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cae-ruleam · 2 years

Text

the progression of succession

multichap fic, AO3 link (the format is a bit better there)

rating: T for swearing. later chapters might get heavy

word count: 1788

“One day, Phantom changed, or did he, really?”

Or, Danny is taking a test he isn't aware of ever having signed up for.

When Danny woke up, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. That should’ve been a sign of something amiss.

The previous night, he had been, rudely, awoken by Johnny and Kitty when they decided Amity had to be their dating spot again, at 2am in the morning. Whoever ever uttered that the dead sleep forever were clearly wrong.

It hadn’t been much of a fight, luckily. The couple genuinely just wanted to have some harmless fun riding and sitting around. Shadow even smiled at him. Johnny’s familiar was never able to lie about their emotions or intentions, which were, by extent, Johnny’s.

By then, already feeling guilty for impeding on their date, Phantom left them to it and drifted back home slowly. While there was no fight, regularly sleeping just four hours a night was bound to have some side effects. Unfortunately espresso shots only did so much.

So, color Danny surprised when he woke up fine. Better than fine, actually. He felt energized in a way he hadn’t felt in months, since Christmas Truce. Again, that should’ve tipped him off, but Danny was not one to look a gifted horse in the mouth.

The halfa shot a quick look at his bedside alarm – 7am – he could work with that. If he had to use some ghost perks to speed up the process, no one would be any the wiser.

He quickly pulled on some casual clothes, you can never go wrong with a NASA hoodie and black trousers, before he sped for the bathroom. He was in and out and down to the kitchen like lightning.

‘Thank god mom and dad are only ever down the labs or in their room.’ He thought as he grabbed a quick bite.

The house felt empty.

It has for the past year or so, ever since Jazz left for college some states over.

Soon – Danny thought. In just one more year, he will be able to leave this house behind as well.

He quickly scarfed down the rest of his breakfast and left silently like the wind.

Once outside, he stepped into a familiar alleyway and let his transformation wash over him. He flew high up into the sky.

His itinerary towards Casper high was practically second nature, and he let his body take the lead as he looked around, down at Amity.

Ghost attacks have become less frequent, but visits were becoming more common. It would still take some time before the citizens actually understood that, though. So Phantom was still as busy as ever. Just thankfully, less beat up.

At a distance, down below, a student running late felt a shift in the air. She looked up at the sky and saw... an anomaly.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket and hastily tried to take a picture. Once shot, the entity was glitchy as fuck.

She pulled up Twitter and put out a quick tweet before hurrying on.

-----

illegally blonde @.royallyhigh

alright this is creeping me the fuck out. has any ghost capture ever been this disturbed???

[Image ID: A vague, long and slender figure zipping across the sky. They’re incredibly distorted as if the image had already been compressed a thousand times over and shown on a twenty year old monitor, instead of having been taken two minutes ago.]

- reply to @.royallyhigh

in denial hush @.creamcherrypie

what the fuck. if i didnt know you suck ass at editing id say this is fake

- reply to @.royallyhigh

ember's new single out now! @.rosesformystar

no... don’t they look familiar...? i'm not going crazy, am i?

- reply to @.royallyhigh, @.rosesformystar

its halloween month idgaf @.starsformyrose

are you thinking what i'm thinking?

- reply to @.royallyhigh, @.rosesformystar, @.starsformyrose

Hopeless Writer @.mydailyfoodblog

You’re all crazy. It can’t be. They SCREAM bad news

-----

Danny slipped into his seat at the back of Lancer’s class with two minutes to spare. Most of the class was already present.

Lancer walked in and proclaimed it, “Too early to deal with this,” and started the class without marking attendances. The last few students came in a few minutes after without much fuss from them or their teacher, and class went on as normal. If the students seated near Daniel Fenton felt chills on their back, no one made a sound.

‘It can’t be coming from him. Not from that whimp.’ were their collective thoughts.

Puberty may have stretched him out and he may be quite fit, but his baggy clothing made sure no one would be aware of it. Sometime when he was fifteen Danny realized how badly his identity was hidden. He made an effort starting then, and it has been working well. No one suspected a thing, no one but Wes, of course.

Classes came and went. Students got increasingly creeped out near Danny Fenton of all people, for whatever reason.

Lunch came around.

It was just the second week since the start of the school year and Danny was already tired of it. Lunch breaks and free periods they shared being his only salvation. Such as right now.

The universe still seemed against Danny, for some reason. When they received their timetables for the first semester Team Phantom was thoroughly pissed. They barely had any classes together, the ones which they did share, were the only classes they took where there was only one class. They must’ve caught on that Sam and Tucker were covering for Danny’s ‘extracurricular activities’, and, fair. But it sucks.

While walking through the halls towards the cafeteria, he couldn’t help but notice the other students all stepped away a bit more than usual. Couldn’t help but overhear some whispers.

Do you think it could be because of some creepy shit his parents have been pulling? They have a PORTAL in their basement, don’t they?

Maybe you’re right... God, he may be a loser but I kind of feel bad... Shit! He’s near, shh.

If Danny didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought he was back in his freshman year. Actually, that might be the case. He wouldn’t put it past Clockwork to send him back in the past without warning. But their comments do not add up, at all.

Making his way past the rows of lockers a bit faster, he quickly arrived at the cafeteria. He went up, got some food and sat down at their usual table. The other two were already there.

“Do I have something weird on my face or something? Do I have ectoplasm scarring I missed?” was his greeting.

Sam and Tucker looked up from their food and stared at him with unreadable expressions. Eventually Sam scrunched her brows in confusion when that emotion won the inner battle.

“No... but if people have been avoiding you I can understand why. No offense, but you feel insanely unapproachable. Any idea what could’ve caused it?” The goth spoke with little emotion in her voice. It might’ve been a subconscious effort to not set off this anomaly- no, her friend, she had to remind herself. Why?

Tucker wanted to join in on the conversation, but his throat was locked. Why? This is his best friend! He could only settle for nodding with an identical quizzical expression on his face.

Danny sighed, and sat down frustrated. They continued their lunch, ignoring the elephant in the room. They tried to chat normally. They talked about the upcomming DOOMED game and the co op session they had been planning for ages, since its reveal. Lunch proceeded normally. If Sam and Tucker still felt on edge, they did not let Danny know. They shouldn’t.

-----

Danny was at P.E. His last period of the day and light at the end of the tunnel. Aside from the avoidances all around, his day had gone smoothly. Of course, that’s when everything went wrong.

As he reached the end of the obstacle course, alarms blared. The ones signaling a ghost attack, yeah, those.

After three years of ghost attacks, everyone had become used to the procedure and thankfully quickly left the gymnasium, to the safety zones, belongings forgotten. Danny was with them, until he wasn’t.

While walking, running, with the crowd, he silently left them and slipped into the bathroom invisibly and intangibly. He transformed, and left in the same state.

He took the malevolent ghost – a new one, huh – by surprise and tackled the both of them to the outside, somewhere safer and less destructable.

The ghost sneered, something about not expecting the ghost child to show up so quick. It was rare to meet a ghost out here who was unaware of the fact Phantom attended Casper high as a human.

Below, some people ran. Other passerby stopped in their tracks instead, gawking up at the two ghosts. Was that Phantom?

The teenaged ghost looked familiar, yet so different, so distant, hazy, unapproachable. If people claimed this is the one ghost you could always trust to help you, people would not have believed it. Few people’s hands subconsciously headed for their phones.

In the air, the ghost got ready to launch an attack, until they looked up and tilted their head.

“You are the ghost child, right?”

“Phantom? Yeah, who else? Now come on, let’s do this dance quick so I can head back. Some of us actually have something to do with their afterlife.”

The other ghost was still clearly thrown off, they shook their head and readied themselves again. Whatever was going on was weird, Danny had decided that hours ago, but it just became even crazier, if ghosts were affected too.

His solution was to ignore the issue. If he did not pay it any mind, it would go away on its own, and hopefully not bite him back in the ass.

He took advantage of the ghost’s confusion. He shot a quick ectoblast at their chest and sucked them into the thermos. After sealing them, he darted back towards the school.

Once inside, he noticed the students packing their bags and leaving. When he got near them invisibly, someone less attentive wouldn’t have noticed anything odd. Danny saw that they became tense and rigid.

He ignored the ever-growing enigma and ran the facts through his mind. Right, it was last period. The area must’ve been declared safe and they’d been dismissed early.

No one noticed, or cared about, his absence as usual.

Danny did a quick one over of the entire school building before heading towards the gymnasium. Thankfully there were no damages inflicted in between the ghost’s arrival and the time he took to transform and push them out.

He gathered his things and sped back home, ignoring the dread gnawing at the back of his mind.

Meanwhile, Amity’s filtered side of social media was ablaze.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #dp #fanfic #phan phic #ghost king danny #sam manson #tucker foley #cae's writing #i came back from the writing grave after about a year oops #i have an actual plan for this!#lets see if i can stick to it #unreliable narrator and you will be left with as much knowledge as danny... </3

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