A phic phor the phight! Prompts courtesy of thecommrade and charcoalhawk!

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Chapter 1

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"Can you be any more awful?" asked Danny, tugging at the collar of the suit his parents had forced him into. Finding loosening it to be a useless, futile endeavor, he instead put his energy into glaring at the person ultimately responsible for his current discomfort.

"Mind the scary-eyes, little badger," said Vlad Masters, the billionaire tech-mogul mayor of Amity Park who also happened to be Danny's arch-nemesis, as he adjusted his tie and hair in a mirror. "It wouldn't do for the public to think that you were possessed, now would it? Not to mention the reaction of that new accessory of yours."

If possible, Danny's glare became even less amused. "They wouldn't know possessed if it smacked them in the face." He fiddled with the white and green 'watch' locked around his wrist. The suit hadn't been the only thing his parents had forced him into. It wasn't as bad as the Specter Deflector, but the Fenton Watch was remarkably unforgiving of even the smallest expression of ghostly power.

Vlad smirked and turned away from the mirror. "Likely not," he said, smugly.

"You're the worst person ever," said Danny.

The two of them were currently sitting in a small, but well-appointed, room in Amity Park's town hall. The room was a sort of dressing room, included so that the mayor and city council could get ready for important public appearances in peace, even when they couldn't go home.

Vlad was about to have an 'important' press conference, one where he announced a new 'charitable enterprise.' Really, it was just a new and exciting way for Vlad to make Danny's life difficult with his ludicrous amount of wealth and fame.

"Oh, yes, I'm just terrible for wanting to give you a decent education for free." Vlad turned, a disgustingly self-assured smile on his face. "Why, anyone would just be horrified."

Danny pressed his lips together, and clenched his fists. "You just want to make it hard for me to protect Amity Park."

"Let's be honest, Daniel," said Vlad. "The only thing you're doing with your hero act is stroking your own ego."

"And you'd know all about that," said Danny, bristling. He had to tamp down hard on his natural impulse to wake his core and tap into his ghost powers.

"I never claimed to be perfect," said Vlad airily, relaxing into a chair. "You, on the other hand, claim to be, what was it? Protecting Amity Park? You're only fooling yourself, Daniel. You haven't protected anyone you haven't put in danger first."

Danny's eyes flared, and then he yelped with pain as the Fenton Watch zapped him. He hissed through his teeth, and rubbed his wrist. It was ironic. His ghostly mannerisms showed through more strongly when he was forced to suppress the physical aspects of his ghost half.

There was a sharp rap on the door.

"Mr Masters?" said Vlad's secretary (who looked disturbingly similar to Danny's mom). The door eased open with a squeak. "They're ready for you now."

Vlad rose to his feet smoothly. Danny's scramble was much more ungainly, and Danny had to remind himself not to compare himself to Vlad. Vlad was thirty years older than he was, and a massive jerk. Comparing himself- No, comparing Fenton to Vlad would only result in self-esteem issues. Comparing Phantom to Plasmius was, unfortunately, often necessary.

Ugh. His life was a mess.

"Come along then, Daniel," said Vlad, cheerfully. "We can't keep our public waiting."

Danny grumbled under his breath, only every third word was in English. He trailed behind Vlad, lagging as much as he possibly could with the secretary clicking along right behind him. What was her name again? She was a relative newcomer to Amity Park, an import from one of Vlad's businesses, and Danny had yet to figure her out.

They walked out of the town hall's wide double doors, Vlad waving at his oh-so-adoring fans and Danny squinting against the sudden bright sunlight. Danny felt like a goblin, like a little gremlin, like some kind of cave dweller. He wanted nothing so much as to crawl into a dark corner somewhere and haunt it. The space under his bed sounded very nice, right now, or perhaps his closet, or the crawlspace under the stairs. He wanted to sink through the ground, he wanted to disappear.

He forced down the ghost inside him. It wouldn't do to get electrocuted by the stupid watch, or, worse, actually become intangibility and invisible.

They walked to a platform that had been put up in front of the town hall a couple of months ago, so that Vlad could issue his proclamations in style. Danny made an effort, he really did, to look presentable, to look like people would expect him to look, based on the face value of Vlad's announcements. He even waved at his parents, who were in the front row of spectators. He was pretty sure that he was failing to appear even the slightest bit enthusiastic, though.

He sighed, and tried to pay attention to Vlad's speech, now just trying to ignore all the news crews that had come to film the billionaire's 'big announcement.'

"Blah blah blah blah blah," Vlad was saying. "Big scholarship blah blah blah. Going to make Danny go to a stuck up private boarding school on the other side of the country. Blah blah blah. Opportunities for troubled youth. Blah blah. I'm secretly evil. Blah"

Okay, so Danny wasn't really listening. But who could blame him? He wasn't used to events like this, and he already knew what Vlad was supposed to be saying. He'd repeated it a Danny and his parents often enough.

Danny, unwillingly, let his eyes wander nervously over all the news crews. There were some big names in there, which didn't quell his anxiety at all. The way all their cameras were pointed at him, the lenses flashing in the sunlight, the sleek, tech-adorned bodies gleaming, reminded him uncomfortably of weaponry, specifically anti-ghost weaponry.

He wrenched his eyes away, choosing instead to examine the buildings across the road from the town hall. They were some of the tallest in Amity Park, and, unfortunately, also some of the most boring. Just like Vlad. Ancients, but he liked to hear himself talk.

Danny's eyes caught on a strange shape sticking out from a window on the second floor from the top of the central building. He frowned softly at it, trying to identify it. Was it some kind of flagpole, or..?

His eyes went wide and he threw himself sideways into Vlad.

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The moment Daniel impacted Vlad's side, Vlad realized that he should have expected some kind of trouble from the truculent boy. Really, though, what did he plan to accomplish by assaulting Vlad in public, on television? He never thought things through, honestly.

Now Vlad was faced with a choice. Daniel was far too light and, with only human strength available to him, too weak to actually knock Vlad over, so Vlad was in control of the outcome of the situation. He could either play it off as an enthusiastic hug, he was a a juncture in his speech where that reaction might have been expected from Daniel if he wasn't insistent on being so stubbornly ungrateful, or he could take the fall.

He had no time to decide.

Oh, cheesecake, he might as well go along with whatever would cause the most uncertainty and distress in Daniel's life. He was, as the child said, an evil jerk, after all.

As he began his dramatic fall, he heard a sharp crack, and his vision was sprayed with red.

He hit the wood planking of the platform with a thump, and looked down at Daniel, who was covered in red, with annoyance. Had Daniel brought some kind of dye-filled balloon up on stage with him as a poorly advised prank?

But even as that thought finished crossing his mind, he knew that it was false. The brain he was so proud of was putting together the pieces.

Maddie screamed.