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star-galaxy · 3 years

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Whenever You’re Ready (Phic Phight 2021)

Veeeeery belated entry for Phic Phight 2021.

Summary: Jack and Maddie try to show their son they are very supportive of Phantom once they find out his secret. They want him to tell them on his terms, but everything ends up in bigger misunderstandings and more revelations they weren’t prepared for. (Journal fic)

Prompts by: (description listed at the end) @star-galaxy, @charcoalhawk, @sylph-feather, @ectorecs, @the-only-wife

Word Count: 12,720 (sorry...)

Also available on FFN [Link] and AO3 [Link]

SUN APR 09, 2017

Our dearest Danny:

Your father and I have decided to start keeping a journal after today’s discoveries and the subsequent resolutions we made. It seems like the only way we can try to put our thoughts into something coherent. Something we can be able to give you so you can also understand.

While I’ll explain everything in detail in the following lines, we want you to know first and foremost that WE LOVE YOU with every inch, breath, molecule, and thought within our beings. We still don’t know how far into the future you’ll receive this notebook. To be quite honest, it all depends on you, honey. Not that you know that, of course. I guess we couldn’t exactly give you a memo about the scenarios that would trigger this journal’s delivery. But let me explain everything from the beginning:

Today, your dad and I concluded something that put our world upside down. There’s no easy way to put this into words so I might as well put it bluntly. We finally figured out you are Danny Phantom (it’s so obvious now as I write it). And we realized how horrible we’ve been to you all this time, even going as far as hunting down our own child. What kind of monsters does that make us?

I apologize if some of the words look smudged or if this writing doesn’t make full sense, but I can’t help crying over the thought of hurting a single hair on my boy’s beautiful head, whether it’s humanly black or ghostly white.

It’s not easy to write this because neither your father nor I can put into words an apology that can take back all our past mistakes. Nothing will ever be enough to make the proper amends. Saying we’re sorry and how we didn’t know something like this was possible just doesn’t seem right, even if it’s the very first step in this long journey to redemption. We should have known. Not only as scientists, but as parents as well.

As scientists, this has put every single one of our theories into question. Even more so when you take into account how we became aware of your powers, which started when we began to make minor changes in our methods. But do we only need to change our methods and perspective, or are there even more aspects to consider in how we handle our research? If we were that wrong about you, what else were are we wrong about? Will we need to stop start all over?

As parents, it’s much more complicated. We failed at paying closer attention to these changes, at keeping you safe, at being more understanding whenever you didn’t meet some ridiculous expectation. But it doesn’t stop there. We didn’t provide the reassurance you needed to approach us with your secret, either. A secret we intend to respect until you’re ready. Yes, whenever you’re ready to tell us, we will be much more receptive and, hopefully, more knowledgeable about how we should approach ghosts in the first place.

We want you to tell us if when you feel comfortable and trust us to keep you safe. To achieve that, we must earn that trust first.

We’re sorry, SO SORRY, honey. I can’t stress it enough on a piece of paper. Even if this does nothing to change what we’ve done.

By now you’re probably wondering how we found out. Let me start by assuring you it wasn’t a single event that unveiled your secret. It began with a series of hypotheses we tried to confirm. The more we pulled the thread, the closer we got to unraveling everything. However, part of our discovery had everything to do with how reckless indiscreet you are with your secret. It’s somewhat of a miracle nobody has caught on yet, which is something we’ll also try helping you out with from now on. (Your father believes it’s part of your strategy to hide in plain sight, but I’m sorry if I’m a bit more skeptical).

It all started several weeks ago, with simple observations, things we began getting curious about Phantom your ghostly side. Did you know you had us stumped when none of our research lined up with your behavior or even with the physical attributes we expected in ghosts? We needed a new perspective and found plenty of inspiration when a newly-discovered trait led to the next piece of the puzzle. It might be important to list down the initial hypothesis and theories that helped us put everything into place. This might give you some clarity on how to protect your secret better, while it could also become a valuable way to compare how our appreciation of ectoplasmic entities has evolved. It might not amount to much, we can’t be for sure now, but we might be able to give you enough evidence of how genuine our efforts are.

- HYPOTHESIS: Skin tone and complexion are related to how long a ghost has been dead.

- CONCLUSION: Inconclusive.

We don’t have enough evidence. Based on ghosts identified by approximate period alive, they tend to go a brighter shade of green or show more monstrous characteristics the longer they have been dead. You show the trait of a newly-formed ghost and you are the only one with a higher density, which we hadn’t taken into consideration before.

- HYPOTHESIS: Ghosts age depending on the power they possess.

- CONCLUSION: Debunked.

You are growing older and more powerful. However, other entities with increased power don’t showcase aging attributes.

- HYPOTHESIS: Ghosts are ectoplasmic imprints of humans who died violently, hence why they are incapable of feeling and learning new complex thoughts outside of said imprint.

- CONCLUSION: Debunked.

Not only did you show us how up-to-date you are with current events, but you also demonstrated great capacity in assimilating modern culture (more on this particular topic later).

It’s important to note that after several observations, we began to wonder if changing our parameters would help us make a better contrast. That’s when we began to analyze your ghostly alter-ego and other ghosts against a human scale we designed, to start with what we do know. This would not only allow us to distinguish ghosts that have human traits but also those who try to pass as living people. The scale itself would require several additional pages in this journal just to explain it, so let me try to simplify what it considers: we began taking into account both physical (i.e. body temperature, reflexes, eye color, ecto-contamination levels), and behavioral aspects (i.e. speech patterns, interaction, emotions displayed, congruence in movements). You can read more about it in our file labeled as “The Fenton Life-meter".

Of course, following this scale ultimately lead us to confirm that you were not like any other ghost we’ve encountered:

- Same thoracic movement as humans while breathing.

- Breathing gestures in general. (You sigh in frustration too much, honey)

- Capable of receiving cuts, scrapes, and other injuries that seem to take time to heal instead of being automatically repaired by ectoplasm (we’re so sorry for this).

- Interaction with other humans can digress from theorized obsession topics (still unsure how spot-on our theories on ghost obsessions are or if they apply to you at all)

- Adapts language to current trends and cultural context (What does ‘yeet’ or ‘himbo’ even mean??? We still have no idea where you learned those words, but I’ve heard your friends mention them too when they’re over, at least.)

- Only ghost with social media accounts and possible access to a smartphone or at least an Internet connection. (We need to make sure none of them are traceable, though I’m hoping Tucker is better versed in those topics and is already helping you.)

Once we confirmed this connection to teenage culture, we figured ghost-you could be hiding among kids in Casper High, which is the most common location you’ve been seen at (now we understand why). Therefore, we decided to use our current scale to compare regular teens vs overshadowed ones (just for statistical purposes, did you know your school reports at least six overshadowing instances a week? Of which there’s an average of four reports attributed to kids looking to skip a class). We decided to start with you, Jazz, and your friends, just to try to set a parameter with well-known subjects. Easier at least than working with complete strangers.

The first red flag in your behavior was how closer Jazz and you had gotten, and how she seemed to be covering for you whenever you needed it. Jack insisted there were ghosts involved. Thus began our search for more evidence pointing to a paranormal presence overshadowing either or both our kids (we were not going to repeat the Fenton Xtractor incident).

If you recall some of the indicators in our scale, you showcased several unnatural characteristics already, such as lower body temperature than others around you or enough ecto-contamination to register as a minimum-level ghost in most of our scanners. We first concluded it had something to do with the Portal and how you and your friends accidentally activated it. Everyone in our household has some residue ectoplasm, to begin with. But then we realized you never fully explained what happened the day the portal started working, and we concluded that’s when other changes began as well: the jumpiness, the broken curfews, the trashed lab equipment, the constantly forgotten chores, the increase in cuts and bruises... so many things that didn’t make sense altogether unless there were some pieces of information missing.

Then we paid closer attention to Sam and Tucker. Of course, they didn’t show the same signs of ecto-contamination. No devices would activate in their presence. Their temperature seemed normal and they didn’t appear to have the same problems at home or school, unless they were in trouble along with you. This left us to infer that you had been the only one affected by the portal. And the only one who didn’t fare well in this new scale comparison against ordinary humans.

Knowing you were showing stranger traits in our scale made us look for other signs of overshadowing. Aside from the behavioral changes that came with the portal activation, other differences began to make us worry. You would defy the laws of physics on many occasions, as if there was a glitch in our reality. Like the day you came home after a storm without a single drop of water on you, despite not taking an umbrella. Or the way you manage to have a cold drink on warmer days when there’s no ice in the freezer or space for those beverages in our fridge. Not to mention how you seem to move around the house without a sound, not even from the creaking stairs or from the squeaking doors you should have gone through. It doesn’t help when we think you’re in your room and suddenly find you raiding the kitchen or using the bathroom.

But even with those strange behaviors, your personality and speech remained the same. The same sense of humor, the same aversion to our work, and the same lack of energy to do anything other than having fun with your friends. If it weren’t for the faulty logic or physics, some of these were even on-brand to what we’ve come to expect from your teenage phase.

Still, all our conclusions pointed to an undeniable truth: there was something different about you. Hence why we started going out on patrols closer to the places where you said you would hang out with your friends before getting back home. Of course, you were never where you said you would be. Not a single time. This left us more worried thinking about ordinary teenage problems, like drugs, alcohol, or even underage sex. But we knew we had raised a thoughtful boy, a kid who was noble and smart, despite being clueless at times. We have seen your bravery and compassion. Your determination to reach your wildest dreams. The shame when you thought you had disappointed us, and the sadness that came from not doing your best.

Thinking about you as some sort of delinquent would be a disservice to your entire personality and essence. So there had to be something else.

And one day, it happened. A simple twist of fate sent us back home during a patrol at the same time as Phantom fled a ghost fight, Fenton thermos in hand. We had paused our attacks on your ghostly side until we could decide what to conclude from the whole situation, still unaware of how both cases were connected. So we continued our journey to Fentonworks only to realize that Phantom was heading in the same direction. Just outside our backyard, to be exact. We decided to stop a few houses away and waited to see what he you would do next. Imagine our surprise as we saw a few seconds later our son emerge from the same spot.

It didn’t make any sense. Not even a meeting with Phantom was a valid scenario since the ghost wasn’t detected or seen minutes later leaving the area. It couldn’t be overshadowing since it would require a strong and permanent hold on you, which no ectoplasmic entity would be able to sustain for that long unless it risked destabilizing. Even if a ghost took breaks from the possession of their victim, there’s no way a Level 7 (!!!) entity would go unnoticed by our scanners during those hypothetic breaks. It had to be something else. So we decided to think outside the box again.

So far we had figured out you had a faint trace of ectoplasm in your body that was always detected by our devices. Enough to count as a faint invisible spirit. So what if we began treating it like a real ectosignature? What if we tried to calibrate our devices to amplify its signal? Would it lead us to find you whenever you disappeared? We thought maybe that way we would be closer to the truth.

And it worked.

Within a few days of tinkering with some of our scanners, the Fenton Ghost Finder mostly, we decided the upgrade was ready for a test run during our next patrol. We found the signal right away, shining brightly at the Nasty Burger, where you had mentioned you would be with your friends. But once again you were nowhere in sight. Instead, the Finder pointed towards none other than Phantom, who had been fighting against a giant robot of some sort, controlled by the same tech ghost that had possessed our house a year ago. (Remind us to ask you about the ghosts you’ve met.)

Once the battle was over, we didn’t follow Phantom per se. We followed the signal shown by the Finder, resolute on not letting our minds jump to conclusions we couldn’t even begin to imagine. At the end of our search, we found a similar situation as a few days prior: Ghost-you hiding closer to Fentonworks while human-you emerged, walking quickly to get home before curfew. This trend went on for at least a week until we couldn’t deny the facts any longer and had to at least talk about the evidence we had collected so far.

It was impossible or at least improbable to have ghostly traits as a human. And it wasn’t a simple case of overshadowing either. You are still alive (thank goodness!!), so it wasn’t any of the most horrible scenarios we had feared at the beginning (ones we didn’t dare to say out loud). It had to be something else. But when we went down into the lab to brainstorm, we realized the truth and its evidence was right in front of our noses. Something changed at the beginning of your freshman year. You had an accident that you brushed off around that time. You had been probably shocked by the portal, which channels large amounts of ectoplasm that needs to be filtered. But somehow you didn’t die. You have many things that still make you human, even while you’re looking like a ghost. Instead, you were likely infused with ectoplasm that triggered ghost powers.

And then we were left with thousands of questions, discussions, and promises silently made to keep you safe. One thing we do know for sure is how AMAZING you are, and more capable than we could have ever imagined if you had taken on the family business. In fact, you’re doing precisely that and we hadn’t realized. You make us very proud with the way you’ve grown and learned to protect yourself and those around you. You’re a HERO and we didn’t give you enough credit for everything you’ve done to keep Amity Park safe. And we should probably start showing that support by making a very public truce with you the next time we meet with your alter ego.

Of course, while we already pieced most of the probable story together, we don’t have your story. The motivations, the struggle, the learning curves, and the way you experienced the whole ordeal. We would be very willing to listen. As a family.

Again... whenever you’re ready, honey.

After this initial entry, we’ll try to guide you on the different measures we’ve taken to help you from the sidelines, if only to keep a record of everything we’ve been attempting to do while giving you some insight on the reasoning behind some of these changes. Please consider we are trying to keep the jargon as informal as possible in this journal to make it easier to follow in layman’s terms. The rest, such as our lab notes, detailed examinations, and other scientific or technical curiosities will also be recorded, just in case, but we promise to keep them under the strictest surveillance and security measures to avoid any type of filtration.

Our number one priority right now is to keep you safe. That’s the only way we can make this right.

I apologize for this lengthy and messy introduction. I’m sure we didn’t answer everything in this first entry, so feel free to ask us anything once you’ve finished reading. If we do this right, we hope you only have to read a couple of more entries to catch up with all the things we want to do to make the world around you a better place.

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WED APR 12, 2017

Today we began with a fresh mindset. We’ve brainstormed non-stop for two days and finally decided to make a more detailed plan on different changes in our inventions to protect you from harm. But it can’t be our only approach. That’s why we made a list of problems to tackle to set some priorities as well:

- Reduce visibility of your ectosignature in any ghost-tech, starting with ours.

While we might be able to tweak our inventions to ignore your signature or to identify you as part of the family, there will be a long way to go before we can find a way to convince other hunters about modifying their weapons. We intend to approach the Red Huntress sooner rather than later with an agreement that can help her get better upgrades and see you in a new light.

- Set up new security measures and safe spaces to keep other ghosts from attacking you.

An updated Ghost Shield is our main concern, especially at school, but we’ll have to think about other public spaces as well in the long run. This would give you a chance to take your classes without worrying about attacks or skipping a lesson, now that we’re beginning to understand the root of your lower grades and detentions.

- Protect your public image.

If anyone has any concerns about your intentions or if there’s any misunderstanding, we’ll try to provide our expert opinion on the matter to help people think critically before jumping to erroneous conclusions. Making people aware of the fact that not all ghosts are evil and how to differentiate between benevolent, harmless, and malicious entities will be an incredible challenge (even for us) given our past declarations.

- Keep the spotlight away from you.

Not only are you a minor who shouldn’t be dealing with any harassment at all, let alone that of rabid fangirls who think they can assault you at every waking chance. You also need to stay out of potential news coverage that can make it into national or international outlets, unless we want the GIW to continue looking into your ghostly side. In fact, they did come asking about you based on some indicators that “Phantom” was associating with humans, so we might just have to mislead them whenever possible. Rest assured, honey: we understand what kind of leech these government agencies can be.

- Investigate potential threats besides our tech.

Learning about your secret life as Phantom has led us to revisit many of our previous interactions. There are still many questions left unanswered from that time you apparently attacked the mayor, or when you were caught stealing banks and museums with other ghosts. We remember the ringmaster of that goth circus admitted controlling ghosts to pull those robberies. So what if there are other methods to control or even harm ghosts? Perhaps we should even revisit old myths and folk stories on how other cultures have dealt with spirits, if only to discard other ways you could get hurt.

We’ll be (mentally) adding items to this list depending on how much we learn from the process to make the necessary adjustments. Your father, who is much more optimistic than I am, thinks we’ll be done with most of these issues by the end of the month.

I hope we don’t make a mess in the process.

P.S. I know it sounds awful and there’s no excuse for how terrible we are as parents, but we hadn’t realized until now that you spend most of your day out of home. We had a vague idea but didn’t really see the full extent of your absence before. We’ve barely seen you since we figured everything out. It explains why we hadn’t seen some other signals sooner, but it hurts so much to realize you don’t feel safe at home or that you even have to spend all that time fighting other ghosts. Whatever reason you have, it strengthens our resolve to build back that trust and reassurance we lost along the way. We need to make this a better home for you and your sister.

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FRI APR 14, 2017

As we continue to learn more about how to make your surroundings better, we were finally lucky to spot your ghostly alter ego after an attack near your school. We tried to take the opportunity to talk to you about a more permanent truce, taking advantage of the various onlookers to create public awareness of the Phantom/Fenton partnership. Of course, you seemed very skeptical once Jack winked and said there were no other ulterior motives. I’ve already talked to your father about how that could be misinterpreted.

Adding to our blunder, you opted to avoid us the rest of the day, so we were left with no way of letting you know (as either our son or as our potential ghostly ally) how serious we are about this cease of fire. We are still debating if this means you don’t care to hear our reasoning or if you won’t believe it either way.

We’ll try to work on the rest of our plan in the next few days, now that a formal truce is off the table for the moment. Hopefully, you’ll see we mean it once our actions speak for themselves.

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SAT APR 29, 2017

We’ve been very busy with several improvements and forgot to update this journal of sorts. In the last week or two, we’ve been working on upgrading all our inventions to exclude your ectosignature. In the beginning, we made a coding mistake and ended up targeting only you in the process. I guess it was extremely bad luck you happened to find out after we modified one of our bazookas.

Again, we’re so, so sorry for everything. We didn’t mean to traumatize you while you were fighting that hunter ghost in a metal suit. At least we managed to distract him enough for you to catch him in the Fenton Thermos, not without glaring at us before you left the scene. We can’t blame you for that.

The good news is we found the root of our mistake and managed to program everything to avoid you, even your Fenton Thermos. We managed to do this one day while you were eating dinner and your father said he forgot some fudge in the Ops Center for dessert, using the excuse to sneak into your room and make the changes to the container you always carry. Thank goodness you didn’t notice.

Of course, these upgrades raise a new issue we hadn’t considered: do Jazz and your friends own any of our tech? We know you stash some in your room, and we have no doubt there are more in your school locker. We’re guessing those are meant for instances when your powers malfunction. We hadn’t thought about that in detail and we’ll have to figure out how to make sure you’re all trained and equipped with the upgraded versions of our gear. There are just so many variables we keep including into the mix, it’s scary to think how any of you could’ve gotten hurt in the past. That’s something we’ll look to remedy as well.

This led us to focus on the school’s ghost shield next, to give you that safe space we mentioned before. Of course, after the grave mistake we made a few days prior with the bazooka, we’re guessing you got very suspicious about our intentions and somehow managed to sabotage the new configuration, deleting the exclusion we inserted. If only there was some way Tucker (who we’re sure was behind the hack) realized that when we wrote “target” on our code we meant it to avoid any suspicions from other curious intruders, such as that tech ghost or the GIW.

Fortunately, we were able to set the code back to its intended configuration without any privy eyes. This time I had to do it discreetly at night the same day of the sabotage. It didn’t seem to raise any further concerns with you or your friends.

After a week in action, we begin noticing a decrease in attacks at your school now that you don’t feel threatened enough to shut the Ghost Shield off (as it seemed to have been the case in the past). We’re guessing you finally realized we meant no harm to you or your powers, since you actually showed up for dinner tonight. To celebrate the good mood, we even had pizza and a movie.

Tomorrow, we’ll begin expanding our Ghost Shields to the most important locations you frequent with your friends, including your usual haunts (get it? Yes, your dad came up with that one).

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THU MAY 04, 2017

After watching closer your eating habits, we came to the conclusion that you’re not providing your body the right amount of nutrients. In simple terms, you devour so much food in one sitting because ectoplasm requires larger quantities of proteins to sustain itself. That’s when we began researching ways to retain, regenerate, and burn ectoplasm through food. We didn’t just want to learn how to make your body keep the healthy ectoplasmic levels you require, but also to detect anything that could hinder your intake. So we began our experiment by testing the different kinds of meals we’ve seen you eat in a week.

Did you know the sauce in a Nasty Burger can literally burn through your ectoplasm? Don’t ask how your father thought about it, but he tested several ingredients against higher and lower temperatures. We are just glad we only used a drop of sauce instead of a whole packet. You can find out more about this experiment under the file named “Spicy Food”.

We still haven’t figured out what’s the extra ingredient we found but we believe it might be something naturally harmful to ghosts. Just like salt, which comes in large quantities between your favorite snacks and fast food. These ingredients in particular lower your capacity to retain and regenerate ectoplasm at a much faster rate than regular ghosts. Hence why you don’t “repair” yourself immediately after an injury as a ghost. Fortunately for you, the amount of ambient ectoplasm in Amity Park is high enough to help refill your levels during the day. It’s just not enough to make you feel at your full potential.

Instead of forbidding these types of foods to you, we’re developing a new serum to boost your ectoplasm regeneration. Think of it as an antioxidant. We still need to find a way to give you the serum and explain the science behind it when we approach ghost-you again to talk about the truce (for the fifth time this month, if I might add). Though to be honest that might take more time than we would want. Gaining your trust after hunting you for almost two years won’t be easy despite all our good intentions. But we’ll never stop trying. We promise.

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SAT MAY 13, 2017

We’ve realized something that could be a complete game-changer. As you might know, this portal wasn’t our first prototype. It wasn’t even our twentieth. But it was the second to lead to an important accident involving a human being. We hadn’t realized the rest of the implications of your activation of the Portal. If being infused with that amount of energy and ectoplasm gave you ghost powers, did it really only give Vlad Masters ecto-acne? Did it give him something else as well in the process?

Just like it happened with your secret, I was forced to recall every previous encounter with Vlad and the oddities in some of those meetings. Such as being attacked during our college reunion by a fully visible ghost outside of Amity Park (we had never seen a ghost in Wisconsin before, even while we were actively searching for an entire dimension filled with them). The strange trip in which we ended up in his cabin, also attacked by ghosts. Or when he claimed he had found you outside the Ghost Shield during the invasion that almost killed you. Or when the same ghost we saw in Wisconsin came to steal our portal and put a bounty on your head.

Your father is adamant to jump to any “wacky” conclusions, but I’m certain this needs to be carefully investigated. We might be dealing with something more dangerous than we first thought. There are just so many coincidences lining up and at least I’m beginning to believe he also gained ghost powers, just like you did. It all has to be tied to the Wisconsin ghost either way.

On a completely unrelated note, your dad was so distraught by this theory, that he took the opportunity to contact some distant relatives, to see if they could send him some of their sacred family heirlooms to study. Apparently, his ancestors have built an impressive collection of relics, artifacts, and books focused on ghost lore through centuries of study. Those were part of what started the long line of ghost hunters in the Fenton family. We’re very excited to get our hands on these objects to see if they can help us in our quest to find new ways to protect you.

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TUE MAY 23, 2017

In the past few weeks, we have finally managed to convince you of trusting us with a truce. We even made it public by using the last Town Hall meeting as an opportunity to communicate to the rest of the city our intentions of working with “Phantom”, with a very positive reaction from the crowd. This only began to open a new can of worms with someone whom we didn’t realize would be threatened by this change of dynamic.

You might not remember well what happened today. You were probably too sick and tired by the end of the incident. It all began when we received a strange bouquet from none other than Vlad Masters. He had it delivered in the morning while you were at school. The note attached read something along the lines of congratulating us for our blossoming new partnership. It was odd and somewhat disturbing to think there was some hidden meaning and intention behind it, especially since we still haven’t made any solid conclusions about his relationship with ghosts in general.

I didn’t give the gift itself that much of a thought until you came home later at night and began to break into a cold sweat when you entered the kitchen. I was probably about to serve dinner, since the vase with flowers was on the kitchen counter while I set everything on the table. I remember that part because you took one good look at them and immediately began to shake with fear and apprehension, stepping back until you dropped to the floor in pain.

Of course, we didn’t know what was happening at first and thought about taking you to the hospital, but then remembered all those times you refused to go to the doctor. Now we understand why. That’s also why we offered to go down to the lab for a closer examination. You refused to go with us and only accepted to be taken to your room when Jazz heard the whole commotion. After some aimless arguing with both of you to allow us to check what was wrong, you asked to “get rid of the blood blossoms”. Your father knew exactly what you were talking about and immediately left to dispose of the flowers in the incinerator we have down in the lab.

Bloom blossoms didn’t even cross my mind. They were an old myth. Some exotic species of plant that early ghost hunters claimed to use to expel spirits. While the Fentons grew up learning about them and their properties, these flowers were believed to be a folk tale since no one in our field of study seemed to be able to find any real trace of them for generations. Until now.

Fortunately, your father kept one flower inside a plastic bag to study it later. If only to find some sort of antidote, which I’m sure would’ve been something unheard of by his ancestors.

If we had any doubt before about Jazz’s involvement in your extracurricular activities, we got more than enough confirmation when she came down to the lab to ask millions of questions about what we thought had caused your reaction. We settled on allergies and the firm promise to make them go away. She seemed nervous about the fact that we kept one blossom for further study, but we tried to explain how we needed it to find and counteract the source of the allergy.

She also had a very telling reaction when we mentioned we got them as a gift from Vlad. Your father had no other choice than to accept there was something very sketchy about his best former best friend. In my case, I’m more than convinced he’s a threat to our family.

And no one messes with our family.

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MON MAY 29, 2017

The long-awaited Fenton collection of books, relics, and artifacts finally arrived earlier this week. There are several journals, most of which belonged to someone named John Fenton Nightingale (JFN), listing many of the pieces inside. It seems he single-handedly amassed most of the charms and artifacts in the large metal box, if the initials marking them can be used as reference. Your dad claims there are other collections in his family’s possession, but none as strange or diverse as this one.

The books and journals were hard to go through due to the numerous topics they covered, so we decided to skim through some of them to select what to read later. Some included detailed instructions for potions or incantations to exorcise a spirit. Others listed cooking recipes that could include blood blossoms in everyday meals (JFN had a knack for eating them raw). A few documents included field notes and case observations, while most were translations of the larger undecipherable books. Those seem to dedicate entire chapters to ghost lore, including myths, fables, and prophecies, if the attached annotations are correct. We flagged several with notes to review later on. While we don’t believe in superstitions such as prophetic writings, we recognize a few figures mentioned, such as the knight spreading dread through the land a ghost king is set to conquer. It also talks about different rites and customs related to these figures, including the ascension of a new king or how to seal them away. While it was not a premonitory situation, we did have that invasion by the King of all Ghosts over a year ago that then took our whole town to the Ghost Zone, so maybe a few notes wouldn’t hurt, just to be safe.

(Now that we can recall those events with a new perspective, we just realized you were the one who fought the king and put him back to sleep. Have we mentioned how proud we are of you? No wonder you were so tired for days after the incident.)

As for the rest of the contents in the box, while we have been trying to sort most of these items into different levels of relevance, each finding was more peculiar than the next. For instance, there’s an old music box that has no sound despite its moving figurine. This particular piece has no clear indication of when it had been found or created, though it’s doubtful this belonged to JFN, who usually left some kind of signature, date, or marking on his discovered artifacts. There were no explanations, descriptions, or notes on the box so we set it apart with an “Unknown” label, where soon after other intriguing items also followed. Other objects, such as an iron sphere meant to trap spirits, were sent to the “Dangerous” pile inside the large box everything arrived in. Others were considered good-luck amulets intended to draw the best out of otherworldly creatures, making them benevolent, so we decided to label those as “Harmless”. We are compiling the full list under the file named “Ancient Lore”.

We had been working for hours today when for some reason we still can’t fully grasp, you came down to the lab, despite showing great reluctance days before due to the blood blossom incident or just any of our recent studies in general (there’s no way to be sure). We thought you had been afraid of getting hurt, even after we’ve tried to explain our latest discoveries to both you and your alter ego. Somehow, you recovered all of a sudden from that fear and silently sat on one of our work stools. You didn’t say anything at first, only humming something to yourself and staring blankly at the clutter of objects we were classifying. It was very unsettling, to say the least.

There was something strange about the whole situation and I could’ve sworn your eyes had shifted to red. It was probably an odd reflection of something in the lab. When I called you by your name, you didn’t respond at all. As if you were lost in some trance. After asking you to answer, you replied almost automatically something we couldn’t understand, with no hint of inflection in your voice. Would the Ghost Gabber have helped to translate whatever you said?

Your dad noticed as well and decided to put everything back in the box we received, not even caring about ruining days of organization. Once everything was locked away, you looked very confused and alarmed. You left in a rush without letting us give you any explanation. We’re making everything worse by the minute, with so many things leading you to believe we’re looking for ways to hurt you and not the other way around.

We promise we’ll get to the bottom of this and figure out what triggered your reaction. And we promise to set the record straight somehow.

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WED JUN 07, 2017

Today marks the 9th morning in a row that we had to wake you up with too much insistence. This hadn’t happened since late April and we know for a fact you’re no longer having long sleepless nights due to ghost fighting. After all, we did begin patrolling more often than before during weeknights to reduce the weight on your shoulders. That’s why this return to old habits seems odd to us.

Unlike the previous days, you finally gave us some sort of clarity on the situation: you’re having trouble sleeping followed by terrible headaches. From what little information we were able to gather, there are some strange dreams involved but you either can’t recall what they were about or don’t want to tell us. This probably threads in the fine line between what counts as regular issues and ghostly-related concerns, so it’s a telltale sign that you still don’t trust us yet.

Why would you? So far, we’ve accidentally modified dangerous weapons to only target you, included your ectosignature laced with suspicious wording into the code of your school’s Ghost Shield, got blood blossoms into our home and kept one of them for further study, expanded the range of our protection methods, brought a trunk full of anti-ghost artifacts and journals, and more recently got caught trying to contact the Red Huntress (who’s been your most vicious rival since we can remember). That, along with our previous history, probably doesn’t paint the most trustworthy image of us. But at least you haven’t rejected our truce. Maybe not everything’s lost.

Going back to our current problem, the headaches and the nightmares don’t seem to be the only change in the past few days. You’re also more distracted than usual, barely paying attention to conversations during dinner. I’m worried that there could be something big going on that you don’t want to tell us, but your father says it can’t be too bad since he’s heard you humming to yourself (something you never do) while you do your chores down in the lab.

I just hope we can be closer again and make you feel comfortable enough to talk to us about anything, not just your secret. If you have a heartbreak, if you’re being bullied (which I doubt given your abilities, but wouldn’t put it past other kids your age to try), if something worries you, if you’re having an existential crisis, if you have a strong opinion about any of the world’s issues… or if something’s making you feel so lost you wander into a world beyond the stars, ignoring everything around you. At least that’s the look I see in your eyes lately.

Whenever you’re ready to tell us how you feel, we’ll be ready to listen as well.

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FRI JUN 09, 2017

Today we took some time to read through some of the documents from the Fenton Collection, to see if any of the ones we had preselected had any additional information on the various artifacts we still need to figure out.

There are many texts we recognize from our college studies but they appear to be earlier versions of the ones we read while working on the portal. For example, there are theories about the physical and chemical properties of ectoplasm, including notes on experiments to determine its density, conductivity, luminescence, acidity, and other attributes. While these were fascinating texts from a historical perspective, they didn’t contribute any new information.

We were very interested in the prophecies next. As mentioned before, while we don’t believe in such things, there might be relevant aspects to understand ghost culture, something we hadn’t even imagined studying before. You see, when we started working on our different theories, we believed ghosts were completely non-sentient and hadn’t even considered other aspects such as folklore, customs, festivities, or just societal organization in general. Now that we have been questioning our whole approach to spectral entities, we need to look back into other sources of information to get a better grasp of what you’re facing every day. This is a complete change in perspective and a whole new territory for us.

The books collected by your ancestors on these topics are not even in a language we can recognize, but fortunately there are many annotations made in a companion notebook and in pieces of paper placed as bookmarks. While the full extent of their contents might be a complete mystery, the notes and paintings depicted in the original pages of one of these tomes seems to be mostly focused on the Ghost King, their loyal servants and allies, and the threats they could present to both the dead and the living. Several sections seem to explain the different artifacts in their possession, which should be very relevant to study as well. You can find our full annotations in the file labeled as “Royalty”.

What’s more bizarre about these particular books is how foreign they seem, aside from their language. The type of materials they are made of doesn’t match anything we’ve seen before. We inspected them through our specialized Fenton Ecto-Scope and they were confirmed to be from out of this world. We still don’t know how any human managed to get their hands on these. Still, this raises several questions: did a ghost voluntarily offer these to a human? Were they left here by mistake? Were they stolen? Did a human find access to the Ghost Zone before our time? How were they able to translate the information?

We don’t even know where to begin looking for these answers, but we do know there’s important information we collected from these texts. From what the images show and the notes confirm, the King is named as such from a position of power. That means only powerful ghosts who show their worth can ascend to the throne. For what should’ve been obvious reasons, ghosts can’t inherit their power. They can’t vote either. But they can fight for their right to reign over all the undead as long as they are past their “nonage” (which, in ghost terms, we have no idea what it would translate to). This raises many red flags if we consider you fought and defeated the king of all ghosts. Pariah Dark, the notes called him. Would this mean you’re in that position of power or is there a different process to undergo? If you have some kind of right to the throne, can you reject it or appoint someone else? Would the “nonage” they describe exclude you somehow?

There’s so much information that doesn’t seem to be translated from the original material that we are left with more questions than answers. If only there was someone who understood what language it is, to begin with…

In the meantime, we are trying to look into the process required to seal the ghost king away. Perhaps we can make sure Pariah Dark is correctly stuck in his slumber and hope that keeps his artifacts far away from any new contender to the throne, especially if there’s any chance you can get appointed. We really hope there is no way you can take his place ever.

We’re so sorry, honey. We never realized just how much is on your plate due to your existence as Phantom. We feel like we cursed you beyond our wildest nightmares, beyond the border with the spectral world. Now we have to take into consideration more than simple human risks. Somehow I feel like whatever we do in Amity Park won’t have any relevance if we don’t take into account the “citizenship” you’ve acquired in the Ghost Zone.

I’m sorry to say this, but with all the loose ends we still have to take care of and this emerging information, we probably won’t be ready to talk to you about your secret and give you this journal as soon as we had expected. We just don’t see a point in alarming you and then start bombarding you with so many questions. We need to figure it out first.

But whatever happens, know that we won’t let anyone rob you of your humanity, of your plans and dreams for the future just because you decided to save your town and those around you. We’ll do everything in our power to help you have the normal life you deserve. Or as normal as it gets for our family.

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THU JUN 15, 2017

We still have no new findings concerning the Ghost King’s ascension, since the annotations are more speculative than actual translations as we first thought. What’s worse: we are suddenly missing one of the biggest tomes in the collection, the one entirely focused on royalty, so we don’t have the original source to try to do our own interpretation. We somehow suspect Jazz came down and took it out of curiosity. She’s been asking more questions than usual since the blood blossom incident, coming down to the lab when we’re going through the numerous artifacts we received, and paying more attention than before to our dinner conversation whenever we talk about a fascinating discovery. Something not even you seem too excited about.

But we still have to wonder why she would take something illegible for her. Would you be able to read the foreign language? Is there any ghost ally who can? If so, will you ever tell us what the book contains and if it’s any risk to you? Or would you keep us in the dark, just like with everything else?

It goes without saying that we’ve reached a dead end with this part of our research, and it’s frustrating. We’ve considered bringing up the missing book casually with you two, but that would only put you more on edge than you already are. Not to mention we would have to explain our current worries and I’m not so sure we’re ready for that conversation since it raises more questions than answers.

So we focused on other more manageable studies in the meantime.

At least we do have some good news, despite everything. After more than two weeks of trying to learn more about natural ghost weapons and protective methods from the Fenton Big Ol’ Spooky Collection (as your dad likes to call it), we’re glad to say we’ve found many ways to explain and even counteract the effects of several artifacts and substances. We just need to find the best way to tell you the news and the means to prevent any encounter with similar objects.

Some of these artifacts worked on basic and natural anti-ghost resources you can read in traditional folklore, such as salt or cold iron. Others went as far as using materials that were believed to help spirits thrive, by taking a more creative approach, such as using granite as a way to contain their energy and use it against corporeal specters.

This is how we found a key piece of information on something else we had been trying to resolve: why are blood blossoms so hurtful to ghosts? The answer came in the findings of another one of your ancestors from the 19th century. Apparently, these flowers emit some kind of alarm pheromone created by a type of invasive beetle that can nest inside the flower for up to decades, giving it a certain smell in the process and polluting the stem and leaves completely. This pheromone would alert living herbivores nearby to stay away from the flower thinking it will be venomous. In non-living creatures, a ghost’s core enters in conflict with the reminder of death brought by the flower’s apparent decay, which would confirm how other senses such as smell are not lost in the afterlife. So, while it’s some kind of artificial reaction, it affects a ghost’s psyche and therefore their existence as a whole.

We still have no idea how JFN managed to eat them without reaching an earlier demise. You see, the problem isn’t the flower per se, but rather the insect combined with a specific species of blossoms. That’s why it seems so rare to find any. There has to be a kind of symbiotic relationship between this winged insect and the flower for the blood blossoms to even exist. That’s why we have designed a new type of container meant to neutralize this type of beetle if it ever appears, as a preventive measure. We made it seem and smell like a synthetic blossom before being infected to attract this insect in question, but it has none of the plant’s harmful properties since the “blood beetle” is not inside yet. We plan to test it in a few locations throughout the weekend before we try something on a larger scale.

As for Vlad’s possession of such a specimen, we now believe he hired someone else to maybe plant and infect the healthy blossoms with these beetles, and then handle the bouquet. This must have been done somewhere at least close to Amity Park by humans. We are more than convinced even with mild effects from the proto-portal’s blast, he would still be affected by the rare blossom due to the reaction the ectoplasm in his body could have, even without a core completely formed.

If only we could know for sure.

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SAT JUN 24, 2017

I’m beginning to worry about your overall well-being. You are still distracted, tired, and constantly battling a headache every morning, even now that you’re out of school and don’t have to deal with finals or any constant ghost attacks. Days before you had that disoriented visit to the lab. Is it connected somehow? We still haven’t detected any object that could be triggering these reactions. We might have to double-check the “unknown” and “harmless” ones just in case.

In the meantime, you’ve been staying at Tucker’s more often than usual, but I keep getting this nagging feeling you’re using your time to be somewhere else, if the lack of ghost fights and the open portal we found yesterday are any indication. Since we’ve been busy with setting the fake blossoms around Amity Park, we haven’t been at the lab as often as before. That made us wonder how many times you’ve gone inside the Ghost Zone and the reasons to make those trips. Was the missing book one of those reasons?

We will have to configure the door to remain locked again unless a fingerprint is provided, which would tell us the number of times you’ve been going right under our noses. Just thinking about the risk of losing you to a strange dimension is horrifying, but wondering how many occasions you’ve been exploring the other side of the portal without anyone else being aware is unthinkable.

While we had already considered there were things within the Ghost Zone we would have to learn more about for this trust-building process to be complete, we hadn’t thought much about how connected you already are to other entities or communities as a whole, if the social organization described in your ancestor’s notes is anything to go by. We can’t keep thinking about all ghosts as being evil. We need to acknowledge the existence of benevolent entities. Friends? Allies? There’s a whole other side of you we don’t even know, like how you socialize or are perceived by other creatures.

Sometimes I feel there are so many things we were not aware of that we might not be able to catch up at all. Is that why you don’t tell us your secret? Not due to a matter of trust, but due to the enormity and absurdity of everything going on in your dual life? Are you afraid we won’t accept you or are you scared things might get more complicated if we’re involved?

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SUN JUL 02, 2017

Since we theorized your recent nightmare and distraction problem was connected to the arrival of the Fenton Big Ol’ Spooky Collection, we went back to testing one by one different amulets and artifacts we had no description for. There had to be something we hadn’t analyzed or tested correctly that could be triggering this.

It would have been quite the challenge to discover which one is causing it without exposing you to some unknown danger. So, we decided to try it out with the next best option, which would also allow us to confirm other questions as well. We called Vlad while you were at Sam’s, to have some coffee and talk about ghostly curiosities we found from your father’s ancestors. We knew this would pique his interest. I also knew he would come with other intentions.

Once he came over, he asked if we liked his flower arrangement but didn’t seem worried about its presence. In fact, he wasn’t surprised about learning we had to throw it away because you had an allergic reaction. He even seemed amused by this.

That alone makes me regret less the events that followed.

We began showing him some of the least dangerous journals, citing ghost sightings and well-known lore that had been a breakthrough back in their time. I’ve always known he loves to flaunt his perceived superior knowledge whenever possible. In this case, while he seemed tempted to mock our findings, there was some restraint as well. Like a silent victory plastered in his smug face, which I infer has everything to do with his secret relationship with ghosts and his reluctance to give anything away.

We continued with the “harmless” category, not wanting to hurt him unless there was clear evidence of any ill intentions. There were no visible signs of him being affected by any of the charms. We mentioned how one of them brought the good out of a spirit and he laughed maniacally, taking the opportunity to mock the Fenton lineage. That man is deranged. Horrible and deranged.

We then followed one by one with the “Unknown” pile and found a plausible answer once he reached the mute music box. Vlad opened it; there was a small mirror behind the grayscaled ballerina, reflecting something in an odd shade of red when the figurine’s eyes were reflected against it. Just like you did, he was left in a trance, humming softly a melody we couldn’t recognize. We now believe it’s a song coming from the box at a different frequency detectable by ghosts.

When we asked Vlad to tell us what was happening, he answered in a monotone and explained he was being forced to follow our will. We couldn’t believe it at first. Was this designed to ensnare a ghost? Was this confirmation of my earlier suspicions of the effects from the proto-portal?

You must understand... I was fuming. He had even taken advantage of our friendship to hurt you. So, I didn’t feel any remorse when I asked him several test questions to confirm his claims, such as his college sweetheart (who he would have usually denied dating), or his full name (which he also omits whenever possible). He answered every single thing. Once we confirmed he would respond to our questions, I was bold enough to ask him if he was the Wisconsin ghost. He struggled for a moment before responding that wasn’t his ghost name. Jack decided to interrupt the interrogation and closed the music box instead. He later told me he didn’t want to take advantage of Vlad like that, who was still also human and had the right to his own free will. Of course, he’s right, but I still feel some exceptions should apply.

As for Vlad, just like with you, he seemed lost and extremely worried once the music box was stored back its original place. He asked us to excuse him and left without an explanation.

This is very worrisome for two main reasons:

- There’s no way to confirm if he remembers anything while he was hypnotized, so to speak. If he does, we might have given him enough evidence to suspect how much we know.

- He could feel vulnerable and threatened by the contraption and could seek to attack us (or you) somehow.

If he is as dangerous as we believe (or at least as I believe), there’s a high probability that we will all be subject to some twisted scheme either way. Unfortunately for him, we’re more than prepared now. The fact that his visit gave us a good reading of the faint ectosignature he emits in his human form should be enough leverage to work on defensive measures, starting in our own home.

As for the music box, we discovered upon further inspection it holds a powerful crystal inside the ballerina’s head. We analyzed the bright, red gem and found strong radiation coming from it. It’s barely noticeable for humans, but ghosts are a whole other story. Looking into some notes from a much older Fenton relative, we encountered information for several other gems, most of which are said to be lost, such as a gauntlet used to channel the power of some of them combined. The one contained in the music box is not a part of any set, but it’s fairly powerful: it can absorb and release sound, such as music, at a higher frequency discernible by ghosts, while it can be used to control the will of any spirit as long as it’s within proximity.

So, now we are in a bit of a disagreement. While your father wants to destroy it in the Fenton incinerator to stop the effects it probably has on you, I want to keep it safely stored if only to have other defenses against malicious or more powerful ghosts, such as Vlad.

As we said in the beginning of this ordeal, our number one priority right now is to keep you safe. That’s the only way we can make this right.

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TUE JUL 11, 2017

I’m still not sure how to express all the rage I have inside from what that lying bastard has done. Today I

[Pages missing]

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WED JUL 19, 2017

Now that we have more knowledge on the effects of the Harmony Stone, as we decided to call the gem inside the broken music box, we’ve seen a lot of improvement in your sleeping patterns in the last couple of weeks. However, something is still amiss.

While we know the headaches and the nightmares are gone, as well as the strange song you used to hum while doing your chores in the lab, you still seem distracted and I dare to say worried. We have tried keeping some of our most recent developments as transparent to you and your sister as possible, to try to avoid misunderstandings. Jazz seemed more ecstatic with the news than you. You barely said a word or touched your meal during dinner.

Even as Phantom, we’ve had fewer attacks in Amity Park or Elmerton lately, and therefore fewer chances to work together or cross more than a couple of sentences about our latest discoveries to help you. You don’t seem so interested in anything we have to say, but at least we don’t see you suspicious about us, so that could be considered as one of the small blessings in this whole situation.

The reduced activity was just as unexpected as your sour mood. Most of the reports we’ve gotten consist of ghoulish animals, harmless eyeballs wearing cloaks, and the blue ghost in overalls. We’ve theorized the lack of ghostly visitors must have something to do with the summer break, since most attacks occur around school hours when Casper High is open. We are still unsure if it’s because of the large concentration of teenage emotions in a single location or if it’s because they want to challenge you directly.

These latest changes in your behavior and our interactions make us wonder if there is something else going on. We know Vlad’s disappearance took you by surprise, as it did everyone else. But considering the strained relationship you had with him, I thought you would be relieved to have him out of your life once and for all. Your father thinks he’s laying low; I know for a fact he won’t be bothering us ever again.

But something tells me that’s not what this is about. And there’s so little we know about your other life that we feel like complete strangers.

We fear there will never be a right moment for you to tell us your secret. For all we know, it’s not that you’re scared about our reaction. We’ve done everything in our power to keep you safe and show our support, even if we don’t outright say we know your secret. What if you’re waiting for us to tell you? To give you the right opening but it’s never the right time?

Maybe we need to take the first step. Whatever it takes to support you in those daily battles we don’t see from where we stand. Maybe if we try to get closer instead of waiting for you to do so, we might have a better grasp of what’s troubling you at the moment.

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SUN JUL 23, 2017

Happy Birthday, Danny! I can’t believe it’s been sixteen years since you officially came into our lives. You’ve grown up so much and we’re so proud of the noble, mature, selfless, and loving young man you’ve become.

Today is a very special day. It marks the start of a new beginning between us and I hope we can make you feel the same way. I hope what you read in this journal was enlightening or at least amusing. We’re thrilled to tell you that by the time you’re reading this we’ve already made tremendous progress in most of the things we’ve been working to implement to make your life and what surrounds it better.

To summarize our efforts in the last four months, this is what we were able to achieve so far:

- Implemented modified versions of our ghost shield around Amity Park, allowing you to go to school or hang out with your friends without worrying about having any kind of restriction or surprise attack. (Returning from summer break will be less stressful this time).

- Extended our truce to convince the Red Huntress to work with you and us in exchange for free tech and upgrades. These upgrades include tech that ignores your ectosignature. It seems she was glad to work with a new supplier, so it’s a win-win deal.

- Planted hundreds of blossom pods around the city to collect any potential blood beetles looking for these flowers to nest. This has allowed us to 1) keep a closer eye on any blood blossoms growing in the wild and 2) create a nasal spray to counteract the effects it can have on you.

- Concocted a serum that allows better management of your ectoplasm levels.

- Wrote a detailed analysis of the antique artifacts within the Fenton Big Ol’ Spooky Collection. This helped us compile a few methods we’ve detected to break their effects on you.

- We’ve improved the knowledge and perception on ghosts according to local news reports and surveys. Most of our newest discoveries will help build a new online course to provide tools and guidance on how to deal with both violent and non-violent entities. We expect to launch it next year.

- We’ve been able to neutralize other threats as well, such as the scrutiny from the GIW, who were just recently reported and will undergo serious investigation for endangering teenagers during last year’s visit to your school and the mall. A classmate of yours named Elliot McGregor was very helpful in the process.

We believe the time for secrets is over and we need to come clean with the knowledge we have concerning your double life.

If in the end you still feel uncomfortable with us knowing your secret, please know we love you no matter what. We’ve tried doing our best to understand and change our perspective, and we’ll still continue to pursue this path to heal our relationship with you.

I hope this journal helped you find the answers you needed from these events and the transformation they triggered within us. Now that we’re ready to tell you the truth, we’re eager to give these few pages to you along with a flash drive containing all the data we’ve collected so far as your birthday gift.

We’ll be happy to finally talk about this and listen to whatever you feel comfortable to tell us.

Love,

Mom & Dad

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WED OCT 10, 2018

I almost forgot we were keeping this notebook. I also forgot we were meant to give it to you back then, on your birthday, over a year ago. After everything that happened between the last entry and today, I hope you understand we weren’t in the right mindset to continue exploring new topics to include in this little notebook.

Looking back at our notes and the thousand excuses I made to justify our actions, my actions, I can’t even remember the real reason why we had decided to wait until you were ready.

Knowing everything we do now, you were never going to be ready. You weren’t prepared for the huge responsibility that fell on your lap when you came out of our portal as a half-ghost, or to defeat countless enemies on your own because we didn’t measure up to your skills and strength. You didn’t even know you were meant to be named king after you defeated Pariah Dark, a heavy crown you were also unready to wear.

Jazz told us how worried you were when you read through the book we had received, the one that went missing with the oddly-written pages in a material from out of this world. Of course, you understood its contents. You had been training with other spectral mentors for over a year prior to those incidents. We had no way of imagining the full extent of the life you hid from us, or what it implied. We were not aware of the meetings with the Ghost Council, the visits from these creatures known as Observants, or the dread that came with your sixteenth birthday coming close, the “end of the nonage” we read the ascension notes described at one point.

All this going right under our noses while we were naively setting up ghost shields and blossom pods around the city to keep you safe. How were we to know you could care less about all the efforts we had done? Of course, you wouldn’t be interested in what it meant to you, when you were in a secret countdown to your ascension, which would require you to focus on dealing with a whole new dimension to rule over.

I still can’t believe they would force a kid to go through this.

At first, we didn’t know you had taken this huge weight on your shoulders. Even when you missed your birthday celebrations at home that day. Or when we missed you during dinner the following nights, only occasionally watching you wake up on your bed and mumble a good morning by the end of summer. The journal went completely forgotten, as were your gatherings with your friends, who would come looking for you after you missed several of those meetings. Bless their souls… even when they were unaware of your whereabouts, they would still try to come up with an alibi for you on the spot to avoid blowing your cover.

A cover you also didn’t care about anymore. You had other things to worry about.

We knew from the start, even before we learned your secret, that you were never home or where you claimed you would be, going out instead to fight ghosts. But then you were never in Amity Park either, going into the Ghost Zone more and more often to fulfill your role as a leader, getting acquainted with your followers, finding yourself new allies, and settling into a new place you started calling home. Until one day you were never here at all. You left without an explanation. The only one we got came from Jazz, who was just as lost as everyone else in your life.

Your school and classmates were so worried about you, they started search parties and even threatened to call CPS, unaware how you had already been taken away from us by some otherworldly rules and protocols. People would constantly question us why we hadn’t filed a missing person’s report. Why bother when we knew exactly where you were. Or close enough at least.

We went looking for you many times with Jazz and your friends, but once we reached your domain there was always a dismissal, an important meeting, or a complete change in your castle’s location. As if you didn’t want to be seen. Or as if you had forgotten you had somewhere else to be. That you had friends and family who wondered if you were safe or happy. We still do, every single day.

Your friends are going to try one final time to contact you. We know they’re the people you trust the most and we don’t want to intrude, no matter how much it hurts us. Of course, we wouldn’t let them go unprepared. In case you come home and manage to finally read this, please know we’ve been looking for every way possible to rid you of the ghostly duties you’ve been given. We’ve read every journal and translatable book on the Ghost King (Sam was extremely helpful in understanding ghost speak, as you call it), prepared every artifact that could help in their journey, none of which would be able to cause you any harm. We know there’s a loophole we can use. Maybe not the best alternative, but it would at least give you time to decide what you want to do. You could come back home, if you want to.

You don’t deserve any of what’s happening, honey. You deserve to take the reigns of your life and do whatever you choose with it.

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MON NOV 19, 2018

We’ve been so thankful to have you back home that I didn’t remember to give you this. We already talked about most of the journal’s contents and everything you have missed in the last 16 months since your ascension, but this collection of memories and discoveries holds a very special place now. It gave both your father and I something to go back to when we thought we had done everything wrong. It allowed us to notice patterns we had paid no attention to in the beginning. Maybe there are more things here we forgot to mention but you can use somehow.

Before we leave you this notebook or any of our research, I would like to reiterate how much we love you and how we will keep working on understanding your ghostly side better, with all the complications, unexpected events, and politics we didn’t know it considered. We’re so proud of you. For standing up for yourself, once the royal spell was broken, even against the most bureaucratic authorities we have ever met in either realm.

Please try to talk to us about anything you want. We’ll be more than happy to help, whether it’s to explain in detail the science behind your powers or to talk about your existential worries.

As for the future, no one can know for sure (unless there’s some time-traveling ghost we haven’t heard of) what will happen now that you postponed your ascension to fit your human “nonage”. There are still four years to go until you become a legal adult, plus the year they have to give you back for illegally being forced to become their king. We can work together in finding other ways to avoid taking the crown.

In the end, whatever you decide, it’s always up to you. Whenever you’re ready to take that step, we’ll be there to listen.

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THE END

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PROMPTS:

Star G / Prompt 116: (Not Phantom Planet compliant) The people around Danny would notice small things that didn't add up. They'd notice his bad habits of leaving at ghost attacks, when he would sometimes look almost see through, or when people were sure he didn't just trip and he actually fell through the floor. But hey, no way he could be a ghost, right?

Arioz / Prompt 26: Maddie and Jack find out that their son is phantom and fully support him. Danny and Jazz however did not get that memo.

Bird / Prompt 32: I think Danny dealing with his parents implementing a new, widespread ghost protection thing would be neat! Maybe blood blossoms even, if you’re feeling saucy.

Dekalkomania / Prompt 57: Danny hasn't been feeling himself, blacking out and having strange dreams. Unbeknownst to him, Freak Show's staff was not the only artifact that could control ghosts. Even worse, Jack and Maddie are the ones who get their hands on that object.

Wife / Prompt 133: After becoming the ghost king, Danny finds himself becoming closer friends with his enemies. They come to him and offer gifts, they help decorate his castle. Why shouldn't he be friends with them? It's only when someone he hasn't seen in a long time comes to his castle begging him to come home after over a year that he realizes what has happened.

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