Ladies, Gentlemen, and variations thereupon, we are back!
Okay so: I know I said I'd have this up back in December, but my good friend Severe Anxiety disagreed. So after a test run over on AO3 to judge the reception, here it finally is!
Onwards!
Part 1;
"We need to restock the first aid kit," Sam said, and broke the silence that had settled over the trio.
Tucker, who was cleaning the ectoplasm off of a sewing needle beside her, gave a grunt of agreement. Or maybe a grunt of pouring rubbing alcohol onto his leg, which was also covered in ectoplasm. At least it might help get the stain out.
Danny, still in his ghost form, struggled to sit up. "I'll see if I can grab my parents' supplies in the morn-"
"No," Tucker cut him off, and Sam walked over to shove her friend back down onto the bed. She was too rough; Danny bit down on his lip, and a tiny bead of ectoplasm slipped from between the stitches going up the length of his right arm.
"You're not moving," Sam's throat was dry. She spun around and walked back to the first aid kit. She pretended not to notice Danny's annoyed mumble.
Danny had burst into her room, half-past midnight, the right side of his body drenched in his own ectoplasm. He'd tried to throw up a shield, but Skulker had gotten a lucky hit in anyway. There'd been a deep slice from his wrist to his elbow, and Sam had bunched up her sheets to keep pressure on the wound until Tucker could get there to sew it up.
She'd tried to sew up one of Danny's severe injuries herself once. She hadn't been able to hold the needle still, and nearly dropped it in the wound twice. In his human form, Danny still had the scar on his leg. He didn't have any scars in ghost form.
"Sam," Danny said, as he sat up again like he hadn't almost bled out on her floor, "are you mad?"
She almost considered saying 'no.' From how Tucker was looking at everything but the two of them, he certainly wanted her to.
She didn't say 'no.' She crossed her arms and glared. "Why the hell do you keep fighting ghosts alone in the middle of the night?!"
Danny stared at her, with his stupid wide eyes and lack of understanding that people died from getting their arms sliced like that. "Who else will?"
"Your parents? Valerie? Vlad? "
"Vlad definitely wouldn't." Danny rolled onto his left side, and propped himself up with the wall and a stack of now-green blankets. "And Valerie or my parents would get hurt. I-"
"Got your arm sliced open because you forgot you could go intangible." Tucker said, and slammed the first aid kit closed. "Again."
Danny formed his mouth into a little 'O.' "Guys, I'm sorry-"
"What if you weren't close enough?" Sam asked, "What if you couldn't get here in time, and you bled out in some alley somewhere? We would have no idea where you were, or that you needed us-"
"You can't keep doing this, dude." Tucker cut in. "You need to stop hunting ghosts at night."
"And put them off until morning, when I have to get to school, and didn't get any sleep the night before because my ghost sense kept waking me?" Danny raised an eyebrow and made an effort at crossing his arms. "Yeah, survey says; bad plan."
"It's going to be summer in a week," Sam said, "you could at least try it before you sass us."
Danny rolled his eyes. "Okay, what about this; I keep protecting people, no matter what time, since it's kind of my thing, but if things go bad- if, guys. It was a lucky hit- I'll shoot you an s.o.s. or something and I'll tell you where I am."
"A text," Sam said, "you're going to get badly injured and then you're going to text us. What are you, Tucker?"
"Hey!"
It was a dumb moment. It was a poor attempt between a group of sixteen-year-olds to be serious, and to deal with something no one their age should ever have to.
Three months later, just after two in the morning, Danny darted around Skulker. He teased the other ghost how quiet he was, and found himself honestly annoyed by the lack of witty banter. Skulker grabbed his shoulder, and Danny turned intangible to slip away.
A thin, sharp blade pierced his left side anyway, and cut halfway through him before Skulker pulled it out.
The ectoplasm Danny choked out was dotted with red and splattered as brown on the rooftops below.
.-.
[Sent 2:12 am] Danny: sos home
[Seen 11:47 am]
.-.
Tucker knew where the Fentons kept their spare house key. Sam knew how to scale the side of Fenton Works and open Danny's window. Instead, they called Jazz when they were halfway there.
They told her to check his room, and she screamed. That was the end of the call.
Sam and Tucker found police outside, and stretched halfway down the block. A lone ambulance was parked in front of the house, and they could see Jazz wrapped in a shock blanket as she sat on the steps, surrounded by police officers and paramedics. A trail of ectoplasm dripped down the side from Danny's half-open window, stubbornly clinging to the bricks despite how hard it had rained the night before.
No Danny. They couldn't get close enough to check the house.
They didn't really need the confirmation, anyway.
.-.
Their parents picked them up, and in their individual rooms Sam and Tucker were sat down with their family and told the news.
Danny was missing. There was no body, but his room had been coated with ectoplasm. There was blood, too- far too much of it, far more than any human would be able to lose- but the police were focusing on the ectoplasm. The Guys in White had been called in, and the official theory was that Danny had been kidnapped by a ghost. The Guys in White would ask them the next day if they knew of any ghosts with a grudge against Danny.
Sam and Tucker knew nearly fifty by name. They shared none of them.
.-.
Sam didn't sleep for a week.
She kept playing the night over in her mind. She was going to surprise her grandmother with breakfast in bed as thanks for convincing her parents to let Sam have a second greenhouse, and needed to be up early. So, she'd gone to bed at nine.
Tucker had been out with his parents, attending some sort of dinner party two hours away, and had been exhausted when he got home. He'd fallen asleep an hour before Danny's text, and hadn't woken up until just before noon. Sam didn't check her phone until then.
So she stayed up for a week, phone on and in her hand at all times. Just in case.
Just in case.
Her parents checked her into the hospital after the week was up, and she missed the first day of school.
.-.
Tucker knew the search for Danny had just turned into an effort to recover his body after the first three days. No one thought they would find Danny alive after the first week had past. Tucker wanted to prove them wrong, but he was stuck at home. His parents wouldn't take his eyes off him, like they thought he'd be snatched up by a ghost next.
He went to school on the first day alone, with his mom promising to be waiting for him the second his last class ended. When they were fourteen, his birthday had fallen on the first day of classes, so Sam and Danny had found a way to get in early and hang banners wishing him a happy birthday in every hall. Balloons and confetti had fallen from the ceiling when he entered.
His sixteenth birthday would be in a few days, and he'd be celebrating it alone.
When you're the friend of a kid who died and another who's found herself in the hospital in highschool, people stare. People offer false condolences, because they feel they have to. Teachers give you pitying looks in every class. They say you can take your time with the work they assign, and say you can talk to them whenever you need to. They strongly recommend that you talk to someone.
Tucker talked to no one, and kept his phone in his hand at all times.
.-.
Valerie Gray wasn't an idiot.
Fenton disappeared, and so did Phantom. Vlad was a half ghost, and as a human he was friends with the Fentons. Dani was a half ghost, and she looked just as much like Danny Fenton as she did Danny Phantom.
It wasn't hard to connect the dots.
Danny was gone, his family was grieving, and Guys in White were useless: there was no one else to protect Amity Park. So, it fell on her. It all fell on her.
The ghosts didn't stop coming, but the ones everyone in Amity knew by name did. Skulker, Ember, Technus, even the Box Ghost quit showing up. A month ago, Valerie would have done anything to get them to leave the town alone. Now, it was just unnerving. Hundreds of low-level ectopusses would be roaming the town at any time, but none of the humanoids returned. Valerie couldn't help but wonder exactly what Danny had to do with that.
But every time she did, she'd shake her head and focus on something else. Even in a town where the dead ran rampant, Valerie doubted she'd ever be able to ask him.
.-.
Sam and Tucker received a text from Jazz two and a half weeks after Danny disappeared. It was the first conversation they'd had with any Fenton since they'd lost Danny, the first hint that anything had happened, and it was just two words.
Jazz: They know.
Neither of them had to ask what it meant.
.-.
Sam, Tucker, and Jazz met in front of the school for the first time in nearly a month. It was even more awkward than they'd expected.
"How have your parents been taking... everything?" Sam asked, after they'd sat in silence for nearly four minutes.
"Badly," Jazz said. "They were blaming themselves before they knew he was half-ghost. And Vlad won't leave us alone."
A cold, collected rage sunk its claws into Sam's chest. "What?"
"He's been living in the guest room. He even brought his cat." Jazz continued, "He won't leave my parents alone. When I told them about... everything... I had to tell him. He just acted like he didn't know."
Tucker sat up a little straighter and looked over them both. "Vlad can duplicate really well, right? How do we know he doesn't have Danny?"
Their moment of silence lasted barely that- a moment- before the three were rushing towards Fenton Works. They'd come up with a real plan as they went; all that was important now was Danny.
.-.
Vlad was the only named ghost still in town, and he'd been willing to torture a little girl. Everything about him just screamed evil, and if anyone had an explanation for what exactly was going on Valerie was positive it would be him.
Breaking in was easy; he had no defenses against humans with ghost hunting suits. Trying to find that lab again was harder. Breaking through the floor would be too obvious; she needed to find the door.
Valerie dismissed her hoverboard and stepped into a study with a gigantic picture of Vlad's face on the wall. "Gross," she whispered, and started to search the fireplace. That was where normal evil dudes put their secret entrances, right?
The ghost tracker in her suit gave a faint ding! And Valerie froze. It had never sensed Vlad before, and he hadn't made any modifications. Did he have lackeys?
She turned around and saw the robotic ghost Skulker. He was still, with a long green knife in hand. She saw traces of dried blood along the blade.
"Did you kill Vlad?! " She shouted, and the ghost took a step towards her. He didn't float, he walked.
Valerie took a step back and bumped into the fireplace. There was a grinding sound, and Valerie looked back for only a second to see the stairs appearing behind her. In that second, Skulker lunged.
His sword hit the material on the back of Valerie's head, and she stumbled- pain stung the back of her skull in a crooked line, and she saw several locks of her hair on the ground.
He's trying to kill me.
Valerie dodged the next strike and threw herself down the stairs, tucking and rolling to avoid any more damage. She spun around, ectoweapon ready- and saw nothing.
"What the hell is happening?" She whispered, and looked over the lab. Vlad's ghost portal was wide open, but the counters were covered with a layer of dust. No one had been down here in weeks. Valerie turned back to the stairs, and looked up- Skulker was standing there, hair no longer blazing and the lights on his suit dull. But he was blocking her way out.
Valerie turned back around and looked over the empty lab. No Vlad. For all she knew, Skulker actually had killed him. She lifted a hand to the back of her head, and pulled back a glove covered in blood. Her vision wavered, and she sat on the ground. He was trying to kill me. He was trying to kill me. Repeating it did nothing to make it all feel more real.
She wondered if this was how Danny had felt.
There was a beep, and a crash. Valerie fumbled with her little pistol just in time to take aim at Skulker as he flew down the stairs. His left arm dropped out of the socket, sickly-looking dark green ectoplasm dripped out with it. The world seemed to be moving too slow, and Valerie took another shot- her weapon sparked and spit out a semi-solid chunk of dark green ectoplasm instead.
"Oh, gross-" she chucked it, and whacked Skulker in the face. It did nothing to stop him from raising his sword.
A floating submarine with Fenton Works on the side shot out of the portal and smashed Skulker into the opposing wall.
Valerie made eye contact with Tucker when he hopped out of the side, and had never been so relieved to see him in her life.
Skulker was up again, gross ectoplasm dripping from the damage on his suit. Tucker grabbed Valerie's arm and hauled her onto the ship, shouting something that didn't quite register with Valerie's ears. Head injuries bled far more than they had any right to, and it was making her woozy.
She saw Sam, wearing a satellite on a bracelet around a wrist, and Jazz, armed with a huge Fenton Bazooka. Sam landed a hit on Skulker's face, and the head snapped back, barely holding itself in place with ectoplasmic strings and sparking wires. Jazz's shot missed, but she swung the bazooka around and smacked the sword-wielding hand off his wrist.
Tucker was in front of Valerie now, shining a little flashlight in her eyes. Valerie tried to shove him away, and noticed she wasn't in her suit anymore.
She had no idea when she'd dropped it.
She had no idea how long she'd been down there.
.-.
Sam fired the wrist ray into Skulker's face and he dropped into a broken, rusted, ectoplasm-covered clump.
"Okay?" She said, and took a step forwards. "He just fell apart."
Jazz pulled her back and carefully, using the nozzle of the bazooka, she sorted through the rubble until they found the actual Skulker.
Wires dug into his twitching, glitching form. He'd turned himself into part of the suit, and dark black lines spun out from around his core. He opened one eye, and part of his form dripped off.
Sam reeled back, gagging. "Holy-"
"How...?" Jazz was calmer. She had to be, her only other option was to start sobbing. She knew this ghost hunted Danny. She knew he'd constantly been after her brother. "What happened?"
Skulker's eye drifted closed. His voice wavered. "I won."
"Won what?" Jazz asked, and more of Skulker's form dripped away. "Do you know what happened to my brother?"
There was the faintest hint of a smile on Skulker's face, and Jazz aimed her bazooka right at it. "I won," He said again, and twitched a hand. The bloody sword sparked, and Jazz fired.
Skulker was gone, with just a smear of ectoplasm in his place. A cracked and twisting ball of energy shattered.
"That's for Danny," Jazz choked out, and her gun clattered to the floor.
.-.
It was wrong.
She knew Danny wouldn't have wanted this. Danny would never want anyone to get hurt like this. But her little brother was gone.
It was starting to sink in that there was no redo here. He wouldn't be coming back.
.-.
Vlad didn't know what had happened to Daniel, but if the Guys in White had been the cause of it he wouldn't be surprised. Daniel was half human, there was no logical reason he could have disappeared like that. Either they had his body, or evidence that could lead Vlad to it.
And at this point, the closure was all he wanted.
He sat beside Jack, with Maddie on the man's other side, and two agents from the Guys In White across from them. That, of course, was not their actual name- the Government Initiative for Unnatural Understanding was- but out of everything that had changed since Vlad's college years, his absolute lack of respect for the organization had not. Their name meant nothing; they were simply a waste of tax dollars, and Vlad would prefer they were as far away from him as possible.
His own experiences had absolutely nothing to do with that opinion and Vlad would sue anyone who said differently.
The agents across the room from them were a muscular redheaded woman known as Agent Q and dark-skinned man who was obviously a new hire and claimed his name to be Agent 214B. Their actual names were Marianne and Mark, respectively. Their disgrace of an organization really needed to spend more on developing a halfway decent security system.
Regardless, Agent 214B at least had the grace to look upset with how little information they were apparently finding. Agent Q did not. She had no emotion and, frankly, it was a bit disturbing.
"Our Ghost Zone Probes have not detected any trace of real-world materials," Agent 214B said, further proving the incompetence of the Guys is White. Materials from the Human Realm were always ending up in the Ghost Zone. "Which is odd, and we will be looking into more thoroughly." You had better be. "As it currently stands, it seems unlikely that your son or his remains are in the Ghost Zone."
Vlad kept himself composed, but swore internally. He had searched the Ghost Zone as well, but most of the boy's allies had been rather uncooperative. Those of the Far Frozen especially had made an effort to prevent him from gathering any information. Vlad had been hoping the Guys in White would have more luck. He had none, so surely the bar would be low enough? Apparently not.
"Are you alright, Mr. Masters?" Agent Q asked, "You look rather upset."
Vlad placed a hand on his chest- over his core, of course. An unintentional residual ghostly habit. "How can I not be? We're nearing a month since this horrible incident and you have found nothing that could explain what happened to my nephew." Jack placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. Vlad hated it.
Agent Q tsk ed and stood up. "We will take a short break. If you all will excuse me, I have a phone call I must take." She left the room, and automatically, Vlad sent an invisible duplicate to follow her. If Agent Q wanted to be suspicious, she deserved this.
Agent Q moved swiftly through the kitchen and out the backstory before pulling out a white cell phone. After a moment, she was speaking into it. "Give me some good news, Stone."
It was only through advanced ghostly hearing that Vlad heard the man's voice on the other end. "Andrew's dead."
Agent Q's face twisted; she looked genuinely upset. "How?"
"Burn marks, suspicious circles- definitely ecto-based." Stone took a breath in, and Vlad filed that information away. What ghost would be stupid enough kill one of them? "His son has the primary target's code name."
There was a brief moment of silence. "Suspicious, but it's just a name."
"It is exactly the same. And the boy claims to have killed him." Stone added on, "He was born February 17, 1997-" that was Daniel's birthday, "-and has tested positive for ectoplasmic residue. I think it might be time to instigate the primary objective."
Vlad snarled. The primary objective was the only thing they bothered to keep guarded, and if it involved a boy Daniel's age- never mind the ectoplasmic residue, and the oh-so-many things it could mean- he refused to let it continue.
"...This line is not secure," Agent Q said, "grab the boy, bring him to us. Do what you have to, Agent Z."
"Roger that."
The call ended, and Vlad returned to his body. The Guys in White experimented on teenagers now. They really had sunk that low. Very well then, he'd tail them and infiltrate the organization. It shouldn't be too hard.
In the basement, something exploded, and the power went out.
Vlad felt his core twist and knew there was a ghost nearby.
.-.
The trio-turned-quartet landed the Specter Speeder in a dark basement. Valerie's injury had been shallow, and had already scabbed over. Her hair had taken the brunt of the damage.
Jazz, who had scooped the remains of Skulker into a dusty beaker, stepped out first and placed it on the counter. Across the room from her, something fell over.
Jazz spun on her heel, bazooka already balanced on her shoulder. "Show yourself!"
"What's up?" Tucker called as he poked his head out of the Speeder.
Jazz didn't reply, and as the silence continued, she reached for her keys. There was a tiny flashlight attached to them, and she gave the room a quick scan. Nothing.
And then two Guys in White agents crashed down the stairs with their guns drawn.
.-.
Three teenagers, a young adult, three sets of parents, and half of another stood in the kitchen. Vlad had quietly excused himself, and the Guys in White had left to attend to other business.
Maddie allowed herself a moment of hope. "Did you find him?"
"We found Skulker," Sam said, and glanced at her own parents. "He was a ghost who... didn't really like Danny. He kept saying that he'd won and had a bloody knife."
"He tried to kill me," Valerie said. She didn't look her Dad in the eye.
"He won't hurt anyone ever again," Jazz finished, and held up the beaker.
.-.
Grief is hard. It's not linear, or a hump you need to get over. It's a tumbleweed, twisting in and around itself as you take two steps forward, twelve steps back, and somehow end up better than you were when you started. Then the next day, you're worse again. It's repeating that until the empty feeling in your chest goes away, while being convinced that it never will.
Grief is trying to find someone to blame, and putting your life on the line as well, because the concept of being alone again after your breath of having someone just like you is impossible. It's finding nothing, and continuing to try- because what else can you do, but try again?
It's going over everything you've ever made, looking at all the parts that could have hurt him- and remembering how they did, and how you were so proud to be hurting your own son- and trying to change them. It's spending weeks barely sleeping, because the least you can do is make sure you never hurt anyone like you hurt him ever again
It's avoiding that one room- his room, the room that held everything that remained of him- because it was right there, just down the hall, and you had not idea what was happening in it. It's knowing you could have prevented everything if you'd simply looked inside, but keeping that door closed. Because you failed, and now he's gone.
It's holding your phone in your hand every hour of every day, it's staying up all night just in case something happens. It's taking over the job of someone you hurtbecause anything's better than dwelling on what's lost. It's standing up and leaving the school assembly that's the closest thing to a funeral he's going to get, because staying and speaking would mean giving up on that illogical hope there's a way out of this.
It's the knowledge that you can't change the past, but scouring the Ghost Zone because you know- you know, you've read your brother's files- there's a ghost that controls time. And if you can find him, you can fix this.
It's not finding him. It's not finding anyone or anything. It's dead end after dead end, disappointment after failure as you plead for a redo. It's knowing you'll never get that. It's knowing he's not coming back.
It's an apology he'll never hear.
And that's only the beginning.
.-.
Late November, the phone in Fenton Works rang. Jack was the only one home. Maddie and Jazz were out with Vlad, who was treating them to a spa day. Jack had turned the offer to join them down.
He picked up the phone, and threw on some false cheer. "Fenton Works, this is Jack Fenton speak-"
"Hi, Dad." For the first time in three and a half months, Jack heard his son's voice. It was strained and rough, with every word sounding like it took more energy than the last. "Um... I might need a ride."
Those of you who've read the old version know how most of this goes. For those of you who don't, boy are you in for a treat. The lore is clearer and the pacing is leagues above the old version. There's much less dicking around this time folks, I know exactly where we're going and how we're gong to get there. Hopefully, we'll get to the good stuff faster this time.
Alrighty, that's all for now! I'll have Chapter 2 up later this week for various fun reasons, but until then, thoughts? :D