#Metal Core Valerie

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 230

He's been given many names over the eternities.

Kronos. Time. Ouroboros. The World Serpent. It comes with being an Ancient. With being one of the oldest primordial being of them all. Only his own parent, Infinity itself was older.

He was an unstoppable force, no matter what the Observants wished to think, their chains akin to mosquito bites- if that- as they shattered.

Clockwork is his favorite name he decided long ago, when he'd first seen the possibilities of the world his so-called employers complained he had obsessed over.

Yet how could he not? This world had given him children after all. Ghostlings all his own, human and not, mortal and more. Invisible to his machinations and strumming of the strings of Fate.

And here he lay, curled in a bed he had no need for but had meticulously crafted for the Cores he held against himself so lovingly. His own little bit of Space, a smaller Moon and Sun, joined by Life and Storm and Sea and Ore. Newborn Ancients in their own right, Cores unstable and cracked from the actions of mortals who did not understand, who could not.

Perhaps, he pondered, it was best.

They might be Ancients under their own rights, but they were still young. Too young, their very essence risking collapsing under their own power unless he did something.

Clockwork crooned a lullaby in the words of Reality, running a finger across one of the cracks before picking the core up. And swallowing it.

One by one until they were safe. Protected. Able to use his own energy to stabilize their own instinctively. He hummed a song he knew by heart, by Core, and let the clocks tick on. He had much work to be done.

His ghostlings only deserved the best after all.

#Prompts #clockwork #danny fenton #Jordan Fenton #Ellie Fenton #Jazz Fenton #Sam Manson #tucker foley #valerie gray #Dad Clockwork #space core danny #Moon core ellie #Sun core Dan #Ocean Core Jazz #Life core Sam #Metal Core Valerie #Storm core Tucker #danny phantom #Ghosts eat each younger one's cores to adopt them #Clockwork is morally gray here as he deserves #Welcome to Clockwork's adventures in parenting and crushing anyone who threatens his new bbys he's waited eternities for #If you want this to be a crossover then go for it lol #What shattered team phantom's cores and proto-cores? Good question- up to you #Ghosts get bigger the older they are #It's like anacondas #As long as there's space and resources they'll continue to get bigger (and ghosts don't need air) #Why yes Clockwork IS married to Pariah (they never got that chance to divorce) meaning CW is now acting regent #If he wanted to declare war on whoever harmed the team and other realms beings it's well within his right #have fun #if you want to make this a crossover go for it

[cuartoretorno]

Habla Malón! que novedades? aquí te dejo una agenda para Setiembre y Agosto! veremos que sale en estos días! parece que el año se pasa volando entre cigarros y botellas de Ron! que proceda Bro! coordinamos mas tarde! hablamos Bazuca! 07/08/22

#Rock in love 3 #inzul #blackthony startano #los lagartos #golden cameleon #indie rock #indie pop #indie music #alternative rock #27 crew presenta #valerie series #Cecimonster vs donka #mi numero perfecto #blessing lies #emocore #metal core #lluvia fest #lluvia trip #nico nico #vans shoes #vans old skool #cigarros pall mall #ron cartavio #cervezas y chicas #Hot Topic

[hannahmanderr]

Valerie and Danny, 50, for the kisses? (“last dying breath” can have any interpretation - go ham!)

~ 50. kisses with their last dying breath

(i did indeed use an Interpretation of this prompt. tagging @duchi-nesten for what will be obvious reasons) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ There were too many of them.

Danny managed to fire off an ectoblast. It struck an enemy, evaporating it into bits and pieces, but where one was destroyed, there were a dozen more to take its place. They swarmed forward, clearly eager to avenge their fallen kin.

He was oddly reminded of the thrall army he'd faced at Pariah's Keep. Of course, that army had been far worse than this one, but he'd had the advantage of a tricked out mech and his own ragtag army of ghosts from his rogue gallery. Here, he had nothing more than his own core, which was quickly beginning to give out, and...

"Valerie!" He scrambled to his feet, just barely escaping a swipe of razor sharp claws. She could handle herself fine, of course, but if she was facing an attack like this one...

If anything happened to her, he would never forgive himself.

The distinct metal shink! of a sword reached his ears. He resisted the urge to swear. Of course she'd be forced to rely on her sword. They'd long since discovered her suit was nothing more than a fancy paperweight here. Sure, it wasn't just any average sword - he'd given it to her himself, after all - but one sword against a mob this size...

Clumsily, he sidestepped another enemy lunging at him. He would've preferred to just rid himself of it entirely, but with his core running so dangerously low, he'd be lucky to pull off a few sparks. Instead, he channeled what remaining energy he could at willing himself intangible and making a mad dash through the horde towards the sounds of the sword and struggle.

It wasn't easy. By the time he reached her, his core was shuddering violently, and he found himself shaking. He collapsed behind her, pressed up against a rocky ledge. "How're you holding up?" he wheezed.

Valerie grunted as she swung her sword down and into another enemy. It succumbed instantly. "I've been better." Her voice was tight - the same voice she got when facing down the likes of the Fright Knight or the Ghost King. "You?"

He looked up. Without her helmet on, her hair flowed loose and free behind her. The fire in her eyes shone brighter than ever. Though her face was contorted into one of exertion and pain, there was a beauty to it, one he found to be unmatched by any being in this world or any. She moved with a finesse and grace he could only hope to match, striking down her foes with deadly accuracy.

It was no wonder Danny found himself speechless. God, I love this girl.

Except she would most definitely give him an earful if he said that out loud in the middle of a situation like this. Instead, he swallowed it down and used the ledge to help him stagger up. "I don't think we're gonna make it," he said, trying to keep his voice from shaking too much.

Because wasn't that a horrifying thought?

Valerie seemed to think so too, if the way she whirled on him with an expression of horror told him anything. "Wh- no! Don't talk like that! We'll be fine!"

"What's the point in kidding ourselves?" He didn't mean to sound so frustrated, but in a situation like this, he couldn't help himself.

She shot him a glare before focusing back on the throng quickly advancing on them. "I don't know who you think I am, but I don't give up without a fight!"

"I don't either! But if all that's gonna happen is that we're gonna die either way..."

She faltered and glanced back at him. "We're not - I'm..."

Danny didn't see the attack until it was too late. He tried to warn her, tried to throw himself in front of it, but it was too fast. With a sharp cry of pain, Valerie was thrown back into him, and they fell to the ground.

He scrambled to sit up. She sat there, in his lap, hissing in pain as she examined the damage to her side. His stomach churned at the sight, even more so when she began to reach blindly for her fallen sword.

He caught her hand. "Please, Val..." he whispered. "I don't want to spend our last moments like this."

"Y-you're being overdramatic," she whispered right back, but the sheen of tears threatening to fall from her eyes betrayed her.

Carefully, he twisted his hand so his fingers interlocked with hers. "I'm scared." It was a confession he hadn't been expecting to make. "I'm... it's gonna hurt."

The mob was upon them now. She leaned into him, and he hoped it was more out of a desire to be closer to him than an effort to keep away from the threat. Their eyes locked together.

If it had been a movie, she would've given him an inspiring speech, with an orchestra swelling behind her voice and dramatic lighting highlighting the two of them and everything. She would've confessed her undying love right then and there, and it would've been the key to unlocking some latent power within him to eradicate the whole army at once and fly them to safety.

But it wasn't a movie. There would be no eleventh hour miracle.

And so instead, as the mob launched into their final attack, she took his face in her hands and brought his lips to hers. He responded just as fiercely, using the last dredges of his energy to pour every ounce of love he could into the kiss.

The attack hit, and the world went black. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The next thing Danny felt was his head slamming into a wall.

"Gah!" He crumpled to the floor, rolling and groaning as he gripped the back of his skull. "Uggghhhh, I think I broke it. I told you it was gonna hurt."

Valerie snorted. He cracked open an eye to see her sitting at her desk. A familiar, pixelated "GAME OVER" screen flashed behind her as she grinned down at him with crossed arms. "You only have yourself to blame," she said with a cheek that could only be rivaled by him. "I told you you'd regret overshadowing the game, but noooo. You just had to get the 'authentic Minecraft experience'."

"Exactly! There's no better way to get an authentic experience than by doing it first hand!" He rolled himself to sit up. The same "GAME OVER" screen taunted him from his laptop. "So really, I still win."

Even if he forgot just how violently games liked to throw him out when he died in-game. But he would never admit that out loud.

Valerie hummed. She spun back around and clicked to respawn. "Maybe you really did hit your head too hard. I wouldn't exactly call getting owned by a mob of Creepers 'winning'."

"Look, how was I supposed to know they'd spawn all over like that?" He stood up and stretched like a cat before walking over to her. With a grin of his own, he propped his arms on the back of her chair and leaned down to rest his chin on her shoulder. "Besides, getting you to kiss me like that? In Minecraft? That was a win all its own."

He didn't need to see her face to know she rolled her eyes. "I only did it because I knew you'd come back and get all melodramatic if I didn't. And it doesn't count as me kissing you if it was my avatar kissing you."

He laughed and turned to plant a kiss on her cheek. "Yeah, keep telling yourself that, Red." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ~ Send me a ship and a number from this ask game and I'll write a drabble or draw a sketch!

#danny phantom #danny fenton #valerie gray #gray ghost #hannah writes #ask game #ask hannah #minecraft #bibliophilea #SORRY NOT SORRY #i saw dying breath #i saw any interpretation #i took advantage of it hehe #cue endless jokes where danny calls valerie his minecraft gf #thanks for the ask!!

[charcoalhawk]

Stuck in Limbo

My Phantom Truce gift for @berry-berry-blu

I ended up going with your third prompt: Being friends with Danny Fenton is really frustrating when he keeps cracking jokes while bleeding out.

Warnings for; gore, description of wounds, blood

wc: 1066

“…297, 298, 299, 300. Ok, tell me another one Danny.”

“If I had a nickel for every time someone I should have trusted stabbed me in the back, I’d have way too many nickels.”

The rasping laughter that bubbles up from ruptured lungs sends more blood leaking out on her makeshift bandages.

The feeling of blood congealing in her hair and on her clothes has to be one of the most vile sensations in the world. And unfortunately Valerie has grown used to it.

At least most times it’s her own blood, scrapes and scratches from not getting out of the way fast enough. But what happened to Danny? She knows she saw a flash of bone and the edge of a spasming lung before she was able to attempt to treat them.

She remembers the moment she broke into the lab. She hadn’t heard any screams, just following the sinking feeling in her gut after Danny had disappeared following a fight between Phantom and Plasmi- Mr. Masters.

Phantom, strapped down to a metal table covered in wounds, while Mr. Masters loomed over him wielding what looked like a cattle prod. Only when he struck Phantom the electricity dancing around it was red, and with an agonized scream and a flash of white light, the boy of the table transformed from her second worst enemy to one of her best friends.

Her brain had needed precious seconds to make sense of what she was witnessing, but luckily after almost three years of fighting ghosts muscle memory had a blaster out and scorching hole in Mr. Masters shoulder before he could react.

How they got out was a bit of a blur. She knows she got at least two more blasts of at Mr. Masters, but she doesn’t know where they hit. Some part of her hopes that one of them was fatal.

She does remember leaving at least one shattered window as they escaped, and probably a hell of a lot of blood.

The cold autumn air meant that she had a flannel on hand to strip and make rudimentary bandages, and she kept a tiny stock of gauze on her glider so she wouldn’t have to go home after some of the nastier fights.

It still hadn’t been enough to stop blood from leaking out onto them both. Blood, and what she knows is ectoplasm. But trying to process that Danny is Phantom is something that’s going to have to wait until after she can get him stabilized.

At least Danny isn’t freaking out more with the realization that Valerie knows. But, given that both Tucker and Sam have to know, and Jazz given how calm she had been on the phone, at least means she isn’t the first person to find out.

Another shudder from Danny causes a fresh wave of gore to come dribbling out on their chests, and after almost an hour of actively bleeding out Valerie doesn’t know how Danny is still conscious.

“Don’t worry.” Danny seems to almost read her thoughts, or maybe he can tell by the way she holds him that much tighter. “You’ve done enough research into ghosts to know what a Core does right? Ectoplasm can replenish itself at a rate where bleeding out is pretty much impossible. Trust me, Vlad already tried that.”

“Hey,” she’s been so horrified for so long that her voice ends up coming out flat, “we agreed on one morbid joke per five minutes.”

“I still can’t believe you’re counting out the seconds,” Danny’s voice sounds far away, for all that his face remains pressed into the crook of her shoulder and collarbone.

“Hey, if you get to use a fucked up sense of humor to cope, I’m allowed to use this.”

Her phone had died about a half hour into their flight. And Danny’s was crushed or lost somewhere in the last five hours of chaos.

At least she’d been able to call Jazz beforehand. The older girl had promised to have the Fenton’s brought up to speed and ready to help the second they arrived at Fenton Works.

Jazz had trusted her to keep Danny conscious. With all the equipment available to them nothing should be able to stop the Fenton parents from helping their son, but none of that would matter if he died on the way back.

…well, died more than he already was.

Danny’s shuddering breaths rattle her own ribcage, each heave spilling more blood to soak into their clothes. She needs to rebandage them, needs to stitch the gaping wound on his chest and abdomen close.

As panic begins to overwhelm her she forces herself to take a deep breath, feeling Danny’s chest against her’s. Feels the slow, low hum of what she knows is a Core. She’d done what she could. In the moment getting him out of that hellscape of a mansion had been her top priority.

At least without any ghosts chasing her it’s a smooth ride on her glider. But even pushing it to its limit it’s taking them almost two hours to fly back to Amity Park. With the limited space on her glider she can’t get a better angle at Danny’s wounds, and if she tried to rebanage them now they’d have to stop their flight so she could concentrate.

At least flying chest to chest, with one arm wrapped securely around him and his flung over her back is keeping pressure on the wound. Maybe riding piggyback would have been more efficient, but then she wouldn’t have been able to see him, and she needed at least one hand free in case something came after them.

She can feel Danny’s legs begin to shake every ten minutes or so. Every time she reaches for that little bit of hope hiding in her chest, and every time she feels Danny take a deep, wet breath and the shaking subsides.

For now.

Everyone in Amity knows about the one sided feud between the Fenton parents and Phantom. She’s heard them vent about wanting to dissect Phantom molecule by molecule.

Hopefully they’ve changed in the last three years like she has, if nothing else Jazz can still help.

There’s nothing else to do but keep flying home. When they arrive at Fenton works they’ll either be treated with an ecto-weapon or with bandages.

She just hopes she’s making the right choice.

#phandom truce 2023 #danny phantom #valerie gray #danny fantom #definitely more introspective #warnings for #gore #blood

[balshumetsbaragouin]

Chapter 20 is out, and we're racing towards the finish line! Inside, Valerie heads home after her fight with Phantom and gets into an argument with her dad.

There's only 4 more chapters to go, and things are really getting tense. It's wild to think the story is almost finished with its posting schedule, AND I'll be able to use the art that inspired the story in the fic very soon.

In other news, I've started posting my Valentine's Core Exchange fic. You'll see a separate post about Hybrid Affinity later today. If you missed the announcement post, now you know it exists!

Saturday's update is on schedule, so I'll see you then! (Enjoy your chapter preview!):

The window to the room slammed shut, fine spiderwebs of cracks snaking through the glass from the force of the motion. Several tiny pieces of glass fell onto their bedspread. That would let winter chill leak inside. They would have to repair it later. They settled into the space, chest heaving, slowly mending the cuts to their skin. Phantom’s noxious influence clung to their surface, a ghoulish residue that stank of spectral energy, and melted into every crack and open wound in their metallic skin like ice turning into water. The arctic chill of the creature’s fetid powers carved into their organic flesh and scraped along the inside of the bones. They couldn’t breathe. The damage to their true skin must be impeding the distribution of oxygen. Their primary skull slid away from their fleshy human features, liberating the sensitive, fragile flesh to suck in air for their weaker secondary oxygenation systems.

Their articulation points ached, filling with excess lubricant and swelling inside the casing that cushioned them. They sunk down to the soft fabric of the floor. They needed to recover. They had wounded the creature, but not mortally. It would return soon. Its energy clashed with their own, carving through the protection of their true skin to stab at the organic tissue beneath. Despite their best efforts, they could not keep the wretched creature’s profane powers from skating between joints and digging into fragile mortal flesh. Their human parts were vulnerable. They raked their claws over the surface of their true skin, trying to chase the feeling of its grotesque energy film from their body. A pleasing metallic noise hummed through the air, the sound of two metal rods resonating together after one had been struck. Their human voice joined it as the sensation finally faded with the clawed cleaning of their skin. They would need to use more energy to undo the damage their claws had wrought, but ridding their true skin of the sensation of Phantom’s ghoulish energy took priority. “Valerie?” They turned, enhanced eyes taking in the human by the door. Our sire is home?

“Daddy? When did you get back?” They made their voice meek, removed the sensuous ring of their digital voice layers. The man by the door stared, eyes going wider by the millisecond. They lowered their eyebrows, then pursed their lips, attempting to form the expression for confusion. 

#Danny Phantom #Danny Phantom Fanfiction #DP #DP Fanfic #Passion and Plasmatic Plague #PaPP #Balshumet's Baragouin #Chapter Twenty

[asjjohnson]

Ta-da—I've finished the first part of this holiday Danny Phantom ghost story. Which I'd thought of the idea for last year just after Christmas.

---

Phantom stepped into his lair and the glowing green portal vanished behind him.

It had been a good day—tiring, but good. For him, that was.

With a practiced ease, he turned and flopped onto a large melted stump of a stalagmite, as though flopping onto a couch, and put his arms comfortably behind his head.

Valerie may have erected that shield of hers, but he had other methods of getting his fun.

Today he'd blasted an impassable trench all along the circumference of Amity Park. A canyon surrounded by jagged metal.

No one would be able to enter or leave.

It might've been too late to stop Amity Park from having their food and gifts, but their celebrations would be tainted by foreboding. The knowledge of his blockade, of their days of plenty soon transitioning into dwindling supplies and starvation.

A different type of ruin and destruction.

A grin stretched across his face as he imagined it.

But the thought was cut short. An uncomfortable tickle of vapor brushed through his nose and triggered a gasp.

He tensed, and pushed himself up on one elbow, eyes narrowing as he scanned his shadowed surroundings.

His lair was a large cavern, dimly lit by a sourceless glow. The floors were littered with chunks of broken cave formations that he’d left lying after having blasted them apart.

Nothing looked out of place. He saw no movement, and heard only a slow drip of water from the cave ceiling.

No one could enter his lair. He knew this. There were no entrances or exits other than through his own portals.

It must not have been his Ghost Sense after all, but instead a thread of cold air passing by to tickle his nose, or else indigestion.

He shouldn’t have eaten that blob ghost earlier.

He rubbed his nose in annoyance and laid back down.

But he still felt uneasy. A feeling of paranoia, of an imagined something watching.

Simply the idea of someone else being in his personal lair bothered him. It was a place formed from his inner essence. Even he didn’t understand what a cave could mean to him. But, whatever it did mean, it was something deeply personal that he didn’t want to share. A look into his core.

It was a long several minutes before the subject faded from his mind. He began to doze, insubstantial wisps of pleasant dreams pulling him toward sleep and energy recovery. His own laughter. Valerie's face. Jagged metal.

His ear twitched and he started awake before the dreams fully took hold.

There was a noise—very faint, but unnatural to his lair.

It echoed along his walls and ceilings, making it hard to pinpoint the direction.

He stood. And waited. Ectoplasm pumped through his limbs, preparing for a possible confrontation.

The noise grew steadily louder. It was now possible to make out two distinct sounds: the high clinging of chains, and a grating noise of something scrapping against rock.

Then—it was to his left. He spun around.

There, nearly invisible, with glimmering chains draped over his shoulders, was the ghostly form of Vlad Plasmius.

His chest constricted with the shock. "You're gone!" He pushed off of the floor and away from the figure, firing a Ghost Ray straight through its middle. The ray slammed into the far wall. Not even a chain link shifted. An intangiblility that somehow felt unnatural, even for a ghost. He fired again. "You no longer exist!" Another Ghost Ray. "You're a hallucination! You aren't real!"

The figure remained unmoving, hovering with his hands clasped behind his back—visible through his translucent torso. He raised one eyebrow. "Are you quite done, Daniel?"

"What are you?!" Phantom shouted.

"You already know."

It didn't make sense. Plasmius couldn't exist, Phantom had destroyed him a long time ago, the ghost had been completely absorbed.

This figure couldn't be real. It had to be his mind playing tricks on him, or a dream, or a ghost who had followed him through his portal—maybe Amorpho.

But the fear coursing through him said otherwise—said this was the spirit of Plasmius back from oblivion, somehow pulled from his own core. A face he had been certain he would never see again. It couldn't be true. Instinctively, the repercussions of such a thing terrified him. Absolutely and completely.

"You couldn't have at least decorated the place?" the figure asked. "Perhaps some Packers memorabilia? A few pennant banners along the ceiling goes a long way."

Phantom sneered, pushing the fear to the side. "You have no say concerning my lair."

The figure somehow seemed amused by the words.

Phantom glanced at the long chains trailing down to and across the floor. "As though your taste in decoration is any better. What did you do, decide to carry the ruins of your mansion with you?" Broken pieces of gray brick and assorted other objects hung from the chain links like a giant charm bracelet.

The figure looked down at himself. He unclasped his hands and lifted his arms to either side, chains and objects clanking noisily and grinding across the cave floor with the movement.

The figure remained with his arms stretched wide, gazing at Phantom, as though inviting Phantom to examine the chains he wore.

The objects on the chains continued to sway. Broken pieces of gray brick. Books—one with a stylized ghost on the cover, and one with the year 1981 printed across it, but also other books. Cracked picture frames and photos. Quarters—a lot of dangling quarters. Test tubes stained with dried ectoplasm. Small bones, as though from animals. Broken machinery—computer monitors, an incomplete ring of metal that resembled a small Fenton Portal. A red fabric mask. A shredded white t-shirt. A pair of metal gauntlets. And so much more.

"These are the failings I'd gathered in life," Plasmius said. "I carry these burdens with me. My guilt."

Phantom snorted in disbelief. "How is the money a failing?" The coins still looked perfectly usable. He continued to idly run his eyes across the chains. There were also papers and folders—business contracts and deeds. And his eye caught the gleam of a small, familiar ring.

Plasmius's face twisted in hate, his eyes glowing a brighter red.

Phantom unconsciously drifted backward, the fear again coming to the forefront.

Plasmius loudly rattled the chains and screamed, "I wish I had never deceitfully gained one cent! I was a fool! I had traded away everything that mattered!"

The horrible sound of the rattling chains gradually died down and Phantom uncovered his ears, not remembering having covered them.

Plasmius still wore a glare, but he now talked at a normal volume. "You have done much more than I have. Your chains are ten times this long, not counting the ones you have inherited."

For a moment, Phantom imagined he could feel the invisible weight. Imaginary heaviness across his shoulders, and pushing him down toward the floor. Chains from Vlad Masters, Danny Fenton, and from the years of his current existence.

All of the steel beams and other debris surrounding Amity Park, trailing behind him like a king's long coronation robe.

Phantom crossed his arms. "That's ridiculous."

"You say that, but you worry for your fate. Your soul is uneasy. A child realizing there are consequences to his actions, fearing his Father's punishment—"

"I am not a child!" Phantom shouted.

"You will be visited by three spirits—"

"No! You aren't real! None of this is real!"

"Daniel!"

The name was said so firmly, so whiplike, the equivalent of a grounding slap, that Phantom snapped his mouth shut.

"You will be visited by three spirits tonight," Plasmius said. "Your participation is not optional. You will listen to them, go anywhere they want you to go, and observe whatever they want you to observe."

"Do you count as one of the three?" Phantom grumbled.

"You know how the story goes. Three visitors in addition to myself."

"So I'm basically in one of those Scrooge movies."

Plasmius slowly grew more transparent. "You know that isn't the title of the story." His voice grew quieter, fading.

"How would you know whether I do or not," Phantom said to himself. He could never remember the official title.

Plasmius was gone.

Phantom hovered alone in the empty cave chamber.

He whispered, "Bah. Humbug."

#danny phantom #dp #dan phantom #dark danny #vlad plasmius #a christmas carol #I took the idea for Dan's lair here from my Phantom Remnants ficlet. Though it looks slightly different. #I'd thought of his lair being a cave for a fic a few years ago but thought of it being a replica of an existing cave in Remnants. #Merry Christmas #Happy Hanukkah #Or Kwanzaa if you celebrate that #TUE has flying cars but here they either don't fly yet or Phantom doesn't know they do. I hadn't decided. #I do like the idea that Amity Park developed the flying cars specifically because of the debris surrounding the town... #But I also kind of think the townspeople just stay in the shield. For safety reasons. So I'm not sure. #And Phantom in this story isn't noticeably younger than in TUE. So it's not too early on. #(I'd started out specifically having his trench be for blocking delivery trucks. From other towns. Which don't have flying cars. #But then I changed it. And I kind of like the odd detail the change had created.) #...This might look familiar because I'd accidentally posted it before I was finished writing it. #I do not know the names of things—replaced 'streamers' with 'pennant banners'. I mean the string of triangles.

[nonbinaryphantom]

im blaze i follow/reply from @frenchphobic im a se asian tme nb lesbian. be normal. dni if u are weird and shit and liking pomp pep or whatever and i love trans ppl and gay ppl here

i have an adults only dp server u have to dm for the link though (i prommie i dont bite)

also list of all the aus and basic explanation u can find more stuff under the specific tag for them except for a few <<< has something wrong with them

halfa reaper au: au where all halfas are reapers that guide souls to the afterlife and round up unruly ghosts. its sort of like magical girls specifically pmmm kind of vibe where theres some underlying dark secrets

roleswap: danny and vlad roleswap au. dannys an anti villain with issues who keeps burning his bridges and vlad is an emotional represser with complicated feelings towards maddie and jack. features a bit of electric core au with overdrive

morrigan au: TUE rewrite where dan is just some giant monster bc i like designing them. danny and future valerie r dual protagonists here

rival dani: dani becomes a reoccurring rival for danny bc cain instinct and the whole clone thing. semi rewrite of kindred spirits. danny is like sonic and dani’s like metal sonic/surge the tenrec that kind of dynamic

[bewitchingbooktours]

A Bewitching Tuesday

A Round-Up of Daily Virtual Book Tour Stops

INTERVIEW - EPIC FANTASY - PARIAH'S LAMENT (Of Metal and Magic Core) by Richie Billing https://thebookjunkiereadspromos.blogspot.com/2023/10/spotlight-winterview-epic-fantasy.html

Sink Your Teeth into a New Vampire Book: VAMPIRE INIQUITY Book Spotlight

SPOOKTACULAR FEATURE: CRAVING BEAUTY by JENNIFER SILVERWOOD with bonus read Once Upon a Nightmare  #bewitchingbooktours https://buff.ly/3RMJDID

Heart of the Storm by Valerie Storm  #bewitchingbooktours https://buff.ly/3LKfXIv

An Angel’s Obsession; The Cupid Dating Agency by Celia Breslin  #bewitchingbooktours https://buff.ly/3PxSET2

Guardian of Monsters by Catherine Stine #HauntedHalloweenSpooktacular  #bewitchingbooktours https://buff.ly/3ry7jG5

AISLING TOUR  #bewitchingbooktours https://buff.ly/3PEzZ8m

Just a Fika by Beck Erixson

Vampire Witch by Eileen Sheehan

Taken By The Alpha King by Abigail Barnette https://www.owenhabel.com/2023/10/taken-by-alpha-king-by-abigail-barnette.html

Honey Drop Tome 1 Volume 2 by Alicia R. Norman and Krishtina Mayers #HauntedHalloweenSpooktacular https://www.abewitchingguidetohalloween.com/2023/10/honey-drop-tome-1-volume-2-by-alicia-r.html

SPOOKTACULAR FEATURE: MELANIE'S AWAKENING (CELIA BRESLIN) added bonus: CELIA's BANSHEE TALE http://supernaturalcentral.blogspot.com/2023/10/spooktacular-feature-melanies-awakening.html

Release Day Blitz Staked: A Vampire’s Tale by Kim Catanzarite #ReleaseDayBlitz #bewitchingbooktours https://buff.ly/3RMJeWD

An Angel’s Obsession; The Cupid Dating Agency by Celia Breslin https://www.owenhabel.com/2023/10/an-angels-obsession-cupid-dating-agency.html

My SECOND Life by Simon Yeats https://www.lisasworldofbooks.net/2023/my-second-life-by-simon-yeats

[mediaacestar]

YouTube Reaction Podcasts – Rob Squad Reactions

As reported by Ariel Shapiro last year on TheVerge.com “Luminate surveyed 3,000 US podcast listeners 13 and older for its Podcast 360 Report, and shared exclusively with Hot Pod that YouTube is the most-used platform for podcasts. Of those aware of the platform, 78 percent said they have used the free version of the streamer to consume a podcast.  That puts it ahead  of heavyweights like Spotify and Apple Podcasts.”

One of the most powerful video-podcast types is the “reaction podcast”.  This is where someone watches a television series (e.g. - Brad Evans did for Bridgerton, 549K views) or movie (e.g. - Monica Catapusan for Encanto, 3.2M views). As a music / radio guy I’m currently really enjoying Rob Squad Reactions videos.  This is where Oklahomans Jay and his wife Amber listen to and react to music…cutting a wide swath through many classic rock super hits. Jay admits to being a big rap and heavy metal fan.  He and Amber know a lot about music…but come completely naively to what many rock fans consider “five-note familiar classics”.

There’s something smile inducing that allows you to watch them experience The Beatles, The Mommas and The Poppas, Sheryl Crow, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin and Journey for the first time. Usually prefaced by “I’ve never heard of this person…or this song.”  They show surprise that The Beatles could rock (Revolution), Denny Doherty’s big voice (California Dreaming), Sheryl Crow’s rasp (If It Makes You Happy)…and then their shock as they look at each other when “Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.”  

Jay and Amber comment on vocal ability, instrumentation and lyrics. Jay had to hear back John Lennon’s opening riff to Revolution and Amber wanted to hear Paul McCartney’s scream again. Jay’s favorite female voice is Amy Winehouse, proclaimed  immediately after his first listen to Valerie.

Just a sample of some of the lyrics that hit them hard were:

Janis Ian’s Seventeen – “To those of us who knew the pain, of valentines that never came. And those whose names were never called, when choosing sides for basketball.” An arrow to the heart for Jay when the basketball reference came…and Amber’s voice cracked a bit as she remembered there were guys in high school that weren’t allowed to date her because of her race.

Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues –  “Twenty years of schoolin’ and they put you on the day shift.” They had to hit pause after that one. And Amber said…”I want to listen to this five times, every time he hits me with a really cool line…then I miss the three things he said after that.” We can all relate Amber.

Sheryl Crow’s If It Makes You Happy – “If it makes you happy, then why the hell are you so sad?” As Amber said, “Does anybody else feel that chorus to their core?”

So, in short, check-out Rob Squad Reactions. But for those of us in the podcast business, “You don’t need a weather man to know which way the wind blows.” We must utilize YouTube to its fullest extent and realize that these cool reaction videos are delivering tons of impressions, which are extremely valuable to advertisers and agencies.  

#YouTube #Podcasting #Advertising #SherylCrow #TheBeatles #RobSquadReactions #BobDylan #JanisIan #AmyWinehouse #TheMommasAndThePoppas #Billy Joel #Janis Joplin #Journey

[lexosaurus]

Phic Phight 2022: Lair

This fic is for @poisonouscephalopod

Characters: Danny, Val WC: 3541 Summary: When something goes wrong with a piece of Vladco tech, Valerie ends up stuck in the Ghost Zone. With Phantom.

[ao3] [ffn]

---

“Are you fucking serious?” the Red Huntress hollered.

Phantom winced, drifting away slightly. “Do you mind? Ghost hearing.”

“THIS WAS YOU!” Valerie whipped out her gun. “I know it was you!”

“In case you haven’t noticed, Valerie,” Phantom said, thoroughly enjoying how her glare deepened until Danny was sure that she was picturing all the ways she could murder him on the spot. “I’m here too!”

“So? You’re a ghost, this is your territory!”

“Um, no it isn’t. My lair is like…” Danny tapped his chin. “I don’t know actually, not here though. I think it’s that way.”

“You think?”

“Hey, I don’t make the rules!”

Red lowered her blaster, letting it dangle to her side. “Fuck! FUCK!”

“Calm down, it’ll be fine.”

“No, it’s not fucking fine. I’m in the…holy fuck I’m in the Ghost Zone, aren’t I? That’s where we are right now? I recognize the sky from the…FUCK!” She turned to him, panicked. “What are we gonna do? I’m not a ghost, I can’t be here! I have too many enemies, I’m gonna die.”

“Well, thankfully for you, I am a ghost and I can get us out of here.” Danny’s smile fell. “I think.”

“You think? Oh my god, I’m really gonna die out here.”

Danny flipped on his back, floating lazily in the ectoplasm-filled air. “You’ll be fine. I think my lair is up that way, though it’s pretty far so it’s a bit hard to tell. But once we get to my lair, I know how to bring us to the Fenton Portal, and you can get home.”

“Okay,” Valerie said, though Danny was sure she was reassuring herself more than she was responding to him. “Okay, okay. This is fine. I can do this. I won’t fucking die here.”

“That’s the spirit!”

Her helmet whipped up, and once again Danny could feel her glare through her screen.

“Now follow me! And, uh, you might want to think about putting that blaster away. I don’t know whose territory we’re near, and I don’t exactly want to go looking for a fight right now.”

Valerie didn’t move.

Danny rolled his eyes. “Or not, whatever. Don’t cry to me when you end up as a ghost too.”

Valerie immediately charged the ecto-ray.

“I’m kidding! Kidding, relax a little, Red.” Danny flew forward into the expanse of black and green swirls and purple doors. He didn’t turn back, but eventually, he could feel Vallerie tailing him.

“Welcome to the Ghost Zone, by the way,” he said, trying to ease her spirits. After all, Ghosts could smell fear, and he didn’t know what unsavory characters were nearby.

Though so far, he could see only a few harmless blob ghosts glancing their way.

“This place is a fucking wasteland. No wonder you spend so much time on Earth.”

“Hey!” Danny countered, shooting her a glare. He could insult the Ghost Zone all he wanted, but Valerie was human, so she didn’t get such luxuries. “We’re just in an unpopulated section, apparently. One of these days, I’ll show you some of the good parts.”

“Good parts?” Valerie asked skeptically.

‘Yeah! There’s this one place called the Far Frozen that’s run by a bunch of Yetis. They have ice cores too, so we’re pretty chill.”

“Yetis, like in the Arctic? You guys have snow here?”

“Sure. The ghosts manifest their lairs, so Yetis have snow. It’s a giant frozen tundra actually, ‘cause there’s so many of them.”

“That sounds horrible. And you like it there?”

“Sure!” He jammed his thumb to his chest. “I have a cold core too.”

Valerie was silent for a moment, then in a tone badly covering up her curiosity, she asked, “...what’s a cold core?”

“Oh, it’s my ghost core,” Danny said. “Every ghost has one. Mine is cold, so I get ice powers. It’s also why my aura runs cold. Every ghost is different. Plasmius has a plasma core, Ember has a fire core, Skulker has a metal core, blah blah…”

“What about The Box Ghost?”

Danny snorted. “I actually have no idea what core he has. He might not have a specialty core. I don’t think every ghost does.”

“Like these blob ghosts?” Valerie jerked her head towards a blob ghost that had been trailing them for a few minutes.

Danny slowed down, letting the ghost catch up to him. The ghost nuzzled against his arm, purring.

Under her helmet, Danny couldn’t tell if her face was curious or just disgusted. With Red, anything was possible.

Danny held out his arm. “Here, he won’t bite.”

“No thanks.”

“Aww, but he’s so cute!” Danny scratched the ghost’s belly. “Who’s the sweetest little guy, huh? You are, that’s who!”

“You’re insane.”

“It’s just a blob ghost.”

“It’s still a ghost.”

“Yeah, well look at who you’re talking to.” His words came out more bitter than he intended, but his stock of patience only ran so deep.

Valerie flinched, seeming to realize who she was talking to. Danny could feel her mood sour again, and she scoffed, flying off.

“Come on, Val,” Danny chased after her. “We were just starting to get along.”

“No. No fucking way was I getting along with you. You’re…a ghost.”

“Yeah, I am,” Danny snapped. He flew in front of her, cutting her off. “Look, I don’t want to be here any more than you, but there’s nothing I can do about that other than help us get back to Amity Park—”

“Help me get back to Amity Park, you mean. You’re a ghost, you belong here.”

Danny rolled his eyes, the usual mantra of she doesn’t know any better playing on a loop in his brain. “Sure, whatever. But you need me to get out, and you know this. So the least you could do is just pretend to tolerate me. Please, for my own sanity.”

Valerie stared at him for a moment, her helmet covering any indication of what she was truly feeling. Seconds ticked by, and Danny was just about to throw in the metaphorical towel when she finally retracted her blaster and stuck out her hand.

“Alright. Truce.”

Danny beamed, meeting her hand halfway. “Truce!”

“But I swear,” She gripped his hand, pulling him in. “You lead me to a trap, and I will kick your ass, Phantom.”

Danny chuckled, phasing out of her grip. “Sure, sure, Red.”

With that, the three of them (because Danny had grown too attached to the blob ghost at this point to let him go) carried on through the swirling expanse that was the Ghost Zone. They flew for what seemed like hours, falling into a quiet but comfortable silence. Occasionally, Valerie would ask him a question or two about the Zone.

“What are all these doors about?”

“There’s time travel here?”

And of course, the inevitable facepalm and comment of, “This place is a goddamn madhouse,” but her comments lacked her typical bite, and so Danny couldn’t help but have fun poking at her metaphorical shield.

And besides, any opportunity he got to educate her about ghosts was a good thing.

“Hey, I think there’s an island up there,” Danny said, pointing down at a floating rock. “We can take a break there for a bit if you want?”

“Yeah,” she said, her voice relieved. Danny didn’t blame her, it wasn’t every day he flew for multiple hours without stopping.

“Cool. You want me to scope it out first?”

She thought for a moment. “No, it’s fine. Let’s just go.”

The duo headed toward the floating mass, which became clearer as they got into its view. It was a small island with scattered ecto-ferns and brushes, with a small ecto-pool on its surface. Little blob ghosts hovered over the pond, soaking in the ectoplasm that evaporated off of it.

“Damn, no water,” Danny heard Valerie mutter under her breath.

Danny glanced at his palms. While he could make ice, he was almost certain that his ice wasn’t pure H20, and had some ecto-properties inside.

Ones that were more than likely to make Valerie sick.

“Sorry. The atmosphere here isn’t great for humans.” Danny bent down to scoop up some of the ectoplasm from the pool. He brought it to his lips and relished as the cool liquid slid down his throat.

“You can drink this stuff?”

Danny gulped down another handful, and then wiped his chin with his glove. “Yeah, we’re made of it, so it’s healthy for us.”

The blob ghost that had followed him leaped down from Danny’s shoulder and gently lapped at the pool.

“Good boy!” Danny praised him.

The ghost paused, looking up at Danny to let out a little meep mur in response.

Danny stood, stretching his limbs. He could already tell he was going to be sore tomorrow.

Valerie, on the other hand, had taken to sitting down against one of the few trees that stood on the island. “How much longer till your lair?”

Danny closed his eyes and allowed his senses to expand. It was much easier to do this in the Zone, with all the dense, ambient ectoplasm in the atmosphere. Vaguely, he wondered how much faster he could fly here compared to on Earth.

“We’re definitely closer. Probably still a few more hours though.”

Valerie groaned and leaned her head against the tree stump. “This sucks.”

“Yup.” Danny plopped down next to her. “I hope someone got that ghost we were fighting too.”

“Oh god, I totally forgot about him. God, I barely even remember what happened. It feels like it was so long ago.”

“Yeah, I think he…knocked into a piece of Vladco equipment?” Danny scratched his head. “It’s kinda blurry for me too.”

The blob ghost returned from its voyage to the pool and rubbed its face against Danny’s cheek. A few other blob ghosts followed, each shyly approaching until they made contact with him. At the realization that he wouldn’t hurt them, they gave in and nuzzled him, letting out little meeps of happiness.

“Oh hey, little guys!” Danny shifted till he was criss-cross applesauce and began gently petting the ghosts. “What are you guys all doing here? Enjoying the pond?”

Meep meep!

Blip!

“What fun!” Danny agreed enthusiastically.

The ghosts seemed to appreciate his cheer if their little flips and wiggles were anything to go by.

Valerie snorted, and immediately slapped her hands over her helmet where her mouth would be.

Danny grinned over at her, his eyes nearly cross-eyed as a ghost gnawed on his hair, blocking his sight from partial view. “What, something on my face?”

Her stifled giggles turned into full-fledged laughter, and she slapped her forehand with her hand. “You’re an idiot, Phantom.”

“Oh come on, Red, this is adorable. Look at them, they’re like little babies.”

“Are they?” she asked, her tone turning. “Are they ghost babies?”

“Nah. They’re just little globs of ectoplasm that gained sentience. Most of them originate from the zone, though many of them used to be small animals on Earth.”

“Oh…” Valerie reached out and gently touched one of them. It preened under her thumb and cuddled into the palm of her hand. “And they just hang out here now?”

“Yeah, like all of us.” Phantom’s smile dropped a little. “You know, unless we move on.”

“How does that work? Moving on?”

Danny rubbed the back of his neck with his hands, averting his gaze. “It’s different for everyone, but ultimately you have to like…satisfy your Obsession. Permanently. So, for example, a lot of the ghosts here died in a battle of some kind. For them to move on, they have to win one. What counts as a battle is sort of different for everyone, but that’s the general gist.”

“I see.” Valerie rubbed circles on the blob ghost’s head. “And what about you?”

Danny tried not to look too uncomfortable. “What about me?”

“You know…what does your soul need to move on?”

“Uh—” Danny cleared his throat, his tongue suddenly dry. “That’s really personal.”

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s—” He cut himself off before he could say it’s fine, because it really wasn’t, and any other ghost might have punched her for asking.

She doesn’t know, she doesn’t know.

“Just be careful,” he finally settled on. “You can’t ask stuff like that.”

Truthfully, Danny wasn’t really sure what he needed to do to ‘move on,’ so to speak. Nor was he totally sure that he even could move on. He was still just as much of a human as he was ghost. If his ghost half moved on, and his human half was still alive, would he just…die?

That didn’t exactly sound like something he wanted to do.

But his Obsession wasn’t exactly something he was even sure he could fulfill. It was protection, and there would always be someone to protect. Maybe he was like ghosts like Frostbite and Clockwork, forever bound by their Obsessions that they would never be able to fill.

Maybe it was better that way.

“But uh…” Danny wanted to stop himself, but he powered through. “If you want to see my lair when we get there, I’ll let you come in.”

“Really?”

He didn’t look at her. “Yeah.”

She was silent for a moment. Perhaps she realized the gravity of what he was saying. “Thanks, Phantom.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Once they both had their fill of rest, they were up in the air again with now two blob ghosts insistent on following them, the one Danny found originally, and the one that had spent the last few hours cuddling up to Valerie.

“They’re not strong enough to really self-sustain on ectoplasm like we are. Or, sorry, not you, but for me and ghosts like me,” Danny was saying. “So they need to be around a constant supply of ectoplasm or else they cease to exist. That’s why that pool attracted so many of them.”

“Then why are these two following us?” Valerie asked.

“Because we established ourselves as allies, and I emit enough for them to feed off of.”

“Won’t that hurt you?”

Danny shrugged. “No, they’re not leeches. They’re only absorbing the stuff that’s not staying in my body. The excess, I guess. Sometimes the air in the Zone can get pretty thin, so blob ghosts who get lost might only last a few days on their own. It’s easier for them to stay on islands or in lairs if the host lets them.”

“And do you let them?”

“Sure, I don’t see why not. My core can be pretty intense, so my door has enough ambient ectoplasm to sustain them. And I’ve been practicing, so I’m pretty good at manipulating my lair now to suit whatever I need.”

“That sounds convenient.”

“It is!” Danny beamed. “But it took a lot of practice. It took me forever to get the sky just right.”

“Sky?”

“Oh yeah, loads of lairs have their own atmosphere. The Far Frozen even has days and nights. They don’t have a sun or anything, it’s just the aura around the island that gives it the illusion. I don’t know, it’s all ancient ecto-manipulation. Frostbite—the king—taught me how to do some stuff, which is what I brought back to my lair with me. Sorry, I’m rambling.”

“No, it’s…” Valerie tilted her head. “It’s interesting, I guess. I never realized that ghosts really did any of this stuff. I kinda just thought it was a wasteland here.”

“Well, that wouldn’t be a good way to spend your afterlife,” Danny pointed out. “Though, the Zone is sorta like space. There are different universes and areas and whatnot. I’ve never been outside my section, so I don’t really know what the other parts are like.”

“Oh, I guess that makes sense. And you’ve only been a ghost for what…ten, fifteen years?”

Danny could feel her curiosity, and he normally would brush away any questions about his personal life.

But he could be somewhat vague without outright lying. “I’m pretty young for a ghost.”

“Not gonna tell me?”

“No way.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want you snooping around trying to figure out who I was,” Danny said bluntly.

“Fair.”

The pair settled into another silence, both starting to slow as the hours lagged by. Danny could feel hunger pains starting to hit the dormant, human side of him, and he was sure Valerie was feeling even worse.

At least Danny could absorb the ectoplasm in the air in the meantime. She couldn’t even take off her helmet.

After too long passed, Valerie let out an audible groan. “If we’re not close, I’m gonna have to break again soon.”

“Yeah, I agree.” Danny closed his eyes, and to his surprise, his lair called him from far closer than before.

He jerked back, nearly crashing into a very grumpy Valerie, who looked just about to cuss him back to Earth before he flew up, suddenly invigorated, yelling, “It’s right around the corner!”

He rushed over, not checking if Valerie was following. He had enough faith in her to catch up anyway. The blob ghost nestled itself into his neck, chewing on his hair to hang on as he shot through the Zone.

Finally, he stopped.

Valerie caught up with him soon after. “Jeez, you could warn a girl. This is it?”

Danny nodded, trying to bury the anxiety that crawled up his stomach. He had never shown his lair to anyone before, not even Sam and Tucker, who thankfully had enough tact to not ask. They likely figured he would bring them when he was ready.

He wasn’t sure why this was such a sensitive topic for him. He’d been to other ghosts’ lairs plenty of times: Ember’s garage, Frostbite’s island, Clockwork’s tower—but when it came to his own sanctuary, he froze.

He brought a hand to the door, and then lowered it, shooting a nervous smile at Valerie. “Um, I forgot to ask, do you even want to see it? We can just go home if you’re tired.”

Danny could feel her eye roll. “If you’re too chicken to show me, then fine, I won’t pry. But don’t try to use me as an excuse.”

“Right.” Danny turned back to the floating purple door. He took one last deep breath, and turned the handle, pushing it open for her to see. “You can take your helmet off in there, by the way.”

Inside was a bedroom. It began based on Danny’s own room, but as he gained confidence, he changed things. It was larger than his bedroom at home, far larger, and it only had three walls instead of four. The bedding was plastered with a big NASA logo, and shelves full of model rockets decorated the walls. To one side was a TV and video game console, and to another stood a sleek laptop on top of a navy blue desk. The fourth wall—or what should have been a wall, opened to a field with a few ecto-apple trees nestled onto one side, and a glowing, swirling green and blue pond to the other. The expanse of the field led up a hill where a large Dob telescope sat on top.

He looked up, and that was his greatest achievement. Rather than a ceiling of any kind, his lair opened to the sky where flickering stars decorated the sky. Off to the north was the glowing aurora, which danced up and down the horizon. It had taken far too long to figure out how to prevent the aurora’s light pollution from blocking the view of the stars.

Danny stood shyly off to the side, letting Valerie soak in the lair with all its details. The blob ghosts, on the other hand, peeled off the duo immediately and headed for the pond, where a few other blob ghosts swam about carefree.

“Wow,” she breathed, crossing the threshold from his room onto the soft grass. Danny watched as her eyes surveyed every detail of the place. “This is amazing.”

Danny let out a breath of relief and leaned against the wall. “See? I told you the Zone wasn’t so bad.”

“And you did all this?”

“Yeah. Took forever, but I figured it out.”

“Damn.” Valerie twirled one of the apples in her hands. “Shit, Phantom. This is something else.”

“Thanks.” Danny rubbed the back of his neck with his hands.

“Why do you even bother to come to Amity at all? With a place like this, I would just stay here.”

“I’d get lonely. It’s nice to have this when I need to get away and recharge, but I don’t think I could stay here for long. I already spend so much time in other ghost lairs, I think I would get bored if I was here twenty-four-seven.”

Valerie nodded in understanding and then turned to face him. Her curly hair was tangled and flat from being packed against her helmet all day, and she looked tired. But still, she smiled. “Thanks for showing me this. It was really nice.”

He felt his lips twitch up, and the chilly feeling of ectoplasm tingled his cheeks. “You’re welcome. Now, uh, you wanna go home?”

“Hell yes, let’s go.”

---

[read more of my work here]

#danny phantom #phic phight 2022 #lairs #my writing

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 255

You know what? Three-way crossover. Danny Phantom, DC, and Monster Hunter. 

Specifically something akin to Monster Hunter Wilds (Which isn’t out at this time) where there’s not much or any sort of settlements (from what we’ve seen) though there’s some signs of ancient ones. But several heroes might have erm, fallen through a portal or two and now they’re in some sort of… place full of unknown creatures and monsters. 

Dragons, for one, but that’s just the beginning of the proverbial iceberg. And they might be a bit… stuck. Just a little bit. 

On the other hand, the Eternal Quartet- that is Tucker, Danny, Sam & Valerie- have decided to go on a bit of vacation before college. You know, get some last bit of feral-ness out and alright maybe they just wanted to not have to deal with other people. 

And there’s a bunch of creatures here, and plenty of plants for Sam to get excited about too. And look, Valerie isn’t going to say no to a giant velociraptor sort of creature that she can ride. And- holy fuck Tucker do not harness the power of a storm to power your PDA- Actually stop summoning storms please- 

#DCxDP #DPxDC #DCxDPxMH #Monster Hunter Crossover #Go crazy on what they could encounter honestly because we don’t know much about Wilds #Space Core Danny #Storm Core Tucker #Life Core Sam #Metal Core Valerie #Which heroes fell into this world? Good question #I will say Danny deserves a Xeno’Jiiva #Give this boi a baby crystal-star dragon #Yes Tucker can & has hunt a monster or 3 for food #They’re tryin to vibe while the heroes are just trying to Survive lol #Yes they all 4 have some of those raptor things #The heroes might meet them while they’re ridin away from one of those sandstorm/stampedes & get yoinked up #prompts #monster hunter #danny phantom crossover #dc crossover #could be any heroes tho

[aikoiya]

DP - Team Halfa AU

What do you think about Sam, Tucker, & Valerie becoming halfas? Like, what if the ecto-acne is actually more like ecto-herpies, so it wasn't completely cured & Sam & Tucker slowly became halfas over the course of several years.

Undergrowth & Duul Aman left sort of imprints on their ecto-signatures so they have some of the powers they had when possessed, such as florokinesis (psychic plant manipulation) & dunemancy (sand magic), but once they fully form as actual halfas, they also get personal powers. Like, Sam getting ghost magic (the only names for it I could find were ectomancy & spectromancy, however they were pretty much the same thing, it isn't necromancy either) or umbrakinesis (psychic shadow or darkness manipulation) & her unique physiology as a plant halfa makes her immune to Blood Blossoms & gives her the ability to manipulate them with her powers. Also, Tucker having technokinesis (psychic technology manipulation) similar to Technus & developing a hot core with a lightning element.

As for the thing with Sam's ghost magic, I'm thinking of making it so that magic is divided into 2 columns; living magic & dead magic. Living magic is what the living uses, while dead magic is what the dead use & they are slightly different from each other. Within these columns are a list of the forms of magic used. Living magic & dead magic have many similar uses, but I suppose you could say that they have different consistencies to them. Like, there is a living cryomancy & a dead cryomancy & they do similar things, but are not completely the same in its affects.

Also, Sam's use of magic is more all-purpose than Danny or Tucker's, making her sort of the Sorcerer of their group.

If it were my choice, Sam's ghost form would have glowing yellow eyes with pale, mint green sclera. Giving them sort of a Chat Noir look. I'm divided between whether her hair should be more of a silver white or light grey as opposed to Danny's snow white or if it should remain black. Her skin would turn a darker shade of tan than Phantom's. She'd also grow fangs, cat-like claws, & a forked tongue (but not long, thin, or prehensile like Dan, & probably Vlad's, is) upon reaching Halfa Puberty.

Tucker's eyes in ghost form would be a sort of glowing orange-red color, like blood orange or ginger or something. His hair would absolutely turn a sort of platinum shade of white. The sort that has an almost metallic sheen to it. His skin would darken until it was very dark. He'd also have longer, more pronounced, sharper canines instead of just fangs, as well as dog-like nails that aren't really sharp & their danger comes from the force behind them (like Inuyasha), & a canid tongue, upon reaching Halfa Puberty.

This Halfa Puberty would also give them pointed elf-like ears exactly like Vlad's & slitted pupils.

Danny would also get these 2 features, though he'd have canines like Tucker, a draconic tongue (long, thick, tapering, & prehensile with a pointex tip), & Inuyasha claws.

If it makes it easier to envision, imagine Sam as being a fusion of Poison Ivy & Raven from DC & Tucker as a fusion of Static Shock, Technus, & Gaara from Naruto. At least, power wise.

As for Valerie, I think she’d become something more along the lines of an ecto-liminal, but a unique one. She might be able to gain a pseudo-core & ecto-signature, but I feel like her powers would be bound to her armor. (There’s this ‘race’ in DnD 5e called Animated Armor which is a soul bound to a set of armor. There’s also this homebrew somewhere that allows a character to wear said armor. So, I think of it like Valerie’s wearing one of these armors. The only difference here is that the soul possessing the armor is her own living one.)

Like, when not wearing her armor, she'd just have the typical ecto-liminal powers. Things like enhanced physicality, better senses, ability to see in the dark, able to see & touch non-ectoplasmic spiritual entities, a sort of feather fall ability, & the ability to affect people's sense of object permanence in regards to herself.

Just small, easy to dismiss things.

But when wearing her armor? She has full ghost powers, but it's done by proxy of technology enhanced with ecto-energy. So, invisibility would work using a camouflage function. Intangibility would work based on molecular phasing vis high-speed vibration (think the Flash), & ghost rays would work by using guns that are built into the suit.

It could create interesting irony & internal conflict for her character if she were to begin to exhibit more & more ghostly features.

I don't think any of them would ever have the same potential or power that Danny does, but that's mostly because of the unique way in which he became halfa. Similar to the way I think Vlad would've soon lost his edge against Danny. Though, that also has to do with the fact that he's a businessman & it's unlikely that he made much contact with the GZ before Danny opened the portal & most of his training beyond his ghost powers was in an attempt to remain fit.

Is this an excuse to ship Amethyst Ocean & Hunter Silly (Tucker/Valerie)? Partially. But I also wouldn't mind Gray Ghost or Veggie Burger (Sam/Tucker). So, take your pick.

Also, Tucker would absolutely go by Tucker Ghouly or Cyber-Tuck & Sam would be Sammy Manes.

I wonder how Vlad would react to this?

DP Character HC Masterlist

#dp #danny phantom #halfa #sam manson #tucker foley #valerie gray #amethyst ocean #silly hunter #gray ghost #veggie burger #dnd reference #writing prompt

[darks-ink]

Spark

Prompt: How does being constantly exposed to high amounts of ectoplasm affect the citizens of Amity Park? Prompt by: @robotbeowulf Word count: 2,487

[AO3] [FFN] [more Phic Phight fics]

---

Danny shrugged, shifting his backpack to lie a little more comfortably on his shoulders, and pretended very hard to be a regular student. It wasn’t easy, but it hadn’t been easy for the last two years. The constant secret-keeping from everyone was wearing on him.

Not to mention the constant ghost attacks, of course. He was pretty sure all of Amity Park was covered in a thick film of ectoplasm by now, considering how much of it he and the other ghosts spilled and fired during the almost-constant battles. Sure, his parents said that the stuff evaporated and then returned to the Ghost Zone, but his parents also said that humans couldn’t have ghost powers, and Danny was the (mostly) living proof that that wasn’t true, either.

He was jerked from his thoughts—literally—by a fist, grabbing him by the shirt and slamming him against the lockers he had been walking by.

“Hi, Dash,” Danny muttered, trying to hide away his weariness with apathy. “Good morning to you too.”

“Fentonia,” Dash growled back, leaning in close to Danny’s face. A little too close, thank you, ever heard of personal space? “Finally.”

Danny bit back the automatic reply—aw, were you waiting for me?—and settled for grimacing at Dash.

Not that that went over well, of course, because Dash’s other hand found its way to Danny’s shirt as well. With Danny well in his grasp, Dash lifted him, slamming him against the lockers again, this time with his feet off of the ground—no easy way of getting out. Not without using his powers, at least.

“What’s wrong, Fenturd?” Dash asked, pressing Danny against the lockers even harder. “Ghost got your tongue?”

Ha ha, how creative. How funny. Danny was sure he’d come up with funnier jokes in his sleep. “Fuck off,” he grunted at Dash as his back was slammed against the hard metal behind him again.

“Ooh, he’s got bite today.” Dash leaned back a bit, a vicious grin on his face, then crowded Danny against the lockers again. “Oh, no, never mind. Looks like he’s all bark.”

Danny snarled back at Dash before he’d really thought about it—before he could stop himself, really. It wasn’t even words, really, just an animalistic snarl and the pulse of his core that meant his eyes were glowing.

Oh, fuck. And Dash was way too close to miss that.

“Hey, there you go!” Dash… cheered? The fists clenched in Danny’s shirt released, and his feet thumped down on the ground before he’d really caught on to what was happening. Dash was already turning away from him, nudging Kwan. “See, I told you Fenton could do it too!”

That… was not the reaction he’d expected to get to ghostly glowing eyes. What the fuck?

Kwan laughed audibly, and Danny wrenched his eyes away from Dash and towards the other boy. The… the laughing, visibly cheery boy.

Seriously. What was going on?

“So, uh… No bullying anymore today?” Danny asked, and then felt like he could kick himself. Absolute moron. Who asks that sort of thing?

Dash snorted, apparently amused (amused???) by Danny’s idiotic question, and waved a dismissive hand. “What’s the point? I got what I was after.”

Okay? Good? That explained absolutely nothing. If anything, Danny felt even more confused. Had Dash seriously been bullying him trying to get him to glow eyes his? To snarl at him?

What???

Apparently he vocalized that last thought, because Kwan’s eyes turned back to him, a hesitant grin on his face.

And then Kwan’s eyes flashed a bright, glowing, cyan.

Danny, still leaning against the lockers he’d been pressed to, froze up automatically. He knew what that meant. Had spent enough time combing through his parents’ research—and with his own experience—to know that briefly glowing eyes couldn’t be caused by ordinary ghostly causes. An overshadowing ghost altered the eye-color of their host, but that was constant.

And, if there had been a ghost, Danny would’ve felt them. He’d grown more than strong enough to sense ghosts even if they were hidden in a host.

“He’s had them for a while.” Dash spoke casually, like this wasn’t a big fucking deal. “We couldn’t find anybody else with that brand of ecto-contamination, y’know, so Kwan was feeling super down about that.”

“Dash,” Kwan groaned, sounding put-upon. As carefully as Danny listened, the only thing he could hear was the undercurrent of care Kwan held for Dash. For his friend.

“Shut up, man.” Dash nudged his friend, then picked up his explanation that didn’t explain anything. “See, but I knew I had seen you do them too. The glowy eyes, I mean.” Dash underlined the latter with a vague gesture at his own eyes. “So I just had to push you into doing them while Kwan could see, to prove that he wasn’t the only one.”

“Uh.” Danny blinked at them, feeling like he missed everything Dash had said after the words “ecto-contamination”. What?

No, seriously, he knew he’d uttered that word a lot these past five minutes—even if only in his head—but what?

“You had to get him angry, though,” Kwan muttered, bumping shoulders with Dash. “You know that’s not the only way to make them glow.”

“Yeah, but it was the easiest to push him into,” Dash easily admitted.

And then, while Danny was still reeling, feeling like he’d missed at least seven steps in this conversation, Kwan stepped in closer and shot him a bright smile. “Thanks, Fenton. I feel a ton better.”

“Uh, yeah.” Danny blinked, watching the two of them wander off like nothing happened. “You’re welcome?”

“Man, what was all of that?” he muttered to himself, staring at the empty hallway for a moment before pushing himself away from the lockers. He desperately needed to talk to Sam and Tucker, see if they had any idea what all of that was about.

Somewhere, he kind of wished that Jazz was still in Amity. She would definitely know what the hell all of that was all about.

Seriously. Dash had just casually muttered the words ecto-contamination, and then suggested that it was common enough for there to be accepted variants of it.

How had Danny missed all of that?

!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

“There’s Val,” Sam whispered, leaning in closer. Danny followed her gaze and, indeed, there was the girl they’d been looking for all morning.

Well, it figured that they wouldn’t manage to pin her down until lunch, but it was frustrating nonetheless. Sam and Tucker hadn’t known what the stuff with Dash and Kwan had been about, either, so they had decided to ask the only person they could reasonably ask: Valerie Gray.

But that, in turn, meant that they had to just sit on the knowledge until lunch.

At least she had picked a distant enough seat that they could talk in private. Small blessings.

“Let’s hope she actually knows what’s going on,” Tucker muttered, before nudging Danny forward. “You go first, dude.”

So quick to sacrifice him to the ghost huntress. Danny shook his head but walked over, slipping into the seat opposite of Valerie. “Hey, Val.”

“Danny,” she greeted him back, raising an eyebrow at Sam and Tucker, who sat down on either side of him. “Well, this feels like an interrogation all of a sudden.”

He shot Sam a meaningful glance, but she just grinned back, pushing herself to sit more squarely on the seat. Rude.

“Danny had a weird interaction with Dash and Kwan this morning,” Tucker started explaining, breaking the tension before it could really go anywhere. “We were hoping you could offer… I dunno, some clarification, since you know them better than we do.”

She snorted, leaning back slightly. “They’re Dash and Kwan. Every interaction with them is weird.”

“Well, yeah, but they were…” Danny paused, briefly hesitant to mention it—what would Valerie think of ghost-powered humans?—before powering through. “They were talking about ecto-contamination, and known variants of it.”

The look they got in response was flat. Flat, and clearly confused.

After a long and exceedingly awkward moment of silence, Valerie cleared her throat and asked, clearly hesitant, “None of you noticed?”

“Noticed what?” Tucker frowned, glancing between the three of them and Valerie.

“That pretty much everyone in Amity Park has ghost-like traits?” She raised a questioning eyebrow at them. “Everyone, but especially the kids here at Casper High, has ecto-contamination so bad that we’re all, well. Becoming a little ghost-like.” She paused, shook her head, then asked. “None of you seriously noticed?”

Danny drew back, considering his words, but before he could really think about it, Sam had already flapped a dismissive hand. “The three of us spend so much time in and around Fentonworks that we’re already contaminated to hell and back,” she dryly explained. “And honestly, Valerie, how much time do we really spend with anyone outside our direct circle?”

“Fair enough,” Valerie allowed with a shrug. “Right, so, it mostly seems to be caused by the Portal and the constant ghost attacks. I mean, obviously, right?”

“Right,” Danny agreed, ignoring the way his stomach was turning. He’d tried so hard to keep everyone safe, but had the presence of ghosts been endangering them all along? Had the spilled ectoplasm really affected people, and so badly too?

“Now, what we started noticing pretty early on is that people generally only display a single ghost power, once they become contaminated enough to actually have a discernible ghost power. Some people consider them distinct variants: people with invisibility, with intangibility, flight, etcetera.”

Sam and Tucker both hummed, thoughtfully. Valerie raised her other eyebrow at that, then shook her head and continued on.

“Generally people don’t get contaminated enough to display more than those basic powers, but exceptions exist, I guess. And your contamination is probably way worse than anyone else’s, except maybe actual ghost hunters like the Fentons.” She made a face. “And that’s assuming their jumpsuits don’t protect them, which I doubt.”

“I’m pretty sure they do,” Danny mumbled, trying to inconspicuously watch both of his best friends from the corner of his eyes. The more Valerie explained about the ecto-contamination that apparently haunted all of Amity Park, the more their expressions twisted into something they usually called “suddenly understanding weird shit that had been happening”.

It was, unfortunately, a somewhat common expression these days. What with ghosts becoming a common thing, and all that.

“I… Some of the plants in my greenhouse grow unusually well whenever I’m near. Some even seem to react to my presence…” Sam admitted, her voice quiet, uncharacteristically reluctant. After a moment of hesitation, she tacked on, “And sometimes, when I really really don’t want to deal with my parents, they just… overlook me, like I’m not there at all.”

Like she was invisible, they all heard, despite the fact that Sam didn’t say the words.

Seemingly encouraged by Sam’s admission, Tucker added on, “I rarely, if ever, charge my tech. Their batteries just don’t seem to empty as long as I have them on me. And sometimes when I’m digging into code, it feels like… like I can alter it directly, like I’m tapping into some inner world that doesn’t—shouldn’t—exist.” Just like Sam, Tucker also paused for a moment. “When I’m running from a ghost or whatever, sometimes I run into an alley that I know has a dead end and never hit the wall.”

Like he was just phasing through it, going intangible before he hit it.

Danny swallowed through the clog he suddenly found in his throat, watching Valerie turn a meaningful look to him. She wanted him to tell her about his— his ghost powers. But he couldn’t just pretend all of his powers came from the contamination of living at Fentonworks, could he?

And he definitely couldn’t pick certain powers as acceptable and others as not.

“I… I guess weird shit has happened to me too, yeah,” he finally admitted, cautiously, hoping she guessed the source of his reluctance wrong. “But I never really thought about it, to be honest. Anything I could blame the ecto-contamination for could just as easily be caused by actual ghosts.” And in a way it was, of course. Anything caused by his ecto-contamination was caused by an actual ghost: Phantom.

“But,” he tacked on, knowing Valerie wouldn’t just let that lie. She was far too stubborn not to investigate. “Dash and Kwan apparently saw me with glowing eyes?”

Valerie hummed, then nodded. “That makes sense, I guess. I know Kwan has the glowing eyes variant as well, so that would explain why they’ve been targeting you.”

“It’s been around that long?” Sam asked, leaning forward, clearly curious despite herself. “I figured it would’ve taken longer than that to show up.”

“Oh, no, that was long after I got kicked out of the group,” Valerie said dismissively. “But Kwan saw me with a ghost scanner one day, and he begged me to scan him. I guess he was seriously worried that he had been overshadowed, even if overshadowing doesn’t work like that.”

“I don’t think he got rid of that fear, to be honest.” Danny shrugged, uneasy. “At least, he seemed pretty cheered-up when I, uh, glowed my eyes at him and Dash.”

Tucker snorted, and Danny could see Sam crack a grin as well, probably at his word choice. Well, fuck them. What did you call it, if not “glowing your eyes at them”?

“Anyway, I can’t help but notice that we all told you, but you haven’t said a word about what you can do,” Sam prodded, nudging Valerie. “Come on, Val.”

“Yeah, that does seem a little unfair.” Tucker leaned forward as well, an expression of genuine curiosity on his face.

And, honestly? Danny kind of wanted to know as well. Her ghost hunting suit probably hadn’t protected her, and her new suit definitely didn’t. If anything, the Technus-made suit probably had just worsened it.

“I…” Valerie visibly hesitated, then gave in. “I can fly, a little. It’s not really all that great, but at least I won’t break anything if I ever fall out of a tree or something.”

She said it with a light tone, like it was just a casual joke. All Danny could think of, however, was all the times he’d seen Valerie fall off of her hoverboard, especially at the start.

He carefully does not wince.

“That’s pretty neat,” he forced himself to say instead. “Less lame than glowing eyes, at least.”

Valerie grinned back at him, but before she could say anything the bell rung.

“Guess we’d better head to class,” Sam said with a grunt, pushing herself off of the bench.

“Yeah.” Tucker got up as well, then nodded at Valerie. “Thanks for the explanation, Valerie.”

Danny followed suit, shooting her a smile. “Same. Thanks, Val.”

She had given him a lot to think about.

#phic phight #phic phight 2021 #danny phantom #dp fanfic #phanfic #danny fenton #dark writes

[balshumetsbaragouin]

Chapter Twenty-Three is out! I am so excited for this chapter. This is the long-awaited climax of the story. Can Danny save Valerie's life by curing the curse? Will Valerie, and her suit, kill Danny first? Will anything be the same after the fateful reveal last chapter? Find out in the Penultimate entry to Passion and Plasmatic Plague.

Don't have time to read it just this second? Enjoy this preview of the chapter below!:

He phased through the roof, boots touching down gently on the tile of the showroom floor. He’d spent the last several minutes casing the store, making absolutely sure it was abandoned. The lights were on, and the heat was on full blast, but the entire parking lot stood empty. The road outside sported deep gouges and craters, courtesy of the cursed Skulker suit. The employees had fled without even locking the door. He changed that immediately, using some telekinesis to flip the locks. He then drew down the blinds, blocking off the showroom. He shoved a few of the mattresses, and their bed frames, against the doors for good measure. No interruptions. 

He didn’t know how long it would take her to wake up. On the brief flight over, she’d gone from quiet whines and gentle shifting, to jerking in his arms every twenty seconds. They weren’t enough to loosen his physical grip, but they did increase the grip of anxiety around his core. Right after he placed her on the mattress and locked the doors, he pressed his ear to her chest again. Her heartbeat thumped against his ear, chambers sounding wrong. He heard a squishing whoosh after every beat, and every once in a while, the contraction sounded uncoordinated, like the whole organ had gotten off rhythm. She started gasping. This isn’t a heart attack, is it? He’d taken a CPR class two years ago, but it didn’t cover curse-induced arrhythmia. Lacking other options, he pressed a palm to her breastbone and sent a gentle wave of energy inside. It seemed to do something positive, because the rhythm under his hand stabilized, and so did her breathing. “Ok, good job with the quick thinking, now what?” He couldn’t actually cure her until she woke up… if she woke up. 

Her heart started acting up again, and he sent another wave of energy while thinking through his options. He needed to tell the rest of Team Phantom what was going on. He also needed to set a timer. If she didn’t wake up on her own in the next fifteen minutes, he was taking her to a hospital. They could at least stabilize her, even if he had to sneak in later to administer the cure. The flutters of her heartbeat under his hand slowed, and he pushed in more energy. The suit rewarded him with a slash, cutting a brutal line from where his wrist met his palm to his elbow. He hissed and forced the area closed. “Stupid fucking thing, I’m saving her life. Do you want her to die?” Maybe it did. It was hostile cursed tech, after all. It slashed at his fingers and he sent down a full body wave that forced the metallic tendrils still. “Don’t bother answering that.” He pulled out his phone from a pocket to hold in his other hand. Texting sinister style made it more difficult, but he couldn’t take his hand away. He tapped out a group text, feeling the staccato under his palm strengthen with each passing wave of ecto-energy.

#Danny Phantom #Danny Phantom Fanfiction #DP #DP Fanfic #Passion and Plasmatic Plague #PaPP #Balshumet's Baragouin #Chapter Twenty Three

[totallyexhausted]

So, I am re-watching Danny Phantom and the idea of Lancer caring for an ill Danny crossed my mind after I read all the ones I could find. I also toyed with Danny’s powers; him being able to change, obviously, but also seance and see dead spirits (and ghosts; leaving spirits and ghosts as separate entities) walking around. Basically, I upped the rating on Danny Phantom and combined Klaus Hargreeves powers with Danny’s own abilities.

Also, I’ll say, and maybe it’s the song I’m listening to, or the fact that I was reworking Greenberg and Coach from TW, but I got the picture of Danny showing up at Lancer’s door, high off his ass mumbling about Sam, Ghosts, and other teenager things.

…………………………………..

Lance Lancer had never seen a kid so sick, nor did he remember his own son ever being this ill. Danny groaned loudly, curling further into himself, his arms tightly protecting his stomach as his nails dug bloody indents on his forearms. He was shivering, his ghost sense going off every few minutes, creating a barely visible burst of cold air biting back against his sweaty flesh. He clenched his eyes shut as he tried to forget about the spirits flooding the room. As he tried to forget their voices, their screams, their hands brushing over him as they pleaded for him to look. As they begged for him to help.

Lancer bit his bottom lip as he pressed his hand harder against the 17-year-old’s shaking front shoulder, his other trying to work through some of the knots plaguing the boy’s shoulder blades. He shouldn’t have this many tight muscles, this much stress forced in his back at his age… and the fact that Danny seemed to curl tighter into himself, straining his muscles further every time he took a slow, shallow breath, worried the English teacher more.

The teenager groaned again, clenching his eyes shut tighter as he swallowed quickly, letting out a shaky breath. He stilled, hoping his lack of movement would help ease the nausea stampeding through his body and after taking several slow breaths, he relaxed. He hated being sick… not that anyone loved puking their guts out for hours, let alone in someone else’s home, but his ghost sense always made him on-edge, unable to sleep peacefully or unwind. Every spark of Ghost-breath as Tucker called it, sent violent shivers through him making it harder for his body to heat or cool properly.

The last time Danny remembered being this sick was a few days after the Accident. He’d been on a famous “Fenton Family Vacation,” which was just code for some lame ghost-convention his parents attended every year, forcing their two kids to cram in the RV for a 12-hour car trip to some middle-class hotel. Usually, Jazz and Danny occupied their time exploring the city or making fun of the people who attended the convention. But since the Accident a few days before, for Danny, the family vacation turned into 3-days of complete feverish hell as his body tried to figure out how to survive with only half an immune system, half the person he used to be.

There wasn’t much to remember from that experience except cold showers, endless puking, aimless wondering in some sauna-type hotel as Danny tried running from himself, and the vague memory of leaning against his father several times as his mother coaxed him to take whatever foul-tasting liquid she wanted him to drink. Whether or not his parents actually attended the convention, or if Jazz had explored the same boring city, Danny couldn’t remember. But he remembered his parents arguing, his sister cradling him to her chest on the bathroom floor, and at some point, crouching under the bathroom counter as he forced himself small, trying to hide from the green-eyed, white-haired kid in the mirror or the bloody, contorted people following him. Since then, sickness never came easy despite his immune system being half-dead or ghosted or whatever it was Tucker had told him.

The 17-year-old pressed his face against the comforter, lessening the pain shooting through his temples as the thought of puking again slowly began to evade, and his head welcomed the soft cool fabric cushioning the migraine eating away at his jawline. He was lying at the edge of the bed, curled into what had to be a pathetic sweaty ball, his knees pulled halfway to his chest as he braced his arms across his stomach. This was hell. It had to be. Because only some sick fuck would make him miserable, feverishly grasping what little reality he could hold onto, and so nauseous he couldn’t move, away from his parents with only Mr. Lancer as his only comfort. It was some kind of sick joke.

Danny’s stomach churned, and he swallowed hard, his hands clammy against his overheated skin, trying to will whatever else he could possibly still have in his stomach, back down. He stilled again, breathing shallowly through his nose, feeling his stomach relax slightly. He sighed internally, praying to God he was done puking as heat lit through his veins, and Danny lurched, retching loudly as he shut his eyes, willing for everything to stop. He had no strength left to hold himself up; his mind fuzzy and everything hard to piece together through sweaty nauseating moments. He whimpered as he lurched again, retching as bitter acidic bile spewed from his mouth, running down his chin, and the 17-year-old coughed harshly, tightening his grip across his stomach, and clenching his eyes shut as he struggled to breathe through the rest of it.

He felt something wipe across his chin and mouth, his stomach lurching further at the thought of the humiliation of being so exhausted and sick he couldn’t even be bothered to wipe any of his vomit away from him. Danny whimpered loudly, letting foul saliva pool from his mouth as his stomach heaved, hanging his head off the edge of the bed over what he had been hoping for the past two hours was a wastebasket… but considering Lancer had rapidly become more concerned with other ailments such as the teenager’s temperature or the tight muscles straining in his shoulders and back, the 17-year-old was willing to bet the dark wooden floor wasn’t pretty. He’d also been too scared to look, not wanting the guilt of Lancer having to clean up his vomit added onto the guilt and humiliation he already felt.

“Alright. Easy, Daniel. It’s alright… just let it all up. It’s alright,” Lancer said as softly as he could. He was pretty sure the kid was mostly delirious by now, his fever spiking as sweat layered on top of him, soaked through damp clothes and sheets that were plastered to the teenager’s pale skin. He couldn’t even hold himself up anymore, his face pressed against the edge of the bed while Lancer kept a firm grasp on his shoulder so the kid wouldn’t topple off.

Lancer pressed the disregarded and mostly warm rag from the nightstand against the teenager’s face; forehead, cheeks, neck, trying his best to mop up as much sweat as he could, trying to cool Danny off as much as he could without physically carrying him into the bathroom and forcing him under a cold shower. It wasn’t ideal, and Lancer knew from previous experience with his own son, it wouldn’t be pretty; but considering Lancer was currently in charge of the poor kid, he was willing to do whatever was necessary. He’d just never seen a kid so sick.

Lightening flashed outside as a branch scrapped against the glass windowpane, thunder clashing loudly as rain continued to beat against the old house. The small leak in the roof audible in the kitchen as tiny droplets fell against some crappy tin figurines his wife failed to take in the divorce. Lancer had always hated them… but he didn’t have the heart to toss them… or admit to himself that those stupid scrap metal trinkets were his last thread he had tied to her. His last hope that maybe she’d come back. But it’d been 12 years… and she wasn’t coming back. Neither was Charlie.

Danny coughed harshly, flinching as something cool touched the back of his neck, brushing sweaty sticky hair matted to his neck from his burning flesh. He felt like he was on fire. No, worse… his core was always cold, freezing almost; so, his temperature was lower than any other humans. So, the fire eating away at his muscles and memories, was excruciating.

He coughed again, wheezing slightly as his heart skipped. He had to be breathing faster than normal… hell, he was breathing faster than normal. Air sucked through achy lungs and forced out through a dry mouth as his heart tried keeping up the pace. He swallowed, pulling his knees further to his chest, shivering again as his ghost sense went off, and he opened his eyes slightly, wincing as the dark room spun in a multitude of blacks, browns, and dark purples. Red mixed against almost translucent flesh as faces inched closer, and Danny’s stomach lurched, hard, as his eyes met the contorted and split face of a middle-aged man in coveralls.

The teenager choked, swallowing loudly as his stomach cramped again, barely feeling Lancer’s hands trying desperately to work out the clenched muscles in his back. Blood dripped from the man’s face; his appearance split into two as his smile dropped in opposite directions. Normally, Danny could ignore it; ignore them… but it was worse when he was vulnerable. He couldn’t block them out. And to be completely honest, the past couple of months hadn’t been easy on him.

He and Sam had broken up before they ever began dating. Tucker had maintained under the radar both boyfriends and girlfriends while helping his childhood crush, Valerie, pick off the ghosts Danny had missed. They were still close, the three of them; but Sam had been more distant, avoiding plans with Danny when it was just the two of them… and deep down the teenager knew it was his fault. Everything was.

The 17-year-old bit his lip, blood coating his tongue as he buried his nails further against his flesh. Sam had almost died. She had been willing to sacrifice everything for Danny… and that was something Danny would never have been able to live with. He had fucked up. He had tried to help… and she had almost died. The faint tan scars still visible against her neckline, shining as a reminder in the sunlight and under the florescent lighting in the chemistry lab. Since then, she’d been doing her best to avoid Danny, and Danny let her. He couldn’t face her. He didn’t know how.

That had been months ago, but it still flooded the teenager’s mind every time he glanced in her direction. Every time their hands touched in chemistry… every time she forced a watered-down excuse past purple lipstick. The sigh. That sigh. She had been scared of him that night. He saw it. The fear plagued across her face. The horror. And Danny didn’t blame her because he scared himself nowadays too.

He felt colder than he had been in his youth, emotions concrete against things that troubled his peers. His demeanor seemed further away as he toppled over the puny shadow of his early years. He wasn’t a pushover; Dash didn’t come near him anymore… but he was still outcasted, marked freakshow as newer threats and tougher bullies appeared. Sam had borne witness to things Tucker knew nothing about; she had seen a darker side of Danny that the teenager tried so damn hard to hide. But it was getting harder… the spirits were bleeding through more and more, scratching his mind and haunting him with nightmares that kept the 17-year-old up most nights. Nothing was a comfort anymore. Not even his friends. Not even his sister.

The teenager’s stomach lurched again, and he felt cooper flood his mouth as he bit his lip harder, forcing his eyes shut, cutting off the images around him as the spirits continued to scream. He breathed through his nose slowly, feeling Lancer’s hand grip his fingers as he tried to pry the teenager’s grip baring against his sweaty flesh.

“Wuthering Heights, Daniel!” Lancer breathed, still trying to force Danny’s fingers away from his arm as the small bloody marks from his nails became visible. Despite visibly shaking, and his breathing coming in teeth-chattering waves, Lancer was surprised Danny’s grip remained resilient. Likewise, when Danny had grabbed his wrist in the hallway earlier, when Lancer had startled the teenager, his icy-blue eyes daggered towards him, watching the older man’s actions, his fingers tight and threatening around his wrist… Lancer had been taken aback by the teenager’s strength. Just like now.

The English teacher sighed, giving up and pressing his hand against the 17-year-old’s shoulder once more as Danny lurched, coughing harshly. Concern and sympathy ate away at Lancer’s expression; his own actions feeling clumsy and foreign as he tried to soothe the teenager as much as he could. As much as he remembered. But he hadn’t comforted his own son in almost 12 years… and Danny had become much more distant and independent over the past three. So, the comfort Lancer used to try and reassure the kid, felt awkward, just as the sickened pain written across the teenager’s pale face, looked wrong.

The lights flickered above, and Lancer glanced up, hoping he wasn’t going to lose power as that would add to his already worrying list of problems. Lightening cracked again, a tree in the front yard visible momentarily as a branch fell against the window, rain threatening to break glass, and the distant sound of a tornado signal blaring through Amity Park.

Danny whimpered loudly, clenching his eyes as voices cut through his skull, pounding against the pain enveloped in his forehead and cheekbones, trailing down his jawline and neck. The bed spun despite the teenager being curled into a tight motionless ball, sweat falling from his hairline as the smell of body odor reached his nostrils, and the 17-year-old gagged.

Lancer pressed a reassuring hand against the teenager’s shoulder, murmuring he’d be right back before rising, grabbing the lukewarm rag from the nightstand, and trashcan from beside the bed as he made his way towards the kitchen. After replacing the trash bag and running the rag through cold water, Lancer sighed loudly, pressing his hands against the counter as he watched water droplets forming through the small hole in his ceiling and ping against the metal statues harbored on the bar.

He huffed again, running a tired hand over his bald head as he stared at his reflection in the dark window. The electricity shut off as the lights flickered before the microwave beeped loudly as the powerlines fought against the storm. He didn’t need this. And if there was any type of superior being looking out for him, they’d keep the lights on. At least, Lancer would have one thing going for him then.

He sighed again, glancing towards the direction of his guestroom then back towards his reflection. It was nearing 5am, and despite the sun aimed to rise in an hour, Lancer doubted it would bleed through the storm that had showed no signs of letting up. He wished it would, wished the skies would clear… wished flights would take off because that meant Danny’s parents and sister could fly home. They’d be able to take better care their son… they’d know what to do. Lancer didn’t. He hadn’t been a dad in years… he hadn’t looked after someone in years…

Danny had been miserable all day, this had become evident to Lancer in 4th period as he berated the teenager for once again sleeping in his class. His cocky, sarcastic attitude pushing the English teacher to his limit as he awarded the 17-year-old with another days’ detention. But it hadn’t been until later that Lancer began to notice things he should have seen to begin with. The dark circles, pale complexion, the bloody nose, and red tint painted across sharp cheekbones; his voice, cracked and sudden, as Danny retorted sarcasm aimed to hurt… his stare gazing past whatever Lancer had been teaching, staring at nothing but looking at everything.

Lancer shook his head as he glanced down at the red coffee cup and abandoned bowl of cereal lying in the sink. This had not been in his Wednesday evening plans… then again, there was no way in hell Lancer was going to let the teenager go home to an empty house. Lord knows what could have happened, and the fact that Danny’s temperature had spiked in the night, confirmed any doubts the older man had of letting the kid stay with him until his parent’s plane landed, which had been grounded until tomorrow evening, at best.

The older man glanced back towards his reflection, catching sight of the radar flashing across the television in his living room, silently. The storm was huge, coming from the Gulf, pressure building from the North and East as it moved slowly over Amity Park. And it was only expected to get worse which was ironically befitting. Lancer had played with the idea of taking Danny to the Emergency Room several times within the past few hours; the only thing stopping him was the question of what was more dangerous: Danny’s illness or the storm?

Jack Fenton had argued while on the phone with Lancer that he had half a mind to rent a car and drive back, despite it being a 20-hour drive back to upstate New York. But much to the English teacher’s amusement, Mr. Fenton’s plan had been shot down from his wife in the background, asking Lancer the condition of her son. Danny’s sister groaning loudly in the background, yelling something about embarrassment. But that had been yesterday evening…

And now. Danny couldn’t keep anything down, not even the miniscule amounts of water Lancer had encouraged him to take to prevent dehydration. His fever had spiked from 102 yesterday to 104.8 through the night, and most of the hardened demeanor Lancer had come to expect from his pupil over the years, was vanquished within a matter of hours. The tough, fuck-you-attitude Danny had adapted, was replaced with the youthfulness of his age. Only 17. He was still a kid; scared, alone, and whether he wanted to admit it, trying his best not to cause his teacher any further inconveniences than he already had. And despite Lancer finding the teenager’s attempts admirable, he found himself at a loss of trying to convince not only the teenager, but himself, that he only wanted to help, to make the kid feel better. But Lancer was so far out of his parental element, and he’d never seen a kid so sick before.

It hadn’t taken long once Lancer had settled down for the night, warming his hands against a mug of tea, quietly watching the news, for things to take a turn. Danny had been rather quiet during the drive to Lancer’s house, slumped in the passenger side, forehead pressed against frosted glass and still mumbling in disagreement with whoever thought he needed a babysitter every couple of minutes. The 17-year-old had attempted to convince Lancer he was fine, that he felt better since puking in detention, and his parents were overreacting. And despite sloppily scribbling through his homework, half of which the older man was certain Danny hadn’t even bothered to read, the teenager remained sullen, flushed, barely touching the sandwich Lancer had offered.

After some time spent brooding in a chair at the kitchen table, Danny had apparently concluded his English teacher wasn’t going to take him home anytime soon. He seemed more compliant then, taking up to inspecting Lancer’s memorabilia instead, trying his best to leave everything exactly as he’d found it. The older man had admired how careful the 17-year-old had been when picking up photos or knickknacks, casting weird what-the-hell-is-this glances towards his teacher as he explored.

Something sounded to his right, and Lancer blinked, running another hand over his head as he cleared his mind. Most of the things taking up refuge in the old house were objects ghosted with the memories of previous family, previous love, a previous life. He had never had the heart to take them down… it was creepily comforting.

Lancer sighed, reaching for the water-soaked rag puddling on the counter as something moved in the corner of his eye causing the older man to jump. He turned, facing the 17-year-old leaning heavily against the wooden arch of the hallway, shaking as he pressed a hand firmly against the wall for support, the rest of his lanky form hunched.

“Great Gatsby, Fenton! What are you doing up?” Lancer advanced, his tone slightly harsher than intended causing the older man to grimace. The teenager looked fairly close to passing out, a hand on his stomach firmly, the other grasped at flat wallpaper. Sweat trailing down his flushed face, forming in droplets at the kid’s chin before melting into his sweat-soaked shirt. Red set high across the bridge of his nose, painting his cheeks as he opened his mouth to speak before closing it, confusion setting across his features.

Lancer made a move towards the teenager as Danny stepped back, his eyes wide as they observed the older man cautiously. The English teacher raised an eyebrow, taking another step forward, a sick feeling sitting in the pit of his stomach as the teenager recoiled once more. Lancer cursed softly, pushing his hand towards the 17-year-old slowly, his voice low and calm as Danny reeled back. Lancer hesitated, “I’m not going to hurt you, Daniel.”

Danny pressed against the wall as Lancer took another step forward, leaning a shoulder against the wall, his eyebrows furrowing together as he tried to focus on the swimming interior around him. He couldn’t breathe, the air around him sucked from tired lungs, voices piercing through his head as he raised a shaky hand to his ear, wincing loudly as the spirits around him grew louder. He clenched his eyes shut, feeling his body struggle against the wall supporting him as he jerked away, wincing again as questions pelted him, begging, pleading for his help, for him to look. Look. Look! Just look at what had happened to them!

“Daniel?” Lancer questioned quickly, stepping forward again as the teenager gasped loudly, forcing a hand against his left ear as blood began dripping slowly from his nose, his shoulder slamming against the ugly wallpaper, “Daniel? Danny! Hey!”

The 17-year-old felt something brush against his wrist, and he forced his eyes open against the harsh lights flickering above him. Everything was hot, confusing, mashed together in a nauseating off-kilter vibrancy that hurt; his legs refusing to support him, lungs unwilling to take air as panic took over as he tried to clear his head, as he tried to remember where the hell he was.

He grimaced, sliding against the wall as his legs fought to keep him upright. He felt wrong. Everything felt wrong, weird, gone. He swallowed, wiping his nose on the back of his hand, fear crossing his face as he pulled back, red sticky liquid coating his fingertips. Tears threatened to spill as he tried to catch his breath. This was his fault. Everything. And now he had blood on his hands. Sam’s blood.

Piercing cut through as Danny pressed a shoulder to his ear, crying out as the man in coveralls laughed, reaching towards him. Danny dropped to his knees, his fingers trembling as they slid down the wallpaper, forcing a picture of a little boy in a baseball uniform to the ground; the glass breaking around it as it smashed against the wood flooring. Tears clouded his vision as he glanced towards the photo, the blonde-haired kid morphing, mirroring Danny’s own reflection through splintered glass.

“No,” The 17-year-old choked, pulling the photo from the floor, glass splinters slicing his trembling fingers as the kid’s gap-tooth smile distorted. He couldn’t breathe; suffocating fear eating away at him as he realized he was gone. The kid in the photo was gone. Taken, dead, his soul split, lifeless as the portal had taken everything from him. He had died, leaving behind grief and broken disappointment. His friend’s hurt, bleeding out on the side of the road as Danny struggled to hold onto any humanity he had. As he struggled to save those he should have left long ago.

Blood dotted the photo, the boy’s face hidden by crimson, and Danny wiped his hand under his nose again, smearing blood across his face. The innocent boy in the photo was gone; he had killed himself in the Accident, left behind by evil contentment and a nightmarish reality that he’d never been good enough. He was broken, built in a sweetness that no longer existed, a black gaping hole where his soul was, under aching ribs, sweaty skin and a tormented, fucked up version of himself. A black pit of beautiful disappointment. An unlovable thing. He had become something unlovable, the portal killing the good and resurrecting the bad, and even that wasn’t worth much. He wasn’t worth much.

Danny gagged harshly, crumpling the photo in his hands as the leftover glass pressed into his palm. The floor swaying under his body as he grasped the wall for any support he could find. He wanted to go back; to be his parent’s innocent little boy again, to forget about the shitstorm around him, forget about the portal, forget about those he’d hurt, the blood he’d shed. But that was unfixable. He was. And unforgivable. He’d hurt Sam; hurt others, the blood of death splattered on what was left of himself, his human self. And in the end, he was the cause of everything; the collector of souls, the Grim Reaper labelled by Freakshow years ago. The bringer of death.

Lancer took another cautious step forward, crunching down before reaching once more towards the teenager as Danny crumpled sideways, slamming against the wall beside him. The older man faltered. Sweat glistened against the 17-year-old’s face as he gulped for air, his breathing harsh and sporadic as he pressed a trembling hand against his chest, eyes towards Lancer, clearly alarmed by his own breathing. He coughed roughly, doubling over as he caught his breath, and Lancer reached towards the kid, his fingers brushing against the sweat-soaked cotton fabric clinging to Danny’s shoulders.

The 17-year-old flinched, shoving his English teacher away from him harshly, wincing again as he pressed his shoulder to his left ear. He fell backwards, his knees failing him as he slammed against the wall, his head smacking against the small hall table. Darkness swallowed him momentarily, his hands shaking as the photo was crumpled tighter in his hands, letting out a strangled cry as the spirits towered over him, their eyes white, pupils missing as they shouted his name.

The electricity failed as the teenager recoiled violently, and Lancer swore the kid’s cold-blue eyes flashed green before the lights flickered back on, the light in the living room broke, glass shattering to the ground as Danny flinched, gripping one of the iron legs of the hall table, tightly. He eyed Lancer, his knuckles white against black, his forehead pressed against the cold metal, his breathing labored as he pulled his knees towards him in an effort to make his lanky form small.

The 17-year-old coughed, the sound hurting his chest, forcing his headache to crawl, spreading across his shoulders. He grasped at the metal leg of the table, yearning for more cold than the iron rod was willing to give as he sucked in breath after breath. He couldn’t think anymore, the heat had taken everything from him, had taken his core, leaving him with a spinning floor, voices flooding in dizzying waves, and the horrifying notion he was surrounded by death. He had died… the portal had stolen half of him, and now, the nightmares screaming at him, had killed whatever he had left. And the photo crushed in his hand was all he had of forgotten innocence.

Phantom had taken everything. And no one knew. No one understood. The beating, aching heart pounding in his chest was a lie. He was soulless; Phantom was soulless. Welcoming the darkness that swallowed the person Danny once was. And everything else, everything he did, was insignificant. His life was insignificant, a short dull buzz, a flicker. Just shit that happened and none of it meant anything. It was the flick on his lighter as he tried cupping his trembling hands against the wind, trying to spark one of the cigarettes he’d stolen from his father; the light fading, barely there; lighting what has killing him. Because no one wanted Danny Fenton. He was just a mask of stupid disappointment, broken and haunted by his past, damaged by unlovable fear. A shell of a person; a shell of a kid with nothing else to offer the world except the blood he was willing to spill. And then, life moved on.

Something pressed against his wrist, and the teenager yanked it back quickly, clawing at the back of his neck with both hands as he pressed his forehead against his knees, trembling as he tried blocking out all of them. Tried blocking out the tormented and lost souls swallowing him. He clawed again at the back of his neck, pressing his head between his sweaty arms as he rocked on his heels.

Something wet splashed against his joggers, barely noticeable against the heat plaguing him as the 17-year-old coughed. He clenched his arms over his ears as he realized he was crying, hard. He felt sick, wrong, the ghost sense no longer going off because he had nothing else left to give. Tears sliding down overheated flesh, meshing against black cotton as loud pleas left his mouth, the taste of blood sitting on his tongue. Something grabbed his arm, and Danny choked, “Please go away. Please go away. Go away. Go away. Go away...”

His parents would be disappointed. His sister would be a wreck. If they knew. Knew he had killed himself years ago; that the innocence that he once had, was gone; eaten away by the things his parents aimed to hurt. Danny Fenton had surrounded himself in a hypocritical tranquility; believing nothing past the Ghost Zone yet praying to God every night that there was a way out, a way away from himself, from Phantom. Because despite the good he’d done, bad followed him further, bathing his body in the blood of those around him. Sam’s screams, her tears, the fear she felt as Danny shred the last remaining hope of becoming more than the ghost killing him.

Some people deserved to die, and yet, he was the exception. An unkillable thing because the Accident had done that for him; and no amount of pills, cuts, stupid mistakes, or blood could take that from him. A cosmic joke of isolated soulless bullshit. The 17-year-old dug his nails harder into the back of his neck, coughing on the blood in the back of his throat as it smeared further down his chin. Tears mixed with the monster he’d become, crushing his heart as the reality of himself, the fact that no amount of water could wash away the pain he’d caused others, was coated in blood on halfa hands. An unholy thing.

Someone laughed, and Danny flinched, digging harder as something sticky coated his fingertips. The spirits were louder, yelling for him, scratching his skin as they tried forcing him to look; to look at their pain, to look at what had happened to them, at what he had done to them. The 17-year-old gagged as the scent of blood, dirt, and rotting flesh overpowered him. This was his fault. Their lives. Their souls. Death had collected those around him, pulling their individualities from themselves as the teenager tried to hang onto his. Danny was drowning in death, spirits shredding him, ghosts pulling him apart molecule-by-molecule as he constructed more damage than his parents ever could.

Air fell between his lips as his lungs refused to take any more. He couldn’t do this anymore. He needed his friends, his family- but they didn’t need him. They needed Phantom. Leaving Fenton as nothing more than a liability, a liar with cops and parents, a part-time substance abuser as he tried killing what everyone needed. Danny refused to move, pressing his body as hard as he could against the wall as spirits crowded him, ripping skin from his body, screaming for him to look at the damage around him, the lives he had taken.

The grip tightened on his arm, clawing at bruised skin as his world morphed and the ground hovered below him. He was pulled up, his body slamming against the spirits pulling towards him, no longer able to cooperate himself. He gagged loudly as he forced his eyes open, meeting the upside-down bloodied split face of the man in coveralls, an elderly woman praying in the corner, the back of her head blown off revealing dark grey matter.

Danny heaved as some of the grey matter fell from the woman’s white hair to her rosary, liquid meshing against him as the man in coveralls slapped another man, his head decapitating slightly, spewing blood across his vision. The teenager groaned as he glanced towards a German couple screaming at each other in the hall, the wall moving as hot fingers braced against the memories etched in the wood paneling and ugly wallpaper. He whimpered as he locked eyes with a small boy reading in the corner; the boy glanced up from his book and waved towards Danny as the 17-year-old wheezed.

Words passed his ears, muttered and useless as the pleas continued to pierce his mind. Red tears of pain he’d caused, spirits forcing him to look; their bodies distorted and warped as they screamed for the souls he had taken. The ones that had left him, a bloody and tormented ending of human life. His death was coming fast, Danny knew. He could feel it. A sudden drop-off from connection, any humanity left, falling moment-by-moment, a punctuating ending happening so involuntary fast as those would soon realize the monster he had become; realize the death he had collected. Danny retched weakly as the man in coveralls forced his head together, pain screaming from his mouth as lips that no longer wanted to meet, met, and hatred ate away at his features before the heat that fell from the 17-year-old washed over them, their bodies disappearing in the flames.

Danny gagged as the smell of menthol and stale sweat filled his nostrils, his head falling back further as a heartbeat echoed around him. Sweat trailing upward as blood fell back down in a disheveled passion, choking any air left, and the teenager’s body gave out. His eyes connected with the flames engulfing the man in coveralls, his disgust bleeding from his eyes as his face separated again before he disappeared in the fire. Danny whispered, “I’m sorry. I-I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. I’m sorry I couldn’t save anyone…”

His vision failed as he continued floating through those he couldn’t protect… and death swallowed what was left.

……………………………………………………………………………………………

Danny had fallen asleep, and relief settled across Lancer’s features as he took another slow sip of his tea, leaning further back in the couch. The teenager had been pretty quiet, but his looks and constant moving had become a distraction to the older man as he tried re-reading Pride and Prejudice. It’d been a long time since there’d been a kid in his home, and Lancer had forgotten how annoying they could be despite wrangling them during class as he desperately tried to pour some type of education into his students.

Lancer set his book down, glancing towards the television as the weatherman showed another map of the storm outside, the pictures flashing silently across the screen as Lancer hit mute. He sighed as rain began to pelt against the roof, the shutters on his windows slamming against the old brick harshly, and thunder echoing around a few other houses in the neighborhood as wind threatened to tear down the old house. It was going to be a long night if the storm kept up and the damage was probably going to cost him a fortune considering his salary wasn’t worth a lot these days.

The teenager coughed, and Lancer turned to see the kid curled at the other end of the couch. His head resting on the armrest at an awkward angle, his knees drawn to his chest as he refused to take any more space than needed, as he tried to force as much distance between himself and his teacher as possible. He shivered slightly, and Lancer wondered whether he should have told his charge to take the guestroom or given him a blanket… or checked for fever. After all, the 17-year-old had been trying to convince the teacher he was fine over the last few hours, but something about him, something about his demeanor told Lancer otherwise.

Lancer sighed again, setting his mug on the coffee table, eyeing the pile of books crammed into the rickety wooden shelf as it slanted forward. He needed to fix it, to buy another one before it fell, or before the weight of the books forced it down. He swallowed loudly as his eyes met the ripped, yellowed copy of Catcher in the Rye, dust coating it as it lay on the top shelf, untouched and abandoned for years. Despite all the books Lancer had reread, all the books he spent his nights enveloped in, that one, that book, he refused to touch… refused to move, to think about, to reread. Memories sat in its pages, crushed between folded pieces of paper from being read over and over, and that was something Lancer didn’t want to revisit, to think about, to remember.

Danny shifted uncomfortably, and the English teacher leaned back again, pulling his book from his lap once more, opening to the page he’d left off on. Considering it was closing in on midnight, Lancer debated heading to bed, but he hadn’t reread Jane Austen in a while. And besides, with the storm raging outside, and a kid he would feel guilty about waking, the older man considered waiting to see if he would need to dig the flashlights from the back of his silverware drawer before making any further decisions.

The ceiling fan sputtered slightly as the lights flickered, and Lancer grit his teeth as the teenager shivered again, his teeth chattered momentarily. Lancer sighed. The situation was uncomfortable needless to say; but Lancer had been a teacher and dad long enough to know that kids were good at hiding things… especially Daniel as he always had some excuse for his tardiness, his absences… his injuries. And a simple cold could turn quickly because most of the students at Casper High were walking petri dishes. Besides, Lancer and Danny’s parents agreed it was best, if the teenager were to become ill, to be surrounded by someone who could look after him or take responsibility for him if he were taken to the hospital seeing as he was still a minor and given the circumstances.

So yeah, the situation was uncomfortable; and Lancer knew that pissed Danny off. But the Fenton’s had gone with Jasmine to visit several Universities, refusing to let their only daughter attend if they couldn’t ensure the campuses were safe from ghosts. An amusing and almost stupid idea but considering Amity Park had seen its fair share of ghosts, not ridiculous. Besides Lancer could understand the Fenton’s concern, their protectiveness over their children as he once had felt it too. He knew what it was like to want to hide your kids from the evil in the world… to protect them, to hurt anything that hurt them, to give them everything. But that was gone now.

The lights flickered again as the screen door slammed against the side of the house. Wind howling outside as the news channel flashed a weather advisory warning across the screen, and Lancer exhaled, setting his book down, and leaning further against the couch, crossing his arms over his chest, closing his eyes. It’d been a long day… like most. Lancer spent a good portion of his time trying to keep a classroom of 17-year-olds from laughing over the cringing dramaticism of The Mysteries of Udolpho. Considering most of the books he taught were classic romanticism or gothic, the English teacher understood he was faced with a level of immaturity from his students. After all, it was hard for 17-year-olds to fully grasp the concept of metaphorical and real monsters of society.

The other portion of his day was spent grading poorly written essays over whatever topic he had sought to assign his students for the week. Honestly, Lancer had come to the conclusion that the only capable student in his class, after Jasmine Fenton had graduated two years prior, was Tucker Foley. If only his intelligence would rub off on Daniel, Lancer would have very little to worry about. Clearly, the teenager was capable of decent grades as Lancer had always been surprised when Fenton passed an exam or book report. But he seemed more concerned in his peers, in his life outside academics, to give his grades the attention they needed. He wasn’t stupid, Lancer knew that… and considering he came from a family thriving on higher IQ’s than half the city, the English teacher was sure that if Danny put even a little effort in his studies, he’d have no problem climbing to number one in his graduating class just as Jazz had.

But Jasmine Fenton had been competitive; aiming for greatness through academics and challenging those who threatened her perfect GPA. Daniel, however, competed with his teachers, refusing their help as he challenged them, challenged Lancer on a daily basis. Danny’s comments and cockiness had become a problem in his classroom; his antics or clownishness, difficult, as he proved how very little he cared about his grades. And despite his attitude problem, the older man was almost certain the teenager suffered from ADHD, which would explain his inability to focus most of the time and his forgetfulness.

Today had been no different. And Lancer had given the 17-year-old several chances to correct his behavior, letting his less-than-quiet remarks slide under the radar as he continued teaching. But with the constant bickering between him and Tucker, the annoyed whispers from Sam, falling from his seat twice, and the inability to explain what page the class was even reading from, Lancer had had enough. He’d tried to push back, pointing his ruler in Daniel’s direction and explaining there was an idiot at the end of it; but this resulted in the teenager’s sarcastic question of which end? After the laughter had died down, Lancer retorted that the 17-year-old could find out in detention.

Normally, detention was Lancer’s chance to unwind; to bask in the quiet as he encouraged his students to take the time to go over their studies. But today had been different. Not only had the lights gone out more than twice during his 3-hour prison sentence, but Danny had seemed different than earlier that day. Distracted, his eyes out of focus, shivering, and his quiet, slumped demeanor. Usually, the 17-year-old was pouting, refusing to do any real work, or trying to rally those who shared detention with him. But today he just sat there, quietly tracing some type of drawing on his textbook with his finger, his head resting against his desk.

Lancer had let it go for a while… after all, it was beginning to become obvious something was wrong. But into the 2nd hour, the complete lack of motivation, had become annoying, eating away at the older man’s patience. The other students in the classroom had taken Danny’s character as an invitation to abandon their own work for better things such as texting, making paper planes, or horseplay. Through the 17-year-old’s melodramatic and pitiful attitude, Lancer was losing control of his classroom. That had been when things had taken a turn, going from long to endless.

The older man had risen, scowling the other students into compliance as he made his way towards the cause of his current problem. Lancer scoffed when the teenager didn’t even bother reacting to his presence, but continued tracing over the outline of Thomas Jefferson on his torn-up history textbook. And it hadn’t been until Lancer had slammed his copy of Northanger Abbey on the 17-year-old’s desk that Danny reacted.

He jumped, flinging his book from the desk as he jerked towards Lancer, a look of horror crossing his face as he straightened slightly. The older man crossed his arms, a stern look casted down as he raised an eyebrow while the teenager scrambled to grab his textbook from the floor, flipping to a random chapter. Lancer stood there for several minutes, ensuring Daniel was at least pretending to read the words in front of him, and to enforce his authority as the superior in the classroom to his other students. This didn’t last long.

Once he had situated himself back at his desk, opening his book to the last page he’d read, Danny had raised his hand. Lancer raised his head towards his pupil but ignored him and continued reading. After a few minutes, the teenager put his hand down but forced it in the air a few moments later. Again, the English teacher refused to acknowledge his student’s attempt to leave detention. Normally, Danny would give up and ride out the rest of his punishment, partially compliant. Lancer had learned this during the kid’s Sophomore year; refusing to acknowledge or give the teenager permission for whatever excuse he had, was the only way to ensure he completed detention without further incident.

Lancer watched from his peripheral as the 17-year-old dropped his hand, sighing loudly as he continued scanning the words in his barely passible history book; Lancer smiled slightly. Some quiet had passed, relaxing the mood in the room as the older man felt himself beginning to unwind from the day once again. A few seconds later, however, there had been a noise, and the older man had glanced up to see Daniel rushing from the room, his book once again smacked against the tiled floor. The remaining students had jumped, conversing amongst themselves as their eyes watched the open-door slam against the wall.

Lancer grit his teeth, a scowl crossing his face as he calmly rose, placing his book on his desk before glaring towards the remaining students. They straightened, returning to their tasks as the older man exited the classroom, closing the door gently as he traced over the small indent in the wall from the door handle slamming against it. He shook his head as he glared back inside the classroom to his students watching him before looking busy as the wooden door clicked shut.

Out of all his antics, Danny had never defied Lancer enough to leave. And something in his gut told the English teacher this was either a new low from the teenager or an incident that needed attending to. Lancer had hoped all that was needed was a harsh conversation and another week of detention, but as he rounded the corner past the lockers, the root of the 17-year-old’s behavior became evident.

The older man closed his eyes briefly, sighing loudly as he ran a hand over his bald head and made his way towards the kid. Danny was hunched over one of the trashcans in the hallway, retching loudly as his arms trembled slightly, threatening to bring him down from his own weight. He had expected the unpleasant smell of half-digested food, but what Lancer hadn’t expected was the warmth radiating off the teenager as he reached out to grasp his shoulder. Both him, and the 17-year-old gasped, and Lancer stumbled back slightly as Danny pushed him away, slumping against the wall as he slid to the floor.

Danny had landed with a small smack, and he groaned as he eyed his teacher before closing his eyes and leaning his head against the wall. He mumbled something that sounded like a half-assed apology as Lancer inspected his character. Pale, sweaty features set in a flushed undertone as pink ate at his cheekbones. The English teacher ran another hand over his head as he glanced towards his classroom, then back towards his pupil, before turning and advancing towards the class.

After explaining that he felt like cutting detention short due to the storm clouds forming outside, Lancer had gathered his belongings, slinging Danny’s tattered backpack over his shoulder as he crossed through the halls towards the teenager still slumped against the wall, pitifully. He knelt down, reaching a hand out to rouse the 17-year-old, his fingers brushing against his hairline as he made an attempt to check his temperature before the kid jumped. He grasped Lancer’s wrist, pulling it from him harshly, his fingers tight enough around his arm that the older man could feel Danny’s fingernails digging into his flesh.

The teenager’s eyes were locked on his English teacher; the warm blue turning cold and hard as a menacing look crossed his face. Lancer had opened his mouth to speak but closed it a second later as Danny tightened his grip. He’d been surprised by the amount of strength the kid possessed seeing as he always seemed lanky, awkward, and weak. And the threat crossing the 17-year-old’s face sent chills down Lancer’s spine as Danny blinked, releasing his grip before apologizing quickly.

The older man stilled, his eyes glancing over his student as the kid refused to make eye-contact with him. Lancer sighed, offering the teenager a ride home, only to find out that his parents had been out of town for the past few days and weren’t due back until later that evening. And after a very awkward but short conversation with the Fenton’s and finding out their flight had been cancelled due to the oncoming weather, Lancer was driving a pissed off teenager to his own house until his parents returned. Thus, claiming an uncomfortable situation which neither Daniel nor Lancer liked much. But the older man wasn’t a monster… and if a night of letting Danny occupy his guestroom until he was convinced the 17-year-old was fine was what it took, then the English teacher would bare through it.

Lancer sighed again, letting his mind drift as he felt his body relaxing, sleep creeping towards him. Outside, the wind ate away at the chimes and shutters surrounding the house, lightening sparking against powerlines as the lights wavered in and out. Thunder roared overhead, creating a low rumble through the old house as the imminent threat of a tornado loomed in the horizon. But silence engulfed the English teacher as the thought of just resting for a few minutes evaded his tired mind…

It hadn’t been the flinch that woke Lancer, but the loud crash of things falling. Panic clouded his mind as the thought of a tree crashing through the front windows washed over him as he jumped up, cursing loudly. He glanced towards the windows quickly to find them intact and instead turned his attention in front of him as another sound hit him. Heaving.

“Lord of the Flies!” Lancer remarked as he turned his attention towards the sound. The coffee table had been overturned, laying on its side, its belongings littering the floor. And the rickety bookshelf the older man had been wary of earlier, had fallen slightly; its shelves no longer apart of it as the books wedged between non-existent space had crashed to the floor, surrounding Danny as he struggled to breath.

Lancer made his way around the overturned table, crouching down next to the kid as he gagged again, vomit coating his sweatshirt, puddling on the floor below as sweat trickled down his temple. The older man put a steady hand on the teenager’s shoulder, running his hand between his shoulder blades as the muscles in the 17-year-old’s back spasmed between heaves. Lancer let out a slow breath, his voice low and calm, “Alright. It’s alright, Daniel. You’re alright, just get it up. It’s alright…”

The teenager tensed, breathing through his nose lowly as he spit foul-tasting salvia from his mouth, and concentrated on settling his stomach. He felt disgusting, sweaty and embarrassed. He could feel vomit squished between his fingers, and the fact that he had just emptied the contents of his stomach on his English teacher’s floor, mortifying. But considering he had forgotten he wasn’t home, and in attempt to seek out the bathroom, tripped over the coffee table, not only taking it and its belongings down, but falling against the bookshelf, bringing a pile of books crashing to the floor with him, was more humiliating than the acidic puddle in front of him.

Danny closed his eyes briefly, breathing slowly as he leaned back on his knees, scrapping a hand against his mouth and chin. He turned his head towards his teacher but refused to make eye contact because he was afraid of the expression on the older man’s face. The 17-year-old groaned inwardly, setting a hand on his stomach as he let the short silence pass over them; the television cutting off then flicking back on a second later.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Lancer asked softly as he glanced around at the state of his living room. Surely, the shelves or books had fallen on top of the kid when he fell, and given the state of the coffee table, Lancer was betting the kid had tripped over it or something. The splintered shelves could have cut him, or his foot could have gotten caught on the ledge, and injury wasn’t something the older man really wanted to add to his list of problems right now.

Danny was quiet for a while, making brief eye contact with Lancer before looking back towards the floor. He swallowed loudly against the hiccups forcing themselves up his throat and hunched his posture further. He looked downright miserable which didn’t help Lancer’s current situation. The 17-year-old swallowed again before muttering quietly, “Sorry, I’ll help you clean up… I’m sorry about all the mess.”

Lancer sighed, relief washing over him as the kid finally spoke. He ran a hand over his head as he bowed his head, trying to get the teenager to look him in the face, “That doesn’t answer my question, Mr. Fenton. Are you hurt?”

Danny froze for a few seconds before meeting the teacher’s gaze slowly. He shook his head, his body twitching slightly as hiccups still resonated through his chest. Lancer nodded, glancing over the kid quickly, looking for any visible injuries but finding none, and ran his hands over his knees before standing, exhaling loudly.

The wind howled outside, and the branches on the tree outside knocked against the window forcefully as Lancer glanced towards the clock hanging on the wall. It was around 2am, which answered two questions: Was he to be expected at school tomorrow and was he going to get any sleep tonight. The 17-year-old coughed gently, and the older man turned his attention back towards the teenager.

“Well,” Lancer started carefully, “Let’s get things cleaned up.”

Danny cast his gaze back towards the floor as he moved to pick up one of the books next to him. Lancer crouched down again, pulling the book from the kid’s grasp, “What are you doing, Daniel?’

The teenager glanced up slowly, “You said to clean-”

Lancer shook his head, cutting the kid off, “The state of my living room doesn’t concern me right now, Mr. Fenton. You, however, do. Despite what you and your friends may think of me, I’m not heartless.”

Danny’s expression shifted as the older man grasped the kid’s arm, pulling him to his feet. He put a hand on the teenager’s shoulder as he swayed slightly, an eyebrow raised as a silent question flashed across the teacher’s face. The 17-year-old swallowed and gave Lancer a weak nod before crossing his arms over his stomach gently, stepping around the chaos as he followed Lancer into the hallway.

He shivered harshly as his ghost sense went off, and his eyes danced over the photos nailed against the ugly wallpaper in the hallway. Pictures of family- of times no one at Casper High knew of; a different side of the English teacher never shown. Danny lingered on the photo of a young boy with blonde hair, a huge gap-toothed smile swallowing his face as he held his ice cream cone towards the photographer. Confusion crossed the teenager’s face as he glanced over some of the other photos, the blonde kid present in almost all of them… and a pretty woman in a few others, posing next to the kid. As far as everyone knew, Lancer didn’t have kids, and he wasn’t married.

His ghost sense went off again, and Danny shivered as he paused momentarily, the photos around him blurring together, spinning into a colorful mess as dizzying fatigue washed over him, his limbs shaking as they fought to bring him down. He made a slight noise as he glanced towards the end of the hall, towards a small boy hiding behind a half-closed door; his green eyes huge and alarmed as he watched the teenager. Danny swallowed, Lancer’s questions floating over him as the boy peered further out the door, motioning for the 17-year-old to follow.

The teenager made an attempt to move, the hallway spinning as the pictures on the wall melted together in an array of sickening colors, and Danny blinked slowly as several spirits began to crowd around him, blood forced from gruesome wounds. A sharp noise escaped his mouth as he glanced back towards the boy, only to find the doorway empty, the door fully open now. Chills washed over him as his knees gave out, and his ghost sense sparked again.

Someone grasped at him, a hand gripping his arm while another snaked over his torse, pulling him back on his feet. Black filtered through Danny’s vision momentarily as his body went limp before he groaned, looking towards his left as Lancer adjusted his grip on his torso, asking something Danny couldn’t grasp. The teenager’s feet dragged against the wooden floor as he struggled to gain his footing, but his legs felt clumsy and foreign. He felt like shit, weird, split into two, leaning heavily against his teacher as the older man led him slowly down the hall, towards the room that’d been previously occupied by a scared little boy.

The 17-year-old hadn’t realized he’d been deposited on a bed until everything stopped moving. The room swaying slightly but no longer spinning in a multitude of nauseating colors. Heat pressed against his body as he glanced over the side of the bed towards the boy he’d seen earlier, hiding behind the rocking chair in the corner. His eyes fixed on the teenager as cold air pushed past Danny’s lips, and he shivered again, turning towards the ceiling fan as his shoes were slipped off his feet, followed by his socks.

He groaned as Lancer pulled his hoodie over his head gently, forcing his arms from the sleeves, leaving him shivering against the warmth dotting against his skin. He was freezing. His ghost sense going off every few minutes, causing his body to ice, goosebumps breaking out over his arms as warmth rushed through him a second later. He blinked slowly, feeling something press against his forehead, and he squinted towards Lancer leaning over him.

“We need to get that fever down, Daniel,” He whispered, running his hands through the kid’s messy black hair. Danny groaned, tuning out his teacher’s movements as he turned back towards the boy hiding behind the chair, hoping that this was as worse as his night got…

……………………………………………………

Heat. Heat blistered against tired flesh and limbs that refused to move… and warmth. Warmth pressed against bruised flesh gently, killing the heat sweating against him, weighing him down in thick blankets. Warmth poured over him, comforting him, drowning the confusion and panic etched in his veins, and Danny suddenly found himself calling to his childhood memories.

“M-mom?” He whispered, his voice barely audible as it scratched past his throat, rough and raw. He swallowed harshly, trying to force his eyes open but finding the task difficult. His body felt heavy, weak, tired… he felt like he had gone several rounds with Skulker… or someone worse.

“Shh, don’t talk, Daniel,” Someone said softly, and Danny blinked slowly, squinting against the dim lights swaying next to him. He shivered as shadows danced around him, and he groaned loudly as he tried pushing himself up. Strong warm hands pressed against his chest, keeping him in place as any strength the teenager had, left him momentarily.

Warmth threatened to pull him under again, and Danny swallowed, his head lolling to his right as he forced his eyes to stay open against flickering, dancing lights. Something pressed against his temple, his cheek, his neck, dampening the fire momentarily wherever the warmth touched, lingering against his skin just long enough to cool the sweat clammed against his body.

Danny coughed harshly as he opened his eyes sluggishly, unaware he had closed them, and he glanced around disoriented, his neck aching from the little effort he put into turning it. His vision wavered slightly, and the 17-year-old groaned as he made another feeble attempt to move only to be stilled by calm hands.

“Just relax, Daniel. Otherwise, I might be obliged to add to your weeks’ worth of detention,” Someone chuckled softly, and Danny forced his eyes open again, “Mr. L’ncer?”

The 17-year-old winced as his voice met his ears, weak and small; the syllables barely leaving his mouth as his tongue felt heavy against his teeth. He swallowed, his mouth feeling cottony and thick as his eyes lazily met his English teacher’s face hovering above him; a stern expression settled on tired features.

The teenager groaned loudly, closing his eyes briefly as the room began to spin, leaning his head back as he listened to the silence surrounding him. A quiet popping echoing around him, and Danny squinted, noticing several candles sitting on the counter and next to him, their flames flickering wildly. Confusion crossed his face as Lancer leaned further over him, “The power went out a while ago, so I had to improvise as I couldn’t find any batteries for the flashlight.”

The older man held up the flashlight, shaking it gently as confusion continued to sit on the 17-year-old’s face. He blinked slowly as he tried to piece together everything. But it was hot. And he felt weird, sick, his mind a muddled mess of exhaustion; his headache still pounding behind his eyes. He tried moving again, sitting up slightly before being pushed back down gently as Lancer sighed, “I swear, Mr. Fenton, do you ever listen?”

Danny swallowed, doing his best to understand his surroundings. He sighed loudly, letting his head fall behind him as he slowly connected the dots. He was in a bathroom. More importantly, he was lying in a warm bath, shivering against the heat beaded on his skin. And more embarrassingly, Lancer was soaking washcloths in the water, pressing them against his face, wiping down the sweat that was forming on Danny’s body. It took him longer than he liked to realize his shirt was gone, gentle fingers pressing lightly against his torso, covering every inch of heat that surrounded the bruised and scarred flesh. Whether or not he was wearing further clothing wasn’t something Danny tried to think about, and if he had the energy, he would have protested this level of comfort. This level of embarrassment. This level of weakness. But he felt too tired, too sick, and too hot to care.

Something moved in his peripheral, and Danny peered at the end of the tub to find the boy from earlier sitting on the edge, his gaze still watching the teenager. He bent down slightly, his blonde hair covering his face as he touched the water before jerking his hand back and shivering. Warmth hit him as Lancer washed over his chest, and the 17-year-old squinted, his eyes still watching the boy, refusing to let his exhaustion overpower him.

The boy disappeared momentarily before returning to his spot at the edge of the bathtub, a rubber duck in his hand. He set it in the water gently, pushing it in Danny’s direction before smiling widely, his two front teeth gapped, three missing from the bottom. The 17-year-old stirred, pressing against Lancer’s hands as his eyebrows furrowed together, and he yelled, “Hey!”

The boy jumped from the ledge, fear setting on his face as Danny struggled against his teacher’s grasp. His ghost sense went off, goosebumps breaking out over his naked skin as the boy disappeared, and the teenager let out a strangled cry as he shoved Lancer’s hands away, leaning over the edge, water splashing to the floor as he scanned the hallway for the boy. The 17-year-old gripped the slippery ledge of the tub as he scrambled to pull himself up, water slapping against the ground loudly.

Lancer gripped the kid’s shoulders, forcing him back down as alarm crossed his face. He held the teenager down as the candles flickered, water soaking into his khakis as the 17-year-old continued to thrash. The older man let out a quick breath as he tried grabbing the kid’s attention, “Daniel! Danny!”

The teenager stilled, his gaze moving from the hallway towards his teacher as his nickname left Lancer’s mouth. The older man sighed softly as he felt the kid’s body relax, his grip loosening on the bathtub as the teacher eased him back down. The alarm that crossed Danny’s face earlier, vanishing as confusion set in, his head smacking once again against the back of the bathtub as exhaustion ate away at his features.

He exhaled loudly as Lancer pressed a washcloth against his forehead, leaving it there for several minutes before repeating the action. Danny swallowed softly, closing his eyes against the dimly-lit room as his teacher cleared his throat, “I’m sorry about the circumstances, Daniel. But your temperature spiked again causing you to pass out, and I had no other way of bringing it down quicker. I know it’s uncomfortable. My son freaked too.”

Danny turned towards his teacher’s voice but kept his eyes closed as his mind spun violently. He furrowed his eyebrows as he tried to understand the information, as he tried to recall the pictures on the wall in the hallway. He coughed, sweat dripping from his hair plastered against his face, “The kid…”

“In the photos. Yeah,” Lancer sighed, wiping across the teenager’s chest again before pressing another rag against his forehead, “He passed some time ago… a car accident.”

The 17-year-old’s eyes opened slightly as he met his teacher’s sad smile before his focus lazily danced towards the hallway. The boy stood there, leaning against the doorway as he fumbled with the zipper on the bottom of his blue jacket, worry flashing across his face as he met Danny’s gaze. The teenager swallowed again, closing his eyes as he turned his head away from the door, sweat rolling down his cheeks as it dripped from his chin.

“Hey…” He muttered softly as he tried calling the boy closer, as he tried to connect the dots. He felt like shit. Even after being extremely sick after the Accident, he didn’t remember it feeling like this. Then again, that had been 3 years ago… and Danny hadn’t really been sick since. But maybe that had to do more with Phantom. Maybe he’d left… leaving the 17-year-old as a barely alive thing. Maybe this was his immune system dying, the other half giving out as it had struggled to survive with half function over the years. Maybe this was the portal killing the other part of him, claiming what it had started.

Danny’s teeth chattered loudly as he shivered against the warmth, “I shou-should call my parents…”

“I assure you they’re fine, Mr. Fenton,” Lancer said calmly, rewetting a washcloth and pressing it against the teenager’s neck, “They’re just concerned, trying to find a quicker way back to New York… unfortunately, the storm is making that difficult.”

The 17-year-old swallowed slowly, confusion washing over him before swallowing again. He coughed, his throat raw and his mouth dry like sandpaper, feeling his mind slipping, the reality he could understand becoming harder and harder to grasp. Everything was muddled, fuzzy, hard to comprehend.

“I- I should call them,” He muttered softly, “Apologize for killing myself… they’re going to be-be so- disappointed in me…”

Lancer froze, alarm flooding through him as he choked. He watched the confusion on Danny’s face melt, his features relaxing slightly as moments passed. The older man turned the teenager’s face towards him, shaking his shoulder gently as he let out a sharp breath, “What? Mr. Fenton- what! What does that mean? Daniel? Daniel- Danny!”

The kid whimpered but other than that, showed no sign that he had even heard Lancer’s questions. The English teacher took a few slow breaths, closing his eyes as he forced the panic back down. Perhaps he had misheard… or the 17-year-old’s temperature was getting to him. Hallucinations and muddled speech were common, so perhaps, that’s all it was. Thoughts of a delusional and feverish mind.

Then again, Danny’s attitude had shifted over the years as he still maintained his cocky and sarcastic demeanor… but darker things lurked over him. Lancer knew the kid smoked from time-to-time, and he had heard from a few rumors that Fenton had become no stranger to weed or alcohol. Then again, the aspect of rebellion was fairly common in teenagers, and Lancer couldn’t see the Fenton’s letting their son get away with anything too serious. But perhaps they didn’t know… perhaps they didn’t know about their son’s newer habits. Or the fights. The grades. The attitude problem. The bruises or scars. Perhaps Danny was hiding his true self from them just as he was from his peers.

But it wasn’t Lancer’s place. Not exactly. Sure, he cared for the kid, as he did for many of his pupils. But Jack and Maddie had become neighborly to him after the loss of his son, and the divorce. They expected Lancer to keep Jasmine and Daniel on the straight-and-narrow when they entered high school… which Jazz was no problem… but Danny. Danny was a different story.

Every direction Lancer took, the 17-year-old steered in the opposite direction. And it seemed even worse the last couple of months. Lancer knew something had happened between Fenton and Manson… and Danny seemed really broken up about it. After all, he had overheard Foley’s comment that the two had begun dating… among other things. And rumors were they’d been caught in the Janitor’s closet several weeks prior… But for the past few months, both Danny and Sam could barely sit next to each other, let alone look at each other. And most of the flirting Lancer had come to expect from the two, was replaced with cold stares, harsh short comments, and feeble excuses as to why they couldn’t work together.

Something sounded behind him, and the English teacher jerked, turning his head quickly towards the hall, squinting against the flame’s shadow dancing over the dark doorway. He scanned the empty area before closing his eyes briefly, breathing slowly through his nose, allowing his thoughts to calm as thunder roared overhead. Most nights Lancer could swear his house was haunted. Haunted by the memories of his past, the memories of his wife, his son… the life he missed every day. But that was ridiculous. An idealization deluded from the minds of Jack and Maddie Fenton… and nothing more.

The lights flicked several times as one of the lightbulbs above the bathroom counter popped, before burning out. The TV in the living room spluttering to life, news blasted through old speakers loudly before silence and darkness once again evaded the small house. Lancer sighed, running a hand over his head, listening to the rain pelt against the roof. Despite it being close to 10am, the storm hadn’t ceased… in fact, it seemed worse with every passing hour which was ironically befitting given Lancer’s current situation, and Danny’s condition.

The English teacher sighed loudly, wringing another washcloth out before pressing gently against the teenager’s forehead, cheeks, and neck as lightening cracked against the house. The 17-year-old whimpered softly, his eyebrows drawing together momentarily before Lancer shushed him, forcing another rag against his forehead lightly. Despite trying his best to bring the kid’s fever down, the older man was more than certain he was doing little to cause a significant change in the teenager’s temperature. Or at least it felt like that.

When the 17-year-old had passed out in the hallway, collapsing against Lancer the second he was pulled from the floor, going limp in his arms as the older man tried his best to hold Danny as gently as he could, Lancer had been at a loss. But when the lights spazzed, the shutter door slamming against the entryway and the power gave out, Lancer was close to both panicked tears and self-consumed anger.

He’d been angry over the situation. Over the power going out, the storm wreaking havoc outside and forcing flights to ground. Angry with his own useless attempts to soothe the teenager he thought he could care for. Angry he hadn’t taken Danny to the Emergency Room earlier and angry, that in spite of everything, the teenager seemed to be getting worse rather than better. Panic had eaten away worry and concern, leaving fear racing through thoughts riddled with questions; his own parental instincts, despite having died long ago, blaring as every sound, every cough, every whimper, and every unconscious groan that whispered from the 17-year-old’s mouth, sent Lancer’s senses on high alert.

Something that had scared Lancer more than he could account for was the fact that the 17-year-old was crying, hard, and his temperature. The moment he was near, the heat melting off Danny was deeply concerning, sweat plastered down pale flesh, dripping in puddles down his face and soaked through hand-me-down clothes Lancer had given him earlier. The teenager had been on the verge of hyperventilating when Lancer pressed his hand against his forehead, worry and panic lacing his tired mind as Danny cried harder, pleading with fevered hallucinations to leave and forgive him.

The thought of which was worse, the storm or Danny’s illness, no longer a debate but a firm decided answer that should have been sought long ago. But Lancer wasn’t sure if he would be able to find his keys in the dark, the rain pounding sideways against the windows as it threatened to break glass… and even though it was early morning now, the sun having rose two hours prior, it was still black as hell outside. Lancer’s own attempts to calm the teenager were futile. He was out of his element… so beyond his own familiarity, and he had forgotten how to soothe his own child. Lancer needed help, he needed another adult, and Danny needed a parent, but the older man hadn’t been a parent in a long time…

…………………………………………………………………………………….

He wasn’t a hero. Because a hero wouldn’t do this. A hero couldn’t. And Danny Fenton was no hero. He’d shed blood through Phantom hands, ghosted in hellish torment as he sat, throne to bodies and souls collected at his feet. Human hands forever red with mortal lives, halfa instincts more dead than alive as Fenton became a facade for Phantom. A mask. A plaything. A puppet of normality and bitter resentment as Phantom was forced to live in a barely alive flesh suit. And now, only now, was the teenager hit with the realization that he was no hero. He’d never been.

He’d been a boy. Stupid and ignorant in childish idealization, playing make-believe, costumed in his parent’s clothes, pretending to be something more. Something better. But he wasn’t. He was joke. A harsh cosmic occurrence of puny humanity and preemptive temperament of selfish actions. Cocooned in the tranquility of his youth as he tried to convince himself that he was more than the blood dripping from halfa hands, that he was the savior of death instead of the bringer. But he’d been stupid. Weak. Pathetic. Insignificant. A joke.

Danny Fenton was a joke of unlovable fear and horrible outcomes. Death followed him. Shadowed by terrible posture and cold features. Sam had fallen for the wrong boy. Had loved the wrong boy. Fenton wasn’t a hero. He couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t save her… fuck, he couldn’t save anyone. He was just a stupid kid with stupid luck. A false identity born to humanity, mirrored from the reality of Phantom, a messenger, a front for what had killed him years ago. Fake bravery. Fake chivalry. Everything fake.

Ectoplasm oozed down his temple, sliding past his left cheekbone, gathering at his chin as sweat and dirt fell past, splattering against ashen snow and green puddles of forgotten souls. Blood pooling from open wounds, forced between busted knuckles and broken fingers as red stained white. Danny choked, his fingers pressing tighter across Sam’s neck as blood gushed from wounds he couldn’t close… from a death he couldn’t stop. From a love he couldn’t lose.

The purple haloed around Sam no longer vibrant or visible through dark crimson, eaten away by the innocence of her youth, and the immorality dripping from Danny. He wasn’t a hero. He wasn’t a good guy… and Phantom? Phantom couldn’t save her. Phantom couldn’t save anyone. Ever. But Phantom wouldn’t have done this… he couldn’t. Fenton had.

Fingers slipping from flesh, Sam’s necklace pulled from her neck as Danny fought for a better grip, forcing the broken bones in his right hand to bend, to curve, to keep blood from puddling around him… to fix this. But he couldn’t. There wasn’t a way to fix it. A way to fix death. To restore what was lost. What he had taken. What he had always taken. Over and over and over again.

And now, because he wasn’t willing to live without Phantom, Fenton had destroyed the one thing he loved more than anything. The one girl he loved more than anyone. The one girl willing to fight for him instead of Phantom. But that had been a mistake. Sam loving him had been a mistake. He and Sam had been a mistake. An intimate beautiful mistake.

Danny wasn’t the same person she’d fallen in love with. He wasn’t the same person he used to be. He was different. Darker. Quieter. Colder. He was awkward in his own shadow, uncomfortable in a foreign skin as he allowed Phantom more and more control. Danny Fenton was a waste. Danny Phantom wasn’t. He was the thing people needed. But Phantom wasn’t the one Sam had loved. He wasn’t the one she trusted. He wasn’t the one she tried so desperately to save… He wasn’t the one who had killed her.

The fight was over the second it’d begun. Box Ghost had slipped through the Ghost Zone, followed by Skulker and Johnny; the three musketeers of complete failure as they threatened to destroy the state of New York. But Danny had barely broken a sweat. Ghosts were easier now; less challenging than in his youth, repetitive and old, and most of the time, the teenager had bigger things to worry about. Like Spirits. The Veil. The Spirit World. And Vlad. There was always Vlad fucking Masters. A pain in the Fenton family ass… not that Jack would ever admit it.

Snow had started littering the ground in heavy flurries by the time Vlad appeared. Danny had sat on the park bench for hours, waiting for the stupid pointy-haired bastard to make an appearance; after all, Danny had gotten his message the night before when he was pulled into the Veil. He always got the message while in the Veil. He wasn’t welcome. He was never welcomed. And the Spirits collected within made sure he knew it, made sure he stayed long enough to understand the damage he had caused, the lives he had fucked, and the lives he had taken. Many in the Spirit World knew him, but he knew very little about them.

Despite knowing almost everything about the Ghost Zone, the teenager knew almost nothing about the Spirit World. About summoning. The Veil. The Spirits. He only knew how to tune them out, but the older he got, the more his power grew, the harder it was to keep them in check. Too many times had he been caught in public, or with his parents, or his sister, talking, ranting, yelling or even fighting Spirits that refused to leave. He couldn’t block them out. Their voices, cries in the dark, hands pulled through murky water towards his body as he dreamed, screams echoed through restless thoughts. They were getting harder to ignore… harder to kill.

Drugs didn’t really work anymore, barely a dull buzz of quiet whispers, and other outlets were laughable options. Weed made it hard to focus between Fenton and Phantom, his abilities harder to control… and the Spirits had barely left. Ecstasy was great, the screams a distant thought, the Spirits warping into smokes of green, yellow and red; but Phantom disappeared too, refusing to appear for several days after. And Acid… Acid just made the teenager more jittery, more paranoid, more on-edge than he already was.

Vlad had taught him a few tricks to keep the Spirits quiet enough to function before he died. He’d promised to teach Danny more, but his death made that almost impossible. Unlike the Ghost Zone, the Spirit World lacked a supernatural possession; rather turning anyone such as Vlad, normal and human- barely able to summon Danny through the Veil to talk. And Danny? Danny’s powers were pretty much useless inside the Veil, humanity coursed through fragile bones, muscle, and skin as blood beat through a half-alive thing. The teenager could barely summon, barely survive a night in the Veil, of being pulled through, forced out-of-body through airless lungs and the stillness of a barely beating heart.

In the Spirit World, the teenager was human. So very human. And so very vulnerable. A War progressed through the Veil, the Spirits capable of darker, more sinister realities than Ghosts such as Skulker or Freakshow could ever procure. A world of Death. True Death. The promises of the Ghost Zone vanquished through shreds of paper-thin souls of victims to the War. Death in the Spirit World meant no Ghost Zone after. No other World beyond. No connection or tie back to humanity. To the Human World. Nothing. Just black. Just…

The 17-year-old’s ghost sense had been going off for hours; his teeth chattering as he pulled the thin green jacket closer, cursing Vlad for taking his sweet time. To any untrained individual, the teenager appeared to be alone… but Danny was never alone. Not anymore. His shove through the Veil on his 16th had killed any isolation or solitude he had. They were always there. Always watching. Always with him.

The teenager grit his teeth as he smacked his head against the bench behind him, staring towards the grey sky as white dust fell in clumps, blanketing Amity Park… and most likely, the rest of New York. The weather had been unpredictable lately; a chaotic shitshow of indescribable patterns, something his father chalked up to some weird readings in the Ghost Zone. Despite never really seeing a ghost, his parents still obsessed over them, inching closer and closer to diving into the portal with each passing week. But Danny, Danny wished he’d never have to see another fucking ghost in his life.

More and more of the transparent bastards had been slipping through the portal lately. Part of that was Danny’s fault. The other, unknown. Valerie had helped pick up the slack, along with the Fenton Duo, but the teenager had more important things to worry about like Spirits. The harder they were to ignore, the more of them appeared… and they could touch him. Hurt him. Kill him… the scars plastered against his right ribs should be evident enough to speak to their danger. He’d barely survived his first trip through the Veil, and Vlad kept pulling him fucking through… mainly because summoning wasn’t something the 17-year-old had mastered yet. And with Vlad dead, Danny doubted if he’d ever actually be able to master summoning… leaving no hope for resurrection.

Something kicked against the teenager’s red converse, and Danny shot up quickly, expecting Vlad to be standing over him. A smile crawled across his face as his eyes met Sam, her black hoodie blowing viciously against the winter air, small specks of white clinging to the fabric. She kicked his foot again, tucking a strand of black hair behind her ear, “Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” Danny smirked, forcing his hands in his pocket, his right hand clamped around the red lighter he had stolen from his dad’s secret stash. Whether or not Jack Fenton had noticed a few of his smokes were missing, the teenager would never know. After all, if his father ended up confronting him about it, then that meant Jack would also have to come clean to Maddie about smoking… something he supposedly gave up a few years after Danny was born.

Sam slumped down next to him, her shoulder hitting his as Danny turned towards her, smiling. Sam rolled her eyes, her purple lipstick twisting into a grin as she leaned her head against his shoulder. She sighed, “So, I take it Vlad hasn’t shown?”

The 17-year-old shook his head, before clearing his throat, “No.”

“That’s pretty unusual for him, isn’t it?” She asked, pulling her head up as wind forced her hood down, short black hair flying chaotically. She glanced in Danny’s direction as he flicked some snow off his jeans. He hadn’t really thought about Vald’s behavior- about his pretty punctual habits, but now that it was mentioned, it was rather worrisome the older man hadn’t shown yet. Especially given he seemed rather paranoid the night before. But surely, the older man would have said if he was in danger.

Danny shrugged his shoulders, meeting Sam’s gaze, biting his bottom lip. Pieces of ice clung to her hair, freckled across her face, and the 17-year-old hesitated, before brushing his thumb across her cheek carefully, wiping away some of the fallen snow. He paused, his fingers pressing gently against her jawline, following the curve softly before Sam pressed her hand over his. Danny froze, warmth flooding his face as he refused to advert his gaze.

Sam had been weird lately. She’d been acting weird… almost feminine… which was weird for both Tucker and Danny as they had always seen her as one of the guys. But between a few awkward non-date dates, a few fake-out make-outs, and being caught half-naked in the Janitor’s Closet a few weeks prior when Danny had phased through the wrong room after a fight; Danny was finding it harder to act normal around her. And then there was the Annual Winter Dance last month which neither Sam nor Danny refused to acknowledge, involving some sloppy drinking, heated kissing, and one awkward morning after at the Fenton household as Danny tried sneaking Sam from his room only to be caught by his sister.

Since then, Sam had become more… Well, it was hard to explain because Danny was pretty sure he’d become more of it too. Every moment he was around her, it seemed like he had reverted back to his weird, awkward, clumsy demeanor. He couldn’t talk around her anymore, let alone act normal anymore. His ghost sense unpredictable, his powers uncontrollable as his body forgot how to be him around her. He couldn’t eat or sleep and paying what little attention he normally did in class, unbearable. He couldn’t get Sam out of his head. Her purple lipstick. Her laugh. Her hands clasped around his. Her mouth… Her. And it was driving him insane.

Mentioning it to anyone was out of the question. Tucker had them married in 9th grade. His parents were too hyperactive and weird to be able to deal with their only son dating- let alone his sister’s recollection of her very awkward first date that involved more of Jack Fenton than Danny wanted to picture. And Jazz? Jazz had freaked when she had caught Danny and Sam together the morning after the Annual Winter Dance, forcing both teenagers to attend a lecture involving responsible actions, so asking Jazz for advice was out of the question. Honestly, Danny had found some console in Vlad, but that bastard’s advice was wishy-washy and outdated.

Sam’s fingers brushed over the rough scars on his hand before she trailed up his arm. Her hand hesitating on his shoulder before cupping the back of his neck, her fingers tussling his hair softly. The wind whooshed past, snow raining over them as Sam met the 17-year-old’s gaze, a small smirk painted across purple lips. Danny shivered slightly, brushing his thumb over her cheek again, “I-”

“Shut up,” Sam cut him off, pulling herself from the bench as she pressed her lips against his, pushing the 17-year-old back slowly as he dropped his hand from her cheek, trailing down her shoulder slowly, arm, back. He inhaled loudly, a hand pressed against the small of Sam’s back, the other pressing her closer to him as she kissed him again, one of her hand’s slipping underneath his shirt. Cold fingers pressed against the warmth on his back. Black nails scrapping gently over scarred flesh, fingers through black hair, and Danny’s hands dragging her closer. Sam was driving him insane… but maybe this time, they could acknowledge it… maybe this time, he could tell her how he really felt.

Maybe this time he could tell her he couldn’t get her out of his mind. That he couldn’t concentrate around her, he couldn’t get that night at the dance out of his mind… that she made everything better, made everything okay. He needed her like he needed air. She was a reminder that he was still alive, that he was still human, that he was still more than Phantom. Because she seemed to want him more than Phantom… She liked him. Not Phantom. And that- that was all Danny ever wanted from someone. From her…

Her nails scrapped harder against his back as Sam straddled him; her hair flying in the wind, covering her face, smacking against Danny’s face comfortingly. His hands gentle as they trailed down the rest of her back, her thighs, holding her steady against him. Her lips forceful against his, nails marked against skin, her heart pounding against his. She breathed deeply, “Danny…”

“Well, isn’t this nice,” Someone sneered. Danny pushed Sam off him gently, jumping to his feet as he pressed Sam behind him, his stance protective as he met the stranger’s gaze. The 17-year-old watched as a woman stepped forward, a smirk on her face as she pushed some of her long blonde hair behind her ear. She eyed the 17-year-old, sizing him up as she walked around the small bench. She scoffed, “They said the halfa was young, but I never would have thought this young… Tell me, handsome, do you even know how to tie your own shoes?”

Danny tensed, “Do you want to find out?”

The woman laughed loudly, circling them once more before standing a few feet from him, “Oh, and that wit. I bet you’re a troublemaker, uh?”

She crossed her arms, straightening her posture until she was eyelevel with him. Her skin almost translucent against the white ground, blood dotting against her neck where a necklace should have been. Her bright pink and blue jumpsuit standing out against the snow, fitting the ideal clothing for an 80’s teenager… her blonde hair in half-buns, purple triangle earrings dangling from her ears. She laughed again, shaking her head, her red lipstick twisting slightly as she peered towards Sam.

Sam had risen from the bench, pulling her hoody back over head as her hair still fought against the wind. She forced the sleeves past her hands, her fingers intertwining gently with Danny’s as the 17-year-old stepped forward, “Where’s Vlad?”

The woman cocked her head, her smile offsetting as she held up her hand, inspecting her chipped blue fingernails, “I wouldn’t worry about Grandpa anymore. He’s been taken care of.”

The teenager swallowed, dropping his hand from Sam’s as he took another step forward, his hands burning slightly as Phantom threatened to appear. Danny swallowed, “What did you do to him?”

The woman laughed again, shoving her hands on her hips as she faced the 17-year-old again, “You’ve become quite the gossip in the Veil. Did you know that? Everyone talks about the halfa; the teenage boy with a hitlist bigger than… well… for decency, think of someone historically bad. The merciless angel. The bringer of death. The red. You could say you’ve become very popular amongst Spirits… and to hear, the little ghost boy could be harmed,” She paused, clasping her hands together as a smile painted her face, “Well, that was like Christmas morning.”

Sam reached for Danny’s shoulder, her fingers gracing over the fabric of his hoodie as he stepped forward again, “What did you do with Vlad?”

The woman smirked, “Me? No, honey, I’ve done nothing. See, I don’t really care for the creepy-uncle-lotion-in-the-basket types. You, however, are much more interesting. Much more powerful than Vlad would be… I can feel it. Radiating off you like the wind around you. It’s beautiful… And we can hurt you. We can touch you. Something those pathetic airbags in the Ghost Zone could only dream of. And believe me, pretty boy, there are many in the Veil eager to show you their real power. Eager to walk this Earth again… all we need is the blood of the halfa.”

“Fuck you!” Sam yelled, stepping in front of the 17-year-old, her finger’s gripping Danny’s wrist. Sam took a step forward, her stance tense, her hood down as wind washed over her. Snow beading in black hair, melting down her face as hatred flashed across her features. Her grip tightened around the teenager’s wrist, protectively; and Danny swallowed softly as he realized she wasn’t about to let go.

The woman stepped forward slowly, smirking again as she chuckled, “Call off your guard-dog, Daniel. I have no intention of killing you today… besides, in order for us to be reborn, you have to come to us willingly. Which I give you… a year before you enter the Veil for the last time.”

Danny scoffed, “Unlikely.”

He shivered as he met the woman’s gaze, her smile hiding something that scared the teenager more than the threat. An understanding… knowing. She knew what went through his mind. What he thought about, how he thought about himself… The way she looked at him, the way she smirked towards him, sneering… she knew. About the drugs. The blood. About the recklessness. She knew what stimmed through a tired mind in the nightmarish reality of Fenton from Phantom. She had to know… but the only way she would, would be- Vlad.

Danny glanced down for a second, swallowing loudly. Him and Vlad had had their differences, but they seemed to work it out over the years… so would Vlad really tell people about him? Would he really betray his secrets to other people, well, Spirits? The teenager had confided in him over the years. Not about everything… but about himself, about how he had come to hate Phantom. How he had become forced to live with Phantom’s pain and torment. How he felt, as the years past, and he let Phantom have more power, he could feel reality crumpling around him. Crumpling in, and slipping through his fingers, through the cracks created by Phantom, opened and birthed through the Ghost Zone and Spirit World. How it felt like he was being drained… that his humanity was dying. Would Vlad really betray him like that? After all this time?

The woman scoffed again, “Perhaps. But I’m willing to help you out… give you another nudge in the right direction.”

Confusion crossed the 17-year-old’s face as he stepped forward again, only a few feet from the woman as she crossed her arms, raising her head. She shook her head slowly, “I can see you’re confused, so I’ll make it simple for your stupid hormonal teenage brain.”

There was a flash, and Danny dropped harshly, his hands and arms burning as he felt the shift starting to take over. Phantom gaining control as the Fenton canister, forgotten on the park bench, exploded loudly, and the teenager pressed his burning hands against the snow. Cold braced against his fingers as he looked up, wiping away some green ectoplasm that litter across his body, blood dripping down his chin slowly from a cut on his upper lip. His eyes flashed green as he let Phantom gain control, his body burning slightly as he shifted, the aching pain that plagued him, gone as Phantom took over.

Within a second, he had the woman pinned against the tree, a smirk twisting against his lips as she struggled pathetically. He huffed, his tone cocky as he tightened his grip, “You missed.”

The woman hesitated before laughing loudly, snapping her fingers as Phantom reverted back, forcing Fenton through translucent skin as he was shoved back into his teenage body. Sweaty fatigue washed over him as she kicked his leg, slamming him against the ground harshly, pinning him against the snow. The 17-year-old squirmed, trying to coax Phantom out, trying to shift but finding the task difficult, his fingers tingling and sparking green but refusing to change.

The woman snorted, grasping his hand in hers, smiling down at him as her blonde hair brushed over his chest. She pressed her fingers between his, humming softly before jerking her hand back, bending Danny’s fingers as she clawed at his palm, bones cracking, causing the teenager to scream loudly as he fought against her. After a few seconds, she let go as wind rushed past them, and she pressed her chest against his, stroking his hair back gently. She bent down further, her lips brushing against his ear, “I wasn’t aiming for you, honey.”

The 17-year-old twisted; his head jerked towards Sam as he tried forcing the woman from him. Blood splattered against the snow as Sam fell, her face pressing against the ice, her hand, bloodied and shaky, as she reached in Danny’s direction. The teenager cried loudly as Sam’s hand dropped in the snow, her body going limp as red bled through white. The woman pressed her fingers against the 17-year-old’s cheek as he screamed again; his hands and arms burning as heat clawed through his chest. Sam opened her mouth, purple lips parted but no words came, only tears trailing down pale flesh before green eyes shut.

The woman laughed softly, digging her nails painfully into Danny’s cheek and chin, prying his eyes away from Sam and towards her. Rage ate away at his features, his skin scorching against Phantom as green began to steam off him, his eyes flashing bright green before darkening as his eyes met hers. The woman tightened her grip as green smoke continued to envelope them; a smirk plastered to skin pulled back too tightly as she pressed her clammy forehead against his, gently. She took a deep breath as Danny struggled against her, his skin itching as black ectoplasm began to drip from his nose and ears, running down his face before smacking against the ground. Cold soaking through his clothes as his skin began to burn away, green fading to black, and black sparks radiating from his fingertips as the woman pressed her lips against his.

The teenager jerked away, his gaze meeting Sam’s stilled face. Her features silent, and Danny choked again as he yelled her name, fighting against the woman’s grasp again. Her nails dug once more into his flesh, pulling his face back towards her as black tears fell down his cheeks in thick trails. She thumbed some away slowly before licking the liquid from her thumb and smirking, pressing her chest once again against his.

“Such power. Such a waste,” She bent down further, her lips pressing against his temple, “Two down… See you in a year, lover.”

Pain seared across his chest, and the 17-year-old screamed as her hand pressed over his heart, burning against flesh as the greenish black swallowing him, ceased. His eyes flashed back to blue as he choked, grasping towards her hand before realizing she was gone. His hand pressing over the bloody handprint stained against his shirt as the pain slowly began to evade, and he twisted around, stumbling to his feet as he forced himself towards Sam….

#in the mood to watch danny phantom #danny phantom #fandom life #i need some fanfiction in my life right now #sick Danny #I was told to stop writing this and create a book out of this lol #posted on archive #lancer taking care of Danny #kb

[lexiepiper]

Reanimated

Ao3 FF

“What did you do to me?”

Danny kept his eyes on the faded vinyl floor and tried to walk past her.

“Oh no you don’t,” Valerie growled, and he barely registered her hands curling around his wrist and shoulder before his arm was twisted behind his back and his face and chest slammed into a locker door.

He felt her lean closer, the pressure pushing against his twisted arm, and pain lanced through his wrist and elbow. He gasped, and she responded by pressing even harder.

“Answer me.” Her breath was hot against the back of his neck. His core screamed at the predatory threat, and he fought not to flinch away. “What. Did. You. Do?” Every word was punctuated by an extra shove, and Danny went limp, trying to seem as non-confrontational as possible.

“I don’t want to fight.”

“Then answer the question,” she growled, the threat in her voice low and unapologetic.

“Let go first,” he said, and earned another increase in the vice-like pressure twisting his wrist behind him. “Ow! Val, please.”

“I was dead,” she breathed, right into his ear. “I… I know I was.”

Danny sighed, leaning his forehead against the cool metal. “Yeah.” His voice cracked, and he swallowed, taking his time in an effort to stay calm. She shoved his shoulder again and a rough sob broke out of his throat before he clamped down on encroaching tears. “Yeah, you were dead.”

She gave his arm one final twist before releasing it, repositioning so that her fingers dug into both of his shoulders. Danny let her spin him around and throw his back against the locker instead, keeping his gaze down.

Her shoulders hitched at the edges of his vision, followed by a dangerous catch in her breathing. “Then tell me,” she begged in a ragged whisper,  “why am I alive? What…” her voice cracked, and Danny flinched. “What did you do?”

He met her eyes, just for a second, and they shone as tears slipped down her cheeks.

Danny shook his head mutely, blinking suddenly wet lashes. They stood there, breathing heavily, and it took a moment for him to find his voice. “Don’t ask me that.”

“What —”

He fought back another choked sob and phased out of her grip, catching how her expression morphed into utter horror at the obvious use of ghost powers before he turned away. “Trust me, Val. You don’t want to know.”

Without waiting for a response, he slid into invisibility and walked away.

#ectoberweek2020 #Danny Phantom #lexiepiper #I'm sorry I know I'm late but I've been super busy and feeling uninspired #It took a while to think of what to do for this prompt but I'm happy with what I ended up writing