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long-live-astronerd-ghost-king · 18 days

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DPXDC prompt: Spiritual Siblings

Bruce: My assassin kid can't be that normal!

Damian: Well, I’m completely emotionally stable by Amity Park standards. The problem is with you. Obviously.

~~~~~

Damian had long found peace and home in Amity, so he did not worry that the new family and Gotham might not accept him.

Sure, Al Ghul had lived without any contact with his biological father all these years but he could safely say that he had a happy childhood. First years were hard and he was raised more as a weapon than a human being. Even so, after that a ghost who decided to become his brother appeared and everything changed.

Damian still does not know what Ra's owes Phantom but Danny has a right to take him, without prior notification, to live with Fentons, to visit Aunt Alicia at her farm, and to make Vlad’s weekends much less calm and boring. Danny jokes that he just steals him as a hostage when Al Ghul does not pay taxes for using Lazarus Pits. Whatever the reason, he already has a family that loves him.

However, he still wanted to make an effort to fit in this one too. The model of conduct certainly was his older brother. No, not the oldest, of course. To be honest Dan wasn’t the kind of a man that could charm you from the first minute. But Danny, in Damian’s experience, had a calming effect on people. So he tried to act like him.

And, yeah, for lack of experience, he was more fun!Danny at home and super!Danny on patrol but he also really tried not to get any of his own assassin personality in his new-self and was tired of it. He couldn’t get a 100% match. Fine. Still doesn’t look like anyone in this house really likes him, so whatever.

Damian understood why Bruce didn't like his company. Jazz had long ago explained to him the importance of voluntary consent. His mother did a terrible thing. Al Ghul was not a child and therefore he was ready to admit it. However, he also understood that children were not responsible for the actions of their parents.

As a biosocial being, he wanted to be more than just a painful reminder of what had happened to Bruce. Wayne's ignoring of his existence was rude. But Damian wouldn't force this man to spend time with him just because he was legally obligated to take care of his well-being. He wasn't going to prove anything to Batman, and he definitely didn't need his attention. The care of his real family is enough.

But Damian really tried to get along with new potential siblings. He even shared Sam's and Danny’s special jokes with some of adopted kids 'cause he didn’t want them to feel like he put himself above them. He wasn't good at showing emotions but he was as open as the assassin could afford to be to strangers.

But they all obviously expected something from him. And it reminded him of the League in an unpleasant way. It was easier with Fentons. Almost everyone in Amity Park was saying what they thought, and Damian didn’t have to waste time decoding potential conspiracies.

Damian missed movie marathon nights with Sam, Tucker, and Danny. And he hoped Dani had time to bother Vlad in his absence.

It was so weird here. When Danny and Valerie were fighting, they would gather at the dinner table anyway. When Damian wanted to have combat training with Drake here, he was forced to stay in his room. A very strange punishment. And undeserved one too.

Al Ghul felt quite calm and fine sitting at his easel and painting the people he left behind. An unusual subject for his paintings. But, Ancients, he missed Amity.

He missed Jack's bone breaking hugs, Maddie's Ecto-Contaminated food, arguments of Sam and Tucker, cozy art class with Mr. Baxter and even Vlad's done look. He missed Danny telling him about the stars. He also missed sword practice with Dan's boyfriend Fright Knight and he missed Dan's stories about his other youth. He missed literary evenings with Mr. Lancer, Clockwork and Ghost Writer. He even missed the hours-long Jazz lectures. He missed the dance of death and life. He missed being looked at without expecting anything from him. He missed the crowd. In the league, he was never at one with himself and in Amity he was always surrounded by people who were not afraid of his fate as the heir to the said League. This Manor was full of people, but for the first time in his life he felt lonely. Damian has to admit that he felt left behind. Of course, he understood that people needed time to build relationships, but he could have sworn that even he didn't need that much time to connect with Fentons. Maybe this is one of the tricks of the Clockwork? Then this one is not funny at all.

~~~~~Phone call~~~~ Damian: Mom, I want to go home. Maddie: I'm so sorry to hear that, sweetheart. What happened? Damian: Just…Nobody likes me. Why was I sent here? I'm not weak. And my brothers are quite capable of protecting me from Raas. I don't need Batman for this. Maddie: We'll figure it out, champ. Moms love you, remember? I'll talk to Talia, okay? Your brothers and sisters are already on edge and ready to steal you right during the patrol. Damian: It would be nice, but it would put a bat on their tails. So lock them in thermoses if they bother you too much. Maddie: But that won't stop Jazz. Damian: I missed the part where that's my problem. Maddie: Well, it will be your problem if she comes to your doorstep with your childhood photos and moralizing.

~~~~~~~~

It's his birthday. And he was always excited about it. But now, looking at the pile of gifts, he realizes that these people don't know him at all.

And this is the family of the best detective in the world? Maybe yes, but none of them bothered to really find info about him or ask him about his likes. Damian's a stranger here, and that's obvious.

The lunch container, which he will obviously give to the Boxing Lunch when he's in the right time interval, tennis rackets that Youngblood might like, The Graveyard Book…

Valerie had already read it to him and Dani before it was published. Thanks to Clockwork for his little miracles. The book reminded him of home.

Obviously this one is from Jason. And well, Damian doesn't think it was a pun on his life in Amity, more like Hood's inside joke about death but Dami will definitely leave this thing in the room at the Manor and maybe take it with him to the GZ or Amity Park.

~~~~~~~

When they gather at the festive table, Damian realizes that he has to make some kind of speech. He tries to be as brief as possible in his report.

Damian: Todd, your gift is appreciated. And I found a potential use for items that were given by others, Bruce.

Damian never called Batman his father. With Maddie and Talia, calling both moms wasn't weird, especially when Jazz explained to his biological mom that he wasn't trying to replace her. But with Wayne, it was different. Both women took care of him, they deserved this title. Wayne provided for his needs, but his core heart didn't feel like they were close. Surely there's nothing wrong if they're just Bruce and Damian? Obviously, they both don't enjoy each other's company.

Jason: So, do you like books, little demon? Damian: Sometimes reading is quite relaxing, I should point out. I'm not indifferent to Stephen King and Lovecraft. Jason: Personal recommendations? Damian: Cujo is one of my favorites. Jason: Not a common opinion, huh. Damian: It reminds me of my family. Damian tries to smile like Danny does, but Jason's twitching eye clearly indicates that he screwed it up.

~~~~Dick and Jason synchronously drop their forks as an excuse for a conference under the table.~~~~ Dick*whispers*: How's the situation? Jason*whispers back*: If the boy asks for a dog, don't be fooled. He will be happy to dance on our graves.

~~~~Cass knocks over their heads, urging them to return to their seats.~~~~

Damian: So how good you are at fading and sliding,Todd? Jason: Why did you ask? I can't, of course. Damian: Because you're dead. It seemed to me that this was a completely understandable interest. Jason: Wow, what a jerk. Damian: I wonder why your own incompetence makes me a jerk? Even my sister could do this when she wasn't dead for even a month.

Jason, for some reason, looks awkward, although he has never been embarrassed before by the idea that a girl could be stronger than him.

Jason: Your sister? How old was she when... So it's all about age. Damian rolls his eyes.

Damian: We're the same age. It seems like it was four or five years ago. To be honest, I don't remember. I wasn't around then. I'll ask Danielle the next time I go to the cemetery to visit her. Dick: I'm so sorry, Dami. Where is she buried? We can take you. Damian: There's no need. She has no grave, as there was nothing to bury. Bruce sighs loudly and covers his eyes with his hands. Damian: It's just easier to contact the afterlife in places like this, you now? Duke: We are very sorry, dude. Damian: Don't be. People come and go, and then come back if they haven't finished annoying you. There's no point in regretting the past. Her creation was not the most ethical thing but everything is going as it should. At least that's what Grandpa says. Considering that the old man is older than time, I prefer to believe him. No one plays with fate without his permission unless they want to get hit by the clock. Tim now looks like he's going to throw up and Damian hurries to move his plate closer to him. Jason: Yes, Bruce, this is definitely your son. Damian: Did I say something wrong? Dick smiles faintly at him but still doesn't find anything to say. Damian shrugs and goes back to eating asparagus. People outside of Amity are so weird.

Signal looks at Damian suspiciously as he carefully rearranges the plate of soy sausages away from himself. Did he take him for an idiot? Everyone knows that even vegetarian sausage bite and fight no worse than those with meat when they come back to life. It's not Damian's fault that he doesn't have an ectoblast with him and wants to have extra distance from the opponent.

~~~At the same time, in the walls of Wayne Manor~~~ Dani: The operation codenamed "Get Haunted Idiot" is declared open. Danny and Dan *salute*.

~~~Several Days Later~~~

Damian: So, this is Dan. Danny says we keep him as a GIW repeller. Dick: And Danny and Dan are.. Jazz: His brothers. I'm Jazz by the way. Elle and I are his sisters. Damian: I feat the criteria to participate in their name cult, so they took me. Dan, Danny, Dani and Dami. Dan *ruffles Damian's hair* : I prefer to call this biting threat Damn, to be honest. Dami: Shut up, DaNtE, they almost wrote Dark in your passport, you idiot. I can't believe I thought I missed you. Danny: Wow. Rude. Your grandpa would be disappointed. Great job, lil one.

~~~Several years later~~~

#dpxdc #dpxdc prompts #dpxdc prompt #dpxdc memes #damian and danny are brothers

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im-only-here-for-the-fandom · 9 months

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DPxDC : The Phantom ARG

I have been watching a lot of ARG’s and conspiracy theory on youtube lately and decided to combine the two so here we go.

The ghosts in this au will be like Deadman, you can’t see him unless you have magic, a magic artifact, or highly contaminated by ectoplasm. meaning only danny and his friends Sam and Tucker who were near the portal when it activated can see the ghosts in this au, they are invisible to everyone else in Amity Park.

In the beginning, after his accident Danny believed that he was merely hallucinating the small ghost blobs and ghost animals that initially made it through the portal thinking it was only an after effect from getting an extreme shock, and it isn’t until the first ‘incident’ the mystery meat that attacked the shool cafeteria that he realizes that what he is seeing is real.

So like any self respecting teen he tells his best friends Sam and Tucker. They both reveal that they too have been seeing strange things since the accident although not as clearly as Danny, they could still see them like watching youtube in 240p. They gather after the mystery meat incident, which they have named INCIDENT-1 or IN-1 for short as they later name it, in Danny’s room afterwards to discuss what happened. They find out that other than the three of them no one seemed to see the floating lunch lady or even head her when she talked , they only reacted after the meat started gathering and taking the shape of a monster.

Sam says that they should document what they see and what is happening in amity park and the boys agree with her. Danny become the main cameraman and investigator being the only one strong enough to get close without major injury or harm and also being able to see, hear, and feel the ghosts clearest. Sam is the main documenter and researcher she’s the one that writes down their findings and goes over the videos they have to discover new findings to note down. Tucker is the main hacker and editor he hacker the cameras in the streets and school to get footage and other information that might be needed while also making sure that they can’t be tracked. Despite having their main area of expertise they all pitch in to help each other.

While documenting they start figuring out a few key details about documenting ghosts. 1 being that unless you are using an ecto-camera the less technologically adavanced the devices you use are the better results you get. 2 the stronger the ghost is the more visible they are, the stronger they are the more dangerous they are ( danny in ghost form is by far the most visible on camera, and in real life extremely clear to his friends). and finally 3 as time goes on certain objects/ places around town have started to become strange or gain peculiar features.

Jazz ,still not believing in ghosts because they are not visible ,becomes suspicious of what the Trio are doing, so they lie to her and tell her that they are making a sort of anolog horror based on their town to cope with the stress of the recent events happening.

realizing that ‘hey this actually a really nice way to destress from our problems’ and with that one lie that they told jazz the Trio became fully committed to making a full on ARG , with hidden messages, pictures and code. so with Tucker’s coding and editing skills and knowledge of ciphers and wordplay, Sam’s organizing skills and eye for hints and details, and Danny’s obsession with stars and everything space and his way with emotions, along the very much real ghosts and they were all set to make the best ARG.

They named it THE PHANTOM ARG, finishing up the last details they finally post their first video on youtube titled ‘IN-1 : Mystery Meat’. Later on once they get the hang of it they post about ‘how to deal with the ghosts’ ‘evacuation procedures’ ‘cooking with ectoplasm’ and artwork depicting the ghosts and short presentations explaining their characteristics. They even make a fully functional website thats called ‘welcom to Amity Park’ where there are hidden messages, codes and information.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

In Gotham

Bernard Dowd is watching youtube when a video thumbnail catches his eye, it looks like a strange meat monster, he was intrigued. having nothing better to do, he decides to watch it. he looks at what the chanel is about and is instantly hooked, theory’s are exploding from his mind.

he can’t wait to tell Tim about this he would absolutely love this type of mystery solving.

random ideas for this au

The GIW are a big thing in this au, they can’t take down what the trio are posting because Tucker is a hacking god.

Danny is only called to as phantom when he is a ghost never as a human ( because of this no one knows that danny is a halfa)

the trio could go by code names, polaris(danny),pharaoh(tucker),gaia(sam). or any other name you think is sutable.

all codes, ciphers, and hints are based on either science and technology(tucker), plants and animals(sam), or space and ghosts(danny).

the ghost portal accident and opening is unkown to the public and is only referd to as the Accident and people are never told what this accident is only ‘since the accident’ or ‘after the accident’.

there is an extremely hidden video that requires you to solve an impossible amount of hints and clues, that is of the portal opening. it’s called IN-0:The Accident.

(the video shows two people a man and a woman jack and maddie in hazmat suits standing in front a large metal tunnel, two kids jazz and danny siting in front of them, the scientists plug the machine but it fails, they disappointedly leave,*fast foward*, three kids, the trio are standing in front of the portal, they talk, danny puts on a hazmat and walks into the tunnel, it whirls on, the doors shut, the video glitchs as the sound of the machine starting up get louder, the screen turns black but the sound of danny screaming are loud and clear, the screaming goes on for a few minutes before suddenly cutting off, the screan clears up but its still a bit glitchy, the portal is open swirling green with sam and tucker standing in front of it, danny is nowhere to be seen)

danny may or may not be ghost king

This is my attempt at drawing the LUNCH LADY.

DANGER: ⭐️⭐️

( rating may change)

please add, use, change as much as you like. i’d love to see what you come up with and how this idea could expand.

just make sure to tag me or tag it as The Phantom ARG.

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avidreaderffn · 9 months

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Imagine one of the Casper High students die.

Someone not on Danny's year, maybe one or two above him. And they die in a way that's nobody's fault. Maybe they fell off a tree, or had an asthma attack, or allergic reaction, or a heart attack. No one's fault, and this was a regular teenager with no specific obsessions or anything, so they really shouldnt have formed a ghost, except they happen to be the Fenton's neighbor from across the street, and that's enough proximity to be ecto contaminated enough that their ghost forms less than a week after their death.

So now, there's a ghost child in Amity Park.

It's all very awkward for everyone.

This kid's just. There. They all know him. He's acting the same as usual. He just wants to go to school and go home and hang out with his friends and go on with his. Life?

And everyone figures, well why not, right?

So this kid, a ghost, just keeps going to school, and hanging out around town, and the Fentons awkwardly wave when they cross paths at the grocery store, and there's a bit of a debate about staying on the football team, but they figure everyone else is liminal enough that he doesnt have much of an advantage anyways, and it's a bit awkward but the whole town's adapting well enough.

On the sidelines, Danny's losing his mind though.

#danny phantom #amity park #bm #the phandom

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nerdofspades · 2 years

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Continuing from this post, with some more details being pulled from this reblog.

When Phantom sees Batman hanging out on a roof in Amity Park (where he can be seen easily, but only by someone who can fly) the first thing he does is sneak up on him.

For Phantom, it's easy. Invisibility, intangibility, and flight make it ridiculously easy for him to not make noise while approaching someone. He just needs to not breath too loud while he approaches. (Or speak. Both of these things are also easy for a ghost. Or a half ghost like him.)

So Phantom does that, and if it's pay back for all the times Batman startled him while he was working. No one needs to know.

The first thing he says is that Batman looks like he's looking for a fight. Batman does not jump or look startled in anyway. Danny is disappointed.

(Danny did manage to sneak up on Batman. Bruce just has excellent control over his reactions to maintain his persona. He also knew Phantom to be mischievous and was expecting this.)

So, Batman doesn't skip a beat and tells Phantom it's just a precaution. Mostly for if a less friendly ghost spotted him first. He wasn't going to start any fights.

Phantom gives a nod and says "good, you're learning."

Which sets off Batman. Because Phantom was not supposed to know. Danny scrambles and manages to brush it off. Batman has Fenton tech. He clearly got it from someone and if it were Jack and Maddie, Batman wouldn't be having a conversation with Phantom. Jazz has never been particularly good at the tech and hunting stuff, but she's got an interest in ghostly psychology. That leaves Danny, and that kid has been in and out of town all summer. That and with the only consistent access to the ghost zone in FentonWorks, it pays to have friends inside the house. And Phantom uses Fenton tech too. Gotta get it from somewhere.

While everything Phantom says is technically correct and factual something about the way he says it (the panicked rambling) doesn't sit right. Batman decides to "make polite conversation." With Phantom about the Fentons.

The more he asks and the more Phantom talks the more concerned he gets. Jazz has basically become Danny's parental figure in any situation where Jack and Maddie aren't technically required. Sure she inherited their genius, but at least half her drive to succeed is tied to getting out of there. They don't have safe food to eat and the entire house has been contaminated with ectoplasm due to Jack and Maddie's lax lab safety. (Phantom off hand mentions that the ecto-contamination will probably have effects on the kids that aren't constantly wearing jumpsuits.)

And the amount of things Jazz and Danny do that Jack and Maddie apparently just don't notice is astounding. Both kids sabotage or steal particularly nasty ghost weapons on a regular basis. Danny sneaks out more nights than not and his parents notice less than five percent of the time.

(Phantom specifically does not mention why he knows all of this, but it is obvious to Bruce that he and Danny do not have a professional relationship. He doesn't have it actually figured out, but he probably thinks they're dating.)

Batman wants them out of that house. Now. It's only when Batman directly brings that up that Danny realizes he's fucked up and said too much. He debates back tracking and trying to play it down again. But. By now he's spent enough time with the League to know about his adoption tendencies and has spent enough time listening to Jazz, Sam, and Tucker to know that he's actually right. That house is fucked up. Trying to cover it up now would just make Batman more convinced he needs to take them in.

So Danny does the opposite. He tells Batman that trying to move them now would be worse. They don't want to be separated and one or both of them would immediately sacrifice everything to help the other if separated from their parents.

The only way to make sure they stay together would be for Jazz to take custody of Danny. So, either she gives up Harvard and stays in Amity so Danny can finish high school with his friends, or Dannt gives up Amity so Jazz can stay at Harvard. Even if Danny manages to convince her to go to school, she now would need a full time job to take care of them on top of needing to pass her classes as a full time student to maintain her scholarship. Doing both would likely be impossible.

They will not thank him for intervening.

(Danny does not mention his obsession. He does not say that leaving Amity is not an option for Danny. That it would mean so much more than just leaving his friends and support network behind.)

Bruce hates it, but concedes. In this case. For now. He quietly resolves to get as much money into Danny's bank account as he can without making it obvious. No need for the League to know about that.

He also suggests that Danny and Jazz get therapy. Offers up a League contact that they can meet at the Watchtower if they don't want to visit anyone local. Especially with their relationship to Phantom. (And now the League.)

Oddly enough, Danny takes the offer. Jazz does too, but that wasn't too much of a surprise. Danny knows that Jazz can't actually be his therapist because of their relationship, and the main reason she's been toeing that line is because Danny didn't have other options. Now that he has one he can take some stuff off her plate and even get her some help off loading all the crap from their parents and taking care of him. So yeah. They take the therapy offer.

(This does nothing to curb the League's belief that Danny is one of Bruce's kids. Jazz gives them a little confusion, but it's not like Bruce hasn't taken in kids with families before.)

(Bruce does remember to handle his actual business before leaving. He was there to give Phantom a League communicator so they could call him for major ghost problems outside of Amity and he can call them if he gets in over his head. While Danny is good at what he does, Batman does not want to call a civilian child to a battlefield if he can help it.)

Dinah (Black Canary) takes them on as patients. Because neither one is directly connected to the League and Dinah spent minimal time with the ghost gear stuff, she doesn't have any concerns about being able to stay professional. She does tell both of them that if they have concerns about that, or if Danny becomes more involved in the League, they can tell her or Batman and they'll work to find a suitable replacement or address those issues in another way.

Neither of them talks about Phantom at first. Jazz opens up much faster, but she also has an easier time obfuscating the relationship between Phantom and Fenton.

Danny doesn't talk about Phantom at all.

Both of them raise a million red flags for Dinah regarding their family life, but both of them reiterate that they would rather not bring it to court.

Slowly, eventually. Danny feels safe. He's still slow and hesitant. He asks a few questions to verify that even the nosiest League members don't know what he tells her. (Manhunter has gotten several talks about not digging into Dinah's memories and if he has to, staying away from any that take place in this room. There is no camera and everything is hard copy. If Bataman were to try and open that door, it would set off an alarm. The walls are lined with lead and so on and so forth.)

Then Danny tells her outright that he and Phantom are the same perosn. They tall for quite awhile about the accident, hero work, his parents, and more. At the end of the session Dinah can tell this is something Jazz has been avoiding with the gift of hindsight and Danny says he'll tell Jazz she can open up about it.

Things look good for them.

#dp x dc #danny phantom #batman #justice league #black canary #jazz fenton #long post #give these kids therapy #parental neglect

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phantomphangphucker · 25 days

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Phic Phight - Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome

@atropos_aeneas @Anguished-Lurker @higgidigs @princessfanonanona @Ghostfox_fuyu @armed-with-knitting-needles

No one had ever died, a fact Phantom and all of Amity was frankly proud of, that couldn’t last though… could it? Or was everyone just too changed by everything for them to be undone by death? Either way, Lancer has class to teach and a school to more or less run.

Lancer was well aware of the simple fact that Amity Park was a very dangerous and strange town to live in, and he was also well aware that the reason for that was not just the ghosts; only mostly them. The teens in town had all long since lost any semblance of risk avoidance and had taken to doing incredibly dangerous hobbies; frequent drag races, parkour, rooftop hockey, and actively playing with the smaller ghosts. It worried him some honestly, more so in the early days than now, now it was just simply normal.

Everyone being slightly ecto-contaminated, and thusly much more durable with minor healing factors, gave him some peace of mind at least.

Further, if he’s being honest, Jack Fenton’s driving was far more dangerous than any ghost, known and unknown, to man. He, like everyone else in Amity, firmly believed that who ever approved Jack Fenton’s license, if anyone actually had, should be fired and investigated posthaste. One of the downsides to being aware of the road threat that was Jack Fenton was being too relaxed when there wasn’t a GAV road warning out. Another was not being worried about any other driver's, because surely one insane driver would cancel out the requirement for any other forms of bad driving; everyone would drive like angels to avoid being compared to Jack, drag races notwithstanding. And the last downside was having something of a god complex behind the wheel, if one could survive Jack Fenton’s driving on the weekly then surely they were immune to road-related injuries.

All three of these downsides were exactly why Lancer was currently in this situation. Him get t-boned by a semi -an out of town delivery semi, Lancer notes very pointedly- and was thrown front end first into a fire hydrant… and unfortunately all of Amity’s fire hydrants -and telephone poles for that matter- had to be reinforced both because of ghosts and Jack Fenton.

Now all of that would have been acceptable, more or less, he would have gotten badly injured for sure but Lancer had always had a love for older vehicles; meaning he drove an older vehicle, one without a seatbelt or airbags. In retrospect that was rather foolish to do in Amity, but sue him, he was allowed to take some risks himself too. So instead of smashing his face into an airbag and having a seatbelt to hold him in, Lancer went out the windshield, which thankfully seemed to just pop out since he never really felt it shatter.

So now here Lancer is, groaning and pushing himself up out of a bush, a bush that he is thanking everything that he got thrown into since it must have cushioned the impact. And giving himself a once over, maybe not wearing seatbelts or having airbags in this town was actually a good idea, seeing as there doesn’t appear to be a single scratch on him. His clothing isn’t even torn, at least he doesn’t have to try and replace one of his favourite shirts; it was important to appreciate the little mercies. His car on the other hand…

Pushing his way out of the bush and staring at the wreck, his car is a pancake. Unrecognizable even.

If he hadn’t been thrown out he would certainly be dead.

Explicitly dead.

Vaguely he wonders if he would have become a ghost himself, in this town and with this contamination, it was mostly likely a certainty. Instead, his potentially poor road safety decisions and ecto-contamination had just saved him. Saved him from not just medical bills but potentially death itself. Breathing out slowly, quoting Isaac Asimov, “Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome”, breathing again, “much the same, I was well before and I shall be well again. Any shock, replacing my car, and suddenly facing my mortality; is only a troublesome transitional period”; and breaths again.

He’s aright.

Well. Okay.

Yes he’ll need to check his meager bank account -even these days teachers were still woefully underpaid- to see if he had the funds for a new used vehicle. Then there was all the time researching and searching for something he could both drive and would enjoy driving. But he was o-kay, and that was enough.

He, however, did not have the time for shock or to got to the hospital; he had a class to teach tomorrow and paper work to be done. Daniel was still settling in as a teacher and Lancer will not let that boy-now-man down now after everything Lancer’s done to get him to enjoy schooling again. Especially when his parents still seemed to not truly care about the man, and frankly the odd man was only able to get a job by being too good to refuse to hire… and it helped Daniel actually cared about all the teens. Wanted them to not go through all the troubles he seemingly did; the stories Lancer got often made him feel like he both failed and succeeded with the man at the same time.

Was Lancer distracting himself with his usual worry ex-student? Maybe. But it gets him moving to check on the driver enough to see that the older man’s alright but shaken and calling the emergency line. Lancer would stick around but again, he has school to prepare for.

So instead he walks home. Nothing more nothing less. Doesn’t stop for food. Doesn’t go to peruse the Bookworm’s shelves for new reads, as he had been planing to do. Doesn’t even stop to say high to the nearest gas station clerk. He goes home, makes tea, wraps himself in a blanket, allows himself to watch three episodes of his most recent favourite soap opera, and then finishes winding down with paper work. Grading seniors papers was usually genuinely enjoyable rather than purely tedious or worrying, since seniors took things more seriously.

It’s… a good way to end what could have been a truly horrific day even if he definitely felt a fair bit off kilter.

When he gets up in the morning he doesn’t really think much about still feeling a bit off or the bout of insomnia he had; he had been through a rather traumatic experience after all. He only hopes the lack of sleep doesn’t catch up with him in the middle of the day, he didn’t like being off his game. However, having a tired teacher and vice principle, was better than not having one at all. He’ll take what he can get in this case, he was lucky he was fine at all as it was.

So regardless of the potential looming exhaustion, Lancer hails a cab to work. The cabbie gives Lancer a bit of a strange look but quickly shrugs and takes him to Casper-high without comment; perhaps Lancer should have actually checked his face for any bruising, he did have make up he could have covered any busing with after all…

The ride was blissfully normal, thankfully, at least. Yes Lancer will admit he was a bit nervous about another accident, even if the chance of that happen twice in one week to him was statistically speaking incredibly unlikely. The sun hasn’t risen above the horizon yet, the sky is clear, there’s no ghosts, and Casper-high looks fully intact.

Good. Normal.

However, as he approaches the building, something explicitly not normal and concerningly not good happens. The faintly sparkling ghost shield, the one that mostly protected the school from most of at least the weaker ghosts, the one FentonWorks product that had never caused any kind of issues or damages, the one anti-ghost method of protecting the students that didn’t involve guns, and the one that Lancer had felt the mild tingle of passing through near daily for the past year. The tingle was strange but an easy adjustment, especially for the safety it provided, being ecto-contaminated was well known to be why the tingle happened especially as those who frequented Casper-high had more ecto-contamination than most. The Highschool was, unfortunately, a ghost hot spot after all and frequent decontamination of the grounds and equipment was a must as a result.

Apparently today was the day that the shield decided to be a problem, perhaps the ecto-contamination in him -and likely all the other more senior staff- had simply gotten to too high a level… which would of course mean he’d have to have a conversation with the Fenton’s immediately. Or rather, he should call Daniel, let him know of this issue and to arrive slightly early to check it out, that was a far less painful idea and would involve far less monologuing from the Fenton patriarch… or the man accusing Lancer of being a ghost and covering him in goop for the hundredth time.

So Lancer pulls out his phone with a sigh, eyeing the shield as it rings and he holds it up to his ear.

“Lance? What’s up? It’s still, like, ass-o-clock in the morning there’s no way I’m late. Oh Ancients am I late or something? Fuck”.

Lancer sighs to himself, he never did manage to get Daniel’s language under control. At least he never swore at students… well, he did just not in English, which was good enough apparently. “Language. No, you’re not late. However there seems to be an, issue, of some kind with the ghost shield and I was inquiring if you’d be willing to check it out before I have to deal with Maddie or, forbid, Jack”, then quoting Eat That Frog!, “One of the very worst uses of time is to do something very well that need not to be done at all”.

Daniel laughs, loudly, “okay, okay, that makes sense. I’ll be there sooner than you’d expect me to be, ‘cause Amity is ‘like that” and all. If it’s really jacked up then I’ll have to get them to take it down though”, grumbling, “since I’m not allowed to have the codes or blueprints anymore”.

Lancer frowns faintly, those parents of his had absolutely no trust in him anymore, yes Daniel was ‘pro ghost’ unlike them and yes Daniel was also a prankster known for messing with things, but that didn’t really matter. Daniel was a genius in his own right, about ghosts and tech and space, he just didn’t agree with them, which made him a fool and a risk in their eyes. Lancer shakes his head, “unfortunate. I’ll see you soon then”. The phone clicks off and Lancer settles in to wait.

Daniel shows up not even three minutes later, weirdly quick, almost concerning actually, but that was normal for him. It was something to do with his and the towns contamination making it so that he nearly teleported unintentionally around when he wanted to go somewhere specific, the towns ecto-energy snagging onto his and pulling him along… or at least that’s the explanation Daniel was going with at least.

Daniel is waving at him with furrowed brows and a possibly pinched -it was hard to tell with Daniel- smile, the man does eye the shield some as he gets over fully. Daniel humming, “well it’s not on fire”.

Lancer grimaces, that would be much more concerning, “is that possible?”.

Daniel shrugs, “I mean maybe, their base substrate before filtering and whatnot is super flammable. I’m not allowed near it for reasons”, and smirks to himself in that way that tells Lancer the man intentionally set something on fire with it. Daniel looks back to him, and yes his smile is definitely pinched, “let’s, uh, walk over to the control box”, gestures over Lancer’s shoulder and starts walking without waiting for a response.

Lancer just watches him go for a beat, a little thrown off, something was up and something being up with Daniel was never good. Having to catch up a little, even if Daniel wasn’t exactly going fast since he knew that Lancer wasn’t what anyone would call a fast walker, “alright, what’s wrong? I can tell something is bothering you”.

Daniel glances at him before running a hand through his hair, his other stuffed into his pants pocket, “Lance… there ain’t a great to say this-”.

Oh. On Shakespeare’s grave, that is an incredibly bad thing to hear Daniel say. No one, especially Daniel, says that there isn’t a great way to say something unless the something is either very bad, very annoying, or very upsetting. Lancer’s silently hoping for the ‘very annoying’ option.

Daniel’s hand moves down to rub his neck, making Lancer feel more worried; hair fiddling plus neck rubbing plus Daniel was extremely ominous. Daniel continues speaking, “-see the thing is, right, it’s, ah- well there is problem, and the problem does involve the shield”.

Lancer is going to start sweating at this point, “Chicken Soup For The Soul, just tell me, Daniel. You’re going to give me a heart attack with all this beating around the bush. That is terrifying from you”. The last time Daniel had skirted around an issue and problem like this was when a, swear on his Anne Rice collection, full blown ghost invasion happened.

Daniel’s laugh is awkward and nervous, once again an ominous sign, how bad was this going to be? “Okay that’s fair, ha”, rubbing his neck some more before halting his steps and eyeing Lancer as he too stops, “look, it’s not the portal, Lance, it’s, uh, it’s you”.

Lancer blinks in a way he knows is a bit owlish, “I’m not sure I follow?”, how was it himself? He’s fairly certain he hadn’t had any recent run ins with ghosts or general ectoplasm? And thanks to his insomnia he knows there was no ghosts being thrown through his bedroom walls without his awareness. So his ecto-contamination shouldn’t be noticeably any worse than it was on Friday?

Daniel makes a range of faces, confusion, sadness, worry, amusement, and absolute bafflement, “have you just, not looked in a mirror today? Have, Lance man, how have you not noticed? I-what”, turning away and almost wheeze laughing at the air, “what am I supposed to do with this?”.

Oh maybe near death experiences could have a more ghostly side effect in an ecto-contaminated town perhaps? And maybe he definitely should have thought about using some make-up, he must be bruised then. He puts a hand to his chest and sighs, “is my face just bruised up? I did get into a bit of an-”, and cuts himself off due to a bit of spastic full body twitch. It’s… he’s never felt anything like that before and he absolutely does not want to actually talk about the accident. Maybe he did have some shock? More trauma than he expected? Frowning, now he’s worrying himself.

Daniel looks back to him and winces, not in a confused or worried way but rather in a knowing way, “yeah um, don’t try talking about it, I don’t need to know the how. That’d be rude of me”, and sighs, looking up at the sky. Lancer is now more worried because Daniel did not care about ‘being rude’, Catcher In The Rye, the man made a point to be rude sometimes. Daniel doesn’t give him a chance to interrupt, “okay, so, you do not have bruising, yay?”, Daniel looks awkward even if he’s still looking up at the sky, “it’s more that, well, you’re, you know or not I suppose, glowing”.

What.

Lancer blinks harshly, shaking himself off a little from that spasm earlier before responding, “I’m… glowing?”. Lifting a hand and inspecting it, his hand looked normal to him?

Daniel laughs at the action and Lancers confusion almost fondly, then shaking his head and pulling out his phone, holding the turned off screen up to Lancer’s face.

In his reflection Lancer… is, in fact, glowing.

He’s actually glowing.

His eyes are a light baby blue.

Glowing baby blue.

…

Is… is that why the cabbie was staring?

…

What.

Daniel pockets his phone, grabs Lancer by the arm, and basically drags Lancer over to a bench to sit down. Lancer’s a little too confused and concerned to do anything, the reminder of Daniel’s odd strength is a bit of a distraction at least.

What does this mean?

Why is he glowing of all things?

How is he glowing?

…

He feels fine.

He does feel fine right?

His clothes fit him like normal.

The ground under his feet feels the same… or maybe does? Is he… lighter perhaps?

…

Oh.

He’s… not breathing is he?

He’s not breathing.

He’s. Not. Breathing.

He is not breathing and Daniel’s just… sitting next to him… waiting?

Waiting… for him? To figure that out?

To figure out that he’s not breathing? That something is very wrong?

Why isn’t he-?

The accident.

The car crash.

Him getting thrown through a windshield.

Fahrenheit 451, he didn’t feel the windshield shatter because it didn’t.

The windshield didn’t pop out or shatter, but he still went through it.

He…

He died.

He died, didn’t he?

Death.

…

He only realizes absently that he’s shaking, that’s… understandable. He… Swallowing and moving to rest his elbows on his knees, folding his hands over his mouth and chin, “I’m… dead?”.

Daniel nods, Lancer doesn’t see it but he knows the man nodded anyways, “yeah. Yeah you are”.

The confirmation is a bit awful, actually. “That’s bad, isn’t it?”, and actually looks at Daniel.

Daniel shrugs, eyeing Lancer some back, “I guess that depends on what you’re gonna do about it? You’re here, not in the gz. You remember yourself, you life, teaching, all that”, Daniel gestures out to the town loosely, “and Amity does have enough free floating ecto to support the standard ghost”. Lancer swallows while Daniel gestures at him, “you’re human passing”, smiling in a way that’s definitely supposed to be reassuring, “technically, no one has to know, or no one else has to at least. De-glow spray is a real thing FentonWorks makes and it does actually work as intended. And you’re old enough you can just start wearing glasses all the time without people really questioning it; just with ecto-lenses in them”.

Lancer blinks, he- does he want that? He wants to teach, of course, teaching the young to appreciate the written world has always been his passion. “I… don’t know”.

Daniel nods like he expected that response, “well, you don’t have to make a choice really. Not immediately anyways. You could just pretend you’re not, you know, and just push the existential crisis off till later. I can easily get you de-glow and glasses before school actually starts. Maybe say I did something stupid again and blew up a few more microscopes, so I’m your assistant for the next while as punishment”.

Lancer’s not so mild freak out is being steamroll somewhat by the reminder that Daniel was disturbingly good at and quick on his feet about making excuses and spinning stories into believable lies. It’s a… skill, just a concerning one to have. “That’s- alright. Okay”.

Daniel nods readily, “well if you want my opinion, moving to the gz is a fucking stupid idea. You know that ghost are not inherently dangerous, or violent, or bad; like my folks claim. So I don’t need to tell you that me playing assistant is not me making sure you behave”, rolling a wrist, “more… actual assistance I guess. Guidance. Advice”, shrugging, “weird that that’s for another teacher instead of the kids this time, but eh”.

… Lancer stares at him a little, this was… way too normal of a reaction. Yes Lancer himself wasn’t having a… complete melt down, but that was supposed to be… normal… for ghosts. Ghosts liked being ghosts.

Shakespeare’s grave he’s a ghost now.

…

Which is, possibly, alright. Okay. A ‘he’ll get used to it’ situation rather than a genuine soul crushing tragedy.

He definitely can’t be leaving Amity to retire now though…

That was unfortunate.

…

Shaking his head, back to the point, Daniel was being too calm about this. Way too calm. Yes the man was familiar with this… this subject but still. “Daniel, you’re, awfully calm about this. All of it”. With helping. With having advice at the drop of a hat. With his favourite teacher being… dead.

Has this…

Has this happened before?

Daniel’s face actually manages to pale a little, giving Lancer an answer to a question he didn’t have to ask. This has happened before.

To who?

How’d they handle it?

Were they handling it at all? Or just ignoring it?

If literally anyone dies in Amity do they simply… become a ghost instantly?

Daniel sighs, shoulders straightening some. Lancer has a feeling he’s going to find out something that he’d rather not. He wants to know if this has happened to anyone else, but he doesn’t really want to know who. Daniel’s voice is calm, even, neutral. Speaking as he’s looking out at the town, “I suppose you’ll find out one way or another, ghosts are gossips”, Daniel eyes him, blue becoming green, “I’m not ecto-contaminated”.

Oh.

…

Daniel was… dead? That’s…

There’s no other world for it other than awful. Even if he doesn’t even have to ask if the man’s okay with it, Lancer knows he’d have to be with how he talks about ghosts and death, but that doesn’t make it less awful. Lancer stares at those green eyes for a beat before looking to the ground, rubbing his hands over his face tiredly, “how long?”. Even if it was okay to ask how he wouldn’t want to and not just because it would be unpleasant to know, it also feels… wrong somehow.

That’s probably a ghost feeling, isn’t it?

Daniel’s voice remains even, the question seemingly not bothering him, “my how and when is easy to figure out, so I mind being asked… less. Still mind it but I’m not going to assault someone over it. My, accident, was the talk of the whole school after all”.

Lancer grimaces, right, The Accident, with a capital A, if he wasn’t a bit… out of it then he would have put that together himself. “Apologies, you’re right, that… should have been obvious”.

Daniel shrugs, “that’s fine, you’re not exactly okay right now and just had some seriously fucking mind blowing news dropped on you”, then, of all things, he laughs, “though if you had just used a damn mirror this conversation would have happened a lot earlier”.

Lancer can respect the attempt to lighten the mood, even if it feels a little… insulting. “And I suppose I wouldn’t have confused the cabbie”.

“A cabbie actually drove you here? What the Zone is wrong with that cabbie?”, and barks out a laugh, “this town is crazy. Granted that’s kinda my fault but oh well”.

Lancer gave up trying to convince the man that it really wasn’t a long time ago, and looking Daniel over… he had milked that ‘ecto-contamination’ lie for all it was worth. Because, now that Lancer knew that was a lie, Daniel being… a ghost was obvious, wasn’t it? The pointed ears hidden barely by wild hair that’s a little too black. The fangs that were practically shown off when he laughed or smiled; which he did a lot. How pale his skin was, nearly seeming translucent under the right light. The sharp pointed nails that have caused an unfortunate amount of damages; his beaker dropping problem made a lot more sense now as well. Quoting Flannery O’Conner at the teen, “It does not take much to make us realize what fools we are, but the little it takes is long in coming”.

Daniel grins at him, “you and your book related quotes, man”.

Wait, was Lancer going to start dropping things to?

Shaking his head and taking a breath… or pretending to he supposes. He should try and figure all this out, he’s not sure he could actually handle it if he started… floating suddenly.

Being told he is and looks like a ghost is one thing. Suddenly floating or shooting out ecto-beams was another matter entirely, one he’s positive will give him a complete break down.

… He could see how this would be easier to deal with as a teen. Teens were adaptable, might find some aspects cool; Amity teens adjusted to ghosts far quicker than the adults after all.

Daniel’s starting to look a little concerned again, so Lancer pipes up, “am I going to have your beaker dropping problem?”.

Daniel scrunches up his entire face, “you will never let me live that down, will you”, grumbling incoherently to himself before addressing Lancer again, “no. Probably not”, squinting, “you feel like a normal ghost, so the abilities ghosts have shouldn’t act up out of your control on you”, running his neck, “I mean sure, you’re definitely going to doing things without noticing. That’s unavoidable. Things just come too naturally to ghost, you know?”, shrugs, “but, for me, my accident was aggressively unique and resulted in me very much so not being a normal ghost”, pouting a little, “hence all the poor poor beakers that no one will let me forget about”, pouting more, “and all the problems keeping my pants up, and most of the burnt homework, and my little bathroom problem-”

“This is why you go to the bathroom constantly?”. One of his biggest mysteries, solved. Lancer actually would rather not have that one solved, if being dead was the why.

Daniel rubs his neck while standing up, “yeah? Surprise I guess? You really don’t have worry about a similar issue though”, shrugging, “and I guess there’s some benefits, part of the reason all the ghost attacks don’t cause more damages, or Ancients forbid, deaths, is because I’m officially classified as an endangered species. Meaning genuinely endangering my existence is a crime”.

Lancer sighs into his hands before pushing himself to stand up as well, definitely noticing how much easier doing that was now. No knees aching, to spine cracking… no heavy drag from gravity. He does not like that he has to make a point to reassure himself that he is not floating. Eyeing Daniel , “that’s, a little concerning, Daniel, but I suppose I should be happy about you having specific protections”.

Daniel rolls his eyes, “yeah yeah yeah, doesn’t stop them from trying to ‘socialize’ with me by picking fights”, pointing at Lancer, “which, word to the wise, if some ghost tries to pick a fight just tell them no. Do not fight them, they take that as an invitation to keep doing it. No hitting them with fire extinguishers, or chairs, or tires, or baking trays, or that one time you somehow hit Skulker with The Box Ghost. At least off of school grounds anyways”.

Lancer frowns, “why is it okay on school grounds?”.

Daniel gestures for Lancer to follow him, resulting in them walking in the direction of the shields control panel, Daniel probably had a way to deal with it considering everything. Daniel talking as they go, “well you’re the vice principle, and as far as I’m aware the principle is not a ghost. Meaning you’re the senior one here, so here’s your territory. You’ll worry all the ghosts if you don’t smash Technus’s ass with a candle jar or something, when he inevitably starts crawling out of the speakers for world domination again. And then they’ll start babying you and you don’t want that, it is very annoying”.

Lancer feels a little confused, but well ghost behaviour often didn’t make sense… which was unfortunately ominous now. He does not want to lose the ability to relate to the staff and students… but… there’s nothing he can actually do about that.

Wait, if he remembers correctly, which he usually did remember his conversations with Daniel well since it encourage the boy-now-man so much, then ghosts only really ‘baby’, well, child ghosts. “Am I a child now”. What?

Daniel stops walking, bending over and puttimg his hands on his knees, wheeze laughing, “oh man! Ha! Yeah, yeah Lance you are”, standing up straight and snickering a little, “since you are, or were really, an adult before you won’t be a child ghost for long, so don’t beat yourself up about it too much”. Daniel is very clearly mocking him, Lancer’s willing to let it slide like usual.

At least once they get to the control panel all Daniel has to do to short it out long enough for both of them to get through, by shoving his hand intangibly through it. The man does it like it’s nothing, like it’s normal and not tied to an… untimely death. Which is oddly comforting, though Lancer seriously doubts he’ll ever be that okay with any part of his body going through something.

Daniel seems to agree with Lancer’s thoughts, “I guess I’ll be showing up at ass-o-clock all the time now, to let you in and everything”, shrugging, “eh sleeps for the weak and the living”.

Right.

The insomnia… which was not actually insomnia. He just… doesn’t need sleep anymore. That was going to take some time to get used to, but at least he’d have more time for grading and paperwork. Which might be quite nice actually. “You don’t mind?”.

Danny shakes his head as Lancer unlocks the school, “naw. Intangibility is stupidly unsettling in the beginning, not gonna expect anyone who actually remembers being alive to just up and start using it willy nilly. Plus you don’t know what wires to intangibly disconnect without even looking at, unlike me”.

Lancer gives him a bit of a glare for the blatant bragging, even if he does agree that he does not want to be using that ability himself, ever maybe.

Once they get to Daniel’s staff locker, which Lancer is guessing has stuff to help him not obviously be… a ghost, the man shoves his hand through the door instead of opening it; and pulls out a can, a box of lozenges labeled ‘echo soothers’, and, yes, some glasses. Daniel offering them over, “the de-glow works just like bug spray, smells like cotton candy for some reason though. And glasses are glasses, I don’t need to explain that. The cough drop looking mother fuckers will get rid of that whole echoing voice issue, even if yours is barely noticeable at all”.

Lancer eyes the items a bit before taking them, “I guess it makes sense you’d have this on school grounds”.

Daniel blinks before smacking his forehead, “oh no, I don’t have to use this stuff normally, it’s more in case my typical bad luck strikes and I need it suddenly”, rubbing his neck, “one of my unique species abilities is the ability to look human via shapeshifting. I’d need a lot more than just that to look human passing otherwise”, gesturing to his ears with his pointed nails and grinning enough to show fang, “obviously it’s not perfect but eh. At least my skins not teal this way, that would be a pain”.

Lancer’s a bit jealous honestly, however strange or not using a ghost ability like that would be he’d still be using that one. Lancer sprays the can on his hand a little experimentally, oh okay he hadn’t realized his skin was tingling until it stopped tingling. Odd. Well… at least the tingle wasn’t noticeable enough to wind up being distracting.

Daniel eyes Lancer’s hand and nods with a smile, “it’s working”, looking to Lancer’s face, “the tingle that you absolutely hadn’t noticed earlier gone now?”.

Daniel was so used to this that Lancer’s honestly a bit in awe. His former student was effectively becoming his teacher now. Strange but something of a nice comfort actually. Lancer nods and at Daniel’s ‘well go on’ gesture sprays himself entirely and puts on the glasses.

Daniel nods more so to himself, “yup, works. Figured. Congrats on being human-passing”, and gives Lancer a silly little thumbs up.

Lancer nods back, he would definitely be upset if he had to skip teaching because of this. So maybe Daniel’s suggestion to just go about his, well, ‘life’ as it were, as if nothings really changed was what he actually should do. Though, “my appearance is still going to change though, correct? Over time?”.

Daniel grins wide and points at his teeth, “oh definitely, I’d say sorry but that won’t change shit. All adults have fangs and claws; most have the ear points too. You might get lucky and that’ll be it and it’ll all be small, or your skin could change colours or you could develop something unique to you. Like Ember and The Lunch Lady have their fire hair, and Technus doesn’t have legs at all-”.

That would be extremely unfortunate. Lancer’s not sure he could even deal with that, part of his body being on fire or not having legs or growing another limb perhaps.

Daniel puts his hands together and gestures with them, “-but I highly doubt that, unique looks are usually tied to, well, the how of death. Like, my upper left side, arm included, is more electricity than physical matter. The permanent bed head’s also a unique trait, not just me being lazy”.

“Do you at least still brush it”. Lancer’s a little… disturbed by part of his former students body being electricity…

Daniel rolls his eyes before flopping down on the lounge room couch, “of course not, why the fuck would I do that? It wouldn’t do me anything”.

“Language”.

That just makes Daniel smirk, “glad to hear you’re doing better”, blinking and going a little wide-eyed before digging into his pockets, “oh! Right!”, pulling out two pods of death wish coffee, “I brought coffee, want one?”, and gets back up to turn on the coffee machine.

Lancer sighs, “regardless of the fact that the school, and principal, is too cheap to supply us with free coffee pods, no. I know you and I know that is far too caffeinated”.

Daniel laughs as the old machine sputters to life, “what’s the worst that’s gonna do? Kill us?”.

Oh F.Scott Fitzgerald, the morbid jokes make an unfortunate amount of sense now. Lancer also is slightly disturbed that Daniel actually has a point with that comment/joke.

Daniel waves Lancer off without looking at him, “besides, ghosts are made out of and need energy, caffeine is energy. There’s no such thing as too much. Ancients, the more the better really”.

Again, Lancer doesn’t like that Daniel has a very good point. “I think I’ll still have to decline, Daniel”.

“Eh, your loss”. The man taking a sip of the extremely hot liquid that closer resembles molasses than coffee, “delicious”, turning to Lancer, “so, I’m assume we’re are actually going with the ‘I’m your assistant as punishment’ thing? Because frankly if you do start doing something explicitly ghostly I’ll probably notice before you will. And since I am very firmly stronger than you and you are baby, I can easily just exert my own pressure enough on you to make your body cut it out”.

Lancer’s… not too sure how to feel about that statement. Part of him seems to actively dislike the entire notion, but it’s… better than him suddenly floating in class. Gravity nullification was the most basic feature of ectoplasm and thusly ghosts, so there’s no way he can’t do that… as unpleasant as that thought was. “And you can… do that easily?”. Okay, yes, that is indeed disturbing.

Daniel’s chuckle is mean. Intentionally mean, “one thing about my species is we’re abnormally powerful and don’t have to expend our ecto on sustaining our form, so yes. Yes I can”.

Considering the fact that part of why ghosts were very specifically Amity’s problem was because ghosts couldn’t be in the living world outside of Amity for too long, as they would run out of ecto-energy to maintain their form. If Daniel’s… species didn’t have that problem then that would make them incredibly dangerous. “It’s… probably for the best you’re rare, then”.

“No shit. Oh and since you’ll find out via gossip any way, and since he really can’t give me shit these days, the mayor? Yeah dead as a doornail too”.

Lancer sighs into his hand, “Wuthering Heights, that… that explains a lot actually”. Lancer always thought the mayor looked and acted rather strange, and not in a positive way. Also explained why such a rich man became the mayor of a random small town… and how.

“I know right? He’s the same as me though, so don’t go comparing yourself to him at all. Also he is stronger than you so don’t be stupid please”, glancing to the clock, “well it looks like everyone else is probably gonna be here soon”.

Lancer glancing to the clock too, “right. How long does the, de-glow, last?”. The mayor being stronger than him is needlessly unsettling, more than it should be he thinks? Or not?

…

Right. Ghosts normally get unsettled by stronger… ones.

Especially because Mayor Masters is definitely the type to causally beat a teacher up…

… Alright okay, he’s going to be avoiding the mayor to the best of his capabilities in the future. He already disliked the man so he’s not bothered by staying away from him.

“Twelve fucking hours, great longevity, I know. So what we doing first? Because I absolutely do not have your schedule memorised”, downing some of his ‘drink’ and pointing at Lancer, “don’t even try to claim that surprises you”, putting the hand down onto his hip, “also, if Mayor Bastard decides to bother you, just tell me and I’ll tell him to fuck off. Regardless of us being antagonistic and constantly threatening and messing with each other, we are actually vaguely friends. Frienemies, with a mild familial relationship perhaps. He’ll listen, or I’ll just make him if he doesn’t”.

Lancer sighs at the man, “I’d tell you not to be so hostile to the mayor, like I always do, and that you’re encouraging his behaviour in return. But if you’re both, ghosts, then I suppose it’s only natural”. Those two tended to behave like it was physically impossible for them to be genuinely nice or kind to each other. Every word, look, or action was either snide, insulting, or down right murderous; also strangely fond most of the time. He often chose not to question it, outside of finding it concerning that he never heard that same undertone of fondness towards Daniel’s own parents. “And I’ll be substituting for Joshep’s chemistry class first, then I’ve got simple desk work, then I suppose I’ll be ‘sitting in’ on your ecto-ology class, then lunch of course. Everything after that is just more office paper work till my English class”.

Danny nods and follows after Lancer as they leave the lounge, “cool, cool. I will not remember any of that”.

Lancer sighs, unsurprised but still, turning and waving at Penelope as she comes in through the doors, “morning, Penelope”.

She nods respectfully, “morning, William, Danny”.

Daniel flips her off.

Very professional.

At least he knows she won’t complain but Lancer still glares at Danny, “language”.

Daniel pouts at him, “boo. Let me have my fun”.

Though in truth he’s happy Penelope doesn’t have any… abnormal reactions to him. This whole situation, him being a ghost, was going to be rather nerve wracking for a while. Making him fret and worry over others possibly noticing he’s changed, or over his body doing things he’d rather it not do at all, or over himself changing especially without him realizing it, or even over ghosts treating him different.

“Don’t worry too much about people noticing now, you’d be surprised how little people notice. Heck, I walk through trash cans in public and telekinetically untie people’s shoes, no one notices shit”.

Lancer jerks, startled, “you’re still going to manage to startle me all the time, aren’t you?”. Weren’t ghosts supposed to be able to pick up on each other and tell when others were going to do things? “Also please refrain from doing that stuff, at least on school property”. Though yes, he was worrying about that and yes, he’s aware that people can be rather oblivious. Even he himself, apparently; since he never noticed Daniel’s apparent death.

Daniel laughs, “no. It makes the kids laugh and makes the bullies think they’re all cursed, as they should feel they are”, shrugging as they get to Joshep’s classroom, “and yes, I will keep startling you. I am actively more unnerving and startling to ghosts, since I can hide my ecto-signature as easily as I can disguise myself. Which makes me all that more of a threat, since ghosts instinctively rely on that sense so a spooky that can sidestep it is inherently unsettling”.

Lancer actively frowns at that as he rearranges Joshep’s desk enough to be personally usable, that man never kept things tidy enough. Joshep was better than Daniel though, regardless of how little that actually meant. Daniel’s classroom was a bio-ecto-hazard.

Which might not be a problem for Lancer now… meaning he can forcibly clean the man’s space without Daniel having a reasonable excuse as to why Lancer could not do so due to all the excessive ecto-contamination.

A little positive, he supposes.

Watching as Daniel flops down lazily in the designated assistants chair, yawning tiredly. The yawn doesn’t seem faked, leaving Lancer wondering just how good at faking human Daniel was. Raising an eyebrow, “are you actually tired or keeping up an act?”. Lancer certainly didn’t feel tired, even if he should… if he wasn’t…dead.

Daniel rubs his neck awkwardly, “ah yeah, it’s another species thing. I get energy from sleep, so I still need it. Same with food and water”.

Lancer’s brow furrows, it was almost like he was actually still human, or rather still an alive human. That entire notion fills him with a mix of both jealousy and pity. That would be terribly confusing but… still being alive would be…

Hmm.

Alright, it seems that this is the whole ‘okay with being a ghost’ feeling. Strange. He’s not sure if it’s a good or bad… feeling.

Susan sticking her head in stops him from questioning Daniel further, “there you are, I only have thirty-two spare pencils instead of thirty-six”, her noticing Daniel and smiling in that insulting way she often does, “oh someone’s on assistant duty again, so how about you get me some pencils?”.

It takes more effort than normal not to frown or sigh at the woman. Right, ghosts responded emotionally more so than humans did. Another adjustment he’ll have to deal with.

Daniel rolls his eyes, “oh eat my socks, Susan”, he does get up anyways though, eyeing Lancer who waves him off; surely Daniel can grab pencils before any students began to show up.

So Daniel leaves, downing the rest of his ‘coffee’ in one go and tossing the cup,

…

Now he’s alone with his own thoughts for the first time since finding out that he died yesterday.

…

It’s a good thing he didn’t stop to actually talk to that truck driver, the poor old man would have had an actual heart attack. As it is the driver would have to live with killing someone.

…

Did-

Did he leave a… body behind?

Interview With A Vampire, he’s going to have to check for that, isn’t he?

He really does not want to do that, or see that.

What if… that needs to be buried? A… funeral? Grave?

Leaning his head down and massaging his temples, this is all a little much. He can’t even tell if he actually does or doesn’t want those things. The… funeral and grave. Laid to rest.

For Shakespeare’s shake he was still here! And all of… that would eliminate any possibility of keeping this to mostly himself.

What did Daniel do? That’s certainly unkind to ask.

But the thought of not having that, of the idea of his… body being left out in some compacted heap, is deeply disturbing. He’s sure Phantom has gone on record saying something about ghosts and burials, of being respected, of not being… physically disturbed. So this disturbed feeling is likely natural, and understandable he supposes.

He’d be disturbed even without this odd instinct towards disturbia.

…

Lesia comes in before Daniel gets back, “oh, subbing for Mr. CampBell, Mr. Lancer?”, and sits in her assigned seat.

He makes a point to look up and smile at her, regardless of his current unsettlement, “indeed, Ms. Lute, he had an, unfortunate, interact with a sentient ghost plant”.

She cringes, whispering, “get wrecked, I guess”, before actually responding in proper to Lancer, “sorry to hear that”.

Lancer’s hearing has definitely improved, he can’t honestly see a negative to that. “And I’m sure he’d appreciate your sympathies”.

Thankfully Daniel comes back in, looking at Lesia and pouting, “oh how dare you get here before I got back, my luck belong’s in P̸͇̓a̶͉̕r̴̹̐i̴͚̅a̷̭̽h̸̙͘’̴͚̏s̵̼͛ ̷͈̉a̸̜̒s̵̩̚s̷̥̔”.

While Lancer’s a little stunned by being able to understand that from the inside? of himself? Lesia purses her lips together and is clearly trying not to laugh, “in trouble again”.

Daniel shrugs, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he meanders over to the assistants chair, “eh, you set one too many things on fire, and those things just happen to be thousand dollar microscopes, and suddenly everyone’s out to beat the s̴͚̿h̸̗̾i̶̹̇t̵̖͗ outta you”.

Lancer makes a point to sigh tiredly at the man, who winks smugly back. But regardless Lancer has to push his worries and crises to the back as more students begin filing in, school has begun.

At lunch Daniel had made a point to tell Lancer, in ghost speak -which was still rather strange to understand so easily now. Instantaneous language retention was a wonder-, that Daniel could apparently duplicate -which solved a few odd stories he’s heard- and had one such duplicate go and check the… morgue and around town for any signs of.. of Lancer’s remains.

Nothing.

There was nothing.

Lancer’s not sure if that was… good or bad. If he was relieved or not.

Daniel’s theory, which was slightly disturbing but probably for the best to be true, was that the ecto-contamination in him consumed or broke down his… body in an instant so as to have the needed energy to instantly create his ‘new’ ghostly one.

On one hand this meant he didn’t need to fret about someone finding or touch his body. On the other hand any sort of funereal or burial could never happen, whether it was wanted or not; it somewhat rather was, if he was being honest with himself.

Daniel’s response had been to just consider his body having been effectively buried within the ether of the Zone, ‘like mine!’ he’d said, with cheer.

Apparently the man’s young body had been completely disintegrated in his own ‘accident’. Which was extremely disturbing and saddening.

Daniel said not to let himself be bothered by that, as if that would make it so that Lancer wouldn’t mourn the fact.

Lancer hadn’t even had time to mourn himself.

Should he… make a shrine perhaps? Or just have his favourite diner regardless of not ‘needing’ it now? Should it be a big deal or just causal?

He really didn’t know.

Before Lancer had gone home for the day Daniel had made sure he knew he could call whenever, and while Daniel might sleep it was a lot less and he didn’t mind interruptions.

Lancer… did somewhat want to take him up on the offer. To call and ask how he was actually supposed to deal with this. Beyond whether he wanted to ‘play human’ and keep his ‘life’ how it was, or not.

There was neither research to find nor books to read on the subject, on how ghosts mourned themselves and dealt with death, at least there were none that weren’t extremely biased and ecto-phobic.

How did Daniel put up with hearing this sort of cruelty from his parents all the time? He’d wondered that before he knew of Daniel’s ghost status and he only wonders about that more after.

At least the only report on ‘his accident’ he could find was about the ‘mysteriously vacant car’ and how it ‘being empty’ was ‘strange but welcome luck’.

That… made him want to cry, or be sick, a little bit.

No one noticed

No one noticed his death.

That was… awful. Sad. Painful.

But it was also rather the point, wasn’t it?

No one noticed Daniel’s either, not in any real way.

He wheezes breathlessly a little and massages the… strange spot of feeling in his chest.

…

Alright. Okay.

He should call Daniel.

Moving enough to pick up the phone, making sure not to knock over his tea.

Daniel responds instantly… he must have been waiting for a call. “Was wondering when you’d call. You good? Not too much existential horror?”.

Dr. Seuss, the understanding in that tone hurt and comforted more than he’d like. “I’m not sure, but I definitely need to talk about anything”.

Daniel laughs a little, but it’s not a happy thing in the slightest, “yeah I get that. Dying’s easy, but deaths a bit of a bitch. I saw the news report, by the way, and I know you looked for it even if you really shouldn’t have. Focusing on reactions or what happened is a really bad thing to do. People will let you down and you will spiral about the how and when and why. So don’t. Let the shit you enjoy distract you to your cores content, that’s kinda the whole point of being dead anyways. Obsessions and all that. Find all those things you love and the thing yourself screams and cries for, and do ‘em. Go from one to another and circle back again, keep the circling going and you’ll be cool; you won’t spiral. And there’s absolutely a difference between the two”.

“Have… you? Spiralled?”.

“… of course, I never had help or guidance. Another spook to turn to, until it was kinda too late. But hey, things got undone and made alright, so it is what it is. I’m alright, I’m good enough to keep on keeping on”.

“That’s, not as pacifying as I think you mean it to be”.

“Course not, you should know by now that there really isn’t any sugarcoating me and my everything. Life, and death, gave me a right shit hand. But this call ain’t really supposed to be about my dumbass, Lance”.

Lancer smiles ruefully a little at that, “well talking about you, my favourite problem ex-student, is as good as any distraction from everything, from no one really… noticing”.

Daniel laughs again, “you’re not wrong. But you should focus on yourself some, we’re egocentric things. And I’m not going to say something like ‘but I thought that’s what you wanted’ because I know that’s both true and painfully not. I’ve broken a lot of shit over that same train of thought, especially since Sam and Tuck… never really mourned any part of this. But if you want Jazz’s opinion? Write. Write shit down. Which with you being all book-loving might work out better. Make a poem or something. I tried the journaling thing once and wound up just taking a bite out of it and setting it on fire”.

That�� wasn’t a horrible idea. “I’d say that’s concerning but I know that you have some trouble with your anger”.

“I’m well aware and doing precisely nothing about it…”.

They spend more than half an hour half-heartedly bickering about Daniel’s poor anger-management issues, neither have anything in the argument but it was still grounding.

And if maybe Lancer started floating a bit and didn’t notice, then maybe that’s okay. He… was less bothered than he’d thought he’d be when he realised what he was doing.

Daniel congratulated him in earnest and then word vomited -as the man would say- about the stars and that time he went to space.

It was good.

It was nice.

Daniel, like always, was too kind. Even the students saw that.

It made him sad but it made him better too.

Like being reminded how it feels to be warm by someone or something too cold to feel it at all.

Death ain’t no big deal in comparison.

End.

prompts:

Above all else, Danny became a high school teacher to help students: he wants to help the victims of bullying, the near-dropouts, the kids who need to use school as an escape from home. He sees himself in all of them, and tries to be the adult he needed at their age. He also became a teacher because, as it turns out, teachers have a WAY easier time getting away with sudden bathroom breaks (which may or may not coincide with ghost attacks and subsequent Phantom sightings) than students do. "Ah yes, because going in circles and spiraling are very different directions." More of Danny's ghost side starts to show in his human form making it harder to hide the truth "What do you mean this isn't safe, I'm already dead" Becoming more ghostly Fangs On Sunday, Lancer was thrown through his windshield in a nasty car accident. Miraculously he walked away without a scratch. On Monday, he had a hard time getting through the school ghost shield on his way to class.

#danny phantom #phic phight #phandom #phicphight24 #danny #mr lancer #character death #angst #existental #advice #fan fic #phan phic #my writing #have a fic suck my dick #gothmoth #phantomphangphucker

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redrobin-detective · 2 years

Text

Spectrum

Craig Matheson did not like ghosts. However, living in Amity Park had made him learn to accept the presence of the dead. He didn’t like ghosts and he liked them even less up close but given the situation he’d once more learned to live with the impossible.

He didn’t really know the exact details of what was going on, he was a 20 year old psych major at the community college but it was bad enough that some of the ghosts decided to ally themselves with humans. Craig didn’t know all that much about ghosts or ectowhatever or whatever gobblygook the Fenton’s were constantly spouting on the TV. But Craig did know people and that’s why the last few days, human and ghost in close quarters had been so interesting.

He knew Jazz fairly well, he TA’d Casper’s Intro to Psych when the girl had been a frizzy haired freshman. He liked her in that nice if slightly awkward older to younger student way. Of course he, like everyone in town, knew her family was nuts. But Jazz was levelheaded and brilliant and determined to break away from their nonsense; she was girl who would go places. When the end of the year came, he’d joked to her that he’d better get his degree before she came through and blew him out of the water.

The younger Fenton kid, Danny, Craig didn’t really know aside from Jazz’s occasional grumblings during cram sessions. He’d sounded like your average, annoying little brother. Craig had never met him in person before the emergency. He wishes it had stayed that way.

The first time Craig stood in a room with Danny, he felt the way one does at a zoo when a caged predator locked eyes with you. You knew logically that you were safe but that didn’t stop the instinctual fear from creeping up your spine. Craig lived in a shitty apartment with 2 roommates on campus and wasn’t in the main part of town very often. No one else seemed to notice that the youngest Fenton kid, who had noodles are arms and couldn’t be more than 16, radiated a sticky, staticy aura of danger. Maybe they’re used to it and didn’t realize but Craig couldn’t help but notice people didn’t stand too close to him and his people, let their eyes slide over and away from him.

The first few times, he thought he was being paranoid, picking up the residual anxiety from the crowd. But every time he shared a room with Danny Fenton, even in passing, he got the chills like someone was walking over his grave. Once he put two and two together, he started paying more attention and what he saw... well it added up to something he didn’t quite get.

Danny was quiet but alert. He always showed up every one of the planning meetings, even the ones Craig knew were adults only. He’d just slink on in and slouch in the corner with sharp eyes. Danny frowned at bad news and mumbled quietly to himself when thinking. As much as he put on the ‘bored teen’ act, to anyone paying attention it was clear that Danny was too. But no one was, Craig almost never saw him being shooed away even when other older, experienced towns figures were. Sometimes Craig wondered if they even noticed his presence in those meetings.

He had this presence about him that set Craig’s teeth on edge and made the hairs on his neck stand up and made him feel cold down to his bones. At first glance, he looked like any other teenager but the longer Craig watched him the more he noticed. The sickly pale and slightly green tinged skin. The dark, sunken quality to his eyes reminding Craig of museum mummies that scared him as a kid. His nails and teeth were just a bit too sharp, he moved a bit too fast and almost seemed to blur a bit on the edges. Craig had to stop studying Fenton directly not just because he knew the kid was onto him but he was getting seriously creeped out.

So the boy was a little haunted, he had a portal to hell directly underneath his bedroom. Craig wouldn’t be too shocked if there was some residual contamination with him. But that didn’t explain the ghosts.

Once Craig had stopped watching Danny, he watched how others reacted to him and that was it’s own mystery. While humans seemed to, consciously or not, avoid him, the ghosts sought him out. Horrifying and inhuman spectral beings had glanced over Mr and Mrs Fenton in favor of their son in the back corner. Time and again they appeared to tune out whatever to the experts were saying in favor of the kid who looked like he hadn’t slept in a week. And Danny would lock eyes back, sometimes rolling them, sometimes mouthing something Craig couldn’t catch. And more than once he’d peek into an empty room to find Danny surrounded by ghosts. Ghosts who gave him deferential space, who referred to him and only him by name, who seemed just as scared of Dan as Craig was.

Part of Craig wanted to pull Jazz aside and ask what was going on. What had happened to the cheeky, clingy little brother she used to fondly talk about? When had he become something barely human? Something unspeakably horrifying because he couldn’t place the source of the horror? But Craig also saw the way Jazz, and Danny’s two pals, looked at them. They were also sharp, alert, watching everything and everyone. His friends and him were practically attached at the hip. They’d lounge together, the girl putting her hand in Danny’s back pocket and the boy with a lazy arm over Danny’s shoulder. Like the mythical Cerberus, a three headed monster that operated as a single, deadly being.

Even Craig’s old pal Jazz who he occasionally exchanged emailed updates and memes with, looked ready to pounce on anyone who came near Danny. One time, when he was watching Danny, Jazz stepped into his view and gave him a gentle but firm shake of her head before pulling her brother away. Whatever was going on, Craig wasn’t invited and that was fine by him. After that, Craig just sort of stopped paying attention. He didn’t think about the Fenton boy. He carried a sweater constantly to avoid the occasional, completely ordinary, chill. He kept his head down and his mouth shut because he had realized something important. Whatever was going on in Ghost Land or Spooksville or whatever the fuck they calling that swirling mass of death in the Fenton basement, Danny Fenton was the key to fixing it.

A part of him, the part that wasn’t on edge and terrified, was upset by the idea of a kid being responsible for such an ugly mess. The other larger part wanted the kid to get things fixed pronto so Craig could speed back to his old, broken down apartment and pretend that Fenton’s eyes didn’t light up the color of green death when he stood too close to portal when he thought no one was thinking. He didn’t want to think on what else Fenton was up to when the humans weren’t around.

XxX

Croix did not like humans. However, working in a library close to the permanent human portal had made them learn to accept the presence of humans. Humans were digustingly linear and prone to horrifying acts of change but circumstances had drawn them together.

Croix knew they themselves had been human once, they didn’t know how long ago and didn’t bother to find out. Even their name was chosen postmortem, inspired by a book in his library. Being in the living world made his incorporeal form shutter with distaste. They did not belong here, especially not in the domain of the Phantom.

Oh they may not have left the Zone for at least a few centuries but everyone knew of the Phantom. Travelers spoke of him, books telling of his exploits began to fill the shelves of the library and Croix had found a unique fascination with the creature. They wondered what it must be like to possess the powers of the dead alongside the glorious and ruinous entrapment of the living. It was a conundrum, a mystery, and Croix was quite fond of those. They volunteered to serve as a referential resource in the War if only to study the abomination up front.

The Phantom was not at all like the stories made him out to be.

Croix had heard tales of his mist like hair, the color of bleached bones. They’d gasped reading about the swirling greens of his eyes which mirrored the human portal that had turned him into such a wretched thing. The white tipped claws, the mewling cavernous jaw filled with hundreds of teeth, the force of his fists amplified by a physical body of meat and sinew and bone. The boy before them was something of a disappointment.

Oh he had the air of the dead about him, the scent of him like a fresh, still warm corpse. But otherwise he looked like any other filthy, nauseating human. It was hard to imagine this pathetic specimen had defeated Pariah Dark, had battled Undergrowth and Nocturne and Vortex and escaped with his core intact. But Skulker gave him his attention, his deference occasionally and that was no small feat. Despite his fearsome reputation as a hunter, Skulker had Croix’s respect as a someone who understood the value or research and study. Skulker often came to the library in search of information about his quarry. Skulker was how Croix had first heard of the Phantom.

Croix did not understand the point of the other humans. Yes, their world was threatened as much as Croix’s but they offered nothing but distraction and wasted time. Why could they not speak to the Phantom directly, as the representative of the human world who understood ghost custom, he did not understand. But he had been informed, before he crossed over the veil for the first time since death, that the other humans did not know of the Phantom’s true nature. So began a ridiculous pantomime.

Great and mighty ghosts listened to meat beings talk about idea they had no notion even of the scope while they discussed real battle plans with the Phantom, hidden from view. The Phantom scurried around the humans, acting small and pitiful while he back was tall, head high amongst the dead. As much as the living dead contradiction intrigued him, the actual being proved to be less interesting. It really was true, you never should meet the unmentionable monstrosity you have a vague fascination for. Oh well, Croix was unbothered. Death was unending, unchanging and interests were merely fixed moments in time which passed without care. Croix would simply find something else to pique their interest. Once the War was done.

Croix was sorting through some of their documents when they notice the Phantom and some other humans have come down to their chambers. Oh how they despised having to covert their collection to physical form. How burdensome to exist in one centralized space for the convenience of a species who haven’t bothered to find a way to circumnavigate death because they understand that living is too aggravating to do forever.

“We need some information,” one of the humans said. “What are the oldest documents you have on the Zone? How it formed, how it came to be?” Croix ignored them in favor of reviewing their documents. They tried to interact with the humans as little as possible, if the Phantom needed something he could address them properly without using meat proxies.

“Hey, ghost guy, we need that information now. We’re kind of on a time crunch here,” another said. Or perhaps the same one. Differentiating corporeal beings was quite exhausting and Croix had run out of patience for that decades ago. They kept reading over their books. There was a distorted crackle in the air and Croix glanced up at the Phantom.

"m̷̧̼̹̙͉̤͓͎̯͔̪̥̔̈́̓̈́̀̿̀̍̀̎ý̸̟̹͎͔̪̊́̄͝ ̴͖̯̻̹̩͉̩͎́̇̈͌̀͛̔̊́͂̃̕͠f̵̢̩͈̈́̒̂̓̎̓̈́̒͒̀̚͠r̸̗̗̭͎̘̻̪̈́̀̔́͆͑̊̈̇͐͂̃̅͜͝ĩ̵̛͈̞̪͇̤̪̰̮̲̐͗̈́̈̅͝͝e̸̡̛̲̮͚̫̭̩̼̗̎̂̿̔͝n̷̛̥͙̟̥͚̻̅̈̍̂͋̔̂͘͝d̶̹͐s̸̠̗̖͆̉͒̈́̀̏̂͛ ̷̹̤͖̘̺͉̈͋̿̉a̵̛̝̫̹̥̝͌͊͐̔̍͗̄̈́̊̿̋͘̚͠ś̴̢̱̲̫͙̪̩̟͖̠̒̈́̃͜͜͠ķ̵̧̡̗͎̭͔̝̰͔͖̹̣͖͚̆̊̍͊́̽̈̾̊̇́é̴͕̗͈̗̻͔̥͓̰͍͇̔̀́̉̓̽d̶̢̨̦̹̪͍̩̤̹̞̪̼̋͊͋ ̶̢̮̼̠̞̩̠̰̳̖͑̅͗̈́͐͘̕ÿ̷͚͎̞̫̱̥͉͈̮͒͊͠ͅỏ̸̡̞͚̘̖͍̞̘͚̦͓̞̗̠͆̅͘͜͝ụ̶̝͛̋͛̌̇̒ ̸̺͕̥̫͖̠̮̺̥̮͚͍͙̅́͋͛́̍a̶̖͓̩͇̋͐̓̂̈́̀̆̀͂̅ ̶̢͕͍̞̀̿͑̓q̶̨͔͔̖̬̗͈̟͙͓̱͉̱͔̘̓̒̎̀̍u̵̦̤̲̬͎͔̹̮͖͆̓̆̑͑͌̇̄̆̀̈́̚͠͝ȩ̶̱̬͉̹̥̘͙͉͚͔̗͍̯̇͒̾̍͠s̶̢̤͚͓̯͕͖͙̥̮̆̇̓͌̈́̽̏̐̚͝t̷͇͔͉̝̮̙͍̙̩̪̝̜̀͝ȋ̵̛͇̆͑͠o̵̳͂̃͌͌͆̊̾̈́̀͊͗͝n̴̢̛̙̤͍̯̬̠̥͔͓̽͗͜" the Phantom said in Ghost. His mortal shell only bore the faintest trace of humanity. But it wasn’t his body that had Croix feeling fear, genuine fear, it was the bright flashing of the Phantom’s core which was so bitterly, achingly cold. It reminded Croix, for a moment, of the chill of death coming for him. Of how his body, now long since dust, had felt in those last moments before it all went black. Centuries dead and yet the fear of death was breathing down his neck. Croix moved his head up but kept his eyes down.

“What information does the Phantom require?” Croix asked shakily, doing their best not to decoporealize into ectoplasm. Now they understood the myths, why the Phantom emerged victorious time and again. He may be a monster, a damnation, a blight upon the living and the dead... but he walked between and was a reminder to all of that bitter, frightful transition period. A core powered by that impossible, infinitesimal balance and yet.

“Danny, are you kids down here?” A voice, human, asked from elsewhere. the Phantom pulled back, the green fading to blue and the shadows returning to flesh.

“Yeah Mom, we’ll be up in a second,” he responded like he was just another normal human. Like he wasn’t the most terrifying, powerful creature in this plane or the next.

“Well what are you doing down here?” The voice sighed.

“Oh you know, looking around,” the Phantom grinned at Croix and his teeth were sharp as knives. Croix shakily handed over the documents the Phantom requested. They were old and very valuable but Croix was hardly going to deny a being with such power anything at this point. “We’ll be up in a second.” the Phantom called back, once more looking mostly human.

But he wasn’t, Croiz wasn’t entirely sure what he was but they wanted nothing to do with it. The Phantom and his humans left and Croix couldn’t help but wonder how he could move so quietly among the humans. Why did he play pretend when he could be a god? Croix had not been alive for a long time, had lost motivation for human desires such as greed and power but still. He wondered what the Phantom was like in his human skin, when the ghosts weren’t around. How did a wolf play the part of a sheep so well that they treated him as lesser? How did the sheep not sense that one who walked among could bite into their necks at any time?

Best not to think about really. This really wasn’t Croix’s area, they belonged in the library where everything was dead and simple. This, the world of the living and the horrifying shades that permeated from it, it wasn’t for him. They would keep their head down and their mouth shut until this war passed and they could flee back to where the laws of reality made sense. Where someone wasn’t both powerful and weak in the very same undead heartbeat.

#inspired by that one post I did I'll link it #wanted two outside POVs of Danny: one human one ghost #both picking up that Danny is Not Right #but according to their own set of rules #Danny very clearly isnt human #but he also isnt a ghost either #and watching incongruous parts of him working and doing things he shouldn't #idk ive been typing a while words escape me #yeah its a thing #betcha thought i wouldnt be writing for DP again so soon huh?

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armed-with-knitting-needles · 1 year

Text

So, I have this ghost portal head canon where the Fenton’s weren’t totally incompetent and also the DP universe follows at least some of the same engineering rules as our universe. I wrote a fic (here) about it about a week ago, but never actually explained the headcanon.

To summarize, there was never a button on the inside, the initial portal test didn’t actually fail exactly, and Danny was just the catalyst to get it working all the way.

To do the the opposite of summarize:

Canonically, the Fenton Portal tears the fabric of reality allowing the “real world” to connect to the ghost zone, right?

Without getting too much into the science of it (mostly because I just typed out and then deleted five versions of the same four paragraphs with slightly different assumptions about ghost zone physics and Fenton technology), you would never want to go inside the tunnel after the portal was turned on even once. It would be insanely contaminated and just having a person in there could mess with all the parameters required to get it working. Basically all maintenance would need to be done from outside the portal whether or not it was on. The inside of the tunnel should have absolutely nothing in it, not a person, not even a button.

So, the Fenton’s build this portal, never intending to have anyone on the inside of the tunnel, ever, once it was turned on and there was an actual portal in it. They do all of the science and engineering and it’s actually sound. They’ve improved their lab safety a little and no one should be shot in the face with Diet Coke infused ectoplasm this time.

They turn it on and, apparently, nothing happens. There are only little blips of ecto-energy on their scanners, barely more than what’s in the Amity Park naturally. And they walk away, because what now? (Whether they unplugged the thing after they left it is up to you)

So, fourteen year old Danny wanders down with his friends hoping to show off a little. He knows he shouldn’t go in the thing, but it might be cool and sure they turned it on, but it didn’t work and they’re going to have to resurface the whole thing anyway.

I mean he’s not being stupid, right? He’s even putting on his ecto-proofed jumpsuit. Nothing’s going to happen. He’s just looking around.

Only, he goes in, and he touches something, and he hears a click, and a portal opens up on top of him.

Because, it turns out, the portal did work more or less. It generated a bunch of little proto-portals, just like the ones all around Amity Park, popping in and out of existence at such a high speed that even if one or two did show up on a scanner it wouldn’t really register much above the ambient ecto-energy. They just didn’t have anything to latch onto. There was plenty of regular energy and plenty of ecto-energy, but no matter or mass or that bit of consciousness needed to form a ghost.

Danny was made of matter and was even a little self-conscious as Sam was taking his picture.

When he touched one of the many, many proto-portals with his unprotected ear as it popped into existence, it certainly felt like touching a button with his well protected hand. It certainly sounded like the click of a button as he screamed himself through his death and rebirth.

The brain is truly remarking when it comes to explaining the unexplainable.

There should have never been a button in the portal. There was anyway.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #dp headcanons

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snackleggg · 3 years

Text

When snow falls

~~~

Sequel to Cool down

~~~

They say that Amity park is haunted. But only when snow falls.

The weather of the small town is a strange thing.

It had once been completely normal, completely predictable. Then ghost fights started getting on the weather reports though none of them actually affected the weather, apart from one occasion but that had been the exception.

Then Phantom disappeared.

The ghosts kept on attacking.

Then the snow started to fall.

Whenever a ghost would attack, snow would start to fall shortly afterwards. It didn't matter what time of the year it was. It didn't matter that it had just been the hottest day of summer. It didn't matter that a thunderstorm had been happening. Snow would fall and once the snow cleared away the attack would've been over by then.

At first everyone was perplexed.

Was it that one ghost who could control the weather?

Was it the ecto-contamination of the town finally affecting the environment?

Something else?

It wasn't long before the people of Amity park, both ghost and human, found out what the snow fall meant. It meant Phantom had arrived.

Of course the citizens had seen that Phantom had new ice powers, but this was to a new level.

Only when the snow fell would you see Phantom anymore.

The humans of Amity learned to see the snow as a sign that everything was going to be alright, as a sign of safety. The impromptu snow falls are never harsh or wide spread. Only happening over the area Phantom was fighting in and it was always a gentle kind, the kind of snow that melted almost immediately after touching it. Enough to chill the air but never enough to cause any damage or leave lasting traces afterwards.

When the snow cleared, it was like a signal that everything was okay. That the ghost had been dealt with and that it was safe to come out.

They say sometimes you could see him.

Hanging around on the coldest days of winter.

When snow fell naturally sometimes you could see Phantom flying high in the sky or even sitting in the park, just enjoying the cold that would leave humans scrambling for their coats.

It was quite fitting. His hair was just as white as the snow and his skin almost as pale. On truly the snowy days of winter, when the snow was packed high enough that leaving the house was nothing less than a chore and driving was a death wish on the slippery roads, on those days the only way you could see Phantom among the white frozen water was because of the black of his outfit and the acidic green glow of his eyes.

The small town of Amity park was haunted by many ghosts, it's true.

But the one ghost they don't mind all that much, their own local hero, only came when those white flakes fell to the ground.

So when snow falls, the citizens of Amity park always knew it meant safety.

#danny phantom #danny phantom fic #phic #my writing #sequel

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goodfish-bowl · 3 years

Text

Lancer- Reflection

Decided to do the DP Side Hoes Week just to do some quick prompts, so here’s the first one for Lancer.

I love how Mr. Lancer swears in book titles. How well read do you have to be for that??? I decided to use two different versions of the world “reflection” for this, so both a personal reflection, and a physical reflection.

Words: 1159

Summary: Mr. Lancer is busy grading essays when he gets a visit from Danny

AO3 link

Mr. Lancer shuffled through the scores of disappointing essays once more, just checking to make sure. There were always a few students who turned the assignment in late, or never at all, and Daniel Fenton had once again missed an assignment. Mr. Lancer wasn’t sure if it was simple laziness that prevented the boy from succeeding or not. He had seen the bruises, the dark bags under the thin, pale teen’s eyes. He had also seen that utter look of exhaustion since around the mid-point of freshman year when the ghost attacks had really ramped up.

Mr. Lancer had done what was expected and appropriate of him as a teacher to help Danny. He had made multiple calls home, and still did, he had doled out every punishment the school had in the system, he had even talked to the boy personally every now and again. But nothing seemed to help or do the trick. It wasn’t an at-home problem, or at least not an obvious one. Mr. and Mrs. Fenton had also remarked about the strange bruises and tiredness over the past year and a half. They wanted to know too but were deeply wrapped up in trying to solve the Haunting of Amity Park, because maybe ghosts were the root of all of Amity’s problems.

Mr. Lancer, like any other teacher, knew about most things that happened in the school, much more than the students ever realized, especially since he had been a high school teacher for the past 20 years. He had seen countless cases of high school relationships gone awry, bullying, shading, club initiation, and even fight clubs and gangs. But nothing quite like the case of Danny Fenton. He heard the rumors spread in his classroom and in the halls, the teachers were almost more tuned into the local gossip than the students were.

Mr. Lancer had definitely heard the rumors about Danny Fenton that haunted the halls like the ghost of Hamlet’s father.

The ghosts had taken after the football team and decided Danny was a good punching bag. Danny was just dreadfully clumsy (this was certainly true the first part of freshman year). Danny had some sort of disorder where he bruised easily. Danny was in some sort of fight club. Danny was hurting himself. The list went could fill a book comparable to Les Misérables. Even then, those were the tame ones, and some of the ones Lancer had confronted Danny about personally.

Then there were some of the odder ones. The ones that powdered Danny himself, not just his injures. Ones that questioned his humanity, which Lancer regarded as ridiculous. Rumors about how injuries Danny walked in with in the morning were gone by lunch. Another girl swore she saw Danny stick his arm through his locker. A quieter boy claimed he saw Danny vanish into thin air in the boys' bathroom on the second floor. Danny’s skin was cold as ice. Danny’s eyes glowed. Danny had fangs. The list also went on for ages with this one. There was something off about Danny Fenton, something more than the typical Fenton ambiguity. The reasons for these odd sightings claimed anything from human experimentation to contamination, to guessing Danny was an alien. Ghost, however, was off the table. His parents were ghost hunters, surely, they would notice if their own son was a ghost, or possessed by a ghost.

Mr. Lancer pulled out another paper, where he decided to start grading. He slowly began to sift through the same essay written over and rephrased 160 different times. The lamp on his desk glowed a pale yellow, which reflected off of the windows on the one side of his classroom. The oncoming storm of black clouds had turned the glass into grim mirrors. A dim, quiet room full of empty desks, sometimes filled with the noise of teenage life, felt like a forgotten, almost liminal part of the world, a forgotten fragment, like the empty halls of a school often did.

There was a knock on the door, quiet, almost nervous. Lancer looked up, grateful and irritated for the distraction.

“Come in,” he called out, and in walked Danny Fenton.

“Hi, Mr. Lancer. Sorry I came here so late, but I managed to finish that essay, so I thought I might at least attempt to turn it in,” Danny explained, sheepish and most certainly out of place.

“Mr. Fenton, I’m moved by your dedication to this essay, though I’m sad to say it might not help your grade much, but the effort is appreciated.”

As he spoke, Lancer saw the acceptance of failure in Danny’s eyes, and his heart panged. The boy was expecting another lecture and hung his head in shame and embarrassment. Mr. Lancer knew this wasn’t the face of a boy trying to fail or rebel, Danny grades were an unfortunate sacrifice for something else. His heart panged, though there wasn’t much he could do, nothing he hadn’t already tried.

“Thanks anyway, Mr. Lancer,” Danny said sadly and went to leave.

“Mr. Fenton, I could grade it for you right now if you’d be willing to wait a moment. I could give you pointers as well for your next essay while I’m at it,” Lancer offered, and Danny stopped.

“Really?”

“Absolutely, Mr. Fenton.”

Mr. Lancer looked down at the essay, scribbled down in messy, rushed handwriting. It looked like it was done in two parts, the second half noticeably more messy and less focused. While barely legible and perhaps a bit rushed, it was a complete essay using quotes with sound reasoning and an adequate thesis statement. Mr. Lancer used a red pen to annotate where he could, but there wasn’t as much red ink on the paper as some of the other essays in the pile (Dash Baxter’s essay almost had more red ink than black). He handed the essay back to Danny and glanced towards the window, the storm getting ready to break loose from the crowd.

Then he paused. There, in the window’s reflection, he could see himself, the pale-yellow circlet of his desk lamp, and Danny. Only Danny’s reflection had bright neon green eyes, so saturated in color that nothing in nature could hope to compare. Mr. Lancer discreetly looked back towards Danny, who had pale blue eyes, just not in the reflection.

Danny looked up once he was done reading the annotations, confusion, and surprise on his feature.

“Are you sure this deserves a four, Mr. Lancer?” Danny asked, handing the paperback.

“Well, there’s nothing wrong with it outside of a few things,” Mr. Lancer accepted the paper, “You do just fine when you actually submit your work, Mr. Fenton.”

Danny almost seemed to glow at the light praise. Perhaps he did.

“Thank you, Mr. Lancer,” and Danny Fenton scampered out of the classroom.

Mr. Lancer let out a long sigh. Picture of Dorian Gray, what was he going to do with that boy?

#Danny Phantom #danny fenton #mr.lancer #dp side hoes week 2021 #goodfish writes

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ladylynse · 5 years

Text

I didn’t think I’d have time to write anything else for the Phic Phight, but there was a reveal prompt, and I love reveals....

Prompt by @duckapus: Reveal- Jack starts to question why ghost hunting equipment malfunctions around Danny. Exclusively around Danny. [FF | AO3]

Jack hadn’t questioned it at first. Not more than usual, anyway. Most of his inventions were prototypes, constantly undergoing revisions as preliminary testing revealed potential improvements. He expected problems. Bugs. That was normal.

But somehow, none of those potential improvements ever dealt with a problem he’d had from the beginning: the way all his ghost hunting equipment malfunctioned around Danny.

Exclusively around Danny.

The first time he’d mentioned it to Maddie, the first time he’d really noticed it, she’d simply told him to double check that he had everything in the proper order—no wires crossed, no incorrect balance of internal chemicals, no improperly calibrated sensors, that sort of thing.

The second time he brought it up, she’d suggested ecto-contamination. Danny hadn’t worn his HAZMAT suit in years—they didn’t even know where it was anymore—and Jazz would at least don one of Maddie’s when she thought the situation was desperate enough to warrant it.

But no amount of tweaking had helped, and Danny had started spending as little time in the lab as possible. He shouldn’t have built up enough contamination to be so consistently pinpointed by their weapons—especially when those weapons had no trouble differentiating between their samples of ectoplasm and a semi-sentient ghost blob.

Jack hadn’t bothered bringing it up a third time to Maddie. She was busy, and while this was important, he knew she hadn’t forgotten about it. He suspected that she was looking into it on her own time. He’d decided it was best if he did the same. For Danny’s sake. If they couldn’t solve this problem by putting their heads together, maybe they’d get further if they went at it separately for a while, coming at it from different angles instead of convincing each other of a promising but ultimately wrong viewpoint. As long as they solved the problem in the end, it wouldn’t matter how they got there.

Really, it was a safety issue at this point. Their weapons wouldn’t do any lasting harm to humans if handled properly, but accidents happened, and a blast from an ecto-gun was still a blast from an ecto-gun. It would still hurt, at least in the moment, and a sustained blast would burn.

And, honestly, the fear of one of their weapons accidentally locking on to Danny kept Jack from developing things he was interested in, like missiles keyed to the particular ecto-signatures of ghosts which repeatedly attacked Amity Park. He knew it was possible. He already had the technology in the Fenton Booo-merang. Adding it to an explosive that would go off on contact wouldn’t be terribly difficult.

But he hadn’t yet solved the problem of why the Booo-merang was attracted to Danny, and he’d rather not send explosives meant for ghosts after his son.

It was the Booo-merang that Jack had in pieces in front of him again. The kids were at school and Maddie was out most of the day running errands, so he’d moved from the lab to the kitchen table. Interference from their samples in the lab shouldn’t be a problem, but he’d run out of ideas when it came to what actually could be the problem, so he was trying very hard not to rule anything out, however unlikely.

Unfortunately, the Booo-merang had been built exactly as it should have been. By this point, it had been rebuilt—with both old parts and new—no fewer than six times. He’d done the math again. Had Maddie do the math again. Their calculations weren’t wrong.

He could get the Booo-merang to home in on different ecto-samples, could successfully switch between them, but he had a sinking feeling that the moment he set it to seek out the strongest ghost within range, it would find its way back to Danny again.

Like it always had before.

Jack hadn’t had any success correcting the Fenton Finder, either. It would point to Danny. No matter what he did to it. It would still register other ghosts, however weak, but Danny’s blip invariably showed up stronger than all of them. If the reason for all this had been ecto-contamination—somehow—Danny’s dot shouldn’t be displayed as brightly, not now that Jack had revamped the interface so that the brightest dots represented the strongest ghosts. He’d meant for it to be a way to find the likely leader or the strongest opponent, should they face multiple ghosts at once, but he wasn’t convinced his efforts had paid off. If the Fenton Finder persisted in finding Danny, he should have been barely there.

It never should have marked him as the greatest threat.

The Ghost Gabber was no different. No matter what Jack did to it, it would always ‘translate’ Danny’s words. He’d adjusted its sensitivity to the point that it wouldn’t even register the incoherent garbles of an ectopus, but the moment Danny said something….

Jack sighed, pushed the dismantled mechanics away, and stood to get some water. He was missing something fundamental, something dreadfully important, however small or basic it seemed. The reaction was consistent. Repeatable. As far as his equipment was concerned, there was no mistake. If it reliably sought out Danny, there must be some reason for it.

Trouble was, since it didn’t seem to be a flaw in the equipment, and earlier trials had shown that it wasn’t an oddly high level of ecto-contamination, Jack had no idea what that reason could be. Really, Jack had doused himself in ectoplasm by mistake once and hadn’t even registered as a blip on the Fenton Finder. It knew the difference between the activated ectoplasm ghosts controlled and the ectoplasmic remnants those ghosts left behind.

It would be different if it weren’t only Danny, if it weren’t always Danny, or even if it weren’t every invention.

After all, experiments with repeatable results were more likely to be true. Particularly when the conditions of the experiment varied. When the environment changed. When the parameters were tweaked. Jack’s inventions always pointed to the same thing, no matter the circumstances.

But the result had to be wrong. Danny wasn’t a ghost. How many times had he jumped to that conclusion with Jazz and it had turned out to be nothing? Maddie would have his hide if he kept doing that, and Jazz would give him another lecture about how he was ruining Danny’s childhood, and he only wanted what was best for his family.

But if his inventions weren’t wrong, and if Danny wasn’t a ghost, what was left?

Jack drained his glass of water and made up his mind. He scooped the pieces of the Booo-merang into a box, cleaned the grease-stained newspaper off the table, and dropped the box off in the lab. He’d reassemble the Booo-merang later. Right now, he wanted to go for a walk. To clear his head. And maybe to get some answers.

Maddie had the GAV, but that was just as well. It was harder to sneak up on a ghost in that, even if they were easier to chase when he wasn’t on foot. Still, for what he wanted, the Fenton Finder would do the trick.

Jack checked the weapons supply in his suit one last time before heading out the door, Fenton Finder in hand. There were no ghosts nearby, so he fiddled with the settings and expanded its range. It was less precise the farther it stretched, but it was easy enough to shrink the range and increase its accuracy as he got closer to a ghost.

Following the Fenton Finder’s instructions to a pair of ghosts was easy enough, and Jack wasn’t entirely surprised to find himself spitting distance from Casper High. He caught the tail end of Phantom’s fight with Technus, and while the ghost was gloating to himself over capturing the technology ghost, Jack fired a net-gun at him.

Phantom squawked and tucked to protect the thermos as he dropped. Jack approached cautiously, not remotely surprised by the suspicion in Phantom’s eyes—or by the slight coating of ice that was forming over the net. He’d seen Phantom pull that trick before.

Jack held up the net-gun and an ecto-gun and very visibly put them on the ground where Phantom could see them. “I didn’t come here to fight,” he said. “I just want to talk, and I needed to make sure you stayed here long enough for me to ask if you will.”

Phantom frowned. “Release me, then.”

The net was now completely coated in a thin layer of ice. Phantom could get free on his own with one good ectoblast, but Jack took the offering for what it was and untangled the net. Phantom floated up to his eye level but didn’t leave—or release his hold on his stolen Fenton Thermos. Jack wasn’t overly happy about Phantom’s theft, but it was good advertising for FentonWorks, so he’d long ago decided to let it slide as long as Phantom stopped stealing from them. (The Fenton Ecto-Skeleton might have been used well by Phantom, but he’d also destroyed it, and Jack was only willing to lose so many prototypes.)

“What do you want?” Phantom asked. He was watching Jack’s hands as much as his face, and Jack wondered if Phantom knew he hadn’t surrendered all his weapons.

Jack opened his mouth and found himself hesitating. He knew what he wanted to ask, more or less, but he wasn’t sure how to ask it in a way that made sense—much less in a way that made sense to a ghost. It was just as well that he’d found Phantom. Of all the ghosts that plagued this town, Phantom was the one who was most likely to give him something approximating an honest answer. Jack wasn’t sure what he’d have to promise in return, but the ghost wasn’t above cutting deals—and he tended to honour them, as far as Jack had seen.

“Do you just want to meet me later?” Phantom offered. “I’ve, uh, got someplace I should really be getting back to, and—”

“You know my kids, right?” The question had tumbled from Jack’s mouth without his permission, but at least it was a starting point.

Phantom blinked at him and looked slightly uncomfortable. “Um. Yeah? Jazz and Danny, right? They both go to Casper High. I’m, ah, there a lot. As you can tell.” He gestured vaguely in the direction of the school.

Jack nodded. “Yes. They’re often targeted, being our kids.”

“Right.” Phantom nodded, though Jack had no idea if he actually agreed or if he was merely trying to keep Jack happy. “That makes sense.”

“And Maddie and I know they support you,” Jack said slowly, “despite everything we’ve taught them.”

Phantom winced. “I swear I’m not brainwashing them or anything like that,” he muttered. “They just know that not all ghosts are evil.”

“Not all ghosts believe they are evil,” corrected Jack. Phantom’s frown deepened, but he held his tongue this time. “In fact, few truly accept that they are. They’re so caught up in their own beliefs and perceptions of the world that they can’t see how horrible their actions truly are.”

“Right.” Phantom’s voice was flat now, as if he remembered enough of what his life had once been to approximate human emotions. “I promise not to attack your kids. Was that all you wanted to talk about? I can go without you shooting me in the back again?”

“No, I…I want to make you a deal.”

Phantom’s eyebrows shot up. “A deal? After saying that? You just told me you think I’m evil but I can’t recognize my own evilness! What kind of deal do you want to make with someone you think is evil?”

It wasn’t worth correcting Phantom now. He wasn’t in the mood to argue over semantics, and he had never been very good at that, anyway. “I’ll replace that battered Fenton Thermos of yours if you help me with a problem I have.”

Phantom crossed his arms. “How about promising that you won’t keep trying to catch me and tear me apart molecule by molecule?”

He wasn’t jumping at the chance to replace his Fenton weaponry, so either he was comfortable with breaking into their place or Maddie’s suspicions were correct and one or both kids was helping him.

And if the kids were helping him, it was even more likely he’d know the answer to Jack’s question.

“You’d have to help me with more than one thing before I’d agree to that,” Jack said dryly. “I can appreciate your twisted sense of self-preservation, Phantom, but sometimes sacrifices must be made for science.”

Phantom glowered at him. “You’re just making me want to help you way less. You know that, right? My sense of self-preservation isn’t twisted, especially when you’re a ghost hunter. I’m willing to work with you guys on keeping this town safe, but only if we call a truce. I don’t want you to shoot me the moment the opportunity arises.”

He wasn’t going to make any wild promises without consulting Maddie. If they were going to strike up any sort of long-term alliance with Phantom, her input would be invaluable. She was a better negotiator than he. Besides, at this point, he didn’t trust the ghost enough. Trust had to be earned. He knew it went both ways, but Phantom was never defenseless unless they managed to suppress his powers—and he could disarm them more easily than they could do that. “I can give you one week. If you can help me. Beyond that, I’d have to discuss it with my wife.”

To Jack’s surprise, Phantom smiled. “Really?” There was something…hopeful in his voice. “Okay, yeah. I’ll help you if you don’t hunt me for a week. What’s this thing you need help with? Do you want a tour guide for the Ghost Zone?”

The idea wasn’t a terrible one. He’d have to bring it up with Maddie later, maybe when he broke the news that they couldn’t hunt Phantom for a full seven days. He was sure she’d understand once he explained that this was for Danny. She knew how much he was willing to sacrifice for their family. “No. I need to know why my inventions target you.”

Phantom’s smile fell off his face. “What?”

“What exactly is it about you that my inventions find? Why do they work?”

“You…. Why are you asking me that? How should I know? You invented them!”

“My science isn’t perfect.” Jack hated to admit it, hated to admit folly or fault to a ghost. “Until we can break a ghost down to its components, until we can figure out what triggers its cohesion or the composition of its ecto-signature, we’re guessing.”

“And you think I can tell you all that? I’m not a scientist! Go talk to Plasmius.”

Jack frowned. He didn’t like the Wisconsin Ghost, not after he had tried to attack Jack’s family. “I trust him less than I trust you.”

“Yeah, but he knows more about all of that stuff than I do. I’ve never studied it. I can’t tell you anything about that. I still don’t even understand how I exist like this, and he’s tried to explain it to me.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “You died, Phantom. There are a number of reasons ghosts form—”

“That’s not what I— You know what? Never mind. If this is what you wanted help with, I can’t actually help you. So why don’t you just let me go this once, and we can go back to normal next time you see me? I should really be going anyway—”

“That’s not the only thing I need help with.”

Phantom sighed. “Are you sure? Because if it’s science-y, and it sounds like it probably will be, you’re better off talking to Plasmius. I mean, believe me, I hate that idea, and he’ll hate that idea, and I can’t guarantee he’ll help, but he’ll at least understand what you’re talking about. I don’t.”

“No.” Jack had known even before he set out that he wouldn’t ask help of Plasmius. Phantom, aggravating though he was, was preferable to Plasmius. He had never seen Phantom directly harm his family, and Plasmius had tried that right in front of him. “I…. This is about my son.”

Phantom froze. “Your…son?”

He looked scared now, which was interesting. Maybe it was Danny who was helping Phantom after all. Maybe Phantom was the reason all their weapons— But Phantom had no reason to lie to him about this when it would mean he wouldn’t have to worry about the town’s best ghost hunters tracking him down. Jack highly doubted he’d tell the whole truth, but if Phantom knew anything, however insignificant, he could have given it to them—even if he knew whatever he told them wouldn’t help.

“There’s something about Danny,” Jack admitted quietly, “that sets off our weapons. I can’t figure out what it is. Maddie can’t figure out what it is. Our weapons are designed for ghosts, not humans, but something that would destroy you could still hurt him.”

Phantom’s eyes were wide. “Comforting,” he squeaked. If it was an attempt at humour, Phantom had no idea of his ill timing. Then again, Jack wouldn’t expect anything else from a ghost.

“This is serious, Phantom. My son’s life is in danger. If something goes wrong with one of our inventions…. Accidents happen, but I want to prevent the ones I can. And finding out why our weapons target him and stopping it will go a long way toward that.”

Phantom stared at the ground and said nothing.

“Help me figure this out. If we’re successful, Maddie and I will discuss the possibility of a long-term truce.”

“I…I don’t think….”

“Please.” It was easier to get the word past his lips than he’d expected. “Please. For my son. You claim to be a hero, to want to protect this town, don’t you? Help me protect my Danny-boy.”

“I’m going to regret this,” Phantom muttered. Louder, he said, “This involves Danny. You should talk to him, too. I’ll, um, come by sometime after school—or at this rate, detention—is over.”

Jack frowned. “Why not help me now? Then, whenever Danny gets home, we’ll be ready for him.” He was tempted to ask why Phantom thought Danny might get detention when he hadn’t all week, but Jack was unfortunately aware that Danny got detention as often as he didn’t, if not more. He shouldn’t condemn the ghost for acknowledging that fact, not when he needed Phantom’s help. Not when he was asking for Phantom’s help.

Phantom gave him a goofy grin. “Because I have someplace to be right now. And you have to tell Maddie she can’t shoot me when I show up.” He offered a mock salute and vanished.

Jack didn’t know if he’d done the right thing. Alliances with ghosts made him…uneasy. Even when they were for his family. Even with a ghost like Phantom, who thought himself good. There was never a guarantee with ghosts, not in matters like this. Phantom could go back on his word. If this venture endangered his family….

He’d make sure it wouldn’t happen. He’d take every precaution he could. When Phantom came, he’d be ready.

And, hopefully, by the end of this, Danny would be safe.

XXXXX

Maddie looked over the lab and bit her lip. “I don’t like this,” she admitted. “Lowering our defenses risks the whole family, and—”

“—and it’s only for a week. We can be extra vigilant for a week,” Jack pointed out. “And if Phantom attacks us, then we get to tear him apart molecule by molecule!”

Maddie smiled. “You’re right. You agreed not to hunt him for a week, but if he attacks first, then it’s self-defence.” She gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “Good thinking, sweetums.”

She was still nervous. He could see that in every line of her body. She didn’t like this. But he’d trusted Phantom before, made a deal with Phantom before, and the ghost had kept his word. Jack wanted to believe he’d do so again. “This is for Danny,” he reminded her.

“I know. I’ll abide by your terms. For Danny.” She checked her watch. “I’ll make a fresh batch of cookies. If Phantom is going to be under our roof and unrestrained, we can at least learn what we can from him while he’s here.”

“Double the recipe?” Jack asked hopefully. He loved Maddie’s cookies—the entire family did—and if it turned out Phantom could and would eat, Jack wanted to make sure there were enough.

Maddie leaned closer and whispered, “I’m going to quadruple it,” before pulling back with a laugh. Halfway up the stairs, she added, “They never seem to last long enough anyway. Just don’t anger Phantom before we at least get that data!”

“I’ll do my best, sugar plum,” Jack promised, but Maddie was already back upstairs, and he was left waiting.

XXXXX

Danny came into the lab some time later—late enough that Jack knew he must have gotten detention for one reason or another—and he looked almost as nervous as Jack had ever seen him. “Your mom told you what we want to do, right, Danny-boy?”

Danny rubbed the back of his neck. “Kinda. I got the gist from Phantom, too. After school. He’s, uh, gonna be late. The Box Ghost showed up again.”

“The Box Ghost doesn’t usually give him much trouble.”

“He, um, had a lot of boxes.”

Jack nodded slowly. He didn’t know if Phantom hadn’t told Danny the details or if he hadn’t been truthful about any of it, but it didn’t matter in the end. He wasn’t here now, and if he didn’t show up by the end of the day, then that meant he didn’t intend to uphold his end of the deal—and that Jack and Maddie had no reason to keep theirs.

Danny grabbed the rolling desk chair by the computer and sat down. “Do you need me for long? I have homework.”

Jack sighed and leaned against the examination table. “What I need, Danny-boy, is for you to tell me the truth.”

Danny stilled, the fingers drumming on his knee freezing mid-beat. He looked…wary. Tense. Scared. “What do you mean?” Now that Jack was listening and looking for it, he could hear the falsehood in his son’s voice, the forced nonchalance that was betrayed by his body. “What do I have to lie about?”

He was a teenager. Likely as not, he thought he had a lot to lie about, even though he was wrong about that. “Danny,” Jack said instead, “this is important. You need to realize that. Our weapons could still hurt you, and your mom and I don’t want that to happen. That’s why we’re doing this. But we can’t help you if we don’t understand what happened.”

“I never said anything happened!”

“It could have been something small,” Jack said, though he didn’t really believe that. Whatever it had been, the effects were significant. “Something that you didn’t notice right away. Just think. You’ve spent a lot of time in the lab over the years. Has anything unexpected ever happened?”

“No.” The response came quickly. Too quickly. “I mean, you guys take a lot of safety precautions.”

“Mads and I do,” acknowledged Jack, “but when was the last time you or Jazzy-pants wore a HAZMAT suit while you worked down here?”

Danny winced.

Jack just nodded. “Now, your mom and I don’t think this is just a case of contamination. Everything reacts so strongly to you, and the effect just seems to be getting worse over time.”

“Of course it does,” Danny muttered. He’d no doubt been hoping this entire mess would just go away on its own. Truthfully, Jack had, too, but he and Maddie had known better than to do nothing and wait in vain.

Jack handed him the Fenton Finder. “You never stuck around long enough for me to explain my changes, Danny-boy, but if you turn that on, you’ll see how bright your dot is….” Jack trailed off. Danny had obeyed him, but the screen was blank.

“Hey, it doesn’t think I’m a ghost anymore!” Danny looked thrilled. “Awesome, Dad! What did you do?”

Jack just stared at the screen, half-expecting the dot representing his son—which had always appeared so faithfully—to belatedly pop up.

He hadn’t done a thing to the Fenton Finder that should affect Danny.

Wordlessly, he reached for the recently-reassembled Booo-merang, turned it on, and tossed it. Danny ducked, but all it did was crash into the drying rack and shatter half a dozen test tubes, a couple of beakers, and a graduated cylinder. No matter how many times Jack had built and rebuilt it before, it had invariably locked onto Danny. Now, it was like there wasn’t even a ghost in the vicinity.

Danny reached for the Ghost Gabber before he could. “My name is Danny Fenton,” he said into its microphone, and this time—for the first time in Jack’s memory—it didn’t repeat his words.

The next thing Jack knew, Danny had his arms around his middle. “Thanks, Dad!” He sounded so relieved. It was almost painful to hear that, to hear how much of a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, a weight his own parents had placed there. “I don’t know what you did, but I don’t care because it worked. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Danny gave him another squeeze before releasing him and bounding for the stairs. “I’m gonna tell Mom and Sam and Tucker and Jazz!”

Jack just stared after him, knowing he should call out to stop him but not knowing what to say.

Danny should still be targeted. He should still be identified as a ghost. Jack hadn’t…. Nothing he’d done would have affected that. Should have affected that.

Jack wasn’t sure how long he sat there, going over everything he’d done in his head, before he began double checking his instruments. He did know that if Phantom hadn’t coughed, very pointedly, Jack would have never noticed him.

That, above all else, told him how much this had shaken him.

“I’m assuming you talked to Danny,” Phantom said from where he floated a foot and a half off the floor, well away from the examination table and any of their weapons that would reach out and grab him at a touch of a button. “So what do you need me to do? How can I help?”

Jack had never turned the Fenton Ghost Gabber off, and despite what he’d done, he now expected it to still repeat Phantom’s words.

It didn’t.

Which meant Jack hadn’t gotten things wrong. Not that way, anyway. He hadn’t…hadn’t…. “The Fenton Finder,” he croaked, making a vague gesture towards it. “Do you still show up?” He had to be sure. He thought he was, but Maddie would want more proof than a gut feeling when he talked to her.

Phantom didn’t ask why, like Jack had expected, though he was appropriately wary as he flew over to pick up the device and turn it on.

Jack wasn’t surprised to find that Phantom knew exactly which one the Fenton Finder was or how it worked.

“No,” Phantom said, turning the screen in Jack’s direction so that he could see it was still blank.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Jack whispered. This was the result he had expected, but not after getting the same result for Danny. He shouldn’t have gotten the same result for Danny. Not if…if….

“Why? What’d you do?”

“We have your ecto-signature on file,” Jack said slowly. “It was easy enough to get, and we can get it again if you try to sabotage our data.”

Phantom rolled his eyes. “I’m not planning on breaking into your vault to destroy your precious data. Even if most of it is wrong. Besides, the thing’s phase-proof, isn’t it?”

Jack might have once been surprised that Phantom knew so much, but not anymore.

“I promised not to hunt you for a week,” Jack continued, ignoring Phantom’s remarks for now. “If you were able to help me, I wanted to be sure I could keep my end of the bargain.”

Phantom frowned. “Were? What’s that supposed to mean? I haven’t tried to help yet.”

Jack made sure to look him in the eye. He needed to see Phantom’s reaction, needed to see that he was fitting the pieces together correctly and that he wasn’t still missing something. “I fed your most recent ecto-signature reading into our weapons and taught them to ignore it,” he said.

Phantom looked at him blankly for a long few seconds, and then his eyes widened in panic. “Oh, crud.”

“What happened?” Jack asked gently. He thought Maddie might know how to best address this, how to deal with this sort of thing better than him, but she wasn’t here, and he was, and…. And he just had to let Phantom know he wasn’t going to lunge for any weapons or activate the Fenton Anti-Creep Mode or anything else. He had to let Phantom know he was willing to listen, that he was ready to listen, if Phantom was willing to tell him.

Phantom broke his gaze, guilt and discomfort written all over his features. He didn’t answer, but he didn’t try to fly away, either.

Slowly, he dropped until his feet were planted on the floor. He shifted his weight from foot to foot and crossed his arms, huddling in on himself, but Jack wasn’t going to give in. He wasn’t going to speak first, not unless Phantom tried to run and he had to catch him with the Fenton Fisher.

Phantom was still staring at his boots when he finally spoke, his voice barely audible. “It was an accident,” he breathed, and Jack could no longer be surprised.

All their (extensive) research pointed to the fact that each ghost’s ecto-signature was unique. Not static—ecto-signatures were influenced by a ghost’s experiences after death just as they were in the moment of their formation—but never the same for each ghost. It was impossible. Even ghosts skilled in mimicry wouldn’t be able to fully replicate another’s ecto-signature, as their own would still carry its own tell.

So if he had fed Phantom’s ecto-signature into his inventions and now they didn’t recognize Phantom or Danny?

“I’m sorry,” whispered Phantom. “I didn’t know how to tell you guys. And then I’d waited so long, too long, and I just…. It was easier to keep it a secret, I guess.” He was mumbling now. “I’m sorry. I…I don’t….”

Jack crossed the distance between them and scooped the ghost into his arms. “It’s okay, Danny-boy,” he murmured. “We know now. You just tell us what you need, okay? We want to help you.”

Phantom—Danny—was very still in his grip. “You believe me? You’re not…mad? Or thinking this is some kind of trick?”

Jack had no idea how this was possible, no idea what had happened or what Danny had been through since—the fact that Danny and Phantom were one and the same proved his ignorance on the subject—but he did know that he wasn’t mad. Besides, he didn’t know how a ghost could pull off a trick like this—or what would be gained by doing so, especially when it could be so easily disproven. Maddie might have some ideas on that front, but Jack was already sure that he was hearing the truth.

He just…knew it.

He didn’t even need to weigh Phantom’s actions against those of other ghosts, or scrutinize his verbal slips, or continue to assess his familiarity with their family and their technology.

“Accidents happen,” Jack repeated. He didn’t know how they were going to break the news to Maddie. She might be horrified, might blame herself—for not doing enough, for not noticing, for what she had done, what they had both done, in their ignorance—but he couldn’t let her. They needed to focus on what they still had, not on what had happened in the past—at least beyond preventing it from happening again. But he’d let Danny tell her, maybe over a plate of warm cookies once they were out of the oven. Cookies made everything better.

“Sometimes,” continued Jack quietly, “life’s lessons are expensive, and sometimes the cost can’t be paid with cash, but you’re still here. You’re still you. You’re still my son. You always will be, and I’ll always love you.”

Phantom twisted in Jack’s grip to throw his arms around him and hug him tightly, and then there was a brilliant flash of light and Jack was holding his son, his Danny-boy, and—

“I don’t think I realized how much I needed to hear that,” Danny murmured into his shoulder. “Thank you, Dad. I love you, too.”

(see more fics | my phight phics)

#danny phantom #phic phight #phic phight 19 #dp fanfiction #phanfiction #jack fenton #danny fenton #my writing #ladylynse #my phic phight phics #snippets #dp snippet #I wrote this instead of responding to most of the reviews on my last fic #only so much time

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anonofdannyphantomfluff · 7 years

Text

Positive

I’m so sorry...not a fluff...very angst...talks some about drugs and addiction...uhhh...don’t do drugs!

Hey @sonadowfire here you go...

People feared ecto-contamination, but not like this. There had been four deaths in the past two days. A narcotic, street-named phaze, killed them.

Madeline Fenton stared at compound’s makeup, the 3-D drawing swirled around on the screen. Ectoplasm. Some idiot dealer, had mixed ectoplasm with a combination of three other drugs, and two, still unidentified, substances.

signing , she leaned back in her chair. Had this happened anywhere else, it would take her all of two hours to find the source. But this was Amity. Ectoplasm had seeped into the very makeup of the town. She couldn’t track it.

…

After 15 hours of research, seven more deaths, careful examination of the dead, communication with the D.E.A. and local law enforcement, and far more coffee than should be consumed was, a plan was made.

Ectoplasm was extremely easy to spot in a human body. Starting with “at risk” groups, such as high school students and addicts of other drugs, every citizen of Amity Park would be scanned. The elder Fentons, were used as control, being near the substance as their profession would give them the highest concentration of ectoplasm in the town. Anyone with levels over, 11% would be rushed to the hospital. Then to rehab, if they survived.

…

At 58%, Daniel Fenton should not be alive, much less walking. Maddie sobbed, her blurry eyes locked on the shattered pieces of the phone. Why did everything suddenly have to make sense?

…

“No!” the panic evident in his voice.

“Don’t worry kid, we’ll get you help.” The nurse replied soothingly as she pushed him back on the gurney.

“You don’t understand!” They didn’t listen. After all, it would only sound like the ravings of an addict who’d just gotten caught.

#Danny Phantom #angst #fluffy writes an Angst #i'm sorry not sorry

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ladylynse · 5 years

Text

Part II of Revision! Also on FFnet/AO3 under Lynse (linked in my blog description), or you can go to the ‘my tumblr fics’ link (also in my blog description) to find even more fics (including Part I).

Jazz had said that they were past the point of secrets, but her actions seem inexcusable to Maddie, especially with Danny still missing.

Vlad’s expression settled into one of polite confusion. Maddie wasn’t sure if he recognized the name but couldn’t remember why it sounded familiar or if he was completely baffled by the question. It was possible he’d come across the ghost girl before, of course, but it was equally likely that he hadn’t. He hadn’t done any paranormal research since their college days. Unless he’d been reading the papers she and Jack had published, there was a good chance he was behind in the field despite his move to Amity Park.

There was no reason for Jazz to be directing her ire at him, as if he had all the answers and was purposefully withholding them. He’d come to help them. There were far more gracious ways to ask if he knew anything about the ghost girl than demanding answers he may not even have.

“Jazz, honey—”

“Who’s Danielle?” Jazz growled again, not even turning to acknowledge her mother’s words.

“I imagine you already know the answer to that question if you’re using the poor girl’s name,” Vlad said mildly, “so why don’t you enlighten me?”

Without breaking his gaze, Jazz reached out and pulled open the drawer by the fridge. It was a utility drawer of sorts, holding a variety of weaponry and containment devices in case things got…out of hand. There had been too many incidents of ecto-contamination in their food for such precautions not to be prudent.

Maddie didn’t miss the slight rise of Vlad’s eyebrows when Jazz pulled out a pair of Fenton Cuffs and slipped something—presumably the key—into her pocket. “My dear girl,” he said, “surely you know those work as well on humans as they do on ghosts? It’s hardly necessary. I am here of my own free will.”

“Then you won’t mind putting them on,” Jazz ground out. “Right?”

“Sweetie,” Maddie said quietly, “I think you’re taking this a bit too far. Vlad is helping us, and he can hardly work with his hands bound.” Jazz’s expression only hardened as she was speaking, so Maddie added, more plainly, “You don’t need to treat him like a prisoner.”

“You have no idea what I need to do, Mom.” Jazz held out the cuffs. “Well?”

Vlad laughed and shook his head. “I don’t see the need.”

“Well, I do.” Jazz grabbed Vlad’s arm and snapped the cuff onto his left wrist. His expression darkened immediately, but before he could do anything, Jazz had closed the opposing cuff around her own wrist.

Maddie frowned and moved so that her daughter couldn’t miss her expression. “Jasmine, this is ridiculous. Release him.”

Jazz’s left hand (her free hand) moved to her hip, resting there as if she were preparing to scold her own mother—and for something other than their dubious influence on Danny’s psyche. “No. You have no idea how necessary this is, Mom.”

“Then tell me what I don’t know,” Maddie retorted, not hiding the shortness in her voice. Jazz’s actions were inexcusable. Vlad was an old friend. He was helping them. He didn’t deserve this sort of treatment. It was completely unfounded.

“I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding,” Vlad said smoothly. His eyes slid to meet Jazz’s. “Isn’t that right?”

“Like I said, we’re past the point of secrets.”

Maddie opened her mouth—saw Vlad do the same—but Jazz was already moving, twisting around to reach the hidden panel by the fridge. A few seconds later, she’d exposed one of the giant red buttons that activated their security system.

Vlad hauled her backwards before she had a chance to press it, and Maddie rounded on her daughter. “Jasmine, explain yourself!”

Despite having Vlad’s arms wrapped around hers, Jazz managed to square her shoulders and look very grown up in that moment—more like the woman Maddie knew she would soon be, one with countless lessons of life’s experience under her belt, than the teenager she still was. “I was trying to.”

“Hardly,” Vlad drawled, and Maddie couldn’t help but agree with him.

“Irrational actions are not an explanation, and you of all people know that. Danny was kidnapped by a ghost, and—”

“He wasn’t, Mom. You know too much to deny that. That ghost you had on the table? Her name is Danielle. And I don’t need to have met her to know that Danny cares about her. If he didn’t, they wouldn’t be gone. And he wouldn’t call her a cousin when he talked about her with Sam and Tucker.”

Vlad’s grip must have tightened because Jazz gasped. Maddie stepped forward to help, but she was preoccupied by the fact that Jazz knew the ghost girl’s name. She shouldn’t have known it, couldn’t have connected it to the ghost girl even though she had apparently heard it somewhere else, too—and what was all this about cousins?

“Honey,” Maddie tried, “we don’t know what that ghost told Danny—”

“Maybe we don’t.” It was an agreement, but Maddie knew her daughter well enough to know that Jazz wasn’t finished. This wasn’t a concession; it was a setup for her counter argument. “But maybe Vlad does. Isn’t that right?”

For the life of her, she had no idea where the venom in Jazz’s voice was coming from. Fortunately, Vlad was taking this all graciously, smiling even though Jazz couldn’t see him. He did not, however, loosen his grip. “I’m afraid I’m just as much in dark as you on this matter.”

Jazz snorted. “This is ridiculous. Do you really think I won’t say it now, Vlad? Danny’s not hiding this anymore, so I don’t need to, either.”

“Danny’s not hiding what anymore?” Maddie asked cautiously.

“His association with ghosts,” Vlad replied before Jazz could. “That’s my fault, really.”

“You can say that again,” Jazz muttered. She kicked at Vlad’s leg. “Let me go already.”

“Vlad, please. I’m sure Jazz is ready to be civil, aren’t you, sweetie?” Jazz looked the farthest thing from civil right now, but Jazz also prided herself on being a responsible adult. She was less prone to drastic measures and wild lies than her brother—significantly less so, if Danny had been associating with ghosts.

It made perfect sense, though. He’d be sure they’d disapprove (not that he was wrong there) and would try to keep his…activities, for lack of a better word, a secret. And, really, this behaviour hadn’t started until the ghosts began showing up on a regular basis. He hadn’t shut them out until he’d been certain he’d be shut out because of his choices. She wished he’d talked to them, though. They could have tried to come to some sort of understanding.

But while an association with ghosts would explain how he knew the ghost girl’s name, while it would explain his protective nature of her and—possibly—even the sense of kinship that had developed between them to the point that he’d started calling her a cousin— While that could be true, it didn’t explain what she’d seen.

It didn’t explain his eyes.

It didn’t explain his disappearance.

It didn’t explain the blood.

Even if another ghost were involved—even if something crazy had happened, such as Phantom daring to try to overshadow one of her children—it still didn’t explain the blood.

Vlad released Jazz, who huffed and moved to stand beside him. She was still more than an arm’s length from their security centre’s activation panel. Likely as not, she knew as well as Maddie that any move toward it now would simply end up in her being farther from it than before. Vlad was no longer smiling, but he was being an exceedingly good sport about all of this, and Maddie was grateful for that. Really, he was so good to her family.

“Now, since both of you clearly know the truth, would either of you care to explain to me what Danny has been up to?”

“Protecting us,” Jazz said, “to the best of his ability. But we don’t need to be protected from every ghost, and I have a feeling the girl you had in the lab—”

“It was a ghost, honey.”

“She was a girl.” Jazz’s voice was flat. “And she was Danny’s friend. His…his cousin. I can’t tell you what that means, though.” A sharp smile was plastered on her face, too bright and wide to be seen as anything but false and a touch feral. In a cheery tone, she added, “But Vlad does, so why don’t you tell us, Vlad?”

“I really don’t see why you—”

“That’s what I thought,” interrupted Jazz. Her hand delved into her pocket and came out with a vial Maddie didn’t recognize. One of Jack’s forgotten experiments?

If Vlad’s raised eyebrows were any indication, he had no idea what the threat was supposed to be, either.

And it was a threat, even though Maddie had no idea why.

“Blood blossom extract,” Jazz hissed.

Vlad jerked away, only to be restricted by the Fenton Cuffs.

Maddie blinked.

Blood blossoms harmed ghosts, not humans. True, they might act as an allergen for some, but Vlad hadn’t had a problem with them back in college when they’d studied the plants in preparation of being armed with some sort of weapon should the proto-portal prove a success. If he’d since developed an allergy, she didn’t know about it.

And there was certainly no reason for Jazz to know about it if he had.

“Tell me who Danielle really is or I swear I’ll—”

Maddie grabbed her daughter’s hand, wrenching it behind her for leverage and then prying the vial free. She slipped it into her pocket lest Jazz get any more ideas. “That’s enough!” She made no effort to conceal her anger. If Vlad had developed an allergy—and there was good reason to think he had, based on his reaction—it was beyond reckless to purposefully trigger a reaction. “Jasmine, we do not threaten our friends. I don’t want you to talk to anyone this way, least of all Vlad when he’s here to help us. Release him or I’ll do it for you. And then you can go down to the lab and keep watch for your father while we work up here.”

“Mom, you don’t—”

“Now.”

Jazz’s mouth snapped shut and she stared at her mother. “You can’t be serious,” she whispered.

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

Jazz pursed her lips, but she knew better than to push back again. She reached into her pocket, pulled out the key, and unlocked the cuffs. She left Vlad to hand everything to Maddie as she stalked down the stairs.

“I’m sorry,” Maddie said, flinching as the door slammed shut behind Jazz. “I really don’t know what got into her.”

Vlad’s smile was thin as he rubbed at his wrist. “Teenagers.”

“She’s worried about Danny. You know how overprotective she can be. Sometimes, she just doesn’t—”

“FentonWorks Anti-Creep Mode Activated!” Her husband’s voice blared out of hidden speakers, clearly heard despite the shrill alarms, even as the flashing lights slid smoothly out of the walls.

Maddie heaved a sigh as the recording promised pain. She had no idea why Jazz was doing this, but it was easy enough to deactivate the alarm and return the Fenton Cuffs and key to the drawer. The wailing mercifully shut off and the red lights retracted, but for the next five hours, the house would automatically respond to any signs of ecto-activity—providing she didn’t key in the appropriate code first. A code which needed to be re-entered within two minutes if no ecto-activity was detected before it automatically reset. It hadn’t seemed like a flaw at the time, but now….

“I’ll talk to her,” Maddie promised. “If you’ll just give me a moment.” She flashed Vlad a smile and didn’t wait for his permission before thundering down the basement stairs. “Jasmine Fenton,” she hissed, “what has gotten into you?”

“We have to keep the Fenton Ghost Portal open for when Dad comes back,” Jazz said from her chair at the computer desk. With her slightly furrowed brow and questioning tone, as if she were wondering how she could be in the wrong, she was the picture of confused innocence. “This is just a precaution, in case any ghost tries to sneak through in the meantime.”

Maddie’s eyes narrowed, but she couldn’t guess at Jazz’s true intention. She was fairly certain Jazz had one—her cleverness wasn’t book smarts alone—but the only reason which crossed Maddie’s mind was the one Jazz had given, and Jazz’s manner convinced her it wasn’t the truth. She decided to leave it for now and focus on the more pressing matter. “Why are you treating Vlad this way?”

Jazz stood and closed the distance between them, leaving her quizzical façade behind. In a quiet voice, she said, “Vlad isn’t who you think he is. He’s been lying to you for years. I don’t know why it took him so long to reconnect with you and Dad, but I have my suspicions. It’s…. The truth isn’t pretty, Mom. You have to know that, and you have to be prepared for it.”

Maddie sighed. “Give me some credit. I know you and Danny aren’t fond of Vlad, but—”

“He’s a creep who hates Dad and has a weird obsession with you and Danny,” Jazz said bluntly. “You just can’t see it.”

“Jasmine—”

“He actually makes me think there’s something to your whole ‘all ghosts have an obsession’ theory,” Jazz continued blithely. “I mean, the Box Ghost and Skulker are obvious, but—”

Maddie scrubbed a hand over her face. She couldn’t believe she needed to have this conversation with her daughter right now, when everything else was going on. “Honey, he’s not a ghost.” She was used to Jack jumping to conclusions, not Jazz. Jazz was one to sit down and think things through logically. “While he might be a little eccentric—”

“We used to call Plasmius the Wisconsin Ghost,” interrupted Jazz. “Don’t you think that it’s weird that he’s always spotted around Amity Park now? Ghosts aren’t prone to move their haunts, are they?”

“Only when they’re tied to something that’s on the move,” Maddie agreed, “but that’s hardly evidence—”

The blaring ecto-alarm cut her off.

Again.

“Oh, I guess Vlad doesn’t know about the primed sensor. How foolish of me.”

Maddie could easily see that Jazz had planned this, but she didn’t understand yet how it had worked. “We’re not done here,” she warned, taking the stairs back to the kitchen two at a time.

There was a scorch mark on the wall by the fridge and two more on the floor. An empty net was strewn across the open doorway by the living room, and—

Maddie stared at the shattered glass and smoking green splotches of one of their ecto-samples and then at Vlad, who was currently held in one of their vice-like traps in the centre of the room. Green ectoplasm dripped all down his front, and his hair was singed. “What were you doing?”

“An experiment, I’m afraid.”

Maddie exhaled slowly, trying to steady her emotions, before walking over to the nearest hidden panel. She slid it open and keyed in the appropriate code to deactivate the alarm. Again. “May I ask what you were hoping to achieve?”

Vlad nodded at the Booo-merang. “I was hoping to recalibrate that completely. Blank it, if you will, before introducing the samples you’ve given me with the ghost’s ecto-signature.”

“And got targeted for your trouble.” Their system would’ve picked up on the presence of ectoplasm the moment he’d opened the phase-proof jar. That, at least, explained what she’d seen. “I’m sorry about that. Once the system’s primed, it searches out anything with an ecto-signature. We’ve recently introduced a way for it to ignore pre-programmed ecto-signatures—so that we can freely work on samples without compromising security—so you must have found a sample we haven’t catalogued yet.”

“Lucky me.”

“Why don’t you go upstairs and get cleaned up? I’ll find you some clothes to wear and wash those in the meantime.”

“Thank you, but it’s rather fine material. It’s best if I do it myself. I’ll just run home and be back as soon as I can.”

Maddie wasn’t surprised, so she apologized again as she saw him to the door, and then she moved back to the kitchen and sat with her head in her hands.

XXXXXXX

“Mom? Is Vlad gone?”

Maddie looked up at Jazz’s voice. “Yes, you were successful in driving him away,” she said dryly.

Unlike Maddie had expected, Jazz didn’t look the least bit contrite. Instead, her daughter looked grim. She pulled out another chair and sat opposed Maddie. “You need to understand something.”

She needed to understand a lot of things, and right now, she wasn’t sure she understood anything at all. “I’m quite aware.”

Jazz wasn’t put off by her tone. “What you showed me. About the blood.”

Maddie frowned. “What about it?” She knew Jazz had wanted to find some ghosts to psychoanalyze for her ghost envy study, but she hadn’t thought Jazz terribly interested in the hard science behind ghosts in general; she’d always been more captivated by the twists, turns, and perceptions of the mind.

“I’ve…. Mom, I’ve seen this before. Not with Danielle. I didn’t know about her. I…I suspect why Danny never mentioned her, and I sincerely hope I’m wrong, but—”

“What does Danny have to do with this?”

Jazz’s laugh sounded strangled. “Danny has to do with everything.”

“He’s helping the ghosts. You and Vlad both said he worked with them.” She had no idea how Vlad had found out about it when she hadn’t known, but at least Danny’s behaviour made sense now. Not just how he’d reacted in the lab, but why he never wanted to go hunt ghosts with them and why he always seemed to disappear when there was an attack. She’d hoped he was hiding, not…. “You really think the ghost I had in the lab was his friend?” It sounded…wrong, the idea that a ghost could be capable of friendship.

But that was before she’d met a ghost that bled.

She and Jack had captured humanoid ghosts before. They’d taken samples of ectoplasm before. This had never happened.

If I show you, will you stop?

It had been a secret, a secret the ghost girl had been willing to give up in order to try to convince Maddie of her humanity, but…but her son had already been aware of it. Her daughter had already suspected it. It wasn’t new.

“Friend. Family. It’s…complicated, I think. Everything’s complicated.”

How could the ghost girl be family? Or even be close enough that Danny considered her as such? When had he managed to find the time to form such a close bond with her when they hadn’t even documented a sighting of her in Amity Park before?

Maddie rubbed her temples for a moment before dropping her hands and looking Jazz in the eye. She couldn’t answer those questions, and neither could Jazz, from what she understood, but Jazz could clear up some other things that didn’t make any sense. “Who was the first?”

“What?”

“You said you’ve seen this before. The ectoplasm, the blood. So who was the first ghost you saw bleed? Why didn’t you tell us? We have to completely revamp our working theories and—”

“Not a ghost,” Jazz said slowly. “A…a halfa. It’s a colloquial term.”

“A halfa?”

“Half ghost, half human. A poor explanation for what it actually is, but—”

“Overshadowing,” Maddie interrupted. “Long term.” That actually made sense. Finally. “Constant exposure to ecto-energy can cause mutations, like what’s happened with some of our dinners. But for ectoplasm to be masking blood, the changes would have to be—”

“Molecular,” Jazz said. “Meaning it’s not overshadowing.”

“We don’t know what long-term possession can do to living people,” Maddie countered. “This could be our first evidence—”

“It’s not.”

“We don’t know that without further study. Whichever ghost you saw before—”

“Mom. Just…listen to me.” Maddie sat back at Jazz request and nodded, and Jazz gave her a thankful smile in return. “It was an accident. It wasn’t your fault. Or Dad’s.”

Maddie frowned. “Jazz—”

“Don’t blame yourselves, okay? For the accident or anything that’s happened since. It’s not your fault. I doubt you’ll believe that, at least right away, but if you and Dad work with me, we can talk this out and figure out the best way to approach the situation, and—”

“Wait.” This was about Vlad again, wasn’t it? Maddie couldn’t recall telling Jazz about the proto-portal incident back in their college days, but Jack had probably mentioned it at some point. “Vlad isn’t a ghost, Jazz. Yes, there was an accident with the proto-portal, and yes, it was bad, but there hasn’t been any lasting damage. He recovered.” She’d always believed that, but even as she said it, she began to doubt.

Long-term possession, not simple overshadowing. What if something had escaped the proto-portal that day? What if that something was controlling her friend? She’d thought Vlad had cut them out from his life because they reminded him too much of everything he had lost with the accident and had only recently realized how much he’d missed their friendship, but if some ecto-entity had worried that they’d spot the change in their best friend….

“I’m not sure recovered is the word for it.”

It explained Jazz’s actions and Vlad’s apparent aversion to blood blossoms. As Jazz had pointed out, it explained the former Wisconsin Ghost’s move to Amity Park. It was tied to Vlad. He was one of these…halfas.

If the broken ecto-sample had been a cover, what else was he trying to hide from her? From all of them? Had he been hoping to contaminate her samples instead, so that she’d never be able to track down the ghost girl?

Maddie swallowed. They hadn’t noticed. They should have noticed, should have questioned the years of silence if nothing else, but instead of giving a former friend the distance he’d seemed to need, they’d abandoned him. And now some ghost—Plasmius—was a part of him, controlling him, and she wasn’t sure who the real Vlad was anymore. Or even if his true self had survived.

If I show you, will you stop?

Maybe not all the human halves were puppets. She wanted to have faith in Danny’s judgement, for all that she had to question it if he were working with ghosts, but if this girl, this Danielle, was working with the ecto-entity that was using her a host? If theirs was a symbiotic rather than a parasitic relationship? It could explain Danny’s lapse.

I’m human, too.

Or perhaps the girl was fighting her possession and had simply had more success when Maddie had begun to disrupt its connection to her.

“Vlad’s a halfa, Mom.” The revelation should have her reeling, but after everything else…. “I’m pretty sure he’s the reason Danielle is, too. I don’t…. I don’t know everything. Sam and Tucker don’t, either. Danny never told them the truth.”

“The truth about what?”

“Danielle,” Jazz repeated. “Danny said she was our cousin. But she’s not. And if anyone here knows the truth about who she is, it’ll be Vlad.”

“Plasmius, you mean.”

Jazz pursed her lips. “There’s no difference.”

No, there likely wasn’t. Not anymore. It had been so long. But there still might be, and she wasn’t going to rule it out when Vlad was nice enough to help them.

Unless that had been a trick, too.

“Why do you think he knows something?”

Jazz snorted. “Halfas aren’t exactly common. He knows exactly how they’re created, and I have a feeling her name isn’t a coincidence.” Maddie opened her mouth to ask what Jazz meant by that, but Jazz continued, “That’s not important right now. The point is…. You believe me, right? About Vlad being a halfa? About him being Plasmius?”

“There’s still a chance,” Maddie said slowly, “that this is all conjecture built around coincidences.” She still didn’t want to believe it, not really, not of Vlad, of all people, but she’d seen enough to understand where Jazz was coming from. And if Plasmius had overtaken Vlad and had done so years ago….

“It’s really not. I can prove that. What will you let me shoot him with?”

Maddie frowned at Jazz’s expression. “You don’t need to look so happy about the idea.”

“He has it coming.”

Maddie couldn’t understand the bitterness in Jazz’s voice. If halfas were created by some sort of long-term possession, there was still a distinct difference between Vlad and Plasmius, at least if there was anything of her friend left after so many years hosting an evil ecto-entity. She would have thought Jazz would make that distinction. What else had happened between them that she didn’t know about? There had to be something driving this conviction of hers. “He’s helping us, sweetie.”

Jazz crossed her arms. “Because he wants Danny and Danielle. And because it’s an excuse to work closely with you. Was it his idea to send Dad off into the Ghost Zone alone?”

It had been. Not in so many words, not when Jack had already voiced the idea himself, but it was Vlad who had convinced her that it would work best for Jack to go in alone. He’d come over before Jack had left, when she’d been fretting over it again, and had wondered aloud about the complex capacities of the Spectre Speeder. Jack had happily rattled off its specs. Jack had been assuring her as much as Vlad that anyone using it would be perfectly safe. That if some ghost had taken Danny into its realm, he could be rescued. And then Jack hadn’t been able to sit here and fiddle with inventions that had inexplicably tracked Danny in the past. He’d had to keep moving, keep searching.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Jazz sighed. “Mom, you have no idea what Vlad’s done in the past. Danny knows more than I do, and it’s…. Trust me, you and Dad wouldn’t be such good friends with him if you knew everything. I’ll tell you what I can, but Danny doesn’t exactly tell me details if he thinks I’m just going to worry. You’re going to have to get the story from him.”

And what a story it would be. Maddie still wasn’t sure she entirely believed it—wasn’t sure she could until she saw solid evidence of it—but she couldn’t fathom why Jazz would lie like this. If it wasn’t the truth, Jazz certainly believed it was, and something must have convinced her of it or she wouldn’t have done the things she’d done.

But uneasy as Jazz’s allegations made her, Maddie’s primary concern remained Danny’s safety. If Jazz was right, if he’d taken the ghost and fled rather than the other way around, then— “Are you sure you haven’t any idea where Danny might be?”

“He won’t be close,” Jazz said softly. “Not if he doesn’t want to be found. He’d want to make sure he’s well out of range of the Fenton Finder. And I’d trust Tucker to increase the capacity of the Booo-merang before I’d trust Vlad. Not that it needs improving. I mean, I can understand why you don’t have an idea of its true range or longevity, but trust me when I say that it works fine as is.”

Maddie frowned. “Vlad wasn’t trying to improve it. He was recalibrating it so it would effectively lock onto the ghost’s ecto-signature. The halfa’s, I mean. Danielle’s.” That’s what he’d claimed, at any rate.

Jazz stared. “It’s already locked onto Danny. You know that. And it’s a safe bet that they’re together, so what’s the difference? Why waste your time on this when we could have been following it hours ago if that’s all you were trying to do?”

“Sweetie, the Booo-merang might pick up Danny here at home, but I can’t trust it’ll remain that way when it’s only done so because of a mistake on our part. Without an ecto-signature—”

“Mom.” Something in Jazz’s tone had the rest of Maddie’s protest dying on her lips. “Danny has an ecto-signature.”

-|-

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#danny phantom #phanfiction #fanfiction #dp fanfiction #maddie fenton #jazz fenton #vlad masters #my writing #ladylynse #snippets #dp snippet

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ladylynse · 5 years

Text

Okay, so I haven’t seen a lot of Dude, That’s My Ghost!, but I do know Danny Phantom, and @wolfsongroar was more than happy to get a crossover as a thank you for their donation to my ko-fi. (Thank you again!) Set sometime after Danny gets his ice powers and in season one of Dude, That’s My Ghost! since I’ve only seen episodes from that season. This is longer than I’d expected it to be, but I doubt you think that’s a bad thing.

Danny is sick of falling through portals to places unknown. Billy, on the other hand, is delighted that he has another fan who can see him--even if said fan isn’t as adoring as he should be. [FF | AO3]

The impact knocked the breath from his body. Danny barely had time to get his wits together and look up before the portal he’d fallen through (been thrown through) closed above him. He groaned and lay his head back down in the crater he’d made in the asphalt.

Sometimes, he really hated natural portals.

At least he was resilient. Nothing broken. He probably wouldn’t even be bruised when he changed back.

…which, considering this wasn’t Amity Park and ghosts weren’t the norm, he should do sooner rather than later. He didn’t want to accidentally terrify anyone while he tried to find out where he was. Besides, if he managed to get a message to Wulf or call Cujo to him so he could get back home through the Ghost Zone, they’d come to him whether he was Phantom or Fenton.

“I need to get out of here,” Danny muttered, getting to his feet with a wince. He was going to be sore for a while, but he was used to that now.

He’d crashed into the middle of the street (of course), but he didn’t have to look far to know his instinct had been right. Wherever he was, it wasn’t Amity Park. Amity Park didn’t have palm trees. Or buildings so fancy they had to be surrounded by a tall stone fence. (Okay, so Vlad’s mansion had had one once, but he hadn’t rebuilt it after the first time Danny had destroyed it.) On the upside, it looked like the right dimension and the right season, judging by the green grass and sunny skies, so at least the portal hadn’t spit him out into a different realm or time. Probably.

First things first. He needed to figure out where he was. Then, he could figure out the best way to get home. The coast was clear, so he changed back and flicked intangible to get off the last of the asphalt dust. He’d probably still stand out like a sore thumb in jeans and a t-shirt in a neighbourhood as rich as this one obviously was, but normal clothes were still less conspicuous than HAZMAT suits.

Danny started walking down the street, trying not to look around too much or otherwise draw attention to himself if anyone walked by. He had to pass a town sign at some point.

XXXXX

Spencer was glad when his phone started to ring. He was trying to come up with a new idea for a movie, and all Billy kept pitching was something that inevitably starred him. “C’mon, bro-man! I’ll play the invisible man and rescue all the ladies!”

“Just…hold that thought.” Spencer grabbed his cell phone and glanced at the display before answering. “What’s up, Rajeev?”

“Dude, was that you and Billy just now? I thought you weren’t going to start without me!”

“Was…what? What are you talking about?”

“The thing that fell from the sky! You shooting an alien horror movie this time?”

“The what? What thing?”

“By the school! Was that seriously not you?”

“Uh, no.” Alien horror movie sounded good, though. He could work with that. “Let’s go check it out. I’ll just—”

“Already on my way, dude. You and Billy should get a move on. I think that’s the news truck pulling up.”

Spencer blinked, but Rajeev had hung up before he could ask for any more details. “Something weird’s going down at the school,” he said.

Billy’s form twisted. When it settled, he was wearing a deerstalker and holding a giant magnifying glass. “I love a good mystery!”

Spencer rolled his eyes and grabbed his video camera, not willing to miss this opportunity if there was a good story to be captured. “Let’s just see what’s going on first.”

XXXXX

Danny ducked into an alley, trying to figure out what to do. People had noticed. Quickly. More quickly than he was used to, but then again, everyone in Amity Park was used to this being a near-daily occurrence. Besides road closure announcements, the scene of a ghost fight didn’t make the news after the ghosts were gone unless people were trying to rally to make Ghost Insurance a thing. (It would never be a thing. Nobody who needed it would be able to afford the premiums. Even he knew that.)

Considering how his day was going, if he showed up at the scene of the crime, he’d be accused of causing it. They wouldn’t be wrong about that, since he had, but it would definitely be inconvenient, even if he’d have no trouble phasing out of whatever holding cell they stuck him in until they could contact his parents. Of course, walking away from the place everyone seemed to be flocking to would raise major flags, too.

He could go invisible for now.

He couldn’t stay invisible until he got back home.

Danny stuck his head around the corner, looking back the way he’d come and trying to figure out what the best option was. Stay invisible for an hour and then pretend to be an out-of-town visitor? Give up and try to fly to the next town over, even though he didn’t know which was the best direction to go? Try to find whatever passed as the tourist centre for this place and steal a map? (He’d pay for it, but he didn’t actually have any money on him. It’s not like he’d expected to wind up in the middle of nowhere—or, rather, the middle of somewhere that wasn’t home. Or somehow connected to Vlad.)

“Hey, Spencer, what’s up with the dye job? Your mom force you to try out all her second-rate hair products?”

What? Danny turned, and the tittering group of girls fell silent. “Uh….”

The blonde girl in the middle sniffed. “Who are you?” She was the one who’d spoken before. He had a feeling she’d wanted to add an insult to her words now, but he knew that look. She wasn’t sure she could afford to, not until she knew it wouldn’t be a mistake.

Which begged the question of who she thought he might really be. It’s not like he was remotely intimidating as Fenton. (He wasn’t particularly intimidating as Phantom, either, but his reputation spoke for itself.)

The girl rolled her eyes when he didn’t answer right away and waved a dismissive hand in his direction. “Oh, whatever, you’re not going to be important if you’re skulking in an alley.” She turned and swept off down the street, toward the gathering crowd, her entourage trailing behind her.

An older man in some wannabe secret service getup watched Danny for a moment longer before following. Danny hadn’t even noticed him until he’d moved, too busy staring after the girls and trying to figure out if he needed to worry about them. But bodyguard guy? He’d probably just committed Danny’s face to memory. The girls might forget about him, but this guy wouldn’t. Especially when it came to the search for the perpetrator.

He’d been in an alley.

That screamed suspicious person.

What had he been thinking?

“I better make sure I don’t need to do some damage control,” Danny muttered. He didn’t bother going ghost before turning invisible; he didn’t plan to stick around for long. He just wanted to get close enough to see if he needed to deal with anything before he split.

XXXXXX

Billy kept up a running commentary all the way to the school (it was his job to keep Spencer entertained and act as his muse, since all his best movie ideas came from Billy) and dropped him off around the corner so no one would get suspicious. Spencer ran to catch up to his friends—Rajeev and Shanilla were already there—and Billy waved to them before zipping over to see what all the fuss was about.

The fuss was about a hole in the road.

That was boring.

Why were they here?

The police were trying to push the crowd back so they could cordon off the area, but still. Boring. It was a crater. No big deal. He could make plenty of craters.

“Nothing interesting here,” he announced as he floated down to join Spencer and the others. “It’s just a hole.”

“A crater,” corrected Shanilla. “Caused by an object falling from the sky that they haven’t located.”

“So someone ran off with it. Who cares?”

“Or it broke apart on impact into a million little pieces that we’re breathing in and the alien dust is going to kill us all!” Rajeev chimed in.

Shanilla sighed and kept filling Spencer in. “There’s no telling when they’ll release an official statement, but the police chief did say we shouldn’t worry about this becoming a regular occurrence. Most space debris burns up before it ever reaches the surface.”

Spencer blinked. “You really think something fell from space?”

Rajeev grinned. “Where else would it fall from?”

Spencer glanced at Billy. “What?” he said indignantly. “This isn’t me! Not everything that happens is because of me! Only the good stuff.”

“And all the ecto-contamination,” Spencer muttered, but he couldn’t properly respond to Billy anymore than the others could, not when they were in a crowd like this where everyone was straining to hear—

Wait.

Billy squinted, peering across to the edge of the crowd on the other side of the street.

That kid was definitely looking at him.

Well, maybe just at Spencer, Shanilla, and Rajeev. Billy grinned and waved just in case. The boy paled but raised his hand in return. Ha! Awesome! The new kid was a Cobra fan! And properly intimidated by the idea of meeting his idol. Well, of course he’d be a fan, he had style like Spencer did, and only the stylish had something of the Cobra’s.

Billy did the natural thing: he flew over to introduce himself. Not that he needed the introduction, but he’d do anything for his fans. They liked all the introductions and hand shaking and signed paraphernalia. Billy grabbed the kid’s hand and shook it vigorously. “Billy Joe Cobra! Please to meet you, my adoring fan. Don’t feel you need to hold back on the adoring. I can take it. I’m even better than everything you’ve ever heard about me!”

The boy blinked. “Uh…hi?”

Billy looked him up and down, but he couldn’t recognize anything the kid was wearing. “Where’s your Cobra gear?” He dropped to his knees and pulled up the kid’s jeans. “Those aren’t my socks, are they?”

The boy jerked back. “No!”

“My underwear?” The boy gagged, so clearly not. “Maybe a guitar pick in your pocket?”

“I didn’t steal any of your stuff!” the boy hissed, retreating farther.

“Billy, what are you doing?”

Billy turned, not realizing the others had followed him. He lengthened his arm and wrapped it around the new kid before the boy got the wrong idea and thought he needed to hide the truth from Spencer and the others. “Meeting my newest fan! Spencer, Rajeev, Shanilla, this is—” He broke off and looked expectantly at the boy.

The boy kept his mouth shut and glared.

“Seriously, stop goofing off,” Spencer said. “Every time you run off like that, I think Hoover got you.”

“How is meeting my adoring fans goofing off?”

Spencer raised his eyebrows. “Really? We’re doing this now? There’s no one here who can see you besides us.” He gestured towards Rajeev and Shanilla.

“Yeah, and my new fan,” Billy said, using his free hand to point to the boy who was currently sulking in his embrace and otherwise not acting like the adoring fan he should.

Spencer, Shanilla, and Rajeev exchanged glances. “Dude,” Rajeev said quietly, “you get hit by some of that alien dust? It’s just us.”

Billy looked at the boy.

The boy scowled back.

“You can’t…see him?”

Shanilla frowned. “Is there another ghost?”

The boy wasn’t offering up any information, but his feet were planted firmly on the ground, and what kind of ghost chose to stay landlocked when they could pull some sick moves in the air? Besides, he looked human. Although clearly if the others couldn’t see him, something was up.

Maybe a little ecto would fix it.

Sure, that hadn’t gone super great with Spencer by the end of the day, but most of it had been beyond chill. And, okay, so there were plenty of times that ecto had made things worse. But if the dude was already invisible to them, this wouldn’t make him more invisible, and—

“Just give us something of his if there is,” Spencer said, holding out his hand.

The boy ducked out of Billy’s grip at that, turning and running up the street. Back to Plan A, then. Ignoring the others, Billy spit a wad of ectoplasm into his hand, rolled it into a slightly more solid gel form, and conjured a bat.

He promptly dropped the bat in favour of flying to keep up with the ball, ready with some more ectoplasm just in case, while Spencer, Rajeev, and Shanilla ran after him. After them.

The boy ducked, and Billy’s ectoplasm sailed high and hit a parked car. The kid skidded to a halt and stared as the car began to glow blue. “Oh, crud,” he said.

Billy took advantage of his distraction to throw a glob of ectoplasm at the back of his head. Then, as the boy reached to wipe it off, Billy sneezed and covered him with more ectoplasm. Just to be on the safe side.

The boy blinked as ectoplasm dripped off the end of his nose. His eyes changed from blue to a bright, glowing green. Not the standard reaction to ectoplasm, but, well, there wasn’t really a standard reaction to it. “I fixed you!” Billy said. “Now they’ll be able to see you. Probably. I think.” He turned, catching sight of the incredulous faces of his friends, their disbelief visible even from half a block away. Grinning, he turned back to the boy. “Yeah, they can see you now! It’s all good!”

The boy pointed at the car, which had started revving its engine and flashing its lights at them. “You call that all good?”

“There might be a teensy bit of room for improvement,” allowed Billy.

“Billy! What did you do?” Spencer gasped.

He was staring at the car, which had turned so that it was now facing all of them. He could hear its tires spinning and could smell burning rubber. Not that that mattered to him.

“I, uh, made my friend visible?” Billy said, pointing at the boy.

He glanced over, blinked, and looked again.

Correction: he was pointing at where the boy had been.

His ectoplasm lay in a puddle on the ground, but the boy was gone.

That was a new reaction to ecto. Well. Maybe. Maybe it wasn’t. “Um….”

“Just clean that up!” Spencer yelled, pushing Shanilla out of the way when she didn’t react fast enough to the oncoming car. “We need to fix this before everyone notices!”

Party poopers. Billy stuck his finger in the ectoplasm and sucked it back up. Rajeev was currently trying to lure the car away from the crowd below, but he wasn’t exactly the fastest runner in the group. That’s okay. Billy could play matador with the car until they got this sorted out. And then he could find his new friend.

XXXXX

“I hate possessed technology,” Danny muttered. He’d phased down into the sewers to transform before shooting up the skies to figure out the best way to take out the newest threat without causing more damage than necessary. Ideally, he’d get help from Tucker or another technogeek, but Danny kinda doubted any of the ghost’s friends were technogeeks. The one boy, Spencer, had had a camera with him, but he just didn’t have a technogeek vibe. Maybe because he wasn’t joined at the hip with a PDA or phone or something that could hack into something else.

Danny sighed. He should’ve known something would go wrong even before his ghost sense went off. And he should’ve done something about the ghost the minute he’d realized he wasn’t the only one in town. But the ghost—Billy Joe Cobra, apparently, whoever that was—had seemed friendly enough. He hadn’t caused property damage (at least not that property damage), possessed people, or stolen things or anything like that.

Until he’d infused a car with his ectoplasm.

And…whatever he’d been trying to do to Danny.

At least his ecto-snot wasn’t phase proof like the Fenton Foam. It hadn’t been as gunky, either; more like getting drooled on by Cujo than anything else. Really, Danny had been through worse.

Billy seemed a bit like Klemper, actually. Friendly and more destructive than he realized since his good intentions didn’t pan out the way he expected. Clearly. Except Billy was way more egotistical than Klemper, on par with Vlad, and acted more like Youngblood than Ember. Not that Ember didn’t cater to her fans, but she drew power from them. Danny wasn’t sure this guy did.

And then there was the whole fact that he could see Danny despite Danny being invisible, and no one besides the three kids had been able to see the other ghost.

Danny knew he hadn’t encountered every possible variety of ghost, but the differences were starting to give him a headache. Why couldn’t things be normal for once?

Oh, right, he was a Fenton. Normal was never going to happen. Not even the Fenton version of normal, which had all kinds of allowances for the supernatural.

Below him, Billy was waving around a red cape at the car and trying to lead it away from the crowd. Good. The three teens— There. Following at a cautious distance. One of them, the girl, broke off and headed into a building. The boys must have discussed something, since only one of them waited for her while the other peeled off to help Billy.

Okay. So. No Tucker. Possessed vehicle. And the ghost who had caused said possession was willing to fix it. That had to be good, right? He could go down there and try to drive the car (not that he knew how to drive), try to fry everything important with an ectoblast, or attempt to ice it in place. Or, y’know, pick it up and throw it in the ocean. Except the last one wasn’t likely to solve the problem in the long term, even though the other three should buy him enough time to deal with it.

Why did these things always happen when he didn’t have a thermos on him?

XXXXXX

“Shanilla’s buying nails!” Spencer yelled as he chased after the car. “But that might not work. You need to get me inside!”

“No problemo, bro!” Billy said, dropping the cape he’d been using to taunt the car. It vanished before hitting the street.

Spencer tried not to think about how many things could go wrong as Billy picked up him and transformed into a slingshot.

This was a terrible idea. Like, a really, really, really bad one. But it was too late for regrets because Billy had released him and he was flying towards the car and flying had been a lot more fun when he’d been a ghost and—

The car was closing its windows so he couldn’t get in.

Spencer threw his arms up in front of him and expected the worse.

Instead, he felt someone catch him. And then he felt the hot leather of the car’s seat beneath him. He blinked. “Wha—?”

“Can you drive?”

Spencer turned his head and stared. There was a kid floating above the passenger seat. A ghost with white hair and green eyes and some kind of black jumpsuit thing and— Why could he see this guy if he didn’t have any of his stuff?

“Look,” the ghost said, “just…brake, okay? That’s the left pedal. Or middle if there’s three. I’m going to try to freeze the car.”

Spencer frowned. “That’ll just make it skid into something.”

“Not if I manage to get it stuck first.” The ghost boy hesitated. “Um, you might wanna buckle up, though. Just in case.”

Wordlessly, Spencer reached over and did up the seat belt. The ghost boy flew out of the car, or at least stopped moving with it and let it move through him. And then it started to get cold, colder than it ever did in Beverly Heights in the winter, and—

Spencer stomped on the brakes.

The wheels locked.

The car started to slide.

Billy made a big show of trying to stop it, and the car passed right through him.

Spencer was turning the wheel, but it did next to nothing to correct his course. Maybe because he didn’t dare take his foot off the brake. It might help, but it might also let the possessed car take control of itself again, and he was whipping around wildly enough as it was on the newly-formed ghost ice.

The car didn’t slow until it had done a full twelve-sixty, and then it lurched to a stop. When his head stopped spinning, Spencer realized Rajeev and Shalina were running towards them—Shanilla with a pack of nails and Rajeev with his video camera. He sucked in a steadying breath and tried to keep his lunch down.

“Bro! That was super chill! You’ve gotta show me how you did that.”

“Deal with the car you possessed first!”

Spencer raised his eyes and saw Billy talking to the new ghost. “I, uh, don’t know how,” Billy admitted.

The other boy rolled his eyes as the car shuddered beneath Spencer, trying to break free. “It’s your ectoplasm. Call it back to you. You can obviously contort your body. It’s…kinda like that. Probably more like shapeshifting. I don’t know. Just…unpossess it.”

The ghost boy walked over to the car, muttering to himself, and shot some more ice out of his hands towards the wheels. Spencer shivered.

The ghost tapped on the window. “Are you okay?”

“I…guess?” He was alive. That counted. But he was shaking too much to undo the seat belt. “I just, uh….”

“Here.” The boy reached through the car door, grabbed his hand, and then pulled Spencer out. Through the door. And then he took him about ten feet away and held him steady on his feet and—

“Wh…why—? I mean, how—? You…you’re…but you’re a….”

“Ghost?” The boy was smirking. “Yeah. You can call me Phantom.”

Original.

Spencer turned his gaze to Billy, who was hovering above the car and poking its hood with one finger like he thought it might try to bite him.

“I’m, ah, a different kind of ghost,” Phantom said. “I don’t have the same powers as your friend. Ghosts are all different, but everyone can do the basics, like intangibility and flying, even the less advanced ghosts.”

“The what?”

“Never mind. If you don’t know about them by now, you don’t need to worry about them. There can’t be too many portals that open here anyway. The one I fell through was probably a fluke or a once-every-hundred-years thing. I mean, that is just my luck.”

What? “Portal?”

“Spencer!” Shanilla and Rajeev were suddenly there, hugging him, and the ghost boy had stepped away and left him sagging in his friends’ arms. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just….” He couldn’t see Phantom anymore. Had he dropped something and not realized it? Had Phantom pulled something out of his pocket? Maybe he’d given something to Spencer when he’d caught him and then taken it back?

“Who’s the new guy?” Shanilla whispered.

Spencer followed her gaze and saw Phantom again. “He calls himself Phantom.”

“Stage name?” Rajeev asked.

Spencer shook his head. “I don’t think he’s a dead celeb.” He was too…normal. “He said he came here through a portal.”

“What portal?” asked Shanilla.

“No clue.”

Phantom had popped the hood of the car, and Billy was floating in the middle of it, neatly cut in half. Spencer had seen Billy pass through things before, no question. He was a ghost; that didn’t take any effort at all. He’d also seen Billy grasp normal objects before, and sometimes move them with his mind, and that seemed to take a bit more concentration on his part.

Phantom seemed more comfortable interacting with the physical world than not. He pointed at the glowing blue engine, and Billy tapped it. The car’s glow swelled for a moment before dimming to nothing, and the engine finally quieted and shut off completely.

“Looks safe now,” Rajeev said, pulling them along towards the ghosts.

“Spencer! You’re safe!” Billy wrapped his arms around him before stepping back and grabbing Phantom, pushing him forward. “You guys need to meet my new fan!”

“Your what?” Judging by Phantom’s expression, he hadn’t expected to hear that coming out of Billy’s mouth, either.

“The one you couldn’t see until I doused him in ectoplasm!” Billy enthused. “I mean, it reacted to him differently than it did you, Spencer, but it still gave him ghost powers!”

“Wait,” Phantom said, “you—?” He looked Spencer up and down. “You have ghost powers?”

“Not anymore. Just when his ecto was in my stomach.”

Phantom made a face. “You ate his ectoplasm?”

“He threw it down my throat!”

“It was a good shot,” Billy agreed. “I don’t know when the rest of my ecto is going to come out of you, but we can have a lot of fun in the meantime!”

“Huh?”

“That’s why they can see you now,” Billy said. “Because they can see me, and you’re wearing my ectoplasm. Most of it, anyway. You’re picking this ghost thing up really fast. Even faster than my main bro over here did.”

Phantom was shaking his head. “No, I’m not, uh, I mean, this isn’t because of you. I mean, the car is, that’s on you, but me…isn’t.”

“Aw, c’mon, bro-man, you don’t need to be shy. I never forget a fan.”

Phantom stared at him. “They can see me because I’m not invisible.”

“And you’re not invisible to them because of my ectoplasm.”

“No,” Phantom said slowly, “this really has nothing to do with you.”

“I saw your eyes change colour and everything,” Billy said. “You just got a colour scheme makeover like Spencer did. Except his clothes didn’t change like yours did. And you got my rockin’ ghost powers. Including that ice thing, which is new. I didn’t know I could do that. How, exactly, did you do that?”

“I thought you said he wasn’t from around here,” Shanilla said, just loudly enough for Phantom and Billy to hear. “Or did I misunderstand what you meant by portal?”

“You didn’t. I don’t even know where here is.”

“It’s the home of the Cobra! Which you know because you’re a fan. I’m the reason you came, isn’t it? Go on, you can admit it. I know how my presence can draw—”

“I don’t even who you are!” Phantom burst out.

Billy pouted. “You don’t need to pretend you’re not the same person for their sake. They’re my bros, man. They’re cool.”

Phantom groaned. He turned to Rajeev and pointed at Spencer’s video camera. “That’s not still on, is it?”

Rajeev handed it to Spencer, who checked it over just to be safe. “No, I never had a chance to turn it on.”

“Good. Keep it off.” Phantom sighed, and a bright ring of light appeared. It split apart and travelled over him in a flash, leaving behind a black-haired boy about their age.

Billy glanced at them. “You can still see him now that the ecto wore off, right?”

“I don’t think it was your ecto,” Spencer whispered. “There’s nothing left behind.”

Billy frowned. “Are you sure?” He started picking through Phantom’s hair, and Phantom just looked resigned.

Shanilla was staring at him. “You do look a lot like Spencer. Not just the haircut, but your clothes—!”

“Of course a girl would notice that,” Rajeev muttered, and Shanilla elbowed him in the gut.

Phantom gave them an uneasy smile. “Yeah, someone else already mistook me for him. Look, this is hard to explain, but, uh, let’s just say I got ghost powers like Spencer did, except they haven’t gone away, and I can control them more now. And I, uh, was travelling, and I got ambushed, sorta, or maybe just attacked, I’m not sure, and then I got thrown through a portal and wound up here. Any chance you can tell me where I am?”

“Beverly Heights,” said Spencer.

“California,” Shanilla added.

“U. S. A.” That earned Rajeev another elbow, this time in the side, and he frowned. “What? He might not know!”

“He speaks English with the same accent, doesn’t he?” Shanilla hissed.

“Oh. Right.”

“It’s fine. I’m, ah, from Amity Park. It’s in Illinois. I just need to figure out how to get back there—”

“I’ll take you!” Billy volunteered. “And you can show me your ice trick and tell me how we can hook Spencer up with some awesome ghost powers and—”

“No, you do not want to go through what I did to get these. Trust me. Especially when it may not work.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I won’t turn down the ride, though.”

Spencer stared at them. “If you’re actually going to do this, Phantom—”

“Danny.”

“Danny. Okay. But if this is going to happen, we need maps first. I’m not sure Billy can navigate—”

“That’s what Otto’s for,” Billy said, waving off Spencer’s concerns.

“You broke your auto-pilot!”

“Pfft, that was in my jet, not my good plane. It’ll be fine.”

“It was barely fine last time!”

“Wait, you have a jet? And a plane?”

“We didn’t have my birthday party on your good plane?” Rajeev looked between him and Billy. “You threw my party on your bad plane?”

“I threw your party on Billy’s jet,” Spencer corrected, “because he didn’t tell me he had a good plane, which is just as well because we basically destroyed the jet.”

“Mmm. Fair enough. So just a small, private party to break in this new plane, right?”

“It’s the good plane, not the new plane,” Billy snapped, “and I am the only one allowed to throw parties on it.”

“We don’t need to throw any parties!” Danny interjected. “I just need to get home. Sooner rather than later. My parents are going to freak. Not to mention my sister and my friends. My cell phone got iced up in the Far Frozen, and I don’t want to try turning it back on yet.”

“What’s the—?”

“It’s a long story. Um, how long do you think it’ll take to get there?”

“The usual flight time is probably about four hours,” Shanilla said.

“And the Cobra’s gonna get you there in half that time! Less! C’mon, ghost-bro, let’s get you at cruising altitude.”

Danny shot a wild look at Spencer. “Do I want to get there in less than half that time?”

“Probably not. But we’ll come with you in case something goes wrong.” At the doubtful look on Danny’s face, Spencer added, “It’s summer. No one’s going to miss us. And then maybe we can hear your story? We’ll tell you ours.”

“And you can show me your ice trick!”

“Not while we’re in the air!” Shanilla shrieked. “One near death experience from flying is enough!”

Billy laughed and grabbed them, whisking them towards the airport before anyone could say anything else.

It was going to be an interesting flight.

#danny phantom #dude that's my ghost #dtmg #fanfiction #crossover #dp fanfiction #dtmg fanfction #(that is the short form right?)#my writing #ladylynse #snippets #dp snippet #dtmg snippet #crossover snippet #thank you wolfsongroar!#I hope you like how this turned out #if you see any mistakes just let me know so I can fix them

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