Due to a question in the comments (I'll get to those later) I was seized by a sudden desire to know all the DP ship names. I looked them up, and there are a lot of them. I did know the basic ones, and the more common ones, like Amethyst Ocean, Shallow Sapphire, Gray Ghost, Pompous Pep, Veggie Burger, and Iambic Prose (why are there so many of these anyway?), but there are so many more. Like, a whole lot. Some of them are really weird, too. Like, apparently there's a ship name (Love Sucks) for ghost weasel/ Fenton thermos. Has... Has that been done? Has anyone seen the cursed fic that features that ship? And I always thought that the ship name for Jazz/Ghost Writer was Library Love, but on a couple lists it's Classic Cliche. We have a ship name (Unidentified Flying Ship) for Danny/Wes, and Wes is pseudocanon. I love this Phandom. What are your favorite DP ship names? What do you think are the weirdest DP ship names?
HakushoRurouni: I think that I did say something earlier, but I don't want to make you look back through who knows how many chapters to find out what I may or may not have written. So, the thing is, I don't have any real life personal experiences with romantic relationships. I'm not ace or aro (I think. How do you even find these things out?), just asocial and lazy. Because of that, I feel somewhat uncomfortable writing romantic relationships, so any romance is going to be a secondary focus, at most. Then, beyond my own awkwardness, I think that a lot of the DP ships are kind of problematic, if you look at just canon. (I do like Everlasting, though). I don't really know what I'm going to do, honestly. I feel like it'll be easier to just list the things I'm not going to do.
I'm not going to do anything explicit. The main characters here are the same ages as my students, so... yeah. You can see why that would be a problem for me. I'm not sexualizing kids.
I'm not going to do Pompous Pep, or any ship with such a large effective (as in their physical and mental age, because we're dealing with ghosts and other people who don't necessarily age) age difference, for the same reason as the above.
I'm not going to strangle anybody with the red string. I hate sudden, no build-up, 'it was destined' romantic resolutions. Nor will there be any surprise sex.
I'm probably not going to do m/m or f/f pairings. I don't have anything against them, I've read a couple really good DP fics with slash pairings, but they aren't my thing, some less good ones have made me really uncomfortable, especially when the pairing comes out of nowhere, and, ultimately, this fic is my self-indulgent hobby. (My opinion of RL pairings of this or any type is that as long as it's consensual, and no one is rubbing my face in it, I don't care. Please no flames. This is just my emotional response, and is not intended as a condemnation or a moral treatise.)
I'm not going to do anything abusive, or rooted in abuse.
Thank you for your understanding.
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Chapter 62: Paths Diverged
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Danny was on his knees before the world came back to him, his head ringing.
(Active immune systems took energy. Infections caused fevers. Danny was already hurt. This was salt in his wounds.)
He pushed himself up. Leaning on Maddie. Staggering into her. Jazz was supporting him from the other side.
"We can't stay here," gasped Danny.
"What's wrong?" asked Maddie.
"The Door's been opened," said Fractal. "But... This should be fine. We should be fine here. We're ages away from the door."
"What came through the Door?" asked Jack.
Fractal bit his lip, then looked away, rubbing the back of his neck.
"You will tell us," demanded Maddie. "You've kept so many secrets, you are not keeping this one. You are not going to endanger us all."
Danny winced. Fractal caught his eye, and seemed to deflate. "Men. Humans. Military. Heavily armed. Too heavily armed. Those weapons could hurt humans. More than could. Would. Will. These aren't the kinds of things you bring to fight ghosts. Equipment is similar to GIW issue, but no white. That isn't a requirement, anyway. GIW doesn't stand for what people think it stands for. Competent. They're pressing forward."
"GIW?" exclaimed Jack. "They're here to rescue us! I knew we could have faith in the government!"
"I don't know," said Fractal. "To begin with, I'm not sure that the GIW are even a real government agency..."
"They aren't," confirmed Tucker, tapping at his PDA. "They're contractors. The government pays them, but so do a lot of other people, and they have independent leadership."
"They're here for us," stated Maddie, resolutely. "They're here for us, and any other humans here. You're going to take us to, to the people from Harmony, and then you're going to take us to the Guys in White, so we can go home."
Fractal froze for a moment, and then shook his head vigorously. "No. Dr Fenton, these people have guns. Real guns, not ectoblasters. They could be here to hurt you."
"That's utterly illogical. Why would the GIW be here to hurt us?"
Fractal shrugged, shrinking away. "It doesn't feel right. There's no reason for them to have come with that kind of weaponry."
"They're the government," said Ricky, flippantly. "They always go for overkill."
"Ghosts like you are dangerous," posited Valerie, crossing her arms. "It would be stupid for them not to bring weapons." Danny looked at Valerie curiously, temporarily distracted from being upset. She didn't sound as convinced about that statement as she would have been yesterday.
"The faster you get us to the GIW," said Maddie, "the faster we get out of your hair. Not to mention, they'll give us safe passage back to Amity Park."
Then suddenly, there was Echo, centimeters from Maddie. Too close to her. She stepped back. "And will you take responsibility for that, Madeline Fenton? They may give safe passage for humans." He hissed. "But what do they call human, hm? What's to say that they won't decide that you're all too contaminated to bring home?"
"Yeah!" exclaimed Elliot, suddenly. "They're nuts! They shot at me once!"
"They might not be GIW, anyway," added Sam. "They might not even be human. They could be ghosts disguised as humans."
"Couldn't he tell, th-"
"Shut up, Tucker," said Sam through gritted teeth.
"He used the word 'competent,' too," said Mia. "You don't see that too often with the Guys in White. They could have just gotten their weapons from them."
That set off a shouting match between the people who believed that the men coming through the Door were there to help, to bring them home, and the people who hated the GIW and distrusted everything to do with them.
Danny covered his ears. His head still hurt from whatever it was that Shade had done to send the information, and the noise was not helping. There was something else, too. His mind was not entirely on this place, this moment. The lair was moving, shuddering, rippling... Not literally, except in a few places, but it was trying to eject the men, the soldiers, playing the haunted house role to the hilt. Lampposts tumbled. Trees shook, and reached out. Vines twined. Ghost fires burned. The sky went dark. The wind howled. Poisonous flowers, both ghostly and earthly, bloomed. Shade, Umbra, and the remaining Harmonians lurked in the deepening shadows.
These were the things that he could do.
That the lair could do, anyway.
It wasn't working. They were still there. They weren't leaving. It was a good thing that they were far away. They were good. They were skilled. There were a lot of them, too.
Options. What were his options? How could he fix this?
More: How many of them were still outside? Because he could hear their radios crackling through his head, trying to talk to someone outside and the other soldiers inside and he wasn't letting that happen. No. Not when he could make them crackle and moan and shriek, and who named their rescue mission Eurydice? That was stupidly unlucky, more so when you were going into a place half-made of legends and stories, and the lost peelings, carvings, shavings, detritus of imagination, centuries and ages of superstition.
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Vlad sat down across from his advocate. The man was a green-skinned ghost with a neat white beard, and a neat, if old-fashioned suit. His name was Foxglove, following the tradition that some Ghost Zone lawyers had of naming themselves after poisons. Vlad suspected that he was much, much older than he presented himself as. He was among the very best of the legal minds of the Infinite Realms, having had lifetimes to hone his craft.
Even so, Vlad had tried to retain the services of another before turning to Foxglove. A ghost who had a reputation as the single best advocate in the Infinite Realms. But Hemlock had claimed to be already representing another interested party. It was unfortunate, but not entirely unexpected.
"I think that we can make the argument that Daniel should be remitted to your custody whilst on the Material Plane. However, marriage being what it is, I am uncertain that we could arrange for separate sentences. I think that the simplest solution, and the one most likely to get you what you want, would be to argue for Jack and Maddie to also be placed in your custody, as indentured servants for the duration of their sentences. Or, to argue that they serve separate indentures, and that Maddie serves hers with you."
"What would be our argument in that case?"
"That, as they are humans, it would be difficult to provide for their imprisonment in the Realms. This would be a difficult argument, especially as others may be advocating for their execution. But I only mention this to prepare you, in case we cannot, in fact, separate their sentences."
"Is the outcome of the preliminary committee really so uncertain?"
Foxglove laughed. "It isn't so much merely uncertain, as it is entirely unpredictable. Involving living persons imposes a time limit that is not usually present, and Daniel- Phantom- is something of a celebrity. There will be thousands of advocates in attendance. The first few days will be all about weeding out those who do not have proper standing to be there. Without a time limit, those same proceedings might take weeks, or even months. We really have no idea who will be there, or how unexpected attendees might skew the results. Really, all we can determine with certainty at this point, are the results that you desire, or would be happy with."
"I see," said Vlad. "Well, let's discus that..."
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Mirror saw the teens rejoin the group, and glared at them. Beyond the headache they had caused on their own, their parents had discovered their absence, and getting everyone to move, get away from the people with guns, was hard to do, when some of them weren't there and the rest of them weren't going to go without them. Which was reasonable. Mirror wouldn't have left them alone, either, but Mirage was with them! Of course, it was also reasonable for that to not satisfy worried parents, but it was frustrating. Incredibly so.
"Okay!" he shouted, once the hugging had stopped and the scolding had commenced. "We have to go. The Door has been breached."
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Jeremy Nye slid down the roof, making sure to stay out of sight of the camouflaged men. This was so messed up. There were lots of things in the Outside. Weird things. Dangerous things. He had seen them, before he had first come to Harmony, when the plane had crashed on that purple island. He'd seen a lot of ghosts, too. Made friends with a few, even, since then. What he hadn't seen a lot of, was humans. Well, other than the people that had been on the plane with him.
He had been twenty when it happened. Twenty, and on his way back to college, and his girlfriend, and his life. He'd always held hope that, one day, he'd be able to go back. That he'd be able to see home again.
It was tempting to believe that these were members of the army, the marines, the air force, or, heck, even the navy, come to 'rescue' them. To bring them home, anyway. Many, even most, of the people of Harmony had no desire to to leave, although many of them would like to send letters to whatever friends and relatives they had back on Earth.
Jeremy... Jeremy like Harmony alright. He liked the people here. He was grateful to the mysterious 'landlord' for giving him, for giving all of them, the chance to live here, safe from the dangers of Outside.
But he wanted to go home.
He took a deep breath, and laid down his weapon. This was a risk, but it was one he was willing to take. He looked up, to the roofs.
One of Mirror's compatriots, Umbra, Jeremy thought, was perched there, a rifle cradled in his arms. His eyes glowed ice-blue in the dark. If Jeremy hadn't spent the last couple of years of his life seeing glowing eyes of varying intensity in everyone from ghosts to his neighbor's daughter, he would have been thoroughly disturbed. As it was, he still felt vaguely unsettled, despite the concern obvious on the boy's face.
Jeremy wondered for a moment if the boy (the ghost?) would stop him, but all Umbra did was incline his head, and then blink, extinguishing his eyes.
That was... Good?
Then, the soldiers (were they soldiers?) were just in the next street. He walked there, carefully, his hands already raised. He stepped out into the street. "Don't shoot!" he said as soon as he had done so, announcing his presence and peaceful intentions in one breath.
All their weapons came up. That was okay, though, Jeremy had expected that. "I'm not armed," he said nervously.
"Iota," said one of them. "Check him."
Another- Iota?- nodded. "Lay down and put your hands behind your head," he ordered Jeremy.
Jeremy complied, and let himself be zip-tied and frisked. Regardless of what he was thinking now, regardless of what doubts he was having, they were the ones with the guns. Iota then pulled him roughly into a sitting position.
"Who are you?" demanded the first man.
"Um. My name is Jeremy Nye. I'm from Cleveland. In Ohio. In America. You, you're Americans, right?"
"He isn't on the list," said one of the others.
"What list?" asked Jeremy.
His question was ignored. "Are there others?" asked the apparent leader.
"You mean, like, other people? Yeah. Loads."
"Where?"
"Um. I don't know?" When the man frowned, Jeremy hastened to explain, "We heard that something was going to come through the door, and a lot of people got spooked. They left. I don't know where anyone else is, right now."
"How many?"
"I don't know, a few hundred?"
"For how long?"
"Well, I've been here a couple years. Some have been here longer, some shorter."
It was hard to make out the man's expression behind his protective goggles, but Jeremy thought that he was narrowing his eyes. He swallowed. "Children?"
"Yeah. A few dozen."
"Any in the last few days?"
"Um, no. You're the only ones who have come through in a couple months, and before that it was just a couple of boaters from Bermuda. You know how it is. Or, um, I guess you don't."
"You're familiar with this area?"
"I guess. Yeah. I mean, I've lived here for a while now."
The man smiled. "Why don't you show us around?"
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Umbra frowned. He hadn't liked letting Jeremy go through with this. But it had been his choice, and he hadn't been hurt yet. Yet. Maybe, maybe they'd been overreacting. On the other hand, zip-ties weren't exactly friendly.
He flicked to another roof to get a better perspective. As long as they had Jeremy, he wasn't going to let them out of his sight.
