#it's that a vladco phone?

[moons-cat]

The Number You Have Dialled Cannot Be Reached 6

Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|Part 5

Ship: Dead on Main (Danny/Jason) Warnings: angst/depression and canon typical violence

Bruce sighed, absently feeling the air on his hands folded in front of his face. He stared unseeingly ahead. His frowned deeply, at a loss of what to do. Worry picked at his self control.

Something was up with Jason. Ever since the other night, something had happened between the thief and Jason. It had left him unsettled and off balance, that much was obvious. They’d all been able to see it.

Now, today, Jason had lost control. He’d been agitated of course, but Bruce hadn’t expected the outburst. Jason was usually good at managing his anger these days, at least in the family. He didn’t get physical with them anymore in anger. Except today Jason had suddenly pulled him up by the shirt, and Bruce had honestly expected him to punch him. Jason had shaken it off, but then he’d fled.

The urge to move, to do something, itched at him. He wanted to get answers, but confronting Jason was out of the question. Their truce was fragile, and it seemed every time he spoke to Jason he said the wrong thing. He didn’t know what to do except control the urge to go after his son. He couldn’t fight his demons for him. He could only try not to make it worse.

And so he sat there, staring, unseeing.

Dick’s footsteps, came down the stairs, easily recognizable: light and almost dancing to a rhythm only he could hear, skipping a step every now and then.

“Hey B, thought you were going golfing with the mayor, keeping up the old appearances and all that” he greeted brightly, as ever immune to Bruce’s mood. Or maybe Alfred sent him down to deal with him, that was also an option.

“Oh I love these,” Dick reached forward over Bruce’s shoulder to grab a protein bar from the backpack. He opened it and started to eat it without hesitation.

“Dick,” Bruce sighed, “this is evidence.”

Dick snorted and leaned on the console so he could look at Bruce. “You’re serious.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow.

Dick snorted again, of course Bruce was serious, then he pulled the backpack over and started rooting through it. Much to Bruce’s exasperation he opened another protein bar.

“Dick, they could be drugged.”

“As if you’d have let me take the first one if that was the case,” Dick mumbled around the mouthful of granola. Bruce mentally conceded the point.

“Anyways,” Dick swallowed and continued, reading the name tag on the inside of the backpack, “Danny Fenton, who’s that?”

Bruce sighed.

“The thief.”

“The Ghost!?” Dick looked up in excitement, “so we have a name now?”

“Presumably, it may not originally have been his backpack.”

“True, doesn’t help much either does it? Danny is very common and Fenton may not be Johnson, but it’s not exactly unique.”

“I haven’t looked it up yet.”

Dick narrowed his eyes.

“This has anything to do with why you’re brooding?”

Silence stretched between them, but Dick could be surprisingly patient when he wanted to. There was no point in dragging things out, it wasn’t a secret, Dick could easily find out through the surveillance if he wanted, Bruce would rather he didn’t.

“Jason was the one who delivered the backpack.”

“Ah.” There was the worried frown Bruce would have liked to avoid. He leaned down a bit to better face Bruce.

“You had a fight?” The question was posed carefully, softly, not betraying any inkling what he thought of that, in a way to gently pry the answer from Bruce, but Bruce knew his eldest son well enough to know he was already mentally running damage control options. That was Dick, always trying to keep their family together tooth and nail. There was a soft pang of appreciation in his chest he couldn’t articulate, instead he focused on the problem at hand.

“He’s convinced the thief needs help, I don’t actually disagree.”

Dick sat back in realization, his eyes flickered to the backpack and its sorry spoils.

“But he could still be working for someone,” Dick recited with a sigh, it was an old lesson. One he knew Jason wouldn’t have appreciated, not if he felt Bruce was dismissing his concerns. “B.”

“I know.”

Do you? Dick’s eyebrows asked, but he had the grace not to actually say it. He clapped Bruce on the shoulder instead, squeezing slightly.

“He’ll warm back up.”

“You think so?” He asked unable to look up at Dick.

“Hey,” Dick said brightly in a way that naturally drew attention to him, “we’ve come back from worse.” And there was that bright smile and that pang of appreciation was back, along with another warm feeling in his chest: hope.

“Well, I gotta get going, I’ve got work tomorrow. Just gotta grab a few more of these.”

And the feeling was gone.

“Dick.”

“We shouldn’t waste perfectly good food, B, also they’re W-Mark exclusives, they don’t have them in Blüdhaven.” He grinned, pockets stuffed with contraband. Invariably reminding Bruce of a younger version with pockets full of candy he’d been denied. Brat already knew he had won. Bruce waved him off with a sigh.

Dick practically skipped towards the stairs. Then he paused.

“Oh and B, if I was you, I’d check the phone at the bottom of the bag. It’s not a brand I recognize.”

With that he was off.

Bruce stared after him. Pride warred with annoyance. He’d been so absorbed in his thoughts he hadn’t even noticed Dick checking out the bag more thoroughly than the cursory look he himself had done when Jason had handed it to him.

He grabbed the bag and rooted around a bit, and just as Dick had said, there was a phone.

He pulled it out, and turned it over in his hands. It was made from dark blue plastic. The logo on the back, a stylized V in front of a globe, wasn’t one he recognized. It looked old and scuffed, had actual buttons and a jarringly small screen when you were used to modern smartphones.

It was also out of power.

With how old it looked, it was unlikely cordless charging was an option. He looked at the bottom edge where there was an actual mini headphone jack, along with what he assumed was the charging port - it wasn’t a type he recognized.

He frowned and got up. He wouldn’t be too late for his meeting with the mayor if he left now, not something he couldn’t brush off as eccentric forgetfulness at least.

He could drop the phone off at Tim’s on the way. Tim would get the phone working one way or another.

Oo o oO

Danny stayed underneath the pavement long after the not-ghost had left. The feeling of almost giving in was a crawling like ants underneath his skin. The threat of almost capture was like a noose around his neck - if they captured him, if they managed to contain him, he would never get home.

Eventually the bone deep tiredness of using his powers too much hit him, and he dragged himself back to his haunt, invisibly and intangibly, because he’d had much too much excitement today. He was raw and empty inside when he dropped onto his blanket pile and rolled up. He would get food some other day. Never mind that he was completely out. It wouldn’t end his existence, just weaken him. Ghosts at the core ran on willpower, and Danny wanted to go home.

A small squeak and rustle, had him opening his eyes a crack and turning his head to look to the far side of the room. There the rat was going his trash, the packaging probably still smelled like food.

He huffed and closed his eyes again. If he got truly desperate he could always eat the rat - It wouldn’t be the worst thing he’d eaten.

Sorry, it's not the longest part this time, but we got to appreciate a few other characters, yay! Hope you enjoyed, cause Danny sure isn't enjoying himself.

Tag list of doom part 1:

@thewondersoflebanon | @gin2212 | @busterkeel | @apointlessbox | @spoopyspoony | @charlietheepic7 | @proper-idiocy | @serasvictoria02 | @zgirlly | @emeraldcorpral | @mushroom-jack | @v-inari | @8-29pm | @quirky-gardener | @vehan-tikkun-olam-and-stuff | @mars-the-witch | @elthepickle | @thegatorsgoose | @impulsiveasshole |

[i-suc-at-art]

DpxDc prompt #2

Full prompt from this idea

Tim and Danny are apart of an online RPG which is basically DND but anonymous and online. (it’s mainly for secret nerds who don’t have anyone irl to play with)

Danny plays as a changeling rogue who will often swipe things from players they don’t like

Tim plays a Variant Human, monk who wields a pole staff (my guy is not subtle) and will often give back the things danny (who’s known as wraith) (Tim goes by Scarlet Redpoll (mainly just Scarlet though)) stole

Rules of the RPG:

Everyone remains under their game handle (so there’s no doxing) NO REAL NAMES

You can interact with other parties who are using the same campaign as you, however when interacting with main story plot your party will go into its own private server

You can have a party of any size however it’s recommended to have a party over 4.. However you can make it with two or three or solo (but that’s just kinda sad..)

There is a chat feature and call feature in the game, however no hate speech, or bigotry

You can’t join a call unless your apart of the party

ofc this doesn’t stop it from happening but that’s not really relevant to the story

There are Dms (dungeon masters) but your team can also just use the computer for your Dm

Your character can be completely customized, and you’ll move around on a map

Ok now to the fun stuff

Danny and Tim (Wraith and Scarlet) have been playing together for about 3 months, and have made a commitment to play every 2 weeks on sunday (ghosts tend to take a break every 2 weeks on sundays (and B forced Tim to take a break from everything including cases every 2 weeks on sunday) Although sometimes each will get pulled away from the game and they’ll have to end early.

Anyways their campaign doesn’t super matter, only that they are online friends. Ok so one day Tim texts Wraith (they use online name bc y'know tim’s like uber famous) that he can’t make it to their session today bc his dad is forcing him to “bond” Aka he’s going to a gala with Bruce and Dick to stop a heist team that has been rampant across socialite and high society events. Wraith tells him it’s alright, and that coincidentally he’s busy too and was just about to cancel.

As Tim surveils everyone he curses Bruce for making him come. Tim had gotten into the habit of getting a night off from everything. He’d also not gotten a chance to do ample research on the guests beforehand because he’d been working on researching the thieves. He’d heard some chatter about the group looking into a possible haunted vahz, that was on display for the night. Tim had been surveying the party staying near the vahz making sure everyone checked out. Dick had texted saying that he’d cornered a possible thieving candidate and that he needed Tim to run an face ID check, on the picture he’d taken. The photo was of a young woman, her red hair caused Tim to think of Babs, but the woman’s simple teal evening dress couldn’t be further from her style. He’d done a quick search of the woman, she seemed to be some sort of rich young socialite, definitely Dicks type.. Her name was Kelly Jankins, no criminal history, or past arrests, she had a couple of parking tickets that were waved from her late teens. But nothing out of the ordinary. Tim texted Dick the information (save for the part about her being Dicks type) before stuffing his phone back into his pocket and moving from his post to go and get a drink. About 20 feet from his post he bumped into a nicely dressed guy, his hair black and suit tailored.. He also wore a Vladco pin on his left breast pocket.

He’d apologized and Tim told him it was no big deal, his eyes were blue.. But he could have sworn they were green when he first looked up. And his voice.. It sounded so familiar. Why did it sound familiar..?

As Tim walked away it hit him like a truck.. Wraith.

—————

Danny, Sam, Tucker, and Jazz had been stealing for some time now, after Danny had been outed as Phantom to the whole town by his parents. Him, Sam, and Tucker had decided to all leave Amity since all of their parents were unaccepting.. Sam’s parents had gone so far as to write her out of their will.. Danny had told her and Tuck to stay in Amity and fix their relationships with their family, but they’d both said ‘that if Danny wasn’t in Amity Park then they didn’t have their family.’ So they left. The three stayed with Jazz for a bit but she was a broke college student that barely had enough money for food and rent. So the three started stealing food.. It was out of necessity at first, and only from big companies, but when Sam got an online invitation to a big gala that was showing off some old artifacts from a rich guy’s private collection, Danny felt a pull toward a particular item from his core. The item belonged to someone in the ghost zone.. and he needed to have it. He needed to return it.

So they stole it. Danny was to be Sam’s plus one as he’s basically a haunted item metal detector. Sam would steal the item and Tuck would turn out the lights and secretly system. Then Danny would get him and Sam out of there. Most of their plans would be similar to this format. Sam would also grift from the other patrons, only stealing from the ones who seemed to have a shit ton of money. Eventually even teaching Danny how to do it too, she’d told him that ‘using his ghost powers were a cop out’ when he brought that up.. and that ‘anyone would be able to feel the chill of it.’ Which Danny was sure that that was untrue.. But he learned how to steal a wallet, or a phone Sam’s way.

Jazz had been against the thefts at first saying that all of these items belonged to the original owner. But soon she was persuaded when Danny told her that they were stealing stolen items. Stolen ghost items. Some of the items even had a ghost core attached to it. So Jazz became their planner, she’d make sure they’d have all the info they needed and that no one got caught.

Danny ends up in jail after being caught trying to lift someone’s wallet.. Jazz was there to legally get him out and pay the bail. Tucker got caught in a backroom of a place they were stealing from. ‘Oh yeah that’s her brother who would often get himself trapped in closets looking for the bathroom.. She apologizes profusely..’

So when Tucker had found their newest item, a haunted vase that had a shit ton of death and destruction attached to it, Jazz had thought up the plan. She’d heard whisperings that Vlad had gotten invited to the party but Danny was going to go in his place since Vlad would never go. Then they had a plan. A plan they were meant to stick to, until someone ran her face and Danny started being followed. So they abandoned the vase opting to get out of there instead of getting caught.

[animalluver8153]

Batman Captures Vlad Masters

Why?

Because, once again, Vlad wanted something he couldn’t have.

Wayne Enterprises stood proud and held its own for generations. If Bruce Wayne wasn’t beloved he was definitely envied. Proud father of many sons and now his upcoming wedding to the beautiful Selena Kyle made him the talk of elite social circles.

Vlad was never one to congratulate the success of others.

Timothy Drake, a child in a position too large for him to fill, would be the first to go. After all, it would really be too easy. Of course everyone would believe the boy would foolishly sign his company away to VladCo in a predatory takeover. He had met the boy a few times already, and Drake’s reputation proceeded him. Making him board a private jet for parts unknown in the dead of night would be simple. The scandal would be too much for him so of course he would run away in shame. Once Vlad stopped overshadowing him the plot would only cement itself into place. Let him make excuses to his too trusting adoptive father. The damage would be done.

Vlad could be more spontaneous from there.

He didn’t expect his plans to go wrong from the very start. The second his invisible doppelgänger attempted to overshadow the boy a series of alarms sounded throughout the office. The windows instantly secured themselves with solid iron and the once wooden door was secured behind an imposing series of metal cords.

Vlad let his genuine surprise play into his act. This was supposed to be a simple meeting about a possible joint project. But he could feel the distress of his doppelgänger. A burning sensation clamped down around his core.

Drake looked at him with a clinical eye. With a flick of his wrist he silenced the shrill klaxons, revealing the sound of chiming cords hiding beneath them. Vlad could feel the clamp around his core shift, but not painfully so. He blustered, trying to find the right words.

“So it’s magical then?” Drake appeared to be talking to himself. Then another flick of the wrist to activate the intercom on his desk.

“Tam? We seem to be having a false alarm. Could you tell Bruce to stop blowing up my phone? And send electrical to check the override. I don’t care if Chris is currently on Mars, if he isn’t here to fix this he’s fired.”

He ended the intercom and continued to stare at Vlad. Vlad might be in some kind of hold but it wasn’t enough to stop him. He willed his doppelgänger to try again but the strangling sensation intensified until it destabilized enough to become visible.

“A ghost,” the brat looked satisfied of all things as he stood up.

Now Vlad just had to kill him.

But before he could stand the office began to shift again. Lights flashed and metal clanged and Vlad found himself pinned beneath more cords. He looked away from the brat long enough to realize his double was similarly pinned. Drake took the opportunity to disappear himself.

Free from an eyewitness, Vlad ordered his visage to fight to the bitter end. Unfortunately the bindings proved too chaotic the maneuver around. The resulting struggle was enough to dissipate his double, letting its bindings cool to the floor. Vlad looked down at his own to see tiny runes etched into each cord. Patters of ancient languages and runes each fought to bind him. Each individually might be shaken off but their combined power was too much a mess to out maneuver.

Vlad was still plotting when a familiar green light began to pull him out of the cords while also compressing him down.

<<<>>>

Vlad Masters had covered his tracks well, but not well enough. His background and financial records didn’t hold up against Batman-level scrutiny. Enough former CEOs were left in the wake of innocuous business meetings that every precaution was taken. Even the more eccentric ones.

“Dammit, I owe Nightwing dinner for this.”

“You knew magic was the most likely possibility,” Batman secured the thermos into a carrying case etched in runes.

“The ghost-catching thermos threw me off,” That the two mad scientists swore by it’s effectiveness even as their young son replaced the one they were selling with a different, more enhanced one, was also cause for doubt.

“Constantine will be in Gotham within the hour. We’ll know more then.”

[ikiprian]

Damian's not quite sure what to make of this green, floating dog.

Gotham’s always bred a strange flavor of urban fauna. Damian himself has met, in his time living here: a two-headed pigeon, a bipedal rat which could open doors, and Killer Croc. (Jones’ birth certificate might say Florida, but everyone agrees he’s as good as Gotham-born, the way he chews metal and monologues.) But never before has Damian seen a puppy that glows, let alone phases through the lid of the dumpster it had been scavenging in.

The front of its tag has a logo for Axiom Labs, a company that was bought out some years ago by VladCo. The back has the name “CUJO” in permanent marker, and no phone number.

Well, it isn’t Damian’s fault if someone failed to chip their animal. If nobody comes to claim it, he’s sure Father will agree to a meta companion for Titus. 

[goblinhoursinsomniaramblings]

I Know Those Eyes Pt 2

why yes i am continuing this

“You’re certain.”

Batman’s words were clipped. Less a question than a threat of consequences. Tim nodded, no hesitation.

“I’d have to have access to a blood or skin sample for 100% confidence, but… yeah. As of 1:23 A.M. this morning, we have confirmed visuals of Lex Luthor and Damian Wayne, alive and mobile, in downtown Gotham City.”

He brought up images of the hotel.

“Hotel Spillane, originally used by the Falcone family, mainly used by the successors of their original business interests. Several legal and executive representatives of one of these interests arrived over the course of the night and previous evening, with Luthor and… Damian being the last to arrive.”

Keep it together, Tim.

“Oracle looked into Luthor’s new identity. It’s so obvious I am actually mad. He’s backstopped a whole life story as Lex Luthor’s estranged twin brother, Lionel V. Luthor, going by the nickname Vlad. Sole inheritor of all Lex Luthor’s assets.”

He brought up the images on file for ‘Lionel’ as well as his own analysis of the footage.

“The confusing part is what he did after inheriting–he has been spending a lot of money on sustainability research, alternative fuels, updated emergency service systems, things like that. As far as I can tell he wants to make premium versions of those things and sell them for a profit, but is playing the long game by flooding the board with cheap goods while gaining good PR.”

He called up the files on VladCo.

“The rest he used to get a tech startup running, VladCo. Apparently he’s interested in ‘standardizing the nonstandard’, whatever that means, but he hasn’t really made anything for the mass market yet. The closest we can find is he’s been making something classified for the U.S. government.”

He took a shaky breath and called up what he had on Damian. He felt Bruce’s pained, shocked exhale more than he heard it, but it was there all the same. So… there really wasn’t any doubt.

“Daniel Summers. On paper he’s 24, was raised in Chicago, and while he’s acting as Luthor’s bodyguard we couldn’t find any official records of him being employed in that capacity. Probably because Oracle was only checking every thirty seconds and his birth certificate didn’t show up on any records until just before they arrived at the hotel.”

He started counting off on his fingers.

“So, 1: whoever is adding them to the system isn’t done yet. 2: they don’t actually care if they get caught. 3: they, very specifically, don’t care if we catch them.”

“You’re saying he’s taunting us.”

“It’s looking–hang on, Oracle says there’s a situation developing.”

One quick shortcut and video of a meeting room popped up on the screen. ‘Lionel’ was smugly facing down his very angry looking investors and their representatives. Suddenly, each of them seemed to calm down. Unnaturally fast, and in unison, with a very particular dull look to their eyes. Tim felt a chill down his spine.

Mind control. Lex Luthor was a meta now, and he had mind control! No wonder Damian hadn’t reached out–

But why? What did he still need Damian for? Unless…

Oh.

He met Batman’s eyes. The taunting, the lack of discretion, finding his first victims in Gotham City.

This was a hostage situation.

***

“You know, badger, you’re perfectly free to walk away from this part of the plan.”

“No, I promised. … still really creepy to watch, though.”

All the papers were signed, all the signatories overshadowed. Now all they had to do was get out of range.

Danny frowned as he saw the receptionist reach for the phone. Right, spy games. Someone was probably supposed to give her a code word when the meeting was over–

Her eyes went glassy, hand freezing around the phone, and seriously that would never stop being creepy to watch. Still, non-violent solution, he’d take it.

As they approached their car, Danny scanned the quiet, ominously lit street. Not for obvious cameras–he knew for a fact Oracle would never allow one to be obvious–but for the best possible angle a camera could have. Eliminating the ones that would have already been used, that left–

He had thought about this moment. How he would give some signal to let them know he was back. That he had been thinking of them.

… Tt. Another time. Too many layers to communicate through, too little space to do so. His gaze had lingered with a purpose, he could only hope that would communicate that Damian was still a part of him too.

For now, that would have to be enough.

***

-major reveal of this chapter: ‘Lex’ has mind control powers

-lol damian/danny is the ghost king, vlad holding him hostage? ha no

-yeah they did not plan the hostage thing but vlad is gonna jump on it with both feet later. like he’s not gonna take credit for it, amirite

-some chapters will be longer. some will be shorter. the main thing is still vibes

-yes, the last little bit is going to make things so much worse with the bats

-why Summers? anything winter-related would be too on the nose, and using a name associated with a very different comic book universe felt appropriate

-i've been a touch stressed so this got put on the backburner. yes, because current events

@hinari @blankliferain @grimdarling69

[anjanahalo]

Wayne Vs Fenton 3

start of the madness

pls note I'm putting these numbers in as "what I have written." They're not gonna necessarily be in order. I hope to make a full fic to put on AO3. In the interim, here's stuff I wrote in general as it strikes me in the moment. This bit is from Tim's perspective after Damian and Danny Are Friends become a known quantity in the Wayne household. ~*~

Damian making friends didn’t make sense. Everyone else felt complacent in simply accepting it. Tim wasn’t. Considering his upbringing, autonomous socializing wasn’t part of Damian’s personality. Nor was how calm and patient the former assassin child became with all of his siblings, Tim included. Damian himself insisted he and this “Danny” were friends. Hell, Damian even called the kid by a nickname. Not his last name, not “Daniel.” His actual, preferred nickname. Tim was suspicious and instantly began investigating. Daniel “Danny” Fenton, age 15, moved to Gotham two months ago from Amity Park, Illinois with his godfather and temporary guardian, Vlad Masters, former mayor of Amity Park, head of Vladco Industries, and heir to Wisconsin’s Self Proclaimed Dairy King’s fortune. Child of Jack and Madeline Fenton, doctors of something called ectobiology, former college classmates of Vlad Masters, and founders of FentonWorks, a cottage research facility that developed antighost (Ghosts? Really?) weaponry and equipment. Brother of Jasmine Fenton, currently a student of Yale in their psychology undergraduate program, and already a shoe-in for the Dean’s list. Honestly, of all the people related to him, Danny ended up being the least interesting. Middling grades that dropped in high school along with attendance. That was probably what led to his coming to Gotham. A set of brilliant - if evidentially weird - parents and a rich and involved godfather doing what they could to help their faltering son to succeed by sending him to one of the top schools on the east coast. There was evidence that Amity Park itself had some apparently minor meta vigilante protecting it, but searches for “Phantom” turned up nothing in the Justice League’s database, suggesting whomever this was might be an actual ghost like Deadman and, thus, restricted to access by those with JLD clearance. Tim put aside that issue for later. He could just ask B for privileges later. Besides, the only information he found on this vigilante was on a few amateur fansites and local papers. No major news sites or government listings. It couldn’t be anything major. His focus remained on Daniel Fenton. Except, even when looking into the kid’s socials, there wasn’t anything interesting. He had a couple friends back in Amity, the most interesting of the two was Samantha Mason of the Mason family, though Tim already knew of her from various socialite dinners she looked ready to burn to the ground, pink and lacey dress or not. Her social media was full of activism, conservation movements, and calls for both veganism and something called ultra recycle vegetarianism. Tucker came from an average family of upper middle class parents, nothing odd there, though his social media showed his love of technology and ancient Egypt. Nothing strange there. Danny’s social media, besides his friends, included links to Nasa, occasional rambles about high school life, and, for some reason, a dog photoshopped to look green. From the replies of his few followers, it was an inside joke since they all cooed over the dog and didn’t comment on the green. Again, nothing strange. Even the one time he managed to hack into Damian’s phone to see his messages yielded nothing. He and Danny would meet for what Danny called “playdates.” For some reason, Damian played along with a name Tim knew he’d scoff as childish and beneath him. Even that would be innocuous. One or the other would suggest meeting at various parks, arcades, even the observatory, negotiating dates and times, and that was it.

Danny was a normal kid. Damian was a born and bred assassin. Why in the actual fuck were these two friends? Nothing made sense. Everyone else was happy to ignore it because of the peace the irrationality before them instilled. Tim wouldn’t become complacent. Whatever Danny was hiding, he’d find it.

[saphiraarts]

Chapter 2 Friends no Longer but now Family

Vlad was given the all clear by the doctors and he returned home to his business which he was hit with the reality of everything he had done. Jack Fenton hadn’t intentionally caused the accident and Maddy only ever saw him as a friend. The fact he ever thought Jack had the level of intelligence to intentionally hurt his friend was insanity. He walked into his empty home and he sighed as he walked to his library. It was so big, extravagant, and meaningless. A dolled up hollow shell for a hollow man. He built his business on no proper merits stealing from others for his own gain. He entered the room filled with books and sat down in a chair and sighed as his mind raced. How was he going to fix his life? The last 4 years outside the hospital after his accident were all spent desperately trying to claim some semblance of control and power. He recalled it and he just felt ashamed, especially recalling all the time spent with Jasmine and Daniel. His end goal was to hurt them. Such innocent kids… He jumped when the phone rang and he answered it.

“Hello? Vlad Masters speaking,” He said robotically sounding tired.

“V-man!!” Vlad instinctively pulled away the receiver from Jack’s ear exploding greeting.

“Jack,” Vlad said, groaning.

“Honey Vlad is tired,” Maddy chastised her voice barely picked up by the phone but Vlad was thankful for her regardless.

“Gimme the phone!” A young voice called and Vlad smiled hearing Jazz. After a bit of shuffling of fabric Vlad heard her say. “I know you are sleepy but it was nice having you stay with us Mr. Masters!” Jazz told him. “Goodnight I hope we can see you soon!”

Vlad heard a bit of a struggle and heard, “See soon!” Daniel called and his heart melted.

“I will be down to see you both as soon as I can,” Vlad reassured both of them.

“The kids wanted to call you when you got home,” Maddy said, taking the phone. “Now it is off to bed for you both.” She handed it back to Jack and he could hear the shuffling of children being herded by their mother and he chuckled.

“Haha glad to see ya well V-man and to bury the hatchet!” Jack called.

“I’m glad as well,” Vlad said and while he was still trying to see if Jack was someone he could call a friend there were many other reasons as to why he was glad for that failure of an attempt at a relic. “Goodnight,” Vlad said.

“NIIGHHHT!” Jack called and Vlad pulled away the phone wincing and heard the phone call end and he sighed as he set down the phone and stood. He had to get to bed. He had so much to do tomorrow but he doubted he would get much sleep tonight or much sleep for a while.

It would be a quiet six months. The highlights were going to Amity Park to visit the Fentons and seeing Jazz progress through the school year. He was able to be there for every major event when his schedule of running Vladco allowed. A year flew by since the anniversary of his crash landing into Amity Park and he received a call. He sighed tired of phone calls but welcome to being a businessman. He picked it up with a bit of reluctance as he had grown tired of Vladco with little idea on how to move it forward in a legitimate way.

“Vlad Masters speaking,” He straightened putting on a professional tone while still in business mode.

“Was this a bad time? Your line has been busy,” Maddy asked in a gentle tone.

“Never,” Vlad said, feeling like he just stepped out of a hot shower after a long day just hearing her voice.

“Is it possible for you to come down sometime soon?” Maddy inquired.

“I can make room for next week,” Vlad said, not even checking his calendar. He would worry about organizing his schedule later. That was a headache he would have his secretary worry about.

“Great I gotta go I am sorry we are taking the kids swimming,” Maddy said hearing Jack’s yelling in the distance.

“Have fun,” Vlad told her. “Don’t forget sunscreen.”

“Already packed,” Maddy replied. “Good bye Vlad.”

“Farewell Maddy,” Vlad said and the pair hung up and that joy was short-lived. He was hit with the life of Vlad Masters when his phone rang again and his smile faded as he picked up and finished the business day.

Next week came and Vlad was freed from his normal life and allowed to indulge in what life with a family was like. It helped him ignore his own problems at least for a time and he walked out into the main building of Amity Park Airport. It wasn’t hard to find the Fentions with the hulking Jack Fenton and the standard orange jumpsuit along with Maddy’s standard jumpsuit. He wondered if they ever wore anything else?

“Vlady!!” Jack called and waved his arm. Danny was on his other shoulder waving with his dad. Jazz had her nose in a book at her mother’s side a bookmark in her hand.

Vlad sighed with a shake of his head and smile as he walked towards them dragging his suitcase.

“How was your flight?” Jack asked to take his suitcase without even asking.

Thank god Vlad had the forethought to put his important items in his carryon bag which was over his shoulder. Jack was as delicate with inanimate objects as a rampaging ghost dog.

“It was normal,” Vlad replied and Maddy smiled.

“That is great!” She beamed.

Jack was practically vibrating and Maddy gave Jack a sharp look and Vlad narrowed his eyes knowing they were hiding something. The family and their friend walked out of the airport to the Fenton RV and everyone was buckled in. They drove home talking the entire way and Vlad helped Danny out of his car seat and to climb down from the Fenton RV. Maddy helped Jazz and Jack grabbed Vlad’s suitcase, slinging it over his shoulder. Vlad walked in with Danny at his side and Maddy walking ahead of him with Jazz at her side and Jack was making up the rear. Filing inside to escape the heat Vlad unpacked, settling into the guest room and he was glad to be staying in here without a broken arm and leg. Vlad watched movies with Maddy, Jack, Jazz, and Danny and it was nice to not just sulk avoiding much of his house as it gave him bad memories. He stayed in the storage rooms outside of his office where he put the memorabilia from the Wisconsin Dairy King. It was the only area of the house that didn’t bring up painful memories or reminders. When the kids were brought to bed the three were in the kitchen sharing drinks and had been reminiscing about their pasts telling stories from their summers together. The flow of conversation was interrupted when Jack gave maddy a look and she sighed.

“Yes Jack, it's time. Vlad, we have something to tell you,” Maddy said and Vlad looked up from his glass of wine.

“You’re the godfather of our kids!” Jack called happily placing a hand on his shoulder. Vlad had taken a drink and he choked on his drink and he set that down the glass coughing.

Vlad looked up in disbelief, “D-did I hear that right?”

“Yes! You did!” Maddy called happily. “In case something ever happened to us we decided that you should care for the kids as their godfather.”

“We talked it out and there is no one we trust more to ensure our kids turn out right other than us than you!” Jack called. “Heaven forbid we ever go down in our line of duty!”

“We are serious about ghost hunting so I insisted we get that sort of thing sorted out,” Maddy said and Jack groaned at the memory of dealing with the lawyers.

“Aww Vladdy!” Jack called when he noticed tears fall down his cheeks with a smile creeping up. He couldn’t believe it. Never did he think this would happen and he certainly didn’t deserve such an honor.

“I… I don’t know what to say,” Vlad said as he looked between the two.

Maddy placed a hand on his shoulder, “You don’t have to say anything.”

“No changing it now we signed it!” Jack beamed.

Vlad was silent as the two pulled him into a hug and he hugged them both. This was the happiest he had felt in eight years. He forgot what this kind of joy was like something that was so pure and not tainted by anything. Maddy pulled away and poured them more wine and Vlad smiled as Jack pulled away and sat down with his cane of beer.

“I will do my best to be a good influence for them and spoil them,” Vlad added after he wiped his eyes.

“Wouldn’t expect anything less!” Jack called.

“Nothing over the top Vlad,” Maddy said firmly and Vlad chuckled.

“We’ll see,” Vlad said, smirking. Jack’s hearty laugh filled the kitchen and house as they celebrated the new addition to their family. Vlad was making plans now to move to Amity Park. Besides it was about time he left that manor of his up in Wisconsin.

[radiance1]

Right so I just remembered an old idea that I had.

One where Vlad? Just absolutely stops showing any interest in Maddie, Jack, Daniel and Amity Park as a whole.

Why? Well, you can say he finally saw the reality of Maddie, managed to let go of his hatred of Jack enough that he stops trying to kill him, is utterly uninterested in Daniel now that he's been disillusioned with Maddie and that, really well and truly the only reason he stayed in Amity was because of Maddie and Daniel.

I guess you could see this as a somewhat redemption in that he just does not care for the reasons that put him on the path of villainy anymore and just decides to become a 'regular' person. Well, regular enough while being the CEO of a billion dollar company.

He's fully devoted himself to taking care of and making sure that Vladco thrived under his care and, while it did do so while he was multitasking with trying to win over Maddie he now had no reason to split his attention away from his company.

Vlad always has some type of item on him that allows him to do his work, a phone, computer, iPad, etc, etc. He's fully devoted to his company now and nothing else, and that made him dangerous. Along with his cunning he's made quite a lot of enemies, destroyed some, you name it.

Specifically, one of them being Lex Luthor. They're enemies in the business world, though Vlad has no intention of stepping into the superhero scene at all, he was already a villain before and now he's stepped away from all of that nonsense and focused on what actually mattered.

Like his company, obviously.

He makes a comment or two about such things to Lex Luthor, not that he was a villain of course, but such things that his company must truly not need him if he can go galivanting about with that Kryptonian every week or so.

Lex Luthor, obviously, does not take kind to such statements. Though the media seems to be eating it up.

Then enters Danny. Who was increasingly paranoid about Vlad, thinking that he was just lying in wait to spring some kind of trap to try and get his mom, kill his dad or take him as his son.

At first, his not being around was nice, he even resigned as Mayor and left someone else in charge and just seemed to fade from Amity Park as a whole! Then those days turned to weeks, and Danny was uneased, expecting something to happen and for Vlad to make a comeback of some sort.

Only for that to not happen.

Then a month passed, and Danny is very paranoid at the time, thinking that Vlad is obviously doing something and that he should go find him to stop him before whatever he was doing was done!

Which leads to him breaking into Vladco and gunning straight for Vlad. Only for the man to be utterly uninterested in him as a whole. He tries to question Vlad, what sort of despicable and fruitloopish plan he's currently working on to kill his dad and marry his mom.

Only for Vlad to lay it on thick that he's doing nothing but being a normal CEO. There is no plan, there is no grand invention or gathering of forces, or any making of clones. There is nothing going on other than Vlad taking a step back for once in his adulthood, taking a proper look at the situation and just finding that it's not worth it anymore.

He's resigned himself to the life of a hardworking CEO, and that's it.

Of course, Danny doesn't exactly believe him but decides to head back home. Then a few more months pass, and Danny's life is finally stable, his grades are going up, he had more time to his best friends, his parents know his secret and accept him and ghosts don't even attack anymore!

But something was missing. His life was quiet. Too quiet and that? That disturbed Danny much more than he thought it would. There isn't any main villain anymore that's constantly in his life that he has to fight against, everything is peaceful, and ghosts don't attack him or his town anymore.

It disturbs him.

Greatly.

So then something unexpected every happens Danny barely gives it any thought, marches right on over to Vlad and throws the blame on him because obviously it's his fault! Vlad, to his part, is utterly unamused by Danny's continuous throwing of blame onto him, and doesn't give the time of day.

So Danny forces him too, and when Vlad finally gives him the attention he denies any involvement in the act, to which Danny denies his denial and Vlad denies Danny's denial to his denial.

Then Vlad calls Danny obsessive over his continuous clinging to their previous dynamic and Vlad, surprisingly, is actually a bit concerned and points this out to say that Danny should just stop all of this and live a normal (enough) life like he's doing now.

Unfortunately, the words he chose to get across this point-specifically the "Just like me" part- were not the right ones to say. Danny is hurt by this, and angry that he in anyway resembles Vlad at all and this causes him to attack him outright.

So, this leads to the general public to find out about Danny's existence, and as he attacked Vladco and Vlad Masters himself, people are questioning if this is the rise of a new villain and what his relation to Vlad Masters is.

[sp724]

((OOC pinned post time!

This blog is a roleplay blog meant to be an in-universe blog for Sidney Poindexter from Danny Phantom.

Anyone can interact or send asks, RP blog or not. In fact, asks are very much appreciated, seeing as this version of Sidney was murdered and he/his death would probably be well-known.

Supplementary material for this blog (such as the Wikipedia page Sidney mentions in the blog description, as well as some in-universe True Crime videos on Sidney) can be found here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/53753875/chapters/136071178

Mun is over 18, but muse is NOT. (Well. Mentally and physically he's not. He's been dead longer than that but... He can't mentally and physically age.)

This blog will definitely dip into some angst and darker topics at times, due to being run in-universe by a dead, bullied kid. I will try to tag things with the appropriate trigger warnings.

Bullying mentions will NOT be tagged, as the posts falling under that trigger warning include pretty much the entire blog.

More information about this blog below the cut.))

Headcanons:

Died after being shoved into his locker right before Spring Break and left there to starve.

Is a fairly famous case in the online True Crime community due to the mystery around what exactly happened, and the tragedy of him being so close to graduation.

17 years old, permanently.

Left the Ghost Zone at some point after the Christmas Truce, because he realized how many ghosts are bullies who are stronger than him, and he's afraid of a lot of them.

He hangs around the school because it's where he died and he feels an attachment to it. Danny gave him the go-ahead to go back to causing problems for bullies.

Tried to get Vlad to sue the Amity Park school district for him, but they don't have a case.

Blogs I consider to be within the same "canon" as this blog (either because I've interacted with them or because a blog I've interacted with has interacted with them):

@danny-fenton-blog (Danny)

@sam-manson-blog (Sam)

@tucker-foley (Tucker)

@mycelialmadness (Dani)

@therealvladmasters (Vlad)

@vladco-tech-official

@inevitablefuturephantom (Dan)

@paulina-sanchez (Paulina)

@/wes-weston-ghostly-blog (Wes)

@axion-labs-official

@insideaxionlabs

@the-box-ghost-blog

@technus-master-of-tech

@thefentonmeister

@jazz-fenton-blog

@ghost-zone-pd

Tags:

danny phantom rp & roleplay - on almost every post

daily stopbullying reblog - every day sidney reblogs a post linking to the website stopbullying.gov. this is the tag for those, so they can be blocked if you get annoyed by the spam.

ask - for answered asks

reblog - for non-original, not directly roleplay related posts

animal pictures - with the reblog tag, on pictures of animals

nostalgia - with the reblog tag, on things relating to the 1940s and 1950s. specifically things relating to the time period of 1944 to March 1958.

colors - with the reblog tag, on things with bright rainbow colors

funnier when dead - with the reblog tag, on things that. well. are funnier to sidney now that he's dead.

deathweek - tag for an event lasting from march 28th to april 7th.

Boundaries:

Pretty much anyone can interact, this includes personal accounts and RP blogs from different fandoms. I encourage people to interact with Sidney, in fact.

Asks that treat Sidney as fictional will not be answered, however. Please pretend Sidney is a real person in your ask.

Other:

The typing style I use for him is supposed to look like the way my grandma types. "Old person who barely knows computers/phones" vibe.

[vladco-tech-official]

Also; reminder that today at 1:20 Pm Central that there will be an emergency broadcast test on all cellular devices. Please don't wear headphones connected to your device, as the alarm will play at full volume and rupture your pathetic human ear drums.

Vladco employees are required to have their cell phones shut off or placed inside a sound-deafening space- such as your desk drawer- by 1:15 PM.

It will be very annoying and we have no control over it. It'll last for 30 minutes, according to reports.

[die-andere-welt94]

„I don’t get it“, Danny mumbled, looking up from the check to the large building in front of him, “seeing how rich Vlad is, shouldn’t he be done paying hospital bills by now?”

“Probably. That’s why you should be careful”, Sam replied from the other side of the phone call, “it could be a trap for all we know.”

“I honestly don’t think so, Sam”, Danny answered, entering the fancy hospital and made his way over to the reception, “you should have seen him when he last visited us. He literally couldn’t hold himself together and begged me to lie to my parents, that he is on a two weeks trip in Hawaii, before he… poofed up.”

“He sent in a duplicate?”

“Apparently. And the Vlad I met at his mansion afterwards was nothing but an AI controlled hologram. That guy was quite convincing, but the fact he couldn’t keep me out his office? Yeah, Vlad is missing at this worries me.”

“Actually, me too. Who knows what he’s doing while out of sight…”

“Well. Hopefully, the receptionist might know something. Such huge monthly payments hardly get ignored.”

“Good luck then. And be careful.”

“Thanks. I will be. Bye.”

Danny hung up and smiled at the receptionist who just finished something on her computer before looking up.

“May I help you, young man?”

“H-Hi”, Danny started, awkwardly fumbling with the check in his hands while trying to ask about Vlad. Now thinking of it, he probably should have planned his investigation tactics sooner.

Seeing that the elderly woman started to frown at his seventh attempt at questioning, Danny stopped his babbling and took a deep breath.

He held out the check to the woman and began to speak carefully.

“I have this check addressed to this hospital by Vladco and I was wondering, if you or your colleagues happen to know about Vlad Masters’ current whereabouts?”

Her eyes went wide.

“Ex…excuse me. Could you repeat the last part?”

Danny leaned slightly over the reception towards the woman, “do you or your colleagues happen to know about Vlad Masters’ current whereabouts?”

“Are you here to visit him?” she asked, clearly overwhelmed by his presence somehow.

“If he’s here, then yes”, Danny answered with a shrug, not really knowing how to act to such strange behavior.

The receptionist stumbled over to her phone, quickly slamming some numbers in before hissing at the phone.

Excited shouts from the other line were heard before the woman started to hiss back some information and slammed the phone down.

“Mr. Masters’ room is on the 12th floor. Ms. Robinson will take you there.”

A young woman appeared right behind Danny, smiling stiffly. She seemed to suppress her excitement as much as the receptionist, but failing to do so as well.

Danny tried to act unbothered by it.

What was going on?

Standing in the elevator, Ms. Robinson tried to make conversation, asking about his relationship with Mr. Masters and how they met.

“He and my parents where old college friends”, Danny answered, expecting her to ask further but was met with a… disappointed frown?

“Well, if you’re here for money, you can forget it. Mr. Masters’ is lucky enough to have a twin brother handling all the finances”, Ms. Robinson answered coldly, ignoring Danny for the rest of the ride.

Danny didn’t want to start an argument without knowing anything and kept quiet, till the elevator reached its destination and opened its doors.

They passed some warm lit halls with nice painting and an outside garden for their high society patients, when Ms. Robinson stopped in front of a door.

She turned to Danny, her eyes cold and judgmental, “listen here. This might be unprofessional, but Mr. Masters means a lot to me. If you do something to him, I will personally kick your ass out of here, got it?”

Danny nodded, waiting for her to be done glaring at him.

She knocked the door before softly opening it.

Danny blinked confused as three nurses walked out, whispering and staring at Danny, as they pass him. They carried plastic bags, make-up case and a broom.

He was just so confused.

What was going on?

“Mr. Masters?” Ms. Robinson spoke softly, slowly walking in, waving at Danny to follow her in.

Danny froze as he stared at the man in the hospital bed, poking at his food uninterested while watching a rerun of a Packer’s Game from 4 years ago.

“Mr. Masters. You have a visitor.”

Danny flinched as the patient immediately looked up, wide-eyed.

It was Vlad.

Even though he was much slimmer, almost malnourished looking, covered in greenish glowing acne with one eye covered in gauze bandages, Danny was sure that the man in front of him was Vlad Masters.

Danny could see the horror in his one seeing eye, staring at Danny, speechless.

“Are you alright, Mr. Masters? Should I send him away?” Ms. Robinson asked quickly, already grabbing Danny by the arm, ready to drag the teen out of the room.

“No”, he spoke, his voice weak and barely heard.

Ms. Robinson nodded and let go of the teen.

“Alright, Mr. Masters. But if you need any assistance, do not hesitate and push the button to call me. Okay?”

Vlad, still staring at Danny in pure horror, nodded.

The young woman gave the teen one last warning glare, before leaving the room.

Danny turned back from the door and looked at Vlad, who still couldn’t take his sight away from him.

“Hey Vlad”, was all Danny could say, again regretting on not being prepared for proper conversations during difficult situations like these.

“What are you doing here?” Vlad asked meekly, putting his tray on the nightstand next to him and switching off the TV. Danny didn’t comment on the man covering himself up some more with the duvet.

“I could ask you the same”, Danny replied, waving his hand over to Vlad, “one moment you flirt with my mom and insult my dad, and the next moment I have to lie to them that you’re off to Hawaii. What’s going on, Vlad? What happened to you?”

Vlad huffed out a humorless laugh.

“The accident happened to me.”

“What accident?”

Vlad gave Danny a weak glare, leaning back into his soft pillow.

“There is only one accident, Daniel.”

Using holograms and duplicates, he's still in the hospital.

[tachvintlogic]

Ectosignatures Part 1: Introduction

Ghost Biology Part 3: Layers

Masterlist

There are 2 main types of ectoplasm: signatured and unsignatured.

Unsignatured ectoplasm, sometimes called ambient ectoplasm when in the Ghost Zone's or Earth's atmosphere, has no defined signature and lacking in complex structure.

Signatured ectoplasm is what makes up a ghost's body. This ecto-signature, which is unique to each ghost, is used by the ghost to communicate with different parts of its body and how to tell its ectoplasm apart from all other ectoplasm.

The signature of ectoplasm is analogous to the spectral lines of atoms. The spectral lines refer to the specific frequencies of light that an atom’s electrons will emit or absorb as they transition to different quantum energy states. This is what scientists use to determine the composition of stars. Instead of light/radiation, ectoplasm emits ecto-radiation which we’re going to pretend acts exactly like light.

Unsignatured ectoplasm has no defined consistent signature. (Does that mean the spectral lines are random or don’t exist? Idk. It’s not important.) This is what makes up the bulk of what the Ghost Zone has for an atmosphere. It's usually a gas and intangible at low concentrations.

Ectoplasm that’s part of a system directed by a central processing unit/brain-like structure such as a core will develop a unique signature based on the core.

Ghosts “eat” by absorbing ambient ectoplasm and converting it into signatured ectoplasm and energy. Excess energy is emitted as ecto-radiation. This is what gives ghosts their glow.

The signature is very important for a ghost to communicate with different parts of itself, especially when separated from the main body. Ectoplasm cut off from the main body can communicate with the core using ecto-radiation emissions like how cell phones communicate with cell towers with radio waves.

Ecto-radiation emitted from the core hits the signatured ectoplasm, and if the signatures of the radiation and ectoplasm match, it sends back a signal with the ectoplasm location and other information. This is how the Lunch Lady controls various meats and other objects to do her bidding, and how general telekinesis works.

Ghost detectors use the ecto-radiation emitted by ghosts in order to find them, as ghosts are basically transmitting their location data at all times. Half-ghosts in human form don't glow in the visible spectrum, and emit a lot less radiation compared to their ghost form. This gives off the appearance of being very ecto-contaminated or overshadowed on scans.

The signature also helps ghosts tell each other apart. This is essential for the thermos to work, as otherwise it would be very bad to store more than one ghost inside. Ghosts with the same signature wouldn’t be able to distinguish each other’s ectoplasm, which would lead to them merging.

Unsignatured ectoplasm is not that dangerous to humans in low enough amounts. At least, not compared to signatured ectoplasm. Signatured ectoplasm is incredibly cytotoxic and attacks anything that doesn’t have the same ectosignature.

Signatured ectoplasm's hostility towards anything that isn't itself is a key component of why ecto-blasts hurt other ghosts. The ectosignature of the ecto-blasts is attacking the ectoplasm of the target.

Many ghost hunting weapons give their ectoplasm an artificial signature so they harm ghosts and aren't that harmful to humans. Weapons developed by VladCo have Vlad’s signature, so he can’t be hurt by his own weapons.

[avaritia-apotheosis]

Phantom Children Ch.4

In Which: exposition for exposition's sake exists, and Vlad looks way more suspcious than he ought

| AO3 | Prologue | 3 | [4] | 5

VLADIMIR MASTERS. Human male in his mid-forties, and most notably the founder and CEO of VladCo, a billion-dollar industry that mostly specializes in manufacturing weapons and technology. Graduated summa cum laude from the University of Wisconsin despite having to drop out due to a lab accident in his second year, landing him in the hospital. Despite being based primarily in Wisconsin, he made an unexpected move to Amity Park Illinois shortly after reuniting with his college friends Drs. Madeline and Jack Fenton.

Not even a year later, Masters ran for mayor of Amity Park and won the election by a landslide. Suspicious, considering Masters being an unknown and the former mayor Montez being quite popular. It’s during Masters’ tenure in office that reports of ghost attacks to the Justice League steadily died down.

“Why?” Damian asked.

Barbara shrugged, pulling up a few files on the screen. “I originally had a theory that related to VladCo’s buyout of Axion Labs—a technological research and manufacturing company that’s mostly local to Amity—being a factor. Within the last couple of years, they had been experimenting with highly volatile chemicals with hallucinogenic properties. Amity had always been known for being extremely superstitious with its ghosts, and if Axion Labs had somehow accidentally released that chemical into the city, well…” She leaned back into her chair, hand twisting in the air. “You could bet how that ended up. The hysteria around ghosts only grew worse in the last two years, with suspected sightings from once every few weeks to multiple in a single day. Early attempts to capture sightings were unsuccessful, and soon enough Amity Park was just written off.”

Much like the mass hysteria surrounding the urban legend of the kuchisake-onna in Japan in the late 1970s, Bruce thought. He pulled up some news footage from Amity Park dated a few years back of citizens being interviewed about their ghostly encounters. Beside these videos were a few photos taken by a shaky camera, showing bright blurs of light streaking across the sky or vaguely humanoid shapes rising from the ground.

“So VladCo., bought out Axion Labs, improved its security, and slowly helped detoxify the town?” Damian shifted his weight onto his other leg and crossed his arms.

“That’s what I thought, but—”

“But the ghosts ended up being real.” Bruce pulled up a video of a field reporter-slash-weatherman taking cover as a figure dropped from the sky, breaking through the walls of a building. The figure—features distorted by an eerie glow—shot out of the rubble just in time before a green blast hit it.

Oracle enlarged other news footage with a few taps on her keyboard. Beings zooming through the air. Massive plants erupting from the ground. Technology coming to life. Each video more worrying than the last, and most showing some footage of a figure bathed in a white glow. “I’d be hard pressed to call any of these faked.”

It begged the question as to how Amity Park survived this long unscathed. Since, if he remembered correctly, even the Dark Leaguers tended to avoid Amity Park like the plague. “They have their own heroes, then?”

“Think along the lines of vigilantes with unofficial support.” A few more files popped up on screen. One showcased a female in a full-length black and red body suit on top of a hover board. The other was a male; young, perhaps a teenager, with white hair and a black and white suit. Hazmat? “The Red Huntress and the Phantom of Amity Park.”

“Partners?”

“More like enemies working on the same turf. Sources place Phantom as appearing first, though it seems Red Huntress has more government support in the end despite there being no official statement. They seem to be the most effective ghost hunters in town, though far from the only ones. The Fentons of Fenton Works are also acting as ghost hunters, though their track record of success leans more towards their anti-ghost tech than any hunting. The town’s even attracted visitors from the Ghost Investigation Ward; a side branch of Cadmus though a now defunct organization.”

“This doesn’t make sense,” Damian said. “If anything, this should be more than enough reason for a League intervention. Why the Justice League didn’t come sooner is the real question here.”

Bruce’s lips thinned. “That’s because we were warned off it.”

“What?”

While there was no rule against heroes entering another hero’s city, there were certain unspoken rules that demanded that JL members avoid claimed cities or stay just outside of city lines until given permission to enter. Some were especially strict about it such as Batman’s ‘no metas or outsiders’ rule. Others were more lenient, simply requesting a warning before entering.

Amity Park, despite having no listed heroes in the database, was marked with heavy ‘Do Not Interact’ warnings for humans and metas alike.

“Justice League Dark said that under no circumstances should the League interfere in Amity. The situation was never explicitly laid out for us except to say that everything was being handled.”

“Oh yeah,” Oracle chimed. “Constantine even had it bolded, underlined, italicized, and in all caps. The occult community was very clear about everyone staying away—and apparently this decision had support from Amity Park too.” She pulled up another document. “That’s probably what led to the decline in their ghost reports, actually. Amity’s claims were considered bogus and brushed aside. No one outside their town—not even their sister town of Elmerton—believed them, so they simply stopped asking for help.”

Strangely, it reminded Bruce of Gotham. Both cities existed in its own isolated sphere, unwilling to let any outsiders interfere in its business.

“It’s safe to assume, then, that whatever Ra’s al Ghul wants with Amity, it has to do with these ghosts. Do we have anyway to contact the town’s vigilantes?”

Oracle shook her head. “Ghost attacks within the past few months have slowly died down along with sightings of Phantom and Red Huntress. Your best bet is asking Masters directly.”

Damian glowered. “Masters blatantly sent out an invitation for Batman to my father. How do we know that Masters hasn’t somehow found our secret identities?”

“Unlikely,” Bruce said. “Vlad Masters, despite his wealth, has done well to keep a low profile. He’s met Bruce Wayne a total of three times within the last decade and Batman not at all.” That, and with the kind of spyware Batman has, he’d be able to tell when, where, and who was trying to dig deep into Batman’s past. Masters hadn’t even registered as a ping.

“Besides, there’s always a few rumors of Wayne Enterprise’s involvement with Batman. All this tech has to come from somewhere, no?”

“How long is Masters staying in Gotham?”

“Umm…” Oracle leaned forward in her chain and flipped through a half-dozen windows. “Going by his reservations at the Gotham Royal Hotel, he’s leaving tomorrow.”

Bruce pivoted on his heel, heading deeper into the Cave. “We better make this count, then.”

------

According to Oracle’s intel, Vlad Masters was staying at one of the executive suites in the Gotham Royal Hotel. A titanic structure with forty-eight floors, two towers, and the gothic aesthetic that never seemed to leave Gotham’s architecture.

Scaling the building as well as entering the suite proved no challenge for Batman and Robin. But upon entrance, it was abundantly clear that the room was vacant.

“Are you sure you guys are in the right room?” Bruce could hear the clicking of Oracle’s keys through their comms. “Masters had reserved the suite on the west tower.”

“Yes we’re in the correct room, Gordon,” Robin hissed.

“Codenames only, Robin.”

Robin clicked his tongue, sweeping the common room for any hidden bugs or cameras as Batman scouted out the rest of the room. The bed was made to hotel standard and the bathroom towels all completely replaced. There were no clothes in the hotel closet or dresser.

The only thing left that indicated occupancy of the room was an unmarked manila envelope unsubtly tucked within a pillowcase.

Robin tensed at the sight of it. “A detonator of some sort?”

Batman rotated the package, holding it up to his scanner. “Doesn’t seem to be. Regardless, it might be better to take it back to the Batcave and locate Masters ag—” The envelope started ringing. A standard ringtone found in most phones. Quickly, but carefully, Batman opened the manila envelope and dumped its contents onto the bed. A ringing burner phone and a flash drive came tumbling out.

Batman threw the flash drive at Robin before answering the phone, holding it up against his ear but saying nothing.

Silence. Then, Masters’ voice filtered in through the phone with a strange echo-like quality. “Good evening, Batman! I’m so glad my invitation managed to get passed along.”

Batman growled into the speaker, “What do you want, Masters?” He signaled Robin to do another sweep of the room for any signs of Masters they might have missed.

“I sincerely apologize for not being there to meet you myself; incredibly rude of me, I know. But it cannot be helped, the shadows are growing ever bolder.”

“So, you are aware then, of the League of Assassins’ presence in Amity Park?”

“A league of assassins? What a terrifying notion that is.” Batman frowned. It was unlikely that they had misread his words at the gala, so why was he acting unaware now? Could he be watched? “Why such a group would appear in my little town, I wouldn’t even dare to guess.”

Robin came back into the room and signaled back ‘negative.’

“Why did you call for us, Mayor Masters?”

“Do you know what is so very tragic, Batman?”

“This is strange,” Oracle said. “I can’t pick up his signal. He’s not appearing on any of my cameras, either.”

“When someone so young dies much to soon.” A pause. “Could you even imagine such a thing? A parent burying their own child.”

Batman could. He had no need to even imagine it because he lived it.

“Some very close friends of mine have been weighed down by the shadows of death and I require help in providing them the closure they need.”

“Are the Fentons the targets, then?”

Masters paused. Then let out a breathy laugh over the phone. “Oh, if only it were that simple.”

“So a different target.”

“Everything you need to know is in the flash drive I’ve enclosed in that envelope Whether you take up the case is entirely up to you—though I do hope you take it. Regardless, if he is not returned soon then I assure you that a disaster unlike any you have seen before will arrive.”

Batman narrowed his eyes. “Is that a threat, Masters?”

“No,” He laughed. “That was no threat. That was promise.”

The phone line disconnected just as Oracle exclaimed that she finally found Masters boarding his flight back to Amity Pak.

[immortalonus]

Victorian AU

So all my current writing project needs both its unpublished chapters re-worked less for any sort of audience and more for my own sense of sanity. So in an effort to unwind and post a something, have some DP characters as they would be sometime in the late 1890s

...FWIW, the lack of historical AUs somewhat astonish me. The mid to late 19th century, especially, was all about spooky ghost and magic shit. I mean, come on, this is the same era the Order of the Golden Dawn and Alister FREAKING Crowley were running around founding temples and whatnot, while the Society for Psychical Research was publishing major works on supernatural phenomena. There is no way the Fentons wouldn't be in the middle of all of this, home made ghost boxes and spirit phones in hand.

We'll start with Victorian!Sam.

The Victorian era often gets smeared in the modern day for being stuffy and restrictive, but by the later half of the period for sure, that label really didn't apply. This was the time of the first major feminist movements, and an entire breed of "new women" running around, playing sports, getting jobs, hassling for the right to vote, and generally being non-traditional. Victorian Sam would absolutely be all over this, much to her wealthy, traditionalist parent's grave dismay.

After a nasty case of food poisoning from a poorly cooked slice of beef that left her bedridden for much of her childhood, she has become incredibly picky about food, and is especially resistant to eating meat in general.

After so long stuck inside, Sam relishes freedom, and will often sneak out on her bike just to ride around, and takes uncommon pride in her physical prowess, which she built up in an effort to avoid ever becoming a sickly waif ever again. It is on one such unauthorized trip that she ends up meeting Tucker Foley and his weird friend, one Danny Fenton.

Victorian!Sam developed an interest in the forbidden and the occult after hearing her mother rant about the evils of secret societies and their "devil books," which she believed were ruining societies good Christian values. As a general rule, if it upsets her mother, Sam will take an interest in it, and by the time she was fourteen, had managed to amass quite a collection hidden away in the family attic. In addition to being fun to read, she uses the books to practice her French and Latin.

Without access to anything like the internet, and after spending most of her life in the gilded cage of the family manor, I imagine Victorian!Sam is more naive than Cannon!Sam, and in some ways, even more stubborn, since her high status and excellent education mean she is rarely, if ever contradicted, and is very much unaccustomed to being wrong.

Clothing-wise, Sam is decked out in a female biker's jacket (There's a photograph of the outfit here), with a female pompadour style haircut and a bicycle based off a Wisconsin made Sterling Safety Bike (Owned by Vladco in universe, of course.)

This work is actually unfinished, as late in the game I decided that this version of Sam looked too nice and lady-like to be a decent rendention of the character, but I'm also practicing the art of not dumping my work into the trash bin over and over and just accepting mistakes instead, so here it is.

Anyone who wants to play with, color, or otherwise mess with the piece has my permission to do so, as I have no intention of finishing this one.

A fully finished Victorian!Jack is incoming in the next few hours, probably after dinner.

[redrosesshadowwolf]

So Vlad was the one arrested.

And it would be even more funny if Danny was so reluctant cause this is after Dan was given a new body. And Dani was out traveling. Then *BAM* a new clone?

Turns out Vlad had one on a backburner plan in his lab. Incase Dani ever needed a new body like Dan did.

So now, while waiting to get in contact with his traveling clone/cousin/daughter/sister. He has to watch this new baby clone. So the family has grown with a 4th ghostly member. Little Elle has had some trouble getting used to her unstable powers as a small child. Danny was juggling watching her, trying to contact Dani, and attempting(failing) to convince Dan to not go villain and break Vlad out.

Dan(Dante at this point) was helping watch Elle between sorting Dalvco and Vladco out now that his supposed legal father was under hero custody. All the while slowly planning to break Vlad out.

After all, Vlad deserved to rot away for at least a little bit after everything he's done.

When Danny gets a call from Val saying she'd gotten in contact will Dani? He was rather relived, the hyperactive halfta child was hard to keep track of. And twice as hard to hide.

Then Val explained she didn't think she was the right one to break the news, so instead she told Dani to keep to places with service or come home soon cause of something important.

Finally that evening, when Dante took over watching Elle for a bit, Danny got to call Dani and break the news.

She was rightfully shocked. Angry, and happy too.

Maybe the little one would develop an obsession like her's?

Then came the anxiety. Too young to parent, all of them were.

What if the child's obsession conflicted with her own? Would that mean she wouldn't be able to be around her?

Danny calmed Dani down, told her there was no use worrying about that for now.

That she should come home soon, meet the kid.

So she did. They had been staying in a safe house outside Amity, hidden in the woods somewhere in some land Vlad owned.

Danny hadn't left the premise in weeks other than a shopping trip or two.

But this allowed Dante to move to and from the location without suspicion.

Elle and Dani got along great. And got into twice as much trouble.

Jazz had stopped by the first week. But had to head back out towards her collage.

Now that Dani was here, Dante didn't have to help watching Elle as much. Giving him more free time, so his weeks of planning finally got put in motion. No Jazz here to tell him no, no Vlad to warn him of a decreased allowance due to bad actions.

Danny too busy with dealing with a toddler and young teen.

The perfect time to strike.

However, he didn't realize that breaking Vlad out wouldn't be the hard part. After all, he hit 'em fast and hard on the way in.

Breaking back out with Vlad in tow was the hard part. Once he tripped alarms people were on there way to stop him.

He knew that, avoided setting as many off as possible. Knocked guard out and hid them, did the sneaky stuff and tried to avoid his normally loud fighting.

But he wasn't perfect, he was part Vlad, and part Danny after all. And both of them were competent in different things, and absolutely useless in others.

They'd evaded the heroes at last. Hid their signatures and transformed back to human form. It all worked out.

Till it didn't. Some other folks, villains noticed them. Followed them.

Then subsequently? Fought them, and the rest of the Halftas.

Danny was not pleased by this turn of events.

How could Dante be this stupid? This reckless? What if Elle had been hurt?Just because Dante was to confident to turn around and double check he wasn't being followed? And yes, most of this yelling is aimed at him.

He already knows Vlad is to confident for such things, like the fool he is.

Dani breaks through the argument. Gets Jazz on the phone, Dante's ears hur by the end.

All the while Danny is packing. Dani had been planing to set off again soon. And they'd decided that Elle was a little to young to join her on her travels for now.

And now Danny had even more enemies on his back because of Dante and Vlad.

So he was taking Elle with him somewhere safer.

He was fine leaving the other halftas to protect themselves, as punishment. And because he trusted them to keep themselves safe even if they would not extend that safety to others.

So Danny left. With bickering fading to the background and enemies on his tail.

A few days later his impromptu mission was regarded as a failure, other than getting Elle to meet the family. That part worked out.

Back at Titans Tower he had to explain his supposed vacation and the toddler he had acquired. He was not looking forward to the long discussion.

He should have brought Vlad or Dante to explain themselves, the dumbasses.

At least Dani was fine being called up for a source to confirm his explanation.

Team effort

Danny is a member of the Teen Titans!

.・゜-: ✧ :-

The team had noticed something off not soon after the raid.

Something about one of Danny's– Magpie's– old Rogues having a lab. Some investigations from Robin and Cyborg soon proved that the man had been working on human experimentation.

Not even a day later and they'd raided the place, putting it under the JL's radar alongside the wayward rogue too.

Beastboy noticed it first, the way Magpie would look around uncertain, less enthusiastic and fidgeting in his seat.

Robin tried to shield him, take the attention away and talk behind closed doors with the other afterwards.

Yeah, it didn't take a genius to figure out something was wrong.

They waved the issue off, maybe it was temporary? Danny never got distracted, it should be short right? They didn't need to worry too much.

Besides Robin was already on it.

The alarms went off however when Danny announced a break, going under for a few weeks, months maybe.

Starfire pestered him with worry, tugging him along in the air. She's speaking her native language, something about healing? They would have noticed if Magpie hid a injury however.

The protests didn't budge the decision, Robin steady when they turned to him for help.

Reassurances came in a rush. If truly needed, Danny would aid them, but he could not stay.

Raven stayed quiet, nothing unusual but surprising. Robin and her were often seen speaking in hushed whispers, it drove the other 3 members crazy at the secrecy.

It took 2 months to finally see what the cause was.

—

Costume dishevelled, mask thrown to the side, Magpie enters the tower by foot. His unannounced appearance had them all unprepared.

Raven and Robin were by his sides first, closely followed by Statfire.

"Hey man," Cyborg greeted, brow knitted in concern. "Weren't you supposed to be on vacation?"

Danny gave a dry laugh at that. "Plans changed, Cy."

"How do vacation plans just change?" Beastboy asks, scratching the side of his head.

"They changed because I wasn't really on vacation."

He avoids their eyes, Starfire dint like that, cradling his head to turn to her. "Why aren't you looking at us? Why lie about vacation?"

"It's not that I wanted to lie, staying ignorant to what was happening was just better," he shrugged with a strained smile.

"I'm assuming your location was compromised?"

A nod.

"Wow wow wow," beastboy interrupts. "What do you mean compromise? You went into hiding??"

Magpie gave a sheepish laugh, which didn't lighten the mood at all.

He tried.

"Where is—?" Raven asks right as another tiny hand clamps on her cape, tugging.

The eyes of every teentitan are drawn to whatever— whoever is behind their missing member.

"Okay so don't freak out—"

"You have a child??!"

"What the hell— JESUS CHRIST!"

"A human child! A baby!"

A sharp whistling from their leader got them to shut up, eyes on Robin now.

"You're frightening her."

True to his words, tuffs of white hair peek out between Raven and Magpie, large green eyes watching.

A tiny girl, barely reaching Danny's waist, stares at them.

"Friend, who is she?"

"This," he leads her out by hand, letting her cling to his side instead now. "Is elle, she..."

A look to raven had her continue. "We found her together in the raid."

Starfire knelt down before Elle, holding her hand out in greeting. "Hello Elle, I am starfire." She tilts her head. "You seem sleepy?"

"It's been a long day— I'll talk with you guys later, okay?"

They watched him leave, returning to his room long untouched.

[ayamari-no-goshi]

Verboten 16 | (T)

ff.net | AO3

Fandom: Danny Phantom (DP)

Summary: AU. When Danny was five years old, he went missing for 2 weeks. In the years that follow, his family tried to make sense of what happened, only for the truth to be discovered years later.

Warnings: rated T for violence, mentions of death, language. Be prepared for some very weird things

Parings: Danny/Sam

Notes: originally uploaded to Ff.net. Cross-posted to AO3 and tumblr. This fic is very heavily inspired by folklore surrounding mysterious wilderness disappearances

Chapter 16

As Danny waited outside with the rest of the guests, his parents and Vlad met up with him. After they handed him a bag filled with one of his favorite Nasty Burger meals, he gave them a quick rundown of what he knew, save for the appearance of the ghost. While frustrated, his parents shuffled him into the RV so he could eat and warm up a bit. It was a chilly fall day after all.

As he ate, Danny vaguely wondered how his parents managed to convince Vlad, the man with the limo, to go across town with them. His dad’s driving prowess… well, lack thereof… was famous in the area. The townsfolk and even the police steered clear of any known Fenton vehicle. In actuality, he had no idea how his dad hadn’t lost his license.

After a couple hours, the fire department cleared the building with the exception that rooms on the second floor could not be used until the police preformed an investigation to verify whether or not arson occurred. The rooms on that floor would also need cleaned. Thankfully, little damage ended up being done from the fire: a few pieces of furniture and some scorch marks. The majority of the damage ended up being from the hotel’s sprinkler system.

After collecting their items, his parents drove to a large house on the outskirts of the housing plan where Sam lived. After asking what they were doing there, Vlad matter-of-factly stated he just finalized the payment on it. Danny’s utter confusion had to be evident as his parents explained Vlad recently decided to purchase a house in Amity Park since he would be around more to help with the research.

Well, it explained why it took his parents so long to get food. While the act itself didn’t seem that strange for Vlad, he did own a castle in Wisconsin after all, something about the timing bothered him. With the rare exception of a day when there was a major experiment malfunction, Vlad tended to stay with the family upon his visits. Exactly how long would he be in town if he needed to buy a new house?

After getting a quick tour of the house, Danny retired to his temporary room and called his friends. The three way call ended up being hectic as he explained what happened. “Guys, I’m telling you, I saw a ghost, and then somehow the hotel caught fire.”

“Calm down, Danny,” Sam instructed. “I know you’re telling the truth, but geez, how in the world did you end up being the center of so much trouble in two days?”

“My mom said something about me possibly attracting paranormal things now.”

“Makes sense, in a weird sort of way,” Tucker agreed as typing could be heard on his end. “I’ll see if I can dig up any stories of ghosts like what you saw this time.”

“Don’t worry about it, Tucker. You’re already looking into those files.”

“Nah, this’ll be easy. It’ll only take a couple minutes at most to set up a search and have it run in the background while we talk. Any specific things that stood out?”

“Other than the blue flaming hair?” He sighed and collapsed on his bed. “If she hadn’t been a ghost, she would have looked right at home in one of those bands Sam likes. She said she wanted to make people remember she still exists.”

“So she looked like a goth?” Sam questioned.

“Yeah, but with some, uh… I think you’d say she’s more punk.”

“Woah! That’s weird,” Tucker stated after something on one of his tech devices beeped in the background. “So, apparently there have been a series of spontaneous fires that seem to occur about every ten years, but they started after the death of a local girl. Some people think it’s her ghost that causes them. I’ll send you the articles.”

It took only seconds for the article links to be sent. Danny nearly dropped the phone when the picture of the mentioned girl appeared on the screen. With the exception of the hair, the girl’s face matched that of the ghost. “That… that’s her! Wow, she really doesn’t look that much different as a ghost.”

“Wait, you’re serious?” Sam hummed as she reviewed the information. “Says here while she was unpopular at school, she was in a local band. She was found dead after her house burned down mysteriously. The police thought it might of been an arson, but officials were never able to verify anything. After her death and around its anniversary, there were reports of fires in the city. Sometimes, entire buildings are engulfed, but other times the words ‘you will remember’ appear burned into buildings.”

“I kinda remember hearing my dad mention something about ghost fires growing up, but with it being my dad, I never put any stock into it.”

“My mom said something about it once.”

“I have no idea why I keep forgetting your mom works for 911,” Sam interrupted. “You know, we might be able to use that to our advantage.”

“I mean, you can try, but she refuses to talk about anything other than the occasional funny call. The one about the ‘bambulance’ still brings me to tears.”

“Tuck, you’re getting distracted.”

“Right. Anyways,” some typing could be heard on Tucker’s end, “my mom thought the fires were from the girl’s bandmates. They had just recorded a song called ‘Remember’ which got some local play before she died. Since I know asking Mom for anything else is pointless, I think I’m gonna see if I can get into the files of those fires. The news articles all have explanations, but some of them seem a bit over the top.”

“How long will that take?”

Danny snorted. “Sam, it’s Tucker. Knowing him, he’s already looking at them.”

“I’m hurt, Sam. Do you really have that little faith in me?”

“I know you’ll be able to get them eventually. You’re track record hasn’t been all that great recently. You’ll still working on those files you got from Plasmius, after all.”

“Oh, I’ve finished the review on those. Some of it isn’t pretty, but I wanted to verify information directly from Vlad Master’s companies. That’s been slow going ‘cause he has some impressive firewalls, and I’m really trying not to get caught. As for this,” Tucker briefly shouted in triumph, “I’ve already gotten what I need. Hmm… that’s weird. The official investigations regarding the ‘Ember fires’, as they’re called, all state there was no known cause of the fire. There wasn’t even evidence of an accelerant… which is…?”

“It’s something used to make a fire go from a few flames to a roaring fire. Think of what happens when you add gasoline to a fire,” Sam explained as tapping could be heard on her end. Was she at the computer too? “Most arsonists use one. If they don’t, unless the flames start where there’s something like tissue paper, sawdust, or something else really flammable, the fire usually takes a lot of time to grow and become a problem. Tuck, is there anything about flammable materials?”

“Hmm… no, not really.”

Danny sighed as he got off the bed and paced his temporary room. “Great, now there’s a fire starting ghost on the prowl, on top of Plasmius, that thing… and possibly whatever is wrong with that girl. Tuck, do you have any updates on anything?”

“On the Plasmius front, no. Like I said, I’m trying to cross-reference those files against the files from VladCo and DALV, but that’s taking a while due to his security. For the creepy thing that attacked you, I have a notification set up for any potentially related attacks. I think that’s all I can do for now on that… As for Maura, I got distracted a bit when Plasmius had that chat with you, but I can tell you she stopped posting on social media right after her disappearing act. That’s pretty weird for girls in her clique. Give me a couple days to get her medical chart.” Something beeped in the background. “Oh, it looks like I might have a pattern for our fire bug ghost.”

“At least that’s something. Can you send them to me?”

Sam snorted. “What, you’re gonna try to figure out where she’ll be and talk to her?”

“I mean, it’s worth a shot. Maybe she knows something about Plasmius or that thing? And… maybe I can nicely ask her to stop lighting fires?”

“I think you’re just gonna end up with your ass kicked, but go ahead.”

“Thanks for that wonderful vote of confidence,” Danny deadpanned. The ghost was nice enough to give him a warning so she couldn’t be all bad. “I think if I open up with a ‘thank you’, she won’t outright attack me.”

“It’s your funeral.”

“Actually, Danny, can you die?” Tucker hesitantly asked. “I mean… your situation is kinda weird.”

He thought about it for a few moments. “I think so. Clockwork told me I’m alive, so that’s good enough for me. But, to be honest, I don’t really wanna think about it too much.”

“That’s fair.”

…

Danny’s conversation only lasted a few more minutes after Tucker asked the awkward question as his parents called for him over an intercom system. Uncertain if the correct response to the intercom should be to cringe or be impressed, he pushed it from his mind as he meandered down the hallways to attempt to find his parents.

Something about the décor of the mansion seemed familiar, but Danny found it difficult to place it. Vlad loved the Green Bay Packers, and he commonly used their colors of green and gold for accents. He stopped in his tracks as he glanced around. Plasmius also had green and gold splashes in his home. It had to be a coincidence.

Not wanting to think about it more, he raced down the halls and eventually came to the main foyer. His dad shot him a questioning glance as his mother stood and moved towards him.

“Hi, sweetie! How are you adjusting? It’s been a hectic couple days.”

“I’m okay. I’m just a bit tired,” he told her as he dodged a hug. “I let Sam and Tucker know we’re fine. I’m not dealing with Jazz until after you guys talk to her.”

“I trust the room is to your liking?”

Danny jumped as Vlad’s voice came from behind him. How did he miss him? “Yes. Thanks for letting us stay.”

Vlad waved his hand dismissively. “It’s no trouble at all. My house is yours.”

“Vlad, you mentioned you had a workshop we can use?” His mother asked as she abandoned her attempts at hugging her son.

After staring at her for a second, Vlad shook his head and regained composure. “Surely that can wait until tomorrow, my dear. You’ve been through quite a lot in the past twenty-four hours.”

“No can do, Vladdy!” Jack boomed as he excitedly stood. “You heard those policemen. They want a Fenton product, and I can’t sit still when that spook is still a threat to my family. Say, do you want to help?”

The billionaire grimaced before forcing a smile. “I must politely decline, but I will gladly look over any blue prints in the morning.”

“Don’t worry,” Maddie told him while giving her husband a fond grin, “I know how… enthusiastic Jack can be when he has a new project. I’ll also make sure he sleeps tonight. We don’t want any accidents.”

“That would be greatly appreciated.”

Danny glanced between Vlad and his parents. There was some sort of story he was missing. “Should I ask?” he hesitantly questioned.

“I was badly injured when we were in collage when an experiment went wrong,” Vlad explained as his expression hardened. “As a result, I’ve made it a rule to not be in a room when someone is actively making experimental items or preforming experiments. However, I’ll gladly double check procedures, blue prints, set ups, and results.”

“I… yeah… That… that makes sense. But you’re okay now?”

“Absolutely, my dear boy. You could say I gained a different outlook on life as a result.” Vlad gave a predatory grin which sent shivers down Danny’s spine. “Why, if I hadn’t gotten into that accident, I probably wouldn’t have ended up so successful.”

“Right…” His mother must have caught something off in Vlad’s tone as she furrowed her brow in confusion. “It’s gotten pretty late. Danny, will you be alright?”

“Huh? Probably. I mean, I could use a snack.”

“The kitchen and pantry are just down that hall.” Vlad pointed towards the hallway opposite of the way Danny originally came. “Will you be alright to be back to your room once you’re done? If you wait, I can escort you back once I’m done showing your parents where the lab is.”

“Thanks, but I think I’ll be alright. ‘Night everyone.” Chuckling as his father couldn’t contain his excitement anymore and bounded down the hall followed by his amused mother and wary Vlad, he just made his way to the kitchen. It thankfully was easy to find, and after making a sandwich, he meandered his way back towards his room.

….

Around midnight, Danny decided he would attempt to sneak out of the mansion. Luckily for him, Vlad put him in a room on the ground floor, saying something about how the upper floors weren’t ready yet. Luckier still, there were no bars on the windows. Sam’s parents tried doing something like before due to how many times she snuck out, but it was struck down by her Grandma Ida, who still had control of the deed at that time.

Escape ended up being a piece of cake. There didn’t seem to be any type of security system or guard which seemed strange, but that would probably change once the mansion was officially finished.

He had an idea of where the ghost might end up appearing thanks to the articles Tucker forwarded to him earlier so he booked it in the direction of an older housing plan near the city’s boarder with Elmerton. The majority of buildings in the area were row houses in disrepair. While there were still a few low income families in the area, most of the houses were considered condemned. Danny remembered hearing talk of tearing the houses down at one point, but either the project was shelved or abandoned.

As he approached, he decided to shift to his ghostly form. While it seemed unlikely he would encounter anyone, the area did have a reputation for crime. While he didn’t know what sort of protection being a ghost would give him, it seemed a better option. And, if that thing tried attacking him again, maybe he could float to safety. He really hoped that thing didn’t appear; his trust in his abilities honestly was non-existent.

The soft glow of his ghost form provided the majority of the light as he silently found his way to the road where the girl used to live. The few street lamps were either broken or burnt out, and some even seemed melted.

His destination, Garnier Avenue, seemed worse than the surrounding streets. At first he thought the houses were just gutted, but a second look said otherwise. Most of them had some evidence of fire: melted windows, ash marks, and collapsed roofs and walls. Ash and dust could be found on the road as well as the sidewalk, and in some places, they almost looked like outlines of people.

The area seemed dead. No noise. No sound. No movement. As he continued to move forward, his hair stood on end and his breath misted in front of him. It was almost as if he walked into some sort of wall of static electricity.

“So this is what you actually look like. You’re not that bad looking after all,” a curious voice called to him, making him jump. Danny spun around to see the ghost from earlier materialize in front of him. Her appearance hadn’t changed, but she seemed more solid. Even her voice seemed closer and more natural. “Do you know how many of us would kill to be able to blend in that well?”

“Uh… I really wouldn’t know. This is really new to me,” Danny relied as he held up his hands in what he hoped was a submissive manner.

Her eyes narrowed. “So why are you here, baby pop? Do I interest you?”

He gulped at the undertones of her applications. “A little? I mean, you were nice enough to let me there would be a fire, and I wanted to thank you for that. And maybe ask a couple questions?”

“You just happened to be there at the right time,” she responded offhandedly though her satisfied smirk suggested his thanks was welcome. “It would be a waste to see someone like you get destroyed by accident. But, I would like to know how you found me.”

“I mentioned you to a friend of mine, and he was able to find out about your legend.” Danny hoped he sounded genuinely curious and not creepy. Wait, was it possible for him to not be creepy? He was a ghost after all.

She nodded. “I like to come back around the anniversary of my death. It helps strengthen me.”

“You do seem… I think stronger is the word I want.”

“Glad you noticed, and that makes you more observant than most of the guys I’ve met over the years. Call me, Ember.” Grinning again, she walked around him almost as if she was examining him.

“I’m Danny.”

She snorted. “Bet that’s your real name. Don’t met too many ghosts who remember theirs. You really must be new. Anyways, you had questions?”

“Yeah. I was hoping you might know something about this thing that’s been seen around the town. It attacked me, and it’s caused enough trouble to get the police interested.” When she didn’t immediately respond, Danny took that as a sign he could continue. So, he quickly explained his interaction with whatever the thing was. When he finished, Ember expression turned stony.

“You’re telling me something like that has been seen in my town?” she demanded. Her hair, which had been gently waving in an invisible wind, suddenly blazed in a blue flame. “Are you telling me one of those things have been seen here?”

Danny gulped and nodded. “Like I said, it attacked me! What are they? Plasmius doesn’t know what they are either.”

“Plasmius? Plasmius is here too?” The temperature around them spiked as she shrieked. “Are you working for him? You better answer me, Dipstick.”

===

Notes: ghostly fire is usually considered insubstantial and doesn't tend to cause damage. Actual paranormal fire damage is usually associated with poltergeists, and more modern theories classify poltergeists as creations of psychokinesis (PK) agents (normally living people) instead of spirits.

Ember's background is directly taken from information provided by one of the show's directors.

"Bambalance" is a reference to an old but hilarious 911 call. You can find it on YouTube under the title "the guy, the deer, the dog, and the bambulance." There is some foul language in it.

Also, there is a very subtle 'Phantom of the Opera' reference in this chapter.