#still hope you like it pigte!!

[ghostgothgeek]

Exposed.

Holiday truce 2019 gift for @pigte! I tried to incorporate all three of your topics in some form, I hope you enjoy it and have a great holiday!! :) 

Rating: T for swearing, mild gore

--

Vlad Masters was having a rough day, to say the least. He spilled coffee all over his favorite dress shirt, Maddie had blatantly ignored him at the grocery store, another one of his clone experiments had failed, Maddie (the cat) threw up on his lap, he had to fight off Daniel for a short period of time...and now…

Now he was getting beaten and bruised and, for lack of better terms, having his ass handed to him by the Red Huntress, the ghost hunter hellbent on revenge. He had been grooming her to go after Daniel as Phantom, not himself as Plasmius! Using a man’s own weapons on him was some sort of cruel joke this terrible day had been playing on him. Especially when said huntress is a fourteen year old girl who didn’t have ghost powers. Now that just hurt a man’s ego. 

“Come back here, ghost scum.” Valerie growled, kicking off her hoverboard and following hot on Plasmius’s trail. 

Valerie Gray, on the other hand, was having a great day. She had a run in with Phantom, where, much to her dismay, they agreed to a temporary truce. She had caught two ghosts already, she got an A on her Spanish test (she would know what Paulina was really saying about her now), and she was already maiming Vlad Plasmius, third most annoying ghost on her list (one and two are Phantom). 

Plasimus took a glance over his shoulder to see the teenager rapidly catching up to him. He grimaced and went invisible, keeping on his path.

Valerie pressed a button on her wrist cuff, activating a new screen inside her helmet. “Time to take this baby for a test drive.” She smirked as her thermal imaging sensors went on. She easily spotted a very cold entity flying just in front of her where the ghost she was chasing just was. “Pfft. Amateurs.” She snorted and held out her gun, aiming directly for Plasmius’s back, and fired, hitting him directly. She smiled in satisfaction.

“Ahh!” His invisibility flickered in and out as he grabbed his searing shoulder. “What the-” It felt like something was digging into his skin. His eyes widened as he saw the teen once again coming full speed at him, a look of pure rage and vengeance on her face. He quickly took off again, flying lower to the ground. “I didn’t buy her that!” 

Plasmius quickly landed behind a tree and transformed back to human. He rolled his shoulders back a couple of times, still feeling the burn from her gun underneath his suit. No matter, he was decent enough to make it home from here. 

As he called for a car, Valerie swooped down to look for Plasmius. She growled when there was no sign of him, although she did see Mayor Masters getting into his car. “Stupid ghosts,” she muttered as she started typing things into one of her gadgets. “Good thing that blast didn’t just burn you.” She looked at the GPS in her helmet and smiled when something popped up on the radar. “Yes! Mrs. Fenton’s ghost tracking system worked!” 

Valerie took a small moment to celebrate and reminded herself to thank Mrs. Fenton for letting her test some new inventions. Danny had been reluctant to let her talk about ghosts with his mother, but Valerie had eventually worn her friend down. 

She took off, following the little dot on her screen. “Weird, it looks like the ghost is trailing Mayor Masters’ car…oh no, he’s after the mayor!” She had followed the car back to the mayor’s mansion, surveilling the outside once she saw he was safely inside his home. 

Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, she double checked her radar to see that the ghost was indeed here at the mayor’s mansion. “What are you up to…” She pushed a button dismantling her hoverboard and storing it back in her boots and looked around for an open window. For the mayor’s safety. She quietly climbed in and scoped the place out. “Mr. Masters?” She whisper-yelled and started checking out rooms in the mansion. 

Why did the mayor’s mansion suddenly have an eerie feeling to it? She had been here dozens of times, but for some reason, today the atmosphere was more sinister. She had only been in a few rooms of the large estate before. Perhaps it was because she was charting unknown territory. She slowed her breathing down so she could be quieter, and continued tip-toeing down a seemingly never ending hallway. 

She had heard some faint beeping coming from nearby. Glancing in one of the rooms, she saw a picture frame with an otherworldly glow behind it. Bingo. 

Valerie scanned her surroundings before entering the room and glanced up at the painting of the mayor. She rolled her eyes. The mayor was nice and all, but after losing everything on Phantom’s accord several months ago, she was realizing how insignificant most superfluous things, such as a twelve-foot tall headshot of yourself, were. Men and their egos.

She tried lifting the painting unsuccessfully. It was worth a shot. She double checked her surroundings for a button or a switch, and started playing around in the dark with items until she found the switch beneath the fireplace mantel across the room. She quickly maneuvered her way into a lab. “What’s this?” 

It looked similar to the chemistry labs at school; there were all sorts of glass beakers filled with miscellaneous liquids, notebooks laying askew, and she recognized a Bunsen burner. She walked over to a chalkboard with formulas written all over it. She had never been a mayor before, but she was pretty certain a mayor didn’t need all of this. This looked vaguely like the Fentons lab, though she had only seen it in brief one time, but this lab was more...creepy.

Valerie quietly looked around at all the machinery, looking for any sign of Plasmius or Mr. Masters. Could he be held hostage in his own home? None of this was adding up.

Alert, she jumped at a small thump behind her. She stiffened, turned, and had her gun pointed and ready to fire at whatever the source was. “What the…” She lowered her weapon and removed her helmet, carefully approaching the...whatever that was.

It looked vaguely human, but she was certain it was most definitely not human. 

“H-hello.” She jumped back when the...thing…spoke. It was somewhat shaped like a human; it had limbs, eyes (though one of them was slowly dripping down its face) and a mouth, obviously. The rest of it was glowy green goo. It looked like a person had been half melted in a nuclear power plant mixed with Frankenstein’s monster that had gotten run over by a truck, exploded, and then was put back together to resemble a human. Definitely some nightmarish hybrid that could have only been cooked up by an insane scientist. 

“Uh, hi?” She looked at the thing suspiciously, quickly glancing around to see if there were any other current threats. Heart pounding in her chest, she took a deep breath and tried to steady her voice. She needed answers. “What...what are you?” She raised an eyebrow, keeping her gun at standby just in case. 

The creature pointed to a computer screen behind her. Keeping an eye on the monster, she glanced at the screen. 

Clone Experiment #360: Failed

Notes: Less ectoplasm; need to strengthen ghost powers; human aspects making progress

She looked back at the thing. “You’re a clone? Of what?” Valerie searched for a mouse beside the computer and...was that a picture of Mrs. Fenton?! She grimaced and clicked on the computer, showing a new screen.

Clone Experiment #361: In Progress

Notes: Still developing, but most promising; switched genders and adding another human’s DNA helped stabilize; shows most sign of life; need more Phantom DNA

Valerie’s eyes widened. “You’re a clone of Phantom?!” She raised the gun back up at the monstrosity. It nodded and took a step closer. “Stop or I’ll shoot!” 

“P-please…” 

She tilted her head in surprise. The thing wanted her to shoot it? 

“Please shoot. End pain.” She stared into its somewhat familiar eyes and she saw suffering and despair as it moved one of its eyeballs back into place. 

“You...you can feel all of that?” She looked at the deformities once again and cringed when it nodded. “Who did this to you?” She demanded. 

“Master,” raising a goopy limb, it pointed to a painting of the mayor on the wall similar to the one she came in through. Odd. It paused before pleading again, “P-please...shoot. End me.” 

Valerie gulped and weighed her options. The thing was kind of a ghost, which she is set to destroy, but it still seemed vaguely human. It clearly had a soul, a tortured one at that, which meant she was ending a life and she didn’t think she could live with that. However, the thing was clearly suffering and she would be giving it a mercy kill. “I...c-can’t.” It started advancing towards her so she raised her gun again, arm shaking. “Don’t come any closer! Please!” 

“Can’t do more experiments. End pain.” It continued to move towards her. “Please.” She looked at its pleading eyes before shutting hers, turning her head away, and pulling the trigger. She flinched when she felt warm goo hit the side of her face, hearing it splatter all over the wall behind her as well. She opened her eyes and looked at the glowing ectoplasm splattered across the lab. She was still trembling. 

“What was that noise?” Valerie barely made out a voice that sounded similar to Plasmius’s. Shit. No time to process the murder she just committed. She forgot why she was there in the first place: to protect the mayor and catch a ghost. She quickly found a spot to hide while she charged up her weapons, preparing for battle and hostage negotiation. 

“...incompetent children and their lack of discipline.” She heard him muttering as he flew into view. “What?! What happened here?!” He flew over towards where Valerie had been standing before, looking at all the gunk covering his equipment. He pressed a button and a hidden wall suddenly came into view. 

Valerie gulped. More experiments. Just like the one she just destroyed. Some looking more like Phantom, some looking more like goo in a jar. One seemed to resemble a little girl, “Dani Phantom #361” written below the tank she was floating in. There were at least eight clones there, some hanging from chains. She could hear some of them whimpering. 

Plasmius scanned the wall and saw the empty spot. “Hmm...must have been more unstable than I thought. It appears #360 combusted and broke free of its bonds.” He typed a few things into the computer. “Now to get this painful contraption off of me!” Plasmius transformed back to his human half, his hand clawing at the silver device embedded in his shoulder. Masters stood where Plasmius once was. He grabbed some forceps and starting prying at the tracking device, not stopping or even wincing as blood oozed out around it. He set the forceps down and wrapped his fingers around the device. With a brief glow of his fingers, the device was zapped off his shoulder. 

Valerie could smell the burnt circuits along with the stench of the clone ectoplasm in the room. She could feel her stomach churning, but she was strong. She held her breath as she watched Vlad Masters glance at his watch.

“Oh fudge! I’ve got to meet Ed at seven for D&D!” He slapped a piece of gauze on his wound and looked for some medical tape, continuing to mutter to himself. “Last week I was late from Spectra’s book club running long, and if I’m late again I’ll miss Harriet’s spinach puffs! Better fly there.” After tending to his wound, two dark rings surrounded the man and flash of light filled the room, Masters becoming Plasmius once again.

Valerie’s eyes widened and she covered her mouth to mute her gasp. She couldn’t believe what she just saw. Plasmius/Masters quickly flew off. She blinked rapidly as she gathered her thoughts, making sure what she just saw is what she think she just saw. The mayor was trying to clone Phantom? Is that how he had ghost powers himself? The mayor was a ghost?! And not just any ghost, a ghost who had harmed her and who she had been hunting for months on end, despite Vlad Masters’s insistence to focus on Phantom instead of Plasmius. Of course. 

And Phantom. Phantom had tried talking to her when they formed their temporary truce earlier this morning, ironically setting aside their differences over the man whose house she was standing in; the man who wasn’t really a man at all. Phantom’s warning about Mayor Masters echoed in her head.

“You can’t trust him, he’s not who you think he is.”

He was right. She didn’t completely trust Phantom’s word, of course, but considering the new information she unraveled over the past ten minutes, Phantom…was telling the truth? Maybe she had to reevaluate her stance on Phantom.

No. Just because he isn’t as malevolent doesn’t mean he wouldn’t destroy her if he had the choice. He’s still a ghost. Just like Vlad. 

Vlad Masters. 

Valerie felt so stupid. Here she was, top ten in her class, and she didn’t make the connection between Vlad Plasmius and Vlad Masters. They talked similarly, behaved similarly for the most part, tended to show up one after the other...they even had the same first name for crying out loud! She should have just ignored her grudge and listened to Phantom. He never hurt her like Plasmius did, after all. No, Danny Phantom was pretty civil towards her, she supposed. 

Wait.

Phantom.

Danny Phantom. 

Danny Fenton.

“Oh shit.”

[znitsamluv]

Hi! I'm here for the match up event!

I'm 23 y/o and work as a geriatric nurse, it's the best job in the world! I actually don't have a lot of hobbies lol i love to listen to music, mostly hip-hop or rap but also pop like ariana grande is my queen! I really enjoy watching series on Netflix or anime, also love to read mangas(currently reading uzumaki by junji ito)

I have a really broken sense of humor and I'm mostly a really happy and positive gurl but I can be reaaaally moody ig the gemini comes thru sometimes lol. I'd say I'm an extroverted introvert if that makes sense, I'm pretty shy when I get to know new people but as soon as I feel comfortable around them I'm pretty open and just me.

I also really have a thing for bad boys 😈 hahah

I hope that's not too much or too less for a match up! Thanks alot!!

YOUR MATCH UP IS READY!

Your match is kazutora hanemiya

• How you met

° Your work place is In front of Chifuyu's pet shop so one time he was standing outside to smell some fresh air when he saw you leaving from work .

° He immediately fell in love ! Every day he would go to Chifuyu's pet shop not to help him of course but to wait there until he see you again .

° That went on for two weeks until Chifuyu had enough and told Kazutora to just go and talk to you .

° well luck was on Kazutora's side , one time Kazutora accidentally let a cat free and it ran out of the shop and he ran after it , he looked everywhere for it and was about to lose hope when you suddenly appeared with the kitten in your arms and it was purring.

° " I think this kitten belongs to you" your sweet voice and beautiful eyes made Kazutora freeze cuz the girl he have been wanting to talk to is in front of him ..... holding a little kitten , his chest felt so warm just from staring at you .

° " YEAH that's mine " Kazutora face went to a shade of red because he raised his voice at the beginning but your giggles made it worth it .

° You had a conversation for a few minutes and you got each others names and from that day on you two would exchange words at break time from both of your jobs .

° One Time you didn't get out of work until so late so he offered giving you a ride .

° " I can't leave you alone when it is so dark like this" you didn't agree about his offer but he insisted that he could at least walk you home and you finally agreed.

° when you were walking together he finally got the courage to ask you out and you agreed so the next day he waited until you got out of work and took you to a cozy cafe and got you your favorite drink ( he paid for it of course) .

° from that day on every day after work he would either walk you home or take you somewhere for a date it depends if you are in the mood for a date or not .

• Your dating life

° Kazutora felt so comfortable with you since the day he met you and hearing your voice brings him comfort so whenever he feels stressed he calls you to hear your voice .

° But when you feel stressed he would take you on rides in his car until very late at night while he listens about your day and has one hand holding yours while the other is on the staring wheel .

• Kazutora loves your sense of humor like everytime you would crack a joke that was weird or unfunny he would still laugh at it and if you show him or send him memes he would laugh at them even though he doesn't understand them but seeing you laughing is enough to make him smile from ear to ear .

• Kazutora was afraid of what you are going to think of him when you learn about his past but you were really calm about it just a bit disappointed and you tried to hide it but he could still see how you looked at him .

• Kazutora is used to you suddenly tracing his tattoo like you can be watching TV and start doing it and he feels fuzzy inside when you do this .

• Kazutora LOVES when you play with his hair like you can put accessories and do whatever you want with his hair he doesn't care he just loves when you brush his locks . Even if you did him dirty and did pigtails he would still appreciate it .

° When you first told him that you read manga he thought that you are probably like Chifuyu who read romance mangas but he was surprised when he saw your junji ito collection.

° " At least it isn't cheesy romance mangas " he would borrow one of them and read it and he actually enjoyed it that he finished the whole collection.

° Kazutora thinks you're way too good for him and deserves someone who is better than him so he feels sad easy and jealous when he sees you with one of your male colleagues talking.

° You would catch on it fast because he was giving you the silent treatment but after you gave him a warm hug and face smooches he couldn't help but grin wide .

° you are usually nice so when your moody side kicks in he would work on making your mood better buy getting you your favorite snack or rewatching your favorite show even though he saw it with you so many times .

° your dates would be simple like going to cat or dog cafes or going to picnics or driving at around at 5 am when no one is awake .

° when Kazutora hears that your favorite singer or rapper dropped an album he would buy it and give it to you ,he watched you jump around from joy before he got tackled in a hug . You both stayed laying on the floor both of you staring at each other grinning .

° Kazutora loves you so much and would do anything to make you happy.

° Kazutora knew from the moment he met you that you are the one for him and he can't imagine a future without you so he is waiting for the best moment to propose to you .

[ note : I hope you liked it ! ]

[lexosaurus]

Do you have any blog, art or fanfic recommendations?

LEXX’S DP BLOG STARTER PACK

^^^I made this a bit ago but it still hold true. These are good phandom blogs to follow. There’s loadsss more blogs btw and they’re all great.

As for fics? Yes. Yes I do have recs.

There are hellllaaa fic recommendations lists out there so:

here’s one made by @d-o-t-s

here’s another made by @daddyphannypack

here’s a small one i made a while ago

If this intimidates you, the main fic writers I would read stuff from is:

1. the Disparaged/Dissembled/Condemned series by @imekitty  along with anything else on her ffnet account it’s all good

2. Anything written by @ecto-american  he has an AO3 here and it’s good shit

3. Anything written by @imdeadtiredtm  they have a whole bunch of oneshots on their blog and I’ve read most of them I think

4. Tumblr Shots by @cordria along with literally anything she’s ever wrote which you can access on her blog

5. Phantom of Truth/Shadow of a Doubt by @haikujitsu along with anything they’ve written on their ffnet account. They have this series called Roughing It and it’s gold.

6. Shift by @agermanshepherdpatronus it’s my #1 recommended fic for anyone in the phandom.

7. @wastefulreverie has over 60 DP fics on their AO3 account here legit amazing idk how they did it. I’ve read a bunch and love them

8. @ladylynse is another writing powerhouse. They pump out QUALITY stuff you can find on their blog or their AO3 account.

Uhhh yeah so you got some awesome fics to read.

As for art? Tbh I’m not sure of the art powerhouses in the phandom. I know @skyblob @dannyphandump @d-o-t-s @ceciliaspen @pigte @diddly-darn-ghost all make art. Tbh I’m really bad at remembering who does what so I’m 5000% sure there’s a TON of artists and I just can’t remember who they are kajsdnkfjd

PLEASE COMMENT IF YOU WRITE OR DO ART OR IF YOU’RE JUST A DOPE DP BLOG SO PEOPLE CAN SEE YOU AND APPRECIATE YOU LIKE THE AWESOME HUMAN YOU ARE!

Hope this helps you, anon! If you’re new, then welcome to the pham!

[lilaclily00]

Apologies (3)

Danny Fenton secretly sort-of joins the family business. 

(DannyMay 2019 Day 23: Scream [It’s still the 23rd somewhere in the world, right?]

DannyMay 2019 Week 4: Dreams)

Hopefully, this is a decent concluding chapter! And decently uses the prompts! They helped so much to get this written, but I struggled a lot, so I am mostly happy for it to be finished.

Part 1 and Part 2

AO3 link

@goinggoblin and @pigte

Val was missing.

That was the consensus when all the other A-listers had met up at lunch and realized that none of them had seen her in morning periods and no one's texts had been answered.

Dash wasn't an idiot. He would've noticed if anyone on the A-list wasn't at school, then would’ve proceeded to not worry about it. He wouldn't have even bothered with checking up on any of them by text. With how often some of them (read: Paulina) skipped anyways, there was no need to worry or feel responsible for them, besides perhaps cover their backs if a teacher was suspicious.

But this was Val.

Val, who spent the whole day on her phone.

Val, who always prided herself on having everything, including good grades. She just about never missed school, where she had the opportunity to achieve and show off her newest clothes.

Val, who took MMA after school for years.

Val, who recently became kind of literally dead, a secret that could lead to a lot of bad stuff if it came out--which admittedly seemed very likely to happen with how impossible she'd found it to control her new powers.

He couldn't say for sure what, but something had to have happened to her.

"Should someone go check on her?" Paulina voiced, biting her lip, picking at the questionable school lasagna on her tray.

Dash deliberated for a couple seconds. "I can. I rode my bike to school," he offered, shoveling lasagna into his mouth. After swallowing, he added, "And I don't have any absences for History yet."

"You sure, man?" Kwan frowned. "Your parents won't be happy about you missing a class if it wasn't because of football."

Dash shrugged in lieu of a vocal response, seeing as there was lasagna in his mouth again. He could live with his parents throwing a tantrum later. He tried to keep them happy most of the time, but they hardly ever were. Sometimes he wondered why he bothered.

After a few more mixed messages of encouragement and caution from his friends, Dash waved them off and pushed the rest of his tray to Kwan. He meandered out of the cafeteria and hid out of sight from staff wandering the halls, then snuck to the bike racks and successfully made it off school property.

It didn't take long to reach Val’s place. He wasn’t terribly fazed when he knocked harshly on the front door and no one answered. He went around back to right under her curtained bedroom window and searched for something to throw at it, ultimately settling on a small rock on the ground. It only took a few seconds for him to get a reaction, a frustrated growl that was so Valerie, especially because he could hear it from all the way down there.

“So you are alive!” he shouted up with a grin, then winced internally. Not the right word to use. “Let me in!”

“I can’t!” she shouted back, some sort of strange echo in her voice.

Dash looked around them; no one in sight. “Why not?”

“I... I physically can’t,” she enunciated behind the curtain, something that sounded like pain in there behind the echo. If his suspicions were correct, it was more likely painfully embarrassed--she must’ve found herself unable to touch anything.

“Then come outside!” he tried, ignoring the pang of guilt that hit him at that realization.

"...Can’t do that either."

Dash threw the rock again. This time, a white-haired girl poked her head out the window--wait, through the window--to properly glare at him with glowing red eyes. He startled at her appearance; he'd only seen it once before, in the accident. She blinked and eeped, flinging herself back out of sight into the room.

"Give me a minute," she called again, her voice nervous but resigned. "Go to the back door."

Dash scrunched his eyebrows, but nodded and walked to the back end of the house. He stood there, tapping his foot, mind ruminating on Val's altered appearance at the window. He felt a strange sensation on his arm, like when things were so cold they felt hot. He yelped, then yelped louder as the sensation yanked at him and pulled him through the unopened door. It immediately released him once he had stumbled inside, and he rubbed at his arm for the tingling to go away.

"Sorry, that's the best I could do," Val's voice said. He flinched, hearing it right next to him. It still sounded like her, but not quite, and not just because of the echoing quality. He couldn't help but feel like it sounded like a supernatural imitation of her.

"At least it worked," Dash muttered, dropping his arm even though it had not ceased the apparent after-effects of... whatever that was. He glanced over to his friend, then corrected his gaze when her face was higher up than usual. She floated at his own height, her mouth twisted apprehensively.

"Yeah. You're the first person I've seen or talked to since I got... stuck."

Dash had a hard time looking at her in the eyes, the unnatural glowing eyes, and turned his sights instead to watching her hair float around her. It seemed he was going to need to get used to this. "When'd you get stuck?"

"In the middle of the night. I couldn't sleep, so I figured I might as well practice." Valerie hugged herself, curling up in the air. "I've been trying to go back to normal all morning. I was hoping I'd at least manage to do it before lunch ended, but now I don't know if I ever will!" Dash's eyes were drawn back to hers when her haunting gaze turned harried and desperate. "Am I just gonna be a ghost now?"

"No," he told her, face hardening with determination. It was his fault she was in this mess in the first place, and he refused to believe the mess could be even worse than they thought. They did not kill her. He did not kill her. "There's gotta be something you haven't tried yet."

"Yeah, like what? You know even less of what's going on than I do!"

"Two heads are still better than one." Dash glanced to the door. "I think first, you need to chill a little. I think it's easier to calm down outside, so--"

"Not happening!" Valerie stepped--no, floated away. Dash suddenly realized her legs were gone, replaced by a tail sort of thing. It was so strange he couldn't look away. "I do not want anyone seeing me. Why else would I have stayed in my house all day?!"

"No one's going to see you in your backyard," he said slowly, as if she didn't already know that. Everyone was at work or school. "And can't you, like, turn invisible and stuff now? You said that a couple days ago."

"I'm trying to stop turning invisible, Dash," she muttered, curling her tail around herself agitatedly. "Let's just say things didn't go well last time someone saw me while looking like this. I don't want to take the chance."

He frowned, but didn't push it; with how much her powers acted up, it wasn't too surprising that she ended up in ghost... mode(?) by accident or something. Hopefully, it was only one person. "Alright, fine. You still need to stop panicking. What will make you relax?"

"I dunno. Most of my efforts to relax have failed because they require being able to touch stuff." Val glared at her tail, flicking it back away from her. "I hate what this feels like. It's like... everything's too numb and too much at the same time. After hours like this I'm going insane. Please tell me I'm not just a ghost now."

"You're repeating yourself," Dash said, only to distract himself from the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach at her description. He didn't know whether he wanted to understand it better or not--understand better just what his own stupidity was putting his friend through. "What about... music? That doesn't need touch." Not if he took charge of whatever was playing it, at least.

Val gave a single, slow nod, then hesitantly added another one. "It's worth a try."

He found some songs on his mp3 player that he knew Val liked, and sat at the kitchen table, lazily bopping his head, as Val slowly took to lounging in the air. She swayed to the beat, but it didn’t seem like she was really relaxing.

"C'mon, I thought you were always the life of the party," Val's ghostly voice teased halfway through the third song.

He raised his eyebrow; that comment was better reserved for a situation that wasn't this. But maybe she needed some sense of normalcy for a second.

"And I thought you were the queen of karaoke," he tried, folding his arms challengingly.

She did not react to that quite like he had hoped, glancing away and looking like she didn't know what to do with her hands. He realized belatedly that she probably didn't like the distortion in her voice at the moment any more than he did.

He drummed his fingers on the table for a few seconds, then turned back to the player. Perhaps what she needed was a hype song. He put on Dumpty Humpty's classic hit "I Punch You in My Dreams (A Lot)", one he knew by heart because the majority of it was just the title repeated a bunch of times.

"I punch you in my dreams!" he shouted more than sang, and Val cringed, putting her hands up to her ears, then stopping to glare at her palms.

"Ugh, that doesn't even work," he heard her groan as he stood up, a giant grin on his face.

"I punch you in my dreams!" He pointed at her to finish the line, but she was instead staring at him like he grew a second head.

"This song stopped being cool in middle school!" she shouted over the insane instrumental.

"Nothing stops being cool until I say it is," he declared, watching as she reoriented herself to a standing position, rolling her red eyes.

Something about that so-very-human action eased a bit of his worry. He couldn't put what the worry was into words, but... it was there. His friend really was there in front of him, no matter how different she seemed.

The next line came up, and he "sang" along gladly. "I punch, I kick, I scream in your face! I hit you over the head with a bass!"

Dash air-guitared as the bassist audibly destroyed his instrument. Luckily, the bass line always picked back up soon on a spare.

"If you think this is supposed to relax me, it isn't working." Nonetheless, the corners of her mouth twitched up.

“I punch you in my dreams!” he repeated loudly, pointing at her again. She shook her head at him, fighting a smile. “If you don't sing, I'm not inviting you to my next party.”

“I don't want to go to your next party anyways!” Nonetheless, she finally started laughing.

“I punch you in my dreams!”

She tacked on grudgingly, “A lot.”

Dash grinned; maybe this was a good plan after all. “Louder! I punch you in my dreams!”

“A lot!”

Together they finished the chorus, “I punch you in my dreams a lot!”

She joined him in rocking to the next instrumental, white ethereal curls flying as she head-banged, her giggles infectious.

Dash held her gaze, making sure she was singing aloud, as they shouted in unison, "I punch, I kick, I scream in your face! I punch, I kick, I scream, I scream, I SCREAM!!!"

They both screamed, but Val's was significantly louder, and Dash ended up stopping to cover his ears and watch her, horror in his eyes. Val, however, didn't notice and kept screaming and screaming, eyes screwed shut. When the scream section of the song was over, a bright light formed around her waist; Dash now covered up his eyes to not go blind. He heard Val topple onto the ground and hurried to help her up--her human body up, dressed warmly from the previous night.

"We... we did it!" Val breathed, patting herself down once standing, a relieved grin stretched across her whole face. "That worked!"

Dash turned off the music and wore a smile, but more of a mask, as she continued to ramble, pacing the kitchen. She pondered aloud the possible reasons why it worked--though she admitted screaming was therapeutic, she liked connecting it to the practice of shouting in her MMA class to move more energy from oneself out.

Val turned back to him, triumph in her eyes. "Would you mind waiting a few more minutes so I can get ready for school?"

"Well, duh," was his reply, and he sat back down at the table as she hurried out of the kitchen to her room. With her gone, he let out a sigh big enough to sag his whole body. He propped his elbows onto the table and buried his face in his hands. He hadn't expected to be so affected by that.

Dash remembered Val's scream.

It was really only a few days ago when he heard her screaming in agony, undergoing torture as the portal did something to her, put her through the kind of pain he couldn't even imagine. The kind of pain he was this close to going through himself.

This scream wasn't the same, he knew that, but... apparently, it was close enough.

He was glad to help somehow, but hated that it ended up being that way, a way that unexpectedly made his heart ache and pound. But he had no right to complain, not really. He couldn't complain about what he was going through, because he wasn't going through anything. He wasn't the one living through this, he was just the one that almost did, and had to watch someone else do it instead.

He rubbed his eyes with his hands, and quietly groaned out, "I'm sorry."

"For what?" He jumped and turned to the doorway--Val had just come in, more silent than she'd ever been before, in a sweater and jeans.

He opened his mouth, then closed, then tried again. He didn't really know how to explain it. His face flaming, he helplessly gestured. "Everything?"

She breathed out, hands at her hips, and watched him for a second. "Apology accepted, but no more, okay?"

He stared at her dumbly, then stood and moved out of the kitchen, feeling the weight of glowing red eyes that could’ve been his on his back. "Okay."

Dash huffed as he finally got to hang up the phone and shove it into his pocket. “Yep, just got grounded.”

“I don’t get them sometimes.” Kwan shook his head as they walked out of school--after classes this time. “Still better than what Val’s dad might’ve done if she was still stuck like that when he came home. How did she get stuck anyway?”

“I dunno. I’m just hoping that was a one-time thing.” Dash shrugged, holding onto his bike’s handlebars. “Guess I’ll see you later.”

He hopped onto the bike as Kwan split away. He cruised down the street, suddenly aware of what being human felt like. The October chill on his bare skin and the warmth of his letterman jacket. The air beating on his face and through his hair as he glided down a hill. The droning, grating noise of the bike’s wheels and chain over the wind whistling through trees and the occasional car passing by. A surprising amount of sun coming through the cloud cover to blind him. How much of that would Val have experienced?

He narrowed his eyes and made his turn around the corner block sharper than necessary. He’d been distracted by these thoughts all day and they didn’t help at all. He needed to stop, and at least try to not feel sorry. He was rarely sorry for anything in the first place. It was easy to act in the few other insistences, but actually not being sorry when he already was was impossible!

He needed something to take his mind off of all... that. School didn’t work, but he didn’t expect it to anyways. Maybe food? Chowing down on leftovers sounded good right now. Or--

He veered to a stop to glance back behind him, up in the sky. Did he--? Yes, that really did look like a person. A person, hovering in the air! Decked out in a futuristic blue suit and helmet! On a surfboard-looking thing shooting fire out the back! He started to wonder whether he really was looking at a time-traveler, because there was no way hoverboards were already a thing.

He nearly fell as he scrambled to turn his bike to get a better view. They barely swerved to go over one of the taller trees, and made a slightly unsteady recovery. Apparently, they were inexperienced with this. It was still so cool, though!

“Hey!” he shouted up, pedaling after them. The startled person lost balance for a second, but successfully froze their position in the sky to glance down to him. He continued, “Can I try out your hoverboard?”

After a few seconds, a fake-deep voice replied, “No,” and returned to flying away.

Dash couldn’t help but pout as he watched the figure disappear behind some houses--surely intentional so they (he?) couldn’t be followed so easily. He thought of taking on the challenge, but his stomach beckoned him to go home instead.

Well, perhaps he could catch a flight with Val, if she ever left the house, he considered as he turned back around for the last stretch home. Hey, if that dude showed up again, Val could hang out with him in midair! Even she would have to admit that’d be cool!

...And there he was, feeling guilty again out of nowhere.

What else could distract him? Using Fenton as a punching bag always worked pretty well, but Val asked him not to for a while. Wanted to try to start on good relations with the loser, she said. He didn’t think it was worth it, but agreeing to a favor like that was the least he could do so she wouldn’t be as miserable.

Not to say that he wasn’t going to watch Fenton closely. The favor ran the risk of him getting out of line in some way, and Dash wasn’t going to accept that. If Fenton pulled anything on Val...

He was going to be more sorry than Dash could ever be.

[lilaclily00]

Apologies

Danny Fenton secretly sort-of joins the family business.

Basically a continuation of “Phoenix”, the first fic for the Danny/Val roleswap!AU. Hope you enjoy, @goinggoblin and @pigte!

Here’s Part 2!

AO3 link

Part 1

Valerie was thankful for the weekend, so she could sleep it all away. Her dad seemed to think she had come down with a cold, seeing as he left her a glass of water and a bit of hot soup before heading to work. She didn't blame him; she felt too hot in her chest and too cold everywhere else, and it showed. That didn’t even take into account how she also felt exhausted yet jittery, pained by suddenly enhanced senses, and just pain left over from the accident yesterday. She would've stayed dead to the world--wait, that was a very poor choice of wording, don't think about that--if she hadn't been woken up by her own shivering around lunchtime. She opened her eyes with a groan, then screamed as she suddenly realized she had floated up out of bed, then screamed again as she suddenly fell, fell, fell, down through her floor into the living room. She went tangible again just in time to dangle from one arm stuck through the ceiling. "Okay, okay, calm down, you can't get out unless you calm down," she told herself, trying to take a deep breath. After a few tries she finally managed some semblance of calm, then there was a knock at the front door.

She felt herself begin to panic again until "Val, it's Kwan!" was shouted from outside. "Is anyone with you?" she shouted back, wincing at her own voice. Did she always talk that loud? Everything sounded way too loud. "No, just me! I'm coming in!" The door opened, and Kwan nearly dropped the plastic bag in his arms as he caught sight of pajama-clad Valerie miserably hanging from the ceiling, red barely tinging her face. "Are you okay?!" "Kind of? It doesn't hurt," she assured him, "I just, uh, am trying to figure out how..." Kwan dropped his bag on the couch, then stood by her, reaching for her waist. "Maybe try relaxing more? I'll catch you." After a few more deep breaths, Valerie dropped, and Kwan eased her down to steady ground. She thanked him quietly as she took in the feeling of the floor on her bare feet, the chill on her arms, the fact that all parts of her were visible and solid. When she looked back up to him, she realized there were bandages on his cheek and jawline, drifting a little down his neck. "How's your burn?" she asked quietly as he guided her over to the couch.

"It hurts, but I've felt worse." He had already schooled his facial expression back to his typical bored one. "And I take it you haven't felt any better than yesterday." She considered a snarky retort, but she was too exhausted for sarcasm, and she didn't want to downplay her friend's genuine concern. He wouldn't care about acting like he didn't care unless he did care. Valerie had never reflected on that before, that all her friends tended to show the opposite of what they were really feeling, until now. She probably did that without realizing, too. She decided to save thinking on that for later as she carefully sat herself down, ensuring she didn't go through the cushion. "No, I haven't." "So whatever this is might be... permanent?" Kwan continued, sounding nonchalant as he pulled over the plastic bag and poured out two Tupperwares, fogged over in their insides. "I hope not, but I really don't know." Valerie accepted the Tupperware Kwan offered, curiosity flitting across her face as she pulled off the lid. A puff of steam lazily rose up. It was fluffy white rice with his mom's famous bulgogi. She felt a surge of warmth at the gesture, yet a surprising amount of anger. "You know this wasn't your fault, at all, right?" "What are you talking about?" Kwan popped his own open as well, then held out a pair of chopsticks for her. "You only go out of your way to do stuff like this when you feel guilty!" Valerie ignored the chopsticks and pressed the lid right back onto the bulgogi on her lap. It looked delicious and so tempting, but she needed to make a point first. "I appreciate it, but not if it's just to try to make it up to me, especially if you didn't even do anything wrong." Kwan sighed, mask pulling away a little. "Maybe I didn't do the most stupid stuff yesterday, but we were all stupid, Val. I felt like I should at least try to own up to it." He scratched at the bandage on his cheek, then glanced at her, almost like a quick check-up that she was still in one piece. "I think it's gonna take everyone else a few days to, uh, stop freaking out."

She suspected as much. It wasn't every day your friend got zapped by a portal. She didn't really blame any of them--no one could've expected that to happen. (She mostly blamed the Fentons for putting the "on" button inside the portal. That was just idiotic!) And, well, she wasn't sure they would really make her feel better right now; she loved her friends, but sometimes they didn't really know what to do to be good friends.

"I can deal with that, as long as they do come back." Valerie's eyes flitted up to Kwan. "Thank you for the food, and for being here, but I mostly just want to know I'm not alone in this, not that you're gonna try to... pay me back all the time."

Kwan took a second to think, then slowly nodded. "I think I can do that." He held out the chopsticks to her again. She decided to accept them this time, but they quite literally fell out of her grip. She took another deep breath--she was not going to let her temper get in the way of eating this masterpiece--and succeeded on grabbing them after a couple more tries. She felt a rush of victory as she opened her Tupperware once again and began to chow down without losing her grip on anything.

"Let's hope you figure that out by Monday," Kwan merely said as he, otherwise, ate silently next to her.

Sunday, she mostly spent hiding away in her room, practicing her control on her invisibility and intangibility. It was still very shaky, but at least she felt a little more confident by the afternoon, and dared to stay in sight of her dad for more than a couple minutes. As much as she enjoyed hanging out with him, making dinner together, she was still distracted by the happenings of the past couple days.

She wore a thick sweater, and regretted wearing her usual skirt, to school on Monday. She got a couple strange looks, considering how it was still pretty warm for October, but apparently had faked normality well otherwise. She had continually dropped her pencil while trying to take Lancer's surprisingly difficult quiz, lunch was a little awkward with her friends glancing at her worriedly the whole time, and having PE outside was a shivery hell... but that was it.

She would've hesitantly called the day a success if it wasn't for overhearing a certain group of losers talking in the hallway after the final bell.

"I dunno, it looks like it was just a freak accident while we were gone. A really, really bad one." Danny sighed as he shoved books into his locker. Valerie barely slowed down by them, then hid behind the row of lockers. "Now my parents are insanely paranoid, and don't want to leave the lab even more than usual."

The kid she was pretty sure was named Tucker said, "They did lose a lot of their work in there. I don't blame them."

"I don't either, but it still sucks. I hardly saw them that much in the first place. Now, the only 'family time' left is throwing away ecto-contaminated junk." She winced at how loudly he slammed his locker closed.

The goth girl added, "Should we help you guys clean up?"

Their footsteps sounded, and Danny's voice slowly drifted away. "Nah, I think we'll be okay. I don't want to put you guys through that torture. Thanks, though."

Valerie would never admit how hard she startled at the tap on her shoulder. She turned, instinctively going into a defensive stance, then wilted back out of it when she saw Star standing there, wary and staring at her eyes. "Sorry about that, Star, what's up?"

"Well, I was going to ask why you were over here, but... you should probably fix your eyes, first." Star hesitated, then whispered, "They're red right now."

"What?" The realization hit her. "Oh. Uh, let's go to the bathroom."

They rushed in, and Valerie groaned at her reflection in the grimy mirror. "I didn't even know I could do that." Her usual hazel eyes were glowing bright red instead. "Thanks for catching it." She closed her eyes, let out her breath, then slowly opened them again. They were still red.

"I'll grab your sunglasses," Star offered, reaching into Valerie's backpack. She passed them over, and Valerie put them on. Thank goodness class was already over for the day; she looked ridiculous wearing them inside.

Both girls flinched when the bathroom door opened, but in came Paulina. "Oh, hi!" Paulina grinned a little awkwardly. "I like your shades, Val."

"Please don't talk about how I look today, girl." Valerie shook her head at her reflection. "I... I feel like we should tell the Fentons we--"

"No way, Val!" Paulina nearly screeched, then held her hands over her mouth, glancing around to see if anyone else heard her outburst. She continued, not quite as loud, "We are not going to get, like, arrested or something! My papá would kill me!"

Valerie turned to face her, Star watching the two nervously. "But we left their lab an utter disaster! We have to take some kind of responsibility for that."

"What if they, like, sue us?"

"I don't think they can do that, we're just minors." Valerie sagged against the sink, rubbing at her face. "But we knew it was a bad idea to go down there, even though what happened was... unexpected." Valerie pushed her sunglasses further up her nose. "But we still knew something could happen. And if they know there was an accident, maybe they'll know how to fix it. Fix me."

"Have you told your dad?" Star interrupted, hugging her arms.

"Well, no..." Valerie bristled when Paulina scoffed. "It's not like my dad could really help me, unlike the Fentons! He's at Axion, but my dad is still a security tech guy, not a scientist. I'd rather go to them first, so he doesn't worry himself to death as much."

"But we don't know if they can do anything, anyway. And we can't help them." Paulina looked away, pouting. "I don't want to just get ourselves in trouble when we don't know what will really happen."

After a tense silence, Valerie said, "Whatever happens to us can't be worse than what the Fentons are going through now." She'd never gone broke before, but it definitely seemed like a nightmare.

Another girl walked in, slowing when the three popular girls instantly turned to glare at her. Valerie stopped first, sighing as she trudged back out.

"You better not," Paulina tacked on. Star elbowed her for that.

"Fine, I won't," Valerie told her, turning around to lower her sunglasses at Paulina, who flinched at her red eyes. "But I'm still going to do something." She walked out before either girl could question her further.

She dropped off her backpack at her house, changed into even warmer clothes, and munched on an apple as she trekked her way back to FentonWorks--this time, alone. She had the suspicion that she should not give herself time to think more on visiting their lab again, because she'd end up not doing it at all. That was not what the Fentons deserved.

But man, this was going to be awkward, she had to admit to herself as she came up their porch and, after a full minute of hesitation, rang the doorbell. She suddenly felt the need to check that all of her looked human, and was in the middle of checking her eyes in her camera phone when the door opened, revealing a curvy woman in a tight blue hazmat suit. She hurriedly put her phone away as the woman she assumed to be Danny's mom studied her curiously.

"Uh, hi, I'm Valerie!" She hid her hands behind her back; her invisibility was likely to act up with this sudden stress. "I'm in Danny's class. I heard that, uh..." She wasn't really sure how to phrase that part without sounding like she knew too much. "I guess I wanted to know if there was anything I could do to help?"

Thankfully, his mom seemed to catch what she hadn't said aloud, and raised her eyebrows, impressed. A soft smile spread on her face. "That is very sweet of you, Valerie. I'm happy to know there's kids like you looking out for our Danny. We mostly need to just clean out our lab, but I don't feel comfortable with exposing you to all that contamination." Valerie doubted a little more ectoplasm would really affect her after getting whammed with it so hard a couple days ago, but she didn't say that. "If something different comes up that we need help with, though, I'll be sure to let your parents know. What're their names?"

Valerie internally groaned; she hated when adults did this, since her dad would probably forget to ever pass along any messages until it was too late. "My dad's Damon Gray."

"Oh, I know him! Such a nice man, who clearly raised a wonderful daughter." His mom gave her a final smile. "Thank you again for your concern. For now, I just want to ask you to be a friend to Danny, okay?"

Valerie blinked at the request. "Uh, sure, Mrs. Fenton."

After exchanging farewells, Valerie found herself back on the sidewalk, staring up at the gaudy extensions to the Fentons' house. She wasn't sure why she didn't expect a mom to ask something like that out of some random kid.

Thinking on it more, she wasn't sure how she felt about being instructed to explicitly hang out with one of Casper High's outcasts; she would definitely get some grief from her friends for that. She'd be risking her own social standing as well as theirs. She couldn't imagine getting along with him particularly well, either, not with what she knew about him (which wasn't much, but certainly enough).

Considering how she had asked how to help in the first place, though, the least she could do was try. She could perhaps also gain some information that could help with her... situation from him, though that was second priority.

She wasn't done here, after all.

She moved down a few houses, to the backyard of that one house that she was pretty sure was abandoned, and hid the best she could from any prying eyes. Without express permission to go into the Fentons' basement in human form, her next best shot was going in looking like a ghost--which was risky, even if most of their ghost hunting equipment was out of commission.

Now, if only she knew how to trigger the transformation... It had nearly been by accident and utter exhaustion that she had managed to shift back to her normal self soon after coming out of the portal.

She closed her eyes and tried to remember how it felt when she was the kind-of ghost--like the burning in her chest had been spread and thinned out throughout her body, making her feel light and disconnected from the normal sensations that came with being human. She prodded at the hot ball by her heart, beckoning it to open up. It gladly did so, with a great flash of light. She instinctively covered her eyes, even though the light was coming from everywhere. When it finally stopped, she lowered her arms. She let out a much-too-loud breath, then didn't feel the need to breathe again. She opened her eyes, and was enraptured by the slick black-and-red suit on her, tight and baggy in the same places the normal hazmat suit had been. White locks poured over her shoulders, ethereal and Medusa-esque, vaguely floating on a nonexistent breeze. She stood straight--balance was hard to find when you could barely feel the ground or anything--and turned back toward Fentonworks.

Everything was disorienting, with seeing everything in a different color spectrum and hearing at new frequencies and feeling nearly numb because her skin had no substance anymore. Nonetheless, she figured out how to walk, and turned herself invisible before reaching the sidewalk. She carefully stepped all the way up to their door, then through it. It almost seemed too easy, but any sort of anti-ghost system they had up surely didn't work at the moment. Nonetheless, she felt incredibly paranoid that some sort of alarm would go off as she continued into their house, past noises in the kitchen, and through the basement door. She floated more than stepped down the staircase, and sighed with relief when, miraculously, no one was downstairs at the moment.

"Okay, what to do..." she muttered to herself as she looked around. The mess made of their lab barely looked any better than when she had last seen it, though the tables were indeed emptier. Sticky-notes were tacked onto various remaining equipment, marking how to save or dispose of them. However, her eyes were immediately drawn to the char radiating from the metal-plated hole in the wall. She startled at a spark that jumped off the portal's rim as she neared it. She remembered the portal still being on when they left, but perhaps that had just been the light sensitivity and ringing ears she'd experienced for the rest of the night.

She noticed a sticky-note on the wall. "The Fenton Portal is salvageable, I know it!" was scrawled onto it. Probably one of Danny's parents, she decided. Considering how the portal had actually worked, even if it wasn't for long, Valerie had to agree they could probably get it running again. She bit her lip, debating. Helping to fix the crown achievement of their research could maybe make up for the destruction, right? And they'd likely be more willing to help fix her... condition in return, right?

It was hard to convince herself to stand any closer to the thing that had, from her understanding, just about killed her. She managed it, though, and carefully brushed away unrecognizable metal debris from the inside of the portal out. Once cleared, she looked around for available tools to tighten up the rim and inside walls of the portal.

She kept her eyes trained often on the staircase, when she didn't have to devote her focus on floating or not floating or keeping her grip on the screwdriver. She could hear murmurings upstairs. Why hadn't anyone come down here yet? Were they having family dinner? Was Mrs. Fenton talking about the one girl who came up to their door a while ago? Was Danny talking trash about her? Probably, since the school losers always had something against the A-listers (with Dash and Kwan bullying them, she could see why, but she wasn't like that!).

She was probably supposed to have started dinner for herself and her dad by now, actually... She could come up with some kind of excuse. She had to take this chance while she had it.

She stepped back, all wires tucked back in and metal plates secured. She looked back at that power cord Star had stepped on--the little switch was off. She glanced back at the portal, then bent down to flip the switch on. Now all that was left was to press the button in the inside... without dying all the way.

She couldn't just do it while inside again, obviously. But if she used some kind of object to do it in her stead, then that would probably interfere and cause an explosion, like the first time...

Her thoughts were interrupted by the creak of the basement door. She felt a spike of panic as she rushed to put the tools back where she had found them. It had just barely registered that she lost her invisibility at some point when, surprisingly, Danny was the one that came around the bend, carrying a box with heavy rubber gloves. He nearly fell back up the stairs when he spotted her.

"You--you're a--" Danny stuttered out, face quickly paling. "A ghost!"

"Sshh!" Valerie held her finger up to her mouth, dropping from the air to stand on the ground. It was much too late to go invisible now; it would probably just freak him out even more. "It's okay, I don't mean any harm! Look, I'll leave right now--"

"A--and go where?" Danny asked, limbs shaking. How much of that had to do with the box's weight or his fear, she wasn't sure.

"Just--home, I guess?" Valerie realized she wasn't going to make him feel better if she didn't give firmer answers. "Yes, I'm going straight home."

"By 'home', do you mean...?" Danny glanced over to the Ghost Portal, and Valerie mentally kicked herself as he started to put pieces together, though they weren't quite right. "You're trying to open the portal!"

Valerie waved her arms as he rushed to a table to drop the box there, over by another open one. "It's not what you think! I wanted to help fix something because of what happened to the lab, and..." She stopped when his eyes narrowed at her.

"I don't think I can believe you wanting to fix something unless it benefits you, ghost," he stated with a little venom. Valerie blinked at how quickly the fear had drained out of his voice. "And you realize this is a ghost-hunting lab, yeah?"

"No, I promise it was for you guys! I just--" She gestured helplessly to the whole room, words lost in her panic. She didn't know how to respond to this situation, especially with a kid she barely knew.

Danny mostly kept his eyes on her, only flickering down to the open box to begin rummaging through it with one hand. After doing some mental calculations, he began slowly, "Either you're some ghost that's really into tech or cleaning or something, or..." His mouth pulled further down into a frown. "You're responsible for ruining everything in here."

"Well, you caught me! I'm a cleaning lady ghost! I sure hoped you Fentons wouldn't catch me on duty!" Valerie slowly stepped further away from him. Danny further tensed, and his arm stilled from searching in the box, which did not seem to be a good sign. "Like I said, I gotta go..."

"The kind of damage in here just couldn't come from a freak accident, even I could tell. Someone came in here and did it on purpose." Danny pulled an ecto-gun out of the box; he didn't seem familiar with it, and hadn't actually pointed it at her, but the look on his face showed he wasn't bluffing. "Are you the reason my parents have lost all their work?"

"I didn't mean it!" Valerie blurted out. She willed herself invisible at the same time that Danny aimed the gun. She barely dodged the beam he'd shot at her, then zoomed up through the ceiling, flying intangibly out of the house.

She didn't stop until she made it to her own home, crash-landing into her bedroom. She was almost grateful to still be a ghost at the moment, so she wouldn't be overwhelmed with her normal human senses and functions (her heartbeat would be shot through the roof!) on top of the turmoil going on in her brain.

Man, she never expected something like that out of that wimp.

She didn't think Danny cared about his parents' jobs all that much in the first place. She had only heard about their ghost-hunting through the long Casper High grapevine, because he never mentioned it of his own volition to anyone. Though, she supposed she would be very angry if she thought her dad lost his career because of a ghost, too...

She’d been looking for redemption but then messed up even harder. Danny would probably tell his parents about this encounter, and now they’d never be willing to listen. Why would they help a ghost that made their lab explode? Why would they help a ghost in the first place?

She flopped onto her bed, not even caring that she was mostly phased through it. She hadn't even properly said to him, "I'm sorry."

[lilaclily00]

Sunsets and Stars

Valerie Gray meets her clone.

(DannyMay 2019 Day 5: Sunset)

This is somewhat a recap of "Kindred Spirits" in the D/V roleswap!AU. Dani's appearance is based off of this post. This is for you, @goinggoblin​ and @pigte​!

AO3 link

Being Phoenix was exhausting. Valerie felt like she could barely function as she trudged home after yet another ghost-troubles-related detention.

“Ugh, I just wanna nap,” she muttered to herself as she came up the stairs and to her bedroom doorway. She dropped her backpack from her shoulders, flicked on the light--and was suddenly wide awake, instinctively crouching into a defensive stance. Someone was on her bed.

“Who are you?” she demanded, eyes narrowed and heart pounding. The figure pulled down the magazine away from her face and Valerie blinked at how... young it was. It was just some girl maybe a couple years younger than her, with big gray-blue eyes and freckles dancing across her bronze skin.

“I’m Danielle,” the girl stated with surprising confidence as she folded down the corner of the page to mark her place. “Do you have something I could eat?”

Valerie reasserted her stance; there wasn’t a real reason yet to let her guard down. “Not unless you tell me why you’re here and how you got into my room.”

Danielle placed the magazine beside her--it was a random copy of Vogue from Valerie’s collection in her closet--and folded her legs under herself. “I walked through the door.” She pulled a grin, which shrank when Valerie didn’t smile back. “I ran away from home, and... well, you’re the closest family I have. Distance-wise.” She sheepishly rubbed at her neck, beneath her black, wavy hair. “We’re, like, third cousins once-removed.”

Valerie inched closer. Third cousins once-removed? Strangely remote relationship and specific. “We don’t know each other. Why would you come to me instead of one of your friends?”

Danielle flinched, and Valerie sighed. Something about that reaction told her what she needed to know--no friends. She loosened her stance, standing up and watching the girl with crossed arms for a few seconds. Danielle watched back, fidgeting under the stare, but she held the gaze.

“Alright,” Valerie finally said, motioning to the door, “let’s go start making dinner.” Danielle’s eyes lit up as she ran back out the room, Valerie following. It would take receiving a few more answers before she could trust this strange girl, but so far, she didn’t seem so bad.

Valerie startled awake at a sound, which was immediately followed by whispered apologies. She fought her grogginess away to focus on Danielle’s face hovering by her blanket-bundled self. The girl was standing next to her, much closer than she anticipated. Valerie scooted back, then sat up. “Ugh, what time is it?”

“Time for you to--eh, that one’s overused.” The younger girl hunched her shoulders up. “Sorry again, didn’t mean to interrupt your nap. I was trying to get over you to look at the sunset.”

Valerie frowned, then turned her attention to the window hanging over her bed. Oranges, pinks, and purples painted the sky outside, tinting wisps of butts and a weaning moon already peeking out. She slowly relaxed into a small smile, even as Danielle messily climbed onto the bed beside her. The girl’s face glowed in the gentle light, her expression filled with childish awe.

“Sometimes I forget how pretty these can be,” Valerie mused aloud.

Danielle began to bob her head, then shook it to disagree instead, beanie nearly falling off. “I just don’t get tired of them. I can’t. It’s like the sky is on fire! But in a good way!”

“Hey, I’ve thought the same thing!” The girls looked back to each other, considering each other, twin grins on their faces.

Danielle was the first to turn back to the window. “Would you get mad at me if I stayed up to look at the stars too?”

Vlad’s ugly blue face leered at her with triumph. “Good afternoon, dear girl.”

Valerie snarled at him, then her gaze diverted to the computer screens behind him, playing clips of her transforming. Her glare renewed. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Because you are intelligent, just like myself.” Vlad swished his cape behind him as he turned to type commands into the computer.

Valerie wished so, so badly she was not trapped so thoroughly so she could sock him for that comment alone. “I am not like you, you psychopath!”

“Oh, I do believe we’re alike, not just with our shared powers.” He stood straight in the air, chest puffed out, as he watched the computer do some analyses on the video clips. “You also keep using that word, but I don’t believe it means what you think it means.” He floated back over to her. “You say it as if it is synonymous with ‘crazed villain’. I am neither a psychopath or a crazed villain. All I ever wanted was happiness.”

“At the expense of everyone else’s,” she spat, but he paid her no heed, instead merely pressing a button on the wall. A chamber to the side began to open, hissing with released pressure.

“Yet you and the Fentons refuse to let that happen. Maddie and Daniel will not become a family with me, and you have denied my offer to become my apprentice time and time again. You have all forced my hand to get what I want in a different way.”

Her jaw dropped as she watched the chamber reveal a replica of... herself, her ghostly half, limp and connected to tubes.

Vlad continued, “The good clone is the product of many months’ work, and is close to completion--it is almost ready to accept your DNA.”

Valerie’s brain hurt with how fast it was moving. This was far beyond espionage and sabotage and even outright obsession. He had been creating clones of her--presumably to have a half-ghost child and apprentice of his own. “So those ghosts--”

He apathetically watched one of those very ghosts from earlier that day drift to his side, long white hair and red boots dripping ectoplasm. “Yes, the bad clones, the failures.”

She thought back to Danielle--and her betrayal. Calling Vlad her father. A stone settled in her stomach. “Is Danielle one of them?”

Vlad narrowed his eyes at her for a second. “She’s actually my most successful yet. I had thought the problem was the instability of your DNA, and added another person’s DNA to help, which worked, but not quite enough.” Alarm bells rang in her head, but he didn’t give her a chance to think on that more. “Turns out what I really need is a mid-morph sample from you.”

“And you think I’ll just give that to you?!” Valerie screeched, struggling in her trap.

“I wish you would, but alas,” Vlad sighed, snapping his fingers, prompting one of the clones to action, “that is an unrealistic expectation.”

She heard nothing after that except for her own screams.

“I know you can’t beat me,” Danielle declared, squeezing her fists tight at her sides. Her white, curly ponytail floated and her eyes glowed green.

Valerie slowly worked at standing up, lightheaded and trembling. “You’re right, but I’m not going to fight you. It’ll hurt you more than me.”

“You heard him, I’m the most stable clone!” Danielle began forming an ecto-blast, then stopped as she realized her body wasn’t handling it anymore--ectoplasm bubbled off her feet. She bit her lip, then said, “If you don’t give him your morph DNA, then I’ll always be like this. He needs it to save me!”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’s true.” Valerie had successfully stood all the way up, keeping her distance, tired eyes set on the smaller girl. “He said you’re the best one yet, but he also said you’re not good enough. He’s using you, just like he’s using Danny and so many other people.”

She suddenly remembered why Danielle looked so different compared to the other clones. She had DNA from someone else, too, and it really wasn’t terribly hard to guess who on her name alone. Vlad’s ability to do messed-up things was truly unprecedented.

“You--you’re lying!” Danielle shot at her, horror setting into her eyes. Valerie had just barely managed to put up a feeble shield, yet she still got knocked back a foot. Determination settled back into the younger girl. “He cares about me too much.”

“He doesn’t care about anyone, not really. He doesn’t know what real love is!” Valerie’s chest ached, not just physically, and before she knew it, she was shouting. “Look at me--look at this situation! Look at what he’s done! I’m only fourteen!” She looked into Danielle’s acid green eyes, nothing like her own, yet strangely reminiscent of the girl’s namesake. “Danny’s only fourteen, too, and--and he claims to love Danny as a son, then goes and creates you out of him? What do you call that?”

Danielle stepped back, doubt making her every move difficult. Valerie regretted her words a little; she didn’t want to watch the girl go through so much pain. Finally, in a small voice, Danielle said, “It feels like he just bosses me around, and... he’s cruel to the other clones.”

Valerie hesitantly walked towards her. Her clone gave no indication that she intended to fight anymore. “I don’t want him to start being cruel to you, too. I know it’d be hard to leave, but anything’s better than staying with Vlad.”

“Where would I even go, though?” she whined, holding her head in her hands.

“I think our bigger priority right now is just getting out of this mansion, but... well, we are family,” Valerie began, amazed by the words coming out of her mouth. She’d become incredibly attached to the girl, even thought it’d only been one day. “We’ll figure it out.”

Danielle gaped at her, hope shining through, and Valerie just had to hug her. The girls melted into their embrace. The moment was brief, though, as they remembered where they were, and both looked down to the floor, as if gazing straight into the basement.

“We need to destroy the equipment, don’t we?” Danielle stated.

Valerie added, “And beat up Vlad.” She breathed into her nonexistent lungs, then back out. She already felt a little better than just a few minutes ago. Ghostly healing really was something else. “But just enough to do the job; I don’t think either of us have the strength for more than that.”

“Deal.” Danielle grinned at Valerie, and Valerie grinned back before both went intangible and flew down through the floor--together.

Danielle disappeared right after the fight, and Valerie agonized over whether to go looking for her or head home. She ultimately picked the latter, flying out before Vlad got to recover. Danielle had still been in... okay condition, at the last sighting, and she knew where Valerie lived, if she planned to go back there as well.

Valerie sat on the roof of her house that same night, watching the sky fade from orange to black, when Danielle made her appearance, popping into visibility right next to her. “Dang it, the sunset’s almost over.”

The elder girl didn’t even flinch. Instead, she gnawed on her lip, picking her words. “Were... you thinking of staying here?”

Danielle curled herself up into a ball. “No, I think I shouldn’t. I don’t want to make you or your dad take care of me.”

Valerie’s eyes widened. “You’d rather be out there all on your own?”

“Well, like you said, it’s better than being with my father--uh, Vlad, still.” The girl shrugged a little to herself, hugging her knees closer to herself. “And I know I’m not all alone. I still have a friend.”

Valerie scooched over to wrap her arm around Danielle. She could see her point--if she were in the same situation, she’d be sick of people pretending to be parents, too, even if their intentions were good. She wasn’t sure her house would be the best setting for Danielle, anyway, if both of them were going to be hiding so many secrets from her dad. She still didn’t like the idea, but maybe she could trust that her clone would be okay out there, and find someone she was comfortable living with when she was ready for that.

“So I take it you came to say bye?” Valerie asked, eyes focused on the fading sunlight.

“Yeah, but I wanted to watch the sky a little longer first.”

She smiled. “Okay.”

The stars slowly appeared, and Danielle vanished once again.