we're not kids anymore.
titsay
taylor price
Xuebing Du
dirt enthusiast
🪼
trying on a metaphor
Sade Olutola
Product Placement
Discoholic 🪩
One Nice Bug Per Day
wallacepolsom
NASA
Cosmic Funnies
JVL
祝日 / Permanent Vacation
RMH
ojovivo
d e v o n
izzy's playlists!
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from Iraq
seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from Singapore
seen from Malaysia
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia
@bellsandmischief
Hey all! So, I've finally made the decision to open comms! It's been a stressful and anxious decision, but I want to push myself a bit out of my comfort zone!
References of ongoing work:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Phic Phight 2026: Phic #5!!!!!
Title: Side Effects May Vary
Summary: Side effects may include: dry mouth, increased appetite, sudden growth and sharpening of canine teeth, glowing eyes, minor levitation, and an odd rumbling sound that emanates from the chest when pleased. If you experience any of theses, or any other symptoms, please contact the Fenton’s immediately.
WC: 1, 618
Prompter: @phantomphangphucker
You can read on AO3 or down below the cut!
The Fentons loved their children. There was no doubt about that.
They did however, get a bit caught up in their work sometimes.
Luckily their children were pretty self-sufficient teens, so the parents hardly worried much if their attention went elsewhere.
They did notice recently that maybe they need to refocus on their kids. Or more specifically, their son.
He was having a bit of a rough patch starting high school which they had been hoping would work itself out but perhaps more direct action was needed.
Once they shifted tactics they couldn’t help but notice how ecto-contaminated he was.
No wonder he was having such a hard time. His health was not at it’s best.
Luckily they had just the thing to fix it.
Or at least they had an idea to anyway.
=============================================
After a few weeks of work, which was much longer than most of their projects these days, they had a viable product.
They each took turns testing it and found it worked wonders for them.
Now they just had to get some for him.
=============================================
“Hey Danno!” Jack called cheerily from the kitchen table.
“Hey Dad,” Danny said as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.
“Here sweetie,” Maddie said as she set a plate with a freshly made omelet and a single dose of their latest invention at Danny’s normal seat.
He took his seat and merely raised an eyebrow at the small capsule next to his breakfast.
“It’s just a vitamin dear,” Maddie explained as she started fixing up her own omelet.
Danny shrugged and took the vitamin in one quick go, washing it down with the glass of water that was waiting for him.
“So how’d it taste?” Jack asked before Danny could get the first bite into his eggs.
“Uh? Fine? I guess. I didn’t really taste it.”
“Ah okay. Well just keep tabs on how your feeling today and let us know if anything comes up.”
Danny slowly removed the fork from his mouth and stared as he chewed.
“You know, since it’s new. We want to make sure it’s doing what it’s supposed to.”
He swallowed his food and asked, “should I be worried about what I just took?”
“Of course not,” Maddie reassured, “you know we just like to have all the data we can on our inventions.”
“You made that vitamin?" he asked, sounding oddly frighten.
“Yeah! We just want you to be the healthiest best you, you can be. And that starts with working on those incredibly high ecto-contamination levels you got there sport.”
Danny stared at his breakfast for a beat or two before he spoke again. “Are there any things I should be looking out for? Like an upset stomach or bleeding out of my ears?”
“Well hopefully none of that. Although if you were to notice that please let us know asap, okay?”
“Yeah of course.”
“You might be a little extra thirsty once it kicks in. I know I was.” Jack said with a laugh.
“How long til it kicks in?”
“Oh about an hour or two.”
“So did you guys just finish making it recently?”
“Yeah! Your Mother and I just finished our trial run the other day.”
“But you waited until today to give it to me?” he took another bite of his food as he thought and came to a realization before he finished.
“It’s because I have a 3-day weekend isn’t it?”
“You betcha!” Jack said enthusiastically.
Danny merely nodded in acknowledgement before returning to his breakfast.
=============================================
To better keep an eye on how Danny’s reaction to the vitamin was going they asked him to stay nearby.
He sighed, but did as he was told.
“Would it be okay if I went upstairs to get something to do.”
“Of course, bud.”
“If you've got any assignments to do I'm sure your father and I could help.”
Danny nodded and got his things.
=============================================
It was Maddie that noticed something first.
“Sweetie?”
“Yeah mom?”
“That's the third glass of water.”
He looked at the empty glass in his hand, “is that bad?”
“Well no. But it's only been an hour.”
“Oh.” He slowly set the glass down, “That’s the side effect Dad was talking about then?”
“Yeah.”
Several hours later Danny was nearly caught up on all of his homework.
“Hey, can we have pizza tonight?”
“Oh pizza sounds good!” Jack agreed.
“I suppose,” Maddie started, “but I'm going to wait until you finish that worksheet before ordering.”
Danny groaned dramatically but then doubled his efforts to finish.
Jack chuckled as he went to fetch the local pizza place's menu. Nothing like being food motivated.
=============================================
Jack and Maddie watched as their son devoured an entire extra large pizza in an astonishingly short period of time.
"Looks like someone was hungry,” Jack said.
Danny looked down at his plate, the now empty pizza box, then his parents.
His cheeks flushed once he realized what he had done.
“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to eat the whole thing.”
“It’s okay sweetheart,” Maddie said, “why don’t you wash up and get ready for bed.”
Once he was out of the room Maddie pulled out her note pad and jotted down the latest symptom.
“Increased appetite," she said as she wrote.
“Gotta say I’m kind of impressed with how quick he was about it.”
“It certainly was something.” Maddie agreed, “Sure hope that one goes away soon.”
“I’m sure he’ll be fine, Mads. Besides Fenton men tend to have bigger appetites anyway. Maybe this means he’ll finally hit that growth spurt.”
=============================================
Later, after everyone had said their good-nights and fallen asleep, they were all awake again.
Danny said his mouth was hurting.
Which was an odd thing for a teenager to complain about.
Maddie went with him into the bathroom while Jack was still working on waking up all the way.
“Oh my gosh!”
Jack immediately woke up and dashed into the bathroom.
What he found was not something he ever expected.
His son had grown fangs.
“Well that explains the pain.”
“Are fangs a normal side effect?” Danny asked as he shyly covered his mouth.
“It’s not a typical one.” Maddie said diplomatically.
Which was much better than Jack’s answer.
Unfortunately he still said it.
“Not at all!”
“Jack!”
“Sorry.”
“Can you make them go away?”
“It’s fine. I’m sure no one will notice.”
“Are you sure?”
Jack bit his lip instead of responding.
Those chompers were pretty noticeable.
The tips of his fangs stuck out past his lips even with his mouth closed.
Although it was only a little bit past. So maybe people wouldn’t notice?
“Have you noticed anything else?” Maddie asked cautiously.
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Alright, well why don’t we all go back to bed and we can see how things are in the morning.”
The three agreed and filed out of the bathroom.
Danny was last and he flicked off the light switch.
Jack didn’t remember the light being on in the hall, yet somehow it wasn’t that dark.
He turned towards the source of the light and stopped dead.
“Mads.”
She looked at Jack before following his gaze.
Danny was behind them. Looking very confused as to why they were staring at him.
“What?”
“You’re eyes,” was all Jack could get himself to say.
Danny reached up on instinct to check but paused when he saw the light bouncing off his fingers.
He immediately went back into the bathroom but closed the door behind himself.
Maddie was at the door in an instant. “Sweetie, open the door.”
“But I can’t make it stop.”
“It’s okay, Honey. Just open the door.”
The was a few seconds of silence before the door opened.
“Are you mad at me?”
“Why would I be mad?”
“Cuz my eyes are glowing like a, like a, you know.”
“I just want to make sure you’re all right.”
Jack slowly leaned his way into view of the bathroom. He didn’t want to crowd the poor kid, but he did want to know what was going on.
“I’m alright.”
“Nothing hurts? Or feels weird?”
“No.”
Maddie placed her hands on Danny’s shoulders and gently pushed downwards.
That’s when Jack noticed Danny had been floating about a foot above the floor.
And that’s the same time Danny noticed too.
In shock he jerked backwards, but since he was still floating, he just glided backwards, almost as if he were on ice.
Jack saw the way his boys eyes darted back and forth from Maddie to Jack to the doorway that they were both standing in.
“Hey Mads lets give him some breathing room.”
Danny immediately looked at Jack in surprise.
Jack smiled to reassure him as he took a step back with his wife.
Danny smiled back. Just a little, but it was enough.
It took about a minute but Danny’s eyes stopped glowing and he was finally able to put both feet on the ground.
The next thing Jack new the boy was wrapping his arms around him as best he could.
Jack returned the hug and was happy when Maddie joined in too.
Then there was this odd rumbling sound.
For a second, Jack thought it was coming from a car outside or perhaps one of the many machines in the house.
But then Maddie was staring at Danny.
That’s when Jack noticed that he could feel the sound.
The sound that was coming from Danny?
Why was his son purring?
Also how?
He looked at his wife and raised an eyebrow when she looked at him.
She simply mouthed, “side effect?”
Jack nodded and really hoped that was the last of the side effects. Because they were getting really weird.
Not only did this get funnier with each side effect, but with both parents unfazed....maybe he can pass off his ghost powers as the vitamin entirely. Unless this is a 'no one knows even danny' phic! In either case, you've got a beautiful phic here Echo, keep doing good work! <3
Phic Phight 2026: Phic #4!!!!
Title: Ice My Wounds and Kiss Me Better
Summary: After everything went wrong in the worst possible way, Danny escapes into the Far Frozen. He only meant to go there to recover, but would it really be so bad if he just stayed?
WC: 1,268
TW: this is post-dissec so the boy is pretty injured but I don't go into a whole lot of detail
You can read the fic on AO3 or down below the cut
Danny crashed into a snowbank somewhere on the outskirts of the main village in the Far Frozen.
For half a second he thought about just crawling the rest of the way but then he felt the snow.
The cold felt so nice against his injuries he didn't dare move and risk ruining what little bliss he had.
Now that he wasn’t moving he was having a hard time keeping his eyes open. Or one eye anyway. The other was already closed partly because it was smooshed into the snow and partly because…
Well, the short answer was that it was injured.
He let his eyes close and figured he'd probably hear when someone came by.
Maybe.
His ears were still ringing like crazy.
He pulled a pile of snow closer to his chest with the arm that wasn't underneath himself. The cold felt so nice against his wounds but his core still ached.
He didn't think they had reached it when…
He was pretty sure the cuts weren't that deep…
So why did it hurt so much?
============================================
Danny woke up only slightly aware.
He could tell he wasn't outside anymore.
There were a couple of people having a quiet conversation nearby. Their voices were too low and deep for him to understand anything.
He could feel the various bandages and medical gauze on all his wounds. There was even a patch over his injured eye.
There was an ever present yet gentle chill in the air.
That all seemed to point to him being in the Far Frozen's medical ward.
He was safe now.
He sighed and let himself drift back to sleep.
============================================
The next time he woke up he actually felt awake.
He was still sore but definitely not in as much pain as before.
He took a moment to take in the room. Or as much of it as he could with only one eye.
Frostbite was at his side, thankfully on the side that could see, once he noticed Danny was awake.
“I’m glad to see you awake, Great One.”
“Sorry for crashing in unannounced.”
“No need to apologize.” Frostbite said immediately.
He took a second but then spoke again, “There is something I would like to speak to you about.”
Danny took a breath and braced himself for the questions about why he was here.
“The injuries you have are,” Frostbite hesitated, “concerning.”
Danny focused his attention on the blanket over his knees instead of responding.
“It’s okay if you don't want to talk about it right now. I just need to ask a few things to make sure you heal properly."
Danny felt a little bit of tension leave his shoulders. He really hadn't expected Frostbite to hold off on questioning him.
He hardly wanted to think about what happened, let alone talk about it.
“Did you come into contact with any poisons, chemicals, or any other kind of foreign substance?”
Danny crossed his arms and hugged himself as he took a moment to compose himself. “Yeah.”
Frostbite pulled up a chair and laced his fingers. “I was afraid of that,” he said solemnly.
“I’m not sure what it was exactly but it made it so I couldn’t move.” He started to idly trace an imaginary line back and forth across his blanketed leg, “that wore off though. Obviously. I’d still be there if it hadn’t,” he rambled.
Frostbite placed his hand on the bed, “I’m terribly sorry you were hurt, but I am so thankful that you were able to make it here. My people and I will do our very best to have you healthy again.”
Danny took a breath.
He was so glad he had met Frostbite.
It was nice to have an adult who liked him. Or anyone really.
He was starting to think there was something wrong with him with how many people just could not stand him.
He opened his mouth to speak but hesitated and closed it again.
“Is something troubling you?” Frostbite asked gently.
“If I did something wrong you'd tell me right?”
“I'm always happy to help you learn and grow. But I feel there's more to it than that.”
“I'm probably just worrying over nothing, or maybe I am just a huge screw up and it's just a matter of time before I screw up enough for you to hate me too.” The corners of his eyes started to sting but he held it back. “I always try so hard to make everyone happy and fix things when I mess up, but it's never enough and somehow I always make things worse. Why is it so easy to have people hate me? What's so wrong with me that it's just so easy to hate my guts?”
“Great One, everyone can't hate you. Surely there are people who like you besides me and my people.”
“My two friends and my sister. That's it. Everyone else I know hates me.”
“Well clearly those other people have terrible tastes. I find you delightful.”
“What if I hadn't stopped Pariah Dark?”
“You helped me the very first time we met without knowing a thing about me.”
Danny thought back and he had helped Frostbite get rid of that big icicle from his back.
“And even if you hadn’t needed to do that when we first met, I would still like you.”
The ache in his chest started to soften. It was nice that he could ask stuff like this and not get talked down to or ignored.
It was nice to know that Frostbite really did care about him.
“Great One, I hate to pry but I couldn’t help but notice that you didn’t list your parents on the list of people who like you.”
Danny felt a sharp sting in his core again.
“Great One?” Frostbite sounded worried.
Danny didn’t want to worry him.
Not saying anything was worrying him, but saying the truth wasn’t going to make it better.
“I didn’t because they don’t make the list.”
Frostbite didn’t say anything but Danny could tell he wanted to.
Danny looked up at him, and gave a slight nod. He might as well get it over with.
“Did they?” Frostbite started to ask but didn’t finish.
Danny looked away. He really didn’t want to think about this. Not right now.
The growl in Frostbite’s chest got Danny’s attention.
“Parents shouldn’t hurt their children.”
“They didn’t do it!” Danny quickly defended.
Frostbite relaxed only slightly.
“They didn’t take me being a ghost super well. They sent me away. I think they were trying to fix me. They wanted to get that nasty ghost out of me. I don’t know if they understand that the ghost is me.”
Frostbite pulled Danny into his arms and held him tight.
“Great One, I will personally make sure you have a place to stay here during and after your recovery. You are more than welcome to return to the human world once you are feeling up to it, but know you will always have a place here.”
It seemed like such a simple thing but Danny felt like that hug alone could heal him. It definitely made his core stop aching.
In fact, his core felt better than ever. A nice cool chill radiated off it and left him feeling completely content.
It was nice to know he had a place here.
Surely that offer for a place to stay meant that Frostbite would be the one to take care of him.
If not, well, Danny figured he had plenty of time to convince him. He wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Danny CANNOT catch a break ;u; Good thing Frostbite is there to help him! I can't get over how gentle he is with Danny and how loving. Everyone needs a Dad like Frostbite!
Phic Phight 2026: Phic 3!
Title: Perfect Date
Summary: Danny has planned what he hopes is the perfect date for his two favorite people.
Prompt: Everlasting Trio Date!
Prompter: @deathcomes4u
Word Count: 970
Feel free to read on AO3 or down below the cut!
Danny stared into his closet and furrowed his brows. He had looked through his clothes five times already and yet the perfect outfit had yet to materialize.
He spent so much time planning and setting up for today, but somehow forgot to check if he had anything to wear.
“I'm an idiot. An unfashionable idiot.”
He ran a hand threw his hair trying to figure out if there was a way to fix this on such short notice.
Should he cancel?
No! Absolutely not!
“Besides, it's not like they’ll dump me if I don’t have a good outfit for the date,” he said, trying to reason with himself.
“Oh god! What if they dump me for being such a loser who can’t even dress himself properly?!”
He started pacing to try and get the nervous energy out.
“No, they wouldn’t do that.”
He paused in his tracks and realized something else.
“They are both going to look amazing and I’m just gonna be looking like I crawled out from behind the dumpster.”
He threw himself on his bed and got a whole ten seconds of wallowing in before his phone started ringing.
“Hello?”
“Ah, just in time I see,” Jazz said.
“In time for what?” He asked rolling over to stare at the ceiling.
“For your pre-date breakdown.”
Danny wanted to protest but how could he. She knew him too well.
Instead he deflated with the longest sigh he could muster.
“So what’s the roadblock?” she asked.
“I don't have anything to wear.”
“What about that one button up with the stars? That looked good on you.”
Danny hopped back up and moved a few things in his closet. There it was. To most people it would just look like a dark blue button-up with some stars on it, but it was more than that.
It was custom made to have the constellations of his, Sam's, & Tucker’s birthday zodiacs. A wonderful combination of his favorites.
“Thanks Jazz.”
He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t thought of wearing it already.
“That’s what I’m here for, Little Brother.”
Danny rolled his eyes at the pet name. He had outgrown her almost a year ago but he knew she’d always call him that.
They chatted a bit more until Danny really did have to go so he wouldn’t be late.
Danny found it funny how it seemed that ever since she moved away for college they seemed to talk way more than they did when they lived in the same house.
================================================
“So where we heading?” Tucker asked as he slid into the backseat of the car.
“Well, we’ve got a couple stops, but we’ll be heading here first,” Danny said as he handed each of them their ticket for the first leg of their journey.
“The poisonous plant exhibition at the conservatory?!” Sam squeeled in delight.
“Yup! I have dinner reservations for us at 7. Depending on the time, there’s that arcade right there, so we can go there before or after dinner. Or both I suppose.”
“Where are we getting dinner?” Sam asked as she slipped all three of their tickets into her purse.
“That new hotpot place.”
“Yo! I’ve been wanting to try that place for weeks!” Tucker said as he drummed the back of Danny’s seat in his excitement.
“Me too!” Danny said as he drove.
He had almost went before he made the reservations to make sure the place was as good as it claimed to be, but decided it would be better if they all had it the first time together.
As much as he wants everything to work out, he knew they would probably have just as much fun if the dinner sucked and they could complain about it together.
================================================
Sam was 100% in her gothic plant loving element at the conservatory. Even if this wasn’t really Danny or Tucker’s think, they both loved seeing her so happy.
They probably spent at least an hour taking photos of, and with, the various plants.
Since they had plenty of time before dinner, they decided to spend it at the arcade.
It was one they’ve been to plenty of times but it was always fun.
Dinner went amazingly since both Sam and Tucker could enjoy eating whatever they liked without it bothering the other. Plus Danny got to sit in the middle and get the best of both.
================================================
They walked out of the restaurant and Danny felt like this date was a success.
They both looked so content he didn’t think the night could get any better.
“So any other plans for tonight?”
“Um, not really?” Danny said with a shrug.
“You sure?” Sam asked, "because it seems like we did something I like and something he likes but what about you?”
“Me?”
“Yeah man.”
“Well, I guess there’s one thing we could do,” Danny started, “but we don’t have to.”
They both just stared at him. Silently egging him on.
“We could go see the northern lights? We’d have to drive out of town and then some to get a good chance, but even that isn’t a guarantee.” He fiddled with the keys in his hands, “they really don’t show up to the naked eye very well this far south, but I’ve heard you can see them a little bit. They show up better in pictures.”
Sam walked up and bumped into him with her shoulder, “well it’s a good think I know how to take long exposure photos,” she wiggled her camera for emphasis.
“And my new phone has an excellent night mode that I’ve yet to properly try out.” Tucker boasted from Danny’s other side.
“So you wanna go?” Danny asked, just to make sure he was understanding them correctly.
“Yeah man!”
“Let’s go!”
Danny beamed ear to ear. Maybe this night could get better after all.
Another fave from this year's Phic Phight! Even though I'm still new to the ship, i absolutely adore anything with these three! Echo, you really outdo yourself every single time i read a new phic of yours! Give yourself a big pat on the back bc I"M IN LOVE WITH THIS PHIC
Phic Phight 2026: Phic 2!
Title: Time’s Attention
Summary: When a powerful being decides they like you, it isn't always a good thing.
Prompt: Lost time, but make it cosmic horror.
Prompter: @jackdaw-sprite
WC: 1,282
Feel free to read on AO3 or down below the cut
Danny rubbed his temples but that did little to alleviate the building headache.
He wasn’t sure if the headache was from the stress or lack of sleep. Then again, he wasn’t sleeping because of the stress.
He shot a glare at the nearby clock but it did nothing to stop the ever present ticking.
The ticking that had been steadily growing louder and louder over the past week or so.
The worst part was he knew the sound was only bothering him. He had asked his friends if they thought the clocks at school were louder but they looked at him like he had grown a second head.
And he knew exactly what they looked like in that scenario because he had done it once. Accidently.
At the time he laughed it off and figured it was some test stress for the upcoming midterms.
But the tests were over now.
He had his grades and he did well enough.
He shouldn’t still be stressed.
But the ticking hadn’t stopped.
It had only gotten louder.
It had also spread.
Even his digital alarm clock was ticking too loud.
Despite never ticking before.
It sounded like he was hearing every clock he had ever seen in his life simultaneously.
It was starting to get so loud everything else was being drowned out.
Finally he couldn’t take it anymore and he flew into the Ghost Zone.
Partly because there weren’t many clocks in the Zone and partly to see if he could find someone who could make it stop.
He was planning on going to see Frostbite in the hopes that he just need a ghost multivitamin or something to make this awful noise stop.
Instead he found himself outside of Clockwork’s tower.
He hesitated but figured maybe the clock guy might actually be a better bet.
He flew towards the doors and the opened before he could even touch them.
The ticking was so much louder but he flew inside all the same.
Although he wasn’t entirely sure if he was flying or being pulled in like an astroid getting caught in a nearby planets gravity.
The deeper he went the louder it got.
Too loud to hear his own voice despite the strain he could feel in his throat as he called out.
Too loud to even think.
So loud he hadn’t noticed he wasn’t flying anymore. That he had fallen on his knees and was openly weeping.
A hand gently cupped his chin and tilted his head back.
Through his blurry tear-filled eyes he could see it was Clockwork.
He said something but Danny couldn’t hear it. It was only ticking.
Clockwork held up a canvas flask and unscrewed the lid. He offered the flask to Danny and said something again.
It looked like he was telling Danny to drink.
Danny took the flask and took a drink without question.
Something gritty and very much not a liquid spilled out of the flask and into his mouth.
He recoiled but Clockwork held the back of Danny’s head in place and tipped the flask higher.
He forced Danny to drink and didn’t stop until the flask was empty.
When he finished, Clockwork let go and recapped the flask.
Danny coughed as he felt like all the water in his body had evaporated. He didn’t think he’d ever been more dehydrated in his life.
“What was that?” Danny asked as best he could with a throat that felt like he had just gargled sand paper.
“Something to help.” Clockwork replied simply.
Danny straightened up but couldn’t stop making faces at how gross his mouth felt. “Thanks I guess?” He supposed the unbearable ticking had finally stopped but that sure was a miserable way to fix that. “That stuff was nasty. It tastes like sand.”
“That’s because it is.” Clockwork smiled.
“What?”
“Time Sand to be more specific."
“Why did you make me drink Time Sand?”
“I told you. To help.”
“Help with the ticking?” Danny asked suddenly very nervous under Clockwork’s unwavering gaze.
“No.”
“Then why did it stop?”
And why was his chest starting to feel so tight?
“Because I have you right where I want you.”
“Is that a good thing?” Danny asked feeling the smallest he had ever felt in his entire life.
“Of course it is.” Clockwork said still smiling. Still not blinking. Still making direct eye contact with those big red pupilless eyes.
Danny’s body shuddered and he instinctively wrapped his arms around his waist.
His insides suddenly felt like they were burning. No not burning.
Not melting. That implied heat and there was no heat.
They were disintegrating.
Turning to… not dust.
Sand.
He looked up and wanted to ask what was happening but his throat was full of sand.
Clockwork ran a gentle hand down his cheek, “don’t worry. You’ll feel better soon.”
Danny had the horrible realization that “better” didn’t mean the same to him as it did to Clockwork.
Danny hugged himself tighter and felt his waist giving in much more than it should.
His hips and shoulders felt stiff as they realigned themself to be perfectly even.
His legs switched to his ghostly tail, but he wasn’t sure if that was part of whatever transformation he was being forced into, or was something he was doing to try and comfort himself.
Clockwork pulled Danny close and ran his hand through his hair and whispered reassuring words.
As terrified as he was, he leaned into the touch.
He wanted Clockwork to be right. He wanted everything to be okay.
He wanted it to be over.
He didn’t like the feeling of being filled with sand.
He didn’t like that he knew his body was turning to glass.
He didn’t want to be an hourglass.
But he didn’t have a say in the matter.
Clockwork wasn’t just a ghost.
Clockwork was an incredibly powerful being.
A being who could see through all of time.
It wouldn't matter if Danny tried to run away. You can't outrun time itself.
After a few moments Clockwork leaned back and looked him over, “See? Isn’t that much better?”
Danny looked down at himself.
His chest was perfectly clear glass filled with green sand that slowly fell into the also glass part that used to be his stomach.
Could he truly be afraid if his heart wasn't pounding?
Did it matter that it couldn't, because it was now just a cluster of sand?
Did it make it any less jarring that he couldn't see his chest rise and fall because he no longer had lungs to fill. Just more sand.
“I'm surprised I'm not a clock,” Danny said numbly.
“I tried that first, but it takes so long for bones to shift into gears.” Clockwork turned and started to float further into the tower.
Danny followed, unsure what else to do. He was really hoping he misheard what Clockwork just said.
“Plus, it looked rather painful and there’s no need for you to suffer through that again.” Clockwork continued.
“Again?” Danny asked, realizing he had not misheard a thing.
“If you don't like the hourglass we could try something else? Maybe a sundial? Although it would be hard to hold a conversation if you're made of stone. I do enjoy our little chats.”
Danny really wanted this to be some twisted prank, but knew it wasn’t.
“Oh what about a nice bell tower? You have such a powerful voice I bet it would translate into a beautiful sounding bell.”
“Clockwork, what are you talking about?”
“You silly. I just can't decide on what timepiece suits you best.” Clockwork turned to face Danny again, “but that's alright. We have eternity after all.”
I've not read a lot of cosmic horror, to be truthful. But THIS is definitely at the top of my re-reads for anything cosmic horror related! And it'll be the first one to start the saves off ;3c Great phic Echo!
Phic Phight 2026: Phic #1!
Title: Pesky Portal Problems
Summary: Danny has a new power that lets him make portals. Unfortunately for him, he can't control it and keeps dropping things inside.
Prompt: Danny develops the ability to make portals. Now, if only he could control it.
Prompter: Akela (no tumblr to at)
WC: 1, 032
You can read the fic on AO3 or down below the cut
Danny sighed.
The small portal blinked closed but not before the pencil he was just using had fallen into it.
He took a moment to focus.
He hadn’t been feeling any particularly strong emotions or really doing anything interesting either.
He was just working on some homework. In a timely manner for once!
Which means this was just another random portal that he still had no idea how he was making. Or maybe he was just closing natural portals?
No, that wasn't it.
He knew he was doing it.
There was this sort of tingling feeling he had every time one appeared that then went away when the portals closed.
The only problem was he couldn't pinpoint what was causing it.
Or control it. At all.
That was also a problem.
The main problem actually.
At least they had all been small portals.
They also closed up pretty quickly too, which he wasn't sure was a good or bad thing yet.
On the plus side, when they popped up when he was with other people he only had to distract them for a few seconds before it disappeared.
The downside was whenever something fell in, he didn't have enough time to get it back.
“Did it happen again?” Sam asked.
“Yeah.”
“You have got to figure that out, man.” Tucker added.
“I know,” Danny whined, “but it’s hard.”
Sam closed her book with a snap and sat up in her chair, “Do you wanna workshop it?”
“Couldn’t hurt.”
“So have you noticed any common threads?"
“No.” Danny rolled his eyes, “it’s all random.”
Sam hummed as she nodded. Clearly mulling it over.
Tucker readjusted his position on the bed and his PDA slipped off the edge.
“Veronica!” Tucker shouted and lunged for the device.
Danny felt a surge of the odd tingling sensation. He watched as Tucker reached for his most recent PDA.
A spark of green snapped into existence just below the PDA and Tucker’s outstretched hand.
Danny threw himself at Tucker to keep him on the bed and away from the portal.
The portals weren’t big enough for a person, but they were big enough for a hand.
He really didn’t want to find out the hard way what happens when it closed when someone’s hand was inside.
“Dude! What was that for!?”
“Sorry, I just didn’t want you to fall in.”
“Fall in? Fall in!” Tucker grabbed Danny’s shirt, “Where is she?”
Danny swallowed hard. He hadn’t heard the PDA hit the floor.
He knew it didn’t.
“Hey before you kill him, can I ask Danny a quick question or two?”
The boys both looked at Sam but neither of them stopped her.
“Why’d you stop Tucker?”
“I didn’t want the portal to close on him. I don’t know what would happen. What if it hurt him?”
Tucker relaxed his grip and fell back onto the bed. “I suppose having both my hands is a better look for me.”
“Yeah anyway,” Sam continued, “How’s your foot feeling?”
“My foot?” Danny asked before looking down.
His left foot was on the ground exactly where he thought it should be.
He couldn’t say the same about his right.
There was a ring of green circling his foot just below the ankle.
Now that he was paying attention, he realized his right foot wasn't flat against the floor, but hanging in open space.
It was also a little chilly.
“Oh. Well maybe I overreacted a bit.” he said as he wiggled his unseen toes in whatever void they were in.
“Or it just won’t hurt you.”
“Why wouldn’t it hurt me?”
Both of his friends had an answer to that question, it just wasn’t the same answer, “You made it” and “you’re part ghost.”
Danny nodded. It really could be either one. Or both!
“I should probably get my foot out of there,” Danny said as he started to lift his leg.
Tucker slapped Danny’s leg. “Wait! What about Veronica!”
“I can’t grab with my foot? Also don’t know how deep this is.”
“Can you make it bigger?”
Danny shrugged but figured now would be as good a time as any to try.
He plopped himself down on the floor, his foot falling further into the portal with the motion and the edge of it now circled just below his knee.
Once he was situated, he slipped his fingers passed the edges on either side of his leg and started to pull.
The portal was almost elastic the way it stretched and gave way to his pulling.
It wasn’t too long before he stretched it as far as his arms could go.
The trio peered into the space together, heads nearly touching trying to see as much as they could.
The space was green like the rest of the ghost zone and it look liked everything he had lost since these powers had started was floating below.
Tucker reached in without hesitation and pulled out his beloved PDA.
Sam just shook her head with an amused grin before looking back inside.
“Oh sweet! My wallet!” Danny had been pretty bummed about loosing that. Not because he had a lot of money in there (he didn’t), but for his Nasty Burger punch card. He was one Nasty Meal away from a free milkshake.
“You want me to get it?” Sam asked.
“If you don’t mind.” Danny said with a sheepish grin. He would get it himself but his hands were a bit full holding the portal open.
Once his wallet was safely on the nearby end table, Danny pulled his leg out.
He took one last look inside to see if there was anything else he might need. It was mostly just random junk. A few pencils, an unfinished assignment that was way overdue, a pair of unmatching socks, one of the dodge balls from gym class that got him out of the game despite not actually hitting him.
Danny let go of the portal edges and it snapped to a close.
Now that he knew the portal was opening to the same spot every time he had an idea of what he wanted to test next.
“I’m gonna hop in next time.”
I can definitely appreciate not wanting tucker to get hurt by the portal xD But I'm with tucker. I'd be distraught over losing one of my prized possessions. Danny is one lucky boy that everything ended up in the same place! xD
Haven't made one of these in a while but uh.
Hey! Hi! I'm in the process of escaping a, frankly, rather abusive living situation, and could use a little help.
Honestly even just a single dollar will help. Here's my PayPal and my KoFi
Also, if you could reblog this, that would also help a lot. Thanks!
Yall pls consider helping out a friend of mine.
Phantom Rescue
ao3
ffn
word count: 1785
prompt: Good dad Jack reveal! @underforeversgrace
sequeal to Phantom Reproof @bellsandmischief
hehehe
The rain pelted into Dash’s face as he ran down the street. He had to do something. He had to fix this.
He skidded on the wet sidewalk as he turned a corner, his feet slapping against the ground.
He couldn’t sit and do nothing. Not when he knew that Phantom- that Danny was stuck in there while they tortured him and did god knows what to him. Dash hadn’t even been there in that room with him for more than five minutes and that already seemed so bad. He couldn’t imagine what else they might be doing to him.
The next time Dash turned a corner he almost fell forward on the ground. When he looked up he could see the neon Fentonworks sign lighting up the street. He was almost there.
What was he even going to say? Would they believe him?
He ran up to the building, dread building up in his stomach. He went up the stairs, skipping a stair with each step.
He knocked on the door, out of breath. After he knocked a couple more times more insistently he could hear someone shuffling around on the other side.
Jack Fenton pulled the door open and gave Dash a peculiar look. Thunder rumbled in the sky above them.
“Are you here to see Danny?”
Dash’s breath hitched in his chest and he couldn’t hold it in anymore. He choked a sob out and Jack’s eyes widened.
“Did something happen? What’s wrong?” He placed his hands on Dash’s shoulders and bent down to be at his eye level. “Where’s Danny?”
Dash shook his head and covered his face with his hands. He wanted to curl up on the stairs right there.
Tears dripped off of Dash’s face.
“My dad- he forced me to- I didn’t-“
Jack let go of one of Dash’s shoulders and gently pushed him inside the door with the hand that was still on his back.
“Slow down. What happened? Why are you here?”
Dash looked up at him. His heart was pounding in his chest.
“My dad somehow found out I was hanging out with Phantom. He works for the GIW. They captured him and he brought me in to teach me a lesson about not trusting ghosts. But Phantom wasn’t just a ghost.”
Jack’s brows furrowed. “This is about Phantom?”
Dash shook his head. “Phantom isn’t just a ghost. I’m pretty sure Danny is Phantom.”
Jack’s eyes widened and he swayed on his feet.
“How are you so sure of this?” Jack moved to sit on the couch. “What led you to that conclusion?”
“After my dad made me-” Dash choked back the words. “Before we left, I saw that Phantom was mouthing a word to me. I couldn’t tell what it was at first. But then I realized he was saying ‘Fenton’.”
Jack rubbed a hand over his face and sighed.
“And if you’re wrong?”
Dash shook his head. “I don’t think I am.”
Jack stood back up and walked back up to Dash.
“Let’s go get our boy back.”
~~~~~~~
They sat outside the GIW building, watching the doors. They had a barebone plan. Dash was skeptical of it. How were they going to take on all these people on their own?
Jack suddenly stood up and started walking to the building. He sounded clunky with all the equipment he had on him. Dash quickly followed behind him and looked around them. He felt like his dad was going to pop out at them from nowhere.
They walked through the front doors. There was a receptionist sitting quietly at the front desk, snoring. Jack motioned at Dash and he quietly tiptoed up to him and grabbed his badge off of his jacket. Then they snuck past him to the elevator. They scanned the badge and the doors opened.
They walked in and Dash turned and looked up around them. There was a camera in the corner of the elevator. Dash took a deep breath.
“That badge will only get us so far.” Dash glanced at Jack. “There are a couple of doors that had to be opened for us last time.”
Jack patted his bag that was slung over his shoulder. “That’s what this is for.”
Dash looked at it until the elevator door opened. He didn’t know what Jack had packed into the bag when he was down in the lab.
They stepped out and headed down the hallway. It was quiet, but that was to be expected in the middle of the night.
They turned the corner and saw two agents standing at the first door.
“Hey!” They took a step forward. “Who are you?”
“Jack Fenton. You guys have wronged the wrong family.”
“You need to-“
Jack interrupted the agent when he pulled an ecto rifle out of his bag. He aimed it at the agent and it splattered a sticky mess all over him, pushing him against the wall and trapping him there.
The second agent came at Dash and he stepped back and swung his own bag at him. The metal bolt cutters that were in hit knocked him in the head and he fell to the ground.
Jack scanned the badge and they ran through the doorway. Some didn’t have agents guarding the door but they took them down much the same way as the first two they saw.
Next was the door the badges couldn’t open for them. Jack shot them with the sticky ectoplasm again and pulled a Fenton grenade out of his bag. He placed it on the floor and ran back. Dash could see the agents widen their eyes from where they were as they struggled to get out of the sticky mess.
The grenade went off and sent shrapnel flying down towards them in the hallway. Dash squinted through the dust and ran forward when he saw he could get through.
Only one agent stood on the other side. He rushed at them with a sparking baton. Dash could hear the electricity as he swung it through the air.
Jack took the butt of his rifle and hit the agent in the back of the head with it. The sound of it cracked through the air and Dash flinched at the sound it made. They were almost there. They just had to get through the last door into Danny’s room.
Jack placed another Fenton Grenade on the floor and pulled Dash through the previous doorway as the explosion went off. Dash coughed and watched as the dust cleared.
The door to Danny’s room was gone. They could get in.
They ran in and Jack took his gun and started hitting the glass separating them from Danny. It made loud thumping sounds against the glass. It cracked and Danny finally looked up at them. He made eye contact with Dash.
He looked even worse off than when Dash’s dad had brought him here.
With one more hit, Jack shattered the glass. Dash waited for the glass to finish flying before he ducked in. He pulled out the pair of bolt cutters that he had in his bag and used it to cut Danny down from the chains holding him up. Dash threw the bolt cutters aside and grabbed Danny, throwing the other boy’s arm around his shoulders and hoisting him to his feet next to him.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
A chill crawled up Dash’s spine at the sound of the voice behind him. He turned around with Danny in his arms to look.
His dad was standing there glaring at him. He could feel it, even through the sunglasses. Dash couldn’t move. He just stared at him.
“I said, what are you doing?”
Dash’s dad took a step towards them but Jack stepped in between them. He towered over his dad. He’d never thought he’d ever see his dad be made small.
“We’re taking Phantom out of here. What you’re doing isn’t right.”
His dad raised an eyebrow at Jack. “Oh? What changed your mind? Aren’t you the self proclaimed ghost experts that say all ghosts are evil? That all they’re capable of is manipulation and they feel no real pain or emotions?”
Jack turned to look at Danny. His expression steeled.
“We were wrong.”
Dash’s dad barked out a laugh and it made him jump. “You’re just letting them manipulate you. Look at all that Phantom has done to our town. You’d really sacrifice your own freedom for his?”
“He deserves his freedom.” Jack ground out. “And you’ll pay for taking that from him.”
“Ahhh.” Dash’s dad breathed out with a smirk on his face. “Have the two of you discovered his secret?”
Dash’s eyes widened and his grip tightened on Danny.
He could feel the fury rolling off of Jack.
“Did you know this whole time?”
Dash’s dad shrugged.
“How do you think we were able to capture him so easily? He’s much weaker in his human disguise, though I don’t know why that is.”
Dash could feel his world spinning. His dad brought him here to torture him knowing he was Danny Fenton?
Jack growled. He heard his dad take a step towards him.
“He's a really good mimic, I admit.” Dash’s dad drawled out. “But that’s all he is. There’s nothing human about him. The goal is to manipulate you. Your son-”
Dash jumped when he heard the sound of Jack’s weapon hitting his dad in the head. It sent him to the floor. He tried to get back up but Jack hit him one more time and then he didn’t get back up again, knocked out.
“Jackass.”
Dash turned his head to look down at Danny. His eyes were still closed but he was taking a deep breath, and then let out a cough. Dash’s eyes widened and he let out a mildly hysterical chuckle. He rested his head on the top of Danny’s hair.
“Thank god. I’m glad you’re-”
Danny coughed again. He lifted an arm up to wrap around Dash’s back.
“Me too.” Danny leaned in closer to him. “Thank you for getting help.”
Jack ran over to the two of them and wrapped his arms around both of them, lifting them up into the air. Dash heard Danny groan next to him.
“Really sore, dad.”
He could feel Jack squeeze them even tighter before putting them back on the ground.
“Sorry. I just- If we’d known-”
Danny shook his head. “I didn’t tell you guys. It’s not your fault.”
Jack nodded and started heading back towards the entrance of the room. Dash helped guide Danny over the destroyed entrance. Jack turned to look at them over his shoulder with a smile.
“Let’s go home.”
You have no idea how relieved I am to read that Danny got out 😭 I was worried he'd be stuck there forever!
Phic Phight - They’re Gonna Be Ghost Fist Fighting
For: @hannahmanderr
A bunch of fellow teens deciding they want to start fighting or hunting ghosts is something Danny honestly should have seen coming. Well, at least he doesn’t really mind all that much.
Danny blinks, “let me get this straight”, quirking an eyebrow at about thirteen other teens, “you guys want me to teach you all how to fight ghosts? How to fight and ghost hunt and shit?”, blinking, “why?”.
Mikey shifting on his feet a little, “none of us are all that strong and stuff, and you did really amazing fighting on the ghost pirate ship that one time”.
James scoffing, “yeah I think everyone who’ve gotten their asses kicked if you hadn’t basically told everyone what to do”.
Emily nodding, “we really can’t keep relying on just Phantom or your honestly super dangerous parents. It makes way more sense for someone actually capable to make us capable enough to deal with all the ghosts instead”.
Danny scratching his head, “okay you know what? That’s actually pretty fair”, humming, “and I guess I could actually do that”, shrugging, “eh alright, try not to hurt yourselves though”, and gestures for them to follow after him. He’s got a spare, he’s got time to at least teach them a little bit of hand to hand, maybe how to make an emergency shiv eventually. And if this does turn into him basically creating a team of ghost hunters, then he’s going to have to drag Sam and Tucker into the whole mess.
Danny makes everyone stand like solders outside, walking back and forth like a Sargent, “okay shit heads, everyone in this dumb town is contaminated enough to actually be able to punch a ghost and hurt them, so ya’ll are gonna learn to throw a bunch, at the air but whatever”.
Dale leaning at Charles, “why are we out here like we’re in the army”,
Danny pointing at him, “so that if the teachers look outside they will get nervous and deeply concerned by what we’re doing and planing. We’re tormenting a few teachers”; that earns him more than a few laughs. Then he points at James, “you, try to beat the shit outta me”.
“Uh, really?”.
Danny rolling his eyes, “yes really. You’d have a better chance at punching yourself than me, but go and try”.
James screwing up his face, “oh screw you”, and lunges at Danny. Danny just side steps him, grabs his wrist, and flips him on to the ground. James tries three more times, Danny just throwing him back on the ground again and again.
Danny snickering at the guy when he shoves himself up, Danny putting a hand on his waist and pointing at him, “if you really want to go and fight ghosts, at least try like you want to really end them. Don’t tuck your thumb in, you’ll break your thumb. And you’re better off trying to hit with your palm, not your fist”, snapping his fingers and pointing at the rest of the group, “and even though it doesn’t actually hurt, ghosts will flinch back if you aim for the nuts, take those cheep shots”.
James immediately aims for the nuts, Danny knocking the kids legs out from underneath him, “not me, asshole”. Danny looking around at all of them, “everyone beat up everyone else like you’re in a mosh pit. Honestly, just doing that will teach you how to hit without hurting yourself and how to not get hit”.
Everyone shrugs and actually starts doing that. Leaving Danny staring at all of them trying to beat each other up in a big pile; he’s very smug.
Mr. Lancer stopping by a window, eyeing everyone, opening the window, and shouting out, “Daniel! What are you doing now!?!”.
Danny tries to make himself look outright evil, “making child soldiers! Taking the first steps into making this towns teens my personally weapons!”.
Mr. Lancer looks extremely unimpressed at him.
Emily shouting, “I’m fully in favour of that!”, while trying to kick Charles in the face.
Danny turning to her, “bite! My wannabe minion! Bite!”. And then snickers to himself when Mr. Lancer shakes his head and closes the window back up. No one bites anyone though, very reasonable honestly.
Kyle huffing on the ground, “you know we want you to actually lead us to fight ghosts, right?”.
Danny shrugging, “eh, being some leader of a ghost hunter team is really not my style, but I’ll do it sometimes or if another situation where we have to band together to fight some ghosts happens again”.
Lilly shoving James over, “oh that’s fine enough then”. Danny just giving her a thumps up while Mikey manages to land a solid cheek punch.
James tries to kick Danny this time, Danny basically slapping the guy on the shoulders to give himself enough leverage to flip overtop of him. Danny putting his hands in his pockets as he kicks the guy in the back. “Ha. Try again”. James just grumbling incoherently.
“BEWARE! I- what are you all doing?”.
Danny snaps his head to the side, eyes the Box Ghost a little, and then grins meanly. Pointing at him, “everyone charge!”.
The Box Ghost sputtering before yelping as everyone eagerly and very cruelly lunges onto the ghost. Flailing as everyone kicks, punches, grabs, flips around, and head buts him. “WHY! WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS! DO THIS TO ME!”.
Danny merely cackles, kicking the Box Ghost one in the face, “well apparently a bunch of fellow teens want to start beating the shit outta ghosts who cause problems”, grinning widely, “you know, like you!”. And kicks the ghost one again.
The Box Ghost cries a little. Danny doesn’t feel an ounce of pity for the incredibly obnoxious ghost.
End.
Prompts: The kids of Casper High have taken notice of Danny Fenton's uncanny leadership abilities after the events of "Pirate Radio." Needless to say, he is taken by surprise when they come to him asking him to lead a student ghost hunting group.
The crotch shot, along with Danny just, sending his lil minions after box ghost got me xD I can't stop cackling
What a Night
Internet-famous musician Danny Phantom is doing a collab with Ember McLain! Six weeks, twelve concerts, twelve cities across the American Midwest. Go online and buy your tickets today!
The performer Danny Phantom has teamed up with Ember for a legendary album. Their first show is overwhelmed with cultists looking for the ghost king. {from @iwillhissatyou} Valerie Gray and Sidney Poindexter have finally met and…oh boy. {from @silverwing013} and Danny is tired of keeping secrets from his parents, but he still doesn’t know how to actually break the news to them, so instead of actually figuring something out like he probably should, Danny goes “fuck it” and proceeds to have some fun with it. Also, no Jazz, he’s definitely not coping with humor. {from @neutralgoodhyena}
Read Also on AO3
[Warnings for anxiety and mentions of cults]
Today was the day of the long-awaited Ember McLain/Danny Phantom collab concert in Amity Park, and it looked like the whole town had turned up for it, and a good number of out-of-towners as well. It would be the first in a series of six twelve concerts in 6 weeks across the Midwest, and the whole region had been talking about the highly anticipated team up for months leading up to it, and the day it was to begin had finally arrived.
To say Danny was excited for it would be a massive understatement. To say he was nervous would be even more of an understatement.
"You'll do fine, Babypop," Ember reassured him, sensing his anxiety as he set up his keyboard and triple-checked all the settings. "It's not like you haven't performed before."
"Yeah, in front of a camera," Danny replied. "YouTube fame is totally different from sold-out concert fame. The biggest real audience I've performed in front of was, like, thirty people at a café with open mic. nights. This is a big step-up from that."
"Your most popular video has, like, 3 million views, today's audience is less than 3 thousand. You may not have been able to see them all, but you've effectively performed in front of 10 times as many people as you will today. Plus, with the stage lights and the visual effects, you'll barely be able to see any of them anyway."
Danny nodded. "You're... you're right, yeah."
"Danny!"
He perked up and furrowed his eyebrows in confusion when he heard a familiar voice calling his name from a distance.
"Will you tell your stupid manager to let me backstage already!"
"Excuse me a minute," he told Ember, hurrying toward the backstage entrance.
"It's cool, Sid, she's with me," Danny said, taking Valerie by the hand and leading her toward the performer areas.
"Well how was I suppose to know when she did have a back-stage pass?" Poindexter huffed, crossing his arms and scowling.
Danny hadn't regretted his decision to appoint Sidney Poindexter as his manager for live performances yet, but he'd never had the chance to introduce him to his girlfriend before, and clearly he should have made the time because Valerie was pissed.
"Sorry about him, Valerie," Danny said. "Poindexter's a good guy, really, he's just super serious about his job and maybe he goes a little mad with power when he has a clipboard in his hands. I'll make sure to get you a special girlfriend backstage pass for the rest of my concerts."
"You'd better," Valerie said curtly.
She eyed him up and down, apprising his look for the concert, and he took a step back, opened his arms, and gave a slow turn so she could see it better. Her scowl slowly morphed into a small smile and she nodded her approval.
"Looks good," she said at length. "I see Ember's make-up artists really had their way with you, but the dark makeup creates a cool contrast with the white hair. You're wearing the accessories I picked out for you. You look good."
"Glad I have your seal of approval," Danny said. "There's another half-hour 'til the show starts. Want some snacks? The venue set up a whole complimentary spread, even though we're ghosts and don't need to eat. Guess they were just really excited to have us."
"Don't mind if I do," Valerie said, traipsing over to the buffet table and helping herself to some mini blueberry muffins and mini quiches.
Most of the food was miniature versions of normally larger foods for some reason. Danny was partial to the mini pig-in-a-blankets... or would it be pigs-in-a-blanket? Pigs-in-blankets? What parts of that hyphenated phrase had to be pluralized?
He mulled over the conundrum with Valerie, but they didn't come to a satisfactory conclusion before Poindexter came rushing into the room with a wild-eyed expression.
"We've got a problem, Danny," he said. "The venue is filling up with cultists."
"What? What do you mean cultists?" Danny demanded.
"I don't know, they'd all got black robes and strange tattoos," the ghost continued. "Security stopped some of them, and told me they said they're looking for the ghost king, but they can't kick 'em out 'cause they've all got tickets, and they technically haven't done anything wrong. What should we do?"
"Woah, slow down, Sid," Danny held out his hands. "What do you mean ghost king?"
"He means you."
He turned around to see Ember standing behind him. She approached the buffet table and popped a mini eclair in her mouth. Just because ghosts didn't need to eat, didn't mean those eclairs weren't damn good.
"Me? What are you talking about?"
"You defeated the old king in single combat," she said through a mouthful before swallowing. "You possess the royal artifacts."
"Yeah, in a shoe box full of junk in the bottom of my closet," Danny argued. "I'm no king."
"Well, duh," she said. "I mean, not in the practical sense. The Ghost Zone is pretty much self-governing anyway, so it's not like we ever needed a king, but magic is as magic does, so from a technical standpoint..." she trailed off, making a so-so motion with her hand.
"You are the king," Poindexter said. "We ghosts may not need one, but the Ghost Zone needs a vessel or it becomes too weird and unstable to be habitable, and right now, that's you."
"Why am I the only one who didn't know about this?"
"Uh, hello?" Valerie raised her hand, her face a mask of surprise and confusion.
"Okay, why am I the only ghost who didn't know about this?"
"Not our fault you never bothered to learn about ghostly culture," Ember said with a shrug.
"Does this make me the ghost queen?" Valerie asked.
Ember snorted a laugh, "You become a ghost some time since we last talked?" she asked sarcastically.
Valerie glared and her hand instinctively went to her thigh for her ecto-gun, even though she wasn't wearing her ghost hunting suit and she'd promised not to hunt ghosts anymore ever since she learned the truth about Danny and the rest of them—that they weren't really evil, just trying to act on their ghostly .
"Ember's just razzin' you," Poindexter said flippantly. "There's only one royal position in the ghost zone, so even if you were both a ghost and married to Danny, that would be it. You'd just be the king's wife and nothing else."
Valerie scowled at him, as if he even had the presence of mind to intend that as a personal slight against her.
Poindexter barrelled on, not even noticing her irritation, which of course only pissed her off more. "But the semantics of royal titles aren't nearly as important as the fact that there are literally hundreds of cultists out there looking for Danny and they won't say what for, or what they plan to do if they find him. I hate to suggest cancelling the show, but—"
"We can't cancel the show," Ember cut him off severely. "Not this last-minute. Double security around the stage and tell them to watch out for any movement on the part of the cultists. If they see anything weird and suspicious, like artifacts, glowing tattoos, weird chanting, have them tell the lighting crew to flash the stage-front lights red three times. That'll be the signal for Danny to get the hell outta dodge. With any luck, they're just here for the music, but even if they're not, the show must go on, right Danny?"
"Red three times. I'm on it!" Poindexter said, then vanished to attend to spreading the updated procedures.
"Uh... right," Danny agreed. He was not expecting Ember to be so on top of the situation.
"Valerie, I know you were looking forward to seeing your boytoy perform live, but if you wouldn't mind gearing up and providing some extra security—"
"Say no more; you got it," Valerie said. "I'm not about to let a bunch of creepy cultists run off with my man. I'll catch you after the show, babe." She gave Danny a peck on the cheek before darting out of the backstage area.
Danny followed her with his eyes until she was out of sight then turned to Ember with a frown. "I'm not her boytoy."
"Sure you're not," Ember said. "Ten minutes to curtain. Time for last minute sound checks and staging."
As if Danny's anxiety wasn't already through the roof, now it was amped up even higher.
Ten minutes felt like an eternity, until their names were announced over the loudspeakers and the curtains rose.
If it weren't for all those hours of practice, Danny was sure he would have choked, but as Ember hyped up the crowd and they started in on their first song, Danny's fingers danced across his keyboard as if on autopilot.
Ember was right about the stage lights and the crowd. It was so bright he could barely see a thing, let alone make out individual faces, though he did not swaths of black robes in the crowd—cultists grouped together. Plus, between just those two factors, the heat onstage was stifling, and Danny's ice-powers kicked in instinctually to cool him off, creating an unplanned mist effect across the stage.
He looked up with wide-eyes, checking for reactions from Ember and her band, but they just rolled with it and kept playing, so unperturbed as to make the audience think it was intentional, made with dry ice or something. They were so professional, it made Danny feel like he really had to step up his game to deserve his spot on this stage with them.
When his part of their duet came up, Danny sang his heart out, belting the words with more emotion than in any of their rehearsals and really giving it his all. But all the while, he kept glancing at the stage-front lights, waiting for them to start flashing red, telling him to run.
Ancients how he wished he could see what was going on in the crowd. This anxiety was killing him all over again.
Danny was on edge the whole time, but the concert ended without him having to run offstage in a hurry.
He got to take his bows alongside Ember and her band and then walk off just as planned. As soon as they got the the green room, Hawk, Riff, and Thump (Ember's bassist, rhythm guitarist, and drummer respectively) collapsed on the sofa pretty much simultaneously and Ember laughed.
"They always do that," she said. "It's like a post-concert ritual for them. Flop down on the couch in the green room and not move for ten full minutes."
"Can you blame us?" Thump asked, rubbing his forearms.
Danny guessed that banging on a drum set for nearly two hours straight took its toll, even for a ghost. He knew his own fingers were starting to tremble after that long playing keyboard.
"Thump, you were sitting the whole time," Ember pointed out.
"Yeah, but me and Riff weren't," Hawk pointed out. "My dogs are barkin'."
"At least it wasn't as hot as it usually is," Riff commented. "Thanks for that, Phantom. It kinda caught me by surprise at first, but we done concerts with smoke machines before, so not that big a deal."
"Oh, I'm with Riff on that one, big time," Hawk agreed, and Thump nodded as well.
"You should do that at every concert," Riff said.
"I don't know if I can help it," Danny said. "With my ice core, the second I started to overheat, it just kinda happened."
"Well, no complaints here," Ember said.
"Amen," her band chorused in agreement.
The five performers rested up in the green room while the roadies packed up their equipment to transport it to the next venue. Ghosts didn't really have the same travel time as most vehicles, so their stuff traveled without them, and they met it there the day of the concert.
After a few minutes, Valerie came in, dressed in her ghost hunting gear and looking like she'd barely escaped an explosion. Her hair, which was normally well kept, was frizzing, and she had soot marks all over her suit.
"Hey babe!" she greeted, sidling up to Danny and sitting on the arm of his chair. "You were great out there."
"You too, I assume," Danny replied, looking her up and down. "What happened? I couldn't really see anything with the stage lights in my face."
"Oh, just a little scuffle with the cultists. Security and I handled it. No big deal."
"Val, you're awesome."
"I know it," she said. "We're gon' have words about your manager though, he tried to stop me from coming back here again after the show."
"I promise I will get a pass for you before the next show," Danny said. "He'd just trying to do his job."
Valerie huffed in irritation, but didn't argue the point further. Danny could sense that her beef with Poindexter wasn't about to end any time soon. This was gonna be a long summer.
That night, Danny went home on cloud nine. He couldn't wait to tell his parents how well the concert had gone. He'd been scrolling through social media in the green room, and people were raving about the show. They thought Valerie fighting the cultists was part of the act, and they ate it up. It couldn't have gone better.
His hand was on the doorknob when he remembered that he couldn't tell his parents. They still didn't know he was a ghost.
Ancients, this was getting frustrating. All the accomplishments he was most proud of had to do with his ghost side, and he couldn't share any of them with his parents. He was so tired of keeping secrets from them. Maybe now was the time to finally loop them in.
He walked in the front door. The concert had gone on until one in the morning, and after that he'd hung out with Ember, Val and the guys until the after-party, which went on until not long ago. He'd been out all night, but since it was summer, he didn't have to worry about his curfew.
His mom was in the kitchen making pancakes for breakfast, and his dad was half asleep at the kitchen table while Jazz sat beside him reading a book. The table had already been set.
As Danny sat down at the table, he thought that he should probably come up with some kind of plan for how to tell his parents he was half ghost. But at the same time, he also thought "fuck it", and it had been a long night, so after almost no deliberation, "fuck it" won out.
"Welcome home, sweetie," his mom greeted. "How was your night? You went to a concert right?"
"It went great! I almost got attacked by cultists and it was so hot onstage that I accidentally iced it over, but the audience seemed to think all that was planned, so all in all, I can't complain. Plus my band mates seemed to appreciate the cool-off."
Jazz looked at him over her book with a look of complete shock and borderline fear.
"That's nice, Danny," his mother said. "Do you want chocolate chips or blueberries in your panca—wait what the hell do you mean you were almost attacked by cultists?"
His father, who'd been pretty much asleep by that point jerked awake at the sound of his wife yelling. "What? Who's a cultist? Attack?"
"Yeah," Danny said. "I guess I'm, like, the ghost king or something. It was news to me too, but I had a concert to put on, so I just let security deal with them. Also, I'd love some blueberries, please."
The number of shocked expressions in the kitchen tripled.
"Put on?" his mother repeated. "I thought you were attending a concert."
"No, I had to perform that big collab concert with Ember and her band last night."
"But... but wasn't that... wait are you...?"
Danny nodded.
"You're Danny Phantom?!" His mother all but screamed. "Why didn't you tell us sooner?!"
"I didn't?" Danny asked with an exaggerated tone of surprise. "Well gee I could've sworn I told you guys. Remember that accident in the ghost portal back in freshman year? Ever since then, I've been half ghost. I thought you knew." He gave him his best expression of mock innocence.
It was clear that he absolutely knew this was the first time he was telling them, but he was also clearly having fun with it. His parents, on the other hand....
"You're half ghost?!" they shouted in unison.
"Did you die?" his mother asked. "How can you say that so casually?"
"He's just coping with humor like he always does," Jazz said dismissively, finally getting over her shock at her brother's sudden honesty and looking back at her book.
"I am not!" Danny refuted aghast. "I would never do such a thing! Name one time that I have ever used humor to cope?"
"Is that a serious question?" Jazz asked sardonically, raising an eyebrow. "Because I could give you an itemized list. Would you like it chronologically or alphabetically?"
"Ugh. I'm good thanks," Danny said, rolling his eyes. "And no, I'm not dead. Or... I guess you could say I'm half-dead? I'm not sure, really. I can transform between a human and ghost form, and I use my ghost powers, along with the ghost hunting training you guys gave me, to keep Amity Park safe from ghostly threats, and more recently to become a YouTube famous musician and get a concert deal with Ember McLain."
His parents obviously had no idea how to respond to all this new information at once. Honestly, Danny didn't even know how he wanted them to respond. As long as they didn't try to capture or kill him, he'd be happy.
"Uh... congratulations?" his mother said finally.
"Thanks!"
Yeah. That worked.
I both love the Danny teaming up with ember bits, while also cackling at the cultists making his life just a teensy bit harder xD Great work again raaor
Phic Phight - The Royal, The Abducted, And The Baffled
For: @armed-with-knitting-needles @phantoms14 @ventisettestars and library_of_Cronos and the_crownless_queen and warvik
The FrightKnight has zero chill, Amity Parker’s -specially the A-Listers- have all the chill, and Danny just wants tochill but everyone is making that very hard to do. Anyway, he’s the high ghost king now and the biggest problem his goddamn bullies have with that is that his castle looks like shit.
Danny’s walking forwards steadily, stomping his feet a little and glaring ahead in annoyance. The FrightKnight spent nearly all of yesterday chasing him around and shouting about how he needed to ‘vanquish’ Pariah once and for and all and claim his ‘rightful place’, multiple people saw, Danny was not impressed. Especially because one of the people who saw that shit was Dash, hence why Dash and co have been following him around for the past half hour pestering him about ‘being so bad at being a Fenton that he couldn’t get a single ghost to leave him alone’. Which hey! Danny did get the guy to shove off, you know, by angrily stomping into Phantom’s Keep aka his current ghost zone lair, tearing open the sarcophagus, and just ramming the shit out of Pariah’s entire chest area with multiple weapons, of varying types, and sizes. The guy was ended, over, done with; not Danny’s problem anymore, or anyone else’s for that matter. Now the FrightKnight could shut the fuck up and leave Danny the fuck alone for, like, ten minutes at least.
But what does he get instead of peace? Why Dash of course! That’s what his luck is like. Ugh.
Dash snorting, “I bet the ghost of fear was following Fentailbone because he was just so fed up with how not scary he is even though he’s got spooky powers!”.
Kwan chuckling, “yeah! Even the Box Ghost can be scarier! You know, like that one time”.
How dare!
Paulina and Star snickering to each other. Paulina sounding sickly sweet, “or maybe he was trying to teach the boy how to dress, that ghost does know a thing or two about fashion clearly”, sounding like she’s talking to Star now, “like girl, have you seen how shiny his armour is? I would love if I could get my hair to have that kind of sheen”.
Dash snorting, “the only sheen Fenton’s got is coked up Charlie Sheen chic”.
Okay yes Danny’s fashion sense is dumpster inspired but RUDE!
Kwan groaning, “man that drama was so good, right?”. Everyone else in their stupid little group voicing their agreeances, which fine even Danny agrees that had being very interesting drama and sue him, he’s just as much of a gossip as any other self respecting ghost is.
Then, because of course, a ghost portal just opens up right beneath Danny’s feet, and the A-listers are close enough to him to get sucked in as well. Fun.
All of them landing on the hard tiled floor with an intricately well designed, but beaten down, red rug underneath them. Oh hey! This looks like the inside of his keep! That can’t possibly mean anything? Could it? COULD IT! Danny was going to end Frighty. Danny grumbling as he stands up and brushes off his pants, “I’m going to find you, you spooky motherfucker, and piss in your stupid little silly helmet”.
Everyone else groaning a little as they all scramble up, they’re not nearly as surprised or freaked out as a non-Amity Parker would expect them to be, after getting magicked into a weird beaten down castle and all. Amity Parker’s just weren’t weak like that, nowadays. Paulina holding her hands up to her chest and poking at the floor with one foot, “oh ew, this place is so totally run down. Why couldn’t I have fallen into a castle place that was pretty and sparkly?”. Star grabbing Paulina’s arm, “I know girl, look at all the weird creepy statues!”.
Dash grunting, smacking Kwan one on the back, “oh whatever, let’s just find this ghost whoever and beat the the shit outta them”, glaring at Danny, “ you just stay here, ya damn twink, and let the real men handle this”.
Danny turning to them slightly and glaring, “fuck you”. This place was technically Danny’s home so, no. He doesn’t feel like getting beaten up today, and Pariah was too stabbed through for anyone to be going and beating him up. Like, there is a such thing as over kill at a certain point.
Then the goddamn FrightKnight appears in a puff of spooky, ominous purple smoke. Everyone behind Danny yelping while the ghost bellows, “I HATH RETRIEVED YOUR GREATNESS, OH ALL MIGHTY KINGSBANE! IT IS TIME TO CLAIM YOUR THRONE! MY KING!”, and swings his sword to basically point it directly in between Danny’s eyes.
Danny… Danny wants to flying kick him square in the face. Immediately.
Dash sputtering a bit, “why are you shouting that at Fenturd?! Me or Paulina I’d get!”, turning on Danny, “who died and made you king!”.
Danny is passed the point of goddamn caring anymore. Fuck all of this. Fuck all of them. Fuck the FrightKnight’s hard on for making Danny more powerful and more kingly. Fuck this shitty ass ugly ass building. Fuck secret identities because this asshole just does not understand the concept, clearly. And also? Fuck subtlety.
Danny starts smacking at the ghosts sword wildly with both arms and hands. “Dude you suck, how do you have the worst situational awareness in all of existence, holy shit”, grumbling and aggressively stomping over to the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep, grabbing the edges, and violently tearing off the front; yeeting the front half into a wall dramatically. Danny gestures at Pariah’s spectral corpse, still littered with multiple different knives, and spears, and swords, and axes, some pencils, a butter knife or two, there’s even a tv remote Danny sharpened with some ecto-fire and an edge. Danny grinning manically and growling, “this motherfucker did, shit head”.
The group actually looks slightly freak out, the FrightKnight seeing that, gives Danny a little cheery thumbs up. Danny scowling at the ghost, “Frighty, I am so goddamn close to just busting into your area, eating all of your flooring, and cramming you back into your goddamn pumpkin. I’ll rename it the fucking timeout pumpkin!”.
The FrightKnight putting a hand to his chest, “but your majesty, I must stay by your side and they should know and fear your greatness!”.
“I’m not Pariah! I don’t actually want people terrified of me, man!”.
“All ghosts need fear, your highness!”.
“The flavour of fear that I like is the kind that comes from chaos and confusion, not terror!”, crossing his arms and huffing, “which to be fair”, nodding his head at the A-Listers who are all in varying stages of freaking out, “this is doing a fantastic job of causing so much confusion”. At the FrightKnight perking up and his hair fire waving more happily. “No, bad. Do not yank random people into my goddamn throne room! I don’t care if it makes the ‘good fear’! Go set a random stop sign on fire or get the head Observant drunk during a hearing or something, instead!”.
Dash throws his hands up, “what the Zone, Fenton!”, sticking his hands out at Danny and at the sarcophagus, “are you seriously trying to say, that you busted in here at some random point and stabbed goddamn Pariah fucking Dark in the core a bunch of times with random pointy shit! How did that happen?!?”, dropping his arms and blinking, sounding way calmer, “no really, how?”.
Kwan looking at Dash nodding, then Danny, “cool though, I guess”.
“No Kwan man, that’s Fenton, once a loser always a loser”.
Paulina actually shoves Dash a little, “king, or whatever, is automatically cool, Dash”.
“Heh, yeah I guess. I am the football king after all, and I’m the coolest”.
Danny blinking at them, speaking monotoned, “I like to take the speeder on random little zone trips sometimes, found this place, got creative”. Weak ass excuse but he does not care even slightly.
Star putting a hand on her hip, “well if you’re this places king or whatever why haven’t you spruced it up? This place looks dreadful”. Paulina going wide-eyed before instantly nodding, “dios mio! Definitely”, she immediately moves to stalk up to Danny, grab his arm, and start dragging him off, “if you’re going to be cool now then we are fixing this travesty”.
Danny just sputters disbelievingly while the entire A-lister group starts basically tearing the place apart. Trimming the frayed curtains, dumping water on overly dusty shit (he neither asks nor cares where they got the water from), shouting at him to fix his ‘ugly ass rugs’, Paulina even starts smacking the FrightKnight to get him to clean the super high up massive windows and tapestries.
Danny shouting, “HA!”, at the FrightKnight -who is just leaking tangy spicy confusion-based fear- while the ghost is forced by Star to rearrange the dinning hall to be symmetrical, her ranting the entire time about Pariah having the worst room design sense in the world.
Kwan’s off pointing at an accent stair step, utterly baffled why anyone would have that in their house or place or castle. He acquired a hammer at some point, Danny left him to that.
Dash was now raiding a random storage room for ‘more manly’ statues, while calling Pariah’s skull and bat statues tacky and thus pathetic. He even called The FrightKnight pathetic when the guy tried to defend the aesthetics of bats.
Star set what Danny assumed used to be Pariah’s bed on fire because it was a ‘travesty to all ghost kind’. Which yeah, thing was really ugly, lion themed for some reason, and shaped like a comma. Danny had to spend the next half hour making a new rocket ship themed bed out of ecto-constructs. Star deemed it childish but acceptable because of his ‘weird love of space’.
Then Paulina went and forced everyone to stitch tiny little stars into the bottoms of all of the tapestries. Danny bitched that he could have just made ecto-construct ones or something and she called him lazy. The A-listers nearly spent more time relentlessly mocking the FrightKnight for sucking at using a thread and needle. The guy was in armour, Danny doubted he could sew sweet dick all with armour covered fingers.
By the time Danny had managed to drag the group of humans to and through the little ghost portal connected to his Fenton Works bedroom that he had, the FrightKnight was left just standing, half sagged over, and physically shaking from bafflement and sheer concern. The guy looking at Danny, “there, there is something deeply wrong with your citizens”.
“Oh I’m well aware, Frighty, well aware”, snorting and crossing his arms, “honestly? These days I get more of that sweet sweet confused fear from the ghosts than the humans”. Everyone did just kinda go ‘ah not this shit again’ nowadays, rather than screaming in terror or fleeing like their lives depended on it.
The FrightKnight slightly shakes himself off, “well I’m glad to be of service and to your tastes, your highness”.
“Ew, you could have phrased that better”.
The ghost just gestures at the throne, so Danny sighs and does the thing that the goddamn personification of fear abducted him to do. Takes his rightful place on the High Ghost Kings throne; Frighty being more than eager to give him his crown.
Danny will bet money that if Dash and his buddies even tell anyone about this, whoever will just blink, then go ‘huh that’s neat. Guess Fenton’s cool now’, and go back to eating a sandwich or something. But hey, at least his lair looked nice now? Maybe that’ll get him to actually spend more time in the place…
End.
Prompts: Dash really shouldn't ask the question "Who died and made you king?" to Danny Fenton without knowing there's an actual answer to that. Reveal gone right. Everyone knows Danny has ghost powers. No one (or only the people who know in the show) knows he's Phantom After Danny defeats Pariah Dark, Fright Knight becomes loyal to him, and the knight doesn’t seem to grasp the concept of a secret identity. Shenanigans and ghost politics ensue Ghosts feed on fear produced by the living. Some ghosts arent picky about the flavor, some are. Danny is not exempt despite his halfa status. And it might not bother him all that much. (Horror and/or fluff encouraged) Danny surprisingly gets good advice from an unlikely source
This is legit too funny xD And Fright Knight is just so distraught by the end xD Poor guy. He didn't expect them to be so 'in your face' about everything xD
The Woods
ao3
ffn
word count: 1935
prompts: lyrics to "the woods" by san fermin
and
There's a shallow grave in the woods. The only marker is a stone with the name "Danny" scratched into it. It's empty, but it hasn't been empty for long. @kinglazrus
hehehe
Danny laughed as he floated along the trail next to Dash. He pushed Dash’s shoulder.
“Come on! Stop it!” Dash snickered at Danny. “No!”
“What? You don’t want to dance?” Dash held a hand out to him. “We can party it up with the centipedes and ants and other bugs that live in the dirt.”
Danny wrinkled his nose and grabbed Dash’s hand. “I don’t think the bugs would make for a good party. They’d crawl all over everyone.”
Dash shrugged and dragged Danny through the air by his hand. “They just wiggle around. They’ve got some good dance moves.”
Danny rolled his eyes. “Whatever you saw. I wouldn’t say wiggling around is good dancing.”
“Oh yeah? I’ll prove you wrong.” Dash stopped in his place and started wiggling where he stood, shimmying his upper body back and forth. Danny laughed.
“You just make it-”
Danny stopped as he sensed something. He turned to look into the trees. It wasn’t a ghost, his ghost sense wasn’t going off. It felt like something else.
“Phantom?”
Danny glanced at Dash before glancing back into the woods again. “Sorry. I can just- It feels like something is pulling me somewhere. Like I need to go find something.”
Dash tilted his head at him. “Do you want to go find it? I’m down for a little exploring.”
Danny smiled at him. “Sure. I don’t even know what it is we’re looking for though.”
Dash waved his comment off and walked to stand next to Phantom again. “Who cares about that? Lead the way.”
Danny floated off the path and Dash followed behind him. They walked deeper into the woods and the feeling in Danny’s chest grew stronger. What could possibly be calling to him?
The leaves crunched beneath Dash’s feet and Danny could feel the tall grass brushing against him as he floated past it.
He felt like his core was leading him somewhere.
The feeling kept growing and he landed on the ground to walk the rest of the way. He put through the grass.
They walked into a small clearing and it only took a moment for Danny to recognize where they were. Dash walked through the grass behind him and Danny’s heart fell.
“This is a kind of cool clearing. It’s so deep in the woods though.”
Danny’s eyes landed on the patch of dirt in front of them. There was a small stone with his name on it and the dirt had been turned as if something had crawled out of it.
Dash looked at the ground in front of them. He frowned.
“Phantom? What is this?”
Danny swallowed and looked at the clearing around them. “A grave.”
Danny could practically feel Dash’s anxiety rising as his eyes widened. Danny turned and looked the other way.
“Okay, it’s a grave. Why do you look so worried?”
“Because it’s empty. And it hasn’t been empty for long.”
Dash threw his hands up into the air and brought them back down, running his hands through his hair.
“An empty grave? Why is it empty?”
Honestly, Danny didn’t know why it was empty. He had a bad feeling, and not just because someone had dug up his grave.
“I don’t know.” Danny floated back up into the air. “You stay here. I’m gonna take a look around.”
“You’re gonna leave me here with the empty grave?!” Dash whisper shouted.
Danny rolled his eyes and floated back through the grass. “It’s already empty. It’s not like something else is gonna crawl out of it.”
“That you know of!”
“Just let me go check it out.” Danny turned to look back at Dash. “You’ll be fine.”
Before Dash could respond, Danny floated away. He had to find whatever was going on fast before Dash saw something he shouldn’t.
He heard a twig snap and he stopped in place. He turned and looked around. He didn’t see anything.
He broke into a fly instead and started scanning up and down the woods. So far nothing. But he could still feel that feeling in his core. Like something was near.
This time a twig snapped directly behind Danny. He whipped around and saw a shadowy figure standing in the shadows ahead of him. Danny squinted at it.
“Dash?”
The figure chuckled and it sent a chill up Danny’s spine. He backed up as it walked out of the shadows and his eyes widened in horror.
It was Danny. It was himself.
“Don’t worry. We’ll get rid of it, Danny.” Sam said, her hands on his shoulders. “No one will ever find it.”
Its skin was decaying. Falling apart, flaking away. Bone could be seen exposed in some parts. Its clothes looked charred, probably from the portal.
They dug a hole in the ground. It was a shallow grave but it would have to do. It was getting dark and they had to get home.
They began scooping dirt back onto the grave, covering the body in the ground.
They should’ve dug a bigger grave.
“What do we have here?”
Sam pulled a stone out of her bag and placed it on the ground. It bore Danny’s name, a reminder of what they did here today.
This was his corpse.
Its voice crackled with disuse. It sent an unsettling feeling through Danny’s body. It didn’t sound right. It was his own voice but wrong.
“Oh, don’t look too happy to see me.” It said quietly. “We deserve a better reunion.”
Danny still didn’t understand what was happening. Why had his corpse come back to life? Was it even alive? He guessed the word would be undead.
“How did this happen?” Danny gestured at his corpse. He flew back when the corpse took a step towards him. It shrugged.
“I guess I just knew.”
Danny frowned at that. He didn’t like the sound of that,
“Knew what?”
“That it’s time for you to join me.”
Danny’s eyes widened and he flew back as his corpse jumped at him. It chuckled.
“Oh, are you afraid to touch your own body? You must be. You couldn’t even be bothered to touch me when you guys buried me.”
Danny watched as Sam and Tucker dragged his body into the shallow grave. They were struggling with it but Danny couldn’t help. He didn’t want to touch it. Touching it meant acknowledging it was real. He didn’t want to do that.
He looked away from it until they got it into the grave. Then he grabbed a shovel and started helping cover it up.
“You’re not me.” Danny tried to say it with confidence but based on the grin on its face he wasn’t successful. It shrugged.
“Maybe not anymore, but I was. You died and left me behind. You didn’t want to face me, but here we are now.”
Danny backed away. How was he going to get this thing back in the ground? How was he going to fix this?
He turned to fly away but he wasn’t fast enough. His corpse walked up to him and grabbed him. Dash called his name.
“Phantom? Where’d you go?”
“Oh, what changed with him?” Danny could feel the smirk it was giving him. “Do you like him now?”
“Da-“
His corpse covered his mouth as he tried shouting Dash’s name.
“What is he going to do for you? Save you? How would you explain to him what he’d be seeing? He’d be terrified by what he’d see. He’d be terrified of you.”
Danny shook his head, trying to dislodge its hand from over his mouth.
He listened as Dash’s footsteps walked away from the clearing the grave was in. Danny struggled against his corpse’s hold, but for something that was decaying it had a scarily strong grip.
When Dash’s footsteps faded away his corpse started dragging him towards the clearing. He tried going intangible and his heart rate spiked when nothing happened besides his feet clipping into the ground.
“That doesn’t work on me.” It chuckled at him. ”There’s no getting out of this. It’s time to rest.”
His corpse dragged him through the tall grass and across the clearing. Danny saw the turned dirt and tried to push his corpse’s arms off of him but it was to no avail.
It stepped onto the grave and it started sinking, pulling Danny down with it. Finally, Danny had been able to get an arm free and he used it to pry the other one out of the corpse’s grip. It wrapped its arms around Danny’s waist instead and continued to pull him down.
Danny tried to grip onto the ground as his corpse pulled him into the grave with it but his hands slipped on the freshly turned dirt. His fingers clawed at it but they could find no purchase. Soon his face was being dragged under and he couldn’t breathe. His hand felt around for something, anything to grab onto but there was nothing.
His hand was almost in the dirt when something grabbed onto him. His corpse kept pulling and soon Danny was pulling the other hand into the dirt with him.
He reached up and grabbed the wrist and started pulling himself up. He kicked his corpse in the chest and he could feel it lose its grip on him. Danny kicked at it again and his corpse let go and Danny could feel himself being pulled back up out of the dirt.
His head popped free and he took a deep breath. A hand wrapped around his back while he coughed and yanked him the rest of the way free.
“Fenton?”
Danny paused. His bare hands still gripped the arm that pulled him free. He slowly looked up and Dash was staring down at him, a confused and horrified expression on his face.
Why wasn’t he in his ghost form? What happened?
“Fenton, why did I pull you out? Phantom’s hand was sticking out when I grabbed it.”
Danny didn’t answer Dash. He tried pulling at the feeling he normally had in his chest from his core. But there was nothing there. Not the cold feeling he would pull on to trigger his transformation or the feeling that was leading him to his grave. All he could feel was the normal rhythm of his heart.
“Fenton.”
Danny could see the knowing look on Dash’s face, but he didn’t seem to want to admit it.
Danny shook his head. “I don’t know what happened. It dragged me down there. I-“ He looked away from Dash. “I was in my ghost form when it dragged me down there. I don’t know what happened.”
Dash frowned. “What dragged you down there?”
Danny looked back up at him.
“My corpse.”
“Your corpse?” Dash looked over Danny’s shoulder at the grave behind him. “How was your corpse in there? You’re alive.”
Danny shook his head. “It’s complicated. I had died and left a body behind, but I was still alive. I don’t know how it worked. But after it pulled me in there and you pulled me back out, I don’t have access to my ghost form anymore.”
“You can’t… Turn into Phantom anymore?”
Danny shook his head.
They sat there in silence. Dash glanced over Danny’s shoulder at the grave again. He shivered.
“I don’t know any of what’s going on.” Dash stood up and pulled Danny off the ground with him. “But I think we should head home.”
Danny nodded and let Dash pull him along behind him. They left the grave and the clearing behind.
Danny couldn’t feel as if he was missing a part of him.
The title? Perfect
the story? ABSOLUTELY STELLAR
This is like, the perfect campfire story i didn't know i needed?! I loved it and was hanging on every word, wondering what would happen next
Bad Times at Pariah's Keep
Pariah Dark (who was never trapped in the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep) captures the halfas in the hopes of figuring out how they tick, and perhaps taking their power for himself.
For the Prompts: Someone else (the likes of Circus Gothica, Ghost Writer, heck maybe a yeti) gets to do some dismemberment on the operating table. {from @videodromeda} The Ancients lost. Pariah Dark was never sealed in eternal sleep. {from @ghostlyhabato} What if Vlad’s ecto-acne was contagious? Soon after Vlad is rushed to the hospital in pain after his accident, Maddie and Jack start developing oddly similar symptoms as well… (a Halfa College Trio AU!) {from @coyotecrackers} and Tucker, Sam, and Danny all become halfas when the portal turns on. Turns out, it's a lot harder to hide three people gaining powers than it is to hide one. {from @aconfusedkitten}
Read Also on AO3
[Warnings for blood, gore, dissection/vivisection, dismemberment, pain, and just generally a bad time to be had all around]
"I've finally captured them all. Every halfa in existence. Here at my mercy."
The Ghost King was an imposing figure at the best of times, but never more so than now, standing over them all as they sat there, separated from each other, helpless, waiting for him to declare what he planned to do with them all.
—
Danny's parents were up in their room, brainstorming and troubleshooting, trying to figure out why their portal hadn't worked, and when he told Sam and Tucker about it, they all but begged him to let them see.
"A portal to another dimension, huh?" Tucker said, running his hand over the steel frame of the machine. "That's so cool."
"It would be if it worked," Danny told him. "Right now, it's just a big hole in the wall."
"We should go inside it," Sam suggested. "Come on, Danny, it looks so cool!"
"Why am I the only one of us with any sense?" Danny asked. "It's a science experiment. Do you have any idea how much electricity runs through this thing? It's dangerous!"
"Correction—it would be dangerous," Tucker said. "If it worked. Which it doesn't. Like you said, it's just a big hole in the wall. How dangerous could it be?"
"Exactly," agreed Sam. "We'll be in and out, just to say we did it. What other fourteen-year-olds could say they've been inside a portal to another dimension? Even a non-functional one?"
Reluctantly, Danny relented, but he insisted they put on protective jumpsuits, just in case. His friends rolled their eyes at him, and would later point out that the jumpsuits hadn't even protected them at all, but he stood by that choice. Ghost heroes wearing normal clothes would be lame.
—
Pariah Dark stood before their cages, sizing each of them up with his one green eye.
"How satisfying it is to have the only creatures who could ever stand up to me, know kneeling down," he said. "The only question now is: which one should we take apart first? What do you think doctor?"
He turned to his underling, a ghostly doctor who alternated between manic glee at the prospect of the experiments they were about to do, and trembling in fear at his lord and master the Ghost King. Currently, the former.
"Eldest to youngest perhaps," he suggested. "Or perhaps in descending order of height? Alphabetically is, of course, also an option."
Pariah hummed in thought, then grinned wickedly. "How about reverse-alphabetically?" he suggested. "Shall we begin with this... Vlad?"
"NO!" a chorus of shouts rang out from the other trapped halfas, but the king paid them no mind.
"An excellent decision, sire," the doctor agreed. "Let us begin."
—
Jack and Maddie hugged each other as the ambulance drove off with their best friend inside. They hadn't been allowed to accompany him to the hospital, so all they could do was watch and worry.
At least, that was all they could do at first. Then, just a few hours later, Jack developed a glowing green pimple right on the tip of his nose. An hour after that, Maddie noticed one on her chin. By the end of the day, there was no denying that the pair of them had been exposed to Vlad's ecto-acne and caught it themselves.
They rushed to the hospital, where they were placed in the same room as Vlad, under strict quarantine. All that time alone together, helping each other through their shared suffering, it brought them closer together.
They were subjected to a battery of tests and experimental cures, but in the end, it wasn't the doctors, but the three of them who managed to cure the ecto-acne. After all, they'd always said there was nothing they couldn't do together. Unfortunately, they failed to find a cure before they suffered permanent consequences from the ghostly illness.
—
The door of Vlad's cage was thrown open and Pariah grabbed him with one massive hand and forcibly pulled him out, pinning him to a faintly glowing exam table while the doctor, now trembling with cowardice, flitted around, strapping down his limbs.
"Vladdy, No!"
"Vlad!"
"It's alright, my loves," Vlad said, smiling sadly at Jack and Maddie. "Better me than either of you. Now you'll have more time to think of an escape while they're distracted with me. Let me do this for you." He tilted his head, trying to see Danny and his friends in the other cages, but they were too far out of view. "All I ask is please, avert your eyes. You don't need to see this."
"Oh, they'll see it just fine when it's their turn under the knife," Pariah Dark sneered. "Doctor! Begin the operation."
The doctor grinned wickedly, his fear gone again, replaced with sick enjoyment of what he was being asked to do. He raised a glowing green scalpel.
"Gladly, sire."
To his credit, Vlad never once screamed. It wasn't his first encounter with suffering, and though he nearly broke his teeth clenching them against the agony, he managed to keep quiet. He didn't know if his family had actually heeded his words and turned away, but they didn't hear him. That much he had assured.
Pariah dark growled in frustration. "He looks the same inside as any other ghost!" he shouted. "How am I to replicate his power if I cannot identify its source?!"
"Perhaps, when we examine the others, a pattern will become clear?" The doctor suggested, quivering, barely holding back tears.
He snarled and turned away. "The next, then. I believe Tucker was his name?"
"Please, no!" Maddie screamed. "I'm begging you, please spare the children. Take us first!"
"Silence!" Pariah ordered, and Maddie snapped her mouth shut and cried. "Doctor, clean up this one, and we'll begin on the next. The boy. Tucker."
—
As it turned out, hiding three people with recently acquired ghost powers they couldn't really control wasn't exactly easy. Sam's parents didn't notice a thing, but Tucker's were a lot more observant, and he lost count of the number of hurried excuses he had to make to keep them from getting suspicious, or make a quick getaway before they could notice he'd gone partially invisible.
As for Danny, well, difficult didn't begin to cover it. For starters, his friends only had two parents to hide their powers from, whereas Danny had three. Not to mention those parents were ghost experts. Then there was Jazz, the sibling complication. Uninterested in ghosts, but very observant.
They managed to keep their altered biology a secret for a little over a month before Danny's parents cornered them and started asking about the ghost portal accident.
"We thought, since you didn't show any outward symptoms of ecto-acne, you would recover from the accident normally, and everything would be fine," Maddie said. "But that's not the case, is it?"
"Uh... we have no idea what you mean, Mrs. Fenton," Sam said.
"Yeah," Tucker agreed, "Everything's totally normal with us."
Danny kept his mouth shut. His dad could be pretty oblivious, and even his mother wasn't the best with social things, but his father Vlad could always tell when he was lying.
"Daniel," Vlad said, a warning tone in his voice. "You're suspiciously quiet. Anything you'd like to add?"
Danny could feel the sweat dripping off him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sam and Tucker giving him intense 'keep your fucking mouth shut' looks. He swallowed. But in the end, he caved under his father's scrutiny.
"The portal gave us all ghost powers!" he confessed, the words tumbling out of him in a rush like water through a burst dam. "We're ghosts now. Please don't kill us."
"Kill you?" Maddie echoed. "Sweetie, we don't kill ghosts. Capture, certainly, when they're being troublesome and causing people harm, but never kill."
"I don't think you can kill a ghost, technically," Jack tacked on. "I mean, they're already dead, aren't they?"
"Jack dear, please leave this one to us," Vlad said. "That's really not what's important right now."
"No, what's important is that there's something we need to tell you kids," Maddie said. "We always planned to tell you eventually—well, tell Danny at least—but we didn't want to scare you. You see, the first time we tried to build a ghost portal was when we were in college, and it malfunctioned then, too." She placed a gentle hand on Vlad's upper arm. "Vlad got the brunt of the blast when the proto-portal failed, and was infected with a disease called ecto-acne, which got passed onto me and Jack."
"That accident changed us, all of us," Vlad said. "The same way the accident in the portal changed you three kids."
Maddie changed first, then Vlad, then Jack, revealing their ghost forms to the three children.
"We would never hurt you kids," Maddie reassured. "But if you are like us, then we can teach you about your new powers and how to control them."
"You don't have to do this alone," Vlad said.
"That's right!" Jack agreed enthusiastically. Agreeing with his partners couldn't possibly end up changing the subject, and thus he felt that the interjection was safe.
—
Vlad was weak, heavily bleeding ectoplasm, barely clinging to consciousness, but still alive when Pariah threw him back in his cage.
Maddie was in the cage next to him, and reach out, only to get zapped by the bars for her efforts without even coming close to reaching him.
The kids screamed out, trying to stop the king as he grabbed Tucker by the neck and flung him onto the operating table, knocking the wind out of him.
A flash of warm, yellow light surrounded Tucker as he instinctively went ghost to cope with the pain. He'd never been very good at dealing with pain, and now his friends had to watch on in horror as he went through what would no doubt be the most painful experience of his life, second only maybe to the portal accident that had halfway killed him.
"Doctor!"
"Yes, sire," the Doctor sputtered, strapping Tucker down to the table while he was too stunned to struggle. "Right away, sire."
Tucker did scream. He didn't have Vlad's restraint in the face of pain. He screamed until his voice gave out, and then kept screaming, barely audible, broken sounds as his limbs were removed one by one for examination as his friends looked on in horror, crying and begging for the perpetrators to have mercy.
"Nothing groundbreaking to speak of in this one either," Pariah growled at length. "Onto the next."
Tucker was tossed back into his cage, along with his severed limbs, and he trembled, tears pouring down his face as his ectoplasmic form slowly pulled itself back together.
The doctor wiped down the table and then Sam was next. She struggled like a wild animal, gnashing at her teeth and swiping at the Ghost king with her long, false nails. She spat in his face as he held her down for the doctor to secure her to the operating table. She fought and squirmed, making it as difficult as she could for the doctor's horrible scalpel to find purchase on her skin.
It didn't save her.
If anything, it just made the whole thing worse for her.
—
Sam had gone missing first, then Maddie, then Jack. It wasn't anything concerning at first. Sometimes they went out on their own, and there was no reason to worry. At least not until it started to grow late.
When his partners didn't return home, Vlad called the police to report them missing. He hated talking to police in general, and anyone about his relationship. Whenever he told anyone he was romantically involved with the Fentons, they would judge him, call him a homewrecker, and make no effort to understand the nature of the situation. More often, he said he was their business partner, and then people wondered why he seemed to care so much about them.
"Danny, you haven't seen your mom and dad around lately, have you?" Vlad asked when Danny came down from his room for a late-night glass of water.
"Not since I left for school this morning," Danny replied. "They haven't come home yet?"
"No," Vlad said. "I reported them missing to the police, but of course my concerns weren't taking seriously." He sneered. "Damn cops."
"You know, I haven't seen Sam since yesterday either," Danny said. "I thought she was just home sick from school or playing hooky, but she hasn't even called or texted."
"Three halfas missing in two days?" Vlad frowned and furrowed his brows. "This can't be good."
"I'm gonna call Tucker," Danny said.
His call received no answer. He hoped it was just because Tucker was asleep. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.
When Danny left for school that morning, Vlad told him and Jazz that he was going to spend the day searching for Jack and Maddie and that he might be back late.
Vlad did not return home, late or otherwise.
Finally, Danny himself was captured, snatched right out of his room by a pair of spectral skeletons with technology that stopped him from using his ghost powers. Denizens of the Ghost King's army, equipped to face him specifically.
This couldn't be good.
—
Sam was chucked back into her cage with a great amount of force that sent her slamming against the bars, giving her a nasty shock on top of the pain she'd already been subjected to. Her body was covered in deep, jagged cuts. Her skin was peeled back over some of them, exposing the muscle and even bone beneath.
She crossed her arms over her chest, holding the skin closed over her exposed ribs.
They hadn't known before today that halfa's had black bones.
They would have gladly gone their whole existences without learning that.
"The woman is next," Pariah sneered. "Is there any way to keep them from transforming? Perhaps we can gain more valuable information from studying them in their living forms."
"I can certainly try," the doctor agreed. "If you'll excuse me, sire, it will require some tools from my office."
"Go," Pariah allowed. "But be quick about it. I am not known for my patience."
Maddie couldn't hide the fear on her face when the doctor returned with a tray full of menacing-looking instruments. She made a choked sound as Pariah Dark grabbed her out of her cage, and with the help of the doctor, strapped her down to experiment. She didn't struggle, to afraid to even move a muscle.
Teal rings of light appears around her torso, but the Doctor stabbed one of his instruments through the front of her skull, directly into her brain, and the light sputtered out, leaving her very much human on the operating table.
"No, Mom!" Danny shouted. "You can't do that! She'll die!"
"Silence, wretch," Pariah ordered. "I am the King of all Ghosts. I can do whatever I want!"
But the creatures he had caged in this place were no ordinary ghosts. Their screams and shouts, insults and wails of distress filled the chamber, unceasing and very irritating. They were immune to his orders and could not be controlled. But that was what made them so powerful.
One way or another, he would have their power for his own. These wretched halfas would defy him no longer.
—
There were stories in the Ghost Zone, never told above a whisper. Stories of an uprising, centuries ago, when the ghosts of the Infinite Realms fought against Pariah Dark.
It wasn't easy for them. The Ghost King had absolute power over the citizens of his domain, and if he gave a ghost an order, they did not have the ability to defy it. They were fighting an uphill battle in the worst way, and though they fought anyway, many feared it was only a matter of time before the rebellion was expunged.
Then, six ghosts called the Ancients, the oldest ghosts in the realms, with power to rival even the king's, banded together, with the support of the rebellion, and attempted to seal Pariah Dark in an ancient ghostly relic known as the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep.
But Pariah Dark had spies everywhere, and knew about their plan. When they came to him with the sarcophagus, he turned the relic against them, capturing the strongest of the Ancients in the Sarcophagus, and handily defeating the rest before sending them to the dungeon of his keep to rot for the rest of eternity.
If only they'd succeeded. If only they'd ended the reign of this fearsome tyrant centuries ago. None of this would be happening now.
—
"Blood is much stickier than ectoplasm," Pariah Dark commented, wiping his bloodied hands on a rag. "More opaque, too. It's much harder to see what we're looking at in the human form."
"Not to mention all the extra organs," the Doctor agreed.
Maddie hadn't made even the slightest sound in a long time. The others held little hope that she was still alive.
Pariah growled once more in his frustration. "This was a waste. Humans are much too complicated and impossible to glean any valuable information from. Let's move on to the next."
"But... sire, there are only two more," the Doctor pointed out, his hands raised and trembling. "Are you sure you want to give up this quickly?"
"I said, prepare the table for the next subject," Pariah said. "Those that survived, we can always study a second time. Without more blood in the way."
He jerked the instrument out of Maddie's brain. The teal rings of her transformation flickered back on, the light wavering as it crossed over her, changing her back. She was still silent and motionless, but perhaps in her ghost form, she could still recover.
Jack was next, and he put up a fight, but though he was almost as big as the Ghost King himself, it was of no use, and he too was restrained to the table.
Danny couldn't watch. His father's screams of pain echoed in the chamber, but after the first four, it barely registered. All Danny could this was that he was next. There was no way out of here. No escape.
When they were done with his dad, they would come for him.
Want a phic that'll keep your little angst brain happy? Look no further than this beautiful specimen by Raaor. 10000/10 would recommend and read again
Questions for the Substitute Teacher
The new Substitute teacher is weird—like really weird—and Liam and his class are dead-set on figuring out what his deal is. Based on the excellent prompt by @shockingshinx12-shinx: Mr. Lancer works as a sub during his semi-retirement. He's long since moved out of Amity, but has some pretty wild stories to share, or some weird off-the-cuff comments and mannerisms that make no sense to the local culture of this new town. His new students have opinions on all this, and there's many rumors surrounding this strange substitute…
Words: 1,643
Can be read on AO3!
---
“Hey,” Liam said as he slumped into the seat next to Nathalie. “What do you think of our new History sub?”
Nathalie looked up from her phone and raised an eyebrow. “Mr. Lancer?”
“Yeah! Isn't he…” Liam trailed off as he searched for a word to describe their new eccentric teacher. He landed on a hesitant, “A bit weird?”
Nathalie shrugged. “I guess? We've only had him for one class.”
“But didn't you see when he gestured at nothing during reading time? He seemed to be having a whole conversation!”
Nathalie shook her head.
Liam groaned. “Well, I tell you! He’s weird. Maybe in this class you can see what I—”
Nathalie elbowed him in the side and Liam groaned as Nathalie hissed, “Shh! He’s coming!”
And true to her words, in walked Mr. Lancer himself. In all his bald, gray bearded, and beer-bellied glory. “Alright, class, settle down.”
Liam sat down at his desk, settling in and deciding to wait for Mr. Lancer to do something strange OR for Mr. Lancer to slip up.
He reached over and elbowed Nathalie and she rolled her eyes but put her phone down.
He didn’t have to wait for long.
A sudden bang and shout rang out in the classroom as someone tipped their chair over and fell to the floor. Almost at the same moment, Mr. Lancer jumped up and whipped out what looked like a very sci-fi looking gun. After a split second and a scan of the room, he relaxed and lowered the weapon back down, seemingly ignoring all the wide eyed stares locked on him. He gave a small chuckle. “Moby Dick! That scared me!”
“Is that a gun?!” Liam screeched and several of his classmates joined in the chorus of panic.
Mr. Lancer waved them all off, with the gun in hand no less. Students threw themselves to the side or to the floor to avoid being in front of it. “It's an ecto-gun, completely harmless to humans.”
Liam didn’t want to ask, but damn it all, he was too curious. “... So what does it harm?”
“Ghosts,” Mr. Lancer said immediately, without shame.
Liam leaned over towards Nathalie and whispered. “Is he joking?”
Nathalie looked a bit pale. “I don’t know. I’m still stuck on the fact that he has a gun.”
“I promise it’s not dangerous. Look!” And then Mr. Lancer pointed the gun at his own left hand and pulled the trigger.
The classroom that had managed to calm down slightly exploded back into chaos.
“Holy shit! You just shot yourself!”
“Call the nurse!
“No! Call an ambulance!”
Mr. Lancer, still with a very calm look on his face, just lifted his hand, now covered in green goo and said, “I’m fine. It’s just ectoplasm.”
Everyone stopped and stared at him.
Mr. Lancer looked at his own hand and then wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Oh, this is gonna be a pain to wipe off. Does someone have a napkin?”
Nathalie silently reached into her bag and pulled out a packet of napkins.
“Thank you,” Mr. Lancer said as he took the offered package. “I don’t need all of them, though.”
She shook her head, eyes on the green goop on his hand. “Keep them.”
Liam couldn’t keep silent any longer, almost vibrating out of his seat as he asked, “Did you say ectoplasm? Like the thing ghosts are made of?”
Mr. Lancer seemed delighted by his question. “So you know about that? I have to admit I’m not really sure what’s common knowledge. Yes. Like ghosts are made of.”
“No way that’s real ectoplasm.” Liam knew for a fact that scientists were still debating whether ectoplasm even existed or not. There was no way that their History substitute teacher just had it on him. Even more strange, why would a History teacher have it in a gun? “Why do you have a gun that shoots supposed ectoplasm?”
Mr. Lancer wiped off his hand as if it wasn’t covered in fluorescent goo, as if he’d done it a million times before, and ignored Liam to say, “Well then. No more delays. Open your books to page 116.”
Liam slumped back in his seat, knowing an evasive maneuver when he saw it. Heard it. Whatever.
The rest of the class crawled past; Liam doing his best to focus and failing miserably. Like usual. After he failed to answer a few of the questions and found himself staring emptily at his notebook for the majority of the class, Liam was ready to just go home.
And apparently, he hadn’t been so lucky that Mr. Lancer had missed his lapse in attention. As they reached the end of the class, the dreaded words were spoken; “Liam? Can you stay a bit after class?”
Liam tensed and Nathalie sent him a sympathetic look before the rest of the class all filed out.
Mr. Lancer cleared his throat and offered Liam a smile. “I can see that you're struggling a bit with the schoolwork. Are you having trouble at home? Out hunting ghosts?”
Liam blinked in surprise. That… was not what he had expected to hear. “No?”
Mr. Lancer nodded and then seemed to think for a moment before landing on, “Do you need any extra help?”
Well, if he was offering. It would be nice to have some extra time to hand in assignments. And he had promised himself to try and stand up for himself more, to be kinder to himself. Liam straightened his shoulders and said, “I wish that—”
Mr. Lancer cut in with a panicked, “No wishes in my classroom!”
“What?” Liam blinked his eyes in confusion. “Why?”
“You never know if she's listening.”
Well. That’s not ominous at all. “Who?!”
“Oh right. No ghosts.” Mr. Lancer cleared his throat. “I just don’t… Like? Wishes?”
“Oh.” Liam didn’t know what to say to that. “Sorry?”
“That’s okay,” Mr. Lancer said easily. “Now. What were you saying?”
“Right… Eh. Maybe I can get some extension on the next deadline? I have ADHD and some extra time would be a huge help.”
Mr. Lancer didn’t even hesitate before nodding. “Yes, that’s no problem. Thank you for telling me.”
Huh. Mr. Lancer was actually really nice. Liam left the classroom feeling slightly shocked. He’d never had a teacher just agree to help him, no argument needed.
Nathalie was waiting for him outside the classroom. As soon as he got out she went over to him with a worried expression. “Are you okay? What did he want?
“To know if I hunt ghosts in my spare time.”
Liam had to admit, it was satisfying to see Nathalie blinked in obvious confusion. She slowly asked, as if afraid of the answer, “And why would he ask you that?”
Liam shrugged with a grin. “Apparently that’s a more likely cause for not paying attention than simply having ADHD.”
“Really?” Nathalie asked and Liam felt gratified by the small smile of incredulity growing on her face.
“Yeah. But he also gave me some extra time for the next deadline, no problem, so I think he’s actually nice?”
“So you don’t think he’s strange anymore?”
Liam gasped in fake outrage. “I’m insulted! Of course I will!”
“Good,” Nathalie said with a nod, “Look what I found.” And then she held her phone for him to see.
Liam grabbed it and frowned down at the screen and the web page of what looked like a small US town that was pulled up on it. Green lettering and pixelated pictures made it look old and tacky. “What is this?”
“I looked him up while you were in there talking,” Nathalie said, not able to disguise the pleased tone of her voice, “This is the town he’s from.”
Liam scrolled to the top of the page and read the town name. “Amity Park? Never heard of it.”
“Me neither. Look at their slogan.”
“America’s most haunted town. Really?!” Liam was delighted. Ecstatic. He looked up and met Nathalie’s equally sparkling eyes.
“You think he worked in the tourism industry? Still getting some money on the side to spread the rumor?”
“It must be a bit, right? Some weird humor from his home-town?”
“I think he's crazy,” Nathalie said dreamily. As if a crazy teacher would be the height of their school-year. It probably would.
“Let’s find out.”
—
Before the next class, the whole class was abuzz with tension and raised voices. Several students talked over each other as they waited for Mr. Lancer to show up.
“I think he's from area 51.”
“Yeah, I agree. He's clearly an alien trying to blend in and mixing up reality and fiction.”
“No, I think he worked there! He's been there for so long he doesn't know what normal life's like anymore.”
“No, no, I think he's a ghost. That's why he keeps bringing them up.”
“Ghosts aren't real!”
“Guys. He’s clearly just messing with us.”
“Who is messing with who?” A voice asked from the door and Liam turned with a big grin, expecting to find Mr. Lancer. But there was Mr. Johnson, their regular History teacher.
Liam cast about for the other man. “Where is Mr. Lancer?”
Mr. Johnson raised an eyebrow as he started setting up. “Probably at another school or at home. Why?”
Liam deflated. Right substitute teacher. “No reason.”
That’s what they got for getting excited. Liam sighed. School had never seemed so dull. He turned to Nathalie and moaned, “It’s like he was never here. Maybe he was a ghost after all,” he ended a bit dreamily.
Nathalie gave him a short glance from where she was staring at her phone. “Nah, I saw him outside Starbucks on the way to class, talking to a white haired guy about green dogs? So he seems to be alive and kicking.”
Liam slumped deeper in his chair. “Oh joy.”
More of lancer both being a softie, AND knowing about danny?! Count me in, Tor! This was so good 😭
Why Am I Summoning An Egyptian God
ao3
ffn
word count: 1173
prompt: Danny accidentally staples some extra pages onto his homework.
this idea was courtesy of my sister
Danny yawned and laid his head down on his desk in front of him. He’d been up late fighting a ghost the night before and didn’t get much sleep. And he’d rather take a nap than listen to Lancer talk about Romeo and Juliet.
He was almost asleep and he didn’t hear Lancer’s footsteps approaching. He jumped when he heard Lancer’s voice start talking to him.
“Mr. Fenton, while I do appreciate that you turned in your assignment this time, I would rather you make sure all you turn in is the assignment.” Lancer quirked a brow at one of the pages of Danny’s paper he turned in.
Danny whipped his head up at him. “What?”
Mr. Lancer squinted at the page he was reading. “It’s good to see you catching up on your Egyptian history, but a spell to summon the Egyptian god Anubis?”
The class around him snickered and Danny’s face fell.
Oh no.
“Mr. Lancer-“
He started reading the words off the page and the room dropped in temperature.
The students looked around each other uncomfortably and some were even getting up out of their seats already. Lancer read the final word and a bolt of lightning came through the ceiling and hit him. The students in the room ducked down and screamed.
The lightning disappeared and Lancer’s eyes were glowing yellow.
Mr. Lancer- or at least Danny thought it was Mr. Lancer- looked up at him and blinked slowly.
“You are not of this world.”
He summoned a scepter to his hand and pointed it at Danny. The tip lit up and Danny only had a moment to dodge before a blast was sent where he was sitting just a moment before. He hit the floor hard and turned to look up at him. The kids in his class were shouting as they tried to leave the classroom.
“It is time to move on. You have no place in this world anymore.”
Mr. Lancer- no, Anubis- took another step towards him.
“What are you talking about?” Danny pushed himself backwards across the floor.
“You’ve died. You don’t belong here.”
Most of his classmates had filtered out of the room by now but as Danny watched Anubis point the scepter at him again, he knew he’d have to take the risk.
He phased into the floor below him and he felt as another blast from the scepter hit the floor above him. He transformed and flew under the ground until he got a ways away and they pulled up into the air.
Then his ghost sense was going off. He groaned. What now? Who was this?
“I am the Box Ghost!”
Danny laid his head in his hands and groaned again.
“Fear me!”
“Boxy!” Danny shouted. “I’ve got a more pressing issue right now. Can you go back to the ghost zone?”
The Box Ghost stared at him. He raised his arms into the air as he shouted again. “I am the Box Ghost, and there is no issue more pressing than me!”
“No, seriously. I really think-”
Danny watched as the Box Ghost’s face suddenly dropped. He was looking somewhere over Danny’s shoulder. When Danny turned to look he saw Anubis floating behind him.
He heard the Box Ghost start to fly away and right as he turned to look back at him, Anubis was launching another blast from his scepter and it hit the Box Ghost.
He shouted and then he was disappearing. His form turned black and he faded to sight.
Danny took a sharp breath in and he couldn’t look away from where the Box Ghost had been floating a moment before.
“What did you do to him?!”
“He’s been sent to the Unworld.”
Danny’s head snapped to look at Anubis. He’d heard very few things about the Unworld, but none of them were good. The ghosts talked about it as if it were some kind of limbo. It wasn’t a place that anyone could ever escape from. They talked about it as if it were hell.
Anubis was readying another blast at Danny. He flew away before it could be launched at him.
Danny passed a couple smaller ghosts as he flew away. He heard a couple blasts be launched off and when he turned he saw that Anubis was shooting at them as well.
“Why are you sending the ghosts away?” Danny shouted as he looped through the air. “I know I send them back to the ghost zone, but I don’t send them anywhere permanently.”
“They’re not meant to travel between the world of the dead and living.” Anubis flew after him. “They were guided to the afterlife as their final resting place.”
“But I’m not dead!” Danny dodged another blast from the scepter. Anubis slashed it through the air.
“You are a ghost. You’ve been touched by death. You don’t belong here any longer.”
“But I’m still a human!” Danny paused his flight and tried to reason with him. “If half of me is still living, doesn’t that warrant an exception? I can’t survive in the ghost zone.”
Anubis seemed to ponder that. “It’s true, I’ve never met a ghost such as yourself. But I don’t believe that makes you special. You’re just an anomaly that was missed. You’re not meant for this world.”
Anubis threw another blast at Danny and he dodged the first one but a second one was coming too fast.
It was as if the world slowed as the blast hurtled towards him. Danny closed his eyes and braced himself for the impact. And while he was hit, it seemed to only push him back through the air. It didn’t feel like he went anywhere.
He peeked an eye open and saw he was still in Amity Park. A smile spread across his face.
“How’s that for an anomaly?” Danny shouted down to Anubis.
“How is that possible?” Anubis looked at his scepter. “It should have sent you to the Unworld.”
Danny pulled his thermos off of his utility belt and flew towards Anubis.
“I guess the Egyptian guide to the afterlife can’t guide someone who isn’t completely dead!”
He hit the button on the thermos and the beam hit Anubis. It pulled him out of Mr. Lancer and surprisingly sucked him up and he yelled the entire way into the thermos. Danny landed on the ground and looked at it.
“Huh.” Danny tossed the thermos up in the air. “Who knew it could catch ancient gods too.”
“What happened?” Mr. Lancer placed a hand on his head and shut his eyes. “Where am I?”
“Don’t worry, you’re okay.” Danny walked up to him. “You were overshadowed by Anubis.”
Mr. Lancer’s eyes widened. “Gulliver’s Travels! That spell was real?!”
Danny nodded. “But it’s all taken care of! Now if you’ll excuse me.”
He jumped into the air and flew away from him.
Now all he had to do was figure out what to do with him. He couldn’t just send him to the ghost zone. He could just come back and keep sending the ghosts to limbo.
Danny shook the thermos. That’d be a problem for future Danny.
JUSTICE FOR BOXY. All jokes aside, this was a really good phic! I loved that Lancer just, straight up gets hijacked xD
Phic Phight Phic #4!!!!!
Title: Witness
Prompt: Someone finds the lab security footage from the day of the accident
Prompter: @kinglazrus
Word Count: 1,831
You can read it on AO3 or down below the cut!
The camera was set in the upper corner of the far wall so it could see who came in and out of the lab along most of the lab.
The Fenton's hadn't purchased or made any way for the camera to move from its perch so the view was always steady.
The camera wasn't so much a security feature as it was another way for the scientists to keep track of their work.
As such, it wasn’t on 24/7, it was only activated when Maddie Fenton turned it on as part of her daily work tasks.
When Danny had his Accident, the camera was the last thing on anyone's mind.
Even if they had thought about it, they would have assumed it was off during the incident as the parents hadn't been in the lab for several days.
This was the wrong assumption.
In fact, the camera had been on since the grand reveal of the portal. Quickly forgotten with the overwhelming disappointment of the initial portal’s failure.
So the camera kept on watching. Kept recording.
Ever vigilant.
Ever since.
It's not until several months later that anyone realized that was true.
===========================================
Maddie entered the lab and went to turn on the camera before they started their newest project. It was a big one and she wanted to make sure the entire process was recorded.
Only when she went to turn it on, she found it already was.
“That’s odd.” She said to herself.
“What’s odd, Mads?” Her husband asked from the work bench.
“It’s just the camera is already on. Do you remember when we last used this?”
“Uh,” Jack hesitated, “Not sure. It's been awhile I think.”
“We used it for something after we finished the portal right?” Maddie asked despite the sinking feeling in her chest.
Jack thought for a moment, “honestly I can't recall.”
“I can't think of anything either.”
“You don't think it's been on that whole time do you?”
“I don't know.” Maddie said with a frown.
She did not like not knowing.
“Only one way to find out!” Jack said with a grin as he walked over to the computer.
She smiled and followed him. She was so glad he was here for this. His optimism was always refreshing.
They each pulled up a chair and took a seat.
Jack took the mouse and wiggled it around but looked a tad lost. “Where do we keep the files on this thing again?”
“May I?” Maddie asked with her hand hovering over Jack’s.
He gladly scooted his rolling chair to the side and she slid into place. A few clicks later and she had the video files ready to go.
There were a lot of files.
Which, she supposed, was better than one huge multi-day long one, but it was still a little overwhelming.
She scrolled through the files and watched as the dates went backwards in time closer and closer to the day they revealed the portal.
There it was.
The day they did it. The day they failed.
And every video after, showing everything else they’d worked on until today.
“This is so much footage.”
“Should we keep it all?”
“We can’t just delete it. Not without making sure there isn’t something useful first.”
“But Mads, this would take forever to watch.” Jack already sounded bored at the idea of just sitting and waiting for something to happen.
“Well we don’t have to do it all right now.” Maddie went to close the program but hesitated when she heard the basement door open.
“I’m home!” Danny called down the stairs.
“Hi sweetie! Is Jazz tutoring today?”
“Yeah, think so.”
“Okay, see you at dinner.”
“Don’t forget your homework!” Jack added helpfully.
“I will. Or I mean, I won’t forget, but I’ll do it.” Danny said before closing the door and leaving them to their work.
The door clicked shut and inspiration stuck.
“We never checked! We had the answer right here and we never even looked? Jack, do you know what this means?”
Her husband stared at her for a second looking completely lost. “No?”
“Remember Danny was the one that got the portal to work. We tried to ask him, but he’s just a kid. He didn’t know what he was doing so of course he couldn’t explain it.”
“But we can just watch how he did!” Jack said as he caught on to what she was talking about and grabbing a nearby notepad and pen.
“Exactly!” she said clicking the first video after their failure.
===========================================
The first several minutes of footage was of an empty lab and a non-functioning portal.
Maddie skipped ahead until she saw her son walk into frame, but then went back a bit to catch what he was saying before he walked into view.
“So here’s the lab.” Danny introduced as he came down the stairs, “try not to touch anything, okay?”
He hopped down from the second to last step, stumbled a bit, but then righted himself before he actually fell.
“Smooth landing.” Tucker joked as he entered the lab behind him.
Danny stuck his tongue out at his friend. “I didn’t fall though so it still counts.”
“Amateurs.” Sam scoffed before jumping from the third to last step and landing flawlessly.
“See, that’s a landing.”
“I don’t come down here that often.” Danny complained.
“And I’ve literally never been here.” Sam countered.
“Oh yeah.”
“Plus I’m wearing combat boots, so that up’s the difficulty.” She preened.
“She’s got a point man.”
“Who’s side are you on?” Danny wined.
“The correct one, obviously.” Sam teased.
Tucker simply shrugged, “I call it like I see it.”
Danny sighed dramatically and rolled his eyes, “Anyway! Here’s the lab where my parents make their stuff.”
The teens looked around in awe.
“So does any of this stuff work?” Sam asked as she picked up a half assembled circuit board.
“Well most of this stuff is supposed to only work on ghosts so it's not gonna do anything unless a ghost shows up.” Danny said as he rubbed the back of his neck.
“So what’s in that room?”
“That’s not a room, that's the portal.”
“That’s the portal?!”
“It's huge!”
Both Sam and Tucker started to walk towards the portal and it looked like they were about to step inside before Danny stopped them.
“Wait! You can't go in there!”
The pair stopped.
“Why not?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, you said it didn't work.”
“Well yeah, but it's still a big machine. You got to wear protection.”
“That’s what she said.” Tucker joked automatically.
Both Sam and Danny rolled their eyes and sighed.
“Hey man, you can't say something like that and not expect it.”
“You're disgusting.” Sam scoffed in annoyance.
“It's just a joke, lighten up.”
“Don't tell me to lighten up!”
“Guys!” Danny interrupted before they really went at it.
“Well if we can't go in, you should.” Sam said.
“Me?”
“Unless you got enough suits for all of us?”
Danny hesitated before heading over to the storage closet where the spare jumpsuits were kept.
The trio all started trying to see if anyone could fit into the suits. They laughed when they realized all three of them could fit into Jack’s spare.
“Wait, what's this white one?” Tucker asked pulling out the smallest jumpsuit.
“Oh, that's mine.”
“You had one the whole time?” Sam asked incredulously.
“I forgot.”
“Well better suit up.” Sam said, taking the suit from Tucker and shoving it at Danny.
“You sure you don't wanna wear it? I don’t mind.”
“No, no, it's your suit I insist. Besides, I have to take pictures.” she said before she pulled her camera out of her bag.
Danny looked into the portal for a moment before giving a quick decisive nod. “ Alright, but only a few pictures and you can't show anyone else okay?”
“My lips are sealed,” she mimed zipping her lips shut.
Danny took the jumpsuit and went into the laundry room to change.
Once he was back his friends took a bunch of pictures of different parts of lab, most of the portal and it’s controls. Several pictures had Danny posing with exaggerated gestures.
Then he stood in front of the portal.
“Well go on! Get closer.” Sam urged.
“Yeah, you got the suit on, might as well go in.” Tucker added.
Danny slowly walked into the portal.
“It’s really dark in here,” he commented as he gently placed his left hand against the wall to keep himself steady.
He took a few more steps inside, he was about half way into the machine when he stopped dead.
There was a blinding white flash that washed out the entire room.
A crash like thunder followed by a terrible gut wrenching scream.
The portal filled with the familiar toxic green of ectoplasm and everything went quiet.
The two teens left in the room stood frozen in front of the now active portal.
Sam took a hesitant step forward, “Danny?”
A gloved hand slowly appeared reaching out of the portal followed by an arm and then the rest of the person.
It was hard to see them with the way the portal’s light was so much brighter than everything else. It wasn’t easy to make out details on who exactly was walking out of the portal.
Sam rushed forward, “Danny!”
The boy from the portal stumbled and Sam tried to catch him.
She would have been successful if she hadn't been trying to catch a ghost.
Tucker came a little closer but kept his distance. “Are you sure that's Danny?”
“Who else would it be?”
The ghost, who might be Danny, sat up with a groan, “what happened?”
He looked to the portal and jumped, literally by a few inches, into the air.
“It’s on! I did it?” He spun around to face the two with a confused smile.
“That’s not all you did, man.” Tucker said a with wince.
Sam elbowed him.
The ghost tilted his head in confusion, seemingly unaware that it was floating.
Sam sighed with resignation, “you might want to look in a mirror.”
The ghost walked, despite his feet not even touching the ground, to the nearest mirror. Inside the door of the jumpsuit storage was a mirror.
The ghost was horrified by what it saw.
In denial.
It claimed it couldn’t be a ghost.
But not because it didn’t believed it had died.
“I can’t be a ghost, my parents will kill me!”
Sam and Tucker tried their best to calm the ghost down.
“Just close your eyes and breathe.”
After a moment of clam, they were all surprised when the ghost was enveloped by a bright flash of light.
When it faded Danny Fenton was standing where the ghost had just been.
After a brief moment of joy, he promptly passed out.
The video ends.
===========================================
Jack and Maddie stare at the screen in silence.
They finally knew just how much it cost to get their life’s work operational.
Poor Danny, Sam, and Tuck 😭 They're all sure to have PTSD after that. And uh...I'm sure Jack and Maddie are also now thoroughly traumatized as well
Living Ghosts
After receiving his second chance, Dan, now a fourteen-year-old halfa once again, has to figure out what to do with it.
For the Prompts: Post AGIT. Waking up in the body of a clone was the last thing Phantom expected after being offered a second chance. But now he's finding that being half human again, and a teenager at that, is full of unexpected struggles and joys. {from @dp-marvel94} After the events of AGIT, Vlad enrolls Dark Danny/Dan back on Casper High (Given that he did not finish high school) under the name of Dan Masters. {from Luca} and Dan Phantom, 14 again, and surrounded by living ghosts. His friends, his family, here they've never died, have yet to die, and yet he feels worse than ever. {from @ash-rabbit}
Read Also on AO3
[Warnings for mentions of death, grief, and anxiety attacks]
Phantom hadn't asked for this. For sympathy. For a second chance.
All he'd wanted was to make everyone suffer the way he had. He didn't want to redeem himself, or to change. He wanted to watch the world burn.
But then....
When he'd accepted Vlad's offer of a second chance, the last thing he'd expected was to be transferred into a clone body—a teenage one, no less—and in being so, restored to his long-lost half-human state.
"Clockwork says you're my responsibility now," Vlad said upon releasing him from the cloning chamber. "I suppose that's fitting. I am something like your father in a manner of speaking."
"You are not my father," he spat. Whatever else Vlad was—a con man, a fruitloop, a cheesehead in more ways than one—he had never been Phantom's father. "Let's get that out of the way right now. You may have been partially responsible for creating me, but there is no world where you would ever be my father, and there never will be."
Vlad raised his hands in surrender. "I suppose that was a bit tactless. Perhaps legal guardian would be more appropriate, seeing as you are technically a minor again. Or perhaps warden? Probation officer? Supervisor?"
"How about fruitloop?" Phantom scoffed.
"Oh, don't you start."
It took a few weeks—and a lot of overshadowing—to get all the paperwork in order, since Phantom didn't technically exist in this timeline. Vlad, of course, did it all himself, since Phantom saw no reason why he had to legally exist in this world. He spent most of his time sulking and ruminating, and pretending to be totally reformed and okay when Danny and his friends came to check on him every few days. As if it didn't feel like his heart was being ripped out every time he saw Sam and Tucker alive and smiling again.
—
"You're doing what?" Phantom demanded flatly.
"You heard me," Vlad said, crossing his arms. "You never finished high-school back when you were still human. I enrolled you at Casper High."
"I remember all your high school experiences, too," Phantom pointed out. "Messy Masters."
Vlad scowled at the cruel but childish nickname given to him by his high school bully Todd, who liked to dump food on him at lunch and tell people Vlad didn't even know how to eat without getting it all over himself.
"My high school education ended in 1983, and is outdated," he said, pointedly ignoring the remark. "And even if that were not the case, children are legally required to attend school, and your physical age means you are included."
"Can't you just 'home-school' me?" Phantom put finger quotes around the word to indicate that he meant for Vlad to tell the state they were homeschooling when in actuality he was just letting Phantom do whatever he wanted.
"I'm afraid not. You're not the only one of us who's expected to redeem themselves, and I fully intent to become an upstanding, law abiding citizen from here on."
"You overshadowed, like, eight people just to get me a social security number," Phantom pointed out.
"That... was a necessary evil. It would have be neigh impossible to do so otherwise. It's also irrelevant to the matter at hand, which is that you will be going to school from now on.
"You're already enrolled with the name Dan Masters. Obviously I couldn't enroll you as Phantom, so you'll have to get used to being human again. At least between the hours of eight in the morning to three in the afternoon. I've already informed Daniel, and he agreed to keep an eye on you with the help of his little friends."
Phantom scowled and glared intensely.
"It's not like you've got anything else to do during the day," Vlad said, glowering right back, utterly uncowed.
With a groan, Phantom relented. "Fine." He supposed he could just ditch if it ever got too unbearable.
—
If he thought seeing Sam and Tucker every once in a while when they came to check on him was painful, seeing them at school every day was unbearable. It wasn't just them, though. All his old classmates, his teachers, catching sight of his sister in the halls every so often, and his parents when they did their monthly ghost safety assembly.
He was surrounded by living ghosts. His family, his friends, they never died in this timeline, have yet to die. He should be happy about that, yet it makes him feel even worse than when he was sulking alone in Vlad's mansion every day. They were a constant reminder of the versions of them that Phantom—Dan had lost.
He sat alone at lunch, watching his old friend on the other side of the cafeteria. It was strange, having to eat again, now that he was once more half human. It was stranger to watch Sam and Tucker laughing and talking every day at lunch and know that they weren't his Sam and Tucker. They looked just like his friends, but they weren't his friends.
A lunch tray was set down on the table next to him and he instantly turned to glare, then stopped in surprise when he saw that it was Jazz taking the seat beside him.
"Hi there!" she said brightly. "Do you prefer Dan or Phantom?"
He opened his mouth slightly, but was to surprised to speak.
"My brother told me about you," she continued. "I noticed you sitting alone at lunch every day, and at first I figured I should just leave you be, but you looked so despondent, and I started to think that maybe letting you be alone wasn't the best thing for you after all, so I decided to come join you today for a chat. So what name do you prefer?"
That's right... she knew. She'd almost always known, even in his own timeline. He'd almost forgotten.
"Phantom, I suppose," he said. "But either is fine. Vlad says I'm supposed to only use Dan when I'm at school, but I don't exactly care about his rules."
"Well, the cafeteria's too loud for anyone to overhear us anyway, so Phantom it is. How's school treating you so far?"
Phantom shrugged. "Boring."
"Just boring?" Jazz asked. "Your expression just now didn't really scream 'bored' to me. You can talk to me about stuff, you know. I may only know the gist of your situation, but maybe I can still help."
"You know the gist?" Phantom echoed, raising an eyebrow. "So you know that, in my timeline, all of my friends and family died horribly in a fast food explosion, yourself included."
"Uh... I knew died horribly," she said. "Fast food explosion is new information."
"You know I razed the entire Earth into a wasteland?"
"Yup."
"You know I tried to do the same to the entire time-stream just over a month ago?"
"Uh-huh," she confirmed. "And I know that you're also lonely and grieving, and that Danny decided to give you a second chance."
"He really tells you everything, huh? I wish I'd trusted my Jazz that much."
Jazz grinned. "Well, it's not too late to trust a Jazz," she said. "So tell me, Phantom. What's on your mind?"
For a long moment, he just stared at her. Her terrified face just before her death in his timeline flashed before his eyes, superimposed over her open smile. His sister was gone. But... she was also here, waiting with open arms and a kind smile. Trying to get him to open up and talk about his problems again, just like she had back in his timeline.
It's not too late, she had said. He wasn't sure he fully believed that.
"I remember you dying," he said at length. "The terror on your face. The way your screamed for help. But I couldn't save you. Yet here you are, just the same as the sister I lost, and yet not really her."
"And how does that make you feel?" she asked.
Phantom almost snorted at the question. It was so cliche.
He didn't laugh, though. Instead, he answered.
"I should be happy you're alive, but... I just feel... resentful. It makes me angry that there's a version of me that didn't have to suffer like I did. That didn't have to lose you."
Jazz nodded. There wasn't a single mote of judgment or disgust in her expression. She merely looked pensive.
"You know... anger is what we call a secondary emotion in psychology," she began. "That means that it's not usually the first thing you feel, but rather a reaction to whatever the primary emotion is. Like, if someone hits you, you feel hurt first, and that pain makes you feel angry at the person that caused it. Anger is also the second stage of grief as outlined in the theory of the five stages of grief."
"What's your point?"
"Well, your two fifths of the way to processing your grief, I guess," she replied with a shrug. "But also, if you look past the anger and dig a little deeper, you'll probably find that what you're really feeling is something else entirely, and the anger is just you trying to cover those feelings up. Anger is one of the easiest emotions, but also one of the most draining. People often find they have a lot more energy once they manage to stop being angry all the time."
The bell rang to signal the end of lunch, and Jazz stood up.
"Just something to think about," she said. "Can I join you for lunch tomorrow?"
"Well, killing you in front of the whole cafeteria would draw too much attention, so I suppose I can't stop you," Phantom told her.
"Great!" she said. "I'll see you tomorrow then!"
Jazz joined him again the next day, and the next. They talked some more. Mostly about his feelings, at least until he told her he was too drained from talking about his feelings all the time, and she relented with alacrity, and helped him with his history homework instead. Vlad was right about his high school education being outdated, and history was where Phantom was noticing it the most.
A few weeks later, the two of them were joined at their lunch table by another boy, who sat across from Jazz without saying a word. He was a goth guy with a spiky black mohawk, a black crop top, and lots of piercings.
When she noticed Phantom looking at him with confusion, Jazz introduced him.
"Oh, this is my friend Spike," Jazz said. "You don't have to worry about him spilling any secrets or anything, he mostly keeps to himself, and he's very respectful, I think you'll like him once you get to know him. Spike, this is Dan, but I call him Phantom."
Spike jerked his chin up in greeting and continued to say nothing, instead taking a bite of his ham sandwich.
"He doesn't talk much," she said easily. "Don't take it personally. before I started coming to sit with you, he and I usually ate lunch together, and he was just starting to feel left out. He promised not to let anything we say here leave this table."
Spike nodded.
"Alllright," Phantom allowed. If Jazz trusted this guy, then he supposed he could allow this. But he wasn't getting into any of his emotional stuff with an audience present. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a packet of papers, stapled together. His history midterm. "Look, I got a ninety-six percent."
"Phantom! That's amazing!" Jazz congratulated, picking up the packet and flipping through it excitedly. "You got all the questions on African history right? Rock on!"
Phantom and Spike both snorted at that.
"Rock on?" Phantom repeated. "No offense, but you really can't pull off that kind of slang."
Spike huffed a quiet laugh and nodded.
Jazz pouted for a moment, that huffed dismissively and handed the test back to him. "Well, whatever," she said. "Is this your first A on a history test since starting here?"
"Yeah, I guess it is," he said, realizing it as he said it.
"How's that feel?"
"It feels..." he had to think about it for a moment. Not because he didn't know the answer but because he couldn't really believe it. "It feels really good," he said finally. Wow, it's been so long since I cared about anything as insignificant as a test, but it really feels good to have done well on it."
"It's not insignificant that you worked hard, and you got to see the fruits of your labor," Jazz pointed out. "And how did it feel to take the test. Did you get anxious?"
Phantom blinked. "No," he said, completely shocked.
Ever since going back to school, he'd been facing the unfortunate and unexpected problem of having an anxiety attack every time he took a test—the thing that had killed his friends and family in his original timeline. He hadn't taken one since getting re-enrolled in high school, so he hadn't know that it would be such a trigger for him.
But when he'd taken his history mid-term, he'd been so focused on answering questions and remembering what he'd studied with Jazz, that the fact that he was taking a test had barely registered. And he hadn't even realized until she brought it up.
"That's fantastic, Phantom! You're making real progress!"
He grinned. Honest-to-goodness grinned out of raw joy.
Being human again had been full of unexpected struggles, but there were unexpected joys, too, it seemed.
Living ghosts is right! I can't imagine how hard it must be for Phantom to go through seeing everyone all over again 😭 But him and Jazz being proud of how he did just 😭😭😭
