#hannahmander
Note
Another Casper High student of your choosing, I love the Casper High kids so much
Oh geez lemme think. I don't think anyone said Dash so I'll pick him.
Lyrics- Punk Tactics by Joey Valence and Brae
Song
Instrumental- Crystalize by Lindsey Stirling
Cause why not 😭
Song
2 notes
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WHOO HOO ECTO-IMPLOSION!! I was honored to get to step in to write for the incredible artwork done by @praetoring! They're such a talented artist, and their art was truly inspiring!! I'll be reblogging it myself, but definitely go check it out here and share the love with them!!
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“This would be so much easier if you opened up, Daniel.”
Danny huffs and scrapes the heel of his scruffy shoe on the thin carpet. “It’s Danny. And I told you before. There’s nothing to open up about.”
Dr. Bell leans forward and laces his fingers underneath his chin. Danny’s seen the critical glint in his eye before, in the other psychiatrists who have come before him. He wonders if it’s something they teach in medical school. Maybe they make it a graduation requirement.
“I’m here to help you. We all are,” Dr. Bell says, his honey brown eyes trained on Danny. “You’re here because you have people who care about you. They want to see you get better.”
“Well, I hate to disappoint, but there’s nothing to get better from.”
Dr. Bell’s eyes crease into a sad sort of smile. “There’s a term for that, you know. When a patient believes their problems aren’t a problem. ‘Ego-syntonic’ is what we call it.”
“Why would I care what it’s called?”
“Thought you might like to know.” The doctor shrugs. “You seem like the inquisitive type.”
A silence befalls the two, broken only by the gentle ticking of the antique cuckoo clock on the wall. Danny scrapes his heel on the ground again.
He doesn’t like the quiet. It leaves room for too much to sneak through. Too many chances for something to slip through the cracks.
But he doesn’t speak.
It’s a lose-lose situation, really. He can stay quiet and run that risk, or he can talk and have to deal with all this. Again.
He shuffles and crosses his arms.
Dr. Bell sighs. “You do know why you’re here right now, yes?”
Danny doesn’t answer at first. His gaze is focused out the window now, at a point on the horizon. The sun is glaring down, melting the slushy snow and causing the air to shimmer. It’s a mesmerizing sight, he decides.
“Daniel. Danny. Look at me.”
Danny grits his teeth, but obeys. Still, his eyes continue to drift back outside.
There’s another look in Dr. Bell’s eyes. One that Danny also knows well. The same reproachful, pitying look given to him by the students in the halls at school, the cashiers at the grocery store, the dozens of professionals he’s been forced to talk to. The same look accompanied by low whispers and unrelenting rumors.
Danny knows he should be used to them by now, but he still can’t help but lash out at them. Every time. Even if it’s in his own head.
Dr. Bell tilts his head thoughtfully. “Why did you throw those meds away, Danny?”
Danny bristles. He can still hear the flushing toilet and his sister’s shouts of disbelief. The angry lecture from his parents. It’s not pretty.
Somehow, he’d never thought about the consequences of getting caught.
“Maybe if you listened to me,” he snaps, “you’d understand that they’re useless.”
“If we need to adjust the dosage, or if we need to try anoth-”
“No, just - I don’t need them!” His heart is beginning to race. He’s getting himself worked up again, and he knows it can only lead to disaster, but he can’t really help it. “I don’t need them, because nothing’s wrong!”
Dr. Bell’s brow furrows. “How long have you been tossing them?”
“Does it matter? I don’t need them, end of story.”
“Danny.” His name is spoken with a sort of sternness really only matched by his English teacher. It’s enough to make him shut his mouth and slowly sit back in his seat. Had he even realized he’d started to lean forward?
His heart doesn’t quiet, though. It pounds away in his chest, faster and faster. Something tingles in the back of his head.
He scrapes his heel again.
The doctor finally looks away and pinches the bridge of his nose. It pushes his glasses askew. “This is serious. You can’t simply decide to stop taking these meds because you think you don’t need them. That’s dangerous… to you.”
Danny doesn’t need to be a genius to hear the unspoken message in Dr. Bell’s words. Dangerous to you and the people around you.
Jazz would scold him for jumping to that conclusion. He can imagine just what she’d say. People with psychotic disorders are more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators of it, she’d say in that presumptuous, know-it-all voice she dons any time she gets to talking about psychology.
Danny knows better though. Statistics might say one thing. They don’t change what people think, though.
Another shimmer outside the window catches his eye. He hones in on it immediately.
This one is different. He knows it. He can feel it.
Shit.
Dr. Bell is still speaking. “Please, Danny. You don’t want to end up back in the hospital again. You’ve been managing your symptoms for a while now. You don’t want to throw that all away.”
But Danny isn’t hearing him. Not even the thinly veiled threat of the hospital breaks his concentration.
(Somewhere in the back of his mind, though, he wonders if psychiatrists are supposed to be this blunt. All of the others before this one always danced around the issue so delicately.)
(He sort of appreciates the bluntness, for once. It’s a refreshing change.)
No, his focus is devoted to that point on the horizon, where the shimmer is waving precariously in the air, taking on a new shape and growing stronger.
Really, he wishes it had waited until this appointment was over.
Then again, he’s really the one to blame for it, isn’t he?
“We can only do so much. Myself, your parents, your teachers… I know it’s difficult, and I know you’ve been through a lot, but we can’t do all the work for you. You have to be willing to step up and take care of yourself.”
Danny’s heart is throbbing painfully now. He can feel the potent hum of something buzzing just under his skin, making his leg bounce and his fingers dig into his torn jeans. His eyes remain stubbornly trained out the window.
But this time he’s heard Dr. Bell’s words. Specifically that last bit. And he has some words of his own.
It’s perfect timing, thankfully.
He stands up abruptly, so forcefully it knocks over his chair. “Thanks, but no thanks, doc. You may think I’m just throwing away my life or whatever, but I know myself better than you do. And for the record, I am taking care of myself. I’m taking care of more than myself, actually. So - and I’ll only say this once - kindly go to hell.”
Before Dr. Bell has the chance to respond, Danny sweeps out of the office.
No one sees him exit the building.
____________________________________________________________
One year, seven months, twenty-one days, and forty-six minutes.
That’s how long it’s been since the first crack.
It shouldn’t have been possible. His parents said so themselves. With the portal destroyed, the veil between worlds was never torn. Reality remained intact, thus preventing any leakage.
That’s what they thought anyway.
But Danny knows the truth. He’s the only one that does.
He was there when it happened, after all.
____________________________________________________________
The next morning has Jazz hovering over his shoulder, watching him like a hawk.
“Go on,” she says, nodding to the pills in his open hand. “Take them.”
Danny doesn’t answer. Instead, he stares at the pills with disdain. Mom had been sure to make certain that he’d have them for this morning. Pharmacies work much faster with an impassioned Fenton breathing down their necks.
Either that, or maybe they’ve heard the rumors about him too.
Jazz huffs and throws her hands in the air. “Honestly, Danny, I don’t understand what the big deal is. They’re not gonna kill you.”
Danny tilts his head. He could probably make a decent argument as to why yes, taking these pills could end up with him dead, but he holds his tongue.
He can feel his heart begin to pulse a little faster. His focus immediately redirects to his breathing.
Inhale Io Europa Ganymede.
Exhale Callisto Amalthea Himalia.
Inhale Elara Pasiphae Sinope.
Exhale Lysithea Carme Ananke.
Jupiter has 95 moons. Danny knows all their names by heart. It became especially easy to memorize them when he discovered they make for a wonderful mantra to time his breathing to.
And Jazz wanted to accuse him of not paying attention in therapy.
Except she’s still staring at him with murder in her eyes. “You’re not going anywhere until you take those. And no, I will not vouch for you with Lancer if you make us late.”
His eyes flick up to hers for the briefest of moments. He doesn’t maintain the eye contact - it’s too hard to look at the disappointment in her eyes - but it’s long enough for him to spot something else within them. He can’t quite believe it, though.
Is that… helplessness?
Conflicting feelings war within him. On one hand, he wants to snap at her, tell her to mind her own business and quit worrying about him. She’s been on his back for the better part of the past year and a half. How has she not learned that no amount of nagging is going to “fix” him?
But on the other hand, his heart pangs for his sister. After all, she’s been dealing with the effects of his… condition for that year and a half now, whether she’s wanted to or not. He knows his problems are not self-contained; they inevitably twist their way into the lives of everyone he comes into contact with. No one has been in closer contact with him than Jazz.
In a way, he sort of hates himself for it. Or maybe he hates the universe for putting him into this position. Either way, he hates it.
Yet he still can’t take the pills. He doesn’t know what sort of effect they’ll have on him, but he’s not eager to find out, either.
Danny sighs and his shoulders slump. “Fine,” he says, his voice clipped. “Whatever.”
He makes a show of tossing them in his mouth and taking a big gulp of water. Even after he swallows, Jazz still eyes him critically.
“Open up,” she demands, though her voice is gentler. Obediently, he opens and lifts his tongue to show her his empty mouth.
She nods curtly, but Danny can see the tension drain from her face and body. The sight is somewhat strangely satisfying. “Thank you. Now was that so bad?”
Danny shakes his head.
“That’s what I thought. Now come on, I really don’t want to be late.”
“You go ahead,” he says. “Sam and Tucker wanted to walk with me today.”
Jazz raises an eyebrow. The gears are turning in her head, Danny knows, as she tries to pick the reason apart. Looks for a flaw.
A year and a half of lying through his teeth has earned him such a lack of trust.
But he shrugs half-heartedly. He’s already taken the pills, hasn’t he?
Jazz seems to reach this conclusion. “Alright,” she says slowly. She bends down to pick up her bag, but her eyes stay glued to him. “But if you try anything funny…”
“What would I even try?”
“Just -” she cuts herself off and draws in a breath. “I’m not trying to be the bad guy, Danny. I just… I worry. You’re my little brother, you know?”
His heart pangs again. “I know.”
The hint of a smile graces the corners of her lips. She plants a kiss into his hair. There’s a weight to it though, one that holds the strain of all the heated arguments, all the angry and despaired tears, all the failed pleading and promising, everything that’s happened in the past year and a half.
Even if her melancholy hadn’t draped itself around his shoulders, he would’ve known.
Still, when she pulls away, he offers her his own small smile. She leaves the house without another word.
It’s only after he hears the door close behind her that he bolts to the bathroom.
____________________________________________________________
He had tried to explain what was happening to him, after the portal exploded on him. He tried to explain the strange feelings in his body, the impossible things he was seeing.
The doctors (and his sister) immediately wrote off his complaints as residual trauma from the accident. You’re lucky to even be alive, they would tell him. It’s expected that you’d be having problems adjusting.
(Lucky to be alive. That’s what they said. That’s what everyone said.)
(If only he believed that statement was true.)
(And not about the “lucky” part.)
His parents, of course, had been intrigued at first. Perhaps it was because of some delirious hope after the destruction of their magnum opus, but they at least listened to him. There had been some skepticism, especially as it became clearer and clearer that there was no proof to Danny’s claims, but they stayed patient.
Until Jazz found out about the questions they were asking him. She had given them a lecture of her own for “encouraging his delusions” before “accidentally” dropping it to the therapist during a family counseling session.
His parents, disappointed as they had been, agreed to back off.
Leaving him alone to fix a problem no one believed was real.
____________________________________________________________
Danny’s head feels like dead weight as he lifts it from the toilet. He flushes it before he can look down and make himself sick all over again.
God, what has he come to?
The bitter taste of the half-digested pills burns at his tongue. Still, he chooses to fall back against the wall, breathing heavily and letting his eyes flutter closed.
His heart pounds in his chest. It had started even as he had been running to the bathroom. He silently berates himself for allowing it to happen. And although part of him has already resigned himself to the inevitable consequence, part of him still desperately latches onto the list of moons he knows so well.
Leda Thebe Adrastea.
Something potent and volatile pulses in the air. He can feel it seep through his skin and into his muscles and bones. It only makes his heart race faster, especially as the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and goosebumps coat his arms.
He’s had a year and a half to get used to the sensation, but it catches him off guard every time. Like something is tearing itself apart inside him.
Or maybe like he’s being torn apart.
Metis, Themisto…
Danny curls in on himself. Pressure builds in his chest. Something he has no human words for storms inside him in a relentless whirlwind. He can feel the need for release, though whether that’s him begging for a reprieve or the force inside him demanding to be freed, he can never tell. Perhaps it’s both.
… Callirrhoe…
The sizzling snaps of something electric are audible in the air, concentrated somewhere behind the shower curtain. He holds his head in a death grip and his heart beats fast - impossibly fast.
So fast it might as well be stopped.
Something cold writhes its way into his throat, stirring his stomach into nausea all over again. He can’t swallow it down. He’s forced to open his mouth in a gasp and stare in dismay as pale, blue mist pours from his lips.
But he doesn’t have time to dwell on it. The demand from the force within has become intolerable. Like always, he’s left wondering if it’ll be too much for his tiny mortal body to handle.
Unfortunately for him, he knows he’ll be able to handle it.
With a guttural cry, the energy erupts in him.
He’s never sure what exactly happens next. He’s always been too overwhelmed by whatever it is to see or understand. All he knows is the thunderbolt of something electric, something powerful being unleashed into him. Or maybe it’s clawing its way out of him.
Memories of blinding green light and an explosion that leaves his ears ringing rip through him.
That’s probably always the worst part.
And then, right as he’s sure he’ll disintegrate into nothing more than dust, it stops. In a single deafening clap, it stops.
Slowly, Danny peels his eyes open. The death grip loosens and his legs and arms begin to unfold. The tension, however, does not leave his body. Every human instinct of his whispers at him furiously to stay alert. Be prepared. Flee from the danger.
But a different set of instincts has clamored its way forward too. Instincts that are far from human. Instincts that draw him up from the floor and towards the bathtub.
A toxic green glow pulses behind the shower curtain.
____________________________________________________________
It hadn’t taken long for the rumors to start spreading. Amity Park is, after all, a sleepy little suburb. Its residents will take their drama where they can get it.
Did you hear about the ghost hunters’ son? they’d whisper. Did you hear about the crazy Fenton kid?
Speculations ranged far and wide. Even after the portal’s explosion became common knowledge, people would throw out wild theory after wild theory.
I heard he ate a bunch of ectoplasm and it’s poisoned him.
Well, I heard the radiation from all those experiments finally got to him.
Are you kidding? Those loony Fentons obviously started experimenting on him.
Comments like that last one always stung the worst.
If he’d been a social pariah before, he was even more of one after the accident.
And it definitely didn’t help that the accident left him with a slew of… “side effects.” Ones that really got everyone talking.
____________________________________________________________
Danny nearly tears the curtain off the rod as he rips it to the side.
Sure enough, right in the middle of the bathtub, a rancid green crack shimmers in the air.
“Go away,” he growls. There’s something ethereal about his voice now, something that makes it reverberate against the walls and fill the air with static. Something fueled by the anger and frustration in his bones.
Something - or someone - is trying to press their way through the crack. Even if it hadn’t been visibly apparent, Danny can feel it in his chest. It’s causing a distinct pressure that throbs out of sync with his heart. It’s uncomfortable, to say the least.
A different kind of static drifts through the portal. That would be the response, Danny gathers. Somehow, despite the lack of any English words - or any words, period - he knows exactly what’s being said. Or a rough idea, at least.
“No,” he snaps. A crack of electricity snaps in time with his voice. “You’re not coming through. Go away.”
He wishes the intruder would just leave him alone. The sooner he’s able to calm down, the sooner the crack will fade. That’s how it works. That’s how it’s always worked.
This time, when static drifts through the portal, there are the low undertones of something that can maybe be interpreted as language. Danny listens closely.
“This is my world.” He’s attempting to make himself sound as threatening as possible, allowing the anger and the fierce instinct to possess to bubble over into his demeanor. His blood is running cold, and he knows if he were to look in the mirror right now, he’d be met with not his eyes, but an otherworldly glow that mimics the color of the crack down to a tee. “This is my haunt. You’re not welcome.”
He’s still not exactly sure what a haunt is, and he’s not sure why the thought of this being his haunt makes his stomach flutter with both anxiety and excitement, but he’s dealt with this problem long enough to know how to speak their language.
“Let me through,” a voice hisses from inside the crack, muddied by the accompanying static. “I only wish to help you.”
Danny scoffs. “Yeah, right. Like any of you have ever actually wanted to help me before.” His eyes narrow, and now he can feel a cold crackle gathering behind them. “So you’d better leave now, because you won’t like it if I have to make you.”
“And just how do you intend to ‘make’ me leave, halfling?”
There’s that word again. The one that sends a buzz straight down Danny’s spine and causes something in his chest to leap. The one they’ve all been calling him for the past year and a half.
Halfling.
What exactly that means, he still doesn’t know.
“I’ve gotten rid of plenty of you before,” he says, low and dangerous. “I can just as easily get rid of you.”
The pressure in his chest increases sharply as a shadowy figure presses right up against the crack. Foggy bits of the figure begin to slip through the crack. “Perhaps you are as powerful as they say.” The voice becomes clearer. “Perhaps your words have merit. Somehow, I doubt that.”
Danny growls again, and his hands ball into fists. He swings madly at the little tendrils of fog. They dissipate under his touch, and the intruder hisses.
“You are making a grave mistake, child. It is not wise to reject my aid.”
“Sure. I’m sure your ‘aid’ involves all sorts of terrorizing and wreaking havoc and stuff. Exactly the kind of help I need.” He grunts as the intruder attempts to shove their way through again, and it feels like someone has thrown a cinderblock into his chest. Still, he stands his ground. “This place is mine, and if you think I’m just gonna let you come in and run rampant, then you have another thing coming.”
Despite his best efforts, more and more foggy bits leak through the crack. The static in the air pulses, and he gets the vague notion that he’s being laughed at. “Such strong words from such an insolent boy. This is the great halfling child I was told so much about?”
“You know, you’re not exactly doing much to help your case.”
“Hmm. Then maybe I’ll simply make you my offer.”
“Not. Interested.” His hands are tingling. Is it from coming into contact with the intruder? Or from something else? He can’t tell. “You can take your offer and -”
“I can teach you how to seal the rifts.”
Now that makes Danny falter.
____________________________________________________________
It only took about a month for Danny to realize it was him that was responsible for the cracks.
They didn’t start out as anything big. Barely shimmers or disturbances in the air, when he’d get worked up or nervous or upset. Nothing big enough for anything to fit through, of course.
But enough to get him to notice.
In retrospect, it did make some sense. His parents’ portal had opened up on top of him. Or maybe even opened up in him. Of course, it was bound to leave some lasting metaphysical effects.
He just hadn’t expected to learn that he was the portal’s replacement.
It was sometime right then, a month or so after the accident, that Sam had campaigned and succeeded to revise the school lunch menu. The resulting argument between her and Tucker had gotten him so anxious that it resulted in his largest crack yet. One that was big enough to allow something through.
One that was big enough to allow one of the ghosts on the other side to slip through.
____________________________________________________________
The thought is tantalizing. It’s been so long, relying on his ability to rein in his anger and anxiety to force the cracks to fade. It’s a task much easier said than done.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have an easier, more reliable way of closing them? Of keeping the ghosts out of his territory? Of stopping things before they could cause too many problems?
The intruder must sense his hesitation, because they give another forceful push. Danny, wrapped up in his own thoughts, is caught off guard by the move, and he gasps in shock as he squeezes his eyes shut and reels backwards.
It’s enough of an opening for the ghost to slide the rest of the way through.
Danny can feel its presence. There’s something… musty about it. Like the way it feels when he goes into the attic and sees all of his and Jazz’s old baby stuff packed away. Or when he’s forced to use one of the particularly “well-loved” copies of textbooks at school. He’s not sure whether to be put off by it or intrigued.
But it does feel foreign. More foreign than the presence of most other ghosts he’s encountered.
He opens his eyes.
Endless red eyes bore into his.
He reels again.
“Who the hell are you?” he hisses. Static crackles under his voice again.
The figure simply floats there, mostly hidden underneath a cloak. Those awful red eyes shine like beacons from the shadows created by the hood. Oddly enough, they make it harder to see the figure’s face. If they actually have one. Danny’s seen more than one faceless ghost before.
“Believe it or not, I do truly wish to help you,” the ghost says. Its voice is smooth and masculine, and when it speaks, Danny is flooded with a wave of that same musty energy. Something about it feels old. Timeless.
It’s not reassuring in the slightest.
The words themselves are not reassuring either. Faces supplant the shadow under the hood - his parents’, Dr. Bell’s, Jazz’s. The phrase is one that Danny is intimately familiar with, and he immediately bristles.
“I don’t need your help,” he says, folding his arms across his chest. “And I still don’t believe you actually want to help.”
Danny can’t see the figure’s face, of course, but somehow, he can tell that the ghost is smiling at him. The kind of smile adults give children who don’t know any better. “And why don’t you believe that?” the ghost asks, unperturbed by his petulance.
Danny throws his arms in the air before crossing them even tighter across his chest. “Because that’s all you ghosts do! You invade my home and start trying to stir up trouble, and then I have to chase you down and shove you back through before you hurt something. Or someone.”
“Such hasty conclusions to draw.” The ghost clucks its tongue disapprovingly. “That won’t do at all.”
Danny’s blood boils cold and the glow from his eyes is bright enough to reflect on the ghost in front of him. He raises his fists. “Go. Now.”
The ghost sighs, as if it’s bored of the conversation already. A hand thrusts out from underneath the cloak, aimed toward the crack. Danny’s eyes widen as a blue glow surrounds the ghost’s hand, then the crack. The crack shudders.
And it begins to mend itself.
Something inside Danny shifts as the crack seals itself. He feels like he can breathe a little easier, like his heart isn’t being pushed against as much.
But the ghost is still there, in his bathroom. And now that the crack is gone, the full force of the ghost’s presence is surrounding Danny.
Danny sees the glint of sharp teeth as the ghost grins. “I don’t think I will go,” it says.
Danny’s not sure whether to be amazed, terrified, or infuriated. Or maybe some combination of the three. On one hand, this ghost just proved its ability to seal the cracks. Maybe even the ability to teach him how to do it himself. If Danny possesses that ability.
On the other hand, though, Danny doesn’t take too kindly to ghosts intruding in his world and asserting themselves.
He’s the boss here.
That instinct, the instinct to own and possess and keep his territory, wins out easily. It’s too overwhelming, and Danny doesn’t really have the energy to try and fight it.
Besides, he figures, if he can get himself worked up enough, he can create another crack to shove this ghost back through.
So with a roar of anger, Danny lunges at the ghosts and swings his fists with all his might.
The moment he comes into contact with the ghost, something changes.
And green fire explodes to life around his hands.
____________________________________________________________
The cracks weren’t the only side effect of the portal’s explosion.
Danny never understood what was happening to him. In all honesty, he’s still not sure if he completely understands. What he knew and what he knows, though, is that something within him began to shift.
He began to shift.
Why did the cold winter air seem to embrace him? Why did the night sky whisper to him with offers of belonging? Why did he find himself seeing new colors and new lights out of the corners of his eyes?
He tried to explain it to his friends, his family, his doctors. The former took some interest, but lost it quickly with nothing to back it up. The latter only used it as evidence for his diagnosis.
It didn’t help when things got more serious, after Sam changed the lunch menu and he’d had to beat back the ghost he’d accidentally summoned. He found himself drawn to some of the most random places in town - behind the dumpsters at the Nasty Burger, the top of Lookout Hill, the architecture section in the public library. Why those places, he didn’t know. All he knew was that the air in those places felt… different. Thinner, maybe. Like he could poke through it if he found the right place.
He learned to start staying away from those places.
It was worse when he started to be drawn to places that had a much more sinister aura. Like the time when he found himself standing on the side of the road at the site of a bad car wreck, watching as EMTs soberly placed a sheet over a broken body. Or when he ended up standing in the doorway of the hospice center in town as a family with red eyes and tears aplenty quietly shuffled their way out.
It gave even more reason for people to stay away from him. He smells like death, they’d say. He figured they were probably close enough to being right.
And that wasn’t counting the other side effects.
____________________________________________________________
Danny screams.
In an instant, he’s pushed the ghost back from him and scampered away, staring in horror at his burning hands. Many things have happened to him in the past year and a half, but his hands spontaneously catching on fire has not been one of them.
“Interesting,” he can hear the ghost saying, but he doesn’t truly register it. His focus is entirely on the green fire.
It’s only after a few seconds that he starts to wonder why it doesn’t hurt.
He’s heard stories, of course. About how with serious burns, they can destroy nerves before you can register the pain. He himself still has a few destroyed nerves from the explosion. He wonders if that’s what’s happening to him now. It would explain why he’s in such shock, unable to do anything to actually put out the fire.
And then he finally processes three very important things.
One: the fire is green. Not normal fire by any means.
Two: he can’t see any damage to his hands, even as the fire burns. And it doesn’t move any farther than his wrists.
Three: he can feel something. It’s not heat. His hands tingle, but not painfully. Rather, it feels like he’s dunked his hands into a bowl of ice water. Or like snow has wrapped around them.
His eyes snap up to the ghost. “What the hell did you do to me?” he shouts. His voice shakes with panic.
The ghost is as placid as ever. It holds a gloved hand up towards its chin. Danny hates feeling like the subject of some twisted experiment.
“That power has always been within you, young halfling,” it says. It could be Danny’s imagination, but he thinks he hears something akin to wonder in the ghost’s voice. “It would seem that my presence has simply accelerated your discovery of this power.”
Danny opens his mouth, but words escape him. His eyes drift back down to his hands, still lit up.
He shouldn’t be quite so stunned. This isn’t the first time something distinctly supernatural has happened to his body. Memories of arms and legs glitching out of sight and feet slipping through the ground swarm him in a rush.
He still doesn’t know why those things happen, or what they mean.
They scare him.
But he’ll never admit it. Not that he can. These occurrences would be written off as delusions.
The ghost leans down and approaches Danny. Although he’s already pressed flush against the wall, he tries to sink further into it. “Stay away from me!” As he shouts, the fire around his hands flares brighter.
The ghost’s eyes briefly flick to the fire before settling back on Danny. “Relax,” it says. “You are overreacting.” It tilts its head, and Danny sees the glint of teeth again. “Are all humans this… emotionally fragile?”
“I’m about to show you fragile,” Danny growls.
“Hmm. There’s that attitude again.” The ghost sighs. “In all truthfulness, though, you do need to relax. You will never gain control if you are continually losing it, child.”
“That makes zero sense. And how am I supposed to relax when you’re invading my home?”
“Because you are foolish,” the ghost says plainly. Danny wants to throw another punch, but the idea of another freaky thing happening if he touches the ghost keeps his behavior under control. “You are too focused on the external. You must focus on the internal.”
“Well, maybe I could ‘focus on the internal’ if you’d just leave me alone!”
A rush of that musty energy presses Danny into the wall. “You would be wise to listen to me, halfling. I am one of the very few beings that truly does wish to help you. Without my aid, you will leave yourself vulnerable to every single one of the threats behind the veil.” The ghost pauses. “Yourself… and your haunt.”
Danny’s anger falters.
The ghost continues. “What you have seen thus far is but a taste of the threats that wait for you. Everything you have faced up until this point will seem like child’s play compared to what you will face. Your only hope to defend yourself is to listen to me.”
Danny wants to stay angry. He wants to stay feisty and impudent. This is just another intruder after all. One of the many he’s had to beat back to wherever they came from.
But as he stares helplessly into the ghost’s gaze, he can’t help but feel as though he is being pierced down to his very soul. Embedded within those deep red eyes is the afterimage of every star that’s burned itself to death, from the beginning of time to the end. The infinite void of eternity. The promise of planets yet to be created, cosmic dust yet to settle, things that will happen long after the Earth’s Sun has gone supernova and extinguished any trace of life.
Danny cries out. His head snaps backward, breaking the connection to the ghost’s eyes. He pants for breath he didn’t know he’d been lacking.
He gets the impression that perhaps this isn’t just another intruder.
“Who… are you?” he asks again, this time with caution.
The ghost blinks once. “I can be your greatest ally, or I can be your greatest enemy. I am prepared to be both. Whichever one I am rests in your hands.” He nods down to the green flames still licking Danny’s hands.
Danny’s breath hitches. The way this ghost talks, the way it carries itself, he can tell the ghost knows far more than he does. Far more. He’s not sure if the threats of dangers yet to come are valid or not.
But while he asserts his ability to take care of anything thrown at him, he knows the fear in his gut says otherwise.
His fists clench. He grits his teeth. Tears pool in the corners of his eyes. Why do there have to be more threats? Why can’t these ghosts just leave him alone? Why him? Why did all this happen to him? Why must he face this alone?
The questions swarm him like angry hornets. They make it hard for him to think clearly.
His heart begins to race.
“N-no, please,” he gasps. “Not again.”
“You must relax,” the ghost reiterates. “Your abilities are tied to your emotions, as are the abilities of all ghosts. In this case, if you wish to calm the ability, you must first calm yourself, halfling.”
Danny’s stomach turns at the ghost’s words. There’s a hidden implication within them, one that Danny can’t quite put his finger on. He’s sure he does not like it, though.
“I can’t just… calm down,” he says. It’s the truth. Even a year and a half of intense therapy and psychiatric treatment hasn’t taught him how to simply shut off his emotions.
The ghost hums and puts a hand to its chin again. “How is it you humans deal with such strange matters?” He shakes his head before Danny can respond. “No matter. I can assist you by using my power to influence yours, but you must trust me to touch you again.”
Danny’s head whips back and forth wildly. “Because it went so well the last time I touched you?” he says. He hates the note of panic he can hear in his voice.
“That was, as you call it, a fluke. As I said, the power was always within you. My influence has simply brought forth that power early.”
“And how do you know it won’t happen again?”
Teeth flash underneath the hood of the cloak. “I have far more control over my abilities than you, boy. Rest assured I will be able to control something as simple as this.”
Danny’s heart thumps loudly. The ghost extends a hand towards him, and Danny instinctively flinches away from it. He can already feel the ghost’s presence beginning to press up against him again, and it only makes him more anxious.
But…
But.
There’s something different about it now.
Something that reminds him of his mother gently kissing his brow while putting a bandage on his scraped knee. Something that reminds him of his father’s bear hugs that wrap him up in a safe cocoon. Something that reminds him of the weighted blanket Jazz got him last year for Christmas, in an attempt to provide him with something to help with his leftover trauma from the accident.
“Stop it,” he says, but there’s no weight behind his words. “I didn’t… say you could… influence me.” Because as much as he hates to admit it, the ghost’s presence is affecting him. He can feel it in his heartbeat, in his breathing, as they both begin to slow.
He’s lucky he looks up in time to see the ghost’s eyes widen for the briefest of seconds. “You can already feel me?” it asks. Fascination dances behind its words, and Danny feels like he’s a being watched like a zoo animal again.
“Yes, now can you please… stop it?” Danny chances looking into the ghost’s eyes again. “I-I’ll calm down or whatever, just… please…”
To his surprise, the pressure against his chest lessens, and the vague notions of safety dissipate. The ghost floats backward a foot or two.
He feels like he can breathe again.
It’s strange, he thinks to himself. How he seems to calm much easier without the ghost’s… influence. Maybe it’s the feeling of regaining some control over the situation. Maybe it’s because he feels less like he has to defend his territory.
He looks up at the ghost. “Thank you,” he says quietly.
He’s surprised to realize he means it.
The flames die out.
____________________________________________________________
Once Danny figured out exactly what was happening within him to trigger the cracks, he tried desperately to keep it from happening at all costs.
Some tactics worked better than others. Timing his breath to the list of Jupiter’s moons was one. His therapist had been thrilled to hear that he’d taken her advice.
He tried journaling, at the encouragement of another of his therapists and his sister. It worked a bit at first. It gave him a place to vent about the ghosts and everything happening with them without running the risk of being scolded for “giving into his delusions.” It quickly lost whatever effectiveness it had, though.
Eventually, he simply tried to shut his emotions off. He tried to become uncaring, unmoved. Tried not to let everyone’s harsh words get to him as much.
That failed miserably.
Then again, so did every other tactic he tried.
At some point, they all failed. The cracks were inevitable.
They always would be.
____________________________________________________________
The ghost, for what it’s worth, keeps true to its promise to teach him how to close the cracks.
Ironically, though, it involves traveling through yet another crack.
It’s not Danny who opens it. The ghost waves its hand, and another hole in reality sparks to life inside his bathtub. The ghost’s crack is far neater than Danny’s - smoother, larger, not jagged like the forked branches of lightning.
Danny watches, and he can’t help but be in awe. The simplicity with which the ghost opened it blows him away.
“Can it really be that easy?” he asks. The words tumble out of his mouth before he can stop himself. Immediately, he regrets it. His goal isn’t to learn how to create the things. He just needs to know how to stop them.
At the same time, the idea of being able to open the cracks without devolving into near panic, without feeling like his body is being ripped in two…
It’s enticing.
“With patience and precision, yes.” The ghost tilts its head at Danny. “Two things you severely lack, halfling.”
Anger flares in Danny. Somehow, he manages to wrangle it down to a simmer.
“Let’s go,” the ghost says. If it felt Danny’s silent outburst, it does not indicate so.
“Go where?” Danny asks. Realization hits him a moment later. “Through it?”
“Going above it or around it would hardly do us any good.”
Danny balks. “I - can’t you just show me here? Why do we have to go through?”
The ghost is silent for a long moment. It stares unblinking at Danny. “If you wish to stay here,” it says, low and dark, “the consequences of doing so will rest on your head.”
Danny doesn’t need his sister’s intelligence to understand what the ghost is getting at now.
“Alright, fine, I get it, it might get messy,” he concedes. “But… do we really have to go through it still?”
“You’re fearful.” It’s not a question.
Danny reflexively puffs his chest up. “I’m not afraid,” he fires back.
It’s a lie.
He wonders if the ghost knows it.
The ghost hums. “If it helps, this portal simply leads to another location here in your human world. You do not need to enter my world. Not yet.”
Danny’s head snaps towards the crack at hearing the last of the ghost’s words. “Not yet?”
He doesn’t like those implications.
“I grow weary of your refusal to cooperate, child,” the ghost says with a sigh. “You will enter this portal if you wish to learn how to close the cracks and defend yourself. If you do not, I can assure you of the hardships you will try and fail to face.”
“Okay! Okay. Just… stop being so… doomer. I get the idea already.”
“Then by all means…” The ghost sweeps an arm out towards the crack with a cheeky bow.
Reluctantly, Danny steps into the bathtub to stand before the crack. It’s the same vibrant green as the one earlier, as all the ones that had come before it. He can’t see what lies on the other side through the swirling green void.
Slowly, he reaches out and puts his hand through.
The sensation is… surprisingly pleasant. His hand meets empty air on the other side, but at the thin point where his forearm is split between two locations, where the crack touches his skin, he’s met with energy.
It’s pure and it’s raw. It’s electric. It’s invigorating and nothing like Danny has ever felt before. Standing here, in the glow of the crack through reality, he feels like he’s finally on solid ground. Like he’s found the thing that sings to him and his heart, rather than brutalizes it. Fear flushes from his body.
It’s all in such stark contrast to everything the cracks have brought him thus far. For a year and a half, it’s been oppressive. Looming over his head. Threatening to seize his heart and his breath.
But now?
He feels like he can do anything.
And that’s just with his arm partway through.
Without another thought, Danny leaps through the crack.
It’s every bit as exhilarating as he’d hoped.
____________________________________________________________
In the months after the explosion, Danny often found himself spiraling into existential trains of thought. One does not simply go through a near-death experience without having a bit of existentialism on the side.
His therapists took this to mean he had lost his sense of identity as part of his trauma. It’s okay to feel like you’ve lost yourself, they’d tell him. Like you don’t know who you are anymore.
They would sit him down and force him through exercise after exercise, trying to identify his sense of self, the traits he felt like he embodied, everything that made Danny, Danny.
Who am I?
It was the question the therapists challenged him to ponder, time after time. Only you can answer that question for yourself, Danny.
He wanted to scream every time he was made to fill out another chart. Or outline who he thought he was. Or draw up things to symbolize himself. The question of who he was wasn’t the cause of his existential spirals. He already knew who he was.
Mostly, anyway.
No, it was a different question that plagued him time after time. After every crack, every encounter with a ghost, every unexplainable sight or sound he came across.
What am I?
A year and a half later, he still doesn’t know.
____________________________________________________________
Danny trips over his feet as he exits the crack.
He’s still breathless from the sheer euphoria from the experience. His body shakes from the overwhelming feeling of power coursing through his veins. He wants to laugh, or maybe cry. Maybe both.
Where has this been for the past year and half? How could he have gone so long without experiencing something like this?
He turns around to face the crack. In an instant, he’s up against it once more, trying to savor any last dredges of the energy that he can.
He realizes that this is the closest he’s ever been to one of the cracks. He’s stayed away from them like a plague, only getting close enough to shove ghosts back through. Their presence has always weighed heavily on him, but now Danny wonders if that’s really the case.
No, something heavy has always accompanied the cracks. But… are the cracks themselves responsible for the pressure in his chest?
For the first time, he’s starting to think he’s had it wrong.
There’s a tingle in his chest, then a push, then pressure. This is the feeling he’s far more familiar with. Knowing what it heralds, he steps to the side. A moment later, the cloaked ghost makes its way through the crack.
“There,” it says once fully on this side of it. “Was that so bad?”
Danny opens his mouth. His instinct is to gush about it, to tell the ghost that it was the farthest thing from “bad.”
Those haunting red eyes turn on him, and the words die on Danny’s tongue.
He huffs and kicks at the ground. “It wasn’t terrible,” he mutters quietly.
They’re on a dirt road, somewhere rural. Fields dormant for the winter sprawl out on either side of the road. A lone set of electrical lines runs along the side of the road. He can’t see any buildings around.
“Wait, where are we?” he asks, trepidation in his voice. Belatedly, he wonders if blindly trusting a very powerful ghost was smart.
“Not far,” the ghost responds. It does not elaborate. Instead, it seals the crack they’ve just come through with a lazy wave of its hand.
The second time witnessing it is just as mesmerizing as the first.
“Why do we have to come all the way to the middle of nowhere to do this? Seriously, why couldn’t you just show me back home?”
The ghost hums. It stares at the horizon, unfocused. “There are things you have yet to understand, halfling. You will learn in time.”
Danny grits his teeth. “Listen, you said you wanted to help me. So quit being all creepy-cryptic and help me.”
“I do not take well to people making demands of me,” the ghost says sharply. A cold breeze rustles the dead leaves on the road and in the fields. “We will operate on my schedule. A halfling child will not dictate it to me.”
Though he doesn’t know why or how, Danny’s instincts scream at him to rise to meet the challenge. To tell the ghost that it may want to operate on its own schedule, but this is Danny’s territory. That it can’t simply wander in and out of his world as it pleases and act as though it is in charge.
It takes every ounce of self-control he can muster to tamper those instincts.
He’s none too eager for the ghost to get mad at him again.
“What do I do then?” he grumbles.
The ghost floats to Danny’s side. “To learn how to control the cracks, you must first learn to take notice of the world around you.” It sweeps its arm out. “Tell me what you see here.”
“What? I don’t… there’s nothing to notice. What does this have to do with anything?”
“If you do not notice anything by looking, then notice by seeing.”
“That literally makes zero sense!”
The ghost ignores Danny’s outburst this time. “You can already see more than other humans,” it says tiredly. As though it’s explained this to him hundreds of times already. “But you ignore it. You ignore the world around you to maintain little more than an illusion.”
Danny’s stomach does a little ballet. The ghost… isn’t wrong. The glimpses of colors he has no human words for, the way his eyes are drawn to seemingly invisible movements, the dancing lights always in the corners of his eyes, they are all things he knows he can see that others can’t.
He hates it.
“Maybe ignoring it is better,” he retorts. There’s some fire in his words, but not much.
“Better for who? For those around you? For you? The answer is neither. How can you wish to protect your haunt when you turn a blind eye to that which supposedly threatens it?”
“As long as it stays on their side of the crack, it’s fine.” Even as he speaks, Danny realizes he’s losing confidence in his words. It’s terrifying.
“Naive child,” the ghost mutters. Disgust taints its words. Or is that…
… disappointment?
Danny doesn’t have time to figure it out. The ghost continues speaking.
“Nothing is ever black and white. There is never such a thing as two absolute sides.” It picks up a single dry leaf and twirls it in its hand. “Everything begins, and everything ends. What happens in between is in shades of gray.”
Danny’s head is beginning to spin. “In English please?”
The ghost sighs. “You expect life and death to remain two very distinct sides, never touching one another. This is shortsightedness.” It lets the leaf go. It drifts away on a breeze. “Life and death intermingle closer than you can ever imagine.”
Danny’s breath catches in his throat. “Life and… death?”
“Of course.” The ghost’s eyes turn on him. “What did you expect this to be about?”
“I… I don’t…” Danny’s tongue feels thick in his mouth suddenly. Words choke up in his throat, and he can’t get them out.
Before the portal accident, ghosts were a thing of fantasy. Simply his parents’ crackpot ravings. The accident proved those crackpot ravings to be real. As real as anything else. Despite the dozens of people telling him he’s hallucinating, or that he’s psychotic, he knows this is all real.
He can feel it, deep within him.
But for as real as he knows ghosts and their world are, he’s never had to consider why they exist. Where they truly come from.
Something flutters in his chest, and he can’t decide if it’s his heart or something else.
Human. Ghost.
Life. Death.
And him, somehow wrapped up in it all.
He thinks he might throw up for the second time that day.
The ghost is apparently unbothered by Danny’s newest existential crisis. “What you consider to be my world is in constant contact with what you consider to be yours. And yours is in constant contact with mine. They influence each other. They exist within one another. They are inseparable, woven into each other.”
It floats over to one of the electrical poles. There’s nothing remarkable about it. “You must be able to see this coalescence if you ever wish to understand the intricacies of things as complex as portals. So, halfling…” It pauses to run a hand down the pole.
“Tell me what you see.”
Danny is at a loss. Maybe his brain is finally starting to catch up with everything that has happened in the last couple of hours. Maybe he’s finally becoming overwhelmed by all this. Ghosts wanting to help him, a strange awakening of powers slumbering inside him, everything traveling through the crack had fed him…
… talks of life and death…
He wants this to be a nightmare. He wants to wake up. He wants to go back to a few hours ago - no, yesterday - no, last month - no, a year and a half ago, and pretend this doesn’t exist.
His heart beats faster.
Io Europa Ganymede
“I don’t see anything,” Danny insists, even as inhuman colors and glowing lights creep into his vision.
“What do you see, halfling?”
“I think I’m done,” he tries. “I - I can’t…”
Can’t what? Can’t try? Can’t see?
Callisto, Almathea, Himalia
Can’t… breathe?
His heart races.
“You must see.”
“I don’t want to,” he gasps. Static is filling the air, and he doesn’t know if he can catch his breath. Why can’t he catch his breath? He should be able to catch his breath.
What am I?
The dirt road groans, and dust stirs.
Elara… Pasiphae…
“Please…” His knees shake and the air around him sizzles and the glowing lights are looking at him.
“You must see, halfling.”
He can feel the crack building inside him. It wants out. It pounds against his chest and strangles his heart.
Where is his pulse?
What am I?
The dirt road groans louder.
Sinope…
Even without a mirror, Danny can feel the cold burn in his eyes. Knows they are blazing toxic green. The same green as the lights staring at him.
The… ghosts staring at him.
One of them prods at the pole the ghost floats beside. Like it’s pointing.
Carvings begin to appear on the pole, in the same inhuman colors he can’t name. They’re shoddy, messily carved, and clearly not English. Symbols of lines and swoops and dots.
Danny can read them.
“We see you,” they say.
“No…” he groans. Hands fly up to grip his head, and the glow from his eyes give the illusion of the fire that had consumed those hands not twenty minutes earlier.
He can’t feel his heart anymore.
What am I?
“You see now,” the ghost says. It is unblinking and stoic in the face of Danny’s crisis.
In a last fit of desperation, as he claws for anything to pull him out of this, Danny latches on to the fleeting thrill of crossing through the crack. He tries to remember how it felt. How wonderful it was to feel empowered for once. How the energy seemed to embrace him, not work against him.
How he felt like he could do anything.
He latches on, expecting it to offer relief to his crying body. He wants it to bring him back down to Earth, ground him where cracks and seemingly invisible ghosts and strange words and life and death cannot get to him.
Much to his dismay, it seems to have the opposite effect. His body remembers how it felt to hold that energy.
And now…
What am I?
… it wants more.
The ghost is in front of him once more. When did it get there?
Danny can’t scream as the ghost lifts a hand towards his chest. He’s long since lost the ability to breathe.
“And now, the final touch,” the ghost murmurs. It presses a single finger in the center of Danny’s chest.
And everything explodes in a blinding white light.
____________________________________________________________
At one of his follow-up appointments, shortly after the explosion, Danny finally worked up the courage to ask something that had been plaguing him since he’d woken up in the hospital.
How bad was it? he had asked the doctor. How close was I to…
The doctor had refused to look him in the eye. You’re a very lucky boy, Danny, was all she would say.
He never did find out how close he came to death’s door that day.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When the light clears, Danny opens his eyes.
Something has changed. Something is wrong.
Something is very, very wrong.
He clutches his chest, trying to feel his heart, but it feels as though a snowball has taken residence where it should be. It pulses, but not at a frequency he is familiar with. It’s almost as though he can hear it pulse rather than feel it.
It’s unnaturally bright. He looks down and chokes back a sob of surprise to see his body wrapped in a gentle glow.
What am I?
Trembling, he raises his left arm. How he remembers that it’s that one, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to know.
He pulls back the sleeve of the black hoodie (why is it black, he’s never owned a black hoodie) and stares in silent horror at the grotesque display of lightning that runs up his arm and disappears back into the hoodie.
It’s when bangs of snow white fall in front of his eyes that he collapses to the ground.
“No,” he whimpers. His voice echoes with static stronger than it ever has. “Please, God, no.”
What am I?
“Astounding.”
Danny’s head snaps up to look at the ghost. He falters when he realizes he can see the ghost’s features now, clear as day even though its face remains partially shrouded in shadow. Those damning red eyes - one marred by a scar - twinkle at him with fascination.
“What did you do to me?” he croaks. “I can’t… I’m not…”
“As I told you, halfling,” the ghost says. Its gentle, knowing smile sends chills down Danny’s spine and sets alarm bells ringing in his head. “Life and death must meet somewhere.”
It bends down to Danny’s level. “As it would seem, you are that somewhere.”
A strangled sob escapes Danny’s throat.
“Congratulations, Danny.” It sweeps its arm out, a staff in hand. Another crack spirals into existence, accompanied by the haunting echoes of ticking clocks. “You have learned all you need to from me.”
Without another word, it disappears into the crack. The crack closes with the toll of a bell.
Tears prickle at Danny’s eyes. He can only turn and look down the dirt road, at the product of his creation.
A green crack splits the road in two, as far as Danny can see.
Danny falls against the ground and cries.
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AUURUGGSGAYSJSUSU hi :) my submissions for the @green-with-envy-phandom-event yippie! Lineart credits under cut
In order of appearance:
@somebuddy
@inefficientbutstillvalid
@ovytia-art
@echo-does-art
@cakeractuallyarts
@minnowmarsh
@thepokeone
@dashing-through-ecto
@thatonejumbledmess
@hannahmander
#greenwithenvy2024#danny phantom#my art#fan art#I GOT IT IN MY HEAD THE EVENT ENDED ON THE 13th. IT ENDS TONIGHT#OOPS
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Phantom is hit. Bad. Really, really bad, and he can hear someone coming and it must be Maddie Fenton, here to make good on her promises to rip him molecule from molecule.
He likes the Fenton it actually is much, much more.
---
Shiptember Oblivious x Obvious Pining
This one is getting another chapter I prommy I have plans.
Thanks to hannahmander for helping me come up with a title!
Phantom scrambled back further into the alleyway he'd landed in, one hand propelling him backwards through the garbage and refuse left there, the other covering the rapidly bleeding hole in his side. He hadn't expected his day to go like this; everything had started so normal. Floating around Amity Park, checking in on the ghosts who still "lived" there, just hanging out and keeping out of trouble. Skulker's appearance wasn't ideal, but it was normal, expected even. It wasn't quite a friendly fight; any fights in Amity had Phantom at least somewhat annoyed, but it wasn't exactly hostile either, at least not by ghost standards. It had been easy. Simple.
The new weapon the Fenton's were using? Significantly less simple. Maybe if Phantom hadn't been distracted by Skulker, he would've gotten away unscathed. Maybe if he hadn't been favoring his left side because of a fight only a few days ago. Maybe if he didn't spend so many hours hovering just beyond the sensors of Fentonworks, hoping to see more of their cute son, they wouldn't have been able to get such a clean copy of his ecto-signature . But maybe's didn't change the fact that their new, self tracking weapon packed quite a punch, and wasn't even deterred by Jack Fenton's horrible aim.
If the weird glowing blue part that was stuck into his side was any indication, it meant that they were tracking him too. Phantom could have figured that out without the light; he'd been on the run, phasing through buildings, the ground, everything he could, and he could still hear the GAV's distinctive tire squealing chasing after him.
Whatever the ghostly equivalent of adrenaline was ran out five minutes ago. He'd kept flying for those five minutes, before the pain in his side got too strong, his stubbornness only able to carry him so far. He'd continued on foot for as long as he could. It wasn't long, barely a few more seconds. Just enough to get into this alley. Now his side was screaming, burning in pain, and his vision was blurry and his nose was filled with the acrid smell of trash and he couldn't move, but he could still hear the pounding of footsteps running towards him. Phantom closed his eyes. He didn't want his last moments in this or any world to be staring down the barrel of a gun.
The footsteps grew closer. There was only one set, and they were light. Graceful. Maddie, then. Phantom must not warrant both of them. She got closer, moving slower now that she wasn't chasing after him. He could hear the faint pinging of some kind of device. Maybe the tracker? Either way, it was loud, maybe louder than it should've been. Was it because of a headache? It might've been. Phantom had lost a lot of ectoplasm. It'd probably be weirder if he didn't have some kind of headache.
"Oh shit." That wasn't Maddie's voice. That wasn't even a girl's voice. So who...? "Phantom, can you hear me? I'm going to need to touch you, so if you could uh. Not send an ectoblast at my face, I'd appreciate it."
Phantom opened his eyes just a crack. Everything was still blurry, and he only caught a glimpse of dark, black hair before they fell closed again. A warm hand wrapped around his own, still pressed against the bleeding wound. His hand was pried away. Phantom tried to swallow down the whine as the wound was revealed to the air, but it escaped his throat anyway.
"I'm not gonna hurt you," the voice said. It was familiar, but Phantom just couldn't place it... "I need to take off the tracker before they find you, and then I need to see if I can patch this up." The person paused for a moment before continuing. "Well, this will probably hurt, but its to help you. I promise."
Their warm fingers ended up digging into his side, and Phantom yelped, trying to curl up, get away from the pain. Instead, Phantom ended up falling into the chest of whoever it was, their other hand supporting Phantom's shoulder. "Hey, it's ok, it's all gonna be ok, I promise just..." The hand moved down Phantom's shoulder, tracing to his other hand, sliding between his fingers. "If you need to, squeeze my hand, ok? Maybe not with the ghost strength, but it might help."
Phantom managed to nod into the person's shoulder. He wasn't planning on squeezing this person's hand at all, but it was nice. Soft. Warm. The rest of this person was also soft and warm. And smelled good. Much better than the garbage. Phantom turned his nose into the person's neck and inhaled. Whoever this was was nice. Much better to focus on the nice than the pain pulsing in his side, his very essence pooling underneath him.
Yes, much better to focus on the person than their hand digging around his innards, tugging at parts of Phantom he'd never imagined even being possible to be tugged at. Their hair was soft against Phantom's cheek, but slightly damp. Had they been running? Why? Phantom thought he had taken care of the threats to humans. The only threat remaining should be to Phantom himself, and that wasn't any reason to run.
There was the sound of crunching from next to Phantom. "The tracker's gone. I'm going to try and get you good to fly, or at least walk. Filtered ectoplasm should do the trick, right?"
Phantom tried to nod into their neck, but the darkness behind his eyes began to swim.
"Ok, I'm just going to..." there was the sound of a zipper, and the clinking of glass. "This might hurt a bit."
It was a syringe, Phantom realized, as the needle went into his arm. The pinching feeling was drowned out by the pain in his side, and then that was overrun by a sense of electricity running through his veins, of pure, unadulterated power, and his previous statement of not squeezing this person's hand went out the window. Phantom's entire body tightened almost against his will. The breath of a hiss hit the side of Phantom's face, and he wrenched his hand away. He could still feel the bones in the human's hand, so fragile, they would be so easy to break, barely even a thought, and after this person had tried to save him? How could Phantom do something like this? He was supposed to be better, he was supposed to-
The hand he'd just been holding found its way to his back, rubbing gentle circles. "It's ok, it's ok. I think. I don't know if it was supposed to hurt that much, but I think that's a normal response? I hope it was anyway."
The sound of tires squealing a few streets away cut through the comforting voice, and the hand stilled on Phantom's back. "Shit. I was hoping we'd have at least a little more time... um... ok. So, I don't think you're in walking condition yet, but we really need to get moving. Here's hoping that ghosts aren't heavy."
The hand on Phantom's back wrapped around his chest, tucked under his arms. The other hand moved to Phantom's knees, and now he was in the air, pressed against the person's chest again, with his head resting on their shoulder. Phantom still couldn't quite move, still tensed from the ecto injection, but his mind started to relax. Whoever this was really did smell nice.
"Well, thank you. I think?"
Had he said that out loud?
"Yes, yes you did."
Oh. He didn't mean to.
"It's ok, you're obviously not in your right mind."
Yeah, he wasn't. He meant the smelling good thing though. He didn't want them to think he wasn't sincere.
"I'll believe you that I smell good. I promise."
Good. That's good.
Slowly, Phantom was able to untense his hands, loosening them from the white knuckled fists that they had been in, and then his arms, and bit by bit, the rest of his body. The pain in his side was still there, but it wasn't quite as pressing. He wouldn't necessarily say he's had worse, but it was manageable, at the very least.
With the energy more or less gone, and the pain manageable, Phantom became aware of his situation. He was being carried by a stranger who had saved his afterlife. Someone who had access to pure, filtered ectoplasm and had the knowledge to use it. That probably wasn't good. The only humans Phantom knew who had access to that kind of thing were ghost hunters, and ghost hunters weren't about to do...everything this person had done.
For the first time, Phantom peeled his eyes open and saw who had saved him. It was an angle he'd never seen it from, seeing as he was propped against his shoulder, but he'd spent far longer than he cared to admit staring at it. He'd recognize Daniel Fenton's face anywhere. It was, after all, the first face he saw out of the Ghost Zone.
This was better than being kidnapped by the Fenton's, or worse, the Guys In White, but not by much! It was just bad for entirely different reasons. Reasons that were entirely Phantom's fault, ones that he should have gotten over ages ago, but he hadn't, and now he was being carried by Danny Fenton . Maybe it was a good thing he'd lost so much ectoplasm; he didn't have enough to blush bright green like he knew he would be. And oh, crap, he was leaking ectoplasm all over Danny's clothes and the floor and everything, and had he told Danny he smelled good?
Phantom straightened as much as he could, trying to get out of Danny's grasp, but all he managed to do was wiggle slightly before the pain in his side made it a pointless endeavor. Danny glanced down at him, and Phantom could see the worry etched into his face. "Is the way I'm carrying you hurting? I can try to hold you some other way, you're pretty light. I could probably manage it. I don't know what other ways I could try, but I'll give it my best shot."
"Um, no. This is uh. Fine," Phantom said. He was stumbling over his words. Hopefully, Danny thought it was still entirely because of the ectoplasm loss.
"If you say so," Danny said. "Just, let me know if it hurts, ok? Or, I suppose it hasn't stopped hurting, but if it hurts more, or in a way that I can stop."
"I will," Phantom said. Part of him patted himself on the back for making it through the sentence without stuttering. The rest of him wished he had stayed in the alleyway to End. It would've been less embarrassing than this. "Where are you uh, taking me?"
Danny stopped mid step. "That. Is a great question! I was going to just take you straight to Fentonworks, so you could go through the portal, but then we might run into my parents and I definitely won't be able to lie my way around that. I can't get anywhere too far, I can't exactly parade you around Amity, and even if I could, I don't think I could carry you for that long anyway... Maybe Sam's house? I think I can get there, and no one actually hangs around there. It's just a whole bunch of cameras."
"Unless they're designed to record ghosts, they won't work with me in the frame," Phantom said.
Danny sighed and relief, and shot Phantom a small smile that made his core jump in his chest. "That's good. Sam's it is!" Danny started walking in a different direction than he had been originally. "You probably don't know who Sam is, huh? Or me, for that matter." He laughed.
"I know who you are, Danny."
Phantom wished he could take the words back as soon as he said them. Danny opened his mouth in shock, and maybe fear, or disgust, or who knows what else. He'd learned that a ghost had basically been stalking him for who knows how long, and after he'd gone out of his way to save Phantom. Of course he'd be horrified!
"Oh, yea, I guess you've probably seen me around my parents, huh?"
That was a much more reasonable conclusion, and Phantom pounced on the excuse. "It would be hard to miss you." He was telling the truth. There had been at least a few times Phantom had taken a hit he shouldn't have because Danny had accompanied his parents. "Why are you helping me anyway? There's no way the Fenton's know about this."
Danny was flushed red, and Phantom could almost picture him rubbing the back of his neck like he always did when he was worried. "I've been helping you for a while now. Just not as... directly?"
Phantom furrowed his brow. "What do you mean?"
"I've been uh. Sabotaging their ghost hunting gear in secret basically since the portal opened?"
Now it was Phantom's turn to be shocked. "You- what?"
"They aren't bad inventors, you know? Once I realized that ghosts were, you know, real and all that, and that they were wrong about the whole 'unfeeling entities of evil' or whatever, well. I couldn't just sit off to the side and do nothing," Danny said. He was distinctively not looking at Phantom. "I couldn't do anything as flashy as you do, but I thought, maybe I could help try and take a threat off the board."
"You decided to help me over your parents?"
"It's obvious that you're trying to help people and, as much as I do love my parents, they aren't exactly the most...helpful of people. They want to be, they just get some serious tunnel vision."
Phantom stared up at Danny, wide eyed and slack jawed, his core doing jumping jacks in his chest. He'd been aware of his crush on Danny for ages now, and had come to accept it as a silly something he could entertain sometimes. A way to kill time. But it had never been anything serious; Danny was the son of a ghost hunter, likely with their views and definitely with their tech. Phantom had understood that it was more likely that Phantom suddenly get resurrected through dark magic than for his crush to actually go somewhere. But now, still being carried by Danny bridal style down the dark streets of Amity Park, hearing about how Danny had actually been helping him for just as long? Phantom allowed himself to hope, just a little.
Speaking of being carried... "You can put me down now. I should be able to walk," Phantom said.
"Are you sure? It's not too much further, and I don't want you to make your side any worse than it already is," Danny said, not slowing down. "I don't mind. You're really light. Are you always this light?"
"I uh. Maybe? I don't really weigh myself," Phantom said.
"Yea, I guess weight doesn't mean much when you can just fly," Danny said with a laugh. "Do you think that the reason you're so light is because ectoplasm doesn't weigh much, or because gravity doesn't effect you as strongly? Or does gravity not effect ectoplasm as strongly, and that's why its so light?"
Phantom blinked. "I have absolutely no idea."
Danny's face turned red. "Oh. Right. I guess its not all that important to you. Sorry about rambling."
"You don't need to apologize!" Phantom said quickly. "I don't mind listening, and I can try and answer other questions you have? I just don't know anything about all of that."
If Phantom wasn't quite literally pressed up against Danny's chest, he wouldn't have noticed the sigh of relief he let out. "I'll try to not bombard you with them. Especially when you're. You know. Bleeding out."
"Oh. Right. Forgot about that," Phantom laughed, but cut himself off with a wince.
"How do you forget that you have a hole in your side?" Danny asked.
"It happens more often than you would think," Phantom said, trying to force a joking tone into his voice. Based on the tightening of Danny's lips, it didn't work. "The ectoplasm you gave me helped too. And you're questions are good at distracting me."
"Then maybe I should ask you more questions," Danny said, and Phantom swore that there was a teasing tone in his voice. He'd probably imagined it.
"I'll try my best to answer them."
"Ok, so, what's your favorite food? Do ghosts even eat?"
Phantom was quiet a moment. "That's the question you want to ask?" he said after a minute.
"I mean, yea, why not?" Danny said.
"The few times I've been interviewed by humans, they ask all about why I help Amity, or about how I died, or other questions like that. I assumed you'd be curious about those things as well."
"I mean, I am," Danny replied. "But it seems kind of, I don't know, rude to ask those? It'd be like if I bumped into someone on the street and started quizzing them about their life goals and lowest points and all that."
"You'd be correct about that. It's incredibly rude to ask about most of those things."
"So, favorite food?"
Phantom thought for a moment. "I don't remember ever having human food," he eventually said. "Ghosts can eat, though we don't need to. I know of a few that quite enjoy eating. I've just never had the opportunity to."
Danny gasped. "You've never eaten anything?" At Phantom's head shake, Danny continued. "Oh, we are fixing that right now."
"It may need to wait for my stomach to be enclosed again," Phantom pointed out.
"We are fixing that as soon as you are healed," Danny amended. "My treat."
Phantom swallowed hard. He wasn't exactly an expert in relationships. He hadn't had one after he died, and he didn't remember much of anything from his life, but he did know some things. Just enough to recognize that whatever it was that Danny was proposing sounded a whole lot like a date. Should he say something about it? What if he was wrong, and he scared Danny off some how? Or-
"Here we are!" Danny said, walking up the stairs to the door of a large house. He readjusted Phantom in his arms just enough to knock on the door.
Before Phantom could say anything, or try and get out of Danny's arms, the door swung open, revealing a rather grumpy looking Sam Manson. Or maybe that was just her normal expression. Either way, it changed quickly to one of shock, than determination, as she took a look at her best friend carrying Phantom.
"You are so lucky my parents are away on some fancy rich person trip," she said, holding the door open for Danny to walk inside. "Otherwise we would all be in so much hot water."
"Probably!" Danny said, pushing his way into the house. "Sam, Phantom. Phantom, Sam. Now, do you have anywhere I can put him down? He has a hole in his side that needs tending to."
"Yea, I can see that," Sam said. "Follow me. And maybe you can explain what the fuck I missed on the way."
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#AO3 Link#FanFiction#AO3 Adrienette Plus#💚#💖#❤️#Side Adrienette#♡#R:G#A:Hannahmander#Reveal Fic#Crossover#Ghost AU#Fluff
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Oooh I need Kitty so badly
Lyrics- I Love Rock N' Roll by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts
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Instrumental- Moon Trance by Lindsey Stirling
I swear I have like no instrumental music really 😭
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Clockwork is a must
Lyrics- It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine) by R.E.M.
Song
Instrumental- Sorrow of a Forgotten Piano by BaileyPiano
Song
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Hmmmm I'm feeling in a Paulina mood lol
Lyrics- Omigod You Guys from Legally Blonde
Just replace Warren with the Ghost Boy lol
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Instrumental- South by Funkin' Sound Team and Kawaii Sprite
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FROSTBITE YES
OK SO this one might now make too much sense lol
Lyrics- A Spoonful of Sugar by Julie Andrews
Cause ya know he uh helps heal Danny
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Instrumental- Guardian by Lindsey Stirling
Btw we're ignoring that all of my instrumental music on my playlists consist of video games and Lindsey Stirling
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OH OH VLAD PLSSS
UPON SEARCHING FOR DANNY I FOUND THE PERFECT VLAD SONGS (these are pre-AGIT btw)
Lyrics- Ashes by Stellar
I'm thinking specifically the Obsessed with Maddie blend of Vlad
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Instrumental- Fallen Down on Old Piano by BaileyPiano
This one is more to express the broken, sad man underneath his villainous exterior
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And Danny bc he's right up there too
Lyrics- Guns for Hands by Twenty One Pilots
This one is an angstier Danny.
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Instrumental- Ghost Fight by Toby Fox
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IM NOT LATE FOR MUSIC ASKS RIGHT??
2, 14, 19, 27!!
A wizard is never late, nor early!
So in order:
2. Like I mentioned before, this one tends to fluctuate a lot depending on mood. Rn it's We didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel. But usually it's an Imagine Dragons has a special place in my heart.
14. Perfect by Ed Sheeran
19. Ok so two songs I found recently were Save Your Tears by Jimmy Clifton and Hot Dog by Limp Bizkit which are huge polar opposites of each other.
27. This one is sorta a niche thing but Twenty One Pilots released a crossover of Heavens and Trees that gives me a vivid scene of my head of someone betraying their friends to the authorities or something.
(Ask)
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Before we get into the chapter, a HUGE platonic smooch for @duchi-nesten who took the time to draw the Ancients from this story with bribery from me and @scarletsaphire I'm absolutely screaming over them still, they are just UGGHHH SO GOOD
From left to right is Zunje, Babel, Pele, and Kala!
Anyway, onto the chapter! It's an important one!
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Everything begins. Everything ends.
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Jazz flinched as another wayward blast of ectoplasm exploded into the wall of the office building across the street, reducing it to little more than rubble. The battle was becoming more and more destructive as time bled on, and her nerves were really starting to get to her. She needed to get back out there and put a stop to it.
Unfortunately, there was the slight complication of her parents.
She’d tried to play dumb when Frostbite slipped up, but it had been pointless. Frostbite had been all too happy to explain that the Great One was, in fact, the ghost hero known as Danny Phantom.
Perhaps if it had just been her dad there, she would’ve been able to distract him, or figure out how to explain it away, but as luck would have it, her mom had pulled up shortly after the ghost king’s arrival.
It didn’t take them long to put two and two together. At least, that’s what she assumed.
Even more unfortunate was that her concussion had spontaneously decided to rear its ugly head, causing her to lean over and throw up in the middle of the road. Mom and Dad were far less than keen on letting her continue fighting after that. She’d protested of course, pointing out that the all-powerful ghost king was about to raze Amity Park to the ground, but they wouldn’t have any of it.
She had been forced to take shelter behind a large pile of rubble, along with her parents and Frostbite, as the battle intensified. Pariah Dark’s question about Danny had been met with a brutal attack from one of the four-armed Ancients, and the battle had progressed from there. At some point, the little lava-haired Ancient had taken over the direct combat with the ghost king, aided by the gnome and the four-armed ghost with a cloak of clouds. The last Ancient - Pandora, if Jazz remembered correctly - had engaged the black-armored knight. Sam and Tucker were still out there, somewhere, working to keep the thrall army at bay.
And that was just the fighting. Overhead, in the sky, the rip that had heralded Pariah Dark’s appearance still gaped over Amity Park. The air seemed to vibrate with its intensity; Jazz could feel it prickling at her skin, making her feel foreign in her own body. Like reality itself was beginning to fail.
In short, things were Bad-with-a-capital-B.
Jazz leaned over to peer around the rubble protecting them. “We should really be out there,” she muttered, even as her head throbbed worse.
“You’re not going anywhere, young lady,” Mom said. “Not while you’re injured.”
“I told you, I’m fine! I got it out of my system, I’m good to go.”
“I may not know many details about human biology,” Frostbite said, arching an eyebrow at Jazz, “but I have enough experience with the Great One to know that head injuries are serious in humans.”
Jazz didn’t miss how her parents winced hearing about “the Great One” and his injuries.
They hadn’t said a word about Danny - Fenton or Phantom - since Frostbite’s slip-up. It only put her that much more on edge. Sooner or later, Danny would return, and if Mom and Dad were going to flip out and shoot him on sight, she wanted to at least have the chance to warn him.
As it was, she couldn’t tell what they were thinking. Her mother’s poker face was nothing short of perfect, and her father, though he often wore his heart on his sleeve, was strangely stoic about it all. If there was one thing Jazz hated, it was not knowing things, and not knowing their thoughts on Danny was killing her.
She could only hope and pray. The fact that they weren't actively trying to gun down Frostbite was a good sign at least.
But for the time being, she pushed those thoughts away. “Believe me, I know plenty about head injuries. I wouldn’t be wanting to go back out there if I thought it was serious enough.”
“I don't think the person with the concussion should be making that judgment ,” Mom said. “You won't be going anywhere until we know you're safe.”
Jazz frowned. Was that a hint of hysteria in her voice?
Yeah, that couldn't be a good sign.
Still, her words gave Jazz an opening. “Alright, fine! Whatever! It's not like the world is ending or anything, in case you haven't noticed. Why aren't you guys out there, at least?” Maybe if she could convince them to go back to the fight, she’d have a chance to catch Danny before they saw him. Maybe she’d have a chance to warn him.
Her parents didn't answer. They exchanged a glance that Jazz couldn't read, and Dad’s shoulders sagged. He opened his mouth. “We -”
“What's going on here?”
Jazz’s eyes snapped up to see Valerie hovering just behind her parents and Frostbite; Wes clung to Valerie with his eyes screwed tightly shut. Her parents turned at the sound of Valerie’s voice, and though Jazz couldn’t see her mom’s eyes behind the red-tinted goggles, she could only imagine the look on her face.
Her dad, however, beamed widely. “The Huntress!” he exclaimed, grabbing at Mom’s arm like an overexcited child.
To her credit, Valerie avoided wincing too strongly. “Yeah, that’s… me.”
“Did you find him?” Jazz asked. She didn’t bother to hide the anxiety in her voice.
Valerie frowned, but nodded. “Yeah, but he’s… well…”
“Can we maybe have this conversation on the ground?” Wes asked shakily. Valerie responded with a roll of her eyes, practically shoving him off her. He stumbled the short distance to the ground and collapsed spread-eagle on the street. “Thanks,” he muttered.
Dad’s nose crinkled in confusion. “Uh… is this the backup you were talking about, Jazzy-pants?”
Jazz ignored him. “What do you mean? Where is he?” she asked Valerie.
“It’s okay, I’m here!” a voice called out. A moment later, Danny - as Phantom - pulled up beside Valerie. “I’m here.”
Jazz’s breath caught in her throat. She had known, of course, that Danny had gone to get the Crown of Fire, but for some reason, it hadn’t crossed her mind that he would have to wear it. Granted, the crown on his head now was most definitely not on fire, but she thought the frosted look complemented him much better than fire. The way it sat on his head, and the way the cloak he wore rippled in the breeze and caught the light…
He looked regal. Like he really was a king.
It made her heart swell with pride. Her baby brother… he had come so far. She’d never doubted his leadership abilities, not really. His common sense could be… debatable at times, but her brother had a good heart. He was still young, of course, and the thought of him being a monarch had never occurred to her, but in that moment, Jazz couldn’t help but think that the role suited him.
She must have shown it on her face, because Danny caught her eye, and his hand flew up to the back of his neck. “It’s a long story…” he muttered sheepishly, his cheeks growing green.
Jazz opened her mouth to respond, but Dad stood up abruptly, cutting her off. Mentally, she kicked herself. She’d gotten so distracted by his arrival, she’d forgotten about their parents.
Danny instantly paled. Whatever he saw in Dad’s face, it couldn’t have been good. Jazz tried to stand, to intercept him, but Frostbite gently held her down. “Easy,” he rumbled quietly. “Do not act prematurely.”
Of course, she wanted to protest that, but she quickly became distracted by her father’s slow approach towards Danny. Her mother wasn’t too far behind.
Danny’s hand twisted into the cloak, and he averted his gaze. “Look,” he began shakily, “I… I get it if you hate me, and - and I… I’ll let you hunt me down or tear me apart or whatever you want, but please, you have to let me stop all this first, or there isn’t gonna be a world for you to tear me apart in. I just need to - mmph!”
Jazz squeaked and clapped her hands to her mouth as Dad lunged forward. She pushed Frostbite’s paw away to stumble to her feet. She had to get there first, had to stop him from hurting Danny -
- but her heart stuttered to a stop as Dad wrapped Danny in a tight embrace.
“Danny,” he said, his voice cracking. “We were so worried… You have no idea…”
A stunned Danny returned the hug as Mom pulled down her hood and glommed on to his other side. “You don’t… hate me?” he asked, his voice muffled by their dad’s burly form.
“Listen to me, Danny,” Mom said, peeling him out of Dad’s arms and holding him by the shoulders. She looked him firm in the eye. “No matter what you do, no matter what you are, we could never, ever hate you. Never, do you hear me?”
Jazz could see the tears glistening in the corners of Danny’s eyes even from where she sat. His lower lip quivered the slightest bit before he threw his arms around Mom’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry,” he said hoarsely. “I should’ve told you forever ago, but I just…”
“It’s okay, sweetie,” their mom said, rubbing circles into his back. “It’s okay. We’ll have time to… to figure it all out.”
“Yeah, assuming the world doesn’t end first,” Wes snarked from his position on the ground. Jazz shot him a heated glare.
Valerie simply looked away and folded her arms across her chest. Jazz frowned. Something clearly wasn’t sitting right with her, but…
“Wait,” Dad said, furrowing his brow, “what’s this about the world ending?”
“It’s okay,” Jazz said. “The world isn’t going to end. Danny’s going to make sure of it.” Maybe she’d have felt more sure of her words if there hadn’t been a gaping hole in the sky threatening to rip reality apart, but someone had to look on the bright side.
Their parents glanced between the two of them. “What do you mean?” Mom asked slowly.
Before either of them could answer, another wayward ectoblast flew overhead, crashing into the roof of the building right above them. Huge chunks of rubble broke off of the building and began to plummet straight towards them.
Valerie reacted quickly, pulling Wes up by his shirt collar and grabbing Jazz to drag them to safety. Danny and Frostbite reacted just as quickly by throwing up ectoplasmic shields. The rubble slammed into them, then slid off the shields and away from the rest of the group.
Valerie whipped her head towards the battle. “I think I’m… gonna go help them,” she said. She flew off before Jazz could say anything, leaving nothing but a cloud of dust in her wake.
“I need to go help too,” Danny said thickly. He stared after Valerie. “It’s… that’s what I’m supposed to do. If I can beat him, everything will go back to normal… Mostly, anyway.” His hand twitched up towards his head.
Mom whipped her head in the direction of the battle. “Him?” she asked, nodding to where Pariah Dark and the lava-haired Ancient were still fiercely fighting each other. To Jazz’s horror, the Ancient seemed to be losing ground.
“Precisely,” Frostbite said jovially. How he could manage such a tone in these circumstances was beyond Jazz. “Once the Great One is able to defeat Pariah Dark, he can assume the throne and put the Heart of the Infinite Realms at ease! It’s quite simple, really.”
“Assume the - wait!” Wes shot upright. “You’re telling me that dumb crown isn’t just some weird costume?”
Danny flushed green, and his hand flew up to the back of his neck. “I, ah… like I said, it’s a long story.” He glanced at Mom and Dad. “I’m really sorry, believe me, I wish I could’ve told you differently, and I definitely wish it wasn’t the case, but…”
Jazz watched as Mom’s gaze drifted up to the crown on Danny’s head, as if she were just now noticing it. “What throne?” she asked weakly.
“Um… it kind of maybe sort of might be… the throne of the entire Ghost Zone?” Danny replied with a sheepish grin.
Dad scratched his head. “When did this happen?”
Danny’s face grew sober again. “I don’t know. I only just found out a few hours ago myself.” His eyes flicked away from their parents, down at his feet.
A pang of sympathy struck Jazz’s heart. Sure, Danny looked the part of a king, and somehow, she had no trouble believing he was the king, despite her earlier confusion, but somehow it had escaped her that he had barely had enough time to process everything. That everything was happening so quickly.
And their parents… it had to be equally difficult for them to process. They had only just learned their son’s true identity less than an hour ago, and now they were finding out he was essentially the heir to the throne of a world full of the same beings they had once sworn to annihilate. It would be a lot for anyone.
And so it nearly brought Jazz to tears when she saw Dad fight to plaster a smile onto his face. He placed a gentle hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Hey,” he said in a tone entirely too quiet for Jack Fenton, “it’s okay. Like your mother said, we’ll have time to figure it all out.”
Danny still didn’t look up. “Yeah,” he said, barely audible. “We’ll have time.”
His tone told Jazz he didn’t believe that in the slightest.
An ear-splitting roar shattered the moment. Everyone slapped their hands over their ears. Jazz only just managed to catch a glimpse of Danny gasping and hunching in on himself, clutching at his sternum.
A wave of hot air washed over Jazz. Trembling, she peered around the rubble, only to gasp in horror at the sight of the little girl Ancient bleeding lava all over the four-armed Ancient. She was still alive - as alive as a ghost could be anyway, but it was evident even from a hundred yards away that she was fully incapacitated. Pandora still fought with the knight, but everyone else - Sam, Tucker, Valerie, the other Ancients, even the thrall army - had practically frozen in place.
The most terrifying sight of all was the evil ghost king, looming over the street, staring straight at her.
No, staring straight at Danny.
“Come and meet your fate, little Prince!” he called mockingly. His voice reverberated over the street, causing buildings to rumble ominously. “Or will you take the coward’s way out?”
For a moment, the only sound that could be heard was the humming of the rip in the sky. Jazz held her breath as Danny glanced at their parents, then gently pushed Dad’s hand off his shoulder and took to the air.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” he called back. “Just… give me the Ring before things get worse.”
Pariah laughed, a menacing sound that sent chills down Jazz’s spine. “Why should I surrender what is rightfully mine?”
Danny's eyes flared. “That power’s not yours. It’s mine.”
Jazz blinked at the sudden shift in Danny’s tone. It was still his voice, yes, but there was something about it…
Pariah roared wordlessly again. “Never!” he snarled. “Kilaris is MINE!”
With a guttural yell, he launched himself at Danny. Jazz could’ve sworn she saw a bright white light flare from the crown on Danny’s head, just momentarily, but when she blinked, it was gone, and Danny too had charged forward. The two collided in a blinding explosion of red and green.
Mom and Dad moved to follow Danny, but Frostbite held a paw up. “No,” he said, his voice somber and heavy. “This is not a fight you can help him with. He must win this by his power alone.”
“Listen here,” Mom snapped. “I don’t care how you do it in your world, but I will not stand by and watch my son fight some impossible battle on his own! I - we are going to help him, whether you like it or not!”
“I understand.” Frostbite flinched and threw up a shield just in time to stop another huge chunk of building from crushing them all. “But though you may not be able to help him in combat, there are other ways you can help him.” He glanced at Jazz. “Keeping your daughter and his friend safe, for one.”
“Pfft. Me? Friends with Fenton? Fat chance,” Wes scoffed.
“He will be able to fight with a sound mind if you help him protect yourselves and the other humans,” Frostbite continued, ignoring Wes. “And I must go and help my colleague.”
Mom turned, watching the battle with helpless eyes. “But… Danny -”
“ - will be just fine. But we must give him a fighting chance by helping elsewhere.”
“He’s right,” Dad said quietly, taking Mom’s hand. “We have to help get Jazz out of here. It’s getting too dangerous.”
“I told you, I’m fine! I can help too!”
Another explosion rang overhead. Jazz yelped and ducked as an enormous bolt of green energy flew over her head. It came close enough that she could feel its cold aura graze the top of her scalp.
“Y-you know, on second thought, I think I’m with Yeti Man over here,” Wes muttered, cowering behind a fallen wall. Jazz had to resist the urge to roll her eyes.
Her attention, however, quickly turned back to Mom. Again, she found herself wishing she could read minds. She could see the gears turning in her mother’s head after all, but Mom’s stoic face didn’t give her true thoughts away.
Jazz hated not knowing things.
Then Mom’s jaw tightened, and Jazz’s heart fell. She knew that look. “We’re getting you two to safety,” Mom said. Then, giving Frostbite a pointed look, she added, “And then we’re coming back to help Danny.”
Frostbite closed his eyes. “You will only distract him from what he needs to do. It is not wise.”
“That might be what you think,” Mom said as she bent down to help Wes stand, “but he's my son. I've let him struggle alone for too long.” Her voice cracked. “I have to start… making it up to him…”
“I assure you, the Great One does not bear any ill will towards you,” Frostbite said, frowning in sympathy. “This is not the time to begin ‘making amends’, though.”
Mom opened her mouth to retort again, but Dad laid a hand on her shoulder. “C'mon, Mads. We can figure it out later. Right now, we've gotta help these two.”
It was strange seeing her father being the rational, calm one, but Jazz chalked it up to the weirdness of the day. It was the only way she could keep it all straight in her head.
Mom shot Frostbite one last hard glare before leading Wes towards the RV sitting down the road. Dad scooped Jazz up into his arms and began carrying her to the RV, much to her embarrassment.
She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off. “Don’t you worry, Jazzy-pants!” he said. His tone was bright as always, but Jazz could tell it was at least somewhat forced. “Soon as you’re safe, we’ll get right back out there and help Danny kick some evil ghost king butt!”
Jazz bit her lip. “What about what Frostbite said? About… interfering?”
Her dad hesitated before answering. “I’m sure he’s wrong. You can’t trust a ghost, after all!” His face froze as soon as the words left his mouth. “I mean, uh, not Danny of course! He’s different.”
She didn’t quite know how to respond to that. That… was a misconception they’d have to clear up sooner or later.
As she peered over Dad’s shoulder, back towards where Danny was fighting tooth and nail against Pariah, she hoped there would actually be a sooner or later.
“Be careful, little brother,” she whispered to herself.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The thread flickered.
Clockwork frowned as he allowed it to flow across his hands and in between his fingers. This certainly was the correct timeline, he knew that without a doubt, but its flickering concerned him greatly. It had been so strong when Vlad Plamius made the decision to allow Danny the Crown, but now…
He closed his eyes as he sifted through time. Before, the future had been as clear to him as any other. Now though, he could only see up to a certain point before it was obscured behind what felt like a thick wall of mist. There was still a future there, yes, but not one he could see.
It was, in a word, unusual.
“My dear Kilaris, what are you up to?” he murmured as he let the thread of the timeline slip from his fingers and back into the broader tangle of Time. Its flicker became swallowed up by the combined glow of the cluster of timelines, but Clockwork knew it was still present.
His eyes drifted to one of his time windows. The same image of Danny exiting the portal that he had watched just an hour or so ago played out again, this time in real time. A thin trail of frost followed in his wake as he flew to meet his family. The frost shimmered briefly in the ethereal light of the rip in the sky above, leaving a silky, glowing strand, almost like -
- ah. Of course.
“Must you always be so overdramatic?” Clockwork said aloud, the semblance of a grin pulling at the corners of his mouth.
He rested his hands on top of his staff. He knew what needed to happen now.
It was only a matter of time.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fighting Pariah was nothing like it had been the first time around.
Before, Danny had been fighting in a clunky mech-suit. True, it had helped enhance his powers (until it tried to kill him), but it had made his movements equally clunky and stiff. He’d needed to adapt to the added weight and size quickly, but it still cost him when he took a few crucial hits.
This time he was not bound by any suit. He was free to move as he pleased, using the advantage of his smaller form to move with agility and speed that Pariah did not possess. He could dive in close for a punch or a kick, then turn on a dime and dart away. He wouldn’t have been able to do that in the Ecto-Skeleton.
There was also the fact that he had the help of the Ancients. True, it looked like Pele had taken some nasty hits from Pariah and would be down for the count, but the others were still going strong especially with Zunje now, keeping the Fright Knight and the thrall army at bay. He didn’t like seeing Sam and Tucker down there in the fray, so close to his own battle with Pariah, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.
And then there was the Crown. It remained secure on his head, feeding him a power that buzzed through his veins and his core, making him feel like he’d just taken six shots of espresso mixed with pure ectoplasm. It was an exhilarating feeling, one that made him wish he’d actually used the Crown when he’d had the chance, during his first fight with Pariah.
(A wish he immediately scolded himself for.)
Danny gritted his teeth as he threw up another ectoplasmic shield, this one with a thick coating of ice thanks to the power of the Crown. It helped protect him from Pariah’s elemental attacks, which ran much hotter than his own.
Ectoplasmic fire exploded across the shield, and Danny could feel its heat as it curled around the edges towards him. He had to dig his heels into the air to brace himself against the sheer force of the hit.
Pariah didn’t give him a chance to fire back. No sooner had Danny lowered his shield did he see Pariah lunging for him, fangs bared and a fiery, maniacal look in his lone eye. Danny yelped and darted to the side, just barely missing Pariah’s fist.
Danny tried to respond with his own blast of ectoplasm, the Crown’s power coursing through him, but Pariah deflected it easily with his mace. The blast ricocheted off of it and into the street. Danny gasped as it flew right over Jazz’s head, just barely missing her by a foot.
That turned out to be a mistake. He should’ve known better than to let himself get distracted. It gave Pariah the opportunity to take another swing with his mace, catching Danny in the gut and sending him crashing into the ground.
Danny gripped his stomach and swallowed down a cry. The mace’s sharp spikes were not just for decoration, it seemed; they’d dug mercilessly into his torso, leaving him with deep, ragged gashes. The fall into the street hadn’t been too kind on his ribs, either. He could already feel the Crown diverting some of its power to the injuries, trying to heal him as quickly as possible.
Pariah roared as he dove for Danny, fire exploding to life around his fist. Danny managed to roll out of the way, and Pariah’s fist slammed into the street, cracking it even more. In any other fight, Danny probably would’ve tried to make some snarky comment about how the potholes in Amity Park were already bad enough and they didn’t need more, but he was still struggling to get air back in his lungs. Not to mention he found it much harder to crack jokes in the middle of his more serious fights, mostly because he had to concentrate on not getting beaten to a pulp.
As Danny rolled, out of the corner of his eye, he saw his father scoop Jazz into his arms. Mom helped Wes up, and they ran towards the RV, which was still parked haphazardly down the road. Miraculously, it was still standing.
He could almost breathe a sigh of relief. He still didn’t know if Sam and Tucker were safe or if they were still out there fighting the skeleton army, but knowing his family (and Wes) were safe offered him a little bit of reassurance.
Focus. Do not lose sight of the goal.
Right. The Ring. He still had to get that. Somehow.
It was going to be much easier said than done. Getting it off of Pariah’s hand seemed impossible, especially with the relentless drive of the king’s attacks. Danny barely had the chance to recover and launch his own attacks, let alone come up with a plan to swipe the Ring.
He forced himself up and into the air. His cloak flared with cold energy as he allowed ice to gather in his hands. That was another advantage he had this time around - the help from his elemental core. His ice attacks were some of his strongest, and he silently thanked whatever unseen force had granted him an ice core as he loosed the energy all at once, freezing Pariah’s entire arm to the street.
You’re welcome, little Prince.
Danny almost stopped in midair. That remark definitely sent a flurry of questions flying through his head, but he had to keep his attention on Pariah. We’re not done with this, he still thought back.
Of course not. You still have much to learn.
He didn’t think the Heart meant it as a dig, but he still mentally stuck his tongue out. Even if he didn’t have time to ask questions, he could still be sassy. No one could take his sass away.
It was strange how much clearer the voice in his head seemed now that he had the Crown on. It had been clear before, but there was a new clarity to it, like when his eye doctor gave him a new prescription for his contacts. He supposed it made sense; now, he had that direct contact.
It still didn’t explain why the voice sounded like his own train of thought sometimes.
Even stranger was the feeling of the power offered to him by Kilaris. It was stronger than the power he’d had while wearing the Ecto-Skeleton, and that had probably been the time when he was the most powerful throughout the past two years. It helped that unlike the Ecto-Skeleton, the Crown did not drain him of his energy as he used it; instead, it continuously fueled him, pouring more and more power into his body, like it could never run out. It was thrilling, this feeling of endless energy. His core practically vibrated from it all.
At the same time though, fear nagged at him. This was how it felt with just the Crown on. How much worse would it be once he got the Ring too? The thought sent a chill down his spine, and he found himself subconsciously beginning to suppress his core. Suppress the ceaseless power flooding into him.
Why stop the power you are meant to have?
Danny swallowed.
That’s exactly what he was afraid of.
It all passed through his mind in the few seconds it took for Pariah to begin trying to melt the ice securing him to the ground. “Why you little -!”
More ice pooled in Danny’s hands. “Sorry,” he said as he re-froze Pariah’s hand to the street. “You just looked like you needed to chill out.”
Pariah bellowed, and the ice cracked and shattered. “Impertinent child!” he sneered. “When I am in control once more -”
“Save it!” Danny fired off a round of concentrated bolts of ice in quick succession, forcing Pariah to retreat a little. “I already told you, the Heart’s not yours anymore! It hasn’t been for a long time!”
“And you dare presume it is yours?” Pariah said. He quickly gained back the ground he had lost by leaping at Danny again.
Of course, Danny easily flew out of the way. “I don’t ‘presume’ anything!” he shouted. “I already know!”
It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to say, and he really didn’t like the taste the words left in his mouth, but if he’d learned anything throughout his career as Danny Phantom, it was that his opponents got sloppy when he riled them up. Snarking at them just happened to be the easiest way to do so.
Is it truly “snark” if you speak the truth?
In spite of himself, Danny almost laughed. If you’re gonna be stuck with me, you better get used to the snark, whether it’s true or not. We come as a package deal.
He ducked out of the way of another punch. He didn’t recover quick enough; by the time he managed to turn around to face the king, an entire wall of red energy was surging at him. There wasn’t time to fly around it. It struck him with a force so strong, he was thrown back more than a hundred yards.
His ribs groaned in pain as he slammed into the concrete and skidded back a few more yards for good measure. Nausea churned in his stomach from the blow, and he had to resist the urge to lean over and throw up. All too soon, Pariah was on top of him again, swinging his mace.
Knowing there was no way he could move in time, Danny turned intangible and allowed himself to sink into the ground. He counted to three, just enough time to get his nausea under control, then called ectoplasm to his hands. With the Crown’s power, the energy’s green glow was so bright, it almost seemed white.
It wasn’t difficult to track Pariah’s hot ecto-signature underground. Danny lined himself up underneath him, then sprang from the ground. His blazing fists collided straight with Pariah’s jaw. It didn’t push Pariah back like he had hoped, but it distracted him long enough for Danny to fire his ectoplasm in one long, continuous blast.
Pariah growled under Danny’s onslaught before finally bringing up a red shield. “You truly think this will be enough to stop me?”
Danny didn’t let up. “I’ll do whatever it takes to stop a monster like you from hurting the Realms again.”
“Really now?” Pariah twisted his shield into a blast of his own. It pushed against Danny’s, and he once again had to dig his heels into the air behind him to keep from being thrown back again. “Then why don’t you?”
Danny’s heart skipped a beat, and his attack faltered for the briefest of moments. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do,” Pariah said, laughing. “I have seen you. I have seen your fears, your doubts…”
“You don’t know me at all!” Danny yelled. Frustration distracted him, and he unwillingly drew on the Crown’s power to fuel his blast. “Just ‘cause you got in my head once doesn’t mean anything!”
“Poor little Prince,” Pariah cooed mockingly, as if Danny hadn’t even spoken. “This is why you are weak. This is why you will fail to protect everything you stand for. You are nothing more than a scared child.”
Danny couldn’t stop the anger-fueled energy pouring into him and, subsequently, pouring out of his hands. The Crown was all too happy to supply it. It just responded to him too easily. It responded to his resentment of Pariah, his frustration at the tyrant king’s insinuation that he was a coward, his rage at the fact that Pariah refused to hand over what was rightfully Danny’s -
Danny screwed his eyes shut tightly. That last one, he knew it was the Crown’s influence, but he couldn’t stop it. It was all coming too hard, too fast, too strong, and it was thrilling. The power flooding through the Crown just felt so right, like maybe he really was meant to have it all along.
He wanted to throw up.
The power demanded a release. It thrummed against Danny’s skin, coursing through his core, making his green ectoblast grow brighter and brighter until it was nearly a blinding white. It would not remain bound for much longer.
And so with a guttural yell, he unleashed it.
He wasn’t entirely sure what happened - the rush of energy leaving him all at once had left him overwhelmed and disoriented - but when he opened his eyes, the whole block had a thin layer of ice covering it, sparkling in the ethereal light of the rip above. Large branches of the trees in front of the buildings had frozen and cracked off the trunks, shattering on the ground below. He could see at least one downed power line.
Pariah had fallen to the ground, into a huge crater Danny swore hadn’t been there before. Crystals of frost coated his hair and his cape. He slowly sat up, rubbing his head, clearly just as disoriented as Danny.
Danny stared at his hands in horror. Did I really do that?
The Heart didn’t answer him. He couldn’t tell if that was good or bad.
Probably bad. For him, anyway.
And in that moment, he swore to himself he’d never allow the Crown to give him that much power ever again. Never.
(No matter how right it had felt to control it.)
Pariah’s cough caught his attention. “You…” he muttered before stopping abruptly.
Danny’s breath caught in his throat as Pariah’s lone eye fell on the Crown sitting on his head. For just a brief moment, the world seemed to screech to a halt around them, and a silence filled the air, so thick it left a dusty taste in Danny’s mouth. Even the rip in the sky above seemed to pause in its yawning.
Then a fire sparked to life behind that one eye and a wave of heat crashed over Danny, nearly knocking him over. The roar Pariah let loose chilled Danny to the bone and left a whiny ringing in his ears. He didn’t even bother to try and stand his ground against a rage so strong; he simply turned and rocketed off in the other direction.
Just in the nick of time too, it seemed, as Pariah lunged after him. In an instant, a flurry - no, a storm of scarlet ectoblasts surrounded Danny. He twisted and ducked and dived and put all his flying skills to the test trying to dodge them all. It was difficult, since the blasts were all coming from behind him, but strangely enough, he felt as though he could sense them in the air as they flew at him, like he could just tell where they were without looking.
“Is that you?” he asked as he narrowly avoided yet another attack.
On the contrary. It is you, little Prince.
“That makes zero se- agghh!” A blast clipped Danny’s side, sending a flare of white hot pain up his ribcage. The blast was strong enough to send him careening off course, and he couldn’t stop himself from colliding with a building and plummeting to the street below. His head hit hard enough to cause his vision to go black.
He groaned pitifully as he laid on the road. The pain shooting through his side felt as though it was trying to burn straight through him, even in spite of the cloak and Crown’s efforts to heal him. Something sticky and wet pooled underneath the hand gripping his side.
For a minute, he just laid there, fruitlessly trying to will the pain away. Unbidden memories of being in a very similar pain in a very similar fight began to well up. He forced them back down. Not right now.
A blood-curdling scream had his eyes flying back open.
Vision half-blurry from the fall to the ground, Danny pried his head up off the street and looked. In front of him was the elementary school, surrounded by a shimmering green ghost shield. Normally, he wouldn’t have cared, since it was after school hours and the building would normally be empty, but his eyes landed on a small crowd of civilians, hovering near the inner edge of the shield and watching the battle with fear in their eyes. The scream had come from a little girl no older than six, covering her mouth in horror and pointing at him.
No, pointing behind him.
With a grunt of pain and a tremendous effort, Danny took to the sky again, wobbling in midair. Pariah’s boots slammed into the street not a second later, right where he had been laying.
This was bad. This was really getting bad. He was injured, and though the Crown and the cloak kept his energy levels high enough for the most part, he was devoting too much energy to the fight to focus any towards healing himself. Energy didn’t exactly help when it was his physical body that was damaged.
And now there was the fact that he had a slew of people behind him, huddling underneath a ghost shield. True, it would protect them from Pariah, and it would protect them from stray blasts, but rubble could easily go flying in, or someone could step out of the protected radius. It was too dangerous to keep the battle this close to them.
(Not to mention he saw more than one cell phone out and recording, and that definitely set him on edge.)
He tried to dart away from the shield, but Pariah managed to snag his collar as he whizzed by. He gagged and his hands flew up to his throat.
“A coward!” Pariah cackled. “That is who you are! Fleeing from the battle? Fleeing from those under your protection?” He threw Danny into yet another building. “And Kilaris dares deem you worthy?”
“So you admit it,” Danny coughed. His hand gripped his side again. “That the Heart wants me over you.” Not that he was crazy keen on that fact.
Pariah’s face morphed into a dark frown. “The Heart’s opinion is worthless!” he snapped. “It is I who controls Kilaris! Its will bends to me!”
In spite of the pain and every instinct telling him not to, Danny shot Pariah a cocky, albeit weak, grin. “Bet.”
He had to keep from laughing at the stunned look on Pariah’s face. It was clearly not the response he had been expecting to his declaration, and the fact that Danny had been able to catch him off guard that badly was priceless.
The humor didn’t last long, though. In the blink of an eye, Pariah was charging at him again. This time, Danny anticipated it enough to be able to phase back through the building. He emerged at the ground level, underneath Pariah, who was still looking for him.
Danny moved to leap up once more, but his ribs screamed in protest. He hissed as he tried to keep from doubling over.
The cloak’s interior had to be sub-zero at this point, it was working overtime. Another layer of frost was beginning to glaze over it. The Crown too grew colder on his head, feeding pulse after pulse of energy into him.
You have been holding back, little Prince. The power has the capability to heal you and aid you in battle simultaneously, but you must let go of your fears if you are to use its true potential.
Danny didn’t answer. He was too distracted barely dodging Pariah’s mace and firing up a barrage of ice at him to do so.
There was also the little fact that he didn’t want to answer. He didn’t want to… couldn’t acknowledge…
Yet he couldn’t deny just how badly his core wanted it. The memory of how that power had felt just those few minutes ago burned through his head, and his core jumped in earnest.
He gritted his teeth and forced his core to quiet. It would be fine.
It had to be.
As soon as the ice left his hands, though, he collapsed in on himself once more, clutching his bleeding side. It was long enough of a distraction for Pariah to slam his feet into the street, causing enough of a quake to knock Danny off his feet and to the ground.
Okay, so maybe it wouldn't be so fine.
Pariah swung his mace down again, and Danny responded with a green shield. It was too hasty, not properly formed, and it shattered underneath the force. Danny yelped and tried to roll away, but the mace still clipped his back, tearing open the skin there.
Yeah, definitely not so fine.
The temptation to give in and let the Crown flood him once more was growing by the minute. Danny didn't know how long he could sustain himself with all these injuries, let alone how he could win the fight and take the Ring. His core ached to be filled by the Heart's power. He knew that if he let it happen, it would almost guarantee his victory.
But his eye caught the ghost shield behind him, where the crowd of civilians stood watching him with horror painted on their faces. He remembered just how badly he had destroyed the block over when he'd let the Crown's power overwhelm him, and his stomach flipped. No way could he put his people in that sort of danger.
You can control it, little Prince. You are more than capable.
Again, Danny didn't respond. The battle consumed too much of his focus. Gasping against the flare of hot pain, he took to the air once more to avoid yet another swing of Pariah’s mace. It missed him by a hair. He raised his hands once more to answer with an attack of his own, and -
“Danny!”
It was instinct. He turned his head at the sound of his mother calling his name.
It was the worst mistake he could’ve made.
He met his mom’s eyes for just a moment, but it was a moment enough for Pariah to make his move. Danny didn’t register the heat moving behind him until it was too late. He turned around just in time to see Pariah’s hand flying towards him.
Reflexively, he turned intangible in the nick of time. Pariah’s hand sailed harmlessly through his head and out the other side. His tangibility returned, and he reached out to return the attack.
It wasn’t until an emptiness unlike any other hit him like a brick wall that he realized it hadn’t been him Pariah had been gunning for.
Danny immediately dropped to his knees and doubled over in pain as his core cried out. Just like at Vlad’s, his core felt like it had been ripped straight from his chest and drained of all its energy. Cold air surrounded him as his cloak flared to life, trying desperately to compensate for the lost energy. The only sound was his frantically pulsing heart in his ears, and he couldn’t catch his breath enough to shout.
It hurt. Ancients, it hurt.
And unlike at Vlad’s, the emptiness pressed on.
Danny managed to look up as panic bubbled to the surface. His stomach only churned worse when he saw Pariah standing in front of him with a wild grin, holding the Crown that had been sitting on Danny’s head.
“You should’ve surrendered when you had the chance, little Prince,” he said.
Danny tried to respond, but couldn’t. It was too much. The void inside him felt like it was about to swallow him whole, just like the void above was threatening to swallow Amity Park.
Please, he begged in a fit of desperation, help me!
The Heart didn’t respond.
“It cannot help you now, child,” Pariah Dark laughed, as if he had read Danny’s mind. “Not when it is finally back in the hands of its true master.”
And as Pariah laughed once more and raised the Crown to put it on his head, Danny lifted a feeble hand towards him, trying to call up his ice, his ectoplasm, his anything, anything that could stop him. He couldn’t feel his power, he couldn’t feel his core, he couldn’t feel his Heart -
Pariah roared in pain. Danny’s head snapped up to see him drop a steaming Crown. It landed on the street with a loud clatter as Pariah held his also-steaming hand close to his chest.
“You!” he bellowed, glaring daggers at the Crown. “You will yield! That power is MINE!”
Danny ignored him. He had zeroed in on the Crown and begun to drag himself toward it. Somewhere in the back of his head, he realized he probably looked absolutely ridiculous right now, and it pained him to think about how badly he wanted - needed to get the Crown back, but he didn’t care.
He couldn’t tell if he was simply imagining it, but he could almost feel a little tendril of power, reaching out to him, trying to hook into his core, trying to pull him closer.
Pariah roared again, and Danny had to retreat back into the cooling comfort of his cloak as a wall of heat crashed into him. “No!” he snarled. “If you will not bow to me, then you will have no one!” With a shout that shook Danny to his bones, Pariah snatched the Ring from his finger and threw it down next to the Crown with such force that it formed a little crater.
Danny’s heart began to pound even faster. This was it. This was his chance. He just had to move -
But he never made it. Pariah unleashed a terrible scream, and then hot, red energy poured from his hands.
Straight onto the Crown and the Ring.
If losing the Crown had hurt, Pariah’s attack on it was excruciating. Danny gripped his head and his core, unsure if he was the one screaming or if it was someone else or if he was just imagining it.
“Stop!” he managed to gasp. “You - hurting…”
But Pariah paid him no mind. Instead, he yelled louder, and another barrage of energy slammed into the Crown and Ring. Danny reacted as though he had been the one to get hit, falling to his stomach and crying out soundlessly.
He could barely see the Crown and Ring through Pariah’s onslaught, but when he finally gathered the strength to lift his head and look, his entire being froze.
A crack appeared in the Crown.
And now he was sure he wasn’t imagining the scream of pain because it definitely had to be him with how his core cracked too, and there was definitely another voice screaming in harmony with his and Ancients, of course it would be screaming, with the way Pariah -
“I am the power of the Realms!” Pariah roared, and another crack appeared in the Crown.
Danny reached out one last time, but he knew it was fruitless. There was no way…
Danny cried out.
The Crown and Ring cried out.
Kilaris cried out.
And then
Kilaris
s h a
t t
e r e
d
#danny phantom#danny fenton#ghost king danny#fanfic#danny phantom fanfic#hannah writes#supernova#jazz fenton#pariah dark#i have no clue what else to tag this
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For @scarletsaphire's ask in response to this ask game. Prompt was #19 for Gray Ghost.
important blob ghost context here lol
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“Danny, I swear there’d better be a good answer to why you brought me to the freaking dumpster behind the Nasty Burger at two in the morning.”
He turned back to look at her with a sheepish grin. “Aw, come on Val, I know how to show a girl a good time.”
That earned him a thwack on the back of his head.
“Ow! Okay, okay, lesson learned,” he grumbled, rubbing where she’d hit him.
“I’m still serious about having a good answer,” she said. She hugged herself tightly. “And thanks for warning me to bring a jacket by the way. Why can’t I put my suit on again?”
“You’ll scare them off.”
Valerie stopped in her tracks. “Them? Oh my God, do not tell me you brought me here to a dumpster to see ghosts!”
“Hey, you already established the dumpster thing!” he said, still wearing his goofy grin. “And I won’t tell you I brought you here to see ghosts, ‘cause I brought you here to meet ghosts.”
“... You are about three seconds away from getting shoved into your own thermos, ghost boy. Human or not.”
He finally dropped the grin. “Right. Sorry. Serious mode. But, uh, I am being serious about meeting a few ghosts.”
She frowned. “I thought we talked about this.”
“I know, I know. And I promise I’m not trying to change your mind or anything, I just… wanted to show you.”
He watched her carefully, trying to read her poker face. He hoped she believed him about not wanting to try and influence her. She’d made him promise, after all, and he didn’t break his promises.
Especially to someone like her.
Even if she was so close, yet still so far.
When she didn’t respond, he ventured further. “Think of it like evidence or something. Or - or when you go into a safari and you just watch animals do their thing in their natural habitat.”
“Isn’t their natural habitat the Ghost Zone?”
“Eh, sort of? There’s enough ambient ectoplasm around Amity for them to sustain themselves, I think. Plus I kinda get the feeling I’m like a magnet for the stuff, and since I’m always here…”
He tried not to shy away under her piercing gaze, as pretty as it was.
No. Bad Fenton. Friend.
Finally, she sighed heavily. “Alright. Show me what you got. But only because you already dragged me out here in the middle of the night, okay? This isn’t gonna be a regular thing.”
“Yes!” he said with a fist pump. He realized how stupid he probably looked, but he was too excited to care.
He turned toward the dumpster, trying to ignore the odor drifting out from the one opened side. Taking a deep breath, he put his fingers to his mouth, and with a little bit of energy from his core fused into his breath, he whistled soundlessly.
Soundlessly to humans, anyway.
Valerie tilted her head. “... What the heck are you doing?”
He shot her a grin. “Consider it the dinner bell.”
The first one faded into visibility right in front of Valerie’s face. She squeaked in very uncharacteristic surprise, and Danny didn’t miss how her hand twitched up to her bag, where he knew she stowed a spare blaster or two. To his relief, she didn’t move her hand any further and instead let the ghost drift towards him with a wary glare.
The little blob ghost was round, bright green and about the size of a grapefruit. Actually a pretty decent size for a blob ghost like this. Its core glimmered brightly from within its fluid body.
It floated towards him with curiosity brimming in its red, beady eyes. “Brrrp?” it ‘said’ as it bumped against Danny’s cheek. The sound could only be described as the perfect midpoint between a chirp and a purr.
He smiled widely and used one finger to scratch the underside of the blob. “Heya Jeff,” he said, making sure to pour as much affection as he could into his voice. In return, Jeff chirped again and nuzzled against his neck contentedly.
Valerie seemed to be frozen in place, not sure whether to be upset, disturbed, or endeared. Her eyes flicked back and forth between the blob sitting on Danny’s shoulder and Danny himself. “... You named a blob ghost Jeff?”
“Not me. Uh, Kat I think her name is. The cashier? In the year above us?”
Her eyebrows lifted at the name. “That’s who she’s been going on and on about? I thought she was talking about a puppy or something!”
“Mmm, nope. Probably this Jeff. I’m assuming anyway.” He scratched Jeff again. “Where’s everyone else?” he murmured, this time in ghost speak.
He didn’t really like having to speak ghost in front of Valerie, especially as she was still getting used to all his weirdness, but the blob ghosts didn’t really understand much beyond the common ghost language. Through some trial and error, he and Tucker and Sam had found that they seemed to understand human languages if there was enough emotion behind whatever was being said, but it had to be a pretty strong emotion, and even then it was hit or miss. They still always responded to Danny best, anyway.
Blob ghost communication aside, he couldn’t help but wince just slightly when he saw her troubled reaction to the ghost speak. Her face exploded with surprise before melting back into a guarded caution.
Jeff chirped a response before floating off his shoulder and zooming inside the dumpster. “Where’s he going?” Valerie asked quietly.
“Getting the rest of his family.”
Sure enough, a few seconds later, Jeff emerged from the open dumpster lid, followed closely by a dozen or so more blob ghosts, each of varying size and transparency, but all sharing the same green color. They all swarmed Danny, rubbing up against his face and shoulders and arms and brrrping happily.
He laughed at the ticklish sensation. “Alright, alright, cut it out guys!”
They in fact did not cut it out. If anything, they just cuddled up to him more. Excitement radiated from their tiny little auras.
Even through the bombardment of affection, he managed to catch a glimpse of Valerie’s face soften into slight amusement, even trying to stifle a laugh herself.
That alone made his heart and core soar far higher than any attention the blob ghosts could give him.
“Red, I’d like to formally introduce you to the Nasty clan,” he said proudly, attempting (and somehow failing) to gesture to the ghosts around him.
She pulled a bit of a face, but Danny didn’t sense any increase in hostility or wariness. “That’s not very nice.”
“I mean that’s what everyone calls them.”
“... Everyone?” Her eyes followed a particularly excited blob, only about the size of a grape, zipping around Danny’s head.
“Yeah. A bunch of employees kind of took up naming them all, since they’re always hanging around here.” He glanced at her. “Honestly, I thought you would’ve known about them by now. Especially with your trackers and all.”
She scowled. “Daddy made me promise to keep them off during shifts after I got written up for ditching to help stop that one ghost who was tearing up the boardwalk.”
“Oh yeah, I remember that guy! You should’ve seen me trying to get off the Tilt-a-Whirl after they emergency stopped it so I could find a place to change. I just kept crashing into things.”
“Isn’t that what you normally do anyway?” she teased, a genuine laugh bursting from her lips. It sent Danny blushing deep red for more reasons than one.
Sticking out his lip in a pretend pout, he plopped down right onto the cement and folded his legs underneath him. “You hear that?” he asked the blobs, not caring that they probably didn’t understand a word of what either of them were saying. “She’s being mean to me.”
“Hey, you asked for it, bringing me out here in the middle of the night.” She knelt in front of him, nearly touching her knees to his. His heart skipped a beat as he realized how close she was.
No! We’re not doing this! Think of something else!
“They have a real name too,” he blurted in a desperate attempt to immediately derail this train, abort, abort -
“A real name?”
He cleared his throat as Jeff settled into his lap. His hands instinctively wrapped around him gently and began petting. “Well, like, an actual name. A ghost name.”
She watched as Jeff began to purr contentedly and flatten himself against Danny’s legs. “Will you tell me?” she asked quietly, refusing to meet his eyes.
Crap. Of course he didn’t think this through. Of course. “I - well, um, the thing is, there’s - there’s not exactly an English equivalent…”
“... Tell me anyway.”
His eyes jerked up to see her staring intently, a complete contrast to how she’d just been moments ago. The light of the blob ghosts’ glows cast a glimmer in her gorgeous green eyes, making him swallow thickly.
“Vakrot,” he whispered in ghost speech. “I… it kind of means ‘potato’? But not exactly? Ancients, I don’t know how to explain this…”
“Potato,” she repeated with a smile of disbelief. She shook her head. “Figures. They’re kind of shaped like potatoes anyway.”
He tried to calm his heart as another blob - this one nicknamed Pepsi, for some reason - nestled into his hair. They were way too tuned into emotions, and agitating them wasn’t going to do any favors. “I guess I never thought of that. I always assumed it’s because they like french fries so much? But now that I think about it, it’s not like there’s exactly a ghost equivalent of french fries - well, I did have these things one time at this little stand out past the Carnivorous Canyon, and they tasted a lot like fries, but they were in little balls, and Tucker -”
He blushed again when she held up a hand to stop his babbling. “Is that why you had me bring these?” she asked, pulling a paper bag out of her own.
He grinned. “Yeah. I thought you might like to try and feed them.”
“Feed them?” She raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t that kind of go against the idea of it just being observation?”
Two of the blob ghosts were trying to squeeze themselves into the bag already. He snatched it away and held it shut tightly. Those things could be slippery when they wanted to be. “It’s fiiine,” he said with a drawl. “People do it all the time. It’s like feeding the ducks at the park or something.”
“You know that’s bad for the ducks, right? And wildlife experts are always having to tell people to quit feeding animals.”
He dropped his hands into his lap, bag and all, nearly squishing Jeff. “Killjoy.”
Now it was Valerie’s turn to grin sheepishly, though hers seemed far more timid. “Look, someone’s gotta keep you in check, Fenton. You may be trying to babysit Amity Park, but you need a babysitter of your own half the time.”
Hmm. He did not know how he should feel about her calling herself his babysitter.
Trying to shove those thoughts away too, he offered the bag out to her. “Come on,” he said, as if he were coaxing a puppy. “You know you want to.”
She stared at the bag, then at him. Then at the bag again. His heart thrummed faster despite himself.
After nearly a minute of contemplation, she slowly took the bag and opened it. The blob ghosts immediately caught a whiff of its greasy contents and drifted over, chirping and purring. Danny noticed how her muscles tensed ever so slightly, and he gulped.
He was worried for the blob ghosts, thank you very much. He was absolutely not thinking about how well-defined her arms looked in the pale glow.
Nope.
Valerie, with a look of trepidation, took a single fry from the bag and held it out gingerly towards the tiny grape ghost that had been racing around Danny’s head. It didn’t need any more invitation before it simply stuck the end of the fry through its body, nearly running into its teeny core.
Danny couldn’t help but grin wildly as Valerie’s face morphed into one of fascination. The best thing about blob ghosts was their translucent exterior, which gave them a perfect view of how the little ghost - Pipp, if he remembered correctly - swam its ectoplasm around the portion of fry it had absorbed. The little portion of fry dissolved away and funneled into its core, causing it to glow the slightest bit brighter.
His felt like his face was going to split open as her wide eyes found his. “Cool, right?” he asked eagerly.
She was already holding the fry out to Pipp again. “I… I never knew they could eat,” she whispered. “I never knew it could be so beautiful.”
If only you knew how beautiful you really are.
His stomach started doing somersaults.
He was so, absolutely, 100 percent screwed.
He forced himself to swallow and grab a fry for himself, offering it to Jeff, who immediately absorbed the entire thing in one go. Much like Pipp’s, Jeff’s glow radiated stronger.
“These guys are the best kind of ghosts for converting stuff into ectoplasmic energy,” he explained. Was his voice really shaking that badly, or was it just his anxiety talking? “That’s why there’s so many of them. They can keep themselves going on practically anything. And then they like to kind of put themselves right around ambient ectoplasm and help feed back into it.”
“Like a weird, unalive version of a tree.” Her voice was breathy. “A tree that likes french fries.”
He couldn’t help but giggle. “That’s… surprisingly accurate?” he said as he made a grab for a few more fries.
They spent the next few minutes slowly feeding fries to the blob ghost clan, laughing as one named Bingus (God, that name cracked him up) nearly absorbed Pepsi in a rush to get to a fry first, cooing with pity at the ones who got left out, and chatting back and forth about ectoplasm and ghost biology.
That last one made his core sing with just how genuinely fascinated she was with the science of it all.
Soon enough, they were surrounded by brightly glowing blob ghosts, lighting up the area like tiny green fairy lights. Pepsi had nestled herself back into Danny’s hair again, and Bingus perched on Valerie’s shoulder. Each of them held a blob in their lap, and other than one that had randomly decided to stick itself to Danny’s elbow, the rest drifted around the two of them in a lazy, post-french fry bliss.
Danny offered his last fry to Pepsi as he watched Valerie gently stroke Jeff in her lap. His stomach was still doing somersaults, and the urge to say something - anything - to her was becoming impossible to resist.
“Hey,” he said quietly. Thank the Ancients he could do without a little less oxygen, because he was pretty sure he was breathing way too shallowly. “I… I’m sorry.”
She looked up at him in confusion. “For what?”
Breathe in, Fenton. “I promised you I wouldn’t try and push you. Back when we - when I finally told you the truth.” Breathe out. “You said you wanted time to figure things out for yourself, and you didn’t want to be rushed. And - and then I go and do something like this…”
She didn’t break her gaze on him. “I’m guessing… this isn’t just about the ghosts, is it?” she said with a quiver in her own voice.
He didn’t know how it happened. He couldn’t feel his own limbs. All he knew was he felt himself lean forward and she leaned forward just a split second later and her lips were on his and his lips were on hers and they were sharing the most tender, soft kiss he’d ever experienced under the warm glow of all the little blob ghosts.
He wanted to leap. He wanted to fly. He wanted to dive to the ground and pull himself up at the last second and laugh at the thrill it left in his stomach.
None of it would compare to the thrill he felt kissing her.
And yet…
Something in the back of his mind desperately tried to pull on the reins. This isn’t right.
You’re still pushing her.
You’re taking advantage of her.
That had him crashing back down to Earth.
Shaking, his heart and core aching, Danny opened his eyes and pulled back just far enough to take his lips off hers. Valerie’s eyes flew open as she felt his warm kiss disappear.
Their foreheads were still close enough to touch. Desperately trying not to break down, he rested his against hers and gently grabbed one of her hands.
“I… I don’t…” he whispered, struggling to find the words through the haze of his panging heart. “Are you… do you… really want to do this?”
He had to ask.
Even if the answer broke his heart.
For a few impossibly long seconds, her green eyes bore into his blue, and another pang rippled through him as he drank in the tiny galaxies he could see behind her gaze.
And then she had her hands on his cheeks and her lips on his again, kissing him with an insatiable fervor. He found himself too stunned to do anything at first, and as soon as he could comprehend the situation, he was reciprocating just as longingly, holding her waist as if his half-life depended on it.
If he had been flying before, he had shot beyond the stars now.
Something flickered behind his closed eyelids, but it was the farthest thing from his mind. This moment, right here right now, this was the only thing that mattered. The only thing that existed. The only thing he could ever want and need, filling his heart and core with a love he couldn’t put into words.
And if her kiss was any indication of how she felt, if the emotion radiating from her entire being was true, then she felt the exact same love in that moment.
This time when the kiss broke, it was mutual. They stayed there on their knees, foreheads pressed to one another, both catching their breath and trying to calm their fluttering hearts.
He kept his eyes closed. He wanted to savor this. Memorize every detail. Memorize the feeling of her mouth on his. Memorize each feeling soaring through him at top speed.
“Um, Danny?”
His eyes popped open. “Wha- oh.”
So that’s what the flicker had been.
The blob ghosts hadn’t moved, but now instead of their normal green, their cores shone in a glittery gold, piercing through their translucent skin and casting the two in a soft, golden glow.
He lifted his head as he stared at them in wonder. “Oh Ancients, of course.”
“What? What happened to them?” she asked. A distant part in the back of his mind trilled happily at how concern for the little ghosts filled her voice.
He grinned shyly. “Okay, so um… you know how I said blob ghosts can take like, almost anything and turn it into energy?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Yeah…?”
“I think, um… I think they might’ve felt our emotion? Since it was so strong? And converted it into energy?”
Red tinged her cheeks. “And what the heck did we do that made it turn gold?”
Well.
He was pretty sure he knew the answer. If the pull in his heart was anything to go by.
Instead, he let his grin widen. She was so going to hate him for this. “I mean, those fries came from McDonald’s right? The golden arches?”
As expected, her fist landed right on his bicep, forceful enough to startle the blob ghost latched onto his elbow but not strong enough to hurt. “Okay, yeah, I deserved that.”
Valerie shook her head with a blinding smile. “You’re such an idiot.”
She laughed and threw her arms around his neck, kissing him again in the light of the warm, gold glow.
#danny phantom#gray ghost#valerie gray#dp#danny fenton#blob ghost#grey ghost#danny phantom fanfic#hannah writes#and that's another smooch for kad to draw hehe
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HAPPY TRUCE!!! @cattherobot had some amazing prompts, and it was so much fun to get to think about this one! I really hope you enjoy the direction it ended up taking!!
And a HUGE shoutout to @scarletsaphire for helping me figure out all the dream/Nocturne stuff, she is The Person to go to for anything and everything Nocturne!!! Enjoy the Starry Eyed Dreamer propaganda!
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Danny woke up.
His breath caught in his throat as his body tried to reorient itself. The sensation of falling was nothing new to him, between flying and getting knocked out of the sky during fights, but waking up to that feeling of being yanked out of sleep was always unpleasant.
Something cold coiled in his mouth and throat.
He was up and sitting in an instant. Or, rather, he tried to sit up.
Because he really was falling.
Panic seized him. He began to flail, trying to gain control over his momentum and steer his body into flight. Those efforts quickly proved fruitless.
What was probably more panic-inducing than his inability to control his fall was the fact that he couldn’t open his eyes. As if someone had glued them shut. He tried desperately to lift his eyelids, but they felt like dead weight.
Darkness swallowed him into its impenetrable folds, refusing to let him go. It was as if he could feel it surrounding him, wrapping him in a cool, heavy weight.
His core, apparently, did not approve. It sparked to life in his chest, sending a jolt through him. Danger, it seemed to whisper at him. Threat. Enemy.
With a yell, he let his core expand and wash over him in his transformation. At least, he thought he changed. He could only just barely see the light of his transformation rings behind his eyelids.
His instincts were screaming at him to fight back against this unseen villain - because it had to be a ghost, he’d felt his ghost sense, right? - and so he did. Ectoplasmic energy coursed through his veins and into his hands, and though he couldn’t see, he could feel its cold pooling in his palms.
He yelled again and unleashed the energy all at once. Kept unleashing it. Fired off blast after blast of as strong an energy as he could muster in his dazed, still half-asleep haze. Anything to ward off the darkness encroaching on him and surround himself in the light.
That darkness sang to him, something he couldn’t understand, something low and subdued. It wasn’t doing his haze any favors. If anything, it made it harder to concentrate. Like it was trying to lull him back into sleep or something.
Now that was a terrifying thought. His core wholeheartedly agreed.
And so he didn’t hold back. In a final fit of desperation to free himself, he allowed the energy to surround not just his hands, but his whole body. He concentrated, drawing on his core to feed into it. It wasn’t long before his entire body felt like he’d shot espresso directly into his veins, if espresso could be ice cold and electrifying.
When his body couldn’t contain it anymore, he didn’t try. It ripped through him in one fell swoop, leaving him feeling breathless.
And he opened his eyes. Sitting in his bed. Still in human form. As if it hadn’t happened.
But his breath betrayed the illusion. He sat there, panting deeply as his blood slowly warmed his body.
“What the heck?” he whispered to himself.
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It happened again a few nights later.
Truth be told, for as strange and frightening as it had been the first time, the experience had somehow slipped his mind. Between a super important history exam, a tumble with Ember, and three - no, four exploded inventions (one of which may or may not have been his fault), he didn’t exactly have the room in his brain to remember properly.
His forgetfulness made the second time around equally as terrifying as the first.
He woke up the same - falling blindly, the remnants of something cold in his mouth and throat, unable to open his eyes. Instinctively, he began flailing his arms and legs. Not that it would do any good, he realized belatedly, but he couldn’t help it.
He opened his mouth to shout and immediately found himself choked by the darkness as it flooded in. It filled his mouth, his throat, his lungs, cutting off his ability to breathe.
Panic began to set in again. His human instincts were going hysterical from the fall and the fact that he was apparently drowning in the darkness. His ghost instincts had already jumped into “fight” mode, screaming at him to fend off the enemy surrounding him.
What enemy though?
It was impossible to tell through the thick darkness. The only thing he knew about this unseen foe was the sweet song being sung to his core, the one that felt like a lullaby, ebbing and flowing like waves on a beach. The part of him still resisting its pull wanted to cry.
How could he fight an enemy he couldn’t see? One that he could only feel?
His lungs began to burn from lack of oxygen. His core needed little more than a single prod to flare into his transformation. This time, though, the light from his transformation was not visible behind his eyelids. The only indication he had that his transformation had actually triggered was the way his core jumped to the surface, nearly overwhelming him with potent energy.
The darkness still suffocated him, but the suffocation was at least somewhat more tolerable now that he didn’t have to breathe. It still seized his core and dormant heart in panic. The conflicting feelings that panic and of the siren song calling to his core stirred into a tumultuous cyclone.
He really didn’t like it.
He began to lash out as he did before, blindly shooting ectoplasmic energy into the abyss. Though he couldn’t see it, he could feel it as the darkness devoured his energy. For every blast he shot, it only hit with half the force he intended. The rest was lost to the void. It only made him panic more.
Why was it harder to push back this time? And why did the song feel like it was worming into his ears, trying to permeate his brain and infect it?
The words, if there were even words, were indecipherable. He could only understand the vague concepts it was apparently trying to communicate to him. Something in his heart leapt at the temptations of…
… safety.
Calm.
Rest.
Of course, all the things that sounded most tempting in that moment. He ached for them. To get as far away from the panic and terror the darkness wrought on him. His heart reached, trying desperately to -
No. This isn’t right. It’s a trap. It has to be.
He gritted his teeth. No. He couldn’t. He would not allow himself to be overpowered like this. He was Danny Phantom. Hero of Amity Park, Pariah’s Bane, vanquisher of some of the most powerful ghosts in the Zone.
(It made him tired just thinking about it.)
And so he prepared an attack like he had before. Letting the energy build up and simmer under his skin. Focusing on surrounding himself with his own, familiar aura. With the darkness pressing up against him, it was considerably harder.
He let it out with a desperate push. It worked - but only marginally. The darkness retreated, but it rebounded quickly, trying to seize him again. Panic creeped back in, and before he could fully process it, he was building up another pulse of energy.
The toll made itself known in his core. Using so much of his strength like this…
Well. He didn’t want to think about that.
It didn’t make it any less painful though, as he forced himself to prepare a third pulse. Fear fueled his overworked core.
The third attack proved successful. The darkness receded, and he could feel it as he slowly floated to the surface, like he had been underwater this whole time.
It was a much slower process than last time. Waking up felt like he was trying to pull himself out of a deep sleep. His brain felt hazier than ever.
When he was finally able to open his eyes, he laid there in his bed for a long moment, drinking in the comforting sight of the glow-in-the-dark stars he’d stuck to the ceiling years ago. They were dim at this point in the night, but the light they gave was still more than welcome.
The remnants of the siren song still echoed in his ears.
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The third time it happened, his core nearly gave out on him trying to free himself.
Danny stumbled out of bed and to the bathroom. A quick flash of intangibility left his clothes in a heap on the floor, and he collapsed into the tub, yanking the faucet to the coldest setting.
He didn’t know how long he sat there under the icy cold spray of the shower, trying to rid his mind of the fog in his brain induced by the call of the alluring song. It had been louder than ever this time around.
He had nearly lost himself to it.
Shivering, but not from the cold, he pulled his legs to his chest and wrapped his arms around his knees. The water drenched his bangs and dripped into his eyes, but he couldn’t care less.
He didn’t think he’d be getting back to sleep any time soon.
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“Hm.”
“What?” Danny craned his neck, trying to see around Frostbite’s bulky form. “What is it?”
Frostbite hesitated. “I see nothing wrong with your core readings, Great One. Perhaps some possible indicators of overexertion, but your core has certainly been through worse.”
“But…” Danny found himself at a loss for words. That had to be impossible. His core was still aching from the fourth fight to free himself from the void. Two nights in a row of fighting madly for his life…
Normally he would’ve sucked it up and dealt with it, but Jazz, perceptive as she was, saw the bags under his eyes and the weight in his shoulders and ordered him to get checked out.
Frostbite frowned in sympathy. “There could be other reasons for your exhaustion. I suppose it’s difficult to nail down, with your unique hybrid biology.” He tapped a claw on the examination table. “Tell me again what has been happening?”
It was Danny’s turn to hesitate. Part of him wanted to tell Frostbite everything - the darkness, the siren song, the increasing difficulty to fight it off - but another part of him bit his tongue. He couldn’t place his finger on it. It was a nagging feeling in his gut, urging him to keep it to himself. For what reason, he had no idea.
Frostbite noticed his unease. “There is nothing to be embarrassed about, Great One,” he said, kneeling down to look Danny in the eye. “Whatever is troubling you will not leave this room. Patient confidentiality!”
“It’s not embarrassing,” Danny muttered. He kept his gaze averted from Frostbite’s. “It’s - I’m just…”
He tried not to squirm as Frostbite watched him carefully. “Tell me,” the yeti said slowly, “have you been spending much time in your lair?”
“My lair? Like… Amity Park? ‘Cause I literally live there.”
“Your town may be your territory -” Danny pulled a face at that “- but it is not your lair. Do you mean to say you’ve never visited your lair?”
“I dunno,” Danny said with a shrug. “I didn’t really think I had one, I guess? It’s not like I need it, I live in the human world.”
Frostbite smiled. The look was somewhat grotesque, what with all the fur and fangs, but in his eyes, Danny could see care and… was that pity? “It seems you still have much to learn,” he said. Danny was grateful for the lack of condescension in his voice. “Come with me. I think it’s about time you were told about this.”
They left the medical center and began crossing the yeti village, towards Frostbite’s cave. Danny waved shyly at some of the cubs they passed, the ones whose eyes grew wide and ears perked up when they saw him.
He was really glad that the Far Frozen was a place he could go in the Ghost Zone and be safe, but he could do with a little less hero worship.
“A ghost’s lair is connected to their very being,” Frostbite explained as they walked. “It is something that is, in a way, automatically formed when a ghost first forms, whether they’re Dead, Neverborn, or even Formless.”
Danny’s lips twitched upward. “So you mean all those blob ghosts I keep finding around school actually have lairs of their own? Why do they live in my world then?”
“Blob ghosts are a bit unique in that they can feed off of the energy of others around them. They do not necessarily need to return to their lairs to recharge, so to speak.”
“Oh.” Danny’s fingers fiddled with each other. “And… you think I have one of these lairs? And it’s not Amity Park?”
“I suppose given your one-of-a-kind nature, it could be possible your lair formed in the human world,” Frostbite mused. “Though I highly doubt it. A ghost’s lair, you see, is the place where that ghost can go to properly replenish their energy. They are usually akin to little pocket dimensions attached to the Realms. It’s part of the reason the Realms are called Infinite,” he said with a laugh. “They are continuously growing as the population grows.”
“But that’s like… millions of pocket dimensions. How is that even possible?”
“I only said they are like pocket dimensions. True, they do not necessarily take up space in the Realms’ dimension, but unlike pocket dimensions, lairs are directly connected to the Realms. Otherwise they would not be able to get the energy necessary to replenish their host.”
“Oh,” Danny repeated. Then, “Oh! Is that why ghost lairs are behind all the doors and stuff floating around? ‘Cause the doorways are like portals, right? So are they like portals to the lairs?”
“For many, yes,” Frostbite said, beaming at his mentee. “The doors are simple, clear entryways for ghost lairs. They also help to serve as a lair’s marker, to ward off most intruders. Lairs are, after all, very private. It would not be healthy if others could simply wander in and out of a ghost’s lair as they please.”
“Probably not. So one of those doors out there is mine?”
“Quite possibly! With your uniqueness and your power level, however, I imagine yours is of a bit different nature. There are many that do not have such clear doorways. For instance, communal lairs, such as here in the Far Frozen.” Frostbite swept his arms to gesture to the village around them. “We yetis are of the same nature; thus we found it more efficient and more pleasant to reform our individual lairs into one larger, shared one. Of course, each of our members has their own place within the lair that is theirs alone, but they are usually small and contained only to the caves or igloos.”
Danny tried to fight down the unease in his stomach. “You mean I’ve been like, tromping around your lair this whole time?”
Frostbite laughed heartily. “Do not fret, Great One! You are our welcome guest. Though this may not be your home or your lair, we are more than happy to offer our hospitality. It’s the least we can do for Pariah’s Bane himself,” he added with a wink.
The title didn’t help Danny’s unease, but he’d long since learned to roll along with their insistence on using such names.
“So… does that mean my lair is here, in the Far Frozen?” he asked as they entered Frostbite’s cave.
The yeti’s face fell a bit. “I do not think so, Great One. The lair of a powerful ghost such as yourself would not go unnoticed here, and we have not sensed such a presence.”
“Oh.” Danny tried not to be too disappointed. As nice as it would be to have a place that was truly his in the Far Frozen, it probably wouldn’t have been the greatest location. “So then where is my lair? How do I find it?”
“Ah, now that is a task somewhat easier said than done. Have you felt particularly drawn toward any one place within the Ghost Zone? Your core has a connection to your lair. It will instinctively want to find its way there.”
“Um… not - I don’t think so? I mean, I haven’t noticed anything at least.”
Frostbite hummed thoughtfully. “I suppose it’s possible your lair might be farther out than most places you’ve ventured, though I would be surprised if it was too far from your portal.”
“Sorry.”
“No need to apologize, Great One!” Frostbite clapped a hand on Danny’s shoulder, nearly sending him tumbling. “There is no one surefire way to discover one’s lair. Many often involve a personal journey of sorts - recognizing who you are and what makes up your essence.”
“My essence?” Danny repeated weakly. The idea of having to go through some sort of self-discovery thing was not exactly appealing. He shook his head. “Wait, what does my lair have to do with what’s been happening to my core?”
“Everything, of course! Your regenerative biology is nothing short of a true phenomenon, but your human regeneration is only capable of replenishing so much ectoplasm. The ectoplasmic energy in a ghost’s lair is symbiotic to their core specifically. It is far more potent and revitalizing than generic, ambient energy in the Zone. Spending some time in your lair will help you recuperate what your body can’t reproduce.”
“I don’t -”
“A safe, nurturing environment, one that is conformed to you and your specific needs and desires, will also help you on a psychological level. Lairs tend to have that sort of calming effect.”
Danny faltered. He wasn’t completely convinced he needed to visit his lair to restore his ectoplasm, but he couldn’t deny the excited flutter in his core at the idea of someplace safe, secure, unable to be breached by his enemies.
Especially enemies attacking him in his sleep.
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to find it,” he finally said, his voice quiet. “I barely have time as is with school and patrols and stuff. I don’t have the time to go gallivanting around the Realms trying to find this place.”
Frostbite’s eyes shone with a tender fondness. “Then allow me to provide you with something that may help you find it sooner rather than later.” He disappeared into one of the offshoots leading deeper into the cave.
Danny shifted his weight, feeling awkward standing in the middle of Frostbite’s cave. He’d been here before, of course, and spent plenty of time hanging out in here, but now that he knew the Far Frozen was one giant lair…
Frostbite may have tried to reassure him that he was more than welcome there, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was intruding.
The yeti returned shortly after. In his icy hand, he held a thin, decorated tube.
Danny’s eyes widened. He recognized it immediately. “The InfiMap? You’d let me use it?”
“Of course!” Frostbite knelt again to meet Danny at eye-level. “Finding your lair is vital to your well-being. I’m more than happy to do what I can to help you find it quickly.”
Danny smiled as he accepted the scroll. Carefully, he removed the cap and took the aging parchment. The shimmery, almost holographic surface of the map seemed to smile back up at him.
“Thanks Frostbite,” he said. Before the yeti could say anything, Danny launched himself up and wrapped his arms as much as he could around Frostbite’s broad shoulders. “I’ll bring it back in a flash, I promise!”
“I know you will,” Frostbite said as he returned the hug. When they pulled away, he kept a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Bear in mind that as I said, finding your lair may involve a bit of ‘soul-searching’, as they say. The InfiMap will hopefully help guide you along the way, but ultimately, the success of your endeavor will rest in you. And,” he added with a grin, “I would love to hear about your lair when you do find it.”
Danny laughed. “I think I can manage that.”
He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Danny put some distance between him and the Far Frozen before opening the map again. Sure, he could’ve just started from there, but for some reason, he felt weird about embarking on what sounded like a pretty personal quest in front of Frostbite. The yeti had been more than understanding, thankfully.
By the time he found a spot far enough away from prying eyes, he was further out than he’d gone before. He wasn’t too worried; the InfiMap would take him back to the Portal in a literal flash.
His stomach fluttered as he unrolled the scroll again. The longer the idea of a lair of his own stewed in his head, the more exciting it became. Someplace safe that was his and only his? A place where he could even go to recharge or heal in private, without having to worry about anyone - overprotective friends and sisters included - finding him? The idea sang to his heart and core.
But with that excitement came a slew of nerves. He didn’t understand why until he realized…
Right now, this was his only hope of warding off that darkness and whatever foe brought it. In his lair, it wouldn’t be able to get to him. He’d be surrounded by his own energy, his own signature. He’d finally be protected, instead of having to do the protecting.
If he couldn’t find this place, he didn’t know how he was going to keep himself from being swallowed up by that darkness.
He shook his head and forced his fears down. This would work. It had to.
(A little voice in the back of his head refused to believe that.)
He inhaled shakily. A touch to the map lit it up, sending the familiar images of doors soaring into the air. Maybe one of those doors would be his.
“InfiMap -” he pretended not to hear how his voice cracked “- take me to my lair.”
The map shimmered and rippled. A glow began to encase it. Danny watched it earnestly, waiting to see the route magically appear.
Ten seconds passed. Then thirty. Then a whole minute.
All of Danny’s hopes came crashing back down as the glow finally dissipated. He watched the last threads of light fade into nothing, feeling like his heart was doing the same thing.
The InfiMap always knew where to go. Even if it wasn’t a destination you were intending, it would always take you somewhere. For it to fizzle out like this and lay dormant in his hands…
… it had to mean the place didn’t exist.
A wave of dizziness washed over him, and he sagged into a passing cloud of ectoplasm. “C’mon, Map, please,” he begged. “It has to be somewhere, Frostbite said so!”
It remained dormant.
Danny wondered if the echoes of the siren song in his ears were in his imagination or a horrible omen. “Then, can you… I don’t know, take me - take me somewhere where I can stop these attacks? Please?”
Still, it remained dormant.
The parchment cracked as his fingers tightened around it. A tear dripped onto its surface. “Please, there has to be somewhere you can take me!” he cried, desperation evident in his voice.
He thought he saw the map ripple again, over towards an older, more arcane part of the Zone, but when he focused his eyes on it, the image remained stubbornly still.
With a shaky breath, he rolled up the map and secured it in its container. He didn’t know what he was going to tell Frostbite. Especially after he’d been so kind as to lend it to him…
But the storm brewing in his gut spoke of another, much stronger concern.
He exhaled and pulled himself up out of the ectoplasm. It was fine. It was. He’d just force himself to stay awake. Never give the enemy a chance to strike. If he stayed in ghost form, it wouldn’t be too hard… right?
The map’s holder glinted harshly in the light. Keep telling yourself that, it seemed to say.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Danny didn’t remember falling asleep. Last he could remember, he’d been out in the downtown area, trying to occupy himself by weaving in and out of the taller buildings.
At first, when he felt his body falling, he assumed he’d somehow fallen asleep mid-flight, but when he found himself unable to correct his flight and open his eyes, he catapulted head-first into panic.
No, no, not again, please! Like all the times before, Danny instinctively opened his mouth to scream out, but the darkness was too quick. Again, it filled his mouth, his throat, his lungs.
The siren song did not start subtly this time. It flooded him all at once, assaulting his ears with its enchanting melody. He still couldn’t understand what it was saying, or if it even had words, but this time, it was so potent, seeping through the darkness filling his airways and using it to enter his body. With a horrified start, he realized it was making a beeline for his core.
His hands grew cold as ectoplasm sparked to life in his palms, and he began clawing at his mouth. If the darkness was tangible enough to suffocate him, surely it had to be tangible enough for him to grab it and keep that siren song from touching his core.
His efforts quickly proved to be futile.
The effect when it reached his core was instantaneous. He tried (and failed) to gasp from the whiplash of the change.
Though his human brain couldn’t fully understand the song, his ghostly core knew exactly what it was tempting him with. Sensations of security and serenity ambushed him and his defenses. His overworked core froze - almost literally, with the jolt of cold that spiked through him - and the power that had instinctively been building dissolved instantly.
You are safe here, the song whispered to him. You can rest here.
His heart listened eagerly. It wanted so badly to give in to the song. His core…
(It’s a trap, the darkness is an enemy.)
… felt torn. Almost in a literal sense. The exhaustion was catching up to him; his core throbbed painfully in his chest. It was revolting against the darkness pressing up against him and inside him, but it too was beginning to surrender to the siren song. It too was tired of the fight.
Yes. This is a place of respite. The song was growing louder and louder in his ears, resonating against his core. You will be sheltered here. Harm will not befall you.
The ectoplasm in his hands flickered.
Danny wanted to cry, but the darkness evaporated his tears away before he could even let them out. Maybe others would still be raring to go after only five rounds, but not him. He was too weak for this. He was running on only a few hours of sleep and the burnout of the aftermath of drinking too many Monsters.
He was tired.
Then rest.
The song began to wrap itself around his core, and the ectoplasm died away completely in his hands. His fall began to slow, and his body sagged into the air cushioning him.
He knew it was a mistake. That he would most definitely live to regret it, if he ever escaped. But he just… couldn’t.
Tiny pinpricks of dim light, almost invisible, teased the peripheries of his vision. With a start, he felt his eyelids fluttering against his eyes. The pinpricks were there, even when his eyes were closed, but even behind his eyelids he could see them very slowly beginning to brighten. Just a bit at a time, nothing explicitly obvious.
This place is yours. What will you make of it?
Barely registering the words of the siren song purring against his core, he reached a hand out, towards the tiny lights, and -
“ -ke up, Phantom!”
A hand was roughly shaking his shoulder. He laid on something hard and uneven. A cloud of hushed, frantic voices swirled above him.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with him…”
“Should we call the Fentons? Or the Huntress?”
“You think ghost hunters would help a ghost? You know how bent on getting their hands on him they are!”
“Well we have to help him somehow.”
“What about 9-1-1?”
“Someone’s already called it, I think, but I dunno what they’d be able to do for him.”
“C’mon, Phantom, wake up bud.”
That last voice was sharper, clearer than the rest. Right above him. The easiest one to understand through the thick haze he still found himself swimming in.
He tried to pull his eyelids open, but they felt weighed down by anvils. A tiny groan escaped his throat, and his head lolled to the side.
“Oh, did you see that?”
“See what?”
“I think he’s waking up!”
The hand shook his shoulder again. “Phantom, you there? We need to know if you’re alright.”
Danny’s mouth felt like it’d been stuffed with cotton balls. Or a mysterious and ominous darkness. Fuzz coated his tongue and mouth. “‘m fine,” he said, trying to work his mouth around the words. “Jus’...”
“It’s okay, don’t try to get up. That was a nasty fall you took.”
“Fall?” Again, he tried to open his eyes. This time he managed to pull them open a bit, enough to see a few blurry figures above him.
“You fell out of the sky!” someone shouted. Danny was too tired to wince, as grating as the sound was against his ears that had been so carefully caught up in the gentle siren song. “Turned around and bam! There you were!”
Danny smacked his lips together as he worked the fuzz out of his mouth. Horrified, he realized he must have somehow fallen asleep mid-flight.
His hands and elbows scrabbled against the ground as he tried to prop himself up, much to the disapproval of the person hovering over him. “I’m - it’s fine,” he muttered. “I think I… just got tired or… something. I dunno.”
“Can ghosts even get tired?”
“Shh!”
“Are you sure you’re alright, kid?” the voice right next to him said. Danny blinked, trying to bring the person’s features into focus. It was someone young, but older than him. College-aged, probably. “We can maybe drive you to the hospital if you need it.”
“You think they have the stuff to fix up a ghost in a human hospital?”
“Well, where else is he supposed to go?” the college kid snapped. “You want to use Zac’s brilliant idea and take him to the Fentons?”
“Guys, seriously,” Danny interrupted, his core pulsing faster at the mention of taking him to his parents. “I’m alright. It was - I just screwed up, alright?” He pressed the heel of his palm into his forehead. “I shouldn’t have been flying around while I’m so tired. I’ll be fine, really.”
The college kid’s eyes bored into his. “You really sure you’ll be fine?” they asked, sounding very much like they didn’t believe him.
Danny wasn’t sure he believed himself either.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By the time Danny managed to extract himself away from the group of late night clubbers and make his way home, sleep was already tugging on him forcefully. He was only able to tumble through his window and into a heap beside his bed before it completely overtook him again.
The darkness resumed its onslaught not a moment later.
This time, though, he was truly too tired to even attempt to ward it off. The siren song found his core again, far quicker than before, and it began lulling him into its folds.
All you have to do is accept it, it hummed. Relief can be yours. You are safe here.
A little part of his core still protested against it, trying to remind him of the darkness invading him, but Danny couldn’t find it in him to try. Again, he allowed himself to sag as his descent to nowhere slowed.
The pinpricks of light slowly faded into view. He reached forward again, towards the brightest one.
What do you wish this place to be? the song crooned in his ear. Its melody fell in sync with his core and heart. He was almost surprised at how… right it felt.
He cupped his hands under the little light. Under his touch, its glow intensified all at once, nearly blinding him after existing in such a thick darkness. The light washed over him, and his core responded.
He didn’t know if he had the words to describe it. The sudden rush of energy in his core was unlike anything he’d ever felt before. Like he’d just injected a dozen doses of Ecto-Dejecto into his veins. The ache in his core faded to nothing, and he felt more energized than he had in weeks. Months, even. It was the most wonderful feeling in the world.
A grin split his face. Eagerly, he reached toward another little light. It reacted similarly, flaring to life and sending a new rush of energy coursing through his veins. He flitted around the void, darting from light to light and bringing each to life. Each light renewed him, filling him with energy and eliciting the feeling of peace within him.
A feeling he’d long since forgotten.
He didn’t know how long he spent, flying around to each of the little lights; there were so many of them, he couldn't keep track of them all. For some reason, that didn't bother him. Just the joy from holding each light and the reward of energy was enough for him. He could hardly remember why he had been so hesitant before.
At some point, he stopped to look back at his handiwork. Much like it had the first time he’d fallen into the darkness, his breath caught in his throat, but this time, it wasn’t from fear. No, it was the sheer beauty and wonder of what the void had become.
The lights were shining, hovering above him, below him, to his sides, stretching out to the point where Danny didn’t know which way was up or which way was down. They illuminated the darkness, creating cloudy hues of purples and reds and greens and blues. Nothing garish, but enough to form visible nebulas that filled the area. Some of the lights shedded tiny, twinkling bits, falling into place amid the nebulas. It all looked like…
… space.
His own, little version of space. A shimmering starscape, as far as he could see.
He felt lighter than air. His heart pounded, his core began to sing the same song that had been tempting him for so long now. It didn’t feel so foreign anymore. He could almost believe it had been his core singing its longings the whole time.
The darkness wasn’t so scary when it looked like this.
A laugh bubbled past his lips, and he took flight, ready to find his place among the stars.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When he woke, sunlight beamed through his window, bathing the room in a soft golden glow. The sight wasn’t as beautiful as his little space, but it was definitely a lovely sight to wake up to.
Danny yawned and stretched like a cat from his position on the floor. He laid there a moment longer, savoring the last images of the starscape fading from his mind’s eye. His core, still feeling refreshed and renewed, rumbled happily in his chest, right alongside his heart.
He still didn’t understand what it had all been, though. The darkness, for one thing, and that feeling he could never shake of a foreign presence trying to take him over. The memory of his ghost sense coiled in his mouth each time he’d fallen into the darkness still resonated strongly, and his ghost sense did not go off without reason.
But… could he really complain? He felt better than he had in a long time. He hadn’t been able to explore real space, but soaring through the stars he’d helped bring to life was almost more appealing. It had been a place he could simply just… exist, without having to worry.
He just didn’t know what that place was.
The glint of sunlight on something shiny hit his eye. Rubbing it, he lifted his head and saw the InfiMap, still in its container, sitting innocently on his desk.
His head fell back to the floor with a thunk. Right. That had been something he’d been dealing with yesterday.
It was strange, he realized. Yesterday, he’d been so stressed about not being able to find his lair, not being able to find a way to protect himself against that darkness that terrified him. Ironically, surrendering himself to that darkness had offered him a relief like none other.
Maybe it wasn’t a good idea, at least for the long run. He didn’t want it to turn into one of those things where he was the fly being lured to the honey.
But until he could find his lair… it wouldn’t hurt to use the place granted to him by the darkness, right?
He sighed. He’d have to ask Frostbite about it when he returned the InfiMap.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Night had fallen once more in the human world, where the boy lived.
Nocturne’s mouth curled into a smile as silvery threads began to unravel themselves from the stars that formed his body. They stretched and snaked through the air. Some wrapped themselves around others. Other strands avoided some like a plague. Some threads were so similar, it was nearly impossible to tell where one began and the other ended.
Nocturne hummed to himself. He raised his hands up and out, over the sea of silver strands in front of him. With little more than a flick of his wrist, the threads began weaving within one another, creating a stunning tapestry of hundreds of thousands of threads.
His web of dreams was easily his most cherished tool. He prided himself in so perfectly and seamlessly weaving human dreams together into something stronger. More beautiful. Worthy of the boundless fantasies and enduring fears that dwelled so deep in the humans’ heads.
It was this web that allowed him to give life to these fantasies and fears, and it was those fantasies and fears that, in turn, revitalized him and provided him with a limitless source of energy.
It was a deal he found more than fair. The humans got to experience the joys and sorrows of his power, and he got the energy he wanted from them. Not stealing, not siphoning. Simply… completing the transaction, so to speak.
All along his web, his dreamscape, tiny sparks lit up. Some died away quickly, others remained. The individual dreams of humans traveled here, through his web. There was something poetic to it, all those dreams coming together to form a bigger picture. Was it the web or the dreams that fueled the other? The answer, like himself, was unclear.
Such was the way of dreams.
A tug from Nocturne’s side pulled his attention away from his beautiful web. He looked down to see another, single thread spiraling from his body, glowing brighter than the rest. Much brighter.
“Ah,” he said, reaching out to stroke the strand lovingly. “There you are, my little Dreamer.”
The thread twirled around his finger, and his smile grew. Normally, he’d be appalled at the sight of one of the strands of his web refusing to weave itself into the larger whole, but he’d long since discovered just how… special this one thread was.
Unlike the other strands, this one had no sparks. In many ways, it was the spark itself, outshining the others by a mile.
He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised when he’d first seen it. The halfling child was abnormally powerful, especially for such a young age. It only made sense that the boy’s strand would take after that power and manifest itself so strongly.
Of course, the idea to… take advantage of such an opportunity had occurred to Nocturne right away. If the child was powerful, if he could create such a tenacious strand, then that meant there was much power to be borrowed. The energy the child could offer him would be more than enough to satisfy him.
Taking it by force, though, had proven to fail miserably. Nocturne’s experiment with the humans in the boy’s city had been evidence enough. The boy, against all odds, somehow managed to find a way to break through the illusions and, quite forcibly, remove Nocturne from the city.
Nocturne hadn’t minded returning to the Infinite Realms. The human world was a place where he had little control, especially over the waking. He much preferred the pocket he’d etched for himself. A place hidden to most other ghosts and spirits. Sleep was, after all, a foreign concept to many ghosts.
The experiment, though it had been a failure, had proven fruitful in different ways. For one, Nocturne had gained a more thorough understanding of just how powerful the halfling child was. For another, he knew he would never weave the boy into his dreamscape through force.
A change of tactics had been required.
In a strange way, Nocturne could relate to the boy. Both existed in the inbetween, a place neither here nor there. A place few other beings could access. A place of possibilities that stretched farther than even a human’s wildest dream.
Life and death could easily be likened to waking and sleeping. And Nocturne took advantage of that.
Taking overt control of the boy’s thread had been simple enough, but the process of luring him in was anything but. The boy’s will was strong, after all, and a strong will often proved itself to be more resistant to Nocturne’s meddling. It didn’t help that said meddling had alerted the boy to Nocturne’s presence, even if he hadn’t been in the same physical space as the boy. The child had immediately rejected him and his presence, even with the coaxing he’d utilized. The boy had needed to fight, though, and that became vital to Nocturne’s plans.
Never before had Nocturne needed to focus such a large portion of his energy into wrangling a dream. He’d poured everything he could into seizing the child’s dreams and calling to him. He knew the boy would be far more willing to relax into a presence more similar to his own than an opponent’s.
What had surprised Nocturne was just how literal that truth was. Something within the boy had… tainted Nocturne’s energy. Not dirtied it, but simply somehow molded the energy to fit him more than Nocturne. For as ancient as he was, Nocturne had never witnessed such a phenomenon. It was a testament to the boy’s strength and power.
It had also proven to make Nocturne’s job much, much easier. The child’s exhaustion coupled with the evolution of the energy had managed to secure him after only a handful of attempts.
Only somehow, impossibly so, Nocturne couldn’t tell if the little dreamscape was his own creation or the boy’s.
The first time the boy had fully allowed himself into that dreamscape, his thread had shined brighter than even the full web of threads, as it shone now. There was something… unique about that dreamscape. Certainly not waking, but still set apart from the dreamscape of the sleeping.
Something… in between.
It had taken only a week longer from that first birth of the dreamscape for him to understand just what had happened, and when he had come to that realization, he couldn’t help but marvel.
Nocturne cradled the shimmery thread in his hand. “A special Dreamer indeed,” he whispered to it.
If the halfling wanted to use the little dreamscape for that, Nocturne would allow it. He supposed it was only fitting for a child of the inbetween to form his own pocket of the Realms in a place of the inbetween.
And Nocturne knew he’d get what he wanted. It was, after all, a simple transaction.
#danny phantom#phandom truce 2023#danny fenton#frostbite#nocturne#danny phantom fanfic#fanfic#hannah writes#does it make any sense?#probably not#bUT HOPEFULLY ITS STILL GOOD I HOPE YOU ENJOY CATTHEROBOT
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