infiniterealms

[infiniterealms]

Another Remix!

Title: Is this your recovery or mine? 🤔

Characters: Danny Fenton, Vlad Master, Jazz Fenton (breifly)

Word Count: 2,544

Summary: Danny wakes up and realizes that something bad has happened and Vlad isn't the same.

This is an @infiniterealms remix for @oofouchstovehot's fic "oh, mental breakdown, we're really in it now 😔"

I decided to do a POV flip along with a sequel by having it from Danny's POV waking up at Vlad's.

You can read it on AO3 or down below the cut

Danny didn’t wake up suddenly or even quickly.

He woke in stages.

The first time he didn’t even open his eyes. His everything still hurt but he was too tired to think of much else.

============================================

The next time he woke up he slowly opened his eyes and started to take in his surroundings.

His body didn’t hurt as much, but he didn’t feel great either.

The bed he was on was really comfortable, like a bougie hotel or something.

He wasn’t really sure how he got to wherever he was but he was pretty sure it wasn’t a vacation.

He probably wouldn’t feel this terrible if he was on vacation.

He promptly fell back asleep.

============================================

The third time he woke up, it finally dawned on him that he had no idea where he was or how he got there.

He had to think. He had to remember something.

What had he been doing?

Where was he before he was here?

A flash of a memory.

Somewhere cold and metal.

Trapped.

He couldn’t leave.

Couldn’t move.

Couldn’t breathe.

Everything hurt.

Even the air was like knives tearing his insides apart.

Or maybe someone else was tearing him apart.

Making good on a promise.

Molecule by molecule.

He didn’t even notice he was screaming until someone’s hand was clapped over his mouth.

He tried to get away but it hurt.

Someone was shouting.

He couldn’t see who.

Something was in the way.

Or maybe that was a someone, not a something.

He tried to focus.

Tried to calm down enough to see.

It was Vlad?

Vlad was covering his mouth and saying something.

Danny squinted as if that would make his hearing better.

Vlad sighed and repeated himself, “If you are quite finished trying to single-handedly demolish my guest room, I will remove my hand.”

Danny nodded.

Vlad removed his hand as promised and sat in the chair next to the bed.

A chair Danny had failed to notice earlier.

“I do apologize if I was too rough, I just couldn’t have you hurt yourself.”

Danny tried to say it was okay. That he was fine, but his voice was so shot all that came out was a raspy, “it’s ‘kay.”

He didn’t hold back the wince at how unpleasant that sounded and how awful it felt.

Had he been gargling sandpaper in his sleep?

“Oh right, you must be parched. Here,” Vlad said offering a small paper cup.

Danny took the cup cautiously, partly because it was Vlad, but mostly because his whole body felt so weak and he was worried if he moved too fast he’d spill it.

It turned out to be a cup full of ice chips. Which meant he didn’t have to worry about spilling them and it was such a refreshing feeling having the coolness of the ice slowly melt in his mouth.

“Try not to go through them too fast, Daniel.” Vlad chided as Danny was taking in two more chips of ice.

Danny just hummed not quite in agreement or disagreement. It was more of an acknowledgement that he heard him.

“Is there anything else I can get you?” Vlad asked.

Danny shook his head.

He still felt too tired and sore to feel the need for anything else.

“Alright then. Why don’t you get some more rest. I’ll be back to check in on you in a little while.”

Vlad started to get up but, despite himself Danny didn’t want him to go.

He didn’t trust Vlad, or particularly like him, but something was wrong.

Danny was not in good shape, he had no idea how he got here, where here was, or why Vlad seemed to be acting so nice.

There was too much he didn’t know and he felt way too vulnerable.

He shouldn’t want Vlad anywhere near him.

He needed the alone time to figure things out and to escape if need be.

The idea of being alone sounded so much worse.

“Don’t go.”

Vlad immediately sat back down. His attention completely on Danny to the point it was almost overwhelming.

He wasn’t used to anyone giving him this much attention unless he was in trouble.

“It’s alright Daniel, you’re safe here.”

Danny was quiet for a moment before he looked to Vlad again, “promise?”

Vlad placed a gentle hand over Danny’s, “I promise that while you are in my home and under my care no one will hurt you.”

Danny couldn’t find any trick or hint of deceit in Vlad’s promise.

He really sounded like he wanted to help.

But why?

What changed?

“What happened?” Danny asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Vlad leaned back in his seat but said nothing.

“What happened?” Danny asked again, louder and looking directly at Vlad.

“I really don’t think we should discuss that right now.”

“What happened, Vlad.”

“If you don’t remember, I am not going to remind you.”

“That’s not fair!”

“Your ignorance is a bliss that I will not rip from you!” Vlad shouted.

Danny and Vlad had had plenty of screaming matches in the past but this was different.

Vlad wasn’t yelling at him because he was angry. It was more than that.

He was scared.

What in the world was so bad that it scared Vlad?

There was a sinking feeling growing the more Danny put the pieces together.

He was hurt.

He wasn’t home.

Vlad was being nice.

Vlad was taking care of him.

Something had happened to Danny.

Something that was terrifying even to Vlad.

Maybe Vlad was right. Maybe he didn’t want to know.

Not yet anyway.

Vlad let out a sigh and sat back down. Danny raised a brow when he noticed the hint of steam on Vlad’s breath, but didn’t say anything about it.

“I apologize for snapping at you. It’s difficult for me to think about what you went through and I only saw the aftermath.”

“Was it really that bad?”

“Yes.” Vlad said simply, “I hope you never remember.”

Danny didn't know how to respond to that so he just put another ice chip in his mouth.

“Is there anything else you need before I go, or would you like me to stay?”

“I guess not.”

“I'll be back in about half an hour to check on you, okay?”

Danny nodded and handed the cup back to Vlad before he headed out.

Then Danny was left alone.

He thought about getting up and wandering around but the idea was quickly forgotten when he realized that was going to take much more effort than he had.

He closed his eyes and focused on the ice in his mouth instead.

He tried not to think about how Vlad wouldn't talk about how he got here.

He tried not to think about how he could have been so badly injured that he needed Vlad’s help.

He hoped Vlad would keep being nice, even after he got better.

He wasn’t that terrible when he wasn't obsessing over his parents.

Odd, Vlad hadn't mentioned his parents or wanting to make Danny be his heir or whatever.

He decided to not think about that anymore.

He closed his eyes and let his exhaustion take over.

============================================

The next time he opened his eyes, the room was much darker.

He glanced over towards the window and saw the edges of the sunset peaking through the trees.

He looked towards the bedroom door and noticed it was slightly ajar.

He could see Vlad standing there and talking in hushed tones to someone he couldn’t see.

“Of course you can come visit him. I just think it’s too early. I don’t think he’s ready for visitors.”

There was a pause. Long enough for whoever he was talking to could answer but Danny didn’t hear anyone else.

“I still think he needs a few more days, at least. Maybe even a full week.”

Another pause and Danny was starting to think that maybe Vlad was on the phone.

“Fine, I’ll ask him once he wakes up.”

A third, much shorter pause.

“Yes, I’ll go check now!”

Vlad huffed in annoyance and peaked into the room.

Danny didn’t have time to not get caught staring right at him.

“It seems he’s awake now. Just a moment.” Vlad said into the phone before pressing a button and entering the room.

“Did you just hang up?”

“No Daniel, I have call waiting.”

Danny decided to now was a good time to smooth out the wrinkles of the blanket.

Vlad took a seat and placed the phone on the bedside table. “I’m assuming you heard the conversation?”

Danny shrugged, “a bit.”

“You sister and your friends wish to see you since I informed them that you have woken up.”

He had several questions and no clue which one to start with.

“I feel it’s a bit early for visitors and I’d hate to have you get worse before you’ve had a chance to fully get better. Despite this, I’ve agreed to ask your opinion on the subject.”

“You’re asking me, if it’s okay for me to have friends over at your house?”

Vlad rolled his eyes, “I guess that’s one way to look at it.”

Danny chuckled. It felt nice to be able to tease him, even just a little bit.

“I would love to see them,” Danny started but hesitated.

“But?” Vlad asked.

“But, I would hate to have them come all the way out here just to see me asleep the whole time.”

“I did try to tell them that.”

“Maybe I should try? It might not work, but it could cause them to hesitate before they show up.”

“Worth a shot.” Vlad said before picking up the phone again. He pressed the hold button and spoke into the phone, “I’ve talked with Daniel and he wishes to talk to you himself.”

Vlad handed him the phone and he could already here Jazz before he put the receiver up to his ear.

“Yes! I’m here, please stop yelling.”

“Oh my gosh, Danny! It’s so good to hear your voice.”

This was going to be harder than he thought. He wasn’t sure he wanted to wait anymore either.

“Yeah you too.”

“So did he talk to you about us coming over?”

“Yeah he did.”

“And?”

“And,” he hesitated unsure of how to tell her to wait. He wouldn’t want to wait if he was in her shoes. “And I’ve been sleeping a lot. I’d feel bad if you made the trip and I wasn’t awake.”

“Danny I don’t care about that. I need to see you. Talking to you is great but seeing you would be so much better. You understand that, right?”

Danny sighed. Why did she have to bring up so many good points?

“We just want to visit with you and make sure you're okay, little brother.”

Danny sighed and relented, “okay but don’t get mad if I nap a bunch.”

“Wouldn't dream of it.”

He could hear the smile in her voice and couldn't wait to see her.

“So when can you get here?”

“Sometime tomorrow at the earliest. I'll have to see when Sam and Tucker are able to leave.”

“I'm surprised they aren't already here,” Danny joked.

Jazz was quiet for a moment.

Long enough to make him nervous.

“What?”

“How much do you know about what happened?”

“Apparently nothing the way you asked that?”

“Can I talk to Vlad again?” She said instead of answering.

Danny rolled his eyes and held the phone to Vlad, “she has something to ask you. Possibly several somethings."

“Thanks?” Vlad said before taking the phone, “yes Jasmine?”

Danny could just barely hear Jazz yelling about something before Vlad carefully tilted the phone away from his mouth so he could talk to Danny, “this is going to take a minute, I'll be back soon.”

Danny gave Vlad a thumbs up and watched him walk out.

============================================

The next thing Danny knew was opening his eyes and seeing the pinkish hues of the approaching dawn.

“Ew.”

He did not want to be awake this early, ever. Waking up for school was bad enough.

“That’s an odd way to greet the new day, Daniel.”

“You're here?”

“Of course.”

Danny considered that answer. Had Vlad stayed here all night or was he just old and woke up this early normally?

“Do I want to know what you’re thinking?”

“No.” Danny said with a mischievous smile.

Vlad rolled his eyes but had a smile of his own.

“Since you are awake enough to make jokes I assume that means your awake enough for me to do a few things before your guests arrive.”

“When will they get here?”

“Depending on who taught your sister to drive they’ll be here for dinner or I need to make different lunch plans.”

“It’s gonna be lunch time at the latest.”

“Of course.” Vlad said with an eyeroll.

“So what sort of things do you need to do before they get here?”

“I’d like to check your progress and possibly get you off the IV today.”

Danny looked to the IV plugged into his arm, “is that why I’m not hungry?”

“That and you haven’t been awake for longer than five minutes at a time.”

Danny huffed a sigh but couldn’t think of a good enough retort to that.

Vlad started looking over the machines and jotting things down on a clipboard.

While Vlad worked, a question came to Danny’s mind and once it did he couldn’t ignore it.

“Hey Vlad, can I ask you something?”

Vlad kept working but nodded.

“Why are you helping me?”

Vlad set the clipboard down and took a moment before he answered. “Are you worried I’m going to ask for something in return?”

“I’m not worried you are going to ask for something, I’m worried about what you’re going to ask.”

“I’m not going to ask for anything.”

“You aren’t?”

“No.”

Danny started at Vlad in total disbelief. There was no way the Fruitloop wouldn’t want something. He never did anything just because.

“You’re not going to make me stay are you?”

“I’ve already made an agreement with your friends that they would be allowed to take you away if they deemed it necessary.”

“For real?”

“Yes.”

“If I got up and just walked out right now, you wouldn’t stop me?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it, or like it, but I wouldn’t force you to stay either.”

“You didn’t sneak a tracker in me?”

“No.”

“So you’re helping me because you genuinely want me to get better?”

“Is that really so hard to believe?”

“Kinda? I mean you usually have some sort of trick or scheme up your sleeve.”

“It’s only fair that you don’t trust me at my word given our history.” Vlad sighed, “but to be fair, I have never lied to you.”

“That can’t be right.”

“I may have avoided telling you things, or framed things in a way that may have led to certain assumptions that weren’t necessarily accurate, but I didn’t make something up.”

“Sounds a lot like lying to me, but whatever.”

“Look, that’s all in the past, let’s just focus on you getting better okay?”

“Fine,” Danny said with a roll of his eyes.

This whole situation was strange, but it wasn’t horrible.

[infiniterealms]

Another one! Round and Round and Round the Bend, for @coyotecrackers

"There’s only so far you can go, after all. What do you do when you've already done it all?"

Remix Fics!

So maybe this is cheating with the posting style a little bit, but as the host for the @infiniterealms event I can bend those rules a lil.

I've written remixes for each of the intial fics (except for my own) and here's the first batch! The second batch will be up in a day or so! Yes I'm late, it's been a horrific week, but I'm surviving and working on the thriving.

Here are the fics! The initial fics are linked in the ao3 fics.

Split, a remix for @lavendarlily

"The last thing Danny had ever expected was for his two halves to be separated. Now that it's happened, he can only hope that his human self will take him back…"

Confounded, a remix for @princessfanonanona

"Tucker faces his worst nemesis: stairs."

Onwards and Upwards, a remix for @camels-pen

"Valerie has a decision to make, and it's going to hurt either way."

Student-Teacher Conference, a remix for @haleswallows

"No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get the thought out of his head. Phantom was a child who had died. How could Lancer just forget that?"

[infiniterealms]

And, the event is officially over!

However, I'm late. Which isn't that unusual. So please, if anybody still has fics they would like to post at any time, feel free to still tag me and I'll reblog them here.

Thank you to everybody who reblogged, commented, and most of all, participated! I know this was a bit of a different event, but I'm glad I got to share my love of remixes with all of you, and that you've all been so supportive.

I still have a few drafts left myself, which I'll finish posting over the next few days.

Thanks again everyone, I hope you all had a blast!

[infiniterealms]

Remix Fics!

So maybe this is cheating with the posting style a little bit, but as the host for the @infiniterealms event I can bend those rules a lil.

I've written remixes for each of the intial fics (except for my own) and here's the first batch! The second batch will be up in a day or so! Yes I'm late, it's been a horrific week, but I'm surviving and working on the thriving.

Here are the fics! The initial fics are linked in the ao3 fics.

Split, a remix for @lavendarlily

"The last thing Danny had ever expected was for his two halves to be separated. Now that it's happened, he can only hope that his human self will take him back…"

Confounded, a remix for @princessfanonanona

"Tucker faces his worst nemesis: stairs."

Onwards and Upwards, a remix for @camels-pen

"Valerie has a decision to make, and it's going to hurt either way."

Student-Teacher Conference, a remix for @haleswallows

"No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get the thought out of his head. Phantom was a child who had died. How could Lancer just forget that?"

[infiniterealms]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Danny Phantom Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Danny Fenton & Tucker Foley & Sam Manson, Danny Fenton & Tucker Foley Characters: Tucker Foley, Danny Fenton, Sam Manson Additional Tags: brief appearances by - Freeform, Protective Jazz Fenton, Meddling Clockwork (Danny Phantom), Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mild Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Time Loop, Ambiguous/Open Ending

This is a remix fic for Infinite Realms 2025! See original fic, Time and Time and Time Again.

[infiniterealms]

Final Day!

Or it would be, except I have a very busy 24 hours ahead of me, so y'all have until the end of March 1st!

[infiniterealms]

This is my remix fic for @infiniterealms. I'm super excited to share this!

Long Live the King

Tags: Ghost King Danny Fenton, Good Parents Jack and Maddie Fenton, Identity Reveal Summary: Jack and Maddie Fenton have been invited to an audience with the High King of the Infinite Realms. Their discovery that the King is actually Danny Phantom raises more questions than answers.

This is a sequel to First Contact by hannahmander so please read that first!

I'm on the fence about writing a second chapter, so if you'd like to see more, please let me know! Are there any particular characters you'd like to see in chapter 2?

[infiniterealms]

Final Week!

We're now in the final week of the remix event! Thank you to everybody who has written pieces so far.

The official final day is the end of February. Feel free to drop into our discord (link in this post) if you'd like to join in the fun! It's not compulsory for the event but it's there for those of you who want it.

Good luck with your remixes. I'm excited to see what everyone's been working on!

[infiniterealms]

It's Remix time!

Title: Nowhere to go but up

Characters: Damon Gray, Valerie Gray

Word count: 1,171

Summary: Being a single father is tough, but Damon Gray aims to keep doing his best.

This is an @infiniterealms remix fic of @camels-pen's fic "down and down and down we go"

I decided to do a POV flip with the story from Damon's POV

You can read it on AO3 or down below the cut

Damon sighed as he stepped into the kitchen. 

The sun had just started to rise and he had been up for hours already. 

The joys of working relief shift. 

Lately he had been stuck on nights and was just getting home in time to see his daughter off to school.

It wasn't ideal, but he would do everything he could to make it work.

Today, that meant making a nice breakfast for his little girl.

He flicked the over head light on with a soft click and made his way over to the coffee pot. 

He emptied the carafe of yesterday’s leftovers and gave the pot a quick rinse before getting it ready for a fresh pot.

He went through the motions of the coffee making process just like he had done countless times before.

He placed his and his daughters mugs on the counter near the pot and made sure they had enough sugar and cream.

He noticed the cream was getting a tad low so he added it to the shopping list on the fridge.

A list that looked a bit long already.

Since the coffee was started he set out to make something delicious for breakfast.

He gathered his ingredients and cooking utensils before glancing at the clock.

He hadn’t heard his daughter's alarm go off but that didn’t mean it hadn’t. 

He set the pan on the stove and let it heat up before checking on her. “Rise and shine, Dear. I’ll have breakfast ready in just a few minutes.”

She didn’t say anything but he could hear her moving around so at least she was awake.

He shrugged it off and set on making the bacon and eggs.

With the smells of coffee and breakfast, Damon realised he forgot the hash browns. 

“Valerie! Do you want hashbrowns with breakfast?” he called. 

He figured he could just skip them this time if she didn’t want any.

“Valerie!”

He flipped the bacon and checked the eggs and she still hadn’t responded.

Maybe she didn’t hear him?

“Valerie!” He yelled again just a little bit louder.

“S-Sorry dad!” she called back, “no hashbrowns.”

“You still asleep in there?” he said, with a laugh as he took the eggs off the burner.

“I’m good,” she said with a croak and then added a little louder, “It’s just a school project.”

Damon shook his head with a smile. Oh to be young again and only worrying about school projects.

“Well, you better hurry it up,” he said as he pulled the bacon out of the pan and let it rest on a bed of paper towels. “I’m almost done out here!” 

When Valerie finally emerged from her room she was dressed, but wearing her hood low and covering a lot of her face.

He placed the plates on the table, but had a hard time setting aside his concern.

“Food looks great,” she said sitting down and making no move to eat.

“Are you alright, Dear?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” 

She got a forkful of eggs and shoving it into her mouth.

The move looked automatic and awkward. Like a robot trying to mimic a human and not quite getting it right.

“Because if you aren’t feeling well you can stay home.”

“I’m just a little tired is all. I’ll be fine.”

Instead of sitting Damon made her coffee, “well how about a nice cup of joe to get going?” 

He poured in the cream and sugar just the way she liked it and handed it to her.

He had been trying to avoid getting her on caffeine but he lost that battle awhile ago when her old group of friends used to hang out at the mall and get those trendy super sweet coffee-adjacent beverages.

Plus, it was nice to just have a cup together and catch up.

Also he made sure to make decaf because he was about to go to bed soon and she was a child. 

She didn’t even know the difference anyway.

“Thanks, Dad.” 

She blew gently over it to cool it down before taking a long drink.

Her hood slipped off with the motion and she didn’t bother to fix it.

The coffee seemed to help because she started to eat normally afterwards.

He relaxed and focused on his own meal.

They ate in a comfortable silence. 

The sunlight filled the small space with light and warmth just as much as the shared meal did.

He could tell that something was still bothering her, even if she didn’t say as much. 

He hoped it was just a school project bogging her down and not something more serious.

He always told her that she could talk to him about anything. That he was there for her no matter what.

But he couldn’t help but notice she was pulling away. She was hiding something.

He just wished he knew what to say to bring her back.

He didn’t like watching her drift away, but he knew if he did the wrong thing he would just push her further.

“If you need any help with that project or just want to talk about things you know I’m here, right? Even if I’m at work or you’re at school?”

“I know.” she said as she softly set down her, now empty, mug.

He got up and placed a kiss on her forehead, “Good. Now you better hurry and catch the bus.”

She quickly looked at the clock and jumped out of her seat. “Is it that late already? I gotta go!”

She rushed out of the kitchen and dashed off to her room to grab her bag before slipping into her shoes.

“Have a good day. Love you.”

“Love you too, bye!” she said in a rush as she slipped out the door.

Once she was gone, Damon cleaned up the kitchen and let his mind wonder as he worked.

He may not always know how to help or fully understand what was going on in her head, but he would always be there for her.

He knew she was strong and capable of handling so much already. 

He knew how hard the move was on her after he lost his job. He had worked so hard to give her everything and then it was all ripped away.

The change had been hard for both of them, but she had grown so much. She took on more responsibility and was working so hard both at school and a part-time job. 

He couldn’t be more proud of her if he tried.

He just had to make sure that if she drifted too far out to sea, he would be there to man the lighthouse.

He would make sure it was shining bright even through the toughest storms and guiding her to safety. 

A lighthouse with a light strong enough to reach out and pull her back from the edge of the world if it needed to.

Because she was his world and he’d do whatever he could to keep her safe.

[infiniterealms]

The Truth of the Matter

Continuation of Bitter and Heavy Truths by @haleswallows for the @infiniterealms Danny Phantom Remix Event.

Brains liked to recognize patters and sometimes there wasn't really a pattern there.

And sometimes, Lancer thought to himself, you want a dead child to actually still be alive.

[infiniterealms]

Discord time!

For anyone who wants to write or draw for this event, please feel free to join the discord server if you’d like. We’ve got chats and sprints and all that good stuff ✨

Link below the cut

[infiniterealms]

Hey everyone, just a quick announcement - on February 7th, so one week after the fics were posted, our discord server will be ready for round 2 writers to join. Anybody will be able to join to chat about their remixes, so watch this space!

The very talented and kind @haleswallows is helping me to set it up and mod.

[infiniterealms]

OKAY HERE WE GO!

MY ONESHOT FOR THE INFINITE REALMS REMIX EVENT.

_______

https://archiveofourown.org/works/62694598

Obsessions are not fun.

They're even less fun when circumstances force you to either change the reason you exist or fall to pieces. And that becomes even impossibly less fun when you've been stuck with the same on-the-brink-of-cracking obsession for the past 20 years, and have never humored the thought of moving on.

Luckily, a secondary obsession should at least give you some time to think over what your new reality will be.

[If you can think.]

____

I may make a post w the text on here but man I just want to get this out here ToT

Be warned! there's mentions of fannon-typical vivisection here.

[infiniterealms]

nervous

This fic is for the @infiniterealms remix event! Please enjoy!

.

“Stop it,” whispered Star, putting her foot on top of Paulina’s.  “If you were going to freak out this much, you should have stayed home.  Or at least not come to breakfast.”

“I don’t miss school.  Or breakfast.”  It was too important.  The time before class was when rumors and information about what happened outside of school came to light.  

Today, knowing the rumors would be vital.  

She picked at her nails.  They were new, the acrylics freshly applied, but they weren’t quite as even as they usually were.  Not up to her usual standards.  But she had to do it, just like she had to come in today.  

Star put her hands over Paulina’s.  They were shaking, too.  “It’s going to be fine,” she said.  “You just have to be, like, zen about it.”

“He didn’t even have anything on him.”

“I know.  But we’ll work something out. Just- Just stop talking about it.”

Paulina took a deep breath and closed her eyes. 

.

Star and Paulina watched Valerie stalk across the courtyard, head held high, lunch tray exactly parallel to the ground.  Despite not being in any sports, she moved with a tight, athletic grace.  She drew eyes.

“She’s been getting full of herself lately,” said Paulina.  “Like, she thinks she’s better than us.  We’ve got to do something.”

“Aw, Pauli,” said Star.  “Do we have to?”

“Like, yeah?  Unless we want to just, you know, give up.”

“Give up what?”

“Uh, being on top?  Duh.”

“I don’t know.”

“Listen, Star,” said Paulina, turning to face her.  “I know you used to like her, but you’ve got to get over it.  She’s the one who ditched us.  And no one ditches us.”

Star looked down at her lunch, then nodded.

“Anyway,” said Paulina, flipping her hair over her shoulder.  “I’ve got an idea.”

.

Paulina’s eyes drifted to where Valerie sat eating breakfast.  She was wearing long sleeves, pants, and a hoodie.  She hadn’t worn skirts or short sleeves since… 

It was whatever.  It wasn’t like Paulina cared.  She was only looking because sometimes Valerie talked to the loser trio.  

“We can check his locker,” Star was saying.  “We’ve got the key.  We just have to wait for a good time.  We can take one more day.”

Paulina nodded and smiled shallowly.  “Maybe.”  Her smile quickly fell away, but as more people entered the cafeteria she covered up her general… mood… by examining her nails and checking her reflection in her new makeup mirror.  

.

“That was great,” said Paulina.  “Did you see the look on her face?”

“Mhm,” said Star, smiling tightly.  

“It’ll keep her from looking down her nose at us,” said Paulina.  She flipped open her makeup mirror, to check and make sure her lipstick hadn’t smudged.  But what she saw wasn’t her face.  It was something terrible.  Something rotting and skull-like.  

She shrieked and dropped the mirror, breaking it.  

Suddenly, the hallway was empty and cold.

“Bullieeeeees…” groaned a sepulchral voice.  “Bullieeeeeeeeeeeeees…  You will regreeeeeeet…”

.

Paulina shivered.  

“You alright?” asked Kwan.

“Just a chill.”  She shot a smile at him.  “They’ve changed the air conditioner settings or something, it’s like it’s blowing on me.”

The others started joking about how underfunded and cheap the school was.  This allowed Paulina to turn her attention to the doors just as Sam Manson came in.  

Even under these circumstances, Paulina couldn’t help but curl her lip at Manson’s appearance.  Everything she wore was just so– so ugly.  Even the way she dyed her hair was crude.  The color was totally fake and flat.  Her skirt looked like someone had taken a pair of scissors and a spray can to it.  The less said about her grungy, safety-pinned jacket the better.  

But more than that, seeing Manson reminded Paulina of the last time she’d had the displeasure of speaking to her. 

.

It had been two days since they’d pranked Valerie, and those two days were the worst.  Everything that could go wrong, did.  She always had a backup outfit at school - no one was perfect, but she could look that way - but her spare skirt caught on the door of her locker and tore.  And then there were… things.  Things lurking in mirrors, or out of the corner of her eye.  The feeling of something just outside the door whenever she went to the school bathrooms… 

And Star was having some kind of problem with missing textbooks or whatever.  It wasn’t important.

But Paulina knew exactly how to deal with this.  Or, rather, exactly who could deal with this.  It was just a matter of getting in touch with her knight in shining armor.  

She knew just how to do it, though.  She’d done it before.  For one reason or another, Phantom always showed up most often around the loser trio.  Probably because they sucked so much that they just, like, attracted ghosts who wanted to kill them or something, and Phantom had to spend all his time protecting them instead of dating Paulina, like he deserved.  

Whatever it was, it meant that she could get a message to Phantom through them.

She waited for the right time to approach them - not because she cared about them, but because she could practically feel her reputation taking a hit just from being around them - and then put on her best smile and dragged Star along behind her.

“What do you want?” snarled Manson.

“Rude,” she said.  

Manson’s eyes narrowed.  “Get on with it.  We want to get to class.”

She tittered in a way that she knew irritated Manson.  “So, you guys see Phantom all the time, right?”

“N-not really,” said Fenton, not looking at her.

“As much as anyone,” said Manson.  

“Well, you see,” said Paulina, twirling a lock of hair around her fingers, “I was wondering if you could give him a message from me?”

“You want to invite him to your birthday party through us again?”

“No,” said Paulina, rolling her eyes.  That hadn’t worked well enough for her to want Manson in her house ever again.  “It’s just, I’ve been having a bit of a ghost problem.”

“Me, too,” said Star, quickly.

Fenton looked up, brows pinched together.  “You have?”

“It’s Poindexter,” said Manson.  “You remember.  From what they did with Valerie.”

“Oh,” said Fenton, expression shuttering.  “Tuck, are you sure you have the right combination?”

“Dude, just use your key.  You have it, right?”

Fenton started to search his pockets and backpack.

“It isn’t just anything,” said Paulina, “it’s, like, a huge problem whenever I’m at school.”

“Then stay home,” said Manson.  “Or be less of a b–”

Fenton opened his locker with a bang, shoved back in the gadgets that tried to spill out, and started exchanging books.  

“Sorry,” said Manson, clearly feeling anything but.  “We’ve got class.”

.

Paulina growled a little inside.  If it hadn’t been for Manson, then it never would have gotten this far.  Phantom would have fixed everything.  

When Foley arrived, he looked…  Normal.  He clearly hadn’t heard anything.  He wasn’t upset enough.

Either way, he sat down next to Manson and they started talking.  

“Come on, Pauli, let’s go,” said Star, tugging Paulina’s arm.  

“Uh, what?”

“You said you’d help me do my hair before class,” lied Star.  

.

Paulina wasn’t the kind of person to give up, and she wasn’t going to let Manson get in the way of making this stupid ghost go away and bother someone who actually deserved it.  Like Lester, maybe.  He was so annoying, and he’d had the guts to ask her to the last dance.  So gross.  

So, she waited until Fenton was alone and cornered him.  

“Phantom and I don’t talk to each other,” he said, not looking directly at her, which was so annoying.  He was supposed to have a huge crush on her.  This was supposed to work.  “I can’t help you with that.”

“But he’s always around you.  I just need you to pass on one message.”

“I can’t help you,” repeated Danny.  “My parents are ghost hunters, Paulina, they chase after Phantom and shoot at him.  He doesn’t want to talk to me.  I’m pretty sure Phantom has some kind of truce with Sidney, anyway.”

“Who?”

“You know, the ghost that’s haunting you?  Sidney Poindexter?  You’ll be fine, you just have–”

“That gross nerd?”  Paulina needed to get rid of this ghost even more!  She shuddered.  

“Okay, fine,” said Star, who Paulina had almost forgotten was there, “so he doesn’t talk to you - like, who would–”

“Gee, thanks.”

“But you’ve got, like, stuff from your parents, right?  Ghost hunting stuff.  You could give that to us for, like, protection.”

Fenton backed away.  “I really can’t.”

.

“Sorry,” said Star as they left the cafeteria.  “But this’ll probably be the best time, before classes start and while those two are still in the cafeteria.  You still have the keys?”

“Yeah,” said Paulina, touching her purse.  “Yeah.  Yeah, of course I do.  I’m not stupid.”

“I didn’t say you were,” said Star.  She sped up, lengthening her stride.  “God, this would have been so much easier if he’d just been, like, a halfway decent person and helped us.”

One of the classroom doors next to them opened and Mr. Falluca walked out.  Paulina froze for a second, but Mr. Falluca wasn’t even looking at them, instead focused on the stack of papers in his hands. 

“Don’t just stand there looking guilty,” hissed Star.  “Come on, Pauli.  We have to keep going.”

Paulina swallowed and nodded.  

.

“Come on Fenton.”  This time, she’d caught him before school, when no one would see.  “How often do your parents check your stuff?  We won’t need it for long, you know?  If they notice, can’t you just say a ghost stole it?”

“Okay, how about this?  I don’t want to give you anything.”

“What?” demanded Paulina.  “Why not?”

“You know that I dated Valerie, right?”

“And then she dropped you like a bag of moldy potatoes,” said Paulina.  “Your point?”

“My point is that I still like her.  And what you did to her….  Look.  Just apologize to her.  Really apologize, like, make amends and stuff, and you’ll be fine, okay?”

.

The hallway Fenton’s locker was in was empty, although there were sounds coming from a few of the classrooms.  

“Okay,” said Star.  “Keys.”

Paulina nodded, then dug them out of her purse to hand to her.

“Keep an eye out.”  Star turned towards Fenton’s padlock.  It was one of those weird ones that had both a combination lock and a backup keyhole.  “God, why does he have so many keys?”

“I don’t know, just hurry, okay?”

“Yeah,” muttered Star.  “Don’t worry, everything will be over soon.”

.

“Hey!” shouted Star.  “Fenton!”

He stopped, looking back over his shoulder warily.  

“If you don’t help us,” said Star, out of breath, “then–” 

“Then we’ll tell everyone about your ghost detector,” finished Paulina.  They’d scraped together every rumor about Fenton they could to come up with this.

“My… what?” said Fenton, blankly.  

Paulina had to give him credit, he was a good liar.  “You don’t expect people to believe you go to the bathroom that much, do you?  And always right before a ghost attack?  We know your parents gave you something.  Help us, or we’ll tell everyone about it, and about how you’ve been keeping it to yourself so you can hide like a coward.”

“I– What?  I don’t– I don’t have anything like that!”

She took back what she said about him being good at lying.

“If I can notice it,” said Paulina, “other people will believe it.  You think you’re at the bottom of the social ladder now…” she trailed off, threateningly.  Maybe if she hadn’t been so stressed, she would have tried a bit more honey, but sometimes vinegar was all you had.

A number of complex expressions chased across Fenton’s face, but they ended with something hard.  

“No,” he said, and then he turned away and left.  

.

“Ha!  Got it.”  Star dropped the lock in her pocket before pulling open the locker. 

“What does he have?” asked Paulina, looking over her shoulder.  “He has to have some kind of, like, shield or something.”

“I don’t know,” said Star, pushing textbooks to the side.  “You’re seeing what I’m seeing.  Here.”  She pulled a backpack - not Fenton’s normal one - off the hook.  “See what you can find in here.”

She pulled open the zipper, and inside was… money?  A cheap flip phone?  Lipstick?  Two changes of clothes, one for a girl?

Paulina wondered what Fenton was into, but it didn’t matter now.  She unzipped the smaller pockets and started rifling through those.

.

“What now?” asked Star.  

It had been a few days since they’d last talked to Fenton, and, therefore, a few days since they’d spread around the rumor, but Fenton had been… unmoved.  

Which meant that Sidney Poindexter was still a problem.

With an act of will, Paulina smoothed out her expression.  “If we can’t get what we want by asking nicely, we’ll just take it.”

“But, like, how?  He’s not coming to us.”

“Not yet,” she said.  She thought about it.  “Mama always said, if a man’s hiding one thing, he’s hiding a bunch else, too.  We’ll slip him a note saying, like, if he doesn’t want his real secret to be spread around, he’ll show up.”

“And give us what we want?”

“No,” said Paulina.  “I don’t think that he’ll give once he’s seen us.  He’s got to carry his stuff on him, right?  So we’ll just take it then.”

“Beat up Fenton by ourselves?” asked Star, dubiously.  

“Or threaten him,” said Paulina.  “We both bring something to threaten him with, okay?”  Her Papa had a stun gun, and she was sure Star could scrounge up a baseball bat or something. 

And, besides, she wanted to get Fenton back.

.

“There’s nothing in here!” hissed Star, frustrated.  She slammed the locker closed, making Paulina jump.  “What the hell.”

Paulina grabbed her wrist and dragged her into the nearest bathroom.  “Can you not?”

“Can you not?  It’s your fault we’re even in this situation!”  

“My fault?  What about what you did?”

.

Fenton was already there, leaning against the guardrail, when they reached the bridge in the park.  During daylight, it was a popular spot for couples, but it was creepy and abandoned at night

“Oh, no, not this again.  Haven’t you had enough fun with your stupid ghost detector rumor?”

“It’s not about fun, Fenton,” said Paulina.  “Now, give it over.”

“Or what?”  He stood up and walked a few steps closer to them, a strange expression on his face.  “I don’t think you actually know anything, or you would’ve used it already.”

“Or this,” said Paulina, pulling out the stun gun.  

“What the–  Is that a taser?” asked Fenton, raising his hands and stepping back.  “Are– Are you robbing me?”  He glanced sideways at Star, apparently only then noticing her bat.  

“Consider a donation to a worthy cause,” said Paulina.  “Hand over your ghost stuff.”

“I don’t have any,” said Fenton.  

“When you’re out here in the middle of the night?” asked Paulina, raising an eyebrow.

“Look, you wouldn’t even be haunted if you–”

Paulina saw red and hit the trigger.  The electrodes flew from the end of the stun gun, right on target.  Fenton yelped and fell to the ground, seizing.  

It was… satisfying, for lack of a better word.  She’d just been so– So frustrated, lately.  All of her normal ways of blowing off steam at school had been blocked by that horrible ghost.  

She pulled the trigger again.  

But, before she could, Fenton had swiped away the electrodes, and now he was pulling himself up with the railing, hand over his face.  What Paulina could see of it though–

Star came in, swinging her bat.  She cracked Fenton right across the jaw and he tumbled over the railing and off the bridge.  There was a loud cracking sound.  Fenton hitting the pavement of the walkway below.  

There was no other sound.  

Paulina breathed in, breathed out.  

“What did you do that for?” she asked.  

“You didn’t see his face,” wailed Star.  “He looked like– like he was going to kill you.  I didn’t hit him that hard!”

Paulina shook her head and went down under the bridge.  Star followed close behind.  Fenton was… lying there.  Broken.  

But still breathing.  

“We’ve got to search him,” said Star.  

“Hm?”

“For his stuff.”

“Oh, right.”

“And then we’ve got to…”

“I know,” said Paulina.  Then, dreamlike, she asked, “Can I borrow your bat?”

.

“We both did things,” said Paulina, finally.  “The important thing is that we’re in this together, right?”  Her voice trembled.  “Right?”

Star nodded.  “Right.  So– So, we can, like, we have his house keys, too.”

“Yeah,” said Paulina.  The Fentons had to have something in their house, even if their kid was apparently a moron who went around with absolutely nothing.  

“And no one’s even noticed he’s gone yet,” continued Star.  “We’ve just…”  She stopped as she put her hand in her pocket.  “I’ve still got his stupid lock.”

“Who cares?”

“His friends will notice if it’s gone.  And we’ve got to get to class, anyway.”  Star seemed to be calming down again.  Good.  She was surprisingly useful in a… situation.

.

In Paulina’s trunk was a thick canvas tarp.

She didn’t know why, exactly.  It had come with the car.  

Star went over it, pulling off tags.

Paulina broke two nails getting it back to the trunk.  

They drove to the river.  

“They’ll assume it was a ghost,” said Star.  “Especially if they don’t find him.”

Paulina had just nodded.  

.

Paulina followed Star as they left the bathroom.  It was fine.  They were going to put the lock back on the locker and it would all be fine.  

But someone was standing in front of Fenton’s locker.  

They turned, slowly, as if they were a character in a lame horror movie.  But Paulina couldn’t move.  Couldn’t breathe.  Couldn’t think.  

Fenton’s eyes met hers.  

[infiniterealms]

Foreworn

I've finished my initial fic for the Infinite Realms 2025 Remix event! @infiniterealms

Please feel free to remix this fic to your heart's content, all I ask is that you @ mention me if you do, so I can read and enjoy!

Words: 2428 Characters: Valerie Gray (post PP timeline), Valerie Gray (post AGIT timeline) Warnings: Implied character death

Valerie might be juggling a job, school, and a second job hunting ghosts, but she’s got it handled. Heck, she’s doing great!

And then someone who looks exactly like her crawls through her window at 2 AM. .

Valerie woke to the sound of her window sliding open. Before more than incredulity could fire through her mind – seriously? Someone was burgling her? – the figure slapped a hand over her mouth and lifted the other hand to her mouth in a shushing motion.

Her mouth.

Valerie’s mouth.

It was a doppelganger.

Read it on AO3

[infiniterealms]

First Contact

My initial fic for the @infiniterealms event! Please feel free to take it and remix it however you'd like! I only have two requests if you do:

Tag me in the fic or send me a message about it so I can read it!

Please do not turn this into a crossover, include strong gore/violence, or write it as Bad Parents Jack and Maddie!

(AO3) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Approaching coordinates.”

The words, spoken by a smooth, androgynous voice, echo in the tiny cockpit of the Specter Speeder. They don’t quite reach Maddie’s ears, however. She is too engrossed contemplating the invitation in her hands.

It arrived four days ago. They’re not sure how; it was simply sitting there, taped to the closed doors of the Portal when they entered the lab that morning. That alone was unsettling - someone or something would have had to enter the house unnoticed, go to the basement to leave the envelope, and then leave without detection - but it was the invitation itself that was even more unsettling.

She runs a finger across the small, single piece of heavy parchment. The envelope, left behind in a containment unit in the lab, had been made of the same material. Durable as it appears to be, it feels oddly fragile under her fingertip, as if it is struggling to materialize itself for her to be able to touch in the first place. Even through her jumpsuit, she can feel the bitter cold radiating off of the shimmery black parchment. If she tilts it just right, she can almost see the twinkle of frost.

The invitation itself is embossed on the parchment, written in loopy cursive in ectoplasmic green:

By order of the Office of the High King of the Infinite Realms,

His Majesty formally requests the presence of Dr. and Dr. Fenton of Amity Park this Saturday the Seventeenth at 4 o’clock PM, EST (Earth-based) at the Royal Residence.

Refreshments will be provided. Weapons welcome.

Cordially,

Glinforblimph, Scribe to His Majesty

Below the scribe’s nearly illegible signature is what Maddie assumes to be the king’s seal - a complicated arrangement of stars that form a spiral - and below that is the strangest part of the invitation.

A set of coordinates, hastily handwritten on what seems to be a very average, very human Post-it note, taped to the bottom of the parchment, as if they were added as an afterthought.

Maddie thumbs the Post-it note. Why the coordinates weren’t included in the original invitation is beyond her, and she’s not sure whether to feel appreciative that the king and his staff at least remembered to include them at all or offended that they hadn’t been included in the first place. 

Part of her still wonders if the whole thing is a ruse, if the coordinates lead to some trap. It’s a possibility that she and Jack had debated heatedly for days. She had been far more inclined to see it as a trap, but Jack had reasoned that any ghost calling himself a High King would probably just attack them outright rather than going through an elaborate charade such as this. Ghosts are far from primitive creatures, they know, but Jack too pointed out that with how important power (real or perceived) is to a ghost’s social standing, any ghost worth their salt is far more likely to make a public display of attacking them if that is what he wants, simply for the free advertisement of his power.

Maddie can’t really argue with that logic.

Plus, she can’t deny her rabid curiosity about the whole ordeal. An invitation such as this is a far cry from the M.O. of the ghost that kidnapped Amity Park to the Ghost Zone once, the one who also called himself a king. This is clearly someone else’s work, and though she’ll never admit it out loud, she’s dying to know whose it is. Not to mention the intrigue surrounding the whole concept of the Ghost Zone having a High King. Is it a true king? Merely a figurehead? A ghost who has simply declared themselves king with no real political power? Is it a title handed down or won?

Her mind drifts to Vlad. In college, she, Jack, and Vlad had balanced each other out well when it came to their studies on ghosts. She was the biochemist. Jack was the engineer. Vlad was, for lack of a better term, the anthropologist. He’d always been fascinated with the history and culture of ghosts, the side of ecto-science she and Jack had never taken as much interest in. She wonders if he still holds that interest, or if he happens to know anything about the apparent ghost political hierarchy.

Maybe she should’ve asked. 

“Mads, look.”

Jack’s warm voice startles her out of her thoughts. She glances up to where he’s sitting beside her in the pilot’s seat, navigating them through the Zone with a grin on his face. A burst of affection floods her chest. He’s worn that grin ever since they got up this morning; his excitement over entering the Ghost Zone for the first time (aside from the aforementioned mass kidnapping) is not easily contained, and something about it reminds Maddie of why she fell in love with him in the first place.

He catches her watching him, and the grin widens into a laugh. “No, not at me, look out there,” he says with all the enthusiasm of a child on Christmas morning.

She looks out the front window, where he’s pointed with his head, and her stomach does a funny little swoop as she spots a large palace looming ahead of them. 

Even if they hadn’t had the coordinates, Maddie knows she would’ve been able to instantly peg this palace as the Ghost King’s. Inexplicably, she can feel its presence, even from within the Specter Speeder. Cold and commanding, like a glacier, broadcasting far and wide that this is the lair of a truly powerful ghost, every bit befitting a king. She wonders what it must feel like to an average ghost, if its aura is strong enough to be perceived by a human like herself.

Strangely, though, as her eyes rove over the black stone adorned in something that sparkles in the light - glass? Ice? - she also gets a sense of security, of ease. Like entering her house after fighting through the snow and cold. The idea itself unsettles her, the fact that a ghost’s lair’s aura can have this sort of profound effect, but the effect itself is too overwhelming for the anxiety to dominate.

It’s a bizarre feeling to have to sit with, nonetheless.

“Huh,” Jack says as he begins their descent.

“What’s that?”

“Do you think they know we’re coming?”

Maddie hums. “I would expect so. Why?”

“There’s only one guard.”

Maddie blinks, then adjusts her gaze. Sure enough, the entrance to the castle is staffed by a single guard. Not that she had been expecting a welcoming parade, of course, but she can’t wrap her head around why a king would leave his castle so defenseless, especially if he really is expecting them.

“Maybe they’re all on their lunch?” Jack cracks a grin at his own joke, and Maddie can hear the echo of her kids’ groans in her head. 

“They could be hiding,” Maddie points out. “Or invisible.”

“Radar’s only picking up the one.”

The guard has noticed their approach. She takes some solace in the fact that it doesn’t immediately prepare an attack, or that hundreds of other guards don’t suddenly appear out of the woodwork.

“Just take us in gently, sweetie,” she says. Her fists begin to tighten until she remembers that she’s still holding the king’s invitation. Swallowing, she smooths it out and stares at the king’s seal. “We don’t know what we’re walking into.”

____________________________________________________________

It’s nearly fifteen minutes after they land that they finally exit the Specter Speeder. Putting on the safety gear they had brought in such a tiny space proved to be more difficult than they’d expected, but it was necessary. The arrival of the king’s invitation had left them little time to determine if the atmosphere of the Ghost Zone was habitable for humans (how they had neglected to do this research for nearly three years, Maddie couldn’t fathom), and so precautions had to be taken. 

Oxygen masks and tanks, of course. Bulkier HAZMAT suits over their standard ecto-resistant jumpsuits. Special goggles, jetpacks for potential low-gravity travel, a body cam for each of them to record everything. Oddly enough, it had been Jack who had wanted to bring more equipment for data collection, but Maddie had nixed it due to how difficult it already was to wear everything. 

And then, last but not least, their weapons. Maddie had been unsure why she felt such trepidation as she attached her staff and two ecto-blasters to her hip, but it was enough to cause her to nearly drop the staff.

Maybe she was simply hoping she won’t have to use them.

Now, though, as she and Jack near the castle, she eyes the spear strapped to the guard’s back. The tip glints wickedly, and even though it’s a ghost’s weapon, she somehow knows it can hurt her just as easily as a ghost.

Being prepared against these threats is just good practice, she tells herself.

“State your name and your business,” the guard says the moment they’re within hearing range.

Maddie breathes in deeply. The artificial air in her mask leaves her nose feeling dry. “I am Maddie Fenton,” she says. She tries to keep her voice confident, but she’s unsure if it’s coming across. “This is my husband, Jack Fenton. We were invited by your king to come here today.”

The guard glances over each of them in turn. “You will remove your equipment and surrender all weapons before entering the palace,” they say, a haughty air to their voice.

Although she can’t see it, Maddie can sense Jack opening his mouth to respond. She cuts him off with a raise of her hand, quick and gentle. She loves Jack to the ends of the Earth and back - boisterousness and all - but these are uncharted waters. One misspoken word could potentially spell out disaster for humankind.

“We were told our weapons were welcome,” Maddie says to the guard, careful to keep her voice as even as possible. “It said so in the invitation.” Slowly, purposefully, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out the parchment, extending it to the guard.

The guard snatches it out of her hand, regarding her with a disdainful look before examining it. She has half a mind to snatch it back. Who is this ghost to go around treating her like scum of the earth?

Instead, she curls her hand into a tight fist and forces herself to even her breath. This isn’t even close to being the same as confronting the ghosts in Amity Park. For all intents and purposes, she and Jack are in enemy territory, on the turf of supposedly the most powerful ghost of them all. The two of them may have a reputation for being trigger-happy, but she’s not so stupid as to pick a fight she knows she’ll lose.

As much as it sickens her to admit that she knows she’ll lose against even someone like the Ghost King.

The guard’s frown deepens as they run a finger over the king’s seal. Maddie watches in wonder as a tiny aurora shimmers to life above the seal before evaporating into the ambient ectoplasm. The guard looks nearly as surprised.

“This does appear to be authentic,” they murmur to themselves. Glancing back up at her and Jack, their expression darkens again. “Still, I cannot in good conscience allow you into the palace with potential threats. I am the captain of the royal guard. The safety of His Majesty, his palace, and all who reside within it are my utmost priority. I will not allow anything to endanger them.”

“But surely you’re bound to follow your king’s orders,” Maddie argues. “You said so yourself that the invitation is authentic. That means he’s already said that we can bring our weapons in. You wouldn’t want to disobey him, would you?”

“The scribe wrote that your weapons were permitted. That fool couldn’t even be bothered to remember to include directions.” The guard flicks the Post-it note. “I trust his words far less than His Majesty’s.”

“It still had to have come from the king! Please, we’re not trying to be difficult. We just don’t understand why we’d be lied to like this.” Because you’re all ghosts, the enraged part of her wants to add, but she bites her tongue.

For the briefest of moments, the guard’s expression seems to soften the slightest bit, but the moment is so fleeting, Maddie is left wondering if she imagined it.

“If it is His Majesty’s prerogative,” the guard begins slowly, “then he may choose to allow you your weapons. However, it will only be after I receive his explicit instructions, and after I and my staff have been able to conduct a thorough examination of the weapons and ensure they will not pose a significant threat.”

Maddie exhales slowly. “Fine,” she bites out. “We can surrender most of our weapons.” At this point, as much as her instincts are screaming at her, she doesn’t care. She doesn’t feel like wasting her time arguing with some ghost that was never going to listen to her in the first place. A twinge of annoyance burns through her chest, wondering if all of the king’s guests get treated like second-class citizens.

Besides, as loath as she is to make the concession, they were never going to be allowed in with guns blazing - invitation or no - and while she would much prefer the security of a blaster on her hip, she’s too intelligent of a woman to ignore the politics of it.

Because that’s really what this boils down to, doesn’t it? A political meeting.

Distantly, she wonders why the king chose to summon her and Jack. Surely, an actual leader in the human world would’ve been a better choice. As much as she doesn’t like the man, Vlad would’ve been much more ideal, having both the political power as mayor of Amity Park and the expertise on ghosts necessary to tangle with the ghost monarchy of all things.

So why choose them?

“We can’t remove all of our weapons, though,” she continues, trying to bring her voice back to something less hostile. “We have some built into our jumpsuits. And we can’t remove our other equipment. It keeps us alive.” She tries not to cringe at her poor word choice. “We haven’t had the chance to determine if the Ghost Zone’s environment and atmosphere are hospitable for humans or not.”

The ghost glares down at them, their tail lashing back and forth. “I assure you, you are not the first humans to enter the Realms and live to tell the tale,” they say with a sniff, “and even if you were, His Majesty would not allow you to perish so easily.”

“Wait,” Jack says before Maddie can stop him. “Does that mean he can alter the Ghost Zone’s environment at will? Or just the environment around the palace? Does he -”

“Jack,” Maddie says at the same time the guard says, “Perhaps these questions are best left to His Majesty himself.”

Maddie can picture Jack’s crestfallen face. He has always been the more outwardly inquisitive between them, though Maddie can’t deny her own fascination with the concept of the Ghost King’s abilities. 

A time and a place, Maddie, she reminds herself.

She tries not to think about how if the king can make the environment safe for them, he can just as easily turn and make it deadly.

“At any rate,” she says, cutting into the tense silence that has settled over them all, “how can we be sure we won’t suffocate the minute we take off these masks? Even if you say other humans have been here…” She lets her sentence hang unfinished. She’s not exactly sure how she would have ended it anyway.

The guard sighs heavily, and a spark of interest flits through Maddie’s head as she wonders how they are able to do so without lungs. “You will simply have to take His Majesty’s word for it.”

His word. Not the guard’s.

She finds the distinction interesting.

“Well…” She shrugs helplessly. “What are we supposed to do then? We’ll have to surrender our jumpsuits to meet your terms, but we can’t exactly meet the king without any clothes.”

Beside her, Jack chokes on a laugh, but thankfully doesn’t say anything.

The guard seems to consider this for a moment. “I believe we can accommodate for that.”

____________________________________________________________

Nearly an hour later, Maddie finds herself pacing back and forth in the sitting room she and Jack have been brought to. The palace staff had provided them with simple linen garments to wear in lieu of their jumpsuits. “Garments” might be too generous of a term; it’s clear they were thrown together on an extremely short notice, held together with haphazard stitches and maybe just the barest hint of ghost magic. Maddie feels more like she’s been wrapped in a bundle of fabric than actually dressed.

Her humiliation is not helped in the slightest by how the king’s staff treated her and Jack as they helped them and brought them to the room. There was, of course, the guard, who continued to treat them like scum of the Earth. The seamstress who brought them the clothes, however, had regarded them with enormously wide, unblinking eyes and only spoken to them in a series of squeaks and whimpers, giving Maddie the impression that maybe the girl had been a mouse in life. And then there had been the servants all throughout the halls, gasping at them and leaning in to whisper to each other heatedly, as if she and Jack were celebrities. 

Or, perhaps more accurately, exotic creatures. She doesn’t imagine that these ghosts see humans too often.

Most frustratingly about the whole situation, though, is that none of this - the invitation, the unpreparedness, the staff’s treatment of them, even the halls of the palace itself - has given her any sort of indication as to who the Ghost King is, or what kind of ghost he will be when they meet him. It’s like trying to put together a puzzle, she thinks, but the pieces are all from different puzzles. For someone like Maddie, who prefers concrete data to the unknown, it’s a nightmare.

Not to mention the idea of going blindly into a potentially hostile situation terrifies her.

Not that she’ll ever admit it out loud.

The door bangs open, startling Maddie out of her thoughts and Jack out of his seat. The guard who greeted them floats in the doorway. Without their helmet on, she can see that they have a third, milky eye in the center of their forehead. Distantly, she wonders why there’s no opening for it in the helmet.

“His Majesty will see you now,” the guard says curtly, gesturing for them to follow.

The trip to the throne room is short, but somehow they still encounter a trio of what Maddie assumes to be maids. She rolls her eyes as they too watch them with wide eyes before bending in close to each other, whispering hurriedly.

“I can’t believe he actually…” one says.

“... think they’ll attack their own…” another is saying.

“... fleshier than he is,” the third adds rather unhelpfully.

Maddie’s not sure what to make of the conversation. Their own what?

“Mads.”

Too late, she realizes she’s stopped in the middle of the hallway and is staring at the maids. Jack and the guard are ahead of her, watching her expectantly. Jack looks like he wants to ask her something, but strangely enough, he stays quiet.

Blushing furiously and pushing the conversation out of her head, Maddie scurries back to Jack’s side.

____________________________________________________________

The throne room looks as if it had been plucked right from a fairytale. It’s done in a dark, ashy marble, complete with a long carpet and thick curtains in deep blue, trimmed with silver. Tall pillars line the sides of the room, each wrapped in a spiraling pattern of frost and decorated with a black banner stamped with the king’s seal. A stained glass window at the back of the room, behind the throne, filters light through its panes, throwing prismatic blues, greens, and purples around the room.

The throne itself sits on a short dais, and even Maddie can appreciate the workmanship that has clearly gone into it. The entire throne is made of crystalline ice, almost as if it was carved straight from a glacier. Threads of bright green ectoplasm are embedded within it, creating intricate, abstract patterns and giving it the illusion of a glow. A plush pillow rests on the seat, done in the same blue and silver fabric as the curtains.

“Maddie,” Jack whispers with a nudge, “look up.”

She does, and an involuntary gasp tears itself from her throat. Where she had expected a ceiling, perhaps like she’d find in an old cathedral, there is only the expanse of a night sky. Stars twinkle back at her, and she’s easily able to identify some of the constellations. The Big Dipper, of course, with Polaris in its glory, and over there she spots Orion. It’s only thanks to Danny and his love for the stars that she’s able to realize that she’d be able to see these same constellations above her roof this time of the year. 

It’s a fascinating decorating choice, she thinks, for the Ghost King to recreate Earth’s night sky in his throne room. Is it a deliberate choice? Is it a memory of the life he left behind? Is it simply just an appreciation for a sky that’s not ectoplasm?

A chill runs down her spine, and not just because she can feel the cold radiating off the throne. A realization has just hit her.

How powerful of a ghost must the king be to create such a perfect replica? To make her doubt for even a second that she never left Earth?

The stars above sway as a wave of dizziness overcomes her.

It’s only when Jack reaches out and gently pulls her back onto the long carpet that she looks away. Her face burns in embarrassment as she realizes she had been so lost in thought that she’d begun to wander aimlessly. Thankfully, if the guard notices, they don’t say anything about it.

Still though, she berates herself. She can’t afford to lose her focus. Not here. Not this deep in enemy territory. Not in the middle of the lair of the most powerful ghost in existence.

Oh God, she thinks as her stomach drops. Suddenly, the guard leading them down to the throne feels more like an executioner dragging them to the gallows. How could she have allowed them to give up their weapons so easily? How could she have let them be stripped of their defenses and led like lambs to a slaughter? This is the Ghost King. She and Jack have threatened and hunted his subjects time and again. Any self-respecting leader isn’t going to let that slide so easily.

Let alone a ghost.

“Hey.” Jack’s broad hand slips around hers, and she instinctively grips it tightly. “You’re overthinking things,” he chides quietly, but there’s still a light air to his voice.

“We shouldn’t have come.” It’s hard to keep her voice from shaking, especially as the air begins to grow bitingly cold as they near the throne. “He’s going to kill us. Or-or throw us in the dungeons. Or something. We’ll never get out of here. We’ll never see Jazz and Danny again. We -”

“Maddie. Look at me.”

She turns her head to look into his eyes, and despite her rampaging anxiety, the sight of the pure warmth and trust in his deep blue eyes grounds her, even if just a bit. Jack has always been the steadfast one between them. She knows that to an outsider, it seems as if she’s the one always pulling him back down into reality, but she thinks that he’s pulled her back up into reality just as often, if not more. It’s just one of the reasons she fell in love with him, one of the reasons she thinks they’re as strong as they are.

“We went through this,” Jack is saying, his tone devoid of any exasperation. He squeezes her hand. “If he wanted to hurt us, he would’ve just come and done it. He wouldn’t have sent an invitation saying that we could bring our weapons. I’m sure whatever he wants us here for can’t be that bad.” Ahead, the guard grunts, but doesn’t say anything.

“We still don’t know what we’re dealing with,” Maddie says. They come to a stop in front of the dais, and somewhere from the side of the room, an attendant flits over to the guard. The two begin speaking in hushed tones, in a language she can’t understand. Still, she watches them warily as she continues speaking. “We shouldn’t have come into this so blind.”

Jack’s brows furrow just the slightest bit. The attendant gives the guard a quick bow - nothing more than a dip - and flits back from where she came.

“It’ll be okay,” Jack says. He squeezes her hand again. “We’ll figure it out together. I know we will.”

Maddie opens her mouth to respond, but the guard begins speaking before she can.

“Presenting His Majesty,” they begin in a booming voice that reverberates against the marble, throughout the entire room, “the Keeper of Gateways, Pariah’s Bane, the Twice-Born -”

A door opens from the side wing, interrupting the guard. “Rowan, chill out,” a new voice says with a light laugh. “I’ve told you, you really don’t have to do this every time you introduce me.”

Maddie’s blood runs colder than the ice on the throne.

“Danny?” The name spills from her mouth before she can stop it. She claps a hand over her mouth as the guard, presumably Rowan, fixes her with a heated glare.

To be fair, she’s not sure if she would’ve been able to stop herself if she’d tried. A scientist and huntress she may be, but before that, she is a mother, and a mother always recognizes her own children.

And that voice was undeniably her son’s.

Her mind reels. It makes no sense. How is he here? In the Ghost Zone? In the Ghost King’s throne room? Why is he here? Addressing a ghost like an old friend? What does -

The flurry of confusion screeches to a halt, though, when a figure steps out from behind a curtain, and the rug is pulled out from under her a second time.

A thick mop of snow white hair. Electric green eyes that betray a bewilderment similar to her own. An insignia emblazoned proudly across his chest.

Maddie relaxes, but only marginally. In the midst of a world of unfamiliarity, the sight of Phantom, someone she knows all too well, is begrudgingly soothing. She’s not happy to see him, not by a long shot, but she feels a little less out of her depth. Even if things involving Phantom tend to veer towards disaster, and even if his presence in the Ghost King’s throne room is unsettling at best.

The minimal relief is short-lived, however, as she registers more in regards to his appearance. Namely the ring on his middle finger with a stone that matches the ice of the throne. And the cape draped around his shoulders with a collar of fluff and an adornment of stars. And the crown nestled in his hair, also seemingly made of ice but shimmering with the ever-shifting lights of the borealis.

Her stomach drops to her feet. 

Maybe she’s much more out of her depth than she originally thought.

[infiniterealms]

Time and Time and Time Again

I'm excited to share my initial fic for @infiniterealms Danny Phantom fanfiction remix event!

For details on what a fanfiction remix is, check out the info post here.

Time and Time and Time Again is on ao3 now! Full fic details are below the cut!

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Danny Phantom Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Characters: Danny Fenton, Valerie Gray, Clockwork (Danny Phantom) Additional Tags: Time Loop, Major Character Injury, Angst, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Clockwork is Evil, or is he...?, it's open to interpretation really, One Shot, Initial Fic Summary:

"Clockwork turned to face him then, his expression blank and neutral. Danny studied him. The other ghost had always had a jagged scar running down his forehead, deep enough that it almost looked like a crack. Now, as Danny looked at his face, the scar looked longer. And that second scar, mirroring the first on the opposite side of his face, definitely wasn’t there before. In Clockwork’s chest, the pendulum of the ever-ticking grandfather clock was still and unmoving. The glass door was cracked.

Something was very wrong."

----

Danny is stuck in a time loop. Is there any hope for his escape, or will he be trapped here forever?