So this one is a bit longer again. Enjoy!

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Chapter 104: Three Steps Back

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Danny was laying on Mr Lancer. This was good. Mr Lancer was soft and warm and comfortable and he had feelings. Good feelings. Concerned feelings. They were tasty. Danny was hungry.

Were people talking? People could be talking.

Danny snuggled closer to the soft and the safe, whimpering as something (everything) hurt. Hurt, hurt, hurt. It hurt so much. He curled inwards. Here was Mr Lancer. Mr Lancer was an adult. A safe adult. Danny had done his homework. It was fine. No yelling. Please.

(He was aware that this train of thought did not make a huge amount of sense.)

Then-

Was that Valerie?

Every nerve in his body was suddenly on high alert. His eyes snapped open and he pulled himself up by the fabric of Mr Lancer's shirt, panting. This was his Mr Lancer. His, his, his. He would protect. Valerie would not touch. No.

Oh. There was Ellie. Ellie.

She looked worried, so he gave her a shaky smile. But then his eyes slid off of Ellie, searching for Valerie. Valerie. There were a lot of his people here, actually. Valerie. What was she doing? What was she doing here with Ellie. Was she working for Vlad again? Was she hunting Ellie again? She couldn't be hunting Ellie! No! That was a no, couldn't be allowed. Why would she be doing that? Why was she touching Sarah? No. No touching! No touching for Valerie!

"Danny, Danny, no," said Ellie, gently touching his face, turning it so that he was looking back at her. "It's okay. Breathe. Look at me. Relax." She ran her hand through his hair and down the back of his neck. Now Danny noticed the little ones, the little ghosts. So nice. So sweet. He noticed Cujo.

"Good puppy," he said, leaning back against Mr Lancer's shoulder and closing his eyes. "Ellie, what happened?" Something petulant and ghostly might have snuck into the last word.

"Uh, it sounds like you got into a fight with Spectra?"

"Oh," said Danny. That did make sense. That made sense. But why did Valerie shoot him? What did he do wrong? It hurt. He briefly pried his eyes open again, letting them flutter around for a moment before closing them. "Where?"

"Um," said Ellie. "We're in the Grinder."

"Wha?"

"The Grinder. Missing Theory."

He jolted awake again. "No," he said. Missing Theory was not a good place and hadn't been for decades. Over half a century, really.

"It's okay, it is okay, I'm going to get everyone to a safe place. Promise." Somehow, she got her fingers in just the right places, moved them in just the right way to unknot his muscles. Right. Cousin. Sister. Twin. Clone. Very nice. His head lolled back, his neck suddenly too weak to hold it up.

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"Okay," said Ellie as Danny rotated slightly to hug Mr Lancer. He was clearly asleep. "Just keep, um, petting him."

"He's not a dog, Ellie," said Valerie, crossly.

"Yeah, I'm just not taking the time to flip through a freaking thesaurus, okay, Val? Keep petting him, he'll probably stay asleep, one less problem. Um. I'm going to put you on Cujo. You keep a hold on Danny. Everyone else, we're going to walk to the Digressed Tower. Yay. Cujo, come here."

"Ah, Danielle," said Mr Lancer, trying to get more of a handle on the situation. "Why did Danny react like that?"

"It's Ellie," said the ghost girl, "and, um. Jazz told me once that Danny doesn't get a lot of, you know, gentle physical contact except when he's actually safe, so he tends to fall relax... Or something like that. I wasn't really paying attention." She paused to adjust the position of the ghost dog. "Something about it being reassuring?"

"That's good to know," said Mr Lancer, adjusting his grip on Danny, who was nuzzling into his shoulder like a small child and making some very distressing noises. That actually did explain a lot about how Daniel acted. "But what I meant was, why did he react like that to the name of this... Place."

"I-" said Ellie. "I will explain once we're all moving okay? Is everyone up?"

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Danielle was a much harder task maker than Danny, or any of his shadows had been. Although, that might have been because of where they were. In the short time that they had been on the road, they had been attacked twice more. Ellie had driven them off easily both times, but the attacks had clearly put her on edge.

"You guys have to hurry up," she said, for what must have been the fifth or sixth time. The large green dog Mr Lancer was riding ruffed in agreement, and Mr Lancer adjusted his one-handed grip on the the dog's collar.

"That's easy for you to say when you can fly!" snapped Valerie. "Why are you acting like this?"

"Like what?" asked Ellie, scowling down at Valerie.

"Like, mean!" said Paulina. "Phantom would never treat us like this!"

The ghost girl flipped over in the sky. The ghost in Mr Lancer's lap whimpered, and Mr Lancer realized that his hands had stilled. Ellie had been right. Danny had become agitated each time he stopped. Of course, he had also become agitated during the fights, and whenever Mr Lancer began to work himself into a panic. Keeping Danny calm was having the side effect of keeping Mr Lancer calm.

"You want to know why I'm acting mean?" asked Ellie, voice dangerous. "Gee, I don't know. Maybe it's because I'm trying to get you to a safe place, but you keep stopping and complaining. Maybe it's because you were in a safe place before, but then you decided to go ahead and kidnap my cous-" Ellie broke off, skin paling. "Danny. You kidnap Danny, who put a lot of effort into getting you to that safe place in one piece. So, forgive me if I'm not going to be as nice about it as he was." She zoomed back to the front. Or tried to.

"Your- Wait, Ellie, your cousin? I thought that Phantom was your cousin!" shouted Valerie.

"Shh!" hissed Ellie, swinging around. "Do you want to be attacked again?"

"I thought that you were Phantom's sister," said Hannah.

"I- Um."

"Miss Gray," said Mr Lancer, trying to defuse the situation at least a little bit. "Perhaps you should let Miss Phantom lead us on? So that we can get under cover?"

Valerie glared up at him fiercely. "She hasn't even told us where that is, not really. I want at least one answer before I even think of trusting ghosts again!"

Ellie's face crumpled. "You don't trust me?"

"I- I didn't mean that. You aren't really a ghost, after all-"

"What are you talking about?" interrupted Dash. "She's definitely a ghost."

"No, she's not," said Valerie as Ellie glared. "She's not a ghost at all. She's human, like we are. She just- She's just been used as an experiment by ghosts. Ellie, if you just realized what they've done to you-"

Ellie's face was a study in disbelief. "Is this something that Spectra told you?"

"Just because she said it doesn't mean it isn't true," protested Valerie.

"Miss Gray, she had you shoot me," said Mr Lancer, trying to keep the hurt out of his voice.

"Look, Val-" started Ellie, before flinching and and glancing quickly around, as if she had heard something.

"Just one answer, Ellie," continued Valerie. "Just give me one answer. One full, complete answer."

"I- Fine," said Ellie, eyes still scanning the horizon. They snapped back to fix Valerie with a glare. "One answer, but then you have to stop complaining, okay?"

Valerie hesitated, then nodded. "How are you related to Danny? Really. This Danny."

Ellie inhaled sharply, floating back slightly. Her eyes darted to where Danny laid curled against Mr Lancer.

Then she sighed, as if in defeat, and descended to land on the 'road.'

"You were right about me being an experiment," said the girl, voice bitter. "But it was just Vlad. He made me."

"What, like, he's your dad?" asked Valerie.

"You could call him that, yeah," said Ellie. "But we don't share any DNA."

"Hold up!" said Hannah. "Ghosts have DNA? And by Vlad, do you mean Vlad Masters? Because I knew there was something sketchy about him-"

"Please don't yell. And yeah, Vlad Masters. He's liminal. Really, really liminal. He-"

"He can turn into a ghost," interrupted Valerie. "Yeah, I know."

"Great," said Ellie, and Mr Lancer felt his world come apart a bit more. He, like Hannah, had always felt like there was something off about the latest mayor of Amity Park, if he really wanted to get into, there had always been something off about all of Amity, much as Daniel had explained. However, saying that Vlad Masters could turn into a ghost was a bit beyond that.

"Just like you, actually," continued Valerie, an edge of anger on her voice.

"Uncool, Val. Really uncool. You want to know how I'm related to Danny? It's because Vlad decided to use his DNA to make my human half, okay? He took Danny's DNA, probably because he's obsessed with his mom, and then he took Phantom's ectosignature and stuff, then he squished them together and bang that's me. Except, oops, he somehow managed to make me a girl, so he didn't want me until he decided that he wanted to know why I didn't melt right away like all of the other clones he had made, which was a thing that had been happening. Okay? Okay. Now let's go."

No one moved. It was like Ellie's words had frozen them.

"I didn't follow all of that," said Mikey, his voice higher pitched than was usual, "but doesn't that mean that Danny's sort of your dad?"

"Oh, Ancients, no. No. More like a weird sort-of twin. We call each other cousins, okay? I mean, look." There was a bright flash of light, and Mr Lancer had to shield his eyes. "We look like we're the same age!"

"Why'd he pick Phantom?" asked Hannah, eagerly, as Mr Lancer cautiously looked up.

"One answer," said Danielle. "I said one answer. Now let's go." Mr Lancer felt his jaw drop. She really looked just like Danny, black hair, blue eyes, even the same style of clothing. He should have expected something like this, but seeing this transformation, this impossible transformation, from a spirit to a flash and blood human was a lot different than just hearing about it.

"It's probably because Phantom is a ghost copy of Danny," said Valerie, her tone that of someone speaking to herself.

"What? Where'd you hear that?" asked Hannah as Ellie gasped.

Valerie looked at Hannah. "I overheard the Fentons talking. They said something like that." She turned back to Ellie. "It's true, isn't it?"

There was another flash of light, and the ghost was back. "Shut up."

"This is important."

"No, shut up," said Ellie, voice hushed, harsh. "We aren't alone."

She floated up several feet and then turned in a full circle, eyes burning bright.

"There's something here that's strong enough to set off my ghost sense even though we're in the Ghost Zone."