A Dragon's Domain

*Trumpet fanfare* Welcome to my tumblr!

[dragonsdomain]

I wanted a cover for my soundtrack playlist, so I made my own :)

[dragonsdomain]

Week 3! As you can see, I'm changing mediums/styles each week. It's a fun opportunity to explore.

[dragonsdomain]

Second batch of random Hollow Knight and Silksong characters. We're still going strong!

[dragonsdomain]

I've been drawing random Silksong/ Hollow Knight characters every day for a little bit! Decided I might as well post them. It's pretty fun. There are such fun designs in this series.

[dragonsdomain]

Out of Office, chapter 7

AO3

Chapter 6

"Who's gonna be the one to explain to Linda why all three of her guests are now senseless on the couch?" Oliver asked.

He and Joy were now standing as spirits several feet from each of their bodies. While Oliver was glad to see that Luke was okay(ish), and the colors were fun (Joy was a pretty shade of blue, and Oliver was green), things were happening fast, and there were a lot of parts of the situation that still needed to be worried about.

"Please don't tell her the truth about it all," Sean asked, blowing on his fingers after making two extra guardian flowers in a row. "It was hard for her to find closure after I died, and I don't want her having to worry about me still being around."

Joy raised an eyebrow. "No wonder you and Eugene are friends... uh, fine. Okay. We'll come up with a lie of some kind. Eugene might have to be the one to tell her though. Eugene? Do you think you could tell her we had a long day or something and were super tired?"

Eugene was curled up on the couch, half in his body. "Uhuh," he wheezed, struggling to keep his eyes open.

Oliver turned back to Luke. "Okay, so. Evil ghost monster kidnapped a ghost friend and now we have to go save her."

"Because if we don't, Eugene will try to, which in his current state would be really dumb and end badly," Joy added.

Eugene grumbled something from the couch.

"You can't just go after that thing unarmed," Sean said nervously. "Eugene, did you happen to bring any of the Office's ghost artifacts?"

Eugene wordlessly dug in his pockets and pulled out a black fan, a lock of dark hair looped in a knot, and a cloth hat of some kind.

Sean floated over and took them from him. "Thanks, Eugene. We'll be sure to keep them safe. You can sleep now, if you want."

Eugene glared and stubbornly kept sitting upright.

"What are those?" Luke asked, walking over.

"Some ghosts (usually strong ones) have items from their life that gain power after they die. They can do a number of things," Sean explained. "This fan can seal hostile ghosts in it and also be used as a weapon in a pinch. The hair can be used to trap and entangle ghosts, or fling them, if you want. This hat lets you talk to cats. Not sure how useful that'll be, but we have it."

Oliver blinked. "Wait... what about a crucifix? A crucifix with the power to ward ghosts?"

Sean tilted his head. "I mean, I guess that's an example of an artifact somebody could have."

Oliver put his hands out. "You guys. My grandmother's crucifix. She loved that thing. Luke got yeeted out of his body by my grandmother's magic ghost-warding crucifix."

"Oh yeah," Joy said, pressing her lips together. "That, or any number of the other anti-ghost things you brought."

"Oh, uh, oops." Oliver smiled apologetically at Luke.

Luke waved his comment off. "It's fine, you didn't know. Could that crucifix maybe be useful for fighting the monster, though?"

"Er, seems like it would be a problem that we can't get to it in ghost form," Oliver said. "And then in human form we wouldn't be able to see the monster."

"Good point," Joy said.

Luke took the fan. "So the plan is to seal the ghost in here at the end?"

Joy took the lock of hair. "But first we have to weaken it and make sure we get Charlie out of there safely."

Oliver took the hat. "...With cats?"

Sean shrugged. "I guess? Joan's gun probably would've been more useful." Oliver whispered ghost gun under his breath as Sean turned to Eugene and asked, "Eugene? You didn't happen to bring Joan's cane too, did you?"

Eugene blinked, looking barely awake. "Uh... no, it didn't feel right with her in it."

"Oh, okay," Sean said. Why is she in the ghost gun Oliver whispered under his breath, and no one deigned to answer.

The four of them started heading towards the staircase down to the front door. Eugene started to push himself up to follow them, but Sean gently pushed him back down.

The four of them walked to the front door, and Luke tentatively pushed it open. "Oh, huh. Somehow I thought the ghost we're chasing would be easy to see from here?"

"Drat. How are we supposed to find it now?" Joy grimaced.

Oliver grinned, pulling the hat onto his head. "Cats."

...

Charlie's house was old and creaky, full of dust, like no one had lived in it for a long time. Her father's ancestors had lived in this house for generations, and with each of them that died inside of it, more of the house died as well.

Quite a few pieces of Charlie had died here too. She remembered the day her father had torn up her first paper doll because he'd caught her playing with it instead of studying for a test. She remembered the day her cat had gone missing, and the day a week later when she'd found its body rotting in a shallow grave with a gunshot wound in its side. She didn't remember the first day she saw her father hitting her mother, but she remembered the first day he'd hit her.

She vaguely remembered a time when she'd been young and hopeful. When she had rose-tinted dreams for the future. When she'd been happy. But those parts of herself had died, and their unreachable memory haunted the manor along with all the other ghosts.

There were many rooms in the house, but the older Charlie got, the fewer of them she ever went in, until in her last year she only traveled through the few that lead in a direct path from her bedroom, to the kitchen, to the front door.

Now she was in her bedroom again, wondering why she'd killed her father.

She knew why, of course. She'd... resented him for a while. "Hated him", she would've said, but somehow that didn't quite fit, even though she felt like she ought to hate him, deserved to. If she truly hated him, Would she have felt so guilty for having killed him? But now she felt ashamed. Her hands were covered in blood; it wasn’t wet anymore, but she couldn’t wash it off. It would be with her forever.

However long her route through the house usually was, it was now very short. She was grounded, never to leave the house, never to leave her room.

She was so alone, but it was what she deserved.

“Charlie?” a voice called, and she flinched before realizing it wasn’t her father’s voice. Not her mother’s either.

Charlie looked up toward her bedroom window (no light came through it). Mike was there, peeking in at her. “Could you let me in?” he asked, tapping the glass.

Charlie hesitated, not wanting to involve him, but eventually decided to go ahead and listen to him for once. She stood from her bed, then reached up and unlatched the window.

Mike pushed it open and climbed inside the room with her. He grinned. “It’s really you! It’s great to see you again, finally.”

Charlie felt confused for a minute. Somehow she felt like they hadn’t seen each other for years, but he hadn’t aged. He looked exactly the same as when she’d last seen him. Except…

“What are you doing here?” Mike asked, walking around. “Is this your bedroom? From when we were kids?”

“I’m grounded,” Charlie said.

“I thought your dad was… um… not around anymore?”

“He came back to haunt me,” Charlie said blankly, dropping back down onto her bed. “To make me face what I did. To give me what I deserve.”

“What did you do?” Mike said, sitting down beside her.

Charlie’s head sunk. “You know what I did.”

“No, I don’t. Are you talking about this?”

Charlie looked up, and Mike was pointing at the scar over his eye.

She glared at him, tearing up. “Of course, I should’ve known. Are you here to haunt me too?”

He rolled his eyes. “No, I’m not. I’m not mad. Well, I might’ve been, a little, when it first happened. But it’s been years. I’ve moved on. You should too.”

Mike was older than Charlie was. He’d kept on growing while she stayed the same. He looked like he might be somewhere in his twenties now, and the gash over his eye was long-scarred over, fully healed. But she was still in her worst year of high school, wearing her rumpled uniform with dotted with unwashed blood.

Charlie let her head drop. “You’re an idiot. I can’t move on. I can’t forget it. I can’t ignore it. I can’t keep it secret. I tried to move on and be better, but I can’t stop messing up and hurting people. Eugene’s ghost friends are all gone ‘cause I couldn’t keep my stupid mouth shut, ‘cause I couldn’t stick my nose where it doesn’t belong. And my past has caught up to me too, ‘cause it knows I don’t deserve to have people around me who don’t know what I did.”

“Oh, come on.” Mike folded his arms. “If running away from it is such a bad idea, then say it out loud. What did you do?”

Charlie snapped at him. “I murdered my father!”

Mike flinched, but he didn’t look surprised. “Yeah. That’s it.”

Charlie sagged. “Why’d you make me say it?”

“Why’d you do it?” Mike countered.

Charlie glared at him, then looked back down. “I was angry. And… scared.”

Mike nodded. “Yeah. Okay. That checks out. So do you regret it?”

The room was silent for a minute. “I don’t know,” Charlie responded.

“I think you do,” Mike said, “if it’s been a decade, and you’re still beating yourself up over it.”

“So that’s it then,” Charlie said, resigned. “I deserve this. I am a monster.”

“Ugh, no you don’t. That’s not what I was saying.” He gave her shoulder a little shake. “Look up at me, Charlie-Charlie.”

She did.

“Yeah, he did a bad thing. A really bad thing. But you were, what? Sixteen? Seventeen? Teens mess up sometimes. I sure know I did, though thankfully not so bad anyone’s dead about it. And also I know you were having a rough home life, and it was kind of obvious you had some mental health issues. Yeah, you messed up, but you wouldn’t do it again. I’ve moved on, your dad’s moved on, so should you.”

Charlie looked up at him incredulously. “My dad hasn’t moved on. Don’t you know where we are?”

“No? Oh wait.” Mike blinked as the gears turned in his head. “Oh, was that big lanky ghost thing your dad? I thought it was you, or, some manifestation of your self-hatred, I guess?” He grinned sheepishly. “I’m honestly a little confused. No one really explained to me what’s going on.”

Charlie stared at him. “Are you the real Mike?”

“Yeah…?”

Charlie dropped her head into her hands, muttering a muffled swear. “I can’t believe I said all that stuff to you. I thought I was just having a heart-to-heart with a dream Mike, from my subconscious or something.”

Mike cackled at her, and she wanted to punch him (affectionately). “That’s so dramatic!”

Charlie glared at him. “Well how did you get here?” she snapped, like she was accusing him of something.

“Well okay, so get this.” Mike splayed his hands out like he was ready to drop a bombshell piece of gossip. “Couple days ago I had this dream where a tall asian-looking dude told me to find ‘Eugene’ at Station 00 and he’d help me talk to you. And I thought, yo, that’s so specific, and I could remember it super clearly when I woke up. So I went and did it, ‘cause I thought it would be funny if something cool actually was there, and also it was a good excuse to go exploring. But there was a guy named Eugene there! Crazy!”

“Ah. Okay then.” Charlie didn’t know how to feel about Boss still messing around near them. Eugene might be happy to hear that? Or not?

“No there’s more. I had another dream today! I mean, it wasn’t really a dream ‘cause it kind of just happened while I was walking along, super weird, I kind of thought I was hallucinating. Maybe I was. I sure hope I’m not crazy. But anyway he told me to go over here, so I did.” Mike stared off into the distance for a second, like he was finally realizing how insane he sounded. “Please believe me.”

“Hey no, I believe you. I know the guy. Weirdo.”

“Okay. Cool.” Mike stood up. “So we’re in your dad’s ghost’s nightmare dimension or something? We should probably get out. Forget what I said about him moving on. Because I still think you should move on. And him too. Talk about holding a grudge. So! Let’s go.”

“I’m grounded,” Charlie said dismally.

“Oh, come on! Now you start listening to your dad?” Mike pumped a fist. “The only one grounding you is yourself!”

Mike grabbed Charlie’s arm and pulled her towards the door. “Come on!”

“Ack! My dad’ll catch us! Can't we just climb out the window?"

“The window actually doesn't lead outside, just to another room of the house, for some reason. We’ll be sneaky! We just need to get out of your house and we’re home free! Probably. I still don’t know how ghost things work.”

Charlie winced. "Okay. We'll try. But if he catches us, you run. I don't want to see you hurt."

...

When they found the ghost monster that'd made off with Charlie, it was hunched over against a wall, like it was meditating. Charlie was not in sight.

"It's sleeping?" Oliver asked. "Do we just suck it up into the fan now?"

Sean waved his hands anxiously. "Wait, no, I don't think that's a good idea. It ran off with Charlie, right? It might have her in its dream."

"Dream?" Luke asked.

"Yeah. Ghosts can go into people's dreams. Or memories. Either way, we can't contain that ghost until we've gotten Charlie safely out." Sean chuckled nervously. "Or, until you guys've gotten her out. I don't know how much help I'd be."

Joy cringed. "We really don't know what we're getting into, and I'm thinking we might need all the help we can get. Plus, the three of us don't know what we're doing. Come with us. Please?"

Sean sagged. "Okay, okay. I'll come."

...

Charlie and Mike rounded another corner, and Charlie felt a growing knot in her stomach tighten. "Something's wrong. I don't remember this many hallways existing before," she whispered.

"Oh, okay. Uhh, maybe we should just keep wandering, hope we find the way out?" Mike whispered back.

"I don't like this," Charlie said. "This is his dream. We'll probably take way longer to find an exit than he'll take to find us."

"Well, if he finds us we run." Mike shrugged. "Simple as that."

"And we'll split up," Charlie said, narrowing her eyes. "So he chases me, not you."

"Sure, sure. I'll run... somewhere. Whatever."

"Ugh, you." Charlie scoffed.

They rounded a corner and found themselves in the dining room. Despite it being next to the kitchen, Charlie hardly ever ate there. The paintings she vaguely remembered being hung on the walls were gone, and she wasn't sure how she felt about that.

"I wonder if there's some kind of clue as to where we should go?" Mike muttered.

Charlie walked around the table, looking at the different doorways they could take. The kitchen she knew was not through any of them. She paused for a second to shake some kind of debris from the carpet off of her foot.

Wait.

Charlie looked down and saw that that debris... was paper. Shreds of colored paper, intricately patterned. She recognized them as being the remains of paper dolls, though couldn't identify which ones. She could see on each shred of paper the clean and deliberate edge where she cut with her scissors, as well as the ragged edges where the dolls were torn apart.

"Mike," she whispered. "Come over here."

Mike came over, and Charlie pointed out the paper. "It's a trail. It leads this way."

"Those remind me of the paper dolls I used to see you making in class. Is that a good sign? Should we follow it?"

Charlie frowned. "It might also be a trail of destruction left by my father's ghost."

"It's our only lead, but... what do you think?"

"I want to follow it," Charlie said with a conviction that surprised her. "Wherever it leads, I want to get there. I want to reach an end."

"Well! That was a really ominous way of saying that. But okay," Mike nodded. "Let's follow the trail."

The two of them headed off, following the trail of shredded paper. Charlie kept her gaze pointing down at the trail as they passed through halls that looked almost the same, rooms that each seemed like several rooms Charlie remembered, yet also neither and none, all missing paintings on the walls, or else housing empty frames, which were equally disconcerting. Charlie started to wonder if the trail had really started in the dining room, or if she'd missed something, and that maybe they were following the trail the wrong way.

The trail came to an end just before a door Charlie knew all too well. The only one besides her bedroom door which she and Mike had found closed. The door to her father's study.

"Why'd we stop?" Mike whispered.

Charlie's hand moved forward, driven by something akin to curiosity, to purpose, laced with dread. She gripped the handle and turned the door. It slowly swung open with a creak that grew louder as it opened wider, before the door finally dropped softly off of its hinges.

The body in the middle of the floor looked old, as did the rest of the room. It was nothing but a skeleton, all its flesh having worn off, with no memory of it but the strange stains weighing down the crusty clothes hanging over that figure. A large splotch of the rug below it was stained a dull brown.

"Charlie?" Mike asked. "What are you looking at?"

Charlie blinked, and the illusion was gone. She was still holding the door handle, unopened.

She let go of the handle and stepped back. "I can't do it."

"I'll get it," Mike said. He took the handle and pulled the door open.

The office was empty. And behind Charlie's father's imposing desk, letting in a stream of cold moonlight, was a large window.

"An escape!" Mike cried, rushing towards the window to undo the latch and pull it open. Cold air puffed into the room. "Charlie-Charlie, come on!"

"Coming, coming," she said, taking one last glance over her shoulder.

Then she froze.

The door had swung closed behind her, and on the back of it was hung a portrait of her father.

"Trying to run away again, Charlie?" the picture said.

Charlie whirled around and vaulted out the window, landing in a run through the snowy ground.

Mike broke into a run beside her. "What's wrong?"

"My father! He's there!"

She took a glance over her shoulder and saw him slowly walking towards her, but gaining on her as though she wasn't moving at all. He looked just as he had been when he was alive, yet as horrible as when he was dead.

Mike slid to a stop and started pitching snowballs at him. "Take that! Ha! Leave her alone!"

Charlie whirled around. "Mike, no!"

Charlie's father came up to Mike, and his hand snapped out, gripping Mike's neck. Mike scrabbled uselessly at the man's hand as he picked him up like he weighed nothing.

"Let him go!" Charlie screamed, swinging a punch at her father's face.

But her scissors were in her hand.

She froze in terror, blade held inches from her father's face, as images of what she'd done to Mike flashed through her head.

Her father chuckled, making no move to stop her. "So you still want to kill me, do you? Well I'll never be dead. I'll haunt you forever. You think you hate me? Imagine how much I hate you. You horrible girl, you ruined everything. Kill me again and see if it makes you feel better! You'll never be free."

Charlie let loose a rage-filled scream and brought her scissors stabbing down on the arm holding onto Mike's neck.

Charlie's father let out a surprised gasp, letting Mike drop to the ground. Mike tried to lunge toward Charlie's father, but Charlie grabbed him and shoved him away. "I told you to RUN!"

Charlie's father slammed into her from the side, shoving her to the ground. Her face was pushed against the snow, and she inhaled it when she tried to breathe and started coughing.

She struggled against her father, but it was like trying to wrestle the sand. She couldn't budge him. He shoved her face down into the snow again and she tried to stay calm and hold her breath. She heard Mike yell and try to shove her father off of her, but she heard him get thrown aside with a deep thud into the snow.

"Got you!" Someone yelled, and Charlie felt the weight on her lift, then be abruptly yanked off of her to the side.

She shoved up off of the ground and gulped in oxygen, then searched around for Mike. He was there, just a few feet away, also pushing up from the snow. He looked dazed, but unhurt.

Charlie looked back towards her saviors and saw Eugene's friends, along with Sean. Joy was roughly slamming Charlie's father up and down onto the snow by the ends of what looked like River's hair. After a minute he lay still on the ground, Luke pulled out Boss' fan, snapped it open, and Charlie's father was sucked in.

Charlie sagged, dropping to the snow in exhaustion, as the cold world faded around her to be replaced with real life. That was it. She was so tired...

...

It was a few days later, and Eugene and Luke, Joy, and Oliver were working together to sweep up broken glass from the office at Station 00. Eugene's station boss had called him out to help with it (Eugene was grateful for any number of work hours after sudden week of unpaid vacation), and his three friends had volunteered to come along and help, to make sure he didn't push himself too hard while still recovering from his ghostly injuries.

Luke picked up a large piece of glass and threw it into a bin. "Did Charlie tell you about how the ghost that kidnapped her was her father, who she'd killed as a teen?"

"Yeah," Eugene said. He was taking a breather at the moment, sitting on a beat-up chair. "Though I already knew beforehand."

"That's messed up," Oliver said, shaking his head as he swept.

"Yeah, it is," Eugene said, resting his chin on his knee. "I'm tired of trying to be hard on people for bad things they've done though. She regrets it, she's doing better. That's enough for me. Turns out a lot of people are less perfect than you'd hope they'd be."

Joy rested her chin on her broom to give Eugene a pointed look. "Does that include not being hard on yourself?"

Eugene sighed. "Yes, I'm sorry. I know I was stupid, I shouldn't have been trying to do everything on my own."

"We can help if you need us," Luke said. "We might not work at the station with you, but now that we're in on your secret, we can help out with ghost stuff."

Eugene frowned. "I'm still kind of peeved you guys went behind my back about that."

Joy put her hands up. "I get it! I'm sorry! I won't do it anymore, I've learned my lesson. Yes. It's my fault, that was invasive and not okay and we should've just talked to you." She rolled her eyes.

Eugene had the feeling she didn't completely regret it, but he was going to let it go. "I appreciate this."

"No problem," said Oliver. "I'm an expert at cleanup stuff."

"I mean..." Eugene looked down sheepishly. "Thanks for. Making sure I didn't get myself killed. For being my friends. And... sticking with me even if it's weird and I wasn't great at being open with you."

Luke walked over and threw a hand around Eugene's shoulders. "Dude, it's cool. Generally speaking, you have a right to your secrets, so long as they're not hurting you. But like you said, nobody's perfect. We still love you."

Eugene smiled, giving Luke a hug back. "Thanks."

...

Charlie stared at the headstone. Her full name was written out on it, her birth date, and the date of her death. A small note about her being a daughter and a friend.

She turned to look at Mike, who was hovering beside her in ghost form. "How did you know I didn't know where my gravestone was?"

Mike chuckled. "I didn't, not really. But I wanted to make sure you knew that you weren't forgotten. I visit it sometimes, like on your birthday. Your mom does too, by the way. She's still around, and she remembers you fondly."

"Wow," Charlie said disbelievingly. "Don't know how she manages that."

Mike punched her in the arm. "C'mon Charlie-Charlie, you gotta stop getting down on yourself."

Charlie rolled her eyes. "Easier said than done." She knelt down beside the tombstone. "It's kind of plain... not sure what I really expected. I didn't think too much about what it might be like. I think I kind of assumed there just wasn't one."

"It's been there this whole time," Mike said softly. "Well... at least you know about it now."

Charlie stood up again and looked at Mike. "Uh..." She rubbed her arm awkwardly. She wasn't sure how to end the interaction. "Thanks. I guess. This was cool of you. Sorry everybody was out of office and it was so hard for you to find me."

"It really wasn't that bad," Mike said. "I'm glad I was here to help when, uh... all that stuff went down."

Charlie slapped her forehead. "I'm so embarrassed."

Mike shrugged, looking amused. "Eh. We all have our cringe moments. You make fun of me for tripping on my shoelaces that one time, I can make fun of you for..." Charlie gave him a death glare, "...actually I'll probably just try not to bring this up."

Charlie looked away. "Well. Nice seeing you again. I guess this is goodbye."

"Well, I mean, it doesn't have to be. I only live like thirty minutes away," Mike said, thumb-pointing vaguely behind himself.

Charlie stared at him.

"What?" Mike asked. "You don't want to be friends with me anymore?"

"No! I mean, I do!" Charlie sighed. "I can't believe this is happening. Don't you want to move on from me? I'm dead."

"Er." Mike held up his hands helplessly. "I mean, from what I understand, you'll only be gone-gone for real once you get over all your angst and pass onto the next life, right? So we can totally still be friends until then."

Charlie looked him over. She still didn't completely believe he was real. The past had haunted her for so long, it seemed weird for something good to finally come out of it, for a friend to come back to her from the worst time of her life.

She spoke softly. "You're really not mad at me?"

"I'm really not."

Charlie relaxed. She smiled. Eugene wasn't mad at her after finding out the truth. Mike wasn't mad at her either. Maybe if they believed she could be better... she really could be. "Okay. Yeah." She looked back up at him. "I guess I'll see you around."

Mike grinned. "Count on it."

[dragonsdomain]

Out of Office chapter 6

AO3

Chapter 5

"Hey, hey."

Eugene groaned weakly as a voice penetrated his slumber. Who was that? Where was he? Why did everything hurt? Was he sick?

"Oh, uh, it's just... this is my stop, so I'm gonna go now, okay? And I wanted to make sure you were okay 'cause you don't look too good. So. You good?"

Eugene processed maybe half of whatever that was. He fought to open his eyes, hissing at the light, silently yelling at the world to stop spinning and shut up while he figured out where he was (then feeling bad for being rude to the world). A hand landed on his shoulder, and he jolted back to reality, letting out a little hiss.

"Hey? Dude? Are you sure you don't need to go to the hospital?"

Eugene breathed in air which felt cold. He became aware that he felt hot, and sweaty. Did he have a fever? Wait, that voice was... what was his name. Mike.

"Goodness, is he alright?"

"Er, I don't know. Eugene? Hey?"

Eugene finally processed that Mike wanted a response from him. He didn't want to. He felt hot and grimy and weirdly hollow inside, like parts of him he'd never wanted to be aware of were hanging open and exposed to the air. He finally managed to crack his eyes open and glance down at his chest, which was, strangely, intact.

"Did someone say 'Eugene'?"

Linda? His head was too heavy to look, but after a second, her face appeared in his line of sight. "Eugene? Honey? Are you alright?"

"Uh..." Eugene tried. Just the effort of generating sound made his head spin.

"Do you know him?" Mike asked quietly.

"Yes." Linda smiled at him gently. "I can take care of him from here. Thank you for your help, young man."

"Okay. Thanks. 'Bye. Uh, hope you get better, Eugene."

Linda's presence soon pulled up against Eugene's side, and he sagged against her (taking a second to wonder whether it was her or him that was burning hot).

"Woah, Eugene, don't fall asleep just yet." Linda's hand pointed Eugene's heavy face up toward hers. "Are you sick?"

Eugene fought to keep his eyes open. "I'm... a-uh... th' ghosts..." Oh, he'd tipped forward on her shoulder again. Uh, oops. This seemed like it would be a good time to sleep again, actually. If his head wasn't burning up. That didn't feel good, he'd like it to stop.

"...any water today? Come on, hey. Have you spent lots of time out in the sun? Eugene?"

Loud footsteps came over, and Eugene gritted his teeth as their owner spoke, close and unfamiliar and loud. "Is your son alright? Sick people aren't supposed to be using public transit, you know. At least not without masks."

"We're sorry," Linda said gently, though her voice was still a dagger to Eugene's brain, along with the sounds of everyone breathing and the subway grinding against the train tracks and somebody coughing once and the way every jolt of the train violently jerked Eugene's body up and down. What was going on? Linda was talking again. "...at the next stop."

"Alright, fine. Er, make sure he gets the help he needs. He looks awful."

"Okay," Linda responded cheerfully. As soon as the footsteps retreated again, she whispered sharply into Eugene's ear, "Eugene, I need to know whether to call an ambulance."

He jolted, then heaved a breathy moan. "Not again... I'm poor..."

"Eugene," she said, in a tone that left no room for negotiation.

"Hhh..." Eugene did feel awful, but the last scraps of logic in his brain knew that the hospitals of the living wouldn't have any idea what to do with this. "I'm just sick... and, um. Water. Yeah... need t'... drink water." There, that was a good argument. Eugene's face buried itself in Linda's shoulder again, and he gave a little sigh.

Linda grumbled even as she gently rubbed Eugene's back. "You had better be telling me the truth about this, okay?"

...

Charlie sat blankly on the wooden floor. Luke was standing near her, and she could glance over at the scissors he was holding, half-open, black ichor congealed on the blades.

Charlie couldn't look up, but she could feel the eyes of her father from every direction. At any second, whatever was holding him back-- oh, River's seal-- would fail, and he would reach in and drag her out, away from her friends and the temporary freedom she clung to, and back into the empty, dusty hallways of his control. He was such a large ghost. He must have died with such a burning hatred of her, one that had only been festering for however many years it had been. He would catch her, and this time there would be no escape. He was already dead. He could no longer be killed.

Distantly, Charlie registered Sean giving Luke a rundown on how things worked with evil spirits, on ghost artifacts, and how River's hair was protecting them. Luke's footsteps eventually retreated from the room, and there was the sound of running water. Charlie wished for protection, so she was sitting with her back to a wall, but she could feel the presence of her terrifying father directly on the other side, and felt already imprisoned by the knowledge that she was inches away from touching him. She wondered if she wanted to scoot away from the wall, but she couldn't bring herself to move, except to lean forward onto her knees. Luke's footsteps returned, and he placed her scissors, sparkling and clean, on the wood floor in front of her.

"You okay?" Luke asked gently.

"How much did Sean tell you about the ghost out there?" Charlie rasped.

"A tortured spirit, or 'monster', powerful and dangerous. Must've been nasty when he grabbed you."

"Huh," Charlie said. Her brain registered that Sean didn't know the spirit was her father. Luke didn't know. Somehow none of them had yet figured out that she was the entire reason he'd returned as a monster. That she had murdered him. Fun web of lies she'd woven, delicate as spider silk to be torn to shreds any second.

"Are you okay?" Luke repeated.

Charlie dropped her head back into her knees, waiting for Luke to give up on getting words out of her and leave.

Luke pushed the scissors closer to her.

Charlie closed her eyes. She didn't want to pick it up and then feel just as powerless as before.

"Ugh." Luke grabbed the scissors again and tapped them impatiently against the floor. "Your name is Charlie, right?"

Charlie grumbled out a sigh.

"You're being self loathy, aren't you? I know what that looks like. I know Eugene. Well guess what? You don't get to." Luke took Charlie's hand and placed the scissors into them. "Making yourself suffer by not accepting help from people isn't going to help anything. It's just going to make you feel worse. And I don't know you, but I know Eugene didn't even deserve it. This big ghost showing up isn't your fault."

Charlie tightened her grip around the scissors. "Shut up. I'm not like Eugene. You don't know what you're talking about."

Luke huffed a breath. "Fine. Be like that." He stood up and walked away.

Charlie let her grip loosen again, her scissors hanging off of one finger. Her eyes were wet. "I do deserve it," she whispered.

...

"This is fine, right? I mean, there can be lots of normal reasons why Luke isn't waking up, right?" Oliver asked desperately.

"How old are those smelling salts?" Joy said, ripping them out of Oliver's hand, then sniffing them. She gave a deranged little laugh. "Okay, yeah, these are definitely too old."

Oliver had returned to gently jostling Luke's limp body back and forth. "Luke, hey? Hey? Pleeease wake up."

"Hospitals are so expensive," Joy muttered to herself as she started pacing. "Do you think he has insurance? He's gotta, right? He's a cop. Maybe this isn't that bad, but it would be irresponsible not to take him to the hospital, right?"

"Hospital?" Oliver repeated, voice cracking. "He's-- he's possessed or something, Joy! We've gone and stuck a magic flower we know nothing about in his mouth, and now he's unconscious! Hospitals don't know what to do to fix stuff like that!"

Joy threw her hands apart. "Fine, Mister Supernatural! Then what do you suggest we do?"

Oliver hesitated. He glanced worriedly over at Luke's limp form, then took a deep breath. "I think... we should talk to Eugene."

Joy blinks at him. "What?"

Oliver cringes. "Luke was right. We shouldn't have been doing any of this behind his back. Not just because it was dishonest, but because we didn't know what we were getting into either."

Joy's expression sank. "But... we're so close. We finally have a lead. If we come clean to Eugene and stop now, we'll never find out what's wrong with him."

"We have more important things to worry about right now," Oliver said, pointing at Luke. "Whether or not this is something doctors can treat, Eugene will know how to fix it. It's his flower. We shouldn't have taken it."

Joy sagged against the wall. "Okay. Alright. Get him on the phone."

Oliver pulled up and clicked on Eugene's number, putting it on speaker. It rang into the quiet room as Joy and Oliver waited for Eugene to pick up. Then it reached his generic voicemail.

Joy raised a worried eyebrow at Oliver as the robotic voice listed the unavailable number. The beep sounded, and Oliver spoke into the phone to leave a message. "Hey, Eugene? Please call us back as soon as you can. We need your help." Oliver considered speaking the confession into the phone receiver then, but the words tangled on his tongue. There was an awkward second of silence, then he jabbed the hang up button.

Joy sat down onto a chair, rubbing her arms. "Call him again? Text?"

Oliver gnawed his lip anxiously. "This can't really wait for a text response. Maybe we should go to his house."

Joy combed a hand through her hair. "It might not be a good idea to move Luke though. Should one of us stay with him?" She grimaced. "I can go ahead and do it. This is my fault, anyway."

"Hey, no, if you want to go, go. I'd rather be with Luke so I don't have to be worrying all the time if something else has happened to him."

"You know I'll call you if anything happens out there though," Joy said, grabbing her bag and checking her shoelaces. "And I'll tell you when I find anything out."

"'Kay. Thanks." Oliver gave her a nervous thumbs up. "Good luck."

"Gotcha," Joy said, with an earnest mock salute, then she dashed up the staircase and out the door.

She pulled her own phone out of her pocket as she marched down the street, double checking for texts. Her phone started ringing, and she jumped. Eugene's number. She quickly answered, putting the phone up to her ear.

"Hello, this is Linda," said a matronly voice from the other side. "I'm with Eugene right now and saw you'd called."

"Oh. Hi." Joy pivoted and started speedwalking back towards her house and Oliver. "Could you give the phone to him? I really need to talk to Eugene."

"Alright, just a minute. Or... no, I'm sorry, he's not very lucid right now."

Joy's eyebrows pinched. "What? What's wrong with him?"

"He's dehydrated, I think. We're on our way to my flower shop."

"I'm going to come to you, okay?" Joy turned the phone to speaker so she could tap out a text to Oliver as she continued talking to Linda. "This is pretty important. I have to talk to Eugene."

"Alright then, I'll see you soon. It's 'Linda's Flower Shop'."

"Thank you," Joy said, then hung up.

As she passed her house, Oliver burst out of it and ran up to her. "Hi. Changed my mind. I'm coming too. Door's locked, Luke'll be fine."

Joy snickered, wondering if he'd even seen her text. "Whatever floats your boat."

Oliver grabbed her hand and pulled her along as he started sprinting down the street towards the flower shop.

...

The world faded in and out, and Eugene was slumped into Linda after their conversation for an instant, then being helped unsteadily to his feet the next, then they were heading up the staircase out of the subway station, with most of Eugene's weight supported by Linda (he wasn't completely sure he'd been supporting any of it, but his legs kept on moving as far as he was aware). At one point Linda slowed down to talk to someone on the phone, and Eugene couldn't register what she was saying with the way the words grated on his ears. At least the walk to Linda's flower shop was short enough.

Eugene thought he was probably imagining the aura of hatred choking the air leading closer to the shop. Maybe he was worse off than he thought.

He was forced back to lucidity when he comprehended Oliver and Joy dashing up towards the flower shop just as he and Linda neared it. Why were they here? Did Linda call them in to help him? This might be rough to explain.

The walked up to him and Linda, and Eugene tried to pull himself upright, but the wince on Joy's face made it clear he hadn't managed to fool her.

"Wow, you look bad," said Joy. "Is this really just dehydration?"

Eugene tried to pull out a response for her, but his head was spinning, and for a second it was all he could do to keep from fainting. Oliver stepped forward and slipped an arm under the side where Linda wasn't before Eugene could muster an answer.

"Whatever. Let's get you some water."

That malicious energy Eugene had sensed became powerful, and his eyes widened as he realized it was not in his imagination. Linda reached her hand towards the door of the flower shop. Eugene gripped the lock of River's hair in his pocket and opened his mouth to tell her to stop.

Several things happened very quickly. Linda turned the doorknob, and then cried out as the door was ripped wide open out of her grasp. A force slammed past her, and Oliver's grip was all that kept Linda and Eugene from hitting the pavement. Eugene tried to swing out River's hair, but he was too slow and too weak to do anything more than swipe harmlessly at the air in front of him.

A scream that sounded like Charlie stabbed directly into Eugene's head, then the force shoved back out the door, whipping it roughly against its hinges hard enough they likely would have snapped if not for the hair from River they were tied with.

And all was quiet.

Eugene's head was spinning again, and he spent a minute just doubled over next to Oliver (who was gaping in confusion) trying not to throw up. His chest was hurting again, though he was pretty sure he hadn't actually gotten injured again. Maybe soul wounds could get re-opened? Like when half-healed gashes started bleeding again? He needed to sit down. He needed to lie down. In the shade. Had he dropped River's hair? No, it was still clenched in his hand. He laboriously put it back in his pocket.

Also, what had just happened?

"Eugene?" Oliver nervously asked. "Do you know what that was about? There's no way that was the wind."

Eugene was tired. He was hurting. There was no way he could come up with an excuse. "Don't know," he mumbled breathlessly. A half truth. He could suspect it was a ghost, but he didn't know which one. Unless... there was something on the edge of his realization. What was he forgetting? His head was thick, everything hurt.

"Let's get him inside," Joy said. She sounded really worried. About the ghost? No, wait, about him. 'Cause she didn't know about the ghost.

Nnoooo, not the stairs, he didn't want to struggle up the... now they were at the top of the stairs. Eugene was slipping in and out of consciousness again. Had someone carried him up the stairs? Now both Joy and Oliver were supporting him.

They lowered him gently onto a couch, and Eugene liked how he could sink down into it, though not how warm it was. He could take a nap here. Should he take a nap here?

Presently Eugene noticed that he was alone in some sort of drawing room with Oliver and Joy. Joy was staring at him nervously while Oliver glanced around the room like he was trying to avoid his gaze.

"What?" Eugene asked tiredly.

Joy laughed desperately. "Well, uh, so we might have messed up. A little bit. And we need your help."

Oliver burst out, "We stole your magic flower and Luke put it in his mouth and then he fainted and we don't know what's wrong and we're really sorry and we hate to put this on you when you're sick and we promise we were just trying to help make things easier 'cause we were worried about you but now we've just made things worse and we're so sorry and we'll never do it again."

Eugene squinted, struggling to keep up with how fast Oliver had been talking. "...What?"

Joy grimaced. "Yeah. It was my idea. Probably a bad one. But, well... we were worried about you. How you've been stressed and depressed lately. You've always been so mysterious about your job, and the fact that something happened with it and you couldn't tell us what made us really worried."

Eugene gave a little sigh. He'd guessed this conversation would happen eventually. He'd just wanted to believe that his friends wouldn't ask, that he wouldn't have to try very hard to keep them away from the truth and things would just be fine. Still, he really was not in the condition to be thinking of explanations for everything. "Do we have to talk about this right now?"

Joy looked away awkwardly. "I mean, yeah. We need your help with Luke."

"Oh yeah," Eugene responded tiredly. "What did you say about him?"

Oliver responded. "He put your magic flower in his mouth and passed out."

Eugene nearly fell off the couch. "What?" His voice was high pitched. So his flower had been missing this morning... because they'd taken it. "Why'd you-- why'd you think that was a good idea? How long have you been planning this? Was Luke in on this?" He was panting. Had Luke come to visit him just to nab that flower?

"N-no!" Joy flinched. "I-I'm sorry. You're right. This is the wrong time to talk about this. But we need your help with Luke."

Luke. Had put the flower in his mouth. "Oh. Oh no." There was absolutely no way Eugene was going to be able to hide the truth anymore. Eugene sighed, grimacing as his stomach shifted uncomfortably. "Okay... okay. It's-- his ghost is out of his body. But he should be okay. Not sure why he would have left instead of finding a way to communicate with you."

Joy blinked. "You're serious. It really is ghosts."

Eugene groaned. "I didn't want to tell you. You were better off not having to worry about it! Why did you have to butt in on my secrets like this?"

Joy glared. "Hey, it's not our fault you decided to keep us out of all this. Why did you even feel the need to keep it hush hush? How would just knowing ghosts exist hurt us?"

"I mean," Oliver leaned over to Joy and whispered, "You're really fine with all this? You're not going to have an existential crisis about your worldview being shattered?"

"No!" Joy spluttered (even though she absolutely would have an existential crisis as soon as she took the time to actually think about it).

Oliver turned back to Eugene. "You're right. It's completely our fault that Luke is in a predicament right now. We shouldn't have messed with your stuff. And we're sorry." He glanced at Joy doubtfully, and she looked back defiantly before sagging, then nodding in agreement.

Eugene drooped, sinking back into the couch. "...Okay. Whatever. I guess I'll have to see if I can check on him."

Eugene braced himself, then reached into the pocket and pulled out his guardian flower again. Joy and Oliver watched as he laboriously placed it in his mouth, then let himself sink into the couch and fall asleep.

It happened fast, and Eugene sat up as a ghost as his body went limp beneath him. Eugene flinched as the pain in his chest flared up again, and he made the mistake of glancing at it before holding it with his hand and standing up again.

An F-bomb ripped through the room, and Eugene jerked to attention, looking for who had said that. His eyes found Luke, ghost-monochrome in orange, with his hands covering his mouth in horror.

"Oh," Eugene mouthed, using both hands to try to cover as much of his tattered chest as he could.

"Eugene?" Luke stepped up to him, hands hovering towards Eugene's wounds. "Are you okay?"

"Uh, I--" Eugene tried to take a step back, but he felt weak and dizzy, and Luke had to steady him to keep him from falling over.

"H... hi," Eugene mustered when he caught his breath. "Yeah, it's, um, not good."

"Yeesh, dude." Luke helped Eugene back over to the couch. "Do you need a bandage or something? Ghost bandage? Do those exist?"

"Don't think so," Eugene gasped. "It hurts, but I don't think it'll be lethal, 'cause I'm still in one piece."

Luke frowned in worry at Eugene's wound for a minute, watching dark magenta blood clot. He pulled off his shirt and moved Eugene's hands so he could hold it over his wound. "So, I was listening to the conversation you were having with Oliver and Joy. I'm fine, just can't get back to my body right now for some reason, but there are other things to worry about probably sooner."

"'Kay..." Eugene blinked blearily at Luke's hands holding the shirt to his chest.

"Yeah, so, your friend Charlie? She got attacked by this huge tall black ghost a bit ago, and we ran and hid here. The big monster ghost followed us, and when you and Joy and Oliver and Linda (that's her name, right?) opened the door it burst in."

Eugene blinked, his mind starting to register that that was really bad. And-- Oh yeah, he'd told that ghost that Charlie was here. So it was his fault. "Oh," he said. "Where's it now?"

"Yeah, so it grabbed her again and then flew away fast."

"No..." Eugene whispered, ducking his head, wanting to curl in on himself but not being able to 'cause he was bleeding all over Luke's shirt and hands for being a stupid, stupid idiot, who kept making the wrong decisions, who kept hurting the people he should've been helping. He'd told that ghost where Charlie was, then after leading it right to her had let it into the flower shop himself (or at least people with him had). And what could he even do to help her now? He was injured and useless.

"Eugene? Hey, snap out of it!" Luke tapped his shoulder insistently. "Come on, hey, we'll figure this out. She needs to be rescued, right? Is there any way we can rescue her?"

Eugene stared at the floor. Then he sighed. "I need your help."

Chapter 7

[dragonsdomain]

Behold my OCs! ChAoS (left) and Justice (right). They're gonna be having shenanigans in the Karma Arc.

[dragonsdomain]

Let's not joke about hate crimes

I've seen a number of posts here on Tumblr joking about acts of violence against people whose opinions OP disagrees with. Often these posts are made towards Conservatives who misgender or otherwise disrespect LGBT people or characters.

These posts are made with the noble intention of protecting vulnerable individuals, but let me draw to your attention the fact that they use the exact same language as some radical Republicans use against gay or trans people. This is horrific behavior which we want to stop, which throughout history has been a gateway to discrimination and dehumanization. By pointing this same behavior back at them, we become hypocrites, perpetuating the cycle of hatred.

We want this world to be a better place. We want to spread love and understanding. We want to teach people how to act with understanding and kindness. We want to make Allies, not enemies. But before this world can be better we have to be better.

Let's not joke about hate crimes.

[dragonsdomain]

Monster in the Woods

"The more people tell Danny he is a monster the more monsterous he becomes. Things that seem innocuous turn into physical manifestations as he starts to believe what people say about him."

A Phic Phight prompt by @burning-clutch

...

Jazz walked through the forest, decaying leaves crunching under her feet. Her phone rang hollowly. "You've reached... please leave a message." Jazz dialed Danny's number again, the action mechanical at this point.

She almost didn't notice when someone started calling her. "Hello? Oh, Mom? No... Yeah, I'll call you. I will, I promise."

Then the call was over. There were bugs or other creatures making sounds in the forest. She still wasn't sure if she should be grateful for how they disguised her footsteps or if she should be cursing their noise, calling out for her brother. He could be lost, repentant from his earlier rashness, more than ready to go home. With his phone out of power, and that's why he wasn't answering her calls. Or... he could still be hiding from her. And that uncertainty was what was keeping Jazz from calling out into the forest.

A Fenton Thermos was at her belt. It had already been there since before Danny had run off, but it haunted Jazz with how its purpose might have changed. Would it be wrong to use it on Danny if she had to, if he tried to run away? Was it more important that she give him the freedom to choose what he wanted, or to get him home safe? She wanted to get him home, to dismiss everything as him being not in his right mind, but that wasn't fair, she should have been better at this point at valuing his feelings.

But if the conclusion was that she shouldn't use the thermos, should she even be looking for Danny at all?

Jazz drew to a stop, then wondered if that'd been a mistake. Starting to walk again would be difficult. Her body was calling her to drop to the ground and curl up in the dirt. Maybe she'd wake up and it'd all be a bad dream.

A childish thought. She kept walking.

As it got darker, Jazz had to turn on the flashlight of her phone, sacrificing any attempt at stealth. She started calling out Danny's name. The trees, taller here and thicker, felt like they were eating up her voice, preventing it from travelling more than a few feet.

Her phone was running out of battery. She'd need to go home now or risk becoming lost in the woods herself.

She turned on the navigator app on her phone to guide her back to town, wondering if it counted as giving up if you hardly felt like you had a choice, or if it even mattered if you kept going.

The leaves kept crunching on her feet. Her flashlight made a column of reality in the deepening darkness.

A sound. Something about it caught her attention, and Jazz looked out to the left towards it, not sure exactly what it was she'd heard, hoping to hear it again. There it was, a shifting in leaves, a whistling breath with some hollow quality.

On a hunch, Jazz clicked off her flashlight. She waited a minute for her eyes to adjust, then peered into that darkness again and saw a slight glow. Strange, why was it so dim? It would be sharper if it was just a matter of distance.

Jazz crept carefully towards the hollow glow, holding her hands out in front of her in the dark. The leaf rot didn't help her stealth; Danny, if that's who she was drawing close to, would know she was there. That was probably a good thing. She didn't hear the sound retreating.

More and more of something grew visible as she passed each tree, vague shapes in the shadows. An arm? A wing? She rounded the last one and saw him, limbs stretched tall and long and donned with sharp claws and chimeric feathers and scales. She couldn't tell if Danny's face was unchanged atop his neck; he was curled up as low as he could get. His aura was dim, possibly on purpose, possibly because he was feeling unwell.

Jazz walked up to him, letting the leaves shuffle underfoot, and put a hand on his back. "Danny. Hey. I'm here."

A sorrowful, crooning noise came from him and he tried to curl farther in on himself.

Jazz leaned into him and started stroking a hand down his back. "It'll be okay. You'll be okay."

Danny let out a shaky breath, his muscles loosening a little under Jazz's arms. He started drooping. It was getting late, and she knew he hadn't been getting good sleep lately; after such a rough day, he was probably tired.

Jazz stayed hugging him. It was slow at first, such that she hardly noticed it, but Danny's body started to shrink down to something closer to its natural size. After some dozen minutes, he turned around to hug her back. Hugging her brother didn't usually feel like this, lukewarm as a corpse, slick feathers fluffed with emotion tickling her cheeks, but Jazz couldn't say it was uncomfortable. She liked how his chest was still rising and falling, how she could hear his heart beating sluggishly within it if she listened closely enough.

"Can you talk?" Jazz asked at length, not yet looking at Danny's face.

He breathed a little sigh, which Jazz was about to assume meant no, before he managed, "Gnnuh-a li'l."

Danny's neck was now within reach, and Jazz curled her arms around it to run her hands through his hair--or feathers in this case, interspersed with a few reptilian ridges. "I know you had a hard day. Do you want to talk about any of it?"

Danny gave a pained whine, then winced at how loud it was. "N-no."

"Okay."

The sounds of the forest were friendlier now, keeping the silence from becoming pervasive. Jazz sat quietly with her oversized brother, glad to no longer have to worry about where he was.

Jazz's phone buzzed with a phone call, and she and Danny both jumped. Jazz fumbled for the phone. "H-hi, Mom. I'm still looking.... Yeah, I'm going to stay out longer, my phone still has battery. ...Uh-huh. ...Yeah, I hope so too. ...He's probably okay, Mom, he'll be back. ...I will. You too. Love you."

Jazz hung up the phone. Danny was hanging his head like he was ashamed of something. Jazz looked at his face without thinking, and he flinched nervously even though he looked pretty normal at that point. Maybe it was the uncanny valley he was worried about. He did look a little strange at this point, but Jazz had seen worse.

"You really don't look that bad, you know. I'm not just saying that."

"Ugh..." A clawed hand buried Danny's face. "I'm making her worry... I made you all worry."

"Come on, no shaming, we've talking about this. That's not constructive." Jazz ruffled the feathers atop Danny's head. They felt thinner now, closer to hair.

"Ssorry," Danny muttered.

Jazz rolled her eyes, pulling Danny to her side for a hug again and some pats on the back. "It's okay. I know you're doing your best.

Danny was getting better. He was pretty close to normal size. Jazz glanced over him and was pleased to see much of his skin now visible, ghostly simulacrum of his hazmat suit returning in place of feathers and scales. "You feel almost ready to change back you think?"

"Yeah..." Danny's shoulders drooped. "What am I gonna tell Mom?"

"What are we gonna tell Mom, you mean." Jazz gave Danny's shoulder a squeeze. "I've got your back. You're not alone in this, okay?"

Danny took a deep breath, the last of his feathers disappearing. "Okay."

Jazz stood up, then offered Danny a hand. "Let's start walking. We can figure out a story as we go, then I'll call Mom when we're ready."

Danny took her hand and followed as Jazz started walking. "Is there maybe some normal-ish explanation for all this? I'd rather not stick with the story that I ran away. Maybe me and Sam were on a walk or something and my phone died and I lost track of her?"

"That's a good start. I could message Sam about the excuse. Is youre phone actually dead?"

"Well, yeah."

"That makes me feel better about you ignoring my calls."

"Sorry."

"Y'know, Danny?"

"Yeah?"

Jazz pulled him in for another quick hug as they walked. "I'm really glad you're coming home."

"Aww man, don't make it weirder than it has to be."

"Emotions aren't weird, little brother."

"You're weird."

"My sincerest apologies for being the weirdest member of the family. I hope you'll all still be able to love me."

"Aww man, Jazz."

[dragonsdomain]

Bleeding Out in the Backyard

"Mansions are rich and have a lot of security. One day their lead officer shows them a concerning video of Danny Fenton in the back ally behind their home."

A phic phight prompt by DizzlyPuzzled

...

Pamela Manson sipped her tea before blinking at the camera again. It had been a while since she'd paid attention to these security cameras, but she's starting to think that may have been a mistake.

"Honey?" she called into the hall. "Jeremy? Can you come over here?"

"Sure, sweetie!" Jeremy swept into the room, then drew to an abrupt stop at the view on the screen. "Is that Sam's scraggly boyfriend bleeding out in the backyard?"

Pamela opened her mouth to argue that he wasn't her boyfriend if she had anything to say about it before slapping her forehead. "Oh dear, I should call an ambulance! I wouldn't want to get sued by his crazy parents."

"Why is he bleeding out in our backyard?" Jeremy muttered.

"Here, call the cops, dear," Pam said, handing her phone to Jeremy before poking her head out to the hall again and shrieking "Sam! Get down here!"

Pam's phone dinged in Jeremy's hand. He glanced down at it. "Sam says 'what?'"

"Ugh!" Pamela grabbed the phone back from him and called Sam. "Get down here, you ungrateful girl! Your wretched friend is bleeding out in the backyard!"

There was a beat of silence. Jeremy was thankfully pulling out his own phone to call 911 with. "Mom..." Sam answered, "Are you trying to April Fool's prank me? 'Cause this is a really bad way to do it. Or-- wait, Tucker? Are you pretending to be my mom?"

"I am your mother!" Pam screeched. "Get down here before I have to come up and get you!"

Jeremy was speaking with an operator on the other side of the phone, describing the situation. Good.

Sam strode into the room presently with eyeliner half-removed. She takes in the screen, and Pam watches some indeterminate firecracker of emotions smack up onto Sam's face and then right back off. "...I forgot we have security cameras."

"Ugh," Pam rolls her eyes, mentally brushing off the fact that she had also forgotten.

"Okay, so... he's probably doing a prank."

Pam's eyelid twitches. "You can't be serious, Sam. Your father has already called an ambulance."

Sam cursed under her breath. "Uh, lemme go check on him, see what's going on. I'll call you from the yard and tell you what's up."

"Make it quick," Pamela said, gritting her teeth.

Sam dashed off again. Pamela propped herself up on the desk next to the cameras. She noticed she was shaking and tried taking some deep breaths to soothe her nerves. That boy was going to regret this if it really was just a prank.

Pam nearly shrieked when her phone rang, before she managed to fumble it up to her ear and answer.

"Hey! Haha, so! Yeah, it was just a prank!" Sam said, and Pam wondered if she was imagining that strained note in her daughter's voice. "It was just fake blood. Y'know. Uh, he didn't know about the cameras. And he was going to call me down to come see. So, ha, sorry about the ambulance, but you can send them away when they get here. 'Cause he's. He's fine."

Pamela's head drooped down on the desk. "Sam. Samantha."

Sam laughed nervously. "W-what?"

"You're grounded."

"Hey!"

Pam hung up. She gave a long, drawn-out sigh.

"What? So is he fine?" Jeremy asked.

"Yes," Pamela said exhaustedly.

Jeremy frowned at the screen. "He's still sticking to the bit."

Pamela glanced up and watched Sam dragging her friend across the grass, leaving behind an ugly trail of awfully convincing fake blood. She hoped it was water soluble.

"That girl is going to stop hanging out with those awful boys if it's the last thing I make her do."

[dragonsdomain]

A Sonnet for Ralsei

I will protect this precious fluffy boy. I've known him for two mins yet him I love. His kind and wholesome nature brings me joy. Ignore the dummy. I will give him hug!

He wore a cloak because he's sweet and shy. I hug him and he starts to squirm and blush. Does Ralsei like this charming girl or guy? (Am I the one who starts to have a crush?)

Please hold my hand--this sword will take but one. That Susie ran, but you'll stay by my side. I'm glad to hear our quest has just begun. I want you as my mentor and my guide!

For less th'n'a day has Ralsei been my guy, But if he's hurt then ev'ryone will die.

[dragonsdomain]

You! Are! History!

I drew some of Pit's fabulous adorable poses from his battle cry in Chapter 5. I love him so much.

There were more, by the way, but I got tired after inking and coloring two. Have all five sketches under the cut:

[dragonsdomain]

Blob Ghost Supreme chapter 4

AO3

Chapter 3

The colosseum was packed when it came time for the final battle. Eager ghosts were pressing in from all sides, forming a writhing dome of ghosts all trying to press towards the front. Walker's police ghosts had to be working overtime to maintain a shield around the arena to keep any ghosts from pressing too close.

Sam and Tucker probably would have had a very hard time seeing the fight if they hadn't been inexplicably invited into the fancy leader booth.

Tucker looked over at Sam with his eyebrows up high. What did she think about this? He was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Sam shrugged. So she wasn't looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Tucker sneered at her for being a hoity-toity rich girl.

Sam sneered back at him for insinuating that this had anything to do with that, and really, shouldn't he just be being more grateful? Be polite, Tucker.

Tucker rolled his eyes. Fine.

Tucker turned to the tall clock man beside him. He was apparently the Observants' boss who he'd heard about. "So. Who're you rooting for?"

Sam snorted, covering her face, and Tucker raised an eyebrow at her. If she was going to be judging him for committing high society faux pas, the least she could do was telepathically tell him what he was doing wrong.

Clock man, ahem, Clockwork, laughed. "It would arouse a great deal of trouble if I were to claim anything other than impartiality. Though I can guess who you are rooting for."

Sam looked up again. "If I may, how did you know Tucker and I knew Phantom? We didn't even know back then."

Clockwork's eyes twinkled knowingly. "Time is irrelevant for me. I have forgotten more things than either of you have ever known."

Tucker grinned. "Is that really something to brag about, Grandpa?"

Sam choked down a laugh, which somewhat stifled the effects of her pointedly elbowing him. "Sorry about my friend. He doesn't mean any disrespect."

Clockwork shapeshifted into a young man. "No worries. It's refreshing."

Sam coughed awkwardly. "Do you know much about the other finalist? I'm afraid I haven't heard much about them." Sam neglected to mention that she and Tucker hadn't watched any matches which didn't have Danny in them.

"He's rather mysterious," Clockwork said, but there was a knowing twinkle in his eye. "He showed up through a portal the day before the tournament, and quickly established himself as one of the most brutal and promising competitors. His skills are quite impressive. I know many ghosts in the audience are rooting for him."

Sam rolled her eyes, muttering to herself. "Power this, skills that. Isn't trial by combat archaic?"

Clockwork laughed, and Sam blushed. Tucker smirked at her. "Many ghosts believe power is related to the depth of one's connection to the ghost zone," Clockwork explained. "Therefore, the ghosts with the most power will be the ones with the strongest connection to it. Usually, blob ghosts are known to take on a weak appearance because they're close to passing on. Those types of souls have little reason to develop any power or reputation. A lack of resolve."

Sam glanced out at the throngs of ghosts in the audience. "I guess that'd explain why people don't really want a blob ghost on the throne, because they'd expect him to leave them before long."

Clockwork nodded. "Yes, likely. Though there are also reasons they're sensitive about the matter. Ghosts care greatly about appearance and change theirs to match how they wish to present themselves."

Tucker frowned. "But we haven't seen any ghosts doing that." He glanced up. "No, wait! Skulker!"

Clockwork chuckled. "Usually it's accomplished through magic, not technology, so it'd be less noticeable. But yes."

Sam started out across the audience, eyebrows furrowed. "Wait, so... if what Skulker did was common... how many of the ghosts out there..." She whipped back towards Clockwork. "Is this common knowledge? Are you supposed to be telling us this?"

Clockwork waved her off. "I can tell anyone whatever I please. Now take a seat. The final round is about to begin."

Sam pulled back and plopped down into her seat.

Tucker leaned over to her and whispered. "What did you mean? I'm confused."

Sam shook her head. "I don't know. It's a long-shot. I'm probably wrong."

Tucker's eyes narrowed. "Isn't that what we thought about Phantom having something to do with Danny?"

Sam shushed him. "Not so loud! I don't know." She sighed. "I'm just wondering, I guess, how many of these ghosts are hiding something?"

"Something like..." Tucker prompted.

Sam frowned, then whispered in Tucker's ear.

He pulled away from her, wearing a baffled grin. "That is crazy. It'd be hilarious if you were right."

Sam shrugged. "Well I'm probably not. Now let's watch this battle. Let's hope Danny wins instead of this nasty-sounding other guy."

...

Danny clenched his jaw as the gate opened into the arena, and he and his opponent both floated out.

His opponent was large, but in a way that was far more solid than the tornado from the qualifying round. He was shaped like a muscular human, but his skin was blue like a corpse, and blue fire consumed his head in place of hair. His gaze rose from the ground, and locked with Danny's. It stabbed into him, the sharp, uncanny smile, the red eyes that looked so sickeningly familiar. Danny had some sense that he'd met this ghost before, that he hated him, that he was afraid of him.

"Welcome, denizens of the ghost zone, to the final battle of the Ghost King Tournament! Blob Ghost Phantom versus Dark Dan!"

Dan lunged. He was where Danny was in an instant, and his clawed hands whipped the air inches from his face.

Danny pulled back, zipping towards the opposite side of the arena again to get a little space to think, but after only another instant Dan was on him again, grabbing at the air he barely halted before. Danny put up a ghost shield to block Dan's claws and ecto-blasts, but Dan grabbed his shield with him in it and pounded it against the wall only three times before it shattered, leaving Danny breathless.

Danny slipped out of the way again just before Dan could grab him. He started darting erratically through the air to try to keep away from Dan, and it worked for a couple of seconds until an ectoblast hit him. It flung Danny against the wall, but he bounced off of it harmlessly.

Dan frowned when he saw that Danny was fine, and Danny rushed out of the way again. He finally managed to pivot and get a few shots in as he flew away, but Dan dodged two of them harmlessly and blocked the third with what looked like his bare hand. Danny gulped and continued trying to avoid Dan's shots. He needed a second to think.

Dan's fist hit him from the side, launching Danny into the wall. Danny bounced off of it and onto the floor, and he pulled up spitting sand out of his mouth.

"So that meager form did have one advantage after all, does it?" Dan said, cracking his knuckles. "Interesting."

What did he mean did? Danny was right here! Maybe Dan wasn't talking about him at all.

Danny fired off some shots of frost, but Dan broke through each one with relative ease. Danny continued his game of keep-away while he tried to charge up an especially powerful blast of ice, though when he managed to fire it off, Dan dodged out of its way. Danny gritted his teeth. How was he supposed to beat this ghost? This was so frustrating!

Danny started curling power around his space core, channeling its destructive force and creating another black hole.

Dan flew right up to the hole easily and extinguished it between his fingers with a condescending smirk. He blew away the smoke on them.

Danny froze. "What?!"

Dan smirked. "Oh, my pathetic, inferior self. Let me show you how it's done."

Dan brought his hands together and pulled them apart to create a black hole of his own. Danny's eyes widened as the circumference of the hole in turn grew larger and larger.

"What are you doing?" Danny screamed as he pushed himself against the wall as far from the ball as possible. "You'll destroy the arena!"

"If that's what it takes," Dan said casually.

Danny set his jaw in determination, then surged toward Dan's black hole like the other ghost had just a second ago. He opened his mouth wider than he ever thought was possible and swallowed the black thing whole.

Dan stared at him dubiously. Danny stared back, hoping his chest wasn't about to implode.

After a few seconds of them staring at each other and the audience staring at them, nothing had happened, and the ghosts in the stands let out a collective sigh of relief.

Danny opened his mouth to yell at Dan again, but the force of the black hole suddenly blasted forth out of it as a void-colored laser, directly in Dan's face. Danny tried to force his jaw shut; he wasn't trying to kill anyone, whatever this was, but it took several seconds before he was able to.

When the power finally depleted, Danny could see that the arena had finally met its match. A hole had been burned clean through it and the hall behind it, with the pale green of the ghost zone sky visible at the other end. Danny gulped. "Dan?"

There was silence for a second. Then a small, round shape pushed out of the wreckage at the end of the tunnel, steaming. Danny squinted. It looked like a large green water balloon. It looked like him.

Dan the blob ghost floated dazedly out of the tunnel, then flopped to the ground on the edge of the arena.

Danny blinked, looking around at the audience. That wasn't real, right?

Up in the fancy booth, the two familiar figures of Sam and Tucker stood up and started to applaud. No one else followed, the entire audience held in stunned silence.

The announcer Observant was frantically whispering to the other Observants beside him. Finally he spoke. "So, um. Yes, your eyes do not deceive you. Dark Dan was a blob ghost this entire time. How cowardly of him to hide it! Surely no one else would be able to relate to something so foolish—"

Clockwork took the microphone from the Observant's hand. "On the contrary, I think we can all learn from this. While some ghosts like Dan and Skulker may disguise their true self, it is the one who showed the truth despite its humility who ultimately won this tournament."

Clockwork swept his arms wide towards the audience. "For too long we've assumed that a ghost's appearance defines them. We have passed off blob ghosts as weak, to be ignored and forgotten. But as we've seen today, that belief does not hold water. It is an impression of a more ignorant time. In fact, perhaps a small appearance, rather than demonstrating any kind of weakness, shows confidence, and a strength more than any other."

Hushed murmuring trickled through the audience, ghosts looking at each other in doubt. Sam and Tucker had stopped clapping when Clockwork spoke, and now Sam was glancing around anxiously as Tucker attempted to give Danny an encouraging smile.

Johnny 13 jumped up onto the wall and pumped a fist in the air. "Hail King Phantom!" he screamed, then, with a pop, turned into a small, dark green blob ghost.

Several members of the crowd gasped.

Ember McLain hovered above the crowd and thrust her guitar into the air. "Hail King Phantom!" and she shapeshifted into a squishy blue fireball.

Danny's jaw dropped. Her too? How many of them were secretly blob ghosts?

One by one, each of Ember's bandmates also floated up and turned into blob ghosts of varying colors. Danny could only stare. The murmurings of the audience members had taken on a different tone, them turning to each other with looks on their faces not of shame or anger, but of awe.

A couple of ghosts started to filter away. What, were they blob ghosts too and didn't want to show it?

Those who remained, though, gradually started to also turn into blob ghosts. Danny recognized several he knew. The vine ghost from the first round shapeshifted into a roundish bramble. The tornado ghost turned into a more peaceful-looking sphere of wind. Technus abandoned an avatar he'd been hanging out in to reveal his own sparking blob ghost form.

Danny gaped as the silhouettes of the audience melded into the pleasant appearance of a ball park. Every one of them. "What?" he asked again, dumbly.

A blue blob ghost with a clock pinning a cloak around its neck floated down to him. "Clockwork?" Danny asked, extremely confused.

Clockwork nodded. "We're all blob ghosts. The archaic belief that that appearance was weak has been holding us back for centuries. By winning this tournament, you showed everyone here that they don't need to be ashamed of what they really look like."

"Wait, they all have shapeshifting magic? Does that mean I have shapeshifting magic too?! Teach me how to--"

Tucker crashed into Danny from behind, and Sam was quick to follow, the two pinning him in a hug.

"That was so awesome!" Sam shouted. "I was kind of worried you were about to lose, 'cause apparently he's your evil future self and everything, but you totally kicked his bu—!"

"Evil future self???" Danny spluttered.

"Oh, yeah. Clockwork told us." Tucker said.

Danny stared at him, then said hopefully, "I grow up to look that cool?"

Tucker shrugged. "I mean, I guess? Anyway, you're the ghost king! This is awesome! You're an inspiration!"

Danny looked up at the crowds of blob ghosts floating around each other joyfully. So everything they'd been saying about him had been because they were just ashamed themselves. And now they finally felt proud enough to take their true forms. They looked so comfortable, so happy.

Danny looked back at Clockwork. "Okay, but seriously. Show me how to shapeshift into something cooler!"

[dragonsdomain]

Blob Ghost Supreme chapter 3

AO3

Chapter 2

Danny wasn't going to stop trying to win the tournament, despite what Tucker had said.

Yeah, it was comforting that Tucker had said that. That this doesn't change things. But however much he actually believed him, he wasn't the only one Danny wanted to prove himself to. He wanted to prove himself to everyone. To all the ghosts. To his peers at school. To himself.

By the time the second round of fights was about to begin, Danny was ready, floating just outside the gate.

The crowds were either cheering or yelling as he and his opponent walked out into the arena.

"Phantom the Blob," announced the Observant, "versus Spectra the Counselor!"

The other ghost who stepped out into the arena wasn't what Danny had expected. She looked almost human, but her sharp smile looked sinister, and a little too wide. Something about her made Danny feel off-balance, like she could see right through him to his insecurities.

Maybe she could.

"'Phantom the Blob', hm?" she said softly, with a sympathetic tilt of her head. Her voice carried across the arena straight into Danny's soul. "You probably didn't choose that title, did you? But no one will ever call you anything else."

Danny fired an ectoblast at her, but she stepped to the side to avoid it easily. She was slowly walking towards him. "Winning a tournament won't change anything. You've heard what they say about you. They still think you're cheating, not because they have any evidence for it, but because they won't believe anything else. And nothing will change that."

Danny glared at her. What kind of fight tactic was this? Was she taunting him? He opened his mouth to throw a retort at her, but blushed when he remembered his high-pitched voice.

Spectra chuckled at that instant, and Danny had the dreadful thought that she knew what he'd been thinking. "You know I'm right, don't you? You can't say anything. You're too ashamed of yourself."

Danny charged toward her, blazing with fury. He held an ectoblast in his mouth, but Spectra slapped him away with pathetic ease, and the fire died in his mouth. "You're so small. You're adorable. Cute. Nothing you can do will ever make you frightening or imposing in any way. No one's dumb enough to respect a sentient grape."

Danny snarled, firing a ray of ice at Spectra, but she slipped out of the way like steam. "Oh, look at you trying so hard. And you haven't landed a single hit on me. It's adorable to see such effort. Keep trying! Maybe you'll be able to hit me once~"

Danny fired a barrage of blasts at her, which she dodged, and he tried to trap her within a ranged ghost shield, but she slipped out the top before he could close it around her. "Aww, you're not trying hard enough. The whole audience can see how weak you really are! Your friends are up there in the stands, aren't they? You're embarrassing them."

Danny almost wanted to try another black hole, but he flinched as he remembered how badly he'd scared the audience with it, how he'd almost killed Skulker.

"What's wrong?" Spectra held out her hands, leaving her core open. "Are you frightened of me? Or of yourself? Funny how you're the only one who seems to feel that way. You want people to respect you, but that's really just because you're scared, isn't it? You don't even respect yourself."

Could the audience hear what Spectra was saying? It all sounded so loud in Danny's head. The idea that they could be hearing all this, all so horrifyingly accurate, made him even more angry and even more embarrassed.

"You might as well just quit while you're ahead," Spectra whispered, loud and clear.

"Shut up!" Danny screamed, shooting at her with all the force of a comet. Her eyes widened in the instant before and after he blasted against her chest, launching her into the wall with such force she passed out.

And the match was over.

...

"Tucker, you can look. Tucker, nobody's bleeding."

Tucker looked up cautiously where he'd curled up under the wall. "What?"

Sam shrugged. "I dunno, he smashed into her really hard and she's knocked out, but she didn't start bleeding. I guess being a blob ghost has some benefits? He's like a cushion."

Tucker cautiously peeked over back towards the arena. There he was, Danny, floating above Spectra. He was looking downward, so Tucker couldn't really tell what his face looked like at the moment. He was a little surprised that no skin had been broken. The cracks around Spectra made it clear that Danny had hit her really hard.

"Do you think Danny would be okay if he accidentally killed someone?" Tucker whispered.

Sam shrugged. "I mean, after seeing that, I don't think he will. His powers might even be designed to protect people."

Danny was still hovering there, unmoving. The turmoil from the audience was something he was used to at this point, and he tuned it out like white noise. "I wonder if the Observants would let us down there to make sure he's okay."

Sam said. "Good idea. Let's let ourselves down there."

"Wait, that's not what I said," Tucker started, and he felt a jolt of panic when Sam moved to climb up onto the wall. "Sam, we're like two stories up!"

Sam paused and frowned at him for a minute. Then she sighed and slipped back down to the ground next to Tucker. He let out a little 'whew'.

Sam grabbed Tucker's hand and started pulling him back towards the hall again. "Then let's go this way. We'll shove past the guards if we have to."

Tucker followed without resistance. "I doubt it'll come to that. they'll probably take him out of the arena if he hasn't moved by the time we get down there."

Tucker couldn't see Sam's face ahead of him, but he could sense that she was scowling. "Ugh. Fine," she said.

"We don't wanna be pushing boundaries, Sam. We're already only here 'cause we have special permission."

Sam glanced back curiously. "They said their boss let us in 'cause we're the future ghost king's friend, right? Does that mean they think Danny's gonna win?"

Tucker shrugged. "I mean, he's made it to the finals now, hasn't he? The next round'll be the last one."

Sam whistled.

Eventually they stopped running, which Tucker was glad for. Dashing at him like the sky was falling wasn't going to be very helpful if they were trying to comfort Danny. Also, Sam had sped down the stairs with a level of insanity that Tucker had not been able to or wanted to keep up with.

They found Danny floating vacantly outside of the arena.

Tucker stepped up to him. "You okay, dude?"

Danny startled for a second, then calmed down. He came back to himself to scowl at the ground. "That was pathetic. I made a fool of myself without her even throwing a single shot."

"What are you talking about?" Sam asked. "You won. You hit her so hard at the end she cracked the arena wall."

Danny cringed. "I don't know. That doesn't feel right. I just did that 'cause I got too angry, and I almost..." he trailed off.

Sam raised an eyebrow. "I thought you wanted to show people how powerful you were."

"Are you beating yourself up about almost killing her?" Tucker asked. "Pretty sure she would have done the same to you if she'd had the chance. And she wouldn't have stopped at 'almost'." Tucker moved with the intention to pat Danny's shoulder, but since Danny was a blob ghost then he ended up just patting his head and it was a little weird. He pulled his hand back awkwardly. "I mean. Um. It is a full-out brawl. I don't think you have to feel too bad about hurting people. That's kind of the risk you take when you enter one of these things." Tucker spoke from no authority except through the video game experience of getting game overs when dying to a boss, but the words felt true enough.

Danny kept boring a hole in the ground. "Do you guys... really think I didn't look pathetic? Everybody already thinks that. And what if I'm not even really that powerful anyway? Then I'll just be wrong. And this'll all be for nothing. And things'll just go back to the way they were before. Or worse."

"I mean," Sam began, "I don't think you really have to worry about people assuming you're weak again. Regardless of how graceful it was, you just won the semifinal round of the Ghost King Tournament." She shrugged. "This thing is a pretty big deal, right? So it's objective. You are powerful. Nobody can argue with it."

Danny sighed wetly. "I don't know if everyone'll be as sensible about it as you are, Sam."

Sam threw her arms out. "Oh, forget it! This is stupid! Why do you care so much about what everyone thinks anyway?! You said it yourself, they're being stupid about it. So it shouldn't matter what they think!" She stomped her foot for emphasis.

Danny glared at her. "I don't know if you've noticed, Sam, but most people aren't like you. It matters to me what people think, because I have to see it everywhere I go!"

Tucker held up his hands between the two. "Woah, hey! It's okay if we have different opinions about stuff. And it's totally legitimate to want to be respected. I mean, I sometimes wish I got more respect myself."

Sam and Danny glared at each other for a second longer before Sam sagged, looking down. "Sorry. I didn't mean it like there's something wrong with it. I just meant I wish it didn't have to hurt you so much. 'Cause you're never going to be able to completely control what people think about you."

"But I can try," Danny said. He glanced down and begrudgingly said. "I'm sorry too. There's nothing wrong with you either."

Tucker stepped back, smiling in satisfaction. "You're gonna do great, Danny. And whether or not you win, you've probably gone a long way already towards proving yourself to everyone." He hesitated, then held out his fist. Danny started at it for a second, then mustered a smile and bumped his head against it.

"We'll be rooting for you," Sam said.

"Yeah. And be careful out there. The last opponent will probably be really strong," Tucker added.

Danny gave a smirk. "Hopefully by the end of it they'll have wished they were more careful around me."

...

The Observant slammed a set of papers onto Clockwork's makeshift desk. "Did you really think we wouldn't notice?"

Clockwork tilted his head innocently as he took on the appearance of a child. "Notice what?"

The Observant held up the two top papers and pointed to them. "Ectosignature readings. The signatures of the two finalists are awfully similar, aren't they?" He looked like he was barely keeping his cool.

"Should be an exciting fight then, shouldn't it?" Clockwork grinned.

The Observant took a deep, exasperated breath. "Clockwork. We all know you have your eye on that young blob ghost. But how can you possibly consider this fair play?"

"Whatever could you possibly mean?" Clockwork asked. "This tournament is meant to showcase the most powerful ghosts throughout the infinite realms! In that sense, how could it possibly be fair to exclude one of them?"

The Observant pinched where the bridge of his nose should be and gave a long sigh. "After thousands of years of existence," he muttered, "shouldn't you be more mature?"

"Nope," Clockwork smiled. "We stay silly."

"You are the worst."

"I try."

Chapter 4

[dragonsdomain]

Blob Ghost Supreme chapter 2

AO3

Chapter 1

Danny's first victory was not met with the unadulterated praise for which he'd hoped. He heard terms ranging from "Cheater!" to things he wouldn't be able to repeat over the dinner table flung towards him like javelins, along with empty snack packages he had to dodge. The screams of the audience carried a whole range of emotions, the kind of sound that might herald a riot. Would it make things better or worse if Danny tried to step in and get them to settle down? No, Walker's minions were already on that.

Danny glared defiantly at the audience, then headed out of the arena. This was the beginning. So they didn't believe a blob ghost could win that fight fair and square? So they were enraged by the very idea of it? He'd show them. He'd make them believe he was the real deal, that he deserved their respect. If winning this whole tournament was what it took to make that happen, so be it. He would do it.

...

Sam and Tucker had to grab hold of each other to make sure neither got swept away by the increasingly riotous crowd after the battle ended. The ghost cops all jumped into action and soon enough were able to calm the crowd into a tamer simmering discontent.

Muttering continued between audience members as they finally started to settle back into their seats.

Tucker grabbed the shoulder of a Day of the Dead skeleton to his right. "Hey excuse me, what was that? What just happened?"

"I don't know!" She exclaimed. "A blob ghost, just taking out so many ghosts like that? It shouldn't be possible! Did it cheat? Did it bribe all those ghosts somehow? What does it want? We can't let a cheater get away with becoming the ghost king! We—"

"Wait!" Tucker waved his hands to grab her attention. "I just mean like, what are the rules of this tournament? How does this work?"

The woman sagged, scowling at Tucker. "If you care so little about this tournament, why are you even here?" she sighed. "It's the Ghost King Tournament. It'll have three rounds of one on one battles between eight contestants, and the final winner will be the new ghost king." She pointed down at the arena, where the ghost cops were now working on freeing the defeated contestants from ice. "That was a preliminary round. There'll be eight, with contestants randomly divided between them, and the last ghost standing at the end of each preliminary round will be one of the eight contestants."

Tucker nodded. "Okay. Thank you. That helps a lot."

The woman stood, dusting herself off. "Now if you don't mind, I'm going to go discuss this with someone who actually cares how it turns out."

Tucker turned back to Sam as the other ghost turned away, finding her having some debate about ghost races with a dangerous-looking ghost to her left. Tucker pulled her away from him. "Sam, can I talk to you for a sec?"

"Oh. Yeah. Sure." Sam looked like she was about to fire some final word at the large ghost behind her, but Tucker yanked her away into the crowd before she could.

Tucker grabbed her face in his hands. "Sam, that blob ghost Phantom is really powerful."

Sam's eyes narrowed. "We're not leaving."

"What do you mean?" Tucker glared at her. "What are we even doing here then? Putting our lives in danger for curiosity's sake?"

Sam grabbed his shoulders, holding him away from her. "Look, we may not be sure exactly what's important about what's going on, but this tournament is a huge deal. Seeing it could be a once-in-a-lifetime experience."

Tucker started to respond, but Sam interrupted him. "Plus, how much danger can our lives be in if we've somehow been sponsored by the Observant boss or whatever it was that police officer ghost said?"

Tucker frowned. "What was that about, anyway? Why would some important ghost want us here?"

Sam let go of Tucker and started tapping her chin. "I think the ghost mentioned that it was because we're the future ghost king's friends. But we don't have any ghost friends. Do you think it's some kind of mix-up? Did we actually fool them?"

Tucker shrugged. "Yeah. I don't know. It's weird." He straightened. "If we're not the right people, then... what'll happen when they find out the truth?"

Sam cringed. "So we might be in a little danger. Okay. Still, it's not like we'll ever get another chance like this."

Tucker curled in on himself. "I don't know. I don't like it. I feel like we're getting in way over our heads, Sam. We're supposed to be having a hangout with Danny right now! What are we going to tell him when we get back if he's been there waiting for us now?"

Sam pulled out her phone. "Do we have service—? No. Yeah, um. Okay. How about we compromise. If things start going south, if somebody tries to hurt us, we leave. Okay?"

Tucker rolled the idea around in his head. "Okay. Fine. I mean, yeah, I'm curious too." He shuffled awkwardly. "Do we have to watch all the prequalifying fights though?"

Sam smiled in relief. "No, we can probably find some hallway to hang out in 'til the one-on-one fights start. Thanks, man."

Tucker smiled wryly. "I'm the one who gets to call if things are getting too dangerous, 'kay?"

Sam rolled her eyes. "Fine."

The two of them walked up towards the top of the audience seating, looking for an exit to somewhere else. The next pre-round was about to start, and it'd be better to get out of the way before things got exciting again.

Tucker worried there wouldn't be anywhere to go since most ghosts got around by flying, but thankfully they were able to find an exit to some hallways that could easily be reached by foot. Was this place based off of a human colosseum? Or was it originally built by humans? It'd be pretty interesting if the places in the ghost zone were the ghosts of places from the real world too.

The hallways weren't completely quiet and still had a fair number of ghosts milling about, but it was significantly more peaceful back here than out in the audience.

Sam and Tucker started strolling aimlessly down the hall.

"You know," Sam said, "If you don't want to be here, I could drop you off back at the Fentons' with the Speeder. You don't have to be here with me."

Tucker snorted. "Yeah, right. I'm not leaving you here in some deep part of the ghost zone all alone."

Sam smirked. "I guess it is kind of nice having you here too."

They found a bench and sat down. "Too bad Danny's not here," Tucker said.

Sam leaned back, stretching her arms above her head. "His fault for being so late," Sam said. "Plus, he hasn't been that interested in ghost stuff anyway. Any time I try to talk about that blob ghost—Phantom—he's always changing the subject."

Tucker frowned, thinking.

Sam glanced at him. "What?"

"Why is it always us who see Phantom? It's not like it’s rare for the little guy to show up, but Danny's never been there when he does."

Sam tilted her head. "Well, huh." She frowned down at the floor. "Is he avoiding Phantom on purpose?"

"But how would he know when Phantom was gonna show up?" Tucker asked.

"I mean, whenever a ghost shows up for it to fight? I have noticed Danny taking bathroom breaks often when that happens." Sam tapped her fingers.

Tucker stared down at his shoes. "Correct me if I'm wrong. But didn't Danny always leave before the ghost would show up?"

"Oh." Sam nodded. "I mean, that makes sense. I was trying to remember why teachers would let him leave if a ghost was there. Makes more sense if he'd left before."

"Weird," Tucker said, folding his arms.

A flash of green zipped by at eye-level.

Tucker and Sam launched up from their seats. "Phantom!" Sam cried, dashing after him, and Tucker followed quickly after.

Phantom was far faster than the two humans were on foot, even when he was having to slow down to take turns in the narrow hallway. Soon enough they'd lost sight of the blob ghost, but kept tracing his path by asking nearby ghosts which way they'd seen him go.

Eventually they wandered their way down to a basement story, where there was some kind of ghost gym (it looked pretty similar to a human gym except that some things were floating). Phantom was visible repeatedly tackling a sandbag with enough force to send it swinging wildly, and the ghosts near him kept giving him nervous glances.

Sam strode up to the blob ghost and said, "Hey, Phantom!"

"AH!" the blob ghost jolted to a halt with an adorably high-pitched shriek.

Yeah, okay, Tucker was no longer scared. He walked up to the ghost and stood next to Sam.

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you," Sam said with alarming respect towards a tiny creature with such an adorable voice.

Tucker coughed, trying to regain his composure.

Phantom muttered something about how he wasn't startled, and was Tucker imagining things or was his face a darker shade of green? Anyhow, "Well, what is it?" Phantom asked.

Sam drew herself up and cleared her throat with a level of professionalism that made Tucker wonder what was about to come out of her mouth. "As the ambassadors from the humans to this auspicious occasion, we'd like to ask you a few questions about you and this event."

Phantom scoffed. "You two are ambassadors? From what government? No one sends ambassadors to the ghost zone!"

Tucker glared at Sam with the intensity it'd take to telepathically call her an idiot for thinking that would work again.

"Uh," Sam continued. "Well, from America. We're the kids of the president!"

How far are you going to push this? Tucker telepathically glared.

Sam glanced at him and finally noticed his glaring and gave him a telepathic I dunno, man.

Phantom dipped down low in a mock bow. "Oh, my apologies, Princess Samantha." He froze.

"How'd you know her name?" Tucker asked.

"I- uh- I heard it? From someone? Didn't you mention it?"

"No?" Tucker said in bafflement.

"Uh, well, I think my fight is about to start!" Phantom gave a laugh that sounded very fake and anxious. "BYE." The blob rocketed out of the room.

There was an awkward silence in the gym as the other ghosts stared after Phantom. "I don't think they're even done with the pre-rounds yet," one of them muttered.

After a minute, the ghosts started going back to their exercising. Sam and Tucker looked at each other. "Is it just me," Sam began, "or did Phantom know a lot about the human world?"

Tucker frowned at the floor. "Maybe he died recently? And how did he know your name? Do we know him?"

Sam inhaled. "Something felt familiar about the way he talked. I can't put my finger on it."

Tucker shrugged. "He hurried away pretty quickly. Seems like even if we did know him, he doesn't want to talk to us."

Sam folded her arms. "Or he doesn't want us to find out."

...

If Danny was lucky, Sam and Tucker would write off that interaction as just weird and awkward and forget all about it. And then they wouldn't bother him anymore, and they'd never have to find out that he had secretly passed halfway into the afterlife in the most embarrassing way possible.

Danny was not lucky very often.

Still, he was trying to put it out of his mind. He had to be focused when it came time for his first battle. It would stink if he lost in the first round.

"Welcome to the first round of the Ghost King Tournament! Behold our first two contestants: Phantom the Blob and Skulker the Hunter!"

Both contestants entered the ring, and Danny saw who he was fighting. Was that a mech? His opponent looked like a robot. Maybe he was operating it through possession.

Skulker gave a condescending smirk. "I usually don't waste my time with common prey, but I'll make an exception this once." He lifted his arms, which unfolded into a gun. "Make this interesting for me, whelp."

Danny dodged away from the blast, hissing. "Since when are we allowed to use outside tools in this fight?!"

Skulker glared. "This mech is as much a part of me as any other ghost's power." He raised his arm cannon for another shot.

Danny dodged easily again, but the shots looked powerful enough that he didn't fancy getting hit by one. He should make this quick.

Danny tapped into his second core, pulling forth the power of space. He opened his mouth, letting loose a miniature black hole.

Crowd members shouted as they started being pulled towards the battle. Danny's eyes widened. Oops. He hadn't thought about that. With some focus, Danny managed to create a shield around the arena, stopping the force being exerted on the crowd and eliciting some relieved breaths.

Skulker, though, was still struggling against Danny's hole's gravity. Danny floated lazily beside it, waiting for it to do its work. Starting to look panicked, Skulker fired another blast at Danny but it curved into the black hole harmlessly. Skulker gave a cry of dismay as his arm gun broke loose and was consumed by the black hole. Danny smiled smugly.

"What are you?!" Skulker huffed as he pressed himself up against the wall.

Danny sneered. "I'm a ghost, just like you!"

Skulker looked terrified. "Blob ghosts can't do things like this."

"I can," Danny answered darkly.

The black hole grew in size, and Skulker's armor started ripping away piece by piece. He shrieked, trying to hold onto his breastplate, but it flew out of his grip. Skulker finally gave a last ditch effort to lunge at Danny with a set of blades, but Danny dodged easily and started firing his own ecto-shots to slice off whatever weapons he could see.

After another second, Skulker's entire silhouette seemed to break apart and fly towards the black hole. Danny yelled, zipped over and consumed the black hole before it could destroy the ghost.

He hovered there panting.

That. Had been too close.

Skulker's robotic limbs lay scattered across the arena. Danny was suddenly aware of how quiet the audience was.

He floated forward in dread. Nothing was moving.

"...Skulker?" Danny pleaded, drawing close to the disembodied head.

It broke open, and Danny screamed.

"Hey! Shut up! You won, okay?"

Danny froze.

Inside the opened robotic helmet was... another blob ghost. Kind of skinnier than Danny, with shrimpy little limbs. He sat up and glared. "I hope you're happy."

The audience burst into murmurings. Danny heard snippets again of what they were saying, accusations of cheating again, of collaboration, miscellaneous trash talk about blob ghosts.

Danny floated away from the blob ghost that was apparently the real Skulker. He hadn't killed him. That was good. Still, he'd probably need to be more careful with his powers in the next battles.

...

"Another blob ghost! Of course. Finally, something that makes sense. Of course a blob ghost could beat a blob ghost."

The ghost beside Tucker started laughing rather hysterically as pandemonium continued in the audience around them.

Tucker turned to Sam. "Did you see that?"

"You're gonna have to be a little more specific, Tuck," Sam responded.

"At the end there, after Phantom got rid of the black hole," Tucker said. "It looked like he was breathing. Panting."

Sam gasped. "You're right. And the black hole? Space powers?"

"Who's one of the people we know who's most likely to accidentally call you by your name? Your nickname?" Tucker said, feeling thoughts piece together in his mind.

He and Sam stood up as one and bolted out into the hall.

"What does it mean? It doesn't make sense!" Tucker called after Sam.

"I don't know! But we're going to get answers." Sam shot back over her shoulder as they ran.

The two of them pounded down a staircase, dashing down the hall and past a couple security guards. They yelled after them but were ignored by Sam and consequently by Tucker.

They reached their destination: the door where Phantom would come out after the battle. There he was, just about to head off down the hall.

"Phantom!" Sam called at the same time as Tucker yelled "Danny!" All three of them froze.

Tucker gulped. "I, uh. Wasn't planning to call you that."

Phantom swooped closer and bit Sam and Tucker's backpacks to drag them hurriedly into an empty side room.

He pushed them in and wrenched the door closed.

"You can't be yelling weird stuff in the halls at me," Phantom snapped in a voice that Tucker was now distinctly aware sounded almost exactly like Danny on helium. "I don't know who this Danny is, I don't know anything about him. What do you two want?"

Sam started spouting out their handfuls of evidence at the blob ghost's annoyed face, but Tucker started to tune her out as his mind whirled. This ghost was acting exactly how Danny would if he was annoyed, or even more like if he was pretending to be annoyed but was really trying to hide something.

"...Did you come from him?" Tucker said softly, almost not even aloud. "Were you born when Danny had that accident with the ghost portal?"

Phantom froze, looking at Tucker in alarm.

"Or... no, you were breathing back there, like a living human. Wait, and why-- you--" The pieces snapped into place. "You are Danny."

Phantom started to pull back, eyes wide and scared.

"Tuck?" Sam spoke softly.

"That's why you didn't show up this morning," Tucker breathed, piercing the ghost with his gaze. "Because you had the tournament to go to. It's why you've kept leaving class before ghosts show up and why you're late for things and busy so often these days. Because you're Danny. You're Phantom."

It all made sense in Tucker's head, but spoken the ideas sounded almost ridiculous. Almost, because Phantom looked far too alarmed. Like Tucker was right.

Sam gave a weak laugh, glancing searchingly between Phantom—Danny and Tucker. "What?" she asked.

Danny shrank down towards the corner. "I... I didn't... not like this..."

"What?" Sam asked desperately. "He's right? You-- Danny?"

Danny curled down further.

That was all the answer Sam needed. "What happened to you?"

Danny couldn't look at them. "The ghost portal half killed me. So I'm part my human me, and part... this."

Why didn't you tell us? Tucker wanted to ask, but he knew the answer. "And you were too embarrassed to tell anyone."

Danny nodded. "Nobody respects my ghost form. I wanted to use this tournament to prove to everyone that I'm not just some tiny cute ghost."

"Can we go back to the part where you're dead," Sam said dazedly.

Tucker ignored her. "So were you gonna tell us about this after winning?"

Danny tilted thoughtfully. "I dunno. Maybe."

Sam blinked. "I mean. Do you really need to do all this? I mean everybody already knows that you're crazy powerful, even if you're also kind of ado—" Tucker smacked her.

"For the record, this doesn't change how we see you, man. You don't have to win some crazy tournament for us to know you're cool." Tucker put out a fist for a fist bump before awkwardly remembering that Danny currently was a blob and had no fists.

However, Danny hovered up off the floor and gave a little smile before headbutting Tucker's fist. Tucker couldn't stop a little laugh from escaping. He was so squishy!

And adorable.

But he would die before saying that out loud again.

Chapter 3

[justaphantomhuman]

ECTO-IMPLOSION 2023 ART!!

Danny: Blob Ghost Supreme

au where danny straight up turns into a blob ghost every time he transforms.

he fights by being adorable... or does he... find out from @dragonsdomain's fic!!

[dragonsdomain]

Here are the fabulous animations that go with the fic!

[dragonsdomain]

Blob Ghost Supreme chapter 1

Check out @justaphantomhuman's amazing animations that go with this fic! And thank you to @maxattax for beta-ing.

Ao3

Sam and Tucker sat in the Fentons' front room waiting for Danny to finally get home from whatever was going on.

Tucker tapped away on his phone.

"Has Danny texted?" Sam asked.

"Nope. Nothing.” Tucker sighed. “What's been keeping him so busy lately?"

Sam rolled her eyes. "Maybe he's off flirting with Paulina or Valerie."

Tucker chuckled. "Yeah right. He wouldn't have the guts for that."

Sam slumped against the couch.

"What if he got kidnapped by a ghost or something?" Tucker asked.

Sam shrugged. "Or he could just be late. Again. It wouldn't be any use worrying over nothing. He's probably just being irresponsible."

Tucker clicked back to his text messages again. Still nothing.

Suddenly a green light zipped into the room, and Sam and Tucker both jumped. The creature froze upon seeing the two of them, and all three just stared at each other for several seconds.

Tucker's jaw was hanging open. "Sam. Sam, that's the blob ghost. The one! The— the one that fights off the other ghosts!"

Sam stared, dumbfounded. "Man. It really is adorable."

The ghost bolted for the staircase down to the basement.

Sam scrambled off of the couch, grabbed their half-empty snack bowl, and dashed after it. "Come on!"

Tucker rushed after her. "What are we doing?!"

"Catching it!" Sam called back.

"Why?!"

"'Cause it's cool! I have questions!" Sam bounded down the staircase just as the tiny ghost zipped through the swirling portal to the Ghost Zone. She cursed, tossed the bowl aside, and grabbed a Fenton Thermos off of a cluttered desk. She then yanked open the door to the Spectre Speeder and hopped into the driver's seat.

"Are we sure we want to be taking the Fentons' flying ghost car without permission?" Tucker asked, even as he climbed into the passenger seat and clipped on his seatbelt (not sponsored).

"Like they could be mad if we came back with the most interesting ghost ever!" Sam started pressing buttons until the Speeder jerked, then whipped toward the portal.

Tucker yelped and slammed his door closed just before the vehicle was enveloped by green light.

...

Did blob ghosts blush? Danny hoped not. He was horribly embarrassed for two reasons, the first being that he'd forgotten about promising to meet up with his friends on the same day as the Ghost King tournament and inadvertently stood them up. The second was that they'd now seen his tiny, pathetic form directly, and Sam had called him adorable to his face.

At least he could be grateful they still didn't know it was him.

Danny floated off through the ghost zone, following the slight tug on his core. He hadn't noticed it until Frostbite mentioned it, but now that he knew to look for it, it felt plain as day. He flew past a shoal of blob ghosts who chirped at him in greeting, and he gave a bubbly growl back at them. He may be a blob ghost, but he didn't want to be associated with all those normal weak ones.

What could he do to let people know how intimidating he was? Could he turn around and fire an ecto-laser from his mouth like a rocket booster? ...No, that'd look stupid. Forget it.

Danny plucked a ghost apple off of a tree he passed and chomped it down with as gruesome of an expression as he could muster. Yes, listen, anyone watching, know that could totally be your head. Wait, that sounded gross. Danny wouldn't eat your head, but so too would your head be crushed! Yeah!

...What was he doing? Trying to intimidate people in his mind? Time to get this over with.

A beam of light flashed just to Danny's right, and he gave a startled, unflattering squeak. He bolted to the side, then swiftly pivoted towards the source of the light.

The Specter Speeder. With... Sam and Tucker inside. Danny grimaced. Great, they were chasing him. This was his karma for ditching them, wasn't it?

Danny picked up his speed, zigzagging away from Sam and Tucker. They pursued, but Danny could turn more quickly than the Speeder could. Danny darted down into a belt of floating islands, weaving between the chunks of land and branches of ghostly trees. A couple more beams from the Fenton Thermos struck obstacles behind him, indicating that Danny hadn't yet left his human friends behind.

Danny pushed his speed even further, zipping out of the belt to the left. A glance back showed him that the Speeder hadn't followed him into the belt. Sam, who was at the wheel, had just been shooting him from outside it. Of course.

Pivoting, Danny rushed straight towards the Speeder. He saw Tucker flinch back, Sam snatching the Thermos from him and pointing it at Danny as he drew close. Danny dodged down again, inhaled (he tried not to think about how his body was inflating like a balloon), and let loose a blast of ice. The ice enveloped the front of the Speeder, even tipping it dangerously upwards. Danny winced for a second, trying to remember if he'd seen his friends wearing seatbelts (not sponsored), then quickly swung around the back of the Speeder and used more ice to clog the Speeder's boosters. That wouldn't last long if it were to be started up again, but it'd at least give Danny enough time to get away.

He swung down, flying quickly off again towards the tug on his core. He had a tournament to get to.

...

The colosseum was deep down in the ghost zone, on a large, flat surface which Danny had first assumed was the dimension's floor (though he would soon enough be informed that it was only a massive slab of stone). Even from a distance, a cloud of ghosts was visible surrounding and churning towards the colosseum, and Danny felt an involuntary bubble of nervousness. It was a tournament for who was going to be the new ghost king. There were probably a lot of contestants.

He shook off his apprehension. That was what he was counting on! Danny was here to prove himself; the more ghosts that saw him do it, and the more powerful the opponents he defeated, the better. He was sick and tired of everyone thinking they could push him around just because he was a blob ghost. Today was the day he'd show them all how wrong they were.

Danny rushed down towards the entrance, shoving through a couple more shoals of blob ghosts and a small crowd of humanoid ghosts all vying for entry. Walker's goons were guarding the entrance, along with an Observant.

Danny tried to slip through the archway, but a ghostly cop barred his way with a rod. He cleared his throat disdainfully, and Danny in turn shot him a murderous glare.

The Observant glanced over towards the two of them and gave a long-suffering sigh. "Let that one in. It's the blob ghost rumored to have fought Pariah."

The cop gaped back at the Observant. "You can't be serious. You actually believe that crazy rumor?"

The Observant flipped absently through some papers. "Do you really want to find out how powerful it is right now?"

The cop scowled, then reluctantly moved his rod. Danny smiled smugly at him as he swept forward into the entrance hallways surrounding the arena.

He floated down the hall, wondering where he was supposed to be. Thankfully, no one else was trying to stop him, but various tough-looking ghosts kept firing dubious glances his way. He heard one whisper to his girlfriend about who had let him in. He scowled. Reflexively he was grateful that at least no one was picking fights with him yet, but then he reminded himself that he wanted to pick fights. If anybody stood up to him, that'd be his chance to show them what was what.

One of Walker's goons spotted him hovering uncertainly in the middle of the hall (oops, he should have made it look like he totally knew what he was doing. Drat). He floated over to him.

"This isn't the entrance for spectators. You're supposed to be on the second floor or higher."

Danny glared, hesitating. How could he communicate to this man how wrong he was? Would he have to talk? Danny tried rolling his eyes and floating on past the man.

"Hey now," the man said, grabbing Danny unceremoniously. Oh, it was on.

Danny unhinged his jaw and swallowed the ghost's hand whole before charging a ghostly laser in his mouth. The cop screamed and frantically shook Danny off.

Danny regained his balance in the air and glared at the man challengingly.

He nursed his hand and glared back. "What's with the attitude?!"

Danny cringed internally. Fine. He had to. "I'm a contestant!" he declared as angrily as he could, but it was no use. His voice was high-pitched and squeaky and adorable. His face felt hot, and he resisted the urge to curl in on himself in shame.

The cop's face dissolved into a smile as he barely contained laughter. Danny fumed. "Ye sure, little guy? I dunno if you want to be involved in something like this. It's the ghost king tournament, you know. The strongest ghosts around'll be competing. You could get hurt."

Danny shook with rage. "'You could get hurt'," he mimicked in a singsong voice, then immediately felt more embarrassed for how childish that sounded. What was he doing? How was he supposed to get this man to take him seriously?

Danny decided he was done messing around. He sped off down the hall to where he found a desk occupied by a bored-looking Observant. There was a stack of application forms in front of him, so Danny yanked one out and faceplanted on it in lieu of a signature. The Observant gave an undignified shriek of surprise as Danny zipped off again.

Firing down the hall like a homing missile helped Danny pretty quickly find where he was probably supposed to be. He found a collection of ghosts gathered in a large room around the back being generally rowdy and hostile, like a bunch of feral cats locked in a room together. Danny flew in through the central archway and asserted his presence by floating there silently, trying to will the ghosts to respect him through force of mind.

Finally the biker ghost he'd beat up once — Jimmy 15? — spotted him in the doorway and smirked. That was not the reaction Danny had been looking for, thank you very much. Danny's glare intensified. 

Jimmy pitched his cigarette at Danny.

Danny shot a fine laser at it, vaporizing it in midair.

Jimmy blinked.

Danny glared harder, and finally Jimmy realized it would be a better idea to look anywhere else in the room than at him.

Danny started slowly moving through the room, trying to exude the same energy as a dark, muscular man with a large gun walking into a bar. It was pretty difficult to do as a sentient water balloon. No, Danny didn't manage it, but he probably got closer than any other sentient water balloon ever had, so good for him, really.

Eventually, after receiving no attention, Danny decided to sit as menacingly as possible in the center of the fireplace mantle. He occupied himself by scanning the room for any more menacing place to sit. Now all he had to do was wait until the pre-round of the ghost king tournament started, and he'd finally be able to show all these people who they were dealing with.

...

"Wow! That was awesome!" Tucker said from the passenger seat of the frozen-over Specter Speeder.

Sam slumped down in her seat. "I can't believe we blew that. We were so close! We almost got him a couple of times!"

Tucker flipped on the heater and defroster. "Eh, would've been anticlimactic if we'd gotten him right away."

Sam gave some wordless grumble and started pressing buttons and flipping switches.

Tucker watched her. "You're just gonna..."

"Yep," Sam responded. "We're getting back out there."

The Speeder suddenly tipped downwards. Sam and Tucker yelped and were only saved from whacking their heads on the dashboard by their seatbelts (not sponsored). Sam slapped back the switch she'd just flipped and the car righted itself. She went right back to pressing buttons.

Tucker gulped and turned the heater up.

Finally something exploded, and Sam and Tucker both screamed, but they were fine. The vehicle had somehow exploded only outwards, expelling shards of ice out into the green atmosphere.  The shards pierced a couple blob ghosts who cried out dramatically, but were completely fine after eating the ice.

Tucker turned off the defroster. "Okay, then."

Sam sat there dazed for a second, then shook herself out of it and said, "Finally! Let's go!" She floored the accelerator, and the Speeder jerked forward with enough force to send Sam and Tucker both slamming back into their seats.

Tucker, eyes watering against the whipping ghost winds, reached forward and pressed the button to roll the windows up.

As soon as the windows were closed and Tucker could hear himself think, he said, "Sam, where are we going?"

She slammed on the breaks. "Oh. Ah." She coughed, then started scanning their surroundings. She perked up. "Hey, there are a lot of ghosts headed in the same direction, aren't there?"

There were. Shoals of blob ghosts were all drifting lazily forward and downwards, close to the same direction the phantom blob had been heading before they lost him. "Huh!"

"Great. Here we go!" Sam slammed on the accelerator again, making Tucker wonder whether she was a bad driver or if the Fentons' vehicles were just wired to start and stop with extreme abruptness.

They powered on, following the trail of ghosts. The flow continued, other ghosts converging in from other directions too, so it seemed that Sam had been right. There was something going on that lots of ghosts were headed towards. Before long, they'd arrived at what seemed to be the destination.

"Woah-ho-ho!" Tucker gasped as the colosseum came into sight. The river of ghosts they'd been following were busy crowding into the audience seats.

A couple of ghost cops sped over to Tucker and Sam as they tried to drive up towards the stadium. "You two are humans, aren't you? What gives you the right to bring in all this debris from the living world?"

Sam and Tucker glanced at each other blankly for a second. Then Tucker gave her a wild grin that hopefully portrayed the correct message of I'm about to try something crazy, play along. Tucker turned back towards the ghost cop. "We're ambassadors, actually, so we have diplomatic license. You don't recognize us?"

The ghost raised his eyebrow. "The humans sent two children as ambassadors."

"Excuse me?" Sam chimed in, drawing herself up to full regal height. "You really don't know who we are, do you? The ghost authorities are really slacking with their training, aren't they? In the past we've at least been able to count on security to have basic information." She rolled her eyes at Tucker, and he shook his head disdainfully.

"What are you talking about? There's never been any kind of truce between the humans and ghosts." The cop's eyes narrowed. "Do I have to escort you off the premises?"

Tucker gulped, but he kept his expression stern. "Look, if you need to confirm our identities, you can check with your boss or other immediate superiors. They'll know what's going on. Now please, we have important responsibilities to attend to. We can't be late for this."

The ghost scrutinized them for a second, then he pointed a finger. "I'll be back. Don't move."

"Make it snappy," Sam said, waving a hand in a shooing motion.

The ghost cop flew off.

Tucker jerked forward. "Okay. Now we've probably got, like, two minutes before that guy comes back with confirmation that we're definitely not supposed to be here. We gotta hide the Speeder, then get in here somehow disguised as ghosts so he doesn't recognize us."

"Good quick thinking back there," Sam said, giving him a grin. "Love rebelling against authorities with the besties."

Tucker chuckled. "To each their own."

Sam pivoted the Speeder and pulled it behind a nearby outcropping of ghost rock.

"Is this really going to fool the ghost police?" Tucker asked dubiously.

Sam put the vehicle in park and pulled off her backpack. "I think our biggest concern should be how we're going to trick them into thinking we're ghosts."

Tucker peered into her backpack. "You don't happen to have a pair of sheets in there, do you?"

Sam snorted, continuing to rifle through the bag. "I was more hoping for something like green makeup. I don't think I brought any though..."

"Aww," Tucker pouted. "So then now what? Do we call it quits?"

"No!" Sam glared at him. "We've come so far already! There's something crazy going on over here! We can't turn back now!"

Tucker put his hands up placatingly. "Sheesh, okay. Then what's our plan B? Or C. Whatever letter we're on by now."

"We'll think of something..." Sam said. She scanned her gaze over the Speeder. Her eyes lighted on the ectoplasmic energy core, and her mouth pulled into a grin.

"Why are you looking at the ectoplasm core, Sam?" Tucker asked, hoping he was misreading the situation.

Sam climbed back to it and popped the glass container out of its socket.

"Sam."

"I mean, if anything's going to convince them we're ghosts..." Sam fiddled with the lid to the tank of ectoplasm.

Tucker scrambled over to her and slapped her hand away. "We're not going to paint ourselves with toxic alien sauce!"

Sam pulled the tank away from him. "I thought we agreed the Fentons aren't right about everything?"

Tucker threw up his hands. "But they're right about some things!"

"There you are!" Came a voice from outside the vehicle, and Sam and Tucker froze.

The same cop ghost from earlier was hovering next to the Speeder, looking rather annoyed. "Why were you trying to sneak off?"

Tucker spluttered. "Oh, we weren't— no, we were just parking the Speeder out of the way! Just getting out of your hair!"

The ghost had no visible hair. He squinted at them, then sighed. "Well, apparently you're welcome at the tournament. The Observants' weird boss says you're the future ghost king's friends or something, so I guess you can come back." He muttered something under his breath about clocks and favoritism, starting to float away.

"Wait, can you give us a lift? We can't fly." Tucker asked, and Sam smacked him in the arm for some reason. He later found out it was because she'd wanted to take advantage of the apparent favoritism to park the Speeder closer so they could have an escape route whenever they wanted. That would've been smart. Oh well.

The ghost sighed long-sufferingly then floated back and pulled them out of the car, floating over back towards the stadium.

"It's good I got the news soon enough. The pre-qualification fights are about to start, and I might've gotten in trouble if I'd kept you out of that."

"What did we say?" Sam said, pulling on a scoff.

"You can drop the act. I know you were lying before," the ghost grumbled.

"Oh." Sam blushed.

The colosseum was in an uproar. The officer deposited Sam and Tucker near the top of the rows of seats, one of the only places where there were empty seats left. Sam and Tucker both had to stand up atop their seats to see past the large excited ghosts in front of them to see what was going on.

Sam tapped the shoulder of a pumpkin-headed ghost in front of them. "Hey!" she had to yell to be heard above the cheering. "Do you know what's going on?"

"It's the ghost king tournament!" the ghost yelled back. "The event of the century! Someone took down Pariah Dark so we're having a tournament to choose the new king of the ghost zone!" He paused, suddenly comprehending. "Are you two humans?"

"We have permission to be here," Tucker chimed in defensively.

"Okay!" the pumpkin ghost yelled back. "Have fun!" He turned back towards the arena and continued cheering.

"Can you see what's going on?" Sam asked Tucker, standing on her tiptoes.

"It looks like ghosts are starting to come out? No, wait--" He cringed. "Let's go to the bottom of the stairs. There won't be seats, but at least we'll be able to see."

Sam grabbed Tucker's hand and pulled him quickly over to the staircase and down to the bottom almost too fast for Tucker to keep from tripping. Cheers bellowed on and off from every side. Enough ghosts struggled to contain their excitement that the air was starting to fill with spirited spectators and guests who continued to arrive long after the seats were filled.

Sam and Tucker managed to squeeze down to the foot of the stairs, gaining a clear view of the arena. They were just in time; only a second later a firework went off and the ghosts in the arena launched into battle.

"Is that Ember?" Tucker asked.

"Kitty!" Sam cried, pointing.

Tucker recoiled as ectoplasm started to spray. "Ooh..." he cringed backwards, holding his stomach.

Sam put a steady arm around his shoulders. "Don't worry about watching. I can give you a recap later." She gasped. "Tucker look! Or-- oh."

Tucker was already looking, whether voluntarily or by reflex. And what he saw was indeed a spectacle. In the center of the arena was the very blob ghost they'd chased into the ghost zone. Well, Tucker could only assume it was the same blob ghost based on its size and the fact that it was suddenly dominating the competition. He started by pinwheeling a laser in an arc that sent each of his competitors launching backwards to strike against the stone and barred walls of the arena. He then swept a beam of ice in a circle, freezing the greater part of his competitors solidly against the walls.

"Wow," Tucker breathed. "Maybe it's not such a good idea to mess around with that ghost..."

"Mm, or all the more reason to do so?" Sam suggested.

Tucker shivered. "I think we got lucky."

A small handful of ghosts had managed to dodge the attack upwards, and one or two large ones broke out of the ice through brute force. The phantom blob rocketed towards a dragon, causing it to double over in pain. The blob bit its tail and somehow lifted it up, into the air, then spun in a circle again to gain enough momentum to launch it upwards towards the ghosts that'd escaped his ice. The dragon slammed into them all, taking another group of ghosts out of the arena.

Tucker gestured towards the display, giving Sam a pointed look.

Sam squirmed. "Yeah, okay, maybe more preparation would've been better."

Out of the ice burst a tornado creature, shaking loose a genie-looking ghost next to him, who took one look at the floating sphere of terror in the arena's center and bailed out on her own. The tornado fired a pair of lightning bolts at the phantom blob, who summoned a ghost shield that blocked it easily.

"How many powers does it have?" Tucker whispered. He really hoped things didn't get bloody again. The blood being green and glowy didn’t really help. He wasn't sure he'd be able to tear his gaze away a second time.

The blob aimed an ectoblast at the tornado creature's head, which it blocked with an armored hand. Next, the blob started splitting into multiple versions of itself and firing at the tornado from multiple directions, which quickly caused it to shrink into a sizzling heap on the ground.

Ghosts to Sam and Tucker's left and right started to murmur in awe. And Tucker found himself feeling the same.

The last foe left was a mass of thorny vines cowering on the ground of the arena. The blob quickly subdued it with several ferocious beams of ice followed with slams of ectoblasts that left it shattered and thoroughly pruned.

The colosseum held its breath. The phantom blob coalesced into one again, then slowly scanned the arena around it, almost seeming to dare any ghost who was left to challenge him.

No one came forward.

A tall ghost seated in a booth near the top of the arena stood up. The audience remained hushed as the being's singular eye, which floated in place of a head, gazed down upon the arena.

It spoke. "We have our first ghost who has won the right to compete in the Ghost King Tournament! The Phantom!"

The audience erupted into an excited, confused, and enraged roar.

Chapter 2