Hi everyone! This is a collection of scenes that didn't make it into SoaD. I did say I'd post these eventually- plus this gives me an excuse to announce the contest here on FFn.

If you're interested in the final SoaD fanart contest, check out the link in my profile! The deadline is July 1st.

The following scenes were cut for plot, pacing, or because they felt redundant. They are not necessary to the story and some of them do not fit the final continuity of SoaD. Some of them have been posted to Tumblr in the past. I'm not really editing 'em either, just running spell check and fixing the formatting.

Enjoy!

-Hj

Deleted Scenes 1 :: Dash

The original draft of SoaD included plans for a fully-fleshed-out flashback describing how, exactly, nobody noticed Danny was missing for nearly a month, and then a series of scenes following Dash as he spent nearly two months convincing himself he'd murdered Danny and needed to cover it up-then suddenly found out he hadn't when Danny reappears. I found it interesting to think about the unhealthy dynamics of the football team (which must be the case at Casper High if their quarterback is a bully) and how misplaced machismo could snowball into disaster.

Buuut after a while I came to my senses, realized that it dedicated way too much time to a minor character, and axed it. A condensed version found its way into Danny's story in Ch. 2 and Dash's brief appearance confronting Tucker in Ch. 12.

Only a few scenes from this arc actually made it into the written-out stage; the following are the two most intact.

"If you think I'm going to let you shave my head Dash, you're crazy."

"What did you think the razor was for, Fenhead?"

Dash growled and charged again, muscled arms swinging wide in an attempt to catch Danny in a bearhug. As the fight had dragged on from a few seconds to a few minutes, the freak had actually started getting cocky.

"What's the matter, Dash? Can't catch anything that's not leather with laces on it?"

"Catch? Ha!" he laughed, making his voice intimidating as much to scare the other boys as his opponent. He couldn't have them thinking he was losing his cool factor by fighting so long with a geek. "I'm playing games with you, Fenton. I can catch you anytime I try."

"Then maybe you'd better come up with a new game." Danny yawned, sidestepping to avoid what would have been an awesome leg sweep and glancing toward the campsite. "This one's getting old. I mean come on, catch the wimp? We play this back home. I wanna get some sleep before Teslaff starts yelling at me tomorrow. And the food? Man, I don't even wanna think about it."

Danny Fenton might be a wimp, but he was getting unbelievably good at dodging. Two years of regular beatings had done something for the kid, at least. Dash might have even felt a sense of pride if said pride wasn't currently steaming from being led around by the nose by this pitiful excuse for a human.

The other boys were starting to look at each other, starting to doubt him. Dash. Their leader. He couldn't allow it. This needed to end, and soon. "Hold-still, Fentwerp!"

"Oh sure," the teen said, grinning and ducking back just out of Dash's reach. "I'll just step right up and let you pummel me. What on earth was I thinking?" He leaned to the side and let the quarterback's roundhouse whistle past his ear. "I'll get on that right away."

"You think you're being cute when you talk like that, don't ya Fenton?"

"Aw, Dash, you think I'm cute? I'm flattered." That got a few snickers from the other football players. Dash saw red.

"Pin him in!" Dash snapped.

The big footballers grinned and formed a semicircle, pinning Danny between the railing and Dash's oncoming figure. Danny's eyes widened and at the last second, he ducked under the rail, clinging to it with a precarious grip as he tried to get his balance on the loose rock off the trail. What was he, an idiot? There was a hundred-foot drop on the other side.

It all happened at once. Dash's momentum carried him into the railing, shaking it with a bang. The geek boy was thrown back. Then his fingers slipped and he fell off the edge into the dark of the ravine. His surprised shout was swallowed by the wind, leaving Danny staring down, open-mouthed, into the dark. For a wild moment he thought he saw a bright flash of light and the silhouette of his favorite hero rushing down into the ravine. But that was just his mind playing tricks on him; what would Phantom be doing all the way out in the woods? Fenton was gone.

And it was all his fault.

Jake, one of the linebackers, spoke first. "You know Teslaff, she lives by the charts in this thing. If Fenton's name isn't in the books, it's like he was never here at all."

"Like that's gonna work. Everybody saw him get off the bus."

"Then maybe he got called home sick. Maybe his psycho family came by and dragged him off for some ghost thing. Doesn't matter as long as nobody asks us. What do we know? We're just a bunch of kids at camp."

"I don't like it."

"Yeah. What about after? They're gonna know something happened to him when he never shows back up."

"Nothing happened, okay?" Dash cut in. "Some loser went missing. What do you care?" The boys shuffled uncomfortably, but nobody met his eyes. They did care, some of them, but nobody was Fenton's friend. "Nobody's gonna say anything otherwise, either. Not if they want to see the other side of high school in one piece."

"What kind of stupid bluff is that? I'm bigger than you, Baxter, even if you are the quarterback."

"If he could do it to Fenton, he could do it to you, pinhead."

Dash hated how all their wide, staring eyes centered on him, the belief in all his faces. To him, he was a killer. If he wanted to get away without ending up in jail, or worse, off the team, then he had to keep them thinking that way. So he wrote Fenton's name on the Excused Students lists, careful to make his writing shaky and hard to read like the old man who drove the bus, then threw the book at Kwan and snapped the pen in half. He tossed it into the gorge after Fenton, the tiny white object vanishing into the dark like he did. Dash cracked his knuckles and the whole team flinched. Good.

"Nothing happened," he snarled one last time, then walked back toward the camp. If Dash wasn't scared out of his mind he would have been proud of the way the big linemen parted in front of him. But all he could see was that Fenton kid's scared white face, eyes staring right at him till he vanished.

Dash tied his shoelaces and stood up, putting his football helmet under his arm and jogging out to the edge of the bleachers. Practice wouldn't begin for another hour, but the quarterback had to be early. He had to be the first one on the field.

It was the first day of school, and there hadn't been one word about Fenton.

Maybe he was gone for good this time. Dah didn't know why Fenton had run off. He didn't care. What mattered was that for whatever reason he'd kept his mouth shut. And this time it was Fenton's own damn fault. Nobody could pin a runaway on Dash.

Dash dropped his helmet on the dewy sidelines and leaned over, stretching. He'd kept himself in shape, of course. He was the star of the team after all. That meant he had to make it look easy. Like he didn't get up and run at five every morning before school. Like he didn't spend hours in the weight room late at night.

Easy like Phantom always did, zooming into whatever chaos the ghost of the day had caused with that cocky smile and knocking said flat with one white-gloved fist. Phantom never looked defeated. He'd always have some stupid, brave thing to say. He never seemed to know when he ought to back down.

Just like the usual Fenton.

Dash growled and snatched up a net bag full of footballs.

That was part of the reason Dash couldn't ever leave that stupid nerd alone. Fenton always had to come back with some smart remark, like he didn't care if his body made a permanent dent in the locker room floor, or whether Dash scrubbed the toilets with his face. He never looked beaten. Not the way he'd looked that last time.

Dash had gone to visit. Made up some excuse, forced the guys from the team to sign off on some lame get well card and crowded himself into the room with three other classmates. He had to look Fenton in the eyes and know why Dash wasn't halfway to juvenile hall already.

He'd wanted to see the twerp's face. He hadn't become Casper High's uncontested reigning bully without knowing how to teach nerds to keep their mouths shut. With his football record, the teachers turned a blind eye to the few that did go telling tales.

That wasn't the usual Fenton that had been sitting there in the hospital room, looking even more skinny and pathetic than usual. That Fenton hadn't even had the fight to say a word. He'd just looked at Dash vacantly, then mumbled a completely unsarcastic thanks for the card.

Anyway the parents were way too nice to Dash than they would have been if the Fenturd had told. He didn't look scared of Dash either, which was annoying. He looked…not all there. Like a ghost. Not the real, scary, glowy green ones, but more like the ones you heard stories about. Those washed-out things that didn't seem all there.

Dash dragged the bag out to the twenty-fifth yard line. He lined the balls up in a row, setting each meticulously on its own stand. Then he kicked them at the goalposts with a vengeance. Three went out of bounds, and a fourth bounced off the goal posts, bouncing back pathetically into the end zone.

This was no good. He had to be making goals, solid ones, by the time the rest of the team straggled in. He lined up another row of balls.

That was that, then. Unless one of the other guys grew a pair or, even less likely, sprouted a guilty conscience, then Dash was off scot free. Nobody who mattered knew. Nobody who knew cared enough to tell, or at least they were too scared about their getting their own skins expelled for it to matter. Everything was perfect.

He hit the first ball solidly, and it went soaring straight toward the goal—too low. It bounced roughly over the bottom pole. In, but barely. Dash scowled.

Only as perfect as Amity Park could be, now that Phantom was had stopped showing up. They said the ghost was gone, maybe captured. Or maybe he got bored or scared and went back to that ghost place already.

Miss.

Dash would never believe that. Phantom wasn't some wimp like Danny Fenturd. He was better than human. He wouldn't get caught by some lame-ass ghost hunter.

Miss.

Phantom was a hero. Someone better than the rest. Someone untouchable. Not a loser, like Fenton. Not a regular guy, like Dash. A regular guy who almost murdered some–

The last ball crashed into the bleachers, clattering through the cheap aluminum and disappearing in the yet to be trimmed summer growth underneath.

Kwan wandered onto the field. He was bleary-eyed and still in his sweats, gear hanging out of the half-zipped duffel on his shoulder.

"You're here early," he mumbled, scratching his head. It did nothing for the cowlick jutting out of his straight, jet-black hair. "I thought I was early, but man, you're early, early. Like earliness but earlier."

Dash huffed and snatched up the empty ball bag. He wasn't in the mood to deal with Kwan's rambling word quirks today.

The reason nobody picked on Kwan was because it was a waste of effort. He was too big to push around and not bright enough to know when he was being made fun of. But he was strong, and stubborn when he wanted to be, which made him a decent lineman. He was easy to order around too… and maybe the only kid who didn't act scared around Dash since this summer. Dash couldn't decide if he liked that or hated it. He was sure it wasn't the reason he'd taken to hanging with Kwan more often.

"Go suit up," Dash said brusquely, putting on his helmet and and turning to fetch the fallen balls. "We'll start with pass practice."