#so yeah lol Phantom’s fights with Plasmius are basically the same but Plasmius is poutier about it

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

For consideration—

Danny is many things. Student, hero, teenager, tired. Teenager and tired are shared, student is what he wants, and hero is what he has to be.

So when he’s fighting Val—Red Huntress, as dubbed by the general populace—and they get interrupted from their highly dangerous not-quite game of hide and seek by the Justice League offering her all of the training and support any hero could ever want… well.

It’s a good thing he’s already hidden, because he has no idea what to feel and ghost faces are significantly more stretchy and allow for frankly horrifying face journeys. He could just be a kid. He wanted to have mentorship. He wanted Valerie to be a great hero. He hopes she’s not getting dragged into it. He’s been given an out, possibly.

Or at the least, as Jazz would put in during the video call later that night, he could take a vacation.

Her reasons were fairly pure. He overworked himself by necessity, and he deserved time and rest and the ability to go for his own hobbies.

Danny’s were very much in the petty revenge territory. Blob ghost populations would be outright swarms in about two weeks, and that’s if the ectopi didn’t start hunting them as prey, sending them into a tizzy. Any bigger threats—well. Red Huntress was the hero, the only hero, as Superman said in his little ‘join us’ speech. Clearly, she’d been handling it so far. She’d be fine. There was even Justice League backing and support for her.

He still hid during ghost attacks. Everyone always thought he was scared of ghosts anyways and the rogue gallery had no qualms about kidnapping or otherwise targeting him as a regular teen.

Things… quickly spiral.

For Red Huntress, that is.

Suddenly, her new ghost alarm system that Batman helped her build is going off constantly. She expected an uptick, but she’s gotten maybe five hours of sleep in about as many days. It was a good thing that one of the support benefits was a paycheck, because if she hadn’t quit Nasty Burger they certainly would have fired her by then. Her grades were slipping, even with her best efforts, and her mentors who were supposed to help weren’t listening to her.

It wasn’t them ‘challenging her beliefs’ and asking her to ‘really consider if ghosts are always your enemy’ that made her fights suddenly harder. It wasn’t some adjustment period to her new training. There was just ghosts, all the time, constantly, and she didn’t even know what to do with all of them. She always just ran them off, and she had assumed they went home. She hadn’t realized the reason Phantom always captured them was because otherwise they just would not leave.

And Phantom. He was one of her rogues, play acting as hero for people he’d just put into danger. Sometimes he did—kind of—help, but it seemed more coincidental. A giant bobcat in the yard keeping the bears away sort of situation. Still dangerous, still unknown, no matter how similar he looked to something or someone friendly.

But. He’d been MIA since their last fight. And she didn’t know why.

Sure, she could guess that maybe he had heard the whole acceptance into the Junior League, or whatever it was called, that had happened. And with his whole ‘hero’ shtick, he’d maybe be a little weird about it. Not emotional, ghosts didn’t have true emotions. No matter what Black Canary was currently researching on the topic, Valerie was sure of it.

Just like she’d been sure that she was actually helping Amity Park.

If she heard one more property damage assessment, she’d strap one of her ecto guns to the lecturer and let them have a crack at it. Ghosts didn’t care about material things that mattered to other people. They might have attachments to certain types of objects or things they considered ‘theirs’, but if that thing was a living human’s… it didn’t matter, it’d be taken or broken just the same.

Sam was, of course, leading a small protest asking for Phantom’s return. She and Danny had at least three fights about it, and it wasn’t pretty.

Paulina had a different approach to the same issue, asking for recognition of her ghost boy.

Tucker was egging both on, mostly to distract Sam from actually bothering Danny, but also because he loved a good cat fight.

Danny was getting so much sleep, and he’s getting caught up in school. Sure, the school is usually at least a little on fire these days, but he actually read the assignment book for Lancer’s class. That hadn’t happened like, ever! And his Doom stats were getting pretty high, since the only grinding he had to do now was against virtual enemies that didn’t try to snap his spine… Technus notwithstanding.

As these things usually happen, Valerie blames Phantom for all of her woes, again. The Fenton Parents, being thoroughly exhausted at this point as well, completely back her.

And Danny has had a lot of time to rest and think on the actions of himself and others.

He’s been declared a menace, again. And he’s kind of tired of people not realizing that if he WANTED to be a villain, he could be. He wanted his town safe, and honestly, the ghost populace explosion was getting annoying. Red Huntress’s last “big fight” had nearly killed someone.

… He wouldn’t be Dan, oh no. He wouldn’t cause damage, he’d prevent those from being hurt, and he would generally look at the Hero Guideline Handbook he had… temporarily borrowed and copied from Val’s backpack. He’d be campy and totally not serious to anyone who didn’t realize he actually was just playing around. And him actually taking on ‘big fish’ persona in Amity Park’s ‘little pond’ should help get rid of at least some of the lower level guys.

It’s not like it’s be hard, honestly. He’d get to make his own hours, at least. And since Valerie saw Fenton as someone to protect, someone that he well knew she broke up with to ‘keep him safe’, she wouldn’t think of him twice as being Phantom. Danny wouldn’t use their friendship against her, but he could easily admit that it was a little scummy to do. But. Well. He’d always fought a bit dirty, and she had literally tried to kill him. Multiple times.

If Red Huntress was going to be a villain-like Hero, then it was simple.

Phantom just had to be a hero-like Villain.

Prompt

The justice league FINALLY investigates Amity, and realizes that they’ve made a grave mistake by letting a burgeoning hero shoulder a large problem without any training or support. They rectify this immediately by offering a position in the JL along with an assortment of mentors and other teen heroes to bond with. 

Red Huntress receives this invitation in front of Phantom, while actively trying to hunt him down.