A new ruler of Hel has been chosen, the fearsome King Phantom, defeater of Pariah Dark. It is time for Asgard to prepare to pay the dues required to keep peace between the realms of the gods and of the dead. Bring the terms of your surrender to King’s Phantom’s representative on earth, Daniel James Fenton of Amity Park.
The Noble Scribe of King Phantom,
Ghost Writer
*****
“Okay so let me get this straight,” Tony Stark, Iron Man and Avenger said. “Ghosts are real.”
“Yes.” King Thor Odinson, Asgardian and god of thunder agreed.
“And they’re evil.”
“A bit of an oversimplification, but yes.” Prince Loki Odinson, sometimes villain and would be planet invader, answered.
“And the ghosts have had one ruler, the most powerful ghost in existence. And that new rulers are chosen by combat, meaning that every new ruler is more powerful than the last.”
“Yes, you’ve got the idea.” Thor said looking down at his knees for a moment.
“And since ghosts are so evil and so powerful, that means that their ruler is practically an unstoppable force of destruction.”
“Doesn’t it sound delightful?” Loki asked, to which he received a glare.
“So, for the past 10,000 years, at least, Asgard and plenty of other realms have been paying taxes to the ghost king to avoid a war. A racketeering scheme.”
“I don’t know what a racketeering scheme is but yes, the ghost peace treaty does require that Asgard pay the ghost king gold and magical weapons every century and if we fail to pay that price, then the peace treaty will be broken and Asgard will likely be forfeit.”
“That’s a racketeering scheme!”
“Well then yes.”
Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. It was clear the man’s headache was only growing stronger as he walked through the information the two gods had dumped into his lap this morning. Thor and Loki both had rushed into his lab and started babbling about world ending threats and how they might possibly be absolutely screwed.
“So, now there’s a new king. Which means a new peace treaty has to be signed.” Tony said the words ‘peace treaty’ in the same way he’d say ‘nuclear bomb’ or ‘Steve Rogers’.
“I thought you said it was a racketeering scheme?” Loki asked.
“Shut it.” Tony hissed.
“A new treaty must be signed.” Thor repeated, trying to keep the three of them on track.
“And since the last king Pariah Dark was so powerful that he made the entirety of Asgard tremble, you’re pretty sure this new king, Phantom, is probably worse.”
“Pariah Dark had the power to suck entire planets into the afterlife, destroying them,” Loki said looking at his nails. “Stands to reason that a ghost powerful enough to defeat him could do much, much worse.”
“Right. Fantastic!” Tony practically shouted.
“I don’t think anything about this is fantastic.” Thor admitted, he was ignored.
“And according to you Asgard has been paying the ghost tax for both their realm and ours since we were under Odin’s protection. And since Hela and Sutur destroyed your entire planet and your entire people are refugees, now we have to figure out how to keep an ultrapowerful ghost from wiping out our home without any way of paying him.”
“Technically we don’t know if Phantom is a ‘he’.” Loki pointed out unhelpfully.
“The letter literally says he’s a king!”
“Could be a title. What do the dead have need for gender?”
“This is not the point of this discussion,” Thor cut in before an argument about the usefulness of gender and the concept of a female king burst forth. “We’re here to figure out how to make peace with King Phantom without resulting in a war that would destroy our world and our peoples.”
“We don’t even have Earth’s mightiest heroes anymore.” Loki said, referencing the painful results of the civil war and the Accords.
dp prompt: Val's tossing trash in the dumpster, barely an hour into her shift and already hating it, when she notices Danny hidden in the alley. Danny panics and thinks of the first excuse he can think of.
taking writing prompts!!
Valerie stared at the familiar tangle of limbs buried in the black garbage bags overflowing from the dumpster. "Um."
Danny Fenton seemed to blink stars from his eyes. "This is uh, not my usual dumpster."
She inhaled sharply. "It's not your what?"
Danny pushed some of the bags off of him and–YEP. That smelled foul. She took a step back reflexively.
"I mean, uh," and he did that thing he usually did before saying something comically insane where he rubbed the back of his neck.
Valerie cut him off. "You know what? I don't want to know. If I need to kick Dash's ass, though, let me know."
"Right!" he laughed. His smile stretched from ear to ear but never reached his eyes. "This time wasn't Dash! Thanks a lot!"
He waved her goodbye before turning the corner of the alley out of sight.
Written for the Teacher/Mentor day for @dp-outsider-perspective-week!
Characters: Lancer & His English Class
WC: 1869
Summary: All Lancer wanted to do was calmly and cordially discuss the last chapter of the book the class was currently reading. Unfortunately for him, his class had other ideas. Several of them.
[AO3 Link]
****
"Alright, class!" William Lancer waved his hand in the universal please quiet down gesture. "Today we'll be starting off with—hey, why are there only three phones in their sleeves?" he asked, glancing over to the phone pockets by the door.
The class looked as if they'd never heard of such a rule in their lives, despite the fact that for the past ninety days, in all classes every day, they'd been instructed and reminded with great persistence to put their phones in the sleeves hanging next to the door upon entering the room.
Two students sighed and got up to put their phones away.
William could already feel a headache coming on. When he first began his teaching career, cell phones didn't exist. At least, not as mini computers that could fit into pockets. Now, managing smartphone usage seemed to take a quarter of his day.
"Really? The rest of you all forgot your phones at home?" It was almost offensive that any of these students would think he'd believe that. "Alright, then if I see a single smartphone out, it's a detention after school with me. Your choice."
A shuffling of chairs later, and about a couple dozen muttered complaints, and like magic, every single student had put their phone in its appropriate spot on the phone sleeve.
Record timing for this class, frankly.
Nevertheless, William clasped his hands together and tried again. "Alright, all! Today we'll be going over the chapter of Persepolis that we read in class together yesterday." At the students' blank stares, he added, "So please get your books and notes packets out."
More groans, a few hissy, "For real?"
Really, what did these kids expect from an English class?
Lancer turned to the whiteboard and wrote ‘Chapter Summary’ in black ink. Hand poised to write more, he asked, "Alright, so can anyone summarize for me what happened in yesterday's chapter?"
As usual, he was only met with the sounds of silence and boredom.
Lowering his hand slightly, he looked over his shoulder and prompted, "What did Marji do? Did she go to school as normal?"
A few shaking heads.
Alright, that was a response if nothing else.
Time to start calling on students. "Mr. Sherman?"
"No, she skipped school," Mikey said.
Lancer wrote 'skipped school' on the board.
And then, from the last student Lancer expected to pipe up, Dash opened his mouth. "She was smoking that good kush, Lancer!"
Oh boy.
"Thank you for participating, Mr. Baxter, but she didn't smoke cannabis."
"Then, she should have!" Kwan interjected, always backing up his best friend. What a good kid, if that good kid wasn't also one of the main sources of his daily stress headaches.
If nothing else, this could be a teachable moment about the delicate relationship between the morality police and the citizens of Iran. So, William began, "Well, you have to remember—"
"Lancer, my guy, if I may," Dash cut in, throwing that charming smile he always did when trying to suck up to the staff members because he'd just gotten caught doing something he wasn't supposed to do.
Still, William was never one to push away a good opportunity for a class discussion, so he entertained it. "What is it?"
"See, I think I got the answer to this whole book."
"Oh god," Sam groaned from across the room.
"And what would that answer be?"
Dash slammed his book on his desk and exclaimed, "Get this! All these guys need to do is get in a room together and smoke a bowl!"
Lancer stared. He couldn't help it.
He stared.
"Excuse me?"
"Think about it!" Dash ranted as if he were about to solve world hunger. "All these guys are so uptight, right? That's why they're all beefing with each other—"
"Well, I wouldn't exactly call this sort of political tension a beef, but—"
"—so the solution is to just rip a fat bong!"
"Mr. Baxter. Please." William pinched the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb.
"What, do you not know what a bong is?" Dash asked.
"Do I look like I was born yesterday? No, what I'm trying to get at is you cannot possibly think you can solve conflict in the Middle East with weed."
Dash looked positively offended. "Why not? Look what it did for that Box Ghost."
Danny picked his head up from his desk. "What did what for Boxy?"
"Wait, you know what a bong is, sir?" Paulina asked.
"Guys," Kwan yell-whispered, "I think Lancer smokes weed."
"The Box Ghost totally rips fat hits. Come on, Fenturd, even you know that," Dash said, ignoring Paulina and Kwan completely now.
"Oh wait, maybe he does," Tucker said in realization. "I mean, that'd make a lot of sense. Boxy's so bad at protecting his boxes."
"Lancer so smokes weed. Look at him," Star yell-whispered back to Kwan.
Okay, this was getting out of control. Time to use his Teacher Powers and shut this whole conversation down.
"A Tale of Two Cities! Alright, people!" William raised a hand. "Thank you all for this riveting discussion, but I think it's time we get back to our book."
"But Lancer, do you smoke kush?" Star pressed.
To which William wasn't about to give them a single clue. He turned back to the board, writing 'smoked a cigarette' as a bullet point under the chapter summary, and said, "What I do in my personal life is none of your business."
"Oh shit, you're right," Paulina told Kwan.
"You guys are morons. No way Lancer smokes. He's obviously a wine dude," Connie said from the back of the room.
"Yeah," Brittany agreed. "He has a cat and everything."
"Ladies," William tried, shooting them a stern look.
Unfortunately, Dash had already taken the bait, blurting out, "No offense, Lancer, but you go to wine tastings and just chug the whole bottle. I bet that's how you're still able to be a teacher at this school."
"Mr. Baxter, keep that up and you'll be seeing me after class," William said.
Honestly, what was with these students?
Unfortunately for Lancer, Tucker seemingly still hadn't gotten over his previous revelation and decided to take over, turning to Danny with a "Wait, is there a such thing as ghost weed?"
Danny glanced around nervously. "What? Why would I know anything about that..."
Paulina, the most acutely observant and people-smart student in the class, caught him instantly. "Why do you look like you're lying?"
"I bet his parents invented ghost weed. That's probably why we have so many ghosts. Danny sells it to them," Star said.
"What? No I don't! I don't even smoke!"
"Liar, liar. I've seen you vape before, Fenturd!" Dash snapped, all previous threats apparently already out of his head.
Now, it was Danny's turn to look offended. "No, I've never vaped before in my life."
"Then who the hell stole Dale's vape out of the toilet and smoked it? 'Cause I've been saying it was you this whole time."
Someone had smoked Dale's toilet vape, actually. William, much to his disgust and horror, had to be the one to confiscate said toilet-vape and deal with the unfortunate, innocent freshman who was just trying to be cool to his equally innocent friends. It ended with an ISS and William issuing a mandatory drug safety class to be held with the school nurse after school for four weeks.
But William wasn't about to tell anyone here that. "That rumor will not be discussed in this classroom."
"You've been telling people what?" Danny hissed.
"Mr. Fenton, Mr. Baxter, please save any further arguments about this topic after class. Now, I believe we were about to begin a discussion about how Marji from the book we're currently reading and discussing ditched school last chapter to smoke a cigarette with some older girls from school. If you could all open your books—"
"Hey, teach! Do you think they have Fantasy over in Iran?" Kwan asked.
Oh, for the love of Lord of the Flies.
"Fantasy is an American Football thing, genius." Sam glowered from her seat.
"Hey, don't come for my boy Kwan like that," Dash said.
"Because I was thinking," Kwan continued, unfazed as usual, "that if they can't all come together over ghost weed, they can come together from Fantasy. Because I know sometimes on the football team we can have our differences, but when we're talking Fantasy? We all always come together."
"Hell yeah, bro," Dash said, holding out his fist, to which Kwan didn't hesitate to bump with his own.
"Oh, why am I not surprised? A bunch of meatheads throwing their money away on gambling," Sam said.
"Hey! Sports betting is way cooler than gambling," Dash shot back.
"It's gambling," Tucker and Danny said simultaneously in tones that were thoroughly unimpressed.
Connie piped in, still inspecting her nails for chips in the polish, "Yeah, my dad spent like twenty dollars betting on whether the National Anthem at the last Packer's game would be under two minutes. He lost."
Dash ignored her, raising his fist at Danny. "I'll show you gambling after class!"
"Mr. Baxter, please refrain from—"
Suddenly, there was a flash of light and a bang. A ghost shot through the wall, one covered in plants and flowers. His hair was long and braided down his back, and a straw hat sat on his head, amazingly not falling off despite the fact that he crashed straight into William's sad list of chapter events on the whiteboard.
Another ghost followed, this one an annoyingly familiar cyborg, and also—from experience—heavily armored from head to toe.
"That's what you get for stiffing my girlfriend!" He held up a baggy of what appeared to be ecto-basil. "This isn't the flower we asked for, and you know it!"
"My dude," said the hippie ghost, "She wanted an ounce, I gave her an ounce. Not my fault she didn't specify which strain."
The cyborg raised his fist, and an ectogun appeared on the knuckles. "Scammer! I, the Ghost Zone’s greatest hunter, will make you pay for this!"
And now William had seen enough. He reached under his desk and hit the green button. Sirens went off with Jack Fenton's voice repeating, "Ghost alert! There's a ghost in the school! Everyone calmly evacuate so I can eat fudge—I mean, kill the ghost!"
"Alright, you heard the announcement! Everyone, get out!" Lancer said.
The students, all too used to this disruption, took their sweet time leaving the classroom. Well, everyone except Daniel Fenton, who was already gone. William hadn't seen him leave, but this wasn't anything unusual. Poor kid was so terrified of ghosts.
"See? I knew there was ghost weed!" Dash said, ribbing Kwan as they exited the room.
"Do you think Phantom smokes?" Kwan asked.
Star nodded vigorously. "And I bet Fenton totally sells it to him!"
William sighed and took one last, longing glance over at his smudged whiteboard. Maybe tomorrow they could finally get through this chapter of Persepolis.
Summary: Valerie has good instincts (very good, but she doesn't think about it too hard), fighting prowess, and an arsenal at her disposal. Why shouldn't she be the ghost queen? Probably because part of her (most of her) is sure this is all some kind of trick and she wants nothing to do with it. If only the Fright Knight could get that message.
Or, because future!Val could hold her own against Dan, the Observants give present-her the crown.
Characters: Valerie Gray, Danny Fenton, Fright Knight
Tags: Ghostly Valerie Gray, Ghost Queen Valerie Gray, Valerie Gray & Danny Phantom, Lancer is there for two seconds and he's exhausted for all of it, Fright Knight serves the Ghost King
Happy Truce @tripwhyer, and sorry for the wait! I hope it was worth it. And thank you @phandomholidaytruce for hosting the event.
Chapter One: My Liege
Words: 2,216
Valerie’s skin starts buzzing halfway through second period. The next stroke of her pencil comes out shaky, and the few after that are completely illegible as the tremors set in. She tries to work through it, clutching her pencil tighter so it doesn’t slip from her fingers, digging the led into the page, but she can’t even tell if that’s an e or an o, a w or an m. Considering Lancer just wrote “dactyl” on the board, none of those guesses are right.
Dropping her pencil, she massages her palm, pressing her thumb down hard enough to bruise as she works the feeling back into her fingers. It always starts the same. First the buzzing from her wrists and ankles, where the bangles of her suit rest against bare flesh. The tremors follow. Nothing debilitating, but hard to ignore as the feeling works its way beneath her skin and the threads of her suit ache to slither over her limbs. It will linger for a squirming, teeth-clenching seventeen seconds, which doesn’t sound like very long at all, but when you’re stuck in a hard plastic chair with a teacher’s voice droning in the background, and all the little shuffles and sniffles and coughs and giggles of your classmates that are physically incapable of sitting still, then it drags on for an agonizingly long time.
The worst part is how empty Valerie feels afterwards, all that buzzing and thrumming beneath her skin fading away into something like disappointment. But sometimes, if she’s lucky, her instincts pay off.
A dark blur shoots past the classroom window.
“Oh, yeah,” Valerie whispers.
“Yes, Ms. Gray?” Mr. Lancer says.
Valerie snaps to attention, plastering on her brightest aren’t I so sweet and unassuming smile. “I forgot my notebook in my locker. Can I please go get it?”
Mr. Lancer processes that information with his entire body, brows rising, mouth pinching, and, ever so slowly, shoulders slumping to a degree of defeat that only teachers can achieve. “We’re thirty minutes into class.”
“Which is why it’s really important I get it right now.”
He looks to a desk two rows over from Valerie, where Danny sits. Or would be sitting, if he hadn’t left for the bathroom ten minutes ago. Mr. Lancer sighs. “Yes, you may go.”
“Thank you! I’ll be right back.” Valerie walks very deliberately out of the room, watching her pace until she’s through the door and a couple steps down the hall, before breaking into a sprint the moment she’s clear.
The bangles disintegrate into streams of crackling light that wrap around her, molding to her skin. It brings the thrumming to the surface, pushes it out of her. She’ll never get tired of this moment, when the pink light fades into the familiar blacks and reds of her suit, and her next breath is deep and satisfying. It reminds her of the first time she donned her original suit, when she pulled that mask over her face and realized she had power now. Her life might have been crumbling around her, but she wasn’t helpless. That feeling had grown over the months, exponentially so since her suit upgraded.
When she thanked Mr. Masters for the last minute save and asked him how he did it, he stumbled through a speech about nanobots, long-distance upgrades, and advanced tech procedures that made her head spin. Valerie is smart, but high school science only goes so far. It sounded like gibberish. It had worked. That’s all she needs to know.
She bursts through the side doors and flies up to the roof for a better vantage point. The yard looks still now, but there’s no mistaking what she saw through the window. Even without that glimpse, months of ghost hunting have honed her subconscious to recognize signs of a ghostly presence and tip her off, leading to moments like the one in Mr. Lancer’s classroom when her skin crawls.
Sure enough, there’s a flash of movement by the football field. Valerie tips forward, zooming in that direction, and passes the through the goal posts just as the bleachers explode. Phantom bounces across the field and rolls to a stop in the end zone, curled on his side. He unravels with a groan, clutching a box in one hand, and makes it up to one wobbling knee.
“Hey, my first touchdown.”
Phantom’s celebrations are cut short as a ghost wielding a sword flies at him, cutting through the air where the so-called hero’s head had been a second ago. Something about it prods at the back of her brain.
“Whoa, hey! We can talk about this.” Phantom dances back, jumping and gliding away from every slice and jab. “I told those stupid eyeballs I’d handle it!”
“The duty is mine,” the other ghost growls. It finally stops, the tip of its sword digging into the dirt, and holds out a hand. “Give me the crown.”
Now that the ghost is still, Valerie finally gets a good look at it, and her breath catches in her throat. Beyond its rotating cast of ghouls, Amity Park has a lot of one-time visitors that so easily slip from the mind once they’re out of sight, at least the weak ones. This ghost? While she’s only see him once before, she won’t forget him for a long time.
Sleek black armour in medieval style, his helmet adorned in spikes, with a cape and plume formed from deep purple flames. She never learned his name, but looking at him, she feels the ground rumbling beneath her feet. Sees the sky shatter overhead as the city is bathed in green light. Hears the rattles and thuds of a skeleton army marching into the streets. People screaming. Her blaster overheating in her hands. A ghost bigger than any she’s ever seen standing in the middle of this field demanding subjugation. She would have fought him, if given the chance. She will fight him if he ever sets foot in her city again.
Valerie’s hands are trembling again.
Whipping her arm out, she starts pulling the trigger before the gun is fully formed, watching the ectoplasm gather as the barrel grows around it. The gun solidifies just as the trigger clicks, and the shot explodes between the two ghosts, leaving a smoke patch of grass behind.
Not a miss—a warning shot.
“Stop right there, ghosts,” Valerie says. “I knew I’d find you out here.” She looks at Phantom as she says it, but shifts the barrel toward the knight.
“My liege—”
“Val—”
“Don’t call me that,” she snaps at Phantom, looking to the knight right after. What had he called her?
“Red,” Phantom says. “This isn’t what it looks like.” A pause. “What does it look like?”
“Two ghosts who are about to get their asses kicked for endangering my classmates.”
“What, that little spat? A squabble between pals. Fright Knight and I are totally cool, right?”
The Fright Knight—stupid name, too on the nose—jabs his sword at Phantom. “Once my duty is complete, I will have my revenge upon you.”
“And here I thought we were finally getting along.”
Valerie swings her gun at Phantom. “So you’re working together? You’re here for that king?”
“What? No!” Phantom shouts.
“Yes!” Fright Knight yes. “I am here for the ruler of the Ghost Zone.”
She doesn’t need to hear any more than that. Phantom cries out, “Wait!” but she’s already pulled the trigger. He leaps into the air, and she fires two more shots his way to drive him back before swivelling toward the knight. Phantom might be a pain in her backside, but she knows who the real threat is here.
Her first shot misses as the knight springs back, the second glances off his pauldron, and the third he parries with a flick of his wrist. The blast hits the team bench, cracking it in half. Fine. If her regular blaster doesn’t work, then she has bigger guns. Kneeling on her board as she flies around the knight, she raises her arm and curls it around her bazooka as it materializes in her hands. It whines as the ectoplasm gathers, casting a harsh glow on the ghost below, and Valerie grins.
No kings are taking her city today.
Phantom tackles her as he pulls the trigger. The shot goes wide, disappearing somewhere over the stands. Valerie stomps the pedal on her hoverboard, urging the engines to roar faster, but Phantom’s weight is throwing off her trajectory and they’re headed straight for the bleachers. With a yelp, she recalls her board, and they crash into the ground inches from disaster. The bazooka flies from her hands on impact, breaking into spots of light when it gets too far. The red glow flows back to her and a second, smaller gun forms in her outstretched hand.
“What are you doing? We’ve fought him before!” One of the few times they’ve worked together. But Phantom won’t let up. Her grabs her wrist, squeezing hard, and though she doesn’t want to, she releases her gun for fear of him breaking a bone.
His grip lessens immediately. “Thank you.”
A shadow falls over them, and Valerie does not flinch. She is not scared. This isn’t the ghost king.
The Fright Knight’s blade touches Phantom’s neck. “Where is it?”
Phantom glares at him. “She shot the stupid thing. It broke. Happy?”
Valerie holds still. The only sound is the crackle of the Fright Knight’s flame, and Phantom’s laboured breaths. What kind of idiot antagonizes the ghost with a sword at his throat? Fright Knight’s helmet casts his face in shadow, but from the slant of his eyes, she would guess he’s scowling.
“It cannot be destroyed, merely displaced.” The blade slides against Phantom’s neck an inch, drawing a thin line of ectoplasm, before the Fright Knight steps away. “My liege. I will return when you are in a more agreeable mood, and we can speak without such distractions.” He takes off into the sky, flames billowing behind him.
“Hey! Hold on!” Valerie squirms and kicks at Phantom’s shin, but her foot passes through him.
Phantom’s eyes follow the Fright Knight until he’s out of side, his grip slackening. Valerie wrenches her arm free and knees him in the stomach while he’s distracted. He folds into the perfect shape and size for her to shove out of his way, giving her a chance to scramble to her feet and put some distance between them, weapon already in hand. She doesn’t fire, yet.
“What is wrong with you? He got away!”
“He wasn’t here for Pariah,” Phantom says. The hand pressed against his stomach sinks in, and Valerie watches in horror as he reaches into his chest. Ghosts are so disgusting. “He was here for this.”
He draws out the box she had seen him holding earlier and shoves it in her direction.
Valerie steps back. “There is no way I’m touching that.”
“Actually, that’s probably a good idea.” Phantom looks at the box, the charred field around them, at back at his chest. “Man, I hate doing this.” He pushes the box back in with a shudder. “It feels so wrong.”
“Great, so you know how I feel about your whole existence. What the hell is that and what does the knight want with it?”
“It’s, well, it’s complicated.”
“Then uncomplicate it, before I get impatient.”
“You remember Pariah Dark?”
“No.” Valerie has to admit, Phantom has a very good deadpan look. Probably helps that he’s actually dead.
“Turns out the whole ‘king of ghosts’ thing wasn’t just one guy going mad with power. I mean, he did, but that’s not the point. It’s not just a title. It’s something the Ghost Zone needs. I don’t know how to explain it because I don’t really understand it myself. All they would tell me is that a new ruler has been chosen, and they need to don the crown before...just. They need to take the crown.”
“And it’s in that box.”
Phantom nods.
My liege. Fright Knight had said that at least twice, which leads to one logical conclusion. “You?”
It made sense, except...the line of ectoplasm on Phantom’s throat bobs as he gasps. “What? No, I don’t—do you really think the Fright Knight would put a sword to my neck if I was his king? Actually, don’t answer that. But...no. I offered. The Observants said no. Those stupid eyeballs said I couldn’t be trusted with it.”
“Probably because you call them ‘stupid eyeballs.’ Just a guess.”
“What can I say? I’m an honest person.”
“So honest that not even other ghosts trust you?”
“There are...other factors. That affect how the Observants see me, and why they think you’re a better choice. Maybe I’ll tell you about it someday.”
Normally, Valerie would jump on that, demand to know what makes him so untrustworthy in this scenario (not that she trusts him much outside life-or-death situations), but her mind has stalled, filled with static and four unassuming words. You’re a better choice.
“Red?” Phantom asks. His mind catches up with his mouth a second later as his eyes widen. “Shit, I didn’t mean—”
EYY WE'RE BACK IN BUSINESS, BABY, and Chapter 8 of The Summoner's Second Chances is not, in fact, the last chapter! \o/ What can I say; they ran away with me a little.
“I know, isn’t he handsome?” She dropped it on the bed and started to untie her robe. “Well. Maybe not as good as the real one, but. Still a nine, at least.”
“Paulina? What the—?” He drifted closer to watch over her shoulder, still shaking with stifled laughter.
“Shh shh, trust me.” She tied her robe around the pillow and cinched in the waist.
“Dang. Y’know? I think he wears it better than me.”
“Pff! Wrong. He might be cute, but you made it Gucci.”
It’s 2 in the morning and my sleep schedule is fucked so I’m having fun with writing prompts for later and using the italics and bold features a little too much.
I’ve had a sudden vision of Danny Phantom, in very quick succession:
1. meeting Red Hood for the first time
2. sensing that he has a whole ass corrupted core, and, without explaining anything to anyone about anything
3. picking Jason up in the air and shoving his hand into his chest
I can see the Batfam but especially Bruce/Batman being horrified at watching what they think is this otherworldly, eldritch terror entity appear out of nowhere and murder their brother/son/friend right in front of them.
They attack, and Danny jerks something out of Jason’s chest before dropping him, ignoring all his new wounds thanks to the Batfam to immediately contain the toxic green, oozing core like it’s worth more than his life. (I imagine like an ecto-shield but it acts like a Steven universe bubble) and sends it away/destroys it/contains it for the time being idk
Jason is somehow alive- although he’s collapsed on his hands and knees puking up all the leftover toxic, corrupted ectoplasm that has been filtering through his veins for however long since he was revived.
After a disgusting/concerning amount of time, Jason is all out of toxic waste to puke up and the others have either captured Danny or he disappears idk
But suddenly Jason pops up looking more revived since he was- well- revived and he is like “I know that was wildly traumatic for all of us involved, but I think that weird little glow stick just saved my undead life” and the others go:
Because they absolutely hammered that thing when it attacked Jason and it just disappeared?? With no trace???
And Danny is just like: who the fuck is this random person walking around with a corrupted core killing him just as much as it was keeping him alive and why did everyone within a ten mile vicinity just use me for target practice
And you’re brain’s probably went to a dark place immediately, but no. There’s nothing cannibalistic or depraved about it.
There are plants based on ectoplasm, animals that reform. The Ghost zone simply has food. And ghosts eat it to survive, just as humans do.
In addition, ghosts do not tend to eat in meals.
In the Terminal, that lawless place in the shadow of Pariah’s Keep, they scavenge. They eat frequently, and whatever they can get their hands on.
Whereas in Elysium, the major Greek kingdom, they host meals. Roughly every earth fortnight, they will hold a massive banquet and eat until every one of them is satiated.
In such a place as a kingdom of the ghost zone, none go hungry. It is a value most everybody shares.
Then there is Danny.
Danny who does not know any better, the Phantom who has been starving for so long he is used to it, the boy that eats nothing but the excess ectoplasm his parents make him clean out of the ecto-filtrator.
He knows nothing of food. Has never known anything expect his volatile core and finicky abilities.
oOo
And now that she took a step back and actually looked, Pandora could see. This child’s core was something erratic, as though he’d been consuming raw ectoplasm. And his aura was faint enough that he must have been eating little of that, still.
That- that couldn’t be healthy. Pandora was no expert on the limits of those so liminal as to be halflings, but he was still a child. Even in the Wastes ghosts did not come so unhealthy as this.
But then, if he was liminal, and of the human realm, it was no surprise he didn’t know any better. Had he even ever eaten real food.
She wondered how he had functioned this long, wondered if he even understood there was anything wrong. He was young enough that he could likely digest food most ghosts could not handle, but Pandora did not know how well that would let the child sustain himself, considering she didn’t make a habit of testing the limits of child-stomachs.
So she easily grabbed Daniel in one hand, ignoring his alarmed yelp.
“We need to take you to a doctor at once, little one!” She said, rushing him from the outskirts to the depths of Elysium, paying no mind to his protest.
And if the child became an honored guest at her feasts after that, no one was complaining.
