Author's Note: Hello! Sorry, friends. I know I promised to work more on my Forever fic, but my Supernatural fic distracted me with shiny inspiration thanks to a Pinterest session filled with Supernatural hilarity. Which naturally led to reading SuperPhantom fics, which whacked me over the head with a story idea for DP, being a Phan girl. So, here it is, the first chapter anyway. Then I swear I will put everything I can into When the Past Comes Back to Behead You as soon as I can figure out where to go from where I'm at. Best Wishes, Me.

Prologue: Lonely

I was always told to stay away from Phantom. "That awful ghost child" was to never ever come near me. If anybody saw him around the Zone, they told my dad or my "uncles" and I had to stay in my realm, enforced by my dog, Cujo. He was more afraid of my dad than me. I wanted desperately to meet Phantom. He was just like me, a half ghost, though I was born, not made. Don't ask me how it works because when my dad tried to give me my unique version of "the talk," I flew away screeching like a banshee and he never brought it up again. I was kind of glad. Human health class was awkward enough. Anyway, I tried to sneak out a bunch of times to meet him, but the Ghost Zone is semi-infinite. Pretty huge, anyway. Too huge for a lone ghost girl to wander around looking for Phantom and go unnoticed by all of her father's friends and goons and actually find him before getting dragged back home. It took me ages, but one day I finally got mad enough to escape the Zone entirely and go looking for my hero in the human world. But I guess for you, I'm starting in the middle of the story. I suppose some background would be appropriate here.

I was born to a human mother and a ghost father. Again, no idea how that works. I think it may be a special form of overshadowing, but whatever. Mom's name was Lucy Pells and my dad is the infamous Vortex. That's right. The one who bends the heavens and creates devastating weather with a snap of his fingers. If you find him intimidating, just imagine being his teenage daughter. Did you imagine it? Did you nearly pee yourself? No? Then you didn't get it quite scary enough. Make no mistake, though. My parents were in love. My mom fell for a terrifying dead thing and my dad fell for a lowly fleshy human. But they made it work for awhile and they managed to have me. So it looks at first like Baby Me is gonna be all normal and humany, pink-cheeked with a shock of pale blonde hair and big brownish-green eyes. Then I have my second-ever cry when we get home from the hospital and two orange rings appear around my waist and move towards my feet and head and suddenly Baby Me is poison green with pointy ears, blood red hair, and glowing highlighter-esque yellow eyes. Understandably, my mom freaks out and drops me with a scream. But no worries, I didn't hit the ground. I floated about three feet off of it and drifted around, giggling at the new sensation. My mom scoops me up and is babbling like crazy, worried about me being dead, but Dad explains that I'm just half ghost and the transformations are normal. Given time and teaching, I will learn to control them and my other powers. But until then, he says, they have to keep Baby Me away from nosy humans who would put me in a lab or try to hurt me. So our family pretty much stays in my mom's house on the outskirts of a town in Michigan, halfway into a stretch of vibrant woodland, out of sight.

I grew up pretty normal, considering. Only difference is my tantrums and illnesses came with bouts of ecto-lasers and intangibility and more floating. As I got older, heat waves, wind, and indoor snow came into the mix. But my personal specialty was lightning. I could make the most beautiful controlled fireworks displays of lightning ever, sometimes better than Dad. By the time I was six, I had a pretty good handle on my powers and I knew better than to tell anybody anything about me or my dad, so I got to go to school. If anyone asked, I told them he was dead, which was technically true. Life progressed pretty much the same for five years. I had my human life of school, friends, and dance practice (because I loved ballet), the same as everyone else. Then I had my ghost life, practicing powers with Dad and getting peeks into the Ghost Zone when a portal cropped up. I even met a few of my Dad's friends, Technus, Skulker, and the Fright Knight. Skulker taught me so much about animals, ghostly and not, but I preferred to use what I knew to save them and their habitats, not hunt them. My mom was a bit of a hippie and I guess it rubbed off on me in my love of nature. Technus taught me about computers, and even though I wasn't a genius hacker, I made the best Powerpoint presentations in the fourth grade. I told my teacher that my uncle was a Geek Squad dude. The Fright Knight taught me about honor and how to battle properly. When George Mason took my friend Anna's Barbie, my right hook broke his nose, and I got in trouble, but no one ever messed with her or me again. Everything was pretty good. Then the Observants came in and screwed everything up.

You see, a union like my parents' was forbidden with a capital OR ELSE. Dad kept a pretty tight lid on things, but some punk ratted us out to the Observants and Walker's goons descended. We ran, of course. Dad stayed behind and fought them back, but he was captured and locked away. You probably know that story, how Plasmius freed him and he went on a little bit of a weather rampage after being cooped up so long. I promise he's usually not that destructive, but he is always that intense. About everything. Anyway, back to my tragic backstory. My mom and I drove away while Dad covered us, but one of the goons blew our back tires and we smashed through a guard rail, flipping over and over until we landed upside down. I had transformed instinctively, but I couldn't reach over and turn Mom intangible in time. When we rolled to a stop, I was pretty messed up, but her neck was broken three different ways and her blue eyes stared empty, unblinking, at me, her arm still outstretched to try and protect me. I have never forgiven myself for letting her die like that. If I'd only been faster, she wouldn't have suffered. She'd still be alive. I freed myself from the wreckage, but when I went back for her body, I was so messed up that my hands heated up to 200 degrees without my say-so and I caught the car on fire. I still managed to pull her out, my arms covered in burns whose scars are still there in my human form to this day. I learned later that the police had me declared missing and likely dead when they found the wreckage, and grandparents I hardly knew buried my mom. The goons had not helped me, but they had caught up to me and were waiting for the rest of the squad to arrive. Walker landed and looked me up and down, taking in my bedraggled appearance at a glance.

"You're one of us," he said. "At least in part. And you are only a child, innocent in all this. You can choose to live in the human world or we can take you to the Ghost Zone and give you your father's realm to live in until he is released from his sentence. Choose now, ghost child."

"Well, I no longer have any living family," I said accusingly. "I want to go to the Ghost Zone in case my mom becomes one and to wait until Dad gets out."

Walker smiled smugly. "Excellent choice. Let's go."

So we flew into a portal made by a large wolf-creature in a green prison jumpsuit. I was shown to a floating door marked with a cloud and a lightning bolt. My father's lair. The door opened to reveal a big house floating on a lawn made of clouds, with other little cloud islands carrying different things floating around. Tears came to my eyes. It was beautiful, this place he'd built for our family to live in one day.

"Welcome home," Walker drawled, then left with the goons.

The three ghosts I'd come to think of as my uncles showed up and I cried in earnest, blubbering out what had happened. They were all uncomfortable with this display of sadness, but they stayed and promised to keep an eye out for my mother. I stayed in the cloud house for days (or whatever counted as days in the Zone), making little storms and missing my family terribly. Every day, one of my uncles would show up and tell me there had been no sign, and finally I had to accept that my mother's spirit had moved on and left me behind. I was angry at first , then glad that maybe she had some peace, but the guilt over her death never went away. Pretty depressing, I know. Now, onto better times. I spent the next three years exploring my new home. Most of the time I was met with territorial hostility and disgust. I was a criminal's daughter. Most knew about my hybrid status, and few accepted me. But sometimes, I found a friend. Ember and I shared a love of music, though I liked dancing better than playing. Dora rarely left her brother's kingdom, but she seemed nice enough, if a bit of a doormat. Desiree's profound hatred of men was a little off-putting, but we hung out a time or two. Then there was Cujo. He was a sweet little lost puppy that disappeared into the human world a lot after the portal opened for awhile. Then Phantom helped him, and he stayed around more. Sure, he kept me inside when I wanted to go out, but he was good company. We played fetch a lot. I missed the trees of home, but Skulker's island jungle was a pretty decent substitute. I visited my uncles often. I wasn't sure sometimes where my opinion stood on the subject of their repeated troublemaking in the human world. I sympathized with their disappointment at failing to take over the world, but at the same time, I was glad that they hadn't succeeded. Technus, as much as I love him, can barely go to book club without arguing with someone (and by arguing I mean ecto-blast fighting with yelling). I can't imagine him successfully leading the world. So Phantom, the ghost who fights ghosts, was basically my hero, even before I learned that he was a halfa like me.

Right, I mentioned the portal, didn't I? Well, I guess that's pretty important. The whole Zone trembled with the force of a hole between the worlds tearing open. Suddenly, it was vogue to go hang in the human dimension. I, being a spunky fourteen year old girl as well as a ghost, really wanted to go, but my uncles said no. It was too dangerous for me. It was dangerous enough for ordinary ghosts. If I got captured, it would be a lot worse. I snuck over anyway, too curious about how the world had changed in my absence to resist. I was in a place called Amity Park, still in America, only a couple states away from my old hometown. I flew the streets for a little while. Then I found a little park and I squealed for joy. I zoomed down to a hidden corner, transformed in a flash of red rings, and just rolled in the grass, feeling the solid earth beneath my toes. I reveled in the sights, the smells, the everything. I hadn't realized just how much I missed it here. When I acclimated to the awesomeness of real plants that didn't try to re-kill you, I noticed that my outfit was the same as it had been the last time I had been human, the night my mother died, but bigger. Long green dress with flowing sleeves, brown vest, brown sandals I had kicked off to frolic, yellow butterfly clip in my pale blonde hair, which had been growing when my ghost hair had not. It fell straight down to my waist. I was relieved that my -ahem- womanly features had developed in human form as well as ghost form. I had a little control over my ghost outfit, seeing as I hadn't died all the way, so I got to pick what it looked like. Since most ghosts didn't do the whole wardrobe change thing, I stuck with an orange jumpsuit, like Phantom's, except it was sleeveless with a high collar that covered my neck, with two red belts overlapping in an X at my waist and red curlicue stripes along the sides and red boots and gloves. I have to say, if it weren't for the green death pallor, I'd look pretty hot. Oops. I'm getting off track again, aren't I? Sorry.

So, I finish rolling in the grass like a crazy person and stroll towards the more populated area of the park. I figured I could observe people for a bit before talking to anybody and giving myself away as a weirdo stranger who had no idea what had been going on for the past three years. My reconnaissance was going pretty well, and I was learning that not much had changed, when suddenly the sky was filled with screeching and ecto-blasts. I was ready to leap into action as necessary (My first real ghost battle! Not just sparring with Uncle Fright), but I was not needed because there, pummeling a couple of ecto-puses, was him, Phantom! I had idolized the dude a lot, but I had no idea that he was my age. And really, really cute. He socked one of the creatures that was trying to pick up a hot dog cart with its tentacles and quipped, "Easy, Oswald. Don't you know what's in those things? You're better off vegetarian." I had to laugh. I realized then that I was standing watching the battle all dreamy-eyed instead of running away like the sensible, normal, not sticking out like a sore thumb park-goers. I retreated to a safe distance, but kept watching Phantom beat the two ghosts into the ground. It occurred to me that he was a ghost and I was part ghost, so maybe I should have been cheering for the ecto-puses, but I was also part human, so I cheered for Phantom and humanity internally. When he sucked them into a thermos and capped it with a practiced motion full of confidence, I swooned. Yup, I was crushing hard. He flew off to deposit them back in the Zone, never seeing me, but I was thrilled. I hadn't even come here to see him, and I had witnessed him throw down with a couple of ghosts. I was ecstatic. I knew then and there that I wanted to do what he did, and keep people safe. I ducked behind a tree, transformed, and got ready to follow him when I felt a hand come down on my shoulder.

"Tempest," Uncle Skulker said. Dangit! I forgot sometimes that he was the Zone's greatest hunter. Of course he'd found me.

"Heya, Uncle Skulker. What brings you here?" I asked as casually as possible.

"I told you repeatedly that you were not to go to the human world, and especially that you were to stay away from that whelp, Phantom. What brings me here is that you broke that promise," he rumbled brusquely. Well, so much for casual.

"I'm sorry. I just really missed living trees and a sky with actual clouds and stuff. I didn't come here looking for him, I swear. He never even saw me," I told him.

He sighed, "I should have known you would miss the place where you spent most of your life. How about a compromise? You may go to the human world anywhere except here and Wisconsin, and you stay away from Phantom and Plasmius. As long as you obey those two rules, anywhere else in this world is open to you. Does that sound fair?"

"Oh, Skulker! Yes, it sounds super fair. I promise to obey the rules and you won't regret it, I swear. Thank you, thank you, thank you!" I exclaimed, hugging him. I already knew about Vlad, the mad hybrid and I had no desire to go anywhere near him anyway.

"I am glad to make you happy," he said, smiling. "Now let's go before that menace sucks us into that abysmal thermos of his."

So that was my first "encounter" with Phantom, and my first time back in the human world in three years. It was pretty great. I took Skulker up on his offer and took little, less permanent portals around the globe, helping people, hunting other ghosts. I considered wearing a mask to protect my identity, but most ghosts already hated me. This was only another reason to add to the list of them that had the word abomination at the top in red ink. I never had reason to quarrel with my friends and family. They stuck to Amity Park, the place with a reliable portal, the one place I could never go. I did get stuck on the wrong side of a portal once, in Kiev. Luckily, my mother's family had Ukrainian roots and I knew a little of the language. I spent a couple of days celebrating with grateful townspeople. The tavern provided my meals and I danced for them, to their delight, to the tune of a small band that frequented the establishment. These people were a lot more accepting of me than the ghosts were. It was pretty nice, actually. Skulker had Frostbite use the Infimap to find me, and that was the first time I met the people of the Far Frozen. I chilled with them for a few days (See what I did there?), looking at their chronicle of Phantom's defeat of Pariah Dark, the Ghost King, talking shop about ice-type weather powers. They really liked my lightning show and taught me how to turn a pretty spectacle into a weapon. It turned out to be really handy. Oh, I forgot to mention where the heck I was at during the whole Ghost King debacle. Plasmius really manages to get himself in trouble, but I guess I should be thankful since his antics resulted in my dad being freed. Anyway, I was locked in my room. That's right, when Pariah Dark tried to take over the human world, I was freaking grounded against my will, hiding in my lair, shooting lightning angrily at the clouds and pouting, praying that my uncles would make it out of this okay, especially the Fright Knight, who was bound to serve his master. Who knew what the Ghost King would make him do? I was unbelievably worried, but my over-protective kin stuck me where I couldn't help anybody so I would be safe. So, I was let out, along with Cujo, who had kept me company, when it was over, and begrudgingly told that Phantom had done a good job and had saved the worlds. If I hadn't had a crush on him already, that would have done it.

So when Dad got back from dealing with Plasmius, we embraced happily and he complained about his imprisonment, Vlad, and Phantom. I chuckled, remembering what it was like for my weather powers to be tied to my emotions. Poor Phantom. I told Dad about everything that had happened since he was gone, except for the ghost fighting and my crush on Phantom. He was disappointed that Mom was gone, too. He was proud of how I'd developed my powers and glad that I had managed to make some friends and visit my old homeworld safely. He agreed with all of Skulker's rules and continued to enforce them, moving back into the family realm. Now, I know background is important and all, but by this time, you're tired of it and you want me to get to the exciting part: how I ran away from home, met my hero, fought the system, etc. Well, I'm as tired of telling you all of the background details as you are of hearing them, so here's the thing that made the cool part of the story start. Dad found out about my ghost fighting. Someone I blasted with lightning told someone else, who told the Box Ghost, who blabbed it to everyone he saw, and then someone told Technus, who told my dad.

"My own- huuhh -daughter!" he wheeze-roared. "How- huuhh -could you?"

"Dad, calm down. Your asthma's acting up," I replied calmly. I was almost fifteen now. I wouldn't be bullied into being ashamed of what I believed in.

"Your human sympathies are- huuhh -understandable, Tempest, but this is too much!" he growled.

"Phantom fights other ghosts. Why can't I protect humans when I partially am one?" I asked reasonably.

"Phantom," Dad spat. "Is not my child, and just because other ghosts betray one another doesn't mean you should- huuhh -react in kind."

"Can I at least meet him? I'd like to know why you won't let me near him. I don't think it would hurt to at least introduce myself. I mean, at worst, he doesn't like the looks of me, sticks me in a thermos, and sends me home, right? That's not so bad. If you had someone escort me, they could keep me safe," I responded reasonably. Sure, I would hate to be baby sat, but if that's what it took to meet the dreamy- er, heroic Phantom, then I'd play nice.

"Absolutely- huuhh -not!" he roared. "You will never see the ghost boy in your afterlife. As long as you dwell in my realm, you will- huuhh -abide by my rules. You are one of us, and you will behave accordingly. Is that clear?"

"If I'm one of them, how come they never act like it?" I retorted.

At that moment, something inside me gave way. I realized suddenly that I had been a model daughter. I had pretty much always obeyed the rules, even when he hadn't been around to enforce them. It had been hard to follow the strict guidelines set out for me. My chance to be a kid was stolen when ghosts killed my mother. Even when ghosts had been the reason for my greatest misery, I had chosen them, chosen HIM. And this was the thanks I got? Grounded for my lifespan, which could be centuries? No. Way. So I protected humans in the way I couldn't protect my mother. I had thought that if he ever found out, he would understand. Then again, you don't really hide what you're doing from people who would be on your side if things went sideways. I am a good daughter, I thought. And I deserve better. I decided that even Dad couldn't stay mad forever, so it was worth the risk to do this one thing for myself. Just this once.

"I'm sorry you're so against it, but if you can't give me a real reason to stay away, then I'm going, whether you like it or not," I said firmly.

I flew off at top speeds in the direction of the permanent portal, knowing he would call someone to get there ahead of me and stop me. For as long as I could, I made it look like I was making a straight break for the portal, then I veered for Wulf's domain. I had him tear me a portal to my old hometown. I knew that they'd assume I got through ahead of them when I didn't turn up at the gate, then turn the town upside down looking for me, realize I wasn't there, and then look for other portals I could have gone through, including asking Wulf. I told him to tell them the truth, so they'd waste more time looking for me there, thinking I would rejoin the humans in my old haunt. (Ha, joke.) I'd stick to human travel for as long as possible to throw them off. Why walk when you can fly? Hopefully, by the time they realized they'd been duped, I would already have spoken to Phantom and asked him everything I'd ever wanted to know. I knew I'd be in major trouble and that with the power my family and friends held in the Ghost Zone, that the manhunt for me would be enormous. It would be worth it, though. It had to be. I visited my mother's grave before I did anything, talked to her about everything she'd missed in the past three years, told her how much I missed her. Then I turned back into a human and walked to the nearest bus station. I told them that I had no money, but I would be willing to work to earn some for a ticket. I hadn't really expected it to work, but for two weeks, I swept floors and sold tickets to other people. I slept in the public library on one of the couches. It was easy enough to tap invisibility long enough to unlock a door and have it closed again before the alarm went off. I ate whatever I could wash dishes for at a local Mom & Pop diner I used to eat at when I was little. I washed my clothes in the same gas station shower I washed myself in and dried them off with a little hot wind conjured up from ghost powers. Eventually, I earned enough for a ticket that would take me to Illinois, a few towns away from Amity Park, plus enough for another outfit and a backpack to put it in, along with $123.35 for food and hopefully the use of a real washing machine. Not enough for another bus ticket, so I'd have to hoof it, fly, or hitchhike. Not as dangerous as it sounds for a girl who shoots lightning from her hands. I went with flying to start out with, since it was familiar to me, but I realized quickly that this made it absurdly easy for Skulker to track me when some ghost hounds chased me until I lost them in some hand-made fog, so then I went with a combination of walking and hitchhiking, and nobody gave me any trouble I couldn't handle. (Oh, you want juicy details? Too bad.) I earned more cash in the couple places I stopped, but I went as cheap as possible for laundry, lodgings, and sustenance. I didn't typically have to eat much, being half dead, but I needed a lot more caloric intake than usual because I was spending so long in human form and doing so much physical activity. I did pretty good avoiding using my powers, especially since making and smothering little lightning balls with my fingers was a nervous habit, but after two days walking with no cars that would pick me up, I gave in and flew for a little while, hoping nobaody was near enough to pick up on it.

It was like stretching a muscle that was long overdue to be used. It was so great, soaring invisibly over fields of corn, following the main road, that I didn't realize that I had pursuers until I passed the Amity Park sign. The vultures. They must have staked out the city after I didn't show up. If I knew any swear words, I would have used them then. I had worked too hard, been too careful, come too far for them to catch me now. I performed some evasive maneuvers and managed to lose them somewhere over the high school.

And that, Dear Reader, is where things get really interesting.