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five-rivers · 1 year

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Cult Division 3

Part of the Exhumed series

“What do you mean, you can’t change back?” asked Daily.

“What do you think I mean?” asked Danny, stepping off the cloth, then stooping to ball it up into something he could easily carry. “I can’t go back to being Phantom.”

“Then they really revived you?”

“No,” said Danny, “I don’t think so.” He could still feel his ghost half, he just couldn’t grab it. It had been like this for less than a minute and he already hated it.

Daily shifted, looking around the park. “Okay, um. Can you do any of your… stuff? The ghost stuff?”

Danny bit his lip and cycled through his basic powers. Nothing. He shook his head.

“Oh, that’s bad. You’re just like a normal kid now.”

He wasn’t wrong, exactly, but Danny wished he’d phrased it at least slightly differently.

“A normal kid… In the park in the middle of the night…” Daily shook his head. “We shouldn’t be here when McGee comes back. He still hasn’t chilled out.”

Meaning, he was still looking for things to report back to the agency that sent him in the first place. Danny groaned. “Don’t worry, I’m going home.” Maybe his parents would have some insight into what had happened. Or, at least, who they had sold Ghost Catcher thread to.

“Hey, no, wait, you can’t walk home from here like that. You’re not even wearing a coat.”

“I don’t really have another option—”

“I’ll drive you.”

“Isn’t that Collin’s car?”

“He won’t miss it. And he left the keys.”

Danny stared for a moment at the blatant lies, then shrugged. He could still hear distant sounds of people running through trees and bushes. It would take a while for Collins, Paterson, and McGee to catch everyone, assuming they caught anyone at all, and Fentonworks wasn’t that far away.

He walked back to the car and opened the door, the front one, this time, and slid in. Daily got in the other side, then stared blankly at the steering wheel.

“You do know how to drive, right?” It was a valid question. Danny had never seen Daily drive.

“Of course I do! I just haven’t driven this car before.” He started the car up, and very slowly pulled out onto the road.

The slowness of the drive gave Danny time to further assess himself. His ghost half was definitely, absolutely, still there (thank goodness). It just felt… weighed down. Pinned. Tied up.

He started picking at the glowing thread. The patterns were repeated on his skin, but maybe it was just a matter of taking off his clothes…

The car slowed to a halt. “Do you need me to walk you in?” asked Daily, drumming his thumbs on the steering wheel. “I can… Explain to your parents? Or maybe your sister?” Jazz was mentioned in a significantly more helpful tone than his parents.

“No, I’ve got it,” said Danny, opening the door. “Thanks for the ride. You’ll let me know what you find out about that cult and…” He gestured at himself. “Whatever they did.”

“Okay,” said Daily. “Yeah. Of course! That’s my job, right?”

Keeping an eye on and researching cults was part of Daily’s job, but telling Danny wasn’t. Still. “Yeah,” said Danny, smiling weakly.

Collins frowned at the empty parking lot. “Paterson!” he called.

“Yeah?” came Paterson’s voice, echoing across the park.

“Did I, or did I not park here?”

“What?”

Collins groaned. “Give it up, they got away!” He sighed. “Possibly with my car.”

Danny did not have the best track record when it came to telling his parents about things, but he was trying to get better. Still, he felt like the present subject had to broached delicately. That was why he was sitting on the floor outside their bedroom, listening to his dad snore.

He wanted to tell them. He wanted to fix this. But he didn’t want to admit how much trouble he’d gotten into and how a bunch of cultists had gotten the better of him.

But he was trying, and his new, ugh, magic glowing tattoos weren’t something he could hide. He picked up the broom he had brought with him and opened the door. No point in knocking, they both wore earplugs to bed. He picked up the broom and poked his dad with the end of it.

“WHAT! GHOST!”

“Hmhph?” said Maddie. “Ghost?” She had a small ectoblaster in her hand already.

“No, just me.” Danny put down the broom and raised his hands.

“Oh, Danno,” said Jack, rubbing at one eye as Maddie pried the earplugs from his ears. “What are you doing here?”

Danny bit his lower lip. “I… might have screwed up.”

“Danny, sweetheart, that doesn’t sound like it was your fault. It would have happened even if you stayed home. You were kidnapped.”

“I guess.” It still felt like he could have done something. Maybe if he’d paid a little more attention to the cults, kept a closer eye on what they were doing.

“But we do need to see what we can do with all this.” She picked up his hand and rubbed her thumb over one of the green marks on its back. “…and about that summoning thing. I don’t like that these people can just snatch you away whenever they like.”

“And we’ll never let them do anything like that again! Or else!” said Jack, brandishing the spatula he was using to flip the pancakes.

“It sounded like it was related to the date somehow.”

“That doesn’t comfort us much, sweetie. Especially considering what they did to you. Do you think they really involved your, ah…”

“I mean…” Danny trailed off and took his hand back. He rubbed his arms against the sudden chill. “I don’t know. It’s not like I’ve never gotten my powers knocked out of whack. It could be like that. Might even have a time limit.”

“But?” prompted Maddie.

“But… it feels different,” admitted Danny. “It’s weight, not static.”

“Do you think we’ll need to, uh, what’s the word again, for digging up a, um…”

“Exhumation,” said Maddie, before Jack could come up with a proper euphemism for corpse.

Danny wasn’t really comfortable about his… mortal remains. But the pauses and too-obvious references were, in many ways, worse.

Literally everything else about his life was better than when he’d still been keeping things a secret, though! He did not want to go back!

Except maybe to earlier tonight, when getting the dead half of his body shoved back into him wasn’t something he had to worry about happening.

“We’ll have to ask the police about that,” said Maddie. “Maybe we can start with a few simple tests after breakfast, though. See if how much your readings changed from your baseline.”

“Hey! Could be that all you need is a trip through the old Ghost Catcher!”

“Ghost Catcher string partially caused this,” said Danny. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea to, uh, cross wires.”

“There shouldn’t be any problem with that,” said Jack. “The strings aren’t reactive with each other, they wouldn’t work if they were. Speaking of which, how did they even get it into this cloth?” Jack used the spatula to point at the cloth, which was spread out over Jazz’s chair. “Usually, you have to have special tools to work with any of it, or else it just falls through.”

“I don’t know, they didn’t really say anything beyond path of enlightenment nonsense. You know, the whole ‘we worship you but won’t listen to a thing you say’ thing.”

Maddie sighed. “We’ll just hope they get caught so they can tell us what they were actually trying to do. In the meantime, we’ll do our own research… And maybe you can use this as a break. A little vacation.”

“In the same way sick days are a vacation, I guess.”

“Do you feel sick?”

“No,” said Danny. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Maybe you should stay home from school until we can find a way to undo this.”

“Aw, no, Mom. I don’t want to miss any school. I’ve been actually doing okay this year.”

“But we don’t know how any of this is going to affect you. What if it is temporary, and your… body is involved. What happens if it times out in class?”

Danny swallowed, suddenly nauseous. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

The chief of police sat in his office, blinds drawn, two thirds of the trouble trio and Cameron Daily.

“You’re telling me that the person who is primarily responsible for protecting our city from hostile ghosts has been nerfed by cultists. Cultists that you let get away.”

“Hey!” said Daily. “I didn’t know you knew what nerfed meant, chief!”

The chief groaned. “Find these cultists. Figure out what they did. Get the Fentons whatever they need to undo this. Fast.”

“Alright,” said Maddie, as if she hadn’t been having a whispered argument with Jack only minutes before, “I’m going to city hall to file the exhumation paperwork. You two stay here unless something happens to Danny. No leaving for ghost attacks.”

“Aw,” said both Jack and Danny.

“But, Mom—”

“No buts. This is a sick day for Danny, and someone needs to look after him the whole time.” She pointed sharply at Jack. “Don’t run off.”

Danny hunched his shoulder. He wasn’t that bad to look after, was he? Not that he wanted to be looked after.

“But if I’m the one to talk to Vladdie, it’ll be faster!”

“It’ll be hours, sweetie, if you two get started. If he doesn’t leave you in the waiting room,” she added under her breath. “You know how you two get.”

“Not when Danny’s at stake!”

Maddie gave him a look.

“Fine,” said Jack.

“Maybe you two can do something together while I’m gone. Fudge, maybe? Or cookies?”

“Oooooh!” said Jack. “Yeah! Cookies! How does that sound, Danno?”

“I have homework,” groused Danny.

“I can help with that, too!”

“Goodbye, guys. Oh! Remember, if I’m not back by lunch, run the tests again, okay?”

“Will do, Maddie!”

“Okay, Mom,” said Danny, giving a little wave.

“Good, good. So, keys, cell phone, wallet, boo-staff—” The door clicked closed, cutting off the rest of her list.

“Okay,” said Jack, thumping Danny’s back and giving him a little shove at the stairs. “I’ll get the kitchen set up! You get your homework!”

“Yeah,” said Danny. “Okay.”

“Fundge here we come!” said Jack, pumping his fist. “Get it? Fundge?”

“Yeah,” said Danny, giving him a weak smile. “I get it.” He started for the stairs, irrationally annoyed he couldn’t fly up them. He wouldn’t have flown up them anyway. He hardly ever did that.

He walked into his room and stopped. Actually, where was his homework? Where was his backpack?

Ugh. Typical.

He started looking behind and underneath things, the process all the more tedious because he couldn’t just reach through them. Hopefully he hadn’t done something stupid like phase it into the wall last night. ‘Oops, I made my homework inaccessible to the living’ was not going to fly in any of his classes… Unless he blamed it on his parents… Food for thought. He paused to email a request for class notes to Sam and Tucker. Halfway through writing the message, he heard the screaming doorbell go off.

“I’ve got it!” called Jack.

“Okay!” Danny hit send on the email and kept looking for his backpack. He dropped to the floor to look under his bed, scowled as it wasn’t there, either, then got up and tripped over his sheets, pulling them off his bed.

Why had he put his backpack in his bed? So stupid.

He shouldered it and prepared to go downstairs, but…

Something was wrong. He thought back, trying to decide what it was. Living… or unliving? Half-living the way he did, he was pretty good at pinpointing the sources of vague senses of wrongness.

It was quiet.

The front door hadn’t shut.

Holy crap, had someone just kidnapped his dad?

Emergency blaster, emergency blaster… He held his backpack by one strap to use as a bludgeon – the books in it were certainly heavy enough – and held the blaster steady in his other hand. He would activate the Defense System, but his parents had ripped a lot of it out after the reveal and were still in the process of reinstallation.

He tapped his door open with his foot and ventured out into the house. It really was too quiet. Almost suffocatingly so. He held his breath. Probably not the best choice, strategically, but something about everything…

He hit the bottom step of the stairs, turned into the kitchen, and ran into two people wearing oxygen masks.

His reflexes were better, so he started firing immediately. Ectoblasters weren’t meant to hurt humans, not really, but the impact to the chest was enough to knock both of the men back. The recoil was equally sufficient to knock the air out of Danny’s lungs. He wasn’t really trying to hold his breath, after all.

He ran past them, inhaling, and… stumbled, suddenly dizzy.

Oxygen masks.

Stupid mistake! Sometimes his instincts were good!

Something touched his upper arm, and he lashed out, swinging his backpack backwards. There was an oof sort of sound, and one of the men toppled over. The other one pulled the backpack out of Danny’s hand, which was a mistake, because he was still holding the gun. Ectogun. Whatever. He shot him.

Then… Outside. Whatever was in here, they couldn’t have enough to get the whole neighborhood, and if they could get away with just oxygen masks, it probably wasn’t super toxic. Also, if it had spread very far, someone in the neighborhood would have noticed. Probably. Maybe.

They’d notice enough to complain, at least.

Halfway through the living room, he had to breathe again. Human physical limits sucked.

Black spots danced over his vision and left him on his knees. He got back up and went for the door, stumbling drunkenly. He hit it with his face. Why were doors so hard to operate?

The black spots slowly grew until they consumed his vision.

“Did… did he just run into a wall?”

“Just because he’s perfect doesn’t mean he smart. And get rid of… we… need… backpack…”

Collins and Paterson stared at the most significant piece of physical evidence regarding Daniel Fenton’s kidnapping.

“If you’re not going to say it, I am,” said Paterson.

“Don’t say it,” said Collins.

“I really want to, though.”

“Don’t.”

“I think ‘my homework ate a kidnapper’ is a great excuse for not doing it. That kid is brutal. How much blood do you think is on that thing?”

“Paterson, he got kidnapped.”

“Yeah,” said Paterson, a grin plastered on her face, “and that’s terrifying, thanks. Let me have this.”

McGee escorted Daily through the front door of Fentonworks, his hand firmly on the man’s shoulder. “Got him,” he said.

“Oh, man,” said Daily. “So, this is what a real crime scene looks like.” He saw the backpack and squeaked. “Is that blood?”

“Yeah. Now do your thing and find out why these two think what happened last night in the park is connected to this. Fenton wasn’t actually involved in that, was he?”

“His family takes care of the gravesite,” said Collins. “And this is the biggest crime in Amity Park for years. We have to look at everything.”

“Uh huh,” said McGee. “Well, I’m going to go back out and question the father.”

Collins groaned internally. Dealing with McGee was usually… if not exactly fun, then at least amusing, but dealing with his everything on a case like this… With Danny’s… possibly with Danny’s life on the line, who knew how that worked with the whole cult thing…

“Do you think we can offload McGee on someone else?” he asked Paterson.

“And give him something to actually report to his bosses? Not a chance.”

#danny phantom #exhumed #cult division #dannymay #dannymay 2023 #dannymay 2023 day 2: backpack

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formulas-fatal-to-your-mom · 6 months

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#Exhumed #Gore Metal #Deathmask #death metal #grindcore #goregrind #carcass #ghoul #general surgery #aborted #Bandcamp

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theterrornoise · 6 months

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What a crazy lineup

Source:tankcrimes official ig

#dystopia #exhumed #disassociate #cattlepress #murder junkies #burn the priest #lamb of god #the dillinger escape plan #cbgb #90s hardcore #mathcore #grindcore #powerviolence

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onlyhurtforaminute · 2 months

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youtube

EXHUMED-POSTMORTEM PROCEDURES

#EXHUMED #GOREGRIND #DEATHGRIND #GRINDCORE #GRIND #DEATH METAL;#HEAVY METAL;#METAL;#GORE METAL #1998 ALBUM #Youtube

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toxicmetalzine · 1 month

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Gatecreeper

GATECREEPER - announce new album 'Dark Superstition' coming May 17th! Get the album info right here: https://www.toxicmetalzine.com/post/gatecreeper-announce-new-album-dark-superstition-coming-may-17th

#gatecreeper #black metal #grindcore #progressive metal #darkthrone #iron maiden #melodic death metal #extreme metal #heavy metal #swedish black metal #megadeth #stoner metal #deathcore #brutal death metal #death metal #napalm death #exhumed

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albumarchives · 2 years

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Exhumed | To The Dead (2022)

#death metal #grindcore #exhumed #2022 #unknown artist #cover art

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playstationpark · 8 months

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Bug Boom 'PowerSlave' / 'Exhumed' PlayStation

#PowerSlave #Exhumed #PlayStation #PSOne

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segacity · 1 year

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Freaky Skull 'Exhumed' SEGA Saturn

#Exhumed #SEGA #Saturn

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myhauntedsalem · 4 months

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Upon occasion a body must be exhumed or done so by accident. Some exhumations can reveal unusual finds and many famous people who were exhumed are documented by curious witnesses. There is quite a list of famous people who were exhumed for one reason or another. Some of them include:

Daniel Boone – He was buried in Missouri but when moved to Kentucky, they thought they might have the wrong body.

John Wilkes Booth – His body was warehoused until his family finally put him to rest in their area.

Al Capone – His body was moved.

Karen Carpenter – In Karen’s case, they wanted to move her to a new location.

Christopher Columbus – His body had been moved around and so there was some question about whether the remains were his or possibly mixed with another person.

Marie Curie – Her body was exhumed and moved to be put in a place of honor.

Sammy Davis Jr. – Sammy died almost bankrupt so his wife actually had him exhumed to get the 70,000 dollars worth of jewelry he was buried with.

Adolf Hitler – In 1970, remains believed to be his were turned over for cremation.

Benny Hill – Sadly, this beloved comedian was the victim of grave robbery.

Abraham Lincoln – Several people thought to try and steal his body. Eventually, they encased him in concrete.

Lee Harvey Oswald – With the permission of Oswald’s widow, Eddowes had the body exhumed in 1981 and dental records confirmed the man was not a Russian body double, but Oswald himself.

Elvis Presley – Buried in Memphis, he was moved because someone tried to steal his body. He was placed at Graceland

Jesse James – The infamous Wild West outlaw may have died in 1882, but his legend lived on as did persistent rumors that James faked his own death. In 1995, the James family requested the exhumation of their ancestor’s corpse from a Kearney, Missouri cemetery and DNA tests confirmed the remains were indeed those of the outlaw.

Eva Peron – Evita’s body was exhumed and moved to Madrid, where her husband lived in exile. Finally in 1974, her remains were returned to Buenos Aires and buried in a fortified crypt in La Recoleta Cemetery.

Abraham Lincoln – In 1876 a gang of Chicago counterfeiters hatched a scheme to snatch the slain president’s body from his tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois, and hold the corpse for a ransom of $200,000 and the release of their best engraver from prison. After law enforcement officials thwarted the grave robbers in the middle of the crime, Lincoln’s body was quickly moved to various unmarked graves until it was eventually encased in a steel cage and entombed under 10 feet of concrete in the same Springfield cemetery in 1901.

Zachary Taylor – In 1991, Taylor became the first president to have his remains exhumed, and tests conclusively showed that he was not assassinated by poison.

Oliver Cromwell – King Charles II exhumed Cromwell’s body on the twelfth anniversary of his father’s execution and in retribution for the regicide staged an execution of his own.

Simon Bolivar – Twelve years after his death, Bolivar’s remains were exhumed from Santa Marta’s cathedral and transferred to Caracas, Venezuela. The testing by forensic specialists proved inconclusive as to the cause of Bolivar’s death.

#exhumed #ghost and hauntings #paranormal #ghost and spirits #haunted salem #myhauntedsalem

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mysterious-secret-garden · 7 months

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Lithograph by R. de Moraine from 1864 showing townsfolk burning the exhumed skeleton of an alleged vampire. Book - Les tribunaux secrets.

Versions >> 1 | 2

#R. de Moraine #exhumed #skeleton #vampire #vampirism #dead #death #tomb

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five-rivers · 11 months

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Cult Division 4

Part of this series.

“Vlad,” said Maddie.

“Maddie,” purred Vlad. “What brings you here today?”

Maddie repressed the desire to curl her lip. “I am informing you that we’re exhuming Phantom’s body, following the activities of the unidentified cultists last night.”

“Oh, but, Maddie, only family members can do that. And unless you and Phantom are suddenly family members…”

“Don’t give me that,” said Maddie. “I. Know.”

Vlad’s expression soured. “Yes. Quite,” he said flatly. “I am aware. However, unless you want to make your relationship with the boy public, there’s nothing I can do about the law.”

Maddie, having anticipated this, slammed a piece of paper down on the desk. “You won’t have to,” she said. “The law is very much on my side for this one. Municipal Ordinance 10776. Investigative professionals registered with the city can request that any grave be exhumed.”

(Investigative professionals here meaning ghost hunters. Not everyone had the kind of open-mindedness as the average Amity Parker, and although a ordinance against summoning ghosts could be laughed off, things like this tended to be taken a little more seriously.)

“Request,” stressed Vlad. “Requests, by their nature, are not automatically granted.”

“Maybe,” said Maddie. “But when word gets around about the cultists, and it will, people will start asking why we aren’t investigating.”

“Is there even anything to investigate?” asked Vlad, putting on his fake innocent act again. “Goodness, I thought the cultists left the memorial intact and undisturbed. Are you saying I was misinformed? Or has something happened to poor Daniel? I’m sorry, to Phantom? It really is fascinating that they both have the same first name.”

They glared at each other over the mayoral desk.

“If I have to,” said Maddie, “I can always reveal you.”

“And I’ll deny everything, or reveal Phantom.”

“Not your ghost half,” said Maddie. “Your continued sexual harassment. There might not be enough of it to get you arrested, but there’s certainly enough for some interesting headlines.”

(She could also just wait for the police to get a warrant from a judge, but figuring out how to word it without saying anything about ghosts, cultists, or other things that would make outsiders overly curious took time.)

“You wouldn’t.”

“I would. Jack would be upset, but if it's for Danny, I think he’ll get over it.”

“Very well,” said Vlad, who looked like he’d swallowed a full box of spiders. “I will approve your request.”

“Thank you,” said Maddie. “I–” Her phone went off. Relishing the chance to be rude to Vlad, she answered it. “Hello?”

“Kidnapped?” Maddie Fenton repeated again. “How?”

“Er,” said Collins, drumming his fingers on the wheel of his car. This was not the best place to have this conversation, but there weren’t a lot of better options, so… “The normal way, I suppose. Someone broke into the house and took him.”

“Through Jack?”

“That’s something we’re investigating.” Jack Fenton had been found passed out near the front door, and was one of the reasons they’d been called in. Apparently, bright orange hazmat was visible. Who would have thought.

“But,” said Maddie, “you think Danny’s okay?”

‘Okay’ was probably an overstatement. An overstatement at best. They hadn’t found any major organs or limbs strewn around the house, but there were signs of a struggle, and kidnapping victims were, as a rule, never okay.

Also… Collins made the decision to not mention the bloody backpack. Some things mothers (and potential suspects) were better off not knowing. He was fairly certain it wasn’t Danny’s blood on the bag, anyway. He almost felt bad for whoever kidnapped him.

Almost.

Whoever those people were, he doubted they were aware of even a tenth of what Danny did for Amity Park.

“At this point, he is most likely still…” he hesitated slightly before the next word, “alive.” He wasn’t convinced anything could kill Danny. The kid seemed invulnerable, for all intents and purposes, and even as a human, he could do incredible things.

Maddie made a strangled noise on the other side of the line.

“We’d like you to come down to the station,” continued Collins. “Keep your phone on and with you. It’s possible you’ll be contacted for ransom.” Possible, but highly unlikely. The Fentons were well-off, but not to this degree.

“I don’t have time,” said Maddie. “I have to look.”

“We’re looking.”

“You aren’t ghost hunters. It’s almost certainly a ghost that took him.”

“There’s reason to believe that is not the case. Mrs. Fenton. Maddie. It’s possible that you saw or heard something important before you left or earlier this week.”

Maddie was quiet on the other side of the line. “You think I had something to do with this?” she asked, a thread of danger running through her words.

“Not as such, no. This is just– this is just procedure. We need to look into everyone. We’re talking to Jack, too.”

“Is that why you think it was humans who did this?”

Again, the reason for that was more the bloodied bag, but, again, he wasn’t talking about that. “Go to the station and you can ask him yourself.”

“Are you not at the station?”

Crap, what had he said to make her think that? “That’s–”

“You’re still at Fentonworks, aren’t you?”

“No?” said Collins.

Maddie hung up on him.

Great. She was on her way and she’d be on the warpath. He hit redial.

“Hello?” said Maddie, in a way that told him that she hadn’t looked at the caller ID and that she was considering what he’d said about ransoms.

“Look, Maddie, I know you were going up to see if you could get permission to exhume the body. Could we– If you go to the station, we can get that started right away. We have the equipment ready to go, the medical examiner is ready. Everything is ready.”

“You–”

“This is a crime scene, Maddie. You can’t be here.”

“It’s my house. And my son.”

“I know, I know. We care about Danny, too. But he’s not here. You can’t help him here.”

There was quiet on the other side of the line.

“Fine.”

“So,” said Paterson. “You went to the door and… what, again?”

“I already told him,” said Jack, who was sitting on the back of an ambulance, getting poked and prodded by an EMT. “Can’t he tell you?”

“Sure,” said Paterson, glancing sideways at McGee, “but can you run me through it again? For reference? Sometimes, we remember things better the second time around.”

“I went to the door, and started feeling dizzy, but I opened it up - I shouldn’t have done that. Should have realized that something was wrong. I opened it up, and there was this duffel bag there.”

“Do you remember anything about the duffel bag?”

“It was taped over in weird places. Patched. Uh. It might have been blue? Or green? But after I saw it, I just passed out. I don’t know what it was about it that made me pass out.”

“Oxygen deprivation,” said the EMT.

“What?”

“Right, you said I wasn’t breathing before, so–”

“Which was caused by oxygen deprivation. You show all the signs. Whoever it was that did this must have released a huge amount of nitrogen or something similar into the area immediately in front of your door.”

“I didn’t feel like I couldn’t breathe, though.”

“You wouldn’t. Our reflex to breathe is triggered by the presence of carbon dioxide, not the absence of oxygen. Without rescue breaths, you would have died of asphyxiation.”

“That’s a thing?” asked Paterson, scrunching her nose.

“Yeah,” said Jack. “You can’t really work as a scientist without at least hearing about it.”

“People have died from it before,” said the EMT. “You’re probably going to be fine, you were found fast, but you still need to go to the hospital.”

“But I need to find Danny.”

“They wouldn’t have stuck around,” said Paterson. “We’ve already got everyone looking for Danny. Amber Alert and everything.”

“Do you think they did the same thing to Danny? The nitrogen thing?”

“It would have been in the house, yeah,” said the EMT.

“Okay,” said Paterson, “so we should look for someone who bought a whole lot of nitrogen tanks or something? What do people even use those for?”

The EMT shrugged. “Science, I guess. You ready to go, Mr. Fenton?”

“Alright,” said Jack.

“Hey, wait,” said McGee, “I’m not done yet–”

“Then you can come talk to him at the hospital,” said the EMT. “George! Come over and help me!”

The EMTs packed Jack into the ambulance and drove away.

McGee stared after it, tapping his foot. “Do you think these kidnappers were able to revive Danny, or are we going to be looking for a corpse?”

“Don’t say things like that,” said Paterson. She’d already seen Danny’s corpse once, after all, she didn’t need to see it again. “It’s bad luck.”

Danny woke slowly. He felt unpleasantly bruised, for one, and for another, the last thing he remembered was getting kidnapped, which was generally not a precursor to happy fun times.

He peeled open eyes that felt disgustingly bloodshot, and looked around. There wasn’t much to see. The room he was in was small, clean, and bare, and he was lying down on a bed. Someone had even tucked him in.

Creepy. Not that kidnapping wasn’t creepy in and of itself, but this was especially creepy.

He struggled to sit up, and discovered that he’d been wrapped in a kind of improvised straitjacket. Several layers of blankets were wrapped around him and held in place by belts. He strained against them, but unfortunately whatever the cult from the other night had done was still holding strong. No powers for him, not even a little bit.

And Danny didn’t even know why these people had taken him.

His legs were still free, so, with a little extra maneuvering, he got up and walked around the room. The one door didn’t even have a handle.

He was stuck.

His mouth suddenly even drier than it had been, he swallowed. He was stuck. Trapped. Hadn’t even figured his way out of this frankly embarrassing ‘straightjacket.’

The door opened, and Danny stumbled back, overbalancing and thumping into the wall. Severa masked figures walked in.

“Oh, he’s perfect!”

They came in, crowding him.

“Back off!” Danny kicked out, but he was at a bad angle, and the first of the mask-wearers was able to get close enough that Danny couldn’t do anything other than try to bite, which didn’t really work if the person you were trying to bite was holding your face.

“Just perfect.” They tilted Danny’s head this way and that, and Danny couldn’t pull away. “Age, of course, is important, but appearance, too. I hadn’t realized…” They fell to muttering.

Danny’s eyes flicked from mask to mask. They were plain white plastic with the eyes blacked out with some kind of fabric. Simple, but effective. Danny didn’t know who these people were.

“Yes, our sponsor was right. You’ll do perfectly. Perfectly.” They patted Danny’s cheek.

“Sponsor?” Danny didn’t want to interact with these people at all, but he needed information.

“I know you must be so frightened. We would have tried a more peaceful way, but those ghost hunters… They would never see reason.”

The other mask-wearers shifted, grumbling.

“The number of times they have assaulted our lord– No, no, we had to get you somewhere safe. After all, you are to be the host for our lord, Phantom.”

Well. That.

What?

He stared at the masked person, uncomprehending as they waxed poetic about Phantom’s - his - virtues. Many of which Danny didn’t have.

“... honor, to be chosen, and an honor, too, to be here to witness. But, of course, you’ve asked after our sponsor. He asked to meet with you.” They ran their hand through Danny’s hair, which was just. Bad. “Yes. We have followed his word for some time, and he has never led us wrong, you know.”

Danny didn’t know. And he didn’t want to meet this ‘sponsor’ they were talking about.

“He’ll be coming soon,” said the masked person. “You’ll talk, and then… then we prepare.”

The masked people filed out of the room and closed the door behind them. Danny futilely tried to open the door, in case they hadn’t closed it properly. Frustrated, he sat down on the bed.

Another cult. A different one, too, if he knew anything about cults, which was not a sentence he’d have expected to say before he became a half ghost. Worse, not only was it another cult, it was another Phantom cult. What part of his behavior as Phantom made people think he wanted cults?

Superman didn’t have to deal with this.

Superman was fictional.

Maybe he could use the walls or the edge of the cot to shift the belts around, and from there he could use the buckles to… pick the nonexistent lock on the door. Right. Not likely. Maybe he could do something to - no, the hinges were on the outside. At least, he could use them as a weapon, probably? Maybe–

Danny’s ghost sense went off, and he tensed. He wasn’t ready for a fight, but he was ready to be a pain, assuming this ghost was involved, and make a plea for escape, if they weren’t.

A ghost phased through the door.

Danny hissed.

“Plasmius.”

“Hello, little badger.”

#danny phantom #dannymay 2023 day 18: grave #dannymay #dannymay 2023 #exhumed #cult division

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