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multicolouredbeanbag · 4 years

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pt 3 sorting characters into hogwarts houses

Part 1 Part 2

Tl;dr: April Stevens is a Hufflepuff who projects Slytherin; at her core she is a loyalist and she values community, even though her definition of a community has become GREATLY limited due to… reasons.

so here’s the thing. April looks like a Slytherin. She talks like a Slytherin. She walks like a Slytherin. But I don’t think she actually IS a Slytherin.

Today I defend the idea that April Stevens is actually a Hufflepuff (primary, ie. her motivations/values) and a Ravenclaw secondary (methods/tactics). I absolutely love this character even tho she is a lil mean, and I think that viewing her through this framework does justice to her complexities/core of who she is.

I mention the primary/secondary sorting hats system in Part 1 so feel free to google that or read my other analyses first.

Spoilers below:

Let’s talk about April’s secondary first, which addresses the HOW of person. How they approach situations, how they problem solve.

HP canon often posits Ravenclaws as the “intelligent” character, and while April IS very smart, that’s not why I consider her a Ravenclaw.

April is a HUGE planner and collector of information. She likes to be prepared because it gives her control over a situation. She’s an excellent strategizer. She’s less comfortable with improvising without having some tools/contingency plans to draw from, so when she’s stressed, she has a tendency to fall back on the tools that she’s brought with her (in contrast to Sterling, who absolutely thrives in improvisation)

My first example is the debate tournament - as team captain, she’s in it to win it. Her strategy of choice is to prepare detailed dossiers on all the other team captains. This works well enough for her, until opponent debater Craig pulls a move she couldn’t anticipate (using his own research against her), and she falls to pieces. Still, she takes some time, gathers herself again, and pressures Sterling to use the dossier on Craig to take him down (contingency plan).

Other examples:

Asked Sterling to debate her when deciding whether to come out or not - girl RUNS on logic

April’s approach to school is very organized/planning based, she’s also kind of a major nerd OBVIOUSLY, so this is a more conventional representation of her Ravenclaw-ness

S1E1, she snatches the condom wrapper but retreats with the information probably for processing purposes. She makes a plan - use threat of exposure to blackmail Sterling into giving her the fellowship position, and doesn’t deviate from it, even when the plan fails. Sterling has to save her from that situation ultimately.

This is a little more vague, but I’m thinking about how April comes off as a rigid, somewhat inflexible character. She’s not very easily persuaded to change her behavior (this, of course, makes so much sense! When you think about being gay in the south like? Her reluctance to come out is completely understandable) which contrasts very severely against Sterling’s expressive fluidity. April is a lot more static, and part of that is because it’s difficult for her to thrive when it’s an area that she hasn’t had the opportunity to prepare/plan/study.

Now for the much more interesting and complicated part, April’s PRIMARY.

Again, the Primary is all about WHY someone does something. Their motivations and values. I argue that April Stevens is a true Hufflepuff because she places utmost importance on community.

The HP canon defining qualities of being Hufflepuff are patience and loyalty. It’s the fair and inclusive house. However, it would be reductive to suggest that all Hufflepuffs are friendly, warm individuals. They are bonded together not by their shared amity, but by their value of people and groups—community.

April’s “community” on the show is unfortunately tied to her family and the Christian community. She fears not belonging (bc homophobia) so she overcompensates by conforming aggressively (see, Straight-Straight alliance S1E1).

The episode that really sold this analysis for me was S1E7, when April and Sterling had a number of conversations about April’s dad.

April: “My dad used to call my family a team. And I worked so hard to be the very best version of myself because Team Stevens wins. Teams Stevens is perfect, except that it’s not.”

With these words, we get some insight into why she’s so intense and high-achieving and obsessive all the time. It’s not so much because she wants to win for herself, it’s more the fact that she’s part of a team. She does her part for the team by excelling everywhere she thinks it counts, and of course her underlying gayness contributes to her NEED to be perfect. In practice, it comes off as personal ambition, which is why April seems, at least on the surface, pretty slytherin-y. In reality, it must be more about compensating for something she feels she lacks. Team Stevens can’t be perfect if they’re ostracized by the community due to their (only?) child being gay, so of course she has to keep it to herself, and she has to be the best on all other counts so no one can ever touch them.

Another example, S1E6, at the tournament April says, “You know what’s going on with my family right now; we have become the black sheep of the entire community. I needed a win!” She projects her personal problems onto external academic goals.

This framework of achievement as a prerequisite of community, flawed as it is, seemed to be working for her, at least up until her dad was arrested for attacking a prostitute. In a conversation with Sterl, back when April was trying to steal the fellowship title:

S: Why are you doing this? Is it because of what’s going on with your family?

A: What John did is his problem.

S: He’s still your dad.

A: I don’t care. He beat up a prostitute! I’m not a fan of sex workers but they deserve to be safe!

She obviously feels confused and hurt that her dad lied to her and was violent to women, which is something she cannot stand. For a while, she drops her father like a hot potato, throwing away his letters from jail and ignoring his calls. Hufflepuffs value people—fair is fair.

But she kind of still supports him at the end anyway, when he comes home (s1E10). She must be feeling so conflicted when this happens. Dad is a part of family (established community) therefore she has to support him. Dad possibly hurt someone, but then he did get cleared of his charges. April is essentially making a choice between Dad and Sterling, established community vs. possible (in fact PROBABLE) community alienation.

Hufflepuff and Slytherins are both loyalists because they both care about people—Hufflepuff because they’re people, Slytherin because they’re THEIR people. For all intents and purposes, by S1E10, Sterling is one of April’s “people.” So how does April choose? She goes with the established community, which is really to say she chooses culture and tradition.

April has spent her entire life locking away a significant part of herself for the sake of her family and more generally, her religious community. In S1E8/S1E9, April is almost convinced to come out—FOR Sterling. She probably would have gone through with it were it not for her dad showing up the next episode. April obviously has (justified) reservations about coming out because it’s honestly pretty dangerous to be out in the south, and these circumstances haven’t changed just because she found a girl that she likes. But she is reluctantly on board because Sterling would have been there to take the leap with her… at this point, April had expanded her definition of community to include Sterling, and for a moment Sterling’s optimism had broken past April’s defenses. Then her dad comes back, and April realizes that she has to make a choice even though this choice hurts them both terribly—Sterling is after all, one person, and what is one person in the face of boundless historical tradition and family values?

Hufflepuff morality tends to be influenced by external inputs, while Slytherin morality tends to come from the internal, the gut. Hufflepuffs can and will ignore their internal feelings when they contradict with the needs of the community. Slytherins are less easily swayed by external influences if they are sure they are right.

April has shrunk down her loyalties to a more manageable level (truly, a very LIMITED circle), but still prioritizes fairness and loyalty and of course, second chances. It’s partly why she’s open to reconnecting with her father. Maintaining these loyalties comes at the cost of her relationship with Sterling, but this is something April is willing to do: self-sacrifice for (greater) community.

Just to take a step back, April and Sterling’s relationship back in 5th grade is just… fascinating. In S1E6, we find out that April’s whole grudge against Sterling comes from when Sterling “gave her away” to another group at recess. An odd event that they both remember differently, and who can say what really happened? All we know is that April’s animosity comes from this perceived slight— the abandonment by someone she once trusted and considered part of her community. It’s very telling that their rivalry stems from this particular moment, the fracturing of a loyalty, as opposed anything else.

April: “the past is the past, we’re all adults here” but alsooo April, >:’(

Another example: at the tournament, when April is trying to convince Sterling to use the dirt on Craig to secure their win.

S: I don’t know if I can stoop that low.

A: He did it to me!

April’s first instinct was a quid pro quo, you attack me, my group will attack you. Which is why she is so offended that Sterling refuses to take the shot, because in April’s mind, it’s only fair. This exchange supports the idea that April considers community first, ambition second.

I like to think that April hides her vulnerable side, her honest hopes and dreams, behind her external perfectionism and ambition. I like to think that she cares a lot, that she’s a prickly, distrustful, kind of Hufflepuff who craves validation because she thinks it’s a substitute for connection. And I would like to see her find that type of community, that she and EVERYBODY deserves: love that doesn’t contain (in her words) “a post condition that we follow their rules for love.”

#teenage bounty hunters #tbh #april stevens #sterling wesley #stepril #devon hales #character analysis #hp houses #ok but if the tbh characters actually did go to hogwarts april would HUNDO P be in slytherin #it's alllll about the choice #gotta live up to the clearly elite pureblood upbringing that she would have #an abrasive intense gal trying her best #I LOVE APRIL STEVENS and devon if ur reading this? love u too #y'all i'm not religious but is it obvious who I project onto?#if u read the tags #thank u

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five-rivers · 4 years

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Mask

Danny slouched against the back wall of the ballroom, mask dangling from his fingers. He didn't want to be here. If his parents weren't out there having the time of their lives, he wouldn't be here, but someone had to keep an eye on them and keep them from getting sucked into whatever scheme Vlad had this time.

He sighed, tracking the bulk of his father across the dance floor. His mother was harder to see, but she was never far behind.

A masquerade ball. Really. Ancients, Vlad was so pretentious.

(Internally, Danny thought that a masquerade ball could be cool... except, well. Vlad.)

His mother briefly emerged from the crowd, caught his eye, and mimed putting on his mask. Apparently she was watching him, too. With a grumble, he put the mask back on. Vlad had given it to him, and although he couldn't see or feel anything wrong with it, he still felt that it was suspect.

"Did your parents make you come, too?"

Danny glanced over. A girl was standing a few feet away. Her dress was red and puffy, and her mask was golden. Her hair was done up in complicated braids. She was, perhaps, one or two years younger than he was, though it was hard to tell with the mask. She was certainly shorter than him.

The silhouette of her dress crumpled as she also slumped against the wall. "You'd think that a masked ball would be, you know, cool, but it's just a bunch of old people jumping around and trying to talk business with the 'great Vlad Masters.'"

"Ouch," said Danny. "At least my parents aren't trying to do that, I guess."

"Oh, yeah? What are they doing, then?" asked the girl.

"I honestly have no idea," said Danny, watching his parents gyrate across the floor again. "Dancing? You could call it dancing." He shrugged.

"Ah," said the girl. "My name's Ellie, by the way."

"Danny," said Danny. "Nice to meet you."

"Same. So, what do your parents do?"

"They're scientists," said Danny, not wanting to get into the whole 'ghost hunting' thing. This wasn't Amity Park. Most people didn't believe in ghosts.

Ellie bobbed her head. "Cool, cool. I kinda want to be a scientist. Like, finding out new things, it just sounds really awesome?"

"Yeah, it can be fun sometimes," said Danny. "I don't understand most of it, though." He rolled his shoulders. Actually, he understood a lot more of his parents' work than he let on, in some specific areas more than them, even. Admitting that wasn't wise, however. "What field are you interested."

"Astrophysics, definitely," said Ellie, firmly. "Space is the coolest thing."

Danny grinned. "Oh, yeah. There's just so much. I mean, have you ever looked at the Hubble Deep Fields?"

Two teens talking together and having a good time evidently had a magnetic property. Three other high school kids had come to join them, all boys.

One boy was very tall and broad. During their introduction, Danny reflected that if he was on Casper's football team, Dash wouldn't be the star player anymore. Unlike Dash, however, Dustin was quiet, barely speaking at all and always deferring to the others.

The second boy introduced himself as Damien, and he was also tall, but thin and skeletal, like a strong breeze would blow him away. He seemed to realize this, because he had a pair of small enamel pins on the lapel of his suit: a skeleton and a scarecrow.

The last, Dmitri, a redhead, was about the same size as Danny. He reminded Danny of Jazz, for some reason (clearly, her psychology-camp-induced absence was driving him a little crazy). And, less pleasantly, of Wes. He had... a lot of questions. Not quite to the point of being annoying, but still a lot. There was also something wrong with his mask. It was hard to tell, but it looked almost as if one eye of it had been filled in. Danny didn't want to mention it, and ruin the atmosphere, though.

There was an atmosphere. Shockingly enough, these kids liked him, and they were much cooler than Danny would have expected of kids who's parents had been invited by Vlad. Which, yeah, was maybe a weird prejudice on his part. His parents had been invited by Vlad, after all.

Danny liked them back.

"... and the names of the dark matter candidates, whoever thought them up was a genius," said Dmitri, waving his hands.

"Well, yeah," said Danny, grinning, "if they were allowed to pick the names, they probably were the ones to come up with the whole idea for it in the first place. But I think MACHOs might be more likely than WIMPs. You've heard about the exoplanets they found last year?" He let his eyes briefly lose focus. "I bet there are even more of them, that we just can't see yet."

"Yeah, but there have been a lot of tests for MACHOs," said Damien. "You'd think we'd have seen a least a couple. And what about dark energy?"

"I don't think those two are actually related," said Ellie.

"Sure they are. They both have the word dark in them."

"Yeah, but I don't think they actually have anything to do with each other," said Ellie.

"They just have similar names," said Dustin.

"We can look it up, later," said Dmitri.

"Speaking of related," said Danny, "how are you guys related?"

There was a pause. "How'd you know?" asked Ellie. "Like, I could understand if you could see our faces, but..."

Danny shrugged. "I don't know. It just... Felt that way?

"We're cousins," said Damien, leaning forward. His body language spoke of nerves.

Danny couldn't imagine why Damien would be nervous about that, but he probably had his reasons. Family drama, maybe. It wasn't Danny's place to ask, he was a stranger.

Even if he was rather wishing he wasn't. How often did he meet people who shared so many of his interests? Never.

(Well, they were mostly just talking about the one interest, space, but still. And Dustin had mentioned liking Dumpty Humpty.)

"That's cool," he said. He would have liked to have helped. Maybe he still could, somehow? He and his parents were going to be here for a few days.

If he focused, there was an aura of something being not quite right with the cousins. Nothing he could put his finger on, and nothing to do with them as people, but... something.

"Hey," said Ellie, "what do you say we raid the snack table? It can't all be super fancy stuff we can't name, can it? I mean, at least there's punch."

Danny followed Ellie's gaze to the refreshments table. When he'd been over there before, everything had been covered, and he hadn't felt like fighting his way back across the floor and potentially losing sight of his parents. He glanced at them now. They looked like they were having fun.

He lightly bit at his lower lip. He knew Vlad had to be up to something. Otherwise, why bother with all of this?

But... new friends... He liked friends, and Vlad was always up to something. Danny deserved to have a little fun now and again, even so.

"Sure," he said. "We can ruin our dinner."

Ellie snickered. "That's the spirit!" she said, patting Danny on the back and slipping past him.

He smirked at the pun, even if it was unintentional.

"Yeah, better do it now, before there's a punchline," said Dmitri. "Wouldn't want people to think we're in a joke."

Danny choked a little, trying to swallow a laugh.

"That was terrible. You're terrible," said Damien.

"Hey, our new friend seems to like it," said Ellie.

Danny's core did a little bounce when she said friend. He really did want to be friends. "What can I say," he said, shrugging. "Better a joke, than a fist?"

Dmitri smiled broadly. Damien groaned, arcing his long body back dramatically.

There wasn't a line for the punch, or even very many people around the snack table at all. What few people had been there moved off, glaring, when the five children descended on the table. He caught Ellie sticking her tongue out at a woman who was giving them a particularly dirty look.

They gathered cups of punch and piled tiny plates high with pastries before retreating to a nearby corner to resume their conversation.

Danny was having a harder time following it this time, though. He felt tired. Drained. A little overheated. He wasn't used to wearing this suit. He went back to refill his punch a few times.

Words started to blur together. The inside of his head felt staticky. But he also... really content... New friends... His core felt strange...

"Danny?" a hand on his shoulder made him flinch, which made him sway rather dangerously. "Are you okay?"

Danny blinked at Ellie. "I don't feel..." he mumbled. What? What didn't he feel?

"Did someone spike the punch?"

"There's a room back here, you can lie down."

"I'll go get Father, he'll know what to do."

He was gently guided out of the ballroom, most of his weight resting on Dustin. There was a reason he should stay in the ballroom, but he couldn't remember what it was. Was someone missing?

Wait, spike the punch? Was he drunk?

The thought was lost almost instantly. His core, and therefore his mind, was lost in delirium and delight. New friends! But they needed his help, there was something wrong with them. But he could help! So, everything was good, and he loved his new friends very much.

The place they took him to was darker and quieter than before. They laid him down on something soft and squishy, and he giggled, weakly. They were talking. They might have been talking to him, but he couldn't understand aaaaaaaaanything.

He was so happy, helping his new friends.

The light changed as the door to the room opened. Music and other noises from the party briefly grew in volume, and were muffled again as the door swung closed.

"Well, that was faster than expected."

Vlad's voice briefly pulled him back into lucidity, and he struggled to sit up before collapsing again. No, all his energy had to go to his friends. They needed it. No time for Vlad.

Still, he glared up at the older man as he leaned over him. There were two Vlads. Was that because he was seeing double, or because Vlad had split himself?

The question was answered as Vlad picked Danny up. Danny was distressingly limp. He couldn't redirect any energy to his muscles, and thinking was hard. There was a thunk, and one of the walls opened up, revealing a hidden staircase. Vlad carried Danny down, but that was okay, because his new friends came with them, and- Oh!

There was another new friend down here!

Danny's core reached out to his newest new friend.

He came back to himself with only the sensation that something was wrong wrong wrong. He jolted up, only to be stopped by a pressure across his chest and shoulders. He squinted, trying to see. His mask was gone, and the clothing he was in felt different, looser.

"What'd you do with'm?" he demanded.

"They're just in the next room, Daniel," said Vlad. "Calm down. I had no idea you'd get attached to them so quickly. I had a whole program for this week for you to get to know them."

"No," said Danny. He finally managed to get his eyes open. He was in Vlad's lab, lying on something padded. He'd been strapped down, and there were various IVs running into his arms. One of them was a lurid ectoplasmic green.

"No?"

"Won't calm down. What did you do to me?"

"Nothing."

"This isn't nothing." He finally managed to find Vlad with his eyes. The man was sitting almost behind him. It was difficult to bend his eyes to look that way.

"Oh, very well then. I increased the energy levels in your core, allowing you to wake up and us to have this lovely conversation. The rest, my dear boy, was all you. An instinctive reaction on the part of your core, although you, as usual, took it too far."

"What?"

Vlad walked around the tube, to a position where Danny could see him more easily. "This will require some explanation. I realize this situation isn't intuitive, to one such as yourself." Vlad waved a dismissive hand.

Danny scowled, but had the presence of mind to bite his tongue. He needed to know what was going on. He was beginning to suspect that Vlad had drugged him, put something in the food or punch that only affected ghosts and half ghosts, but he had a feeling that wasn't quite right.

"After you and Jasmine blew up my football field, I came to the conclusion that you would never accept me as a father," said Vlad, with the air of someone narrating a tragedy. "I was forced to reconsider my methods and goals. You see, Daniel, all I really wanted was to be loved."

In Danny's personal opinion, that was a load of crap. Vlad, more than anything else, wanted control, he wanted power.

""To be loved," continued Vlad, "and understood." He looked up at the ceiling and sighed. "And who could understand me, but a fellow half ghost? So, I decided to make one."

"Wait, wait, hold up," said Danny, beyond horrified. "You made someone a half ghost? You killed someone?"

"What? No, don't be ridiculous, Daniel. I cloned you."

He pointed at something behind and to the left of Danny, and Danny craned his head back to see a tall, vertical tube full of ectoplasm. Inside floated a boy who looked just like Danny in Phantom form. The boy's eyes were closed, and there were tubes and wires connected to his body.

"That's just as bad. Oh my gosh, Vlad, you can't just clone people! Why didn't you clone yourself?"

Vlad's face twisted like he had just bitten into a lemon. "I had attempted to do so, initially, however, my ectoacne and other instabilities in my makeup precluded me from doing so. Cloning you was my only choice."

"We cured your ectoacne," said Danny.

"Yes. But I had already started this project. It did take time to grow your brother into maturity, Daniel. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, David was unstable."

"David?"

"The name given to him by your other siblings. Do keep up, Daniel."

"Other- You made more clones? Why?"

"I had done some research," said Vlad. "Into how ghosts normal reproduce and stabilize children. I discovered that family members, those ghosts with similar ectosignatures and core properties, play a major role in stabilizing and providing energy to newly formed ghosts. My ectosignature was too different from David's, but I thought that if I could just make one stable clone..." Vlad trailed off, the look in his eyes almost haunted. "I tried everything. A mix of your DNA and ectosignature and mine, extra DNA from your sister, your mother, even your father. Nothing worked!" Vlad threw his hands up, angrily. "They are all more stable, but none of them are completely stable!"

It took Vlad several seconds to calm down, during which Danny put a few more puzzle pieces together.

"Ellie and the others, they're all clones?" That hurt, for some reason. Did they like him at all, or were they only being nice to him because Vlad told them to.

"Yes," said Vlad. "Danielle is the most stable." He smoothed down the front of his lab coat.

"So, you need me to stabilize them. That's why you drugged me?"

"I didn't drug you Daniel. Your collapse was a surprising to me as it was to you. Based on my readings, I can only conclude that your core recognized Danielle, Dustin, Damien, and Dmitri as family, registered their instability, and attempted to rectify it by boosting your ectosignature and sending them energy. Unfortunately, the effort overwhelmed you. You are only a child yourself, and..." Vlad trailed off, almost sheepish, "it is my understanding that they process is usually undertaken by multiple adult family members, and with only one child at a time."

"Great," said Danny. "And you didn't plan for that to happen at all."

"I had believed that you would bond with them more slowly," said Vlad. "That your reaction wouldn't be so extreme."

"Well, it was," said Danny. "But they're stable now, right? So, you can let me go." He tugged against the restraints again. He hoped they were stable. He had heard his parents talk about what happened to destabilized ghosts.

"Sadly," said Vlad, sounding like he was gritting his teeth, "that is an incorrect assumption."

There was a long pause.

"I want to make a deal with you, Daniel," said Vlad.

"You- Are you asking me for help?" Not that Danny could refuse. For one, he was tied up, for another...

"I suppose. For my children. They are children, Daniel, and they will die if they aren't stabilized. Painfully. Perhaps not today, but within the month."

Danny's heart clenched, and his core shivered. Even if Ellie and the others had been tricking him, he didn't want them to die. He would do what Vlad asked, if it stabilized his... cousins.

He was going to go with cousins for now. Siblings felt a little too close at the moment, and 'clones' was sort of dehumanizing. They were the ones who had started it, calling each other cousins.

But even if he was going to cooperate with Vlad, that didn't mean he wasn't going to try to get as many concessions out of Vlad as possible. True, he wasn't going to get very many, Vlad was holding the cards in this game, but he still might be able to get something.

"What kind of deal?" he asked, cautiously.

"You cooperate with stabilizing the cores of my children," said Vlad, "and I will make sure your little town stays safe and protected. Fail to cooperate, and not only will Amity Park be exposed and helpless against any ridiculous poltergeist that comes through your parents' portal, but you will be unconscious. As demonstrated earlier, you do not need to be awake for your core to be at work."

Danny frowned. Apart from the threat (honestly, Vlad was borderline pathological) that was a pretty good deal. Heck, Danny wasn't even supposed to be back in Amity Park until the end of the week.

It was a good deal... too good.

"Exactly how long do you think it'll take, anyway?" he asked. "To stabilize all of them?"

"I don't know, Daniel, this hasn't ever been done before."

Danny scowled. He hated it when Vlad said his name with that supercilious tone of voice. "Fine. How long does it take with ghosts, Vlad? You said you researched it, didn't you?"

"The time varied based on a number of factors," said Vlad.

"It takes a long time, doesn't it?" asked Danny. "I want a cover story. One that doesn't make me disappearing for Ancients know how long my fault. I want to be able to talk to Sam, Tucker, and Jazz whenever I want. And I want to be able to veto anything too invasive or dangerous."

"You're hardly in a position to make demands."

Danny made a shrugging motion, hoping that Vlad wouldn't call his bluff.

"I can do the first," said Vlad, finally, "but if you want it to hold up, the second is impossible. The last is ridiculous. Cooperation means full cooperation, nothing less."

That was about what he had expected. "If I can't communicate with them, they'll just show up here, guns blazing. You know that."

"I think I can handle three human teenagers."

"Sure, but do you want to have to?"

Vlad frowned. "I will consider the merits of your suggestion," he said. "I'm impressed, actually. I didn't think you had it in you, to bargain with lives on the line." Danny swallowed to keep himself from gagging. "But in the meantime, do you agree to cooperate, or no?" He drummed his fingers on something Danny couldn't see.

Between Danny's Obsession, and what were apparently ghostly family bonding instincts, there really wasn't any way for him to say no. "Yes, fine, whatever. I'll cooperate. You can let me out of these things, now." He pulled at the restraints again.

"Oh, no," said Vlad, smiling, then moving out of Danny's line of sight. "Those are for your own protection. You see, your core isn't really mature enough to cope with sustaining five other cores, so we are going to have to significantly supplement your ectoenergy levels."

There was a small click, and the table Danny was on started moving backwards. After a few inches, it angled up, until it was vertical. Danny discovered that there were little platforms under his bare feet, and other supports to keep him upright in his new position. Directly to his left, floated the clone, David, in the glass tube. Danny's core seemed to strain in that direction. His eyelids fluttered.

Vlad walked back over and pulled something with two tubes attached to it from the space over Danny's head. "Open up," he said.

"Why?" asked Danny.

"This is a breathing mask," said Vlad. "It will supply you with oxygen and atomized ectoplasm at three times the levels generally available in the Ghost Zone. But this part," he tapped part of the mask that was fitted with something like a bite guard, "needs to go inside your mouth."

After a moment of hesitation, Danny opened his mouth, and Vlad inserted the breathing mask. Almost at once, Danny could tell the difference. The air coming through was just so much richer.

Vlad pressed the cup of the mask over Danny's mouth and nose and sealed the edges with tape.

"Now," Vlad said, as he began pulling other things from the ceiling and attaching them to Danny, "in a few minutes, I'm going to start giving you instructions. I want you to follow them. Cooperate, do you understand? The first thing I want to do is stabilize David enough that he is no longer dependent on the containment chamber to survive."

Danny was getting a bad feeling. Many of the wires Vlad was attaching to him mirrored wires attached to David. Vlad attached a few more wires, and inserted several needles. Danny tried to hiss at those, but the mask acted as an effective gag. Finally, Vlad inserted two small plugs into Danny's ears and stepped back, half smiling.

As Danny had almost expected, a curved glass barrier sprang from behind him and encircled him, trapping him in a chamber much like the one David occupied. Ectoplasm began to bubble up from below, from a source Danny couldn't see.

"You will be submerged shortly." Vlad's voice rang clear in the earbuds. "This will allow you to intake ectoplasm through your skin. You will also be in the same environment as David."

The ectoplasm hit the soles of Danny's feet, and he flinched. It was rising rapidly.

"Do try not to panic," said Vlad. "Now, I want you to focus on David."

It was at Danny's knees, now. He took a deep breath, reassuring himself that the mask was in place. He wasn't going to drown. He looked over at David. What did it even mean, to focus on him? Danny had no idea what he was like, not really. Like him, he guessed, but not?

"With your ghost sense, Daniel," said Vlad. "Not your eyes."

Danny scowled at him, trying to distract himself from the fact that the ectoplasm was up to his chest. He closed his eyes and tried to do... that. It wasn't something he normally did and had no idea how to go about it but-

Ah. Oh, there it was. There he was, Danny's new friend. That was easier than expected. Danny's core began to purr, some of the euphoria from earlier in the night returning.

The ectoplasm closed over his head.

"Good," said Vlad, his voice slightly warped. "It appears that you have connected. Now, I am going to stimulate and amplify that connection. I want you to stay focused."

Of course Danny would stay focused. He was helping his friend, wasn't he? He always stayed focused when it came to that.

Several of the places Vlad had attached wires began to tingle. His core jumped and he twitched. Everything briefly took on a very severe cast.

It was very hard to think, after that.

Vlad smiled at his readouts. Securing Daniel's cooperation beforehand had been worthwhile. Had he been struggling, it would have been difficult to establish the connection to this extent. David's energy and stability levels were increasing slowly but steadily. Despite the measure he was taking, Daniel's were dropping. Some of the data concerning his human half was less than ideal. That would be troublesome to deal with later on.

He took a moment to check in on his duplicate upstairs. The party was going well. Jack and Maddie hadn't noticed Daniel's absence yet. With luck, they wouldn't until the next morning.

Overall, tonight had been fruitful. With Daniel, he would be able to stabilize all five of the clones, and, perhaps, he would even be able to win over Daniel. He had seen the relaxed smile on his face when he had been with the clones. Vlad knew how powerful ghost instincts could be.

He stood up and walked over to the room where he had asked his children to wait. They should be told that their elder siblings would make a full recovery shortly.

#danny phantom #dannymay #dannymay 2020 #day 24

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sepublic · 4 years

Text

Over-Analyzing Boscha

Given what we’ve seen about Boscha, specifically her mother… And how she ends up coming across as emotionally-clingy and needing, asking if she can join her daughter’s sleepover (while at the same time only learning at the last second and not even remarking on this), I’ve gotta wonder…

This is just speculation, but maybe Boscha’s mother (and potentially father, or other mother) is someone who treats their kid more like an emotional crutch and somebody to take care of them, rather than somebody they’re responsible for. And obviously, this kind of thing has BAD effects on a kid (see my previous analyses). I wonder if Boscha was conditioned from a young age to see emotional openness and vulnerability as a weakness, and very toxic because of how uncomfortable it made her as a child.

Perhaps to her, friends are people you should keep a certain distance from, lest they become clingy, overstep their boundaries, and start weighing you down with insecurities as they become overly-reliant on you. In her opening monologue from Wing it like Witches, Boscha apparently believes this principle applies to fans, since she thinks that being feared and hated is just another sign of success and supposed to be normal.

Given how prior to their falling out, Boscha constantly followed Amity around and seemed to be almost fishing for approval at times… As pointed out to me by @theowlhouseheadcanons, I wonder if Amity was someone she actually admired and look up to, as a guide for how to act; Or at the very least, Boscha looked up to the façade that Amity put up.

From Boscha’s perspective, Amity is cooler than her; Her own parents may have some status, but Amity always talks of her friendship with Boscha as a privilege she’s extending. Amity is the Top Student at Hexside for a reason, and the personal favorite apprentice of Lilith, Head Witch of the Emperor’s Coven! She’s aloof, while keeping people at a distance, and was always better at Grudgby than Boscha.

To Boscha, Amity may have been someone she wanted to emulate; And with the distant, cold way Amity acted around her, always setting boundaries and maintaining a distance between the two, I could see Boscha legitimately thinking that; Oh, this is how friends should act! Because keep in mind, Boscha was basically ‘gifted’ her position as Team Captain, and all the fame that went with it, from Amity; And all because Amity felt bad for injuring her.

Boscha seems very much like the kind of person who doesn’t realize that you can dislike a person, while still treating them with dignity and respect… So if Amity felt bad about injuring her to the point where she quit Grudgby, cold-turkey, at the height of her success? Clearly Boscha means a lot to her! I mean, why else would Amity choose to hang out with her?

Which naturally, this leads to Boscha believing that her and Amity ARE friends… And that Amity’s cold, distant way of regarding her, always keeping each other at a distance while making sure to remind Boscha who’s the dominant one in the group, is how friends should act. Coupled with what I said earlier about Boscha seeing emotional openness as weak and toxic, and I can see Boscha being under the impression that people should be admired from a distance, even by their friends, and that maintaining that kind of distance is important and just a natural thing in a good relationship.

Which, there are differences between setting healthy boundaries, and always keeping ‘friends’ at a distance from you, reminding them of one’s superiority over them, and applying this to fans and admirers as well. What’s worse is that to Boscha, getting injured by Amity may not have been something she held against her; Not just because it was a legitimate accident and Amity even gave up her position as Team Captain to her… But I could also see her legitimately thinking that it’s totally fine to injure your friends to achieve success, and that real friends should let themselves be hurt for the ‘stronger’ of the pair!

Obviously, I can’t see Boscha letting herself get hurt for her other friends, nor do I necessarily think she actually hurt any of them either. Which leads me to my point that Amity, or at least the image she put up, was the only person that Boscha ever actually respected and looked up to for a while (given her lack of reverence for rules and the adults); That she was always content with being second-best because it was to Amity!

Perhaps Boscha regularly followed Amity around, always trying to get her attention and ‘impress’ her, show her how much she was like Amity, while unintentionally being clingy in her own way like her mother. So when Amity, seemingly inexplicably, leaves Boscha behind for Willow… Boscha is now at the top of the friend group, but like with Grudgby it’s only because Amity stepped down.

What’s worse is that Amity did it because she actively rejected Boscha for being a toxic person as well. She’s now at the top, but what does Boscha do with this position, having lost the one person she looked up to, now that they’ve been ‘corrupted’? Having nobody to look to for guidance, when her own parents were unreliable? Especially now that her position at the ‘top’, both in Grudgby and amongst the friend group, is becoming hollow as attentions diverts to Willow…

(Not that I think Boscha’s friends necessarily intended to displace her with Willow, but to someone unhealthily competitive as Boscha it would definitely seem the case.)

Being at the top is already lonely enough as-is, but considering Boscha’s outlook on life and the way she treats people, it’s only going to get worse. I can see her being trapped in a period of confusion, not sure what to think anymore, wanting to hate Amity but also realizing that a lot of the things she knows, she was taught by her; So can she keep operating by these rules still? And so Boscha tries to distract herself from it all by just throwing her entire soul into Grudgby, only to be left in despair when Grudgby Season inevitably ends, regardless of whether or not Boscha becomes THE champion of the sport that year!

To Boscha, she HAS to be the best, because if she’s not, then maybe she’s a loser like her parents… And she has to distance herself from them. Boscha’s parents prioritized themselves over her, so she was taught that to have any real happiness in life, she has to put herself above everybody else at any cost, lest others try and ‘take’ that from her, that she has to keep a tight hold on what she has lest it be jeopardized. Everybody is a selfish enemy trying to encroach on her territory, so Boscha has to defend at any cost!

Obviously, I’m not saying Amity is somehow a bad person, or that she’s necessarily ‘responsible’ for who Boscha is. Amity was distant from Boscha because she was forced to be friends with her and just genuinely did not vibe; Not to mention, she was also internalizing a lot of abuse from her own parents that encouraged Amity to be someone who was cold and closed-off, which when coupled with her loneliness in the situation… It’s no wonder she didn’t really interact with Boscha on a personal level. Really, I just see the situation as being the fault of both girls’ parents, for not being caring enough and leaving their kids confused and trying to navigate one another, and getting the wrong lessons in the process.

Clearly Boscha has some issues of her own, that are of her own choosing and fault; She’s spiteful and petty to a degree that Amity has never been. But ultimately, I think it’s fun considering why she is the way she is, and what her relationship with Amity was like, in the wake of Amity revealing more about herself and thus re-contextualizing a bunch of interactions!

Amity isn’t at fault here, she’s a kid who was forced to hang out with someone she didn’t want to, and it’s not her fault that Boscha got the wrong messages because of abuse from her parents. And if Boscha’s mother was a ‘lonely loser’ who was clingy and toxic to her, then I can see that influencing Boscha’s way of treating Willow and her outlook on lonely people as being ‘desperate’, ‘pathetic’, and deserving to be mistreated for being ‘parasites’.

That they need to be taught to always know their place and maintain a distance from those who matter, lest such ‘losers’ drag them down with them as well. Similarly, I can see her bullying Willow almost as a means of garnering Amity’s approval, because obviously Amity seemed intent on telling Willow to leave her alone; So Boscha would prove her loyalty and helpfulness as a friend, by telling Willow to back off! Amidst her own narrow mindset, it must be incredibly baffling to her for Amity to suddenly be hanging out with Willow and defending her from Boscha, who had always ‘protected’ her!

I don’t know why Boscha’s mother is like this, or if her other parent is complicit as well. But generally speaking, a parent usually doesn’t resort to asking to hang out with their own kid if they aren’t lonely; So I wouldn’t be surprised if Boscha’s other parent is also distant, and responsible for her mother being emotionally needy… Which then causes Boscha’s mother to rely on her own daughter, making Boscha uncomfortable around those kinds of people, and causing a chain of events that result in the messed-up fourteen-year-old we see today!

And again, Amity’s not responsible for Boscha, and she’s still busy trying to heal herself as well and definitely has worse self-loathing issues- Amity has never been truly selfish, mainly doing what her parents want; Which of course, she confuses as being what she wants as well. Obviously I don’t want to compare abuse, but at the same time it has to be acknowledged that Amity REALLY needs to prioritize herself and the friends she’s actually chosen for once.

Amity is NOT a hypocrite for calling out Boscha on her bad behavior and indicating she’s more mature than her, especially since she’s never been an active bully and already made clear that Willow is to be respected. She’s still unlearning the abuse from her parents that makes Amity believe that kids like her are supposed to ‘be mature’ at an early age. She never planned to be Boscha’s friend, and Boscha was clearly more interested in the façade she put up; And even then, the image that Boscha had in mind wasn’t entirely accurate to Amity’s façade either!

Boscha’s idea of what Amity was supposed to be like no doubt contributed to the pressure Amity had to be someone she wasn’t. It’s best for both girls that they separated, honestly- So that Amity can finally be free to make her own friends and not be beholden to someone she was forced to be with, and so Boscha can stop using Amity’s fake self as an unhealthy standard to follow, stop participating in a one-sided and unhealthy ‘friendship’, recognize where she’s messed up, respect others’ boundaries, and hopefully become kinder to others.

Maybe then, Boscha will stop almost projecting her insecurities and needs onto Amity, looking to her almost as someone to depend and rely on, without considering who Amity ACTUALLY is and what she truly wants; Because Amity isn’t some stoic emotional crutch, she’s still a kid with her own insecurities and needs, just like Boshca. Boscha can perhaps stop looking at Amity for who Boscha wants her to be…

…You know, the way her mother treats Boscha herself.

#the owl house #owl house #the owl house boscha #the owl house amity #amity blight #speculation #character analysis

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damianwaynerocks · 4 years

Text

Ghosts in Gotham

Danny Phantom / DC Comics fanfic

Dedicated to: @dannyphantom-justiceleauge

Summary: The Batfamily has been through their fair share of the supernatural. That’s why they originally weren’t worried whenever ghosts started showing up in Gotham City. Until one day, something happens; Batman is captured and taken into the Ghost Zone. With no way to go in there themselves, the no way to fight the ghosts inside, the bats decide to call the person who can; Danny Phantom. Together, Danny takes Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown and Damian Wayne into the Ghost Zone before the Batman is lost forever.

Words: 2032

ch 2 Masterlist

Chapter 1:

Every city had its hero.

Gotham City? Batman. Metropolis? Superman. Central City? The Flash.

Amity Park? Danny Phantom.

Amity Park had mixed feelings about Phantom. Some said he was a helper, a true hero, keeping the town safe. Others said he was a criminal, doing nothing but wreaking havoc on the town. Either way, Phantom was known for one specific thing; fighting ghosts.

Which is what he was doing at the moment.

"I am!! The Box Ghost!!" a short, stocky ghost shouted. His eyes glowed blue and an aura of the same color surrounded the boxes crowding the back of a movie theater. "Beware!" he raised his arms and hurled three boxes at a figure who easily dodged.

"Come on, Box Ghost," a teenage boy with white hair and green eyes floating above the ground groaned. "I don't have time for this! I have to order the new Cheese Viking game before it sells out!"

"Beware!" The Box Ghost shouted again, throwing more boxes at the boy.

Danny Phantom rolled his eyes as his body became intangible, the boxes easily passing through it. He raised his arm, and a blast of bright green energy shot from his palm, hitting the Box Ghost square in the chest. The Box Ghost, with a grunt, was blown back into the brick wall of the movie theater.

Not wasting any time, Danny grabbed the thermos that he had strapped to his back and pointed it at the other ghost. In a flash of light, the Box Ghost was sucked into the thermos.

"Finally," Danny muttered as he took off into the sky.

Danny Phantom, his real name being Danny Fenton, was a sixteen-year-old halfa, or a ghost-human hybrid. He could switch between ghost and human form at will. He'd gotten his powers from an accident with the Ghost Portal, a portal in his home that was a bridge between the human world and the Ghost Zone, where every ghost resides.

Ghosts repeatedly escaped the Ghost Zone through this portal for one of three reasons; to wreak havoc on the human world, to kill Danny or both. Usually, it was the latter.

Danny returned to his house, passing through the walls of the building with intangibility and landing in the lab. He switched back to his human form in a flash of light, changing his hair color from white to black and his eyes from green to blue.

His family was made up of ghost hunters- aside from his sister -so they had an entire lab dedicated to ghost technology.

"Back you go, Boxy," Danny said as he released the Box Ghost into the portal. "Finally," he sighed, "Time to get Cheese Viking."

"No!" he shouted five minutes later at his computer. The new Cheese Viking, Danny's favorite game, had sold out.

"Danny!" a large man in an orange jumpsuit burst into the boy's room. "Are you okay!? Are you hurt!?"

"No, Dad, I'm fine," Danny replied to his father, Jack Fenton. "Except for that stupid Box Ghost making me too late to get Cheese Viking!"

He hadn't told his parents about his life as Phantom until he was fifteen. Well, it wasn't Danny who told them. His sister found him in his room passed out with a gaping hole in his side, and she had to tell their parents so they could help him.

Jack paused. "But.. you got him?" he asked cheerily. Danny smiled.

"Yeah. I got him." Jack slapped him on the back.

"Thatta boy!" he said with a grin. "Come on, Jazz got a letter from Wayne Enterprises and your mom wants the whole family to watch her open it!"

Jazz, Danny's sister, had just graduated high school and had applied for an internship at Wayne Enterprises, one of the largest businesses in the world. An internship there would kick-start her career in marketing. That was the reason she claimed, but Danny was sure that part of the reason was that Bruce Wayne, the billionaire who owned Wayne Enterprises, was cute.

"Finally!" Jazz, a girl with long red hair and a blue headband huffed. "I haven't been able to look for three hours! What were you out doing?"

"Uh, my job?" Danny smirked as he hopped over the back of the couch to sit on it. Jazz rolled her eyes.

"Open it, dear!" Their mom, Maddie Fenton, urged. Jazz grinned widely, opening the letter. Her smile grew, and she jumped up and down.

"I got it!" she squealed. "I got it!! I got the internship!!"

"That's great, Jazz!" the other three Fentons exclaimed at once. Jazz seemed to get even more excited as she continued reading the letter.

"And," she continued excitedly, "All the interns are expected to attend the next Wayne Gala with their families! All expenses paid!"

"Yes!" Jack cried. "We're going to New Jersey, baby!" As the entire family celebrated, Danny couldn't help but be suspicious. Jazz had applied late and while she was smart, she wouldn't have been anything special next to the other applicants.

Something was up. _

"So what, you think she only got accepted because of you?" A girl with short black hair raised an eyebrow as they walked through the halls of their high school. "Why, exactly?"

"Because, Sam," Danny responded to his girlfriend. "It's weird. I was looking at the Infi-map, and there's a portal to the Ghost Zone in Gotham that wasn't there a month ago. And get this? It's five miles away from Wayne Manor.”

"You think Bruce Wayne wants you out of the way for some plan?

"It wouldn't be the first time somebody did."

"But how would he even know who you are?" Sam Manson asked, "I mean, there's no way he knows that you're Phantom."

"Um, because he's Batman?" An African American boy walking beside them scoffed as though it was obvious. "Batman knows everything."

Danny and Sam laughed. "Tucker, seriously?" Danny shook his head in disbelief. "That conspiracy? Batman and Bruce Wayne have been seen at the same time in the same place multiple times.”

"Okay, well, you can clone yourself! Who's to say Batman can't? Or maybe it's a hologram! Or maybe it's one of his thousand children in the suit!" Tucker Foley counted on his fingers as he rattled off the various theories. His eyes widened, and he grabbed Danny's shoulders. "Dude, you have to get proof."

"There's no way I'd be able to get close enough to Bruce Wayne to prove anything."

"Then trick him!" Tucker said, his eyes bright. "Most of Bruce's adopted kids are boys with black hair and blue eyes! Just say you're an orphan and I bet he'll be like 'Of course you can stay, I am always down for more children."

"Okay, first of all," Danny began, adjusting his backpack on his shoulder and prying his friends arms off of him. “His son Damian? That kid scares me, he gives off Dash vibes. Did you see how he made that interviewer cry?"

A few months prior, a video had surfaced that showed Damian Wayne insulting a girl who was trying to give him an interview. The two-minute video ended with the girl crying.

"And second of all-" Danny was cut off as he was shoved to the ground. He looked up to see Dash Baxter, a muscular boy with blonde hair.

"Watch where you're going, Fen-freak," Dash sneered, "Before I shove your puny face into a locker!"

Danny gritted his teeth as he sat up. Dash had been picking on him from the beginning of high school. Two years later, he hadn't stopped.

On any other occasion, Danny would have said something in response, but Dash had already continued down the hall.

"Why can't you just zap him or something?" Tucker grumbled. "He's the worst!"

"Yeah, I know," Danny stood up, wiping dust off of his shirt. "But I can't. It isn't right."

"Your moral code is dumb," his friend snapped back.

"If you're going to Gotham," said Sam with a pointed look at Tucker. "Who's gonna be here to help with the ghosts?"

"I've got it covered," Danny replied swiftly, looking up. "Dani's coming down. It'll be fine. I have to keep Jazz safe, and figure out what Brucie Wayne is up to."

"I am sure Father would have a better plan than to invite some under-qualified intern to the Manor."

A seventeen-year-old boy with spiky black hair rolled his eyes. "Damian, she isn't under-qualified. She meets all of the qualifications for the internship."

The first boy, an Arab thirteen-year-old with the same spiky hair and bright green eyes, scoffed. "There is no way a person from some backwater town would have received the internship if we hadn't needed her brother."

Tim Drake and Damian Wayne, the youngest children of Bruce Wayne. Damian currently held the Robin mantle, while Tim used Red Robin. The brothers were in a large cave decked out with a plethora of high-tech equipment.

"Okay, but you think every place outside of Gotham is a backwater town." Tim pointed out as he swiveled his chair to face a massive computer.

"Amity Park is a backwater town. The citizens there are animals," Damian retorted, crossing his arms. "You just cannot see that because you are also a backwater type."

Tim laughed as he realized what the younger boy was basing his opinion on. "Damian, please tell me you haven't generalized an entire city just because of one tourist from Amity Park ran into you and spilled soda on your shirt."

"It was my favorite shirt! And that cretin did not even apologize!" Damian spat. "The nerve!"

"Okay, well, put aside your dumb grudge and think about the objective," Tim responded. "I think, if you look within that thing you call a soul, you can see that letting one intern that you think is under-qualified is worth getting Bruce back."

"Tt. I suppose," Damian admitted begrudgingly. "If this Danny Phantom character truly has the potential to save Father."

"He's the only one who can." Tim reminded him. "We can't get into the Ghost Zone without a ghost, and I don't think any of the ones we've seen so far would be willing to help," He paused. "Plus, don't the Fentons make ghost hunting gear? Who knows, maybe they have a ghost sword."

After a sudden wave of ghost attacks in Gotham, Bruce had poured in countless hours of research to find out as much as he could about ghosts. He had discovered that they came from another dimension and that there was one person who was an expert at fighting them; Danny Phantom of Amity Park. It didn't take very long for him to uncover Phantom's true identity.

"Tim! Dames!" a voice shouted. "My boys!" Tim and Damian looked towards the stairs and saw a taller man with black hair and blue eyes jump the railing of said stairs, landing in the Bat Cave.This was their oldest brother, Dick Grayson, also known as Nightwing. He grinned brightly. "How's it going?"

"Making sure that we have every possible outcome of this mission prepared for." Tim replied as he continued typing on the Bat Computer. Damian nodded.

“Yes, and so I have decided that I shall accompany them on this journey."

"Damian, no." his older brothers said at the same time. Damian scowled.

"Why not? I am plenty capable of-

"Because people would get suspicious if Batman suddenly didn't have a Robin," Dick answered, strolling towards the younger boy. "That's why Jason, Tim, and Stephanie are going. They won't be missed," He gave Tim a nervous look. "No offense."

"None taken," Tim replied, waving his hand. "Sorry Damian, you'd just get in the way."

"But I have died before!" Damian huffed, his hands clenching into fists. "That combined with my skills- which are far greater than yours, Drake, I might add -makes me much more qualified than you."

"Little D, dude, I just told you," Dick ruffled his younger brother's hair. "It'll be suspicious if you're gone. And besides, I need you. We're a great team."

"But my father is in there-"

"Master Damian-" their butler, Alfred Pennyworth, interrupted the trio's squabbling. "You won't be going anywhere until your homework is done."

"Homework? Finding my father is much more important than an essay on why the Roman empire fe-"

"Master Damian." Alfred repeated in a low tone. "Now."

Damian scowled as he trudged up the stairs. It didn't matter how tough the person was. When Alfred told you to do something, you do it. "I will be going with you, Drake!" he called behind his shoulder. "I promise you that!"

Dick and Tim exchanged a glance and rolled their eyes.

"Children."

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ecto-american · 4 years

Text

Le Freak

Phic Phight Oneshot for @phantomroyalty : Natural born halfas (EX a child with one ghost parent and one human parent) used to be common place. Now they are all gone. What happened to them?

It’s been a rough day lads, and this is purely self-indulgent nonsensical headcanon stuff that I wrote while partly crying over stress! Thus, fun fact for you! You can’t critique or criticize this because if you do, I absolutely will cry again! I know it sucks, it jumps around and makes Zero Sense bc editing? idk her but I just need to be able to post my fun shit and have a good time :’) I’ll even put literally everything under the cut

Word Count: 1814

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“Cas?”

Danny looked up from his phone to glance at his mom before his eyes shifted to see who she was referring to. A dark skinned man about his mom’s height with black hair to his shoulders, in jeans and a dark yellow t-shirt was standing with a grocery cart. The man looked around confused for a moment before turning to his mom. Once facing her, he shot her a bright smile.

“Aye, Mads,” he called out cheerfully.

“Oh, I haven’t seen you since college!” Maddie exclaimed, and Danny internally groaned. He returned his attention back to his phone, continuing to lean onto the grocery cart. He began to text his friends about the interruption. “I can’t believe you came to Amity Park and didn’t tell me!”

He heard his mom continuing to chat. His name soon came up, and he glanced up.

“This is my son, Danny.”

Cas was giving him a bright smile. Danny gave a polite half smile in return, only to freeze as ghost sense went off. He noticed at the end of the isle, a young adult turning the corner, in his early twenties with very long, light blonde hair. Super long, especially for a guy. Jean jacket and dark washed jeans, a regular black band t-shirt. Very ordinary.

“Dad, they don’t have any salt,” he complained, but he paused upon seeing the conversation.

“Oh, uh, this is my son, Peter,” Cas introduced briefly, and his entire demeanor shifted. Danny couldn’t help but completely forget the texting conversation. This dude was suddenly...so nervous. “Peter, this is Maddie. We went to college together.”

Peter didn’t come any closer to them. He gave a light, polite wave from afar, and Danny knew that he was staring at his mom...almost nervously.

“I’m terribly sorry, but we need to get going,” Cas apologized. He pulled the grocery cart with him as he stepped towards his son. “Busy schedule. It was good seeing you!”

“Oh you too!” Maddie was cheerful, seemingly oblivious to the others. The father son duo left the isle, and out of sight. Danny watched after them.

“Where’d you know him from?” Danny wondered. He glanced to see Maddie putting some boxed dinners into their cart.

“Cas? He was an old classmate of your dad and I. Before Vlad, he worked on the portal with us, but ended up dropping out to care for his son, but I’m so glad to hear that he eventually went back and finished. He was always a very smart man,” Maddie replied. She glanced at the list in her hand. “We don’t have much more to get. Let’s try to get done before the rush really comes in.”

123456789

“Phantom,” a voice called out to him. Danny glanced over to see Peter standing nearby. The halfa shot him a smile, capping his thermos and a light salute. Though inside he was a bit shaky. Was he really just? Watching that entire fight?

“Hello, citizen!” Danny put on his public hero voice. He paused, half turning away as he prepared to leave. “Well uh, ghost’s contained. I’ll see you around!”

“No!” Peter’s harsh, desperate plea caught him off guard. “Please. We need to talk. I know your secret.” Danny’s blood ran cold.

“What secret?” Danny asked quickly. “There’s no secret. I’m a ghost, what secret could I have?”

Peter’s look, that absolute knowing, scared Danny. Despite it, he didn’t seem malicious like he had feared.

“You can’t run, because I really, really actually need your help,” Peter asked. “I know you’re half ghost.” He hurriedly added at Danny’s panicked look, “But I don’t know who your human half is! I don’t care who either, I just really need to know how you’re so stable.”

The entire statement caught Danny absolutely off guard. Peter wasn’t giving off any kind of vibe like he was with the Guys in White, nor that he was going to hurt him. He couldn’t even sense anybody else around, and he had been fighting in the area long enough to have already set off booby traps if they existed. And his ghost sense...had gone off around him sporadically.

“What do you mean?” Danny asked. Peter’s lower lip trembled.

“I’m half ghost too,” he claimed. Danny stared, his heart stopping. “But I can’t...it’s literally killing me.”

“I don’t believe you,” he whispered. Peter motioned for him to move back a bit. Danny did.

There were no familiar rings or flash of light that always signaled his transformation. A dark shadow seemed to overwhelm the other, and left behind a figure that was unmistakably ghostly. Electric blue skin that was forever crackling with purple energy with matching purple eyes, the once blond hair now pitch black and floating around him softly. His outfit didn’t change, but Danny’s ghost sense did go off.

Peter held his hand up, and a purple dome shield came up. An ectoplasmic dome shield. He didn’t know how to feel at this revelation. Danny could only stare in awe at the other. There was more like him. It wasn’t just him and Vlad and Dani. They weren’t alone, there were oth-

The newly exposed halfa doubled over with a groan of pain. The shield quickly melted away, and Danny tensed up. He took a step forward.

“D-Don’t!” Peter’s voice gurgled, and Danny stopped. The newly discovered halfa fell to his knees and knees, and he threw up as his ghostly form melted away. As the form melted away, Danny could feel the air being filled with a rush of electricity and static before it finally faded.

“...Are you okay?” Danny called out.

“Yeah, that’s normal,” Peter wheezed, wiping his mouth as he stood back up, wiping his knees of dirt and gravel. “My ghost powers are super unstable. I can’t…not without...” He paused before glancing up at Danny. “Did you ever have a time where you were struggling to get your powers to work?”

“Yeah,” the teen nodded.

“I’m the opposite. I have to force myself to turn it off, and it takes so much energy, and every time I just try to utilize a little bit of power, it’s this…” Peter trailed off. “It’s overwhelming. And it hurts. And I can’t just bottle it up forever. If I don’t let it lose sometimes...it’s not pretty. I try to do it in isolated areas. Just let the excess energy out.”

Danny could only imagine the kind of destruction. If he had to guess, based on the electricity in the air, this guy had some kind of electric core.

“How’d you...know about me anyway?” Danny changed the subject.

“I didn’t put puzzle pieces together, if that’s your concern,” Peter assured him. “The other halfa told me.” Danny’s eyes widened. “It’s why my dad and I came to Amity Park. We’ve been looking for a halfa to help us, or uh, rather help me.”

“Wait Vlad told you!?” he blurted out. What the fuck, cheesehead!? Oh, when Danny found him, he was gonna.

“No?” Peter’s puzzled tone snapped him out of his anger. “There’s...more than just us three left?” Danny’s undead heart skipped a beat.

“Five,” Danny replied. “Who’s this other halfa?”

Peter stared somberly at him, glancing at his feet briefly as he toed with some of the rubble.

“...I don’t know his human name. I purposefully didn’t ask,” Peter told him. “I originally asked him to help me, but he’s in a terrible spot and needed help of his own, help we couldn’t give. Not without getting ourselves in worse trouble. He said you were a halfa though. It had to be worth a shot. There’s not many of us left anymore.”

“How’d you even become half-ghost?” Danny asked curiously. Peter cocked his head in confusion.

“I was? Born this way? Ghost mom, human dad?” he said slowly. He studied Danny curiously, and it seemed to click. “Wait were you not born half ghost?”

“You were born this way?” Danny asked back. His mind was going crazy. You could be born a half-ghost? That was possible? How come his parents never knew that? This would definitely explain why his dad seemingly dropped the Fentons as a friend... “Wait, many of us left?”

Peter’s face told him nearly everything. Something happened. Something bad. The other cleared his throat.

“Um...yeah,” he said quietly. “It’s kind of a long story. I don’t know all the details, cause I was kinda young, but basically...there was a lot of us. We had our own little section of the Ghost Zone. Do you know how the Bermuda Triangle is a giant natural ghost portal?” Danny nodded in confirmation. “There’s a section of the Ghost Zone near where it spawns most often that we used to inhabit, because of all the otherworldly crossing. Well, we were there. Before the Guys in White found out about us, and they came, and.”

His breath hitched. Danny felt sick. The Guys in White...knew. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. They not only knew, but did this...oh fuck then that meant that there was a chance that they knew about him, and Vlad, and…..oh no.

“My dad said I nearly died too,” Peter continued. “One of the full ghosts saved me, smuggled me out. And my mom’s a doctor and was able to save me, but I was in a coma for like two months. Some made it out alive too. The unlucky ones…”

“...Died?” Danny guessed quietly. Peter let out a breathless chuckle.

“No. They’re lucky if the GIW just killed them,” he replied flatly. “It’s honestly terrible. I don’t think you wanna know.” Peter was right; Danny didn’t want to know. It was Peter’s turn to be curious. “So...you weren’t born this way? Right? So how…”

“I was in an accident,” Danny kept it simple. Peter raised an eyebrow.

“Must be one hell of an accident,” he commented. Danny chuckled nervously. Peter sighed heavily. “So, I still don’t know if you can actually help my stabilization issue…cause of the differences…”

“I’ll do what I can!” Danny blurted out. Peter’s face brightened. “Please. I’d love to know more about halfas. We can compare stuff.” The young adult let out a sigh of relief.

“Come to my house tonight, my parents can tell you everything they know,” Peter agreed. He reached into his pocket to pull out the familiar small notebook. He ripped a page out, jotting down an address Danny already knew. “Just...come alone.”

Danny nodded, holding his hand out for the paper. Peter gave it to him, and despite the other powering down, Danny still felt a bit of an electric shock as they grazed hands.

“I’ll see you then,” Danny promised.

Grasping the note, he waved a goodbye, and he flew out. He had so much to tell Jazz.

#my phics #phics #phic phight #team ghost #idek if i'm gonna put this on ffn or ao3 bc it's just self indulgent and i jsut need to write my ocs and stuff bc im gonna die one day #hopefully soon

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sapphireswimming · 4 years

Note

11?

thanks for the fanfic day ask!

11. What’s a fanfic idea you haven’t done yet?

I posted a screenshot of my wip file here but to dig a little deeper into some of those Danny Phantom documents, I haven’t yet done:

AU where ghosts looks like humans outside of the Ghost Zone and Jazz stumbles upon a full ghost Danny trying to hide in an alleyway one night, and convinces him to come home with her since he doesn’t have anywhere else to go. He has to survive living with the Fentons and meeting the few people Jazz regularly brings over to the house - her unlikely friend Spike, Sam and her best friend Tucker, the football players she tutors, and Valerie who is honestly just there for the tech after her father loses his job because of ghosts

Fully human Dance AU that had super fleshed fleshed notes for a multi chaptered fic (and I did actually do some art for it while I was still working at the dance studio but I’m not sure all of it got uploaded to tumblr?)

Fic where the Fentons rescue a nearly-unconscious Dani from a ghost attack, bring her home, and then she has to deal with waking up with the over-enthusiastic Fentons hovering over her when waking up because sure they’re friendly now while they think she’s human but she doesn’t trust how long this will last

15 pages of 100 word drabble wips

Fic about the ramifications of people dying in Amity Park after the Accident, and the increasing number of ghosts that people recognize coming out of the GZ

10 pages of alternating scenes about the Fenton Family relationships from Jack and Vlad’s perspective in a weird sort of Father’s (and Not Father’s) Day fic

plot bunny adapted from jeanette9a: Danny runs away when he first gets his ghost powers. He and Vlad have never met. But Vlad finds Danny lurking around in the forest around his castle. When he happens to observe the boys struggles with his powers, he decides to help Danny. But after a while it's time for the reunion. And that turned out to be a sticky situation when your step dad wants you to kill your own dad. What would you do?

French Future Fic (FFF) - 20 pages of notes for what would be my long chaptered fic. Where Danny accidentally kills Sam via friendly fire in a fight with Vlad and, devastated, runs away to another continent, refusing to contact friends or family for years as he tries to put the ghost stuff behind him. But it doesn’t work because ghosts are everywhere. And Tucker, who has never given up on trying to catch up with Danny, joined a branch of the GIW and ends up developing tech and trying to train a better generation of agents. When he finally meets up with Danny, he convinces him not only to not run again, but to come see what he makes of the new recruits. Which ends up with Danny working as an unofficial all-knowing consultant for the new team while trying to repair his relationship with Tucker and stay out of the GIW’s clutches

A few more Gray Ghost Week prompts which were going to be more in the Nerves (Ghost Hunting Camp AU) and For the Sake of the Song (1920s Superphantom crossover) universes, plus a Hunger Games AU where Valerie knows she shot Danny, she knows she did, but instead of crumpling to the ground to the sound of a cannon, he turns, locks eyes with her, and starts running her way -

58 pages of ideas that haven’t gotten expanded out enough to get their own docs yet

Move-In Security of Amity Park (or MISAP), a new city program courtesy of Mayor Foley. Outside pov, Post PP.

Belated bday fic about Valerie and her fractured relationship with the A Listers (beginning of the wip posted here)

Alex Rider crossover where they become international pen pals for a school project and wonder if they can vaguely vent about some of their respective problems to each other without spilling secrets only to realize that they may both be dealing with some truly awfully ridiculous stuff (wait so you’ve been nearly killed several times by the guy who wants to adopt you as his son?? me too???)

40 pages of more ideas for Apricity, probably including enough complete sentence-stories to post more chapters (note to self...)

14 pages of ideas for “short” things that wanted to grow longer than I had capacity for at the time, apparently

Fic where Danny is battling Spectra in Fenton form, the Fentons barge in to save him, and Spectra realizes just how much misery she could feed off of if she targets them instead to the point that they’ll only get out alive if Danny outs himself by using his powers

6k worth of notes of a 1920s Swing AU superphantom crossover of epic proportions co-created with Chynna (I don’t know what your username is these days ahaha)

Fic where Danny was being held prisoner in some abandoned ghost-proofed warehouse? And gets rescued by a teenager who has absolutely no clue what is going on but has to follow the orders of a half starved kid talking about ghosts in order to get them both out of there before it’s too late

Danny in a hospital because his ghost half is killing him and no one can figure out why

AU where Maddie worries about Jazz who sounds like she’s having full blown conversations with her dead brother when she thinks no one else is around to hear

Ambitious idea I don’t feel up to writing exploring a Danny who hates the fact that after his growth spurt he starts to look and sound like Dan. To the point that he takes down the mirror in his room and stops talking unless absolutely necessary. Sam and Tucker, of course, understand, but no one else does.

Plus some oneshots I wanted to expand into full fics (Nerves, Who I am, Introuvable, etc). And the few chaptered fics that haven’t been updated in a while because I haven’t written anything in a while whoops (Teenage Ghost Punk, Footballer’s Wife, UltraViolet)

Plus the other, you know, 50 documents of superphantom and other fandom wips that I wish I wish I wish I could write haha

#avearia #ave aria #i deep dove into the dp section of my wip files #and found a couple hundred pages of stuff #some of which I had not opened since literally 2011 #theoretically i would still like to do all of them #however will i manage to do even one? unsure #ahahahaha but man yeah i have a lot of fics I want to write #danny phantom #mine #ss #replies #ave-aria

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elizabethemerald · 4 years

Text

Personal, fandom rant.

There’s something that I, as an older trans person in fandom, have always found just a little exhausting. And its when folks in the fandom take a character whose parents are fundamentally awful and say this character is trans. Like this person’s parent is one of the worst people in the world or in some case a literal fascist, they are solely focused on global conquest or whatever but are still supportive of their child’s transition. Especially when there are so many characters from home situations where they might actually have been able to transition. And I get that not everyone has good supportive parents, and I just wish people would make that the story!

I can think of so many examples from all of the different fandoms I’m in. In ATLA it’s Zuko or Azula. Firelord Ozai is perfectly willing to murder his own children from the throne, maims one of them and is willing to attempt genocide against an entire continent. But Zuko is a trans man, or Azula is a transwoman. what? An megolomanic, murderer who banned homosexuality is going to be supportive enough of his children’s gender identity to support Zuko transitioning? When that same guy maimed and banished Zuko for...*looks at notes* speaking out of turn?

Why not make basically any of the other characters trans? Aang, grew up among the air nomads, maybe their culture is ultra loose with gender roles. Have Sokka or Katara be trans, water is the element of Change, I’m sure their tribe would have been supportive of that. Have Jet and the Freedom Fighters all be trans. Jet said I’m not a girl, I’m a boy, and I’m a boy who is going to kill some fire benders.

Or if you want them to be trans, if you look up to those characters and want them to be like you, why not make the transition happen later? Not everyone is able to transition prior to puperty, and then passes perfectly after. Have Toph decide she doesn’t give a shit about gender after leaving her restrictive parents and identify as agender. Have part of Zuko’s internal struggle prior to confronting his father be about his gender identity. And when he joins the Gaang and becomes friends with Katara he asks her about dresses or something like that, and then part of his journey as firelord is transitioning the Fire Nation to post war, post fascist nation and transition himself socially and/or medically.

In the TOA fandom: Trans!Steve, ok, Steve’s verbally and emotionally (and proberly physically) abusive dad who taught him nothing but toxic masculinity is ok with his child being a trans man? what? Especially when you have Jim, whose mom is supportive and tries to do her best for him, who could be a trans man. Or you could have Steve transitioning to Stephany after the events of TOA, or Toby exploring his gender identity with all of the trans people around him.

In the TOH fandom: Amity, Emera, and Edric Blight. I love those kids. But their ultra controlling parents who say they aren’t allowed to play with witches who are not powerful casters are going to be super supportive of their kids transition? what? And on the other side, you have Luz, her mom loves and supports her, even if she doesn’t understand her. Maybe her mom is afraid that her transition is one more thing that is going to make her not fit in. Or you have Willow, who canonically has two queer dads, and that would be one more reason why the blights didn’t want Amity to associate with her.

I want to emphasize I don’t hate these headcanons. I don’t hate the people who come up with them. I’ve written a few myself. Its just exhausting. I know every trans person wants the narrative that no matter how bad a person is, they will still let you transition, but that just not how the world works.

Now this bit is a little personal, but this is why I’m so exhausted by this. I grew up in a religious family. My dad was a children’s paster at my church. He would use my siblings and I as lesson points during his sermons all the time, which never failed to be humilating. I was in the Boy Scouts in highschool and I’m an Eagle Scout now. I had a lot of friends through both organizations.

I didn’t even know being transgender was an option until I was 23. I spent years being tricked into thinking I was a pervert or there was something wrong with me because of how I felt. When I came out, my dad explicitly forbade me from interacting with the Boy Scout troop I had grown up with. All my friends from church disappeared in a matter of weeks. I haven’t talked to anyone from my troop in literally years.

Because I was so late to my transition, I’m well over six feet tall, I have broad shoulders and a deep voice. I struggle to find clothes that fit, shoes my size don’t exist in the women’s section, and I will never be able to fully pass.

But I’m still trans. I am finding new ways to love my body every day. I have changed my name, and now most of my current friends don’t even know my dead name. I rarely talk to my father.

I wish people would tell stories like this. Tell stories like mine. Create headcanons that match my story. Because can you imagine how pretty Zuko, or Steve would be when they transition in twenties? They would make the most beautiful young women.

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itsclydebitches · 4 years

Text

RWBY Recaps: “Pomp and Circumstance”

Welcome back, welcome back. I managed to miss last week’s title/summary leak, which for any other show would have been a blessing. With RWBY though I find myself not minding---even hoping for---spoilers, just so I won’t be quite so blindsided by things when I actually watch them. It’s a topsy-turvy world.

We’ll get to that in a bit though. For now, we open on the new Amity Arena immediately flying over the Schnee dust mine. I’m talking the group has barely made it back out into the sun before Ironwood’s men are arriving and setting up base. That’s some real eagerness to get the ball rolling. Funny how Ironwood’s entire plan is doomed to failure and eight of the people helping him to complete it haven’t mentioned that yet...

We get a shot of the Ace Ops triumphantly emerging with Qrow and RWBYJNR positively geeking out over how fantastic their take-down of the geist was. It was admittedly a great battle. The best scene I think we’ve had in a while. Sadly, that charm didn’t carry over into this episode.

As the gang gushes over how fantastic they were Clover explains that it all comes down to the makeup of their team. They were specifically chosen to compliment one another and make up for any liabilities they might bring. Forethought like this brings back the age-old question of whether Ozpin’s own teams are as random as they appear. Does he really leave it to chance, who you first run into and what relic you happen to pick? Or was he subtly pulling the strings in order to ensure that complimentary teammates ended up together? Even if they don’t realize they’re complimentary at first. Ruby and Weiss are a perfect example of that.

It’s a question we may never have answered. Especially as the Ozpin hate just keeps piling on and on. Before that though we’re given a ton of humor. Nora, continuing her role as comic relief, slides up to Elm and asks if she needs a new best friend. Their team name could be

I’d watch it.

More pressingly though, talk of team compositions and pairing up leads to a comment from Harriet that we need to unpack. Bear with me for a moment though because there’s something else I want to tackle first. It’ll connect back in a moment. Basically, I want to address my frustration last recap that Oscar was left behind with no explanation and the assertion by others that this was a ‘show don’t tell’ moment. It wasn’t. Providing your audience with no reasoning behind a decision is not the same thing as providing a visual explanation as opposed to a verbal one. On some level the choice to leave Oscar behind functions like an argument and I see this a lot in paper writing:

Student: This ad is really sexist

Me: And...? Why?

Student: I mean it’s obvious? All the women are wearing skimpy clothes and that one guy calls her a ‘bitch.’

Me: Perhaps obvious to you, but we can’t rely on the reader picking up on the same details and interpreting them in the same way. So you need to include that as evidence. In addition, you need to consider potential counter claims. What if I said some women choose to wear skimpy clothing because they feel empowered by it and that my friends often call me a ‘bitch’ as a silly endearment? How do we undermine those arguments in the context of your ad so you can more solidly prove that it’s still sexist?

Student: Hmm

vs.

Yang: We didn’t bring Oscar with us

Me: And...? Why?

Yang: I mean it’s obvious? He’s not ready for this fight yet.

Me: Perhaps obvious to you, but you can’t just bank on the viewer coming to that same conclusion. You also need to consider potential counter arguments. What if I pointed out that Oscar fought just as well as you during the premiere battle and that there’s now a history of you excluding him from every event you possibly can? How do you then undermine those points to prove that a) he really isn’t ready yet and b) that you actually left him behind because of his skill and not because you’re all still pissed at Ozpin?

Yang: Hmm

That was not a ‘show don’t tell’ moment. That was no tell combined with no show. A ‘show don’t tell’ would have been Yang going, “I don’t feel so bad now that we left Oscar behind” and then cutting to Oscar training with Ironwood, showing us that he needs to improve his skills as opposed to Yang just telling us, ‘He’s not ready yet.’ But we got neither.

I bring this up a full episode later because here, in “Pomp and Circumstance” we’re given another shining example of precisely how bad RT’s ‘show don’t tell’ skills are. The Ace Ops. What are we shown? A group that is incredibly close with one another. They’re capable of anticipating each other’s moves and are able to follow directions with little to no prompting. They’re constantly joking, teasing, goofing off in a way that implies real intimacy. Clover proclaims, “What would you do without me?” demonstrating a familiarity that allows him to exude both confidence and playfulness. They’re close enough that he needn’t maintain the persona of their boss; close enough that he can play the part of their hero without anyone taking offense. In short, they act precisely like Team RWBYJNR.

Now, what are we told by Harriet?

“We’re not friends... that’s the job. We don’t confuse the two.”

Excuse me?

There has been nothing---NOTHING---in the last two episodes to imply that this team functions solely as a work group. Based on what we’ve been shown the idea that they’re not friends is laughable. What the audience sees and what the audience is told by a character do not match up. Kind of like how we’re told throughout the entirety of Volume Six that the group is heroic when we’re shown them repeating the actions of the villains. Kind of like how Qrow tells us that Ruby is different from Ozpin even as we’re shown her making the exact same choices. Here, we’re told that the Ace Ops aren’t friends yet shown that they clearly are and this disconnect functions solely as a means of---again---highlighting how special RWBYJNR supposedly is. Because we get a long shot of how devastated that mindset makes them

and then Ruby immediately rejecting the idea that you need to maintain a purely professional relationship in order to be a good team, begging the girls to go out sightseeing with her. Later Weiss proclaims to her father that they’re not merely friends, they’re family. As nice as the sentiment is, this is just another example of how RT is trying to paint RWBYJNR, RWBY in particular, as intrinsically better than all the other fighters around them. The takeaway is that the Ace Ops might be powerful, but without friendship they’ll never be as strong as our heroes... except the Ace Ops are clearly friends. Harriet’s cold and judgmental tone---You consider yourself friends with them?---makes no sense here. This would be an entirely different situation if we were actually shown an Ace Ops team that acted indifferent towards one another and if, later on, that professionalism and lack of knowledge about each other’s temperament, skills, etc. led to a problem. Ruby comes in with a, “See? I never would have made that mistake with my team because I’ve gotten to know them both on and off the battlefield. Being friends is an asset.” But we don’t get that, so all we’re left with is a message of, ‘RWBYJNR is super special even though they’re doing nothing different from the Atlas specialists. But trust us, they’re intrinsically better.’

That message got old, oh, two volumes ago.

In addition, can we please talk about the messy pacing? The group doesn’t want to go sightseeing with Ruby because they’re exhausted. Weiss and Yang act like their traveling and near death experiences happened last night, and later Qrow’s “the finally getting to Atlas part” comment reads as recent too, but as I mentioned in the previous recap, Pietro’s comment tells us that at least a few days have passed. Realistically a few weeks. So which is it? Has enough time passed to justify Pietro creating seven distinct upgrades and apologizing for having their weapons “so long”? Or has so little time passed to justify the group talking about their trip like they still haven’t had the chance to sleep after Penny’s tour? Yes, this stuff actually matters when you’ve got a laundry list of internal conflicts and the audience wants to know how much time the group has had to grapple with them. Has it only been a few days since the Ozpin drama, or a few weeks? Did Yang and Blake murder a guy the other day or last month? We’re simply not told.

While consistency unravels Ironwood tells Clover that he needs the Ace Ops “on the ground” being “subtle” in their investigations... so maybe don’t bring Marrow. This moment, right down to the humor, is pretty identical to Blake deciding to leave Yang behind when she went to dismantle the CTV tower. Because “Stealth’s not really your... um...” Thing. If only the writing acknowledged these failings in a non-comedy context and encouraged the characters to learn from their mistakes. Marrow might have to listen to his boss and Yang will do anything Blake asks of her, but the rest of the time? ‘You’re really bad at missions that require subtly’ is just going to piss the group off. Even though it’s true.

As the Ace Ops take off Ironwood calls over the team leaders. Which is a bit of a weird choice considering he’s not asking Jaune and Ruby to keep secrets from their teams or anything. They’re literally just going to turn around and relay that info immediately to YWBNR. So why not just tell them all at once? Chalk it up to not wanting to animate nine characters. Basically though we learn at least part of Tyrian’s motivations here. He’s been killing off prominent figures who oppose Ironwood, including Forest, trying to make it look like Ironwood himself is killing to keep them quiet. And it’s working. More points to Ironwood for throwing out, “I’m not really concerned about my public image” when Qrow accuses him of only caring about publicity. If Ironwood is secretly a horrible dictator who really doesn’t care about his people... he’s doing a very good job of hiding it.

He’s also super chill about Jaune talking back to him about the embargo, a sharp contrast to Jacques’ “How dare you speak to me that way!” when Weiss takes a similar tone. Like the party way back in Volume Four, Ironwood is presented as the clear hero to Jacques’ villain. He lets subordinates point out difficulties and potential mistakes he’s makings. Instead of just, you know, abusing them.

So yeah, Jacques is a thing. He shows up pissed that Ironwood commandeered his abandoned mine, but also he’s happy because he thinks Ironwood has screwed himself now. Jacques is gunning for a seat on the council and he hopes the military taking possession of private property, not matter how grimm-infested, will help. He accuses Ironwood of roping Weiss into all this, Weiss reasserts that it was her own decision to help, and we get a lovely moment of the team supporting her.

I’d just like to point out though, this is all proof that Weiss would have been just fine if they’d sent her to Atlas. The fandom was up in arms over that suggestion, making wild claims about how Jacques would kidnap her or something, but this scene canonically undermines all of that. Turns out Jacques didn’t have spies everywhere, waiting to scoop Weiss up the moment she landed. However long the group has been hanging out in Atlas, he had no idea she was here until she was standing right in front of him (and even then it took him a long minute to realize...) Turns out Jacques can’t just do whatever he pleases with another human being just because he’s her father. In Ironwood’s presence, which Weiss would have ended up in if she’d flown with Cordovin’s blessing, Jacques can’t touch her. Hell, he can’t do anything even if Weiss was alone. If Weiss is willing to dump racists in the trash with her semblance I think she’s gained enough confidence to do the same to Jacques if he dares try to hit her again. The moment the fandom went, ‘They clearly HAVE to steal military property/disable a CTV tower and risk this tenuous peace because poor Weiss would be done for if they just sent her to Atlas with an armed guard and a transformed Qrow and possibly Maria in a suitcase’ I was just, ‘... What?’ That was never a good justification and this scene just reinforces that.

The one (metaphorical) blow that Jacques manages to land is by telling Weiss how distraught her mother was when she left. I wonder if there’s any truth in that or if it’s pure manipulation.

As he leaves Winter flies in, clearly avoiding her father. Weiss gets partway through calling her out on that before Penny lands in their midst.

From here the episode really unravels. With the surprise half ruined, Ironwood takes the group up into the arena and presents them with their huntsmen licenses. Now, full disclosure. I said I wanted this back in the premiere. In fact, my exact words were,

“I don’t think the show would ever go for my suggestion of another school arc so they could finish their training, but at the very least we should provide some sort of loop-hole for these characters. Have Ironwood provide special licenses based on their heroics at the Fall of Beacon and their work since. Because right now we have a world that’s continually emphasizing being a huntsmen as a job, something you earn the right to call yourself, yet 95% of our group doesn’t have that right in the eyes of their society.”

And I still stand by that. In as much as I’m acknowledging that so long as the writing refuses to treat the group like the students they are, taking away that status is the next best thing. However, that was written before the story decided to re-emphasize precisely how not huntsmen-like the group is. Everyone remember that? It was a week ago, wherein the group was characterized like kids playing dress up, following the adults around, acknowledging that it feels like they’re real huntresses even though they’re not, and then they witnessed a fight that put their skills and maturity to shame. A part of me honestly is glad we’re not dealing with this as a moral issue anymore. The other part of me is going, “Really? You set up how the group is still a bunch of students and then turn around and give them licenses an episode later? Can we at least be consistent?”

It’s fine though. It’s done. Yay. They all have licenses. Even though they technically didn’t do the work required to obtain them. And they’re also still at least a year, probably two years, too young to have them. Considering that schools are a four year program. It’s fine.

The group doesn’t even seem happy to have them though. In fact, they trivialize the moment. That word exactly: “It almost feels trivial now.” I don’t think RT intends for the characterization to come across this way but man does the group sound arrogant. Wow. We’ve been given a huge amount of power and privilege when we technically haven’t earned it, have actually done quite a lot lately that should have resulted in punishments over rewards, this is entirely out of the blue, something we’ve all wanted for most of our lives... so thanks, I guess? We’re feeling kind of iffy. Ruby at least makes some sort of comment about how Ironwood doesn’t need to do this, which just lets him re-assert that they all totally deserve it. Besides, he needs all the help he can get. Remember, we’re about to tell everyone about Salem!

Obviously no one pipes up during this speech. There aren’t even shared guilty looks. They’re just... letting their lie become a part of their ascent into full-fledged huntsmen. Oh boy.

Overall this party just feels depressing as hell to me. Yes, let’s celebrate in an empty, creepy arena that’s a traumatic space for literally everyone here. Made worse by the fact that no one acknowledges this. Once again Penny functions purely as comic relief. I thought that finally, finally we would get a conversation between her and Ruby. Hey, Penny! We’re taking selfies and eating cake in the very place where you were horrifically murdered! Maybe we should talk about that?

Nope.

Instead we get a train wreck of a conversation between Qrow and Ruby. She brings up the fact that they’re all keeping secrets... and Qrow laughs.

The hypocrisy is really astounding here. Ozpin keeps a secret and gets punched into a tree, along with Oscar. Ruby keeps a secret and Qrow looks like he wants to ruffle her hair. She asks him if she’s just like Ozpin and he responds with, “Oz only trusted himself with the whole truth. You’re trusting others, just making sure they prove themselves first. I think that’s a pretty big difference.”

Okay. That’s one hell of a messy statement, but let’s take it at face value for a moment. So tell me, Ruby. Precisely what does Ironwood have to do to “prove himself” to you? How long do you feel you need to wait? One more mission? A dozen? A few weeks? Months? ...Years? There’s no surefire way for someone to prove that they’re trustworthy and if, after that person has already shared their own secret plan with you and continually treats you as an equal---please help me in this fight, feel free to talk back to me, here’s licenses so you’re legally a part of this team---you’re still iffy about their motivations... what more can they do? You might just keep waiting and waiting for some sort of sign, putting things off because telling them is so risky and you just want to be sure. You might even reach a point where you’ve known Ironwood for ages and you still haven’t told him because, well, you haven’t gotten that proof you were looking for yet. Especially if you were, say, in a time of peace where telling him only feels like a cruelty. Especially when you’ve been betrayed so many times before and are always fighting against those memories. Your little, ‘I’m just waiting until I know I can trust him’ could theoretically go on for decades because we can never absolutely know a person. Lionheart is proof of that. Ironwood might one day look to you and say, “How can you not trust me yet?” and you might respond with, “What have you done to prove to me, without a doubt, that I should?”

I’m reusing this:

Ruby is in precisely the same position Ozpin was with his inner circle. Including Qrow. If Ruby is unsure that a military-minded, incredibly stressed man should have this information now, despite how trustworthy he might seem, why would Ozpin have been sure of that a year earlier? Ironwood was the same military-minded, stressed, seemingly trustful guy. If Ruby felt like she couldn’t rely on Qrow mere weeks (or even days) ago because he kept refusing to stay in contact (something that was established way back at Beacon. That’s not new) and falling into drunk, pessimistic stupors, why would Ozpin feel like he could rely on him in other ways? Especially when those “other ways,” telling them about Salem’s immortality, would lead to absolutely nothing good. Seriously. Has the group suddenly come up with a plan to defeat her, proving that Ozpin was wrong not to bring more creative minds into the fray? No. Has the group fallen apart for a long stretch and has only now made noises about moving forward for the sake of moving forward, something they’d already agreed to do as huntsmen fighting immortal grimm? Yes. All telling them about Salem did was make them more depressed and stressed, the two things that draw literal monsters to their door. That’s it. Their goals and motivations are precisely the same as when they started: keep fighting. Ironwood, on the other hand, has to know about Salem because his plan hinges on her mortality. Ozpin risked nothing by keeping this secret from the group. He arguably saved them a lot of grief. Ruby, on the other hand, risks countless lives and chaos across Remnant because she’s letting Ironwood inch closer and closer to telling the whole world, all in an effort to muster up an army that will accomplish nothing.

Ruby is Ozpin in this scenario, but her secrets carry more weight than his ever did. This isn’t a group of teens feeling morally outraged that their leader told a lie; how dare you not tell us everything when we’re risking our lives... even though we’re always risking our lives and would continue to risk our lives whether you told us or not! This is an incredibly powerful general about to change the shape of the entire world if he doesn’t learn the truth. The stakes are nowhere near comparable. Combine that with the fact that Ruby and her friends just finished taking the high road. That’s the kicker here. That Ruby doesn’t just admit, ‘Yeah... I’m like Oz. Because he was right. You do sometimes need to keep secrets and it is hard to trust people.’ No, no, no, they have to keep demonizing him. Ruby needs reassurance that she’s nothing like that evil secret keeper... even though we can all see she 100% is. She’s arguably worse now that she wants to play the victim to Ozpin’s secret keeping while simultaneously doing the exact same thing to Ironwood. She’s arguably worse since her secrets risks far more lives than Ozpin’s ever did. Where’s the fandom’s outrage over Ruby’s manipulation? Who’s punching her? When they bring up Summer, Ruby needs to characterize her death as “another Oz secret” wherein, like the fandom, she assumes he holds responsibility before there’s any proof of that. Even when Qrow admits that Ozpin has no more idea how Summer died than he and Tai do, he rescinds it! “But who knows what he may have hidden from us over the years.” Excuse me, but you all need to stop gearing up to assign blame without evidence, especially when you all are currently committing the exact same sins Ozpin did. We’ve been doing this since Volume 5:

Yang: I just learned that my uncle is the one who kept his semblance and bird transformations secret from me, but I’m going to blame Ozpin for it and demand “no more” lies. Even though up until now he’s never lied to us.

Qrow: I just admitted that your mother’s death is her own secret, but I’m going to subtly blame Ozpin for it anyway and remind you, as well as the audience, that he could be keeping an untold number of secrets from us. Truly a horrific thing when we, too, are keeping a bunch of secrets.

It’s also just a complete OOC moment that Qrow would be laughing about Ruby keeping secrets and hugging her as he tells her to press on while likewise maintaining his suspicion of Ozpin. Because Qrow’s whole beef with Ozpin is that he’s supposedly “wasted” his life while serving him. Everything he does is worthless because of Salem’s immortality. So if he’s now (randomly?) on team, ‘Do things because they’re right even if we can’t win in the end’... why is he still upset? If he can admit now that all this work---building new CTV towers and taking up everyday missions---is still super important, then why isn’t he thanking Ozpin? ‘Oh wow. I realize now how worthwhile this work is, regardless of whether Salem can be defeated. I guess I do owe you that gratitude for allowing me to do it all in the first place.’ Is no one ever going to acknowledge that Ozpin was right? About their work and about the need to keep secrets? You all are literally adopting his views, his mindset, and his choices. But nope. Nothing. It’s just an illogical mix of ‘Everything we believe is what Ozpin taught us’ with ‘But oh yeah screw that guy.’

The only reason Qrow is all buddy-buddy with Ruby’s secret keeping is because he’s in on the secret. Objectively speaking, if Qrow had a right to know about Salem’s immortality than so does Ironwood. They were both inner circle members. They both served Ozpin for (presumably) the same amount of time. With the exception of maybe hearing about the brother gods---and even then Qrow didn’t take that story literally---they seemed to have the same level of clearance. Ironwood has done just as much to “prove” his loyalty as Qrow ever did, but he doesn’t want to admit that telling someone this kind of horrific info is just plain hard. So Qrow, like the entirety of RWBYJNR, makes it about their own status as heroes, adopting a ‘we’re totally different’ mindset. I get to know about Salem’s immortality. Ironwood though? No, no, we’re justified in keeping it from him. People just aren’t allowed to keep things from us.

It started off with Yang’s ‘How dare you keep secrets only I’m allowed to do that’ nonsense and has now spread to the entire group. We had an entire volume of people verbally and physically assaulting Ozpin in the name of his lies. Now Ruby does the exact same thing and gets hugs and praise for it. I spoke too soon last episode. The hypocrisy is unreal.

I honestly didn’t think RWBY was still capable of frustrating me to this extent, but here we are.

Oh, and so long as we’re riding this frustration train... where is Oscar?

He was not acknowledged once in this episode, let alone invited to the party. You know, the one that he could have really easily been flown in for now that the danger is gone. The one that Winter, Penny, Marrow, Elm and Vine all make an appearance at, but not the guy they’ve been traveling with and who is way more invested in his ‘friends’ getting their licenses than some random Ace Ops members. From here on out I’m officially calling BS on anyone who tries to justify the group/the writing excluding Oscar. There was no reason not to invite him to a planned celebration specifically designed to give this team, a team he’s a part of, a bit of downtime. Sorry you didn’t get an armor upgrade, or get to go on the mission, or get to attend the after party. Everyone just kind of forgot you exist or couldn’t be bothered to explain why you’re missing. RWBY really just doesn’t like him or Ozpin and boy, does it show.

The remaining plot is minimal. The group pulls up a mission board and Jaune gets roped into escorting school children, a mission with absolutely “no danger” in it. So if we actually get to see him completing this, you know they’ll be danger. As they continue choosing their first jobs as huntsmen we return to Jacques, brooding in his office. Whitley makes a brief appearance to announce that Watts has barged his way into the manor. We learn that everyone apparently thinks Watts is dead---that helps explain why they’re still using his code. A dead guy isn’t much of a threat---and Watts tells Jacques that he can help him regain his lost wealth, get a seat on the council, and screw over Ironwood. Through the pretty silly line of “Have your cake and eat it too.” I like that expression, but it’s hard to make it sound sufficiently threatening...

And that’s where we end! A rough ride this week, folks. Can’t complain about the break...

Until next time.

Minor Things of Note

Watts’ comment about how Whitley is the spitting image of Jacques makes me think of cloning. Like, I don’t think the writing would actually go there, but it’s a potentially cool option. Evil billionaire with access to fantasy technology has two rebellious daughters before finally just cloning himself a ‘son’...

Where is Maria? What is she doing? Can we please stop abandoning important characters and then having the cast acting like they ceased to exist?

#rwby #rwby volume 7 #rwby volume 7 spoilers #mymetas #rwby recaps

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darks-ink · 5 years

Text

Spells

A rewrite of one of my older works, a crossover of sorts between DP and Harry Potter. Introduces the setting from the DP side of things, so no HP characters are present or even mentioned. Will be continued in Weirdward, but is not mandatory reading for said fic.

[AO3] [FFnet] [old version]

The existence of magic was nothing new to Danny Fenton. He had, after all, known for years that both of his best friends were capable of it. He had known almost as long that he had no magical abilities whatsoever.

This, of course, didn’t stop him from attending their magic training. Sam’s grandmother had no problem encouraging him, going as far as to allow – and encourage – him to participate in activities that didn’t require actual magic. The rest, he usually still stuck around for, watching. Even if he couldn’t use the spells he learned, knowing what kind of magic Sam and Tucker could use to prank him was often convenient.

Not that they used magic to do so, usually. Not anymore. Sam had pointed out that it was a rather unfair advantage, their magic, and then Tucker had joked that he didn’t need magic to be better at pranks, and after that it never came up again.

It had become something of a sore point, after all. Between Sam, who technically comes from a magical family (even if her grandmother is her closest relative with actual magic), and Tucker, who is No-Maj-Born, Danny was the only one in their close circle of outcasts that couldn’t do anything special. In fact, the only reason why he even was an outcast wasn’t even his own fault, but his parents’. Their obsession with ghosts unfortunately had a rather negative impact on the way the town saw them, and with them, their children as well.

And, well. He had already been friends with Tucker before they ever met Sam. When they met, they clicked instantly; she fit in with them like fate had designed the three of them for each other. They had all been outcasts, if for entirely different reasons. Danny for his parents, Tucker for his love of technology, and Sam by her own choice. Bonding over this shared condition was almost instant, and their shared interests? An absolute bonus.

Sam was, of course, ecstatic to discover she had magic. She hadn’t been aware of its existence before, but Ida was more than happy to start teaching her when she showed signs of accidental magic. Apparently she was just as excited to see her grandchild with magic as Sam herself was; Ida’s son, Sam’s father, had been a squib, and had apparently decided that if he couldn’t be magical, he was going to be as normal as he could possibly be.

Compared to Sam, Tucker’s first accidental magic was a little more surprising, as it usually was for No-Maj-Born wizards. Still, Sam recognized it and explained it to him. Then Ida explained it to Tucker’s parents. Tucker joined Sam for magic training.

And if the two of them knew, then of course Danny couldn’t be left out, magic or not. Technically he’s not allowed to know, with the International Statute of Secrecy and all that. But everyone who knows the three of them knows that they wouldn’t keep secrets from each other. Not secrets like this.

So Danny was allowed to know.

That didn’t mean that anyone told the rest of the Fenton family. Because, really, who would? The adult Fentons were already quite fixated on ghosts, and no one wanted to find out how they would react to magic. And Jazz? She was too much of a skeptic for anyone to bother with.

Then, having somehow defied just about every law of science and magic, Danny’s parents cheerfully declared their Ghost Portal to be finished. And despite them knowing about magic and ghosts, and despite the fact that the Portal doesn’t even work, Sam and Tucker still convinced Danny to show them. He went along with their enthusiasm, wandered inside, and found out why it didn’t work.

After that, he wasn’t the only ‘perfectly normal’ member of their group of outcasts anymore.

Of course, being half ‘magical creature’ isn’t quite the same as having magic, but still. Having his own special powers was pretty cool, and it definitely had its upsides. Downsides, too, definitely downsides. Can’t have everything in life (half-life?). But, well. Gotta see things from the positive side, and all that.

So the three of them cleared some extra time in their schedules to fit in a new kind of training. And just like he attended the magical training of Sam and Tucker, despite not being able to do much, they attended his own ghostly training.

Then ghosts start attacking Amity Park, and, well… Sam and Tucker certainly get a lot more opportunities to use their magic, these days.

They start their own research, trying to find which spells would serve them best in the field. Sam and Tucker practiced them while Danny was training his own powers, although their work often overlapped. No one had ever studied how these spells affected ghosts, not real ones, solid ones. Definitely not how they worked on half-ghosts.

And so, barely two months after the Accident, Danny found himself in quite a dilemma. His hold on his ghost powers was still shaky, and his stamina still needed quite a bit of improvement. He’d lost his transformation – thankfully after he’d already caught the ghost – and couldn’t dredge up enough energy to use his powers in human form. Which, normally, would be fine.

Except that Sam and Tucker had gotten themselves trapped in a locked building by the ghost. They had just recently learned a rather convenient unlocking charm, which was just brilliant timing, really. If it weren’t for the fact that the both of them had been disarmed during the fight, their wands left outside the building, away from their owners.

Danny bent down, picking up the wands and eyeing them rather judgmentally, like it was the fault of the wands that they weren’t with Sam and Tucker. They appeared to be fine, which was lucky, since none of them wanted to explain to Ida how they’d managed to damage them.

He dragged his eyes off of the wands, instead glaring at the lock. For the first time in years he found himself cursing his lack of magic. He knew the spell, had seen Sam and Tucker use it so often that he’d memorized the incantation and matching movements. It would’ve been so easy.

Just a matter of… shifting one of the wands wand to his right hand, his primary hand. Willow, he duly noted, like it mattered, must be Tucker’s. He made the swishing motion, smooth like he’d grown up holding wands, because to some degree, he had. For the sake of appearance, in some insidious cocktail of hope and hatred, he finished the spell with its customary incantation. Shouted “Alahomora!” at the top of his lungs, like sheer force of will would make it work.

The door swung open, noiselessly, revealing the surprised faced of Sam and Tucker. Danny felt himself stiffen in shock, fingers clenched around Tucker’s wand.

They stood there for what felt like an eternity, blinking dumbly.

Tucker snapped out of it first, gingerly prying his wand out of Danny’s hand and inspecting it. “Dude, how’d you do that?”

His question jarred both Danny and Sam back to life. Danny quickly handed Sam her wand back, answering Tucker at the same time. “I… don’t know?”

Sam, who’d pocketed her wand immediately, crouched next to the door to inspect the lock. The lock which Danny had somehow, impossibly, opened.

“Well, you didn’t quite nail the Unlocking Charm, but you somehow managed to explode the lock without damaging the rest of the door, so I gotta applaud you on that.”

“Hooray for not doing more damage than necessary?” Danny tried, smiling sheepishly.

“Why did you even have my wand raised if you were using some kind of ghostly power anyway?” Tucker put away his wand as well, brow creased. “Wait, how’d you even blow up that lock? New ghost power?”

“Uh, I guess it might be a new power? I dunno.” Danny shrugged, looking at the door. “I was kind of out of ghost juice and I was thinking about how convenient it would be if I had magic like you guys, so I just kind of… tried to mimic what you guys do for the Unlocking Charm?”

Sam frowned, apparently considering this as she turned back to the door. Even from where he was standing Danny could tell that it looked somewhat exploded and mostly molten. No clear tells of ectoplasmic energy, but admittedly those didn’t always exist.

“Well, based on what I’m seeing here, your new ghost power is either a really sad attempt at an ecto-ray,” she studiously ignored Danny’s offended yelp, “or you can make things explode with your mind.”

“Or,” Tucker said, “your new ghost power is magic.”

“Tucker, ghosts are magical. All of his powers are magic.” Sam rolled her eyes, standing up from her crouch.

“No!” Tucker denied, ignoring her eye-roll. He then corrected with, “Well, yes I guess, but that’s not what I mean.”

Danny shared a glance with Sam, both of them shrugging at each other. Decision thus made, they nodded at Tucker to continue.

“See, I was thinking, we don’t really know much about the relationship between ghosts and magic. Typical wizarding ghosts aren’t affected by magic, and most spells don’t seem to have much of an effect on the Ghost Zone ghosts either. Additionally, we know that wizarding ghosts can’t use magic, even though they were capable of it while they were alive.”

“Okay, thanks for the summary, Tucker, but we already knew this.”

Tucker tutted disapprovingly at Sam, and then continued like he hadn’t been interrupted. “Now, we don’t know anything about how magic works with half-ghosts. If ectoplasmic energy and magical energy are some sort of counterpoints, as suggested by the fact that they cancel each other out, then Danny should have both, right?”

“I… I guess? That makes sense, sort of,” Danny muttered, frowning in thought.

“So then why didn’t he show any signs of it until now?” Sam crossed her arms, clearly skeptical.

“Uh, duh? It works like his ghost powers. Haven’t you noticed that he accesses those way more easily when he needs them? His magic must work the same, or at least for the initial use. Maybe he’ll start using accidental magic all over the place now that he knows he can do it, or has unlocked it, or whatever. Like his powers.”

Danny glanced at the two of them, then decided to jump in before they could start a real fight. “Well, in that case, I should probably start paying more attention during your training with Ida.”

“We’ll have to make room during your ghost training to practice magic as well,” Tucker added, a thoughtful expression on his face. His fingers rattled on the pocket where he kept his PDA, although the device was currently useless – despite years of trying, he still hadn’t found a way to make it work around magic.

“If this really is some sort of ghost-powered magic, you’ll probably need a wand, too.” Sam turned to Danny, brow creased.

Danny blanched. “Oh no, I hadn’t even thought of that.”

“Yeah, where are we even supposed to get a wand for you?” Tucker seemed to think something over for a moment, then added, “There are no wizarding cities nearby, and we can’t ask Ida, either.”

“We don’t even know if this is actual magic,” Sam pointed out, quirking an eyebrow. “Why don’t we start with that? We can use out wands to figure that out, at least.”

That sounded good, at least. It would really be rather convenient, if he got magic as well, even if would be hassle to deal with. But…

“Hey, uh. Not to interrupt this really important conversation, but,” he glanced around them, then at the sun, pointedly. “Maybe we should get going?”

“Oh, crud.” Sam jolted into movement, grabbing him and Tucker by the elbow and bodily dragging them away. “Magic training starts soon. We gotta hurry!”

Once the training with Ida was over, the three of them moved to a quiet clearing in the forest. Really, Danny was glad that Sam and Tucker had had magic for years before he’d gotten his powers, since it meant that they had all kinds of convenient spots like this one already picked out.

Which, of course, now left him standing in said clearing, fidgeting with his friends’ wands. He felt rather awkward, both of them watching him, waiting for him to be ready.

“I don’t know guys. Aren’t you supposed to feel some sort of connection with a wand to be able to use it?”

Sam rolled her eyes at him, but Tucker answered him before she could. “Nah, that only applies if the wand has chosen you. These wands chose us, so they won’t react to you like that, but you should still be able to use them. Probably.”

“Wow.” Danny glared at him, flashing his eyes green for a moment. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Tuck.”

“Hey, always happy to help!” Tucker grinned, wide and mocking.

Sam kicked him in the shin, then turned to Danny like nothing had happened. “So, which one are you going to use?”

“Uh, I don’t know. Tucker’s, I guess, since that worked last time.” He shrugged, handing Sam’s wand back to her. “If it doesn’t work I guess I can try yours too.”

“Well, do you know what spell you’re going to try, at least?” Sam asked as she accepted her wand back, the deep black a sharp contrast to her pale skin.

“Dunno. Some basic charm, I guess, something that isn’t dangerous to you guys. Any suggestions?”

Sam and Tucker glanced at each other, and Tucker shrugged. Rolling her eyes, Sam turned back to Danny. “Maybe the Softening Charm, Spongify? The pronunciation and movements are fairly easy, and it doesn’t require anything specific to try it on.”

“It’s also almost impossible to blow something up while you’re trying to soften it,” Tucker added in, grinning widely. “So that’s a bonus.”

Danny huffed, ignoring Tucker. “Sounds good to me. Can you show it to me?” His hand curled tighter around the wand. Once again his nerves were coming back, but… there was really no need for them. Either he had magic, which would be cool, or he didn’t, which was fine too. There was no pressure.

His mind still refused to catch on, though.

“Yeah, sure.” Sam whirled her wand around, twirling it in her fingers, before pointing it at a fairly large stone that laid in the clearing. She made a swirling move with her wand, somewhat like an S, and forcefully said “Spongify!”

A ray of pink light launched from the tip of her wand, hitting the rock.

Nodding approvingly, Sam wandered over to it, pressing down on the rock. It squished down like it was made out of rubber, bouncing back to its original shape when she released it.

“Alright, now you try.” She shot him an encouraging look, which he answered with a doubtful one of his own.

Still, he straightened himself out, pointing his borrowed wand at a different rock. He exhaled, focused, tried to grasp onto any magic he might contain. With all confidence he could muster he repeated Sam’s movement, calling out the incantation, and he felt the power move from his chest, down his arm, and into the wand.

The light that shot out of his wand was a weird mix of pink and ectoplasm green, however, and the rock shattered into tiny pieces when the spell hit it.

“Uh, whoops?”

Sam shook her head but didn’t comment. Instead she approached what was left of the rock, crouching down briefly to pick up one of the shards. She curled her hand into a fist and, incredibly, the shard gave way easily, squashing down as if it were made out of rubber.

“Well, it worked, more or less,” she said, rather unnecessarily.

Tucker snorted. “Must’ve somehow mixed in ecto-energy, then. Maybe it’s a side-effect from being half-ghost?”

Danny frowned at them, but walked over to Sam to take a closer look as well. He ducked to pick up a different piece of rock. Just like the other shard, it had turned rubbery and bouncy. His spell had had the desired effect, it had just… also shattered the rock in the process.

“So I guess you were both right, sort of. It’s magic, like Tucker suggested, but also an ecto-ray, like Sam thought.” He tossed the shard up, catching it again before it hit the ground. “Maybe I can learn to filter out the ecto-energy when I’m trying to do magic.”

“And I guess we’ll have to add in magic training for you, in addition to your regular ghost power training.” Sam heaved a dramatic sigh. “Geez, Danny, overpowered much?”

But she grinned as she said it, and Danny smiled back.

“Yeah, well, wait until I get around to using my powers to prank you guys back.” The smile on his face turned into something wicked as he said it, and Tucker visibly repressed a shiver.

“Okay, well.” The boy cleared his throat, clearly trying to drag the conversation to a different topic. “Now that we’ve proven that I was right and Danny somehow got magic despite being a No-Maj before the Accident, how are we going to get him a wand?”

Sam frowned pensively. “I don’t know. I guess I can look into the nearest wandmaker, and how we could get there without anyone noticing.”

“And if this is anything like my regular ghost powers, and I bet it will be,” he made a face, hopefully expressing now not-enthused he was about the possibility, “I’ll probably have to deal with a bunch of accidental magic as well. Hooray.”

“Well, Danny, at least your parents will probably just blame it on a ghost.” Tucker winked theatrically.

Danny groaned. “Tucker, I am a ghost.”

Sam rolled her eyes in fond exasperation. “Boys, boys, you’re both pretty. Can we please focus again?”

“Aw, Sam, you think I’m pretty?” Tucker laid a hand on his chest and gasped dramatically. “You should tell the other girls at school, maybe one of them will agree and ask me out.”

She punched him in the arm in response, not dignifying him with an answer. Danny chuckled, but immediately wiped the smile off of his face when she turned to glare at him.

“Right, uh.” He cleared his throat, attempting to steer the conversation back to the previous topic. “I guess we should go through all the spells that Ida has taught you two, and somehow sort them on how easy they were to learn, and how useful they’ll be. That way we can figure out the best order for me to learn them in.”

Tucker hummed. “Since Sam is going to look into getting you a wand, I guess I can take care of assembling the initial list. We’ll have to go through it together to figure out which spells are must useful, though. And yes, that includes you, Danny.”

“Yeah, alright, that makes sense.” Danny nodded, then stretched and yawned. “It’s getting late, we should probably start heading home. We can do a last patrol along the way.”

Both of his friends nodded their approval, and thus they set off through the woods again.

Danny woke up surprisingly well-rested. In the past week, ever since discovering his magical abilities, he’d been even more prone to being tired. After all, as the others had predicted, his magic had started manifesting as it did for any untrained wizard – with accidental bouts of magic.

Considering that these bouts of magic drew heavily from his ghost powers, they were not only annoying, they were also, quite frankly, exhausting. Without a wand, his magic was even shakier than his ghost powers.

Unfortunately, acquiring a wand proved difficult. Sam and Tucker had continued to teach him using theirs, but his spells remained lackluster and, for lack of a better word, explosive. And the search for a wandmaker hadn’t gone much better, because even the closest were still too far away for the three of them to reach. Danny could probably make it if he flew, but he didn’t trust his ghost powers enough to try. Not yet, at least.

So until then, he just had to… suffer through this. The ghosts that normally disturbed his day, and night, and really any time of day, they didn’t help. But for once none had come during the night, so he’d slept well.

He stretched and yawned, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with his hands. He hoped he would get more nights like this. They were a nice break.

Quickly, he dressed himself, grabbed his homework from his desk, and went to leave for breakfast.

He stopped. Frowned. Turned back to look at his desk again.

On his desk laid a narrow rectangular box, a folded note lying on top of it. Hesitantly, but damnably curious, Danny walked back over to it. He picked up the note, folding it open to read it.

‘Daniel,

I have heard of your magical problems. This wand should alleviate some of your troubles. It is yew, with a thestral tail hair as core, 11.5” and fairly flexible. May it serve you well.’

The handwriting wasn’t one that Danny recognized, and the note wasn’t signed in any way. Really, there was no way of telling who had written it.

Turning his gaze back to the box, Danny hesitated for a moment. Then he grabbed the lid and pulled it off. Lying inside the box was a rather elegant wand, its wood not overly light, but still standing out starkly against the dark fabric it laid in.

He frowned to himself, but reached out towards it regardless. It might not have been a smart idea, but, well. Danny wasn’t exactly known for those, was he?

The moment his fingers touched the wand, he shivered, immediately pulling his hand away.

“Alright, that’s… strange,” he muttered to himself, hand clutched to his chest but eyes still on the wand. Somehow, someone had brought him a wand in the middle of the night. No one in his family knew about magic, so they couldn’t have done it. Sam and Tucker wouldn’t have kept it a secret if they had found one, and they couldn’t have gotten in his room without him noticing, anyway. A ghost, then? But his ghost sense hadn’t gone off all night.

Danny put the lid back, tapping his fingers on the outside of the box as he considered his options. He had no way of knowing how it had gotten to his room, or why. Was it a trap? A genuine helpful offer? Was this really the solution to his wand problem?

In the end he shoved the box, and the note it had come with, into his backpack. He would have to talk it over with Sam and Tucker sometime during school.

“Woah dude, hang on.” Tucker shot Danny a rather disbelieving look. “You’re saying that a wand somehow ended up on your desk, but your ghost sense hasn’t gone off all night? Yeah, that is pretty suspicious.”

Sam nodded, her expression equally fierce. “Yeah, if we can find a quiet spot we’ll check it during lunch. Do you know anything about it?”

“Well, the note listed its materials, but that’s it. Yew, with a thestral tail hair as a core.” He shrugged. “Not that I know what a thestral is. Or, y’know, if the note is right or not.”

“I think a thestral is a type of magical horse, but I’m not sure…” Sam trailed off, before snapping back into focus. “Anyway, we should figure out if the wand is safe to use, and if it works for Danny. The details don’t matter.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Tucker agreed, darting a glance at Danny’s backpack like he could see the wand through the box and the bag. “Let’s get to class before we’re late.”

“Yeah, last thing I need is another reason for Mr. Lancer to give me detention.” Danny paused, then added, drily, “Again.”

“So, looks like your wand is, in fact, safe.” Sam frowned at the wand in her hand. “Tucker and I can both use it, although the results are…”

“It reacts as unpredictably to us as our wands do to Danny. So it should work like a charm for you!” Tucker cut in, grinning at Danny. “Give it a shot, Danny!”

“Yeah, yeah, calm down already.” He accepted the wand from Tucker, rolling it around in his hand. It felt right to hold it, like it somehow connected to him, to his energy and his ghost core. But it wasn’t… not in an unpleasant way. It was kind of like his ghost sense, similarly weak, but it was warm and pleasant, as opposed to the cold that came with his ghost sense.

He straightened himself out, holding out the wand like the weapon it was. It was pointed right at the target they had brought, now, almost unwavering despite his nerves. He took a moment to focus, pulling back his ghostly energy as much as possible.

“Spongify!”

The light that came out of his wand was almost flawless pink. The target shuddered when it was hit, but not even a scorch mark was left.

Sam nodded her approval, already walking over to check the results. Even from the other side of the clearing, it was clearly visible to Danny. The spell had worked.

“Looks like your mysterious wand donor knows what they’re doing.” Tucker was turned towards the target as well, but Danny was sure he could watch him from the corner of his eye.

He snorted. “Yeah, guess so. I wonder who it was, though.”

“Well, if you ever find out, you should thank them.” Sam rejoined them, having straightened out the target.

“Definitely,” Tucker agreed. “Anyway, Danny, you up for some more magic training?”

“Heck yeah, let’s do it!” He grinned, wide and enthusiastic, and they both grinned back.

“Sooo, I figured out something new related to magic and my ghost powers,” Danny said, rather unexpectedly, one random day early next year.

“Really?” Sam sat up, quirking an eyebrow. “What did you find out?”

“I think I can sense magic.” He saw both of them silently ask for more information, so he continued explaining. “It’s not like my ghost sense, it doesn’t trigger automatically when I’m near it. And I can only feel it, there’s no visual thing. Just… sense.”

Tucker also sat up, looking at Danny. “How’d you figure that out, dude?”

“I was looking for one of my magic books yesterday, and I couldn’t find it.” He shrugged. “So I was kind of complaining to myself that I could sense ghosts but not magic, and then I realized that I could suddenly, I dunno how to describe it, ‘feel’ certain things in my room. And when I looked into it, I realized that everything that stood out was magical.”

He smiled at them, rather sheepishly. “And I tried to trigger it again just now, and I can sense you two as well. So, yeah, I think I can sense magic.”

Tucker had already whipped out his PDA the moment Danny started talking, and was now writing up a storm. Danny was glad that they’d found a workaround to keep their tech working; seeing Tucker without the machine had been weird.

“I’ve added it to our files,” the boy said, not looking up from the screen. “Do you think this is something you should practice during training as well?”

Danny frowned, considering it for a moment. He nodded. “Yeah. It’s kinda tough to trigger it on purpose, and maybe I can hone it to be more specific. It might be useful if I can sense wards and magical objects and stuff.”

“You’re right, that could be pretty handy.” Sam leaned back, a thoughtful look on her face. “Who knows what kind of magical stuff we’ll run into now that more and more people are finding out about Amity Park ghosts.”

“Alright. I’ll plan it into our training schedule, then.”

Sam snapped her fingers, jerking upright again. “Actually, speaking of magical mysteries. Danny, did you ever figure out who gave you your wand?”

“Uh, yeah, actually.” He blushed, grimacing at the same time. “Clockwork said he gave me the wand, but he was his usual vague self, so he refused to tell me why or how he got it.”

Tucker frowned at him, but shrugged. “I guess that that makes sense. He would’ve known which wand was perfect for you.”

“Yeah, and he could have frozen time to deliver it, so you wouldn’t have sensed him,” Sam agreed with a nod.

“Not sure why he didn’t sign the note with CW though, but I��m sure he had his reasons.” Danny looked at his wand, twirling it between his fingers. In the months since he’d gotten it he had quickly adjusted to it. His magic still needed work, but, well. Only so much they could accomplish as a group, between the three of them and Ida.

“I’m glad he went out of his way to give it to me, though,” Danny continued, dismissing his train of thought. “We know now how much of a hassle it would’ve been to find a wand that works for me, and that’s not even taking into account the fact that we had no way of traveling around without telling Ida about my accident.”

“Man, Danny, you must be pretty important if Clockwork went out of his way to break the rules for you.” Tucker grinned, having clearly meant it as a joke.

But Danny couldn’t help but be reminded of the fact that this wasn’t the only time that Clockwork had interfered. Tucker didn’t know, of course. Neither of his friends knew how close they had really come to that future.

Instead he grinned at his friends. “Yeah, guess so. We better get going, don’t want to be late for magic training.”

Sam snorted. “Especially you, mister ‘no Ida I don’t have any magic I don’t know what you’re talking about’.”

Danny glared at her, playfully flashing his eyes green, then rolled them. “I hear you. But, seriously, I’m glad that Ida is fine with it. Training with you guys is fun, but having an actually experienced wizard there to help is pretty great.”

“Amen to that, Danny.” Tucker slung an arm around his shoulder, grinning widely. “Amen to that.”

#danny phantom #crossover #phanfic #dp fanfic #idk if hp has any particular tags i should be aiming for when i start posting ww hmm #harry potter #danny fenton #sam manson #tucker foley #dark writes #spells #weirdward

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freshwater--mermaid · 6 years

Text

Ersatz Ch 24: A Tourist in the Waking World

Danny felt restless, standing so near to the Ghost Zone, but forced himself to focus on the task in front of him.

His increased 'curiosity' in his parents' research had the unintended effect of both making his parents proud, and causing his mother to insist that he help them with their latest studies.

His participation was limited to following exact instructions from Maddie about where to cut or what tools to retrieve. He was strictly not allowed to handle the ghosts otherwise, due to the risk of them escaping when being transported to and from the exam table.

Currently, Maddie was hovering beside him, watching his movements closely after instructing him to slice an ectoplasm sample in two.

Readjusting his grip on the scalpel, Danny lowered it toward the green blob. It had been taken earlier that day from one of the captured rats, and now Maddie wanted to test the sample against various temperatures.

She would start with both extremes; one half was to be frozen, while the other would be brought to boiling point.

The sharp blade cut neatly through the sample, splitting it down the middle. It was clearly beginning to rot already, its glow entirely gone. Maddie frowned as she noted this on her clipboard.

Danny wanted to shudder in revulsion at the memory of the acrid, old ectoplasm he's desperately eaten not too long ago. He was glad for the steady supply of new ghosts that had been roaming about recently. He never wanted to get that hungry ever again.

It had Danny feeling almost regretful that soon Halloween would pass, and the ghost sightings would dwindle back down to a minimum. He'd taken to hunting down any small ghosts he could find each night, easily tracking them with his parents busy in their lab most nights. And upon asking his mother about the exact functions of the Fenton thermos, he'd happily discovered that it could hold multiple ghosts at once, releasing them one at a time. He had used this knowledge to begin collecting the little spirits he captured for when he needed them.

However, one thought brought down his happy mood each time his mind wandered to the ghosts he had stored away. If there were this many of them pouring through the portal every day, then how many more were possibly lingering on the other side. In his home. With his body.

Danny's eyes were pulled once again to the closed metal doors, and he fought to stand still as his mom went about collecting the samples. His grip tightened on the scalpel, wishing vehemently that they'd forget about their stupid tests and go out ghost hunting for the night. Who cared what temperature did to ectoplasm, anyway?

Closing his eyes, Danny turned his head away and stepped back from the table. He looked toward his father's side of the lab. Jack was upstairs taking a snack break, and the finished ecto rifle sat alone on his desk, gleaming under the bright lights. The sight of it did not improve Danny's mood.

Maddie clearly didn't need anything more from him, fully absorbed in her work, and Danny had no interest in watching the experiment unfold. He stretched out his arm and dropped the blade onto the metal table with a light clang, removing his gloves and heading silently for the stairs.

Nothing upstairs could hold his attention, either. His father's loud eating and the buzz of the television got on his nerves within seconds, and he quickly walked to his room.

There he ended up sitting on his bed, staring down at his ever-growing pile of due assignments. At this rate he was going to start failing classes.

'Oh well.' he thought despondently. 'What's the point of keeping up with school? As soon as the next mandatory physical comes up I'm screwed, anyway.'

And there was the final nail in the coffin. The cherry on top of this pile of negative thoughts that had been plaguing Danny lately.

The realisation that his secret was temporary.

It had come to him just a few days ago, when he'd been standing outside the school awaiting his friends' arrival that morning. They had both walked up, laughing at some joke or piece of conversation that Danny wasn't listening to. What had caught his attention were the visible streams of breath that both teens exhaled as they spoke. They were also shivering quite a bit, arms crossed over jackets to keep out the sharp chill that Danny hadn't even been aware of. He himself had worn a short-sleeved shirt that day, forgetting to bring along his old hoodie.

That moment had sparked off the self-consciousness and worry. How was he supposed to fit in with everyone when he couldn't even remember to breathe or maintain a pulse, let alone react to the weather?

Sam had been right. Her statement from weeks before coming to haunt Danny. Eventually the clues would outweigh the doubts. People were seeing ghosts now. They were becoming part of Amity Park's day-to-day happenings. Soon it would take no leap of faith to suspect that the creepy kid who didn't make little spirals of visible breath might be dead.

Would his parents be the ones to find out first, he wondered. Maddie's keen eye could so easily pick up on the evidence if she took just one moment from her work to actually look at Danny. Even when she fretted over him, face filled with concern, she never seemed to actually take him in. He knew it was because of her guilt. The pained guilt that never really left her since the incident at Vlad's home. And as much as it saddened Danny, it was a great advantage to his current situation. He needed that distance between them; it was probably the only thing keeping her from noticing all of his increased oddities.

How would she react, knowing that he was dead. Knowing that he had died in that portal she had painstakingly pieced together over so many years. Would she be hurt? Would she cry and fall to the floor and plead his forgiveness for getting him killed? Or worse still. Would she see an opportunity. A chance to study an advanced form of ghost. One more powerful than any spectre she'd come across in her entire life. Maddie couldn't even comprehend a ghost like him. He'd gotten as much from her long lectures as she plucked samples from the little squawking rats. There was just no way in her mind that a ghost could possibly be so human as to actually fool her. He'd nearly smiled at her when she gave that confidant comment.

How would it feel to shatter that self-assurance? Would it feel gratifying, or just horrible.

Danny figured the latter, and rubbed a hand hard across his face. He frowned down at his textbooks, unable to take sitting still any longer. He had to get out and clear his head.

In the open air he could forget who he was, all of his problems scattering into the wind, seeming less dire. He could shirk his way around any future doctor appointments, and he could copy his friends' homework, and soon his parents would take to the streets once more, in search of new test subjects.

They were running out of the little blobs and rats, surprisingly enough. They had taken most of them apart completely, with Danny present to observe or lend a hand on a few occasions. He did feel sad for the small creatures, but couldn't help but be fascinated by everything his parents were discovering about the ghosts.

Sadly, since the test subjects were all so weak, Danny wasn't sure how well anything he learned from them would apply to himself. When cut open, they contained only globs of ectoplasm, while Danny could most definitely feel the intact bone structure beneath his skin.

And the lunch lady had organs. Green, misshapen organs, but definitely internal structures.

Danny hovered over an empty street, a hand drifting down to press against his stomach. He wondered what his insides looked like now. Not that he'd volunteer to be sliced open. No, best not to follow that line of thinking.

Shaking his head, Danny shot upward, flying around absently, no destination in mind.

A sudden burst of light caught his attention, his head whipping around toward the source. Even from several blocks away, the Fenton ghost shield shined like a beacon.

Curiosity and worry drew him back toward his home, though Danny assured himself it was most likely more little ghosts running amok. Maybe he'd get a chance to catch one before his parents got to them.

As he neared the house, careful to stay in the darkness, a white line swam across the ground below, moving swiftly away from the Fenton residence. Its strange shape and movement bewildered Danny, and he followed after it to get a better look.

The white creature lurched to the side, fading into a nearby home. Danny flew to the building, debating whether or not he should follow.

Screams from within ended his internal debate, and Danny quickly turned invisible before diving through the wall. What he came upon was like something out of a cheap scifi horror movie.

A teenage girl, clad in only a short nightgown, stood cowering in the corner of her bedroom. A disturbingly large, glowing snake raised up as it hissed at her. Its long fangs dripped as it opened its jaws wide, advancing on the girl.

Flying forward, Danny grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out of the way as the snake lunged. She was just as scared by the invisible grip on her, however, and immediately began to scream and flail about.

Danny grimaced at her in annoyance, grabbing her other arm and lifting her off the ground, planning on flying them both out of there.

That was when the door flew open and the lights turned on, revealing a burly man standing in the doorway and wielding a baseball bat. The man lost all bravado as he took in the sight before him. His daughter, hanging suspended in the air as she kicked and screamed. And a very big snake coiling up on the other side of the room.

For a few seconds he stood there, frozen, only his eyes moving as they swept back and forth between both spectacles. He was obviously deciding which target to go for first, and soon made his choice.

Apparently an invisible foe was less intimidating than a large, reptilian one. The man leapt forward and began swinging his bat wildly in the air around his daughter. When one swing came too close to Danny, he couldn't help but let out a startled "Hey!" in response.

The shout gave all three of them pause, but then seemed to ignite new strength within the father. He gripped the bat in both hands, swinging hard toward where the voice had come from. The strike landed, hitting Danny directly on the head.

Reeling, he dropped the girl to the floor, focusing on remaining unseen as his vision blurred. As it cleared, he could see that the snake was once again rising up, intent on continuing its attack.

Seeing no other option, Danny clenched his teeth and shot forward. He collided with the snake, grabbing hold and turning them both intangible. They flew upward and out of the house, into the open night air.

Danny quickly released the writhing ghost, shivering in revulsion as he put distance between them. The creature coiled around itself in the air, baring its long teeth at Danny and letting out a loud hiss.

Not waiting for it to make the first move, Danny charged up a ball of energy in his hand, sending it at the snake.

It connected, sending sparks of green dancing along the scaled body. The snake cried out and curled up tighter, muscles tensing. Danny realised too late what it was doing, and as he readied another blast, it struck out at him.

The energy in his hand shot off into the sky as he tried to dodge. One of the fangs sliced into his side as the snake dove past him. Blood began soaking into his torn shirt, and Danny pressed a hand against the wound, watching as the snake continued its descent, landing on the street below and winding away.

Danny glared at its retreating form, ready to follow after and get some revenge, when a loud blast sounded off from behind. A large green streak sailed over the snake's body, barely missing it.

"I see it, Maddie!" Jack's voice arose from the dark street below. "It's making a run for it!"

Danny turned invisible once more, following after the snake as his father tried to catch up. He didn't want the snake attacking more helpless people, and since his dad looked to be alone, he also didn't want him to get hurt. He imagined what those long fangs could do to a regular person.

Flying lower, Danny fired off small, quick shots at the glowing white creature. It began swerving widely on the road in an attempt to avoid him, but a few blasts hit, causing it to halt in the middle of the road.

An approaching car's headlights shone on the huge ghost, and the driver slammed their brakes, tires squealing, before quickly reversing and turning in the opposite direction. The snake watched after it, distracted.

Danny began charging up a more powerful ball of energy in his hand, but it dissipated as another large blast of green hit the snake dead on. It's white skin bubbled, peeling away as it flopped around it pain.

Jack had reached them, and Danny quickly glanced down at himself to make sure he was still invisible. Small drops of blood falling from seemingly nowhere was his only give-away. Hopefully his father wouldn't notice.

Jack didn't, and he grinned widely at the stunned snake, his ecto rifle propped up on his shoulder. Danny felt a thrill of fear as he realised that it was the new, improved model. It took a moment to power up for another attack, a high singing emanating from the gun, getting louder. The blast sounded almost like a canon, and Danny flinched away from it, flying far back as the ecto blast hit the snake again.

This time full chunks of the ghost's body flew off, splattering across the road. Danny felt the fear from before falling over him again, stricken in place as he watched the upper half of the animal writhe about on the road. Jack had definitely not been lying when he said he wanted to give the gun more power. It seemed he may have even overdone it.

But Jack didn't seem interested in capturing this particular specimen tonight. Instead, he charged the rifle up, striking his target a third and final time. The glow from the weapon cast shadows over his dad's face, morphing his grin from its usual bright beam into something sinister and malevolent.

There were only white and green bits of the creature left smeared across the black asphalt. Jack laid his gun on the ground, walking toward the remains with a proud stride. Danny turned and rocketed out of there, fearful that the man would soon take notice of the blood slowly collecting on the sidewalk.

The only thought passing through Danny's head as he flew was that he never, ever wanted to be on the barrel end of that gun. Ever.

He could still see the Fenton shield shining brightly, and groaned aloud. Giving up on returning home for the night, Danny began flying to the nearest safe place he could think of.

~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~*

Tucker really didn't like being woken up to someone's hand clamped over his mouth. Especially when the owner of that hand was floating over his bed and looking down at him with glowing eyes.

The high pitched scream that followed was muffled by Danny's hand, and the hovering teen barely stifled his laughter as recognition dawned in Tucker's eyes.

The boy was less than thrilled, batting Danny away and sitting up.

"What the heck, dude?" he said lowly, reaching for his glasses so that he could glare at Danny properly.

As soon as he did, though, his gaze zeroed in on the red staining the lower half of his friend's shirt.

"What happened?" he asked, his voice rising.

"Calm down, it's stopped bleeding." Danny replied with an easy smile, his feet touching down upon the carpet noiselessly. "Soon it'll heal up completely. But I need to borrow one of your shirts for now."

"Yeah, sure." Tucker said, feeling faint as his eyes stayed glued on the wound.

Danny rifled through Tucker's closet briefly before pulling out a shirt. He then peeled off the ruined one, wincing as it caught on the dried blood.

Tucker muttered a few choice words and looked away as the long slice in Danny's skin was revealed, traveling in a nearly straight line across his stomach. Fresh blood leaked out in thin trails, and Danny frowned down at himself.

"Be right back." he said, disappearing through Tucker's bedroom wall.

He stepped inside the bathroom, where he knew Mrs Foley kept a well-stocked first aid kit. He'd need to bandage over the wound before it healed, or risk staining the new shirt as well. Danny wished it would get on with it, already. The persistent stinging was getting on his nerves.

When Danny returned to Tucker's room, the other teen was already laying out thick blankets across the floor, throwing one of his pillows on top. He scrubbed tiredly at his eyes as he went back to his bed, climbing under the covers with a yawn.

"Should I even ask?" he said as he removed his glasses.

"I'll tell you and Sam about it tomorrow." Danny promised, sitting down on the makeshift bed and pulling out his cellphone.

"I've got an alarm set so that I can get back to my place before Jazz tries to break my door down, so I'll be gone by the time you wake up."

"Cool." Tucker mumbled, already half-asleep.

Checking his alarm, Danny set the phone down and laid back against the blankets, pulling one over himself. He let himself relax, floating adrift in his own thoughts. It may not have been the night sky of Amity Park, but being out of his own home was still freeing somehow. Eventually he fell asleep as well.

~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~*

Halloween day was heralded in with the sight of costumed kids walking to school. All of the banners and posters that the students of Caper High had worked on days before were now displayed all over the walls of the main hall.

Danny had barely managed to make it out of the house with an angry Jazz trying to "get him into the holiday spirit". She herself was dressed up as a doctor, and had been downright scandalised when Danny had commented that he didn't feel like dressing up. She had immediately begun trying to force different last-minute ideas onto him. In the end he managed to dodge the bed sheet, purple wig, and cat ears, making it out the front door in his plain jeans, shirt and hoodie.

He arrived at school to see Sam and Tucker waiting for him. Sam wore darker-than-usual makeup, her eyes overtaken by thick black. Her lips were dark red, with two little streams of fake blood running down the corners. She was clearly going for a spider theme, with little black and red arachnids adorning everything from the pattern on her dress to her jewelry. All of her earrings were little spiders and cobwebs, and there was even a spider hairclip resting on the unshaved part of her head.

By contrast, Tucker looked very out of place, standing next to her in a white long-sleeved shirt and jeans. He and Sam greeted Danny as he approached, and Tucker smirked heavily as he gestured at himself.

"Go ahead, ask me what I am." he said, already laughing.

"What are you?" Danny humored him.

"I'm a ghost!" Tucker held both arms out. "Get it? 'Cause they look like normal people!"

Sam rolled her eyes as Tucker cackled at his own joke. Danny couldn't help but smile as well. The three friends ascended the front steps and entered the school. The hallway was filled with kids admiring each others' costumes, and the trio had to do a bit of maneuvering before they could reach their lockers.

"Hey, one of you guys let me borrow your English homework." Danny said, spinning his combination into the lock.

"Danny." Sam scolded. "You have to stop ditching out on our study afternoons."

Danny bit back his reply, which was that he had better things to do. There was no way that wouldn't come across as mean. So he silently opened his locker and began putting away textbooks.

"Hey," Tucker spoke up from Sam's other side, his voice lowered. "Did that cut heal over yet? You still have to tell us why you crashed at my place last night."

Sam whipped her head between the two boys, eyes widening. Danny quickly held up both hands and smiled reassuringly at them both.

"Yes, it's gone. Not even a scar. And also yes, I'll explain the whole story at lunch."

Concern flickered behind Sam's eyes, but knowing that he couldn't very well talk about it openly in the hall, she didn't press the matter. She quickly moved on to a new subject as they headed down the hall.

"So are you going to be sticking around to help set up the haunted house tonight? Not that it can even be called that at this point." Sam asked, disappointment sharp in her voice.

Danny's sympathy for her, as well as his desire to not abandon his friends again, warred with the fact that he wanted to be back at his house by that afternoon. His parents would not spend Halloween night cooped up in their lab, and would instead take to the streets to hunt out any remaining ghosts. That would leave the Fenton portal unguarded, for the first time in too long.

"I can stay to set things up and hang out for a bit, but then I have to leave." Danny finally answered.

Sam opened her mouth to reply, but stopped short as her gaze flickered to something behind Danny. A pair of arms wrapped around his shoulders, but before Danny could react they quickly pulled away. He turned around to see Paulina rubbing her arms and frowning at him.

"Danny, you're freezing!" she exclaimed.

"Uh, yeah. They keep it way too cold in this place." Danny replied, shrugging.

Paulina blinked at him for a moment, before Tucker stepped in between the two, a big smile on his face.

"Wow, your costume is amazing!" he said, clearly not needing to feign the admiration.

Paulina blushed and giggled, hands gripping her skirts to give them a twirl. She wore a long, multi-layered victorian gown. Its pale pink fabric was complimented by white gloves that went almost all the way up each arm. The finishing touch was an elaborate crystal necklace that sat neatly upon her shoulders. She glowed a few moments more under Tucker's gaze before turning her attention to Sam.

"I can't wait to see your little haunted house tonight! It's going to be so cute!" she beamed at the goth girl.

"Thanks again for helping out, Paulina." Sam returned the smile, albeit with less shine.

The warning bell put an end to any further discussion, and everyone headed for their home rooms. Paulina followed behind Danny, and he could feel her stare as they neared their classroom.

"Are you feeling sick, Danny?" she asked. "You've been quiet a lot lately. And you're like really, really cold. Maybe we should skip this class and go hang around out back. Some time in the sun should do the trick!"

"No, I'm fine, Paulina. Really." Danny answered, entering the classroom.

Lancer was already there, and his reminder of the annual haunted house drowned out any further words Paulina may have had. Danny slouched into a seat near the front, his mind already drifting off, while Paulina joined a few of her friends at the back.

~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~*

Tucker and Sam shivered as they listened to Danny finish his story about the encounter with the snake, minus a few details regarding how much his father had creeped him out, or the reason he'd gone flying in the first place.

"And thankfully they had the shield lowered by this morning. I flew into my room just as Jazz was threatening to break my door down." Danny smiled at the mental image of his sister ranting to his empty bedroom.

Tucker shivered, this time not from the cold.

"Giant ghost snake. Like we needed that in the city."

"So your dad really killed it? Like, completely?" Sam asked, frowning.

Only she would show open concern for an oversized ectoplasmic reptile. Danny honestly expected to find her standing outside of his house one day protesting the experiments his parents did on their captured subjects.

"Yeah, I guess he didn't have a Fenton thermos with him." Danny said, fingers picking at the worn end of one of his sleeves.

"Well, now that story time is over can we go back inside?" Sam asked, arms crossed tightly over her chest.

"It's your fault for wearing that dress." Tucker smiled.

"I look awesome." Sam replied with a theatrical flourish of her hand. Her eyes then turned back to Danny, quirking an eyebrow.

"And what are you supposed to be, anyway? A ghost like Tucker?" she smirked.

"Didn't feel like coming up with a funny costume idea." Danny shrugged.

Accepting the nonchalant reply, Sam led the way back into the building.

~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~*

Sam stared down at the little jack o' lantern display she and Tucker had made weeks before, now sitting on a table near the doors. She turned and looked out over the rest of the room. The large cafeteria was dimly lit, with the hand-crafted decorations hung up by her, Danny and Tucker. Fake cobwebs and little spiders were also spread around, along with the Biology class's skeleton propped up on its stand.

Various students stood around drinking punch and sampling the snack table, involved in their conversations. Lancer was the official chaperone for the event, and was clearly fighting to stay awake and alert as he sat in his chair. Tucker and Danny stood nearby, holding plates and looking bored. Tucker's plate was empty, and he occasionally stole a cookie from Danny, who didn't bother to even pretend to eat.

Sam couldn't help the bitter disappointment that still welled up within her. She'd wanted this year's haunted house to actually live up to its name, and not just be a social hangout like every year past. But without financial aid from her parents she'd just not had the money to achieve her goal. She was still refusing to talk to them, sending glares their way as they passed by in the halls of their home.

Tucker could be heard laughing, a pair of confused-looking students staring at him. He and Danny had been asked a few times that day just what they were supposed to be, and each time Tucker was all too happy to answer.

"We're ghosts!" he'd say, breaking off into a new bout of laughter, uncaring of the bewildered reactions of the other students.

~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~*

Danny looked toward the clock hanging against the far wall. Halloween night had officially begun an hour ago, and his parents were probably halfway across Amity Park scaring trick-or-treaters. He really hoped the police didn't get involved this year.

He wanted to stick around and help Tucker and Sam clean the place up after everyone left, but knowing that the portal was unguarded was making it hard to stand still. He swore he could hear his old body calling for him, letting him know just how long it had been since he'd paid a visit.

He quickly gave his goodbyes and apologies to his friends before exiting out the back of the school. In the dark shadows he went invisible, lifting into the sky and flying as fast as he could toward home.

He'd been half-expecting to find a stream of ghosts pouring through the portal, what with how Vlad and his parents built up this night as a peak for ghostly activity. But as he dropped into the lab, he found it empty and silent, not a spirit or person in sight.

Relieved that he would get a night of peace, Danny quickly entered the portal. The other lab was empty as well, but Danny's mood was quickly torn down when several blasts were heard nearby.

Danny flew through the shadowed home, ignoring the call that urged him to go upstairs. He looked up the stairs, frowning as he turned and headed for the front door. Whoever was messing up his time here was about to have their butt blasted to the other side of the Ghost Zone.

Flinging the door open, Danny's eyes swept across the void landscape. Another blast rang out, and an arc of deep purple flames shot off into the distance.

Danny lifted out of the doorway, rising up over the walls of his house. He had to blink a few times to fully take in the sight that greeted him several yards away from Fenton Works.

"Mr Masters?" Danny shouted out in shock.

His cry drew the elder man's attention. His expression looked nearly as surprised as Danny as he looked at the boy. His opponent, a hulking ghost in armor, took the opportunity to strike out with a ball of flame. It hit Vlad in the chest, and he was sent backward from the force of it. The flames bit into his skin and clothes. His shirt was singed in places while the skin around his neck and chest blistered a painful-looking red.

Realising that he had to help, Danny dove over the rooftop, gathering energy into his hand and throwing it at the strange new ghost. A part of Danny's mind took a moment to admire the guy's style. His shiny black armor with purple flamed accents was definitely cool. He honestly looked like something off of Doomed.

In one smooth maneuver, the ghost pulled out his sword and struck Danny's ecto blast, sending it sailing away.

"Another fool dares to challenge me?" his voice echoed out from within the shadowed helm.

His unseen gaze held Danny for a second, before he turned once again to Vlad as the man sent two waves of ectoplasm toward him.

"Stay back, Daniel!" Vlad cautioned as he continued his attack.

Danny heeded him and backed away. He still sent out blasts toward the other ghost, hoping to distract him. Unfortunately he was a skilled fighter, dodging easily around the attacks while still focusing his attention primarily on Vlad.

He unsheathed his sword again, swinging it toward Vlad. The man dodged around him and sent out a line of ectoplasm. It solidified into a blade of his own, and Vlad began using it to block the incoming strikes. Danny noted how Vlad was completely on the defensive now, focusing solely on keeping the enemy's sword from hitting him.

They were both completely ignoring him, and Danny decided that this freed him up to move in closer, focusing a large ball of energy in between his hands. He neared the armored ghost and sent the charged energy right into his back. White sparks danced along the armor, and the ghost let out a cry.

His shadowed face turned toward Danny, who suddenly realised that it might have been a bad idea to get this close. He loomed over Danny, casting the boy in shadow, and raised his sword.

And then Vlad was swooping in from nowhere, sending a close-ranged blast at the ghost with one hand and grabbing Danny with the other. He flung the teen out, continuing his fight as Danny spun around dizzyingly.

After a few seconds he managed to right himself, annoyed and confused as to why Vlad had knocked him away. Did he think Danny couldn't handle a fight? Danny frowned at the man, who was once again displaying some cool powers by creating a shield out of ectoplasm, blocking the incoming blows. That annoyed Danny, too. Just how was he able to do that?

"Enough of this!" the ghost thundered, startling Danny out of his thoughts. "You have wasted enough of my time."

If at all possible, the ghost's efforts doubled, and Vlad was barely evading blasts of flame and the strike of metal against his shield.

Danny flew back toward them, not willing to let Vlad struggle on his own, despite what the man might think. He flew around the two as they battled, firing off quick shots as he went. As the minutes dragged by, Danny was grateful that they were in the Ghost Zone, or surely he'd be exhausted by now. Still, he wished this fight would end soon. He had only a few hours to spend here before his parents returned, and he did not want to sneak through the lab with them present again.

Frustrated, Danny dove in closer, powering up a second large ball of electricity. If he could stun the ghost again, then Vlad might be able to land a strike. That could be all they needed to end this fight and turn this guy into a floating mass of ectoplasm.

The powerful blast hit across his chestplate, shocks traveling across it, and the armored ghost nearly dropped his sword.

A low growl emanated from the shadowed face, and quicker than Danny could blink his opponent was practically on top of him. He swung the sword up in an arc, and Danny dove backward, just out of reach. The hulking ghost kept up his momentum, following after Danny as he retreated, bringing the sword in a second time.

Danny could distantly hear the sound of Vlad calling his name in alarm as the edge of the sword made contact with him. It went through him, leaving no mark, and Danny had but one second to look down at himself in bewilderment.

And then everything went black.

~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~*

Danny's eyes rolled up into the back of his head, his body going limp and drifting downward.

Vlad cursed the child for his foolishness, glaring at the knight as he turned back toward him, no doubt planning on delivering him to the same fate. He had dearly hoped that Danny would be too distracted to come here this night.

As the ghost charged him, he dropped and flew under him, heading right for Danny. He grabbed hold of the slowly falling boy and flew toward the nearby lair. He dropped quickly all the way down into the lab, gritting his teeth in frustration. The knight would be following behind in mere moments.

He could not leave Danny to float helplessly about unattended in the Ghost Zone. There were still many small spirits hiding around, who would not pass up an opportunity to steal bites out an unconscious ghost.

It seemed that the knight would gain access to the human world, after all. Vlad had hoped to avoid that. Not for the sake of the citizens of Amity Park; it would only be one night, after all, and then the ghost would be bound in slumber for one more year.

But a supernatural attack on such a large scale would attract certain attention. Attention that Vlad hoped would never set its sights on this little city. Too much was here that could be discovered, namely Danny and the portal. And neither was exactly hidden.

Vlad had truly hoped that by engaging the knight in battle, he could have kept him away from the portal's pull just long enough for Halloween night to pass. He'd known it would be a close fight, and that getting cut with that sword was a high risk. What cruel fate had deigned that Danny's lair materialise so damnably close to that castle…

He had no more time for grim thoughts. As a crash sounded from above, Vlad dove through the portal and into the lab. He ascended into the boy's bedroom, dropping the unconscious teen onto his bed.

With his eyes closed and mouth slack, he looked as if he were simply sleeping. But Vlad knew better. He knew that Danny's mind existed in a cage now, and that only Halloween's end would release him.

He hoped that the boy's mind survived the hours to come. After all, one couldn't exactly mentor and mold a child who's mind had been shattered beyond help.

Vlad made a mental note to increase his observation of the boy after this night. If Danny slipped up and revealed himself, it would have far-reaching repercussions.

A roar reverberated through the house, shaking its foundation. Vlad turned away from the child, knowing that he'd need to draw the knight out of the Fenton home and into the streets. After that, he might as well stick around and watch the events unfold. It was sure to be an interesting night.

#ersatz au #i'll get these chs all caught up to the other sites i swear #the fright knight #danny phantom #vlad masters

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jojuarez26 · 6 years

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We found love in a hopeless Place part19

Divergent fanfiction: Eric/OC. Mature content and strong language. I don't own any part of Divergent

@pathybo @tigpooh67 @clublulu333 @beautifulramblingbrains @jaihardy @emmysrandomthoughts @lunaschild2016 @iammarylastar @kenzieam @sparklemichele @frecklefaceb @kiiiimberlyriiiicker1995 @scorpio2009 @badassbaker @badassdauntlessgirl @ericdauntless @elaacreditava @dauntlessqueen99 @sporadichologramblizzard-ed17414 @readsalot73 @captstefanbrandt @desicoulter @mom2reesie

This morning had been probably one of the most amazing in my life. I played Legos amongst other things with my son and watched a movie with him.

I got all my paperwork filled out and realized Adam was napping figured I would to. Knowing in the hours to come I would be stuck in my uniform and about fifty pounds of tactical gear, I opted for boxer only and laid on the couch.

The couch dipped and fingers trailed down my temple. I smiled but nothing else. Just laid still. Sam trailed her fingers down my neck and across my collar bone.

I just lay content, eyes closed and her exploring, that is until I realized her next destination. I lightly grabbed her wrist before she could go any further. Without opening my eyes I started to talk.

"No. It's ok. We have time. Just lay down with me," I knew she wasn't ready for that yet.

"I want to," she whispered.

I opened my eyes, but she wasn't looking at me. I don't know why she suddenly felt a need to push boundaries, but I wasn't going to push her, EVER.

"Samantha look at me," I cupped her cheek with my other hand.

Her eyes were a cross of anxious and determined. Nope. Not today.

"Sam you're not ready. That's ok. I can wait, we can wait. Just lay down with me. Ok?" I was afraid it was a loose loose situation. Scare her or offend her? I'll take offended for a hundred Alex.

"It's won't be ok Eric. I hear the women talk. Waiting for Eric to get bored waiting on the freak. It's not fair and-"

"Stop. Now. Sam. First of all who cares what anybody thinks if it's not what I think. Second, I will beat the fuck out of someone if I EVER hear you being called names. Third. Sam I'm ok, I don't mind. What wouldn't be fair is me pushing you into something you're just not ready for." The tears started to slip down her cheeks, but she was smiling.

"I just want you to be happy," she whispered.

"I am. You and Adam, that's what makes me happy. I would be happier if you would just lay down with me. Please," I pouted.

"Ok." And she did. I'm not sure how or why, but just having her next to me was enough. I just want her lieing next to me, always.

I stand at the door getting ready to leave. It's the first time I ever didn't want to leave for a mission. Before I never had a reason not to rush head long into battle, guns a blazing.

Now, I have two. I'm hugging Adam while Sam has her arms around my waist from behind. For the first time I feel at home in my home and God it feels so right.

Of course, now I have to leave. It's ok though, I already know the universe hates me. So I will just roll with it.

"You be good for Sam and your mom while dad is gone ok buddy. When I come home if you've been good we'll have pizza and CHOCOLATE cake for dinner and stat up late! How does that sound?" Honestly, I can't wait, I want to do that now.

"No." He says on the verge of tears. Shit, what did I do wrong?

"No? Why not? Are you mad at dad?" Please don't let him be mad at me.

"Don't go DADDY!! I-I am I will miss yooo. No, no go," the tears were flowing and he was squeezing my neck so hard I couldn't breath

I had too take a deep breath before I could speak. Afraid my voice would fail me.

"I have to buddy. That's my job. I have to go protect our faction and keep everyone safe," for a second I hated my job. That was a new, odd feeling.

"Ohtay. Come home! I lub yoo. We we will eat pizza and moobies," he was calming down and the only thing calming me was feeling Sam's hand tracing circles on my back.

After a few more minutes, Four took Adam so I could say goodbye to Sam. I never knew how fucking much good byes suck until now.

I wrapped my arms around her and lowered my forehead to hers. We both had our eyes closed, just taking in each other.

"I just got you and you just got Adam. You make sure you come home. Because, because even forever wouldn't be enough time to spend together," she says quietly as she runs her fingers up and down my neck.

"I know. I'll be back. You owe me a back rub and the kid owes me pizza. I intend to collect" she smiled and stood on her toes to place a soft kiss on my lips.

Now I finally understand why it always took Max and Harrison so long to be ready to leave on missions. I don't want to fucking leave. Four answered the knock at my door as I just refused to let her go.

"Trust me son, I know. But it's time to leave," Max's voice was soft and reserved. I sure get it now.

I kissed her deep before I turned without another word and walked out. I had to or I would never leave. I blinked hard a few times before plastering a scowl on my face.

"Does it ever get easier?" I knew the answer but I still had to ask.

"No. It gets harder," Max mumbled.

"Fucking joy," I sighed.

The next several hours where spent strategizing, deciding where to send teams, reviewing and rerewiewing what we did and didn't know. We had reached out to the council to request a state of emergency meeting. I had a headache the size of Chicago pounding in my temples.

I was standing over the only map we had that was at least over seventy-five years out dated of the land mass known as Illinois. Before Chicago had been separated from the rest of civilization, we had belonged in the land mass referred to as the state of Illinois.

I now questioned everything we had ever been taught to believe as to why are city had came to be the way it was as a factioned society. What was still out there? Had there ever really even been a great war.

As I was rubbing my temples and contemplating everything I had ever known to be true which had influenced why I had adopted my personal beliefs in life, I sensed someone standing behind me.

"Eric take a break. That map isn't going anywhere. You need to eat, get something to eat." A gentle but familiar soothing voice spoke to me.

I turned to shrug at Lila and give her a lopsided grin. Max's wife of twelve years stood hip cocked arms crossed giving me that motherly glare.

"Boy, sometimes I think you forget you are human and not a damn machine," she teased a slow smile quirking her lips.

"I think you might be right," I couldn't disagree.

"You are the kind of soldier every commander wishes on stars for and mother's loose sleep over," she wss shaking her head handing me a cup of coffee.

"Thanks.... I think," I always liked and deeply respected the chief commanders wife.

"When you go in front of the council today try not to offend them this time. But, stand your ground as the educated, trained, dedicated soldier you are. Not the arrogant, sadistic, bully you want people to think you are," she spoke with conviction and sincerety.

"You know Lila the truth is yes I am ALL of those things and more. Today though, I will speak as a concerned leader, citizen, and soldier. More importantly though as a terrified father and overly protective boyfriend. Whatever it takes to keep Chicago safe for those most important to me."

Lila's eyes flashed with fierce pride and complete understanding. I also for the first time realized that real power and respect came from being a man, not a bully.

"I always knew what potential Max seen in the angry, over intelligent, cruel boy from Erudite. I think the rest of the faction is starting to catch up." She winked and patted me on the shoulder before leaving.

"Are you Dauntless insane! We can't allow this. It's a death sentence." Marcus Eaton of Abnegation fumed.

"How do we know these aren't lies and propaganda Dauntless are using trying to take control of the city?" Asked Andrew Prior also of Abnegation.

Before I had a chance to speak I was surprised Jack asked if I minded he answered for me. I wasn't sure the angle he was playing, but I decided fuck it, I'll bite.

"It is true. All of it and more. Whether she will admit it or not Jeanine knows it too." Her eyebrows raised a bit, but she said nothing.

"I have spent the entirety of my current position as head leader of Candor in fear of these people that live outside the realm of our society. No more. As of today I pledge my allegiance to the leader's of Dauntless and the people of Chicago. Whatever you need Max, Eric, you have Candors support."

I nodded and silently thanked Jack for his support. It truly meant alot to me. The next person to speak shocked the shit out of me. I think hell finally froze over.

"As much as it pains me to ever agree with both Dauntless and Candor, Jack is right. It is all true. I want Erudite to be free of the outside evil lurking in the shadows. Although I am not as enthusiastic as Jack. I pledge Erudites support as well." Then she locked eyes with me. I internally cringed. What is this crazy bitch going to say next.

"It is no secret that Eric and I do not see eye to eye on just about everything. However for this situation I will concede. I think Eric is the most logical choice to lead the city for this mission." I was dumbfounded.

"Thank you Jeanine. As the lead commander of Dauntless and Eric's superior officer I agree. Johanna, how does Amity stand." I looked at Max trying to hide my shock at all the support that was being given to me.

"As you know we generally stay neutral at Amity. This is different and the time for neutral standings has passed. Amity will stand with Dauntless and agree to give our support to Eric " Johanna smiled at me and sat back in her seat.

"Absolutely not. Abenegation does not and will not concede," Marcus fumed.

It was finally time to exercise my inner asshole. I smiled wickedly when I stood and stared that piece of shit down.

"Actually Marcus, your particular opinion doesn't mean a damn thing," I smiled.

"Excuse me. Have you lost your mind talking like that too ME!" His face was red and rage burned in his eyes.

"Actually there is no excuse for garbage like you. Marcus Eaton you are under arrest. You are being charged with abuse of a minor child. Sexual misconduct with a minor under the age of fourteen. Faction treason and gross misuse of a person in a position of authority just for starters. So Andrew in light of the situation just brought to light, Dauntless will except your vote and voice for Abnegation."

I expected most to he outraged and in disbelief. It was the complete opposite. As Marcus was being lead away the rest of the council began clapping. While I'll be damned.

"Abnegation concedes and will support Eric. Thank you Eric for what you just did. It has been along time coming. You are a brave and honorable man." I just nodded in Andrew's direction and tired to breath.

It felt indescribable to see and hear all the people who are responsible for our city to trust and respect me. I will not let them down. I will fight to the end to protect our way of life, our home, our city.

My perspective on life and my priorities had done a complete one eighty as well as my personal life. I'm not sure what the immediate future brings, but I will do what it takes to see our lives protected and our city free.

#jai courtney #eric coulter fanfiction #eric coulter #divergent eric #eric divergent fanfiction #eric insurgent

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tinfoil-jones · 6 years

Text

Motorcity: Legacy, Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Motorcity, or the song. Motorcity belongs to Disney, and the song belongs to Lordi Title: Burners Legacy Rating: T-M depending on chapter Summary: He didn’t want to be his carbon copy, but he might have to be in order to rescue him from Deluxe. Pairings: MikexChuck, DutchxTennie, ClairexFoxy, DukexBabs, Juliex?, OCxOC Warnings: Don’t read if you don’t like or are triggered by violence, death or dystopian societies Author’s Note: Some characters you like died.

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Chapter 1: Blood Red Man

\They called me “The Leather Apron” They called me “Smiling Jack” They prayed to the heavens above That I would never ever come back

Can you hear how the children weep? Chills of fear like a sawblade cutting deep\

“You look so much like Mike.” Was something Mitch was told frequently throughout his life; and it was true. He was already taller than Mike at age seventeen, taking more after Chuck in that regard, his hair was the same thickness but a slightly lighter shade yet still dark brown, and his nose was long instead of broad and his cheekbones were set slightly lower. His eyebrows weren’t as thick as Mike’s, and he lacked the signature sideburns. But other than that, he was a dead ringer for Mike Chilton. And when he was younger he loved it; his father was a legend amongst Motorcity after all, and being seen as ‘just like him’ gave his younger self a false sense of pride. Back then, Mitch even had a very similar hairstyle with short, but straight hair and a cowlick at the center of the part.

Nowadays, he hated the comparison. Not because he hated his father, but because people always told him he looked just like him with such amazement as if he didn’t already know that because he was told it constantly. It irked him so much he spiked up his hair with copious amounts of gel just to create some differentiation between them. But that was after the incident.

Then the incident occured when he was fourteen.

The incident was called ‘Hellfire Rain’ and for good reason. It started out as a siege of the Cabler settlement, which wasn’t an unheard of event. Mitch was left at Jacobs place with his baby sister while it happened, and his parents in Mutt left to respond. The everything went wrong. A series of bombs were thrown around by the Kane Bots and one caused a large cable to fall down and explode, which destroyed about ten percent of the Cablers settlement.

The cable had fallen right next to Mutt and then exploded; Mike had survived, but was unconscious and then captured by Kane’s forces, Chuck was killed either by the explosion itself or the resulting fire, either way according Texas all that was left was a charred body. Mitch really hoped, in a morbid way, that it was the explosion that had killed him, because he didn’t want his dads last moments spent suffering by burning to death. Chuck wasn’t the only one to meet his demise at that initial battle either, as Tennie’s father perished as well when he was trapped behind rubble and suffocated on smoke.

That was just the start though, Kane forced were rejuvenated through the capture of Mike Chilton and decided to go after the rest of Motorcity while they were at it, and a series of raids and bombings followed. No one was untouched by the Hellfire Rain; all of the Burners allies were affected. The Duke had a portion of his dump incinerated during a raid, he and his daughter Dutchess and some of his goons managed to survive the war, but some of his goons were killed, including his late wife Babs.

The assault on the lower half of Detroit lasted for four months. Near the end, during a last stand where the remaining gangs rushed Kane’s forces and drove the bots back to Deluxe, Claire’s wife Foxy was killed when her vehicle was T-boned by a warpod. Claire was from then on absolutely done with Motorcity and stayed in Deluxe, forcing their son Teddy to stay there with her (although he did eventually run away and return to Motorcity).

After the Hellfire Rain incident, Mitch saw less and less of the original Burners; with Tennie’s father dead, Tennie had to take his place as the Cablers leader and Dutch stayed by his wife’s side and helped her take care of the settlement. Julie had somehow upgraded from intern to an executive in Kane Co and was practically second-in-command, which was unexpended but not entirely unpleasant because she would still not hesitate to rally to Motorcity’s defense even if she couldn’t carry on being a full time Burner. And of course he never saw Claire since as her amity towards Motorcity was so strong she couldn’t even go down there to drag her son back to Deluxe.

Currently, Mitch and most of the rest of the ‘new Burners’ reside at Jacobs place, which was being run by Texas, as Jacob was too sick and frail to do much anymore.

“Still bummed about yesterday?” His co-conspirator Miles suddenly asked, as he laid on the hood of his car Moonstruck, one arm behind his head and the other holding a book in front of his face which he was barely paying attention to. Inactive, Mitch had his jacket in his room and was wearing only the black turtleneck he usually wore under it, his black jeans, and his black sneakers with a blue and green stripe.

Miles was an older teen, about nineteen, who was tall but stood a few inches below him still. She had light brown hair pulled into a ponytail and bangs held in place with a red hair clip, her eyes were the same color of her hair and framed by wire-rimmed circular glasses. She usually wore a yellow-trimmed red leather jacket with the Burners emblem on the back, but now that they were in the garage she had it off; she otherwise wore a sleeveless white v-neck, black tights and red-and-yellow converse boots. She had a red-and-yellow gaping-maw facemask that she usually pulled up to her nose when she was riding, but now that she was idle she had it around her neck instead. Mile’s wasn’t like the other Burners in the sense that she had no connection to the former Burners, the only thing she had in common with them was that she had also been affected by Hellfire Rain, as her mother had died during one of the assaults.

“Go. Away.” Mitch muttered, after yesterday’s failure in rescuing his father from Kane Co he was in no mood to deal with anyone right now.

“Oh come on Mitch you’ve been on the same page for an hour.” Miles told him as she leant over the black hood of his car; Miles wasn’t as into cars as the rest of them, which is why she had a motorcycle called Prowler instead. He sighed and put his book down; she was right.

“I got him Miles, I actually got him out of suspension and ten feet away from that port but I still lost him.” He said “If it were the other way and dad was saving me we would have made it back.” Miles adjusted her glasses at his self doubt.

“You did your best,” she comforted “for gods sake you phased through that building for three hours looking for the specific room he was in.” For over a year ever since he got a firmer grasp on hacking Mitch had been scouring all the files and archives he could looking for some reference to a private cell of some kind, as Mike Chilton was not listed as an inmate at the maximum security prison in Deluxe. After a while, Mitch came to the conclusion that there was no way that Kane would have any file that could be exploited by cyberterrorists such as himself. So he figured he had to manually sweep the building. Mitch had to do back alley deals and even resorted to stealing to get the tech he needed; he managed to snag himself a wristband that allowed the user and any person they were touching to become intangible and invisible; but when it was shorted out at Kane Co, the program that provided this function was too corrupted to allow further use so he had to delete them.

“My best? What does my best matter if I couldn’t even save my father.”

“We’ll try again another day!” Miles insisted “You know that Kane won’t kill him.”

“I don’t care, I don’t care until he’s finally home safe.” Mitch shot back, then stood up and walked away, back to his room.

Or at least he would have if an excited squeal followed by a crash didn’t suddenly permeate the garage from the kitchen, followed by a deep encouraging yell. Rolling his eyes, Mitch went to the kitchen to find what he expected; a ramp formed by a wooden board propped on top of a large steel pot, and his baby sister Little T on the ground with a small scooter about a foot away. Little T was laughing at what must have been a ‘stunt’ and their caretaker Texas has standing by and above her laughing also. Texas had matured but only physically he no longer wore his racing jacket and wore a white tank top instead, and his hair was gay-streaked and a lot longer than it used to be, making him look almost like a past era metal head.

“Yeah that was awesome Little T! Let’s do it again!” Texas whooped and struck an action pose, and Little T immediately got back on her feet and reached for her scooter.

Mitch picked the toddler up and held her in front of him “I think four crashes in one day is enough,” he said, studying his baby sister for any abrasions or bruises. Little T pouted at her brothers fussing.

“Stwong!” She complained and held up her arms as if to flex but all there was was baby fat “Awesome!”

Little T’s actual name was Tory, and she looked more like Chuck but still managed to hold a heavy resemblance to Mike and by extension Mitch. She had shoulder length brown hair the same colour as Mike’s, and she had his nose also. She had fair skin though, with freckles, and blue eyes. At age three she didn’t have all of her teeth yet and had a fair few gaps here and there, but it made it look adorable when she smiled, and she always wore a black t-shirt that was too big for her with the sleeves and the stripe down the middle red, and brown shorts. Since she usually stayed at Jacobs place she usually didn’t wear shoes and just wore mismatched socks instead.

Surprisingly, her main caretaker besides Mitch was Texas and he doted on the toddler. At first, he was pretty lost and confused because he didn’t know the first thing about taking care of babies let alone a baby girl. And as with any female he couldn’t even initially remember her name and just called her ‘Little T’, as in Little Texas. And the nickname was well deserved because as she got older and more active she was practically just like Texas. It surprised and relieved Mitch to no end that her first word wasn’t Texas, because now that she could say it she shouted it as a ‘battle cry’ just like the man himself.

“Just practicing with scooters before we move her onto cars.” Texas said with a grin as he crossed his arm. Bless his soul he meant well and he loved her, but sometimes it’s like he didn’t understand just how fragile three-year-olds really were.

“That’s not for another thirteen years.” Mitch deadpanned and placed his baby sister on the counter, he reach into the drawer and put a bandage on her nose where there was a scratch.

“It’s never too early to start little dude! She’ll be out racing you before you know it.” Texas exclaimed. “You were her size not too long ago!” Mitch only rolled his eyes again.

“Nap time.” He said to his baby sister and held her again.

“Noooo! Nap bad!” She said and thrashed around.

“Too bad.” Mitch said and carried her to his room, where he placed her on the bed behind him as he sat at the edge of it. Luckily, unlike Texas, Little T was actually quite obedient and begrudgingly crossed her arms to curl up for her nap.

Of the people who lived here, Mitch had the cleanest room; he had a clear desk with all of the contents in the drawers, a twin-sized ‘bed’ in the corner which was a mattress propped on top of another mattress but it was still neatly made, a bookshelf full of hand-me-down books and a few figurines, a closet with no door, a chest in front of the foot of his bed, and a black stratocaster in a different corner next to a beat up and obviously scrapped amplifier.

“Mit?” She said, it was a nickname she had for him because she was too young to say his name without making it sound like ‘bitch’.

“Yes?” Mitch responded as he grabbed his jacket - his jacket was actually the same cadet jacket their father used to wear when he was in the Kane Co military, it was just dyed and customized; it was mainly dark blue, with bright green where the white used to be, the Burners logo was where the Kane Co symbol used to be, and the ‘K’ on the other side was changed into a ‘B’. People used to think he would wear his father dark-blue-and-orange jacket, but out of respect for his fathers eventual return he kept it in the display case in the garage where it had been ever since Hellfire Rain.

“When daddy home?” She asked, playing with the cover on the pillow. Mitch froze. She didn’t remember their parents, as she’d only been six months old when that fateful day came. She was, however, well aware that Mike was alive, and was always assured that he would ‘come home soon’.

“He’s… going to come home soon.” Mitch promised hallowly and kissed her cheek. She didn’t pout this time because this was always the answer she got, and she just closed her eyes to sleep. Given that she’d been raised primarily by himself and Texas, she didn’t quite understand the significance of ‘daddy’, it was really more of a word to her. “Soon…” He repeated, he placed his hands on his knees as stared at them as he thought.

Maybe going it alone hadn’t been the best idea, but what other choice did he have? The invisibility/intangibility function was limited to the user and anyone he was touching. He couldn’t sweep through the building with four people hanging on him and each other, not quietly or quickly at least. The current Burners consisted of him, the leader and software specialist. Miles, the scout. Dana, the hardware mechanic/specialist. Kameron, the muscle and spy. And Teddy, the resident medic. No… they couldn’t have been as much help as a hindrance. Going through Kane Co undetected was a solo mission and he messed it up and it was his own fault. He should have saw Mike’s weakness early on, of course he was going to be slow he’d been in stasis for three years.

And why did he have to tell him the truth about his other dad…

Right then had been the worst possible time to tell Mike the truth about Chuck. Mitch should have just lied and told him the truth later, he should have put his honesty aside just long enough to get his father back in Motorcity.

Whoever said that lying was a sin really should have put situations like that into consideration.

Making sure Little T was asleep, Mitch reached between the mattresses and pulled out a ziplock baggie, inside of it was a worn out picture frame which he took out of the bag. At the bottom of the picture frame ‘Chilton Family’ was sloppily scrawled in marker, the ‘L’ had been left out initially on accident and added later. The picture was a black-and-white faded image from three and a half years ago; he was thirteen and small for his age, Mike was standing behind him with his hand on his shoulder and was looking lovingly to the side at Chuck, who was a holding a just recently born and swaddled Little T.

He gritted his teeth as he looked at the picture, and twin trail of tears ran down his face.

—

Julie stood by her father with her arms behind her back, staying quiet as her father was yelling; the now elderly ruler of Detroit Deluxe was pacing back and forth in behind his desk; in front of the desk were some of his other executives, Admirable Gordy of the military, and his ‘private contractor’, Red. Behind her was her son Kameron the ‘intern’, in his Deluxe issued clothing and holding the same pose as her. Unlike her, Kameron could not lie about his parentage, because he looked as much like her as Mitch did to Mike; he had the same rounded cheeks that she did but he had a squarer, more prominent jaw, and his eyes were a darker shade of brown, but he had the same dark red, smooth hair just in a short style. However, since there was still a small amount of people who knew that Julie was Kane’s heir, there was no reason at the time to lie about Kameron.

Red was knelt on the ground as he listened to the ranting of his boss and employer; Julie always felt a special contempt for the man; almost three decades and he still couldn’t let his hatred for Mike go and still worked on behalf of Kane, even though that meant he was a menace to his original home of Motorcity. Ever since Mike had been captured he’d been more mellow than he once was, but he was still twitchty. No doubt just wanting Mike dead instead of in stasis.

“I can’t believe Chilton almost escaped!” Abraham Kane barked; he was past his seventies but due to the extended lifespan typical of Deluxe he was still strong and lively for his age, he hadn’t lost any muscle mass and the only thing different between him now and him when Julie was a teenager was that his hair was mostly white. “I thought the Burners were disbanded!”

“It appears these are new Burners, sir.” Red replied; Red had present during the initial Hellfire Rain attack that had Mike captured and Chuck killed, he’d sustained enough damage that his vocal chords were burnt by inhaling burning fumes and he had to be fitted with a mechanical voice module, which rendered his voice completely robotic.

“That Burner was nothing short of a clone,” Kane pointed out crossly; Julie knew that her father didn’t want a repeat of Mike “he looks like Chilton spat him out.”

The head scientist of Kane Co’s tech department was fiddling around with a projection screen, he appeared to be hacking into some files from Motorcity “It appears this boy is Mike Chiltons son; Mitchell Chilton. He’s seventeen years old.” He explained. Julie had to keep back a flinch at the previously unknown information about the existence Mitchell, but the hospital files in Motorcity weren’t as strongly protected as they would be in Deluxe and comparatively easy to hack.

“Another Chilton?!” Kane groaned in frustration and pinched the skin between his eyes.

“With him in the Burners it wouldn’t be far fetched that these other new Burners are also children of their predecessors.” The head of the tech department said; Julie saw a worried look briefly flash in Admirable Gordy’s eyes; his niece Dana was one of those new Burners.

“This is ridiculous, those Burners have been out of my hair for three years and they shoot up out of the ground like a ragweed by breeding like rats?” Kane inquired angrily, then looked down at Red, pointing at him “I want you to go down to that sewer and gather information on these new Burners.” Kameron, a Burner, was beginning to look uncomfortable as well.

“What kind of information are you looking for, sir?” Red asked, looking up at him from the ground; Julie imagined there was a smug look behind that visor.

“Whatever information it takes to end the Burners once for all.”

—

“That was a bunch of bull.”

“Language, Kameron.” Julie chided her son.

“But it was.” He said, looking down at her slightly; Kameron, being eighteen, was one of the oldest new Burners save for Miles who was nineteen, putting him in a slightly different position than she had been when she was a young Burner, even though he was also a spy. “Why don’t we just… you know.” Julie automatically elbowed him hard in the side which made the boy yelp a little “Oh come on! It’s not that much different than waiting for him to die, which could take thirty more years.” Kameron was adored by his grandfather, naturally, but Kameron believed in the liberation of Motorcity so much that unlike Julie, he thought it was best to just kill Kane.

“You don’t mean that and you know it, Kameron,” Julie tugged the younger redhead down slightly by the ear “you talk like that but we both know you’re not capable of that. And he’s your grandfather.”

“He’s evil.”

“Not entirely.” Julie insisted and let go of the boys ear, which he rubbed to relieve the soreness “If you were to… kill him, that wouldn’t make you any better than you think he is. And no one would rally to either yours or my own leadership if we usurped power instead of legally inheriting it, which is what we are going to do. Now, go to your room.” Hands up defensively, Kameron scrambled to where his room was, but no doubt he wouldn’t be there very long and would go to Motorcity within the hour.

Only two other executives knew that Julie was the heir to Kane Corporation, and by extension, Deluxe; the remaining original Burners still didn’t know. Her son Kameron was also sworn into secrecy, for his own safety. There were plenty of people willing to hurt Kane by any means, even if it meant going after someone who was on Motorcities side.

Julie sighed and headed to her office to ponder on what was said during the meeting; her father saw Mitchell and all he saw was another Mike, but that wasn’t the case. Kane was expecting another Mike Chilton and that was the mindset he was staying with; this put the actual Mike Chilton at risk of being terminated early just to kill Mitchell’s resolve.

Julie wanted very badly to save her friend from stasis herself, but there were some secrets Kane wouldn’t give even to her and that was one of them. He was the only one who knew were Mike was currently being held and he never put it on file, keeping that information to himself instead, the one place that could not be hacked. And as often as the blueprints for the building were updated there were so many changes so often it was impossible to saw where Mike’s pod was being kept, and she looked often but still found nothing. Mitchell had chanced it by manually phasing through walls. At this rate it might actually take until her father died of natural causes before she would know.

She had to passively stand by as she watched her old friend get arrested in front of the closed off ports, as he was dragged back into the building, and given another grandiose speech from Kane about how his time was over, and he didn’t even fight it as he was shoved into a new pod that would soon after be moved into an undisclosed location; her old friend had looked at her, and only nodded, as if to acknowledge that he knew that she had no choice.

In her office, she closed and locked the door; on her desk there was a projected image in one corner of her holding an toddler Kameron, and Claire with an infant Teddy. Time sure did go by quickly, at this point she’d really hoped her father would have accepted letting Motorcity exist autonomously, but of course he didn’t. He wanted to control everything. She sat down at her desk chair; she would always love her father, and would always believe he had good in him, for she’d seen it before and so had Kameron.

Sometimes though, she wondered if it was selfish of her to covet her father’s life at the expense of others…

Foxy, Chuck, Tennie’s father, Babs, and Tooley for example…

Her communicator started to beep and she made sure her door was locked before answering; a pixelated head icon of Mitchell appeared.

“Hello Mitchell.” Julie greeted with a bittersweet smile.

“Kam just called me and said something big went down at Kane Co, should I be concerned?” The head icon asked.

“Maybe just a little bit…” The executive began “Kane just sent Red down to Motorcity.”

“Red? Isn’t he satisfied enough?” Julie could hear the teen huff “My fathers already on ice what more does he want?”

“I’m afraid he and Kane are just a little bit…” Oh dear, how does one properly explain the ‘sins of the father’ trope? “…Off-put by your appearance, because, well…”

“Because I look a lot like my dad?”

“Mitchell.”

“…Because I look almost exactly like him?”

“Yes.” She confirmed “I’m going to send you specs of Red’s suit and warpod so you know what kind of weaponry your dealing with. Red’s old, but he’s no pushover.”

“Roger that boss.” Mitchell said “Can you queue that for an hour from now?”

“Why?”

“I have to clear some space on my hard-drive first.”

“It’s not that big of a file.”

“I know but…” He paused “My drives still kind of fuzzy since it shorted out, I need to do another scan to make sure any new files won’t be corrupted.”

“Alright Mitchell, and please keep an eye on Kameron when he gets down there.”

“No problem.”

—

Mitch hadn’t been lying when he said he drive had been fuzzy when it shorted out; but he’d fixed his wristwatch - the incident where it shorted out taught him a lesson he’d been told of but never realized the importance of until he failed in rescuing his dad.

Always have a your files back up.

That was something his late father always told him, but he didn’t quite grasp just how important that software concept was; some tech he was. No matter, he understood that now. He would still mainly use his wristband, but he had just finished syncing it to a chip; the chip was small, tiny even, but it was capable of all of the functions his wristband was; it had immediate access to his data cache and would have all of the applications of his wristband automatically downloaded to it meaning it would hold the same functions even if his wristband shorted out.

However, it was just a chip and needed some kind of carrier and external user that would allow it to carry out these functions.

And it was making him nervous, because he knew exactly what that ‘carrier’ was going to be.

Mitchell grabbed a bottle of lidocaine; a local anesthetic. Something Teddy used for minor treatments like stitches, but today he was using it topically. He grabbed an eyedropper and sucked up from the solution before dripping about two drops into his right eye, and blinked a few times until he was sure his eye was numb. He then grabbed a tiny fork-like spreader and used it to keep his right eye from blinking anymore once he was sure his eyeball was numb.

He grabbed a cloth and place it between his teeth to bite down on.

He grabbed the chip and began pressing it against his eyeball until the retina gave and allowed the chip to slip right inside. Both of his eyes teared up because the solution had been topical and only numbed the outside of his eyeball and not the inside, but he continued pushing it inside of his eye with a now trembling finger

And once it was right where he wanted it, he howled in pain; making the cloth fall out of his mouth.

—

Texas was in the living room with Little T “You can do it Little T,” he whooped at the toddler; she was standing on top of the TV “on the count of three jump off and do a backflip onto the couch!” He cheered, she nodded excitedly with a gappy grin as she prepared a dismount.

“AAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!”

The scream startled them both; Little T fell off the TV onto the floor, thankfully onto one of the cushions Texas had surrounded the TV stand with. Texas blinked in confusion and looked over to where the sound had originated.

“…Chuck?” He inquired; that sounded exactly like how Chuck screamed alright, he’d recognize that lady-like scream anywhere.

“Fun!” Little T babbled and laughed as she stumbled over to him, grabbing his leg with a giggle, Texas picked her up and held her under his arm as he went over to the noise to investigate the sound; he down the hallway and could hear the still continuing scream behind Mitch’s door, so he took the only action that made sense to him.

He kicked Mitch’s door down “TEXAS!” He hollered “I HEARD YOU SCREAM ARE YOU OKAY MITCH?” He yelled, seeing Mitch hunched over his desk in agony.

The teen turned around; his hand was covering the right side of his face and he was still mostly hunched over and has his head hanging. The brunet stumbled over, almost tripping a few times until he was by Texas and was gripping his shoulder seemingly for support.

“Mitch?” Texas inquired.

“01000110 01110101 01100011 01101011 (1).” Mitch groaned in agony; why he repeated ones and zeroes Texas had no clue other than it was the geek language that Chuck had taught the teen.

Little T laughed at her brothers pain and suffering “Bruber a sissy!” She mocked.

“Mitch?” Texas repeated, more sternly as he grabbed the teens shoulder with his free hand.

Rather than whimper Mitch looked up with a pained looking grin “H-Hold on.” He croaked as he pulled his hand off of his eye.

His right eye went from dark brown to green with a circuit pattern and a green comm screen was projected right from his eye.

“What the-” Texas had pause himself at just how awesome that was “dude can you shoot out laser beams?”

“Maybe later.” Mitch said as he straightened out and tested out the comm screen; he pressed a few areas on the screen and files streamed right in like a normal comm screen. “It worked!” The more apparent advantage of an comm screen out of the eye was that he could interact with the screen with both hands instead of just one like people who had their projection screens mounted on or implanted in a wrist.

“What did you do?” Texas asked; usually techno stuff like that didn’t impress him too much the the kid just summoned a comm screen from his eyeball.

“I inserted a chip into my eye; it connected itself to the electrical impulses in the nerves of my eye and is connected to my brain now.” Mitch explained, but Texas only paid attention to the first part.

The kid just shoved a chip into his eyeball - that was so goddamn /metal/.

“Dude that’s so metal!” Texas shouted.

“Mefal!” Little T tried to repeat, and clapped her hands excitedly; she didn’t understand much besides that it was apparently awesome.

Mitch breathed it deeply and tried to focus; the chip was controlled by his brain, but the impulses needed to activate it he needed to practice with, he’d summoned the screen but he needed to retract it now. He blinked a few times and focused hard, and the screen went away; his eye turned it’s natural dark brown color again.

“Duuuude you should put a laser function on that chip.” Texas said, putting his free arm around Mitchell best he could with their height difference.

“I’ll download the application later.” Mitch said, panting slightly at the pain in his eye he still had. “But I have to wait until Julie sends me another file.”

“What file?”

Mitch pulled back a little with a frown “…Red’s back.” and as expected, Texas flipped out.

“THAT GUY AGAIN?! FOOL ME ONCE SHAME ON YOU SHAME ON YOU, FOOL ME TWICE SHAME ON ME, FOOL ME THREE TIMES I BRING MY CAR, FOOL ME FOUR TIMES AND I.. I… TEXAS DOESN’T KNOW WHAT HE’LL DO BUT ITS NOT GOING TO BE PRETTY.” To augment her caretakers point, Little T did the punching the hand thing to symbolize a beating.

“Calm down uncle Tex, it’s going to be fine. He doesn’t want to fight us, I think…” Mitch hummed and pondered, putting his hand in his chin “…I think he’s just trying to study us.”

“NO ONE STUDIES UNDER TEXAS’S WATCH!” The stronghorn driver yelled and stormed out of the room.

“Texas wait!” Mitch said as he followed the older.

“TEXAS IS GOING TO FIND RED AND MAKE HIM REGRET EVERYTHING.”

“FINE JUST PUT MY SISTER DOWN SHE ISN’T GOING WITH YOU ARE YOU CRAZY.”

—

“I can’t believe you of all people would do something so reckless - it’s all fun and games until you get a vitreous hemorrhage - the fact you didn’t shocks and confuses me.” Teddy told him he as he dripped a drop of antibiotic eye drops into Mitch’s eye.

“I know.” Mitch agreed with a little bit of a guilty saw; with his left eye he watched Little T start climbing Teddy’s cabinet, no bout after his jar full of lollipops. “But, what’s the damage, doc?” He asked.

“Amazingly just a tear in the cornea - seriously Mitch one wrong move and you could have made yourself blind.” Teddy took out a roll of gauze and an eye pad; he put the pad over Mitch’s eye and secured it there with medical tape.

“Teddy I need to use the chip.”

“Not until that corneal tear is healed.” Teddy stated simply, but firmly, to further his point he diagonally wrapped gauze around his head, covering the eye and eye pad. “Keep that there for three days, no excuses. Also, let me look at that periodically; your body might have a immune response to a foreign body like that, or infections - did you even sterilize that thing?”

“Of course I did!” Mitch waved his concern.

Teddy was the resident medic of the Burners, and son of Claire and Foxy. About a year ago he ran away from home and down to Motorcity, as Claire had kept him away from the city ever since his other mother died. Teddy heavily resembled Claire; having the same skin, eye and hair color and even the same hairline he just kept his hair close-cropped. However, his angular, pointed face shape and nose shape came from his other mother Foxy. Teddy was the only Burner who wore Deluxe style clothing; He wore a white hoodie with a light blue burner symbol in the front, and light blue pants with white stripes down the sides, and white-and-light-blue sneakers. The older teen explained that it was to stick it to Kane more, but Mitch didn’t quite follow his train of thought there. He also had a pair of lab goggles that he usually let hand around his neck but since he was treating a patient he had them up over his eyes.

Teddy was a passive Burner in comparison to the others; he usually stayed at Jacobs place and operated almost entirely as support; his vehicle, Sunback, was actually a modified ambulance with a tractor plow in the front and monster truck wheels. He only came on the scene if there was a medical emergency in which he would put patients in his vehicle and tow their vehicle. Teddy was, what his late father would describe of as ‘a healer and tank’. Teddy’s medical knowledge came from being a academic prodigy in Deluxe; he graduate early and trained as a paramedic, although he wasn’t there long enough to make it to full paramedic and instead was a certified Advanced Emergency Medical Technician, an AEMT which was between EMT and paramedic.

Little T was now on top of the cabinet and was helping herself to some of the brightly colored lollipops in the jar; it was a really good thing the medic had recently moved his bowl of complimentary condoms somewhere else.

“Now, change your bandages every day for the next three days,” Teddy continued to advise, not noticing the toddler on his work cabinet “I’d advise taking it off right before going into the shower, and afterwords put only one drop of the antibiotic on it before putting on new bandages.”

“That’s enough suckers for now, Little T.” Mitch deadpanned to his sister; Teddy finally turned around, then stiffened up and threw his arms up in exasperation.

“Little T! Not again!” He exclaimed and walked over; the toddler squeaked and slid down the cabinet with the jar tucked under one her arms and ran off; Teddy chasing her.

Being a teen ‘parent’ wasn’t easy, but it sure could be amusing sometimes.

His wristband pinged with an oncoming message; he pressed a button and a head icon of Texas appeared. “Hey unc-”

“I NEED BACK UP.” Mitch cringed and drew his wrist back to save his ears. Then he could hear what sounded like energy blasts and crashing.

“I’m on my way,” Mitch told the older Burner as he started rushing towards Moonstruck; Miles was still in the garage, but there was no sign of Dana or Kam yet “I’m going to lock on your coordinates alright? We’ll be right there.” The head icon of his caretaker disappeared “Look sharp Miles we have a mission.” He shouted to his co-conspirator as she looked at him confused “Just follow me, I’ll fill you in on the details!” The older teen nodded, pulled her face mask up to her nose, threw her leather jacket back on and jumped on her red motorcycle, which made a puma-like roar as it sprang back to life.

Hopping into his vehicle, Mitch reached into the center console and pulled out an old, warn skull module and popped it on top of the stick shift, waking Moonstruck up with a howl-like rev of the engine.

With his car awake and sharp, he raced out of the garage and attempted making a call to the rest of his team, but only Teddy and Miles would answer.

“What just happened guys?” The blocky head icon of Teddy ask, the familiar sound of Little T giggling was in the background, meaning the medic must have caught her.

“Texas sent out a distress call, he didn’t say what it was but it sounded serious, you know he’s not the type to request backup.”

“Have you picked up on his location Mitch?” The head icon of Miles asked; the brunet checked his screen and struggled to watch both the road and his console screen with only his left eye “He’s about five blocks away, I’m going to patch you the coordinates.” He said and had the coordinates of the destination sent to both of the other Burners.

“Received.” Miles said, and her head icon disappeared as she rushed ahead to the destination; Miles served as a scout because of her vehicle being a motorcycle she could get to a destination much faster than the other Burners and could drive through tight fits a regular car couldn’t. What she lacked in armor and size she made up for in speed and maneuverability.

“Ping me if anyone gets hurt.” Teddy instructed.

“Course.” The younger Burner agreed and shut off the call with Teddy but kept Mile’s line open, when he was three block en route he put Miles back on speaker “Mile’s I need a status report.”

“Almost there-” A gasp and the sound of a energy blast of some kind “Kane Co warpod.”

“Is it red?”

“Yeah.” He heard the older teen curse under her breath and what had to be her wheels skidding on the rough pavement.

“Do you see Texas?”

“Hold on - um- wait, I see Stronghorn, it’s, parked?” She managed to stammer between skidding and energy blasts. Mitch attempted a call to Texas but it just continues to ring, which shouldn’t happen because any driver can answer a call while driving since their communication lines were synced to the cars themselves. This meant that Texas wasn’t in his car.

Mitch took a sharp turn, running a red light but he didn’t really care because this was Motorcity after all “Is there an alleyway there?”

“Two, why?”

He didn’t answer; he connected wirelessly to the warpods communicator but also accessed the data cache “The warpod is acting remotely,” he told the older teen “it’s motion activated, if you /stop moving/ it will stop firing. Just stop riding, now.”

“Mitch-”

“Just do it, Miles, I’ll be right there.” He commanded and pulled up near the area, but not in proximity of the warpods range, which was actually rather limited compared to most warpods, must have been an older model. Making sure his weapon was calibrated, he pulled the skull module out of the stick shift and ran out of Moonstruck - he saw Miles in the area in front of the sinister-looked warpod, she was behind a car overturned on it’s side and had Prowler stationed right next to her.

He ran over and crouched next to her “What happened to your eye?” Was the first thing she asked.

“Just a scratched eye, doctors orders - listen, no ones in the Warpod or Stronghorn.”

“Then where’s Texas and Red?”

“They’re going hand-to-hand - I’ll look in the alley to the left and you look to the alley on the right. If you find nothing, come into the alley I went into, and vice versa.” He instructed, then peeked over the car slowly as not to activate the motion sensing weapons.

She nodded and adjusted her glasses, and got up, running might next to the weapon and having to dodge a few blasts on foot before making it into the alley. Mitch sighed deeply and slightly anxiously because he was going to have to do the same thing just on the other side of. He really hated being a rebel leader sometimes. Sucking in one last breath and holding it in, he ran out from behind the car and made a beeline to the alley, twisting out of the way of oncoming blasts and missing the shots by what had to be pure luck until he finally made it the the alley.

He heard a harsh exchange of words and ran further down the alley until he came to the end of the alley.

Texas was on the ground, on his knees clutching his arm with his other arm reaching around to hold what had to be a wound and was facing Mitch, but in front of him stood a man clad in telltale red lighted armor, and with his back turned to Mitch as he towered over the incapacitated Texas.

Texas tilted his head slightly to look up at Mitch, but this was a bad move because it indirectly signalled to Red that someone was there and the old enemy turned the hell to face Mitch.

Mitch pressed a button on his wristband to ping a medical distress call to Teddy.

“Well, well,” Red said in a robotic voice “if it isn’t the discount Mike Chilton I’ve heard so much about.” He said mockingly, circling slightly, Mitch circled back and kept his weapon hidden but ready “Didn’t your dad ever tell you not to poke your eye out?”

“What do you want, Red, my dads already in prison what more do you want?”

Red shrugged nonchalantly, which infuriated Mitch “Honestly I was fine with Chilton in jail, although I’d really prefer dead. But the big boss is concerned about his clone running around - I thought he was exaggerating your resemblance but now that I’m seeing you in person I have to say, it’s no lie. My eyes are bleeding just looking at you. I’m guessing that’s what happened to you?”

Angrily Mitch made a step towards the armoured man, who brought his fists up, they lit up and sparked in some kind bright red energy. They held an angry stare - well, Mitch held up an angry stare at least, he had to guess that there was an angry or mocking stare behind that visor.

“Go home kid,” Red mocked “I’m interested in Mike Chilton - not some wannabe clone who thinks he’ll ever live up to him.” This enraged Mitch to the point of boiling over and he charged at red with this hand fist going up as if to punch him; out of his wristband an energy-based spinning saw blade sprang out. Red just stood there until Mitchell was close enough, then ducked under him, grabbing his wrists.

“Argh-” Mitch gasped as the red energy tased him, but it was only a minor taze but enough to short out his wristband and deter him for a second, a second was all that Red needed to use the hold he had on his wrists to slam and pin him against the wall.

“Pathetic,” Red spat, laughing menacingly behind his visor. Mitch saw Miles running towards them from the entrance of the alleyway, Red turned to her slightly “STOP.” He bellowed, then placed one hand over Mitch’s chest, effectively stopping Miles “One more step and the kids getting his heart jump-ended.” Speaking of Mitch’s heart, it was absolutely pounding; how did this mission go so wrong?

Miles put her hands up in a defensive pause; the female Burner unfortunately did not have a long ranged weapon and couldn’t attack Red from the distance she was at.

Red turned back to Mitch, who he had was pressing against the wall with the type of force Mitch wouldn’t be able to outmuscle “Now,” he said “where were we? Oh that’s right; I don’t know why Kane even bothers with a baby-faced punk like yourself. You’re no Mike Chilton. Your father would have had me beat by now but look where you are,” Mitch grimaced at the comparison “yeah, you’re definitely no Mike Chilton.”

Mitch began to shake - but not in fear, he was angry. He was tired of this, he entire life he’d been compared to his father, not just because of their actual blood relation but because of how he looked and it was bad enough to get it from other Motorcitizens but now Kane and his goons were going to stick to that rhetoric like flies on shit?

“Bitch,” Mitch swore, which seemed to catch Red just a little off guard “my name is Mitchell.”

He headbutted Red as hard he possibly could. It made stars dance in his vision but it was effective in getting the mercenary off of him.

And then suddenly Sunback came careening into the alleyway and slammed into Red; the hired gun was sent flying into the opposite wall of the alley; he was rendered unconscious, but alive, in a pile of old boxes and bottles.

Teddy jumped out “Get in!” He shouted, then fireman-carried Texas into the back of his vehicle, not questioning his orders Miles walked over and put Mitch’s arm over his shoulder, helping the now vertigoed Burner into the back of the ambulance as well. When everyone was secured into the back of the modified ambulance, Teddy drove out of the alley with a shriek from his tires, and headed back in the direction of their headquarters, getting an electronic tow-line on Moonstruck, Prowler and Stronghorn on the way.

“Are you okay Mitch?” Miles asked her friend as he sat wedged between her and Texas at the ambulatory-patient bench in the back of Sunback, he held his throbbing forehead in his hand, squeezing both of his eyes shut hard in an attempt to alleviate the pain. It didn’t work.

“…That really hurt.” He finally said, and she sighed in relief.

“Texas is fine by the way,” The Burners caretaker said from the other side of Mitch, which made Miles chuckle a little bit.

///

“You got such a knack for hurting yourself, I was wondering where your sister got it from I used to think it was from Texas but it must be genetic.” Teddy ranted as he shined his penlight into one of Mitch’s eyes and then the other one, he had taken the eyepad and bandages off of Mitch’s right eye so he could check both of them. They were back at the garage, and he was in Teddy’s workstation getting looked over. Texas was passed out in one of the cots, Teddy explained that he had no external signs of damage, meaning he must have been tased over and over instead “Okay… pupils equal round reactive to light.” He rambled “You shouldn’t have any real head trauma, but you’re going to have a killer headache.” The shorter teen put his penlight away and produced two tablets and a glass of water “This should help with the pain a little.”

“Thanks Teddy.” Mitch thanked, and knocked the pills back with a grimace. His little sister was ‘seated’ next to him in the doctor’s chair, and was bent on chewing on his arm and hand which he didn’t mind too much because at least she was distracted from doing anything destructive or harassing Texas. “I have a feeling Red isn’t done with us just yet, his mission is to study us and well, he’s already met me and Miles. This is far from over.” He told Teddy, who was nodding, still listening as he jotted down notes.

“Red bad?” Little T babbled, summarizing what what being said around her. He put an arm around her tiny frame, and she held his large hand in her two tiny ones but only to continue to gnaw on it.

“Red bad.” Mitch confirmed.

/Once again there is pain I bring flames, I bring cold I’m the Blood Red Sandman coming home On this unholy night I will make you my own Blood Red Sandman Coming home again I’m coming home again/

TO BE CONTINUED…

Authors note: Song is ‘Blood Red Sandman’ by Lordi. Cars revealed; Moonstruck= Wolf motif, black. Prowler= Cheetah motif, red. Sunback = Honey badger motif, cyan.

(1) He’s speaking binary, which translates to “Fuck”.

#motorcity #motorcity legacy #legacy #au #past!muck #past!muckles #past!dukexbabs #past!clairefoxy #dutchxtennie #burners #burners legacy

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