After Danny had looked a wish-crazed Desiree in the eye and said, "I wish you never came back to Amity," and had that granted due to her lack of filter… he'd assumed he'd seen the last of her save for the Ghost Zone.

He wasn't expecting a very deliberate sabotage of his plan to keep her out.

And surely, you might think Desiree had the brains to be subtle about her presence…?

Well, that was a bit hard to do, considering who brought her back and the goal of the wisher.

...How did Paulina get in contact with Desiree anyways?

xXx

Needless to say, danny was surprised when his late night study session (he was actually trying in school, ok?!) was interrupted by an insistent tug on his chest, in his core. Before he'd had the chance to be too confused, Danny had transformed and disappeared in one fluid motion, then disorientedly found himself in unidentifiable surroundings that reeked of girlishness, with Paulina gushing over him to a cocky Desiree.

Immediately, Danny tried to move, and found himself unable to do so. No bindings rested over him that tied him to the overly cushy chair, he just… couldn't. Then he attempted to open his mouth and shout something along the lines of a panicked, "I wish you would go away," but that didn't happen either; his voice remained completely silent.

Desiree gave a smirk, flying off. Paulina gave her an equally conniving smirk and a too-innocent little wave.

Phantom felt something in his chest loosen once Desiree was out of earshot.

He desperately shouted, "I wish you'd go away!" at her departing form anyways.

xXx

"Inviso-Bill," Paulina purred at him, stepping aside to reveal—

"Is that a shrine?" Danny asked, stunned. "A shrine to me?"

Paulina preened. Danny made a retching sound as it was the only way to express his feelings; yes he used to have a dorky, immature crush on her, but now… well, he'd moved passed it, and now a shrine wasn't something he could've misinterpreted as anything but creepy.

"Do you like it?" asked Paulina, somehow completely innocent yet knowing.

Danny just gave her a look. "Why am I here, anyways? And how'd you even get Desiree out?!"

"Oh, well, I just took a loudspeaker with me and visited the Fenton dweeb to get access to his parent's basement—" Danny winced. So that was why she'd been so insistent on stopping by his house, then took a suspiciously long 'bathroom break'— "and I just shouted wishes into the green portal thingy with it. After all, I do remember the wish ghost, so I figured, you know, I'd use her," she finished airily, cheerily. Paulina's expression turned sharp— "and I'm going to get all your secrets."

Danny felt the same tug at his core as earlier, and a compulsion to tell. An oh no was the only thing that passed through his head.

xXx

...In the end, Paulina could only take about ten minutes of it before wishing she hadn't done any of this (and so it shall be, and so it was).

One might think this was perhaps due to the overwhelming revelation that "dweeby Fenturd" and "heroic Inviso-Bill" were one in the same, but such was not the case.

See, in her wish to Desiree, Paulina simply said she desired the ghost hero's secrets. Generally. Just, secrets in general.

And as much as they do not wish to admit it, humans have secrets in spades. Things they never told anyone that smooth over time, both big and small. And considering the very definition of a secret is that which the holder and a chosen few know… there was the technical aspect that something mundane that didn't spread or didn't get told to anyone at all could be considered secret.

Paulina could only take so much rambling admitting his unheroic hatred of Christmas, or Phantom wanting a puppy when he was younger, or even simple word vomit about his dumb guilty pleasure bad movies. That last one was the final straw that set her off; the ghost had blasted off on awful, cheesy sci-fi C and B list movies… and if there was one thing Paulina could not handle, it was nerd talk.

Hearing such dweebish paltry out of her hero felt like a desecration, like the falling of an angel.

So she simply wished it had never happened.

And so it was— or, wasn't.