#Phic phight 2023 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tourettesdog · 1 year

Text

Okay

Based on the prompts "Lancer is a good teacher and cares" and "Well, shit. He can't change back!"

For @majorastudios and @lexosaurus Word count: 9,563 Warnings: panic attacks, child neglect (more implied) AO3 Link ~

Danny would be the first to admit that he had a knack for finding himself in stupid situations.

Or, at least, they had a knack for finding him.

This was all to say that the last place Danny expected to find himself on a bright and sunny July afternoon was trapped in an elevator with Mr. Lancer, of all people.

Now, the situation could have been worse— and it was. For all the shitty luck that Danny possessed in the universe, it seemed that there was always another giant middle finger waiting around the next corner.

Danny hadn’t thought much when he heard the grinding sound of the parking deck’s elevator as one of the mechanisms securing the cable snapped. He’d been out flying when it happened and simply bolted towards the sound, determined to phase whoever was inside to safety. It had come as a shock, finding the elevator occupied by someone he knew. What came as more of a surprise, however, was the sickly glow of a ghost shield snapping into place before Danny could follow through with that plan.

It had been a close thing, putting on the brakes before he collided, Lancer in tow, with the glowing wall of the elevator.

Unfortunately, the doors had long-since shut and he couldn’t touch the crooked metal without meeting the painful shock of the shield.

Just being inside of it had Danny feeling woozy.

All he could do was stand awkwardly on the elevator floor, his stance a bit crooked as the elevator had sagged into a tilt, off-balance as it was in the shaft.

It was at least preferable to the thing crashing down to the ground floor.

Lancer, for what it was worth, was managing better than most would given the circumstances. At least, he had stopped screaming about a minute ago.

If there was one positive thing Danny could gleen from the experience, it would have to be hearing his teacher utter a hearty ‘fuck’ rather than the usual literary substitute.

Not that he had much time to enjoy it at present.

Lancer’s chest heaved and his knees shook. He leaned against the side of the elevator with his arms splayed out across the metal hand railing on that side, his eyes flickering all around the small cabin. Danny knew that ghost shields never felt pleasant even to humans, but in his distress Mr. Lancer seemed to favor leaning into the buzz of the ectoplasmic energy over standing. Granted, given the shakiness of his legs, they might not hold him much anyway.

The metal of the elevator groaned, dust cascading from the paneled roof as it slid a couple inches down the shaft, eliciting a startled yelp from Lancer as he grabbed the railing with white knuckles.

Danny supposed there was more than one reason he should stay anchored to that railing.

“H–hey,” Danny said, trying to get his teacher’s attention. He wasn’t exactly sure what to say, but he didn’t think that awkwardly standing there, staring the man down, was conducive to settling his nerves.

Mr. Lancer’s gaze snapped up to meet his own. His eyes stretched wide, as if he hadn’t noticed Phantom’s presence until that moment, even though the ghost boy had just scooped him up before unceremoniously dropping him back down when the shield burst to life.

“Ph-Phantom?” he quavered.

“Yeah, um, who else?” Danny said, the words leaving his lips before he could think better of it. He cringed as soon as they did, chastising himself. It probably wasn’t a good time to make sarcastic jibes.

If Mr. Lancer noticed the snark, however, he didn’t comment on it. The toes of his shoes dug into the dirty linoleum on the elevator floor and he licked his lips nervously, eyes still darting around the cabin as though an exit might materialize from the ectoshield.

When he didn’t say anything, Danny felt like he needed to fill the silence. Anything to drown out the low hum of the ectoshield and the rapid hammer of Mr. Lancer’s frightened heartbeat.

“So, I know this looks bad but everything is going to be okay,” Danny said. His voice echoed in the small space, the tinny sound amplified by the metal around him.

Lancer just blinked, his pale green eyes, so much duller than Phantom’s own, stretched as wide as saucers.

“H–how can you be sure?” he said.

Danny’s eyes trailed around the elevator, ghosting over the green glare of the ectoshield. It completely covered the elevator box, though the floor of the shield had been thankfully recessed beneath the linoleum.

Danny could still feel the hum it gave off through his boots.

“I’ll think of something,” he said, more to himself.

Mr. Lancer blanched, his face practically as pale as Danny’s hair. “Can’t you just—” the words died on his tongue as he glanced at the green shield once more, shivering slightly.

“Yeah, the shield kind of complicates things,” Danny said with a sigh. “Not their best design choice.”

He didn’t have to elaborate on whose design choice had crafted this coffin disguised as a convenient mode of transportation.

Lancer let out a shaky breath. “It probably seemed more practical in theory,” he said, each word as shaky as his legs.

Danny nodded, crossing his arms. “Like, I can see what they were going for, but you’d think after over a year of help from a ghost they’d consider maybe— just maybe — that trapping people in a small ghost shield suspended three stories up might not be a great idea.”

“Oh, Watership Down,” Lancer said faintly, sliding slightly down the wall, leaning more heavily against the railing. Danny hadn’t realized just how much he was rambling, or how faint Lancer was looking in the wake of his ill-timed tirade.

“Sorry,” Danny said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Probably not the best time for that.”

Lancer nodded, his eyes wide and staring at the floor. “Yes, I don’t think it is,” he said.

Danny let out a long, drawn out sigh. He ran a hand through his mop of white hair, trying and failing to focus his thoughts on anything constructive. He was uncomfortably aware of the small, tight space. Nothing quite as claustrophobic as the thermos, but without any sure way to escape it had Danny’s core thrumming uncomfortably.

Lancer just stared at him. Danny couldn’t fault the man. For all that Mr. Lancer had seen of Phantom— considering the many times he had rocketed through his classroom wall— Danny supposed that this was probably his first time seeing Phantom up close. Danny could see his own glow reflected in his teacher’s eyes— or perhaps it was mostly the light that the ghost shield emitted.

“I don’t suppose you have a phone on you?” Danny asked him.

Considering Mr. Lancer hadn’t reached to grab one, he thought he already knew the answer…

Sure enough, Lancer replied with a hollow, “Left it in the car.”

Danny tried to strain his ears for any outside sounds, desperate to drag his focus off of the small confines of the elevator. He could hear the rumble of traffic, but not much else besides that. The concrete walls of the parking garage were too dense, and the buzz of the ghost shield too distracting.

“Looks like we might have to wait for someone then,”Danny said nervously, his eyes trailing to the buttons on the elevator.

Moving slowly, careful not to startle Mr. Lancer, Danny crossed the short distance to those buttons. He was closer than Lancer was and his footsteps much lighter. The man tensed slightly as Danny moved, but didn’t say anything.

A layer of the ghost shield danced over the buttons, a rippling wall of green that sparked with electricity. It had to be one of his parents’ newer shields, judging by the bright color and the intensity of the static it gave off. Just being near the thing had his own ectoplasm buzzing uncomfortably.

Danny glanced back at Lancer, finding his teacher’s eyes trained on him. There was fear there, though also a quiet curiosity. It reminded Danny that he hadn’t seen Mr. Lancer at his parents' last few ghost seminars. That, for all the nervous fear mongering his teacher had given into in those first few months after the portal sparked to life, he seemed… much more reserved now. He didn’t show the same open support for Phantom that his students did, but Danny would take reserved caution over open hostility any day.

Glancing back at the elevator buttons, Danny bit his lip. He couldn’t exactly ask Lancer to press the buttons himself. Even if he carried him, there was no saying if the elevator would shift again once he placed him back down.

Steeling his nerves, Danny held out his finger for the emergency button on the control panel.

The ghost shield rejected his ectoplasm immediately, sending a current of electricity through his body in a painful jolt. Sparks shot out where his finger met the shield, and Danny could only watch in horror as those sparks tangled with the control panel itself. He could see the current race through the metal, rippling beneath the buttons in bright cracks and pops.

One last spark ignited at the top and, with a loud crack, the lights of the elevator shut off.

Danny stumbled backwards as it happened, hardly stopping himself from careening into the opposite wall of the shield. In the absence of the elevator’s lights, the space was bathed in a sickly wash of green.

Lancer swore again, the sound enough to have Danny spinning around to make sure he was okay. Lancer had crouched, both hands still held firmly onto the railing as he lowered himself to the elevator floor with shaking knees. At a glance, Danny could have mistaken him for a ghost with how the light of the ectoshield painted his skin.

“Are you okay?” Danny asked, his voice sounding rather small, shaky with his building unease.

He doubted that the elevator had put off much of a distress signal before it lit up like a Christmas tree.

Lancer just slowly shook his head, staring at something only he could see. He was practically sitting now, his hands shaking on the railing, barely able to hold on any longer. Thankfully, the elevator didn’t shift as he sank to the floor.

“I’m sorry,” Danny said, glancing back at the elevator buttons. A thin line of smoke trailed from the emergency button, giving off an acrid scent that mixed with the ozone of the shield.

Lancer looked up at that, the sudden movement in his periphery causing Danny to snap his attention back to him. Danny was surprised to find his brows furrowed.

“What are you sorry for?” Lancer croaked out.

Danny blinked. He stared. He looked between the buttons and Lancer, now shaking his own head. “I… broke the buttons?” he said, confused.

Surely Lancer hadn’t missed that lightshow.

Lancer’s brows drew so close together they nearly formed one line. His frown stretched almost as far, pulling at his black facial hair.

“You just hurt yourself trying to press it,” he said slowly.

Danny nodded his head, still unsure. “Yeah… and I broke it?”

If Lancer’s hands weren’t currently clutching onto the railing for dear life, Danny had a feeling they would find their way to pinch at his tear ducts— a gesture he often adopted when faced with a frustrating situation or student.

“You… you knew the shield would hurt you and still tried to press that button,” Lancer said, his voice now tinged with exasperation.

Danny’s own brows drew together, frustration drawing his teeth to clench. “ And I said I was sorry,” he challenged.

It wasn’t his fault there was a ghost shield. It wasn’t his fault it tampered with the buttons. He’d tried , and if Lancer couldn’t accept his apology, Danny wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do.

It’s not like he could storm off right now. Even if he could transform back, he had no way of knowing where the elevator was within the shaft, or how easily he could escape it without unsettling the delicate balance.

Not that he could transform. Not here, not now.

Something strange ghosted across Lancer’s face, the expression hollow and haunted, shadowed oddly by the light from the shield; it glowed so brightly off of his bald head.

“I know you didn’t mean to,” he said, his words hushed, echoing slightly in the enclosed space. “I’m not arguing with you, Phantom, I… Are you all right?”

The question came so out of left field it struck Danny dumb. He fidgeted uncomfortably, noticing for the first time that he was cradling his left hand in his right.

Glancing down, Danny saw that his glove had been singed by the contact with the ghost shield. Just like the buttons, it smoked faintly, revealing angry green flesh beneath.

He was shaking. When did he start shaking?

Clenching his hand into a fist, Danny thrust it behind his back and out of sight. “I’m fine,” he said, locking his eyes onto Lancer, as if challenging him to say otherwise.

That strange expression persisted on his teacher’s face. If Danny had to give it a name, he supposed the closest thing he could compare it to was pity. Something about that squeezed uncomfortably at his core.

Danny was used to breaking things, and he was even more used to being blamed for breaking things— whether he had a part in it or not. That button had been a lifeline, possibly the only real thing that could ensure Lancer a safe reunion with the ground…

Why wasn’t he angry?

An uncomfortable silence filled the elevator. Danny could hear a siren somewhere outside, though it sounded far too distant to be something headed their way. Danny had no way of knowing how long it would take for help to arrive, or if it even would in time.

Danny was still shaking. It had gotten worse, if anything. The glow of the ghost shield was too bright and the walls of the elevator too narrow. The tilt in the floor too drastic, the hum of the shield resonating too discordantly with his core.

Danny had crouched down too, though he couldn’t say when he sank to the floor. He hugged at his knees, suddenly very aware of the summer heat. The elevator had been stifling to begin with, devoid of fresh air and baked by the sun. The ghost shield didn’t help, putting off a crackling heat that seemed to sap the breath from his lungs. Breath he didn’t need but wanted.

When did his breathing get so heavy, anyway? “Phantom?” The voice was quiet, unsure. It sounded both miles away and entirely too close, whispering in his ear.

Danny stared at his gloves. The shield painted them green, like fresh ectoplasm over his hands. His arm still stung from the shock— still buzzed with the latent energy it gave off.

A distant echo of something far worse that still clung to him, leaving fern-like marks that rippled up that same arm.

“Phantom?”

He was Phantom, wasn’t he? That was his name, but he didn’t feel much like anything right now. More smoke and mirror than boy or even ghost. Phantom was supposed to be a hero, not some child who sank to his knees with fear squeezing tight enough at his chest to burst.

“Phantom, are you okay?” Was he okay? What did it mean to be okay? When was the last time he really was okay?

Somewhere distant Danny knew he was spiraling. He could practically feel his own awareness slipping through his fingers, lost to that tidal wave of fear.

“Breathe with me, okay?”

He didn’t need to breathe, but he still did— sucking down deep gulps of air, like some awful mockery of a fish gasping on the bank of a sun-baked river.

“In and out. Breathe with me, it’s okay.”

How many times had Jazz said those exact same words? They were practically ingrained in Danny’s psyche, as much a part of him as the hazmat suit had made itself, fused as it was to his ectoplasm.

“That’s it. In and out.”

When had he shut his eyes? For all the green staining his eyelids, they might as well still be open.

“You’re doing great. Just keep breathing.”

An odd thing to say to a ghost (not that Lancer knew the half of that), but not unappreciated. Air felt good, as humid and musty as it was. His core followed the pattern, practically imitating the humble tattoo of a heart.

He could hear a heartbeat too. Faster than his own, though slower and more timely than the pulse of a core. Human. Safe.

Danny focused on the sound. It almost drowned out the hum around him. It almost was enough to lull him into a safe, comfortable rest.

Almost, but not quite. Not enough to completely dash the ever-present buzz of the shield beneath him, dragging Danny back to the coffin of an elevator and its lurid green light.

Slowly, Danny opened his eyes. The light of the shield was not particularly bright, but it still burned his retinas. The hum seemed louder now, the static of it buzzing against his skin and frayed nerves. He blinked owlishly, his eyes roving over the rippling walls of green—

They landed on the person sitting nearby.

Danny couldn’t help but flinch back, surprised by the close proximity. With how glued Lancer had been to the railing, he would not have expected the man to move, and yet…

Here he sat in the middle of the elevator in front of him.

"Feeling better?" Lancer asked. He leaned away slightly from Danny, but did not make any retreat.

For a moment Danny wondered if he'd transformed. Why else would Lancer have risked shifting the elevator just to, what, comfort him?

Danny held up his hands, half-expecting to find human skin.

His eyes met the same pair of green-stained white gloves.

"That was quite the panic attack," Lancer said when Danny didn't answer.

Panic attack… that was definitely the phrase for it. Danny could recognize the lingering fatigue and oversensitive nerves that followed one.

That spiraling sense of losing himself still lingered too, along with tears rolling down his cheeks.

"Sorry," was all Danny could think to say, wiping at his face.

"Why are you apologizing?"

It seemed like a genuine enough question, not that Danny felt he could give a genuine enough answer.

"Dunno," he said, hugging his knees more tightly, rubbing his good hand over the other. "Just seems like a pretty inconvenient time and place for a panic attack."

Of all the places he’d had a panic attack, this one maybe ranked a four out of ten. If he was being generous.

Lancer sighed. He settled down a bit beside him, though did not at all relax. Danny could see how his fingertips dug into the linoleum like cat claws desperately trying to find purchase on a branch.

“I don’t know that there’s ever a convenient time or place for them,” he mused.

Danny rolled his eyes. “I shouldn’t be having one in the first place,” he muttered darkly.

Lancer’s brow quirked at that. “What makes you say that?” he asked.

Danny picked his head up off of his arms, glaring at the man. “I came here to save you, not to, what— have an impromptu therapy session? Whatever this is.” He gestured around the cabin of the elevator, as if this whatever was some physical concept he could point to.

“Well, we’re not going anywhere anytime soon, I think,” the teacher said. He didn’t look at Danny directly, his eyes trailing over the shut doors of the elevator. “Why not humor me?”

“I don’t feel like any jokes right now,” Danny quipped, pillowing his chin back on his arms.

Lancer chuckled, the sound odd and out of place in Danny’s ears. “No, I don’t suppose you would— frankly, I don’t either, but… humor me. Why don’t you feel like you can have a panic attack?”

Danny wasn’t sure when the script had flipped on him. It hadn’t been that long ago when Lancer was clinging to the railing, shouting in fear while Danny tried to weigh his options.

Now, sat on the grimy linoleum floor of the elevator, Lancer seemed remarkably calm and Danny… he felt remarkably small.

Smaller than usual.

He stubbornly wiped at his face again, hoping that no evidence of tears remained. Lancer might not know it was him, but he still didn’t want to be seen crying in front of his teacher.

“I’m supposed to be a hero— and a ghost. Why should I have a panic attack over something like this?” he asked petulantly, digging his nails into his knees.

Lancer did not reply right away. He was quiet, seeming to pick his words very carefully before opening his mouth once more.

“Well, what is bothering you? Was it the shock from the shield?”

Danny’s eyes roved from Lancer to the buttons almost absently. He couldn’t tell if the shock was still reverberating through his ectoplasm, or if it was the mere memory now. The phantom feeling of the tide tugging at your waist while falling asleep after a day spent in the waves.

“I don’t… I don’t think so— I don’t know,” Danny stammered, his brows bunching together with frustration as he considered it.

The glare of the ectoshield taunted him, rippling around him like light refracting through the water of a large aquarium.

“Is it something else?” Lancer asked gently.

Danny didn’t look at him. He stared at the buttons, transfixed. If he looked at them just the right way, they sort of formed an odd face with too many eyes. It reminded Danny of a ghost he saw once while lost in the zone, drifting a little too far past the Far Frozen’s snowy mountains.

“Maybe,” he said quietly. “It’s part of it, I guess, but… I mean the shield sucks, and it’s small in here and reminds me of the thermos, and it’s too hot for my core and—”

Danny stopped abruptly, his eyes locking onto Lancer’s, finding the man watching him with wide, fascinated eyes. It had his core stuttering uncomfortably and a blush rising to his cheeks, no doubt as green as the hazy light from the shield.

Ducking his head down into his knees, Danny muttered, “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.”

Another sigh from Lancer. He was doing that a lot today— he always did, really. “It sounds like you needed someone to talk to,” he mused.

Danny just shrugged, refusing to meet his eyes. His face positively burned. “I have friends,” he mumbled.

“Are they who you usually talk to about these sort of things?”

Danny clamped his eyes shut tight, trying to calm the unsteady thrum of his core. “I guess,” he said dismissively.

A pause stretched between them and Lancer shuffled uncomfortably in it. Danny tensed as he did, worried the elevator might shift again, but it seemed as though it had found a solid place to rest in the shaft.

“Do you…” Lancer trailed off, sounding very unsure of the question lying on his tongue.

When he didn’t continue, Danny cracked open one bright green eye. “Do I what?” he challenged, tensing himself for whatever question might follow.

The look Lancer gave him would not be out of place on someone who had just watched a sad commercial with sat wet dogs. “Do you… have any adults to talk to? Any ghosts that look after you?”

Whatever question Danny had been expecting, he hadn’t expected one to strike so surely at his core. It thrummed like the strings of a violin, magnified until it reverberated through his entire being. Danny wondered if Lancer might feel it through the floor, over the hum of the shield.

“What?” was all he could say. No other words would find their way to his lips. His mind had shut down, lingering on the question with an uneasy, empty feeling that resonated from his core and hollowed out his belly.

“Is there anyone that looks after you?” Lancer asked again, his tone firm but no less gentle for it.

Danny stared straight ahead, seeing nothing as he let the question turn in his mind. His first thought was of Jazz. Ever since she found out about him, she’d stepped up in ways he could not have hoped for or imagined. She kept the first aid kit stocked. She checked him over for injuries. Jazz asked Danny how he was feeling, and wouldn’t always let him get away with a dismissive answer.

She’d even started to cook them breakfast these last few weeks. Her first few attempts were about as disastrous as their mother’s own cooking— no doubt unaided by the tainted ingredients— but she was getting better. She had a little fridge in her room now with ingredients kept far away from the lab samples, and for the first time in a long while Danny was remembering what eggs tasted like without the acidic bite of ectoplasm.

Danny opened his mouth to give Lancer an affirmative answer, but froze when the man’s first question rang in his ears.

“Do you… have any adults to talk to?”

A stone dropped into Danny’s belly as he realized with a sick sense of dread just how much Jazz had risen to the forefront of his mind as a caretaker, completely eclipsing their parents.

Danny’s mouth was dry as he swallowed a lump in his throat. He could feel Lancer’s eyes burning into him as he took far too long to answer— his silence about as much of an answer as anything else, really.

“Y–yes,” Danny said, though his shaky words hardly convinced himself.

They certainly didn’t seem to convince Lancer, either. His brow quirked slightly before he schooled his features into a softer expression. “Do you?” he pressed.

Danny nodded, even as his mind spiraled once more, wallowing through a current of memories. He tried to think of the last time he felt comfortable talking to his parents, but only flashes of uncomfortable silences and nervous lies came to mind. He tried to think of the last time he felt safe in their care, but only the memory of dodging weapons and hiding injuries swam to the forefront of that current.

At some point Danny’s nod turned into a tilt— a shake. He was shaking his head, ever so slightly. His core squeezed and fresh tears pricked at the corners of his eyes.

Lancer sighed yet again, the sound bone-weary and deep with exhaustion. “Where do you go when you’re not in Amity?” he asked. “Where do you stay?”

It was too personal of a question, one that Danny never would have thought to answer from a civilian. He’d been asked so many things by the people of Amity— shouted questions of his death and of his life before then. Each grated at his nerves and his core with an unrivaled discomfort, never something he would think to acknowledge with more than a joke, at most.

Yet… Danny didn’t resent the question coming from Lancer. It didn’t upset him, not in the way it normally did. The discomfort was there, but it had more to do with his own uncertain answer than the fact that Lancer had dared to ask the question in the first place.

It was Danny’s turn to sigh now, feeling his entire body sag into the motion as he hugged his knees still tighter, practically phasing them into his torso.

All he could do was shrug.

He knew where Danny Fenton went at night, but Phantom didn’t exactly have a place to rest his head.

Lancer shuffled a bit closer until he was sitting directly beside Danny. He didn’t scoot away, almost welcoming his presence.

“I won’t pretend to know what it’s like being in your shoes,” Lancer began, his eyes locked onto Danny as he spoke, “but I’m here to talk if you ever need someone to be there.”

Danny blinked, staring. He hardly knew what to say— could hardly find any words in his head. After a pause, all that would come out was a hesitant, “Yeah?”

Lancer smiled, the gesture small as it tugged at his lips. “Yes. I’m a teacher and part of my job is to be there for my students.”

Danny frowned at the word. “I’m not one of your students, though,” he said defensively, shuffling his feet. “I’m just a ghost.”

For one gut-wrenching moment Danny wondered if Lancer had figured him out. He couldn’t imagine how. His ghost form changed too much, both impacted by the ectoplasm in his system and by his own thoughts, as Frostbite once explained to him. The sharpened ears, the greenish tint of his skin— the broader shoulders and squared chin, more masculine than he dared hope for.

Even just the glow was enough to throw his features into a differing relief, but above it all there was one factor that Danny knew kept his identity safe:

The difference between flesh and ectoplasm. Life and death. Why ever assume something that breathed would also harbor something as innate to death as a core?

(Nevermind that he had been breathing this entire time, not that he needed it as he was.)

Yet if Lancer noticed the breathing or somehow made that leap of logic that saddled the line between life and death as surely as Danny did himself, he didn’t show it. He simply smiled sadly, meeting Phantom’s eyes with a kindness he rarely had shown to him in this form.

“Maybe not, but you must have been a student in this town at some point,” he said, his eyes trailing to his hands in his lap, fingers nervously rubbing his knuckles. “I might not be an expert on ghosts, but after teaching for as long as I have, I’d like to think that I know a thing or two about teenagers. You stay in this town enough that it must have been your home— that it must still be.”

He wasn’t wrong, of course. Mr. Lancer didn’t know the details, but his words rang truer than he knew. They echoed in Danny’s mind, as hollow and uncomfortable as they were right.

Amity was Phantom’s home. It was his home.

Just hearing someone who wasn’t Sam, Tucker, or Jazz acknowledge that had the tears pricking at Danny’s eyes spilling over.

A hand tentatively patted his shoulder and Danny leaned into the touch, finding more peace in it than he thought he should.

A peace that, like many good things, did not last very long.

A familiar siren cut through the concrete, the sound grating at Danny’s frayed nerves with a fresh onslaught of fear. He couldn’t help but jolt at the sound, jumping into the air where he hovered, staring at the elevator doors.

“Phantom?” Lancer asked nervously.

The siren practically echoed in his skull, the sound far too familiar and far too disquieting. How many times had he heard it barreling towards a ghost attack, knowing that its presence would only complicate the battle? How many times had he been glad for the warning, if only so he could escape?

There was no escape right now, however. No way for him to slip out of sight, either through the walls of the elevator or into his own human skin. He couldn’t transform, not with Lancer right next to him and his secret already hanging by a gnawed thread.

Mr. Lancer must have heard the siren himself now, judging by the way his eyes moved from Phantom to the elevator doors. Danny couldn’t help but notice that his eyes brightened with relief.

“Lord of the Flies, it sounds like someone’s finally coming,” he said, that same relief carried on a much more relaxed sigh.

Danny bit his lip, unable to answer. He didn’t resent Mr. Lancer’s joy at hearing the siren, though it did come as a dark contrast to his own roiling emotions.

“I don’t think they’re here to help,” he mumbled darkly, unable to suppress the resentment in his tone as he glared at the ectoshield warping over the elevator doors. “Not met at least.”

Danny heard Lancer suck in a sharp breath of air. He turned at the sound, finding his teacher watching him with renewed concern in his eyes. “They wouldn’t…” he said slowly, his own words trailing off as doubt crept into his tone.

Danny nodded. “They must’ve gotten some sort of alert when this thing went off,” he said, gesturing to the shield.

“But they wouldn’t… you’re not…” Lancer tried again, his words no less convinced the second time around as he trailed off, his eyes widening when they fixed on the door.

The siren was so close now, echoing around the elevator. Each blaring note of the sound had Danny’s ears ringing and his core stuttering violently with fear. He absently drifted farther away from the elevator doors, watching them warily.

“If I could just explain to them—”

This time Lancer’s words were cut off as a loud, booming voice shouted. It came from somewhere overhead, echoing down the elevator shaft.

“Is there anyone in there!” the unmistakable voice of Jack Fenton boomed. “Our sensors detected that a ghost triggered our shield. Is the ghost subdued? Are any humans trapped?”

Danny stared, wide-eyed up at the elevator ceiling. He sank back down onto the floor, cowering as he heard what sounded like metal grinding as someone tried to force it apart.

His eyes flickered to Lancer, watching uncertainly as the man gaped at the ceiling. He had to be frighteningly aware of his precarious position in the elevator. Jack Fenton’s voice, though it sent fear rocketing through Danny’s core, must’ve sounded like freedom and safety to Lancer in that moment.

And yet… his eyes trailed back to Danny with uncertainty.

It was disquieting, seeing that expression on that face of a man trapped in an elevator shaft, who for all intents and purposes should have welcomed any offer of rescue with the widest embrace.

Yet Danny thought back to Lancer’s words as he calmed him down from his panic attack. He thought of his hand gently patting Danny’s shoulder, soothing him as he cried. He thought of how Lancer, once he pushed his own fear aside, had shown nothing but kindness and fear for him, not of.

He had called Phantom his student. Had called Amity his home.

“Is anyone down there!” Jack Fenton called again, the sound of metal shifting accompanying his voice once more.

In that moment, Danny knew that he would have one of two options. There was no way his parents would disable the ectoshield without first making sure that no ghosts lingered invisibly within it. As Phantom, he was trapped, resigned to being seen. Cornered.

If his parents caught Phantom now in this position, Danny’s only option would be to try and explain himself and hope that they might understand. Pray that they wouldn’t assume he was overshadowed and give him a fraction of a chance.

But… Danny had another option.

Looking at Lancer, finding him nervously staring up at the ceiling, Danny weighed that second option.

He weighed Lancer’s words, the kind admissions of home and student nestling comfortably in his core.

It was a leap of faith, and one Danny probably shouldn’t feel more secure in than his parents, and yet… When was the last time he felt safe around an adult?

Here, in an elevator, trapped with a man who had shown him more humanity in the last five minutes than an entire town had in a year.

The choice was clear to Danny.

“Mr. Lancer,” Danny began, his voice timorous and too small. His teacher’s eyes locked onto him at the sound.

“Y–yes?” he asked just as quietly, bewildered.

Of course, he had never given Phantom his name.

Danny licked his lips. His breath caught in his throat as the metal shifted overhead again and he had to shut his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply to steady his nerves.

“I am one of your students.”

When the man didn’t reply, Danny slowly opened his eyes, finding Lancer shaking his head, his eyes never once leaving Danny.

“I… don’t follow,” he said.

More metal shifting overhead. Something heavy thumped. Danny’s core pulsed and his hands shook.

“I—I am one of your students,” he repeated, hardly more than a whisper. “Y–you taught me last year, and I wasn’t the best student but… but you helped me— then and now. And I… I’m afraid, but I want to trust you.”

The words tumbled out, a flood breaking through the dam as more tears slipped down Danny’s cheeks. He could hear talking above now, though the words were lost to the hum around him and the awful buzz still dancing through his ectoplasm.

Lancer was breathing heavily now. He looked at Phantom as though seeing him for the first time, his eyes stretching wide as saucers, capturing enough of the green light around them that they almost mimicked his own.

“D–Danny?” he said in a hushed tone.

The last bit of stone that held that flood back shattered. Tears dripped down Danny’s chin and he nodded, every inch of him shaking at that mere admittance.

He hardly even had to reach for his core. The transformation came to him too quickly, rolling over him in a warm rush that banished the chilliest parts of his core to rest within his chest. He watched the gloves disappear, the bright green scars over his hand fading to white. The lichtenberg figures were faint, though now he could properly see their winding course over his wrist and under the hem of his red sweatshirt. White as they were, the sickly glow of the shield stained the scars just as green as his gloves had been.

“Danny…” Lancer said again, the sound choked in his throat.

Danny hardly dared glance up, terrified of what he might find on his teacher’s face. Disgust? Disappointment? Fear?

He half expected Lancer to call a warning to his parents.

Danny looked up when the elevator groaned, startled as he felt it shift slightly and heard an alarmed sound from overhead.

Lancer was looking at him still, but it wasn’t with any of the fear that Danny had expected. It was tired— sad. Sorrow. The man had shifted slightly where he sat, trying to reach out for him, but had frozen when the elevator shifted. Now he simply sat there, watching Danny with that somber expression.

Danny couldn’t tell if it was just the green light, but he thought he saw the pinprick of tears in his teacher’s eyes.

Dust rained down as something overhead shifted. For the first time since the buttons sparked, light that wasn’t green flooded the elevator as one of the ceiling tiles moved.

Maddie Fenton’s red-lensed goggles swam into view. Danny hated that his first instinct at seeing them was to cower, fear coursing through him at seeing those lenses reflecting the green of the ghost shield.

But if Maddie knew something of Danny’s secret, it didn’t carry into the surprised gasp she gave as her eyes locked onto him.

“Danny! I— what are you doing here? How did—” the words caught in her throat and she gave a minute shake of her head, seeming to come back to where they were.

“Mads?” Danny heard his father’s voice from behind her, echoing in the expanse of the elevator shaft.

Danny hardly heard them as Maddie explained the situation to her husband. He hardly noticed when more of the panels were pulled away and a rope ladder was lowered into the elevator.

When Lancer urged him to climb up it first, he had to tell Danny twice before a fraction of the words made it to his ears. He moved mechanically, his legs shaking as the elevator groaned when he tentatively stood and clutched the ropes.

He paused for a moment when he met the roof of the ectoshield. Even in their rescue, his parents hadn’t deigned to disable the device, though he was sure they could. Danny’s core buzzed uncomfortably as he passed through the wall of green, but it allowed his passage without the sparking jolt that had bit at his hand.

When Jack pulled Danny up with enough force to almost yank his arm from the socket, he allowed himself to be pulled into a tight embrace. He melted into it for a moment before his father had to shift his focus to Lancer, still trapped as he was in the elevator shaft.

Danny could only wait with bated breath as they pulled him up.

He watched as Lancer stumbled out onto the floor of the parking garage, blinking dazedly in the sunlight that filtered through the open windows.

How strange that it was still daylight.

Danny waited, still feeling sure that he had made a mistake— that any moment now Lancer would speak up and spill the truth.

Those thoughts fled his mind when Mr. Lancer’s eyes locked onto him. There really were tears there, welling onto his lashes, brightening the green of his eyes with emotion.

He didn’t speak, just watching quietly.

With both of them secured, Maddie pulled Danny into a hug of her own. She held him tight, asking if he was hurt and smiling proudly at him when he put on a brave face and told her he was fine.

A fraction of that smile even felt real, basking in his mother’s warmth and concern.

It died a little when she said, “We need to scope the area for whichever ghost triggered the shield. If a ghost is willing to tamper with these cables, there’s no telling what other sort of harm they might cause.”

She whipped around to Lancer, the man straightening as her eyes fell on him. For all her short stature, Maddie could be an intimidating, intense ball of fire.

“Did you see anything? Did you hear anything that might help us locate this ghost?” she asked him.

Mr. Lancer blanched, his mouth opening and closing— eyes skirting minutely to Danny as he failed to give her a proper answer.

After a moment, he simply shook his head. Danny felt some of the tension leaving his shoulders, though he still didn’t dare let himself fully relax.

Maddie frowned, disappointment clear in her own slackened shoulders as she sighed. She glanced between her husband and Danny, her expression softening slightly as it landed on him, before fixing her lavender eyes once more on Lancer.

“I hate to ask this of you, William, but would you be willing to take Danny home? I know that you two have been through a lot this evening, but we can’t let this go uninvestigated. If there’s a dangerous ghost lurking in the area, we need to find it before it truly hurts someone.”

Her tone was so sincere, each of her words dripping with resolve.

Lancer just gaped at her, looking between mother and son with utter disbelief.

“I—” he paused, glancing at Danny, looking at him with the same intensity he had before calling his name in that elevator shaft. “Yes.”

Maddie positively beamed, relief and admiration evident in her tone as she said, “Thank you so much; you have no idea how much this means to us.”

Mr. Lancer just nodded stiffly, standing to the side as Maddie pulled Danny into one last hug and kissed his forehead.

His skin burned where her lips touched. His chest felt hollowed out, his core thrumming slightly.

Something colder than the core in his chest ghosted over Danny’s skin when she let him go, turning back towards the elevator shaft to join the investigation with her husband.

Danny stared after them for a long moment, watching as she fell into the task without so much as a glance backwards.

He wiped at his forehead, still feeling the burn of her touch.

Another sigh behind him, longer and deeper than any Danny had heard that evening. He turned to find Lancer standing there awkwardly, wringing his hands with a nervous energy that he rarely saw adults let show.

“Let’s… let’s go then, shall we?” he said quietly.

Danny sighed too. He resisted the urge to glance back at the elevator shaft, already knowing that his parents were too absorbed in their work to notice.

For all the deep fear he’d felt at their arrival, this hollow ache was deeper.

“Y–yeah,” Danny said, swallowing against the tightness of his throat. “Okay.”

Danny didn’t even know why Lancer was in the parking deck that day, and he didn’t necessarily want to ask. The thought of inconveniencing the man from an errand he needed to run would just be one too many awful weights on his shoulders today. Instead, he just followed his teacher to his beat-up silver car, quietly climbing into the passenger seat.

Lancer climbed in on the driver side just as quietly. He didn’t even buckle his seatbelt at first. Didn’t start the car. He simply stared through the windshield, his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel as he sat there and breathed.

Danny picked at the hem of his sweatshirt, lost for words. He couldn’t help but notice the phone lying beside him on the console between the seats.

“Are you alright?” Mr. Lancer asked him. His voice didn’t echo in the car like it had in the elevator, but he still flinched at the sudden sound.

Slowly, nervously, Danny met his eyes again, peering at the man through his bangs. “I guess.”

Lancer’s face crumpled slightly, pinched with sadness, but he nodded. Without saying another word, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys. The car roared into life a moment later, and a moment after they were off.

As they rounded the spiral of the parking garage, Danny found his eyes trailing out the window, locking onto the open doors of the elevator shaft. He could see the bright orange of his father’s hazmat suit, though couldn’t spot his mother before the car rounded the turn, leaving them behind.

Danny’s core squeezed alongside his heart.

Lancer turned the radio up, seemingly needing something to fill the silence, but lowered it just as quickly when the broadcast that filtered through the radio mentioned ghosts within the first breath of the speaker.

They continued on in awkward silence, Danny’s eyes glued to the window but unseeing anything past it.

“They don’t know, I assume.”

Danny had hoped that Mr. Lancer might not acknowledge the ghostly elephant in the room, but he supposed, like with all things, he was never that lucky.

Danny didn't bother to look at the man, choosing instead to just stiffly nod his head.

Another sigh. One too many, enough to grate at Danny’s nerves, but not enough for him to snap at it.

His belly felt too hollowed out for that anger now.

“You… you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” Lancer then said, carefully picking around the words like someone navigating a minefield. “You don’t have to tell me anything, really.”

“I know,” Danny said, allowing some bite to enter his words. He needed some measure of control over this situation in which he had practically none to speak of.

In his periphery, Danny could see Lancer nod his own head as he said, “I meant what I said back in the elevator— to Phantom. To you.”

That was enough to make Danny turn his head. He wasn’t sure what street they were on, only that it was a long one with too many stop lights. They’d stopped at each along the way, agonizingly dragging out the drive.

“Meant what?”

As they stopped at another light, Lancer turned his head to look at Danny. His eyes still seemed bright with emotion, though what tears had gathered in his eyes had disappeared.

“That if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here. You are my student, after all.”

Danny bit his lip. He searched Lancer’s eyes, trying to find any hint of a lie or deceit, but Mr. Lancer truly seemed as sincere now as he had been stuck in that elevator shaft.

“It… doesn’t bother you that I’m a ghost?” he asked him.

There had to be a catch— there had to be a limit to this kindness and Danny would rather find it now than later.

Mr. Lancer’s frown deepened at the word ‘ghost’, but it quirked up into a small smile just as quickly.

“And my student,” he repeated gently. “And a kid, just like any one of my other students.”

Lancer’s smile was wry, hardly there, but it warmed him to see it at all. His voice echoed in Danny’s head as they drove on, the silence feeling much less daunting with those kind words occupying his thoughts.

Lancer seemed to hesitate for a moment before they turned onto Danny’s street. He hesitated another moment before pulling the car up alongside the sidewalk.

His knuckles were bone-white on the steering wheel, every inch of his posture as tense as Danny’s felt, like a cord ready to snap.

Danny didn’t get out of the car at first. He just sat there, staring at the red brick building of FentonWorks and the glaring neon signs over the door. His eyes skirted up to the Ops Center, the shadow looming over him a fiendish thing.

Danny was glad when Lancer did not immediately oust him from the car. He needed that moment to just sit and breathe. To have a space, however fragile, where he felt like he might have someone in his corner who was older than sixteen.

“You would… you really wouldn’t tell my parents?” Danny asked, hardly daring to speak the words allowed. Terrified that he might get confirmation of his worst fears.

Lancer’s eyes widened. He slowly shook his head, mouth slightly slack-jawed.

“No,” he said a little too quickly. “No, not…” He actually did pinch his tear ducts this time, in that familiar gesture he hadn’t been able to back in the elevator. “Pride and Prejudice, Danny, I know when a student is afraid of their parents. I’ve… I’ve seen it before. Not like this, never like this, but still…”

He trailed off, looking ahead, swallowing a lump in his throat as he gathered more of his thoughts.

“Danny…” he began again, the word quavering. “I don’t know how to help you with this. I… I just need you to promise me that you’ll do your best to be safe. That you’ll do the smart thing and ask for help when you need it. That if your parents hurt you…”

He trailed off again, shaking his head. Danny’s parents had already hurt him, they both knew this. It wasn’t an if, it was a when and an again.

“I’ll be careful,” Danny tried to reassure him. “I–I have Jazz, and Sam, and Tucker. They know. They know and they help me, and I trust them.”

He hoped that those words might quell some of Mr. Lancer’s doubts, but Danny’s core thrummed uneasily when his teacher’s eyes just widened with renewed horror.

The man slowly shook his head, a trembling hand rubbing at the bags beneath his eyes.

“You’re all just kids,” he said quietly.

It was true, technically, but Danny hadn’t felt like much of one over the last few months. He had too many responsibilities as Phantom— had seen and faced too many things.

“We can handle it,” he said, trying to reassure himself as much as Mr. Lancer.

He wasn’t sure it worked either way.

Danny glanced back to FentonWorks, his hand tracing the handle of the car door. “Um, thank you for taking me home, Mr. Lancer,” he said, his throat still tight. “And, uh, for everything else.”

Mr. Lancer just nodded. He seemed so tired, the bags beneath his eyes deeper and darker than Danny’s own. His teacher said nothing as he opened the door and climbed out, though seemed to find his voice as Danny went to shut it.

“Wait—” he said suddenly, holding out his hand.

Reluctantly, Danny pulled the door open wider, leaning down to hear what he had to say.

Mr. Lancer studied him for a long moment, eyes flickering over his face as though searching for a hint of Phantom’s glow in his irises.

“My door is always open if you need someone to talk to,” he said evenly. “Whatever happens, that doesn’t change.”

Danny blinked, letting his words sink in. He could feel the sincerity in them and, after everything that had happened today, Danny felt he had very little reason to doubt his teacher.

Nodding, voice still hoarse with emotion, Danny said, “Okay.”

~*~

William did not drive off right away. He allowed his car to idle as he watched Danny Fenton walk up the sidewalk and the steps to his front door. The boy knocked, waiting for a response inside. There was a long pause in which nothing seemed to happen and William was just considering rolling down the window to call out to the boy when he glanced back at him.

William’s heart leapt into his throat as Danny’s eyes met his. Even from a distance, he could see a sharp hint of green in them, the same shade he had grown accustomed to in his time trapped in that elevator. He watched with bated breath as Danny’s gaze lingered on him for a long moment before sweeping up and down the street.

William’s hands tightened on the steering wheel when Danny turned around and stepped through his front door as if it simply wasn’t there.

William let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, a shaky exhale that hardly did the stress of the day any justice.

With one last glance at FentonWorks, finding a simple wooden door where Danny had stood just a moment before, William drove away.

~*~

William stood in the entrance to his apartment for a long moment. Just stood there, hardly acknowledging when his cat came to greet him, brushing up against his ankles with a friendly meow.

He stiffly bent to stroke a hand through his fur, the soft texture feeling stiff and coarse against his numb skin.

Moving mechanically, William shuffled through the kitchen as he set a kettle on the stove to boil. He wasn't even sure how long the kettle whistled before it was enough to shake him from the stupor of staring into open space.

Even once he had his cup of tea, Lancer couldn't stop shaking. He sank down into his favorite armchair by his favorite shelf of books, eyeing the light brown tea in his cup without drinking.

He thought of Danny all the while— of Phantom. Of how long the ghost boy has been in Amity Park and what that must mean for his student.

It had been a year ago, William recalled clearly. A year ago when all of the ghosts appeared— Phantom included.

That must have been when…

A drop fell into William's cup of tea. He watched the ripples as more tears rolled down his cheeks.

His hand shook violently, splashes of the tea spilling into his lap, and William had to set the cup down on the end table beside his chair.

A year. His student had been dead for a year and he hadn't even noticed.

His parents hadn’t, either.

William didn't even want to think what had caused it. Didn't want to imagine what horrors that boy had faced, because he could already picture, far too clearly, plenty of them.

How many times had he watched Phantom fight?

All of the absences, all of the behavioral issues. Everything fell into place, a gruesome puzzle that William had never known needed solved.

He thought, too, of the boy's parents.

How many times had he watched the Fentons shoot at Phantom, aiming their guns without so much as a moment's hesitation?

William hardly noticed when his cat approached, giving a small meow as he butted his head into his hand and slowly picked his way into his lap. When Radio began to purr, the feeling that rumbled through his body was achingly similar to what William had felt from Phantom when he broke down.

When Danny, his student, broke down.

If Radio minded the tears splashing into his fur, he didn't care to move. He simply stuck there, rumbling away in William's lap, heedless of the emotions choking his chest.

William didn't know how long he sat there, mindlessly running his hand through Radio's ginger fur, allowing the cat’s purring to still the last few trembles in his fingers.

William didn't know what he'd do when the summer ended and he had to face that boy every day, knowing just why he raced from his classroom.

All William knew was that he'd keep his cellphone on him this time, always ready to answer just in case that boy needed his help.

If anyone needed that kindness, it was him.

#Danny phantom #phic phight 2023 #phic phight #phanfic #fanfic #dp fanfic #dogfics #lexosaurus #majorastudios

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five-rivers · 1 year

Text

Bring Your Ghost To School Day

AO3

For @phantomphangphucker

Valerie felt pleased with herself. Sure she would have preferred to catch the ghost dog, or Phantom (take him down a few pegs), but if she was being honest with herself, showing up to the Paranormal Self Defense class practicum with Phantom in tow would have raised way too many questions. Most of her classmates would probably come in with blob ghosts.

Although she has heard a few scheming to get the Box Ghost…

Whatever. Finally catching that slimy, scaly, slippery giant ghost worm nicely straddled the line between what was feasible for her from an outside perspective and what she, personally, considered an accomplishment.

She walked into the classroom with her head held high and set her Fenton Thermos mk. 10 (the only containment device approved for the class) squarely in the center of her desk.

Star twisted in her seat to face her. "Hey, Val, what didya get?"

"Giant ghost worm."

"Nice. That'll be pretty unique. Pauli and I tried to tag-team some ectopuses over the weekend but we were only able to get one. Good thing I had a backup blob ghost, right?" She sighed. "They're so fat and cute. I wonder if they can be domesticated."

Valerie doubted it, but she shrugged noncommittally. The rest of the class dribbled in over the next fifteen minutes, with Danny sliding through the door just before the bell rang, as usual.

"Alright class," said Mr. Lancer, wheeling forward the class's Fentonworks™ Ghost Glass™ Containment Cube™. "As you all should know, today, your practicum is due. You will be coming up one by one and releasing your ghost into the-" he sighed, then inhaled deeply, "-Fentonworks™ Ghost Glass™ Containment Cube™, whereupon you will explain to the class how you located and captured the ghost in question. When you are finished, you will recapture the ghost and place your thermoses on that shelf, to be picked up by the Fentons for, yes, Miss Manson, ethical release into the Ghost Zone. Any questions?"

Dash raised his hand. "Can I get an extension?"

Mr. Lancer turned his gaze briefly towards the ceiling. "See me after class, Mr. Baxter. Any other questions? No? Then, do we have any volunteers?"

All hands stayed down. Hey, Valerie was proud, but not volunteering to present first proud. That was crazy.

"That's fine, I'll just pick randomly, then. Mr. Gregor, you're first."

Elliot stood up and made his way to the front of the classroom like a man made to walk the plank. He stuck his thermos into the socket on top of the Fentonworks™ Ghost Glass™ Containment Cube™ and hit the release button. Blue-white light briefly filled the space. When it cleared there was…

Nothing.

"Hey!" shouted Dash. "It's empty!"

"No, it's not! It's Youngblood!"

"I must confess," said Mr. Lancer, "it does look empty."

"You just can't see him because all of you are adults already, and I don't turn eighteen until July!"

Danny raised his hand. "Neither do I."

Elliot looked like he wanted to argue for a moment, but then his shoulders slumped forward. "Aw, man. You couldn't let me have this?"

Mr. Lancer tapped a dial on the front of the Fentonworks™ Ghost Glass™ Containment Cube™ with his pen. "The ecto-detector would have outed you–"

There were a number of snickers from the jocks' side of the room.

"--in any case, Mr. Gregor. You can return to your seat, now." He made a note on his clip board. "My homework is invisible to adults is a new excuse for the books, though. Mr. Fenton, you're next."

"'Kay," said Danny, passing Elliot on his way up. "Prepare yourselves to be amazed!" He slotted his thermos into place and hit the release button.

Valerie shielded her eyes from the light and suppressed a laugh. She was glad Danny had actually gotten something, considering how skittish he was about ghosts, but that intro was–

"Daniel! Release me this instant!"

Wait, what the heck?

Valerie looked up to see Vlad Plasmius glaring at Danny through the walls of the Fentonworks™ Ghost Glass™ Containment Cube™. Vlad Plasmius. Better known as Vlad Masters. Mayor of Amity Park. Richest man in the world. Scarily powerful ghost with a great disguise.

She felt her jaw drop.

"May I introduce to you, the Wisconsin Ghost!"

"It's Plasmius, you insufferable brat!"

Mr. Lancer cleared his throat. "Mr. Fenton, did your parents help you catch this… Plasmius?"

"I borrowed some equipment from them, but that's within the rules, right?"

"Let me out!"

"Hey, you heard Mr. Lancer. You'll be released into the Ghost Zone after school with everyone else."

"Speaking of which, you should start your presentation."

"Oh, right. So, what happened was that I snuck up on him while he was monologuing in his evil lair and hit him over the head with–"

"You did not! And I don't have an evil lair!"

"That's debatable, but you know what? Fine," groaned Danny. "Spoilsport. Anyway, I started by baiting my trap with cheese–"

"Daniel!"

"I pretended to be the mayor of Green Bay and called–"

Plasmius hissed at him.

"Okay, okay, what I really did was tell Mr. Lonely Cat Guy that I'd tell him my mom's number if he helped me with a school project."

"Mr. Fenton," started Mr. Lancer, obviously concerned.

"It was a lie, of course! Guys and girls, the only ghost you should give digits to is Phantom."

"That is not what happened!"

"My man, I'm trying to make this less embarrassing for you. Work with me here."

"Mr. Fenton, must I remind you that this practicum is a graduation requirement?"

"No, no, I've got it. But it is, like, super embarrassing for him."

Honestly, Valerie didn't know why she was surprised at this point. Danny never had normal presentations. Not since the gorilla thing.

“What are you talking about?” snarled Vlad.

“Aw, it sounds like it was so traumatizing he doesn’t even remember it…”

“Mr. Fenton, please.”

Danny shrugged. “I told him I’d be more likely to consider letting him adopt me if he could win a fight with Fright Knight, because, like, that’s something I could do in Freshman year, and he’s never beaten him, and when he showed up afterward to gloat I snuck up behind him and souped him.”

“Backstabber!”

“The worst part is that I didn’t even think he’d do it. Like, I’ve made exactly zero attempt to hide the utter disdain I feel for this man. It was a joke. I said I didn’t expect him to do it, but apparently he took that as a taunt or challenge or whatever. I was just going to bring Wade, but then he showed up this morning, so I was like, why not?”

“Wade?” asked Mr. Lancer.

Danny reached into his hoodie’s front pocket and pulled out the teeniest tiniest blue-green blob ghost. “This is Wade. I call him that because I found him in a pool.”

Wade squirmed out of Danny’s grip and flew up to chew on his hair.

“You know you aren’t supposed to bring uncaptured ghosts into the school,” said Mr. Lancer tiredly.

“That’s what your focus on?” ranted Vlad. “And you call yourself a teacher–”

“And that’s enough.” Mr. Lancer reached over to hit the capture button and disengaged the thermos. “You can go back to your seat now, Mr. Fenton. Mr. Ishiyama?”

Kwan bounded up to the Fentonworks™ Ghost Glass™ Containment Cube™ and gleefully slammed his thermos down into the socket. “I caught the Box Ghost!”

“Oh, no,” muttered Danny.

“BEWARE! I AM THE BOX GHOST AND– Oh, my, this is a lovely box. Is it for me? I ACCEPT THIS TRIBUTE! FEAR ME!”

The Fentonworks™ Ghost Glass™ Containment Cube™ began to levitate. Valerie pulled her class-approved ecto-pistol from her bag. Honestly, in retrospect, something like this was bound to happen. At least, she noted, seeing all of her classmates pull out their approved ecto-pistols, she wouldn’t be the only one stuck fixing it this time.

#phic phight #phic phight 2023 #danny phantom

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a-closet-emo · 3 months

Text

Why Am I Like This?

4043 words, GrayGhost, written for @duchi-nesten's prompt for last year's phic phight that I never posted on here 😭. Welp, had to get it done before this year's phight. Enjoy!

“You know how there were rumors a while ago that I had a girlfriend?” he asked, and, Ancients, did his voice have to crack on that last word?

“No need to be so embarrassed, Danny-boy! We already know that you’re dating the Red Huntress!” his dad bellowed.

What.

“Yes,” his mom said curtly, “ we do.”

Danny’s brain was short-circuiting.

How was he supposed to explain that he’s dating Valerie Gray, who was definitely not a vigilante ghost hunter, without giving away that he was definitely not a half-ghost vigilante ghost hunter, too?

He got a feeling that Clockwork was laughing at his pain.

Danny set his fork down carefully, grateful that tonight’s dinner wasn’t trying to kill him. He didn’t need that tonight, not when his plans were already going to be so stressful.

“So,” he started, and immediately three pairs of eyes zeroed in on him. His parents were looking at him expectantly, like they’d just been waiting for him to speak up which was… not a good sign, but Jazz was giving him her encouraging-yet-I’ll-be-disappointed-if-you-don’t-do-it look, so he kinda had to follow through now.

“You know how there were rumors a while ago that I had a girlfriend?” he asked, and, Ancients, did his voice have to crack on that last word? His parents were still waiting for him to get to the point.

“Yes, sweetie?” his mom prompted, her violet eyes shining with feigned nonchalance as she picked at her plate. At least she was pretending to be casual; his dad was openly staring at him again. He inwardly cringed, remembering the last time his dad thought he had a girlfriend.

He coughed and started rubbing the back of his neck. “Uh, well,” Why did it have to be so embarrassing to tell your parents about your love life! “There’s this girl, you know. And she’s super kickass and fiery but also determined and loyal and compassionate? Uh, sorry, you already know her–”

Suddenly his dad clapped him on the back with enough force, ghost-enhanced physique or not, to nearly make him faceplant into his mashed potatoes. “No need to be so embarrassed, Danny-boy! We already know that you’re dating the Red Huntress!” his dad bellowed.

What.

“Yes,” his mom said curtly, “we do.”

Danny sent a look Jazz’s way that was more a cry for help than anything else, but she was just as bewildered. Their mom sighed.

“After ghost fights,” she said, “Jack and I still hang around the area just to collect extra samples or run a few numbers while the ectoplasm’s still fresh. But we also see you there, sweetie, talking with the Red Huntress or even riding around with her on her board going who-knows-where.”

Danny’s brain was short-circuiting. He was half tempted to check if dinner had been contaminated with ectoplasm, after all.

The reason he was hanging around with Val after ghost fights was because he had fought alongside her during the fight. And somehow, instead of figuring out his identity, his parents… figured out his love life? Sort of? He wanted to think it was a stroke of good luck, or - more likely - another case of his bad luck to be added to the file. How was he supposed to explain that he’s dating Valerie Gray, who was definitely not a vigilante ghost hunter, without giving away that he was definitely not a half-ghost vigilante ghost hunter, too? He got a feeling that Clockwork was laughing at his pain.

“What?” he says a bit too cheerfully, “No -pfft- come on, I’m not dating some masked ghost hunter! I was just there after ghost fights because, uh…”

His dad guffawed before slapping him on the back again. “You’re a riot, son! Maddie and I once saw you exit a janitor’s closet in your school after a fight with ol’ Red, the both of you looking pretty flustered.” The big man was waggling his eyebrows at Danny.

Danny wanted to phase through his chair and into the floor.

“Of course, we all know that proximity to ghosts and ghost fights is very dangerous,” his mom was all business. “If that girl is putting you at risk, sweetie, we’re going to need to have a very long talk with her. And you’ll need more combat lessons!” she added cheerfully. “I know you’re afraid of the ghosts, but if this relationship is turning your interests toward them, then…!”

And that was when Jazz intervened. “Mom, Dad! You’re embarrassing him, look!” She went on, “This is not the kind of conversation that is conducive to a healthy psyche, especially not when the subject is so touchy among boys his age. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wants to leave the scenario you’ve created.”

He so owed her. “Yep! I’ll be going now, bye.” And if he used a little of his ghostly speed to get out of the dining room and up the stairs faster, no one would know. Except for Clockwork.

Clockwork was definitely laughing at him.

–

Danny started eavesdropping, invisible outside his parents’ door, in time to hear his dad sigh loudly with relief.

“I told you he couldn’t be dating Valerie, Maddie! The girl’s way out of his league!”

Danny had to hold back a scoff. Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence, Dad.

“And the Red Huntress isn’t?” his mom challenged.

Danny pouted. Et tu, Mom? (Aha! A Shakespeare reference. He was so going to actually get higher than a passing grade this semester.) He was so tempted to barge in and loudly declare that he was, in fact, dating both of those girls. That girl. He sighed. There’s the problem.

“Even if she is his age - and so help me if she’s older - we’ve seen them meet up before and after ghost fights!” He could hear his mom’s light footsteps as she paced the length of the room. “What happens when ‘before’ or ‘after’ becomes ‘during’? You’ve seen how aggressive she is sometimes! She puts him in danger!”

Danny heard the creaking of a bed as his dad flopped down onto it with a sigh. “She’s probably swept him off his feet, too.” Okay, so maybe Val has rescued him a few times, even carried him bridal style once, but he’s saved her, too!

His dad continued, regardless of Danny’s wounded pride, “I know how hard it is to resist a force of a woman.”

Danny’s thoughts came to a halt. What was with that tone…

He heard the shuffling of sheets. “Speaking from experience, are we?” his mom asked with a chuckle.

“You’d know it, you were there,” his dad replied - and nope! That was about enough for Danny. He was glad his parents had a happy marriage but he did not need to hear how happy it was.

He retreated to his room, head buzzing with the mess he and Val had gotten themselves into.

Crud.

–

Danny had been trying for a week.

He’d flunked his English paper (the assignment wasn’t about Caesar, go figure), and he’d been dodging Valerie all week. A few months ago, he would’ve meant dodging her blasts and hits, but now he meant trying to get out of hanging out with her or - Ancients forbid - having her come to his house. It also meant that by virtue of not wanting to make Valerie feel like she was being excluded, he couldn’t have Sam or Tucker over, either. He was starting to lose his mind all alone in the house. And no, he was not going to Jazz for help about it.

Look, it was an embarrassing problem, okay? His parents disapproved of the relationship they thought he had with the ghost-fighting alter ego of his girlfriend because they thought it was reckless and put him in danger. And they knew about it because they’d basically walked in on their more… private moments. Letting them actually meet with Red and lecturing her on how to properly protect him and save him like the damsel in distress they thought he was for being so afraid of ghosts this whole time was a total no-go - he’d never hear the end of from Val!

He was trying to figure out why this whole situation felt so familiar when Jazz walked in on him pacing the length of his room. She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off. “Can it. I don’t wanna hear it, Jazz.”

She pouted a little at that, then huffed. “If you’re not going to listen to my advice about healthy communication in all relationships in your life, just let me say that our parents are stubborn to a fault. If they latch onto an idea, they need solid proof to discount it.” She shot him A Look. “You know that better than anyone.”

She turned on her heel with a little ‘harrumph!’ and disappeared from his doorway, her orange hair swinging as she went.

Danny sighed, and tried to get back into brainstorming convincing arguments against his parents. He’d tried to completely deny that anything had happened between him and the Red Huntress, claiming that in this freaky town, it could’ve been ghosts! (You know, the ol’ reliable). He’d told them that at most, the Red Huntress was just a friend. Then his dad started to ask him why he blushed whenever they brought it up and started to tease him and… he lost that argument pretty soon after. He went for a partial denial after that one. He wasn’t dating the Red Huntress, they’d just made out a couple of times. Sort of like a fakeout-makeout, even. That one made his parents angry. “Son,” his dad had said with a distinct tone of fatherly disappointment, “I did not raise you to play with people’s feelings. If you’re not dating the Huntress, then–” “Just kidding! Haha, I meant that we weren’t dating at the time! Wait. I mean, we’re not dating!” Danny resisted the urge to put his head in his hands. That went well. He’d even considered outright telling them that he was dating Valerie and showing them proof, but he shut that idea down. What if they thought he was a two-timer (ugh.). What if they put two and two together for once and figured out that she was the Red Huntress? And he didn’t want to drag Valerie as proof over just to have her watch him either be very awkward with his parents or argue with them. Valerie had too much on her plate for her to be wasting her time in his family drama.

Wait, what was it that Jazz had said about ‘proof’? That his parents were stubborn and needed it to be convinced of something. Well, duh. They were scientists. Sure, though they had definitely dropped the idea a while ago, they used to be extremely biased against ghosts. They held onto the idea that all ghosts were evil so stubbornly that Danny was legit afraid to be around them in the beginning. At least they’d warmed up to Phantom lately.

But what proof did his parents need? They actually had too much proof on their side, evidence that Danny couldn’t refute.

Something green glinted in his peripheral vision, His head whipped around to look at it, and he found himself staring at his reflection in the mirror. In his stress, his eyes had turned that otherworldly green, a shade that seemed so out of place with his regular complexion and black hair.

Oh, right. There was something else that his parents were being stubborn about.

(Maybe it was related? Jazz could look into their family’s seemingly genetic stubbornness, but – she probably already has several papers on it.)

He sighed. He didn’t need to convince his family that he was dating Valerie, not the Red Huntress (because, hey, they were right for once. Sort of. And he didn’t want to ask Val to fake-date him or something, it’d just be too complicated). He needed proof to convince them that dating her was not putting him at risk.

He ran a hand across his face, and in the reflection he could see that his eyes had smoothly transitioned from green back to blue. He sighed. He was going to need to ask his sister for advice on this one.

–

Danny waited until the last second to dodge a glowing green ghostly cube of doom, stepping nonchalantly to the side in midair and watching the Box Ghost’s frustrated reaction with smug satisfaction. But he’s not ignoring the guy just to mess with him. He was just focused on someone else.

“Red!” he hissed. Normally, he’d love to just watch her during combat, because in the fruitloop’s words, she really was good at this, but he needed to talk to her. They were flying higher than some of the buildings around, but his parents were directly beneath them and for all he knew, they’d made a Ghost-Whisper-Detector-Inator or something.

“Oh, so now you wanna talk!” she replied, the distortion from her helmet making her voice sound more metallic and making her angry tone all the more sharp and unsettling. She grunted as she hefted one of her heavier canons onto her shoulder before taking a shot at the Box Ghost. Danny winced as the projectile hit its mark directly and the poor guy got launched a couple blocks down the road. The two of them sped toward where he’d crashed into a wall and blocked his exits, one of them on either side of him. It was way overkill and the Red Huntress was clearly fuming, but Danny couldn’t resist saying, “Guess you could say we boxed him in.”

He couldn’t tell if the groan that came from the Box Ghost was a result of his injuries or Danny’s pun.

Red came closer, pressing a finger to his chest. “I’m about ready to box your hide–”

Danny’s voice cracked as he interrupted her, “Yep! So, can we have this little lovers’ spat over there,” he pointed at a nearby rooftop that was just tall enough to give them some privacy from people on the street, “you know, where my parents won’t see?” He put his hands in the air as he floated away slowly, toward that rooftop. Behind him, he heard Red huff before the telltale humming of her board followed him there.

As soon as they alighted on the roof, the Red Huntress stored her board away and took off her helmet. Valerie’s long, brown curls billowed in the wind and Danny tried not to stare. The whole Technus-enhanced suit she used to have was cool and all, but it was a little creepy, especially since Technus had been so… involved in their first relationship. He much preferred this suit, made by Tucker and the rest of the team using both Vladco and Fenton Works tech. She crossed her arms. “Start talking, Ghost-boy.”

Danny blinked. That took him back to the good ol’ days of when she was trying to kill him - was he sure Clockwork wasn’t messing with the timestream or something?

“Right,” he started, “So, sorry for ghosting you this past week.” His eyes widened in alarm. “Pun not intended, pun not intended!”

She just scoffed and muttered under her breath, “Yeah, right.” But some of the tension left her shoulders, and he could tell that she was holding back a smile. He took it as a sign to continue. He’d been trying to figure out the best way to explain the whole thing, but in the end he just said, “My parents think you and I are dating.”

She cocked an eyebrow at that. “And is that the problem?”

“Sort of.” He reached for her helmet. “You see, they think you,” he gestured to the red helmet in his hands, “are dating me,” he quickly transformed and gestured to his human self. “They think you’re putting me in danger,” he sighed, handing the helmet back to her.

Valerie took the helmet back and his words in slowly. Then she burst into laughter. “They think that I,” she said in between chuckles, “am putting Danny ‘Protector of Amity Park’ and ‘Heir to the Ghost Throne’ Phantom in danger?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Danny groaned. He knew it. He was never going to hear the end of this. She was going to tell the rest of the gang using the groupchat that he was definitely not a part of.

“So that’s why they’ve been chasing me down all week, too,” she added, calming down.

“They’ve been what?” Danny felt a sudden wave of guilt wash over him. He’d been so caught up with trying to keep Valerie free from the stress that his family was causing him that he hadn’t even bothered to check in with her.

She shrugged. “Guess their shouts of ‘Something something my son!’ and ‘Stay away!’ make a lot more sense now. For a moment there, I thought they were tryna run me outta town.” She looked him in the eye. “Is that what it was like for you, y’know,” she said quietly, “before?”

Danny stepped closer to her, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “Sorta.” He held her hands through her suit’s gloves and was happy to feel her give him a returning squeeze. “But that was before, and my parents have been harassing you all week. Are you okay?” “They’ve been harassing both of us all week and we just didn’t know it,” she chuckled. “What idiots. I just missed you, is all.”

He sighed. Jazz was right (Jazz was always right), if he’d just communicated with his relationships or something… “Sorry,” he said again. She just nodded.

“So, what’s your plan?”

–

“You sure you’re okay with telling my parents?” “Oh, yeah, it’s totally fine.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “It’s not like you already revealed my secret identity to my dad and got me in a lot of trouble.”

“Hey!” he protested. “It was one time…” he added guiltily, rubbing the back of his neck.

She grinned and punched his arm playfully. “I know, I know. Not like I didn’t deserve it.”

He frowned a little. That was true, but he still felt like the action had crossed a line. If anyone knew the importance of a secret identity, it would be him. He reached for her hand and she accepted the gesture, holding his hand as they walked to the edge of the roof. “True,” he said. “You used to be pretty morally Gray.”

“You are lucky I love you, Fenton.”

He stopped just short of being visible to those on the ground and gaped at her. She was shorter than him, but she stood tall with all her confidence and an expectant smirk. There was a challenge in her eyes, even if maybe the effect was kinda thrown off by the blush on her cheeks.

“I love you, too,” he said, and she rolled her eyes as if to say ‘duh.’ “And I love that you won’t whoop my ass in front of my parents? Unless, uh, you wanna show me all fifty shades–”

Valerie pressed a quick kiss to his lips before he could finish that sentence. “I love you, but that won’t help you if I hear the end of that sentence.” Helmet back on, she pulled him by the scruff of his shirt and yanked him onto her board before launching them both off the edge toward his parents.

“There she is, Maddie! And Danny-boy’s here, too?”

“Red Huntress! Be careful with my son!”

Red guided the board smoothly over until they arrived in front of his parents.

“Don’t worry, sweetie,” his mom greeted him as soon as he and Valerie stepped onto the street, “we already dealt with the Box Ghost that Phantom just left for us.”

“Now, Maddie,” his dad interjected. “The Box Ghost is small fry! Phantom trusts us with that kind of thing.” “I suppose you’re right,” she conceded with a sigh. And– Danny knew that this truce was the longest one that had ever lasted between Phantom and his parents, and he knew that Jazz had beaten the anti-ghost bias out of them a long time ago, but hearing the way they were so quick to defend and accept his alter ego now was still jarring. In all this time, even if he didn’t realize it, he was already a lot more relaxed about his identity, not caring if he let something suspicious slip or sometimes even being careless on purpose. It’s just that his parents were too stubborn to see it.

“Speaking of the Ghost-boy,” his dad continued, “where’d he go?”

“We’ll deal with that in a sec,” Danny dismissed easily. He gestured to the Huntress behind him. She stepped forward as confident as ever, her hand outstretched for a handshake. “Mom, Dad, this is my girlfriend, the Red Huntress.” He watched as his mom accepted the gesture easily, though somewhat stiffly, while his dad’s handshake threatened to pull Red off her feet. “But you also know her from somewhere else.”

On cue, his girlfriend took off her helmet, and Danny continued despite his parents’ shocked gasps, “Val, these are my parents.”

His dad was the first to speak up. “Damon’s girl?” He chuckled with delight. “I knew you were out of Danny’s league!”

“Hey!” he started, but Valerie spoke up for him instead. “If anything, Mr. Fenton, your son’s too good for me,” she said, looking back at him with big, green eyes. He shook his head at her, and put a hand on her shoulder.

“You can call him, Jack, dear,” his mom said. She’d taken off her hood and goggles and she was smiling softly at the two of them. “And I’m Maddie. It’s nice to really meet you.”

Danny and Valerie smiled at each other. “It’s good that I can tie a face that I trust to your girlfriend, Danny,” his mom said. “But! That doesn’t mean that she can take you around with her to ghost fights if we don’t set some ground rules first.” The older woman turned to Valerie. “I know you’re more than capable of taking care of yourself, but poor Danny’s been afraid of his own shadow since the ghost portal went up, you see.” Danny’s dad nodded. “Gotta make sure our boy is looked after!”

“Actually,” Danny butt in, “I can take care of myself.” His parents went quiet and looked at each other. His heart was pounding.

“It’s good to be confident, Danno! But–”

“No ‘buts’, Dad. I haven’t been completely honest with you guys, and it’s not fair to ask Val to reveal her identity when my reveal is way overdue.” He looked down at the street, missing the way his mother’s hand traveled to her mouth and his dad’s jaw was set with knowing determination. Valerie’s hand found his and squeezed it reassuringly. He took a deep breath.

The rings of his transformation glided smoothly over his form. When he opened his eyes to look at his parents, he tensed for just a moment as his vision was filled with the sight of the two of them barrelling toward him. But then they both crushed him in a hug, and all the tension left his shoulders. Even Val was squished in here with him and he laughed wetly. “I guess you guys finally caught the Ghost-boy, huh? Guess you weren’t ex-specter that one!” Then everyone groaned.

After a while, they all pulled away.

“Don’t think we won’t be having talks about all of,” his mom gestured vaguely to him, then to themselves, “this.”

“Oh, sonny, there’ll be a lot of talking to do.” The man looked to his wife. “And I’m going to have to edit the ‘birds and the bees’ spiel a bit, eh? We gotta take into account all your ghostly biology, after all!”

“My ghostly…” Danny turned as green as ectoplasm. Val was as red as her suit.

“Dad!” he whined, making his parents chuckle.

It wasn’t perfect, but, eh. They’d figure it out.

–

“So, how did you end up thinking that Danny was dating the Red Huntress?” Valerie asked, and Danny choked on his mom’s mac and cheese. He glared at Jazz from across the table, and she tried her best to stifle a laugh.

“Well…” his mom started, looking at her husband with a knowing smirk on her face.

“Mom!” he said, accidentally flashing his eyes green.

“No ghost powers at the table, sweetie,” she replied without missing a beat. He huffed and sat back in his seat. He met Valerie’s eye and she had one eyebrow up in an expression that felt like she thought she should be amused, but she didn’t know why yet. Oh, she was going to regret that fast.

His dad picked up the story, “You know the janitor’s closet on the third floor of Casper High?”

#phic phight 2023 #phic phight #danny phantom #valerie gray #team ghost #late post I am sorrrryyyyyyyyy #the title is from that one Heartstoppper song #gray ghost

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ventisettestars · 1 year

Photo

A Danny I drew for a fic to get a mental image of some of the changes he goes through in it. There are many more drawings (note the ‘normal mode’ label) But gunna be a few days till I’ll be posting the relevant chapter and didn’t want to wait xD

ao3 Link: Terrarium

Summary: One bad identity reveal later, Danny needed a place to stay in the zone and turned to an unlikely Ghost for shelter.

------------------------------------------------------------------ created for phic phight 2023 using these prompts:

Prompt #1 from 13thCat: There aren't that many plant!Danny in general so, Plant!Danny prompt! Is he possessed by Undergrowth? or other plant ghosts? Is he just vibing with the plants? Get creative!

Prompt #2 from Five-rivers: Horror, but soft and cozy with lots of sensation.

Alternate version before I decided I wanted him to be blue rather than tan. Originally, I was thinking he would have a bark-like skin, but I didn’t like it while writing so cut it

#danny phantom #phic phight 2023 #dp #my art #draws #my fic #fic

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lexosaurus · 1 year

Text

Phic Phight: how to make a deal with the devil

For @kinglazrus

Title: how to make a deal with the devil WC: 2814 CW: corpse au Summary: In which Dash goes trail running only to find Phantom hovering over the dead body of his classmate.

[ao3]

****

“What do you want?” Phant—Fenton(?)’s eyes bore straight into Dash, his expression dark. Meanwhile, Dash was too busy flickering his attention between the pissed-off ghost and the…

…

“Well?” Phantom folded his arms.

“Uh…what?” Dash asked.

“What do you want? A lifetime of free passes to beat me up? Me to do your homework for the next month? What is it?”

“Um…” He tried to peel his eyes away from the gruesome sight before him, but he couldn’t. Couldn’t stop seeing the protruding bones, decaying flesh, holes, wrinkles, burns.

Jesus fuck.

And Phantom—Fenton, it was Fenton—towered above him, his simmering aura murky despite its bright glow, his eyes blistering into Dash’s skull.

He…wanted something? From Dash?

But why?

Dash was never the smartest person in class. He never got the best grades, he never knew all the answers. So maybe he just wasn’t smart enough to understand, or maybe it was a little fucked up that there was a dead, decaying corpse between them and Fenton-Phantom didn’t seem the least bit phased by it.

“I’m sorry, I—uh—what the fuck?”

Phantom slapped his hand to his forehead. “I’m asking what you want in exchange for keeping your mouth shut.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. So, you know, just name your price.”

Dash swallowed thickly, his nose burning from the smell. He finally tore his eyes away from the corpse to see Phantom bristle, crossing his arms once again. Dash was sure that if the ghost had legs at the moment, he’d be tapping his foot with impatience.

He just…he didn’t understand. Why was Fenton’s corpse here when he was standing—floating—before him? How was this possible?

And how the fuck was Phantom really Fenton?

“Are you dead?” The words stumbled out of Dash’s mouth before he could stop himself, and his face instantly flushed in regret.

Phantom’s eyebrows pulled in, and his lips thinned. Dash watched as one of his gloved hands tightened its grip on his arm.

Shit, shit. Was that rude? Wasn’t it a cardinal sin to ask a ghost about their death?

But then the fear zapped through him and disappeared once again. Because really, truly, he was just confused. He didn’t get how this was possible, how Danny Fenturd, the loser who he had been picking on since the sixth grade, was the town hero.

Well, they did look sort of alike. Now that Dash had seen the transformation with his own eyes, he had mentally slapped himself for not spotting their similarities earlier. Even if the whole Phantom is a ghost and the glowing aura had made things a bit fuzzier.

But their face shape, general height, and haircut were where those similarities ended. Because everything else was drastically different. So different, in fact, that Dash was still reeling at how the fuck this confident, angry ghost with his shoulders back and threatening aura spilling from his pores could be the same weakling who ran from Dash at every minor thing.

Seriously, what the fuck?

“Well?” He found himself pressing. “Are you?”

Phantom took a long, deep breath like he was about to lecture a group of children. “I’m not explaining myself to you.”

Dash blinked.

Of all the answers, that hadn’t been one of them.

Especially since…

Dash pointed to the corpse on the ground. “I think you have to.”

He wasn’t sure exactly where he was getting the balls to pry from, but Fenton-Phantom didn’t look particularly surprised.

But instead of responding, Phantom posed a question of his own. “What the hell were you even doing out here?”

“Training,” Dash said simply.

Which hadn’t even been a lie. These hiking trails were some of the best around for conditioning running.

And that one line also seemed to slice through the last of the spell in Dash’s mind. The ice melted in his body, and he felt like he could move again, and then the questions poured out of him in a tsunami. “Seriously, what the fuck, Fenton? Why the fuck do you have a corpse of yourself here? How are you Phantom?”

“Why do you think I have a corpse of myself here? For fun?”

“This isn’t fucking funny. Are you really dead? Have you been disguising yourself as a human all this time?”

“I’m not actually dead. I’m half dead. That body is only half of me.”

Dash was no expert, but it certainly looked and smelled like the full thing.

“It was my parent’s portal accident. I was inside when it turned on, and it killed me and brought me back to life. But not all of me made it.”

Jesus. That didn’t sound better than what Dash had been thinking. He tried to picture his soul ripping from his body, but refusing to let go, still clinging onto the scraps. It sounded horrific.

Was that even possible? Was Fenton just delusional?

“Why the hell did you take it from the ground?” Dash said instead.

“I didn’t! The stupid rainstorm flooded this area and eroded a bunch of dirt. I guess I didn’t bury it deep enough the first time so now I’m fixing it.”

Fixing…it…?

What the HELL was there to fix?

“You mean you’re not going to tell the police?”

Dash could have sworn the temperature dropped several degrees. But maybe that was just the chill from Phantom’s now-blazing aura which seemed to dim the world around it.

“We’re not talking to the police.”

It was a statement. A threat.

…Oh.

Dash understood the question from before.“What do you want?”

What Dash wanted was to dial 911, but that was supposedly no longer an option. Still, he couldn’t help but run his big, dumb mouth as he said, “What will you do if I report this?”

Because he knew he’d done a lot of stupid things—a lot of stupid things—but being complicit in covering up a dead body?

Jesus Christ.

And now his mind was reeling once again.

He could picture it. The day the police found the body. Forensics running DNA analysis just like they did in the crime shows and extracting a single strand of Dash’s blond hair. They’d pull him into the interrogation room, and a mustached man wearing sunglasses would interrogate him for hours as if Dash were the murderer, citing reports of Dash wailing on Fenton in class, saying that he had the motive and the evidence to lock him up for life. Dash would have no choice but break down and tell them the truth, that he’d been running in the woods, he stumbled across Phantom bent over the dead body, that he’d screamed and had tried to run away but Phantom was quicker, he cornered Dash not even five steps into his attempted escape, and he’d transformed into a living copy of that same corpse rotting in the ground to try to prove that he wasn’t dead.

Would the police even believe a crazy story like that?

Either way, Dash would be fucked. He would either be locked away for murder, or he’d be locked away in aiding a cover-up. And that was something he couldn’t do.

No.

No way.

No matter how much he loved Phantom…his hero…

Shit. Fucking shit.

“Well? What will it take?” Fenton-Phantom said

“Fenton, I—”

“I will do your homework for the rest of the school year.”

The offer was tempting, Dash had to admit it. But it wasn’t like Fenton’s grades were much higher than Dash’s at the moment.

“No, that’s—Fenton, I’m serious.”

“And so am I.” Phantom’s stare was dead-on. “Do you know what the government will do to me? If you report this?”

Dash shivered. Had it always been this cold under the shade?

“Ghosts aren’t citizens of the United States, Dash. They’re not human. They’re not given the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It doesn’t matter if I have a heartbeat and a pulse when I also have a ghost core. Do you understand? They will kidnap me and I will become the government’s personal lab rat for the rest of my life.”

Nausea swept through him, and his fingers felt numb despite their obvious trembling.

And Phantom was slowly creeping closer across the path. A trail of frost followed the dirt under him, and static seemed to crackle in the air.

“Do you know what branch the Guys in White fall under? The Department of Defense. You know, like the military. You really want the military to have unlimited access to a level seven ectoplasmic creature’s core? One whose powers could easily level an entire city block?”

Had Fenton always been like this? Threatening? Fierce? Was the scared, aloof idiot that Dash had seen every day in school just a persona that he’d been wearing?

“Ghosts are highly manipulative creatures,” Dr. Maddie Fenton read off a paper. She stood in front of the class dressed in her signature teel hazmat suit, a whiteboard with GHOST 101 written in large letters splayed behind her. “They will do anything to satisfy their ghosty obsessions. They’ll play any role, and they will sweet talk, argue, challenge—whatever they need to do in order to fulfill that obsession. They are semi-sentient, true, but they are not sapient. They do not have the same brain functionality that you or I do. They cannot truly learn, grow, or feel empathy to others. They can fake it, they can express a whole range of human emotions, but at the end of the day they are nothing but imprints of ecto-electricity.”

But no…he had never really believed that, did he?

He always loved Phantom. Looked up to him. He couldn’t…he wouldn’t…

“What about Phantom?” Dash asked, too impatient to raise his hand. “More powerful ones are different, right? So what about Phantom?”

“Power doesn’t lead to sapience. It doesn’t necessarily mean wisdom, the ability to learn and grow. Ghosts can only act on their impulses, and their impulses tell them to do whatever it is that will satisfy their core. They’re a bit like mosquitos, just ones that can talk,” Dr. Fenton responded.

“I don’t know, Phantom clearly loves me!” Paulina said. “He saved me from a ghost last week, it was so romantic! He even remembered my name!”

“Because interacting with the younger generation benefits him. He wants to be seen as the town hero, so he will do whatever it takes to get there.”

But now, that can’t be right. Phantom wasn’t like that, he was different. He was telling the truth about being a half-ghost! Even though that was impossible….No, he wasn’t just faking it to manipulate Dash. He was different. He was a hero.

“So let’s make a deal, Dash. What do you want in exchange for keeping this quiet?”

He wouldn’t lie to everyone about this. He was telling the truth. He wasn’t manipulating anyone.

“Um…” Dash felt his brain short-circuiting.

God, was that…burnt lime coming from the corpse? Why did it smell like that?

He felt his eyes prickle, and he blinked away any shininess that was threatening to appear. He couldn’t let Fenton-Phantom see his emotions, could let the ghost-not-ghost(?) see the cracks within him.

But not because he believed Dr. Fenton—even though she had a PhD in ecto-biology and certainly knew more about ectology than Dash—but it was because he needed to look tough! It wasn’t…just in case.

“How about this? I’ll never tell a single soul about your bad habit of wailing on the nerds, and I’ll offer to be your free stress-reducing punching bag for the rest of high school. In exchange, this stays between us. Deal?”

This was wrong. No, Dash couldn’t make this deal.

This was so so fucked up.

He didn’t know what happened. He didn’t know the full story. All he knew was what was in front of him, and that was the dead body of his (former?) classmate, and his ghost hovering above it with the typical goofy, carefree expression swapped for something far more dangerous.

“Okay,” he breathed, his tongue barely moving. “Okay. Deal.”

Fenton-Phantom uncrossed his arms to extend a hand out to Dash, who only hesitated for a moment before meeting him halfway.

He suppressed the shutter as his body was plunged into a freezer at the contact.

But he’s still half-alive…right?

“Good.” The carefree smile was back on Fenton-Phantom’s face, the tension in his jaw melting away its sharp angles and his blazing aura reducing to something more shimmery, more heroic. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to put my half-corpse back into the ground.”

Dash couldn’t stumble away quick enough, and despite the lactic-acid beginning to build in his legs, he found himself all but sprinting away once he was sure he was out of Phantom’s eyeline.

Shit, shit, shit, shit.

Dash had made a deal with Phantom. He had made a deal with a ghost.

No, a hero.

Phantom was a hero.

But he didn’t look like a hero when Dash saw him. He looked stressed, his green eyes were too shifty. And even when he’d transformed to Fenton to “prove” that he was still alive, for the first time, he didn’t really seem that alive. Dash could still feel the hints of the chill, he could still see the way Fenton’s teeth looked a little too sharp and the tips of his ears were a little too narrow and his skin just looked a little too olive-green.

God, how had he been so stupid? How had he not seen it before?

How had no one noticed?

Was Phantom just really that good at fooling everyone? Had he put the town under a spell?

Dash reached the edge of the forest and bent down, panting. He hadn’t even realized how much his throat was screaming for more air.

Fuck.

He fumbled in his pockets and ripped his phone out.

He had just made a deal with Phantom about hiding a dead corpse.

Dash was many things, but this?

He pressed the ringing phone to his ear. His heart pounded in his chest, and every ring felt like a century.

But then the other line clicked on, and relief washed over him as he heard the famous, “911, what’s your emergency?”

“I just found a dead body.” Cold plunged through Dash as he realized what had happened all over again. “I found Phantom hovering over a dead body. I think…I think it was his.”

There was a pause on the other line.

“What is your location?”

“I’m at Rosemary Park. It was about a half-mile in from the parking lot, right off of the diamond path. I…I think Phantom was burying the body again. It, god, it was Danny Fenton. Fenton is Phantom. He’s dead.”

“Okay, please stay calm. Emergency services have been dispatched to your location. What is your name?”

“No, I can’t stay here. Phantom will kill me if he knows I called.”

“Sir, did he see you?”

“Yeah. He would know it’s me.”

“Please stay on the line. Can you get to a safe location?”

“I…” Dash felt the world tip, and he forced it to righten. “I can get to my car. I’m sorry, I need to get to my car. I need to go.”

Dash hung up, despite the protesting on the other end.

He needed to get out of here.

He ripped open the door to his car, threw himself inside, jammed the key into the lock, and all but floored it away. It only took a few minutes down the highway before he began to hear the sirens in the distance.

Shit, fucking shit.

If Phantom wasn’t caught…

He swerved to the first exit.

If Phantom found out that Dash tattled, he would kill Dash, and no one would know what happened because no one would know that Dash was the one who called.

So Dash needed help.

He needed people to know who he was.

He needed protection.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“It’s me again. The one who just called in Phantom’s body. Uh, Dash Baxter. I’m…coming into the station. I think he’ll try to kill me if he gets away.”

“Alright. What station are you driving to?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where are you currently?”

“I just pulled off of exit fourteen.”

“There is a police station about two miles from you. Do you know where the Verizon building is?”

“I…yeah. Yeah, I think so.”

“There’s a station right next to it. Can I transfer you to their building?”

“Okay.”

“Alright, please hold,” the voice said.

The silence was deafening.

And then a voice appeared in his ear once again. And Dash could have shuttered in relief because it meant he was going to be okay.

Sorry, Fenton. But I had to.

I had to.

****

[read more of my writing]

#danny phantom #phicc #phic phight 2023 #my writing #corpse au #angst

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going-dead · 1 year

Text

Horses not Unicorns

Prompt by @eyesofcrows : in some hospitals, CPR is done to a patient despite them being declared dead on arrival. This is a courtesy to the family. The doctor doesn't expect the scream when they lay down the defibrillator paddles on the boy's chest.

Dr. Cecelia Martinez had worked as an ED doctor for longer than some of the nurses under her had even been alive. She saw more gruesome scenes in one week than most people would in their entire lives if they were lucky. She would even say she’d seen it all if she wanted to be stupid and jinx herself.

She took one of the coffees out of the cup carrier in her hands and placed it in front of Lily, the nurse on shift with her. “Your cream with a dash of coffee.”

“Thanks Martinez. And stop ragging on me about how much cream I put in my coffee, it tastes good.” Lily nodded her head not taking her eyes off of the computer screen in front of her. She was finishing up the chart notes for the last patient who’d came in and reviewing the work of their med student..

“Anything for you. Lord knows I wouldn’t last a week without you here. But never, it’s an affront to caffeine. I didn’t consume gallons of the stuff back in school, or on these night shifts just for you blaspheming it like you do. Look at it, it’s lighter than a person dying of blood loss.” Dr. Martinez took the other cup out of the holder and handed it to the medical student shadowing her for the next few weeks, Brian.

Or well he was supposed to. Not many of the students just starting their rotations make it long in the emergency department, especially if it was one of their first rotations, even less come back to work there when they graduate. The kid only started the night before so she hadn’t had much of a time to get a grasp on what he was made of.

“Thank you Dr. Martinez.” Brian gave her a small smile as she took a seat. “Can I ask a question?”

“That’s why you’re here isn’t it? And drop the title stuff, if you won’t call me Cecelia you can at least call me Martinez.” She looked Brian up and down, he was either restless or nervous, or perhaps both , with how he tapped his finger and his leg hadn’t stopped moving up and down.

“Uh okay. It’s just I was wondering, we’ve hardly seen any patients come in. Is it always this slow?” Brian asked.

“God damn it Brian!” Lily shouted, startling the poor med student.

“What? Did I do something wrong when charting?” His eyes widened.

Dr. Martinez wouldn’t deny it had been…less than busy. It was already four in the morning and the most interesting thing they had seen that night was someone coming in for back pain because they pulled a muscle. A quick lidocaine patch and he was on his way. Of course now that Brian had challenged fate, there was very little chance the night would continue on with such ease. “You spoke words never to be spoken in a hospital setting. The forbidden ‘s’ word.”

Brian rolled his eyes. “I didn’t think medical professionals would be so superstitious.”

“Not superstition if it’s true.” Lily huffed, she had already downed her coffee in preparation. Dr. Martinez quickly followed suit.

Almost on cue one of the triage nurses burst through the doors as the intercom spoke out overhead. “Code blue, pediatric male, ED waiting room.”

Dr. Martinez swore jumping up from her seat. “Lily get the crash room prepared and get peds down here. Brian with me.” She followed the triage nurse into the waiting room not giving the student time to catch up with her.

Who the patient was, was obvious. Even if there wasn’t a nurse actively transferring him into a gurney. He was the only person under the age of thirty in the waiting room.

Dr. Martinez turned to the man hovering near the child. “You dad?”

The man shook his head. “Teacher, William Lancer, we’re on a school trip one of the students noticed he wasn’t breathing in his sleep, and well-can you help him.”

“We’ll do the best we can. Do you know of any health conditions, allergies, medications?” She questioned.

William Lancer shook his head. “No. Danny’s perfectly healthy for a kid his age, despite being on the smaller side.”

He was correct about him being on the smaller side of his age group, looking at him, she would’ve said he was fifteen at most, not seventeen. Dr. Martinez followed the nurses to the crash room. They had already started to put the leads of the AED onto the patient when she walked in.

The likelihood of the kid making it was slim to none. Even if he did the effect of his brain not having oxygen for so long. She was aware of that. If he hadn’t been breathing since he was found and then the whole trip to the hospital…Well it was her job to at least try.

Brian was just standing and staring at the body infront of them as Dr. Martinez started an IV line letting the nurses start to bag the patient and the others finished up with the AED preparations. “Brian get moving or get out of the way.”

“He’s just a kid.” He stared.

“No pulse, Starting compressions!” A nurse called out.

Brian flinched at the sound of ribs breaking under the strain of chest compressions. “Someone get the student out of here.” She yelled.

That snapped him out of his stupor. “No I can do this, what do you want me to do?”

“Take over the bagging.” She instructed, it was probably one of the simpler tasks she could give him, as long as he didn’t pop the patients' lung.

She heard the AED speak up, still no pulse, still no, shockable rhythm. “Administering epinephrine.”

They continued like that for five more minutes, staff switching out doing compressions or bagging. Passing medications. But they all knew the chances.

Or they thought they did.

“We got a new reading!” Lily shouted.

Dr. Martinez looked over at the EKG reading. “He’s in V-fib, get the AED ready to shock.”

The staff waited on bated breath as they let the AED examine the patient’s heart rhythm. “Shock advised. Charging. Stand clear. Press the flashing button to deliver shock.”

“Clear?” Dr. Martinez made eye contact with each person standing around the patient. A chorus of clears rang out in response.

“Clear!” Dr. Martinez did a final call before she pressed the button to deliver the shock.

Cardiac arrests were not an uncommon sight in the emergency department. She’d see plenty more by the time she hit retirement. But it was usually older people, people who’d lived at least a somewhat long life. No matter how many times a child or even a young adult came into the ED like this it was hard on everyone involved. She always tried longer on kids. Despite knowing the very slim chance of them being revived. The chances were practically zero here. She mourned the fact that this was Brian’s first cardiac arrest with them. There was no chance any reasonable person would stay after this.

It wasn’t her first to wouldn’t be her last, but just like the others and the ones to come Cecelia Martinez knew she would never forget his face.

Especially since he did something frankly impossible for someone who had just received CPR and an electric shock. He sat up and screamed.

It was only years of experience that Dr. Martinez was able to dodge the kick sent her way. Brian was not so lucky getting clocked in the face with a fist.

“Hey, hey, hey. You need to lay down. You’re in the hospital, your teacher says you stopped breathing and you went into cardiac arrest. Can you tell me your name, do you remember where you were last? Or the date?” Dr. Martinez asked placing herself directly into the teenager's line of sight.

He placed a hand on his chest and took a slow deep breath. Something that had to be incredibly painful with broken ribs. “Huh, I-yeah. Danny Fenton. I was in my hotel room. It’s March 27th. Did you electrocute me?”

No obvious damage to neurological function. He got the date wrong but only by four hours, it was the 28th now. “Yes Danny, we did have to shock you. We’re going to have to run quite a few tests to make sure everything is working okay now.” And to see how he was even talking.

“Oh, no I’m okay.” Danny looked back where Brian was holding his shoulder where he was punched, and winced. “Shit, sorry dude are you alright?”

“How about you all go chart, or help Brian get ice or something for his shoulder. Lily let his teacher know he’s joined us back in the land of the living.” Dr. Martinez not so kindly giving them all the hint to get out.

Danny tried to hide a laugh in a cough. An interesting reaction for someone who had briefly died. “Young man I don’t think you realize what you just went through. I understand you are most likely in shock but you need to understand the gravity of the situation. Healthy kids do not just suddenly stop breathing, and we need to understand why.”

“It’s not a big deal, I promise. I just have sleep apnea.” Danny explained.

“Your heart stopped.” Dr. Martinez deadpanned.

“It’s a very serious condition.” Danny nodded his head like he was agreeing with her.

There was a knock on the door, opening just a moment after. Lily brining in Danny’s teacher. “War and Peace, Danny are you alright?”

“Yeah I’m fine.”

“No he is not” Dr. Martinez said at the same time. “We had to perform CPR. We’ll have to do tests to make sure everything has resumed functioning as normal as they can, as well as an x-ray to assess the damage to his ribs.”

“Of course. I have gotten in contact with his older sister and she is on the way, she should be here in a few hours. His parents are currently unavailable.” William Lancer explained.

“Jazz is coming?” Danny groaned. The most negative emotion he had displayed since he’d gotten here. “And hours? As in multiple? I don’t want to be here that long.”

“You’ll be here a few days minimum for observation.” Dr. Martinez said.

The boy flopped back onto the gurney with much more aggressiveness than he should have with what he just went through. “I don’t like hospitals.”

Dr. Martinez sighed. “Not may people do, doctors can be intimidating sometimes. White coat syndrome isn’t abnormal.”

Danny wrinkled his nose. “I don’t care about doctors. It’s too loud here, there’s too much death.”

It was quiet in the room, she wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

“I can leave the sooner I get those tests done right?” He asked.

“As long as everything is normal.” Dr. Martinez nodded. They wouldn’t be, they couldn’t be.

“As long as it’s all normal.” Danny repeated “Alright let’s get started.”

Dr. Martinez was reading the x-ray and other test results when Danny’s older sister arrived. She double-checked the results and viewed the images dozens of times.

Barring the traces of epinephrine still in his system, all the tests were completely normal. His ribs weren’t even broken.

But that wasn’t possible. She heard the bones break.

The best course of action she supposed was to talk to Danny and his sister. She made her way to the room they moved him to. She seemed to enter the middle of a conversation.

“I swear when I get my hands on him. He traps me in the middle of a dream and then I’m waking up thinking I’m dying again. And now they’re trying to keep me here for no reason!”

“I mean, technically in their eyes you did die. It’s a valid concern.”

“Still don’t see why it’s such a big deal though, I’m fine.”

“Normal people don’t recover that fast Danny. It of course would raise some questions.”

“How was I supposed to know how quick people recover from dying?”

“Common sense, I’d assume.” “Ugh. When do mom and dad get back?”

“Few days, you’re still stuck with me until then. Lucky for you in this situation. They’d have a lot more questions.”

Dr. Martinez opened the door fully making her presence known. “You must be Jazz. I’m Danny’s doctor, Dr. Martinez.”

“Nice to meet you Dr. Martinez. Thank you for taking care of my brother.” Jazz smiled shaking her hand.

“Well he certainly gave us quite the fright. It’s not often people come back from a cardiac arrest punching.” More like they never did.

“Well he’s always liked to exceed expectations.” Jazz nodded..“Do you have the discharge paperwork?”

“Discharge?” Danny’s teacher had said Jazz was one of the most responsible people he knew despite her younger age. And she wanted to discharge her brother? “Miss Fenton discharging him so soon-”

“Is well within my rights as his temporary legal guardian while our parents are unavailable.”

Dr. Martinez refrained from sighing. “And where exactly are your parents?”

“Out of the country at the moment.” Danny supplied. “Work trip.”

“I see. Regardless I can’t just let you leave just hours after you went into cardiac arrest.”

“Did my tests come back wrong?” He asked.

‘No, your tests came back completely normal.”

“Then I don’t see why I can't leave?”

“That is exactly why you can’t leave. We don’t even know what caused this.” She would rather have him stay voluntarily than try to chance getting a court order.

“I do know though.”

“You know?” Dr. Martinez found that hard to believe. “Why would that be?”

“Ghosts.”

“Ghosts?”

“That’s what I said.” Danny nodded.

Court order it was. “I’m going to step out and talk to your teacher. Please remain here.”

She stepped out the door. Finding William Lancer was not difficult, he was in the chair right outside the door. “Sir, may I ask you a question?”

He stood up. “Yes of course. Is everything alright?”

“Unusually enough, yes. But it has more to do with something Danny mentioned about the reason for his episode.” She rubbed at her temple. “He said it was because of and I quote ‘ghosts’.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. So you see why it wouldn’t be a good idea to let him leave.”

“I thought they wouldn’t be a problem so far from Amity Park.”

“What?”

“We didn’t bring any anti-ghost equipment for that reason. Obviously that was a major oversight on me and the rest of the schools staff on this trip.”

She was starting to think perhaps school was a code word for cult. Or maybe wherever they were from had some serious chemical leaks going on. “Could you please just talk to the two of them and try to convince them not to leave? I do not think it would be a good idea to let him go so soon.”

“Oh definitely. Even if it is ghosts that’s not something we can let go without making sure he is okay.” He nodded and went to open the door.

“Great Gatsby, not again.” William Lancer sighed as he entered the room.

“What? What is it?” Dr. Martinez asked pushing past him. Had Danny collapsed?

Danny had not collapsed, in fact Danny was no longer in the room. No one was.

But she had been standing next to the door the entire time. There was no way they could have left without her noticing. “Where did they go?”

“Back home, probably. Or well on their way there, I’d assume.”

“But how did they leave, we were standing infront of the door.”

He just gave a tired shrug. “It’s not the first time he’s disappeared with no feasible way to. Happens more and more by the year I swear. He wasn’t nearly this bad at fourteen. Still a handful, just a different way. But if he’s feeling well enough to sneak out there's not much I can do.”

“Do you think that their behavior is possibly linked to their parents?” They had mentioned that their parents were out of the country on a business trip. Perhaps they were taught to mistrust hospital staff by their parents out of fear of social workers.

“The whole family is strange, their parents are scientists to put simply. But not in the way you’re thinking. They’re just strange in a city full of strange people and strange things. If that is all, I do need to return to the rest of my students. Have a good night, or well a good morning I suppose.” He gave her a smile before walking off.

Dr. Martinez walked back towards her office thoughts cluttered. Ghosts, a perfectly healthy teenage boy’s heart stopping. The way he acted it was less that the shock reset his heart rhythm and more like it simply surprised him enough that his functions resumed their normal activities. His ribs broke, then they weren’t. He had no side effects from being shocked, let alone from going so long with no oxygen going to his brain. No one who knew him seemed to think the things going on were weird. Simply another day.

Brian was sitting in the extra chair in her office. He looked up at the sound of her entering. “How’s the patient?”

“Gone.”

“Gone? How?”

“Not sure, actually.” Dr. Martinez had seen almost everything as an ED doctor. Whatever just happened was a brand-new experience. “And it seems like I’m not paid nearly enough to figure it out. After today, I don’t blame you if you want to end your rotation early.”

“No! I want to stay.” Brian stood up.

“Really? Why?” Cardiac arrests weren’t easy on new students, kids were even worse.

“I’ve never seen or even heard about someone being this healthy and aware after CPR. It’s fascinating. I want to see more things like that that challenges our understanding of medicine.” Brian said as he pointed the notes he was writing down in her face.

Cecilia laughed. “You remember the phrase horses not zebras?”

Brian nodded his head. “Yeah of course. This was a zebra, right?”

Dr. Martinez shook her head. Once she finished charting she was going to forget about all of this, preferably with a strong drink when she got home. Too many unanswered questions and unexplainable events. Hell maybe it was ghosts. “You’re never going to see something like this again. This was a god-damn unicorn.”

#danny phantom #My writing #outsider pov #phic phight 2023 #phic phight team human

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phicphight · 1 year

Text

The Phic Phight 2023 Form is up!

The infographics below created by @sailor-toni provide a summary of the event, the point system, and some basic rules. You will also find this information, as well as a link to the FAQ, in the form itself! If you have any questions that aren't covered by the form or the FAQ, please send an ask to this blog!

[Image ID in Alt for all three images below]

#danny phantom #danny phantom fanfiction #phic phight #phic phight 2023 #phic phight 23 info #have phun y'all!

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q-gorgeous · 1 year

Text

A Ray in the Dark

fanfiction

ao3

word count: 2389

No one knows AU. Instead of being assigned homework or busywork for his recent detention, Danny is presented with two chairs and a teacher who just wants to talk and try to understand him. And after having a huge fight with his friends after bailing on them at lunch and a fight with his family that morning, Danny is actually willing to talk about everything and finally open up to someone. @darthfrodophantom

im not good at titling things ahhh

“Danny! It’s time to get up for school!”

Danny groaned as his mom called to him from downstairs in the kitchen. Either her or Jazz must’ve come by and opened his bedroom door. He didn’t remember that happening, but when he squinted his eyes open he could see through his doorway and into the bathroom. He sat up and threw his covers off of him and closed his door again. He grabbed a change of clothes and started getting ready for the day.

He had to fight a ghost last night. It made him miss curfew by an hour and then another one had popped up again in the middle of the night. He’d barely gotten any sleep before his mom called him.

After he changed he grabbed his backpack and slung it over his shoulder. He ran down the stairs and set his backpack in the living room before heading to the kitchen.

He smiled when he saw his favorite breakfast food sitting on the table waiting for him. Strawberry pancakes and syrup with a side of eggs and sausages. He pulled his chair out and started digging in. He could feel his parent’s eyes on him as well as Jazz’s. When he looked up at them, they all looked like they wanted to say something but didn’t know where to start. He slowed down on eating his breakfast. He knew what they were doing. They were buttering him up before they gave him bad news.

“Danny, sweetie.” His mom started. She wrung her hands together, looking to his left before she made eye contact with him. “We need to talk.”

He swallowed the bite of food that was in his mouth and shifted his gaze between the three of them. “About what?”

“Your grades have been dropping for a couple months now. You’re failing a handful of classes. We know you can do better. Your grades used to be so good. What happened?”

He leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just stupid now. Not everyone can be as smart as you guys or Jazz.”

“Danny, that's not all that’s been going on though.” Jazz said softly. She placed a hand on his arm. “You’ve been coming home past curfew, skipping school. I even saw that you snuck out last night.”

He pulled away from her grip. “What?”

“You left your door open last night.” Jack said. “Jazzy-pants was going to the bathroom when she saw that you weren’t in your room. She came to get us when she realized you weren’t downstairs either.”

Danny crossed his arms. “Some sibling you are, snitching on me.”

“This is serious, Danny!” His mom exclaimed. “You’re never where you’re supposed to be. That can be dangerous for a kid your age in a city this big. You can’t do whatever you want whenever you want, especially when you aren’t passing any of your classes. It’s those things that are causing your grades to fail.”

“How do you know what’s causing my grades to fail?” Danny shot back at her. “This is the first time you’ve ever actually talked to me about it. Every other time you bring it up you make it out to be that I’m dumb, that because I’m a Fenton I need to get good grades. You never ask what’s wrong.”

“That’s why we’re talking about it now.” Jack said. “It’s gotten to a point where it needs to be addressed. Until your grades start to go back up, you’re grounded.”

“What?” Danny shouted as he stood up from the table. “Why?”

“We need to keep an eye on you to make sure you’re actually getting your homework done. You need to attend every class and be home on time so that your grades can get better.” Maddie said. “We’re doing this because we love you.”

Danny scoffed. “More like you love good grades.” He walked out of the living room and picked up his backpack, throwing it over his shoulder. “I’m leaving, then. Maybe if I leave early for school you won’t think I’m some kind of delinquent anymore.”

“Danny, wait-”

He slammed the door on the sound of his mom’s voice and started walking away. They didn’t understand why his grades were failing. He couldn’t tell them either. He was probably going to be grounded for the rest of his life if this is what they insisted on doing. He needed to talk to Sam and Tucker. They didn’t know anything about why he was suddenly failing all his classes either, but he could at least complain to them about his parents.

-----

Danny ran back into the school out of breath. He had to fight another ghost and it caused him to miss both his lunch hour and the class right after it. He was supposed to meet with Sam and Tucker during lunch, he’d been so busy all the time, giving them excuses about why he couldn’t make it to lunch. Today he promised them he’d be there, that he didn’t schedule anything for today but then this stupid ghost had to show up.

In the speakers above him, the bell rang and students started filing out of their classes. He slowed down so he didn’t run into anyone and looked around for Sam and Tucker.

There they were! He saw them walking out of their English class and started jogging towards them.

“Sam, Tucker!” He shouted at them, waving a hand in the air.

They turned around to look at him and he slowed down again at the expressions on their faces. They definitely looked mad at him.

He made it the rest of the way to them, still breathing heavily from running into the school.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it. Something came up and I had to-”

“Are you really?” Sam asked coldly.

His brows drew down. “What? Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You keep bailing on us, dude.” Tucker said coldly. “You’re never around anymore. You always have some excuse for why you can’t eat lunch with us or why you can’t hang out. You say you’re studying or making up work but you’re not. You wouldn’t be failing all your classes if you were actually doing all that.”

“And if you’re not working on your schoolwork why would you be avoiding us unless it’s because you don’t want to be friends with us anymore?” Sam shot at him.

“What? No, of course I still want to be friends.” Danny looked at them with panicked eyes. “I just have a lot going on right now that’s taking up all my time but it’s not anything to do with you guys.”

“Why don’t you tell us what it is, then?” Sam asked. Danny looked away from her. They didn’t know. He couldn’t tell them. They’d think he was a freak, just like the rest of their classmates.

“That’s what I thought. Come on, Tucker. Let’s get to our next class.”

He watched as they turned their backs on him and walked away. He could feel the tears threatening to spill from his eyes and he clenched his hands into fists. He turned to walk to his next class when he bumped into someone.

“Sorry, my-”

He looked up and made eye contact with Mr. Lancer.

“Ah, Mr. Fenton. I see you’ve made it back to school. You seemed to have disappeared for a while there.”

“Uh, yeah. I got caught up with something. My-”

Lancer shook his head. “You’ll be serving a detention after school today, Mr. Fenton. Meet me in my classroom after your last class today.”

He walked past Danny to go into his classroom. Danny could feel his eyes welling up with tears again and he stomped away towards his next class.

Great. As if today couldn’t get any worse. First he had a fight with his parents and got grounded. Then he had a fight with Sam and Tucker, his only friends. Now he was going to get detention, which would only make his parents more mad. He hated today. He couldn’t wait to finally get home.

-----

Danny stood outside Lancer’s classroom door. The teacher wasn’t in there right now and Danny was debating whether or not he wanted to leave and go home or if he wanted to serve the detention. No doubt he’d get a call sent home either way.

He sighed and jumped when a voice sounded behind him.

“Hello, Mr. Fenton. Let’s head on inside.”

Danny walked into the classroom with Lancer following close behind him. He sat down at a desk, dropping his backpack down on the ground. When he looked back up he saw Lancer closing the door behind him. Danny looked around at the empty classroom.

“Aren’t there other kids that have detention today?” Danny asked. Usually there was at least one other person in here with him.

“Not today.” Lancer said. “I wanted us to be alone so I could have a word with you, Danny.”

Danny squirmed in his desk chair. Mr. Lancer didn’t often use his student’s first names. Something about some kind of personal vs professional boundaries. Danny didn’t think it made a lot of sense since they were just kids in high school but that’s just what the teacher did.

Lancer pulled his desk chair out from behind his desk and pushed it in front of the desk that Danny had sat in. He sat down in it and looked at Danny.

“Is everything alright, Danny?”

Danny just stared at him. Was this the only reason he had gotten detention today? So Lancer could try to talk to him one on one where he couldn’t leave?

“I saw you arguing with your friends earlier today.” Lancer continued. “And as one of your teachers, I know your grades have been dropping and how often you’ve been skipping class. I feel it is part of my duty as a teacher to make sure you’re doing alright. Has something happened? Is it a home issue? Do you need help?”

Danny was stunned. All this time since he’d gotten his powers and was fighting ghosts, no one had asked if he was okay. Apparently every single important person in his life had noticed something was wrong, but it took his English teacher to notice something for someone to finally ask him ‘are you alright?’.

He took a deep breath. “I don’t… I don’t think so.”

He finally let the tears fall. They had been building up in the time since his accident, since his grades started falling. It had been building up today when everything kept happening and it felt like there were no solutions. He didn’t have a way of fixing any of this without letting the ghosts attack Amity Park. And he couldn’t let himself do that.

Lancer turned and grabbed the tissue box that sat on the top of his desk and placed it in front of Danny quietly. He grabbed one and blew his nose.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” Lancer asked softly.

Danny stared down into the tissue in his hands. He hadn’t told anyone what happened. Not his parents or his sister, not even his best friends. Was his English teacher really going to be the first person he told his biggest secret to?

He looked back up to Lancer, meeting his concerned eyes. He’s the only person who asked if he was okay. If he wasn’t going to tell him, who else would he tell?

“I died.” He said quietly. Another sob threatened to come out of his throat but he held it back. Lancer’s eyes widened at the admission.

“You died?”

Danny nodded. “It was the portal accident. The one that kept me out of school for a while at the beginning of the year. I turned the portal on from the inside and it electrocuted me.”

Lancer looked dumbfounded. “If you were electrocuted, how are you…”

Danny shrugged. “It killed me but it also did… Something else. It kept me alive at the same time. It just came with some side effects.”

“What kind of side effects?”

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. After a few moments of steeling himself for it, he pulled on his core and transformed. He could feel the rings pass over him and after they were gone for a few seconds, he finally opened his eyes and met Lancer’s gaze. His eyes were even wider and he looked ready to have an existential crisis of his own.

“What? You’re- You’re the ghost boy?”

Danny nodded.

“Lord of the flies! Is this why you’re always missing class? Why your homework is never finished and you always look so tired?”

Danny nodded again.

Lancer leaned back in his seat, stunned. “To kill a mockingbird. If I’d known-”

“You’re not going to tell my parents are you?” A sudden spike of panic washed through Danny. He didn’t think about that part. Teachers were obligated to tell parents certain stuff, right? This seemed like it would fall under the ‘something your parents should know about immediately’ category.

“No! Of course not!” Lancer met his gaze again. He looked nearly as panicked as Danny. “I’m not daft, Mr. Fenton. I’ve seen how your parents follow your ghost self around town with weapons brandished at the ready. I would never put you in danger like that.”

Danny heaved a huge sigh of relief. He slumped down in his seat and closed his eyes. He heard Lancer take a deep breath of his own.

“I’m not going to pretend like I understand how any of this happened.” He said. “But, I do understand that you need some serious support right now.”

Danny opened his eyes. “What kind of support?”

“We can start with accommodations for your schoolwork. We’re going to make a plan for you so that you can still get your assignments done and do whatever you need to do as your ghost self.”

As Lancer kept talking, a warm feeling was growing in Danny’s chest. For the first time since he started fighting ghosts he felt like he’d be able to do this. Like he’d be able to be more than just a disappointment or monster to his friends and family.

“Thank you.” Danny whispered.

“You’re welcome, Danny.”

#gorgi writes #danny phantom #danny fenton #mr lancer #maddie fenton #jazz fenton #sam manson #tucker foley #phic phight 2023 #fanfiction

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camels-pen · 1 year

Text

The Law of Fenton

Summary:

The more a Fenton tries to be scary, the funnier and lamer it is.

The vice versa, however, is also true.

based on @notoverjoyed's prompt "Danny goes to college and dodges the attention of the campus paranormal club as they try to figure out just what the hell he is."

Ao3 Link

“There! He’s over there!”

Danny sprinted down the path, just barely managing to scramble around the corner and pulling tight to the wall as a thundering cloud of footsteps ran past him. He waited a moment, straining his hearing for any sign they were turning back. After a long enough silence, he slumped against the wall with a breath of relief.

“Danny! I just have a few quick questions.”

He jumped, flailing his arms. “What the fuck?! Where did you even come from?!”

The man chuckled. “Don’t worry about it, just answer my questions, please.”

“Are you sure you’re not the paranormal one?” he muttered. “And I already told you no, I don’t wanna be interviewed.”

“We never mentioned a full interview, but if you’re willing—”

“What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine, you want an interview? Talk to my secretary, she’s behind you.”

The man whipped his head around… only to furrow his brow at empty air. He turned back only to curse as his eyes darted around the side of the building.

Danny shook his head with a smirk, invisibly watching as the man got increasingly frantic as he searched the area. Well, at least the President was as gullible as the regular members.

---

Off and on, Danny struggled to get through his classes because, despite being more than a state away from his hometown, there were still people trying to ruin his life.

He thought it would be better here—no ghost attacks, no ghost hunters, no Dash—and yet, somehow, it was worse.

If he could go back and smack his younger self from 6 months ago, he would— deciding to use his ghost powers late at night to sneak into one of the lab rooms to staple an assignment together was so not worth it.

Someone else—sneaking in without ghost powers—seemed to catch him in the act and a picture started spreading around campus of a floating stapler, his name on the cover page of the assignment in.

Full.

View.

Ever since, he’d been hounded by these chuckleheads calling themselves the “Paranormal Exploration Experimentalists” between classes, outside his dorm, in other clubs.

They used to try getting to him during classes too, but his professors quickly put a stop to it. Whether out of the goodness of their hearts or out of hating students talking over them, he didn’t know and didn’t care.

He grumbled to himself as he angrily munched on a bowl of cereal on the couch, having pulled an all nighter and having a physics class in an hour. A rerun of some older cartoons were playing on the television.

Danny sighed. Oh to be a prey animal in a cartoon. It seemed like such a good life: going wherever you want and not having to worry about having the money for it; sneaking food from restaurants or unsuspecting humans; (third thing).

He continued to yearn for the simple life of a road runner when Looney Tunes ended. Class time was coming up soon and he was just about done with his sort-of-breakfast sort-of-dinner. Just as he grabbed the remote though, the title card for the next cartoon came up. In an instant, it was like a lightbulb went off in his head.

He couldn’t live the simple life of a cartoon prey animal—maybe temporarily if he jumped into the tv with his powers—but he could treat that pesky club president and the other jerks in the P.E.E. club to the same karma as an unlucky cartoon predator animal.

---

The following few days lent itself to preparation. After all, he had lots of reality breaking powers at his disposal, but without a plan, he’d just end up peaking their interest as some strange entity haunting the campus or, worse, they’d take it as some kind of proof that he wasn’t human. Which is true, but he didn’t want them to know that.

So, he set up a call between himself, Sam, and Tucker—he was going to include Jazz, but she’d probably yell at him or something for being so petty about this—and they plotted how exactly to scare the P.E.E. club shitless in a way that didn’t lead to Danny’s human identity, with many of the best ideas surrounding an item featured frequently in the cartoon that inspired him.

It was fairly simple: ‘Tom’, as Danny had started calling him, would be the first victim.

---

“Hey, president guy!” he waved a hand at the man, walking up to him in the hallway where he was sitting outside a closed door, papers and binders spread at his feet. “I’m ready for an interview.”

‘Tom’ raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yup!” Danny squatted down in front of him. “If you get it done, you’ll probably leave me alone. So the sooner I get this over with, the better.”

“Well, yeah, I guess.” The guy pulled out a faded agenda and a pencil from under one of his binders. “When are you free?”

---

“I’ll agree to an interview with Tom.”

“To lure him out?” Sam asked.

“Well yes, but also to have all his club members’ attention on me.”

“They already have all their attention on you. I thought that was the problem?”

Danny grinned. “Yeah, but this way they’ll be more focused on hearing about the interview than poking around for other supposed paranormal stuff around campus. Including anything my duplicates get up to.”

---

Danny Duplicate #13 roamed the skies above the building the original Danny was currently sitting in. The duplicate combed the roof and jammed the lock by phasing some wood in it just for good measure.

“So, you’re some kind of invisible man?”

“Starting off strong, huh?” ‘Tom’ was no journalism major, but he was expecting some lead up questions. “Well, not really. Everyone back home can do this kind of stuff.”

“What kind of stuff, exactly?”

The duplicate began poking Danny on equipment placement. A little further from the door, he mentally responded, don’t want to actually get anyone hurt. Absentmindedly, he said, “Oh, lots of stuff. It’s like magic with how versatile it is.”

“Okay, but what is ‘it’?”

“Ectoplasm,” he said, before his thoughts caught up to him. Fuck fuck. He wasn’t supposed to say that.

---

“And you’re gonna direct a bunch of duplicates while also trying to avoid spilling everything in this interview?” Sam said, squinting.

“What?” he said, crossing his arms, defensive. “I can do it.”

“Danny, I love you dude, but you remember what happened during that scramble at graduation, right?”

“No.” He blushed. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

Tucker smirked. “I have the video saved on my phone if—”

“ANYWAY,”—he interrupted loudly—“I’m older now—”

“You’re, like, six months older—”

“I’m OLDER now. It won’t happen again.”

---

God. He can’t believe it happened again.

Danny’s duplicates froze where they were setting things up. Danny himself laughed awkwardly. “Y-Yeah, y’know. There’s always been a bunch of ghost sightings around Amity Park, y’know? So, uh, the most popular theory is that sometimes the ghost’s leave weird energy stuff behind and we call that ‘ectoplasm’.”

Tom was furiously scribbling on his notepad, nodding along. “And how does that relate to your powers of invisibility? Does this mean everyone in your town can turn invisible?”

“Uhh—”

---

“So,”—Tucker spread his hands, voice low and promising with ideas—“you could set up a giant mouse trap right on top of the roof. Then drag him up there with an invisible duplicate so Danny Fenton has an alibi from the victim himself.”

“Don’t call him a victim,” Danny said. “You’re making it sound like I’m gonna maim him.”

“Oh, and he could conveniently look away as Fenton while his victim is being taken—” Sam continued, speaking right over him.

“Guys—”

“Yeah, and then Danny can, like, turn up the ghostliness to the max on his duplicate and threaten them not to meddle in some completely unrelated supernatural rumour on campus.”

“Then Danny Fenton can pretend to be a scaredy cat and panic. Maybe call for help from the people eavesdropping on the interview to help look for the kidnapping victim too. So he can build up eye witness reports that make it seem like he couldn’t be the perpetrator.”

Tucker slapped a fist on his palm. “Oh! During the interview, he could bring back the fear of ghosts excuse from high school, which would help when he inevitably slips up too.” Sam nodded. “He could say he doesn’t know any specifics, but that he knows that weird stuff happens in Amity all the time.”

“I hate that excuse,” Danny grumbled.

Sam snorted. “Well, unless you want to gaslight the entire club or admit to being an amateur magician, suck it up.”

---

“I’m not too sure,” Danny said, grinding his teeth a little. “I’ve been afraid of ghosts my whole life so I tried to avoid learning any specifics.”

“Then, the picture?”

Fuck. The picture. “Uhh, the—the picture.” Oh, he really had to use that gag back up excuse, didn’t he? Ugh. “I really didn’t want to give it away, but you guys have gotten really annoying with the constant pestering.” He sighed. “I’m an amateur magician. I was using a really thin wire and hooks.”

“Is that so?”

“Well, yeah,” Danny said, putting on his most condescending voice. “It’s pretty obvious when you look for it. I’m surprised that wasn’t the first thing you ruled out.”

---

“You gotta scream.”

“I’m not gonna scream!”

“Danny, you have to scream,” Sam repeated. “No one’s gonna buy it if you don’t. You suck at acting.”

God, he hated it when she was right.

“Fine, but I draw the line at calling for help. I’m not gonna be some dude in distress.”

---

Danny Duplicate #1 hovered behind Tom, ready and in position. It seemed the other duplicates were prepared too. Good. He just needed to plant the idea in the guy’s head that he was a regular human and then he could strike.

“We did rule it out. We ruled out many forms of illusions from stage magicians. Professional ones,” Tom said calmly, tapping the end of his pencil on his paper. “We also ruled out photo editing as the person who took the footage is not only part of this club, but also a good friend of mine.”

Fuck, are you serious? Stupid Fenton luck at it again. “Maybe they should get glasses then?” He slumped back in his seat, putting on his most pathetically tired look. It wasn’t hard. “Look, I’m not trying to call your friend a liar or anything, but I really was just practicing some tricks.”

“Of course,” Tom said, disbelief clear in his voice.

He threw his hands up in the air. “I don’t even mind you throwing around rumours or anything, just quit hounding me everywhere I go!”

At that, Tom did start to look a little guilty. “I guess, regardless of if you’re telling the truth, we should probably back off a little.” Oh thank god. Maybe Tom was reasonable after all. Maybe he wouldn’t need to even go through with—“After all, we aren’t sure what you’re capable of, and if you get upset, you might hurt someone.”

Wow. Wow. This guy really just said that to Danny’s face. Suddenly, he was glad he decided to amp up his threat from the original idea.

---

“The mousetrap isn’t enough though. If I was Tom, I wouldn’t give a shit about a single ghost threatening me.”

“Your viewpoint is skewed,” Tucker said. “You’re, like, Ghost Threat Georg; you get threatened by ghosts so often that you think people get ghost threats all the time, which is very much wrong.”

“Your viewpoint is skewed,” he said petulantly.

“Look, I wouldn’t have believed it either, but going to school in a place with basically no ghosts means most days I don’t get a single threat.” Tucker shrugged. “And the ones I do are usually some of your old rogues trying to ask to hang out somehow. I haven’t gotten a legit ghost threat in ages.”

“Yeah, same here,” Sam said. “It’s kind of weird, but Tucker’s right. I’m pretty sure the trap is enough.”

“No,” Danny shook his head. “It needs something more. It needs something to really send the message home.” He grinned. “And I’ve got just the thing.”

---

“A very bold claim you’re saying to the face of said person you think might hurt someone.” Danny strained to stay loose and relaxed. “If you’re so worried, why not go to campus security or something?”

Tom waved a hand. “Security guards are functionally useless in this situation. I’ve prepared myself and my club members on how to defend themselves and others against paranormal threats”—oh good, Danny thought gripping his leg, another GIW scenario, just what I needed—“using purified salts, stakes, holy water, etcetera. The basics.”

Okay, the lack of any real anti-ghost stuff made him feel a little better. “Right. The basics.” Wait a second. “Just out of curiosity, what exactly do you think I am? Just some guy with invisible powers?”

“We haven’t pinned anything down, but none of our theories are that simple,” Tom flipped through his notebook. He stopped on a page and read aloud, “Shapeshifter, shapeshifter, dragon with camouflage abilities, shapeshifter, a human shaped chameleon, shapeshifter, creature made entirely of string that can unravel at will, and shapeshifter.”

Huh.

He really shouldn’t ask, but—“Why didn’t anyone think I was a ghost?”

Tom laughed. Fully belly laughed. “Danny,”—he wiped a tear from his eye—“you might be elusive, but you’re nowhere near scary enough to be a ghost.”

“I could be scary!” he protested.

“You were the only entry in the haunted dorm room competition back in October to make everyone laugh their asses off.” Tom grinned. “I still watch the video sometimes to lift my mood.”

“Hey, I worked really hard on that—”

“Anyway, it’s just not possible.” Tom said, talking over him. “You don’t have it in you to be some spooky spectre come back from the grave to haunt the campus. You don’t have a single scary bone in your body.”

Okay, well, Danny’s had enough of this slander. Clearly, Tom didn’t believe in Danny being a ghost so, whatever, fine. That was what he wanted in the first place. He was fine with it. Didn’t make him want to spill his guts just to prove the guy wrong at all. Nope, no sir.

He did wish he’d put more effort into making his plan more fear-inducing, but whatever. It might not be that scary, but it was gonna get Tom off his back forever and Danny was done talking with this jerk.

---

“And you don’t think this isn’t… a little much?” Tucker hedged.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s probably gonna scar him for life,” Sam said. “It’d still fix your problem, but I didn’t think you liked going that far.”

“What? No.” Danny shook his head. “You guys probably have a messed up sense of fear from fighting ghosts and stuff for four straight years.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “You were fighting those ghosts too.”

“Yeah, but I’m just built different.” He looked through the list of equipment he’d written down next to him. “This is gonna be hilarious. He’s either gonna laugh his ass off or, if his sense of humour sucks, call it lame and move on. Either way, I’m freed from those stupid P.E.E. stalkers.”

“I don’t like this slander against our sense of fear,” Tucker said. “I have very normal fears. This is definitely one of them.” Sam agreed.

Danny rolled his eyes. “Fine, maybe, by some miniscule chance, you guys are right and his sense of fear’s messed up like yours.” He raised a finger. “But! At most he’ll probably get a little spooked and end up staying away because of it! So, I win regardless.”

Sam hummed disbelievingly.

---

He sent the signal. Off to the mousetrap with him.

He couldn’t see it, but he felt Danny Duplicate #1 salute him. On it boss.

“What—?!” Danny Duplicate #1 grabbed Tom around the middle. Tom wiggled in the chair, unable to move his arms or get up. His notepad and pencil fell to the ground. “Hey, what the fuck?! Did you—?!”

Despite how he hated it, Danny’s best blood curdling scream was so impressive it shocked Tom into flinching, even stopping his struggling to press his ear to his shoulder with a wince. At least the guy would totally believe Danny’s excuse after this.

The faint chatter outside the room silenced. Then all at once, people were yelling, jiggling the locked doorknob—one of Danny’s conditions for the interview, being alone with Tom so as to ensure his plan went off without a hitch—and Danny jerked his head up towards the ceiling. The duplicate nodded and quickly phased through the ceiling, Tom in his arms.

Now, what to do about the bystanders….

Oh, duh.

“A FUCKING SPIDER, OH MY GOD!”

The yelling and lock jiggling quickly started to peter out after that, followed by the faint sounds of laughter and one, “Jesus Christ, the lungs on that guy,” which Danny would take as a compliment.

He chuckled to himself as he shared his senses fully with his first duplicate.

The plan was going perfectly. Sam and Tucker didn’t know shit.

---

“It’s really not that bad!”

“It really is,” Sam and Tucker chimed in together.

“It’s not,” Danny sent a picture through their chat. “Look, see! It’s cute!”

“Danny, this is fucking horrifying,” Tucker said.

“Fuck, that’s so cursed, what the hell?” Sam said. “Why did you choose this one? Where did you even find it?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Also, they’d probably tell him not to buy stuff from people hanging out in the rundown bathrooms in the engineering building every time he happened to pass by. “What does matter is that it’s fine.”

“Danny, your plan is to restrain and drag someone to the roof, put them in front of a giant mouse trap prepared to go off, and have him surrounded in a circle of your duplicates, who are going to be backlit by green flames and wearing the most cursed version of a Jerry costume I have ever seen in my life,” Sam said. “This is not fine.” Tucker nodded his agreement.

“It is!”

“You’re not gonna be right about this.”

“I’m gonna be so right about this. I’m gonna be the most right anyone’s ever been about anything.”

---

Tom pissed his pants and fainted.

Damn, Danny thought as he phased the guy back into his club room, I can’t believe Sam and Tucker were three for three on this.

#danny phantom #phic #phic phight #phic phight 2023 #nemo the writing ho

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raaorqtpbpdy · 1 year

Text

Dead on Arrival

Written for the Phic Phight Prompts: In some hospitals, CPR is done to a patient despite them being declared dead on arrival. This is a courtesy to the family. The doctor doesn't expect the scream when they lay down the defibrillator paddles on the boy's chest (from @eyesofcrows), Danny gets caught in the middle of a bank robbery. Can he diffuse the situation without revealing his powers? (@wingedflight), and For some reason someone uses defibrillators on Danny, the feeling is all too familiar to him (@phantomphangphucker)

AO3 Link

[Warnings for blood, injury, violence, flashbacks, minor dissociation, hospitals, and near-death experiences]

Daniel Fenton was dead on arrival. Everyone there when he was brought to Amity Park General Hospital knew that. No pulse, no breathing, already cool to the touch. But his parents were inconsolable, desperate. They demanded something be done. So the doctor called for a defibrillator and started chest compressions, just for the parents' peace of mind. They'd just lost their fourteen-year-old son. It was the least the doctors could do to extend them this courtesy.

When the nurse came in with the defibrillator, they cut away the boy's shirt to press the paddles to his bare skin, ignoring the slick blood covering every inch of skin. They all knew nothing would come of this, that it was more or less for show, but they did it anyway. The nurse set the charge.

"Clear," warned the doctor before administrating the shock.

None of them were expecting the corpse to scream. A visceral, bone-chilling scream. A scream that rattled the windows, that made the lights in the whole hospital flicker with the force of it. A scream like the auditory incarnation of pain itself.

The doctors and nurses all slammed their hands against their ears, desperately trying to block out the sound, to no avail. It was the most horrible thing they'd ever heard in their lives. But it meant one thing. Danny Fenton was alive after all.

—

It was rare for Danny to encounter trouble with humans. He was a ghost hero, after all, so he mostly dealt with ghosts causing trouble. There were a few exceptions, like Freakshow, and sometimes Vlad, but even the exceptions were at least ghost-adjacent. These guys weren't.

They were one hundred percent human, committing a one hundred percent human crime. Two in the bank lobby, two more cracking the safe. Danny had just been coming to cash a birthday check when they showed up waving guns around and demanded everybody get down on the floor. It wouldn't have been fair for Danny to go ghost to fight a bunch of bank robbers, but of course, they were pointing guns at civilians, and he wasn't about to let that slide, either.

"That's it, nobody's gotta be a hero," one of the robbers said, and that sounded like a cue if ever Danny had heard one, because there was no way he was about to let that happen.

"Excuse me," he said, standing up to get their attention entirely on him. Immediately both the robbers in the reception area had their guns trained on him. It was preferable to having those things aimed at regular humans, not to mention an unfortunately familiar position for Danny to be in, so he had no trouble remaining calm as he raised his arms to show them he couldn't fight back.

"Si'down, kid," barked one of the robbers.

"I was just wondering if this is really the best use of your time," Danny said casually, staying on his feet, keeping the robbers' focus all on him. "I mean, surely you have better things to do than rot in prison, right?"

"There'll be no prison, 'cause we won't get caught!" the other robber said.

"Sure you won't," Danny said sardonically. "Except, you're not wearing masks, and this place is full of cameras." Idiots. Danny's presence might've given them a fighting chance, that is, if every public building in Amity Park hadn't made the switch to Fenton Spook-Proof Security Cameras about a year ago. "So I have to wonder what exactly your plan is here? Are you gonna get radical plastic surgery with the money you steal?"

The one closest to Danny smirked. "Robbie hacked the cameras before we came in, ain't that right, Robbie?"

"Uh... I thought Nick was supposed to do that," said the one standing by the teller's desk.

"What?!" said the first guy. "That was your job!"

"I don't know how to hack cameras, Jack." Robbie responded.

"Jack, Nick, and Robbie, huh?" Danny repeated. "Robbie the robber? Who's your fourth guy, Steal?"

"Melvin," Robbie said, "but his last name is Steel. How'd you know that?"

"And what's your last name?" Danny asked.

"Johnson, but I don't see what that has to do with anyth—"

"Robbie you fuckin' moron!" Jack groaned. "Now he knows our names and our faces!"

"Oh, shoot!" Robbie lowered his gun to slap a hand over his mouth.

"That's not a bad idea," Jack said, putting on a wicked grin and leveling his gun at Danny, whose eyes widened. "He can't talk if he's dead."

"Wait!" Danny shouted, but he didn't have time to say anything else before Jack shot several rounds into his gut and he collapsed backwards onto the floor.

Dark red bloomed across Danny's shirt. It stung a little, but it wasn't so bad, actually. Not as bad as an ecto-blast, but worse than a paper cut, he decided. Although, that could've just been because his brain hadn't caught up with the injury yet. His extremities were already loosing feeling as blood pumped out of the holes in his abdomen and pooled around him. It was a shame. Danny really liked this shirt, and now it was completely ruined.

He knew he'd bleed out before the police arrived, even though the robbers had failed to prevent the teller from tripping the silent alarm. He'd probably be okay in the long run, but he'd pass out for a bit while his body healed. All Danny could do was hope these idiots didn't realize that everyone else in the bank had also heard their names, and could therefore identify them just as well as Danny could. As long as he was the only one who got shot, everything was okay. That was his last thought before he lost consciousness from the blood loss.

The next thing Danny knew, was the all too familiar sensation of electricity shooting through his heart. It wasn't as strong as the last time, but it reminded him of it, of the portal accident, and the memory alone made it feel much much worse. The phantom pains that tore through him as he recalled the worst experience of his life increased the pain a thousand fold.

A scream ripped from his throat.

Whatever was happening in that moment didn't exist to him.

He had no idea where he was, or how he'd been zapped, or what else, or who else was around him.

All he could see was green.

All he could feel was a burning pain lighting up every nerve in his body, ionizing his atoms, rearranging his molecules.

The smell of ozone and charred meat filled his nose.

The metallic taste of blood overtook his mouth as electricity arced between his teeth.

His screams would echo in his head for months to come, would haunt his dreams as long as he haunted the Earth, perhaps longer.

It was overwhelming.

He was overwhelmed.

After a lifetime and a moment, the pain started to fade; the sensations ebbed. Everything was still. Everything was quiet, but for the ringing in his ear drums.

Danny felt floaty and faraway. He fisted his hands, digging his nails into his palms to ground himself, and pushed himself into a sitting position. Gradually, he became more aware of his surroundings.

He was in a hospital room. It smelled like antiseptic and blood. The light was out. Shattered glass glinted on the countertop. The hospital bed was thin but soft under his hands. He took a deep, shuddering breath.

No one seemed to be there until Danny looked down. A doctor, two nurses, and Danny's parents were all unconscious on the floor, blood dripping slowly from their ears. Alarmed, Danny checked to see if they were alive, and sighed in relief when they were.

He'd done this.

It was all his fault.

#phic phight 2023 #phic phight #fic #things i wrote #dp #danny phantom #angst #danny fenton

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notoverjoyed · 1 year

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Blame the Cat

I'm not late, I swear. Anyway here's the last of my Phic Phight fics, for the honorable @five-rivers

Prompt: For centuries, the cult has anticipated the glorious rise and return of Lord Phantom. That time is at hand. All they need to bring him fully into the mortal world is the perfect sacrifice: Danny Fenton.

Summary: A story in which Danny really needs to stop getting in trouble on purpose.

Ivan Petrovitch wouldn’t normally field calls from mayors of small American towns, even those as wealthy as Vlad Masters. After all, an individual like that is unlikely to have a legitimate interest in his own illegitimate business. Facilitating the sale of endangered fish is a rather niche profession. None the less, he did a cursory internet search of the man. Nothing caught his eye until he saw an image of the man.

It wasn’t Vlad himself that caught his eye, however. The photo depicted the Mayor, a man in a suit with long grey hair in a low ponytail, standing in front of a large building. Ivan wasn’t looking at the mayor, his eye was instead drawn to the boy whose shoulders Vlad had his arm around in a fatherly fashion. The boy looked uncomfortable, and familiar.

He had to check to be sure, but his soul was certain; This boy was the key.

You see, selling endangered fish was just Ivan’s profession. It was how he made a living, not his calling. It was his more esoteric interests that gained that honor. Ivan was a member of an international group of individuals dedicated to the study an veneration of a figure most thought mythical, if they knew he existed at all. And this boy looked almost exactly like him. A change in hair and eye color, and the boy would be identical.

In the past decades, this group had toyed with the idea of summoning this being, a god really, to the mortal plane. This would serve the purpose of bringing the being closer to his disciples so that they may worship him more closely, and make requests of him more directly. He was told to have incredible powers, and many sought to be rewarded for their faith.

With that goal in mind, many of the groups members began to develop various strategies to summon their god. The ritual and material needed in each plan varied wildly, but most agreed that one thing was essential. A sacrifice.

Ivan read the caption to the photo. ‘Mayor Vlad Masters (left) accompanied by his godson Daniel Fenton (right) celebrating the renovation of Amity Park’s historic City Hall building on Wednesday.’

“Daniel Fenton,” Ivan murmured. Yes, he’d have to send a message to the group. They would see if there were any members in this ‘Amity Park’ that could investigate further. In the meantime, perhaps he should give Mr. Master’s a call. Far greater things than money could come of working with him.

. . .

Okay, so Danny probably shouldn’t be letting this guy lead him away from the main crowd at Vlad’s party to. He also shouldn’t have accepted the drink of sparking juice the guy handed him. He was pretty sure that he was all but immune to most poisons at this point, but it was still bad practice.

And he definitely shouldn’t have played along with this guy’s attempt to get him out of the ballroom by acting woozy and disoriented. Sue him, he wanted to see where this was going.

“It looks like the poor boy must have gotten the sparkling wine rather than the juice, it’s a bit strong isn’t it,” he heard the man say as he led him Danny toward one of the doors near the kitchen. He pulled out a key and unlocked it before dragging Danny through.

If this Ivan dude was interested in him in that way, then Danny could easily kick they guys ass, get him arrested, and ruin Vlad’s party in the process. If he interested in Danny in some other way, then Danny would still take the option to get away from the fruitloop’s flirting with his mom.

On the other side of the was a short hallway with only two doors: an all gender restroom, and an elevator. Ivan tugged a staggering Danny toward the elevator.

‘Door number two it is,’ He thought to himself, almost sad about losing the opportunity to make Vlad look bad.

Once he got Danny in the elevator and leaning against one wall, Ivan pressed the button marked B. The doors closed, and the elevator went down.

. . .

“Danny?” Tucker said again. “Danny! Sam, where’s Danny.”

“I’m sorry, I have to go to the restroom,” he heard Sam say through the Fenton phones. She must be extricating herself from her parent’s friends. He waited a few minutes to give her time to get away, then Sam responded.”

“Last I saw he was talking to Vlad and Vlad’s shady business partner.”

“Is he still with Vlad?”

“Vlad’s hitting on Mrs. Fenton again. Alone though. Danny and the other guy are . . .” She paused, and he guessed she was looking around the ballroom. “Nowhere,” she finally said.

Tucker took a moment to activate the tracker function he’d added to the Fenton phones. Sam’s had her firmly in the North corner of the ballroom, while Danny’s had him outside it entirely.

“Not nowhere, actually. Tracker has him in what I think is a staff passage. Can you take a look.”

“And miss this wonderful party?” She said sarcastically. “Yeah, give me a couple minutes.”

She made her way across the ballroom at Tucker’s direction and found the staff exit he was talking about. The door was unlocked, so she just walked through.

“Is Danny in the bathroom?” she said, mostly to herself. There were nicer bathrooms in the main hallway, so unless he needed to transform there’d be no reason for him to go this out of the way.

“You can check, but I don’t think so. Danny’s tracker went offline. What else is over there?”

“An elevator,” she said, then realized what that meant. “So he’s underground?”

“That would explain the Fenton phones cutting out,” he said. Despite being made to withstand unholy amounts of radiation, a few feet of concrete could block the Fenton phones’ signal entirely.

Tucker was about to suggest that she follow him down, when Sam spoke.

“Where are the stairs?” she asked.

“Why not just follow him down?”

“Because he was probably taken down by that Ivan guy. Who knows what this elevator opens up to? I need a back way.”

“Point. There should be a staircase near the front entrance. That should lead to the parking garage in the basement.”

“This place has a parking garage?” Sam asked, and Tucker could hear the noise of the party resume as she walked through the ballroom.

“I know, right?”

. . .

He could hardly contain his excitement. Weeks of planning had let to this moment. First, convincing the other higher ups of his theory, then sucking up to that insipid mayor, and finally getting local members in place to perform the ritual. And now here Ivan was, sacrifice in tow, ready to usher the being he has so long venerated into the mortal world. And perhaps, gain his favor.

The elevator dinged and the doors opened. What was normally an inky expanse of darkness was lit by dozens of candles. They might normally have lit the underground parking garage with bright LEDs, but the designers of this particular ritual insisted on keeping things traditional.

“Here he is, the man of the hour!” a voice said excitedly. It was one of the locals. Apparently this town had the fasted growing group membership in North America. In the world really.

“I’m Nolan,” the local man said as he began to usher Ivan and the boy further into the garage.

“A pleasure.” Ivan said.

Nolan gestured toward a large circle drawn on the ground with a smaller circle inside of it. Intricate symbols were drawn between the two circles. Several other people meandered about, setting up candles, talking in hushed tones, or just gawking at Ivan and the boy.

“Just put him right here.” Nolan said, indicating the inner circle. Ivan set the boy, now fully unconscious, carefully on the concrete floor.

“Oh lord he is perfect,” Nolan said. Before Ivan could respond, he continued.

“When Phantom first came to our town I knew we had been blessed by our god to see his form in this world. But he always disappeared before we could speak with him.”

Ivan stood stoically, but scoffed inwardly. He’d heard about this heretic offshoot of the group claiming to see their god in the mortal world. They would have been barred from the international group if they weren’t the single largest source of new members.

“And to think, someone from outside the country would discover what we had overlooked this whole time. The perfect sacrifice for our god. A mortal, human, host.”

For a moment, Ivan thought he heard a muffled snort coming from the boy, but when he looked down at him the boy was a still as ever. He dismissed the thought, then walked over to one of the supporting pillars of the garage and leaned against it. Just a little while longer until his god arrived, and Ivan planned to become his most favored disciple.

. . .

Sam’s phone lit the way as she took the stairs in twos and threes going down to the basement. It was hard with the shoes her mother had made her wear for this party, but she couldn’t waste the breath to curse. It had been mere minutes since Danny’s tracker went offline, but she was almost down to the basement.

‘There,’ she thought, and stumbled to a stop in front of the door. Panting a little, she checked in one last time.

“Tucker, can you hear me?”

His response came laced with static, but was still understandable.

“Yeah, but not for long. You got what you need.”

Sam pulled a Fenton wrist-ray from the pocket of her dress.

“Always,” she said, and she opened the door.

She turned off her phone’s flashlight and lit her path by the light of the screen. It was harder to see, but less noticeable as she walked into the basement. It looks like Tucker was right. The floor, ceiling, and supporting pillars were all the same gray concrete you’d find in a parking garage. You could even see the lines marking out parking spots, faint as they were through the dust.

There were footprints in the dust, two pairs. Sam sucked in a breath then slowly followed the footsteps, keeping an ear out for anything suspicious. Soon she started to hear the faint noise of people moving around and talking, and see two figures silhouetted against a faint light.

She drew up close to the pair and was about to do something violent when she heard a voice gasp out.

“Danny!”

“Jazz?” Sam hissed out. What was she doing here?

. . .

It was all Danny could do not to bust out laughing. This group didn’t seem to really know what they wanted. They wanted to sacrifice him, to summon himself. Or to have him possess himself, it was hard to tell.

He kinda wanted to see what else they wanted, but he didn’t like the look of those symbols. Just because they didn’t seem to know what they were doing doesn’t mean they wouldn’t do something. He was just about to make himself invisible the moment everyone looked away and hang out to see everyone panic, when he heard a familiar voice. Two voices, actually.

‘Jazz? And Sam? What are they doing here?’ He opened his eyes just enough to see.

Apparently he wasn’t the only one that had heard them. Vlad’s creepy business partner shouted, “Who’s there,” and someone make a high pitched squeak. A flashlight shined at the noise and illuminated three figures.

He could see Sam, Jazz, and Jazz’s friend Spike. Spike had his hands clasped over his mouth, making it obvious where the squeak had come from.

‘Crap,’ Danny thought,’So much for ghosting out of here.’ Spike was looking right at him.

Everyone froze for a moment. Danny held his breath, ready to intervene if necessary, secret identity be damned.

Then Jazz looked at Danny, and seemed to come to a decision. She bolted back toward the stairs, dragging the other two with her. Danny felt a little betrayed for a moment. Was she going to leave him to be sacrificed! Then he realized; she was drawing their attention and giving him an opportunity to go ghost in private.

Everyone started chasing the three teens, so Danny took his chance. He went invisible and changed into phantom, leaving the magic summoning circle. He didn’t go after everyone else though. Instead he went to the elevator he came down in and broke a few important looking wires and cables. He didn’t want anyone to think of beating the three teens by taking the fast way up.

. . .

Sam, Danny, and Jazz met on the steps of the ballroom. Spike had gone home. Apparently he managed to snap a picture of Danny lying in the summoning circle with the old-school film camera he had on him and wanted to develop it tonight. Something about how it was perfect for his project.

Jazz had just finished lecturing Danny on his stupid decision to play along with the guy about to sacrifice him, and Sam had Tucker on speakerphone ready to talk about what just happened.

“So you and Jazz barricaded the door to the stairs,” Tucker said.

“Yep,” Sam replied.

“And Danny killed the elevator?”

“Yep,” Sam said again.

“So Vlad’s creepy business partner is trapped with his creepy cult in the creepy basement of City Hall.”

“You’re three for three.”

“Well that’s convenient,” Tucker says. Danny frowns.

“Why?” he says.

“Because those FBI guys are coming to investigate him.”

As if on cue, a black sedan pulls up to the curb in front of City Hall. Three men come out and start up the steps. The first two are unfamiliar, but Sam seems to recognize them.

“Its the FBI,” she whispers. “You can tell by the shoes.”

All three of them continue up the stairs, and the third one glares a Danny before following the others. The third guy is a GIW agent working under cover at the regional FBI office. They’ve had dealings.

Besides the last guy, none of them spare the three teens a glance as they disappear into City Hall.

“Ooookay,” Jazz says as the door shut behind the men.

“I almost feel sorry for him,” Tucker says

“Who, that Ivan guy? I don’t,” Danny says.

“Did we ever learn why Vlad was working with him?” Sam asked.

“Oh yeah, remember how this guy’s deal is that rare fish?’ Tucker said.

“Yeah.”

“And remember how you told Vlad to get a cat?”

“Ugh, yeah, and he named it after my mom.” Danny made a gagging noise in the back of his throat.

“Well I checked his google history and it was all searches about how to get your picky eater of a cat to eat, then searches of this rare fish . . .,” Tucker trailed of meaningfully.

“You’re serious?” Sam asked with raised eyebrows.

“So it’s all the cat’s fault?” Danny said.

Sam scoffed. “Not the cat’s fault Vlad’s crazy” Neither Danny nor Tucker could refute that.

#danny phantom #phic phight 2023 #fanfiction

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underforeversgrace · 1 year

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broken trust and the wounds hidden behind

title: broken trust and the wounds hidden behind

words: 3368

Chapter 1 of 7

Summary: Jack wasn't meaning to snoop in his son's room when he found a box of medical supplies and a USB with a tag that said IF I DON'T COME HOME. Danny’s secrets revealed, Jack is desperate to earn his son’s trust, to earn the right to this secret he stumbled across. After almost two years of unknowingly hunting his son, is Danny's trust too broken to heal? NO ONE KNOWS AU

Warnings: depression

AO3

Tumblr Chapter Two

Jack grumbled as pushed open the door to his son’s bedroom. His children were at school and Maddie was out for a conference, so when he’d asked her if she knew where the duct tape was and she said Danny was the last one she saw with it, Jack himself had to get it. The school day was nowhere near over so if Jack wanted it, he had to go look for it himself! Couldn’t just tell Danny to get it for him!

Jack looked around the room, though his minor irritation was settled as he did so. Danny had been so distant lately. Jack hadn’t been in his son’s room in over a year at this point, never had reason to. His son’s room really hadn’t changed any, even if his son had. He rose his eyes to the ceiling, smiling as he saw the glow in the dark stars still up there. That was a memory he hadn’t thought of in a long time. Danny, maybe eleven or twelve, realizing the stars he’d put up years before just weren’t right. They didn’t match the sky.

So he and Jack had pulled the old ones down, bought more, and put them back up, matching them to constellations. Jack had picked up Danny, holding him above his head while Danny placed the stars. It was the first time Jack had ever thought Danny had felt heavy after holding him for some time. His son was growing up.

He went to the side wall, his purpose here momentarily forgotten, where shelves held up models of rockets, where the walls were covered in diagrams of stars and pictures of space. Danny loved making these rockets, asking for multiples of the same ones sometimes so he could rebuild his favorites. He’d made, what? One every two or three weeks? Then proudly put them on display here, replacing the older version if it was a replica, asking his father to put in more shelves if it was a truly new one.

Jack studied the shelf, looking for his favorite, smiling when he found it. It was easily the worst put together one, some pieces put in the wrong spot, too much glue in others.

It was one he and Danny had put together. Jack worked with so much machinery, he thought he could help. And he had, his young son would’ve done much worse without his help, used even more glue. After that, Danny had wanted to do them by himself. He wanted to improve on his own, get as good as his father through working at it.

Jack scanned over the shelf, noting the heavy swath of dust along everything. When was the last time Danny had built one?

He blinked back tears, bittersweet as they were. Danny was growing up. He’d be sixteen soon. Yet he seemed to struggle so much. Struggled to stay awake, do homework, be on time. Jack had begun noticing scars on his arms, originally he’d been afraid Danny was hurting himself, but the wounds didn’t fit. Some of them looked like they were from fighting. Jack wanted to confront Danny about them when he actually had one, when Jack had fresh evidence Danny couldn’t disregard as he had so much else whenever Jack or Maddie tried to understand. Even his friends seemed to have moved on, Jack hadn’t seen them in so long, when they used to practically live here, their families even having keys to the front door.

Then Danny never had fresh injuries, to the point Jack wondered if he had just forgotten whatever caused the scar.

Jack spun slowly, trying to feel close to his son, find his interests. But nothing spoke to him. He sighed, carding a hand through his hair. He missed his son. Sure, Danny was here, but he felt like a ghost of himself sometimes. Not true ghosts, like the ones in the portal, but the ones that slipped through the world, invisible and silent, fading to shadows.

Oh, well. He wasn’t going to find the answers to his son by looking at his dust. Jack had noticed the duct tape while he had been thinking of happier memories. He made his way to the bedside table, picking up the silvery circle. What had Danny needed it for? His bedside was an odd place to have it.

Jack wasn’t entirely sure what happened next. One moment the tape was held securely in his hand, the next he’d somehow managed to drop it, though he had no idea how. It rolled under the bed.

Returning to his grumbling, Jack dropped down, pressing himself to the floor and looking underneath. He saw the tape quickly, it was surprisingly clean down here, only one other item, a box pushed up under the headboard. He drew the tape back to him, preparing to be assaulted by dust. That’s when he realized there was none, not where he was. There seemed to be plenty at the foot of the bed, but it steadily decreased the further forward he looked. It was completely spotless around the box.

He couldn’t make out much of it. It was maybe medium sized in width and length but fairly short, white, and had a handle. It looked like there was a lid on it.

Danny couldn’t bother to dust his rockets, yet whatever this was he reached for frequently enough to keep it free of dust?

Jack didn’t think anything of it as he grabbed the handle, pulling it to him. White box and silver tape in hand, Jack returned to his feet, studying the box.

He sat down on Danny’s bed, heard it protest under his weight, but he paid it no mind. The closed box offered no new information on its exterior, the lid was as white as the rest of it, no symbol. He heard things clattering around in it. It was a simple latch, no lock.

Jack had always said he would be the type of father to trust his kids, to let them come to him. To not snoop. And he’d kept to that for as long as he’d had kids. But Danny wasn’t talking to them. He wasn’t talking to anyone in his school, his (former?) friends, his sister.

Not letting himself think further, he popped the latch up, opening the lid, wondering if maybe, just maybe, now he’d know how to help, if this held answers he’d sought for so long.

Instead, the box seemed to just give him more questions as he sifted through it. Needles and thread, gauze, splotches of red and green. A pill bottle rattled and he pulled it out, frowning. The name on the bottle didn’t match Danny, though the date of birth did, and the label said it was pain medication. Quite a high dose from the looks of it. Panic seized Jack. Drugs? Was Danny addicted to pain medication? But he didn’t act it. He was still alert and quick-witted. Jack reread the bottle, noticing the fill date and amount. The bottle was nearly six weeks old. He dumped the pills into his hand. Six weeks old and seven out of thirty were missing. If Danny was addicted, shouldn’t he have run through these within a week or two? Instead he’d barely taken any?

Jack poured the pills back in the bottle, though he slid the bottle into his pocket. Finally, evidence. Something Danny couldn’t deny.

He continued to shuffle through the box. There was a lot of medical supplies. Were the red splotches in this blood? What was the green? He passed scissors and antiseptic, burn cream and more gauze.

Something bright pink caught his eye when he moved a pack of bandages to the side. He reached in and grabbed it.

It was a USB stick, with a tag attached to.

IN CASE I DON’T COME BACK

What the actual hell was his son into? That had him with pain medication that he’d somehow lied to get and a reason to believe it was possible he would just not come home without warning?

Jack shut the case back up, keeping the USB and pills on him, and tucked it back where he found out. He hurried out the door, closing it behind him, forgetting the duct tape he’d came in for.

He hurried down the stairs, USB in clenched hand. It felt like it was burning him through his glove, the answers he needed, the way to save Danny. Because Jack had no doubt now - whatever it was Danny was involved in, whatever it was that had him with medical supplies, it had his son’s life at risk. And his son knew it.

As soon as he entered the lab, he beelined for his desk, shoving the stuff he’d been working on out of his way. His son came first, his family did. Before anything else, even ghosts. Jack fumbled to get the USB in, having to flip it four times before it finally went in.

His entire attention went to the screen as he pulled up the USB’s data. Various files and folders, that just caused him more confusion. Folders labeled Enemy, Ally, Frenemy, Human, and another that just looked like a keyboard smash of letters. Other than the folders, there was only one file in the primary folder.

WATCH ME it said.

Damn right he was going to watch it!

Jack double clicked on the file, clicking it to full screen.

And then Jack got thrown for yet another loop. Was emotional whiplash a thing?

On his screen, from the USB in his son’s room, was the white haired ghost known only as Phantom, appearing to be adjusting a camera. Was Danny helping Phantom? There was no way! Was Phantom hurting him? Using him for access to his parents? Thoughts whirled in his head until he slammed on his mental brakes. Ask questions after watching the thing claiming to have answers.

He pressed play.

“I think it’s recording this time?” The ghost asked, too close to the lens. “Oh, there! I see the red light!”

Phantom pulled back, sitting down on a bed Jack didn’t recognize. Nothing in the video looked familiar.

“Hi! Phantom here!” He said, a wide grin on his face. He lifted a hand, then jokingly slapped himself across the face, rolling his eyes. “That is so lame.”

Jack couldn’t help it, he chuckled. In the few seconds Jack had watched, the ghost was disturbingly human, in his movements, his vocal patterns, his expressions. He was a very good mimic.

“Well, let’s get to the good stuff, right?” Phantom said, leaning forward. The smile fell from his face. He seemed to be staring off into the distance, or quite intently at something offscreen.

“If you’re watching this I’m missing. I’m dead or being tortured where you’ll never find me.” Phantom’s eyes dropped to his hands, voice going soft. “I hope I’m dead.”

Jack’s heart clenched. The pain on Phantom’s face was so real Jack almost believed it for a moment. No matter how good he was at mimicry, he was still a ghost.

Phantom took a deep breath, then rose his eyes back to the camera. “Cuz that’s the good stuff, isn’t it? A menace being eliminated? An unfeeling mockery of humanity like me getting what I deserve?”

Jack remembered saying that last line to Phantom, a few weeks back. Jack pulled out of the video, checking the date stamp. The video was only a month old. He let it play again.

“Ancients, I’m going off tangent, aren’t I?” Phantom said, a self-mocking smile on his face. “Anyway. I’m making this because I recently realized… just how many people want me dead. Deader. Re-dead? Though I think there’s still more who want to dissect me and then kill me.”

The smile fell from his face, green tears slipping slowly from his eyes. “I just… I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve that. Being cut into. Whatever mistakes I’ve made, I’ve paid for them. By the Ancients, I have never stopped paying for them.” Phantom’s head fell forward, his arms coming up to meet them, quiet sobs echoing. “I’m so tired of paying for them.”

Emotional whiplash was definitely a thing, Jack decided, as he wanted nothing more in that moment than to hold Phantom, who looked like nothing more than a child. Not the wise-cracking ghost who waged war with other ghosts over Amity, not the arrogant so-called-hero who’d caused more property damage than even Jack had. Just a child, all alone.

“Wow, I’m really going to need to edit this, huh?” He finally said, laughing without humor.

“This is a story, so I need to start from the beginning. What use are secrets to someone who no longer exists?”

Jack leaned forward, ears perking up at secrets. What would he learn about the ghost? A weakness?

The mental image of Phantom curling into himself while he cried forced itself forward. Even if he found a weakness now, he wasn’t sure he could shoot the ghost child - the crying, dead child - anymore. But he still listened, he’d still intervene if it was something bad.

“My parents are scientists, inventors. And in 2004 they built what was supposed to be their lives’ work. But it didn’t work. They were so sad. I… I just wanted to help. I only wanted to help. I wanted them to smile again.”

Jack felt uncomfortable. It reminded him of the portal, it had been 2004 when they’d been having issues.

“So I went down to their lab. I wasn’t supposed to, I was expressly forbidden to do so. But I had a code for emergency use, in case there was something urgent where I needed to be down there. I had a hazmat suit, the whole family did. I knew I was supposed to put it on, so I did.” Phantom said, gesturing to his familiar black and white suit.

Something was wrong. This was too familiar.

“Seriously, though. What the hell I was gonna do? A fourteen year old against technology two people with five degrees between them couldn’t get to work?”

Phantom pulled off his gloves, though they remained beneath the frame. “I did it, though. I fixed it.” He said, holding his palms up. “Don’t play around with electricity, kids.”

Jack felt sick, looking at the ghost’s palms. The left one had a circle that burned green, branching off like a lightning strike, disappearing under the sleeve. A similar one was on his right palm. It didn’t have the circle, but it had the same distinct pattern of electrical injury.

He paused the video, Phantom’s wry smile behind scarred hands frozen. This could have been Danny. Jack could’ve been the one burying a loved son, gone too soon by his own invention? Jack’s heart was heavy for the scientists who’d had to bury Phantom’s human body, but he was so grateful that it wasn’t him who had to. He let the video resume.

“I fucked up. It’s one of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made. I hope I’ve paid for it by now. It took my life. I’ve bled more times than I can count for it. I’ve probably given it my life a second time, if you’re watching this. I’ve lost the friends I loved. My family hates what I’ve become. Hell, they may have been the ones to kill me!”

Jack was absolutely never shooting this child again and he was getting so many hugs.

“They’re why I’m even making this. Their newest invention… it nearly hurt as much as my death. They were disappointed I managed to escape before I lost consciousness.” He said, voice slightly hitching when he sobbed.

Phantom’s eyes fell from the camera again. “Have you figured out who I am yet?”

Jack’s heart was beating too fast, but it didn’t make sense. He and Maddie had shot an electrical based weapon at Phantom, they’d noticed he had the most adverse reactions to those (because that’s what killed him, oh no, had they made him relive it in any way?). It was a little over a month ago. He’d managed to fly away, though, and he’d almost immediately fell off their tracker.

Had Danny come home that night?

“I can’t tell them. I don’t know what they’d do.” Phantom continued, trying to take a deep breath but it was interrupted by a broken cry. “If they don’t take it well. If they think I’m lying or faking or overshadowing. At least if they kill or dissect me like this, I’ll still know they loved some part of me. At least I could have that peace.”

Jack’s hands were covering his mouth as he shook his head back and forth. It… it wasn’t possible. Danny had a heartbeat. Danny had grown.

Danny had changed after the portal.

Phantom sighed, burying ungloved hands in white hair. “In 2004, my parents built a portal to the Ghost Zone. I accidentally turned it on. It’s my fault the ghosts are here. It’s all my fault. So none of you are actually wrong to blame me. Everything since then that’s happened? My fault.” Phantom was crying in earnest now, not even trying to pull himself together.

No. No no no no.

“And then I didn’t even die right.” He said scornfully. “I couldn’t even fucking die right.” He rose his head, green eyes wet, nose tinged with green. “I’m half human.”

A bright light triggered, throwing off the video’s white balance. It was possible to just barely make out the darkened shape of a halo moving up Phantom. The halo disappeared as it passed Phantom’s head.

Jack clenched the edge of his desk, unwilling to believe it, knowing it’s true, begging it not to be, convinced he was looking at the answer to everything with his son.

Danny Fenton sat where Phantom had been. “I wish I had died,” he said, voice no longer echoing. “Became entirely ghost. Then I at least would have only needed to protect the city and not get shot. But, no, I wasn’t lucky enough to die. I wouldn’t have failed at being a good protector. I wouldn’t be failing school. I wouldn’t have failed my friends. I wouldn’t be a failure in my family’s eyes. Well, not for the same reason, at least.”

Did Danny really think that? That they thought he was a failure? Had they made him feel that way?

Considering how often they’d shot him, hurt him, Jack guessed he couldn’t really blame his son.

“I wonder sometimes. If I killed my human half, could my ghost half survive? Could I become a full ghost? Could I stop seeing my sister’s disappointment? The way my mom sighs and just signs off on whatever I bring home, not even bothering to read what I’ve done this time? Stop seeing my dad’s eyes every time he notices scars I can’t explain, how ashamed of me he is? I could stop being bullied, stop being shoved into lockers. Stop seeing the way Sam and Tucker are just so tired of me? And just… fly. Just watch the stars. Or would I die? Leave this city with only human protectors who can’t take as hard a beating as I can? It isn’t fair to them, to die for a mistake I made. Maybe eventually the ghosts will stop. And then I can rest.”

Jack was sobbing, hearing the pain in his son’s voice, the exhaustion, the brokenness. How could they have missed so much? How could they not notice that he wanted to die, that he had died?

Danny’s eyes had gotten a far away look as he talked, lost in his own thoughts. He straightened back up suddenly, taking a deep breath and wiping tears away. “Nice one, dumbass. I’ll get around to redoing it eventually with a lot less emo.” He said, leaning forward.

The video ended and Jack stared at the screen. It was still on the last shot. Danny was close to the screen, arm reached off to the side, blue eyes focused on something off screen, slightly biting his tongue in thought.

#Grace writes #danny phantom #Jack Fenton #phic phight 2023 #Phic phight

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five-rivers · 1 year

Text

Baroque

AO3

@echoghost1 @sorari

Sorry about the length.

“Ah,” said Frostbite, shielding his eyes as he looked up into the sky. “I hadn’t realized we were so close to the turning of the age.”

Danny followed his gaze up, then froze. The normally pure green Ghost Zone sky had a crack in it. A long, jagged stripe of deep red, brighter at the edges than the middle, stretching from horizon to horizon. It hadn’t been there when he’d arrived in the Far Frozen.

“What is that?” he squeaked.

“It’s, ah. I’m not entirely sure English has a proper word for it. It’s a… A change in the general ectoplasmic energy. Perhaps the best comparison is flavor or spin in quantum particles, although you don’t have a background in that… It’s… It's caused by a shift in the character of the Realms. A paradigm shift, if you will. It will grow over time, until it’s the dominant ectoplasmic color and mood. Although,” he added, almost as an afterthought, “it may not stay this color. I am rather hoping for blue this time, or perhaps yellow, but I must confess to frequent disappointment on that count.”

Danny looked back and forth between Frostbite and the red crack. Frostbite’s easy acceptance of the phenomenon put him more at ease, but, still, it was disturbing. “So… it just means that the Ghost Zone won’t be green anymore? It’ll be red? Will my ectoplasm turn red?”

“It usually doesn’t affect the ectoplasm color of individuals,” said Frostbite. His nose scrunched up. “But it would be incorrect to say that changing the color of the Realms is all it does. He patted Danny on the shoulder. “Why don’t we wrap up our sparring session, now, and I can tell you about it over a cup of chocolate?”

“Frozen chocolate?” asked Danny, knowing that was the default in the Far Frozen.

“Slushy,” said Frostbite. “Just the way you like it.”

Danny gave the news a little fist pump… but his eyes trailed back up to the crack. It didn’t look like it was getting wider yet.

Getting the chocolate was a matter of minutes, and soon enough they were seated inside, next to a heatless fire.

“So,” said Danny, stirring his chocolate with a ghost ice spoon, “that crack in the sky…”

“Yes,” said Frostbite. “It is disconcerting the first few times. But how to explain…” He drummed icy claws against the sides of his oversized mug. “Ah. Yes. You are aware that the human world has many different conceptions of the afterlife?”

“Yeah,” said Danny. “But I thought that they were just looking at different Realms.”

“To some degree,” agreed Frostbite. “But they were often also looking at the Realms at different times. For example, at different points in the past, there has been little distinction between, say, fairies and ghosts, or angels and ghosts, or, even, deities and ghosts. The turning of the age is an aesthetic shift, one that affects almost all ghosts to some degree or another. Red ectoplasm, for example–” Frostbite sighed, heavily, “--is typically the indicator of a more ‘monstrous,’ or ‘demonic’ appearance and general aesthetic.”

Danny continued to stir his chocolate. “Are you saying that the Ghost Zone has, what, artistic movements?”

“Something like that, yes,” said Frostbite.

“Then what aesthetic are we in right now?”

Frostbite tapped his chin. “Green is… not entirely neutral, but tends not to be terribly forceful and allows ghosts like you to remain almost as you were in life.”

“And… the other colors?”

“Generally,” stressed Frostbite, “blue is suggestive of a more heavenly or divine mien. Yellow, orange, and earth tones are, as their name indicates, more Earthly. Purple tends to evoke fairies and their like. But those are generalities.”

“And red is for hell?”

“Yes.”

“And ghosts are changed by this? Not just the way things work?”

“Oh, yes,” said Frostbite. “After all, your form interacts with your environment. There’s feedback. I believe your human form should be unaffected, however, much as it is unaffected by the changes to your form that you initiate, such as… duplication.”

Danny made a face. He didn’t like that pause. So he was still trying to get the hang of duplication. So what?

“And… how would my ghost form change?”

“I do not know,” said Frostbite. “The changes are not easily predictable, and sometimes they stick.” He gestured at himself. “If it makes you feel better, we can monitor you?”

“No, that’s fine,” said Danny. He put his mostly untouched chocolate to one side. “I should go home. Lots of things to freak out about.”

“You’re going to turn into a demon?”

“That’s not what I said!” protested Danny, looking up from his stack of syllabi to glare at them. They were too busy playing foosball to notice. “I might wind up looking like a demon. There’s a difference.”

“Still pretty cool,” said Sam.

“Uh, no it isn’t. I have enough trouble getting people to like me without showing up looking like a demon. I can’t believe this.”

“I wonder if this will change any of your parents’ theories?”

“They’ll probably decide that every culture’s traditional depiction of demons was one hundred percent accurate and that it’s proof that ghosts are evil.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not my parents.”

“Something we thank the universe for every day.” Sam bumped his shoulder and continued to dominate Tucker at foosball. “Think of it like a makeover. It doesn’t have to be bad. It could be cool.”

“But I might wind up looking like Vlad,” said Danny.

“Then steal his look,” said Tucker. “Make it yours.”

“I don’t think anything works that way.”

“Personal fashion does,” said Tucker.

“You won’t look like Vlad,” said Sam. “Vlad looks old. You don’t. Easy. No one will mistake you for him. Not even if you gained about fifty pounds.”

“No, I mean, like we’re related.” If that rumor started up again, he might just die for real this time.

“You could wear a mask?” asked Sam.

“I don’t think that will help with my popularity problem.”

“I’m just trying to give you ideas. Who knows, maybe it’ll just give you some cute little horns or fangs. Animal ears. A tail.”

“I guess,” said Danny. He still didn’t like the idea of it. “As long as it doesn’t give me horns like Vlad’s.”

Sam squinted at him. “Aren’t those horn things just his hair?”

“Ew, no, who would wear their hair like that?”

“Spectra does.”

“As far as I’m concerned, Spectra’s already a demon.”

Tucker cheered! “I won!”

The crack in the Zone sky grew wider over the next few weeks. Red flecks and fuzzies hung in the air, making good bait for blob ghosts, or rained down from far above. Apparently, red ectoplasm was more energetic that green ectoplasm, which made a lot of Vlad’s creepy apprenticeship offers make more sense. Mostly.

Animal ghosts started being larger, with overlong sharp claws and red eyes. Yes, even the herbivores. It was unsettling to almost be dismembered by a rabbit or a squirrel.

Jack and Maddie rebuilt the entire ecto-filtration system after a long thread of red found its way into the filter. Something about it operating under different energy constraints, and how they should probably modify some of their weapons to work on red ectoplasm.

Some of Danny’s enemies started to show up… different. Skulker’s armor gained patterns more associated with traditional armor. The blob ghosts started turning brown or red. Johnny’s pupils changed to match Kitty’s cat-like ones. Technus grew antennae-like horns. Everything seemed bigger, hairier, and more vicious.

It didn’t seem to be affecting Danny, but Danny knew he could trust his instincts on this sort of thing about as far as he could throw them.

"There are always outliers," said Frostbite, who had nearly doubled in size. He and the other yetis hadn't just grown, though. Their fangs, claws, tails, fur, and horns had all lengthened. Their spines had bent. Their voices had deepened to something so gravelly it was almost inaudible. "We are almost always somewhat bestial, regardless of the overall mood of the Realms. Perhaps you will remain largely the same. Perhaps your human half resists the change.”

“Or?” prompted Danny.

“Or,” said Frostbite, shrugging his enormous shoulders, “it might come upon you all at once.”

By winter, the blob ghosts started to change shape. They’d already changed color, all of them various shades of red, orange, and brown, but now they began to become defined in ways that Danny found downright disturbing… and also strangely alluring. He couldn’t stop watching them, whether they had little grasping hands or leathery bat-like wings or even grotesque little faces, like goblins.

“It’s really weird seeing them like that,” said Tucker, as Danny sucked a flock of them into a thermos. “It’s like they’re turning into little imps or something.”

“They’re not cute anymore,” agreed Sam. “But I think it’ll be kind of cool to see what they turn into. What do you think, Danny?”

“I don’t know. It’s… People are more afraid of them now.”

Sam and Tucker exchanged a look.

“You know we’re not going to be afraid of you, right?” asked Sam.

“I mean, if you turn into a balor or something all of a sudden, we’ll be surprised, but–”

“We won’t be afraid of you. Also, don’t you think it’ll be cool? Everything looks so much cooler with spikes and fangs and horns. I might kill for horns.”

“Well, you’d have to die for them, at le–”

Sam threw her gloves at him.

Vlad’s horns were undeniably horns. Danny could recognize that they hadn’t been before. That they really had been hair… and, actually, didn’t that make them antlers or something? He hadn’t been paying attention in class the last time that had been brought up.

“Wow,” said Danny, “I guess you got tired of using the old pomade, huh?”

Vlad growled at him, which was just a bit out of character for him so early in the fight.

“Gotta use your words, V-man.”

“You make light of this, boy,” snarled Vlad, slamming him into a wall. “Do you know how long this will last? Do you have any idea?”

“I didn’t think you cared about your appearance that–”

Danny was slammed into the wall again.

“It isn’t about appearance. Do you know how much more funding fools like the GIW will get to exterminate us now that we look like this? Now that our behavior has changed, just a hair? Do you? It is no laughing matter."

He held Danny down, pinning him with hands that had more in common with talons than anything human. Then he sighed, some of his usual attitude bleeding back into his bearing.

"Daniel. I apologize. The current state of affairs is simply rather upsetting to me. You will understand when you start to change." He leaned closer. "I am asking you again to join me."

"As if–"

"This is not a joke, Daniel," said Vlad, as if it had ever been a joke to Danny. "No doubt you are ignorant of this, but when the mien of the Ghost Zone takes on a demonic bent, it changes socially as well. It becomes the battlefield of demon princes leading armies of conquest, and even those places that play at peace become Baroque and Byzantine. Your hero act is reaching its natural end. You will not be able to protect this place without an army on your side. You will not even be able to protect yourself."

Vlad released Danny and lifted off, hovering menacingly in the air. "Think about it, Daniel."

"Yeah," muttered Danny after Vlad had left. "Sure. I'm definitely going to think about your offer to become a child soldier. What a loser."

Danny's ghost sense went off and he groaned.

"Not another one!"

Danny nursed a black eye and other injuries in Tucker’s bedroom.

“Do you think I’m acting any differently lately?”

“I don’t know,” said Tucker, opening up the first aid kit. “I don’t think so. You might be a little hungrier than usual, but that’s about it. Could be a growth spurt thing. Do you want to start with the big stitches or the little ones?”

“What about the black eye?”

“No, man. That can wait.”

“But it’s the part everyone can see.”

“Dude. You’re bleeding.”

“Only a little!”

Now that Danny knew he was eating more, he couldn’t help noticing. He was eating an awful lot, and he never felt quite full.

“Do you think it’s related?” asked Danny, nervously. He was perched on an icy boulder near Frostbite's head. It seemed more polite than flying the whole time.

The Far Frozen itself had also changed with the age. The snow was streaked with red and ashy gray from the new ectoplasm, and the structures had twisted and grown with their inhabitants. Even the medical equipment had darkened, become cruder, although the yetis all insisted that was in appearance only, and the function was the same.

It really accentuated how much he, unchanged, stood out.

Frostbite rumbled deeply. He and the other yetis were becoming… not quite quadrupedal, but their body structure was much more gorilla or bear like than it had been. “It might be,” said Frostbite. “It might not be. It’s too soon to tell.”

“What about the scans you did?”

“They do seem to show that you are changing internally. Some of your organs seem to have split in half.”

Danny felt his whole face scrunch up in consternation. “In half?”

Frostbite’s head dipped up and down. “It does not seem to impact their functions, such as they are.”

“Oh, I guess that’s… good,” said Danny, trying not to show any hysteria. In half.

Frostbite shrugged, which was a production, considering how huge he was. “It is neither good nor bad. When the turning of the age comes, we must accept it for what it is.”

“Roll with the punches, huh?”

“An apt idiom.”

“And what– How long does an ‘age’ usually last?”

“Hm. Let’s see… I believe the shortest age I’ve ever experienced lasted only a year. The longest was… Oh, it was centuries.”

“This could be centuries, too?”

“Certainly. It could also end tomorrow. There’s no point trying to predict it, I’m afraid.”

Danny nodded. “Okay,” he said, dejectedly.

Frostbite lifted a great paw and patted Danny’s head with a single digit. “Don’t worry. I’m sure it will all work out in the end." They sat together like that for a while. "I do not think those were your only questions."

"Yeah, but it's–"

"You don't need to fear being rude, Great One. As I have said, you are young, and you are new."

"Okay," said Danny. He rubbed his hands over his thighs. "Vlad said people would build armies. That there will be wars."

Frostbite scoffed. "In an attempt to frighten you into aligning yourself with him. Never fear that you will lack allies, Great One. Why, even beyond us, Princess Dora and Queen Pandora are gathering their forces, and I understand that Lord Clockwork is fond of you."

That wasn't untrue, and yet… "So, there will be war?"

Frostbite hummed deep in his chest, the sound vibrating up through the soles of Danny's feet. "It… is true that general social structures change somewhat when the Realms are in this mood. Groups become… more cohesive as the changes sort previously unaligned ghosts into, well, castes." He paused, possibly aware of the negative connotations of the word in the human world. "Even the landscape changes. If this age lasts for long enough, it might evolve so that you could walk from your portal to here. Even now, we are on a collision course with the Mountains of the Snow Maidens. These changes cause tensions, and tensions lead into conflict. On the other hand, personal, individual conflicts tend to lessen. There is a balance to these things."

"Do you have a caste?" asked Danny.

"Not as such, no," said Frostbite. "We of the Far Frozen maintain our own hierarchy across ages. It is one of the reasons we all change together."

"Oh," said Danny, feeling oddly left out. "Will I have a caste?"

Frostbite gave him something that might have been a worried look. It was hard to tell, with how much his face had changed.

"Great One, the castes I speak of… they are not immutable law. They have their basis in the changes the Realms impress upon our bodies and base instincts, yes, but those things do not override our choices."

And what if he wanted to choose to fit in? whispered a traitorous voice in his head. He shook himself. He couldn't say he didn't want to be accepted by the people around him, but chasing things like that only hurt him and the people he cared about. And being part of a 'caste' didn't sound especially great, either.

Still.

He formed a small ball of ice between his fingers and rolled it back and forth. “Okay,” he said. Then he looked up. “You know, um, if there’s anything I can do for you…” He was always making Frostbite and the other yetis deal with his problems. “I’d like to help…”

Danny's stomach chose that moment to grumble.

Frostbite chuckled, the sound like a small earthquake. Icequake. Something like that, anyway. “Speaking of hunger, I believe mealtime is upon us. Come, eat with us, and consider any debt repaid."

"Okay," said Danny, sliding off the boulder to follow Frostbite.

The yetis were eating. They had brought in a huge ice-worm and were stripping meat off it methodically and dumping it into a huge cauldron. There was a chunk of ice underneath that radiated a cold even Danny could feel.

Frostbite went to the cauldron and selected from a stack of dishes a bowl that looked comically small in his hand. He used a ladle to scoop some of the soup into the bowl and handed it to Danny.

The bowl was bigger than his head.

"No spoons, I'm afraid," said Frostbite, humor in his voice.

“That’s okay,” said Danny, raising the bowl to his lips. The soup was frigid and creamy, rich with the ruddy ecto-blood of the ice-worm. It was good. Although Danny was sure it was something that Sam would view with horror.

In the back of his head, something told him that, in the past, he wouldn’t have eaten something like this so willingly, politeness aside. That, even, Frostbite would have hesitated before serving it to him, hospitality aside. But he was so very hungry, and it wasn’t like Frostbite would give him anything dangerous to eat.

He didn’t know how, but he finished the bowl. For the first time in a while, he went home to sleep satiated.

It happened suddenly, after all.

Danny blinked down at hands that were much too large and much too sharp. Each finger came to a needle-like white point, and his gloves… They’d always been fairly tight to his skin, but now it felt like they were skin, except for the shiny little scales that covered the backs of his hands and went up his arms. His whole suit felt like that, and since it was the only thing he was wearing–

Something swished past his ankles, and he twisted his body only to see that he had grown a tufted tail. He twitched it, incredulously.

And then a fiery ectoblast shot past his head, reminding him that he was fighting Ember, who had gone full, music-themed succubus over the last couple of months.

But when he beat her the next thing he did was dive through the school walls into Casper High’s ‘haunted’ bathroom and stare into the mirror.

His irises were huge, big enough that if he squinted it would be hard to see his sclera. His pupils were slitted, like a cat’s.

The collar of his suit had similarly merged with his skin. There was no longer a sharp distinction between fabric and flesh. The white color had creeped up to his jawline along with more little scales. He would have run his fingers over them, but he was a bit wary of his newly sharp fingers.

He bared his teeth at the mirror. They were sharp, too, but not overly so.

He sighed. This wasn’t too bad. This, he could deal with.

Except, it turned out to not be that sudden. That change wasn’t the last one. His very next transformation into ghost form showed him that.

“Danny, dude,” said Tucker. “You didn’t tell me that your skin had turned white.”

“I’ve always been white,” said Danny.

“Not paper white.”

“What?” said Danny. His tongue felt oddly clumsy in his mouth. Was it the fangs? “Paper white?”

“Yeah,” said Sam. She took his wrist and dragged him into the basement bathroom. “Was it not before, or…?”

Danny peered at himself in the mirror for the second time today. His face was paper white, and those little scales had crept up his cheeks, forming an almost decorative pattern near the edges of his eyes. His ears had become long and triangular. His teeth– Yes, they were longer and… He swept back hair that definitely hadn’t been so long or fluffy before. He had little horn nubs at his hairline.

“Oh, no,” he said. And he definitely wasn’t imagining his tongue being weird. He stuck it out. It was easily half an inch longer. He turned back to human, relieved that his human form wasn’t affected. As far as he could tell. “It’s still going. I thought it was done!”

Tucker patted his back, awkwardly. “Congrats on the cool tail, at least? And the scales are sort of cool?”

Danny groaned. “It feels like I’m not wearing anything,” he complained.

“Well,” said Sam, “that I can fix. We’ll just wait a bit to make sure you aren’t going to turn into a giant, too, and then I’ll get you something appropriate. In the meantime…” She left, almost skipping up the stairs.

“What’s she doing?” asked Danny, somewhat fearfully.

“Getting clothes?” hazarded Tucker. He shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t understand her on a good day.”

“Here!” exclaimed Sam, somewhat out of breath. She threw a pile of clothes at Danny.

He shook them out.

“Oh my gosh, is that the anime sleeveless turtleneck?” asked Tucker.

“I got it for a reason,” said Sam, smugly.

Tucker started laughing.

“I hate you guys,” said Danny, transforming again. He paused. The white scales were definitely higher on his arms than he had been before.

“I think your ears got longer,” said Tucker, reaching out to touch one. Danny flicked it away, instinctively. Tucker’s eyes sparkled. “I think I’m jealous.”

Danny made a face at him and pulled the turtleneck on, followed by the black jeans.

“I think I’ll need to make a hole for the tail,” he said.

“That’s fine,” said Sam. “I don’t wear these anymore, anyway.”

“Didn’t fit?”

“Jeans didn’t fit my style.” Sam shrugged. “Do you need scissors?”

“No, I think I–” he punctured a hole with one of his claws. “Yeah. That works.”

Sam nodded approvingly. “See? You’re going to be fine.”

Danny put on a smile - one that didn’t show too many teeth, and nodded back.

“You don’t look bad,” said Jazz when he came home. “Just… different.”

“I look like a monster,” countered Danny. “I have scales.”

“The scales are fine,” said Jazz. “They’re a little translucent, aren’t they?”

“What does that matter?”

“I don’t know,” said Jazz. “It’s something… something to mention? Like I said, you don’t look bad, just less human. And if people can’t look past your appearance to see the good you do, their opinion isn’t worth anything, anyway.”

“Except that they can still decide to put a bounty on my head, or vote for Vlad, or call the GIW if they decide they don’t like the way I look.”

The twist of Jazz’s face told Danny his point had struck home. “We’ll think of something,” she said, unconvincingly. “But you can be sure that, in the meantime, I don’t think you’re a monster, and neither do Sam and Tucker.”

Danny bobbed his head.

"... That's not the only thing bothering you, is it? Is there something else going on in the Zone? With Mom and Dad?"

"I'm worried about Dani," he admitted. "I know what's happening, but she doesn't have a Frostbite to explain it to her. She doesn't have anybody."

From the expression on Jazz's face, that hadn't occurred to her, which was reasonable. She didn't know Dani well.

"She'll come back here if something is wrong, though, won't she?"

"I hope so," said Danny.

Weekend breakfast was delayed in favor of finding out what else had changed overnight, despite Danny’s almost ravenous hunger. The white parts of his ‘suit’ were getting bigger, leaving the black as intermittent patterns. Without Sam’s clothes, he was almost entirely white, except for his eyes, which were as green as ever.

For the most part, everything was just more this morning. His hands were bigger and sharper, so were his horns, so were his teeth, so were his ears… He was half convinced his eyes were bigger, too, but that might have just been the black lining, like natural eyeliner, he’d gotten overnight. The tuft on his tail was fluffier, and his tail longer.

But there were new things, too. His feet seemed… off. Too long, too big. Whenever he landed, he felt the need to stand on the balls of his feet, and he got the sinking feeling that he was going to wind up with paws by the end of this.

More mysteriously, there was a strange divot running from his lower lip, down his chin and throat… He took off his turtleneck, and saw it when all the way down his front, all the way to just above his groin. In placement, it almost resembled a zipper, except for the two branches that split off at his breastbone. Those made it resemble something else. Something that haunted his nightmares. The divot continued on the inside of his mouth, passing between his lower front teeth and running over his whole overly-long tongue, down into his throat. He prodded it with his fingertips, sharp as they were, which felt weird, but didn’t give him any more information.

Between that and the fangs, Danny wondered how much of a lisp he’d have. Well, no time like the present to test it out.

He opened his mouth to speak. No sound came out. Not even a squeak. He tried again, and again. Everything from whispers to shouts.

Nothing. He couldn’t even feel the muscles working, or hurting, like he sometimes could when he’d lost his voice during a cold. He rubbed his neck with the backs of his knuckles and tried again. Still nothing.

He flew up, through the roof. Whatever had changed this time to make him unable to talk, maybe it didn’t work on his wail. He had to know. It was his ace in the hole, his last resort against the nastiest of his enemies.

Once he was far enough above the city to be safe, he opened his mouth and–

And kept opening his mouth. As he prepared to wail, the divot in his lip turned into a gap and his lower jaw split sideways, his chest blooming like a four-petaled flower full of teeth. Some were flat. Some were sharp. Some looked like his ribs.

He closed his mouth.

He closed his mouth, and patted along its length and width to make sure it stayed that way.

Then, he flew down and landed on the nearest building. He felt dizzy. He felt nauseous. He was, despite everything, still extremely and inappropriately hungry.

A blob ghost - no, this one was entirely imp-like, no hint of blob left in it - that had made its nest nearby chittered angrily at him. Danny hissed at it, not in the mood. At least that was a sound he could still make.

The little demon-thing bit him.

Reflexively, without even thinking about it, Danny opened his mouth and.

Ate.

The.

Imp.

“Ah, Great One!” said Frostbite, his voice deep enough that Danny doubted humans would be able to hear it at all. “I see the change has taken you. How is it?”

Danny wavered. Then, he tilted his head back and started to cry.

It took a while for Danny to communicate what was actually wrong to Frostbite and the others. Just telling them was right off the table, as long as he was in ghost form, and he was too keyed up to just change back. Having his fingers turned into knives had turned his handwriting into an atrocity - or maybe that was more a result of the stress. He wasn’t sure.

Then there was the size difference. Some of the yetis were over two stories tall. Danny, developing digitigrade feet or not, was tiny compared to them.

Eventually, though, he remembered that he could turn human. And he did.

“It does explain your earlier scans,” rumbled Frostbite. “I imagine that it was in preparation for your new mouth. That would also explain your difficulty speaking. It cut right through your voicebox.”

“Great,” said Danny. “Can you fix it?”

“Fix it?”

“I can’t talk,” said Danny. “There has to be something.”

“There are ways of speaking that do not rely on vocal chords, as many ghosts do not have them. I believe we have some books on the subject. But I cannot fix it in the way you mean. If there was an injury, then I could make an attempt. But there is nothing broken.”

“It feels like there is,” said Danny.

“I know,” said Frostbite. “I could sew the lower portions of your mouth together, if it gives you such distress, but creating a voice for you from nothing is beyond me.”

Danny hunched his shoulders. That whole image– eugh. “So, you don’t think it’s bad that I ate that imp?” he asked.

“That you ate it so reflexively, possibly,” said Frostbite, “but you’re young, for all your deeds, Great One. Many ghosts eat one another. It is not unusual, or immoral.” Frostbite grinned, showing off many fangs. “It’s no different than eating ice-worms or beef. Just make sure you eat when you feel hungry, and to try ectoplasm when consuming human food doesn't help. You will be fine. Those imps don’t even have cores.”

“Okay,” said Danny, quietly.

Frostbite cleared his throat, which sounded like icebergs crashing into one another. “Now, if you will turn back, we can give your ghost half a checkup as well, and ensure everything is proceeding in a healthy way.”

Danny made a face. He wouldn’t call any of this healthy. But he complied nonetheless.

He was immediately aware that the layout of his mouth had changed even more. He felt around with his tongue to find four fangs behind his normal set of teeth that somehow folded back into his mouth.

Something for Frostbite to investigate, he supposed. Danny was still too busy being hung up on eating the imp.

But, also…

"Do you think the same things might be happening to Dani?" he asked.

"Whom?"

"My clone," said Danny. He'd only introduced her to Frostbite the once, he couldn't fault him for not recognizing her name.

"Most likely, yes. Siblings tend to be in the same caste."

"Do you…" he trailed off, hating to ask Frostbite for even more help. "Can you keep an eye out for her? Just in case?"

"Of course, Great One! Now, that checkup!"

It turned out his new folding fangs functioned like a snake’s, and he was venomous now, if only mildly so. Joy.

But Frostbite fed him again before he left, so that really was a joy.

After he left the Far Frozen, something else occurred to him. Someone else who might be facing changes without knowing why.

Valerie.

“So, you want to drop hints to her?” asked Sam. “While you’re human?”

“I can’t really do it as a ghost,” said Danny. He hadn’t seen her all that often around fights for a while now. “At least while I’m human I can say something. I just have to play it off as coming from my parents. I just need you guys to set me up for it when she’s in earshot.”

“Sure,” said Tucker. “Always down to be your wingman.”

Sam scoffed. “That’s not what’s happening.”

“It could be.”

“It’s not.”

“It’s really not,” confirmed Danny.

But although he did keep an eye on Valerie, and he was sure she overheard them talking about the red ectoplasm and the changes it brought at least once, she didn’t seem to be experiencing any changes, and she never came to talk to them. He hoped she wasn’t getting all her information from Vlad… but she probably was.

Days of incremental changes passed for Danny, small alterations accumulating bit by bit, transformation by transformation. Every time he went ghost, something had changed, whether that something was truly minor, like more black being replace with white, or something more significant, like his feet legitimately turning into paws, complete with paw pads. And claws.

But nothing completely new had been added for a while, and Danny took comfort in that. He could, somehow, deal with problems getting worse better than he could handle getting entirely new problems.

He was learning to cope with it all. Tucker helped a lot, surprisingly. He was good at pointing out the positives to things like ridiculously huge ears and a tail. Even the horns, he said, could be useful in an emergency. Or if he really wanted to headbut Skulker.

(Danny got the sense that Tucker was just a little jealous, to be honest.)

It was… not as bad as he’d thought it would be. His friends were great.

Mostly.

“Hey,” said Sam, pausing the movie and turning to face Danny. “That reminds me, have you been Phantom at all today?”

Danny shrugged, and stole another handful of popcorn from the bucket. He was trying not to eat it all, but… He was hungry. “No ghosts have shown up. Why?”

“You should go ghost,” she said. “So you can see if there were any changes.”

Danny squirmed.

“Come on,” she said, poking him. “You want to keep an eye on things, and if there’s anything new, you want to see it while it’s still small.”

“She’s right,” said Tucker.

“Oh, fine,” said Danny, getting up, because sitting on his tail tended to be uncomfortable. He raised his arms, transformed, and unbalanced backwards so badly he had to tap into his flight powers to stay upright.

Feathery white wings lurked at the edges of his vision.

Oh, no, he thought, discovering he could move them. Wings? He spread them out to either side, as far as they could go, and raised his arms. He found that they reached just past the last knuckle on his middle digit.

Why wings? He could already fly!

But then, so could the blob ghosts, and the imps had grown wings, anyway. Which didn't stop Danny from eating them, incidentally. Somehow, despite regular raids of his parents' purified ectoplasm supplies, he still got awfully hungry sometimes.

He craned his neck to get a better look at the wings. They weren’t pure white. Many of the longer, trailing feathers had eyespots on them that looked disturbingly like his own eyes, both ice blue and ghost green.

"Okay," said Sam, her voice squeaking a little. "I didn't expect that. But aren't you glad you looked before they, um. Got bigger?"

Danny nodded, aware he was shaking a little. He didn’t like this.

“They’re pretty?” said Sam. “At least?”

“Oh, hey,” said Tucker. “Danny, can I see your hand for a sec?”

Danny held out his hand, keeping the claws pointed away from Tucker, just in case. Tucker took his wrist and turned Danny’s hand this way and that. “These scales are different,” he said, pointing.

Danny looked closer. They were. Instead of the translucent white of the other scales, a few on the back of his hands were green, blue, or clear, putting him in mind of crystalized ectoplasm or ghost ice. He tapped one with the tip of a claw. Actually, they might be ghost ice. He tried to dispel it, with no avail.

Well. The wings were the main problem.

“You know,” said Tucker, whose eyes were on the wings again, “this is going to be an obstacle to your shirt-wearing goals.”

Danny plucked a pillow from the couch and threw it at him.

“I think your hair is getting longer, too. Want to try a haircut?”

At that, Danny returned to human form.

“My hair’s never grown in ghost form,” he said.

“Well, it has, now.” Sam shrugged. “Consider it for science.”

“If you turn me bald, I’m going to haunt you,” said Danny, suspiciously.

“As if you don’t already. Come on, Tucker, can you grab that old ratty sheet from the– Thanks, that’s good. Danny go sit– Actually, with the wings, you’ll probably want to turn around– Great. Let me go get my scissors and comb.”

With a great show of reluctance, Danny slunk to the chair and sat on it backwards. Tucker, with an equally great show of pomp, tied the blanket around Danny’s shoulders, working very hard to cover the wings, too. Danny tucked them in, and they seemed to take up far less room than they should, but that was just what ghost physics were like, most of the time.

Sam returned with a pair of scissors and a comb. “Just checking, but you don’t have lice, do you?”

Danny sent her a vaguely rude gesture. She snickered.

“Just checking,” she repeated in a sing-song voice. Then, she got to work.

About halfway through, she wrapped her off hand around one of his horns, casually, to adjust the angle of his head. It felt surprisingly nice. Satisfying, almost. Or maybe secure was a better word.

“Oops,” she said, letting go. “Didn’t mean to manhandle you like that.”

Danny transformed back. “No,” he said. “That actually– It felt good.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” said Danny, rubbing his forehead about where his horns were while he was in ghost form. “It did.”

“Okay, then,” said Sam. “If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t,” insisted Danny.

“I still have a haircut to finish, by the way,” said Sam, using the scissors to describe a circle in the air. “You want to…?”

“Oh, right,” said Danny, going ghost again. Long strands of hair fell around his jaw and tickled the back of his neck.

“Uh,” said Sam. “Nevermind. Looks like the hair is part of the package.”

“Yep,” agreed Tucker. “There’s a lot more of it now.”

Danny buried his face in his hands. His stomach grumbled.

Long after everyone else was asleep, Danny stood in front of the bathroom mirror. It felt like he did that a lot, these days, and yet every time he had a harder time recognizing himself. The whiteness, the wings, the eyes, the horns, the ears, the teeth… He wasn’t really worried about being recognized as Phantom in human form anymore because he was just so different.

He leaned closer to the mirror, making note of how fine blue and green scales had gathered near his eyes to accentuate the ‘natural makeup’ look that had started with the black ones. Raised silver lines curled around the gemlike scales and up his horns, like filigree. There were a few lines like that on his arms and hands as well, and he suspected he’d get more of them, all over.

If one discounted the mouth– if he kept his mouth closed– he almost looked pretty, in a distinctly monstrous way. He was certainly far more delicate in appearance than any other ghost he’d encountered since the turning of the age, including the imps. In fact, although he hadn’t brought it up to his friends, despite standing on his toes all the time while on the ground in ghost form, he wasn’t any taller than he had been before, and that height, according to Frostbite’s measurements, had been taken out of his torso.

It was weird to think about.

But he was stalling, now. Between everything else and this… He was afraid he would just keep not looking. That he would get distracted by new things, new problems, and just let this one lie. He couldn’t do that. He had to face this. It was part of his body, like it or not.

Slowly, bit by bit, he opened his mouth, all the way down.

Apart from the fangs, which were getting long enough that he suspected he’d have trouble speaking even if he did have a voice to speak with, the top of his mouth looked normal. Ish. Alright, it really didn’t, but he could lie to himself about it. His lower jaw, just as fanged, was harder to look at, with his tongue hanging off of it and twitching whenever he thought about it too hard. The tongue led back to, presumably, what remained of his esophagus, a smooth, deep, lining that spasmed every so often.

To either side of that, in his throat, were two little holes that flexed as he breathed. Wind tickled the flesh around them. They must be his windpipe, split in two to go to either lung.

A little further down, there were teeth again, rows and rows of them on flesh that had been peeled back from his chest like flower petals. The movement of his lungs could be seen clearly beneath them.

The teeth were sharpest on the outside edges, structured to pierce or tear. The longest were rib-like, curving, and hollow tipped, each of them weeping something clear. Deeper, the teeth became blunter, more suited for grinding.

In the very deepest part of his mouth was an octopus-like mass of tongues, each undulating gently. One stretched itself out to lick at one of his teeth, and Danny shuddered. He could feel it.

A line of drool ran down his cheek. Ancients, he was hungry.

He closed his mouth, and, almost on autopilot, drifted down to the kitchen. The fridge light bathed him, and he floated there for a long moment, staring. Then, his lips parted.

He woke up to his parents ranting about ghosts stealing all the food in the house.

Danny rolled over and groaned. He had a problem.

Danny flew through the ghost zone, falling motes of red and ashy ectoplasm staining his wings. It made his feathers feel weird and sticky, and he wanted to stop and clean them off immediately, but he had to go to the Far Frozen.

When Frostbite saw Danny, his whole face lit up, his yellow eyes practically sparkling. “Oh!” he said in a voice that was definitely too deep for humans to hear. “I know what caste you are in, now! I had wondered– But, now, seeing your wings! Wonderful!”

Danny blinked up at him, hoping he would explain. He didn’t feel like going back and forth between human and ghost right now.

“Yes,” said Frostbite. “The lack of wings confused me. But, now, I see. You are a Mouth.”

For obvious reasons, Danny crossed his arms and glared at Frostbite.

Frostbite didn’t seem to notice. “Mouths are messengers - or they were the last time the Realms turned red. They would speak with others’ voices, carrying messages across the Realms.”

Danny tilted his head. He couldn’t speak at all. What was Frostbite talking about?

“Ah, yes. I can see how that might be hard to believe. If I can show you?”

Danny nodded, cautiously, and Frostbite knelt down. He brought his head, bigger than Danny’s whole body, to Danny’s level, and, with exceeding care and gentleness, touched his horns to Danny’s.

Sam holding onto his horns had felt good. So did this. This contact, though, had a vibrational quality that Sam’s lacked. It was like energy was being pushed into them and flowing down, down, through his skull, down his spine, into his stomach. He leaned into it, eyes fluttering closed. If he’d had any voice at all, he’d probably be purring.

Frostbite withdrew, but the sensation of energy in his stomach remained.

“There,” said Frostbite. “I’ve filled you with a message. Now, try to speak.”

It wasn’t like Danny hadn’t tried to speak to no avail before, but he opened his mouth and Frostbite’s voice came out, his feathers vibrating with it.

“Hello, Great One, I see you’ve received my message. May I invite you to come eat with us again?”

He snapped his mouth closed as soon as the second sentence was over, acutely aware that he hadn’t been able to do that until the whole message was over, no matter how startled he’d been.

An odd, tingly sense of mild euphoria came over him. Distantly, he acknowledged that what had just happened had been disturbing. He also acknowledged that this feeling must be related to those ‘caste instincts’ Frostbite had talked to him about before.

With his regular tongue, he licked his lips.

“Well?” prompted Frostbite, an eye ridge raised. “Will you?”

Danny realized, belatedly, that Frostbite was waiting for an answer. From him. He nodded. With the message gone, he felt oddly hollow inside.

Once again furnished with a bowl of soup larger than his head, Danny sat down next to Frostbite.

“Now,” said Frostbite. “There are many things I do not know about Mouths. It was not a terribly common grouping. However, I do believe I saw a book on the subject in Princess Dora’s library some time before the turn. You could go to her and ask to borrow it.”

Danny nodded even as he greedily slurped the soup. He was trying to have manners, but not opening his mouth all the way was the best he could do right now.

“If you do, I would ask you to carry a message to her, and return with her answer as well. I have learned a few troubling things about her nearest neighbors that she should know, and I have a proposal for her.”

Danny nodded again. Of course he would do that. Frostbite hardly needed to ask.

“Excellent!” said Frostbite. “It is always useful to have a messenger who is already friends with an ally!”

Danny preened– Well. Not literally. He didn’t really know how to take care of his wings, yet, and he was a bit too busy with the soup, anyway.

The Time Locked lands had changed a lot. Once many scattered islands, they had coalesced into a new whole many miles across in each direction. As he watched, pebbles and minor, asteroid-like islands added themselves to the outskirts. Dora’s castle towered sharp and black in the center, bristling with ballistas. Ghosts in segmented, thorny plate armor patrolled the streets. In the distance, Danny could see Poindexter’s Casper High morphing into something out of nightmares.

In a wild fit of prudence, Danny decided not to fly directly to the tower, but instead landed at the city gates.

“A Mouth?” asked one of the guards, slitted eyes wide. “Do you have a message for Princess Dorathea?”

Danny nodded. The guard called for more guards, and he was escorted to the castle by six ghosts in various stages of transformation, all armed. They brought him through the receiving hall and several other public corridors before they were finally directed to Dora.

“Sir Phantom,” said Dora, her voice soft with wonder. She raised her hand to brush his cheek. “Your new appearance suits you.”

Danny could say the same about Dora as she reclined regally in her tall-backed chair, maps of the Zone laid on the table beside her. She looked fierce, her dragon horns and wings on full display, her nails long and sharp, her skin even more scaled than his was.

“I understand you have a message for me?”

Danny nodded, suddenly feeling shy about the whole situation, and opened his mouth. Frostbite’s words poured from him, but he didn’t understand them. They were in a rumbly, lilting ghost language that Danny didn’t know.

When the message finished playing out, Danny sat down on the ground, spent and… Distracted. He was going to call this distracted. He felt all noodly and worn, but also satisfied and happy, like he’d just helped someone with something big.

“The Observants and the Medicis. Of course they would get along.”

Dora gestured at the guards, directing them to bring Danny closer, resting his head on her knee and spreading his wings out to their full extent on either side.

They were getting bigger, darn it.

Dora put a pointed nail under his chin and tilted his head up, so he was looking her in the eye. “I know you aren’t likely to give me your first loyalty,” she said. “Assuming, of course, that you give it to any one person. But I would like you to remember this… fondly.” She lowered his head back to her knee and began to stroke his hair. “Go fetch the falconers. Tell them to bring their grooming supplies.”

At least one of the guards left. Danny couldn’t tell if more than that went just from the sound.

“Frostbite said you were looking for a book on Mouths,” she said. “I’m afraid I no longer have it. I had borrowed it from Ghost Writer and returned it some time ago. I know you pledged to return to Frostbite with a message from me. I will give you one momentarily. I know you do not have a very positive relationship with Ghost Writer. If you would, kindly, return here after bringing my message to Frostbite, I will give you a message to Ghost Writer as a sort of… peace offering. There are certain volumes I wish to borrow from him, regardless, and it would be very useful not to need another messenger.”

Danny, vaguely aware a response was needed, nodded.

“Thank you, Sir Phantom.” There were footsteps behind Danny. “Ah, the falconers, very good. I noticed you were picking at your wings earlier. I believe they can help you with that.”

That was the only warning Danny got before hands descended on his wings and he ascended into a state of bliss. Getting the gunk off his wings felt so good a few tears escaped from his eyes.

“There, there,” said Dora. “I will give you my message, and you can rest before you go back, yes?”

Danny nodded again, and Dora bent her head to touch her horns to his.

The sensation of the message settling inside him and that of the falconers tending his wings worked together to overwhelm him completely, but it only lasted a few minutes. When Dora straightened, she looked to her guards. “Please take him to one of the messenger rooms,” she said. “You know the ones.”

The guard picked Danny up, first like a kitten, then like a baby, which was distantly embarrassing. He couldn’t hold on to that feeling for long, though. Not when he was so tired. He fell asleep before they got where they were going.

Danny woke up starving and smelling food. He hardly noticed the nest-like bed he was in, the hypnotic patterns painted on the walls of the room, or even that he’d been sleeping in ghost form as he followed his nose out. Before he knew it, he was sitting at a great banquet table, piled high with food and eating, struggling to limit himself to his regular mouth as Dora watched indulgently from the other side of the table.

He wondered if he should turn human and start a conversation, but he didn’t know what that would do to the message he currently carried inside himself. He stayed in ghost form.

“As long as you are visiting the Ghost Writer, I would like you to take a message to him for us as well– Yes, before you ask, Mouths can hold more than one message,” said Frostbite, forestalling Danny from turning human to ask. “Well-trained ones can even choose which of multiple messages to play back, which is useful, but I don’t think you’re there, quite yet. But before you visit him, I need to clarify a few things with Princess Dora.”

Danny nodded and continued to gnaw on the odd, fist-sized nuts Frostbite had given him as a ‘snack.’ He had to go back there, anyway.

“I don’t know the answer to that,” said Dora. “Not on my own. You will need to go to Queen Pandora. Do you know the way to her kingdom?”

Danny did.

“Good, good,” said Dora. “I will send you to her with a message explaining everything. After you eat, of course.”

On the way to Pandora’s kingdom, Danny passed by a lot of violence, from small bands of ghosts fighting one another to groups that might very well be classified as armies. In a few cases, where he knew one side or another, and the groups were small, he intervened, but for the most part he avoided everyone. He wasn’t a stranger to fights, or even wars, considering what had happened with Pariah Dark, but the scale was new to him, and unsettling.

Not to mention how everyone else seemed to be getting bigger and tougher while he only felt more and more delicate.

He glanced at his feathers. They and his wings seemed to be the only part of him getting bigger other than his hair. Beneath the red ectoplasm stains, he could see traces of that silver filigree winding down into them as well. It was all over his body, now, raised lines wrapping around the scattered gem-like scales. It made him look decorated, or decorative, like a weird kind of statue. Except for the whole horror mouth, horns, tail, claws, ears combination. That sort of broke the illusion.

It still set him apart from the other ghosts, and he didn’t like that, even if he didn’t want to be like that. It had to be some weird human pack instinct…

He reached the spot Pandora’s kingdom usually stood, and looked around, confused. There was nothing there except for blasted black and red pseudo-volcanic rock. Nothing… except for a hole in the ground, a tunnel leading down.

No. It couldn’t be. But the other option was that Pandora’s kingdom had been destroyed, and Danny couldn’t consider that, not yet.

He flew down. The tunnel was just large enough for Danny to enter while standing upright, but the sense of uncertainty about the size gave Danny the impression that would be the case no matter who approached it. The edge was carved with crude Greek letters. TARTARUS, they said.

Okay, then. Danny entered.

Inside was dark and claustrophobic. Within ten paces of the entrance, the tunnel curved sharply, blocking off the light from the entrance. Danny, not wanting to navigate by his glow alone, lit an ectoblast in his hand. Then it thinned and twisted again, forcing Danny to tuck his wings in and shimmy sideways. Thankfully, it opened back up, but then the sides of the tunnel became thorned and spiky. Danny strongly considered going human and just phasing through everything, but he once again forced himself to remember that doing that might make him lose the message. He didn’t really want to do this twice.

The tunnel split.

It was a labyrinth. Of course it was. Danny had preferred the hedges.

Danny decided to go right. He was immediately attacked.

He didn’t get a good look at his assailant, beyond a long muzzle and flashing teeth. A few good ectoblasts and claw swipes drove it off. Danny absently licked the blood from his fingers and continued on.

It wasn’t the last time Danny was attacked, and by the time he emerged into a vast cavern packed with Greek-style buildings carved from the cave walls and stalactites and stalagmites, he was grimy, bruised, and tired. At once, he was accosted by a group of spear-carrying warriors. They dragged him inside a building surrounded by stone carvings of fruit trees, then to a pool inside it. Pandora was lounging near it, her feet dangling in the water.

Danny opened his mouth and let the message - in Dora’s voice - spill out. Then his legs folded underneath him and he laid down.

“I will, of course, return you with an answer,” said Pandora, He turned his head just enough to look up at her. She was about the same size as she had been before, but her skin color had deepened to a rich purple-red. Four long bull-like horns extended from her head. “But I think you might appreciate a bath, first?” She gestured to the pool, and he saw, now, that it was only one part of what appeared to be a larger bathing complex. One that was full of bathers.

Danny blushed, but nodded. After the labyrinth, he wanted to be clean.

A group of bath attendants chivvied him into one of the pools and, somehow, stole the jeans he’d borrowed from Sam. In ghost form… demon form, whatever, he didn’t really have anything down there, not since he’d changed, but still. Naked.

He sank deeper in the water, spreading his wings out over the surface and letting the grime wash away. The warmth of the water was both soothing and uncomfortable, making his ice core feel loose and melty. The temperature eased higher. His muscles were completely relaxed, but his core was uneasy.

“Don’t fall asleep,” said a bath attendant, prodding him. “Queen Pandora wants us to show you how to take care of your own wings.”

Danny didn’t want to move, but with all the prodding, and the knowledge that dozing off probably wouldn’t be good for him, he made an attempt. But his attempt was clumsy, half asleep, and it didn’t please the attendants.

“Ah! I give up!” said the attendant. “I should have known a Mouth like you would be too useless and lazy even to take care of themselves!” They finished rinsing him off perfunctorily before dragging him from the pool and throwing a chiton over his shoulder. He was ushered quickly through the bathhouse, stumbling under the weight of his waterlogged wings. They shoved him through the doors and he collapsed, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes.

“Oh, dear,” said Pandora, gesturing him closer to where she laid on a couch sized for her huge frame. “What’s the matter?”

Danny, his wings still wet with water, crawled closer to Pandora until she picked him up and set him down on the couch, next to her hip. He curled in on himself, burying his face in his knees even as he kept his long ears oriented towards Pandora. He couldn’t say anything.

“Are you hurt?”

Danny shook his head. His injuries from the maze were mild enough that he didn’t want to bother anyone about them.

“Are you sick?”

No, Danny didn’t think so, although he certainly didn’t feel right.

“Was someone unpleasant to you?”

Danny nodded. He wasn’t even sure why this was bothering him so much. Normally, it wouldn’t. They weren’t really mean to him, just… He wiped tears out of his eyes again.

“There are many people in this world who will not like you, simply for who and what you are. That’s only more reason to cherish those who do like you, isn’t it?”

Yes, that was true, that was right.

“You will cherish them, won’t you? Your friends and allies?”

Danny nodded. Pandora smiled and handed him a crystalline orange. Danny’s brain must still be fried, because he began to gnaw on it. To his surprise, his teeth cracked the surface before too long had passed, and he crunched the shards into gem dust before swallowing and licking his lips. Pandora patted him on the head, smiling.

“You will cherish them. Now, go to sleep.”

He was out like a light.

In the morning, Danny was too embarrassed to even look at Pandora, although he kept his ears pricked and still nodded or shook his head when she asked him questions, and generally did not resist when she adjusted his position or patted his head.

“... and this will keep you from getting attacked in the labyrinth,” she said, fastening a bracelet around his wrist. “Although, you will still need to find your own way through the maze.”

Danny perked up and examined it. It was simple bronze impressed with the Greek key, a golden thread wrapped around it, and it fit perfectly around his wrist. Danny looked up at Pandora, hoping to convey his gratitude. Going through the labyrinth like that, although far from the worst thing he had ever done, had been awful.

“It’s the least I can do, when you are so likely to have to come back. Frostbite’s proposal will require quite a bit of back and forth. Pandora patted his head again. “And you still have the message?”

Danny nodded. He wasn’t sure how he could lose it. It was inside him.

“Then it’s time for you to be off.”

Danny emerged from the labyrinth and shook out his wings. He was happy to be above ground where he could fly again and–

Wait.

He twisted and reached back. Below his first two wings were two smaller wings. When– When had that happened?

He shook himself. He was on his way back to Frostbite anyway. He would get a checkup to make sure everything was okay then.

As Pandora predicted, many more messages had to be delivered before she, Frostbite, and Dora worked out… whatever they were talking about. Danny still didn’t know, because the messages were all in languages he couldn’t speak. He thought it would be better if they just met up with each other and talked face-to-face, but he could acknowledge that he wasn’t exactly up on current Zone politics. More pertinently, he was always carrying messages he didn’t want to lose, and he still hadn’t been able to take a moment to determine whether or not changing form got rid of them.

That was at least partially Danny’s fault, though. Unless he was completely spent, he always wanted to deliver his messages right away. Delivering messages was tiring, especially since they just seemed to get longer and longer. And there were so many distractions. Like food. Holding the messages made him… somewhat less hungry, but whenever he was given anything to eat, he just couldn’t say no. Not that he could say anything, anyway.

Then there were things like the baths in Pandora’s kingdom, which he always needed badly after a trip through the labyrinth but which also always left him feeling melted and emotionally inept, or the painted walls in Dora’s ‘messenger rooms’ which were so entrancing that he was sure he’d lost hours staring at them, the medical checkups Frostbite insisted Danny go through regularly and which got weirder as both Danny and the yetis changed more and more, and the fights between the Realms that got more and more vicious as time went on.

More than once, Danny had been chased by soldiers with nets.

But Danny was getting used to it. Just like he was getting used to how his body was changing slowly even without turning back and forth from human form to ghost form, or how tiny he was compared to literally everyone else. Even Sidney Poindexter towered over him when they passed each other in Dora’s castle. Apparently, Poindexter was part of something called the ‘Knight’ caste.

Although, one thing he wasn’t getting used to was not being able to ask questions. The Zone was changing so much around him and everything seemed infinitely interesting, so new, so strange, and he couldn’t ask questions. Not even the most basic ones about what he was, although he knew Frostbite was trying to get him the information he craved by telling him about that book. Otherwise, the best Danny could do was watch and listen. He was getting good at that, though, and according to Frostbite’s checkups, Danny’s eyes and ears were getting bigger. Even so, there were limits to observation when so often he was barely capable of thinking.

It helped that Frostbite, Pandora, and Dora were all being so… so soft with him, so gentle. They were really putting a lot of work into taking care of him when the only thing he could do was deliver messages and then fall over. It made him feel sort of guilty.

But just as his little mail route started to feel routine, the three of them resolved the issue and sent him off to Ghost Writer stuffed full of messages.

Ghost Writer’s library had always been imposing. It had also been sort of comical. The front of the building had been sculpted to resemble a shelf of books for goodness’ sake.

It was no longer comical. Now it was gothic, full of wrought iron spikes, roses that looked a little too like blood blossoms for comfort wending up the sides.

Nothing for it. Danny went and knocked on the oversized door. He knocked again. He started knocking and kept knocking until Ghost Writer himself yanked the door open with a sharp “What?” Then he froze, looking down at Danny. “Phantom?”

Spitefully, Danny opened his mouth and let the messages play.

At the beginning, Ghost Writer’s posture was hostile and sharp, but it slumped into something defeated about halfway through before resolving into resignation. “I don’t have the book.”

Danny frowned at him.

“Clockwork bought it from me,” said Ghost Writer in a highly aggrieved tone. “Just before the aesthetic changed. He gave me– Oh! It doesn’t matter! I can see that he got the better part of the deal, the old cheater. Well. Come in.” He pushed back, away from the doorframe. “I’ll give you what the Princess, Queen Pandora, and Chief Frostbite want.”

Danny flew after Ghost Writer, a little wary of entering the library. He was also a little confused. The messages, altogether, had been shorter than usual, and he didn’t feel nearly so tired as he usually did after delivery. Maybe there was some correlation between length and fatigue…?

Inside, the library was just as gothic as it was outside. The bookshelves were ebony. All the books were bound in shades of blood or rose red.

“Don’t touch anything.” He lugged a metal box from under his desk, then two more just like it. “You don’t know what these are, do you?”

Danny shook his head.

“Typical,” muttered Ghost Writer. “These are messenger boxes, for Mouths.” He smiled, some malice in the expression. “They’re made of special materials, too tough for you to drive your little teeth through. I fill them up with their books and you take them back. In your mouth.”

Danny blinked as Ghost Writer started to fill the boxes with books and twisted his head to try and read the titles. Wouldn’t it be better to carry them in his hands, even if they were bulky…?

“Keeps thieves from taking the packages or something.”

Oh, that was okay, then. If this was how it was done, he’d at least try.

Ghost Writer finished filling the boxes, then latched them closed and stepped away.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said when Danny continued to gaze at him. “I’m not putting my hands anywhere near your mouth. You can do that yourself.”

Danny approached the boxes dubiously. All of them were at least two feet long. He wasn't sure they'd fit. But he opened his mouth and, well. Grabbing something with his mouth was pretty reflexive, he was sorry to say.

It felt… Well, it felt like holding something in his mouth. But also like something was just shy of triggering his gag reflex. He kept trying to reflexively chew on the boxes, but there was no give to them, which was unfair.

… Did he really just think that? Was he so hungry these days that he really wanted to eat the library books his friends were checking out?

He hoped it was just a reflex. Just… Yeah.

But the strangest part of this was that although the boxes definitely were large enough to bulge through his skin, large enough they shouldn't fit all together, they weren’t visible at all on the outside of his body. Another point for weird ghost physics.

“You have them. Good. Now get out.”

Danny looked up at Ghost Writer, startled.

“You heard me,” he said. “Get out of here.”

“It’s alright, Great One. You can do it.”

Danny was… not quite sweating. He didn’t sweat in ghost form. Demon form. Whatever he should call it, now that he had animal ears and a tail, long, curling horns, and a disturbing fixation on eating things. He was, however, becoming progressively more stressed and angry with himself as he continued to try and fail to drop the message box labeled for Frostbite.

Every time he got close to finally doing it, either his tongues or his teeth reflexively clenched around the box, forcing him to start all over again.

“Perhaps you could try to drop all the boxes,” said another yeti who had been talking to Frostbite before Danny found him.

Danny looked at him askance. No, he couldn’t. Those boxes were for Dora and Pandora.

“Perhaps we should take a break,” suggested Frostbite. “Give you some time to rest.”

Danny shook his head. He couldn’t give up just because something was hard.

“You know you won’t be able to safely eat anything else until you let go of those.”

That was certainly an additional and very powerful motivation.

Slowly, stooped over and his hands holding back the petals of his mouth, Danny relaxed his tongues enough that the Box slipped free and hit the floor with a clang. He leaned back, letting most of his mouth close. His upper mouth remained open, his split tongue lolling out as he panted.

"Very good," said Frostbite, stroking Danny's head with the very tip of his smallest claw. From a distance, it looked sharp, but from Danny's perspective it was blunt and rounded, the diameter just barely smaller than that of his head. "Now, all you have to do is bring Dora and Pandora theirs." He continued to pet Danny, but shifted so that he was sort of looming over him. Not that Frostbite could do anything but loom over Danny. Snowflakes drifted down from his mane and settled unmelting on Danny's skin. Danny wondered if the yetis knew they each had their own weather system. "Once you have done that, come back here. We have messages for Clockwork, too.”

Dora and Pandora had messages for Clockwork, too, long ones, so it was a very bloated-feeling Danny who landed in front of the shiny brass doors of Clockwork’s lair, Long Now. He paused before knocking, examining himself in their mirrored surface. It had been a while since he had really looked at himself.

His ears and horns completed for real estate on his head. His hair hung halfway down his neck, almost to his shoulders. His wings were larger than he’d thought, and the secondary pair was almost as long as the first. His hands and feet were hugely oversized, giving him a kitten-like appearance. His eyes were big enough that his default expression could be read as innocent curiosity… which was fair enough. That did seem to be the main thing he tried to emote these days.

Experimentally, he started making other expressions. To his distaste, almost all of them parted his upper lips enough to see the fangs in his regular, upper mouth. He put his neutral, curious expression back on. Much better. His mouth should only be open when he was eating, or delivering a message.

Except… except, maybe, when he was in human form. Then, it should be… acceptable to open his mouth to talk. Yes. That was the right word. Acceptable.

Danny raised his hand to knock on the doors, but they swung inwards. At the clear invitation, Danny flew inside.

Some things had remained the same about Long Now. It was still full of ticking. There were still gears set in the walls. Weights, chains, and bells still hung from the ceilings. But it had changed. Gone were the statues, gone was the stone masonry, gone was the verdigris and dust. All the walls were brass, wood, glass, or pale porcelain. Everything was polished to an aggressive, gleaming, brightness that contrasted sharply with the outside world and somehow felt more threatening than all of the spears of Dora’s Knights.

But, perhaps, the most unsettling change was the floor. The last time Danny had been here, it had been normal, unremarkable. Now it consisted entirely of enormous gears, each of them turning at a different speed, and on top of the gears and threaded into them were layers and layers of shifting, twitching chains. He stayed a healthy distance above them.

“Hello, Daniel. I have been expecting you.”

Danny whirled at the sound of the voice. He hadn’t seen Clockwork. He still didn’t see him. All he saw was a giant clock draped in purple… oh…

Like everyone else, Clockwork had changed. Danny supposed his new appearance only surprised Danny because Danny hadn’t been around to see it happen.

Clockwork was taller, obviously. About the same size Frostbite had been when the Zone first began to shift. But that was far from the most notable change. Clockwork’s face had widened and flattened, becoming pale and circular, his mouth and nose disappearing. Brass decorations crept around its edges. His eyes had multiplied and spread, so that there were twelve of them, evenly spaced around the rim of face and glowing bright. From behind the bronze rim spiraled two long, bronze horns, both polished to the same shine as all the other metal in this place.

Danny could still see the clock that had always been in Clockwork’s chest, but the numbers on it had been replaced with something spikier, and the rhythm of it had changed - not enough for Danny to identify the change, but enough for him to know it was there, enough to know that if he listened to it for long enough, it was all other clocks that would seem off. He could also see Clockwork’s ungloved hands, segmented and porcelain like a doll’s, and the brass mechanics underneath them.

“I understand you have messages for me,” said Clockwork.

Oh, right. He opened his mouth and let the messages play. When he was finished, he sank down to the ground, careless of the gears and chains. That really had been a lot. Maybe Clockwork would have a place for him to rest before sending him back out?

“I do,” said Clockwork, picking Danny up, “but I think you should eat first. You are hungry.”

Danny blinked blearily at Clockwork, unsure if that had been a question or a statement. The chains ran into and out of Clockwork’s robes, and they moved more when he moved. Danny gazed at them, trying to determine how that worked.

“In many ages,” said Clockwork, “I am integrated with Long Now. Bound to it, if you would. Although, I am bound to it regardless, sometimes the forces keeping me here have more… slack to them.”

He sat Danny down at one end of a long brass and wood table that spanned the diameter of a slowly turning gear. It and the chairs around it were bolted to the gear. From above, chains lowered… objects to the table. They were shiny geometric shapes.

“Eat,” said Clockwork, inclining his head. “They are quite edible for demons like us.”

Okay, then. Danny wasn’t the kind of person to reject food. Or, at least, he wasn’t any longer. Still, he was tired enough that he ate slowly, watching as the room rotated slowly around them. Everything was so bright and shiny it was beginning to hurt his eyes, but closing them would be rude, he was sure, and he didn’t want to be rude to someone who was feeding him. Eventually, his eyes landed on Clockwork’s face as the least shiny thing, and he watched as Clockwork’s eyes blinked open and closed, mimicking the movement of hour, minute, and second hands.

Clockwork began to speak, voice low and regular, rising and falling in time with the ticking of the clocks.

Next thing he knew, he was done eating. He shook himself, blinking hard. He felt like– He– He opened his eyes. Something had happened there. He didn’t know what. Already, his certainty that something had happened was softening. Nothing looked out of place. With how drained he had felt, he probably was just zoning out, daydreaming.

“All done?” asked Clockwork.

Danny nodded. He could eat more… but, then, he could almost always eat more. He had other things to worry about, like whether or not Clockwork would want Danny to take a message back to one of the other three. Or all of them. But Danny couldn’t repeat messages multiple times, yet. He would, he hoped, be able to do that eventually.

“The messages you brought me mentioned, among other things, a book regarding Mouths,” said Clockwork, rising and moving around to Danny’s side of the table. “I do have the book, but I do not believe it would do you much good.”

Danny frowned at him. What did he mean?

“See for yourself,” said Clockwork, taking a red and black bound book out from inside his robes. He set it on the table in front of Danny.

The symbols on the cover were unfamiliar to him. Careful not to let his claws damage the book, he picked it up and let it fall open to a random page. There were black and white illustrations on it of a series of people who looked remarkably like he currently did. Wings, horns, horribly extended mouths… Not all quite in the same arrangement as Danny’s, no. One unfortunate had eight wings. Another’s mouth was extended down from the corners, not from the center, like Danny’s. None of them seemed to have skin or scales quite like his, either. Even so, they were all definitely the same kind of thing.

All of the words on the page were in a language he didn’t know. He couldn’t even recognize the script.

“It’s formal court Demonic,” said Clockwork.

Oh, that’s what– Wait. How–?

“How am I doing that?” asked Clockwork out loud, echoing Danny’s thought. “So long as you are not carrying a message, if you become frustrated enough, you return to human form to ask your question. I do believe that looking ahead is more efficient. Also, your ears and tail tend to give you away. They are very expressive.” He ran a porcelain finger along the velvety back of one of Danny’s ears, making all of Danny’s hair stand on end even as he immediately began to plot to get Clockwork to do it again.

But back on topic… Was there an English translation of the book, somewhere?

“There is not,” said Clockwork. “This is the only extant copy.”

Maybe he could get Frostbite - No, his eyes were big enough now that even this book, massive as it was, would be too small for him to read. Dora or Pandora, then? But they were so busy… Clockwork? He looked up hopefully.

“As it turns out, there is a simple technique for teaching Mouths other languages.” He pulled another book from within his robes. “This is a textbook designed to teach the Demonic language. A Mouth may learn a language by digesting several of these, one after another.”

Digest as in…?

“Yes, I do mean eat. I will have one prepared for you every time you return.”

Return? Not that Danny didn’t want to, of course. He reached for the book, which Clockwork relinquished easily.

“My correspondence with Dora, Pandora, and Frostbite will take some time, and likely several exchanges.”

Oh. Of course. Danny had known that. He examined the textbook a little longer. Well. If Clockwork said it was okay… and he was still hungry. He shoved the book in his mouth before Clockwork could change his mind.

Clockwork chuckled, tick tick tick, and stroked the back of Danny’s ear again. Danny practically melted. So good.

“I shall record my messages and show you the place I have set aside for you to sleep.”

Danny nodded, his eyes still on Clockwork’s hands. Up close, his finger-segments had a similar filigree pattern to the one on Danny’s skin. Even though in everything else other than color, his and Clockwork’s hands were completely different, the sight still made something settle inside him. He didn’t think about it for very long, though, because Clockwork was touching his horns to Danny’s, and receiving a message was always a bit… consuming.

Clockwork’s message wasn’t too long, though. “There we go,” said Clockwork. “Bedtime.” He slid away from the table.

Danny tried to follow him but he found his legs were bound to the legs of the chair. He twisted to look down. Fine brass chains had wound around his legs up to his knees.

“My apologies,” said Clockwork. The chains begrudgingly unwrapped themselves. “I do not have as much control over them as I would like. Perhaps in the future, I will improve.”

Danny knew what that felt like, so he shrugged. Being stuck for a moment wasn’t a problem.

This got Danny another ear stroke, this time on the other side. He was going to get spoiled.

Then, Clockwork flew upwards, towards all the bells and weights dangling from the ceiling. Danny followed him, avoiding a few taut chains that stretched across the empty space to feed into gears on either side of the tower. There, nestled amidst the bells, was a birdcage.

The cage was big enough for Clockwork to fit in it, and the bars were close enough together that Danny would not be able to worm his way out. Inside were amenities such as a bed, a bedside table, a bird swing the same scale as the cage, and a vanity with brushes and wing-picks. Towards the top of the cage were rolled lengths of fabric which were clearly intended to roll down to cover the cage.

Danny balked.

“I know it is not, perhaps, ideal,” said Clockwork, “but it is the only way to keep the chains out.”

Well. Danny didn’t want to wake up wrapped in chains, and that bed did look comfortable, birdcage or not. It had lots of pillows. Still…

He watched as Clockwork demonstrated that the cage door did not lock and then held the door open for him. His eyes trailed up to the top of the cage and the curtains.

“I imagine it will be hard for you to sleep without them,” said Clockwork.

That was a good point. It was very bright in here. And, despite his brief rest with the meal, the day's activities were catching up to him and it was becoming harder and harder to stay airborne.

"Daniel, I am not usually so direct, but if you fall out of the air, not only will I tuck you into that bed myself, I will also find a lock to put on this door, so you don't get it into your head to leave before you are rested."

Chastised, Danny slunk past Clockwork. But, feeling just a little contrary, he didn’t go to the bed. Instead he sat at the vanity and gave Clockwork a challenging look.

“That is what it is there for,” said Clockwork. “Rest well, Daniel.” He closed the cage door and left.

Well. Okay then. He picked up one of the brushes. He did need to get some of the red ectoplasm and ash gunk out of his wings. It felt gross, as always, and he had picked up some things between the falconers and Pandora’s bath attendants.

But he couldn’t keep it up for long, and soon he was dozing off between brushstrokes and, oh! The blinds were on automatic, run by one of Clockwork’s chains. He’d wondered.

He put the brush down and crawled into the bed. The backs of the blinds, he saw as they reached the bottom of the cage, were painted in the same pattern as the messenger room in Dora’s castle. Maybe they were a gift from her to Clockwork?

Long Now became a new, comfortable stop on Danny’s route. Clockwork, like Frostbite, tried to explain things in ways that Danny could understand, but unlike with Frostbite, Danny felt like he was really having conversations with Clockwork, thanks to his ability to look ahead and see what Danny wanted to ask.

Flying started to feel different as the pieces of land in the Zone started to clump together more and more. Volcanoes were getting common, for one thing. Probably all the ash in the air was from more distant ones. Seeing flying ghosts was getting rarer. These days, the only people Danny saw flying were ones with wings. Everyone else marched on the ground.

“As we shift from being ghosts to being demons,” said Clockwork, offering Danny another textbook to eat, “our abilities shift as well. You will probably notice many people losing their auras soon, although you are likely to keep yours.”

But Danny had thought the shift was only aesthetic. And why would he be an exception?

“Are our abilities not part of our aesthetic?” asked Clockwork. “And you are not exactly an exception, per-se. Your caste is designed to be flashy, visible. You notice, do you not, how easily you stand out against most natural landscapes.” He lifted the edge of Danny’s wing, showing off its white feathers.

So, did that mean he couldn’t turn invisible anymore? Or go through walls? Not that he could test that second one while he was in the Zone.

“Well,” said Clockwork, “when was the last time you tried?”

Putting it that way… Danny went invisible. He could still do it, but it was definitely harder. He let himself fade back into visibility.

“There are, as always, outliers,” said Clockwork, amused. “It would be useful if you could keep that ability.”

Useful. Clockwork and the others were using that word as a compliment a lot, lately. He was useful, his messages were useful… It was becoming sort of attention-grabbing for him. A positive trigger. On the other hand, being called useless…

“If those fools of Pandora’s are giving you a hard time, I can mention it in my next message.”

Danny shook his head. He didn’t want to get anyone in trouble. He got the impression they were just jealous.

“If that is your preference. It is time for you to sleep, now.”

Obediently, Danny flew himself to his birdcage and shut the door behind him.

Danny listened to a group of yetis argue. An argument between yetis sounded like an apocalypse, and shook the snow from nearby mountains. Danny was avoiding the avalanches by hiding in Frostbite’s mane.

His latest message from Clockwork had set this argument off. Something about nearby demon princes and the Observants. Or, the Observants counting as a demon prince. Or about the groups that held the land between the Time Locked Lands and the Far Frozen becoming more aggressive. Or about them being conquered. Danny got the impression that the topic had shifted a few times, and he lacked a great deal of context.

He sort of wanted to ask Clockwork to give him books about whatever language everyone was using for messages, too, so he could understand better. Although, on the other hand, he got the feeling that a lot of what he carried was military secrets, so… He might just be better off not knowing.

The argument eventually wound down, and Frostbite plucked him from his mane. “I am sorry you had to hear that, Great One.”

Danny shrugged as best he could in Frostbite’s grip.

“Are you ready to eat?” asked Frostbite.

Danny nodded vigorously. He hadn’t been as hungry lately, with all the messages he was carrying in his stomach, but there was no way he’d ever turn down food.

One morning… or, well. It wasn’t really morning in the Zone. But when he woke up, he stretched and looked at himself in the birdcage’s vanity mirror. Ugh. He’d thought his lower back had been weirdly itchy last night. Turns out he’d been growing another set of wings. Fun. At least nothing else had changed in a while. Chitons worked fine for him, but, wow, was Sam going to have trouble designing anything modern that would work with all this.

He went through his morning routine and flew down to where Clockwork waited by the long table. He was holding a book. The book, Danny now realized.

“I think you should be ready, now,” said Clockwork, pleasantly. He put the book on the table in front of Danny.

He could read it!

The book was titled The Training and Use of Mouths, a Complete Primer for the Rising Demon Prince. Danny opened the cover, and turned pages carefully with a bent knuckle until he reached a table of contents.

Chapter 1: Qualities of Mouths

Chapter 2: The Training of Mouths

Section 1: Initial Training

Section 2: Messengers

Section 3: Songbirds

Section 4: Training for Other Specialties

Chapter 3: The Uses of Mouths

Section 1: Traditional Uses

Section 2: Taking Advantage of Loyalty

Section 3: Mouths as Weapons

Section 4: Mouths as Status Symbols

Chapter 4: The Care of Mouths

Section 1: Physical Care

Section 2: Social Care

Chapter 5: Incorporating Mouths into a Typical Court

Appendix A: Materials

Appendix B: Other Modifications

That was… hm. This seemed oriented more towards people who were in positions of authority over Mouths rather than Mouths themselves, but he was sure it would still be useful to him. At least, if he knew the traditional uses of Mouths, he might be able to do them better, if he was asked.

Danny flipped pages back and forth, reading a passage here and a passage there, not quite ready to tackle the whole thing in order.

Mouths are voracious, even ravenous, omnivores, especially when they are not carrying messages. However, they rarely gain weight, unless they are recovering from malnourishment. It is unclear where the things they eat go. Their hunger is a great benefit to those wishing to impress one to their service, or those wishing to train one, as they are highly food-motivated.

Among other castes, Mouths have a reputation for being vain and lazy. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. This stereotype arises from their atypical docility, lack of territoriality and ambition, and sensitivity regarding their feathered wings. Mouths will rarely start fights. However, this should not lead to the assumption that they are weak. Recall that Prince Morningstar used legions of Mouths in his armies, and they were terribly effective.

For those concerned about their Mouth’s food needs, it is important to note both that they are true omnivores and that their food intake drops drastically when they are regularly carrying messages.

Even more than the Knight caste, Mouths are loyal. They rarely alter their allegiance after their first moon-cycle of existence, and changes of allegiance after a sun-cycle are unheard of except in cases of extreme coercive force. Even the waters of the Lethe are not effective on their own.

On occasion, Princes especially concerned with the loyalty and discretion of their Mouth - or perhaps wary of the resourcefulness of their enemies - would fit the Mouth with a carcanet, or collar. This carcanet would prevent the Mouth from opening and repeating the message unless it was first unlocked and removed. Generally, only the Mouth’s master and those they regularly corresponded with would have keys. In some cases, where the Prince only used the Mouth as a medium to receive messages with, only the Prince themselves would possess a key.

It is important to note that only ghosts of a certain strength can properly impart a message to a Mouth. A Mouth that is too much stronger than the one giving the message will not be able to receive it.

There are two subsets of Mouths. Messengers and songbirds. Messengers are in a more natural state, and are the type most discussed in this book. Songbirds are created by repeatedly filling Mouths to their limit with messages consisting of musical compositions and preventing them from discharging those messages, typically either through excellent discipline training or a carcanet, until the messages are digested. Through this process, the songbird will eventually develop a ‘voice’ consisting of the musical compositions used in this process. However, this should not be mistaken for a true voice, as the songbird has little control over what they are ‘saying.’

A less common use for Mouths is as a disposal for cursed or inconvenient magical artifacts. Even very powerful artifacts can be digested by a Mouth in a matter of cycles. This does not come without side effects, however, and the wise Prince would do well to expect the Mouth to be unusable for the duration.

Danny, disquieted, returned to the table of contents, and found the section titled Initial Training.

Training of Mouths should begin as soon as their wings and feathers grow in. Assuming the Mouth is not already familiar with and positively inclined towards the prospective trainer, their cooperation may be easily secured with a promise of food. Then, a short message, no more than two sentences, should be recorded on the Mouth. The prince may accomplish this by touching their horns to the Mouth's and focusing on "pushing" the desired message into them. This should feel similar to sharing energy with Knights or imparting instructions to Hands, but less taxing. The message should then be delivered by instructing the Mouth to attempt to speak.

Some difficulty can occur if the Mouth was mute prior to becoming a Mouth. If this is the case, the author humbly suggests that the prince reading this guide consider training the Mouth as a songbird (see section 3 of this chapter for more details).

The Realms in Their wisdom create Mouths in such a way that they find both the receipt and delivery of messages pleasant, and many Mouths also have Obsessions that align with these ingrained instincts, which increases the effect. However, if the message delivered is as the prince intended, the Mouth ought to be fed regardless of whether or not food was promised to it. This not only associates reward with the acts of receiving and delivering messages, but also with the prince themselves.

If the message was not correctly recorded, the prince may try again. If the recording continues to fail, the Mouth may be defective (see chapter 4, Care, for more details).

While the Mouth is eating, and therefore receptive, they should then be asked to deliver a message elsewhere. The receiver should either be one of the prince’s own retainers or a close ally, to prevent the Mouth from being stolen by enemies. This message should be as long as it is possible for the Mouth to hold. The prince will be able to sense when this limit is reached by a feeling of heightened resistance when recording the message.

Delivering a message of this length will exhaust the Mouth, allowing the receiver to care for the Mouth by giving it food, grooming, and a place to rest (see chapter 4, Care, for more details, and Appendix A: Materials for grooming tools). During this time, the receiver can then ask the Mouth to carry a message in return.

This pattern of exhausting the Mouth, caring for it and rewarding it, and making a further request should be continued with small alterations each time. Alterations may include things like changing locations or kind of reward, slowly changing requests to expectations and orders, and package training.

One new to the training of Mouths might be surprised to find package training to be part of initial training, however this author finds that–

"They are using you to cement their alliance," said Clockwork, leaning over Danny's shoulder. "They are all quite fond of you, personally, and your utility is high. I believe the alliance will be successful." He leaned back and started carding his fingers through Danny's hair. “Why does it matter that they like you? You have read that Mouths are loyal. For those he owes that loyalty to to break with one another… It would be very damaging to you, Daniel, even now, and they do not want to hurt you. This alliance is very important, but given the pressures of these forms… The aggressions engendered by red ectoplasm…”

Danny could understand it. An alliance between the Far Frozen, the Time Locked Lands, and Pandora’s Tartarus would keep the peoples of those lands far safer than they would have been on their own. Danny was flattered, honored, that he had been able to help, that they trusted him so much, that they liked him so much that they considered hurting him to be a strong disincentive to betrayal, but he would have liked to have been asked before being made a lynchpin.

“I would like to join them. In this aesthetic, the chains that bind me to Long Now are both stronger and… more literal. As you might imagine, having the Observants as my sole contact with the outside world is distasteful to me." Clockwork began to twist Danny’s hair into a braid. "I would ask you to help me."

See? Clockwork got it. Danny nodded. Of course he would help. If he was already delivering messages for Frostbite, Dora, and Pandora, it wasn't like it was an imposition. And he'd always asked these guys if he could help them, and the answer had always been no for so long.

Clockwork chuckled, the sound clicking and mechanical. "You do not need to decide just yet. I am perfectly happy to give you all the time you need to consider your options."

That just prompted Danny to nod more vigorously. He wanted to help. He wanted to be useful.

Which, maybe, he shouldn’t, considering what he had just read. The instructions in that book laid out how to manipulate someone like him, and his friends, his allies, had followed the steps perfectly. They’d done it for a good reason, sure, but… It should have shaken him to the core, and it did. But he didn’t exactly dislike what he had been doing. He could have stopped at any time. He’d enjoyed it. Carrying the messages had been oddly fulfilling, he’d enjoyed the positive attention, he was well fed, well rested, clean, useful, and he hadn’t gotten into a fight since– since–

A flush of panic spread from Danny’s heart to his extremities. How long had he spent running messages? How long had he been away from home?

Clockwork wrapped his hands around Danny’s horns, grounding him. He hadn’t known holding his horns could do that, but of course Clockwork would. He’d read the book.

“It has only been a season,” said Clockwork, calmly, despite the not at all soothing content of his words. “When you leave here, immediately return to the human world and only transform to your human form when you are near a hospital.” He lowered his hands to Danny’s wings and began to clean them methodically. “You have not been human for some time, and there are consequences to that. Tell them that you were kidnapped and drugged, and do not remember where you were. Your body will corroborate your story, as it will be somewhat malnourished, although not dangerously so. I would like to borrow seven of your eye-feathers.”

One of Danny’s ears rotated back towards Clockwork, questioning.

“It is to make something for you, and us. There is a section about it in that book.” Clockwork leaned over Danny’s shoulder and turned to a page in the appendices. It was labeled Sympathetic Summoning Rings and included an illustration of a Mouth wearing two shiny metal rings around the bases of their horns. “Two for your horns, one for me, one for Princess Dorathea, one for Queen Pandora, one for Chief Frostbite, and one for your sister. So you know when you are needed by one of us, and when you are needed at home.”

Yes. Jazz would like something like that. Especially considering how badly he had lost track of time. He nodded his agreement and Clockwork plucked the feathers so quickly he barely felt it.

“I also think that you may be able to do more than act as a simple messenger. After all, you are not only a demon,” he continued, answering Danny’s unspoken question. “Do you not think that a truly loyal ambassador might be useful? One who might negotiate, not merely repeat messages? That even in this troubled age of demons, you might help broker peace?”

Oh. Oh. No, he hadn’t considered that, but now he wanted it, and he wanted it with an intensity that left him rather… bemused. He hadn’t been this passionate about things like this before, had he?

“That is because protecting your town took up most of your time and attention. You have been… reoriented and redirected. Before, you acted against your ghostly nature in many ways, in your obedience to the authority figures of your hometown and your desire to conform. Now, you act in accordance with your demonic nature with that same obedience. But even if you could act as a scout, would that not be helpful? Would that not be useful?”

No longer at all upset, Danny nodded. Yes, he would be useful. He still felt… bad… that he’d been away from home so long, though, and he couldn’t help but wonder if someone had gotten hurt.

“Amity Park is safe,” said Clockwork. “For the most part, the princes are turning their attention towards enemies closer to home. It is unusual for a demon prince to conquer enough of the Realms to feel secure in attempting to invade the Earth. Pariah was, as you have correctly concluded, the last one to do so, and he was betrayed quite handily by his subordinates for his pride. Besides, your rival, Vladimir, is territorial enough to defend it in your absence.”

That was a relief.

Clockwork finished Danny’s wings and patted his shoulders. “One more thing you should know, before you leave,” he said. “The Observants have started to work to occlude my vision of nearby events. I have been timing your departures to help you avoid enemies, but until whatever tool they are using is stolen or destroyed…” He shrugged, indicating his inability to see.

Danny wondered if this was why Clockwork had shown Danny the book today, rather than waiting for another time.

“It did affect my decision,” admitted Clockwork. “You can stay here until you are ready to go, of course. Perhaps someone will destroy their tools for us, and I will be able to send you on with a clear conscience.”

That would be nice. But Sam and Tucker had to be worried out of their minds, not to mention Jazz. Danny wasn’t sure what a ‘season’ meant to Clockwork, but thinking back… Yeah. It could have been months.

What had he been thinking? How did he lose track of time so badly? How could anyone? Why didn’t it occur to him that he should go home? It’s not like he’d forgotten about his friends and family.

“During these shifts, our new instincts can grip us quite strongly. It isn’t a moral failing to fall into them.”

Alright. He was just going to chalk it up to ghost… to demon weirdness and let it go.

But he also had to go. Now that he’d noticed, he couldn’t delay.

Danny flew high over the battlefields, occasionally snatching imps out of the air with his tongues if they passed too close to him. It had been a while since he traveled without a message or at least a package, and he felt both light and empty.

The landscape had changed so much… There wasn’t a hint of green anywhere, except on his wings and in the spilled blood-ectoplasm of a few unfortunate demons.

As Danny got further from Long Now, he had to dodge more random attacks. No one was really flying after him, but ectoblasts fired from the ground were still annoying, and once he passed a group with siege engines, and that had been more annoying. It kept him on high alert.

About a quarter of the way back to the portal, he started to feel like he was being watched. The feeling kept increasing. He turned himself invisible, and changed directions. This might lose a casual follower, but if he was getting followed by something really nasty that could see through his ruse, he’d rather face it in the Time Locked Lands with Dora’s armies at his back. Or, preferably, at his front.

Not having to fight all that much for ‘a season’ really had spoiled him.

But he’d miscalculated. The density of the rain of ectoblasts that came down at him made invisibility a moot point.

Danny called up an ice shield and twisted as he fell, trying to stay airborne despite the burns on his wings. He built another shield beneath his first, and let that one fly outwards as a hundred tiny knives of ice. He was rewarded with grunts of pain as Observants fell from the sky around him, apparently too distracted by their injuries to stay flying.

Observants. Of course. And of course they managed to keep some ghost powers, too, even as they mutated into horrible gargoyle-like creatures with eyeballs instead of faces and stony wings.

They were above him in the air, for the most part. That was dangerous. If he wanted to escape them, he needed a superior altitude.

He dove, trying to gain distance, and then banked sharply up, dodging ectoblasts as best he was able. Even so, he could hear his shield cracking with impacts. The density of fire they could achieve when they all were shooting at once was just too high.

Another group cut off his escape, forcing him to swerve, and then, with a well-placed hit, drop further into a kind of gully that deepened further into a canyon cut by a slow-moving river of sludge.

… Actually, from the stink, this might be the River of Revulsion. Ick.

Even beyond the River of Revulsion being disgusting, this was very bad. He had to punch a hole out, now.

He swung to the side of the canyon, clung to rock with the talon-like claws on his feet, and called up an enormous ice field that spiked up from the ground. The Observants who had been lining that lip of the canyon scattered, and Danny flew up and out, winding his way between his ice spikes.

Come to think of it, this is what he and Frostbite had been practicing, when the age first began to change.

He shot off, as fast as he could go, staying close to the ground. When among the Observants, he’d wanted to get higher, but now the goal was to make himself as small a target as possible. Ectoblasts impacted the ground just behind him, and to either side, but he felt sure he was outpacing the Observants.

Then, the net.

The thing hit him hard, and, in turn, he hit the ground hard, rolling for who knows how long before he came to a stop and the thing immediately shocked him. Repeatedly. This wasn’t his first encounter with shock-happy jerks, though, and being shocked just gave him more of a reason to struggle, not less.

But the net was weighted, and the more he fought, the tighter it got. Even ice didn’t seem to have any effect on the net.

And then another net was dropped over him. And he was kicked so he rolled over and the second net tangled around him, too.

“I told you, you wouldn’t be able to catch him with your regular techniques,” said a familiar voice. Danny glared up at the faceplate of Skulker’s new armor. “Nothing personal, Phantom, but if I want to stay an independent bounty hunter, I have to deliver bounties.”

“Which you still haven’t,” wheezed an Observant. “Your contract was for his safe delivery to the Panopticon.”

Skulker sneered. “Fine.” He jabbed something sharp through the nets and into Danny’s arm.

Danny woke to the sensation of someone putting something around his neck. He lunged forward, claws out, or tried to. His hands and feet were chained securely to the surface of a table, where several Observants worked to file down his claws, in itself a horrible feeling.

He tried to open his mouth and attack with tooth and tongue, but he could only part his lips to the place where the underside of his jaw met his neck. That is, the upper edge of the collar, the carcanet, he had just been fitted with.

“Don’t look so surprised,” said what looked like a higher-ranked Observant, standing on a platform above Danny. “This is standard treatment for songbirds, which is all you’re good for.”

Danny did his best to ignore that chilling statement, and licked the back of his teeth. They hadn’t muzzled him. Their mistake. He spat his venom directly at the ranking Observant. It hit his cloak and ice began to spread over it rapidly. He continued to spit, sowing chaos throughout the room until someone thought to sedate him again.

He woke in a cage suspended in the center of a huge atrium. Observants scurried around, in the air, on the walls, and on the floor. Occasionally, a few of them would stop and… look at Danny, their gaze almost admiring, like they were looking at a work of art.

Danny didn’t like that.

Worse, several of his feathers, ones he thought were important, had been either pulled or cut out. He didn’t know how that would affect his ability to fly, but he didn’t imagine it would be good.

His lower legs and arms had been encased, from claw-tip to heel and claw-tip to elbow, in… in some sort of decorative covering. The material was heavy and didn’t bend, and was inscribed with the same motifs that decorated the walls and the Observants robes. The casings also trailed chains that led into tubes on the sides of the cage. Experimentally, he froze the material, but, paradoxically, it heated up, symbols glowing, and he stopped before he could give himself nasty burns.

And there was a muzzle, now. One that hooked onto his horns and put tension on them that felt, weirdly, both good and bad. Like there was supposed to be tension on his horns, just not like this.

Other than that, the cage was bare. Nothing on the floor, no comforts, no bed except for the bars. Not even any clothing for Danny. Someone had stolen his chiton. Jerks.

A group of Observants broke off from a larger gathering and flew to Danny’s cage. With a great deal of pomp, they opened the door.

Whatever mechanism operated the door must have been connected to the chains attached to his arms and legs, because those chains went taut, pulling him into a starfish position suspended in the middle of the cage. An Observant wearing fine, jeweled robes strode in, stony claws clicking over the bars of the cage.

“Ah,” it said, “our new little songbird.”

Danny glared. This seemed to amuse the Observant.

“You understand that although a prince might try to rescue a messenger, they won’t raise a hand to help a songbird. In only a few more cycles, you’ll only be useful as decoration.” The Observant circled him. “No one is coming to save you. You’re never leaving this cage again.” Its eyes crinkled in pleasure. “Yes, that frightens you, doesn’t it? And we haven’t even gotten started.”

Wow. Not even started, huh. Danny sure considered them kidnapping him to be starting.

“Oh, even if we’ll never have your loyalty, we can train you up, yes, yes, and punish the little clock, that wind-up toy for daring to go against us.” It wrinkled its eye further, and patted Danny’s cheek with a three-fingered hand. “You doubt, now, don’t you? But you’re already hungry, aren’t you? Eventually, we will at least have your…” It lowered its voice to something deep and ominous, “cooperation. Hm? And if not, well… You’ll sing very prettily, regardless, and remind all our… vassals of what we can do.”

Danny doubted that.

“Well. Well. We need to start on our first session, don’t we? I will begin with my favorite composers.” It touched its horns to Danny’s.

Before this, Danny hadn’t appreciated that his friends hadn’t filled him to his limit. No. They must have stopped when they felt him approaching it. This Observant had no such scruples. He filled Danny, then kept pushing until it hurt. Only then did it step away.

“I will return,” it said, cheerfully.

The chains dropped Danny to the bottom of the cage as the Observant left, closing the door behind it. Danny trembled, his jaw twitching to open and release the immense pressure of the message inside him. He felt he could almost hear the music, something howling and operatic, inside his head.

He had to get out of here. Fast. But if he tried to escape haphazardly, under these circumstances, he would fail.

The Observants had, seemingly, overlooked an enormous hole in their security. Danny could turn human. He could phase cleanly through most Zone materials… unless that, too, had changed with the age.

But, his human form was, in Clockwork’s words, malnourished. Enough that he’d thought Danny should go to a hospital, first thing. And this cage was at least a couple of stories up. A fall could be… bad. Especially since he was pretty sure his wings had been clipped and he therefore couldn’t rely on a transformation to keep him from hitting the ground.

Then there were all the Observants. He’d gotten lucky, that time with Walker. Most of the time, ghosts were able to adjust more quickly to humans in their midst, and these weren’t ghosts. These were demons.

But even so…

He pulled himself into a sitting position, grimacing at his inability to move his feet or wrists. A place like this had to operate on some sort of schedule. If he could figure out what the quiet times were, he would have a better chance. And maybe he could somehow use the chains to climb down… Or he could climb up. This cage had to be attached to something up there.

That was a good idea. He’d climb up and then… go from there. He had no idea what the rest of this place looked like, so planning beyond get out and general strategies wasn’t going to be very useful.

He squinted at the Observants below him. Maybe he could steal a robe or a cloak from one of them and sneak around? It worked in enough movies… He probably shouldn’t bet his life and freedom on something from a movie working, though.

He continued to sort through options as he tried to find a pattern to the Observants’ movements. For a while, that served to keep his mind off… things.

Not forever, though.

He hadn’t read a lot about songbirds in the book, but he’d read enough to know that he really would be useless if the Observants succeeded in making him one, and he had no idea how long that process would take. He couldn’t, at least, serve as a messenger anymore, and the implication that he wouldn’t have any choice about ‘singing’ was clear. He didn’t want to be some kind of demonic iPod.

If that happened, he wouldn’t blame anyone for abandoning him.

The next 'session' left Danny clawing at his neck and face in a futile attempt to remove the carcanet and muzzle. But with the coverings, he couldn't even scratch his face, let alone metal.

The internal pressure was enormous.

He managed to stop himself after only a few minutes of writhing. He wanted to pant, but had to settle for breathing heavily through his nose.

Maybe he should just take his chances at escaping now, rather than wait for a good time. He wasn't sure how much more of this he could take, especially if they weren't going to feed him.

His stomach turned uneasily against the sensation of being both too full and too empty.

But, no. Planning. Planning was what was going to get him out.

But what if he just got weaker and weaker until he couldn't escape?

He flexed his knees and elbows, and the joints of his wings, trying to distract himself. If two more 'sessions' passed without him being able to find a good time, he would just take his chances.

A pair of Observants in plain robes flew up to his cage. One of them held two bowls, one full of cut fruit, the other full of seeds. The other unlocked the door, pulling Danny into the same splayed, vulnerable position as before.

Danny's stomach rumbled loudly, and he felt drool drip off his chin. He was starving, and he didn't doubt the Observants knew it.

"If we take off the muzzle, will you cooperate and eat like a good little songbird?"

Danny made his eyes as wide and innocent as possible and nodded, projecting serenity. As soon as the muzzle came off, he yanked on his chains and twisted, biting the Observant. It yoweled as its flesh froze beneath Danny's fangs, and Danny spit it out, disgusted. Even as hungry as he was, he didn't want to eat that.

That's what demons with cores taste like, supplied the itchy, instinctive part of his brain as he did his best to raise more chaos.

The muzzle went back on.

The door, however, stayed open. They left the food, too. He wondered if this was another carefully-constructed torture, waving both food and freedom in his face like this when he was even more immobilized.

He tried to comfort himself by thinking it didn't really matter. The food was probably drugged, anyway, and he could still get out of this by turning human.

But he was so hungry. He was tempted to turn human just so he could eat. He still had enough willpower to refrain from that, even though his body periodically twitched towards the food.

His question about whether or not leaving the door open and the food present was intentional was answered moments later. Another plain Observant flew towards the cage and started to adjust something near the door.

The tension on the chains holding Danny in place increased.

Crap.

A few minutes later, just as Danny had gotten used to the new stress on his limbs, the tension was increased again, to the accompanying giggle of the Observant.

It kept on like that for… it must have been hours. At irregular intervals, the Observant would either tighten or loosen the chains. Never enough to give Danny any real relief, no, but enough to make him wonder if they were finally closing the door.

All thoughts about planning an escape were put on hold in favor of anticipating whether or not the next change would be an increase in tension or a release. Between that and the increasingly delicious smell of the fruit and seed, he had no room in his head for anything else.

"I've come to see our little songbird."

Danny jerked his head up. A small group of Observants floated at the door. He hadn't noticed them coming. The two best dressed were a large Observant with jewels set in its stony skin and a smaller one with a clipboard.

The Observant who'd been operating the chains giggled. "I don't think you'll like the look of it, my lord."

"I'll be the judge of that."

The Observant got up close to Danny, poking and prodding, pushing back his eyelids and looking in his ears.

"You were right," said the jeweled Observant. "I don't like the way it's looking at us. Schedule an appointment with the enucleator."

The Observant with the clipboard scoffed. "The stupid thing probably doesn't even know what that is."

"No, it doesn't. Maybe we'll tell it, eventually. In the meantime, have him fitted with a blindfold."

Danny… did not panic. It was a near thing, but he didn't. Even when a large portion of his mind was screaming he had to go now now now because there was no way he'd be able to spot a pattern in the Observants' movements while blindfolded, he didn't panic.

Panicking would lose him the few advantages he did have here.

So he breathed slowly, deliberately, as one of the Observants held lengths of cloth up to his eyes for the jeweled Observant's approval and another ducked behind him to clean his wings. He resisted, of course, moving as much as he could, pulling his wings away. He didn't think he'd be able to stop himself from at least doing that.

"If you don't stop moving, little songbird, we will have your ears stopped up with wax as well."

Danny went as still as stone.

"Good songbird," said the Observant.

The Observant eventually chose an embroidered length of cloth with an eye motif on it. Danny might have thought it pretty if it wasn't associated with the Observants. This was then sewn, in front of Danny, onto a stiff, shaped leather body that was clearly intended to attach to the muzzle Danny was wearing. Which indicated to Danny that the whole thing was a farce, and they were always going to blindfold him.

Before they put the blindfold on, they painted his eyes over with something stinging and sticky. It started to harden as soon as the blindfold was pressed in place. He was not going to be able to get it to slip.

Then, of course, the Observant 'filled' him.

Forget going through this again. As soon as they left and shut the door, he was going to start his escape, good timing or not.

Or, at least he’d start as soon as his head stopped ringing with hallucinatory music.

The door did not close. The tension on his limbs was not released. In fact, a moment after he thought that, the tension increased again. That one stupid Observant was still here.

At least that one stupid Observant was still there.

Fine. Fine. Danny would just have to… to listen. To focus on what he could hear to find out if they were really gone.

Danny’s hearing seemed intent on making up for Danny’s inability to see. Danny was becoming less and less sure that the music was hallucinatory. It was distant and faint, maddeningly so, but it was also very regular. On top of that were the rising and ebbing sounds of the Observants going about their business. Also, his ears felt like they were growing, and he hated the fact that they might be.

But his hearing wasn’t the only sense Danny still had access to. His bare skin felt every breeze. He could feel the coverings on his arms and feet cutting into his skin. He could feel the glue over his eyes drying, itching. He could feel the carcanet as his neck strove to open. He felt the muzzle pressing in on his jaw.

He could smell.

The food was still in his cage, and it smelled delicious.

The idea of food grew larger and larger in Danny’s mind, not that it had exactly been small before. Drool dripped down his front.

And then it smelled close. The chains loosened just a little, and he unconsciously leaned forward. They listened a little more. He was getting closer. Bit by bit, until he was eeling along the barred floor, his joints stressed too much to work right.

He strained towards what he knew was food… And then he was yanked back up, pulled away.

The laughter was uproarious. He flinched away, but it was coming from all sides and he couldn’t move.

Then it started again. He knew, he knew he was going to be yanked backwards again, but he couldn’t help being hungry, and, maybe, just maybe, there was a chance.

There wasn’t. He was jerked back again.

A third time, he was slowly released.

He reached the food. Finally.

He still had the muzzle on. He pushed it against the fruits in the bowl, well, fuitlessly.

“Aw,” said a voice much closer than Danny had expected. “Is the little songbird hungry?”

Danny nodded, tearfully.

“But the little songbird misbehaved. Has the little songbird learned its lesson?”

Danny nodded.

“Next time,” said the Observant, sing-song and taunting, “if the little songbird is naughty, it won’t eat again until it can sing for its food.”

The muzzle was stripped from his face and he immediately dove at the bowls. He didn’t care, in the moment, if they were drugged or not. He didn’t care that the fruits were filled with unsatisfying paper. All he cared about was being a little less hungry.

Or, rather, those things did matter to him. It was just that eating superseded other concerns.

“Little songbird’s favorite food is music,” said the Observant, giggling. “Bye bye, little songbird. Until next time.”

The door clanged shut. Oh. Oh, thank goodness. They’d left him alone.

Something drowsy came over him. Of course the food had been drugged. Of course. But if he fell asleep now… His imagination conjured a horrible cycle where he woke up starving, was ‘filled,’ and then fed and drugged again and again and again. Probably with some added torture to amuse the Observants, who had definitely picked up a sadistic streak.

But he could feel himself slipping, slipping, slipping–

He called on his ice powers, and the coverings burned hot. Hot enough to wake him.

Okay. Alright. He could do this. He could stay awake, and listen, and keep his ice powers going, and escape.

Yes.

He listened. The sounds the Observants made increased and decreased like a tide. There was a pattern. There was. Even beyond the music playing in his head, there was. There had to be.

Please.

There was a dip. A deeper dip.

Good enough. He turned human.

The music he’d been holding inside him burst outward with destructive force. Half the cage bars exploded outward, and what was left of the structure spun dizzily. Danny clung to the chains that had held him in place earlier, his human hands small and shaking, his sneakers unfamiliar as they scrabbled against the bars.

The atrium, he saw, had not been emptier. In fact, there had been several jeweled observants close to his cage, no doubt coming to torment him.

They were now embedded in the nearest walls.

Well.

Well!

It was no ghostly wail, but Danny was glad he had something. Let them just try to turn him into a songbird again!

Well. Actually, no. They’d probably come up with some way to keep him from transforming.

He had to get out of here.

It would be a lot easier if his human form didn’t feel just as horrible and shaky as his ghost form. Malnutrition sucked and he never wanted to do it again.

Something landed on his shoulder. Reflexively, Danny turned and bit. Observants tasted just as gross in human form as they did in demon form, but this time, he didn’t let go. He wrapped his arms around the hapless Observant as it flew to and fro, trying to dislodge him. Danny tried to use his weight to steer it lower.

It did get lower. It also ran headfirst into a pillar. They dropped.

But Danny, at least, didn’t drop far. He grabbed on to a tasseled rope and slid several meters down, friction wearing burns into his hands. More cautiously, but still quickly, before the Observants gathered themselves enough to really look around themselves, he let himself slide down the rest of the way. He hit the Observant he’d caught a ride on in the head with both feet just as it was getting up.

Ooh! Free robe!

Maneuvering the Observant so he could strip the robe off it was difficult, but, wow, adrenaline was great, wasn’t it? He flipped the hood up over his head and disappeared. Literally.

Going invisible in human form was always a bit harder than it was in ghost form, but now it was harder still. He didn’t know if it was because he was slowly losing the ability, or if it was just because of how… how… He didn’t know how to describe his physical and mental state at the moment. Bad, he supposed.

He ducked down a corridor that led out of the atrium and walked until he was almost falling over. He peeked into rooms until he found something that looked like a storeroom and tucked himself behind the crates there. Then he passed out.

"Even if they have found another Mouth, Clockwork is useless to their alliance without his predictions. As long as the oracle has the Mist of Ages, we will crush them."

Danny blinked himself awake. Oh, that sounded interesting. Mist of Ages, huh? That sounded like something important. That sounded like the thing ‘occluding’ Clockwork’s vision.

"And the songbird's escape?"

"It won't stay escaped."

Screw them. He would stay escaped.

“The oracle is having a hard time seeing it. Its turned human.”

“That won’t last forever. I would never stay human for so long.”

“Songbirds have no standards.”

“They must have some pride. Even they are demons. In fact, its probably turned back and the oracle can see it now.”

“I doubt it.”

“You doubt me? Your senior? Very well. Let’s go back and check.”

Danny carefully extricated himself from the boxes he’d fallen asleep among, and crept out of the store room, drawing on invisibility as much as he could. Down the hall walked a pair of Observants. He followed them.

Maybe that was stupid. He was trying to escape, after all, but if the oracle had the thing keeping Clockwork from seeing, even if he got caught, it might be worth it if he could destroy it. Plus, he had no idea which way was the way out.

The Observants reached a set of stairs and climbed up and up. Danny, shaking, followed.

The stairs were topped by a set of double doors guarded by Observants in armor. They confronted the two Observants Danny had been following, and spoke to them for a while. Then, they opened the doors.

Danny hurried to follow them, slipping in just before the doors shut again.

In the center of the room sat a huge, bloated Observant. Despite its size, its eye was more than twice the size of the rest of its boxy. Tiny, stubby horns poked up from its head. It lounged among eye-embroidered cushions and in its clawed hand was a bottle that spilled fog into the room like there was a miniature fog machine in there.

Or maybe not so miniature, Danny realized as he grew closer. The bottle was as big as his torso, at least.

His invisibility flickered, and he latched onto it with mental claws. Not. Now. His eyes unfocused and his ears filled with static.

Heck. He really felt bad.

“Oh, great oracle,” said one of the Observants. “Prince of Seers! Tell us, where is the songbird once called Phantom?”

The oracle’s great eye turned towards Danny. Danny lunged forward, clawing and biting and scratching and basically doing everything his worn body was capable of. This did not seem to be something the oracle expected.

Danny was beginning to doubt their credentials, vis a vis the whole ‘Prince of Seers’ bit.

He got the bottle in his hands and smashed it on the ground. This had the effect of filling the room with opaque smoke. It also had the effect of giving Danny a very large weapon of very pointy glass.

Uncaring of the smoke, he stabbed around himself wildly. Everyone in here was an enemy. Well, except for himself, and, mentally, he was relaxing in Tartarus, the Far Frozen, Long Now, or the Time Locked Lands, so there. From the screams of pain, he was hitting targets.

Then, he hit something big that burst like a balloon, the remains of the bottle serving to channel a lot of moist, bloody gel directly at Danny. Oh. Oh, gross. He must have popped the oracle’s eye. And now its eye goop was on him! In his clothes! On his skin!

Ew!

Not that all the Observants didn’t deserve to have their eyes popped, but. Gross. Very gross.

All the lights in the room went out.

Except… there was a skylight.

In human form, he’d never make it up there, but in demon form… He transformed. The blindfold came back, but the claw coverings had, thankfully, been left behind. Too attached to the chains, he guessed. He licked them. They felt raw and blunted, but they’d do. He covered them with sharp ice and began his way up the wall.

He remembered, more or less, where the window was, and when he thought he’d gotten close enough, he let ice spread out from his hands. A sharp enough temperature change–

Something splintered, and he felt small pieces of glass rain down on him, accompanied by a breese. There were shouts from below. He ignored them.

He was on the roof.

How far up he was, he had no idea. None at all. But he had no choice. He threw himself forward and flared his wings.

He faltered, falling, the feathers that the Observants had cut from his wings enough to sabotage him after all, but then he remembered what it was like to fly as a ghost, and he pulled up.

This was fine. Fine! Bats flew blind all the time, didn’t they? Surely his hearing was at least as good as a bat’s!

Bats also could make echolocation sounds. Danny was mute.

He hit the ground and rolled, going human halfway through. He lay sprawled on his back for several minutes, watching with pleasure as the Observants’ stupid building caught on fire. He hadn’t thought his escape would cause so much chaos, but he hoped it hurt when they burned.

… That was a kind of sadistic thought for him, wasn’t it?

Maybe, but he’d never been tortured before, either, had he?

He kind of had, though.

Not for that long.

Wasn’t talking to himself sort of a bad sign?

He pulled himself to his feet. Now, all he had to do was get back to the Far Frozen, the Time Locked Lands, Long Now, or Tartarus. Easy.

Another way of putting that was to say all he had to do was travel an unknown distance in almost-literal hell, in an unknown direction, while avoiding an unknown number of demons, while literally and actively starving, and also human. Probably by walking. Less easy.

Better than staying here. He stumbled forward.

He saw the yetis long before they saw him. It was hard to imagine it happening otherwise. The yetis were a range of ice-mountains, moving slowly across the volcanic plains, white and stately. They looked, from this distance, like a cross between polar bears and lions.

Danny walked towards them, pausing to wave every few minutes in case they saw him. It seemed like forever before they did. But when they turned towards him… Oh, that was the best he’d felt in forever.

He sat down and started to cry, just a bit.

When they reached him, his earlier thought that their voices were too deep for humans proved true. He could feel them speaking, the words vibrating in his bones, but he couldn’t understand any of it. They seemed to understand that, though. They gave him tasty jerky to chew on. Definitely an understanding.

Frostbite crouched in front of him. There was a box hanging around his neck, like the little cask around the neck of a St. Bernard. He took it off and put it on the ground next to Danny. Compared to Danny, it wasn’t so little. It was easily the size of a good sized room. Frostbite took the lid off the box, and picked Danny up, carefully, telegraphing the movement far in advance.

Within the box was a hammock, a great number of pillows and blankets, and a small lamp.

Before he could be tucked into the box, no matter how inviting it looked with all the soft, cozy pillows and the comfortable hammock, he grabbed a handful of Frostbite’s fur.

“Did you mean it?” asked Danny, hoarsely. “When you said I had a choice?” He switched to demon form so he could hear the answer.

“Of course!” said Frostbite. “But choosing to follow one's instincts is also a choice. You could have refused to carry any of our messages, after all, but you did not. I would hesitate to do so, under the current circumstances, but some would consider you quite fortunate that your new instincts align so well with your personal values. Even before you became a Mouth, you desired to be helpful, to be useful, to be valued, did you not? And now you can be, simply by playing the role you have been adapted for. Some would consider it fate.”

Danny would… not discount fate, exactly. He flipped back human. “Where are you taking me?” he asked, before going back to demon form. Switching back and forth was starting to give him a headache.

“To Long Now. We may still retain our medical knowledge, but the physical practice of it… Even before you were taken, it was beginning to slip from us. Clockwork will be able to help you. Now, you must go in.” Frostbite pushed him down a bit more firmly, and Danny let go. The lid of the box clicked closed above him.

He went human. He wanted to see.

The inside of the box was painted with the same pattern as the inside of the messenger room in Dora’s castle. There had to be a meaning to that, there had to…

The pattern lit up, little lights moving this way and that. Danny felt his pupils go wide and his muscles relax. Oh, he thought, oh. This is what it was for. He felt the rough edges of his mind… they didn’t disappear. It was more like they were put on mute.

He cuddled down into the blankets and pillows. So comfy. So nice, watching the little lights.

The lid of the box opened, and the little lights went out. He made a muffled noise of protest as he was lifted from the box not by Frostbite, but by Clockwork.

“Hello, Daniel,” said Clockwork, carrying him deeper into Long Now. “I am sorry this happened to you. I know this is something that makes you anxious, so rest assured that you would have been rescued even if those fools had succeeded in making you a songbird. If nothing else, you would have always had a place here.” Clockwork gestured up at Danny’s cage.

Danny blinked at him, at first feeling nothing but gratitude, but… “Did you… mean for this to happen?”

“Daniel, if I wanted you made into a songbird, I would have merely needed to lock the door behind you that first night, and it would have been beyond easy to take care of the rest of the steps myself. I know you are not in a state to be interested in the details, but the Observants did a horribly sloppy, rushed job in their hurry to throw you back in our faces. If I were making you into a songbird, I would start with letting you help me pick out the music.”

That was… weirdly comforting.

“In any case, if I were to make you into anything but a messenger, I would make you into a scribe. You would be much more suited for that role, even if their rarity surpassed even that of songbirds.”

Still comforting. Somehow.

“But I would never do that without talking to you about it.” He sat Danny down on a stool. “I will begin with an IV and food for your human form,” he said. “I want it to be strengthened before we start on your demon form, so it is not forgotten again.”

Danny nodded and offered up his arm. Clockwork, somehow, seemed to pluck an IV from thin air and carefully placed it in Danny’s arm. Food, human food, or at least human-looking food, similarly appeared from nowhere.

“Eat,” said Clockwork, “but slowly.”

“Clockwork,” said Danny, after he had made his way through several tiny, well-spaced meals, “can’t I just… fix my human half when I go home? I mean, you told me to go to a hospital, so…”

“Ah,” said Clockwork. “I’m afraid that’s no longer possible.”

Danny frowned. “Why not?”

“My powers have also shifted. I can no longer make temporal or physical portals.” He snapped his fingers, as if to demonstrate. “If I could, I would have sent you home straight from here all those weeks ago. This means that you would have to fly there yourself.”

Danny frowned. “Yeah? So?”

“When our allies discovered the Observants had captured you, they turned the majority of their forces towards them.”

Danny hadn’t realized that. Hadn’t dreamed of being that important to them.

“This, in turn, meant abandoning some other projects.” He sighed. “We had hoped to conquer the lands around the portal, both for the benefits access to the human world would bring, and for your ease, but it is no longer possible. The alliance of Vladimir, Fright Knight, and Technus is formidable. I do not believe they would let you pass without trying to keep you.”

“Oh,” said Danny.

“Do not worry,” said Clockwork. “The age is yet young, the balance of power unstable. Alliances like theirs fall apart all the time. You may yet return. For now, put your effort into recovering, so you may help us.”

“You think I’ll still be useful?”

“As I said, even as a songbird, you would be useful, and, according to Frostbite, you had yet to undergo any of the physical changes that herald the transition from messenger to songbird.”

“I could hear the music, though, in my head.”

“Not ideal,” said Clockwork, “but you will recover. I can see the future, you know.”

“Promise?”

Danny examined himself in the vanity mirror. It was strange, perhaps, but despite what had happened with the Observants, his birdcage didn’t bother him at all. It felt like home, now, nice and secure. The only person who could lock him in this cage was Clockwork, and Clockwork would only do that if he was trying to do something stupid, like fly on broken wings, or if it were very expedient indeed.

Speaking of things not bothering him… He looked just as he had before the Observants caught him. Even his filed-down claws had recovered. The only scars the encounter had left were mental.

Hopefully, Clockwork would let him start working again soon. He was getting a little jittery from being cooped up in Long Now. Not that Long Now wasn’t interesting, or that Clockwork wasn’t taking wonderful care of him, giving him as much food as he could eat! It was just that he’d been in for a long time.

“Daniel,” called Clockwork from below. “Come down. I have something for you.”

Danny didn’t need to be told twice. He leapt from his cage and flew down to hover in front of Clockwork.

“Do you remember what we talked about before you left?” asked Clockwork, smiling and leading Danny to a piece of wall that consisted of a mirror-polished gear. “The summoning rings?”

Danny nodded.

“They are done,” said Clockwork, pulling a set of five rings from inside the sleeve of his robes. They were silver, the same color as Danny’s filigree. “They resize to fit the wearer,” he explained as he slipped one over his own wrist. He handed the remaining four to Danny, then pulled two more from his other sleeve. “May I?”

Danny bounced eagerly, wings fluttering. Clockwork’s stance took on an indulgent tint.

“Turn around,” he said.

Clockwork slid one of the two rings over Danny’s left horn, all the way to the base, where it touched his skin, and the second ring over his right. They sat there, dense and cool, but they didn’t quite feel right. He tilted his head one way, then the other.

“Stay still,” chastised Clockwork, and Danny stopped, obediently.

Clockwork placed each of his index fingers on Danny’s horns, right above the rings, which felt nice, then slowly drew them back, all the way to the tips of the horn. The horns grew, and Danny gasped at the sensation. The silver rings resisted the growth, tightening. This, he realized, was what the muzzle hooked to his horns had almost achieved. Any more, and it would have been painful, any less and it wouldn’t have felt secure.

Clockwork tugged gently on the rings, making sure they were firmly in place. “They will stretch, somewhat, with your horns as they grow,” said Clockwork, “but your horns should not grow much more. Would you like me to show you how they work?”

Danny nodded, happiness bubbling inside him.

Clockwork raised the wrist his ring was on. “All one of us has to do,” he said, “is touch the ring and think strongly of you coming to us.”

The rings around Danny’s horns started to impart a sort of vibrating, pulling energy to him. Involuntarily, he took a step towards Clockwork.

“Of course, if we are wearing them, we are already touching them. I would like you to deliver the other three to our allies. Along with a few messages from myself.”

Danny hugged Clockwork. Yes! Not only was this a great gift by itself, but he got to start working again! He could be useful again! But Clockwork had said three allies, not four. Who was the fourth ring for? Not Jazz, anymore, with how inaccessible the human realm was.

“Ah,” said Clockwork, “just in time.”

Danny looked up, then at the doors. Was Clockwork predicting a visitor?

“A friend, back from delivering a message to the Kingdom of Gluttony.”

The doors of Long Now swung open, and a demon flew in. They… looked exactly like Danny. Identical, down to the color of their eyes and the rings around their horns.

He stared. They stared. Then, they started to smile, and Danny knew. Knew.

Dani!

He opened his arms wide and so did she. They ran towards one another and embraced, touching their horns together. They couldn’t transmit messages themselves, but they could share the feeling that came with the touch. Danny was so relieved she was alright!

“As I said,” said Clockwork, all twelve of his eyes glittering, “I thought you would like one to give to your sister. And, Danielle, I believe you have one to give to your brother?”

Shyly, Dani slipped a ring off her wrist and offered it to Danny, who exchanged it with one of his own.

“Excellent,” said Clockwork. He patted them both on their heads. “Now, Danielle, I believe you have a message for me?”

Dani opened her mouth and Danny couldn’t help but keep smiling. This was such a wonderful day!

#danny phantom #phic phight #phic phight 2023 #i can technically say this is a fantasy au right?#right?#I'll count it for dannymay anyway #dannymay 2023

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tourettesdog · 1 year

Text

The Breaking Point of Ice

Based on the prompt: "The stars were very pretty tonight. But he was so cold." by @quishaweasley-blog for Phic Phight Word count: 9,027 Warnings: minor character death, suicidal ideation, panic attacks AO3 Link

The sirens still echoed in Danny’s ears, a distant cacophony that resonated with the unsteady thrum of his core.

The firelight still flickered in Danny’s vision. Even with eyes shut, he could see the awful red glow licking skyward.

The smoke still choked his airway, squeezing at his chest until his lungs could have burst.

The heat still enveloped him, burning at his skin, raw and aching.

He blinked.

Silence lay around him. From up atop the hill, Danny could see practically all of Amity. Night had fallen— had fallen hours ago— and in the dark the lights of the city glowed. Not many cars were out on the street at this hour, and those that were went quietly, their lights slipping silently down the streets. Somewhere a dog barked, but the sound faded into the backdrop of crickets chirping and the gentle hush of the wind through the grass.

The day had sweltered, a hot late spring day in its own right. Danny supposed the night was just as warm, but he struggled to feel it.

Beyond the fire still raging in the backdrop of his mind and the heat of the burns that blistered his skin, only the cold remained.

Danny shivered against it, hugging his knees tight to his chest. It did little to help, with the cold so close at hand. It lingered in his fingers and raced along his arms. It settled in his joints and found purchase in his chest. A wall of ice could have slid around his core— might have, for all it felt— and Danny could only shiver in its icy chill.

Frost had crept over the grass around him. His breath fogged, small puffs far too similar to his ghost sense.

He could still feel how it coiled up his throat earlier that morning. A familiar chill that had him, as always, tensed for a fight. He never knew what to expect with that chill. It could mean something as innocuous and small as an ectopus, or…

The frost crackled as it spread, the sound a mockery of the fire still roaring in Danny’s ears.

A keening sound escaped his lips. Hands found their way into his hair, tattered gloves and raw fingers bunching in soot-stained white locks. Danny shut his eyes tight, rocking forward as the keening bubbled into a sob. Air couldn’t enter his lungs fast enough, each gulp stinging his scorched esophagus.

Danny could have plunged into the tundras of the Far Frozen, for how surely the cold gripped him. Icy hands clawing at his skin, tearing at the burns until they stung. The ice should have felt soothing in the wake of that burning heat. He should have taken solace in it, finding comfort in the cool of his core. After all, Danny had welcomed winter since that icy stone lodged itself in his chest. It was a part of him, as much as anything else could be— the cold as innately Danny as his name.

Yet it hadn’t been enough.

Against the roar of fire and the flicker of flame, each rising higher and higher until it drowned out all else— that chill he bore in his heart and hands hadn’t been enough.

How did a glacier melt so easily against tongues of flame?

The night was not as peaceful as it seemed. When Danny picked his head off of his knees, his eyes training on the spot he’d spent hours staring towards, he could still see the lights. After everything else had gone, the ice melted and the fire extinguished, the last hints of smoke fading into the atmosphere, those lights remained. A distant flicker of red and blue, the siren long-since quieted, though no less an echo in Danny’s mind as the crackle of flame.

If Danny squinted, he could see the blackened buildings the light circled. One was larger than the others, the epicenter of it all. The place where fire ignited and roared, chewing through wood and dancing over concrete as it spread.

Before the sirens, there had been screams.

The lights of the city blurred as tears welled in Danny’s puffy eyes. He didn’t fight against them, letting them fall past his lashes and carve channels through the ash blotching his face.

Danny hadn’t seen his reflection, but it didn’t take much imagination to know what he looked like. A mess. A raw wound. A failure, if anything.

A shaky, choked sob. A shiver down his spine, the motion causing aftershocks of ache through his body.

He deserved worse.

Shutting his eyes tight, unable to stymie the flood of tears that broke through, Danny almost wanted worse.

The familiar whine of an ectogun cut through the night, as if to provide that half-formed wish. Despite it, Danny couldn’t help but stiffen at the sound, each aching muscle tense with memory and instinct…

He didn’t bother to pick up his head.

“I finally found you,” said a familiar, raspy voice, each word raw and strained.

Danny didn’t answer. Still didn’t pick up his head.

He just waited, head bowed before her, accepting whatever came next.

Danny half expected her to squeeze the trigger right away. She had the perfect shot— the perfect target— and yet…

The ectogun didn’t fire. He could hear the barrel of the weapon rattling slightly in what must be shaking hands. Her own breath accompanied it, no less shaky.

“Get up, ghost,” she challenged, voice broken, straining on the last word. Danny couldn’t say if smoke or emotion had done worse damage to her vocal chords.

He still didn’t get up. Still didn’t lift his head.

The cold wrapped around him, more claws and teeth than anything.

“Get up,” she demanded. “Face me. Face me and—and what you did.”

Emotion choked those words, enough of it to squeeze at Danny’s own throat. Fresh tears welled in his eyes and he squeezed his knees more tightly as he let out a shaky sigh.

How could he face her? How could he face anything right now?

It had been nothing but a small mercy that the fire claimed his cellphone and any of the questioning calls it might have carried.

“Look at me.”

Her voice cracked with a sob, the sound reverberating in Danny’s core like hairline fractures racing along glass.

Despite himself, he lifted his head.

Valerie had been there too. Danny had seen her— had known— yet nothing prepared himself for the sight.

She wasn't wearing her suit at all. In its place, Valerie had changed into what he could generously call everyday clothes, though they looked more like pajamas. Loose, frizzy hair framed her face, without the usual band she pulled it back with. Her eyes were blood-shot, her face smeared with soot and her cheek bandaged.

It was the first of many bandages.

Danny’s eyes widened in horror as he took in the wraps spiraling over her arms and ankles, thickest around her hands and wrists. Her fingers poked through the tips of the bandages, raw and red as they held the ectogun with everything she had.

Danny tried to open his mouth to say something— her name, anything— but no words came out. He simply settled on Valerie’s eyes, vibrant green meeting bold hazel, each brimming with tears.

“Get up,” she said again, her teeth clenched, though chattering. Her hands shaking, though her grip was firm. She had the ectogun pointed squarely at his head. If she were to take the shot, Danny knew it would do awful damage at such close range.

(Enough damage.)

“Val…” he managed, the word a strangled warble through his wrecked throat.

Valerie’s eyes widened with surprise, the ectogun jerking slightly in her grip. Of course, Phantom wasn’t supposed to know who she was as a civilian.

Her surprise did not last long, easily replaced by a burning anger as her eyes blazed and her teeth grit with fury.

“I don’t know how you know my name,” she said in a dangerous whisper tinged with as much fear as anger, “but I’m not going to let you trick me. Not like you tricked all of those people— those kids.” Her voice cracked on the word and a renewed jolt of ice rocketed through Danny’s chest.

“You’re a monster,” Valerie continued, hardly pausing to breathe. “Those people trusted you, and you— and you…”

Her voice trailed off, the tone hollow and shattered with emotion clawing at her throat.

Danny let the words roll over him, each insult falling in line with his own scattered thoughts.

“I know,” was all he said, his voice tinny and hardly there.

Valerie nodded, her chest heaving with unsteady breaths. Danny hadn’t even asked if she was okay— he knew she wasn’t. The burns, the red-rimmed eyes… Nothing about this was okay.

“I’ve known you were a monster from the start. You had everyone else fooled, but I knew. The Fentons were right not to trust you.”

A hollow ache lingered in Danny’s chest, squeezing with that awful chill of ice. Fractals of it coursed through his veins. Phantom had a tentative truce with Valerie, something new and hard-won.

Gone now.

“Get up, Phantom,” Valerie demanded once more.

Danny just stared up at her, wondering why she hadn’t yet pulled the trigger.

Val swallowed a lump in her throat, her lip quivering before reinforcing into that snarl. She kicked out her leg, striking him painfully in the shin with her boot. Danny tumbled back into the grass, swallowing down a hiss as his burns pulled.

“Where’s all that bravado now? Where’s your fight? You fucking coward. You made everything worse and couldn’t even have the decency to stick around. Y–you ran and hid and now you won’t even face me?”

Danny held her gaze, his jaw clenched, until it was too much. Shutting his eyes, Danny allowed himself to fall back along the hill, lying prone. The grass jabbed at the burns torn through his suit.

“If you’re going to shoot me, do it now and get it over with. I’m done,” he whispered.

A sharp intake of breath. A swear. Danny felt another sharp jab in his leg as Valerie kicked him again,

“What is wrong with you? What game are you playing?” she said, her voice rising into a quavering shout. “Fight me.”

Danny opened his eyes, staring up at the sky overhead. It was a perfect night for stargazing, with hardly a cloud in the sky. Danny could pick out several constellations and, were it any other night, he might have lain there, finding as many as he possibly could.

It was disquieting now, more than anything. The sky too vast and open. Too uncaring of the day’s events or the cold coiling in Danny’s chest. Frost continued to spread around him, the grass crackling in the wind with it.

“I’m not playing a game,” he said. “I… I wanted to help.”

The grass crunched as Valerie moved, her form swimming into view as she crouched over him, her ectogun still pointed at his face.

“Bullshit. I saw you. As if you ghosts weren’t causing enough harm— as if that fire wasn’t enough— what the fuck did you expect to happen with that ice?”

Her ectogun was so close to Danny’s face that he could feel the ectoenergy emanating from it. It burned against his raw, scorched skin.

Danny swallowed, his throat tight and painful. His breathing picked up, chest heaving as he tried his best to force down the sob trying to well past his lips.

"I was trying to help," he repeated hoarsely.

If looks could kill, Valerie's would have given him a second chance at a headstone. She threw her ectogun aside and crouched down, grasping Danny firmly by the front of his suit. He couldn't help but flail in her grip, his hands landing on hers as she gave him a violent shake. Her eyes were mere inches from his now, reflecting the green glow of his own.

"You got people killed. Students— kids. My friends." Her voice broke and tears rolled down her cheeks. “D–Dash and Star are dead. Paulina and Tucker are in the hospital.”

She gave him another violent shake and Danny simply went lax in her grip, letting go of her hands. Each word lanced his core. Ice struck through him— through his mind—

He could still remember, with far too much detail, the moment that ice had splintered, cracked, and fallen with far too heavy of a thud.

Tears slipped down Danny’s cheeks. He wanted to scream, to run, to get up and make things better somehow, but…

He couldn’t fix this.

“I’m sorry,” was all he could say. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I–I’m sorry.”

The words spilled out in a broken mantra, each word feeling far too hollow. Valerie swam in his vision, hazy and indistinct through his tears.

“You don’t get to be sorry about this,” she snarled, giving Danny another furious shake, her nails digging into his chest like icicles. “Why are you crying? You don’t get to fuck up peoples’ lives and cry over it.”

Danny just shut his eyes, slowly shaking his head. He didn’t know what else to do, what else to say. There was nothing to say, other than those apologies that came too late and held too little.

He’d run. After Danny had made sure Tucker was stable, he’d simply run. The thought of lingering anywhere near people, even those he loved and who loved him, had sent that chill sparking in his chest. The cold had lingered for hours now, the frost persistent and biting.

He could still see Tucker on that stretcher, his leg a bloody mess. He could picture Sam and Jazz, scrambling as they did what they could to pick up the pieces and cover for Danny's absence when he broke down and fled.

Guilt coiled in Danny's belly, winding up his ribs and squeezing at his core.

Valerie let out a snarl and threw him backwards into the grass, hard enough to knock the air Danny didn't need from his lungs. He winced as the burns along his torso pulled and squinted open his eyes, expecting any moment now for the green bolt of an ectoblast.

It didn’t come.

Valerie paced beside him, her breaths shaky and stuttered with sobs. She kicked at the frozen grass with her boot and sank down into in. Running her hands roughly through her hair, she stared at him with blood-shot eyes.

“Why are you still here?” she demanded. “If you’re really sorry, why the hell are you still here? Haven’t you done enough harm?”

If the blazing rage in her voice had hurt, it was nothing compared to this flagging anger. Despondency. Valerie had never looked more like a child then, gripping at her hair like a lifeline and glaring at Phantom with glazed-over eyes.

It was all his fault.

Danny dragged himself up onto his elbow so he could look at her. Really look at her.

She was shaking.

“I lost two of my friends. We weren’t close anymore but… now we never will be.”

Another jab at his core, enough to sharpen the frost around him, a swirl of cold air ghosting over the hill. Valerie shivered in the chill, clutching herself tightly. She wasn’t looking at Phantom anymore, just staring, unseeing ahead.

“I don’t even know if Paulina will be okay,” she said quietly. “I don’t… I don’t know what I ever did to deserve this— what they did. You play the hero, but you keep taking and taking from me and…”

Her voice trailed off as she glanced down at the grass beside her. The ectogun lay there, a layer of frost coating the barrel of the weapon. She picked it up with a shaking hand and stared at the thing, turning it over in her hands like a toy gun.

“I came looking for a fight. I told myself I’d finally end you, whatever it took.” Her hold tightened on the gun, the metal creaking in her shaking grip.

Danny listened with everything he had, the chirps of the crickets dying down until the only things that existed in the universe were him, Valerie, and the ectogun between them.

Valerie laughed, the sound a hollow mockery to its usual rich tone. She turned the ectogun back around, pointing it back at Danny.

“I still want to end you. I want to take from you what you took from me— from them…”

The ectogun steadied in her hand, the barrel aimed right between Danny’s eyes. He resisted the urge to close them, facing Valerie and whatever judgment she had to offer.

Her words echoed in Danny's mind, his thoughts spiraling with memories of all of the times Dash had bullied him. How many times had he wished that the bully would turn over a new leaf, or somehow get his comeuppance for his cruelty? How many times had he joked with Sam and Tucker that Dash and his friends probably wouldn't amount to much in life?

The universe had a funny way of twisting his words.

“Then do it,” Danny whispered— almost begged for Valerie to balance the scales he'd tipped so drastically.

It would just take one good shot.

Valerie's mouth twisted, her face crumpling as she looked away with another hollow laugh, this one more broken than the first. The ectogun slagged in her grip, the nose of it dragging into the grass.

“You couldn't even let me have this,” she said, her voice hushed and cracked, hardly louder than the wind.

Danny’s chest heaved, each breath fogging the air with cold. He struggled up onto his knees, wobbling slightly. For one awful moment the world tipped around Danny, his mind desperately careening towards the ground. He dug his gloves into the frosted grass, clinging on with everything he had.

Valerie just glared at him, her eyes no less cold than the ice in his core. Though she didn’t raise the ectogun again, Danny could see her grip tense on the weapon.

Shivering, aching with the cold and emotions he couldn’t even put to words, Danny opened his mouth. Another apology danced on his tongue, mingling with the desire to goad Valerie into that shot. He knew how to get under her skin. With the right words, Danny could have that weapon lined up, Val’s finger on the trigger, and all of his worries one green blast from falling away.

He wasn’t sure he deserved even that.

Danny opened his mouth, but no words came out. His lips quivered, his breaths hitching with another sob. Sitting back on his haunches, he buried his face in his gloves, hardly feeling his fingers against his numb skin.

“I–I don’t know if I can go home,” Danny croaked, the words tumbling off of his tongue without permission.

A scoff, wavering and small. “The Ghost Zone is going to be the only place you can go now. After what you did? You’re lucky the Fentons are too busy helping at the school.”

A shiver ran the course of Danny's spine, his core stuttering painfully on the word Fenton.

He doubted they would have much trouble inciting a hunt against Phantom now.

Valerie was right. After today… There was no ghostly protector of Amity Park. No safe haven for the half of him that longed to protect and tried to with everything he had.

It was never enough. It had never been enough, and now…

For all the cemetery lacked a grave with his name, it would gain two by his hand.

"They'll kill me," Danny said quietly, his mind running over the shelves of glinting instruments that lined the lab. "I can't tell them anymore. I–I wanted to tell them. I was trying to. I was trying…"

Danny dug his nails into his knees, rough enough to dig through the torn material of his suit and draw ectoplasm to the surface.

Green and wrong. Sickly and dead, haunting his footsteps, dragging everything he touched down, down, down with him.

He should have never stepped foot out of that portal, never brought this taint with him.

"Tell them what? That they should have aimed better?" Valerie challenged with a sharp bite of anger.

Danny breathed out a shaky laugh. "Maybe," he agreed.

Maybe that really would have been for the best. Maybe if they'd just known sooner, all of this wouldn't have happened. No deaths, no fire, no ice— maybe the broken body of their son would have been enough to shut that portal and all of the hurt that it contained.

Danny couldn't even blame the ghost and its fire. It had been an animal, just some sort of strange large cat that darted through the classrooms, leaving a flickering trail off of its flaming coat.

The hurt went deeper than that flame and instinct. It clung to the ice— to Danny's own hands.

He replayed it in his mind, a slow slideshow of ice skirting up the sides of the hallway, forming a shield from the flames licking the walls.

The horrific crack of it splintering.

The moment that wall of ice fell.

Danny dug furrows in his skin, hardly feeling the cut of his inhuman nails. The ectoplasm that dripped from his knees left icy rivers down his legs.

“Maybe things really would be better if they’d gotten me— if I was gone. If I’d just died properly the first time,” he quavered, the words bitten through teeth sharper than his nails.

Danny expected another scathing comment from Val, for her to agree and offer him words sharp enough to shred through the last of his resolve. When only silence greeted him, the wind too loud in his ears and the chill colder than the grave, he felt something inside him splinter and crack against that breeze.

“Everything’s my fault. If I’d just— if I’d just died in the portal— or never gone inside of it in the first place. I–I turned it on. I turned it on and it’s all my fault.”

The frost along the grass sharpened, growing to jagged points. The wind swirled in a haze, tearing at the frozen grass, whipping his hair up like flames.

(Flames that had done less harm than his ice. Flames too similar to…)

A shout cut through the wind, the word lost to the roar.

Danny choked back a sob, swallowing down the teetering sensation of a wail.

The shout came again, louder this time, but no less audible over the wind and the frantic thrumming of Danny’s core.

Screams danced on that wind, echoes of his own, memories made real each time the wail made its way past his throat.

New ones joined the fold.

A shout— a bellow— a word he recognized.

“Phantom!”

It could’ve been miles away, against that onslaught of wind and the keening in his chest. A word lost to time and space, yet still more rooted to the earth than Danny felt in that moment.

He could have faded away. He felt that he might. Just one last choked sob or unearthly wail and he’d simply drift into the ether, tossed into the wind, little more than a bad memory.

An ectogun whined, a cruel accompaniment to his own name, bellowed like a battlecry into the night.

One good shot. Just one good shot and maybe he’d find his peace. Maybe the town would too, without anymore salt to rub in the wound.

When the blast came, a green bolt that stained the dark of Danny’s eyelids, he braced himself for the hit. Whatever careless acceptance he threw at Valerie’s feet, Danny couldn’t help but recoil with fear.

The jolt never came. The blast never hit. Confused, Danny opened his eyes, frozen tears shattering on his lashes.

For all the snow and ice around him, the late spring could have turned back to mid-winter. It glared brightly in the starlight, flickering with something other.

A bolt of green ectoplasm burned through the ice in front of Danny, a green glint dancing across the white snow. It smoked slightly, a mere inch from his boot. A shot intentionally misfired. A warning.

And before him, silhouetted against the moon and covered with frost, stood Valerie. She had the ectogun trained on his skull once more. She shook, more from anger or the chill Danny couldn’t say. She’d been too close to the arctic blast— too close to him— and, like everything, his ice had bitten her too.

“Wh–what the fuck did you say about the p–portal?” she stammered the moment she finally had his attention.

If ever someone’s eyes could blaze with the same intense glare of a ghost’s, it was hers right then. Fire itself didn’t have such a burn.

The wind died down, the last strong gusts of it teasing at Valerie’s frost-peppered hair as it settled inward. The cold positively turned around his core, an awful spiral that wouldn’t abate.

Danny came back to himself, shuddering as he took in the jagged spires of ice surrounding him, each spike pointed to the cloudless heavens above. Amidst it all Valerie stood, waiting for her answer.

“Val, I—”

“No,” Valerie snapped, the word as flinty and brittle as the ice beneath them as she took a step forward, her boots crunching down the spires. “Y–you don’t get to say my name. You d–don’t get to let this g–go.”

Another step closer, the crunch of ice an awful mockery of how it had groaned and splintered…

“T–tell me about the portal,” she stammered, still shivering, her gritted teeth chattering.

It was a command, not a question. The barrel of her ectogun pressed against his forehead: a promise.

Danny met Val’s eyes, digging deep for an answer, prying it reluctantly from his throat.

“I turned it on,” he said.

A slow shake of her head. Valerie’s brow furrowed.

“You came through the portal,” she snarled. “All you ghosts came through that damn portal— stop lying and tell me the truth.”

The ectogun pressed into his skin, the warm metal stinging his cold ectoplasm.

Danny wasn’t sure if Valerie would believe the truth, but he’d let her have it. After everything, it was the least he could do. The only thing, without enough strength or will in his legs to stand and escape the line of her shot.

“I–I didn’t come through the portal,” he stammered, his core thrumming, his chest heaving as he threw everything into that admission.

The barrel of the gun dug in, so much so it might as well have phased through.

“Where else would you come from?” she said coldly.

Danny clenched his hands into fists, his grip sticky with his own ectoplasm. He wanted to pull away from the ectogun. He wanted to flee. He wanted to be anywhere but here.

Anywhere. Anyone. Anything but Danny Fenton, the boy who couldn’t even die right.

“I turned it on,” he admitted once more in a hushed tone. “G–got electrocuted.”

Just speaking those words aloud took everything Danny had. Exhausted the last spark keeping him sitting upright, until he slumped, leaning into the barrel of the ectogun.

He could feel it shaking against his skull.

“You’re lying. You’re lying.”

Fresh tears slipped down her cheeks. How she had any left to spare was beyond him.

Danny swallowed a lump in his throat. “I’m not. You know I’m not,” he said.

Her eyes danced across his face, lingering intimately on each detail. The line of his nose. The curve of his chin. The arch of his brow.

The shape of his eyes.

“Danny told me he turned the portal on,” she said, her voice so quiet that he could hardly hear it over the thrum of his own core.

The words sank in, the cold impossibly deep with it.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Yeah, I did.”

Time seemed to stop as Valerie took in a sharp breath of air and held it. Danny could practically sense Clockwork on the margins, their hands held over this scene, guiding it along with all of the disinterest of someone who had seen it play out a thousand times before in a thousand different ways over a thousand different lifetimes.

“No,” Valerie said, voice hollow. “No, you— you’re not him.”

The ectogun jerked in her hand, pinging off of Danny’s forehead. Valerie’s gaze snapped to it, her eyes widening with horror.

She tossed it away as though suddenly burned.

Danny followed the weapon’s course, watching as it skidded through the snow and ice, tumbling until it fell against a large stone with a clatter. It sparked slightly at the impact and lay still.

"You can’t be…” Disbelief. Horror. Fear. “You can’t… He…”

Valerie glanced back to the ectogun. Danny wondered if she regretted letting it go. Her hands curled into fists, the bandages flexing with her grip. Her eyes snapped back to Danny and it took everything in him not to flinch.

“Prove it," she demanded in hardly more than a whisper, as though she hardly dared speak it aloud.

She didn't have to ask twice. She hardly had to ask once.

Danny had to reach deep for his transformation. The cold was so absolute, so all-encompassing, that for one heart-wrenching moment he wasn’t even sure if he could go back. His hands dug through the frost-covered grass as he dug deep, searching for that spot of warmth at the heart of his core.

It lay beneath layers of ice, frozen over and quiet, like the torpid slumber of a burrowing creature. Danny had to coax it out, throw kindling on the weak embers, and build a fire against the raging blizzard of his core. It flickered tentatively, struggling to find purchase, before those faint spring rays of sunlight managed to burst through.

Light sprang from his core, stuttering on its course as it cascaded over him.

It brought no warmth. It brought no comfort. It brought only bruised flesh and raw, bloody wounds. Ectoplasm traded for blood, an awful and dark contrast without the green glow. The hillside grew darker without it, lit only by the ambient light of the city below and the stars that shown overhead.

The ice persisted, the cold so much worse.

Valerie had no words. She fell to her knees, eyes wide and searching, head slowly shaking in disbelief. Danny would give anything in that moment to know what she was thinking. Anything for her to just speak.

He wasn’t sure what he wanted her to say. He didn’t expect apologies or reassurances— he wasn’t even sure he wanted them, in any case.

He certainly didn’t deserve them.

But the silence yawned between them, as cold and biting as the frost coating the grass.

Danny found his eyes trailing skyward, almost absently. He picked out the Ursa Major constellation, tracing over each of its points. The stars always helped to sooth his wandering thoughts, but now they only served as an awful reminder.

Nights spent stargazing with his mother, before the world tilted on its axis. Making the most of late night patrols, fighting drooping eyelids just to soar higher into the clouds.

Each memory held a carefree freedom that was slowly slipping through Danny's fingertips, Times bygone and lost, without any time to mourn their passing.

“This whole time…”

Danny’s eyes wandered from the patchwork of stars to the blanket of frost. While his eyes had been glued to the heavens, Valerie’s own were locked on the frostbitten soil. She plucked at a blade of frozen grass, lifting it to her eyes.

“This whole time… you let me hunt you.”

Her nails pinched the grass, the ice fracturing. She kept her eyes on it, her voice shaking as she spoke.

“You let me hunt you. You… you let your parents hunt you.”

The ice shattered, the blade of grass drooping in Valerie's bandaged fingers. Her face crumpled, her mouth twisted into an awful grimace.

“You wanted me to shoot you. You asked me to— to…”

Her fist clenched around the limp blade of grass and she drove it down into the soil, her fist carving a path through the frozen grass.

Danny watched her quietly, waiting for her to look at him. Waiting for the moment her eyes met his and all of this became real.

Suddenly, Valerie pushed off against the ground and stumbled to her feet. Her knees buckled and shook but she managed it. Her chest heaved and her breath puffed out in fogging mist.

Finally, her eyes met his.

There was anger there, but worse was the hurt. A pinched expression with tears welling on her icy lashes, her face still smeared with ash and blotchy with emotion.

She took two shaky steps towards him, closing the distance. Her boots crushing his ice with loud snaps and cracks that shattered the quiet night.

Her left hand dug into the collar of Danny’s shirt and binder, while her right wound backwards, curled into a fist.

Her punch struck him in the cheek, hard enough to snap his head back.

“Y–you were going to let me kill you,” she said, her voice a shattered, anguished growl. “You wanted me to.”

Her fist reeled back again, this time connecting with his jaw when it returned. Danny tasted blood on his tongue.

“Did you think that would make me happy?” she screamed, the sound raw and echoing over the hillside. “Did you even think how that would make me feel?”

She raised her fist once more, holding it shaking in the air. The bandages across her knuckles were dark with blood.

“Did you think it would make everything go away— that it would fix anything? That you’d just get to leave all of us behind, and that I’d somehow be o–okay with your blood on my hands?”

Tears rolled down her cheeks, falling on his face. Her hand stuttered in the air before she let it drop, instead fisting it into the other side of his collar.

“Answer me!” she cried, shaking him as she had Phantom.

Danny had no idea what to do with his hands— himself. He tentatively closed one around her left wrist, just to hold himself up enough to keep his binder from digging into his throat.

“I–I…”

“If you say you’re sorry right now, I really will end you, Danny. Give me an answer— an actual fucking answer.”

Danny swallowed, his lips quivering as he tried to put something— anything into words.

“I… I didn’t know what else to do,” was all he managed.

It wasn’t enough. He knew it wasn’t, not when the words first left his lips or when Valerie’s teeth gritted with renewed anger.

“You don’t just get to make me your executioner when you can’t think of a fucking plan, Danny!” Her voice was so shattered, so broken and hoarse— from the smoke, from screaming, from the hurt cloying at her throat. “You never think things through. You never do, and because of it… because of it they…”

Danny took in a sharp breath of air as he caught her meaning. His grip on her wrist tightened and he couldn’t even bring himself to regret it when Valerie flinched. Danny struggled to get his legs back under him, pulling himself up onto his knees as he felt some anger bleed into the cold numb of his core.

“You don’t think I know that?” he shouted, his voice cracking, no less wrecked than her own. “I fucking tried, Val. I–I tried. I’ve always tried to help, whether or not anyone thinks that. Whether or not you think that.”

Each word shook. His jaw ached, with blood still on his tongue and a bruise no doubt forming on his cheek. He ignored the pain, grasping onto this flicker of anger. It felt good to feel it— to feel something other than the persistent gnaw of grief and ache.

Valerie’s eyes widened as Danny dug his nails in too rough, digging through the bandage on her arm. She gasped in pain, flinching, and it was only then that Danny realized just how close he was to snapping her wrist.

He let go suddenly and fell back as Valerie let him loose. She stumbled back too, hardly managing to stay on her feet. She stared at her shaking wrist where fresh spots of blood welled through the bandages.

Danny stared at it too, his core aching with regret.

“I–I’m sorry,” he said, tentatively holding out his hand, reaching for her.

His core thrummed discordantly when she pulled back.

Valerie wouldn’t look at him again. Her eyes trailed from her wrist to the snow and ice around them. They skirted down the hill until she turned to stare out over Amity Park, her back to him.

She stood there for a long moment, silhouetted against the night sky with her hands balled into trembling fists.

Slowly, she crouched down, sitting on the hillside overlooking Amity. She wrapped her arms around her knees, her head bowed over them.

Silence. An overwhelming, pervasive silence, broken only by the distant hum of traffic and Danny's own uneven breaths. It was so much worse than the anger. So much worse than anything she could say to him.

Danny sat in that silence, drinking it in. He wondered if Sam and Jazz sat in a similar silence tonight. He wondered if Tucker was awake.

He wanted to go to the them and wrap his arms around them. Fall into their warm embrace and find some measure of comfort when he felt he deserved none.

He wanted it more than anything, even though he'd chosen to run.

Not that running had gotten him anywhere.

Danny stumbled to his feet, the world teetering around him as his head swam. He dug the toes of his ratty old sneakers into the ice and picked his way through it. Shaking, trembling— unsure above all else— Danny made his way to where Val sat.

She didn't move. She didn't so much as look at him. Hesitating, Danny waited for her to tell him to leave.

The crickets chirped in the silence.

Slowly, as though he were kneeling beside an immeasurably tall chasm, Danny sank down next to Val. He left enough space between them that she could easily move out of his reach.

Valerie's eyes remained fixed on Amity's lights. They were narrowed, heavy with dark bags that showed the depth of her fatigue.

That wasn't new. Ever since Phantom and Cujo tore through her old life, she'd always looked so exhausted.

Another regret he carried.

Danny followed her gaze down the hill. His eyes instantly locked on Casper High— blackened and battle-scarred as it was. The entire east side of the building was charred black, part of it collapsed where…

A shaky sigh left his lips.

"I don't even know what you are anymore," Valerie said, breaking the silence. It shattered around them, as fragile as his ice.

Danny picked at the knees of his jeans. They were red with his blood now and Danny could feel the furrows he'd dug into his flesh beneath the denim.

"I don't know either," he admitted quietly.

She shuffled uncomfortably beside him, pulling her legs tighter to her chest.

“You’re dead, though.” A statement. Harsh truth.

Danny nodded his head. “S–something like that,” he breathed.

Valerie lifted a hand to wipe at her face, sniffling.

“Did you… did you mean what you said about the portal?” she asked.

Danny glanced at her, but Valerie still wasn’t looking at him. She stared determinedly ahead, her eyes locked on Amity.

On Casper High or FentonWorks, he couldn’t be sure. Both were visible from the hill, neither a pretty sight.

Danny nodded. “Y–yeah. Electrocution. Don’t recommend it.”

His right hand rubbed over his left. The burns from the fire had started to heal across his hands, but his skin still bore a patchwork of scars that would never go away. One scar stood out above all else, a starburst from his palm that wound in fern-like spirals to his heart.

“It was an accident."

Valerie sniffed again. She pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes, taking shaky breathes.

"The portal or–or the ice?" she asked him, the last word strangled and drawn out.

Danny glanced at the ice still around them. They were at the edge of the worst of it, sat where the frost petered into rich spring grass.

"Both," he said.

Her eyes were on him now, hazel daggers that pierced through his soul. It felt like being scanned, as though each of Danny's sins were bared for her to see. For her to scrutinize and tell for herself whether he spoke a modicum of the truth.

"It was an accident," he repeated, not knowing which he meant. Both, maybe. "I–I always mess up. I got myself killed, and now… Ancients, I didn't mean to hurt anyone, Val. I just wanted to help."

She held his gaze, eyes half-lidded with sorrow as much as exhaustion. Her hands kept squeezing at her knees. Danny realized that she must be freezing in the chill that surrounded him, a misery made no easier by her own wounds.

She'd been hurt by the fire just as much as his ice and he couldn't imagine how to start treating either of those wounds.

When Valerie at last spoke her tone was careful and even, each word spoken with conviction. "Star and Dash are dead, Danny. That doesn't go away just because you didn't mean for it to happen… you know that, right?"

Danny nodded stiffly, clenching his fists. "I know. I know, Val. I can't… stop seeing it."

The fire. The ice.

The blood that seeped like a slow river out from beneath it, reflecting the light.

Val chuckled, a dark and humorless sound that echoed in Danny's ears.

"That makes two of us," she said.

It wasn't just two of them. That hallway had been crowded, packed to the nines with students and teachers hurrying away from the flames. That only a handful of students had been crushed when his ice fell was nothing short of a miracle.

It didn't feel like much of one.

"Have you seen Tucker?" Val asked. There was something accusatory there, as if she couldn't believe that Danny would abandon his friend to sit up on this hill.

He couldn't help but agree with it.

"I made sure he was okay first," he said, his eyes sliding over the streets that led to the hospital. "He'll be okay, but… but his leg's pretty messed up."

Just imagining Tucker there had his core thrumming with unease. Tuck always hated hospitals. He didn't deserve to be there anymore than Paulina did.

(Anymore than Dash and Star deserved their place in its morgue.)

Danny only hoped Tucker and Paulina would be able to walk out of this one on their own two feet.

That hope was weaker than his own ice.

Val nodded beside him. "He's going to need you, you know. Whatever kind of pity spiral this is, you can't just abandon him."

Danny let out a shaky sigh. "I know."

Val's eyes narrowed, her jaw flexing as she grit her teeth. "Do you?" she challenged. "Just a few minutes ago you were trying to get me to… get me to…”

She trailed off, sucking in a sharp, wavering breath of air.

“I know,” Danny repeated hollowly.

He could still feel the phantom press of the ectogun against his forehead.

Valerie pillowed her arms over her knees and rested her chin on top of them. She was shivering still and Danny realized that, for all the cold gripping at his chest, it must feel much worse for her.

After all, Valerie was still human.

Danny focused on the ice around him, doing his best to try and call it back. He was getting much better at controlling it.

(Or at least he had thought he was.)

Slowly, Danny focused on the cold of his core, pulling that chill inward. He shivered with it, letting out a long, fogging breath as he forced the chill down. The ice went with it, melting into the air without a trace.

The cold remained.

Valerie watched the strange process, her expression drawn. She ran a hand through the grass, as if testing to make sure it was real.

She opened her mouth to say something, closed it, and shook her head. The silence stretched on again, so much so Danny wasn't sure if she'd speak again. Finally, just when Danny was about to break the silence, she spoke.

"I have so much I want to say to you. I want answers. I–I want to hit you again, honestly."

She clenched her fists and Danny couldn't help but smile slightly at that. It didn't last long, dipping back into a deep frown as she let out a choked sigh.

Valerie picked at the bandages on her left hand, her eyes half-lidded as she asked, "Can you just answer one thing?"

Danny tensed. A hundred different questions rocketed through his mind, lingering most prominently on the dark tunnel of the portal and the glint of spectral ice. Valerie could ask him anything. About the Zone, about his powers, about his death—

"Why didn't you ever tell me?" she asked instead.

Danny's core thrummed uncomfortably, his chest squeezing tightly as a fresh wave of ice spread through his veins. It was all Danny could do to take a deep breath and push it down, fighting against that rising chill when the frost began to prickle at the ground surrounding him once more.

Lying back down in the grass, Danny's eyes skirted over the night sky. The moon was a bright crescent, nestled amongst the blanket of stars. He wished he could curl up in the curve of it and fall asleep.

"I was scared— am scared," Danny said, speaking into the star-studded sky.

Valerie sighed. She shifted, lying back into the grass as well.

"You told Sam and Tucker," she said. Hurt.

Glancing at her, Danny found Valerie's eyes locked onto the sky. She'd always humored him when he talked about the constellations, asking him questions more so he could ramble than she could have answers. He wondered how much of them she still remembered.

"I never told them," Danny admitted, training his eyes back to the heavens as they were wont to do. "They were just… there."

A sharp intake of breath. Danny could feel Valerie's eyes on him this time, though now he couldn't bring himself to meet her gaze.

"They saw it happen," she said, more a statement than a question.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Danny nodded. "August second, right before freshman year," he said quietly. "We were just messing around. W–we… we recorded it."

Danny hadn't seen the tape— none of them had. He held onto the thin hope that the energy surge from the portal might have destroyed most of the recording, but the camcorder they used had been modified enough by his parents that it probably caught more than he'd ever like to see.

Not that Danny needed the reminder. The event replayed itself in his worst nightmares— in Sam and Tucker's too, they had reluctantly admitted to him last summer on the anniversary.

Just the thought had Danny's stomach roiling. Part of him wanted to race home and dig the tape from its resting place inside the wall that divided his bedroom with Jazz's and tear it to pieces.

Another part of him still wanted to watch it.

The guilty, cowardly part of him would leave it there as a reminder.

(Danny’s mind trailed to another reminder, locked away in Clockwork's domain.)

"I'd say I was surprised, but I'm really not," Valerie said. "I don't think I've ever seen you think something through. You just— do it."

And then suffer the consequences, Danny couldn't help but think.

Valerie sighed, the grass rustling as she shifted. Danny couldn't help but notice that she winced in pain at the motion. He was about to ask her if she was okay when he felt the wound edges of a bandage press against his knuckles.

Turning over his hand, Danny let Valerie slip hers into his. Her hands were bigger than his— warmer, though not enough to disperse the chill in his own. He could practically feel the ice of his core sapping away her warmth.

"This doesn't all go away," she said. Her eyes were still on the stars, not meeting his own. "Tomorrow we're going to wake up and none of this is going to go away."

Danny squeezed her hand gently, too aware of the bandages pressed into his palm.

“I know,” he croaked.

Danny wasn’t sure how he’d face tomorrow— or the next day— or the day after that. He supposed he was already used to living with regret, but nothing like this. Though Dan’s actions weighed on his mind, at the end of the day they were mere memory.

Nothing like this.

Valerie squeezed his hand back, more tightly.

“I haven’t forgiven you,” she told him, her voice tense but determined. “Not for anything. Not yet.”

Danny hummed in acknowledgement, unable to answer. He expected as much, but it didn’t hurt any less to hear.

“I don’t know when I’ll forgive you— if,” she continued, Danny hanging on her every word. Though he’d wanted nothing more than to be alone, now Danny felt like the only thing keeping him grounded was the rasp of her voice.

“All I know is if you ever try this shit again— you ever give me a reason,” she gripped his hand with everything she had, hard enough to bruise. The bones in his hand groaned under the pressure and Danny had to bite back a hiss.

“Give me one fucking reason, Danny. Give up— run away. I’ll hunt you down. I’ll make you regret it.”

The tight grip of her fingers promised as much.

“I won’t run,” Danny promised back, matching a fraction of that squeeze.

Val let out a huff. “No giving up, either. I mean it. If you ever sit like that in front of an ectogun again…” Danny thought his hand might break under the force of her grip. “Promise me that’ll never happen.”

Danny’s eyes flickered across the night sky, the stars blurring into bright streaks of light as tears welled on his lashes.

“I swear it won’t.”

Val’s grip finally loosened, though she made no effort to pull her hand from his. Danny could still feel the faintest hint of warmth in her hand, the sensation buzzing against his numb skin.

“Good,” she said with a nod, her hair brushing over the grass. “You… you owe it to them. Not just to Tucker, but… Dash. Star. Paulina, too. They—fuck, they should still be here. They should still be here and I won’t let you forget that, Danny.”

Her words faltered and broke, powerful waves dashed against the rocks of an unyielding shore. Her grip tightened once more, though it shook too much to have the same force. Danny had no words or comfort to give her. Nothing he could say that wouldn’t feel too insignificant. Danny couldn’t pretend that he’d cared about Dash and Star anymore than he could pretend that his own actions were justified and right. A thousand what-ifs and could-have-beens paved the path that led to this day.

A niggling voice in Danny’s mind told him, under no uncertain terms, that had he only faced his fears sooner, he wouldn’t have made such a costly mistake.

He’d never know. Clockwork themself would never turn back the hands of time for what they considered such a lowly lesson—

Though it was one that would haunt Danny until he drew his final mortal breath.

The stars were beautiful tonight. Too beautiful, with everything else crashing down around him. Danny’s mind wandered, thinking about the girl beside him and her two friends that she’d never get to see again.

Danny had seen what that sort of grief could do.

At least Valerie was stronger than him… Not that she deserved any of the weight bearing down on her shoulders, or the heavy secret of knowing who had caused the death of her old friends— accidental or not.

Danny hated knowing that Valerie would keep that secret.

He hated how easy it would be to keep it, burying that ice deep inside his chest.

Though his eyes lingered on the crescent curve of the moon, Danny’s mind continued to wander, thoughts drifting to the town below the hill. To Dash and Star, and the two families having the worst days of their lives.

Even his own family, twisted and strange as it was, hadn’t had to suffer that hardship. They’d simply kept on moving, oblivious to how the green glow of the portal buried the tomb rested beneath it.

The crickets chirped, their songs renewed in full force without the icy breeze. If Danny strained his ears, he could hear the distant hoot of an owl and the chatter of frogs in the park. The earth breathed around him, heedless of the cold grief cloying at his chest.

Danny knew he’d have to pick himself up eventually. The night would end, and when the sun rose there would be no quiet darkness to hide himself in. Sam’s cover wouldn’t last forever. His guilt would only keep him from the hospital for so long. The school, once it reopened, would have two less students in its halls, a yawning echo where they should have been.

Not even ghosts.

Certainly no Phantom.

If the portal remained, he doubted it would for long.

At least for a little while longer, Danny could stare up at the night sky, Valerie’s hand held in his. The stars above them were so bright and beautiful, but Danny couldn’t remember ever feeling so cold.

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