#Jack and Maddie found him at a natural portal

[dcxdpdabbles]

DC x DP: The Real Blood Son

It's a year after Damian came to live with them that he decides it is an excellent time to bombard Bruce with his news.

"I had a blood brother." He says to Tim after the other commented how important blood meant to Bruce-ie, not enough to make him get rid of his other sons. "He was the first from the artificial womb mother made with Father's DNA; however, he was disposed of once his heart condition became known. I highly doubt you will last even twice as long Drake-"

"What"

Bruce didn't know that he could make his voice that cold. That dead. What in the world does he mean disposed.

Damian goes still. The kind of still where he isn't sure if he just earned a punishment and is trying not to react to the fear. "My elder brother. Did mother not inform you?"

"Damian," Bruce struggles to level his tone at Dick's hard stare. "She hadn't even informed me of you. Please, can you explain more about your brother."

The youngest nods. "He had no name, but he was my biological brother. He was forced to grow to age of three before they realized he was defective. Grandfather had him sacrificed to the pit."

Jason growls "what do you mean?"

Damian looks confused- as confused as he can with his league training kicking in. "The Lazarus pit is made from the bodies of young virgins. No older then ten. They are sacrificed in exchange for the Infinite Realms' power to sink into the water. The children are not aware of what is happening to them until the very end. They do not suffer."

Bruce feels sick.

They talk a bit more, on how certain followers throughout history were more then happy to offer the great Ra's their own children to renew the pit. How Damain had watched three children when he was seven be sacrifice- it happened every five years- and how the children were given the best week of their lives.

They purposely given the most joy they could feel before the blades to make the Pit as pure as possible. He talked a lot about watching the youngest- five years- be laughing and splashing in the Lazarus water before his mother cut him down, his screams drowning in the green liquid.

"They say the Pit absorbs the last emotion of the sacrifice. Grandfather hopes the children realize the importance and honor they have to be ended for a glorious cause, but occasionally a few are disloyal. When Todd had taken a dip, the previous Renew, had a brilliant girl who figured out what was happening and attempted to escape. She failed, of course, and her arm was amputated in a mission, but she died angry. That's why Todd had such strong madness compared to-!"

"SHUT UP!" Jason roars suddenly, eyes glowing green, and for a brief moment, Bruce swears he hears an undertone of a young girl in his scream "SHUT UP! YOU DONT KNOW ANYTHING! YOUR OWN BROTHER IS IN THERE"

Damain scowls "it's a honor. My brother's body was defective. But he at least had aidded in a glorious ritual."

Bruce can't help it; he leans over the BatCave Railing and hurls his dinner. Damian finally realizes that something is wrong.

They host a funeral for his three-year-old son, who died without a name, and place his gravestone next to his parents. They explain to Damian why the Renewal ritual is horrific but Bruce feels it take years before his son can see that.

Jason, went out into Crime Alley to let off some steam and had been going on a rampage against the underbelly of Gotham. He can't find it I'm himself to stop him.

Bruce asks Constantine to come over and do a small ritual, to hopefully unbound his child and let his son soul move on. Constantine warns that with the kid's name it may not work and that they could only free souls they share blood to but the English man tries anyway.

They send his son their prayers, and hopes. And they try to put him to rest.

Across the Infinite Releams to three dimensions to the right of the Wayne's soul resting ritual, The Fenton's adoptived son, Danny Fenton jolts in his English Class.

The strange stabbing scar above his heart- which is why he never takes off his shirt- burns then cools as if someone had tried to place the temperature-changing ointment. He rubs his best, confused.

What was that?

He'll have to check with FrostBite. Maybe his heart condition is acting up again. It happens every five years even though no doctors his parents have taken him to could figure out what it was.

Until Frostbite. The yeti claimed it had something to do with dark arts, but he's unsure what type.

Frostbite is still doing more testing.

"I wish you had lived, brother. I wish I knew you name"

The wind whispers, and Danny feels a flash of deep longing and grief before it's gone. Yeah, he needs to talk to Frostbite.

[bet-on-me-13]

Danny was born as a Halfa

So! Jack and Maddie are a little More insane in this.

When studying Ghosts, they become convinced that the only way to defeat the Ghostly Threat is to make a Ghost of their own. One who will fight on their Side. And they do believe that a "Good Ghost" is Possible, but only if fused with a Human to balance out the "Inherent Evil".

So, when Maddie gets pregnant they take the opportunity to try and make one of these theoretical "Halfas" by testing on the Baby in the Womb.

Jazz if Born, and she is not a Halfa. She is merely an extremely Liminal Toddler, so Jack and Maddie consider the experiment a Failure. They raise Jazz as per usual, and then 2 years later Jack and Maddie try again.

They have Danny, and this time he is a True Halfa! They did it! Now all they have to do is turn the Baby into the perfect Weapon against Ghosts!

Danny is raised less like a Baby and more like a Weapon. His Parents still treat him well, and give him some amount of love, but there is never any doubt in his mind that his only purpose in Life is to be the perfect weapon against Ghosts.

The only person who really treats him like something more than a Weapon is Jazz, who likes to sneak into his Room and play with him when they parents are out of the House.

(Later addition: They also have Ellie as a Kid a few years later, but because they messed up the process she is not as Stable as Danny is. She is 4 years younger than he is)

Then, they day he had been preparing for his whole life comes. When he is 10, a Ghost manages to sneak through a Natural Portal into Amity Park, and the Fentons send him to go deal with it as his First Test Run.

But when he gets there, he doesn't find an Evil Ghost bent on killing everyone in town. He finds a Teenage Girl, with blue flaming Hair, crying to herself.

(Idk how long ago Ember died, so lets just assume she died around 6 years before Canon)

He doesn't attack immediately, and when the girl sees him she invites him to sit with her. Against his better judgement, he agrees and sits with her.

She talks to him for a bit, and eventually explained why she was crying. Apparently she only died a few weeks ago and had finally found her way back to the Living World, back home. But when she got there she found that nobody really cared about her Death.

She had died in a House Fire, and because she had spent her entire night waiting for her Boyfriend to show up for a Date, she was too tired to wake up in time to escape.

Her Parents had obviously mourned, but her supposed friends and her boyfriend had hardly cared. In fact, it turned out that her Boyfriend had stood her up because he was cheating on her. So she had run off into the Park and sat down to Cry about it, where Danny had found her.

And Danny is confused.

His entire life, he has heard that Ghosts are Non-Sentient Killing Machines. That they don't feel any emotion aside from Malice. That they aren't People.

But this Girl is as Human as anybody else he has ever known. Perhaps even More Human.

He decides to ignore The Fentons Orders, and lets her go back through the Portal she had come through.

When he gets Home, the Fentons are less than pleased. They are Livid in fact.

Their Perfect Weapon was a Failure after all! It's too much like a Ghost to ever side with the Humans! It's just another Spook!

And they know what to do with Spooks.

They lock him up in the Lab, and decide to cut him open Later to figure out what went wrong.

They'll be successful next time.

Thankfully, their jeers to Danny are heard by Jazz in the other Room, and she doesn't like this one bit. So that night, she takes Danny and Ellie with her and Runs away. They need to get out of Amity Park, out Illinois even. They run and run, sneaking onto Buses, hitchhiking, even jumping on Trains.

Eventually they end up in a place called Gotham City.

...

Ages at the end.

Jazz: 12

Danny: 10

Ellie: 6

[thevoidstaredback]

How To Balance Your Daytime and Nighttime Activities So That You Don't Burn Yourself Out More Than You Already Have

In Danny's defense, dying scared the hell out of him. Living in a house of ghost hunters was a bad idea, so he left. It didn't matter that they were family. He was a ghost living in a house of Ghost Hunters whose life's work was the very thing that killed him in the first place. He died turning on the portal his parents had spend nearly thirty years working on with two witnesses to his demise. The natural response was to destroy the portal and leave without telling anyone.

He didn't get to that point, though. The first few months after The Accident had been constant ghost attacks, one after another. Danny had tried t understand what was happening, but between his friends on some level denying his death, the ghosts attacking on sight, and the powers he was developing not getting themselves under control, he was reaching his breaking point.

On top of all of it, the portal destabilized.

No one had been in the lab, thank god, but the ghost portal collapsed in on itself. The running theory his parents had was that the ghost boy had been the one to break it. Danny's running theory was that the constant back and forth and overloaded the system. No new actually knew what had been the thing to turn it on in the first place, so no one could actually prove anything either way. At least, that's what Danny hoped.

Danny knew, in the deep recesses of his mind, what to do to get it working again. He knew what to do to keep it open if he so chose.

It had never been his choice in the first place.

Danny had known it wasn't entirely safe for him when the house started to turn on him, but that had only been solidified when the portal had gone down, Jack and Maddie Fenton doubled down on hunting down the Ghost Boy. He was the only ghost left in Amity Park, so he was the only one the trackers would lock onto.

Six weeks before he turned fifteen, Danny left his home. He didn't tell Jazz or Tucker or Sam, and he most certainly didn't tell his parents. Quietly, he packed his things - only those of which that would be easy to carry - and left. He didn't bring his phone or laptop with him. He thought about leaving his wallet, but figured that'd be useful to him.

The last thing he did before leaving Amity Park was go to the police station and tell them he was leaving willingly. He refused to elaborate as to why. They didn't need to know that. He didn't tell them where he was going, either, just that he was leaving.

It was an accident that he ended up in Bludhaven. Four weeks of traveling had tired him out. His powers only making it worse. He was low on money and food, he'd been sleeping on benches and in alleyways, his clothes were all filthy, he hadn't showered in days- He was ready to collapse.

Bludhaven, from what he understood, had a much smaller homeless population that her mother city Gotham, but it was still a lot of people. Particularly homeless youth. Danny was just another kid in an alley when he'd finally collapsed.

It took three days of sleeping behind a dumpster before anyone noticed him. In that time, he'd only woken up once. Not having eaten in a while, he had no waste to expel, so his body had focused on keeping he rested before allowing him to wake up. That was when he'd realized the actual danger he was in.

He had no idea if human weapons could still work on him or not, and he was not trying to figure that out any time soon. So, before the group of armed guys who'd just come into the alleyway noticed him, Danny let the invisibility wash over him before he flew up and away.

On the rooftops is where he found the city's vigilante. He was dressed in a black suit with blue accents and a black domino mask. His weapon looked like a broken bo staff and was strapped to his back.

Danny was not inclined to meet this man, but he'd never seen another hero in action before! Sure, he knew they existed, but he'd never actually gone looking for any. No one in Amity had, actually. It was a peaceful place. Well, until he opened the portal on himself, but that was hardly his fault.

Sure, he wasn't going to meet him, but maybe following him around wouldn't hurt? As long as he didn't get caught, he should be fine. It was only for the night, anyway. He'd probably never see this man again after this.

At least, that was the plan until he accidentally followed the man home at three in the morning. In his defence, though, he didn't know that it was that early or that Nightwing - as he'd heard a few guys call him - was going home! Regardless, he was going to take this to the grave. He was going to leave Bludhaven come dawn and he was never going to tell anyone the he knows where Nightwing lives.

Again, that was his plan. Danny ended up falling asleep on the rooftop opposite the building Nightwing lived in. He slept through the day, only waking up when rush hour foot and road traffic got too loud to ignore. Just as he was getting ready to leave the rooftop, he spotted movement in Nightwing's apartment.

Now, he couldn't even begin to say what had made him stay, but he did. He sat back down and watched as Nightwing moved around his apartment.

It was messy, messier than he'd have expected, but he wasn't one to judge. What really caught his attention, though, was the uniform Nightwing was wearing. Now that begged the question as to why the hero - vigilante was probably the better term here - fought crime at all hours of the day. Why approach the problem both legally and less legally? Why align yourself both ways?

Danny was always a curious boy when something sparked his interest.

He was swift in his movements as he pulled out the binder of paper and scholork he'd taken with him. Opening up to the first blank page, Danny started to write.

He was a hero, whether people thought of him as such or not. He only ever wanted to help. Maybe he could help this guy. Maybe he'd feel some kind of accomplishment if he managed to help Nightwing.

Step one is to observe.

Part 2 Part 4

Tag List: @flame-343

I need to point out that I have gone off of the original prompt, if that wasn't already obvious. In the og prompt, Danny is an adult. In this one, as I continue my take on it, Danny is a child. I didn't mean for it to happen, but the words don't listen to me, I listen to them.

[letoasai]

Vlad- Alternate Obsession

Simply if Vlad hadn't been so obsessed with Maddie. How priorities might have shifted.

~

Daniel was dead. Great god almighty… He was dead. Half dead. Whatever. That didn’t matter. The little details were just there to make a horrible situation more tolerable. For one brief moment, Vlad hoped he was wrong. Hoped that this was merely exposure to ectoplasm or a sign that Daniel would become liminal faster than previously predicted, but no. He was sure. Daniel was dead. 

He watched as Daniel’s ghost sense was triggered, the teen coughing a second later. He looked around warily, holding himself rigidly. He was alert, but inexperienced enough to not realize Vlad was right in front of him. 

“Daniel, my boy!” Vlad greeted, finally untangling himself from Jack and Maddie’s latest tirade on being validated in their research. “How is school?”

It wasn’t uncommon. 

He was Daniel’s godfather after all, and had done what he could to be present for both Daniel and Jasmine since they were born. The children were exempt from his contempt and his affection for them was genuine but he’d never feared for them until this moment. 

Vlad tried to block out as many memories from his college years as he could. After his accident and subsequent half death, he had raged for a while. He’d been in despair, learning to mourn himself while handling abilities foreign to him. He had to learn things from scratch opposed to normal ghosts who knew things instinctively. 

He’d only briefly lost track of Jack and Maddie after his hospital stay but the urge to look them up again had gnawed at him. He had notebook after notebook filled to the brim with his own research on ghosts and ectoplasm but he would have been remiss to shun their research just because he couldn’t stand the sight of them. It was Jack’s blunder that had changed him after all. 

The pair had gotten married, and had a baby girl, but Vlad found himself more interested in their labs than their domestic life. The fondness he’d felt for his best friend, and the passion he’d once directed at Maddie had died with him. 

Jasmine had been a bright spot, and a wonderful distraction in those early visits. A small child also kept the Fentons busy enough that he could slip into their labs undetected. Copying their work and altering their inventions to ignore his own ecto-signature was essential. As far as he could tell, they’d never suspected a thing. 

Daniel coming along had been a blessing, even if it had confused Vlad at the time. Jack and Maddie loved their children but they were always complaining about not having enough time for their research. It had always been to Vlad’s benefit but adding a second child into the mix would only draw out their parental duties. 

However it baffled it, it benefited him. He only had to offer his jovial congratulations and time went on. 

Vlad…was aware that he was not who he once was. He’d either lost something when he half died, or gained something. He wasn’t sure. He was no longer naive. He’d done things in the last twenty or so years. Not all of them he was incredibly proud of. He had amassed a fortune, but it had seemed the natural progression of things at the time. He’d been young, desperate and dead. He’d need money to further his research so money needed to be acquired. 

He’d had medical bills…. Then he had ambitions. 

He might have been something of a thief, a criminal, but he’d never hurt anyone…to his knowledge… 

It was easier on his conscience when it was only stealing from Jack and Maddie. That felt like recompense for what Jack had done to him. He’d had a working portal a full four years before the Fentons. 

He’d never said a word about it and delighted in the secret of it. His wealth of knowledge was greater than theirs. When the pair had recently called him, gushing about their achievement, he’d been skeptical, but he’d seen Amity Park’s newspaper articles on the ghost of a lunch lady at Casper High, and the poor picture quality of a white haired menace that chilled him. 

“Hey Uncle Vlad.” Daniel greeted him with a smile, but his eyes were wary and stressed. Dark circles were beginning to form. “School’s, uh, good? Same old bullies. I gotta read Pride and Prejudice. Aced my last math test though.” 

Vlad hummed and nodded. “That about sums up my memories of high school as well.” It pulled a smile from Daniel. 

“And a ghost sighting! To think we’d find one so close to home! We’re pulling out all our weapons out of their testing stages!” Jack’s voice boomed, overly excited at their find and completely missing the way his son shrank back. 

“A stake out might be in order.” Maddie said, a smile in her voice. Her excitement was more contained but was very real. “Who knows, we might be there to capture the next one.” 

Vlad made a show of rolling his eyes and focused on Daniel. “What is freshman math anyway these days?” 

“I’m taking geometry.” Daniel said, latching onto the topic. “I got the hang of it pretty quickly. So far at least.” 

“You always did have a head for numbers.” Vlad said conversationally. 

“Vladdy! Come take a look at the newest prototype!” Jack was beaming, far too excited over the notion of ending a creature that was already dead. Vlad didn’t care for the sparks of fear that settled in his throat. An ending after the end was final, and terrifying. 

“Jack.” Vlad laughed good-naturedly. “Surely there’s time for that later. I did just arrive. I’d love to speak with Daniel for a while. High school will pass by before you know it.” 

Maddie just sighed, perhaps nostalgic. “It sure does. It won’t be long before Jazz is graduating.” 

“And entering into the ghost hunting business!” Jack declared. 

“Oh, Jack.” Maddie just laughed. 

“Where is Jasmine?” Vlad asked, his need to check on her…sudden. 

Maddie looked thoroughly. “Oh, hm.. She’s…” 

“Tonight’s the night she tutors.” Daniel said, sounding exhausted. “She’ll probably eat dinner before coming home.” 

“Oh, that’s right.” Maddie smiled, but she was already distracted with the toaster she was dismantling. 

Vlad hummed, oddly relieved. As the children had gotten older, their well being came into question more and more. “Well… Jack, you and Maddie seem to have your hands full this evening. Why don’t i take Daniel to dinner? I’d love to hear about his freshman year anyway.” 

“Can we get Nasty Burger?” Daniel perked up. 

Vlad snorted. “Not my first pick, or my second, but why not?” He’d eaten more burgers than he could count in college.  

“Really!? Yes!” Daniel grinned, “I’ll grab my hoodie, be right back!” 

“Danny sure loves your visits.” Jack laughed loudly. 

Maddie just hummed, still focused on what she was doing. “Don’t spoil him.” She said vaguely. 

“You won’t have to worry about a thing.” Vlad said, already turning back to the door. "I'll take care of him." By the time he got there, Daniel was behind him, practically pushing him out the door. 

“Let’s go, let’s go.” 

~ 

Vlad felt himself relax once he had Daniel in his car. He would definitely need to sneak back into the Fenton’s lab and grab whatever new information was available. He would also need to add in Daniel’s ecto-signature to their equipment before something automatically shot at him. 

He needed to address this. He couldn’t let the Fenton’s mistake harm anyone else. He’d shut their research down if he had to. He'd shut his own down if he had to.

He cringed at the thought. 

“Daniel, wait.” Vlad said after he’d parked in the most secluded spot the parking lot to Nasty Burger provided. “Before we eat, i would like to talk to you?” 

“Yeah? Sure.” Daniel said. His tone was light and playful. Normal. The color however, drained from his face. “Do i even gotta bother to tell you to call me Danny again?” 

Vlad smiled faintly. “I quite like the name Daniel, you know? That’s not however, what i wanted to talk about. Let me be clear, this conversation does not leave this car. Not by you. Not by me.” 

“Oh, uh. Yeah? Yeah, of course.” Daniel said, turning sideways in his seat to face him. “What…are we talking about?” 

“Ghosts.” 

Daniel sighed. “C’mon Uncle Vlad. Don’t i get that enough from mom and dad?” 

Vlad shook his head and reached out to grab Daniel’s shoulder. “No, listen to me. It’s safe to talk to me, and i will not ask about… whatever accident you must have had-” Horror was all over Daniel’s face. Enough time hadn't passed for him to mask his reaction to his death. “But i understand, Daniel.” 

“I don’t know what you mean?” Daniel muttered and winced when it didn’t sound the least bit convincing. For just a split second, he turned invisible. He probably hadn’t even realized he’d done it. Most would assume their eyes were playing tricks on them. 

Vlad leaned forward and opened the glove compartment, pulling out the article of the ghost attack on Casper High. “You’re not in trouble. Not with me.” 

Daniel only glanced at it before looking away again. He’d seen it already no doubt. “It’s not what you think.” 

“I’m very sure it is.” Vlad said softly. “I know all too well what ectoplasm and trauma can do. I can sense death around you.” He paused before pushing forward. “In time, i’m certain you’ll be able to sense it on me too.” 

Daniel’s lips tightened, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew what he heard and was proceeding with caution. “What do you mean?” 

“We’ll get some dinner to go and we’ll head back to my house here in Amity.” Vlad said. “And i’ll show you my own ghost form.” 

“Yours…” Daniel sounded winded. “When did you…?” 

“Long before you were born.” 

“My parents…?” 

Vlad just tsked. “They were dear to me once, Daniel, but they are fools. No, they don’t know about me, and i will not tell them about you.” 

“Don’t.” Daniel said, somewhere between agreeing and begging Vlad to mean what he said. The tremor in his voice told Vlad all he needed to know. He was well aware of how his parents would react. He was afraid. 

“It will stay between us.” Vlad said calmly. “I won’t ask. It’s breaking all kinds of ghost etiquette to be so nosy but if you ever want to talk to me about what happened, you can. I can also help you adjust.” 

“Can you?” Daniel asked immediately, the closest he’d come to admitting Vlad was right. 

“I’ve never had to teach anyone to use ghost powers before, but yes, I think i can offer you some insight.” Vlad said. “Falling through floors?” 

“Yes.” Daniel said with feeling. “I keep dropping things. My clothes…” 

Vlad nodded along, all of it sounding familiar. “I know all about it. You just need to get used to it. Gain control over what you can do.”

Daniel swallowed, looking like he’d have a meltdown any second. “You promise?” 

“I do.” 

He inhaled slowly. “I…died.” 

“Yes,” Vlad said softly. “I’m so sorry…” 

“You’re…” He watched Daniel’s expression crumble. He didn’t have to ask why. How did you mourn your death when you were still half alive? It had taken Vlad years… “Sorry.” 

“So sorry, my boy.” Vlad said, sounding choked up. “It never should have happened. Not to someone else. Not to you.” 

Daniel bowed his head only seconds before he started to sob. It didn’t matter why. Was it stress? Was he starting the process of mourning? Was it the knowledge that he’d lost a piece of his family? It didn’t actually matter… 

Vlad leaned closer as far as he comfortably could in the car and pulled Daniel to cry against his shoulder. It was all the comfort he could really offer. He couldn’t make it better, he could only put a band-aid on it. He couldn’t change the Fenton’s minds. Not for Daniel and not for himself. They were always going to be in danger, but he could listen. He could be everything for Daniel he didn’t have. He could let the boy cry. He was only fourteen. 

God, at least Vlad had been in college. Daniel was a child… 

“Does your sister have any idea?” 

Daniel shook his head, hiccuping in an effort to catch his breath but he just cried still. 

“At least she’s still safe. You and i will work up a few safety protocols and… i’ll stay in Amity Park.” The castle in Wisconsin had really been the height of his arrogance. 

There was so much to teach the boy. Not just how to use his powers but ghost manners and taboos. He’d learned a lot himself in the last few years of having his portal up and running. Access to the Ghost Zone had made things a great deal easier on him. 

Daniel wrapped his arms around him, clinging in a way he hadn’t since he was a much younger child. He hadn’t had any time at all to come to terms with his own death, but this was a start. 

If Vlad needed to cook up a few excuses for getting him away from his parents, well… he’d been bored anyway.

Master List

~ It'll hit differently when Skulker shows up to hunt the halfa welp and is instead met with a fully grown, pissed off halfa in mama bear mode.

[samgirl98]

DC x DP Prompt #7

Danny is the clone of Ra's Al Ghul.

One day, Maddie and Jack found a black and white hair as it floated out of their still-off proto-portal. They found the hair and found some anomalies to it. They decided to keep it to study it some more.

A few years later, they either want another child but can't have one naturally, so they try to mix their DNA to make a clone, but they accidentally use Ra's' hair instead. (Or they accidentally create a clone using the hair)

Skip to 14 years later, and the accident happens. When that happens, Ra's is also taking a dip in the Pits. While in the Pits, it whispers to him about his mirror born. Soon, he is looking for his perfect heir, as Damian has left.

Danny just wants to be left alone by this crazed fruitloop.

[escelia]

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Here's part 3 (or chapter 4) of my fic Not So Normal. After this installment, I'm planning on uploading the series to ao3 as well as Tumblr so stay tuned for that link to drop!

Prologue | Part 1 | Part 2 | Masterpost

Not So Normal pt3

TW: vague, brief descriptions/mentions of violence, vivisection, and panic attacks

It had been a total accident. His parents were supposed to be halfway to a science convention by then. When Danny floated through the floor and into the kitchen he hadn't expected his mothe- he hadn't expected Maddie to be there. He should have expected the gun in his face a moment later, but definitely not the hole she'd put in his chest before he'd even gotten a word out. It happened so fast. The shouting and shooting, the thermos…

He'd come to on the exam table in the lab, wrists bound, bright light in his face. He could barely make out the figures just beyond it, though he knew exactly who they were. He'd begged and screamed and cried, anything to get them to listen. Jack had gotten Maddie to take a breath and listen for a moment as Danny tried to get it through to them that he was their son!

"I'm Danny, it's me! I'm still me! Please, mom, you've gotta believe me!"

They believed him. He never thought that would make it worse. They became curious in a way they weren't before. Less angry about the dastardly spook they thought had been impersonating their son and more eager to tear into the science experiment they believed legally belonged to them. They called him an abomination that was no longer human and gripped their scalpels with cruel excitement on their faces. He remembered screaming for hours.

Only Clockwork would be able to say how long he'd been like that. All Danny had known was that he was tired and weak, his throat was dry and his entire body ached. He'd been in human form for the whole thing, and though it was much more painful that way, it kept them from getting to his core. He would only ever be grateful for that.

Eventually it was Jazz that had released him. Jack and Maddie had stepped out for dinner believing his restraints would hold his weakened body. They'd been right, he couldn't have escaped on his own, but Jazz had snuck down to the basement right after they'd left and shoved him through the portal, telling him not to come back, it wasn't safe, but to contact her when he knew he was okay. She'd locked the portal's blast door behind him. There, drifting in the vast green of the Realms, he cried and cried until he felt himself fall through a natural portal.

He'd dropped into a dirty alley with a painful thud and couldn't suppress the cry of pain as rocks and dirt pressed into his wounds.

"Oh my god, are you okay?" He'd heard a man call. Gentle but firm hands helped him sit up, his own hands busy keeping his chest closed and smearing the blood and dirt that already covered him. The man gasped in horror as Danny begged for help.

Turns out the man that found him was none other than Bruce Wayne. He was alright as far as billionaires went; far more sane than Vlad at the very least. When Bruce asked what happened all he could get out was that his parents hurt him and he never wanted to go back there. Bruce had decided then and there that he would keep Danny. They'd taken pictures of the damage for court, thinking they would need to build a solid case since Danny was healing up well. He even called in a few favors with his lawyers. The Fentons, though, oh they helped plenty.

"Dr's Fenton, how do you plead?"

"Guilty! That thing is a monster! It belongs to us! That's our experiment! It's fooled you all! You'll see, just wait!"

Several of the officers around the courtroom had to restrain them as Maddie screamed and flailed. Jack was fuming. But much more docile than his wife. The pictures and testimonies had been enough to prove them guilty of child abuse and neglect, but their outburst all but sealed their fate as unsuitable parents. That day, Danny found a new place to call home, and a new family he was ready to die for.

~~•○•~~

Today was the day! Er- night! Tonight was the night! Danny was finally going out on patrol with the bat clan officially. After the events at the warehouse and his family finally learning about his past as Fenton and Phantom, Bruce has asked Danny if he was interested in patrolling with them. Damian had vouched for Danny, doling out thinly veiled compliments about his fighting prowess. Bruce decidedly kept that info to himself. The enthusiasm with which Danny responded had Bruce regretting asking, but it was clear that Danny had been itching to get out there and fight some crime.

Due to his experience, he'd been paired with Nightwing for the night. Dick had cheered at finally getting some one on one time with Danny, pulling him in for the kind of suffocating hug only an older sibling could provide. They had an absolute blast that night. Dick would show off, doing fun, dangerous looking flips off of buildings before firing his grappling hook at the last minute. And Danny could keep up, even as he swung through the air. It made Dick cackle in delight. Quietly of course, they were very stealthy, thank you! (Dick had to be shushed over the coms several times, and Danny was able to keep his laughter to a quiet snicker.)

They'd been on a roll with Danny being able to cover so much ground from so high up. In just the first few hours they'd stopped at least three muggings, recovered a stolen car, and prevented a bank robbery before it had even begun. Hearing his father commend him for a job well done over the coms made him glow with pride. He'd never had so much fun on patrol before. It made his core vibrate with glee.

"Danny, are you… purring?" Dick asked. He heard the others gasp over the coms.

"No! No, now way, I'm absolutely not purring! What gave you that idea?"

"He purrs?" Tim guffawed over the line, and Steph began to giggle uncontrollably.

"Absolutely not!"

"I've found he purrs when he's incredibly happy or content, just like a cat," Damian explained. He could hear the smirk in his voice.

"Aaawwwwwww! I'm happy spending time with you too, baby ghost!" Danny was smothered with another hug.

"Betrayed. By my baby brother! I cannot believe this."

"Settle down everyone! We're still on the clock," came the gruff, authoritative voice of Batman.

Sobering up from the moment, Danny and Dick went back to patrolling. It was starting to get quiet in their area, the others reporting incidents in their own sections of the city. It gave them time to grab a snack before something new popped up.

"You seem to be enjoying yourself," Nightwing began, taking a bite of his granola bar.

"I am," Danny replied. His snack of choice was a pack of fruit snacks. "Patrolling in my old haunt was exhausting. It was just me and my two friends out there most nights. Fight after fight after fight… I have a sense that lets me detect the presence of other ghosts, and it seemed to go off nonstop there. I was lucky if I got eight hours of sleep in a week, let alone a night." He paused to pop a few snacks in his mouth. Dick was quietly attentive, munching on his granola bar.

"Here, I know I've got someone to watch my back. And it helps that humans are much easier to handle non-violently than ghosts."

"I'm glad you like it here, Phantom," Nightwing said with a smile, using his codename. Danny smiled back, getting ready to toss a few fruit snacks into his mouth but stopping short when a chill unfurled on his chest. He gasped, dropping his snacks. Seemed like their break was over.

"What's wrong?" Nightwing asked alert now, eyes flicking around the area to perceive the threat.

"Get behind me."

"What?"

"Just do it! You're not equipped to fight ghosts!"

At the word ghost, the coms erupted in chaos. Danny shouted at them to stay clear, he could handle it just fine, it was probably a small fry anyways. Dick followed his directions, getting behind Danny but not cowering. No, his big brother was covering his back. Sure enough, about a minute later, three large glowing vultures rose over the edge of the rooftop.

"Awe great, it's the birds with the hats! What do you want?"

"Good evening to you, too, King Phantom," one of them snickered. Danny just scowled.

"Plasmius sent us to, and I quote, 'knock some sense inta ya.'" another one said, making air quotations with the tips of his wings.

"I'll have you know I've got a thermos here with your names on it and no access to a portal. How does an extended stay in Soupland sound?" Danny waved his thermos threateningly at them, a sarcastic smile on his face.

"How does taking your little friend here hostage sound?" The last one threatened, perching his claws on Dick's shoulders. Faster than Dick could blink, Danny had spun around, ice shooting out to freeze the two other two birds, thermos pointed like a gun, while clawed fingers wrapped around the third one's neck. The bird squawked in fear.

Frost swirled dangerously around his aura, and Dick swallowed nervously in the face of its intensity. Danny's eyes were glowing a furious, toxic green, and even though the glare wasn't directed at him, he could feel its anger. Dick had seen him like this at the warehouse, sure. But now, this close, Dick truly understood the sheer power that Danny possessed, the majesty that was this eldritch creature in front of him. Somehow, all he felt in his presence was safe.

Danny growled at the ghost clutching at Nightwing, squeezing until the talons loosened.

"Why did Vlad send you?" He questioned. Absently, Dick thought he reminded him of Bruce in interrogation mode.

"He's mad some other guy adopted you or something, the same usual psycho spiel!"

"What's he planning!"

"I don't know! He was going on about how you're supposed to be his son and was throwing things. He wanted us to come rough up you and your new family. He's real mad, but that's all we know, I swear!"

It was silent for a moment while Danny absorbed the information. He regarded the vulture with cold eyes but didn't release him. He should have known Vlad would try something like this. His adoption wasn't super public but it wasn't like it was a secret either, so he'd been bound to find out. Most ghosts respected him too much as King now to threaten anyone Danny considered family, but Vlad always had his ways. He'd have to take care of it without getting the others involved.

Making up his mind, he hit the button on his thermos, sucking up the frozen ghosts and the ice along with it before swinging it around and shoving the end on the last one's beak, trapping him too. Dick sagged in relief once they were gone and Danny made a fuss about checking his shoulders to make sure he wasn't injured.

"Phantom, what was that about!" Bruce's voice was strained over the coms, likely because he didn't know what to do or how to help. Damn, Danny had forgotten that the others could hear them. At the time it had been a brilliant idea; Danny infusing the coms with ectoplasm meant that not only could Danny use them without causing interference, but they were now some of the most secure lines of communication on earth. There went his plan to keep his family out of it.

"Just some unfinished business," Danny replied, trying to sound unbothered. "The hostiles have been apprehended, and there are no injuries. We're good to continue patrolling."

Dick eyed him skeptically.

"Absolutely not. Turn in for the night you two, we'll debrief at the end of patrol," was Batman's stern order.

"No way, more are bound to show up-"

"Which is why you'll need to teach us how to fight them. We'll need you level headed for that, Phantom. Head back to the cave. We'll talk later."

Danny pouted. He could be level headed and still finish patrol! He could! At least that's what he told himself while he clenched his fists to stop them from shaking. Dick put a comforting hand on his shoulder. It was cold.

"Why don't we have Agent A make us some hot chocolate and we'll tuck in for a movie while we wait for the others," he suggested. The ghost searched his brother's face, seeing concern even underneath his domino.

"Fine," Danny conceded. "But I get to pick the movie."

By the time the others had gotten back to the manor Danny was curled up on the couch, chilly toes tucked underneath his brother's thigh and hands curled around a warm mug while the credits for James Cameron's Avatar rolled on the TV. Damian reached over the back of the couch and gave Danny's shoulder a squeeze, pulling him from his post hot coco daze. They had a meeting to get started.

~~•○•~~

As everyone settled around the meeting table in the cave, Damian made a beeline to the seat next to Danny. He would never admit to anyone that he'd been jealous that Danny had been sent out with Richard. Logically, he knew there was no real reason for Brother to come with Father and himself. He wasn't getting dethroned as Robin, and he had enough experience that Father could trust Danny out with a patrol partner. Still, he'd wanted to be there for his first experience patrolling as a member of the family. After the events of the evening, he wished even more he'd been there.

He'd heard of this Vlad before, and never in a good light, though he knew nothing more than that Danny did not like him. It was clear he'd been a source of great stress before he had come to them. Damian was frustrated that he couldn't be there to put their assailants in their place. It looked as though Danny had never mentioned Vlad to anyone else. Damian didn't know if he was proud or concerned by that. Instead of voicing his thoughts on the matter, he leaned in close to Danny's ear to whisper.

"Are you sure we're not blood related?" Damian asked with a smirk.

"What?" Danny whispered back, confused.

"When you were questioning the, what were they, birds? You sounded like Father." Danny turned to blink at him, trying to process the comment. "It is a compliment, Danny."

"Oh!"

"What are you two whispering about?" Tim asked from across the table. He'd leaned one hand onto the table with the other on his hip like an amused mother who'd caught her children conspiring.

"It's none of your concern, Drake." Danny chuckled and shrugged at him, miming zipping his lips shut.

"Alright, mission report, Phantom," Bruce interrupted, approaching the table and throwing a folder down. "What was tonight about?" Danny took a deep breath to keep himself calm.

"An old thorn in my side. The vulture ghosts were sent by a guy who used to bother me back in Amity Park. Had this crazy idea that if he killed my family, he could have me all to himself as some little heir to his evil empire. Seems he heard about my adoption."

Bruce frowned deep at that. So he was a threat to be concerned about. Good thing he'd done some research on ghost weapons then. He tapped the folder.

"If he'll be sending more ghosts to attack us, then we need to know how to fight them. I've taken the liberty of doing some research on weaponry. DalvCo is willing-"

"Absolutely not!" Danny stopped him short. Bruce barely stopped himself from groaning. It had been a long night, and now was not the time to be argumentative.

"We need weapons. This isn't up for discussion."

"That wasn't a request, Bruce. As High King of the Infinite Realms, I forbid my family from doing business with DalvCo and, subsequently, Vlad 'Plasmius' Masters, who owns it." Bruce's face contorted with understanding after his words. The others were quick to catch on. He heard Dick grumble about how the name wasn't even clever, and it made Danny smirk.

"Besides," Danny continued, a sly grin overtaking his face. His teeth were a little too sharp in his mouth. "I have a much better plan. Tim, how do you feel about mad science?"

Tim's eyes gleamed, and his grin, teeth less sharp and far more human, matched Danny's.

"You can build weapons?" Damian guessed next to him. Danny glowed with pride.

"Of course I can, I'm Daniel Fenton-Wayne, after all!"

~~•○•~~

Meanwhile, in Soupland

"I told you we shoulda just told him what was up, then got outta there."

"How was I supposed to know he was gonna ice you two?"

"Oh, please, the ice was tame. He souped us! He said he doesn't have access to a portal and he souped us!"

"That's what we get for threatening someone close to our King."

"Exactly, we shouldn'ta done that. We're too old for this!"

"I may be old, but I'm not deaf. Stop shouting in my ear, loud mouth!"

"Well, then get your wing outta my face, flabby feathers!"

"In case you haven't noticed, IT'S FROZEN!"

"We coulda been on a tropical southern island by now if it weren't for that Plasmius jerk pitting us against Phantom."

"Yeah!"

"Yeeaah!"

"We should work for the King from now on."

[hugsandchaos]

Magical Meal

Summary: As the second day progresses, Danny and the Chain have two questions regarding Danny’s situation. Is he going to be sick? And how bad is it going to be?

Word Count: 5,291

(I apologize for deleting the previous version of this chapter. I’d forgotten about a couple paragraphs that took place in the morning, but now I’ve corrected that mistake. Other than that, not much has changed. Thank you all!)

Jazz pressed the red button to open the Fenton portal and took a few steps back as the metal doors split in two. The eerie green glow of the portal shined onto the ship used to travel in the ghost zone. Inside, sitting in the pilot seats, were Sam and Tucker.“If you don’t find him by 11:00 tonight, come back. We’ll have no choice but to let my parents know.” Jazz said, raising her voice a little so she was sure that she was heard.

She really wanted to go as well, but some of the ghosts knew Sam and Tucker better than they knew her, and someone had to make sure her parents remained calm until they confirmed that Danny was indeed missing and not just in the ghost zone for some reason. Still, it upset her that she couldn’t join the search. Already, before Sam and Tucker had even left, Jazz wanted to receive a text from one of them saying that they found him and that he was alright.

The two nodded with determined expressions and turned the ship on. If Jack and Maddie weren’t having a breakfast date, she’d worry about them being heard as the engines fired up. She watched as the ship began to hover off the ground, then before long, flew right into the portal.

As a sort of mini celebration that the school year was finally over, the three of them had planned a sleepover at Sam’s house, but Danny never arrived. The last message they’d gotten from him was that he was heading towards an abandoned house they’d stumbled upon a while back for a little bit. When he didn’t arrive for hours and didn’t answer his phone, they texted Jazz asking if she knew anything. She texted back saying that she thought he’d gotten there by now. That immediately caused intense worry on both sides.

The duo immediately went to the abandoned building, despite how late it already was. After all, the service was bad out there, so that could be the reason why their messages weren’t even delivered to his phone. They didn’t find a single trace of him. Several more attempts to contact him later, each one slowly growing more and more desperate, they told Jazz about the situation. Despite the growing anxiety in each of them, they did a surprisingly good job at keeping level heads and came to the conclusion that he might be in the ghost zone.

Jazz was told that Frostbite, one of their allies in the ghost zone, had explained to the young trio that portals between the two realms can naturally open up and close. That, along with how the ghost zone is constantly shifting and cellphone service isn’t exactly the best in there, made the idea that Danny could simply be in the ghost zone and likely heading towards one of the lairs of their allies to find his way back not too hard to believe.

Still, the fact that he’s been gone since last night was worrying. Thus, Sam and Tucker showed up at the house the next morning after Maddie and Jack left saying they were going to the ghost zone. Jazz tried to convince them to wait a little longer since he could show up at any moment or at least let her go, but after another thirty minutes, there was no more stalling them.

Once the ship went through, Jazz closed the portal and frowned.”Please just be a little lost.” She murmured hopefully.

~~~~~(Back With The Chain)~~~~~

When the sun climbed higher into the sky after breakfast, so did the anticipation for what might happen to Danny. Nothing yet, though. Still, Hyrule didn’t want to assume that he’d be completely alright. Not when he ate something that no one, not even Danny himself had any clue about how it would affect him an hour or two ago. Hyrule had practically given him a mini lecture about letting him know if he started showing any symptoms of anything.

He knew from personal experience how badly eating something completely new could go, and Twilight having that one incident with eating too much magic in one meal combined with the fact that pretty much everyone in the group was stubborn to admit when they’re hurt or sick made Hyrule really worried. The sun was getting pretty close to its peak, and by now, the forest was awake. Animals chittered and chirped away as they left their nests and burrows to start their day.

Danny politely assured him that he would tell him if he started to feel sick and thanked him for his worry, but if the traveler was being honest, Danny was being more confident about this than he was. Hyrule was split between feeling like he was going to be as alright as he claimed since he’d actually handled everything that’s occurred in the last 24 hours better than most people probably would and had shown himself capable of handling his own wounds, and being a bit doubtful because of some certain eight heroes being so stubborn in the past.

Even making their health worse a few times.

The rest of the morning was slow and calm compared to yesterday’s events. Perhaps as a chance for everyone to calm down, including Danny. There probably wasn’t a single person there who didn’t notice how he’d grown a little nervous when Wind asked what his world was like. Like he didn’t want to answer it. Then he got distracted by simply glancing at the stars. The way he looked at it with pure admiration and wonder almost tricked them into thinking that it was his first time seeing them.

It would’ve been an extremely concerning piece of information about their temporary member, because like the rest of the group, Hyrule jumped to the conclusion that this being his first time seeing the night sky would mean he’s been kept inside his whole life. Possibly even locked down, held against his own will, but Danny sheepishly explained that because of the amount of lights used for the many roads in his village, it wasn’t the easiest to see the stars at night the way he was seeing them now.

Hearing that was a relief to all of them, and seeing how it helped him relax, they let him return to his stargazing and enjoy the moment before it was ruined for him. He was practically in a trance well past everyone had went to sleep.

Now, Danny seemed to be finally waking up as he wrote down probably everything that Warriors, Legend, Twilight, and Wind were telling him about the most common monsters in a “spiral” notebook. It was hard to tell since his alphabet was completely different. The heroes kindly gave him his personal space, but Wind still sat to his left while Twilight was on his right. Warriors and Legend both remained in their spots on a boulder as they chimed in at random points. Hyrule was watching with Time and Four.

As planned earlier, Sky and Wild had left for Skyloft an hour ago. Danny hardly seemed surprised by their method of traveling, only joking about how they must not get altitude sickness.

“And this is a keese. They’re not very dangerous, but they bite and are very annoying.” Wind said, showing Danny a drawing of the monster in question in the dirt. Danny looked at it slightly puzzled, probably because of its appearance.“Fire keese can set you on fire, though. They’re easy to spot, they’re on fire themselves.” Wind added.

“So they decide to make me suffer with them? Rude.” Danny said half jokingly. Wind smiled and nodded as the human who looked to be only a few years older than him started writing again.

“Very rude.” He agreed.

“There are also ice ones.” Twilight said. Danny nodded in acknowledgment as he wrote.

When he was done, Wind decided to ask the question Hyrule himself would like to know the answer to.”So if you don’t have monsters, you just have animals?” He asked.

That seemed to be better than his first question about Danny’s world since all he did was nod again.“Yeah. We don’t have Keese, we have bats.” He replied. He looked up from his paper expectantly, but Wind and Twilight seemed to be wondering the same thing.

Bats?

”There are tons of different species, and most are insectivores, but there are some bats that eat fruits. There’s one called the vampire bat that drinks blood, but mostly from sheep and cows. Their bodies are also pretty tiny, anyways, so I doubt they pose any threat when feeding. Sometimes I wonder if they even notice the little guys on them. They kind of look like that drawing, but I don’t have any pictures to show you.” Danny explained. He flipped his notebook over onto a new page.”A lot of them look kind of like this.” He said as he started to draw.

Wind and Twilight both leaned in a little to try to get a good look at the drawing, but didn’t try to get up and move closer. Legend almost stood up, presumably to get closer, but changed his mind quickly and sat back down. Hyrule felt himself lean forward as well, just as curious as the others. After a few minutes, Danny put the pencil down on his lap and held it out to show both heroes on either side of him first.

“It looks like it has the head of a puppy.” Wind pointed out.

Danny nodded.“Some do. That’s why they’re nicknamed “sky puppies” by several animal lovers. Except the biggest one, which I think lives in the Philippines.” He turned the book to show it to Twilight.”They’re nicknamed “flying foxes” because of their face, size, and the orange fur on their bodies. They’re fruit bats, by the way.” Danny said, turning the book to then show the rest of the group.

The drawing looked a lot like a Keese, but as Wind had mentioned, it looked like it had a puppy’s face. The wings also looked bigger, maybe a little too big for its body. A drawing mistake maybe? Or maybe it wasn’t a mistake and that was the actual wing size. Who was the traveler to decide when he’s never been in Danny’s world?

Although, if he really didn’t have monsters in his world, none at all, then he might be completely new to the concept of having to kill something to defend himself. He might not have gone on some adventure like the rest of them, not one where the world was at stake and left every member there with scars. Both physical and ones that no one really likes to talk about.

The traveler looked down at the ground while the rest of the world carried on without him. Hyrule didn’t think what he went through was anything bad compared to the others, but now he was worried that Danny might return to his world with bad memories.

The traveler didn’t want that. He wanted this young stranger to return home, safe and sound, with no regrets or memories that would infect his dreams. To maybe one day be able to tell his loved ones about his experience with a smile on his face and excitement and fondness in his voice. There was no doubt about it. Just like Sky said, they were going to protect him, but they were still going to teach him how to at least use a sword as a precaution once his injury is better. Speaking of his injury...

“Hey, Danny? How’s that injury doing?” Hyrule asked, looking up from the ground and smiling.

Danny perked up and looked as if the traveler had accidentally woken him up or snapped him out of a trance, ceasing his repeated pencil tapping instantly.”Oh, it’s healing well, thanks. Should be completely healed by the day after tomorrow.” He replied. Hyrule’s eyes widened a little. He’d seen the injury, and he’d seen Danny stitch it up and wrap bandages around it. A cut like that would take a lot longer than that to heal without any sort of magic to help speed up the process!

“That fast?” He asked, keeping most of his surprised out of his voice. Danny looked at him weird, as if it was common sense, then his expression shifted. He must’ve not realized wounds don’t typically heal that fast until now. Then again, maybe wounds do heal that fast where he’s from.

“I.. guess?” Danny said.

“Do all humans heal fast?” Wind asked. He glanced between Danny and Twilight.

“I’m not sure if it’s considered fast, but a wound like this should take anywhere between 3 to 18 days to heal, so I’d consider myself pretty lucky.” Danny said.

That was a slightly surprising bit of information, but it wasn’t too different from how hylian wounds heal.“Oh, then that’s good to hear.” Hyrule said. Danny nodded, probably agreeing that it’s a good thing, and covered his mouth with a hand when he yawned. He looked back down at his notebook and flipped it back over. He picked up the pencil with his right hand and started shaking it and tapping it against his middle finger again. He looked down at the notebook and used his left hand to hold the side of his head, waiting for the next monster to be described to him.

Warriors decided to take the lead for this one.”Another really common one is the Deku Baba. It’s a carnivorous plant that’s as tall as Time and a head that’s pretty much just one big mouth. The ones in my world are poisonous, and the best way to defeat them is to stun them with your shield and then slice their stem in half.” He explained. Danny wrote everything down.

After that, he moved his hand to press it against his forehead. He started to lean on himself and closed his eyes.“Uh, what else is there? Are those all the most common?” He asked. It was a little hard to tell if he was actually going to be paying attention or not. Was this the magic causing something? Or was Hyrule already looking too far into things?

“Your face is turning a little white there. Are you okay?” Four asked. Okay, so Hyrule wasn’t the only one who thought that.

Danny opened his eyes again and brought his head back up. He looked at Four.”Come again?” He asked.

~~~~~(In The Sky)~~~~~

Sky smiled feeling Sun’s arms wrap around him and returned the gesture practically on instinct. Her yellow hair, which smelled of sunflowers and felt like a smooth, thin veil when he pressed his head against her’s, stood out against the blue sky and endless sea of clouds behind Sun. He felt her head rest sideways on his shoulder. She was trying to enjoy every second of their last hug for a while, just like he was.

“Come back safe again.” She said softly. Sky nodded.

“That’s the plan.” He joked.

“If you two are done being lovey dovey, I’m ready to interrupt and give my “see you later”s too.” Groose chimed in.

The mood immediately lifted from something soft and bittersweet to a feeling more lively. It could be described as the moment suddenly becoming less of a potential farewell before Sky went into what could potentially end his life if he wasn’t careful, and more like he was actually about to go somewhere less dangerous and just really far away. Sky almost laughed a little at it and regrettably ended the hug.”Yeah, you can say your-- Wait, what did you say?” He asked.

Groose clearly held back his laughter, probably caused by the way that Sky’s face flushed with embarrassment when he finally processed what the tall redhead said. To make it worse, Wild snickered from the edge of the wooden platform extending a short distance off the island.

Well, Sky wasn’t amused one bit.

“We weren’t being lovey dovey.” Sky said annoyed.

“We weren’t?” Sun asked with a feign innocence. Sky whipped his head towards her so fast that he thought for a second he’d accidentally snap it. Wild cackled at this, and Groose’s shoulders shook with muffled laughter, as well as Sun’s.

“I’m just joking.” Groose said, letting a small laugh escape his grasp when he started speaking. He stepped forward and pulled Sky into a hug. Sky was lifted off the ground a little, but that wasn’t the point right now from his perspective.”In all seriousness, I agree with Zelda. Please come home in one piece, and without new scars. As cool as they look, getting them isn’t fun.” Groose said.

Sky let out a dramatic, angry groan and hugged back. He wasn’t acting upset about the hug. It was the teasing, and he was happy everyone knew that. Groose hasn’t always been the best with social cues and hints.”I don’t want scars either.” Sky said. He was promptly put down and almost stumbled getting his footing back. He felt a hand pat his shoulder.

“It’s a deal, then.” Groose said.

Sky nodded and smiled as he started walking towards the wooden platform where Wild was. He felt almost refreshed and was now a little more determined to finish this journey.”Alright. See you two later!” Sky called out. Instead of doing some cool jump, Sky walked straight off the platform and knew that Wild had followed close behind. Sky grabbed Wild’s arms and brought him closer so he could grab onto his back, then brought his fingers to his mouth and let out a loud, sharp whistle.

Flynn let out a loud squawk before he came up from beneath them both. With practiced ease, Sky held onto his loftwing, careful not to pull his crimson feathers. Wild swayed a little, but remained on the large bird, which was a big improvement from last time. The wind grew louder and blew past them stronger as Flynn flew towards the opening in the clouds.

As they approached the opening, Flynn dove down closer towards the clouds below. Sky slowly, but confidently stood up and held a hand out for Wild. The less experienced hero gratefully accepted and stood up, but was even slower and shook a little with unease. Sky smiled and waited for him to be upright.

“Ready?!” Sky yelled over the wind.

Wild gave him a slightly nervous, but very determined and excited smile.“Ready!” He said with a nod.

When they were almost right above it, they both jumped and reached for their cloths. Sky looked up at the opening as he fell through, the circle quickly growing smaller as he fell.”I’ll see you soon, Flynn!!!” He yelled to his bird. The responding squawk was just loud enough for Sky to hear.

“How sweet.” Wild said teasingly.

Sky rolled his eyes and gripped the corners of his sailscloth, which he used as his cape.”Oh, shut up.” He said. He and Wild both looked down at the ground and waited until they were a little closer to the ground to raise their items above their heads.

The sailscloth and glider carried them calmly towards the camp. Both let go and let themselves fall the rest of the way when they were close enough, rolling as soon as they touched the ground in order to lessen the impact. They stood up and walked towards the camp.

“We’re back!” Sky announced. When they got close enough, the two quickly noticed something was up. The temporary member was sitting against a tree in the shade, with his bag kept close to his chest as if he was holding it protectively while his head rested sideways on it. Hyrule was leaning on the same tree, but on a different side, and occasionally glanced at Danny with worry.“Is everything okay?” Sky asked.

Time turned to them.”Most of us think so. Hyrule, probably not as much.” He replied. Sky and Wild noticed Warriors and Twilight were sparring a few paces away from the camp, and Legend was watching them with Four. Wind was sitting next to Time, doodling in the dirt in boredom, and Epona was laying down nearby.

“Danny started showing symptoms about an hour ago. He swallowed something that he said should help him and moved to sit in the shade. I honestly think he fell asleep.” Wind explained.

Now that they knew what was going on, both felt more at ease with the situation. Wild took a double look at the slate to make sure that he had all the food they’d gotten from Skyloft.”So I’m guessing we’re waiting until he’s better to look for the portal? I vote for it, traveling while sick is never fun.” Sky said.

“When have we not stopped when a member was sick?” Time asked. Wild walked over to the now extinguished campfire and relit it to start on lunch. Funny enough, a small growl was heard from Wind’s stomach. The poor sailor’s face grew a little bit red in embarrassment.

“Fair point.” Sky said. He walked over to where Danny was sitting. Hyrule perked up a little seeing him come over and put a finger up to his lips. Sky shook his head and knelt in front of the dark haired human. Under the shade, it might look like it blended in from a distance, but since it was darker than the shadow cast onto him, it stood out up close. His face was also a little pale, but other than that, he seemed alright. Hopefully whatever medication he had for himself will work.

Despite the traveler’s disapproving look, Sky reached out and lightly tapped his shoulder.”Hey.” He whispered. To his relief, it was enough to wake him up. Unfortunately, his face wasn’t the first thing the young human saw and when he registered his hand on his shoulder, he smacked it off. Sky quickly retracted his hand and Danny looked up at him as his bag fell off his lap and landed sideways from the movement.

Danny squinted his eyes at him for a second before his eyes widened a little and he seemed to recognize him.”Oh, I’m sorry.” He apologized.

“It’s fine. How are you feeling?” Sky asked.

Danny made a noise and shrugged, grabbing his bag again.“Not the best, but definitely not the worst. What about you?” He asked. He put the bag back in his lap and rested both arms on it. He seemed ready to go back to sleep, a feeling Sky was very familiar with. And he totally wasn’t jealous that Danny got to nap and he didn’t. What are you talking about?

“Good. We grabbed some food that doesn’t have as much magic in them.” Sky said. Danny gave them a thumbs up and a small smile.

“Thank you for letting me know.” He said, sounding more tired than grateful, but the gold light that glimmered ever so slightly above his head told Sky otherwise.

The hero smiled.”No problem.” He said. He then stood up to go to Wild and see if he wanted any help.

~~~~~(Slight POV Change, Because No One Likes Not Being Given A Warning)~~~~~

Over with Warriors and Twilight, Twilight had managed to throw Warriors over his shoulder and held his sword next to his opponent’s head. It obviously wasn’t a real threat, but it was also obvious that Twilight won. Warriors looked up at him and let out a tired breath. Twilight’s stoic expression, which was honestly sometimes scary on the kind ranch hand’s face, lightened up into a smile. He put his sword away and walked around the captain. As Warriors sat up, Twilight held out a hand.

At the same time, a smug Four accepted a blue rupee from Legend, who looked less than pleased.

The two silently parted ways, with Twilight walking over to join Time and Wind and Warriors going to sit with Four and Legend.

“Seriously? You lost me a blue rupee.” Legend complained.

“And I lost a sparring match.” Warriors said.

With Time and Wind, Twilight was met with positivity more than negativity.”Nice.” Wind commented.

“Thanks.” Twilight said with a nod. He walked past both of them and sat down next to Epona. When he came closer, Epona perked up and watched him, but she wasn’t on alert. She was happy. When he sat down, Epona seized her opportunity and shifted her position to lay her head down on his lap.

Twilight raised his arms up in surprise when he notice her begin to move. He kept his arms up, palms facing down, and once Epona had her head resting in his lap, she took a deep breath before closing her eyes to relax. The ranch hand’s eyes widened slightly and his mouth was agape.

Twilight was shooketh.

Epona’s head was a little heavy on his legs, but it wasn’t a kind of heavy pressure that was uncomfortable. This one was soothing. It was always more comforting and tolerable when it wasn’t an object leaning on Twilight, but a person or animal. He often felt like he could just shout in pure happiness when an animal chose to use him of all choices as a pillow or place to rest on for their nap, as odd as it may be. And right now, a moment that didn’t happen as often as one would think, especially in a situation like this adventure, he thought he was going to explode.

Twilight practically forgot about the rest of the world as he slowly lowered his arms and used one hand to gently pet her. He only remembered to close his mouth when he smiled.

~~~~~(Slight POV Change + A Short While Later)~~~~~

Wild finally finished with lunch, egg tarts for everyone, and only had to stand up straight for it to be silently announced to all. He took his plate first and walked away from the food before it could be practically swarmed. Wind was second to get his food, followed by Four, Legend, Warriors, and Hyrule, who grabbed the extra one made for Danny. Finally, Time stood from his seat after he knew everyone got their food, and the only one aside from him who didn’t was going to be a while.

“I don’t think Twilight’s going to join us for a minute.” Time said. He pointed behind himself with his thumb, and the rest of the group turned to look past him.

Twilight looked up from where he was seated on the ground with Epona’s head resting on his legs. One of his hands had been petting her, but he stopped when he looked up.

”Huh??”

Some of the members couldn’t help but laugh a little at how he’d been so focused on Epona that he probably didn’t even notice that lunch was done.

“That’s sweet.” Hyrule said.

Wind looked up at Wild.”Can we document this?” He laughed. Wild wordlessly pulled out his slate and held it up, but instead of saying no or hiding his face in embarrassment, Twilight smiled for it and even gave a thumbs up.

Everyone was unanimously quiet for the click that signaled that the moment had been captured, then continued laughing.“Does it look good?” Twilight asked. The fact that he was going along with everything and even posed for the picture made the whole thing even better. Wild nodded and was soon crowded slightly by Wind and Legend. He didn’t mind much, though, and happily showed them the picture.

“Oh, yeah. It’s a good picture.” Legend said.

The grand finally came soon after everyone’s laughter had died down. Twilight seemed alright waiting a while before getting up so Epona could enjoy her nap. The camp was relatively calm with a hint of new liveliness in the atmosphere, when it was interrupted by a stomach growl coming from Twilight. Epona woke up when she heard it and began to sit up.

“No, wait!” Twilight muttered. His voice had sounded so small and defeated that Wind almost choked on the piece of egg tart in his mouth. Four, Wild, and Legend tried to stifle their laughter. Wind managed to swallow it before laughing again. Twilight’s heartbroken expression made Hyrule feel a little bad for wanting to laugh, but Wild just patted his shoulder and handed him a small plate. Twilight accepted it.”Thanks, cub. The world can be a cruel place.” He said.

“And you guys call me dramatic.” Warriors commented.

Only a few steps away from the camp, Hyrule knelt in front of Danny. Now that he was close up, he realized that he didn’t look as pale as before. In fact, he looked a lot better! Hyrule smiled a little. Having seen how Sky handled it earlier and how it turned out, he decided he’d try just talking first.“Danny.” He said.”Hey, Danny. Hey.”

Surprisingly, and thankfully, that’s all it took before he started to stir. Hyrule smiled a bit as the human opening his eyes.”Hey, Wild made lunch. It doesn’t have any magic this time. I hope you’re hungry.” He said.

Danny stared at him pretty blankly for a moment, but that hardly mattered. He was most likely still waking up and was just taking a moment to process what Hyrule had just said and decide on an answer. After a moment, he nodded.”Yeah, I could eat. Thank you.” He said. Danny stretched his arms up and rubbed his eyes.

“Alright.” Hyrule said. He set the plate down next to Danny, then stood up and took a seat leaning against the same tree, but on the right side. Well, right if you count Danny as straight ahead and use the tree as the center. Danny yawned and briefly covered his mouth with his hand, then looked down at the plate of food and picked it up with the fork.

“Never had it b’fore, actually.” He said. Hyrule glanced at him. From what he was told, egg tart was a pretty common dish in most... well, Hyrules. Then again, maybe he didn’t live there, like Twilight and Wind.

After another moment, everyone just enjoying their meal, Danny spoke up again.”How long was I asleep for?” He asked.

“Not too long. Probably an hour, and then another thirty to forty minutes after Sky woke you up.” Hyrule replied. Danny hummed in acknowledgment.

“...Which one is Wild again? The one wearing blue and that short, grey-ish cloak?” Danny asked.

“Yeah, that’s him.” Hyrule replied, taking another bite.

A few seconds later, Danny spoke again.”This is great. Thank you.” He said. After that, the camp finally dipped back into silence. Well, as silent as it could be in the middle of a forest.

Once everyone was done, the group returned to their own thing and Wind approached Danny.”You’re looking a lot better. Do you feel anything?” He asked. Danny smiled a little.

“Yeah, I’m feeling a lot better. Thanks for asking.” He said.

“That’s good to hear.” Twilight commented.

Danny turned around, probably to say thanks or something, but stopped when his eyes fell on Epona.“Is that a horse?” He asked.

Twilight nodded and almost laughed. Danny’s reaction was pretty similar to Wind’s and Sky’s reactions. Danny realized he asked a stupid question and his face turned a tiny bit red.”Yeah, Epona’s a horse. Is this your first time seeing one?” Twilight asked. Everyone was less awkward about the question knowing how insane other worlds could be.

Danny lifted a hand, palm facing the ground, and shook it side to side.”Sort of? I’ve seen them in pictures and such, but not in person. That’s probably the fourth most ridiculous thing I’ve ever asked.” He replied.

“Don’t feel bad. Wind and Sky never saw a horse until we met, so we don’t think it’s weird.” Legend said, hoping it would help. Danny jumped a little, probably having not noticed him until now, but took his word for it and nodded.

(“You guys put together two protests in one night?”)

[bwabbitv3s]

Good Godfather Vlad AU - Part 4

Link to Part 1 Link to Part 2 Link to Part 3

This took way longer than I expected, but it is done!

@kaitouhime @krzys2000 @moobloomrights @spooky-fm @undead-essence @theblackcatscratchpost

Concerns and Realizations

The next day passes in a bit of a blur up to the evening dance in the old high school gym. He almost does not know what to do with his plans all crushed and swept away with the revelation earlier in the week. Vlad feels himself being tugged along as if in a dream he had long ago thrown away. It is almost like when they all first meet and Vlad found some of the first people to take his racing mind and sharp tongue as interesting not off putting. 

He does notice that the Fenton’s son seems to be a little jumpy today. Glancing off at the ceiling, windows, and floor for some time before nervously going on with his time. Jack tells him aside away from prying eyes that Danny has been having some anxiety issues. Grades are dropping and he has become more accident prone to the point they bought an entire set of plastic plates and glasses. He has not been sleeping well with reports from teachers about him sleeping in class. 

He and Maddie are trying to be very thoughtful about approaching him as he had issues in the past with bullies. It has not been going well as the boy keeps dodging the topic every time they try to talk to him about it. They want him to know he can talk to them about anything and they will support him. It is why they brought him and Jasmine to the reunion. A chance at a break from school and seemed just the thing to help. 

Whenever he spots the boy it appears to get worse as the day goes on. What was easy to brush off as a nervous tick has become a real concern. By the evening Danny looks like he is expecting something to jump out and try to murder him. Vlad decides to try approaching Danny about it even if it is just to give him an excuse to get out of the Fenton’s smothering.

“How are you Danny? I can hardly imagine what you and the other children are very interested in watching all of us go about things from before you were born.”

The boy practically jumps, hands twitching towards something not there at his waist. 

“Uh, yeah. This is pretty boring you would think after a few days everyone would be caught up by now.” Danny nervously answers. 

“It has been quite a long time since many have seen each other. Not everyone can sum up a decade of time quickly.” Vlad says. Allowing the deflection to stand. Danny seems to be calming down a little. 

“Say, do your parents still go on ghost hunting trips or did they stop after graduating?” Vlad asks in curiosity. Ghosts and the portal had become a taboo topic since the revelation earlier in the week. As soon as Vlad finishes asking Danny gets a long stare as if seeing something in the distance.

“Not too often anymore. I mean they don’t need to go someplace to hunt ghosts anymore. Now with Amity being so haunted since the portal opened.” Danny bitterly says. 

“They actually got the portal to work!” Vlad exclaims in surprise. 

“Yes, have they not gone over their greatest scientific breakthrough with you yet?” Danny answers with a surprised look.

“I don’t think they want to talk about it as it is close to the accident.” Vlad responds mind racing. 

How did they get it to work? He had tried over the years to get a version of the portal to work himself. Tried different locations of thin spot to connect to it. After his powers started to manifest in a bid to get answers. It never worked. Not so much as a spark. Let alone something stable if it is causing an entire town to be haunted. His latest project to work was a short range tracker of sorts to locate the echos a natural portal left behind. It is how he was able to find the ghosts he had initially hired. Shaking away from that though he looks back at Danny. 

“That is surprisingly emotionally intelligent of them.” Danny says. 

“Did they ever get through the stabilization issue?” Vlad asked in curiosity.

“It just sort of stays open. They had to build a blast door to keep it sealed off. I am not sure how it stays open.” Danny responds.

“Fascinating.” Vlad says. 

"I just wish it would keep the ghosts from coming through. Been weeks since I got to sleep without the alarm going off that something has come through." Danny sighs out.

"Ghosts have been coming through that regularly?" Vlad asks in curiosity.

Most of the natural portals he had gotten to study rarely let things through even the ones that stayed open for a week.

"It is like nearly every other day. Sometimes every day something even just an ectopus comes out. I just want to not have to deal with them so much " Danny says.

"Deal with them? I am surprised your mother has not caught enough to cataloged them in a scientific paper yet. It was always her dream to get tangable proof of ghosts." Vlad says.

"Yeah by ripping them apart molecule by molecule. I am sure eventually they will if they could keep them from escaping. Kinda hard to catch something that can slip through solid objects." Danny says turning away a bit.

Vlad nearly flinches at this. One hand going to grip his wrist as memories of the hospital surface. A slow bubbling horror of what his newly renewed friends would do if they found out he was part ghost. It would not even be on purpose. Just can you do this test Vlad? Only a little blood to look at under the scope. The panic spiral screeches to a halt when he sees the self soothing gesture that Danny is making.

Stepping closer to him in concern while shoving down his own fear to process latter he feels it. That flush of warmth that signals a ghost is nearby. Tensing he scans the room stepping closer to Danny. There should be no ghosts here. Had one of the ghosts he hired decided they were not happy with payment? It increases as he steps closer again to Danny. As the boy shivers and breaths out and a cloud of frost despite the warm room. That is the final missing puzzle piece that clicks into place for Vlad.

~ Sorry for the abrupt end to part four. I just needed to update it now despite the end not being quite where I wanted it to be. Better done than perfect~

[mixedupmojo]

Danny phantom selkie au

Danny phantom selkie au 

Ok so semi recently I have discovered that there is a selkie Danny phantom au and as someone who absolutely loves selkies my mind immediately started racing with this au and all of the different possibilities until it eventually got to the point where I had to write it all down

so here are a couple of headcanons because this concept is just too good and there needs to be more content for it

Amity would defiantly be a costal/seaside town with potentially parts of amity even build into the water similar to Venice or those houses built on stilts 

Amity undergoes a lot of flooding, especially with the increase of sea monster attacks 

Fenton works being a converted lighthouse at the edge of the town on top of a cliff and annoying all of the locals with its blearing neon lights. it having an underground underwater observatory/ lab that runs through the cliff and is partially located in the ocean so that they have an optimal view of what’s going on beneath the waves 

The Fenton assault hover boat/Vehicle I can totally imagine Maddie and jack creating some wild Thornberry’s esk hybrid Vehicle that works on both land and sea.

Also, the idea of the accidental chaos that would be created if the Vehicle was part hovercraft is insanely funny to me    

Danny’s parents would most defiantly be marine biologists/sea monster hunters possibly from a long line of sea monster hunters that way it has been drilled into them that anything that comes from the sea is a threat 

With that, I mind it could also tie in with how Danny got his pelt in the first place. As it could have belonged to his however many great grandmother who originally was a selkie until her pelt was taken and she was forced to marry into the family, the pelt being hidden away until Danny found it

Sam, Tucker and Danny finding the pelt and getting Danny to try it on then all promptly freaking out as Danny turns into a seal and doesn’t know how to change back immediately 

Wacky high jinks ensue as they try to hide seal Danny from his parents and sister until Danny can eventually figure out how to take the pelt off

I love the idea of Danny having multiple seal forms depending on how he is wearing his pelt. Let me explain when Danny puts on his pelt completely he changes into full seal form, but when he puts it half on, say around his legs he turns into a mermaid version of a seal 

Danny being able to hold his breath underwater longer than any human or seal   

Danny is also incredibly fast while swimming 

As for how the portal could fit in personally I think it could be just the case that amity park has always had a sea monster/creature problem but with Danny officially putting his foot down and trying to stop it makes it more of a challenge than before to the local merfolk. However, I could see the portal work through either some B-movie logic that the Fenton’s accidentally open an underwater cavern, deep sea rift or something of that nature that allowed access to amity park or it could just be an underwater hell mouth situation spewing out some mystical energy or something that ended up attracting all of the local mer/monsters 

When it comes to Danny’s rogues gallery and allies I could see them fitting in a number of different ways such as:

-        Skulker when it comes to skulker there are two ways I could see him fit with this au So here are some ideas for both: 

-        First is shark mer skulker how is challenging Danny for his territory i.e amity park and wants to take his pelt as a trophy 

-        Second is poacher skulker who again is hunting Danny for his pelt. With this version I also imagine him having lost a lot of body parts from the various things he’s hunted and as such has various different prosthetics the most notable being a multipurpose hook hand which he can switch out for a variety of different weapons. Another disconcerting feature is the fact that he is also missing his nose which gives him a very skull-like look.

-        Box ghost being a boxfish mermaid nuff said

-        Technus being an electric eel mermaid 

-        Kitty and Johnny both being mermaids who love to cause trouble with the local fishermen and boats. shadow could be a manta ray or some form of malevolent water spirit or even just a regular shark

-        Ember I think would totally be a siren as her whole deal is music and singing with her goal being to lure people into the ocean to drown and eat them in classic siren fashion 

-        Walker I think could actually be a ranger as I’ve hear/read some stuff about how people have mistaken him for one in the past and I could see it fitting with his character, with him being such a stickler for rules and all. I could image him being a slightly corrupt law enforcer pick and choosing which local wildlife laws he enforces, and as such him causing problems for Danny when he is in human form. He sees Danny’s seal form as a menace to society and a danger to the local eco system despite the fact that Danny isn’t doing any harm. I could also see him becoming Sam’s arch rival considering how much of a nature activist she and if walker if following the rules to such an extent that it is causing more harm than good to the local wildlife then I can see them clashing as they both fight for what they believe is right.

-        When it comes to spectra for some reason I keep thinking that she would be a kelpie. For those who are not aware kelpies are water spirits that usually appear in the form of a horse but can also take the form of a human with the goal of luring people to the water so that they can drown them. She would still be Casper high counsellor only not only is she spreading misery just for the sake of it but she is slowly convincing people to go near large bodies of water so she can drown them later. going off one piece of kelpie lore that I heard about is that she is only able to keep her form through the use of her necklace which is how Danny was able to stop her in the end as she was planning on drowning jazz during her spirit speech which was being held at the beach instead of the school. but by taking her necklace Danny gained full control over her as taking a kelpie’s bridle allows the one who took it to have control over it he then threw it into the sea where spectra was then forced to go after it or it be lost forever

-        Young blood I think would still be a ghost but basing it around the episode “pirate radio” he would be a pirate in charge of a skeleton crew. This idea could also see him taking on a peter pan, Davey Jones-inspired role where he’s trying to get people to join his crew so that he has a never ending supply of people to play with. 

-        Freakshow would still be the ringmaster of the Circus Gothica only instead of ghost the circus consists of different types of merfolk. Danny was unfortunate enough to become one of freak shows main attractions when he got caught in his merseal form and couldn’t escape without blowing his cover as such Sam and tucker and surprisingly the A-listers had to come and rescue him before he was shipped away to perform circus tricks for the rest of his life (yes freakshow totally made bounce a ball on his nose as payback after some particular savage sassing on Danny’s part)

-        GIW are not just focused on ghosts but all forms of supernatural creatures however they lean more heavily into the conspiracy theorist and cryptozoology side of things and as such tucker has managed to spread a bunch of fake cryptid sightings in order to get them off of Danny’s trail. Sam hates them as they often do a lot of damage to the local wildlife whenever they are out hunting for cryptids. Wes is constantly trying to prove to them that Danny is a selkie

-        Fright night would be a deep sea mer from the deepest darkest parts of the ocean and a such there are a lot of local legends say that seeing him will cause you to die of fright. nightmare his horse is a hippocampus.

-        Desiree being a sea witch and granting people's wishes but at a great price. 

-        Vortex being some huge kraken leviathan with control over the weather. When he first showed up in amity park he cause such terrible flooding that the entire town was pretty much underwater.

-        Undergrowth would still be a plant creature only he would be centred around underwater plants mainly kelp and seaweed with his whole look would be based around a coral reef. He is extremely mad at the pollution that amity park is causing to the ocean and it’s what cause him to emerge in the first place as he was lying dormant for a long period of time so long in fact that he was one of amity’s parks local coral reefs before he woke up and started wreaking the town.

-        Nocturne being some ancient eldritch leviathan that no one knows what he truly is. 

-        Princess Dora and prince Aragon being sea dragons with the use of the amulet and regular mermaids without it also both of them living in a deep underwater kingdom populated with other mer which could potentially be stuck in a certain time period 

-        I think Sidney poindexter would just be a regular old mer but with a deep love and fascination for human culture as such I think he’s had a number a very bad experience in regards to interacting with human and as such can be hostile towards them especially the ones who act like bullies 

-        Frostbite and the yetis of the far frozen would defiantly be selkies potentially walrus versions as it ties in with their ice and cold theme either that or they could be merorca’s 

-        Clockwork being an ancient leviathan based off of some prehistoric fish like a Dunkleosteus

-        Pandora I think would be some sea serpent leviathan monster with a Greek twist of course    

-        Wulf being modelled after a wereshark as opposed to a werewolf and as such can survive on both land and in water 

-        Cujo I could see being a product of axion labs as instead of a tech company they could specialise in bio tech instead creating the mutant dogfish that is cujo who subsequently escapes wrecking the place in the process and causing Valerie's farther the loss of his job. Or alternatively, cujo could be just a normal merdog until he gets mutated by the toxic chemicals that axion is illegally dumping into amity park waters giving him his ability to grow massive (we all known that something shady is going on with this company)

-        Speaking of axion lab and the idea of them polluting amity waters it would also account for all of the animal ghost Danny fights in show, as instead it could be that Danny is fighting bioluminescent mutated fish, sharks and other deep sea creatures that have gone rabid

Vlad is a whole other kettle of fish admittedly I had a hard time thinking about how Vlad could fit within this world as a big issue is that a key point of his character is the portal accident which turned him into a hafa in the first place and how that fuels his character’s motivation so with this in mind here are a few ideas I have for how Vlad could into this au:

-        realistically part of me thinks that Vlad would also be a selkie as it fit with his character canon of him and Danny being the same and is the leading argument to why Danny should renounce his father and join him but then that raises the question how did Vlad get his pelt in the first place, so her is my idea Vlad was a selkie long before he met Maddie and jack at collage and instead of the portal incident Maddie and jack accidentally stealing Vlad’s pelt and nearly destroying it thus cause the rift in their friendship as I doubt Vlad would be will to trust them again even if it was an accident or they actually did succeed in destroying parts of it and as such Vlad has some serious health issue because of it (alternative to the ecto acne).  

-        Another idea is that Vlad gets accidentally cursed by something jack and Maddie found on a deep sea excursion and becomes some sort of sea monster forcing him to live in the isolation for years until he can eventually get control of it.  

Danny having water powers, now I know this I kind of straying from the traditional selkie mythos but I just really like the idea of Danny having the same sort of abilities that Cleo, Rikki and Emma from the tv show H2o just add water have (if you haven’t seen it I recommend watching it especially if you like mermaids). As not only would this tie in with Danny’s ice powers but Danny would defiantly take advantage of his water powers to pull pranks on people 

An example is that there is a running gag in h2o where Cleo will use her ability to control water to spray people in the face with their own water bottle which is something I see Danny doing to dash on the regular 

Also still running with the h2o theme Danny being affected by the Luna phases the same way the tide is and on full moons becoming a bit more mystical/feral than usual and feeling a deep pull towards the ocean   

Ever since gaining his pelt, there will be moments where Danny will swim fare out to sea purely so he can star gaze as there is quite a lot of light pollution in amity especially with his home being a lighthouse 

Danny will also sometimes help the local fishermen out by herding fish into their nets

Danny developing a big craving for seafood and ends up snaking on seafood sticks a lot much to jazz’s dismay as his room now reeks of fish

Lots of beach days and lots of swimming too the trio are the ones how are most likely the ones to be out swimming were as jazz prefers to stay on the beach reading 

Danny developing a collection of random sea junk that he’s found 

Sam and tucker finding full seal Danny in the most random of places 

Sam walks into the living room to see seal Danny on the couch surrounded by seafood stick wrappers “Danny you can’t just turn into a seal when things get tough” Danny making a woeful seal sound in response

Danny weaponing his puppy dog eyes against jazz, Sam and tucker when he need to or just to mess with them as none of them are immune to the cute seal stare 

Sam occasionally pretending Danny is her pet seal to get out of situations 

I feel like once Danny started to gain some popularity as phantom the entirety of Casper high would be fawning over cute seal pics of him much to Danny’s embarrassment 

Tucker would totally be the one supplying the pictures as well 

Instead of football Casper high is extremely into water sports with swimming and surfing being the most prioritised, football is still popular though 

Sam and Tucker taking the Spectre Speeder submarine out for joyrides with Danny swimming alongside

Danny constantly being worried about where he’s leaving his pelt as you know there would be a someone who would take it and use it against him. As such I think that he will often leave it with Sam or tucker.

This is a huge testament on how much he trusts them as he is essentially leaving an important part of himself for them to look after 

After jazz finds out he also starts leaving his pelt with her too  

There was a brief period of time where he was worried that Paulina would try and steal his pelt in order to make him her boyfriend but luckily over time, this seemed unlikely to happen. 

if Danny’s parents ever got hold of his pelt, it would be a serious issue as Danny would end up land locked and his pelt destroyed. 

so yeah those are my thoughts honestly this kina evolved into a full scale mer au. If I think of any more I will be sure to add them later. P.s sorry for any spelling mistakes

[xadoheandterra]

Series: still waters run deep Title: Transitive Existence Fandom: The Sandman (Netflix + Comics semi-fusion), Danny Phantom Chapters: I | II Enablers: @demigodorion @azthedragon @kbobrian (because you three litereally went “do it” soooooo….) Characters: Death of the Endless | Teleute, Time, Clockwork, Danny Fenton Pairings: Night/Time (historical) Tags: Discovery and Ignorance, Death Is Nosy, Clockwork Is Cryptic, Referenced Dream in the Fishbowl, dichotomy of existence, Death is a good big sister, introspective Summary: A New Endless is born, a new sibling of the Seven, a new child of Night and Time. This, predictably, has consequences. Not that Danny really cares. He’s just here to live his life and maybe make friends with these people who’ve been at this whole ‘Endless’ thing longer than he has. And okay maybe the idea of older siblings that aren’t Jazz is an interesting prospect and maybe being accepted by someone who understands is on that list somewhere.

Oh, and there might be something about rescuing a cosmic entity in there but whose counting?

Danny twisted lightly in the air as he floated in the sea of empty green that made up the Ghost Zone almost aimlessly. He'd been sent off by Jazz with a smile and a bag and a kiss to the forehead. There was the promise and threat to return to Physical once his business in the Zone had been done since Danny knew Tucker, Jazz, and Sam had all planned some sort of birthday celebration. Maddie and Jack weren't home, thank the Ancients, otherwise it would have taken more work for Danny to even get into the Zone for this visit.

With a grin Danny twisted to fly on his back as he stared at the expanse. He wondered what Clockwork had to tell him now that he was seventeen. It'd been almost a full year since Clockwork came into his life, nearly three full years since he'd died and revived in equal measure in the lab accident beneath his home. The older ghost had been a godsend after their initial and rough start; his knowledge helped so much in Danny's own growing grasp of his abilities and then his many questions and ever growing curiosity about the Zone. Now Clockwork specifically asked Danny to visit on 'the day of your arrival as a being in the Physical,' which was Clockwork-speak for birthday, apparently. Compared to, 'the day of your making in the Realms,' which apparently was the day of the lab accident. Danny didn't know why Clockwork phrased it like that, but that was the ancient ghost for you.

Not that Clockwork was actually a ghost; Danny had to be blind to not realize there was nothing 'ghostly' about Clockwork, but he lacked the context for what Clockwork is other than a mysterious time-based entity of unfathomable power who had an extreme fondness for young 'Phantoms' such as Danny. Dani did not find Clockwork so fond, but Danny was certain it was merely a lack of exposure that would correct itself in time. After all Clockwork handled everything in the aftermath of Dani's near de-stabilization and Danny hadn't had to worry about Vlad showing his ugly mug ever since! Danny considered that a win in his book, all things considered.

The sound of a ticking clock drew Danny from his thoughts as he leaned his head back and slowed his flight. He passed by a singular, floating clock as the landscape around him began to darken. Jagged bits of earth and rock formed small pathways that dipped through slight hills into peaks and valleys. Danny drifted over to one that he recognized, marked by a signpost with a night-sky purple clock decorated in little stars that looked vaguely like some sort of art project Danny had made when he was three. He always found it a little odd, but then he chalked it up to something that his parents had accidentally dropped into a natural portal that Clockwork eventually found and took a liking to. It at least served as a decent guidepost to being in the right area of the Zone.

With a twist Danny landed his booted feet upon the path, hiked his travel pack that Jazz had shoved at him a little more centered on his shoulders and began to follow the path on foot. It was rude to fly through another ghost's area of the zone unless you had previous permission, and while Clockwork had long given Danny permission to fly if he needed to, Danny preferred being polite. The first few disastrous meetings of the various denizens of the Zone because of his social faux pax made him more than leery of pissing of a being far more powerful than himself.

The remainder of the walk was rather peaceful as this area of the zone began to darken into something more like twilight, the distant lands looked little more than stars in the night sky. Danny always liked this view of the Zone best, and always found the shift and change from endless green to endless night fascinating. His love of it might have had to do with his love of space, but it wasn't wholly because he once dreamed of being an astronaut. The idea that the various lands in the Zone could be likened to small planets or stars had always appealed to him. The Zone was a lot like Space in that way--vast periods of emptiness, inter spaced with small budding galaxies of landmasses that orbited one another. Of course that implied there was some sort of logic or order to the Zone and there wasn't, but Danny thought the comparison was apt.

In the distance the Clock Tower rose up over the edge of the hill. It stood tall as a skyscraper, but as with most things in the Zone the closer you got the smaller it really appeared. By the time Danny was to reach the front porch the Clock Tower was the size of nothing more than a rather tall and thin house instead of the towering shape it appeared in the distance. Danny tilted his head when the door to the Tower opened and out stepped the rather familiar figure of Grias. The strange Observant-attendant ghost was a weird one, not like the rest of their kind that apparently worked to govern this world in the absence of a caretaker. For one thing Grias was kind, for a given measure of what kind meant.

They wasn't an asshole like the others, Danny amended silently as Grias came to a standstill in front of him. Danny remained quiet and watched as the ghost fidgeted with clawed fingers for a moment before they dipped their head with a short, "Lord Phantom."

Danny put on a smile and waved with a short, "Heya, Grias. 'Sup?" He earned a slightly hesitant fanged grin in response from the ghost before it was wiped away into blankness a second later.

"Forgive me, my Lord," Grias said carefully. "Your time with Clockwork will unfortunately be far more brief than previously hoped."

Danny frowned, fingers tightened on the strap of his backpack. He didn't know what Grias meant; he had no idea how long this entire meeting between him and Clockwork was supposed to go anyway, let alone what Clockwork wanted to tell him about that was so important it had to wait for this day specifically. Cautiously, slowly, Danny drew out a soft, "Okay?" and Grias inclined their head.

"You have four hours, my Lord." Four hours? Danny blinked, surprised at a given length of time for this meeting. There wasn't ever really a time put upon Danny's visits with Clockwork in the past, and if something were to be short Danny would anticipate it at being something closer to thirty minutes and not four hours. If Grias considered that brief Danny wondered how much time Clockwork really wanted to have with him. "After that point I am afraid I cannot keep the news from the Council. I am sorry."

Grias bowed once, and in Danny's stunned silence slipped past him and away. Danny blinked after the other ghost with another, quieter, drawn out, "Okay?" followed by a short, "What the fuck?" because nothing of that interaction made sense. After a second Danny shook his head and decided it didn't matter. He turned, marched up to the Clock Tower's door, and pushed it open with a cheerful call out to its resident.

"Hey, Clockwork!"

Clockwork looked up from where he stood, half bent over his own staff which he grasped tight enough to render his knuckles bone white, and graced Danny with a smile.

"Hello, Daniel."

Yeah, Danny decided as he felt that core in his chest tremble with emotion at the clear fondness from his ghostly mentor, whatever Grias was on about didn't matter.

...

Daniel was a curious and often creative child, Time learned in the years he spent with his gaze on his child. The youngest-oldest of his Endless children was so frighteningly like his third child in many ways that more and more often Time let his gaze drift in the direction of Morpheus. A part of him shattered every time he saw his little dream curled into a ball, ignoring the world around him. A part of him worried about the humans who held onto the drops of Dream's power, who used and abused gifts that were stolen. He may have, silently, tweaked a few bits of timeline in a sense of revenge--aged some, forced others to stay younger...but that was not the point. Time drifted back into the here-now to look at Daniel whose lips were pursed at the bombshell of information Time had just lain at his lap.

You are not alone in this universe, Time had uttered softly. There are seven others just as you are.

"Well I guessed as much," Daniel eventually said into the silence. He peered at Time over his knees and pressed his cheek against the bone there, and Time waited patiently. "I mean...Vlad and Dani exist, right?"

For a long moment, Time stared at his child almost uncomprehendingly. The form of it unfolded beneath his gaze with those simple words--things that Daniel should know but treated as unknowable. Ah, the poor boy feared his nature, didn't he? He kept the knowledge from himself to fit himself into the mold of a human when he wasn't. Time sighed deeply and leaned forward. He placed his hands upon his knees as he looked at Daniel with a narrowed gaze.

"Daniel," Time said, and his voice rumbled in this place with barely constrained power, he knew. This must be delicate; a careful extraction of the truth that Daniel willfully denied as ignorance. "What do you see when you look upon me?"

"An ancient and very powerful ghost," came Daniel's prompt reply, and when Time raised his brow Daniel flushed slightly before he mumbled, "I mean it's easier, isn't it?"

"Is it?"

Time watched as Daniel's brow furrowed, as he tried to think of what Time wanted him to acknowledge, before finally Daniel sighed softly.

"Not always, I guess," Daniel whispered into the air, and his words echoed faintly with something on the edge of his grasp. Daniel looked to him then, eyes a bright teal that overtook even the sclera and pupil. It was like looking into the edge of the aurora borealis, a twist of blues and greens that shimmered almost in the way of galaxies but not quite. A hint toward his cosmic parentage, but evidence toward his own unique nature.

"What do you see, child," Time urged softly, and waited for Daniel to look, to put words into what he truly saw before him. Daniel breathed out slowly, and Time let a smile cross his lips as Daniel looked to him with his nature--with the truth of it in his eyes.

"You are older than ancient," Daniel said slowly, words with that echoey quality to them. "From before a moment when things exist. When there was only darkness, and only time, that stood upon a vastness and an emptiness. You will exist even then, always shifting and moving from one moment to another, to another, to another...." Daniel blinked, and his eyes cleared back into bright green that they took upon this form. "You are Time," he said finally, his voice clear. "All of Time made manifest."

"Yes," Time said, and found himself pleased especially with the wide-eyed, awed way that Daniel now looked to him. It looked as if the child truly saw him for the first time.

"Has your hair always been this red?" Daniel asked, voice suddenly bright as he shifted and dropped his knee down. He leaned forward and grasped at the small bit of braided hair that had fallen from beneath Time's hood.

"When I am this young, yes," Time agreed lightly, smile on his lips.

"Oh," Danny whispered, as his gaze darted to Time's face. "Clock, your eyes...."

Time nodded slowly. "Now, little one, what do you see when you gaze upon yourself?" There is a moment, and then Daniel turned his head to the side for a moment. Time watched as he turned that gaze inwards, and his heart broke a little as the next second Daniel jerked away from him with a stricken expression. "Daniel?" Time asked, leaned forward slowly to place his hand upon one thin shoulder of the teenager before him.

"....I'm not human, am I?" Daniel whispered, and looked at Time with that unfathomably Endless gaze. Time smiled sadly in response. "What...what am I? What are you?"

With the care of a parent, even out of practice as he had been and with only the ability to observe the world around him and rarely to interact with it, Time drew Daniel into an embrace as he spoke in soothing cadence, "You are my son, Daniel, and we are Endless." He stroked a hand down Daniel's back, tried to sooth the teenager whose own truths laid bare before him--they had time to wait until Daniel had processed before Time brought up his siblings once more. There was much they needed to go over, in the moment granted to them. Much Daniel needed to know before--Time closed his eyes and breathed slowly.

It did not matter. None of it mattered in the face of his children.

...

The knowledge that he was something other had always been there, Danny knew. He'd always known in the way that he just knew things and in his boundless curiosity on how each item was put together, the workings behind it. His endless fascination with all things space and expanding--Daniel knew he was different. He and Jazz had spent hours and days just talking about it sometimes. Jazz said he might be something called autistic, or have some other developmental difference that made him just a bit unique compared to everyone else. He might also have been adopted, they speculated, given how vastly different to his parents he looked. He had hair that was as dark as the night sky after all, nothing like Jack's dark brown that bordered on black. His eyes were the complete wrong shape too, and the exact shade of blue was not quite the same as the Fenton's, either.

In the end Danny and Jazz had long concluded it didn't matter because Danny was Jazz's brother and Jazz was Danny's sister and Sam and Tucker were his friends. Even becoming what he was now--not half-ghost, Danny knew that was just a story to tell children, something to clarify the differences between him and the others, to ease the knowledge that Danny was other because Danny was other. Each of his 'powers' could easily be pulled from the reality that he was a child of Time and Night, of cosmic beings older than the universe, older than the oldest of universes by any rights. He had the ability to drift among the Physical because he was Endless, much as apparently the others in this family he didn't know about could. He could be seen if he wanted, or unseen if he didn't, and Danny knew he'd always been able to do that. Had always done that. The invisibility, intangibility, had only been something he'd taken up after the Fenton's various discoveries and his own worry about his nature.

Danny stood on the precipice between different species of being. Humans that he most resembled, that the Endless oft appeared as, and then whatever the Infinite Realms demanded he be. The white, the glow, the 'ghostly abilities' and 'ghostly core' were all aspects that pulled from the Neverborn. They weren't 'ghost's' per se, but manifestations of concepts of events, of common discoveries because the Infinite Realm was an Infinite Realm of Discovery, and it was all Danny's. Every thing discovered or learned and everything lost appeared there in one way or another--and in that way everything in the Realm was Neverborn but not necessarily Ancient like Clockwork--like Time.

It mattered in a way Danny didn't understand, except then Clockwork stood to his feet and offered Danny a hand and spoke in that soft, deep bass of his, that he wanted to show him something important. So Danny accepted the grasp and followed Clockwork down the winding halls of the Tower which grew and shrunk as it was needed. He followed Clockwork with red hair and blue eyes and pale-as-death skin with his core in his throat and his world partially upended. He grasp tight to that hand and felt just the slightest bit unmoored, untethered and so young. Youngest of eight--the idea that Danny had siblings just as strange and different as him made him the slightest bit giddy with everything.

The room Clockwork took Danny to was a bare, blank space filled with colors and small nebulae that resembled the sky untainted by light pollution. Danny gaped at it, spun in a circle as he let go of Clockwork's hand to take in everything. There were columns and pillars that wrapped around the room, and set in the center a series of items placed in a semi-circle.

"Your siblings call such a room their Gallery," Clockwork said softly, and drew Danny's attention over toward where he stood in front of a golden ankh. Danny watched how Clockwork stroked his finger along one of the wristwatches that littered his arms as he looked to it, and gestured Danny to come over. "They've built up rules among themselves, ways to conduct their interactions based upon mine and their mother's opinions of such things, and later to bind themselves as Family when things began to...sour, in our absence."

"Why have you been absent?" Danny asked as he stood next to Clockwork--he tried valiantly to again ignore that Clockwork had called himself their father in all things. He would rather unpack that little bit of information at another time, when he could properly decompress and hopefully have Jazz there to mitigate the freak out that was bound to happen. The freak out that he was barely able to stop right now as it was.

Clockwork looked to Danny then, just a sideways glance as he spoke. "I am old, Daniel. I am ancient."

"Yeah your basically dust," Danny quipped back and then winced as Clockwork blinked at him slowly. "Sorry."

"I am not offended," Clockwork chuckled. "You are not wrong. Cosmic dust I may be, yes, and yet...my children had their duties, a hand in their affairs. They did not..." Clockwork paused, lips pressed together.

"You felt like they didn't need you," Danny said and for the longest moment Clockwork nodded his head.

"It did not help that your mother and I had a bit of...well, that we chose to go our separate ways," Clockwork placed the words delicately out there before he turned from them completely. "As it was they did not need us, now fully formed and conscious of their actions. They had no need to be coddled or cared for any longer." He paused for a moment, stared at the wristwatches on his wrists--and Danny counted eight of them, when he'd thought once there were only seven. "I am always with my children, Daniel, even if they cannot see me. I am always watching."

"Yeah but...but you need them too, right?"

Clockwork looked to Danny with eyes that were so sad that it hurt and Danny wasn't sure what he could do to make it better. He opened his mouth, but Clockwork interrupted softly, "It is more complicated than that, child." When Danny went to counter the statement Clockwork reached out and grasped his hand and tugged him forward. "Here, grasp this."

Danny closed his mouth, breathed through his nose, and then grasped at the golden ankh with a roll of his eyes as Clockwork began to explain the workings of the Gallery. Why the Gallery was in the Clock Tower Danny didn't know, but he bet it was just some weirdness about the Zone and not that this was actually located in the Clock Tower at all. He wondered if anyone in the Zone could find him here, if he found his way to this place. Were the Observants aware of Danny and Clockwork in this space? Were the Observants aware of what Clockwork was? Danny doubted it; he doubted they would bother to try and order around a literal cosmic entity of Time like Clockwork was if they knew.

"Are you listening to me, Daniel?" Clockwork asked, and Danny blinked and then rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. He thought he heard a sound, faint and in the distance that reminded him of wings, but he did not let himself dwell on it as he replied to Clockwork a bit embarrassed.

"No, sorry. Got lost in my thoughts."

"Be careful with that; ones thoughts can be a dangerous place to wander off alone in after all!"

Danny whipped around, surprised enough to drop the ankh in his hand as it clattered to the ground. He did not miss the wince that crossed the woman's face in front of him, the ways she glanced to the ankh and then to Clockwork before finally her gaze landed on Danny. Her lips tugged up into a wide grin, and she seemed for a moment as if she would open her arms before she thought better of it.

"Felt you holding on to that for a while without saying anything and figured I should stop by and see what was what," she said brightly.

Danny looked down to the ankh, and then scrambled to pick it up and place it back on its pedestal with a faint blush and a mumbled, "Sorry."

"It's alright, little brother," Death said with a soft smile. "I'm not busy at the moment." She glanced once more to Clockwork with a raised brow, and Clockwork peered back at her from beneath the hood of his cloak. "Got to say I'm surprised to see you here, father."

Danny looked down and mumbled, "He was showing me this place."

Death arched an eyebrow. "Was he?" For a moment Danny could almost taste the way the air got tense, and then Death stepped forward and smiled reassuringly at Danny and said, "Well then, what has he told you about this place?"

Danny blinked at her, and then looked to each of the pedestals. "This is a...Gallery. A way to contact...contact my siblings." He stumbled over that, calling them siblings because while that is what they were, Danny was still new to the concept of it.

"Yes," Death agreed. "Did he tell you of the rules?"

Clockwork shifted, and then wrapped his arm around Danny's shoulders. Danny could feel the edge of his cloak brush past his knees and almost touch Death with the motion. "I had not gotten that far before you interrupted, daughter."

Death snorted. "Of course not." She righted her own sigil, and Danny watched her do so as she began to speak and explain the rules to him softly. "We are not allowed to interfere in each others business. It helps keep the peace between our sphere's of influence, you know? I wouldn't want Destiny to mess around with the souls I lead to the Sunless Lands, just as I am sure Destiny would not want me to meddle in his affairs, either."

Danny blinked, said cautiously, "Destiny?" and Death smiled at him in response as she gestured to the book on the first pedestal.

"Destiny's sigil," Death said softly. "It leads to his own Realm, The Garden of Forking Ways. Destiny, Potmos, tends to be rather solitary." Death moved on to the ankh. "This is mine, and leads to the Sunless Lands. I am Death, or Teleute," here Teleute winked and Danny flushed faintly even as his eyes widened in realization of her Function. She moved on to the next, a strange mask as she gestured and spoke. "This is my younger brother, your older brother, Dream's sigil. It leads to the Dreaming." She lingered here, and Danny watched her curious before she moved on to the next sigil, a sword, which Death stared at for a long lingered moment before she only said it belonged to Destruction and then moved on.

Following the sword was a glass heart that belonged to Desire, leading to The Threshold. After that was a hooked ring for Despair and a place called The Gray Realm. A swirl of colors apparently belonged to his older sister Delirium and a location known as Madness. Danny took all of this in for the moment before Death looked him up and down and then rocked back on her heels. Clockwork still stood at his back, hand upon his shoulder as a comforting presence in the middle of all of this new knowledge about his life.

"What about you, little brother?" Death asked, and Danny looked up at her in surprise. "I've talked about each of us," and she had, even if she glossed over Destruction rather quickly, "so tell me a bit about you and this place of yours." She smiled reassuringly at him, and Danny scuffed his feet for a moment before he looked to Clockwork who nodded slowly in response.

"I'm..." Danny breathed out slowly and then straightened his back as he looked at Death and said, "I am Discovery, and this is the Infinite Realm."

Death smiled even wider, and with a soft laugh wrapped Danny into a hug as she said, "Welcome to the family, little brother." Hesitantly, surprised at the action, Danny wrapped his own arms back around Death in a hug, and then let a small smile cross his face as his core hummed, rather pleased with the acknowledgement of family.

...

It was hours later, after Death had finished explaining the Rules that she and the others had put together to keep things civil--hours of wandering out of the Gallery and back into the Clock Tower which had left Death a bit surprised by all the time related items here, and then the admission from Clockwork, Time--which Danny was still processing that little revelation--himself that he had been in this Realm for some time now--settled into it, was well known to it--that had resulted in a rather flinty eyed gaze from his--his older sister. Teleute, as she whispered to call him if he felt more comfortable--

"Call me Danny, then. Or Phantom when I'm....like this. Uhm. Unless you prefer Discovery?"

"Any of them is fine, little brother, but what do you mean by 'like this'?"

--and then she made her excuses, that she had some work to do, but she told him not to be a stranger and if he needed help to always ask. The worst she could do was tell him she was too busy in the moment, but she promised if it was dire she would be there. Danny didn't miss the way Clockwork's lips pursed at that, or miss the way Teleute's breath hitched when Danny and switched from being 'Ghost' to 'Human' and that she mouthed a name that made his chest ache. Perhaps it was part of his 'Function' to notice the little things, to put together the secrets that were otherwise attempted to be kept from him. At any rate once she was gone he turned to Clockwork--to Time--who stared at him patiently and waited.

"What was she not telling me?" Danny turned and asked Clockwork, once she was gone. "About...about Destruction and Dream?"

Clockwork sighed heavily, and then gestured for Danny to follow him. They went from the Gallery to the Room of Windows which was an area that opened up viewing portals to various points in time. Danny had been there before, when Clockwork had punted him into the future to learn about--about himself, he supposed. He wondered now about the evil future him, Dan, and how he had been twisted in such a way as to be that.

"Your brother Destruction," Clockwork spoke softly, "grew rather tired of his Function and decided he wanted control of it no longer. So he left, and cut off ties to rest of the family."

"But...but destruction is necessary," Danny frowned. "Without it creation can't exist."

"And I am sure you can see that both exist well and good without your brother actively working," Clockwork pointed out with a small smile, and Danny nodded with a furrowed brow. "Destruction did not truly leave his post, merely....stopped placing his hand in things. There have been consequences, but not near so dire as there could have been."

One of the Windows showed a red haired man in some sort of art class working on a sculpture. Danny blinked and then looked to Clockwork who winked at him for a moment before that Window closed out.

"As for Dream..." Clockwork's lips thinned and he nodded toward another of the Windows. Danny turned to look, and then all of him froze. He felt his core stutter in his chest--felt the burning ache of anger began to boil somewhere deep within him. It was a rage he was familiar with, one he felt when Jazz had been hurt by an ex-boyfriend of hers years and years ago. He clenched his hands into fists as he stared at a dark haired, blue eyed, naked man in a fishbowl. He couldn't articulate himself, just looked to Clockwork whose gaze was focused on the Window and so--sad.

"Your brother has been trapped in this way since the early twentieth century," Clockwork spoke softly. "This has had...consequences, upon the Physical." He motioned toward another Window, a pair of Windows actually set beside each other. One was of a vibrant, almost fantastical land--the other that same land in ruins. "And it has had consequences upon the Dreaming, as well."

Danny swallowed heavily, and then asked, "Why has no one helped him?" almost hoarsely.

Clockwork looked at him, for a long inscrutable moment, and then said, "Because he has not asked," and Danny blinked because--right, the Rules that Death had told him about. The stupid agreements between the siblings. Danny crossed his arms and scowled back.

"Could he ask?" Danny demanded, wanted to know if this older brother of his was stupid enough not to ask for help when he needed it.

"No," Clockwork agreed, and then Danny nodded once, sharply.

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go get him out!"

Clockwork smiled, a slow and sad thing and Danny didn't know what this smile meant except that it made his core curl and twist uncomfortably. It wasn't reassuring, but it also wasn't terrifying. Yet Clockwork still nodded slowly to Danny's request--his demand--and with a twist of the hands of a clock a portal opened for them to step through. Before Danny did so Clockwork placed a hand upon his shoulder.

"Stay out of sight," Clockwork said softly. "Do you understand?" For a moment Danny said nothing, then nodded once and slipped into that spectrum of space between that was Invisibility and Intangibility--a step toward Oblivion. Then, both of them stepped through the portal and into the basement of the Burgess Estate in Wych Cross.

[sonxflight]

Might put some HCs for Ryou's yet another crossover AU as well (ft. me other gremlin aka @plxsmius and, again, @nerdynanny's feral scientists):

✧ The descendant of the man who had the name Katsuhiko as the crowned emperor, with a big part of his ancestor's biography remaining obscure. Unbeknownst to him, he's actually a reincarnation of this very same ancestor, while there are certain ghosts who are aware of this and what actually happened to Katsuhiko, namely Clockwork. In addition, Katsuhiko's katana sword is Sakai's family regalia which he was trained to wield since relatively early age.

✧ Spent a share of his childhood in Japan before travelling the world with his family and settling down in America. Is an incredibly talented physician who once attended the college with Jack, Maddie, Vlad and Ford.

✧ With Maddie insisting, willingly took the role of a godfather to Jasmine and Danny alongside with Ford and Vlad, and showed oneself being a reliable babysitter during siblings' childhood years. In addition, is an uncle-in-law to Dipper and Mabel.

✧ Due to the specifics of his mentality, is fully acceptant of otherworldly creatures being a natural part of the world. Treats ghosts with respect and prefers to reason with them when it's possible rather than throwing a punch basically this but for ghosts lmao.

✧ Was the first to discover the portal accident granted Vlad his ghost powers and has been keeping it a secret alongside with Ford. Found out about Danny becoming the second human/ghost hybrid earlier than Vlad, simply due to being attentive to his godson's and Phantom's at times way too similar mannerisms and behavior.

✧ Is often to have an argument with Vlad in regards to Danny. Supports their godson when it comes to the pursuing of his dreams and just wants Danny's life to be as peaceful as possible, while Vlad believes Danny needs to toughen up and show this teeth more frequently in order to become more withstanding of both the human world and the ghost zone's unpredictable environment.

✧ Is very much 🔪🔪🔪 alongside with Vlad when it comes to Bill and his attempts to get back at Ford. Despite any of their arguing and butting heads, him and Vlad make one hell of battle partners when it comes to protecting people they care deeply about.

[the-stove-is-on-fire]

Time to retcon this Flynn nonsense.

I’m going to make Flynn into Danny’s cousin who got pulled into a natural ghost portal and went missing at a young age. Heck, lets drop the ‘Fenton’ altogether and make him Aunt Alicia’s son. ‘Walker’ is a pretty popular fanon maiden name for Maddie so now we have Flynn Walker. Things are already so much better. 

His disappearance caused a rift in Aunt Alicia’s marriage because she knows she saw some supernatural bullshit spirit her son away but her husband doesn’t believe it. Eventually this leads to feelings of resentment building between her and her husband ultimately ending in a bitter divorce. Alicia isolates herself and the only family she keeps contact with is Maddie, who believed her the whole time and did all she and Jack could to help find Flynn.

Unfortunately, poor lil’ Flynn never gets found.

This ties in with the show canon and reinforces why the Fenton parents are so dead set on making sure their kids know ghosts are dangerous, and teaching them how to fight ghosts/defend themselves. It would be perfectly logical in this situation for neither Jazz or Danny to know of Flynn since it’s an old, and sensitive subject. 

But what the fuck happened to Flynn??? Hypothetically, anything. Have a ghost adopt him, explore what happens to a human when they die in the ghost zone, have him turn into a feral child, make him a pet, brainwash him into thinking he’s a ghost, make him actually turn into a ghost. The possibilities are endless. 

Allow me to present a nerfed version of Human Flynn that grew up in the GZ with “ghost powers”. Imma have this kid surviving on his wits and the absolute fluke of luck that humans happen to have intangibility there. He manages to stay alive, makes alliances, and eventually gets into learning the traditional methods of ghost fighting like using blood blossoms & ectoranium. He uses his human constitution to surround himself with all manner of things that are dangerous to ghosts a la Alchemist Hermit style and simply lives to the best of his abilities. 

Perhaps in the first few months or even years of being stranded Flynn had wanted to go home. And he sure as shit tried his hardest to get out of this green hellscape. But now? After so many years on his own, growing, learning and adapting the ghost zone has become more of a home to him than whatever feelings of longing linger in the hazy memories of his childhood. 

In conclusion, Fuck Bitch Fartman, Danny has a cousin.

[Edit: Everyone in the Phandom has free reign to use this concept and design to their heart’s content (BUT NOT YOU BUTCH. FUCK U.)]

[five-rivers]

Flipside

Prompt by @xeshirefm0 :  The wall and the tubing that encased the portal broke, but luckily the portal remained erected without exploding. While cleaning up the mess, one of the Fentons enters the portal from the backside. Above them is not the green abyss of the Ghost Zone. (PR390)

.

Warning: Major character death, ambiguous ending

.

It was a ghost fight.  Of course it was.  The only difference between it and all the other ghost fights that happened in the Fentonworks lab was that Danny, sleeping over at Tucker’s, hadn’t been involved, and his parents, working late on a new experimental weapon, were.  

Between the ghost’s natural abilities and the various weaponry Jack and Maddie had enthusiastically brought to bear, the walls of the lab hadn’t stood a chance.  Nor had the portal housing.  

Given the simulation Jack had shown Danny about what would happen if the ectofiltrator wasn’t changed regularly, Danny thought it was a miracle that the whole block hadn’t been wiped off the map.  

On the other hand, the situation as a whole, which included damage to Fentonwork’s foundations, was decidedly not miraculous.  Danny did not enjoy living in a motel.  He enjoyed even less Vlad’s offer of letting them stay at his place that Maddie had only narrowly talked Jack out of.  

He missed his room.  He missed the comforting hum and pulse of the portal thrumming through the walls.  He missed being able to deal with ghosts before they left Fentonworks.  

But, at the very least, he didn’t have to miss his stuff.  The important stuff, like his first-aid kit, his favorite model rocket, and his indestructible space-themed alarm clock.  Not any longer.  He couldn’t deal with it.  Questions about how he’d gotten them out of the house be damned.  

Invisible, he glared at the building and the excessive amount of vaguely glowing chartreuse ‘caution’ tape that had been wrapped around it.  His parents thought ghosts would use their absence to rob the building.  It hadn’t done much good against the ghosts escaping from the Ghost Zone.  

Danny circled until he found a large enough gap to phase through, dove through, and turned to fly directly to his room… then he stopped, looking down.  His parents had said that the portal was free-floating, standing in the air like a natural portal, gathering energy from who-knew-where.  He kind of wanted to see that.  

Well.  It had already killed him once.  What was there to lose?

… Okay, yeah, that was a dumb thing to think, but Danny was, by his reckoning, responsible for the portal.  He really should be aware of what was happening to it.  He wasn’t going to repeat his death by trying to fix it.  

He phased through the floor, down into the lab.  It wasn’t much of a lab anymore.  Jack and Maddie had really gone to town on whatever ghost had come through.  Danny winced just thinking about it.  Really, the only things recognizable were the stairs, the floor itself, and the portal, and even the portal looked strange, the light it cast on the hollow that had once been the portal tunnel looked off-color.  

No, it was off-color.  The light cast back was purple.  

He tilted his head.  What could cause that?  Was it just what the backs of portals looked like?  No, he’d seen the reverse sides of portals before.  Usually, they were the same color as their fronts.  

He caught himself drifting closer, then jerked to a stop.  No.  No, he was not repeating this.  He wasn’t going back there again.  

He fled.  

.

Maddie set her bag down on the floor and swung her flashlight around the room, frowning as it hit both objects she did recognize and those she did not, all reduced to rubble.  She flattened her lips.  It wasn’t a good feeling, seeing this much of her work destroyed.  

“That no-good spook!” grumbled Jack, dropping his bags as well, dust curling up around them.  “When we get our hands on it, I’m gonna–”

“We’ll need to get our lab back together before we go looking for ghosts,” said Maddie, regretfully.  “Otherwise, we won’t have anywhere to put them.”

“Could put them in the Fenton Weasel.”

Maddie pointed her flashlight at the sad remains of the Fenton Weasel.

Jack deflated.  “Yeah, you’re right, Mads, we need to get the lab up and running again.”

“It won’t be so bad,” said Maddie.  “We built all this from scratch in the first place.”  She looked around the room.  “I think the first thing we need to do is make sure everything is stable.  We’ll have to get down into the stockades…”  She frowned at the remnants of cabinets that covered the trapdoor down into the stockades and how little of it the flashlights illuminated.  “Maybe we should have brought more lights…  Maybe some of those ones that construction workers use at night.  What do you think, Jack?”

“Uh,” said Jack, “what is that purple light coming from?”

“Purple light?”  Maddie followed Jack’s finger.  

“You don’t think it’s coming from the portal, do you?”

“It… could be,” said Maddie.  She approached, cautiously, minding her step.  There were wires strewn over the floor, and Maddie was once again glad that they’d turned off the electricity at the meter before starting.  

She leaned against the remnants of the wall, peering behind the portal.  

“The portal’s a different color,” said Maddie, frowning.

“But that doesn’t make sense,” said Jack.  

“I know,” said Maddie.  The front and back of the portal should have been the same, leading to opposite sides of the portal’s counterpart in the Ghost Zone.  They should both be the same color.  

Why was it like this?

“Jack, can you give me the mask?  I want to take a look and see where this leads.”

Jack zipped one of his bags open, and pulled out an ectoplasm filtering gas mask.  She walked back to him, and clipped it on under her goggles, fastening it behind her head.  Jack started to take his own out.  

“No,” said Maddie, “I need you out here to make sure that I come back.  Ten minutes.”

“You sure about this, Mads?  We don’t have anything we’d normally use for exploration.”

“We need to know what to expect to come through while we’re working,” said Maddie.  

“Let’s at least find a tether, so I can pull you back.”

They were able to find a tether and hammer a hook into the wall to serve as an anchor. Jack still wasn’t happy about the plan, but between the two of them, Maddie was the brawn. Jack was the inventor. 

Maddie armed herself.  They'd enough weapons upstairs and in the GAV for her to have an assortment of weapons: a rifle, a blaster, and her bo-staff.  She shouldn't need them.  This was just going to be a quick look. 

She fastened the tether to her harness and stepped through the portal, into the… lab?

Not the destroyed lab she had just left, but the lab as it was.  Or… almost the lab as it was.  The arrangement of work benches was off, many newer inventions were missing, and some of those visible hadn’t been worked on since the portal opened.  It was also the wrong color, everything green having been replaced with purple.  She glanced back at the portal behind her.  It glowed so brightly purple that it hurt her eyes.  

“Hello.”

Maddie whirled, bringing her rifle to bear on the figure that had stepped out from the shadows behind one of their larger pieces of equipment.  Her first thought was Danny, her second thought was ghost.  

It looked like Danny.  It was even wearing Danny’s old jumpsuit, the one he’d ‘lost’ (Maddie knew what the children thought of their parents’ mode of dress, and didn’t push it - Jack had made two dozen spares of various sizes in orange).  But its skin looked purple even accounting for the light, and the suit was visibly burned and melted in places.  

She fired three times, hitting the ghost dead-center.  They passed through the ghost without leaving a mark, striking the wall behind it with a shower of sparks and vanishing.  The ghost looked down at itself, then up, eyes wide, fingers touching its chest.  It took a step forward.  

Maddie fired another shot, just in case, then whipped out her bo-staff.  They didn’t have the portal doors, barely had any containment equipment.  A ghost able to ignore ectoblasts like that would be a disaster.  There was a reason she’d brought more than one type of weapon, though

The ghost, still wearing Danny’s face, looked at the bo-staff with something like curiosity, tilting its head.  Maddie didn’t hesitate, driving the end of the staff down at the ghost’s face.  Much like the shots from before, the staff slid smoothly through the ghosts without resistance.  Maddie leaped back, before it could grab her or launch a counterattack.  

The ghost watched her, but didn’t make any move to stop her.  

“Hello,” it said again.  It even sounded like Danny.  

“What are you?” asked Maddie.  She wouldn’t be surprised if it was entirely mindless, pulling this scene from Maddie’s mind through instinct alone, but some, like Phantom, would engage in conversation.  

It pulled an expression of hurt.  “You don’t recognize me, Mother?”

“You’re stupider than the usual ghost if you think I’d mistake you for my son.”

“I’m not a ghost,” said the thing in front of her.  It smiled, revealing fangs.  “I am the death of Danny Fenton.”

The tether latched to her harness went taut, and Maddie was pulled back through the portal, into Jack's arms.  She looked up at him, the back of her head pressing against his chest. "We need the big guns," she said.

.

"Do you know what you being here tells me?" asked the creature from where it sat on one of the tables, swinging its legs.

Jack and Maddie fired their bazookas as one.  The portals that were the usual output of the weapons, even in the Ghost Zone, failed to form.

"It tells me that the other side of that portal isn't blocked off anymore.  It tells me that I could leave and find Danny whenever I want."

"You aren't touching my son, ghost!" shouted Jack, indignant, reaching for another weapon.  

"You couldn't stop me," said the thing.  

"So why are you still here?" asked Maddie, firing another shot.  If they could get more information, they could find a way to destroy this thing.  

"I'm not in any hurry."  The next attack passed through it as well.  "You know, if you went up the stairs back there, you'd find your deaths as well."

"Is that a threat?"

"A fact.  Everyone dies.  They'll hear you if you keep this up.”

“Shut up,” said Jack, pulling out another gun.  This was a more dangerous item that was usually mounted on the GAV and would only fire after bypassing a parental lock.  As its discharge consisted partially of electrically charged ectoplasm, it could hurt humans.  

“I’m only trying to give you advice,” it said.  

“After threatening our boy?” growled Jack, hefting the gun into position.  Maddie helped him stabilize it.  

“He doesn’t need to fear me.  Not like you should be afraid.”

Jack fired.  The weapon had no more effect on the creature wearing Danny’s face than any of the others.  

“Danny?  Dear, are you alright?”  The muffled voice echoing down the stairs was unrecognizable to Maddie, but, it seemed, not to Jack.  

“I’m fine, Maddie,” called the thing, voice pitched to carry.  “I’m just listening to echoes from the other side.”

“Are you sure?  That was awfully loud.”

The creature looked at Maddie, then Jack, lavender eyes glinting blue.  “You should go.  Before it’s too late.”

Jack bared his teeth and went for another weapon.  The door at the top of the stairs was thrown open, hard enough to clang against the wall.  Maddie looked up to see herself.  

“Jack,” called the other Maddie.  “You need to come see this.”

No.  Not herself.  Her eyes had never been so purple.  

.

“Wow,” said Jazz, appreciatively.  “You guys got all that cleaned up fast.”

Danny nodded, agreeing, as he looked around the lab.  It felt a little off, sure, but that could be attributed to it being entirely rebuilt from rubble or to Danny’s little freak-out last week.  

Maddie smiled, her eyes twinkling as the new overhead lights caught purple specks in her eyes.  “I’m glad you think so, sweetie.”  She put her hands on Danny and Jazz’s shoulders.  “We’re so excited to learn all sorts of new things here.”

[thesoulspulse]

Regarding Ecto-Acne...

I was going through some of my likes on tumblr and I can’t remember which Danny Phantom related post got me thinking about this, but it suddenly hit me just what this line from the show implies from the episode “Masters of All Time”...

Maddie: We have an outbreak of ecto-acne. And there's only one place on Earth that knows how to treat ecto-acne.

Think about that for a sec. Vlad was in the hospital for YEARS, and while we don’t know exactly how many years or what treatments he was given one thing I always wondered is why Jack and Maddie never tried to visit him once in all that time before their college reunion if they were really his friends. I talked about it a briefly on my discord once before about how Vlad was probably kept in isolation due to the seemingly radioactive nature of his condition since he’s also patient zero as far as Ecto-Acne is concerned because up until that point no one had had it before (that we know of.) So by the time Vlad was probably allowed to have visitors he had already developed that huge grudge against Jack for ‘ruining his life’ and assumed his best friend had abandoned him and stolen Maddie too...

However, because of this particular line of dialogue Maddie says in “Masters of All Time” I just suddenly got this feeling that she and Jack buried themselves in their ghost research at first specifically to HELP Vlad. To put it simply, after the accident with the proto-portal, Jack and Maddie began SEARCHING FOR A WAY TO CURE VLAD OF HIS ECTO-ACNE THE WHOLE TIME!

I think that’s why they had all this equipment and finally had the knowledge to treat ecto-acne in this episode unlike before when they were mere college students and were forced to rely on normal doctors and nurses to help their friend. But sadly they could only do so much to treat Vlad’s condition back then and he had to worry about hiding the more ghostly side effects he was experiencing as much as possible...

That said, despite their good intentions all we know is that Vlad somehow recovered from his ecto-acne on his own some time later, most likely after being released from the hospital when it became clear there was nothing else the doctors could do and he seemed stable enough all things considered and then doing similar research on his own condition. So by the time Jack and Maddie COULD have tried to do anything for Vlad to cure him, it was already too late. Still, they were probably just relieved to find out Vlad was ok and since Jack and Maddie were already married and Vlad was still resentful against Jack they probably never got the chance to visit him after his “miraculous recovery” and from there just kinda moved on with their lives leading up to their college reunion 20 years later.

Regardless, I’m sure the reason they kept all their equipment and such on hand was just in case something like this happened and Vlad was reinfected with ecto-acne. Not to mention they like to always be prepared for the worst and  were probably concerned something like that might happen to one of them too while working on the Fenton Ghost portal. I mean, they SAW what it did to Vlad even though they never found out about his half-ghost transformation. That’s also the ONLY reason Danny I think never got infected with ecto-acne himself, it’s because they were a lot more careful when creating that portal to avoid a repeat of the accident with Vlad.

Sadly, the same could not be said of Vlad...

We talked about this on my discord as well, but why on earth did Vlad have that weird gas to infect Sam and Tucker with ecto-acne too..?

The answer is simple.

For one thing, like I mentioned earlier originally Vlad had to research a way to treat his own condition after leaving the hospital and as a result likely knew how to make some sort of medicine for himself initially at least. On that note, being the fruitloop he is, Vlad probably decided one day as his latest evil plan to give Jack a taste of the pain he endured for years by recreating the toxins that caused his ecto-acne to begin with. Not sure why Vlad waited until now but whatever...

Now you’d think that’d be the end of it but no, Vlad somehow messed up royally and wound up reinfecting himself instead because I have a hard time believing his ecto-acne magically reappeared on its own 20 years after the original accident. If that were true then ecto-acne is a condition he’d have to constantly keep in check with special ghost medicine for all these years. I suppose that would make sense to some degree given that his transformation was slower than Danny’s and much more unstable. He would have to take some sort of ecto-purifier medicine CONSTANTLY to flush out any ecto-impurities in his system after every visit to the Ghost Zone.

I could probably come up with a few more theories but this is all I really wanted to say. I really think there’s a reason WHY Jack and Maddie had all this prepped and I’d like to believe a large part of it was Vlad and their plans to help make up for what they did to him. Yes, THEY because while Maddie did warn Jack that their calculations were wrong with the proto-portal, she was his friend too.

Also, I’m kinda surprised Vlad didn’t try to infect Danny with ecto-acne instead. But maybe Vlad still cared about him to some degree and was afraid that infecting Danny would cause even worse symptoms than his. Small consolation I know since he didn’t care about infecting Danny’s friends, but I personally doubt Vlad actually wanted them to die any more than he did and had faith that Danny would find a cure. That’s just me though, trying to excuse Vlad’s fruitloopness since I like to think he’s redeemable.

Bonus:

On a side note I bet someone has already mentioned this in the phandom but I still think this kid IS a ghost that dressed up as a ghost to go trick or treating. Since he’s so young he probably didn’t know how to fully disguise himself as a human, hence the sheet, and at the most could only hide his ghostly aura. I mean if Jack DID have all of Vlad’s powers after getting infected instead, that probably means he had a ghost sense too.

Why else would that kid still look kinda ghostly unless he was wearing a double costume? Just a thought. Do with it what you will!

[redrobin-detective]

The late Daniel Fenton

It was shaping up to be a beautiful if chilly December day and Casper High, as always, was bustling. It was 7:49 and class was about to start. The teacher watched the last few kids stumbling in at various levels of wakefulness. He already knew who would be the ones to rush in after the bell but that was alright. Life was too short to stress about being a few minutes late to class, especially in Amity Park of all places.

He looked up to see Madison, one of his shyer students walk in before making a beeline for his desk. She was biting her lip and nervously rubbing her hand down her skirt. “Hey,” she began quietly.

“Good morning. What’s up, Mads?” He asked casually. She looked upset, he could probably put on a video for the class if she needed to talk. They really needed a permanent counselor but the constant ghost attacks ran off most of them so he’d taken up the unofficial mantle. It felt good to help his students like that, make up for past wrongs.

“Are we um, expecting any new students?” She asked, her eyes darting over to the door she’d just come through. “Any transfers, exchange students or anything like that?”

“No,” the teacher frowned. “Amity isn’t the kind of place people transfer into. Why?”

“There’s a kid in the hallway,” she mumbled. “I don’t recognize him, he’s got a backpack and everything but he’s... I don’t know he doesn’t feel right.”

“Oh you’re talking about that weird dark haired kid,” Kyle said as he entered and sat down with a slouch. But even the class slacker looked unusually tense. “Dude’s creepy, can’t put my finger on why but he definitely doesn’t belong.”

“Oh,” was all the teacher had to say. Suddenly he realized how cold the classroom had become, the uncomfortable feeling that was pressing ever so slightly down on them. “I suppose it makes sense, the ghosts have been quiet lately with the Truce and all. He probably got bored.”

“Sir?” Madison said.

“Shannon,” he said instead, looking over at the frizzy haired girl hunched over her sketchbook furiously at work. “Would you do me a favor and move to the vacant seat in the second row? Just for today.”

“What? Why?” the girl whined even as she gathered up her various arts supplies and got ready to move.

“That’s Mr. Fenton’s seat,” he said taking in a deep breath and closing his eyes in preparation for what he was about to see. Danny would come here, of course he would. This was Lancer’s old classroom and Danny had him for first period English Lit. He and Dash both did.

“Mr. Baxter? What’s going on, is it a ghost?” Malik asked from the back row while Shannon shuffled to her new temporary seat.

“Yes but you don’t need to be scared,” he said softly, evenly. “He won’t hurt you.” The bell rang but Dash didn’t start the lesson. Instead, he waited. Danny had never been on time to class the entire time Dash had known him, of course death wouldn’t change that.

“Sorry, I’m late Mr. Lancer,” Dash gripped his desk so he didn’t jump when Danny Fenton simply appeared in front of his desk instead of walking through the door like any other student. “My folks couldn’t drive me, they’re still working on their stupid ghost portal.” A quick glance over at this class showed varying levels of fear, shock and curiosity but they were Amity kids through and through. The cold, powerful energy radiating off Fenton told them it was best to play along with whatever the ghost wanted.

“Perfectly alright Mr. Fenton,” Dash said softly, searching the 14 year old’s perpetually young face. He hadn’t changed a bit since Dash last saw him their second week of freshman year. It seemed unreal seeing how the years had taken their toll on Casper’s favorite son, Dash Baxter. God had they really been that young once? “Take a seat and we’ll get started.”

Danny shrugged and walked over to the seat Shannon had just vacated. He sat just the same, one leg stretched out and the other propped up against the leg of the desk. As soon as he took off the backpack and put it around the chair, it disappeared. He didn’t say anything else, just sat as stared at Dash with piercing blue eyes like he could see right through him.

“We had been talking about the lead up to the Civil War but let’s table that for today,” Dash said, proud his voice only wavered a little. He knew other people had seen Fenton around town. Lina saw him standing outside the Nasty Burger maybe five or so years ago. Dale, who used to live near Fenton Works swore he sometimes saw someone moving through the windows of the long abandoned house. He’d always secretly dreaded the thought of seeing Danny Fenton again, afraid he’d finally get was coming to him.

“Instead, we’re going to talk about local history,” he continued, not daring to take his eyes off the undead teen. Every other living student was tense, afraid. He wished he could assure them that the ghost wouldn’t lay a hand on them. In the event Fenton decided to ditch the hero schtick, it would be Dash and Dash alone he’d come after. “Amity Park has long had rumors of being haunted dating all the way back to the 1600s. It wasn’t until the last century that scientists determined that Amity Park is located on top of a thin spot between our world and the ghost realm. Natural portals form here all the time allowing spirits to pass through.”

No one spoke and barely anyone breathed except for Danny would wasn’t breathing at all. He just sat and stared at Dash with steady, unblinking eyes.

“Jack and Maddie Fenton were the scientists who discovered the weak point in reality in Amity. They devoted their entire life to the study of ghosts and made remarkable advancements in our knowledge of ectobiology and culture, the first being,” he paused as Danny cocked his head in confusion, squinting his eyes suspiciously at Dash. “The first being their manmade portal to the ghost zone. The portal remained active for almost two decades for research purposes but was shut down following their deaths.”

“You’re not Mr. Lancer,” Danny said suddenly, his eyes shifting from baby blue to an ectoplasmic green. Marty, who was sitting to the left of Danny, swallowed a squeak of fear and squeezed his eyes shut.

“No,” Dash sighed, “Lancer died almost thirty years ago now. Best teacher I ever had, he gave me his blessing when he passed on the job to me.”

“I,” the ghost ran his hand through his hair which was starting to lose its color. Seeing Fenton looking so scared and confused made him ache. It reminded him of old times. Dash had spent most of his life making sure he helped hurt kids if only to make up for the one he’d never been able to make it up to. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s okay, Danny,” he soothed. “I know it’s a lot to take in.”

“The portal, it wasn’t working at first,” Danny justified, his aura glowing a little more. “Sam and Tuck, they were curious. They wanted to look but I told them it wasn’t allowed, Sam, Sam she dared me to go in. I put on the hazmat suit and went inside and found the on button inside. I accidentally hit it and-” he paused midsentence and looked down at his hands. They weren’t pale flesh anymore but covered in white gloves. The black was completely bleached from his hair. A few of the students gasped as they saw the strange would be student melt into Phantom, the ghostly hero who’d been protecting their town since their parents were young. “I died.”

So much time had gone by. People were born and people were buried and the truth became distorted until it was just a legend passed jokingly around cafeteria lunch tables. Amity’s youth had forgotten their town’s history until it was sitting in a desk, trying once more to be one of them.

“You did,” Dash said sadly. He remembered hearing the news of Fenton's death. An assembly had been called the morning after the accident. Lancer had cried at the podium, Manson and Foley hadn’t returned to school for a week and had never been the same again. Dash hadn’t known what to think at the time, only that the kid he’d beat up for the crime of being different would never show up to school again. Or so he’d thought. “It was a tragedy, you were mourned by a lot of people.”

“I know you, don’t I?” Danny said quietly before he sat up straighter. “Dash?”

“In the flesh,” Dash grinned shakily.

“But you’re so old,” Danny said, once more distressed. “Your hair is grey and there’s wrinkles on your face and-and you’re a teacher now?” The last line was said with incredulity, his eyes flaring again. “You used to push me down the stone steps of the school and shove me into my locker and call me names.”

“Yeah, I did,” he sighed, feeling every one of his years. He was pushing 70 but he didn’t think he’d ever stop feeling like a stupid 14 year old who took out his frustrations on the ones who didn’t deserve it. “But you were the last; I never touched another kid again. I’m married now, four kids. I’m vice principal now, teach History and coach the school’s football team. It’s,” his voice caught again, still unable to process how young and stupid Fenton looked sitting there like no time had passed at all. It made Dash feel like all his accomplishments and attempts to be better would never amount to anything so long as his last victim roamed the earth unable to find peace. “It doesn’t fix what I did back then but I make damn sure that there won’t be any bullying at Casper so long as I’m here.”

“Huh,” Danny said, slouching once more in his seat but it looked less like his earlier teenage laziness and more weary. He and Dash were the same age after all, just because only one of them got old doesn’t mean time didn’t still affect them. “You did change, a lot of things did.” Danny looked down at the desk, “how long has it been?”

“Almost 50 years,” Dash sighed. “My wife wants me to retire but I guess I always find more things to do.” He paused then decided it was now or never. “I’m sorry Danny, for hurting you back then. I wish I'd gotten to know you better.”

For just a moment, Danny was perfectly clear. Even half floating out of his chair and looking like the local celebrity, his eyes were so painfully human. A boy killed before he ever got a chance to get started. Who’s will to protect was so strong it lasted half a century. It haunted him late at night to think of the glory and power of Phantom overshadowing just how incredible Danny Fenton had been. Not that anyone had seen it at the time. Soon there wouldn’t be anyone left to remember that quiet, kind teenager and then Danny Fenton really would be dead. Kill him just as thoroughly as that portal had.

The moment was broken by a breath of cold leaking out of the ghost’s lips and, just like that, his highschool classmate was gone and Phantom was left in his stead. He looked curiously around the classroom as if he didn’t know how he’d gotten there.

“There’s a ghost, stay here and don’t leave unless the fighting gets too close. I’ll get it though, don’t worry. No kids are dying today.” Maybe it was Dash’s imagination but he thought he saw Phantom’s eyes linger on him for an extra moment, trying to place where he knew the teacher from. Dash just smiled.

“Our lives are in your hands. Good luck, Phantom,” the ghost teen saluted before fading away entirely. Dash let out the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, suddenly exhausted but also lighter at the same time. It wasn’t every day you got to look your mistakes in the face and apologize. “Shannon, you can move back now.”

“No, I’m okay here,” Shannon said as she flipped to a new page in her sketchbook and looked intently at the spot where Fenton had once sat. “It’s like you said, that’s Danny’s seat.”

“I had no idea, Phantom’s been around for like, ever,” Freddie mumbled, pushing up his glasses. “But he used to be just like us.” And still was, Dash thought sadly. Danny would never grow old, never go to space like he’d always dreamed or marry Manson like he’d probably intended to. He was stuck, in more ways than one for who knows how long.

“Yes, that’s why it’s important to know your history. The Civil War and my other lessons are important but we can’t forget these smaller, more intimate histories. If we lose these lessons to time then we risk repeating the same mistakes over again.” He looked his students in the eyes, holding their attention.

“So we’ll continue today with the local history. Before he was ghost butt kicking superhero, Phantom was Danny Fenton, son of the local ghost hunters and a bit of an outcast in town. The Daniel Fenton Foundation was founded about a year after his death and was-”

[snackleggg]

So... Murdered au

And yes it is a crossover au bc I'm

~☆feeling like it☆~

To start off Maddie and Jack corner and managee to finally get a clean shot at the ghost boy and take him out! Hurray! Everything is better now right? Then Phantom transforms back into Danny.... and he is dead. Like 'hole through his chest' dead. And of course they panic. Because after a few minutes it becomes clear it isnt some trick. They just killed their son.

Oops

Since they can't exactly explain to anyone what happened, and barely understand it themselves, they panic and hide the body, burying it in the forest outside Amity somewhere. They make this big show of being concerned about their missing son while internally they are panicking and hoping no one finds out.

Jazz, Sam and Tucker think they are kinda suspicious but there is still the possibility that a ghost kidnapped Danny so they focuse more on that and trying to find him.

Meanwhile Danny, now a full ghost, wakes up in the GZ (specifically the Far Frozen bc ice core) and doesnt remember anything.

The thing with ghosts in this au is that they usually travel the material realm to jog their memories of their life. Only when they have regained enough memories to be satisfied that they know who they are, only then will they go back to the infinite realms. Some ghosts cant recover their memories, only finding places that are vaguely familiar. Poindexter is one of these kinds of ghosts, where they stay in that familiar place hoping to regain more memories but eventually become tied to it, even if they do have a lair in the infinite realms it'll always be tied to that one vaguely familiar spot.

So Danny immediately finds the closest natural portal (he unfortunately doesnt run into Frostbite or any other ghost) and starts on his way to regain his memories. He travels around a bit before ending up in Gotham, where Cass and Steph are the first ones to find him.

Of course they question what a meta is doing in Gotham and then Danny explains he is a ghost and as the conversation goes on it becomes clear to the girls just how lost and scared Danny is. Cass is the first to believe him with Steph following suit quickly and they inform the other bats over comms about the situation. They dont believe them at first but then they all gather on a rooftop with Danny there and after some more questioning Danny reluctantly takes off the hoodie he had been wearing (that he found forgotten on a bench a city over) and they see the literal hole in his chest and are like "okay yep, that seems like pretty solid evidence".

And Jason of course is internally freaking out a bit because the kid looks so young, he must have been around how old Jason was, and he is a ghost, a freaking ghost, and there is a literal hole through his chest like that must have been painful and the kid just looks so lost and confused.

Danny explains the whole "travelling around to regain memories" thing and the bats agree to help him. They go back to the cave and by the time they get there they all agree that Danny wasnt a gothamite. They start looking through records of any recently deceased or missing kids, Danny helping narrow down the search with the limited info he has.

I'm not sure where the au would go from here, they'd definitely eventually find the case of missing Danny Fenton and Danny would probably point at the missing persons picture and go "that's me!" And then chaos would ensue once they get to Amity park.

Its an idea with lots of angst potential but also fluff bc you really think being fully dead and having no memories of his past would stop Danny from heroing? Nope. He 100% follows the bats out on patrol and helps them take down criminals while he stays in gotham. He usually accompanies either Cass or Jason since they are his favourite of the bats. Jason is immediately like "can we adopt a ghost? Bruce. Bruce if you dont do it I will" and also he will be so angry at the Fentons when he finds out what happened to Danny.