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phantomtwitch · 10 months

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Electric Core/No One Knows AU

I meant to post this for some event, but never got around to it. Since AO3 is functionally down at the moment, I figured I'd share it in case folks are looking for something to read. It's kind of similar to 'As the Ice Begins to Crack' in terms of vibes (or at least that's what I was aiming for - I want to write more AUs in that vein, and I might expand more on this at some point).

Enjoy!

Tucker knows it’s coming as soon as the air shifts.

The differences are subtle at first. A faint whiff of ozone, a slight chill to the air as the wind picks up and sweeps the fall leaves into spirals over the ground, and then the hairs on his arms stand on end. Then comes the low-pitched hum, the hiss that sounds like electricity running through high-voltage cables, peppered with the occasional burst of static and awful whining as the air grows heavy and thick, the sky darkening even when moments ago the sun shone brightly above them.

Sam freezes next to him, her fingers clutching her milkshake tightly as her eyes dart from side to side, looking for somewhere to hide until they land on an abandoned house nearby. “Come on,” she insists, tugging at his hand.

“Sam, there’s no way that place is safe, it’s been condemned for years–”

“--and being out here with Phantom is?” she interrupts, and Tucker scowls, knowing that she’s right, but moving from one dangerous spot to another isn’t ideal. There’s nowhere else close enough to go, though, or at least not anywhere they won’t risk getting struck once the lightning starts, and he follows her with a groan and an eye roll. They’re on the porch when the first lightning bolt strikes the pavement nearby, making it explode and sending shrapnel flying that barely misses him and Sam, and thunder roars, painfully loud and close. He slaps his hands over his ears, trying to block out what noise he can, but his ears are still ringing when it stops.

Sam forces one of the windows open and climbs through, with Tucker following shortly after. The house is empty and covered in heavy dust that makes Tucker sneeze as they disturb it, the air almost as oppressive inside as it was out, and in the corner he can see signs of something rotting that he doesn’t dare approach.

The two of them stand at the window even though they both know better. When a ghost that is more an embodiment of the storm than the kind of vague, intangible figure haunting ghost stories becomes a common fixture in town, endless safety lectures and drills become the norm. Knowing what to do in the event of a thunderstorm is the closest the teachers can get to explaining the safety precautions that are necessary when Phantom is about.

He’s only actually seen Phantom once before, when Sam begged him and Danny to go on a ghost hunting trip back in freshman year on Halloween. Tucker wasn’t terribly interested in ghosts, but he was too old for trick-or-treating and not popular enough to score an invite to any parties, so he agreed. Danny did, too, but bailed at the last minute, claiming he felt too tired and sick to go with them.

Tucker tries not to think about Danny too much. The three of them haven’t spoken in close to six months, at least, drifting further and further apart despite his and Sam’s best efforts to stay friends their first two years of high school together. Most days he’s barely in class anymore, and when he is Danny is constantly tucked away in a corner, curling in tightly on himself, careful to avoid getting too close to anyone. Dark circles constantly ring his eyes, his expression hollow and skin too pale. Sam asked Jazz once before she went off to college if Danny was seriously ill and she denied it, even as it was clear something about him had changed since high school started.

“Do you ever talk to Danny anymore?” he asks suddenly, and the shift in conversation as they peer out the window and wait for the elusive Phantom to make his appearance catches Sam off guard.

“No. Does anyone?” she says, her tone resigned as another loud peal of thunder echoes around them, and Tucker swears he sees the house shaking. They argued a few times about what to do and what else to try, never figuring out a way to reach him.

“I guess not.” He turns back to look outside, rubbing his arms as a figure blinks into existence on the road. The features are hard to make out, as always, because of the bright green lightning that flickers across his form, making it nearly impossible to stare at Phantom for too long. His hair looks wispy and white, his eyes swirling pools of green amidst a heavily shadowed face, and his form is hazy and more like smoke or dark clouds in the vague shape of a person, yet there’s an odd solidity in the way that he moves at times, as if by far heavier and present than he ought to be in this inhuman state.

The words that come out when Phantom speaks next aren’t any language humans can hope to imitate, but it’s clearly a form of communication, the ear piercing whine and buzzing reminding Tucker of standing beneath high-voltage wires even as it rises and lowers in pitch and the rhythms shift. There’s an echo to the words, a way it loops through the air as if constantly caught inside a tunnel no matter where Phantom appears, and his voice gets under Tucker’s skin, prickling like static beneath the surface and making him rub his arms more fiercely than before.

Another ghost roars back, his voice full of snarling and hissing, the sounds animalistic even as there’s a mechanical clicking that accompanies it, and Tucker recognizes it and winces as he spots the strange robotic ghost flying in mid-air, green flames cascading down his skull and back, completely unhampered by the rain that is now beginning to steadily fall. The Fentons call him Skulker. The hunter ghost is infamous, stalking his ‘prey’ throughout Amity Park, although what particular creature ends up being his prey in any given week is often impossible to know until it’s too late. Mostly what he hunts are other animals and ghosts, and for whatever reason, Phantom has long been one of his favored targets.

But the ghost stands little to no chance against Phantom.

“Maybe we should get away from the window,” suggests Tucker uneasily as a green blast extends from Phantom’s palm, swirling with crackling green lightning as it lashes out at Skulker, and sparking arcs of electricity dart from it, sparking against a stop sign and dancing across the pavement towards their hiding place. Though no one has ever seen Phantom directly attack a human before, his powers are wild and dangerous, the lightning barely controlled.

And Tucker’s all too aware that just because no one has ever witnessed Phantom attacking someone before doesn’t mean he wouldn’t do it.

“No, I want to watch,” whispers Sam stubbornly as she peers through the window, but her knuckles are white as she grips the window frame. Tucker barely suppresses a sigh as he remains firmly in place. The things he does for his best friend.

His only friend, a quiet voice whispers, but he ignores it.

The fight is brutal, the ghosts barely visible as they attack each other, but the evidence of their fight is everywhere as green fire spirals, intertwining with the lightning amidst the rain. “It’s kind of beautiful, isn’t it?” says Sam, the lights and shadows dancing in front of them, and he nods despite himself. It’s terrifying, inhuman. The Fentons’ say that ghosts are nothing more than imprints, echoes of post-human consciousness, but as he watches them fight Tucker realizes he’s never truly understood exactly what that means, if they’re spirits or souls or just the fading echoes given some unnatural life at the very moment of someone’s death.

“How do you think Phantom died?” he asks as Skulker slams into the pavement, the machinery smoking and his flames dwindling as the rain comes down harder, and Sam doesn’t answer, likely unable to hear him over the downpour and crackle of thunder. They watch as Phantom looms over Skulker, his indistinct form more monstrous than ever, and then he slams a fist into the machinery, his fingers sharp, black claws that spark as they dig through the metal frame and pull out a shimmering, shifting ghost, so tiny compared to the hulking frame encapsulating it.

The rain begins to slow and Tucker wonders for a moment what Phantom will do, if he will destroy the squirming helpless thing in his hands, but then there’s a soft whisper, the sounds that come from Phantom no longer sending chills down his spine but inviting comfort instead, of an odd sort of warmth and gentleness. The ghost–is it Skulker? Tucker isn’t sure–responds in a mewling, annoyed tone, but stops fighting back as Phantom pulls an odd soup like container from . . . Tucker isn’t sure, actually, just where Phantom pulls it from, but he flicks the cap open with practiced ease and sucks the small ghost inside.

“Isn’t that one of the Fentons’ inventions?” wonders Sam, and Tucker jolts as he realizes she’s right. He remembers seeing it once in one of the assemblies, but the device has rarely appeared in their arsenal since they created the portal guns to send the ghost back to their own dimension instead. “Think he stole it from them?”

“With the level of security they have around that place? Doubt it,” says Tucker. Though it’s been ages since he was last at the Fentons, their ghost security was aggressive enough that it would target sufficiently ecto contaminated humans by mistake, let alone a incredibly powerful ghost like Phantom. Tucker doubts they’ve downgraded their security since then, especially since the number of ghost attacks are only increasing. “Maybe he found it in the trash.”

“Maybe,” she hums, sounding doubtful, and it’s at that moment that the electric green eyes snap towards them, focusing intently, and although it’s too late both Sam and Tucker duck in a futile effort to hide.

“Shit,” hisses Tucker, and Sam shushes him, putting a finger to her lips, but it’s too late as the air in front of them crackles and flickers as a bolt of electricity impossibly strikes the floor in front of them, Phantom appearing within it, his arms wrapped around the thermos. He and Sam flinch as they curl in towards each other, Sam’s hand grasping his own tightly now as the two of them tremble, and he can barely stand to look at Phantom, the electricity arcing along his body too bright.

A hiss of static erupts, the same odd ghost speech as always, but this time Tucker understands it, hearing words within the noise even though that shouldn’t be possible. “You shouldn’t stay here,” says Phantom, the sparks around him diminishing, although now that Tucker can make out his features more clearly it’s almost worse as he opens his mouth to speak, sharp white fangs sparkling within.

“Well where else were we supposed to go with you out there fighting?” grumbles Sam, and Tucker stares at her in horror, unable to believe she would dare to speak to any ghost, let alone Phantom, that way. But the ghost lets out an odd sound, of echoing loops and trills and whirring, and it takes Tucker a second to realize he’s laughing.

“Fair. But this place is haunted,” he replies with a grin, “and the ghost that lives here doesn’t take kindly to intruders.”

“That’s–um–fine,” stutters Tucker, squeezing Sam’s hand tightly before she can utter another word as he forces himself to his feet. “We’ll, um, get going. And, um, thanks.”

The sparks stop running along his body, freezing at midpoints in a way that completely unnerves Tucker, as if the ghost is frozen in a photo instead of standing in front of them. “Thanks?” he repeats.

“For stopping the ghost?” he squeaks out. “And warning us about the, um, other ghost haunting this place?” His voice is so high that Tucker thinks he could sing soprano right now if Phantom asked.

Phantom continues to stare at him, saying nothing and remaining so still Tucker would swear he’s a statue, and eventually Tucker swallows as he grabs Sam’s hand and tries to pull her through the window, but she refuses to budge. “Sam,” he hisses, tugging again. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“Not yet,” she insists. “Phantom . . . Are you . . . do you have a place to go?”

“I’m not a lost puppy,” he says, the unnatural stillness rolling off him with a wave of sparks. “And I can’t be near humans for long anyway. It’s hard to control the electricity, and dying from electrocution is a terrible way to go.” There’s a noise behind the words, an echo of long, awful scream that makes Tucker shiver and instinctively realize then that Phantom is speaking from experience, and for the first time it occurs to him that the noises that comprise each ghost’s individual speech aren’t half as random as he believed.

It’s the sound of their death, echoing for eternity, never letting them or anyone else forget. “Is that . . .” asks Sam, wanting to confirm it.

“Yes,” he says simply, and then there’s the sound of something breaking upstairs, a window smashing and shattering, and static prickles against Tucker’s skin. “You should go.”

“Right. And, um, bye, I guess?” says Tucker awkwardly, and finally Sam follows him out the window and back out onto the street. Despite the sounds upstairs, there’s no broken glass outside beneath any of the windows above them, and as he glances back he can see Phantom’s eyes watching, considering them carefully, before another bolt strikes and he vanishes in a clap of thunder, leaving Sam and Tucker alone once more.

#danny phantom #dp fanfiction #electric core au #creepy Phantom #I do not know why I always do creepy Danny fics as a Tucker POV #but here we are again #¯\_(ツ)_/¯#my writing #look i just really like Tucker

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