Transference 3
Heyy friends, I'm back. Had some health issues and just a bunch of life stuff at once! A humble chapter for your eyes. I'm not exactly happy with it but the only way out is through! Hope you're well <3
Other chapters & writing
Ren
It had been one extended weekend away to finalize some last-minute things with her apartment. One weekend to lay the groundwork for what was the first real step towards their independence from their parents. When her phone vibrated in her pocket, Ancients, she almost dismissed it. Jazz thought Danny must be checking in, but when she freed her phone from her jeans the screen flashed Sam’s contact photo and her heart dropped to the floor while her hairline broke out in sweat. Something had gone very wrong in her absence. Sure, they talked occasionally but the teen never just called out of the blue. Jazz had opened a new tab on her laptop, dismissing the article she had been reading and had begun searching for an earlier flight home as she picked up the call. Getting any of the teens in their little group on a phone call was like pulling teeth, a delicate procedure and potentially painful without the correct preparation so to hear from them with no prompting? The world may as well be ending, or more accurately based on how things have gone, Amity Park was in danger from something they couldn’t manage on their own at the very least.
Jazz had a lot of practice projecting calm into the space around her and she leans hard into that practice now. Every word Sam gets out makes her grip her phone tighter and tighter. Everything blurs together. She’s moving through the world on autopilot. Reality blurs. Taxi, airport, security, gate. It all flies by hardly registering. She’s sitting on the plane staring out the window when she jolts back into herself, and Jazz is suddenly grateful, she still had a third of her things left behind in her old bedroom. She had been in such a rush she had only bothered to grab her purse. She dug her head back into the lackluster headrest and closed her eyes to try and gain some rest. It’s not like she could miraculously do something to tackle the situation from where she was in the air and -she wasn’t ready, for any of it, she wanted to scream it was all too soon, please. They were all just kids- She clenched her eyes shut and gently knocked her head on the plane wall. She had a distinct feeling she would need to maintain her energy levels the best she could over a long period of time, nothing that involved Danny was ever easy or simple, and she would need to be ready to strike when the opportunity presented itself. She leaned against the window, closed her eyes, and let out a long sigh. Jazz couldn’t get home soon enough.
A half hour later Jazz has to hold in a groan of frustration. She can’t quiet her mind enough to gain any worthwhile rest. She’s just getting more worked up. Sam’s voice had sounded so terrified while recounting the event. They hadn’t heard from Danny since late Friday night, so they went over to the house Sunday morning, and called her shortly after they had to leave. The door had opened as easily for them as normal since the Fenton's never locked it, but the lights had been off. While odd, it hadn’t set off warning bells right away- the Fenton's are eccentric, both of them have known about their parents' weirdness since they first followed Danny home. It had only strengthened the bonds between the three. Danny’s friends were exceptionally loyal and stubborn which was usually a frustrating combination when turned on her, but Jazz has decided this time she’ll give them a pass since they had listened to their guts and had been determined to soldier on to find their wayward Phantom. When they had tried Danny’s room, and the door wouldn’t open, they knew something was definitely wrong. When they took a moment to pause as they tried to figure out their next move they realized they could feel it in the air.
Ghosts did that. Danny had mentioned it once. Their stronger emotions exude into the air like supernatural diffusers. Usually, it was so subtle you would hardly notice unless you were actively looking for it. Because she did know it helped her keep tabs on how her brother was really doing. Instead of smelling tangerine or eucalyptus you’d get goosebumps on your arms, your hair will stand on end, and you’ll feel an overwhelming wave of an emotion but when you catch your breath to look, you won’t find anything around you that warrants what you’re suddenly feeling. Amity Park-their house- it all was Danny’s haunt. Danny had been screaming for help in the only way he knew how. His friends… they had found him, but they were kids. Jack and Maddie had seen them frozen for a moment in horror at the bottom of the stairs and quickly caught the two teens, who started kicking, screaming, biting, only to be thrown out the door, for it to be slammed in their faces and the house was shut tight behind them with the lockdown protocol whirring into effect.
By the time Jazz had got off the plane and made it home to bypass the biometric lock it was too late. She doesn’t blame Danny’s friends for failing to free him. She can’t. Maddie is a ninth-degree black belt and Jack is built like a brickhouse, tall and imposing, with a grip to match. And so, Danny, her baby brother, was gone from the lab when she returned by nightfall. Spirited away just out of her reach. She failed to remain calm. Her voice rising in volume and pitch with her distress. The Fenton's were tightlipped about anything that had to do with the boy that had been tied up in their basement. They were disappointed with her that she didn’t celebrate with them. A small victory against the ghost that took their boy from under their noses, they said. That the thing was no longer what once was Danny. They would honor him by defeating the monster that killed him.
(Jazz felt her words choke her, wiggling desperate to be free but even she isn’t that cruel. So, she stared at them, mentally screaming as her body slumped in resignation. They were the monsters that killed him. It was their obsession with proving their theory was right, that is what led to the portal being built. Led to Danny’s death.)
No, she doesn’t understand how they justified turning on a child, biologically part of their family or not, ghost or not, Danny is a child. Everything about him was good. Their betrayal zaps through her, cold and sharp. It steals her breath and moves her reality three steps backwards. She feels the love and fondness that she held onto desperately for them vanish in an instant. She stares blankly at the people who gave her life and can’t understand how they became this way. Why won’t they listen? How could they ever put their work over a living, breathing child that is in front of them? Their child. They had always seemed.. Benign, as they shouted silly things and their shots missed Phantom by what felt like miles, but that is a mistake she’ll beat herself up for later. If she struggles to acknowledge Danny’s death that is one thing, to refuse to acknowledge his continued life? That was truly unthinkable.
That was then. When she first returned home. Now with little to nothing to direct their search Jazz was spiraling. She can’t help it; her mind keeps looping over and over. Her brain was trying to fill the unknown with possibilities of what could be happening to her brother. The silence was wearing her down, dragging her back into her own personal hell. It wasn’t complete silence, of course not- no, the air conditioning still hummed as it blew cool air throughout the house. She could hear their neighbor to the right mowing his lawn, the wind’s summer flirting with the trees and their leaves muffled the music he was playing while he pushed the old mover across the grass. The happiness was casual, innocent, yet it sliced her down to her bones. Her world has stopped.
Inside the house there is a miasma of quiet that leaves her choking and breathless. There are no feet rushing up and down the stairs, no muffled cursing or gentle ribbing after school while Danny and his friends played Doom. There was none of the warm teenage laughter she’d grown fond of. No. It hasn’t been this quiet since they first brought Danny home. It’s been years since she first met him, and she has stubbornly hung on ever since. A too small child with black hair and blue eyes that looked at her with eyes too jaded for what age the nice older woman at the orphanage had estimated him at. He didn’t have to tell them anything for Jazz to know. His eyes spoke to her in the absence of his voice. This boy who had become utterly alone before he even was old enough for school was haunted by what he’d experienced before he appeared at the orphanage. She had decided that day that this little boy would always have her by his side.
With help from his social worker and a lot of time and effort, they had eventually managed to get Danny settling into an outgoing child and once he was out of his shell, he had made the decision to follow her around religiously, she’d turn away from the fridge and almost run him right over. He kept it up until he had made friends with Sam and Tucker, at one point his hovering had frustrated her to tears, now she aches for days past when her baby brother was at least within touching distance. Danny was hers. It had been Jazz who had tediously built a connection with Danny despite his… spiky personality, but her parents- their parents had grown to love him as if he was their own. She knew they did.
Jazz had been so excited when her parents had tentatively agreed to foster and later adopt Danny, she’d finally have someone for herself. Someone to joke with, to play with and she could show him her books! Mom and Dad had each other, often their attention would stretch, reaching for so many new ideas that they forgot to do things like schedule their doctor’s appointments or pick them up from school. Jazz can’t count how many times she would stand outside the middle school waiting for the GAV to appear, the third time they forgot she decided not to wait for the teacher to call their parents and snuck away while she was distracted with Dash. She had an easy enough time finding the elementary school. She had made her eyes real wide and blinked up at Danny’s teacher Mrs. Donner, explaining to the woman that her parents had decided she’s old enough to walk home and was sent to pick up her brother with a large toothy grin. Mrs. Donner had looked at her innocent face and big eyes and fell for it hook, line, and sinker. She simply praised Jazz for being so responsible and they were off, headed towards home. With their little legs it took most of the afternoon and because it was late October the sun was kissing the horizon when they arrived. Relief filled her at the sight of their door. She did it! From that day on Jazz never waited for their parents again. If she did, what would happen to Danny? She knew her little brother was mature for his age. Jazz hasn’t once seen him afraid, though leaving him behind at school might be the thing that finally does it. Jazz refuses to make Danny feel forgotten like she has.
She had a lot to learn so she spent the next two months reading parenting books in the library. As he grew his needs followed. Jazz had to make sure he was getting new clothes as he outgrew the old ones, they came from the only thrift store in town, but they were clean and fit him well. She had saved up her allowance money for his tenth birthday to give him the video game he needed so he could play online with Tucker. It was the one thing that seemed to fascinate Danny so far and she was going to reward Danny for going out of way to make plans with the other boy. Fentonworks was good for a few solid years. It felt as normal as their family could get.
Then her parents finished their portal. Unsuccessful as they had been turning it on. It mystified her that her brother managed to get it up and running in moments. Of course, she didn’t find out what really happened that afternoon until after Danny knew she knew he was Phantom. He had fallen out of the opening shrouded in sickly green light that further washed out his skin to make him look like something from the grave. In the tranquility of the night Danny told her in a hushed voice it took him seconds to realize that’s exactly what he was. Something that shouldn’t exist but did. He would tell her how his breath came in fog, how he steeled himself to look up and discover the portal was swirling and functional and eventually he had risen from that floor as something new. How he knew because he had died before. By that time, it was too late, he had forced himself to become a vigilante in response to the swarming citizens of the Infinite Realms and nothing she said could change his mind. Danny was already an object in motion before she had discovered what had really happened.
Every action has a reaction. Every choice you make funnels you down an unknown path that at its core is out of your control. An obscure college degree could lead to the discovery of a new world parallel to your own, taking an innocent picture could kill you again before you reach adulthood, or with a simple sentence said in anger one could make it so the closest of friends never crossed paths. With time you can gain experience by observing your surroundings and learning the pattern of which choices have which consequences and then plan accordingly. You can learn to influence the outcomes. It’s supposed to be soothing to have a plan. Jazz will admit it’s a lot different in practice than drawing up theoretical plans on paper. She was never very good at putting elaborate plans into action much to her dismay. Too many moving pieces to keep track of. Good thing this plan only had two phases, search and rescue. Tucker and Technus were scouring the web for hints of where they moved Danny to, until they found his trail she had to wait.
This time alone has forced her to stare his reality in the face and it was jarring to realize how their lives as siblings were polar opposites. Time and her experience had made her complacent, but of course she wasn’t the one getting chased around town by their parents while having to dodge ectoblasts. Jazz didn’t carry the fear of watching your parents gazing at her with no recognition-only fear and hate- while they tried to shoot her out of the sky, she never felt her fear so intense it would make her tremble as she had to remember to sneak around to her window carefully or trigger the traps and face the very real consequences she would pay the cost in her blood. No, that was Danny.
As soon as they could find Danny, remove him from where he’s trapped they would. She would take him away and actually provide some protection. Even if all the protection from his pursuers was a change in location. Or at least Jazz would give him enough breathing room and a burner phone to use while he goes to escape, and she throws herself at whoever shows up to hunt him to slow their pace. Jazz has no illusions that she would win even with all her training with Jack. She didn’t need to win, just to stall. She would do whatever she could so Danny knew without a doubt she would never stop loving him. Give everything and then some to keep him safe. Death could come for her, and it wouldn’t stop her. No, the Realms were interlinked with Danny’s very being and it would never leave their King with no family, in death or life.
If she could she’d wrap him up in her embrace and beg him to forgive her-no, Jazz cut that thought off. She doesn’t deserve his forgiveness. She would never let the question leave her head. If she asked, he would give it. Just as easy as breathing. She’s not sure where he finds the strength and grace to brush off serious offenses the way he does. (He must be trapped or hurt right now since he hasn’t come home or sent a message, a new group with the same hat, right?... if he- if he left her behind- if he saw no difference between her and their parents- it would kill her, and she’d pray to Clockwork not to form a core so she could rest when she dies instead of confronting her worst fear made real.)
Jazz couldn’t help but fall further into her memories, trying to hold onto the comforting image of her little ghostling. Memories that are poor substitutes but all she currently has. Her brother always had made the effort to stay under the radar much to her dismay. Danny was wicked smart. If he decided to hunker down and hide, they’d have little luck finding him. Tucker always says to her that hacking is about knowing how your opponent thinks, yet she never knows what Danny is thinking unless he wants her to. Daniel was an..odd child. A ghost in personality before the accident that killed him. A little boy who could get into any space in their house with little effort. Twisting his body to slip into gaps that should be too small to fit him. He blended into shadows with ease, often scaring her shoes off her feet, appearing besides her with no warning. Silent steps for a silent kid. It had amused their parents more than worried them, not a flicker of concern that she had spent hours crying out his name-alone- only for it to bounce uselessly off the walls and had worked herself into a panic looking around for their new addition. She quickly realized their parents didn’t see anything wrong with a small child disappearing from their supervision for half a day and that was the first time Jazz had considered, maybe she shouldn’t have tried as hard to wear them down as she did to convince her parents Daniel would do well with them. It had been a selfish desire of a small girl desperate to make a connection. It took her a longer time to realize he wasn’t just keeping himself withdrawn, no Danny was observing them, watching with sharp eyes and learning how to fit in by mimicking her behaviors. She doubts he had any illusions about their guardians, he was too perceptive, and proved it by easily escaping her gaze- even when she was trying really, really hard to keep track of where he was. Jazz never fully got over her terror of losing him in the mass of stuff her parents had accumulated over the years.
Those first few years they played an intense fucked up game of seek, please, Danny. Don’t hide. He never seemed to understand that people don’t just vanish out of a space, a frown distorting his face at the sight of her the one time he tried to teach her the trick to it. Afterwards she expected it to be easier to track his movements, Jazz would do her best to keep him in sight but even with her higher-than-average attention span the second she was distracted Danny would be gone. She had scolded him once that if he kept popping out of the shadows, he would become the proof of ghosts that their parents were looking for. (Just thinking about that joke all these years later made her nauseous. Her brother’s pout- what had been his actual reaction- pops into her mind.) Danny was never the most popular, he had toed the boundary of society by choice and necessity. He preferred when eyes slid over his presence.
(He admitted to her one night that all he wanted was to be normal, he was content in mediocrity. He had confided that he never wanted to push himself to be special again. He had spat it out with a nasty curl to his lips like the very word was dirty.
Jazz didn’t have the heart to tell him that no matter what, Danny was extraordinary.)
The Fenton’s reputation around town seemed to please him as it didn’t win them any friends. Sure, now that ghosts attacked the townsfolk bought their families weapons but too many people have suffered some sort of property damage because of their parents over the years and the GAV for a real shift in perception to take place. As it is, most of the townsfolk ignore them with a stony silence or simply give a pointed comment about checking the news report for when the GAV would be on the road. If Danny was the one sitting in the cramped seats of her last-minute flight musing about his existence, he’d insist he could leave without notice. Not a trace left behind of him to be missed. Would even bet money on it. He had gotten sneakier after becoming Phantom yet, Danny was very wrong. He didn’t take into account that even if he’s not going out of his way to interact with others, they still notice him.
Valerie, Mr. Lancer- Ancients, even Dash has cornered her. She saw the worry and fear underneath their forced casual demeanors. As normally as she could, she told anyone who hovered too long that Danny had caught a nasty case of whooping cough and would be out for a while. She just couldn’t make herself say something, anything, the truth. It wasn’t a safe decision and she had to be skeptical of everyone. They couldn’t risk anything endangering Danny even more. Team Phantom was made up of three teenagers and a half-human half-ghost vigilante that’s missing. Despite their intelligence, they were just that, teenagers. Teenagers who only had each other. They weren’t an organization with a million bodies to throw at a problem, there was no one waiting in the back to replace them if they fell or were taken. So, they had to be deliberate with how they approached this. She’d like to believe the few who’ve asked her about Danny wouldn’t share the information, but the team agreed not to risk it. By the twist in Dash’s brow and the tightening Mr. Lancer’s smile, they didn’t truly believe her tightlipped story but were unwilling to push. For now. It made her anxious and then when she thinks about the chance people will finally see what the Fenton's are, how alone their two children have always been inside the house that could kill them if they took one wrong step. It makes her heart ache fiercely. Maybe they’d help her. It’s a bittersweet fantasy she pushes away so she does not dwell in it. One way or another they were going to find their missing family.
Those very first few days holed away in her room confusion, anger and denial raged through her body. She hadn’t even registered the familiar noises of their parents banging away in the lab, but it’s been two months, and it was all she could hear from her room. Boom, Boom, ta, ta, ta. Over and over, nonstop. Jazz has taken to shoving her earbuds into her ears and blasting her favorite playlist, but she still could feel the vibrations coming up through the floor. The Fenton's when they see her as they pass by each other in the halls act outwardly like nothing has changed. Chattering away and throwing around ideas on how to catch the Phantom for good. It was like her world wasn’t expected to be decimated the moment Danny had been taken. The swinging between emotional poles of acting like the last ten years never happened, time rewritten as though they never took in that shy, bright boy who looked so afraid when people moved too quickly towards him, on the other end they could be heard from anywhere in the house dramatically wailing about the injustice on the stairs to the lab. They then rant like Danny is dead- fully dead and was stolen from them by this powerful, unnatural thing. Manic determination oozed from their rapid-fire conversations, they were determined to recapture Phantom and force him to allow Danny’s body and soul to rest.
She was lucky to be home when her parents received the call. Jack had cheerfully ripped the house phone out of her hand as soon as she picked it up and took it to the kitchen where it gave him the illusion of privacy. Jazz thought it was both very fitting and extremely concerning that someone had stolen Danny away from a GIW base. Jazz is fiercely glad but worried that if someone snatched her baby brother away from the people that were hurting him, how strong did that make them. They had to be powerful or have the manpower to take on a shady government agency. It made the chances of finding Danny that much slimmer. She had to find him to figure out if he was actually safe. Finding him is shaping up to be a challenge.
She could feel she was reaching her limit. Her brother is missing. Danny, her little shit of a brother was missing, and she was stuck in this house with his would-be murderers. The people who gave her life do mean well, but she can never forgive them for what they’ve taken from her. And there’s no trace of where he went! They had Technius and Ember haunt the base… computers were wiped clean, the same with the security feeds and any equipment left behind was unusable. Not even a hair was left behind, white or black to indicate Danny had been there, just a shell of a building blown into rubble. Tucker and Technius are trying to sort through the Fenton’s communication with the GIW, if they hear something or find him, they’ll let her know.
She hears them at night. Her-their-the Doctors Fenton, she means. She hears them in the kitchen from her room at night. Jack, a sniffling blubbering mess. Jazz could barely make out his words as he wailed, and Maddie who was calm, quiet, and serene. Both grieving a boy that was alive. Alive only because someone stole him from them. It made her sick to hear, sick and angry. How can they grieve a boy they sent off to his full death? How can they curse the fact Phantom isn’t available anymore for experiments? They had blamed ghosts for freeing Phantom, of course, but when Sam ran into Johnny 13 and Kitty, no one had heard anything. Jazz, Tucker and Sam know if a ghost had Danny, it was being kept really quiet and that meant it was most likely Vlad.
The thing that horrifies her the most is they don’t ask ‘how or why or when’ he died. They don’t hear her when she explains it was their portal and absence that caused this, little else.
(She’s never wanted to blame or resent her parents for Danny’s death, it’s not like they forced him inside…but there’s this kernel hurt and betrayal that has exploded inside her since his disappearance. It swims around her chest overshadowing the childish anger that echoes in the background. How can they wash away their responsibility? What about her? They’ve left her here to deal with this on her own, it hurts, she’s hurting, why won’t her parents help her? How is it that when they discovered Danny’s death, they both became dead to their parents. They pass by her room when they bother to drag themselves out of the lab to bed but not once have they asked her how she is doing or offered any comfort. It grates and stings, she tells herself she really should be used to it by now. She hates that it feels like a surprise at how low they truly will go.
Jazz reminds herself to be glad even as she’s immensely worried at the same time that someone took her baby brother away from the people that saw him as less than human. She had to find him to figure out if actually safe and not with someone or an organization that is worse. Finding him is shaping up to be a challenge. This is nothing like waiting for him to come home from his late-night stargazing, fully abusing the fact he could sneak out perfectly silent, invisible and be able to fly to find the perfect spot to see the constellations. In his absence she felt more like a ghost haunting the halls than Danny had been. When she lays down at night she strains to hear any hint from him, bumbling around as normal. She thought she heard something, a week into his disappearance, but when she had scrambled from her bed, her pillows and blankets flung to the floor in her haste- maybe he’s back, he escaped and came for her- but when she pressed her ear against their shared wall the noises had stopped. She’d take even a small creak at this point. She had laid there crumpled against the wall for hours, face blank and her gaze was distant. Why was she expecting Danny to miraculously find her? She’s the older sibling, Danny isn’t meant to take care of her or keep track of where she was-it shouldn’t matter he’s a half-dead teen with powers and that he feels like he’s responsible for her safety- Jazz is the eldest, she had been the one to convince her parents to give her a sibling.
Danny is hers, her miracle, hers to hold.
She was so stupid for leaving him alone with them. It had been less than a week in Boston, to get her lease signed and tour the campus so she knew where her classes were going to be just a few months later. Guilt continuously tried to steal her breath. She had to remind herself that falling into her self-loathing was only going to get in the way of her finding where her brother was. If he’s still alive-half alive- whatever the technicality is, it has never mattered much to her as long as he didn’t stay dead. Jazz turned back to her laptop, refreshing the server Tucker had made for them to securely communicate on, hoping to see some activity from her brother. Some sort of answer. She could look at how the complexities of what makes a halfa and what that means for Danny (and her) and how it made her feel later. To try and pass the time she tried to finish packing up her childhood bedroom. She had to keep busy, so she felt like she was actually making progress.
‘The world never stops turning Jazz, it laughs in the face of personal tragedy… I just have to keep moving forward.’ It’s what Danny would say to her when he got that look on his face. The one that said, I have taken what the world has thrown at me and the scars it left in its wake, I have survived what it has stolen from my hands, I have endured, one moment at a time until I have made something for myself on the scorched ground.
Jazz turned towards her desk and almost fell down, tripping over clothes she had been sorting through for donation. Where was the box ghost when you needed him? She was drowning in moving boxes that she needed to finish packing away to be shipped cross country, when her brother wasn't missing-Or fully dead. With everything going on, it’s no surprise that she’s still behind getting the last of her things from her old room. The most damning thing about the situation was Jazz had plenty of time to think about everything and she wasn’t surprised. She’s not shocked by her parent’s willful blindness, their casual violence. Their hate. Realizing in the aftermath she had always known how her parents would react only made her feel worse about insisting that eventually Danny should come clean. Had she been trying to convince Danny that they’d love him regardless, or herself? This is all her fault. Hindsight really is a bitter pill to swallow.
That first day home Jazz had gone up to Danny’s room to try and find some sort of scrap, a clue, something. She knew Sam and Tucker wouldn’t lie about not being able to get the door to open but she had to at least try. She had to try, or hopelessness would paralyze her when acknowledged she couldn’t help her brother at all. (All Jasmine Fenton had amounted to when her little brother currently needed her, was sitting in the house desperately waiting for Danny to signal he’s safe.) She tried everything she could, his door wasn’t even scratched. It was sealed shut. Her… roommates were either downstairs in the lab working on something or out of the house, often distracted and muttering to themselves so she had plenty of time to try and bust into Danny’s room. No matter how hard she rammed into the door or how many times she blasted it with whatever inventions she had been steadily stockpiling she couldn’t get in. How the Fenton's had made his door ax proof, she’s unsure. There doesn’t seem to be any sort of visible shield protecting it.
Tonight, will be different, she will find something. Her anxiety has reached a peak, so she bites the bullet, and she decides that if his door doesn’t open for her, she’d try Danny’s window. Glancing at the floor she pictured her parents milling about the lab like ants. She would have to be careful not to alert the Fenton's that she’s on the move. She couldn’t be sure if they rigged Danny’s room with alarms. If they did set sensors and if she is lucky, it’ll only trigger when an ectoplasmic signature tries to breach his room. Jazz may be slightly liminal, but she’s never had one of their inventions target her before. It’s a risk she’ll have to take. She turns away from her desk, hesitates, then turns back around to lock her door, just in case, before moving to the window. The glass slides quietly up in its frame and she peeks outside to make sure she’s in the clear, and when she doesn’t hear or see anything for a few minutes Jazz climbs out her window onto the sill to eye the old tree that was between her and Danny’s room. She’d made the jump before but only a handful of times in the dark. She thought of her little brother hurt and with strangers or worse, with Vlad.
Firming her resolve she jumps, and for a moment she’s weightless, only she didn’t push off hard enough and she’s falling too soon. Jazz has to bite her cheek so she doesn’t scream as she stretches out farther in desperation. Her fingers scramble to grip the bark to gain some traction on the sturdy branch, determination surging when her fingers hit wood. Jazz feels the tree tear into her palms, she uses that pain to fuel herself, her face stuck in a grimace. She had to succeed. She grunts softly using her legs to swing for enough momentum to leverage herself up to safety. The fall to the ground isn’t far enough to kill her but it would’ve hurt. Panting she half crawled half slid her body close to the trunk. Her hands were bloody and stinging but she was almost there. Carefully Jazz shifted around the trunk and reached for Danny’s windowsill. She was smearing blood on the wood, and she could taste it on her tongue, but what she saw through the glass made her feel a few drops of her blood were hardly significant.
Danny’s room was tossed, furniture destroyed, clothes everywhere. Burn blasts littered the floor and walls, but there was no blood she could see from her spot- ghost ectoplasm nor human. With the sheer damage it was hard to tell if the destruction was because of the hunt to capture Phantom or if it was done in the aftermath because of their frustration of having missed his transformation when it happened under their roof. Jazz refocused and pushed the window, it slid up silently, and she thanked her paranoid baby brother for the consistent maintenance he did on it. She crawled through, leaving it open in case she needed to get out quickly. Jazz froze when the carpet squished under her shoes. Shakily she pulled out her phone and turned on the flashlight. Her phone drops from her nerveless fingers. Blood, so much blood. Must’ve been before they caught Danny then. Maybe this is where he was cornered. Swallowing thickly, she looks away from the splatters of ectoplasm, splatters of Danny’s blood. Jazz tried to be quick and quiet as she scoured through the wreckage. She worked until the sky just started to lighten to no avail.
Exhausted, Jazz took in the destruction around her as she slumped to her knees besides Danny’s bed. Jazz had loved her parents. More than anything- family was oh so precious to her. She has always strived to meet their expectations. She had been resistant to training to hunt ghosts, but after fighting off those ghosts with Dad… she had begrudgingly changed her mind. It’s just- practicing with their Dad was fun. For once her Dad’s gaze and attention were firmly on her. Jazz was learning something because she wanted to, not because it was her best shot of getting established as an adult as soon as possible so she could bring Danny with her. She figured her knowing some self-defense could only benefit them both. For the most part, fighting and souping ghosts was Danny’s thing, Jazz had no desire to duke it out with her little brother’s rogues. Yet, she found herself working out on her own. The quick steps of a fight felt like a dance, one only she could hear the music to. It called to her. Danny had given her an unrecognizable look the first time he caught her. Jazz had shrunk under his intense gaze, feeling as if he was seeing something no one else even began to know to look for. It was unsettling as much as it soothed some unknown part of her. Being truly seen will do that to you.
She wouldn’t say she’s handled her baby brother being a halfa gracefully at all. His absence truly shed some light on her mistakes. She knows Danny… died, was still half dead. It’s just- it was so easy to overlook. Nothing about him really changed all that much. Sure, his heartbeat was off, and he was chilled to the touch and he started wearing clothes that hid his scar or drew so much attention no one seemed to notice the scars. Jazz is certain he’s noticed her… aversion to acknowledging him being half-dead and that makes the guilt dig into her stomach all the more. She- her mind snaps back to focus on her surroundings.
She hears her window slide open and her head twists to look. For a heartbeat she hopes it’s Danny. It wouldn't be. More likely it's his friends. Sam and Tucker are the only ones who’ve come crawling through windows lately, they’d usually shoot a quick message but- Jazz blinks. That's not anyone she knows, not personally at least. Just through the news and pictures. A shadow joins them causing her to jerk. Her eyes take in the brightly colored costume that juxtaposes against his companion's black get up. Jazz’s fingers search under the bed for something useful. They bump into a familiar shape, her hands grip around her creep stick that was hidden just under Danny’s bed with a breath of relief. Her heartbeat had gone from sluggish to pounding in her ears. Jazz takes another deep breath and uses her free hand against the bed to rise and face them, raising her chin stubbornly and schooling her expression the best she can as she raises her arms pointing her weapon directly at them. She doubts she could’ve fooled them.
The real question was, after almost two years of calls for help, why were Batman and Robin here in Amity, breaking into her brother’s bedroom?