Author's Note: My original idea was to have each chapter correspond to an episode of the show, introducing villains and such in the same order. The problem with this is that these chapters seem to be getting much, much longer on my computer as I attempt that, and there's fifty three episodes of the show. So some things are going to have be cut and things will unfold differently with Dash at the helm than they would with Danny, so while I'll try to stick to the timeline faithfully, the chapter equals episode formula will probably not end up holding true. This chapter, for instance, is more of establishing Dash's character and background so I don't have to keep re-remphasizing it later. I also threw in a few glanced-over OCs because Dash hangs out with athletes/cheerleaders and there have to be more of those to the school than just the handful we saw on the show.

I would like to thank all of my reviewers. To answer some questions posed: jeanette9a, Danny will get involved later but is definitely going to be in on Dash's secret sooner or later, trust me. Oak Leaf Ninja, I'm glad I'm fleshing out Dash and it doesn't seem too forced or too much like making him an OC-stand in and I hope you'll tell me in the future if I veer too far into OOC territory. Finally, Elisabeth Hill, I love you too. Thank you for helping boost my confidence on a story idea I'm very nervous about, and helping me feel like so far I'm keeping Dash Dash-y enough.

As always, criticism, complaints, thoughts, ideas, suggestions and feedback are always appreciated. I would also like to thank those who put this on alerts, as I find that complimentary as well. Although this chapter continues to be more set up than action, I promise action is most definitely coming pretty much nonstop after this and I thank you all for sitting through the walls of text that my writing tends to turn into. Thank you all for reading.

Sometimes Dash felt like he was watching his life from the outside.

This could not possibly be his real life. This wasn't happening. There was no way he was sitting in the shade under the bleachers with Sam Manson, resident Goth soapbox Sadie. There was no way he could fly, or change colors, or whatever was going on. Some part of him rejected the very words 'ghost powers' because they were simply too far removed from the world he lived in. Dashiel Hadley Baxter did not give half a crap about ghosts, the paranormal, the afterlife, religion, God, or any of that, because the grind of day to day life took up every spare second he had.

Keeping up this kind of image, always wearing the right thing and saying the right thing and doing the right things with the right people to earn everyone's approval was a full time job. Football was a full time job. Keeping up his grades when anything less than perfect would cause a fight at home was a full time job. He simply had no extra time to add this level of craziness onto his work load. He barely got any sleep as it was. There was no way this could be happening, and yet it had, and he'd been living with it for a month, and now he was going to sit here and talk about it like it was some after school special. With a girl whose name he barely knew. He knew she was friends with Danny, who he hated, and that she was highly outspoken. That was all he knew.

His hatred for Danny was a very old wound, one he did not allow to heal. Though Danny was oblivious as to the source of Dash's rage, Dash was happy to keep it that way. To talk to Danny about their interactions would mean having to examine Dash's need for control. They would have to talk about his flaws, and he couldn't afford flaws. Unable to stop the wellspring of anger inside himself, Dash had resigned himself to working it out. He ran until he couldn't take another step, he practiced until football was like a second language, he took weight lifting when that was offered as part of gym class. If ever he were to truly let loose on Danny, someone as big and bulky as Dash could easily kill the smaller boy. That was what made him throw Danny in a locker instead of beating him to a pulp, that was why he mocked him instead of just breaking his arm.

Dash's anger scared him. It was especially bad today. When he'd seen Star he hadn't even paused to look around, he'd leapt into battle mode. He'd been so furious he could have killed had his opponent not already been a ghost. That thought was sobering, terrifying, made him hate himself. Hate he would then take out on something else, which would feed back into the cycle while the smile of a confident jock never left his face. That was a role he'd been playing for years, the confident dauntless sports hero.

Sam had seen him out of that role. And he didn't know what he was when he wasn't a jock. There was no greater identity to him. It wasn't as if he was actually a good guy deep down and he was just misunderstood. He was an asshole, he knew it, he hated it about himself and that was all there was to it. All he could do was try better, and try harder, fumbling desperately for perfection. Happiness came so easily to all his friends, all his team mates. If he were as good as them it would come to him too. Until then he had to fake it. Caught in the act of not acting, seen just reacting and living, that was unknown territory. He had no idea what Manson thought of him right now, because he didn't know what he thought of himself right now.

"Is Star okay?" he asked after the silence had stretched on to an awkward point.

"She might have a concussion, but her vitals were stable," Sam said gently, smiling. "Paulina actually dropped the ice queen act for a while there. I'm sure she'll give you updates straight from the hospital if you call."

"Or text. Paulina can text faster than Foley can do math," he joked weakly, with a hint of his usual cockiness. His voice only wavered a little when he asked, "So are you going to hand me over to Fenton's parents now?"

She blinked, surprised. "What?"

"You're Fenton's best friend. I never see one of you without the other nowadays. You're in AP classes. You know about the accident. You know... what's going on." He couldn't bring himself to say that he was part ghost. He couldn't. The idea was still unbelievable. "You saw me do ghost crap. And ghosts are kind of the embodiment of evil, last time I checked."

"I saw you," Sam confirmed, voice stern and serious. "I saw you risk your life to protect a girl you barely know from a ghost whose powers totally outmatched yours - I'm sorry, but they do. And you did it with no witnesses."

He snorted. "Obviously not, Manson, or we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"No, what I mean is... you remember in Mr. Lancer's class, that one book we read with the quotes, and how we were supposed to talk about what they meant? One of the lines in there was 'character is what you are in the dark'. Meaning, when nobody's watching." She looked him in the eyes. "And when nobody's watching you went in to save somebody and then sneak off and never get thanks for it. That's what you are. I mean, I didn't think that was who you were, but I'm Goth. We're all about understanding multifaceted personalities. You're a little bit ghost. You're also a little bit good."

"If I were better she wouldn't be in the hospital right now," he scowled, looking away. "But I get what you're saying. If I don't go psycho, you won't let the Fentons experiment on me?"

She sighed, smacking her face with her palm. "You're such a thick headed jerk. Yes, that's what I'm saying. It might be smart to start laying off Danny, though. Given your history, and who his parents are..."

"He has it coming," Dash muttered darkly, his eyes narrowing as he clenched his fists.

"For what?" The black haired girl asked, raising both eyebrows. Danny was her friend and she would defend him to the ends of the Earth. Dash's tone, however, said something had happened, and that made her wonder what the start of the feud had been to begin with. "He hasn't bothered you in forever, Dash. What is it with you and him?"

"Something I don't know you well enough to get into, Manson. But he'll know something's up if I just suddenly quit acting normal around him. For now we'll say I'm still PO'd over the accident 'cause getting electrocuted freaking hurts. That's true, more or less." He flexed his hands, noting the previous injuries had healed over in his ghost form. "I guess everything I do will have to be a lot more planned out from now on."

"I'll help," she volunteered. His disbelieving look was its own response. "I know. I know I don't owe you anything and I'm not really not who you want to spend your time with, but I don't want Danny's parents to get ahold of you. Danny would probably hear you out, even though you're you, because he just doesn't believe what his parents do. They... wouldn't care what you did, probably, and I don't want you to get hurt."

"You should. I kind of make your friends' lives Hell, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Ease off of them. Think of it like a trade." She smiled at him, purple lipstick somehow not smeared despite the insanity of the day. "Just trust me."

Trust? He didn't do tru- oh, wait. Every single thing he didn't do, he was doing so far today. Even though the idea of handing his secret identity over to a complete stranger was terrifying, he really didn't have a choice. But Sam wasn't like other girls. She was always preachy and actually tried to live up to her own high ideals. If there was one person in school besides Kwan he thought could keep their mouth shut, it would probably have to be Sam. So he nodded at her, seriously.

"Yeah. Well. This is still weird as heck."

"No argument here, Baxter."

In retrospect, he'd look back at this moment and laugh. It had not yet begun to get weird on them yet.

After managing to hide his poor grade from his father, a task accomplished by hyping the upcoming football game, Dash then spent an hour on homework, went to football practice for an hour and a half, came home to change clothes, went over to his math tutor's house and, one hour after that, finally got to sit down to eat dinner.

By this time it was seven in the evening, and the blonde found himself starving even more so than usual, his desperate desire to consume food something he attributed, after skimming his Biology textbook, to how much ghostly energy he'd used. Energy was energy. He'd used too much, and now his body was begging him to replenish that energy stash before he ended up passing out, something that hadn't happened since he was in fifth grade. He remembered that day; having not eaten due to nerves, he'd passed out upon impact with another football player. His dad had chewed him out when they got home, ranting about how he looked like a pansy out there. After that their house was always well stocked with food, something he took advantage of as he worked his way through half the pot of spaghetti in the fridge.

More than ever, the events of the cafeteria ghost drove home to him that he needed to practice more with his ghost powers. He should've been there faster, should've had the common sense to grab Star and phase out, but his control was awful. He had to do better and, after spending a little bit of time on the phone with Paulina, who cheerfully told him Star didn't have a concussion and would be out of the hospital tomorrow morning, he headed out to practice. He had never been able to afford to be less than perfect. This was no exception.

So he left his house at about nine that night, and ended up returning at around eleven, simply too tired to keep going. He worked until his powers simply shorted out on him and he was forced to walk home in his normal form, which strained his already abused muscles. Exhausted, he ate another helping of spaghetti, passed out on his bed and slept dreamlessly. Or if he did dream, he didn't remember it. Life had gotten so weird that dreams would be mundane by comparison.

Then he woke up at six thirty to begin the nightmare of his life again.

After an early morning run, some basic exercises, a shower, going over his homework again to double check it, scarfing down breakfast and quickly reading the short story Lancer had assigned them all for English, he made it to school early as always to go run the social gambit every football player had to. He had people to talk to, a smidge of typical high school gossip to catch up on and more importantly he had to make sure there were no rumors going around about a weird ghost kid with golden eyes and black hair. The school bus ride was spent blaring out the world with his iPod, music he barely heard and only used as an excuse to look cool - and get out of having to talk about yesterday's oh so amazing ghost incident.

Every group in school sort of had their own spot in the school commons where they stood or sat to talk. For Dash's circle of friends, that was the center by the flagpole. He spotted Star and Paulina, with one of their cheerleader friends, Ophelia, who looked worried, her lilac eyes darting between Star and Paulina, her bobbed auburn hair catching the early morning sunlight. Star was saying something to both of them, waving her hands dismissively in a 'no big deal' gesture. Kwan was with them, frowning, unconvinced, his bright teal-green eyes wide with concern. Marcus, a fellow football player with a good sense of humor, stood in the center of it all clearly trying to diffuse the situation, his dreadlocks a lighter shade of brown than his dark sepia skin. He caught Dash's gaze and waved him over, gray eyes full of mirth as always. Valerie was next to him, leaning her head against his shoulder and smiling.

This was his group, his friends, and not one of them knew what Manson knew. Not one of them knew his father's drinking was getting worse or that he liked soap operas or that he listened to dubstep to help himself focus. They didn't know he didn't want to be a football player when he graduated, didn't know despite rumors to the contrary he was a virgin, didn't know about how sometimes when he couldn't sleep and his anger was welling up inside him he'd go for runs in the dead of night until he couldn't run anymore. They didn't know that he still played Pokemon and liked to look up words in foreign languages on his computer when he was bored. They didn't know that at parties he always found somewhere to pour his drink out in secret because he didn't want to be his father.

Sam Manson knew more about him than these people did and he'd been seeing these people every day at school since fourth grade.

He couldn't remember much of what he did that day. Talk, mostly. Talk about Star, talk about the upcoming dance, the upcoming game, who was dating who, how lame certain people were, whatever. It all blended together like it did every other day, a blur of note taking and one liners and making sure everybody knew he was there and unaffected by everything as always. Talk big about the upcoming game that was actually a very intimidating match up, ask Paulina to the dance out of habit rather than genuine interest, text with Ophelia through most of English class, make plans to hang out with Marcus and Kwan after practice and go get a burger. It was normal, and like most normal days, he lived it as if from afar, experiencing things vaguely, none of it really affecting him.

Up until the point where, during lunch, a ghost built like the Terminator on steroids burst in, wielding weaponry Dash couldn't even describe, yelling something about hunting.

This? This was why he felt like his own life was a movie. And also why the word 'weird' was losing all meaning.