Hello, hello. What have we here? A chapter? With hardly any angst? How could this be?
Okay, so there's some angst. Not a lot, though.
Anyway, just giving you a wonderful people a heads up that my updating is going to become very inconsistent starting this coming week. I know that I've said as much in previous posts, but I just want to reiterate. I may or may not be posting anything at all this next week.
Jadejem1: You could probably interpret it either way, but, personally, I've always considered future!Vlad to be a very unreliable narrator. He seems a bit too keen to label his ghost half as evil, and, even if he's trying to make a long story short, his explanation of what happened seems lacking. He also never said exactly what happened to future!human!Danny. Of course, Danny is also an unreliable narrator, and he's pulling his story from memories that he got from Dan. That said, my explanation as to the inconsistency is that Vlad left human!Danny by himself, for some reason, maybe to get medicine, or something, but human!Danny died while he was away, and that's when Phantom snuck in, saw dead!Danny, and freaked out. human!Vlad only sees the aftermath, so he assumes that either Phantom or Dan killed human!Danny. Does that work?
AlecGateway: I'm glad that those interactions came across properly. I actually have a really hard time writing Jack for some reason. For Danny and Clockwork I'd refer you to Grandfather Clocks, but I think that you've already read what I've got there, IIRC.
MsFrizzle: Thank you for sharing your thoughts! Your reviews are always so thoughtful. I guess that the demonstration was supposed to be more along the lines of why Maddie and Jack shouldn't try to mess with links anymore, and the point was that Danny had no idea Mirror even existed... I don't know... I guess it didn't work too well. The three bodies bit, though, was in reference to Jack, Maddie, and Danny. The last bit, where he leaves out the Wail, was more of a change in emphasis than a lie. He did use Fenton tech to beat Dan: the Specter Deflector, the Jack o Nine Tails, and the thermos, at least.
Thank you to all of you who read this, and a double thank you to those of you who post reviews!
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Chapter 52: Image in the Water
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"Is he purring?" asked Maddie, more rhetorically than anything else.
"That's a good sign," said Fractal, leaning so his ear rested against Danny's back. "It means that his core is getting better."
"I'm going to bring him to bed," said Echo, pointedly, still glaring at Maddie and Jack. Maddie glared back. Echo's green eyes narrowed. "Let go," said Echo.
"No," said Maddie.
Fractal sighed. "It's a long walk back to the cabins. Do you really want to have to carry Danny the whole way? It won't be comfortable for you or Danny. Echo can get him back in seconds."
"How?" asked Jack.
"The same way we can just appear out of nowhere," said Mirror. "It isn't invisibility."
"Unfortunately, we can't use that route with just anyone," said Fractal. "Otherwise we'd have zapped everyone to the door already."
"Why?"
"You aren't ghosts, and you aren't linked to the lair."
Mirror made a sound of discontent. "If he sleeps like this he'll get a crick in his neck." He glanced at Maddie. "If it makes you feel better, Jazz is still up. She'll be there to keep Echo from doing anything too weird."
"Hey," said Echo.
"You sound like Tucker," teased Mirror.
"A compliment!"
Maddie pushed back a lock of Danny's hair. He was practically a burrito in the blanket, only his face showing. It was easier, somehow, to see that he was sick when he was asleep. Her poor baby. She hadn't noticed that he was in so much pain.
(Perhaps Echo was right. She was a horrible mother.)
She pulled back.
Echo smirked, and vanished with Danny.
"Okay," said Mirror cheerfully, getting to his feet. "We should keep going. We won't get back to bed by staying here! Well. You won't, anyway."
Fractal stood as well, stretching. "Yep. You two need sleep, too."
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. Paulina Sanchez sat, discontent, at the window. She hadn't been able to sleep. Not with open, glass-less, windows and a distinct lack of doors. Why, anyone could get in. Anyone at all. Paulina drew her quilt closer around her shoulders.
But that was not the only reason for Paulina's unhappiness.
The shadows were ignoring her. They shouldn't be ignoring her. They were the ghost boy's- Phantom's- shadows. They were parts of him. Phantom loved her. Or he was going to love her. She was special. She was the prettiest, most popular, best liked girl in Amity Park. She'd supported him even when he adult labeled him Public Enemy #1. She was, like, the Louis Lane to his Superman.
But when she had tried talking to the one with glasses, he'd just snapped at her. Which was way uncool. Then there was Echo, but Echo was... creepy, and he was only interested in Fenton, anyway. Paulina's lip curled. She got that Phantom was stuck in him, which was gross, but that didn't mean that Phantom had to be nice to him.
Poor Phantom, though. Being stuck with Freaky Fenton, Failure Foley, and Mopey Manson as friends. He must have been desperate when he first got to Amity Park, and now he was just too nice to drop them like they should be dropped.
Paulina remembered when she, of all people, used to be friends with them.
It had been just awful. Being at the bottom of the heap, being teased all the time, for her looks, for her accent, for the way she dressed, for her name... She didn't know how she had survived. Thank goodness for Tia Carmen and her two-week summer beauty extravaganza.
She smiled to herself as she remembered going back to school that September, how everyone had looked at her, had seen her, seen her beautiful, no longer nerdy, with too-large t-shirts, baggy jeans, freckles and pigtails, but with sleek hair, glowing skin, and stylish, glittering clothes. She had become popular that day, going from the bottom rung of the social ladder to the very top. Everyone had wanted to be her friend. Everyone.
Except for Sam Manson.
Paulina had tried to be nice to Manson. She really had. She had offered makeup tips, pretty clothes, a ticket to the top of the ladder, but Manson had thrown all of that away. Manson didn't want it. She wanted to keep wearing her dorky, gross, black, bargain-bin reject clothes, and lurk in the weirdo-infested social deeps. Like a looser. And she had gotten so angry when Paulina pointed that out. So angry when Paulina had said that she could be better, could hang out with better, brighter, shinier people.
Well. Manson had just been angry that Paulina was special, that Paulina had what it took, and she didn't. So there. Her loss. Fenton and Foley's loss, too, for picking Manson over the queen of the school.
Paulina huffed angrily. She'd almost broken them up too, a while ago, and it had been so good to see that look of frustration, of betrayal on Manson's face. But then Fenton went crawling back to the little witch. Not that Paulina wanted him anyway. Then there had been that week when Elliot had pretended to be from Hungary. Hilarious. Manson always said that she was looking past the surface, but then she got blinded by a fake accent and some sweet talk? Pathetic. Almost as pathetic as her continuous attempts to be 'unique.'
Hah. Paulina was the only special one.
But it was so frustrating that Phantom was hanging out with Manson at all, when he should be with Paulina. He clearly knew that Paulina was special. He had rescued her so many times, after all. Maybe Manson had done something to him. Yeah. That sounded like something that witch Manson would do, in her quest to be special.
Paulina would just have to break the spell.
A flash of white, not one of the little luces del tesoro, but something purer, more solid, caught Paulina's eye. She stood, dropping the quilt at her feet, and leaned out the window. It was Phantom, definitely Phantom, not one of the shadows, standing at the edge of one of the pools, almost obscured by foliage. The luces del tesoro orbited him like a rainbow halo, and he wore, antique, princely clothes. Paulina had never seen anyone quite so beautiful.
He turned slightly towards her, smiling.
Somehow he had freed himself from Fenton, and now he was showing himself to Paulina, and Paulina alone. Because he did know that Paulina was special, and that they were meant to be together. He was going to be the prince to her princess.
A brilliant, beautiful, smile blossomed on her face, the one that had made her the undisputed queen of Casper High, and she spun, running to the door so that she could join her prince.
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It had been hours, or, at least, it felt that way, since Valerie had heard the conversation between the three elder Fentons.
Danny Phantom was a copy of Danny Fenton? Impossible! Except... It did explain a lot. Like why Phantom showed up around Danny so often. And why he was always at Casper High, or the Nasty Burger, or the mall. And how he could get into FentonWorks so easily that one time. And how he seemed to know her so well. Heck, it even explained why Danielle's human form looked so much like Danny.
There, Valerie's mind shuddered to a halt. A standstill. A dead stop.
Taking Danielle and Mayor Masters into account, wasn't there an easier explanation for all of this? What was that saying? Occam's Razor? The simplest explanation is often the correct one? Or something like that?
What if there was only one Danny?
What if Danny was like Danielle?
Valerie shook her head. Impossible. More impossible that Phantom being Danny's copy. She'd had to cut dates with Danny to go fight Phantom. Beyond that, she had dated Danny. No. Mayor Masters was just a freak of nature and poor, unfortunate, innocent, Danielle was... What? Clearly not actually Phantom's cousin. Or Danny's.
Valerie wracked her brain for information, scraps of conversation overheard between Plasmius, Phantom, and Danielle. There had been a fight between the three of them a few months ago, one that Valerie had joined. Had Plasmius, Masters, implied that he was her father? But Masters didn't have children publicly, and Masters wasn't related to the Fentons, so... Had he made Danielle? That made more sense. He could have used Danny's DNA and... Whatever it was ghosts had instead of DNA from Phantom. Yeah. That made more sense.
It was also more creepy. Way, way more creepy.
Giving up sleep, Valerie kicked off her bed sheets. Maybe a walk would settle her nerves.
Once outside, she scanned her surroundings. Phantom did always keep his promises, but this was still foreign territory, and she got the feeling that even he wasn't completely in control here.
That's when she spotted him in the bushes by one of the ponds. Phantom. Or someone who looked a lot like Phantom. They didn't dress like him, though. Valerie had never seen Phantom in something so medieval, and her brain was having trouble processing him now. They weren't either of the shadows that she had seen before, either.
Then, as she watched, frozen, he turned and smirked slyly at her. Then he started to walk away.
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When Sam woke up, a nightmare fading in the back of her mind, the first thing that she registered was that the room was too quiet. She sat up, rubbing gritty eyes (and she really should have tried harder to get all of her mascara off before bed, and what was she thinking, putting on makeup that morning? It was habit, she supposed, but, really, there were more important things than her image as a goth.).
Danny and Jazz were missing. Their beds had been slept in, but they were gone.
Tucker's sleeping body on the bed next to her, and the relative quiet, told her that, no, it was not just that it was 'morning.' Maybe they had just gone out? Maybe Danny had had a nightmare, and Jazz was comforting him? It would be like Danny, to insist that Sam and Tucker be left to sleep.
Something, though, told Sam that this was not the case. That something more important had happened.
She swung her legs off the bed, and padded, barefoot, to the door, suppressing the urge to wake Tucker. This might be nothing, after all, and she'd been trying to be more considerate of her friends. She knew that she could be awfully bossy sometimes.
Jazz was sitting on a bench just outside the door, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and her knees drawn up to her chest. A mug sat on the ground next to her, and her one leg jigged anxiously.
"What's wrong?" asked Sam.
"Danny went to go talk to Mom and Dad," said Jazz. "I think that he's going to tell them."
"What?! Why?"
"I think he's trying to control how they find out," said Jazz, miserably. "Something about how one of the new shadows looked too much like him. Human him. He thought that they would find out."
"Oh, jeez," said Sam. "Is he going to be okay?"
"I hope so," said Jazz. "At least he has Echo and Fractal with him, right?"
"Right," said Sam. She frowned, gazing forward. She had caught sight off some movement out there, near the ponds. It hadn't looked like the wisps. More like... "Hey, Jazz," she said, pointing, "do you see that?"
Jazz looked up. "Is that..?"
The shape moved again, and came into full view. It was a shadow, not Echo or Fractal, a new one, identical to Danny, that had chosen to wear a high-collared pseudo-medieval suit complete with cape. Sam stared. He looked far better in that suit than he had any right to.
(She didn't know why she was so sure it wasn't Danny, it wasn't like Danny had never worn weird clothes before. She just was.)
Then Echo appeared between Jazz and Sam, cradling a blanketed Danny.
"Oh, my gosh," said Jazz. "Echo, is he okay?"
"He's fine," said Echo, "just overtired. He wore himself out." He smiled first at Sam, then at Jazz. "I thought that you two might like to know that he was back."
"How did it go?" asked Sam.
"Well," said Echo, "he is more or less satisfied. I'm not so sure. I suppose that they're at least willing to listen."
"Is he really just asleep?" asked Jazz, gently touching the side of his face. "He feels cold."
"Delayed reaction to the energized ectoplasm. Aaaaand we might have slipped some some spectral poppy into his hot chocolate?"
Jazz opened her mouth, as if to complain, closed it, and then said, "He probably needed it."
"Yeah," agreed Sam, watching as Danny nuzzled into Jazz's hand and licked her fingers.
Jazz jerked back. "Gross, Danny," she complained halfheartedly.
"Nmnmm," mumbled Danny in his sleep, eyelids fluttering. "Ebodeebeappy. Ammy... Nomoarrogs. Limey. Aylikitties. Uzzy. Lika uzzy."
Sam bit back a laugh. Even in his sleep... She patted him on the shoulder as he mumbled. "So, what's with that?" She jerked her thumb towards the Danny lookalike standing in the foliage near the pools.
"That's Mirage," said Echo, rolling his eyes. "He's playing a game." Echo smiled, toothily, his mouth stretching wider than Danny's generally could. "He'd probably appreciate it if you joined, Sam. For now, I'm putting Danny to bed." He vanished.
Jazz glanced briefly at the caped shadow. "I'm going back to bed," she said. "I've barely slept."
"Okay," said Sam, looking at Mirage. She knew that Danny was in good hands, and she was curious as to what 'game' he was playing. Still, she was indecisive.
Right up until the shadow looked up, grinned at her, and winked.
