I’ve been seeing a decent amount of “Amity gets scooped and plopped into dc dimension” style prompts so consider: Shadow Zone Amity.
Amity doesn’t appear out of no where in Illinois, in the dc world. It’s not near Gotham/Star City/Metropolis. Instead it’s inside of Gotham (bc batman crossovers remain my interest but any city could work).
So. Idk how many people are familiar with Transformers Prime but the shadow dimension is a mirror of the real world but in muted colors and people in the shadow dimension can see and hear people from the original dimension, however, people in the regular dimension cannot see/hear/feel/etc. anything from the shadow dimension.
I like that idea but instead of it being the shadow dimension being a mirror it’s a copy of DP’s world and instead of a one way type of perception the dp and dc dimensions remain separate… kinda.
Amity absorbs parts of Gotham and makes a shadowy copy of various places. The citizens of Amity are like, “Well. There’s a new park/office building/street/etc. I guess.”
Gotham, meanwhile, remains the same. Physically.
Sometimes people will appear in Gotham, walking, sitting in the park, etc. But they never acknowledge anyone and can disappear between one blink and the next. If there happen to be two and they speak to each other, it sounds like static. No one can’t touch them- Gothamites go through them. These ‘shades’ are Amity people in the Gotham areas that have a shadowy duplicate in Amity. None of the Amity people are aware this is happening.
I imagine the Gotham side of things dubs the Amity people shades ghosts XD
Anyway, on the Amity side a major ghost fight has to happen in one of the Gotham sections and so the Amity people run. Some are screaming, all are frantically trying to get away. One problem though- Ghost Zone ghosts don’t render on the Gotham side. So the Gothamites don’t see Phantom nor whoever he was fighting.
So now the Bats are desperately trying to figure out what could have spooked all the ‘ghosts’ (Amity shades) so badly because, I mean, it’s Gotham. It’s going to pop up again and bite them, right?
I figure Gothamites can get into Amity too. If one of them passes a threshold from an area of overlap where Gotham exists in the shadow zone then they can step into Amity, however no one from Amity can see them and no one can hear them. If they get back to a place of overlap they’ll end up back in Gotham.
Maybe overtime the merging gets better/worse and things start interacting more. Roads appear and disappear on either side. Buildings clipping in and out of reality, the Amity shades being able to interact with Gotham by like tripping on things that exist in Gotham but not Amity, the Amity people seeing items move that Gothamites are moving around in their dimension, etc. I don’t know. But listen.
The court of owls needs to have one of their 13th floor shindigs and just. Amity shades everywhere. They take over all the 13th floors, making the owl associates terrified because why are all these ‘ghosts’ suddenly haunting notoriously cursed floors?? They begin to believe their own stories. Bonus if the Amity people take the coffee and that’s the only thing they can interact with from the Gotham side 13th floors so now the owl court is supplying the ‘ghosts’ coffee so they can still use the 13th floors as their meeting places in ‘exchange’. The coffee offerings are appeasement. Meanwhile Amity side people are convinced there’s a coffee ghost somewhere because these brands don’t actually exist and where else is it coming from?
The Nasty Burger and Bat Burger could overlap. Someone walks into Nasty Burger and orders Nightwings. Someone at Bat Burger walks up and asks for Nasty Sauce.
Vlads lab and the batcave could merge sometimes. Imagine one of the bats running an analysis and suddenly theres a different computer with cloning info or detailing how to cut off a ghost’s circulation to control them more effectively? Or Danny sneaks into Vlad’s lab and theres a stack of adoption papers and foster stuff for various situations (that belong to Bruce, unbeknownst to him) and is utterly horrified at the level of detailed scenarios that Vlad’s got adoption contingencies for.
Tim, 17, is at the tail end of junior year at Gotham Academy. During gym he typically ducks into the toilet stalls or showers to change. He’s a vigilante and he can’t exactly explain his bruises/cuts/scars without causing concern, thus he just avoids anyone finding out at all. Unbeknownst to him, one of his classmates was in the same situation.
Wesley Weston was always late to the class after PE, he was always the last out of the locker room. He always showered after class and was very meticulous about putting away and taking out his uniform. He’d even refold his gym clothes a few times and comb his hair until nothing was out of place. Some thought he had OCD, others thought he was vain, and others still thought he was fruitlessly trying to be accepted; Wes was a known loner. There was plenty of speculation when the gossip mill was slow but in reality, Wes always stalled so he could change as quickly as humanly possible, but only after the room was empty.
By pure chance Tim forgets to switch out his gym shoes for his uniform shoes after PE one day and when he gets back to the locker room, it’s locked. Makes sense, the coaches always lock the locker rooms when there isn’t a class using them. Not having time to track down the coach and not wanting to be late to class, Tim picks the lock and out of habit, slips in quietly. He rounds the corner and sees Wes changing. More than that, he sees that Wes is covered in scars and scrapes. And in plain view is the still raw and distinctive injury Damian gave a mysterious, non-bat/bird affiliated vigilante recently.
That is how Tim accidentally discovers that Wesley Weston is Spyris. Spyris who appears and disappears without rhyme nor reason, who sometimes will hunt down Batman’s rogues and who sometimes will walk right past them. No one knows what Spyris does or why, just that he’s there and he’s competent enough to evade the batclan for the several months they’ve known about him.
Maybe he notices then or maybe Tim confronts him about it later but in any case, Wes automatically threatens to out him as Red Robin if he says anything and Tim is shook. When did Wes find out, how long has he known, how did he figure it out. Was anyone else compromised? And what did Wes want? What was Spyris’ goal?
Overall I want Valerie, Sam, Tucker, Danny, and Wes to be vigilantes in Gotham for whatever reason (ghost stuff?) working as a unit, but Spyris is the only one the bats/birds are aware of.
Tim and Wes passive aggressively stalk each other back and forth.
We know DC loves their timelines and the heroes there canonically deal with different timelines/dimensions with other versions of themselves. In theory, the Ghost Zone is connected to each of these different universes.
I remember reading a crossover fanfic a while back where Batman had asked Danny, as Phantom, to keep an eye out for a ghost of Jason. I just got to thinking-
I saw a prompt abt Evil Maddie and her tangling with the man of bats but consider: instead of Danny being involved in any capacity at the beginning Maddie looks into the Gotham bats & birds for other reasons. She investigates and correctly connects Batman to the Waynes but erroneously concludes that hes the ghost of Thomas Wayne. She and Jack work on setting up traps all around Gotham. Danny then finds out later about her misconception and tries to protect Batman because he protects both humans and ghosts, personal feelings aside. Maybe he feels especially responsible bc Maddie is his mother. Batman runs into Danny and Maddie several times, one trying to convince him to lay low and one trying to capture him. He evades them and when it escalates maybe Jack gets more involved with team ghost hunter on the frontline instead of focusing on traps and Val is recruited by Danny to help save Batman from his parents (she reluctantly agrees but only because she is convinced that he isn't a ghost). Batman is confused by all these people chasing him and calling him a ghost and increasingly alarmed when he can't find anything on any of these people.
Instruments that should become predominant in Amity as they embrace the hauntedness because they sound awesome and would up the creepy factor to outsiders:
Current Characters: Sam Manson, Tucker Foley, Danny Fenton, Jason Todd
Summary: Forced to attend a gala by her parents as she is every year, Sam Manson was resigned to suffer through the stifling three-night gala until something pulled at her core. The something turned out to be a someone. Just who is Jason Todd and can the trio gain enough of his trust and help him before his struggling proto-core collapses?
👻 {Chapter 1 Below!)
Danny groaned within the confines of his mind, exasperation and irritation and just a bit of fear welling up in his chest.
His disgruntlement did not go unacknowledged. Danny wasn’t alone, even in his mind, and he hadn’t been for quite some time. Somewhere in Amity Park Tucker sent a wave of comfort in return, and he too was uneasy of the trip Danny’s eccentric parents had forced him to accompany them on.
Sam, on a plane to Gotham, had her own problems and replied with a simple vague sentiment akin to ‘what can you do’ with less words. Her weariness seeped into it, making it feel quite resigned. It was as though she was awaiting some awful fate she’d long accepted and… no, that's exactly what it was.
Tucker broke the relative silence across the link with an unrepentant, “At least one of us is going to survive to Christmas.”
Danny responded with the impression of bashing his own head onto a wall and Sam began to seethe. Despite her best efforts, her mind circled back to the annual gala her parents demanded she attend alongside them. It was hosted by a different snob every year, and while the scenery might have been different, the atmosphere was always the same. Without fail it would be simmering with thinly concealed flaunting and heavy with thick lies pasted atop one another.
Sam wished she could tell her parents no. She wished she didn’t have to do this. She would never voice those complaints and misgivings about the Christmas gala ever again, and not just because of Desiree.
Every year Sam wanted to scream and every year she smiled and let her parents pick her outfits and acted like the perfect daughter. She couldn’t afford to be anything less at the Christmas galas and it made her want to hurl at the plastic cutout she endured becoming for those horrid days. Hurl, or commit a murder.
“I’m doomed. You’ll have to break me out of jail,” Sam muttered in her mind as the second option grew in appeal. “I swear these rich assholes get dumber every year.”
“And my parents get more insane,” Danny added gloomily.
There was a hint of something from Tucker that Sam could tell wasn’t thought out and she mentally kicked him before he could put his metaphorical foot in his unphysical mouth. Tucker swatted her in retaliation but understood, switching tracks.
“Uh… yeah. That sucks. But we’re halfway through our junior year and then one more year before we’re free from our parents!” Tucker tried to comfort. Danny’s gloom lightened ever so slightly.
For a few minutes, Sam looked out the window and imagined that she was going anywhere else to do anything else. There was a growing serene calm shared across the link, the tinges of uncertainty ebbing away. She could hear keys clacking away as Tucker typed and she could feel affection for Jazz from Danny as he texted her.
And then Mr. Fenton startled Danny and unveiled a new anti-ghost device and Danny’s mood plummeted like a twelve ton rock to the bottom of the ocean.
Tucker winced and tried to think of any joke that wasn’t a pun to lighten the mood.
Sam sighed. It was going to be a long, long break.
👻 {Boo!)
All too soon the plane landed and Sam zoned out while her parents immediately fought over what she should wear like they hadn’t ordered whatever the clothes were weeks ago. Sam had mentally checked out for self preservation the moment she stepped foot off of the plane. This wasn’t her first rodeo and she had the act down pat. Giggle when she was supposed to as her parents showed her off and stand silently behind them when they weren’t. At the seamstress or at the hotel lobby chatting with other rich people, the script was the same. It wouldn’t change for the gala either.
At least the previous two years hadn’t been as horrible with Danny and Tucker a mere thought away.
The days dragged like an ant crawling through molasses and then the dreaded day arrived. The first night of the gala. Wayne Manor was old, she noted as their limo drew nearer. She could appreciate the architecture at least, and maybe such an old house had a ghost. At least that would be interesting.
Danny pointed out that she didn’t have a thermos.
She quietly conceded his point and wished for something regardless while she smiled blankly as her parents greeted Bruce, the host of the gala this year. With a polite greeting of her own the Mansons departed from the entrance and swept into the manor.
Straight away her parents engaged in some conversation and Sam stood a step behind them. Allowing herself one sad, longing look towards the quiet corners of the room, Sam bitterly wondered why the Christmas galas made her parents fanatical every year. They let her get away with whatever she wanted within reason the rest of the year, but as soon as Christmas was involved they expected her to be a doll.
With that last break of character she let a calm wash over her, perfected from years of galas, and let her perfect daughter mask snap firmly into place.
“At least they’re only like this once a year,” Tucker commented, trying to look at the positives.
Sam agreed. If they were so controlling year round then she was sure she’d have run away from them.
“And at least the fruitloop is a shut in,” Danny added. The three shuddered at the thought of Vlad at the gala, Sam in particular. She didn’t want to handle him alone. Even between the three of them it was tricky to drive him off sometimes, never mind one on one.
The clock ticked on at an agonizing pace. Eventually her parents sent her off to dance with the son of some CEO they were chatting with and she used the opportunity to escape after the dance. So long as her parents didn’t see her doing anything “unseemly” then she’d be golden for the rest of the night. She made her way over to a relatively secluded corner and cursed at the dress limiting her movements. Just walking felt like a chore in the wretched thing. Sam might have come from a family with money but she rarely dressed it.
“Mission accomplished for the night,” she told the boys. “If I have to dance in these heels one more time…”
“You’ve almost made it through,” Danny encouraged her.
“And now you can scope out the room! Are there any cute girls?” Tucker prodded cheekily.
Before Sam could mentally reply a strange sensation washed over her. It felt like a gentle tug at her chest, at her core. Her lips parted and a faint golden-yellow mist emerged.
“Ghost. There’s a ghost here,” Sam said, head snapping up from her cup of stuff she technically shouldn’t have been drinking as she began scanning the room with a critical eye.
“Ask and you shall receive. You totally jinxed yourself Sam,” Danny said, though his concern belied the light comment.
“You can handle it,” Tucker added at her uneasiness. “You’re-“
“No, this is different. I- I feel something in my core,” Sam said with growing alarm as the feeling didn’t fade. “Guys…”
Now it wasn’t just Sam who felt alarmed but they knew by this point how to prevent a crippling spiral of positive feedback. Dread settled in her gut and Sam couldn’t even tell if it was hers.
“I think it’s tugging me,” Sam noted after a moment of observation. She stepped toward the crowd, toward the pull, and Tucker recoiled.
“Um, hello, reason here. Shouldn’t you not be heading toward it?” he said.
“But what if it’s hold on her core gets stronger? She needs to do something,” Danny pointed out.
“It doesn’t feel malicious so I’m assuming the worst. I might need you guys to pull me out of a mind trap,” Sam relayed as she weaved between the other guests.
There were twin nonverbal agreements from Tucker and Danny. Being connected to two other people usually meant that items and people looking to ensnare the mind needed to nab all three of them for anything to take effect, and for that Sam was grateful.
Sam paused as the pull led her to a wall. Wherever she was being led was outside of the main room. Glancing around, Sam spied a confectionery table and she ducked behind it. Without a thought she turned herself intangible and invisible and walked through the wall, following the pull. After several rooms, some occupied by guests and some not, Sam came across a balcony.
Hunched over the railings was someone wearing a tux. Sam couldn’t see anything spectral about him and that put her on guard more than anything. The ones that were strong enough to appear perfectly human were the ones that always brought the most trouble. She stepped into the empty hall and dropped the ghostly aspects from her human form.
“Are you alright?” she asked. That was usually a good way to start with nonviolent ghosts.
The person stiffened and whirled around. The first thing that Sam noticed was the tuft of white atop his head and the second thing-
A small cry for help. The tug increased and it almost felt like it wanted to yank her core out of her chest. She swallowed thickly and stood her ground.
He narrowed his eyes at her ever so slightly.
“Fine,” he replied curtly after a moment.
Sam scowled in return, a spark of temper rising. “Obviously not.” As much as she’d wished for a ghost earlier she didn’t want to deal with one so late at night, especially not one that could do whatever this was to her core-
“Deep breaths Sam,” instructed Tucker.
Sam inhaled deeply.
Danny prodded her and she refocused on the ghost. He hated when their attention was away from potential dangers for too long.
“Sorry, I’m a bit short after dealing with,” Sam motioned in the direction of the main room, “all that. But seriously, what’s up?”
The ghost man scoffed and eyed her. “I’m not keen on spilling my guts to a stranger,” he said, voice barely above a hostile growl.
“Fair enough,” Sam said, appraising him. She was given the impression that he too found all the rich people business distasteful. Striding forward, she noted how he tensed as though he was ready to bolt at the drop of a hat. Thrusting her hand out in a very ill-bred manner and hoping it would put him at ease, she said, “I’m Manes.”
The man snorted. “Jason,” he said, accepting the handshake.
Several things became apparent one after another.
Firstly, she could feel his core as it reached for her. This ghost’s core was so weak, so fragile that it wasn’t even really a core. It was a proto-core, meaning that it wasn’t formed from a death, and this ghost shouldn’t even be outside of the Ghost-Zone. He was basically an infant.
Secondly, the hand was warm. Warm as a human hand was, warm like it was alive.
And with how solid the man was and how fragile the proto-core was, there was no way that he was a ghost.
Sam tried not to stare at the very human man who was also a baby ghost.
Jason raised a brow at her and she yanked her hand back like the contact burned when she realized that she’d been holding his hand for longer than what was polite.
Danny seemed to be coming to some conclusion as he turned the information around in his mind and Tucker was rooting through what they knew about ghost formation from some of his files.
“Are you sick?” she blurted. It was the only thing she could think of. If Jason was slowly dying and had something he was passionate enough about to become an obsession then it might be possible that a core had started forming.
Jason huffed out a puff of air that might have been a laugh. “No.” One of his hands made an aborted motion towards his side, like he was going to grab something and thought better of it. “I just got out here. Can’t I get even a moment to myself?” he complained.
She snorted. She would’ve been more than happy to leave him to his own devices and would have if it wasn’t for the fact that he was a baby ghost. “Guess not,” she replied instead.
“Is he a halfa?” Danny wondered.
Sam immediately refuted it, but Tucker wasn’t so sure.
“It’s better to check,” insisted Danny.
“How can we tell? I have no equipment,” Sam reminded them as she shifted her gaze out over the snowy trees surrounding the manor. Aloud to Jason she said, “This is a pretty spot.”
She was skeptical. They’d been told over and over how rare halfa were. Besides the three of them, Dani-with-an-i, and Vlad-the-supreme-fruitloop there were no others of their species. The common denominator, excluding Dani who had her own circumstances, was Fenton tech. Sam couldn’t fathom how Jason might have been exposed to a portal unless he was a clone. Turning, she looked him over again.
He was well built, likely had an active lifestyle, and had black hair and blue eyes. Sam found her own eyes drawn to the tuft of white on his head, and now that she thought about it, Vlad had a streak of white in both of his forms. Yet, Jason didn’t look like Vlad.
Tucker added that he could’ve been a test tube baby and you didn’t have to have one person for that.
“I don’t think he’s a Vlad experiment. Vlad would’ve never let him go, weak core or no,” Sam pondered.
“Unless he escaped,” Danny agreed.
“But then how’d he end up here?” asked Tucker. That was the most damning question, but life was stranger than fiction. However unlikely it was, they couldn’t discount it until they had proof.
There was a mental knock from Tucker and Sam let him in. He was seeing though her eyes, she could tell, and she made sure Tucker could see Jason’s face.
“Wait- that’s Jason Todd!” Tucker exclaimed with disbelief.
“Who?” Sam and Danny chorused.
“One of Bruce Wayne’s adopted sons. He supposedly died before he turned up alive. Or well, maybe he’s not so alive…”
Danny’s presence joined Tuckers in seeing through her eyes.
Sam was going to have to look into more Jason Todd later, but right now she was incredulous. “He might actually be like us?”
“Or maybe that’s just typical of resurrection?” Danny tentatively offered. “It’s not like we know if he really died or not. And we deal with the already dead. Have we ever even met a resurrected person? Can you really resurrect a person?”
“What do you mean, might be like us?” Jason asked. The hard edge to his voice was back.
“I’m going to tell him,” Sam decided.
Tucker agreed enthusiastically and Danny cautiously. Jason had a core, however faint, and that meant the Anti-Ecto Acts applied to him.
Sam looked around. “There’s no one nearby, right?”
“No, there isn’t,” Jason replied guardedly.
Sam squinted at him but decided to get on with it. “Alright. Look. You have a core. A weak one, granted, but that’s enough to get you captured and vivisected.”
“What the hell?” Jason asked, rearing back with wide eyes.
“I have your attention? Good,” Sam said, leaning toward him. “You really died, didn’t you? And when you came back you… well look. Ghosts are real, alright? And you are basically a baby ghost. It… your ghost part is basically screaming for help, that’s how I found you. But!” she said when he opened his mouth, likely to interject, “This means a set of laws called the Anti-Ecto Acts apply to you. By law you are not sentient, never mind other rights. If you get caught you’re toast.”
“Lady you’re insane,” Jason barked, stepping away from her. His core was agitated.
“I’m trying to keep you after-alive,” she corrected. “The government has these floozies called the Ghost Investigation Ward, but everyone calls them the Guys in White since they wear white. If you see them, run, alright? They’re the ones who will capture and hurt any ghost, even if you’re just minding your own business.”
Jason shook his head and inched into the hall. “How drunk are you?” he asked.
“Not at all. Listen, just be careful,” Sam sighed.
Without a backwards glance, Jason left her on the snowy balcony with a snickering Tucker and a pensive Danny.
“Dude, you scared him off,” Tucker chortled.
“I needed to give him the important stuff in case we never meet again,” Sam replied dryly. “Ghosts are hard to accept outside of Amity.”
”I think I’m going to look into how he died and how he might have been brought back,” Tucker announced. Sam could tell he’d already connected with his PDA and was delving into the web for preliminary information, looking for promising leads.
Danny was nervous but determined. “That’ll help us figure out what he is.”
“It is a new situation,” Sam thought to them as she peered down the hall.
With a sigh, Danny mentally flopped onto a floor. “I guess I could ask Frostbite about coming back to life and baby ghosts when I get back.”
Sam’s initial, knee jerk reaction was to object and say that they should all go together, but Tucker was already in Amity so Danny wouldn’t be alone.
The two would be fine.
Oh who was she kidding? This was Team Phantom she was thinking about. Something was bound to go awry and she was in no position to help them when the inevitable other shoe dropped.
White, misty condensation swirled in the air as Sam exhaled noisily. She hated this time of year with a passion.
Ok hm. Vivasect is when you cut open stuff thats alive and dissect is when you cut open stuff thats dead.
Even if you know the difference, the GIW and Fentons wouldn’t care. Ghosts are dead. They are not alive. As far as they are concerned, one cannot vivasect a ghost.
if you’re looking at the treatment of ecto entities from a administrative/political perspective there is nothing wrong with including that in the GIW operations log or whatever because the average joe probably doesn’t know the difference and even if they did… dissection is for the still, the uncanny and unmoving. dead bodies don’t feel pain. Not many, if any, people will hear dissection and think that would apply to something that moves, something that writhes in pain, something that screams.
So in short, outside of Amity and maybe even in it no one thinks about the legality or morality of dissecting ghosts. Its just an empty fact in the back of people’s minds, like a faded high school memory. Light colors can mix. Water is a polar molecule. Dissection is cutting open a dead thing.
Imagine as a ghost having to (un)live with the fact that everyone knows what will happen and no one cares.
As for the weird reasons I was doing a think I mean there is Danny and Dani angst sure (and possibly Vlad) but consider Lunch Lady and Box Ghost trying to be good parents to Boxed Lunch in that world it would be sad (and possibly funny) to read? Doesnt make sense bc they can just go to the Gz then but idk, let me daydream
Current Characters: Sam Manson, Tucker Foley, Danny Fenton, Jason Todd
Summary: Forced to attend a gala by her parents as she is every year, Sam Manson was resigned to suffer through the stifling three-night gala until something pulled at her core. The something turned out to be a someone. Just who is Jason Todd and can the trio gain enough of his trust to help him before his struggling proto-core collapses?
Warning for language!
👻 {Chapter 2 Below!)
The next day went by much as the previous one had. Sam sat and let people mess with her hair and slather makeup on her face and twitter over her nails. Internally, she grimaced. Still, between the mystery of Jason Todd to occupy her and Danny’s excitement about returning to Amity it was difficult to remain too sour. Unappreciative of the suck-up-stylists that her parents had deposited her with, she tuned into Tucker’s senses and they brainstormed how the heck a human could have a poto-core and what that meant for them. How common was this? Was he born in the Ghost Zone before ending up in Gotham somehow? Did the core even belong to the living human? Did they need to help him?
Cores were… a little awkward to talk about with other ghosts considering that the majority of interactions the trio had with them revolved around conflict. Danny shouting punny retorts as they dodged blows or ectoblasts or telekinetically flung projectiles was bad enough, they didn’t need to try and weasel an entire biology lesson out of the ghost-of-the-hour on top of that. But they needed to investigate. Their current level of knowledge just wasn’t enough for the circumstances. Most of what they knew came from their own experiments, one crash course in ghost culture from Kitty before a very important ghostling-sitting mission, and a thin (and probably outdated) biology book Sam had strong armed Ghost Writer into lending her once. Even then, the trio had acknowledged that their cores were abnormal which was unsurprising given their halfa status. If they wanted to learn anything about conventional cores, proto-cores in particular, then Frostbite was really their best bet.
Sam could feel Danny chewing on his lip. Anxious to get back to their haunt and itching to escape the confines of the GAV, his nervous energy overflowed and she found her leg bouncing impatiently. She risked a glance at the time and was miffed to see that it was hardly noon.
“Half way there,” she told herself. One day and a half down, one day and a half to go.
“Halfa the way,” Danny snickered.
Tucker was amused despite himself and also disgusted at his own amusement.
“Traitor,” Sam complained at him. Puns were awful and she buried her fondness for Danny’s ridiculousness lest the other two think she was feeling fond because of the horrid joke.
“Hey! In my defense anything is better than these notes. Seriously, when did we even write all these?” retorted Tucker with a sliver of irritation. “And we need to organize them. It’s a such a mess after the scramble, I can’t find anything.”
Danny cheekily sent a mental gesture intoning his condolences in a sarcastic way that distinctly let them know that the notes were a Tucker-problem.
Instead of offering her non-existent sympathy, Sam suggested, “You could always work on the essay Mr. Lancer assigned.”
Tucker shooed her out of his eyes in retaliation and she couldn’t help but snort.
“You guys are so mean,” he complained. “But I guess this is better than english homework…”
👻 {Boo!)
The time passed slowly. Unlike yesterday, Sam’s parents dragged her to some set up to get their pictures taken. That, of course, took nearly an hour and a half before she was shuffled back to have her hair fixed just in time for the Mansons to rush back to Wayne Manor for the second night of the gala.
And unlike yesterday, the night went wildly off script.
She was distracted, admittedly. Danny had just gotten home and was excitedly narrating all the random things he was going to de-antighost after his parents went to sleep. Tucker had been looking through her eyes and had paused his running commentary on the other guests as Danny chattered.
She was standing behind her parents and for better or for worse, they were entirely absorbed in conversation with a middle aged, slightly portly man about a business thing. They didn’t notice when Jason Todd walked up to her. She certainly did with a slight jump, and not just because of the abrupt tug at her core. Mist escaped Sam’s mouth, so thin and pale that it was easily missed. It was nothing like the thick, vibrant plumes that ghosts in Amity triggered with their proximity.
“Care to dance?” he requested faux casually, offering her his hand.
“Unsubtle,” Sam noted, accepting the offer.
“Guys what do I do?” Sam asked Tucker and Danny. Jason probably had questions, questions that the trio didn’t have the answers to themselves.
Simultaneously, the boys gave mental shrugs and Sam nearly scowled. “Some help you are.”
His hands were still warm, still alive. He moved like a ghost though, so quiet and smooth it was like the physics of the world had no hold over him. Jason was taller than her so she had to look up to see his expression, which was pleasantly neutral, though his eyes held suspicion. They waltzed absently for several minutes before he finally spoke.
“They wasn’t a ‘Manes’ on the guest list,” he stated.
Sam snorted. For some reason she wasn’t surprised he went though the attendees even though she hadn’t exactly been expecting it. “I didn’t realize you were human at first,” she admitted. Jason’s arm tensed beneath her hand. “I gave you the name I use when I work with ghosts.”
There was no reason to explicitly reveal she was a halfa, especially considering how poorly it usually went.
His eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly. “Are you an exorcist or something?”
“Or something.” Rather than switch partners when they were supposed to, the duo twirled off of the dance floor and separated near a wall.
He studied her with sharp blue eyes that, for the briefest of moments, flashed green.
“Holy shit. I’m not the only one that saw that, right?” Sam thought, astonished.
“Nope,” Tucker confirmed.
“Saw what?” probed Danny. “I can’t exactly tune in right now unless I wanna risk slipping and bashing my head open in the shower.”
After almost three years of constantly being in each other’s minds, they were more than desensitized to the fact that there wasn’t any way to pause or turn off the connection. Still, Sam felt morally obligated to think, “Didn’t need to know that.”
On the other hand Tucker couldn’t care less. “You’d be fine, you’ve got a thick skull. Anyway, Jason’s eyes flashed green. And unlike the population of Amity, I’m going to bet that it wasn’t because of ecto-contamination.”
Huffing, Sam knew complaining was moot and crossed her arms. Truthfully, it barely registered as strange in day-to-day life; it was just a part of their lives now. Danny supposed she might have been feeling a little self conscious in the suffocating environment where so many people had holier than thou attitudes and was subconsciously reacting to what she knew society would disprove of. Tucker supposed that Danny had spent too much time with Jazz recently.
Before Sam could deny that no, she wasn’t acting because she cared about other people’s opinions Jason shifted, drawing her attention back to him.
“The Anti-Ecto Acts are a real thing,” he said at length.
“And?” Sam questioned a little sharply.
Jason scowled. “Look, you came out of no where and dropped several bombshells all at once. Who does that? I didn’t even think you telling the truth until I found out the acts really existed.”
“Yeah, well. I figured you would run off and that would be that. You needed to know the critical stuff,” Sam defended.
“Like I’m legally a non-sentient?” he asked dryly.
Sam looked away and scanned the opulent room. No one was outright staring but more than a few of the guests glanced their way with varying levels of discretion.
Jason must have picked up on her reluctance to talk around so many people because he took her arm and led her through one of the open arches in the wall and then through several halls until they were in a secluded nook that you’d have to look for to find. Letting go of her arm he gruffly said, “There’s no one around.” Sam couldn’t tell if it was a reassurance or a threat.
“What do you want to know?” she asked.
“What are you?” he interrogated bluntly.
“Doesn’t matter,” she deflected. “What do you want to know about your situation and the world of ghosts?”
“Nothing until I know my source can be trusted,” Jason replied steadily.
“Damn, he’s suspicious,” Tucker whistled and added as an afterthought, “but do you blame him?”
“Not helpful,” Sam shot back. Aloud she sighed. “Where I’m from there are a lot of ghosts. I help keep both humans and ghosts safe, from each other and themselves.”
That explained what she did, but not what she was. Hopefully that’s how Jason meant his question and would be satisfied with her answer. He didn’t say anything, seemingly turning over her response in his mind.
“So you… break the law to help ghosts?” he finally asked.
“Yes,” Sam said. Technically everyone in Amity broke the laws dictated by the Anti-Ecto Acts in one way or another by virtue of living in a hotspot that still occasionally flipped between dimensions. “Most of it is dumb anyway.”
At Jason’s raised skeptic brow she grumbled, “What? You gonna tell me government sanctioned genocide isn’t dumb?”
He blanched at that and said, “Yeah. Okay.” Breathing in once and then twice, he added, “Fuck. This is unreal. Genocide.” Running a hand over his face, he emphatically repeated, “Fuck.”
It clearly hadn’t clicked before Sam had stated it so brazenly. “Do you need a minute?”
“No,” Jason immediately refused.
“Great then. Am I verified now?” Sam inquired a little too snippily. They didn’t have all night and if Jason was unwilling to take a minute, well, who was she to force him? Besides, someone was bound to tell her parents that she’d gone off with the son of their host without telling them. They were going to kill her.
“You already got one foot in the grave,” Danny amusedly pointed out. He had barely thought about watching the conversation before Sam projected her vision to him. Silently, he thanked her.
“You’ve got a little check mark and everything,” Jason said, latching on to the new train of conversation. Then with obvious reluctance he asked, “So is there some ‘welcome to ghost world’ sermon or was the info dump you dropped on me the gist?”
Sam paused to consider for a moment.
“That was the general idea. You’re not a full ghost and there’s nothing pressing in Gotham that you’d need to worry about. And most GIW operations are more to the west so…” she shrugged.
“Tell him about his core,” Danny urged.
With a sigh, Sam obliged. “Well, there is one thing… so there are these things called cores. Ghosts can look like whatever they want and do some pretty cool stuff with their forms because a ghost’s body is a reflection of themselves. The one thing that doesn’t change is the core. It’s like a ghost’s soul and is the most important part of any ghost. Good so far?”
“I’m not a ghost,” Jason said irritably.
“Keep your pants on, I didn’t say you were,” Sam scowled in return. “Not entirely,” she mentally added.
“So,” she continued pointedly, “there are different ways for a core to form but I’m not going into that. What I am going to tell you is that there are different power levels a core can be at and the levels can change over time. The softest cores have a distinct feel to them. They are called proto-cores and generally they small and pretty fragile. And unlike regular cores, they reach out to other cores if they need help. Kinda like how a human baby cries if it needs food or something.”
Hesitantly Jason said, “Yesterday you called me a baby ghost.”
“You have a proto-core so you should be. Imagine my surprise when you turned out to be alive,” Sam replied, hoping that she’d answered his unasked question. “Speaking of, can I feel your pulse?”
Jason squinted at her distrustfully for a moment before complying with her request. He gave her his left hand and Sam carefully pressed her fingers into his arm. Twenty seconds later Sam could confidently say his pulse was steady and very typical of a human, if slightly quick.
“Unprecedented,” she murmured. It was a point against the halfa theory. The trio’s vitals ran slow and cold as humans. Even Vlad had a lower pulse and temperature, as they’d gleaned from his personal lab during one of their many escapades. It wouldn’t be a stretch to assume Dani had a similar condition. “You really are alive, but you also have a proto-core. This… might be an issue.”
Jason yanked his arm back with alarm. Sam rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to tear your core out or try to make you full ghost, sheesh. It’s an issue,” she elaborated, “because proto-cores need a lot of ectoplasm to develop. Ideally I would take you to the Ghost Zone so you could live there for a bit. Since you’re human that’s not an option.”
“Why should I let it develop? You said you piece about avoiding the GIW and I got it. I don’t want to be more involved in this than I have to be,” Jason said sternly. “I like the way things are now. I don’t need ghosts in my life.” He turned and stepped back into the hall, back in the direction they’d originally come from.
After his retreating form Danny felt an urge to do something. It gnawed at him and without a thought Sam quietly relayed on his behalf, “You’re probably starving. The ambient ectoplasm isn’t anywhere near enough for a proto-core. And regular cores can endure low ectoplasm levels but proto-cores can crack and even fade if they aren’t nourished. You were revived or whatever, right? For all we know your proto-core could be the only thing keeping you attached to your human body right now.”
Jason paused his retreat for the briefest of moments before ambling on, the only acknowledgment he’d heard her.
There was one desperate tug before the other presence vanished from Sam’s core.
“Cold,” Tucker noted as they watched Jason’s retreating back.
Sam waited a moment before following, intending to get back to the main room as quickly as possible despite her dread. “Rich asshole,” she corrected.
“He’s probably overwhelmed,” Danny reasoned a little restlessly. “But could he actually die?”
The ‘again?’ went unsaid.
“I dunno,” Sam thought back to the two. “But he’s an adult. He can make his own choices.”
“Except he’s also kinda a baby?” Danny said.
Tucker paused, turning over the statement before conceding that Danny had a point. Sam internally groaned. Ghosts never left children alone, infants especially. It was a great honor to be a parent and dozens of ghosts would fight for the right to be an unclaimed ghostling’s primary guardian, rare as they were.
“You do know that ghost adoption isn’t going to be an option here, right?” she told them. “He’s ghostly sure, but he’s also very human.”
“Dani’s who know where and the only other person with a foot in both worlds is Vlad. That leaves us and I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to be a teen dad,” Tucker said with distaste.
“But we’re adult ghosts,” Danny reminded them with an air of gloom. People who died with conviction strong enough to become an obsession or who died traumatically enough to became ghosts did so with fully matured cores. The accident that had half killed them was no exception. Although they were called “ghost children” it was a reference to them being human children when they’d half died, not that they were literal ghost children. If they had been, things would’ve been very different.
Sam shuddered at the thought of being adopted by the Lunch Lady.
“But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s an adult human man,” Sam said. “You can’t adopt an adult.”
“And what if another ghost finds him and drags him off? Sure, they might want to help, but most ghosts will forget to pay attention to his human side,” insisted Danny. “We need to feed him.”
Sam thought that Danny was being weirdly determined about looking after Jason. Tucker agreed and Danny paused to mull over her observation.
“It’s probably my obsession,” he concluded after a momentary pause.
“That makes sense,” Sam agreed. Danny was always quick to help humans, but even quicker to help ghosts in the rare times they needed it. And since Jason was a bit of both…
Tucker, however, wasn’t so sure. He didn’t voice any particular thoughts as to why but maintained doubt nonetheless. Instead, he lamented, “Well that was interesting. I’m going work on organizing my everything now. I’m still pretty pissed. My poor PDA…”
Wincing, Sam’s hand automatically rose to her chest, where her camera usually rested in her ghost form. “Yeah,” she agreed with heavy emotion.
Her camera still didn’t work right. It was just their luck that they’d been pulled away from Amity so soon after the scramble incident. She couldn’t wait to get back, if only to sneak into the Fenton’s lab and try to fix the ghostly aspects of their tech.
“We could also try to combine deflector technologies with your stuff,” Danny offered, picking up on some of Sam’s thoughts. “If we can make their ectosignature trackers ignore us there has to be a way to make the deflectors zap anyone but us.”
“It’s one thing to make the deflector ignore your own signature, but all three of us?” Tucker asked. “And what about our ectosignature combinations? How-“
While Tucker and Danny began geeking over the logistics of the hypothetical system Sam absentmindedly rubbed at the faint buzz coming from beneath her sternum.
👻 {Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it.)
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