Temper Tantrums

Written for Phanniemay '16, Day 23: Dragons

(inspired by lunagalemaster)

"You did try the Fenton Laser, right?" Tucker asked Danny for what must have been the third time that day.

"I did! And I've tried every other possible piece of Fenton tech I could possibly think of. Twice," Danny replied heatedly.

"What about the-"

"What did I just tell you, Tuck?" Danny stopped in front of Tucker, whirling around to face the technogeek and their goth friend, Sam.

"Sorry, dude, I just wanted to make sure you-" Tucker attempted, but Danny interrupted, face turning red and eyes flashing green.

What a study in contrasts, Sam thought. She was currently enrolled in an art class for her elective for the semester and had found it creeping into everyday life.

"Did you try this? Did you try that?" Danny mimicked. "I can't believe you keep asking me the same shit over and over again, and I can't even keep my emotions straight with this damn temper, and why can't you just let it fucking GO!" The last words came out as more of a roar as horns sprouted from behind Danny's ears and his skin darkened, hardening and separating into sleek black scales. He rapidly grew in size, soon dwarfing his human best friends.

Sam and Tucker followed Danny's growth until they had to crane their necks to see his face. Danny roared, and a blast of icy air whistled passed their faces. They stared up at the dragon that had been their best friend for a moment as the dragon extended a huge pair of green, leathery wings and stared back, tail whipping back and forth.

"Fuck," Sam said under her breath. She'd had a cat and knew all too well what came once that tail stopped.

Tucker looked at Sam. "Run?"

Sam nodded. "Run!"

It was hard to believe this had all started two days ago. Last Friday had been a day like any other. School out for the weekend, Danny's ghost sense went off, and off the trio went to hunt down the ghost. The ghost in question had been, to Danny's delight, the Box Ghost. He'd been creeping around the surprisingly large back room of an old antique store, where boxes of valuables were piled high and deep. It was just the sort of place that the Box Ghost liked to try to claim as his new "lair."

This was the fifth time this month that they'd caught the Box Ghost in a similar place in Amity Park. Sam theorized that Skulker was giving him a hard time in the Ghost Zone again, so the blue-skinned ghost kept trying to overture into the human realm.

"I almost feel sorry for the guy," she had said to Tucker as Danny attempted to catch the Box Ghost with the Fenton Thermos. "Hunted in his own home, and here's the only place left."

"Doesn't mean we don't have to keep him from terrorizing the locals," Danny replied as he flew by.

"True," Sam admitted. "Should we be helping him?"

"Nah, he needs the practice. It took him ten whole minutes to catch the Box Ghost last time. That's just shameful." Tucker said.

"I can hear you, ya know," Danny called, dodging a few carelessly aimed boxes.

"I know!"

Danny flipped Tucker off with one hand, the other tossing an ectoblast the Box Ghost's way.

"Anyways, did you see the way the owners were hiding behind the register? Guess that's a good thing, since they were too preoccupied to see us," Tucker said to Sam. "I haven't seen anyone in this town so scared of a ghost since we first started doing this thing a couple years ago. They must be new."

Something gleaming in the Box Ghost's hands caught Sam's eye as the Box Ghost flew overhead. The Box Ghost was tossing cardboard boxes at Danny left and right, but he seemed to be holding a smaller box closer to his chest. Please let this not be a repeat of the Pandora's Box episode, she thought. The box did look fairly similar - it was a small wooden chest, gilded around the edges.

Danny tossed another ectoblast at the Box Ghost, catching him on his overalled rear. The Box Ghost stopped and turned around, spouting in indignation, "You cannot stop me, THE BOX GHOST, for I have the power of.." He paused dramatically, then continued, raising the chest, "THIS FANCY BOX!"

Danny looked from the Box Ghost to the chest he was holding, then burst out in a fit of giggles, rolling on his back in the air. "Sure, Boxy. Come at me with the fancy box."

"I am not Boxy! I AM THE BOX GHOST!" The Box Ghost flew at Danny, chest held high. The ghost opened the chest with a flourish, revealing a beautiful gold necklace, set in the middle with a large green gemstone. He stopped mid charge, looking at the contents of the chest. He picked up the necklace, squinting at it suspiciously. "I, THE BOX GHOST, have no need for this," he declared, tossing the necklace away without a thought. "I only require.. THIS FANCY BOX!"

Whatever Sam wanted to call it, be it the strange sort of luck the Box Ghost tended to possess or some sort of cosmic joke - perhaps both - the necklace flew through the air and landed neatly around Danny's neck. The halfa in question had finished giggling and had started fiddling with the Thermos, head bowed, attempting to get the settings such that he could fire it faster in shorter bursts (or so he said later). Thus, he hadn't been paying much attention to the Box Ghost's antics at all. The sudden weight around his neck made him jump to attention and he quickly raised the Thermos, jabbing the button and catching the Box Ghost off guard. The Box Ghost disappeared in a beam of bright, blue light with a sound that sounded suspiciously like "Fear me!"

Danny tossed the Thermos over to Sam, who caught it deftly out of the air. He didn't throw it to Tucker anymore; the technogeek had dropped the Thermos a few too many times, letting the ghost out minutes after they'd caught it. One of these days, Tucker thought, I'll fix that design flaw. Capture devices really shouldn't release upon sudden impact.

As he drifted down to touch down next to Sam and Tucker, Danny slid his gloved hands underneath the necklace in order to lift it over his head. Strangely, his hands seemed to pass through the necklace as soon as he tried to grip it.

"Intangibility on the fritz after that tough fight, Danny?" Tucker joked. "The Box Ghost sure is one fearsome foe."

Danny shot a green-eyed glare over at Tucker. "Haha, very funny. And no, I just can't seem to take it off. It keeps going intangible on its own or something." He tried to grab the necklace again to prove his point. As it had before, his fingers slipped right through.

"Mind if I give it a try? Maybe it's a ghost thing," Sam offered, stepping forward. Danny tilted his head away to give her a better view of the gold chain. She took the chain in her fingers, noting how cool the metal was. That was probably due to Danny, however; since he'd started working on his cryokinesis, everything around him was cold in ghost form. She tightened her fingers around the chain and tried to lift it. Just as with Danny, the chain simply passed through her grasp.

"Strange," she said, taking her hands away from the chain and lifting the pendant part of the necklace. She almost dropped it; the emerald was so cold she was surprised her fingers didn't stick to it. After her initial surprise, she tapped on the emerald with her finger, tilting it this way and that in the light. The color was… interesting. She looked from the stone up into Danny's anxious eyes. "Huh," she said. The stone was the exact same color as Danny's eyes.

"Huh, what?" Danny asked.

"Well, it's a real stone," she said, weighing it in her hand. "Forty to fifty carats, easy. Good quality emerald, too: natural triple-A if not heirloom grade. As for the chain, it's probably eighteen carat based on that yellow color and how heavy it…" She trailed off, noticing the silence from her counterparts. She looked up to see them both staring at her. "..is. What?"

"Sam, how do you even know all of this?" Tucker asked, astounded.

"You really think with my upbringing that my dad would let me go without being able to identify alternate sources of wealth? I may not go along with my parents' way of life but that doesn't mean knowing gems from cut glass isn't a useful skill," Sam replied, a wry grin on her face.

The boys blinked in unison. "Wow," Danny said. "So, uh, any ideas on how to get this thing off of me? I don't want to be stuck with some cursed ghost necklace."

"Maybe that's the curse," Tucker laughed. "You're stuck with it... forever!" He threw his hands up in the air dramatically.

"Can you hide it, at least?" Sam asked. "You probably don't want to explain to your parents why you have a ghost necklace stuck around your neck."

Danny looked down at the necklace, eyebrows furrowing briefly in concentration. The necklace faded from view. "I think I can keep this up without too much energy, but I feel like I'm going to forget to keep this invisible at some point," he said.

"Good thing tomorrow's Saturday, right?" Tucker said. "No worries about hiding it at school. I'll come over and we can tinker around in the lab. We'll get this thing off."

Danny looked skeptical, but he agreed. They left the antique store, coming up with a reason why they didn't come home right after school before they split off to their respective homes.

The next afternoon, Sam and Tucker arrived at Danny's doorstep. Jazz answered the door and ushered them into the house. She looked a little strained, but before either of the other two could ask why, she asked, "Did anything happen at school yesterday? Or anything... after school?"

Noticing that Sam and Tucker were subtly looking around the house, she quickly added, "Don't worry about talking about ghost things. Mom and Dad are at a technology conference in Chicago for the weekend."

Sam and Tucker visibly relaxed. "Nothing too crazy," Tucker said. "We had a run-in with the Box Ghost, and then there was a thing with a necklace, but nothing too weird aside from that."

"Is something wrong?" Sam asked.

"I mean, it's probably nothing, but Danny's been a little.. Different," Jazz said.

"Different?" Sam said.

"Before I try to explain anything, minor increases in aggression are perfectly normal for teenage boys and-" Jazz stopped and sighed. "Just go downstairs and talk to him. Maybe you'll do better than me."

Something was eating at Jazz, Sam could tell. Danny's older sister was always the first to try to diagnose anything that could possibly be defined psychologically, and not knowing what was up with Danny must have bothered her.

"Don't worry, I'm sure he's fine," Sam said. "He's probably just frustrated about something that happened yesterday."

Jazz looked like she wanted to ask, but closed her eyes, shook her head, and stepped aside to allow them to go downstairs to the lab.

"Hey guys," Danny greeted as the other two reached the bottom of the basement stairs.

"'Sup," Tucker answered.

"How are you feeling?" Sam liked to cut straight to the point.

"Yeah, Jazz said- ooph!" Tucker was cut off by Sam's elbow making direct and abrupt contact with his ribcage.

"What about Jazz?" Danny asked, a little darkly.

"Nothing, she just told us you were down here," Sam recovered, shooting Tucker a look.

"Oh, alright. She's been asking me all sorts of weird questions since I got home yesterday. She's really been getting on my nerves, but I guess that's pretty normal for her. She gets wayyy too high and mighty about her so-called "responsibilities" every time Mom and Dad are out for the weekend," Danny said. "When is she finally going to realize I can more than take care of myself?"

"Maybe when you start doing your own laundry," Sam joked, but Danny only grunted, an irritated look on his face, in response.

"I guess that necklace is really getting on his nerves?" Tucker quietly asked Sam when Danny walked over to the far side of the lab, searching for another piece of Fenton tech.

"Maybe. I'd say I'd be annoyed if I had to concentrate on something really small all day, but this is a little weird for Danny," Sam answered in kind.

"What was that?" Danny asked, coming back over to their side of the lab bearing a few silver and green devices. Surprisingly for a man who wore a orange day-glo jumpsuit all day, Jack Fenton seemed very fond of the silver and green color scheme.

"We were just trying to figure out how best to try to get this thing off," Tucker lied. "I was thinking the Fenton Peeler initially, but I don't know how we'd be able to focus that so we didn't, uhh.."

"Peel me?" Danny finished.

"...Yeahhh," Tucker said. "So that's probably not the best idea."

"Probably not," Danny said. "I'd really like to avoid dismemberment if at all possible."

"Hmm," Tucker mused. "What about…"

They continued on like this for a few hours, bringing up and ruling out several pieces of Fenton tech based on functionality and overall risk to Danny's person. Most of the Fenton's inventions were focused around two basic functions: capture and destruction.

"What about the… Nevermind, I'm out of ideas," Tucker concluded.

"There actually are some other options," Danny said, looking uncomfortable and more than a little angry.

"I thought we went through all of the equipment. There's more?"

"My parents have some tech that they don't think I know about," Danny said. "It's really fucking horrible stuff, though."

"What could be so bad?" Sam asked.

"They're the tools they use to torture - excuse me, dissect - ghosts. They haven't been able to get their hands on that many ghosts and the few they do I usually manage to dump back into the ghost zone first. But there's a Fenton Scalpel, Fenton Forceps, a Fenton.. All sorts of surgical equipment. It makes me sick and it pisses me the fuck off that they won't accept ghosts as living in their own damn right. They're intelligent! They make decisions! But noooo, ghosts are 'ectoplasmic entities influenced by post-human conscious, not capable of rational or intelligent thought,'" he mimicked his mother eerily well.

"Why haven't you talked to us about this? It's obvious that this bothers you a lot. You can always talk to us about this stuff, man," Tucker said, stepping forward to place a calming hand on Danny's shoulder.

Danny slapped the hand away. "But you guys wouldn't understand. Really, would you?" He answered Sam's protest preemptively. "You don't know how it feels to be hunted. You don't know what it feels like to be a ghost. What it is to be a ghost. It's impossible for anyone who's still human to understand."

"Danny, you're still human, remember?" Sam said. "You're only half a ghost."

"Am I? Am I really?" Danny challenged, eyes glinting dangerously green. "We have no idea what really went on with the accident. There's a good chance I just died and have been possessing my corpse entire time!"

"Danny, where did you even come up with this idea? Did Vlad try to get inside your head again? You know most of what he says is bullshit, and anything about you would be true for him, too," Tucker said. Danny's last altercation with Vlad had been a mere week ago, and he knew how Danny tended to dwell on things.

"No, no, this is just shit I've been thinking about since last night. I've just been so fucking angry and sick with myself for being careless enough to get this stupid-ass necklace stuck around my neck, all thanks to the God-damn Box Ghost, and Jazz is driving me crazy and we've been working on this for hours with nothing to show for it, and really I am just so damn tired," Danny trailed off, seeming to run out of steam. He sighed. "Whatever. Sorry for laying that all on you, guys. My head's been kinda messed up since yesterday."

"It's fine, man, really. It's been stressful with all this ghost-hunting and school on top of it. For sure." Tucker said.

"Yeah, I guess…" Danny said.

Sam didn't know how to break the strangely tense silence that followed, so she continued searching through a large box of tech that Danny and Tucker had pulled down off of a stack of other boxes. Only one device was familiar, so she hauled it out from bits and pieces of failed inventions, untangling wires as she went.

"What about this one?" She asked, laughing and holding it up for the boys to see.

"The Fenton Ghost Weasel? You want to suck this thing off my neck?" Danny asked, incredulous.

"Can't hurt, can it? This thing can't really hurt you," Sam said.

Tucker started cackling. The other two looked at him quizzically. The technogeek explained, in between gasps, "It's just that.. not that that'll hurt you or anything, but you.. You know, holding that up to your neck and stuff, and it sucks, and, and…" He burst out into another fit of giggles.

"Spit it the fuck out, Tuck," Danny said.

"Ghost hickey!" Tucker cried, laughing so hard he fell backwards out of his chair. He rolled back and forth, clutching his stomach.

"Pfffft." Sam couldn't help it. As tense as it had gotten in the basement, Tucker's horrible sense of humor had struck her funny bone in exactly the right way. She covered her mouth with one hand to hide her own chuckling, watching Tucker's antics with an amused look in her eye.

Danny, it seemed, didn't find this so amusing. Not amusing at all. A ominously low rumble reached Sam's ears. She turned to look at Danny and the look he was shooting Tucker killed her amusement in a heartbeat. Danny was seething. His eyes had gone ghostly green, which was as much as they usually got for a warning that Danny was about to lose his temper. Sam couldn't quite tell at the angle she was standing, but she could swear his pupils were slitted. That had never been on Danny's own unique list of traits, so Sam tried to step in.

"Danny-" She was cut off.

"You think this is funny, Tuck? I'm possibly stuck with this fucking necklace for the rest of my life and you're over there making raunchy jokes?" Danny hissed.

Tucker sat up. "Dude, chill. It's not even been twenty four hours. We've dealt with stuff worst than this. Why are you getting so worked up about it?"

"Chill? Chill? You're telling me to fucking CHILL?" The last word came out as a roar and Danny transformed.

This transformation had none of the elegance of Danny's transition to Amity Park's resident superhero. There were no white rings, just cracks of bone and a stretching sound that Sam realized was Danny's skin. Danny doubled, tripled, quadrupled in size as his skin turned hard, dark, and scaly and spikes burst out of the skin on his back. Fingernails turned into claws half a foot long and a tail snaked its way out of his spine. Danny drew in a breath and roared once more, sounding less like their friend and more like a creature out of the Jurassic Park movies they'd marathoned last week. Leathery wings flapped at the air as he reared up over Tucker. Tucker tried backing away on his hands and legs, but he couldn't make it very far, positioned as he was belly-up. Sam, still on her feet, was much quicker and side-tackled Tucker to get him out of the way as Danny's front paws (?) hit the ground with a thud that shook the entire lab.

"Alert. Alert. Ghost intrusion detected. Locking down laboratory in accordance with security code MJ04205," sounded a mechanical voice from speakers overhead. Metal doors slid into place over the stairs and emergency lights flashed all around the room.

Sam and Tucker both looked around the room for alternative exits only to turn up with nothing. Apparently Jack and Maddie didn't want anything getting out of the lab in case of accidental ghost escape.

Danny turned a pair of extremely draconian eyes their way. Tucker gulped. "Any ideas?" He asked.

"Umm. Don't get roasted?" Sam answered.

"Roasted?" Tucker asked in a panic, running one way around the room.

"Dragons breathe fire, right?" Sam said, running the other way around the room. Hopefully if they split up Danny would have trouble figuring out who to go for.

"Oh fuck. Are you thinking this is another one of those -" Tucker started.

"Dragon amulets? Yep," Sam said, panting. She paused for a moment. The Fenton's security system had activated. Why hadn't it attacked Danny? She looked at Tucker, who seemed to have the same idea.

"Where are the lasers? The ecto-nets?" He said. "Hey, FentonWorks! We could use some help here!"

"Weapons systems are currently offline for minor upgrades," responded the program, sounding more and more like Jack Fenton. "Security protocols are set to lock down and contain only until upgrades are complete."

"Jeez, thanks for all the help," Sam replied sarcastically.

"You're very welcome. Please enjoy the fudge- I mean pain."

Danny was alternately lunging at one and then the other. It seemed the two target strategy was working for the time being, but they couldn't keep running in circles around the lab for long. Tucker already looked to be out of breath and Sam knew she wasn't far behind. They both ran opposite ways around Danny, avoiding the whipping tail, and met in on the other side of the lab, hiding behind one of the consoles. The dragon paused, looking around the lab.

"Guess his dragon brain isn't nearly as smart as his human brain," Sam gasped. "He'd never fall for this."

"Nah, I think the intelligence is about the same," Tucker sniggered in between pants of his own.

"Don't make him any more mad than he already is!" Sam said.

"What? It's not like he can hear me, much less understand what I just said," Tucker replied. The noises of a large creature walking around the room suddenly stopped.

Sam elbowed him. "Shh!"

Tucker looked skeptical then paled, raising a quivering hand to point behind Sam.

Sam felt the blood drain from her face as she slowly looked over her shoulder. A single furious green eye stared at them from a crack in between two consoles.

"I think he heard me," Tucker whispered.

"Heard you? I think he understood you!" Sam yelled, grabbing Tucker by the shirt and diving to the side.

With another roar and a swipe of a large taloned paw, the consoles they'd been hiding behind were gone. As they dove, they watched as the dragon opened its mouth and froze the spot where they'd been hiding, covering it in a thick crust of ice.

"Oh, ice breath," Tucker commented. "Great."

They resumed their game of dodging the dragon. It was hard for Danny to maneuver, being so large in not as large a space. "How are we going to get him back to normal?" Sam said.

"I'd settle for contained," Tucker replied. "We need to stop him rampaging so we can stop and think for a minute." His eyes lit up. "The Thermos! Where'd we put it?"

"Umm, it's probably still in Danny's backpack! I hope he brought it downstairs," Sam said, eyes searching the room.

"There, on the table! You run interference, I'll get the Thermos." Tucker ran over and unzipped the backpack, turning it upside down and shaking the contents onto the table while Sam zig-zagged around Danny's feet.

"Here, dragon dragon!" She sang in her best 'dog' voice. "Over here, buddy!"

"It's not in here!" Tucker cried. "Shit. Shit shit shit."

Sam's path took her passed the Ghost Portal, where she saw where they were looking for. "Over here, by the Portal! He must have been unloading Boxy." She ran away from the portal, trying to give Tucker the room to get to it.

Tucker ran over and grabbed the Thermos. He uncapped it and aimed it at the dragon, thumbing the button on the side. "Sorry, dude," he said as the Thermos started to whine, then made a beeping noise. He checked the readout on the side. "Full? How the hell does Boxy take up that much room?"

"Any day now, Tucker!" Sam yelled from the other side of the room. Shit. Danny had her cornered. She tried to feint sideways, but Danny's tail swept her feet out from under her, causing her to land hard on her back.

Tucker plugged the Thermos into the small port next to the Portal and keyed in the entry sequence, looking over his shoulder anxiously. "Come on, come on, come on!" He said as the light blinked red. After what seemed like an eternity, the light turned green with a whooshing sound as the Box Ghost was flushed back into the Ghost Zone.

"Tucker?!" Sam shouted, more fear in her voice than Tucker had ever heard.

Tucker whirled around, aiming the Thermos at his best friend once again. "Here goes nothing." He pushed the button and the familiar beam of blue light shot out of the mouth of the Thermos, enveloping the dragon and pulling it into the capture chamber. Tucker breathed out a sigh of relief and capped the Thermos, letting his hand swing down to his side.

He jogged over to Sam, offering a hand to pull her up. "Jeez," she said. "Waited for the last possible second much? I thought I was going to get turned into a popsicle."

"Not my fault Danny's too lazy to empty the Thermos after he's used it," Tucker grumbled.

"Seriously, though. Nice one," Sam said, slinging an arm over Tucker's shoulders. "That was a little too close."

"Don't mention it," Tucker said. "Now let's get our friend on two legs again, shall we?"

A/N:

Special thanks to lunes for this one for keeping at me to get this done. This is going to be a five-chapter deal, posting one chapter each week or so - it makes up about half of my word-count goal of 50k for this past summer's Camp Nano. Hope y'all enjoy and as always, comments and critiques much appreciated (:

-attu