#Milwaukee Monster | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

doctorbitchcrxft · 4 months ago

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Nightshifter | Supernatural Series Rewrite | Dean Winchester x Fem!Reader

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Fem!Reader (Eventual ;) )

Warnings: canon violence, canon gore, hostage situation

Word Count: 5149

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You eyed Dean angrily as he flirted with the attractive woman in front of him dressed as an FBI agent. You knew he was teasing you, and it was pissing you off. You had long since finished your interrogation of the store’s manager. Helena had apparently been a patron of the store for years. Then, one day, she went crazy; the police caught her clearing out the jewelry store’s cases and the safe before shooting someone in the face and killing herself in her bathtub after the crime. You had a sneaking suspicion you were dealing with a shapeshifter; a monster that you were quite over dealing with.

Dean approached you, triumphantly waving the piece of paper with the phone number he’d gotten from the woman he was interviewing.

You snatched it out of his hands.

“Aw, you jealous?” he teased, leaning into you.

You deadpanned, “Keep it professional, Agent Hetfield, wouldn’t want the bureau to hear about this, right?” You ripped the paper up and shoved its tatters into your blazer pocket.

He deflated slightly, but still smirked at you. “I’m gonna make you crack, sweetheart, just wait.”

“Mm-hmm,” you hummed, turning away from him and heading out to the Impala. Admittedly, you were strutting a little bit to tease him.

Sam met you at the car, and the three of you drove to the home of the man whose police statement had been a mix of sci-fi nerd gibberish and the only eye-witness account of the incident.

As you approached the small house, Sam began talking about another piece of the case. “Uh, Milwaukee National Trust. It was hit about a month ago.”

Dean raised a brow. “Same M.O. as the jewelry store?”

“Yep, inside job, longtime employee, the never-in-a-million-years type. Dude robs the bank, then goes home and supposedly commits suicide.”

“The guy, Resnick, he was the security guard on duty?” Dean questioned.

Sam nodded. “Yeah. He was actually beaten unconscious by the teller who heisted the place.”

“Jesus,” you grimaced.

“Yeah,” Sam nodded. He knocked on the screen door. “Mr. Resnick?” A bright flood light turned on, momentarily blinding you.

You raised a hand in front of your eyes. “Holy—”

Sam was apparently unfazed. “FBI, Mr. Resnick.”

Through the screen door, a chubby, nerdy-looking man in his late twenties approached. “Let me see the badge.”

You slapped your badge against the screen next to Sam’s and Dean’s.

Mr. Resnick, whose first name was Ronald, squinted at them carefully. “I already gave my statement to the police.”

Dean chuckled. “Yeah, listen, Ronald, um… just some things about your statement we wanted to get some clarification on.”

“You read it?” He seemed surprised. “You come to listen to what I've got to say?”

“Well, that’s why we’re here,” Dean said.

“Well, come on in.” He opened the door and led you through a narrow hallway to a room cluttered with conspiracy theory paraphernalia.

“None of the cops ever called me back. Not after I told them what was really going on. Uh, they all thought I was crazy,” he rushed out. You were beginning to think the same. “First off, Juan Morales never robbed the Milwaukee National Trust, okay? That, I guarantee. See, me and Juan were friends. He used to come back to the bank on my night shifts, and we'd play cards.”

“So you let him into the bank that night, after hours,” Sam noted.

“The thing I let into the bank…” Ronald trailed off, “wasn't Juan. I mean, it had his face, but it wasn't his face. Uh, every detail was perfect, but too perfect, you know, like if a dollmaker made it, like I was talking to a big Juan-doll.”

You nearly choked on a laugh. “A Juan-doll?”

“Look, this wasn't the only time this happened, okay?” He scrambled through papers on his messy desk and handed you a folder. “There was this jewelry store, too. And the cops, a-and you guys, you just won't see it!” You flipped through the folder; it almost looked like a hunter’s profile of the case. You were half impressed. “Both crimes were pulled by the same thing,” Ronald finished.

Sam pressed, saying, “What's that, Mr. Resnick?”

He picked up a copy of a magazine labeled “Fortean Times” and held it out to you. The headline read, “Birth of the Cybermen.”

‘Jesus Christ,’ you thought, suppressing a grimace.

“Chinese 've been working on 'em for years,” the man explained. “And the Russians before that. Part men, part machine. Like the Terminator. But the kind that can change itself, make itself look like other people.”

Dean smirked. “Like the one from T2.”

“Exactly! See, so not just a robot, more of a- a- a- a— Mandroid," he said finally, a bizarre twinkle in his eye.

“A Mandroid,” you deadpanned. “And what makes you so sure about this, Ronald?”

He held up a finger at you, smiling a little wildly. Your eyes flicked to Dean’s in concern, and he just wiggled his eyebrows at you.

The man returned a moment later holding a VHS tape labeled “M.N.T. Camera 4— Juan.” He inserted it into a player, saying, “See, I made copies of all the security tapes. I knew once the cops got them they'd be buried. Here.” He fast-forwarded a bit in the tape. “Now watch. Watch. Watch him, watch, watch! See, look! Th- th- there it is!” He paused it on a clip of the man with a silver in his eyes. “You see? He's got the laser eyes.”

You gave Sam a knowing look that he returned.

“Cops said it was some kind of reflected light. Some kind of ‘camera flare’. Okay? Ain't no damn camera flare. They say I'm a post-trauma case. So what? Bank goes and fires me, it don't matter!” You eyed Ronald uncomfortably as he continued to pace around and rant. “The Mandroid is— is still out there. The law won't hunt this thing down— I'll do it myself.

"You see, this thing, it- it- it kills the real person, makes it look like a suicide, then it sorta, like, morphs into that person. Cases the job for a while until it knows the take is fat, and then it finds its opening. Now, these robberies, they're, they're grouped together.” He pointed at the map on the wall. “So I figure the Mandroid is holed up somewhere in the middle, underground, maybe. I dunno, maybe that's where it recharges its, uh, Mandroid batteries.”

Dean nodded, seeming impressed. You just looked between Ronald and Dean in confusion.

“Okay. I want you to listen very carefully. Because I'm about to tell you the god's honest truth about all of this,” Sam began.

Your head whipped to him, confused as to where he was going with this.

“There's no such thing as Mandroids. There's nothing evil or inhuman going on out there. Just people. Nothing else, you understand?”

You kept a straight face, but were startled.

“The laser eyes,” Ronald tried desperately.

“Just a camera flare, Mr. Resnick. See, I know you don't want to believe this. But your friend Juan robbed the bank, and that's it,” Sam mollified.

Ronald immediately became angry. “Get out of my house! Now!”

***

You and the brothers found another tacky, cheap motel to stay in for the time being. You lounged on Dean’s bed in a pair of comfortable sweatpants and an oversized band t-shirt.

Dean paced around the room, chuckling. “Man, that has got to be the kicker, straight up. I mean, you tell that poor son of a bitch that— what did you say, remand the tapes that he copied? Classified evidence of an ongoing investigation?” He laughed harder. “That's messed up.”

Sam sat on the foot of the bed and inserted the tape into the television’s player. “What are you, pissed at me or something?”

Dean shook his head. “Nah, I just think it's a little creepy how good of a Fed you are. I mean, come on, we could have at least thrown the guy a bone. He did some pretty good legwork here.”

“Mandroid?” you deadpanned.

“Except for the Mandroid part,” Dean added. “I liked him. He's not that different from you or me. People think we're crazy.”

“He’s not a hunter, though, Dean,” you challenged. “He ran into something real and let his conspiracy-theory-brain-rot get the best of him.”

“Better to stay in the dark, and stay alive,” Sam finished.

Dean shrugged, “Yeah, I guess.” He put a paper down on the map on the table and began marking it with a red pen.

You shuffled forward to Sam and hit the pause button on the remote just as the man’s eyes flashed at the camera.

“Shapeshifter. Just like back in St. Louis. Same retinal reaction to video,” Sam informed.

“Eyes flare at the camera. I hate those fuckin’ things,” Dean grunted.

“You think we don’t?” you scoffed.

“Yeah, well, one didn't turn into you and frame you for murder.”

You shrugged. “Well, look, if this shifter's anything like the one we killed in Missouri—”

“Then Ronald was right. Alright, they like to layer up underground, preferably the sewer. And all the robberies have been connected so far, right?”

Sam nodded.

“With the, uh, sewer main layout. There's one more bank lined up on that same sewer main,” Dean continued.

“Awesome,” you grumbled.

***

Later that evening, you and the brothers headed to the bank Dean referenced, the City Bank of Milwaukee, to see if the shapeshifter would be hitting that one next. You posed as Sam and Dean’s boss, and the two boys wore security camera technician outfits.

The guard of the bank informed you as you walked along, “Well, we haven't had any flags go up on our system yet.”

You shook your head. “No, sir, this is a glitch in the overall grid. I just need to cover all my bases and make sure the branch monitors are okay.”

“Well, better to be safe than sorry, I guess,” the guard shrugged.

“That’s the plan,” you nodded.

He opened the door to an observation room flooded with monitors for you, saying, “Alrighty. You guys need anything else?”

“Nope,” you replied. “We’ll be in and out before you know it. Just a routine check.”

“Okie-dokie,” he said, leaving the room.

Dean chuckled. “I like him. He says ‘Okie-dokie.’ “

“What if he's the shifter?” worried Sam.

“Well, then we follow him home, put a silver bullet through his chestplate,” the older brother replied simply.

You sat down in one of the desk chairs to watch the screens. You kicked your high-heeled feet up on the desk in front of you, leaning back in your seat. “Anybody got popcorn?” you yawned, preparing for the hours of work ahead of you.

***

You and the Winchester boys were beginning to go cross-eyed after searching for the monster for so long.

“Well, it looks like Mr. Okie-Dokie is… okie-dokie,” Dean commented upon seeing his eyes appear normal in the camera screens.

“Maybe we jumped the gun on this, guys,” sighed Sam. “I mean, we don't even know it's here.”

Something caught your eye. “Wait a minute.” A middle-aged man turned toward the camera, and his eyes flared. “Got him.”

“Hello, freak,” Dean growled.

Sam immediately jumped up, as did you, but Dean lingered behind. “Guys, wait!”

“What?” you and Sam spun around.

You then saw Ronald scurrying up to the door of the bank with a chain and a padlock, chaining it shut.

Dean scoffed. “Hello, Ronald.”

You immediately began running down the hall, ignoring the protesting of the soles of your feet as your heels clacked against the floor. As you approached the main lobby of the bank, you heard Ronald screaming for everyone to get on the ground. And then, gunshots.

“Fuck!” you cursed.

“And you said we shouldn't bring guns,” Dean scolded Sam, nearly bumping into someone fleeing past him.

“I didn't know this was gonna happen, Dean,” Sam replied.

“Just let me do the talking,” the older brother commanded. “I don't think he likes you very much, Agent Johnson.”

You saw Ronald standing in front of a group of people huddled together on the floor. “Now, there's only one way in or out of here, and I chained it up. So nobody's leaving, do you understand?”

Your eyes flicked to Dean concernedly as he stepped forward. “Hey, buddy. Calm down. Just calm down—”

Ronald wheeled around. “What the— You! Get on the floor, now.”

Dean began to crouch to the floor, as did you and Sam. “Okay, we're doing that. Just don't shoot anybody, especially us.”

“I knew it. As soon as you two left. You ain't FBI. Who are you? Who are you working for, huh? The men in black? You working for the Mandroid?”

“We’re not working for the Mandroid!” Sam exclaimed.

Ronald shakily aimed his gun at Sam. “You, shut up! I ain't talking to you. I don't like you.”

“Fair enough,” the brunet mumbled.

“Get on 'em. Frisk them down, make sure they got no weapons on them. Go!” Ronald commanded one of the hostages.

“Oh, hell, no, you’re not fucking touching me,” you struggled against the man as he tried to feel you up.

“(Y/N), (Y/N), stop, stop,” Sam pleaded.

You shoved the man off yourself. Your struggle was strategic, though, as it kept him from finding the knives you had planted on yourself; one in your sleeve and one alongside your thigh.

The man moved over to Dean and found a knife stashed in his boot.

“Now what have we here?” Ronald’s question was meant to sound intimidating, but his wavering voice gave him away.

Sam shot Dean a look.

“I'm not just gonna walk in here naked!” Dean hissed back.

“Get back there,” Ronald ordered. You did so, following his pointing of the gun to the group of people behind him. He dropped Dean’s knife in the deposit box, and Dean winced.

“We know you don't want to hurt anybody,” he said. “That's exactly what's gonna happen if you keep waving that cannon around, and why don't you let these people go?”

“No!” Ronald shrieked. “I already told you. If nobody's gonna stop this thing, then I've got to do it myself.”

“Hey, we believe you! That's why we're here,” Dean replied.

“You don't believe me. Nobody believes me! How could they?” he cried.

“Come here,” Dean said.

Ronald scoffed. “What? No.”

“You're holding the gun, boss; you're calling the shots. I just want to tell you something. Come here.”

Ronald approached cautiously and leaned into Dean. You assumed he was telling him who the shifter was.

“Why do you think we've got these getups, huh? We've been monitoring the cameras in the back. We saw the bank manager. We saw his eyes,” Dean whispered.

The shorter man’s eyes widened. “His laser eyes?”

“Yes.” Dean seemed to realize what he’d said. “No. No! No, look, we're running out of time, okay? We've got to find him before he changes into someone else.”

“Like I'm gonna listen to you. You're a damn liar,” Ronald grumbled.

Dean stood cautiously, hands out.

“Dean, no!” you said.

“I'll shoot you! Get down!” Ronald ordered, pointing his rifle at Dean.

“Take me. Okay? Take me with you; take me as a hostage. But we've gotta act fast , because the longer we just sit here, the more time he has to change.” Dean paused. “Look at me, man. I believe you. You're not crazy. There really is something inside this bank.”

Ronald finally nodded. “Alright, you come with me. But everyone else gets in the vault!”

You stood on shaky legs as the people around you gasped and cried. You helped Sam herd everyone into the vault, and Dean tried to calm everyone down when Ronald ordered him to shut the door.

“It's okay, everyone. Just stay cool.” He threw a lingering glance to you before locking the vault completely.

A young redhead stared after Dean. “Who is that man?” she asked breathlessly.

“He's my brother,” Sam replied; you could hear the worry in his voice.

“He is so brave,” she practically moaned.

You rolled your eyes and crossed your arms.

The redhead went silent for a few minutes, and you took some time to thoroughly think your situation over. ‘Cops are gonna be all over this place by now. Dean’s been accused of murder, and the three of us have already been arrested once. Dean’s on the FBI’s radar. Surely, after our escape on the danashulps case, the feds are on us again. Now, we’re smack dab in the middle of a full-on hostage situation. And who are they likely to blame? Us!’ Your anxiety was beginning to get away with you as your thoughts began to swirl in your head. You were then acutely aware of how hot the room was, and unbuttoned the top two buttons of your shirt to keep some circulation moving.

The woman next to you who seemed infatuated with Dean introduced herself to you.

“ ‘Scuse me, sorry. Uh, hi, I’m Sherry,” she said. “You’re, uh, with those guys, too, right?”

You nodded.

“You known them a while?”

You nodded again.

She grinned. “Oh, gosh. What’s it like being around him?”

You snorted. “ ‘Him’ who?”

“That guy! The one who saved our lives!” she beamed. “What’s he like?”

“To tell you the truth, he’s a pain in my ass most of the time,” you giggled, arms crossed over your chest.

“Oh, really?” She deflated a bit before her floaty, trancelike inflection in her voice came back. “He just… He seems so wonderful to be around. I mean, staring down that gun. And, you know, the way— he played right into that psycho's crazy head, telling him what he wanted to hear, I mean—” She trailed off, turning her attention back to you. “He's like, a real hero or, or something.” She tucked a hair behind her ear as she continued to gush.

You nodded again, feeling weirded out.

“Sorry, I just,” she sing-songed, “I’ve never met anyone like him.” She paused, seeming to consider her next question carefully. “You ever… done anything with him?”

You nearly choked at her statement, uncomfortable with the objectification of Dean. “What?”

“Y’know,” she drawled, “How good is he in the—”

You were grateful to hear the vault door unlocking, revealing Dean holding a handgun.

“Oh my god, you saved us! You saved us!” Sherry cheered.

“Actually, I just found a few more. Come on, everybody, let's go. Let's go.” Dean ushered the guard from earlier and a few other people inside the vault.

“What are you doing?” Sherry questioned.

“Sam, (Y/N), look, uh, Ronald and I need to talk to you,” Dean said.

You shot Sam a confused look, and Dean shut the vault door behind him, shrugging apologetically.

“It's shed its skin again,” Dean explained. “We don't know when— it could be in the halls, it could be in the vault.”

“Great,” you sighed. “Y’know, Dean, you are wanted by the police.”

He nodded.

Sam seemed to catch onto where you were headed with this. “So even if we do find this damn thing, how the hell are we gonna get out of here?”

“Well, one problem at a time,” the older brother replied. “Alright, I'm gonna do a sweep of the whole place; see if we can find any stragglers. Once we get everyone together we've got to play a little game of find-the-freak, so… here.” He handed Sam a silver letter opener. “Found another one of these for you. (Y/N), I know you have weapons on you. Best use ‘em.”

You grinned at how well he knew you. You slipped your silver-bladed knife out of your sleeve.

Dean turned to Sam. “Now, stay here, make sure Ronald doesn't hurt anybody, okay? Help him manage the situation.” He turned to you. “C’mon.”

Sam’s voice began rising in outrage. “Help him manage? Are you insane?”

You turned your head to Ronald who seemed shaken, attention caught by Sam’s voice.

“Look, I know this isn't going the way we wanted—”

Dean was cut off by his brother nearly shouting, “Understatement!”

“But if we invite the cops in right now, Ronald gets arrested, we get arrested, the shifter gets away, probably never find it again, okay?” Dean finished.

Ronald peered out of the window in plain view of whoever was down below. You snapped, “Ronald! Out of the light!”

Sam scoffed at his brother, “Seriously?!”

Dean sighed. “Yeah, Ron's game plan was a bad plan, I mean, it was a bit of a crazy plan, but right now, crazy's the only game in town, okay?”

Dean slapped Sam on the shoulder and grabbed your hand, bringing you along with him. ‘If only Sherry could see us now,’ you thought bitterly.

Dean looked over his shoulder at you. “What’s that face about?” he questioned.

“Nothin’,” you replied, still grinning in self-satisfaction, scanning the hallway ahead for anyone or anything.

He just hummed at you, turning his head forward again.

“I hate this case,” you whispered after a few minutes of tense walking.

“Yeah, me too,” he replied, still scanning the ceiling. He seemed to notice something, and you followed his gaze upward. A panel in the ceiling had been left askew. You eyed Dean curiously and took the gun from him, pointing it at the panel while Dean dislodged it with a coat rack from nearby. Suddenly, a naked body fell to the floor. Dean turned the body over with the end of the rack.

“Wait, Dean, wasn’t that?—”

“Yeah, I just let that guy in the vault.”

***

You and Dean hurried as inconspicuously as possible to inform Sam of what had just happened. Sam told you that man had been trying to get the front door unlocked and helping Mr. Okie-Dokie who may have been going into cardiac arrest when you and Dean found the body.

You turned to Ronald and his cocked rifle. “You know what, Ronald? He's right, we've got to get this man outside. Come on. I've got you.”

The shifter tried to help, too. “Yeah, yeah, let me help you.”

“Oh, we got him, it's, it's cool. Thanks,” you replied. You helped the guard out of the way, and Sam took the man’s other side.

“Thank you. Thank you,” the guard told you between labored breaths.

“Sure,” you smiled politely.

You could hear Dean talking to the shifter and a sudden crash behind you. You turned with the guard still on your shoulders at Ronald yelling, “Stop! Come back here!” You noticed a red laser pointed on his back, and your breath caught.

“Get down! Now!” you screamed, but you were too late.

The bullet from the sniper rifle hit Ronald squarely in the chest. You watched in horror as he fell to his knees before hitting the floor dead.

You took in a sharp breath at the sight, forcing yourself to keep your composure for the sake of everyone else in the room with you.

It was bedlam at that minute. All of the hostages began running out of the vault toward the door. You put Mr. Okie-Dokie on the ground next to you and just kept him talking until something could be done to help him. You weren’t quite sure what Sam or Dean were doing, but you made it your priority to keep this man from going into cardiac arrest.

Dean suddenly came over to you, holding a rifle.

“Dean, what are you doing?” you questioned.

“(Y/N), trust me on this—” he pleaded before helping the guard stand.

“Dean! I can help him, don’t bring him outside—”

“I’m not taking that chance, (Y/N). C’mon,” he told the guard. “I gotcha.” He held the man out in front of him and pushed him out the front door with the rifle at the guard’s back. You stayed out of the light, back pressed against the pillar next to the heavy door.

“No, don't shoot! Don't shoot! Please!” you heard the guard yell.

Dean commanded, “Don't even think about it! I said get back! Now!” He paused a moment before you heard his voice again. “Okay, go, go!” The older Winchester slipped back inside, shutting the door and latching it.

“We are so fucked,” he mumbled to you, helping you up from the floor.

“Fuck, why?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “There’s about, I don’t know, eight thousand cops out there. Helicopters and search lights and everything. We are fucked, (Y/N).”

You dropped your head back, groaning, “Great.”

Dean’s phone rang, and you assumed it was Sam. “Yeah?” he answered. “What?... God, it's like playing the shell game. It could be anybody. Again… Alright, you search every inch of this place, we’re gonna go round everybody up.” He hung up the phone.

“I think this is the most stressed I’ve been on a job,” you said as you and Dean began searching for the hostages.

“Yeah? Even more so than the demons in New York?”

“Oh, definitely. That was just a sad one; not super stressful,” you replied. You noticed a herd of people toward the end of the hall. You gripped the handle of your knife, knowing the shifter would likely be in the mix of all the hostages.

You and Dean rounded them up; Dean pointing the rifle he picked up from Ronald at the group. You guided them back to the vault.

“And I thought you were one of the good guys,” Sherry, who held up the back of the group, told Dean, who was trailing behind her.

“What's your name?” he asked.

“Why would you care?” she scoffed.

“My name's Dean,” he said. Your heart melted a bit at his gentleness with her.

She hesitated but still answered. “I'm Sherry.”

“Hi, Sherry. Everything's gonna be alright. This will all be over soon, okay?” He assured her, shutting the vault door and spinning the lock shut. The landline of the bank rang and you picked it up. You didn’t say anything when you answered the phone.

“This is Special Agent Victor Henriksen,” a commanding voice stated through the phone. “Is this Dean? Sam?”

You didn’t respond once more.

Dean mouthed to you, “Who is that?”

You shook your head, holding up a finger to gesture for him to wait.

“Oh, or is it that pretty girl? Our very own criminal Jane Doe. Some people have been calling her Ghost since no one can seem to find any record of her existence.”

Your breath hitched in your throat, but you still didn’t say anything.

“Well, whether you’ve got the Bonnie to your Clydes with you or not, it’s my job to bring you boys in. Alive's a bonus, but not necessary. I want you Winchesters out here, unarmed, or we come in.”

You still didn’t say anything.

“I know you’re still there,” he said, almost taunting. “I know everything about you two. I've been looking for you for weeks now. I know about the murder in St. Louis; I know about the Houdini act you pulled in Baltimore. I know about the desecrations and the thefts. I know about your dad.”

Dean was trying to get close to the phone, but you kept pushing him away because you knew he’d explode at the mention of his father.

“Ex-marine, raised his kids on the road,” the agent continued, “cheap motels, backwood cabins. Real paramilitary survivalist type. I just can't get a handle on what type of whacko he was. White supremacist, Timmy McVeigh, to-may-to, to-mah-to. You have one hour to make a decision, or we come through those doors fully automatic.” With that, he hung up the phone.

You slammed the phone down, cursing in frustration.

“What? Who was that?” Dean asked.

“The fucking FBI agent who’s been tailing us since Missouri,” you replied, beginning to pace anxiously. “He knows everything about you guys, man. Even about your dad. That’s why I didn’t let you talk to him; I knew you would’ve ripped his head off.”

“Damn right,” the man growled. “They have a positive ID on you yet?”

“No, actually,” you said. “Ironically, some of the feds labeled me ‘Ghost’ cause they can’t find anything on me. Which makes me even more nervous. Anyway, we’ve got an hour till they come in here and pump us full of lead,” you informed him.

“Fuck,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair.

Moments later, Sam appeared at the entrance of the vault room.

“Hey. We've got a bit of a problem outside,” Dean said.

Sam snorted. “We got a problem in here.”

“What?” you questioned.

Sam hushed his voice. “The girl that was gushing over Dean in the vault? It’s her,” he told you.

“Who, Sherry?” you questioned.

He nodded. “Just found her body.”

Barely needing to flick a glance at the boys, you unlocked the vault.

“Sherry? We're gonna let you go,” Dean called as the door swung open.

“What? Why me?” she questioned.

“Uh, as a show of good faith to the feds, come on,” he replied.

The woman hesitated. “Uh... I think I'd— I'd rather stay here, with the others.”

Dean approached her intimidatingly. “I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist.”

You clutched your blade at your side. After a tense moment, she approached you. Sam and Dean pushed her back to the hallway.

“I thought you were letting me go,” the woman you thought was the shifter said.

Dean shoved her forward, holding her head and forcing her to look at the body of Sherry Sam had brought back with him. She began screaming hysterically.

“Is that community theater, or are you just naturally that good?” Dean gruffly questioned.

“This is the last time you become anybody. Ever,” Sam added.

“No! Oh god!” she cried. She fainted almost immediately.

You stared at the two Sherrys in disbelief. One of the bodies was dressed, the other, half-naked. ‘Poor lady,’ you thought. You took off your blazer and laid it over the woman’s body, trying to spare her dignity.

“Wait, why did it do that?” you questioned. You leaned over the undressed body of Sherry covered only by your blazer and put your finger on her neck, trying to find a pulse. The body immediately jolted up, grabbing you by the throat. You struggled, stabbing at it frantically. You got a lick in at its upper arm with the knife before it kneed you in the chin and bolted.

You coughed when it released your throat, clutching at your neck and coughing.

“(Y/N)!” Dean cried.

“Dean, no, I’m fine! Follow it!”

He nodded, taking your knife from your outstretched hand and running after it. You kicked off your heels and took another moment before standing and going to follow Dean. Sam had taken off somewhere with the real Sherry.

You didn’t know what else to do besides stay with the vault and Dean’s discarded handgun, prowling in front of it with the gun at the ready.

***

You had no idea how long it had been. You just continued to pace in front of the vault, tension overtaking your body and anxiety keeping your eyes flickering across the room rapidly. You suddenly heard approaching footsteps and dove on the ground behind a desk— unsure if it was Dean, Sam, the shifter, a cop— and were panicked at the sight of S.W.A.T. sniper rifle lasers and flashlights on the wall in front of you. Your breath quickened as the footsteps continued approaching you. Then, a masked man ducked under the desk in front of you.

You shrieked.

“Here’s Johnny!” he yelped.

“Dean! Fuck you!” You shoved his shoulder harshly when you recognized his face. He and Sam were donned in S.W.A.T. outfits that they had definitely taken off some poor bastards hidden in a broom closet somewhere.

“C’mon, we gotta get outta here, now,” Dean told you. You grabbed your heels and followed the boys out of the building and to the Impala. Dean and Sam had their stolen guns at the ready as you sprinted up to the third floor of the parking garage.

The three of you sat in the Impala, completely breathless, as you grappled with the reality of your situation.

“We are so fucked,” Dean murmured.

You and Sam nodded minutely.

You looked out of the window at the rising morning sun. Exhausted, you let the rumble of the Impala soothe you into a restless sleep as Dean drove you away from the bank.

Series Rewrite Taglist: @polireader @brightlilith @atcamillanorrman @jrizzelle @insomnia-bookworm @procrastination20 @mrs-liebgott @djs8891 @tiggytaylor @staple-your-mouth @jesstherebel @rach5ive @strawberrykiwisdogog @bruhidkjustwannaread @mxltifxnd0m @sunshine-on-marz @big-ol-boat @mgchaser @capncrankle @chervbs @simpingdeadcharacters @nesnejwritings @stillhere197 @tearsforhan @take-it-on-the-run @iloveyou2mia @maxinehufflepuffprincess @ohgeehowdigethere @seninjakitey @berarenado @s0urw00lf @princessleahorgana @quarterhorse19 @isla-finke-blog @silverdoragon @karacaroldanvers @gayandfairycore @examishbookwyrm @star-yawnznn @real-sharena-h @fandomloverrr @metalmonki @onlyangel-444 @yu-winchester @benniwiththefanni @daisychaingirl @immagods @missmieux @yoongi-holland @littledebbieinabigworld

#dean winchester x reader #dean winchester x y/n #dean winchester x you #dean x reader #dean x y/n #dean x you #dean winchester #supernatural #supernatural series rewrite #spn #spn series rewrite

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tiffanys-aus-and-headcanons · 7 months ago

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Appendix D: Some Pig/One More Final

The first three posts in this series are here.

Undertale was a slightly postmodern children's fantasy movie produced by Jim Henson's Creature Shop in the '80s. Noah Hathaway played the protagonist, Frisk, who went on a long quest to escape from a magical prison inside Mt. Ebott; Frisk's father had thrown them into the mountain, known to be full of monsters, in an attempt to kill them. However, it's suggested that as a human, Frisk is inherently more of a protagonist than a monster can be, and has a vague sort of magical power over them. Toriel's death, which Frisk accidentally causes early in the movie, is commonly listed as a Peak Sad Childhood Moment.

George Orwell wrote The Writing In The Web, a political fable about a cult started by a well-meaning spider. E. B. White wrote Snowball's Farm, a whimsical children's tale about a farm whose animals decide to take over.

Infamously, Emmanuel Goldstein's monologue fills dozens of pages, takes at least three hours to read aloud, and brings the plot of Ayn Rand's 1984 to a screeching halt.

Short story collections and anthologies often keep the same title, author, and spirit, it's just the stories that are swapped out. For example, classic episodes of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone include A Wonderful Life, The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty, Miracle On 34th Street, and The Sixth Sense. 1983's The Twilight Zone Movie includes segments based on classic episodes Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (directed by John Landis and given anti-war themes), Cocoon, The Poltergeist, and In Search of the Twelve Monkeys (the original starred a young William Shatner). Candle Cove is an episode of Black Mirror.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was a 1999 Ben Stiller comedy about a team of low-rent superheroes who theme themselves after public domain characters because they cannot afford licensing fees. The film was well-reviewed, but a box office bomb. It was actually the first film to use Smash Mouth's One Week - the One Week music video is actually cross promotion with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - and it would remain the film most associated with the song until Dreamworks' Happily N'Ever After hit theaters two years later.

The Amazing Digital Circus was a virtual pet game and toy line that struck when the iron was hot on that niche, before being bought out by Hasbro and rebooted a few times in different forms and mediums. Lauren Faust created a long-running television cartoon of it that was a huge smash hit with fandom culture despite the show's clearly very young target audience. The property's canon is all very light kiddie fare; the scariest thing about The Amazing Digital Circus is that for a brief and touchy stretch of time in the early 2000s, it was owned by the Peoples Temple, which was seriously considering turning it into a recruiting platform.

Your cringe unpublished works that you gave up on were almost certainly swapped around with other people's cringe unpublished works that they gave up on. There's lots of upwards and downwards mobility to the scramble, but not usually that much. Exceptions are very rare - like a beggar suddenly being made king, or a god being reincarnated into an ant - but they do occasionally happen. For example, what you know as the land of Oz exists only in the head of a young Milwaukee stoner, who suddenly came up with the idea for an epic graphic novel one day in the 2010s while sitting on the bus, and spent a couple of years absolutely convinced she would eventually make it. (She cannot draw.) Conversely, L. Frank Baum's children's fantasy series, Enormia, which has been adapted and reimagined many times, most notably as audiences' introduction to color film, exists in your world only as a different Milwaukee stoner's overly elaborate backstory for his jerkoff sessions. This kind of thing is much more the exception than the rule, and even such exceptions are almost always much smaller in scope - an obscure stillborn project getting swapped around with an obscure out-of-print novel, or an obscure direct-to-video z-movie.

The True Detectives forum and its many schismatic spinoffs, all of which are devoted to discussing mystery fiction, host literally thousands of Wind fanfics. Many of the writers - perhaps most of them - have never actually read Wind, just other fanfiction of it; next to none of the fics are worth reading. Most Wind fics reuse the original protagonist, Rorschach, but treat him as a generically relatable blank slate. The most common fic format by far is the "altdunnit", a form of what-if scenario in which the mystery that sets off Wind's plot is different in some way.

Rorschach is held by a substantial portion of the fandom to be an egg (a trans woman who has not realized it yet). Wildbow has never endorsed this interpretation, and it doesn't seem to be much on his radar. In recent years, the trans Rorschach portion of the fandom has grown; they don't tend to look especially kindly on Warn, much of which Wildbow wrote as a response to fans (like those on the True Detectives forum) he felt had been too inclined to take Rorschach's side in Wind. Flame wars over Warn's content were constant throughout its serial publication, and made it easily the rockiest experience of Wildbow's writing career.

Some noteworthy and relevant podcasts include Jonathan Sims' The Dresden Files, the Ranged Touch Network's Scott Pilgrim Made The World, Doof Media's Winding Down (later Warning Down), and the McElroy family's The Adventure Zone (an actual play podcast which has currently had three major campaigns, two anthology series, and various one-shots). Film Reroll is still an actual play podcast that runs the basic setups of movies (and occasionally other media) as short tabletop campaigns; occasionally, their version of a movie will be much closer to ours than it is to the version of the movie in their own universe.

Xenobuddy was an early childhood public access show, originally created for the BBC in the late 1990s but later aired internationally. The title character is a small alien puppet who lives on a futuristic spaceship staffed by children (who speak a vague conlang akin to a dollar store Esperanto). At the end of every episode, it gets lost and is found, usually by (harmlessly) bursting out of one of the children. It was very popular with its target audience and much loathed by parents. Edgy ironic fanart depicting the titular Xenobuddy as some kind of dangerous parasite abounds.

Static is a supernatural slasher franchise created by Wes Craven, with the first film, also simply titled Static, released in 1984. The movies concern a group of gibbering neotenous ogre-fae who wake up in the modern day after a long sleep, incorporate televisions into their bodies, and start eating people by sucking them into hellish pocket dimensions. The Screen-Guts collectively are probably in the top five antagonists most people think of when they think of slasher horror.

Toby Fox's ROSEQUARTZ is especially known for its meta take on video game morality systems. The game has a mission-based structure; throughout it, the player is encouraged to take on a pacifist playstyle, championed by the player character's late mother, the title character. However, the Crystal Gems give the player enough autonomy that you are entirely able to take a much more violent tack; doing so has a rippling effect on the game's writing in countless immersively-integrated ways. If the player goes out of their way to be as murderous as possible - the so-called "genocide route" - the differences from the main route grow much more extreme, and rather than gaining allies, you start to lose them, as the Crystal Gems realize what you're doing and one by one turn against you. If you manage to shatter Garnet - it's the hardest and most iconic fight in the game, Megalovania is playing, her Future Vision gets used for all it's worth - then you use your knife to slash at the cosmos, erasing Earth, Homeworld, and everything else. This, Toby Fox is saying, is apparently all you want out of a video game - another toy to break.

Warner Bros still did Space Jam with Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes, it's just that the Looney Tunes in question were Mickey Mouse and friends. They also still did a second one with LeBron James, which was, by God, somehow worse. They put Ms. Frizzle in it.

Walt Disney made his squeaky clean reputation on the back of adaptations of things like Rudyard Kipling's adventure novel The Call of Cthulhu, P. L. Travers' Thomas the Tank Engine, and Erich Kästner's feel-good coming-of-age kidnapping tale about the power of perseverance, Lolita, originally done with Hayley Mills and later remade with Lindsay Lohan.

Nabokov's extremely controversial literary classic that has defined the idea of the unreliable narrator is Father's Trap, from the perspective of a man who plots to obtain custody of both of his daughters for nefarious purposes. Most publishers ignored Nabokov's instructions not to depict the twins, Lisa and Lottie, on the cover. Stanley Kubrick and Adrian Lyne have directed mediocre film adaptations, and songwriting team Lerner and Loewe did a musical that was a legendary flop.

The Japanese fashion movement is Gothic Pollyanna, after an otherwise-forgotten series of penny dreadfuls about a cute, cheery, rules-minded young girl who is, despite appearances, an insane criminal. Minor character Bonesaw in Alan Moore's Worm Turns also clearly hearkens back to the Pollyanna stock character.

The DEA was a prime-time soap opera about the ongoing "war on drugs"; it ran for eleven seasons from 1982 to 1993. Its plot focused on federal agents working at the Drug Enforcement Administration office in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and especially partners Hank Schrader and Steve Gomez and their families. It is mostly remembered today for its downer ending (in which the treachery of late-show villain Walter White, or "Heisenberg", gets the leads killed, and he escapes from justice), and for its far-more-acclaimed spinoff series Better Call Saul, which also ran for eleven seasons from 1993 to 2004, functioning as a prequel, midquel, and sequel to The DEA.

Between The DEA and Better Call Saul, Kelsey Grammer played crooked lawyer Saul Goodman for twenty consecutive years of primetime TV, first as featured comic relief and later as a leading man. (He also guest-starred on the mostly-forgotten Mall Cop, establishing that it, too, was set in the world of The DEA and Better Call Saul.) Better Call Saul won more than a dozen Primetime Emmys. Peri Gilpin received several of these for her performance as Kim Wexler.

St. Elsewhere was a film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan in the late 1990s; it was highly acclaimed and successful, and established Shyamalan in the public eye as a skilled auteur with an affinity for twist endings. The film's final scene reveals that its main setting, St. Eligius Hospital, exists entirely within the imagination of an autistic boy, Tommy Westphall, as he gazes into a snowglobe. The so-called "Tommy Westphall Universe Hypothesis", which posits that this same twist applies to most of fiction due to a network of crossovers, was invented by a Saturday Night Live sketch shortly postdating the film's release, in which an amnesiac Charles McGill (from Better Call Saul) wakes up in St. Eligius, attended to by a cast of characters who are more concerned with their own nonexistence.

After rising to prominence as a writer, storyboarder, and composer for Pendleton Ward's Science Time (where she established the Summer/Jessica relationship that would come to define later seasons), Rebecca Sugar got to make her own cartoon, Henry Ichor. Set in a recently post-apocalyptic but strangely cheerful world, Henry Ichor concerns a young teenage boy who is conscripted as a mech pilot due to his rare and innate ability to link to the powerful Evangelion mecha. (His preferred Evangelion is eventually revealed to be a form of his late mother, the reason he can do this in the first place.) Henry turns out to be a vital asset in protecting humanity from the monstrous "Angels" that frequently threaten it, and is surprisingly emotionally mature for his age. However, the adults around him (especially his father, Gennady) frequently push him too far, especially considering his generally noncombative and pacifistic nature. There is much interpersonal drama and much singing about it, with a very vocally trained cast. After several seasons of slow buildup, the show was forced to suddenly rush to its ending in only a few (infamous) episodes after an arc where Henry had a romance with an Angel in male human form. Henry Ichor The Movie and an ensuing miniseries, End Of Henry Ichor, helped bring the show to a more thematically satisfying conclusion.

Although he has played a creative or consultant role in many animated projects, Alex Hirsch is best known for the one he was actually the showrunner for, Disney Channel's smash hit Sunnydale. Focusing on a small California town constantly plagued by supernatural threats, Sunnydale generally followed a simple monster-of-the-week format, but kept audiences on the hook with teases at a deeper underlying mystery. The show almost didn't get a season two, as Hirsch found working with Disney very tiring, but he was eventually persuaded; season two ran through the rest of Hirsch's ideas at a faster pace, and concluded the show with the leads graduating from Sunnydale High.

For a brief historical moment, Daron Nefcy's show, Ender vs. the Space Bug Army, looked like it would become the successor to Sunnydale, keeping Disney Television Animation prestigious after Sunnydale ended. However, though Ender drew in a big crowd, and lasted almost twice as long as Sunnydale, it was not ultimately as well-received. EvtSBA is a children's space opera, wearing its Starship Troopers (Joss Whedon) inspiration on its sleeve, but also clearly copying some (superficial) notes from Philip Pullman. Set in a future where mankind has come into violent conflict with bug-like aliens, the show follows unbearably smug boy supergenius Ender as he is sent to military school to prepare for interstellar warfare. The show has an extremely cutesy and hyperactive tone; typical filler episodes include the one (generally taken as meta about fandom drama) in which Ender's siblings' futuristic internet arguments prove instrumental to the survival of the human race. Later seasons get a bit more serious, but focus heavily on shipping. The show is infamous for its ending, in which Ender, for his final exam, destroys the Formics' home planet and releases a psychic signal that eradicates the Formic race. Although the show explicitly notes that this includes many individual Formics who we have previously known as sympathetic characters, it is nonetheless played as a happy ending in which a hostile colonial power is defeated. Ender has ended the war; he has beaten the Space Bug Army.

"Meugh-Neigh. 'Meugh' like the cat, 'neigh' like the horse." "Does it mean something?" "No answer; none at all."

Orson Scott Card is an extremely prolific author of speculative fiction. Although it isn't as close to his heart as the Steel Gear series, in which he got to flex his military sci-fi muscles and allegorically retell stories from his faith, he is undoubtedly best known for Ishtar's Curse. Initially a short story and later expanded into a full novel, the plot concerns young Princess Ishtar, or Star, heir to the heathen fairy kingdom of Meugh-Neigh. (In later novels, she changes her name to Bethlehem Diaz, or Beth.) Spoiled and destructive but magically talented, Star is sent to twentieth century Earth so she can develop the wits and the strength of character to be a viable wartime leader for her people - or at least so she can be kept out of the way. After several years of personal growth and magical misadventures with companions she met on Earth, a more grounded Star devises a spell to erase the magic that makes up the bodies of most of her throne's enemies. This plan works, and merges Meugh-Neigh into the Earth as a small and ordinary European country. However, though her subjects are eager to celebrate her for this, Star is devastated when she realizes that she has killed trillions of innocent spirits, and, seeking to atone, she takes on the title of Speaker for the Dead (also the title of the book's first sequel). Although it's frequently ranked highly in lists of fantasy novels of the twentieth century, Ishtar's Curse has received some harsh criticism, with the standard line being that Star is an idealized fantasy of a repentant Hitler figure, and that the text presents excessive justifications for her actions. The story has also been called a reactionary response to Wilde's The Little Mermaid. After more than twenty years, a film adaptation of Ishtar's Curse was released in 2009, starring Dakota Fanning, to mixed reviews. The box office took a further hit due to a boycott campaign, after Card's views on homosexuality (and, relatedly, his membership in the LDS Church) became widely known. In the end, it lost the studio a lot of money.

Hideaki Anno is best known for the classic smash hit anime he made for Studio Gainax, Einstein Goliath Nestorian, a psychologically intense deconstruction of martial arts shonen like Yoshiyuki Tomino's Dragon Ball. Einstein Goliath Nestorian concerns a mystery man known only as Saitama, who finds that he has become dissatisfied with life and alienated from the world after only three years of training have enabled him to easily surpass any physical challenge. The original series is known for its sudden, surreal, and clearly budget-driven ending, although this was quickly alleviated with a similarly surreal but more definitive finale movie. Although many Western anime fans often think of Einstein Goliath Nestorian as pretentious and ultra niche, it was actually a huge mainstream hit in Japan, with a colossal franchise of adaptations, merch, and spinoffs (notably including a series of Retrain films, which began as extremely close shot-for-shot remakes of the original series but wound up spiraling into a very different updated timeline).

Previously most noteworthy for his 2003 visual novel Oreimo, Gen Urobuchi was tapped by Shaft for their extremely successful and acclaimed anime Ohayou Hana!, hailed as a deceptively dark deconstruction of the teen idol genre. The plot concerns a girl, Saionji Mayuri, who leads a double life, being of little note at school, out of costume, but spending much of her time as #1 idol Hana. Her mental stability begins to deteriorate as she realizes that the adults in her life - especially her father, himself a former idol - have groomed her to serve as a drugged and hypnotized propaganda mouthpiece for a shadowy conspiracy. She winds up in the worst of both worlds as her ensuing breakdown, and her handlers' response to it, destroys both of her lives and brings ruin to those she cares about. In addition to the popularity of the actual anime, many of its songs became decontextualized J-Pop hits. The idol anime genre would then receive a glut of edgy lesser imitators, like Love Live: School Idol Project, Cheetah Girls, and magical girl fusion Symphogear. Although the original Ohayou Hana! was a self-contained twelve-episode story, it received a sequel movie shortly thereafter, Ohayou Hana! Rebel!, which ended on a cliffhanger that has still not been resolved over a decade later. The upcoming Ohayou Hana! MK Ultra! is expected to get things back on track. An abridged series originating on 4chan, focusing on cropped screencaps from Ohayou Hana!, called the title character "Miss Ohio", producing the memetic tagline "being Ohio is suffering".

Zack Snyder first came up with the idea for Madoka around 2000, a long time before he'd actually get to make it; he put the project on hold in 2006 to make his adaptation of Worm Turns. He developed the idea with his wife Deborah and a cowriter, Steve Shibuya. Inspired by the Disney Princess phenomenon, as well as Naoko Takeuchi's Pretty Cure (one of the few anime that had already become a hit in the States), Snyder wanted to tell a coherent story about fights between magical girls who could make anything happen, who could make any fantastical world or visual appear. In Snyder's film, we follow Madoka Kaname, a teenager attending a Catholic school in Los Angeles. Madoka and her friends are approached by a strange young woman who goes only by "Mommy", and her animal companion (a CGI-ed up squirrel-cat thing), QB. They offer to make the teens into "magical girls", granting them one wish each in exchange for a life devoted to spiritual warfare. (Another mysterious new girl, Lilly, urges them not to take the deal in the strongest possible terms.) This turns out to be a scam; QB is pitting the magical girls against one another for his own reasons, and in the end, every magical girl and her wish gets corrupted. Despite much of the film's plot being a horrific bloodbath - the MPAA demanded a lot of cuts to get it down to a PG-13 rating - there is a happy ending; Madoka finally makes her own wish and uses it to topple QB's whole system. Madoka isn't often discussed nowadays but it was a major discourse bomb when it came out in 2010, alternately being called misogynistic Orientalist trash and a subversive feminist masterpiece. Snyder, for his part, often notes that QB is intended as an allegory for exploitative forces within the entertainment industry that treat young women as disposable resources with an expiration date; this is already clear to anyone who's watched the film, which is not exactly subtle in its symbolism. He also explains that the film sexualizes the girls in an effort to shame the audience, to get people to understand that they are objectifying the characters in the same way that QB does. The soundtrack's got a really cool ethereal cover of Nine Inch Nails' King Nothing on it, which is probably the most remembered part of the film today.

Selena Gomez became a star by playing Violet Parr on Disney Channel's superhero sitcom The Incredibles. While the show was initially a very throwaway villain-of-the-week affair whose leads had to keep their powers hidden from the public and their caped escapades secret from the government for self-explanatory comes-with-the-genre reasons, it would eventually unfold that the show was set in something of an X-Men-style dystopia where superheroism had been outlawed and supers oppressed by the government as a potential societal fifth column.

Brad Bird directed one of Pixar's most celebrated films, Wizards of Waverly Place; it was Pixar's first film with a predominantly human cast. Disney was hungry for a fantasy property after losing a bidding war for the Luz Noceda rights. It had strong populist anti-eugenic themes, with an elaborate wizarding hierarchy of antagonists who seek to remove the Russo family's magic as part of an effort to curb wizard overpopulation. The sequel came more than a decade later, and wasn't nearly as good.

In addition to Worm Turns, Alan Moore is notable for the heavily metafictional comic Pagemaster, about a boy, Richard, who finds a magical library that contains all stories that have ever been or could ever be told; he becomes lost and imperiled in assorted pieces of historically noteworthy literature (initially ones in the public domain, though later volumes would start using legally safe serial-numbers-filed-off versions of modern stories). The 2003 film, in which Sean Connery played the librarian in one of his last film roles, is widely regarded as a terrible, deeply-toned-down adaptation that didn't grasp the tone or themes of the original story at all; it only covered the first half of the first volume, in which Richard meets "genre spirits" who wish to sort all stories into rigid categories. In a later volume, Pagemaster Millennium, an aged Richard Tyler, who has since taken on the mantle of librarian himself, meets a teenage girl, heavily implied to be Luz Noceda, who has also become lost in the library. She has become corrupted by an eldritch book, or "Necronomicon", written by "the Wrong Author", heavily implied to be the devil (and/or Hugo Astley, an Aleister Crowley caricature from W. Somerset Maugham's The Winged Bull). Flushed with demonic power and enraged by what she's become, a monstrous Luz tears through the library in a blaze of hellfire, seeking to destroy all of literature and the world. It is only through the intervention of the Fat Controller - heavily implied to be God - that Luz is defeated; he mercifully erases her by hitting her with a train, and laments what she became.

#queued post #the scrambled timeline #I tinkered around with the ordering of these entries so much that I guess this is a scrambled post for the scrambled timeline #credit to hieronymous-botch for the Alex Hirsch's Sunnydale idea #credit to Lorelei for the Orson Scott Card's Steel Gear idea

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taibhsearachd · 6 days ago

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Currently trusting in Gritty as some kind of minor deity of democracy.

Which is very funny, given that I am mostly an atheist, but right now and for the next few days, I believe in Gritty with all my heart. And whatever fucking local monsters inhabit Phoenix and Detroit and Milwaukee. (I will leave the answers to those questions up to my wife for the first one, and locals of the aforementioned cities for the latter two.)

#us politics #november 5 2024 #last post for the night I promise #anything you see after this has been queued

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seat-safety-switch · 2 years ago

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There is some true magic happening nowadays in the tiny island nation of Japan. Even as their rural areas slide towards extinction, the urban heart of the country has never seen more construction. Being a construction worker over there introduces you to a ridiculous subculture: construction fashion. Construction magazines. Construction labour unions. And specialized, bad-ass tools.

Makita, those blue-green monsters, have released something incredible. When you buy your bento lunches from the local convenience store, they cool off on the way back to the jobsite. If you bought a whole bunch of them to share with your coworkers – say, you’re the newbie and they would rather have you do that than handle any actual tools – that food is gonna be ice cold by the time you figure out how to get your PPE back on and climb up to where all the senpais are at.

What did Makita make? A 40-volt, lithum-ion-powered, eight-hundred-watt portable bento microwave for the jobsite. The purity of vision required to force such a thing into being makes me want to cry. Even just saying those words out loud is emotional. By the standards of ridiculous construction-site battery tools, this makes the Milwaukee Bluetooth speaker look like a dollar-store essential. It even comes with a shoulder strap, so the aforementioned newbie can still carry the rest of your tools for you while you’re walking the field.

Now, am I saying all these nice things about the Makita microwave so that they’ll send me a free one? Maybe. Am I saying all these nice things so that they’ll send me their new cordless angle grinder instead? Yes, very much so. That thing seems like it would be the perfect tool to cut through this ankle bracelet.

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mdizzle999872 · 29 days ago

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A Fang-tastic First Meeting

The Fenton household was unusually quiet as Danny sat on the living room couch. He was in a rare state.

Danny Fenton was alone.

Tucker was at a sci-fi convention, and Sam was basically being kidnapped by her parents to visit her cousins in Milwaukee. Danny would have happily volunteered to accompany either one of them if it wasn't for one problem.

His parents.

Jazz had a big college scholarship interview and she needed both of their parents to be there. Danny almost went with them but ghost hunting had been hurting his grades lately. Not a lot of time for homework when you're fighting the likes of Skulker all night.

So he had a mountain of extra credit assignments to cut through if he wanted to avoid summer school. Normally his parents would never even entertain the idea of leaving him home alone but there was just so much extra credit that Jazz assured them that he would be too busy to get into trouble.

Currently, he was taking a break. A fresh mind can do wonders for the task at hand.

The problem was that he was bored. Oh sure! He had his games and his movies to entertain himself but without friends to do them with it was a little hollow.

He thought about maybe surrendering to one of the mind numbing movies on television when a voice suddenly thundered throughout the room.

"DANIEL FENTON!!!"

Danny jumped off the couch out of reflex. He looked around but he couldn't tell where the voice was coming from.

"I mean you no harm, my boy. I'm a friend."

"Then prove it!" challenged Danny. "Show yourself!"

"If you insist."

Green smoke filled the room and spiraled into a single point. When it disappeared, there stood a man with a crystal ball. He wasn't a ghost but he did strongly resemble...

"Doctor Strange?"

"Oh my, no! Although I'm flattered you would compare me to someone so famous. I do think bare a striking resemblance to the actor but the very idea of someone like me in the movies is..." An almost devilish smile crossed his face. "Chilling."

Danny said everything he needed to through a raised eyebrow.

"Oh but look at me ramble on and on; you still have no idea what I'm here for. I'm well aware of who you are, what you are, and most importantly where your morals lay."

Danny shifted his eyes around nervously.

"Um ... I don't..."

"Oh Danny come off it, I know about the Ghost Portal accident and more importantly I know that you've been using your powers to protect people. There's very little you could hide from me and my crystal ball."

Danny's face went from nervous to serious immediately.

"Alright, fine. You know me. Let's say for the sake of argument that I believe that. Who are you, why are you in my house, and what do you want with me?"

"My name is Vincent Van Ghoul! And..." The man's face suddenly turned solemn. "I need your help."

Danny wasn't sure what to expect from this uninvited guest but a plea for assistance wasn't it.

"Or rather a friend of a friend needs your protection. Tell me Danny, I know you have evidence of the existence of ghosts but what do think about the idea of OTHER supernatural beings existing?"

"Like Big Foot?"

Vincent threw his head back with a hearty "HA!!!"

This little joke brightened his mood considerably. Vincent started to dance his fingers about his crystal ball, an image started to swirl inside.

"No my dear boy, I mean like ghouls, goblins, vampires, and werewolves."

Danny crossed his arms. "Let's just say skepticism is a luxury that's been denied me since birth."

"Oh Ho! You are quite witty when you want to be! Pleasantries aside, let's get down to business. The Mummy, the Wolfman, Dracula... these are but a few of the most powerful monsters in the world that are also well known to the public."

"The Universal Pictures monsters?"

"I suppose that's one way of looking at them. Just bare with me for a second, these monsters are also fathers!"

"Oh!"

"And you don't become one of the most powerful monsters in the world without making some dangerous enemies. One of which just so happens to be a ghost."

"Okay, now I think I see where this is going."

"You THINK you see, but you're wrong Young Fenton. Because this ghost is not of the Ghost Zone but a chest. A chest of Demons to be precise, once they held 13 of the most evil ghosts the world had ever seen but then some fools let them out accidentally. I thought we had rounded them all up but..."

"But what?"

"It's so embarrassing! I am indeed a powerful sorcerer but at the end of the day even I am still human..... sigh. I miscounted. We didn't round up thirteen at all. It was only eleven."

"And one of these ghosts from the chest had a score to settle with these monsters?"

"You're quick on the uptake. That's good! Yes, once upon a time one of these ghosts helped Dracula aquire his castle but the ghost got too greedy and Dracula, with the ironic help of some mortals, sealed him away into the Chest of Demons."

"But when he got out..."

"He wanted revenge, yes. However, he had learned not to directly confront Dracula, so he figured if he couldn't go through Dracula then he would go around him."

"Attacking those he held close."

"Like his daughter. Yes, you understand. Dracula's daughter, Sibella, isn't actually hurt though. She's been transformed... into a human."

Danny rubbed the back of his neck. "Okay, I did not see that one coming. So, exactly what do you need from me?"

"Well, the mortals that once opened the chest have reunited to hunt the ghost down. Dracula and his friends are even giving them as much monster aid as possible. It's only a matter of time before we find him but until then Sibella is vulnerable. Not only can she be killed now by mortal means, but she also has to adjust to life as a human for the time being. She needs someone not just to protect her but show her how the human world works. Someone, who walks in both the world of the humans and the supernatural."

Danny sighed and lowered his eyelids halfway. "I am so going to summer school."

Vincent smiled. "You'll help us then?"

"Well... That depends! How long would I have to look after her?"

"Oh not long at all. We're already halfway done tracking the culprit down. An evening at the most. I understand you live a busy life!"

"Busy nothing! You try explaining a strange unknown girl in the house to your parents when you're only fourteen!"

"Excellent point, my dear boy. All the more reason to get this started so I can return and help the others."

With a wave of his cape more green smoke appeared and a teenaged girl walked out of it.

She was about Danny's age, around his height. Her frame was long and slender, her hair was black and reached down to the lower part of her back.

"My name is Sibella. You must be Danny, I've heard so much about you. It's Fang-tastic to meet you!"

She held out her hand and Danny gave her a humored half grin.

"Fang-tastic huh?" Danny shook her hand. "If you're really into puns then maybe this won't be so bad after all."

"See? You two are hitting it off already! I'll be back after we've caught the scumbag!"

More of his green smoke appeared and swirled around him.

"Oh, but Danny? One last word of advice; she IS still Dracula's daughter so do try to be nice to her."

"If I can handle Sam on a bad day, then I think I can handle the daughter of Dracula."

"Quite right. Quite right! Have fun you two!" The smoke had almost disappeared but with the last little bit left, Vincent poked his head through for one last warning. "But not too much fun! Understand? Good!"

With Vincent gone, Danny was left alone. In his house. With no one but a single girl for company.

"So..." Danny desperately tried to kill the silence between them. "Dracula's daughter. What's that like?"

"Well I'd say it's no big deal but I did grow up in a literal castle."

"Like with a moat?"

"Yeah.......... You know I've met other ghosts but I understand that you're wired different?"

"Yeah, first off I am neither dead nor am I half dead. I am an ecto-infused human. The Ghost Zone Portal turned on with me inside and BAM...... ghost powers."

"Makes sense to me. Ectoplasm IS how ghosts who actually are the spirits of the departed remain in this world. Their souls have to latch onto something to stick around."

"Huh. That actually does make sense."

"Yes. I have this friend called Phantasma, she's practically made of the stuff... She never died either, otherwise there'd be no point sending her to a finishing school."

"There's a finishing school for monsters?"

"Ghouls if you want to get technical. Miss Grimwood's Finishing School For Ghouls, it's just the Bats!"

"Ha ha! A vampire pun! Fun!"

The two shared a smile. Not a romantic smile nor a flirtatious smile, just a genuine smile.

"Well my mom and dad did leave me a little pizza money. Are you hungry?"

"Famished."

"Or fang-ished?"

Danny was expecting a groan or maybe some disappointed criticism but to his surprise she actually grinned at the joke.

Without another word, the two entered the kitchen.

Sibella found her seat at the table while Danny got to the phone. Before he could start dialing the phone though, there was a very important question that needed to be asked.

"What kind of toppings do you want?"

"Oh nothing too special. Spider webs and rat tails should be good enough for me."

"... You're joking, right?"

"What? No! Isn't that what you humans eat? Just like us, right?"

Danny hung up the phone.

"No!! What you're suggesting is completely inedible for humans! Not to mention, probably tastes terrible!"

Sibella sat completely shocked.

"What about slimy salamanders? Toadstools? Fungus fudge?"

"What's fungu- nevermind. But, no. Humans don't eat any of those things because we CAN'T eat any of those things.... Not without getting sick anyways."

"What about crab apples? For pity's sake, tell me humans at least like crab apples!!"

Danny sympathetically shook his head 'No'.

"For us, that is literally poisonous."

Sibella held her head in embarrassed realization.

"No wonder our gym teachers didn't stick around."

Danny raised an eyebrow at her musings but didn't question it.

"This is why Daddy didn't want me sticking around the castle like this either. I'd be dead by dinner."

She looked up at Danny with a face pleading of mercy.

"Danny, do you think you could walk me through on how to eat like a human?"

Her big sad eyes nearly broke his heart but Danny knew they weren't necessary.

"Of course. We'll start you out small. We'll order you a simple pepperoni, but until it arrives how about I teach you about normal fudge? Because if there's one type of food the Fentons know, it's fudge."

______________________________________________________________

Later....

"Okay," began Sibella. "dealing with a whole new level of taste buds here. That food was actually Fang-tastic!"

Danny smiled at the reused pun. "Glad you liked it."

"What else is different for humans?"

"I'm guessing entertainment. I have a few games upstairs on my computer I could show you."

"Games? Are they like volleyball?"

"Uh no. Not really. Just follow me and I'll show you."

"You Bat I will!"

"Heh. Heh."

Danny started to lead her to the stairs when she spotted a mirror on the wall. Sibella jumped at the sight of her own reflection.

"Danny! Who is that girl?!"

"Huh? Oh! Right, vampire. That's just your reflection."

Sibella stared at it with interest.

"MY reflection? Me?"

"I know you were a vampire up until now but you had to know what you looked like, right?"

"Well, of course! Not through a mirror though, pictures never really worked either....... I was able to be successfully painted though."

"I guess that makes sense. Gotta know what you look like somehow."

"I've never seen myself in a mirror before though."

She gave herself a thorough inspection.

"I look different. A lot different!"

"Really? What did you look like before?"

"Purple. Purple skin. Purple hair. And of course fangs."

"Of course. Well, I don't think I can just leave you alone so are you going to follow me or should I get comfortable?"

"Oh no, I'll go with you. Just let me do one last thing."

Sibella fluffed up her hair and let it fall.

"I might not be Fang-tastic but I'm not Bat! Alright, let's go."

"Heh heh heh."

'Wow! Even though she's a vampire, she also has some normal girl habits. Who'd a thunk?'

______________________________________________________________

Danny's room...

Danny sat at his computer with Sibella overlooking his shoulder.

"Alright, I don't know what you monsters know about the digital age...." Sibella waved her hand from side to side in a so-so way. "but this is called a computer. Mine has some fun games on it and..."

Danny was cut off as a blue mist came out of his mouth.

"Danny?"

Danny stood up and took a battle stance.

"There's a ghost nearby. Get behind me!" Sibella did exactly that and Danny shouted his signature catch phrase. "I'm Going Ghost!"

White rings appeared around his torso and separated transforming him into Danny Phantom.

Sibella found herself oddly disappointed with Danny's ghost form. She thought he would look more like Phanty but instead he was like the negative photograph of his usual self. In her opinion, his human half looked better.

Danny waited silently and patiently for the ghost to show itself. And then..... It did.

"BEWARE!!!"

Danny visibly relaxed. "Oh, it's just you! I was almost scared there for a moment."

The Box Ghost was a nuisance at worst but it was usually a good idea to catch him anyways in case he accidentally ended up doing something dangerous. A fine example of this was when he stole Pandora's Box.

Sibella didn't know this person, but somehow she already felt annoyed with him. He didn't really resemble Phanty either.

"Who IS that?"

"Oh. Me?" The ghost looked almost flattered that she asked. "Nice to meet you. I AM THE BOX GHOST!!! Master of all things squared and cornered!!"

"He's just the Box Ghost. He's more of a chore than a threat."

"Let's see if you find THIS to be none threatening!!!"

The Box Ghost's hand glowed blue and made a motion with it. Danny's monitor glowed the same blue before flying off and hitting Danny in the back of the head.

"OW!!! Hey!!"

"DO YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU MESS WITH THE TERRIFYING BOX GHOST?! SHUDDER IN FEAR AS I..."

*ZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAAP!*

A ghost ray shot out of Danny's hand sending the Box Ghost flying through the wall.

"This shouldn't take long. Sibella, think you could toss me that thermos on the table?"

She opened her mouth to ask a question but he cut her to the quick.

"No. It has nothing to do with soup."

Sibella didn't need to be told anymore than that and tossed it to him.

Danny saluted her a 'thank you' and phased through the room.

Sibella stood in Danny's room alone for a moment, unsure of what to do with the silence.

Then the Box Ghost came crashing in again, landing in a heap at her feet.

Danny phased in through the wall seconds later and pointed the thermos at the Box Ghost. A beam of light shot out of the thermos and enveloped the Box Ghost before sucking it in.

"How did you do that?" asked Sibella.

"Remember how I mentioned that my parents built a portal to the Ghost Zone? That's because they're scientists that study ghosts but they are also ghost hunters. This is one of their inventions to catch ghosts."

Sibella lightly grabbed the thermos and looked Danny in the face with sympathy.

"Do they.... Know?"

Danny looked away from her dejectedly. "No. And I would rather they don't know. Especially since they think my ghost half is responsible for some trouble that other ghosts have caused in town."

"Danny..."

"... I don't want to talk about it."

A silence was starting to develop between them but the sight of his computer smashed on the ground gave him an idea on what to do next.

"Since video games are now out of the picture, how about I instead show you what we do with caught ghosts?"

It was obvious that Sibella wanted to talk more about the problem with his parents but she wanted him to feel comfortable enough to talk about it first. So her answer was an understanding nod and a simple "Okay."

______________________________________________________________

The basement....

Sibella wasn't sure what to expect in the lab basement of confirmed ghost hunters but a giant swirling portal of ectoplasm wasn't it.

"Ah! Sibella, over here." called Danny.

Sibella joined Danny over by the portal watched him hook the thermos up to a device attached to the portal.

"Okay, now keep your eyes on the portal!"

A quick press of a button and the Box Ghost's image was seen in the swirl of the portal before disappearing down into it.

"And that's what we do with captured ghosts."

"You send them into this thing?"

"We figure that the Ghost Zone is where all these ghosts come from so we may as well send them back to it."

"What if they get out?"

"Oh they do. The Box Ghost is a common nuisance but I'm always here to put them right back."

"And when they do get out you capture them in this? The thermos?"

"Well... Usually. It's not like I just show up and shove them in the thermos, ya know? Some will only go down swinging."

"Mr. Van Ghoul said you hunted ghosts with your friends are they... Like you?"

"No. They're both human."

"Well forgive me for asking but if they're completely human then how can they help?"

"Well this thermos wasn't invented by me. It was invented by my entirely human parents. And it's not the only ghost hunting weapon they've come up with that packs a kick."

Sibella smiled. "Can you show me? Since the villain that did this to me IS a ghost, it would probably be a good idea to familiarize myself with some ghost hunting gear."

"... That does sound like a good idea. Okay..."

Danny brought over a cart filled with Fenton weaponry.

"My mom was giving these things a tune up but most of them should be good to go."

He held up some metal gloves. "These are the Ghost Gloves! Ectoplasmic powered gloves that can allow normal people to grab ghosts! No ghost can break their grip."

Sibella inspected the gloves but wasn't that impressed.

"Doesn't really feel like 'me'. Probably be great for a hands on girl, like my friend Elsa!"

"Ha ha. Elsa? Seriously? Is she..."

"No! Trust me! She is nothing like the Elsa from the musical!"

"Fair enough. Moving on... Okay this is the Fenton Weasel."

Danny held up the end of what looked like a vacuum cleaner.

"Like the Fenton Thermos, this is designed to capture and hold ghosts but only like...one per use. Unlike the thermos it doesn't really shrink anything so it can get pretty cramped in there. Trust me, I know."

"Probably not going to be very useful considering who we're up against."

"Right! Moving down the line we have the Fenton Fisher!" Danny held up what looked like a sci-fi retractable fishing rod. "The line is coated in a specially-tested ectoplasmic resin that ghosts can't break or escape from, though on several occasions, powerful ghosts have broken it."

Sibella didn't want to dismiss it but if more powerful ghosts had broken it in the past then it probably wouldn't hold up to a ghost from the Chest of Demons.

"Let's put that in the maybe pile."

"Probably for the best. It tangles like a nightmare."

Danny then held up two small devices that easily fit in his hand.

"The Fenton Wrist Rays. Wrist mounted weapons that shoot out ectoplasmic energy rays. They also happen to be a favorite of my friend Sam."

"You're friend has good taste! I love them already!!"

Danny tossed them to her.

"Great! Put them on, aim, and press the button."

Danny set up a couple of targets from his personal obstacle course.

"Now we're not trying to test your reflexes here so just shoot the targets when you're good and ready."

One by one little green ghost wooden cutouts would pop up and Sibella would shoot them one at a time. Then the one of Jazz popped up and Sibella waited for a moment and then zapped her too.

"Your aim's not bad."

"Or not 'bat'?"

"Heh. Heh. Heh. That's funny. See ya shot the cut out of my sister, don't blame you there."

"She was making a face at me."

Danny smiled. "I'm starting to like you more and more."

Sibella lightly blushed at the compliment.

"Okay, let's move on to some of the more heavy duty weapons."

From under the cart Danny brought out what could only be called a Sci-fi bazooka.

"This is the Fenton Bazooka. Unfortunately, like the other ones, this is being repaired. It usually packs a pretty big wallop and can even make lesser ghosts disappear. It used to have a portable Ghost Zone Portal option too but like I said..."

"Being repaired. Fair enough. What else is there?"

The next weapon that Danny got out looked like the love child between the last weapon and a vacuum cleaner.

"This is the Fenton Crammer. Designed to shrink ghosts in size and threat level."

"Does it work?"

"Almost a little too well. I got shrunk by it once and gradually started to lose my powers. That being said there is also a grow feature labeled as Uncram."

"... Let's keep that one but not as our first default."

Danny thought about it for a moment and agreed with Sibella's decision.

"Granted. Moving on..."

Danny then brought out a strange hand held device.

"This is the Fenton Peeler. It deploys a full set of armor to protect you and its laser can be used to injure ghosts and strip away ghostly disguises. Cutting away at all the layers to the ghost inside."

Sibella clapped her hands together.

"Danny, that sounds perfect!"

"Well, let's see how you do with it then."

Sibella took the gadget from Danny and aimed it like a gun.

Danny almost laughed at the sight. "No. No. First you need to deploy the armor before you can shoot anything. Here, let me help you."

Danny got in close and helped guide her thumb to the right button.

Danny then noticed that they were almost cheek to cheek and stepped away with a blush. He wasn't sure but he was almost certain she smiled at the close vicinity they had.

"Ahem! Now just hold the Peeler out as far as your arm will go and press the button."

After one little *CLICK!* metal coils stretch out from the device, wrapping around her arm, continuing onto her body until she was covered from helmet to toe in armor.

Because the armor was one size fits all, like Danny said, he couldn't help but notice that her frame was a little more curvy than it would be for Sam or Jazz. Oh that wasn't to say her form wasn't still slender but there were bound to be things Danny would notice as a fourteen year old heterosexual boy. Things he would often get chastised for by Sam.

Sam.

This entire time Danny hadn't even thought of Sam. He wondered what she would say about Sibella?

Danny wanted to believe that Sam would be happy to have another spooky friend but even he was starting to feel some electricity between him and Sibella.

And so what if he did?!

Sam was a friend. They weren't married. And if Sam was really the modern woman she claimed to be then didn't that mean she had every bit as much right as him to make the first move?

There was a few things to unpack there but no matter what way he sliced it, he and Sam were just friends. Could they be more than that? Maybe one day... but at the moment it was just friendship.

And friendship certainly wasn't what Danny was picking up that he was feeling with Sibella.

They were both free agents so Danny decided to just let the situation happen. Whatever happened, happens.

Sibella seemed very happy from behind the helmet's visor. She was looking over her body and then turned to Danny with a question.

"Does this armor make my butt look fat?"

Danny laughed again.

"Not at..." Danny was cut off as a blue mist came out of his mouth.

Before Danny could utter any kind of warning, a square stone block shot out of the portal and hit Sibella in the gut

"SIBELLA!!!"

A huge stone hand shot out of the portal and onto the ground. It got a good grip on the floor and more of the ghost pulled itself out of the portal.

What followed was not entirely what Danny had expected. In that it was not an 'entire' body. It was made entirely out of rock but it was missing the lower half for the body.

Just two arms, a chest, and a head. All made of square stone blocks. They were green and covered in algae, moss, and fungus. They looked downright unpleasant to touch, one might even call them grimy.

Danny had already placed himself between the ghost and Sibella.

"Sibella, are you okay?!"

"Yes! The armor took the blunt of the blow!"

Danny turned to the new ghost with glowing hands.

"Who are you?!" demanded Danny.

Sibella got to her feet and stood behind Danny. Given how her armor was sparking from where she got hit, this was probably a good idea.

"I'm GRIME STONE!!!"

The ghost pounded his fist on the ground making Danny and Sibella jump in the air a little.

Now that she was on her feet, Sibella recognized the ghost almost immediately.

"Danny, that's him! That's the ghost that did this to me!"

Danny stared at the ghost in disbelief. "You're the ghost from the Chest of Demons?"

"YES!!! And after all these years I will soon have my revenge!!"

Danny's hands glowed a little brighter. "What did Dracula even do to you?! What warrants THIS much revenge?!"

"I built Dracula his castle and in exchange we were supposed to rule together!! But when I said that I wanted to kill the villagers, he went and betrayed me!! I knew I couldn't beat him directly, but with some runes I learned of I knew I could make him SUFFER!! I turned his daughter human but before I could finish the job, that JERK with the crystal ball showed up and spirited her away!!"

Danny and Sibella were slowly and subtly making their way back to the stairs but never broke eye contact with Grime Stone.

"And then you hid in the Ghost Zone?" asked Danny.

"It was the one place nobody expected me to hide! Who would think to look for a Non-Ghost Zone ghost in the Ghost Zone?!"

One of his square stone blocks rolled itself off of his body and showed a rune to Danny. It fired off a small red fireball that almost took off Danny's head.

"In case you haven't figured it out, runes are kind of my thing!" The stone rolled itself back onto Grime Stone's body and the ghost reeled back his fist for a punch. "SECOND ONLY TO MURDER!!!"

Danny picked Sibella and dodged the fist by making them intangible.

*SMASH!*

Danny flew Sibella up, phasing them both through the roof. Danny took them out to the streets where he set her down.

"So THAT'S the guy?!" asked Danny.

"There's no mistaking it! He surrounded me with a whole circle of stones with those runes and then zap!"

*CRASH!*

Grime Stone broke through the walls of Fenton Works creating a giant gapping hole.

"Hey!! Come on now!!" snapped Danny. 'Do Non-Ghost Zone ghosts not have the ability to go intangible? This could get messy. Fast!' thought Danny.

Sibella stepped forward and took a shot at Grime Stone with the Fenton Peeler.

*BZZZZZZZZT!*

A long laser beam shot out of the muzzle of the gadget and hit Grime Stone. It must have been doing at least some damage because he was holding up his hands in an attempt to protect himself from it.

"How did you know how to fire it?" asked Danny.

"Well I don't have Bats in my Belfry, Danny. I figured it had to be the only other button on the thing."

"Okay, I guess that one's a given."

A few more sparks flew out of Sibella's armor and the beam stopped.

"Sibella, do you have a way to contact Vincent Van Ghoul?"

"Yes! He gave me a crystal ball just in case something like this happened! I don't think Grime Stone is going to give us a chance to use it though!"

"You run inside and use it! I'll keep Boulder Breath busy."

"But Danny..."

"I can handle it! Now run!!"

The Fenton Peeler armor retracted back into the device giving one final big spark.

Grime Stone was busy trying to get the stone cubes of his body to stop smoking so he didn't even notice Sibella running past him into Fenton Works.

*ZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!*

A ghost ray to Grime Stone's face earned Danny his full attention.

A menacing glare from the ghost from the Chest of Demons was sent right to the ghostly protector floating above him.

"Hey Blockhead!! Come at me if you think you got the stones!!"

Grime Stone threw a square stone block from his body at Danny but he blasted it to pieces. Another stone block took the place of the one thrown.

'I don't think he can make more... I play this right then maybe I can wear him down.' thought Danny.

"What even ARE you?!"

demanded the limestone built ghost.

"The name's Phantom. Danny Phantom! I protect this town from evil ghosts like you!"

"...ALL I WANT IS THE GIRL!!!'

"Tell that to the hole you made in my house!!"

Grime Stone looked back and saw the giant hole he had created from the basement up. He turned back to Danny and waved his stone hand nonchalantly. "Semantics."

"Listen, grudge or not! I am NOT going to let you hurt that girl! So just give up now or I'll turn you to rubble!!"

Grime Stone let four of his stone blocks fall to the ground, rolling until they stopped with red runes facing Danny.

"You and WHAT ARMY?!"

The runes glowed brightly and then fired at Danny. Each one was firing something different however; one was a straight laser beam, another was jagged like a lightning bolt, the third let loose a barrage of energy arrows, and the final one lashes out like a flailing whip.

They were all red and Danny nearly dodged them all but the whip one managed to wrap itself around his ankle.

Danny shuddered in revulsion at the feel. It was like being grabbed by an eel coated in slug slime.

However, this grotesque feel couldn't help but make Danny wonder if a certain counter tactic would be optional with it.

He shot a ghost ray where it connected with his ankle, cutting it off. Grabbing the end of it, he charged up some of his own ghost energy and threw a shockwave down it.

"Go Ghost Stinger!!"

The green energy traveled all the way down the whip until it hit the rune, shocking it. The stone cube rocked and crackled with green energy and to Danny's surprise, so did Grime Stone.

Eventually the attack ran its course and Grime Stone's entire body was left smoking. This gave Danny a theory.

He experimentally shot a ghost ray at one of the other rune stones. When it hit its mark the stone flew back slightly damaged.

"YOOOW!!!"

Grime Stone held himself as if he had just gotten shot.

"That's it. The runes are his weak spot!"

As Grime Stone focused on recovering to best of his ability, Sibella ran out with some of the ghost hunting gear. Danny floated down to the ground to meet her.

"I called Vincent, he and the others should be here shortly. Problem is another one of the Thirteen Ghosts crossed their paths and they're busy trying to wrangle that one into the chest."

"That's fine! I think I discovered Grime Stone's weakness! His connection to the runes is a two way street! We attack the stones with runes on them and we might be able to power him down!"

"That's great news, Danny! I noticed that the Fenton Peeler only had some effect on him though so I brought out some of the other weapons instead!"

"I don't know if we can just thermos this guy, but if we can weaken him enough by hitting him in the runes..."

Sibella held up the Fenton Crammer. "We can shrink his pieces down with the Fenton Crammer..."

"And then put his pieces into the Fenton Thermos one at a time, catching him!" Danny and Sibella finished in unison.

Danny and Sibella smiled at each other.

Danny had taken Sibella to new parts of herself she didn't even know existed, so he was leaving quite the impression on her.

Sibella was a quick learner and synced up with Danny's line of thinking faster than anyone he had ever met, so she was leaving an equally large impression on him.

Grime Stone waved his hand and a bunch of the stones with runes shot off at them.

Four of them landed around Danny and Sibella. When their runes started to glow, Danny made Sibella duck thus having their blasts fly harmlessly overhead.

As expected, each one was shooting something different. These four had a gust of wind, projectile limestone blocks of equal size as the shooter, red energy construct daggers, and one that shot out large wooden stakes.

Danny's foot glowed green and in spinning ectoplasmic sweep, he kicked them all away.

Grime Stone, for whatever reason, was set on letting his rune stones do his fighting for him. He threw two more at them, one landing near Danny.

The runes started to glow red and Danny threw up a small ecto-shield to protect his face. Instead of whatever Danny was expecting, the block shot out some red slimy goop that completely covered his feet.

He tried to free himself by making his feet intangible but the goop still held him firm. Sibella shot it with the Fenton Wrist Rays and it started to harden on contact. A firm pull and Danny shattered the goop, freeing his feet.

The stone got ready to fire again but Danny tackled Sibella away. They tumbled away on the ground for a little bit until they're momentum stopped and Danny ended up on top of Sibella.

They both stared at each other with widened eyes and large blushes on their faces. However, they couldn't really process the moment much more than that as another stone block near their heads started a power up glow.

Danny quickly shoved them apart and a red geyser of water shot out from the stone.

Danny landed a few feet away where he spotted a stone with a familiar tune on it.

The same stone that shot the fireball at him earlier tumbled over to him and shot another fireball. This time it was stopped by an ecto-shield but Danny already had enough of the block.

Danny shot a ghost ray at the stone directly in the runes. As Grime Stone winced in pain, Sibella walked over with the Fenton Crammer and shrunk the stone to the size of a pebble. She then picked it up and dropped it into the thermos.

"AAAAAGH!!!" Grime Stone let out a shriek of surprise as he felt his connection to the stone being completely cut off.

The former vampire and the halfa smiled at each other. A smile that Grime Stone didn't trust for a minute.

Entering a whole new level of fear, Grime Stone ran on both hands to retrieve his stone cube blocks from the new danger.

Feeling the ground quake from the weight of his giant stone hands, Grime Stone's charge was impossible not to notice.

"Danny, we need to do something quick! He's getting closer!"

Danny rubbed his green hands in preparation. What he was about to try was not necessarily new but on a much grander scale.

"Okay, bear with me for a second."

Concentrating hard, Danny put up a giant green ecto-dome forcefield around them. It was most likely the biggest he had ever produced, but it was big enough that it covered both he and Sibella with the remaining stone cube blocks. It also had Grime Stone outside so he couldn't physically interfere with their plan. Of course this didn't stop him from pounding on it with his stone fists in attempt to break it.

Danny fell to the ground, winded but still conscious.

She offered him a helping hand and Danny gave her a tired smile.

"I don't know how long this thing will hold, especially with him pounding on it, but it should give us the freedom to finish the job."

Now back on his feet, Danny took a breath and straightened up.

The two quickly found a process to dealing with the runes stone blocks. Danny would shoot one with a ghost ray, Sibella would shrink it, and they would alternate on who would put it in the thermos.

Things were going so well that Danny couldn't resist the urge for small talk.

"So... What are you into?"

"Volleyball."

Danny playfully rolled his eyes at the repeated news.

"I think you might have mentioned that before. What else are you into?"

Sibella had to give this question more thought than she would have guessed.

"Well... Sometimes I do a little ballet."

Danny couldn't help but smile. The thought of a blood sucking monster of the night in a tutu was hilarious. He couldn't help but laugh a little.

"A vampire ballerina? There's a pun in there somewhere!"

Sibella didn't seem offended by Danny's jab at all. If anything, she also saw the humor in it.

"I'm sure we could find it. What about you? When your not fighting evil ghosts or playing on your computer, what do you do?"

Danny shrugged as they put away their third stone cube block.

"I mostly hang with my friends Sam and Tucker. I am really into NASA though."

Sibella furrowed her brow in confusion.

"NASA?"

Danny knew she grew up in a world of monsters, but he couldn't believe Sibella didn't know what NASA was.

"Space. I want to be an astronaut when I grow up."

"What's an astronaut?"

With two more blocks away, Danny stared at her in disbelief.

"Someone who travels into space! How could you not... Wow. I guess ghouls really are in the dark about human society."

Sibella shrugged as they put away another stone.

"... I guess I just don't understand the appeal."

"Don't understand the... We've been to the moon!!"

Sibella stopped for a moment and looked at Danny incredulously.

"... Wait. Really?"

"Yes!! Neil Armstrong actually WALKED on the moon! And Buzz Al-You know what? If we finish this up in a hurry maybe I can show you."

Sibella let out a humored grunt and got back to shrinking the rock.

"It'll have to be on something that isn't your computer."

In all the excitement, Danny had actually forgotten that he had lost a computer. Of course it didn't compare to losing a wall to his HOUSE but still.

"Oh... Right. You might have a point there."

With Danny's mood turning down casted, Sibella decided to change the subject.

"I also like physical exercise like jogging."

Admittedly, jogging and exercising wasn't usually on Danny's mind but if being more fit could help improve himself like when he trained with Dash for the President's fitness test...

"You know, maybe a little more stretching of the limbs could help with my ghost fighting. Might be nice to do it with a familiar face..."

Sibella saw what Danny was subtly trying to do and was only too happy to accept it.

"I'd be happy to have you!"

With the last of the stone cube blocks sucked up, Grime Stone was looking a lot worse for wear. He had fallen to his hands, struggling to get up.

Danny lowered the shield and put a hand on Sibella's shoulder.

"You're the one he's been after this whole time. It's only fair for you to catch him."

Sibella smirked and pointed the thermos at Grime Stone the same way Danny had pointed it at the Box Ghost. A beam of light shot out of the thermos and enveloped Grime Stone completely.

"N-N-Noooooooo...."

Grime Stone was sucked into the thermos and Sibella firmly closed the lid on it.

"Ooooh! That IS satisfying. I can see why you and your friends do this............ If you ever see my friend Phanty, please don't tell her I said that."

"Ha ha. Consider it a promise. I don't really think I can keep you safe at my house anymore with a giant hole in it. So what would you say if I treated you around town until Vincent and your dad got here?"

Sibella was about to agree to it when some familiar green smoke appeared from thin air and started to swirl around in front of them.

Danny wasn't sure but he thought he heard Sibella mutter something about a "Date blocking sorcerer."

Vincent Van Ghoul appeared once more with his crystal ball but he wasn't alone this time. Standing next to him was a tall purple man that Danny could only assume was Sibella's father, Dracula.

"Awfully sorry we weren't able to get here sooner kids, but a certain Great Dane... Oh. What's all this now?"

Sibella handed the thermos to Vincent.

"We caught your ghost." Danny explained. "He was powerful...and tricky, but working together we got it done."

Vincent took the thermos, and pulled out a sticky note pad. "Well this turned out better than I ever could have hoped!" He wrote something on a sticky note, attached it to the thermos, and made it disappear in a puff of green smoke.

"My people will toss that thermos into the Chest of Demons right away! That alone should be enough to break Sibella's curse."

Danny walked up to Dracula. He found it ironic how he looked more human than Vlad Plasmius.

Danny offered his hand to the vampire king.

"Nice to meet you, sir. You have a very bright, capable daughter. You should be very proud."

Dracula shook his hand.

"I am always proud of her, but you young Fenton... I owe you a debt. If you ever need a favor, you have but to ask and I will give you my very Bat."

Danny laughed at the pun and Dracula appreciated that he got it.

"Well now that you mention it, there is the little matter of the collateral damage done to my house... That ghost was strong but he was reckless too."

Dracula looked at the hole in Danny's house and found himself unimpressed.

"Child's play! With my ghouls and resources, I can this repaired in a couple of hours." He gave Vincent a knowing smile. "Especially with a little magic to cut down on traveling?"

Vincent rolled his eyes. "Oh fine. Fine. I suppose we owe the lad that much."

Everyone's eyes turned to Sibella as she suddenly started having body spasms.

"Sibella!!! Vincent, what's happening to her?!"

To Danny's surprise, Vincent and Dracula were completely calm about what was happening to his new friend.

"Something good. This means the humans I sent the thermos to have tossed it into the Chest of Demons."

"That means the spell is broken." explained Dracula. "And my daughter is changing back to her usual beautiful batty self."

In a puff of black smoke, the human Danny had befriended was replaced with a vampire version of her.

"Wow. You weren't kidding about the purple. If you don't mind my saying so, I think I like your hair better this way. Looks longer and more like it could flow better. Like a cape but somehow better."

From the look on Sibella's face, she didn't mind at all.

The reality of the situation settled in by itself all too quickly though. With Sibella back to paranormal and the threat neutralized, there was no reason for her to stay.

Everyone there could feel it was time for sad departures.

"I guess this is goodbye." Sibella sadly stated.

Danny gave her a vulnerable smile.

"Maybe we'll meet again? I can show you my telescope and we can star gaze with it. I can show you why I think space is so great."

Sibella smiled at him flirtatiously.

"Consider it a date.

Dracula immediately placed himself between his daughter and the young halfa.

"Okay, that's enough." Dracula picked up Sibella and started to carry her away under his arm. "Any kind of 'dating' that MY little princess will do will only happen AFTER the school year at Grimwood's, and even then only WITH my Hunch Bunch supervising."

Sibella didn't even seem to mind. Instead of objecting she just waved goodbye to Danny with a face of 'Parents. What can you do?'

Danny waved back with a humored nod of understanding.

Dracula placed her between Vincent and himself as green smoke started to swirl around them to take them away.

"Daddy, how soon do you think I can see him again? He was more than just Fang-tastic, I might go out of my way to say that he was Phan-tastic!"

Dracula didn't say a word in response to her but sent a glare to Vincent.

"This is all your fault."

Vincent was taken back by Dracula's accusation.

"Me? What did I have to do with it?"

"He was your idea, wasn't he?!"

The smoke had completely covered them by now, Danny couldn't even see them anymore.

"To keep her safe and protected. And that's exactly what he did, I can't help it they fell for each other a little bit."

"... She is too young to date!"

"Oh for pity's sake, just let your child grow up!"

They were almost completely gone now but one last word echoed through to Danny.

"Never!!"

The smoke dissipated and there wasn't any sign of them. All Danny could think of was one thing.

"Tucker is never going to believe this one."

The End.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #sibella dracula #ghoul school #vincent van ghoul

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