#debating whether to try and get something else out for phic phight in two days or just read and chill and work on other stuff...

[v-writes]

April 28 2025

No writing done, Mahjong Monday, but we didn't even play mahjong bc someone ran too late for us to play. Which is all chill we just hung out, still had fun 👍

[a-closet-emo]

Phic Phight 2k20

Team Ghost

Title: Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda

Prompt: what was Valerie doing during ‘Reality Trip’?

Prompt by: @halfaqueen

Word Count: 4866

A/N: @seeminglynoticeable was so nice as to beta this for me! and what do you know, longest fic I’ve written. Enjoy!

----

Valerie picked up her phone and rolled her eyes at the unread messages.

Star: Valllllll

Star: Vaaaallllllllll

Star: why arent u heeerrreeeeee

Star: come onnn ur gonna miss the best parts it’s starting soooooon

Val: i told u, i’ll be there once my shift is over

Star: but Vallll we were supposed to hang and watch the concert why are you still working

We are not going to hang. I’m going to watch the concert from the nosebleeds while she’s in the front boxes with Paulina, occasionally texting me, she thought.

Typing her message, Valerie shook her head. Now was not the time for this.

Val: dude i have like 20 minutes left on my shift chill

Val: and u already know that i have a shift today, i can’t just back out of that

The unspoken (or untyped) ‘I need the money’ hung between them for a few awful seconds while the girl on the other end started typing then stopped. Finally, she sent a message.  

Star: ughhh fine. But you better not get caught up in a ghost fight and miss the concert entirely, i heard the band’s gonna come out of a giant egg on stage

“Excuse me? Lady?”

Valerie glanced up from her screen to see a customer waiting for her in front of the cash register. She sent a quick ‘gtg’ to Star before stuffing her phone in her apron, plastering a grin onto her face, and greeting the woman.

As the lady debated between six kinds of drinks, the phone in her apron pocket started vibrating like crazy. Was that Star? Ugh, she better not be calling Valerie to tell her about the concert, she already knew she was missing out. She pointedly ignored her phone (and the customer still eyeing the menu) as her eyes drifted idly to the Nasty Burger’s TV, which was currently turned onto a local news channel. She narrowed her eyes, putting more focus onto the screen.

Are those two on the stage… Sam and Tucker? She hadn’t decided what to do with this information when Phantom crashed onto the stage, literally, and narrowly missed hitting the teens. Her fists clenched. She was seconds away from vaulting over the counter and running out of the store to transform.

That Phantom... always stirring up trouble and ruining everyone’s day—

Valerie froze. So did everyone else in the restaurant, but that and her phone vibrating even more than earlier felt a million miles away. Her attention was focused solely on the screen on the wall.

The screen that was showing the Dumpty Humpty concert.

And Phantom… and Danny.

Danny, the ghost. Danny, the human. Danny, her ex.

Danny, who was now being chased by the GiW because he was clearly not human. (Like Dani and Vlad some part of her mind whispered)

Danny, her friend.

She backed away from the counter, the sound of her beating heart filling her ears. She backed up into a table, nearly toppling everything on it. It almost didn’t register, nothing was getting through to her.

One thought, however, made her shake herself out of her daze.

Valerie had to get to that concert.

She ran out of the restaurant and into the nearest alley, the suit already half on. She flew toward the school and the concert, at a speed she’d never reached before.

Some corner of her mind asked her what she planned to do when she got there. She shut it up.

——

Despite her state, Valerie had enough sense to fly high enough above the concert grounds that the GiW’s sensors wouldn’t pick up on her suit. She knew it had some sort of an ectosignature, she didn’t need getting kidnapped added onto today. Not that she thought they would keep her, but today had certainly thrown her world into chaos, so she kept an open mind.

She scanned the ground below for the trio (Sam and Tucker were never far; in fact, they were probably helping him right now) and Phantom’s ectosignature, unsure if she wanted to find either. She wasn’t thinking about the implications of Danny being like Vlad and Dani, nor of the implications of Phantom and Fenton being one and the same. And she was most definitely not thinking about the implications of all she had done to him in her revenge-fueled hunts. No, she was not going to think about any of that. She shoved those thoughts away and concluded that Danny and Co. were not on the concert grounds anymore, which were swarming with GiW agents and a few scattered groups of loitering teenagers. Her eye caught some movement a few hundred yards away, however, at the nearby forest.

Flying over to investigate, she retracted her board into the sole of her boots and stood at the edge of the woods. Her eyes caught sight of something shining deep within the trees. Squinting, she realized it was the glint of a PDA screen in the darkness.

And there he was.

Granted, he was turned away from her and wearing a football helmet, but her suit gave her the ecto signature she had dismissed so many times before as a glitch in the system.

Her eyes followed the back of his head as far as her sight would allow her. She wanted to call out, wanted him to see her, notice her, fight her but at the same time she wanted to remain hidden. To be acknowledged was to acknowledge everything that’s happening and everything that has happened. So she stood stock-still, watching silently as he and Sam and Tucker ran off into the woods and the night.

A branch snapped and Valerie let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She noticed the A-listers speaking in hushed tones as they made their way out of the forest. Her suit let her listen in to their conversation.

“I can’t get over how Fenturd - ah uh - Fenton has been Phantom all this time! He’s like, a full-blown superhero with the secret identities and shit!”

“He’s the most messed up superhero, though,” Valerie heard Kwan counter. She couldn’t get an angle on his face with the thickness of the trees and the dim lighting, but he sounded quiet, almost thoughtful.“How dark is that? He’s alive and dead? At the same time?”

“I don’t care if he’s dead, alive, or both. I’m still gonna marry him someday.”

“Even now that it turns out he’s nerdy loser Fenton?” Star teased.

“Especially now that he’s nerdy loser Fenton. Because I know for a fact that he has a crush on me.”

Then Star spotted Valerie and came to a halt, eyes widening. The blonde glanced behind her, after where Danny had gone, before turning back to the Huntress, turquoise eyes questioning.

The other A-listers stopped, having noticed Star’s sudden silence, and followed her line of sight back to Valerie.

“Not you,” Paulina spat out. “If you think you can hunt down my ghost boy and hurt him, then you’ve got another thing coming—“

“Would you hurt him now, knowing what you know about him?” Star’s voice rang out clearly. Paulina stopped, not even angry at being interrupted. Dash and Kwan stood still, waiting for an answer, but they tensed, willing to take the ghost hunter on for Danny’s sake.

The huntress swallowed hard and made no response, before taking off, no destination in mind.

——

Valerie huffed, her breath visible in the cold hours of the night, as she paced back and forth on her board. Having shortly gotten over her initial disbelief, she’d flown to Fentonworks not too long after watching Danny run away, hoping to find him home and demand an explanation from him, maybe at gunpoint. Instead, she had almost walked up to a house swarming with GiW agents. Then she had noticed the spidery metallic structure that usually stood atop the building was missing.

So up here, hours later and a good one hundred feet above Fentonworks, she continued to pace, her steps fast and forceful. That goddamned boy was going to hear it from her… as soon as she could find him, at least. She had no clue where he’d gone, and she’d already checked all his usual haunts. 

She pulled up her phone from inside her suit, debating on whether she should even try to contact him. Her lock screen showed her a lot of messages and missed calls from a few people, mostly Star and her dad. She put her phone away, not willing to talk to anyone.

Thoughts swirled around in a hopeless mess of a whirlpool in her head. Questions she didn’t want answered and realizations she didn’t want to face. Memories surfaced of countless fights, endless days of hunting, hours spent in seething rage at the ghost boy.

Hah.

Ghost-boy. The name was more fitting than anyone had thought.

All this time… he was Phantom. He had been the one in Axion Labs that day. He had been the one who ruined her life.

But he was also Danny, the sweet, caring, kind, geeky, normal guy she’d dated once.

Had he been lying to her? Which one was the act? Phantom or Fenton? Did she know him at all? Where would she even begin to… to what? Look for differences, look for similarities? Comparing the two got her nowhere, her mind supplying her with enough for it to make sense (especially with Dani and Vlad in the picture; she may not know how but she knows it’s possible). But her mind also couldn’t reconcile the two boys.

Valerie groaned and sat down, her hands twitching in agitation. She wanted to scream, she wanted to fight, she wanted to do something other than sitting up here and letting her mind run itself in circles, but she found that that was all she could do, given that she was pretty sure the trio wasn’t even in Amity anymore. She was not a fan of this rollercoaster of emotions she’d been experiencing since the reveal. They were all being translated into a shaky rush of angry energy that made her want to throttle the first ghost she saw.

Right on cue, the familiar inner alert of her suit told her there were a couple of them lurking nearby. Her helmet quickly formed over her head. She got up quickly and smirked, flying over to their location.

Finally, something she could do.

Her smirk fell when she spotted one of the spooks, not a block away from Fentonworks. Staring down at all nine feet of the growling ghost mutt that had had a hand (paw?) in turning her life upside down not a year ago, Valerie grit her teeth, charged up her weapons, and took aim.

——

“Get back here you mangy mutt!”

Valerie chased after it through the streets, her enraged state doing her no favors as she continued to completely miss the ghost with her haphazard sprays of ectogunfire. Each time the damn thing managed to slip away only got her more frustrated, screaming insults at the top of her lungs. She was sure she had woken up the entire neighborhood, but she couldn’t find it in her to care. What mattered was catching her prey and making it pay.

Following the spook to an alleyway it had just ducked into, she stepped off her board and marched right around the corner, not bothering with a sneaky approach.

Why couldn’t she just catch the stupid hellhound? She couldn’t believe she’d let this chase go on so long. She couldn’t believe this day she’d been having. She couldn’t believe anything anymore.

There it was, gigantic and foaming at the mouth. She summoned several missile launchers from within her suit, ready to unleash hell. The mutt crouched, and she could see its muscles tensing, ready to pounce. She was going to end this.

“Valerie!”

The Huntress’s head turned at the sound of a familiar voice. She suddenly choked; that couldn’t be Danny…?

In the split second that she spent looking around frantically for the owner of the voice, the ghost dog pounced, and she was forced down onto the pavement. Valerie went breathless as her body came into contact with the hard ground. Despite the pain, her first reaction was still anger, and she retracted her helmet so she could look the dog in the eye, her hair fanning out around her head on the pavement.

“Get off of me, you fucking mutt! Fuck you!” She shouted, beating her fists against the ghost’s chest as it simply stared at her, head cocked to the side like it was actually concerned. Angry tears rolled down her cheeks and onto the pavement.

Agh! Was she so distracted by Danny that she was imagining his voice now?

She continued to hit the dog and it continued to ignore her, though after a while her screams of rage became strangled sobs, and the punches themselves became nothing more than pathetic grabs at the dog’s fur.

This was all so stupid and dumb. How could she have not noticed anything? Was she that blinded by wrath? Was she that willing to ignore Phantom and his insistence of innocence just so she could have someone to blame for a bad situation?

She hated this. She hated this whole fucking day. She hated stupid Phantom. She hated stupid Danny. She hated them for being the same person, which was now making her break down in front of the stupid ghost dog that was definitely his.

She hated what had been happening between her and the ghost boy ever since the day he got her dad fired. She hated everything she’d done to him since then.

She hated herself.

She let her arms fall to the ground, tears falling freely now.

“Valerie,” the same voice as earlier repeated her name, concern overflowing from the single word.

She gasped, straining her neck to find the speaker. Dani stood a few feet away, staring with her eyebrows knit in concern. Then the dog started licking Valerie. And if she had been more open to the idea of it actually caring about her, she would’ve thought it was trying to comfort her. She wondered for a brief moment when it had changed into its smaller form. But before she could protest to the equal amounts of slobber and ectoplasm being slathered onto her face and hair, Dani intervened for her.

“Cujo, no! Stop!”

The dog (it had a name?) obeyed the order, though begrudgingly.

“Good. Now, get off Valerie, please.” After following the command of the halfa and stepping off of Valerie, Dani came over and held out a hand to help her up.

A beat, and she took it. Coming up to stand on shaky legs, a ray of sunlight hit her directly in the eyes. She winced and held a hand in front of her face. When had the sun come up? The first lights of day were pouring through the gaps between buildings, illuminating the sorry little alley they were standing in.

“So, I’m guessing you know.”

Her eyes were puffy and her vision blurry, but there was no mistaking how much the girl standing before Valerie looked like Danny. From the blue eyes and the black hair down to the way she was rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly, waiting for Valerie to respond, the halfa was every bit Danny’s clone as she was Phantom’s. Wonderful. Another glaring clue she had so willingly ignored.

She rubbed tiredly at her eyes, not really trying to deal with the tears or the swelling, before shooting her as much of an annoyed stare as she could muster. She hoped she looked more angry than tired, but she had a feeling that wasn’t what was coming across.

“God, Dani. That was at a fucking Dumpty Humpty concert. With that many teenagers and cameras in one place, I‘d be surprised if the whole country didn’t know.”

She plopped down onto the grimy floor, head in hands.

“You’re here to look for him, aren’t you?”

There was a moment of silence. Clearly the other girl was trying to gauge how much to tell Valerie. Her spirits sank even lower. How many times had Danny or Phantom hesitated like this and she’d just written off as him being spacey and the other plotting something?

“Yeah. Cujo and I’ve been trying to sneak around, trying to catch his scent. But it’s been pretty hard, especially with all the Guys in White.”

Something occurred to Valerie.

“Wait, what if Vlad finds you?”

Dani’s bitter laugh made her look up. The halfa was absentmindedly scratching Cujo’s head, but she was looking away from Valerie, up at the pink sky.

“That old fruitloop? He’s probably trying to find a way to keep his sorry hide out of this, backup plans for backup plans and all. He’s not even going to think about… But he doesn’t matt— that doesn’t matter.”

Dani waved her hand dismissively.

“Look, Cujo and I better get going, we still need to find a way to follow that crazy cousin of mine. It was good to see you again.”

The two ghosts began walking out of the alley, when Valerie came to stand on her feet with a sudden decision.

“Dani, wait. Let me go with you.”

The girl and her dog shared a look. Valerie had a faraway feeling of annoyance at their distrust and doubt, but then she realized they had plenty of reason to. It hadn’t even been an hour since she had tried to destroy one of them. Besides, she was too tired to be angry.

“Please. I-I need to see Danny,” she paused. “I want to help him.” She was glad to find that she meant that. “I know that you don’t trust me, hell, you probably don’t even like me after all I’ve done, but—“

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. Of course I trust you, Val. You’re my friend. It’s just… Are you sure you’re ok? You were sobbing not thirty minutes ago.” Dani cringed. “And, well, you’re covered in ghost dog slobber, among other things.”

Valerie looked down at herself. Her suit was coated in goo and grime. Her hair was everywhere and was drying in clumps of slobber. She didn’t even want to think about her face.

“Cujo and I will keep sniffing around, you go home and shower, and then we’ll meet up—“

The sudden growing noise that erupted from Dani’s stomach had been too loud to ignore. The girl rubbed her neck sheepishly, starting to back away.

“We’ll just get going now—“

Valerie grabbed Dani’s hand and made the preteen face her. The huntress frowned. The other girl was too thin, too pale; she wondered when the last time Dani had gotten a good meal was.

——

Dani had eaten while Valerie had showered and packed a couple of bags for them, and now the older girl was sitting across from her father and bouncing her leg impatiently waiting for the halfa to emerge. She had been looking for some updates via social media on where the trio had gone, but it seemed they hadn’t turned up yet. She’d sent a couple of messages to Star reassuring her she was fine but she’d be out of town. The girl had yet to respond, but it was still early.

She looked at her father. He was an early riser, but it was early enough that he was still in his pajamas, having rushed out of his room when she and Dani had entered the apartment.

“... Dani,” she had introduced her, with the halfa cutting in to add “with an ‘I’”.

She hadn’t offered any explanation, but then again she rarely explained any of her ‘extracurricular activities’ to her father.

She winced inwardly at how tired he looked. She bit her lip guiltily at the thought of all the missed calls and messages she had seen on her phone last night… or earlier this morning.

“Val,” he started, but she cut in.

“I get it, dad,” she said, trying and failing to meet his gaze. “I messed up. I messed up big time, doing all the things I did, lying to you, disobeying you, hurting people. But I’ve gotta make it up somehow. I need to go. I need to find him.”

Her hands were curled into fists under the table as she glared at the wood. He wasn’t going to stop her.

He reached a hand out to her. “Baby, I was going to ask if you were alright.”

She looked up; there was so much concern in his eyes. She opened her mouth to respond, when Dani emerged from her room, freshly showered and wearing some of Valerie’s old clothes.

“So, are we ready to go, Val?” she asked, skipping up to them.

Valerie stood up and blinked hard. She handed Dani a backpack full of supplies and pushed the girl out the door.

“Thanks for having me, Mr. Gray,” the halfa called over her shoulder.

“We’ll talk when you get back.”

She turned and gave him a small, but sincere nod, then walked out the door.

——

They’d given the trio too much of a headstart.

Cujo had been able to pick up his scent not long after they had left her apartment, but by the time they’d gotten to the Cape Canaveral Space Center, Danny and his friends were long gone. Similarly, at Gothapalooza, news of the one halfa and two kids being in Hollywood was spreading like a wildfire.

Sightings of an unfamiliar jet zooming through the air near those locations had them pushing their limits in terms of speed and stamina. After the second sleepless night of flying, she had shaken her head.

Way too much of a headstart.

Knowing how the trio got around so quickly didn’t help in answering other questions. What were they doing? Why did they have to follow such a seemingly random path across the country to do it? From what videos they could find online, whenever Danny was spotted, he had gone after a small, shiny object. A cursed object? A gadget? An ancient artifact? Neither Valerie nor Dani had the answers, despite having conversation after conversation as they followed in the trio’s wake.

She had no idea what to think, but every hour spent chasing them only added to her worries and frustrations. She wanted to help already, she had been ready to help a couple days ago, but they still couldn’t catch up.

Valerie had been watching a no-longer-live-stream of the trio at a convention (that ended as Danny flew through the roof and out of the camera’s sight) as she, Dani, and Cujo arrived in the Place Where Dreams Are Made, according to a few signs she’d seen. They touched down on a rooftop near the convention.

Dani had changed back into her human form so she wouldn’t attract any unwanted attention in case they were spotted, given all the buzz about Phantom. She and Cujo were walking around, trying to find Danny’s scent again.

Another day, another occasion, and maybe she would’ve been enjoying herself, just hanging out with Dani. She still was, but the undercurrent of worry shared by the three of them kept things more professional.

She looked out across Hollywood's rooftops, then to the night sky, the light pollution completely obscuring her view of the stars.

She withdrew her suit and board and kicked the cement of the roof with a frustrated sigh. At this rate, catching up seemed almost impossible.

But they had to. She had to. She had to see Danny. She had to help him with all of this.

She had to say sorry.

Cujo whimpered, bringing her back to the present.

“What is it, Cujo?” Dani asked. Valerie took a step back when she saw what the dog was looking at.

A giant wave of red, unnatural and impossible, was washing over and enveloping all of the city. Any object it passed over (be it building, car, or bush) became a part of some dark carnival.

She took another step back in fear. The red swiftly engulfed their rooftop, turning it into an enormous elevated platform, like the ones circus acrobats would jump from, but this one was covered in dark colors and disturbing designs. No one on the streets seemed to be turning into creepy clowns or crazy circus acts, but that didn’t reassure her in the least. Her heart was beating right out of her chest. What kind of ghost was powerful enough to do all this? There was more to come, she was sure.

Then she caught sight of Dani, who was frozen in place, eyes wide. She stamped down the instinct to cower away from all this.

She grabbed Dani by the arm, and the girl jumped slightly.

“Forget about subtlety. We need to get to Danny now. I’m sure this has to have something to do with him. We’ll split up. I’ll fly around with my ectoscanners and you with Cujo. We’ll give the other a call if we find something.”

Valerie watched as the halfa’s expression shifted from shocked to determined. She shielded her eyes from the bright light that accompanied the halfa’s transformation. Danny’s had looked exactly the same, except in reverse.

She wondered if she would ever get used to it.

Dani called her dog over to her side and they took off, leaving Valerie to thank whoever that the girl was as brave as her ‘cousin’. She summoned her suit and took off in the opposite direction, parallel to the red line, her head whipping around as she used her ectoscanner to find the signature she knew so well.

She flew around and around for a few minutes, swallowing hard at the strange landscape. Giant circus tents and carnival rides stood in the place of the city’s high rises and other structures. People ran out onto the streets, their panicked screams filling the air.

Maybe if they’d been faster they could’ve helped Danny stop this.

She spotted a clown chasing a couple of kids into an alley and flew down to their defense.

Its face seemed to be fixed in a permanent smile; the only response to her arrival was a honk of its nose and a shift of its eyes.

From above, she summoned an ectogun, turning up the power and hoping that it worked on creepy clowns. It took a step forward, but she hesitated. What if it wasn’t evil? What if it was being controlled? What if it was a person? If anything, the past few days have opened her eyes to a world where not all ghosts were evil.

Another step closer to the two.

The gun hummed in her hands, ready to fire.

“Stop! I don’t want to—“

It ignored her and charged at the kids, a mad gleam in its eyes.

She hoped trusting her instincts wouldn’t lead her back to her bad habits.

Her finger was on the trigger, but another red light appeared on the horizon, turning everything back to normal.

Despite wanting to flinch as the red reached her, she took a shot at the clown that was still advancing on the kids.

As the light washed over them, the clown turned to a mannequin that clattered to the ground when her ectoblast hit it.

She took off without a word, too distracted by the knowledge that Danny had somehow found a way to reverse whatever had happened. It had to have been him, she was sure of it.

She flew around again, still reeling from the abrupt changes.

She spotted Dani sitting on the edge of a roof with Cujo by her side.  

“Why do I get the feeling we’re not going to find him?”

Dani shrugged. “Cujo found the rooftop he was last on, it was near the convention, but it seems like he just vanished after that.”

Valerie sighed and sat down next to her friends.

“I’m tired.”

Dani leaned back on her palms and looked up at the sky.

After some silence, she whispered, “Me, too.”

Valerie worried her lower lip. She wondered what she was going to say to Danny when she saw him next. What could she even say except ‘sorry’? But that didn’t even begin to cut it.

She looked up at the stars, too, and wondered if Danny could see them.

——

Star: which outfit do you think i should wear to the concert? A or B

Star: *sent two photos*

Val: B for sure

Val: but why ask me? wouldn’t you rather ask a certain Latina

Star: Val, i might sit with Paulina during the concert, but it’s you who im gonna hang out with after

Star: besides you said you’d be late to the whole thing anyway

Valerie sighed and stuffed her phone back in her pocket.

Something suddenly stirred within her. She looked around and, sure enough, the ghost boy was flying overhead. He whooped and made loop-de-loops in the air as he went, screaming something about summer that she didn’t really pay any mind to.

Valerie cracked her knuckles and summoned her suit.

A/N: I’m disregarding the order of the episodes so D-Stabilized happens before Reality Trip. I really liked this prompt and I loved writing this. Thanks for having me, Phic Phight.