#but the majority of the time he has AT LEAST Tucker and Sam as back up

[hello-eden]

Dead on Main time travel with a mom Danny twist.

Jason calls in a favor from someone on the justice league dark team for help with a case that got magical. the person sends him Danny. it goes well. they're both working very professionally. something happens and they end up back in time in their younger bodies.

Both of them are in the same city that they were working the case on. They are far away from home but Jason is 15 a few months before he finds out about his bio mom and Danny at this time is incubating Dan and Ellie's cores.

Neither of them quite realize the repercussions of what's Happening. The two of them team up to try and get back home. What the two of them don't realize is Danny's friends and family have no idea where he is though they are less worried than the bat family who fully believe Jason is kidnapped.

The two of them go on adventure trying to dodge any local heroes or villains. Eventually the two of them are able to get into contact with Clockwork and Clockwork tells them that they have altered this timeline too much for them to go back. 

The two of them angst about that until they have to get forced out of that because they run into a local hero. I want to say one of the Titans that work with Nightwing because then they recognize Jason but have no reason to know that he's missing.

the two of them then realize that because they're in their younger bodies everyone has no idea where they are. This is when Danny realizes that at that age he is incubating Dan and Ellie which makes him try to split off from Jason.

As Danny's trying to figure out a way to tell Jason what's going on Jason realizes that Danny is getting really sick or at least he thinks is really sick. He's getting tired more easily than before and keeps throwing up. Jason originally thought it was due to stress of the situation but it becomes more and more clear that it is not. They end up having a confrontation which leads to Danny telling him that they are basically pregnant. 

Jason tells Danny that they are not leaving them, especially not after everything that happened. The two of them decide together where to go. The two of them end up deciding the only places that they can go are Amity park or Gotham because of the ambient ectoplasm.

They can go to Amity Park except last time Danny was there it was a bad Fenton parents reveal which led to both Dan and Ellie dead with jazz wheelchair bound as well as Sam and Tucker in comas.

 Or

they could go to Gotham except Jason is probably presumed missing. Having Wayne and bat family connection is probably best for them except for Jason having a falling out in the last timeline as well as knowing that he is supposed to be dead in a few weeks. Jason knows that his death is a major turning point for his family as well as many other things in the timeline.

[starry-bi-sky]

i've mentioned in a few past posts about an au where Danny is a variant of Jason Todd. I haven't made a post about it yet because I need a good rhythm flowing however i've been listening to Gladiator by Jann and I have been having thoughts.

but first, let me set the au:

Danny Fenton is Jason Todd, or at least, a variant of him. A him from a universe separate to the major Batman timeline - but still Jason Todd, down to the structure of his face and his name itself. The only thing that changes, is who picks him up - and, that he follows old Batman canon, and was an orphan. Jason Todd steals the tires off the batmobile and wallops Batman with his tirejack, and then runs off. Shortly after, he gets picked up by the Fentons.

(Customary line break,,,, word count check: 5k)

And his name changes from Jason Todd to Danny Fenton. He doesn't care much for the new name change, it stems from his mute refusal to share his name to the people that picked him up; an attempt to make him untraceable should he get away from them, and to keep something of his to himself. So they name him something new. He grows to like it enough as he acclimates to his new family.

(He hangs onto the name Jason Todd like a secret - he may be 'Danny Fenton' now, but he'll never forget his time on Gotham's streets. He'll always be Jason Todd.)

(Jazz is the only one who he tells his name to in the family - she affectionately calls him Jay whenever she wants.)

He becomes friends with Sam and Tucker and deals with Dash and his bullying. And when Danny steps in during a fight between Dash and another student, Dash gives him a bleeding nose and mockingly says, "Do you think you're Robin just because you're from Gotham, Fenton?"

Jason looks him in the eyes and he bares his teeth, "Why not?" he asks, spitting blood, "being Robin gives me magic."

The nickname sticks. It's supposed to be an insult; Daniel Fenton is not Robin, he'll never be Robin. Not now, not in a million years. Jason Todd has always wanted to be Robin, so he takes the insult and wears it proudly. He buys a school varsity jacket and painstakingly undos the stitching of all the school's motif on it. On the breast of it, he embroiders in a black circle with the Boy Wonder "R" on it instead. It's not good stitching, but the next day Danny wears it down to breakfast and into school.

In normal au canon, Daniel Jason Todd-Fenton (its a mouthful, just call him Danny) only meets the Waynes after he becomes Phantom - an event that leans more towards Daniel Fenton's accident than Jason Todd's death, but traumatizes him all the same. (Is it too much to want to be mourned? His best friends like to deny that he died - and Danny - Jason? - wishes they wouldn't, even if he did come back.)

(The accident embitters him, even more when his parents don't seem to pick up on it. He stops calling himself Danny Fenton - he's always been Jason Todd. It shows itself in his ghostly form. He doesn't want to wear the thing he died in, not in something that belongs to the Fentons, and his suit reflects that.)

In this timeline, Daniel Jason Todd-Fenton, aged 13, meets Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne after a mishap with magic on the other end of the reality sends the three of them careening through time and space, and spat back out on the other end, in a world not their own. And together.

Danny is paired with a very confused Bruce Wayne and Richard Grayson. Luckily, there's a few heroes there to help them. Danny can hardly comprehend the idea that he's in another universe - he doesn't know why Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne are seemingly handling it well.

On their way to a secondary base with the heroes, Danny turns to Bruce Wayne and asks, "So, is it part of rich-person training that you're just totally chill with being sent into another universe, or are you just weird?"

Bruce Wayne huffs at him, rather than get offended, and he smiles that dumb lopsided billionaire smile that Danny's seen on every vogue magazine he's been in. "I'm not so worried with these skilled heroes here to help us get home."

Danny silently concludes that he's just weird. At least Dick Grayson is biting back a smile behind him. "Riiiight..." He says, dragging the vowel out dryly.

When they get to that secondary location -- a safehouse that one of the heroes had set up -- the three of them are sat in a living room-like room while one hero, Zatanna, goes and calls someone from the Justice League. The other two heroes stay with the three of them.

Within a few hours, Danny is face to face with Batman - someone who he hasn't seen since he whacked him in the stomach with a tire iron - and Nightwing. For a moment, Danny swears that the both of them look almost spooked by him.

Batman stares at him for a moment when he enters, and then he goes to speak with Bruce Wayne. Danny doesn't care enough to hear what they're talking about, he pulls out his phone as Nightwing goes to speak with Dick Grayson.

"Are you a fan of Robin, little man?" Someone says, and when Danny looks up he locks eyes with Dick Grayson -- who is leaning around Nightwing to talk to him, the both of them are smiling. And considering who Nightwing was, Danny finds himself turning pink to the ears.

But he will not hide his jacket. He forces a grin through his embarrassment, "Hell yeah, man, Robin's cool." He says, and pushes his arms down to pull out the hem of his letterman, showing off the emblem. "I made it m'self out of a school varsity after the A-Listers started callin' me Robin."

"A-Listers?"

"Popular kids," Danny corrects, loosing his hold on the hem and brushing invisible wrinkles out of the embroidery. "They didn't like that I kept stepping in when they were bullying. Dash asked me if i thought I was Robin because I was from Gotham."

Dick Grayson looks intrigued -- and concerned, and he leans forward onto his knees and raises an eyebrow. "What did you say?"

And Danny grins a shark-like thing, straightening back his shoulders with a burning sort of smug pride and all the sharpness of broken glass left in Crime Alley. "I told him being Robin gave me magic, and then I punched him."

Dick Grayson's smile widens, splitting into showing teeth as he leans back into his seat. Danny isn't sure why he's so delighted - but Nightwing looks incredibly amused, and he suddenly remembers that the Robin himself was there in front of him.

Danny's face burns anew and his arms fold themselves in front of him once again.

"I don't think I ever caught your name, Robin." Dick Grayson goes, his voice thick with laughter, and Nightwing steps off to the side as Batman and Bruce Wayne walk over to join them both. They're just close enough that Danny can see Bruce Wayne raise an eyebrow at them both.

"It's Jason." Danny says before he can think about it, and barely stops himself from frowning at himself for the slip. He amends himself, glancing over at Batman and Bruce as they get closer. "But everyone calls me Danny."

Dick Grayson's head recoils slightly, and he looks a little surprised. "Why Danny?" He asks.

"Why Dick?" He shoots back, and Bruce and Dick both smile at him, with Dick Grayson shrugging with an expression that looks like 'you've got a point.'

In the end, the three of them - yes, three - get sent to this world's Wayne Manor, and Danny is bewildered by that decision to include himself -- he's not a Wayne. Why not just send him to the Fentons?

Batman tells him that the Fentons don't exist in this world, and Danny falls silent. "Oh." He says quietly, a pit growing in his stomach with an ill-kind of dread. He can't keep Batman's gaze, looking away with unease.

No Fentons in this world. No Fentons. Where was he then, in the grand scheme of things? Where was he in this world? What happened to Jason Todd? Was he even alive? He can't keep the worry off his face, and he jumps when a hand lands on his shoulder. When he looks up, Dick Grayson squeezes him gently.

Dick Grayson is steadily beginning to remind him of his sister.

-

They end up driving back in the Batmobile. It's such a shock to Danny that he momentarily forgets the lack of Fentons. He makes a laugh sound, actually, and immediately he covers his hand with his mouth and stares at the car -- tank? with his teeth sunk into his lower lip.

"Jason?" Dick says, and hearing his name being spoken feels like someone touched him with a livewire. It's weird, it's foreign - he hates, in some way, that it's foreign - and it's so nice. Yes, that's me.

He drops his hand immediately. "Sorry." He says, realizing he'd stopped in his tracks, "I -uh, was just surprised."

"It's not every day someone sees the Batmobile." Dick agrees. Nightwing has his back to them but Danny swears he sees his shoulders shaking a little.

"Yeah," Danny nods slowly, dragging his eyes over the batmobile as Batman opens the driver's side and gets in. He thinks for a moment, of what he should say next - whether to admit that he's seen it before, or to pretend that he's seeing it for the first time. Snd as Nightwing opens the door for him, Bruce, and Dick, he chooses the funnier option; "The last time I saw it, I was stealing its tires."

To his surprise and unsurprise, Danny only gets two pairs of eyes on him. Nightwing gets into the passenger seat as both Bruce and Dick turn their gaze onto him; Dick's eyes big like they were going to bulge out of his head.

"You what!?"

So Danny tells an amazed Dick Grayson that he hit Batman with a tire iron after he stole his tires - something he is very proud about and also incredibly embarrassed about when he retells what happened in the backseat of the batmobile, with Batman and Nightwing listening in from the front seat.

(Bruce Wayne doesn't ever tell Dick shit, he's going to lord this over Bruce's head the moment they are alone.)

"Please tell me this didn't happen in this world." Danny groans behind his palms as he sinks into his seat. Dick Grayson is killing himself laughing on his left, and he saw Bruce Wayne stifling a smile before he obscured his vision with his hands.

Much to his luck, its Batman himself who speaks next, (Danny was being mostly rhetorical). "It did." He says, and his voice sounds like the rumble of the earth before a stampede. It will never not throw Danny off every time he hears it. "It takes quite a lot of spunk to steal the tires off the batmobile."

He can't believe it. Batman is making fun of him. Fucking, Batman.

He wants to die with embarrassment. He groans even louder as Dick Grayson's laughter crescendoes. Danny risks a peak through his fingers, he doesn't know whether to regret it or not because he can just barely see Batman smirk very faintly from his position in the middle.

(His world axis tilts five degree leftways seeing it; like someone dunked a bucket of ice water on him.)

"He ended up being adopted by the Bruce Wayne of this world."

Danny's hands drop with his jaw into his lap. Dick Grayson on his left chokes on his laughter and careens into a coughing fit. Bruce Wayne on his right chokes on air, and quickly recovers himself with a cough behind a closed fist.

"What?" Danny croaks.

-

Apparently, Bruce Wayne's family is much larger in this world than it is in his. Danny can barely wrap his head around the idea that he ends up adopted by the man, but now he has to learn that Wayne had several children in this world?

He's still not wrapped his head around it when the three of them wind up at Wayne Manor, finally, or even when he's standing in front of him himself. For his effort, Bruce Wayne does a good job at looking unruffled by it.

God, he's weird. Danny's starting to quite like it, actually. How human of him.

He still can't wrap his head around it when he meets the rest of Bruce Wayne's children, all of whom are already aware of the three of them. Danny thinks that someone from the Justice League might've alerted them before they got here.

It makes sense, he supposes.

It helps that they are just as weirded out as he is. A boy named Tim Drake sees him for the first time and blurts out; "Oh wow, you're tiny." In a tone like he's just seen a two-headed snake burst out of the ground.

Danny is still offended. He's still growing. It's not his fault he spent twelve years of his life malnourished. "I'm gonna be taller than you," he tells him seriously, "and when I do I'm gonna kick your ass."

Tim snorts at him.

The other Bruce Wayne -- Mr. Wayne's -- youngest looks at him up and down with a face of carefully controlled judgement. His name is Damian, he's Bruce Wayne's only biological son. Danny can't believe that there's only one.

If anything, Bruce Wayne himself looks surprised too.

"Todd, yes?" Damian says, his green eyes narrowed at him.

Danny feels like the specimen under his parents' microscope, he feels like he's standing on a platform that's being slowly spun by scientists. He looks over at Bruce Wayne in confusion, and then back at Damian. "I- yes?"

Damian Wayne nods, and then leaves.

Danny does not once see himself. That is unsettling in and of itself - surely Jason Todd would have been told about another version of himself in this world, wouldn't he? How old is he here? An adult, probably. Danny doesn't know if he wants to see him. What does he look like when he's grown up? He pulls his Robin jacket around him a little tighter, like a cocoon, like a shield.

"It's weird to hear them call me Jason Todd." He says aloud to himself, and it leaves a weight behind in his chest that shouldn't hurt the way it does. It shouldn't be weird to be called your name. It shouldn't cobweb up your throat to hear your name being said. It was his name. It was his.

-

Danny acclimates to the manor slowly. The house is big, massive. He's never been in a house so large before, he feels like a stray cat being taken in for the first time, again. He and Bruce and Dick Grayson are all given their own separate rooms - one of many inside this mansion - and the sheer size of his bedroom is bigger than his living room and kitchen combined.

it's daunting. Danny sits outside on the balcony and stares at the stars he can see - Wayne Manor is far enough away from Gotham that its light pollution doesn't obscure the sky here like it did in the heart of it.

Danny finds the constellations he can find and wishes he had his books with him. He finds the library the next day and buries himself in the back, curling up into a comfy armchair next and inhaling each book he can get his hands on.

Tim Drake wanders past him at some point, Danny would have missed him if it weren't for the fact that Drake stared at him strangely when he saw him. He walks away when he realizes Danny was staring back.

It's a rinse and repeat for the next few days. Danny doesn't go to meals, he sneaks food from the kitchen afterwards, and then buries himself in hundreds of books in the library.

Dick Grayson, the one from his world, goes and finds him three days later. Danny's eyes hurt with strain by then, but he is furiously halfway through a Jane Austen novel when Dick sits down across from him.

"Have you been here all day?" Dick asks, he drapes himself across the side of his chair, contorting himself into a position that Danny doesn't think is comfortable when he looks up at him.

Not that he looks up at him long - he hums absently and goes back to reading. Frowning when he realizes he lost his place on the page.

Dick Grayson raises an eyebrow, "Have you at least eaten anything?"

Danny hums. No, he hasn't, and he hadn't thought about eating all day. Until now that is, his frown ever deepening as his stomach pangs with a deep hunger.

"That's not healthy."

"Mhm."

"Are you going to eat something?"

"Mhhh."

And this gets Dick to frown. He straightens himself up, propping onto his elbows to stare at Danny. "Jason." He says strongly. And it's that that gets Danny to finally look up from his page, jumping like he'd again been poked with a live wire as he stares at Dick with wide eyes.

"Yes?"

"Put the book down." Dick orders, gesturing towards the side table next to Danny with a nod. "And come eat something." There's very little room for argument in his voice, he sounds like Jazz when she's trying to parent him, but instead he actually sounds authoritative. Not bossy.

Danny still frowns at him. "You're not the boss of me." He says, sinking back into his chair with a thumb bookmarking his page.

Dick gives him a look and makes a decisive noise, swaggling his head side to side while he does. "I'm pretty sure that for as long as we're here, me and B actually are the boss of you."

He's never really liked authority figures, not ones that tried to boss him around, that is. Danny doubles down, his lips curling into a shadow of a scowl. "Just because you're my brother in another world doesn't mean you can act like it."

"That's not what I mean and you know it."

"I don't want to go eat."

"It's not good for you to skip meals."

"Quit talking like Jazz."

"Danny."

Danny sinks his teeth into his lip and scowls darkly at him, shrinking into the back of his armchair in hopes that it'll swallow him whole. The idea of going into that large fucking dining room fills him with a dread that makes him completely forget his appetite.

"Your fucking- dining room is- it's too big." He grits out, finally closing his book and hugging it tightly to his chest.

Dick blinks at him. "What?"

"You heard me! It's too big. This whole place is too big. It's- what do you even do with this much space? I don't know how this- other me ever lived here."

Dick Grayson surprises him, and his expression softens. "Oh," he says, "I get it."

"You do?" The tension bleeds slowly out of Danny's shoulders

"Yeah, I felt the same way when I first moved in with Bruce. I lived with the circus for most of my life, but I slept in a trailer." He says. And he talks more.

The end result of their conversation ends with Dick Grayson offering to let Danny sit across or next to him during mealtimes, and that he can talk to him if he starts getting uneasy. But he can't keep skipping meals - it was making them all worried.

Danny agrees, and Dick takes him down to the kitchens for food.

"They look at me weirdly too." He grumbles as they leave the library, Danny's book returned to the shelf where it belonged. When Dick looks at him curiously, he scrunches his nose up. "The - your other siblings. They look at me like I'm- I'm someone else. S'weird."

"Isn't that a good thing?" Dick asks, "You are someone else."

Dany shrugs, staring at the ground with a heavy frown. "I don't know."

-

Danny seeks out Dick more after that. And vice versa. Dick reminds Danny of Jazz, and he latches onto the familiarity like a leech. If Dick is bothered by it, he doesn't show it, whether he's talking to his other world's self, to the Bruce's, or to one of the other Wayne kids.

Damian Wayne seems particularly keen to seek him out, Danny finds. He thinks it means that they're close in this world, and that Damian wants to see more of what a young Dick is like. That's what he would do, at least.

He takes up on Dick's offer of seating near him during dinner, and finds an open spot across from him. Unless he has something to show him, then he sits next to him.

("You can call me Jason." He tells him one day when they're in the Wayne's massive, fuck-off gym and they're both climbing over the jungle gym. Dick's showing him how to be more flexible. It's the most Danny's worked out ever, he likes the burn it gives him.

Dick looks at him in surprise, "Really?" he's doing a handstand on the bars and Danny's more than a little jealous at his balance.

"Yeah, dipshit," he says, rolling his eyes, "I'll even let you call me Jay, it's my nickname."

Dick happily takes him up on that offer, and much to Danny's embarrassment, starts calling him Jaybird. All because of his stupid Robin jacket.)

Danny has yet to meet his other self still, it's scaring him a little. Where was he? And matter of fact, how long until he could go back to his home dimension? The three of them hadn't gotten any updates since they arrived.

Speaking of, he was starting to talk to Bruce more, it was just... strange. Even stranger than talking to Dick. Bruce Wayne in another life would have been his adoptive father, Danny can't wrap his head around it for the life of him.

Whatever did Bruce Wayne see in Jason Todd that made him worth adopting? He's too afraid of the answer to ask. They start talking more after they run into each other late at night. Danny had been hit with a bout of insomnia and was going to the library.

He ran into Bruce on the way. He was just.. staring, out the window, with a faraway look in his eye. He didn't even look startled to see Danny standing there.

Danny asks him if he wants to go to the library with him. It was out of panic. He isn't expecting Bruce Wayne to agree, and they walk there in suffocating silence. Danny keeps looking at him from the corner of his eye.

("You're staring?" Bruce doesn't sound upset, Danny jumps anyway.

"Yeah, sorry." his voice sounds stilted, "it's just..." his jaw wires itself shut for a spell, "...you looked like you were about to disappear."

"Ah.")

When they reach the library, Danny leads Bruce Wayne into the science section and takes out books upon books about stars. He leads him over to the armchair and fire and they both sit down on the ground.

"When I lived in Gotham I would stargaze." Danny says, it's the first thing he can think of. Bruce Wayne looks at him quizzically. "Well, I would try to. The sky's too polluted for that. Mostly I would just watch the skyline and try and spot Batman and Robin, was the same thing."

That cracks a smile out of Bruce. It's a small one, barely there. "I hardly think the two are comparable."

Danny is still serious. "Not to me."

He goes on, talking about how after he was adopted he got his hands on every star book he could find. He loves english and he loves to read, but something about the stars drew him in like a song. He rambles about every star fact he knows with Bruce Wayne.

Bruce Wayne surprises him by telling him facts he didn't know. Danny soaks it up like a sponge, listening intently to him speak. And when they run out of star books to talk about, Danny tells Bruce that it was his turn to find something for them to talk about.

Bruce Wayne smiles again at him, a sly little thing like Danny's challenged him, and gets up. He comes back with a stack of film books, and they spend the next few hours going through them. Bruce Wayne rattles off every single movie fun fact he knows, and there is so much that he knows.

Danny is in awe, and moves to press against Bruce's side to see the stuff he points at in his books.

"You're smarter than people give you credit for." He says at some point, when his eyes hurt from being open for too long and his head leans against Bruce's arm for support. It follows with a jaw-cracking yawn that he tries and fails to stifle.

"Thank you, Danny." Bruce says, his voice soft and soothing and not helping with Danny's weighing exhaustion. His eyes drift, and then jerk open. "Do you want to go back to your room? You look tired, chum."

He bites back a smile at the nickname, and fails to keep it bitten. "No, no, I'm awake." He mumbles, shaking his head slowly. "I wanna hear-" he yawns again, "-hear you talking."

Danny swears he can hear the smile in Bruce's voice as he speaks; "Alright. Now, where was I?"

In the end, Danny falls asleep on the floor of the library next to Bruce Wayne. He doesn't even realize it until he wakes up the next morning. But it's not to worry, Bruce Wayne fell asleep too, an arm thrown around Danny protectively like he was his own kid.

This becomes a thing for them soon enough. When neither of them can sleep, they go to the library and talk and talk about whatever comes to mind.

There comes the dreaded night after they've finished whatever book they were looking at when Bruce, the little shit, turns to Danny and goes; "You never mentioned what happened after you hit Batman with a tire iron."

Danny groans, big and dramatic, burying his head in his arms, and ignores the low chuckle. "I thought he was gonna chase me down for sure." He complains, his voice muffled by his arms.

"Why did you hit him with a tire iron?"

The look Bruce gets is one of pure disbelief. "If Mothman suddenly showed up behind you while you were taking the wheels off his ride, you'd hit him too!"

"Last time I checked, Mothman isn't real." Bruce told him amusedly, and Danny flops over onto his back to stare him down. His arms sprawl out like a starfish, intentionally hitting Bruce in the shoulder.

"You don't know that, Batman's a cryptid and he's real."

Bruce roars with laughter, and Danny preens like a bird.

That next morning when Bruce passes by him for breakfast, he reaches over and ruffles his hair. It's the same thing he does for Dick every morning. It's the first of many, and it gets many stares from the surrounding family.

Bruce has a newspaper tucked under his arm, and when he sits down Danny stands up and skedaddles over to him, leaning over the side of his chair to peer at the paper.

"Any cryptids spotted, Buzz?" He asks, getting a startled laugh out of Bruce, who looks up at him.

"Buzz?"

"Well, yeah," and Danny states it as matter-of-fact. He gestures his head at Dick Grayson. "Dick calls you 'B', and B is for bees, and I can't just call you Bees, that's dumb. So; Buzz."

He grins triumphantly when Bruce laughs quietly, his shoulders shaking imperceptibly. "I know," he tilts his head up proudly, "I'm a genius."

Now he's actually laughing, dropping his head into one of his hands and trying to quiet himself as much as possible. Danny is positively beaming, ignoring the stares of the other Waynes as he flounces back to his seat just as the other Mister Wayne enters the room.

-

When Jason Daniel Fenton Todd meets Jason Todd for the first time, they both just stare at each other.

Danny recognizes himself immediately in the library, and he freezes up. His tongue ties to the roof of his mouth, and he's unsure of what to say.

He doesn't need to say anything at all, because when Jason Todd looks up and they lock eyes, they both just stare. And stare. Jason Todd is a large, hulk of a man, built like a brick shithouse, with a tired, traumatized look in his eyes and a white streak in his black curls. The same black curls that Danny himself has.

He has no idea what to say. Or if he should turn back around and leave.

Jason Todd sighs at him, "I know they told me you and another world's Bruce and Dickie were here," he says, but it sounds like he's talking to himself. Even moreso when he mutters half-heartedly, "-but I was hoping I wouldn't run into you."

Danny feels small next to him. He doesn't know why. "Sorry." He says lamely, his one foot skips back, "I can leave if you want." It's unlike him to be meek, he thinks. Not after years of Gotham living and dealing with the likes of Dash and his Jerk Jocks.

But this also isn't the streets, and this isn't other kids being dicks. Jason Todd shakes his head, and gestures with one large arm for Danny to come over. "You don't need to do that, you were coming to read, right?"

He nods, and tentatively makes his way over. When Jason looks at him, he sees him cast his eyes over his Robin jacket - he wears it everyday. Danny sees him narrow his eyes, just slightly. But he says nothing.

It's... a strange conversation. Interaction. Jason Todd doesn't talk to him much, and if he does it's stilted and awkward, like he doesn't know how to treat him. Like he's holding him at arm's length.

Jason's getting tired of being treated like a ghost.

They talk about their books. They compare lives. Jason Todd was picked up a few days after he stole the wheels of the batmobile. He wasn't an orphan, he lived with his mom and his stepdad before he lived with Bruce. They both like to read, only Danny has an interest in the stars.

("What do your adoptive parents do?" Jason Todd asks him, one arm slung over the back of the armchair, he looks relaxed. He looks tense. Danny feels like he's back in Crime Alley again.

"They're 'ectologists'." He says, making air quotes over the word. He rolls his eyes, "Ghost hunters. They study the dead and all things afterlife."

Jason Todd makes a dry laugh huff, a sarcastic half-smile on his face. He doesn't explain why he does, Danny doesn't ask why. It doesn't seem like his business.)

Danny wants to ask him where he got that white streak in his hair. It doesn't feel right. It feels like his parents' lab, and that isn't right. Nothing ever feels like his parents' lab.

Jason Todd leaves first after giving him a few book recommendations. Danny isn't sure how to rate the experience. Being in Jason Todd's presence was like standing in a liminal space. An empty parking lot at night. When he leaves it feels like much the same thing.

He struggles to read his books afterwards, unable to shake the feeling of being haunted.

[yuleshootureye]

Buffy Summers did not suffer through Seasons 6 and 7 of BTVS to be beaten out by Daniel F. Phantom! She was depressed! Pulled out of Heaven! Spiraling out of control! Supporting her teenage sister and her best friends through their many personal crises! Saving the world (a lot)! Leading an army of teenagers to their deaths! Getting kicked out of her own house! Working at The Doublemeat Palace!

CBW TOURNAMENT FINALS!

after over eight thousand votes, we finally come down the final challenge. the two characters YOU voted into this, our two finalists, ready and go!

[puppetmaster13u]

Hear Me Out

Yokai Amity. What are yokai? Japanese spirits. And not just ghosts, a majority of mythical creatures? Yokai.

So how did this happen? Well, like most things, it can be blamed on the ghost portal in the Fenton Basement. And a lot of ecto contamination. Because while they're a small city? They're also in the middle of nowhere, meaning a lot of their foods and crops, they grow themselves. And the ectoplasm? Started sinking into the ground first. Y'know, where every plant grows and then both humans and animals proceed to eat it? Made even worse when those like Overgrowth or Vortex came through? Yeaah, it'd be a miracle if they didn't get contaminated and no surprise that most don't notice their humanity slipping with time with how it's happening to everyone.

Which kind of makes the situation Danny has found himself kind of hilarious? At least to him. The trenchcoat dude seems to be having an aneurism or something similar.

"So... not a meta?" the tiny vigilante child clarified again, head tilting from where he stood at the head of his group. Honestly Danny was enjoying this from his place sprawled across the park bench Honestly Amity had spoiled him with benches designed for extra limbs.

The blonde man seemed absolutely done with everything, hands twitching as though about to cradle his head in his hands or grab something. "No," he wasn't shouting but it was close. "For fuck's sake- your all lucky not to be cursed or worse-" He turned towards Danny. "Why the fuck didn't you?"

The hainu shrugged, wings doing more of the motion than the rest of him. "They're babies-" Or at least one of them was, borderline liminal as they were. "You play along with toddlers." Honestly he saw why his old rogues found this fun, even if he'd never go as far as they did.

The entire team of vigilante children bristled, one opening their mouth to protest before trenchcoat-soul-dude glared at them all before turning back towards him.

"Though what the fuck do you need that for that you'd steal it- not that any artifact like that should be in a bloody museum and not locked away where idiots can't get to it."

He snorted, the sound more dog-like. Or really more yeti-like, what with how he was taking lessons from Frostbite which meant large chunks of time in the Far Frozen.

"Technically I don't need it, my kid does," Danny held up a finger, marveling slightly at the clouds. It was quite different compared to Amity, what with how everywhere was so ecto-infused that the sky was effected.

"And what does a hainu need with-" the trenchcoat man motioned to the cursed object, which honestly wasn't that bad. But...

"Oh no, he's not a hainu, he's furaribi." Danny honestly wasn't surprised that Jordan wouldn't turn out the same as he, de-aged or not. Not that he was memory-less or anything, cores didn't lose that easily, but he did still have the physical brain of a child.

"Adopted?"

"Nope," he hummed, going over the list of things he still had to do today before returning to Amity. Sam had asked him to get a few more flowers to test how ecto would effect them and he had to pick up some computer parts for Tuck.

"How the fuck."

"My sister's a kitsune, my other sister is a shirouneri, my mom is a shishi, my dad a baku, godfather's an itachi, my boyfriend a raiju, my girlfriend a kirin, and my other girlfriend a yosuzume," he ticked off his fingers, not seeing anything wrong with it. Not like people could get into Amity easily after the whole GIW thing.

"... what the fuck does your family tree look like, mate, because that should be bloody impossible."

Danny shrugged, giving a sharp toothed smile. Yeah, the realms didn't care about that with how malleable ecto was.

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

(In case it's not clear: Hainu Danny, Furaribi Dan, Kitsune Jazz, Shirouneri Danny, Lion Dog Maddie, Baku Jack, Itachi Vlad, Raiju Tucker, Kirin Sam & Yosuzume Valerie) (Also feel free to come up with what everyone else might be) (Highly recommend yokai.com for a quick summary of each creature)

[theglamorousferal]

So if you’re new to the Danny Phantom fandom whether that be because you have joined us via a crossover, the new graphic novel coming out or just somehow got hooked into this fandom there are a few things you should know.

90% of content you will see is purely fanon lore.

I’m gonna divide this into two different sections, going over what is canon and then the most common things from fanon.

So if you go by the show, we have at least three different kinds of ghosts. We have ones like the Fright Knight who is a spirit formed from the feelings and beliefs of people surrounding the thoughts of Halloween and we have ones who were once humans like Sidney Poindexter and Desiree. There are also some who are the product of two different ghosts like Box Lunch. We technically also have the Ancients, but we don’t know anything about them except that they existed many years ago and then they enclosed Pariah Dark in the Sarcophagus of Forever sleep.

We know that a high concentration of ectoplasm introduced very quickly can causes human to turn into a half ghost. This happened with Danny at least 3 times, and the accident Vlad had (as well as Jack in an alternate timeline). Danny was changed twice by the portal and then once by being blasted by a bunch of ectoplasm.

In canon, the Fenton parents are very loving parents with just a bit of absent mindedness to them that leads to them missing the obvious signs that something is up with Danny. Every time in the show that he is exposed to them, he is accepted by them entirely. Even when in an alternate timeline where his parents never got together, he is accepted by them.

In canon, Jazz started out not knowing how to help Danny, Tucker and Sam, but it is shown in the show that she trains to be better later on. She still calls the ghosts by things she designated them as though, not how they would like to be called.

In canon, Vlad is awful. He regularly tries to Hamlet the main character. He tried to ruin/kill Jack to get with Maddie and make their kids his kids many, many times. He cloned a child, gaslit the clones into thinking he cared for them and then planned to melt them down to have his “perfect son”. In canon of the show, Vlad is not redeemable. (This sorta changes a bit in the graphic novel, but it’s a toss up whether that is actually considered active canon or if it’s its own canon now.)

In canon, Tucker is a genius after he was forced to sit through 12 hours of study programming. In canon, he is the reincarnation of a Pharaoh. He can speak a made-up language, Esperanto, and can hack into nearly every piece of tech he comes across.

In canon, Sam is obsessed with all things goth and so has tomes about magical beings and artifacts. She is athletic and is always ready to throw down. She only has plant powers in the episode “Urban Jungle”.

Now onto the Fanon, at least the most popular headcanons that I have come across.

The most common thing among the fandom is that Danny is half-dead. Some have him a ghost possessing his own corpse. Some have him be Schrodinger’s boy. Some have him have lower vitals or just no vital signs altogether. He is said to have died and not come back all the way or right. Common things have him be cold to the touch, a lower heart rate, and him forgetting to breathe entirely.

Probably the second most common headcanon is that Danny is the Ghost King after having fought and defeated Pariah Dark in single combat. Ways he takes the throne are varied, everything from him being forcibly put onto the throne and unable to go to the human world, to having to name Jazz or Maddie as regent until he reaches either human or ghostly majority, to him taking the throne but it being more of a figurehead thing. Most stories will have him have a plethora of titles and names he goes by. Along with this he now has a lair inside the Zone, most have him taking over Pariah’s Keep and some do have him have his own new lair.

Another popular headcanon is Ancient of Space or the Balance Danny (going with AGIT, the balance actually is now canon). These lead to things like Danny having an eldritch form. Something that is obviously “other” and hurts to perceive.

Both of these result in an OP Danny and probably around half of them will have him stuck at 14 and/or functionally immortal.

Another very common DP headcanon is Bad Fenton Parents and that their research caused the GIW’s formation. Alongside that come the most common type of fic you will come across which is where Danny has been captured by either the GIW or his parents and then is vivisected. Majority of them will have him vivisected by his own parents. Many of them will have them be varying levels of neglectful, from just not noticing things about their kids to straight up forgetting they were there and Jazz having to take care of them both.

In most fanon, the GIW are actively trying to genocide an entire species. This is closest to a canon thing considering that they did try to nuke the GZ, which would have resulted in their universe also collapsing. The things that some people write/draw for the atrocities the GIW and Bad!Fentons are things that I bring up to my therapist frequently. Be prepared for descriptive gore.

There are a few characters that have spawned in fanon that are widely accepted as canon characters now. The main one is Wes Weston along with his brother Kyle. Wes Weston was a background character that we see for about 3 frames in one episode, but he looked similar to Danny and had green eyes and the fandom latched onto that. It started out with someone claiming the A-listers would think that Wes is Phantom because he’s athletic, had the same build and green eyes. From there, the fandom has decided that he also is the only person to figure out that Danny was Phantom and tries frequently to expose him. Kyle Weston is Wes’ older brother, in the same class as Jazz and he doesn’t believe that ghosts are real and is played for gags a lot.

Another major piece of fanon lore is ghost cores. This stems from a remark Frostbite said talking about Danny’s core temperature and the fans took it and ran with it. In fanon there’s all kinds of different types of ghost cores, usually an element or an aspect of existence. Many have Danny possess an ice core, in some he has a space core. Others take his “death” into consideration and believe him to have an electric core. Commonly people have Vlad have a fire core. Usually cores are an orb that a ghost can retreat into to heal. If the core is shattered, the ghost is ended and no longer exists in any capacity.

Similar to cores is obsessions. These are essentially the purpose of the ghost, their drive and purpose. Skulker’s is hunting, Ember’s is recognition etc. Most give Danny a protection obsession, but will sometimes give him a space obsession.

Something that has gained traction in the last few years (to my knowledge mostly since the pandemic) is liminality. Liminality is where people are contaminated with ectoplasm due to overexposure or ingestion of it and it gives them ghostly abilities. Different people have liminality give people different abilities. Some have glowing eyes, lengthened canines and pointed ears. Some have enhanced senses, strength and speed as well as extra durability. Some have eyes that reflect like a cats and night vision. Some even go so far as give them at least one of the major ghostly abilities.

How someone becomes liminal differ depending on if the writer wishes to have it just be main characters or if it’s the entire town. If it’s just main characters then usually their frequent exposure to ghostly things as well as close proximity to it makes them liminal. For the whole town people will usually have the portal give off essentially radiation or when the town was pulled into the GZ be the cause.

Frequently Sam, Tucker and to a lesser extent Jazz are given extra abilities. Sam usually has residual powers from her time possessed by Undergrowth, Tucker usually has some form of techno Nancy and Jazz usually has some sort of empathetic ability, if not that she get’s the basic extra strength, speed, durability and senses.

There are some lesser known ones that should at least be mentioned in case you come across them. One of those being ghost hunger. This is where ghosts or liminals thirst for ectoplasm similar to how vampires thirst for blood. Another common thing is that ghosts socialize by fighting. That most of the fights are ghosts greeting the baby ghost. The last thing is that the main characters are known as Team Phantom.

I’m probably going to think of more later and I’ll post when I do, but this is the basics that I could remember on the fly. I hope this helps people!!

[tourettesdog]

Concept:

Danny and his friends go missing and Jazz (werewolf, cause vibes) starts exploring the GZ to find him. She's never been there before and only has a journal Danny left behind to go off of as she tries to navigate who is friend and foe. 

Wulf eventually becomes her travel companion.

I also wrote a story blurb to go with this (using speech to text while I worked on the shading lol) Word count: 1532 Warnings: isolation

A frigid wind wrapped around her, stirring the snow and ice. Jazz had never much liked the cold, always preferring relaxing spring days and warm summer nights. Always a bit too cold in their house, where the chill from the lab seemed to creep its way into each corner.

The cold didn't bother her as much now. It hadn't for a long while, not with thick fur to guard against the chill. Still, in the endless field of snow, even her thick pelt did very little to ward off the freezing temperature. 

It stung at her ears, lashed at her snout, and worked its way through the tough pads of her feet until they were numb. The specter speeder lay behind her, the metal hull already being swept beneath the wind-tossed snow.

This was it, Jazz thought. She had finally found her most promising lead, made her way to the far icy reaches of the Far Frozen that Danny's journal mentioned with such reverence, and here she would fall.

Lost in an endless expanse of snow. Buried where none would find her. Forgotten, even by the ghosts.

Lost like Danny was.

Jazz stumbled onward, focusing only on putting one foot before the other. It was all she could do. She could see nothing, save for the white glare of snow, dappled with a green and blue hue that swirled and rippled with the flow of the ectoplasmic sky.

It was beautiful, in its own way. In the strange way that an abstract painting could be beautiful, with its hapless array of colors and shapes. Jazz stared up at it, wondering if it would be the very last thing she ever saw.

Wondering if it was the last thing Danny might have seen.

She still didn't even know if he was in the Ghost Zone. She still didn't know where to start looking for him. Every ghost she had met so far, from the cruel to the kind, had no leads.

No one had seen Danny and his friends, or at least no one was willing to say that they had.

Her legs ached with the effort of sifting through the snow. Great weights dragged at her each step, and it was all Jazz could do to make another. She wanted to rest. She wanted to turn around and go back to the specter speeder, sinking into the seats where she might find at least a trace of warmth.

Jazz turned her head to look for the speeder, but she could no longer see it. She hadn't gone very far, yet the one thing tethering her to the outside world had left,  lost to the swirling white snow.

She took another step.

When jazz was ten-years-old there had been a large blizzard in Amity Park. It happened in late February, just after Valentine's Day, and had buried the town in a sea of snow. Jazz remembered how excited Danny was when it first started to snow. He was gleeful that they had a few days off of school and was prepared to throw himself into the snow with Tucker and Sam for the duration of it.

He hadn't had much time to enjoy that snow.

(Not that Time ever cared how much it gave to Danny.)

The ice on the power lines had left them without power, and without a stove to cook on the already-questionable meals that Maddie prepared became even more so. They huddled up by the fireplace with blankets, staying as warm as they could, but Danny still managed to get sick .

(He was never very lucky.)

Those five days off of school hadn't meant much when Danny spent the majority of them lying in bed, shivering and coughing, and Jazz spent that time worrying over him while their parents worked by candlelight in the lab.

Tears welled at the corners of Jazz's eyes and she couldn't be sure if they were from the sting of the wind or the ache in her chest. 

She took another step.

Jazz wondered what the Far Frozen yetis were like. Danny had described them quite a lot in his journal, much more than many of the other ghosts, and much more kindly at that. He had mentioned a Frostbite, a massive yeti with a frozen arm. He sounded nice, though the name 'Frostbite' felt awfully cruel and ironic to her now.

Maybe they would find her, at least. If she couldn't find Danny, if she was truly doomed to freeze, maybe this Frostbite would find her and be able to give Danny some closure.

(The same closure Jazz so desperately sought now, if nothing else.)

Jazz's chest constricted with a cold that had nothing to do with the frozen tundra around her, just imagining Danny endlessly searching for her.

(Following in her lost footsteps, she supposed.)

Jazz would sooner consign herself to endlessly wander the Far Frozen than she would have Danny fruitlessly search for her.

(And what if her own search was fruitless to begin with? What if she had thrown her life away searching for not even a ghost?)

The horizon blurred together, the crisp white snow melting with the hazy green of the sky until it was all a swirl in her mind. Ectoplasm and ice, every bit a reminder of who she had failed to protect.

Jazz tried to take another step, but her knees buckled.

She hoped that, wherever Danny was, he still had Sam and Tucker beside him. They were always close. Always willing to have each other's backs, no matter what stakes they were facing. 

Jazz wished she could have been a part of that more. Maybe then she would have found Danny sooner. 

They could have been home already, wherever home was now.

The snow piled around Jazz. She no longer had the energy to stand, and hardly had enough to sit up.

Maybe she'd return as a ghost, at least. There was certainly enough ectoplasm to sustain her as one here, and Jazz felt enough aching desire to keep going that she thought it more than possible.

Maybe she'd just rest for a little while. Sink into the snow, which was already blanketing her more and more as she slumped into the drift.

Surely, Danny was never this cold. A cold beyond cold, sinking into a hollow numbness that had Jazz's mind drifting with the wind.

The sky shifted, the sea of green above flickering with streaks of deep blue, an aurora borealis if ever she saw one. 

She remembered how Danny had described it in his journal. He hadn't done it much justice .

The snow shifted, warping, moving. Jazz could hardly keep her eyes open, her thoughts slipping with the drifts of snow.

She wondered what sort of ghost a werewolf would make. Danny had mentioned a wolf ghost in his journal, though Jazz couldn't be sure if he was a werewolf in life or had simply taken that form upon his death. Ghosts could be strange like that.

The roar of the wind was distant, hardly more than a whisper now. Jazz thought she could hear the crunch of snow and the echo of voices lost on the wind.

At least she would get to rest. Maybe not for a long while, but enough time to shut her eyes before she accepted whatever form fate would give her.

Eyes shut, numb to the strange world around her, the snow swallowed Jazz whole.

Warmth. She couldn't remember the last time she felt warm, lost in the zone without a sun to warm her back. Jazz had grown used to the cold, even before the snow of the Far Frozen claimed her. 

And yet she was warm. 

Jazz could remember falling into the snow, accepting her fate… and yet she was warm .

Opening her eyelids was a Herculean task, made no easier by the bright glare that welcomed her bleary sight. Jazz shut her eyes tight again, groaning as she turned her head to the side.

A murmured voice reached her ears, followed by another. Jazz heard a creaking sound and felt the air shift beside her.

She tried once again to open her eyes, this time squinting and finding that the glare had diminished somewhat.

"I'm pleased to see that you are awake at last," a voice said. It was a low rumble, almost more of a growl than a humanoid voice, but the words rang through clearly, as kind and gentle as any voice so deep could be.

Slowly, aching moments that stretched on for ages, the world swam into view. Rich blue hues, underscored by vibrant whites. Fractals of ice, deliberately shaped around dark stone. It looked as though they were in some sort of cave, though it had been altered into a living space with draping furs and woven tapestries.

A hulking form sat beside her. If Jazz ever thought that there was a creature fit to be called a yeti, it was them. He had snowy fur with gray markings, a cloak of deep blue, and icy horns that matched a frozen arm. 

Frostbite. The name suited him; he was every bit the ghost Danny described in his journal. 

[goliath-de-senfina-sango]

Glitch in Time replacing Phantom Planet

A Glitch in Time could definitely replace Phantom Planet in the canon timeline with frankly easy changes. Danny’s powers wane because he’s lost passion and purpose once everyone has Fentontech to hunt ghosts? Dan (hereafter called Dante) comes back because Vlad wanted time travel? Major lore dump leading to emotional growth and a set goal for Danny? We can work with this as either a season 3 ending or season 4 opening.

Danny wants to be an astronaut. It’s the visual thematic consistency in his bedroom, it’s the only thing his mother remembers in the episode about her wanting to bond with him and reminiscing about the time when he told her ‘everything,’ and it’s likely the first or second reason he cares so much about his grades and about earning them. (The other reason being his desperation for his parents’ approval and the way the Fentons tie value to intelligence.)

Being a ghost hunting hero is nice and all but it consumes his every waking moment and cuts into his sleep. He can’t study because he’s hunting ghosts; he can’t sleep because a ghost escaped the lab right as he drifted off; he can’t finish a test or a class both because he’s exhausted and underprepared and because he’s off fighting ghosts who pop up in the middle of the fucking day, too, and if he’s quick and good enough about it then his teachers aren’t sympathetic because far as they’re concerned nothing really happened besides Danny ditching class.

Danny’s actual passion in life, what fuels his spirit, is slipping through his fingertips and it kills him, and it’s beginning to kill his powers. He’s getting weaker and weaker, forcing his parents, Valerie, Jazz Sam and Tuck, and even the GIW to pick up his slack, but only he, Jazz, Sam, and Tucker are even vaguely humane about the treatment of ghosts so that’s unacceptable! What if one of them catches Cujo?

Danny’s powers are failing him because his passion in/for life is fleeing him and his spirit is running out of fuel. Sam, and Tucker point out that even if Danny doesn’t have the grades to make it into Nasa, he could start a space exploration branch of Fentonworks. The Specter Speeder™️ works in 0G after all, and the Fenton Bazooka™️ can open short term portals between Earth and the Spirit world for more rapid travel to the moon and beyond. It can surely be modified for intra-dimensional travel. Danny laments that the conflict between Ghosts and Humans will keep him away from space for the rest of his life.

Vlad has decided to track down Clockwork, Master of Time, so he can go back and fix his life. If he could just find out what’s in Ecto-Dejecto and use it to stabilize his “perfect” clone; if he could go back and properly sweet talk Daniel into joining him; if he could go back and stop his accident from happening in the first place or at least change the part of it that left him with ecto-acne! If if if!

He barges in, he makes his demands, Clockwork tells him to fuck off in riddlespeak. They fight, but before Clockwork decides that it’s time for Hax since Vlad is pretty powerful, Vlad knocks Clocky into the pedestal holding Dan’s thermos. The thermos falls and the pedestal lands on just enough of it to break the thing.

Dante is free.

Clockwork is horrified, and confused about the fact that he didn’t see this coming. That split second of shock is all Dante needed to phase into Clockwork, pushing Overshadowing to and beyond its limits and absorbing the Master of Time into himself. This horrifying abomination violently destabilizes the timeline simply by existing, and just like that the end of everything

Jazz, Jack, Maddie and Valerie, along with the local army’s worth of GIW agents, face off against Dante while The Trio and Vlad go to his mansion for a map/clue to ultimate power in the Spirit World. They note Vlad is Still cloning Danny and Danny at minimum should worry that since Vlad could very easily get Jack to tell him what’s in the ecto-dejecto, the clone is likely stable.

Ghost squad go through everything at Pariah’s Keep, time jump shenanigans included, and discover the lore secrets of the Spirit World.

Along the way, Vlad comments on how he could’ve taught Danny so much about holding onto his powers and Danny remarks that if Vlad had let go of his bitterness toward the only person in the world who actually cares about him and obsession over a woman who made her choice in marrying Jack, he’d’ve been a beloved part of Danny’s family and life.

Danny and Vlad both gain a boost from learning they aren’t freaks but are in fact the way nature intends people to be.

Danny concludes that if he can bring harmony between the Spirit World and Earth, he won’t have to keep all of his focus on defending them from each other. Resolute in his decision to be the bridge between worlds, Danny’s power is restored and boosted beyond his previous limits.

The amped HalfGhost duo faces off against Dante and defeats him with violence and the power of friendship. Clockwork is removed from Dante, tosses him into one of the clone bodies, and sets about repairing the several Realms destroyed by their battle.

Vlad returns to his home to find the half-ghost son he always wanted - the clone isn’t truly a clone, made with half of Danny’s genes and half of Vlad’s, the perfect vessel for Dante - and Danny resolves to tell his parents the truth.

[underforeversgrace]

i love you (don't kill me)

Title: i love you (don't kill me)

Words: 4591

Warnings: Major Character Death, (semi) Graphic Depictions of Violence

Prompts:

Sherry_A_H: Tearing up Phantom molecule by molecule is something the Fentons will regret for the rest of their lives.

Nocturnal Starr: Maddie struggles to come to terms with Danny being Phantom.

Astatia Ghast: When Danny’s body is purged of ectoplasm, he begins to waste away. It turns out the Accident changed his body so completely that he can no longer survive without ectoplasm.

Even with as many times as it’s been explained to her, Maddie still just can’t understand. She can’t grasp her son, her black-haired, blue-eyed little boy, being Phantom. It just wasn’t possible. It wasn’t.

Maddie leaned back in her chair, rubbing her gloved hand across her tired face as the heart monitor beeped steadily. At least they were able to handle this at home. Express fake concern that it was high level ectoplasmic contamination, that he couldn’t be admitted to a general hospital because of it. But there was nothing to be done, was there? Not anymore. She and Jack had gone too far, messed up too severely this time.

Maddie just sat there, listening to the monitor. Danny’s heartbeat was far too slow. Even his friends had said this was lower than his normal. Well, Tucker had advised them of that. Sam refused to speak to them. Even Tucker had been short and to the point in his response, his voice cold and hard.

Jazz had been the one to fill them in, Tucker nor Sam could be in the same room as Maddie and Jack for longer than a few seconds, far too little time to go over the events of the past two years. Jazz couldn’t bear to look at her parents either, though. She hated them. Maddie could find no kindness or softness in her daughter’s face anymore, no hint of love for them. And she found she couldn’t blame Jazz for her reaction.

They all knew what Jack and Maddie had done.

A small alarm trilled from her pocket, pulling Maddie back to the room. The blue room with the stars on the ceiling and model rockets littered on shelves along the walls. The blue room with the hospital bed, with her dying son.

She pulled the timer out from her pocket, silencing it with a button press.

“Time for another injection?” A male voice asked behind her, near the door.

The man was named Michaels, he was a bodyguard Sam had hired to watch over Danny, because Sam didn’t trust his parents alone with him. While Maddie could hold her own against most people, Michaels was not one of them. He was an even more skilled black belt than she, an even better shot with the human gun at his hip.

He was a stranger in her son’s bedroom, he was an unwelcome figure in her family’s suffering.

He was her son’s protector while she had been his executioner.

Maddie sighed. “Yes, it is.”

“The red one again?”

“No, the blue one.”

“Is it really already time for the blue one again? He’s already had one in the past twenty four hours.” Michaels responded, his voice light but his eyes narrowed at her in distrust. He didn’t know the full story - what Danny was, exactly what his parents had done to him - but he was no fool. Then again, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize something was wrong when he’d been explicitly told to keep an eye on Maddie and Jack.

“He… he didn’t stabilize with that one this morning. Normally, he has an increase in his vital signs - his heart rate, oxygen levels, temperature - but he had none of that. No use in giving a booster when the shot didn’t take.” Maddie replied, her heart clenching in her chest. 

Her eyes strayed to the bedside table, where a small present wrapped in starry paper sat. Her little Danny had turned sixteen eight days ago. He’d been in a coma for ten. He’d never open that present, would he? See the car they’d bought for him? The keys sat in that little box - a singular key with a NASA emblem on the keychain, to an older model car they’d parked at the Mansons’.

Tears pricked at the mother’s eyes and she blinked them away before they could fall. She still held onto hope that Danny would suddenly awake, happy and healthy and whole in whatever way he wanted, and she didn’t want him to see her crying.

“Here,” Michaels said, handing a syringe over to Maddie. Thick red liquid seemed to bubble in the glass, or was it a gas? Ectoplasm was such an odd thing. Michaels shot her a firm nod then stepped back by the dresser, locking the case with the chemicals back up. Yet another safeguard for Danny’s life, at risk from his parents. Their concoction had been tested by ectologists even more renowned than the Fentons, to make sure it would not harm a ghost. It was kept in a locked case and only the other scientists were allowed to formulate more, based on what Maddie and Jack had created. She never touched them except when it was time for one.

Did the Fentons even count as ectologists, Maddie wondered? Or just monsters with guns, shooting down and destroying anything that didn’t fall on the ‘right’ side of the alive/dead binary?

Maddie popped the protective cover off the needle, turning Danny’s arm so the crook of his elbow looked up at her - covered in bruises and needle marks from where she’d been desperately trying to save him.

Ironic, isn’t it? Maddie had fantasized about doing this to Danny Phantom. About strapping him to a table, cutting him open, injecting every possible substance under the sun into his arm to see how his spectral body would react. She’d already known she would have to ignore the creature’s screams. Not sentient. Not able to feel pain. Not able to die when he was already dead.

Her and Jack had discussed the best ways to slice him open - though, then, they’d still been calling Phantom an it - without destabilizing him. They didn’t want his core to give out before they’d even started, after all. They’d wanted to carve off chunks of Phantom’s ‘fake’ skin, rip their way into whatever he had in his chest cavity. Wanted to cut and take samples and biopsies from every inch of the ghost, inside and out. And it would’ve all started with a simple shot, wouldn’t it? Some sort of suppressant to keep the ghost’s abilities at bay.

So, no, Maddie couldn’t be upset at how her daughter and her son’s friends were acting.

She’d gotten her dream. She just hadn’t realized it could ever be a nightmare.

But this was definitely a nightmare she was in, a hell of her own making, as she gently pressed the needle into him, piercing through flesh and injecting the mixture into him. She looked at the monitor connected to him, all the wires measuring all the signs of life in him, desperate to see an improvement.

But there was nothing. He hadn’t reacted. He was just as still, looked just as dead.

Pain pierced her through the heart as she collapsed back into her seat - she would’ve almost sworn she’d been stabbed, the pain felt so real, so tangible. This was their last idea. Human blood supercharged with ectoplasm, with enough electricity going through it to take out a city block, to try to make them bind together, to mimic what they’d stolen from Danny.

But it failed. They had failed. She had failed. How could this be happening? It just wasn’t possible. It wasn’t. How could they have messed up so badly?

“We’ve got it, Mads!” Jack yelled, running to the glowing form on the ground.

“Nice shot, dear!” Maddie called, a wide grin across her face as the two ghost hunters caught up with their prey.

Danny Phantom looked up at them through the net, eyes unfocused, mouth moving without sound.

“It worked! Whatever brain pattern it has mimicked isn’t working!” Jack said, proudly hoisting the overly large gun onto his shoulder, beaming at his wife. 

“The Fenton Scrambler might just be one of our best inventions!” She said, clapping her hands together as her husband grabbed the net and began dragging it behind them, back towards the GAV. Maddie opened the rear doors and Jack tossed the ghost in. It made a noise and placed a hand against its head, slightly shaking its head, doing a very good job of mimicking confusion.

Jack and Maddie hopped into their seats and Jack floored it, sending them flying back towards their home, tossing any and all driving safety recommendations out the window.

Within minutes, they were home, their catch unloaded and dragged down to the lab, still unable to speak. Unceremoniously, Jack tossed the ghost into a containment block at the corner of the lab, all sides blocked by phase proof glass.

“Hmph, Danny still hasn’t done his chores!” Jack whined, looking at the messy lab. The table they needed was half buried under old, never finished inventions. Mess covered every flat surface - from old pizza boxes to ectoplasm and everything in between.

“We’ll remind him when he gets home!” Maddie said, kissing Jack on the cheek. They began to clean, both shaking with excitement.

Maddie kept glancing over at the corner, licking her lips in anticipation. The ghost seemed to be getting some of its limited faculties back, the net had slipped off when it’d been tossed in. It pressed a hand against its eyes and wrapped the other arm around its center. It’s ability to pretend to be human was so impressive! She wondered if its insides would be as impressive. Was it so desperate to appear human that the illusion would go beneath its faux skin? Would there be bones? Kidneys? An appendix? How cold was it? Would it be colder inside?  Butterflies fluttered around in her stomach, excited anxiety burrowing deep into her very being.

Taking far longer than she would have liked, they got the lab in a semi-acceptable state. The table was cleaned off, the scalpels and syringes were sat on trays to the side, and the rest of the mess was, uh, out of sight and therefore out of mind.

“It’s time!” Maddie hollered, jetting towards the door of the containment area, her hand resting on the handle. “Hit the ghost shield!”

Jack hurried over to the side wall and slammed his fist onto a comically large button with his face on it. The sound of machinery whirring and then the ghost shield encased them, an eerie green that made the air beyond the bubble look fuzzy. Jack held up another gun, ready to shoot at the ghost if needed. Maddie was better at hand to hand so she would be the one getting in close contact with Phantom, Jack would provide back up with an ecto-grenade (that had an area of effect even larger than the room, it was physically impossible for even Jack to completely miss).

They nodded to each other and Maddie threw open the door.

Phantom looked at her, pushing itself to its feet, eyes still unfocused.

“Mom?” It asked, the otherworldly echo sounding out of place for such a simple word.

“Excuse me?” Maddie asked, bewilderment temporarily replacing excitement.

“Mom?” It asked again, stumbling forward. A cold hand grabbed her forearm as Phantom continued to look around, confusion painted heavily onto its face. “What’s going on? I feel weird.”

Maddie turned to look at Jack, wondering if she was hallucinating, but the look on Jack’s face mirrored her own emotions.

The ghost groaned, releasing its grip on her and collapsing to its knees, holding its head in both hands, partially out of the containment cube.

“Phantom, what are you-“ Maddie started, but was cut off as bright white lights encircled Phantom’s waist. She heard Jack begin to charge the gun up, though he didn’t fire as the light seemed to split harmlessly, only changing the clothes between the rings as they moved.

She had exactly zero idea how she was supposed to react when Phantom vanished, her son in his place.

“Mom?” Danny asked, the echo gone. “What’s happening…?” The sentence trailed off as he looked up at her. Maddie’s jaw clenched as she saw his eyes - radioactive green.

“Jack, get the Fenton Ghost Catcher!” Maddie barked, grabbing Danny’s arm and jerking him up. Jack nodded wordlessly, concern and fear etched on his face as he ran towards the sub basement, where they’d stored the Ghost Catcher while they made upgrades to it.

Danny yelped in pain as she pulled him up roughly and her chest tightened. She never wanted to hear that sound again. But that did seem to pull Phantom out of whatever haze it had been in - Danny’s voice didn’t sound as confused when he? it? spoke again. “Mom, what are you doing?” He called, trying to dislodge her grip from him, pulling weakly. 

“Get out of my son, Phantom.” Maddie hissed.

“What? I’m not overshadowed! It’s me, Danny!” Her son insisted, doubling up his efforts to escape her grasp. That net must have worked even better than they’d expected since Phantom had hidden itself inside a human. A human would be having a severe headache, nausea, and persistent confusion. But her ‘son’ had recovered too fast. This wasn’t her son, her son was being used as a puppet.

“I don’t know what kind of weird overshadowing ability you have to completely change forms, but get. Out. Of. My. Son.” She hissed the last few words.

“No, no, no, no! It’s me, Danny, there was an accident and I’m half ghost and that’s why I have two forms and why all your inventions lock on me and -“ He began stuttering. Maddie tightened her grip on his arm, pulling him roughly towards her as she grabbed his other arm as well.

“How long have you been in my son?” She growled, holding him tight enough to bruise. But Phantom would protect her son. It was a side effect of overshadowing - the human host got the ghostly parasite’s durability. “Our weapons have been honing in on him for two years, how long have you held him?”

“No! It’s not like that! Please just listen or ask my friends or Jazz! We’re - I’m - the same person! C’mon, even the name is a pun! Fenton? Phantom?” Danny was babbling now, fear etched into his eyes. Maddie stared into his blue eyes, that for some reason now seemed to be flecked with green when she was this close, anger building up in her. That was her son’s fear she saw, the fear she’d continue to allow Phantom to possess him and strip away his free will.

It was then that Jack lumbered back up the stairs, Ghost Catcher in hand. He brought it over to where they stood, sitting it beside Maddie and the ghost, pressing a newly added on button. They’d made adjustments to it - it would purge all ectoplasm from the human body. Who knew how much ectoplasmic contamination her son had after two years under a ghost’s control? She hated herself in that moment - what kind of mother doesn’t realize her son has been taken over by a malevolent spirit? For two entire years? She’d make it right, she’d fix this.

Danny’s eyes widened. Of course, that’s how Phantom knew about all of their weapons and other inventions! It had heard them talking around the dinner table! It knew the Catcher had been improved!

“Dad, mom, stop! Just listen to me! Please!” Danny yelled, clawing at Maddie’s hands. That must be her true son shining through - forcing his much lower strength over Phantom’s so she couldn’t be dislodged. “That’ll kill me!” He screamed as Maddie pushed him towards the device, Jack’s face uncharacteristically solemn. Even he knew they had messed up, they had missed something huge for so long. “Please, stop!” He continued, tears starting to streak down his face. Maddie wasn’t sure if it was Phantom trying to pull on her sympathies or her Danny crying in joy that he’d finally be free of this monster. She hated that she couldn’t tell.

“Everything is gonna be okay, Danny,” she whispered in his ear.

“Stop!” He called out again. Maddie pinched at a pressure point in his neck and he went limp in her arms.

Gently, she and Jack passed Danny through the center of the Catcher and watched in horror as Phantom split from him, liquid ectoplasm dripping to the floor. How much ectoplasm had Danny had in him? Both were still unconscious.

Maddie carefully sat her sleeping son on a nearby chair, smiling as she watched his chest rise and fall as he breathed. Meanwhile, Jack bound Phantom to the table, triple checking that all of the restraints were tight enough. Both parents were angry at this stupid ghost, this awful, horrible creature that had stolen their son from them for so long.

Jack shoved some fabric into the ghost’s mouth, pressing phase proof tape along the outside to keep it in his mouth.

The ghost awoke before their son did. It cried its fake tears, screaming behind the gag as they took out both their revenge and scientific curiosity out on its body. They sliced and diced as much as they wanted, amazed by the exciting specimen in front of them. At one point, Maddie moved her scalpel towards its eyes, holding eye contact for longer than necessary. As pain reflected in its eyes, Maddie found herself questioning her conviction that ghosts couldn’t feel pain. She lowered her scalpel and began excising the eye, viciously hoping this ghost could feel pain, could feel every incision they were making.

They had ripped apart over half the ghost’s body before it finally stopped fighting and went limp in its restraints.

The joy of righteous vengeance enacted brought her so much pride, made even more delicious by finally getting to live out her fantasy on Phantom. It had always been an odd ghost, different in ways they couldn’t understand.

It wouldn’t be until Jazz came home several hours later and found them in the lab that they realized what they might have done when she explained through sobs, her hands covered in ectoplasm from where she’d ran to the table, screaming Danny’s name.

When Danny never woke up, however, they realized what they’d done, just as how much they’d messed up. They hadn’t listened. They hadn’t thought of all the times they’d seen Danny go through ghost shields, how Phantom had grown older with Danny. They’d never even stopped to consider what if they were wrong.

Maddie felt the wet soil beneath her knees, felt the chill settling into her bones as it seeped through her pants. She hadn’t worn her suit since the monitor went off for the last time, since the coroner had come out for her son’s body. Pain, grief, had settled like lead in her chest. She had no more tears left to cry as she gazed at the headstone in front of her.

Daniel James “Danny” Fenton

April 3, 1993 - July 19, 2009

A beloved hero and cherished son

They’d chosen to release the truth after Danny had passed away, so his DP insignia also was engraved onto the stone, above his name. They’d lied about his cause of death. He died from ghost fighting, after being poisoned. His parents, who loved him more than anything in the world and were among the world’s leaders in ghost science, had immediately dedicated themselves to saving him, no matter the cost. Only those closest to Danny knew the truth, and even then, only his parents knew the extend of it. Knew his last words were pleading with them to stop, that they were going to kill him. Knew that they had tortured another part of him to death. Only Maddie knew she’d taken joy in his suffering.

Jazz had informed them she would not be speaking with them again, to not reach out to her, ever. Sam and Tucker made it clear the only reason they weren’t telling the cops Jack and Maddie’s negligence had actually caused Danny’s death was because they knew he wouldn’t want that. He would blame himself for not telling them. For letting himself get caught.

Maddie had had to come to terms with a lot since the day Danny first went into the coma. She’d had to accept she was wrong. Phantom was a hero. Her son was selfless and kind, and she’d been too prejudiced to see Phantom was so, so good.

Thunder cracked in the sky above her, rain began to fall softly. But she didn’t move. The cemetery was quiet.

The funeral had been yesterday and it had just been too much. Fans of Phantom, people who had come to send off a dead ghost. Originally, Maddie had been so angry. How dare these people? Her son was dead, why were they talking about a damned ghost? But that ghost had been her son. She’d lost count of the number of speakers, all the stories of what Danny had done as Phantom.

Employees of a daycare that had caught fire, saved by Phantom. She had written that off as Phantom’s intelligence - he knew saving children would make him look good.

An elderly woman who’s home had been targeted by missiles from Skulker, the only reason it hadn’t been made into wreckage had been Phantom throwing a shield at the last moment. But he hadn’t gotten out of that unscathed - he’d gotten struck and bled green all over her front porch. Maddie had written that one off, too. That ghost was only here to attack Phantom regardless and Phantom had only caught that missile because he’d forgotten to go intangible, like he’d done dozens of times before. Now Maddie wondered if that had been intentional, though. All the times he’d gotten blasted out of the sky - his body would cause much less damage than some of the projectiles the other ghosts would use.

Someone from the local Observatory, who would sometimes see Phantom stargazing. Who’d talked to him and realized he was just a kid who loved the stars, who saw the way Phantom’s cheeks glowed like constellations the more he saw or discussed he stars.

A jock from Casper High, who had mercilessly bullied her son, who now knew how easily he could’ve died if his target had ever fought back, but Phantom - but Danny - was good and had used his powers for good.

Sam and Tucker had gone together, telling stories of Danny, showing the child behind the hero. They never specified Danny Fenton or Danny Phantom when they talked about him. Because there was no difference. It was always Danny. Just Danny.

A thought that routinely haunted her. Those had been some of the last words of his life and they played on repeat in her mind.

A police officer from the local station was outside the cemetery - to guard Danny’s grave in case any of his few detractors tried to hurt his grave. Even the police loved Phantom, it seemed. He helped in a lot of traffic accidents. And the officer had assured her someone would be there around the clock for a while.

Maddie had no doubt that the only reason she was able to be here - alone, kneeling in front of her child’s grave - was because the officer had kept fans and haters alike out.

She leaned forward, pressing her forehead against the cold, smooth stone. Apparently she wasn’t quite out of tears, she realized, as she began to cry again.

“Are you alright?” Came a familiar voice behind her. She whipped around, unwilling to believe it until she saw it.

There, with a little half smile on his face, floated Danny Phantom, white hair dancing in a way that didn’t quite match the current breeze.

“Danny?” She breathed.

“Yep, that’s me! Do I know you?” He asked, tilting his head to the side in curiosity.

“You… you don’t… know who I am?” She asked, her voice stuttering.

“No, I’m sorry! I just heard crying and could feel you were in pain, so I wanted to make sure you were okay!” Phantom said, an easy smile on his face that Maddie recognized. Danny used to smile like that - carefree, relaxed - a long time ago. When had he last smiled like that? When he was eight or nine?

Maddie was unsure what to say. What, exactly, do you say to your dead son that you violently killed, who has no idea who you are, who just wanted to make sure a stranger in pain was okay? “I… lost someone I love.” Maddie settled on.

“Danny?” A new voice joined in. He appeared in the blink of an eye. A ghost clad in purple, clock staff in hand and clock workings in his chest. If he’d been human, Maddie would’ve thought he was nearly a hundred, as bent over as he was, long white beard nearly as long as he was tall.

“Hey, dad!” Danny chirruped, floating higher up and hugging the ghost.

Maddie’s heart felt like it had been ripped out and stomped on.

“Child,” the older ghost chastised softly, smiling, “I told you to stay near me.”

“I know,” Danny whined, drawing out the ‘o’ sound. “But this lady felt like she was in pain!”

The purple ghost ruffled Danny’s white hair. “I know. Can you head home? I will be there shortly.” He said, waving his hand almost boredly. A portal appeared where his hand passed. Danny nodded then zipped through the portal, which closed behind him immediately.

The remaining ghost turned his attention to Maddie, smile sliding away as red eyes bore into her own. Maddie fidgeted under his gaze.

“I am his guardian now. He will not be returning to this plane.” The ghost stated, answering questions she hadn’t even decided to ask yet.

“Is he…still Danny? Is he happy?”

“Yes, he is still Danny, just without his memories. Due to the…traumatic nature of his death,” the ghost scowled at her, “his life is forgotten to him and will be for many decades. You will be decaying before he remembers. But, yes. He is happy. He is still the same ghost child, still with the urge to help everyone.”

Maddie’s vision was swimming with tears. She didn’t know how to feel. She had tortured and murdered her son. But he had come back - again - as a ghost. But he didn’t know who she was, he’d never be on earth again during her lifetime.

“I… I didn’t think he’d be able to restore his ghost side.” Maddie said.

The red eyes continued to bear down on her, unblinking, as though he could see her very heart. “You only killed part of his soul. This is what remains.”

Maddie nodded, wrapping her arms around herself as the rain picked up.

“Goodbye, Madeline Fenton.” The ghost said, waving his hand like he had done before to open the portal.

“Wait!” Maddie blurted, reaching out for the ghost. The portal appeared next to him, swirling and beautiful, but he did not go in. He said nothing, waiting for her to continue. “Can…when he remembers, can you tell him how sorry we are? We love him and we will never forgive ourselves for what we did, but we are so, so sorry.”

“He knows. He may not know what he knows, but he knows you regret your actions. His love for you is the only reason I’ve brought him here, and to your husband, to give you closure.”

Maddie nodded, at a loss for what to say.

As quickly as he appeared, the clock ghost disappeared.

And Maddie was left with the rain beating down on her, soaking her, with only her son’s grave beside her.

[potato-art-anon]

Unfortunately, the time for phasing out of existence had passed, and with it, all hope Danny had of getting out of this without at least detention. He and Tucker sat down at a couple of desks in Lancer’s otherwise empty classroom, Dash leaning against the wall, Po stood at the doorway with the other blonde in front of ver.

"Okay," she said as Mr. Lancer was rifling through filing cabinets. "So what is happening here?"

"Just one minute more Miss Smythe," Mr. Lancer cleared his throat, slapping a couple of folders down on his desk, and looked at Tucker. Raising his eyebrows as he spoke again, "Mr. Foley, chronically tardy, talking in class, loitering outside the girls' bathroom."

Danny also looked at Tucker, raising an eyebrow as Tuck smiled slyly, but snapped back to attention when Lancer looked at him.

"And Mr. Fenton, two hundred seventy-six accounts of dropped beakers in the last couple years, along with a recently passed ban from holding any fragile school property, but no major issues." Danny shrunk back into his seat as he felt the three teens near the door stare at him.

He heard Po whisper, "A full-out ban doesn't count as a major issue?"

If possible he shrunk down even more, shoulders sloped. Mr. Lancer crossed his arms. "So tell me, gentlemen, what was it that prompted you to conspire to destroy the cafeteria, AND SABOTAGE OUR BELOVED SCHOOL NEWSPAPER??"

"Dash started the food fight," Danny didn't feel bad in the slightest for lying since Dash was smiling at him so smugly. "And we didn't do anything to the newspaper!"

The blonde looked them up and down critically, "I don't think that these two could cause that big of a thud, they're too thin!"

"Practically sticks." Po nodded, giving a half shrug. "Especially Danny."

Danny wasn't sure if he was offended by being called out like that, or maybe a little excited that one of the popular kids knew his name and wasn't using it to outright curse him. Actually, he wasn't sure that Dash knew his first name so maybe that didn't count.

Mr. Lancer frowned at Danny and Tucker but seemed to be considering the Smythes’ input. So, like the fool he is, Danny pushed his nonexistent luck. "Dash-"

"Threw three touchdowns at our last game and is thereby exempt from scorn," Lancer frowned heavily. "But since you two have no other explanations I must insist that you stay here as I sort out your punishments." He looked at Dash, "guard the door."

Dash's smug smirk hadn't wavered a millimeter this whole time, he nodded and then turned back to staring, gloating, at Danny.

"Miss Smythe, Mx Smythe, if you wouldn't mind accompanying me? As they did also ruin your work it's fair you get input on the punishments." 

As the Smythes left the room murmuring their agreement, Danny thought he heard Po hum in disappointment. Which was worse than Dash's gloating. Cause like, at least Dash's smug face was something he was used to. Dash continues to smirk, for some reason going outside the room to guard the door from the outside.

Tucker turned to Danny, eyes wide. "We've got to go save Sam," he winced, "for some reason, I feel like I got her kidnapped!"

Danny sighed. "Maybe because you told the ghost she was the one to change the menu?"

"I think it's just survivor's guilt," Tucker said, standing up with a shrug. When suddenly he sniffed the air. "Hold on, that steak is still in the building!" He sniffed again, frowning. "Two hundred yards, tops."

“How easily do you think you could track it down?”

Tucker tapped his nose. “This baby has never steered me wrong!”

Danny paused just before transforming again. “That,” he blinked, “isn’t an answer.” With a deadpan look, Tucker crossed his arms as Danny ‘went ghost’. “Easily. Whoa!” Tucker jerks as Danny grabs his arm, the both of them turning intangible and sliding through the floor. “Alright, time to start the search!” “What am I a bloodhound?” Tucker’s annoyance was short-lived as he and Danny touched down in a strange sublevel. “Closer.” He sniffed a few more times, looking around. “And a lot of it.”

“Sounds like the right way.” Danny frowned, continuing the search.

“Sweet mother of mutton!” Tucker might’ve started crying as they entered the food basement, Danny shivered in the cold. “I dreamed of it,” Tucker had pressed himself in a strange hug against the stacks of boxes labeled as different kinds of meat. “But… I never thought I’d live to see it!”

“You dreamed of a chilled underground meat warehouse, actually, never mind.” Danny glanced around. “Are you sure this is the place? I mean, there’s a lot of meat here.” 

No reply.

“Tuck?” Danny glanced back at his friend as there was a small crash. He sighed. “How is it that I have the ghost powers and you're the weird kid?”

Tucker had pushed a stack of boxes over, crashing them into a set of shelves. Standing up he froze, “-uh,” he pointed at an approaching figure. Danny jumped a little as Po came fully into view. “What are you doing down here?”  

“Oh, I’m just,” ve leaned against a stack of boxes which fell over and tried to remain casually leaning on nothing. "Taking a walk, in the dark storage room, like ya do. But, uh, what are you two doing here? Did Mr. Lancer change his mind about your punishment?"

"I-yES!" Danny shouted. "YES! That's it! We need.... to..."

"What? We aren't-" Tucker said, frowning as he looked at Danny, but correctly changed course when Danny elbowed him. "Right. We're doing... meat inventory."

“Yeah,” Danny smiled, edging away slowly, “and we should get going now.”

"Or we could not." Tucker did some strange smirk and finger guns at Po, who frowned briefly. Danny mentally sighed, facepalming, so much for survivor's guilt.

“That is an option, yes,” Po said, putting ver right hand on ver hip. Danny almost was sure that ve was going to leave any second, but suddenly ver expression changed, smiling brightly. “That I wholeheartedly support! We could talk, you know I feel like we don't talk anymore!"

"But we didn't talk that much-" Danny started.

"Which should change!"

Danny sighed because obviously Tucker was being rapidly swayed by Po’s argument. 

"Talking sounds good and all, but what about some other time? When we don't… have all this… inventory to do?" Danny said awkwardly, because like, in the school ecosystem, he is being paid attention to by a big fish in a small pond. And he didn’t really like that he was tempted to take advantage of the situation to raise his social standing. Sam is probably fine anyway.

Who is he kidding, Sam probably is still provoking the ghost with zero sense of self-preservation.

Po spread ver arms. "I got it! How about we take inventory together? It'll get done faster and we can talk while we walk!"

"It would seem like a good plan,” Danny said, nodding before raising a hand. “But maybe if we split up then it'll get done even faster?"

"Listen, guys," Po said, sighing as ve crossed ver arms. "I know you're not here to do meat inventory."

"Wh-what do you mean?"

"If you really don't want to help clean up the newsroom that much Nood and I can have a talk with Mr. Lancer about it, you don't need to flee four floors below the school to live among the meat." Po rolled ver eyes. "Plus I'm pretty sure that the menu change won't last another day. The janitor would riot."

"Oh, OH!" Danny tried not to grin. "Really? You would?”

Po crossed ver arms, scoffing as ve said. “Duh, we’ve known you for like, fifteen years Danny. Even if we don’t get along, and you’re kind of a loser, and your pants fall down way too often to where it’s frankly concerning, and your dad did lock us in a cage in freshman year because he thought there was a ‘ghost’ at the school because something blew up in his basement, and-”

“Okay, I get it!” Danny held up his hands, kinda confused. “Thanks? I guess?”

“No more dirt!” Tucker cheered. He seemed to have sort of gotten stuck on that bit, which Danny couldn’t blame him for.

“So, you guys gonna… go now?”

“Uhm,” Danny looked around wildly, eyes locking on Tucker as he came up with an excuse for them to stay a little longer. “I think Tucker still needs some time here.”

“Oh.”

“Uh, alone.”

Danny ignored Tucker’s indignant shout as Po’s eyes widened. “Oh, ew, uhm. Bye, then. See you tomorrow in class.” Tucker watched as ve hurriedly walked away.

“Danny!” Tucker groaned. “Now all my hopes of getting an introduction to the cheer team are dashed!”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think they were that likely to begin with. Besides, isn’t the weird underground meat storage what you’ve dreamed of?” Danny said, raising an eyebrow. “And in case you forgot, we still need to find Sam.”

“I guess.” Tucker sighed, and they rounded the corner where Po had come from. “Oh hey!”

In a clearing from shelves, the Lunch Lady was removing an assortment of meat from Sam. Who seemed more angry than frightened. “I went through a lot of work to get my petitions and proposed menus accepted and this is the thanks I get? I’ve been working on this for two years !”

“My dear child...meat is good for kids! It helps them grow and makes them smile!” The Lunch Lady tutted, but Danny wasn’t sure what to do as she seemed to have calmed down, treating Sam like a toddler throwing a tantrum. And she was taking the meat off. 

“We don't need meat. That's a fact!” Sam shouted.

“SILENCE!!” The Lunch Lady dropped the steak she’d just lifted. “You need discipline! Manners! Respect! Do you know where that comes from? MEAT!!” She took a deep breath, closing her eyes. “Chicken, or fish?”

“GET ME OUT OF HERE!”

Okay, she stopped taking the meat off. “I'll take care of the ghost,” Danny said. “You just find a way to get Sam out of that pile of meat!”

“Way ahead of ya!”

Danny did a double take as Tucker procured a knife and fork. “Have, have you been carrying those around this whole time?”

“Just since lunch, I was planning on breaking into the teacher’s lounge to investigate.”

“Ah, well, I’m going ghost!” Danny closed his eyes. Opening them to fly forward, giving the Lunch Lady a hard shove.

“I’ll have you free in no time Sam!” Tucker said cheerfully.

“Ugh,” Sam groaned as he just started eating. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Get, uh,” Danny landed in front of the Lunch Lady, who glared up at him. “Get out of here!”

“You barely made me budge!” She shouted. Danny took that personally. Rushing toward her to attack, she caught his fist before it made contact. “See this??” He blinked, now hanging in the air from where she held his arm. “This is why you need meat! You’re just skin and bones!” Danny felt attacked in more than one way as she threw him through the air, for one she just threw him against the wall, and for another, he knew that he wasn’t eating well and didn’t need the reminder. Nor did he need the Lunch Lady to just scoff and fly away.

Sam shouted again. “Danny? I’d rather not wait ten years for Tucker to finish!”

“Yeah, okay.” Danny frowned, looking up where the Lunch Lady had just… ascended? “Be right there.” With that said Danny winced, getting up and floating to the meat pile. “Hold still.” Quickly going intangible, he grabbed Sam and Tucker, flying up until they were outside. Letting go with a gasp, he fell to his knees and (de)transformed. Flopping back onto his back he groaned.

“Gee, Danny. Fighting meat monsters, flying through walls…” Sam frowned. “You must be exhausted.”

“What?” Danny forced a laugh, attempting to stand. “No of course not! What, would, give… you… that…”

When Danny woke up he was in bed, Sam and Tucker anxiously looking at him from either side of his bedroom, and they rushed over to the bed. “Ah! Aah! Wha? What's going on?”

Tucker sat down, brow furrowed. “You passed out! We took you home, you’ve been asleep for four days!”

Panic flooded Danny who rapidly sat up, how did his parents respond? What happened while he was out? Wh-oh. He noticed Tucker laughing. “Nah, it’s only been a couple of hours. And your parents seemed to be more worried about Jazz than you.”

Danny laid back, sighing. “Dad thinks she’s a ghost again.”

“Yep.”

“Knock it off, Tucker.” Sam put her hands on her hips. “This is the second time today your carelessness almost got him killed.”

“ Me? I almost got him killed? The only reason this happened is because you had to be ‘unique’. You had to take the meat away!” Tucker said, standing upright from where he was leaning on the bed. “And I’m gonna make sure we get it back!” With that, he stalked out of the room.

Sam’s expression darkened, and she shouted after him. “You want to change the menu back?? YOU’RE JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE! INCAPABLE OF CHANGING FOR THE BETTER!” She ran out the door after him, well probably to home. But she did leave after him. Danny sighed.

He looked at the door that had been slammed closed after her. “Oh well. I'm sure everything will be back to normal by tomorrow.”

“Or maybe it’s so much worse.” The next day Danny stood outside of the school, giant set-ups for both ‘teams’ on either side.

“Who,” The blonde girl, Nood, was wheezing with laughter. She, Po, and their friend the foreign exchange student were similarly caught between the two groups. “Hah! Who did this -hah!-overnight!”

Tucker’s voice blared out from speakers set on a stage, the cheer team was dressed in hot dog outfits behind him, dancing. “What do we want?”

“Meat!”

“When do we want it?”

“Now!”

Various students and a few adults that Danny didn’t recognize were in the meat crowd, chanting in response to Tucker’s lead. Vaguely Danny wondered how he managed to get so many people to follow him, then he remembered the universal outrage in the cafeteria yesterday. On the side of the schoolyard, Sam stood on a school bus surrounded by hippies and a few goths who looked mostly annoyed. They weren’t holding signs like the others but seemed to just not want to stand with the popular kids. Sam and her cohorts were chanting into megaphones.

“Veggies now! Veggies forever! Veggies now! Veggies forever!”

“What on earth?” Po was staring at the groups.

The foreign exchange student frowned, raising his eyebrows. “This is dumb.”

Danny didn’t have time to try and respond before Tucker and Sam were marching toward him. He shook his head at them as they glared at each other. “You guys put together two protests in one night?”

“Meat-eaters, Danny. Always ready to fight.” Tucker smiled smugly at Sam, still somehow glaring at the same time. “And our high-protein diets give us the energy we need to do it quickly.”

“-I already talked with the principal and teachers, and we agreed that it was wiser to go back to the old menu.”

Danny heaved another sigh as Po and company continued their discussion in the background, further proving this whole fight was pointless. “Guys-”

“Ultra recyclo-vegetarians are always ready to protest,” Sam growled.

“Guys.”

 “And because we don't have to waste time cooking our food,” she said, with a sudden grin, “we can move even faster.”

“GUYS!” Danny threw his hands in the air, and Sam and Tucker turned to him abruptly. “Don’t you think this is a little extreme?”

“No choice-”

“- what in the sweet fresh world of madness YOU PEOPLE DON'T EVEN GO TO THIS SCHOOL?!” Tucker was cut off by Po’s shouting. “GET OUT OF HERE!” Sam looked very deflated as the majority of her rally disbanded. Danny shivered as a cold wind blew through, and his ghost sense went off.

“Okay guys,” The meat from the meat rally had swirled into the air, a giant Lunchmeat Lady standing. Danny gulped. “It’s time to make up.”

“IT’S LUNCHTIME!” She cackled. 

Tucker fell to his knees as the meat rally also disbanded, with much screaming. “Meat! Why have you betrayed me?!”

“Now!”

Tucker stood, begrudgingly ‘hugging’ Sam to hide Danny as he transformed. He flew up towards the ghost, who was less ghost and more haunted meat at this point, squaring his shoulders. And getting smacked into the air. “AAAAAAHH-” Danny paused, “Wait.” He blinked. Struggling for a second. Before stilling “Oh wow, flying really helps with your momentum in the air. And I can see my house from here.”

He sped back down to the Lunch Lady, landing a solid kick in her… face? “Sorry, you seem like you need some tenderizing!”

His epic quips were cut short by a few screams, a food truck from the meat rally had launched into the air and was rocketing back down toward a group of students who were trying to scatter out of the way. Danny was really over all this, the menu was changed back anyway! He rushed over to turn the truck intangible, but unfortunately for the truck, he let go of it as it was partially in the ground. Danny winced as the concrete suddenly cracked. “Listen, Lady,” He dodged a volley of meat. “The menu-” he put his arms in front of his face. “-is fixed!” Flying into a direct impact with the meat monster resulting in meat flying everywhere.

Danny groans, slowly sitting up from where he had landed in a huge crater. The Lunch Lady peered over the side of the crater. “Oh, dear! What a mess! Are you okay?”

“Ugh,” Danny rubbed his left arm. “Yeah, I think so.”

“I’m sorry dearie, did I hear you right?” She sniffed suddenly in a way that reminded him of Tucker and beamed. “Oh, it is true! The menu is back to normal! Thank you, dear.” She hauled him out of the crater, pinching his cheek. And she flew away, through where Jack and Maddie were talking with Jazz a little ways away. They seemed to have completely missed the whole fight for some reason. Suddenly the Lunch Lady flew back. “Try not to let the menu get changed again!” And she sunk into the ground.

“Uh.”

“Danny!” Sam and Tucker rushed over to him. “Are you okay?”

“What happened?” Sam looked around. “Where's the ghost?”

“I guess all she wanted was the menu changed back.”

“G h o s t—s t r a i g h t—a h e a d.” The Fenton Finder’s electric voice rang out as Jack and Maddie came jogging over.

“Danny! Where’s the ghost??” Maddie was looking around frantically.

“Y o u—w o u l d—h a v e—t o—b e—s o m e—s o r t—o f—m o r o n—t o—n o t—n o t i c e—t h e—g h o s t—d i r e c t l y—a h e a d.”

Jack looked up from the Fenton Finder towards him.

“Ah, sorry Dad.” Danny smiled weakly. “You just missed her.”

“We got a runner!” Jack and Maddie took off again. Jazz had been standing behind them, arms crossed.

“Great.” She rolled her eyes, walking away. “Back to square one.”

“So, you're not gonna tell 'em?” Tucker said once the trio were ‘alone’ in the courtyard.

Danny shook his head, briefly glancing at where the Lunch Lady disappeared. “Nah. I think I might've finally figured out something, about the ghosts, and my powers. They make me-”

“In a world of trouble.”

Danny sighed, deflating as Mr. Lancer came over, scowling down at them.

Right.

Just his luck.

for https://archiveofourown.org/works/40659168

bc the old image link broke and I need to fix it. Who knew. Anyway.

[sakuraswordly]

Punch: Writing again huh? How's Sofia, Colin?

Colin: Pretty well thanks...

Punch: What kind of silly dumb face with that Colin? Even though she hasn't said she loves you yet, at least you two are already dating you know! Can't be just give a smile a little?!

Colin: A smile?! H...how?

Punch: Let's see...start to smile now!

Colin: N...now?????

Danny: Punch...Colin was shy, clumsy and anxious. He was rather awkward in conversations.

Punch: Like you in the past Danny, that's why you had little to no friends at all!

Danny: Hey! At least I had Sam and Tucker!

Punch: Listen Colin, Danny was awkward and nervous yet friendly. Like most teenagers, he desires to be popular, has a dislike of bullies and embarrassment from his parents. But unlike most teenagers, he had super-powers. He struggled to cope with them and was afraid of anyone discovering his secret, fearing it would make him "go from geek to freak" and longed to be normal just like everyone else again. But after fighting ghosts for the first time, he realized he could use his powers for good. This newfound sense of purpose changed Danny into a heroic, brave young man.

Colin: Wow....I'm feeling....umm...

Danny: Don't tell my past life to him! I am not a heroic, brave young man anymore!

Punch: Heh! Then why do you help me if you're not a superhero?

Danny: That's because you're my friend!

Punch: Friend you say? I don't think I believe in you because I am a freak that's why you help me! You said for yourself back then!

Danny: That's because....!!

Colin: *Giggle*

Punch: See? You're smiling now!

Colin: Oh..! Oops...

Punch: No No No! Smile like that! You don't have to force yourself to smile that shows that you are fine! If you are not fine then you can't smile, your true happiness.

Colin: About...." A freak"...umm...

Punch: Oh about that....just like I said earlier, Danny had super-powers. He struggled to cope with them and was afraid of anyone discovering his secret, fearing it would make him "go from geek to freak"! Even if I was similar to Danny, that doesn't change anything that I would still be me.

Colin: You...very much like Faye.

Punch: Faye huh....you did tell us that Faye was also not human right?

Colin: Yes. But I don't care what she is or not human...she was my first real friend. I won't forget that ever.

Punch: So don't miss a chance like this okay?

Colin: Huh?

Punch: I'll admit, I was skeptical at first, but by little, I realized that for quite a while now...you've already been flying all on your own. I can't promise that it will be easy life and I can't promise that you won't have regrets. This is "life". So happy that you're now okay?

Colin: *Smile*Thanks Punch! You're very friendly more than any strangers I ever met. But I still....Faye isn't here....umm...

Punch: You want me to come with you yes?

Colin: YES!!

Danny: W... why are you yelling?!

Punch: Hehe...Danny, don't be jealous if I go with Colin okay?

Danny: Wait! What's that mean "Jealous"? Aaaand she's gone *Sigh*

Colin: Did Punch was really called a freak in the past? That's horrible.

Danny: Before she met her new father with new life and met me, her original village where she lives treated her like a freak even calling her a freak. Despite her intelligence, cute and beautiful make her being so perfect which normal people can't or haven't. They reject her even more and do not praise her because of their jealousy both men and women.

Colin: I never thought that people like that existed. Even though I don't have friends but people around never be like that even my family.

Danny: You're lucky than us Colin, as Punch said, don't miss a chance like this okay?

Colin: You too Danny.

Danny: Huh?

Colin: Don't miss a chance like this too. Not every day you would meet someone like her, just like Faye. I never miss a chance to be with her even she's gone.

Danny: ..........I hope I could too but........

Source Character:

Colin Reeds is a major character of Finding Paradise as well as the main playable character of A Bird Story.

Faye is a major character in Finding Paradise. Initially, she seems to be Colin Reeds' childhood friend, but is later revealed to be a figment of Colin's imagination. She returns in Impostor Factory as a major character.

Explanation 11(Analysis)

Kan Gao: His true wish really was to simply be happy and satisfied with his life.

Kan Gao: The thing that was changed was the removal of Sigmund Corp which allowed him to shift his focus back to the actual life he's had.

If you played Imposter Factory, this is the real reason why Sigmund Corp was established.

It's reversed time or turn back time to make a different choice.

As you can see Colin is more cheerful, confidence and willpower in Tsubasa of Phantasia even though Faye wasn't here, thanks to Punch, because of Punch always comes to visit him the same way she did to L Lawliet. (#Hint loving Children). But Colin when as a teenager, while still rather shy, Colin's confidence and willpower had improved thanks to the help of Faye. Regardless, he still had little to no friends but claimed that this didn't bother him, as he was fine with Faye being his only friend. Colin was a shy, clumsy, anxious, and rather lonely child. He just wants someone to be with him and very afraid that he will lose that someone again just like in A Bird Story. His loneliness led to him "creating" Faye as an imaginary friend in Finding Paradise. Colin was an example of the way of life of a middle-class person, although they have everything, the only thing missing is someone who is happy for them or a representative of their parents. They had everything but not warmhearted.

The creator of Finding Paradise, Kan Gao, was once asked what defined the core of the games he developed, to which he replied:

"In my work, I often deal with loneliness."

Warmheartedness is the key to everything if humans don't have it they will search and find that warmhearted like finding new work or new friends or imaginary friends if they have a talent to create. So if the family had enough warmhearted to them, they were able to dare to face new happiness. But if it's too much, they'll become a person who doesn't want anyone, withdraws and is afraid of this and that. Even Colin doesn't have Faye, he still has Sofia.

Colin: I just...didn't want to let it go. I guess I was living in my head a little too much.

Sofia: You're no longer aloof, y'know? When you're here, you're actually...here.

Kan Gao: His true wish really was to simply be happy and satisfied with his life.

Agents at Sigmund Corp are tasked with interfacing with Collin's memories during his final hours and rewriting them to rid him of regrets, so he dies believing he was a truly happy man.

Colin is satisfied with his life now even though he's afraid to lose again but he chooses to grow up and keep moving. Colin chose the right thing in reality even though he didn't want to change since A Bird Story. For example, Colin let go, stopped making imaginary friends and faced the truth. Even if Faye was real, she still told him to move forward. This already shows how good his family was even though they didn't have much time to be with him. Collin coped with his distress by literally having conversations with himself almost until he was an adult. Colin was an intelligent kid, who believed in himself and had what I can only describe as an excessive amount of self-awareness,

Colin: I might not have such a happy life, y'know...

Faye: You're such a downer, you know that? Have a little faith in yourself, Colin. Of course, you will. I know you will.

Kan Gao: Finding Paradise is about seeking reality from fantasy

According to Kan Gao, Colin didn't have any regrets. He just failed to accept his past mistakes the moment he saw that there was a way to rectify them, aka Sigmund Corps services. Truth that Colin didn't have any regrets but that his past mistakes were real "regrets". If Colin doesn't have a happy life in the end he will put his past mistakes as his "regrets". That's what every human is afraid of the most. Having a happy life but ending up in a tragic ending or sad ending. Colin is afraid of this so much that's why he went to Sigmund Corp to not have any "regrets" when he dies not when in present but in the future. When we grow up, we know that this world won't have a happy ending like we knew when we were kids. This is what it meant seeking reality from fantasy.

The reason I put that Merlin scene in this video is because to be clear that's how Colin wants to see his missing bird as in Faye. You could tell how much Merlin wanted to see Freya. Even Colin is glad about his life still he really wants to see his missing bird again. If Colin meets Faye, he can die happy without "regrets"(Colin created her and abandoned her and still has not said goodbye or said sorry or thank you to her yet in reality not in his fantasy.)

In Tsofph Season 8(Story of Daily Life)

About hint I wrote that later Punch's group will take Freya and Merlin travelling together in Tsofph Season 11(Chapter 2 Shadow Path). This event happened at the same time or time as in Tsofph Season 8(Story of Daily Life). But a hint about Freya is the Lady of the Lake still not shown yet in Tsofph Season 8(Story of Daily Life). What I told that Sigmund Corp was established to reverse time or turn back time to make a different choice. In Season 8 is Colin's wish, this is Colin's world. In Finding Paradise, a timeline doesn't exist, but in Tsubasa of Phantasia, a timeline does. For example, Faye isn't supposed to exist in Finding Paradise, but in Tsubasa of Phantasia, she does exist and is real. Colin investigates a ruckus he hears in the forest and finds a bird being attacked by a badger. Freya first met Colin when she transformed into a bird that time. Colin shoos off the badger but not before the bird's left wing is injured. After learning that the veterinary clinic is closed, Colin decides to keep it on his apartment's balcony, where he nourishes it with bread and water. Little is known about Freya's early life. She once told Merlin that she had grown up in a beautiful place next to a lake surrounded by mountains and wildflowers. She lived there until her family died under unspecified circumstances. Colin and Freya form a deep friendship as they spend more time together. The next surreal scenes show the two doing various activities including playing fetch with Colin's paper airplanes and jumping into puddles in the rain. Colin becomes popular with other kids with the bird's help. Later, the two build a giant paper airplane using sheets of paper from Colin's journal, and they fly to various floating islands to look for a suitable nesting area for the bird. Unfortunately, they fail to find one but when return to Colin's apartment the rain quickly turns into a thunderstorm, and lightning strikes destroy his paper plane. He falls to the ground amid the remains of the plane, and when he comes to, the bird is nowhere to be found. Colin still searches his balcony for his missing bird.

"In my own ways...I will always be there to protect you"

Life returns to normal for Colin, but with his fellow students no longer picking on him and playing with him in the local park. Until one day,

"Whatcha doin' up there?"

"Uhh, you do have a name, right?"

".....Colin"

Faye and Colin first met as kids, speaking to each other from across their balconies. Their friendship remained strong throughout their early and teenage years. Colin did notice that Faye had a bird, the same bird who was at the clearing before, it was his first friend's mate. Maybe Faye must have known about his missing bird. Though often teasing Colin, Faye genuinely cared for him and wanted to spend time with him to help better him as a person. Colin eventually learned to play the cello properly, applied for his first job, and mustered the courage to ask Sofia out on a date. Faye supported the relationship after seeing how happy Colin was. When Faye felt that Colin had matured enough, she took him to their favourite hill overlooking the city. There, she explained to him that he would have to move on without her and she revealed that she was the missing bird that Colin tried to find for so long. She promised that, in a way, she would always be around to protect him. The two hugged before Faye faded away.

"I don't care what you are or aren't...you were my first real friend"

"And Faye...also your little friend(Bird)...thank you for having been there, even when nobody else was"

[impyssadobsessions]

An idea, Danny and the gang have graduated from high school. They are now all bound for higher learning, as an agreement they have all agreed to attend in the same city, as it turns out they all get accepted to Gotham University out in Gotham City.

Ooo Yeah. Imagine them going to strange places to do homework and to hang out instead of normal college hangouts. Like on top of a building that have no easy access to. But Danny just flies them up, so they can have whatever lunch(fast food) they picked up and to do work n hangout. Danny focused on actually getting good grades since he has the time. Gotham already has vigilantes, what does it need him for. He still has to fly back to Amity time to time, but maybe the portal finally has doors that work to keep ghosts in. (if this is post reveal) can see Danny having finally convinced them to upgrade. Things are still rocky with his parents, but they accept him and besides a few... misunderstandings he was able to get through rest of school with decent grades. They are all planning to have good college years since they were busy with ghosts most of high school. Danny having no idea exactly what he's wanting to do but since his parents are inventors, it sounds like an easy major to get a degree in for him. Tucker in tech, probably excited he might be scouted for wayne tech, near the end of his degree. Sam in politics. Tucker probably tried to convince Danny to go into tech with him, but Danny didn't think he be good at it. Which Tuck disagrees since he's going for engineering anyways. Can see the trio is the least bothered by events than any out of town students. Most just assume their gothamites if it wasn't for their accent. Jazz maybe setting up a deal so she can join them in Gotham after a couple years in her schooling. Finish her bachelors then intern, while completing her masters. Danny saying she didn't have too, Jazz being adamant of being in same town as her brother. Danny just looking forward to the only thing being stressful about this situation was his exams and projects.... Too bad Skulker still wants his pelt, and now he has bats suspecting he's a meta. Great. At least his friends are with him.

[allie-glace]

So I have a DP x HP idea,

Danny and Draco twins AU

So like when Narcissa was first pregnant they go see a doctor who says "Congratulation, they're twins !!!" Narcissa and Lucius freak out. There is a curse in the Malfoy blood, of every pairs of twins one will be a squib.

And it's not like they won't love thwir children even if they're a squib because they good parents (not good people) but with the political climat...

Will she is still pregnant they start to chearch for good people to take care of Danny and take him back later (Lucius know about the prophecy and now bet on it for his child).

At birth they use a banned blood rtual to see wich child is a wizard.

Draco is the wizard and Deneb is not.

Cue Danny get taken by the Fenton who have alredy adopted a little girl from Englend.

One year after the Dark lord is defeted and the Malfoy are overjoyed, even is their little boy won't have a perfect lives in the wizarding world at least he will be with them.

So they go in Amity Parck but then they learn something that change everything ;

Danny is a creature

The spell on the Malfoy lineage has let a hidden bloodline on the black side take over Danny D.N.A, so in the end they leave Danny with the Fenton but come back to see him every summer.

They leav him because it's even more dangerous for a creature born from wizard in the wizarding englend that for a squib

Everythin goes like in the serie and the book, only in HP book 5 the order that the Malfoy yearly trip to the US hide something. Cue someone his send in Amtiy Park, of course the Death eater discover it and sent someone too.

Because of that Danny get kidnapped to the UK by the order and he hates them for that.

Some more information :

- Amity park is a city with so much magical people that every muggles that live here know about magic

- When first created Amity park has a big magical immigration in and with time and now it's a magical majority

- Tucker is a were-lion

- Sam is a muggle

- Wes is a seer and psychic

- Draco with the big muggle that Danny was he becomes a some sort of goth

- Even if he his still sh*t at school it's only a cover to protect his brother

- Jazz is the daughter of Fabian Prewett, when her father died her mother has given for adoption

- Jack Fenton is a squib and Maddie a muggle

Addition : forgot but I took the name Deneb for Danny from the fanfiction Stars Aligned by Marsalias

[goodfish-bowl]

Too Dead for This

Ectoberhaunt Day 24: Past

AO3 Link | Next Chapter

Summary: Things go sharply south after the "Disater-oid" incident. With the entire world being familiar with his face, and the GIW after him, Danny has been on the run for years. But after seven years, Danny stops running, and fights back. He dies for the second time that night. Danny Fenton wakes up in the body of his 14-year-old self, the day after the Accident.

Warnings: Violence in Self Defense, Phantom Planet compliant, Major Character Death

Words: 4381

Notes: Based on this au by @wheatsheep on expect I play more hurt the Danno for now. Perhaps. I've seen to have dug myself into a long-fic hole, so it's not going to be hurt the boy the entire time.

@ectoberhaunt

Danny knew he had awful luck; it was a proven fact. After the whole “Disater-oid” incident, keeping with the media trend of terrible names, he thought he might finally catch a break. Sure, his identity was out to the entire planet, and his face plastered all over every news outlet internationally, but they’d give him a break, right? Vlad wasn’t… around anymore, and the ghosts were actually leaving him alone to recuperate in their own way. He’d managed to save an entire planet, he needed to rest after pulling that off. He felt he deserved that much, at least. It’s not like they were building statues in his honor or anything. Sure, his parents were avoiding him (Jazz said they needed time to adjust), and no one on the news seemed to know how to react to the fact that ghosts were real, one had saved the earth, and said ghost was also a 15-year-old boy from Illinois.

But then there were news reporters seconds away from breaking into his house, and Danny actually had to stop one from trying to climb through his window. Sometimes he’d let one ask him a question from his window, or floating above them as Phantom, just to offer a few crumbs before they started making stuff up about him just to get something out there. He didn’t want another Inviso-Bill situation, especially internationally, and he had at least learned it was better to have a hand in the narrative than let it run wild without him. So no, he wasn’t getting much rest.

Sam and Tucker were also in their own form of social lockdown, which both of them took far more advantage of than he did. Tucker used it to score brownie points, and also got to talk to some big names in tech. Sam used the publicity to push her various causes and had developed an internet cult following overnight. Valerie took to it worse than he did, especially since she had developed a tendency to growl at the reporters if they tried to bother her at work, and nearly broke some tech-guy’s hand when he pushed too hard about her suit, leaving him little time to talk with them himself. The Nasty Burger was doing surprisingly well the past few days at least.

His parents decided to approach him sometime on day three. In short, it was awkward and uncomfortable, and Danny was infinitely thankful for Jazz’s ability to play interference. Danny had ended up spending most of that night trying to explain to his very confused parents that he really wasn’t possessed, hadn’t taken place of their son, did not have any evil influence affecting his every waking moment due to being a ghost, he had actually wanted to do the things he did (mostly), and clearing up any other miscellaneous misconceptions that came up. Jazz was probably the only reason it didn’t devolve into shouting or Danny getting jumped by his own parents and dragged into the lab. He just hoped some of it stuck with them, so he wouldn’t have to explain it again. The hardest part was when his parents asked if he had really died. That of course wasn’t something he really wanted to go over, but he told them all he could about the day in the lab. It seemed to pain them as much as it did him to go over it.

By day four, Danny was sure he could actually start to catch a break. His parents were talking to him (mostly ghost questions), and the news reporters had all miraculously disappeared sometimes late the night before. But he also hadn’t heard much from any of his friends either, just a partially concerned call from Mr. Lancer who wanted to talk to him about accommodations and making up schoolwork over the summer, tacked on to a ‘thank you for saving the world’ and an offer to talk whenever he needed it. Which was nice, but Danny wasn’t so sure Mr. Lancer was equipped to handle even half of his problems, even if he did appreciate the gesture.

Then, that afternoon, it all went to shit. The GIW rolled up to his house and demanded his parents hand him over to their custody. They cited the Anti-Ecto Acts and everything, and suddenly the lack of reporters made sense. The news reported had been chased off by the government. They didn’t want the public to know that they were going after his head. His parents confronted them, while Danny watched from the window. The answer was a resounding ‘no,’ and the GIW didn’t take it well.

Danny, Tucker, Sam, and Jazz had planned if things ever went south, but most of that plan depended on all of them being available. None of them except Jazz now were, but he had to make do. So, he took off, without the money from Sam or way to get in contact from Tucker. Jazz provided the cover and distraction for him to sneak through the perimeter the GIW had set up around his house. It was a close thing, and Danny had to stay human to keep him from pinging on their equipment, along with limited power use. It didn’t help that he was still exhausted, but he had no choice. He had to leave.

And so, Danny fled, and kept running. The entire world knew his face, so he couldn’t find any reprieve either. The GIW’s newest slander campaign was doing its damnest to make him a villain, and while that wasn’t very successful, everyone knew he was on the run. The news fought back, and there had been a reporter near his house anyways and had managed to catch part of the confrontation. He became more intensely nocturnal to avoid people, sleeping in empty hotel rooms during the day, and sneaking around at night. He stole food he needed during the night as well, but only from places he knew wouldn’t miss it. He could get into libraries and cafés to send out an email to Sam, Tucker and Jazz, but those messages were few and far between, and he was never able to get a message back.

The GIW were always on his tail, in some sort of twisted game of cat and mouse. They followed him all across the country, from the big cities to the boonies. Anytime he transformed, he knew he set off their alarms, and his only hope was leave faster than they could get to him. He couldn’t not transform either, he was still recognizable, and someone ended up tipping them off after a time anyway. He didn’t dare return to Amity or anywhere near there. It was too dangerous to both him and those he cared about. It was better to be constantly on the move.

Danny did get his few moments of rest. There was a nice couple in New York who hid him for a while, though he only suspected they did it due to their lost nephew. He also found his way to Aunt Alicia in Spittoon and had managed to hole up there for a good couple month. The people there were protective of their own, and when the GIW came knocking, they fought tooth and nail to buy him time to escape. There were less GIW agents after that. Another small town in Oregon had the GIW chasing their own tail more often not, until some of the locals decided he was too suspicious and chased him out themselves.

Danny fled to Canada for a while, and honestly should’ve stayed there. But it was harder to survive on the move since he didn’t know how to get food in the middle of the Canadian wilderness, even if it was the best hiding spot he found. He would have to venture into a settlement of some kind eventually. He had considered going more abroad to hide, where the US government couldn’t both him, but he didn’t think he could make it over the ocean on his own and didn’t feel like hiding in a place so close to people such as a plane or a boat for an extended period of time longer than an hour. It was too risky.

As for the ghosts, Danny would find one every now and again. He didn’t fight them, and they didn’t try to start anything with him. These encounters were brief, mostly to exchange news since the ghosts didn’t want to associate with him either. Danny never really did check the news himself anyway. His mental state was fragile enough without hearing the GIW blasting ads about what an awful being he was.

It was… lonely, especially once Danny found the rhythm to moving around and his days shifted from intensely stressful to more monotonous. He was too recognizable to be anonymous, and with the GIW chasing after him, no one wanted to get caught in the cross-fire, no matter who he was and what he had done. It had been years since he had seen his friends, only sending the occasional email when he could, and even then, those had become less detail oriented, more like personal journal entries. He wondered if there was anyone other than the GIW still looking for him. It had started to feel like his only hope was to just keep moving until the GIW eventually gave up.

But by year five, it didn’t seem likely, and the GIW were getting closer to catching him every time Danny took a chance or didn’t get out soon enough. They’re weapons were getting better, while they agents themselves got more skilled. But Danny had gotten a lot stronger himself, now that he was an adult. His powers were off the charts, at least he thought so. He hadn’t checked in so long, he no longer had a full bearing on what he was capable of. But he did get really good at hiding and using his powers while in human form. Danny was pretty sure he could completely hide his ectosignature if he needed to at this point.

Danny had just turned twenty-two when it all went further downhill. The slander campaign reached a peak, and now normal humans were gunning for his head, with the media finally backing off of his defense for some reason. He had been camping out in the woods for the day, sleeping far too high in a tree. Someone had spotted him, and the GIW swarmed that small town like nothing else he had even seen. They had new weapons. Ones that looked distinctly FentonWorks in design. They hurt, in more ways than one. Two agents found his tree and shot at him before he could fully wake up.

“Where did you get those?” Danny spat.

The agent snarled, “what? You didn’t think your parents would sell you out, freak? I was honestly surprised it took this long for them to crack, those failures of ectoscientists.”

“What did you do?” Danny hissed, his unused powers boiling under his skin, begging to bet let out.

The other agent laughed at him. “Got rid of those fools years ago! It only took us so long to get our hands on their tech because they tried damn hard to hide their more interesting inventions from us. They tried to protect you, even in death. How pathetic.”

Danny stopped running at that point. After seven years of it, he was tired, and decided in that moment, he had given up on waiting it out. No. His parents were gone, and he had no idea if his sister and friends were okay either. He halted in his tracks and snapped around, switching his tune completely. He was tired of being hunted; it was time to try to opposite to see if that worked instead. Those two agents never left the forest that day.

Cat and mouse became a different game. Danny would wage guerrilla warfare on the GIW, while they, in-turn, hunted him endlessly. Neither of them would relent, and neither would leave that small town as long as the other was there. So that small town in North Dakota became a battle ground. He should’ve felt bad about hurting the GIW, they were just human after all, but after all those years living in fear, Danny didn’t hesitate to strike down an agent. It was a ‘them or him’ situation. And they had killed his parents. It was a clear-cut decision from his perspective.

After so long without being on the offensive, Danny felt like the ectoblasts were burning through his hand, along with whatever he had managed to hit. They were much stronger than he remembered, and his ice came out more freely than it ever had before, but was that much more difficult to reign in. Between his lack of control and the GIW general indifference to collateral damage. That small town somewhere in North Dakota was nearly leveled in the process. He did feel bad about displacing the people that had lived there and hoped somewhere in the back of his head that they had all managed to get out safely.

But Danny could only keep up so long. There was one of him, and hundreds of them. They had managed to get more than a few lucky shots. Danny was littered with holes that burned, and it sapped his strength. But he ground his teeth and pushed through it. Then, it was no longer about survival; he wasn’t going to last much longer either way. He wasn’t going to get to finish growing up, or any of that. He knew what lied ahead of him. Danny was going to take those bastards with him on his way to hell.

Danny stood in the middle of the carnage, right out in the open. He let them fire first, but then unleashed carnage. His wail ripped from his throat, decimating what little infrastructure was left, full of grief and rage. He fired blasts after blast and encased the entire town in an early winter. He fought tooth and nail, hitting with as much strength as he could muster, tanking more hits than he blocked or dodged. He could almost see how Dan had taken comfort in the absolutely violence he wrought. But this was difference than mindless slaughter, he was more of a cornered animal than predator. He only stopped when the agents did, deep into the night. They didn’t come back with reinforcements in another wave, if they even had any left in this this horrible, small town in the middle of nowhere.

Danny collapsed, felt himself switch back, and bleed out in the middle of it all. At least he could see the stars, even if he would never reach.

   Danny awoke with a choked gasp, clutching the sheets and whipping his head around wildly, confusion fogging up his mind. His entire body ached and burned, and his grip on his powers was slippery at best.

Danny awoke in a bed, a familiar one, and that was the first thing he noticed that was wrong. He was in a room, his room, that he hadn’t seen in years. All of his models and posters perfectly in place, just as he remembered, even the ones that had suffered since he had gotten his powers. But his room didn’t have the small stains that at had built up on the carpet from when he would sit on the ground to patch himself up. His sheets were untouched by small burns from ectoblasts set off by nightmares. It was like nothing bad had ever happened, but Danny could feel his powers, dancing in an uncertain flux under his skin. They hadn’t been this unstable since he had first gotten them.

As Danny shook the sleep from his head, the scenery didn’t change, and neither did his memories of the past seven years. It was distinctively not a dream, but here he was, in his own room, after what he knew had been his second meeting with death. Danny climbed out of his bed, and immediately wobbled on his feet. He should be taller than this, and the sudden height change threw him for a loop. He stumbled and wavered on his now too-short legs out of his room, across the hall, and practically crashed into the door of the bathroom when his intangibility refused to cooperate.

The face staring back at him was his own, but not the one Danny had come to know. This one was still padded by baby fat, eyes wide, flesh unscarred by anything other than the bright red Lichtenburg shooting up from the collar or his pajamas. It was seven years too young to be the face he had come to know as his own. Danny swayed and crashed to the bathroom floor. There was a shout from someone else in house. He was fourteen again, just after the accident that had taken his life from him. The past seven years were gone. Danny shuffled himself over the toilet and hurled.

The door opened and he was embraced. Danny stiffened and looked over his shoulder to see bright red hair and teal eyes he hadn’t seen since he had left. Jazz gave him a worried look.

“Danny? Are you okay? You don’t have to go to school if you don’t feel up to it. I’m sure we can convince mom and dad to call you in sick, especially after what happened yesterday. You need the rest, even if it is your first day of high school.”

“Jazz,” Danny whined, his eyes filling with tears. He sunk further into her embrace.

“Oh, Danny…” Jazz said gently, embracing him tightly.

Danny let himself cry and be led back into his room and back into his bed, taking any comfort he could get. Jazz planted a small kiss on his brow before giving him another soft, worried smile.

“I’ll talk to mom and dad. You just focus on getting better, okay?”

Danny nodded, tears blurring his vision as he watched Jazz walk away and out of his room, shutting the door gently behind him. As soon as the lock clicked, he broke down, choking on his own sobs so that no one would hear. He hadn’t cried in years, there had been no time, but now his jumbled mind couldn’t think of anything else to do. His eyes flares with his surge in emotions and he screwed them shut. He was all they way back at the beginning of everything, but a day too late to stop it all. He was already dead, but still too weak and unsteady to be of any use. Was this even a second chance? He could be hallucinating it all, or it could be some sort of twisted joke.

Danny took a deep breath to prevent himself from hyperventilating and grounded himself by focusing on the near-silent hum of his core. It was hard to pick out, which helped him focus in its own way. Last time, he hadn’t noticed until he was already on the run, but now he could feel his core steadily forming and solidifying in his chest after being used to a fully-developed one for so long. This one was still too fresh and fragile, smaller than he was used to. Danny curled up on himself and made a keening noise his throat wasn’t yet equipped to make.

Danny let the exhaustion sink deeper into his bones, which ached, and he fell into an unsteady sleep.

    Danny awoke to the unfamiliar sound of a cell phone. It had been ringing for the past several minutes, forcefully dragging him from his slumber. It took his mind a couple second to catch up to his current situation. It had been hours since he had fallen asleep, apparently, now early afternoon instead of morning. He grabbed the distantly familiar device and struggled to remember his passcode, before figuring it out after a minute of trial and error.

His cell was full of messages from both Sam and Tucker throughout the day, asking him where he was. Danny noticed the messages seemed to get more worried as the day went on. It made sense that they’d be concerned. He had died yesterday, after all. He responded simply and truthfully, with the fact that he’d been allowed to stay home and had been asleep. Their responses were immediate, asking if he was okay and if they could come over.

At the thought of seeing Sam and Tucker, Danny froze. Jazz hadn’t picked up anything different with him, and Danny hadn’t really been acting his (mental) age, but it was possible that either of them could pick up the sudden change. Sam had always been an extremely critical person, and Tucker had known his for so long he new every last one of Danny’s quirks, which had drastically changed over the past seven years. He could be spotted immediately.

Danny could always just tell them. It would be better than lying and pretending, but he wasn’t sure if they’d believe him. They weren’t the same Sam and Tucker he knew, not really. These ones didn’t have the experiences his did. No ghost fights, no possessions, no time travel. They had yet to go through the rough experiences that would follow in the next two years. He wasn’t even sure if he should drag them into all of this ghost business again, but he knew them better than that. They already knew he was a ghost; he wouldn’t be able to stop them from at least helping out.

Danny sent a text back out to the two that he was still really tired and wanted to continue resting. He was fine. It was a lie, but it would be a small one. It was a lie to buy time. Danny went and dragged himself out of bed, and stretched out his hands, trying to get used to them again. The dissonance was still there, but nearly as bad as it had been that morning. It was worse when he overshadowed someone.

Danny’s desk wasn’t the absolute mess it always became during the school season, so it was pretty easy to find a composition book that had been bought for the upcoming term. It gave it a nondescript title, ‘Future Plans.’ It took him hours, and his hand cramped up more often than not, probably from the nerve damage his ghost half had yet to fully repair, and not from no writing anything in years like his mind suppled, even if holding a pen felt foreign to him.

Danny wrote it all down, messily scribbled down in Esperanto. He jotted down everything he could remember, starting from his accident and continuing on over the years, but mostly just until he left. He wrote down what he felt were the causes of certain things in retrospect, and some events he hadn’t known about until long after they happened. He didn’t want to forget anything, or struggle to recall anything in the heat of the moment. If he could stop the worst of it all from happening, then he would consider it a resounding victory.

Danny’s pen stopped in the middle of a phrase. He knew better than to meddle, didn’t he? He had messed with the past before and he knew exactly where they would get him. He wanted things to change, all of the stuff from this point forward, other than certain things he needed to happen, he wanted to alter, but should he?

Danny set the pen down and tried to rub the pain out of his hand, only cramping it further. He let out a low groan. If his parents weren’t in the lab, he could’ve tried to get to Clockwork. He had to know about what was going on and could even be the reason Danny had ‘Returned to Go’ in the first place. But with the portal being newly opened, his parents would be holed up in there for the next week, just like last time.

That brought it into question on if he could even handle the Ghost Zone at this point. He had no control over his own powers, and his core was underdeveloped. It would probably help him stabilize to be in such an ectoplasm-saturated environment, but people would notice is he was gone, especially if he didn’t have anyone to cover for him. No, he couldn’t go to the Long Now yet, but that didn’t write off going into the Ghost Zone in general.

Danny went back to writing, finishing up what had to be the story of what had been the first two years of his life as a ghost in messy, Esperanto-shorthand. It was completely indecipherable to anyone else. Perfect. Danny flipped the book to the back, then upside down, and began again. This time, constantly referencing what he had already written in the first three-quarters of the notebook, Danny started making plans to counter the big bad events and possibly turn things in his favor, sorting events into preventable, unpreventable, and need-to-happen. This time, he had the advantage of information and experience, something he sorely lacked the first time around. He needed to make sure he put them both to good use, both to make some of his battles easier, and to possibly prevent them altogether. He had about a month before the first thing he wanted to change occurred, so that was what he dedicated most of his time to, ironing out all the details he could. It would be great if he could pull this off without getting slammed through a few walls.

Danny had about a month before the larger ghosts started coming through, and about two weeks before the smaller ones learned of the portal’s existence. He had a few good weeks to get his powers under control, now that he knew what he should be capable of. Danny wondered if he could change the time frame and get stronger faster. He would need to be stronger, and more cautious than before.

Danny had a month before Sam inevitably decided to change the school’s menu, and the Lunch Lady appeared in retaliation. He just hoped he would be ready in time.

[redrobin-detective]

Side Effects of ghost powers

Hey all! I’m writing a DP fic called Side Effects exploring the physical and later mental/emotional impact of Danny initially getting his ghost powers. As an ICU stepdown nurse for 3 years, I wanted to view Danny’s accident through a slightly more realistic, medical lens. 

Note: I had to fudge a good amount because Danny really should have fucking died and there’s no getting around that.

I do recommend you read the fic first before reading this as there’s some spoilers. Or if you don’t care you can read on. So! The two factors we are looking at regarding the accident are: ecto-contamination secondary to electrocution. 

Electrocution

I was forced to downplay a lot of the severe symptoms of electrocution because, again, a bad enough shock will kill someone. My hand-wavey explanation is simply that the portal didn’t activate at a deadly voltage so he got a good shock but not enough to be fatal. I guess.

Muscle weakness/spasms: intermittent muscle spasms are common from shocks, muscles being activated by electricity and reacting to the lingering impulses. Danny’s is transient but quite annoying for a time. But his muscles are gonna be weak and achy af for days if not weeks after from the massive contractions caused by the shock and the after effects. Sensory issues: lots of things can cause nerve damage, including electrocution so Danny is experiencing some pretty severe neuropathy primarily manifesting with numbness and tingling throughout his body. His entire skin and peripheral nervous system got fried so while its mostly numb it’s also super sensitive for a bit of time causing massive pain and discomfort from your body tingling like a thousand bee stings. It’s worst in the hours after the accident but is something that never quite really goes back to normal both from the electrocution and his ghost half taking over and generally dulling his sense of touch.

Hearing/Vision loss: Like skin/nerves, your sensory organs in your eyes and ears would be affected by such a severe and allover electric shock. Danny has some blurred and occasionally double vision from his eyes not properly receiving/understanding input. Hearing loss is common following electricity given how delicate the inner ear is but I just give Danny some nasty tinnitus (ear ringing) for a bit. This inner ear problem also massively throws off his balance when he’s trying to move post accident. These factors are exacerbated by the ecto-contamination and mostly fade in the days following the accident before going away as his superhuman healing kicks in.

Heart Arrhythmia: an irregular heartbeat caused by the electrical impulses that control basal heartrate not coordinating they they should for a variety of reasons, in this case, massive electric shock. Danny would be somewhat aware of it, its not exactly painful exactly but you can just feel that your heart isn’t beating right. Secondary side effects are dizziness, chest pain, fatigue and shortness of breath. This resolves almost entirely when Danny stabilizes

Cognitive issues: Danny got his brains a little scrambled in addition to his molecules being rearranged. The first third of the story Danny is very clearly NOT thinking straight and Tucker/Sam should not have left him alone. Shocks can cause things like irrational emotional behaviors from hormone release along with memory loss and depression. He constantly waxes and wanes in mood and opinions on what to do in the story and never comes to a true decision that, damn lucky for him, worked out on its own.

Ecto-Contamination

Alright so Danny got massively shocked, sucks right but people live through that all the time. Ecto-contamination is more tricky (not only cause its made up and I had to think about what symptoms it would theoretically produce) but because the effects are more life threatening. It’s also irreversible, once he was contaminated it was only something that could be survived not cured. 

So I theorized that Danny got shocked by the accident and was slowly dying of ecto-contamination and was pretty much clinically dead for a brief moment there, the death was enough for the large quantity of ectoplasm in him to immediately coalesce into a ghost (Phantom). So Danny was mostly dead but not quite, I’ve coded and brought back enough people to know it can be reversed somewhat. Danny becomes Phantom but the sudden stable formation of the ectoplasm into what its supposed to be, a ghost, caused his body to stop fighting the ectoplasm as a foreign invader and become part of the self. His core finished forming in his chest and his body started back up again, his ghost safely nestled in his once again living body as he slowly comes to grips with his actual death experience. 

Nausea/Vomiting: I likened the idea of ecto-contamination to radiation poisoning, something that is essentially the antithesis to life. One of the first symptoms of radiation is n/v which is also why it’s one of the first overt symptoms Danny has. He was heavily electrocuted/irradiated and his body wants to expunge it all. As for the ectoplasm/blood he vomits, that’s the next section. 

Gastrointestinal (GI) Bleed: So I was a little mean here. When one vomits up blood (or in this case ectoplasm/blood mix) it has to come from somewhere and a lot of the times it’s a GI Bleed. These are nasty, they need to be either cauterized or surgically repaired not to mention replenishing the blood lost. Fanon says that ectoplasm is at least mildly corrosive to humans so it is here, as it’s bonding to him, it’s literally eating him very slowly from the inside out which is causing a great deal of his internal pain. It’s not enough to be immediately life threatening but would kill him eventually. He developed some nasty bleeding ulcers in his stomach which let in blood and ectoplasm which were expunged. Danny’s core formed overnight and began healing the damage it had previously been causing but Dan is still gonna be vomiting excess blood/ectoplasm not to mention having black, tarry stools for at least a few days afterwards.

Hypothermia/Tremors: Hypothermia is when the body hits 95F/35C which Danny is just above at the start of the chapter. Danny initially starts shaking really bad (rigors) but as his body temperature cools further his shaking slows and eventually stops, a sure sign that the body is rapidly losing the fight to hypothermia and will likely die soon without immediate intervention. This is caused not only by the ectoplasm but his ice core shakily starting to form inside of him. Once he fully turns half ghost his hypothermia doesn’t change but it just no longer negatively affects him (I say Danny hovers naturally around 96-95F/35-33C getting much colder as Phantom at baseline. His body still can be damaged by going too cold but that’s a whole other post.) 

Incoherency/Hallucinations: I mentioned in the electrocution section that Danny is more than a little addled and the contamination didn’t help in that regard. Not only is he not thinking clearly but he’s also getting a little delirious and seeing things. Common hallucinations I see are: someone in the room watching you, things crawling on the walls, creeping shadows, you’re in the wrong place. I think its a solid 50/50 as far as Danny straight up hallucinating but also becoming more aware of natural ectoplasm that hangs around in the atmosphere. (And before anyone asks, yes Clockwork did come and visit, Danny just doesn’t remember)

Pain: Being electrocuted, irradiated, being dissolved slowly on the inside is enough to cause massive amounts of pain. Danny is 14, he doesn’t understand true pain and probably underestimated how much it would hurt. Once it got bad, it was almost paralyzing so it got to the point where even when he wanted to call for help, he couldn’t move or think past the horrible pain of his every molecule slowly dying and rearranging itself.

Weakness/Fatigue: I don’t really have anything much to add for this section that hasn’t been said in the others. Just the combination of all of the above meant Danny is so incredibly weak and fatigued, this will be problematic in the days and weeks following the accident as his body heals from the stress put on it. Poor boy was probably just getting past the worst of his symptoms by the time of the Lunch lady attack one month in.

Ghost instinct: Going off the medical rant for a minute to go into another aspect of the contamination present in the story, the idea of ectoplasm adding inherent ghostiness to Danny. Its common fanon that all ghosts (through ectoplasm) have their own unique code and language that is just omnipresent and instinctive. Such a massive, body altering dose of ectoplasm saw those things start to leech into Danny even before he became half ghost. The biggest is his fear of being seen, majority of ghosts are completely invisible and don’t want to be seen by the living. As Danny’s suffering and literally dying, he can’t bring himself to confess to his loved ones for very understandable reasons but also this ghostly instinct in the back of his head telling him to hide and get away. Other instincts are a strong attraction to the portal/Ghost Zone, lowkey being able to sense living people around him and a bit of an emotional dampener when Phantom. 

[yizukikhons]

I'm all for angst, and this whole prompt reminds me of Ghost of a Chance, a Teen Titans x DP fic that has the Justice League show up.

Danny being distrustful of the JL is awesome. When Danny rewrote reality he rewrote EVERYTHING though. The JL wouldn't remember a thing unless someone was able to reverse the reality gauntlet. Not saying it's IMPOSSIBLE, but I'd imagine it'd take more than any one magic user to fully undo it.

SO

Constantine figures out someone rewrote reality and reset time. They're missing at least three months worth of memories. That someone managed to do that is terrifying enough. That's god level power all on it's own. And once Batman and the rest of the League are aware that something happened, they won't rest until they know what.

Cue Constantine trying to undo a GOD LEVEL SPELL. Zatanna is helping, but they're both only mortal. Doctor Fate would be much better for undoing this, but the asshole refuses to help, as what was undone helped the forces of Order by destroying a Major Artifact of Chaos (tell me the Reality Gauntlet WOULDN'T be considered such since giving anyone the power to rewrite reality on a whim is a recipe for disaster/chaos). So he and Zatanna are on their own.

They eventually craft a workable spell. It can't undo whatever was done, but it should restore their memories, or as much as their magic can manage. Anything that gets left behind should be mitigated by restoring multiple memories so they can fill each other in. They would've been better off restoring everyone's memories one at a time so that each person could remember as much as possible, but that would take far longer and be far more draining. Plus, John is known for being impatient, so mass spell it is.

The League get their memories back.

They remember the identity reveal. They remember being approached by the GIW. They remember Phantom 'kidnapping' Sam and Tucker. They remember fighting the Ghost Boy, and how he was able to Overshadow Superman and turn him against their team.

They don't remember being suspicious of the GIW claiming ghosts are non-sentient, when Danny can talk and strategize against them.

So now the JL is back to thinking that Phantom is a threat, with only Martian Manhunter being suspicious that something more is going on. They obviously need to investigate this, contain Phantom before he decides to become a nation/worldwide threat, but who could they send? Phantom most likely remembers everything, and will probably be on guard if they show up in Amity. One of them will have to go as a civilian to get a scope of the situation, while the rest of the League gets back in contact with the GIW.

put Danny Phantom in the DC Universe during the events of Reality Trip

Reality trip was a two-part episode where Danny, Sam, and Tucker had to run around the US to find the three stones of the reality gauntlet. Danny's identity has been revealed to the world and Freakshow is holding their families hostage, all while the GIW are hunting after him.

Running from the bumbling ghost hunters was bad enough, but competent superheroes that are faster, stronger and smarter than him? A disaster.

Now, the Justice League is hunting him under the presumption that he is dangerous, perhaps even that he kidnapped Tucker and Sam and is behind their families' disappearance.

Danny hasn't met an adult that doesn't hate his ghost half, so after the Justice League has never helped with the ghost attacks, and are now hunting him, he doesn't even try to plea his case to the adults, not when they have GIW brand guns strapped to their backs.

Danny, being desperate to get his family back, might resort to methods he wouldn't usually use.

He might overshadow Superman and use his strength against his teammates or

to beat them soundly enough they're unable to come after him anymore. Stuff he isn't proud of and doesn't talk about with Sam and Tucker.

Maybe they successfully even capture Danny for a small time and he gets the full betrayal of his heroes not hesitating to hand him right over to the GIW

In the end, when Danny finally has the reality gauntlet, Danny's only option is to reverse time and wipe the mind of the last summer from the entire world. This fixes all their problems but also erases any of the alliances they might have formed along the way. They can pretend they don't know what it's like to have the Justice League hunting them, to experience Batman's extensive planning, or see Superman angry

Of course, that doesn't mean Danny has forgotten when years later the Justice League comes knocking, asking for his help, inviting him to their team.

Danny hasn't forgotten what Batman's extensive planning looks like, or what Superman looks like angry. He still knows most of their identities and the names of their loved ones. He knows how to get to the watchtower and crash all its technology. He knows the methods they will go to capture a person who's done nothing wrong and what the inside of their jail cells looks like.

Just saying, the angst potential is limitless.

[sylph-feather]

Summary: Danny had known the rules— that being beaten would lead to transfer of the crown, instructed to him by their ominous guardians— but he hadn’t exactly considered all the implications of that.

For: @ghost-strawberry

Prompt: (Danny is ghost king hc) Danny loses a fight with Sam and the title of ghost king is transferred to her, despite Sam not being a ghost.

Words: 3,344

“Haha!” Sam barked triumphantly, standing over her defeated enemy in a display of dominance while stomping a scary combat boot, “I won.” 

Danny let out nothing but a low keening sound, slumping on the Nasty Burger table and leaving his arm in its defeated position. 

“Darn,” Tucker chimed in, “I thought that with all the ghost fighting and workouts you’ve been doing, Sam finally would stop being the reigning arm wrestling champ.” He paused, melodramatically draping a hand over his forehead and intoning, “alas.” 

Danny only repeated the same mournful noise, all the sentiment of my arm is going to bruise and Sam will never let this go packed into a drawn out moan. 

Before Danny could construct his complaints into something that took the form of language, there was a great burst of green fire that ensconced their cheap, plastic table. In the time it took to flinch, the ghostly flames had already washed over the group— and… done… nothing? 

No, that wasn’t right— it hadn’t hurt them, to be more accurate. Their table, and the tile around it, looked like someone had carved a circle into the floor, taken everything within that circle (read: the trio, several overly greasy foodstuffs, and three shakes) and dropped it right into the Ghost Zone, if the swirling green abyss was anything to go by. 

(Back in the human realm, the patrons of the Nasty Burger were left with their own overly greasy foodstuffs visible in their mouths held ajar as they stared at the smoldering circle that once held three teens and cheap fast food chain restaurant seating— horribly cheap plastic booths on a table that maybe had the suggestion of meeting bare-minimum sanitary requirements. A lone green flame died out, and acrid smoke wafted away. Same shit every day, a tired cashier thought). 

Before them: the Coroners. Dark-colored ghosts with a litany of dark colors with glowing green antlers that twisted into the suggestion of the shape of a crown, and gnarled hands that all had the same mark of a skull on each knuckle. Between the name and the appearance, they were very ominous, to say the least. 

Danny recognized them from the last time he met them: his own coronation. 

Sam and Tucker, who were not there for that ritual because it occured after the fight with Pariah, were just as confused and scared as Danny was the first time. “It’s ok!” he yelped at his friends who were readying their on-hand Fenton weaponry. “I know them. They’re the Coroners.”

Sam shot him a look that said that is anything but encouraging, and Danny winced. 

“They… do… the coron-ing,” Danny said slowly, because he didn’t know how else to phrase it. “Like, the monarchy ruler stuff.” 

“Down with the monarchy,” Sam intoned almost instinctively, but still pocketed the lipstick laser once again, settling down and taking a more casual sip of her strawberry shake. 

Tucker, meanwhile, just kept his shaky hands locked around the box of fries, determinedly not looking at the wraith-like creatures that had deer skulls sticking out of dark garb. 

Sam paused in her slurping, considering the Coroner’s job in her mind more thoroughly. “I guess it makes sense, ‘cuz the Ghost Zone doesn’t have a pope to do it,” she admitted. 

Tucker relaxed, and snorted. “Ghost pope.” The idea (mixed with the special breed of hysterical comedy that comes with  stress) elicited great humor. 

Fear abandoned, now they just looked confused. Danny was too— because, “why are you here?” He frowned down at himself. “Are you, uh, rebelling? Or do you have an important message? Or…?”

That was one-third of the Coroner’s jobs: rebellion. Or, more accurately, inciting rebellion. To understand, one must understand two-thirds of their job: the second third was that someone had to pass down the Ring of Rage and Crown of Fire. After the defeat of Parkah, the ancient ghosts were very grateful that Danny had taken it from Pariah Dark after his reign of tyranny, given that he had destroyed them… because of the first third of their job. See, the Coroners were also supposed to act as some representative electoral body of ghost-kind in deciding who passed a somewhat okay-ish ruler, and if that didn’t work out, they usually incited rebellion against said tyrant, or inevitably did so when a once kind ruler became glutted with greed and violence. 

So Pariah trapped them, which (admittedly) was a rather sensible plan, and (also admittedly) a major design flaw in the ring and the crown. After all, given the requirement for the initial rights to ring and crown were to battle and defeat its previous user to gain access (it could be peacefully passed, but that option had never happened), and really, nothing of the Coroner’s judgement would make an impact outside of someone saying no— that is to say, the ring and crown wouldn’t just poof. Thus, it seemed reasonable to assume that the battler would continue, well, battling for that power. 

The last third of their job is significantly less exciting— as Danny put it: messaging. It simply was to act as ghostly servants; knights, mailmen, whatever the King and the ghosts that needed the King may require. Danny largely told them to use their own discretion in solving conflicts, because he was just one teen barely keeping his grades above Cs, and then left them to it. 

So yes, Danny was kind of worried that somehow, such a dramatic summons would be some kind of ominous warning on the way he was being a king— which, to be fair, he was barely being a king at all— due to the aforementioned second-third of their job.

The largest one with the most elaborately twisted antlers pointed a long, bony finger at Sam. Its voice, which sounded both grand and incredibly spooky, boomed thusly: “this human has bested you in battle. Thusly, according to the sacred laws of the Ring of Rage and the Crown of Fire, she shall be bequeathed the title of ghostly monarch. Ye, Danny Phantom, halfa, who have bested Pariah Dark, have lost to Sam Manson, human, and cede your title as ruler.” 

In a circle, the thirteen wraiths whispered, “and the cycle continues.” It was murmured slightly out of sync, but it gave less of an impression of untidiness or lack of professionalism, and more of an ominous feeling, like there were many more voices than just thirteen. 

Danny was slightly less freaked out than Sam and Tucker by it, given they had said a similar thing when he was coronated, but with far less spooky fanfare, and more normal, excited fanfare. Mostly, Danng was spooked more by the suddenness of the thing, and the prospect of it. 

In the hands of the largest one that was clearly the leader, the Ring of Rage and the Crown of Fire appeared in a dramatic swooshing of green flame. 

Danny’s eyes widened. “She.” He paused, because he couldn’t really argue with that. It was— technically, sort of— a battle. And in the Ghost Zone, might made right and all that. Still. 

Sam and Tucker stared, jaws agape. Between all the new info and now this revelation, their brains essentially bluescreened. 

Danny, even though he was previously initiated, wasn’t in a much better state— all he managed to get out aloud was an incredulous, “it was arm wrestling?”  

One of the smaller wraiths, its crown of horns barely nubs, drifted forwards to their Nasty Burger island that was adrift in the Ghost Zone, and asked in its voice of crackling dead leaves, “is this the manner in which you were beaten?” 

Sam, herself, recovered from the mental “404” page, and her first reaction was to release a huge guffaw of laughter. 

Danny slid forwards onto the table, thoroughly spent between embarrassment and confusion. All he articulated was a very, very long groan. 

“May we, uh,” Danny said slowly, turning towards the head wraith and looking at the glowing points set in the skull’s sockets, “have a moment to discuss?” 

Tucker made a vague noise between worry and agreement. 

“So long as the queen wishes,” it bowed to her, deeply reverent. 

“Wait,” Sam ordered, smile growing on her face. “If I were queen,” she said slowly, “would I be able to get rid of this monarchy?” 

“Tis not a monarchy, my lady,” one of the thirteen said, antler crown bobbing. 

The whole table of teens processed this for a moment. 

Tucker burst into incredulity first: “you literally called her a monarch just a few seconds ago!” 

“A title, nothing more,” a Coroner corrected. “Nay, you do not hold much sway over them, rather, it is they who hold sway over you, sending message to help resolve conflicts, be they fullscale fights or quarrels.” 

Danny groaned, suppressed memories bubbling up: the many times the Coroners had come to him with arguments regarding ghost territories, many attempting to use Danny as a weapon or a diplomat or bodyguard or— so on. 

Thus far, a handful of months into his kinghood, Danny had stopped one “fullscale fight” that bordered on a war. (...This was also related to territory, however). 

Either way, that was a long way to say: the statement that it was just a title held up. The ring and crown didn’t actually really get him any political leeway with the ghosts— it was more of an… intimidation tactic that some ghosts fled from, because the ring and the crown were no more than power boosters. 

Asides from that, all he got were updates on all the troubles in the Zone that supposedly needed him (most of which actually didn’t). The Ghost Zone was a lawless place, so a title of king was not worth much outside of sheer power display. 

For the most part, the things had just served to place a target on his back, specifically, because any lost battle would mean they were his no more, and that the power would be passed to the victor. 

Sam, seemingly on the same line of thought as he, hummed, “would ghosts know I was the… Ghost Queen?” At declaring herself monarch (even if it was apparently in name only), her face did a bit of an involuntary, complicated twisting motion. 

Danny picked himself up from his pathetic slump, and aimed an intrigued-but-confused look at Sam. 

Tucker caught on a bit faster— “so if the ghosts think Danny’s still the king, they fight him— but there’s no risk involved in him losing.” 

Sam nodded, smiling a little sappily. 

Danny just made a mushy “aw,” sound, seeming to consider it. 

It was hard to read the expressions of the ghosts that surrounded the trio’s private, floating chunk of the Nasty Burger establishment, because said ghosts wore skulls… but they seemed baffled, though reluctantly accepting. It was all in the tilt of their heads and the pause of their voice as they said, “great Queen, whatever thou shall ask of us.” 

Sam nodded again, then paused. Her face cracked into an eager grin— a dangerous grin. “Do I get cool powers from this?” 

After receiving the crown, Danny had gotten a boost in his own powers; nothing new, just everything that was there was doubled. Double the size, the intensity, the spookiness, the everything. Needless to say, being goth and being active in fights as she was, Sam was excited for ghost powers. She was momentarily lost in visions of a sweeping gothic outfit, one of pure black with smokey edges, decked out in spikes, etcetera— in other words, “edgy.” 

Tuck, meanwhile, had a far more practical askance: “hold on. She’s a human, right?” 

Of course, it wouldn’t be the first instance of humans vaguely receiving or being influenced by ghost powers in some way; Undergrowth had done it, there had been that time with ghost mosquitos, and the one with that Egyptian staff, and the whole incident with the dragon-rage amulet… not to mention the halfas themselves, obviously. Still, it was not all that hope-inspiring to consider that all of them save for the halfas were essentially some degree of possession (or, at the least, something infectious and negative). 

Aloud, Tucker continued to contemplate. “It’s not exactly reassuring to call them ghost powers, with uh, death. Involved.” It was a choppy sentence, but it got the point across; Danny was a special case, but even a half death wasn’t exactly desirable. 

The glowing eyes of the coroners seemed to wink in amusement, insomuch as points of light could display emotion. “Ghost powers , says the queen.” 

“Ghost powers,” the others echo— not ominous this time, because they are chortling, seeming to be one step away from elbowing one another. 

Sam flushes a bit. “What’s so funny about that?” she grunts, offended. 

The coroners all bow deeply. “We meant no offense,” speaks one from the crowd, and it is followed by a wave of nodding before any of the trio can tell which one was even talking. “We simply find hilarity on your naivete.” 

“Elaborate,” she ordered with extremely thin patience.

“We were hasty in calling you the monarch yet,” the largest explained in its ancient, crackling voice, slow and thoughtful— annoyingly so. 

Sam pinches her nose, understanding with perfect clarity why Danny had complained dealing with these pretentious, cryptic weirdos. “Elaborate,” she commanded once again. 

“You are not the monarch yet, because you have not died,” it informed with great solemnity. 

The Nasty Burger chunk floated in stunned silence as the trio absorbed that. 

“Die?!” Tucker yelled, banging the table, upsetting both the fries and the silence. 

“You have a fascinating and naive way of phrasing it, but perhaps ghost powers is not so far from the truth,” one of the antlered creatures mused, not really addressing the obvious tension or concern. “For indeed, the ring and the crown do power the spiritual energy—“ 

“They’re just ghost batteries!” Danny interrupted, baffled and surprised. 

Sam herself then interrupted the interruption with a scoff, creating a horrible stack of domino-ing interruptions. “All this pizazz over just a power source that I can’t even use?” 

“You are incapable of using it as you are now,” a coroner pointed out. Something in all their eyes glinted ominously, and their antlers seemed to shine with ethereal light. “You are disconnected while living,” one said. As a group, they began encircling the private bit of Nasty Burger, wraith-like cloaks brushing against disgusting tile that was glossy with grease of burgers long past. “But we will fix that,” the coroners intoned as one. 

Danny finally took some initiative, fluidly erupting from his seat and transforming into Phantom in a singular motion. It felt just a tad ridiculous to he hovering over a Nasty Burger table that was ridiculously out of place in the abyssal green of the Ghost Zone, but that only graced his mind for a moment. Instead, the primary thought was one he voiced aloud: “are you going to kill her?” Danny may have been a C student, but regarding threats he was not slow on the uptake— he’d been in enough fights to get a good instinct. For their part, Tuck and Sam took it too— partially cowering behind Danny while brandishing their own Fenton brand lasers. 

The dark spirits jolted to a stop, and tilting their many skull-heads quizzically— a nonverbal askance of why fight? All their minds were whirring, and the first theory from the group of coroners was this: “are you hungry for this power once again?” The group around chortled, a veritable cacophony like many dead leaves being kicked around by whistling wind. It was a taunt, clearly. “This is the natural order of things, halfa. You cannot deny it. You have lost. She has won, won spiritual power, power we take from you.” An enormous pressure of dread emanated from the threatening beings, seeming to push at Danny’s chest— it threw him off kilter in the emotional sense, but also the literal given that he was midair. “If you desire it returned to you, then beat her as she did you, as is the rites of the Ring and the Crown.” 

“I’m more upset she’s gonna die!” Danny barked, a little sarcastic and a lot tense, gesticulating wildly as though that could free his limbs from the lead of supernatural fear. As he did so, his hands became enveloped in his own charging ectoplasm— like a snowball dragged through snow to gather more icy slush to its mass, so too did Danny draw the pure ectoplasm from his surroundings. 

“I would like not to die,” Sam agreed quickly. 

“If it counts, I’m thirding that motion,” Tucker put in as well. 

The coroners pulled back, seemingly startled. “You… do not want this power. But you do not get to choose. ” Their antlers still held an ominous and powerful glow, which spoke to the fact that they had already made their choice in regards to the whole death thing. 

Sam drew in a breath, preparing her “hell no” tirade— when Danny exploded into motion, wrapping a gloved hand around Sam’s hand that didn’t have a lipstick laser in it, and propped them sloppily on the Nasty Burger table. He held his elbow on the table and their chained hands up. Before she could process what on earth he was doing, he painfully but desperately slammed their linked hands down against the table. 

Everyone was staring at Danny, ghosts and humans alike. Silence reigned— utterly baffled, confused silence. It was though a massive, unspoken huh? has slammed down onto the area. 

“There,” he said, reedy desperation coloring his voice. “I won the arm wrestle match.” 

Sam cottoned on pretty quickly— “oh no,” she groaned, “Danny, you beat me. You won .” 

Tucker shot her a look— the emphasis was a bit hammy— but said nothing, only watched hopefully as the coroners seemed to enter something of a loading state as they processed the turn of events. 

Then, startlingly, they quickly and fluidly bowed simultaneously. “Long live our shortest reigning queen,” they said with great solemnity, “and welcome back, our halfa King. Long may he reign.” 

Needless to say, the trio’s sigh of relief was about unparalleled. 

“If I am to reign,” Danny said slowly, recovering but still trying to sound poncy and official (rather than yell at them as he desired), “may we, in the future… discredit joking competitions?” It was delicately phrased, awkward pauses as he deliberately chose fancy phrasing, but it at least got the point across (even if Danny could swear that despite having skull faces and only pinpricks of light for eyes, the coroners were making faces at him). 

The coroners stares at each other, cloaks rustling but no sound passing between them. 

“Yes,” the largest said suddenly, “such a request is reasonable, for a half-human teenager.” With exasperation, it added: “you already were an exceptional case in your ruling.” 

“And in general,” a smaller one piped up snarkily from the back, to be shushed by what was likely a superior. 

“Right,” Danny clapped his hands together and huffed, relieved but still tense. 

“Now, how do we get out of here…?” Tucker questioned, trailing off and looking at the abyss. He traced his fingers on the table, then his face lit up— “uh, can I keep this? It’s authentic Nasty Burger merch, technically, and it’s nor like they’re really gonna need it when it’s been diverged from this reality, let alone their store—“

Before he could continue, there was a snap from one of the coroner’s gnarled hands, and a great bout of green flames engulfed said hunk of Nasty Burger— for the second time that day. 

When a very stunned Danny Fenton, Sam Manson, Tucker Foley, and smoldering, partially aflame  with emerald Nasty Burger chunk snapped back into place within the mortal realm, a certain cashier stared balefully at the fused tiles and remnant ghost flame, thought same shit every day once again, and promptly asked: “do you want more to order?” 

And thus, the status quo was restored, for better or for worse.