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omegasmileyface · 8 months

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The Forest, the Trees, the Fire I: CATALYST

Chapter 9

chapter 9.......... Authors: @ectolemonades, @attackradish, and me Artist: @/crunchysart

For the full characters list, word count, content warning, and a directory to all the currently available chapters and related content, see the Table of Contents!

full summary: The world outside of Amity Park has learned about the existence of ghosts, and the time for first impressions has arrived. The delicate public consciousness could be disrupted by the slightest ripple. Danny Fenton is being ripped apart from all sides, and when he finally breaks, the ripples will be very big indeed.

warnings: none

words: 2227

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===

January 23, 2007

Tucker looked at the note again to avoid having to look at the stained concrete that made up every corner of the building. The yellow paper was smooth and almost white at the edge from his rubbing it, but the ink was still intact in the center.

"Really wanna help ghosts? Join the magic defense squad. Tuesday, 6 pm, 1042 Larch St."

It was the most goth piece of paper Paulina had ever handed him, but to be fair, it was also the only piece of paper Paulina had ever handed him.

Why not? Magic was real, he was fully familiar. It certainly could be used to help ghosts. And most damningly, if his classmates started trying to use it without someone like him there to watch them, things would get real weird, real fast.

Plus his mom nearly jumped for joy when he said he was staying out after school! So that's good.

And now, here he was, 45 minutes early to a high school cult meeting, with the freshly re-stolen scepter of Duul Aman in his backpack just in case, loathing every second of his day.

…Maybe 45 minutes was too much. He left his PlayFriend at home. Time to memorize the cracks in the floor.

The door opened and shut with more echo than the tiny building should have been capable of.

"Oh! Tucker?" Jazz Fenton entered with two entire bookbags and a clipboard.

"Woah, what are you doing here?"

"Aren't they doing that 'magic defense' thing here?"

Tucker frowned. "How do you know about that? I thought it was just between high school students."

"Some regulars at the Skulk 'n' Lurk are joining because they have experience with occult literature. Spike texted me because she figured I'd have some experience."

"Okay."

Jazz set her bags on the floor and laid out her jacket to sit on.

"…And do you?"

"Have experience?"

"Yeah."

Jazz grunted. "I guess as much as ghost business can be considered magic. I've never done any spells or read any real magic books or anything, but… I don't know. I read a bit out of Showenhower's tomes back when I wanted to publish on him. Talk to Dora once in a blue moon."

"Well, Jasmine Fenton, we've reviewed your resume and found that you have at least three times as much relevant work experience as anybody else in Amity Park. You're hired!"

She snickered.

They fell into a calm silence.

Next time the door banged open, it was half an hour before the meeting and it came with the sound of Goth music on a speaker. "Oh, man, are we back to being at the center of everything that goes on around here?"

Tucker almost tore his invitation. "Oh my God, Sam!"

"Yeah, yeah. Hello again, Ghost Getters of Amity Park. Your hero is back, or whatever."

Along with a backpack as big as Tucker's little sister and her portable CD player, Sam was carrying a few folding chairs under her arm. She mercifully set some up.

Jazz stood to help. "Didn't you move away?"

"Well, yeah, but not because I wanted to. What about you, weren't you off in Pennsylvania?"

Jazz looked away. "Home seemed more important than college for a bit."

Sam nodded. "Yeah, I could see that about now. But yeah, I got detention for trying to rekindle the pro-ghost movement on my first day—"

Tucker grimaced. "Oh, man, do they have Guys in White out there, too?"

Sam dropped her bag on the ground, and it sounded like there could have been a corpse in there.

"No, that's the weird thing! Let me finish. I was trying to get a good discussion going about ghost rights, right? And a couple kids were saying confidently that ghosts couldn't think, or whatever, but most of them just didn't care. Like, they'd never thought about it before. They just ignore the fact that this whole species is out there and nobody has decided whether they're allowed to exist or not."

"Huh," said Jazz. "I guess it would be easy to consider it none of your business if you don't see ghosts every day."

"So why'd you get in trouble?"

Sam grunted. "I guess because I wouldn't shut up even when people stopped listening. I thought it was relevant to the class, since we were talking about psychology, but the teacher didn't like it when I 'tried to stir things up'." Sam broke out the finger quotes and deep voice. She must have been pissed about it. "So, yeah!" She smiled wryly and crossed her arms. "In Littleriver, Michigan, they don't silence you for thinking ghosts are people, they silence you for thinking ghosts."

The room was silent as the teenagers contemplated this. At the heart of ghost activity in the living world, it was easy to not notice how the rest of the world was reacting to news.

"And yeah. I ran away a few days ago. Hit up some keepers I knew at the Skulk 'n' Lurk, I've been staying with them. Heard that somebody from the class wanted to use magic to help ghosts, came so I could maybe keep them from accidentally killing us all."

Tucker tapped the legs on his chair and listened to the ting! reverberate around the room. "Yep," he said into the silence. "That's pretty much why we're here, too."

Sam pulled out a book. "Well, then. Maybe we can even get them to do some good, if all three of us are here."

They didn't say anything else. Tucker couldn't force any more words out of his mouth. Do you forgive me? How are you doing? Can I forgive you? How's your grandma been? Do you understand why I never called? Did you know Lola's got a recital next week?

No. He was choking, and he figured Sam might have been, too.

Next time the door opened it was two minutes late, and came with the clamor of a quarter of a high school class and some extra goths.

Paulina quickly found the center of the room, never making eye contact with the three who were already there. "Alright, everyone! Set up a chair and gather your resources! We've got an agenda to set!"

===

Three days later, in the same grungy building, Jazz was perched over one of the Amity Park Public Library's myriad ominous unmarked hardcovers when something else crossed her mind.

"Has anybody heard from Valerie recently?" she asked.

Sam and Tucker both paused in their research to realize that, no, they hadn't. Sam hadn't heard a lick since she moved. Valerie hadn't been at the Nasty Burger, either.

"Not since lunch last Friday," said Tucker.

Sam had to wonder what things had come to, that they could go so long without seeing one of their friends and not even notice.

"I asked to meet her on Wednesday so I could add her to the comm system," said Tucker. "She hasn't responded."

Jazz closed the tome and folded her knees up under her chin thoughtfully. "Do you think she—"

A shocked cheer came up from the other side of the room. Star was carefully holding up her laptop so Mikey and Dale could read something on it. Mikey looked like he was going to burst.

Sam climbed to her feet to look. "What is it?"

Star's eyes were wide. "The ghosts are standing up for themselves."

"Not only that!" Mikey grabbed the laptop to show Sam. "Phantom wrote the notice! He's some kind of ghost king!"

Sam stopped. He's what? Oh, God. Danny, what have you gotten up to without us there for you?

Jazz put a hand on her shoulder. She must have looked mad. She shook it off.

Tucker slid around her and grabbed Star's laptop. Sam tried to look while he read, but he twisted out of the way. Asshole.

After a few seconds, Tucker rubbed his hand over his mouth and inhaled. That was never a good sign. He only did that when he was trying to figure out how to process something without turning it into a joke.

"He's signed as 'High King of the Infinite Realms'. And some other stuff too. He's said that ghosts need a voice among the living, and if they don't get it they'll—"

His voice cracked.

"They'll go to war."

Holy shit. That didn't sound like Danny one little bit. Something was wrong.

Jazz bit her hand softly.

"Seems fair enough," said Kwan, who was stationed over a phonebook on "find people we can interview" duty. "We can't get their perspective if they don't get a chance to talk, and the government would have no clue what to expect from a military move if they, y'know, didn't say it."

"It's way too violent!" said Dale. "America's not gonna want to give 'em a stage if they come out swingin' like that. You're supposed to go in with, like, open peace if you want peace back. If you go in with threats everybody's gonna be scared of everybody else."

"Well…" said Monica, who was on plant use research. "We really didn't know anything about what ghosts are up to in the Zone. We didn't even know if they had a military— well, okay. We knew, 'cause we've seen it. But, like, the government hasn't seen it. And they already know what to expect when they're dealing with other countries. It is diplomatic to say 'hey, JSYK, here's what we're gonna do and how we're gonna do it if you don't like our terms."

"Isn't that pretty much mutually-insured destruction?" Brittany said.

"Assured?" Monica suggested.

"Yeah. Like, only keeping everybody from fighting because they'd all die if they did."

Tucker finally spoke up, shakily. "Well, he said they didn't want to. So that's gonna have to be good enough. We'll just have to hope they get a chance to talk."

Jazz was looking at Sam suspiciously. Probably expecting her to argue with someone. Well, Sam was still figuring out how she felt about this, and she didn't have classes with these people anymore, so who cared if she got involved in their debates or not?

"So Phantom became some kind of royalty since we last saw him?" Dash mumbled, looking up at the ceiling like it might have an answer.

"The High King!" Mikey said. "Whatever that means."

Ginny from Skulk 'n' Lurk joined in. "Could be like that guy who took over a couple years ago. He claimed to be a 'the' ghost king. Maybe Phantom took over from him."

"Or he was royalty the whole time!" said Paulina. "Could have been hiding it for some reason. Or avoiding it."

"Then how could the big viking guy be the ghost king, Pauli? Huh?"

"I don't know! It was just an idea, Jesus. Maybe they're related."

Sam finally shook herself off and dragged Jazz and Tucker outside while conversation shifted to whether it could have been a different "Phantom".

"He's in trouble."

"No duh, Sam."

Jazz tried to get under the eave to keep out of the snow. "Could he have been lying about the Ghost King thing?"

"God, probably not," said Tucker. He scuffed the gravel with his boot. "He's always getting into stuff that's too big to handle."

Sam regretted coming out here. It was fucking cold. "How long do you think that's been going on?"

Nobody had an answer.

"Well, obviously we've gotta help him," she said.

Jazz nodded. "As far as I can tell, though, all the portals are gone."

"Crap," said Tucker. "Does anybody have a way to get in touch with Wulf? Or… uh… any other ghost?"

"No, sorry."

"Well!" Sam clapped her hands. "We'll just have to put all this magic research to use, then."

They all came back inside to a truly riveting discussion about ghost surnames. Sam couldn't focus on her research for the rest of the evening.

Danny, why couldn't you stay safe, just this once?

===

Sammy,

Look at you, running away like this! Just like your mother and just like me. I knew you wouldn’t back down from the things you believe in. Hopefully your mother comes to her senses with all of this nonsense and realizes the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree. I swear, that woman needs to take the stick out of her ass.

It was so silly of your parents to up and move, what with my condition and the roots our family has grown in Amity Park over the years. Your friends back home will be so happy to see you. I always liked having them around the house, and I know you’ll be safe with them. It’s impressive how smart you young ones are. Back in my day, ghosts were only in stories we told each other at night. I always believed in them a little more than that, though.

I hope this will remind you how loved you are and that at least one person in this family believes in you. You know I don’t have long left, bubbeleh. I may not get to see all the things you accomplish. I hope I don’t become a ghost, but if I do I’ll be by your side helping you win this fight. Don’t forget how much your grandma loves you.

May God bless and keep you, Grandma Ida

#danny phantom #my writing #invisobang 2023 #ftf catalyst #the forest the trees the fire

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