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sylph-feather · 4 years ago

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Title: Ectoplasmic Fossils

Summary: "Actually, Dad? I wanted to be a paleontologist."

Prompt: Prompt is the same as the summary. Prompter is gaunttwister, team halfa.

Wordcount: 2453

Notes: Can you tell I was a dinosaur kid.....

For a Danny in familiar world, his first positive thought after becoming a ghost and learning ghosts existed (after, of course, a litany of terror), was as follows: imagine the new world I could explore. He considered this while staring into the swirling portal that lead to places unknown, and in his mind he compared it to the vast and beautiful unknown of space.

This Danny, in this less familiar universe, was less impressed by the portal itself; of course, he was in awe of it from a technical perspective, but nothing that deeply riveting, that personal spark of exploration— not from its wrought metal or whirling green center, that is. No, this was his thought, in replacement of the other spark: if ghosts exist, what things have been made ghosts over the years? What old life could be discovered?

Danny, you see, did not desire to explore space in this universe. No. He was fascinated by paleontology. Star books were replaced by compendiums of dinosaur species, models of rockets and stations replaced by scientifically accurate models and bones, diagrams of ships replaced by diagrams of feathery, toothsome things. You get the picture.

Where these obsessions came from… who was to say? Why one fixation over the other? Did this Danny latch onto his parent’s obsession with the dead and translate it into this, rather than translating it into the more vague idea of exploring the unknown? Or was it as simple as an exposure to different things; a cartoon with scientifically inaccurate dinosaurs rather than a ridiculous sci fi premise, or perhaps watching Jurassic Park too young rather than Star Wars…? The child’s mind is prone to flights of fancy that stick— that’s the the final conclusion, no matter the exact cause of specifics.

Regardless, his parents engaged in it; provided him with aforementioned objects— models, posters, etcetera— and generally encouraged his interests. The most annoying was when they tried to sell him on ghosts by using dinosaurs as a sort of bribery; they talked of the possibilities of discovering undocumented species and anatomy with the ghost forms of creatures from long ago, a sort of tempting what if, to lure Danny to their side.

Up until today, when a portal had electrocuted half the life out of him, Danny didn’t believe it.

Sam, Tucker, and Danny were all reclined in Danny’s bedroom— all fully human, though Danny still felt a bit… simultaneously charred and charged, which he supposed made sense given he’d just been fried by a nasty shock (to put it lightly).

His two friends were sending him worried looks— also sensible, given not half an hour ago Danny was significantly ghostier, and significantly panic-ier. Now, though, while Sam and Tucker sent each other concerned glances to communicate wordlessly, Danny was simply considering the possibilities. Gooey species of jellyfish and slug-like creatures that hadn’t been preserved! Confirmation of the placement or use of bones, especially controversial ones like the hollowed crest of the Parasaurolophus or the gastralia of many beasts! Behavior that could only be guessed at via anatomical features! The degree to which feathers coated their body! Colors!

...And so on and so forth. It was all enough to bring a wide grin to Danny’s face— which was a bit creepy given he’d just died.

“Dude,” Tucker grimaced, snapping Danny out of his reverie, “are you, like, coping well—“

“We have to go into the Ghost Zone,” Danny cut him off with excited urgency.

Sam blinked at him owlishly. “Now? Why?”

“Not now, I guess, necessarily,” Danny brushed off, filled with excited energy. His eyes were shining when he turned them to his new friends— “imagine what ancient things we could find as ghosts.”

Tucker facepalmed and groaned. “Of course the first thing you’re thinking of is dinosaurs.”

Sam eased a bit, brushing off her initial assumption that Danny had some weird, ghostly pull to the green portal. “Well, at least you’re seeing the bright side,” she huffed sarcastically.

Danny crossed his arms in a pout. “I’m not just thinking of dinosaurs.” No, he was thinking of other eras of ancient things too, of course.

Tucker shot him a look, but broke it with a laugh and didn’t prod further.

xXx

It was, of course, a disappointment when the first ghosts that came through were too formless to tell what they had been, if they were anything but raw emotion. It was an even bigger disappointment when the first fully-formed ghosts were largely human-shaped. With the exception of dragons— which Danny definitely did not count— there was nothing that bore any resemblance to extinct creatures.

On top of this, Danny had sort of let go of the go find dinos in the Ghost Zone NOW mentality, because… well, despite insatiable curiosity, he didn’t know his way around the place at all. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, or if he was even expecting it to be easy to begin with, but going into a directionless green abyss where orientation did not exist… well, needless to say that Danny knew he could not find his way to whatever ancient beast ghosts were there, if they did even exist in the first place. And he certainly didn’t want to risk his life knocking on doors of who-knows-what, or drifting around ghostly islands in the middle of who-knows-where. And that’s not even touching that technically Walker wants his arrest for a reason Danny only sort of remembers because it was so dumb.

And so, for the first handful of months of his existence as a halfa, Danny contents himself with theorization. It’s hard to think too much about dinosaurs anyways, because it’s hard to think too much about anything— despite being a teen and thus being prone to sleep deprivation, the ghost fighting combined with high school has lead Danny to a new level of exhaustion, one that he is still adjusting to. His grades hurt for it, as do his passions.

Slowly, though, he does adjust— enough to be confident to go in the Zone, and enough to have actually smart thoughts without his brain fizzling out.

In the moment where Phantom and the Red Huntress found themselves in Skulker’s lair, Danny was largely scared and exasperated at alternating points. It wasn’t until that situation was… resolved (and thank goodness both hunters didn’t pulverize him) that Danny was slapped with a marvelous idea of tangential connections.

Skulker is a hunter. The Zone’s greatest hunter, he claimed, though Danny didn’t know if he believed that much. Still. The point still stood that it was a reasonable bet that Skulker was into rare and dangerous prey, if his arsenal and his fleet of pelts were anything to go by.

All this to say that Danny thought that maybe, just maybe, Skulker would know about dinosaur ghosts. That miniscule spark of hope was enough; Danny felt he deserved to see what he’d always so desperately wanted to see after the thought of dinosaur ghosts entered his mind as a believable thing.

Danny had to ask— even if there was a high chance Skulker didn’t know or did know but wouldn’t tell, and the fact that asking Skulker was at great risk of being at best, involved in their typical scuffling, and at worst, captured. Danny only had dinos on the brain, though, and maybe he wasn’t awake enough to consider the full consequences of the impulsive thought.

So he enacted his plan as a teen enacted anything: rashly, suddenly, and without much forethought. Even calling it a plan alone was generous; all the half-ghost did was float into the Zone in the general direction of Skulker’s island, foolishly calling out to Skulker as he floated through. Naturally, he came prepared— not with weapons, or maps, but with a bag containing his phone, a journal, and his comprehensive dinosaur book… just in case he did end up seeing any.

The mechanical suit showed his flaming mug quite close to his island. Bright, solid green eyes blinked, and Skulker— who had not had the time to pull up hs egotistical Ghost Zone’s greatest hunter speech in his shock— said in a surprised tone, “don’t you have other things to do?”

Danny did. He did this in favor of an important English essay on 1984 that he had— Danny had tried wrapping his mind around thought crime and contradictions, and once he put the book down he immediately decided I can think on all that and, I’d much rather find dinosaurs. So here he was.

Skulker shook himself out of that surprise, and levelled a laser that popped out of his arm at Danny. “No matter! Prey is prey, and you are good prey!”

“Wait!” Danny barked, confident enough (and strange and out of place enough) to give the other ghost pause, making Skulker lower the laser just slightly, a modicum of movement to say go on, or at least indicate curiosity. “I want to see dinosaurs,” Danny said authoritatively, simply.

Skulker stared, weapon still whining slightly. His slightly slack jaw and slumped arm just screamed huh?

And thus began a ramble— “I’ve always wanted to see dinosaurs, and once I realized ghosts existed, I figured ghost dinosaurs had to exist, right?” Not waiting for an answer, Danny ploughed ahead. “And I thought of all the ghosts I’ve met, you seem like you maybe, hopefully know where any ghost dinos are, with the whole hunting schtick—“

Skulker cut off Danny’s rambling with honesty: “I’m not sure if I should be amused, flattered, or honored, ghost child.”

“As long as you’re not violent?” Danny said slowly, tipping his head, still assessing Skulker as though to try to suss out whether he was a threat still or no

Skulker himself was still trying to figure out the answer to that question— did he want to be a threat, want to hunt Phantom? Or did he want to pause and take a moment to indulge the bright, sparkling curiosity in his eyes…?

Skulker gave an awkward cough, a sort of choked harumph sound. He started slowly, unsurely, “I suppose.” He added hurriedly— “to reward you for being such good prey.”

Danny huffed. “Way to make it weird,” the halfa grumbled— but he wasn’t able to keep up a petulant persona for long, because the excitement shone through too brightly to conceal. Because dinosaurs. “That means you know where to find them?” Danny’s voice was approaching something that could only be described as a squeal.

Skulker once again paused for contemplation, because those islands were one of his prized hunting spots… the dinosaurs regenerated (as most strong, full ghosts did), but they still were a great joy to hunt. Among the dinosaur-ridden chunks of land, there were also significantly less interesting hunts— the cambrian period areas, for example, didn’t have much that provided a very thrilling chase… they just sort of scooted around. Then again, it was clear the ghost child cared not for the hunt, so Skulker supposed he could share.

Skulker made a gruff noise, internally considering that of course he would hunt down the halfa anyways, and Danny didn’t regenerate like full ghosts— so it wasn’t like he had to share for long. Granted, it wasn’t like a hunter to lead prey into anything but a trap, but Skulker didn’t have much to argue against that thought, so he just… didn’t think about it, justifying it with a vague “honor” tangent in his mind.

To answer the question after much internal debate on sharing, his own softness, etcetera, Skulker simply said, “yes, I know where to find them. Follow me.”

The halfa was lost in excitement, doing flips in the air and going on a ramble that the mechanized ghost utterly drowned out as they jetsetted through the Zone at rapid speed.

I could skewer him right now, Skulker thought over the whine of his jetpack. The thought had no heat to it, though, especially when Skulker took a pause to look at the exuberant teenager.

It wasn’t long to consider thoughts of said skewering, anyways. The Ghost Zone was a strange place; once someone had been somewhere and knew the way, the green abyss would fold out of its own way to get them there again when they wanted it. Skulker had long stopped questioning it, if he ever questioned it in the first place, but Phantom was quite in awe of the quick travel, and the way their scenery had subtly compressed then stretched into a new horizon around them as they flew— only now was he realizing the complete change in surroundings.

Skulker just hovered and watched as those luminous green eyes darted from unfamiliar door to unfamiliar door until they settled on the main attraction: a vast set of islands, incomprehensibly expansive and swirling around each other in a compressed way special to the Ghost Zone’s laws of space.

Danny’s eyes widened, and he let out a sound of pure, concentrated excitement. “This is it,” he said, and it was partially a question but mostly seemed to function as a statement to convince himself.

Danny shot immediately to the nearest island, a chunk of land covered in a swampy rainforest and thick ferns. From the brush, a large thing burst forth, chittering and cawing.

Danny took in the huge, feathered raptor— feathers of blue and green, as with all ghosts, but otherwise so… different. It was so different, seeing it in the… well, not flesh, ectoplasm, but the point still stood. Danny hovered above that island, frozen with awe, and the creature stared back at him with eyes that were not slit and were observant, and it clicked its lizard-like mouth around its sharp teeth and flared its feathers with some degree of fright… and Danny could think of nothing better than that moment of pure, extreme joy and awe and sheer wonder.

Skulker saw all that on the teen’s face and thought again, this time with heat: I could skewer him right now. Their little agreement was over, the debt of providing a good chase repaid, and now it was time for the halfa to become prey once again. A laser charged up—

Beep, beep, beep. The laser cut off with the notification, and Skulker gave a surprised grunt.

Danny made a noise. “You scared it off,” he groaned, but even that couldn’t get him down, because he went plummeting off towards the fern forest with a joyous laugh.

Gorilla feeding time, Skulker’s suit informed him in the meanwhile.

“No,” he barked uselessly, already jetting away, “I thought I’d gotten rid of this—!”

The last thing the mechanical ghost saw was Phantom, plunging into the underbrush, crowing with laughter, dinosaur dreams fulfilled.

#phic phight #phic phight 2021 #phicphight21 #phicphight2021 #dp #danny phantom #phic #my fic #my writing

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lilaclily00 · 6 years ago

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Apologies (2)

Reposting this part separately since I think most people missed it... Well, I’ve learned my lesson on reblogging to old chapters.

Danny Fenton secretly sort-of joins the family business.

Here’s Part 1!

AO3 link

@goinggoblin @pigte

Part 2

Danny didn't know how it happened, but one of the shots he fired went into the portal and got it to start up. He stumbled back and blocked the burst of light from his face. He had finally adjusted and put his arms down by the time the footsteps bumbling down the stairs had stopped at his side.

"What's happening down he--" His mom paused as she stared into the green abyss in the wall.

"You fixed the portal, Danny-boy? You fixed it! It works!" Danny grunted as his father crushed him in a hug so suddenly he dropped the ecto-gun, which broke apart on impact with the ground. "That's my son!"

"How'd you do that?" Jazz asked, a little too skeptical, earning a glare from Danny as he was finally let go.

"Now, Jazz, you know your brother's very smart, too. It runs in the family." Their mom ruffled Danny's hair; he was still a little too focused on that ghost girl to appreciate it. He had no idea if she was still in the lab, or had run off to somewhere else in town, or made the escape back "home" through the portal the second she could. "Perhaps I should start having you kids help us in the lab more!"

Their dad patted the portal's rim affectionately. "Oh, it'll be a snap to get a new grant once we tell 'em this baby's on and running!"

"Now, Jack, we don't know if it even goes to the Ghost Zone yet," their mom chastised him gently, though excitement sparkled in her eyes. "Would you kids like to help run the tests?"

"Later. I think I'll head up to my room for a bit," Danny said, rushing up the stairs. He did not have the energy or patience for that right now. He also had to go inform Sam and Tucker about the ghost girl--he could count on them to help him deal with her if he ran into her again. No, when--he was not going to let her go without any consequences.

She had no right to ruin their lives. It only seemed fair to ruin her afterlife right back.

"Dude, are you sure about this?" Tucker peered over his best friend's shoulder, scrunching his nose at the otherworldly smell wafting from the box. Sam glanced back at the door of the shed, impatiently tapping her foot.

"What, you don't believe me?" Danny muttered, not quite hiding a bitter tone as he pulled contaminated, broken contraptions out from the next box. Where was that little laser, he swore it was in here...

"We do!" Sam protested, pulling at the wrists of her gloves. "I just--"

"Can't condone the use of violence, I know. It's not like it'll really hurt her, she doesn't have nerves," Danny reminded. He'd heard his mom say that about ghosts a while ago. He grinned when he recovered the laser at the very bottom, holding it out like a trophy then setting it aside.

"Well, yeah," she assented, frown forming, "but it also just seems a little too dangerous to use old equipment to hunt her down."

Tucker kneeled to help Danny throw the scraps back in. "Yeah, man. Your parents, the leading experts in ghost-hunting tech, thought this stuff wasn't worth keeping anymore."

"Because they don't have the time to fix them, not with trying to get their grants again, which are all for their newer projects." Danny slapped the top flaps of the box down and carefully laid the "CAUTION: ECTOPLASMIC WASTE" tape back over. "We, however, do have the time."

"Yup, time to contaminate ourselves for a senseless need for revenge." Sam crossed her arms, defiant as Danny stood up to face her, gloves tensed up into fists.

"You don't get it, do you? You don't even care, do you?!" Danny didn't notice his friends flinch. "We pretty much lost everything because of a ghost! They had all the anti-ghost systems on, but she somehow got through all of them! We can't take a ghost to court, and--" Danny closed his eyes and let out a huff. His friends didn't deserve to get yelled at like this. He opened them again, gaze fixed on his hazmat boots, then continued quieter, "And all the credibility my parents had is wiped out. The fact that the portal started will help, but still." He dropped down to the concrete floor of the shed, sitting as he pulled his glove off to scratch at his hair. "I haven't ever been into ghost-hunting, you know that, but my parents really don't deserve this. It's the only way I can help, you know?"

"Is... that why you haven't told them about the ghost girl?" Tucker shuffled to sit by his friend.

Danny nodded, glancing between his friends' wide eyes. "Yeah. I want to take her down myself."

School was surprisingly normal, except for Dash. Dash was acting weird.

With how distracted he had been on Monday, he hadn't noticed that Dash never bothered him, but it became increasingly noticeable over the next couple days. Danny passed by him and Kwan wailing on other kids in the halls, but he wasn't even acknowledged.

"Why is Dash ignoring me?" Danny whispered to his friends at Tucker's locker. "It's driving me crazy! I don't know what this means!"

"I'd take it as a stroke of luck and not question a good thing," Tucker shrugged as he poured notebooks into his backpack.

"But what if he's planning something big? Is there something I don't know about? What's going on?!" Danny cried out, pulling at his hair.

Sam swatted at his hand before he made any more of a scene. "I'm a little suspicious too. Nothing's ever stopped Dash before, though I wish you'd try harder to defend yourself." She glanced over at the bully himself, strolling down the hall towards them. "But I doubt there's enough room for big plans in his tiny brain."

"Hey, Foley!" Dash slammed Tucker's locker closed, leaning on it as he towered over the trio. "I've got a bad English grade to take out on you."

Danny was startled by how he nearly felt... offended. "Am I not good enough to be your personal punching bag anymore?!" he blurted out. Sam facepalmed as he put himself in front of Tucker to confront the blond.

Dash scrunched his nose as he studied Danny, a strange emotion in his eyes. "I made a deal to stop picking on you for a while." The three gaped, frozen. He continued with a smirk, "But it didn't say anything about your loser friends," as he side-stepped to grab Tucker's collar.

"With who? Why?" Danny asked as the shock wore off, but Dash was already dragging Tucker away, to Sam's protests. Why would someone do something like that for him now? Why would Dash go with it?

Oh. Danny swallowed, mixed emotions settling in his chest. Maybe more people knew about the lab accident than he thought. This very well could've been not just an act of kindness, but an act of pity. He didn't like that.

He opened his bedroom door with a sigh, ready to dig out the ghost weapons from under his bed and work on possibly getting them to function. He frowned when there was a box waiting on his desk. "I'd rather not have another surprise today," he groaned as he walked over. His interest was piqued by the note laying on top:

"For your ghost troubles. -V"

He cautiously opened the box, eyes widening at the goodies inside. "Maybe this is a good surprise," he corrected himself with a growing grin as he pulled out ghost-hunting equipment--new, clean, intact equipment, all painted black and icy blue.

"Look out, ghost girl." He playfully pointed one of the guns at the window. "You're gonna be sorry you ever messed with the Fentons."

#Danny Phantom #DP #DP AU #roleswap au #D/V roleswap!AU #Phoenix AU #Discord is wild #Lily? Lily.#Lily? Lily. Fic.#let me know if you want to see this on FFN or A03 #still debating it #it feels kinda weird putting way more emphasis on Val than on Danny #but this is kinda a Val-centric AU soooooo #I think there's gonna be one more part from a third POV #which will probably be longer than this one #originally put up on the Ides of March 2019 #there's no significance about the date #edit: joined AO3 and added links to these fics

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scientifically-strange · 8 years ago

Note

A villain shows the avengers their worst fears and this is how they learn about dan?

Dr. Strange hummed as he led Phantom, Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Wolverine through someplace he liked to call the Dream Realm. One of the Doc’s old villains, Nightmare, had returned, drawing people into endless sleep to feed off of their nightmares so he could grow powerful enough to escape the Dream Realm. Sounded easy, but if they got caught in the Dream Realm there was no going back to the real one, so they had to be extra careful.

They walked along a path full of doors, but they didn’t look like they opened up anywhere. Phantom opened one and he and Spidey peered inside.

It was Cap’s dream. He was in an empty dance hall with a beautiful woman in a red dress, swaying back and forth to the music with no origin.

“We can finally go home, Steve. The war is over,” she said. She sounded absolutely gorgeous. But before they could keep watching, Wolverine came and slammed the door.

“That ain’t your business,” he told them before stalking off towards Dr. Strange. Spider-Man mocked him in a funny voice, and Danny turned into a giggling mess. Neither of them wanted to know what Cap’s biggest fear meant.

Then a blast of black energy came out of nowhere, hitting Spider-Man in the back. He flew forward, landing only a couple of feet behind Iron Man, who whirled around and started blasting Nightmare and...

“Who is that guy?” Wolverine asked, unsheathing his claws.

“Nocturn,” Phantom said, turning paler by the second. But he quickly gained his footing and sent an ice blast at Nocturn’s face. It hit him dead on, but did practically nothing to phase him. He grabbed Phantom by the throat and lifted him up, feeling both Nocturn and Nightmare’s powers pulling at his mind, making him wan to sleep but he couldn’t. If he failed here there was no going back.

Nocturn laughed and threw him to the ground, laughing maniacally alongside Nightmare, who was apparently having a blast. Dr. Strange flew after him, pulling out his magical chains as another being started to beat Phantom up.

He was blue with white hair and his logo, and Phantom suddenly found himself unable to move. They hadn’t been trying to get him to go to sleep, they had been searching for his biggest fear.

His biggest fear was Dan Phantom.

“Who is that guy?” Spidey called, jumping in to help Phantom up.

“Later,” Phantom replied. Dan chuckled darkly and used his powers to swat Spider-Man away. When Phantom made a move to go after him, he as blasted backwards. Phantom tried getting up, but a large boot came down on his chest. Dan leaned in close to Phantom’s ear with a grin, his forked tongue swishing this way and that.

“Miss me?”

Danny squeezed his eyes shut and looked over at the bigger fight. Dr. Strange and Wolverine were tag teaming against Nightmare while Spider-Man and Iron Man took on Nocturn. Missiles that weren’t Stark’s flew in every which way, while several soldiers from the early 1900s, maybe WWI or WWII, fought alongside Nightmare. He looked like he was getting stronger with every passing minute. Danny strained against the being that was holding him down.

He pressed his foot further into Phantom’s chest before grabbing his throat and lifting him up. Phantom’s throat burned from the energy Dan was emitting, making it harder for him to speak. Meaning he probably couldn’t use his ghostly wail.

But he had gotten stronger over the years since they had last seen each other. He had gotten taller and broader, and now he was almost as big as Dan.

Over to his side he heard Spider-man cry, “No!! Aunt May!” And he had o force himself not to look. It was just a mind trick. Nothing more than that.

He wrapped his legs around Dan’s arm and twisted, bringing him down to the ground. Phantom stood up and quickly took a few steps back. He glanced over at the fight, and it looked like they had things under control. Sort of.

Dan got back on his feet and tackled him into another door.

It was bright and outside inside of the door. They were in a desert-like area. Arizona or Nevada probably. It was completely empty aside from the small man in a lab coat and glasses hiding under a rock. It was Bruce, and behind they rock was Hulk. But weren't they one and the same?

Phantom dodged a hit from Dan and wept his legs out from under him, pulling out an ecto-ray he kept on his belt that Stark had specially made for him, to make his ghost hunting needs a little easier. He hit Dan with the green beam and he went flying, bouncing off of the ground once before rolling to a stop. Bruce nor the Hulk gave them a second glance.

Danny ran and tackled Dan as he got up, sending them back outside onto the pathway with the multi-colored sky. He tried punching Dan in the face, but he caught his fist and flung him towards Nocturn.

Nocturn. That was it. He and Nightmare were the cause of Dan. Dan wasn’t actually there.

“Everyone, back up!” He yelled. Iron Man and Spider-Man listened, half-dragging Wolverine with them. Dr. Strange was standing up again.

Dan charged at him again, and Phantom was ready for him. As his evil future self wrapped his arms around Danny from behind, he gripped his arm and flung him over his shoulder towards the two dream thieves. Then he sucked in a large breath and yelled.

The first time he had used his Ghostly Wail, he almost passed out form the amount of energy it took away from him. But he had been using it more often to get used to it, to build up immunity to the exhaustion. To make them last longer.

Long enough to last almost two whole minutes.

By the time he was done, Nocturn had disappeared, Nightmare was holding onto the edge of the path, not wanting to fall into the endless abyss below, and Dan, who had managed to stay on top using a door. His flaming hair had disappeared, making him look like a bald version of Danny.

Danny walked forward, ignoring the weakened Dan and stepping on Nightmare’s hands, making him scream in pain.

“Don’t mess with our world again,” he threatened. With his hands charged with ectoplasmic energy, Nightmare didn’t need to be told twice. He got his hands out from under Danny’s boot and fell into the endless multi-colored sky.

“That was awesome,” Spidey breathed.

“Who was that, kid?” Wolverine asked. Danny didn’t want to answer, but a part of him always knew they would have found out about Dan sooner or later. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t put off the story for another couple of hours. He sighed.

“I’ll tell you, but after we get everybody woken up. Okay?” He had never been more thankful that they agreed.

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thetygre · 8 years ago

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Dark Souls Lore Ramblings #4

@invokingbees said:

I like reading your ramblings, this stuff is always fun. I had always been under the impression Humanity/Dark were the same thing, physical objects, that Dark is diffused Humanity or something, I don’t know. I’d like to see you tackle Souls themselves, soul magic and how the hell people use it as a currency, what souls even ARE (some kind of energy source?), how we absorb them, that stuff.

Oh man, funny little coincidence here, that is the exact place that I was about to go. My research into the Dark got me thinking about how Humanity and Souls work.

Souls, the Humanity Score, and States of Being

Let’s start with the basics, looking at states of being and the components of that existence piece by piece.

This is your basic human being. I don’t know how all this shit works for Lords, Giants, Witches, and whatever else is out there, but I’m running on the assumption that it’s pretty similar given that they all share a root species. Anyway, your standard human is composed of three different components; the Soul, Humanity, and the Body. When a person has all three of those components and they are properly aligned, they are basically normal people. Even Undead are indistinguishable from humans when they have all their shit together.

When a human loses their Humanity but still retains their body and soul, they become a Hollow. Not a lot to explain here; basically a zombie. Mindless corpse animated by Soul. Hard to tell whether they feel an innate hunger for Humanity or if they’re just acting mindlessly. Not everyone who dies turns into a Hollow, of course; only those with the Undead Curse. That’s why the whole world isn’t being overrun by every Tom, Dick, and Larry who kicked the bucket.

Presumably, they work like the Boletarians in Demon’s Souls. (And let’s get this out of the way now; a lot of this involves the words ‘like/because Demon’s Souls’.) I.E. ‘Weaker’ human beings or those who have been Hollows longer are more feral, while younger Hollows and individuals with more Humanity and Souls in life retain some brain function, at least for a while, and can remember how to use weapons and tools. This hints at a possible link between Souls and cognition which, again, like Demon’s Souls. Heck, some Hollows outright keep their personalities; just look at the two Undead Merchants in the Undead Burg.

Conversely, Humanity and Soul without a body results in wraithes, like the ones in the Abyss and maybe even Red Phantoms. Technically, these creatures have a physical presence, but only in the sense that Souls and Humanity are physical objects. Essentially, they are incorporeal with the bare minimum of existence, relating to their Humanity ‘body’ and Souls. I don’t want to say ‘ectoplasm’, but the word definitely comes to mind.

Finally, a body without Souls is a corpse. Just... a fucking corpse. Can’t make it any clearer than that. Dead. Deceased. Demised. A stiff. Bereft of life. Rest in piece. Etc etera et al. Sometimes, you find a corpse with Humanity still on it (in it?); Hell, Patches makes a business out of scavenging Humanity out of bodies. Again, not everyone who dies, or even everyone with strong Humanity, becomes a Hollow; just those with the Undead Curse. The more interesting (and way more common) scenario is when you find a body with its Soul still on it. Given the nature of Souls, they’re supposed to disappear on death, absorbed by whoever killed the person in question. Maybe absorbing Souls is something unique to Undead? They absorb Humanity, so it wouldn’t be entirely without precedent.

Even though I harped on it a bunch in my last lore ramblings, let’s talk about Humanity just a little bit more. Humanity are little pieces of the Dark Soul, which itself is just a chunk of Dark (or not; depends on which Primordial Serpent you’re talking to). For all we know, Dark is just the overall spread of Humanity across the human species, or maybe it is some primordial force from before time and the First Flame. Probably both, because that would be slightly more inconvenient to me trying to make sense of everything.

Anyway, getting back on topic; every human being has some Humanity. Forget the allegorical version of that sentence, we’re talking about the hard item here. In the Souls community, there’s this thing called ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ Humanity; ‘soft’ Humanity is the Humanity in your inventory, carried around in the same place as your mountain of titanite chunks and Souls. ‘Hard’ Humanity is the Humanity your character has active on them, Hollow or Human. In order to be a Human, you have to spend at least one hard Humanity at a bonfire.

Lore-wise, this translates to everybody having some base, starter-point of Humanity that makes them a conscious human being. Usually, this base Humanity dissipates with the body’s transition between animate and inanimate states (aka dying). Everything after that base is surplus. The best way to see this is to become a Darkwraith and drain friendly NPCs of their extra Humanity. Each NPC has a different amounts; some just have the base-line amount of Humanity necessary to be a Human and can’t lose it without being killed.

It’s actually kind of cool to compare and contrast different NPCs and the amount of Humanity they have. You can come up with all sorts of different backstories and inferences about the amounts they have. For instance, Siegmeyer has four Humanity, but his daughter, Sieglinde, has ten. Rhea also has a large amount, a total of twelve Humanity! I like to think that this implies that everybody actually reaches a surplus of Humanity when they mature, but then it gets gradually whittled down over the course of life and/or the Undead Curse. Both Rhea and Sieglinde only recently started adventuring, for example. Meanwhile, Darkwraiths like Lautrec and Mildred have Humanity to spare, while Kirk has given all of his hunted Humanity to the Pale Lady. Oscar naturally has no Humanity left, non-humans like Ciaran and Quelanna give nothing, and it goes on and on.

Now this mass of Humanity is generally experienced as a singular presence. In other words, every person with more than one Humanity doesn’t feel like they have five or six people inside them. There are two notable exceptions. First and foremost are Twin Humanities; this is a pair of Humanities linked together by some kind of bond. Mother and child, twin siblings, woman and giant spider, etc. Really interesting because it does seem to confirm that, like the wraithes in Oolacile, Humanity is reproduced by fission. Second is the experience Fire Keepers have with Humanity; they are acutely aware of each separate piece of Humanity contributed to them. They actually do experience their surplus Humanity as a swarm of independent cells inside them. I bring the experience of Humanity up because it’s necessary to understanding our next subject...

Souls. Good old, dependable Souls. Series title. We don’t call it ‘Humanityborne’ or the ‘Ephemeral Eye Series’. Frankly though, we should; Souls are almost completely unaddressed as a subject in Dark Souls, and there’s really no explanation for them. The very first line in Demon’s Souls, literally the first thing you see, explains that Souls are equivalent to cognition and the mind. But that role is taken by Humanity in Dark Souls, so that just really leaves Souls as an anomaly. In the end, Souls in Dark Souls appear to be nothing but a leftover from Demon’s Souls. But half the fun in lore is putting together the pieces left by mechanics and game design decisions. So what are Souls?

The better question might be ‘What is Soul?’. Put simply, Soul is the animating force of the universe. It is present in all animate things; living, dead, Undead, constructed, spiritual. All of it. It is a type of energy that gives life, and binds life together. Kind of like that other, mystical force thingy. Magic powers included. Gonna’ be honest, I was kind of going to give magic it’s own thing later. Suffice it to say that Soul is the medium by which an individual makes magic manifest. Or something like that.

Soul is experienced as Souls. Again, like Humanity, an individual has a singular Soul. It’s just measured in a concise, plural metric. Even Hollows and vermin have a couple of hundred Souls. That doesn’t mean they literally have five hundred individual Souls in them, it’s just how it’s measured. Also like Humanity, it can be assumed that a character has an inherent amount of Souls that are consumed in the transition between animate and inanimate; everything beyond that is extra.

Another big question is how exactly Souls are used, both as a currency and as a means of self-enhancement. The short answer is (say it with me now) because that’s how it was in Demon’s Souls. For the moment, let’s just assume that Souls really are representative of experience along with being an energy source and by trading it into the Bonfire, your character is ‘reflecting’ and growing in certain talents. After all, what does your character do at the Bonfire but stare pensively into the flame, contemplating their journey? Whether or not Souls as an energy source actually alter the Undead’s body isn’t really clear; it’s not a theme like it was in Demon’s Souls (that’s it; it’s a drinking game now).

As for why Souls are currency... that one really is just an inexplicable artifact. In Demon’s Souls (SHOT), Souls were used as currency because the world was in such terrible state that money no longer had any value. In Dark Souls, it’s explained that the situation is pretty much the same but localized in Lordran. I’m going to allow this since there’s nothing that necessarily states that people have a particularly easy time traveling out of Lordran, and Lordran itself is basically in the same apocalyptic state as the Demon’s Souls (SHOT) world. But I have to think that if people could actually travel back to their homelands, real life currency like the coins you find would still have some pull. Honestly, Salt and Sanctuary handles this better, but I’ll shut up about it now.

How does your character access these Souls for currency and self enhancement? Same way they access Humanity. Which is code for I really, really don’t know or could find anything addressing it even in Demon’s Souls. I always imagined that it was a kind of pseudo-magic that all Undead inherently known on their transformation, or maybe their entrance to Lordran. I have to wonder what kind of effects a Souls and Humanity trade would have on the world outside Lordran, but let’s keep pressing forward.

Unique entities occasionally have unique Souls in addition to the Souls they give on death. This can be assumed to be one of two things from where I’m standing; either it’s the base Soul that is usually consumed on death but survives for these unique exampleon, or it’s something different from the Soul altogether, like a chunk of Humanity or Divinity or whatever the case may be. I think it’s more likely that it’s the first one given that you can get unique souls from all kinds of different entities; Lords, demons, Fire Keepers, a particularly large insect, etc.

The most obvious examples are Fire Keeper Souls, which are interesting because they represent some kind of dichotomy between the Soul, Humanity, and the First Flame. Also, can we just talk about how weird they look? Like, even for unique Souls, Fire Keeper Souls are freaky looking. I mean really look at it. What does it remind you of? I don’t want to sound weird but, well, it reminds me of a zygote. I’m dead serious here; it’s probably meant to look like smoke because Fire Maiden/fire, but I honestly think it looks like an ovum and sperm. Even the description is weirdly biological; a Fire Maiden’s Soul is a draw for countless wriggling, living Humanity. It’s weird right? Right? I don’t know what point it could be working toward, but it’s not like it’s the only reproductive imagery in the game. We all know the Bed of Chaos and Giygas have some shit in common, that’s all I’m saying. Anyway, just something I wanted to talk about in case I don’t do a separate thing for Fire Maidens.

I stated earlier that Souls are the animating energy of the universe, but I think it goes beyond even that. I think that Souls are literally in all things, both animate and inanimate. Soul is as present in rocks and metal and even piles of poop as it is in living things. That’s where the Serpents come in; they can use their big old chompers to filter out the material (Dark?) existence (re: eat it) and leave the pure energy, the Souls, behind for you to collect. We’ll get to the Serpents on their own terms, but it’s the implications about Soul that interest me.

Literally everything has a Soul. And if you know anything about Japanese culture, then you know about the belief system of Shinto. Shinto evolved from an essentially animistic series of native Japanese religions and shamanistic traditions, and even though it’s changed and declined in Japan, it is still a part of Japanese culture. But anyway, Shinto’s animism is founded on the notion that all things have kami, a spirit. Here in the West, we’re more familiar with the direct characters and creatures that kami manifest as; gods like Amaterasu and Susanoo, animal spirits like nine-tailed foxes and tanuki, or even object yokai like the tsukumogami. But that divine, spiritual energy is still present in all things. In other words, I think that Souls, in Dark Souls at least, draw from the Japanese notion of kami to some degree.

But that’s not the only Oriental philosophy present in Dark Souls, and certainly not the only pertaining to the nature of the human spirit. (Shocking, right?) This might be a stretch, so I’m probably reading too much into it, but in Chinese Taoism, the soul is split in to at least two parts (sometimes it’s three, sometimes it’s ten; still figuring it out). This in itself isn’t unusual; if I remember my Egyptian mythology correctly, then the soul was split into anywhere between five and thirteen different aspects. Anyway, in Taoism, the soul is naturally drawn between yin and yang, being divided into hun and po. Hun is the spiritual, ethereal yang soul that leaves the body after death. Po is the corporeal yin soul that stays with the body. Hun is intelligent, but po is base and crude. After hun leaves the body, the po might control the body and become an undead creature; a jiangshi, the famous Chinese hopping vampire. While a longer stretch then the Japanese kami, there are some parallels between hun and po and Souls and Humanity.

God, I sound like fucking Game Theorists right now. He who fights lore and all that crap. Anyway, I guess there is no ultimate lesson here beyond the reminder that for all it’s Western trappings, Dark Souls is still very much a Japanese game with Eastern mythology, religion, spirituality, and philosophy at its heart. That’s before I get into Buddhism, existentialism, the cyclical nature of reality, the pursuit of power, and all that deeper stuff. I’m was just trying to talk about in-game currency and wound up talking about Chinese vampires. So... not bad. Anything that takes me from video games to jiangshi is not bad at all.

#Dark Souls #Dark Souls Lore #Soulsborne #Souls Series #Demon's Souls #dark souls lore ramblings

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goliath-de-senfina-sango · 6 years ago

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Existential Interlude

Danny’s hyperfocusing has a fizzling out, as hyperfocusing does, and he finds himself going through a minor spiral questioning everything that he is.

Dragons are OP and Danny got in a lucky shot.

Danny flew through the skies, soaring high above Amity Park. The wind stroked playful fingers through his hair and Danny laughed as he dove up into a cloud, dropping out of it a moment later. "Wet and cold, just like I knew it would be.“ Concentrating, Danny slipped into that space between the real and unreal. The world became even more vibrant and detailed than it was before, every color saturated with something more than it was. There were colors and sounds that Danny couldn’t even put a name to, but he knew they were beautiful and that he needed to find a way to put those onto paper.

The water droplets fell through his body, a weird feeling of being rinsed on the inside, and Danny shook his head, returning to the real world. "Does this count as real though? What’s the difference between real and unreal? If I can walk through walls, disappear and fly then what if like, cryptids and stuff are real?” Danny snorted. “I need to bet with Tucker on who’ll spot Mothman first. I can see everywhere at once though so probably me.”

A few more minutes of flying, gliding on thermals that he should be too heavy to ride, and staring at birds, Danny flew back to his house. Turning invisible, Danny watched the world grow darker, that infinite void beyond the illusionary constructs of buildings that held true reality and something so much more. If only he could reach it.

Passing through the walls of his home, the shadows silvery and filled with ribbons of light that stretched in ways shapes couldn’t bend filling his sight, Danny grabbed a few clothes from his closet and phased into his bathroom. Setting his clothes down, Danny focused in on the mirror, and gravity took hold again, dragging him back into the world of light and flesh and stone. He leaned forward, staring at his reflection. “Is that really me?”

His white-gloved hand came up to touch his sky blue skin. A green flush from the rush of flying faded away from his cheeks, while he pulled his glove off to touch his hair. It didn’t feel right, too soft and flowy like he was underwater - and he could feel his hand as though his hair were just more skin. Now that he thought about it, Danny could see from his hairs too, the details on his palm blurred by proximity but the scar from the accident still crystal clear no matter how he was looking at it.

Click. The most damning sound he’d ever heard in his short life. A button, inside the machine. The whine of electricity he could always hear in the background crescendoed, the buzzing raising his hair. Green light flooded the tunnel and Danny ran, ran to the edge where he’d be safe. But he was too late.

A flash of light and the world righted itself around him, gravity anchoring Danny firmly to the ground and his scars faint and hard to notice instead of glowing bright electric green. Everything was right except him, his eyes that glowed with that inhuman light in the dark. Reaching up Danny turned on the light. He held onto the counter for dear life, whatever bits and pieces he had left of it, and glared at his reflection. Skin tanned from time in the sun with Sam on her nature walks, that scar on his cheek from when Tucker dared him to climb the backyard tree high as he could when he was 8. Blue eyes, black hair, the nasa jacket that Jazz got him for his birthday- it all looked right. But it still wasn’t, was it?

Getting undressed and getting in the shower, Danny willed the hot water to wash away his problem too. And for the hundredth time, it didn’t listen.

“Ghosts aren’t monsters, and I’m not a ghost. Ghosts aren’t monsters and I’m not a ghost.” Watching the water run over him and even some dripping right through him, Danny hugged himself and let his tears get lost in the spray. “Ghosts aren’t monsters, I’m not a ghost. Does that make me a monster? Am I a ghost? Didn’t I die?”

Danny scrubbed until his skin felt raw, pausing when he reached for his towel. For a moment, his arm was translucent, water falling through him like he wasn’t there. When it turned solid, the arm was dry as a desert. The light flickered, and Danny toweled off furiously.

Danny redressed and bolted for his room, grabbing up his notebook and flipping through the pages. He needed something to focus on, he was riding high on that hyperfocusing for days before reality crashed in on him. “Ectoplasm is an energy thief, cold as the abyss or hot as the sun depending on energy levels. Can see in the dark for 60 feet, can see infrared light if pressed, also absorbent thereof.” Science, facts, things he knew about his condition thanks to experiments with Sam and Tuck. These were important things, they were his real now.

“Ultraviolet light appears as a weird color that’s got no name in human language and naming it is meaningless due to the lack of relative meaning. Therefore I have named the color blurple, though if I concentrate harder and let myself drift further into it, I can see more colors that fit in the blurple range, such as Blae, Torqua, and Grack.” Sam thought those were the dumbest names he could think of, so Danny needed dumber ones.

“Upon drifting off and transforming into my ghost form, I can see creatures and entities that skitter around, moving around everyone and thing that isn’t ectoshielded in the house. Sam has spiders made of flowers following her all the time, and Tucker has a wolf constructed from floppy disks and electron cannons and other old computer parts always wandering near him. I can hear and even sorta feel an odd sort of radiance surrounding people and plants and even inanimate objects that paints them in green shades when in ghost mode.”

Snapping the notebook shut and tossing it to the side, Danny pulled on his hair. This wasn’t working. “I need normal. I need something totally average and human to do.”

Scrambling to his desk, Danny pulled out his sketchbook, grabbed his pencils, and remembered that beautiful panoramic scene of the sky above Amity. The scratch of his pencil against the paper filled the silence and Danny let himself get lost in the sky he was putting to paper. Art was good. Art was safe. “I should make a new compound so I can draw in Blurple.” Art gave him ideas. This was ok.

Tuesday afternoon Danny jogged down the stairs to the main lab two steps at a time, inspiration ringing in his skull as a design vibed in the back of his head. There was so much potential to be had, so-called laws of physics to bend toward their breaking points and pigments to force into showing him the colors human eyes weren’t equipped for and he had work to do. Coming to a stop, Danny cursed his ADHD for distracting him, as he saw the eerie Veridian light of the Event Horizon to the Ghost Zone and turned to look at it. The portal spun lazily on, the spiraling vortex of a green galaxy from a supercluster sized birds’ eye view. In front of that was his father, Wearing his hazmat suit and a soda hat.

All Danny had to do was walk away from this and not question what his dad was doing, and he could’ve just gone back to his work. But no he had to be dumb things like curious and loud-mouthed. “Uh, Dad whatcha doin?”

His dad stopped drinking from his soda hat and his eyes flitted over to Danny at his side. “Shhh, Danny you’ll spook the ghosts.” Spinning the reel of a fishing pole, Dad held up the line, which gave off a vibrant glow to human eyes. Danny could see it, damningly real and in all three dimensions that his own clay form was meant to be in. It wasn’t like this human shell though, it was real . “The Fenton Fisher is coated in an anti-phasing resin your mother and I made! Ghosts can’t break it or phase through it!” Real and dangerous, if put in the hands of a competent hunter with the sense to coat a net instead of a fishing line.

“Coated, but what’s the line actually made of? Did you and Mom come up with another new alloy or did you guys go into the beige portal and find the ore and then synthesize a new alloy?” Danny couldn’t think of anything they had on hand as flexible as the metal between his fingers, other than actual thread. “Also why a fishing line?”

“Discovered it in that underground place and synthesized it Danno! It’s stronger than tungsten and flexible as spider silk.” Dad paused and thought for a moment. “Well it wasa spider made out of rocks that we killed to get the original samples…”

“There’s life beyond that portal?” Danny dropped the line, staring with his mouth hanging open at his father. “You mean the rocks are animate, possibly sentient creatures? What if there’s sapient life there?”

Dad laughed, booming with shared excitement but Danny could hear at the edges of his voice where humans couldn’t hear. He wasn’t excited for the same reasons as Danny. “Maybe! Good thing that portal doesn’t start up unless plugged in. I tried pulling the plug on this one and it just stays open.” Dad ruffled Danny’s hair. “But if ghosts have taught me and the family anything it’s to not trust anything that comes through a portal.” Dad chuckled and tossed the line into the portal, and Danny frowned. "I’m fishing for ghosts, Danno! Since they can’t escape the line, I’ll be able to get them on a dissection table!“

The lights flickered and buzzed louder than before as Danny’s rubbed his arms, nose wrinkled. His father really thought he’d catch anything with nothing more than a dangling hook? Did he truly think ghosts to be so, so stupid? So ignorant? How could he be so arrogant when he could barely hear the humming of sparks running through their machines, let alone the rivers of light and fire dancing and crackling and snapping their song as they pulled the world along? There was so much more a ghost could see that humans simply weren’t equipped for, so much to hear and taste and feel. When he was a ghost Danny was a cloud of stardust and volcanic ash and comet ice, floating around in the silvery void of the night as the stars sung their lullaby to him- to everything. Danny was still himself in either form, he knew he was, but how to get his father to see that when he couldn’t see?

"This soda runs right through ya!” Dad said, pulling Danny from his irate musings, and handed Danny the fishing pole. "Be right back!“ Wait, what? Before Danny could voice that thought, his dad was gone.

So, of course, that was when Danny was dragged toward the portal by the line going taught, and he dug his heels in to try and stand his ground. For a millisecond the line went loose before Danny was yanked a foot forward onto his face. Looking up he saw a blue scaly paw the size of his body exit the portal, talons the size of Danny’s arm each. It pulled the serpentine head of what Danny could only call a blue-scaled dragon out of the portal, the end of the Fenton Fisher in it’s maw. Said hooked end proved truly tougher than Danny when it was chewed on then spat onto the ground, still shaped like a hook. Danny scrambled to his feet and the dragon snorted at him, other paw coming out and grabbing him faster than anything that size should move. "I want to go!” It said the force of its breath blowing his hair back. Danny reached frantically for the void and it filled him, transforming him into his ghost form. "I have to go!“ There was heat in the air now and Danny hated the idea of what came next.

His body became a cloud of green mist and escaped the iron grip, reforming next to it. "Sorry, my dad’s in the bathroom but you can go right after.” Danny recognized he was outgunned and lunged for the nearest bazooka. The dragon took a breath and Danny phased. Everything was engulfed in fire, green flames that burnt and detonated all the chemical vials left out for storage. Everything burned, even Danny’s intangible form burned and when it ended he held the bazooka in two shaking human hands. Taking aim, he pulled the trigger, funneling all his remaining strength into the bazooka.

The dragon was flung back by the force of the blast and into the portal, and Danny slumped against a wall. He heard footsteps charging downstairs and his father calling his name, but Danny was out cold soon enough.

Green on all sides, the whispers and screams and songs of sorrow and rage and joy across an entire plane of existence not his own that echoed in his skull in his blood and flesh and bones. He tried to run, but it was too late, and light, the explosion that brought all things to form and unform, and pain. White hot pain like a hundred thousand lashes of a barb covered whip against every inch of his body. Fire consumed him, icy darkness swallowing him whole as lightning raced and arced through every nano meter of his being. Pain fit itself between every muscle, every bone, every cell of his body and no matter how much he screamed it wouldn’t stop.

Waking up after being burned by a dragon, inside and out, is simultaneously what one does and does not want. On one hand, it meant Danny was alive! He could feel things in that way his warm flesh body could feel. On the other, most of that input was pain, pain and more pain. Danny groaned and opened his eyes slowly, groaning louder at the sight of the small medical bay in one of the lower labs. His body had burns on it, felt like, far worse than the iron hitting his arm when he was 7.

“My back is burnt to shit, and these bandages feel itchy ,” Danny mumbled, turning his head to see if there was anything new in the medbay. He saw his mother jogging over to his side, a glass of water in her hands. “Hi, Mom.”

“Hey baby,” she said softly. When Danny pushed himself up she stopped him and he groaned. “Careful Danny, you got some nasty burns. It’ll be a bit before you can just walk around again.”

“Actually, Mom, I think that accident with the portal did more than scar me.” And boy did it. Looking at his hand, Danny saw the arcs of lightning tracing his veins like blooming flowers. “I uh. When I scrape my knee or accidentally cut myself in the kitchen or something it heals up in like, an hour.” There was caution and curiosity in his mother’s gaze - in the faint whispers, he could hear of her aura. Danny didn’t often mention the accident, and his parents were horrified at the news, so the lasting effects were probably a worry to them. Danny sat up slowly regardless and groaned as he sat with his arms in his lap. Straightening up drew a hiss from his lips but he felt fine enough to sit up like this. “Can I get that water please?”

“Here.” Mom handed it over, lingering to make sure he could grasp it. Danny had never been so grateful that his ghost was on recharge, hand staying perfectly solid while he took long sips to clear up the dryness of his throat. "Sweetie, we found you in the middle of the flaming lab holding a bazooka.“ Said like that it sounded as if he’d fired at the wrong target. Though Mom was clearly just concerned. "What happened?”

“Dad was fishing for ghosts, handed me the Fenton Fisher while he went to the bathroom. A minute later I made a fascinating discovery.” Danny took another sip of water. “Dragons apparently existed.” He’d never seen his mother’s eyes grow so wide so fast, and the shrill tones of fear echoed in the room. “I managed to shoot it back in the portal and I guess it just flew off to find something better to roast.”

Mom took a few deep breaths, each exhale dulling the fear ringing in Danny’s head. "I’m going to have a talk with your father about being careful with the portal,“ she said. "You rest up, ok?”

“Can I have a notebook and pencil? I had an idea for upgrading the Gravity Inverter mark IV, but I stopped to talk with Dad before I could start.“ Dragon fire or no dragon fire, Danny needed to get this idea somewhere before he lost it. “Oh, my binder didn’t get too burnt up did it?”

His mother agreed to the notebook after assuring Danny that the binder was undamaged and brought it to him with his sketching materials. She kissed his head, told him goodnight, and that was the last point at which he noticed any time passing. Danny drew, examined his design, and edited it over and over until he fell asleep.

Wednesday morning Danny was up and feeling restored, the shadows filled with silvery light again and beams of sunlight warming his skin carrying echoes of Starsong. While he got ready for the day, Danny found himself humming those odd tunes he could hear coming from the sun, and noticed that everywhere he hummed it, the lights grew brighter and the room warmed up comfortably.

Grabbing his backpack Danny held up his wrist ray and put an ear in the sunlight. He listened carefully, and once sure he had some small grasp of the sound, sang three notes to the ray in the barest whisper. Without so much as trying to see the vibrancy beyond his human eyes, Danny could see the ectoplasmic battery within light up like a tiny star, and it whined with the sound of a building discharge.

Once sure that it wouldn’t actually fire, Danny let out a breath. "Ok, fascinating note to self: singing the sound of sunlight can charge up…” a look around the room showed all his electronics buzzing and humming louder and brighter than before. "Everything with a battery. Test if it works on dead batteries later.“

Breakfast was a tad more subdued than usual, Jazz shooting him looks every couple seconds when she thought Danny wasn’t looking. Danny flicked a piece of cereal at her to make her stop. Jazz denied him any rides that week. Danny munched extra loud on his bacon.

Sam and Tucker responded to Danny’s revelation about as well as he could expect. "You shot a dragon with a bazooka and lived to tell the tale?” Sam sounded so deadpanned shocked that Danny found it hard to not let her walk into a stop sign. He graciously pulled her out of its path anyway.

“How?” Tucker half shouted. "Dragons are like, near indestructible!“

"Lucky shot I guess?” Danny shrugged. “It burned me so bad I went human again, which was just. The worst experience.” Danny shuddered. “Felt like I was burnt inside.”

Tucker wrapped an arm around Danny’s shoulder and Sam did the same, pulling him into an odd moving group hug. "Dude, don’t worry. We got your back and the dragon is gone.“

"Yeah, I’m sure your Mom had a long talk with your dad about leaving you alone with the open portal.” Sam rolled her eyes. “The most irresponsible thing.”

“No, Sam,” Danny snorted. "The most irresponsible thing he did was pulling the house into an alternate dimension where everything was a frozen wasteland.“

"How are you still half alive?” Tucker snorted as Danny elbowed him. They stopped at a corner and Tucker frowned as Danny shivered. "Aw c'mon!“

The trio disentangled when from the concrete rose a blob of green with huge red eyes and a mouth made of the same ectoplasm as it’s skin - membrane?- body. Eight green tentacles rose up in threat and the friends had their wrist rays trained on it. To everyone’s shock, when each ray struck the ectopus it splattered backward, leaving a stain on the street.

"We should walk around that, ectoplasm is nigh impossible to get out of your shoes and then they animate.” Danny walked calmly around the puddle, making it to the other end of the crosswalk before noticing his friends weren’t there. "Guys?“

"Danny did we just…” Sam stared at the puddle with rising horror and Danny furrowed his brow in confusion. "Did we just kill that ghost?“ Oh. Oh .

Danny shook his head, wondering how he failed to mention that to his friends. "No. Ghosts are 4 dimensional, we just splattered it’s constructed vessel. It’ll make a new body in the Zone.” Danny jerked a thumb in the direction of their school. “We’re gonna be late.”

“… yeah, ok.” Tucker took Sam’s hand and they walked around the puddle and caught up with Danny. After all they couldn’t be late again.

Classes passed, Danny’s meds helped him keep focused, boring teachers had him slipping out of tangibility and visibility. Danny was sure he’d not gotten so much sleep in weeks because this was the most lucid he’d felt since the accident. Mr. Falluca was very happy to see him so attentive again and Ms. Harris told him after class that she was glad he’d started getting better.

Lunch rolled around with Danny digging through the food Agatha had given him on the way. Apparently she stood by her accusation of him being skin and bones. “Oh yeah,” he said, swallowing the last of the meatloaf she’d special made him. “I made an odd discovery this morning. I’ve been thinkin on it and I guess it involves enhanced sensory reception and processing? Like my ghost finally reached my ADHD and now that’s involved in it fully.”

Sam nodded along, finishing up the last of her salad. “You didn’t look like you were overloaded this morning so I’m hoping that this was a pleasant bout of stimulation.”

“Yeah, I can hear sunlight.” Danny took a bite of his sandwich. “Like, light is a wave particle, so it’s material so i guess it almost makes sense to be able to hear it? I could always hear electrical currents.”

Sam took a long sip of her shake, staring at him with warring concern and curiosity in her whispers. “What’s it sound like?” Stars, she had to ask him that . How could he put it into words that humans could fully understand? It was a song he could feel echoing in his bones if he listened long enough, he could hear it, feel it now.

“I’ll uh sing it. But later, when there’s not a bunch of people around.” Judging the look on Sam’s face he added, “The Wrist Ray got so charged it nearly went off when I sang it earlier Sam.”

“Fair enough,” Sam conceded. At the same time, Tucker slid onto the bench next to Danny, draping himself over the teen. Danny gave Tucker a pat on the head.

“Strike three Tuck?”

“Try strike three thousand.”

“I don’t know what the big deal is about going to some stupid dance,” Sam said to the eye rolling of the boys. “I don’t need someone to ask me to go just to feel special.”

“Sam you literally strong armed our middle school into doing a Sadie Hawkins dance within your second year of being there.” Tuck scanned the crowds of students, looking for a girl he hadn’t asked out yet. “And dragged me n Danny into it.”

“Yeah, it’s equally unequal to say that only the girls are supposed to be asking the guys out,” Danny pointed out, half paying attention to the conversation. The other half was split between the filling feeling of absorbing his wrist ray charge while eating, improving upon his parents’ laser rifle designs so that it was made strictly from recyclables and solar powered, and staring into the sea of teenagers. "Why not just anyone ask anyone out?“

"Yeah, like Paulina.” Tucker nudged Danny’s head in the direction of one of the most beautiful girls he’d ever seen. Tan skin and dark curly hair, strutting in whatever the latest fashionable outfit is - some pink top and jeans - and looking every bit a model as anyone might assume she could be.

“Yeah,” Danny said, forgetting his sandwich entirely. "Paulina.“

"Please,” Sam scoffed. "Girls like her are a dime a dozen.“

Danny pulled some change from his wallet. "I got fifty cents in change, what’s that get me?” Sam rolled her eyes, punching his shoulder.

“Can’t judge a book by it’s cover Danny.”

“Only way to find out of if the content is as good as the cover is to go and check out that book!” Tucker gave Danny a nudge, lifting him to his feet like some madman.

“Are you crazy, Tuck? I can’t ask Paulina, I get butterflies in my stomach around cute girls.”

Sam tilted her head at him and deadpanned, “Am I a joke to you?”

“You are 89% likely an eldritch abomination fitting itself in a human meat puppet so as to observe us in disguise until we stop amusing you,” Danny pointed out. "Between that and your steel soled combat boots, only a fool wouldn’t be nervous near you Sam.“

"Damn,” Tucker laughed, “that was a better recovery than I’d’ve used.”

“Kudos to you Danny. Now go, and try to keep the butterflies in your stomach, not your mouth.” Sam was shoving him like the cruel sadist she was toward the tree Paulina was eating an apple under. That was fine, movies were unrealistic and everyone who eats apples isn’t an asshole.

“Uh, hi,” Danny said, leaning an arm on the tree. "I’m-“ think of something funny, think of something suave, Fuck I’m falling.

"Please don’t say you’ve fallen for me,” Paulina sighed. "That’s so last year.“

"No, actually, I was too busy admiring your hair to notice that root I tripped on.” Danny pulled himself back up to his feet and held out a hand. “I’m Danny. I…” that numbness was isolated intangibility. His pants fell. Shit. Everyone who was watching like a flock of vultures started laughing.

Paulina was laughing as well, her aura flaring up a bright shade of pink and smelling like junipers. "A gentleman typically tips his hat, but I’ll give you points for originality.“ Good, he had a chance still. Danny picked up his pants and oh stars above No, Sam please.

"Kudos, Danny. You set the record for how fast someone can drown in the shallow end of the gene pool.” What god had he pissed off? Was it death? Paulina’s aura darkened, soured, and Danny bit back a groan.

“You did not just call me shallow, did you?” It had to be Death, he hardly defied any other deity.

“I do believe I could stand in a puddle of you and not get my ankles wet.” Danny would’ve called that a great burn were he not being murdered, a second time, by the same person.

“Shallow? I am not shallow!” Paulina looked pissed, in every way that Danny could pick out.

Sam dragged him away, saying something about his song, and Danny was too busy trying to keep up his pants to fight her on it. As soon as they stopped, however, Danny fixed himself up and glared daggers at her. “What the hell Sam? I got her to laugh, she was genuinely amused not mocking me!”

Sam crossed her arms, sighing in something that sounded frustratingly like pity. "Danny, girls like Paulina aren’t worth the embarrassment of putting up with her snippy, shallow insults. She’ll dump you immediately upon feeling you don’t boost her popularity or something.“

"You don’t even know that, and I don’t care, Sam.” Danny pulled at his bangs and scowled at Sam. “Hell, what happened to ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ miss 'girls like her’?”

The bell rang and Danny groaned. Sam was glaring at him, turning toward the school. “Trust me Danny, she’s just a shallow little rich bitch and she doesn’t care about anything but the latest fashion. I’ve met plenty of her type already.” Danny rolled his eyes, finished fixing up his pants, and grabbed his stuff for class.

After the last three classes of the day, Danny pulled out his phone and started typing on his way to the bathroom.

[To: TuckWiz, Gothica]: going for a fly, the ectopi only take a shot to stop, and apparently 3 to blow up.

Checking to make sure no one was in the bathroom, Danny closed his eyes and reached inward. His body cooled down, the sounds of the everyday world faded away until the loudest he could hear from it was the buzzing whine of electricity in the walls. He could see everything all around him at once, all the colors vibrant and full of so much more life than he could see when he was flesh and blood. Unfortunately, he could smell everything even better too. “Stars, this place stinks.” Untethered from gravity, Danny slipped into that space just on the edge between reality and not, rising through the ceiling to the skies above.

Keeping himself invisible, Danny did a few loops in the air, soaring higher and higher away from the eyes of everyone on the ground. Everything was so much more peaceful up in the sky. “Stars this is so cool. The panoramic view used to make me wanna puke, but now it’s just beautiful. I can’t imagine being able to see like this all the time though.” Danny turned into a spin, heading for a cloud. “There’s a lot I don’t need to see in school.” The cloud was cold and wet and dark inside, whispers of laughter and echoing wishes overlapping each other flowing through the puff of grey. Stopping in the middle of it, Danny hummed a few notes of that song from before, laughing when the whole cloud flared up with sunlight. “Holy aurora that was beautiful!”

Flying out of the cloud, Danny let the water fall through him and dove for the ground. He let gravity take hold, watched the world rush by faster and faster. With how high he’d been, Danny was sure he was already at terminal velocity. So, he removed air resistance from the equation, falling faster as the air passed through him. And with his phasing through even the air, Danny watched as light passed through him as well, the world changing from it’s typical rainbow of variety to a wash of green, purple and silver. And then Danny was below the earth itself, falling further and further into the crust.

He could just keep going. Keep falling toward the core of the world, see if it could warm him while he was between it and a whole other reality entirely. Listen as the molten starmetal sung to him clearer and clearer upon descent. But Danny wasn’t one for going down.

Danny stopped, flipping himself around and looking upward to where his heart, or the ghostly equivalent of it, was telling him the sky rested, waiting forever for all things to come to it. Ascending to street level, Danny spun around and shook himself, taking in the scene. “I think I’m close to where we asked Agatha to help out. Wonder how she’s doing?” Letting the world fade to silvery shadows and clouds of green again, Danny looked all around through the walls and around humans. Spotting the light of another spirit, he pushed off in her direction, grinning.

Returning to reality, Danny found a quiet place in the alleyway of the building and transformed. Shaking off the weirdness that was entering his ghostly state, Danny headed to the entrance. It was a delight to find that Agatha was helping out almost more than Danny had been expecting. People around the kitchen looked healthy, and Agatha shoved more food on Danny - which no teenager could possibly deny. Danny waved goodbye, unwrapping and taking a few bites out of his gifted burrito, and even made it all the way home in peace.

Danny almost bumped right into Jazz as she left for whatever she was doing. “Unlicensed psych work again, Jazz?”

“Looking for spots to graffiti, Danny?” Jazz rolled her eyes, heading to her car. “Mom and Dad are on the phone with their main contractors in the government and I needed some air.” Jazz stopped, and that frantic pen scratching noise rang in Danny’s ears like it always did when Jazz worried about him. “Mom says a uh dragon burnt up the lab while you were in it. Explosion?”

“No, actually, a real ass dragon.” Danny lifted up his shirt, grinning at his sister as she stared at the burn scars. “Just barely got outta the way. I shot it back into the Astral Plane like a boss.”

Jazz was on him and inspecting the wound in what felt like milliseconds. She rushed him into the livingroom and Danny sighed while Jazz fretted. “I’m walking around pretty dang fine, Jazz, I’m handling it. Thanks though.”

“Danny, I need you to tell me what really happened down there.” Jazz wasn’t convinced, clearly. Considering Dad and Mom both had seen him and told him they saw his ghost half, he’d expect Jazz to have seen it too.

“This isn’t some breakdown or me rearranging things in my head to deal with the trauma or something Jazz.” Danny stood up and pointed at the door to the main lab. “That portal in that lab is the real deal. Ghosts came out of it. I’ve had to shoot them with my Wrist Ray.”

Jazz stared into Danny’s eyes for a moment, and Danny thought she might actually listen to him for once. Then she sighed, shaking her head and heading to the stairs. “I’m here for you when you wanna talk about it Danny.”

Danny rolled his eyes and ran upstairs himself. “First a shower, then that color compound.”

#Danny Phantom #Danny Fenton #Jack Fenton #Princess Dora #Princess Dorothea #Jazz Fenton #Sam Manson #Tucker Foley #Agatha Reece (Lunch Lady)#The Lunch Lady Ghost #Fanfiction #Phanfiction #Homo Ecto Sapiens

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