HERE WE ARE FOLKS. Once again, I have no idea what just happened. Every time I think I know what I'm doing, things spiral and end up wildly outside the realm of 'expected.'
The barebones skeleton of a plan I had years ago was far more anticlimactic than this. I worried and angsted about it, once, and though this is a step up from what I originally imagined, I still worry this isn't half of what you guys were expecting after all the build-up I'd done.
But that's okay. Because this isn't exactly the end. And because this is the climax I think I needed for this part of the fic. I don't even know if I can fully describe the amount of underlying layers this chapter has. I'm not even sure I layered it right, but no matter how this is received...well. It's here. It's done. And that is a victory nearly 7 years in the making.
Fair warning: this climax is far more psychological than I ever intended it to be, which is also why YOU GUYS GET TWO CHAPTERS TONIGHT.
Why, yes, you did read that right. TWO CHAPTERS. Confused? Uncertain what to think about this chapter? Not following a fair bit of what went down? Hopefully some of your questions are answered in "The Interlude."
For what it's worth, I hope you do enjoy. :)
****CW: some mild descriptions of body horror****
Chapter 32: The Activation (Part II)
Plasmius dropped her.
Sam reacted with just enough grace to catch herself in a running stumble. She still almost brained herself on the Fentons' bannister when she tripped over the rug. The smell of coffee lingered in the house, and with the exception of the leftover finger-foods and pastries lying out on the countertops, there was no sign that the Fentons had even hosted guests.
In fact, the room was so deceptively normal Sam momentarily felt as though she'd stepped into an alternate reality. Or perhaps a dream.
(And maybe she wasn't too far off the mark. She never had enough air to scream in her dreams either).
Her voice held prisoner in her throat, she spun to find Plasmius doing a poor job of withholding a grimace. Fangs bared, he turned away from her. His fingers clenched and unclenched at his side.
"Whatever you plan to do," he grunted in lieu of an apology. "Hurry."
And then, with a dramatic swirl of his cape, he was gone.
Sam didn't hesitate.
She sprinted to the door down to the lab, wrenching it open. The stairway was dark, illuminated only by a sliver of muted light at the base of the stairs. Mrs. Fenton's voice, magnified by a microphone, carried from below, crisp and clear.
Only then did she pause, breathless with sudden fear.
What exactly was her plan here?
She couldn't interrupt Mrs. Fenton, not under any circumstances. Even though Mrs. Fenton's segment wasn't meant to be filmed live, Sam couldn't immediately trust that there wasn't a corrupt or bribed cameraman down there just waiting for something to happen. She also couldn't immediately assume that, if given the opportunity, even Lance Thunder's most trusted colleagues wouldn't flip and sell what they filmed.
Hell, Thunder himself could flip. Sam knew he had a fierce reputation for protecting his sources and team, but the GIW could not be underestimated. Sam could not imagine that they were above extortion and threats.
So, yes, even though the team downstairs may not be filming live anymore, it was a small comfort. The danger of exposure and sabotage was still very real.
Danny was still compromised.
According to Vlad, Danny was only as manageable as his inexperience with duplication allowed. If the Shift proved anything, though, it was that, even in the face of overwhelming odds, Danny had a creative, strategic mind. He could very well change tactics, absorb the duplicate fighting Plasmius, and go absolutely feral down there. In front of everyone. Hell, the invisibility prototype on her wrist could fail her, and she could get picked up by security and kicked out before she had a chance to do anything about it .
And what about her parents? Could she trust them not to make a scene?
They never had before. Not in public.
And not so long as she gave them any reason to.
(Shame that only one of those two conditions was likely to hold up this time).
Sam took a deep breath and tapped at the device on her wrist. Here goes everything.
She didn't feel any different, but a glance down verified she was indeed invisible. She exhaled a relieved sigh. Bolstered by the prototype's success, she forced herself to creep down the stairs. Her invisibility would do nothing to help her if the Fentons' hired security heard her stampeding their way.
Better to go slow, too. She never realized how much she relied on her peripheral vision, much less her innate understanding of where her body was, physically, in a defined space. Invisibility seriously messed with her head, and she nearly skipped at least two stairs on her way down. The first time, her stomach dropped out from under her, and she was too late to shove a quaking hand in front of her mouth. The sharp gasp that escaped her lips went unheard. The second time, it happened during a moment of near-silence, and her elbow slammed into the railing with a distinct smack. She had to freeze in place and bite her tongue against a hiss of pain, half expecting someone to peek their head up the stairs right then and there.
No one did.
By the time Sam made it to the bottom, she was coated in a chilled sweat, and her heart was enjoying a merry sprint in her chest. Stepping lightly and breathing shallowly, far too conscious of what little noise she was making, she shook out her elbow and got a lay of the land.
Three security guards stood in a loose formation around the base of the stairs. Easy enough to avoid them. Sam held her breath as she tiptoed around them and out onto the catwalk. Compared to the surge of lights brightening the main floor of the lab, the catwalks themselves were barely lit. Strands of safety lights dotted the entire way across to the observation deck, where Sam could see the indistinct shapes of people sitting and listening to Mrs. Fenton below.
Where the artificial light did not reach, the Portal's light did. It slunk and twisted along the walls of the upper lab like shadows of smoke, illuminating faces with an eerie glow during every lazy pass.
She didn't dare hunt for Danny or Tucker. She couldn't afford to be distracted by the swirling mass of otherworldly green that dominated the once-empty Portal below. She had to move.
Vlad was counting on her. Danny was counting on her.
And so she went. Anxiety crept up her throat with every step, clogging her airways. She moved as fast as she could, and after what felt like years and also no time at all, she traversed the entire catwalk.
A line of chairs were set up on either side of the large control console dominating the very front of the deck. Unlike the last time she'd seen it, the entire console was dark with inactivity, carefully blocked off, and covered with opaque tarps.
As she hunted for her parents, she passed a few people leaning forward eagerly, notebooks splayed on laps and eyes keenly focused on the podium below. Mrs. Fenton was in the middle of discussing Ectodynamic Theory and how its application, and limitations, led to their discovery of the Ghost Zone. Several scientists scribbled furiously, stopping only to murmur exclamations of approval or discovery to the person next to them.
She spotted her parents on the observation deck proper. They were seated next to a gentleman Sam vaguely recognized from the occasional school newspaper. He wore an immaculate navy suit. On her mother's other side was a woman with glittering and hungry dark eyes.
Sam ignored them both and, without thinking too hard about it, deactivated the device on her wrist.
No one noticed her appear behind them, but they certainly noticed when she bent over and gently jostled her mother's shoulder. "Mom," she whispered.
Jeremy flinched hard enough that he rose from his chair. His eyes skipped over her, wide and alarmed, his confusion nearly palpable. Pamela, for her part, froze in place and spun to Sam with such an expression of naked concern it physically felt as though she'd been run through with a rusty spear. But nearly as soon as her mother turned to her...she'd smothered her initial reaction and replaced it with a mask of frigid disappointment and roiling anger.
Sam braced herself as she weathered the brunt of the chilly reception, but she refused to back down, staring her parents in the eye.
"Samantha," her mother whispered. There was no inflection in her tone. It was perfectly composed, forced into emotionlessness. "What's wrong? What are you doing here?"
"I need to talk to you." Sam's voice warped as she struggled to control her volume. Her mother's eyes narrowed. "Now, Mom."
"What's happened?" Jeremy whispered, keying into the distress in her voice and shifting in his seat to face her properly. "Are you okay? Is your grandmother okay? How did you even—?"
"Just...come with me," Sam interrupted. She was beginning to catch the full attention of several others now, including the hungry-eyed woman and the man in navy. Everyone in the vicinity gave her a look that ranged from irritated to irate. Pamela smiled apologetically in their direction and offered a silent, graceful gesture of her hand to insist she was handling the interruption.
Good. That was promising.
"Samantha," Pamela began again, this time in a tone that Sam immediately knew meant you're in deep shit, daughter mine, which wasn't, in fact, very promising after all.
Sam cursed under her breath. They couldn't hash this out here and now. Nor could she let her mother give her a pointed rebuke and then proceed to ignore her for the remainder of Mrs. Fenton's lecture, sitting with an unbearably stiff cold shoulder until well after Sam's window of opportunity closed. That was a possibility she hadn't considered, and it was looking like it was becoming more and more likely her mother would refuse to acknowledge her any further.
She'd been counting on her parents' inclination to keep dirty laundry and family drama private. Contained. She'd counted on her mother's embarrassment and anger to drive her to deal with everything immediately.
Of course, she'd neglected to account for her mother's pettiness. A harsh dismissal would be her mother's way of delaying the inevitable. Of expressing disapproval, refusing Sam to get a word in edgewise, and then getting into position to snatch the upper hand later, when they had an opportunity to yell and argue.
She couldn't let it happen. Shit may or may not go down—right here; right now—and Danny was in trouble.
I need help! she wanted to scream in frustration, but there were far too many eyes and ears on her. Screaming was out of the question.
"Please," she begged, because that was the only thing she could think to do. "This can't wait, Mom."
Pamela sighed with her entire body and collected her purse, lips pressed into a thin line. She rose from her chair and carefully maneuvered out of the way. After a beat, Jeremy followed.
Sam didn't even have the presence of mind to thank them. She was too busy trying to control the vicious quake in her hands. Her throat suddenly felt very wooden and stiff, her tongue a piece of lead in her mouth. She ushered them off the deck, and thankfully, once they were on their way to remove themselves as a distraction, the other FentonWorks visitors ignored them entirely.
Her mother's growing fury pummeled her from behind as she led the way back across the catwalks. Even now that she had her parents to act as shields against security, she slowed and hung back when she approached the three guards she saw earlier, hesitant. Jeremy put a hand on her shoulder, gripping it. Two of the three guards frowned when they saw her, but after a questioning glance at her father, who muttered a quick "apologies, there's an emergency at home," they eased off and let them pass.
She mounted the stairs two at a time.
"Sam!" Her father called up behind her in a stage whisper. They were following at a much more moderate pace. "Samantha, wait up!"
"This can't wait!" Sam repeated over her shoulder.
"What can't?" Pamela snapped. "This is outrageous, Samantha! We raised you better! You disobey us, disrespect us, drag us out of a landmark event and you don't even give us the courtesy of—"
Her mother and father finally reached the top, and as the door closed behind them, Sam froze, panic clawing its way up and pushing everything else out.
Her mother's words washed over her in a swell of white noise as she zeroed in on her mother's, then her father's, ears. In that moment, she wondered if this was how it felt—to be a young ghost, staring down at the grave where your body was buried, uncomprehending and yet somehow still…
Knowing. Knowing you failed in the simplest, most mundane of tasks.
"Where are they?" she interrupted, numb and cold.
"Where are what?"
"The headphones!" Sam cried. "The damn headphones! Where are they?"
Phantom's head was too crowded.
Much, much too crowded.
Too much of him was up there, for one, and far too many things that weren't him were up there, too.
It was as though an ant-hill full of insects had crawled into and nested within his brain, their thousands and thousands of legs uncomfortable, itchy, and wriggling, threatening to spill all over the edges.
One moment, he's half-listening to his mom, following the cadence in her voice as she lectured on the merits of ectoplasmic-based energy sources and related alternatives for powering the Portal, and the next…
The Portal. A jolt to his system. A flash of magenta and the annoying, grating sound of Plasmius, hissing poison into his ear, trying to convince him…
No. NO. Plasmius lied. He always lied.
Phantom growled, deep in his throat, and threw himself at Plasmius with renewed energy.
He had to get to the Portal. He had to.
And Vlad was in the way.
Fear monopolized all space in his chest, pushing out the rage, and he was back in the basement, staring at the Portal, as if in a dream. It's hypnotizing green beckoned, swirling before him. His duplicate swayed on his feet. But before he could take that step...
An ectoblast discharged, so cold it looked more white than green. Plasmius cursed at him, his voice rising as he called, again and again, "Daniel! Daniel!"
And Phantom was jolted him back to another place, another him, fighting, clawing, pushing... Pain ricocheted through Phantom's head, an unconscious pressure momentarily blocking out all the voices, all the—
"Daniel! Listen to me!"
Phantom's ribs absorbed a blow, and maybe one or two cracked under the strain. He wasn't sure. He barely acknowledged the sharp spike of pain. Air that once flooded in gasps into his lungs stopped flowing at all.
It wasn't necessary, really, was it? Breathing? Air was an option. A luxury. Not a need.
The Portal, on the other hand...
(Some part of him knew this was wrong. Knew something wasn't right. And it had nothing to do with the Portal, did it? It...it had to do with...)
Plasmius's fist slammed into his face, and his tentative concentration broke. Phantom yelled, recoiling and then throwing his head forward in retaliation. The headbutt did little more than jar them both, but the shock of it caused Plasmius's hands to slip. Phantom managed to wriggle out of his grasp, just for a second.
It didn't last. Plasmius was annoyingly persistent like that.
His duplicate in the lab took a quaking breath they didn't need, a stupidly human response. Utterly involuntary and destructively useless. Jazz's suspicion reached out to him with ghostly fingers, melding into the concern bleeding from Tucker. His father, too, contributed to the pot of stewing emotion until all he could taste—
Another flash of magenta. A shot of adrenaline straight into his core. His hair standing on end as electricity spiked and raced through the air around him and Plasmius. All reminders he was fighting for far more than his life right now. Plasmius's desperation fed into Phantom's own, thriving within a subsection of his chest he once kept locked up tight.
—was fear.
And why? Why would he ignore this part of himself? Why would he ever deny himself the thrill of others' emotions when it felt this...good?
(It was a dumb question. It didn't matter, did it? All that mattered...)
Tucker muttered something to his duplicate, something Phantom could not translate. Could not understand.
But he could taste it on the very tip of his tongue, like super sour raspberries and cloying syrup.
It tasted—
"Daniel!"
—not right. Not right at all.
Phantom's head slammed into the ground as Plasmius, once again, tackled him. Claws tore into the skin of his arms, digging into his shoulders. Firm knees pinned him, and a feral panic rose within Phantom's throat, fueling the reflex for another breath.
Pathetic. Weak. Failure.
It sounded like Pariah Dark's voice, right there in his head, overlapping with a memory of Spectra's, and suddenly, he wasn't in FentonWorks or out in the yard with Plasmius.
He was on the Tower. A flash of green lightning split the starved sky above him.
He needed to get them to safety. He needed to—
The Portal's soft hum thrummed through his duplicate's body, calling. Ever calling. To him. For him.
He needed to get to the Portal.
Jazz caught Vlad's duplicate's eyes, then Tucker's. His father pressed a firm hand into Phantom's—no, the duplicate's—shoulder. His duplicate ignored them all. They had nothing to do with this. Nothing to do with the Portal at all.
The Portal was all that mattered.
Phantom's vision doubled. Tripled. Color and emotion and noise blurred the lines, a messy distortion made all the more unnatural by the compulsion and paranoia that didn't feel quite like his to begin with.
Tucker made some excuse to get up. Phantom didn't understand. But his duplicate—far too invested in far too many things, caught up in both of their heads—moved like a puppet at Tucker and Jazz's suggestions, malleable and directionless.
Plasmius grabbed Phantom again, his hands brands against his skin. God, Phantom hated him. Phantom hated and hated and—
No.
This...this wasn't right.
Tucker and Jazz were leading his duplicate away.
And yet it was.
Away from the Portal. Just. Like. Plasmius.
Because it had to be.
Phantom lost track. He lost track of it all. After that.
The Portal was all that mattered .
Pain consumed him, inside and out.
He couldn't hold on.
So he...let go.
Tucker's Spidey Sense was tingling.
It wasn't that he expected things to go wrong. He never did. Tucker wasn't the type of person to rigorously plan for the Worst-Case-Scenario, and though he would like to claim he was a realist, one did not hang around Sam Manson for long without realizing that one was, in fact, quite the optimist.
Danny, on the other hand?
Danny had every reason to be that particular type of person. Of course he did. Tucker would never begrudge Danny that, though he would always begrudge the circumstances that made him so. He suspected Danny wasn't ever naturally inclined to suspicion or paranoia, to questioning who and what he could place his full trust in.
And there's the rub. Danny just didn't... trust. Not in the way Tucker did. Tucker trusted the good in people. Trusted that, at their core, people were more good than bad. He never had any reason to believe the people around him had secret agendas, or were being possessed by an unfriendly ghost, or had anything to do with a broader conspiracy that intimately hated everything he was.
But the thing was: Tucker also trusted that things would turn out alright in the end, no matter how bleak or scary or dark everything else seemed at the time.
The very definition of optimism there. And, okay, fine, maybe Tucker was optimistic that once the Portal stabilized and remained as such, they were all in the clear. They could all sit back and enjoy this incredible thing in front of them. Because, come on, how often did people get to see a window into another world open right in front of them? It was cool as shit!
But when Danny went rigid beside him, the moment the Portal sparked to life? When Danny didn't so much as breathe a sigh of relief when Mr. Fenton announced the Portal was stable?
At that point, it was such a drastic shift from his earlier fidgeting that Tucker had every reason to fear things...might not be alright, and that fear only compounded the longer Danny stared, unblinking and unresponsive, his gaze focused with unfailing intensity on the Portal.
"Danny?" he dared to ask, so softly there was barely any volume behind his words. "You okay?"
No response. Tucker's fingers bunched into the fabric of his jeans at the knees, trying not to wig out.
Because, really, what did he know? Tucker wasn't sure if Danny's reaction was—God, what?—voluntary hypervigilance? Some weird ghostly response to the sudden flux of ecto-energy? The Fentons did imply the other ghosts could sense the impact the Portal made on the Ghost Zone, didn't they? Maybe it was the same thing for Danny himself? In some capacity?
Danny never did say much about his relationship with the Portal, after all. Tucker picked up on a few things that made him believe it wasn't a greatrelationship, in any case, but surely…?
No. No, something was definitely up. These were mere excuses. Little jigsaw pieces he was using to try to fill in the blanks of a completely different picture.
Tucker found it difficult to focus on Danny's parents. The longer he sat next to Danny, the more aware Tucker became of the inhuman stillness, of the vacancy in his eyes.
He wasn't alone.
Tucker caught Jazz side-eyeing Danny like he was a stranger, brow furrowed. Vlad Masters, Tucker realized, was...equally stiff. Jack Fenton, once handing the podium over to his wife, returned to his seat and seemed to key into the odd tension immediately, his gaze seeking out his son, then his daughter, before finally settling in on his former best friend.
Vlad merely inclined his head and offered a firm, nearly imperceptible shake, darting his eyes to Danny and back. Mr. Fenton frowned and leaned around Vlad to grip his son's shoulder. It looked casual enough. In light of the Portal's success, anyone watching would see it as a father and son sharing a moment of pride and victory.
Danny did not partake in or contribute much to his side of said father-son moment, and Tucker knew then, with the chilling realization of someone who just received unexpected news that a loved one was in the hospital, Danny really was not okay.
Danny didn't flinch under his dad's hand. Didn't respond. Didn't roll his eyes or grin. Merely...stared. Colorless, impersonal.
Cold.
Only then did Tucker allow himself to drop all remaining pretenses. Alarm zipped up his spine, and all he could think was one very succinct and specific thing.
Well, shit.
Mrs. Fenton didn't seem to realize anything was amiss. That was probably for the best. Tucker was anxious enough for all of them, the hair on his arms standing on end as, somehow, a silent conversation flowed between him, Jazz, and the two older men.
Tucker couldn't follow it all, but then again, he didn't necessarily have to.
Sam always did say he was too impulsive for his own good, and the others weren't doing anything about it.
So he would. Consequences be damned.
"I'm not feeling too well," Tucker muttered weakly, rising with shaky legs from his seat. He didn't have to feign that much, at least. A nauseous wave of anxiety followed him up and slid right back down his body. His legs threatened to buckle beneath him. Vlad gave him a stink-eye, but Tucker couldn't be bothered.
Something told him that sitting here and waiting it out wasn't exactly conducive to fixing whatever was going on with Danny. He would not apologize for acting. And certainly not to Vlad Masters.
Jazz, bless her, caught on and nudged Danny, coaxing him up. "We'll take you up for some air."
They were lucky to be sitting at the end of the row. No one in the mayor's entourage seemed disturbed by their sudden exit, though Tucker wasn't necessarily keen on double-checking whether or not other eyes (or lenses, for that matter) followed them out.
It wasn't important. Danny, however, was.
Jazz gripped Danny's arm and ducked away, toward the stairwell. He stumbled a step when she tried to lead him—he didn't seem to realize he was resisting her pull—but once he recovered, he followed her like a sleepwalker, utterly complacent and distracted.
His eyes did not stray from the Portal. His...his head, though—it wasn't...
It wasn't moving right. It was stuck. In place. Cricked at a weird angle that Tucker would be hard-pressed to call 'human.' To keep his gaze on the Portal, Danny had...
God, there was no sugar-coating it at all, was there? It was creepy as fuck. Spiders of unease scuttled up Tucker's back and scalp. Lately, Danny hadn't been as shy about being 'ghostly' around him and Sam, but Jesus. This wasn't walking through walls or flashing green eyes. This wasn't a 'ghost form' or throwing ice with his hands or flying or manifesting a ghostly tail.
This was some bona fide The Exorcist shit here.
Tucker would be lying if he said he wasn't freaking the fuck out.
(Which, in his oh-so-humble opinion, was incredibly valid of him, thank you very much).
But with Jazz in the lead, utterly fearless and unphased, Tucker swallowed over his aversion and reminded himself that an oddly angled head did nothing to change the fact that this was his best friend. He made an effort to follow close on the Fenton siblings' heels, using his own body to block view of Danny's.
And still, with every step, Danny didn't say a word. He didn't seem present at all, a husk of a body, merely moving at the whims of his sister's direction.
"Danny, bro?" Tucker asked quietly as they entered the stairwell. He hated how his voice shook, how he could sense the temperature dropping as the door slowly, slowly began to close them in and separate them from the rest of the lab.
At the sound of his name, Danny's neck did something so unnatural Tucker was lucky he didn't completely lose his breakfast.
"The Portal. We need to get back," Danny said, tone empty and echoing. His next breath came in a sharp, odd wheeze. An involuntary arm drew itself across his body to cradle his ribs. A pained grimace twisted across his face, but it didn't seem to fit him. It settled in harsh lines around his mouth, teeth looking a little too sharp behind his lips.
Weird. And going to get weirder by the minute, Tucker had no doubt. At least Danny was responding now. It was a little less creepy this way.
When Danny's grimace deepened and his fingers clutched at his side, Tucker felt a spike of concern. "Uh, is there something wrong with your...?"
"I need to get back," Danny insisted, blank-gazed. His face was starting to—fuck, it really didn't look right. It was hard to keep in focus.
Tucker blinked hard. "Um...I'm not sure that's a great idea, my man," he said, a little hesitantly.
"Seconded," Jazz said, astute eyes tracing her brother's face. "What is going on, Danny?"
A soft, irritable whine rose in Danny's throat, and he ignored his sister in favor of turning back to the closed door, his fingers...
"Jazz," Tucker warned, gesturing.
Danny's fingers clenched into fists, subtle flickers of green flame sputtering to life around his knuckles.
Jazz, Tucker decided then and there, had balls of steel. She ignored the flare of power and took Danny's hands. Right in hers. It didn't appear to harm her in the least, and Tucker watched as the flames disappeared.
That...that was something at least.
"Danny," Jazz said again. "Look at me."
Danny did not look at her. She snapped her fingers in his face, and at that, he did smack her hand away. For the first time since his parents took the stage, it appeared to Tucker as though he actually saw them. His narrowed eyes blazed green.
Jazz grumbled something under her breath and tried to catch his hands again, get him to focus on her. "Come on, Danny," she said calmly. He avoided her hands but allowed her to pinch one of his shirt sleeves and tug at him. "Let's go upstairs."
Danny pulled easily away, losing interest in them. "No."
"I think it'd be a good idea," Tucker offered. "Something isn't right, Ace."
"No," Danny agreed musingly. "It isn't."
Tucker and Jazz both waited for an explanation, but when Danny began to make a move for the door again without offering one, Tucker intercepted him. "What isn't right?" he asked, trying to understand.
"The Portal," Danny murmured. "I need to get to the Portal."
"The Portal is fine," Tucker said, a little exasperated and concerned now. "It's you who—"
Perhaps in retrospect, Tucker should have seen it coming. The spiders hadn't stopped scuttling under his skin; Danny was still casting a cold aura so strong their breath fogged before them. The tension in the stairwell had only mounted as he and Jazz tried to get a read on the situation.
But frankly?
There was no way he could have known. Danny just... snapped.
He flung himself toward Tucker like a caged animal. Tucker barely had time to cry out before Danny grabbed and slammed him full-bodily up against the wall. Tucker's head bounced off the cement, and his startled yelp of pain was almost immediately swallowed by a choking gasp as one of Danny's forearms pressed against Tucker's jugular, cutting off a healthy supply of air. The other braced against his chest. His face hovered right before Tucker's, a snarling sneer fixated on his face.
He...he looked like he did in battle. Like... Tucker was the enemy.
"Danny!" Jazz barked. The adrenaline thrumming through Tucker's veins spiked as the pressure against his throat shifted. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
Tucker would very much like the answer to that question too. Because holyshitholyshitOhGodHolyMotherEffingShit. This was not fun. Not at all.
"Stop lying to me!" Danny hissed, eyes wide and consumed with green. He raised one of his hands. It ignited into ectoplasmic flame. From the corner of his eye, Tucker saw Jazz try to intervene, only to be propelled back as a rippling pulse of power pushed her away. "Don't you dare lie to me, Plasmius!"
"What? " Pamela repeated, following Sam as she stalked straight into the Fentons' kitchen. Call her crazy, but being so near the lab door in the living room wasn't helping her think straight at all. "What headphones?"
For a terrible moment, Sam legitimately thought her mother was lying to her. Purposefully waylaying her. The frustrated confusion in her mother's voice registered late, and with effort, Sam reigned in her unfounded suspicions. "The new tech!" she specified pointedly, whirling on her parents. "I saw them, Mom!"
"Oh. Those." Pamela huffed and waved an impatient hand. "They're not important. What is important is: how did you get here?"
Sam ground her teeth together. Telling her mother how she hijacked a ride with two volatile ghosts wasn't her definition of 'productive.' Her eyes skated over her parents' shoulders, past the kitchen counters, and out into the backyard. She saw nothing, and that, perhaps, was worse than seeing something. Her throat constricted.
Danny was out there. Vlad was...fighting him. Containing him. Like he was some sort of untamed beast.
Another quiver of empathetic horror rolled down her spine, settling into and souring her stomach.
The mind is a sanctuary. It is his sanctuary. And that safe place was violated.
Because of her parents.
"Listen to me," she entreated, dodging the question. "That's not important!"
"Not important? Samantha, you couldn't have gotten here alone," Jeremy pointed out, only mildly incredulous. "You couldn't have gotten here without help. What do you expect us to think? That this whole... interception wasn't planned? That you didn't know exactly what you were doing and saying to us by coming here like this? After we explicitly told you not to?" His clear blue eyes were serious. Stern. Focused. She tried to take comfort in the logical coolness there, instead of feeding off the frustration her mother was beginning to shed like dog fur.
Funny, that it was only now that Sam realized just how alike she and her mother were. It's no wonder they incited each other so often. Their emotions, if not clashing like oil and water, often melded into something that fed the other's fire.
"And your mother is right: this is highly unusual, even for you. We're worried, Sam. We can't ignore that you, once again, have stepped out of line to—"
"This isn't me crying for attention or rebelling for the hell of it, Dad!" Sam exclaimed hurriedly. "Look, we don't have time for this! I'll tell you everything. I'll let you ground me for the rest of the school year. Until I leave for college, even. I don't care. I know you brought something into FentonWorks today, and—"
"For the love of—!" Pamela rolled her eyes to the sky and closed them briefly, muttering a prayer for patience under her breath. To her credit, she didn't immediately bite Sam's head off for interrupting again. "Dear, your father's right. I'm trying to understand what's going on with you. Truly. I'm trying. But...I'm worried about you too. This has gone too far this time. I know it wasn't easy being left behind, and we can talk about that. I know it didn't seem like it this morning or even last night—or perhaps any other night before this—and that is our fault. My fault. But we can talk about it. I want to try to talk about it. Otherwise..."
"Otherwise," Jeremy said, picking up where Pamela trailed off. "We might have to find someone else for you to talk to."
Sam's mind skittered to a jerky halt as she struggled to understand exactly what was happening here. "I—I don't need a therapist!" she stuttered eventually. "Not...not like that. Not for this. That's not what—"
"It's okay, Sam," her father said, with a small, soft smile. It would be sweet if it wasn't so infuriating. "We can talk more about it at home, okay?"
Sam started shaking her head. "No, no, it's not okay! You don't understand!" Her voice broke, and she lost her fight with the tears brimming at her eyes. "Those headphones are doing something to Danny!"
Jeremy's brow furrowed. For the first time since they left the lab, he looked like he'd been thrown off kilter. "What do you mean?"
"Samantha," her mother placated. "We never activated them. We tucked them away when we saw the Fentons were checking for unauthorized tech. We never put them on anywhere near FentonWorks. Never turned them on. We wouldn't disregard their security protocols like that, not after...after everything."
Sam stared and then barked a laugh. "And you think that was enough? You think that would stop them?"
"Sam!" Jeremy snapped. "You're beginning to sound—"
"What?" Sam demanded, eyebrows raising. "What, Dad? Paranoid? Maybe I am. But it doesn't change the fact that those devices are still here. In FentonWorks."
"I don't understand, Samantha. They're off," Jeremy said sternly. "They can't have done anything!"
"Where did they come from?" Sam pressed. "Do you even know who touched them before they made it into your hands? Did they give you the specs? The instructions? Did they tell you anything but what you wanted to hear? I bet they're perfect little personal security devices. Everything you could have wanted in one convenient package. All of your fears? No worries, these little things will take care of it all." From the looks on her parents' faces, that was exactly what they were told. "Doesn't that seem suspicious to you?"
Her parents went silent, and Sam continued, "I'm telling you something is going on, and Danny is in trouble right now, possibly because of whatever those little earbuds actually do. Where are they? "
"This...this is..." Pamela trailed off. Her expression hardened, and Sam saw all hope of convincing her disappear like fog in the sun. "Vladco is a reputable company, Samantha. We had the opportunity to beta-test these devices through a trusted contact at said company. They did not tell us to bring them here. They did not even mention that this would be a good opportunity to do so. We choose to do that ourselves, as a personal precaution. In the end, we decided not to test our luck against the Fentons' protocols, but we truly want to be able to assess this technology in other settings. And we will continue to do so. Because our review can potentially benefit anyone who wants to invest in advanced, personalized secur—"
"Skip the scripted and indoctrinated rhetoric!" Sam shouted, voice tearing. "The GIW—"
"Are gone!"
"But they're not. And they used you, Mom! They're still using you! They preyed on you!"
Jeremy placed a hand on Sam's shoulder and squeezed. "Enough," he said. A deeply disturbed expression darkened his face. Sam couldn't even begin to fathom what it meant. "We...we should go home. Talk about it—"
Sam saw it coming. She's not entirely sure how. Perhaps it was a flicker of light and movement from the corner of her eye. Perhaps it was the now-familiar, otherworldly chill that cascaded over her. Whatever it was, she moved without thinking, flinging herself toward both of her parents and shoving trembling hands messily over their mouths just as two ghosts, encased in ethereal flames of magenta and green, careened through the wall of the kitchen.
Pamela and Jeremey both screamed behind Sam's hands. The toaster, knocked from its place on the edge of the counter, crashed to the floor. A chair followed.
Sam shoved her parents back, away from the flying appliances and furniture; away from the hot-cold flare of ectoplasmic power. They clutched at her clothes, at each other, each breath quaking in her ears. "Oh God, " her mother mouthed. She was hyperventilating, her breath puffing against Sam's palm in sharp bursts. "Oh God, oh God."
Plasmius grappled with Phantom overhead, snarling. Red eyes flicked to her, an acknowledgment of her presence, but Vlad was soon distracted by Phantom.
Sam was too.
Plasmius had Phantom in a weakening rear headlock. The younger halfa's face was smeared with glowing tears and green goo, aura fluctuating so violently it gave his entire form a...hazy sort of appearance. Sam could feel it—his power, his distress, everything—permeate the room as rushes of frigid cold, like subzero wind chills during a snowstorm. It cut through everything—clothes, skin, bone. His eyes were alight with something beyond Sam's understanding, brighter than LED headlights, and terrifyingly dead. Vacant. He growled and gnashed his teeth as he thrashed in Plasmius's grasp, screeching in a horrid, rasping mixture of English and what must have been Ghost, the frequencies of his voice reaching inhuman levels that went beyond Sam's capacity to hear.
Sam's gut dropped as she realized what that meant.
He was trying to access his Wail. And he couldn't. Blessedly, he couldn't, but that didn't mean he wasn't trying. And trying with everything he had.
Sam hardly recognized him, and for the first time...
For the first time, she was scared. He scared her.
She shoved the fear away nearly as soon as it appeared, a ferocious protectiveness and hatred for the GIW rising up in its place. They did this to him. The strongest person she knew.
This wasn't him.
"Danny!" Sam cried, releasing her parents. They fell into each other, weak and noodle-limbed. She ignored them when they gasped her name, crying for her to step away. To get away, please, Sam...
She stepped forward.
And stood her ground.
Plasmius?! What?!
Tucker didn't know what the fuck was going on. He had no fucking clue, but what he did know was that this person in front of him was not his friend.
And he was fucking pissed.
Danny had been beaten and spit on, manipulated and hurt. He'd been pushed down and bullied and hunted and forced to struggle and hide and do things no normal teenager should ever be put in a position to do. And yet he still stood up. He still fought. He still offered the world every inch and ounce of himself, every iota of energy and compassion and selflessness he had in his body and then some. For people and ghosts who didn't deserve even a fraction of his attention. Hell, he'd saved the world from domination, not knowing if he would survive. Not caring either, necessarily, if it meant he could help one more person.
Even before Phantom—before Tucker had ever met SpaceAce12 in person—Danny had done more than that: he'd changed Tucker's life.
There was more than one way to be a hero to someone. Phantom could fly in and sweep someone out of the line of fire. He could direct a ghost's vengeful attention away from public places. He could face down an evil Ghost King and say no more.
Sometimes, though, being a hero to someone was as simple as smiling at a stranger, as easy as taking the time to tell someone you love them, as casual as reaching out to a lonely nobody on the internet and saying, "sick skillz. team up?"
Tucker was under no illusions that Danny Fenton was one of the most genuinely, imperfectly good people he'd ever met. He was probably the best person Tucker would ever meet in this lifetime.
And now—after everything Danny had been through; after everything he'd done to help people— now someone decided they could fuck around with his head like this? Make him do things he would never do had he been in his right mind? And this same someone thought they could mold Tucker's emotions like Play-Doh, too? Smoosh him down so thin that all that was left was one-dimensional fear? Fear of his best friend?
Pissed was too tame a word, in the end.
Tucker didn't feel this way often. He didn't know how to contain rage this murderous in his body, let alone express it in any productive way.
And in a situation like this? When he's being threatened by his insane, unstable best friend in a secluded stairwell housed within a top-of-the-line paranormal lab while a pretty girl watched in horror, unable to help the brother she already sacrificed so much for?
Well.
"Hey!" Tucker wheezed. With strength he didn't know he had, he pushed forcefully against Danny. "Hey! Snap out of it, you absolute fucking asshole! It's me!
"It's Tucker!"
Phantom's head snapped toward Sam in a fuzz and jerk of motion her human eyes couldn't track. The snarl on his face slipped and froze into a creepy sort of...half-state. Like some sort of poorly taxidermized animal. His glowing fingers stopped clawing at the arm against his throat. Anger and fear poured off him, dynamic and uncontrollable, but he froze. Entirely. Staring at her.
"Fight it, Danny!" she encouraged, ignoring the chatter of her teeth, the shiver possessing her body. His head slowly cocked toward her, as though listening very intently. His expression shuttered before settling back into its gargoyle grimace. "This isn't you!" Sam exclaimed. "This isn't—!"
" S̶̹͈̮̰̉́ȁ̵̘̙̘̙m̷͔̳̂͝ ," Phantom moaned, voice echoing so hollowly Sam could barely understand him.
"Yes," Sam breathed. Her sobs caught in her throat, and she knew she was rambling, but she continued with, "Yes, it's me. It's Sam. I'm here. And you're here. And it's going to be okay. It's not your fault. It's not you. I promise everything will be okay."
" T̴͔̄h̴̭̎e̷͇̍ ̷̝͠P̵̼͠o̸̖̽r̶̘̀t̴͙̎a̵̮͗l̸̡͝... " Phantom blinked once. For the first time. His voice suddenly had more substance, more weight. " The Portal is... "
"Is fine. Nothing is wrong with the Portal. I promise you . Everyone is safe."
"Sam..." Phantom whispered again, and this time, it sounded like a plea. Like...
Danny.
Huh. There was a difference. Phantom never realized there was a difference. Fear was fear, wasn't it? Straight-forward, simple, adrenaline-fueled fight-flight-or-freeze fear. Easy to define. Easy to understand.
His own fear, he knew intimately. It fueled him now, pulsed within his core. It had been his constant companion from the very moment he stepped into the mouth of the Portal. He'd grown accustomed to the fact that far too many of his thoughts were strewn with it, creating a messy embroidery of illogical leaps and pessimistic assumptions that either had no basis in reality or made far, far too much sense. Toss in a bit of trauma, splash in some terrifying experience, and there was his entire psyche in a nutshell. He could navigate its true nature usually, with distance. Perspective.
Usually, a small whisper emphasized, deep within.
(Why was it so hard to get that distance right now? Why? Some part of him knew his behavior wasn't normal. That his fixation on the Portal wasn't logical. Sam was telling him now. Plasmius told him then. Tucker, too. And yet he still felt it. He was fucking terrified. People weren't safe. The Portal wasn't safe. He himself wasn't safe. No one was safe).
But when he saw both his friends and his sister looking at him—both of him—like they didn't recognize him? Like he was the danger?
He could taste it then—the nuance.
They weren't afraid for him. Not any longer.
They were afraid of him.
(Some part of him remembered never, never wanting that. In a world of monsters who'd experiment on him and ghosts who could hurt everyone he ever loved, he remembered fearing that more than anything else in the entire world).
But there's—
There's still the Portal.
...right?
Phantom shook his head, and his face...became more human. Softer. Less cold and deformed. His head snapped away again, and he began addressing the kitchen table, flinching so violently Plasmius tensed in response. Phantom's hands jolted away from Plasmius, as though the contact suddenly burned. Sam saw them trembling.
"Tucker...Tuck." His eyes were miles away, locked on something Sam couldn't see. He blinked again, tears sliding down his cheeks, and some of the fiery aura surrounding him subsided. His fingers crept upward again and curled against Plasmius's arm. "Shit, Tuck, I—" He suddenly leaned back into Plasmius, just enough that Sam noticed a shift in his weight. "Jazz?" he breathed.
His duplicate, Sam realized. Whatever the duplicate was experiencing was bleeding over. The degree of separation was thinning. Jazz and Tucker must be with the other Danny, helping him. Encouraged, Sam took another step forward, hands held out placatingly.
"Ms. Manson..." Plasmius grunted, in warning. His arms shook like dead leaves as they held onto Phantom. Phantom was still clearly resisting Plasmius in some capacity, even if not consciously throwing himself into escaping at that very moment.
Speaking aloud, however, was clearly the wrong thing to do.
Sam could have killed Plasmius for it.
Whatever she, Jazz, and Tucker managed to do to break through to Danny, it didn't last. Phantom's lips pulled back, and triggered by the reminder of the enemy holding him hostage, he began to twist around, form blurring. Plasmius had to jerk back to avoid the ectoblast Phantom generated with his eyes.
Pamela released an involuntary shriek as the blast zipped well over her head and charred the kitchen wall. Jeremy stared, mouth hanging open.
"The devices!" Plasmius reminded curtly as he began wrestling against Phantom once again. "Any time now!"
Sam scrambled toward her parents, but they were already well ahead of her.
Jeremy drew the earbuds from his jacket pocket with quaking fingers; Pamela, from her purse. With more spirit and force than Sam could have ever expected from either of them, they cried wordlessly and threw them at the floor.
They didn't all shatter immediately. Sam took care of the rest, stomping on the remaining pieces with every last ounce of strength she could muster.
Under the thick sole of her iron-toed combat boots, they didn't stand a chance.
Phantom immediately went limp, head slumped. The room became still and dark, all of the cold power and ectoplasmic light he was generating dissipating in the span of a single blink. Plasmius caught him as he fell into the air, but he was equally exhausted. The pair of them hit the floor in a clumsy heap.
Sam was already kicking aside the pieces of headphones. She collapsed to her knees and slid across the tile, grabbing hold of Danny as a ring of light bloomed at his waist. Plasmius gratefully released him to Sam and slumped against the cabinets with a wince, eyelids fluttering shut as he inhaled a deep, relieved breath.
"Danny?" Sam called. His body became heavy and warm in her hands, and she pushed sweaty locks away from his forehead. He shivered, and with some effort, turned away from her. His weak push against her was the only warning she had before he threw up. She shifted her knees away from the mess, rubbing circles into his back as he retched again.
"Fuck," Danny groaned weakly under his breath. His next breath rattled in his chest, and Sam took a moment to shoot Plasmius an accusatory look. The older ghost did not notice. He was taking stock of his scorched, frostbitten hands, wincing as he tried, and failed, to straighten his fingers to their full length.
She supposed blaming Plasmius for Danny's physical state was far from appropriate, considering. A complicated, unbidden rush of gratitude for his restraint flooded through her.
Who would have thought? Vlad Plasmius, villain. Absolutely no love lost between the male Fentons and himself. Stepping up. Saving the day.
Plasmius met her eyes, and, as if reading her mind and not quite liking what he saw there, immediately curled his lip in disdain. The effect was ruined by the deep lines of exhaustion and relief marring his face.
Danny sniffled, muttering under his breath, and Sam turned her attention back to him. "Danny?" she attempted again. "Are you with me?"
He tentatively raised his gaze, and Sam was met with bright, bright human eyes—rational, guilty, drained, confused...
Hurt.
"God," Danny choked. Sam tried to shush him, her heart breaking right alongside the fractures she heard in his voice. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. Shit, Sam, I nearly—
"Shh, you didn't 'nearly' anything. It's okay. You're okay."
He continued as though he hadn't heard a single word she said. He shook in her arms. "God, God. What the fuck did I...? Did I really...?"
A shuffle of noise alerted Sam, and she involuntarily drew Danny closer to her, shielding him from sight. She only relaxed when she saw Tucker and Jazz, out of breath and wild-eyed as they emerged, intangible, from beneath the floor. They rematerialized into solid forms, supporting a second Danny between them.
The duplicate shuddered upon seeing his original and flickered once before disappearing entirely, and suddenly, it was just the one Danny in Sam's arms. He drew in a full, deep breath, revulsion and horror warring for space on his face. He ducked his head.
"Danny…" Jazz breathed, voice cracking. Her first step toward him was aborted when Tucker grasped at her hand, shaking his head. Give him a second, Sam saw him mouth in Jazz's ear.
Thank you, Tucker.
"Danny, look at me," Sam said, and this time, her tone was a little sharper than she intended. She smiled, reassured, when he responded to her voice and focused his full attention on her. "Are you with me?"
"I—yeah," Danny croaked. His eyes danced away. To Tucker, to Jazz. Back to her. "Yeah, Sam. I'm with you."
.
.
.
.
.
Unbeknownst to those inside FentonWorks, a man in a grungy old hoodie and Dad jeans made his way out of the crowd gathered outside, head buried in his phone. Just another protestor or bystander or nosy nelly. No one in particular, really. No one questioned him. No one cared that he was leaving alone, before the majority.
And no one saw the victorious smile he smiled with every last one of his teeth.
