#and that she also made a game of figuring out what other ghosts and halfa's cores are

[ekat-fandom-blog]

Bruce is a halfa. He became one before Dick came into the picture and hides the fact very well, surprisingly. (well, from anyone who isn't Alfred.) He researched extensively about ghosts and talked to every magic user about them to the point they got extremely suspicious that he has a ghost issue. Paired with the fact that some of them get ghost vibes from him, a lot of magic users suspect that he's been possessed (even though they've tried exorcising him multiple times and it didn't do anything.)

When Dani finally ran into Bruce, she'd gotten a hang of spotting disguised ghosts and halfas and started making a game of trying to figure out their obsession. Halfas' were harder to figure out since they didn't have the luxury of focusing solely on their obsessions. At first she thought it could be darkness or bats considering how he seemed to stick to the shadows and he had a thing about naming all his stuff bat-something. Then, she considered maybe his obsession was ghosts after learning that he'd gathered all the information he could on ghosts. She tested if his obsession was tech or information. While she was very nearly convinced that his obsession was information it didn't seem quite right.

Then, she saw him interacting with his family and it clicked. "By the Ancients, your obsession is family."

[currentfandomkick]

Look me in the eye and tell me danny’s ice core—which going by the Far Frozen (main sample for other cold cored ghosts) is not going to have a fixation on knowledge at the weirdest times. Usually its S P A C E or engineering or Infinite Realms things. But ‘i went through a whole ass ghost pregnancy, popped out two kids, AND was flung into another dimension’ Danny? He craves New Knowledge of his surroundings and the new people who kidnapped him.

Tim and Damian’s own files were main loss due to them being the biggest offenders. Damian knocked him out, Tim wanted his and /his/ babies DNA? Fuck that.

Steph would have been a target but Danny got info on the teen pregnancy thing early in his binge so she’s safe… mostly. He ate her patrol playlists.

Jason had no current files under his name, so. Danny just flung random old jason cases about and ate the list of suspected and recent crimes for Crunchy Flavor. No, Danny won’t elaborate.

Danny is probably still in a data munch mode when he goes back with Dan, so they’re probably finding random pdf textbooks to feed Danny while he’s hangry.

Dan is bouncing his niblings on his knee while Clocky throws cookies at Danny to get /some/ ectoplasm in him already!

Jazz shows up and just. Feeds the babies ecto water in a bottle mixed with formula and mentions she did this for Danny offhandedly.

Sam is laughing at Tucker, who is hiding his PDA from an info hangry Danny.

Tucker mourns the loss, only for Clockwork to hand him a replica. Tucker then sits by his bestie dealing with all sorts of body dysmorphia, ‘who makes someone give birth jfc’ violation feelings, post pregnancy hormones, post kidnapping and Core Almost Cracked things.

Sam joins him in teasing Danny into a better mental state with video game jokes. Probably ends up with the three in a cuddle huddle as Jazz hands the baby halfas back to Dan and Clockwork before grabbing a FentonPhone, stealing a soundproofed room and tearing into her mom about using the W-word and how her trans son’s dysmorphia hit real hard after being forced to go through and carry out a pregnancy after a Desiree-napping and “you better have her captured and she better not be sustaining my neice and nephew or so help me, I’ll find the reality gauntlet myself to keep them safe! Am i clear!”

Maddie doesn’t even try to defend it as “i’m sorry—Danny was what!!!”

“Transdimesional Kidnapping turned another universe kidnapping, forced pregnancy by Desiree with Some Guy from said dimension, baby-napping, danny saving his babies /hours after giving birth/, danny and his kids kidnapped again, and now we’re with grandpa Clockwork while Danny processes and /you/ figure out how to capture Desiree if W-wording her into telling you if the w-word you made is only kept alive by her magic, then w-word her into the thermos. I expect a text from Red Huntress when you know—am I clear?”

“Of course! I—tell Danny I’m sorry and I’ll make it up to him. Somehow.”

“Work on labsafety and free reign destruction on designs of his choosing. For five years. Minimum.”

“I—okay fine just, how are they?”

“Newborns. Dan is taking care of them right now.”

“… isn’t that the ghost who tried to kill us?”

“Yep.” Jazz checked the door. “And he’s also Danny’s kids’ favorite uncle. Who should be playing with then and not eavesdropping.”

Dan Turned tangible with a sheepish smile. “Hey Mo—Maddie. I uh, got therapy and not from spectra or another depression eater this time.”

Jazz shook her head.

“And uh, Danny and i are co-princes of the Infinite for a while now—I think he wanted to ease you into this but well. Babies need an ecto-sitter.”

“Right.” Maddie breathed into the phone. “Right that, i didn’t think of that.”

Dan twitched, hands itching to grab the phone. But he didn’t. /his/ old fright is dead. He… still has right of retaliation against the Observants actually. So does Danny. Hm. Things to run by his therapist before doing: slaughtering the organization that ordered his timeline’s creation, death of his fright and current state as a paradox with his traumatized and new-mom aggressive baby brother. For bonding and stress relief.

Clocky wouldn’t stop them.

Jazz gave him a look.

“So um, if it helps, Clockwork is my parole officer and he can always throw me out of existence so.”

“That does not help, thank you.”

Jazz took pity on him. “He’s an alternate Danny from when we all died. In a planned assassination.”

“Oh.” Maddie was quiet for a moment. “Then why kill us again?”

Dan flushed. “I thought it would make sure that my timeline wouldn’t exist… it’d mean the Ancients would have to stop it before it happened one way or another… and devastating a timeline didn’t work so. I also may or may not have been dealing with anchor-death, a lot of grief over you guys and over dying, again, and uh yeah. I’m going to play with the twins. I think Danny’s going to go star names and i need to talk him out of Castor and Pollux.”

Jazz shook her head as he left.

——

Meanwhile Bats star at the wreckage Danny left them and turn to Tim. Tim who’s baby momma is That.

Stephanie just burst into near hysterical laughter. “You can’t have one person who doesn’t fight you before growing on you, huh?”

Tim opened and shut his mouth. Ran over his friendships. Ran over his allies. Ran over his disaster string of romantic relationships.

“Fuck.”

“Pretty sure you had to for the baby momma part,” Jason commented as he got up and began fixing hardware.

“Pretty sure we respect trans people in this house, so baby daddy?” Dick countered

“I doubt the pit demon care either way,” Damian hissed.

“So, how long do you think i should wait before harassing Constantine into contacting Danny?” Tim asked.

“You are not raising put demon children,” Damian said with a shake of his head. “They are deadly as adults, let alone as young.”

Tim shrugged. “Can’t be much worse than when my team was de-aged. I had to change so, so many diapers. And they still had all their powers. Everyone.”

“I, i’ll leave that to you,” Stephanie twisted about uncomfortably while organizing the IV bags in medical. “I’m gonna need some time to… process.”

Before Damian or Jason said something insensitive by accident, Cass shot them a look.

Neither spoke.

“Uh, what happened?” Duke asked as entered the Cave. “And who put the glowing stickynote on the clock?”

Tim snatched it. Three weeks was written in a too fancy cursive with a cuckoo clock staff doodled on the side.

“Drake’s baby daddy doesn’t do well with kidnapping.”

“And is a pit demon,” Damian reminded them again. “Who knows where we live. And our secrets.”

“And is a new parent that just popped the kids pit before his kiddos were ransomed to the wrong guy that happened to be the other parent by some miracle, only to be chased around the city after saving them and kidnapped with his kids,” Jason stated a bit too calmly. “Most of the working girls in my territory would kill for less.”

Duke shook his head. “Cool. I’m getting ready for patrol, grab my gear and go. Anything else i should know?”

“We harass Constantine en masse in less than a month. Apparently Danny’s the heir to some place called the Infinite Realms and John’s their thrall on a technicality. So he’s our direct line,” Tim answered, making mental notes on which magic users to bother about the Infinite Realms, their cultures and governments and any political tensions he needs to know to fortify against for his kids. He’s not half assing it like his parents or botching it like Bruce did for him. Tim is going to parent them so hard and so well.

He should read the updated parenting books. And ones on meta kids for nonmeta parents. And ask Jonn for parenting tips for green martians—the power sets he noted aren’t too far off and might have some overlap for coping.

Tim’s a dad. He hopes he gets a chance to be a good one.

Tags:

@yjfk @dulceringo @09shell-sea09 @skulld3mort-1fan @dannyphantomphan @screamingtofillthevoid @lovingempress @plushbookworm @somanyfandomssolittletime @mnemovoid @wolfeyedwitch @hazelriver74

Bruce Wayne is used to ransom calls. They happen often enough despite his children's training, though it doesn't help that they sometimes purposely get themselves captured to later mock the kidnappers but he digressed.

This call was different. "We have Tim Drakes children" what did that even mean? Did they kidnap some random infants with black wisps of hair and blue eyes and just hope that Tim miiight have had a night of indiscretion in the last year or so to be concerned about?

Spoiler was the first on scene, actively teasing Red Robin about the whole fiasco. He swears they couldn't possibly be his and this had to be a scam of some kind. They had been assessing the situation from the rafters of the warehouse when another guy who looked like prime Batman Adoption Bait stormed the place and beat the crap out of the guys before zooming over to the infants.

The pair nodded at eachother and leaped down from the rafters and landed behind the man. He whirled around, holding the kids protectively to his chest, careful to support thier heads.

They asked him to confirm if he's the father which he did so readily. Red Robin got a wierd feeling though and asked to get a swab for testing, just to be sure.

The guy refused. That wasn't overly suspicious but the defensive way he acted was. Were these not his children? The bats chose to try a different tactic and asked him to wait for the police to arrive so they could confirm he was the twins father.

He ran.

Danny was having one of the worst days of his afterlife, and trust him, he's had some rough days. Being chased through Gotham at night by its local terrifying vigilantes while trying not to drop or harm the babies was hard, especially since he was trying to hide his powers. But really, what was he supposed to do?

He can't exactly just say "a ghost with genie powers overheard my mom wish for grandbabies from me and granted that wish but screwed us by making the other half of the babies DNA that of some random rich guy from another reality?" Cause thats going to go over soooo well.

Why do they care so much anyway? He doubts they're going to make the guy pay child support, not that Danny needs it. Then again its probably better to stay in this world where no one knows who he is and his children are safer...from his parents OSHA violations if nothing else.

Vlad couldn't enter this universe cause he couldn't get past the "source wall" whatever that was, but Danny and his babies had no problems so meh.

The bats had him cornered and hiding invisibly inside an abandoned arcade (why were so many places in this city abandoned???) the bats kept combing through the place looking for him. He knew they were about ready to give up looking for him when one of the babies sneezed.

The next thing he knew the littlest bat, Robin was right next to him, "Found you." Then he was knocked out.

[gilbirda]

Hello again! I've actually written the down some of my "Jason and the Spraypaint 'Thief'" idea tho its mostly scaffolding and i dont feel ready to share it just yet, but progress is being made!

If I may ask for your advice once more, the story has begun leaning towards Anger Management vibes (thanks for that brainrot too (affectionate)), but i dont feel great that the genesis of Jason and Jazz meeting is after Jason basically stalks Jazz in his hunt for whoever is buying his spraypaint before he can. Like, she is the one buying the paint, but the dynamic feels too onesided atm in terms of agency, but idk what Jazz would be doing that could parallel Jason.

The best Ive got is she tried to find out who bought out the yarn she was knitting with (it was Jason being petty), but I dont think she'd care as much as Jason does with the paint and it also feels too samey.

...Just had this thought while writing this, would it vibe with Jazz's character if she kept tabs on the Batfam for Danny? Like in terms of location. Ive got it that Danny dosnt want anything to do with the Batfam atm, Gothem is their turf fighting-wise and he dosnt want to encroach on that (tho he does help people in need when he comes across them), he just wants to make cool art in weird places (and maybe some ghost king stuff, not sure on that just yet) (maybe as a coping mechanism bc I do like the angst that comes from 'Danny leaves Amity bc the Fentons reactly badly to him being a halfa', tho still not sure how he gets into spraypaint yet, that feels like an important detail), so Jazz keeps tabs on their patrols for Danny so he can spraypaint without drawing their attention, and then Jazz notices Red Hood acting a bit odd and does her own investigating to make sure its not ghost business (she would know that RH has ghost vibes from Danny and his current spraypaint investigating behaviour maybe looks like a ghost obsession without context), and maybe she ends up pulling a Tim and figures out Red Hood is Jason, just due to ghost vibes instead of acrobatics.

I havent even gotten to them actually meeting in my planning yey, its just discovery eachother from afar and general thoughts of 'thats the person Im looking for, they're kinda cute' so far. Current vauge idea is they meet in a fight, tho i might be biased bc i did recently reread 'cant help falling (in love with you)' (i think i said this before, but amazing story btw, eagerly waiting for the next chapter!)

I hope this makes sense. This is the first time I've had an idea I've wanted to share with other fandom people and felt comfy enough to do so.

(your ask got sent twice so im gonna answer one and delete the other. Just Tumblr things I guess)

SO

I see Anger Management and go feral

I see what you mean about there being a power imbalance in their meeting situation - but we have to be aware that the source material is like that. Jason is a crime fighter and a vigilante and also a very extra boy. He is petty and arrogant and sometimes he is not above using his skills for personal use.

You can make it so she knows what's going on and leads him in a wild goose chase just for funsies. Make Jazz petty as well. Make her highly competent. Make her win in his own game and boom, no more power imbalance. (Also that can be a cool "I need to know more of this woman" kind of situation.)

Another alternative, is making her think he is stalking her for unsavory purposes and beat the shit out of him.

I like what you said about Jazz being the one that keep tabs on all the vigilantes. She could have profiled them all, studied their patterns, and Tim Drake her way into memorizing their patrol routes so Danny can paint in peace.

So that's why when her new stalker starts bothering her, she is so Done(tm) that she is not afraid to gatekeep, gaslight, girlboss her way into making him stop.

How she does it? Dealer's choice.

(I'm weak to the fight approach, if it wasn't obvious (✿◡‿◡) )

(But outsmarting him could work as well.)

(Jason is into women that can kick his ass, be it physically or in smarts)

So in conclusion I think if you want to not fall into icky power imbalances and not fall into highly competent Mary Sues tropes, the sweet spot would be Jazz making the choice to take act or not, and base it on actual conflict: If she can't just beat the shit out of him, explain why. If she is not going to make a deal out of it, explain why. Make the character have agency and a choice in the matter, even if that choice is inaction.

Thank you for showing me your progress!!!! I'm so happy when people make content for the crossover and my favorite ship!!!

Also thanks for reading my fics!

🤗💖

[ecto-american]

The Other Side

Phic Phight Oneshot for Kiinotasha and KC: (AU) Born a halfa and raised in the Ghost Zone by his mother, Danny struggles with his human identity when a permanent man made portal appears in the Ghost Zone.

On AO3 and FFN

-------------------

Danny never questioned his life until that man made portal spawned. He never forgot when he first saw it six years ago while playing with Youngblood.

Naturally, they were playing aliens and spacemen, Danny's favorite. Earlier in the play session, they had found it, and it was deemed part of their spaceship. It was just a metal outline, an octagon. Thick enough that they could sit, and they pretended that the limited space was the entrance. Obviously on the left side was space, and the right side was their ship. Eventually their moms called them home, and during dinner when asked about his day, he told his mom about it.

She frowned, and she asked him for more details. Having played on it all day, he described it perfectly. His mom paled, and she forbid him from going there again, but she didn't expand on why.

He saw no reason to be afraid. It was just a metal shape. There were far more dangerous places in the Ghost Zone. So the next day, he told Youngblood about his mom's weird reaction. His mom had reacted the same, but didn't say why. His dad explained that it was dangerous, but not what about it was dangerous. Danny didn't have a dad, but he was sure that if he did, he probably would have said the same thing. But neither child could get it. What was dangerous about a shape?

So they just played with it again the next day, and they lied to their moms about what they did.

Two years later, another ghost had join to make them a trio. Her name was Box Lunch, and she was honestly a lot of fun. But she was still a girl, and they didn't tell her about their secret fun location until they were sure she didn't have cooties. When they showed her, she instantly knew what it was.

"That's a ghost portal!" she exclaimed. Youngblood and Danny thought she was stupid. Ghost portals didn't stay anywhere permanently. They opened and closed at random, when the human world and Ghost Zone would temporarily merge and allow for a rip to tear. But it always mended back together quickly.

"No it's not," Youngblood scowled. Box Lunch made a face at him.

"Yeah-huh!" she insisted. "My mommy and daddy get into the human world all the time! She said some people there have been trying to make a permanent portal to here!"

"Nu-uh!" Youngblood argued. "My dad said that humans wouldn't do that, they're more afraid of us than we are of them!"

"Yeah-huh!" Box Lunch said more forcefully. "My parents were human once, they said that people constantly wanna hunt us in the human world! And that they're coming here!"

"If they're afraid of us, then why come here?" Youngblood challenged.

"What else would it be?" Box Lunch asked, crossing her arms.

"It's a weirdo ghost's lair!"

And as they bickered back and forth, Danny had remained quiet. He didn't know how to feel about any of this. His friends often forgot that Danny wasn't just a ghost. He was also human.

Not that he was a ghost who was once human, that died. He was both, and he always had been. Born that way, according to his mom, because his dad was human. Danny didn't know too much about him, and he never really thought to ask.

He knew that his name was Jack, and how he looked like. His mom had hung a photo of him in his room so that he'd know; blue eyes, black hair, with a square jaw and in a distinctive orange jumpsuit. The orange suit always reminded him of the blue one his mom wore underneath a lab coat. She said he looked just like his dad when he was in his human form, and he could absolutely see it. Though as a ghost he had white hair that he seemingly inherited from nobody, with his mom's light blue skin and yellow-green eyes. As a ghost, he matched with a black jumpsuit, though as a human, he preferred regular clothes.

Most ghosts had learned of Danny's true nature early on as the news slowly spread when he was born. They loved him and accepted him as one of them. He could go out into the Zone as a human, but it always felt weird. So he was always a ghost.

That night, as he got tucked in for bed, he decided to bring the metallic object up again.

"Box Lunch said that the big metal shape is a permanent ghost portal," he blurted out. His mom stared at him with wide yellow eyes, and so he knew that Box Lunch was actually right. "Is it?"

She sighed, sitting on the edge of his bed.

"I believe so," she confirmed. Danny sat up.

"Is that why you don't want me going near it?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied. Danny cocked his head curiously.

"But if I'm also human, wouldn't they be okay with me?" he wondered. His mom paused for a long, long time. "I'm also one of them."

"I don't know, honey," she admitted. He could tell that she did know. She kissed his forehead. "I'll talk to you about it when you're a little bit older, okay?"

"Promise?"

"I promise. Now good night, sweetie."

It was four more years before it really became relevant again. He had essentially forgotten about the unoperational portal as homeschooling, other friends, and general undead life had continued on for him and his mom.

Youngblood didn't age, since he was once human and died, and so as Danny got older, they hung out less. While Box Lunch, a born ghost, grew, he became distant from her too for unrelated reasons. Danny wasn't alone, however. For a while, he hung out with other ghosts who had died young before he met his best friend. He was a bit older than him when he had died, sixteen to his fourteen, but Johnny 13 (and his shadow) and him had almost instantly become friends and hung out nearly every day. Often his girlfriend joined them too. His mom also allowed him to keep a newly dead dog that had followed him home, that alternated from a puppy to a large hulking beast of a monster dog. Danny named him Cujo.

Ghost Writer provided lessons in the arts on Tuesdays and Thursdays for him and a few other younger ghosts, which did include Johnny and Kitty. On the other days, his mom homeschooled him in her passion: the sciences. His favorite memories were of him and his mother in her lab, doing home experiments and building a wide variety of things.

She indulged in whatever nonsense he wanted to build, which included but wasn't limited to: rock cannon, small spaceships, figuring out how they could grow potatoes on the moon like the man in the martian book did, using ecto energy to cook poptarts.

Often her friend, Technus, but better known to Danny as Uncle Nico, came by to do more of the tech-based stuff. Danny believed that Uncle Nico could do anything with technology. He was one of the ghosts that often went through the natural portals, and whenever he came back, he had something for Danny. Typically game consoles and games, but sometimes fun little useless knick knacks that Danny treasured deeply. He fixed those game consoles many times, and also showed him how to download and install cheats and mods to make them more fun.

And after a morning full of science or the arts, Danny would eat lunch then rush off to play with his friends, Cujo always on his heels.

Looking back, he never did much as a human. He had to resort to his human side to rest, or would default to it if he fell asleep. It felt weird being in human form amongst ghosts, and so he was just always a ghost. He never thought much about it, and nobody ever asked him to be a human around them. It was just how things were.

On the day he'd never forget, it was just him and Johnny. His girlfriend had opted not to come. Danny couldn't remember the original topic, but it made him remember the portal. As soon as he told Johnny about it, the two idly scratching Cujo as the dog slept in between them in puppy form, the ghost's eyes lit up excitedly.

"Dude! We have to check it out!" Johnny insisted.

"I dunno," Danny hesitated. "My mom said that I should stay away."

"Come on, it'll be sick! I've always wanted to go back to the human world," Johnny begged. "And you've never even been there, despite being half-human!"

Danny paused. Well, when you put it like that...

"Okay!" he agreed. He floated up from his seat a bit so he could untangle his legs to stand. Cujo immediately got up from his spot laying near them, tail wagging excitedly. "Let's go! I think I still know where it is!"

It had changed since he last saw it. It now had huge yellow and black doors in place of the previous blank space, and it seemed somehow bigger than he remembered it years ago. But it was unmistakably the man made portal.

Even now, he didn't get what would be too scary about it that his mom would encourage him to stay far away. It was just a door.

"This is so fucking cool," Johnny whispered as he touched the door. "Imagine...no more trying to hunt down a portal. We can just come and go as we please...seeing our lost loved ones...seeing my mom again…It's been so long...I dunno if she'd even remember me..."

Danny didn't say anything, but he did begin to think and truly wonder for the first time what his dad was like. His mom never talked about him, and he never really asked. He and his mom were happy, and he also had Uncle Nico. Was his dad kind? Did he also like science? Why wasn't he here? Did his dad even know about him?

"Do you think we can open it?" Danny asked. Cujo licked his fingers, and Danny scratched his head. Johnny glanced over his shoulder at him.

"I dunno," he admitted. His hand turned into a fist and he knocked on the door. "It seems really solid. I don't think we can just break it or something."

"Hm. Lemme see," Danny mused. He came closer, and he put his hand on the door. It was cold, and Johnny was right; it was metallic, just like the outer edge he used to play on, and it would not break easily. His finger traced the middle line of the two doors. "Hm. Maybe we can pry the door open."

"The humans made this," Johnny spoke. Danny stared at him. No shit. "No, no, I mean. Maybe you should do something to it as a human." Danny thought on this, and he shrugged. Couldn't hurt.

His transformation rings came and went, leaving him in his human state. He was just in a t-shirt and jeans today, and he stayed floating near the portal.

His hand had barely touched the portal when it opened for him.

Danny gasped in shock, jerking his hand back as it opened. Johnny had also jumped, going backwards a bit, and Cujo's fur went up as he barked. It fully opened, and he couldn't see anything but the green ooze. This wasn't anything like Uncle Nico had mentioned natural portals being like. They normally acted like a window you could see through. But it was an unnatural portal made by man.

"Maybe this isn't such a-" Johnny began, but Danny had already stepped through.

There was a weird in between area that shined bright blue that he never heard Uncle Nico describe. But in this in between, he could see exactly what the ghost had mentioned. He knew he was still in the Zone, but he could look out the portal into the human world like a window.

A man in an orange jumpsuit, with black hair that was graying, was sitting in a room that reminded him very much of his mom's lab. He was staring at the portal in confusion, likely because it had randomly opened, and Danny instantly knew who it was. He had no idea if his dad could see him, but he found himself rushing backwards, and back into the Zone.

The second he returned, he became a ghost again, and he silently began to fly away as he tried to process. Johnny asked no questions, only following, Cujo following them both.

That night, at dinner, he finally asked.

"What was dad like?"

His mom stared at him for a moment.

"Well, he was very sweet," she said slowly. "Very bubbly personality. Always went out of his way to help his friends." She smiled softly as she talked about him. "Adored fudge."

"Did he like science?" Danny wondered. His mom gave a short laugh.

"Oh boy he adored it. Not the best at it, but he had a lot of enthusiasm," he replied. "We used to do experiments together all the time."

Danny stared down at his food as he thought. He looked up to her, and he could tell that she already knew what he was going to ask.

"How come I never met him?" he wondered. She sighed.

"...He doesn't like ghosts," she replied. "Aspiring ghost hunter when I met him, actually. I was alive then. Had the same ambitions." At his shocked look, she laughed again. "I know, ironic. We had dated for about two years officially. But then...I died. It was winter, and I was driving late at night during a snowstorm. My car slid off the road, and into a river. And I died from my injuries. I found that I could disguise myself as human, and I was in denial. So I just...continued on."

"...Why?" he asked. His mom shrugged in defeat.

"I guess I just didn't want to admit that it was over. I hadn't done everything I wanted to do yet. I was still in college, and I felt like my life had been forcibly finished before it had even truly started," she admitted. "Jack had proposed, but I had declined. I was too afraid to tell him. He began pursuing ghost hunting more seriously as a profession and building weapons and portals. I found out I was having you, and he was so excited to be a dad. I began getting scared. I didn't know how long I could continue the lie. I didn't know how it all would affect you. Then the police found my car and body, and I knew I couldn't avoid the inevitable any longer. So I left. I had no clue how to face him, or even how safe you might be if we talked. Especially after you were born, and I realized that you were half ghost."

The more she talked, she more somber she became. By the end, she was sniffling a little. Guilt began to wash over him.

"Have you ever talked to him again? Like after I was born?" he wondered. She shook her head no. "How come you've never taken me to the human world?"

"I had considered it. But it's too dangerous," she explained. "Humans aren't like ghosts. If they knew that you were also ghost...you wouldn't wanna find out what happens."

"...Do you regret any of it?" Do you regret me?

She smiled softly despite the conversation.

"You were the best thing to ever happen to me," she told him. "I may have been very anxious about being alone, and how you may turn out despite it all. But you were born healthy and perfect in every way. You're absolutely the light of my afterlife."

Danny smiled back, feeling some reassurance. His mom stood up, leaning over to peck his forehead before picking up her plate. He heard Cujo scramble out from under the table, ears up in excitement.

"I think I'll finish this later," she told him. "I'm not too hungry tonight." She glanced down at the dog. "This isn't for you."

Cujo whined, following her as she put her plate in the microwave. Danny nodded, sparing a small smile to Cujo and ushering for him to come over. He slipped him a piece of chicken as his mom left.

Later that night, Danny couldn't sleep. He was too busy sorting out his rushing thoughts. He was of course still him. Nothing really changed, but there was this new growing emptiness. Danny was still Danny, but there was a whole other side to him that knew nothing about. It began to eat at him more and more. Who was this human side besides just human Danny who lived in the Ghost Zone? He didn't know.

He now wished that his mom had taken him to the human world before so that he could know. She did say that there was a risk in the humans knowing he was also a ghost, which he didn't get. The ghosts accepted him as one of their own, so why wouldn't the humans? He didn't get humans at all. And he needed to know more about them. He was one of them.

By breakfast, his mind was made up.

After an unusually boring lesson with Ghost Writer together, Danny immediately went to Johnny once their small class of sorts were dismissed.

"I have to go back." Danny couldn't breath for a moment. "I have to see what it's like. Like you said, I'm also human, and I've never been there. All my unlife, I've been a ghost, here, in the Ghost Zone. My dad's in the human world. And I need to know what it's like to be human. What it means. So I can maybe meet him one day."

Johnny nodded.

"I think I get it," he said slowly. "I'll come with you. Keep you company. I think I could pass for human pretty well, even if I have to say that I have some kind of sickly disease that keeps me pale."

Danny grinned.

"Thanks," he replied. "Come on."

It took no time at all to find the portal. Danny stared up at it, his breath once more stolen as he tried to think of a reason why he shouldn't go through it.

Nothing came to mind.

"It's okay if you don't wanna," Johnny said. Danny shook his head no.

"I have to do this," he replied. "I need to do this."

Johnny patted his back, and that was all the subconscious encouragement Danny needed to turn human and press his hand to the door. Once more, it opened. The fact that he's even able to open it made him know that this was something he was meant to do. He once again stepped through with Johnny right behind him.

[phantoms-lair]

The Phantom Detective Redux Chapter 3

“Vultures, that’s definitely Vlad’s work.” Danny glared at the ceiling. He wished the little girl who also spoke English had told him that over the phone. He could have been flying around trying to find them instead of wasting time getting here. 

In all of the mess of last night with him accidently turning Conan into a halfa (and wasn’t THAT unsettling? Was that a new power he could just do? Could Vlad?), he’d never gotten a clear answer as to why Vlad was after Conan.

Like, yeah the kid was scary smart, but Danny hadn’t realized it until he’d spoken to him and as far as he’d known Vlad hadn’t. And his initial guess that it was because he was the detective's son (in an attempt to blackmail said detective) was dashed by Conan admitting he was under a ‘witness protection program’. He doubted Vlad wouldn’t have done the research to show that.

He needed to find some way to keep him safe, but most of the methods he knew for keeping malevolent ghosts out weren’t exactly safe for Halfa use. Which Conan was now for unknown reasons.

He could think about that later. Right now he needed to track the vultures, save his fellow Halfa and-

His train of thought was interrupted by the door slamming open and the girl he had saved yesterday from Skulker storming in with Conan in her arms. She did not look happy.

This was borne out as she began yelling at them in Japanese, only for the small girl to say something involving his name.

“I don’t speak Japanese, but I am very fluent in being thrown under the bus.” Danny said with a mild glare as the angry girl turned on him.

~

The short walk to the Professor’s (it hadn’t been very far) had given Ran more than enough time to build up a heady steam of indignation. As much as she wanted to shake Conan-Shinichi and demand answers, she couldn’t do that right now. He wasn’t waking up, which scared her and fed her anger even more.

Shinichi had been lying to her. And Agasa had been helping him. And if one couldn’t give her answers, the other would.

She barely stopped to kick off her shoes as she marched in the door. The Professor was there with Ai-chan and someone she didn’t know. In any other circumstance, she’d be more discrete, but she was done.

“Hakase, why did I just see Shinichi turn into Conan?  Why did he look so strange? What else have you been keeping from me?” 

Everyone in the room looked at her in shock. Surprisingly, it was Ai-chan who spoke first. “Danny did something weird to him. We don’t understand what.” ‘Danny’ glared at her and said something in English. That was all the impetus Ran needed to turn on him. “What did you do to Shinichi?”

He responded in English again. Ran wasn’t doing badly in her lessons, but he spoke too fast and she was too flustered to translate.

Cona-Shinichi held protectively in her arms, she lashed out with her right leg. The boy ducked back, still shouting in English. Ran shifted her weight and struck again. 

The kick should have smacked him in the head, if not for the fact that his head detached from his shoulders, floating half a foot above. There were twin thuds as Ran misstepped her landing and Haibara fell to the floor in a dead faint. Agasa didn’t look much better himself.

Danny reached up, grabbed his head, and pulled it back onto his shoulders. Conan was still out cold and the only other English speaker had fainted. Great.

He looked to the Professor in a silent plea for help while the kicky girl just looked at him in terror. The Professor looked at him with a bit of fear in his eyes, but he turned to the girl and began to speak. Danny only hoped they were friendly words.

~

"Ran-kun, I know was Danny-kun did was scary," And wasn't that underestimation. As much impossible as he had seen in the past day, that took things one step too far. "But he has been trying to help fix whatever it is he did."

"H-He's a monster!" Ran stammered, clutching Shinichi tighter to her.

Agasa winced. Not just for Danny's sake, but for Shinichi's as well. At least he hadn't been awake to hear it. "Danny-kun's not normal, it's true. But that doesn't make him evil."

"What is he?"

"A yūrei hanyou. At least that's as close a translation as Shinichi-kun and I got." Not much use in hiding that little tidbit when she'd seen him transform.

"You mean yōkai hanyou. A yūrei hanyou doesn't make any sense."

"It doesn't and that's driven Shinichi-kun up the wall." Once quite literally. He'd paced to the end of the room and had gotten halfway up a wall before realizing what was happening. Gravity had temporarily reasserted itself, only for him to catch himself mid-fall, levitating a few inches above the floor before falling the rest of the way. But it didn't seem like a good idea to mention it at the moment. "That's the best translation we have though. Danny-kun doesn't speak Japanese."

Ran turned her attention to the harmless looking boy she's just seen decapitate himself. He was a monster and he'd done something to Shinichi, but apparently was trying to help? She needed answers so badly, but didn't think her English comprehension was good enough to understand them. She thought for a moment and cradling Shinichi in one arm she pulled out her phone. She typed a few moments then held up the screen for him to see. On one side was Japanese, on the other the words 'What did you do to him' 

He looked at the screen then pulled his own phone out of his pocket and began typing before showing her 'I think he absorbed some of my ectoprism. I don't know how. It's never happened before.' 

Ectoprism? Okay she didn't know that word. And somehow Shinichi absorbed it? 'What is ectoprism?' 

Danny assumed she meant ectoplasm. 'Basically the essence of ghosts. The accident pushed a lot into my DNA.' 

Ran felt a shiver down her spine at the idea of 'Ghost Essense' being shoved into someone's genetics. 'What kind of accident' She regretted it a moment later when he saw her question and just looked sad and uncomfortable. 

He was claiming to be part ghost, was she asking about his death? Was that a taboo subject? Somehow the question 'Are you dead?' didn't seem any better. So she switched her question. 'How did you make Shinichi a child?' 

He stared at her phone, but this time just looked confused. He fumbled with his phone a bit. 'What is a shinichi?'

She gave him a look and pointed at the child she was holding. He typed back and showed her 'Conan is a shinichi? I don't know why he was older. It was weird. Maybe it's because he's an adult for his age?

That gave Ran pause. Danny's answers had all been about ghostly things, none of it about Shinichi deaging. And the fact that he didn't seem to know his real name was even a name... "Hakase?" Ran asked in a dangerously sweet voice. "Is there a reason Danny-san, who I was just told was responsible for this, doesn't know Shinichi's real name, and in fact seems to think Conan-kun somehow aged up into Shinichi?" 

"Ah well, that is to say, the part Danny-kun's responsible for, that only happened last night." Agasa definitely looked nervous as he helped Ai onto her bed. 

Her eyes narrowed. "Okay, then why don't you tell me the rest of the story."

~

Well apparently whatever he'd said had been enough to turn her attention to the Professor. She was still mad, but not at him, so good? He had no idea what was going on, though. 

He wished he had someone with him that could help him explain and spoke Japanese and English and... Danny smacked himself in the face then hit a contact number on his phone. "Jazz, are you free? I need some help?" 

"Kisaki-san is talking to Mom so sure. Is this about Vlad?" 

"Kinda, but not really." Danny sighed. "So Vlad's been targeting this kid I thought was the detective's son-" 

"The one you thought could see right through you?" 

"...Yes, and you will understand once you meet him, but that's not the problem. The problem is I...kinda turned him into a halfa last night." 

There was silence on the other end, then "*What? Danny what the actual fu-wHAT DID YOU DO????”

"I just touched him Jazz. And it was like my transformation ring spread like fire over him." Danny ran a hand through his hair. "And now someone I think is his older sister is here, and I'm using google translate to try and explain, and there's something else going on she's mad at this professor guy over and...Jazz I need help." He heard her sigh over the phone. 

"Send me your address, I'll be right there."

Danny hung up and texted her the number. He looked over to the girl and Professor, they were talking about something, something that seemed serious. Also that word shinichi kept popping up. It had something to do with Conan, and he really wished he could find a translation.

~

The more Agasa talked, the more Ran wanted to scream. She felt hurt, used. She looked at the child who wasn't still wrapped in her arms. She wanted to rage at him, but he still wouldn't wake up and that kept an undercurrent of worry beneath all her anger. 

"Was this all just a game to him? A joke I was too stupid to figure out?" 

"Ran-kun no he..." Agasa looked at the still unconscious Shinichi. "You've never seen the back and forth. It's torture. He used to scream..." Agasa shut his eyes. In a way he hated that Shinichi had become so used to the pain he didn't anymore. “There was a very real chance each transformation would kill him. As it is, he has permanent heart damage, barring this whole ghost thing that none of us understand." 

"If Shinichi-kun were truly selfish, he could have started over. Left everything behind and began a new life. That would have been the smartest thing he could have done. But he clung to the one thing that made his old life worth keeping. He clung to you, because you were the most important thing he has. And he'd rather face death then leave you behind. He never took a cure without the intent to see you."

But Agasa was wrong. She had heard the screams. In the diplomat’s house, and after the case where Shinichi was being impersonated. She’s always convinced herself they were nothing, since nothing appeared to be wrong afterwards, but that sound had shaken her.

And Shinichi was still Shinichi after that last incident, which meant after being in that pain he’d immediately gone through it again

 “How are you sure? About the heart damage?” Ran asked quietly.

Agasa was quiet for a moment. “Ai-kun had a bad cold and started to feel pain in her stomach. The doctor wanted to do an ultrasound to check her organs, but she was scared, so Conan volunteered.” He didn’t mention that this had been carefully orchestrated. Not the illness or the kidney infection, but when Ai realized she might get an ultrasound she got the idea to give them a chance to check Shinichi’s internal organs in a way she normally couldn’t.

If the technician hadn’t been focused on the frightened little girl and looking at the screen when she held the scanner over Shinichi’s chest…

“I saw the scarring myself, on the ultrasound screen.” Agasa was very solemn. “He’s been cut off from the temporary cures since, but with so much damage already done-”

“Dai-job-boo-dee-sooka?”

They turned and saw Danny, looking at his screen. He was frowning as though he knew the pronunciation of whatever he was trying to say was off. Finally just turned his phone around so they could see what he was trying to say. Daijōbu desu ka Are you okay?

No, she was very much not okay. She fumbled for a moment with her own phone, now even less willing to put him down. ‘Conan’s heart is hurt’

Danny frowned. The kid was a bit young for romantic heartache so - oh. Oh no.

His face must have given something away, because her eyes narrowed. ‘What’

‘I had a bad idea’ he typed back. He didn’t want to say more, but the look she gave him demanded it. ‘Ectoplasm should not affect a normal person, but if he was probably very close to death’

The response hit Ran in the gut harder than any of the blows she’d taken during her matches. Whatever Danny had done to Shinichi had happened because Shinichi was dying. And he was dying because he refused to give her up.

A sudden knocking at the door startled them all. Danny brightened and ran for the door. 

Ran and Agasa shared a confused look.

Danny came back with a young woman with bright red hair. "Hello, you must be Conan's older sister." The girl said in clear, but accented Japanese. "My name's Jazz, Danny's my little brother, he called me to help." 

"Your brother?" Ran asked, even as she inwardly shrunk at the reminder of Danny still being under the misconception she had been until not to long ago. "Are you...like him?" 

"One hundred percent normal human, if that's what you're asking." Jazz reassured. "But I've been helping my brother adapt for the past years, so I'm very familiar with what's going on." Of course the early days were her weak spot, as she hadn't known till about two months later, and hadn't been let in on everything till the stupid test incident. 

"Do you know why he won't wake up?" Ran asked in a small voice. 

Jazz asked Danny something in English, then nodded and turned her attention back to Ran. "Basically his system didn't have the ectoplasm reserves for what he tried to pull off to escape the creature that kidnapped him-" 

The what that did what now? How many loops was she being left out of?

 "-and his body strained itself trying to maintain. He'll sleep until his ectoplasm levels are back at a safe amount. The first time Danny tried pulling a stunt like that, he was out for four hours." 

"His ectoplasm levels? I don't understand. Danny-san said that he'd absorbed some ghost-essence from him but..." 

Jazz pinched her nose. "Right. Google translate. Okay, so normally ectoplasm, the 'Ghost-Essence', has no effect on humans whatsoever. But there are rare cases that involve a lot of ectoplasm and a fair amount of electricity that can alter a human body to the point where their mitochondria start creating it instead of the usual oxygen based chemical energy. This causes the person to exhibit certain ghost-like traits."

"Yūrei hanyou." Ran whispered. 

"In a nutshell." Jazz agreed, making note of the term. She'd take it over halfa, if for no other reason that Vlad must have approved of the term for it to be bandied about so much. 

And now Ran understood what Danny had done. No wonder he'd had trouble explaining it, the concept shouldn't exist. This wasn't some one and done magical side effect of absorbing some ectoplasm from Danny, something that shouldn't have even happened if he hadn't been dying by inches. 

Co-Shinichi was in the process of becoming a yūrei hanyou. That's why he'd looked so strange as Shinichi. Unbidden, every scary story about people becoming monsters flooded her mind. No. No she could not focus on that because obviously it wasn't true. Danny still had a close connection to his human family. His big sister had stood by him, she'd have to too. 

(Though she had no idea how to define her relationship to him at the moment)

 "I can answer any questions you have, but we might want to wait until he wakes up, I'm sure he has a bunch too." Jazz continued on, unaware of all the thoughts running through Ran's head. 

"He speaks English, wouldn't Danny have-"

Jazz let out a frustrated puff of air. "Oh I have no doubt brother dearest tried explaining. But Danny's not," she glanced at her brother, "he's not the most adept at explaining things even when they're not deeply personal and he's not panicking all over the place, which it seems is what he's been doing. Not that he doesn't have reason. This nice family vacation has turned into a cluster." She sighed deeply. "But one thing I really need to impress is how important this is to keep a secret." 

Ran felt something dark curdle in her stomach. That sounded enough like what Agasa-hakase had been saying to bring the bitter feeling back. "Why?" 

Jazz clenched her hand worriedly. "Are you familiar with a law in America called the Anti-Ecto Act? It basically states that 'Ectoplasmic Entities', despite being sentient and sapient, are not living people and don't the same - or any- inalienable rights. And they don't differentiate between yūrei hanyou and true ghosts."

"If Danny was discovered, he'd be taken to a government facility. The Agents were boasting about all the painful experiments they were going to perform on him. Thankfully Danny convinced them they were wrong about him." She certainly wasn't going to go into the magic artifact with mind wiping capacity. 

“But for a short time we had proof of how people would react to a yūrei hanyou's existence. Those that knew him stood by him, but..to anyone else, he was just a monster, a threat. And I don't know if Japan has an equivalent to the Anti-Ecto Act, but I do know that you place a greater emphasis on conformity than America does. And yūrei hanyou definitely break that mold." 

Ran wanted to argue that Shinichi had never conformed to anything, not since preschool when he'd accused the teacher of trying to do something terrible to her. But she knew the difference between excelling and nonconforming, and the truth was Shinichi excelled, physically and mentally. 

This was very different. If word got out Conan was Shinichi, these mysterious people in Black Clothes would kill him. If word got out he was a yūrei hanyou, his life would be effectively over. It felt like balancing on the edge of a knife. Shinichi standing on tiptoe, trying to avoid falling into ruin. "How did your parents take it?" 

Jazz's expression darkened. "Our parents' work was instrumental in helping draft the Anti-Ecto Act."

"What? How could they?" 

"They don't know. Danny always insisted if they did, they'd change. They'd love him anyways. But it's been two years and he hasn't told them. I don't think he's ever going to. In some ways he feels safer with actual malevolent spirits that definitely mean him harm, because he knows they can't hurt him the same way Mom and Dad can." Emotionally or physically. "It's not healthy growing up and hearing your parents talking about how much they'd enjoy ripping apart beings like you 'molecule by molecule'."

Ran shuddered. Hearing it that way, it sounded like the ghosts weren't the scary ones in this scenario. And if Jazz-san was right about Danny not being able to explain things well, Shinichi might have no idea of that added complication. "So what now?" 

"The first month to month and a half are going to be the roughest part. His body doesn't know what to do with its ectoplasm, and will have trouble regulating its use. This results in ghost powers that randomly go off, especially in time of high emotions. After that he'll be able to control it more, no more passing out, for example, since his powers will simply fail rather than push him past his limits. Or accidental power usage. Once he hits the two month mark, he'll be fine, it'll just be a bit awkward until then."

Two months. She could keep it together for two months. “Is there any way to wake him up?” She asked. It helped being told this was normal, but not as much as him waking up would.

“We always let Danny sleep it off, although…” Jazz trailed off as she thought for a moment. “Would you be willing to let Danny hold him?”

“Why?” Ran was loath to let Shinichi go, and moreso to Danny, who was the  reason Shinichi was turning into a yūrei hanyou in the fist place. 

“His body needs ectoplasm right now, and barring letting it generate naturally in his cells, Danny’s the only other source we have.” Jazz explained calmly. 

It made sense and she hated it. She held Conan a little closer and almost screamed as Danny suddenly changed in a burst of white light. The last thing she wanted to do was hand Conan over but…

But she’d seen those green eyes and white hair before. On Shinichi. Danny and Shinichi were the same, being afraid of one would be being afraid of the other, and she couldn’t bring herself to be afraid of Shinichi like that.

She reluctantly handed him over. Danny cradled him and his arms began to glow green.

Before she could change her mind, Shinichi’s eyes blinked open and he looked around blankly. 

~

He felt...not warm, but it felt warm. Like in the laying in a sunbeam way, or being cozy in a blanket on a cold morning. But it wasn’t a temperature thing. It was weird.

He opened his eyes and saw Danny in his ghostly state. “Why are you holding me?” he asked dryly.

“More I’m recharging you.” Danny answered back in the same tone. He raised a glowing hand. “You used up all of your ectoplasm and knocked yourself out. Now that you’re back with us, hopefully your sister can calm down a bit. Also what’s a shinichi, she keeps using that word.”

His sister? Wait, he couldn’t mean… “Ran?”

“Who ran?” Danny asked, but Conan ignored him and looked around.

“Shinichi,” she said in a tone that meant the jig was well and truly up.

“Seriously, what does that mean?” Danny grumbled.

Conan gulped and flickered for a moment.

“Nope, gonna need you to stop that.” Danny chided him. “I know you can’t really help it at this point, but you’re still low on power.”

Conan was only half listening to him, half to the one person in the roof he didn’t know. “Invisibility and Intangibility tend to trigger as a fear response, and if he’s like Danny, he’s going to be on the verge of both of those until he’s more settled.” The young woman then turned to him. “Hello Conan, my name is Fenton Jazz. I’m Danny’s older sister and I’m here to hopefully explain things a little better.”

~

"Now keep in mind, the science of this isn't my main area of expertise, but between listening to my parents ramble my whole life, and helping Danny for the last two years-” Jazz began.  She’d gone into full lecture mode. Ran and Agasa were sitting on the couch with Haibara between them, and Conan between Ran and a once more human Danny.

“- I've picked up a few things. Now mind you some of this will be theoretical, but I'll let you know when those things come up and - Danny are you falling asleep?" The last part was said in English.

"I don't speak Japanese Jazz, I'm not going to get anything from your lecture because I can't understand a word of it. Yesterday sucked and Vlad could be doing something at any moment, plus I was just used as a human battery. Lemme rest."

She rolled her eyes. "Ignoring my brother, let's go back to what makes a ghost." 

"Death." Said Haibara bluntly. 

"Yes, but also no. While the death of a living thing is certainly the most common way ghosts are formed, not all deaths created ghosts, nor are all ghosts the result of something dying. The real answer is ectoplasm.” 

“A living being is made up of two parts, a body and soul. Bodies are well documented, souls less so. They're not physical and made up of what I'm going to call, for lack of a better term, spiritual energy. When a living being dies usually the soul passes over or dissipates - we've got nothing to help figure that out so we're not dwelling on it. But very rarely it doesn't. Instead the spiritual energy in the soul is converted to ectoplasm and the being becomes a ghost." 

"Unlike spiritual energy, Ectoplasm is..." Jazz faltered for a word. "It's more in your face. Where the soul can't be seen, ectoplasm can't help but express itself. It can be solid or ephemeral, and can mimic any state of matter. It's potential can be almost limitless, however the potential in each individual ghost is limited."

"All ghosts have a core, which is a bit to a ghost what a soul is to a living being. Though it's a part of them, it can't be seen or extracted." Her parents had tried, which she didn’t like dwelling on. "But is ineffably a part of them. The core also functions a bit like a nucleus, as it defines what a ghost’s focus is, what powers they have, and their inherent nature. As a ghost's appearance tends to be a reflection of their self image, that can change over time. But the only way to alter a ghost’s core is by forcing them to experience something literally soul shattering. This...it's something that will never end well and that's all I'll say on the matter." She'd seen it happen to Danny in another timeline and she'd never let anyone go through that if she could help it. 

"There are two more kinds of ghosts, but they're not what you want me to be here for, so I'm just going to touch on them briefly. Throw-offs are ghosts that are created by the will of other ghosts, formed of their own ectoplasm but as an independent being. Penelope Spectra, the ghost of an abusive psychologist, created a throw-off named Bertrand to act as her personal assistant. Likewise the self-styled 'Captain Youngblood', the ghost of someone who died as a small child created a parrot to act as both playmate and parental figure. Both of them can shapeshift to better suit their creator's needs, though without a larger sample size I can't say if that's a coincidence or a common trait of Throw-offs."

"The final kind are what I call Spontaneous. The limbo ghosts tend to be stuck in unless they find a way to the world of the living seems to be made primarily of ectoplasm and sometimes unlife just happens. This can range from barely sentient blobs, such as ectopusses, to beings of comparable human intelligence, like Skulker, whom you met yesterday. But for now let's move on to the rarest ectoplasmic beings, which is what you actually need to learn about. Halfas, or as you called them yūrei hanyou."

Jazz motioned to the small boy sitting between Ran and the now snoozing Danny. "Conan-kun here is the fourth to ever exist, as far as we can tell. We only have minor observational data from the first, the third was a special case, so mostly what I'm going on is Danny, since he and his friends have been cataloging data practically since day one." 

Agasa nodded, pleased they had thought to do so. 

"So yūrei hanyou are usually created by a living person being ground zero for a rift between worlds opening due to ectoplasm being charged with an incredibly powerful electrical current. And by which I mean ‘could kill several people in seconds’ powerful. Thankfully the ectoplasm changes it enough that the person exposed enters what I call the 'Schrödinger State'." 

"Alive and dead at the same time." Conan said darkly. 

Jazz nodded. "The person's spiritual energy is fully converted to ectoplasm without the soul separating from their body. This gives you access to a ghost form. In addition, as I explained to Ran-san earlier, the mitochondria in each cell are producing ectoplasm instead of it’s normal adenosine triphosphate, which allows you to manifest ghost powers in your human form. But your body hasn’t learned how to regulate it yet. That's why you're unstable right now. Not helping that is because of the energized ectoplasm that creates them, yūrei hanyou are by default some of the most powerful ghosts in existence."

"Really?" Ran asked with some trepidation. She didn't like hearing about ghosts, though the more lecture-like nature of Jazz as opposed to Sonoko's scary stories made it more palpable. 

"As I said, despite what living in Amity Park might have you believe, becoming a ghost is really really rare. Much less than 1% of people who die become ghosts and those who do are mostly weak enough that if they make it to the land of the living they can't be seen, heard, or affect anything. Most ghosts need to find a way to siphon energy from elsewhere to boost themselves enough to do anything. Some feed off human emotions, others find a nexus point saturated in ectoplasmic energy. But the process can take years to decades depending on the abundance of the source. And that level of power, the type that takes decades to achieve. That's your starting point."

"Power absorbed through the environment or emotions is reliable, but temporary. They would constantly need to recharge to maintain a steady output." Hence Spectra's need to feed the misery that fed her. Without a flowing source her power consumption far outstripped what her core was capable of. "That's not to say ghosts can't become more powerful in their own right, just that it's not a quick process." 

"Here's where we're entering some of the more theoretical stuff, namely how Ghosts can permanently raise their power. One theory is self awareness. Ghosts who are the result of dead humans tend to be composed of memories and emotions from when they were alive. And that in better understanding those, they deepen their own abilities. I won't say it's untrue, but as many ghosts wouldn't have the patience for it, it would be at least highly uncommon." 

"Some, shall we say, rather biased individuals believe ghosts can strengthen themselves through human suffering. They are wrong. While ghosts can feed off human emotions, including negative ones, as we established before it's a temporary fix. Then we get to the theory I have the most faith in. Obsession fulfillment." 

"What fulfillment?" Conan asked, startled.

Jazz winced. She was used to this part being common knowledge. "I mentioned ghosts tend to be made of emotions and memories. Usually there's something tying it all together into a drive. This drive, usually referred to as a fixation or obsession, is central to the ghost's being and usually forms their identity to a greater degree." 

"It's...easier for yūrei hanyou. It's there, but more of a compulsion than an all consuming drive. Something they can choose to ignore, but it won't necessarily be easy to do." 

"So I'm going to develop one of these?" Conan's voice was small. 

Ran snorted. "Going to? You've been obsessed with mysteries and mystery solving since at least kindergarten. I really doubt there's going to be a noticeable difference."

"Going back to before,” Jazz continued, though it would be cute if Conan-kun’s thing was solving mysteries to be like his father, “it's my personal theory that the best way for ghosts to grow their core is by successfully doing whatever their fixation is focused on. It also explains the growth difference between Vlad and Danny." 

Conan had been looking like he was halfway between sulking and being relieved, but he shot straight up at the mention of their culprit. "How so?" 

"Vlad's fixation is about having things. Once he had his powers stable, it was easy for him to just take whatever he wanted through force or trickery. He's only been active twenty some years, but his power levels had risen to a degree it takes most ghosts centuries to obtain. Talking with other ghosts I've been able to chart a pretty steady growth - until two years ago." 

Conan raised an eyebrow at Jazz's self satisfied smile. "What happened two years ago?" 

"Vlad found three things he couldn't obtain through money or power. Ownership of the Green Bay Packers, since they can't be owned by an individual by their charter. The love of his college sweetheart, since Mom has standards. And for Danny to love him like a father and hate our actual Dad. Don't think I have to explain why that's not happening. But because of those three things, he wasn't getting what he wanted. He tried to get them, but it didn't strengthen him since he never actually succeeded." 

"Danny's fixation is-" Jazz rolled her eyes fondly, "- being a hero. He's driven to help people who need help, even putting his personal safety at risk. It's something he sadly gets to indulge in often, sometimes multiple times a day. As a result Danny's growth has eclipsed Vlad to the point where he's almost caught up to Vlad's core power level in a mere two years." 

It was good to know there was a strong chance Danny could supersede Vlad in not too much time, at least on one playing field, but that brought up a new worry. "So if my thing is solving mysteries, and I solve them fairly frequently, this is going to get worse?"

"Worse is a bad way to think about it." Jazz said gently. "I won't say parts of it aren't going to suck, especially for the next month or so, but it's not all bad. However illogical they may be, powers are useful as long as you have control, and that's something you can have with a bit of work. Can you honestly tell me there's no time being invisible would have been useful as a detective? Or walking through walls would have made an escape easier?" 

He didn't like how easily past examples filled his head. Heck, if he's been invisible when spying on Vodka that night, he wouldn't be three feet high now. "I still don't like it." 

"Neither did Danny at first. In fact he downright hated it. But now it's so much a part of him, I don't think he'd know what to do if he got back to normal." Honestly probably get himself badly hurt trying to protect other people. "Do you want me to keep going, or is that enough for one day? I know it's a lot." 

"If there's nothing vital, I think I'm good." He had more than enough to dwell on. 

"I don't know if Danny's mentioned this, but be aware around things meant to ward against spirits, they can be uncomfortable." Jazz advised. "Other than that you should be good." 

Ran sighed and glanced at her watch. "We should probably go home. Dad will be getting worried."

"You go. I think I should stay here until I'm a bit more stable." Conan winced, "Imagine trying to explain any of this to him. And it's not like I can hide it." As if to prove his point, he started to sink into the cushions. 

"Danny wake up!" Jazz said sharply. Danny shot awake and rolled forward, ready for a fight. Jazz simply pointed to where Conan was stuck in the couch. He rolled his eyes and turned his arms intangible to pull him out. "Would it be okay if my brother stays too? He can help Conan and act as a defense if Vlad tries to silence him again." 

"Certainly. There's not a lot of extra bed space but there's somewhere Shinichi and he can go if needed." Agasa said

“Who’s Shinichi?” Jazz asked.

“There’s that word again,” Danny muttered.

There were awkward looks abound, but no one answered either sibling. Jazz sighed. “Unless you have anymore questions, I’ll see you tomorrow Danny.”

Danny blinked. “Tomorrow? Aren’t I going to the hotel with you?”

Jazz rolled her eyes. “I just said you should stay with Conan to help him manage his powers and in case Vlad makes another attempt.”

That made sense but…”I’m guessing, like most of what you’ve been saying, you said it in Japanese. The language you know I don’t speak.” He grinned, knowing he had her.

Jazz stared at him a moment, then pinched her nose. “Point to you. I’m still heading out.”

“Wait,” Danny stopped her. “In your lecture did you mention Halfa’s regeneration ability?”

“No, and you really should start using yūrei hanyou, like they do.” Jazz advised.

Danny rolled his eyes. “And why would I want to change the only word I’ve had for myself for the past two years.”

“Do you really think all those ghosts would use a word to describe Vlad that he didn’t personally approve of?”

Okay, any distance between himself and Vald was good. “Okay, but seriously. Please tell her about yurry hanyo healing.”

“Yūrei hanyou,” Jazz corrected his pronunciation. “And they’ve all had to deal with a lot of new information at once. Non essential things-”

“It’s essential. Trust me.”

Danny looked so serious Jazz sighed and gave in. “Before I go, brother dearest wants me to go into a little more detail on one of the perks of being a yūrei hanyou, namely their healing capacity. Though not instantaneous, they do heal much faster than baseline humans and can recover completely from injuries humans never could without so much as a scar. I have a theory about how it’s related to their core, but that’s far from proven.”

Injuries...like heart scarring. Ran gave Danny a grateful look. “Thank you.” Both for telling her and...she may not have liked the idea of Shinichi becoming a weird ghost hybrid, but from what she’d been told earlier, it very well have saved his life.

Agasa and Ai shared a look of their own. They’d need confirmation but if that were true it would be a huge relief to both of them. Conan glanced around and read the reactions of everyone except for the honestly confused Jazz. “You told them.” He accused Agasa.

“Yes he did.” Ran confirmed.  “And I’m glad he did. And- we can talk about this later.” It was obvious Danny and Jazz didn’t know the truth about Shinichi and it wasn’t her place to tell them. “But rest assured, we will.”

Conan gulped and his form flickered again, before vanishing completely from sight.

“It’s a good sign your ectoplasm is regenerating.” Jazz said. “That being said, it’s obvious there’s something you’re not telling us, so if you’re trying to keep other people from figuring it out, you need to be better about the fact that you’re hiding a secret. I won’t ask what it is, we understand better than most how life or death a secret can be.  But at least one of your secrets isn’t just your own.” With that, she walked out.

Danny sighed heavily. “I really need to learn Japanese.”

[damianwaynerocks]

Ghosts in Gotham

Danny Phantom / DC Comics fanfic

Dedicated to: @dannyphantom-justiceleauge

Summary: The Batfamily has been through their fair share of the supernatural. That’s why they originally weren’t worried whenever ghosts started showing up in Gotham City. Until one day, something happens; Batman is captured and taken into the Ghost Zone. With no way to go in there themselves, the no way to fight the ghosts inside, the bats decide to call the person who can; Danny Phantom. Together, Danny takes Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown and Damian Wayne into the Ghost Zone before the Batman is lost forever.

Words: 2032

ch 2 Masterlist

Chapter 1:

-

Every city had its hero.

Gotham City? Batman. Metropolis? Superman. Central City? The Flash.

Amity Park? Danny Phantom.

Amity Park had mixed feelings about Phantom. Some said he was a helper, a true hero, keeping the town safe. Others said he was a criminal, doing nothing but wreaking havoc on the town. Either way, Phantom was known for one specific thing; fighting ghosts.

Which is what he was doing at the moment.

"I am!! The Box Ghost!!" a short, stocky ghost shouted. His eyes glowed blue and an aura of the same color surrounded the boxes crowding the back of a movie theater. "Beware!" he raised his arms and hurled three boxes at a figure who easily dodged.

"Come on, Box Ghost," a teenage boy with white hair and green eyes floating above the ground groaned. "I don't have time for this! I have to order the new Cheese Viking game before it sells out!"

"Beware!" The Box Ghost shouted again, throwing more boxes at the boy.

Danny Phantom rolled his eyes as his body became intangible, the boxes easily passing through it. He raised his arm, and a blast of bright green energy shot from his palm, hitting the Box Ghost square in the chest. The Box Ghost, with a grunt, was blown back into the brick wall of the movie theater.

Not wasting any time, Danny grabbed the thermos that he had strapped to his back and pointed it at the other ghost. In a flash of light, the Box Ghost was sucked into the thermos.

"Finally," Danny muttered as he took off into the sky.

Danny Phantom, his real name being Danny Fenton, was a sixteen-year-old halfa, or a ghost-human hybrid. He could switch between ghost and human form at will. He'd gotten his powers from an accident with the Ghost Portal, a portal in his home that was a bridge between the human world and the Ghost Zone, where every ghost resides.

Ghosts repeatedly escaped the Ghost Zone through this portal for one of three reasons; to wreak havoc on the human world, to kill Danny or both. Usually, it was the latter.

Danny returned to his house, passing through the walls of the building with intangibility and landing in the lab. He switched back to his human form in a flash of light, changing his hair color from white to black and his eyes from green to blue.

His family was made up of ghost hunters- aside from his sister -so they had an entire lab dedicated to ghost technology.

"Back you go, Boxy," Danny said as he released the Box Ghost into the portal. "Finally," he sighed, "Time to get Cheese Viking."

"No!" he shouted five minutes later at his computer. The new Cheese Viking, Danny's favorite game, had sold out.

"Danny!" a large man in an orange jumpsuit burst into the boy's room. "Are you okay!? Are you hurt!?"

"No, Dad, I'm fine," Danny replied to his father, Jack Fenton. "Except for that stupid Box Ghost making me too late to get Cheese Viking!"

He hadn't told his parents about his life as Phantom until he was fifteen. Well, it wasn't Danny who told them. His sister found him in his room passed out with a gaping hole in his side, and she had to tell their parents so they could help him.

Jack paused. "But.. you got him?" he asked cheerily. Danny smiled.

"Yeah. I got him." Jack slapped him on the back.

"Thatta boy!" he said with a grin. "Come on, Jazz got a letter from Wayne Enterprises and your mom wants the whole family to watch her open it!"

Jazz, Danny's sister, had just graduated high school and had applied for an internship at Wayne Enterprises, one of the largest businesses in the world. An internship there would kick-start her career in marketing. That was the reason she claimed, but Danny was sure that part of the reason was that Bruce Wayne, the billionaire who owned Wayne Enterprises, was cute.

"Finally!" Jazz, a girl with long red hair and a blue headband huffed. "I haven't been able to look for three hours! What were you out doing?"

"Uh, my job?" Danny smirked as he hopped over the back of the couch to sit on it. Jazz rolled her eyes.

"Open it, dear!" Their mom, Maddie Fenton, urged. Jazz grinned widely, opening the letter. Her smile grew, and she jumped up and down.

"I got it!" she squealed. "I got it!! I got the internship!!"

"That's great, Jazz!" the other three Fentons exclaimed at once. Jazz seemed to get even more excited as she continued reading the letter.

"And," she continued excitedly, "All the interns are expected to attend the next Wayne Gala with their families! All expenses paid!"

"Yes!" Jack cried. "We're going to New Jersey, baby!" As the entire family celebrated, Danny couldn't help but be suspicious. Jazz had applied late and while she was smart, she wouldn't have been anything special next to the other applicants.

Something was up. _

"So what, you think she only got accepted because of you?" A girl with short black hair raised an eyebrow as they walked through the halls of their high school. "Why, exactly?"

"Because, Sam," Danny responded to his girlfriend. "It's weird. I was looking at the Infi-map, and there's a portal to the Ghost Zone in Gotham that wasn't there a month ago. And get this? It's five miles away from Wayne Manor.”

"You think Bruce Wayne wants you out of the way for some plan?

"It wouldn't be the first time somebody did."

"But how would he even know who you are?" Sam Manson asked, "I mean, there's no way he knows that you're Phantom."

"Um, because he's Batman?" An African American boy walking beside them scoffed as though it was obvious. "Batman knows everything."

Danny and Sam laughed. "Tucker, seriously?" Danny shook his head in disbelief. "That conspiracy? Batman and Bruce Wayne have been seen at the same time in the same place multiple times.”

"Okay, well, you can clone yourself! Who's to say Batman can't? Or maybe it's a hologram! Or maybe it's one of his thousand children in the suit!" Tucker Foley counted on his fingers as he rattled off the various theories. His eyes widened, and he grabbed Danny's shoulders. "Dude, you have to get proof."

"There's no way I'd be able to get close enough to Bruce Wayne to prove anything."

"Then trick him!" Tucker said, his eyes bright. "Most of Bruce's adopted kids are boys with black hair and blue eyes! Just say you're an orphan and I bet he'll be like 'Of course you can stay, I am always down for more children."

"Okay, first of all," Danny began, adjusting his backpack on his shoulder and prying his friends arms off of him. “His son Damian? That kid scares me, he gives off Dash vibes. Did you see how he made that interviewer cry?"

A few months prior, a video had surfaced that showed Damian Wayne insulting a girl who was trying to give him an interview. The two-minute video ended with the girl crying.

"And second of all-" Danny was cut off as he was shoved to the ground. He looked up to see Dash Baxter, a muscular boy with blonde hair.

"Watch where you're going, Fen-freak," Dash sneered, "Before I shove your puny face into a locker!"

Danny gritted his teeth as he sat up. Dash had been picking on him from the beginning of high school. Two years later, he hadn't stopped.

On any other occasion, Danny would have said something in response, but Dash had already continued down the hall.

"Why can't you just zap him or something?" Tucker grumbled. "He's the worst!"

"Yeah, I know," Danny stood up, wiping dust off of his shirt. "But I can't. It isn't right."

"Your moral code is dumb," his friend snapped back.

"If you're going to Gotham," said Sam with a pointed look at Tucker. "Who's gonna be here to help with the ghosts?"

"I've got it covered," Danny replied swiftly, looking up. "Dani's coming down.  It'll be fine. I have to keep Jazz safe, and figure out what Brucie Wayne is up to."

__

"I am sure Father would have a better plan than to invite some under-qualified intern to the Manor."

A seventeen-year-old boy with spiky black hair rolled his eyes. "Damian, she isn't under-qualified. She meets all of the qualifications for the internship."

The first boy, an Arab thirteen-year-old with the same spiky hair and bright green eyes, scoffed. "There is no way a person from some backwater town would have received the internship if we hadn't needed her brother."

Tim Drake and Damian Wayne, the youngest children of Bruce Wayne. Damian currently held the Robin mantle, while Tim used Red Robin. The brothers were in a large cave decked out with a plethora of high-tech equipment.

"Okay, but you think every place outside of Gotham is a backwater town." Tim pointed out as he swiveled his chair to face a massive computer.

"Amity Park is a backwater town. The citizens there are animals," Damian retorted, crossing his arms. "You just cannot see that because you are also a backwater type."

Tim laughed as he realized what the younger boy was basing his opinion on. "Damian, please tell me you haven't generalized an entire city just because of one tourist from Amity Park ran into you and spilled soda on your shirt."

"It was my favorite shirt! And that cretin did not even apologize!" Damian spat. "The nerve!"

"Okay, well, put aside your dumb grudge and think about the objective," Tim responded. "I think, if you look within that thing you call a soul, you can see that letting one intern that you think is under-qualified is worth getting Bruce back."

"Tt. I suppose," Damian admitted begrudgingly. "If this Danny Phantom character truly has the potential to save Father."

"He's the only one who can." Tim reminded him. "We can't get into the Ghost Zone without a ghost, and I don't think any of the ones we've seen so far would be willing to help," He paused. "Plus, don't the Fentons make ghost hunting gear? Who knows, maybe they have a ghost sword."

After a sudden wave of ghost attacks in Gotham, Bruce had poured in countless hours of research to find out as much as he could about ghosts. He had discovered that they came from another dimension and that there was one person who was an expert at fighting them; Danny Phantom of Amity Park. It didn't take very long for him to uncover Phantom's true identity.

"Tim! Dames!" a voice shouted. "My boys!" Tim and Damian looked towards the stairs and saw a taller man with black hair and blue eyes jump the railing of said stairs, landing in the Bat Cave.This was their oldest brother, Dick Grayson, also known as Nightwing. He grinned brightly. "How's it going?"

"Making sure that we have every possible outcome of this mission prepared for." Tim replied as he continued typing on the Bat Computer. Damian nodded.

“Yes, and so I have decided that I shall accompany them on this journey."

"Damian, no." his older brothers said at the same time. Damian scowled.

"Why not? I am plenty capable of-

"Because people would get suspicious if Batman suddenly didn't have a Robin," Dick answered, strolling towards the younger boy. "That's why Jason, Tim, and Stephanie are going. They won't be missed," He gave Tim a nervous look. "No offense."

"None taken," Tim replied, waving his hand. "Sorry Damian, you'd just get in the way."

"But I have died before!" Damian huffed, his hands clenching into fists. "That combined with my skills- which are far greater than yours, Drake, I might add -makes me much more qualified than you."

"Little D, dude, I just told you," Dick ruffled his younger brother's hair. "It'll be suspicious if you're gone. And besides, I need you. We're a great team."

"But my father is in there-"

"Master Damian-" their butler, Alfred Pennyworth, interrupted the trio's squabbling. "You won't be going anywhere until your homework is done."

"Homework? Finding my father is much more important than an essay on why the Roman empire fe-"

"Master Damian." Alfred repeated in a low tone. "Now."

Damian scowled as he trudged up the stairs. It didn't matter how tough the person was. When Alfred told you to do something, you do it. "I will be going with you, Drake!" he called behind his shoulder. "I promise you that!"

Dick and Tim exchanged a glance and rolled their eyes.

"Children."

[drabblerequestsbyghostly]

For Royal Reaper: "Okay, but that's actually illegal."

Words: 759Idk if Kid, Liz, or Patty are in character, but I had fun doing this nonetheless.

The mission was simple, assigned by the Ancients themselves.

Return the Mask of Vampiro back to Walker’s jail to be locked away. The artifact itself was simple, a glowing green mask mold that looked to date back to the 9th or 10th century B.C., to humans at least.

The mask itself had the power to grant the user mind control powers. That was… just about as bad as Freakshow’s staff, from the stories her dad told.

So she prepared, heavily. And this didn’t go unnoticed by Kid.

After her last few missions landed her with serious injuries—Aragon’s attack had left a large scar on her shoulder, a harsh reminder to keep her defenses up—he demanded to go with her. It was endearing, but she didn’t think she really needed the help for a recovery mission.

On the other hand, if she said no, he’d probably just follow her anyways.

That would… probably end badly because if he came with her she would at least know where he was. These were ghost artifacts. Who knew what they could do to him!?

She sighed and agreed.

He brought Liz and Patty.

They had found it, ridiculously easily at that. The humans kept it under a ghost proof glass case. In a museum. In Amity Park.

This, wouldn’t be as easy as she thought.

“So, what should we do?” she asked as she floated next to the case. Part of her wanted to just overload the power box that fed power to the shield, but it would most definitely set off some sort of alarm, and dealing with ghost hunters were not in her job description today, thank you very much. “About the case, I mean.”

“Break it?” Kid offered.

“Okay, but that’s actually illegal,” she pointed out. “I mean, technically, so is taking it but this also isn’t the human’s to begin with and if they figured out what it did—oh Ancients, we need to get it out of there!”

“Do these Ancients always ask you to do illegal things?” Liz asked from Kid’s right hand. She was in her weapon form, as was her sister.

“Uh… technically they’re not totally illegal?” Rylie tried. “I mean, like, in this case, the Mask of Vampiro isn’t something that should be in the hands of a human, any human. Pariah Dark had it made so he could control minds but he was sealed in his sarcophagus before he got to use it. The Ancients kinda just… Hid it away? And now it’s somehow here?”

“Soooo… It’s like a big game of hide and seek?” Patty asked.

“I mean… If hide and seek had the chance of totally destroying a ghost, i.e. me?” the halfa looked nervous at the thought. She looked to her boyfriend. “Any ideas that don’t involve possibly setting off alarms?”

Before Kid could respond, there was a gasp. A clatter.

Both of them turned to face the noise and—

“Crap. Crapcrapcrapcrap. I did not sign up for time with the Guys in White! No dissection for me, thank you very much!” she covered her chest with her arms. Maybe, if they were lucky, the agent wouldn’t care?

“Gh-Ghost!” The agent shouted, their weapon on the floor. “G-Get away from the artifact you… fiend!”

She sighed. Or the agent was just terrified of ghosts. What idiot worked for government ghost hunters when they were afraid of ghosts?

This person, apparently.

And—when had Kid left her side? He dispatched the agent with efficiency she knew only he had, using Liz and Patty to shoot out their knees.

“Damn it, Mors, what if they had picked up their ecto-pistol and shot you!?” Rylie shouted, her tone tinged with worry. She shot the weapon out of reach of the terrified agent, making sure that there wouldn’t be any attacks from them that the two would have to worry about.

She couldn’t deal with her boyfriend getting ectoplasmic poisoning today, she really couldn’t.

“What if it had hit you!?” she continued. “We’d have to go see my grandparents because I’m certainly not equipped to treat any sort of poisoning on my own,” she was pacing now, the world around her gone. All she could see was the floor below her as she walked, her white boots hardly making a sound. “Or what if—”

“Revo,” a hand on her shoulder made her pause and look up. Glowing green met a supernatural gold. “We should go now.”

“Why? We haven’t even gotten the—”

The Mask of Vampiro was brought into her line of sight, alarms blaring faintly in the background.

“Oh.”

[phantomphangphucker]

A Life Of Role Playing Weakness - PhannieMay - Day 14 D & D

Summary: What’s a halfa to do when school is on lockdown and everyone’s bored? Games and trickery.

Most of the class groans as they can tell the sun has set by the room becoming near pitch black. Though pretty well everyone’s glad Mr. Lancer got stuck outside of class, otherwise he would have spent the afternoon making them do school work.

Danny, knowing full well no one else can actually see, finds some candles and sneakily lights them with his fingers. Unfortunately, there’s only three but most of the class seems relieved to have them, “took you long enough Fenton”. Rolling his eyes at Kwan, “like you would have been any faster, at least I was actually doing something”. Danny honestly could have found them way faster but that would have been suspicious. Groaning a bit at the window, though the groan was more aimed at the extreme weather outside, that has caused the school lockdown and blackout. Sure he could technically just leave, but due to the schools' security system, all the doors and windows are sealed shut. The only way out would be to phase out and that would be so many levels beyond suspicious.

Clearly, a couple geeks are tired of Star and Lily bickering, “why don’t we play a game? You know, actually get along? For one night?”.

“Oh why would we do that when it’s more fun to annoy you losers?”, Danny rolls his eyes at Todd, sure he’s not as bad as Dash but still.

Apparently, the geek kid, James, isn’t very impressed either, “I’d rather get destroyed by stupid wind while having fun, than getting mocked by some meathead”. Danny’s not really sure how insulting the guy will get him to play games but whatever.

Deciding to interfere, “what game? Ain’t nobody going to play if no one knows what’s up. And if you say truth or dare even I will mock you”.

“Oh like you even know how to mock someone, Fenton. But yeah whatever, spill”, Danny muffles his snickering because he could out mock this guy easily. Half his fights involved mocking the opponent, eighty percent if it was Vlad.

The other geek kid, Tyler, rummages through his bag and pulls out what looks like a board game, “well, someone made a D & D ghost edition. Because this is Amity, got figures and everything”. Tyler is smirking as even Danny knows that anything ghosts gets pretty much every Amity teens attention. And Danny is honestly so down for this too, he will die if there’s a figure like him in this thing.

Flopping on his back as there is indeed a little crystal clear figure that, while mostly featureless, looks suspiciously like Phantom. Finger gun shooting himself in the head before pointing at the board, while still laying on the ground, “ok, I’m in”. Seems everyone else agrees while looking at the collection of ghostly figures.

Unsurprisingly, pretty well only the geeks know anything about this game. And no one’s interested in long explanations. So they just give a quick run down of classes and alignments. But having to pull out the book and read over it quickly for species, since this was an entirely ghosts and humans version.

Danny snickers, “chaotic good undying warlock suits me I’d say”. Really Danny only picked that because of the undying bit, the joke was there so he had to take it. And chaotic good pretty much was him, no way he could call himself lawful. Not when his very existence was against the laws of nature and reality themselves.

James tosses down a shorthand species sheet, “I’m surprised they actually made so many ghost species, so take your pick”.

Species:

Ghost - versatile but never the strongest

Ghoul - aggressive close and personal fighters

Spirit - gentle divine creatures, usually lawful

Spector - sneaky loners, like to appear highly intelligent.

Poltergeist - aggressive powerful fighters, always evil. Large but often invisible.

Whisp - tricksters but powerful with magic, always chaotic good. Small in size

Wraith - protective, unattractive and often feared by others

Banshee - prophetic strong healers

Phantom - selfless guardians who care for others, always good.

Danny obviously wants to pick the Phantom class but apparently, no gets to be that, as James taps on that class and snickers, “considering this is Amity, Phantom isn’t going to be a playable species otherwise half of you guys will pick that”. Danny sticks out his arms, “oh come on, if anyone should get that species it should be the guy with the same first name!”. A few of the other kids snicker and even James shrugs in amusement but, “can’t just let one person pick it. That would be a dick move”. Danny rolls his eyes but is thoroughly amused, seeing as he’s almost about to graduate and literally no one has figured out who exactly he is, he’s kind of stopped caring about going out of his way to hide shit. Heck, he’s tempted to just randomly clue in his classmates through various absurd means. At least now the government can’t even touch him, they wanted to be on “safe footing” with the ghost king even if they still have no clue who exactly that is. All they know is that he’s frequently in the human world and capable of taking the form of a regular human. Danny’s perfectly content to let them think that ability is unique to the Ghost King.

Shaking his head and looking down to the sheet, Whisp and Wraith are the only ones that stand out to him but trickster is much more in line with himself and would be much more amusing. And he’s not really surprised that no one picks regular ghost, “well Whisp it is for me. A chaotic Whispy Warlock that just can not fucking die already”.

“Dude, that’s not what undying means here”

“No shit, let me have my jokes”, besides undying warlocks get their magic from immortals right? Well this character was made by a damn immortal, given creation and thus power from Phantoms immortal ass.

Lily rolls the weird dice in her fingers, “so what? We roll for stat points now?”. While Rex eyes Danny up and down, “you picked the smallest class but you’re the tallest guy here. Did you just pick everything to be funny?”. Danny smirks wide, not why he picked the species but absolutely. Everything about him is practically one big joke, Hell he’s playing a board game with a bunch of regular humans while pretending to be trapped during a storm. He could literally fly through this weather and it would be fun too. He could also stop it if he really wanted to, use his ice to mess with the weather and air currents; but fucking around that much really wasn’t a good idea.

“Yup, roll three dice. Total stat point of three is the worst you could get, eighteen is the highest. Ten or eleven is the average. All the regular human npc’s are tens”, Danny’s not surprised Todd went with Ghoul. He might not be that big of a guy but man could he ever be an aggressive asshole to pretty much everyone. Speaking of asshole, “Fenton, your turn. What? your brain still fried from that weak little shock?”.

Turning to Todd and answering as he throws dice, “you know I underplayed that shit right? Didn’t want to deal with damn doctors, no way anyone would have let me out of going to the hospital if they had known it was closer to four billion than a hundred volts”. Smirking at Todd, “just for reference, a lightning bolt is around one billion. Your wall socket, that I’m sure you rammed forks into for kicks, is about a hundred and twenty”.

“Ok first off, you suck with dice, second how the hell aren’t you dead then?”, James clearly thinks Danny’s bullshitting and the sad thing is, the portal was probably more volts than that. Who knows what the volt readout for the entirety of a dimension colliding inside one tiny body is. Danny finishes rolling as he talks, “I’m not dead? Well, that’s news to me”.

Star elbows him, she’s become oddly friendly even flirty over the past year. Danny’s pretty well positive it’s because of his height and even if he wore baggy clothing pretty well always, if you really looked you could tell he wasn’t scrawny. Star’s got an eye for details so he can’t be too surprised and she’s perfectly fine with dating below her standing, Hell she dated Tucker of all people. “What even happened? Pretty sure you never told anyone”.

Rolling his eyes at her, “no one cared to ask. But if you must know a ghost portal opened up directly on top of me. There’s no real way to know just how much shocked me but I’m pretty sure an entire dimension carries more volts than one lightning bolt”.

Danny’s the only one to notice the straight up shit roll of his last dice as everyone gapes at him. Tyler’s the first to speak up, “you were electrocuted by the ghost zone?! Like all of it?! At once?! You should be a lot more than dead!”. Danny throws his head back and laughs, “what? Dead with a side of extra dead sauce?! Sounds like the perfect breakfast!”. Shaking his head as he continues talking, while catching James staring in bafflement at the dice, “sounds way more edible than those stupid ecto-contaminated Hot Dogs that try to eat you back! Or that damn overcooked turkey that stabbed me with a knife”.

Kwan mouths “what the fuck”, while James points at Danny, “dude, your luck is horrendous. I’m not even sure how you even get the worst stats possible. No wonder a portal opened up on you, I think the universe might actually hate you”, glancing at Danny who has curled up in laughter, “I don’t think it’s quite that funny though”. Danny can’t help but laugh harder, the king of ghosts, the most powerful ghost around, who’s literally worshiped as a god by some; is the weakest and shittiest ghost in this game. Like Boxy could beat this guys ass. That thought makes him laugh even harder. Wiping his eyes a bit and noticing that everyone actually looks slightly concerned know, “trust me, this is utterly hilarious. You just don’t know why! Oh man!”. Wheezing in laughter again, “now watch, the rest of my rolls will be so insanely good that I impossibly succeed at everything my character does”.

Kwan points at him, “with these awful stats you damn well better, otherwise you’re screwed”.

“I think the stats reflect Fenton perfectly. Weak and pathetic!”, Danny really can’t feel insulted because it’s just really funny right now. Todd is clearly not happy that Danny finds this funny instead of insulting, or that Star is mouthing, “are you blind?”, at Todd.

“How can you possibly find being insulted funny?”, comes Rex’s squeaky voice. Danny runs a hand through his hair, “insults are funny when they’re so insanely incorrect that it becomes absurd”.

Todd rolls his eyes at Danny, “you’re a complete weakling and a scaredy cat, just like al-”, Todd cuts himself off as he stares at Danny. Who just tore off his sweater, because this is way too funny. Chances are if he ever gets destroyed, it will be because he couldn’t resist a good joke. Danny smirks a bit as he nonchalantly flexes without doing any dumb poses, because he does have some shame. While everyone just stares at the clearly ripped and heavily scarred weirdest member of the weirdo trio.

“Todd, I could fucking maim you. I could maim the whole damn football team. But that wouldn’t be very good of me, now would it?”, tapping on his character sheet with a sly smirk.

“How the hell do you look like that man? And why don’t you just join the team then? Actually have good social standing?”, Danny can’t really blame Kwan for caring about that sort of thing. After all, being a jock was pretty well the guys' life and he wasn’t burdened with crazy weird responsibilities or power for that matter.

Responding mostly to Todd’s little insults, “I come from a family of ghost hunters, what the hell do you think? That scaredy cat crap is just a cover. Which is rather pointless now, what with graduation coming up and all the teachers not really giving a shit about my crap now”, aggressively pointing his finger at Kwan while the others finish rolling, “I don’t care for sports and my time is better spent elsewhere. Social standing in Highschool means nothing to me”.

Now it’s Tyler’s turn to look incredulously at the stupid powerful halfa, “why are you even telling us this?”.

“Because it’s funny. I picked a jokester species for a reason. I’m a little shit and this is one way I get my kicks. That and no one will believe you if you tell. So it really doesn’t matter. Even if you were believed, it would hardly matter. It’s too late for the school to really do anything and I really am someone of chaos. I will only laugh harder if the whole school starts freaking out”, Danny can tell he’s confusing everyone and that is only making him snickering more. So he takes the chance for first dibs on a figure, a transparent floating skinny man in a hooded robe with his legs crossed. Looks a shit ton like ClockWork, snickering “now if only he had a staff”. This prompts everyone else to realise what he did and to start snatching at figures, while Rex gives him a shy but quizzical look. So Danny decides to be more of a confusing mess to these regular mortals, “he looks like a close friend of mine. And this makes my horrid stats even funnier because my friend is flat out OP. His tricky ass will get a good laugh out of this I’m sure”.

“Uh, humans aren’t really OP, ever, are you friends with a freaking ghost? You’re damn weird enough to be the person who befriends some ghost. And what? You going to talk his ear off about actually hanging out with people other than the two other resident freaks for once?”, Todd’s tone goes from confused questioning to his typical insulting asshole mode. So Danny decides to be a bit of an ass right back, “Todd, my friend is an omniscient borderline god of a ghost. I don’t have to tell him, he already knows and is probably snickering like crazy right now. But of course you don’t believe me, why would you? Which is why he’ll either A, do nothing to make me the butt of a joke. Or B, do something to make you the butt of a joke. That, or he’ll hit me with his staff to do both at once”. Honestly Danny’s kind of looking for approval and pretty well a go-ahead from the master of time here, he’d like to know he’s not majorly fucking up just because he’s having a bit of fun.

Everyone’s staring at him in disbelief and he can tell Todd wants to mock him some more but Danny falling back laughing stops him. Holding the figure, which now has a little tiny glowing CW staff resting across its lap, above his face. Through a laugh, “fucking nice, you enigmatic weirdo”. Sitting back up as he places the figure on the board, “and now he’s got a staff”.

“Nice trick, maybe you can-”, Lily cuts Todd off, “dumb boy, pretty sure he doesn’t carry around mini glowing staff things. No ones that weird”. She’s not wrong, why would someone ever do that anyway? Well, ClockWork might, just to throw them at him. After all, he’s got all the time in the world to mess around, when he can anyway. Just like Danny, though Danny takes way more mess around time.

Tyler shakes his head, “something tells me, we barely know you”. Danny pats Tyler on the shoulder while James actually gets the game started, “so we’re doing this party style, just a dungeon crawl. Get through the city without getting caught by hunters and defeat the ghost king”. This makes Danny cough a bit startled, the goal of this game is for his classmates and him to defeat, himself? Well, he guesses that’s not really a first for him. “Hey, James. Who does this game think the ghost king is?”, everyone looks a bit confused at him. Then James grabs one of the figures, Danny can’t help but laugh at the little knock-off Pariah figure. “Well that’s a damn easy battle currently then! Dude’s locked inside the sarcophagus of forever sleep. So we’re beating up a sleeping man, or releasing him just to fight him. Which is grade A stupid and insane”, waving off their shocked glances, “besides he’s not even the ghost king”.

“Oh and you know who is? We could just swap out if there’s a figure for him. All the figures have set stats for if you’re going to use them as NPC’s”, now Danny’s just flat out interested, because that includes him. Danny motions for the book but James sticks it behind him, “oh Hell no, just tell us who”.

Rolling his eyes, “I’m just going to take the book, dude. I do want I wanna, chaotic and all that”.

“Fenton, he’s literally right across from you. How you plan to do that?”, Todd snickers a bit while James looks smug. Danny decides just fuck it at this point, because really how has no one noticed his crap yet. Using the free-floating ectoplasm in the air to fling the book over Jame’s head and at himself, flipping through it as everyone gapes. “How did you even do that? That’s more than just sleight of hand, holy shit”, Danny blinks at them over the top of the book and snickers, realising none of them actually noticed the slight ghostly glowing. Comparing his and Pariah’s page and damn they made Phantom overpowered. Sure, that’s accurate but, uh, even if everyone had freaky high stats this doesn’t seem winnable. Why the heck put a nearly undefeatable character in a board game? Sure it was accurate to real life but still. Though making Pariah just barely above half Phantoms strength was majorly underestimating the former king. Like insanely so. And did they seriously make a Walker look-alike stronger than Pariah? The tornado “race” too? Putting the book down, “yeah I don’t think we want to do that. The goal here is to actually win right? Not just have everybody’s asses get universally kicked”.

Lily puts her hands on her hips, “just spill already. You satiated your curiosity now do ours”.

Chuckling a bit as he pushes around the figures some, “fine fine, it really should be obvious though”. Smirking as he cups the little knock-off Phantom before slowly placing him at the castle, “our little town hero is a lot busier than he seems”. Literally all of them are grinning, though Star looks a bit confused, “so why do ghosts keep coming here and picking fights with Phantom. If he’s their king shouldn’t they, like, listen to him?”.

“Fighting is how ghosts socialise, know each other, and keep each other from getting rusty. The only way ghosts won't go picking fights with another ghost is if that ghost is hated or extremely annoying to literally everyone. Well, that or just being really dumb and pointless to fight”.

“So what Phantom’s not strong enough to be pointless to fight? Really Fenton”, Danny rolls his eyes at Todd’s unimpressed tone. Shaking his head, “oh the stats this book gives him are accurate. He’s pretty well the most powerful ghost there is. An omnipotent immortal who’s literally worshipped as a god by many other ghosts. All those fights are usually more like sparring matches, he’s having his ghostly fun and keeping in touch with everyone. He’d be so very bored otherwise and the other ghosts wouldn’t want him out of practice in case something happens”.

Todd actually starts laughing at this while James does indeed decide to stick with using knock-off Pariah because damn. Todd points at Danny, “of course Phantom likes hitting and fighting! Regular jock for sure, just with real power”.

“Well I don’t like that. He should be wanting ghosts to not come here, not eagerly, or whatever, awaiting the next fight”, Danny can’t help but jerk from that because dude fuck buddy. He absolutely did look forward to the next fight, fighting and witty batter was his bread and butter. Locking eyes with Tyler, “nearly every ghost awaits their next fight, welcome to ghost nature buddy. Humans go to cafes, ghosts punch each other. Humans show off pictures of their selfies or pets, ghosts show off new weapons by using them on each other. To fight is to socialise. Phantoms one of the few that doesn’t like others in the crossfire though. If ghosts stopped picking fights here, he’d feel unneeded and paranoid. Plus this is his home, ghosts have to come here to see him. Them being here doesn’t mean they’re causing problems”. Tyler still looks unimpressed.

There’s the occasional jokes and pepperings of ghost questions as they play a few turns before Lily has just about enough and finally asks Danny just what the fuck, “how do you even know all this shit? Even your parents, who’ve spent their whole lives researching ghosts, don’t know even half this shit. I would know, I’ve asked”. Danny chuckles, his parents would know this shit if they weren’t so damn biased and actually just asked. Smirking at her, “you learn this stuff by genuinely socialising and being friendly with ghosts. My parents only wish to send them back to the Zone or experiment. Of course, they don’t know”.

“That’s actually kind of sad, still doesn’t answer my main question though. You’re actually fighting ghosts?”, Danny will give her props on being pushy. But he rolls to see if he can avoid this random hunter trap before responding, smirking as it rolls high, “I spar yes, protect the citizens. Toss around witty banter, making Plasmius regret ever meeting me. In general, I’m an OP little shit”, Danny taps on his figure, that’s actually doing well for being an utter weakling, “that’s why this is funny. The strongest most capable person here has the utterly weakest character ever”.

“Capable ghost hunter isn’t a capable ghost, even if you’re a ghost friendly hunter”, Danny can’t help but wheeze. He was just a ghost being a ghost. Half human or not, he was sparing and socialising as a ghost does. Calling him a human hunting ghosts was just so entirely wrong. Smiling with his head in his hand, “I don’t call myself a hunter and neither do they”.

Kwan pushes him playfully, “yeah well, regardless of title, I still can’t believe you even do that. Props man, I guess”.

By the time the party gets to knock-off Pariah, both Lily and some quiet kid named Max have had their characters killed off. Danny’s snickering as his and Tyler’s characters are leading the face off. While James shakes his head and points his hand at the figures, “this is ridiculous even if you had raised your stats the most you possibly could, there’d still be no way to win this”. Danny chuckles because that’s pretty much what the odds were when he did face Pariah. Once again deciding fuck it, “well then let’s make this even more realistic then. I’ll roll to multiply my characters power a hundredfold”. James starts lowkey choking, “what?! How is that realistic?!”. Danny laughs as he rolls, “that’s how Phantom won. Multiplied his power a hundredfold and nearly destroyed himself in the process. This book drastically underestimates Pariah’s power. It took thirteen extremely powerful ancient ghosts just to seal him away, Phantom did it alone. Like the self-sacrificial idiot he is”. Shrugging, “well that and, no one else was even willing to fight Pariah cause he was too damn strong and wasn’t worth fighting”.

Smirking at his die showing a high ass number, while menacingly petting his figure, “having that much power... it’s a burden, isn’t it, child?”. James mouths, “what the fuck”, at both the die and Danny.

While Todd blinks a bit surprised, “Fenton, what? I would never have expected you to sound creepy, threatening, and powerful”. Danny grins wider, “and that’s why no one will believe you about any of this”.

Now, unfortunately, this battle with Pariah requires actually defeating him. No sealing him away, and his character is pathetically weak even at a hundredfold power. He could kick his own ass with his ghost powers completely neutralised. So it really surprised no one that Danny fuckin’ dies.

Snickering down at the figure, “little ragged around the edges, eh, child?”. Before bursting out laughing as the mini staff explodes into purple mist. Todd, Tyler, and Star do wind up surviving and winning though.

“So any other crazy bullshit you feel like pulling. Since we’re officially out of shit to do besides being dicks to each other”, James mutters while lying on the floor. Todd snickers, “I’m cool with that”. Danny rolls his eyes, “now-now, would you act like that in front of Phantom?”. Both Star and Todd shake their heads rapidly, only Todd speaks though, “why the hell would I? That guy’s like super moral, I’d be making a horrible impression”. Danny can’t help but laugh, yeah he’s definitely got strong morals but he’s also a little shit. He steals, pulls pranks, constantly breaks into to pretty much everywhere, and spends most of his time pounding the crap out of someone. Good reasons or no, he’s ain’t a golden boy. Just the good guy who generally plays fast and loose with morality... and mortality. Smirking at Todd, “it’s a little late to change his impression of you, I’d say. You’ve literally punched him in the face, multiple times actually”, Danny sneers mockingly but still humorously, at Todd looking startled, “oh what? Didn’t know Phantom can change into a regular human?”. Throwing his head back and laughing loudly, “funny thing! The town barely knows Phantom”. Danny sighs as his ghost sense goes off and well, surprise surprise, his icy breath also glows. Knowing full well it’s Skulker, who really is more of a threat, he has a bad tendency to abduct people after all.

“What the fuck was that?”, Danny completely ignores Tyler, though he does talk, “the town also barely knows Fenton. So you’re right about that, but looks like I’ve got a job to do. Guess Skulker doesn’t really care about the shit weather, but then again, neither do I. Flying in the wind is hella fun”. Smirking as his toxic green eyes fill the room with an eerie ghostly light, “anyways this has been quite amusing and like I said, I’m a little overpowered shit. And ain’t nobody gonna believe you”. Before transforming and phasing out the window.

“Fenton, Phantom. We are all idiots, holy shit”

End.

[haikujitsu]

THE SHADE IN SHANNON'S HOUSE. WHAT THE FUCK. Does being on the thermos for so Iong affect VIad's mind? WiII Shannon ever find out about the shade? Do Shannon and Danny stiII hang out afterwards? Does Shannon ask for ghost stories from Danny? WiII Danny's Doctor continue studying paranaturaI stuff after Danny? What was your favorite SOAD scene to write? which scene was the hardest? What wiII Danny go on to study, how often does he get to see Shannon and the gang?

Hokay, where to start…

Favorite Scene to Write

Oh, gosh. This is hard because it’s such a flippin’ long story and I wrote it over such a long span of time. I think… hmmm.

I really loved writing the Jack and Danny reunion near the end. Jack was one of those characters I didn’t like much initially, but he grew on me as the years passed and now honestly he’s one of my favorites. Being able to bring Danny home and letting them hug it out just felt so satisfying and cathartic.

I also enjoyed writing Mrs. Foley because she’s so wholesome and such a good influence on literally everyone. The Spectra cameo was also neat since she’s one of my favorite ghosts and bringing her into a psychological drama seemed fitting. Also that action scene where Maddie steals a ghost bike and rides it home? Super fun to write.

Hardest Scene to Write

Easily Maddie and Danny’s confrontation at Shannon’s (which in the end was split over Ch. 59/60). It needed to be a balance of getting it all out in the open, acknowledging the truly devastating nature of what Maddie had done, and yet allowing room for empathy and understanding and forgiveness.

It’s incredibly hard to make that choice to face your own pain and accept someone’s repentence– and incredibly powerful to see it happen. I did my best to bring the characters to a point where they were capable of that reunion. I spent weeks reworking and tearing up and reassembling the dialogue to make it feel real and hit alll those notes of anger and grief and loss and love in a way that felt sincere. It didn’t ring true for everyone, but I did what I could.

Vlad

Yes, it seriously affects Vlad’s psychological health, not to mention brain function. More on this in another ask!

Shannon

Being able to fly upwards of 100 mph makes it surprisingly easy to maintain a friendship across state lines. Danny’s a little shy about visiting at first, but Shannon is so matter of fact about it that they end up having monster movie and spaghetti nights once or twice a month.

Shannon mostly leaves the ghost topic alone because she senses that Danny wants to get away from ghost talk– but when he brings it up she always settles in for a crazy story. Once you leave the borders of Amity Park even the existence of ghosts feels more and more unbelievable… but Danny sitting at the table (or sometimes floating above it) is a constant reminder of the strangeness of the world.

He has to learn to be careful about the superpowers though, since there’s invariably someone staying in one of Shannon’s spare rooms. In a year or so she decides to become an official foster mom and the kids she takes in get a lot younger (grade school and teens). Danny develops a reputation as someone who doesn’t care how dark your problems get; he can also make bullies mysteriously lose interest and is pretty good at video games too. Danny finds out he likes being the big brother for a change.

Shannon’s place becomes a sort of safety zone for Danny. When he has a bad day, when he needs a break from ghost hunting, when he has a problem that he can’t talk out with his friends, when his parents cross a line and he needs some space. Shannon starts keeping Todd’s room reserved for his visits, which, depending on the reason, can last for a few days.

The Shade

Recap for those who don’t remember: There’s a shade (powerless proto-ghost with minimal self-awareness, only visible to humans with spectral abilities) that haunts Shannon’s house, and it’s heavily implied that this is Shannon’s long-lost younger brother, Todd. Danny, Gabe and Harley are aware of its presence but Shannon is not.

Shannon still hopes that her brother is alive, so at first Danny doesn’t tell her. But sooner or later it gets to him– maybe talking with Jazz and realizing how heart-wrenching that uncertainty is, maybe Shannon reminiscing about Todd, maybe just visiting and seeing the shade drifting around in perpetual purgatory.

He tells her. That’s a whole heart-wrenching conversation as you can imagine, but in the end Shannon believes him and accepts that Todd is dead. That’s not enough for Danny, who can see the shade literally inches from Shannon even as they talk about him. Danny wants to reunite them somehow.

So he goes to his parents. Which, by the bye, is a huge step because Danny’s still super uncomfortable with them in their role as ghost hunters/scientists. Maddie and Jack realize that and they handle this as delicately as they know how. Which is…not very delicately, but they try.

They know that if they just present raw ectoplasm to the shade that it would manifest in a seeable, sentient form. But it’s dangerous because the sentience and visibility that ectoplasm provides comes at a price– it typically enhances aggression, self-fascination and obsessiveness to the point where the ghost becomes a simplified charicature of his former self.

If Todd were to become a ghost like Ember or Technus, he might not even remember Shannon at all and would very likely be a threat to humans.

Danny, as usual, turns out to be the key. Because the ectoplasm used in creating the portal was so carefully purified, he escaped the worst of the ectoplasmic side effects. The Fentons theorize that if they create a controlled environment where they can slowly introduce purified and denatured ectoplasm, they can give the shade a physical form and encourage sentience without causing insanity and aggression.

With Shannon’s permission they rig up the living room with equipment and are able to trap Todd’s shade and try out their theory. He manifests successfully. Whether they can only sustain it for a few minutes or it’s a lasting solution, I don’t know. But at the very least they see each other, and Shannon can say goodbye.

Dr. Wagner

I feel like ectoscience is one of those things where, once you’re aware of it, you can’t just… stop being involved. It’s too niche, too bizarre, and too interesting.

Especially since Dr. Wagner is now one of three medical professionals (four if we’re counting Dr. Kerza) aware of the existence of ghost/human hybrids, period. He’s one of the few people informed enough to competently treat Danny, Valerie, and anyone else like them.

So yes, getting involved with Danny forever changes Dr. Wagner’s life. After his residency is up, he moves to Amity Park and gets a job under Dr. Stein–that’s Danny’s original doctor from his first hospital stay post-PoT; he was brought into the loop about the halfa thing at Dr. Wagner’s insistence.

The two doctors trade off patching Danny up on the occasions where he needs serious medical attention, and in the meantime work together to create legitimate scientific studies pertaining to ectoplasm and its interactions with human physiology. As the epicenter of ectocontaminated injuries, Amity Park General Hospital is the ideal place to conduct this research.

Most of the existing data has been collected by either the GIW (which rarely publicizes its findings) or scientists in non-medical fields with varying levels of scientific integrity, so this turns out to be an excellent way for a young, hardworking doctor to make a name for himself.

He also dates a certain redheaded psychology grad student for a while, but nothing comes of it… except a very awkward few months of ecto-charged glares from his primary patient.

Danny’s Studies

Danny does eke his way into community college with the help of some online classes and Jazz’s tutoring. No one can figure out why his new campus has a sudden spike in ghost activity, though the Fentons make a public statement with some handwavey ‘spectral wave pattern fluctuations’ explanation.

I’m honestly not sure what he’d end up majoring in… I do feel that he’d change majors at least once before he settled into something he liked. His academic performance is directly linked to the level of ghost crisis in Amity Park–though he’s gotten much better at sharing responsibility with Valerie and his parents.

He’d probably go in with an interest in Engineering, Applied Science, and Astrophysics despite his bad math grades–which, let’s be honest, are probably a direct result of his ghost hunting and not a lack of intelligence. I think he’d surprise himself by doing really well in Sociology and Anthropology-related courses. Nothing like being thrown into a bizarre xenoculture made of a mishmash of human history to prepare you for higher education, ey?

[phantomphangphucker]

One Lonely Star

Chapter 1 - Star Fall Down

Chapter 2 - Just A Little Lost 

Chapter 3 - An Apple For The Fairest 

Summary: What does it mean to be a hero?

I was wrong, I made an assumption, I shouldn’t have done that. This girl is no deserter. I’ve never been good at spotting tricks or traps. I really wish I was. 

I think, all the while a collar and leash bind me. Weaken me, so much so that I can do nothing but float and watch. Watching is something I’m good at, especially now, notice things, find things, understand their possibilities. I think something resonated with the girl though, I can see it in her eyes. She feels remorse. So it would seem, she is like the boy from before. I hope she keeps her mouth shut.

It doesn’t take long for mother to get to what she’s always wanted. A chance at dissection. Strapping me down with unnecessary levels of aggression and force. She sets out her instruments while making it a point for me to clearly see each one. She gets to work first removing at the ropes embedded in my flesh, ripping and tearing the flesh wildly as she goes. As they clatter to the floor, I hope none are damaged; something might work. She’s focused so intently on me and on what she wants to do. She doesn’t notice, but I do, the others reactions. They blame me sure, want me to suffer for their suffering, want me dead. But this is too much for all of them. I’m sure it’s not because of weak stomachs, no one has that anymore; how could they? You can only see someone destroyed by those stars, or crushed by a building, or cannibalized by another person; so many times before it doesn’t churn your insides anymore.

It doesn’t take long for my chest to be opened up, flayed out like a butterfly made of ruby reds and emerald greens. I know I hear wrenching and there are things being said but ignoring the pain is where my focus goes. That and I have to find a way out, I have to be the hero.

I can see mother swing her knives in the others general direction, no doubt protecting her game of doctor. This only causes the others to show genuine disgust and disdain towards her, rather than me. That’s the thing with human morals, they’re strong and only something stronger will outweigh their morals. For the sake of science, apparently didn't cut it for the others. As they watch on still trying to argue with her, as she takes away chunk after chunk of her pound of flesh.

I don’t mind so much, it’s horrible and painful but. There’s always a but with me, I can always excuse others actions; it’s never really their fault. In some way, the blame is always mine and I’ll take it gladly; no matter how much I have to suffer. And suffer I do, regardless of what she thinks; ghost feel pain. We all do, and I’ll always do what I can to minimize others pain. That’s why I school my expression now, as she pulls out piece after piece, seeing my hurt would cause pain to them. I refuse to be the cause of their pain. What pieces she takes I can not tell, blurred vision makes observing difficult. Maybe she’ll learn something from me that can be used to save everyone, human and ghost. Though I know she doesn’t care for the ghosts. Maybe this is how I’ll finish my work, be the hero. I only hope that if she does find something that will work that she’ll step up and do it herself. I think she owes me that much.

Through their arguing a man, large and bearded comes in. He is calm and soft but commanding in his presence. At first I think it could be, but no, it’s not dad. Surprisingly he goes to untie me, mother leaps over to stop him. Grabbing his wrists and glaring but not speaking. A heart locket swings around her neck, dangling in front of me. That’s new and I can read that dad’s name is engraved on it. Oh. I see. I guess that’s how it is. Someone else I failed. With that, the pain is too much and I fade to black.

I wake to a wrapped body and I can tell my toes have finally regrown. It’s a welcomed thing, to wiggle them again. However, I’m still bound it would seem. I doubt I have been out long. The group of humans is all around me with my back against a wall, none of them look at me; whether I move or not. And I dare not break the silence. I can feel the itch of all the bandages, they cover everything. How much was cut away? How much is left? Is any of it even usable? Stable? Just keep going. Just keep working. And for today, just do what I must to survive. So I choose to use this as time to observe. Observing the door, walls and the silhouettes of figures arguing quietly. I have a feeling it’s about me.

It was about me. It seems the large man has taken charge of me. He doesn't bother with binds at all. Not that it would matter, I’m far too damaged to do much beyond what I must. And I must keep working, I must fix this, I must keep going. So I do. The first thing I do is put back on the shoulder piece I made, Be the hero, stands out on it still and I made a promise. The man watches me tinker, occasionally mother comes in and scowls but says nothing. This man is clearly in charge and he’s told her no. I don’t know why he cares to watch my tinkering but I imagine it’s because of all the weird tech I got out of the suit. Maybe he just wants to see what and why I work away.

The peace of this doesn’t last long, it never does. Nothing ever lasts long for me. Be it good or bad. It’s not the fault of the man or my mother though. But rather the stars. One crashed into the building, now everything burns. I take what I can re-tie to me and look for people. Chuckling dryly I quickly come to know they left the danger, and me. Left me to be destroyed by the stars. Stars that I once loved so very dearly. I live though, I live through it all. I always do, I always have to, it’s what I do. No one can afford for me not to.

Out a tunnel, I go walking along. I don’t have the energy for flight but I find, as I go, a pile of apples. “Sorry” is written on one. I need no apology, I need you to survive girl. But I take the apples gladly anyways. In my time between apples, I check over the damage. I had been functionally flayed from neck to toe, and who knows what internals are missing; the bandages hurt to try to remove. So I opt to just leave them be. I’ll be able to remove them when my work is done, when everyone is ok. Then I’ll fix my body up, then I’ll see what’s regrown and what hasn’t. Though I do take the time to check that I still have my pulse, I need that to keep my immunity to the purple pollution. If I lose to that I won’t be any help to anyone or thing. I can’t have that.

I had to give up on the hand balls. Just not working out and I can’t waste time. My body is still a mess and I know I look just as horrible as I have in days past. But that doesn’t matter and I don’t care. My body isn’t of importance, it doesn’t matter. My next device is a sharp chest trinket, it taps into a ghosts core. Mines stronger than most, perks of being a halfa. My ice, no matter how weakened I am, stays strong and powerful. Utilizing it’s all that’s left for options. Everything else has been exhausted or just isn’t doable now. I place no blame on anyone though. Hooking into my core like this burns something fierce but I’ll grin and bare it, like always and forever more. So long as it is needed.

Surprisingly, as I’m out to test this latest trinket I spot a human. It’s the same large bearded man from before. Only now he’s down an arm. He’s holding a little girl in his arms. Blood running down his side pooling on the ground. I stand understanding the loss and grief. But also the need to be silent. We’re on the surface after all.

This man is very observant, he notices me quickly and turns. Tears stain his beard and cover his cheeks. All he does is point to my chest, or more so to the trinket there, and then the closest star. We need no words I know what he’s asking. I simply nod, his returning smile screams anger but is filled with nothing but absolute sadness. She must have been his daughter. I understand too well, I lost a little one in my arms who bore the same colours as me long ago. She was too weak to handle any of this, she tried though. If she could have lived off of spite, she would have. I wonder if the bearded man’s little girl was full of fire and spite too.

He watches from afar as I walk up the same way as many, many times before to this star. The biggest I can find, to see what this trinket can do. Things will end. Things will be fixed. They will all be ok.

It doesn’t work.

The man looks at me wearily as I simply collapse onto my hips. I sit slumped for a while. I’m not sure what more I could possibly do. What anyone or thing could possibly do. I promised but it’s not working. I’m the hero but it’s not working. I’m still going but it’s not working. I’m giving everything but it’s, still, not, working. I vomit up what little I have into the grass as the man comes up behind me. He heaves me up and takes me back down, to where it’s safe. Though I don’t know if safe means anything, if my everything is doing nothing.

He pushes me to keep tinkering, tapping on my shoulder piece; he understands it’s purpose, the reminder, I think. He won’t let the others interrupt me either, snapping his fingers at anyone who even so much as looks at me dirty. He gets what I’m trying to do now. So does the apple girl, she keeps bringing me apples. Sometimes I eat, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I tinker, sometimes I think I’m giving up. And I can’t do that. I know I can’t but I’m not sure anymore if “can’t” is even a real word. Maybe this is all just inevitable.

The man won’t let go of the little girl, she’s starting to rot. He cradles her all the time. I get it, I do. But. You have to go on, dammit. Seeing him still holding on, holding her, when there’s no use, no point; just makes something click. None of this is working, I’m not working. I’m not being the hero. I need to do that. I have to. So I get to work, on something new. Though I never took off the chest piece, a reminder of what I must still do. Even if I’ve found I no longer can.

It takes very little time to finish and with that, I walk to the man. The first time I’ve walked or stood since the chest piece failed. And I give him my new trinket, an arm. Shiny and metal but an arm. He stares at it confused, but I simply point to his armless shoulder and to the girl. I understand the silence that must be kept and so does he. He allows me to attach it, I can feel others watching. Once everything’s attached, neuroreceptors in place, I let him move it himself. He does so cautiously but as soon as he sees that it works, he brings it down underneath the little girl and holds her up. He cries. Wet, angry, messy tears. He knows no words are needed and out of everyone I’ve ever done right by, he seems to know I won’t accept a thank you. Hero’s need no thanks after all and sometimes being a hero isn’t about saving the world but helping a man to hug his daughter one last time.

After that, the other humans don’t give me cruel looks but most of the looks they give me are sad. Maybe it’s the way I look, I’m supposed to be the hero, the shining star. Yet I look like a man whose very existence is actively spitting in the face of death. Which for me is actually quite accurate, I should be dead many times over.

The bearded man was able to lay his daughter to rest, he looks filled with determination in every sense of the word now. He seems to be making a point of using the metal arm whenever I’m in the line of sight. It’s nice to see that it works still, and with that, I am able to work again. They all try to help me now, except mother. She just watches from a distance, I can never read her face. The others will point to where they think something should go or how it should be turned. Point out anything I may have missed out, they’ve all come to understand silence. No one talks near me and I never talk. There’s no place for it, work needs to be done. Even if nothing will ever work. Even if it’s all pointless. It’s all I can do. It’s all I know.

...To be continued