Chapter 87 - 35
Chapter 35: "Ambulances, Bruises, and the Art of Reckless Victory"
In which Danny discovers pain is temporary, but revenge is glorious—and also painful.
Let's get one thing straight: Dash Baxter wasn't just your average high school jock.
He wasn't the "lift weights, eat protein, pick fights with nerds" type. No—Dash was the 5-star general of teenage athleticism. A one-man army in letterman jacket form. If this school was a kingdom, Dash wasn't just the prince. He was the warrior prince who bench-pressed dragons and threw touchdowns for the honor of the realm.
He was fast. He was strong. He was absurdly good at grappling arts that most adults took decades to master. He could probably wrestle a bear, and that bear would need therapy afterward.
And it wasn't just brawn. His GPA was solid. He aced math. Could cook steak medium-rare without Googling it. Woke up at 5 a.m. every day to train. Ate kale voluntarily.
He came from a family of high achievers. His dad was a decorated Army colonel who once beat a tank in a staring contest (probably). His mom was an ex-Air Force pilot who casually mentioned pulling 6Gs like it was a traffic report. At Thanksgiving dinners, they talked about tactical gear, not turkey stuffing.
So, yeah. Dash had pressure. But he wore it like a weighted vest—built muscle from it.
The one person he had ever really looked up to, weirdly enough, wasn't a Baxter at all. It was Jack Fenton—Danny's dad. That mountain of a man had body-slammed Dash's dad in a friendly spar years ago and earned the elder Baxter's eternal respect. Dash never forgot that. He'd watched Jack take down his hero—and then laugh and hand him a sandwich afterward.
So when he heard that Danny Fenton, the son of Jack Freakin' Fenton, had become... well, Danny, he didn't know what to do with that disappointment.
He wanted to like Danny. They'd actually been friends once, when they were little. Threw water balloons together. Swapped snacks at lunch. Played tag like it was life and death.