#elder sister jazz fenton

[vala-dreams]

I can see tall Jazz getting really used to manhandling people around.

Like she's probably had to do it since the day Danny was born like look at the state of their house,,,,someone had to be ready to grab the baby at all times and y'all already know that someone ain't gonna be Jack or Maddie.

Not that they don't care about Danny. They're just far to consumed by their work to be bothered. Which is basically abuse cause child neglect but we can discuss that at a later date.

So yeah, Jazz getting really used to manhandling Danny to get him out of harm's way and later doing the same for Sam and Tucker when the whole Phantom fiasco comes around.

I feel like she would be very frustrated during this time, especially in the early days because up to this point she has considered herself as Danny's protector. His guardian. The one who would always keep him away from harm, the girl who would always be there to carry him away from danger. But it isn't like that anymore. She can't fight ghosts. Sure, there's the thermos and all the ghost hunting equipment but she knows that none of that matters. It doesn't matter if she can fight ghosts or not, Danny is going to fight them anyway.

And that scares her. And it frustrates her too, because she can't just stop Danny from fighting. It isn't going to help him. It isn't going to help if she finds some miracle way to make Danny listen because she knows that he feels guilty. She knows that he thinks it's his fault that ghosts are terrorizing Amity now. The feeling must be bad enough now as it is.

And so it goes. Everytime there's a rouge ghost, everytime Phantom has to fight, she's there. Everytime the Fentons come out to hunt her brother, she's there to stope them. Everytime there's a civillian trapped under miles of debri, she's there to tear it away with her bare hands.

Because she can't sit and do nothing. Because she can't just stand on the sidelines and watch. Because she can't let him do this alone.

She is Jazz Fenton, daughter of two of the most brilliantly deranged paranormal scientists, armed with the equipment to show for it. She is Jazz Fenton, the elder sister always looking out for herself and her brother, even when her parents didn't. She is Jazz Fenton, the girl who refuses to let the people she cares about suffer.

She is Jazz Fenton, and she is The Guardian.

....

And then, some nights, when the ghosts have been defeated, when all their wounds, all their rips and tears have been sewed back together, Danny would crawl up into her arms and fall asleep.

In those nights, with soft moonlight streaming in through her window, with Danny's slight, cold weight in her arms, she feels like a person again.

Just for a moment. Just for a little while till the world needs The Guardian again.

Till Danny needs The Guardian again.

............................................................................

THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A TALL JAZZ SHITPOST WHA—

Okay anyway, superhero Jazz au in which Jazz is called The Guardian.

She has eldest daughter syndrome. And will psychoanalyze everyone except herself so she doesn't even know it

[queenofthequillandink]

Steph's new roommate's little brother was absolutely a meta.

The two of them weren't really trying particularly hard to hide it, but they weren't mentioning it either, so Steph just... followed their lead. Especially because Jazz, while a little neurotic, was a pretty good roommate and new some truly innovative things to make in the microwave with whatever was in their dorm fridge.

But anyway, back to the meta thing. Steph could totally back it up.

Jazz was from the Midwest somewhere, one of the "I" states. (Indiana? Illinois? Iowa? Steph could never keep them straight.) From the way Jazz talked about her parents and the things she said to Danny, Steph could tell that the Fentons still lived there and Danny with them. Yet at least four nights out of seven, without fail, Steph would come home from a long night studying or vigilante-ing to find Danny in their dorm room, usually passed out on the futon. As though Gotham wasn't halfway across the country from Indiana or Illinois or Iowa.

"Our parents are pretty loud," Jazz explained with a quiet grimace, the first time it happened. "Like 'keep you awake at all hours of the night' loud. I told Danny he could sleep here when he needs to, is that okay? Tucker's parents are great, but they'll kick him out eventually."

"As a sleep-deprived college kid, I wholeheartedly support sleeping wherever you can get it," Steph whispered back. "As long as he doesn't eat my half of the food, I'm not gonna tattle to the RA."

"Thank you thank you thank you!" Jazz squealed, flapping her hands. Steph darted a glance at the teenager passed out on their futon, but he didn't even twitch. "Oh, don't worry, you have to be loud enough to wake the dead to get Danny up," Jazz said with a smirk.

"Alright. Makes things easier, I suppose," Steph said with a shrug, moving to sling her backpack onto her bunk. "He gonna be here in the morning?"

Jazz narrowed her eyes as though Elder Sister Glare could penetrate dreams. Hell, maybe it could. "He'll be at school before you wake up, if he knows what's good for him."

School. Which should be halfway across the country. Sure. Well, Steph could recognize a topic that Simply Wasn't Spoken About and unlike the rest of the Bats, she actually respected her roommate's personal privacy. "Cool."

So. Definitely a meta. Teleportation, maybe? Or superspeed or flying, she supposed. Whatever it was, the kid was clearly only using it to get a good night's rest in a safe space, so it wasn't really Steph's business.

At least neither of them had noticed she was a vigilante. It was an impressive secret to keep in such close quarters, if Steph did say so herself.

~*~

Jazz had clocked that Stephanie was Spoiler in a week and a half. And it only took her that long because she was distracted by orientation. The girl wasn't exactly subtle. Especially not with her injuries. Jazz had three years of experience watching someone come home injured and try to hide it, and while she was better than Danny, it still wasn't good enough.

Still, Steph wasn't making a big deal of Danny portalling into their dorm half of every week. And, like she had with Danny, Jazz wanted Steph to trust her enough to tell her herself.

And if this meant that Jazz spent a good portion of her first semester figuring out the rest of the Bats' identities based on Steph's friends and acquaintances, well. That was between her and Steph's scary-but-sweet girlfriend who read her like a book as soon as their eyes met.

[hipstergecko]

Okay people! DP X DC idea time!

This hit me like a trainwreck and I must release it into the wild. Will I write this properly one day?

Anyway!

Let's think about sensory deprivation tanks. Danny phantom. What if the thermos acted like one? It was only meant for short term storage. What if the Fenton's built a coffin like one meant for long term? 

And they caught Danny first?

—---

The Fenton's newest invention "ghost in a box" had caught him. It was a dumber bigger heavier version of the thermos and somehow they managed to catch him right as he was falling to earth after a nasty hit to the jaw from the latest ghost of the week.

He propped himself up on his elbows and hissed through his teeth. Better to get out of this box quickly. His parents probably couldn't handle this guy. Using the bright glow of his eyes, he examined the inside of his new holding cell. It was fairly big. Big enough for him to roll about and prop himself up on his elbows. There was 10 inches or so of watery ectoplasm sloshing around him as he moved and shifted. Surprisingly comfy too. At least compared to the cramped space of the thermos.

Without the glow of his eyes it was dark. Completely dark. The kind of dark that makes you wonder if you really had that hand on front of your face. And it was quiet. The only sounds were the faint sloshing of the ectoplasm and his own breathing. 

He saw the faint line of the lid and tried with all his might to push it open. His ghostly strength didn't seem to do much. He was panting by the time he decided to try to phase through it instead. He ended up with a sore head for his efforts. Airtight, watertight and ghost proof. 

There was no way out. 

He tried his phone which had luckily enough survived the fight.

No service.

Danny sighed heavily and lay back in the water, staring at his phone with a tired frown. So much for luck. Hopefully, Tucker, Sam, or Jazz would break him out before school tomorrow.

The silence was so strange. He'd never been somewhere this quiet before. Even the ghost zone at its most peaceful had the sounds of flowing ectoplasmic winds. He felt his eyelids fall shut as he slipped into a doze. He was frankly exhausted from everything that had happened that day and needed a nap. So he took one as he waited for someone to open the box.

But Nobody did. Nobody could. Apart from his friends and sister, nobody cared to.

You see, immediately upon his capture, the elder Fentons rushed the box back to the lab for testing. After several hours they had declared the invention a success. As long as no one opened the box, the ghost couldn't escape. 

Meanwhile Tucker, Sam, and Jazz were consumed with worry. They hadn't seen Danny get captured, but after Jack and Maddie proclaimed Phantom was caught the next day on the news, they feared the worst.

Jazz confronted her parents about Phantom in the box, but she was kindly and lovingly dismissed. You see, they had given it some thought and finally agreed with their daughter that ghosts too dangerous to be studied should just be caught and dealt with humanely. A compromise. Sure they couldn't do all the tests they wanted, but they would rather have their town and family safe.

The "Ghost in a box" was equipped with noise canceling movement dampening ecto-sustaining technology. In essence a sensory deprivation tank. The ghost would be kept safe until they were docile enough to be released for study or simply turned back into base ectoplasm to be recycled for something else.

But they didn't know about cores.

And they didn't know about Danny.

Cores would not dissipate like regular formless ectoplasm. They would remain even as the physical form of the ghost melted away as their consciousness faded into everything and nothing within the box.

But Danny wouldn't. Jazz knew that Danny couldn't.

A core wasn't made to house a human. A ghost, who was the personification of a person's emotions the moment they died, a being made of obsession, could be condensed and made dormant inside the fragile safety of a core. But a human flesh and bone body? A heartbeat? He would always be there. Able to be sucked in a thermos, yes. Ghost in a box, yes. His ghostly abilities made him pliable enough. But into his core? Never going to happen.

His heart and core were very different, but worked together in harmony. Neither could exist without the other. Neither could be taken out without issue. (The ghost catcher notwithstanding. Freaky duplication personality splitting weirdness) Should his heart vanish into the core, it would die. Hearts do not take compression and dormancy well. Should his heart be removed, the core would have no filter and overtake the body, burning it into pure ectoplasmic fire.

Danny was the perfect balance. His heart strengthened his core and his core energized his heart. He could not be easily shattered or dissipated. But this meant he also could not retreat into his core when his mind or body failed him. 

He had to remain fully formed. Fully in ghost form. The ectoplasm that was being cycled through the box made sure he was stable, but he would suffocate and starve if he became human.

He was well and truly stuck.

Jazz begged and pleaded with them to let him go. The psychological damage would be so severe if he stayed in longer than a few hours. But their success had blinded them to the point of pride. Instead they praised her for her empathy and willingness to study the obsessions ghosts were known for.

They only really started listening to her after Danny had been missing for an entire week. And even then it was just a call to the police and a search to hunt "they ghost who took our baby boy".

(Did Jazz ever break down and tell her parents the truth? Who knows.)

Perhaps the worst part was that his loved ones couldn't even get to the box. It had been locked up in some government facility almost immediately after the Fenton's announced their success. The patent was sold to the government for a truly amazing amount of money.

Danny was out of reach.

It was only after months of petitioning and rallying and absolutely threatening Vlad with ruining his political reputation, Sam was able to gain access to the box to "see for herself if they were truly as humane as the Fenton's claimed". She had 20 minutes with the box and she and Tucker did everything they could to open it. 

Nothing worked. No hacking or code they tried could open it. They had no power tools or weapons to try attacking it with. For 20 minutes they tried.

For 20 minutes they failed.

There was nothing they could do. They were escorted from the premises kicking and screaming.

Meanwhile the product went viral. Some opposed it, some praised it. The Fentons became famous for the "ghost in a box". Soon they were available widespread. Ghosts were being caught left and right and safely contained. most of whom were peacefully living out their afterlives in their chosen haunt.

Many ghosts were caught actively seeking Phantom. Skulker, Ember, some invisible ghost kid, a great hairy looking wolf man, and more. Ghosts were being caught all over the country. None of them could escape once they were put in the box. And none of the other ghosts knew what was truly happening to their kind. They only knew that if you went into the human realm, you didn't come back. 

Surprisingly enough, Vlad was eventually the one to put a stop to it. By forcibly closing the portals. The Fentons were too busy with their manic search for their son to rebuild their own portal. (And even if they tried after jazz told them the truth, would it have even worked?) His own portal was hardly ever used anymore. Mostly because alongside the "ghost in a box", the Fenton finder and ectoplasmic tracker were also extremely popular tools for ghost catching. It was too risky to activate his personal portal. If he was caught, he was as good as dead. 

But he too was eventually caught.

Somebody had finally looked into his shady dealings. Suspicious of him, and not wanting to rule out anything ghostly, they opened a box on him during a packers game.

He never saw it coming.

Eventually almost every ghost people across the world knew of were caught. The U.S. government paid for the boxes and had them categorized and stored deep underground in a ghost proof facility that slowly faded from history.

But what about Danny?

Let's ask a different question. Do you know what happens when a human stays too long without sensory input?

The hallucinations started when his phone battery gave out.

—————

The justice league had been an entity for quite some time now. Long enough that they felt secure in digging down into the underbelly of various world governments to root out world ending threats at the source. Especially after what had been going on with CADMUS and their government sanctioned cloning operation.

Someone (the flash? Batman? TBD) finds old records of a bunker buried deep under the earth full of something called "ectoplasmic" radiation. For the safety of the nearby town of Amity Park, they felt the need to dig it up and clean it out.

Upon entering the bunker in full OSHA approved hazmat, they find strange looking boxes. Boxes upon boxes stretching for at least a mile, maybe more if there are sublevels. Each box is labeled with a number. The first one they find is marked 3278 (or some other arbitrary number). All the boxes are sealed tight with no known way to open/dispose of them.

Most of the heroes agree just to let the bunker be. It was sealed and doing no visible harm to anyone or the environment.

But Batman (or other super? Dealer's choice) decides to do a bit more looking.

He stalks through the boxes, noting the numbers, the lights saying 'occupied' and 'dissolved'. Many of the boxes are buried deep. He can really only observe the ones close to the walkways.

He walks all the way to the very bottom. The very end of the bunker. Where there is a solitary box set on a raised platform. It is labeled number 1. The lights flash 'occupied'.

'Corporeal'.

He takes it back to the watchtower for analysis.

——————

The justice league cannot safely open the box. Any attempt to break it open could compromise whatever is inside. Scans do not indicate what could be inside.

More research is done into these boxes. Nothing digital is found. Eventually someone looked through some old offices stationed outside the bunker and finds patents for the boxes. Dr.s Fenton describe in detail what the box does and how to use it. It was meant to never be opened by anyone without the proper DNA match.

Apparently Jack Fenton, understanding that ghosts can possess people (read overshadow) coded the box to reject anything that had human DNA in it. He had to manually override the security to open the boxes. Which included several (read 100) security questions and passwords pertaining to Jack directly.

So only someone completely non human and non ectoplasmic could open the box.

Good thing they had aliens on payroll.

—————

Superman pressed his thumb to the scanner. There was a light beep and a sudden rush of pressurized air. A cheery voice rattled out of a small speaker embedded in the box's control panel.

"Wow! I don't know how you found an alien, but well done! Please enjoy your docile ghost or ectoplasmic goo! Thank you for using the Fenton GHOST IN A BOX! Patent pending please don't sue."

Superman, startled by the sudden voice, took a step back. The lid of the box opened slowly the inside dark. Toxic looking green mist sluggishly broiled out of the box. It spread almost like fog across the floor.

A black hand with abnormally long and skeletal fingers stretched slowly rose out of the mist, rising to grip the side of the box.

All the superheroes were immediately on edge. Hands flying to weapons and dropping into fighting stances. Superman himself jumped back to guard against whatever was coming out of the box.

What emerged was frankly horrifying to look at. A black mass of bulbous limbs and... Tentacles? Were those tentacles? Claws and teeth scrabbled at the edges of the box until the entire bulk of the thing fell from the edge, squelching with whatever liquid had been inside. It hit the floor of the watchtower with a wet sounding thud.

There was an immediate reaction among the heroes.

"Oh gross!"

"That... What IS that?!"

"Eugh..."

"It's not human, that's for sure!"

"Someone find a member of JLD!!"

"Get Constantine up here!"

Amidst the noise the thing on the floor writhed about. All over it's amorphous body, eyes opened. Countless eyes appearing all over it's form. They were the same toxic green color as the mist, but brighter.

The eyes rolled about and winced. The thing shuddered as if in pain and the eyes squeezed shut back into the void. Instead, teeth appeared, countless mouths inside mouths and razor sharp teeth upon teeth. It scrabbled on the floor and opened it's countless mouths.

And screamed.

Heroes threw their hands over their ears in an attempt to stop the sound. Those with enhanced hearing took it the worst. Superman himself was forced to kneel, hands pressing to the sides of his head desperately. It sounded like the screams of the damned. Of someone dying. Of thousands suffering. He couldn't move, couldn't react. It was going to drive him mad if it didn't stop.

It came almost in waves, battering against the triple reinforced windows protecting the inhabitants from space. Lights above their heads popped and broke as sound crashed about the room. Coffee mugs shattered, fuses blew, and the watchtower was plunged into darkness.

With the darkness came a panic. The screaming was unending, debilitating. Some curled into fetal positions, uncaring of their peers. Others tried to run, but with the power gone, doors wouldn't open.

Not many paid attention to the thing on the floor.

It is important to note that in attendance that day alongside batman were a few of his brood. Namely Red Robin and Black Bat. It is also important to note that Black Bat is a hero who is hearing impaired.

So of the heroes in the watchtower that day, Black Bat was the only one to focus on the amorphous thing despite the noise.

She watched the Eldritch horror even as the watchtower fell to darkness. It had too many mouths. Too many eyes. It's form was barely recognizable in the darkness, but as she watched she could see the makings of something humanoid.

It had a discernable head.

She watched it try to open its eyes various times only to see it shriek louder and shut them swiftly. It was in pain? Even though the lights had gone out? She looked at batman and the other heroes. They were screaming and yelling and trying to figure out a course of action.

She looked back at the thing. The sound beat at her ears in waves. Growing ever louder as those around her screamed in pain.

In that moment, Cass had an epiphany.

She lunged across the room, reaching Red Robin almost instantly. She allowed the sound to reach her ears as her hands left them to dig around in Tim's utility belt. She knew he had them, she'd seen him wear them often enough.

Ahah! She triumphantly pulled the headphones from a side pouch. Dick and Jason teased Tim about the headphones when he first got them for working on casefiles. They were the big chunky kind. Designed to fit over the entire ear.

Designed to be noise cancelling

She turned and sprinted towards the thing on the floor with her prize. The closer she got the worse the sound was. It beat on her brain painfully, she could feel a nosebleed trickle down her lip. Still she darted forward. She leapt ito the air, flipping upsidedown as she did. She aimed to the beings... Head? What could've been it's head... And deftly slipped the headphones onto it.

There was a flailing of... Limbs?... In her direction as she sailed through the air. She landed a bit ungracefully as the sound crashed over her again. She covered her ears with her hands and retreated, turning to face the entity as she backed away.

There were hands... Or hand like things... Clutching the headphones. Slowly the screaming dwindled. Soon it was quiet save for the cursing and crying and relief voiced by the heroes.

"Oh thank god!"

"It's over!"

"Ugh my head..."

"Is everyone okay?"

"I understand why they had that thing locked away now."

"Black Bat." Cass turned to see Batman holding his head in one hand. "What did you do?"

Cass mimed putting the headphones on. "Overstimulation." She said simply.

"What do you mean?" Batman looked to the entity. His eyes narrowed at the way it clung to the headphones. His gaze swiveled to the inky darkness of the box. An idea swirled in his brain and he nodded. "Extreme sensory deprivation."

Cass nodded, pleased.

"Batman! What happened? Are you alright?" Superman approached the pair. His voice was raised slightly. Blood dripped from his ears.

"I'm fine Superman." Batman faced him fully, moving his mouth in exaggerated syllables. "But you're not."

Superman smiled sheepishly. "I see you noticed. I can't hear anything right now." He turned towards the entity. "What do we do now? It's clearly too dangerous to simply let free." He turned back to Batman. "With the watchtower out of power the best option we have is to put it back into the box."

"Hnn..." Batman frowned. "I don't think that would work well. Based on how it reacted to light and sound, we can assume that the box was some sort of sensory deprivation tank."

"Sensory deprivation tank?"

"It's a box that cuts off all stimuli from the outside." Red Robin pulled himself off the floor with a groan. "It's a form of extreme isolation. Do you think that's why it was screaming?"

"What?"

Batman ignored Superman. "I believe so. Black Bat was the first to notice."

Red Robin squinted. "Are those my headphones?"

Cass grinned at him. "Useful."

He huffed and passed her a handkerchief from his belt. "You owe me new ones." She giggled silently and took the handkerchief, wiping away the nosebleed.

Batman grunted, gaze shifting back to the writhing mass of black in the darkness. "We'll have to quarantine this room. I don't believe trying to handle the entity would be wise."

"No kidding." Superman winced, putting a hand to his head. "But we won't be able to do much until Cyborg restores power. He was in the control room when the screaming started, right?"

Not a moment after Superman had finished speaking the backup lights came on.

And the shrieking started anew.

Heroes were once again forced to their knees as the sound hit them. Cass wasted no time and ran towards the entity. It was no longer a roiling bulbous mass, but rather had a partial humanoid form. A clear and present head and shoulders, thin long arms with hands clasped around the headphones.

She didn't know where it's eyes were supposed to be, but she didn't bother taking the time to figure it out. She ripped her cape from her shoulders and flung it over top of the entity. There was an immediate flailing of limbs and tentacles as it tried to get the offending object off.

Cass worked quickly. Pulling a blindfold from her belt, she wrapped it swiftly around the "head" of the thing in front of her. The knot was tied equally as fast, but before she could pull away, her hands were caught.

Long, impossibly long fingers held her hands in a vice grip. They were icy. So cold that it felt like her skin was burning.

But the screaming stopped.

"Black Bat!"

Cass ignored Red Robin's cry and Batman's frantic run towards her.

The entity had stilled.

It's limbs shrunk instantly, leaving almost normally proportioned arms and legs. The tentacles shrank away to nothing. The claws and fangs receding with them. The grip on her hands turned gentle, the fingers shrinking to a normal, proportional size.

Cass's eyes darted to Batman, stopping him just before he reached her. She shook her head minutely. This thing was not hostile.

It was scared.

Cass turned her gaze back to the thing and watched, tense as the fingers slowly ran up and down her hand. It felt her wrist, palm and fingers.

Slowly, the blackness faded into color. Blinding white hair fluttered with an unseen breeze. Skin tan underneath the headphones and blindfold. A tattered jumpsuit in black and white stained green.

A nose peeked out from under the blindfold. A pair of lips, thin and chapped. Freckles dotted what she could see of the cheeks.

It looked young. A young humanoid. It probably wasn't human at all but, the similarities were there. It looked like a boy. Younger than Tim, but older than Damien.

He looked thin. She traced the line of his ribs with her eyes. She would see where his hip bones jutted out. He was emaciated. Or very nearly. He looked as of he'd been starving.

She head Batman shift as he knelt beside her. She knew he'd seen it too. This boy had been tortured in extreme isolation. What had happened to him?

He didn't speak. She didn't really expect him to. He searched her hands for a moment more, before his hands stilled. Then, slowly, carefully, his fingers intertwined with hers. He gave a gentle squeeze.

She squeezed back.

The blindfold covering his eyes grew wet. The wetness seeped down the blindfold and dripped to the floor.

The boy was crying.

"You're real." Came a raspy whisper.

There was a flash of bright white light and suddenly a very starved human boy was collapsing into Cass's arms.

—————

(Cass looked up at Bruce with wide eyes, cradling the boy to herself. He now had pale skin, tattered blue jeans and a worn T-shirt. His tousled black hair was grimy with filth. Dark circles shadowed long dark eyelashes and hollowed cheeks.

Cass was suddenly sure. Whatever he was, he was hers now.

"New baby brother."

Batman sighed heavily.)

————-—

Aaaaaand I have more? Maybe? Like the idea that he has gone crazy and lost his senses for a time really appealed to me. Cue rehabilitation and him trying to free the other ghosts/Vlad and get them back to the ghost zone. Maybe try to go back in time to stop it all from happening? Idk.

I felt the need to post this before I dedicated too much time to it and wrote a multi chapter fic but never actually post it anywhere. 🫠

Tell me what you thiiiiink.

[phantomphangphucker]

Phic Phight - Ghosts And Cold Turkey Is A Bad Mix

@darthfrodophantom @datawyrms @kalifa100 @lovelyunknown @nat-space-obsessed @duchi-nesten

Jazz has a boyfriend. Jazz has a boyfriend who has NOT met her family. Jazz has a boyfriend who has not met her family and knows absolutely NOTHING about her families career path. Jazz has a boyfriend who was about to have A Bad Time. Danny, Elle, and Dan were going to make sure of that in every way remotely possible… short of world ending calamity.

Alright, so Jazz probably should have actually talked to Bassel about her family, preferably before he had decided that he absolutely had to finally met her family. It was spring break so she couldn’t exactly push it off till later, or long enough to explain anything really, so he was officially going in ‘cold turkey’. Had she mentioned that her family was weird? Of course, that was unavoidable. But she’s fairly certain he thought that ‘weird’ meant being really into fishing or made crochet baby dolls, not everything ghosts. And now that they’re on the road she’s fairly certain that telling the driver that ghosts are ‘the family business’ is a bad idea; it would not be good if he were to drive off of the road in shock.

Bassel chuckling, “so am I going to get regaled with stories about weird birds they’ve seen bird watching or the last obscure B list bird horror flic?”.

Jazz laughing awkwardly, “you have not idea. No idea at all…”.

Unfortunately Jazz was unaware of one simple fact, it wasn’t just her and her plus one who was coming to visit for the break….

Jack beams as a clawed hand crams itself through the seam in the Fenton Ghost Portal™, turning his head to the stairs, “Danny! Your kid’s are here!”.

“AWESOME! WE’RE MAKING COOKIES TO PACIFY THE GREMLIN! SEND ‘EM UP!”.

Sweet! Cookies! Yum. Jack turning back to the portal as the doors slam open loudly and threateningly, Jack chuckling to himself, that man was always such a drama queen. Watching the tall full ghost step through the now open portal, a little sister sitting perched on his shoulders. The little missy waving wildly at her grandpa, “hiyya gramps!”.

The flaming-haired full ghost scoffing, “Yeah yeah, whatever”.

Jack grinning and jumping up, moving to hug the two, the elder of the two stiffening and just ‘putting up with’ the hugging, “glad you kiddos could make it!”, ruffling the littler one’s hair, “there’s cookies”.

“Hell yeah!”, and she’s off like a rocket, flying up the stairs.

Jack eyes the full ghost, “beat any other ghosts down lately?”.

The man snorts, “obviously. Not that any of them were much of a fight”, grinning meanly, all fang, “the gorffens were deliciously squishie though”. Jack laughing as the two large men head upstairs.

Danny’s grinning his head off watching Elle devouring at least fifth-teen ghost-shaped cookies. Waving at Dan as he comes up behind Jack, “there’s pure ecto-cookies too, Mr. Can’t Eat Mortal Realm Food”. The full ghost scowls and flips him off but absolutely takes a couple of the overly green person-shaped cookies. Ha. The human cookies were ghost shaped and the ghost cookies were human shaped.

“Whatever, mom”.

Danny absolutely scowls at that, chucking a cookie at the ghost. While Maddie hums, eyeing them all, “Jazz will be coming by too”.

“Oh? When?”

“Any moment now, I believe”.

“I am in pj’s!”.

Dan snorts, “you look like a dumbass no matter what you’re wearing”. That gets him immediately blasted in the face with a small ecto-beam, the ghost only grinning viscously in response; Danny zipping up through the ceiling to get changed. Mom seriously couldn’t have told him sooner? Gosh! He had a new ugly ass sweater with a stupid ghost joke on it to show off!

The knots in Jazz’s stomach could kill her if they became ghosts right about now, as Bassel pulls them up into her drive way. He nearly rams into the house actually, having been staring at the ops centre on the roof, “uh, okay, spaceship on the roof is slightly more out there than I was expecting?”, looking to her, “and do they run their business from their house? Hence the sign?”.

Jazz laughs awkwardly, “they have permits for it… that they got after building it”.

He shrugs, “I can admire the guts”, and patting her on the shoulder, “and stop being so nervous, I’m a great guy! I’m sure they’ll love me. Plus you’ve said they’re pretty easy to please”.

“Oh I’m not worried about their reaction to you, rather your reaction to them. I have mentioned they’re weird right? And that my dad’s taller than ninety-one percent of the human population?”.

“… you did not mention the height, damn that’s impressive, he’s the one with the personality of a puppy, right?”.

She gives him a supportive back pat before they get out and head to the front door, “yes, and thank everything for that. His hugs are crushing though”.

“I bet”.

The door pops open without her having to knock, meaning Danny’s up, “sup Jazz and- oh shit, you brought company. Fuck. Two seconds”, and slams the door in her face.

Bassel quirking an eyebrow, “what? Is he still in pj’s or something? That was a really ugly sweater. Pink? and green? Together? Ew”, chuckling a little, “and did it say ‘boo’ onto others as you would have others ‘boo’ unto you? Why was there an image of a ghost aggressively holding out a loaf of garlic bread?”.

She snorts, even if she’s honestly confused, “oh no, he always makes sure to wear something really unpleasant to look at when he knows I’m visiting. I believe it’s born from a sick, though harmless, degree of sadism”, frowning, “though I’m not sure why he just rudely slammed the door in our faces”.

And then she hears the cackle, the loud deep malicious cackle, officially realising that she… might have fucked up. Just a little bit. Sighing and facepalming, “oh no”. The couple standing there as seemingly a shouting match goes on inside.

“GET CHANGED YOU DIPSHIT!”

“YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO! MOM!”.

“I WILL END YOU!”.

“GO AHEAD AND TRY!”.

“Are they gonna want these cookies or?”.

“DON’T YOU DARE! Yes, gumdrop, leave them some. HEY DROP THAT! DROP THAT NOW!”… “EW!”.

“HA!”.

“DAN!-”.

Then the door jerks open very aggressively, and Jazz and Bassel stare up at the giant of a man with too sharp eyes and a feral unkind grin, “so you bagged someone, eh? Need someone to beat him through the wringer?”, and moves to grab Bassel’s arm; who thankfully has the common sense to pull away while staring almost disturbed at the man.

Jazz grabbing Dan’s wrist and holding him, glaring at the semi-reformed mass murderer/genocidal, parricidal, infanticidal, amicicidal, omnicidal, deicidal, ecocidal, mundicidal, psychopath. “Don’t even think about, Dan”.

“Aw but Jazzy-”.

She points a finger in his face, “no. Bad. No trying to physically fight my boyfriend”.

Then Dan’s head gets yanked back, Danny grasping the man’s ponytail, “get back in here, you shit”. The door closing again.

Jazz turns and winces at Bassel’s freaked out expression, “alright so, I didn’t know Dan was going to be here. I would have absolutely said no, if I’d known that”.

“Should I be worried?”; he looked extremely worried.

Jazz grimacing, “he’s… on parole, for, well, for murder so, yes”, grabbing Bassel’s wrist, “well we’re here now, just, don’t go anywhere with him alone. He’s also a prankster”.

Bassel almost squawking, “Murder?!?!”, as she drags him through the threshold into the Fenton household.

They get smacked with the noise immediately, she still doesn’t get how her parents managed to make a semi-sound barrier for inside the house that worked even when doors or windows were open… even if it didn’t always work well with ghosts or half ghosts. Danny is ramming cookies into Dan’s face while standing on his shoulders and snarling, Dan attempting to yank him off. Elle is bouncing around on all fours playing with cujo, who’s vibrating with excitement literally. Dad is laughing, head on the table, and slamming a fist on it repeatedly; a chair falls over. And Mom’s set the stove on fire and is smacking it leisurely with that fire-proof ghost net; the Fenton Flamo-Containo she thinks.

Jazz rolling up her sleeves, sighing, and moving over to her mom, “what did you burn, mom?”; and starts properly smothering the flames… the flames have faces and eyeballs.

This was a mistake. This entire trip was a mistake. Her poor boyfriend.

Bassel blinks, gives himself a fortifying shake, and swallows, “hi? Um, I’m Bassel?”.

The smallest one is on him in a second, it’s freaky. Her chirping up at him, “why did you say that like a question? Are you a question? If I question you will you become a sentient question mark?”.

What? Her eyes are way too big and her skin is smooth. It’s… very strange. Then she’s being picked up by the smaller boy- the teenager, that he didn’t even hear approach. “Elle-”. That was strangely chastising to hear from a teen. “-no giving people existential crises”.

“Are question edible?”.

The teen quirks an eyebrow, “I mean probably? if you write them on a piece of paper?”.

“If I write them on apples and pelt doctors with them do you think they’ll anwser my questions without poking me?”

“Eh fuck it, give it a go. Tell me if it works”. Then the teen looks up to Bassel, “sup, I’m Danny, the little brother”.

Bassel nods awkwardly, this kid… was seriously off. His skin was too smooth too, eyes not right and dangerous, his hair seemed… darker than black. The hell is he looking at? “Uh. Bassel? I already said that though. Um, I’m guessing the girls the youngest sibling?”.

She pops out around Danny’s leg, “I’m the granddaughter actually”. Danny snorting, “grand-gremlin is more like it”. She bites the teen… does she have fangs???

Bassel blinks harshly, pointing at the… murderer, “his kid? I take it?”. And now that he’s looking, what the hell is up with how similar they all look???

Dan barks out a laugh, shaking his face off like a dog so hard pieces of green? cookie physically stab into the walls and cupboards, “that shit stain is moms kid, not mine! Holy shit!”.

Danny snapping his head to Dan and pointing aggressively at him, “you”, shrugging and changing tones so fast Bassel nearly gets whiplash, “would have absolute nightmare kids and I would cry if your dumbass is the one to make a grandpa of me. Fuck you”.

Bassel is… very confused.

Mrs. Fenton shouting, “and I don’t want to be a great-grandma! Thank you very much!”, and coming over, Jazz looking to be scowling down at the stove, “hello, I’m doctor Maddie Fenton, feel free to just call me Maddie though”, swatting him on the arm, “none of that Mrs. or Dr. stuff”.

Danny pouting at her, “hey, why does Val still have to call you Mrs then?”.

“Because you two are still teens mister”.

The teen only pouts more…. His eyes look far too glass-like, like he’s a doll. Bassel kind of wants to be no where near him. Eyeing Jazz’s mom, the… hazmat is extremely concerning, maybe he should have asked more about what her parents did for a living? or their hobbies? “You have a doctorate?”.

The woman grinning, “that’s right! Primarily in ecto-ology and clinical laboratory science. but also criminology and medical science. My husband, Jack has doctorates in ecto-ology and clinical laboratory science as well, public health, chemistry, and practical theology”, turning away to eye Jazz, “the Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”.

“For the millionth time, mom, I’m still not studying ecto-ology; spectral psychology is completely different and that isn’t even my primary field of study”.

Bassel blinks, okay he knew she said her parents were smart but damn. But… ecto-ology? Really? A pseudoscience? Taking that in conjunction with practical theology made some sense, many religions believed in sprits after all, but with medical degrees? With actual scientific degrees? He’d thought Jazz’s spectral psych was a bit odd, especially with the rumours she talked to ghosts which he brushed off, but at least it made sense since she wanted to be a therapist. Many people can use religion and the belief in spirits to help heal after all. “Ecto-ology huh? As your primary? Interesting choice”.

Then Jazz’s dad is on him in an instant, not inhumanely like Danny had been but to see someone so massive move so fast was jarring, “oh! Did Jazzypants not tell you!”, slapping a hand to his chest proudly, “the Fenton’s are a family of ghost hunters!”.

What.

Maddie eyes her daughter, “Jazz”. While Dan out right cackles evilly and Danny wheezes, hands on his knees, “Jazz you dumbass!”.

Bassel blinks harshly, “ghost… hunters?”, o-kay that was… a lot weirder than he expected. Her parents believed… in ghosts and claimed to ‘hunt’ them. No wonder his girlfriend wanted to study psychology, her parents were delusional.

Jazz can tell that her boyfriend absolutely thinks her parents are insane now. Danny eyeing the guy before wheezing more tells her he’s noticed too, walking over to her and patting her on the arm, “he doesn’t believe in ghosts, does he”.

She sighs, “I… don’t think so”.

“HA!”. Oh Dan was just eating this up.

Elle running over with cujo, holding the pup up at Bassel’s face, he looks like he barely resists recoiling, “pet the ghost pup and believe”.

“Why is he green?”.

“Because he’s dead! Dummy!”.

“What”. Then cujo is in his arms, his face is horrified, but he does cautiously pat cujo’s belly. Him stiffening and staring as the dog floats up and starts walking on the ceiling; Elle giggling.

Danny slinking over to the guy while Maddie tries to swat the dog off the ceiling, “yeah, welcome to Amity, famously the most haunted city in the world. And yes, your girlfriend’s parents are the leading ghost scientist of the entire world and sell ghost weapons to the government and general public”, doing jazz hands, “surprise!”.

Bassel hasn’t even made it past the entry way, Jazz feels like an ass for letting him go into this blind. Her shoving Danny away, “don’t be mean”, eyeing Bassel, who’s wide-eyed, “yeah sorry? I did tell you they were weird”.

Bassel eyes Dan standing on the table to pin a fucking green floating dog to the ceiling. Maddie’s holding a strange taser, that has green electricity, threatening the dog; Danny’s dangling off of her arm shrieking about leaving his pup alone and how if anyone’s going to get tased it should be him. Looking back to Jazz, “by weird you mean insane? I’d question the ghosts thing but there’s a floating green dog on the ceiling. Hell, I’m almost questioning my own sanity”.

Jack laughs, rubbing his neck, “oh yeah! We get that a lot! But hey! People stop calling you crazy once they get attacked by a talking five foot tall hornet or a town gets sucked into another dimension!”.

Jazz huffing, “you guys just will not let me live down that stupid hornet, will you”.

Danny shouting, “technically it was a shapeshifting old man! Not a hornet!”, as he runs out of the room with cujo in tow.

Maddie following with the taser, “Danny! he needs to be punished when he does that!”.

“No! Never! Kiss my dead ass!”.

Bassel blinking, “your… brother swears a lot, and wait did he claim to be Dan’s mom? What? I’m sitting down”.

Jazz wincing, “don’t sit on the orange chair, it screams sometimes”. He squeaks an ‘okay’ and sits on the purple couch rubbing his temples; Jazz plopping down beside him.

Dan shouting, “Is anyone gonna eat the ecto-wienies!?!”, from the kitchen.

Jazz scowling to herself before shouting back, “Dan don’t! I dont want Bassel passing out!”.

“That’s the point!”.

She throws her hands up dramatically in fur-station, at least her dad rushes off to stop Dan from consuming screaming hot dogs while their guest adjusts to his new reality.

Bassel groaning, “and why would I pass out?”.

… “They scream too. It’s… pretty freaky to see someone eating squirming screaming hotdogs if you’re not prepared for it”.

“And why do your parents have hotdogs that do that and how even?”.

Jazz shakes her head, “they might have studied clinical laboratory science but they absolutely do not practice good lab safety or sample safety. Things get contaminated accidentally a lot”.

“And that… makes hotdogs able to move and scream?”.

“That about sums it up, yeah”.

“What the actual fuck, babe”.

Then Dan pops over, arms crossed, “thanks Jazz, now gramps has confiscated all my food”.

Jazz pointing at him as he flops down on the same couch as them hard enough to make the couch bounce, “good and could you sit down any harder?”.

“I was aiming to knock you two love birds off”.

“Zone you are such a jerk”.

“I aim to displease”.

Bassel makes an aggressive motion with his hands, not looking at either of them, “okay what the fuck. First how did that not break the couch? Two how is a teen boy mom? And what is wrong with this town and house?”.

Dan snorts and Jazz knows she’s going to hate what comes out his mouth, him eyeing her, “should I tell him there’s a portal to the afterlife in the basement, or should you?”. She slaps him immediately, wincing from the definite sprained wrist she just gave herself; stupid full ghost jerk. He sticks his tongue out at her and she wants to slap him again; at least his tongue isn't forked at the moment.

Jack pops back in carrying Elle by the waist, her arms and legs dangling down as she giggles, “you good, Jazzy?”.

Dan chuckling, “no. She regrets not warning a certain someone”, putting a hand to his chest, “I fully support that fucking chaotic choice”.

Jazz scowling, “you just enjoy seeing people suffer”.

“Hey, if I’m not allowed to kill folks anymore I gotta get my kicks somewhere? Or would you rather I start skinning animals and leaving their flesh hanging from trees?”. Dan gets bashed off the couch by a baseball bat wielding Danny. “Ow! Seriously mom?”.

“Threaten to skin animals for the lols again and I’ll sic Sam on you”.

Dan puts his hands up, “I’ll pass, you kill joy”.

“Good”.

Bassel gags and makes a face at Jazz, gesturing his hands at Dan as Danny smacks him with the baseball bat again, “what”.

“He’s… got a twisted sense of humour?”.

“Not that!”, Bassel shaking his head, “well yes that, what is wrong with that man. But I mean the mom thing?”.

Jazz eyeballs the full ghost, “Dan’s a tough subject, let’s just say a lot of really nasty things happened to him and at least one psychotic break. And he calls Danny ‘mom’ mostly to annoy him”.

“Oh that’s a lot less weird-”.

“Danny kinda is his mom though”.

Basel groans.

Elle pops her head over the couch, somehow escaping Jack’s grasp, “Danny’s uncle is a mad scientist who has no issue dabbling in super evil human experimentation, Dan and me were tots made from Danny via fucked up science and suffering! Hooray for causing mass confusion!”.

Bassel glancing from the small girl to his girlfriend, “seriously?”.

Jazz sighing, “yeah, sorry. Technically that man’s mine and Danny’s god father, not uncle, but Danny likes to bug the man. Vlad… needs so much therapy”.

Danny shouting, “at least he’s got a cat now! Even if he did name her after mom”; while Dan snags the baseball bat and pops Danny on the head with it. Danny bites the baseball bat.

Bassel shakes his head, “so you weren’t kidding about being somewhat related to one of the richest men on the planet, and he’s basically a crazy super villain; great”.

Jack rubs his neck, “unfortunately yeah, I kinda blew up a proto-portal in his face and he didn’t take that well”.

Jazz puts her hands on her hips, leaning forwards a little, “dad, you guys didn’t visit him in hospital even once, for seven years. Of course he didn’t take that well”.

Danny popping out from behind Jack, “he still complains about that, by the by. I dumped get well soon cards on him last time he was whining about it. Asked him if that made up for it, he shouted no and shot me in the foot”.

Jazz shaking her head, “I still don’t get how you two ever get along”.

“Hey, arch enemies gotta have some bonding time sometimes. Plus, he’s got the good liquor and will absolutely try to bribe me with expensive gifts”.

“And I keep telling you that’s unhealthy and you’re only encouraging him”.

Dan chuckling, “let him, who knows, maybe I’ll get another gremlin sibling”.

Basically everyone, even Bassel, shouting, “NO!”.

Maddie getting back towards the kitchen, and bring out what remains of the ghost-shaped cookies, “cookie?”, offering them to Bassel.

… “are they going to start screaming?”.

Maddie blushing immediately, Jazz covering her mouth and laughing, “no. No. Only things that were once alive tend to do that. Baked goods are fine”, eyeing the cookies, “and they’re not green so they’re safe for human consumption”.

He takes a cookie and munches it very cautiously, “and the green ones?”.

Jazz grimacing, “definitely not safe for human consumption”.

Elle nodding, still behind the couch, “those are for us Phantom’s”. Meaning that now Jazz knows Bassel’s basically going to have to deal with finding out her brother and said brothers kids are all varying degrees of dead.

Bassel eyeing the small child, “do I even want to know?”.

Elle gives a cheery, “nope!”.

Oh okay, maybe her, and thusly Bassel, can dodge that whole situation. Jazz absolutely glares daggers at Dan to say nothing. The man grins evilly but remains silent, thank zone for that.

Bassel taking a breath and slapping his legs before standing up, “okay. Alright. You lot are stranger than I expected but I really like Jazz so I’ll deal”.

Maddie looks relieved but Jack booms, “awesome! You seem like a good guy!”, and smacks Bassel so hard on the back that he gets smacked into the floor and knocked out. Dan’s bending over wheeze laughing, Elle’s floated up into the air curled up and laughing, Danny’s run over to try and help the man while also laughing, and Jazz is shaking a finger at her dad angrily.

Maddie sighs, face in a hand, “Jack”; while Danny’s hoisting Bassel up and back onto the couch, smacking his cheeks to get him to come ‘round.

When Bassel comes to he nearly screams, that Danny boy’s face is inches from his own and he’s crouched on Bassel’s chest. How much did this kid weigh??? And damn were his eyes still extremely creepy. At least he’s clued in what was wrong with him, he was uncanny, like he wasn’t quite human but close enough that it was very wrong in that base instinctual way. The teen grins, it’s like his teeth don’t fit in his mouth and the smile is just a hair too wide. “Cool, you’re awake. Was starting to wonder. Dad smacked you into the floor by accident, if you don’t brace yourself when he goes in for back pats then you’ll wind up on the floor”, titling his head owlishly, “lesson learned?”.

Bassel nodding at the kid that hasn’t moved his face out of Bassel’s, “um, yeah?”, frowning, “your guy’s dad is freakishly strong, you know that?”. The boy just shrugs before hopping off Bassel’s chest, letting him sit up and rub his head a little. “Do your parents always wear the hazmats?”.

Danny chuckles, “yup, and they will still claim they are stylish”, rolling his wrist, “they try to get me and Jazz in ‘em all the time. But hey, I’ll stick to wearing that kinda bullshit when I’m dead”.

Jazz’s head pops out of the kitchen entryway, “oh good, you’re up. You up for pie? There’s eight for some reason”.

“Are… they all the same kind?”.

“Sadly, yes”.

Even he can admit that was sad, variety was nice. But Danny pouts at her, “hey, I’m not about to discourage my personal wannabe poacher just because he doesn’t have a single creative bone in his entire metal mecha suit”. What the hell was any of that supposed to mean? This kid was probably one of the most confusing people Bassel’s ever met, Elle being a close second.

“You could at least try to convince him to try lime cream instead of him shoving lemon cream at you three times a year”.

Bassel holds up a hand, “how old are these pies?”. His girlfriend blinks like that hadn’t even crossed her mind… she might be too used to this level of strange perhaps.

Danny waving him off, “oh I helped him find a solid anniversary gift for his girlfriend, which fine was extremely explosive but eh, so he went a little pie happy. They’re two days old”.

“Oh alright, I’ll have some then”; two days wasn’t even weird. That many pies was odd and how he got them was bizarre, but not as bad as a dog walking on the ceiling or Dan-the-psycho talking about skinning animals like it was funny. Him and Danny joining everyone in the kitchen proper finally. The stove is charred from top to bottom, fires were clearly common. The fridge… was glowing? The toaster looks like it’s definitely some kind of project and not safe to use at all. The table is clean at least, besides the cookie crumbs and excessive amount of pies.

Said pie is extremely good, like professional good. Bassel blinking at it, “damn that’s good”.

Danny chirping, like actually chirping, “I know right?”; how does a human mouth make that sound???

“Then why isn’t… Dan eating any?”; maybe evil or not…

Dan flips Bassel off, grabs a slice and proceeds to hurl it at him; Bassel barely ducking in time while Jazz, Maddie, and Danny all shout, ‘NO!’. Elle is giggling though and Bassel would bet money that’s encouraging the man. Danny smashes an entire pie right in Dan’s face in retaliation, Elle smashing a slice on Danny’s head; it just devolves into a full on pie food fight from there.

Jazz crouch walking to avoid splatter while Maddie shoos the three outside with a broom, Jack following while shouting about getting the hose. Jazz putting a hand on his arm, “you good”.

“What twenty something starts a food fight!”, shaking his head, “better than throwing a knife at me I guess”.

“He usually only throws knives at Danny”.

She said that like it was normal! And not at all disturbing or something to be worried about! “He actually throws knives at people!”.

She winces like she just now realised that wasn’t okay, “right. Don’t worry about it, he might make a lot of threats or do threatening stuff but he’s heavily against going back into solitary confinement”, her huffing, “which I still think was cruel, deprivation chambers are one hundred percent a form of torture and no one deserves that”.

“What kind of jail has a freaking deprivation chamber, oh my god”. No wonder that man seemed like he had the socialization skills of a very threatening murderous brick wall.

The two stand up and they can see the three ‘Phantom’s -he’s still confused on that one but too scared to ask- getting hosed off in the front yard by Maddie; Jack’s helping by physically holding Dan up in the air and laughing. What??? Bassel blinks, “no one should be able to lift that beast of a man up like that”.

And then there’s an explosion, Bassel jerking around and Jazz just turning causally to watch purple smoke leak out from what’s labeled as a lab door. Her grabbing him with a quick, “nope”, and dragging him outside.

“What was that?”.

“Don’t know, but I’m not taking the chance that whatever their latest project is is noxious”, then shouting at her mom, “mom! Something blew up in the lab and it’s leaking purple gas!”.

Bassel very strictly remembers her not long ago mentioning that her parents weren’t big on lab safety, noxious though? These people were completely nuts. His nice, level headed, kind, smart, cautious Jazz came from this??? Yes she could be a little neurotic, especially about food and sharps saftey which he absolutely understood now, and she was a little… spooky sometimes. But still! He still didn’t believe her hair was really that orange without her dying it, even if he’d never seen proof of her doing so. And she always had on some black tourmaline or turquoise that she claimed was ‘protection’, he just thought she was being a little spiritual, now it seemed more like this ghost thing.

Danny shakes his wet hair off like a feral dog, “that’s probably my lunch!”.

Jazz throwing her hands up, “why is it leaking purple gas!”. Bassel muttering, “I think it exploding is more concerning than that”. Jazz shaking her head at him, “Danny’s favourite local restaurant has highly explosive trade marked sauce”.

“What!?!”. How was that even legal?

Danny pointing a finger at Jazz’s face as he moves to head inside to… ‘rescue’ his food, “hey, you haven’t had real food till you’ve had a Mighty Meaty Mega Nasty Melt and Phantomized Fries”, shrugging, “and I was trying to make blackened ecto-wine infused bread, for sandwiches”.

Jazz makes a face at the boys retreating back, “ew”.

Bassel blinking, “did, did this restaurant really name a menu item ‘Nasty Melt’?”. He’s revising his previous opinion, this entire town was nuts; not just these people.

Elle, very wet, bounds over, “yup! It’s called the Nasty Burger, used to be Tasty burger but someone vandalized it and there was a vote to just keep the N”, grinning, “I think it’s funny, the sauce is to die for”.

Jazz cringing, “oh no not the death jokes, at least spare my boyfriend those, ugh”. The little girl sticks her tongue out and pouts a little before running back inside at the pies. Jazz going wide-eyed and following with a shout, “oh no you better not! Mom just got you cleaned up! You put that pie down missy!”.

Bassel cautiously sticking his head in, cautious of both fumes and pie, to stare at his girlfriend holding a literal child at gun point while the child menacingly holds a pie over her own head. “um, why are you threatening a child with a gun”.

She brushes him off like this isn’t messed up, “it’s fine, there’s no normal guns in this household”. What does that even mean? Ghost guns? Is that what this is? Is that why it’s slightly glowing green!

Then Dan scares the crap out of him, speaking up from directly behind him, “I wouldn’t worry about it, she’s a terrible shot anyway. She could put a gun directly against someone’s temple and still hit a cars side mirror instead”.

“I’ve gotten better!”.

“No you have not, you managed to shoot a fire hydrant and set it on fire last time; I was impressed”.

“Shut up, Dan”.

“No I don’t think I will”.

At least Danny, who somehow got behind Elle, takes the pie from the girl and wags a finger at her, “repeat chaos isn’t chaos, it’s a pattern”.

“What if I cut off one of my hands, put it in the pie, then smack her with it? Then it would be a pie high five, not a food fight”.

Danny blinks, “I’m stealing that idea for the next time the Lunch Lady throws flaming stoves at me”.

Bassel… Bassel is not questioning that. “Kid, your mind must be a very strange place”. Sure little kids always said odd stuff, things adults wouldn’t even dream of, but this was a special brand of odd.

Dan shoving his way past Bassel, nearly knocking the guy over and giving him some major hebejebes, to go pat Elle on the head in amusement. Maddie steadying him, “you okay? And at least she’s not as bad as Danny used to be”, crossing her arms and shaking her head, “he thought blackbird pie meant to actually find birds and bake a pie with them. It was incredibly disgusting, especially because he didn’t know how to use an oven yet so he maxed out its temp for three hours”.

Oh okay, so Danny was just like that too. What was that about apples and trees? “That… probably could have gone even worse”. The teen, then kid, could have burned the house down!

The woman grumbled, “at least he’s never sucked the house into the mirror dimension, unlike someone”, as she heads in to help Jazz, Danny, Dan, and Elle actually clean up the pie mess. Jack shouting, “I said I was sorry about that!”. Danny shouting back, “at least no one’s pulled a Technus and walked the house into the ocean!”; while Bassel is wondering how the heck the eldest Fenton heard his wife’s grumbling from the other side of the yard.

There was something seriously physically off with all these people. Including Jazz. He’s feeling very distinctly reminded of a lot of things he’s just sort of brushed off or thought nothing of about her before. He used to think a lot about how vibrant her eyes were, or that her teeth were a touch sharp; nothing like the ‘Phantom’s but still. She was amazing at lock picking and could handle ‘practice’ patients others couldn’t; even if she would also ‘force’ therapy on random people sometimes. And eyeing her parents, they’re the same. Intense eyes, oddly pale almost glassy skin, teeth that feel like they’re sharp but aren’t; it’s not uncanny the way those three ‘Phantom’s were, but it’s still odd.

Dan was the worst though, easily, when the man brushed past him it felt like being cornered by massive wolf or mountain lion. If Bassel had ran into that man randomly on the street there’s no way he’d think he was anything close to human. Danny and Elle at least seemed humanish, almost human; Dan just seemed like he was playing pretend.

Bassel shakes himself off before stepping back into the chaotic Fenton household, “am I going to get pie thrown at me again?”.

Danny looks at him, “nope”, then glares at Elle, “or someone’s losing her Switch privileges”; the girl gasps in horror.

See that? That was normal. Normal punishment, normal reaction to a punishment. Perfectly normal. … Then the girl threatens to ‘liquify herself in protest’; goodbye normal, it was nice while it lasted. Either way he moves to help clean up pie a little, speaking back up, “so your bread fine?”.

“It ate itself and imploded, so no”. What. The boy grins cheerily, right too many teeth, “which means it must have tasted good, meaning I’m on to something”.

“I? Guess?”. He’s honestly just trying not to stare at the teens teeth.

…

They somehow do actually make it to the living room to watch a movie. It actually is a weird B list bird horror flic, which feels too normal now and that frankly concerns him. He’s not sure he wants the get used to this level of insanity. He loves Jazz but he is fully intending to potentially never step foot in this building again after this. How was he going to survive here for a week??? Blinking, oh right, elbowing Jazz and whispering, “hey, all the luggage is still in the car right?”. Then Dan scares the crap outta him again, “don’t bother whispering, I can still hear you”. Jazz grabs a random round thing from the floor to smack the man with for that.

Jazz leaning against Bassel again, “the longer we leave it in the car the longer it’ll take to get contaminated or destroyed, I told you not to bring your expensive computer ‘just in case you had time’ for a reason”.

Considering the amount of mess and literal exploding/imploding -again, what???- bread, he could understand that sentiment; oh and the actual guns apparently just lying around. He is very glad he listened to her, that laptop was never setting an inch of its metal casing in this building. He winces, “yeah, thanks for that”. She pats him fondly.

Danny straightens out so fast that it aggressively startles Bassel. “Oh! Think I should invite Val?”, eyeing Jazz smugly, “since someone brought their little lover”.

Jazz scowls at him, “Danny, I think Basel having to put up with my very weird family including the two weirdest members, is more than enough without adding in your trigger happy girlfriend with serious anger management issues. Especially because I know for a fact she won’t agree to leave all her weapons at home”.

Danny looks offended, putting a hand to his chest and paying no mind to the bird-related massacre happening on screen, “I’ll have you know she doesn’t even sleep unarmed, she hasn’t been unarmed since she was fourteen”.

“Exactly”.

You know what? Bassel thinks that actually makes sense. Danny was too strange to date someone remotely normal. “I’m not even surprised, you’re a little too freaky to date someone who’s just, you know, an average person. So sure, date an aspiring cop or whatever”.

Danny snaps and finger guns at him, “think more like nanobot powered teenage ghost hunter with a jet sled”.

What. Bassel blinking, “so somehow you’re the more normal one in the relationship. This girl’s in therapy right”. Jazz actually laughs at that.

Danny screws up his face, “Ancients you sound like Jazz”, looking at her, “he sounds like you”, looking back to Bassel, “and eh, my personality has more sparkles and explosions”, tilting his head, “besides, how am I freaky, besides the gremlin energy and general chaos anyways”.

Dan snorting, “and the fact that you think dumpster chic is a good thing”.

“As if you don’t wear the same”.

“Excuse you, I lift all my clothing off of the finest of corpses”.

Bassel, and Danny for that matter, gag; Danny’s seems more mock dramatic gag though. Bassel shaking his head, “add in the fact that if someone told me you were actually a doll pretending to be human, I’d believe them”.

That gets him multiple odd looks, including from Jazz. No one bothers to pause the movie even though everyone’s attention is now on him as she quirks an eyebrow at him, “what do you mean by that? Sure my little brother can move too quietly or too quickly, and his still too skinny and pale, but I wouldn’t call him possibly inhuman looking”.

Danny points at his face, “I’m pretty sure if I looked legit freaky Dash would mock me relentlessly for it”.

Bassel is baffled, are these people just… used to him so much they don’t notice? And Dan’s just looking to the side snickering meanly, Bassel almost gets the feeling the man knows what he’s talking about. Bassel looking at each of them, “you’re telling me you guys don’t notice his skin looks like weirdly glassy play dough? Or his eyes are too big? That his teeth don’t fit in his face? He’s weighs less than a bag of potatoes!”. They all look very confused and turn to stare at Danny, who shrinks down a little awkwardly; Dan’s laughing is full on guffaws now, head tilted over the back of the chair that apparently sometimes screams. When Elle points at her own face and grins too wide, Bassel nods, “yes, you too. Less than, your uh, dad but still”, gesturing at everyone, “honestly all of you have hair that’s too strongly coloured, overly vibrant eyes, and no skin texture”, scratching his head, “I thought my girl just had a spot on skin care routine and impressive hair colouring technique that she refused to share”. Jazz fiddles with her orange hair a little, making him feel a little guilty. Bassel coughing, “not that I dislike that”. Dan barks out another loud laugh.

Jazz eventually hurling another random Bassel doesn’t know what at the man, “stop laughing! Us looking weird to normal people isn’t funny! You jerk!”.

Oh okay. So they don’t know. That was weird? Does no one in town comment on it? Does no one even notice it? Was everyone in this town that strange??? Or was everyone in town strange looking themselves?

Dan huffing another laugh, “oh it very much is! Especially because I already knew and did in fact tell you morons”, waving a hand around leisurely, “not my fault you shits thought I was just being an ass”. Bassel guesses it makes sense that the strangest and most startling looking -and feeling, frankly- one would be the one to notice.

Danny looks offended, “and how do you know this? The fuck Dan”.

The man scowls meanly, it’s very mocking, “oh I don’t know, maybe because I spent ten years travelling the globe randomly killing people? Maybe that’s it? I’m the only fucker here who’s done enough travelling to tell people find this face”, gesturing at his face and smirking, “alarming, and not just because I was usually either threatening to kill or trying to kill them”.

“What? you walked around with that face?”.

“Eh I got bored of the other one sometimes”.

Bassel is choosing to ignore part of this conversation, otherwise he’s not going to get over his girlfriend being related to what’s sounds like more ‘mass murderer’ than ‘single murderer’. Not to mention that he doesn’t want to know what is meant by the murderer having different ‘faces’. He doesn’t want to know if this man’s a real life leather face.

Elle pouts, “I travel a lot, no one tells me I look weird?”.

“Sis, you’re a kid, all little brats look fucking weird”.

The little girl giggles, earning a fond but very quick look from the large man. At least it seemed like he actually liked his family maybe.

Danny gestures at nothing and scowls at Dan, “Dan, you’re a six foot eleven wall of muscle with a face that’s default setting is evil smirk, of course people think you look scary!”.

“Oh people found me disturbing when I was wearing your skin too, mom”.

“Fuck you”.

Bassel forces himself not to ask how that’s even possible. ‘Wearing the skin’ of someone who still has their skin is impossible and not to mention the size difference, it wouldn’t fit; why is he even thinking about the logistics of this?!? Ew!

Jack scratches his head, “while I can’t say I see, I doubt you’re making stuff up”, looking at Maddie, “all the ecto you think?”.

The mother nods to herself, tapping her chin, “there’s not much else it could be, especially if our oddness is merely tamer versions of Danny’s and the grandkids”.

Bassel is lost, looking to Jazz and quirking an eyebrow. She cringes, “Danny has a very intense version of ecto-contamination”. She says that like it’s not extremely weird and concerning.

Danny chuckling, “if by that you mean I’m fucking half dead then yeah”.

Jazz swats him, “Danny! For zones sake!”.

“Hey!”, Danny sticks his arms out nearly smacking multiple people, “if I’m that freaky looking then there really isn’t a point, Jazz!”.

“I hate that you’re right!”, Jazz huffing while Bassel is officially realising that everyone just shouts at each other in this house, regardless of if they’re happy or mad or excited. Her turning to him, “my brother’s a bit dead”.

Bassel absolutely squawks at that, “what”. And then suddenly the kid’s glowing and his eyes are green, the actual hell? Elle leaning forward, sticking her tongue out and pointing at her face, also with green eyes and glowing. Bassel cautiously and slowly eyeing Dan, his eyes flash blood red and yup, glowing.

Okay. Alright. He’s in a room full of glowing people, what is he supposed to do with this? He officially thinks that anyone who has ever found out someone else wasn’t quite human in a movie was way too damn calm about it!

Jazz winces a little, she can tell her boyfriend has absolutely no idea how to react to his girlfriend's glowing family members, so she pats his shoulder, “is it weird? Yes. Am I glad my brother is only partially dead? Absolutely. Don’t worry about it?”.

He blinks owlishly at her, clearly freaked out, “it’s kinda hard not to worry about my sister having dead family members kicking around and her whole family including her being contaminated by ghost stuff enough to alter their appearances”.

Then Danny goes and opens his stupid mouth, holding up a still glowing finger, “technically, Dan’s the only one that’s totally dead. Me and Elle are still alive-ish”.

Bassel blinks again and asks something that Jazz really wishes he didn’t, “and why’s he the dead one?”, in a squeaky voice; the movie is absolutely long forgotten at this point.

Dan’s smirk is flat out evil and before anyone can stop him he responds, “oh only because I got my human shit torn out and disemboweled it. Ate half my uncle and flew off into the sunset”.

Bassel leans so far away he nearly falls off the couch, “what. The. Fuck”. While everyone else, even Elle, chastisingly shouts, “DAN FENTON!”, at the smirking full ghost. The tact on that jerk! The only tact he had was evil tact, that sought chaos and destruction!

“OoOooOOoOO, full name, I’m So HuRt. I’m So UtTeRlY aPoLoGeTiC. Truly”. The ass doesn’t mean a damn word of that and he wants them to know it. He smirks, “if we want to play that game I can just show him what I really look like”.

Danny standing up and pointing at Dan, “do that and I’m souping you”. Dan puts an offended hand to his chest and scowls deeply.

Bassel sputters, “I am never asking you people questions again, oh my god”.

Jazz can’t even blame him, even if she knows he eventually will ask more questions about, well, their everything. It was hard not to after all. She rubs his arm, “you really shouldn’t think about it too hard or worry, yes we’re used to it and know the admittedly weird science behind it”, cringing, “even if apparently only one of us was aware none of us looked normal”.

He blinks harshly, swallowing, “uh huh. You guys have a bathroom, right. Because I definitely need to decompress by staring into the mirror for a concerning length of time”.

Not good. Jazz wincing and getting up, “I’ll show you”, then pausing and eyeing Danny, “is the bathroom actually clean”.

Danny tilts his head and grimaces, also not good, “maybe don’t open the lower left cupboard”.

“Right”. Damn it, Danny. Pulling Bassel along as they head upstairs, “okay so listen to him and don’t get curious. He might have spilled something and not cleaned it so it’s gotten moldy. Or he shoved goddamn bandaging under there. Or there’s a ghost trapped in the cabinet”.

“I… kind of hate that I’m hoping it’s the first one”.

“Well considering it’s Danny, it’s probably the second. He gets injured a lot and has a non-existent biohazard safety mindset”, gesturing at the open bathroom, “anyway, here”.

… “is Danny why the shower floor looks bloodstained, wait never mind I don’t want to know”.

She gives him a supportive shoulder pat as he goes in and close the door almost hard. This… this has not gone well. At least he hasn’t ran out screaming? Yet anyways.

She heads back down stairs, pointing at Dan, “I’m blaming you, because it is your fault”, pointing at Danny, “and yours, because you somewhat made him”.

“Hey! He made himself!”.

“And he is you so my point still stands”.

“Jazz!”.

Jazz doesn’t really care that being reminded of that fact bothers her little brother, him and his off shoots have basically been terrorising her boyfriend. He should be bothered! “I am gonna be so mad at you if he decides this is too much”. At least everyone winces apologetically, except Dan who just glances away which was the closest he usually came to a ‘sorry’.

Jack rubs his neck, “sorry, Jazzy-pants. Want us to bring your guy’s stuff in?”.

She scowls, she’s not going to effectively trap her boyfriend here by doing that, “considering I don’t even know if he wants to stay here now, no dad”. Her dad winces further, good.

She sighs, flopping back down on the couch, “let’s just rewind and finish the movie. Like normal people”. Dan snorts at her and she glares bloody murder at him.

Okay. So. His girlfriend’s family are not ‘weird’, rather they are actually insane and physically impossible. Which is extremely not okay. But he likes Jazz, a whole lot actually. A ton even. She was odd but not insane or too physically impossible; and she didn’t live here, he wouldn’t have to see these people -especially Dan- often. A handful of times a year at best right now. Hell she might be annoyed enough to ban that Dan guy from being within ten feet of him; Bassel would not complain about that. Her parents at least seemed harmless, over enthusiastic and strange but acceptable. However he knew for a fact that him liking or not liking her parents didn’t mean much, she’s made it clear that she doesn’t think too highly about their opinions. Her brother though, he knows she loved that kid, sometimes she made it sound like she was more his parent than their parents were. Said brother was half freaking dead. Because apparently ghosts are a real thing and can just walk around the living like it’s nothing… and also apparently being half alive was a remotely possible thing. Also Danny, a teen, has kids. Two kids. One who’s clearly older than him and committed a likely extremely disturbing amount of murder.

Well…

They’re not Jazz’s kids. So he, maybe? won’t have to deal with them much. Jazz seemed surprised they were even here after all. Alright. Okay. He can deal with this.

That’s frankly a lie.

But he can at least manage and pretend he’s cool. Then, when they go back to uni he can have a mild freak out in his dorm room and their relationship can go back to sort of normal. He is absolutely going to ask about her ‘ecto-contamination’? later though, and if those stories about her ‘communing with ghosts’ were actually true and was she just talking to her brother or was she also talking to other ghosts.

Pushing himself off of the sink he’s been leaning on and slapping his cheeks, “you got this, man”. His reflection does not copy him.

What the actual hell is wrong with this place? Besides the apparent portal to the afterlife in the goddamn lab. How did these people break a mirrors ability to mirror? Shaking his head and pulling out his phone, okay he’s looking these people up, like he goddamn should have already.

…

Okay yeah they just are fully public with the ghost hunting thing huh? That must have been fun to grow up with. Jazz did say she tried to separate herself as much as possible from them as a teen, this is absolutely why. And apparently her brother saved an entire species of gorillas? By… climbing in one’s cage… so he’s just always been crazy and reckless, got it; but hey, at least the gorillas aren’t extinct now.

Bassel’s not surprised that looking up Elle gets him nothing, she’s a young child after all, but Dan? For a supposed murderer there isn’t even a single result about him. No wiki article, no victim impact statements, no mugshot, no public court files, no morally questionable serial killer podcasts, nothing. Weird. But he’s absolutely not asking the man about that, because he doesn’t know what kind of nightmarish response he’s going to get. Considering his age -aka, being literally older than his freaking parent- it might be some sort of time travel thing, which he mildly hates the entire notion of, especially since he’s not going to claim he knows what’s possible or not now.

After all, his reflection is still just ‘standing’ there staring at him while he’s been pacing back and forth staring at his phone. He’s not googling his girlfriend of course, that would be creepy, but what about the ‘Phantom’ thing? That… that gets a lot of results. Freaky ones.

…

So…

Apparently…

This town has a goddamn dead superhero? That’s a freaking colour inversion of Danny with green eyes and also named Danny? Which there is no way that’s ’just a coincidence’. So Jazz’s brother is kind of dead, has an ‘arch enemy’, and is almost definitely some kind of dead superhero. Cool. That’s… that’s not completely insane at all. He officially feels like he’s in a knock off marvel movie with a secret identity reveal and everything.

And oh hey! Girl in red on a jet sled, Danny’s girlfriend, also definitely a superhero. Cool. This is Hell.

… Based on all the photos and videos of full blown super powered fights this town might actually be part of hell or an afterlife full of apparently violent dead people. No wonder Jazz was leery of him so much as visiting her home town, nonetheless her parents. A google of the stats shows that these ‘ghost attacks’ happen multiple times a day and it looks like they sometimes did a concerning amount of damage. Also the mayor is that Vlad guy? The evil uncle god father arch enemy guy. Why? How even? … It was probably mind control. Oh he kind of hates this.

Also though, how the heck was this town and this whole ghosts and a death dimension situation, not known about world wide?!? If it’s some kind of government suppression of information he’s going to scream; not actually scream just… internally scream. You’d think this would be something that’s in national news, an actual real life superhero and villains, another dimension, the afterlife… Okay perhaps being super public about an after life could cause some issues among religious groups.

Then his reflection growls at him.

Nope.

He’s not dealing with that.

He’s out of the bathroom in two seconds flat, practically rushing down the stairs, wheezing. Everyone, but Dan, is on the couch again apparently finishing the bird movie; Dan is just outright nowhere to be seen which he is a-okay with. “My reflection growled at me”. Jazz buries her head in her hands, this was obviously not how she wanted this first meeting to go; it wasn’t how he wanted it to go either, but he didn’t know it going this absurdly was even possible. Meanwhile Maddie and Danny shout, “JACK!”, clearly thinking the mirror is his fault. Wasn’t something about him going to the mirror dimension mentioned earlier? or is he just starting to come up with his own crazy possibilities.

The large man runs his neck, laughing, “whoops! Must have grabbed the wrong mirror!”.

“Wrong? Mirror?”. Damn right, he said he was done asking these people to explain literally anything.

Bassel eyeballing Jazz’s dad as he gets up and begins to move upstairs, “ah yeah, Danny-boy head-butted the old one so it had to be replaced, musta got the new mirror and the dimensional mirror mixed up!”.

Why is this kid head-butting mirrors and why does this family just have a ‘dimensional mirror’? Ugh, Bassel’s poor head. Jazz apparently has these same questions, or one of them at least, as well as the willingness to ask it. “Little brother? Why were head-butting the mirror? Young Blood isn’t trying to give you another nervous breakdown, is he?”; Bassel can practically feel the worry in her voice.

Danny scowls dramatically, “I’m fine, Jazz. No need to psycho babble me, Ancients. Skulker just decided that tooth brushing time was good head shooting time, I confiscated his right arm for that and he didn’t get it back for three days”, the kid looks proud of himself, “he hasn’t attacked me in the bathroom since”.

Bassel blinks, slightly horrified, Danny what? stole some… ghosts arm? as punishment? “Uh, I’m pretty sure a supposed superhero teen is not supposed to go around stealing people’s limbs”. Jazz groans very loudly and very tiredly.

Danny laughs, “oh! You looked me up huh? Don’t worry, I only took his mecha bodysuits arm, not his actual real arm”.

That’s… stranger but better. Then Elle pipes up, “even if he had it wouldn’t matter! See-”.

“NO!”.

Bassel is not going to ask why Danny just grabbed both of her wrists and glared at her. He has absolutely learned that if someone, or everyone, shouts ‘NO’ at someone else then he absolutely did not want to know why. Instead he watches his girlfriend get up and smile very awkwardly at him, he’s unpleasantly aware of the fact that her teeth were probably whiter than they should be, “you okay? Are we good?”.

“Absolutely not, but yes, yes we’re alright. I am absolutely not visiting here frequently though. And if Dan ever shows up anywhere near my dorm I’m hitting him with a frying pan immediately”.

She actually chuckles at that, “that’s fair, I tried to shoot him when we first met and tried to hit him with the creep stick the second time”. He’s not going to ask what a creep stick is, but he’s glad she had the sense to hit someone who’s clearly dangerous. “But call if he does do something that stupid, which he shouldn’t if he knows what’s good for him. He will only laugh if you hit him with a frying pan”.

Maddie shaking her head and getting up, “I’ve done that a time or two, he has a habit of trying to sneak food or add poisons just to see if he can get away with it”. Bassel doesn’t have words to express how concerning that is. “And I’m sorry this hasn’t been the best impression, it’s also unfortunately not the worst either though”. Oh. This could be worse? How? Blowing up the house? Hospitalising him? Probably!

Elle sticks a star sticker on him, “congratulations! For passing the weirdness tolerance test!”, looking back at Danny, “am I allowed to try and bite him now?”.

“No, you little shit”, Danny grumbling, “teething preteens are the worst”.

Wasn’t teething supposed to be something babies did? He wants to ask but nope, he’s not going there.

Then Jack’s voice startles him a good bit, “Your reflection must have been staring at you for a while there, buckeroo! Had to really shake it to get him to go away”.

Man was Jack ever a loud guy. Bassel chuckling awkwardly, “yeah I was a little preoccupied and choosing to ignore the insane broken mirror”.

Dan has apparently come back, “ha! You’re lucky your reflection didn’t try to reach through the mirror and strangle you”.

Bassel is not asking. Bassel is not asking. Bassel is not asking. But note to self, do not ignore sentient reflections that move of their own accord. Jazz even shakes her head, “okay that wasn’t the smartest decision you could have made, but I get it”, and she gestures at the couch, “want to finish the movie? Then we can get our stuff in?”.

He sighs, tired, “yeah, yeah, that’s… that’s good”. Just let everything else be normal, or as normal as it can be with the literal walking dead being in the room. Elle grabs him and Jazz before dragging them to the couch, the child is way too strong.

Jazz can practically feel the relief in her bones when they make it through the rest of the movie without anymore incidents, everyone getting up and Jack grabbing a scowling disgruntled Dan to help bring stuff inside. Dan grumbling, “I feel the need to point out that Danny is just as strong as me even if he looks like a damn beanpole”.

Danny shouting, “you mean I’m stronger than you! And hey! I’m lean!”, after them.

Bassel quirking an eyebrow at Jazz, her shaking her head with a small smile, “ectoplasmic energy counts for more than physical appearances with ghosts, my little brother might still be a child and thusly hasn’t hit his growth spurt yet, but he can absolutely take his kid down a peg or two”. And he absolutely loved to pester Dan about that fact, while Dan loved to pester Danny about still being ‘puny’.

Dan growls from the garage doorway, “You lot would be dead otherwise and you know it”.

Jazz rolls her eyes, “maybe at one point but we’ve grown on you, don’t lie mister”. The full ghost only grumbles incoherently in response.

Of course her dad tries to open the trunk before Bassel can unlock it, resulting in him picking the car up, Dan having to catch the car when the trunk opens taking dad’s grip with it. Dan chuckling, “normally I’m the one who’s into picking up vehicles”.

Dad chuckling himself, “yeah and you usually throw them when you pick them up!”.

Bassel shakes his head as the full ghost sets his car on the ground fully, “do not throw my car, do all of you just have super strength”.

Jazz facepalms when her dad tilts his head like a puppy, “little cars like these aren’t that heavy though? I could have lifted this back in my college years even”. Bassel looks baffled when she glances at him.

Jazz sighing at her dad, “Dad, your parents were ghost hunters too, you’ve probably been contaminated your whole life, like me and Danny”.

“Oh right! Ha! I forgot about that! Silly me!”.

Bassel shakes his head in disbelief but takes a few of his things instead of letting the two much larger men carry everything. Jazz makes zero attempt to help Dan with any of it, her sticking her tongue out him instead. He snickers at her, “really taking the higher road here, aunty”.

“Like you’re one to talk”.

“The high road and I are incapable of coexistence”.

“Exactly”.

At least it seems like Bassel is fondly amused with their bantering, instead of disturbed, as they move from the garage and up to her old room/the spare room. Her eyeing her mom while the three men set things down in the room, “so where are Elle and Dan staying?”.

Dan scoffing from inside the room, “you say that like I sleep at all”. She studiously ignores him.

Her mom humming, “why don’t you ask Elle? Because I’m not sure”. And Elle pops out from behind Maddie, “we’re not. Grandma Pandora’s supposed to give me some sword fighting lessons!”, pouting, “and I gotta practice if I ever want to beat pops someday”.

Danny can be heard shouting, “like that’ll ever happen!”, from somewhere; and the little missy is off like a rocket after her dad probably to tackle him.

Dan growling, “if you try to make me organize your guys shit I’m going to intentionally remove every screw, battery, and third paper from everything I can get my claws on”, before Jack laughs and pushes the ghost out of the room. Dan eyeing Jazz, “and if you’ll remember, I’m not ‘allowed’ to be out past sunset”.

Ah right, she did actually forget about that. “Serves you right”. As he heads down and back to the living room he sticks his tongue out at her, it absolute is forked this time.

Bassel popping his head out of the room, “you want your studies and research notes left on the night stand? And remind me why we’re staying inside this strange house instead of a hotel, there’s… mold with eyes I think, in the corner”. Her wincing, “because the hotel has mandatory waivers and doesn’t allow Fenton’s”, then nodding up at him, “yeah my stuff’s fine there, don’t put anything in the drawers, sometimes stuff just vanishes inside for an unknown reason”. Based on him ducking back in immediately, he had in fact put some stuff inside a drawer and the sigh of relief and her dads light hearted laughter tells her that whatever it was was still there. At least some things were going right.

And then it promptly goes horribly wrong as soon as Bassel comes out to go back downstairs with her. A massive black star speckled ghost phasing their way down through the goddamn ceiling, Bassel going stalk stiff while Jazz dashes up the steps with him in her grasp and ducks both of them into the bathroom. Bassel sticking his head out of the bathroom while crouching just like her and whispering, “was that thing a freaking ghost? What the hell, babe”.

Her basically hissing at him, “yes, and a very powerful one”. Bassel grumbling, “I think today hates us”. She whole heartedly agrees.

Meanwhile the ghost is shouting, “PHANTOM! I request your aid!”, and from her and Bassel’s bathroom vantage point it looks like the ghost just got punched in their masked face -based on them being pushed back out of the kitchen entry way with a hand to their face- by Dan, who stomps out snarling, all fang but thankfully still human-looking, “wrong one, you sleepy ass”.

Starry sleep ghost… starry sleep ghost… ah right! Their name was Nocturne right? Her little brother did try to get her to remember the names of the more important ghosts after all. “Nocturne?”.

Oh she shouldn’t have said anything. The ghost looks to her and ‘brightens up’ in that cruel looking way many ghosts do, them promptly stretching and looming their body up and head over her and Bassel, “ah, young Phantom’s brethren. Do you know as to where I can find the one that will not attempt to eat beings of ancient malevolence?”. Bassel is shaking and she’s worried he’s going to pass out.

Dan rams a clawed hand into the ghosts body, “I’m true malevolence, mother fucker. Get back here”.

Thankfully Danny -in his ghost form unfortunately- pops in before Dan can do something stupid, “Dan! Leave the freaking god of sleep alone! Oh my Ancients!”. Him pointing at Nocturne’s face as the ghost moves down to him completely ignoring Jazz and Bassel now, “what the zone, Nocturne? You can’t just bust into my lair core whenever you feel like it just because I don’t get enough damn sleep”.

The ghost holds up a finger, “ah but that is hardly the reason for my arrival, I have seemed to ‘fucked up’, as you would say, to an unfortunate degree”.

Danny sighs and sags his entire body, floating in the air, “ugh, what did you do?”.

“I acquired-”.

Danny interrupting immediately, “You mean stole”.

“I acquired some eternal gardenia from FungalLung, they have now beset my domain with pink dew and blood blossom seeds”.

“Why the actual crap would you steal from that split personality psycho? There’s a reason no one goes near that kids garden”.

“I had a need for such things, as someone-”.

“Oh no, no blame game bullshit outta you, shit ass”.

“Our king needs to be-”.

“Needs to be allowed to have a bit of goddamn fun and some breaks, that’s what he needs. Now play guide, you reckless starry blanket”, Danny eyeing Dan, “Dan. Let. Go”.

Dan flinching and doing as he’s more or less commanded to. Scoffing, crossing his arms, and moving back into the kitchen with a tense, “whatever”.

Bassel wheezes when the ghost and her brother disappear through the floor, Jazz standing up fully and pulling him along with, “great. Just great. Love it. What next? An invasion?”.

Elle hums, “I mean, I could ask mythic grandma if she’s up for one”.

Jazz and Maddie both pointing at her aggressively with matching, “absolutely not”’s. Making the girl giggle. Jazz looking back to Bassel, “I promise you’re okay and not about to get attacked. Are you feeling okay?”.

“I am ten seconds away from wanting to lay on the carpet and scream cry into it, and I am positive I need a shock blanket”.

At least she doesn’t even have to ask her mom to get one for her to rush off and do so, Jazz and Maddie herding him into the spare room wrapped up in a Fenton ghost proof shock blanket in record time. Jazz nodding softly at her moms apologetic look and gesturing for her to leave them be, dad following his wife out with an exaggerated wince.

She shuffles up next to him and rubs his arm from over the blanket, effectively side hugging him, “okay so you’ve properly seen your first ghost, and they were unfortunately one of the non-human ones; but, Nocturne is quite safe actually, more a neutral being than malicious”.

He nods a little.

“They do tend to harass my brother a lot since they care a lot about sleep and he doesn’t get nearly enough of it”, shaking her head and laughing lightly a little, “and yes, what Danny said is true, they are for all accounts and purposes the god of sleep”, sighing, “nearly every god worshiped through out history is real and, yes, a ghost”.

He swallows, pulling the blanket around himself more, “that’s… kind of insane and a lot”.

Jazz nods more so to herself, she had a hard time swallowing that herself as a teen, “I know. I still find it a bit baffling myself and it is extremely strange actually meeting any of them”.

“At… at least you actually seem weirded out. Everything… else doesn’t seem to be, uh, strange, to you”.

“I’m used to it, more than I’d really like to be. I definitely wi- would prefer if my family was more normal, even marginally. And I’d rather my brother not be wrapped up in all this the way he is. Even Dan and Elle often feel that way, even if they wouldn’t exist if he wasn’t involved so heavily in everything”.

“That’s, concerning, actually”.

Jazz pats his arm some, “they haven’t had the best existences”.

Dan then startles her, voice coming through the door, “and there’s the simple fact that everyone would be better off if I never existed”.

Jazz sighing to herself and looking to the door, “Dan that’s not true”.

“And that’s crap and you know it, don’t bullshit me Jazz”; it sounds like he’s stomped off. She’s… going to have to talk to him later.

Bassel shivers, “he’s got a lot of… issues, huh”.

Jazz sighing and nodding, closing her eyes, “if people tell you you’re a monster enough that becomes all that you are and healing becomes nearly impossible”, shaking her head and looking at him, he’s watching her intently, “Elle and Danny are good for him but his emotions don’t work like they’re supposed to because of what happened to him. He’s also partly being pissy because Danny genuinely scolded him. Anyone exerting their power over him tends to rile him up, whether he wants it to or not”.

“Part of him being a, uh, ghost?”.

She nods, “yup. Though I doubt talking about Dan is great for you right now”.

Bassel looks away and stares forwards, “no, probably not”, shaking his head and readjusting into the blanket, “… that, ghost, called your brother a king, didn’t they”.

Jazz shrugs, “he tires not to let it get to his head”.

He shakes himself a little, shaking his head slowly side to side, “yeah no, I’m not pushing. Though is that why he feels like death, the pressure of death at least, when he looks all black and white”.

“I… if he feels like that I’ve never noticed, sorry. But I was living with him when that change happened so it very well might have happened slowly, over time”.

“I guess that makes sense, it almost felt hard to breathe when his voice got… thick? at Dan”.

Jazz blinks, nodding immediately, “ah that’s actually a specific power he has. He mostly just uses it to get across that he’s not playing around, that he’s being serious”.

“Effective”.

Jazz nods slowly, letting him just breathe for a bit. She guesses she can understand how her brother can be a bit much, and it was definitely for the best that Bassel found out before a ghost crashed the party that her brother was a ghost himself. Then he speaks up again, “you’re entirely alive, right? I know you have a lot of spooky rumours that follow you and, like I said, you do look off. So, you’re not a ghost, right?”.

Jazz is tempted to laugh, instead she just shakes her head, “no, not even a little bit”.

“Good. That’s good”.

She just hums, nodding to herself. Waiting for him to work through his own head. Hearing about ghosts and seeing one were very different things, and an Ancient was hard to run into no matter what Danny said. She swears it’s like he forgets that he is in the same sort of classification as them. But at least it seems like Bassel’s handling it better than many do, better than most non-Amity Parkers at least. And then her dad goes and bangs the door open, nearly making Bassel fling himself off of the bed, “I made hot chocolate!”.

“Dad! He’s trying to wind down! Not get the zone scared out of him!”.

Her dad wincing, “ah sorry, Jazzy”, holding up the two cups, “hot chocolate?”, and tilts his head to the side.

Jazz sighs, side eyeing Bassel to make sure he isn’t going to freak out further before getting up and grabbing the cups, “I know you mean well, dad, but you’re still a very loud, very large, presence”.

He rubs his neck and laughs awkwardly, tilting sideways enough to look at Bassel. Giving her boyfriend a thumbs up, “you kids get settled, no funny business”.

“Oh my zone!”, she shoves him out with a foot, barely managing not to spill, and kicks her door shut. At least she manages to give Bassel the hot chocolate gently, “that man, I swear”.

Bassel genuinely laughs though, staring at the hot chocolate in his hands, “that was so utterly normal dad behaviour though, it’s grounding actually”.

Huh. Guess he actually did a good job. “Then I owe him an apology”. She makes her sip on the hot chocolate -that’s already been adequately cooled, thanks dad genuinely- loud, purely to encourage Bassel to drink his.

He notices the cooled temp too, “he waited till it was cool but not too cool, huh?”.

“Yeah. He’s a bit of a fool and reckless but he cares a lot and has a good heart that’s as big as he is”.

Bassel humming and they sit in silence for a bit until, “is your brother going to be okay? I know I called him a superhero and google seems to say he is but…”.

“Oh superhero is very accurate by human standards, but by ghosts he’s basically normal. Behaviour wise at least. Most of the time”, shaking her head, “he’ll be fine, even if it sounds like he might wind up with a case of Blood Blossom poisoning again”.

“Let me guess, ghost poison?”.

“Yup”.

“That’s absurd”, and he sips at his hot chocolate some, “he’s not going to vomit on the floor is he?”.

Okay she can’t help but laugh at that, shaking her head, “no, no, more coughing fits, aches and pains, and muscle spasms. That’s only because he’s alive enough to not be fully affected”.

“Hence why this powerful ghost came for his help?”.

Jazz nodding, “hence why a powerful ghost came for his help”, tilting her head, “though if I remember right pink dew is a psychedelic, so he also might be high when he gets back”.

“Oh god, I don’t think that kid should ever do drugs. Being near your entire family is like being on drugs”, sticking his arms out of the blanket and gesturing the mug around, “if I woke up in the morning and was told this was all one big fever dream, I’d believe it”.

“That’s understandable. Which is why the rest of the world considers this town a hoax”.

“Yeah I was wondering about that”, he downs a considerable amount of his drink, “you’d think the whole world would know about this. But I guess that would cause an uproar”.

Jazz sighing, almost annoyed, “yeah, the government does try to keep a lid on everything”.

“God damn it. Seriously? Ugh. I hate that I called ‘government cover up’ as the why”.

“There’s more to it but the rest is a lot weirder to the point where even I don’t want to think about it. It’s actually in the category of too weird”. Her little brother mind wiping an entire planet after fighting a reality controlling clown that turned roads into rollercoasters and made him fight a fire breathing clown and a lava pit full of rubber ducks, was so many steps past extremely strange.

Bassel full body cringing, “then I definitely don’t want to know. I do want to know if the stories about you communing with ghosts in your dorm are true though, and if your dorms is ‘contaminated’”, looking down at the cup, “and we should thank your dad for this. It was pretty good”.

Jazz blushes a little, “they’re true, even ghosts need therapy and I don’t need my license to give it to them. Sometimes it is just Danny though, and I’m good about keeping on top of decontamination, so don’t worry about that”, then eyeing him, he still seemed a little out of it and shocky but he was definitely better and really there was no normalising or rationalizing her family, “we’ll go down and thank him if you’re alright”.

He nods down at the cup and to himself, then looking at her with a nod and shaking smile, “I’m going to be digesting all of this for days at least, but I’m okay, babe. I absolutely hope today was the weirdest day of this week visit though”.

Jazz hums, standing up and offering him her mug-free hand, “well Dan will avoid Danny for at least a full day and Pandora will keep Elle busy for at least three; so there won’t be their chaos for a little while. As for literal gods showing up, that happens so seldom that I genuinely believe that Johnny’s Shadow might’ve snagged us some bad luck on the way into town”.

“Johnny’s Shadow?”.

Oh maybe she shouldn’t have brought that guy up. Wincing, “um, Shadow is basically Johnny’s pet or familiar? And Johnny is a ghost I may have dated? Once? He wasn’t genuine about it, and I was a dumb teenager who feel for his stupid motorbike and bad boy vibes”.

He actually snickers at her, before laughing fully and having to put the mug to the side to avoid spilling it, “I! Can not believe how stereotypical! That is!”, shaking his head and wheezing, eyeing her, “straight laced, honor role daughter falls for a motorcycle riding bad boy who’s all charm and bad intentions”.

She smacks his arm, “don’t be mean”, she doesn’t mean it at all though, “and Danny actually dated his girlfriend, she was trying to make Johnny jealous”.

“So what I’m getting here is ghosts are seriously just goddamn people, some are just very extra”.

“That’s one way to put it, yeah. Or they’re more like animals”.

Bassel blinks as they shuffle out of the room, “oh thats right, the green dog, where’d he? go?”.

Jazz snorts, “Danny sent him back to, well, the other side as it were; since mom was trying to taser him”. He was always so protective of that dog, even if said dog caused so many issues.

“That did seem a bit excessive”.

“Oh absolutely not, that dog is an actual menace”.

“I’m just going to take your word for it”.

They pop into the kitchen, she’s not surprised both Dan and Elle are gone. “Thanks for the hot chocolate, dad”. Bassel nodding, “yeah, it was really good, thank you”.

Her dad gives a goofy thumbs up, “glad you liked it!”. And she thinks everything might just be okay.

Bassel’s not really sure what to do about all of this. What he does know is that he’s better off not thinking about it and not trying to actually figure out what to do about all of this. He knows Jack Fenton cares a lot, makes good hot chocolate, he’s loud and big, and sure he’s a little off and too strong but he actually is like a puppy. Maddie Fenton was a lot softer, a lot more aware that her family was odd, more socially adept, but she was also more threatening and quick to fight; strange and off as well but she came off as more normal than her husband. Danny was… a nightmare, full stop, he’s a little worried what kind of friends the teen had that could put up with him. He was borderline actually insane, but from what Bassel saw on his google trip he also was a genuinely good kid. Bassel’s fairly certain that even if the world turned against him he’d still fight to save it; that took a level of sheer determination and heart that Bassel probably didn’t have himself. Elle was just a weird kid with too lax and strange of a parent, she might stand a chance at being almost normal someday. Maybe. Dan was an utter psycho though, he honestly can not think of a redeeming quality for that one. Doesn’t even want to try. Because excusing a murderer was not a line he feels like toeing. Jazz says Dan wouldn’t hurt any of them and does love them, but he’s not sold on that; it seemed more likely that she just didn't want to admit that the man was simply an awful unkind corrupt person.

And Jazz?

Well, his opinion honestly hasn’t changed. She’s still awesome, beautiful, caring, neurotic, a worrier, and slightly strange. He wants to think she’d be the same, though maybe less strange, even if she had a perfectly normal and average family. He wasn’t about to let odd family break them up, even if it was the kind of odd normally reserved for tv shows and the weird comics you find at truck stops that are filled with plot holes and questionable narrative direction. Either way he’s sticking around, so long as he can actually physically survive a week in this place.

Him watching as Danny, covered in some kind of clear goo or slime, kicks open the lab door with blown out pupils and a gnarly rash on half his face. “I! Never want to see! Another! Fucking! Person with me damn mushroom eyes again! I feel! Disgusting! Bleh!”, sticks out his tongue and then faceplants onto the floor groaning; the slime stuff splatters around a bit.

Bassel blinks, “um, should someone drag him up to the bathroom or something?”. Then the kid sprouts another set of goddamn arms and hands out of his back and proceeds to dragging himself across the floor and up the stairs with them. “Never mind, what the hell. I never want to see that again”.

Jazz sighs, rinsing out their cups, “he’s definitely high, don’t touch the goo trail”, moving to get the biohazards mop and bucket, “Danny can be a bit of a jerk with the body horror stuff but he usually reserves it for people he knows can handle it”.

“That’s… good. Dear god”.

And then… Danny??? runs up the lab stairs, “did anyone see a body of mine”.

Jazz throws the mop at him and yelps, “what the Zone! Danny?”, making faces at him and pointing at the stairs that still has a slime trial on it, “I have some serious questions”.

He blinks at her, “rogue duplicate”, and runs towards the stairs.

Jazz throws up her hands, “why would you use a power you suck at to deal with drug flowers!”.

“Because I didn’t want to personally deal with blood blossoms!”, the kid slips on the slime and smashes his face into the stairs, “fuck!”, then scramble crawls up the steps.

Bassel grabs the mop back up, ignores that it’s a weirdly hot pink colour, and hands it off to his girlfriend, “so that was a thing that happened”.

Jack starts wheeze laughing, sitting down at the kitchen table, “I hope his duplicate at least had fun!”.

Maddie grinning at the man, “I’m sure it did, Jack hon”.

Everyone, including Bassel, ignores the strange thumping going on upstairs as well as the… arm that comes hurling down the steps and dissolves into green goo against a wall. Staying here was going to give him some extremely unique and unfortunate nightmares, wasn’t it? At least now he gets why his girlfriend had such an easy time writing behavioural papers, she had multiple subject studies. He might even be able to bang out a paper or two on human adaptability after this. He absolutely was not doing any papers on people growing arms out of their backs though, that would get him sent on a grippy sock vacation.

Danny pops back in looking disgusted, “it’s dealt with”.

Maddie eyeing him cautiously, “is the hall way intact?”.

The boy sags and gives a truly crushed, “no”.

At this point, Bassel thinks that’s frankly expected. He also thinks that this household is cursed. At least Jack bounds up the stairs to start fixing the hallway and Bassel legitimately doesn’t care to check out the damage. Truly. Instead he’s just going to sit down with his girlfriend and, like her, mildly regret him coming and going into this ‘cold turkey’. Next time she warns him about something, he’s going to demand an explanation instead of brushing her worries off.

End.

Promtps: Jazz brings a date home for the first time. She didn’t exactly brief them on her family’s whole ghost thing. Antics ensue. All the Fentons are a bit more ghostly than they know The Phantom Clan (Dan, Dani, and Danny) is awake and about to make it everyone's problem Jazz has a reputation at college for being spooky, it doesn't help that she communes with ghosts. Uncanny valley is strong with Danny, most Amity Parkers don't realize it, but any time anyone from out of town sees him, they're in for a spook. Nocturne fucked up BIG TIME and now needs help from the ghost kid.

[bluerosefox]

Bio!Dad Jason and Bio!Mom Jazz (With Oc!Kid or Kid!Danny)

I really, really wanna write a bio!dad Jason story but I should really finish the Twins au first. So I'm gonna be very brief with it before I get sucked into a ramble (it didnt work, I rambled.)

It's a little out of left field due to how much an AU it gets but like hear me out.

Bio!dad Jason (who finished High School and starts going to community college in Gotham)

Bio!mom Jazz (whose going to a fancy college in Gotham for psychology)

They talk, click with each other, date, sleep with each other. Etc. But due to Jason's night life, and Jazz wanting to pretend nothing was weird about Jason (she wants something normal) they break up not to long after. She returns back to Amity Park for summer and finds out she's pregnant, tries to call Jason but his phones been disconnected. Some intense Red Hood things went down and he had to put himself into hiding. He thought he'll see her again for the next school year but she never came back.

(Due to Jason having been dead and Jazz being exposed to ectoplasm all her life they both kinda seek each other out in the city)

Or they meet in High School, before Jason dies, due to an exchange program. They meet, find things in common, debate over Jane Austin works, fall for each other as their frists, and be dumb kids in a big city one night when Jazz tells him she has to go back to Amity soon (aka going out, drink a few drinks, slept with each other)

(Due to Jazz exposure to ectoplasm and something in Jason's bloodline (before death) that let him come back from the dead they were both drawn to each other in ways they couldn't explain.)

She goes home, they keep in contact for a few weeks before it suddenly stops. Jazz finds out she pregnant not long after, she didnt think she was pregnant for a while due to cycle always being off due to ectoplasm exposure. Tries to contact Jason but no luck. During her pregnancy she tries a more few times but when news announced Jason Todd Wayne's death she is hurt and devastated (she knows Jason's wishes, they spoke about maybe a future one night cuddled together after reading books, to be a better man than his birth father ever was if he had kids). She tries getting into contact with Bruce but due to his own grief he refuses to speak with her until she gets a cease and desist.

She gives birth to their kid. And sends one last update, she's been using his old email address as a diary/emotional support for her grief, telling Jason about their kid. How much they look like him. How she wishes he'd be there to see them grow up. She finishes high school even while pregnant (if anyone can do it, it's Jazz) and goes to a college for psychology while taking care of her kid. (She tries not to leave her kid with her parents for too long, she loves them but she knows how they are)

Few years later, Jazz and her kid return to Gotham under fake names, hiding from her parents. Due to both Jason and Jazz's unique blood work their kid is very... ghostly so to speak and Jazz had found her parents trying to experiment on her kid after they saw them using ghost powers. Needless to say she got them out and ran. Jason has no clue they're in the city until he saves them one night from a mugging... and that same phantom call of otherworldly hits them and their kid hard.

Now as for Danny in this, he could be the cool uncle that's been teaching his nephew/niece how to control their powers, also helped them escape from Jack and Maddie and is keeping them off Jazz and her kids heels. And he totally punches Jason when he meets the guy who got his sister pregnant and ghosted her.

OR

DANNY IS THEIR KID. Either one works. :]

Danny being Jason's son, Danny being Jazz's son! If we go this route we can have Sam and Tucker keeping the elder Fentons off their tail cause Jazz tutored them in exchange for babysitting Danny, whom they both liked cause he was a funny kid and saw his powers a few times. (Sam always fighting for peoples/animal rights against discrimination and Tucker emotionally seeing Danny as his nephew and both were angry that the Fentons tried to hurt this kid for being partly Ghostly)

Jason finding out about the kid being ghostly and about Jazz trying to contact him after finally logging into his old email (he's pissed at Bruce when he finds out everything), Bruce FINDING OUT he's got a grandson and missed out on being a granddad for so long due to him not wanting face the person who made Jason smile so much before his death, Dick and Danny being punny with each other, Danny asking Tim about the stars cause he's been to space before and asking if he could teach him how to skateboard (he also tries to steal Tim’s teenage year clothes cause I feel like his and Danny’s taste are very close out of them all), Damian and Danny bonding over Cujo who followed Jazz and him from Amity Park! (Damian totally does the, "I've had Danny for a few hours, if anything happens to him I'll end everyone in this room. Then myself." After a few hours) Little Danny bonding with Alfred at every chance! Danny taking naps with Cass and trying to copy her silent movements! Having fun with Steph! Bonding with Duke for being the only super powered batfam!

.... then Vlad comes looking for Jazz and Danny/her kid cause Jack and Maddie told him about what happened and he has plans to take the young halfa and raise him as his evil heir. Cause you know, he's an old fruitloop that wants an heir just like him.. the Batfam won't be happy about that though.

[underforeversgrace]

chasing nightmares

title: chasing nightmares

words: 703

warnings: none

AUs: none

Beta: none (its short okay)

AO3

Tags: Jazz Fenton, Danny Fenton, sibling bonding

~~

"Who got you this time?" Jazz asked with a sigh, wrapping the gauze around Danny's bleeding shoulder, grimacing as green immediately saturated the white.

"Plasmius," Danny spat.

"...is it always like this?" Jazz muttered. Everything with Danny's dark future had just happened a week ago, and while she'd been welcomed into Team Phantom with open arms, she wondered how she missed so much.

"If it's too much, I can go to Tucker's," Danny said, beginning to pull from her grip. "I know you have more important things to do."

Jazz just held his elbow, keeping him sitting beside her, even as green ectoplasm dripped from other, minor injuries, staining the pink comforter on her bed. "You are my brother, there's nothing more important than your health."

Danny just grinned at her, eyeing the injury she had wrapped. It was a bad burn - had burnt through his suit, even - but he'd reassured her he'd had worse.

She had not been reassured.

"I'm fine, Jazz," Danny said, using his uninjured arm to pat her shoulder. "I'm a ghost. This is less than a papercut to me."

Jazz fought to keep her face neutral. Did he not understand how bad that was? That he was so used to being burnt and beaten that it didn't phase him anymore?

"If you say so," Jazz managed. Danny, oblivious as he was, relaxed at her 'acceptance' of his suffering. He'd never know the internal struggle she was having as she again had to remind herself why they couldn't tell their parents. They just didn't know how the elder Fentons would react, and it was a risk neither was willing to take.

"You know, you're not too bad," Danny grinned, playfully shoving her.

"I'm the best sister and you better never forget it," she said, waggling her finger in his face as he laughed.

If Danny had a response, it was interrupted by a wisp of blue and a sudden temperature drop. He sighed. "Gotta run."

"Wait," Jazz said, grabbing his hand.

"What?"

"I just…" Jazz trailed off.

She didn't know what to say. She didn't know how to beg him to stay, how to keep him from getting hurt, how to explain she was already so tired of blood staining her hands.

So she said none of it, and just pulled her brother's ghost into a tight hug. "I love you, Danny."

"I love you too, Jazz," he answered, wrapping his arms around her as well, surprising her with his lack of teenage male sass.

With a jolt, she realized Danny knew all the things she was leaving unsaid. These were fears he already had, he already lived with, he already had accepted as a facet of his life.

He knew he could die and he fought anyway.

"Be safe," she said as she pulled away, brushing his white bangs to the side and kissing his forehead, something she hadn't done since they were much younger and Danny was plagued by childhood nightmares and this was the only way she knew to keep the nightmares at bay.

"I always am," he answered, leaning against her for just a moment before pulling away.

"Now go kick some ghost ass," she said with a grin.

"Don't gotta tell me twice!"

And he was gone, intangible and out her window, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

Jazz pulled her legs to her chest, wrapping her arms around herself.

She couldn't kiss away these nightmares, like she had in childhood. These nightmares walked and talked, these nightmares had guns and rage. These nightmares were ghosts, were hunters, were even their own parents.

As Jazz stared at the new green stains on her comforter, she felt her own protective instincts stir in her chest. Determination drove her out of bed and down the stairs, into the lab.

She moved fluidly through the lab, grabbing an ecto weapon and triggering the training range her mom had built and her dad never used. She looked down the sights to the first target and fired, her shot going too wide. No matter, practice makes perfect, after all, and she continued teaching herself.

Because while she couldn't kiss away these nightmares, she could still try to chase them.

[kierranodel]

The Sweetest Honeysuckle Grows On Headstones

Due to some unavoidable, unfortunate circumstances this is my very late submission for Invisobang 2023! My author's fic is sadly unable to be linked at this moment, but I will definitely add it later when it becomes available! For the time being, here are the two pieces I created for the story:

I had a lot of fun creating them, and I pushed myself to step outside my comfort zone (particularly in lighting). For added context, this is the summary/blurb for the fic:

"Danny James Fenton was a freak. Plain and simple. When his parents died working on a device that would supposedly let them commune with ghosts, their blasphemy of the laws of nature never came to pass. Killed in the explosion, he’s told, since they died when he was a baby. Sent with his elder sister Jazz to Spittoon, Arkansas to be raised by their Aunt Alicia Osbourne (née Foster), they’re never quite accepted, as hard as they try. Danny’s always been an odd boy, but he seems to get stranger as the days pass."

It's a gothic horror AU set in the South. Though I cannot link the fic yet, I loved the concept from the get go and I hope I can further share this wonderful story in it's completion some day soon!

[elizabethemerald]

DP x DC: Silent Extraction

AO3

First Prev

Team Batgirl was away from Gotham on a mission. Stephanie was proud of the fact that the Batgirls were the ones Bruce trusted with this mission. With Barbara on the coms directing, Steph as the charismatic face of the operation and Cass as the super sexy, super sneaky ninja, they were unstoppable. Combined Steph and Cass were the best team of fighters other than maybe Damian and Cass, except they didn’t work together as well. Stealth wise, Cass was obviously the sneakiest member of the extended Batfam, and Steph was… well… they averaged out to still be pretty sneaky. 

They were also the team that could be counted on for the least amount of unnecessary stabbings and broken bones for the baddies. Dick could usually be counted on not to go overboard, but Jason was somewhat infamous for his whole shooting out kneecaps and breaking arms thing, and Damian stabbed first, stabbed second and once everyone was stabbed usually just stabbed some more. 

Not to say the two girls weren’t capable of their own stabbing and bone breaking, but Steph preferred more reasonable methods unless a mugger really deserved it and Cass had an unbendable moral code even stronger than Bruce’s. And this was a case where they were all really tempted to hurt some civilians. 

The two of them were in the Batplane over Amity Park. They were on a mission to investigate and if necessary extract Danny’s friends and sister. Bruce had apparently gotten the giant armor guy, Fright Knight who still guarded Danny in the Batcave, to talk. Babs had almost broken her keyboard with all her typing to find information on the city, Danny’s family, and his friends. 

According to social media and attendance records Danny had disappeared from the public view four weeks prior, coinciding with Amity’s protector Phantom, getting shot down by a lucky shot by the Drs Fenton. Danny hadn’t been well enough to confirm any correlation between himself and the ghostly protector, and Duke refused to elaborate on Danny’s abilities until he was well enough to talk about them himself. 

Oracle had continued to dig further and she found that Tucker Foley, Samantha Manson and Jasmine Fenton had all disappeared one week ago, roughly coinciding with the appearance of ghosts in Gotham. Their task was to search Amity Park for any trace of the missing teens, rescue them if necessary, find any information they can on the Fentons and on Ghosts and return to Gotham. 

Stephanie had already investigated the town as much as she could with her civilian identity. She used to be jealous of the Waynes and their popularity, that was until she got to experience some time in the limelight herself when she was publicly dating Tim. The paparazzi had constantly followed her around and harassed her over every little thing they felt was wrong about her appearance or her behavior. She was happy to be able to return to her relative anonymity once they parted ways. 

She had dressed in her civies and knocked on the door of the Fentons, pretending to be one of Jazz’s friends from school. Fortunately the elder Fenton child was reasonably popular, so she was certain that Jazz’s parents wouldn’t recognize her as a stranger. Sure enough the eccentrically dressed woman, and the towering man she could see through the door didn’t think anything unusual about her asking if Jazz was alright, “She hadn’t been seen at school recently, you see?” 

Madeline Fenton (as Barbara’s file listed her) gave the incredibly cagey answer that “Jasmine is sick and would hopefully be back to normal soon.” The deep dark rings under her eyes that would have put even Tim’s to shame and her husband shouting in the background about a “Blasted Ghost!” before punching a wall made her even more worried for Jasmine’s health. These two were obviously unhinged and whatever was going on would only continue to degrade their senses. 

However they couldn’t intervene yet. There were still two more teens missing that needed to be found. Stephanie’s worry grew as Cassandra stepped out of the shadows across the street and joined her. Cass silently signed to her as they walked to the house of the next missing person. According to her body language Madeline Fenton was distracted, desperate, and heavily favoring her left side, the most likely result of a powerful kick to the ribs in the recent past. Jack Fenton was distraught and seemed to have given up whatever hope still fueled his wife. He also had a broken hand and several more injuries hidden by the disgustingly orange jumpsuit he wore. 

Cass guessed that the injuries were gained from someone defending themselves against the two scientists. She couldn’t tell how recent they were without a closer look. The two women hurried to the next house. Steph was nervous about what they would find at the end of this mission. 

The next house they visited was the Foley household. Mr. Foley cautiously opened the door just enough to look out. Tucker Foley had a much smaller friend circle, apparently just consisting of Danny and Sam, so Tucker’s parents would think it suspicious if she pretended to be his friend. So instead she pretended to be from the school making a worried house call. Mr. Foley said that Tucker was at a friend’s house in another state. He might transfer schools if his friend’s city was safer. He couldn’t or wouldn’t tell her anything else. 

Cass joined her as she stepped away again. Mr. Foley had been anxious and unsure while speaking to her and kept looking over her head at the street as if the house was going to be attacked any minute. She said he had been telling the truth about Tucker being at a friend’s house but lying about the house being out of state. Surprisingly he had been telling the truth about the possibility of his son transferring schools. 

Tucker only had one other friend, so the two girls hurried to the mansion that belonged to the Manson family, however they were immediately denied entry by a quite substantial security team. Steph saw guards with dogs, all armed and covered in body armor at the front gate and patrolling the perimeter. After she was rebuffed and had met up with Cass again, her girlfriend confirmed that not only were there multiple armed guards patrolling the entire property, which appeared to be in some kind of heavy lock down, but there was also a full squad of personal security officers on site to provide backup. Barbara confirmed over their comms that the Mansons had put a significant amount of money into their security in the past two weeks. Right before the teens went missing, rather than after. 

Now Team Batgirl was above Amity in the Batplane ready to drop in on the property. With security as tight as it was, it would be their easiest approach. Leaving would be a different matter, but they would improvise on the scene as they usually did. Fortunately the Batplane was currently being piloted remotely by Barbara, so the both of them could enter together. 

“According to thermal scans of the property,” Babs began in their earpieces. “There are two smaller heat signatures located in one of the upper story bedrooms. One of them is pacing while the other is sitting. Signs point to those being your targets. Approaching the drop zone.” 

Cass tapped her com twice to acknowledge Barbara’s words. She pressed her masked face against Stephanie’s cheek, their version of an in costume kiss for good luck. 

“Don’t trip when you land.” Cass signed as the bay doors opened for them to jump. 

Then like the beautiful, sexy ninja she was, Cass jumped and flipped out into the open air. Steph felt her heart thump in her chest. God she wanted to kiss her so badly right now. She quickly followed her girlfriend out of the plane. Fortunately the Batplane could fly almost silently so they didn’t need to do anything so extreme as a HALO dive to approach the Manson house, just a quick hop out of the plane and then glide down with their capes. 

Cass had already executed a perfect rolling landing that had probably been completely silent when Steph came in right behind her. She landed a little fast and would have taken a tumble off the roof if Cass wasn’t right there to catch her. 

“I told you not to trip.” Cass signed, her smirk visible even through the mask that covered her face. 

“Sorry I couldn’t hear you.” Steph giggled in reply, then quickly muffled her voice so the patrolling guards wouldn’t hear her. Cass pretended to glare at her as if she wasn’t the most common perpetrator of the jokes about her being mute. 

The two girls focused back on the mission and Steph forced down her desire to make out as they crept across the rooftop. Barbara had a detailed floor plan of the mansion pulled up and was walking them through what rooms they were above. She had also already put a feedback loop through the cameras so they had a couple of minutes of unobserved time. 

Only a moment later they were above the balcony that led into what should be Samantha’s room. Barbara confirmed that the two heat signatures were still there, one still pacing and one still sitting. Cass silently dropped onto the balcony, out of sight of those in the room and those patrolling the grounds. She pressed a small bat shaped object to the glass of the sliding door, then she hopped back up to the roof with Steph’s help. A few taps at a keyboard and Babs was forwarding them the audio from the bug. 

“I’m telling you Tucker, I can’t just stay here!” Samantha’s voice came through clearly. By the changing volume of her words they could both assume she was the one who was pacing back and forth. 

“I know Sam.” The tired voice of Tucker Foley came next. “You’ve told me a hundred times since we got Danny out of the city.”

“Jazz should have gotten back in touch with us. We need to go check on her!” 

“I know Sam, but she was the one who told us to wait!” Tucker’s frustration at the obviously often repeated argument could be heard. “Then if she didn’t contact us we were to make our way to Gotham to try and find Danny.” 

“One, I don’t see you in any hurry to leave Amity without Jazz either, and two, Danny also hasn’t contacted us yet! We have no idea where in Gotham he could possibly be!” 

There was a heavy silence. Neither of the two teens wanted to consider the worst possibilities with their friend. Eventually Sam continued. 

“Still, I’m worried about Jazz. She said she was going to try to convince her parents about Danny then contact us.” 

“Maybe she’s just grounded?” Tucker’s voice didn’t sound at all confident in his words. “I don’t know what else they might do to her, she’s not a halfa like Danny is.” 

Halfa? Steph mouthed the word to Cass who shrugged. Maybe it was a local term for a meta. They listened back in as Sam replied. 

“I don’t know, but they’ve clearly lost their minds. Especially after what they did to Danny, there’s no way for us to pretend to know what their plans are or what they would do.” Sam sighed. “I’m glad mom and dad listened to me when I told them the Fentons were dangerous and upped the security around the mansion, I don’t know if Jack and Maddie would try and come after us or what, but now I don’t think even you and I could sneak out of here to check on Jazz.” 

“Actually…” The hesitation in Tucker’s voice was clear. “I hacked into the email server the security company uses. Apparently Jack did show up at the front gate.”

“What?”

Steph could hear the tapping of keys in her ear as Barbara also hacked into the server. They would have confirmation in just a few minutes of what Tucker was saying. 

“Yeah. Right after we settled in for the week. Jack came with the GAV. He was apparently armed to the teeth with the anti-ghost gear. Said we both must have been exposed to dangerous levels of ectoplasm and we needed to go with him. He almost tried to storm the gates.” 

“Why is this the first I’m hearing about this?” Sam all but shrieked the question out. 

“Your parents told the guards not to say anything. And I- I just didn’t know what to do.”

Tucker’s voice sounded broken and scared. Sam’s desperation was clear and the two Bats could hear her starting to hyperventilate. Cass rose to her feet, and Steph was only a second behind her. They needed to step in before these kids had a panic attack or did something foolish that got them hurt. And now with the confirmation that Jack Fenton likely intended harm for the kids in question and the fact that Jazz was likely in danger, they needed to act to get Sam and Tucker safe so they could rescue Jazz. 

Cass dropped back onto the balcony and it was but the work of a moment to undo the latch on the door. Barbara already had the security system rerouted so the guards wouldn’t be alerted. Steph stepped through the door, dropping the hood of her costume back so the kids could see most of her face. This was a well practiced dance for Team Batgirl. She was friendly and approachable, Cass stayed to Steph’s side and just a touch behind her, keeping an eye for any threat. 

The two heroes entered a room that seemed to be filled with chaos. There were two mostly packed duffles near the end of the bed with clothes hanging out of them. Another pair of expensive looking suitcases were on the bed itself. One was closed and the other was filled with an assortment of bright green objects that almost looked like toys. More of the green and silver objects were scattered across the floor, some with their casings opened and internal electronics exposed. All of them seemed to glow with green light that was far too reminiscent of the Lazarous Pits. 

Sitting on the ground, surrounded by bits and bobs of green glowing paraphernalia, was an African American teen, presumably Tucker based on Oracle’s files, wearing a red cap of some kind. Pacing the room was Samantha Manson, her black hair up in a ponytail, and her heavy gothic boots clumping back and forth. 

Sam spun around as soon as the door opened and Steph stepped through, what looked like a green glowing taser in her hand. Tucker stiffened at her side, some half disassembled piece of tech in one hand and ancient looking PDA in the other. Sam froze in confusion upon seeing the two Bats, but didn’t lower her taser. Steph carefully and slowly raised her hands to show that she was unarmed. She knew Cass had drawn a Batarang from behind the cover of Steph’s cape and if necessary would defend her from any threat that could come. 

“It’s ok. We don’t mean you any harm.” Steph said quickly. 

She took a cautious step forward but froze when Cass made a small movement. Anyone who didn’t work with Cass on the regular basis wouldn't have even noticed the movement, much less given it any significance. However Steph did know Cass. She knew her quite intimately. Cass did not fidget. She could stand still as a statue for hours on end, and had in the past during stake outs. Even the smallest movement from Cass was a message. A warning. 

Steph eased back onto her back foot, taking another glance around the room, without broadcasting what she was doing. While Samantha had started to relax, dropping her aim with her taser, Tucker had tensed. Just like Cass and Steph worked together as a flawless pair, she could see the two teens were also used to working together. While Sam held her attention with the open threat, Tucker had one of the devices in his hand, the trigger primed. She couldn’t tell what would happen if the device went off, but whatever Cass had seen in his body language told her she didn’t want to experience it. 

“Has there been a new ghost in town that makes me hallucinate visiting Bat themed heroes?” Tucker asked. His finger still on the trigger of his device. 

“No. I don’t think there’s been any new ghosts since Phantom’s order.” Sam replied, then she narrowed her eyes at the two Bats. “What are you doing here?” 

“You are allies of the hero Phantom.” Steph said, running with the script Barbara prepared based on their intel, they were about 90% certain that Danny and Phantom were the same, whatever powers and abilities they might possess. Tucker immediately rose to his feet and Sam stepped up to his side. “We’re sending word that he safely made it to Gotham. We want to make sure you’re safe as well.” 

The change that came over the two teens was immediate. Tucker sagged bonelessly against Sam, his forehead finding her shoulder. Sam ran her hands through her hair, pulling it free of its ponytail, finally fully lowering her taser. She almost sobbed with relief at Stephanie’s words. 

“He’s safe? He made it? Thank the Ancients.” Sam whispered. 

“Wait, if you’re here, then that means he was found by Batman!” Tucker said suddenly, his eyes wide. 

“Don’t worry!” Steph put her hands up to keep them from panicking. “Batman doesn’t actually have a problem with metas!” The two teens glanced at each other and after a second Cass stepped up next to Steph and signed quickly to them. Steph translated. “Or whatever he is! Batman doesn’t care. He just wants him and you safe.” 

Steph wasn’t entirely certain why her girlfriend had corrected her, but it seemed to have the desired effect and both kids relaxed again. Cass continued signing to them. 

“If you’re not safe here in Amity, you can come with us to Gotham.” Cass signed. 

Steph was about to translate when Sam nodded, signed “Thank you” and zipped up one of the suitcases. Tucker looked at her in confusion. 

“Wait, what did she say?” 

“I told you, you needed to learn ASL!” Sam said, with a gentle smack to the back of his head. 

“Yeah, like you knew Batgirl was going to appear and sign at us.” 

Sam blushed. “Maybe not. But you still should have learned it yourself. She said we can go with them to Gotham. So get packed up!” Then she turned back to the two heroes, Steph was smothering a grin and she could tell Cass was smiling behind her mask. “Did Jazz send you to get us?” 

“We actually haven’t found Jasmine yet. We were hoping you knew where she was?”

Both teens stiffened and clearly panicked. They began a flurry of motion. Tucker rapidly assembled the pieces scattered across the ground, and Sam quickly put her hair back up in her ponytail. They both started talking over and around each other. 

“We need to get to Fentonworks-”

“Jazz went to try and talk to her parents-”

“They probably think she’s a ghost-”

“They must think she’s contaminated-”

“They might be hurting her like they did Danny-”

“I can put together some tools to get her out-”

“We’ll probably have to fight the Fentons again-”

“Enough!” Steph used her stern ‘Batman Voice ™’ to regain control of the room without raising her voice. “I’m sure the two of you have done a lot for your friends and for your city. But Orphan and I will be the ones who go to the Fentons and rescue Jasmine if that’s what it takes.” 

They both looked like they wanted to protest, but Cass gave them a simple motion, “Stand down” and they both quieted. 

“The two of you need to pack. We’ll contact your parents via Oracle, convince them if necessary that it isn’t safe for you to stay in Amity Park while the Fentons and GIW are still looking for ecto-contaminated individuals. As soon as we have Jazz in hand we’ll be flying out to Gotham so you can reunite with Danny.” 

Sam gave a shaky nod and pressed a hand to her face. Tucker handed them a flashdrive. 

“When you get Jazz, give her this.” Steph put the flashdrive in one of the pouches. “The easiest way to get the Fentons out of their house is to hack into the city’s ghost siren and lead them on a chase. If you’re friends with The Oracle it shouldn’t be an issue for you.” 

Oracle’s voice piped up in Steph’s ear. “Already on it. I’ll have the system cracked by the time you get to Fentonworks.” 

Steph nodded, both to what Tucker said and to what Oracle said, even though Barbara couldn’t see her. The two Bats retreated out the balcony and nimbly avoided the security guards on the property. The last thing they heard as they left was a tired Tucker muttering to Sam. 

“I guess now we just have to convince our parents.” 

The Batgirls left the two teens to that task. Barbara, Bruce and Alfred would all be on call to support them in that regard if needed. Hopefully the parents would see the benefit of getting the kids out of the city until they were safe to return. The two women jogged and grappled their way back across the city towards the obnoxiously designed Fenton Works. Amity Park didn’t have enough tall buildings for them to grapple all the way and that slowed them down, but they were still able to make good time to the building. 

“The city’s ghost alarm system is currently going off on the other side of town.” Oracle’s voice sounded in their ear as they approached the house. “The Fenton’s have already been spotted en route on traffic cams. They are driving some kind of tank. Looks like it could rival the Batmobile.” 

“Good to know.” Steph said. “Any security inside?” 

“I genuinely have no idea what’s going on with the Fentons’ security. When you go in, you’re going in blind. Try to get in and out as quickly as possible. We already know ghosts make our tech go haywire, so we’ll lose contact as well.”

“Copy that Oracle.” Steph said and Cass tapped her ear piece to acknowledge as well. 

Cassandra led Steph in through the backdoor of the Fentons’ place after they had jumped the back fence. The security system activated as they entered and they both tensed to dodge as some kind of laser cannons popped out of the walls. However after a moment of analysis the system seemed to dismiss them as not a threat. The cannons still actively tracked Cass’s location in the room, but they didn’t open fire. 

“No wonder Oracle was confused.” Steph whispered. Cass nodded, keeping an eye on the strange defenses that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Lexcorp lab. They both could only hear small bursts of static in their ears which meant they were really alone. 

The two Batgirls quickly swept the upper floors of the house. Every room was clear, though the bedroom that was probably Danny’s considering it matched the pictures on his social media looked like it had been ransacked and the room that likely belonged to Jasmine had nothing out of place except two packed duffle bags. They glanced at each other, concerned by everything they were seeing before they began to descend to the lowest floor of the house, the basement laboratory, where according to the Fenton Works website the elder Fentons had successfully built a portal. 

Cass bypassed the security on the door into the lab, the tightest security they had seen so far in the house while Steph watched her back. With how tense the situation was, she for once, wasn’t literally staring at Cass’s backside, but watching their surroundings for any possible threat. Cass had some incredible assets, but now wasn’t the time. 

Steph followed her girlfriend down the steps into the basement. Cass of course walked almost completely silently even on the metal steps. When Steph joined her on the steps they both tensed as something rattled below them. 

“Mom? Is that you?” A girl’s voice called up to them. “Dad?”

They both hesitated. There was a lot of emotion in that voice. Grief and anger. A tension that hid pain. They both hurried down the stairs as fast as their cautious nature would allow. 

The lab was like something out of their nightmares. All manner of jars filled with green glowing things that might have been organs covered the shelves on the walls in between racks of all kinds of weapons. A circular structure took up most of the room in the lab and could only be the portal itself. A pair of medical tables were pushed against one wall, one still covered in old blood and strange green stains. In one corner stood a cage made of steel bars covered in a dark green chemical. It was barely tall enough for a child to stand up right, certainly not tall enough for the redhead girl currently chained by her wrist to the wall inside the cage. 

Jasmine Fenton sat up when she caught sight of them, she tried to approach the bars, but the chain on her wrist held her back. Her once long hair was messily chopped short, some places it looked like chunks of her hair had been pulled right out of her scalp. She had bruises and cuts on her face that were most likely from her struggling to defend herself. The sleeves of her shirt had been cut or torn off and they could both track marks up and down her arms. Alongside the marks of repeated sloppily done injections or blood draws she also had short cuts, repeated in a far too precise manner. Some of her injuries had been haphazardly treated, but most were left as if they had just been dealt. Just like her brother, Jazz had been tortured by her parents. 

“Orphan? Spoiler?” Jazz asked, her head tilting slightly to the side as she looked at them in confusion before she suddenly brightened. “Wait, if you’re here, then you must have found Danny! Please tell me he’s safe, tell me he’s alright!”

Her words were desperate as she pulled against the chain holding her to the wall. Cass signed to her to calm her before the girl pulled her arm out of her socket. 

“He’s Safe. He’s with the family.” She signed. Jazz nodded immediately and signed back her thanks, she continued to sign along as she spoke whenever she had a hand free to do so. 

“Thank the Ancients.” Jazz whispered. “He’s safe. He made it out.” 

“Yes he did.” Steph said, bring Jazz’s attention back to her. “And we need to get you out too.”

Steph moved to grab the bars, then had to pull her hand back with a yelp as a spark of electricity shocked her. Cass was at her side immediately to make sure she was ok. 

“You have to disarm the system first. The panel on the wall. Password to disarm should be ‘blasted ghost’ with a zero in the place of the o.” Jazz explained. Steph gave her skeptical look but went to the panel nonetheless. “I know. I know. They hate ghosts more than anything in the world. They tried to rip Danny apart because he was a part ghost. When I helped rescue him, they were sure that the only reason I would help a ghost is if I was possessed.” 

Steph worked to disarm the system as Jazz was speaking. Then when the security powered down with dull hum Cass picked the lock on the cage and set to work freeing her from her manacle. Steph was carefully memorizing what she said just in case their equipment didn’t work to record the conversation. Danny was a part ghost? What did that mean? Jazz seemed almost delirious with relief and exhaustion, so she didn’t seem to be aware of what she was saying. She gestured to herself as Cass worked. 

“Hence their trying to ‘free me from the blasted ghost.’” Jazz’s disdain was clear in her voice. She stood and stretched out her back as she was finally able to be free of the cage her parents had kept her in. “It doesn’t help that their own poor lab safety protocols made everyone in this house contaminated with ectoplasm. They had to keep taking samples to see if they could narrow down the contamination. Hair, skin, even marrow samples." She rubbed at her collarbone subconsciously as she spoke. "Don’t worry, as long as you don’t stay down here too long and don’t eat anything from the house you should be fine. We need to go and make sure Tucker and Sam are safe now.” 

As Cass had been helping her stand on shaking legs, she was the one to respond. 

“Tucker and Samantha are safe at the Mansons. They have a lot of security. We will be bringing them with us to Gotham to stay safe.” Cass signed. 

“Oh, did you already check on them?” Jazz asked and Cass nodded, she smiled. “Did Tucker give you a flashdrive?” 

Steph pulled the drive out of her pouch with a raised eyebrow. She handed it over without more than a second’s hesitation. Jazz immediately plugged into the computer sitting next to the portal, clicked a few things, then began gathering all the weapons and equipment in the lab and putting it into some heavy duty bags. 

��The drive will pull their files, wipe the computer then set the portal to explode. It will just take a couple of minutes. Feedback loop, yadda yadda. I know, Tucker is the tech genius here and don’t tell him I said that.” Jazz explained as she finished grabbing the gear with the help of the Batgirls. 

Finally with shaking hands she gathered the specimen jars that were scattered around. Cass again moved to help her, but Jazz out right snarled at her, her eyes flashing as green as the portal over her shoulder and sharp fangs showing in her mouth. 

“Don’t touch him!” Jazz hissed, the words coming out garbled and layered over themselves but still understandable. She continued grabbing jars as she spoke. “They hurt my brother. MY Brother! I won’t let what they took from him to be used by anyone else. No one else will hurt him ever again!” 

She gathered the last of the specimen jars inside the tube shaped entrance way to the portal, just before the swirling green void. Her hands were trembling and her breath was coming faster and faster. She braced herself at the edge of the portal, then leaned over and threw up. She wiped her face and left the portal, closing the biometric lock as she did so. Cass immediately came to her side, with Steph taking her other side as Jazz could barely stand. 

“I swear to the Ancients, once Danny is safe I will do everything in my power to erase every trace of their foul work from existence.” She murmured the words to herself, leaning heavily on the two other girls. 

Before either Batgirl could come up with any response to that display, or to the horrifying reality of where the numerous organs that filled the jars had come from, the computer in the corner beeped and red lights began to flash in the lab. Jazz seemed to come back to herself, shaking her head to clear it, her eyes once again teal, and her incisors back to normal. She grabbed the flash drive out of the computer and pocketed it. 

“We’ve only got a few more minutes. We need to grab these bags and my bags upstairs.” 

Cass and Steph each grabbed one of the bags full of weapons from the lab armory and one of Jazz’s personal bags, leaving Jazz to only carry a backpack with a tired looking stuffed bear strapped to the outside. The three of them left as quickly as they could and they were only a block away when an explosion shattered the silence around them. Car alarms went off nearby and Jazz stumbled and almost fell, but the other two caught her. 

“Oracle? Can you hear us again?” Steph asked as they hurried away from the scene. 

“Loud and clear Spoiler.” Barbara’s voice came through their earpieces instead of static, finally. “That was one heck of an explosion. The Foleys and the Mansons have agreed their children will be safer out of Amity Park. The Batplane will be waiting for pickup outside the Manson property.”

“Copy that Oracle.” Steph replied. 

The trio hurried back to the Mansons’, Steph and Cass were forced to carry more and more of Jazz’s weight as she sagged under the strain of the past week’s torture at her parent’s hands. They wanted to stop to allow her to rest, but Oracle reported that the Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle was currently heading back towards the explosion and that would bring them far too close to their current location. They had to get to the Batplane to get the kids out of Amity. 

The Batplane touched down in the street in front of Sam’s Mansion right as the Batgirls arrived with Jazz at her front gate, much to the bafflement of the security team on site. Sam and Tucker hurried out, calling last minute goodbyes and promises to call to the Mansons as they raced to the plane. 

Steph sat in the cockpit and strapped in (even though she didn’t actually pilot the plane, Barbara would take care of that remotely (she liked to press the buttons to see what they did)) while Cass got the kids settled in the back. Just as Barbara hit remote ignition on the jet engine the GAV came screeching around the corner, an Ancients-be-damned cannon hanging off the top. Steph got her chance to hammer at some buttons as she deployed counter measures, including a guided missile that blew the cannon into a smoking wreck on the roof of the still driving GAV. 

Barbara had to pull some tight maneuvers to get the Batplane back into the air and to avoid getting shot down. Tucker looked like he might throw up, while Jazz and Sam both looked like they wanted to return fire at the Fentons. Finally they were back in the air and Barbara activated stealth mode, making the Batplane practically invisible and set a course for Gotham. 

Steph sighed in relief and unbuckled herself to go join the others in the back, confident they were safe in Barbara’s capable hands for the flight back to Gotham. Cass was crouching in front of Jazz with the plane’s first aid kit in her hands as she started to treat the injuries her parents did to her. Steph double checked that neither of the two younger teens were injured before she helped Cass with her work. 

After a long time of flying in near silence other than the occasional mumbled word Cass finally pulled her mask off revealing her beautiful face. Steph hesitated a moment, but if Cass decided Danny’s friends and sister were trustworthy, then that was good enough for her, even if Bruce would probably get upset later. Cass met Jazz’s tired eyes with her own dark gaze. 

“Danny is safe.” Cass signed. “Your friends are safe. You are safe. Danny is a new brother. You are a new sister.” 

Jazz watched her signs with a growing shimmer to her eyes before she started sobbing in naked relief. Her fight was over. Her brother’s fight was over. The horrors they had both experienced were over. Cass and Steph took Jazz’s either side, wrapping her in a tight hug that was quickly joined by the two other Amity Parkers. The five of them hugged and Team Phantom cried and wailed out their grief, their fear, their anger at everything that had happened to them and those they were closest to. They were finally safe. They were heading to Gotham to be reunited with their last missing piece, and hopefully to find a family that actually loved them, cared for them and would protect them.

Kofi Link!

@starkcravingmad, @blacksea21090, @rainybyday, @dat1angel, @crystalstarstuff, @alinmenttreasure, @everything163, @the-ace-kid, @akikoyuii, @naluforever3, @theaowsomecookie, 

[samgirl98]

Cain and Abel Wept 5/?

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Surprise, two chapters in one day! Don't get used to this lol

Jazz knew any good psychiatrist would be promoting healthy conversations at the moment. Any good psychiatrist would be trying to dispense the awkwardness with icebreakers. They would be doing anything possible to facilitate the blending of the two families.

Jazz wasn’t a psychiatrist.

(Honestly, those dreams burnt up when the GIW burnt her home, and she and her family had to run.)

Jazz was a (reluctantly) proud Fenton, a budding ghost hunter, and a badass with the Boo-staff. Still, first and foremost, she was an older sister who decided to stay with Danny even if she wanted to know what her parents and the Batman were discussing.

Danny’s shoulders were curved inward, his posture tense. Every time Robin, no Damian (everyone had changed out of their costumes, even Batman, though she refused to call him by his civilian name.) moved, Danny would flinch.  

(Every flinch caused the younger boy’s face to fall.)

Nightwing Dick would quickly put his hand on Damian’s shoulder and try to diffuse the situation with jokes and stories. He brought provisions snacks from the safehouse’s kitchen and could tiptoe over any emotional topics that were accidentally brought up.

Jazz recognized elder daughter syndrome when she saw it (she had it, too.); however, Jazz was only here for Danny. She couldn’t imagine how exhausting it would be to monitor the emotional (and probable physical) needs of six, maybe even seven people.

Jazz knew that Dick hoped to have an ally in her to make the meeting smoother. She didn’t care about them, however. Only Danny mattered. Her parents, as much as she loved them, were not her responsibility. (She knew how guilty they felt about Danny’s accident and their hand in his half-death. In a way, she blamed them, too.)

“So, Danny, what’s your favorite band” Signal, no, Duke, asked.

“Dumpty Humpty,” Danny whispered and left it at that. Jazz could taste Duke’s disappointment that the question didn’t help open Danny up.

Thank you, liminality

Jazz saw Dick’s and Jason’s frowns. She focused on the other liminal in the room. He was tall, had green eyes that glowed at random times, and had a tuft of white hair in stark contrast to his dark hair.

Jason Todd was not hiding his ectosignature at all. Surprisingly, he hadn’t been clocked by the ‘proper’ authorities yet. He felt closer to a halfa instead of an ectocontaminated human. Jazz frowned. What had Danny called him? A revenant, that was it; a person brought back from the dead. Her frown deepened. She would have to ask Danny later what the difference between a revenant and a halfa was.

“…Zz, Jazz, can you hear me,” she looked at her worried brother’s face.

“Yeah, sorry about that, just lost in thought. What was the question?”

Danny’s frown matched hers, “I was wondering if maybe it was time to hit the hay. I think you answered my question, though. It’s getting late.”

Jazz followed Danny’s stare and noticed that the sky was lighting up. They had stayed up all night, and no progress had been made between the Fenton and Wayne siblings.

“You’re right. I am tired. Unlike you, I’m still not used to being up all night,” she tried to joke.

“Why would Danya—Danny be used to staying up all night,” Damian asked, his arms crossed over his chest and his face turning suspicious.

“None of your business, Damian. I’ll let you and your family know about me if I want to.”

Damian flinched as if he had been physically hit, and Jazz saw Danny’s guilty expression.

(Her baby brother carried too much unnecessary guilt.)

“Sorry, Dami, I didn’t mean to sound harsh. I’m just not used to being open about my…other life. I’m sure you aren’t used to talking about your alternate lifestyle to strangers, either.” Danny scratched the back of his neck.

Jazz saw Damian suppress another flinch. Ouch. She wondered if Danny phrased it like that on purpose or if he subconsciously wanted to hurt his younger brother somehow. Jazz wouldn’t be surprised if it were the latter. For all of Danny’s anger, he tried to be too nice sometimes. She knew it was because of Dan.

The rest of the family members also frowned at Danny’s word choice.

“Well, if you ever want to let us know, we’re here with open ears and no judgment,” Dick said with a wan smile.

Seriously, elder daughter syndrome.

“Do you want me to show you to your rooms, or do you think you got it?”

Dick was giving them choices to make them feel safer; it didn’t work. Still, she would take it.

“We can manage, thank you.”

Jazz took Danny’s hand and disappeared upstairs. Danny was all that mattered.

____

“Well, that went…well,” Tim said hesitatingly.

“It was a disaster, Drake. He hates me.” Damian’s voice broke, and Dick thought his baby brother would start crying again.

He was ready to reassure him, “No, baby bat, he doesn’t hate you. It’s just a bit awkward for everyone at the moment,” Dick ended lamely.

Damian shook his head and threw himself into Dick’s arms. He automatically caught the kid and rubbed Damian’s back soothingly. He looked toward his other siblings hoping for some type of help. Everyone but Cass looked away; they never knew what to do with a crying Damian.

Dick looked at Cass imploringly, looking, needing all the help he could get. She shook her head and signed ‘hurt, both of them. Danny feels betrayed. Later I say more.’

Dick sighed. Well, nobody said getting two brothers to reconcile would be easy.

____

Bruce was processing everything the Dr. Fentons had told him.

It was, to put it mildly, a cluster fuck. How had the Justice League missed something this huge?

Government-sanctioned experimentations, the multiple attempted genocide of interdimensional beings, and the attempted murder of a foreign sovereign. Bruce thanked his lucky stars and praised whichever god was listening that Danny wasn’t a vengeful ruler, or the Earth would’ve been fucked. And they would’ve deserved it.

He typed everything the Fentons had told them, put everything in a neat file, and called for an emergency meeting with the Justice League and Justice League Dark.

“So you’ll help us,” Jack Fenton asked. Bruce looked up at the man, glad to have his attention taken away from the gruesome experiment of what seemed to be a ghost girl no older than seven.

“Dr. Fenton.”

“Jack, please, no need for formalities.”

Bruce nodded, “Jack. Yes, this is exactly what the Justice League is here for. We don’t just stop alien attacks or big earth-ending catastrophes; we help the whole Earth and everyone in it, whether humans, aliens, or some other species.”

Maddie and Jack looked at each other, their shoulders untensed a little.

“That’s good to hear. We have some allies, but their very few, and with the help of the Justice League, we would have the best help.”

Bruce nodded.

“Mr. Wayne, if I may ask,” Bruce interrupted Maddie Fenton.

“Please, it goes both ways. Call me Bruce.”

“Bruce. If I may ask, what exactly do you intend to do now that you know about Danny?”

Aww, they were worried he would take Danny away from them. He wouldn’t be so cruel as to separate child and parents, no matter how much he wanted to.

“I intend to get to know him and hopefully create a bond with him. When we get these laws repealed, I hope you would allow me to get to know Danny and maybe get him and Damian reintroduced.”

Both Fentons looked at each other for a long time before coming to an understanding.

“Bruce,” Maddie started, “We don’t mind you wanting to get to know Danny, but ultimately, it’d be up to him. Damian, well, Damian did leave him for dead; that type of trauma doesn’t just disappear.”

Bruce had kept his face clear of negative emotions at the reminder that his youngest had been brainwashed into believing killing his brother was an acceptable course of action.

Damn you, Talia.

“I understand. I don’t mind following yours and Danny’s lead.”

Bruce got up and stretched. The Fentons followed suit. It was rare that Bruce ever saw someone taller than him, but he had to look up to look Jack Fenton in the eyes, “thank you, Bruce. For listening to us and for giving Danny a chance.”

Bruce nodded, “Of course, even if Danny hadn’t been my son, I still wouldn’t allow an innocent person, let alone a child, to be hunted like some kind of animal.”

The mere thought got Bruce’s blood boiling.

“Speaking of, you need to keep an eye on Jason, was that his name,” Bruce nodded, “You need to keep an eye on him. He’s broadcasting an ectosignature, and if the GIW find us, they’ll hone in to his, too. Under the Anti-ecto acts, he’s fair game.”

Bruce gritted his teeth; just another reason to get rid of the GIW and those stupid laws.

“Don’t worry. Those laws will soon be gone forever. You two should get some rest; it’s been a long night.”

Bruce left the Fentons in the kitchen and went to look for his other kids. They had work to do, and then…then he would see in mending his broken family.

@spectralstardustandphantomnights @avelnfear @idfk-man10 @blackroserelina @candeartist422 @luer-mirin @mur-ururu @insufferablecrab @skulld3mort-1fan @meira-3919 @aethernorwood @mimilikey @marshmelloe @latheevening226 @ahyesanerd @lexdamo @chrysanthemum9484

[kawaiijohn]

*scrambles in* Hey remember that Egg thing for a dp promt we talked about on that discord server *runs away*

After literally 2 months of not writing shit, I'm back.

Here's the animation of the story this fic is based on.

And here's the fic on Ao3

Rating: T Warnings: Existentialism, Death, References to depression and alcoholism, a lot of weird time bullshit. Characters: Danny&Clockwork

Hatching Inside the Egg

He was trying to fix the portal, when he died.

It was a freak accident. Unfortunate and anything but unremarkable, but fatal nonetheless. It was not a painless death, but the pain only lasted him a moment. His brain was so utterly fried and his body so burned he was better off losing consciousness before the end, trust me. It was a zap, and then nothing.

And that’s when he met me.

“What… happened?” Daniel asked, shaking. His black hair had turned shock white from the force of electrified ectoplasm, unlike anything I had ever seen. “Where am I?”

“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. There wasn't a point in softening my words.

“There was… my parents' portal, a big wire on the ground. I tripped and then… the button-”

“Yes,” I said nodding. I have not been the best at comfort, yet I floated to stand in front of him.

He shuddered, hugging his arms closer. “I… I died?”

“Yes, but everyone does, given time.” I said, polishing the clock on the end of my staff.

I watched Daniel as he looked around. There was nothingness around us, just him and me. As I do with all humans before me, I tried to look at his past. But I realized something bizarre. His past was beyond my sight- completely obscured. I looked to his future, and found nothing- no other lives planned, nothing beyond this accident of his. Daniel Fenton was an anomaly- I could not see where he was meant to be, nor where he was destined to reincarnate. There was only nothingness when I viewed him.

He was not connected to anything but himself.

He was a paradox, a past looping into a future in an endless mobius strip. He was something that should not be, something that should not have reached here.

Perfectly Dead, yet not.

Perfectly Alive, yet not.

And yet how very interesting he was.

“Where am I?” He asked, interrupting my train of thought. “Is this the afterlife or something?”

“You could say that,” I said, staring him down as I tried to figure him out.

He swallowed nervously. “Are you God?” He asked, both clearly afraid and in disbelief.

“Yes, I could be called God.”

I did not wish to tell this fascinating paradox that I was one of many Gods, at least not yet. Something within my very core wished for me to comfort him before I figured out his sentence, where he could even go after this.

Before I could parse my thoughts, I was interrupted yet again by soft sniffling.

"Sam, Tucker... Jazz. My parents-"

“What about them?” 

“Will they be okay without me?” He looked up at me, tears in his eyes.

I chuckled at the familiar, yet uncommon question. “That’s pleasant to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your loved ones.”

He looked at me with eyes full of guilt as he wiped the tears away.

To him, I didn't look much like God, or sound like one either. To him I looked like a toddler, or an adult, or maybe even an elder. All forms of indeterminate gender and race. Maybe I most looked like an authority figure- more a beloved grandparent or teacher rather than the almighty.

I took another moment to look through time before I gave my response.

"Your loved ones will be fine, given some time. Your parents will remember you as their perfect son, they love you dearly and had not had time to grow disappointed in any sort of failure. Your friends will grieve but become closer to each other over it, and your sister… she will use your death as a motivation for her future studies and career, and do much of it in your memory. If it's any consolation, even your bullies will feel guilty for how they treated you, and many will turn over a new leaf."

I watched his shoulders sag in relief, and yet my Core panged in guilt at the amount of information I felt the need to conceal, if only for his sake.

His parents, lost in their grief will try to dismantle the portal, but will not be able to. Ghosts will run amuck in his hometown without a line of defense. Amity Park will be largely abandoned within a year without any sort of protector, only to be put under martial law by some sort of organization. And although most leave, his parents will remain to try and defend their home town in his name. His friends will go through intense periods of grief and regret- survivor's guilt, as it were. Samantha will rage and Tucker will shut down, both succumb to unhealthy coping mechanisms for years before they both get clean for each other. And his sister, a brilliant mind who will fall into a bottle as most of the Fenton line does when handed grief on a platter like this. She will succeed, but she will be a shadow of her once shining self.

And still, this paradox before me, I have no idea in my eons of existence where to place him.

"At least they'll be alright, I guess," Daniel sighed. "So is this the part where I go to heaven or hell or whatever?"

“No, those are not where you are to be. In fact humans are to be reincarnated-" I started.

“Oh! So like Hinduism!!” he interrupted.

“Every human religion is correct in its own way. Now please, Daniel, walk with me.”

He followed along as we floated through the void. “So, where are we going? Is there a special place to do this thing or-”

“No, it’s just nice to walk while we talk.”

We floated along in silence as I contemplated what to do with for all intents and purposes was a lost soul, a human without a connection to the cycle. An unfortunate loner surrounded by nothing but those so unlike him. There was no instruction manual on what to do with a being such as he- others had died in similar portal accidents, but had always awoken on the mortal plane to live the rest of their existences before coming to me. Daniel somehow came straight to my doorstep, and had always been separate from the rest.

How could a being so perfectly Other, so perfectly Liminal, find its way here unassisted?

It was confounding, it was wonderful, it was-

"So if we all just kinda reincarnate at the end, what's the point to living for like seventy something years if we just turn back into babies in the end? It seems a bit pointless if you ask me." Daniel hopped between patches of swirling green void as if they were stones in a stream, a childish action that only some of the youngest of humans have done before me in this place.

“Not exactly,” I said. “Humans have the knowledge of their previous lives inside of them, they just can't access them most of the time.”

I stopped floating and took my staff in both hands, facing Daniel. “The human soul is deeper, more expansive, and brighter than you can imagine. The human mind can only contain so much without frying. Think of it as putting your foot in a pool to check if it's warm or not. You put a small piece of yourself in, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had."

"I guess that makes sense then. But will I ever remember?" 

I sighed. Young Daniel had not yet caught on to his differences. “Humans live such short lives, most just haven’t stretched out and felt the rest of their immense consciousness yet. If one were to stay here long enough, they would begin to remember.”

There was a beat of silence as the boy thought. “So, how many times have I been here already, then?”

I stilled the staff in my hands and stared him down. "Humans have been reincarnated an innumerable amount of times, and they will continue to do so until they are ready for the next step. Your sister, Jasmine, was previously a mechanic named Joe in the year 4,123 AD."

“Wait wait wait... you sent Jazz back in time? Like, you can do that?" Daniel stammered out, unsure of what all to ask.

“Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are somewhat different where I'm from.”

“And where are you from if not the universe or this weird green space place?" Daniel had crossed his legs and begun floating as we talked.

“I come from somewhere else, and there are many others like me. But currently, it's beyond your understanding, and best if we don't speak of it just yet.”

Daniel pouted like the child he refused to say he was. He sat and thought, tumbled the words around in his mind before speaking. “So wait, let me get this right- if I can be reincarnated as pretty much everyone or anyone whenever the hell you want me to be, I might have interacted with myself at some point?”

I smiled sadly at the boy. "It happens to humans all the time, not that any of them would ever know with their memories locked away. But as far as you're concerned, you're a peculiar case."

"What do you mean?" Daniel asked me. "I'm gonna get reincarnated too, right?"

I looked at the boy without emotion. I still did not know how to place this boy in the grand scheme of things, and as he stared at me in fear I felt the need to prod deeper. "I am sorry, Daniel. I don't believe you will."

His expression was filled with soul crushing pain as he sank from his position. "I always felt like the odd one out, and this is just beating it into me harder that I'm some sort of freak."

"You may not belong to humanity's universe like everyone else, but neither do I, nor any of my brethren." I responded, rubbing soothing circles into the boy's back. "Your existence is a paradox, you are not here or there, not alive or dead- at least not truly. How you even came to be here is a mystery."

"None of this makes me feel any better, you know."

"Well, maybe if I tell you what my theory is concerning you, Daniel. it is currently clear that you are more like myself than all of the rest of humanity. You see, this universe- where humanity reincarnates over and over into different people, I created. Every human that has ever lived, or will ever live, is a reincarnation of the same consciousness over and over and over again."

"Why would you even do that? What's even the point of it all, if everyone is the same person forever and ever." Daniel looked up at me from where his head was tucked into his knees. "What do you even gain?"

“The reason I made this whole universe, is for humans to mature.”

He looked me in the eye in disbelief. "You want humans to mature? Why would you tell me this?"

"This entire universe, Earth and all its planets and stars and everything, was created for humanity. It exists so that with each new life lived, humanity's intellect grows and matures."

Daniel groaned in confusion. "I don't understand... They hurt each other, and they love each other. Shit I even tease my friends and I love them, so why would you make a consciousness do all this??"

I stand tall, my eyes gleamed with light in the swirling green void. “Every time they victimized someone, they victimized themself. Every act of kindness they’ve done, they’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by humanity as a whole.” My words echoed with power before this strange anomaly of a boy as my form wavered between ages. 

He swallowed, although he no longer needed to. "Why do all this though, what do you get from it?"

"Because, humanity is like me. They are my child."

"Woah, so like- Sam, Tucker, Jazz? They're all the same baby God?" he asked, incredulous. "That's a little weird for me to grasp, but I can kinda get it. Even if it's still super weird."

"Yes, that is true. It can be a bit weird of a concept for someone as young as yourself I suppose." I chuckled. "But they're still growing, and will continue to do so until they have been every human through all of time."

"So the universe... the whole thing... all the stars and planets and galaxies- they're all..."

"An egg," I finished. "And one that still has a very long time before it's ready to hatch."

Daniel sat before me, uncrumpled from his previous ball like posture, and pondered a while. "So what happens to me now? I'm not like the rest of humanity, so does that mean I just stop existing?"

"No, it's much more complex than just ceasing to exist. Although, it is rather strange you managed to manifest in your universe without my notice- your existence to me is not much unlike a secondary fruit growing within the main one, or maybe even an egg with two yolks." I chuckled at the image. "Simply put, you seem to be a separate entity inside of the universe I created for humanity, and have matured much faster than they. You just managed thatch inside the egg, somehow."

"So... what does that mean for me?" He asked, astonished.

"I believe, with what I have seen of the time after your death, I should give you a second chance." I answered, brandishing my staff. "It would be remiss of me to extinguish such a lovely anomaly as yourself, to snuff out young surprise life of my kind would wrack me with guilt. But I think I have an answer..."

I lifted my staff above my head, and allowed power to course through it. "I think for the benefit of all humanity, I will send you back. To the moment of your death. The nature of such a death will create... some problems, but it will allow you to mature fully alongside the rest of humankind, albeit without your current consciousness reincarnating." My staff chimed with the toll of bells. "You will live alongside humanity, until the very last of humans cease to exist, upon which you will join me here once again as my child alongside your beloved humanity. And in doing this, I will be able to observe your personal development through time instead of remaining in the dark about you."

"So, what I'll be like... immortal?" Daniel squinted at the light coming off of my staff.

"It will be a sad, lonely existence in the end. You will watch your loved ones die, but will make bonds with others as time progresses. I feel you will be happy growing alongside humanity; a protective older sibling to it, if you will." I smiled at him as the light enveloped him completely. "Unfortunately, you will not remember our meeting, not until you have lived your life. We will meet again someday. At least, when the time is right."

As he began to dissolve back to his universe, Daniel cried out. "Wait! What can I call you? You're like, my god parent- literally. I want to know what to call you."

And as he faded completely, I answered. 

"Clockwork, master of the concept of Time. We will meet again, my son."

And I sent him on his way.

[vala-dreams]

Your wish is my command.

.

SO HERE WE GO AGAIN

As a continuation of this delightful hc (https://vala-dreams.tumblr.com/post/689604946742689792/dp-headcannon-the-half-ghost-thing-danny-has) in which Danny literally rots from the inside as everyone desperately tries to save him, I would like to add another terrific lil detail: Danny doesn't know he's a ghost. Yes, he goes through the portal and gets electrocuted and killed, but he doesnt know that! (Not yet anyway)

He tries to fix the portal by himself to cheer up his parents, gets shocked instead and dies. But he never realises he does. From his point of view, he just gets electrocuted and passes out. His parents find him later like that and immediately rush him to the hospital, where they do the hospital-y things (I have no idea what goes on in a hospital can someone please tell me whats the usual procedure thing they do for victims of electrocution) and they run some tests which come out VeryWrong™. So by now the Fentons put two and two together and realise that their baby boii might be ecto contaminated. Severely. Like a lot.

So they keep a close eye on him. After a while, Danny's finally discharged from the hospital and free to go home. Which is where the fun really starts.

They keep running periodic tests on Danny without telling him that they're worried about him being ecto contaminated cause how do you even tell your child stuff like that. They saw what happened to Vlad in college. They saw him die with their own eyes. It's gotta be the equivalent to telling your kid that he has a terminal disease. They are going to tell him eventually, but they're working up the mental fortitude to do so.

Cue parental angst montage.

In the meanwhile, jazz is trying to help Danny cope with getting burnt alive (hah lol alive) by his parents own contraption when she stars noticing weird things in his behavior (more weird than the expected ig) AND their parents. At first she chalks it up to trauma and guilt and tries to help but as time passes things keep adding up and one day she finally gets jack to crack and tell her what's really going on.

Cue elder sister "oh my god my brothers rotting from the inside and i never even noticed I am such a horrible sister I'm going to lose him I can't lose him" angst montage.

And they all try to frantically find a cure.

(Vain, vain, it's all in vain)

.

.

.

Hmm?

What's that?

Oh how's Danny doing?

.... Well

He's getting gaps in his memory lately. He can't remember what he was doing at luch break. Coincidentally also when some lunch lady ghost apparently came to take over the cafeteria.

Pssh what nonsense. Ghosts don't exist.

He's also feeling really nauseous now tho. Huh. Hope he's not coming down with anything major.

....

;)))

[url-is-url]

excerpt from a WIP. Aunt Alicia is fixin to have a Come To Jesus Meetin with the elder Fentons

Text in case the image doesn’t load:

“I’m more ecto-contaminated than Jazz, cause of my accident, and you know. Sometimes the anti-ghost security system shoots at me?”

“WHAT?”

Danny held his hands up. “It’s fine, it’s fine, I remember to dodge most of the time!”

“Most of the-” Alicia clasped her hands in a praying position and took a deep breath. She felt her face turning red and burning. Dear Lord, have mercy on my fool sister and her fool husband, because I won’t have a drop.

[five-rivers]

Stars Aligned Chapter 2

Here’s the thing.  Danny knew this was a dumb decision.  At least as dumb as stepping into the ghost portal (but at least he’d gotten some nifty powers out of that, hey?).  Whatever reason his bio-dad had for chucking him out the door within days of his birth couldn’t be good.  Putting himself within reach of the man…  Yeah.  Not his brightest thought.  

(Not to mention the wizards.  And witches.  That was so weird, how they had two different names for essentially the same thing. Then again… actor, actress…  Why were people so weird?)

On the other hand, twin brother.  Twin brother who had to live with aforementioned baby-abandoning bio-dad.  Twin brother who wasn’t allowed to visit America.  Or, Danny suspected, a family of squibs.  

Yeah.  

Yeah.  

So, here he was.  Getting everything in order for a wizard passport and wizard international travel, because bio-family refused to even look at an airport.  

Danny had a suspicion that, based on how they spelled the word and a few other comments in that particular letter, that they weren’t entirely clear on what an airport was.  

Fun.  

On the other hand, in comparison to the actual, normal, legal passport he’d gotten, just in case bio-family left him somewhere, wizard passports were much, much easier to get.  The wait times were practically nonexistent.  He could, in theory, get the passport on the same day he traveled.  All that was needed was proof he was a wizard and his adoption papers.  

Of course, ‘proof he was a wizard’ actually meant ‘wand.’  Wands being something they used as personal ID, despite the fact that they were a) sticks, and b) didn’t actually carry any personally identifiable information.  Sure, Jack said that they were somehow connected to their owners, but unless there were, like, giant books of details about everyone’s wands at every place that would, conceivably, need ID, and had people trained to identify all those tiny little characteristics…  Danny just couldn’t see how it would work.

Danny’s current theory was that all wizards were just insane, which meant that his twin would most likely fit right in with the rest of Danny’s family, right as soon as Danny figured out how to legally kidnap him.

(No, Danny didn’t have a ghostly Obsession, and it definitely wasn’t family related.  He was only half-ghost, after all.  Why do you ask?)

Anyway.  Wizard passport.  Wizard ID. Wizard sticks.  

Wands.  

Wands meant a nerve-wracking trip to the nearest wizarding town with Jack.  Evidently, he’d lived there a couple of years after his parents sent him away from Britain when he was around fourteen because of ‘the war.’

Abruptly, many of Jack’s stories about his childhood made more sense.

(It had always been something of a joke between Jazz and Danny to try and figure out what ‘the war’ was supposed to be, and if Jack’s parents had just… Conned him into thinking he’d eaten horse meat.  For some reason.  Even if the Fentons hadn’t seemed like that kind of people, no matter how eccentric.)

(Also, evidently Jazz and Danny had never met Jack’s biological parents, who were not named Fenton, although his adopted mother was also a witch.)

(Why was everything so complicated?)

 The “wizarding community” was a small town accessible only by a train line invisible to ‘no-majs.’  And also flying brooms.  Which wizards used.  Danny had seen the train before, not realizing that he wasn’t supposed to. Several times.  Usually while flying to Wisconsin to deal with whatever Vlad had done that week.  

If Danny was a wizard, was Vlad?  Was being half-ghost somehow tied up in being magical? What did that mean for Dani?

(Hey, maybe this whole affair could be used to bring Dani into the family safely.  Who was to say that he didn’t have a secret twin sister?)

Danny could admit that the town itself, which had almost a Ghost Zone vibe with how all the architecture seemed to be from fifty plus to a hundred years ago and also the physics breaking magic, was sort of cool. It was… cute, he guessed.  He didn’t really like how everyone was staring at Jack, their clothes were just as weird, but it wasn’t a new thing.  People always stared at Jack.  

That’s what happened when you wore hazard-orange jumpsuits twenty-four seven.  

The shops all had names out of a fantasy novel, and at one point they got turned around and wound up on a residential street where they had to ask for directions, but eventually they made it to ‘Willoughby’s Wand Emporium.’

The interior of Willoughby’s Wand Emporium reminded Danny strongly of a shoe store.  The shelves were all lined with boxes of approximately that size, and the employees all carried measuring tape.  It also smelled like a shoe store: musty and dry, with a hint of polish.  Or maybe it was wood varnish?  Or some kind of paint.  

A young woman bounced up.  “Hi, how can we help you today?  Replacement wand?”

“First time, actually,” said Jack.  

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said the woman.  “You’re just so tall for your age.”

“I’m fourteen,” said Danny.  

The woman began to turn red.

“He was missed,” said Jack.  “It happens.”  He smiled, but it looked far more strained than usual.  

“Oh,” said the woman.  “Ahem.  Well, if you’ll come right this way, I can start taking measurements, and start trying out wands.  The wand chooses the wizard, they say!”

“Okay,” said Danny, shrugging.  That was… interesting.  Were the wands sentient?  Did that somehow make them acceptable IDs?

Seemed really weird to keep sentient things stored in boxes.

… Said the kid who stored sentient beings in a soup thermos.

A really high-tech soup thermos.

Didn’t make it better.  

Except he didn’t keep them in the thermos indefinitely.  Except for Dan.  

Danny didn’t know if the wizards kept the wands in boxes indefinitely, either.  Maybe he should stop assuming things.  That had gotten him in trouble with ghosts more than once.

The woman took her measuring tape from where it hung around her shoulders, held it out in front of herself, and promptly dropped it. It did not fall.  

As basic as levitation was for ghosts, it was really weird to see a human do it.  (Especially when it always took so much concentration for him to levitate things other than himself—Hence why he never really used the ability in battle.)

The measuring tape flitted around Danny’s head, shoulders, arms, and body, taking measurements.  He had to sit on his reflexes hard to prevent himself from trying to catch it or knock it out of the air.  

He was so nervous.  Was it normal to be nervous?

The measuring tape snaked back through the air to the woman, who smiled.  “Alright,” she said, “we can start with that.  Uh, to explain the process, we usually start out with wands in the appropriate size range and try and zero in on the ones that respond best to you from there.”  She flicked her own wand, and several thin boxes slid themselves off the shelves.  “We use a wide variety of wand woods from a variety of wandmakers.  Just about any tree that grows in North America is probably represented here.” She paused.  “Except for palm trees.”

“That makes sense,” said Danny.  Palm trees were quite different from other trees.  

“Alright.  Let’s start with pine.  The core of this one is dragon heartstring—Harvested humanely, of course!”

“Core?” said Danny, latching on to the familiar word even as he regarded the wand itself dubiously.  

“Yes.  As with our woods, we also stock a wide range of wand cores.  Each wand has a core made of a small part of a magical creature.  Dragon heartstring, unicorn hair, and phoenix feather are the standard ones…  But that standardization is rather British.  We have a few others available.  Thunderbird tail feather—Only taken during molt.  Wampus cat hair.  Dittany. Rougarou hair.  Jackalope antler…  Those are the more common ones, though we do have others.  Even some kneazle whisker, although most people don’t want those.”

“Why not?”

“Ah, they tend not to be very strong.  But sheer power isn’t everything.  Some prefer control, need lower power output…  or are worried about accidents while they’re learning.  We do see some adult learners every now and then.”

That actually sounded sort of appealing to Danny, but he supposed he’d better go about this normally.  At least at first.  

He picked up the pine wand and immediately dropped it.  

“Ow,” he said.  

“Ow?” repeated the woman.  “Oh,” she said, catching sight of the burn on his hand.  “That’s… not supposed to happen.”

“Y’know,” said Danny, conversationally, “I’ve only held, like, two magical things in my life, and both of them have damaged my hands. Is this, like, a common thing, or am I just ridiculously unlucky.”

“Second one, I think,” said the woman.  “Cynthia’s good at minor healing charms.  I’m going to go get her.  Okay?  Okay.”

Shortly thereafter, phoenix feather wands were also eliminated as a possibility, not because they burned Danny, but because they seemed intent on burning everything else around him.  Pine wands were also a definite no-go (“Don’t worry about the lifespan thing,” said the woman, “that’s a myth.”).  As was everything but elder, apple, pear, hornbeam, thorn, and yew (this list got another mention of myths from the shop assistant).  

At this point, the shop owner, Mrs. Willoughby, was drawn out from the back room to observe the mess Danny was making.  

“My,” she said, “I haven’t seen anyone have this much trouble in a while.  Heather, why don’t you go get some of the specialty cores.”

“I thought the unicorn was working well,” protested the woman who’d been helping Danny so far.  She winced as Danny picked up a new wand and exploded a light.  “Comparatively.”

“Yes, we could probably eventually find a unicorn hair wand that would work for him, but all things considered…  I feel like we should explore other avenues.”  She sniffed.  “Nothing associated with fire.  Perhaps kelpie mane?”

“I’ll check,” said Heather.  

.

Kelpie mane, it turned out, did the same sort of thing as phoenix tail feather when it came to Danny.  Only with a lot more water involved.  

“I didn’t think that would work, anyway,” said Mrs. Willoughby.

“Then why,” said Danny, wringing water out of his shirt, “did you have me try it?”

“Oh, cases like you greatly improve our understanding of wandlore,” said Mrs. Willoughby.  “You’re not likely to have noticed this yet, but the population of wizards and witches is so small compared to the no-maj population that everyone who gets very far in a profession has to be a bit of an innovator.  I’m recording this for future reference, and I’ll be looking forward to seeing what you do in life.  If anything.  It would be very helpful to me if you became famous.”

“Hard pass on that,” said Danny.  

“Or at least come back at some point.”

“I’ll consider it,” said Danny.  “But, like, we were really hoping to do other things today, so maybe…”  He made a circular motion with his hand.  “Or at least, ugh, I don’t know.  I feel like everything you give me is trying to kill me.”

It was a very familiar feeling, and a very unwelcome one, nonetheless.  

“We really aren’t,” said Mrs. Willoughby.  “But perhaps… from now on, we’ll limit to the woods to the Rosaceaes.  The others tend to be called unlucky.  Well, except for the hornbeam.  Is there anything you’re singularly passionate about?”

Singularly passionate?  “Not really,” said Danny, who did not think about ghosts or helping people or space. He shifted, uncomfortable, and squelched.  

Screw it.  He was supposedly a wizard, now, right?

He phased the water off himself.  

“Oh my god!” shouted Heather.  “Did you do that on purpose?”

“Uh,” said Danny.  “No?”

“Calm down, Heather.  Don’t act like you’ve never seen accidental magic before.”

“Not with a teenager doing it!”

They were now attracting a crowd.  Yay.  

“He’s not trained, yet,” said Mrs. Willoughby, unconcerned.  “Don’t be rude.”

“Yeah, can we get back on track, here?”

After a few more tries, Mrs. Willoughby had determined that the wood that reacted the least badly to Danny was hawthorn.  Then she sent Heather into the storage room to fetch more.  

“I don’t know why we even have these,” said Heather, under her breath, carrying several boxes marked with stamps that read ‘THESTRAL.’

“Because some people have trauma, Heather.”

“He’s a teenager.  I seriously doubt he has deep personal experiences with death.”

“Wow, way to assume, Heather,” said another shop assistant, who was passing by with a far-too-curious customer.  

“Here,” said Mrs. Willoughby, handing Danny a box.  “Try this one.  It’s hawthorn.”

With some suspicion, Danny slid the cover off the box and gingerly picked up the wand inside.  

It didn’t do anything like what the other wands had. Instead, the slender length of wood gave him a faint echo of the feeling he got when he was on an emotional high and engaging in either extreme mischief or obsession-adjacent activities (because he did not have a real, ghostly, capital-O Obsession).

Danny declined to hold it with all five fingers, lest he be overcome with mania.

Yes, he was paranoid.  But when touching things can go as badly for you as they did for Danny, paranoia was justified.  

“Oh, it looks like you’ve found your match,” said Mrs. Willoughby, clapping.  

With the ease of practice, Danny did not let any trace of horror or unease show on his face.  He ignored the surge of glee from the wand, and carefully placed it back in the box.  

Yeah.  He needed a wand for passport purposes, but there was no way he was going to use that.  He’d just fake magic with ghost powers.  It had been working out okay so far.  

What was the worst that could happen?

A rather relieved Jack paid for the wand, and they made their way, slowly, to the government building.  

“So,” said Jack.  “You want to save getting those beginner magic manuals for another day?”

“Absolutely,” said Danny.  He wondered if his twin had gone through anything even remotely like this and if it was really worth all this trouble to meet a person he would have basically nothing in common with other than blood.  

Blood that likely meant less than usual, considering that his was diluted with ectoplasm.  A fact he would have to hide.  With no allies or back up.  In England.

(Again, this whole endeavor was not his greatest idea.)

.

Draco supervised the house-elves as they cleaned out the room next to his own, feeling rather blank.  He had campaigned vigorously for his twin to come, but now that he was…

The boy, for all that he was as much a Malfoy as Draco, was an American for all intents and purposes.  What did Americans even like?  What did they call their bastardized version of Quidditch?  Would Deneb even know about wizard games?  According to the woman from the agency, he’d been raised as a muggle by those squibs he’d been placed with.  

Slowly but surely, Draco’s heart sank.  He had no idea what his twin would be like.  Deneb, despite being his brother, would essentially be a stranger.  

He was beginning to understand why his mother was so angry at his father.  

[phantomphangphucker]

Phic Phight - Born To Break Shit And (Eventually) Die

For: @library-of-cronos

Every single Fenton ever is a handful, especially when young and surrounded by elder Fenton’s and their experiments and other hazards. But Danny, Danny is on a whole nother level. Holy Hell.

“Danny don’t touch that!”.

…

“Danny take that blaster out of your mouth right this instant!”.

…

“DANNY! DO NOT PUT ECTOPLASM IN YOUR EYES!”.

…

A prolonged sigh, “Danny, please don’t use the beakers to play bowling”.

…

“Jazz that is a ghost book not a regular book, it will eat you if you open it!”.

…

“Danny how did you even get the lock off of that!?! No! No! Don’t try to stick it up your nose!”.

…

“Daniel James Fenton! Stop trying to lick the blob ghost's tongue! Not only is that gross, it’s DANGEROUS!”.

…

“Danny… why… why would set half our notes about core structure on fire and HOW?!?”.

…

“Jazz, I know the microscopes are very interesting but they’re also very expensive. We can get you your own if you- DANNY DO NOT KNOCK THAT OFF BY PLAYING PRETEND CAT!”.

…

“Danny, don’t eat glass. I know it’s green and shiny and glowy, but don’t eat glass. That’s sharp”…. “Oh don’t give me that look you little gremlin goof”.

…

Maddie sighs, glaring at the charred mark on the wall, “Jack, dear. Did you blow up the microwave again?”. He rubs his neck, “uh, Danny did it?”; and points at the toddler running by with a strangely burnt-looking ecto-knife. Maddie sighs.

…

“Yes Jazzy-pants, your rock collection is very impressive. But the ectoranium isn’t a super great addition. Do you want it to infect the rest of your pretty little rocks?” … “That’s what I thought”.

…

“Danny… no you can’t help us with the wiring and no, sticking the end in your mouth does not count as helping”… “what do you mean you like the tinglies!”.

…

Then Vlad actually visited for once, eventually watching Danny manage to set himself on fire, hide the ecto-proofing spray in the stove, try to use dirty beakers as goggles, and somehow manage to hogtie himself with the ecto-line. Vlad genuinely patting both Jack and Maddie on the shoulder, “good luck. This is an… interesting tombstone description waiting to happen”. They both looked a little offended but sighed in nearly defeated agreement.

…

“Where did you even get that from Jazz? I’ve never even seen that book before?”… “what do you mean Danny pulled it through a wormhole?!?”… “THERE’S A WORMHOLE IN THE BATHROOM MIRROR! JACK! STOP TRYING TO GET TO THE MIRROR DIMENSION!”.

…

“I’m… I’m actually impressed! You set fire on fire! That’s my Danny-boy! Just don’t tell your mother and never ever do that again”.

…

“I said clean up your toys not steal ectoplasm and roll it around to pick everything up into a hulking mass! It’s trying to eat the house!”… “I don’t care that it’s ‘clean now’, bad Danny”.

…

Jack chuckles, rubbing his neck and looking to his wife, “Danny ate that synthetic ghost ice. Apparently that gives you gas?”. Both of them watching Danny burp and white steam pluming out of his mouth, him giggling hysterically. Maddie sighs, “at least he’s okay. If only he’d stop swallowing the silverware”. Jack laughs, “hey! It was a good excuse to create digestible utensils that don’t ever expire!”, tilting his head, “kinda weird that that even sells well”. Maddie just shakes her head.

…

“Okay. So. Little gremlin child of mine. We put three baby-proof locks, practically on the ceiling, and double dead bolted the lab door. And yet, you still got down here and dyed half the cement neon pink by smashing almost half the glass slides on the ground?”… “I’m not even mad. I’m just confused”… “for the love of everything don’t stand on stacked up chairs. That’s dangerous!”.

…

“Jasmine… why is there an ecto-wiener shrieking about ‘overthrowing’ your music teacher?”… “I don’t care if she thinks classical is bad, you can’t have her attacked by hotdogs”… “Danny don’t eat the ecto-wiener and don’t distract me from chewing out your sister”.

…

Maddie flops down on the master bed, Jack chuckling at her, “long day?”.

“You have no idea”, her pushing herself to sit up, “you know what Danny did? He found that prototype shrink gun that accidentally only shrinks itself but very unfortunately looks like a rifle. Yeah, he brought that into the grocery store, I turned my back and suddenly he was running down the isles cackling and waving it, unshrunk, around terrorising people”. Jack sitting down on the bed laughing almost uncontrollably, her smacking him, “don’t laugh! We’re lucky we didn’t get kicked out!”.

“Sorry Mads! But that’s hilarious!”, and laughs some more. Eventually wheezing and adding on more seriously, “but I officially don’t think we can keep the kids, Danny especially, out of everything”. Her nodding so he continues, “so, think we should just teach them lab safety instead? How to handle and mess with things without getting hurt or destroying too much?”.

She sighs, shoving her head as deep as she can into her pillow, “yeah, alright. But if he teleports the house into an alternate dimension, I’m blaming you”.

“That was one time!”.

“One time too many”.

Jack pouts but joins her in bed. Either way, the Fenton children were as much of a handful as the Fenton adults. Maybe more, in Danny’s case.

As he would later go on to prove by pulling the biggest DANNY NO WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT and making himself part of an endangered should be impossible species by halfway dying.

End.

Prompt: The Fentons, having only recently become parents, don't really know how to keep their curious kids away from their experiments yet.

[sublime82]

the gods, demigods and Fenton's

There are many different pantheons of gods that rule the world and they all do not like each other as they are vastly different.

The gods of different pantheons are forbidden from interfering with other pantheons and their affairs unless it directly affects their own pantheon

The gods of the underworld get along better than the gods of the mortal realm as they all at least have one thing in common they hate the gods of the mortal world

The gods of the mortal world often argue about who came first and who is the true leader of the world.

The one thing that all the old gods can agree on is that they hate Jesus Christ and all religions that worship him, for he came out of nowhere and stole their faithful's and humiliated them time after time.

The ones with the most power in the world of the old ones are the Greco-Roman pantheon, not that anyone will admit it.

The Greeks and their Roman forms hate each other which makes them the most hated of the old gods for not only are they hated by all the other pantheons but also by themselves.

The gods have a feud over jurisdiction whenever demigod children of different pantheons marry as they fight over who's the patron gods over the new family and it unfortunately turns into them being abandoned and the family getting killed by monsters.

Monsters from Different mythologies can't track the demigods if they are not from the same mythology

Out of all the god kings Zeus is the most hated.

The Greek gods never forgave the Persian gods for the attempted invasion of Greece back in the day.

WW2 was actually the result of the different pantheons coming into conflict with one another even though they all agree it was the Greeks fault it all started.

The real reason Zeus killed Marie De Angelo was to get revenge on Hades when he took the side of a different pantheon instead of his.

Hades realized all though they were blood the only Family Hades had in the world above Was his wife Persephone, Elder Sister Hestia and his mother all the rest of them should be locked in Tartarus for all eternity.

Hestia once accidentally summoned Danny Phantom when she was bathing in a lake although Danny doesn’t remember anything as he was smacked senseless by Hestia before she ran off, causing him to fall unconscious and not remember how the hell he got into the middle of the lake or why his face hurt like hell.

Danny had a psychic connection to Bianca De Angelo and had dreams of her memories, her death sent a mental shock through his system that caused him to fall unconscious for three days.

Jasmine Fenton is a demigod child of Apollo and Maddie was Pregnant with her Before Jack and Maddie Married and that is why Jack tries to get Closer to Jazz then Danny cause he feels he has work for a bond with her since she is not his biological daughter, while he feels he already has that bond with Danny since he is the biological father of him.

When the Gods of the underworld found out about Pariah Darks freedom they prepared for war only to learn that a mortal child who has had ghost powers for little less than a year defeated him, they grew outraged and nervous for if he could defeat Pariah and has become the new ghost king what did that mean for the rest of them.

Ever since the discovery of Danny’s right to Pariah throne the lords of the dead have been conspiring with their creations the observants to prevent him getting the throne.

Hades hates Clockwork as clockwork was made from a piece of Cronos that mutated and became a separate being but all Hades sees is his father

[darks-ink]

Absurdism Chapter 11

Danny antagonizes Vlad, Valerie shows everyone why she is Amity’s best ghost hunter, and then promptly as A Regret.

Rating: Teen/K+ (a lil swearing, because teenagers, man) Warnings: - Genre: Family, Hurt/Comfort Additional Tags: Sibling Bonding, Family Bonding, Alternate Universe - Halfa Jazz AU, Jazz makes friends

[AO3] [FFN] [more Absurdism on Tumblr] First Chapter | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

---

“Have you seen?” Jazz asked the moment she joined Phantom in their clearing.

“What, the bounty?” He shrugged, far too casual for her comfort. “Yeah, it’s fine.”

“Fine? It’s a million dollar bounty! The world’s best known ghost hunters are all coming to Amity, just to hunt you down! How can you not worry about that?!”

Phantom blew out a breath. “Chill, Jazz. They’re the world’s best known ghost hunters, not the best. They’re a bunch of phonies who couldn’t catch a ghost if it waved at them.”

“But—” Nerves curdled in her stomach. Why was he so dismissive?

“It’s nothing,” Phantom said, more comfortingly, like he’d finally caught onto her concern. “Really, Jazz, it’s fine. I got away from all of them when I was your age, and I could do it again now. Not that I would have to, because the bounty isn’t real.”

She blinked at him. “It’s not?”

“Nah. Or, well, in my universe it wasn’t, so I bet it’s not in this one either. Vlad set it up to lure me—you—us away from the Fenton Portal so he can steal it. And I guess I make a better target than you.” He shrugged.

“He’s probably still trying to get you out of the way,” Jazz pointed out, crossing her arms. “Since you ‘stole’ his mentorship position, and all that.”

Phantom made a face. “Ugh, yeah, probably. Really, though, I’ll be fine.”

Jazz shuffled her feet uncertainly, watching her glow flicker slightly. A reflection of her emotions, she now knew. “Are you sure? I mean, it just takes one slip-up…”

“I’m sure, Jazz.” He smiled at her. “I mean, really, the only reason why I got caught in my own universe was because I felt bad for Dad and let him catch me. And you obviously haven’t hurt his feelings like I did, so…”

She snorted, startled. “Oh my god, you let him catch you? How did you even survive your first year as a half-ghost?”

“Well, some might argue I didn’t.” Phantom winked, his grin growing more wide. “But for real, he found out that the bounty was a trap, and the ghost who put it out was going to target our family. Or, well. Jack’s family. I offered to free him from the trap if he freed me from the Fenton Weasel, and that’s pretty much how it went.” He shrugged at the end of it, like it wasn’t a big deal that their ghost-hating father caught and then released a ghost of their caliber.

“How can you act like that?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Seriously, Dad caught you and then let you go?”

“His family comes before ghosts,” Phantom pointed out, humor leaching out of his voice. “Always.”

The mood was clearly broken. Silence fell, strained and uncomfortable.

Jazz cleared her throat uncertainly. “Right, so, uh. What are we working on today?”

---

Now, Danny usually doesn’t go out looking for fights—not counting his patrols—but he figured he would make an exception this one time. Vlad was still in Amity somewhere, lurking.

Besides, he fought the elder half-ghost in his own universe. If he didn’t come to Vlad, the man would surely seek him out. Better to catch him off-guard and engage on his own terms, right?

Finding the older ghost was easy enough. Even though half-ghosts were harder to detect—thanks, ghost sense—Vlad wasn’t alone; he’d brought the three vulture ghosts along. And those? Those were easy to track down, as long as you were looking for them.

Danny glanced downwards, quickly making sure that they were high enough up that no one could overhear. Assured of this, he flew up to Vlad’s level, even though the other half-ghost hadn’t noticed him yet.

“Hey, Plasmius!” he yelled, drawing even with the four ghosts. “What the fuck are you doing in Amity?”

Vlad whirled around, his red eyes briefly blown wide open—startled. Danny had actually startled him.

The expression was quickly wiped away in favor for Vlad’s usual smooth blankness, of course, but Danny was counting it as a win anyway.

“Phantom, I presume?” Vlad hummed, as the vultures spread out behind him. An attempt at intimidation, or were they getting out of the way for a possible fight?

“Oh please, like you don’t know exactly who I am.” He rolled his eyes at Vlad. “Seriously, man, you’re not welcome here. Haven’t you caused enough trouble yet?”

“Me?” Vlad pressed a dainty hand against his chest, eyes wide and blinking innocently. “Why, Phantom, what are you accusing me off? I haven’t done a thing.”

Danny shot Vlad the flattest, most disbelieving look he could manage. “Uh huh. Sure, old man. Nothing about this bounty is sketchy at all, and it certainly has nothing to do with you. Now, for the last time. Leave this town, or I’ll make you.”

The vultures behind Vlad squawked, a dead giveaway that it was Vlad’s fault. Not that Danny had any doubt about that, but it was always nice to have proof.

He grinned at Vlad, knowing the other half-ghost hated that cocky smirk. “So, now that we’ve established that… Leave, Vlad. I’m not above fighting you.”

“What, all on your own?” Vlad quirked an eyebrow at Danny. “I didn’t know you fought without your dear… sister.” The last word, he said carefully, measured.

Danny snorted. “I’ve fought more without her than with her. But don’t you worry, I’ve got more than enough power to deal with you.”

“Big words for a ghost who hasn’t even met me before,” Vlad scoffed, flaring out his cape in a (weak) attempt at intimidation. His fists flared up with pink ectoplasm. “But if it is a fight you want so dearly, I suppose I give you that much.”

“I would prefer if you just left,” Danny bit back, firing off two quick but low-powered ecto-blasts towards Vlad, “but I’ll settle for kicking your ass.”

Vlad summoned a minimal shield, small and glass-like, reflecting the blasts. “Oh please. Bold words for a little ghost that can barely form an ecto-blast. It’s a miracle that Specter would even consider you a mentor, when you have so little to offer her.”

“You’re just jealous that she didn’t want you,” Danny countered, smirking at Vlad. His core thrummed eagerly, flooding him with energy. It had been far too long since he’d been in a serious ghost fight. “But don’t be jealous, Vladdie, because she wouldn’t have accepted your offer even if I hadn’t been around!”

He underlined the statement with another ecto-blast, bigger and more powerful than the previous two. Vlad swore, ducking underneath it—barely.

Vlad shot back a blast of pink ectoplasm in retaliation. “Don’t call me that!”

The blow petered out against a hastily formed shield, and Danny blinked innocently. “Call you what, Vladdie? Don’t you like it when people use your name?”

Vlad snarled, the ectoplasm whirling together into pink flames. “Who do you think you are, you little pest!”

Danny opened his mouth to snark back, but Vlad lunged at him and he discarded the attempt in favor of protecting himself. He dodged the first swipe, used a shield to block the second, and then blasted Vlad in the side to push him away.

“Why do you even care about Specter?” Vlad asked, once he’d recovered from the unexpected counterattack. “You say she’s your sister, but you can’t be. It must be something else.”

Oh, Vlad. For an expert of all things half-ghost, he could be incredibly oblivious. “Why can’t I be, hm? Is there some sort of limit on half-ghosts, or do you just feel threatened by the possibility that someone could’ve managed without your help and expertise?”

He could see Vlad’s brain grind to a halt at that. The man froze in mid-air, the ectoplasmic flames around his fist dying off.

“You… You can’t be,” Vlad mumbled. His voice was quiet, like he was just thinking out loud. Danny would feel bad about listening in but, hey, Vlad has done far worse. “It makes sense, but— surely I would’ve noticed? He acts like he knows me, and he’s close to Jasmine, but— no. Surely not?”

“You’re rambling, man,” Danny interrupted, leaning his chin on his hand and rattling the fingers against his cheek. “You wanna leave to have your crisis somewhere else, or are we still gonna fight?”

Vlad whirled around to him, his aura flaring brighter. “Would you shut your mouth, Daniel?!”

Immediately, Vlad snapped his mouth shut, but it was too late. His cheeks colored—an inhuman teal—and Danny realized that Vlad hadn’t even meant to say his actual name.

“You know, I usually ask people to call me Phantom or Danny, but I’ll give you a pass for this once.” Danny lounged backwards, his spine clicking as he stretched. “Seriously, though. Are you gonna leave, or what?”

A pink ecto-blast whizzed by him, and Danny raised an eyebrow. “Well, alright then. If that’s how you want to play this.”

The next blast, he intercepted with a shield. It lasted through several more shots from Vlad, before Danny suddenly dropped it, following it with an ecto-blast of his own. It caught Vlad right in the arm, breaking up the steady rhythm of firing.

In the newly made gap, Danny darted closer, angling low and bypassing Vlad entirely. Electricity crackled over his arms, and he discharged it right against Vlad’s unprotected back.

The older half-ghost was blown forward, tumbling heels over head, but he managed to straighten himself quickly. He snarled, baring his fangs, flames licking over his arms.

Danny rolled his eyes, looking as unimpressed as he felt. “You’re not that scary, man.”

He waited until Vlad opened his mouth to snark back. When he did, Danny launched a pointed icicle, swiftly followed by several more.

Vlad swore, throwing his ectoplasmic fire in front of him. Once the flames had faded, Danny could see that Vlad had gotten soaked, but he seemed unharmed.

“You’ve been underplaying your skill,” the other half-ghost commented, his voice strained. “You didn’t need Specter’s help for any of those fights of yours, did you? But why else would he train her…"

“Yo, fruitloop, I’m right here!” Danny shot another ecto-blast, but it was halfhearted, and Vlad easily shielded it. “And I think you know the answer to that last question already, don’t you?”

“It can’t be!” Vlad snapped back, aura flickering wildly. “You’re obviously experienced, and I can’t have missed— missed another for so long!”

Danny scoffed dismissively. “Clearly you can. Seriously, man, it’s been years. You’ve missed your shot by miles, and Jazz will never take you, because she knows she’ll always have her actual family. Give up, Vlad. Or learn to do better, and maybe I’ll let you help.”

Vlad snarled, vicious and animalistic. “I don’t need your pity, boy, nor your advice! I’ll get what I want sooner or later, and you’d be wise to join me before you pick the losing side.”

“I’m already with the winning side, Vlad.” Danny crossed his arms, staring Vlad down impassively. “You’re free to join us if you clean up your game, you know? But nobody wants this, Vlad. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you can find happiness yourself.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Vlad sneered, eyes narrowed into bright red slits. “You’re, what, sixteen? You have barely an ounce of the life experience I have. But, nevertheless, I am done here.”

Vlad caught the edge of his cape, bowing deeply. “Goodbye, Daniel. You know where to find me if you change your mind.”

And, with that, he swept the cape over himself, disappearing in a swirl of pink smoke.

Danny cast out his ghost sense, confirming that Vlad had actually left. Him, and those vultures too. Uh, whoops. He’d gotten so caught up with Vlad that he forgot about the minions.

Well, they couldn’t have gotten that far. He would just have to keep an eye out during patrol.

Actually… maybe he could take Jazz out with him. That would assure her that the bounty wasn’t dangerous to him, right?

Yeah, that sounded like a good plan.

---

“Wanna join me on patrol?” Phantom asked, completely out of the blue. Jazz jerked her head towards him, frowned.

“Why?”

He shrugged vaguely. “You’re worried about the ghost hunters, yeah? If you come along on patrol, you can see first-hand that they’re no danger to me. Besides, they won’t go after you—they’re only interested in the bounty.”

“Well…” She made a face. He was right, she supposed, but still… “Are they really only going to chase you, though? That seems…”

“Sketchy? Kinda shitty? Just overall a really awful thing to do? Yeah.” He shrugged, lounging in mid-air. “There’s a reason why they held off on coming here until now. They don’t care about the actual ghost hunting, they care about the money.”

“That… sucks.”

Phantom shrugged again. “It also means that they have very little experience dealing with actual ghosts, so. Not very threatening. Want to join me for patrol?”

“I guess. Are you that worried about ghosts?” She frowned at him. “I mean, won’t the ghost hunter’s presence scare off other ghosts?”

“It’s possible,” Phantom admitted, easily. “But Vlad tends to drag his vulture minions along with him, and he’s not above having those guys cause trouble just to lure us out. So I’m gonna go on patrol and find them, make sure they can’t cause a ruckus later.”

“Isn’t that exactly what he wants, though?” She sighed. “But, yeah, sure, I’ll join you on patrol. Give me a second to finish this bit of homework, and I’ll meet you outside.”

Phantom grinned, wide and bright, and saluted her. Then he was gone.

She rolled her eyes—he was definitely running head-first into a trap—but did as she’d said. Her homework was almost done anyway, and she had plenty of time for the rest later. For now, she had to make sure that Phantom wasn’t doing anything stupid.

And, yeah, in some way he was her older brother. Maybe she was a bit too worried about Phantom. He was, after all, both older and more experienced as a half-ghost. He was way stronger than she was, could beat her easily if they fought.

But he didn’t always make good decisions. And that? That wasn’t a Phantom thing. That was a Danny thing.

Besides, they both knew that Phantom wasn’t happy to be here. No matter how hard he tried to be cheery, to help to the best of his abilities… He missed his home. He wanted dearly to go home. It was clear, so clear.

So, Jazz was glad that he was staying around anyway. That he was helping her with all this, instead of looking for a way home. Sure, he said that there was no point in looking for portals back, but there must be other ways. And even if he didn’t know about them just yet, he could’ve done tons of research in the time he’d been here.

But, no. Instead he’d stuck around in Amity, helping her. Training her, mentoring her, teaching her.

With her homework swiftly finished, Jazz pushed herself away from her desk, out of her chair. She bit her lip, hesitating for just a second… Leaving with Phantom to patrol would be sneaking out, wouldn’t it? But as long as she returned before it was too late her parents wouldn’t miss her, and Danny definitely wouldn’t.

She easily shifted to her ghost form, turning invisible and intangible so she could sneak out unnoticed. From her room it was just a short flight to the rooftop where Phantom was waiting, and she dropped her invisibility almost immediately.

“All done?” Phantom asked, pushing himself to his feet. With a quick flash of light he returned to his usual ghost form—he must’ve shifted back to avoid ghost detectors.

“Yeah. Lead the way, Phantom.”

He nodded, pushing himself off of the rooftop. Jazz followed him, taking a moment to remember the first they’d met. When she could barely fly up to meet Phantom’s height, never mind follow his steady flight.

She still couldn’t match his grace in the air, but, well. Danny had always been aiming for space. It made sense that he was better at flight, at disregarding gravity, than she was.

They found the vulture ghosts faster than the ghost hunters found Phantom, which either said worrying things about the hunters, or great things about them.

Unfortunately they weren’t that much faster, and the cacophony from the human hunters distracted her and Phantom long enough for Vlad’s minions to get away from them.

“Just follow my lead,” Phantom told her, a grin on his face, before he turned a full 180 degrees and flew back over the ghost hunters chasing them—him—them. She scowled, but did as he asked.

The hunters, in four clearly-uncoordinated groups, got tangled up in each other when they tried to give chase. Only a single shot was fired in their direction, and it went so wide that Jazz was almost embarrassed for the hunter who had fired it.

With their tail thus thrown off, the two of them managed to track down one of the vultures.

“Must’ve split up,” Phantom mumbled under his breath. They were hidden from the ghost around the corner of a building, ready to chase it down. “I’ll come from the front and freeze it, you catch it in the Thermos.”

“Gotcha.” She nodded, pressing her feet against the wall so she could push herself off.

Phantom nodded back, and off they went. He shot straight at the vulture, legs immediately melting into his spectral tail, hands glowing blue. He didn’t even fire the ice beam from the distance, like she knew he could, but held off until he was practically touching the vulture before releasing the shot.

It was effective, though, she had to give him that. The ghost was frozen solid, and the Thermos sucked it up easily.

“One down, two to go,” Phantom said, rejoining her. “Let’s keep up the pace, before those suckers catch up again.”

They returned to their sweeping loops over Amity, both turning invisible when they passed the ghost hunters again. Jazz thought they had ghost detectors, but they either didn’t have them, or didn’t use them, because the hunters didn’t even notice them. Suckers.

The two of them used a similar tactic on the second vulture, once they had found him. This time, though, Phantom scared the vulture by flying at him from the front, while she caught it off-guard—and in the Thermos.

“Just one more.” She grinned at Phantom. “Are you sure you didn’t ask me along just to make this go faster?”

He laughed, holding up his hands. “Guilty as charged. But, really, do you still think those guys are a threat to me after this?”

“I guess you’re right,” she allowed. “Come on, let’s go catch that last vulture.”

Just then, both their ghost senses went off.

“Well, I guess that he’s making it easy,” Phantom said, twisting his head to look upwards. “Oh, yeah, there he is.”

Jazz followed his pointing finger, and indeed, there the third vulture ghost was. Way up high, and actively flying around.

“What are we waiting for?” She smirked at Phantom, Thermos already in her hand. “Let’s get him.”

He grinned at the challenge, and before she could move, he launched himself upwards. Jazz laughed, quickly flying after him, even if she couldn’t match his speed.

The vulture squawked when Phantom hit him, apparently forgoing ghostly tactics to just body-slam the vulture at top speed. Jazz worried for a moment about how she was supposed to catch him in a Thermos, but Phantom was already turning around, arms still wrapped around the ghost.

They leveled out with her, stopping abruptly, and Phantom released the ghost. Apparently the maneuver had disoriented the vulture, because he didn’t even try to fly away.

Jazz uncapped the Thermos, held it up, and captured the ghost in its vortex. Satisfied with a job well done, she capped the Thermos again, clicking it back on her belt.

“And that was the last of them,” she said, a satisfied hum to her core.

Phantom dusted his hands, grinning at her. “Yeah. Thanks for the help, it really made things easier for me.”

“Not that you needed the help,” she countered with a shake of her head. “Seriously, those ghost hunters are just sad. I know that people don’t like it when we protect the town, but we have to be better than that, right?”

“The Fentons aren’t that bad either,” Phantom pointed out with a shrug. “And there’s always Val.”

“There sure is,” a familiar voice answered, and Jazz’ eyes snapped upwards. Red, and a lot of it. The whine of some sort of technology, and a blinding flash of light.

Jazz clenched her eyes shut, slowly opening them when the light faded again.

Valerie stood on her hoverboard, a knock-off Thermos in her black-gloved hands. It was nigh impossible to read her expression thanks to her mask, but Jazz thought she was frowning down at the device.

Wait.

Where was Phantom?

She looked around, but there was no trace of him. It was like he… disappeared.

Oh.

“Did you just catch my brother?” she bit at Valerie, twisting back to look at her. “I thought you were alright with us!”

Valerie scoffed, shoving her Thermos in a holster on her thigh. “There were more important targets. It’s a thing called prioritizing.”

“What, and we suddenly pushed to the top of your priorities?” Jazz asked, but cold realization seeped in. “Oh, no, of course. It was the bounty, wasn’t it?”

“Oh please.” Valerie huffed, her tone of voice making it sound like she rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t expect a ghost to understand what that money means to me, to my family.”

“There is no money!” Jazz snapped back, feeling her glow flare out, ectoplasm sparking around her fists. “It’s a trap, Huntress! Just let Phantom go. Don’t do this.”

“Or what?” Valerie bit back. “You’ll attack me? Not good for your status as protector, is it?”

“I’m serious! It’s a trap, alright, and you won’t get the money.” Jazz darted around to block Valerie’s path. “The bounty isn’t real, some ghost put it out because he wants Phantom out of the way, I swear!”

Valerie scoffed, pushing Jazz out of her way. “Yeah, I don’t believe you. Leave, Specter, or I’ll shoot you.”

“Fine.” Jazz moved aside, crossing her arms. “Go, then, prove me right. But don’t blame me if this comes back to bite you in the ass, Huntress.”

“Oh, don’t be dramatic,” Valerie murmured, shaking her head. Her hoverboard roared to life, and away Valerie went—with Phantom captured in a Thermos.

“Ugh,” Jazz sighed, immediately dropping her stern posture. “I can’t believe— Of course she would be out here too, hunting for the bounty.”

She knew she should go out after them, should free Phantom, but… there wasn’t all that much she could do. Valerie would probably release Phantom sooner or later herself, once she discovered that it really was a trap. And Phantom wouldn’t want her to follow, either. Would want her to keep her house, and the ghost Portal, safe.

So she reluctantly turned around, flying back home.

No ghost hunters bothered her.

---

Danny had some experience with getting captured with ghost hunting devices, but the Thermos always remained one of his least favorites. The Weasel, at least, allowed him to overhear the outside, to still feel like he existed. The Thermos was… was nothing. From the moment he went in to the moment he was released again, it was like no time had passed.

It wasn’t… uncomfortable, or something. It just… didn’t exist. As long as he was in the Thermos, he was completely and utterly unaware. It was like no time passed at all; he was just suddenly elsewhere, and also it was three hours later.

He tumbled back into awareness—literally—staring right into Valerie’s mask. It was creased heavily around her brows, a clear sign of her frowning at him. And glaring, probably, knowing Valerie.

They were inside a cage of sorts, the bars made out of pink ectoplasm. Ah, yes. Danny remembered this part.

“I hate your sister,” Valerie told him, leaning right into his face. “I want you to know that.”

“Duly noted.” He rolled his shoulder, grimacing at the sound of it crackling. “She warned you about the trap, huh?”

Valerie hissed, low, and Danny raised his hands. “Chill, it’s fine. Specter can be a bit of a know-it-all sometimes. She’s clever, but she’s not great at conveying that knowledge.”

“I don’t care,” Valerie growled, then took an audible breath. When she continued, her voice was calmer. “Look, I just… I know you and Specter aren’t actively causing trouble in the city, so you’re not, like, high on my shitlist or anything. But that bounty went out and… it seemed too good to be true, but I just… wanted it to be real.” She shrugged. “My family and I… we really could’ve used that money.”

“It’s fine, Red. I get it.” Danny caught himself halfway through lifting a comforting hand, freezing in place. Valerie probably wouldn’t be receptive to that sort of thing, not from him. “I know everyone thinks that ghosts don’t remember anything from their lives, but… I know I do. And I… I remember what being poor can do to someone. How much it sucks, and what kind of weird shit people might pull just for some money.”

Valerie cocked her head slightly, her mask crunching together slightly. “Like what?”

“What, is this a cross-examination now?” He rolled his eyes, huffed for dramatic effect. “I might have sold stuff from my parents’ shed to make some money, hoping that they had hoarded enough stuff that they wouldn’t notice.”

“That’s nowhere near what I just did,” Valerie pointed out, crossing her arms.

“Well, no, but it’s not like I had ghost hunting equipment or potentially dangerous ghosts to chase down.” Danny shrugged, loosely. “Seriously, it’s fine. Not the first time I’ve been caught, and you, at least, had a pretty valid reason to catch me. If I had to get captured for this bounty stuff, I’m glad that it was you and not one of those other hunters.”

She made a face. Or, well. He thought she did. “Are those… seriously the best money could buy? Because, uh, yikes. I had no idea ghost hunting, as a profession, looked like that.”

“Yeah, you made a poor career choice.” He grinned at her. “But, hey, you’ve got plenty of time left to change stuff around. Or to better the name of ghost hunting. Either or, really. Up to you.”

“You sound like a motivational speaker.” Valerie scoffed. “Seriously, I thought you were bad during battles, but this? This is worse.”

“Aw, Red, I didn’t know you cared.” He pressed a hand against his chest, blinking lovingly. It was just… too easy to fall back into his easy banter with Val. He knew he shouldn’t, but, well. Banter was better than fighting, yeah? “But, for real, I get it. Specter and I, we try our best, but we’re not perfect. We can’t catch every ghost the moment they look like they’re up to anything malicious, unfortunately. I’m sorry it happened to you.”

“I don’t think you are,” she said, shaking her head, but Danny recognized that tone. It was her “I’m starting to acknowledge that you’re actually kind of human-like but I refuse to accept it” tone.

And, yes, Valerie had a tone like that. It was rare, but the few times he’d heard it had been memorable enough to stick.

“Well, that’s up to you.” He reached out a hand towards the bars, but they didn’t shock him. Ah, yeah, just like last time. Not phase-proof. “You want me to apologize by phasing you out of this?”

“You can do that?” She jerked her head back towards him. “I thought— It looked like ectoplasmic energy, I figured it would zap you if you tried.”

He wrapped a hand around the bar, tugging it meaningfully. “Doesn’t look like it. Besides, isn’t that why you let me out of the Thermos again? Or did you just want to vent about my sister so badly that even I would do?”

“Oh, shut up,” she grunted. “Just let me out and we’ll ignore this ever happened.”

“Sure thing, Red. The closer you are to the bars, the shorter I’ll have to make you intangible, so…” He gestured vaguely. “I’m assuming you want that time to be as short as possible, anyway.”

She inched closer, keeping her head turning towards him the whole time. “Why do you keep calling me that, anyway?”

“What, Red?” He shrugged. “Specter and I needed a name to refer to you, and, well. You’re a ghost hunter, dressed almost entirely in red. So, the Red Huntress.”

Valerie stopped next to the bars—and him—and stared him down. “I would comment on your naming skills, but I feel like that’s a lost cause, since you’re two ghosts called Specter and Phantom.”

“Believe me, I’ve heard it before.” He offered her a hand. “The worst part is honestly that we didn’t even coordinate that. We didn’t know the other had become a ghost until we ran into each other.”

“So shitty names are a family trait?” Valerie asked as she took his hand. Hers was warm even through her gloves.

Danny paused, thinking of literally every single one of his parents’ inventions. He shrugged. “Kinda, yeah.”

“I… I really don’t know how to feel about that, Phantom.”

He laughed, and used the moment of distraction to turn the both of them intangible. He stepped backwards through the bars, tugging Valerie along with him. Released both the intangibility and her as soon as they were through.

“That’s fair,” he ended up saying with another shrug. “My family was… a lot.”

“At least Specter still is,” Valerie said. Then she froze, seemingly startled by the fact that she’d just said something comforting to a ghost.

“That, she is,” he agreed with a nod. “Speaking of, I should go check in with her. Tell her you didn’t re-kill me or anything. Will you be alright from here on out?”

Valerie scoffed. “I don’t need your help. Yes, Phantom, I’ll be fine. Go worry over your sister.”

“I will. Stay safe, Red.”

He pushed off before she could answer, darting upwards too fast to hear anything she might shout afterwards. After that, however, he lowered his speed for the flight back home. Or, well. Back to FentonWorks. His dad could deal with Vlad fine on his own, and Jazz was around in this universe, too.

Still, even a casual speed brought him to FentonWorks quickly, and he landed on the same rooftop that he’d started the patrol on. He only had to wait for a few moments before Jazz appeared next to him.

Danny opened his mouth to greet her, but suddenly a body was pressed against him, chilly arms wrapping around him.

“Hey, Jazz,” he said, voice soft, as he wrapped his own arms around her. “It’s fine, I’m alright.”

“I was worried,” she admitted quietly. “I… I knew you’d be okay, but I couldn’t stop worrying.”

“I’m sorry.” He ran his hand through her hair, as strange and gravity-defying as his own. “I didn’t realize you’d be so worried, or I would’ve stopped talking to Val sooner. I promise, I’m fine.”

She huffed a breath in his neck, then pulled away a little. “You were talking to Valerie?”

Hook, line, and sinker. “Yeah. Warming her up a little to, well. Ghosts in general, I think, but mostly to us. How’d things go here?”

“They went fine. I didn’t have to do anything.” She pulled away entirely, but still didn’t look quite settled. “Dad beat up Plasmius with some of the inventions, and Mom and Danny just kind of shouted encouragements at him. I didn’t even have to do anything.”

“Good, good. That’s pretty much what happened in my universe too.” He nodded, rolling his spine and grinning at Jazz’ disgusted face. “Well, not the encouraging part, but Dad defeated Vlad on his own. In my universe, the vultures had grabbed Mom and, uh, Jazz, and trapped them in the weapon vault.”

Jazz blinked at him for a moment. “We have a weapons vault?”

“Yeah? It’s got a circular door and a keypad?” He shrugged. “It’s also not phaseproof, so it’s kind of worthless against ghosts. Well, it isn’t phaseproof now. They improved it when too many weapons disappeared but, well. Not much point to it if they kept telling me the password.”

“That’s ridiculous. How did I not know that it existed? You should show me where it is, later, just in case.”

“Sure thing.” He yawned. “Sorry, it’s been a long day. Shouldn’t you head to bed soon?”

She heaved a deep sigh. “Yeah, I… Wait a minute. You talked with Valerie! Danny!” She jumped forward, suddenly, crowding him. “You need to tell me what you two talked about!”

“Woah, chill, Jazz.” He gently pushed her away again. “Now?”

“Yeah, now!” she snapped at him. “You tried to change the topic so I would forget! I need to know what you two talked about so I know how to approach her tomorrow!”

“Alright, alright, I get it.” He shook his head. “Alright, so, it started like this…”