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thevoidstaredback · 2 months ago

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Tales of Conquest, Warnings of Fools:

Letters Between Brothers

Danny stared at himself in the mirror on the back of his bedroom door, a new addition to his room. Slowly, he pulled at the energy he felt within himself. It gathered behind his sternum, flowing through the lichtenberg scar like blood in veins. He could feel it pooling, ready to burst forth, but he kept a tight lid on it. As he exhaled, he allowed the cold electricity to leave his sternum, moving up and down the outside of his body with a soft crackle of shattering ice.

When he opened his eyes again, he no longer had to breathe. His hair was whiter than the purest snow, his skin so pale that it was tinted blue, his eyes orange and red. His clothes changed into the HAZMAT he’d worn in the portal. While the now ruined suit had been black on white, the one he now saw his reflection wearing was white where it had been black and black where it had been white. His body still had every scar between forms, though the lichtenberg scar glowed the same toxic green as the portal in this form.

The first week after getting this weird transformation, he’d called out sick. Sam, Tucker, and Jazz had all been concerned, but he brushed them off with a promise to explain later. In that week, he spent all hours getting himself under control. It started with the intangibility that had made him drop his pencil and fall through his bed. Then, the invisibility that jumpscared his reflection. Last was the flight he’d discovered by falling down the stairs. They were easy enough to get a hold of.

The next week was when everything started to go wrong. Honestly, he was glad and amazed it hadn’t happened sooner.

Something came through the portal.

She called herself The Lunch Lady. She had green skin, white hair tucked into a pink bandana, a matching pink dress, and a white apron. She first appeared at Casper High, violently objecting to the ‘healthier’ change of menu.

When Danny had heard about the attack, he’d felt the transformation wash over him for the first time. On instinct alone, he’d flown the two blocks between his school and the high school, engaging her in combat when he met her. She was angry, but calmed down after he won. Before he could do anything, she left.

When he got back to his own school, the transformation dropping, his friends were waiting for him. They practically dragged him by the ear until he explained what the hell was going on. When he told them, Sam ripped into him about telling them things so that they can work through it together. Tucker practically fawned over his new powers, asking all sorts of questions.

The very next day, another ghost appeared. He called himself Skulker the Hunter. He was a large ghost, standing nearly twice as large as Danny did. He had gray skin that looked to be made out of metal. His eyes and hair were the same green as the portal, and he wore black pants and a black shirt. His gloves, boots, and shoulder armor were all dark gray. He also had a black choker around his neck with a skull charm on it.

He showed up when Danny was walking around town with Sam and Tucker. The ghost had some way of tracking Danny that put him on edge. How was he being tracked and how did he stop it?

Skulker had taken Tucker’s PDA and had been very nice about not bothering Danny when he was busy, but he’d eventually started a fight. Danny, transformed into his color-inverted form, lured the ghost away to the Amity Park Zoo. He almost lost the fight, accidentally cornering himself, when a purple-back gorilla came to his aid. He had no idea how the gorilla had gotten out of its cage, but Danny wasn’t going to ask questions.

After the fight, Skulker also disappeared. Instead of going after him like he had The Lunch Lady, Danny stayed with the gorilla. It - she he noticed - was trying to communicate with him. So, after turning back into his normal self, he walked her back to where she was being kept. On the way, he started to pick up her language. It was a modified version of American Sign Language, with the added fineness of several gorilla-only words.

The zookeepers had been hysterical when they had found her missing, though they’d been so relieved when he turned the corner with her. They first checked up on the gorilla, leading Danny to discover that she and one other gorilla were the last of the purple-back gorillas.

“Why don’t you put them together, then?” he had asked.

The zookeeper he was talking to gave him a weird look. “It costs a lot to have one of them here. We can’t afford to keep them both, so the other is in a zoo in Metropolis.”

Danny’s eyebrow raised. “First of all, I’m pretty sure that’s a kind of animal cruelty.” At least, his Mother had taught him as such. “Second, the other is male, right?”

“Yeah, they both are.”

“Except they’re not.”

“What?”

“Did you not-?” he turned to the gorilla and signed to her as he spoke aloud. “What’s your name?”

The purple-back gorilla sat down and lifted her arms. She signed D-E-L-I-L-A-H before making the ASL letter P with her right hand, pushing it from her chest like the sign for white. After dropping the sign, she made a P with both hands and hit her chest.

Again, Danny signed at her as he spoke. “You have a sign name? Cool. The second one was your species’ sign, right?” She nodded and he smiled, dropping his hands and turning back to the gobsmacked zookeeper. “I’d like to reintroduce you all to Delilah.” He made her sign name before moving to make the sign she had for her species. “She’s a female purple-back gorilla.”

There was silence for a moment before the present zoo staff erupted into noise. He answered their questions, a bit overwhelmed, but mostly amused that they’d made such a mistake. It was a good day.

It was also the day when he realized that he might want to start cataloging things. So, now he sat at his desk, a day later, staring at the new notebook he’d bought. At first, his plan was to write down every ghost he met and their abilities. He also wanted to write about himself, but he didn’t want to risk his parents getting ahold of the information. Anyone knowing what he knew was a potential disaster that he didn’t want to be responsible for. But, he really needed a way to keep track of everything.

He hit his head with the palm of his hand. “It doesn’t have to be in English, dumbass!”

With new resolve, Danny opened the notebook to the first page and titled it ‘La Dame du Déjeuner’. Under the title, he drew a picture of The Lunch Lady, coloring it in. Next to the picture, he wrote down what he knew about her. On the next page, he did the same thing, titling it ‘Le Chasseur’.

He was going to do a page for himself, but thought better of it. Instead, he found an older notebook, also empty, and titled the second page in ‘Mi-vivant, Mi-mort’. He was sure that’s what he was. Just above that, though, he wrote down ‘Le Fantôme’. Just as he had the others, he drew two pictures of himself, one as Phantom - what he was calling his ‘vigilante’ persona - and one as Danny, coloring and labeling each accordingly. Under the pictures, he wrote down a list of enhancements he’d noticed that transferred between his two forms. On the back of the page, he wrote about The Accident that turned him into what he is. On the page after that, he started a list of his powers, accompanying each power with a quick summary of how it feels when he uses it.

There was a knock on his door and he slammed the notebook closed. “Danny?” It was Jazz.

“Yeah?” He called back, shoving both notebooks in the top drawer to be moved later.

“Can I come in?”

He made sure nothing incriminating was out. “Sure!”

The door opened and Jazz stepped into the room, closing the door behind herself and leaning against the mirror. She looked him up and down, moved her appraising gaze around every inch of his room, and then locked eyes with him. “Y’know, not a lot of things surprise me. The way you’ve been acting lately is one of the things that has managed it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you’ve been acting differently for almost three weeks now. You’re doing a damn good job of acting like nothing is different, but you can’t fool me, little brother. I’ve known you for as long as you’ve been here, I’ve been studying psychology since just before then. What’s going on?”

Danny shook his head. “I can’t tell you.”

“Can’t or won’t?” She sighed when he didn’t answer after a few minutes. “Look, Danny, I- You used to tell me everything. Why are you holding back now?”

He didn’t look up from the floor. Jazz had every right to know what was going on. Tucker and Sam knew. Hell, he was even going to tell Damian! Why shouldn’t Jazz know? But, the thought of her getting hurt- it was too much for him. He didn’t want her to get hurt because of this.

Jazz sighed again, running a hand over her hair. “You know you can trust me, right?”

“Yes.” he nodded.

“Then tell me. Please.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

She groaned in frustration. “Not telling me is going to do more damage than telling me. I can keep your secrets, DD, I always have.”

She was right, of course. For as long as he’d known her, Jazz had kept every piece of information to herself unless he said otherwise. She still didn’t know about what he came from or what he was born to do. She didn’t know what his father and brother and their family did at night. She didn’t even know he’d been in the lab when the portal turned on! Jazz had every right to know what was going on, but he couldn’t find the words. “I’m sorry.”

Jazz pushed off the door, turning away and opening it. “Come and find me when you’re ready to talk.” Then, she walked out and closed the door behind her.

Danny slumped, hitting his forehead on his desk. He could hear Jazz go into her own room shutting the door behind herself before flopping onto her bed. He stopped listening then, manually forcing his now enhanced hearing to focus anywhere else but his sister’s room.

He found himself listening to the faint sounds from the basement lab. Unlike if they had been on the second or main floors, his parent’s voices were like whispers to him through the material of the lab and the house, though he could still make out every word.

“-apart molecule by molecule!” his dad was saying.

“Calm down, honey,” mom stated kindly. He could practically see her putting a hand on Jack’s arm. “We’ll catch the ghost boy eventually.”

Ghost boy..? Were they talking about him?

Jack sighed. “I know, but it’s the only one we’ve seen!” There was a noise of something falling. “Did you get the cameras in place?”

“Yep!” Maddie had a smile in her voice, “We now have round the clock recording on the portal. Now, we’ll know exactly what comes through and when.”

“Perfect!” Dad cheered, “I’ve just finished the Fenton Thermos. As soon as we see any ghosts, we can suck them right up and bring them back to be studied.”

Shit. That wasn’t good. His parents having a way to capture him and other ghosts was not a good thing. Though, if he could get his hands on one of those, it’d be useful for making sure his opponents didn’t get away to start trouble after every fight.

He still didn’t know where La Dame Du Déjeuner or Le Chasseur had gone off to, though he had the feeling they had gone back through the portal. He couldn’t be sure, though.

Danny forced his hearing away from the lab. He really didn’t want to listen to his parents talk about how they were going to ‘study’ ghosts. Especially since a lot of what they were saying was against the Geneva Convention.

Instead, he focused on the picture he had started working on. He’d been trying to get his left hand back to what it was handwriting wise, but it was proving to be a lot more difficult than he originally anticipated. The nerves in his hand and arm were fried, so he had little to no feeling, and what feeling he did have was only in extreme circumstances like extreme hot or cold. Moving them felt like learning how to walk, but somehow worse. His brain was sending signals to the muscles to move, and they did, and he could see them moving, but it did nothing because he couldn’t feel what he was touching.

Enhanced strength was one of the powers that decided to bleed over into his living form. This wasn’t a problem until he had to use his left arm or hand. Because he couldn’t feel anything, he didn’t know how strong he was gripping things until it either shattered/bent in his hand or they slipped through his fingers. It was hard to get control of and people were starting to notice.

Going to physical therapy would be a good thing, but he didn’t have the money for that. He could ask his parents, but he didn’t want them to know anything about this. Asking Mr. Jeremy was out of the question, so was asking Jazz or Mr. and Mrs. Foley. So, he was doing things on his own.

The lack of progress was infuriating, though. He was used to fast results in everything! Even the things that he was bad at, he improved very quickly. Grandfather and Mother had praised him for learning so fast. The rate at which he was going was disappointing to even himself.

He wanted to wield his knives again and work his way back into wielding his katana, but he couldn’t even write his name, let alone safely hold a blade! He mourned at the thought of the possibility of never being able to use his blades because he’d gotten so hurt.

His sight was the second thing he was most frustrated about. He hated not being able to see clearly. Sure, his right eye still held perfect vision, but now he had a huge blindspot - don’t laugh - on his left side that he had to overcompensate for.

His balance was the third thing that was off. It’d been quicker progress to learn to rebalance himself, but he kept stumbling over his own feet. The flight that bleed over from his dead form was his only saving grace. The combat style he’d been taught relied on mobility, balance, speed, and stealth. Right now, he was down on all of those.

The enhancements that bleed between his living and dead forms had been all that was saving him from breaking down completely. The enhanced hearing helped out with his balance, but it was still mostly focused on his right side. Everything through his left ear sounded like it was underwater and twelve layers of wood.

The enhanced sight was met with much the same results, though everything he saw with his left eye was about half less blurry. He was looking into glasses for his living form, but he didn’t yet know how he’d excuse them.

Again, though, the enhanced strength was more of a problem than not.

Danny slammed his head against the table before standing up and leaving his room. He wasn’t going to tell Jazz everything, but he needed help. He was struggling and, admittedly, exactly one more failure from a mental breakdown.

He knocked on her door a bit louder than he meant to and waited for her to allow him in. When she did, he made sure he was extra careful with his new strength as he opened the door and closed it behind himself. There was no sound after the soft click of the door closing.

“Well?” she prompted.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t want to tell you because you’d get hurt or you would’ve blamed yourself and I really didn’t want-”

“Whoa, slow down, Danny!” she sat up, “Take a deep breath and try again.”

He did as she said, sitting on the floor in front of her. “I was in the lab when the portal turned on.” She didn’t react, so he continued. “Sam and Tucker wanted to see it, and Sam wanted a picture, so, against my better judgment, I took them down to see it. Sam wanted me in the portal for the picture, so I went in, but I tripped and I-I hit the, um, the button on the inside and it turned on.” He fell quiet.

Jazz moved slowly to join him on the floor. She sat next to him and pulled him into a hug. “Oh, Danny, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s, uh, it’s okay. It was my fault anyway. And don’t say it wasn’t! Mr. Jeremy gave me the whole spiel at the hospital and I really don’t wanna hear it again.”

“The hospital?!” she shrieked.

He cringed. “Yeah, um, a lot of electricity decided to use me as a shortcut. It hurt, like, a lot. The doctor said that the hearing and sight loss in my left ear and eye are permanent. She also said that I’d have chronic pain in my left hand and arm for the rest of my life, as well as nerve damage. It’s unlikely I’ll ever regain the feeling.”

Jazz had been quiet through his whole report, dragging it out for a few minutes after as she filed the information away in her head. He could practically hear the cogs turning. She inhaled deeply. “How did you pay for the hospital visit?”

“Mr. Jeremy- Sam’s dad. She told them I was hurt and that I couldn’t pay, so her dad took me to the hospital. He even got me the stuff that the doctor recommended. Minus pain meds, but that’s because he’s not my guardian.”

She nodded. “I’ll have to thank him later. What do you want me to do?”

She was good about that, making sure he wanted her to do something instead of just assuming. It was nice. “I need help with the physio. I can’t feel how much strength I’m using, so I keep breaking or dropping things. Also, my balance is shot, so hearing aids and glasses should be a bit of a priority.”

“Got it,” she said, “I don’t know how much of that I can do right now, but I can promise glasses as a start. Is that okay?”

He nodded. “Yeah, that’s good. Thank you.”

“No problem, brat. Though, next time, don’t try to hide something this serious from me, okay? I can and want to help you, but I can only do so much if you don’t tell me. Understand?”

“Understood, General.”

“Shut up, loser.”

“Yes, your majesty.”

Three weeks of crazy adventures later found Danny home alone when the doorbell rings. Jazz was at the library and his parents had gone ghost hunting, though there were no ghosts out to hunt. He’d already found all of the ones who’d been wreaking havoc, and the peaceful ones - mostly animals and blobs - all knew to hide from the brightly colored HAZMAT suits.

Danny went to answer the door, the compression sleeve on his left arm and a brand new pair of glasses on his face. When he opened the door, he was greeted by three men in white suits and black sunglasses, a fourth was waiting by the white van that had been parked in the driveway. “Can I help you?” he asked.

“This the Fenton place?” the guy in the front - Agent T4, his nametag read - asked. His voice alone sounded privileged and Danny instantly hated him.

He leaned out of the door a bit, obviously looking up at the massive sign that said FENTONWORKS in big letters. “Yeah,” He put his foot in the way of the door so that it couldn’t open more than he allowed it to.

Agent T4 nodded. “We need to talk to the Doctors. Are they here?”

Danny made a small show of looking at the driveway. They didn’t have a garage, so there was nowhere else for a car to be parked. “No.”

“When will they be back?” The man was obviously getting irritated with him. It was fun. Why did they have such a short tempered guy doing the talking?

“I dunno.” he shrugged. “Sometime before tomorrow, probably.”

“Don’t get smart with me, kid.” the man in white growled.

Danny wasn’t phased. “I don’t know when they’ll be home. Could be a few minutes, could be a few hours. Can I take a message?”

The man snarled. “No, you can not! When will the Doctors be home?”

Now Danny was getting irritated, though he hid it way better than these guys did. “They’re not home.” he over enunciated each word with an exaggerated mouth movement, “Come back later, or leave a message with me.” He crossed his arms. “Can your toddler brain understand that, or do I need to dumb it down for you?”

“Why you-”

Danny leaned back, “Assaulting a minor? I could call the cops on you and have you taken in for aggravated assault.” He reached for the phone in his pocket. “Actually, I might just call them anyway and you all can be arrested for trespassing.”

“Okay, okay,” Agent T2 held up his hands in surrender, T3 grabbing T4 by the back of his shirt. “We get the picture; we’ll leave now.”

Danny raised his eyebrow. Did they? Did they really understand what was happening?

“Sorry to bother you.” T2 pulled a business card from his pocket and handed it to Danny. “Will you have your parents give us a call when they get home?”

He took the card. “I’ll tell them, but I can’t promise anything.”

“That’s all I ask.”

He didn’t bid the men goodbye before closing the door in their faces. He did, though, watch from the window to make sure they’d leave. When they’d turned the corner, he reopened the door and stepped out. He’d needed to get up and get the mail anyway.

He hadn’t gotten his hopes up, checking for a letter from Damian mostly out of habit, so when the third letter in the pile had his name on it, he allowed himself to grin. Damian had written back!

He wasted no time in dropping the rest of the mail on the kitchen table and rushing to his room. The second he sat in his chair, he ripped the envelope open. The paper inside made him frown and drop the paper. It was the bill for the P.O. box.

With a heavy sigh, he collapsed onto his bed, face first. Damn it.

Translation 1 - French: The Lunch Lady

Translation 2 - French: The Hunter

Translation 3 - French: Half Living, Half Dead … The Phantom

Part 7 Part 9

#Tales of Conquest. Warnings of Fools #Letters Between Brothers #part 8 #word count: 4k #my writing #ao3 #ao3 writer #fanfic #dc x dp #ghouls and gang writing event 2024 #dpxdcbang2024 #g&g24

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