#Wes doesn’t know. but he did figure out about the Giw | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dp-marvel94 · 3 years ago

Text

Nightmare or Sweet Dream

Summary: “The GIW… the GIW said primate research.” Jack says quietly, too quietly “They didn’t… didn’t specify non-human primate.” The words fall heavy, sinking into Maddie’s heart like a knife. “It’s not a chimpanzee or rhesus monkey, is it?” For Ectober Day 24

Notes: Based on this post. @magicalmonsterhero submitted a post, asking about an au where Vlad‘s (and/or Danny’s) powers were not the result of a portal accident. I wrote a ficlet about "the happy version of Danny being an intentional experiment" but decided to make it into an actual story for Ectober 24, Prompt Nightmare/Sweet Dream

Word count: 6,230

Also on A03 and Fanfiction.net

A young couple sits at their kitchen table, talking in hushed voices while their toddler daughter plays in the living room.

“What are we going to do?” Maddie feels like crying, clutching the foreclosure notice in her hands.

Her husband looks over at their little girl. He swallows. “We’ll...we’ll figure something out.”

The woman has rarely seen the man this somber, the distress barely below the surface. He’s trying to stay calm for her, for their child but…. Maddie knows he doesn’t believe it. She can feel it like the tiredness she’s felt in her bones for years, since both the best and the worst day of her life. She looks at the stack of medical bills and….

The blood. The doctor and nurses shouting. They’re pushing a crying Jack out of the room. And...where’s her baby girl?

It was a nightmare and this… This is a nightmare.

“We need a miracle.” Maddie says. And she doesn’t believe in miracles. But maybe... they can get regular jobs and save up money and…

The doorbell suddenly rings. Jack blinks, turning. “Who’s that?”

Maddie stands up, opening the door. And there are three men in white suits, standing across the threshold.

The woman gapes for a long moment before collecting her wits. After a flash of a badge, she invites the agents inside.

“Mr. and Mrs. Fenton. We have a proposition for you.” One of the agents offers.

After briefly excusing herself to take Jazz upstairs for a nap, Maddie returns. The scientists and agents talk and… Maddie’s eyes bulge. “You’re offering… that much money?”

She hands the paper to Jack. “Holy-”

“Yes. If you’ll accept the project. As my colleague explained, the head scientist withdrew his team at the last minute. We need your expertise to salvage this research.”

Maddie raises an eyebrow. “Which is?”

“Classified.” The agent clams up, lip pursed in a thin line.

The scientists look at each other. Jack frowns. “Classified? Agents, we can’t sign on unless we know what we’re doing.”

“World changing research is what you’ll be doing.” The man to the left, the senior agent, argues. He leans forward. “I’ll be straight with you. Years of research and millions of dollars already invested are at stake if we don’t act quickly. The previous team really did us a disservice by dropping the project like this. You will be more than well compensated for your contribution. You’ll be making giant leaps forward in understanding ghosts and in human health. But we need your answer.”

Jack and Maddie are unsure, a silent conversation passing between the two. They argue back and forth with the agents, pressing for more until…

The head agent removes his glasses. “Alright. I really should not be telling you this before you sign the NDAs but… this research… we’ve been trying to achieve the hybridization of ectoplasm with living cells in primates.”

Maddie blinks, shocked. “Ectoplasm with…”

The man nods. “Yes, the combination of living tissue and ghostly powers. A hybrid organic being that will be able to produce and regulate its own ectoplasm. We’ll be able to study ghosts and their abilities in ways we haven’t even dreamed of but…” He tapped the paper. “We need you to sign tonight.”

Jack and Maddie look at each other, another silent conversation. “Just...give us five minutes?” The man asks.

The couple debate. “We need the money.” Jack sighs, eyes wide and desperate.

“But they’re not telling us something.” Maddie frowns, pointing.”

“It’s because of the NDAs. Right?” Her husband rubs his head. “And do you blame them? If what he said is true...this will change the world.”

For just a moment, Maddie is starry eyed. “And to be a part of that….” The doubts remain. “But…”

“We always wanted to change the world. And…” Jack glances to the door. “With the medical bills and the foreclosure...we need the money or we’ll be on the street.”

“No we-” Maddie’s heart twists as the words die on her tongue. She wants to deny it but... Jazz. They need to be practical. They need...they need this money. Something in her still says this is a bad idea. But the mother bits her lip. “For Jazz?”

“For Jazz.” Jack agrees.

The couple sign NDAs and accept the project. Late that night, the agents bring in the equipment and...

“What is that?” Maddie points at a metal and glass chamber, the inside swirling with ectoplasm and water.

“An artificial womb.” Answers one of the agents.

Jack blinks, stunned. “An artificial womb?”

The head agent nods and Maddie frowns, asking. “And what’s it for exactly?”

“Your job…” The agents glances from the incubator. “is to take care of the specimen and ensure it survives until it’s viable outside of the artificial womb.”

“The…. specimen?” The male Fenton asks. “And… until it’s viable? How long is that?”

“How many weeks of gestation is it at now?” The other scientist asks.

The agent remains straight faced as he hands them thick folders of papers. “All the necessary information is here.” He pulls a card out of his pocket, placing it in the folder. “Contact the agency if you require anything else.”

Without answering any more questions, the agents leave. Maddie’s stomach flops, filled with dread. Something about that was-

“Will you look at that?” Jack cut off her thought.

The woman turned to see him peering into the incubator and pointing at something. Maddie leans closer, looking. “Is that...the embryo?”

“I think so.” He replies. “It’s tiny.”

The woman hums in agreement, observing. There, implanted to the back wall of the incubator, is a pea-sized mass. Maddie squints as she tries to make out details. She can barely see but it’s C shaped, with visible neural tube and little nobs that should develop into the limbs.

“I wonder what week it’s at?” Jack questions.

Maddie checks the research notes and she frowns. “Jack, a lot of this is blacked out.” There are huge blocks of text that are missing or have been crossed out. She flips a page. “Six weeks, I think.” Her husband nods. “It’s going to take a while to sort this out. There’s so much missing.”

Jack gives her an encouraging patt on the back. “We can do it. We’ve got this, Madds.”

Maddie isn’t so sure. It’s...odd, the lack of information. And why did the GIW pick them? They aren’t experts in fetal development. Then again… this seemed to be a last minute placement. And they could learn but still...

Jack and Maddie do their jobs, checking the vitals, the nutrients, the ectoplasm levels. The two scientists take a crash course in primate fetal development. They watch and the embryo grows. It really is fascinating to see up close, Maddie thinks. But still…. Weeks pass, a month. The embryo is at 10 weeks and it’s almost six times larger than when the GIW delivered it. The nobs have developed into small limbs, tiny...legs and arms. It has eyes now, though closed. There are nostrils. And growing dread pools in the scientist’s gut. In the past weeks, they’ve looked at hundreds of pictures of embryos and fetuses, both those of various primates and of humans. The notes never specify what kind of primate this is and there’s far more research into human fetal development than the other options. The fetus in the incubator looks…strangely familiar. But…the GIW did say primate research so this must be some kind of monkey, not.... That. It couldn’t be-

Maddie cuts off the thought before she can let it take hold. But still, a pebble of anxiety is rooted in her insides.

The mother goes back upstairs to feed her daughter lunch and play with her. Jazz is adorable, sitting in her high chair. She makes a mess eating her lunch and Maddie has to clean her off. After, Jazzy plays with her baby doll in the living room. She mutters babble to it and Maddie smiles. But… something in her starts to ache.

“Here comes the space ship.” Maddie coes. She’s sitting at the kitchen table, a little boy with black hair and blue eyes in the high chair beside her.

The boy opens his mouth, taking a bite. For just a moment, his face screws up with displeasure. Then he blinks. “More!” He sticks out little hands.

Maddie chuckles. “You like it, don’t you?”

The toddler waves his arms. “More!”

The mother oligies, offering another spoonful of cereal.

The little boy makes a happy squeal, joking at his tray in his excitement. The bowl spills, thick white cereal spilling on his shirt. He looks down. “Uh oh.”

Maddie wipes his shirt with a napkin. She lifts the half full bowl from the tray.

“Mommy!” The toddler let out a cry of protest.

The woman’s heart swells with love. “I’m not taking it away, Danny. I’m just going to hold it. See?” She moves the bowl up and down in the air. “Now open up.”

Danny opens his mouth and his mother feeds him another bite, just as a clock chimes behind her.

Maddie wakes up from the sweet dream with tears pooling in her eyes. She wipes them away and gets up to wake up Jazz.

Jack and Maddie go down to the lab again. More watching the specimen, more notetaking, more research. And the scientists are getting attached. They’re invested. Maddie had always had a habitat of talking aloud when working and she still does, now addressing the incubator when her husband isn’t present. Jack plays music and rambles. It’s lively and exciting, watching and learning. The subject seems to be growing properly and it appears to be accepting the ectoplasm. It glows faintly in the dark. The scans show a mass of ectoplasm, concentrated in the center of the chest. That dream… the hybridization of a living creature and ectoplasm might in fact come to fruition.

But still dread grows. The specimen is at 12 weeks, three months development and still growing. Its neck is clearly defined, small digits visible. And it’s hard to tell but…

“It’s male.” Maddie comments, after comparing the view to the naked eye with the magnified pictures they’d managed to take.

Jack looks as well, agreeing with the assessment. For some reason, the knowledge makes Maddie’s heart clinched. It’s male. A boy, part of her says.

“No you don’t, little mister.” Maddie tries to sound stern but she chuckles as she scoops up the still damp toddler trying to run past her. “We still have to put your pjs on, silly. Then a bedtime story.”

The little boy blinks. Then he asks. “Spaceship pjs?”

“Yes.” His mother nods. “Let’s put those on.��

The woman closes the door and puts the child down. She pulls his clothes out of the drawers.

Danny holds up his hands. “By myself.” He demands.

Maddie obliges. Her son gets about halfway through before he needs help. The woman finishes adjusting the bedshirt. “There.” She picks him up. “Let’s go see Daddy and Jazzy.”

The fetus continues growing. And by the time the specimen is at 3 and half months gestation… the tiny fingers and toes, the shape of the head, that surprisingly human face…. it’s obviously-

No. It can’t be… it’s obviously a rhesus monkey or a chimpanzee. Not-Maddie pushes the thoughts away but at the same time…

Maddie is sitting on a park bench, watching two kids on the playground. Something purple and starry hovers at the edge of her version but she doesn’t worry about it.

“Danny! Wait up!” A six year old Jazz calls after her brother. She tries to pick him up to put him on the baby swing but can’t lift high enough. “Mommy!”

Maddie stands up, going to push both her kids on the swings.

Again, Maddie wakes to tears. But she pushes that pain away, faced with other things. As the weeks pass, the fetus grows, tiny hairs appearing on its head. The form is much more obvious. The dreams continue.

At the beach. There’s Danny, playing at the edge of the surf. Sometimes his hair is black and sometimes it’s white.

The dread and fear grow, with the attachment. And… Maddie and Jack do more research on fetal development.

Maddie is walking a five year old Danny to the bus stop. She looks down and… her heart stops. Her son is gone. “Danny!” She calls.

“Mommy!”

She whips around. He’s running up to her. His eyes flash green.

Jack and Maddie compare notes, reading every textbook and article they can get their hands on. And….

Something’s floating in their backyard. White hair, black suit, shining like a star. Neon green energy wafts around the hands. The head tilts towards the starry sky.

Maddie...should be scared. She should be startled but… “Sweetie! It’s time for bed.” She calls.

The figure turns around. The neon green eyes fix on her and he’s grinning. The ghost...the boy lowers in the air, just inches above the ground. His hands glow blue for a moment and… there’s a rose, made of ice. He holds it out to her.

“For me?” Maddie smiles.

The boy nods. The mother blinks and he has black hair and blue eyes. He stands on his tip toes to give her a kiss on the check. “Goodnight, Mom.”

Maddie gives her son a goodnight kiss in return. “Goodnight, Danny.”

Maddie wakes up, breath heaving and tears on her face again. Her heart aches, still filled with love and warmth as the face flashes in her mind again. That smiling face from all those dreams or… are they nightmares? They’re sweet, so sweet. And that boy... Maddie loves him so much. So much that it hurts to wake up. It must be a nightmare. She must be damned, cursed with visions of what can’t be. This, having another child, a son, will never happen. After almost dying giving birth to Jazz, she physically can’t get pregnant again. She can’t have a little boy of her own flesh and blood. She and Jack had wanted two kids. They’d talked about adoption but with how expensive and time consuming it is, with everything else happening in their lives, it's impossible.

Back to the lab, to the small ghost hybrid. Something is tickling in Maddie’s mind as she watches. The fetus is about the size of a pear. The small arms move, fingers brushing the face. The tiny mouth opens. The glow flickers brighter for just a second and there's a flash of neon green as the eyes blink. Maddie drops what she’s doing and practically runs up the stairs, feeling queasy with guilt.

“What is it, Madds?” Jack asks, from where he’s feeding Jazz.

The woman’s eyes land on her daughter and shame swells in her insides. “We can talk about it later.” She says, not wanting to upset the little girl.

The man doesn’t argue, even as his eyes flicker to the door of the lab. A meaningful look passes over his face and… Maddie is sure they’re thinking the same thing.

But still, she tries not to think about it, about the possibility. When Jazz is napping, she digs through the research notes. There must be something! Something to disprove this cursed thought but… nothing. Nothing! Nothing.

Maddie is shaking when she and Jack go down to the lab after putting Jazz to bed. Both scientists are silent for a long time. Both turn, studying the incubator and its occupant. Their eyes meet again and the woman suddenly feels like throwing up, sickened by the realization.

“The GIW… the GIW said primate research.” Jack says quietly, too quietly “They didn’t… didn’t specify non-human primate.” The words fall heavy, sinking into Maddie’s heart like a knife. “It’s not a chimpanzee or rhesus monkey, is it?”

Maddie covers her mouth. “It’s…it’s a human.” She can barely force out the words. “That’s a human fetus.” She leans forward, feeling nauseous. “A human-ghost hybrid. We’re...we’ve been growing a human-ghost hybrid in our lab!”

Maddie feels disgusted with herself and she can see it on Jack’s face; he feels the same.

“We should have seen this earlier.” Jack curses. “All that secrecy. The agents wouldn’t answer our questions.”

“All those gaps in the research notes. The huge wad of money they pushed on us, if we’d hurry up and make a decision.” The woman’s face is red, anger and guilt warring. “Those f-king NDAs!”

There’s anger and screaming. Disgust at themselves, at the GIW for doing this. But...

“It’s... part ghost.” Maddie paces, rationalizing. “Ghosts are monsters. They can’t...they can’t feel or rationalize. They’re...less than animals.” She argues, the words sounding false on her tongue.

“It’s part human too.” Jack argues pointedly. “And we don’t experiment on humans, Maddie!” He balls his fist. “It’s wrong. This is wrong! If it was actually an animal, then maybe but…. This is a human! You don’t experiment on human beings!”

The wind is knocked out of the woman. She agrees. She agrees completely. You don’t experiment on humans. Period. But… “It’s...not a human being.” Maddie’s voice wavers, feeling tears collecting. “It’s..it’s just a fetus.” She’s flailing, grasping for a rationale. For empty words to justify what they’d been doing. “It’s just a fetus.”

“For now.” The man points out sharply.

For now…. The tears spill. For now, it’s a fetus but… But… it will grow. And months from now, they’ll be a baby. A human, at least partly, baby and-

“We need to pull out. We can’t be a part of this.” Jack interrupts.

“They’ll just give the project to someone else.” Maddie mumbles, looking down.

“So what?! We do nothing! I can’t… I won’t keep doing this.” He’s angry, more determined than Maddie’s ever seen him.

“I know!” The other scientist blurts out, her own anger flickering. “I know that! I don’t want to be a part of this either. But we can’t…. we can’t…. just give him..” She swallows, stumbling over the slip up. “…it to some other scientists.”

Maddie can’t help remembering when she’d been four and a half months pregnant with Jazz. That’s when they’d gotten a sonogram and figured out they were having a little girl. She remembers Jazz as a newborn, all pink cheeks and grasping hands and screaming her little lungs out. And Maddie imagines a baby boy, with little tufts of black hair and blue eyes, crying on their lab tables. A little boy, poked and prodded by needles. In cages. Experimented on. A part human lab rat.

“That…that wouldn’t be a life for anyone.” Maddie chokes on the words. Her heart aches, torn between two images. A human child and the flickering, ethereal form of a ghost. “Not…not even something that’s half ghost.”

“We could….” Jack’s voice is so quiet, so pained. “We could make sure it doesn’t…survive long enough for that.”

Maddie looks up, blinking in surprise before her mind catches up with the meaning. Then she understands and….the man’s thoughts are absolutely clear. And she hates them.

“We can stage… an accident.” The other scientist continues. “Tell the GIW the subject unfortunately didn’t survive.”

Maddie hates it. She hates it so much. “They’ll just try again.” She tries to argue.

“But not with us.” Jack’s face is hard and she knows he’s right. The GIW wouldn’t involve them again. They’d get someone else and she and Jack wouldn’t have to be a part of this. But-

“Okay. We’ll…we’ll do it.” Maddie abhors herself for saying the words.

Jack and Maddie plan in secret. They’ll cut the power to the incubator. All it will take is a few minutes and the fetus will die without oxygen being delivered to the living cells. They’ll lie, make up a story about the backup generator failing.

But Maddie’s guilt is still overwhelming. Earlier, she’d thought that almost dying in childbirth, that almost losing the house, that dreaming of having another child when it was impossible was a nightmare. But this. This is a nightmare. She wishes the GIW had never contacted them, that she and Jack had never agreed to this project. She wishes...she wishes they were still working in ignorance.

The room is dark. There’s a clock ticking somewhere. Something’s glowing in the corner of the cage. Maddie approaches. It’s a ghost, obviously. The figure is black and wispy, with the lower body curled into a tail.

The woman’s heart pounds in her chest. There’s…. a sound. She shivers. Someone’s crying. Another step and…

The white-haired head whips up, teary green boring into her from the face of a young teenager.

“Please, let...let me go.” A male voice begs.

Maddie is frozen, fear, dread, and sorrow creating an ugly mix in her heart.

The ghost floats forward, gripping the bars. “Please. I didn’t… I didn’t do anything wrong. Just...just let me go.”

The scientist trembles. That face...that voice, she recognizes-

“Please.” Tears run down his face. “I just wanna go home. I wanna see my Mom and Dad. Please!”

Maddie wakes up still shaking. The guilt is eating her alive. They need… they need to put a stop to this. They will put a stop to this. Because she can’t..she can’t keep going. She can’t face the product of their science. She can’t face the possibility of subjecting a thinking and feeling being to a life of pain and experimentation. If something that’s part ghost can even live.

The woman studders. Is that even a question? And does… does it matter? If there’s even a chance that a ghostly hybrid can think and feel like a human, that they can grow and learn and love and-

The possibilities are driving her mad. But they have to do this. They have to! (But will this even do anything? The GIW will just try again. They’ll get their hybrid and she and Jack will have just stood by, knowing that they were experimenting on people. They’ll just stand by as a different fetus, a different baby, a different child is brought into the world, just to suffer).

Maddie sleeps again, this time with neither nightmares, nor sweet dreams. Instead, her heart is heavy, at war with itself. The guilt and the grief. The weight of what they’ve done and what they could do, of what is and what might be.

Jack and Maddie send Jazz to daycare for the day and they go down to the lab. They stand in front of the incubator, going over the plan one last time. Tentatively, with shaking hands, Maddie grabs the plug to the artificial womb. With one pull, one yank, she will end this. One small motion and this will be over, before it really begins.

Almost without thinking, she turns to look one last time. The fetus is clearly visible, floating in the synthetic amniotic fluid-ectoplasm mix. Tiny legs kick. And Maddie’s mind flashes without her permission to Jazz’s sonogram pictures. Remembering the joy of feeling her little girl kick for the first time. In the incubator, just formed eyes drift open and…. they’re blue. A spark of ectoplasm flickers. And the eyes are green, an oh so familiar green and…

“I can’t… I can’t do this.” The plug drops out of Maddie’s trembling hands. “Jack. I…I can’t.”

There’s a pause. The woman can feel the man’s eyes on her. His gentle hand appears on her shoulder. “It’s alright, Mads. I’ll do it.” Jack bends, picking up the plug.

The other scientist’s eyes widen. “No! We can’t…we can’t do this!”

He looks at her, eyes sad and pitying. “We talked about this. We...we have to.”

Maddie shakes her head, tears welling. “No. We can’t...we can’t kill him.” Before she can even register, she confesses. “He can’t die. He can’t! I won’t kill him.”

“Maddie?”

She places her hand on the incubator. “I’ve been dreaming about him for weeks. He’s just a little boy. And we’re going to name him Danny. And he’ll have black hair and blue eyes but sometimes they’re green. And-”

“Madds, I don’t understand. What are you saying?”

Maddie is crying now. She doesn’t know what she’s saying either. She doesn’t understand. This is ridiculous. But- “Please. I… I can’t. I can’t lose him. I haven’t...I haven’t even held him yet.”

Jack looks gobsmacked and the woman feels that way too. Is she really saying this? And yet she is. She is and she means it. Every word and-

She turns fully, putting both hands on the artificial womb. She looks, really looks and lets herself imagine. “I want him. I want him to be safe and healthy and happy. I want...I want him to be our little… our little boy, our baby.”

Maddie is crying and she can see it. Months from now. Holding a tiny pink, human-looking baby. His little fingers wrap around hers. She kisses his little nose and rocks him to sleep, just like she’d done with Jazz.

Jack grabs onto one of her arms and pulls her so she’ll look at him. “Maddie… what are you saying?”

She blinks back the tears, a determined look crossing her face. “I won’t kill him. And I won’t give him back to the GIW.”

His jaw drops. “We don’t have a choice here. They won’t let us keep him.”

Rage flashes in Maddie’s eyes as she grits her teeth. “I dare, I dare those f-king white suits to try and take away my baby!”

“Are you listening to yourself, woman?!” Jack puts up his hands.

The other scientist pokes him in the chest. “Are you listening to yourself?! You’re perfectly fine killing him! Or let’s just call the GIW and hand him over right now! Let’s just curse him to a life of torture and painful experiments and-”

“I’m not f-king okay with this!” Jack raises his voice. “I don’t want to do this! I don’t want to turn off that incubator. And I sure as hell don’t want to turn a baby over to the GIW so they can experiment on him! But we don’t have a choice! As soon as he can live outside that incubator, they’re going to take him away whether we like it or not. This is our only choice!” He grabs the plug again and...he’s crying too. “This is the only way. It’s...it’s this or… or a life of pain.”

The tears on her husband’s face finally snap Maddie out of her anger. She places her hands over his. “There has to be another way to stop this, a way to save him.”

“There isn’t.” His voice lowers, pained. “We can’t do anything and… they’ll never let us keep him.”

Maddie blinks, surprised. “Keep….”

Jack nods. He turns to the artificial womb, his face softening. “We’d wanted two kids. I’ve always wanted a son to take fishing. And….” He turns back to her. “Danny?”

“That's what I always call him, in my dreams. I...I don’t know how but.. It’s him. I keep dreaming about him.”

The other scientist’s brow furrows in thought. He pauses. “Black hair and blue eyes, you said? I think… I’ve dreamed about him too.”

Maddie’s mouth falls open. How? She wants to ask. But before she can, she blinks. And...they’re on the same page.

“So….” Jack turns back to the artificial womb. “We both want to keep him…” He sighs, the hopelessness audible in his voice. “What are we gonna do?”

The woman swallows. “We won’t hand him over. We’ll...we’ll run.”

The man stiffens. “They’d find us and..we have Jazz. What kind of life would that be for them?”

“You’re right.” Maddie looks down, feeling ashamed for even thinking it. “We can’t...we can’t do that.”

Jack put his hand on his face, wiping away the tears. “How is this even happening? Oh god...I wish…I wish he was just a normal baby.”

Maddie blinks and the world turns on its head. A sudden idea hits her. “What if….the GIW thinks he is?”

Jack’s eyes widen at the words. “What?”

“What if…they think he’s just a normal human?”

Her husband’s eyes widen even more. “Maddie….”

The woman starts pacing. “If the hybridization doesn’t work, if he’s just a normal human… we can convince them to let us keep him. This level of ecto contamination…. It’s never happened before. We can...we can use that. And…” She stops. “If they think that hybridization isn’t possible, then maybe they’ll stop. They won’t try again.” She hopes the words are true but she can’t dwell on the possibilities. Danny is who matters right now. “We can make this work. We can get them to let us keep him. It’ll… it’ll work.”

A little light enters Jack’s eyes; he seems encouraged by the words. “ But… how?” He asks tentatively.

“Here’s what we do…” Maddie starts, determined. Gradually, excitement and determination grow on Jack’s face as they discuss. They’ll make the GIW think the project failed. Through a combination of falsifying data and intentional sabotage, they’ll make sure the baby appears to be a completely normal human when he’s done.

Maddie goes to sleep that night feeling encouraged and excited. This will work. It has to work. It will.

“And what’s that constellation called?” Maddie asks, pointing at the starry sky.

“That’s Taurus, the bull. Did you know…” The woman looks down at a fourteen years old version of her son. Green stars glitter in his eyes and across his cheeks as he rambles.

The mother smiles, happy and heart full of love. There’s a clock ticking to the side and something glowing purple, curved like the horns of a ram.

“So you made your decision.” An ancient voice says, ringing like the great bells of a clocktower.

Maddie turns, startled. But she doesn’t speak.

“You still would have, without this push. But still…. This is the most favorable version of events.” The hooded figure continues.

“Why did you coerce me to help then?” Another being, stary and purple, grumbles.

The other figure doesn’t answer, still addressing Maddie. “You will not remember this when you wake up, not for many years. Until then, Madeline Fenton.”

In the morning, Maddie only remembers a dream of stargazing with her son. And it gives her the strength to enact their plan.

Jack and Maddie stage a malfunction with the ectoplasm circulation in the tube. They play at fixing it. Maddie’s body is tense with fear. What if it doesn’t work? And what if it does? What if the GIW realize what they are doing? But Jack and Maddie are determined. And they are careful, so careful. They contact the GIW and claim they are trying their best to fix the problem. But after the feed was cut off overnight, for twelve hours, the spectral energy in the fetus is already falling. It’s already dropped down to almost zero, the forming core unable to produce its own ectoplasm. At hearing this, the GIW are pissed. Jack and Maddie play at being apologetic and claim they’ll do everything they can to fix this.

The last few months pass. Danny grows, developing like normal. Jack and Maddie claim to be trying to reintroduce the ectoplasm but it won’t take. The fetus is rejecting it, each time the tiny heart threatening to stop. Hopefully the half-formed core will restart and it will be able to integrate the ectoplasm but it’s not working.

In truth, Jack and Maddie are watching and waiting with eager but nervous anticipation. There are many near catastrophes but they do in fact do everything they can to make sure Danny lives to see the outside of the incubator.

The mother put her hands on the glass. “Just a few more days, Danny. A few more days.” She hadn’t had any more dreams since the night she and Jack had made that decision but it doesn’t matter. A few more days and she’ll finally be able to hold her son.

The day arrives and the GIW agents and scientists are there when they take the boy out of the incubator. Jack washes him off, gentle but with a practiced neutral expression. Maddie has never had more struggle to act cold and professional in her whole life, as she takes a blood sample and her baby cries.

She prepares a slide from the sample and looks at it under the microscope. “As we’ve said, there’s no signs of ectoplasm hybridization. Not even significant ecto-contamination.”

“Step aside.” The head agent demands. “I need to verify this.” He scowls and Maddie holds her breath, praying to a god she doesn’t believe in that he doesn’t find anything telling. The agent looks at the slide. He takes and prepares his own sample. He even scans Danny with his own ghost scanner. “You’re right.” He scowls. “The specimen is free of ectoplasmic contamination. Completely human.” He drops the scanner heavily. “What a waste! All that time and money!” He looks back at his fellow agents. “We need to discuss what to do with...this.” He turns up his nose at the sniffling baby.

The agents debate. “Waste of money. Take care of an infant, please.” A roll of the eyes. “It’s illegal to experiment on a real human anyway.” “Let’s just destroy the records and get rid of the evidence.” Glances at Danny. “It doesn’t legally exist so….”

On the inside, Maddie is panicking but on the outside, she becomes the perfect image of a cold scientist.

“Excuse me but, this is an extraordinary opportunity.” She argues. “This level of fetal ectoplasm exposure is unheard of. They need to collect data on this. This is a potential fountain of information on the effects of long term exposure on the human body. There may never be an opportunity like this again.”

The agents look at each other. “She has a point.” One says.

The head agent rolls his eyes. “Maybe we can get something out of this, then.” The man tapped his chin. “We need scientists to carefully monitor this. We can’t just give this… subject to anyone.” He furrows his brow, turning to Jack and Maddie. “You’ve got a kid, right?”

The scientists both blink, surprised. “Well...yes.” Maddie answers.

“Congrats. You’ve got another one.” The agent says casually. “This is your problem now.” He motions to the baby.

Jack and Maddie look at each other, still flabbergasted for a moment. And then… Maddie sees her husband’s expression shift. It’s not obvious on his face but he’s never been more relieved.

The head agent is still talking, barely looking their way as he types on his phone. “We’ll arrange for a birth certificate to be assigned. And...a small stipend.” He looks up, giving them pointed glares. “You will say nothing and we’ll pay you to report any physical or mental deformities that develop.” He turns back to the phone. “This’ll end up being cheaper than holding that thing at the facility at least.”

The two scientists don’t argue and they don’t pretend to argue. Though Maddie’s stomach does flop. Deformities…. She hadn’t even thought about that. Jack glances at her. He takes her hand and Maddie knows it will be okay. If something happens, if Danny isn’t healthy, they’ll deal with it. And either way...he’ll still be perfect.

When the GIW finally take their equipment and leave, Jack and Maddie finally cry with relief.

“Shh. Shh. It’s okay. Mommy’s here.” Maddie picks up Danny.

Jack stands beside her, one arm around her back. “We did it.” He says, awed. He gently reaches to touch the baby. Tiny fingers wrap around his pink. The man beams down. “Already got a strong grip, don’t you son?”

Son. The words warms Maddie’s heart, making her spirit sing. So. This is their son. Not their flesh and blood. But still their, always theirs.

“You’re safe.” Maddie kisses the top of his head. “You’re safe, Danny.” The woman lets out a sigh of relief. They did the impossible, saving him from an agonizing fate as nothing more than an experiment, as a lab rat.

“And we'll make sure you stay that way.” Jack vows.

And Maddie agrees. They’ll do whatever they have to to keep it that way, to keep their boy free and safe.

“Come, Madds.” The man interrupts. “We need to introduce Jazz to her new baby brother.” Still being held by their mother, Jazz meets Danny and she instantly adores him. Maddie’s heart swells with love.

Weeks become months become years. And Jack and Maddie both watch Danny grow into that little black haired boy that Maddie had dreamed about. And he’s surprisingly normal, completely human. His parents don’t tell him the truth, don’t even tell him he’s adopted. And they’re all so happy. Danny is happy and normal, a bright boy who loves life.

Years pass and Jack and Maddie keep working on their ghost research and raising their kids. Jazz is 16 and Danny is 14 when they successfully open their ghost portals and ghosts start invading the town. But still, Jack and Maddie are happy. They can almost forget where Danny came from.

Until when the mayor’s kidnapped, Maddie sees Phantom face to face for the first time.

#Danny Phantom #ectoberhaunt 2021 #Ectoberhaunt #ectoberhaunt prose #ectoberhaunt trick #Ectoberhaunt treat #Ectoberhaunt Day 24 #angst with a happy ending #My fic

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blu-eh · 4 years ago

Text

after school summons

[AO3]

or: Danny gets summoned. He doesn’t like it.

It starts with a tugging feeling in his very core.

Danny Fenton pauses. If there’s one thing he’s learned in the last year, it is not to ignore random things that are definitely ghostly in origin. He has just enough time to place his pencil on the desk from where he had dutifully been doing his homework—for the first time in two weeks, mind you—before his vision goes white, he hears a snap, and suddenly he’s not in his room anymore.

For a moment he’s weightless, lost in the feeling of falling. Then, his body jerks and he has just enough time to think, oh fuck—before he’s slammed to the ground hard. His knees buckle under the unexpected weight and he goes down, clumsily, and trying not to throw up what little he’d managed to eat between homework packets.

“Ow,” Danny says.

He lies there, just for a moment, taking in the cool concrete underneath him. He tries to steady his breathing just enough so his mind can process what the hell just happened in the last thirty seconds. He’s still blinking stars from his eyes when he hears the hushed whispers echo around him and a heavy pair of footsteps approaching him. All in all, very bad signs when mysterious (and somewhat painful) things happen to you suddenly.

A gruff, questioning voice asks, “A child?”

“Oh, man,” Danny says, because that definitely does not sound good. Then he forces himself to his knees and looks up.

The first and foremost thing Danny notices is that he’s not alone. He’s on some sort of altar or platform, elevated a foot or so above the ground. A couple feet away, a group of no more than a dozen people surround him in a semi-circle, faces all covered by tattered cloaks. Another cloaked figure, dressed in much more formal robes with gold trimming, stands on the platform a mere couple feet from where Danny is. They all seem to be staring at him, waiting.

Danny hastily gets to his feet. He shifts a little into a sloppy fighting stance, just in case things were to get messy.

The dimly-lit warehouse room and the head covers don’t give him much to work with in the facial feature department, but he’s pretty confident that none of them are ghosts. Mostly from the fact that none of them are glowing and/or ranting about how much of a pain in the ass he is, but it still pays to be wary. Especially when Danny’s situations tend to quickly dissolve from bad to oh my god there are ghosts lose in Amity Park and also he maybe-sort of-possibly died in the process.

Which brings him back to his next brilliant deduction; he’s definitely in ghost form. He definitely was not in ghost form before this. His ghost form is rather obvious considering he sticks out like a glow stick in darkness of the warehouse. He doesn’t even feel the need to check his hair color, this time, but that’s more due to the fact that he doesn’t want to take his eyes off the weird people who managed to summon him from his bedroom and forced him to change into his ghost form.

(He desperately hopes that they hadn’t seen him change—weird warehouse people are not people that Danny generally associates with secret keeping.)

“Is this a cult thing?” Danny asks before any of them can speak. He takes in white line that surrounds him, and the red liquid (which he very much hopes is not blood) used to paint runes and symbols that circle him, and their weird cloak-like robes, and says, “This is definitely a cult thing. Oh my god, did you summon me? Seriously—”

Before this, he hadn't even known he could be summoned. It's just the little ghostly things learned via accident, sometimes, that truly take the icing on the cake.

There’s a tiny spark of anxiety in his gut, but honestly there’s a large difference between humans threatening him and ghosts threatening him. On one hand, he’d take weird cultist over Skulker’s lair any day. On the other hand, pure white walls and experimentation tables aren’t super high on his to visit list either. Worst comes to worst—before they sacrifice him to some ancient gods, more likely—he puts on his scary face (and maybe adds a couple of explosions) and slips out before they even notice he’s missing.

“Silence, creature,” the robed man snaps. Danny zeros in on him and immediately deduces him to be leader from vibes alone. Also the gold trimming on his robe, which very much screams leader of weird cult that summons ghost kids.

“I—okay, you know what? That was just rude,” Danny says. He points to the white line that surrounds him, “Is that cocaine?”

Danny has a feeling he doesn’t want to know the answer to the mysterious red liquid and painted symbols, so he doesn’t ask.

“It’s salt,” one of the other cloaked figures answers, like it should be obvious.

(It’s not actually obvious, and actually leaves Danny with more questions than he started with. Mostly in the realm of how did a group of cultists summon him with salt. He knows salt is supposedly an anti-ghost measure, but Danny is pretty convinced it has little to no effect on him considering the amount of Nasty Burger fries he’s consumed haven’t taken him out yet.)

“Salt,” Danny repeats. He pauses, then awkwardly tags on, “That’s good, I guess, because drugs are bad. Uh, don’t do drugs.”

A cultist quietly, and a little slowly, answers back, “We, uh, don’t.”

“Right,” Danny says. His eyes catch another section of weird in this already weird, cultist warehouse. At the base of the platform sits a variety of bones, so fresh that some of the muscle still clings to them. “Are those bones? Oh my god, did you sacrifice someone? That’s not cool! Murder isn’t cool!”

“Those are goat bones,” another follower says.

“Oh,” Danny says. “Well, I mean, that’s still fucked up on a variety of levels, but I guess that’s better than murder. Unless it's considered goat murder? Uh.”

For a second, there’s silence. The nature of the interaction is so awkward and oppressing that he almost goes invisible just to save himself the scrutiny of these random people and get the hell out of dodge. His curiosity is the only thing that holds him back—that, and the fact that he’s not quite sure if any of these people are secretly hiding ecto-weapons.

Danny very much does not want to be shot tonight.

He looks around the room, eyes taking in every inch of the sparsely decorated warehouse. There’s nothing that immediately grabs his attention, nor anything that really screams danger but it pays to be suspicious of his surroundings in his line of work. A few of the cultists notice this, and start shifting awkwardly as Danny looks over them as well.

Then, Danny’s eyes flicks back to the lead cultist and he says, “I’m going to be real honest here and say that I have no idea what the heck is going on.”

The leader makes no inclination that he acknowledges any word that comes from Danny’s mouth. Instead, he brings an old, wrinkled hand up to his face, like he’s thinking about some complex problem. The leader circles Danny once, then again, and Danny feels something inside him defensively coil like a spring.

He tries not to be bothered when people treat him as something lesser—it’s not, exactly, uncommon for him to encounter. He dealt with being shoved into lockers long before he died, anyways. It doesn’t stop his shoulders from tensing just the barest amount.

Instead of showing this, he brings his feet up to his chest and crosses them mid-air, and fakes a yawn for good measure. A few of the other cultists gasp in wonder and fear. The leader simply stops his prowling and turns to face Danny.

“So this is the fabled Ghost King,” the man says, like he expected better.

Danny feels he should almost be offended if it isn’t for the tiny detail that these cultists—who summoned him by using salt and goat bones—assume he is the ghost king. “…Did you seriously confuse me with Pariah Dark?”

The man pauses, and asks, “Pariah Dark?”

“Yes! He’s like fifteen feet tall, has a huge sword, is a pain in the ass, and has, like, an entire ghost army. I have, I dunno, pre-calc homework in my bag. We are not the same.”

Some of the followers in the background shift uneasily. Danny bares his teeth in their direction, just to see them squirm. A couple take worried steps back and Danny fights off a satisfied grin.

Hey, poke a bull and get the horns. In this case, summon a ghost-teenager and get the ecto-powers.

(He’s slowly becoming more and more aware that these people have no idea what they’re doing.)

“I see,” the leader says. From his tone, he definitely does not see. “It doesn’t matter. Our book summoned the King of Ghosts and that is you, so you will do as we tell you and your pain will be lessened.”

“I am still not the Ghost King,” Danny tells him. “And no thanks. I’ve already used my yearly cult sign up and I can’t say I’m thrilled to join another. If you’re going to hold an initiation ceremony, at least decorate a bit first. Uh, not counting the goat bones and salt, of course.”

“You have no choice,” the leader snaps and steps a bit closer to him. Danny merely raises an eyebrow. “We are the Followers of Infernal. We have summoned you to serve us. You are bound to our will and bound to our grace, as the book foretold. Now bow, demon, for we are your new masters.”

There’s a very large portion of Danny Fenton that is convinced any good karma he held in life did not pass with him during his death a mere year ago. An even larger portion of him is convinced that these guys are no more serious than the GIW is. Danny does not tell the cultists this.

Instead, he squints and says, “Alright. I definitely failed US Government, but I’m pretty sure that’s not legal. Don’t you guys need like, a permit to summon undead beings of mass power?”

“It thinks it’s funny.” The leader’s face is mostly hidden by his robe, but Danny can imagine the sneer there from his tone alone.

“Trust me, I’m not the one who’s a joke right now,” Danny says. He looks back over at the dozen or so followers and grins at them. They don’t seem too keen that he’s not following their master’s orders and bending to their will. He turns back to the leader. “What’s in it for me?”

“What?”

“If I follow you and stuff, what’s in it for me?”

The leader pauses, then says, “You will be spared of punishment.”

“Hmm, that’s not good enough,” Danny says. He angles his body so he's once again looking at the followers and points at one in the middle. “Hey, you! With the cloak. No, not you, the other dude. To the left. Yeah! You. What do you have to offer me?”

The follower looks so startled that he cowers for a second. Then, seeing as he hadn’t been reduced to a pile of ashes from Danny’s gaze alone, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out something small and silver. “Uh, I have a paper clip, your ghostliness.”

“A paper clip,” Danny repeats. “Yeah, sure, fine. Whatever. That sounds neat.”

“You’ll submit to us?” the man sounds so hopeful that Danny almost feels bad for being a jerk. Then, he remembers that they summoned him out of his nice, warm bedroom at ass-o’clock in the night and feels significantly less amounts of pity.

“No, dude, I’m not being your sack of potatoes for a paper clip. Man, you guys are stupid.” Danny rolls his eyes and floats just a bit higher. The other followers shuffle around again, uncomfortable. In front of him, the leader remains impassive as ever. “Where even am I?”

“The lair which you will spend the rest of your afterlife,” the leader says.

“Okay, this is definitely a warehouse, firstly. And secondly, dude, I meant what state.”

“…Wisconsin,” the man allows because of course everything terrible happens in Wisconsin.

“You chose the worst state to have your crappy lair,” Danny tells them. Now he has to fly a couple hundred miles home and hope he gets there by morning, all the while avoiding his creepy, obsessed arch-nemesis. He wonders if Vlad is even aware there’s a ghost-obsessed cult in his home state. Probably not. “Nothing good ever comes from Wisconsin. You can take that as, like, ghostly wisdom or something.”

“Hey,” one of the cultists says, offended. “The Packers are in Wisconsin.”

“Nothing good,” Danny repeats, firmly.

“Enough of this nonsense,” the leader says. “It’s trying to distract you because it fears control. Briar, bring me the orb.”

“Yes, sir,” one of them says.

The followers mutter to themselves and teeter around in their positions. The woman who spoke, on the end, bows and scurries off. Danny watches as she runs through the darkness of the warehouse, footsteps echoing around them, until he can no longer see her among the darkness.

“Hey, if they already listen to you then why do you need me?” Danny asks. The leader doesn’t answer, so Danny floats a bit on his side and puts his arms behind his head. “What kind of orb are we talking about, anyways? Like one of those Spirit Halloween ones? Or is it more like orbeeze? I can’t saw I’m super excited from your ominous it fears control statement, but—"

“Silence, beast,” the leader says.

Danny huffs. “I’m just asking. No need to be so snippy.”

The man ignores him which, rude. Danny’s just about to see how far he can test this guy’s patience when Briar comes back, just as quickly as she had disappeared. She jogs through the warehouse and up the steps of the platform. Danny can’t see her face, but from the way her hood moves to glace at him every so often, he figures that she’s probably nervous. Specifically about him lounging around in a circle full of salt.

“Father Johnathan,” Briar says and bows. In her hands is a glowing, silver orb. It really did look like a generic orb one would find in a Spirit Halloween. “The orb.”

“Your name is Father Johnathan?” Danny asks. He eyes the orb for a second, but doesn’t feel the tingle of ghostly energy from it, so he ignores it. He turns right back to the leader, not able to keep the grin off his face. “Your name is really Father Johnathan?”

Father Johnathan gently takes the orb in his hands as Briar scurries off towards the rest of the followers. Then, he sighs and says, “Yes, creature, my name is Father Johnathan and I shall be your new master.”

“Oh my god,” Danny says, positively gleeful. “I meet real life Papa John and he summons me with salt and threatens me with a Spirit Halloween orb.”

“Laugh all you want,” Papa John says. The nervous air shifts into something a bit more predatory. “You will not be laughing much longer.”

The cultists break into applause and talk amongst themselves loudly. They shift forward, eagerly, as if they want to watch the spectacle up close. They’re only a foot or so away from the platform when Papa John waves at them to halt.

Papa John holds up the orb. It swirls, the silver fog inside consolidating and then dissipating. Something inside it starts to glow the barest amount.

Danny pauses, just for a second, and watches it. There's still no tingle of ghostly energy coming from it. If he hadn’t already thought these guys are a joke, he definitely would’ve been a tad more nervous. As it stands, he thinks nothing of it—no ghostly energy means no control over ghosts.

(Unfortunately, he knows the feeling of ghost-controlling objects quite well. It’s not an experience he’s eager to repeat.)

The orb glows brighter, and brighter, swirling more furiously. The chatter of the cultists picks up to the point where they’re almost shouting, jeering at him. Papa John draws closer and closer, orb outstretched. He holds it through the salt line and touches it to Danny’s chest. The shouting from his followers almost becomes unbearable.

And then….nothing. The orb stops glowing. The fog inside stops swirling. It simply dies in Papa John’s hand.

“Was that supposed to do something?” Danny asks.

Papa John touches him with the orb again, a tad more forceful, so Danny assumes it was supposed to do something. From the panicked whispers around him, it definitely was supposed to do something to him. Danny’s honestly not sure if the outcome is due to him being a halfa or these guys being a joke.

(He’s willing to bet it’s the latter.)

“I think your LED batteries died,” Danny tells him. “Or maybe you mixed up your Spirit Halloween orbs. Better luck next time.”

Papa John stops furiously pressing the orb to his chest and if Danny could see his face, he has no doubts that Papa John’s expression would be livid.

“You will obey us,” Papa John says.

“No,” Danny says. “I won’t.”

“You will—”

Danny swings his feet down so hard that he cracks the very ground he now stands on. Dust kicks up around him as he stands tall, even though Danny’s at least two feet shorter than the leader in front of him. His eyes burn a brilliant green and he crosses his hands over his chest in an effort to look intimidating. The cult thing is interesting and all, but it's late, he still has homework to do, and Jazz has definitely noticed him missing by now so it's probably better to end this before they can get another object from a Spirit Halloween and try that instead.

It works, if the half-step back from Papa John is anything to go by.

“Listen,” Danny says, flatly. “Get a hobby and leave me alone or else you won’t like what I’m going to do.”

He makes his form flicker and the temperature drop in the room, just for dramatic effect.

Some of the followers in the background shift uneasily. A couple take panicked steps back. More than a few look ready to bolt for the door and leave this cult business behind forever.

Danny takes notice and stares at them, smiling wide enough that they could see his slightly-toothy grin. He makes sure his eyes flare, just a touch, and says loudly, “Boo.”

To say the cultists are startled would be an understatement. More than a few stumble back, a couple falling onto their asses. One trips on their robe and is sent tumbling. Another one yells and cowers. Papa John has no time to reign in the situation before two scatter completely.

“Peace!” Papa John shouts over the chaos of a dozen panicking followers. Those that remain do settle down enough to hear his words. “Stand down, there is nothing to fear. It is only trying to scare you into letting it free. It is trapped whilst it remains in the circle.”

Danny snorts. “I can leave any time I want.”

“You cannot leave here, demon—”

Danny raises one single eyebrow and dutifully steps out of the summoning circle.

The warehouse erupts into chaos.

The cultists are yelling now, but this time there’s only because of fear. They scatter over each other, running and tripping over their obnoxiously long cloaks. A couple trample the goat bones to the point where several loud snaps are heard over the pandemonium. It only adds more fuel to the fire as less than a dozen people scramble to get as far away from the platform—and subsequently the ghost-kid—as possible.

“Do better than a paperclip, next time!” Danny calls out to them. They only seem to run faster at the sound of his voice.

Papa John is the only one who doesn’t run. He had stumbled off the platform and away from Danny the second that Danny made it over the salt line. However, in the disarray, he had been knocked to the ground, his orb lay broken at his feet, and his robe’s hood had been yanked off and left on the ground beside him. He sits, frozen, but Danny doesn’t know if it’s from shock or from fear.

Danny takes a step closer to him.

“How…?” Papa John whispers. He’s not looking at Danny—only his old, wrinkled hands. He’s bald, with brown eyes. He looks like nothing more than any generic old man that Danny would see at a grocery store on Sunday afternoon. “We followed the book. We…we took every precaution the book said. We were supposed to have the perfect slave, bound to our every word. We…”

“That didn’t work out too well for you, huh?” Danny says and crosses his arms over his chest. “It’s ‘cause you forgot the dunce cap when you decided to be the class clown.”

“Please,” Papa John says. “Spare me.”

There’s something wrong about this—seeing a human beg for his life at Danny’s feet. Danny doesn’t want to be feared. He never has wanted to be feared.

He presses his lips together and takes a single step back. Some part of him, though, knows that he desperately needs to make his point clear to avoid another situation like this (likely with more weapons, next time).

“I warned you,” Danny says softly. His voice echoes around the warehouse. The man below him shivers in terror. “Do not summon me again, or I won’t be so nice next time.” He pauses, just for a second and can't help but tag on, "Papa John."

He lets his threat linger and hopes the man takes it seriously enough that he won’t get summoned again. Then, the cool strings of invisibility wrap around his body and he disappears from sight. Danny takes one look at the man left on the floor before he shakes his head and shoots up into the Wisconsin night sky. He doesn't hear the shouted response of it's Father Johnathan from several hundred feet below him on the warehouse floor.

Danny waits about all of thirty seconds before he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone.

"Jazz? Hey, yeah, I'm fine. Yes, seriously, I'm fine but you are not going to believe what I just went through—"

#me mentioning my love for spirit halloween no less than five separate occasions #anyways #my fics #danny phantom #i Attempted to mention every single ectober week 2020 in this fic so like. lmao #ectober #ectober 2020 #ectober week #ectober week 2020 #phan phic #phic #tw drug mention #there are no actual drugs but i do reference a drug by name so this warning applies

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five-rivers · 4 years ago

Text

Interview With a Ghost

This is a sequel to Unearthed and Scarecrow/Grave Robber from my Ectober series.

A summary of those: When Danny became half ghost, he half died and left half a corpse. He, Sam, and Tucker went and buried it in a infrequently-traveled public park. The police found it during their annual picnic. A couple of detectives, Collins and Patterson, were assigned to the case, and they're trying to figure out what's going on. Danny keeps trying to convince them to stop. His corpse-related anxiety is making him do things of questionable wisdom. Ghosts do not like their remains disturbed.

Danny slipped into the police station invisibly, trailing after the two detectives. They seemed like nice people. Good people. Dedicated people. That last was a problem. He didn't want them to be dedicated. Not about this.

What he wanted was for his body to be put back in the ground and forgotten about. He wanted his mystery to go unsolved.

The problem was, how to convince these two, and the rest of the Amity Park Police Department while he was at it, that it was better for everyone if the mystery went unsolved?

It really would be. Between Vlad and the GIW... Danny's secret getting out would have nasty consequences. But he couldn't tell them about Vlad, and the consequences concerning the GIW weren't immediately obvious without knowing the solution to the mystery.

Maybe Sam was right. He should forgo this whole 'interview' nonsense, come back when he actually had a plan. As it was, he would just give them more clues he didn't want them to have.

But if he left them alone...

He listened to them making plans to interview his human self and other students at Casper High. They were going to interview him, anyway. He bit his lip. At least, he could distract them from that. Perhaps he could make out that he was older? Too old for the students at Casper now to have known him? No, that wouldn't work. They had his body. They'd be able to tell how long it was buried. Even he knew that.

"Does it feel cold in here to you?" asked the younger detective, Patterson.

The other tilted his head, frowning. "Maybe," he said. "Phantom?"

Well, he wasn't going to just appear out of thin air in the middle of this giant room full of desks. Over half the police in town had to be there.

Some of them must have noticed Detective Collins question, because there was a wave of whispering, and the room began to fall quiet.

Despite being invisible, Danny felt very exposed.

"If you're here," said Patterson, raising her hands, "we just want to talk. Will you talk with us?"

"It doesn't have to be here," said Collins. "We've got private rooms. We can talk there."

After a few tense seconds, Collins began to walk away.

They're right over here. Interview rooms. They're actually pretty nice, not what you usually see on TV."

With some reluctance, Danny followed. He could just leave.

But that wouldn't accomplish anything, except, perhaps, to make them more suspicious of him.

The room was indeed nicer than Danny had expected. The floor was carpeted. The walls and furniture were wood. There was a mirror, a one-way window, on one side of the room. Danny wondered if the purpose of the room was to lure interviewees into a false sense of comfort.

He blinked at the one-way glass a few times, adjusting his vision so he could see what lay beyond. As expected, it was rather crowded. It looked like a good number of the other detectives had squeezed into the booth.

"You realize," said Collins, out of the side of his mouth as he situated himself in a chair, "that if he isn't here we'll look like idiots, right?"

Danny sighed, heavily, and the detectives stiffened. He faded into invisibility. "You aren't idiots," he said. Then he remembered what he had come here for. "About this particular thing."

"Ah," said Patterson. "Well, thank you for coming and doing this interview."

"Yeah," said Danny, crossing his arms, "about that. I could do without the peanut gallery." He nodded towards the mirror.

"The-" Collins glared at the mirror. "Oh, for the love of god. Patterson, can you clear them out and get Captain Jones? He's the only one who should be here for this."

Patterson rolled her eyes but left the room.

"Well," said Collins. "While we're waiting for her to get back, let's make ourselves comfortable. You can sit down if you want."

"I'm fine," said Danny. He watched as Patterson started shooing people out of the room behind the glass and the captain walked in.

"Alright, that's okay. I'm not sure we've been formally introduced. I'm Detective Collins. My partner is Detective Patterson."

"I know," said Danny. "You're the homicide team. Well, this, me, it wasn't a homicide. Okay? So you don't need to do this."

Collins spread out his hands. "I'm not going to pressure you to talk about it," he said. "I gather that ghosts don't like that particular subject. But we have to investigate any suspicious death we come across. And yours? It's pretty suspicious."

"I'm telling you, it isn't. It's just dumb," said Danny.

Patterson came back into the room. "Hi," she said. "I'm Detective Patterson."

"Yeah," said Danny. "I know."

She leaned up against the wall next behind Collins. "So, what should we call you?"

Danny shrugged. "Phantom, I guess," he said. Was that an unsubtle attempt at finding out his real name? "Look, I know that you want to know who I am, and how I died and all that, but I'm not here to talk about that."

"Then what are you here to talk about?" asked Collins.

Danny closed his eyes briefly. "It would be dangerous if you knew those things. I want to talk you out of it. I'm sorry I left my body in a public placel. If you want me to do community service to make up for it, I will. But I'm not planning on pressing charges, and there's not anything else that would come of looking into it. Like I said, it was an accident, and not one that's going to happen again."

"Because you'll make sure of it?" asked Patterson.

"No," said Danny, annoyed, "because it was freak chance. One in a million, or even less. Most ghosts aren't sticking around to avenge their deaths." Revenge was a boring Obsession, Vlad's notwithstanding.

Okay, so maybe the portal accident wasn't quite as 'one and done' as Danny was claiming, but that was why he didn't want anyone to know about it.

"So, why is it dangerous to know about?" asked Collins.

Danny puffed his cheeks out. Why, indeed. "It's dangerous to me," he said, finally. "If you haven't noticed, I have more than a few enemies, and there is a reason ghosts don't like to talk about their deaths."

"So why don't you tell us?" asked Patterson. "We're not going to tell anybody."

"No, but you'd have to confirm it, and people would know," said Danny. In retrospect, this was a pretty good cover for why he didn't want his manner of death to be investigated, and he'd come up with it on the spot! Well, he always did do better under pressure.

But just as Danny started to pat himself on the back, Collins sighed. "Phantom. What happened to you wasn't 'just' an accident. Half of your body was missing."

Danny raised an eyebrow. "It looked pretty whole to me," he said. "All three times."

"According to our ME, it only weighed about half what it should have," said Collins, leaning forward.

Static filled Danny's brain. Half. Half the mass gone. Stop. He already knew- It was not time to panic.

"So?" asked Danny.

"There was also a lot of ectoplasm in the body," added Patterson.

"Well, this is Amity Park, and I am a ghost."

"More than it should have gotten just from you handling it."

"What, and you're suddenly an expert in ectology?" scoffed Danny. It was a good thing he didn't sweat in ghost form.

Patterson leaned forward, stepping away from the wall. "Were you killed by a ghost?"

Danny blinked. "No," he said. "That's stupid. Ghosts know better than anyone that someone dying doesn't necessarily mean they're gone." He rubbed his eyes. "This was a bad idea. You're not going to listen to me." He turned to go.

"Wait, Phantom," said Collins. "Just one more question, please."

Danny glowered from his position near the ceiling. He'd been just about to go through. "What?" he ground out.

"Is the reason you don't want anyone to know that you're dead because..." he paused, apparently searching for words, "because no one even knows you're missing? Because you're still trying to live your life? Because you're pretending to be alive?"

Danny's very alive heart hammered in his chest. "That's more than one question," he said.

He vanished.

#danny phantom #dannymay #dannymay 2020 #day 15

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q-gorgeous · 1 year ago

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What Will It Be? Chapter 11

ao3

fanfiction

@kinglazrus

more fic wooooo

Dash had laid in his bed in his room in the dark for hours. He figured that the GIW would be coming at any time to cart him off. To take him wherever they were keeping Danny.

After laying there for five hours with no sign of any government agents breaking into his house to kidnap him, Dash finally sat up and turned his desk lamp on.

He stared at where his backpack sat on the floor by his desk chair. He really should do his homework. If the GIW weren’t going to abduct him, he needed to keep his grades up. He didn’t want to ruin his chances of getting into college by flunking himself out now.

But he didn’t think he’d be able to focus on it anyways. What would be the point of doing it if it would all be incorrect anyways?

He let his back collide with his fluffy mattress again and he looked back up at the ceiling. He stared for a few seconds before pulling his phone out of his pocket. Scrolling through his contacts, he found Kwan’s name and hit call.

It rang a few times. As it kept going, Dash was worried that Kwan wouldn’t answer at all. He was getting ready to hang up himself. This was a bad idea. He shouldn’t-

“Hello? Dash?”

Dash jumped. He didn’t hear Kwan pick up the phone. How many times had he said his name?

“Hi, Kwan. What’s up?” He asked, trying to sound casual.

“Nothing much, I’m just working on my homework.” Kwan paused. “What’s up with you?”

“Oh, nothing. I didn’t think I’d be able to focus on my homework so I thought I’d call you for a little chat before I tried to work on it.”

Kwan was silent for a few moments. Dash could practically hear him thinking through the phone.

“Is everything okay?”

Dash was silent. He curled up onto his side.

He didn’t know how to respond to that. Of course nothing was okay.

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” Kwan asked him. “You could tell me if you knew where Danny was. If something was scaring you. Right?”

Dash sat in silence for a few moments. All he wanted to do was tell someone. It itched at the back of his mind all the time. There was hardly anything else he thought about now. He wanted to be able to bring Danny home but he couldn’t.

Dash chuckled solemnly. “Yeah, of course I’d tell you. But you don’t have to worry about it because I don’t know anything anyways. I’m just worried about him. We all are.”

“I know.” Kwan said. Dash couldn’t tell if Kwan really believed him or not. “You don’t think whoever took him will start going after other people, do you?”

“I don’t know.” Dash said quietly. The GIW’s threat replayed in his mind. “Amity Park normally doesn’t have crime like this. It seems like anything is possible right now.”

“Is that why you won’t say anything? Because you’re afraid someone will take you too?”

“What?” Dash breathed out in a panicked tone.

“Dash please.” Kwan pleaded. “You can tell me what’s going on. We can go tell someone.”

“No, I can’t- I don’t know anything, Kwan. Why don’t you believe me?”

“Because I know when you’re lying.”

Dash growled. Kwan was getting too close. He didn’t know when to stop prying. “Clearly you don’t, because I’m not lying, Kwan.”

“Dash-”

“This conversation really cleared my head. I think I’ll be able to focus on my homework now. Thanks.”

“Wait-”

Dash hung up on Kwan before he could keep trying to pry information out of Dash. Kwan knew him too well. It was frustrating.

He couldn’t tell anyone. He couldn’t. Even if he did, no one would believe him. That police officer didn’t. What was Kwan going to do if Dash told him? Get locked up inside some kind of GIW jail alongside Dash? No.

There wasn’t anyone for Dash to tell. No one would be able to help him. No one would be able to help Danny.

#gorgi writes #danny phantom #invisobang 2023 #dash baxter #kwan #swagger bishie #fanfiction #fanfic #phic

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sroomheaddoc · 2 years ago

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First time Jason saw him it was a blur of orange (is Jack still wearing the hazmat??) slaming into Bane. Second time Jason saw him, he’s talking to one of his leutenant asking about work around Crime Alley. Now that he has more than three second to look at him he realized how.. big the guy is. No Jason’s not poting he’s just, brooding. Yes, brooding about his lack of height. He’s blaming Joker tbh, and Bruce. Uh nevermind he needs to figure out what to do with this.. sunny golden retriever giant.

“Do you have any skill?” RH asked. “Well, I can punch? Or repair guns? Make fudge? Or just lifting things really, I’ll do anything!”

Fuck he really shouldn’t but he need more info about this guy and keeping him close might be the best option for now. “Repair guns? Fine. 8 pm, show him the garage” RH added to his leutenant. That night Jason followed him home and saw Jazz. Jazz who eerily stared back at him, keep the door open and said “You should come in”

And Danny just.. latched onto him. Everything snowballed between Danny phasing through Jason and the pit.. the pit just.. quiet. And Jason being Robin no not Robin never Robin again Red Hood started asking question and Jack tried to lie but Jazz put her hand on Jack’s “Maybe we should try and ask for help Dad” and Jack folded. Because Jazzypants’ right, they do need help. So Jack, Jasmine and Daniel Fenton are no longer and now they’re ((I DONT KNOW I NEED NAMES HELP)))

Days, weeks went by and their lives seems to get better, (Jack) is now making non lethal guns for RH (RH nevel let Jack get anywhere close to any action even though he can probably bodyslam 99% of Gotham Rouge straight to Arkham, (Jazz) took a year of Uni to focus on keeping her family safe and if she just want to make sure she’s there for her little brother because last time her baby brother died hurt she didn’t even know no one knows.

Maddie though, Maddie is MAD. At Phantom for KILLING her babyboy, her Danny, at Jack for lying to her, for choosing that menace, for everything. Was it all a lie? Why? Why would Jack do that? Phantom killed their son, Jack should be here right next to here hunting that little shit. It’s fine though, she doesn’t need him, GIW can help her find Phantom, thay promised.

So when GIW told Maddie that Jack was last seen in Gotham, she already has a go-bag ready. Unfortunately Booo-merang somehow cannot find Phantom’s ectosignature so she have to this the old way.

When RH got an alert about some weird guy in white suit and some red-head chick in blue jumpsuit (Boss did Gotham get a new mad scientist rouge or what) he ran.

GIW thought RH is a Ghost and hunted him, RH thinking better me than them started leading them around making sure he’s close enough to be seen but too far to get a good aim. There’s some close shot tho, too close.

DP x DC idea

Y'all feel free to ignore this, I just gotta get this funky little idea out of my head.

So it's a reveal gone wrong....kinda. You see while Maddy is insistent that there's no way the ghost boy is her son, Jack is an emotional wreck. Apologizing to Danny for not noticing and for all the threats he hurled his way. He also promises to convince Maddy that Danny really is their son and not some ghost pretending to be him.

Maddy starts coming around and things are finally looking up for Danny, until Jack has to go somewhere and next thing he knows, he's strapped to a table.

Maddy is convinced that once she opens the ghost boy up, she'll be able to prove that he's just imitating life and isn't really alive. Then she'll show Jack and he'll believe her and they'll get back to proving how dangerous ghosts can be.

When Jack gets back, she excitedly rushes to him. Ready to show him her proof. Meanwhile a feel of dread builds up in the big man's chest as his wife's rant gets more and more maniac. They get down to the basement where there's Danny on the table. Except it's not the Danny he left, this Danny is a small baby with snow white hair and glowing green eyes.

Jack isn't even listening to his wife's explanation about how this proves this isn't their son, he just scoops the boy up and leaves.

Unsure of what to do and knowing both his wife and the giw will be after him, he goes to Vlad. Who despite his "hatred" for the two takes one look at Jack on the verge of a breakdown with baby Danny in his arms and immediately sets them up with a plan.

He sends them to Gotham with fake IDs because the ambient ectoplasm is enough to mask Danny's signature and it might even help him recover.

So they get there right and everyone around them is immediately like ???. Because where did this strangely energetic man and his giggly baby come from and why are they in Gotham of all places!?

Still, Jack's overall golden retriever energy wins them over and they think he's fine albeit a little eccentric. Until one night...

You see Danny is a baby, with the powers of a powerful half ghost, who doesn't understand that he has to hide his powers or the dangers of a baby wandering the streets at night. Cue the baby constantly turning intangible and just... slipping through the walls, leaving Jack to go running after him. Danny thinks it's a fun game. Jack thinks he won't be able to take anymore of this.

Unfortunately for poor Jack Fenton, one night during a Danny chase, he sees his boy heading right towards a fight. Between the bats and this weird guy dressed as a luchador with weird tubes sticking out of him. Then the luchador notices Danny, and Jack is brought back to that day a couple of months ago. The day he failed to protect his son. He's not going to let him down again so he does the only thing he can think of.

He absolutely bodies the luchador, scoops his son up, and runs. Not stopping until he's safely back in his rinky little apartment. Danny is giggling and making cooing noises, blissfully unaware.

Meanwhile the batfam is in shock about this huge man who came out of nowhere and just dealt with Bane like he was a nuisance more than anything. This definitely requires some investigation.

#dp x dc #dc x dp #I’m typing half asleep my grammar is atrocious

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strawberrycamel · 3 years ago

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Fic Writer Review

tagged by: @aj-itated <3

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 30!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 46,254 words

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they? based on my Ao3 and my old ff.net account: 3 - Fairy Tail, BNHA, DP (though I haven't written for Fairy Tail or bnha in years)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? in order, that would be How to Take Out a Ghost by TooFineFoley, Bad Luck Tuck: The Sequel, ignorance is your new best friend, What Could Have Been, and, surprisingly, A Connoisseur of Fine Art (all DP or DP crossover fics)

5. Which of your fic do you want more attention for? both they're siblings, your honor and Big Boy Tucker. i can't choose, they both need love

6. Do you respond to comments, why or why not? i used to respond to them as often as I could at the start, but i kinda slacked off sometime around the beginning of summer classes. I used to respond to them because they made me really happy and i wanted to let the commenters know I did actually read it and am very grateful for their comments, but after a while it became... idk, draining? I felt bad about leaving the same response to each commenter and got caught up in my own head so I just kinda,, stopped all together. I wanna start responding again at some point, but uh, probably not anytime soon.

7. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

oh definitely One More Time; I think that's the only fic I've written without some kind of happy ending (anything in the Not Your Son series doesn't count since it's not finished yet :3) and I can't tell you how much it pained me not to make it happy. Don't get me wrong, I loved writing that for going angst week but hole-y shit did it fuck me up

8. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you’ve written? I do write crossovers! The craziest, I think, is my Strange vs. Work: Wife Swap AU, it's not done because I'm seriously stumped for it right now, but it's essentially a DP Marvel crossover where Clockwork and Dr. Strange are forced by a TV host ghost to switch bodies and mentor the other person's 'apprentice'. Peter and Danny have to help them get adjusted to their new environments/bodies and they all have to figure out how to turn things back to normal. This whole series is meant to be based off the show 'Wife Swap'. I have fun making Stephen suffer >:)

9. Have you ever received hate on a fic? not that i can remember? like i think it was more grammar and dialogue punctuation nitpicking on my old ff.net fics, never hate

10. Do you write smut? if so what kind? not really, but i have a singular wip that im working on that's definitely spicy

11. Have you ever had a fic translated? nope

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before? no? (i was working on something a while ago but we havent finished so, I'm going with no)

13. What’s your all time favorite ship? i don't think I really have one. Usually I just read whichever fics have cool summaries or tags and just dive right in, ships be damned. Lately I've been reading a few TimKon fics and I've been thinking about Dark Ages, UFS, and Gray Ghost stuff a lot over the summer

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? oh, oh god. I'm going to say it and I'm going to feel real shitty about it because it's such a good fucking concept, but I can't bring myself to write anything more than what I already have written and all the notes I just randomly add onto it every once in a while. It even has a title: "Ectoplasmic Pudding".

It's a DP DC crossover fic wip and the plot is about Danny being called by Batman to help with a kidnapping case he suspects to involve ghosts; he needs Danny's expertise and help to capture the ghost. Danny agrees and he meets Batman and Robin (Dick Grayson) on the roof of the police station (after dropping face first onto it because he got blinded by the bat signal). They go by Batmobile and arrive at the scene of the crime where Danny confirms a ghost is involved. A bunch of different scenes of Danny and Robin having a blast while Batman's trying his best to stay on task and then, eventually, they find a warehouse where the box ghost is interrogating a bored looking Mr. Trand, the victim, about some fancy box commissioned by Vlad.

Danny figures out this guy is Bertrand in disguise and since Bertrand's essentially on vacation, they both agree to lie about how they know each other. And then I got stuck around here, but I imagine it just ends up being a series of dumb events where Batman, Robin, and Danny have to 'protect' Bertrand until they catch Boxy and throw him back into the Ghost Zone while the disguised ghost tries to make the most of the rest of his vacation.

Batman and Robin definitely don't believe whatever lie Danny came up with to explain how he knows Mr. Trand, but they go along with it until it's revealed in probably the worst way possible and leads to both of them trying to take the former kidnapping victim to the GIW while also trying to keep Danny from stopping them and barely listening to a word he says (maybe they think he's being threatened somehow or being controlled or smth, idk). Absolutely no clue how that whole fight goes, but in the end Danny kicks Box Ghost into the Zone and Bertrand is told very explicitly never to bring Spectra to Gotham.

15. What are your writing strengths? evoking emotion in my writing? yeah i'm going with that

16. What are your writing weaknesses? planning out plot ahead of time. I can write outlines and write a bunch of notes about what i want to include, that's not the problem. My problem is that all my motivation to write just drains away the moment I have a somewhat concrete plot planned out for a fic- this applies to one-shots and longfics exactly the same. And past that, sometimes I'll make one change to the planned plot and feel like tossing the whole thing out the window and going freehand without the 'constraints' of an outline or anything ..........

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? try not to offend anybody? like, look at good examples of how others have done it and do a lot of research and stuff. Also, be aware that not everything will translate perfectly from the original language you wrote the fic in and whatever language you're translating it to.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for? Fairy Tail

19. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written? Hellbent. A few others come close, but I seriously cannot express the joy i felt writing that first chapter (and when I'm done my minibang fic, I literally cannot wait to get back to it)

20. What fic are you most proud of? that's a tough one, there are a bunch i fucking adore but i think it's tied between The Big Dipper and ignorance is your new best friend

Tagging: @guardianrex, @shinygoldstar, @cleanlenins, @princessfanonanona, and @ghost-pasta!

#tag game #fic writer review #thanks for the tag aj <3

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mystyrust · 4 years ago

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Fracture - Ectober 2020

Day 2 Prompt: Bones / Pulse

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27203635

Word Count: 2387

Tags: Past torture, identity reveal

There were many ways Maddie liked to spend her weekend. When her kids were younger, she and Jack would take them out to museums or parks – a family outing. Now that her kids are in high school and have a lot of homework, they don’t go out every weekend anymore. In fact, it feels like they haven’t had time to bond as a family in months. Jazz is always in the library and Danny is always with his friends – sometimes even sleeping over – or catching up on missed homework. Maddie could never figure out why Danny had a backlog of homework to catch up on, yet always had time to hang out with Sam and Tucker.

Now, with her kids spending all their free time by themselves, Maddie liked to spend her free time in her lab, creating and improving her inventions to catch the elusive ghost Phantom. It had been around the time that Phantom appeared that Danny and Jazz became more distant – while both her children were in support of the ghost vigilante, Maddie and Jack were against it, devoting their free time into solving the mystery of what made Phantom different from every other ghost that haunted Amity Park. They wanted to catch it, run experiments with it, and dissect it.

So this weekend was like any other – Maddie was huddled in her lab with Jack, working out the schematics of a new invention �� when their Fenton Ghost Detector beeped; a strong ecto-signature was detected inside the Fenton household. This was normal if the ghost came out of the Fenton portal – this signature came from… the living room. Maddie and Jack ran up to find Phantom having stumbled through the front door, leaking ectoplasm behind it.

“What do you think you’re doing here, spook?!” Jack raised his ecto gun at the intruder, his large frame standing in between Maddie and the ghost. But Phantom was in no shape to fight.

“I… I need help,” The ghost managed to gasp out. Maddie paused in confusion. The ghost had tears streaming down its face, heavy breathing, and ectoplasm leaking down one limp arm. It’s mimicking of human physiology was fascinating. And to come to ghost hunters for help? Either this was a trap, or it wasn’t thinking straight.

“The..guys in…white… barely got away from them,” Phantom continued to explain. Maddie noticed him sway where he stood. And that was the weird part – he stood. Not floated. And he had legs, instead of a spectral tail.

“Please, before they… finish me… like they did…”

Jack lowered his ecto gun ever so slightly – not lowering his guard, but still confused about what to do. It was odd, seeing the always confident Phantom reduced to pleading and begging its former enemies. Something in his psyche was so shattered from his experience with the GIW…

Maddie didn’t know what to make of that, but she couldn’t waste a perfectly good opportunity when it knocked phased right through her front door.

“Let’s… let’s stabilize him for now,” Maddie said, lowering Jack’s aim. “Then we can ask him what happened. And decide what to do after that,”

Jack nodded in agreement. He gingerly placed his ectogun down, approaching Phantom with both is hands up and in front.

“We’ll help you, spook,” Jack spoke loud and purposefully. “But we’ll need to take you down to the lab to do that,” Phantom nodded slightly, and Jack took that as permission to walk up to the ghost. Phantom was… he wasn’t heavy but Jack wasn’t expecting the ghost to be as solid and corporeal as he was. He lifted the ghost in his arms, and followed Maddie down to the basement.

The ghost offered little resistance, but he was breathing heavily, and leaking a concerning amount of ectoplasm from his limp arm and one of his legs. It must be difficult to keep up the charade of struggling to breathe, when he’s lost as much ectoplasm as he has, Maddie thinks.

They place him on an examination table, with Maddie grabbing a scanner and running it over his damaged arm.

“Jack…” Her voice shuddered, “His arm is… it’s fractured.”

“What? That makes no sense, he doesn’t even have…bones…” but the scanner showed Jack exactly that.

There were a million and one questions that ghosted Maddie’s lips: How did you get bones? Do other ghosts also have bones? Where do the bones in your body go when you form a spectral tail? Are your bones made of calcium, just like human bodies? But the words that left her mouth were:

“You have bones?”

All her years of academic study, her dual MD/PhD, wasted on a Captain Obvious™ moment.

“Yeah, no duh,” Phantom cracked an eye open, while the rest of his face continued to grimace. “And it hurts…like hell…” There was that snarky teenaged attitude the Fentons were so familiar with.

“How do we even treat this?” Jack asked. One of Phantom’s legs was badly muddled – peeling the suit back revealed deep and numerous gashes. He was losing ounces of ectoplasm a second, and if these injuries were on a human, he’d need blood transfusion and stitches.

“Well, we can supplement ectoplasm to help his healing factor. And then…” Maddie gulped. “Stitch the leg. And set the arm.”

Maddie went to the back of the lab, returning with a set of tools. Scalpels, needles, and bandages. The glint of the metal must have caught Phantom’s eyes – how was he still conscious? A human with this much blood loss would not be awake right now – and the ghost started hyperventilating.

“What are you –? No, please! Please don’t! I wasn’t – !”

“Phantom! We’re helping you!” Jack yelled back. Phantom stared at Jack, eyes fogging over and breathing uneven.

“I’m sorry I never…I should have told you sooner,” Phantom cried. It was an ugly cry, from a body and heart in pain. Maddie didn’t know what else to call it. What kind of guilt could be eating Phantom alive, from the inside?

“I can’t –” Phantom grunted. “I can’t change back! I’m sorry, I’m sorry I should have –”

“How about we help you first, then you tell us what you should have told us when your arm and leg are better?”

Phantom, still sniffling, nodded silently.

Maddie set to work with putting stitches on his leg, while Jack hooked an IV of purified ectoplasm. She looped phase proof thread – from Jack’s Fenton Fishing Pole – onto a surgical needle, and set to work, closing one of the many wounds. Since the wound was deep, Maddie needed to stitch the inner layers first, before sewing the outer layers shut. She was marveled at the level of detail in this ghosts’ body – maybe she could ask him about that when he was healed up.

It was strange that only one leg was injured, while the other leg looked fine. It was stranger how Phantom’s breathing and crying hitched every time her needle pierced his flesh.

“Phantom, can you –? Can you feel the needle as I –?”

“Mhmm,” Phantom managed to grunt, tears freely flowing from his eyes. “Please hurry, Mom.”

Maddie froze in her tracks. Why did he even –? Okay calm down.

He can feel pain. He can display emotion. He can appear delusional with loss of bodily fluids. And in that delusion, he seeks a parental figure.

He has the psyche of a child, her rational mind concludes. So she’ll play that part.

“Almost,…Almost done, sweetie.” Maddie responds hesitantly. “You’re doing great.”

As for the feeling pain part, she isn’t how drugs can affect a ghost – and she can’t take a chance that Phantom will react badly to some experimental medication they use on him. She can only hope that he passes out at some point, and doesn’t feel any pain for the remainder of the procedure. From watching previous footage of his battles in chronological order, Maddie had concluded that Phantom has a fast healing factor. She can only hope that healing factor is still fast. He’ll be fine.

Funny how in the course of an hour, she stopped thinking of Phantom from an “it” and started to think of Phantom as a “he”

It took thirty more minutes of verbal coaxing and soothing for Maddie to finish stitching Phantom’s leg. He promptly passed out when that was done. While Phantom was asleep, Jack finished bandaging the arm, adding a splint to keep it straight.

Finally, with ghostly patient asleep and treated, Maddie and Jack sat down, exhausted.

“Well, I never thought – ” Jack paused, unsure how to word it. They learned more about Phantom’s physiology today than ever before, and he broke every known convention about ghosts that they’d researched thus far. Not to mention a ghost turning to a ghost hunter for help.

“I want to take a sample of his ectoplasm while we can,” Maddie said. “But he might not have enough to spare. And I have a feeling that we’ll get more questions than answers under the microscope, too.”

“You’re right,” Jack agreed. “I wonder what he went through, for him to be as injured as he was and decide to come to us, of all people. Heh, Danny and Jazz would freak.”

“Well, Danny’s sleeping over at Sam’s again, and Jazz was tutoring someone else this weekend.” Maddie mused. “It wouldn’t surprise me if Phantom stayed here for a few days without them even knowing.” It hurt her to know how detached her children had become from her, and it hurt her to know that her assessment of the situation was objectively correct – Jazz and Danny were rarely home.

“Well, he mentioned the guys in white,” Jack said. “If they are the ones who did this to him, and we protect him from those guys, we can earn his trust. And then maybe he’ll let his guard down enough for us to …at least solve the mystery of what he is.”

The two scientists stare at the sleeping form of Phantom, noticing how even in a seemingly unconscious state, his chest rises and falls with each breath.

“With his consent, I suppose,” Jack added.

A few hours later, in the middle of dinner, Maddie and Jack are interrupted to rude knocking from their front door.

“Ugh, not another door to door salesman,” Jack grunted. Answering the door revealed that their rude guests were none other than

“GIW,” an agent dressed in white answered, holding up an identification badge. There were two agents, both equipped with ecto guns and headphones, Maddie noted.

“Yes, we can see that,” Jack responded, keeping the shock out of his face. “If you wanted to come over for dinner, you should have called earlier. We don’t have leftovers.”

“We came to inform you that Phantom has escaped our captivity,”

“We didn’t even know you had Phantom in captivity,” Jack raised his brows in surprise.

“Just a few hours of questioning. We underestimated his abilities, and his allies.” The agent continued. “We’ll need extra weapons, the latest of whatever you’ve developed.”

“Well, we don’t have anything, since we gave you everything we made last time,” Maddie interjected. “So we don’t have anything complete yet. And besides, wouldn’t it have been faster for you to send an email or announcement that Phantom escaped? You must have lost a lot of time driving around to come tell us in person.”

“You never know who could be listening.”

“And besides,” the agent in the back added, “There was a chase. We don’t know where he disappeared to, but we suspect he stopped by here.”

“And why do you think he stopped by here?” Jack was very good at keeping the caution out of his voice, Maddie noted. If it were her, their cover would have probably been blown by now.

“Isn’t it weird for a ghost to hide out at a ghost hunter’s house?”

“True, but the same ghost uses technology he stole from a ghost hunter, and he can go into the ghost zone from the portal in your basement,” This was nothing new to Maddie. In fact, it annoyed her that Phantom used Fenton tech, because it meant he somehow evaded ghost detectors in their home to acquire it, or it was handed to him directly by Danny or Jazz. That last one hurt the most; she couldn’t bear the thought of her children going behind her back to support someone who was the very antithesis of everything they stood for.

Or, someone who used to be that. Maddie isn’t sure how she feels about Phantom now, but at the very least, she doesn’t want to hurt him anymore.

“Well, we’ve been home all day, and our equipment didn’t detect anything. But if we find anything new, we’ll call.” Jack told the two agents.

“Alright, stay on alert!” The first agent said, before leaving. Jack closed the front door, and the two waited until they saw the agents sit in their vehicle and drive off, before moving from their spot. Thank goodness they didn’t come inside or into the lab; the lab’s high ectoplasmic content could somewhat mask Phantom’s signature, and could be explained as a false positive on ghost detecting radars, but they wouldn’t be able to hide an unconscious ghost – an unconscious ghost! How wild is that?! – if the agents wound up downstairs.

Maddie breathed a sigh of relief.

“It’s been a few hours, let’s check on him”

Maddie and Jack headed downstairs to their lab. Just as they had left him, Phantom was sleeping on the examination table, hooked to an IV of ectoplasm. The fracture on his arm looked like it would heal completely – the naturally cool body temperature of the ghost helped, along with his quick healing factor. His leg looked significantly better, though Maddie wasn’t sure if the stitches would leave behind scars.

Maddie pulled a notebook from the work table, adding and updating her notes with everything they’d learned about Phantom today.

“Can ghosts get scars?” Maddie mused out loud. “Or is it unique to him?”

“I dunno, I guess we’ll have to ask –”

Their conversation is interrupted by a groan – Phantom was waking up – followed by a flash of bright white light. The Fentons covered their eyes, and when the light died down, they’re met with even more questions than answers.

“Danny?!”

#ectoberweek2020 #ectober2020 #danny phantom #dp fanfic #day 2

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alchemist-of-altoids · 1 year ago

Text

TW: Vivi/dissection, parental abuse, suicidal ideation, dehumanization, dissociation, violence

Sorry for not updating this sooner. Anyways, this is the longest part yet, and also by far the darkest. This chapter gets pretty graphic, so be careful. Don’t worry, this is the worst before it gets better.

“Dude! Hell yeah!” Tucker said! “The Justice League has been kicking ass since you met them!”

“And you’re finally getting some real help.” Sam smiled. “It’s about time.”

“Hey, Val’s super helpful!” Danny argued. “And she barely ever tries to kill me anymore!”

“Yeah, that’s not exactly reassuring.” Sam said flatly. “But seriously, them getting rid of the Anti-Ecto Acts and the GIW has been a huge help.”

“I know!” Danny said. “That’s why tonight, I’m going into the Zone to get gifts for them.”

“Do you know what you’re going to get them?” Tucker asked.

“Yeah. I can’t tell what I’m doing for Batman, because that would reveal his identity. And, out of professional respect, I can’t do that.” Danny said.

“Boo! Lame!” Tucker threw his napkin at Danny.

“What’s the point of having a superhero friend if they don’t tell us the juicy superhero gossip?” Sam complained as well.

“Yeah, yeah, complain all you want. You two can figure it out yourselves.” Danny said. “But for Martian Manhunter and Superman, I got some messages from their families and a plant from their planet. For Wonder Woman, I had a sword and shield made. Nth metal, ectoplasmic coating, magical reinforcements, and an engraving from Pandora herself. And then for the magic dude, I’m collecting his soul. He’s sold it so many times. It’s in literally hundreds of pieces. I’m picking up the last 4 tonight. Ancients these past few weeks have been so tedious.”

“Damn, you continue to be the absolute best gift giver I’ve ever met in my life.” Tucker said. “Well, good luck. I still haven’t started on Lancer’s essay. See ya!”

“Bye Tuck.” Danny called. “I should probably get going too. Wanna get a head start on this.”

“Okay. We hanging out this weekend?” Sam asked.

“Definitely.” Danny smiled. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

When Danny walked into the house, something felt off. He had the feeling in the bottom of his stomach he gets on bad days, before he knows what’s going to go wrong. He decided to hurry up and get into the Zone, before his parents got home. So he quickly transformed and went through the portal. He was going to get the gifts, and leave as soon as possible. If he was lucky he might be able to get five hours of sleep tonight. However, in his haste, he failed to notice the new camera set up in the lab

“Is that enough proof for you?”

“I… yes.”

“Good. Then I trust you’ll take care of this.”

“Of course. That ghost will pay for mimicking my son.”

“It’s going to wish it never formed. Thank you Agent A.”

“I’m just glad to see someone can keep up the work of the Ghost Investigation Ward. I’ll be in touch.”

Three hours had passed since Phantom went through their portal, and the Fentons were prepared. They were going to make up for not noticing earlier. For not realizing that Phantom had killed their son and was pretending to be him. As soon as Phantom came through, they would catch him in the Fenton Fishing Net. Then, they’d use an aerosolized blood blossom gas to knock him out. After that, it was smooth sailing.

They were glad Jazz was living in her college’s dorms. Not only was tonight likely going to be very, very loud. But also, Jazz was so vulnerable to ghosts’ manipulation. She thought they were thinking, feeling beings. If she knew what they were doing she’d try to stop them. She may even believe that Phantom is Danny.

“How did we not notice…” Jack said sadly.

“We didn’t know ghosts could do that. Phantom may be a special kind of ghost.” Maddie reassured her husband. “He was very convincing.”

“I just… I can’t believe any of this.” Jack said. “I saw it with my own eyes, and it doesn’t feel real. I just talked with him yesterday. He talks and acts just like my boy…”

“I know sweetie.” Maddie said, resting her hands on her husband. “But we’ll fix this. We’ll avenge our son.”

“Don’t worry Danno. You’ll finally be able to rest in peace after tonight.”

“They’re beautiful…” Danny said, staring at the sword and shield Pandora had made. The sword was a large xiphos. The crossguard was shaped like a ‘W’, with the Nth metal cast to look gold. The handle was leather made from the pelt of a Nemean lion, dyed to be a bright red. The pommel was made of ecto-ice. The shield was similarly beautiful. It had a red ring, lined with gold trim, around the edge, going about three inches towards the center, with six stars evenly spaced. The center of the shield was a deep blue. And as the true centerpiece of the shield, there was Wonder Woman’s insignia, cast in the same gold as the stars. The wings on the ‘Ws’ extended to the edge of the shield.

“Thank you, Your Highness.” Pandora said.

“Ugh, please stop it!” Danny playfully moaned at this. “I’m so sick of the titles and platitudes! Ancients, if I’d known taking down Pariah would mean I’d have to deal with this I would’ve made someone else do it.”

“No you wouldn’t.” Pandora said.

“No I wouldn’t.” Danny agreed with a sigh. “But seriously, thank you. I can’t wait to give this to her.”

“Of course. It was my pleasure.” Pandora said, wrapping the sword and shield in a leather cover, and putting them in Danny’s bag of gifts. “If I recall correctly, this is your final one, is it not?”

“Yep! Got everything I need!” Danny said, grabbing the bag and throwing it over his shoulder. “It was good seeing you!”

“You as well Danny.” Pandora smiled fondly. “Remember, we have a lesson in two weeks!”

“I’ll be there!” Danny smiled back as he flew off in the direction of the portal.

“Man, this was easier than expected. Constantine’s soul was a pain in the ass,but it wasn’t really all that hard.” Danny said. He pulled out his phone as he approached the metal ring that meant he was home. “Oh man, I really did it! I’m getting five hours tonight!”

Danny excitedly flew through the portal. Except, the second he was on the other side, he was trapped in a net.

“Oh man. I can’t believe I got caught like this.” Danny groaned. “Any chance you’ll just let me go?”

Danny got worried when they didn’t respond. Simply walked forward with some sort of spray bottle.

“You’re going to regret what you did to our boy.” Maddie said, leveling the nozzle of the aerosol solution at Danny.. At that, Danny’s eyes widened in fear.

“No, I swear it’s not what you think! I-” Danny didn’t get to finish his sentence.

“Ugh…” Danny groaned as he woke up. He lifted his hand to- Danny’s eyes snapped open. He looked down at himself. He was strapped to a table in the lab.

“It woke up sooner than expected.” Jack said. “Glad we got it strapped in in time.”

“No matter. Ghosts don’t feel pain.” Maddie responded. “Although frankly, Phantom, I wouldn’t care if you did. It’s the least you deserve.”

“Guys, I swear, it’s not what you think!” Danny said, starting to panic. “I am Danny! When I turned on the portal, I was inside! I-”

“Subject is behaving as expected.” Maddie said into a recorder. “It is doubling down on the lie in an attempt to manipulate us into freeing it.”

“I’m telling the truth!” Danny begged. “I’m still Danny! I’m still your son! Mom, Dad please-”

“SHUT UP!” Jack roared. “Don’t you DARE call us that ghost! You are not our son! You’re a heartless monster who killed him and took his place. Maddie, begin incision.”

“No, please don’t! Please, Mom! I- Ahh!” Danny screamed as the scalpel sunk into his flesh. He could feel it glide down, tearing his flesh cleanly. “Please, please stop, mom it hurts, please mom stop please mom!”

“Subject is continuing to maintain the illusion.” Maddie spoke. “It is possible the subject has deluded itself into thinking that it and its victim are one and the same.”

“Mom, please I swear it's me!” Danny screamed, thrashing around. “Please! Dad stop her! Please, it hurts! Someone help me please!”

“No one’s coming to help you ghost scum.” Jack said, hatred lacing his voice.

“Fascinating…” Maddie said, staring at the ghost boy on the table. She hadn’t yet finished her cut, leaving it as a V, instead of a Y. “Jack, come look at this.”

“Please, sto- op… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Danny cried as Jack walked over to see what his wife was talking about. The ghost was no longer moving, other than the shudders of its sobs. “I’m sorry! I never wanted to come back… I know I should’ve died. Please…”

“That looks like…” Jack said quietly.

“Blood.” Maddie replied, excitement in her voice. “There’s blood in its ectoplasm. It really is a type of ghost we’ve never seen before.”

“I wonder what else we’ll learn.” Jack said. “Continue the incision.”

“No, please!” Danny started struggling again. “Please! Sam! Tucker! Jazz! Please someone help! Please!”

Maddie’s scalpel cut through ectoplasmic flesh like butter. She finished the third cut, and was finally able to open up the ghost. She adjusted the camera, making sure she was getting a proper view of the insides. Then, at last she pulled back the skin.

“Jack, are you seeing this?” Maddie asked.

“A ghost with organs and bones…” Jack said. “Incredible…”

“Please…” Danny groaned weakly. “Please… stop…”

“There’s still so much we can learn.” Maddie said.

“Please… Mom. Dad.” Danny begged, barely still conscious. “Please… just kill me… Please…”

“Oh no.” Maddie said. “We still have so much left to do…”

For the past week, the Justice League had been laser focused on their new objective. Overall, they’d found great success. The Anti-Ecto Acts were on their way out, just waiting for official approval. The GIW was no longer sponsored by the government, and the Justice League had raided most of their bases. The group would likely stick around, but they had been absolutely crippled and were now considered a terrorist group.

There was only one major GIW base left. The one in Amity Park. They knew this one would have the greatest defenses, and likely had ghosts being kept prisoner, so they had taken extra precautions. However, it proved mostly unnecessary as the GIW didn’t seem to have any weaponry that was effective on beings other than ghosts. After taking out the base, they decided to pay a visit to Phantom. However, they were unprepared for the reaction they got when the citizens saw them.

“Get out of Amity!”

“We don’t want you here!”

“We have our own hero!”

“What if they’re with the Guys In White?”

“Stay away from Phantom!”

“Jeez, I’ve had more pleasant interactions with villains.” Flash said. “Seriously, why do they hate us so much?”

“Apparently, they’ve been dealing with ghost attacks for the last two years.” Batman answered. “Their calls to us were blocked, so as far as they know, we abandoned them.”

“So what do we do?” Flash asked.

“I’ve spoken with their mayor, Vlad Masters.” Batman said. “We’re going to hold a press conference and apologize, explain what happened, and promise to do better.”

“Well, that and we’ve got our surprise.” Superman smiled

“We have some time before our conference. We’ll split into two teams.” Batman said. “One will stay in costume, the other will change into their civilian clothes. We’ll both try to get a feel for the town.”

“I call dibs on Hal and Vic!” Barry said quickly. “We’ll go in our civvies! See ya bats!”

And with that, the three of them walked out. Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman watched as they left.

“So, Batman. What places did you want to check out?” Superman asked.

“On a later trip, I want to check out Nasty Burger.” Batman said. “There’s some suspicious activity with their money. Before the conference, I think we should visit the Mansons and the Fentons.”

“Any particular reason?” Wonder Woman asked.

“The Mansons are billionaires, however they seem to mostly care for the social aspect. They appear at galas nearly every week. Despite this, they seem to have no particular care for politics.” Batman said. Then, with a smile, added; “Well, the parents don’t. Their daughter, Samantha, is extremely active in many activist circles. I want to make sure they’re just a vain couple with too much money, and that it isn’t a cover for anything more sinister.”

“And the Fentons?” Superman asked.

“Ghost hunters. They seem to have been the ones who patented most modern ghost hunting technology, and had a contract with the GIW.”

“Understood.” Wonder Woman said. “Where do you want to stop first?’

“Mansons are closer. We’ll go there first.” Batman said. “Let-”

At that moment, there was a knock at the door.

“Hey! Justice League!” A young voice called from outside the door. “Open up! I know you’re in there!”

The three Leaguers walked over to the door. They opened it and saw two teenagers. One was a goth girl, and the other was a boy in a red beret.

“Finally.” She said, seeming impatient. “Danny needs your help.”

With those words, there was an instant tension.

“What happened?” Batman asked.

“We don’t know.” Sam admitted.

“He’s been missing for almost five days now.” Tucker told them. “He’s never been gone this long. Definitely not without saying anything.”

“You two seem awfully calm considering the circumstances.” Batman said, his tone unintentionally accusatory.

“Yeah, that’s what happens when you’re the one helping with someone’s superheroing.” Sam said, stepping into Batman’s face. She looked up at him, glaring from mere inches away. “And if you ever accuse us of doing something again, I’ll make Poison Ivy look like a child playing with potted plants.”

“Sam, come on.” Tucker said. “Sorry about her, I promise she’s not evil. Just protective.”

“No need to apologize. Batman here has a tone issue.” Superman said. “He wasn’t accusing you. That was actually his impressed tone.”

“Hn.” Batman huffed. Superman sighed.

“You really aren’t helping.” Superman said. Then, he turned his attention back to the kids. “Do you have any idea where he might be?”

“We’re thinking FentonWorks.” Tucker said.

“They haven’t left their house in five days. The timelines match up.” Sam explained.

“And they’ve always had a specific grudge against Phantom.” Tucker added.

“We were planning on investigating the Fentons anyways.” Batman said. “You two wait here, we’ll-”

“Fuck no!” Sam interrupted. “There’s no way in hell you’re leaving us behind.”

“We can’t bring civili-” Superman started.

“Yeah, no offense, but if we’re civilians so is Oracle. And Martian Manhunter.” Tucker said. “Just because we aren’t generally front line fighters, doesn’t mean we aren’t part of this. Plus, we can absolutely hold our own.”

“You-” Wonder Woman tried once more, only to be interrupted as well.

“There’s no convincing them.” Batman sighed. “It’s like trying to convince Robin to stay home. It’s not going to work. Just stay close.”

“Will do B-Man!” Tucker said. And the group left towards FentonWorks.

“Their security is… unnerving.” Wonder Woman said as they neared FentonWorks.

“They’ve actually toned it down…” Sam murmured anxiously. “Tucker, open it up.”

“Got it.” Tucker said, pulling his PDA out.

“I’m sure Batman is more than capable of this.” Superman said.

“I’m sure he is. But I’m faster.” Tucker said. “I know this system inside and out.”

“Hrn.” Batman grunted.

“You don’t need any more kids.” Wonder Woman said. “Besides, he has parents.”

“What?” Sam asked, concerned.

“Batman has a tendency to take in strays.” Superman explained. “Kids, animals, reformed criminals, whoever.”

Sam and Tucker snorted. After another minute, the door clicked and the guns all retracted.

“Boo yah!” Tucker said. “Now, let’s go save Danny.”

The group walked through the house slowly and carefully. Superman used his X-ray vision to see into the basement.

“They’re in the lab.” Superman said. “It looks like Danny is lying down, and the Drs. Fenton are… on the floor? They-”

Before he could finish, Sam and Tucker ran off. The heroes ran after them, but the two teens were shockingly fast and clearly knew the house better than them. When the heroes got to the basement, the sight of it was… horrifying. Danny’s hair was black, and his skin was a pale green. But the heroes barely noticed that. No, what really got their attention was everything else. Jack Fenton was on his knees, facing a wall. He almost looked as though he was expected to be executed. They could see dents and cracks in the wall, where he had obviously punched it. Maddie, on the other hand, was sitting on the ground. She held her knees and was sobbing hysterically. Both were covered in blood and some green substance. Maddie turned to them, although the heroes knew she wasn’t really seeing much of anything. Her eyes were glassy and blank. If he didn’t have super hearing, Clark would have missed what she was mumbling to herself.

“They lied to us. It was him… Our baby boy… what did we do to you…”

Now that they were fully in the lab, they had a better view of the table, but Sam and Tucker we still blocking most of their view.

“Danny, it’s gonna be okay now. Hang in there.” Sam reassured, crying.

“The Justice League is here. They’ll help you.” Tucker said.

As the heroes approached, they got queasy. They saw a boy, still conscious, opened like a corpse. They recognized the Y cut. The ribs were cut. The could see his organs pulsating, working overtime to keep him alive. Nestled next to his heart was a glowing, light blue sphere. It was about 3 or 4 inches in diameter. As the three heroes got near the table, Sam walked away. Batman sprung into action, working to do what he could to help for the time being.

“Superman, I need your help.” He barked at his teammates. Then, much more gently, he spoke to Danny. “We’re gonna get you cleaned up and bring you to the Watchtower. You’re gonna be okay chum.”

The two worked in tandem to get the boy ready for transport.

“You bastards! What did you do to him! He’s your son!” Sam’s screams sounded through the lab. Diana turned to see what was happening and saw Sam over Maddie. She held her by the fabric of her jumpsuit and was laying punch after punch. Maddie was catatonic, and hardly reacted. However, Sam was sobbing. She screamed and sobbed and she hit the older woman. Her knuckles bloodying on the woman’s face. Diana pulled the girl back after a moment. Sam’s knuckles were twisted, cracked, bruised, and bloodied. But that was tame compared to Mrs. Fenton’s face. He nose was clearly broken. Her entire face was puffy and red. She clearly had a concussion, and you could hardly see her face through the thick curtain of blood. “Fuck you! What’s wrong with you!?”

Sam kept sobbing as Diana pulled her back. Diana held the girl, one hand on her back, the other on her head. She held the girl close to her as she cried.

“I hate them… How could they do that to him…” She mumbled as she kept sobbing.

“I know. I know sweetie. He’s gonna be okay. We’ll get him the best care there is.” Diana said quiet reassurances to the girl.

“It’s my fault… I killed him… I… Something’s wrong with me…” Sam’s crying slowed, but didn’t stop. “It’s all my fault…”

I Don't Want to be Great, I Wanna be Me.

So we all know the classic ‘JL meets Phantom through summoning’ prompt, and we usually get Danny “High King, Savior of Worlds, Eldritch, Cryptid, Ancient, No Shits Given, Chaos Gremlin” Fenton making an appearance, cool and confident, running circles around the JL. But what if, this High King they summoned, just… wasn’t.

The Justice League was prepared for anything, with the latest BBG threatening the world they had to take drastic measures. The JL Dark managed to scrounge up the summoning spell they… “liberated” from a cult group a couple months back. At first the JL was against the thought of summoning another highly powerful unknown, but with extensive research, Constantine and various others vouching for this so-called “King Phantom'' , and no option left, well, their hands were tied. Said to be the vanquisher of the previous Tyrant of the throne, Savior of the Infinite Realms, thousands of years old, infinitely powerful, infinitely old, and some smaller rumors claimed, infinitely kind. Phantom is said to be extremely protective of humans (something they were banking on), loyal to its subjects, and said to rarely get angry (yeah right). A terrifying creature, tall and confident in its destructive power.

So yes, the League was prepared. They gathered as many members as they could spare for this meeting, everyone ready for a fight, but praying for none. The Big Three stepped forward while the rest hung back. Constantine and the Dark members start chanting, beginning the ritual.

The chanting ends. The silence hangs. Bodies still.

Then, a flash from the hieroglyphs on the ground and an explosion of wind with no origin, a blinding light originating from the summoning circle grows in strength, letting out a vibrating hum that causes Superman to cover his ears and wince. The hum starts shaking the ground and the light condenses into itself, revealing the silhouette of an object.

The wind stops. The light is gone, the vibration a memory. Everything is as it is before, with one exception.

Wonder Woman, wasting no time, straightens, “High King Phantom, Ruler of the infinite Realms, We are the Justice league, We ask your help in vanquishing The BBG, it threatens the lives of all those who live…” Her eyes widened as what stood before her.

This… this didn’t look like a High King, Vanquisher of Pariah Dark. This little thing did not give any indication of confidence, power, or age… it looked… young. The only thing terrifying about this creature is the size of bags under his eyes. Drowning in soft clothes, hunched over, looking utterly defeated, Nothing like they expected. Diana would almost mistake it if for a human child if not for the glowing eyes, fangs, and slight aura it gave off. But this, this was no King… Is- are those tears in its eyes?!

____________

Danny has not been having a good day. Or week. Or month, or- anything really. It seems like dying was only the beginning of his problems. No, scratch that, this all started with his parents’ damn obsession with ghosts. Danny swore they were part ghost too with their utter infatuation with all things Ecto. If only they hadn’t tried to access the ghost zone, if only Vlad hadn’t been involved to become Danny’s biggest nightmare, if only his parents gave up their research once they had kids, if only he didn’t walk in that stupid portal to impress his friends.

If only he had stayed dead.

If only he didn’t gain powers, then he wouldn’t be stuck in this mess.

Danny scowled to himself and let himself flop onto his bed. He’s been spending the last couple weeks cycling through this whole rogue gallery, TWICE! Plus fighting a handful of random ghosts who thought they could take on the ‘Ghost King’ (Pariah’s evil reign and thousand year slumber didn’t help either with all the paperwork that’s left for Danny.) Running from the GIW, his parents, and Val as usual, (Ghost Scum,

Dealing with ‘Mayor’ Vlad’s Evil Plan of the Week -Danny’s powers were still on the fritz after that encounter, painful, was a word for it- Not to mention school, between Dash being Dash, forgetting his science homework, missing a test because of Skulker, Lancer and his threats of, “Black Beauty Fenton! If your grades keep dropping you’ll spend the rest of the year in detention! With ME!” and now his teachers (and Jazz) are talking to him about college? He’s still a sophomore, give him a break! It isn’t Danny’s fault the whole universe is apparently out to get him.

The real cherry on top of this whole thing was the recent ‘summonings’. No thanks to the Fruit Loop and his meddling, with Jack Fenton unknowingly helping him, again. A nice little instruction booklet called, “How to Summon the Ghost King, Made Easy!” got out onto the internet and the world, free for any psycho to speed dial Danny away from his life. At various points in the last month Danny has been forcibly -and if he was honest, painfully- ripped from anything he’s been doing and dumped smack dab into the center of various cults’ plans, usually they wanted power, money, or world domination. His saving grace was the process of summoning forced him to transform or no identity reveals, thank The Ancients.

Sam and Tucker have been a godsend in getting the Booklet wiped from the internet, Danny would be lost without them. He would’ve fallen apart the first week into his powers if not for them. Who knew watching your friend half dying created lasting relationships? They really kept him going and he trusts them with his life, really he does.

But Danny would never tell them about some of the things he’s seen getting summoned, he couldn’t do that to them. The various groups of psychos seemed to think Danny was more likely to listen to them if they offered sacrifices.. human sacrifices. Some nights he couldn’t stop smelling blood and incense, couldn’t get those images out of his mind. He hated himself for keeping track, and hated himself for not wanting to. 15. 15 people, so far just because some handful of lunatics wanted some money or something equally stupid like that. Danny was 15, that’s one whole human being, for every year he was alive, one of them was even younger th- she was just- Danny couldn’t- she was- so small…

Pulling his blankets over his head, Danny took measured breaths against the tightness in his throat. It’s Not fair. It’s not. He didn’t ask for this. He didn’t want to be King of the undead, he’s just a kid himself isn’t he? It was just an accident turning on the portal. He didn’t mean to. Why is he stuck fixing everything? Can't he just be a normal kid? Go to school, get good grades, become an astronaut? He’s so completely out of his depth, who is he kidding, it’s just a matter of time before he screws up again and someone gets hurt, or worse. He's trying, though, he is. He tries so hard to be good, to do good. To not turn into Dan.

‘Stop it, Danny. Now’s not the time for bad thoughts.’ This is the first time Danny’s had a chance to sleep in two days, his parents are out and left the home defenses are down, Jazz is studying at the library, Sam and Tucker are playing Doom while keeping an eye on ecto readings around town. He has maybe 4 blissful hours to spend in dream land. He sighed and sunk into his pillow trying to blank out his thoughts before he could spiral again.

A tightening in the chest, and eyes snap open, ‘NO! NO! Please not now!’ is all Danny manages to think before the unfortunately familiar sensation of space displacement takes hold. His transformation is forced on him as he feels himself fall apart and get put back together simultaneously.

‘Just a couple hours rest, is tHAT SO MUCH TO ASK!!??’ The anger leaves before it can fully form due to the pure exhaustion that washed over his ectofied bones and straight to his core. It feels strained, like glass under pressure, not knowing if the slightest change will shatter him. He slowly gets his bearings and- oh, this almost seems worse than a regular cult summoning. At least there’s not a dead body.

It’s the Justice League, and Wonder Woman is talking to him. And Danny, Danny can’t. He can’t. He doesn’t know if they want to trap him, kill him, experiment… if the GIW got their claws into the JL… Danny can’t anymore, He can practically feel his core splintering into jagged gut- wrecking pieces. He just wants to rest, to feel safe, for just a little while. Why can’t he?

Throat burning and eyes watering, Danny realizes he can do something, just one thing. It’s the only thing left that he can do. Something he hasn’t done for a long time, ever since dying.

Danny starts crying.

2K notes · View notes

ecto-american · 5 years ago

Note

Hello! If your taking prompts, could you do one where Danny both loses his memory about his family and friends and gets brainwashed by the guys in white that he's a full ghost, then released back into amity park with some faint idea of some connection, but not sure what. Thank you!

I take prompts within reason

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The dust began to fully settle, and the agent squinted through the mask. He tried to pick out that familiar form in the dust, that was trying to fly away as it always did. Escaping justice, but he saw nothing as smoke began to cloud the skies.

“There!” his partner cried out, and he pointed to a limp figure. The ghost they had been hunting, the town menace that began all of this, laid over a bit of rubble, motionless.

The agent kicked up dust of his own, scrambling to get to the ghost. He could hear his partner following suit, and they rushed towards a ghost that made absolutely no movements. They both, nearly in unison, skidded to a halt right before they could touch him. A flash of light had interrupted their actions. Hearts racing, they watched as this light blinded both of them. By the time it faded, almost as quickly as it had come, they were left looking at...a boy.

Neither made any movements to do anything, and Phantom (?) made no movements either. The agent hesitantly reached out to grab a handful of black hair that was slowly becoming caked in blood, so very different than the white hair of their target. He lifted his head up, bending over a bit to get a look at the face. The resemblance to Phantom was arguable. Paler, but if given a good hair bleaching, this could be Phantom.

Slowly, his other hand lightly patted the boy’s cheek. Bright green eyes opened halfway, staring up at him in confusion. Unmistakable green eyes that glowed like a ghost’s, like Phantom. They dropped closed, only to snap open once more. Bright blue eyes, looking more like a pair he’d see on a fellow agent, were now looking at him. Confused, scared, dazed.

“Sir, did you see that?” his partner’s voice was audible. The boy’s eyes closed fully once more. The agent spared a glance at the other agent. He was nodding with one hand pressed to his headset, listening to what their boss was telling him. “Yes, sir...Right away, sir...No, sir...We’ll be there shortly, sir.” He gestured to the teenager. “Pack him up. The boss wants to bring him in for questioning.”

The agent carefully let go of the hair. The boy’s head hung still, and the only audible noise from him was pained, labored breathing. His partner had gone to fetch their vehicle while he stood guard. And before anybody seemed to notice, before most of Amity Park could truly recover from the attack, they had loaded up the mysterious teenager and were already gone.

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His name was Daniel James Fenton. A background check revealed that he was a seventeen year old student at Casper High. The youngest in a family of four, son of Madeline Anne Walker and Jack Harrison Fenton and a brother to Jasmine Elizabeth Fenton.

He had no criminal record that they could find, though he reportedly got into trouble often at school. Minor things, mostly tardiness and poor grades. A few fights and one instance of pulling a fire alarm. Nothing comparable to the criminal rap sheet of Danny Phantom.

It was the longest rap sheet any agent had seen, literally pages and pages long. Thousands of charges for attempted murder, attempted arson, arson, attempted kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon, and more. Their file on Phantom was surprisingly long, but it was a file that had been compiled over the years by the observant eyes of a select few agents who had studied footage and that elusive ghost for years.

But that flash of light changed everything they thought they knew about Danny Phantom. An entire file that had blanks had odd answers that filled in. However, those answers couldn’t come from Phantom.

“So am I supposed to just believe that you happen to not remember anything about who you are?” Agent B voiced his skepticism to the teenager who had since been changed into a GIW prisoner’s uniform, a pure white loose jumpsuit accompanied by a standard anti-ghost collar around the neck and wrists.

This teen, nobody knew what or how to refer to him at this point, just stared at him with wide, scared eyes. He shifted in his seat, leaning his elbows on the wooden table that separate them, moving his hands a bit as he spoke.

“I-I don’t know what you want from me?” he croaked. He sniffled a bit, and he almost looked like he might cry. Agent B had to admit that the kid seemed to be a good actor, but it was bullshit. He wasn’t fully sure of this situation, but Phantom was always a sly and manipulative ghost. Always one step ahead. Not this time. “I told you what I know.”

“No, you haven’t,” Agent B spoke harshly. “Who are you, and what are you doing in Amity Park?”

“I don’t know who I am!” the teen exclaimed. “I can barely remember what Amity Park is! I think I live there? Or...like family lives there? But I don’t know their names.”

“You’re lying to me,” Agent B accused him. The waterworks truly began, but that never worked on Agent B. It was hard to really feel sorry for a ghost that hurt so many people through selfish actions.

“No, I’m not!” The teen put up a pathetic act. The tears were actually a good sign, in Agent B’s opinion. It meant that the ghost was possibly at their breaking point. “Don’t I get a phone call? I’m supposed to have the right to a lawyer too.”

Agent B stared coldly at him.

“No. Those rights don’t apply to ghosts.”

He stared at the agent, absolutely shocked at that statement. He said nothing, and Agent B stood up.

“Take him back,” Agent B ordered. “Let’s give him another few days in solitary.”

The teen didn’t even utter a word as he was escorted out. Soon as he left, a woman slipped into the room. Unlike the other agents, she wasn’t in a suit, but rather a plan white t-shirt and white jeans, with black shoes and a white lab coat.

“Anything?” she asked. Agent B shook his head. “You know, amnesia can last months, even years.” Agent B knew that look in her eye, exactly what she was leading up to asking him.

“If he doesn’t remember anything by Friday, you can have him Monday for experiments,” he promised her.

Her eyes shined happily.

“You have no idea what kind of scientific discoveries that boy has hidden in him,” she told him. Agent B simply shrugged.

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“Release him?” the scientist looked crestfallen at the news. “But there’s so much more to discover, so many more experiments, he has so much information he could tell us!”

“We can’t afford to keep him in custody much longer,” Agent B told her firmly. “People are starting to question where Phantom is. Of course, Fenton too. It won’t take long before people become suspicious and begin to investigate.”

The scientist frowned. In the six months of captivity, she had learned so much. Phantom was this odd human-ghost hybrid. How this happened, she nor her team could determine, other than that this was a recent event and not a natural state for him. The ghost’s continued lack of memory could provide little clues. She had been hoping to spark his memory, in the pursuit of getting some possible hints or theories. But she’d only get a blank stare.

“He’ll say something,” she argued. “Reveal everything. I know, legally, we didn’t violate any laws or anything. He’s a ghost. But that town thinks he’s a hero. It’ll cause a media outrage.”

“I know,” Agent B replied with a sigh. “We may just put him down and keep a close eye on him to ensure his memory doesn’t return, but it also may not really matter. It’s very doubtful that he told anybody about this. He couldn’t have, especially his parents. Had his parents known, well...you know the Fentons. They’d have experimented on him themselves. Fenton will eventually be classified as a runaway. But Phantom’s too well known to disappear forever.”

“We can’t kill him,” she told him almost immediately. “I want to do more experiments later. Everything will change if he dies fully. There’s just too much more to learn.

And that look in her eye returned as she gave him a hopeful smile. Agent B raised an eyebrow at her.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“He’s already lost so much of his memory,” she began. “What if he...just simply forgot that he had a human half?”

The agent paused as he thought carefully.

“Let’s discuss it with the higher ups, and see how they feel,” he replied.

Their request was granted.

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Phantom stared nervously at the agents that watched him with suspicious eyes. He took a few cautious steps forward in fluffy snow. More was falling thickly, gathering quickly on the ground and on the trees of the woods that they had brought him too. The ghost glanced around, before turning to look at the agents.

They didn’t stop him. They made no movements to draw their weapons. The pair just...watched.

He took this chance, and he shot off into the sky, as fast as he could. No sounds of blasters firing after him, no shouting, only silence and agents that blended into the snow. While his memories of his experience were limited, they were horrifying, and yet they simply let him...leave.

Whatever. He wasn’t going to question that much, but he was already asking himself where he was supposed to...go.

Phantom tried to grasp for his memories for anything of use. Anything that didn’t involve his time there, that could be a place he could go to, a person he could find. What he could remember was so shaky at best.

He saw a town in the distance, the city lights glowing faintly despite the heavy snowfall. Perhaps figuring out where he was, what the date was, was a good start.

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There was something wrong with stealing, he absolutely knew that much. But he, of course as a ghost, had no money, and he also knew that he couldn’t walk anywhere without drawing attention. So with a heavy heart, he stole a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt and a beanie hat from a department store before walking along the streets.

Judging by all the signs of the city and what he could find, he was in a town called Lakewood, within Washington state. Phantom didn’t know how he knew, but he knew that this was not where he was from, and that he was very, very far from where he was meant to be.

He now stood in a gas station, trying to figure out what candy he was going to, sadly, end up stealing. Phantom hated it, hated it, hated it. But maybe he just needed to eat something, to jog his memory, to understand what he had to do. There was something in his gut, telling him that he was missing something, something critical and important about him.

His attention went to a display of free brochures, and he absentmindedly read through them. One caught his eye.

Amity Park: America’s Most Haunted City! Visit Today!

The headline hit him in the gut. Despite ghosts not needing to breathe, he grabbed the brochure, ripping it open to immediately see his own face staring back at him. One of the town’s main attractions, the famous ghostly superhero Danny Phantom.

Amity Park was his home. The memories of saving the town flooded him, and he began to openly cry. That was his purpose. Helping others. Protecting them. That town...that town was home.

“Uh, kid?” the clerk asked, obviously confused. “Are you alright?”

Phantom didn’t answer him. He phased out of his stolen attire, earning a surprised shriek from the worker and the other customers. He ignored them all, and he flew through the ceiling as fast as he could for Amity Park, Illinois.

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He arrived some time later, still clutching tightly onto that brochure. The second he was within the city limits, there was an instant sense of self. His memories were not failing him. This was home. This was where he was meant to be, and these were the people he had sworn to protect and care for.

Why? Phantom couldn’t tell you a true reason why. It just was what he knew he did. The paper in his hands proved it.

No sooner than he arrived was he able to get straight back to work, as there was a ghost attacking the city.

#asks #my phics #drabble prompts #phics #danny fenton #danny phantom #guys in white #hnn i'm sorry this is Choppy and stuff #Anonymous

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