#now with 80% more ghost portal

[threewaysdivided]

Decided to update the original FFN-style ‘book cover’ art for my fanfic Young Justice: Deathly Weapons. 

It’s fun to see how the visual identity of this fic has evolved from when I first came up with and posted the initial idea (right) to now (left) that it has a fully-detailed plan that’s developed a vibe of its own.

[Art pieces inside the background-portals can be seen here and here.  Teaser summary for upcoming “episodes” here.]

Original Summary:

Hunted. Haunted. Hero. Kryptonians aren’t the only species with weaponisation potential.

New FFN Summary:

A business agreement. A small-town hero, on the run and struggling. A danger few people even believe is real. When an unexpected face intervenes on a mission gone wrong, the Boy Wonder begins to realise that there's more to the story. And what started out as a hunt for answers draws the Duo - and the Team - into a more complex web than any of them could have seen coming.

New AO3 Summary:

A business agreement seems like such a small thing.

In the eyes of the world, Phantom and the Fentons are long gone.  But accidents aren’t always accidents and, when an unexpected face intervenes on a mission gone wrong, the Boy Wonder begins to realise that there’s more to the story.

The stubborn fugitive they find isn’t the easiest lead to work with.  But those powers have potential, and partnership could be an asset - so long as Robin can play his cards right.  And, while he may not want to admit it, their offer might be exactly what a struggling half-ghost needs.

Which turns out to be a lot less one-sided than any of them knew.  As the paranormal starts coming out of the woodwork and clues begin piling up, a new recruit might just be what the Team needs too.

[bet-on-me-13]

The First Supervillain

So! A Typical "Early Start" AU where the events of The Show happen early in the Timeline. Like, in the 70's or 80's.

Danny never quite managed to fix his Public Perception, and even years into his career people still saw him as the Villain.

Coincidentally Valerie was seen as a Hero because of how often they were seen fighting. Even after they revealed their Identities and got together, they still had the occasional Battle. It was their love language.

His role as the Villain was Cemented when Pariah launched his Second Invasion of Earth after some dumbass accidentally freed him, and Danny took the Blame for it. Instead of being seen as the Hero who battled Pariah and stopped the Invasion, he was seen as the Tyrant to launched the Invasion in the first place, with Red Huntess being the one to defeat him in one final Ultimate Battle.

And honestly? He was fine with that. Now that he was the King of the Ghost Zone, he had the Authority to Regulate the Portal so villains stopped getting through. And that meant that he wasn't needed to stop random Ghost Attacks anymore. He could finally focus on College and his own Life, instead of sacrificing everything to act as the Protector of the Human Realm.

Val continued to be a Hero for a few more years, eventually retiring when it became Clear that the new generation of Heroes could pick up the Slack.

He went to College, got a Job as an Aerospace Engineer, and eventually proposed to Valerie.

About 20 years since his initial Accident, and he was doing great! He had moved into a humble home on the edge of town with his loving wife Val, his beautiful daughter Ellie, and his cute dog Cujo.

Yeah, life was good.

Until the day Danny accidently caused a Mass Crisis.

...

Superman was having some extreme trouble in dealing with his current Opponent. He had just been flying around the City, patrolling as Usual, when all of a sudden he had been attacked by a Flying Mech Suit.

At first he had assumed that Lex was giving it another Go, but he quickly realized that was not the case when the Armor seemed to Phase though solid matter in the middle of the battle. Lex had never made Tech advanced enough to do that on the fly.

This opponent was tough too. Strong enough and Durable enough to go blow for blow with him, and seemingly able to pull Advanced Weaponry from out of nowhere whenever he wanted. As tough as it was to admit, Superman as losing the Battle.

Then, without warning, the battle stopped. His opponent was staring at the space just behind him, with a look of pure dread. He turned around, and his heart stopped.

Floating behind him, staring right past him and directly at the Mech Suit, was the First Villain Phantom.

He looked much the same as when he had last been seen, although he was definitely Older. He had snow white hair, and glowing green eyes that seemed to stare right past him and into his very soul. He was wearing what seemed to be a costume of sorts, with an all black suit, white gloves, and white boots. Over his Shoulders sat a Cloak made of Stars, and above his head sat a Crown made of an Icy Blue Fire.

The Mech tried for a greeting, "Er- Hello t-Lord Phantom. How do you d-"

"Skulker."

"Y-yes?"

"What are you doing here? I thought I gave you explicit orders to stay in the Ghost Zone until further notice. You disobeyed me."

"Okay look. I got excited, that's my fault. It's just, I got anxious waiting. Can you really blame me? I've been waiting 20 years to take another Crack at the Human World, what's it matter if I left a few weeks Early?"

"I told you. You were supposed to wait exactly 20 Years, and you left Early. This calls for punishment."

"No wait!"

"Let's see how you feel after a few days as Soup."

The Villain pulled out a Thermos, and in a flash of green light, Skulker was gone, and the King was capping the Thermos. He then turned to Superman.

"I apologize for him, he decided to leave ahead of schedule." The King addressed him. "Now, Kryptonian. Rest and tend to your wounds, you will need to be in your best health if you want to continue saving the lives of those people below us."

With a dramatic flare, the King reached up and Tore a hole in Space. Through the Hole, Superman could only see an infinite Green Void, with the sound of screams cheering being heard through the rift.

The King departed through the Tear in Spacetime, and it closed behind him.

Superman tried to collect himself, and activated his League Emergency Comms.

"Attention All Founding Members, and Justice League Dark Members. This is Superman calling for an immediate Emergency Meeting."

He took a deep breath.

"Phantom is Back."

[ew-selfish-art]

DPx DC Au: Might as well be brothers. Young Justice hears about a regional hero disappearing, and while they've never met the guy, Red Robin's contacts say that Ra's is hunting him for afterlife/immortality related reasons.

Tim drake hates the annoying white uniform he's wearing but breaking into this place is crucial to his 24 hour plan to rescue Phantom. He'd never even heard of the guy until a week ago when Pru came to him with info that Ra's was looking into Midwest Real Estate, and then Tim stumbled down the rabbit hole of Ghost conspiracy theories until he saw an article demanding that local officials speak on the hero's absence of 10 days. 10 days was short enough that Tim might find a sign of life and well, another federal agency being hacked by Red Robin is nothing new.

So now, he's walking down the halls with these stupid fucking glasses and this stupid fucking suit while Kon listens from the comfort of the surveillance van. He takes a turn and sees the track suits that the illegally detained inmates are wearing, and pivoting the plan, makes his way to a locker room to get one and get changed. It does take him an extra second and he considers that this might bite him- but Tim knows the place inside and out. He's scoured all their data, and sue him for being cocky, but he has a literal alien ready to tear the place apart waiting for his heart rate to jump above 80 bpm. which is a pretty low heart rate all things considered.

Tim gets exactly where he's meant to go, and waits only a few minutes before he see's the science team extract Phantom from the high security room.

Phantom doesn't make it clear if he notices Tim, but he's basically being dragged by the couple, so Tim decides to beat them to their destination. The experimental wing had shown up in their reported data not long after they made it extremely obvious that they had Phantom in their data output.

Tim's already in the room when he starts to notice that it's not exactly a room... more like a mechanical space. The way the corners curl in the room make it almost tube like... Portal like.

Phantom is thrown in and Tim grabs him the second the scientists leave, but the kill switch key Tim made to get them out isn't working for this door like it did all the others.

"Not... Not a door."

"We're in some sort of device aren't we? Something of their own design that the government isn't aware they're funding?"

"Portal. You've gotta get out, even if you get caught, you gotta get out now."

Tim's comm comes alive in his ear, its Kon responding to Tim's heart rate rising- and Tim is hesitant to call him in but ultimately tells him to start flying over for extraction.

Then the portal goes off, and while he feels pain, he doesn't feel different. Bright light subsiding, Kon's arms around him with a confused voice, and lots of lasers being fired his way... Tim wakes up to see a much younger Phantom looking at him from the other side of the young justice couch.

Kon, Bart and Cassie are all fighting at a white board that's been wheeled in but Tim can only yawn and blink his way into consciousness enough to give a shit.

Black haired and blue eyed, button nosed with large ears, a wry thin lipped smile... Tim realizes that Phantom looks incredibly similar to his younger self. And then Tim looks at his much smaller hands and realizes that he probably looks a lot more similar to his younger self than normal.

Taking in the scenery once more, the white board is divided on the traits Tim has to the children sitting left and right on the couch. Kon didn't know who was who. That meant that maybe... the government didn't either.

Phantom turns out to be a pretty chill dude despite all the trauma, and he's incredibly prepared to both fuck with Ra's and the government in their newly found childhood twin-ship.

One of the twins is scarier than the other, and despite Danny literally haunting them, its always Tim.

(Okay now its some one else's turn :D )

[mazamba]

Sponsored By

Ironically, the most eventful day in the careers of Mr. and Mrs. Fenton had nothing to do with ghosts. The two had just returned from the supermarket and were carrying in the groceries, when the shadow in the corner began to speak.

"We need to talk."

"GHOST!"

The couple were on their back before they could draw their weapons.

"You are the foremost experts in the field of ecto-biology," said Batman as if he hadn't just brought down a three hundred pound man and a ninth-degree black-belt before either of them could realize he'd moved, "I have questions regarding your sponsor."

"Sweetie, is the Batman in our living room?" asked Jack.

"I do believe he is," replied Maddie as she stood up and patted the dust off her clothes, "you know, you could have called for an appointment. We'd have made time."

"In the 80's, the two of you had your doctorate studies rescinded due to your studies in what you called "ecto-science"," he stated, ignoring their indignation, "yet you now live in an upper-middle class neighborhood and spend thousands of dollars a year on technology that didn't have a proper proof-of-concept until recently."

"What's your point?" asked Jack.

"Where is the money coming from?"

"If you must know, we have a sponsor," replied Maddie, "after our dean proved to be too small-minded for our research, we were approached by a man who was more open to the possibility of inter-dimensional research."

"He wanted us to study ghosts!" cut in Jack, "He even gave us our very first sample of ectoplasm!"

"That one sample was the backbone of our research for years, until we got our portal running."

"You never asked where he got that sample from?"

"He seemed like a trust-worthy fellow," dismissed Maddie, "all he asks is for copies of our experiments and for ectoplasm from our portal."

"What sort of experiments?"

"Well, at first we needed to verify the psycho-active behavior of the sample," recalled Maddie, "if you give me a second, I have my research around here somewhere."

"You took the sample to several morgues," Batman told them, "the sample's most drastic and extreme behavior occurred when it was placed close to bodies who had a history of violent and anti-social behavior in life."

"Maddie, the League's reading our papers!" Jack giggled excitedly, "But yes, it's how we know that all ghosts are evil ectoplasmic scum!"

"You never questioned the origin of the sample?"

"It was the only sample we had," pointed out Maddie, "but it's properties matched all of our theories."

"The man you spoke with was Ra's al Ghul," he informed them, dropping a folder full of pictures and documents for them to peruse, "thousands of years ago, Ra's found a well of green water that is now known as a Lazarus Pit. Using its power, he has rejuvenated himself time and again to maintain his position as the head of the League of Assassins. After some experimentation, he found the same pits could keep his forces alive, even in death.

"Over time, the League came across a problem that threatened their continued existence. They were consuming the Pit's water faster than it was replenishing itself. After much experimentation, they found a solution. At the moment of death, when the human soul passes over to the Infinite Realms, what you call the Ghost Zone, a small amount of ectoplasm leaks over to our side."

"Wait, you don't mean...?" Maddie trailed off, horror settling in.

"Ra's killed people en masse to replenish his pool," affirmed Batman, "further experimentation revealed that people who died in a state of extreme fear or pain provided more ferocious soldiers. That is where your sample came from.

"In it's neutral state, ectoplasm reacts equally to all emotional ranges. Repeated exposure to emotional extremes will imprint the ectoplasm, causing it to react more strongly to a specific emotional range than to others. The negative emotions of Ra's victims imprinted on the ectoplasm, resulting in your skewed results."

"Wait, how would you know that?" demanded Maddie, "We're the foremost experts on ecto-science and we didn't know that!"

He pulled out a thick folder and slammed it onto the table.

"I had my research peer-reviewed."

"By who?" asked Jack, "We looked all over and couldn't find anyone in the scientific community!"

"You weren't looking in the right place. There is a branch of the Justice League that specializes in the supernatural, ghosts and demons chief among them. They want me to bring you in."

"Really!? Did you hear that Mads! We're being recruited by the Justice League!"

"They want me to arrest you," Batman corrected them, "for illegal poaching of innocent and neutral spirits, particularly after last week's attack on their newest member, Danny Phantom."

"The Ghost Boy!?" roared Jack, "That no-good ectoscum made the League before we did!?"

"I have watched his fights. He takes care to avoid collateral damage and only appears when other ghosts attack, sometimes at great personal cost."

"Look, Mr. Batman," sighed Maddie in a condescending tone, "we've fought the ghost boy for years. He has a history of crime and violence. If you look far enough, you'll find-."

Batman had no time for nonsense.

"The League has already looked into the incidents. All show indications of either coercion or mind control."

"Ghosts are deceitful and conniving-!"

"We have already established that your initial sample skewed your results," he cut Jack off, "this would imply that all of your research and experiments need to be reassessed, including your opinions towards ghosts in general.

"Regarding Ra's al Ghul, you will need to continue working with him. Cutting contact suddenly may put you and your family in danger."

That caught their attention.

"What do we need to do?" asked Jack, all jokes and outrage immediately tossed out the window.

"Keep doing your research with this new information in mind. Your experiments have been applied to the Lazarus Pits, resulting in unstable results. Recent subjects have come out in a mindless rage, while others have shown no effect on their mind, and yet others have had no effect. Ra's is already skeptical of your continued collaboration. If you provide him with research based off this new information, he may decide you are not worth his time or money. When it comes to Ra's, your best option is dismissal to irrelevance. You do not want to make an enemy out of him."

"It's not just that," admitted Maddie, "if we were the only ones being affected, we'd simply let him know we're exploring new horizons outside of ecto-science. The thing is, we have two children, one in college and one near graduation."

He gave them a card. "Call that number. All of their college expenses will be taken care of."

"I... Bruce Wayne?" read out Jack.

"We've collaborated before, he is trustworthy," he reassured them, "the next part is up to you. Will you be scientists, or poachers?"

Their lights flickered, and he was gone.

[dxrksong]

Blob ghosts and the Lazarus pits

May be subject to change as I just woke up.

So before I go into the study of Blob ghost's relation to the pits I should probably analyze the pits themselves.

Taking a note from various theories, I'm gonna go ahead and say the pits are natural portals to the GZ. But since these don't close I'm gonna do a step further and say these are the pores of the infinite realms!

Portals that open in the GZ but they close SLOWLY, making it seem like they don't close at all. And while they're closing, excess ectoplasm pools around it, making the pits we know today!

And of course, the longer the pits were exposed to negative emotions and various contaminants, the more dirty and corrupted it became.

The solution? Blob ghosts! The feeder fish of the ghost zone! There are dozens of them in every pit!

Now about the blob ghosts, is that they adore helping people and ghosts alike. Hungry ghosts? Free snack! Sick ghost? *vacuum noises*

So when this random human fell in, looking sickly? Free roomie!

And that's how Ra's al gul found 'immortality'. Although what the blob ghost really did was get rid of whatever was ailing him and replace anything that needed to be replaced.

The more Lazarus pit baths he has? The more parts get replaced by blob ghosts. He'd probably be 80% blob ghosts by the time he realizes this fact.

So what about Jason?

Well if my Intel is correct, TECHNICALLY it wasn't the pits that revived him at first. It was someone more or less punching someone with enough power to essentially revive Jason! (I think it was super boy??? I can't remember??)

But Jason was a zombie at that point. No core, no ghost. Until the dip into the pits where Johnny 13 got yeeted back into his old body.

And a body suddenly gaining a core? At least a year after death? The body would attempt to reject the core! And that's where the blob ghost comes in!

Making an ectoplasmic vein and nervous system, the blob ghost wraps around Jason's core and got comfortable! :)

[the-scarecrow-of-aus]

A slightly naughty alternative meta theory for the dcxdp fandom

Ghostly baby boom!

(Not to be confused with bang babies)

Ever since the Drs Fenton started experimenting on the infinite realms in the 80's/70's(?) There's been alot more natural portals opening onto earth with visitors.

Now these ghosts are stuck there waiting for a new portal to sweep them back to the zone. Sometimes they like to go 'blow off some steam' to help them cope. (Whether that's to fight, drink, party ect...)

Now, overshadowing a person tends to leave a small build up of ectoplasm in the hosts body, a figurative 'someone was here' kind of deal and while it's not going to cause any problems long term, it takes a while to get out of your system...

Meanwhile, doing the 'two person tango' without protection with someone whose been overshadowed recently is gonna transmit all sorts of things...

Cue a new generation or two of kids running around with trace ectoplasm in their system waiting for something to trigger a change, Making them metahumans. Most won't, they'll live life happily, slightly better at certain things for an unknown reason.

Now let's go back a bit. What about the people who got overshadowed on a night out and woke up in bed with someone they may or may not know, unable to remember the absolute rager they went to...

How many kids were born with the ectoplasm of a third parent? This is where the powerful meta's came from!

-How many times you think Johnnie and kitty have gone out on a 'double-date?'

(Bonus: The Nth metal in their make-up is particles attaching themselves to the ectoplasm in a sort of chemical covalent bond. The scientists unable to observe the ectoplasm believe the Nth metal particals are responsible for the powers)

[giulliadella]

Scarlet Gospels sucks

Spoilers for literally the entire book if you even want to read that pile of hot garbage.

Scarlet Gospels is a novel written by Clive Barker in 2015 as a conclusion of Hellraiser saga AND IT'S PURE GARBAGE. I will try my absolute best to explain why it sucks, starting with...

The summary (in 5 sentences)

Hell Priest (that's Pinhead for the uncultured) enters a din of magicians and turns all except one into minced meat and also makes one female magician give birth to some abomination that eats their remains; the remaining magician Felixson is taken to Hell. Harry D'Amour (a detective for the occult) is sad because a demon jerked off to his friend getting burned alive, so he goes to visit Norma (blind woman who sees ghosts) and is sent on a mission to investigate a house of a recently deceased ghost who needed to hide some incriminating evidence. Harry finds Lament Configuration there and opens it, Hell Priest appears with cenobite Felixson and they try to kill Harry, but he escapes and is saved by a group of weird people where a trans woman drugs him to make him have nightmares so that he can wake up faster. Meanwhile Hell Priest kills all Cenobites with origami and opens a portal to Earth from Hell, goes to Earth with Felixson, lamely fights using blood magic and kidnaps Norma. Harry then goes to Hell with a few people, a bunch of random shit happens and it all ends with Hell Priest and Lucifer having an anime battle in which Lucifer wins and Hell Priest is pissed so he blinds Harry and kills Norma and then Lucifer destroys Hell, but Harry and the others escape and now Harry sees ghosts.

Now it's time for the reasons why it sucks:

Impostor Pinhead

First and foremost, what the FUCK happened to Pinhead's character?! I've read old Hellraiser comics from 80s and 90s and there you can meet the Cenobites in their full glory and understand them as characters. In those comics Pinhead is chaotic neutral and he's extremely likeable, just like in the movies. But in Scarlet Gospels he's a total dick from first to the last page. Even the dumbass Boom! comics kept Pinhead as mostly in character until the fiasco with Elliott Spencer's reincarnation happened. I would like to personally ask mr Barker why the FUCK is Pinhead suddenly a power hungry jerk with no morals who rapes people. Why does he kill all of the Cenobites for exactly NO REASON?! In old comics, Pinhead is basically a father figure to all the Cenobites and he clearly cares about them. He teaches them, keeps them in order, gives motivational speeches and punishes them if they deserve it, but he would never kill any of them. NEVER.

Then there's the glaring issue of him having no motives for his actions. Basically in this dumbass book, he wants to take control of Hell and become supreme being which is literally the polar opposite of his character in both the movies and the comics. He isn't power hungry, he's a very devoted, dignified person who dedicated his life to serving Leviathan. But Leviathan doesn't even appear in this book, so WTF!? More on that later, power is usually a motive for a villain, heck, that's the motive of my own villains as well. But we need a reason for character to crave power. The villain who wants all power just because is cartoony and childish and that's exactly what Pinhead is in this entire book. Also, for whatever reason, he wanted Harry to document his rise to power and write his gospel which is just beyond dumb. Why does he want this documented? No clue. Why does he want power? Don't ask me, mate. And on top of that, killing all of the Cenobites didn't aid him in achieving power at all, so he also killed them all just because.

And on top of that, he's a completely different person. He's not elegant and restrained; he cusses, he uses his fists to beat the shit out of Norma, he's scummy, hypocritical and overall a pure asshole. Even Unbound Pinhead from Hellraiser 3 kept his dignity and personality, but this impostor doesn't! He's so obsessed over getting to rule Hell that he kills innocent people and cuts off parts of his own body to be able to wear Lucifer's clothes. And there's no explanation for that obsession!!!! WHY!? Why is he so out of character!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Harry D'Amour is a sentient bag of potatoes

And so are all of his friends. Literally, if you cut out Harry's entire arc out of this book, absolutely no part of the main plot would change. Harry plays no part in Pinhead's rise to power, he's just there to document it, as a witness. So he's literally just dragged around Hell.

Harry's personal life and everything else depicts him as the most generic, edgy hero and he has a personality of a wax crayon. I don't know if he's a better character in other books about him, but in Scarlet Gospels he's just an observer whose only agency is to save Norma. And in the end he gets blinded by Pinhead because he sucked as a witness as well lmao. He also didn't even save Norma, she got killed. He was literally there just to brood, say a few cringey one-liners and be useless. AMAZING MAIN HERO AMIRITE!?

And his friends are even worse. All of them were so bland and boring. Although two of them had cute gay romance which was fun, but it's mentioned just in passing and it ends with them talking about the size of their genitals which is... unnecessary to say the least!

Christianity has no place in Hellraiser!

Yes, it's called Hellraiser and, yes, there are mentions of angels and demons and Hell in the movies, but Hellraiser IS NOT Christian. Hell in this universe IS NOT Christian Hell, it's a lovecraftian alternative dimension and that's what makes it fun. Christian Hell and stories about it have been done so many times and Scarlet Gospels is just one of many mediocre Christian horror books. In the comics, Cenobites do mess with religion, Pinhead hates Christianity and all that is fine. We DID NOT need to turn the beautiful Labyrinth from Hellbound and the comics into dumb, unimaginative Christian Hell. Fuck that. Lucifer was a fun character to read about, but where is Leviathan!? Leviathan is literally the most recognizable part of Hellraiser Hell and it doesn't even get mentioned. WHAT THE FUCK?!

Transphobia (tw)

There is one character who is a trans woman and she is treated like walking genitalia. All of the characters, including Harry, constantly comment about how she's manly and how she has wide wrists and how she's too blocky and how she had bottom surgery and I'm like what the actual fuck. I am a cis woman and people have been telling me my entire life that my wrists are too broad and that I have manly hands. It triggers me to no end and I cannot even begin to fathom just how triggering that would be to a trans woman. Not to mention that her character has no personality besides trying to act womanly and she's the only one in Harry's group who is evil. And she's evil for no reason. And on top of that, she's murdered off screen and Barker uses that scene to once again describe her "mutilated genitals". WHAT THE FUCK!!! This part made me so irrationally angry and I can't believe that it was even included in the book.

Trying too hard to be edgy

This entire novel has a feeling of a 16 year old little emo trying to be edgy. There are so many idiotic descriptions, cringey scenes where demons jerk off, extremely gross stuff that has no purpose for the story, scenes that exist just for shock value, the list goes on and on. Now, don't get me wrong, I've expected a lot of graphic descriptions, it's Hellraiser after all. But there's a clear difference between graphic, but having artistic merit and edgy and most of the stuff in here are more on the edgy side. Just lame.

Also, Norma holds two pages long conversation with Harry before dying which is the cliche that I hate the most in fiction. Like she's mortally wounded, but has enough energy and clearness of mind to crack jokes for 20 minutes? I thought Barker was above such beginner author pitfalls.

Stuff I actually liked

Depressed Lucifer is hilarious. The entire anime battle between Lucifer and Pinhead was so cringey and funny that I laughed out loud. Definitely belongs on "so bad it's good" lists.

Quo'otho is an eldritch very hungry caterpillar and he's my favorite character in the novel. Too bad he got killed as well. Poor baby was just hungry and doing his job. He deserves head pats.

Pinhead once uses a spell to bring a whole bunch of origami cranes to life. That was so cute. He used those cranes to kill the Cenobites which was dumb as fuck, but the sheer image of him doing origami and bringing it to life made me smile like a dumbass fangirl that I am. That was one of the very few moments in the story where he was in character. If anyone writes a fanfic in which he uses those origami cranes to send secret love letters to Kirsty I will sell my soul to them.

The Hell Priest uniform has pockets and they are deep enough to hold several Lament Configurations and a sword. This is extremely important information.

Overall, Scarlet Gospels gets a 3/10 from me. It was really cringey and bad, but had some fun and interesting ideas and concepts. It completely assassinated my (and many other people's) most beloved character in Hellraiser franchise, has a passive, cardboard cutout hero, many ideas that go nowhere, it's very transphobic and has endless amount of stuff that happens for no reason. I like Barker's writing style, but this novel fucking sucks.

I'll take a break from Tumblr for now, as I'm working on the new chapter of my comic. I don't know if I'm going to post more Hellraiser stuff, maybe, maybe not, idk. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this dumb review. See you in a while, if I survive the finals!

[halfagone]

I had a sudden idea here:

The two most common Ghost Core types given to Danny in fanfics:

Ice core

vs

Electricity core

But what if he had neither of those and yet both at once?

What if Danny has a Storm Core, which gives him the power to rain down ice and call upon the biggest lightning storms?

Amity Park has never experienced a full Summer day ever since the portal. The hottest days of summer should've been sweltering, right? (No really, am I right? I'm not from America, so correct me if I'm wrong)

Except nowadays, it feels like the worst Summer will ever get is a particularly hot Spring day, where you maybe throw on a t-shirt and comfy denim over your swimsuit and go to the beach or pool.

And last time there was a particularly nasty storm coming their way, it seemingly faded and vanished, only to appear on the other side of town and leaving Amity unscathed. After all, a cyclone will fade upon meeting an opposing cyclone that seems to spin against it. And Danny has always been very good at going up against forces of Nature, and forcing them to yield, or at least coming to a draw.

Ember might've also one time referred to him as an "oncoming storm of ass-kicking"

The day Danny calls on a tornado to trap her and her fire attacks in the eye of it's razor winds, the ghosts come to understand she was more on point that anyone expected.

Technus gets his ass zapped by a bolt of lightning like Thor calling down his judgement (or, as he said later, "like Pikachu on crack") and it leaves him short-circuiting for a good while, like when the light goes out for a bit and suddenly your wifi has to be rebooted to make it work again. Later, he begrudgingly teaches him to better channel electricity. Danny's first Technus-inspired move is a real-life Thunder Fang. And he used it against Vlad.

And, since I adore the headcanon that the Ancients collectively adopt Danny, Pandora starts calling him her "little storm"

I kinda wanna have him end up dating both Kitty and Johny, as a whole thing where they both dated him at separate times, but both times he was the best goddamn date they ever had asides from being each other's soulmates, and now they're having FEELINGS for him, so Kitty has the idea of both of them sitting down with Jazz, since she's the local feelings expert, and she whacks them with a rolled up magazine, but they both end up together asking out Danny.

And I'm imagining he's more influenced by them than he would admit, because he got himself a bike like Johnny, and started taking tips from Sam, and has more leather stuff and goth fashion than he'll ever tell anyone about, especially because the heavy fabrics are great to wear on a bike.

Kitty ping-pongs between who's bike she hitches a ride on. And I'm betting she was a huge fan of books, while Johny loved Greek mythology (yes, I'm saying Johnny was a Percy Jackson fan as a kid). Which means that their affectionate nickname for Danny is "Typhon", for the Greek Titan of storms.

(Ignore how my brain keeps yelling at me that Danny would call them "Kitty Cat" and "Barghest". I imagine Barghest for Johny because of Shadow, who starts hanging out more and more as a puppy because of Cujo, except Shadow prefers a hanging out as a shaggy hound ((imagine Ruth from Ancient Magus Bride)) and that's exactly what a Barghest is.)

Ooh, that's a really interesting idea! Danny has been shown to control the weather after the Vortex incident in "Torrents of Terror" so you've even got some canon backing to this! (As for weather in America, it really depends where you live? It's commonly headcanoned that Amity Park is in Illinois, and the temperature on average across the state in the summer is in the 80°s Fahrenheit or ~26.667° Celsius, but there have been records of summers reaching to the hundreds in Fahrenheit, although it doesn't happen often.)

It'd be really cool to see Danny both consciously and subconsciously altering weather events. I really like the idea of Danny being able to control the weather, especially if he does it so casually while others are looking on with their eyes bugging out of their sockets in shock. Because controlling the weather is no easy feat (Storm from X-Men? OP as fuck). Aww, "little storm", love that nickname. A little ball of ferocious energy. Like an angry chihuahua.

It might not be a cyclone, because Amity Park isn't near the coast even if you don't headcanon it in Illinois specifically. But parts of Illinois and the Midwest are in what's called "Tornado Alley", so it still technically would work, it would just probably not be a cyclone but a tornado. Unless it's Vortex up to his tricks again, but then it wouldn't be a naturally occurring- Sorry, tangent, but you get the idea.

If you've read lex luthor's ascent, then you know I like the idea of Danny dating both Kitty and Johnny at some point, but why not both at once? Polyamory coming in for the win! Hopefully Danny can keep these two from constantly arguing tho... Honestly, I just adore the possibilities of dynamics between these three (especially if Danny is stuck as 14- physically at least- as many AUs will have him, he can be with his also eternally young partners and not have it draw much attention from strangers). "Barghest" is a really interesting nickname and- after doing some more research- I can see why you chose it for Johnny, particularly with Shadow in mind.

A Storm core AU is really cool. I like Space core AUs as well, because there are a lot of weather events that could be caused by astronomical phenomena and it ties really well with Danny's love for space, but I think this is the first time I've ever heard of a Storm core for Danny. It would explain why Danny took to Vortex's power really well/easy, and while canon is really more of a suggestion to Danny Phantom fans at this point, I still really appreciate the neat tie-in it can offer.

Thank you for sharing this with me!! I'm glad others share my love for Danny/Johnny 13/Kitty, in any of its forms. (Mostly, forms that appreciate both their characters for all their faults.) Thanks for making me day a little brighter, and I hope you have a great day!

[mutable-manifestation]

The Ghost King (of Miscommunication)

Breaking these into a new post to avoid people having to scroll five miles to find the new one  😅 

Parts 1 -12: https://www.tumblr.com/mutable-manifestation/701038878865375232/part-12-guys-guys-guys-jason-todd-was-46-when

Part 13! (this post)

***

Wulf followed silently as Jason and his human family rushed through a… cylinder of some sort?

Upon coming through the other side, Wulf was met with another high-tech room and a window that showed the Earth from above.

He took the opportunity to briefly phase through the window to check, and then he was in space. It wasn’t just one of those projected images that Tucker was so fond of.

He returned to Jason’s side just before the next door shut behind the group - he’d have to tell Danny about the strange cylinder. It seemed like the kind of thing he’d love, if he wasn’t already aware of it.

Sam and Tucker too, for that matter; Sam would love any potentially green and efficient transportation method and Tucker would love to take it apart and see how it works.

The reason for their journey became clear when they reached a medical room. Being a halfa, Jason’s human side would need care as well - Frostbite was more than capable of managing both after years of looking after Danny, but it never hurt to be too careful.

Especially when the boy’s core formation had been so troubled.

----------------------------------

“-and then I flew back ho- to the mansion.”

By the time Jason reaches the mansion and finishes explaining his absence 53 minutes, a full medical check-up, and way too many tears have elapsed.

Some of the tears come when they can’t find a pulse.

Most of the tears come when he tells them that the pit rage is gone.

When he says that he missed them.

When he almost calls the mansion home.

Jason isn’t sure how well things are going to go - doesn’t know if he’ll be able to escape the deadline closing in like a noose around his throat - but for now he basks in the care and affection being offered to him.

Bruce’s hand on his shoulder on the walk through the Zeta Tube, Dick and Cass’s hair ruffles, Tim and Damian’s gentle shoulder-checks, Steph and Barbara’s protective actions as they stare at every corner or flip through every camera like they can make the Watchtower even more of a secure fortress than it already is, and Alfred’s steady presence all wrap around him like a cool morning mist.

For just a moment that noose feels a little less real.

Bruce and Barbara have both been tapping away on their phones ever since they arrived in the Watchtower’s medbay - Jason knows they’re listening, though.

His guesses about the reason are confirmed when they arrive at a conference room and find Superman, The Flash, and Martian Manhunter already present.

It’s more than Jason had expected with as last-minute as this was, but less than he’d hoped. If they weren’t here by now, any others that had been contacted were unlikely to make the deadline.

He ignored the stares boring into him the moment he drifted in behind Batman, the shock and concern that grew when they looked at him and again when they saw Alfred in his domino mask - a seemingly civilian unknown entering with Batman and crew.

Jason hadn’t wanted to be separated from any of them. Bruce and Alfred had been willing to indulge him.

The Leaguers’ growing attentiveness set Jason’s teeth on edge; his fears felt a bit more real for it.

He shoved his feelings to the pit of his stomach and steeled his will.

Time for explanation: take two.

----------------------------------

The new room they enter contains someone Wulf knows of - the hero Superman. He’s a bit like Danny had been; protecting the living, if not ghosts.

Wulf can’t fault him for that; the man is no halfa and there has been a distinct lack of stable, unguarded portals in the last 80 or so years.

He’s a dedicated guy, from what little Wulf can recall. He remembers hearing about a hero group that formed, and looking at the two next to him he thinks this might be it.

Taking a closer look at Jason’s family, he suspects they might be heroes as well despite the difference in overall theme - the dark, subtle colors versus the flashy shine the other three have decorated themselves with.

It’s incredibly rare for ghosts to change clothing outside of special occasions (or imprisonment), so Wulf hadn’t thought to note it as odd sooner.

He smiles; how fitting that Danny had adopted a hero child.

Still, the number of empty seats at the table even after everyone present is sitting has Wulf worried; the line between friends and family tended to blur, and allies tended to be or become friends.

That looks like an awful lot of living family, and Wulf has to wonder if Jason gave Danny a concrete number of expected human guests - for the Introductory Celebration if not a sooner visit.

It’s a moment's work to send off a text - Tucker and Technus’ collaborative devices proving their value once again - on a phone which, thankfully, he’d already had on silent.

Danny’s response is as swift as it is frantic.

[His LIVING FAMILY!??? He never even mentioned them! Does he seem happy? Oh what if he didn’t tell me because he wasn’t sure they would accept him anymore! Did they? Do they seem nice? Do they seem mean? Well, you would have extracted him by now if they were mean but does he seem resigned or anything or is everything okay???]

Wulf swallows down the teasing laugh that attempts to climb out.

[He was incredibly enthusiastic to see them. He was hesitant to show his new appearance but reactions were nothing but positive. Σ:)]

[Oh thank goodness. Okay, okay. More family! And the living! :D] [WULF WE DON’T HAVE HUMAN FOOD! ASHGFJ] [YES please give me a number when you can, I’m gonna go get Spike on guest rooms]

-------------

dear lord everytime I skim over prev chapters to avoid timeline issues I find another incredibly cringe spelling error. Saw summarizing misspelled as summarizes and honestly felt my soul leave my body.

@kyrianclawraith

[cat-esper]

Intro time!

My name is Cat (she/her and aroace) and while I've been on tumblr for a couple of years now, jumping from fandom to fandom and writing fanfic, I decided to make this blog to focus on original work.

I write fantasy, sci-fi, and a little bit of horror and I love mixing genres like there's no tomorrow. My absolute favorite things are found family, robots, and time travel, and I am a firm believer that platonic relationships can be just as fierce and important as romantic ones. Most of my novels are set within a shared universe I call the Starfish Saga and that's my main focus, though I do have quite a few exciting projects outside that.

I have so so many WIPs but the ones I'm currently focused on include these (all titles are placeholders for the time being):

Project Paladin: a YA science fantasy about a girl whose parents have been abducted by aliens and features portals, light magic, and found family*

Project Arcana: a YA epic fantasy featuring dangerous history, blood magic, and a warrior's desperate and unhealthy quest to honor her dead mentor*

Project Utopia: a post-apocalyptic sci-fi about a young woman with cyber magic, an android, and an undead abomination on a quest to defeat a powerful lich

Project Guardian: a YA science fantasy about an Irish teen, time loops, yet more magic, and the meaning of regret*

Project Array: a YA contemporary fantasy in which a girl grieving the death of her best friend gains a found family of people who fight the very thing that might help her find peace*

Project Slipstream: a YA slipstream portal fantasy set in the 80s/90s in which a group of outcasts wander away from our world and to the enigmatic Spiral, drawn there for reasons unknown by a song all of them know*

Project Wraith: a weird western about two criminals--sometimes partners and sometimes rivals--who team up to rob a ghost train

Project Bootstrap: a sci-fi narrative about the end of human civilization and the androids tasked with collecting data from the past to preserve for the future

Project Portal Epic: My most ambitious worldbuilding project, this epic fantasy brings together characters from multiple worlds connected through the Nightland Tram System; each is on their own quest that culminates in a team-up to prevent the long-dormant Night Beasts from awakening*

(* marks WIPs set in the Starfish Saga)

I'll be gradually posting WIP intros for these over the coming weeks so stay tuned! And if anyone wants to be added to a taglist, let me know by commenting on the WIP's intro post or shoot me a DM, specifying which WIP you'd like to be added to.

I also love getting asks and participating in tag games and just general chatting about WIPs if anyone is so inclined.

That's it for now. If you're interested in my other blogs, you can find me at @that-vibe-i-cant-explain (for multi-fandom shenanigans) or at @redstarsarc (my Pirates of the Caribbean blog).

Anyway, hello! It's nice to be here XD

[egyptian-sun-god]

Yo! I have actually managed to get a whole fucking comic out for Phantasy Phest, believe it or not. This Fantasy AU is basically gonna be the basis for the entire week so more content coming up? The Grim Reaper style person is an OC, They’ll get more info later. Because my handwriting kinda ass, I’ll just type out the transcript below. 

Danny: GUYS! I think I’m gonna die, I keep seeing the Grim Reaper everywhere

OC: Stay behind, we must talk

Danny: I’ll see you guys later then? 

OC: There are 3 different realms, Magic Realm (highest energy), Ghost Zone (middle) and the Human Realm (lowest energy). It’s less energy consuming to pass between the lower energy realms than it is for the higher energy realms. Think of it as like the energy levels for atomic chemistry, it’s the same concept.

OC: The Magic Realm has gods, demons, myths and spiritual being, The Ghost Zone has the ghosts, undead and less powerful spirits, The Human Realm has humans, flora and fauna. 

OC: When your (Danny) dumb ass was getting fried, your natural energy combined with the portal’s energy to try to save you. It was 80% successful so I figured might as well give you a shot and saved you by adding the remaining 20% of your energy with my blessing. So WORSHIP ME!

Ok so y’all basically in this AU this OC is like one of the main gods of death’s servants so they go around reaping and collecting souls. They have the power to change the fate of souls as well, so with Danny’s they blessed him which stabilized his core and made him a halfa without frying him to death. OC is now expecting Danny to worship him as they’ve taken god status to Danny by saving him. Danny now has a mix of ghost and reaper powers which will be elaborated later! 

[zavalas-bignaturals-lore]

So, I'm finally ready to talk about Lightfall. I've been really holding off on this, because I didn't want to post my fresh-off-the-campaign hot take, I needed it to simmer and thicken up a bit. I know it's been months since release, but heavy Lightfall spoilers ahead.

Let me talk about what works for me: the vibe is exceptional. A pretty modern take on the 80's action movie, just like Bungie themselves stated they intended. The campaign runs at a breakneck pace, only slowing down for a few moments here and there. Rohan and Nimbus have a perfect master-student trope dynamic. Calus is an entertaining villain, his hypocritical subservience making him an interesting lieutenant to the Witness. Honestly, Calus really got Starscream-ed in this expansion. Strand came out just the right amount of hot, nothing too crazy, except suspend maybe, but at least that hasn't broken pvp in the way Stasis did. And last up, the raid? A visual feast, with better narrative integration than Vow of the Disciple making it a real treat. I know it has taken some flak for being "easy," but honestly not every raid needs to be incredibly mechanically dense and absolutely full of high difficulty enemies. There really is plenty to like in the expansion, but narratively it kinda creates more questions than it answers, and not in a good way.

Let me start with the beginning and end of the campaign. There's tons of speculation about this campaign kinda being filler, and the cutscenes of the Witness definitely feel the most evidential of that. In what feels like a single scene split down the middle, the Witness reaches the Traveler, attempts to cut(?) into it, and has a revelation on where the Veil is. After the campaign, in which the Witness apparently manipulates the Guardian into getting their Ghost close enough to create a link between the Veil and the Traveler, the Witness creates some sort of portal or doorway just above the Travelers surface and kills(?) it, and then the Witness and part of the Black Fleet just kinda go into the portal and leave. The story frames this as a defeat, but that doesn't exactly land emotionally. It feels like this was meant to be an "Empire Strikes Back" moment, but delivered the defeat at the Witness' hands just after we were victorious over Calus. With the benefit of hindsight, I can see the shape of intent here, this possibly being meant as a rug-pull, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. This would have been more impactful if the status quo was actually fundamentally changed. In reality though, what did change as a result of this event? The Traveler is "dead" (again), but we still have the Light. The Witness "won," but is not present in the world (again). The Veil was revealed to exist, but we don't actually know what it really is (yet, admittedly, but that's the crux of its problem). The Light was defined as the realm of the physical and the Darkness defined as the realm of consciousness. At best this is redefinition, but we've known that the Light and Dark were amoral fundamental forces since Beyond Light. Neomuna exists in the narrative now, but its influence is entirely contained to the Lightfall campaign. Really everything is still kinda the same, just with some looming sense of "now we need to find and stop the Witness." Even that is the same motivator that we were left with at the end of Witch Queen. To be totally honest, this is a little less than compelling as a motivator, especially the second time around. I'm not saying that a story needs to fundamentally change aspects of the game, but ultimately Lightfall feels like treading water when it had the opportunity to blow players away with our first contact with the Witness. To reiterate from earlier, at the end of Lightfall, the Witness is just gone again. I'm not entirely sure if Bungie intends for the Witness to be a ghost in the narrative or not. One would think not given that they put a name and face to its existence, but to introduce it and immediately remove it gives the sense that it should be less directly visible. In either case, it feels rather on the fence, preventing it from really giving weight to either side. A lot of the Witness' on screen action serves more as a jumping off point for introducing the Veil above all else. That's all well and good, except...

What the heck even is the Veil? To keep with my usual "Bungie tells a story with their names" rhetoric, it's very easy to point to the Veil as just that, a separation between the Light and the Darkness, the physical and the psychic, etc. We know that the Veil "feels like the Traveler" and that it can be linked through Light energy (the Radial Mast, the Ghost) to the Traveler. We know that Neomuna's Cloud Ark runs off of it in some way, connecting it to the "psychic web" vibe of Strand and the Darkness. Lastly, we know that the Vex attempted to create their own version of the Veil, which would become the Black Heart from Destiny 1. (I should make a note here, Season of the Deep is currently happening and providing additional info on the Veil, but I'm just talking about what was in the main Lightfall campaign.) So what's the deal, did Bungie really just make a McGuffin for the Lightfall campaign and call it a day? In the context of Lightfall alone, yes. The Veil serves no purpose beyond "it makes Strand easy to see" and "the Witness cannot be allowed to use it." Okay, so am I saying that having a McGuffin is a bad thing? Well, maybe. The framing presented by Osiris for our desperate fight to protect the Veil is too simple. "The Witness wants it, so stop Calus from getting it" is thin, even by McGuffin standards. What are we as players really to do with that motivation? Especially once the resolution becomes "well, the Witness succeeded but is now gone and we still have our powers." As a whole, Lightfall lacked impact, at nearly every level.

Okay, I don't want to leave off on that kind of negative note though, I still enjoyed a lot of Lightfall. One of my favorite parts was Calus. Every part of his presentation was incredible. Ever the sycophant, Calus' ostentatious presentation of himself is an effort to impose what he believes he should be on reality, when in truth, he was given that form by a higher power. Calus sought to become the voice in the Darkness, that which remained at the end of the universe, only to find an insurmountable being there instead. Fighting the Guardian at the end of the campaign offers an interestingly poetic end. Finishing his first phase tears off his helmet and switches his weapon to more traditional Cabal gladiatorial fare. For what might have possibly been the first time in his life, Calus fought with his own power. No army, no cosmic power, just himself. The way Caiatl put it, "You gave him a Cabal's end?" underscores this perfectly. What a way to end his story.

[sunnys567]

Friends in Strange Places Ch. 2

What if Vlad was good instead of evil? Link to chapter 1:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/39040329/chapters/97656390

--------------------------------------------------

Vlad was at the door with his suitcase, mentally double checking that he had everything, when the vultures phased through the floor. The lead one was absent.

"Vlad." the raspy voiced one said "Da tree of us just vanted to vish you varewell bevore you levt."

"I'll only be gone for a few days." Vlad said, putting on his coat. "And I notice there's only two of you."

"Ay, vell, he and Rochester vere fighting over da paper again."

"Oh for goodness sake." Vlad pinched the bridge of his nose. "Rochester only wants the comics section. Can't he just give him that?"

"Ah, you know how dat old bird is."

Vlad sighed heavily.

"You know what? I'm just going to start getting two newspaper subscriptions. The mail carrier will think I've lost it, but this is just getting ridiculous." He turned to head out the door.

"You're going to Amity, yeah?" The vulture with the glasses said. "Dat mean you're going to see da Venton's again?"

Vlad stopped with his hand on the knob.

"I'll...try to pay the Fentons a visit if I have time." he turned to look at the vultures "Although, truth be told, as much as I'd like to see Jack and Maddie, it might not be wise for me to just walk into the house of ghost hunters. Especially ghost hunters with as much...passion as them."

"An understandable concern, Vlad, but you know if dat ghost kid's been managing to live dere okay, you shouldn't have any trouble popping in for a quick visit. Just relax! Try to enjoy yourselv!"

Vlad considered this for a moment.

"Fair point, I suppose. Now, I really must be going. Remind Cecilia she doens't have to cook, make sure someone's keeping an eye on the portal, and- well, I suppose you the drill by now. I'll see you all in a few days."

Vlad opened the door and stepped outside.

"Oh, and Rochester had better not have any claw marks on him when I return. "

With that, Vlad shut the door and was gone. The two vultures looked at each other.

"You tink ve should go check on Rochester?" The one with glasses asked.

The raspy voiced one sighed.

"Yeah." he said.

They both phased through the floor.

--------------------------------------------------

"-and now I can't find that ghost dog anywhere!" Danny flopped onto his bed "It's like it just showed up to destroy Axiom Labs and then left!"

"Well, maybe that means it's gone forever?" Tucker suggested, swiveling back in forth in Danny's computer chair. "Problem solved!"

"Since when have ghosts ever decided to just leave?" Sam asked from her bean bag. "There's at least an 80% chance that dog is going to pop up again."

"And at the least convenient time, I'll bet." Danny added from the bed.

"Well, even if that's the case there's nothing we can do about it, so what's the point in worrying about it?"

"You know, you could stand to take this a little more seriously." Sam glared at Tucker.

"I am taking this seriously!" Tucker stuck out his tongue at Sam. "Look on the bright side, Danny. Sure, the security system got completely fried, but most of the projects were unharmed."

"And, more importantly," Sam shot Tucker another side-eye "You got everyone out safely."

"I guess." Danny sighed and sat up. "I just can't help feeling like a failure. If I don't find that dog, what's to stop him from doing the same thing to some other building when I'm not around? I barely managed to get everyone out in time as it was."

"Well," Sam said "He did come to you before storming Axiom. So maybe he'll come to you again."

"Even if that is true, I couldn't stop it last time, so what would I do if it did show up again." Danny massaged his face in exasperation. "I wish there was someone we could just ask how to stop it. It feels like we never know what we're doing."

Sam and Tucker looked at each other. Tucker got up and patted Danny on the back.

"Aw, come on buddy," he said "We'll figure it out. We always do."

"Yeah Danny." Sam cam and sat on the bed beside him. "You've got nothing to worry-"

"INTRUDER ALERT!!! INTRUDER ALERT!!! A GHOST HAS ENTERED THE BUILDING!!! INTRUDER ALERT!!!" A loud robotic voice repeated very loudly.

The trio rushed out of Danny's room to the top of the stairs. Jazz had clearly just run in from the kitchen and Danny's parents were standing near the door. About twenty different guns had popped down from panels in the ceiling and were pointed directly at-

"Vlad?"

"INTRUDER ALERT!!!"

"Hello Daniel, Jasmine." Despite Vlad's friendly composure, he was clearly uncomfortable with all the alarms and the guns pointed at him.

"INTRUDER ALERT!!!"

"It's Jazz." Jazz replied sharply.

"INTRUDER ALERT!!!"

"And can someone please turn that off!"

"INTRUDER ALERT!!!"

"Oh, right." Maddie pulled a device out of her bag and clicked a few buttons. The guns retreated back into the ceiling, the alarm went silent, and the voice stopped repeating itself. Vlad visibly relaxed.

"Perhaps the security system's a little too sensitive." Maddie said. "This isn't the first time it's been set off by someone who wasn't a ghost." Vlad subtly raised an eyebrow at Danny. Danny smiled nervously from the top of the stairs.

"To be honest, Maddie, I'd get rid of this system entirely." Vlad said. "It seems a little overkill. And besides, if a ghost did make it into Fenton Works, surely it'd be no match for you and Jack?"

Danny had to admit that that was pretty smooth.

"You make an excellent point V-man!" Jack beamed. "And we can repurpose the defense system into even better anti-ecto weapons!"

"Or maybe something a lot less dangerous?" Jazz suggested.

"Well, we can decide that later." Maddie said clapping her hands together. "Come on in Vlad! It's so nice that you could drop by! I'll put on the tea. I just made cookies this morning, so they should be cool by now. And these ones didn't come to life this time, so help yourself!"

"Sound delightful." Vlad said as the group walked into the kitchen. He glanced up at Danny as they passed by on their way to the kitchen.

"Okay Danny," Tucker said once the grown ups were out of site "So what on earth is Vlad Masters doing in your house?"

"Oh, I forgot." Danny slapped his forehead "Mom and Dad said he was coming over today. Kind of got distracted by whole ghost-dog thing."

"Okay, I have a follow up question." Tucker said.

"Apparently he was friends with my parents in college. They used to be pretty close until-"

Danny stopped himself. He didn't know if Vlad would be okay with Sam and Tucker knowing. They were cool with half-ghosts, sure, but Danny knew he wouldn't want Vlad telling anyone his secret without asking first. Even mentioning that Vlad had been in an accident involving a ghost portal might be enough to tip Sam and Tucker off, and he didn't want to risk it.

"-uh, until, you know, they split up and Vlad started his own company. Which, as you probably know, turned out pretty well for him. He just held a big college reunion about a month ago, and they're kind of reconnecting, I guess."

"Wait," Sam held up her hand "That's why your family went down to Wisconsin for the weekend? To hang out with the CEO of VladCo? Why on earth are we only learning about this now?"

"I watched a bunch of adults dance around an auditorium with fake cheese on their heads for four hours. It was boring. Not much to tell. At all." Danny wracked his brain for anything else to talk about, until he realized something. "Hey, how do you two know who he is? I only learned about him in the RV on the way up."

"Uh, tech nerd?" Tucker held up his PDA, as if to illustrate his point.

"Rich people know each other." Sam shrugged. "Not that I've ever met the guy. Apparently he's pretty reclusive. Very selective about who he'll see, but I've heard my parents say his name about five billion times. It's all about connections with them. Knowing someone who knows someone. The intricately tangled web the rich have woven to keep those below them in their place. I'd take a flamethrower to that that web if I could."

Danny and Tucker just blinked at her.

"Anyway," Sam said, checking her watch "If he's here visiting your family, I guess we'd better go."

"What!?" Tucker said "And miss out on the chance to talk to tech giant Vlad Masters? I have so many questions for him!"

"He's a busy guy Tucker." Sam said, grabbing Tucker by the sweater collar and dragging him down the stairs. "He's probably too sick of work stuff to want to talk about it any more in his off-time than he does on a daily basis. Also, CEO's don't tend to know much about the tech side of the tech industry anyway. He probably just crunches numbers and pushes papers. Anyway, enjoy your visit Danny!" Sam waved pleasantly at him once she'd gotten Tucker out the door.

"Don't forget to check out that trailer for DOOMED I sent you!" Danny heard Tucker call before Sam shut the door.

--------------------------------------------------

When Danny entered the kitchen, Jazz was sitting at the table, a pile of closed books in front of her. Presumably she'd been studying before Vlad arrived. Maddie was talking as she pulled cups out of the cupboard.

"...so nice to be able to properly catch up with you without all the hubbub of the party. Ah, there you are Danny. Would you get the milk and sugar out?"

"Yeah, V-man, " Jack mock-aimed whatever device he was working on at Vlad as he spoke "I never got the chance to tell about all the cool new invetions Mads and I have been working on at the reunion!"

"Oh goodie." Vlad said dryly. "I simply cannot wait for that." He reached up and gently pushed the device away from his face.

"I simply cannot wait for that. Fear me."

The room went silent. Danny looked at the table and saw a familiar device amongst a small pile of Fenton inventions.

"Oh, great, you're working on the Ghost Gabber again." he said nervously, realizing his mistake a millisecond too late.

"You're working on the Ghost Gabber again. Fear me."

Jazz's eyes flickered between Danny and Vlad a few times before she pushed her chair back and stood up, an annoyed look on her face. She walked around to Jack's side of the table.

"I'm going to put this glitchy thing away." She said, snatching it off the table "Before it annoys us all to death."

With that she stomped down the stairs clutching the Gabber.

"Say," Jack rubbed his chin "That's a great idea! Why don't we all head to the lab! Maddie and I can show you how far we've come since our college days Vlad!"

"Oh," Vlad's smile seemed a bit forced and his voice sounded nervous "Erm, well, I don't know if-"

Before he could finish speaking, Jack had wrapped his thick arm around Vlad and was practically dragging him down the stairs.

Danny made to follow them, but he stopped when he felt his mom's hand on his shoulder.

"You mind helping me carry the tea stuff down, sweetheart?"

"Oh, um, maybe tea in the lab isn't a good idea right now?" Danny was desperate to get down there and not leave Vlad alone. "With Vlad here, Dad might get over excited and spill it on something important?"

"Hm, I suppose you're right..."

"We can just have it when Dad's done showing Vlad around. But we should go down and join them. Right now." Danny hoped his mom didn't notice the urgency in his voice as he pulled her down the stairs.

--------------------------------------------------

When they arrived in the basement, he found his dad giving Vlad a tour. To Danny's relief, Vlad's apprehension had been replaced with genuine interest. He examined various machine closely as Jack blathered on about them.

"This is quite the innovation Jack!" Vlad and Jack were currently looking over the still incomplete Spectre Speeder. "And it's ability to convert the ambient ecto-energy of the Ghost Zone into fuel, creating a self-sustaining perpetual energy source is absolutely brilliant!"

"It also ensures you won't run out of fuel if you get lost!" Maddie said, jumping right into the conversation. "We know so little about the Ghost Zone, so we want to be as prepared as we can be."

"Indeed. And, although I am of fan of the ample storage space, I'm wondering if the converters are able to generate enough power? Especially if you're going to install weapon functionality which, if I know you two, you will be doing in excess."

"Yeah, that's the tricky part," Jack frowned "We're a bit stuck on that, but if we can find a way to compact the circuitry, we might be able to disperse it in such a way to maximize the ambient ecto exposure the Speeder gets, but then there's the issue of excessive energy production, which..."

Totally lost by their jargon, Danny glanced at Jazz and saw her discreetly flipping some switches on a few devices. She probably didn't want something else to go haywire and disturb Vlad's visit. Or maybe just annoy her personally.

 Luckily the thing that Jazz seemed to have dubbed 'annoying' were the same devices Danny tended to set off unintentionally. That was convenient. Sure, Danny knew which ones to avoid, but Vlad didn't. Now he wouldn't accidentally set them off and rouse suspicion. Danny silently thanked Jazz and her limited patience with their parent's ghost stuff.

"...and of course, there's out crowning achievement, The Fenton Ghost Portal!" Jack said, gesturing proudly to the portal.

"Oh," Maddie made a strange face. "We can just ignore that thing if we want to, though." she smiled nervously.

"It's kind of a little hard to miss, Mom." Danny said.

"Don't worry Maddie, I know exactly what you're thinking." He wrapped his arm around Vlad's shoulders. "Don't worry Vladdie, we perfected the design of this baby.

There's no way it'll explode in your face and leave you hospitalized indefinitely this time!"

Vlad smiled back at Jack, but it was very obviously strained. Maddie and Danny looked away awkwardly. Jazz glared at her father.

"Yes, well, as much as I appreciate the painful reminder and the concern," Vlad pushed himself out of Jack's grip "There's truly no need for it. We've come a long way since our college days, I'm sure you'll agree." Vlad walked towards the portal. He gave it a quick look-over. "It seems you two were more thourough with your planning this time. Unlike that prototype, this portal seems to be in perfect working order. In it's current state it holds no risk towards anyone."

Jazz flashed Danny a look that he almost missed.

"Besides, of course, for the ghosts that come out of it." Vlad added, running his hand along the metal frame.

"You know, it's funny." Maddie said. "We've had the portal running for a few months now, and barely anything's shown up. Of course, we haven't actually gone into the Ghost Zone ourselves, so maybe it opened on a deserted patch, or something. "

It took all of Danny's willpower not to burst out laughing.

"Probably wise." Vlad removed his hand from the frame. "Who knows what dangers lie on the other side."

Danny suddenly wondered if Vlad had been to the ghost Zone. He probably had, since he did have access to a working portal, and he'd sounded like he was familiar with the Ghost Zone when he was talking to Danny at the end of the reunion. He'd have to ask him about it when he got the chance.

"Of course, there was that kerfuffle down at Axiom Labs that sounded suspiciously like ghost activity to me." Maddie frowned.

"Oh, have you investigated?"

"Unfortunately not. Those darned security people wouldn't even let us take a look at the Axiom building." Jack stared into the distance, determination and frustration written on his face. "I just know it was a ghost that caused all that destruction!"

Danny wondered if anyone could here his heart rate increasing.

"Well, Jack, I am meeting with John Axiom today," Jazz's eyes went wide when she heard that. Danny had to admit he was a bit impressed too. Vlad didn't seem to be bragging, though. "Perhaps I'll be able to find out from him what happened."

"Ooh, good thinking V-man. You can come back to visit when you're done with all your business stuff and tell us what happened at Axiom."

"Oh, I don't know that I'll have time to visit again, but I will definitely get in touch with you and Maddie if I hear about anything ghostly."

Danny noticed both his parent's faces fall.

"Oh," Maddie said, the pep gone from her voice. "You're sure you can't-"

"And speaking of which," Vlad looked down at his watch "I'm afraid I'm due for that meeting rather soon, so I must be going now." Vlad started his way up the stairs. The others followed him.

"Oh, you didn't even have your tea yet." Maddie said as they emerged into the kitchen.

"I really would like to stay Maddie, but unfourtunatley, this is a business trip, and I'm afraid my schedule's rather tight." Vlad said as he opened the front door. "It truly was a pleasure seeing your home. And the lab is quite the upgrade from our old makeshift college one."

"Thanks Vladdie." Jack beamed. "And if you think that's cool, wait to you see the Ecto Annihilator!" Jack punctuated his sentence by pulling out a menacing looking box with many tiny flailing metal claws.

"Oh wow, look at the time, I really have to go right now!" Vlad almost slammed the door shut in his hurry.

"Awww." Jack's shoulders slumped and he threw the Annihilator over his shoulder. Danny zoomed as far away from that thing as he could without looking (too) conspicuous.

"Well, that was..." Danny started.

"Brief." Jazz finished.

"We don't get to see him for twenty years, and he still barely talks to us." Maddie sighed. "I get that he's busy, but he could at least return my calls."

Jack just sighed loudly. It was like looking at a kicked puppy. Danny and Jazz weren't sure what to say.

"Welp," Maddie clapped her hands, the smile returning to her face. "No point in standing around moping. It was nice to be able to see Vlad at all. Now, we've got some perfectly good tea in the kitchen that shouldn't go to waste."

"You know what, you're right Maddie." Jack's smile also returned and he wrapped an arm around Maddie's waist. "I finally got the chance to show Vladdie the new lab. And I think he was impressed. That's a win! Maybe later he'll be thinking about it, and realize it's so cool that he'll want to join us in ghost fighting again! I bet he'll be calling any day now!"

Danny didn't say anything, but that seemed a little optimistic to him.

"In the meantime," Jack continued "Let's have that tea. And those cookies you mentioned. And I can tell the kids all about the upgrades I'm making to the Fenton Family Assault Vehicle! To the kitchen!"

Danny glanced warily at the 'Ecto Annihilator' that was still in the way to the kitchen, but Jazz had already procured a set of tongs and a garbage bag and was cautiously approaching the device. Danny wasn't sure what it did, but he was very glad Jazz was the one dealing with it.

"That Vlad guy is pretty...interesting." Jazz said as she dropped the Annihilator into the garbage bag. " Wouldn't you say Danny?"

"Huh? Yeah, I guess."

Danny suddenly thought he felt something brush his leg. He looked down and saw a folded piece of paper sticking out out his pocket. He pulled it out and unfolded it, revealing a note.

Daniel,

I should be able to stop by tomorrow night sometime around 8:00. It would be good to catch up with you. Also I heard you may have been having some ghost trouble, and I'd certainly be willing to offer my assistance. I must say, I am impressed with your efficiency in evacuating the Axiom employees. You may be feeling discouraged by the fact that you weren't able to subdue the ghost, but it's important to choose your battles and have your priorities straight.

                                                                                                                                                            We'll talk more tomorrow,                                                                                                                                                                                  Plasmius.

It was actually kind of nice getting praised. Danny beamed to himself as he stuffed the note back into his pocket. He couldn't wait for tomorrow.

--------------------------------------------------

Of course, Danny hadn't considered that he'd have to see Valerie tomorrow. Or how defeated she'd look.

Danny stared warily at her as Valerie skipped the lunch line in the cafeteria. He noticed she was carrying a bagged lunch.

Did this have something to do with the ghost dog?

He felt his stomach sink.

Sam noticed his staring.

"You're not seriously thinking of asking out another popular girl, are you Danny?" she asked, disapprovingly "You know, considering how well the last time went."

"What?" Danny looked at Sam. "No, I- you remember that ghost dog?"

"Yeah?"

"Wait, that's Valerie Gray!" Tucker cut in. "As in Damon Gray's kid. I read about her dad getting in major trouble with Axiom Labs. They sued him for all he was

worth. The guy even had to sell his house."

Danny's stomach was absolutely churning.

"Wait, why'd they sue?" Sam asked "Did it have something to do with the ghost attack?"

"Well, according to official reports, Gray's so-called 'foolproof' new security system went haywire and caused a lot of damage. The building was practically unsalvageable. No one could figure out why, including Gray, so John Axiom made him pay for the damages. Which were pretty expensive, as it turns out. The security footage of the incident was toasted, and no one has said anything about seeing a dog. Some witnesses did mention getting save by 'a creepy teenager with super powers' though."

"I've been called worse." Danny shrugged.

"Wow, "Sam said "Billionaire sues hundred-thousand-aire for damages he could already afford to cover with what amounts to pocket change for him. It's a real dog-eat-dog world in rich people land. Well, more like dog-eat-flea-when-dog-already-has-a-steak world. The flea is Valerie's dad, in case that wasn't clear."

"And it wasn't even his fault." Danny said "It was that ghost dog that wrecked all the machines. It was weird, he seemed so friendly until we got near Axiom Labs. And tiny."

"Hey, " Tucker was staring beyond Danny "What's going on with Valerie's friends?"

Danny and Sam turned to look at the popular kids table. They watched as Valerie dejectedly skulked off from her friends and sat at a different table by herself. She pulled a sandwich out of her brown bag and picked at it.

"Wait, why isn't Valerie sitting with her friends?" Danny asked.

"If I had to guess," Sam said "All her dear A-lister 'friends' dropped her the second they heard she was broke."

"Oh."

Yeah, Danny wasn't eating the rest of his lunch today.

"Man," Tucker knitted his brow "Losing your house, all your money, and your friends all in one go? That's rough. We should go talk to her."

"What?" Sam rolled her eyes "And throw rich girl a pity party for finally getting a dose of reality?"

"She's still a person Sam." Tucker glared at Sam as he spoke. "A person whose going through a real tough time right now." He looked over at Danny. "You coming?"

"I..." Danny rubbed the back of his neck. He couldn't look Tucker in the eye. "...don't think that's a good idea, Tuck. It might be weird, cuz it's kind of my fault she in this situation in the first place, so..."

Tucker stood up.

"You two are unbelievable. Well, I'm going to talk to her whether you jerks come with me or not."

He walked away. Sam kept and impassive expression, but she didn't look at Danny. He also avoided eye contact with her.

--------------------------------------------------

"Hey Valerie." Tucker greeted her. She looked up from her sandwich and glared at Tucker. "Uh, I'm Tucker. Tucker Foley."

"I know who you are. You're in my PE class."

"We also went to the last dance togeth- never mind. You mind if I sit?"

She didn't say anything. Maybe this was a bad idea, but Tucker felt like he had to at least try, so he sat down.

"Sorry your friends are being such jerks."

"So the entire cafeteria saw my humiliating rejection. That's just what I needed."

"I mean, I just heard about what happened with your dad, and-"

"Great, so the whole school is talking about how much of a loser I've become?"

"No! I just follow Axiom Labs, being a tech nerd and all, and I read about the, uh, incident, and how they sued your dad, so I thought-"

"Thought what? That you'd just walk over here to nobly pity to the lonely loser kid? Ooh, lucky me! The biggest nerd in school wants to sit with me! How could my life possibly get any better! All my problems have been dwarfed thanks to the presence of Tucker freaking Foley everyone!"

Despite her harsh words, Tucker found himself having difficulty getting offended. Maybe he was desensitized from Dash's crew saying stuff like this about him all the time, but maybe deep down he understood that Valerie wasn't trying to hurt him specifically, she was just lashing out. She was at a pretty low point, so Tucker figured he could forgive her for this one.

"Look," he said firmly, but not harshly. "I know you're having a hard time. It's not easy, having your whole life upended by ghosts. But, and as weird as this sounds-" "Ghosts?"

It sounded ridiculous, but once Tucker said the word 'ghosts', gears started to turn in Valerie's head. The monster that had destroyed Axiom seemed able to disappear, and the kid that had saved her and the others could fly through walls.

They were ghosts.

Ghosts were real.

It sounded crazy, but, somehow, it was the only thing that made sense.

"Oh my gosh!" Valerie shot up from her seat "Ghosts!"

"Hey, hey, it's okay." Tucker said sitting down opposite her. "I deal with ghosts all the time, there's no need to freak out."

But it was too late. Valerie wasn't listening. She was running towards the cafeteria faster than Tucker had ever seen her run in gym class.

"Hey, wait!" Tucker called after her "You forgot your-"

But Valerie was long gone.

"-lunch."

Tucker sighed and stood up. Worried some bully might steal it, he packed up Valerie's lunch and headed back to his table.

"Well that went well." Sam said dryly.

"At least I tried Sam." Tucker glared at her, not at all in a joking mood.

"How is she?" Danny asked tentatively.

"Not good. She's really freaked out and upset over everything."

"I wish there was something I could do to help her."

"Me too. I think I just made everything worse, though. You gonna finish that?" Tucker pointed to Danny's tray. Danny shoved it over to Tucker.

Nobody said anything for the rest of the lunch hour.

--------------------------------------------------

They all split up after lunch. Tucker hated that they had separate fourth periods on Thursdays.

As he turned the corner he smashed into someone carrying a rather large stack of books. Tucker and the other person fell to the ground and the books they were carrying went everywhere.

"Oh jeez, sorry!" Tucker scrambled to collect the books. "I did not see you at all! But, maybe you shouldn't be carrying so many books that you can't-" he suddenly noticed a theme in the books he was picking up.

"Ghost Hunter's Almanac? Ghost Hunting for Nitwits? What's with the interest in-" he looked up from the books in his hand and saw Valerie picking up up the rest of the mess.

 "Oh. Hey Valerie." What were the chances? "Um, here's your...ghost books back." he held them out awkwardly. Valerie glared at him and snatched her books back.

"What, are you stalking me or something?"

"No, I honestly didn't see you. You know, if you're interested in ghosts, Danny's parents are ghost experts. You could totally ask him for help. Or you could ask me and I'll ask him." Tucker gave what he hoped was a charming and friendly smile, but it just seemed to annoy Valerie.

"I don't know what your game is Foley." she said, glaring at him. "But you can quit now. I don't have any money left, and despite my new status, there's no way I'll ever be desperate enough to date you. So you've got nothing to gain from sucking up to me."

"Wait, what?" Tucker blinked in confusion. "Valerie, I'm not trying to get anything from you, I'm just trying to help. Honest."

"Great, I've even lost my appeal to the bottom of the barrel."  

Wow, Valerie was making it really hard to be nice to her.

"Then what do you want? Why are you being so nice to me?"

"You just, seem like you could use some kindness, I guess." Tucker shrugged. "I do kind of know what it's like for ghosts to uproot your life. Adjusting can be...hard."

"Oh." Now it was Valerie's turn to be caught off guard. "Well, thanks, I guess."

"You're welcome, I guess."

Valerie started to walk away.

"Hey, wait!"

"Ha, I knew it! I knew you wanted something!"

"You forgot this at lunch," Tucker handed her her paper bag. "I thought you might get hungry later."

"Oh." Valerie took the bag. She and Tucker just stood there looking at each other for a few seconds. The bell suddenly rang, interupting their awkward staring contest.

"Oh no, I'm late!" they both said at the same time, sprinting off in opposite directions.

--------------------------------------------------

Valerie was having trouble processing her interaction with Tucker. It was weird. Her own friends had snubbed her, but the loser kid she (if she could help it) never talked to was helping her at her lowest point? Valerie didn't get it.

But at least he had reminded her of some valuable information; Danny Fenton's parents were ghost hunters. That meant some of the worlds leading ghost experts were right in her town. Ghost experts she could actually talk to. The books were interesting, but they weren't super helpful. If she wanted to protect herself from ghosts, she needed weapons.

And Fenton Works was just the place to get them.

Valerie rang the doorbell. She fixed her hair while she waited for someone to answer. She only had one shot at this, so she needed things to go as well as possible.

A large man in an orange jumpsuit, whom Valerie recognized as Danny's father opened the door. He looked back and forth a few times before looking down and spotting her.

"And who might you be?" on paper the question might have sounded rude, but the man seemed earnestly curious. "One of Danny or Jazz's friends?"

"I'm in Danny's class. My name's Valerie Gray." Valerie tilted her head slightly and used a voice she'd been perfecting since kindergarten to get adults to do what she wanted "I just heard that the Fenton's were top tier ghost hunters, and I was wondering if there was any way you could teach me so I could help fight against the ghosts too."

Jack absolutely beamed when she finished speaking. Valerie internally pumped her fist. That was a good sign.

"Well would you look at that." he said. "It's not often you find young people so enthusiastic about ghost hunting these days. Maddie! Come here!"

"What is it Jack?" Maddie appeared at the door. "Oh, are you selling cookies? I didn't know they let teenagers be girl scouts." Again, in theory that sentence could have been condescending, but Maddie sounded genuinely interested.

"She's not selling cookies Mads. Wait, are you selling cookies?" Valerie shook her head. "Darn. Anyway, this is one of Danny's friends. She came here to ask us about ghost hunting!"

"Ooh!" Maddie squealed. "That's exciting! What did you want to know Sweetie?"

"I wanted to become a ghost hunter, like you two." Valerie said, putting on her best smile and sunniest voice. "I want to learn how to fight ghosts so I can protect this town and myself when those menaces attack."

"Wow, such ambition!" Maddie beamed "Unfortunately we can't actually teach you to fight ghosts."

"What?" Valerie felt like a balloon in her chest had deflated.

"Yeah," Jack nodded solemnly "Those police officers warned us about giving out 'volatile energy weapons' to 'random teenagers' after the last time. We'd love to recruit you kiddo, but they said they wouldn't be so forgiving next time."

"But I'll be careful!" Valerie wasn't ready to give up "You could train me, and I promise I wouldn't use any of the weapons unless it was a real emergency, and-"

"Sorry Sweetie, I'm afraid our hands are tied."

Valerie face fell and her shoulders slumped.

"I'll tell you what, though." Valerie held her breath when Maddie spoke. "We can give you these."

She handed Valerie two small devices. One looked like a pager, and the other sort of like a shield handle without the shield.

"The Fenton Pager and The Fenton Hand Shield." Jack said proudly.

Well, that made sense.

"You can use the Pager to contact us if you run into any ghosts."

"Our number's also in the phone book if you have any questions." Maddie added. "Our message box is usually pretty empty, so we should be able to get back to you fairly quickly."

"That shield is also a piece of cake to operate." Jack said "You just use the button to turn it on and off. It's small, but easy to transport and conceal. The ghosts'll never suspect you've got it on you."

"The charge doesn't last very long, but you shouldn't need to use it much. For emergencies only."

Valerie lost all hope when Maddie said that.

"Thanks Mr. and Mrs. Fenton. I should really be getting home now."

"It was great to meet you...what was your name again?" Maddie asked pleasantly, as if she hadn't just crushed all of Valerie's hopes and dreams.

"Valerie."

"It was nice to meet you Valerie. Feel free to stop by anytime."

Valerie heard the door close behind her as she walked glumly down the stairs. She stopped at the bottom and stared at the devices in her hands. The shield was something, she supposed, but nowhere close to what she was hoping for.

She closed her hand into a fist and clutched the hand-shield.

"I'll find a way." She said looking up, determination burning on her face.

"Find a way to do what?"

Valerie jumped and turned towards the voice. Her thumb instinctively found the button on the hand-shield, and a translucent green circle about the size of a trash can lid sprung up in front of her face.

"Who's there!?"

The stranger stepped out of the shadows of the ally way.

"My apologies for startling you. I'm-"

"I know who you are. Vlad Masters. CEO of VladCo." Valerie clicked the button with her thumb again, and the shield retracted.

"Hm. I'm not usually recognized by people under twenty. Anyway, I couldn't help but overhear you've taken an interest in ghost hunting."

"What's it to you?" She crossed her arms and glared at Vlad challengingly. Under any other circumstances, she would've been excited to meet the famous billionaire, but not when she'd just caught him creeping in an alley, eavesdropping on her.

"Not many people take interest in that particular field. Most don't even believe in ghosts in the first place, let alone want to hunt them. Especially not your age."

"You...believe that ghosts are real too?" Valerie was surprised.

"My dear I've run into many ghosts over the course of my life time. Spoken to more ghosts than ghost-believers."

Valerie scoffed.

"Spoken? To those monsters?"

"Whether you believe it or not, it's true. However, as I'm sure you're aware, not all ghosts are friendly. I'd advise you to steer clear and leave the ghost hunting to the professionals."

"Professionals?" Now Valerie was seething. What right did this guy have to just show up and tell her what to do and not worry about? "You mean the same 'professionals' who stopped that giant monster from destroying my father's security system? The same professionals that saved everyone at Axiom Labs who was in danger? The same professionals who stopped my life from being completely ruined in front of me? Oh wait!"

"Tell me Mister Masters," Valerie took a step forward. Vlad stepped back. "What right do you have to just show up, out of literally nowhere, and tell me what I should be doing with my life. "

Maybe this had been coming. Maybe Valerie's fear and anger had been festering for too long and were finally boiling over the edge. Maybe it was because she was never going to see this idiot again. Whatever the reason, she let out everything she'd been carrying inside her for the past week.

"You haven't lied awake at night because you're too afraid to close your eyes in case something more terrifying than most people can even imagine shows up and destroys your life without warning. You haven't had nightmares about giant green faces that wake you up in a cold sweat at 3:00am when you finally do get to sleep. You haven't seen monster you know you saw, but can't tell anyone about because they'd think you were crazy!" She felt tears prickling the corners of her eyes, but she pressed on. Now that she'd started, she wasn't going to stop until she got everything out of her system.

"You don't have to look at your dad's face every morning when he smiles and tells you everything's gonna work out, when both you and he know the truth is that everything sucks, and it might suck for a long time! Maybe forever." Valerie's voice wavered, but she steadied herself. "Ghosts took everything from me! And that monster is going to continue to haunt my life until I do something about it!"

Valerie could feel herself shaking. She felt drained, but also lighter than she had in a week.

Vlad didn't say anything. He looked mildly surprised. Valerie found that she didn't care what he thought. She turned around to leave.

"You're right."

She stopped walking and looked over her shoulder.

"Ghosts can haunt you in more ways than one. I...have experienced the fear. I've lied awake worrying that what happened once may happen again. I've gone about my daily life on edge, worrying that they might attack out of nowhere. If anyone knows what you're going through, it's me. I have no right to tell you to just go back to living your life like nothing happened when I know that's impossible."

Valerie was genuinely speechless. She hadn't expected this old man to listen to her, to care, to understand.

"I know someone who can deal with the ghost that attacked Axiom. It will be dealt with, I can assure you."

Valerie nodded and bit her lip thoughtfully.

"But there's more, aren't there?" she said. "And don't you dare lie to me."

"Yes."

"A lot?"

"I'm afraid so."

"I know what they can do. The damage they can cause. I won't be able to sit by and watch ghosts destroy the lives of the people around me. I can't do nothing."

Vlad didn't say anything right away. He looked pensive.

"I'll make you a deal."

"What kind of deal?"

"The kind that will give you the tools you need to protect you from ghosts, and help you protect others."

"You mean ghost weapons?" Valerie raised her eyebrows.

"Yes. Weapons and armour, of sorts. But, you'll have to agree to a few conditions."

"What are these conditions?"

"Firstly, you must be careful. Ghost hunting is dangerous and the only reason I'm giving you the tools to do it is because you seem desperate enough to go charging in with or without proper protection. And if those are my only two choices, than I know which one I'd rather you do.

Secondly, as I told you before, not all ghosts are as dangerous as the one that attacked Axiom. Many are quite friendly if you get to know them. I imagine most of the ones you meet here in Amity won't be, but I'll have to leave that to your discretion. That being said, I believe you've met a ghost child? Looks about your age? Lanky, black hazmat suit, white hair?"

"Yeah, I've met him." Valerie knit her brow. She actually hadn't thought about that ghost kid much. She'd been too preoccupied with the dog.

"He's on your side. I'd strongly advise working with him if you can, but you are under no circumstances to harm him. He's been protecting Amity from a large sum of ghosts these past few months. Simply put, there might have been a lot more Axiom-situations if it wasn't for him."

Valerie's eyes widened. So ghosts attacks had been happening without her even knowing? She wasn't sure if she found that comforting or creepy.

"I'm afraid this part of the deal is non-negotiable. I'll need your word you won't harm him."

"Yeah, I'll leave him alone. I wouldn't go after him anyway. He...saved me when the dog attacked. He saved everyone. I didn't get his name, though. Do ghosts even have names?"

"Most of them do. I believe he goes by 'Danny Phantom'. Do me a favour, if you will, keep an eye on him for me?" Vlad seemed almost...concerned about this ghost. Valerie wondered why.

"Was he...close to you, or something?" she was trying to be sensitive, but truthfully this situation was kind of awkward.

"Hm? Oh, well, I've only met him recently. I just...see myself in him in some ways. He's capable, but what he does is dangerous. I'd rather neither of you involved yourselves in ghost hunting at all, but if you're going to either way, it might be good to have each other's backs."

A ghost who was a ghost hunter? With all the other craziness suddenly going on in her life, why not?

"I'll...think about it. I'd better get home before my dad starts to worry."

"Yes. It was very nice meeting you Valerie. You should receive something in the mail shortly. I'll send you something...appropriate. Goodnight, and do be careful."

"Thanks Mister Masters." Valerie said, turning away.

Vlad watched Valerie walk away into the night. Sure, he'd expected some excitement , but this was not at all how he'd thought his night to go. What had he gotten himself into with this teenager?

He'd worry about that later. Once he was certain she was gone, he stepped back into the alleyway and summoned the black rings that transformed him into ghost form.

Once the transformation was complete, Vlad floated up to Danny's window.

--------------------------------------------------

Danny jumped when he heard something tapping on his window. He almost fell out of his seat when he looked up from his homework and saw Vlad Plasmius's face behind the glass. He was waving and smiling politely, but seeing that face at your window was enough to stop anyone's heart.

He went over and opened the window.

"Vlad!" Danny said happily. "Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to see you, but a little warning might have been nice."

"I did say I'd be dropping by. Are you available right now?"

"Absolutely." Danny said, transforming and flying out the window beside Vlad. "We should probably take this somewhere else, though. Wouldn't want to accidentaly get spotted by my parents."

"Yes, that would definitely be wise."

They decided to fly over to Amity Park Park (after Danny managed to convince Vlad that, yes, that was really what the park was named). They talked as they flew.

"So how long are you staying in Amity?" Danny asked.

"My business with Axiom is almost all settled. I'll be heading back to Wisconsin tomorrow."

"Oh." Well that was disappointing. "Hey, you've been to the Ghost Zone before, right?"

"Yes I have. Many times in fact."

"What's it like in there?"

Vlad thought for a second.

"The Ghost Zone, despite being intrinsically linked to the human world, is nothing like it. It is an endless swirling void of ectoplasm and chaos. It's like outer space in a way, only green instead of black and without stars. There are patches of land floating about. Islands, if you will, and they all seem to operate on different rules. If a human were to enter the Ghost Zone, they'd likely be stuck on one of those islands, since navigation is impossible without flight. Gravity does not exist and, of course, you are surrounded by various types of ghosts at all times."

"That sounds...terrifying."

"I'd say it's more confusing than scary. Sure, you have to be prepared for the unexpected, but that's what makes it interesting. The threat of death may be in any direction you look, but so is the thrill of discovery!"

Danny suddenly understood how his parents and Vlad became friends.

"Now it's my turn for a question. Do your parents often have their inventions around the house?"

"Um, yeah, I guess."

"Have they noticed that you seem to set all their devices off?"

"They always assume it's a glitch or something. I usually just pretend to be as confused as they are, and try to leave the room as fast as possible. They don't suspect anything so far."

There was a pause in the conversation.

"It's amazing how they can be so brilliant yet so dense."

"Makes my job easier." Danny shrugged.

"Still, it must be quite stressful, being constantly under the risk that someone might find out. Especially with no one to talk to about it."

"Well, I'm not totally alone."

"Oh? Does Jazz know about your powers? I didn't think to ask last time."

"No. Sam and Tucker were there when the accident first transformed me."

"Sam and Tucker?"

"My friends. You met them when you came over the other night."

"Oh." Vlad furrowed his brow. "So you do have people in your life who...accept you for what you are."

Danny thought that was kind of a weird way to phrase it.

"Yeah, I guess."

"Hm." Vlad had a strange expression on his face. Danny wasn't sure if he should say something. "That's...interesting. On another note, how have you been keeping up with the local ecto activity?" Vlad asked. "Any particularly troublesome ghosts?"

"Uhh, you know the whole Axiom situation? Well...there was this ghost dog that showed up and attacked Axiom Labs a few days ago. It hasn't really caused any trouble, you know, besides the whole destroying Axiom thing, but I'd like to track it down and get it back to the Ghost Zone anyway, just to make sure he won't cause more trouble, but he seems to have disappeared completely."

"Have you checked Axiom Labs?"

"What?"

"If the ghost has caused a disturbance at Axiom, then that place may hold some significance for him."

"But there's like, construction workers and stuff there. Surely someone would've noticed a giant green dog."

"Daniel, have you heard that demolition on the building was delayed?"

"Wait, what?"

"Well, this information hasn't been made public, but it has been delayed indefinitely. They haven't been able to extract the remaining projects because apparently anyone whose sent in reports being scared off by a horrible monster. They haven't been able to organize a proper investigation yet."

"Wait, seriously?"

"I was actually planning on asking if you knew anything about that."

"Well now I know where to look at least."

"Are you going after it tonight?"

"I mean, the sooner I get rid of it, the better, right?"

"I suppose." Vlad nodded. "Though, if this ghost has bested you before, perhaps it would be good to bring some extra firepower."

"Did you have something in mind?"

"Yes, in fact, I'd like to accompany you. If you're alright with that."

"Really? That'd be awesome!" Danny said. "Hang on, I just need to call- oh..."

"What is it?"

"Well," Danny rubbed the back of his neck "I just usually bring Sam and Tucker along on these things, but they don't know about you."

Vlad didn't say anything. Danny couldn't read his facial expression.

"I mean, it's fine, though. I take on ghosts by myself all the time, so they don't really need to be there."

"They can come if you like." Vlad said.

Danny might've jumped if he wasn't already in midair.

"Really? Are you sure you don't mind?"

"I'll admit it will be strange explaining my...situation to them." Vlad gestured to himself. "But I'd like to meet your friends properly. And see how you three do on the field."

"Huh. Wow. So no pressure or anything."

"I'll reserve judgments, but I may have some useful pointers." Vlad grinned. " There's a small thicket near Axiom's front entrance. You can explain things to your friends and meet me there."

--------------------------------------------------

"So you think the dog's still hanging out at Axiom?" Sam said.

"Wouldn't there be an excavation crew swarming the place? Surely we'd have heard if something ghostly was going on there?" Tucker said.

"That's the thing," Danny said. "There have been sightings. Specifically of a giant green dog monster. Sound familiar?" Tucker and Sam's eyes widened at Danny's words. "The higher ups have been trying to keep it quiet, so word hasn't gotten out to the press yet."

"Okay," Sam raised an eyebrow "So how do you know all that? You're not exactly the world's greatest detective there, Sherlock."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Danny asked.

"First off," Tucker cut in "the world's greatest detective is Batman, not Sherlock Sam." Sam glared at Tucker. "Second, yeah, how do you know all that?"

"You remember how Vlad Masters was visiting my family?"

"Yeah?" Sam and Tucker said together.

"Well, the reason he came down to Amity Park was because of the whole Axiom fiasco."

"Ah, that makes sense." Sam said. "The tangled web. Figures he wouldn't be down here just to visit old friends."

"So, Vlad was able to get the inside scoop and shared it with you?" Tucker asked.

"Yeah, pretty much."

"So the rich crone wasn't useless after all." Sam smirked. "That's a first."

"Well, what are we waiting for then?" Tucker said "Let's get down to Axiom and bust that ghost!"

"Um, first, there's, uh, something else you two should know. About Vlad."

Sam and Tucker both looked at Danny. Neither of them said anything, curious as to what Danny could possible have to tell them about CEO family-friend Vlad Masters.

"Um, well, you remember how I said he and my parents split up in college?" Danny rubbed the back of his neck. He hadn't really planned how he was going to break it to them. "Well, what actually happened was that Vlad was in an accident. See, he and my parents used to study ghosts back in college."

"Seriously?" Sam smirked. "Vlad Masters was into ghosts in his college days. He just became the slightest bit interesting. Wait, were you about to tell us that the he's going to Axiom to nerd out, or something? Ugh, that would mess with things."

"Er, no, not exactly. See, it's just that when Vlad got into his accident, he and my parents were trying to build a...ummm...a ghost portal. And it kind of went off on him."

Nobody said anything for a second. Then Sam's eyes bulged.

"Wait," she said "Hold on. Are you saying...what I think you're saying? No. No way!" Sam put a hand to her forehead, eyes fixed vacantly on the ground.

"Wait, what?" Tucker looked between Danny and Sam. "What's he saying? What happened to Vlad?"

"Tucker," Sam grabbed Tucker by the shoulders and looked him directly in the eye "Vlad had a ghost portal accident." she said, stressing each of the last three words.

Realization suddenly dawned on Tucker.

"Wait," wide-eyed, he pushed Sam off of him and looked At Danny "Are you're saying that...Vlad Masters is half-ghost too!?"

"Yeah." Danny confirmed. "Turns out there's someone else like me."

Danny felt a strange lightness in his chest once those words left his mouth. The feeling surprised him, but if was nice.

"Anyway," Danny snapped out of his daze "We should head down to Axiom. I told Vlad we were going to meet him there."

Tucker and Sam, still slack-jawed, just blinked at Danny.

--------------------------------------------------

The trio hid their scooters in some bushes once they got close enough to Axiom.

"Okay," Danny said "Now we just gotta find Vlad and come up with a plan."

"Where did he say he'd meet you?" Sam asked.

"Somewhere in this thicket."

"He couldn't have been a little more specific?"

"I'm sure he's around here somewhere. We'll just have to-"

"Good evening."

"AH!" All three of them jumped at Vlad's voice.

"How long have you been standing there?" Tucker asked, clutching his chest.

"Oh, not long." Vlad turned to Danny. "I assume you've explained things to them?"

Danny nodded.

"Excellent. I was floating above invisibly, waiting for you three to arrive. I wasn't going to stand somewhere in the middle of these trees and hope you'd run into me. That would be a little ridiculous. I did also scout the building while I was waiting for you. No sign of that ghost dog in my preliminary search, I'm afraid."

"Does that mean it left?" Danny asked. Sam and Tucker seemed to have lost their ability to speak, and were just staring at Vlad. He didn't seem to notice. Or he was pretending not to.

"I doubt it. More likely it's just hiding. We'll either have to do a more thorough search and hope to stumble upon it, or find a way to lure it out."

"Oh!" Sam suddenly gained her voice back "I actually brought something for that."

She swung her spider backpack off her shoulders and unzipped it. Inside were various dog toys and a small bag of dog treats.

"He may be a ghost dog," Sam pulled out a squeaky toy and squeaked it "But he's still a dog, right?"

"Excellent thinking." Vlad smiled "You seem to have a very good instinct for ghosts...Sam, was it? Well, we can talk more inside. I don't know how long this will take, so we'd better start searching right away."

The group began to walk towards the Axiom Labs building. They'd barely started down the hill when Danny felt a sudden chill and a puff of mist escaped from his mouth.

He looked around. There was no sign of a ghost anywhere. That was weird. Danny thought he was too far away, but maybe the dog had set off ghost sense?

Danny sighed. He'd had his powers for months and still couldn't seem to quite get how they worked.

He looked over at Vlad. Vlad's ghost sense must have gone off too, but he didn't seem concerned, so Danny figured it probably wasn't something to worry about. It was just the dog setting it off.

Yeah, that was probably it.

--------------------------------------------------

Danny pulled Tucker and Sam through the walls of Axiom intangibly. They both stared at Vlad as he emerged beside them.

"Wow," Tucker said "There really is another half ghost in the world."

"What?" Vlad raised an eyebrow playfully "You didn't believe him?"

"No! It's just, it's, weird, I guess." Tucker shrugged awkwardly.

"I understand that it can be a lot to take in." Vlad casually examined his fingernails. "I am open to questions, but we'd better start moving. As I said before, I don't know how long it will take us to find our ghost, so we'd better start now."

And so the four of them patrolled the building. Tucker carried the bag of treats and threw one on the ground every so often. Danny held the squeaky toy and squeaked it a few times whenever they entered a new room.

They walked in silence for a while, Tucker and Sam seeming to not want to address the elephant in the room.

"So, how long have you had ghost powers, Mister Masters, sir?"

Okay, maybe Tucker was actually fine addressing the elephant.

"Oh, about twenty years at this point." Vlad said "And just 'Vlad' is fine, son."

"Cool. And I go by Tucker. Tucker Foley."

"Noted."

"So...I was wondering, do you ever use your tech for ghost research? I've actually used some of VladCo's stuff to modify Danny's parent's inventions. The kritonic stabilizer really improved the Fenton Thermos. Danny could stabilize it with his ecto-whatever, but I noticed the KS did a similar thing, so that way the rest of us could use it too. Didn't take too long to solder, either." Tucker smiled a wide smile that made Sam silently glare at him.

"As a matter of fact, that's what it was actually initially developed for. Not that my employees knew that. I told them it was for improving cooling systems. Of course, PC's don't run on quite the same energy wave a lot of ecto technologies do. In the end it was rolled out onto very few models, since the impact on efficiency was negligible, but it was quite useful for me personally for its capabilities with ecto-energy stabilization."

"Yeah, I actually got one of the PC's that implemented KS, and that's where I got the it for the thermos. I always wondered why they'd bothered with it. Worked out pretty well for us, though. I thought it was such a weird coincidence that something so useless happened to work so well for ghost hunting."

Danny squeaked the toy as they entered a large room through an mangled archway. He soon found himself unable to keep up with Vlad and Tucker's conversation. How did this always happen?

At least his friends were getting along with Vlad.

"Shh!" Sam suddenly stopped walking.

"What?" Danny asked.

"I hear something."

"What is it?"

"I don't know, shh!"

The rest of the group listened. Now that they weren't talking, Danny noticed it too: a soft crunching noise. The noise stopped after a second and then started again.

"What do you think that is?" Danny whispered.

"I think the dog found our trail." Tucker whispered back, holding up the bag of treats for emphasis.

A high pitched bark suddenly cut through the silence.

"Yup, that's definitely the dog." Danny said.

The barking started to get louder.

"Okay, I'm going ghost!" Danny held up his arms and transformed. He turned to Sam and Tucker. "You two stay back. This dog is not something you want to mess with."

Danny squared up, ready to fight. The barking was steadily getting closer, until around the corner appeared...

A small dog yipping happily. He turned the corner too fast and slipped onto his face, but quickly recovered and kept running towards Danny. When he got close enough, he jumped towards Danny's chest. Danny instinctively caught the dog.

"Oh yeah, I see what you mean Danny." Sam nodded "Reeeal Scary."

"I...don't get it." Danny said. He absentmindedly started to pet the dog. "He was like this when I first met him, but he turned a lot bigger when he got to Axiom." He tuned to Vlad "And you said he was scaring away all the excavation crew." Vlad nodded. Danny turned back to the dog. "What is your deal?"

"Maybe he just hates humans?" Sam shrugged. "He did seek you out when he came here. Ghost dog likes ghost?"

The dog lept out of Danny's arms, ran over to Tucker and stood up on his hind legs, wagging his tail. Tucker dug a treat out of his bag.

"Sit!" He said, holding up a treat. The dog sat obediently.

"Wow! He's well trained." Tucker tossed the him the treat. The dog caught it and happily wagged his tail. He got down on one knee and scratched the dog under his chin.

"Good theory Sam, but he doesn't seem to mind Tucker." Danny said.

"And if you can stand him, you can stand any human." Sam nodded.

"Hey!"

"But then why did he attack the Axiom employees?"

"Hey, check this out!" Tucker said. "On his collar! It's the Axiom logo!"

"What?" Danny and Sam gathered around the dog. Sure enough, the tag on his collar bore the atom insignia of the company.

"You know," Tucker said "I was doing some research, and Axiom did used to use guard dogs before Valerie's dad upgraded their security system. I have a feeling that might be relevant."

"So the dog came back to destroy Axiom to get revenge for being replaced?" Danny said.

"You're getting warmer," Danny had almost forgotten Vlad was there. "But there's still a hole in your theory. You may have noticed that the majority of the lab's projects are still intact. And, according to reports from various Axiom employees, our ghost doesn't seem to have caused any further damage since the initial attack."

Danny took a quick look around the room. The most prominent signs of the dog's earlier attack were a charred security camera dangling on one wall, and the doorway they had come through that was actually a large hole in a mangled steel security door. There were some gashes in the walls, but none of the computers or other furniture in the room had been damaged.

"It was also recently brought to my attention that it was mainly the security system that he went after."

"Hey, you're right." Danny said.

 "And the only other time he was sighted," Sam furrowed her brow in thought "Was when the excavation crew came in to get Axiom's projects. Otherwise he seems to have stayed completely out of sight."

"Yeah, it didn't like those people, but it doesn't really seem to mind us being here." Tucker said.

"Okay," Danny said "So he destroyed the security system because it replaced him, but he hates the excavation crew because...?"

"Because they were trying to take Axiom's stuff!" Tucker snapped his finger "And it's the dog's job to protect Axiom's stuff!"

"Yeah!" Sam said "Cujo over here was actually just doing what a guard dog's trained to do!"

"So...he's not trying to get revenge?" Danny said "He's just trying to do his job?"

Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by a ghost phasing through the floor and snapping something around the dog's neck before anyone could react.

"Ha ha! At long last I, Technus, have caught the guardian of Axiom in it's smaller form, thanks to the distraction caused by you, ghost child, as well as you teenage friends." Technus seemed to notice Vlad for the first time. He seemed caught off guard by his presence. "As well as this senior citizen, I suppose?"

"I'm forty-two." Vlad said.

"I knew it wasn't the dog that triggered my ghost sense!" Danny said.

The ghost dog began to glow green, like the first time he transformed when Danny met him. He yelped as little sparks shot out of his collar and remained the same size.

Sam looked at the dog with horror in her eyes. She turned towards Technus and glared.

"What did you do to him?" She demanded.

"I have placed an inhibitor collar around this dog's neck, barring it's access to it's much larger and scarier form. For days that infernal mutt has been tormenting me! Biting and drooling all over my stylish trench coat whenever I so much as set foot in Axiom Laboratories. But, now that it has been neutralized I, Technus, now have unfettered access to all of Axiom's most advanced technologies!"

Technus finished his speech by thrusting his arms out to the side. Various machine pieces began to flow towards him from every hallway and swarmed around his body.

"Behold, my ultimate revenge upon this menace guard dog, Mecha-Kitty 5000!"

In about thirty seconds, Technus was decked out in a mechanical suit that looked like a giant cat. A giant metal cat with glowing green eyes and matching veins of energy running along it's body. It had razor sharp metal claws, and teeth fixed in an incredibly creepy smile.

"And now, before I use the technology in this lab to take over the world, I'm going to destroy you meddling kids and that pesky dog! And, also this elder."

Cujo whimpered. He looked at the ground and tucked his tail between his legs.

Danny clenched his fists and turned to face Technus. He began to fly towards him, but Vlad put his arm out to stop him.

"You three get the collar off the dog." he said. "I'll handle this." He turned away from the group and looked into the robot cat's visor. A black ring appeared around his waist, splitting into two and travelling up and down Vlad's body, transforming him.

Sam and Tucker stared at him with awe and a little bit of intimidation. This was their first time seeing Vlad in his ghost form.

"I don't suppose you're familiar with the name 'Vlad Plasmius'?" Vlad asked, floating up to Technus's level.

"I, Technus, am not familiar with the name 'Vlad Pasmius'!" Technus seemed surprised by Vlad's ghostly transformation. He quickly recovered, though, and the robot cat swiped it's claws at Vlad. Vlad managed to dodge them, though.

"That," Vlad began to charge up an ecto beam in his hand "Is about to change, then."

The robo-cat raised it's tail and began shooting electrical beams out the end of it. Vlad threw his charged up ecto blast at the robot before quickly swooping to dodge the electric blast. Vlad's blast hit the cat's cheek, but barely seemed to do any damage.

"Is that all you've got?" Technus gloated. He fired beam after beam at Vlad.

Vlad split into two while Technus continued to fire at him. The two Vlads flew in around in a random swirling pattern. Danny quickly lost track of which Vlad was which.

"Blast it!" Technus cried "Stay still so that I, Technus, master of all things electronical, can fry you with my electronic blasts already!"

The robo-cat began to shoot alternating electrical beams out of it's nostrils as well. The two Vlad's continued to swoop around intricately, making it hard for Technus to aim properly. They both stayed well away from the area where Danny and his friends were.

Danny turned away from the fight. He grabbed the dog's collar and tried to make it intangible, but was met with an electric shock. Danny and the ghost dog both yelped.

"Sorry boy." Danny said, shaking his smoulderding hand.

"If the collar's designed to block ghost powers, then ghost tricks aren't going to work on it." Sam said.

"Then let's try a tech trick." Tucker pulled a jack cord out of his backpack and plugged it into Technus's collar and his PDA. Green text that was incomprehensible to Danny began to scroll down the screen.

"Bingo! I'll have this collar off of him in no time!"

"Perfect." Danny stood up. "In the meantime, I'll go help Vl-"

Danny stopped mid-sentence when he turned. He didn't see Vlad.

Suddenly, Vlad appeared beneath the robo cat. He clenched his fist and charged up an ecto beam. At least, Danny thought it was an ecto blast. The aura around his hand intensified, and then spread down the rest of his arm.

With his other hand, Vlad shot an ecto beam at one of the robo cat's front legs. It struck it right in the knee joint, causing that leg to buckle. The robot was thrown off balance. As Technus adjusted, Vlad flew over to one of it's back legs.

He grabbed it just above the knee joint with his glowing hand, assaulting everyone's ears with a screeching cruuuunch. Pink energy spread around the area where Vlad was holding the leg.

The bottom half of the leg split from the top and fell to the ground. The part where it had been severed glowed red-hot, as if it had been melted off.

"Hey, hey! What's going on down there?" Technus said. "What did you do to my leg?"

Vlad's only answer was to unleash an onslaught of ecto beams at Technus's other legs. They weren't very powerful, but Vlad aimed for the knee joints, which kept knocking the giant robot off balance. Technus kept trying to adjust, but Vlad would not let up.

Danny suddenly noticed the cat's tail sneak under the robot's body.

"The tail!" He shouted "Behind you!"

Without even looking, Vlad went intangible and flew up through the robot's body, an electro beam barely missing him. He emerged from the top and kept flying upwards. Once he was almost at the ceiling, he swooped around, flying back towards the robot at top speed, both fists thrust out in front of him.

He turned solid again.

SMAAAASH!!!

The robot's remaining legs, still askew from the earlier ecto beam barrage, instantly gave out from Vlad's impact. The robot's body crashed against the ground, sparks and bits of metal flying off of it.

Vlad hovered above the wreckage. There were two large dents where his fists had made contact with the robot.

That cat was not getting up anytime soon.

Technus intangibly floated out of the robot's head. When he turned solid again, he looked furious.

"You fool!" he shouted "You may have destroyed this glorious creation of mine, but I am a master of technology, and we are currently amongst some of the most advanced technological devices in the world! What's to stop me from rebuilding my machine! Or perhaps something even more powerful!"

Danny suddenly felt something woosh by him, and Technus was bowled over by the ghost dog, now in his gaint form. The dog absolutely pummeled Technus. It was almost hard to watch.

As his finishing move, the ghost picked Technus up with his teeth, shook him violently, and let go. Technus went sailing straight into a wall.

Splat!

Technus actually stayed where he hit the wall for a second before slowly sliding down to the floor. He did not get up.

"I...got the collar off." Tucker said.

"Nice job Tuck." Danny pulled out the thermos and aimed it at Technus. The blue beam began to suck him in.

"Noooo! How could you have best me, Technus, master of-"

Danny slammed the cap on the thermos, cutting off Technus's speech.

The ghost dog turned to face Danny, panting heavily.

"The bad ghost is gone." Danny said. "You did a good job."

The dog shrank back to his normal size and barked happily. To Danny's surprise, the ghost began to disappear, seemingly dissolving into the air. Within a few seconds, he was gone.

"That's...never happened before." Danny said.

"Is he gone?" Tucker asked, looking around. "Like, he's not just invisible?"

"I believe so." Vlad landed on the ground next to Danny. "I haven't seen any ghost that disappears like that reappear. It seems when they do that, they're gone for good. I have no idea where they go but, and I could be wrong, but I think that when that happens it's a good thing for them. Nice job with the collar, by the way Tucker. I may have to hire you one day."

Tucker beamed when Vlad said that.

"All he wanted was to protect Axiom." Sam said. "Even after everything they did?"

"I think he just wanted someone to acknowledge the hard work he did." Tucker said. "Those dogs did a good job, and they weren't exactly rewarded well. Huh. I'm starting to get why you feel bad for animals."

"You three did well tonight." Vlad smiled. "I am quite impressed. You've picked up on the intricacies of ghost hunting rather quickly. Truth be told, I don't even think that I even really had to step in there when I did. You seem to work well as a team, you're all quite resourceful and adaptive, and I honestly don't have any major notes."

The trio all smiled at each other. They weren't used to getting praised.

"Of course, I'd advise you from letting your heads get too big. There's always room for improvement. I do wish I could stay longer, but I'm afraid I'm on a rather tight schedule and must be going now. It was a pleasure to meet you both. Ta ta!"

Before anyone could respond, Vlad went intangible and flew through the roof.

"Okay," Tucker said "I know he said the three of us were good, but we've barely managed to scrape out of half the ghost fights we're in, and that guy took down Technus like it was nothing! Like, seriously, did you see him?"

"Yeah." Sam turned to Danny "Like, we see you do some incredible things, Danny. But that Vlad guy? He's kind of...scary powerful."

"Maybe I'll get that powerful someday too." Danny said "It'd make our jobs easier. And I wouldn't have to keep bugging you guys with ghost hunting."

"Aw, come on Danny," Sam elbowed him in the side "Cut that out. If there's one thing your parents are right about, it's that ghost hunting rules. Please don't tell them I said that, though."

"Oh, absolutely not." Danny laughed.

"Okay, but now that the ghost is gone, we'd better get going." Tucker said. "It is a school night."

"Ooh, look at you being all responsible." Sam smirked.

"I want to be well rested for the release of DOOMED tomorrow."

"Ah, that explains it."

"You saw the trailer I sent you, right Danny?" Tucker wrapped an arm around Danny's shoulder "It's gonna be awesome!"

"Yeah." Danny took one last look at the ceiling. He wished Vlad hadn't left so soon.

--------------------------------------------------

Danny braced himself for the wave of guilt upon seeing Valerie the next day, but it didn't come. She looked a lot happier today. Her head was held high and she was even smiling.

Much to the trio's surprise, she stopped by their table.

"Hey Tucker." she said. "Thanks for the advice yesterday. It was the best anyone's ever given me."

"No problem." Tucker smiled warmly. "Glad I could help. Hey, you can sit with us if you want."

Tucker's offer earned him some raised eyebrows from Danny and Sam.

"Nah, I got some stuff I gotta research in the library." She turned around "Maybe some other time, though." she said before walking away.

"What'd you say to her anyway?" Danny asked.

"No idea, actually." Tucker shrugged "But she seems happy."

"That...might have something to do with her father getting hired by another company's security department." Sam said.

"Wait, really? That's great!" Danny smiled. "Wait, how do you know that Sam?"

Tucker leaned closer to Sam with a smug expression. "Would you know that because a certain heartless goth actually does have a heart, and put in a good word? Hmmmmm?"

"Someone had to do something." Sam pushed Tucker away by his by face "Since your efforts left her running out of the cafeteria. Anyway, enough about Valerie." Sam turned to Danny. "So, Danny, how long have you had a half-ghost billionaire friend?"

"Huh? Oh, I only found out about him when we met in Wisconsin last month. Honestly, besides last night, I haven't seen him since."

"But, still, it is really cool that there's another half-ghost out there. And one that kicks serious butt too!" Tucker said.

"I just wish he wasn't so busy. It'd be cool if he came around more."

"That's the life of a billionaire, Danny." Sam said "Although, if I were him, I'd be doing everything I can to clear up my schedule and spend time with the only other half-ghost on the planet, so who knows. Maybe you'll see more of him soon."

"Yeah, maybe you're right Sam." Danny didn't mention that Vlad wasn't returning his parent's calls. Vlad seemed to like his parents, but Danny wondered if he'd come around more often if they weren't ghost hunters.

"Yeah, and it's not like you need him anyway." Tucker added. "Sure, he's awesome, but you've been getting waaay better with your powers. I don't think you've fallen through the floor at all this month, and I've lost count of how many ghost-butts you've sent crying back to the Ghost Zone. You're not doing too bad on you own Danny."

Danny smiled. He was glad he had friends like Tucker and Sam. He had no idea how he would've survived becoming half ghost without them. Sure, Vlad made him feel less alone when he was around, but Sam and Tucker made him feel less alone in a different way. Maybe an even better one.

-------------------- Epilogue --------------------

It had been nearly a month since her dad had been hired by the Mansons. Thing were going well.

"I'm moving up the ranks pretty quickly Val! The Mansons are pretty impressed with my work."

"That's great Daddy!"

Even though it was Saturday, Valerie still liked to get up early to see her Dad off. It was worth it to see how excited he was with his progress at work. His smiles in the morning didn't look like they took effort anymore.

"Of course, I'm nowhere near my old salary, but at this rate, we should be able to afford to live in a slightly better apartment. One that's closer to your school. So, as soon as I find a decent one, we're moving!"

"Now that is good news." Valerie said. She was sick of killing cockroaches and getting up at 5:00am to catch the bus to school.

Damon glanced at his watch.

"But only if I make it to work on time. Gotta go Sweetie, have a good day." he kissed the top of her head. "Oh, by the way, that came for you in the mail from Wisconsin." he said, pointing to the package on the living room table Valerie had missed. "Might be that dress you ordered before I got fired. Anyway, gotta go. Love you!" he called on his way out the door.

"Love you too, Daddy!" Valerie called as she heard the door shut. She went over to inspect the package. There wasn't a return address, but Valerie had a pretty good guess of who it was from.

When she pulled open the flaps of the box, she discovered a note at the top of a pile of packing peanuts.

Ms Gray,

As promised, enclosed are two things: a protective suit and an Ecto Blaster. The blaster should be pretty straight forward to use, but the suit is much more advanced and, I imagine, much more helpful. It is made up of ecto-resistant material, and I've added a number of helpful ghost-hunting implements. I've included a detailed manual, and I suggest ample practice before taking on any actual ghosts. I would also appreciate you keeping this on the down-low. Giving volatile energy weapons to teenagers is generally frowned upon, and I am a very public figure. To be perfectly frank, I have my doubts about sending these to you, but I don't like going back on my word, so please do be careful, and remember, there's no shame in backing down.

The note wasn't signed.

"Very nice Mister Masters," Valerie smiled as she dug through the packing peanuts and pulled out a weird gun-looking thing. "Finally, I can get some sweet sweet payback. Things are finally looking up!"

The ecto blaster suddenly went off on it's own. The beam shot out an open window and hit a passing seagull, causing it to fall to the ground.

"Valerie?!" she heard her dad call from down the hall.

"I'm okay!" she yelled back, instinctively hiding the blaster behind her back.

[twisted-timeline-au]

Main AU Story

Some backstory for the timeline. This blog has everything that happened in the series canon to the original up until the "Masters Of All Time" episode. (Spoilers Ahead for a cartoon that's gone off the air for 15 years, (Danny Phantom is a good show and I would highly recommend it even after all this time.)) The trio, Danny Fenton, Sam Manson, and Tucker Foley are hanging out at the Nasty Burger. Danny's sister, Jazz runs to the table to warn Danny that they should leave now. Danny is confused only to be met with the Fenton parents, Jack and Maddie, who are both dressed up in 80's fashion for a 80's themed party. Jack and Maddie in their typical loving, but oblivious way, embarrass Danny causing him to want to leave the Nasty burger with his friends. Only to be met with his arch nemesis Vlad. He comments that he's waiting for the insult toward Jack or a lame come on about Maddie, to which, Vlad tells him that here's not their to joke around before his strength fades and he falls to his knees and he reverts back to human form and it is revealed that he's come down with another case of ecto-acne that was more lethal than when he had first gotten it in college. Danny is silent, while his friends add fuel to a low burning flame in the form of asking, "Why would Danny help you?"

In which a still sickly Vlad takes the opportunity to reply with "I thought you'd never ask." as he throws a Vladco smoke grenade that afflicts Sam and Tucker with the same lethal strain of ecto-acne he has, before he himself passes out. Danny turns back to human, and tries to wake Vlad up and get him to undo this.

Then he hears his parents leaving the Nasty Burger to see Sam, Tucker and Vlad sick... and of course they have to go to the one place on Earth who can handle this. Danny is hoping for them to be contained and treated at the hospital, however they are taken to Fenton Works. Since for 20 years since the incident that caused Vlad to be hospitalized. Jack and Maddie worked on a way to cure it, and never got to see Vlad of his aliment since he had left the hospital without his old friends help.

Danny gets the bright idea of going to Clockwork to stop Vlad from getting his ghost powers to begin with, to which Clockwork tells him that it's a horrible idea. Danny insists that this is the only choice he has. Clockwork tells him he has more choices but allows it since he knows that Danny will learn his lesson from all this. Danny finds the flyer, and gets to the proto-portal incident to make sure that Vlad is out of the way when it hits considering his mission is accomplished. However Danny doesn't stay long enough to see the effect of what happened due to his meddling, until he is brought to the present, seeing that the quarantine tent is gone, only to see that also the large Fenton Works sign is missing from his home.

Danny goes into investigate the house in his human form, only to be met with an ecto-acne covered Jack Fenton, bitter and lonely due to the incident in Wisconsin. Jack is on the offensive as the other mentioned his condition and mentions about how he knew about the incident that happened 20 years ago that made Jack the halfa he is that day. Jack initiates the fight, while Danny is getting his butt handed to him as he doesn't want to hurt his alternate version of his dad, eventually learning the whole truth of what happened after he had gotten Vlad out of the way and caused him to get hit in the incident instead. Jack is enraged and thinking that Danny's lying to him to mess with his head, and tosses him out of the building.

Danny gets hit into the Amity Park billboard, then hides using his invisibility now even more determined to get to Clockwork to go back and fix this mess, knowing that his dad doesn't have a ghost portal, he has to go to Wisconsin and find his mom in hopes that she does.

Eventually, Danny tired from the cross country flight from Amity Park, he turns back into his human form and knocks on the door using the cheese wedge shaped door knocker on the Dairy King castle door. The married couple answer the door. Vlad gives a greeting that gives off the impression that he's had enough of people coming to his home asking for free samples, before Danny simply says mom before falling to his hands and knees weakly.

Then Danny is treated to a full dairy banquet as the two ask him where he came from and where his parents are, to which Danny says that they were missing due to an accident, which isn't entirely untrue from where Danny is standing, but Vlad and Maddie take it that Danny is a potentially orphaned child, and Maddie offers to anything like offering him a place to stay to which Vlad is complimenting his lovely wife on her sweet kindness and generosity going in for a kiss, before Danny stops it and then asks if either of them might have a a ghost portal. Maddie laughs it off explaining that it would be silly to think they'd have anything like that, but then quickly looks nervous, while Vlad goes on to explain that they do not talk about ghosts in this house. Danny points out the obvious ghost tech, while Maddie tries to explain it away saying that it's not ghost tech and that it's cleaning equipment, to which Vlad apologizes for his acquisition and they kiss to make up in front of a disgusted Danny.

Later in the night, Danny searches nearly every part of the house for the lab, getting frustrated before looking down further in the depths of the castle finding a lab. He finally finds Maddie's lab, only to be ambushed by Maddie sucking him into the Maddie Weasel, waking up to see his mom looming over him, where he's strapped to a dissection table.

Maddie, revealing that Danny could scream all he wants since the lab is sound proof, and that it has to be other wise her Dairy King husband Vlad would find out, and then she demands to know who Danny is, to which he explains she's her son, with Jack Fenton, then she explains that Jack blamed her for the accident and that Vlad told her so. Danny tells her that Vlad's lying because Jack never blamed her for the accident, and that he still loves her.

Only for seconds later, Jack comes in explaining that he never stopped loving her and the only reason why he isolated himself was because he thought she wouldn't accept the other half of him. Jack explains that he had to come in person because of the wallet that Danny had left behind showing their alternate life where they are married with two kids. It brings a tear to Maddie's eyes and she frees Danny and the two of them give their alternate son a hug.

Maddie tells Danny that he should go to clockwork to head toward his own time, opening the ghost portal for him, only for Vlad to enter the seen with the Ghost foamer demanding to know why Danny is there if he belongs in another universe.

Maddie tries to explain that it wasn't what it looks like, only for Jack to go ghost himself and explain that it was exactly what it looked like, Vlad was jealous that he was always destined to be happy with Maddie with two children and he only got what he wanted because he deceived you into getting his own way. Jack gets blasted with the foamer and getting stuck to the wall, while Danny jumps into the fight avoiding every blast from the foamer, only for Maddie to get by a stray shot in getting stuck to the computer. Vlad apologizing, only for Danny to throw a ghost ray at Vlad, in defense of his alternate mother. Vlad getting upset with the fact that Danny's calling Maddie Mom, and blasts Danny again, only for him to get his and land on the dissection table that activates the shackles and his wrists and ankles are bound once again.

Vlad wanting to keep his life the way it is now, he starts to tell Danny is no longer welcome and turns on the laser and says he's going to have to leave 'molecule by molecule. Jack slams Vlad out of way and goes to turn off the machine, Vlad getting up and pushing him out of the way and pulling off the laser head and aiming it at Jack who puts up a shield and gets blown by a minor explosion that knocks him out on the floor next to the ghost portal.

Maddie furious in a fit of rage assuming that Jack is dead as he is collapsed on the floor, tells Vlad off for making her waste her life with him, to which he smugly comes back with the fact that he's still her husband, only to have Maddie toss him in the ghost zone through the portal, where Vlad is greeted with a not so friendly group of ghosts.

Maddie tells him to hurry as the portal is overloading, and that he needs to get to clockwork since he should help fix this mess and prevent it from ever happening. Jack waking up from the alarms and rushes to Maddie and shields her with his intangibility so she'd be safe through the second minor explosion to have happened near the portal. Danny rushes through the portal, and rushes through the ghost zone, not seeing the alternate Vlad getting his ass practically handed to him by ghosts from all sides.

Danny explains to Clockwork he needs to go back and fix this mess, only for Clockwork to explain that the problem won't be fixed in the past and that it needs to be fixed in the present to which he says that he'll reset it to before he meddled in the first place, showing him the solution to the problem seeing that the impurities were from a can of diet cola, Danny goes home armed with the knowledge to help his friends and his archenemy.

Only for Danny, a few minutes later to come into Clockwork's lair, saying that he needs to go back and time and fix the mess he made. Clockwork instead, of showing Danny what he would need to fix the mistake in the present as the original Danny had just left his domain a few minutes ago, explains to Danny that he can't let him go back in time to fix it as he's already caused irreparable damage to the time stream, and that he can't go back home.

Danny sinks to his knees, he held his hands in his face trying to keep himself from crying, but Clockwork looked down at the boy feeling bad for him, and after the observants have told him, Danny was his responsibility now and that includes any version of Danny. Clockwork explains that he can return to the timeline he had created, then explains that Sam and Tucker still exist however they never became friends due to Danny's non-existence, and that he has faith that he can put this timeline on the right track for his own sake.

Maddie is working on fixing her ghost portal, which was minor damages which were easily fixed since Jack was also helping out being more attentive than he was in college. Soon getting the computers cleaned off an operational, while Danny tries to look on the bright side, leaving Clockwork's lair.

Danny heads toward the direction of Maddie's portal, only to be blasted at by a red beam of energy, he looked to see that Vlad had gotten ghost powers again, and his animosity was focused more on Danny, the two fought, before Danny won, knocking him out and forcing him to turn back into his human form. Danny huffed and brought him through his mother's portal throwing Vlad in first before flying through himself and explaining the situation to his alternate parents to which they were happy to take them in, and also sorry for the mess that had happened.

Eventually, the newly formed halfa Vlad wakes up in his mansion with the lab stripped of all it's anti-ghost tech, no portal to be found, and a new formed burning anger in his heart. While a newly cured Jack Fenton, a recently divorced and remarried Maddie with their alternate timeline son Danny, rebuild the live that should have been in Jack's place of residence. Danny knowing that he doesn't have to keep his ghost powers a secret from his family is happy for the safety of his home, while also going to have to enroll in Casper High and only keeping his ghost powers a secret from anyone else not in his family so he knows for a fact who his real friends are...

And even if this town had an influx of ghosts before, Danny Phantom was happy to help his dad learn the ropes of what to do and what not to do while ghost fighting even if his dad has pretty bad aim and a poor start before, Jack is still happy to bond with his alternate timeline son.

[lexiepiper]

21, 48, 71, and 80— what's your favorite DP tropes? :3

So I somehow missed this notification, sorry!

Thanks for asking me <3

21. Do you prefer writing chaptered fics or oneshots?

I seem to mostly write oneshots. There's definitely greater instant satisfaction at completing a piece and posting it! I do really enjoy the slow build of multi-chapter fics though, especially when the narrative reaches its more exciting parts. I guess I enjoy both types, but for different reasons? If I could only ever write one type again though it would probably be oneshots.

48. Who is your favourite character to write for? Has this changed since you started writing for the fandom?

My default is Danny, although I also love Valerie and Maddie. Val's the newer addition, but Danny and Maddie feel so familiar now because I've written them for so long. My goal this year was to branch out and write from different perspectives but... well, it hasn't happened yet. We'll see!

71. Do you spend more time reading or writing?

About the same, to be honest. I don't have a lot of time for either right now, and most of my reading is actually for university and for D&D. I'll probably be doing a lot more writing soon though, since I really have to get a move on with my Invisobang fic!

80. What's your favourite DP trope(s)?

Oh my gooooosh, I don't even know.

I love the general headcanons about halfa biology etc, but I feel like that's less trope and more flavour a lot of the time.

When I first got into the fandom I was absolutely obsessed with the identity reveal to Danny's parents trope. I still really love it, but now I try to put a different spin on the revelation each time I approach it. I typically go feral for any type of well-written identity reveal though!

Ghost King Danny is a good one too, and there's a lot of room for fun variation.

The trope that I go weak at the knees for has to be Portal!Danny. It's the perfect blend of uncanny body horror and eldritch monstrosity.

Thanks again for asking @gigglebug <3

[presidentstalkeyes]

The Inheritance AU Masterpost

A new Gravity Falls AU I’ve been thinking about non-stop for the past week or so, and now I’m going to inflict it on all of y’all. (Please note that the title is not set in stone, so if it turns out there’s already an AU by the same name I can still change it :V)

(Also, see the bottom for a shorter, tl;dr version).

I welcome any random questions you may have about the AU, although some of you may already know more. :V

CW: Character Death

The point of divergence from canon is the moment Grunkle Ford in the 80s decides to hide his journals from Bill - in a rare moment of sense, he chooses not to bury Journal 2 by Gravity Falls elementary and instead buries it much deeper in the woods. As a result, Gideon never finds it. This leads to several changes from canon, including, but not limited to:

Dipper & Mabel never have to deal with Gideon (because he never had any reason to want to buy/steal the Mystery Shack), and by extension Bill (because Gideon was the one who summoned him back to Earth in the first place).

Dipper never has Journal 3 stolen from him.

Grunkle Stan never gathers all three journals, and is therefore unable to complete the portal and bring Ford home (the portal was more-or-less in a functional state, but without the full activation code it may as well be a pile of scrap metal).

As a result of the above, the twins never learn Stan’s true identity or the identity of the Author.

Old Man McGucket never recovers his memories.

The Society of the Blind Eye is never disbanded.

As you can probably imagine, with no Gideon and no Bill, the summer of 2012 is much more low-stakes than it is in canon. Dipper takes Journal 3 home with him and decides to continue the mysterious Author’s legacy, setting himself up as his ‘apprentice’. Over the years, he gets no closer to solving the mystery behind the Author’s identity, and his focus shifts to researching new anomalies. He’ll always treasure Journal 3 as the book that started it all, but he concedes that it may be the one mystery he’ll never solve - and maybe it’s better that way.

Fast-forward to ten years later, the year 2022 - Dipper & Mabel, now in their 20s, have separated to pursue their own ambitions, but are reunited when they hear the news that their Grunkle Stan has passed away. He died peacefully in his sleep, said to have been from an infected wound that went untreated - unbeknownst to them, he’d suffered an injury when pushing himself beyond his limits on the portal, and stubbornly refused to seek medical attention.

The twins head back to Gravity Falls for Stan’s funeral and the reading of his will. Though Stan left his business to Soos and Melody, naming Soos the new Mr. Mystery (though Stan’s health had declined enough by that point that Soos was practically running the Shack anyway), the actual Mystery Shack itself he left to Dipper & Mabel - this is where the ‘Inheritance’ comes in. :V

The twins, currently going through something of a quarter-life crisis due to the less-than-ideal ways their ambitions have turned out, decide to move in and take a break, get their bearings. Meanwhile, Stan also left Soos a key in his will, along with instructions to use it to open a box in his office. Inside, Soos finds Stan’s old fake IDs, the ‘STAN PINES DEAD’ newspaper clipping, and a note written by Stan confessing everything - the portal, the real Stanford Pines, and how he lied to everyone for 40 years. His last orders for Soos are to continue his work on the portal and finish what he started - and never tell anyone else, especially not Dipper & Mabel; ‘they’d never forgive me if they knew’.

It’s not long after this that Soos - and later, Melody - start getting nightmares, seeing visions of Stan and a weird triangle demon in their sleep. Soos starts to think the Shack is haunted. Dipper gets to ghost harassing. Turns out it is haunted, but it’s not the ghost that’s the root of the issue.

Tl;dr: AU where Stan never reactivates the portal and dies while working on it ten years later, and Dipper & Mabel as adults inherit the Shack, while Soos inherits Stan’s mission. Also Stan’s a ghost now.