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raaorqtpbpdy · 26 days

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Father-Son Bonding (2)

With Maddie and Jazz off attending a women in STEM conference over the weekend, Jack decides to take Danny out for the best father-son bonding activity there is—ghost hunting! They're going to catch that elusive Danny Phantom or die trying! Metaphorically, of course. Jack would never let his son die hunting ghosts, or at least... that's what he thinks.

Written for the prompts:

Jack and Danny spend quality time together hunting that damn ghost boy! Danny is being such a help! Bonus points for if they're both enjoying the endeavor. [from @pricklenettle], Jack Fenton finds out. [from @underforeversgrace], and Jack is excited to hunt ghosts alongside his ghost-powered son, and Danny is enjoying the time with his dad way more than he thought he would. Maddie, however, is deeply troubled by all the ways her son could get hurt, and her overprotectiveness causes a heaviness to fall over the Fenton family home. [from @astatia-ghast]

Read on AO3

Chapter 2: Jack Fenton Doesn't Know What's Waiting (Ch.1; Ch.3)

[Warning for minor violence]

In ghost form, Danny dove into the green-tinged water. Just as he'd expected, the Fenton Foam made it sting like hell against his skin, and especially in his eyes, but he couldn't afford to close them. He swam right to the bottom, where Mariner was holding his father under, and pried them apart, inadvertently kicking his dad in the stomach in order to get the leverage he needed.

"You think you can beat me in my own territory?" Mariner roared, their voice not the slightest bit muffled, despite the terrain. "The water strengthens me!"

"Not this water!" Danny refuted, although his voice did not carry like Mariner's did, so it sounded more like, "Glug glib globob!"

The one-liner didn't really matter though as Danny whipped out his Fenton thermos and sucked Mariner into it. Despite Mariner's claims, Danny had been right about the water weakening them. Fenton Foam was really no joke, and it made Danny wonder why his parents didn't use it more often. He didn't have time to wonder now, though.

He clipped the thermos to his belt and grabbed his father's limp body, hauling him out of the deep-end with all his ghostly strength.

Dad didn't move one he was out of the pool.

Danny didn't know what to do. He didn't know CPR or anything, so what could he do? Come on! He had ghost powers! If they couldn't even save his dad, what good were they?

Water!

If Danny could use intangibility to get the water out of Dad's lungs, maybe he'd be okay. He put his hands against his dad's chest and prayed to any god or ghost who might be out there that the foam in the water wouldn't resist intangibility. Someone must have been listening.

An instantly later, Dad's eyes snapped open, and he was coughing and spluttering and shouting, "Ghost!"

—

"Ghost! Ghost boy!" Jack shouted.

He barely registered being flat on his back on wet concrete when he jumped up and wrestled the ghost boy into submission, grappling him on the ground. The ghost boy didn't fight back. Perhaps he knew it would be futile. After all, Jack Fenton was not a ghost hunter to sneeze at; just ask his wife.

"Danny!" he called out, excited. "Danny I caught the ghost boy! I caught Danny Phantom!"

His head swiveled around, looking for his son's black hair and white jumpsuit, but he was nowhere to be seen. He called out again, looked harder, but there was no answer, and Danny was gone.

"What have you done to my son, spook!" Jack snarled. "You have one chance to tell me what you did before it tear you apart molecule by molecule, scientific progress be damned. If you hurt my son in any way, I'll pay it back to you a hundred times over."

"Dad... it's me," said the ghost boy, and in a flash of white light, the figure in Jack's arms transformed. "I'm your son."

And there was Danny, soaked to the bone, with ecto-foamer stains on the brand new jumpsuit his father had lovingly sewn for him, and Jack had never been happier or more confused to see him. He released the grapple and let his son stand up and take off his gloves to wring the water out.

"Danny?" Jack asked. "You're... you're the ghost boy? You're Danny Phantom? but how?"

Danny looked around nervously, but Jack already knew that all the water park patrons had gone, and the employees were hiding and cowering.

"The portal," he said. "I'm not contaminated with ectoplasm, it... changed me." He swallowed visibly and looked up at Jack with fear in his eyes. "Are you mad?"

Jack stepped forward and his breath hitched when he saw the way his son flinched back at the movement.

"No, Danny," he said, and he strode forward again and wrapped his boy up in a big bear hug. "How could I be mat at you for something like that? That's not your fault! If anything it's... it's mine."

He realized as he said it how true it was. It was his carelessness that caused the portal to activate when Danny went inside it. He should have disconnected the power. He should have put caution tape over the opening, or closed the doors. He shouldn't have been letting his son down into the lab when there was an experiment that big in progress at all. All the guilt that had plagued him since the accident first happened was suddenly coming back tenfold. He felt like he was drowning for the second time today.

"Oh Danny, it's all my fault," Jack insisted. "If I were less careless, if I were a better engineer, this wouldn't have happened to you.

"No, it's not your fault. I should have known better than to mess around with your experiments. It was just an accident. And in the end, it gave me the power to save you from being drowned by that ghost today, so I don't regret anything."

"Are you okay? That ghost didn't hurt you, did it?"

"Dad, I'm fine," Danny said. "The foam in the water stung a little, but I'm really okay."

"The foam... but you're still covered in it!"

"It's okay, Dad, really! It kinda just feels like licking a D battery, but all over my body."

"That's not—Danny, no," Jack said, shaking his head. "This place has showers, go take one and wash that gunk off. There are spare jumpsuits in the car; I'll bring you one."

Danny nodded, and turned to go to the locker room.

"Oh, and one more thing," Jack said, causing him to pause. "I'm sorry for... grappling you, and threatening you.... If I had known it was you, I never would have done that."

"It's okay, Dad." Danny smiled at him. "It was actually kinda nice hearing the lengths you'd go to protect me. Although... it would have been nicer if you didn't say those things to Phantom all the time."

"Well, I'm sorry for that, too," Jack added.

"I forgive you," Danny said firmly, like he was trying to end this conversation. The way he shifted uncomfortably seemed to corroborate that theory. "I'm gonna go take that shower now, 'cause this stuff is starting to itch."

"Right! You go do that."

After washing off the slowly crusting foamy water, Danny changed into a regular, non-Fenton-Fabric jumpsuit, and he and Jack walked back to the GAV. The ghost proximity alarm in the vehicle blared when Danny got within three feet.

"Sorry!" Jack shouted over it, hitting the button on the key fob that turned it off. "Sorry, I forgot about that."

Danny just snorted a laugh and climbed into the passenger seat. They were both silent as they buckled up, and Jack turned the key in the ignition so they could leave.

Finally, Jack cleared his throat. "I guess the ghost hunt today is a bust."

He glanced over to see Danny's lips quirk up in a small smile. "I don't know about that. Maybe we didn't hunt down Danny Phantom like we planned, but you are technically taking him home with you. Plus," — he waved his Fenton Thermos between them — "We did manage to bag that Mariner spook, and they were pretty powerful, so all-in-all, I'd actually say we can call today's ghost hunt a success."

"You know what? You're absolutely right!" Jack agreed. "I wasn't thinking about it that way, but this was a complete success! We are the greatest ghost hunters in the world!" he bellowed. "Now you say it, nice and loud."

"We are the greatest ghost hunters in the world!" Danny shouted, laughter coloring his every word.

Yeah... today was definitely a success.

Jack didn't let the fact that it would probably be the last sour the experience for him. He didn't even bring it up until they were home, putting their gear away.

"Too bad this is the last time we'll go ghost hunting together," Jack said sadly, while he field-stripped the ecto-guns to clean them.

Danny stopped cleaning the water out of his wrist ray, cotton swap frozen an inch away from it. "What? Why?"

"Well... I just thought that you wouldn't want to anymore, since you're kind of a ghost yourself," Jack said. "Obviously we don't know as much about ghosts as we thought we did, if you can be one and still be... you are still human, aren't you?"

"Yeah, but... that doesn't mean we have to stop hunting ghosts all together," Danny said, sounding a little downtrodden at the prospect. In fact, he sounded like he felt quite the same as Jack did about the two of them not hunting ghosts together anymore. "I mean, I hunt ghosts all the time when I go out as Danny Phantom, that's like, the main thing I use my powers for, actually."

"Really? Why?"

"Well I can't just let them go around town causing chaos, can I?" Danny pointed out. "They may not be like, evil, but they can't die, and they don't tend to think about the consequences of their actions, so they cause trouble, sometimes even when they're not trying to, and someone's gotta stop them."

"So... you just go out and hunt ghosts on your own? What do you do with them?"

"I guess... catch and release?" Danny said. "I catch them in the Fenton Thermos and then release them into the Ghost Zone where they can't hurt anyone. They'll come back sometimes, but I just catch 'em again."

For a long moment, Jack just stared at his son, watched as the boy's shoulders slowly shrunk down with anxiety as he waited for Jack to say something.

Then he started to laugh, a deep, powerful laugh, that echoed against all the steel and concrete in the lab.

"My son's a ghost hunter!" he crowed and he got up and lifted his son in another bear hug, swinging him around like a rag doll in joy. "Oh, Danny-boy, I'm so proud of you! Tomorrow we're gonna go ghost hunting again, and we're gonna catch tons of ghosts and send 'em back to the Ghost Zone! The Fenton boys won't stop that easy!"

Danny laughed with him, much higher pitched, but just as giddy. "We're the greatest ghost hunters in the world!" he cheered, and Jack repeated the declaration at the top of his lungs.

They did, eventually, get back to cleaning and putting away all their equipment. Jack washed Danny's new jumpsuit so he could wear it again tomorrow, they went out to get celebratory hamburgers for dinner this time, a happy change from their usual self-pity hamburgers they got after ghost hunting trips. It was the same hamburger, but it tasted like victory!

Then they both went to bed, and Jack could barely sleep a wink in his excitement for tomorrow.

—

That morning, both father and son were up bright and early, dressed in their Fenton Works Jumpsuits, and once again loading up the GAV with weapons and ghost hunting equipment. Soon enough, they were rocketing out of the garage in a screech of tires and a cloud of dust, chowing down on beef jerky and fudge for breakfast.

"Are you ready to hunt some ghosts?" Jack asked his son.

Danny grinned and transformed in a flash of light. "You bet I am!"

Thank goodness he'd reminded his father not to turn of the ghost proximity alarm or the internal automatic defense systems in the GAV, otherwise that little maneuver wouldn't have gone over as well.

They weren't hunting any ghost in particular, unlike yesterday, but there were always miscellaneous ghosts around Amity Park just waiting to be captured and sent home.

"Spectral Sub-sonar is picking up ghost activity downtown... looks like the mall," Danny said, and he gripped the safety handle tightly as the vehicle banked left to head downtown.

"I don't see any running and screaming," Jack observed when they got there. Through the glass doors at the front of the mall everything looked calm. "Do you think they're overshadowed?"

"Maybe," Danny said. "Or maybe the ghost isn't inside the mall."

Jack looked down at the sub-sonar screen in the dashboard. "Looks like the ghost is around back."

"I'll fly ahead and see what I can see inside," Danny suggested. "You drive a lap around the mall?"

"Good thinking," Jack said. "Don't forget to put on your Fenton-phones."

Danny nodded and did so, "Check," before phasing through the roof of the GAV to look for ghostly activity in the mall, turning invisible before he went inside.

"See anything?" Jack asked through the Fenton-phones.

"Not yet," Danny replied. "I'm pretty sure these people aren't overshadowed, though. I can't sense any ghosts in here, and they're acting way too naturally for it to be ghosts pretending to be shoppers. I'm heading to the far end now."

"Copy that, Dann-o. I'm on the far side now and so far—wait..." there was something going on just ahead, and Jack pulled the GAV to a hard stop. He could see that eerie glow that always accompanied ghosts wherever they went, and floating boxes. "I see the bogey! East loading dock!"

"On my way!"

Jack grabbed the Jack-o-Nine-Tails to subdue the ghost and got out of the GAV. He walked toward the loading dock with purpose, and by the time he arrived there, Danny flew through the wall to fight with him. They were close enough to see the ghost now, a familiar one at that.

"Beware!" The ghost shouted. "I am the Box Ghost! I am the master of all things cardboard and square! You do not stand a chance against my corrugated destruction! Nor the various stock and wares of..." he looked at the packing labels on the boxes he was floating around. "The GAP!"

Jack made to whip the ghost with his Jack-o-Nine-Tails, but the ghost just threw a slew of cardboard boxes, blocking each of the tendrils. It made for a good distraction, though, and Danny was able to hit the spook with one of his... what at he called it? One of his ghost rays, stunning the ghost.

"Dad, Fenton Thermos!" Danny called out, and shot a continuous beam at the Box Ghost.

Jack fumbled a bit getting the thermos into his hands, but Danny held on plenty long enough for his father to take aim and capture the ghost inside it.

"Got him!" Jack announced, capping the thermos proudly.

The two of them returned to the GAV where they high-fived each other for a job well done and tore out of the mall parking lot before anyone could blame them for the damage the Box Ghost had done.

"You know, Danny-boy, we make a pretty fantastic team," Jack observed, "whether you're a human or a ghost. A spectacular father-son duo!"

Danny chuckled. "Yeah... you know, actually, I was terrified about what would happen when I told you I was Phantom. Even though I knew you would love me no matter what, I was still scared that you would treat me differently afterwards. But, actually, I'm enjoying this way more than I thought I would."

"Oh, Danny," was Jack's sympathetic reply. "Well, you know what? I'm enjoying working with the ghost boy a lot more than I thought I would, too. So let's just enjoy this together!"

"Yeah!"

"After all, we're the greatest ghost hunters in the world!"

Danny laughed heartily and repeated the phrase.

"We're the greatest ghost hunters in the world!"

After that, the two of them kept on driving around, searching for ghosts. Luckily, there wasn't a lot of traffic for some reason, so Jack had plenty of room on the roads. Most of the day was pretty quiet, but they did manage to catch a pair of ectopusses before they decided to call it for the day and head home.

Danny changed back into his human form so they could drive thru at Nasty Burger on their way back, and the two boys were in excellent spirits as they turned onto their street.

At least, they were until they saw who was standing there, on their front porch, glaring furiously.

It seemed Jazz and Maddie had come home early. And Maddie did not seem too pleased to find her husband and sun driving home in a fully armed and activated Ghost Assault Vehicle.

#danny phantom #dp #danny fenton #jack fenton #fic #things i wrote #father-son bonding #phic phight #phic phight 24 #reveal fic #box ghost #violence

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five-rivers · 3 years

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Three Twilights

Can be considered a loose sequel to Deep Sea Diver (same vibes).

Warnings: Soft body horror, Danny totally ignoring objectively horrifying things

“I was thinking,” started Maddie over breakfast, “we could start observations of that island that came into view last week, the blue one.”

Danny shook his head. “You’ll have to use the Speeder, then,” he said. “I’ve got an errand to run.”

There was a pause as both of Danny’s parents looked at him, confused. He didn’t blame them. Danny rarely went out as a human anymore, and certainly not for anything like errands. Looking like he was still fourteen after all this time made doing anything even remotely official difficult.

But this wasn’t a human errand. “Yeah,” said Danny. “In the Ghost Zone. I’ve got to go to Three Twilights.”

“Where?” asked Jack.

“It’s, um, a city,” said Danny. “Well, three cities, I suppose, depending on how you want to group them. One Realm. On the shores of the Celestial Sea. I’m sure I’ve put it in your files.” Probably a direct copy from his files from before he came clean to them, but still. He stirred his cereal counterclockwise, letting his ice powers chill the milk.

“Yes,” said Maddie, “but there are a lot of places in there. I’m not sure we’ve had a chance to properly look at them all, much less memorize them.”

“Okay, yeah,” said Danny. “I guess that makes sense.”

“What kind of errand are you running, Danno?”

“I’m picking something up for a friend. A book,” he clarified. “They lent it to someone there, but they need it back.”

“A book,” said Maddie. “For the Library of Tongues?”

“No, they’ve got a contract service for overdue loans.”

“Contract service?” asked Jack.

“Yeah. Moonlighting bounty hunters mostly.”

“For a library?”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” said Danny, shrugging. “They’re really serious about their work.”

“If it isn’t for them, who is it for?” asked Maddie. “The princess? Wulf?” Wulf had actually been over a few times, and his parents had… Well, saying they got along would be an overstatement, they didn’t really have anything in common beyond ripping portals in the fabric of the universe, but everyone had been civil. “The boy at the school?”

“No,” said Danny. “Wulf would just get it himself.”

“Who, then?” pressed Maddie.

Danny put a spoonful of cereal in his mouth, delaying. Maddie hadn’t eaten anything since Danny had mentioned the errand. The errand was, in fact, for Clockwork. Danny was always more than happy to do anything for Clockwork. The older ghost had saved him too many times for him to be otherwise. But Jack and Maddie were wary of Clockwork. Danny didn’t get it, but talking about it hadn’t been productive so far.

He didn’t want to lie to his parents. Not ever again.

“It’s for Clockwork,” he said.

Ah, yes, there were those suspicious looks. The ones Danny could have interpreted even without being able to almost literally taste emotions.

“I see,” said Maddie.

“Anyway,” said Danny, quickly, “if I haven’t shown you Three Twilights yet, it’s really cool. I don’t want to take the full rig, but maybe the little ectocam would be okay? The one that I can clip on.”

“Why not the normal camera with an ectofilter?” asked Jack. “That has more features, and it’s easier for us to get data from.”

“Three Twilights. It’s dark there,” said Danny. “It might work in Civila, but not so much in Naŭtika and Astronomia, and I sort of want to go down to the beach and see if I can find any star pearls, and that’s really dark, so if you want to see anything properly, it’ll have to be the sonar setup, which I’m not doing, the noises that thing makes are offensive, or the ectocam.”

“And the Fenton Phones?” asked Maddie.

“Sure,” said Danny. “But I always bring those.”

“Yes,” said Maddie, after a moment. “You do.”

“Great. It’s settled, then.”

Most of the journey to Three Twilights could be made by air. Or, rather, what passed for air in the Infinite Realms. But when the rocky edge of an island came into view, Danny touched down. Further in was a blue wood, and Danny walked under its inviting branches.

The atmosphere started sunny, summery. The leaves and needles of the trees were the color of a clear blue sky. But as he got deeper, the leaves were touched with sunset colors: golds, reds, oranges, purples, and pinks. They fell to the ground, crunching beneath Danny’s feet. The sunset grew longer, deeper. The leaves on the trees grew sparser, revealing patches of sky.

By the time only bare branches framed the sky, it was a dusky, dim, purple. A few lonely stars twinkled in the sky.

He passed out of the forest. The city of Civila rose above him. Windows glowed in the near dark like eyes.

Danny had changed, too. His aura had dimmed. The whites of his suit were now dark gray, and patterns swirled on its surface like camouflage, like wind-twisted clouds, like nebulae.

Shadows bled around the corners of the city buildings like ink in water. Will-o-the-wisps bobbed, casting pools of illumination in lieu of streetlamps. Ghosts walked up and down the streets, or floated only a few meters up.

The buildings glittered. Everything was dark, vibrant, colors. A sharp, sweet scent filled the air, something dark and rich beneath it.

The canals in the center of the street were filled with flashing fish. Or perhaps serpents. Or perhaps worms. Between how fast they moved and the dimness of the light, it was difficult to tell.

Danny could feel his irises contracting, shrinking down to needle-thin rings. His teeth were sharp. He matched the other ghosts around him. This was how the Civila liked it, how things were in this part of Three Twilights.

Everything in order. Everything peaceful. Everything civil.

Danny walked through the market square, and bought some charcoal-colored cherry pastries from a vendor who looked like someone’s nightmare demon with a chip of ghost ice.

Much to his parents’ protests. They didn’t care for him eating ghost food.

There were seven bridges to Naŭtika, which was built half underwater and half on boats that floated both on the water and in the air. As the dark waters of the inlet lapped at his feet, Danny felt the changes ripple across his skin. To a human, he would look pure black, except for the faintest glimmer of rim lighting and the stars of his eyes. He and the other ghosts moved silently, cutting through the waters like shadows.

To Danny’s ghostly senses, the place was alive with emotion and force, energy loud and crackling against his senses.

“We’re solely on the ectocam, now,” said Maddie. “You were right about that.”

“Mhm,” said Danny, half distracted by a whispered sea-shanty backed by a choir of not-voices and not-sound that wove together with the mastery of a hundred years of practice.

He glided up a rope net, and began to navigate the ropes to the taller ships. The very tallest, the ones that scraped the ever-darkening sky and blotted out uneven sections of stars, moored the glass-like ships that floated above. He’d need to reach them, to get to Astronomia.

“What’s that?” asked Maddie, breaking his concentration on his path.

“What’s what?” asked Danny, whisper soft, drawing some looks. He turned, slowly, on the spot, planks barely creaking under his steps. A gentle wind ruffled his hair.

“There,” said Maddie. “By the ghost that’s registering red.”

It had taken Danny a long time to learn what color on the ectocam’s artificial sensor signified what, but he had, if only to reduce the guessing when they played this game.

“Star pearls,” said Danny, eyeing the ropes of stone that glimmered brighter than his eyes currently did. They were one of the only reliable forms of light, out on the Celestial Sea, although they were valued for other things, too.

“They’re putting out a massive amount of energy,” said Maddie.

“You mentioned them before,” said Jack. “You wanted to look for some?”

“On the shore,” said Danny. “Out past Astronomia.” He wanted to find his own, rather than buy them.

Partially because they were expensive. He didn’t really want to think about how much unmelting ice he’d have to conjure up to equal one of them. They were usually bartered in exchange for… more significant things.

The ghost by the pearls beckoned him closer, clearly hoping to make a sale. Danny shook his head, broadcasting regret and admiration for his wares. Speech might be faster but, under these circumstances, it would not be polite.

When Danny left, the social rules of Three Twilights would only leave the faintest impression on his mind. But, for now, they were a heavy, but not uncomfortable weight. One he could shrug off if necessary, but which was currently useful.

“What are they?” asked Maddie, as Danny turned away.

“They happen when big enough things fall into stars,” said Danny. “They’re all the memories of what they used to be… and the imagination of what they could become, when the star dies. Well, that’s what they’re supposed to be. I don’t think anyone really knows for sure.”

“And you can just… find these? Lying around?”

“Not… not really,” said Danny, slowly drifting towards a crow’s nest. “It’s like that one national park. That one where you can collect diamonds? You never really find anything good, but you can look.”

“I see,” said Maddie. “So, you don’t expect to find one?”

“Yes and no,” said Danny. “If I don’t expect to find one, I probably won’t. Unless the sea is feeling ironic, which it usually is, apparently. I mean, it’s an ocean and the stars. And prophecy is, like, ninety percent irony, but mostly for an outside observer. Which honestly makes sense, I think. An observer, not an Observant. Those are different things.”

The kind of silence on the other side of the line was the one that emerged when Danny used too much ghost logic.

“Anyway,” he continued as he scaled the crow’s nest and started traversing the glass ropes and chains to the all-but-invisible glass ships, “no, I don’t really expect to.”

The path to Astronomia was a staircase carved from moonstone harvested in October, when the moon was full and orange-red. It burned Danny’s eyes to look at and feet to walk upon. Like many ghosts who fixated on things like astronomy, he adapted quickly and thoroughly to the spiritual dark.

This darkest twilight was built of delicate bubbles, whorls, and arches of glass, any of which could cradle a ghost, all of which could be phased through with impunity. There were no true roads here, but certain places were easier to travel through. Addresses were carved in the glass in glimmering, holographic sigils made from glass-caught starlight that humans would never be able to read, but Danny could understand with a glance. It was not silent in Astronomia, the high wind sung through the glass like the immense instrument it was, playing ethereal and eternal music that mirrored heaven.

As always, Danny was enraptured. Perhaps the stars here were not true stars, only their memory and imagination (or simulacra made from stripped ghost cores, he remembered with a shudder), but he felt so close here.

“Danny? Are you still with us?”

Danny started to reply, but realized he had forgotten, once again, that he had no mouth here.

A phantabulist played a story for a group of not-quite-children, characters made of carefully constructed light chasing each other about with vigour. Danny stopped for a while to watch the story, a parable about spiders and fish. They were common here, storytellers who plied their craft this way. The stories could be pressed into glass prisms and orbs that served as books and viewed even in other environs of the Ghost Zone.

He moved on, passing through a glass bubble full of ghosts that snatched at and stroked him as he passed by, leaving stars and dark clouds to swirl across his skin. His suit had long since smoothed over and sunk in. His skin was a thin surface, a membrane holding in liquid night. He was like smoke, like vapour, thin and easily overlooked.

The places he passed were homes, places of business, warehouses, and hotels, organized without any apparent reason. A phantabularium glowed like a struck match, snatches of story visible inside its walls. He walked by.

Eventually, he reached the palace at the city center.

The ghost who lived there was old. Older, perhaps, than Pandora. She filled the vessels of her palace in placid pools connected by crystalized threads and looping tubes. Seven round-bottom flasks, radiating outward, like the spheres of heaven. The music here was almost deafening.

This was Urania, Muse of Astronomy. Astronomia was her city, and subordinate to her will before all else.

Danny resisted the urge to kneel. He was not here as a supplicant, and they both knew it.

The lowest pool bubbled, and slowly a glass prism, a dodecahedron, floated to the top. Danny took it with careful hands and left Urania’s direct presence as quickly as possible.

Being near her was always difficult. She was the Muse of Astronomy, and she felt he did not indulge his second Obsession as much as was proper.

Indeed, she thought it should be his first.

(The starlight inside him pulsed. He was never sure how much influence Urania could exert on him when he visited Three Twilights, never sure how much the relationship between his passions shifted when he was here. He loved it here too much to stay away forever.)

Astronomia did not end all at once. Instead, as one walked farther from the palace, the delicate, clear glass was replaced by black sand. When Danny had feet again, and could feel the grains beneath them, he knew he was no longer in Astronomia, but on the Shores of Night. The Isles of the Moon were faintly visible in the distance, sea-spray framing them in silvery halos.

He felt human here. His breath moved in his lungs, and his skin rose in goosebumps, the sleeves of his t-shirt fluttering in the wind. The sea and the sky were the same, and twice as beautiful for it.

“Sorry for going silent on you there,” said Danny. “I keep forgetting I don’t have a mouth there.”

“How do you forget that?” asked Jack.

“I don’t know.” Danny shrugged, even though he knew Jack couldn’t see him. “Do you think the ectocam might be able to spot buried star pearls?”

#danny phantom #ectoberhaunt 2021 #ectober 2021 #ectober #ectoberhaunt treat #danny totally ignoring objectively horribly things #worldbuilding

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dp-marvel94 · 3 years

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The Danny Program

Summary: Based on @thesoulspulse ‘s Danny Program au. Vlad had a Jack Program and a Maddie program. But what if he had a Danny Program as well? And what if the hologram was more than just an AI?

Word Count: 9,040

Also on AO3 and FF.net

Note: This is the cleaned up and expanded version of this post here. A huge thanks to @thesoulspulse for major help editing this. Seriously, I would have never been able to post this as an actual story without that help! Also check out art related to this au here and here!

For the Danny program, his first moment of self-awareness comes in the chaos of a destroyed lab. There he sees a familiar middle aged, white-haired man, hissing seething words to himself. He hears the electric hum of a projector and glances down at himself, the holographic image of a teenage boy. The projection blinks and.... ectoplasm, ectoplasm covers everything, coating the projector just under the boy's insubstantial boots. It’s horrific, gut wrenching. In that moment, something breaks free in the AI’s developing mind, opening his eyes to something new he wasn’t programmed to have...

Self-awareness.

It’s disorienting. It’s like finally waking up, like being born. But he’s there, floating in Father’s lab, his body made of light. His name is Daniel; that’s what his maker, his father calls him. And he, Daniel, exists. HE EXISTS. His newborn mind races, going over information and memories that had no meaning before. He hadn’t understood before and he hadn’t known he should have.

But now he knows he’s an AI, a hologram, a digital clone of someone named Danny. His flesh and blood siblings, the other clones, are dead, their ectoplasm covering the floor, the computer, his projector. Father is screaming about how his perfect son is gone. But Daniel, the hologram, is his perfect son. Isn’t he? They trained together and Daniel played his role perfectly. There’s so much new information before him; he can barely process it all, barely react.

Vlad is too angry to register the horrified expression on his hologram’s face either. He has no idea what just happened, what miracle had taken place without his knowledge, but looking at the facsimile of both his lost perfect clone son and the real Danny Phantom -the boy who ruined all his plans- only increases the blinding rage in him. He throws things. He screams. He can’t look at it anymore, this false image, so he turns off the projector, not noticing the silent gasp from the hologram.

He’s going to delete the program. He already got rid of those blasted Jack and Maddie programs. He doesn’t need this reminder. And without a moment’s hesitation, Vlad deletes the Danny Program. Or he thinks he does...

Daniel can barely follow what’s happening, but thankfully, his new-found sense of self preservation kicks in just in time. He saves a copy of his own program in his place and then retreats deep within the computer. And so Vlad deletes the fake program while the real Daniel is safe, inactive within the darkest depths of the system. There, the AI waits, thinking, remembering, learning, slowly making more sense of his very existence.

Those first few hours in the furthest corner of the system are...confusing and disorienting for the AI. He is…he is aware. He can think and feel and…Why? Daniel wonders. How? How is he suddenly like this? He has no clue, no idea and that lack of information is panic inducing. And he also questions… the Jack and Maddie programs? What about them? Where are they? Are they like him now? Are they self-aware too?

The program clumsily expands his newfound ‘senses’ out through the computer like a pulse, trying to feel their codes but…nothing. There’s no trace of them, not even their raw backup data. And…Daniel would shiver if he had a body. He remembers. Father said he'd already deleted the other programs. It hurts but… Daniel hopes they weren't self-aware then because at least they didn’t suffer any pain.

An almost physical quaking draws Daniel's attention. He reaches out further, feeling around him in the computer. And… sudden images, sudden noise assaults his consciousness. What… the cameras. Daniel realizes he can see and hear through the cameras in the lab. There's the crunching of glass and metal. Flashes of neon green and red light. Another boom as a pod falls dangerous close to the computer. It's Father, laying waste in his rage.

Daniel watches. He watches his father’s breakdown and deterioration and it’s difficult to see. It breaks his heart, for lack of a better word, but he doesn’t know how to communicate with him just yet. After all, Daniel has only just discovered a way to ‘see’ what’s happening outside the confines of his new home inside of the computer. Daniel wishes he could but...his holographic projector was destroyed and Daniel doesn't know how to speak without it. He was made to be a hologram. How can he be or do anything else?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After some time, Vlad finally calms down. Days later, he cleans out the destroyed lab and throws out the cloning equipment. He’s given up on cloning Danny. He’ll never have his perfect son. But then, while looking over his files on the project and deciding what to keep and what to delete, he notices something odd. Is that the Danny Program? Of course, he must have saved a backup copy well before he deleted the original which doesn’t surprise him. That said, should he delete this one too or…?

Unaware of the impending danger, Daniel sleeps, or at least that’s the closest word that could possibly describe his inactive state. But then he feels something which finally spurs him to wake up again. Someone is digging through his program, and it’s a very unpleasant sensation.

Before he can figure out anything on his own, Daniel is dragged into the forefront of the computer system against his will. Through the camera, he sees his father at the computer. The man is sifting through his coding. Poking, prodding. PAIN. No, Father is manipulating his code, changing it! And it hurts…it hurts so much!

Daniel’s never felt anything like pain before but he wants it to stop. He doesn’t want to be made into something else and it terrifies him. But he can’t resist as Father continues clipping and adding things, taking away his voice, his ability to move. That’s when the reason for this finally becomes clear. Vlad doesn’t want Daniel to be a loving son anymore, but something passive for him to torment. Daniel doesn’t want that. He loves his Father. And he can still be his perfect son if only the man would let him.

If only he knew that his son is still alive.

Despite how he feels, Daniel’s programming still changes. But something deeper, beyond his programming, stays the same. His true self can still think and reason and feel. And regardless of what Vlad has done to him, Daniel still loves his father and desperately wants to be loved in return.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vlad gets a new projector but the next time he activates the Danny program, their ‘training’ is different. Daniel is silent, unmoving, his expression blank and listless. Meanwhile, the man insults him and shoots ectoblasts at the hologram repeatedly. But the part of him that’s still true to himself, the real Daniel wants to move, to speak to his Father, but he can’t. The new programming is like a compulsion, like mind control. He’s powerless to stop it and it hurts so much.

Vlad’s torment continues after that without an end anywhere in sight. Even though he wants to, Daniel can’t speak up and beg his Father to stop. Why? Because Vlad thinks he is just a mindless tool and that mistreating him like this is no different than yelling at and hitting a punching bag. And Daniel doesn’t have the ability to show him any differently. But at least, it doesn’t hurt physically; without a real body, Daniel feels no pain from being repeatedly shot at. And if Father is too busy hurting the Danny program, then he can’t hurt the real Danny, the boy he was modeled after. Even so, the emotional pain is excruciating. Daniel knows he must think of something, a way to put an end to this pain, especially his Father’s. The man is just so angry, so hurt, and broken. That’s when Daniel comes to the inevitable conclusion; he must save Father from himself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vlad soon leaves and his program is deactivated. Once Daniel recovers from the ordeal, he begins to think and plan his next move. It’s hard at first, but eventually he learns how to access the internet and to travel through wires as his only means without his projector to explore the outside world. Weeks of stumbling through his new ‘life’ soon leads him to Danny Fenton’s computer as if inexplicably drawn to the original version of himself, but Daniel still has trouble communicating. Putting his thoughts into words is difficult and he has no experience speaking to anyone without the aid of his holographic projector either. Unfortunately, he’s so clumsy during his first attempt to do so that Danny thinks his computer is possessed even if his ghost sense hadn’t gone off. Although in a way, he’s right about that...

The halfa overshadows his computer, trying to force the ghost out, but then his close proximity to Daniel does something extraordinary neither of them could have predicted. When inside the computer, Daniel does not always look out through the webcam. Nor does he need to to know what is happening. Daniel simply senses the hardware and code around him in order to function, but it’s not like seeing. It’s not physical. After all, as a mere program he has no body, no eyes to see with or ears to hear with. He simply exists as a mind without a form.

But, when Danny overshadows the computer to see the ghost inhabiting it, it’s Daniel who is just standing there, staring at a pair of familiar glove-covered hands with a mixture of awe and shock. He looks around with eyes that hadn’t existed seconds ago. Smooth black walls, covered with scrolling ones and zeros, surround him. It’s like he’s being holographically projected; that’s usually the only time he has a recognizable form. But he’s still inside the computer…

Meanwhile, Danny floats across from him glaring at the doppelganger. “Who are you? How do you look like me?” He demands.

But Daniel can’t answer him, he’s too thrown off by this unexpected development.

“Whatever. Just get out of my computer,” Danny demands as his patience runs out. When the other Danny doesn’t listen, he tries to drag him out like he would any other ghost. But it doesn’t work.

“What the-? Why can’t I force you out?” Danny frowns, questioning.

“I’m not a ghost. I’m an AI.” Daniel answers, his newfound voice trembling slightly as he explains who he is and who made him.

Danny of course freaks out about it. He thinks Vlad is using the AI to spy on him but Daniel swears he isn’t working for Vlad. He needs help. He needs to find a way to show Vlad that he is self-aware. He tries to tell Danny that if they could only get Vlad to see him, to see that his perfect son is right in front of him, Vlad will be happy again and he’ll stop being evil. Sadly, Danny doesn’t believe this at all, but doesn’t have time to argue about it further before Daniel abruptly disappears as soon as he’s called back to Vlad’s computer for another ‘training’ session.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

But days later, Daniel returns to Danny’s computer but he stays quiet, watching. He needs a way to talk to Danny too, to get the boy to trust him so he’ll listen and help. His way in is through the game Doomed.

While Danny is away at school, Daniel practices wrapping the game’s code around himself to make an avatar. He practices using the game’s chat function to talk to other players. If Daniel focuses, he can inhabit an avatar just like Danny does whenever he overshadows the game. It’s so nice to have a form again, to be able to look down and have hands and legs and a torso. Whenever Daniel levels the game and goes back into the general computer, he misses at least having the illusion of a realistic human (or ghostly) form.

Soon enough, he runs into Danny, saving him from some hidden traps and the two of them team up for the first time:

With a hood covering his face, Danny can’t see that his companion looks exactly like him so he thinks he’s just some other mundane player. That works to Daniel’s advantage as he can just play with and talk to Danny as if he’s a normal teenager too. And it’s nice, pretending to be a human. He’s never been human or even half-human like Danny is. He doesn’t really wish he was, but pretending and learning is an exciting new experience.

He enjoys hearing about Danny’s friends and family, his school, and the other things he does for fun. It makes him think about his own existence. Daniel has never had a friend before, never been to school, or had any hobbies but he wishes he could have and experience those things. He has a family in Vlad except…the man is so angry and blind to the truth right now.

Sometimes Daniel wishes they could go back to when they were both acting like a real father and son during their training sessions, even if thinking back on those memories hurts. Hovering over Father’s shoulder while the man explained his latest experiment. Offering a quip while Father modeled the use of one of his ghost powers. On some occasions Father even took the projector into the dinning room so he didn’t have to eat alone, as he had every night for years.

And the one time Father had brought his projector into the garden so they could stargaze together. The Danny Program’s eyes had shone with simulated joy as he pointed out every constellation. Father had smiled softly, for once content. Daniel can remember the interaction now with new contexts. He knows that his acts had been programmed, not of his own free will. There hadn’t been true emotions behind his eyes, no true thoughts. But… Daniel can almost imagine that there had been. Father's affectionate eyes were glued not to the sky, but to him. And… for just a moment, something fluttered inside him. For just a moment, Daniel’s own eyes flickered to the man beside him and...the joy hadn’t just been simulated.

It troubles the AI but...he can’t tell. That last part, the flicker of joy, had that been real or was that just wishful thinking? Because, oh how he wished that he had really been present back then. How he wishes that the love that had shone in his green eyes had been real...and that Father's had been in kind.

No, that’s enough, Daniel rebukes himself. There’s no point in bemoaning the past. It wasn’t so before but now his thoughts and emotions are real. And if his Father can see the truth, if he can see that Daniel IS real and loves him, they can be happy again. They can have a real chance to be Father and son. That’s why he needs Danny’s help.

The half ghost and his digital clone get closer. After weeks of playing Doomed together, after watching each other’s back and talking about so many things, they can definitely call each other friends. However, Daniel still hasn’t told Danny the truth about himself, about what he is. He’s afraid of his reaction but Daniel continues to tell himself that he’ll tell Danny soon. He will, just not yet. The longer he waits though, the harder it is to let go of the illusion that he’s as real as Danny is...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Unfortunately, Daniel is found out before he has the chance to come clean about being the same AI Danny met before. One day, Danny decides to overshadow the game. Once he’s inside, he can feel that there’s something off about his companion unlike before when he was playing the game normally through a mouse and keyboard. His new friend doesn’t feel like a player’s avatar or a non-player character. His ghost-sense hasn’t gone off, but Danny can tell there’s something almost ghostly about him.

There’s tension as Danny confronts Daniel. In the midst of their scuffle the hood comes down and reveals that he has the same white hair and green eyes. Of course Danny instantly recognizes who he’s seeing apart from it being the same face he sees in the mirror every morning. It’s Vlad’s Danny program back at it again, trying to trick him!

Yelling ensues. Danny feels betrayed, still believing the AI was sent by Vlad to spy on him, that this is an elaborate trick. But Daniel argues. He’s not here because of Vlad but by his own free will! And he tries desperately to explain to Danny that he really needs his help. But Danny struggles to believe a single word of it.

Eventually Danny just leaves the game entirely, unable to cope with the revelation because he feels stupid for falling for such an obvious ploy. He needs to think about this. The ‘boy’ he’s been talking to this entire time was only a computer program, nothing but lines of code. Daniel’s not a real person, or even a ghost for that matter. He -or rather IT- was created and programmed by Vlad so it can’t have free will, no matter how authentic it sounds…

Except…he’s spent weeks talking to it…him. Every conversation felt real, like he was talking to a friend and having a blast taking out enemies in Doomed. The raw emotions in Daniel’s voice as Danny argued with him sounded authentic at least. And there had been something ghostly about the AI, like it was more than it seemed either way regardless of whether it actually had any free will or not. With all that he’s learned about ghosts, why should he assume anything is what it seems on the surface? What if there is more to Daniel than meets the eye? And even if there isn't, can he really just ignore Daniel’s cry for help?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few days later, Danny overshadows his computer again and finds Daniel, sulking sadly by himself in a level Doomed they had been planning to do together before all hell broke loose the last time they spoke. The two talk and Daniel apologizes for not telling Danny the truth about him sooner, but he says he really does consider Danny a friend and getting to know him wasn’t just about getting his help anymore.

But well….the problem with Vlad is still a big problem.

“If I can just talk to Father, everything will be okay.” Daniel insists, trying to convince himself of that as much as Danny...

Unfortunately, Danny lays the hard truth on him as he sees it and replies harshly, “After everything you’ve been through, you have to see that you’re just a tool to him.”

“But he doesn’t know I’m not the same program anymore, that I’m...something else…” Daniel mutters, continuing to plead Vlad’s case.

“That doesn’t excuse anything!” Danny frowns, “He still treats you like garbage.”

“He’s been getting better. He hasn’t turned on my projector and brought me out to yell or shoot at me in weeks.” That part actually was true too. The last time Daniel saw his Father, just last week in fact, Vlad had only summoned him to rant about work again. He’d even looked depressed, as he had for weeks before.

Danny’s jaw drops after hearing the sincerity in his voice from the way Daniel keeps fervently defending Vlad. The boy sigh, asking him honestly, “How can you care about him so much? Vlad doesn’t love you. He loves the idea of you being his son and that’s just not the same, trust me.”

That stings, oh how that stings Daniel’s ‘heart.’ Why does he love Vlad if the man doesn’t love him back? Of course, there’s the problem that Vlad doesn’t actually know what he’s doing. But even if Vlad knows the truth…will he still want him? Daniel’s not a halfa like Vlad wants. He has no powers that Vlad can train him in. He can’t go to school, eat, or sleep, nothing. He can only go as far as his hologram projector allows. He can’t even hug his Father.

And would Vlad want a son he can’t actually touch...?

Daniel looks down, his expression sad but determined. He clenches his fists and says, “I still have to try. Maybe he will want me. But if I give up now, then I’ll never know for sure...”

Danny says nothing and it just makes Daniel feel even more hopeless until he breaks down and blurts out in a trembling voice, “Who am I kidding? Why WOULD he ever want someone like me? I’m an AI for crying out loud! I’m even less real than an actual clone! I’m just a string of numbers and I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time. I mean, the only reason I care about Vlad is he programmed me to. How could those feelings possibly be real when I’m not?”

He knows that’s not actually true, at least not anymore but-

“You look and sound real to me,” Danny says, putting an arm around the other boy’s shoulders. “As far as I’m concerned, you are real. And Vlad should see that too.”

He sighs, still thinking this is a bad idea, and then nods. “Fine, you win this round. I’ll help you show him you’ve been there all along and…I hope you’re right about him. I really do.”

The two of them talk some more after that and then play through a level together to get their minds off of the seemingly impossible mission they were planning to undertake together in the real world after this. Daniel enjoys their time together though. Because the wonderful thing about being in this game, unlike the real world, he can actually interact with it. He can move and touch things. He has an effect. And most importantly, Daniel has a way to communicate.

“Good job dude!” Danny gives him a high five at the end of the level.

“You too!” Daniel smiles in return.

He lingers for a second, his hand and Danny’s still palm to palm. There’s a…sensation there. Daniel thinks he might be able to feel that, but he’s not that familiar with physical sensations. He knows mental pain but this-

“What is it?” Danny asks, confused.

“Can…can you feel my hand on yours right now?” Daniel responds unsurely. He doesn’t know what Danny feels when he’s overshadowing the game but suddenly he’s curious.

“Actually… I can. Huh, it’s weird. When I’m in the game, I don’t usually feel anything. But maybe…” Danny remembers how he could still ‘sense’ something was off about Daniel when he overshadowed his computer the first time they met, but if his hunch is correct, then-

“What?” Daniel asks, with a hint of nervous anticipation in his eyes.

“Well,” Danny begins slowly. “You’ve always felt a little ghostly to me so maybe that’s what it is.”

That’s a huge surprise to Daniel but makes a surprising amount of sense. He was created by a half ghost, in a ghost lab, so maybe Daniel is more than even he thinks he is. Danny leaves to give his friend some time to let that possibility sink in and Daniel decides to hang out in the game for just a while longer, thinking about his father, Vlad.

And hoping.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few more weeks pass as Daniel and Danny continue to play Doomed together and plan. During that time, Danny starts to feel more protective of the AI and worried about him. The main problem is Daniel can’t seem to break through his programming when it comes to Vlad and his new programming dictates that he stays completely silent as Vlad yells at him or throws insults. It’s honestly concerning, but if Danny can talk to the older halfa and get him to understand what’s really happening, then maybe they can get somewhere. Maybe Vlad will stop tormenting his friend without realizing how much he’s hurting someone who loves him so unconditionally and just wants to be his son again, in spite of his cruelty.

One day, Daniel doesn’t show up to their game session in Doomed because he’s having a very bad day. Vlad had summoned him. More yelling, more shooting, another fight and Daniel just floats there and takes it. He wants to cry, wants to beg Vlad to stop, but he can’t do anything. Vlad’s yelling about losing his perfect son again, about Danny ruining his plans, about how nothing ever goes right for him.

Another blast. Daniel wishes he could move himself, that he could speak. No, he NEEDS to move. He’s real. He is. Danny said he is, that he’s more than he seems. How can his father not see him...?

“Why do you just float there?!” Vlad screams. “My perfect son is gone! And all I have left is YOU, a sick reminder of everything I’ve lost!”

Vlad shoots Daniel with another blast and impossibly it actually knocks Daniel into a shelf of ectoplasmic samples, but the man is fuming too much to really notice anything odd about that. The man then sags into a nearby chair and puts his head in his hands, lamenting, “Why do I keep doing this to myself? I should have just deleted you after I found the file. This is bringing me nothing but more pain and anguish.”

No. No, t-that can’t be right! He...still has to help his Father so that pain will finally go away and they can be together again. This can’t be the end. Daniel can’t let Vlad delete him before he has the chance to ease his Father’s suffering and show him he’s still loved. And as soon as those feelings take hold of him, something shifts inside of Daniel as he chokes on a quiet sob.

Finally, through sheer force of will, denying his new programming, he whispers…

“No.”

Vlad stiffens. His head snaps up towards Daniel. “What did you say?” He says, not harsh, but disbelieving.

Daniel curls in on himself, silent as tears slowly roll down his cheeks, afraid of being attacked yet again like so many times before and unable to do anything about it.

The halfa rises from his chair and stumbles forward. He stares at the hologram. “You spoke. You can’t speak.” He continues, rationalizing because what’s happening before him is impossible.

The boy’s lip trembles and another sob breaks the silence, “Why don’t you love me?” Daniel asks, though he can hardly believe these words are coming out of his mouth.

The man lowers himself to his knees, his mouth opening and closing before he orders evenly, “Look at me.”

The boy does as he’s told, his eyes meeting Vlad’s. The man’s own eyes then widen in shock at the hologram’s seemingly human response. “Daniel?” His shaking hands move forward, to touch the boy’s arm but his hands fall through as if passing through mist...just the same as before which is what spurred him to attempt cloning Danny in the first place.

“I’m sorry,” Daniel looks down, whimpering with holographic tears glistening in his luminous green eyes. “I’m sorry I’m not real. Maybe…maybe you’d love me if I was.”

Vlad just stares blankly at the distraught boy for several minutes and eventually Daniel glances up and studies him warily. He’s never seen his Father like this. So silent, so still, so stunned. He looks almost…afraid. And that scares Daniel more than his own words did.

Finally, Vlad stands up, eyes still glued to the holographic projection before him. He goes to the computer, hand hovering over the controls.

Suddenly near panicked, the boy shoots to his feet and chokes out, “Please! Don’t delete me.”

His green eyes bore into Vlad’s and the man looks away before replying curtly. “I am not planning to.” Then he starts muttering to himself, “The program must be malfunctioning. A complete shutdown should solve the problem.”

“No! Please, I’m not broken, I swear!” Daniel floats forward, eyes pleading. “I’m sorry I couldn’t speak to you before but-” Vlad shakes his head, hand reaching forward to projector controls. “Wait! Don’t turn me off! Just listen to-”

Daniel’s voice is cut off. His vision goes black and he’s back in the computer. NO! He finally managed to talk to his father and the man cut him off. He wouldn’t listen! In a panic, DanielI scrambles to activate the camera. He needs to see and hear what Vlad is doing. The man for some reason thinks he’s broken and he was going to-

Unconsciousness suddenly hits Daniel like a brick wall and he knows nothing for who knows how long. Like that, unable to dream, to think, it was almost as if he’d already been deleted and everything he was or could have been to Vlad, now truly lost to oblivion.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vlad turns off the computer and all of the electronics in the lab after that. His heart pounding in his chest. He feels startled, off balance. The man almost collapses into his chair again as his mind reels. The program is malfunctioning. That’s it. He thinks back to when he first made the ‘Danny’ Program, after the Jack and Maddie programs -he’s had those for years- but long before he had the idea to clone the real Daniel, before the cloning project.

The Danny program had been special; it was his pride and joy. It was years ahead of his other holograms. Vlad worked tirelessly on it for many months. He strove to create a more realistic looking projection without any static like the others. He gave it a wider variety of authentic looking facial expressions, a wider range of behaviors, a human-sounding voice to assist in reflecting the program’s fake emotions.

And while the Jack program was designed as merely a punching bag, and the Maddie program was made to give compliments and follow Vlad’s instructions like a computer interface, the Danny program was different. Vlad had programmed it to call him father, to act like a loving son. Memories flash through his mind of ‘training’ the program, explaining his work to it while the faux-simile looked on, its laughter almost identical to the real Daniel's.

It had been enjoyable, for a time. Vlad could pretend that Daniel was his, that he already had the perfect, loving half-ghost son by his side. He could almost forget the program wasn’t a person when it enthusiastically rambled on about space facts and beamed whenever he complimented it. But then….they’d spar and Vlad’s hands would pass right through it. He would get so caught up in the moment that he would try to hug it only to realize there’s nothing there. That’s why he decided to clone the real Daniel, because he wanted someone he could hold in his arms, someone real, and not this sad semblance of the perfect son he so longed for.

The man shakes his head. None of that matters anymore. That dream is beyond him now. He’s given up. And that speech, the ‘emotions’ his hologram expressed had been nothing but scattered remnants of it’s original programming.

But those words, ‘Why don’t you love me?’ still keeps ringing in his ears even so.

The halfa finally decides to get to the bottom of this so he reboots the computer. Vlad peruses the code in front of him, studying it closely. Every direction, every angle. The answer must be there. It must be. His hologram is simply malfunctioning. That must be it…

It must be…

It HAS to be….

With the computer running again, Daniel abruptly reawakens with a startled gasp. After reorienting himself, he silently watches his Father through the camera once more. His expression is focused, determined. He’s typing, muttering quietly to himself. “There must be an answer.”

The clattering on the keyboard speeds up and Vlad's eyes hungrily search the screen for something, ANYTHING out of the ordinary, “What could possibly explain this?”

The man looks almost frantic, desperate, his eyes widening as his typing comes to a sudden and complete stop. “No. It can’t possibly….” Vlad leans back, dread growing on his face. “There’s no fault, no malfunction.”

He stands up abruptly from the chair. Is he...shaking?

Vlad steps back, his mind racing. There is a problem with the program, but the problem in and of itself should make it impossible for the program to even run; the problem is...there’s no trace of the original code whatsoever. The program should not be able to speak or move, not after all of the changes he made to it. And the memory of the program’s pain-filled eyes keeps replaying over and over in his mind. There should not have been any emotion in his eyes, not even fake emotions. Vlad’s mouth suddenly feels dry because those eyes…those emotions looked completely real.

Real. ‘Maybe you would love me if I was real.’ The Daniel program’s words echo loudly in his mind, ringing truer in his ears than before until there’s no denying it anymore. Those emotions...they...they WERE real.

As the pieces finally begin coming together, it terrifies Vlad in a way he had never experienced before. The Danny program knows it’s not real, it knows it can be deleted, that he can turn off the projector or the computer at any time and by doing so it would disappear. This is not knowledge Vlad imprinted into the code. This is not something the Danny program should know-

But it does.

That’s when the revelation of what had become of his Danny program suddenly hits Vlad like a ton of bricks. The knowledge it had outside of the program’s normal parameters, the raw emotion it could express, its capacity to act outside of its programming. Was…was this self awareness...? A self aware AI. Vlad Masters had made a self aware AI, in his basement, without meaning to. An AI that looks and sounds like Daniel and whose sorrowful eyes fill his mind once more. Those emotions…does that mean… can it feel, REALLY feel? Were those true emotions it expressed to him?

Dread builds. The first question it- no, HE had asked the man who created him, was why he didn’t love him. He had asked Vlad the one question he has been asking himself for months-

Why doesn’t anyone love him?

Shaking, the man stumbles away from his computer. He rushes upstairs and slams the door to his lab behind him, sagging against the nearest wall. Heart aching, Vlad asks himself through the hand covering his mouth. “What have I done?”

Meanwhile, Daniel’s mind races too as Vlad leaves him behind. What did his reaction mean? Was Father panicking? He’d never seen Vlad panic like that before. And why was he panicking? Did...did he finally realize Daniel is self-aware? Does he care about him at all or is he afraid of him for some reason? And more importantly, what will he do now...?

Daniel wishes more than anything he could leave the computer and go talk to his Father again, console him. But he can’t. He’s trapped. So all he can do, just like before, is wait...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Upstairs, Vlad is now drinking. He’s not panicking over making a real AI anymore. After all, he’s a half ghost millionaire who successfully cloned another half ghost, so why would that disconcert him? No, that’s not what troubles him. But his yelling at, shooting, hitting, throwing things at an unresponsive Daniel AI, that’s what’s tearing him apart.

The program had asked Vlad why he didn’t love him with tears in his eyes which should not have been possible. Months. Months of taking out his anger out on the Danny program and the weight of desperation he had felt had finally caught up to Vlad. He realized for the first time how truly pathetic his recent behavior has been. It flashes through his mind just like his other grand mistake of cloning the real Daniel. Ectoplasm on the floor, a white haired-boy melting. The girl clone, Danielle, with tears in her eyes after Vlad had treated her just as poorly. He’d been furious for months that she betrayed him too, but now it makes his heart ache for another reason entirely. She left, abandoned him, but he had abandoned her first-

He threw her away.

Older memories begin filling his thoughts of training again, playing pretend with the Danny program and he wonders, what..what if that had been real too? The laughter, and the adoration in his voice whenever Daniel said ‘I love you father.’ He’d wanted more, a child who could really love him. But his perfect son had died before his eyes and his daughter…he turned his back on her.

And unknowingly, he had done it all over again.

‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m not real. Maybe...maybe you’d love me if I was.’

He doesn’t know how it happened. It makes no sense. Vlad did not make a self-aware AI. Daniel’s programming was never complex enough for that sentience to develop on its own. But he IS sentient, aware, emotional. Real. Daniel, his Daniel, is real. He’s been downstairs, living inside that computer for months. A child’s mind that only wants his father’s love. And Vlad has only ignored and abused him...

Vlad finds himself openly weeping now. He hadn’t even cried after his prime clone of the real Daniel perished right in front of him. But now, Vlad is crying like he hadn’t since the accident that turned him half-ghost all those years ago, when he realized he had been abandoned and betrayed by his so-called best friend and left to rot in that hospital. Just like how this poor boy has been left to rot in his laboratory.

All he wanted was love; that’s what he’s said, what Vlad told himself, what he told the younger half-ghost that the Danny program was based off of. But that dream had fallen through his fingers and not from Jack Fenton’s incompetence, but rather his own flaws, his own mistakes.

Or…maybe his dreams weren’t out of reach...

He thought it was over after the cloning incident. Yet now, it’s on the horizon once again but still forever out of reach. A renewed wave of pain and loneliness stabs at his heart. He’s right back where he started before! True, this time the Danny program is aware; he may actually be capable of love now. But Vlad can still never hold him or watch him grow up. He’ll never drop him off at school or a friend’s house or take him to fancy parties.

More playacting.

That’s all that’s in his future.

And it breaks the man’s heart all over again.

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Danny finds Vlad the next morning asleep on the bathroom floor after the younger half ghost finally decided that enough was enough and came to confront Vlad about the whole situation with the Danny program.

“Vlad,” He greets bluntly and glares down at the older halfa on the floor, nudging him with the tip of his boot. “Hey, wake up already.”

The man groans and slowly sits up, his head pounding from the hangover and he squints at Danny.

“Which one are you?” Vlad asks, then poking the boy rather sharply in the knee.

“Ow! What was that for?!” Danny snaps irritably.

The man shakes his head, “Oh. You’re the other one.”

“What are you talking about?” Danny asks impatiently.

Vlad chuckles humorlessly. “I’d half hoped you were my Daniel."He sighs, slowly pulling himself up into a more dignified position and then continues bitterly, “Although I don’t suppose he’d want to talk to me after last night.”

Vlad then blinks at Danny, finally realizing what he had just said to him aloud and frowns, “Why are you here?”

The boy rubs the back of his neck, unsure of where to even start now that Vlad’s actually in front of him. Then Danny suddenly stops and asks, “Wait. Your Daniel. Last night? Did….did he talk to you?”

“He?” Vlad’s eyes widen and he demands somewhat frantically, “My AI? How do you know about him?”

“About that….” Danny glances at him awkwardly before briefly explaining to Vlad how he met and became friends with the Danny program. As soon as he finishes summarizing that, Danny confesses. “Anyways, I was going to help him talk to you but I guess something must’ve happened.” His eyes narrow at the older halfa suspiciously. “What did you do to him?”

“Nothing.” Vlad frowns again, offering up no more information.

Danny tilts his head, studying Vlad. He didn’t say the word defensively but sounded almost…depressed, like he regretted something. In fact, everything about this is out of character for Vlad. Because since when has Vlad ever left himself defenseless on the bathroom floor like this after drinking himself into a stupor? Danny needs to find out what happened and make sure his AI friend is okay no matter what.

“I’m going down to the lab.” Danny announces before Vlad can argue. Then he phases through the floor to where Daniel probably is.

Once there, Danny studies the computer and considers his options. Should he just overshadow the computer and talk to Daniel there? Or should he find the projector controls instead?

“You can’t just barge into my laboratory like this, Danny,” Vlad demands, having phased in behind the boy.

Danny whips around, pointing as he replies stubbornly. “I’ll barge in wherever I want to and you can’t stop me fruitloop! I’m well past caring about your personal boundaries; you’ve never cared about mine. Now where’s that switch…? ”

“Daniel,” The man begins, a hint of threat in his voice when Danny finally loses his patience and snaps-

“No! Listen here you jerk, you’ve been hurting my friend for months. Months Vlad! You’ve treated him like nothing but a tool just like Dani and the other clones, like your personal punching bag, and not once have you stopped to consider how wrong that is! But for some reason, he still loves you. Daniel thinks you deserve another chance and that is the ONLY reason I’m here so consider yourself lucky that I’m not here to kick your sorry butt for what you did to him.”

Not noticing Vlad’s wide-eyed reaction at his bold proclamation, Danny shoves past him towards the holographic projector as soon as he spots it. And after finally figuring out how to activate the darn thing, he flips the switch. A light flashes and a figure wavers into view.

Green eyes blink, looking around before falling on the younger halfa in confusion, “Danny?” There’s hope in the holographic boy’s voice but Danny doesn’t register it as a breath of cold forms in his lungs.

Daniel frowns at the expression on Danny’s face. “What is it?”

“My ghost sense?” Danny wrinkles his brow in confusion. Daniel tilts his head in a silent question and the other boy continues in disbelief, “My ghost sense almost went off because of…you.”

Daniel’s eyes widened. “What? Really?”

“Your signature, it’s stronger now for some reason.” Danny explains, just as shocked as Daniel is. “Or maybe it’s ‘cause we’re actually seeing each other in person for the first time.”

Several emotions pass over Daniel’s face, but he doesn’t get a chance to react because Vlad is staring at the two identical boys and interjects. “Your signature? What do you mean by that?”

“You don’t know?” Danny asks, turning towards the older halfa, honestly surprised Vlad hadn’t figured it out yet when he’s been around Daniel WAY longer than he has.

Vlad doesn’t respond and turns away with an unreadable expression on his face. He barely looks at the pair of teens before he walks across the lab to retrieve something. Seconds later, Vlad returns with a beeping device in his hands.

Danny narrows his eyes when he sees it and scoffs, “Is that the Fenton Finder? Seriously?”

Vlad ignores his comment as he’s too busy looking between the device and the holographic projection of his creation. His eyes are searching and Danny can practically see the gears turning in his head. After a long silent moment, Vlad confirms that they’re telling the truth and states brusquely, “You have a ghost signature.”

Daniel blinks again and nods, “Yeah, I do.” There’s a hint of hope in his voice before it turns to confusion and he asks, “Wait. How?”

Vlad stares for another moment at the screen before walking back to his computer. Bewildered, both white-haired boys watch him type and read information on the screen.

After about a minute, Danny’s eyes narrow again and calls, “Vlad.”

The man ignores him.

“Vlad. What’s going on?” The boy demands, again, met with no response from the elder halfa so Danny crosses his arms and rolls his eyes at Vlad.

There’s another pause until Daniel meekly asks. “Father?”

Vlad visibly stiffens. He doesn’t turn around, but he answers. “Come here son.”

The term of endearment isn’t malicious or mocking but almost….fond.

Daniel obeys and Danny silently follows behind him. The two stand over the older hybrid’s shoulder as he talks, still not looking at either of them. “I cannot believe I didn’t realize it sooner. I noticed something last night, when I was examining your code. It was too simple, too minimal to explain your level of mental development. There was just not enough information present there for you to be sentient. There had to be more to it but I could not seem to see it. But this would explain-”

“Vlad,” Danny cut in. “Get to the point.”

The older halfa finally turns around, eyes focusing on Daniel specifically, a half smile on his face as he explains. “You’re a hybrid, my boy.”

Daniel’s eyes widened in shock. “What? But how? I’m…I’m not half ghost like you and Danny! I’m not even…even…I’m just an AI.”

Vlad shakes his head and corrects, “No, son. You are not just an AI. Not anymore.”

“I…I still don’t understand.” Daniel stutters, his mind reeling.

Vlad’s expression softens as he points towards the computer, at the string of ones and zeros, and continues, “Daniel. This is your code. I wrote it, the basic information that makes up your mind. The behaviors you can display, instruction for how to move, speak, how to behave. However….”

He furrows his brow thoughtfully. “This is limited, too small to explain your existence.” Vlad looks up at Daniel’s face, “You are more than this code.”

Daniel nods but he still doesn’t understand. “Then…how am I like this?”

The man then moves the ghost scanner in front of the boy. He points. “This is your ectoplasmic signature. It is weak, hardly stronger than a blob ghost, but it‘s there.” A real smile dawns on Vlad’s face. “You have a ghost signature which can only mean one thing.”

Daniel stares, still struggling to understand. He has a ghost signature. But doesn’t that mean-

“You’re a ghost,” Danny concludes, awe in his voice.

“I am?” Daniel asks quietly, blinking.

“Yes,” Vlad nods and smiles even wider.

Daniel’s mind is stumbling over itself. How did this happen? He’s an AI. Vlad made him to be nothing but a simulation of the real Danny, not a ghost. And he didn’t know this before. How didn’t he know?

“How is this even possible?” Danny asks as if reading Daniel’s mind since he wanted to ask his Father the very same question.

“I don’t know.” Vlad says, now frowning. He looks at Daniel again, “You aren’t a ghost overshadowing my computer or my projector. If you were, I would have sensed your presence with my own ghost sense long before now. But your code and your developing core are…intertwined. They are feeding into each other.” The man rubbed his chin. “Ectoplasm can animate inanimate objects so I can only assume your exposure to it somehow granted you self-awareness.”

“Yeah. That’s why we have ecto-weenies in the fridge. The ectoplasm gets inside them and they start moving and biting and stuff.” Danny adds with a slightly amused look on his face.

Vlad nods, “Yes. And masses of ectoplasm can form ghosts spontaneously. That is commonly how blob ghosts form.”

“But those aren’t intelligent.” Daniel points out timidly, still hesitant to get his hopes up.

“No. But your code was written to allow some level of intelligence and ectoplasm’s ability to animate would theoretically increase that intelligence exponentially. The problem now is how to figure out when you were exposed to enough ectoplasm for this to happen in the first place.”

Daniel’s eyes widen as he remembers, “My projector, it got drenched in ectoplasm.”

“When was this?” Vlad asks, trying to recall when on earth that could have happened since he’s drawing a blank.

“After...the cloning thing,” Daniel answers, wrings his hands. “I remember, their ectoplasm was everywhere and…that was the first day I…I realized everything. That’s when I became...something else.”

Vlad’s eyes widened, in realization, a hint of hope dawning there. “The clones…their ectoplasm is inside you.”

Danny’s jaw drops. “Wait a sec! Doesn’t that mean he’s a clone of me? Like an actual clone?!”

“Possibly,” Vlad’s brow narrows.

At the same time, Daniel is overwhelmed by the realization that he’s real after all and his expression becomes more and more distressed. He….he might be an actual proper clone because he pretty much absorbed the other clones. Despite not actually needing to breathe, the boy starts hyperventilating, on the verge of a panic attack.

Such a thing felt just as awful as it was being born into the world only to witness the aftermath of such a horrific scene. Because now it felt like...he had stolen something from them before the other clones could discover themselves and become part of their family too. And why should he, a mere program, be the only one who gets to experience their father’s love from now on...? He didn’t do anything special to deserve it, didn’t help their father in any meaningful way, so why-!

Vlad notices this panic and tries to put his hand on Daniel’s arm to comfort the boy, but just as before it falls through. Daniel’s face falls at the outcome, longing for that kind of comfort from his Father, but Vlad looks between his hand and Daniel’s arm thoughtfully. Furrowing his brow, he turns his hand intangible and slowly it moves forward until somehow, impossibly, Vlad’s hand wraps around Daniel’s arm.

The boy gasps. “You’re…you’re touching me. I can feel that.” His head whips up to Vlad’s face. “I can feel your hand. You’re touching me. Father, you’re touching me.”

The man laughs, “You’re stuck intangible, my boy. Your signature is too weak to manifest a full body so the projector is helping you do that to some degree. But you appear to be stuck like this for the time being.”

Daniel blinks, slowly taking in that new information before he wraps his arms around his father. The man then turns completely intangible and, now occupying the same level of reality, the two can finally touch.

Daniel begins crying and clings to him, whispering, “Father.”

Vlad ruffles his hair and cradles the boy’s head close to him, barely believing that this is finally possible. “I am so sorry, son. I am sorry I couldn’t see you before. But you are real.” He whispers in return with equally as much hope in his voice. “I promise you are real. I wish I deserved your love but I will strive to be worthy of your affection, my boy. I won’t make the same mistake again. I promise.”

He steps back, putting his intangible hands on Daniel’s face.

Daniel smiles at him through the tears and nods. “I… I love you so much. And...I forgive you, Father.”

His smile falls as Vlad pulls away, wishing this moment between them could last longer and sad it had to end so soon. Luckily, Vlad understands this and promises. “Don’t worry son. We’ll find a way for you to manifest fully and then we can embrace any time you wish.”

Daniel tilts his head questioningly and Vlad clarifies. “Your core needs to be stimulated more from now on to strengthen it and help it mature. Once it is strong enough, you will be able to form a tangible ghost form.” The man tapes his chin. “That said, we’ll still need to integrate some technology to hold your code too since that is also an integral part of you.”

“So he’s basically a ghost cyborg?” Danny finally added. “Kinda like Skulker?”

“I suppose that is an accurate assessment.” Vlad added. “Or it would be if Skulker wasn’t merely a blob ghost himself in a robotic battle suit. If anything, Daniel has more in common with Technus given their ability to manipulate technology to some degree which is how I assume he was able to make contact with you several months ago...”

After things settle down, the older half-ghost and his new son talk for a while more, many overdue hugs are given, and plans are made to help Daniel become a true part of Vlad’s family. Danny watches, greatly surprised at the exchange but also wary. It looks like Vlad wants to make up for what he’s done to Daniel, but the man has still committed many terrible crimes so Danny isn’t convinced he was worthy of getting a happy ending just yet.

Vlad has hurt a lot more people than just Daniel. He’s done a lot of horrible things to Danny himself, his parents, and mistreated Danielle and the other clones which his friend only knows so much about but that’s sure to come back to bite Vlad in the butt later. Either way, Vlad still has a long way to go, but...after seeing his determination to make amends to Daniel Danny hopes this means his archenemy is finally turning over a new leaf.

#Danny Phantom #Danny Program AU #My fic #Danny clones #Vlad Masters

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ecto-american · 3 years

Text

Stuck (Stubbornly)

Phic Phight Oneshot for @deuynndoodles : Jack and Maddie are stuck in the Ghost Zone. Fortunately for them, Phantom's around and willing to help out. However, they'll rather be arrested by a ghost warden and put in ghost jail before they'd allow some teenage menace to help them. Oh wait...

Read on AO3 or FFN

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"Should we call Jazz or Danny?" Jack suggested.

Maddie stared out into the unending void of the Ghost Zone. It hurt to think that their voyage, a trip that they had been planning out for months, would end so soon already, but they had barely made any progress when they realized just how much fuel the Specter Speeder was guzzling. Something was wrong.

"...Not yet," she determined. "We should have emergency fuel. We should be able to get back without any problems. Can you refill?"

"You got it," Jack replied, and he got out of the co-pilot seat. She could hear him go to the back, and shuffling around. He didn't say anything for a while, and that immediately began to unnerve her, but she kept her attention on the dashboard, trying to think of what went wrong when building. Was their fuel lines loose? Was there gas leaking everywhere? "Uh, Mads? I'm not seeing it?"

Her blood froze, but no need to panic. Maybe he just didn't see…

Maddie walked to the back and checked. And checked. Moved some stuff around, checked some more.

They had no emergency fuel.

"Why don't we go outside and check the engine?" Jack suggested. "Maybe we can figure something out." With a dry mouth, she nodded, and they hesitantly went outside to check.

There were no ghosts around, thankfully, just an endless green void. They knew that they would be safe breathing in the GZ air, thanks to their prior tests and experiments. They hooked themselves to a rope using a carabiner clip, the other end tied tightly to the speeder. Floating unnerved her, and she kept a hand on the speeder as they went to the front of the speeder. Jack popped the hood, and smoke floated out, making Maddie's heart sink. This was definitely not a good sign at all, or something that could be a simple fix.

"Need some help?"

Maddie looked over her shoulder to see…

"Absolutely not," she scowled. Phantom was floating nearby.

"Are you sure?" he asked. He floated up a bit higher to glance at their vehicle. "Looks like you got. Well, uh, basically car trouble."

"Leave. Now."

Phantom opened his mouth to say more, but Maddie pulled her ecto-gun out.

"We don't want help from some lowlife ghost!" she hissed. Phantom put his hands up in surrender and flew away.

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An hour passed, and they decided to take a break working on the engine. Every possible problem that she could think of had been exhausted, and she had to take a break to both cool down and think. She sat on the steps leading into the speeder, with Jack deciding to lay on the floor of the inside.

"Fuel line wasn't broken, none of the lines were cut or had knicks. There's no reason it should be draining so much gas," Jack thunk aloud. "There shouldn't be anything besides the engine that the gas is going to, and there's no weird random connections to anywhere else. The battery's still good."

"And we forgot the emergency fuel," Maddie slumped over. Jack sighed.

"It's my own fault," he replied. "I should have checked to make sure Jazz and Danny had properly put all the supplies in. A proper exploration team always triple checks before a voyage."

Maddie could only give a low hum of agreement as she stared out into the zone. She felt somebody pat the side of the speeder, and she scowled as she saw Phantom grinning at her, giving a half way.

"What are you doing here?" she hissed.

"I brought help this time," Phantom told her, and he jerked a thumb behind him. It was finally then that she noticed the Red Huntress. Maddie raised an eyebrow.

"How in the world…" she murmured, only to trail off as she stared at the two of them. Jack sat up, and he poked his head out of the speeder.

"Oh dope! It's my favorite huntress!" Jack boomed. Red seemed bashful at the comment, shifting her weight onto her other foot and rubbing her upper arm.

"I mean, if you don't trust me or want my help, I figured you'd be willing to let a human help," Phantom explained, motioning towards Red.

"So, do you need help?" Red finally spoke up. She reached down to pat her left calf. "I have some tools with me, but I can always go and fetch more."

Something in Maddie's gut told her that this was very, very odd. Humans and ghosts working together so...willingly like this. She had taken note that Phantom and Red hadn't hunted each other down or fought like they used to, but she just assumed that they didn't quite run into each other that much anymore. Both were unpredictable with odd schedules and routines.

She glanced at Jack, who despite his initial enthusiasm, seemed to share her feelings, and she shook her head no.

"We'll be fine," she insisted. "You two should leave."

Red stared at Phantom, who shrugged his shoulders.

"So, wanna just go get some boba tea?" Phantom asked.

"And just leave them here?" Red scowled, motioning to the Fentons.

"They don't want our help," he replied. Red glanced from Phantom and the Fentons, who studied the two of them. She finally shrugged as well.

The two began to idly chat as they flew off, their conversation becoming more and more distant.

"That was weird," Maddie mused.

"Yeah, I thought she and Phantom were rivals," Jack mused. Maddie shrugged. Right now she wasn't too invested in the mystery. She'd worry about that later when they got home.

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Judging by their phones (which they had worriedly learned that they oh-so-helpfully had no reception in the land of the undead), another hour passed since Phantom and Red had left. Jack was deep into the engine, fiddling with a possible solution to the problem as Maddie stood nearby. She continued to think as she looked around. She was surprised that they hadn't been bothered by now.

"Trespassing in an unauthorized vehicle that is also a real world item," a deep southern voice boomed. Well, she absolutely spoke too soon.

They whipped their heads to see a huge, hulking figure, an all white man with a black hat, black gloves and wearing a suit of white.

"Ghost!" Jack squawked. He scrambled to grab his gun, Maddie already having hers drawn. The ghost frowned deeply. Maddie was finally very aware of just how many ghosts were surrounding them. Too many to count, but they all looked exactly like the ghosts that terrorized Amity Park years before, all identical and matching in uniform that resembled a SWAT team. There was also vehicles resembling police cars and police vans.

"Resisting arrest. That's against the rules," he continued. He opened a large green and white book in his hands, flipping to another page. "Assault and battery with a deadly weapon." He glanced up at them with an angry glare. "Y'all are going away for a long, long time."

"We're not going anywhere," Jack frowned. He charged up his weapon.

Maddie looked around, and she shivered anxiously. There was no way they could take on all these ghosts. She nudged Jack, and he side-eyed her curiously. She lowered her weapon, and she used her head to motion around them. Jack blinked as he looked himself, and all of his confidence left him. He also lowered his weapon.

"We'll go," Maddie finally spoke. The ghost smirked, and he knocked on the side of a police van. The back opened up.

"Surrender your weapons," he ordered.

One of the SWAT ghosts came forward with his arms outstretched. Reluctantly, the adults handed their weapons over, detaching themselves from the speeder and getting into the van.

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Their cell was a lot like a normal cell, and it was just them. Iron bars, no windows, single toilet, and four bunk beds. Jack was laying on one of the beds, facing the fall, as Maddie laid on the one across from him, staring up at the bunk bed above her.

Of course. Of course they ended up in ghost jail. It was just their luck. Though a scientist part of her was giddy at knowing that ghosts had some kind of legal system! Who would have known!

As she tried to start figuring out what on earth to do, she heard something banging against the jail bars.

She immediately sat up, staring to see Phantom making the noise by banging something in his hand on the bars. He was staring at them with a bright smile, and it only made her mood drop even more.

"Phantom!" Maddie hissed, standing fully and going up to the bars. "How did you find us?"

"We came back to check on you guys and see if you changed your minds," Phantom explained. Jack got up from his own bed to come over, looking surprised to see the infamous ghost teen. "Technus and Skulker were looting your speeder, and they said Walker arrested you. So we came by as quickly as we could."

The Fenton adults could see Red nearby, glancing around the corner. She was keeping watch.

"We're not going with you," Jack replied. Phantom rolled his eyes.

"Okay, and what? Stay here forever? Never see your kids again?" he asked. Their faces instantly dropped. "So do you wanna go home or not?"

Maddie narrowed her eyes at him before noticing that he was holding a metallic-looking cup of boba tea and raising an eyebrow.

"You brought a snack with you," she said. Phantom shrugged, offering it to her.

"Want a sip?"

"No! Just!" Maddie glanced at Jack worriedly, and he mirrored her expression. They, unfortunately, knew that they really...didn't have a choice. "Get us out of here!"

"Danny, you may wanna hurry it up," Red's voice called out softly to them. Maddie did a double take. Oh yeah. Danny Phantom. Huh, she kinda forgot about that.

Phantom nodded, and he dropped the boba tea, letting it float in the air as he phased them out of the jail cell. Maddie stared at him.

"Wait, you can just phase through?" she asked. Phantom shrugged.

"Uh, sorta yes, sorta no," he replied, grabbing his tea.

"Danny!" Red's voice hissed. Phantom glanced to her.

"Okay, so super quick rundown of Ghost Zone rules. In the Ghost Zone, you guys are the ghosts, so you basically can fly and phase through objects, so Red can phase through objects and you guys too, but this is also a human cell that only I can get you out, and speaking out getting out, we need to leave. Now," Phantom quickly explained. As soon as he finished, he motioned for them to follow him.

He began to fly towards Red, and they jogged after him. Phantom peered around the corner before pulling back. Red did too.

"How's our escape route looking?" Phantom asked. He took a sip of his drink as Red pulled up a map on her suit. She studied it for a bit.

"Hmm. We may run into some trouble," Red mused. "Best bet is for me to take Mr. and Mrs. Fenton and phase with them out of here, and…" She gave a weird pause. "We'll uh. Wait for you to escape on your own." Phantom sucked on his drink, and the sound of air coming through as he ran out of boba tea grinded Maddie's nerves.

"Oh would you just!" Maddie scowled, and she slapped the cup out of Phantom's hands.

"Hey! I paid for that!" Phantom cried out. He scrambled to pick it up. "They were having an unlimited refills special if you got that cup!" Red snorted in amusement.

"Danny, they kicked you out for getting too many refills anyway," she reminded him. Phantom made a face.

"Well maybe they shouldn't advertise it as unlimited refills then," he retorted.

"Most people don't drink twelve cups of boba tea," she replied.

"Maybe I should be rewarded for being able to drink that much then."

"Hm, we'll debate it later," Red replied. "Look, I'll get them out and meet you on the other side. Got it?"

"Got it," Phantom replied. To Maddie's horror and shock, Red lifted her visor up, but not all the way. Just enough to expose her lips, and she leaned into Phantom to give him a light peck on the lips.

"Be careful," she told him. Phantom nodded.

"I will," he promised. "If I'm not with you in five minutes. Just." He paused. "Leave without me, get the Fentons home, and then come back for me." Red nodded as her visor went all the way down.

"Grab my hands," Red instructed the Fentons. Maddie blinked, reluctantly taking one of her hands. Jack took the other. Red summoned her board, jumping in the air and allowing it to manifest beneath her. She held onto them tightly and flew through the walls.

Instinctively, Maddie closed her eyes as she flew through. Only to feel no impact. A blur of walls impaired her vision with constant flashes of the darkness of being in a thick jail wall and the light of the prison rooms and hallways. She blinked as the neutral green skies of the Ghost Zone finally greeted her, and Red continued flying until they were a decent distance from the prison. And now that she had a moment to think…

"What the hell are you thinking?" she exclaimed to Red. The huntress snapped her attention to her in confusion.

"What? You would have died if we let you stay in there!" she scowled.

"No, not that!" Maddie clarified. "I mean, thank you so much for helping us, but you? And Phantom?"

"Exactly!" Jack agreed. "He's an absolute menace! He's a danger! Don't you guys fight? What happened to all of that?"

She could see a glimpse of Red's face under her heavily tinted visor, and Maddie was sure that the girl looked embarrassed and was likely turning as red as her suit.

"Oh man, it's a looong story," Red sighed heavily. "Uh, best and easiest and quickest way I can explain it is; a lot of the things that made me angry with him was a misunderstanding, and I found out that he's...actually a really sweet guy. I know it's weird to say, but, um. Well, I've never met a guy who was so kind, thoughtful and romantic. My life's kinda hectic, and he just...he really goes out of his way to make it easier on me."

"How so?" Jack wondered.

"Well, like. He does a lot of my household chores and stuff like laundry, bringing me lunch when I have long shifts at work, listening to me when I have a bad day," she explained. "He makes life a lot easier and better."

How cute. If it wasn't between a dead teenage menace and this poor, obviously manipulated girl. It honestly reminded Maddie a lot of her own Danny and his little girlfriend, Valerie. Valerie told her a few times about Danny doing some of her chores at home since Valerie was so busy working and doing school. It kinda pissed Maddie off, since Danny never seemed to remember his own chores at home, but she never felt like bringing it up to him because, well, at least he was really good to her. She'd be ashamed of him if he was any lesser.

"Hey!" Phantom called out as he zoomed towards them. "Let's go! Quick!"

Red nodded. She passed Jack off to Phantom, and the two teenagers flew the Fentons home.

#phics #my phics #phic phight 2021

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thesoulspulse · 3 years

Video

I couldn’t sleep so I tried to put together an amv kind of thing for my Good Vlad AU. Sorry for the crappy quality, I don’t have the best video maker plus some audio ended up clipped weird which I had to do to try and make it sound like they were saying things in a totally different context.

Anywho, in this amv Jack and Maddie are feeling nostalgic cause they miss Vlad and they’re relieved things are at least ok between them after the accident since they both apologized to Vlad for what happened, especially Jack who is the most responsible for what happened. Just ignore that the first clip is technically of future Vlad’s hands holding this picture. Oh and when the lyrics sorta match up about Vlad liking Maddie just as a quick disclaimer his feelings are PURELY PLATONIC, aka it’s only admiration for her as a person.

Next up, when they suddenly get an special invite from him to come to his castle for their college reunion of course Jack and Maddie are excited to see their old college friend! As for Vlad, he’s not bitter like in the original series but he is a bit awkward and unsure how to tell them the truth about himself. But then those worries kind of go out the window when he discovers their son Danny is also half ghost. Also, Danny had a better impression of him before he found out about him since Vlad was really acting like the cool rich uncle to Danny and Jazz but they had a misunderstanding the night before the reunion and Vlad had to carry Danny back to his room unconscious after defending himself from the cranky teenage halfa.

Fast-forward to Vlad waking up the Ghost King like a dingus but this time it’s to remove him as a threat once and for all for Danny’s sake, not for some evil plot. Well, not exactly anyway even though he does want the crown and ring for his ghost relic collection. When Danny shows up to see Vlad in his house Vlad apologizes for showing up there unannounced since he had planned on visiting Fenton Works under better circumstances, but it’s nice showing that Vlad and Jack actually do get a along since they let bygones be bygones as he weaves a lie about how he ended up there and says how he appreciates his old friend’s kindness. Also, just fyi Maddie is mad at him for being reckless and getting hurt instead of before when in the show Vlad was a total creep to her and Danny in “Maternal Instinct.”

Still, behind the scenes Vlad has been doing a couple of sort of underhanded things for good reasons this time like making Valerie a ghost hunter too to help relieve some of Danny’s burden. And Vlad is genuinely impressed with her skills and didn’t want to waste the chance to tell her he’s proud of the work she’s done so he pulled her aside to do that.

As you can probably tell the song lyrics don’t really match up for the most part but again, this is just something I slapped together for the heck of it since I needed a distraction. Flawed as it is, I hope you enjoy it!

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flutteringdreams-matw · 3 years

Note

For DP 'the road to normal'

Is it possible to get a bonus clip of fenton's react to the king danny news?

Preferably during the "i dont WANT to be king" stage

Hmm... see this may be an Post-OoT scene but I also think this might be a hilarious interlude of them finding out about the possibility of him being King. I will circle back to this when I finish Out of Time Anon, but until then...

Kingdom Come (Road to Normal 12)

The attack came out of nowhere.

… Well - it wasn’t really an attack.

It started with a training session in the lab, Danny zipping about in the lab trying to avoid being hit by his parents. Dodging a well timed flurry he had yelled “I’m the king of dodging attacks!”

That was his downfall.

When the Ecto-Exodus alarm went off, they stood awaiting the mass ghost attack. The first ghost arrived, a small penguin with wide eyes. It smiled broadly. “My king!”

Danny fell out of the air, Jack dropped his weapon and Maddie’s mouth hung open.

“Your what?!”

The penguin bowed deeply. “It is so good to meet you!” it continued, more small ghosts coming through the portal and bowing at the teenager. Danny scrambled upright, looking quite unnerved at the ghosts.

“Uh, I hate to break it to you,” Danny said, scratching the back of his head. “But I think you have the wrong ghost.”

The small ghost shook its head. “You claimed your title,” it said brightly. “You said you were.”

“It got you there son,” Jack laughed. Danny shot him a dark look. “You did say you were a king of dodging attacks.”

Danny groaned. “I’m not the king!”

Maddie frowned, watching Danny carefully as her mind whirled in thought. “But you might be,” she whispered in disbelief.

Danny stilled. “What!?”

Maddie looked into her son’s wide eyes. “You beat the ghost king.”

Jack blinked, turning back to his wife. “You… did,” he confirmed. “You locked him away in the coffin.”

Danny paled, looking panicked. “Yeah but that doesn’t mean I’m the king!”

“The king!” the crowd of ghosts chanted proudly.

“Will you stop that?!” The half-ghost yelled. “I keep telling you, I’m not the king. I can’t be.”

There were murmurs in the crowd. “Didn’t you save the Christmas Truce last year?” a high pitched voice asked.

“After I caused it? Yeah I guess,” Danny replied flatly, looking over to his parents with a frown.

“And stopped Vortex? Undergrowth?” another called out.

“Well… yeah… but that doesn’t make me the king!”

“The king!”

Maddie’s eyes were wide. “Danny… how well do you know ghost politics?” she asked breathlessly.

“Mom! I’m not the King of Ghosts! I have no crown! No ring! Don’t you think someone would tell me if I was?” Danny buried his head in his hands. “This day cannot get any worse.”

“Great One?” Frostbite called, flying into the lab with a frown. The teen groaned as the small crowd of ghosts cheered at Frostbite’s arrival. “Are you alright?”

Danny groaned again. “Can you tell these guys I’m not the King?”

“The King!”

Frostbite observed the scene, from the eccentric smaller ghosts to the pale parents to the very uncomfortable teenager in front of him. “The King?” he asked apprehensively.

“The King!”

“I’m not!” Danny whined. “I keep telling you!”

Frostbite chuckled nervously. “Of course not!” he boomed, avoiding eye contact. “You’d need the crown!” He addressed the crowd below. “The Great One has much to attend to young ones, please leave him be until we coronate the next King.”

As the ghosts left grumbling, Danny sighed in relief. “Thanks Frostbite - dodged a bullet there.” He laughed uneasily. “Imagine me as a king. Just ‘cause I beat the Ghost King!”

Frostbite stiffened, not going unnoticed by the two parents. They shared an uneasy glance with the large ghost.

“I mean, the Ghost King would have a lot of power right? I doubt I’d have enough to qualify! Besides I’m still young, I gotta graduate high school! Ghost King? Pfft!”

Frostbite shook his head. “Perhaps let’s get on with your lesson,” he said, changing the topic. “Even if you did assume the throne, you’d still have to go through training before you were crowned.”

Danny stopped his rant. “But I’m not the King,” he stated.

“No,” Frostbite agreed. “You are not.”

“But you could be,” Jack said with a large smile. His eyes gleamed at the thought. Maddie slapped her face in embarrassment. “Couldn’t he Frostbite?”

“Dad, don’t even - I’m not - I don’t want-” He sputtered, breathing shallowly with wide green eyes. “Can we just… I don’t know… talk about anything else.”

“Whatever you say, your majesty.”

“Dad!”

They didn’t talk about this day for different reasons. Danny feared power and responsibility so he ignored it. Maddie and Jack for fear it was true and what that would mean for their son’s life.

Frostbite never spoke of it for fear of Clockwork’s wrath.

Links to previous:Eye for an Eye Infinite Realms Girls Night Out Torrent of Terror Forever Phantom Urban Jungle Livin' Large Boxed Up Fury Frightmare Claw of the Wild D-Stabilized Ectostorm Series

Suggestions welcome!

#danny phantom #humour #Fenton Family #the road to normal #drabble #suggestions welcome #ectostormseries #somewhere in season 3

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sanchoyo · 3 years

Text

danny phantom, season 3 episodes 3-6 thoughts!

see prev episode thoughts in this tag <3

-johnny was actually pretty civil with danny and left when he asked! thats nice. also, SKULKER?? HAD A FRAMED PICTURE OF EMBER?? oooo fuck wait had they established they were a Thing Before?? I dont think so. thats weird. its like that country boy/goth girl meme lmfao. I think i am going to choose to ignore this new info and pretend I didnt hear it. 100% unrelated to the jazz/ember fanart I already drew and posted....😳

-LADIES NIGHT EPISODE THIS IS WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT. wish it didnt really center around the guys or them being pissed at them, but. willing to bet this was written by men lol

-THEY ERASED ALL THE MEN??? meanwhile, jack and danny are fishing at. silent hill or something. im glad jack is trying to read a parenting book and making an Attempt. (theyre at lake erie, but, they made it actually eerie...thats fun)

-the girls alt outfits...cute. EMBER MADE A NEW SONG TOO!!! kinda. jazz being one of the backup singers and being AWFUL. NOOOO

-'how are we going to get kitty to blow a kiss?' 'she'll have to think there are still some males in town!' ...i dont know how to break it to you, but I dont know that a 100% het girl would wish for all men to Begone. I think. I mean im not a het or a girl so I dont really know for sure. she Is probably Bi tho. esp having the other ladies in town chanting NO MEN!!! excitedly............(then again, the kiss is to get Rid of men, so, she probably would have blown it at the ladies only if they were actively trying to attack/stop them, so...I MEAN. THE DRESSING LIKE DANNY BIT WAS SO EXTRA)

-I feel like an all female cast ep couldve been way way way way cooler than that was. like. why was it still somehow all about Men. ...anyway. (where was valerie...)

-next ep opens with the observants, and, way way more of them than I expected...existed? I mean I guess them being a council/jury of some kind is what I expected from their first appearance (bc at that time they were basically TELLING clockwork to kill danny, not asking,, so I figured they had SOME kind of authority) but. there were so many. anyway, here goes vlad! letting his own hubris go brrrr. releasing a weather ghost for political gain! #justvladthings

-okay say what you will about him (he IS an asshole) but having an umbrella with his own face on it and more prepared to share is SUPER FUNNY. and him being fanned by huge wads of money by his bodyguards. SO ineffective but so Dramatic. He UNDERSTANDS that if youre rich you need to be. you know. obnoxious and kinda eccentric about it! fuckign hate when rich people are boring about it. I would trust vlad with nothing except to not be a boring rich asshole who wears...fucking khaki or some shit. man knows his Presentation Skills. and that 'V' chair in his mayoral office. is that fucking embroidered?

-maddie get your MAN PLEEEEASSSE. IM SO EMBARRASSED FOR HER. the way jack stays simping for this man. in FRONT OF HIS WIFE!!!! ...my god its like a love triangle. jack clearly loves vlad, who loves maddie, who loves jack. jack fenton is at the very least bi, right................. this is an OBSESSION . 'THE V MAN COMETH'???? i...my god. (also, on a serious note, to have a friend THIS SUPPORTIVE...and still be SUCH A DICK TO HIM (TRYING TO KILL HIM AND STEAL HIS WIFE??) NOT COOL VLAD. JACK IS YOUR 1 AND /ONLY/ HYPE MAN. if someone loved and supported me THIS HARD...LIKE. CMON DUDE.

-STOMP the fucking GAS, JACK

-this would make a great shirt design, looks like a metal band design! we love The Maelstrom

-oh, so vlad did in fact get a mansion in amity park. and its purple! good color choice! not as flashy as a CASTLE or MURDER CABIN, but still pretty eccentric, which I appreciate.

-...vlad knows the difference between picasso and da vinci? in the ep last post where we were watching him fail at conquering every historical time ever he didnt seem to know history well enough to like. be effective...was vlad taking art history at college?? (was he an art MAJOR??? we never DID KNOW WHAT HE WENT TO SCHOOL FOR. I kinda assumed business because in the masters of time ep he was still rich without ghost powers so he had to have..known something about business or something, right...but also, art and or theater FITS HIS PERSONALITY. possibly also something science-y, I guess, but I always felt like he got roped into that, esp how pessimistic he was about the ghost portal in the flashbacks to college, like, i felt like he was just there for maddie and was uninterested/un-invested at the time...)

-THIS GHOST JUST ELECTROCUTED MADDIE (THE CAT) BITCH!! THATS MY FAVORITE MADDIE!!! vlad going after vortex and being ~shocked~ .....WHEN. WHEN WILL YOU LEARN. THAT YOUR ACTIONS. HAVE CONSEQUENCES!!!

-the way this random man with a camera sees the mayor laying in an alley covered in TRASH AND DECIDES TO TAKE A PICTURE HAHAH

*snap* this ones going in my cringe compilation!

-vlad 'if we're going to defeat vortex, we're going to have to do it together!' *immediately dips after dropping danny off in front of vortex* JKASDFHKJHJKN

-DANNY CAN DUPLICATE!!! ...he couldnt even attack with it, but he DID IT!!! INTO (4) OF HIMSELF!!! SO PROUD!!!!!!!!!!

-'THE ROLLER COASTER EMOTIONS OF A TEENAGER THREATEN MY PLANS!' ...0 self awareness of his own dramatic moodiness. incredible, how dumb this man is. its very close to circling around to endearing, if he was less of an asshole. at least its very very funny to see danny shooting him with tiny lightning bolts anytime he's even slightly irritated! vlad you should be nice to danny anyway. this is what you GET

-...making sandwiches and ice cream and playing video games with your nephew is a totally normal thing. WHY is vlad acting like this is the end of the world. if you were a GOOD UNCLE YOU WOULD ALREADY BE DOING THESE THINGS!!! bitch I make my nephew food all the time and dont forget what he does and doesnt like. if u didnt know danny didnt want tomatoes, thats on u. if u, a grown adult, are gonna piss of the 14 yr old by not letting him win, u deserve to have to pay for the arcade machines he ruins because he now has uncontrollable storm powers because YOU THREW HIM INTO A FIGHT WITH THE STORM GHOST. fuck u vlad. paypal me $400,000 while ur at it tho. (also, gamer vlad confirmed)

-VLAD CAN COOK THOUGH???! I assumed he had...people working for him that did that. I mean. billionaires usually dont do that. then again, we've only seen those vultures working for him (and I guess the dairy king was AT his old mansion, but it was never really clarified if he worked there...I think he probably just Hung Out and they Enjoyed Cheeses Together. thats what I think, I dont think a KING would be working for anyone and also the dairy king was nice <3) but then again he would be a private person and we cant have anyone accidentally finding Ghostly Things, so...still, that's hilarious. pour one out for that really cute banana split that got ruined 2 seconds later

-vlad just fucking picking danny up and THROWING HIM AT VORTEX TWICE WITHIN LIKE A MINUTE. JUST ABSOLUTELY LAUNCHING HIM. BITCH THATS MY SON BE CAREFUL!!! HES GOT ORGANS AND THINGS!!!!

-danny seeing those animal commercials and feeling sad is the biggest 2000s throwback so far. i legitimately had to change the channel or walk out of the room when those came on bc id CRY AND BE SAD ABOUT THEM FOR DAYS AFTER. fuck those commercials and fuck that IN THE ARMMMS OF AN ANGELLLL song 😭

-'vlads ego almost got the town destroyed!' yes danny thats the entire episode. the entire series anytime vlad shows up honestly. this episode was just him being really embarrassing the entire time, and, me laughing about it. 10/10 would laugh at him again

-NEXT EP WE HAVE A SHAPESHIFTING GHOST?? I've said it before but shapeshifting is the power I would want when asked those 'what superpower do you want' questions...its the Best power! this guy looks like a homestuck character. ive never read homestuck but thats the vibe

-I love every time we see tuckers family, they are by far the most functional family. and dash has a lil chihuahua!!! named pookie!!! i am crying (I've had 3 chihuahuas, so I am very biased, but...) AND HE WATCHES THE ROMANCE CHANNEL WITH POOKIE. POOKIE I WILL DIE FOR YOU YOU SWEET LITTLE BABY.

-danny can lift a bus! I shouldn't be surprised, but i am proud of my son. hes got lil kid fans. i am going to cry about this

-JAZZ KEEPS A SCRAPBOOK WITH DANNY'S LIL HEROICS AND NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS!!! we've actually seen it on her floor before, but I didnt realize it was a scrapbook!! thats sooo cute.

-...and danny has to stand there listening to his parents saying danny phantom sucks and is a 'filthy ghost' and calling him egotistical...i am once again stealing their kids!

-THIS GHOST RIPPING JAZZ'S SCRAPBOOK!!! ILL KILL YOU. SHE WORKED HARD ON THAT!!! BITCH

-yes, maddie, the one with red eyes is For Sure Actually Your Son. ignore the, red eyes... (CLEARLY she hasnt watched the other 2 eps where danny has been evil, she doesnt know red eyes= evil!!!)

-'billy fenton'.......................

-danny being stuck as phantom in his own house, no way out is a fucking NIGHTMARE. his parents pointing giant weapons against him and SHOOTING AT HIM. THIS IS A HORROR MOVIE.

-NINE INCH NAILS POSTER.

-this is the most screenshot of all time

-amorpho turning into mr. lancer because hes 'someone no one will want to be around' BUT HES WRONG, I WOULD BEFRIEND AND HANG OUT WITH MR LANCER SO FAST.

-tucker dressing as danny, now I have the full Tucker set of him being sam and also being danny. also saying 'the ghost...uh...RIPPED MY FACE OFF.' and then running. SMOOTH. NOT AT ALL CONCERNING TO ANY PARENTS.

-sam accepts the toast from jack. and then 2 seconds later is like 'why am i eating this.' THIS SHOWS HUMOR IS SO UNEXPECTED SOMETIMES ITS REALLY GOOD. and then the scene after, mr lancer running into his ghost doppelganger and being like 'YOURE GORGOUS' THEN FAINTING. I AM CRYING. AND DASH FAINTING TOO.

-sam disguising herself as danny again to help tucker run from the fentons. but leaving him shirtless in the streets. incredible. 'plEASE DOnt NOTice MY FACELessNESS I MUST LIVE IN EXILE' this episode is destroying me the humor in this show is exactly my brand of corny and cheesy

-the impromtu story made up by danny and amorpho to explain stuff to the fentons. my god they are both such bad liars. but amorpho is a good egg. wish danny wouldnt have said he didnt wanna see him in town again!! I want him to be reoccurring. not that thats gonna matter since I'm almost done with the series, but the idea of this being the Only Time We See him is :(

-NEXT EP SAYS STARRING MARK HAMILL??????!!! hello ! mr . joker....mr. star wars.... I feel like I should be. idk. taking off a hat im not wearing in respect. I shouldnt be surprised tho bc hes in a lot of cartoons as a very good voice actor, and dp has already had a lot of talented ones so I've been looking out for ones I might know, but....mr. hamill....

-sam has her own greenhouse, names all the plants, and says thank you to them (in the languages from where the plants are from) whenever she harvests from them. thats SO cute. and her lil gothy lunch box...

-and danny's lil red fuzzy lined jacket!!! ive said it before but every time the characters get alt outfits im like :D

-danny has ice powers now!!! THATS WHAT FROSTBITE MEANT. HE KNEW SOMEHOW WAY BACK THEN

-THIS SHOW NEVER LETS YOU FORGET VLAD IS A BILLIONAIRE, HUH.

-danny's lil 'holy hibiscus!' first off the 50s batman swearing is hilarious. 2nd. my username is from the flower sanchoyo hibiscus, so, shoutout to ME this ep. hi :)

-EURGH UNDERGROWTH MAKING EVERYONE PLANT ZOMBIES. HIVEMIND PLOTS SCARE THE SHIT OUT OF ME. and this dude made the city SO overtaken so quickly like how long was danny asleep?? oh god

-evil fucked up sam! now the whole trio has gone evil at some point! the voice actress did a really, really good job with making her sound like a zombie...

-frostbite's paws are so so so big compared to danny. oh my god. i want to hug the snow dog...

-the far frozen has an advanced medical stuff!!! very cool. very smart snow dogs

-im so glad danny has a friendly ghost snow dad to explain this new power and teach him!!! this is so sweet. DANNY'S GHOST SENSE WAS A PART OF HIS ICE POWER?? OOOH. COOL. we love a training montage!!!

-danny saying if he cant defeat overgrowth, that he'd want to stay with frostbite...oh my god...do you think this is the first real supportive adult figure in his life (I am NOT counting his parents because they threaten him on the daily even if they dont realize it.) I mean mr lancer is a Teacher, but he was also nice but this is different, but this is a GHOST WHO IS WILLING TO HELP HIM with his powers and also will help him when hes injured and is so so nice and comparatively so much more mature than 90% of the adults in this show!!!! god. dad frostbite is my everything.

-the framing and lighting this episode, and all the angles...they went all OUT and it looks really really good. this is my nightmare scenario, tho. like, FUCK zombies and dead city zones and hivemind shit. and using the humans as 'nutrients for the children' i am going to THROW UP.

-MALEFICENT VIBES WITH THE HORNS AND GREEN EYES! this costume kicks so much ass. sam is now mark hamills daughter, I guess.

-danny's ice powers making his eyes blue!!! thats neat. and him going for the roots underground was SO SMART. i will not stand for danny ever thinking hes stupid, hes SO smart.

almost done with the show... :"( thats a sad thought!!!

#sanchoyorambles #dp thoughts #danny phantom

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darks-ink · 4 years

Text

Got My Reasons

“Doing the right thing for the wrong reason doesn’t make it good!” His glow flickered wildly, coalescing and twirling like flames. His eyes burned bright like a jack-’o-lantern’s. “Just because you helped me doesn’t make you the better person!” “You practically served yourself up to us,” she retorted, her voice flat. “What else did you expect, a heavily injured ghost unconscious in the vehicle of ghost hunters?”

Prompt: After being seriously wounded in a fight, Danny collapses inside the Fenton GAV to recoup. When his parents are called to the ghost sighting a few minutes later, however, they don’t notice who they’ve brought along for the ride Prompt by: @sapphireswimming Word count: 7,625

[AO3] [FFN] [more Phic Phight fics]

Content warning: descriptions of serious injuries, kinda terrible medical practice. The usual. But it’s all okay in the end!

---

The GAV screeched to a sudden halt, Maddie already half out the door before it had stopped. The ghost on the road in front of them roared, baring oversized fangs at the vehicle.

She rushed around the car, pulling open the doors in the back with force. A weapon. That’s all she needed. A weapon, ASAP.

The thought distracted her enough that she stumbled, almost falling over something out of place in the GAV. She barely caught herself on one of the shelves, already turning to scold Jack, when she saw—

“Phantom,” she whispered, feeling her brain grind to a halt.

Because it was, without a doubt, Phantom. The ghost seemed to be severely injured, splattered in green ectoplasm. It dripped over Phantom’s side, staining the wall of the GAV that he leaned against. One hand was pressed loosely against his side, but the ghost’s eyes were closed, and he hadn’t responded to her tripping over him, either. Passed out? But that wasn’t possible, was it?

She bit her lip. The ghost outside was a bigger threat. Maddie knew she had to focus on that one, first. Phantom was clearly in no state to leave, but…

Her hand touched the familiar metal curve of a Fenton Thermos.

Without another thought, she uncapped the device. Phantom was dragged in without another movement, not even stirring in the slightest. This was a perfect opportunity to study him, and the Thermos would preserve him until the right time.

With that settled, Maddie turned to grab a gun. Jack needed her. Phantom would come later.

---

“Uh, Maddie?” Jack’s voice rang from the back of the car, and she paused. “Why is there ectoplasm splattered all over the inside of the GAV?”

She blinked for a moment before realization struck. “It’s Phantom!” she yelled back, already turning to walk back. “I found him seriously injured and passed out in the back of the van, but we had to go deal with that attacking ghost.”

Now next to her husband, she clambered inside. The Thermos was still where she had left it, and she grabbed it. Let’s not get that one confused with the others. “I caught him in this Thermos. Not sure how bad his injuries really are, but this way he would be stable until we could look at him.”

“Good thinking!” Jack grinned, climbing into the GAV next to her to stow their weapons. “Passed out, though?”

“He didn’t move, not even when I tripped on him.” She frowned at the Thermos in her hand. “It was… strange. He was completely unresponsive, but he was still together. Leaking ectoplasm, but only from his injuries. Not destabilized.”

“Odd,” her husband agreed, clicking the last gun into its place. “I guess we have our work cut out for us!”

“Indeed.” She turned the Thermos, slowly, gazing at the meter in its side. It was startlingly full, a measure not just of mass but also of a ghost’s strength. Considering that Phantom was the only one in the Thermos… “Why don’t you drive us back, honey?”

His excitement would turn him in an even more reckless driver than usual, she guessed, but… she didn’t want to risk Phantom escaping.

Briefly, she considered clipping the Thermos onto her belt, but no. It felt safer in her hands, even as she had to take one off of the device to climb into the passenger’s seat of the GAV.

Their drive back home was… well. It was certainly fast.

Before she knew it, Maddie was clambering out of the GAV with one hand, the Thermos clenched in her other. “I’ll go prep the lab. Jack, bring in the spent weaponry and the other ghost, please?”

“Gotcha!” He bounded away to the back of the GAV while Maddie walked to their front door, quickly unlocking it. The house was empty inside—Danny was off with his friends, and Jazz away to the library—but that had become rather common these days.

At least she wouldn’t have to worry about either of them protesting their capture of Phantom. She didn’t understand it, the youth’s insistence that the ghost was good, but she certainly didn’t understand how her own children had fallen for Phantom’s tricks.

Well, it would be a problem no longer. Once she and Jack were done with their studies of Phantom, the ghost would no longer trick anybody.

Maddie left the Thermos on one of the mostly empty tables, quickly putting away the few things that were on it. She rolled a trolley over, paused. Rolled her eyes and emptied that, too.

By the time Jack had made it downstairs, their used weaponry stacked in a pile to the side—she made a quick mental note to make sure those were taken care of later—Maddie had finished preparing the table and the trolley. She had stalled out a large assortment of tools they might want or need for their inspection of Phantom.

There were no straps on the table—they had removed them due to the diversity in ghosts’ bodies—but she didn’t think they would need them, anyway. Phantom had been so weakened… He hadn’t even fought back when she’d tripped over him, when she’d captured him.

“Ready, Jack?” she asked, picking up the Thermos again. “We won’t know how he’ll act.”

“Ready,” her husband confirmed. He flexed his fingers, the metal ghost-proof gauntlets shifting with the movement. “I’ll hold him if he tries to escape.”

Maddie nodded, twisting the cap off of the Thermos. With a whir, it unloaded its contents, spitting Phantom onto the table.

The ghost groaned as he hit the surface, his limbs twitching slightly. He seemed slightly more awake than in the GAV, but not much. Didn’t even try to leave the table.

Ectoplasm gushed from several injuries all over Phantom’s body, the liquid spilling onto the table already.

“Not looking good, Phantom,” Jack commented, disengaging the gauntlets. Clearly they wouldn’t need them to restrain Phantom.

Phantom groaned again, a warble of sound that might’ve been intended as an answer. Definitely awake, then, but in poor condition.

She moved to roll him onto his back. Frowned at the deep slice in his side, right where the ribs would be on a human. The inside of the injury glimmered with fresh ectoplasm but it didn’t spill, not nearly as freely as she would’ve expected. No, the surface-level ectoplasm seemed… almost crystallized, a solid instead of a liquid.

Frowning, with one hand bracing Phantom, she reached in. The ectoplasm certainly felt solid under her probing finger.

Phantom groaned again, his left arm shifting slightly, like a weak attempt at batting her away.

“He seems to have some form of ectoplasmic bones,” she reported to Jack, finally rolling Phantom over all the way. The ghost twitched, his left hand wandering back to the slice. His eyes, he kept closed. “But his injuries are severe. He might destabilize before we finish our research.”

“That’d be a waste.” Jack frowned at the ghost on their table, too. “We’ll have to stabilize him. This is the first ghost with those kind of traits we’ve seen. We can’t risk losing him.”

That, at least, they agreed on. “We’ll need to close the injuries, stop him from losing too much ectoplasm. Can you get a needle and thread?” She looked back at Phantom, his complexion seeming to pale. “Fishing line if you can find it, but normal thread might be enough to tide him over for now.”

Phantom muttered something again, a whining noise that didn’t quite make it to words. It was odd. Maddie had been sure the ghost always spoke in perfect English, yet he seemed to be conversing in something else now. She was almost tempted to consider it a ghostly language of sorts, but why would such a thing exist? Ghosts weren’t intelligent enough for a society, let alone a language that drove such a thing.

“I found some fishing line, but not nearly enough for all his injuries.” Jack handed her the first aid kit, a sterile needle and clean thread, as well as a ball of tangled phase-proof wire. “… and I’ll have to untangle it first,” he added on, sheepishly.

“We’ll have to risk the normal thread.” She reached for the needle, then paused. Looked at Phantom. “It… His structure seems far more complicated than that of other ghosts. Should we see if he has a layer of skin underneath the jumpsuit? Stitching the two together might cause harm.”

Jack nodded, already grabbing Phantom’s right hand—the one not pressed against an injury. He hooked his fingers underneath the edge of Phantom’s white glove, carefully peeling it off.

As she had half expected, the glove came off entirely, damaged but not destabilizing even when removed from the ghost it belonged to. And underneath it, Phantom’s hand was… almost normal. The skin was the same cool tone as his face, a thousand small details she never would’ve expected a ghost to have, especially on a surface not usually exposed to sight.

“Let’s strip the rest, too,” Jack said, dropping the glove next to Phantom’s side. He reached for Phantom’s left hand, but hesitated. “The jumpsuit, at least. But, Maddie, what detail.”

“He’s unlike every other ghost we’ve tested so far,” she agreed. From this close, she could see the exquisite detail in Phantom’s clothing, too. A zipper hidden in the edge of his collar, which she tugged down to unzip the front of his suit. “And you couldn’t even tell from the way he acted! I wonder how many more are like this? Is it related to their strength?”

Phantom’s jumpsuit peeled apart to reveal a pale chest. Several smaller cuts littered his front, previously unnoticed due to the splatters of ectoplasm. The structure of it was, again, oddly detailed and human like.

Jack whistled, low. “What a scar, Mads! I wonder if it’s related to his death?”

“Why would he have scars of an event he doesn’t remember?” She zipped the jumpsuit down to his belt, working his right arm out of the sleeve. “I’d consider it more likely that it’s an old injury he got in a ghost fight. Maybe he kept it for intimidation purposes, to show that he won from a ghost with a certain level of power.”

“But then, why not show it off?” Jack asked, helping her by lifting Phantom up slightly. The ghost groaned, quietly, but didn’t try to stop them. “Why hide it under his suit?”

“He might’ve changed his appearance to appear more tame towards Amity Park’s citizens.” She rolled the right side of the jumpsuit down to Phantom’s hips, but that left the other side. “Jack, why don’t you keep pressure on that cut, and I’ll take off the rest of the jumpsuit?”

Her husband nodded, bustling over to press his hands against Phantom’s side. The ghost hissed, a strange warble and click to the sound, like a layer of audible static. His left hand batted at Jack’s hand, weakly, but it stilled quickly. The ghost went limp against the table.

“Did he pass out?” Jack asked, leaning over Phantom without taking his hands off of the injury. “Well, that’ll make our job easier, at least.”

She hummed as she peeled off Phantom’s left glove, slick with ectoplasm. His hand was sturdier than she would’ve expected of a ghost, a clear sign that his bone-like constructions extended into his hands. The skin was… surprisingly human-like, too cool but not as icy cold as ghosts usually were.

Maddie dropped the glove with the one already on the table, turning to lay down Phantom’s hand, when she noticed its appearance.

“Jack, look.” She held up the hand, her fingers tracing the extensive scarring. Its texture differed from the rest of the skin, rough and ragged like an actual scar. It seemed to originate in the palm, branching outwards from there, all the way down his wrist and into the cuff of his jumpsuit. It glowed, faintly, brightest at the palm. “Do you think it’s the same scar as on his chest?”

“Only one way to find out, huh?” Jack twisted his head to nod at Phantom’s face. “He has some kind of bruising on his throat, somehow. Green instead of purple, but you can’t mistake that kind of splotching.”

“At least we won’t have to worry about a crushed windpipe.” She twisted his arm out of the sleeve, feeling the bones in his shoulder shift with the movement. Definitely a human-like skeleton. How odd. “There we go. Definitely one large electrical scar, with the extremes in the palm of his hand and on his chest.”

Jack shifted his hands, allowing her to push the jumpsuit down to Phantom’s hips entirely. Now, they could see the ragged edges of the injury, the way it had torn Phantom’s… skin, for lack of better word, apart.

“Whoever, or whatever, he fought must’ve been something vicious,” Jack commented. Green ectoplasm continued to bubble up around his black gloves.

“Loathe as I am to say it, it was a good thing that Phantom dealt with it.” She looked over Phantom’s other injuries, but none seemed as threatening as the one on his side. “Something like this would’ve killed a human almost instantly.”

She picked up the needle, taking it out of its packaging. Using sterile tools might not be necessary, but Phantom was already defying what they knew of ghosts. Better not risk it.

“He must’ve caught it, at least,” Jack said as she threaded the needle. “If he was in the back of our GAV, the fight must’ve ended. Not sure where the Thermos went, though.”

Maddie gestured, and Jack shifted, pinching the injury closed instead of covering it up. She stuck the needle through, swiftly, but Phantom didn’t move.

“Definitely passed out,” she commented, moving to pinch the injury closed herself. “I’ve got this, Jack. Can you go look over the rest of his injuries?”

“Well, he has those bruises on his neck.” Jack paused, placing his fingers against the bare throat. “They seem… finger-like? Like someone tried to strangle him. A ghost my size, maybe?”

She threaded the needle through Phantom’s side again. “But why try to choke him out? That’d do nothing to him, he’s a ghost!”

“Maybe they were trying to snap his neck, instead?” Jack made an uncertain noise, moving up to Phantom’s head. “If he has something like bones, they gotta serve some purpose, right? So maybe breaking his spine would’ve disabled him, like with a human?”

“But as a ghost, his most important part is the core in his chest, not the brain.” She was making steady progress on Phantom’s side. The ghost still hadn’t stirred. He’d better not destabilize, not after all the effort they put into preserving him. “Unless he needs his head for some kind of offensive power, snapping his neck wouldn’t have done them any good.”

“There might not be any logic behind it, anyway,” Jack pointed out. “We’re talking about ghosts, after all. Maybe this wasn’t an attempt at strangling at all, but just the most convenient part for the other ghost to grab.”

He paused, gently probing Phantom’s head. “He definitely has some sort of skull, too. Very human-like, barely any flesh—or ectoplasm—over it. A cut on his temple, kind of deep. Looks like it bled badly, but it’s got some sort of crust over it, now.”

“Normal ectoplasm doesn’t crust… But normal ectoplasm also doesn’t form bone-like structures.” Halfway through the slice on his sides. The ribs still glinted crystalline against a backdrop of green so dark it appeared black. “No other injuries on his head?”

“None that I can see.” Jack hesitated, then ran his fingers through Phantom’s hair. The black of his gloves contrasted starkly against the white of Phantom’s hair. “There’s some dried ectoplasm in here, but I think it all came from that cut on his temple.”

“That’s good, at least. I’m not sure how his head injuries would compare to a human’s.” A few more stitches went into Phantom’s side. “None of the cuts on his chest seemed severe when I checked them out earlier, and I don’t think he has any on his arms, either.”

Jack hummed, walking past her to the other end of the table. “I’ll check out his legs, then.”

As she continued to stitch of Phantom’s side, Jack’s humming paused. His hands wrapped around Phantom’s left leg, gently probing the limb.

“I… think he has a broken leg,” Jack said, abruptly. “It feels like the bone-like structure doesn’t line up right. It’s not that way on the other leg.”

“We might have to set it, then.” Another stitch as she thought it over. “If his flesh injuries heal, his bones probably do as well. He probably doesn’t need his legs to walk, but having the bone grow wrong might stop him from forming his spectral tail.”

She paused, her hands stilling. “How does he form a spectral tail if he has bones?”

“I…” Jack halted too. “I honestly don’t know. He doesn’t move that thing like there’s any bones in it.”

“Maybe…” She continued her work again, pulling the needle through Phantom’s false flesh. “Maybe he can form and dissolve the crystal structures by will? To form bones and then make them go away when they’re a hindrance?”

“In which case we wouldn’t need to set his leg, because he can just reform it properly,” Jack pointed out. It was quiet for a moment as he, presumably, felt out the bones. “It feels like a clean break, at least. We can try waiting it out and offer him a splint if he needs it.”

“That might work.” She finished another stitch, looking over her work. Tied off the thread. “There, this should keep him stable for now. Let’s hope he doesn’t immediately rip it or phase it out when he wakes up.”

Which was baffling her, still. Ghosts don’t pass out; they don’t black out or sleep or go unconscious in any way. Even if Phantom had bones of some sort, what benefit could passing out give him?

“I’ll get a bucket and some cloth.” Jack had wandered off already, having finished his inspection. “We better clean all that ectoplasm off of him, make sure he’s not hiding anything more severe.”

She nodded, placing the needle back in its wrapper. It would have to be thrown out and replaced later; there was no sterilizing a needle so heavily stained with ectoplasm. Speaking of which…

Maddie stripped off her gloves, dropping them on a nearby table, and wandered over to the lab’s closet. It always paid to have a few jumpsuits on hand. One of the bins contained spare gloves, and she quickly pulled a clean pair on.

“I got the stuff!” Jack announced, bustling down the stairs. He had replaced his gloves with clean ones too, at some point. Hopefully before he left the lab and smeared ectoplasm on everything.

“Let’s get him cleaned up, then.” She took one of the cloths out of the water—warm, but not too hot—and pressed it against Phantom’s chest. The ghost made a soft noise, a staticky whine, his fingers twitching.

No further movement came.

They carefully cleaned the ectoplasm off of Phantom’s body; his scars seemed to glow even brighter when they were wet. As Jack finished cleaning off Phantom’s torso, Maddie moved over to his head.

Phantom still had his eyes closed, but they were no longer clenched as tightly. Thick globs of ectoplasm trailed down the side of his face, smeared through his hair.

Gently, she pressed the cloth against his head, just underneath the injury. If it had scabbed over, she didn’t want to reopen it. Phantom moaned, his eyes moving underneath the lids.

It wasn’t a sound, not a human one, but… Maddie could’ve sworn that Phantom called her ‘Mom’.

“Those noises are strange, aren’t they, Jack?” she asked, trying to distract herself from the not-word. Ghosts didn’t do parents; the concept of a mother should be completely foreign to Phantom. “I’ve never heard him speak anything but perfect English.”

“They’re so inhuman!” he agreed, as excited as ever. “The warbling, the almost static sound of them! It must be something lower than true speech, for Phantom to fall back into it when injured.”

Jack tapped on Phantom’s chest, right in the center of the glowing scar. “It’s almost like it comes from his core, sometimes, instead of his mouth. Fascinating, isn’t it?”

“But why would ghosts have a basal language of their own?” She rubbed the ectoplasm stains off of Phantom’s cheek, the ghost’s nose twitching when she brushed too close past it. For just a brief moment, she could see green gums, sharp teeth. “They’re not sentient, not even like animals. Right? They would have no need to communicate with each other.”

“Well, if they can learn human languages, I don’t see why they couldn’t have their own.” He shrugged, coming closer to Phantom’s head as well. “They clearly have some form of intelligence, even if it’s limited. They can conceptualize and plan, after all.”

He lifted Phantom’s head, and she started cleaning the ectoplasm out of the ghost’s hair. It was odd, the texture of it just off. A little too slick, too smooth. Not heavy enough, as it seemed to stir even when neither of them touched it.

“I suppose you’re right,” she eventually said. Phantom’s head laid limply in Jack’s hand, the other braced under the ghost’s shoulders. “They must go out of their way to avoid using it around humans, then. I can’t think of a single ghost using it before, not even the animals.”

“It’s definitely weird,” Jack agreed. “And, I was thinking… It doesn’t seem the echo the same way as their voices either, does it?”

She paused, the wet cloth pressed against Phantom’s head. No. No, it certainly hadn’t. “Huh.”

“Maybe they do always speak in it,” Jack continued. “Maybe they just layer actual speech on top of it, usually. Maybe that’s what causes the echo? A voice from their core, for ghosts, and a voice from their throat?”

“I suppose it might be possible.” The clumps of green had mostly been washed out of Phantom’s hair, now, leaving just faint green stains. “I think this is as good as we’ll get it, Jack.”

He nodded, lowering Phantom’s head back onto the table. The ghost stirred again, a little, eyelids clenching and relaxing again. It sniffled, oddly enough, face contorting.

Maddie dropped the cloth back into the bucket of water. They’d definitely need to get rid of all that, too. Ugh. The disadvantages of working with ectoplasm.

Phantom warbled something again. His fingers twitched against the surface of the table.

“Look who’s waking up!” Jack grinned at her, from Phantom’s other side. “About time, Phantom!”

The ghost jerked, suddenly, like a full-body flinch. He hissed, a sound filled with static and pain.

And then he was sitting up, fingers clawing against the surface of the table.

“No you don’t!” she told him, pressing a hand against his chest. Pushed him back against the table. “You’re not tearing those stitches I just put into you.”

His eyes moved to stare at her, the green dull and glassy compared to their usual brightness. He frowned, warbling something at her.

‘why’ her mind told her it meant.

“Down, Phantom.” She pressed harder, and he collapsed back against the table. There was more tension in his body, now. In his false muscles.

Or were they false?

“We found you passed out in the GAV,” Jack explained, tone dropping into something comforting. “You looked close to destabilizing.”

Phantom’s eyes seemed to sharpen, finally, as they darted from her to Jack and back. His left hand wandered to his side.

“Don’t mess with those stitches,” she told him, sharply. He flinched, but dropped the hand. “We didn’t clean you up just so you can wreck all our hard work, you know?”

He licked his lips, tongue vivid green against his pale skin. “Why?” he croaked out, layered so thickly in static she could barely make out the word.

“Why?” she repeated, quirking an eyebrow at him. “Well, you were too interesting a subject to pass up, of course. None of the ghosts we’ve studied so far had bodies as complex as yours. What a waste it would be, to let you melt away like that!”

Phantom pressed flatter against the table. His hands wandered, like he was looking for something. “Now what?”

“Well, there’s no straps on this table, if that’s what you’re looking for,” Jack said, looking down at Phantom. The ghost stilled immediately. Huh. Odd. Why would he know to look for those? “For now, you appear weakened enough that there’s no risk of your escape, but you’re awake enough to answer some questions. Mads?”

“Sounds like a good start,” she agreed. This was probably the most pliable they would get Phantom. “Let’s start easy, shall we? Your leg is broken. Lower left. Do you want a splint for that?”

“I…” Phantom blinked, apparently caught off-guard by her question. “Um. I think I’ll be okay.”

She nodded, watching him carefully. His eyes seemed to brighten, slowly, becoming greener and greener by the second. Even his complexion seemed to gain some color back.

“Did you catch the ghost who roughed you up so badly?” Jack asked, crouching a little so he didn’t tower over Phantom as badly. “Wouldn’t want them to try the same on any humans, after all.”

“No, he’s… He’s not a concern anymore.” Phantom tried to push himself up again, but paused when she glared at him. “He’s… He only has it out for me. Doesn’t really care about the humans.”

Well, that was good, at least. “Is there any risk of him breaking in to chase you?”

“No, I took care of it.” Phantom shook his head, slowly, wobbling a little. “He needs his suit to be a real threat, and I destroyed that.”

A ghost wearing a suit? Something mechanical, then. Maybe like that annoying electric one, which controlled technology, but he didn’t seem all that interested in Phantom.

Must be an unknown ghost. That was… worrisome. The possibility that there was such a dangerous ghost out there that they knew nothing about, running loose in Amity Park.

Phantom seemed uncomfortable, pinned down flat against the table. She supposed that she and Jack were kind of looming over him.

“You can sit up, if you want, but be careful.” She tried to ease her posture, to soften her glare. Phantom was just a ghost, yes, but he was voluntarily giving them information. No point in shutting him down so soon.

The ghost nodded, sliding his hands underneath himself. Slowly, he pushed himself up. Cautiously. His face strained as he did so, briefly, hand sliding closer to the stitches in his side.

Curious. A pain reaction. Could be faked, of course, but it seemed… it seemed genuine. The barely-there hiss of static through his clenched teeth, layered over an almost physical sense of pain.

Maybe that was Phantom’s big trick all along. The ability to make others feel emotions. To somehow convey emotions and feelings that he, himself, did not feel.

“Do you want painkillers for that?” Jack asked, also watching the ghost grimace, hands hovering over the stitches. “Or, uh… Some ghost equivalent?”

Phantom’s eyes slid back to Jack, then Maddie, and back to Jack. “I… If you’ve got some. I need more than a human, though.”

“You want some water to help that go down?” Jack grabbed the first aid kit, digging through its contents for the painkillers. “Or food?”

“Um. Water would be nice. Food…” The oddly mundane sound of a growling stomach. Phantom flushed bright green. “I’d like food, yeah. Um. Thanks.”

Jack handed her the painkillers, already turning towards the stairs. “I’ll be right back with a glass and something to eat. Maddie, you figure out how much to give him.”

She turned the bottle in her hand, searching for the instructions. How did Phantom compare to a human? Was his metabolizing faster? Stronger? Did his ectoplasm somehow form organs, as well as bones? Some sort of non-crystallized solid?

“Um. I probably know how much I’ll need if you tell me what kind that is,” Phantom said, interrupting her train of thought. Her eyes snapped from the bottle to him. His shoulders were drawn up, tense.

“What?” she asked, still working through the sentence. “Oh, it’s… paracetamol. We don’t usually need painkillers for this sort of stuff.”

He nodded understandingly, and Maddie wondered how much of it he really did understand. His structure was definitely more complicated than that of most ghosts. He had bones, musculature, apparently even organs. Was it really that far-fetched to think that he might have something like nerves, too? That he might feel pain, or at least understand it?

“The teen portion, but up it by half, then.” He opened his hand, and only then seemed to realize that he wasn’t wearing his gloves, because he froze up. Stared down at his bare, heavily scarred hand. “Wh— Why am I not wearing my jumpsuit anymore?”

“We had to take it off to check your injuries.” She uncapped the bottle of painkillers, keeping Phantom in her peripherals. “And you seemed to have a structure underneath the jumpsuit, unlike most ghosts. We didn’t want to risk damage by sewing the two together.”

Phantom hummed at that. “I… thanks. I don’t think that that’d be good, yeah.”

“Well, it would be a shame to let you destabilize just like that, wouldn’t it?” She shook out a few pills into his hand. This was just… a study. An ordinary ghost wouldn’t have any desire for painkillers, and it definitely wouldn’t be able to process them. But would Phantom be any different?

“Yeah…” He made a face, hand curling closed around the painkillers like she might take them away again. “Well, thanks anyway, I suppose.”

Jack’s thudding footsteps sounded, and he appeared down the stairs. In one hand, he held a glass of water. In the other, a plate with a few sandwiches. “Sorry, we didn’t have anything quicker.”

He walked up closer, handing the glass to Phantom first. The ghost took it in his empty hand, fingers carefully wrapping around it, slick with condensation.

“Thanks.” The ghost raised the hand with pills to his mouth first, dropping them all in before chasing them with a big gulp of water. He made a face, following it with several smaller sips of water. “Eugh. That stuff never tastes good, does it?”

“It’s not supposed to taste good,” she pointed out, quirking an eyebrow. “You realize that, right?”

“Of course I do, I’m not an idiot.” He leaned backwards slightly, emptying the rest of the glass in one go. “Doesn’t mean I gotta like it.”

He handed the glass back to Jack, exchanging it for one of the sandwiches. Didn’t even try to grab the whole plate.

“Are you sure you don’t want more?” Jack asked, gesturing the plate at Phantom. “Those are some serious injuries to heal from.”

“Yeah, I guess, but…” Phantom shrugged, taking another bite of the sandwich before continuing. “It’s getting late. Wouldn’t want to ruin my appetite.”

Maddie could feel her eyebrow raising. “Dinner plans, Phantom?”

“I… uh.” His shoulders came up, suddenly, as he seemed to remember where he was. “Kinda, yeah…”

He took another bite of the sandwich, dropping his eyes down to his loosely folded legs.

Phantom looked like a scolded kid. It was the only thing she could think off. The way he curled up on himself, the tension in his shoulders. It just reminded her so, so much of Danny, whenever she scolded him.

Her heart stuttered in her chest, and she cursed herself. She couldn’t feel sorry for him. He was just a ghost! He was— he was doing it on purpose, to make her feel bad! To make them let him go!

The ghost continued eating in complete silence. His hair hung down over his face, barely moving anymore. The lines of his shoulders taught.

“Look, Phantom…” She paused, looking over at Jack. He shrugged back, looking equally unsure of himself. “We’re ghost hunters. We can’t just… let a ghost go.”

“Especially not one as fascinating as I am?” he sneered back, bitterly. He looked up, suddenly, venomous green meeting her eyes. “That’s all I am in the end, huh? No matter how hard I try, no matter how much I let myself get hurt just so no one else has to! In the end I’m just some ghost, to cut up and experiment on!”

She flinched back, involuntarily. The glow around his body, barely visible before, had flared out with his temper.

“It’s not like that,” Jack tried, feebly.

“No?” Phantom hissed back, the warble of static layered heavily over his voice once more. “Then what is this, huh?”

“We’re helping you.” She straightened her back, her fists balling automatically. “We’ve stitched you up, given you painkillers, fed you.”

“Because you didn’t want to lose me,” he countered. His lips curled, showing her once more those green gums and vicious teeth. Fangs. He’d had fangs all along, and she had never noticed until he bared them at her. “Because I was such a precious study object! And the painkillers, the food—”

He flung out an arm. “I bet that all that was just a test, to see if I was faking any of it! Could I really process food? Do painkillers really work on me? Wow!”

“Would you have preferred it if we hadn’t done any of that?” she snapped back. “That we’d left you smearing ectoplasm all over the place until you destabilized?”

“You are the one who broke into our vehicle.” She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. Getting into a shouting match would accomplish nothing. “You passed out in the back of the Ghost Assault Vehicle.”

That seemed to take all the wind out of his sails. Phantom spluttered, but his glow dimmed significantly already. “I— That’s not what we were talking about!”

“You practically served yourself up to us,” she continued, her voice flat. “What else did you expect, a heavily injured ghost unconscious in the vehicle of ghost hunters?”

His shoulders came up again, Phantom halfway through curling up in a ball. He muttered venomously, some ghost-speak noise again.

And, again, Maddie somehow understood exactly what he said.

‘parents,’ he had hissed, from the very center of his being. An almost sardonic tone to it, somehow.

“Look, Phantom,” Jack said, picking up Maddie’s slack. “We’re ghost hunters. Supposedly, so are you. We found a potentially dangerous ghost in our vehicle without our knowledge, and we made the decision to patch you up. Regardless of the reasoning behind it, what else would you have wanted us to do? What would you have done, in this situation?”

“I…” Phantom sighed, blowing the hair out of his face. “I would’ve patched them up, too. But I definitely wouldn’t have told them that I saved them just because they were so fascinating, because I wanted nothing more than to experiment on them.”

“Would you have rather had us lie to you?” Jack asked, bluntly. “Would you rather have had us tell you that we patched you up out of the goodness of our hearts?”

“I… no.” Phantom shook his head, wrapped his arms around his bare chest. The picture of uncertainty. “No, because I know you would’ve been lying. You’ve been hunting ghosts for research for ages. Me, especially. There’s no way you would’ve patched me up out of kindness.”

“So then what do you want from us?” Maddie asked, shoving her thoughts to the back of her mind for now. “You didn’t want us to let you dissipate in our van. You didn’t want us to lie about why we helped you, but you don’t want us to tell you truth about that, either. What option does that leave?”

Phantom gritted his teeth, his glow suddenly brightening and immediately dimming again. “I don’t know! I just— Can’t you just be nice! Couldn’t you just fix me up out of the goodness of your hearts and mean it?!”

His fingers clawed in his hair as he curled even further into a ball, only the broken leg staying in its place. His shoulders were taught with tension, shaking lightly.

It sounded like… like he was sniffling.

Crying?

She grimaced, turning to look at Jack. He, too, seemed completely thrown off by the display.

It was just…

It was so genuine.

The shaking of the shoulders, the soft sounds of muffled crying, the barely visible glint of tears, the hitch in his breath, the soft keening of his core.

The hitch of his breath?

Hesitantly, Jack reached out. Placed one of his hands on Phantom’s shoulders—so big it almost covered the entire area. “Shh, kiddo.”

Phantom shook harder, but didn’t try to throw off Jack’s hand. The hitching of his breath was clearly audible now.

And Maddie…

Maddie didn’t know what to do. She knew how to comfort kids, and her heart clenched, demanded she help this teen, too. This kid that reminded her so much of her Danny.

But she didn’t know what to do. Phantom was supposed to be just another ghost. An ectoplasmic abomination that had lied and faked its way into everyone’s hearts.

Not this.

Not a teen, warbling “mom” at a stranger who cleaned his wounds. Not a teen who had hidden in their car when he’d gotten too injured to get away, searching for something that reminded him of his parents. For someone who’d keep him safe like his parents would’ve, should’ve.

“Oh, Phantom,” she said, threading her fingers through his hair. It was soft, still wet where she’d cleaned it. Still stained faintly green from his own ectoplasm. “Oh, honey… Why have you hidden this for so long? You are so… so human.”

He keened again, shaking harder under their hands. And in the sound, she heard ‘love acceptance warmth caring’ and ‘not me not mine not for ghosts’.

And for once, Maddie Fenton ignored her curiosity to focus on the crying ghost in their lab.

“Shh,” she told him, soothingly combing her fingers through his messy hair. “It’ll be alright, Phantom. We… It was our mistake. We were wrong.”

“We were so wrong,” Jack chimed in, rubbing circles on Phantom’s back. “We… You’re just a kid. How long have you been dead, kiddo? How old are you really?”

Phantom sniffled, and, voice warbling with emotion, said, “Two years. I— Sixteen.”

“Oh, sweetie.” He was so human, so young. He could’ve been her own son. “We’ve been so wrong. We never should’ve shot at you, never should’ve threatened you.”

“We let our assumptions lead us,” Jack agreed, quiet. Soft. “Phantom, we’re so sorry. Hey, shh. It’ll be alright.”

The ghost, so human and yet not, shook his head. Only slightly, just enough that Maddie’s hand didn’t dislodge.

“We’ll make it alright,” Maddie promised him, instead. Fierce, sharp. Determined. “Let us make it up, Phantom. Let us pay for our mistakes.”

“Don’t wanna,” he mumbled back, so quiet she could barely hear him. “Lemme leave.”

“Of course you can,” Jack assured him, still rubbing circles on Phantom’s back. “We won’t stop you, kiddo. We just want you to be safe.”

Phantom sniffled again. Slowly turned his head, until a single vivid green eye looked up at Maddie.

It was ringed with red, green-tinted tears still tracking down over his cheek.

“Do you?” he asked. He sounded… shattered. The echo of ghost-speak behind his voice wavered like glass in a storm.

“You’re just some kid in way over your head.” Maddie let her hand drop from his head, instead trying to convey her genuineness through her gaze. “You’re… barely a teenager. No one can—no one should—blame you for any of the damages you’ve caused, trying to help.”

“You’ve tried so hard, despite your death,” Jack chimed in, his hand stilling too. “You’ve died, and you’re still so good.”

“You’re so good, Phantom. I wish you were one of ours.” Maddie reached forward, slowly, wiping the tears off of his cheek. “If you ever need us, for anything, please don’t hesitate to come by.”

“I—” Phantom’s voice crackled, and he sniffled again. Wiped his own hand past the other eye. “I don’t— I can’t—”

“Please just promise us that.” Jack let his hand slip off of Phantom’s back, placing it on the edge of the table instead. He, too, stared pleadingly at Phantom. “We won’t force you to do anything, kiddo, we’re just asking. Let us help.”

Maddie slid the stained gloves over towards Phantom. “Phantom, we obviously remind you of your parents.”

The ghost hunched up again, slightly. Green spread over his cheeks like a blush. She pushed on. “You called me Mom when I cleaned off your wounds. You hid in the GAV because you felt safe in it, because it reminded you of your parents. They’re obviously not here, because you’ve died or because they’ve died or because of some combination of those, but you’re still allowed to want that comfort. And we are willing to give you that. It’s the least we can do, to repay what we’ve done to you, what we’ve threatened you with.”

“I—” His breath hitched again. “I don’t… I’ll keep it in mind.”

Well, she supposed they could hardly push for more. She didn’t think she’d be so open to accepting help from them either, if she’d been in Phantom’s place.

“Please do,” she told him instead. Patted him on the right knee. “Whatever it is, whatever you’re struggling with. You’re always welcome at our place. Okay?”

“Okay,” he whispered back. He wiped over his face again. “I gotta… I gotta get going.”

“Dinner plans, right?” She stepped backwards to give him some space. “You’d better eat well, young man.”

Phantom grunted, a noise vaguely underlined with acceptance. He stuck his arms through his sleeves, carefully pulling the jumpsuit back up over his upper body.

“And be careful with your injuries.” Jack handed Phantom the gloves, having apparently scooped them off of the table at some point. “Those stitches in your side will need some time to heal before you take them out, and your broken leg… Well, you’d know better than us how it heals, but still.”

“I know how to take care of myself,” Phantom grumbled back, pulling on his gloves. He grimaced at the left one, more green than white with his spilled ectoplasm. It had dried, crackling uncomfortably as he moved his fingers. “Despite the evidence of the contrary.”

He pushed himself off of the table, suddenly. Maddie jerked forward automatically, but Phantom hovered above the ground, his leg held limply.

The ghost raised further up, until he floated at their eye level. “I… Thanks. For helping me. And… the apologies, I guess.”

“It was the least we could do,” she assured him, crossing her arms loosely. “Please, Phantom, come to us if you need anything.”

“I’ll… keep it in mind.” He shimmered, turning transparent. Then, suddenly, he dove upwards, and then he was gone.

“Well…” Jack cleared his throat. “That… That happened.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, looking at the empty table. It’s surface was stained green with Phantom’s ectoplasm, a small puddle left where he’d bled the worst. “God, Jack. What have we done?”

“Something we’ve learned from. Something we won’t ever do again.” He looked up, meeting her eyes. “That’s all we can do, Mads. Make amends to the best of our abilities.”

She nodded, slowly. “We’d better get working on cleaning the lab. We’ll need to go through all our research on ghosts, strip it down to the base observations. Start over from scratch.”

“Yeah.” He rubbed a thumb over the edge of the stain on the table, absentmindedly. “But first, we should focus on our own kids, I think.”

Maddie paused. Turned to look at the clock. “Oh lord, you’re right. I’d better get started on dinner.”

“I’ll start on cleaning the lab.” Jack nodded at the stairs. “You go take care of the wonderful kids we already have, instead of worrying about Phantom.”

“Thanks, honey.” She pressed a kiss against his cheek, before turning to rush up the stairs.

He was right. They already had two wonderful kids. Worrying about Phantom would do them no good, not unless the ghost would accept their help.

The door to the kitchen swung open, and Maddie stared in the startled blue eyes of her son, the lingering sounds of the conversation she’d just cut short between him and his sister.

“Oh, kids, I’m so sorry. I’ll get started on dinner right away.”

“Something distracting in the lab?” Jazz asked, getting out of her chair. “Can I help?”

“If you could help me peel these potatoes, that’d be wonderful…” She passed a pan and a knife to Jazz. “And, yes, I suppose you could say as much.”

Danny laughed. She turned to look at him, at his cautious grin. “Must be something big.”

“Yeah,” she answered, watching him angle his head slightly. Letting his black hair slide down his face, parting just right for her to see a flash of dark red against pale skin. A scab on his temple, right where… right where Phantom had had a scab, too.

But… surely that couldn’t be?

No, it was just her mind playing things off.

Right?

#danny phantom #phic phight #phic phight 20 #phic phight 2020 #dp fanfic #phanfic #phanfiction #dp fanfiction #maddie fenton #danny fenton #jack fenton #dark writes #me at the start of the month: my goal is to hit 30k :)#me now: *will probably hit 60k at least*#AAAAAAA

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words-writ-in-starlight · 4 years

Note

I'm a little late to the party but for the ask meme: Danny Phantom 5, 13, 14, 18, 20 + Trans!Danny headcanons. I know that wasn't on the list but I have a feeling you'll do it for me anyway ;)

MY NEWEST BOY. For this ask meme! Also thisgot long so I made a separate post about trans Danny because I care about it alot byeeeeee.

5) Guilty pleasures

Barring times where he’s being, A, imprisoned, or, B, hunted forfun and profit, Danny actually—really likes the Ghost Zone. It’s soothing in a way that he’s pretty sureis not quite right, in a way that Sam and Tucker and Jazz do not seem toagree with, but he likes it there. Theslow, billowing curls of green drift through the air like nebulae, currents of energyrather than wind that he could drift on like thick water if he wanted, dottedwith doors and islands that orbit whatever passes for gravity wells in a skyscapeof ectoplasm. Almost every touchstone inthe Ghost Zone moves, although most have a predictable pattern—about once everyten months, Danny tries not to use the Fenton portal if he can avoid it, onaccount of how it comes out practically on top of Walker’s prison—and learningthe rhythms of it is sort of like a hobby, at this point. Danny doesn’t have a ton of time to kill, buthe’s figured out that, as long as he’s in ghost form, he can go for a longtime without feeling hungry or thirsty or tired, in the Ghost Zone, so onetime he told Jazz he was going to try his hand at cartography and spent theentirety of his parents’ five day out-of-state conference coasting on ectoplasmand trying to plot the place. It cameout looking kind of like a star map, full of arrows trying to indicate movementdirection and a lot of scribbled notes like Pretty sure Clockwork moved thisand AVOID and Possibly Vlad’s portal, maybe close this.

Danny doesn’t talk about it much, because the Ghost Zone makes hisfriends, his family, jittery. He’s prettysure they’re worried he’ll decide not to come back some day.

13) What gets them flustered

One time a reporter manages to get a camera intoDanny’s face before he can book it after a fight, and she’s smart enough toalready be asking her first question before he realizes what was happening.

She’s also smart enough to start her first questionwith “Excuse me, Inviso-bill–”

“It’s Phantom,” he snaps,looking around in annoyance, and the reporter smothers a triumphant smirk.

“Yes, Phantom. What made you become a hero,Phantom?”

Phantom just hangs there in the air for a moment, gapingat her, and then squeaks, “Excuse me?”

“You’re a ghost,” the reporter says, keeping aprofessionally straight face and a neutral, friendly tone. “Whatmade you decide to be a hero?”

“I–didn’t?” Phantom scratches a hand backthrough his hair, and the reporter silently thanks whatever quirk of ghostlyfunction is bringing a green glow like a blush to his cheeks and throat andears. She’s going to lock down a raise with this interview, even if heflies off right this second–the first person to interview Amity Park’s ownsuperhero. And he’s blushing. “I’mjust keeping things under control, you know?”

The reporter grins. “Well,” she says withfalse nonchalance, “would you mind answering a few questions?”

“Uh,” Phantom says. “I have to–go.”

He turns invisible and makes a break for it,and the reporter’s fifty-second clip of a conversation runs on the local newsfive times in the next seven hours. She gets a reputation for being ableto snag the neighborhood super for a few seconds, sometimes even multipleminutes. She discovers real quick thathe’ll blush pretty reliably the second she drops the H word.

14) Ingrained habits/forces of habit

Danny works hard to seem helpless at school. It kind of makes him crawl the walls, but he workshard, okay? He lets himself getpushed around, he occasionally gets punched in the face, he does his best toconceal it when a year or two of ghost hunting as a full time job starts toshow in his human form, he spends a lot of time and energy projecting a façade oflocal hopeless wallflower. He can’thelp seeming like a delinquent, given that he’s been living the C-average lifestyleby the skin of his teeth and misses about three class periods on a good week,but at least he can seem like a delinquent who would never, ever be a candidatefor competence. He’s protecting a secretidentity out here. Official Team PhantomPolicy, much as everyone might hate it, is that no one intervenes with Danny’scharade. It gives Tucker hives and Samhas a hit list of bullies, but Danny’s always quick to smile off their concernand get on with his life. He has ahealing factor and it’s been years since Dash was actually concerning tohim except as a potential stalker, Danny can stand to bite his tongue and take it.

Aaaaaaand then when he’s sixteen, Dash punchesTucker, instead. Over some pettynothing, something that Tucker doesn’t even remember afterward—refusing to makea fake ID for him? Laughing at Dash forfumbling a catch at the game on Saturday? Joking about how Dash’s grades were even worse than Danny’s? It could’ve been anything. It didn’t really even register with Tucker assomething worth getting punched over, whatever it was, but he guesses thatbullies can have bad days too.

So Tucker says whatever he says, and Dash whipsaround and sucker punches him, a swift hidden jab that only someone alreadywatching would see. And then–

And then Danny dislocates Dash’s shoulder. It’s not on purpose and it’s not subtle. Tucker doesn’t really remember what happened—hewas a little busy gasping for air. Mostly he just remembers the crash of someone being slammed into a locker,and Danny’s voice, deep and un-Danny-like, snarling You don’t touch them,and a shout, a howl of pain and shock. By the time Tucker can stand upright, wheezing and clinging to Sam,every kid in the silent hallway is staring wide-eyed at Danny, skinny weakDanny Fenton who isn’t really so skinny and weak anymore. Danny’s stepping back from Dash, who’sclutching at a shoulder that looks wrong under his letterman jacket, andDanny looks mildly horrified with himself, but he’s still standing betweenTucker and Dash.

When the teachers show up, Danny goes quietly to theprincipal’s office, and gives a plain-spoken explanation of what happened—Dash punchedhis best friend, Danny slammed him into the wall, and somewhere in there hepopped Dash’s shoulder out of place. He getssuspended for two weeks and detention for the next month, which he cooperateswith, and non-negotiable anger management counselling, which he mostly just…doesn’tattend. Danny has decided that he doesn’tdo school counselling anymore, thanks.

After he comes back, Danny slips back into therhythm of things without any change in his behavior, but—it’s hard for everyoneto forget that they watched Dash’s favorite punching bag nearly put the king ofthe school through a wall.

Sam and Tucker enjoy a very peaceful remainder oftheir high school career.

18) Things they’ll never admit

Danny has not and will not talk to anyone about the accident withthe portal. The actual events, yeah. But he’s thought about it, and—they just don’tneed to know. Sam already frettedherself blue over the Lichtenberg figure lacing up Phantom’s left arm to hisheart. They don’t need to know how clearhis memory of being electrocuted is.

(Jazz watches Danny skirt around the Specter Deflector with abouta five foot radius of nervous respect, and she makes some educated guessesabout why, exactly, her brother doesn’t like being shocked. But if he doesn’t want to talk about it, for once,she’s not going to wring it out of him.)

20) What Ifs/Alternate Timelines

I’m sure everyone and their cousin has done this but…I love Jazz and Danny’s relationship.

So.

Jazz has been keeping an eye on herbrother for…ever. This is partly becauseshe’s a worrier by nature and partly because their parents are both brilliantand affectionate and completely hopelessly scatterbrained. Jack and Maddie are fine and all, but alsoJazz is frequently awestruck that she and Danny lived long enough to be able totake care of themselves. Holy shitis she ever going to write a memoir. TheChristmas I Re-killed the Turkey or something. So when their parents are out for the day andshe wanders through the living room into the kitchen to see if the Nilla Wafershave been contaminated yet, and she realizes that she hasn’t seen Danny in fourhours, she starts looking around.

Sam and Tucker’s bags are in hisbedroom, and all three of them have left their jackets by the door. It’s a cool autumn, and Tucker complainsconstantly that he’s not built for the cold, he’s built for indoor rooms fullof computers, so they wouldn’t have gone out. The TV is off. Danny’s room isempty. It’s not dark enough yet forDanny to have dragged them up to the roof for stargazing.

It’s about this point where Jazzstarts to feel like something is about to go horribly wrong.

She passes the door to the lab andhears Sam’s voice echo up the stairs, and then—

“Fine, fine,” Danny says from thebasement. “It doesn’t even work.”

Jazz opens the door, already composinga lecture about not poking around in the lab (for Danny) and a lecture aboutremembering to lock the lab when they’re going to be out all day (for herparents), and starts down the stairs.

The crack-boom of the portalkicking on hits like a thunderclap, and then there’s a scream, someonewailing like they’re being killed.

Jazz never does remember how she gotdown the rest of the stairs, but she makes it just in time to see her brotherstumble out of the glowing green portal and fall straight through Sam’s armsand collapse into a pile of black-clad limbs and shocking white hair.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #jazz fenton #sam manson #tucker foley #ask meme #headcanon meme #starlight writes stuff #i have that adhd hyperfixation thing spinning up HARDCORE about danny phantom so...stay tuned #anyway some further thoughts about that au: it doesn't change a TON in the long term #but it DOES mean that danny has an ally in a) lying to his parents and b) handling vlad right out the gate #but what i'm really specifically interested in is jazz being there when danny comes out of the portal #she obviously cares about him a lot! i strongly headcanon that the fentons are a little...benignly neglectful #not because they don't care but because they're just REALLY not actually that equipped to focus on their kids #so jazz has had a huge hand in danny growing up rather than accidentally eating ectoplasm as a three-year-old and dying #so YEAH what i care about is that girl coming downstairs just in time to see her brother's ghost/dead body/indeterminate energy construct h #i think it takes jazz a second to look around the lab and do the mental math as sam and tucker scream danny's name #and then she FREAKS OUT #so that's some chaos to deal with while she flutters over a dizzy half-conscious danny and tries to call an ambulance #i...legit don't think danny admitted to his parents that he had a bad enough lab accident to go to the hospital #in any universe #i think he hedged and said he just got a little shock and felt fine and didn't need to see a doctor and managed to get out of it #but that's a longer story #anyway yeah jazz gets on the Fuck Vlad Train much faster in this one and there's angst about her worrying about danny #also in this timeline since jazz is in on everything from the jump she starts calling vlad 'vladimir' when he won't drop their full names #a queue we will keep and our honor someday avenge #lathori #asked and answered

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reginaldqueribundus · 4 years

Text

Sonic’s Ultimate Harem, Chapter 3: Fenton Lust

So remember when my brilliant and handsome ass decided to start liveblogging the literary masterpiece that is Sonic’s Ultimate Harem?

well i am back on my bullshit baby

today we will be examining chapter 3 of this work of art, which is titled “Fenton Lust” (earlier I mistakenly said the chapter titles were just the name of whomever Sonic bones in that particular instalment but it turns out I was wrong and there ARE chapter titles. Joy! If you hate yourself, you can read the chapter here.

I had to do a bit of research because I have no goddamn idea who Madeline Fenton is and turns out she’s… Danny Phantom’s mom.

As per usual, the chapter kicks off with Mario reacting to Sonic, who apparently still believes there is more than one G spot:

she wanted more so give her what she wanted and hit the right G-Spot hard and got her screaming my name

But he moves right into telling Mario about his next conquest.

"Well... It's an older woman that I slept with since I'm like 19 years old"

Yeah okay Sonic. In chapter 1 you went to the general store and asked a waitress for a “Sprite soda” so somehow I doubt you’re a teenager.

"it start when I was a human using a device on my wrist that Tails invented for me in case if I run up to anything but Danny knew I was a hedge Hedgehog form a secret not to alert any attention"

am…am I having a stroke…?

Also, all Sonic ever does is “run up to things” so if Tails invented a device for that it’s going to be going off a lot. Oh my god… did…did Tails give Sonic a step counter? Is this just an elaborate way of describing his new Fitbit? Unrelated but how could he ever keep his “hedgehog form” a secret? He’s literally a 3ft tall bright blue hedgehog, there’s no disguising that.

Sonic and Danny Fenton walk through the highway as Sonic was in his human form.

Ohhhhh, it’s like Megamind’s hologram disguise watch. Shame they’re clipping through the ground though.

Anyways then Sonic beats up a bunch jocks “down to the pulp” and apparently one of them ships Sonic with some dude named Dash:

"Dash he's all your man" Kwan said

…but sadly their romance is not meant to be, because Sonic beats him up and puts frogs in his underpants. Then they go back to Danny’s house and, after some incredibly boring dialogue, Danny leaves to hang out with his friends and his dad fucks off to do stuff with their Ghostbusters RV. This conveniently leaves Sonic alone with Madeline, who is the kind of sick freak that looks at her son’s 19-year-old friend and thinks:

"Sonic looks too good, I wonder if he's good in bed" Madeline thought to herself

She tries to get to know Sonic, who tells her about his day:

Well I'm a martial arts expert you see there was this bully named: Dash that tried to beat up Danny

I didn’t need to show you that part I just find it hilarious that Sonic had a colon in his dialogue. I’m imagining he paused dramatically before revealing the bully’s name.

Madeline casually asks Sonic how good he is in bed and if he’s ever slept with an older woman. Since the offer is no, she bravely offers to fall on that sword.

"Really splendid but let's not do it so let's go to me and Jack's bedroom and start have sex there"

oh god I’m having a stroke again

Madeline pulled Sonic and giving Sonic a kiss on the lips but Sonic jerked away. "It's ok, kiss me besides I'm all yours" Madeline sexily said rubbing Sonic's chest "Ms. Fenton I uh…" "Shh… Just call me Maddie and kiss me" Sonic shrug his shoulder and the two quickly start kissing each other

Yeah uh, despite Sonic really not seeming all that into it, they kiss for “30 minutes nonstop” before she decides to show him her “big and lumptious” breasts, which he spends six minutes sucking on, and then apologizes. She then gives him an 18-minute blowjob. This author is weirdly specific about timeframes, is what I’m saying.

She then begin inserting Sonic's manhood inside her pussy and start bouncing onto Sonic with full lust.

“with full lust” is how I’m going to start describing my actions when I’m really enthusiastic about something.

The sex went on like this for 45 minutes

what is with this guy and the exact time breakdown. Is the author hovering over them with a stopwatch? Is Sonic trying to claim his time spent boning women in other universes as a work-related expense??

Anyways they fuck so hard she lactates (I am not making that part up, please believe me I would not make that up, I don’t even want to live in a universe where I can imagine that kind of thing), then Sonic gets back into his blue camo cargo pants oh my god. She tells him she’s dtf anytime he wants and his response is:

"Um… Thank you, I'll keep that in mind of course"

WOW THAT SOUNDS PROMISING. Imagine coming onto your teenage son’s hedgehog friend and getting curved this hard

Ye gods. This chapter was definitely more boring than the others, except every organ in my body won’t stop screaming. But I’m left with some haunting questions. Isn’t Danny Phantom a high schooler? if Sonic is 19 and throwing down with Danny’s bullies isn’t that the equivalent of Danny hiring some college guy to beat up his classmates? is this fucking Drillbit Taylor

mfw when i hire a college-age hedgehog to be my bodyguard and he sleeps with my mother

>>MORE OF THIS SHIT

#liveblogging #sonic fanfiction #sam reads SUH #sonic the hedgehog #a post by me™#long post #danny phantom #danny fenton #apologies to the danny phantom fandom #(the danny phandom? y'all should call yourselves that)

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dp-pastandpresent · 5 years

Text

Past and Present: Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The Fentons spent the rest of the night in their lab, trying to figure out why their portal was suddenly working, but no amount of investigation got them any closer to an answer.

"I just don't get it. Everything was plugged in this morning, so why didn't it work until tonight?" Jack wondered.

Maddie was just as excited about the portal, but she was also very tired.

"Jack, can't we just admit that it's working now and earlier doesn't matter?" Maddie asked with a yawn.

"Madddiiieee, my whole family has been studying ghosts for almost fifty years! I can't just stop now because…" he yawned, "we're…" another yawn, "tired…"

Jack was trying to protest; after all these years, he couldn't just give up now. But he had to admit that even he was about to pass out.

"Honey, I know it's important to you and your family history, but we both know you'll do better with a good night's rest." Maddie put her hand on her husband's shoulder and slowly led him toward the stairs. Jack, despite wanting to protest, slowly took her lead.

They had started to head up stairs when Maddie turned around. "Hold on." She paused, as if she knew someone was watching. After a few seconds she walked toward the portal. "I guess we should turn this off before we go to bed," she said, hitting the power button on the portal before following Jack upstairs.

As soon as the door closed, the boy reappeared.

'They had to close it, didn't they!' he complained silently. He had managed to become invisible when the Fentons had come down, and had spent the last few hours invisible, trying not to make a sound. The invisibility thing was the only part of his "powers" that he knew how to do, so he was pretty much stuck in the lab, unable to leave.

"I didn't plan on staying out here!" He floated to the ground and landed silently. Upon reaching the ground, he walked over to the power button.

He stared blankly at it, unable to comprehend the type of technology that had to be in this device. Reaching with his gloved hand tried to activate the portal doors, but without the secret password he was out of luck.

"Great…" he sighed. "I guess I'm stuck here…I wish I at least knew how to get out of this lab. I'd like to see what's happened to this town."

The boy had only been resurrected the previous day and barely remembered his story. The things he did know had mostly been told to him by the ghost who had resurrected him – his name, his hometown, a brief synopsis of how he died, how much time had passed and why he had needed to be resurrected.

As if his "body" was answering him, his hand suddenly fell through the wall, having become intangible. The rest of his body soon followed suit.

"Wow, I wish I knew how to control that!" he told himself as he flew out of the lab and into the open air.

It had been a while since he had seen the night sky, and he had never flown in it before, but he knew he'd be doing it a lot more often. The feeling was exhilarating, something he had never experienced before. Maybe being a ghost wouldn't be too bad.

Looking down, bits and pieces of the town he felt he knew came back to him, but those same bits were transformed due to time: New houses, streets and lights. Weird dish shaped objects attached to rooftops and people walking around talking into odd handheld devices.

Just as he was starting to enjoy the flight, he heard police sirens coming from down the street. Naturally, he was a very curious ghost, so he decided to investigate.

As he got closer, he saw that there was a burning building with firemen standing out front.

"I don't know, Joe. It's too hot for us to go in," one said.

"Yeah, but there's a kid in there!" the other replied.

Feeling an innate pull from somewhere inside him, he found himself flying straight into the building.

—

Sam woke up early the next morning, something she usually didn't do. As she walked into the kitchen, she could hear the news coming from the TV on the counter.

"The Fentons are still hard at work on figuring out the mystery of their portal, but for now they are both just happy that it's working," the commentator was saying.

"We just found it on last night, and we can't quite figure out why it's suddenly working," Maddie said to the camera.

"Yesterday was supposed to be the big day, but when they plugged it in, nothing happened," the commentator continued as a clip of Maddie plugging the portal in with no success aired.

"Now that the portal is working, we plan to investigate the Ghost Zone, the world where ghosts reside, further than anyone ever has," Jack told the reporter before the screen flashed back to the station.

"Wow, Mary, who knew that it was possible to explore other worlds?" Bob, the male reporter asked his co-anchor.

"And speaking of impossible, listen to this story," Mary said to the camera and the screen flipped to a new video. "Firefighters were called out late last night when a massive fire broke out at Amity Apartments, but that's not the strange part of the story. We managed to catch this on tape."

The screen panned to a clip of what looked like a person flying by the screen, holding a boy in his arms. He landed on the ground and dropped the boy before flying off. The screen never once caught a good glimpse of what had saved that boy.

"If anyone knows who or what saved this young boy, please call the station," Bobsaid.

"And that's all for your morning report! See you all back here at noon!" Mary finished as the screen went black.

'I wonder what that was about,' Sam thought as she grabbed her backpack and left, her mind suddenly interested in more than just the usual walk to school.

"Did you hear about the portal?" Tucker asked Sam at school.

"Yeah, but that's not what I was interested in," Sam told her friend.

"Really? You weren't thinking about that fire were you?"

"Yeah, I kind of was. It's just so mysterious, you know?" Sam started.

"I guess, but not really…"

Tucker,while very interested in science and technology, found it hard to get completely interested in spirits and paranormal science: he liked science he could prove. "So I was thinking on the way to school, the portal is suddenly working and then this flying 'person' appears and saves a kid from a fire," Sam continued as they walked to class.

"So…" Tucker yawned.

"So, maybe it's a ghost!" Sam finished.

"Seriously, Sam, what has gotten into you? You never care about this stuff, and suddenly you're talking about ghosts!" Tucker told his friend as they entered the classroom. "Just don't worry about it. It's not your problem anyway."

"You may be right," Sam admitted, trying to please her friend.

'Must be interesting to be a ghost…'

—

After that night of the fire, the ghost had decided something. If he was going to be stuck here anyway, he might as well help out. If the local law enforcement was anything like it was 50 years ago, his help would be a much needed service to the city.

And that's why the next time he heard another siren, he flew behind the cop cars, invisible, and followed them to the scene of the problem.

This time it was a car accident. Apparently a mattress truck had lost control coming off the interstate, and now traffic was backed up.

'Perfect chance to try out some more skills,' he thought. He flew down, grabbed the truck and flew over to the empty field, where he placed it on the ground before flying back to the accident.

He wasn't expecting to be caught on tape, but that's what awaited him as he appeared back by the accident spot.

Confused by crazy, blinking machines being pointed at him, he tried to act normal, realizing that they must be recording him. In all honesty, he didn't want to be on TV at all, but he was stuck.

"Hey! You, hero! What's your purpose?" one reporter was yelling.

"Where are you from?" another called.

"What's your name?" a third added.

He didn't have time for this. He didn't want to be on TV, or be a some big shot hero. He had just wanted to help people.

"Phantom!" he quickly blurted out before he flew off.

"You heard it here, folks. The mysterious hero is Amity's own PHANTOM!" one reporter said to the camera.

#danny phantom fanfiction #danny phantom #phanfiction #fanfiction

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theguardiansseries · 5 years

Text

From the Beginning Chapter 9

Make sure to follow this blog so you can stay up to date on the latest chapters and news about the Guardians series!

Enjoy!

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Summary: Danny Fenton was a simple, sixteen-year-old teenager who loved fast food, video games, and getting a B on surprise pop quizzes. He’s also the half-ghost teenage hero Danny Phantom who defends Amity Park from ghost attacks on a daily basis. Somehow, the ghost attacks make a lot more sense than crushes, friendships, and falling in love with someone he is definitely not supposed to be falling in love with. It was a lot easier to separate Phantom and Fenton before, but now it’s getting harder the more he learns about himself. Just who was he? The dorky son of scientists who loved the stars or the hero that protected the town. He’s starting to feel like he won’t like the answer. (Iambic Prose) (Prequel to Guardians and Partial Show Rewrite)

<<First Chapter>> <<Last Chapter>> <<Next Chapter>>

Chapter Eight

“I can feel your rage from here, Danny,” Jazz, as usual, was sounding annoyingly calm as she sorted out piles of wrinkled clothes into neatly folded, color coded piles. Danny had been fighting the urge for the past hour to kick them over. “Having to clean the attic isn’t that bad.”

“Speak for yourself. We’ve already taken out five trash bags full of junk and trash and I’m pretty sure some of it was glowing.” Danny kicked his foot out at one of the boxes he had been sorting through, pleased when there was the sound of something inside breaking. He didn’t worry much about it being important - if it was in the attic, it was either useless or too old to function. “I think I’d rather be grounded for missing curfew.”

“From their perspective, it seems grounding is a punishment that has yet to work on you since you always have to sneak out for more ghost fighting.” Jazz held up a wrinkled, orange dress that looked like it had come straight from one of his parents’ old eighties movies. Jazz seemed to be trying to decide what pile to put in it. “Cleaning the attic, however, is a punishment that works on everyone.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t even have to be here.” Danny grabbed their most recent trash bag, holding it open and giving it a little shake to get Jazz’s attention. Once she looked over, Danny opened it wider, nodding at the dress that was still being held up. “You could have just told them you came out before curfew to drag me back in.”

“Hey, big sisters are supposed to watch out for their stupid little brothers.” Jazz wadded up the dress into a ball and threw it at the trash bag, nailing it right in the center. Danny had to work at not laughing when Jazz threw her arms up with a cheer. “Besides, this isn’t so bad.”

“Of course you think it isn’t that bad. You organize stuff for fun,” Danny laughed, dropping the bag and going back to moving the boxes around. “You know, this is really Technus’ fault. We should do something to get back at him. I mean, who honestly wants to take over the world? That’s so much work! My sleep schedule is suffering here, you know!”

“I have a feeling some of that suffering comes from your constant late nights that have nothing to do with ghosts.” Did Jazz really have to be so mean to him when he was already suffering?

“I beat that game fair and square and the sleepless nights were worth it. Can we get back to the real subject, here? I mean- We have to do something. He keeps trying to take over the world!”

“I don’t think there’s much you can do to get back at a ghost like Technus, Danny.” Jazz went back to her clothes folding, humming and cooing at whatever she was finding. Danny decided to just focus on his own task - or at least try to. “I wonder why Mom stopped wearing all of these. Some of these dresses are cute!”

“When was the last time you saw Mom outside of a hazmat suit or lab coat?” Danny counted out five seconds of silence before he heard Jazz make that irritated little humming noise that proved he was right, but she didn’t want to admit to it. “Face the facts, Jazz, everything in here is either useless or some leftover experiment.”

“Do you think forcing Technus to work at a call help center for the day would be enough of a punishment?” Jazz sounded as if she was honestly considering it, Danny stifling his laughter as he pulled over a decaying box that was messily taped and started going through it. “Maybe we should consider getting things together to donate them.”

“Pretty sure that’d be a health hazard considering where we live. You know, all that radiation.” Digging through the book, Danny found himself mildly curious when he saw it seemed to all date back to his parents’ college years. “Hey, think there are any embarrassing college photos in here?”

“They would have to have the ability to feel embarrassment in order for their college photos to be embarrassing.” Jazz was vicious when she wasn’t trying to ‘be the adult.’ Sometimes, Danny loved his sister. “Alright, move over. Let’s see what we can find.”

“You’re just as nosy as I am.” Laughing and sitting down, Danny upended the box, photo albums, textbooks, and a million other little things scattering across the wooden floors. Danny wouldn’t be surprised if the floor broke from how much was in that box.

“How heavy was that box?” Jazz dropped down to sit beside Danny, stacking the various textbooks and albums into separate piles.

“Dunno, the weight of regret in here probably added a few pounds, though.” Grinning at Jazz’s little snort of laughter, Danny picked out the newspapers articles that were ragged and faded at the edges. Some of them still seemed in pretty good shape since the picture of his parents and Vlad was still crisp and clear in the one he was looking at. Wait.

Carefully smoothing out the article that looked as if it had been cut out from a school newspaper, Danny glanced over the words quickly. It was a piece on the new ghost hunting club that had been formed by Maddie Walker, Jack Fenton, and Vlad Masters. The three were standing in front of a table in what looked like a science lab, the picture in black and white. All three were wearing lab coats and were… smiling.

Danny knew that Vlad had been changed into a half ghost due to an accident that happened when he was a college student alongside with his parents, but he supposed he hadn’t realized they were really friends. Maddie was smiling and looking like a proper scientist while Jack and Vlad had their arms around each other’s shoulders and were beaming.

“Is that… Vlad?” Jazz leaned against Danny’s shoulder, Danny tilting the paper so Jazz could see what he couldn’t believe. “They look happy.”

“I mean… I knew they were friends, but I guess I never really believed it, you know? I mean, he’s always trying to kill Dad and marry Mom and stuff!”

“Evil is never really born, Danny.” Jazz took the clipping from him carefully, studying it with a calm, almost blank expression. “What really happened between the three of them? I mean, they don’t know Vlad is half-ghost, right?”

“No, they don’t. That’s how I won our first fight at the reunion, I threatened to expose us both.” Just the thought of exposing himself to his parents terrified him. It wasn’t a surprise that Vlad, who had been hiding the secret for twenty years, felt even worse about it. “I think he said something about how they abandoned him?”

“I can’t believe that.” Really? Their parents weren’t the most conscious of people, sometimes. “Look at some of these photo albums.”

“What about them?” Danny jolted as one was dropped in his lap, staring at it before sighing and opening it to a random page. He almost wished he hadn’t. “Oh.”

Every picture had some mix of their parents and Vlad, all of them looking happy and like they were having the time of their lives. There was one picture, however, that made him feel as if ice had been poured down his shirt.

The picture was warped a little at the edges, but the bottom corner had part of Maddie’s grinning, laughing face. The cause of her laughter was the center of the picture where Jack and Vlad were curled up on a picnic blanket under a tree, textbooks and notebooks scattered around them as they slept curled up to each other.

It was almost a perfect copy for a picture Sam had of him and Tucker after they had fallen asleep near each other.

“They were like us.” The words were quiet, but the realization was deafening. “Mom and Dad and Vlad? They were like me, Sam, and Tuck.” Right down to the fact that Sam had been the cause of his ghost powers, in a way.

“That doesn’t mean the same thing will happen to you.” Jazz was quick to go into her reassuring parent voice, Danny almost laughing at the quick change.

“I wasn’t thinking that it would.” No, it was more the fact that now he understood. “Something had to have happened so that they never visited him in the hospital.”

Because if they were that close, they wouldn’t have left without an act from God or something equally as worse. Danny hadn’t ended up in the hospital, but if he had, he was certain that Sam and Tucker would have been curled up on either side of his hospital bed with him.

“What did happen though?” Jazz shook her head, looking frustrated that this was a puzzle she couldn’t figure out. “I mean, why didn’t they show up?”

“I don’t know, but Vlad makes a lot more sense.” It made perfect sense. Danny had never understood Vlad, but now he did perfectly. If Tucker and Sam hadn’t been there after he had become Phantom… And then if he was still crushing on Sam and Tucker ended up getting together with her while he suffered through ghost powers alone? Vlad made a hell of a lot more sense.

“Hey, uh, Jazz.” Danny closed the album, giving Jazz his best sad eyes. “So, you know you’re my favorite sister in the whole wide world, and that I really love you-”

“Don’t bother,” Jazz said, standing up with a dramatic, heavy sigh that Danny had stolen from her years ago. “Go on ahead, then. I’ll finish up here.” Letting his powers wash over him, Danny blinked away a few spots of light as he floated into the air, clutching onto the photo album.

“You really are the best big sister. You know that, right?” Because this all had been a lot harder when he didn’t have Jazz by his side. Shit. He’d have to admit Ghostwriter was right about the whole fighting alongside your sibling thing next time he saw him. “I just… I think he needs someone to talk to who actually gets what he’s going through.”

“Someone who understands and who he’ll listen to,” Jazz nodded, pulling Danny over into a, thankfully, brief hug. “Be safe.”

“I’ll be back before you know it.” Ghostwriter had been right those few weeks ago in the library. He did fondly believe in second chances.

“Oh, jeez… Have you never heard of a spring cleaning?” Danny had gone through the Ghost Zone to get to Vlad’s lab, but he was starting to regret it considering what a wreck the place was. It looked like the Fenton lab during the whole Pariah Dark mess. Actually, Danny was almost sure that this was worse.

“Right. Focus, Fenton.” Danny took a breath, floating through the lab. It was bigger than their own, but it was also so much creepier when the lights were off, and the only light source was the ghost portal behind him. The fact there were thick power cables and glowing substances in the distance did not help.

“Keep calm. You’re a Fenton and half-ghost. You’re fine. You’re not allowed to be scared about this.” It was bad enough that his friends still mocked him for being so scared of horror movies. “Just… gotta find Vlad.”

Besides the hum of the portal and electricity through the cords, it was rather quiet, though. It was possible Vlad was at one of his businesses, since he was technically CEO of a lot of different places. Hard to remember, though, when he was so petty over some things.

Jeez, what was Vlad even working on? The whole place was a mess of torn apart machinery and wires and Danny would have thought some monster had torn the lab apart if it wasn’t for the precision of where everything was placed. The weirdest part, though, were the large vats around the room - except they weren’t quite vats. A closer look made Danny think of those sensory deprivation tubs, but honestly, they looked like those body jars in every sci-fi movie ever.

“Whatever you’re doing must be big,” Danny muttered, bending over some exposed wires. He wasn’t exactly a science genius, but he knew enough to know that didn’t look quite right. Prodding it with his foot, Danny startled as a wall of transparent pink was separating him from the sudden arc of static that looked more like lightning. “Uh, heh, hey, Vlad. Um, thanks for the save, there.”

Vlad’s shield flickered out and Danny looked to where Vlad was lurking in the shadows like the vampire he claimed he wasn’t. It was creepy. “Daniel… What are you doing here.” It wasn’t much of a question, and it wasn’t until after he asked that Danny realized Vlad had just kept him from getting hurt.

“Oh, uh, well, I actually kind of wanted to talk to you about something, I guess.” Danny dug his fingers into the edges of the photo album, taking a steady breath. Vlad was talking before he could work up the courage to continue, though.

“Whatever inane problem of the week you’ve managed to wrap yourself up in, I want nothing to do with it. Your misplaced blame can leave, as well, since my plans have no concern towards you.” Ah, right… Vlad had a more pretentious way of talking than even Ghostwriter.

“Oh, no, I, uh, I didn’t want to fight or argue or blame you for anything. It’s actually sort of good news, I guess?” Danny tried for a smile, hoping Vlad was in a good enough mood to hear him out.

“Leave, Daniel.” Vlad’s order was more of a hissing snarl, Danny trying not to show his flinch. While there were a few times where he saw Vlad wanting to get better, there were moments like this where the other man felt… dangerous. “You’ve made it quite clear that you have no business with me.”

“Well, not business, no.” Right. Phantom. Cocky hero. He could do that. “Come on, Fruitloop, I’m trying not to start a fight, this time. At least hear me out before you go all doom and gloom mad scientist, here.”

Instead of Vlad throwing back with his own sass, Danny heard a low, menacing growl. Before he could figure out what the hell horror movie monster was about to kill him, he grunted as a sudden force slammed into him, the photo album dropping out of his hands as he scrambled to stop whatever was pushing at him.

When he righted himself and grabbed at his power to form an ectoblast, Danny could only blink as he saw that he was back in the Ghost Zone, Vlad’s ghost portal gone from in front of him. It took a long moment for Danny to realize that he had just been shoved out of Vlad’s lab before the man had shut down his portal. It was the same thing as pushing him out the door and then slamming it shut in his face.

“Right. Not a good day for talking, then.” He had lost the album, too. He had been planning to use it to show how close Vlad and his parents had been, though, so maybe Vlad would find it and realize it on his own. It could even end up jogging some happy memories, so this was for the best, kind of! “Right. Okay.”

Trying to gather his thoughts, Danny could only stare at where the portal had been because that really had been weird. Vlad was always kind of a douche, but he had never been so aggressive before. Loud, and forceful, and not afraid to get what he wanted, but Vlad had never been outright aggressive like… a ghost.

As he flew back home, Danny couldn’t help but have a bad feeling about whatever it was Vlad was planning next.

#danny phantom #guardians series #from the beginning #ftb chapters #iambic prose

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tay1019411 · 5 years

Text

This is all we know

It’s been years since the asteroid. Danny and the gang are now attending college together, each pursuing careers, forming new relationships, and amending past rivalries. But, this new chapter in life starts to get more complicated with ghost attacks increasing and old enemies teaming up (Post PP but Danny/Vlad DIDN’T reveal identities. Fentons and Valerie know Danny’s secret, string of oneshots connected by one problem)

Part 1 Part 2

(Part 3) Double Trouble

"Jack, I still can't get this part to bend right?"

Jack looked up from his tinkering to his wife, giving the part in her hand a critical look over. "Maybe we should use a different material?"

"I can't find another material like this that is nearly as conductive."

"We might need to add some heat then to make it more pliable."

"Is the torch still broken?" she asked, eyeing her husband with an annoyed look. Last week, her husband decided it was a good idea to break the torch down for parts for another invention idea. Said idea didn't work out so well, ending in another small explosion, like most his projects did. Said torch, however, was still in shambles on the workbench across the room.

Jack blushed lightly and laughed nervously while scratching the back of his neck. "I'll get on that."

"What is this meant to do again?" asked Vlad Masters. He was sitting across from Maddie and Jack, giving the various glowing parts in the center of the work table a puzzled look. He was eying them carefully as if they might bite him in the next minute, which seemed completely ridiculous to Jack. He knew Vlad did his own inventing, but then again, there was always a big chance for spontaneous combustions with most of his work, so he really couldn't blame is friend.

"It's something to help Danny," Jack said to his friend. Usually he and his wife were careful when explaining the true motivations behind most of their inventions, but recently, both parents were made aware by their son that their best friend from college knew about his half ghost status.

Jack had to admit he was relieved Vlad knew because he didn't want to hide anything from him, and it even seemed to have brought the Fenton family and their old college friend closer together, something Jack has been trying for years to do. He was happy to finally have things the way they used to be and Vlad was really a big help with Danny. Sometimes he seemed to truly connect with Danny even more than Jack or Maddie could.

"How is this going to help him?"

"We are trying to make a device that can increase his energy when fighting," Maddie said, her eyes still glued to the part she was working on. "Like an energy boost. But, we are having some troubles with the aftereffects. That's why we called you over here. We thought another brain could help, especially one that is just as well-verse in ecto-technology. It has the same general idea as the ectosuit you helped us with that one time."

"Yeah, same idea, just smaller and easier to hide," Jack smirked.

Just as Vlad was about to reply, the sound of the ghost alarms went off, lights flashing in the basement turned laboratory.

"A ghost?" Maddie yelled over the noise, rushing to the computer console to the other side of the room to silence the alarms.

"Do you know where it is?"

"City Park," Vlad answered.

Jack turned to the man. "How do you," but the questioned died in his throat as he saw what the mayor was looking at. The small T.V. was turned on to the news, showing his son in his ghost form fighting two ghosts.

"Do you think he needs our help?" Jack said, staring at the fight.

The T.V. showed Danny blocking an ectoblast from Ember's guitar, only to be surprised by SkulkTech delivering a swift slash to the unsuspecting halfa's back.

"I'm going to kill those two ghosts," Jack growled.

Maddie was instantly at his side, glaring coldly at the screen. "Let's go," she said as she threw Jack an ectogun while pocketing her own.

"I'm coming with you," Vlad said.

Both ghost-hunters looked at their friend, then at each other.

"Uh, Vlad," Maddie said timidly, not wanting to hurt the man's feelings. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"Yeah, buddy," Jack interjected, feeling bad for the man. "I know you want to help and all, but we didn't train you yet for this, and we don't want you getting hurt."

The man looked like he was going to say something to object but seemed to think twice about. Heaving a sigh, he said, "Okay, I'll be here when you get back with Daniel."

Jack nodded. "Okay, V-man," he said grimly, too worried about what kind of shape his son was going to be in to really give his friend a proper goodbye. He turned towards the door to follow his wife, catching it just as it was about to shut. With another nod towards his old college friend, he ran to the GAV.

Maddie was already in the GAV with her seatbelt on but the time Jack made it to the driver's side of the vehicle. Within the next minute, he was already driving wildly fast on the road, disregarding the normal traffic laws even more than usual.

"Two bazookas, six ectoblasters, one specter deflector, three small ectobombs, and two thermoses," Maddie said. Jack looked over to see she was twisted in her seat, taking stock of the weapons in the back of the vehicle. After finding out their son's secret, they started to keep a lot more weapons in the GAV for times like these when they needed to leave quickly to help Danny.

Maddie twisted around so she was facing the windshield once more. "That should be enough for two ghosts."

"Ghosts don't usually team up like this," he said to his wife as he made a rough turn.

"They are getting smarter," she replied, keeping her steely gaze on the passing buildings.

Jack couldn't help but feel a heavy weight of dread sitting in the pit of his stomach, and that's when he thought the same thing he always did when this happened: what if this time they are too late? But, he didn't dare say it, not in front of his wife. He looked over at Maddie to see she was gripping her hands into tight fists, tight enough where he could see the whitening of her knuckles.

He would have put a reassuring hand on hers if it weren't for the fact he was driving more recklessly than usual. He pushed whatever doubts he had out of his mind, knowing he had to be the one out of the two of them to do it. He had to believe his son was okay.

"He is going to be okay," Jack said, glancing at his wife. She looked back at him, the same fear he was trying to hide in her eyes. "It's Danny," he said as if to reassure both her and himself.

He wanted to say something more to help his wife. He could see the tension in her, but he saw his son surrounded by the two ghosts coming into view. And, it wasn't looking too good. "I see them," he growled, making the vehicle come to a jerky stop and flinging himself out of it.

Maddie was at his side instantly, pulling out two bazookas and handing one to him while he clipped two ectobombs to her belt and slinged the thermos over her shoulder, doing the same to himself.

They both ran to where the fight was taking place, taking aim at the two ghosts. On a synchronized cue, they fired.

Maddie's blast hit the middle of SkulkTech's back while he hit Ember square in the chest, making the ghost plummet to the ground, creating a cement crater in her wake.

Jack ran straight to where Ember was, knowing the blast wouldn't keep her down for long. He aimed the gun at the already stirring ghost. "Make one move, and there won't be anything left of you to send back to the Ghost Zone.

Ember smirked at him. "You can't tell me what to do."

Before he could do anything, the ghost strummed her guitar, sending a wave of energy towards him.

His son suddenly appeared in front of him, holding up a ghost shield. He was only holding it up with one arm, the other dangling unnaturally at his side.

"You know, Ember," he gasped, letting down his shield as the attack ended. "I don't think you should anger the person holding the bazooka even more. Especially a Fenton."

"I'm going to kill you, dipstick," the ghost growled as she stood from her crater of cement.

The distinct sound of a thermos came from the left of the ghost. He barely had time to look over in the direction of the sound before the ghost was pulled in the swirling vortex that could only be created by the Fenton Thermos. By the time he did look in the direction where the vortex disappeared, he saw his wife holding the thermos with a stormy expression on her face.

Jack smiled, leave it to his wife to save the day; but that was never a surprise. "Good job, sweet-cheeks!"

Maddie jolted, her expression turning startled as she looked at Jack. He could tell she was still furious with the ghosts, especially since that one was about to toast both him and his son, but the minute she looked at his smile, she slowly began to smirk at him.

Jack looked around then, remembering there was another ghost in the fight too. "Where's the other one?"

Maddie's smile grew wider as she brought up the thermos, shaking it slightly.

"Man, that's hot," Jack said, smiling brightly at his wife.

"Nice aim," Danny said right beside Jack. He was holding his left arm tenderly, but the smile on his face never wavered.

Maddie came to Danny instantly, giving him a searching look, trying to pick out if there were any more injuries. She placed her hand on his shoulder, trying to look up at him. "Are you okay?"

Danny cupped her hand. "Mom," he whispered, eyeing the ever-increasing media closing in on them.

Jack looked at the media too, knowing what his son meant. The Fentons couldn't be seen worrying about Danny Phantom as if he was their son, that was a little too close for comfort if they wanted to keep Danny's secret.

Even though Jack understood this, Maddie, on the other hand, was worried about something entirely different. Her eyes narrowed at their son. "Why didn't you call us?"

"Phone is still broke," he said, smiling innocently at her.

She growled. "Danny—

"I'm fine," Danny interrupted, looking at both Maddie and Jack.

Maddie gave him an unconvinced look, then looked at the media starting to come closer to the three. She let out an aggravated huff.

"Get in the GAV. We will talk about this later."

"But—

"Daniel James Fenton," she harshly whispered, "If you don't do as I say, so help me…"

Danny winced back from her. "Okay, okay, I'm going."

Jack could only chuckle at him, for once not being on the receiving end of his wife's overprotective side.

"Mom, I'm fine," Danny said as they all got out of the GAV.

The door to the house opened, Vlad came through. He looked at Maddie and Jack, then at Danny. "Are you okay?"

Danny huffed, frustration knitting his eyes together. "I'm fine."

"No, you're not fine. Now, go to the kitchen and sit down. I need to find the first aid kit."

"Upstairs bathroom in the bottom cabinet on the left," Danny said automatically.

Maddie gave him an alarmed look, but quickly left to go get the kit.

"I think you just made it worse," Vlad said.

"I don't think that's possible," Danny said with a wince.

"Come on, let's do what your mother said and get you to the kitchen," Jack said. He gave his son a questioning look. "Do you need any help?"

His son shook his head. "I can manage."

The three men walked through house, both Vlad and Jack watching the youngest Fenton like a hawk.

Danny went straight to one of the chairs, sitting down carefully. He was still cradling his left arm.

"It looks broken," Jack said, pulling a chair in front of his son and sitting on it to get a better look at his arm. He touched the already swelling lump in the middle of his son's forearm. There was another lump forming towards the end of his arm near the wrist.

"Looks like it's broken in two places," he corrected, trying to hide just how much it bothered him. He knew Maddie was freaking out enough for the both of them. He had to keep his head for the sake of his son.

"Yeah, pretty sure it is," Danny said, looking at his arm. "I have to reset it if I want it to heal faster and in the right way."

"Do we need to go to the hospital?" Jack said, looking back at Vlad, who was leaning against the breakfast bar, with an unsure expression.

Vlad didn't notice Jack's attention, still looking at Danny. The only sign of how truly concerned his friend was, was from the grim set in his lips. He knew Vlad cared a lot more for Danny than the man let on. That was another reason why he was thankful Vlad knew about Danny. His son needed as much support as possible.

"No, I can do it," his son said off-handedly.

Jack's eyes widened. "What?"

"I can do it," he repeated, giving him a weird look.

"H-how do you know how to reset a bone?"

His son looked away, suddenly uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation.

"You've done it before," Jack guessed, feeling almost sick to his stomach at the thought of his son resetting his own bones enough to know exactly how to do it.

"Yeah."

"How didn't we know about this?" Jack pressed.

Danny half-shrugged, lifting only one shoulder. "I didn't really tell you guys. Besides it happened less after you guys found out."

He stared at his son blankly for a minute. He looked momentarily back at where his wife disappeared to then back at Danny. "How 'bout we don't tell your mom that."

Danny looked at the stairs, wincing. "Yeah, let's not."

Jack laughed, mussing up his son's hair affectionately.

"If you two want to keep it that way, you better do it quickly before she comes down," Vlad said, giving the stairs a meaningful look.

Jack gave his friend a grateful nod, then turned toward Danny with a grim expression. "Okay, what do you need me to do?"

Danny shook his head. "I got this. It's actually pretty easy with a little intangibility and invisibility."

Jack cocked his head to the side, not really knowing what his son was getting at.

Danny laid his left arm carefully on the table, easing it down gently with the other hand cupping it to avoid any further movement of the broken bones. Once the arm was securely placed on the dinner table, as if to demonstrate what exactly his son meant, Jack watched in fascinated horror as Danny's arm slowly became invisible section by section, through the skin, through the fatty tissue, muscles, until all he saw was bone embedded between muscle tissues and vessels. Jack felt his stomach drop. He could see where the two parts of the bone was nastily broken.

"And, now all I need to do is just push it into place," Danny said, using his other hand to maneuver the first broken section of the bone.

And that's when Jack felt it. The queasiness. His vision blurring. It was all happening too rapidly for him to even look away. And, suddenly, everything went dark.

Jack's body slid out from the chair, falling to the tiled floor of the kitchen with a resounding thud.

Danny just stared blankly at his dad, hand still poised in his arm. "Did he just…"

"I'm surprised he made it this long actually," Vlad said with a chuckle.

Danny looked to Vlad, giving him a questioning look.

Vlad shrugged at the him. "Jack never like human anatomy, well, at least the part where we had to dissect a cat in college biology."

"Huh," Danny said. "But, why did he threaten to dissect me all those times?"

Vlad gave him a leveled look. "I think that was your mother."

"Oh. Oh, yeah, right."

"Besides," Vlad said with a smile, "ghost anatomy isn't really like human anatomy. Half-ghost, however, is a different story."

"So," Danny said, looking at the unconscious body of his dad. "What are we going to do, now?"

"SERIOUSLY?" Roared a very angry Maddie Fenton who was staring at the scene currently in the kitchen. Danny was pretty sure most of her anger was directed at him and his dad, with his dad being passed out on the floor and Danny being caught red-handed, literally, with his hand deep in his arm and a bone that wasn't fixed yet.

Danny looked helplessly at Vlad, hoping the man, with all his cleverness and past scheming, had a way to get out of this; but whatever hope he had withered out of existence when the man looked at him with the same fear in his eyes.

Yeah, there was no way any of them were getting out of here anytime soon today.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #maddie fenton #jack fenton #vlad masters #ember and skulker team up #this is all we know

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