This is an AU where instead of ghosts, there are espers. Espers are people who can use supernatural abilities, which are usually (and inaccurately) called extrasensory perception, or ESP. Most ghosts are espers, but there are also a few human characters who have abilities as well.

Please enjoy the story!

It was a normal day in Amity Park: the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and Daniel Fenton was observing. Really, that was one of the few things the boy felt he was truly skilled at, the other being pretending.

Daniel (or, as he preferred, Danny) was observing the argument between his two best friends, Sam Manson and Tucker Foley. Really, they had had the same fight almost every day since they met in third grade. Literally the same fight; neither had used any new points in years.

So as usual, Danny did nothing but watch.

He liked watching. He learned quickly this way and rarely let things slip past his notice. This also meant he had a reputation for being spacey and easily distracted, but that just helped him act.

Danny acted like he was clueless, unintelligent, and wimpy, even among his friends. Sure, best friends are supposed to share all, but Danny had a very important secret.

He was an esper. In other words, he was a person born with supernatural powers.

Actually, espers were fairly common. Almost half of all humans had some sort of ability, but were so weak that his anti-esper extremist parents didn't bat an eye. Danny was special because he was powerful, extremely powerful.

On a scale from 0.1 to 10.0, Danny was currently an 8.3 and growing. He could count the known stronger espers on one hand, and still have fingers left over.

So, if only to avoid a painful demise at his parents' hands, he hid behind the guise of an average teenage boy. Everyone thought the only powers he possessed were changing his eye colors and an oddly heightened resistance to insults. Obviously, the latter was a joke, and everyone thought him harmless.

Danny liked it that way.

So the boy observed, pretended, and survived... which is more than he could say for most people caught in the middle of this argument.

"Tucker, I am telling you, killing a living, feeling creature just for food isn't worth it! Plants can give you all the food and drink you need and still be just fine." Sam tried to explain. The girl was a goth, but could communicate with flora and fauna of all kinds. Naturally, she strived for a better way of living for all.

Tucker, a technopath, scoffed, "Sure, it can give me what I need, but can it give me what I want? For example, I want a nice, juicy double cheeseburger right now. Can your beloved plants give me that, Sam?"

At that, Danny couldn't restrain a light chuckle. This drew the attention of his friends, who blinked in surprise at the unexpected interruption.

"What's up, Danny?"

"Nothing, Sam. It's just that you two are using the same arguments from seven years ago, almost word for word. I bet you didn't even notice!" The raven-haired boy explained with a smothered (and very manly) giggle.

"Really?" The two asked at once, before Tucker continued with a simple, "Huh."

"Yep. And we're here, anyways. You almost walked right past the doors." At this, all three cracked up. Sure, they were early enough that walking past the doors wouldn't cause a problem, but the idea was still funny. How could they miss a building as large as their school? It even had its own front gate!

With an exaggerated flourish, Danny opened the door for his friends. He grinned at Tucker, "Ladies first."

But he didn't catch Tucker's reaction as a cold feeling bubbled up in his chest. He gasped more at the meaning of it than the familiar sensation. As soon as his friends cleared the doorway, he sprinted away, shouting some excuse about a forgotten book over his shoulder.

It wasn't until he reached an empty alleyway that he finally slowed to a stop, carefully scanning the area for people and cameras. Finding none, he called up a wave of freezing cold telekinetic energy, relishing in the charge that spread quickly to every cell in his body. He wasn't sure what the wave itself would look like to anyone else, but he knew what it left behind: a softly glowing teen with pure white hair and luminescent green eyes.

He wasn't wearing the stereotypical spandex of comic book superheroes, thank goodness. Instead, he was clad in black jeans and a sleeveless black shirt. He also had white fingerless gloves, white combat boots (which he was thankful he didn't need to go find - it's nearly impossible), and two loose white belts, more for decoration than anything else. He did use them to hold some of his tools, though. To top it all off, he wore a black hooded cloak, complete with a silver clasp in the shape of a flaming DP.

All in all, he thought he fit his name, that is, the name he gave this side of himself: Phantom.

Danny, now Phantom, sighed as he lifted himself off the ground with the brush of a thought. Really, it was much more difficult to hide his abilities than it was to use them.

"Alright, esper," he muttered, "where are you?" Taking off in the general direction his powers indicated, he soon reached a computer repair shop. With a groan, he realized which rogue esper he would most likely be fighting.

Yes, fighting. One of Danny's powers was to sense irregularities in supernatural energies. Usually this indicated rogue espers, or sometimes espers with little control over their abilities. He figured that he had the unique sense (though it wasn't his sixth) for a reason, and that reason must be to protect his home. To this end, Danny captured rogue espers and helped whoever needed him, powers or no.

Shaking himself bodily from his thoughts, Danny dove intangibly through the shop's front windows. It was a common power, but no less useful.

"Hey Technus! If you're looking for someone to fix your head, there's a psychiatrist's office three blocks from here." He quipped, charging green telekinetic energy around his hands. The technopath, one much stronger than Danny's best friend, turned away from the laptop he was fiddling with to face the young hero.

"No, not at all. I, Technus, the master of all things electronic and beeping, am here on purpose! From this store I can connect to the Internet, and from there I can use my hacking expertise to steal government secrets!" The old man said, not even realizing that he had just exposed his plan to Danny, who simply sighed again.

"Really, dude? I'm gonna be late for school." With that, he blasted his foolish adversary with his green energy, knocking him backwards into a stack of screwdriver kits. It was odd, really, because who needs that many screwdrivers?

Technus scrambled to his feet, raising his hands and summoning various electronics to himself. He was attempting to use his favorite technique, building a robotic body to give himself an edge. What he didn't count on, however, was the fact that almost all of the devices were defective or broken in some way. Why else would they be lying around in a repair shop? Exactly.

So the robotic exosuit fell back to pieces almost immediately, prompting a flurry of curses from Technus. Danny grinned to himself as he slipped a pair of anti-esper handcuffs from one of his belts. The cuffs were an invention of his father's, and were easily disguised as thin metal bracelets until activated. Danny always wore a deactivated pair, modified into simple limiters, just in case.

"You know, that offer still stands..." He joked as the older esper panicked. Seeing the glare in the man's grey eyes from behind his dark glasses, he continued, "No? Then I guess it's back to the EZ for you."

Danny clipped the thin cuffs around the struggling Technus' wrists, placing his thumb over the hidden scanner. The cuffs recognized his thumbprint and activated, sending a harsh jolt through the villain's body and restraining his powers just as well as they did his hands.

They also had the (unexpected but pleasant) side effect of knocking the captive out, making it infinitely easier for Danny to transport him to the ESP Zone, a prison designed specifically for rogue espers.

Danny waved a hand and shoved Technus into a temporary dimensional pocket. These acted as temporary holding cells until after school, when he could swing by the Zone. They were also great for hiding in when invisibility wasn't an option... and he liked to use them to hold his textbooks.

At the thought of textbooks, Danny jolted. School! For what felt like the millionth time, the boy wished he had already mastered teleportation.

Two minutes? Oh, well. He could fly fast enough, he hoped.

Muttering his own curses under his breath, Danny took off at high speed as he retrieved his math textbook. He suppressed his powers as he landed in the boy's bathroom, became visible, and strode out as Fenton.

One minute.

Danny ran to his locker and snatched his morning notebooks before slamming it shut. It bounced back open. He growled in frustration as he slammed it again, this time satisfied as it stayed closed.

Ten seconds.

With that done, he sped down the hall to his homeroom, Room 217 with Mr. Lancer. The boy dodged jocks, nerds, and preps, making it through the door just as the bell rang. Wincing, Danny looked up at his homeroom teacher, who was standing in the front of the room. At Mr. Lancer's nod, Danny sighed in relief and slid into his seat between Sam and Tucker.

"Hey, man," Tucker said in an uncharacteristically quiet voice in order to avoid detection, "What took you so long? We couldn't hear what you said as you ran away."

Danny's gaze shot back and forth from Sam to Tucker, watching for their reactions to his excuse. In a level voice, he explained, "Like I told you guys, I forgot a textbook at home. Weren't we supposed to bring it to Math today for group work or whatever?"

Tucker seemed to accept the excuse as he shook his head. Sam, however, raised a skeptical eyebrow, "Oh, yeah, just like you forgot that same book three times last week? We haven't had group work in math for two months, Danny."

Shit.

'C'mon, Danny. How can you get out of this?' Danny thought, shifting in discomfort as he searched for an excuse. He was saved from an explanation, though, when Mr. Lancer called the students to attention.

Yes, I know that this is an awkward place to stop. The original document for this is a solid 7,000 words, and I decided to split it up into pieces so that I have time to write more after the Christmas Truce.

The first few chapters will be about 90% exposition and 10% plot, but don't worry about it too much. I promise that after the first three chapters or so, I can finally get out of excessive explanations and into the actual plot!

Word Count: 1755

Thank you for reading, and please have a nice day/evening!