing him as Danny Phantom; and if she ever did, whatever his darker self did in the future would look like nothing compared to what he had in store for her.

He got out his books for first period and headed to class, making a mental note to send Vlad a thank-you card.

Fucking songs that cant get out of my head until I write a fanfic about them…oh well. Hope you enjoyed!