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shih-coulda-had-it · 4 years

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trained by the best

Summary: Gran Torino is hired by the Hero Public Safety Commission to train Keigo Takami, boy wonder. Canon!AU. [Illustration included.]

“Torino-san?”

He blinked once, then again, like he could rid himself of this prim and proper lady standing at his doorstep. Sorahiko scrubbed his face with a rough hand and felt the stubble prickle his palm. So much for self-care. He eyed her with wariness. No one in a blazer had charitable intentions. Leaning into the old-timer’s growl, Sorahiko parried with, “Who needs him?”

She wasn’t having his shit. “The Hero Public Safety Commission.”

His hackles rose. “I don’t do that kind of work.”

“You misunderstand our initiative,” she said coldly, “but that is of no matter. Please welcome me in.”

Sorahiko bared his teeth in a semblance of a grin. “Welcome to my home,” he answered, and stepped aside. “Get to the point, before I have to offer you snacks and drinks.”

The lady gave his ramshackle apartment a disparaging onceover, and conceded. She untucked a manila folder from under her arm, and cleared her throat. “Torino Sorahiko. Pro Hero, Gran Torino. You were part of a government operation to take in All for One with your partner—”

“Get to the point,” he repeated.

She glared. “You’re one of the fastest pro heroes in Japan, and yet you’ve never been noticed by the public record. You once taught at U.A., but quit after a year. If it wasn’t for a footnote on the All for One operation, we wouldn’t even be aware of your skills.”

He maintained his poker face, but inwardly cursed at whoever kept the file. Sorahiko had stayed under the radar for a reason. Mostly because he hated the media, and the task of cultivating a reputation. He’d left that nonsense to Nana, who hadn’t actually liked it any better.

“I like my quiet life,” Sorahiko pronounced, folding his arms together. “You haven’t gotten to your point.”

“We’re looking to hire a combat tutor,” she grinded out. “Someone skilled in fighting at incredible speeds, and who wouldn’t be averse to being missing from the public eye. That’s you.”

“No one likes how I teach.”

“Statistics show that the one year you taught at U.A., the graduating students had more success in navigating their first tests in battle. The school attributes this to you.” The lady closed the file. “That’s what we’re asking of you. One year. More, if your teaching bears productive results.”

Sorahiko suspected some trickery. “Who would I be teaching? A class?”

“One boy,” she said, and it was like hearing Nana’s last words to him all over again. Sorahiko felt the ports on his legs hiss, and reflexively inhaled. “He’s quite young, but brimming with potential. Saved a family from a car crash at the age of six.”

“... And how old is he now?”

The lady lifted her chin. “Ten.”

“That’s too young.” It was an instinctive objection of sorts, born out of observing Toshinori’s terrible battle instincts and having to beat some sense into his class before they graduated. Sorahiko didn’t teach kindly. The memories of his spars with Toshinori sometimes riddled him with guilt; the idea of training a ten year old child the same way would probably cause Nana to rise from the grave and murder him. A different thought occurred to him. “Where’s his family?”

Not dead, he willed.

“They’re being handsomely compensated,” she answered. “He came from a low-income family, and needed attention he could not get otherwise.” The lady cocked her head. “And now, he needs training in combat that we cannot adequately provide without your help.”

“I can say no.”

“And we would find a second-best option.” He could feel his face twitch. “The boy will be trained. All that remains to be decided is by whom, and how well.”

“Might,” Sorahiko said with as much venom as was polite, “I have the name of the boy, and the location where we’ll be training?”

Her smile was cold too. Victory to the government offshoot. “You will refer to me as Miura. Your charge is Keigo Takami. He’ll be operating under the name of Hawks.” With a quick, graceful motion, she offered the folder; Sorahiko took it. “The training facilities are there. Report to the first one by this Monday, 0800 hours. Be prepared to give a verbal assessment of his skills.”

“Keigo-kun,” said Miura with a degree of warmth Sorahiko had previously not associated with her. “This is your new tutor. Call him Torino-sensei, okay?”

“Okay,” the kid replied quietly. His round face was entirely too serious for ten years old, and it made Sorahiko want to back out of the job. The Commission was grooming the kid to be a pro hero.

He’d be a striking figure. There was a charm to the kid’s scarlet red wings, the feathery quality of his dirty-blond hair, the black markings highlighting his avian nature. Keigo Takami met Sorahiko’s gaze with the most unimpressed expression a child had ever leveled in his direction.

Looks like they’ve done a number on you, kid, Sorahiko thought. Aloud, he said, “I hear you can move.”

Miura withdrew silently; the door hissed shut behind her. There was a viewing deck for this off-white cushioned room, but Sorahiko chose not to glance at it, preferring to see whether or not he could tease some life back into the kid’s deadened gaze.

“I can.”

“You warmed up?”

“I have.”

Geez. Like pulling teeth. Sorahiko idly tugged at his gloves. “Alright then. We’re gonna play a game of tag.” The kid’s eyes brightened, and his posture actually straightened even further with interest. “I’ll be it for three minutes. Every tap I get on you is a lap around the building perimeter. Ready?”

Tiny scarlet wings flared out in preparation. “Ready,” the kid echoed, and Sorahiko pulled out his stopwatch and showily held it up. At the click, Sorahiko jetted straight up to the ceiling and let the timer fall; Takami startled backwards at the rush of expelled air, and made eye contact just as Sorahiko kicked off and headed straight for him.

He kept it playful. The kid was fast, true, but he hadn’t yet learned to operate in a three-dimensional environment. Nana had dragged him, however reluctantly, through numerous games of Quirk tag. Takami was still young, and isolated to boot.

“Keep moving,” he advised on a pass, and Takami whirled around, too late to catch sight of him. He was caught up in the spin, so much so that Sorahiko was able to ricochet and pass by again to flick him on the shoulder.

At the end of three minutes, Takami was leaning on his knees and gasping for breath. Sorahiko… wasn’t unimpressed. He had expected a lot worse; if Toshinori and his class were evidence, the notion of constant movement wasn’t a universally-ingrained instinct. That Takami had eventually started darting and zigzagging in a desperate maneuver to avoid Sorahiko’s path spoke well of his battle instincts; Toshinori’s unfortunate go-to strategy of standing rooted to the ground had taken a number of beatings to unlearn.

“Ten taps,” said Sorahiko mildly, crouching down to meet Takami’s eyes. There was much more intrigue than earlier; respect had been earned, and not even grudgingly. “You did better than expected, kid.”

Takami’s eyes fairly sparkled. “I did?” he asked, almost shy.

“Yeah. You’ve already got the idea that moving should be your first strategy.” Sorahiko gestured at the wings, now marshaled back into a neat fold. “Give it a few years till your growth spurt, and you’ll be faster than me. Till then...” He tapped the kid’s nose. Kid went cross-eyed. “That’s eleven. If you use your wings, up it to fifteen.”

Takami vibrated in place. “Torino-sensei!” he complained, and looked surprised that he could whine.

Sorahiko finally glanced up at the viewing deck. A group of suits gazed imposingly down; the door hissed open. He creaked back up, and nodded at the kid. “Bully someone to chaperone you. Say I told you the laps are homework,” he advised, and Sorahiko turned to see Miura’s triumphant expression. “Miura-san.”

“Torino-san,” she returned. “Cutting your tutoring session short?”

“Sparring for an hour isn’t an option for now—” Sorahiko stopped, feeling something tug at his cape. He looked back and barely managed to see the tiny hand release the yellow fabric, the flash of guilt and self-reproach. “... A short intermission. However long our conversation lasts. Then I’ll do another round with him.”

“Very good,” Miura said patronizingly. “Keigo-kun—”

“I need a watcher,” the kid piped up, and Sorahiko was treated to the vindictive pleasure of seeing Miura get caught off-guard. “I have homework, and I want to finish it before the second round.”

“Homework?”

“Running eleven laps around the building,” he recited. “Or flying fifteen.”

“Running laps. How nice,” she said, and nice sounded awfully like quaint. Sorahiko wasn’t looking forward to the debriefing. It wouldn’t just be a performance review of a ten year old’s skills; it’d be the Commission deciding whether or not he was worth hiring for the year, and the years after. Sorahiko was already constructing a rough syllabus in his head, which was… a lot more than what his students had gotten.

But with them, it had been coming into the year with a plan, and having that plan be utterly annihilated upon first meeting. Combat training had always been self-taught. Experience trumped formal learning, and knowing the ins and outs of your Quirk would always give you an edge over your opponent.

Generalizing had been a huge issue in U.A. He didn’t have the time to personally drag a student through the effort of pushing their Quirk to the limit, and had instead decided the standard curriculum was bullshit, and pitted each class against him.

Twenty-four hours to strategize with each other. Three minutes to beat him. No one left without accumulating a whole collection of bruises, scrapes, and red paint marks. U.A. had eventually asked him to tone down whatever he was doing to wreck the gym facilities.

“Let’s debrief,” Sorahiko prompted, and Miura smiled.

“Sasagawa-san will be here to chaperone you, Keigo-kun,” she told the kid, and switched tones with Sorahiko. “Follow me.”

He followed.

#bnha #gran torino #torino sorahiko #hawks #shih.txt #fastest heroes in the east au #that might be as far as i go with writing #fun to think about though!#sorahiko hiding his connections with all might #all might eventually piecing together why hawks' fighting style is weirdly familiar #also. this au is where sorahiko's awful sense of humor shines #sorahiko's somewhere in his forties #starts shrinking in his fifties #angrily takes on the yoda stature by late sixties #takami keigo

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freshwater--mermaid · 6 years

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Ersatz Ch 21: Earthbound

Both Danny and Vlad stood in the small guest bedroom of the Fenton household, the sounds of everyone else having breakfast coming in through the closed door.

Danny raised an eyebrow at the blank-faced man before him, the seconds dragging on in continued silence.

Finally, Vlad blinked, his expression turning into one of disapproval.

"Daniel, I will not be showing up any time you wish just to distract your parents so that you can go into the Ghost Zone alone."

"I didn't say you had to come over all the time! Just visit occasionally, like you do now." Danny argued. "How else am I ever going to discover everything in there? I don't get a lot of opportunities to be in the lab for hours without my parents noticing."

"First, I don't think you fully appreciate just how large the Ghost Zone actually is." Vlad said. "Second, have you forgotten how dangerous I said it was to venture around in there while alone?"

"Oh please, there wasn't a single ghost in sight." Danny replied. "Even that big castle I got to was completely empty."

Vlad sighed. "You're very lucky that whatever creature guarded that territory was not around."

Danny threw his hands into the air in frustration.

"Well how else am I supposed to learn more about the Ghost Zone if I can't explore it?"

Vlad smiled, only adding to Danny's annoyance.

"Now I never said that."

The man's smile grew into a smirk, giving Danny the all-too-familiar feeling that he was being laughed at.

"Don't misunderstand me, Daniel." Vlad continued, ignoring the teen's frown. "I'm very impressed with your initiative. Deciding to map out the Ghost Zone is a smart idea. Doing it alone is the part that I'm in disagreement with."

Vlad walked around Danny, heading toward the door as he spoke.

"And besides, I myself have been charting the ghost zone for years now."

"You what?" Danny couldn't help but raise his voice in surprise.

"But I will be more than happy to go with you when the next opportunity arises." Vlad said, opening the door. "After all, I haven't explored this particular area yet."

With that, the man walked out of the room, leaving Danny with a mix of curiosity and frustration, which had become the norm after their conversations.

Sighing to himself, Danny walked out of the room as well, entering the living room. Vlad had joined with the group in the kitchen, choosing to stand at the counter rather than try to find a place at the over-crowded table. He politely refused Maddie's offer of food.

Danny chose an empty seat crammed between Sam and Jazz. The former was listening to Jack and Tucker discuss one of Jack's inventions, and the latter was trying to ignore everyone as she read from a small book.

"Hi, sweetheart." Maddie greeted her son, retrieving a plate of bacon and eggs. "I saved some breakfast for you. Now eat up quick; you kids will need to leave soon."

Danny glanced down at the plate as it was set before him, pushing it away slightly.

"Not hungry, Mom." he said.

Maddie frowned down at him, but was overtaken by Tucker and Jack, who halted conversation long enough to lunge at Danny's plate, devouring its contents.

~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~*

School was mostly a blur, which was nothing new. Danny passed his classes in silent thought, interrupted only twice. Once when Dash 'tripped' while exiting a classroom, causing him to grab Danny's head and slam it hard onto his desk. The second break in Danny's mental wandering came in the form of a text from Vlad during Study Hall.

It read simply: Meet me in your parents' workshop this evening.

Danny knew it could only mean one thing; a trip into the Ghost Zone.

It was honestly exciting, the thought of traversing about with someone who had actual knowledge and experience of the otherworldly realm. Danny spent the remainder of his final class wondering what locations might be nearby that he hadn't discovered yet. It felt so much like something out of one of his favorite sci fi space adventure movies. He wished Tucker had left behind his recording equipment so Danny could film it all.

'Maybe he'll be able to run home and get his things before too much time passes.' he thought, the bell sounding loudly overhead.

Gathering his things, Danny was up and out the door in moments, making it outside to wait on his friends before the first sprinting students burst out the front doors.

After several minutes of waiting impatiently, Tucker and Sam finally appeared amid the crowd of faces. He waved at them, gaining their attention, and they wore relieved expressions as they walked toward him.

"Where were you?" Sam asked.

"Waiting out here." Danny answered, as though it were the most obvious thing.

"You didn't stop by our lockers." Sam continued. "We thought something might have happened."

"Like what?" Danny laughed, leading the way down the sidewalk.

"Hey man, with all the weirdness seeking you out lately, you can't really blame us." Tucker reasoned.

Danny mentally conceded to their point, choosing to change the subject with a question.

"Hey Tuck, d'you think you could bring over your camera and things to my place?"

"Why?" Tucker asked.

"Me and Mr Masters are going through the portal again and I figured you'd want-"

"Woah wait, what?" Sam interrupted. "Danny, I don't think that's a good idea."

Danny sighed audibly, rolling his eyes at his friend.

"Sam, come on, you can't keep assuming he's bad news."

"I just don't think it's smart to go wandering the Ghost Zone with that guy."

"As apposed to wandering it by myself. Yeah, much safer."

Sam frowned heavily at him, crossing her arms defensively.

"Well either way," she said, "We already made plans for this afternoon, remember?"

Danny's expression blanked out, his mind casting about for the answer, and coming up dry.

Now it was Sam's turn to sigh harshly. "Our Halloween project? The little fruit jack o' lanterns? Any of this ringing a bell?"

Danny's eyes widened "Oh! I…forgot."

The three shared an awkward silence as they continued walking, the turn toward Sam's street approaching. Finally, as they reached the end of the block, Sam spoke up.

"Just head home, Danny." she said. "Me and Tucker have this. It's just carving up fruit."

Danny gave her a smile before running quickly across the crosswalk before its light changed, waving his goodbye over his shoulder.

"Be careful!" Sam called after him.

She shared a quick glance with Tucker before the two turned and continued down their own path.

~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~*

Danny walked down to the lab, bracing himself to once again see the ghost woman laid out on the table, or something equally unsettling. Instead, he saw only Vlad, reading through notes at his mother's desk.

"Where's my mom and dad?" Danny asked as he stepped fully into the room. "I thought they were taking a break from ghost hunting nights to work on upgrading their weapons?"

"They are." Vlad answered, not looking up. "And it's very interesting what information they've gathered just from the few encounters they've had recently. And of course, their study of subject o-one has been a great benefit."

"O-what?" Danny asked.

"O-one. The name they've given to their one and only captive ghost." Vlad elaborated, looking up at the teen. "I was told that they have you to thank for her capture."

Danny wasn't sure how to react to that statement, and so settled for looking down at his mother's notes and blueprints.

"Why are you going through her research?"

"To get a better idea of how these new weapons they're creating will operate. You should do the same whenever you can."

Vlad set the notebook down upon the table, once again looking at Danny.

"I do think you're squandering a great opportunity, Daniel. As I've said before, having access to this lab and all of its contents, as well as your parents' knowledge, is something that could only benefit you."

Danny walked away from the man, toward the closed portal.

"As much as I love standing around getting lectured, I think we should get moving before my parents come back from wherever you sent them."

"No need to worry about that." Vlad smiled, pulling back a sleeve to glance down at his watch. "By my estimation, we should have a little less than fourteen hours before your parents are awake enough to notice our absence."

"Awake enough?"

"A simple sedative, as before. Nothing to fret over."

Danny wanted to be mad about Vlad once again drugging his parents, but found that it wasn't that much of a bother. It wasn't as if the extra sleep would hurt them, after all.

With that affirming thought, Danny pushed the activation button, watching the portal doors slide open. The white room became awash in a green glow, Danny and Vlad casting pale shadows as they stood before the portal.

~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~*

Sam removed the basket of various fruits from a kitchen cabinet, setting it on the counter before turning to Tucker.

"Alright, which one do you want to carve up first?" she asked.

"The orange." he replied. "I could use a snack."

"You can't peel it, Tuck." Sam replied.

"I can scoop its insides out and eat it that way." the boy smiled at his own logic.

Sam shrugged, opening a drawer filled with knives of different sizes.

"Okay," she continued. "Pick your weapon."

Tucker deliberated momentarily, before grinning and pulling out the largest knife in the drawer.

"You can't carve an orange with that." Sam smiled, taking the knife and giving him one that was notably smaller.

"Not with that attitude. Where's your Halloween spirit?" Tucker joked, looking over his orange and thinking of where to start.

Sam set her own knife on the countertop, closing the drawer and selecting a tiny watermelon from the basket. It took her longer than Tucker to cut open the top. When she finally had it removed, she took a spoon and began scooping out the pale red insides, dropping them onto a plate.

"You gonna eat that?" Tucker spoke through a mouthful of orange mush, gesturing at the plate.

"Help yourself." Sam rolled her eyes with a smile.

~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~*

"So there's really nothing worth it behind any of these doors?" Danny said, disappointment clear in his voice as he looked around at them all.

"I assure you, my boy, nothing of any real interest lies beyond any of these doors." Vlad assured, gesturing for Danny to follow him as they continued away from the Fenton Works island.

"They are home to ghosts too weak to conjure anything more than a room or two from faded memories. In fact, anything that you take from these rooms would simply dissolve into pure ectoplasm in minutes."

Any further questions Danny had were halted as Vlad pointed ahead.

"I believe that's the castle you visited before?"

"That's the one." Danny confirmed. "Don't get excited, though. It's a lot farther away than it looks."

"Then we'd better pick up the pace." Vlad said, rocketing away in almost the blink of an eye.

Danny started in surprise before taking off at full speed. He caught up to Vlad in seconds, the elder of the two remaining several feet ahead.

After continuing on this way for a while, Danny cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted.

"Hey, slow down!"

Vlad instantly halted flight, and Danny dove to the side. His leg still clipped Vlad's side, and he was sent spinning. Vlad quickly grabbed him by the arm, and Danny held his eyes shut and waited for the dizziness to pass. He grimaced at the pain in his leg and arm.

"I said slow down, not stop." he griped. "And how can you go that fast for so long, anyway?"

"It all comes from practice, Daniel." Vlad answered, keeping his grip on the boy and continuing forward at a slower rate.

Danny soon stopped seeing stars, and pulled his arm away. He was glad to see that they were almost at their destination.

"So how many years did it take to get as fast as you are?" he asked.

"Not too many." Vlad answered over his shoulder. "About ten, I'd say."

Danny groaned, his shoulder slumping down.

"Man, it's gonna take forever before I can do anything as good as you can!"

"You'll soon find that time holds little weight." Vlad said. "The years begin to feel like weeks."

"Wow, really?" Danny asked. "So…it doesn't feel like that long ago since you died?"

"At times it feels like only yesterday."

Vlad then held up a hand, bringing both the flight and the conversation to an end. They were still many yards away from the castle walls. Danny looked at it for a moment before glancing toward Vlad, surprised by the intense look on the man's face.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

Vlad didn't answer, but instead became tense, looking around with a hard expression before his gaze fell on Danny.

"Do not go near this area again."

With those short words, he turned left and began flying away. Danny looked back at the castle before catching up with the elder ghost.

"So, let me guess," he began, keeping abreast with Vlad thanks to the slow pace. "You're not going to tell me what spooked you about that place, you're just gonna expect me to follow your every word."

"I told you that I have spent years charting every location in this realm, remember?"

"Yeah, what does that have to do with anything?"

"I haven't told you this yet, but your little island occupies a far corner of the Ghost Zone." Vlad said, searching the landscape as he spoke. "That is why you see so little activity where you are, and why everything is so far away."

Danny thought for a moment, taking in the information.

"So, in terms of ghost realty, I got placed in the countryside of the Ghost Zone? And there are, like, ghost cities packed with wall to wall ghosts and their homes?"

"Yes," Vlad answered. "I'm not sure what causes certain territories to manifest where they do. It seems to be entirely random, and in your case bad luck."

"Bad luck?" Danny questioned. "Yeah, I guess. Living around other ghosts would be cooler than being in the middle of nowhere."

"Actually, that works to your advantage." Vlad countered. "Being so isolated means that the more intelligent spirits are less likely to find your home. If you lived among them, you would likely be fighting them from your territory often. What I meant by bad luck is the fact that you live so near to that fortress."

"The castle? I wouldn't exactly call it near."

Vlad frowned at the teen. "I meant my earlier words, Daniel. Do not go to that place anymore."

"Then tell me what's so bad about it!" Danny exclaimed, throwing his hands out in frustration.

"It belongs to a very powerful and very malevolent creature." Vlad replied. "Let's be thankful that you didn't wake it when you first stumbled around inside its lair."

"So its asleep?"

"In a sense, yes. Now come on, I see something ahead."

Vlad flew forward, staying in front as he led the way toward another building.

~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~*

"Now hold it still for a few seconds." Sam instructed.

"I know how glue works."Tucker replied dryly, but with a smile. He had to admit internally that this was turning out to be more fun than he had originally thought when he'd suggested the idea.

Sam lightly hit him over the arm for his quip, causing him to lean away from her.

"Hey! Watch the glue, Sam." he said mockingly.

"How about I just glue your mouth shut and give myself some peace and quiet." Sam shot back with a grin.

"I'd like to see you try."

Sam gave him a threatening smile for his bold words, waving the glue around before using it for one of her own tiny jack o' lanterns. She hoped that she would be able to clean all the glue off of the fancy platter once Halloween was over. If her parents found out she was using it for the display, she'd be grounded. But she decided to worry about those details later.

"This is starting to look really good." she said, looking at the little pineapple and squash that were already set in place. "It really was a great idea, Tuck."

"I'm a genius, I know." Tucker smiled, before certain thoughts has his bright expression falling.

"You think Danny's okay?" he asked after a brief silence.

Sam's face also dimmed, her eyes remaining on the platter.

"Yeah, he'll be okay." she said.

Another silence followed, both friends' concern mixing in the air between them. Finally, Sam broke through it with a smile, looking at Tucker.

"Either way, he's missing out on a great time. This is a lot of fun."

Tucker returned her smile, gluing the final piece onto the display. They both gazed at it proudly.

"Hey, wanna make some popcorn and watch that new horror flick?" the boy asked.

"Night of the Shewolf? You've seen it like ten times already." Sam replied.

"Yeah, but werewolf ladies, Sam." Tucker argued, his voice becoming dreamy.

"You've got some messed up taste, Tuck." Sam said, shaking her head.

"So is that a yes?"

"It's a yes. I'll start the popcorn."

~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~*

The building before them was tall and square, with a flat roof and little windows set in perfect rows all around. It reminded Danny of the old abandoned buildings in downtown.

"Be careful." Vlad cautioned in a quiet voice, slowly approaching the double doors at the front of the floating building.

"Why are we going in?" Danny asked. "I thought you wanted me to avoid these places."

"Creating an accurate map of this area requires knowing what kind of spirit lives in each territory. Now, keep behind me." Vlad answered.

Reaching a hand out, he slowly pushed open one of the doors, its hinges screeching out loudly, as though they hadn't been disturbed in decades. Danny peered over Vlad's shoulder as the man gazed cautiously around inside, both of them trying to see through the thick darkness.

A scraping noise caused Danny to jump, and Vlad fired a single shot of ectoplasm into the shadows. The pink glow cast a pale light from where it stuck to a far wall, and the two were able to distinguish the figures of old wooden boxes and crates. They sat stacked in neat rows, as if they were a library. Some of them wore labels with no words printed upon them.

The sound was heard again, and this time they could see the cause. A single, small box shuffled only a few centimeters out from behind a distant row, as though it were trying to peer around the corner at them.

Vlad held up his hand once more, liquid ectoplasm churning in his palm.

"Wait, don't!" Danny exclaimed, grabbing onto Vlad's arm. "We can't just go around blasting ghosts that haven't done anything. It's probably just some ghost of a rat or something."

"Here now, I am no mere rat!" cried a voice from within the room.

The box from before opened up, a blue glow coming from within. The glow then shot up into the air, quickly taking form. In moments the figure of a short, fat man hovered in the centre of the room, arms crossed and looking down at the pair with an indignant glare.

"I am not some filthy rodent; it is I, the great and powerful Box Ghost!" he gestured widely as he spoke. "Why have you awoken me from my slumber?"

Danny couldn't help but chuckle at the strange spirit's antics. His clothes and accent made the teen guess he was from the forties, but the way he spoke so dramatically reminded Danny of a high school kid trying to quote Shakespeare.

Vlad also seemed rather unimpressed, holding the unspent energy in his hand still and raising an eyebrow at the ghost's theatrics.

As silence dragged on, the self-proclaimed Box Ghost slowly fell out of his dramatic pose, looking down on the intruders with confusion.

"Why do you not tremble in fear at the sight of the mighty Box Ghost!" he demanded.

"Because you're anything but scary, dude." Danny said with a shrug.

The teen was honestly relieved that at least one of his distant neighbors wasn't a monstrous creature to be avoided.

"How dare you slander me!" the Box Ghost cried, rising higher into the air.

Vlad didn't wait to hear the rest of the speech that was obviously about to come. Instead, he sent out the gathered energy in his hand, sending it out in a sweeping gesture. It collided with the Box Ghost and sent him crashing into the far wall. The pink liquid stuck around his middle, pinning his arms and holding him against the wall. The short ghost struggled against his bonds, but the ectoplam held strong.

"Now that that is over with, let's move on." he said, straightening his shirt with a sigh before turning and exiting the building.

Danny watched the ghost continue to struggle and mumble curses and threats, before he turned and followed after Vlad.

"Uh, is he going to be able to get out eventually?" Danny asked as they flew onward.

"He will." Vlad answered, a self-satisfied smile curving across his face. "Eventually."

"I'm going to mark that location as an 'avoid at all costs'." the man added after a moment, annoyance painted clearly in his tone, earning a grin from Danny.

The boy began looking around, wondering what other strange locations and bizarre inhabitants they would come upon in the hours to come. Suddenly fourteen hours felt like far too little time, and Danny wished there was some way to remain in this realm for as long as he wished. He wanted to explore every corner.

#ersatz au #danny phantom #vlad masters #ghost zone #danny fenton #vlad being a mentor #sam and tucker bonding #both those dynamics are a lot of fun to write

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viralhottopics · 7 years

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US diplomacy in crisis amid cuts and confusion at state department

Critics says Americas soft power could be dramatically diluted if it does not find a way to stop alienating allies around the world

The US state department is hosting a 68-nation meeting on Wednesday aimed at consolidating the international effort against Islamic State.

But the foreign ministers are convening in Washington at a time when the state department itself is under siege, facing swingeing budget cuts by a hostile White House, and led by a former oil executive who has said he did not want the job in the first place.

Rex Tillerson has billed the counter-Isis coalition meeting as a decisive moment to set Isis on a lasting and irreversible path to defeat. The secretary of state lambasted the Obama administration for its policy on Isis, claiming his predecessor never had a proper strategy to defeat the extremist movement.

All that did was drag out the agony for everyone, Tillerson told the Independent Journal Review (IJR), in his first interview since he surfaced in December as a surprise candidate for the role of secretary of state.

He said that the then president-elect, Donald Trump, had invited him to his transition headquarters in New York ostensibly to talk about the world and then stunned Tillerson, about to retire as head of ExxonMobil, by offering him the post of the nations top diplomat.

He said it was his wife who persuaded to accept the offer, telling him he was supposed to do this.

He made clear that the anti-Isis effort would be a priority for him and the defence secretary, James Mattis, who will also take part in Wednesdays coalition meeting. A top Tillerson aide is quoted in the IJR article as saying the two men get along like gin and vermouth.

Over the course of the election campaign, Trump assured voters that he had a plan to defeat Isis, but never elaborated what that plan was. Tillerson and Mattis will seek to outline a strategy on Wednesday.

Tillerson explained it as a three-step process beginning with a military campaign, followed by a transition phase and a stability programme. It remains unclear, however, what that would mean in practice and how this plan would differ from the previous administrations anti-Isis campaign, which was in full swing when Barack Obama left office.

One departure is that the new administration has stepped up the number of US ground troops involved in the push towards the Isis stronghold of Raqqa in Syria, a reflection of a general military-first bent of the Trump White House.

Its budget proposals would see a cut for the state department and US foreign aid of 28% of its current budget to less than $26bn (21bn). When other cuts to contingency funds are taken into account, the effective funding decrease is about a third. Meanwhile, under the Make America Great Again budget, military spending is meant to rise by $54bn.

Senior Republicans in Congress have said they would oppose such deep cuts, but Tillerson himself has been criticised by former state department officials and supporters of US diplomacy for failing to stand up to Trump on the issue.

In the interview published by IJR on Tuesday night, Tillerson said state department spending was unsustainable. He claimed he talked to the president on a daily basis but conceded he had not discussed with him what such a sharp decrease in funding would mean. We havent gotten that far yet, he said.

Antony Blinken, the deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration, said the bid to boost military spending at the expense of funding diplomacy represented a fundamental misunderstanding of national security.

Diplomacy is national security, Blinken said. He pointed out that without strong US diplomacy around the world, there would not be a coalition of more than 60 countries in the fight against Isis.

The cuts, Blinken said: have the potential to dramatically dilute our soft power, and that has done wonders for us over many years and many places.

In a world in which all you have is your hard power, all of a sudden every problem is a nail and the only tool you have is a hammer, he added. The first people wholl tell you thats misguided is our military.

In discussing the primacy of the fight against Isis, Tillerson appeared to turn the previous administrations approach on its head. Obama and his secretary of state, John Kerry, saw the spread of Isis as being a consequence of the brutal nature of the counter-insurgency conducted by Russian, Iran and the Damascus regime. Extremism could only be defeated ultimately by an end to the war and a political transition.

Tillerson suggested that the fight against Isis had to come first: We cant get to deconflicting the rest of the region with Isis in the way, he said. Neither he, nor anyone else in the Trump administration, has explained what such an approach means for cooperation with Russia, Iran or the Assad government in Damascus.

David Miliband, former UK foreign secretary and now president of the International Rescue Committee, said those decisions had to be made at the outset of any new strategy.

The US needs to decide what role it wants to play, and who it wants to ally with, in the debates about the future of those parts of Syria still outside government control, and the future shape of a national government, Miliband said.

This cannot be considered independently of the commitment to defeat Isis in Iraq, where the US again faces the conundrum that Iran has the same declared enemy, but where victory threatens to extend its influence.

Before it decides how to frame its new relations with US adversaries, critics of the new administration say, it has to find a way to stop alienating its allies around the world.

Trump used an awkward visit by Angela Merkel to Washington last week to berate Germany for not spending enough on defence, while his spokesman refused to apologise for an apparent endorsement of a baseless claim that the UK had spied on Trump on behalf of the Obama administration.

In his interview, Tillerson appeared to accuse South Korean officials of lying after it was reported in the Seoul press that he had not dined with his Korean counterparts (a diplomatic norm in Seoul and in many other capitals) because he had been fatigued.

They never invited us for dinner, then at the last minute they realised that optically it wasnt playing very well in public for them, so they put out a statement that we didnt have dinner because I was tired, he said.

The secretary of state waded from that row directly into another, with Americas transatlantic allies, when Reuters new agency broke the news on Monday that he would be skipping a Nato foreign ministers meeting in early April so he could attend a Trump meeting with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and that he would be flying to Moscow later in the same month.

Nato officials said the timings of ministerial meetings were decided by suggesting dates, and then waiting for a few days to see if any of the capitals of the 28 member states objected. In this case, the US did not object to the proposed dates for the North Atlantic Council of 5 and 6 April, and so a media advisory was issued on 8 March announcing it would take place. Nato officials only found out on Tuesday that Tillerson would not be attending after all.

The state department said on Tuesday it was exploring alternative dates for the Nato meeting, but Daniel Baer, former US ambassador to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, said the clear lack of enthusiasm for the alliance was damaging.

The US has to show up and to lead at Nato, and not just because others expect us to, but because especially in an era of global turmoil and Russian revanchism, the US has an interest Natos unity and strength, Baer said. This administration has routinely depicted Nato as a charity project for Europeans it isnt; a strong Nato is in the US national interest. The sad part about this whole episode is that it shows such a lack of understanding for the role the US plays in Nato and in the world.