#Amity Park really are not human anymore

[melyndadwest-blog]

Guardian Deity Spirit Danny

"In the spiritual realm, there are specific steps a being can take to ascend to the status of a god, with certain restrictions defining what a god truly is. Typically, a deity emerges as a result of being worshipped by a group of people, their worship infusing them with divine energy and granting them godhood.

They can be born from an unconscious belief or concept, such as the worship of the moon or nature. Over time, this belief gains sentience and power through the devotion of their followers.

They possess spiritual powers and establish a cult, amassing considerable influence and strength.

They are born from another god.

They achieve godhood by defeating and absorbing the essence of a pre-existing god, embodying their concept.

This means that even if a being is incredibly powerful, like Clockwork, they must be worshipped by someone to attain godhood. So...

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

In the Infinite Realms, time operates differently than in the outside world. I believe that since the Realms exist beyond space and existence, serving as the cosmic glue holding the multiverse together, they remain separate from the flow of time.

So, my idea is this: Danny is already immensely powerful, as he embodies the balance between life and death. Because of his connection to Clockwork, this being occasionally sends him on time-traveling missions, perhaps for preparations related to kingship. As a result, he appears in various places throughout history, safeguarding people and cultures. Over the centuries and millennia, people begin to worship him, seeking blessings and offering sacrifices.

Usually, this would lead the Justice League to believe that he's simply a very old being. However, what if he truly is ancient?

As I mentioned earlier, a god's powers are derived from belief, and this belief gradually transforms the deity. Here's my take:

Batman might insist, "I know you're Danny Fenton," until a summons or a crisis causes Danny's godly side to surface. This aspect of him is truly ancient, as time doesn't flow conventionally in the Infinite Realms. Consequently, Danny could be three years old in terms of his death, yet also an ancient entity. Nonetheless, he remains physically too young to fully comprehend his true power and existence, resulting in considerable confusion.

Ultimately, there are two interpretations:

The Justice League ends up believing that Danny is either a) a vessel for a god, b) a sort of priest, or c) the physical incarnation of a bored god curious about experiencing humanity.

Ghosts do not treat him like a typical ghost child because, due to the nonlinear nature of time in the Zone, his core possesses the essence of an ancient being. The ghosts perceive him as the rebirth of balance, incarnated as a human to restore equilibrium.

Feel free to use this concept for any story or interpretation you find compelling."

[kaidatheghostdragon]

Found this while going through my fanfic files, and i absolutely had to share.

Danny: i want in

Red robin: …what?

Danny: your bat family. I want in.

Red robin, blinking in surprise: i dont know what you think you know about my associates, but we're not-

Danny: dont be obtuse. I know youre the smart one. And i also know that your all one big relatively happy family. I want in.

Red robin: …why?

Danny: because you guys are the first people ive found that are wealthy, intelligent and powerful enough to take on my fruitloop godfather and win AND are decent enough human beings that i can be assured that when all is said and done, my well-being will remain a top priority.

Orphan, appearing out of nowhere: new brother!

Danny: *stares in shock*

Danny: *sudden uncanny grin* well that's one convinced. How do i win over the rest?

Orphan: no need. New brother!

Red robin: *pointed glance of betrayal* fine. Who is your godfather?

Danny: vlad masters. He's a fruitloop.

Red robin: for real? B's been investigating him for years! Tell me everything! *genuinely excited for a new lead*

Danny: well, he's tried to murder my dad and marry my mom, gained his wealth illegally, committed voting fraud to become the mayor of my hometown, has a secret underground lab where he does unethical experiments, and he's abducted me more than a dozen times even before my parents disowned me to make me his evil apprentice or whatever. Now that im homeless, he's literally out to get me. Oh! And he's cloned me too! She's cool though, we're buddies now.

Batman, who just arrived but heard everything over comms: hn. (Translation: who are you?)

Danny: my name is Danny. No last name anymore, but im hoping itll soon be Wayne! *winking suggestively*

Batman: hn? (how much do you know?)

Danny: enough to know that youre a much better alternative to vlad.

Batman: …hn (i dont know anything about you. What if youre a spy for vlad?)

Danny, giving his salesman pitch: i was a teen vigilante in amity park before i had to run away from home for my own safety. Vlad is one of my rogues. I know how to fight and defend myself, how to minimize collateral damage in a fight, and ive gotten really good and escaping kidnapping attempts. Ive also managed to reform and/or make allies out of approximately half of my rogues and can talk down about 30% of all rogue confrontations before they turn into a messy fight. The other things i can bring to the table are: one, i can teach all of you guys proper liminality self care; two, i can probably minimize and possibly cure red hood's anger issues; three, i can get along with stabby robin because i consider fighting a friendly social interaction - he can even stab me and i wont be injured by it; four, i can be your go-to guy for supernatural cases so you no longer have to deal with that sad trenchcoat man; five-

Red robin: *blurting* youre hired.

Batman: hn (i am deeply concerned)

Danny: if youre concerned now, wait until i tell you about the anti ecto control act

Nightwing, who showed up in the middle of the sales pitch: ive never seen anyone crack B's grunt language so quickly

Danny: grunt language? He's just using ghost speak - which will be covered by the liminality self care lessons

Robin, who arrived with batman: what is a liminal?

Danny: all of you, of course! Otherwise you wouldnt need to learn about it, obviously

Robin: and why would we trust you?

Danny: did i mention i have a pet ghost dog?

Robin: …you drive a hard bargain

Danny, fist pumping: yes! That's three!

Nightwing: four, you got me when you could understand B's grunting

Red Hood, arrived with nightwing: five, assuming you arent lying about the pit rage

Danny, hand to his chest: i would never!

Orphan: honesty. Earnest. New brother.

Oracle, over comms: six. The anti ecto acts are legit and im terrified for his safety, assuming he's phantom, who is the vigilante of amity park

Spoiler, arrived with orphan: seven, as long as youre down for a few pranks

Batman: hn (ive been outvoted)

Batman: hnn (i dont wanna hear any jokes about adoption habits when you all forced my hand)

Batman: hn (that said)

Batman: welcome to the family

Duke, the next day: man, i miss out on everything exciting.

Duke, blinded by danny: and who the fuck told bruce he could adopt the fucking sun?!

[dyinggirldied]

Valerie's strain of sanity was this, this close to SNAP it. She was at the end of her rope here and it showed. Well, it would show if she took off her mask, letting lose her limp hair and revealing her dark eyebags but she couldn't because she was fighting what-was-his-name, oh right, Skulker.

Skulker, who was demanding to know what had the ghost hunters done with Phantom.

After Phantom's sudden disappearance, it had felt like a blessing. One less ghost scum, the better right? Wrong. She would rather die than admit it but she had underestimated the amount of ghosts Phantom took care of on the daily basic.

The Fenton parents and GIW were no match to those of greater powers, such as Vortex and Undergrowth and she was certain by now they looked no different from her.

Wary. Exhausted. Defeated.

Amity Parkers or at least, the adult ones, hypocritic as they were, had gone from disparaging and objecting to pleading for Phantom's return. Even the ghosts were wondering where was their mysterious ghost boy.

Mayor Masters was also under dark clouds after receiving the citizen's complaints and having to deal with the damages that ranged up to millions of dollars.

At this point, everyone was begging for Phantom to come back from wherever he was.

"Guys!" a voice shouted and she turned, only to see Sidney Poindexter, floating besides them and waving a glowing paper, "It's from Phantom's!"

Just like that, seemingly every human and ghost came out of the bush to know what was the latest news. It didn't get better:

Dear ghosts and Amity Park I guess,

This is from Phantom. I regret, well, not really, to say that having been married into another ghost belongs to another city, I won't be returning to Amity Park anytime soon.

Thankfully never have to deal with you guys anymore,

YOLO,

Phantom

What the fuck.

Or: when a ghost (or half-ghost) marries to a ghost in another city, they basically forfeit their rights to their old home and any businesses going on in their old home is none of their businesses.

In another news, Danny Fenton had been going on romantic rendezvous with a Jason Todd in Gotham City.

[basementloser]

I would've loved an episode in which Danny and Dash switch bodies.

I imagine it happens because Dash is talking to Kwan about how cool Phantom is or something, and at some point he says "Man, I wish I was Danny Phantom!"

Of course Desiree hears this, she appears before him ("So you have wished it, so shall it be!"), and the next day Dash wakes up in Danny's body. Danny Fenton's body. In Danny's room.

At this point he's pretty familiar with Desiree, and he assumes she just heard him wrong, befause Fenton and Phantom do sound alike. ("Huh, how weird! How has no one noticed this before?" We hear Wes screaming in the distance as Dash makes this observation.)

But there is no way in hell that a puny little nerd like Fenton could be Dash's hero, so something must've gone wrong. He decides to find Desiree and correct his wish.

-

Meanwhile, Danny (to his horror) wakes up in Dash's body.

He assumes he overshadowed him for some reason, but when he tries to leave, he finds out he doesn't have his powers. He also doesn't feel Dash's presence in the body.

"I know i asked for a growth spurt, but not like this!"

This isn't good.

-

Dash makes his way downstairs, and is immediately greeted by Jack Fenton, who has a million chores for him.

"Come on, Danno! Those ghosts I fished out of the ghost zone with the Fenton Ghost Fisher™️ aren't gonna put themselves back!"

Before he can object he is pushed into the lab and has to fight a couple of ectopusses. This goes very badly at first, until Dash remembers the bit of ghost hunting training Danny gave him and his classmates, when they had to rescue their parents from that big pirate ship.

As soon as he's done, exhausted on the floor (Damn, Fenton really needs to work out more!), he hears Jack yelling down the stairs.

"Son, don't forget to change the ecto filtrator! You don't want Amity Park to blow up, do ya?"

More dangerous chores keep getting added for longer than Dash thought was humanly possible.

(At some point Jack gave him some fudge, which helped.)

How does Fenton live like this???

-

We switch back over to Danny, who is now looking around Dash's room. He already knew about the cute pink teddy bear collection, but he didn't expect to find what can only be described as a fan shrine to Phantom.

There are newspaper articles, pictures, merch ("Wait I have merch? How come i didn't know that? Who is selling Phantom merch?" it's Tucker), and a poster.

(the b-story of this episode is Sam & Tucker running a Phantom merch line, and trying to stop the Box Ghost from stealing all the boxes of merch.)

Danny keeps looking around Dash's room, and finding out more about him through his stuff.

At some point he finds Dash's diary. He contemplates if he should read it or not, but in the end he decides that since Dash is always such a jerk to him, he doesn't care about morals and reads it.

Reading the diary, Danny starts to feel kinda bad, because in the entries Dash actually seems human. He's insecure, and he actually struggles with a lot. He's afraid to talk about what he's going through.

His parents are very absent, and the A-listers kicked Valerie out when her life wasn't perfect anymore. He doesn't want that to happen to him.

(I personally headcanon Dash as an extremely closeted gay guy with a lot of internalised homophobia, who hasn't stopped trying to convince himself that he's straight, but his struggles could be about anything.)

After reading all that, Danny starts to feel kinda bad for him.

-

Over the course of the day ghosts keep showing up to fight or talk to Fenton, and Dash is incredibly confused by this. Also Danny must have a weird cold or something, because he's been exhaling cold air at random all day.

"I AM THE BOX GHO- Hey! Wait! Why are you running away? You never run away. You always trap me in your cylindrical contraption of doOoOoOm!" (The Box Ghost is wearing a Phantom t-shirt, and is holding a box full of other Phantom merch. After Dash runs away, Sam and Tucker appear, chasing the Box Ghost through the street, trying to get the merch back.)

Later Johnny 13 shows up to fight, because he and Kitty broke up for the 4th time this week, and he wants to let out some steam. "Shouldn't you change for our fight, kid?" Change into what? Wait he wanted to fight, right? Dash puts on his gym uniform, and boxing gloves. Johnny looks at him weird, but doesn't question it. They have a little boxing match in the backyard.

Youngblood came by to play astronauts with him, and was very disappointed that Danny didn't fly up to space with him. (Wait didn't that dead kid kidnap Dash's parents??! Also why in the hell does he think Fenton has the ability to fly?????!! And breathe(!) in space?!!!)

After finishing what seems like a billion ghost related chores (and dealing with way too many ghosts), Dash finally manages to get out of the Fenton house, and starts to look for Desiree.

-

Danny walks out of Dash's room, and runs into Dash's dad. He opens his mouth, but he doesn't seem to care about what he's going to say. "Son I am so incredibly disappointed in you." the dad starts, then continues to list all the reasons he is a huge disappointment who should try harder. "Those weird little bears in your closet!" and "Why don't you have a girlfriend yet?"

The whole interaction is horrible, and makes Danny appreciate his own parents (weird as they may be) so much.

Dash's mom also berates him about being a disappointment, because they found his Phantom collection ("He is a GHOST, Dash! He's dangerous!"), and because his grades are so low. ("What do you mean tutor? Just study harder!")

They threaten to take Pookie away if he doesn't get his shit together.

-

At some point Danny has deduced that this body situation must be some ghost bullshit, and he decides to go to Fentonworks.

Then he runs into Dash in his body, and they have a little spiderman moment

After the internal shock and "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN MY BODY GET OUT!"s have gone around, Dash tells Danny what happened.

Danny informs Dash that most of Desiree's wishes become permanent after 24 hours. They decide to team up to get Desiree to undo this wish before that happens.

It's noted that Dash didn't say the word "puny" or any other insult, when he says "I really don't wanna stay in your body.".

We see a compilation of Danny and Dash searching Amity Park for Desiree, and other wishes she has granted. They fight off a couple of small ghost things together.

(during this compilation we see Sam and Tucker chasing the Box Ghost around. "How is he this hard to catch?? We've done this millions of times already!!!" -"Well maybe if you didn't drop the fucking thermos!")

After the fight, Dash sighs and says "Man, I had no idea how difficult your life is, Fenton. I've only been living it a day and it sucks."

they have a little heart to heart, and Dash sincerely apologises for bullying Danny so much.

"why did you want to be Phantom anyway? I assume his life isn't that easy either." Danny says.

"I dunno, man. I just thought it would be cool to be, y'know, going ghost."

White rings appear around Dash. He turns into Phantom.

they have another moment like this:

"WHAT THE FUCK!"

"WHAT THE FUCK!"

"I"M- I- YOU- YOU'RE PHANTOM??!!!"

"NO! YES! NO TIME! FIGHT HER!!!"

Because of course, this is the moment that Desiree appears, and starts fighting them.

"I dont know how!!!"

The beginning of the fight is very awkward, with Dash not knowing how Danny's powers work, and Danny not being used to fighting Desiree without his powers.

Eventually they get the hang of it, with Danny telling Dash how to activate and use certain powers in the moment, and they defeat Desiree.

All the wishes get undone, and they suck her up into a thermos.

After that, they talk about Danny being Phantom. Danny tells Dash the story of how he died got his powers, and Dash shares some of his secrets with Danny so they're "even". (it's some stuff that wasn't in Dash's diary. Danny doesn't mention that he read that, but that can be conflict in a later episode)

They aren't friends yet, but it's a start. Now that he walked a mile in Danny's shoes, Dash feels so bad about bullying him all those years, and he starts to question his life choices. (start of a Dash redemption arc i guess). He promises to stop bullying in general, and help out Danny however he can. (He also promises to not tell anyone about Danny's secret identity.)

(The episode ends with Sam and Tucker, having finally caught the Box Ghost, only to realise that in the chase/fight all the merch got way too messed up to sell, so it was all for nothing. Tucker throws the thermos down in frustration, the Box Ghost gets free, grabs the Phantom shirt he wore earlier, yells "BEWARE!" and flies off. Sam sighs and gets ready to start chasing him again, but Tucker stops her. "I give up. Let him have the fucking shirt.")

[yoonjae20]

Danny deeply distrusts the Justice League

Based on the wonderful @saltymarshmall0w 's prompt.

I really feel like they aren't enough fanfics or prompts where Danny dislikes the Justice League — and continues to dislike them even after everything (Anti-Ecto Acts) is revealed and taken care of. (Or maybe I'm not looking in the right places — if you guys have any recommendations put them in the Tags or Comments!)

Read on ao3. Masterpost

After many years Danny has finally retired — sure he had to leave everything he loved and that was familiar to him behind for it, but it was worth it. He had a small little house that was his own, he would water his plants every morning and make small talk with his neighbors. Everything was fine. 

Everything turns not so fine, when there’s a sudden knock on his door. Expecting it to be one of his neighbors — for example needing eggs or flour (a neighbor’s kid had needed eggs to bake one of her parents a cake and Danny had been more than willing to spare the few she needed) — he opens the door without a second thought.

Only to almost immediately want to close it again. 

Because that’s the Justice League standing in front of his door. And that can mean nothing good.

Before Danny can slam the door closed, Superman‘s shoe slides in between the door frame, blocking his escape. The smile the man shoots him is probably meant to be reassuring, but the only thing Danny feels is dread. 

To most civilians the Justice League is seen as a beacon of hope — but to Danny? He knows the bitter truth. When he needed them the most they turned his back on him before chasing him across half the globe calling him a villain without even hearing his side of the story. They handed him over the GIW for Ancient’s Sake. He would have died if it weren’t for Tucker and Sam. (He may not have scars to show for it but he can still feel his chest burn when he thinks back to it.) Not that they can remember that though. He still doesn’t trust them. 

“You are Danny Fenton, correct?” Superman asks and Danny stiffens. 

Fenton — not Nightingale like he has changed his surname into to escape his parents influence and leave everything behind. 

“Yes,” he says warily — seeing no point in lying. Considering Batman is lingering behind Superman the Detective would figure it out instantly. 

“And you used to be Amity’s Park’s vigilante Phantom?”

Danny grips the door frame, knuckles white. What’s their point? Are they trying to intimidate him?

“Yes,” he grits out. 

“We were told that you are the one we should seek out in matters involving Ghosts and the Infinite Realms,” Superman continues, but Danny doesn’t let him finish.

“I’m retired,” he interrupts. “Find someone else.”  

“There’s a world-ending event,” Superman says like that would convince Danny. Like Danny hadn’t lived though so many of them — had to prevent them from happening without anyone’s help every single time. Guilt-tripping much? “Even if you don’t want to fight — we need you as an advisor.”

Danny snorts, shaking his head. 

“Go take up the matter with the Justice League Dark then.” 

Danny moves to close the door, but still Superman’s foot doesn’t budge. He could probably brute-force his way through this — but Danny’s tired and he’s not in the mood to explain to his neighbors why his door is broken and he needs to do repairs.

He glares at them and to his surprise Superman actually takes a step back — but still not enough to be able to close the door. 

Danny hasn’t transformed into Phantom since he left Amity Park. Had kept that part of himself locked away — would have separated his Ghost Self from himself if he didn’t know he would be selfish for that. Had ignored his Obsession even if it screamed at him — had pushed it away in his Human Form even if it muted all the colors around him and it meant that every breath was a painful wheeze.

Faced with this situation he almost wants to break the promise he made to himself — but he can’t.

There is no GIW anymore —  Danny had made sure of that. He had wiped all of their files and his parents published research with the help of Technus. He had dismantled both portals to the Ghost Zone and made sure no one would be able to replicate it. But Danny also knows the Justice League — knows how much Superman’s punches hurt, how it feels to get mind controlled — they could overpower him in an instant if he twitched as much as into the wrong direction.  

He really doesn’t have a choice here, doesn’t he? If he doesn’t go out of his free will — they will force him with any means necessary, of that much he is sure. 

His gaze trails to his neighbor’s house and the swing in their backyard. And if they are right and he turns them away — is he sure he won’t feel any guilt if something happens that he could have prevented? Sometimes Danny really hates his Martyr Complex. 

Danny sighs, defeated.

“What do you need my help for?”

They had liked their new neighbor despite the fact that he barely left his house other than to water his plants. They had known that the young man was sickly. He looked like death wormed him over and was weak on his feet— his ice-blue eyes dull. His smile barely held any warmth in it.

Still they invited them over after he had given their daughter eggs to bake the cake for their birthday. They learned that he was kind and had escaped to their small village to live a quiet life. 

When the young man came to tell them that he would be out of town for a few days and to please water his plants if they could, they were worried.

“Are you sure that you are fine, son?” they asked and touched the man’s forehead — but it was icily cold like the rest of their skin had always been. “You look even paler than usual.”

The young man had only given them a half-hearted smile and affirmed them that he was fine

Their daughter's excited steps had hurried behind them and she tugged on their pants after the man had left. 

“Was that Uncle Danny?” the girl asked. “Can I play with him?”

They gave their daughter a weak smile. 

“Uncle Danny is busy for a few days,” they explained. “Later, okay? How about you draw him a picture while we wait for him to come back? So he has something to look forward to?” 

Their daughter nodded and raced back to the living room, searching for supplies, while they continued looking out of the window. They can’t help but have a bad feeling about this.  

It’s unnerving how quiet the young man is. 

There are no easy smiles, sassy quips and puns like from the few shaky phone videos they had pulled from the internet about Phantom. 

He’s meticulous. Probably even more than Batman — and that is a statement. There had been a deep mistrust in the eyes when they had located him and asked him to help them. It’s evident in every step he makes. He double-, even triple-checks every single evidence, every single sentence, every single word they say. 

Nothing is left unturned as he works the way though the situation like if he is dealing with a case. He never stops moving, always doing something — reading through heavy leather-bound books or through their reports. His heart rate is so slow that Clark sometimes wonders if the boy is still breathing at all. 

When the young man had asked them if they spoke to the leader regarding the war declaration and the reasons behind them, he had clicked his tongue when they told him no.

He hadn’t let anyone help him when he drew out the summoning cycle — it looked even more intricate and complicated than they had seen from Zatanna or Constantine. When he had spoken the words for the spell,  his words had sounded ancient and undescribable — hushed whispers following every single word. He clasped his hands and only opened his eyes when he spoke the last word, his eyes burning a deep green. 

The cycle goes up in green fire before a form appears — Clark recognizes the Ghost from the declaration. 

The man’s cold gaze sweeps over the Justice League before it stops on Phantom. He smirks, bowing his head slightly.

“I greet the Prince of the Infinite Realms.”

“Cut the crap Fright Knight,” Phantom's voice is steel-hard. “We both know I refused that position.”

The man tilts his head but nods.

“Very well,” he says. “I greet Phantom, savior of the Infinite Realms.”

Phantom grits his teeth like he wants to refuse that title too before he shakes his head. He gestures to the Justice League.

“Explain.”

“We are just paying back what has been done to us,” Fright Knight claims. “Vita brevis, ars longa, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.”

“Life is short, art is long, opportunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgment difficult,” Diana translates for them. 

“I see the Daughter of the Queen of the Amazons knows her arts,” the man’s voice has a hint of mockery. “Humanum genus est avidum nimis auricularum. Ignorantia legis non excusat:”

Diana’s eyebrows knit together as she listens. 

“Mankind is too greedy for lies. Ignorance of the law does not excuse,” her voice is almost a whisper. 

“I would have thought you would know of this Phantom,” Fright Knight addresses the young man again. “But now seeing your state, you probably didn’t feel the call for the announcement either. Is there a reason why you are starving yourself?”

Phantom doesn’t meet any of their eyes as he answers.

“That is unimportant to this situation.”

Fright Knight’s lips twitch back into a grin. 

“If the savior of the Infinite Dreams claims so, then I have no choice but to accept it.” He turns back to the Justice League. “Si vis pacem, para bellum.”

“If you want peace, prepare for war.”

“When have we been ignorant?” Batman finally steps in. 

Fright Knight huffs out a dark laugh.

“When has mankind not been ignorant?” Fright Knight questions. “When your government captured my brethren and tortured them, where were you? When they declared us as non-sentient and staged war against us, where were you? When they threatened to destroy our home, where were you?”

The man’s eyes seem to burn as he repeats himself.

“Where were you?”

Clark and the rest of the League are shocked to silence. 

“Now that the danger has passed, why should we just forgive you? Why should we forget?” Fright Knight continues. “If we are not worthy enough to be counted towards mankind that means we just have to rewrite the rules. And since we were never given the chance to negotiate, that means by force.”

“The Meta-Protection Acts-” 

“Only count towards those that are alive.” Fright Knight interrupts Batman. “After all, how can the dead feel any emotions such as pain? I’m sure if you ask your government they will hand you a lot of pretty reports on the biased experiments that prove so.” 

“But that’s-” Clark starts but Fright Knight doesn’t let him finish.

“Despicable? When has that ever stopped mankind?” Fright Knight asks. “We can talk if there isn't a law that states that we can be eradicated without any consequences.”

Before either of them can stop him, Fright Knight swishes his cape made out of purple fire and disappears. Clark faintly asks himself if that is how other people feel when Batman does that in front of their noses. 

Seeing no other option the entire League turns back to Phantom who hasn’t said a single word since the Ghost went on his tirade.

“Phantom-” Batman tries, but the young man’s eyes burn with so much hate that the normally stoic man stocks in his words. 

“I don’t have to tell you anything,” Phantom seethes. “You heard him. Now finally do your jobs right for once.”

Then he leaves the room without a single glance back.

Clark gulps as they look at each other.

“I feel like we made a mistake.”

When the news declares the Anti-Ecto Acts as abolished, Danny feels nothing but exhaustion. The Justice League barely managed to avoid a large-scale — and very justified war. 

Danny leans back tiredly on his sofa. His eyes trail to the drawing his neighbor’s daughter had given him and the first genuine smile in months graces his lips.

“What I don’t do for mankind,” he sighs before he closes his eyes. 

[luxaofhesperides]

Dancing in the rain ; requested by @wandixx!

He hadn’t been expecting the Signal to chase after him. It is, after all, well after midnight, and he had seen the vigilante out earlier during the day. 

Maybe the Bats are understaffed tonight, he muses as he leaps over the rooftops, a wild grin on his face. Being on the other side of a chase is a lot of fun, he’s discovering. He can see why Selina enjoys it so much.

Though, it probably has to do more with who’s chasing her than it is the chase itself.

But Danny’s become a bit of an adrenaline junkie after a few years of being a hero, fighting ghosts and governments. He’s not a hero anymore, especially not in Gotham, but being Catwoman’s partner in crime is way more fun than being responsible for everyone’s safety.

It’s like he’s doing anything bad, either. Selina can steal whatever she wants; if they couldn’t protect things against her, then should they really have it? Danny doesn’t focus on jewelry or gems. No, he takes ghost artifacts or items contaminated with ectoplasm back to the realms where they won’t cause problems to any humans. There are enough ecto-contaminated people in this world, solely from Amity Park. Best not to let that number grow.

So here he is, leaping over rain-slicked rooftops and only using a little bit of flying to keep ahead, holding a cursed pocket watch that a ghost had requested he return to them, with the Signal chasing after him, disappearing into shadows and popping up unexpectedly. 

“Stray! Get back here!” Signal yells, and Danny takes a moment to spin on his heel to face the vigilante to stick his tongue out at him, then backflips away.

“I didn’t even steal anything important!” he returns, tossing the pocketwatch in the air ahead, then jumps up to catch it and scales his way up to the roof of the next building. 

“Seriously,” Signal says, suddenly in front of him. “Stop running and we can talk this out.”

“Woah!” Danny tries to get around him, trips over his own feet, and crashes into the Signal’s chest. 

“Careful, there.” He looks up to see the Signal’s smile, and he absolutely can not be blamed for having his half dead heart skip a beat. He’s in the arms of a hero who’s smiling at him so sweetly, what’s a guy to do? “Ready to talk now?”

Danny goes intangible for a moment, smoothly sliding out of the Signa’s grip. “Nope,” he grins, starting up the chase once again.

The rain isn’t very strong, and the drops feel cool against his face as he runs, getting a little more air with each jump as he uses more of his flight to keep ahead. He can hear the Signal chasing after him again, heavy footsteps that start and stop unpredictably as he travels between shadows. 

Just to be safe, Danny stashes the pocket watch inside his chest, leaving his hands free to grab onto the rough brick of the walls and scale them up, aiming to go higher and higher. Maybe if he finds a good building, he can dramatically fall off the edge and fly away invisibly. 

“Got you!” 

The Signal pops up out of the wall and grabs Danny, who yelps and tries to pull his arms away. The Signal is too strong, and his tight grip on Danny’s wrists is warm against the chill of the rain. 

They stand there for a moment, just staring at each other as they try to catch their breath. And then, “Is that any way to treat a guy?” Danny jokes, trying one last time to pull his wrists free.

“It is when it’s you,” the Signal replies. “Man, you sure know how to run.”

“I’ll be sure to put that on my resume for my next heist.”

“Seriously, can we talk?”

Danny eyes him curiously. The other Bats mostly tried to take back whatever it is he’d stolen that night, occasionally trying to get information from him. None of them had outright asked to have a chat with him. The Signal at least has some manners, compared to the rest of him. There’s no harm in sticking around for one conversation.

It helps that the Signal is cute, especially when he had saved Danny a few weeks ago. 

Sue him, he’s a bit soft on the Signal. Wouldn’t anyone be with their favorite hero?

“Alright,” Danny says, relaxing. “Go ahead. Talk.”

“Great! Okay, um.” The Signal bites his lip and Danny should really look away, but his eyes are fixed to his mouth. He doesn’t speak for a solid minute, during which Danny really begins to feel the chill of the rain. “Can I get less comments from the peanut gallery?” he says suddenly.

“What?” Danny laughs, confused.

The Signal sighs. “My comms are on. The others are being annoying. If they wanted to ask you questions, they should have caught you first.”

“Oh, protecting me from the big bad Bats? My hero,” Danny says sweetly, pretending to swoon. Except, the Signal follows his movements, releasing his wrists to catch him by the waist, holding him steady. Danny’s breath hitches, and from how close they are, he has no doubt that the Signal heard it. They freeze for a moment, then the Signal dips him like some fainting Victorian maiden.

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t mind sweeping you up in my arms.” The smirk on his face only lasts a moment before he grimace and says, “I shouldn’t have said that on open comms. Man, they’re annoying. It’s not my fault I know how to flirt.”

Danny…

Well. Danny short circuits for a moment, running the words over his mind again, then blushes so hard he’s sure there’s steam coming off his cheeks. “You’re flirting?” he squeaks. “With me?”

“Flirting,” a new voice confirms, making them both jump, stumbling against each other as Black Bat hops down onto their rooftop. “Both shy and silly. I’m better.”

“You can’t even ask out Spoiler,” the Signal retaliates.

“She can’t even WHAT?” Spoiler yells as she also vaults herself over the alley below to join them. “You want to ask me out?”

Though she doesn’t say anything, Danny can practically feel Black Bat’s glare through her mask. The Signal winces, then says, “Oops.”

“Man, you can keep yourself busy, clearly Sig doesn’t need backup,” Spoiler says. “I need to go on a date with Black Bat. The rest of you suckers are on your own!” And then she grabs Black Bat’s hand and grapples away.

There’s a beat of silence, then Danny and the Signal share a glance and start laughing. 

“Well,” Danny says, “Good for them! Good for them.”

“They’re probably just going to Bat Burger.”

“And are you going to be treating me to a burger any time soon? I should be compensated for this conversation, you know.”

“Please, if I was taking you out on a date, it wouldn’t be to Bat Burger. I’d take you out dancing.”

It sounds like a date his dad would take his mom on. It sounds nice. Danny smiles and leans in closer to the Signal, taking hold of one of his hands. With the other, he puts Signal’s hand on his waist, then brings his own up to the Signal’s shoulder. 

“Why not dance with me now?”

Danny leads them in a few clumsy turns of a waltz, silently thanking Sam for forcing him to take a few ballroom dance lessons with her. The Signal seems a little dazed, following his lead, and when he lightly squeezes Danny’s waist, he shivers. 

Catwoman should be done with Batman soon. They had agreed to meet up at the newly opened Vintage Boutique in Diamond District, and he intends to beat her there. 

Reluctantly, Danny pulls away from the Signal with one final spin, and hops up onto the edge of the roof. “If you can find me during the day,” he says, “Then I’ll dance with you again. See you around, Signal!”

And with that, Danny hops backwards off the roof, free-falling towards the ground before he lets gravity lose hold of him and slips into invisibility, flying up just as the Signal peers over the edge, searching for him.

Unable to help himself, Danny floats closer until he can give the Signal a quick kiss on the cheek, then flies off, grinning wildly. 

He certainly can’t wait to see the Signal again. 

Maybe if he hired a few guys to pretend to rough him up while Signal’s out patrolling…

Well, either way, this cat is already half dead so he can jump straight to satisfaction bringing him back. And, hopefully, back into Signal’s arms again when they won’t be interrupted by other Bats. 

He’s already looking forward to it.

. . .

[send me a ghostlights prompt!]

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

Halloween prompts year 2 day 14

Tim was the best thing to ever happen to Danny.

He didn't mean that just because how much of a sappy romantic he was to Tim, but because he literally saved him from his own mind.

Danny was never going to leave Amity Park so long as the portal was open.

The portal would always remain open between his parents practically treating it like thier third child and thier ability to simply make another if anything would have happened to that one. Not to mention the super creep named Vlad.

So Danny would have stayed in Amity forever, cleaning up after his parents and being miserable.

Or ya know. Until they managed to kill him.

But then Tim came into his life and fixed everything. He befriended Danny over nightime rooftop rendezvous and groaning at his dumb (read awesome) puns.

As they got closer Sam and Tucker seemed to get both anxious and angry. Were they jealous? What right did they have after the Gregor incident?! Its true that they'd both been to busy to hand out with Danny for the past few weeks, leaving Danny with only Tim to turn to for company.

Tim pointed out that they may feel threatened knowing someone else knows his secret and Danny couldn't help but agree.

Tim pointed out that Danny was going to be stuck here cleaning up after his parent the rest of his life if he didn't find a way to stop the portal. Danny had nearly broke down at that and admitted he didn't know what else to do, so Tim devised a plan with that big beautiful brain of his.

They created a machine that ran on ectoplasm and magic that could wipe information from both technology and the human brain. They could remove all traces of ghosts ever existing in this town and erase 20 years of knowledge and research from Vlad and the Fentons minds, but it would come at a cost as magic usually does.

They would have to forget Danny existed as well. Tim offered that they could run away together.

Danny decided that was okay. The only person he had left in this town who had cared about him was Jazz and she was better off without him there to get her hurt.

Tim also had a plan to strip Vlad of his powers as well as his knowledge, and Danny was looking forward to not having to deal with him anymore

It was the day after everything went down, Tim was driving the GAV while Danny flew in the Ops Centers Jet form. They had made sure to swipe everything they could from the labs as well as everything the thought they needed to travel to Tims home dimension.

Danny had promised to help Tim uncover the secrets of his past and who he really was and to do that they essentially planned to travel around the Earth being wandering criminals.

Between Tims intellect and Dannys powers they were undefeated and unnoticed. They stole whatever they wanted and did whatever they pleased, making sure no one had to get hurt unless there was no other options.

Of course they stole cash from bank vaults as well as whatever else was in there. They couldn't stop Phantom from entering since anti-meta tech didn't affect him and couldnt track Phantom due to him being whatever he was plus the collar Tim had helped Danny design that covered up his ecto-signature.

They lived like this for over a year, breaking in to abandoned places, having waterfights in large city waterfountains (and running when they heard police sirens), tagging some of the places they'd hit when they wanted to leave a message, long romantic walks at night, lots of laughter, going on dates to restaurants (they never dine & dash. Some places make the wait staff pay which is bull and they might want to return to that establishment at some point), that one time they stole a $900 wedding cake from a homophobic bakery owner, lots of Fake out-Make outs to avoid getting sent to jail, ect.

They were having the time of thier lives up until they stopped in a little 24 hour diner in Bludhaven. They were doing what they usually do, flirting and laughing until the waiter takes thier order, when a guy approached thier table. Tim and Danny exchanged worried looks before the guy held up his hands in mock surrender, "I'm not gonna hurt you, I promise, I'm Dick Grayson." The man held out his hand to Tim, who hesitated before shaking it, "Tim," he answered honestly.

Danny nudged him with his foot under the table.

The man smiled wide, "Like Tim Drake?"

Tim and Danny looked confused, "Like who?" Danny asked and Dicks smile faltered

[radiance1]

To say Danny was worried about Vlad's continued disappearance was... sort of an understatement? At first, he was glad about it. He could finally kick back and relax when one of his more insistent and cunning foes were gone to who knows where and left him alone.

When it continued, Danny very obviously thought that hey, Vlad might be cooking up some supremely intricate plan that'll ruin Danny's day so, of course, Danny started to look for him.

He didn't expect to find Vlad when he was (surprisingly) captured by the GIW. All of his pride scrubbed away, all the elegance he insisted upon exchanged for something more.. beastly, collared and reduced to some raging experiment that was more animal than human.

It scared Danny.

Like a lot.

Danny thinks that Vlad was many things. A fruitloop, annoying, overconfident, intelligent and cunning when he wants to be, also an idiot and, again, extremely annoying.

But not. Well. That.

So he, understandably, didn't like it one bit. Especially when they tried doing the same thing to him. So, Danny tries to escape, which was surprisingly harder than he had first thought because you know that collar they put on Vlad?

Yea, they put it on him too, and it makes his powers all wonky and harder to use. The only thing that wasn't really impacted was his regeneration.

And then there was the dehumanization.

Oh, by the Ancients.

The dehumanization.

Being referred to as it, thing, animal, anything besides human really takes a toll on a person when they're actually going through it. Sometimes Danny caught himself calling himself an 'it' too and he's not happy about it.

Danny wanted out.

And he wanted out bad.

So while he may have felt guilty, that guilt didn't exactly stop him from using Vlad to his own ends to get himself out of there. Even with that power wonker of a collar, Vlad was still an outright menace without the rest of those chains on him and Danny?

Danny was extremely, very glad about that fact.

So there Danny goes, escaping into a portal with Vlad at his back because, well, he wasn't just going to leave him there. When they actually escape is fair game though. And then the last thing the GIW do to fuck them over is hit them both with some experimental tech that forces them to reveal their 'true form' which, obviously Danny didn't expect to actually work.

Then he found himself significantly younger with a younger but no less traumatized and feral Vlad in a place that wasn't Amity Park and oooooh boy this did not go to plan and everything is fucked up.

The worst thing about all of this?

The both of them are still collared. So wonky and/or weakened powers, in a place Danny has no knowledge about, with a feral Vlad that he couldn't leave alone anymore because Danny was a toddler and he'd use every advantage he could get now, both of them wounded because it wasn't a clean escape and oh hey apparently heroes exist here-

Wait.

What.

[phantoms-world-and-more]

This is a Damian and Danny are twins but with a twist.

Through a series of unfortunate events a very young Danny gets put into the pit. Maybe it was a test from Ra, he was sick this was trying to save him, he was pushed purposely or he fell in accidentally. He never rises from the pit everyone thinks he died. But with Danny being in the pits (which is ectoplasma) Clockwork is able to grab Danny and send if off to Jack and Maddie. If Danny had stayed with the Al Ghul's he would have died. Now Clockwork works with time not space. It harder for him to send beings to a certain place during their present, it easier for him to get them directly where he wants them if he is sending them forwards or backwards. So when CW put Danny into the path of Jack and Maddie it is years in the past for Danny.

This is going to be a good parent Jack and Maddie. Jack and Maddie are having infertily issues. It was very hard to conceive Jasmine and afterwards the Doctors gave even lower chances of them having another natural child. They start looking into adoption but due to their research into ghosts they are not having luck. They about loose hope when they meet Danny. Danny is too young to really remember the League, so he grows up with no memories. He knows he adopted, Jack and Maddie didn't hide that from him.

Things progress the about the same as in the show, and it's a reveal gone right. Also when the Meta Human Act is put into law it repeals the Anti Ecto laws, so Danny doesn't worry about those anymore. He never really wanted to be a hero, he was trying to help because he felt responsible for the mayhem after he turned on the portal. Things become more stable in Amity Park and Danny is able to get his grades back up and pursue his dream of working for NASA.

Danny was brought to the past to grow up, I see him being around 5 years older the Dick in the present. When Danny was a teen the Justice League was being formed. Danny doesn't discover his bio parents until he is in his 30s. How this is discovered is Star Labs is partnering with JPL on a project they send over their top scientists, one of them being Danny. Barry sees Danny one day at the lab and at first thinks it's Bruce. He mentions to Danny how much he looks like Bruce Wayne, Danny laughs it off. Barry later in passing mentions to Batman during a league meeting that he met a Bruce Wayne clone. Batman and the Batfam take this info and do the paranoid thing and dig into Danny thinking maybe he is a clone. Then become confused when DNA says Danny is the son of Bruce and Talia, when he is older than Dick.

.

[roses-and-revolutions]

I have another idea for a story, but I once again don't know what to write, so I'm building a skeleton.

It's a DC x DP x ML crossover. Damien, Marinette, and Danny are triplets born into the LoA. From birth, they were taught to not see each other as siblings but as rivals for Ra's attention. When they were five, they were dipped (more like dropped) into the pits for the first time. Danny never comes back out. The second time was when they were six. Damien and Marinette came back from a mission gravely injured. Marinette doesn't come back out. Damien becomes the sole heir.

As one can imagine, Danny and Marinette aren't dead but simply taken to where they were needed at the time. That being said, things for these two characters go mostly according to their respective shows after they integrate into society. With the exception that the two of them are more competent and don't fight like rabid raccoons. But things take a dark turn when they turn sixteen.

Marinette

. After finding out that his father is Hawkmoth, Adrien is unable to carry the weight of being the holder of the cat Miraculous, as he doesn't want to fight his father and gives it to Ladybug. He promptly moves to the States to further his modeling career. Marinette, unable to find someone else worthy to be the holder of the cat Miraculous, stores it away and becomes the sole hero of Paris (with occasional helpers). But because of this, her two lives get more intertwined, and she is forced into a corner where she has to choose between being Ladybuy or Marinette.

. But she doesn't get a chance as Hawkmoth is dethroned and replaced by an even greater threat. She is forced to take on the persona of LadyNoir. Her life crumbles as she tries her hardest to balance her life as a hero and a person. She tries to save everyone but someone always ends up getting hurt. Whether it be her as Marinette, clinging to what little of her life is left. Or her as LadyNoir, with no choice but to watch innocent civilians die because she couldn't think of a better plan that could've saved everyone.

. It gets to the point where she makes an unforgivable wish. But every wish has a cost. She only finds out the price when she is forced to stand behind an invisible wall and watch as her life replays before her eyes, the film slowly burning away till there's nothing left. She cries as she falls into an ocean of familiar Lazarus green.

Danny

. Danny's life is also crumbling around him as he struggles to separate his human life from his ghost half. But after becoming the Ghost King, things only became more complicated and even more dangerous as more ghosts started coming through the portal to challenge him for the crown. And while he would really love to give it away, the guys that kept fighting him for it are very clearly evil. So he has to keep fighting, winning, and solidifying his position as the King of the Infinite Realms. But with every win comes a newfound power. Power he doesn't want. Power that scares him.

. It gets to the point when Danny has to drop out of school. He wasn't even scoring double digits anymore so what was the sense of keeping him? But Danny couldn't stay home either, it was too dangerous as his ghost and human halves were slowly becoming one. And his parents' obsession was slowly becoming a threat to him. He thought he had the solution. He was going to shut down the portal and leave Amity Park.

. It was perfect really, as no ghost portal meant no ghost. And he couldn't be vivisected if neither the GIW nor his parents could catch him. He talked the plan over with team phantom and they reluctantly agreed. The ghost portal is destroyed, and Danny leaves Amity and files over Elmerton and a few other towns. But after flying for a while, Danny gets to a sort of border where nothing meets... NOTHING. On the other side was just an infinite void. Nothing.

. Danny slowly realizes that in this world, all he knew was Amity Park. He never actually traveled or went on field trips. Never went to visit extended family nor did any visit. No one 'new' ever came to Amity Park because they were all just nearby. He learned no relevant history besides Amity Park because there was nothing outside of Amity Park. When the realization had finally set in the world began to crumble into the void and it became a race against him and the void.

. Danny knew that he was fast but the void was faster, and before he knew it he was back in Amity. He was going to warn them and try to save as many people as he could. But saw something in their eyes. They already knew. Danny watched how teary eyes and big smiles, everyone and everything he loved crumbled into the void, fading into nothingness.

Scientists across the galaxy, the universe even, often theorize about how everything came to be. Well, it didn't start with a bang, that's for sure. 'Well then how did it start?' you might ask.

Well..., it started with some tears and a scream.

[summerfox1988]

This is my first and last Dead on Main prompt. Any and all writing prowess has been consumed by drought. Not sure if this variation has been done yet, but:

Danny as John Constantine’s whatever, and he gets roped in to filling in for John. Shows up dressed in the above.

After AGiT, he was trying to help Clockwork figure out what went wrong.

Traversing through the Realms, he keeps encountering this weird dude that keeps getting into verbal arguments with random citizens of whatever city Danny is in that CW sent him to. This dude kept bartering horribly, and swindled his way out when he realized he couldn’t get what he wanted the proper way. Not liking the way this guy did things, Danny confronts him. Since Danny utilizes Proper Communication, he doesn’t get his ass handed to him by who he now knows is The Laughing Magician. Lame name, but Danny isn’t one to talk. Anyhow, turns out he was getting materials to figure out the same thing Danny was sent to search for.

Danny talks his way into a team up. John was Not having it, he isn’t fond of babysitting. Soon figures out that Danny can hold his own, and concedes. A few stops in alternating times and dimensions, they get a lead. Narrowing in on a whisp of CW’s power that he didn’t sanction, they come across Valerie Gray. She’s been using her stolen Medallion to traverse the Realms and finding teachers who can help her fight the supernatural.

She sees them and takes off, and they go on a what surmounts to a loony toon style chase. In the end they only caught up to her because CW managed to wrangle enough power into Valerie’s Medallion to send her to a Time Period where the people sucked. They save her, and John surprisingly talks sense into her. (He maybe brings up Asta, or some other personal story that gets through to her.)

They go back to the Ever Moving Now. They patch up CW, but by then time has moved on in Amity Park.

Danny took to staying in his unaging ghost form after one dimension made his human form ill. The Realms helped sustain him when ever they stopped to rest, so his human half was only malnourished and slightly dehydrated. (Frostbite will have a field day figuring that out, but we’ve gone on another tangent!)

Valerie’s time was stopped while she wore the Medallion. (After her self appointed quest, CW gave her a modified version so that her lost time didn’t catch up to her too quickly).

As they’d already separated from John because he came from a different dimension, they had this discovery in CW’s lair. Danny contacts Jazz one last time. He tells her what he’s done, and not to worry. He made a new friend who owes him now. They have a heartfelt goodbye. He couldn’t bring himself to do the same for Sam. (Whether she and Tuck moved on is up to you).

Valerie stayed behind in Amity, she wanted closure and to give it. Danny went back to the Realms. There were more worlds to help, and in the time he’d been gone Amity had advanced enough to where he wasn’t needed anymore. Not to mention his rogues had settled down when they realized that with Danny gone the humans only got more vicious in retaliation. If they couldn’t blend in, then they didn’t visit.

Danny goes through multiple self discoveries and emotional upheavals. He ages on and off and is no longer sure how old he is. At this point he doesn’t really care. About anything really. He’s getting better though. But since John was around most of his latter formative years, Danny emulated the man more than he should. Which is why, in one of his better moods, Danny got them matching pajamas. (The attached picture) That was a fun time.

Because Danny runs into John a couple more times on his adventures, they exchange favors and earn them in turn. Which leads to the scenario in which Danny gets summoned in John’s place.

Zatanna was trying to summon John for whatever reason. However, due to John helping Danny create his summoning sigil, John had finagled it to where Danny can get summoned in his place if John is unavailable. Danny Will get him back for this.

At the end of this, Danny has new friends. Along with a new favorite dimension. He pops in from time to time. Eventually for whatever reason, he winds up in Gotham. He meets Jason when he crashes through his window. Danny was heavily concussed the night before, and has a severe headache now. Yay healing factor. The lights hurt, he’s wearing his new glasses*. Along with his favorite pjs. When this brick shithouse crashes in and makes his headache worse. He gives him lip, and grabs one of his dropped guns. Normally RH is never that sloppy, but Danny’s wall wasn’t the only one he crashed through in that fall. Throw. However he got there by whichever villain/rogue.

Danny proceeds to use his powers to fix his wall and window. He kept Hood’s gun in hand in case whomever caught up. They didn’t, he gives back the gun. Patches him up and sends him off.

Jason tries to find him again, an unknown magician in Gotham, his Bat Paranoia demands it. Only Danny knows magic now, he can’t be found by Bat Stalking. He can however be found by coincidence. CW meddles, of course.

They meet, over and over. They get closer, and I am at my limit. Have fun with this whomever!

[yuhein2424]

Swagger bishie.... After Dan Phantom has born... Young Dan Phantom start wrecking havoc in Amity Park, the citizens are running for their lives, and then Dash sees him. Is that Phantom? Why he looks so DIFFERENT? Flaming hair, murderous intent, wicked smile, ectoplasm soaked in his both hands, red evil eyes... Is that Amity Park's hero? Is that... Danny Phantom, his idol crush? Dash keep staring at Dan Phantom, unsure what he actually saw, until he locked eyes with Dan Phantom.

"P-Phantom...? Is that you...?" Said Dash, somehow fear are clear in his voice

Dan Phantom only remained silent, until he suddenly grin, showing his sharp fangs.

"Why, aren't you, the one who always stuff a weak and innocent child in a locker?" Dan slowly floating closer to Dash

Dash "W-wha?"

Locker.... Is he talking about Fenton?

How does Phantom know that he always stuff Fenton into a locker?

"You know, I despise bullies."

Dash gulped, cold thick sweat suddenly soaked his face.

"...And I despise weakness"

In one movement, Dan Phantom chokes Dash until his back crashed the ground with a loud thud. Dash cannot comprehend what actually happened in front of his eyes right now.

Amity Park falling into crumble, the citizens scattered, running for their lives, and there is Phantom.

Where is Fenton?

.

"Where is Fenton?"

Said Dan, Dash shocked.

"Ahh... You wondering about him just now, right? 'Where is Fenton?' Well... I wonder where is he, his family, and his friends?" Oh, how Dan cannot help himself until he can't stand it anymore. His grin only wider, until he's slowly materializing something in his hand. Dash only stunned to speak until something in Phantom's hand revealing some nasty, torn-out cloths... You can notice the Red circle logo in the center of the cloth, with red strip in each end of the cloth. An awfully dry blood that soaked the half of cloths.

Human blood.

"Ta-da~ Surprise"

Dan start laughing maniacally

"I'm really a good helper, right? I getting rid of your personal punch bag." The evil laughter still not stop.

Dash left agape, stunned, and his body started shivering. God, he should run. He should run quickly from him.

"No one can stop me now. I've gotten rid my weakness, my humanity----"

No way. This got to be a bad dream, right?

Yeah, Dash, this got to be a bad dream.

"----Daniel Fenton"

The last thing that Dash saw is a neon green light blasted at him

[a-sterling-rose]

Danny Phantom Writing Prompt: The Lack of a Hero Complex

Once Danny publicly shames Vlad into returning the status quo of Amity Park, Danny also stops ghost fighting.

The Human Trio and Vlad confront Danny about his lack of action. The Human Trio finally gets a taste of the sleep deprivation Danny experienced when he didn't want to burden them from their schedules while the property damage continued to tarnish Vlad's public reputation. Danny just laughs.

Sam, completely livid at the lack of reaction: Who’s going to protect the town, Danny?

Danny gets up from the couch and looks directly into Vlad's eyes: Yeah, Vlad, how do you plan on protecting your town?

Danny lightly chuckles while he goes down to the lab where the Fenton Parents were working. He was just gonna play on the family computer while his Dad would boast about their latest idea.

The human trio:

Vlad:

When the ghosts who come to directly harass Danny, he decides he just needs to be completely honest with each of them.

Danny: Listen, I'll admit I kinda had fun with the bantering, but I want to focus on better things now. I was never really interested in any of you.

The Ghosts:

The results?

Vlad has to set up legit ghost detectors all over the city and properly hire the Fentons for protection. Vlad hoped that the hiring would gain him favor from Maddie, but he finally got to see how she really was compared to his idealized version. Their constant public damages made Vlad's reputation even more tarnished, and their lack of change despite him personally talking to them about it makes him grow equal resentment towards both of them. It gets to the point where Vlad just sets up the same ecto repellent he uses to keep ghosts from escaping his portal back in Winsconsin. The extra paperwork he has to do now governing is not worth the mess he caused. Political power wasn't as worth it as he thought it would be.

The Human Trio gave Danny the cold shoulder for a while, but that just gave him some well needed alone time to raise his grades. He even finally got to join the astronomy club like he planned before the portal accident. They were a very chill group and welcomed him to sit with them at lunch, so he was never alone. Dash tried to start their usual routine, but that was immediately hauled by the club leader.

Dash wasn't clever enough to figure out how to respond to being called 'Pussy Lips' by a girl, so he just kinda sulked away.

Dash will say the occasional snarky comment, but he never bring himself to get too close to Danny after a club member told Danny to tell Dash and the other football players they could take turns sucking him off after their club meeting. Dash just wasn't clever enough to get things back to normal.

Though the club members weren't A-listers, they weren't at the bottom, so Danny social life became better.

The Human Trio tried to continue on like before, but they were soon caught ghost hunting by the Fentons. There was no punishment, just overactive excitement, seeing they were finally interested in Ghost Hunting. Now, having to join the Fentons whenever there was a ghost detected, the fun of it is zapped away for them, making the tiredness not worth it anymore. The three eventually apologized to Danny, which he accepts, and the group finally accepts the new changes.

There are many things that can upset a ghost, but the universal act that can anger any core is being ignored. Even with the ecto repellent, the stronger ghosts manage to get through and try to get Danny's attention. The boy always just texts Vlad about how he sucks at his job and to take care of the disruption. The ghost eventually pick up that their violent outburst aren't working, so it gets to the point that they try to get his attention another way.

They tried to coax him with things they believed he liked. It is comparable to how Hyper Cat-lovers try to get a shy cat to love them.

Lunch Lady offers him a freshly made meal when he's low on money one day. He thanks her but says he had a big breakfast.

Ember tries to act like their best friends in front of the A-listers, so Danny will become more popular at school. He greets her but continues on his stroll like she was a typical citizen.

Technus offers to give Danny the answer key to all the tests for his classes, but he denies this offer instantly. He'll never cheat on a test ever again.

It got to the point that Skulker said he would drop the promise of getting Danny's pelt if he just let him see his ghostly form. Creeped out, Danny just backed away. He was thankful Valerie was close by.

Box Ghost actually got somewhere when he offered a three-dimensional solar system model. It was in a box he had, so Box Ghost offered it to Danny. He accepted it as the one in the club was showing its age.

This seemed to make these random ghost visits even more frequent. Danny guessed Box Ghost bragged about his 'accomplishment'.

Basically, the ghosts' obsession to defeat Danny changes to them wanting his attention. Vlad’s obsession becomes solely focused on Danny as he just finds Maddie and Jack so annoying now. Like, Vlad just wants to get custody of Danny and get the hell out of Amity Park. He doesn't even want to kill the Fentons now out of fear that they will become ghosts.

After the Ember incident, the A-listers kept trying to buddy up to him. However, Danny learned how they really were, so he just treated them the way he treated ghosts. Now, it seemed they were just as desperate.

Danny will turn into Phantom only when it's necessary, that or he's in the mood to fly. The downside to this change is that whenever he does transform, he always has an entourage of attention-starved ghosts following behind him. He can't even imagine how things would be if he went to the Ghost Zone.

Additions:

For those who want to know the members of the astronomy club-

For those who want to see the club room-

[another-shameless-fangirl]

Demon

“They aren’t really ghosts, you know.”

“What?” Danny blinked out of his bliss staring out at the lights that floated across the park and turned his attention to the voice on his right. Each of the soft lights dotting the distance he had figured was a spirit, moving aimless and slow or following a habitual path they had carved out for themselves in life and found comfort in after death.

An old man sat on the bench near where Danny stood on the concrete path under an ancient willow. His grey hair thinned at the top and was combed over a pale bald head. His wire glasses were rectangular and too large for his thin face. Danny couldn’t tell the man’s age but spots and lines of concern felt long ago made him pretty sure the man was at least 70. Danny turned his body toward the man stiffly.

He wasn’t used to people actively talking to him. Since the accident happened and he started high school, he cut off all communication with Sam and Tucker barely acknowledging them in the hallway and letting them draw their own conclusions as to why he was avoiding everyone now. It was safer for them to think he was just a jerk instead of… whatever he was now. Half human, half ghost, it was all so confusing. Until he figured out exactly what he was, whether he really was a hybrid or not, then they would be better off without him.

The past few months had been lonely but he wasn’t sure this was the kind of company he wanted in their absence.

“They look like people but they aren’t.” The man told him certainly and Danny felt a chill go up his spine. He did not see the man there when he walked up to stand under the willow tree to observe the peaceful scene. He wasn’t sure why but he felt like an intruder. He looked out at the peaceful lights flying and walking in the distance then back to the seated man. Danny smiled politely.

“They’re not people. They’re ghosts.” He said lightly but where his conversation went, he really wasn’t sure. There was no way the man had lived in Amity Park without knowing about the ghosts that lived here too. The man shook his head, tutted, and crossed his wrinkled arms to his chest. His weathered wood cane shifted against the bench but did not fall.

“They look like that to trick people.” He said with a malice that made Danny recoil.

“That… They’re not tricking anyone. They’re just existing.” He said and the man scoffed at him.

“They look like that to make themselves more palatable for people. These things are evil.”

Danny stared at the man who glared across the scene before them. The ghosts who could only come out at night were harmless. Most of them were Echoes, ghosts that couldn’t do much more than relive a moment in their lives that proved they had existed at all. Danny had tried once to speak to one of these souls and they either didn’t see him or had ignored him completely. He wondered which it was sometimes and what the difference was between him and them. Were they ever at the same power level he was? Able to move freely and follow his own thoughts? Were they evil like the man said?

Was there enough difference between them that he could be sure he wasn’t evil too?

“How do you know they’re really evil? They’re not hurting anyone.”

“They’re biding their time. They’ll behave for now but the other ones,” The man waved a hand at the boy. “Big nasty things, bombing the streets and frightening people.”

Danny frowned and the man kept going.

“Ghosts didn’t used to be a common thing. They were special, peeks at what used to be and now you see them all the time in town. They’re so strong you can see them clearly and they’ll look right at you and cause you pain.” Danny looked at the man who just stared straight ahead. “It’s only a matter of time before these ones start lobbing bombs at people killing us all.”

A hard lump formed in Danny’s throat. “They just-“

“They’re vile.” The man scowled at Danny. “They’re evil creatures- not human anymore and pulling their power from somewhere evil to stay where they don’t belong.”

Danny frowns at the man and it’s tempting to leave. Did other people believe this?

“You don’t think they belong in the human world?”

“Not anymore.” The man uncrossed his arms. “Ghosts can’t be here on the living plane with that much power. Ghosts are what’s leftover from human souls. What these are, they’re not leftover so much as they are repurposed.”

Danny turned toward the bench completely turning his back on the park and the spirits alike. The old man looked at him for the first time and brown eyes were clouded and practically looked through the boy. It was unsettling but the man seemed earnest.

He didn’t even want to ask but he had to know.

“Repurposed into what?”

“Into demons.”

Another chill struck through Danny and something in his core swirled at the word.

Demon…

The vitriol hatred was still there but it simmered under the calm words. “They’re so far from God that their souls turn into something unholy, untouched by light.” The man said solemnly. “They cause pain and suffering to the living and lie about everything. Agents of the devil come to bring hell on earth. All while wearing the face of the dead to make us drop our guard.”

Danny stepped back but didn’t run away. “You think the ghosts in town are all… demons?”

“I know they are.” The man rasped almost sadly. “The way they look, sound, they’re trying to mask what they really are. They’ll trick you into thinking they’re just kids and then drag you into hell themselves.” The man pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and coughed into it. Danny watched but the man didn’t continue without prompting which he couldn’t help but do.

“How do you know?” The thoughts began to swirl in his head. “How are you sure that they’re not just ghosts with powers?”

“What do they need powers for exactly? They’re too sturdy. Too strong.” The man tucked the cloth away. Danny peeked at it and half expected to see speckles of blood like a movie but it was clean. The man straightened his posture. “Why would you make a creature strong if you didn’t plan on using it for what power is used for? The strong ones are going fight for dominance to claim this land their own for the devil. The ones that look like us are here to convince us all it’s okay.”

Danny looked out over the ghosts scattered around the park. He wanted to tell the man no and that he was wrong, but what if there was a truth in what he said?

“I- Phantom won’t let that happen.”

The man scoffed.

“Phantom is the worst of them all.”

A pit formed in his stomach so quickly he felt sick.

“He didn’t do anything wrong.”

“It’s very existence is wrong.” The man scoffed and he began to stand up. Danny stepped backwards quickly but the man barely looked at him as he continued.

“Phantom… Ghost… It’s still an unholy creature. Damned to earth unable to pass into heaven and apparently kicked out of hell.”

Tears formed in Danny’s eyes. “That’s not true. He’s just a kid-“

“Even if it was a child once, it isn’t anymore. An undead creature of bizarre power fighting for dominance in a damned town while wearing the face of a child,” the man picked up his cane and shook his head. “If that isn’t a demon then Lord help us when it reveals its true face.”

Danny stepped back again onto the grass and further under the weeping willow. He stayed there firmly off the path as the man walked slowly toward the street.

A gloved hand rubbed at green eyes. He grit his teeth and called after the man’s retreating form. “You’re wrong. I’m gonna prove it!”

“Don’t be naïve, child.” The man waved a dismissive hand back at him. “Save your soul while you still can.” He turned around a corner and was out of sight.

Danny felt a rage in him that felt so cold and kicked off the ground launching himself into the air. He saw the man from above but what was there to say? What if the man talked more and that rage solidified and proved him right? What if Phantom was the worst of the ghosts, no, the demons that now inhabited the town.

It made sense. He wasn’t a ghost, he wasn’t human. Both species had told him he didn’t belong in their worlds. If he didn’t belong to either side, maybe the old man was right.

If he wanted answers, maybe he needed to look down.

[gray--abyss]

I wanted to figure out a likely timeline of Dan/Phantom/Whatever-his-name-is's spiral into evil, for writing him and stuff.

CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of suicide and themes of suicide starts below cut.

1. nasty patty incident

2. danny is grieving, but hopes for at least his parents to come back- after all, they had unfinished research, an obsession and thirst for knowledge. his justifications for how Sam, Tucker, and his sister would come back are flimsy, and he knows it. He can't stand the pitying looks from his former tormenters. His aunt, Alicia- not a gentle woman, but doing her best- comes out from the country to supervise him.

3. End of month 1: the funeral. Danny starts to grow more outwardly volatile, instead of directing his despair inward. He exchanges contact information with Vlad, and the two enter an uneasy truce as they enter closer contact.

4. After 6 months, he tries to tell Alicia about the half ghost thing, and she doesn't take it badly- but she admits that she doesn't know how to help with that. Danny isn't sure what he's been expecting, but it's not what he wants. He can't stand to be in Amity Park anymore, and asks Vlad and Alicia if he can move in with him. they both agree, and he moves in with Vlad.

5. month 7: Danny is miserable at this new school, in this new, empty house. He feels like a ghost here more than he ever has before. the fear and hatred he harbors towards Vlad has only amplified with the closer proximity, and the mans security measures certainly don't help. His hatred for himself grows, being too weak to save his family, too weak to tough things out in Amity while waiting for his family.

Content warnings apply below. I promise it's not All doom and gloom, but given it's Phantom... there's a lot of it.

6. Month 8: Danny decides that if his family doesn't come back, he will commit a kind of suicide, removing his ghost half, then his ghost half removing and dispatching Vlad's ghost half. He decides that 2 against 1 will be the best method, and that's where the idea of fusing with Vlad's ghost half comes in. After all, if either of them can kill their combined ghost, that'll be safer for everyone. One last "heroic" act. He just has to trick Vlad.

7. Month 10: Danny gives up, and executes on the plan. He's sick of wasting time being sad. Phantom doesn't want to die, and successfully kills Danny, and fails to kill Vlad. He doesn't realize Vlad didn't die in that explosion.

8. After the rush of revenge, Phantom feels really weird about it. It was only fair, Danny was going to kill him, but he realizes he didn't think through what it'd be like living as part Vlad. But hey- he doesn't have to juggle school, politics, or feigning humanity anymore. He can go keep an eye on his home now, and figure out how to spend his afterlife! He gets in contact with Alicia, letting her know a less... scary version of his suicide, and that he's going to be hanging around in Amity Park again. (... He still hasn't really given up on someone coming back.)

9. When he finally gets back to FentonWorks, he's furious to find his former schoolmates partying in his house, and nearly attacks them, but calms down just enough to only yell at them. He doesn't care about keeping things secret anymore, and lets the secret slip. He doesn't miss how their treatment of Phantom changes. He can almost accept this not-as-pitiful respect.

10. For the next 3 months (at 1 year 1 month post incident), he tries to protect Amity Park. He causes more property damage than before. He notes and tries to ignore his increased aggression, but after he actually injures Valerie, the only person left that he "trusts", he panics, and drops her off at the hospital. Enough is enough, and at a town hall meeting that he doesn't attend, they decide to bring in the feds to deal with the local phantom.

11. Upon FentonWorks being raided, he's furious. He's been protecting these people, and for what? This isn't fair! Phantom kills a few of the GIW, before making a declaration to the whole of town with a souped up megaphone he stole from the GIW: If they don't want his help, then he'll be what they think he is- just an another evil Phantom.

12. In the next 2 months, he causes mass chaos, but fails to cause much damage to GIW and the government. He's just one ghost, after all. He retreats into the ghost zone, and convinces Skulker to take him on as an apprentice. He does have fun hunting and fighting ghosts, after all, and it can help him hone and perfect techniques.

13. for the next 3 1/2 years (4 years 9 months post incident), Phantom almost entirely lives in the ghost zone, only traveling to the world of the living for special occasions. He's figured out how he wants to look by year 2 post incident- basically an idealized version of how he would've wanted to look as an adult. He sets out on his list of revenge, targeting ghosts and enemies that he feels have personally wronged him.

14. To graduate from his apprenticeship, he and Skulker have a hunt-off. Obviously, Phantom wins, and graduates. The hunt lasts 3 months. (5 years post incident)

15. This isn't to say Phantom had no social afterlife... with ghosts he was previously allied or friends with, he tried to keep those relationships. Wulf isn't about what he's up to, and distances himself to an acquaintance. Phantom parties with Dorathea, allies himself with Fright Knight, actually befriends Klemper for when he just needs a chill hangout, convinces Poindexter to help him in researching ghost stuff, and helps Bones babysit Youngblood, just for examples of relationships he has with canon ghosts. He's a combination of two very social and dramatic ghosts, so he's honestly kind of goofy when he's not being actively menacing.

16. He does not acknowledge the not-being-able-to-be-seen-by-adults thing that Youngblood has going on, deciding that he must be an adult at this point, and the fact that he can see Youngblood is a Fully Ghost thing. Youngblood thinks it's a bit he's doing and plays along- it is Not a fully Ghost Thing

17. He does some trial runs on attacking security companies and billionaires in the month before the next Incident Anniversary.

18. On the 5 year anniversary of the Nasty Patty Incident, Phantom launches a successful attack on the GIW, destroying their facilities. He begins razing USA government agencies and offices, because genuinely, they have been such a pain for him. He doesn't attack postal offices or bus systems. When other countries allied with the USA try to attack Phantom, he starts targeting them as well.

19. Something that... basically everyone but Phantom himself notices, is that the only average-people civilians he targets are people in Amity Park.

20. At year 6, the USA as we know it is gone- people still live there, the only places actually uninhabitable being former military bases, and a 50 mile radius around Amity Park. Phantom starts making a concerted, focused effort to attack Amity Park, starting an arms race between him and Valerie.

21. It's unnerving for Valerie to see how little he's changed, even with a shiny new coat of evil paint and an adult-ish appearance. She can't help but think it looks an awful lot like a superhero that Danny used to like.

22. At year 9, he decides that he's done all he's wanted, and that Valerie will be strong enough to kill him- so he plans one last fight with her- either he'll win, and be uncontested in strength... Or he'll lose, setting the balances of justice right once again. He's excited to see how strong she's gotten. ... Despite all he says, he hopes she'll win, and he'll get a "happy" ending, even if it isn't his.

[dp-marvel94]

I just finished your cat acquisition portal au fix and I loved it! Missy my beloved. I can't help but imagine Danny instinctively going invisible and intangible out of sheer 'oh shit' at the end, which would NOT make either of them more calm. Ahdjfkf I also read the end note and I think I speak for everyone in that we would LOVE to hear your deranged ideas <3

This is in reference to this story, An unconventional way to get a cat.

Thanks for sending the ask! Missy really is the best girl. I can definitely see Danny turning invisible and intangible and freaking Jazz out even more. XD

Okay, so you asked for more details so get ready. This is going to be a ride. 😅

Fic below the cut, featuring my favorite: spilt Danny. And Danny literally becoming the ghost portal? About 3k words

So right at the end, something bigger than anything else he’d felt so far came through the portal but disappeared, right? There was a big flash of light as the ghost portal opened through him, and Danny was a ghost. He and Jazz both freak out about this, thinking he finally actually died. Then he turns human with another flash of light. And he’s back to normal, except with a weird ghost that looks just like him laying on the floor, very confused and disoriented.

Que more freaking out. The ghost runs off, just as freaked out as Danny and Jazz. The two siblings throw out a lot of ideas about what just happened. Maybe the weird ghost is some kind of shape shifter? They have no idea and no way to find out. They definitely are not telling their parents. And how are they supposed to go after the ghost? So they just… try to move on, try to find a way to stop Danny throwing his guts out, and enjoy some kitty cuddles.

Having a ghost that looks just like him flying around the town is weird for Danny, though. He has weird dreams, as if he’s seeing Amity Park from above. Weird, random feelings. Thoughts that echo, that feel not quite like his own but somehow unquestioningly are. And… memories of green swirling clouds and purple doors. Danny feels… strange. He’s felt weird since the accident but this is something else. An invisible line connecting him to… something. The feeling that something is missing.

Danny ends up hacking up more ghost animals, even some humanoid ghosts. He gets weird dreams of fighting ghosts… even when he’s awake. School starts and he inevitably has to tell Sam and Tucker. The trio encounter the Lunch Lady, and Danny’s weird ghostly double. Looking at the ghost boy is very strange. It kinda makes his head hurt, like he’s staring in a funhouse mirror. And Danny has an uneasy feeling that the dreams he’s been having aren’t quite dreams.

Things get even more strange when Danny blinks and finds himself floating above Amity Park. He… can’t snap himself back to his body. Shocked, he’s actually here, floating in the air. Like… just before his look alike showed up. Did the ghost possess him (semi-possess?) him again? That must have been what happened then. The ghost came through, immediately overshadowed him and then got thrown out. Except Danny has control of his body and there isn’t another voice in his head (at least not anymore than normal). He manages to fly back to his house. To find himself freaking out in his room.

So apparently the ghost switched bodies with him. And the ghost, Phantom, is no help. He has no idea what is happening. He doesn’t even know who he is. All he remembers is floating on the other side of the portal, guarding it. One day there had been a pain, a green flash and he’d been in the Zone in front of the ghost portal and he knew it was his job to guard it. He wasn’t very good at it though. Ghost animals kept coming through and… it was calling him. Or maybe something on the other side was. But he just knew he had to come through. So he touched the rift and found himself in the human world. That weird…possession was crazy but when their body turned warm and human, he was just Phantom again. 

This answers very little. Eventually the two switch back. The memory, thought, and emotion sharing is even more intense now. The two keep switching places. Danny fights the ghost in Phantom’s place. The ghost gets an… oddly familiar taste of Danny Fenton’s life. And inevitably, the two bond, forming an odd friendship through their efforts to hide their weirdness from the Fenton parents and the town as a whole. They find they have a lot in common too. Phantom loves puns as much as Danny does. The human boy’s love of the stars is as great as his ghostly friend’s. Music, books, movies, games. They squeeze so many shared interests into the quieter moments. Sometimes they but-heads because of how similar they are but… overall Danny is happy. Phantom feels like the brother he never had. Maybe the ghost is his twin that he absorbed in the womb. Maybe he’s just a random ghost that he was lucky enough to meet. Either way, it’s nice to have met him.

But, things are not all good. The portal is getting worse. More ghosts are coming through. More fights, worse injuries. Phantom’s powers are growing, including new, hard to control ice powers. And the portal feels colder too. Danny can feel it swirling. He can feel the tenderals spreading, wrapping around his bones and organs. It… shines through his skin. He can see it, a ball of neon green below his ribs. It flashes bigger, blinding him when it opens. And… each time, the spot of light is a little bigger.

One morning, Danny wakes up to a tingling feeling on his skin. Like the occasional invisibility and intangibility he experiences when he’s Phantom but… it's pervasive, spreading from his stomach to the surface. He lifts his shirt and… the portal is there. On his skin? In his skin? Above his skin? It does not make any sense but it is there, bound to him and visible. The size of his fist, it swirls below his rib cage. He brushes it with a finger and… it is like touching his own skin. At the same time, it is like brushing cold mist. His hand sinks in, not intangible but like sticking his hand in a bucket. And he shivers. He can feel it, the cold atmosphere of the Realms on his hand… and the portal swirling around his wrist. He feels the mist brushing the hand and his mist brushing the hand. Like he is  both hand and mist.

Danny rips his hand out, as if he has been burned. Horror sinks into him. What is happening to him?

The switching keeps happening and the portal keeps growing. And Danny is scared. He hides it from his friends and sister. At first, it’s not that hard. A shirt is enough to cover the swirling gate below his ribs. But it spreads onto his shoulder, below his belly button. He switches to long shirts and hoodies. He is nervous and on edge, avoiding his friends, changing the subject whenever Jazz asks what’s wrong.

But there is no hiding from Phantom. Not when half the time Danny’s body is his. The ghost is oddly quiet about the problem. Sometimes Danny catches the ghost looking at him, brow furrowed with thought. Phantom is closing off, acting more distant.

But Danny can barely notice as the dread turns to terror. His heart races, he can’t sleep, can’t eat. Every minute, he can feel the portal getting bigger. He can feel it eating at his insides, invading them, turning them to ice and mist and evaporating them. He can feel it grow and tear, lashing out to replace and pull apart. And it doesn’t even hurt. It should hurt. Being unmade, being changed should hurt. A part of Danny wants it to hurt. The portal is killing him. In the end, it will destroy him. And he doesn’t want to die. Or… 

A much worse possibility screams at the back of his mind, in the way he feels his shirt above the portal entrance, can feel small ghosts flitting through. Mutation, transformation, horrible violating change….

Down in the empty portal one night, Danny cries alone. All this struggling, all this hiding and for what? He really is going to die down here, where he should have all those months ago. The portal has spread to just above his knees, to his elbows. He can barely stand, barely walk now. He can’t fill his fingers. But he can feel it, every inch. The portal is killing him, tearing him apart. It pulses, ready for release. And part of him wants to give in but… his friends and sister. Phantom, his precious double. This would be giving up, leaving them. But… he can’t do this, can’t keep fighting forever.

“Danny!” Phantom is there, kneeling in front of him.

The human (Is ever human anymore, with this.. thing parasitizing his body?) blinks, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“You can’t give up.”

Danny hears the words but… it’s too much. “I’m… I’m scared.” He cries. Just moments ago, he wanted to let the portal rip him apart. Dying was terrifying. But… “I can’t… I can’t keep fighting it. I…” A flash of cold. Danny feels the green claw up his neck. “It’s going to rip me apart. It’s going to kill me, really kill me this time. But…” He hiccups, the sound part cry, part laugh. “What if I don’t die? What if…” A tendril curls passed his knee, half way down his calf. “I can feel it, the portal. I can feel it like… like it’s my own skin. What if it… it destroys me but I… I’m still…”

He can’t force out the words, not with the cold tickling his throat, with the tears drowning his voice. But the thought…. What if the portal destroys his body but he still exists? What if it breaks out of his fragile human body and becomes him? What if he becomes it? The un-living gate between worlds, trapped in his cage of metal. Without sight or sound, just… his thoughts and the ghosts swimming through him forever.

“You won’t be trapped.” 

That… is not what Danny expected Phantom to say. He opens his eyes, tears cutting off in his shock. “What?”

The ghost shakes his head. “I figured it out. Why the accident made me, why you called me through.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We really should have figured it out months ago. The shared memories was a big hint. And the switching bodies.” He rolls his eyes. 

“What are-”

Phantom takes his hands. “You are the portal. There’s no denying it now. It’s part of you. It is you.”

“No.” Pure despair. The word echoes, more thought and emotion that sound, Danny’s throat replaced by the green. 

It’s true then. A few more minutes and he’ll be nothing more than a cloud of mist, hanging in the frame. At least he’ll get to say goodbye-

“Stop that.” Phantom reprimands. “This isn’t the end. You’ll survive this.” 

Danny narrows his eyes. He appreciates the attempt at comfort but it was too late for comforting lies. Even if he wouldn’t die, this is still the end.

The ghost points up the stairs. “You will walk up their stairs in a few minutes and go to bed. You’ll go to school on Monday and the Nasty Burger and bug Jazz and…” Phantom is crying now too. “We’ll… we’ll do it together.”

Danny feels it, Phantom means every word. He is so sure but-

“I’m your ghost. I’m your ghost, Danny.” The ghost boy shrugs, eyes glistening with tears. “I always have been. Your accident made me. You made me. You called me through the gate. You made me, an echo, your friend. And now…” He sniffled, a soft smile blooming. “I’m… I’m becoming something more.”

Hands still clasps, Phantom brings one of Danny’s to his hazmat suited chest. The still-flesh fingers feel and… 

“That’s… that’s impossible.” Danny’s eyes widened awed. There under his hand, in Phantom’s chest is a heart beat.

“Is it really?” The ghost raises one eyebrow.

“Yes! You’re a ghost. This is…” Danny trails off. No, of course, it’s not impossible. He’s becoming a ghost portal and Phantom… “Why are you telling me this?” His mind whirls. He imagines, Phantom as a human. Like so many times before, laying in his bed, doing his homework, going to school, hanging out with his friends. Danny can’t help but smile. The thought of his fading away and Phantom taking his life, the tastes he’d loved so much becoming real…

“No. I said… I said we’d go up those stairs together.” Desperation in Phantom’s voice.

Danny blinks. He does not understand. 

“When I first came through the portal, and we shared a body and mind. It only lasted for a few seconds but…”

Dread, excitement, anticipation bubble in what once was Danny’s stomach. In Phantom’s chest he can feel his, their heart pounding. “But…. Phantom, what happens to you if that… if… if we…”

The ghost shakes his head. “We’ve always been a step from being the same person. I think…. We’d finally fall into step.”

They’d fall into step… 

The portal pulses, his arms and legs consumed. 

“I’ve always been you.” Phantom says. “And you… you’ve felt it too, the link between us. We’re intertwined.”

The ghost is… right. Of course he is. Danny feels it in Phantom’s bones. The tip of his nose disappears…

Fear on Phantom’s face. “What matters is…. Not matter what happens to me, you won’t be trapped in the frame. I…” The ghost steels his face. “I wouldn’t take your life without you in it. Go back up those stairs with me.”

Danny stares for a long moment. He is just a pair of eyes now, two hands, and two feet. The pleading, the desperation in Phantom…. His other self’s eyes. “O… okay.”

The boy-who-was-a-portal pulls his ghost into a hug. His portal self pulses, straining to fill its proper shape. The last of his mortality in ghostly hands… the two fragmented minds intertwine. Ghost and human and something all together other fall into the weave. Danny releases.

The portal explodes out, a supernova of force. Yet contained by its mind. The green mist coalesses, filling the metal machine made by his parent’s hands. The gateway becomes and the new born halfa inside floats out.

The halfa blinks for a long moment, staring at the portal, his other body. A gloved hand over his chest, heart and core intertwined. Ghostly chill in his veins and human warmth.

He breathes out and… laughs with relief. His portal self pulses with mirth, mist curling. 

“I’m… I’m alive. That worked. Danny… Phantom… we did it.”

He is a ghost and he is alive. He is a gateway and he is a boy. He is Danny and he is Phantom. And he is whole.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So yeah, yall know how much I love split Danny so this idea was born out of that love. If you’ve read my other words, you’ll probably notice some thematic similarities to Face to Face, hence why I never wrote this despite coming up with this idea first. Seriously, I was daydreaming about this fic while I was in grad school and supposed to be paying attention in the lecture I was TAing. 😅

The portal consuming Danny’s physical body was an interesting idea which came from free story I read on Kindle years ago. It was either a one off short story or in an anthology but I had not luck finding it. It was about a man who got a case of cancerous pocket dimension. Basically, this pocket of space appeared on his stomach and grew like a cancer, eventually destroying him. It was sad, about his wrestling with his impending death and leaving his daughter behind. About how his new part of space was being created with his life and yet he would not live to see it. He was not becoming the space, no part of his consciousness would stay. And yet, the planet that was visible through the spot, a new planet in a whole new universe, which he told his daughter about and showed her to her amazement, was named after her. A part of him did survive. 

I swear the story was a lot more poignant that my explanation and I really wish I could find it but I’m having no luck. 😭

Anyway, thanks for pushing me into writing this. Feel free to tell me what you think!