#How did Dani get caught by the GIW?

[radiance1]

So, Danny was effectively homeless.

His parents are dead, his sister is dead, his friends are dead. Hell, even Vlad, Vlad kicked the fucking bucket which, Danny genuinely never expected.

Vlad was supposed to be his nemesis, his main bad guy, the guy Danny's supposed to constantly pull everything out against just to win. Not to mention how significant his presence was.

A part of him assumed that Vlad would always be there and him not being there and knowing he won't be there ever again is... weird.

So you're probably asking, how exactly did this happen?

Well you see, the nasty burger exploded, for one thing. Then when he was under Vlad's care both of them got outed for being ghosts to the GIW, which was technically Danny's fault, since he did something extremely stupid.

Somehow they got caught, and life under the GIW was not great in the slightest. The constant experiments, the dehumanization (Sometimes Danny doesn't even register himself as human), the amount of times their feelings were utterly disregarded, and so, so much more.

The GIW found Vlad to be more dangerous than Danny, even if he lacked the raw power Danny had his intellect made him dangerous and for good reason. For it was because of said intellect that Danny managed to escape.

Vlad didn't manage to do the same.

Danny hated reliving that memory. Because Vlad was a villain, evil and self-serving, he shouldn't be sacrificing himself for his literal greatest enemy to escape in his stead (Not that Vlad would say Danny was his greatest, he would probably say it was the person who refused him to buy the packers). It was just, so utterly stupid and out of character for him.

So, Danny managed to escape, Vlad died. He couldn't even say anything about Dani because she got destabilized in front of him, in front of both of them actually. It hurt to watch and, he didn't quite know the specifics between Dani and Vlad anymore, but he thinks they were getting... better.

Not how it was when Dani was first created, but Vlad was working on mending it. Which, honestly, just makes everything worse.

Danny isn't powerless but it's a damn close thing. He's far weaker than he normally would be, and he's injured on top of that too boot, his powers can barely work and it's just so stupid.

So here he was, hiding out in some random sewer because he didn't want to take the risk of being on the surface and he hates the smell, but he'll take that over being experimented on again. So, Danny spends most of his time in the sewers of this place called Gotham, he even managed to make his own little area with a couch he stole and a few other appliances that were thrown out.

He lacked a Tv or laptop, but he found a yo-yo! Most of his time was spent practicing various tricks with his yo-yo.

It got boring fast. But it was really the only safe thing he could do when waiting for his powers to come back. At least he's a god at yo-yoing now.

It was while doing various tricks with it in some random sewer path, that a literal, goddamn crocodile-man just splashed up from sewer water and half-laid on the edge, since his lower body was still in the water.

Danny looked at his yo-yo, the crocodile, and then slowly stepped on over and gently poked the crocodile dude.

He made a sound, so he was alive!

Finally! Someone to appreciate his godly yo-yoing skills!

[laxxarian]

Dani is trying to convince Bruce that she already has a family but the man was unconvinced.

Being Batman, he patrols at night together with Robin and from time to time, he'd see Dani sleeping at abandoned buildings or under a bridge of some kind.

Each time he sees the girl sleeping here and there, he'd wake the little girl and convince her to at least seek shelter maybe at someone's certain house but that got Dani giving flashbacks of Vlad and his creepy way of talking.

Vlad changed and all but still creepy.

Now Dani is deciding to go back to Amity Park cuz she already has seen the parts of Gotham but before she leaves, she bids farewell to Bruce at first. Going to his mansion and all, saying goodbye and to his kids.

Saying that she's going to Amity Park to be with her family but Bruce wasn't convinced, why? Because in their data, Amity Park doesn't exist.

This whole thing is suspicious so he plans to follow the girl as she goes back home as Batman.

Dani also waited around where Batman usually patrols at night to say goodbye cuz why not? She didn't want to let the guy get worried seeing as how the man would keep trying to help her.

She didn't want him thinking that she might be dead, well, she is, but they don't know that.

So after the goodbyes and all that. Dani waits for a bus, why? She wants to experience using a public transport and because of that, Batman gets to follow the girl easily but little did he know, Dani could actually hear and see perfectly fine because of her ghost powers that Batman was following her. A bit creeped out but she understands.

The bus stopped at nowhere but home was close, Dani just needed to walk, usually she flies but a bat was following her.

Dani contacted Danny to get her and also informed him that a certain dude just won't go away.

And then blah blah blah, Batman was caught by Danny.

Danny: why are you following us?

Batman: !?

Dani: don't worry, Danny, he's a superhero too

Danny: *looks up and down* ....I see...

Batman now gets to see Amity Park and now that he knows where it is and confirmed the girl's safety. He left.

Then researched about Amity Park back at his mancave but bats themed.

Batman found out that the GIW were keeping the place a secret, not that they were doing illegal but to protect the ghosts from any other people.

After the GIW found out about Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom, they started to open their eyes and sees how good can ghosts be and is actively helping Danny now.

But Batman doesn't know such real reason and theorized they were trying to keep a meta human a secret so they could get Phantom without anyone knowing about it.

So, Batman called the young justice team to go out and investigate.

Strange things that the team found out was that Amity Parkers doesn't care about what's going on the outside of their homes and that's mostly due to ghosts and the only hero their is also a ghost. Not wanting for anymore villains, they all decided not to attract anymore people from getting here and give the Parkers more trouble.

What they also found out was that the residents may be clueless and blind at some times, they were all fascinatingly fast learners when it comes to fighting and also fleeing.

The team also gets to meet Phantom, a cheerful guy and Dani (human form) who was talking casually with him.

[mossycobblestonewrites]

DC X DP PROMPT #11

Under some erroneous conditions, Vlad has become a contractor for the Justice League. It would be fine if Vlad Masters was the JL contact, but no, Plasmius has landed the gig. Somehow the vampire supervillain look didn't throw them off (he swears he never had to overshadow anyone, either)

This is not the main issue as of, though. The main issue is Danny. Not that Danny is ever really an issue, it's more of what happeneds to Danny that's a problem. Well - Dannys.

The three of them were out, minding their own business when some stray defecto GiW agents came out of nowhere. This was no longer supposed to be an issue. With Vlad having connections to the JL the GiW had been officially disbanded and their actions made illegal. This obviously did not stop some of the organization's former members.

Anyway, the Dannys were out bonding, typical sibling activities (no Dan, arson does not count. Yes, we can brawl though) when some rogue GiW agents fresh out of government-backed work caught them in the unawares. This would normally be a nonissue but these particular agents had managed to get their hands on some thought to be destroyed Fenton prototypes.

These agents had managed to capture the trio. Now, they had only held the Danny's for less than a day, but give an inch take a mile. Jack and Maddie had busted into the hodgepodge setup, guns blazing, Vlad not far behind. The damage was already done though. Jordan and Danielle were mostly just banged up, a little worse for wear, but no one was melting. It was Danny that was having issues.

Danny seemed to be the major target of the former agents ire. They had managed to get to his core. This damage wasn't irreversible, from what Frostbite had told them, but it was detrimental to the young ghost. He was still developing, this was simply not good for the Great One's health!

Through careful consideration, it was decided that in order to heal from this, Danny would be better off retreating into his core for this. He had already started the process of doing so in the short time they had been in the Far Frozen. Normally, when one of the Dannys would retreat into their core they would be placed under careful watch by the family, but with Danny's core being damaged the call was made that he would need to be carried.

Nearly everyone had volunteered to do such, all were turned down for various reasons. Jordan and Danielle were still injured (and Dani still had a perpetuity to melt at times). Jack and Maddie were denied on the fact that having a leaking source of ectoplasm would be a detrament to their own health, regardless of how liminal they were from years of constant exposure. In the end, the job fell on Vlad. No one was really thrilled with this (besides the man himself) but Frostbite insisted he would be the best fit for the situation. His human side would nourish Danny's and his ghost half would supply him with ample Ecto for proper healing.

Vlad was ecstatic, especially to tell the League that he would be taking maternity leave.

[lilianade-comics]

Soooooo your Cheese Melt/Kindred Spirits AU 👀

Since Dani figures out what Vlad’s original plan for her was, (which is what I presume she found down in the lab in that first fake screenshot. Rip XD), how do they end up getting close again? Obviously Vlad saves her life, but like, after that lol. Is it just a matter of Vlad routinely proving that he actually cares over the course of a while that does it? Something more dramatic?? A bit of both???

Also feel free to drop the deets on those episode rewrites you’ve got knocking around your brain, especially Living Large, because I’d love to see how that episode plays out in this AU <3

Essentially, yeah! It's just Vlad continually being really extra as a parent and making decent choices in regards to Dani. (He's selfishly selfless: He values his own happiness the most, but it just so happens that he's thoroughly convinced that Dani's happiness is what makes HIM happy. Leave it to him to twist everything to his own benefit, right?)

Dani is giving him another chance because ultimately, he did save her life and is clearly trying to make up for what was a truly horrible plan (that he actually abandoned pretty much the day after she was born. He may have convinced himself that he was just delaying the plan, but in reality the moment he decided "not today" was the moment he unknowingly doomed himself lol. It just took him a while to actually ACKNOWLEDGE that his priorities changed. He had no intention of letting Danielle die by the time she discovered the truth). Ultimately Dani wants what every child wants: a good parent. And Vlad, well. He's Vlad. But when he wants something, he throws everything into getting it. So Dani no longer believes Vlad is good like she used to, but she does still believe that he loves her.

As for this AU's version of Livin' Large, I'll drop a few details below the cut!

-The Fentons move next door to Vlad and Dani. Dani seems happy about this, Vlad is less so.

-In the original episode, Danny refuses to investigate what the Guys In White want with his family's portal, so this prompts Sam and Tucker to ask Dani for help instead.

-They get caught, as in canon, but Dani pings as critically ectocontaminated and is swiftly loaded up to be shipped off elsewhere. This coincides directly with Danny flying by after his little "maybe i should do something, actually" moment and he immediately swoops in to save her. Unfortunately, the GIW nab him too.

-hilarious hijinks ensue as Danny and Dani try various methods to escape confinement. None of them work.

-Ultimately, it's a deeply annoyed Vlad in a white suit and sunglasses who rolls up to the facility to collect his daughter. ("....What the heck are you wearing?" Danny asks with extreme derision. "It's called a disguise, Daniel, and it's the reason I haven't also been locked in a cage. Unlike you, I might add." Vlad fires back smugly. "You should see his other ones," Dani pipes up, prompting one to wonder just how many times Vlad has impersonated government agents before.)

-Vlad unceremoniously tazes an agent who asked for his ID on the way out.

-Dani turns her big Bambi eyes on Vlad to see if he'll help them save the Ghost Zone from certain destruction. Danny is like "No, that's okay, I think we're good." Vlad gives him a look and flippantly asks if they REALLY think the GIW are smart enough to destroy the Ghost Zone. Dani's like "they're idiots with a giant missile, they're gonna destroy SOMETHING, Dad."

-does this turn into reluctant halfa trio team up? yeah maybe, sue me.

[tanglepelt]

A Shattered Core

Danny gets turned over to the GIW. A core gets shattered.

It all happened so quickly.

He was too late.

Danny didn’t make it. He didn’t get freed quickly enough.

He didn’t get to Dani in time. Only witnessed the travesty.

It all started with him. Didn’t it always?

If he hadn’t walked into that portal would any of this happened?

Danny was the one who got caught. Opening the door to the possibilities of those “disguising” as human. He was the one who attracted the ghost. Skulker was hunting him after all.

Danny got engaged in a fight with him. That’s how they caught him. A single fight changed everything. Skulker had gunned for his prey yet again. Danny barely managed to get out of his room before the first hit. Skulker most of just came from the portal. Immediately gunning for him.

It had all been going well. They were out of the house, he thought away from his parents. A few ecto blasts here and there. A standard night out on the town. Danny had been so close to ending the battle and souping his rogue. Jack and Maddie most of heard the commotion.

Coming out guns blazing. Now it was Danny versus two groups on top of keeping his parents from attacking Skulker.

It all comes down to him getting hit. Jazz rushing out. Skulker getting away.

Jack and Maddie had taken it well. Apologizing for everything. Playing nice, disarming the weapons in the lab. The security system no longer went off on him. Even if he did use his powers.

The two were good actors.

No one suspected them.

Pretending to listen. Pretending to believe them. Pretending they still cared.

Three weeks of pretending. Three weeks of faking.

Jazz left town for the night. A quick college visit. Leaving that morning to be back the next one. Sam and Tucker were with him for the day.  He was only alone for maybe an hour. They all thought the two accepted him. No one had any suspicions.

They turned him over. Handed him off to the GIW. Claiming he was causing the others to believe the lies.

Everything was from his powers. Possession. Something of the sort. He was corrupting them. Danny was the one to blame.

He ended up strapped down in a lab. White walls, white ceiling, and a dandy power suppressor.

Danny didn’t know how long they had him. It got hard to think. Hard to breathe. Hard to comprehend what was going on around him.

Experiment after experiment.

Cut after cut.

Never-ending. No rest

He had given up on getting himself out. It was a waste of his energy. He couldn’t waste it all. The less he fought the more Danny could save. It was already difficult with the constant jabs and lack of pain meds. Danny needed to be ready for the escape.

His friends would find him. He knew it. Danny could always trust them to bail him out. The latest it would be was in the morning. Tucker and Sam must know by now. There was no way they weren’t already forming a plan.

It was just a matter of time.

Most of it was a haze anyways. Couldn’t recall much of what they’ve done.

It was just a waiting game.

Then something in the air changed.

everything came to a halt.

The cuffs and metal on his back remained. Not the cutting or the pain. Danny still could hardly move and was unable to talk. Nothing would come out, no noise no cough nothing. The silence of the room and pure white walls was driving him mad.

Then a muffled noise. Almost like a scream, too far and distant to tell. The vibe in the room began to change. Horror and fear fill him up. It kept building up, getting worse and worse. The screams get closer and louder. No, it couldn’t be. Not her.

Danny couldn’t see her, but he could hear her screams. He didn’t even know how they knew about her. Last he saw she was long gone. She didn’t stick around after being stabilized.

Dani was begging pleading. Screaming about how she was still human. That she wasn’t non-sentient. She wasn’t just a blob of emotions. Danny knew it would be no use.

He had tried explaining it to them. Everything he thought could help. Just got told it was an impressive act. Just that is a simple act. No true emotions, no humanity, and no sentience.

Her being here complicated matters. When Sam and Tucker got here, they needed to prioritize her. Dani wasn’t the most stable in the first place. Whatever they did to him may not work for her. Who knows what could happen if they experimented on her? Danny didn’t want to find out.

They brought Dani into the room. She fought the whole time. Danny began again. There was no good ending for her in this situation. Neither were successful. Agent K and O followed in right after. Double the trouble.

Those two only appeared when they had some seriously messed up scheme. Only for the worst of the experiments. The device in their hands did them no favor. Then the two began talking about how they didn’t have a need for two. Two ghosts pretending to be human.

Only one is needed. One to test and prod. To see what lengths their deception would go to. Now that they had two it was time to prove a point. Prove they don’t care about one another. What better time than now to test a new weapon? One designed to destroy a ghost's very being.

They had enough evidence to suggest one area of a ghost that contains their very being. Danny knew what they meant. A ghost's core. The place all their ectoplasm is stored and powers flow through. That’s when his fight became more urgent. More panicked.

Fighting against the restraints holding him back.

The agents paid no mind to him. Focused on the weapon in hand. The one they raised to her chest.

The cuff around his wrist began to get colder. Despite the power restraint around his neck. Danny knew it was breaking. His powers overpowering it. The two were still too lost in what they were doing.

The same moment he broke free was the same moment the device shot out.

At the exact moment Sam, Tucker, and Jazz broke in. Fully armed and ready for war.

He was busy watching as her core shattered. The pieces explode out all over the ground. No more screams or pleading. No green pile of goo.

A shattered core was all that was left.

Rushing to them. He began to piece them together. Desperation fueled his motions. Trying to piece the shattered shards together. All the fighting going on behind him was ignored.

Not responding to anyone.

Just trying to solve an unsolvable puzzle.

The adrenaline rush began to fade. Danny kept going. Kept going until the world became spotted black. Only stopping when it all went black.

Coming to he didn’t expect to be in a car. For Jazz to be driving and Tucker in shotgun navigating. Sam is on the other side of the car. He most certainly wasn’t expecting the little girl in the middle. One who looked exactly like Dani, red beanie, and all. Only younger.

The way Sam looked at him and the way the girl leaned into him was all Danny needed. He knew it was Dani.

[teetle-time]

Live or Die, Man, We Need Each Other (Part 1 of ???)

Shortly after the invasion, Leo and his brothers go on their first post-Krang mission: stopping a different ominous group of occultists from summoning a being of unknowable power from another (non-prison) dimension to wreak havoc. Evil never rests, after all, even if he and his bros should probably still be recovering from their last big all-out battle.

Meanwhile, Danny just wants to take a fucking nap.

Surely this won't turn into something absolutely massive in scale that sucks them all in.

(or, so do yall remember that Danny Phantom crossover that's been haunting me? yeah lol behold. throwing some ghost king danny in a blender with the rise guys and some classic tmnt tropes that rise never really got a chance to explore, with an eventual side of textfic/chatfic, jack and maddie fenton trying to be good parents, dani, the epf, the giw, roughly one and a half farmhouse arcs, rise-ifications of minor characters from previous tmnt iterations, and *checks notes* shelldon my son <3)

Not actually posting to ao3 right away this time I think- I kinda wanna polish/tweak this bit a lil more first, but I figured this first bit works well enough on its own! also i wanted to infect yall w/ the brainworms because a mere 8 dp-only xovers on ao3 feels like it should be illegal <3

〜

There was an electric charge in the air as Leo peered down at the cultists from the rafters.

Considering the fact that the charge felt like a portal despite Leo's lack of portaling intent, he would bet away his rights to the final pizza slice for a month that something was about to come through.

The cult below (not the Foot, shockingly enough) had chanted enough Latin that Donnie had gone pale upon checking his tech for a translation, so that 'something' probably wasn't good, either.

Just how Leo wanted to spend the end of his first full day off his crutches.

Really.

(Idly, he wondered if there was any point to being so bitingly sarcastic in his own mind when nobody could hear him anyway.)

He met Raph's eyes, then Mikey's, then Donnie's, each of them mirroring his own resignation and resolve.

"Veni ad nos, Rex inquieti Mortuorum!" cried the cultists as one. "Veni ad nos ut serviamus tuo glorioso proposito in mundo viventium!"

Leo opened the mind meld for a split second. Right, so I caught "rex," "mortuorum," and "serviamus." All in favor of sending these idiots to the Pain Train?

That got matching smirks from his brothers, and Leo grinned back before flipping down from the ceiling and dropping into the main mass of observing cultists. "Hey, guys, I think I got a bit lost. I was looking for the bathroom, but it looks like I found a bunch of would-be world-conquerers instead!"

The face of one of the lead cultists, the one at the head of the summoning circle, contorted into an expression of rage almost comically intense- and, to be quite honest, second only to Casey's extremely emotive face.

And then the rest of the cultists swarmed him.

Luckily, his brothers had only been a split second behind him, and the four of them wove between cultists with ease when possible and laid the hurt on 'em when slipping through wasn't an option.

"We gotta break that circle!" called Mikey worriedly. "Barry told me even circles half as ornate still summon things way above our pay grade!"

"We're getting paid?" quipped Leo, even as he zeroed in on the circle and slashed his katanas through the air. "What, we get an allowance now?"

No portal of his own appeared, his energy immediately flowing into the air just above the circle instead. Lovely.

As Leo inwardly rolled his eyes and just pressed further through the mass of people, Raph's crimson projection shot overhead. "POWER SMASH JUTSU!"

While Raph did successfully manage to bring his glowing fists down on the circle with enough force to shake the ground and knock the cultists nearest him off their feet, the circle only glowed an ominous acid green, completely untouched despite the now-massive cracks in the concrete around it.

The lead cultist laughed from where he'd fallen to the ground. "Yes! Yes! The King has heard our call and is coming to do our bidding!"

Leo watched in horror as the acid green crackled into icy blue, and as the temperature plummeted, an eerie voice rang through the warehouse.

"Uh, the only bidding I was planning on doing today was in an online auction for a rare piece of Dumpty Humpty merch."

What.

All motion froze, and Leo found himself gawking as smoke billowed from the circle before coalescing into…a white-haired humanoid teenager.

"And I'm pretty sure that auction just got sniped from me with 10 seconds left on the clock, but instead of getting the chance to snipe it back, I got yanked out here," snarked the teenager, glaring at the hooded cultists with eyes the same acid green as the circle had been.

One of his eyebrows lifted slightly at the sight of Leo and his bros, but otherwise he paid them no mind.

One of the cultists spluttered. "What-?! You're not the Ghost King!"

The teen's face went flat. "No, actually, I'm pretty sure I am. Wasn't planning on it, but, yknow, the old guy picked a fight with me a few years back. If it's him you wanted, uh…you're shit outta luck. I don't really do things his way."

The cultists all started turning towards the teen in anger, but-

One.

One single flick of his wrist, and the cultists were all encased in ice, save for small holes just in front of their noses and mouths.

That was all it took.

The teen groaned and dropped his head into his hands, some of the eerie reverb fading from his voice. "And today's a test day."

"Uhhh…" said Leo intelligently.

The teen stiffened, then stood up straight and scratched at the back of his neck with a sheepish grin. "Ah, shit, sorry about all this. Were these idiots trying to sacrifice you? Cultists have a tendency to do that, even though I keep telling them not to."

"Um, no…Your Majesty…?" tried Raph, his voice rising to a squeak at the end.

"Ugh, ew, please no." The teen grimaced. "You can just call me Phantom. Or my first name, but I'm not really sure I wanna say that out loud with these guys right here." He hooked a thumb over his shoulder at one of the cultists, who helpfully made a furious little peep in the ice.

"Fair enough," said Mikey, getting his metaphorical feet under him just before Leo could. He clapped his hands together cheerfully, and only Leo's lifetime of growing up with Mikey let him still see his younger brother's nerves. "So, are there any rules or anything for that summoning circle that need to be put into action before you can go back to your online auctions?"

Phantom shrugged. "I mean, technically if there's still somebody conscious around, I still have to make a deal before I can leave, but I'd be willing to get these guys to the cops with evidence of their crimes in exchange for directions back to Illinois."

Leo met Donnie's eyes. He could see the urge to ask Phantom every question in the English language.

Donnie shot him a pleading look.

Leo pressed his beak together thinly, then smiled at Phantom. "As long as that evidence doesn't include us four. And also my twin bro over there wants to be able to ask you things. Probably all the things."

"I can keep you out of it," Phantom agreed immediately. "I know what it's like to wanna stay on the down-low, trust me. Though…I probably can't stay very long, but I can make an email address so we can keep in touch?"

"That would be splendid!" declared Donnie, a grin already splitting his face.

"Sweet," said Phantom. With a snap of his fingers, the cultists and their icy cases shot out the door, the circle's light died, and a slip of paper appeared in front of Donnie. "Now, uh…how do I get to Illinois?"

Seeing Donnie preoccupied with entering the text on the paper into his systems, Leo went to pull out his phone, but Raph beat him to it, already opening up TelloMaps and showing Phantom. "Well, it's a bit of a ways away, but-"

Phantom's hands flew up to grab at his hair. "I'M IN NEW YORK?!"

Leo frowned. "Hey, what's wrong with New York?"

"Nothing!" said Phantom far too cheerily, already lifting into the air. "Except! It is an almost 900 mile flight and I have cl-uh, gotta be somewhere in under two hours! Gotta go, I'll keep in touch, can't stay any longer BYE!"

And he shot out one of the upper windows in a flash, leaving only a skybound sonic boom in his wake.

Leo blinked. "…huh. D'ya think he knows I could just portal him there, or…?"

Mikey visibly deflated into Donnie's side. "Ohhhmegosh, Barry's gonna lose it when I tell him about this."

"Woah, woah, hold on, who says we gotta tell him anything?" Leo asked.

"Bro, the 'old guy' Phantom mentioned?" Mikey quirked a brow ridge at him. "That'd be Pariah Dark, a violent ghost who ascended to the ghost throne right about when humanity was learning about this hot new thing called 'fire.' Barry taught me about it on, like, my second day of mystic training. Dude was so big and bad his subjects had to revolt and lock him up, like the Shredder on steroids except without the evil armor possessing him."

Donnie pressed his palms together and lifted them against his beak, the perfect picture of someone who'd just realized something horrifying. "Is the throne passed down through, perchance, a line of conquest?"

Mikey nodded. "But usually mystics tend to figure that anybody who could beat Pariah Flippin' Dark would be even bigger and badder than him. Except…"

Raph's face was turned down in a thoughtful frown. "He sounded…kinda like a normal human teenager our age. Except for the 'dead' thing. Did he actually mention Dumpty Humpty, or was Raph just hearing things?"

"If he'd known there'd been a change in power, Barry would've told me," Mikey continued. "Not just because I'm his favorite, but because he knows I'm just chaotic enough to think about trying bigger things on my own, and learning about the Ghost King is kinda huge."

"Only thinking, though, right, Mikey?" prodded Raph sternly.

"Scout's honor!" chirped he immediately.

"Is that even something we can say after we failed at being Todd Scouts…?" Leo trailed off.

"Casey made me an honorary Brownie Scout when she came to visit after the invasion and you guys were all out cold," said Mikey unapologetically.

"I wonder what happened 'a few years back,' and what a white-haired fellow teen from Illinois had to do with it," mused Donnie, helpfully bringing the conversation back around to the important bit.

"Betcha Hueso might be in the know," Leo suggested. "He's a yokai instead of a ghost, but being a skeleton yokai might mean he knows stuff like this."

"Let's get home before we do anything else," said Raph. "I can see Leo's legs shaking under his weight."

"What?" Leo protested. "My legs aren't-!"

Unhelpfully, his knees knocked together hard enough to draw his attention to where they were, in fact, shaking from the effort of holding himself up.

"Ah, crud," Leo groaned. "Never mind. I can still portal us home, though, at least."

"That's what I thought," Raph snorted. "Besides, I think this whole Ghost King mess can probably wait until we're all sitting down, if that's the new guy."

Mikey nodded. "Gotta give ya that. Barry'll probably still make a funny face, though."

"Eh, let him." Leo hefted himself up onto Raph's shell, then leaned to the side and sliced a portal open. "Vámanos!"

〜

As Danny streaked over Pennsylvania, he dug out his phone and started tapping at the email app Tucker had coded a few months back. It'd been mostly for laughs- who on Team Phantom even needed email when they all had Fenton Phones? and even regular phones, nowadays?- but it was just as secure as everything else Tucker made, and as it turned out, it was exactly what he needed this morning.

Better to have it open in the background so he knew when the purple turtle guy got around to emailing him.

Once he made sure he still remembered his password, he pocketed the phone again and pushed himself a little faster. He'd clearly gotten faster since the last time he'd checked- the sonic boom was honestly his first clue- but he couldn't keep that kind of speed up for very long yet, and he was still over…looked like Ohio, now.

Oh, wait, there was a 'welcome to Ohio' sign just up ahead- and he passed it.

Now he was in Ohio.

All that to say, he still couldn't afford to slow down in distraction for very long if he wanted to get to class in a bit more than an hour.

As if waiting for Danny to think exactly that, his phone buzzed.

He tugged it back out to check, and it buzzed again in his hand.

The first notification was a text from Jazz: 'I saw you weren't in your room just now. Fight or flight?'

The second was an email from an alphabootyyyshaker9000@geniusbuilt.com- an email that seemed more like an essay, if the shortened version in the notification meant anything.

Danny grimaced, made sure he was aligned with a highway down below so he wouldn't drift off-course, and tapped out a response for Jazz.

'flight. bookin it rn, p far. tell u later, but im ok'

She responded with an immediate thumbs-up and smiley emoji combo.

"Never change, Jazz," Danny huffed with a grin.

Then he tried to look at the email.

'Tried' being the key word.

Luckily, the purple turtle had prefaced his email with the sentences 'You are welcome to answer this once you have the time. You did mention being in a rush at the moment.'

Relieved, Danny shoved his phone back in his pocket and turned his attention towards his own personal Get-Back-Home 100% Speedrun.

[q-gorgeous]

coup de foudre chapter 12

fanfiction

ao3

wooo finallyyyy a year laterrrrr well technically less but

Danny woke up groggily. His head felt really heavy.

The first thing that came to him was two soft sets of beeping. He furrowed his brows, struggling to pull his eyes open. The first thing he saw was the white ceiling above him and his heart rate spiked, the beeping getting faster. He almost thought he was still in the GIW compound but then he heard a rustle to his right and when he turned his heavy head tears sprung to his eyes.

Sitting just a few feet away in another hospital bed was Dash. He was shifting and turning under his covers before he let out a groan.

“Dash?” Danny croaked. His throat was dry and it hurt to push the name out. 

Dash finally pried his eyes open and turned his head, his eyes meeting Danny’s.

“Danny? What happened?” he asked, looking around the hospital room. “How did we get here? What happened to the GIW?”

Danny shrugged. “The FBI stormed the compound but I don’t know what happened after that. Agent O zapped me with some kind of ecto taser. I passed out after that.”

“I was already passed out before the FBI could even get me out of my room.” Dash said, rubbing his head. “Their last experiment took everything out of me.”

Danny frowned. “I’m sorry for getting you caught up in this. If it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t even be here right now.”

Dash shook his head and grabbed for Danny’s hand across the space between their beds. Danny held his hand out and Dash took it. “I got myself into this. This was no one’s fault besides the GIW.”

“But–” Danny started but he was interrupted by a knock on the door. 

A woman in a doctor’s coat walked into their room with a clipboard in her hand. “Hello there, boys. I’m glad to see you awake. I’m Doctor Victoria Cavanaugh and I’m the one who’s been overseeing your care since you were brought in.”

“What happened?” Dash asked. 

“This young man’s friends and family started rallying once they found out where you two went. With the help of the mayor they were able to get the help of the police and FBI to get you two home and finally shut down that terrible government organization.”

“The GIW was a government organization?” Danny asked, shocked. 

Dr. Cavanaugh nodded and turned back towards Dash. “You have suffered from severe ectoplasmic contamination. Right now it seems to be manifesting itself through intangibility and invisibility. We’re hoping this process can be reversed but there hasn’t been enough research on this subject for us to be sure.”

She turned toward Danny, turning to a new page on her clipboard. 

“Your ghost half has suffered from tears to its core. It’s already looking much more stable, but it’s why your ghost half wasn’t holding onto your human half.”

“My ghost half?” Danny asked apprehensively. “How much do you know?”

Dr. Cavanaugh chuckled. “You don’t have to worry. Vlad Masters called me here personally. We were friends as kids, you have nothing to worry about.”

“Yeah, sure, I have nothing to worry about but my doctor is friends with the fruit loop.” Danny muttered. 

She smiled at him. “I simply have the expertise needed and know how important it is to keep a secret.” A pink flame appeared, surrounding her finger, and Danny gaped at her.

“You’re a ghost?” He asked. 

She shook her head. “Half ghost, albeit of a different nature. I know how terrible the GIW are and what kind of propaganda they’ve spread. Your secret is safe with me.”

Danny was reeling with this new information. There were other half ghosts besides him, Vlad, and Dani? Different kinds of half ghosts? How?

Before he could ask any questions, Dr. Cavanaugh continued talking. 

“Now that you’re both awake, I’ll send your friends and family over to visit. They’ve been very worried about the two of you.”

She walked back toward the door, walking out and shutting it behind her. The room was silent for a few moments except for the constant beeping coming from their heart monitors. 

“Half ghost?” Dash asked, pulling on Danny’s hand. “Is that what you are?”

Danny nodded. “Yeah. Half dead half alive, somehow. I thought there were only three of us but apparently there’s more? Who knows how many.”

“How’d you become a half ghost?”

Danny squeezed his eyes shut. “I was supposed to die but for some reason I didn’t. I was in an accident with my parent’s ghost portal. We think it had something to do with the combination of electricity and ectoplasm.” 

“Oh man that sounds awful.”

“It was. That’s why I couldn’t tell them how it happened. I don’t even know why I survived. How do we know it wouldn’t just kill someone else entirely?”

“Who are the other two half ghosts?” Dash asked.

“Uh, one of them I shouldn’t tell you at my own discretion otherwise he might try to ruin my life even more, but the other one is actually my clone so she was just made like that.”

“You have a clone?” Dash's eyes widened and his jaw dropped.

Danny chuckled. “Oh yeah, I’ve been through so much you wouldn’t even be able to imagine all the–”

Suddenly the door to their room was opening again. Danny’s family and friends rushed in and headed over to his bed. Dash squeezed his hand one more time before letting go. 

“Danny!” Sam and Tucker shouted as they threw themselves at him. He let out an oof sound and he could feel his ghost half puff out of him a little bit, but it didn’t lag nearly as much as it did in the GIW compound. 

“Haha, hey guys.” He patted them on the back. “How’s it been?”

Sam pulled back and gave him a look. “Awful. You’ve been missing for several days, Danny.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I know I was there.”

Jazz walked up to him next. “Are you guys okay? The doctor told us what happened.”

Danny shrugged. “As okay as we can be. It could’ve been a lot worse.”

“Yeah, at least what we got can probably be healed,” Dash piped up from the other bed. 

“I’m so glad you two are okay!” Maddie walked up to Danny and pulled him in a tight hug. She pulled back and looked at him. “I’m so sorry you couldn’t trust us with any of this. That you couldn’t come to us for help.”

“Uh, help with what?” Danny asked nervously.

“They know, Danny,” Jazz said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “We told them so we could get their help getting you out.”

“Oh. And they’re okay with it?” Danny’s gaze traveled slowly from Jazz to his parents.

“Of course, Dannyboy,” Jack said, wrapping an arm around Maddie’s shoulders as he walked up to join them. “We’ll love you no matter what.”

Danny could hear a sniffle from Dash and he turned to look at him. “Your family is so nice and loving.” Dash said. “I regret ever calling them crazy.”

Maddie turned to face Dash and walked over to him. “Oh you poor sweetie. Where are your parents? Are they on vacation? We’ve been trying to get a hold of them along with the hospital and no one’s been picking up.”

“Ah, yeah. If they left a voicemail about what happened my dad could’ve just decided it wasn’t worth it. He’s probably just hanging out at home.”

Danny watched as a broken expression crossed over his mom’s face. She pulled Dash into a hug. “You are always welcome in our home if you need it, okay?”

Dash sniffed again and nodded. “Okay.”

Tucker nudged Danny and he turned to look at him. “So any new developments?” He nodded towards Dash.

Danny blushed. “No.”

“Developments for what?” Sam asked, butting in on the conversation.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Tucker sing-songed. “But I think the fact Danny and Dash were holding hands before we walked in was pretty telling.”

Sam turned her head towards Danny. “What? You and Dash were holding hands? Why?”

“This is why.” Sam turned her head back to Tucker to see him making a heart with his hands.

“Tucker!” Danny hissed. 

“Is this why Dash has been acting so weird lately?” Sam gasped. “Is that why you’ve been acting so weird lately?”

Danny shoved both of them a little bit. “Leave me and my feelings alone. You’re just gonna try to talk me out of it, Sam.”

Sam looked mock offended. “Me? Talk you out of it? I would never.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and Tuck’s also a vegetarian.”

Tucker clutched his hands to his chest. “That hurts just to imagine it.”

Sam nudged Danny’s shoulder. “But in all seriousness, I won’t try to talk you out of it. I know I get really defensive and angry at the A-Listers, but as long as he’s serious about becoming a better person then it’s whatever.”

Danny smiled. “Thanks for coming around.”

She shrugged. “It’s better than being miserable and angry that you’re dating someone I don’t like. Trust me.”

They all shared a laugh together and started talking about mundane things like school and homework. Sam and Tucker also started teasing Dash. Danny relaxed back into his pillow. Eventually they’d have to talk about the heavy stuff, about what happened in there. About where they were going from here. But for now, he was content.

He looked over at Dash. His mom was still talking to him, asking about his home life and getting ever more adamant about him coming to stay at their house instead. Dash gaze flicked towards him and their eyes met. He smiled. Danny smiled back. 

He couldn’t wait for life to go back to normal.

[starlightshore]

Hm should do some small changes to my Dani design. (I see people call her Ellie a lot, might have her use that too, less confusing that way... but then again both being named Danny is still really funny.)

First off, I'm giving her glasses. That's literally The Reason Danny can't recognize his own face. Classic superman identity trope.

Going into Dani's back story, the parents got hired by GiW soon after Dani was born. The family moved to some other state to do government related testings- my assumption that the universe difference here was something Vlad did that cause the GiW to be formed earlier, not sure what the exact context is. (A bigger plot is here but idk details yet)

Dani never grew up with Sam and Tucker, she's popular at the schools she's at but doesn't have anyone super close. (Maybe they move all the time?) The Fenton parents of this timeline Aren't Evil persay, but they're stuck with government officials who put a lot of pressure onto them.

For whatever reason (idk yet) Dani gets caught up in the GiW stuff and they use her to test the portal gun on her, Dani can't separate her parents involvement, family is torn apart. It's a mix of Classic Fenton nonfunctional mishaps and the parents believing it was the right thing to do for Dani, considering how serious/corupt the GiW are in my take.

Anyway, Dani is friends with Vlad who isn't rich or well off. Maybe Dani has portal powers? (Cause. Portal gun. Cool) and Dani is on the run. (Thus ghosts are always following) This vlad is more like TUE Vlad, softened and a good role model. Dani still trusts Jazz (who shed be extra close with) but can't see herself staying with the Fenton anymore.

She jumps realties. (likely a Vlad of main timeline's fault, but portal Dani could be involved, making this jump more on-purpose...?) Vlad takes her in, Dani assumes he's like her world's Vlad. Later when she learns he's evil, not sure how she'll side. (As she is a version of Danny who's rejected her family, she's going to be selfish and less morally righteous. Ya know, troubled Teen) she likes the power he teaches her, the money she can flaunt. Vlad was there for her. It'll be hard to convince her he's evil, and harder to get her to change sides even then.

It makes Danny have a head ache trying to unpack all this. This is a girl version of himself (talk about awkward) who has everything he could of wanted- popularity, lots of friends, acceptance, skills and money. Danny's jealous. But he doesn't see that Dani is jealous of him. Danny's family, friends, they all love him. When he's Phantom, everyone adores him or fears him.

Dani and Danny are at heart the same person but they've lived completely different lives. Nature vs. Nurture argument. The two are dumb teenagers who don't know how to communicate. They're arch rivals and jerks to each other. It's pure chaos and frustration and it's gonna end with them being good friends. At the end of the day they're both Dan and Halfas. Nobody (except Vlad but he is not a Dan) could understand what's that's like.

Danny and Dani once past their rivalry make a Dan club for Dans only. I want Dan high-school hijinks

[five-rivers]

White Mirror

Phic Phight prompt by @kinglazrus!

.

.

.

Danny knew he was chained to a wall as soon as he started to move. This was, sadly, typical. He swallowed hard before opening his eyes, trying to judge how long he had been asleep and whether or not he had been drugged.

The answers he came up with were 'no idea' and 'probably.'

Right. That was just about everything he could find out with his eyes closed, unless someone showed up and started monologuing to his apparently unconscious body. Although that had happened a few times.

All that Danny could hear at the moment, however, was his own breathing, echoing slightly in whatever dungeon he was trapped in. So, he'd have to open his eyes.

He did so slowly, blinking away the blurriness. The first thing that came into view were his own legs, still in their pajamas, and a completely smooth gray floor. Interesting choice for a dungeon, but there was no way to escape down there. He lifted his head, something white caught his eye-

-and he immediately jerked back, pressing himself against the wall.

The white-suited GIW agent chained to the wall across from him mirrored his actions almost exactly.

Danny's brain caught up to his observations. The agent chained to the wall. Danny wasn't a prisoner of the GIW. Thank the ancients?

"Who the hell are you?" demanded the agent in a voice that felt almost too familiar.

"I'm-" Danny's mouth stopped working as he finally looked the agent in the face. "Who am I? Who are you?"

The agent was wearing his face.

"You're a ghost, aren't you?" demanded the 'agent,' which was a really weird thing for someone who had to be a ghost to say.

Except... Danny's ghost sense hadn't gone off.

Danny looked around the room. Who was this guy trying to convince?

The rest of the room was the same smooth grey, except where the chains were attached. There were no doors or windows, and the light seemed to come from everywhere.

So. A weird ghost room. Probably.

"Why do you have my face?" demanded the... person on the other side of the room, straining forward. "Why did you bring me here?"

"I didn't bring you anywhere," said Danny. He shook his head and rubbed his face on his shoulder. It felt like it was still his normal face.

"What are you doing?" asked the other person.

"Checking that I'm not wearing your face. I'm not clipping through my arm or anything from your perspective?"

It was weird to see his own features twisted into such incredulity.

Well, Danny hadn't really expected to be stuck with some stranger's face. He was still in his own pajamas, and if the people who kidnapped him wanted to do the whole body swap thing, they could very well have swapped their whole bodies, rather than just their faces. Same with illusions.

He frowned at the person in front of him who was returning an equally intense glare. Something green flickered in the other teen's eyes.

"Hah!" said Danny. "I just saw your eyes glow. You are a ghost! That disguise is pretty-" disturbing "-good, but not good enough." Unless this guy was a clone, in which case it wasn't really a disguise. They didn't feel like a clone, though, and Danny doubted one would be able to get past the GIW background checks.

The person blanched. "I- I'm not a ghost! You are! Stop playing this game! What are you even getting out of it?"

Danny tilted his head. That reaction was way too similar to what Danny would react like if someone random found out he was a half-ghost.

What exactly was going on here?

Danny reached out to the 'agent' with his ghost sense, searching. Normally, he couldn't feel Vlad or Dani, but when he was looking...

"I don't tell people this usually," said Danny, "but I have two middle names."

"How the hell do you know that?" demanded the person who Danny was rapidly becoming convinced was an alternate universe version of himself.

"Uh, because they're mine? Mom and Dad did tell me my name, you know. That's what people do. Now, the second one is pretty pedestrian, it's James, but the first..." he trailed off. "You want to finish that? Because I want some confirmation here, too, you know. It was because of the portal," he prompted when the other didn't say anything.

"Janus," said the other teen. He looked scared. "How do you know this?"

"Well, I'm not entirely sure, but we might be each other. Maybe. I still don't trust you."

"The feeling's mutual," said the other. "So, what's going on, exactly?" The words dripped with suspicion.

"No idea. I've never been somewhere like this. Since when were you a GIW agent? How can you stand working for them when you're," he made a flicking gesture, "you know."

"Well, I wasn't when I started two months ago!" there was a slightly hysterical tone to the young man's voice. "Dad thought I should intern."

"You weren't what?" asked Danny.

"Like this! With the-" He stopped. "Oh, god, this is a trick, isn't it? To get me to admit it?"

"Not sure why ghosts would want you to admit it," said Danny. "Almost all of them seemed to know already, when I started. But, your, you know, the portal accident. When did it happen?"

"When did it happen to you?" shot back the other Danny.

"Four years ago," said Danny. "I was fourteen. It was the one in the basement. Mom and Dad were trying to make one."

The other Danny swore and started muttering under his breath.

"I'm guessing it went differently for you? GIW portal?"

Cautiously, the other boy nodded.

"A month ago?"

Another nod. Danny caught the edges of his body flicker.

Danny frowned. If this were a trap, it was an awfully weird one. He licked his lips and phased out of his cuffs. The other Danny yelped.

Danny raised his hands in a gesture of piece. "Look," he said, "I'm not going to pretend to understand what's going on here, but truce? At least until we get out? And maybe I can teach you a few things."

Danny's counterpart gave a slow nod. His phasing wasn't as smooth as Danny's, but it did the trick of getting him out of the chains. They both stood and walked towards each other.

"Deal," he said.

They shook on it.

[ecto-american]

Le Freak

Phic Phight Oneshot for @phantomroyalty : Natural born halfas (EX a child with one ghost parent and one human parent) used to be common place. Now they are all gone. What happened to them?

It’s been a rough day lads, and this is purely self-indulgent nonsensical headcanon stuff that I wrote while partly crying over stress! Thus, fun fact for you! You can’t critique or criticize this because if you do, I absolutely will cry again! I know it sucks, it jumps around and makes Zero Sense bc editing? idk her but I just need to be able to post my fun shit and have a good time  :’) I’ll even put literally everything under the cut

Word Count: 1814

123456789

“Cas?” 

Danny looked up from his phone to glance at his mom before his eyes shifted to see who she was referring to. A dark skinned man about his mom’s height with black hair to his shoulders, in jeans and a dark yellow t-shirt was standing with a grocery cart. The man looked around confused for a moment before turning to his mom. Once facing her, he shot her a bright smile.

“Aye, Mads,” he called out cheerfully. 

“Oh, I haven’t seen you since college!” Maddie exclaimed, and Danny internally groaned. He returned his attention back to his phone, continuing to lean onto the grocery cart. He began to text his friends about the interruption. “I can’t believe you came to Amity Park and didn’t tell me!”

He heard his mom continuing to chat. His name soon came up, and he glanced up.

“This is my son, Danny.”

Cas was giving him a bright smile. Danny gave a polite half smile in return, only to freeze as ghost sense went off. He noticed at the end of the isle, a young adult turning the corner, in his early twenties with very long, light blonde hair. Super long, especially for a guy. Jean jacket and dark washed jeans, a regular black band t-shirt. Very ordinary. 

“Dad, they don’t have any salt,” he complained, but he paused upon seeing the conversation. 

“Oh, uh, this is my son, Peter,” Cas introduced briefly, and his entire demeanor shifted. Danny couldn’t help but completely forget the texting conversation. This dude was suddenly...so nervous. “Peter, this is Maddie. We went to college together.”

Peter didn’t come any closer to them. He gave a light, polite wave from afar, and Danny knew that he was staring at his mom...almost nervously. 

“I’m terribly sorry, but we need to get going,” Cas apologized. He pulled the grocery cart with him as he stepped towards his son. “Busy schedule. It was good seeing you!”

“Oh you too!” Maddie was cheerful, seemingly oblivious to the others. The father son duo left the isle, and out of sight. Danny watched after them.

“Where’d you know him from?” Danny wondered. He glanced to see Maddie putting some boxed dinners into their cart.

“Cas? He was an old classmate of your dad and I. Before Vlad, he worked on the portal with us, but ended up dropping out to care for his son, but I’m so glad to hear that he eventually went back and finished. He was always a very smart man,” Maddie replied. She glanced at the list in her hand. “We don’t have much more to get. Let’s try to get done before the rush really comes in.”

123456789

“Phantom,” a voice called out to him. Danny glanced over to see Peter standing nearby. The halfa shot him a smile, capping his thermos and a light salute. Though inside he was a bit shaky. Was he really just? Watching that entire fight?

“Hello, citizen!” Danny put on his public hero voice. He paused, half turning away as he prepared to leave. “Well uh, ghost’s contained. I’ll see you around!”

“No!” Peter’s harsh, desperate plea caught him off guard. “Please. We need to talk. I know your secret.” Danny’s blood ran cold. 

“What secret?” Danny asked quickly. “There’s no secret. I’m a ghost, what secret could I have?”

Peter’s look, that absolute knowing, scared Danny. Despite it, he didn’t seem malicious like he had feared. 

“You can’t run, because I really, really actually need your help,” Peter asked. “I know you’re half ghost.” He hurriedly added at Danny’s panicked look, “But I don’t know who your human half is! I don’t care who either, I just really need to know how you’re so stable.” 

The entire statement caught Danny absolutely off guard. Peter wasn’t giving off any kind of vibe like he was with the Guys in White, nor that he was going to hurt him. He couldn’t even sense anybody else around, and he had been fighting in the area long enough to have already set off booby traps if they existed. And his ghost sense...had gone off around him sporadically. 

“What do you mean?” Danny asked. Peter’s lower lip trembled.

“I’m half ghost too,” he claimed. Danny stared, his heart stopping. “But I can’t...it’s literally killing me.”

“I don’t believe you,” he whispered. Peter motioned for him to move back a bit. Danny did.

There were no familiar rings or flash of light that always signaled his transformation. A dark shadow seemed to overwhelm the other, and left behind a figure that was unmistakably ghostly. Electric blue skin that was forever crackling with purple energy with matching purple eyes, the once blond hair now pitch black and floating around him softly. His outfit didn’t change, but Danny’s ghost sense did go off.

Peter held his hand up, and a purple dome shield came up. An ectoplasmic dome shield. He didn’t know how to feel at this revelation. Danny could only stare in awe at the other. There was more like him. It wasn’t just him and Vlad and Dani. They weren’t alone, there were oth-

The newly exposed halfa doubled over with a groan of pain. The shield quickly melted away, and Danny tensed up. He took a step forward.

“D-Don’t!” Peter’s voice gurgled, and Danny stopped. The newly discovered halfa fell to his knees and knees, and he threw up as his ghostly form melted away. As the form melted away, Danny could feel the air being filled with a rush of electricity and static before it finally faded.

“...Are you okay?” Danny called out.

“Yeah, that’s normal,” Peter wheezed, wiping his mouth as he stood back up, wiping his knees of dirt and gravel. “My ghost powers are super unstable. I can’t…not without...” He paused before glancing up at Danny. “Did you ever have a time where you were struggling to get your powers to work?”

“Yeah,” the teen nodded.

“I’m the opposite. I have to force myself to turn it off, and it takes so much energy, and every time I just try to utilize a little bit of power, it’s this…” Peter trailed off. “It’s overwhelming. And it hurts. And I can’t just bottle it up forever. If I don’t let it lose sometimes...it’s not pretty. I try to do it in isolated areas. Just let the excess energy out.”

Danny could only imagine the kind of destruction. If he had to guess, based on the electricity in the air, this guy had some kind of electric core. 

“How’d you...know about me anyway?” Danny changed the subject.

“I didn’t put puzzle pieces together, if that’s your concern,” Peter assured him. “The other halfa told me.” Danny’s eyes widened. “It’s why my dad and I came to Amity Park. We’ve been looking for a halfa to help us, or uh, rather help me.”

“Wait Vlad told you!?” he blurted out. What the fuck, cheesehead!? Oh, when Danny found him, he was gonna.

“No?” Peter’s puzzled tone snapped him out of his anger. “There’s...more than just us three left?” Danny’s undead heart skipped a beat. 

“Five,” Danny replied. “Who’s this other halfa?”

Peter stared somberly at him, glancing at his feet briefly as he toed with some of the rubble. 

“...I don’t know his human name. I purposefully didn’t ask,” Peter told him. “I originally asked him to help me, but he’s in a terrible spot and needed help of his own, help we couldn’t give. Not without getting ourselves in worse trouble. He said you were a halfa though. It had to be worth a shot. There’s not many of us left anymore.”

“How’d you even become half-ghost?” Danny asked curiously. Peter cocked his head in confusion. 

“I was? Born this way? Ghost mom, human dad?” he said slowly. He studied Danny curiously, and it seemed to click. “Wait were you not born half ghost?”

“You were born this way?” Danny asked back. His mind was going crazy. You could be born a half-ghost? That was possible? How come his parents never knew that? This would definitely explain why his dad seemingly dropped the Fentons as a friend... “Wait, many of us left?” 

Peter’s face told him nearly everything. Something happened. Something bad. The other cleared his throat. 

“Um...yeah,” he said quietly. “It’s kind of a long story. I don’t know all the details, cause I was kinda young, but basically...there was a lot of us. We had our own little section of the Ghost Zone. Do you know how the Bermuda Triangle is a giant natural ghost portal?” Danny nodded in confirmation. “There’s a section of the Ghost Zone near where it spawns most often that we used to inhabit, because of all the otherworldly crossing. Well, we were there. Before the Guys in White found out about us, and they came, and.” 

His breath hitched. Danny felt sick. The Guys in White...knew. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. They not only knew, but did this...oh fuck then that meant that there was a chance that they knew about him, and Vlad, and…..oh no.

“My dad said I nearly died too,” Peter continued. “One of the full ghosts saved me, smuggled me out. And my mom’s a doctor and was able to save me, but I was in a coma for like two months. Some made it out alive too. The unlucky ones…”

“...Died?” Danny guessed quietly. Peter let out a breathless chuckle. 

“No. They’re lucky if the GIW just killed them,” he replied flatly. “It’s honestly terrible. I don’t think you wanna know.” Peter was right; Danny didn’t want to know. It was Peter’s turn to be curious. “So...you weren’t born this way? Right? So how…”

“I was in an accident,” Danny kept it simple. Peter raised an eyebrow.

“Must be one hell of an accident,” he commented. Danny chuckled nervously. Peter sighed heavily. “So, I still don’t know if you can actually help my stabilization issue…cause of the differences…”

“I’ll do what I can!” Danny blurted out. Peter’s face brightened. “Please. I’d love to know more about halfas. We can compare stuff.” The young adult let out a sigh of relief.

“Come to my house tonight, my parents can tell you everything they know,” Peter agreed. He reached into his pocket to pull out the familiar small notebook. He ripped a page out, jotting down an address Danny already knew. “Just...come alone.”

Danny nodded, holding his hand out for the paper. Peter gave it to him, and despite the other powering down, Danny still felt a bit of an electric shock as they grazed hands. 

“I’ll see you then,” Danny promised. 

Grasping the note, he waved a goodbye, and he flew out. He had so much to tell Jazz.

[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.

[reading-wanderer]

So the prompts I’m doing for my next Phic Phight story are: “Vlad promises to save the world from the Disasteroid, and he only wants one thing in return—Maddie’s hand in marriage. Now Maddie must decide if she’s willing to sacrifice her marriage for the sake of the world, or can she and her family (and her surprisingly insightful son) some up with another solution before she has to decide?” And “Favorite Rare Pair”

My plan is Maddie making Jack being a part of the marriage a spur of the moment stipulation to try and throw Vlad off, but he’d be stupid not to take that deal because it would also guarantee that Vlad gets Danny and Jazz instead of having to deal with a custody battle.

So now I’m trying to figure out what Jack and Maddie would know about Vlad’s misdeeds with Danny still not revealing his secrets and it’s just like:

The Reunion: they won, but it was fake? He was avoiding them until they left after that so they could still think they did damage

Maternal Instincts: the ghost stuff is done by animals and therefore not directly attributable to him but Maddie could extrapolate— he also basically disappeared on her when Danny got the animals to chase him off

The portal theft: He was trying to steal the portal using Phantom as bait. Jack beat him up

Pariah: he was involved but they don’t know how. All those ghosts were fleeing so it wouldn’t be to big of a leap to say that Vlad could have been caught up in that because he was beat up when he was tossed out of the portal. He also ‘saved Danny’ so they could extrapolate him using his ghost powers for that

Jazz’s visit: it happened???? Too tied up with Phantom for Jazz to tell the truth about. She can’t really say anything about seeing him as a ghost or anything without coming up with a reason she didn’t tell them or express fear of Vlad after

Ectoacne: who knows how it came back? It shouldn’t have since his body should process ectoplasm correctly now since he’s Half Ghost. Danny could maybe say that he saw Vlad purposely infect Sam and Tucker, but then comes the question of Why and that’s tied to Phantom

Cloning: Nothing

The Mayor stuff: the GIW going after him makes sense now; the clone-Vlad battle now looks cheesy; Maybe Danny could say he saw Vlad overshadowing people, but then that brings up the question of why he didn’t say anything earlier. There’s the Danny getting hit as collateral thing though

Infini-map: ghost only; Maybe mention Maddie the cat

Vortex: I might need to rewatch, but I think this was Phantom-adjacent only

Dani melting: phantom only

Like maybe there some questions on why he didn’t do anything for Nocturn or Overgrowth?

Like I need them to have a reason not to fight back directly after the asteroid is dealt with while also still feeling confident enough to rebel in other ways. Like I can go the “Rich people can make your life hell” route but the reason for the marriage is Obsession based so it feels like it should be a ghost thing they’re afraid of. But Apparently he hasn’t done much for them to be scared of without Danny spilling his secret unless I’m misremembering something