#this had been for DPREVELATIONS2022 day 7 but it's super super late.

[asjjohnson]

Here's the main part of my Phantom Remnants ficlet. :)

Background information: In this AU, Valerie cares about a comatose Danny Fenton, Dan isn't quite stable but he can handle it, and during a battle Dan takes advantage of a weak spot in the shield to squeeze his way into Amity Park.

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Phantom Remnants: Converge

Valerie had gone through the shield after Phantom, but, as she hovered above the city, he was nowhere in sight.

The sirens were sounding, but hardly anyone was running to the shelters. Instead, people were peeking out of windows or hesitantly walking along the street while glancing up at the sky.

What was wrong with these people—didn't they know the shield didn't have to be completely torn down for it to be an emergency?!

Valerie descended until she was near ground-level, following the streets and calling out, "Get to the shelters!"

As she approached Fenton Works, her dad appeared in the doorway. She hopped off her board in front of the building.

She spoke quickly; urgently. "I don't know where he is. Where's Danny?"

"A nurse already picked him up—he's on his way to the shelters. As for Phantom... I can't tell. I think he's below-ground."

"Is he trying to break into the shelters?" she pondered mostly to herself.

Her dad gave no response.

Valerie jumped back onto her board. "I'll go—"

The street rumbled, and her dad lost his balance and had to grab the front steps' railing to steady himself.

Phantom burst from the Fenton Works' roof, sending pieces of the building in all directions.

Valerie grabbed her dad and swung around to safety across the street, just before a chunk of the Ops Center fell onto the front steps.

It was a good thing Danny hadn't been inside.

Valerie let her dad off her board, then leaned over to give him a brief hug. "Daddy..." She wanted to tell him to go to the shelters, but the image of Phantom slaughtering everyone inside was still in her head. "Be safe," she said instead—firmly, as though saying it would make it so.

"You, too. Be careful."

She gave him a smile, her eyes watery. "Yeah."

Then she turned away from him, soaring into the air, again looking for Phantom.

This time he wasn't so hard to find.

Laughing, he dived through a building and out the other side. Then shot a few ecto-beams toward the ground, before sending an arc of energy through a different building. He was all over the place, like a kid on a sugar high.

Now the townspeople were running to the shelters. Valerie rolled her eyes in annoyance. More like they were causing a large traffic jam and giving Phantom an easy target.

"Phantom!" she shouted. Pulling out a bazooka, she let it charge while waiting for him to turn around.

She nailed him right in the face.

He crashed through the second story of a building, and was back in the air in a matter of seconds.

He wiped some ectoplasm from his nose and smiled. "Val-"

She pulled the trigger again.

He crashed through the same hole as before.

She slid her foot over to one of the buttons on her board as he leapt back into the air, this time with a glare and ecto-energy glowing around his fists.

As much as she would love to see how many times in a row she could hit him in the face, she needed to get him away from the people.

"Come get me," she said instead.

And sped backward.

Phantom followed. He raised one of his glowing hands and sent an ecto-beam her way.

She rocked her board hard to the left and ducked, rotating vertically around the beam as it passed, then used the leftover momentum to smoothly transition to a horizontal spin that got her facing forward. Her board jerked as she switched gears, but launched ahead quickly.

The acceleration smoothed out, and she loosened up her stance.

There was an interesting fact that ecto-beams produced a high-pitched staticy sound. Quiet, but possible to hear when actively listening for it. And right now she could hear that sound.

She dodged to the left, and the beam passed her and continued on to hit a building. Debris showered down on the crowded street.

She needed to find a deserted area to finish their fight. Maybe the park, or—

Hearing another ecto-beam, she dodged right.

Or, if she could get him to follow her long enough, she could lead him to the edge of the shield and have her dad let down a section just long enough for Phantom to pass back through it.

She wondered if her dad could even get to the controls.

What had Phantom done inside Fenton Works anyways? Had he destroyed their ghost portal, or jammed the shield's controls?

She probably should've checked the damage before looking for Phantom.

She angled her head a bit, listening for another ecto-beam.

There should be another one any time now.

The stretch between attacks was a little odd. He was still following her, wasn't he?

Something splatted against her neck just behind her ear, knocking her off her board as she shouted a startled "Gah!"

She called her board back, but hit it at a bad angle and rolled off, falling the rest of the way to the street and rolling to a gritty, bumpy stop.

Well, she was going to feel that the next morning.

She sat up with a groan, feeling dizzy, and reached up to grab whatever was on the back of her neck. It squished between her fingers, and ripped at some fine hairs as she tugged it off. She made a face at the green slime and rubbed it off her glove onto the asphalt. Ectoplasmic goo.

She should've remembered Phantom had that in his arsenal.

Then she looked up at her surroundings.

She was in the middle of the street, with a crowd of wide-eyed people around her—backed up against the surrounding buildings or else pressed tightly around a nearby shelter entrance. Closest to her was a hovering medical stretcher, unable to squeeze back as far as the standing people.

She picked herself up and glanced around for her board, but her eyes lingered on the stretcher.

It took a few seconds to register that it was Danny strapped onto it. One of the nurses she knew was standing at his side, giving Valerie a worried, almost pleading look.

Cold seemed to seep through her as she realized the situation.

Flying was illegal when the sirens were on—even for emergency vehicles. It was a safety thing. The skies needed to be kept clear for a fight so she wouldn't have to dodge cars. And if Phantom attacked people, pedestrians didn't have as far to fall.

But that meant Danny had to be taken to the shelters on foot, among the crowds, and fight his way in like everyone else.

And now he would be in danger, out in the open.

A few people in the crowd turned their gazes skyward, and squeezed back even farther. Grunts of pain proved how tightly they were packed. A door opened, someone gesturing people inside the building, while glancing up worriedly.

Valerie turned and looked up as well, knowing what she would see.

Phantom alighted on the street, his cape drifting down behind him. Glowing green streaked his face and suit, and his expression showed only seriousness and determination and anger.

"This ends now."

His words felt louder than they really were, carrying well on the silent street.

She couldn't remember hitting her head, but she wondered if she had a concussion; time seemed to be moving sluggishly. Or perhaps it was blood loss catching up to her, since she hadn't been paying attention to her injuries and probably had red smeared on her like Phantom had green. Or maybe it was shock.

Whatever the case, she had to figure out how to get Danny out of the line of fire. She had to be strategic about what she stood in front of this time, and though there was no good place to direct fire toward, at least it could be somewhere other than toward Danny.

She started taking slow side-steps away from Danny's stretcher, watching Phantom closely.

Phantom's eyes flicked away from Valerie, immediately toward Danny's direction, and her heart sank.

Phantom took a step back. "He's supposed to be dead!" Oddly, the words didn't feel like a threat. But then his brows returned to a furrow and he bared his teeth. His arm raised toward Danny, an ecto-beam charging in his palm.

Her breath caught in her chest, an icy feeling of alarm; she jerked out a large ecto-gun.

But then... something strange.

Phantom's torso seemed to zigzag like an old TV.

Were her eyes playing tricks on her? She blinked hard, squishing her face tightly together, before doing a few rapid blinks—but the distortion looked more noticeable than before.

Phantom seemed to notice her small action. He stared at her face for a second, before following her line of sight to his torso.

"Not now," he muttered in annoyance—though Valerie, and probably the whole street, could hear the quiet words.

Was he... fading out? But no, this was different somehow. She had never seen this before.

His charging ecto-beam was forgotten, the glow dimming around his outstretched hand. His stance tensed and his jaw tightened with a look of concentration.

Valerie shot him in the face.

He fell onto his back with a grunt of pain. The visual anomaly suddenly worsened, a strange doubling spreading through his body, with the asphalt starting to show through him. It was like the color channels separating on a monitor: translucent white pulling to one side, black to the other.

He jerked his head up to look at Valerie with wide red eyes. Reflecting a raw fearfulness she had never seen from him before.

Then whatever-it-was spread across his features, pulling all the color from his face.

Before she could get a good look, one part started to blur and drift away. The other part made a grab for it, but it evaded and zipped into the distance, leaving the remaining part behind.

Pale. Eyes without pigment other than underlying ectoplasmic green. Wispy white hair that had lost its flame. For the rest of his body, only his faint logo and extremities were visible against the black asphalt.

He still had that terrified look about him. His eyes darted back and forth. His arms came up to circle around himself, as though trying to keep himself together. He started to blur, pulling apart in a way Valerie did recognize.

But then his gaze stilled. He closed his eyes and appeared to let out a long breath, before reopening his eyes. A look of calm resolve seemed to settle over him. As though he had made peace with his fate.

His eyes briefly turned to Valerie, before refocusing on something else.

He leapt into the air, although his boots passed straight through the asphalt.

His essence condensed into a trail of light and streaked through the air. Valerie shot twice at its arc. People shouted as the shots went on to land in the crowd.

The light entered Danny's chest.

Her weapon nearly slipped from her fingers—that's what he'd been looking at! She rushed to Danny's side.

Danny's head shifted, and his eyes fluttered open.

"Phantom, if that's you...!" she said harshly, bringing her ecto-gun up. That conniving, underhanded, cowardly piece of ectoplasmic scum. How dare he pull at her heart.

Danny's eyes widened, in what appeared to be surprise. "Y-You know?" His voice was gravely and weak.

Valerie clenched her jaw. She despised Phantom for doing this. She was beyond frustrated that she couldn't just shoot him into sludge right now. If there was enough substance left to pulverize into sludge. Why couldn't he have just faded out and accepted defeat?! She'd thought he'd made peace with fading out!

The light blue eyes glided away from her. "I... I'm in Amity Par—?" His voice cut out altogether. He coughed a few times, and croaked out, "But I was with Vlad... What happened?" He sounded like he was talking to himself. Spacing out.

"Phantom," Valerie growled in warning. He had better start paying attention to her. She had made a promise to Danny, and she was going to keep it. If Phantom refused to budge, she would force him out one way or another.

His eyes widened again and he tensed, looking alarmed. "The, experiment. Can I—" He started struggling, like he was trying to sit up—Valerie wasn't going to unstrap him. Then a white light sparked to life in the air above his waist. Valerie followed its path with the barrel of her ecto-gun.

Bright rings left behind a solid version of the Phantom she'd seen earlier. Green eyes and Caucasian skin, messy white ponytail. Like a strange mix of her Phantom and the Phantom of ten years ago.

The straps and tubes fell through both him and the stretcher as he sat up. He breathed a sigh of relief.

Valerie's hand shook on her weapon. Where was Danny? What had he done with him?

Phantom again looked at Valerie, eyes raking across her. His expression slowly fell. "...Oh." Then morphed to something resembling dawning horror. "Oh!" He leaned forward, hunching in on himself. "Oh, no, nonono..."

He looked up at her with pleading eyes. "I'd only wanted the guilt to stop. I didn't mean..." The pleading look faded and his gaze drifted.

She could only stare, her mind blank. Trying to make sense of what he was saying.

"I didn't want to feel bad for killing my own friends and family. That's what went through my mind," he said sardonically. He rolled his eyes and his lips formed a disgusted sneer. "Yeah, what a great solution! Just get rid of my human emotions. It would be sooo much easier as a ghost who didn't mind killing people."

The expression of self-hatred fell from his face, and his eyes moved horizontally across the still-crowded street, before he closed his eyes and brought his gloved fingers up to rub his temples.

She stared as the seconds drifted by.

...Danny?

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This is part four of a little series. To see all the parts, look here: Phantom Remnants