Posting a little early because I might be too busy tomorrow! Enjoy!

.

.

Chapter 299: Invitations and Counterinvitations

.

"Jazz," said Aunt Alicia, catching her in the hallway.

"I'm sorry," said Jazz, "I'm late for a meeting. Can we—"

"I know you've been avoidin' me again. We need to talk."

Jazz stopped. "This isn't a good place." She gestured around herself, flicking her fingers at one of her 'watchers.'

"I want to see Maddie," said Aunt Alicia, "I want to see Danny. I wanna know that my family is okay and that they're not being held hostage."

Jazz made a face. "And my word isn't enough for that?" she asked. Given what was on the internet, she'd been expecting a confrontation like this sooner rather than later, but part of her had still been hoping to avoid it.

"Jazz, you're the one they'd be getting' held hostage against."

In theory, this would be easy to disprove. Just have Danny and her parents show up, right? Somewhere that ghosts didn't have 'absolute control.' Except the Regency Council (wisely) wasn't about to let Danny go off into the material world again without a significant honor guard, and having him in the same vicinity as Jack and Maddie…

The 'restraining order's' effect was undeniably creepy and wouldn't help their case on the 'we aren't mind controlling anybody' front. Suspected hostage situations, according to Sojourn and the older members of the diplomatic party, were far easier to swallow politically speaking than perceived mind control situation.

(On that note, Jazz didn't much care for the use of the word 'perceived' in that context. Regardless of what it was for and why it had been implemented, it definitely was mind control.)

Sojourn had followed that statement up with a rather fascinating mini-lecture on how a large portion of European politics were, for a time, comprised of complicated hostage situations.

Making everything about this more painful was that Jazz didn't want to stop her aunt from seeing Danny. In an ideal world, she'd be firmly on their side, emotionally and officially, not being blackmailed into helping the president.

Jazz made a show of fixing the strap of her messenger bag. "If you really want to see Danny, see if you can talk the president into sending you along to one of the Christmas parties he's just been invited to. Either the Amity Park ones or the Ghost Zone ones."

"Wh—Christmas parties? The ghosts are inviting the president to Christmas parties, now?"

"If you want to get technical about it, they're Truce parties, but we have, yes," said Jazz. "They're important cultural features of the shared culture of the Infinite Realms." Even the Realms that weren't as Earth-centric as the ones she was familiar with, given the location of the Core and how such things tended to propagate outwards. "Since Amity Park is part of the Realms, now, and it already has a tradition of circum-solstice celebrations…" She shrugged.

Alicia gazed at her with an expression that Jazz had come to associate with someone overloading on ghost weirdness.

"It isn't that strange, is it? Presidents get invited to all sorts of things."

"And Danny will be at these things?"

"He'll be making appearances, yeah."

Alicia stared at her some more. "Jazz, y'know they're holding me on charges. I'm on bail." Her lips twitched in disgust. "Technically."

"I'm sure that at this point the president is desperate to find a way out of sending someone he considers important." Jazz rolled her eyes. "He'll probably decide it's worth the risk."

.

The president looked at a transcript of a conversation that had occurred in the more public halls of the White House and put his face in his hands. "They're on to us," he muttered.

"It isn't really a bad idea, though."

"If she goes," said the president, "she's definitely not coming back."

The aide shifted uncomfortably. "Forgive me, sir, but at this point… do we actually care?"

.

Danny had gotten into the habit of sorting through his mail with breakfast. It was a bit cliched, but it was an effective routine.

He reached the correspondence from Earth and paused. It was no longer unusual for him to get letters from the president. Which was not something he thought he'd ever be able to say a few years ago. However, this letter was a bit different than the usual ones.

With a thought, he formed an icy letter opener and cut open the letter. It was, as it turned out, an invitation to a Christmas party taking place a week from now. Along with a thick sheaf of security instructions and a list of other invitees.

The list also included Danny. As Danny Fenton.

Huh.

He stopped to think about that, pushing his plate to one side. Was he, as Danny Fenton, being invited because he was Jazz's brother? Because he was sort of pretending to be his own brother? Because of Aunt Alicia? Some other reason? A combination thereof?

Try to think about things from the president's perspective. Or, maybe not the president's, but the average person's. What would this look like to them? What did all of this look like? Start with the disappearance in September. Whatever the GIW were doing. Amity Park's rebellion. The revelation of ghosts. The arrival of the Infinite Realms as a political entity.

He drummed his fingers on the table. Hadn't Jazz sent him something about needing to make a video about everyone who'd been sucked into Danny's lair? Or, no, not quite that. But something similar.

… Hostage concerns…?

Oh. Yeah.

This was probably an attempt to clear that up, either way. So, what were the consequences of not going? What were the consequences of going as Phantom? The consequences of going as Fenton? Could he keep duplicates moving independently for long enough to attend and return?

"What are you thinking about so hard in the morning?"

Danny looked up, across the dinning room. The room and its décor had been a gift from the Chateau Elegant and was notably baroque. It had been plugged into the council's building. Almost literally. It had been weird to watch it connect.

David was standing at the door, rubbing their eyes.

"Politics," said Danny.

"It's too early for politics. Where's Damien?"

"Learning the fine arts of decapitation with Fright Knight. I'm not sure where Ellie is right now."

"Dustin?"

"I think he's still asleep."

"Hm." David pulled up a chair and leaned over Danny's shoulders. "A party?" they asked. "Am I invited?"

"Mmmm," said Danny, scanning the documents again. "No, I don't think so."

"None for me, but you have it twice? Unfair. And rude."

"Eh," said Danny. "I'm not sure how aware they are of your existence, to be fair."

"Still rude," said David, dramatically. "Hey, you know what would be funny? If we all just showed up. Prince of the Ghost Zone isn't really an exact title. Could refer to all of us. Oh, and there's an allowance for a bodyguard, that's cute."

"Security in general, yeah," said Danny. "Plus my 'guardian.' Same type of deal as when we went after Freakshow. It's actually pretty generous considering how picky they were about letting me cross over before. I guess they realized that they can't stop me and that I'm not interested in conquest."

"Why not?"

"Huh?"

"Why aren't you interested in conquest?" asked David, resting their chin on their hand. "I know why I'm not. Too much work. By why aren't you?"

Danny shrugged. "Also too much work?"

David tilted their head. "Really? So, you're not even tempted to try and make it so you'll be in a position to protect all those vulnerable humans?"

"Not like that," said Danny, scrunching up his face. "That would cause way too much harm, and some people would never stop fighting. It's also kind of a Pariah Dark thing to do. Or a Vlad thing."

David shrugged. "He did spend a lot of time talking to me. It'd be weirder if I didn't pick anything up from him."

"Sure," said Danny. "Hey, how do you feel about being a body double? Do you think that'd work?"

David looked up at Danny. "If Nocturne says it's okay."

.

Clockwork, let flickers of time pass across his vision as he floated through Libra. Accurate they were not, but taken together, they did give him insight into what was actually happening.

It stung, somewhat, to be reduced to this, even now that he'd had some time to acclimate. This was close to what the Observants saw. If Clockwork's current vision was a mean, then the Observants had seen the mode.

Clockwork hoped he did better with his sight than the Observants did with theirs.

He entered the library.

"Hello, Doctors Fenton," said Clockwork with a faint smile. Perhaps it was uncharitable of him, but he was tired of them being underfoot.

Maddie drew herself up. "Clockwork," she said. "Has… something happened?"

"Not exactly," he said. "However, it is approaching time that you should return to the human world."

"We aren't done with the aglaophotis," said Jack, eyebrows furrowed, "and we still need to build that portal and clean up that place."

"Perhaps," said Clockwork. "But you have a promise outstanding, as well, regarding your inventions, weapons, and blueprints, and every moment you delay, it will become more difficult to fulfil that promise. It was sealed with Stygian waters, was it not? There are consequences for dallying on such a thing."

Maddie gave him a hard look. "We'd be able to come back?"

"The portal in Amity Park is still functional and will be for the foreseeable future. Reaching Amity Park once you are out in the great world may be difficult, but borders are one of the things being discussed. And there is an opportunity approaching that you may wish to take advantage of."

"What opportunity is that?"

Clockwork smiled thinly. "The president has invited you to visit."