HEY WHOA! It's a nice shiny new chapter. Also, please disregard any statements I previously made about Vlad, because I have sudden need to throw him into the mix (though not in this chapter, sorry!), thanks to Valerie needing a source for her ghost hunting equipment and all that. Totally forgot until recently…oops.
Shout-outs!
enigmatic penguin - Thanks for the correction; it'll be fixed in the final! And good luck with your geometric penguin! XD
animeobsessed3191 – It's just going to kill me to have to stuff Penelope at the end of this fic. I do so love hating her, she's so wonderfully evil!
Divine-Red-Crayon – Hey, thanks for your lovely comments, and for reading! I'm keeping an eye on your Spider's Web as well; it seems we both have a taste for AUs with a little DxS romance. n.n
Ohka Breynekai – Would that be an invisible bill for a present, or specifically the ghost Inviso-Bill as a present? Well, thanks in any case! XD
Phantom of a Rose – Wow, now that's enthusiasm!
Crossover Fiend – Hehe, yeah, but they have worse things to worry about!
Anomaly25 – Ah, but then this plot wouldn't be nearly as complicated! Sucks to be Danny right now! –hands the boy a shovel–
And bucketloads of thanks to mrit, Leppers, Epyon Zero, Crazy Billie Joe Loving Freak, Jimmy the Gothic Egg, SilverstarsEbonyskies, Anabelle Carter, Kagome M.K, Galateagirl, Fanficaholic, The Adversary, dArkliTe-sPirit, L'ange-Sans-Ailes, Rebecca The Animorph, conan98002, HAlFa34, Realsmartz and BJA Fan for reviewing! (I think it was the most reviews I've gotten on any single chapter! Whoa!)
And, thanks to those of you who wished me a happy birthday - I appreciated that a lot! I had a great day and got some nice gifts. Eventually I will turn some of my evil upon my new drawing tablet, and sketch some scenes from this fic, maybe. Bwahaha.
Hilariously, I have had to add many of your names to MSWord's spell-check, because I hate seeing them all outlined in red. XP
Finally, more thanks for the usual suspects; mrit, Scythe Zero and Epyon Zero for getting me all fired up about writing this tonight despite being up since 5:59 a.m. (Which is…over 22 hours now.) Somehow I made it through even without the second espresso. Hee!
Estrelas
Chapter 16
By Shimegami-chan
Sam's mouth fell open and she turned her head in the direction where she thought Danny was, her left hand moving to her wrist to clasp his. She hoped he could read what she was thinking just from her eyes. This is my fault.
"No," came his whispered reply. "It was going to happen someday. We can handle this."
"That was the ghost boy you were associating with?" Liza demanded.
"Daniel Fenton…" Grandma Manson repeated in shock.
"Now listen to me," Sam said heatedly. "Danny isn't a danger to anyone. All those things that people say Inviso-Bill did, that was all done by other ghosts! Danny just ends up taking the blame because he's trying to stop them; he's never done anything to hurt anyone!" She avoided looking at Penelope, knowing that it was too soon to let the therapist know how much she knew. Instead, Sam looked desperately at her grandmother. "Please believe me."
"Now see here, Samantha—" Liza began to snap, falling quiet when her mother-in-law laid a gnarled hand on her arm.
"I knew the Fentons," Grandma said quietly, shocking the others into silence. "That boy, Daniel, was the sweetest child you could hope to meet. His whole family studied the paranormal – they did a lot for this town. When the boy died, they said his ghost—" she broke off thoughtfully. "Dear me, that story's so confusing, I must have remembered it wrong. Well, if Samantha thinks he's harmless…"
"I don't believe it," Danny whispered. "She has to know that Phantom was around before the lake accident!"
The elderly woman was still speaking, and giving Sam a significant look. "I'll give him the benefit of the doubt too. I don't think she needs to be punished for this."
"Of course she does!" Thurston roared.
"Punished for what?" Sam cried. "You want to punish me because I made a friend? Or is it because he's outside my social circle?"
Liza's face closed up. "Penelope, dear, I'm sorry, but I think we need to have a family talk. Would you mind if I called you later to ask you some questions?"
"Of course," the psychiatrist said crisply. "Best of luck working everything out. I know you'll do the right thing." Sam hastily backed out of the doorway and into the porch, trying not to let Penelope get too close to her or Danny. The woman smirked at Sam again before she smoothed her hair and pranced out the front door.
"We have to call that number," Thurston was telling his wife. "Did you write it down?"
"No!" Liza wailed. "I thought you would have!"
"You're going to call even after what I told you?" Sam asked incredulously. "Why?"
"Sammiekins, I'll try to be gentle about this." The look on Liza's face indicated that she wished to be anything but. "We can't have you running around with a ghost. He could be dangerous! Who knows what terrible things he could do?"
"Honestly! Can't you take my word for once? You're my parents; you're supposed to at least occasionally trust me to make decisions for myself." Sam weighed her options, tuning out the sound of her mother's shrill voice. If someone had seen Danny transform…well, that had to have been on their way back from Jazz's, perhaps someone living in one of the houses on the street they had stopped at. Of course, if they saw Danny turn into a human, they probably saw me with him, too…which means that they may be looking for me. I can't let my parents give them any more information than they already have.
They probably saw me kissing Danny…that's kind of embarrassing. Sam felt her cheeks redden. Now wasn't the time for modesty, though. Since Danny's human self had been identified, that meant that either the witness knew a lot about ghosts and Amity Park history…or there was physical evidence, and someone at the Ghost Squad had made the connection. Either way, someone who'd done their research was sure to bring up the point that 'Inviso-Bill' had been around for three years before Danny Fenton's supposed 'death'.
So…maybe they'll think first that Inviso-Bill, er, Phantom, is just posing as Danny Fenton. It doesn't necessarily mean that they'll figure out he's part-ghost. Plus, Danny's 'ghost' was seen after his death.
Right up until Jazz Fenton helped him cross over…
"I have to go to the bathroom," Sam snapped, ignoring her mother's expectant look. "I'll be right back!"
Turning on her heel, Sam flew up the stairs and into the first door on the right, slamming it shut and turning the lock, and hissing, "Danny, come in—!" She then put as much distance between herself and the door as possible, backing up against the wall.
A split second later Danny appeared in front of her, still in ghost form. "What's wrong?"
"You have to warn Jazz!" Sam said, forcing back panic. "She's the one that supposedly helped you cross over! What happens if they try to question her?"
"Relax," Danny said, but his expression belied the words. "Jazz's word has a lot of power around here. In fact, they've probably contacted her already, and I'm sure she gave them a perfect alibi."
"I'm still worried," Sam replied, biting her lip.
The half-ghost shook his head. "We'll need to know what she told them anyway, if they managed to identify you too. How about I go back to her place, check on her and get the story?"
Sam nodded. "Yeah. My parents will probably be grilling me for a while anyway…since Spectra's gone, I should be okay alone with them."
"And my ghost sense hasn't gone off since she left," Danny added. "So if Bertrand was with her, he's gone now, too. Still, let me get you some equipment in case they come back."
"Equipment?" Sam looked at him, confused. Danny just winked and dove into the floor, turning invisible as he went. The Goth girl took the opportunity to sink down onto the ceramic tile, exhausted, trying to calm her pounding heart. This, she thought to herself, was something she'd never expected could happen to her, not even when Danny Phantom first revealed himself to her in the attic that day, rescuing her from the Box Ghost. It was funny how fate worked out sometimes. For Danny, his fate seemed to be just one impossibility after another.
A moment later the halfa popped back up through the floor, his arms full of contraptions. "This is stuff my parents invented for ghost-catching." He tossed her an item that looked like a Thermos, which Sam deftly caught. "The Fenton Thermos. Uncap it and use the red button to activate it – it'll suck the ghost right in." Then he held out a belt-like item with green detailing and a small lock in the middle. "This is the Spectre Deflector. Don't put it on until I leave – every time I touched Tucker while he was wearing the thing, I got electrocuted."
"Got it," Sam replied.
"Finally, these," he held out his clenched fist and opened it, palm-up, to show her two small, green-and-silver objects. "Fenton Phones. They'll let me communicate with you from far away."
Sam accepted the items. "Hopefully my parents won't ask where they came from…I should be able to hide them behind my hair."
"You only need to wear one, if it's easier," he told her. Sam nodded and affixed one to her left ear, then arranged her raven hair to cover it. "Or just pass them off as earrings."
Sam blushed and slid the other Fenton Phone onto her right ear. I don't know if that's romantic, or weird…or both. She looked in the mirror. They do look like earrings, though. Shame I have to hide them.
"You'll be okay?" Danny asked anxiously.
"Of course." Sam winked.
He grabbed her hand and squeezed it, smiling reassuringly. "I'll be back as soon as I can. Shouldn't be long if I fly full speed."
"Be careful." Sam wished fervently that she could go with him, but another disappearance would just get them both in more trouble. She had to stay and find out exactly what Spectra's next move would be. "Let me know if there's trouble."
He threw her a mock salute, as though to prove how unfounded her fears were…but then he leaned close and kissed her on the forehead before dematerializing. Sam opened her mouth to say something, in case he had lingered to see her reaction, but closed it again with a slight smile.
Danny soared over the rooftops, confident that he could easily make it to Jazz's house on the edge of town in about ten minutes, maybe less. He hoped she was all right, and had told the authorities something convincing. Should he go in invisible, he wondered, and risk finding the Ghost Squad in the house, who could detect him in a heartbeat? Or walk in nonchalantly as green-eyed, looks-a-little-too-much-like-his-uncle "William Fenton" and risk the questions?
It was lucky that after years of being a halfa he had learned to conceal his ectoplasmic signature from the tracking devices while in human form, Danny reflected, or else he might have been in real trouble. Unfortunately, it only seemed to prevent man-made items from picking him up (after his parents had actually starting using the Fenton Ghost Finder, it had been pure luck that enabled him to figure out that power before they tracked him down), and while it was immensely useful in hiding his ghost powers from Valerie while he was still 'alive,' he could easily be sensed by other ghosts, and couldn't activate the power as Phantom. Now that would have been a useful trick.
Fortunately, Danny's ghost sense worked on Spectra and Bertrand no matter what they looked like, giving him the advantage. The halfa kept alert to what was going on below him at the same time he turned his ghost sense outward to search for any spooks nearby. From a hundred feet up, activity in the streets of Amity Park seemed to be no more out of the ordinary than usual.
Until Danny's watch began to beep alarmingly.
He screeched to a halt in the air, eyeing the device on his left wrist, another of his parents' inventions that he and Jazz had tweaked for their own agenda some twenty years back. Fortunately for Danny, it functioned perfectly even after being left on the table in the sealed lab for so long; it was solar-powered and seemed to be working when he left the house, though it hadn't shown activity until now, when it was indicating a threat nearby. And, of course, there was only one person the watch had ever been able to track that was still around nowadays…
Danny glanced around, more exasperated than fearful, yet not really knowing what to expect. The device that alerted him when Valerie Gray was within two hundred feet of the watch was planted right in her battle suit, but that didn't necessarily mean she'd be wearing it. After all, she'd retired from ghost hunting, right? She probably just carried the suit around for emergencies, right?
And anyway, Valerie hadn't really hunted Danny Phantom in a very long time. They'd somewhat come to a truce, the hunter and the ghost boy, not long before Danny had faked his own death. Since then, they'd had their misunderstandings, but all in all Val preferred to devote her time to the ghosts that actually harmed people rather than just inflicting collateral damage on the landscape, and she had even pitched in to help him on several occasions.
Danny was glad they'd come to an understanding. Val had been…a new experience for him, to say the least. They had dated briefly when he was in his freshman year, but she'd broken it off because her life was too hectic (not knowing that Danny knew about her Hunter persona, of course), and since then hadn't really spoken as much as Danny had liked. She was a nice girl…stubborn, but nice.
She'd grown up into a nice woman, too, but of course Danny couldn't say he really 'knew' her anymore, because all his interaction with her was as Phantom, and Val and Phantom didn't always agree on things…though they had co-existed peacefully enough until Spectra had entered the fray.
You'd think she of all people would have portrayed me a little nicer in her book, Danny thought sourly. But I guess I should just be happy that she didn't paint me as a complete villain, after that incident.
And then, there she was. Danny stared down into a vacant lot, a familiar scene in fact, the parking area behind what had once been the Nasty Burger. Now it was an auto-body shop, and the back lot was filled with cars waiting to be repaired. The red-suited ghost hunter was standing with her back to the building, looking up at the sky, with eyes trained right on him despite his invisibility.
The halfa cringed and touched a gloved finger to his left earphone. "Sam, can you hear me?"
"Yes," came her short reply, sounding hurried. She was probably within earshot of her parents, though she hadn't been broadcasting, so things were probably still safe back at the former FentonWorks.
"We've got trouble – Valerie. I'll call you if things get serious."
"Mm-hmm."
Danny hesitated and stared down at the woman standing in the parking lot. She could obviously detect him somehow; he couldn't conceal his ecto-signature while in ghost form, and her suit had probably seen an upgrade or two since he'd been gone. She looked unarmed (of course, with Valerie, that essentially meant nothing – who knew what kind of arsenal was concealed in there?), and didn't move to take out a weapon or fly up to him, if she still could.
She's the age I should be, Danny told himself grimly. She probably doesn't want a fight…but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be on my guard.
In fact, it looked like a staring contest was all Valerie wanted today – she hadn't so much as moved in the few seconds since Danny had stopped in the air above her. Deciding to take the bait, Danny eased down onto the ground, preparing for her to bring out the ecto-foamers, or worse.
But what issued from Valerie's mouth was not what he expected. "So, the world finally knows your secret, spook. But we're all hoping to hear the details."
"Uh…" was all Danny could manage. Of course Val would have heard what was going on, being a former member and founder of the Ghost Squad, but he didn't think anyone would have actually put the entire story together. Not that fast, at least. He decided to play dumb for Valerie, first, and Jazz's situation would have to wait. "What?"
"So will you be filling me in, or do I have to beat it out of you?" Val clenched her fists threateningly.
Danny wished for a moment that he could see the expression behind the tinted faceplate of her suit, but the more he thought about it, the more alarming it seemed. The Valerie in front of him was not the same classmate he had left behind all those years ago; she had lived an entire lifetime while he was drifting in and out of his own personal limbo, and her face was barely even familiar to him anymore. Concealed behind the Hunter's mask, at least, she seemed like the Valerie of old, the cocky fourteen-year-old who he'd fought and eventually befriended. The seventeen-year-old who had finally accepted what he'd been trying to tell her for three years, and struck a true truce with, on the grounds that they could help each other rid Amity Park of its ghosts. That Valerie had eventually evolved into someone he really didn't know anymore. "No, I think I'm the one that needs to be filled in. I don't know what you're talking about."
Valerie put her hands on her hips. "Let's see, spook. I've got a few ideas, and I don't like any of them very much. One: Someone spotted you over on the east end of town, making out with some human girl. Then, magically, you turn from a ghost into a human."
Back to 'spook,' I see. You'd think she'd talk like a grandma by now, but noooo… He supposed it was actually a bit of comfort that Val's take-charge mannerisms had stayed with her all these years. Danny sighed. "And you just took their word for it?"
"No," she said grimly. "Don't be stupid, Phantom, you know all eyes are on you whenever you show up. He got pictures…before and after."
"Oh," Danny said dumbly. He hadn't really thought about the idea that someone might have gotten physical evidence. "Well…why does it matter to you who I kiss?"
"It matters," she spat, "when you're posing as my dead ex-boyfriend."
"Whoa." Danny held up his hands in a 'don't-eat-me' gesture. "Just a coincidence, probably, right? I realized that I shouldn't be out in public, so I put on a human disguise. Changed my hair colour and clothes. If it looks like someone you know, that's not my problem."
"Oh yeah? Since when do you have that kind of power?"
"You have no idea what kind of powers I have," he said dryly. Or what handy little devices I've got, like the one I use to let me know when you're within a two hundred foot radius… "I've picked up a few tricks since you last saw me. And I don't see why it's a big thing; don't we have a truce? You're going to just throw that out and accuse me?"
Danny noticed that Valerie's body language had shifted drastically during their exchange, going from apparent fury to something he couldn't read. She was standing with her feet spaced apart, as though prepared for attack, but had straightened up since he'd begun speaking, her arms dropping from the standoffish pose on her hips to hang at her side. Her left hand curled into a slight fist. "Maybe you don't get me, ghost. The guy took pictures. Digital pictures, and zoomed right in on your face. So 'just a coincidence' isn't going to cut it."
"What are you expecting me to tell you?" Danny asked, hoping to bait her. If she really thought he was Danny Fenton, she would probably have said so already…he hoped. The problem was, he didn't have any idea what she thought. The halfa knew he wouldn't have been able to come up with any plausible hypothesis if he'd been a ghost hunter.
"I'm not so sure myself," Valerie said softly, and Danny was acutely aware of the age in her voice now, of uncertainly that was only thinly veiled. What logical explanation could he give her? The hunter reached into a pocket and withdrew a small, white-backed square, looking from it to the ghost, who was desperately trying to keep his conflicting emotions off his face. "If you could disguise yourself as a human…why did you choose to look like Danny Fenton? Don't you know what the Fenton name means around here? You must…because you were around when he was still alive."
Danny was sure that if his heart could pound in his ghost form, Val would be able to hear it from the ten feet that separated them. "Uh…right. You know, really, I just thought 'Oh, a disguise,' and turned into the first person I thought of, which was Danny Fenton, because we were so close to his house."
"Oh, you knew where he'd lived?"
"Well, yeah, I do occasionally—"
"Try to keep tabs on the people who are trying to kill you, right?" Valerie's shoulders tensed. "Well guess what, I think there's more to it than that. Funny how I hear Danny's name getting tossed around for the first time in years…on the same day that you happen to show up for the first time in years. There are a lot of unexplained coincidences, Phantom. You look like Danny. You sound like Danny. And suddenly you can make yourself look human…by disguising yourself as Danny."
The half-ghost stared at her, completely at a loss as to how to respond. Was this it? Was his secret finally out? All for nothing, he thought miserably. All that hiding, it might have kept me out of the spotlight for a few decades, but that's nothing compared to an eternity trapped in those torture cages my parents designed for studying ghosts. I guess I may have to make a run for it after all…
"The problem is," Valerie continued, so quietly that he had to strain to hear her even with his enhanced senses, "that you showed up well before Danny died."
"So?" Danny hesitated in mid-plan, not really sure what she was getting at now. Did she suspect him of being Danny Fenton, or didn't she? The suspense was driving him crazy!
"So…this could be one of a few things. I haven't gone to the Squad with this yet, because I want to get the truth from you…by wringing it out of you, if necessary."
"Right." Danny rolled his eyes.
And then, she said something he wasn't prepared for. "I want to know whether or not you killed Danny Fenton."
"Say what?" Danny, at least, could offer the ghost hunter a very genuine look of surprise. "Killed him? Why the heck would I do that?"
"Well, gee," she said sarcastically. "That's just what I'd like to know, actually! Maybe you killed him so you could steal his identity? What I was thinking was that maybe there never really was a 'Danny Fenton'…maybe it was just you, the Phantom, all along, and then..."
The ludicrous theory had shocked the ghost boy into silence, allowing Valerie to continue, her voice growing more and more venomous. "I always knew there was something weird about him. I'd thought maybe you made up the persona of 'Danny Fenton' while trying to hide out from the ghost hunters, and I guess that could still be it. But obviously, that couldn't be the whole story."
She barrelled on, ignoring Danny's attempts to protest. "I don't know how long you've had this power that lets you pose as a human. I know that there had to be a real Daniel Fenton at some point; no way could you have pretended for seventeen years straight…but I think I've got that figured out too." Even though her face was hidden, Danny could feel her glare right through the visor. "I think that at some point, after you came into this world, you saw Danny Fenton and thought to yourself, 'I'm going to take that kid's life.' Why not? You're a ghost; you can possess people. Why let yourself be hunted by the other ghosts and us when you can just look like an everyday human, and pretend that you're alive?"
That stung a bit, but Danny was still preoccupied with the ridiculous story as a whole. "That's crazy."
"But it's possible. And I can't wait to hear your defence, when I'm done," she said acidly. He shut up. "So…all that's left for me to figure out is exactly when you took over Danny's life. Maybe you were already him by the time you met me…but probably not, right? Danny was such a sincere, sweet guy in our freshman year. You were busy causing trouble all over town."
The halfa winced, hoping she wouldn't bring up the mess that had happened with Cujo at Axion Labs. "You know I didn't—"
"Shut it," she growled. "So, when I dated Danny, he seemed pretty average. Never really noticed a big change in him throughout high school, either…so what's that mean for you? Could be one of two things…could be that you were pretending to be Danny all along, during the time I knew him."
"Nope," the half-ghost squeezed the word in under her tirade.
"Or…you could have botched your attempt to take over his life, and accidentally killed him."
"No—wait…what?"
"You cornered him when there was no place to run," she said confidently, buoyed by the half-ghost's incredulous look. "In the sub, when he and his parents were exorcising something in the lake. Maybe they were even exorcising you. Maybe I was wrong about the first part, and you just decided to attack them when they were disturbing your final resting place – sound about right? You blew up the sub, but Danny died, so you lost your chance to overshadow him."
"Okay, and if I magically had my 'disguise powers' at that time, why wouldn't I just leave Danny for dead in the lake, and take over his identity right there?" the ghost retorted.
"Then that probably means that you didn't gain that power yet. I've done my research on you, spook. You were a pretty young ghost back then, so it wouldn't surprise me if you didn't know how to." Valerie's hands were on her hips again.
Danny cocked his head and put his own hands on his hips, mirroring her pose. "And if that's the case and I 'botched my attempt to kill him,' like you said, why on earth would I try to pass myself off as him years and years later? That doesn't make sense."
"You don't make sense!" she hissed, looking as though she were ready to leap at and strangle him. "What, did you think that if you tried to impersonate him more than fifty years after he died, no one would recognize you? No, there's got to be more to it than that, and I'm going to get the whole story if I have to knock it out of you piece by piece! There's got to be a reason for all this, and it's personal, now. I'm through with you playing the innocent - I know you're connected to Danny's death in some way."
More than you know, Danny thought, but kept the sardonic comment and grin to himself. "Completely not possible. I'm telling you, it was an absolute coincidence."
"No. I think it's some ghostly phenomenon that I don't know about."
"For example?"
"For example…" she trailed off, as if deep in thought. "If, maybe, when Danny died, you really were there. And you did something to him that let you take on his appearance."
"What, you think I stole his soul or something?" As soon as the words had come out of his mouth, Danny knew he'd made a mistake. I shouldn't give her any stupid ideas…
"Why not?" she demanded, suddenly energetic again. "This town has a ghost that can control people with music, a ghost that infects technology, a ghost that haunts boxes…why not a vampiric, soul-sucking identity-stealing ghost?"
"Valerie, this is insane," he protested, squeezing his eyes shut and pressing one hand to his forehead. "I haven't stolen anyone's soul or identity. I don't have any kind of creepy power like that. And I thought we'd come to an understanding; I helped you plenty of times, I thought I'd proved that I was only looking out for the good of the people of this town. Why the heck would I go around killing some people and then saving others? It doesn't make sense!"
"I trusted you before," she replied quietly, "but that was before I saw what I did today. Everything I believed about you, I'm looking at in a whole new light now."
"What'll it take, then?" he asked tiredly. "I'm not going to admit to anything I didn't do."
"Turn into another human," she instructed.
He stared at her blankly.
"You have a power that lets you disguise yourself. If you want to prove to me that you have nothing to do with Danny Fenton…then turn into someone that's not him."
Uh-oh.
-to be continued…
A/N: I can predict what most of you are thinking: "evil cliffie!" Sorry, but it's instinctive, and I've been holding it back 'til recently! I just love leaving it in suspense! But worry not, it won't be long before 17's ready…