The Debate

Mr. Lancer just finished grading the essays before Halloween and he was pretty impressed with the results. The essay was to write about a ghost and when your city is a ghost town that wasn't too hard to do. However of course it could have been about any ghost and just as Mr. Lancer expected, most of the essays were about the town hero: Danny Phantom.

Almost everyone wrote about how amazing and brave Phantom was. And surprisingly almost everyone did pretty well since they got to write about something interesting for once, the lowest grade was Paulina who blabbered on about her love for him it was very repetitive. Everyone wrote about how awesome Phantom was everyone except for four.

Can you guess one? I'll give you a hint she wrote about Phantom, just not about how awesome he was. Using names like scum-bag and insolent, let's just say Valerie Grey was less than impressed by the so-called "hero" of the town. Needless to say that however much Lancer disagreed with Ms. Grey it was a very convincing argument and he had to give her and A+.

The other three people were ironically the only ones in the class who actually knew what Phantom was really like. Sam Manson, Tucker Foley and Danny Fenton avoided talking about Phantom at all, so their essays were directed to other ghosts. Sam's essay was a well written one about her utter disgust in the Lunch Lady and her obsession. Tucker's wasn't as well written but since he wrote about Technus' abuse of technology and not about how wonderful Phantom, was he got points for originality. Danny's essay wasn't as good as Sam's but it was better than Tucker's, he ranted on his annoyance of a ghost named the Box Ghost.

Lancer sighed satisfied; he should do things about Danny Phantom more often. It's the only thing that seemed to work with these kids. He glanced over at Valerie's paper once more which gave him an idea, at least for one class. He would have a debate on whether Danny Phantom really is the good guy or not. That would mean Valerie would have to try to convince the class on her views on the ghost boy, she was persuasive enough, she might be able to do it. It was a longshot but Lancer had to admit she almost had him.

The next day Mr. Lancer announced his brilliant plan, "Today class we will have a debate," He heard groans across the room, "Let me finish. We will be doing a debate on Danny Phantom: Good or Bad" Excited mummers erupted from the class, Valerie's eyes widened and she smiled darkly. Lancer simply put his hand up and they all silenced, he smiled loving his new feeling of authority. "Now all willing to debate on the side that Phantom is bad, raise your hands."

Guess who the first to raise their hand was. Valerie Grey shot her hand up immediately, followed by - wait for it - Danny Fenton with an amused grin on his face. Earning confused looks from his friends Danny whispered, "What? It could be fun to bag on myself." The confused looks remained.

"Aright, Fenton! Grey! Up front, the rest to the back." Lancer stated and everyone obeyed.

Valerie looked at Danny, "You don't really peg me as the anti-Phantom type."

Danny just shrugged, "He stole my name."

"Okay so this is how this is going to work. One person on each side will come up to their side's debate desk," Lancer pointed to two desks one in the front of the room and one in the back. "One side will make an argument with an experience they had or know of and the other will follow with a counter argument and vice versa. The side will pick on who they want up. Everyone clear?" Everyone nodded. "Alright now to settle who's going to start, Valerie heads or tails?"

"Tails."

Mr. Lancer flipped a coin, "Its heads, pro-Phantom sate your argument."

Dash of course was the first to come up, "Alright now Phantom's a good guy, a hero. I would know I was there with him!" He stated cockily, "It was him to ask me to be his fitness buddy after Fenturd's stupid dad shrunk us with one of his weird thingy-majigs."

"Inventions." Danny stated annoyed and rolled his eyes.

"Mr. Fenton, it is not your sides turn to talk!" Lancer chided. "Now, Mr. Baxter please continue."

"Right as I was saying," He eyed Danny, "we worked together in defeating that robot ghost." He said proudly, though everyone wasn't all that impressed considering that they heard this story a thousand times.

"Skulker." Danny corrected again but mostly to himself.

"That's two Mr. Fenton if you speak out of turn again you will be kicked off the debate and will not get your participation grade." Mr. Lancer warned; Danny just rolled his eyes. "Dash are you done?" Dash nodded.

"Okay counterargument?" Lancer asked turning to Valerie and Danny.

Without Danny's consent Valerie went up to the desk and began her argument. "Okay Dash I've heard this story a thousand times and one thing you left out this time was that Phantom was starting to lose his powers, did it ever occur to you that he was just using you because he knew that he was losing power and knew he couldn't do it alone"

Dash cut in, "Phantom would never use me, and we were working together." Danny noted that Lancer let that slide.

"But what happened right after you two went back to normal size?" Valerie asked.

Dash looked at the ground and said sheepishly, "He shrunk me back down." Valerie smiled. "But only for a few minutes!" Dash let in.

"But he still did it." Valerie said in victory. Dash seemed like he wanted to say a comeback but couldn't.

Mr. Lancer wrote on the board:

Good: 0

Bad: 1

Danny smiled when he saw his side was winning then he remembered who they were talking about and frowned again. Then he looked at Valerie in worry, she was pretty good at this. He went on this side just for kicks but now he was starting to regret it, things were starting to get serious.

"Alright, team anti-Phantom, state your argument." Lancer stated.

Valerie didn't move from the desk, she started with something they were all familiar to so that she wouldn't give herself away, "We all know about Phantom kidnapping the mayor, it was recorded on the news printed on the newspaper and everything. Don't tell me that was heroic, he took our beloved mayor! If Maddie Fenton hadn't come in and stopped him, who knows what Phantom would have done to him?"

Everyone was quiet for a while seemingly unable to counter that argument. Danny was now slightly glad he was on this side because he knew if he was on that side he would have said something to jeopardize his secret.

People were mildly surprised that Star came up to the debate desk. "Daddy says he thinks he was being overshadowed." She said timidly, now everyone was very surprised, 'daddy?' why was she bringing her dad into this?

Valerie was however the most surprised, "How did he know that he was being over shadowed? I thought no one can tell themselves they are?"

"Wait, wait, wait!" Paulina interrupted. "You dad was the mayor!?"

"I've told you that like SIX HUNDERED TIMES!" Star answered with a rage that no one knew she had, especially at Paulina. This earned more murmurs from the crowd.

"SILENCE!" Lancer shouted, "Star would you please explain as to why the Mayor thinks he was overshadowed?"

"Well he said that uh, he didn't like remember anything that happened that day. Not the kidnapping not saying that Phantom was an enemy and certainly not announcing that everyone rely on Jack Fenton instead of Maddie. He knows he would never do that. All he remembers is waking up in the building he was supposed to be kidnapped under." Star finished. Danny snickered in agreement to the mayor.

"Well…" Valerie tried to come up with something, "Well what if Phantom knocked him out and he lost all his memories." She brought up.

Star did something no one knew her capable of, she thought for a moment, "Still doesn't explain why he would say to rely on Jack, and plus I was looking at some of the pictures on the internet and well…" she paused for a moment and grabbed Tucker's PDA from his hands.

"Hey!" He protested.

Surprisingly using the device very well she found what she was looking for pretty quickly despite the fact that she's never touched one in her life, "Look, he's sort of smirking. People who get kidnapped don't usually smirk." Everyone was now looking at the picture, it wasn't the one from the newspaper but it was extracted from the videos. Valerie, Danny and Lancer all went to the back to look at the picture. Valerie tried to make a comeback but she knew she couldn't do it, especially since her best friend put up a good fight.

Lancer smiled, "Star, I think you won your argument."

"Yes!" She bounced into the air in excitement while everyone else looked astonished. Who knew?

Good: 1

Bad: 1

"Okay pro-Phantom?" said Lancer

Paulina hopped up to the desk, if Star could do it so could she. "Okay, Phantom is a hero, and the love of my life! He saved me so many times before, like this one time where I was out at the park for some reason and there were these ghosts attacking and the ghost boy was there and he saved me!" She said dreamily.

It seemed like her augment was over so again Valerie stepped up. "Okay Paulina you said you were at a park 'for some reason' do you remember why."

"Well no actually, I don't really remember anything that went on for a few days before that." She admitted.

"Well I'll tell you what you did for those few days." Valerie turned around and pulled Danny into the debate arena. "You were dating Fenton during that time." Paulina looked horrified and made a slight gagging sound. "And as I suspected you would have never done it on free will so my theory is that you were being overshadowed by a ghost."

Danny who was standing right there cut in, "Hey! So what I can't have a date without her being overshadowed by a ghost!?" People snickered to this.

Valerie ignored Danny, "And isn't it strange that the ghost boy just happened to be there? Don't you think maybe he overshadowed you to, I don't know ruin you your reputation or something." She was kind of skating on thin ice but her tone made it sound plausible. No one said anything, then Valerie turned to Danny, "You were there, was she being overshadowed?"

Danny sighed in defeat, "Yes she was." Everybody save Sam, Tucker, Danny and Valerie gasped. "But it wasn't by Phantom, it was another ghost, a female one named Kitty."

"Ha! Looks like Fentina can only get a dead girlfriend!" Dash interrupted. Danny scowled at this and so did Valerie slightly, then she regained her composer.

"So why was Phantom there?" Valerie asked Danny.

"Uh… I don't know I kinda… ran after I figured out that Paulina was a ghost." He lied.

"Hehe! So it wasn't the ghost boy who over shadowed me, meaning he was there to save me, meaning I won my case!" Paulina said excitedly dancing and doing cabbage patches while Lancer wrote on the board.

Good: 2

Bad: 1

Valerie eyed Danny menacingly and Danny avoided eye contact with her knowing full well that he was the reason that the lost this round.

"Alright everybody it seems we have time for one more round." Announced Lancer, It's the anti-Phantom team's turn now." Daniel since you have let Valerie do all the arguments why don't you start it this time.

Valerie grabbed Danny, "Alright it's 2 to 1, you better win this because I don't like to lose!" She stated very clearly, Danny nodded in understanding and fear then he walked up to the desk.

"Um okay…" He didn't know what he could use against himself so he started with something easy. "Well... remember when they caught Phantom and a band of other ghosts stealing from the banks and jewelry stores? Well how do you explain that, he was attacking police cars and running off with the money and jewels? It was also speculated that he was the leader of the band, meaning that he probably started this whole thing." He lied, he spoke very timidly and nowhere near as impressive as Valerie was but it got his point across. He wanted to win this, he was more afraid of Valerie than his alter ego's reputation at the moment.

Unfortunately, to Danny's dismay Sam stepped up on the opposing side, "Danny, don't you remember we caught the man responsible for all of this, Freakshow, our parents called us heroes we were on the news and everything. He started this whole thing, not Phantom." She stated confidently.

"That doesn't mean Phantom had nothing to do with it." Danny said, his voice getting stronger.

"Remember I looked up that staff that he had with him. The book I used said it had some sort of mind control on ghosts, after we destroyed it Phantom and all the other ghosts flew away leaving Freakshow to the police." Sam pointed out, lying about the research and the book but in all it was the truth.

Danny leaned his hands on the desk showing how much he was actually getting into this conversation. "That's the thing, if items like that exist and ghosts can be controlled who's to say that Phantom can't be controlled again. He's too powerful if someone were to get control of him or if he was good and turned bad who knows want kind of damage could be done."

Sam and Tucker glanced at each other, they knew this was getting personal, they had no idea Danny felt that way about himself. "Danny you don't believe that. You-" Suddenly she remembered the class watching her. "Phantom would try to overcome the control like before, besides I don't think any other mind control devices exist."

"Sam, you don't know that. And what if he can't overcome the control? And mind control is not an excuse. It doesn't matter that Phantom was under some sort of spell he still robbed the shops; that was still him doing it." Danny's voice was beginning to rise in both confidence and volume.

"No it wasn-" Sam tried to explain.

"He still did it Sam, he still robbed those shops, he still attacked the policemen and he still almost hurt you!" Danny was practically yelling now, he kept his determined face on just so that he wouldn't start to tear up. He couldn't believe he just said that.

Sam stood up straight in astonishment, she had no idea he felt that way. A few moments went by in complete silence before Sam spoke again. "But he didn't Danny; he was under control when he made me fall but he found his humanity and saved me. Phantom wouldn't let anyone get hurt on his own free will, never."

A few more moments of silence passed before it was broken by the bell. Everyone slowly poured out to the hall in silence looking up to the board on their way out.

Good: 3

Bad: 1

A/N: Wow that's the longest one shot I ever did, please tell me what you think. Six pages and 2, 728 words probably isn't a lot at all, but it is for me. Compliments are nice and so is constructive criticism so please review!