Hey, so credit for the reverse coin flip floor goes to kimcat, who suggested it to me in the comments. If there are any AUs you would like to see represented, please tell me. :)
Thank you for your kind reviews!
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Chapter 120:
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Maddie looked up when Azalea made a groaning sound. If the girl was human, Maddie would have said that the sound originated from the back of her throat, but she wasn't human,so Maddie was at a loss as to why she would make the sound to begin with.
"What's wrong?" Jack asked.
Azalea (it was just Azalea, Wolfsbane was off in court) looked up from her papers. "A lot of things. Everything." She closed her eyes and rubbed the side of her nose. She looked more human than she had up until that point. It helped that her flowery hair was pulled back into a bun, and her bees were quiet. "There are so many problems. I don't know what to say." She leaned back in her chair, no longer floating over it. "Phantom was- Excuse me. Daniel was in a situation that most would consider untenable. You realize that, don't you?"
"Yes," said Maddie, quietly, "of course we do."
"I'm reading these statements of intent from our opponents," she paused, "basically propaganda to convince other persons with standing to align themselves," she explained, "and I'm actually starting to agree with some of them." She opened her eyes. "I will, of course, continue to advocate for your position to the best of my abilities. Just..." Her voice was low. "This is really bad. Even ignoring the ones that set you up as a villain, as being purposefully abusive or negligent," she set aside a few sheets of paper as she spoke, "there are still a lot of people who will be arguing that you simply can't properly provide for him. It will be difficult to argue against them," she added, tone repressive. "You haven't exactly done what anyone would consider a good job."
"But we-" Maddie cut herself off. "We didn't know. We do now. We'll do better."
"We'll do anything," said Jack.
"That will help a little," said Azalea, dubious. "But, well, it will open you up to accusations of racism, of not caring about hurting a ghost child, which are..." She trailed off, delicately.
"Which are true," said Jack, deflating.
Maddie looked at him with concern. He had always been the more optimistic, more energetic of the two of them, but now, well... They were both having trouble eating, sleeping, waking up, being interested... Even with so many ghosts here, even with ghosts who would at least pretend to answer their questions with honesty, Maddie and Jack couldn't bring themselves to ask those questions. Maddie knew the symptoms of depression. She couldn't bring herself to fight them.
She missed her children.
Azalea was back at the papers. "Part of the problem is, a lot of his indelible personality makes him... Vulnerable to victimization by people close to him. From his Obsessions to his frailties, it's just..." Azalea shook her head.
"He told us he had a frailty," said Jack, surprising Maddie. "He said that he had to always keep his promises. Or... That's what the shadow said."
Maddie bit her lip. She hadn't quite made the connection that the shadows, who were part of Phantom were part of Danny.
"Yes," said Azalea. "That's the standard Stygian frailty." She turned to another stack, and squinted at it. "I'm not sure if it's a native frailty, or if it's one he acquired after first forming... Some people think that matters, but it really doesn't, as far as I can tell..." She trailed off, muttering.
"How do frailties come to be?" asked Jack. "Mads and I theorized that they're related to traumas from their past, or trade offs for other powers and abilities that they picked up, but not being able to break a promise doesn't seem to fall into either of those for Danny."
"Um," said Azalea. "I... Don't really know? I'm an advocate. I know some psychology stuff, and I'd do anything to maximize chaos, but like, the science behind them isn't really... my thing. Then, um, a lot of ghosts don't have frailties, anyway, and the trauma thing could be applied to Obsessions, too, really. But, er, common wisdom is that there are five types of frailty, one for each of the five major rivers. If, um, you're interested?"
"Please," said Jack. "We want to- We need to understand."
"O-Okay," said Azalea. "There are five types of frailty. Stygian, Acheronic, Cocytian, Lethean and Phlegethonic. The Styx is the River of Oaths, and if you swear an oath on its waters, you have to keep it, and people with a Stygian frailty have that onus on each and every one of their promises. Then, an Acheronic frailty means that you can't cross marked borders without the proper permission. For example, a person with an Acheronic frailty might not be able to come into your house unless they were invited. Cocytian frailties... Actually, Cocytian frailties might be what you were thinking about before. They're kind of more... Specific, I guess?" She picked up a pencil, and started to chew on the eraser. "Like, they're all really weird things. Like not being able to be around birds without singing, or just seeing water being painful. They're... They're all stimuli that always have the same responses. Then there's the Lethean frailty, which is basically just amnesia. The Lethe is the River of Forgetfulness, after all." She had eaten the eraser, and was now gnawing on the pencil itself. "Phlegethonic frailties are essentially the opposite of most Cocytian frailties. If you're away from something for too long you start getting weak." A bee landed on the pencil when she took it out of her mouth to gesture, and she waved it away. "Then there are a bunch of things that might be classed as a frailty but are actually because of Obsession, or the way a power works." She bit into the pencil again. "It isn't like it's really all that clear cut, and I'm sure that I'm missing stuff. I mean, if I understand correctly, your psychology and physiology isn't, either."
"No," said Maddie, "it isn't."
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Danny sleepily tilted his head at one of the paintings, a work of bright green lines on a blue-black background. It was pretty, but he could understand why this room was more empty than the others on this floor. Most ghosts, especially the Dead, tended towards the old-fashioned.
(Danny was sure that he had seen chunks of stone layered with cave paintings out in the main hall.)
This little room, though, was very modern. The pictures were bright, flat shapes layered onto one another, or lines, straight and curved, segmented and continuous. Minimalist. The furniture was minimalist, too. Black and white with clean lines. Low, close to the ground. Leathery padding. Subdued glow. Most of it had already been claimed, but between Ellie and Valerie, Danny had been reserved a whole bench. The strength of their combined glares was incredible.
He laid down, curling slightly, flipping over so that he could see the painting on the opposite side of the room. This one was more swirly, and blue, like Earth's sky.
Ellie settled down next to him, not quite touching. Vlad was standing by the door. Everyone else was lying down, except for Rebecca who was staring at one of the paintings like her life depended on it.
Danny sighed, and closed his eyes. It was reasonably safe here. Many of the ghosts outside enjoying the art were fairly high level, if Danny was any judge, and none of them would countenance a breech of the truce.
Wow, he must have picked up some speaking habits from the lower floors. He didn't usually use the word 'countenance.'
Even if an attacker got past them, they'd still have to deal with Vlad, who didn't look like he was going to sleep. Danny adjusted his hurt leg as well as he could, trying to keep it so that it wouldn't be stressed or strained while he was asleep. He had slept through injuries before, albeit none quite as persistent as this one.
Still, he was having trouble sleeping. He was hyper-aware of where everyone was and what they were doing. But he needed to sleep. He didn't think that he could face the next floor when he was this exhausted. He needed to be awake, rested, in control. Not overemotional, not overwrought. Calm.
He mumbled, brushing the very edges of his core, trying to soothe it, soothe his mind, center himself. He avoided the tender parts, the parts that hurt.
Very slowly, he fell asleep.
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Valerie sat up, eyes still on Danny. She had come to a conclusion.
She hated herself.
She had spent so long blaming everyone and anyone but herself for her problems. She blamed Phantom. She blamed the A-listers. She blamed ghosts. She blamed, blamed, blamed, blamed, and she got herself hurt, and she got other people hurt, especially Danny.
If he was so closely related to Phantom, then what the heck had she broke up with him for? He didn't need protection. From what she had seen, he was far more capable than she was, far more dangerous.
But... Danny also wasn't quite human. There was something else there. He wasn't a ghost, Valerie would know, she would know if he was a ghost.
He was linked to Phantom. Both the Phantoms. The other Fentons had said something about Phantom being an ectoplasmic copy of Danny. That had made sense. Coupling that with Ellie being a clone, a copy of both Phantom and Danny, and with what Ellie herself had said was easy. It all made sense together. It was believable.
So why didn't Valerie believe it?
Maybe it was just a question of why Danny was here, and not Phantom. Maybe the issue was that, well, she knew about two other half-ghosts... Or whatever Vlad and Ellie were.
But Danny couldn't be Phantom. He couldn't. Valerie couldn't... She couldn't accept that. She couldn't accept that she had been completely, completely wrong about everything. If Danny was Phantom, then she hadn't just hurt him by mistake, she had hurt him intentionally. She had hunted him down. She'd had him in chains.
Even if he wasn't... Even if Phantom was his own person, then...
She had seen the ghosts here. They were weird, Valerie didn't know them at all but they had defended Valerie and the others against the ghosts who had tried to kill Danny.
If Phantom was his own person, separate from Danny, and he... And Valerie... Valerie had done some horrible things to him, and...
The ghosts who were trying to kill Danny had called him Phantom. Or were they really trying to kill Ellie? Ellie had looked like Phantom on the second... No, twenty-third floor. She looked like Phantom anyway, actually. She was a Phantom, too.
"Hey," said Ellie, "if you keep staring at Danny like that, he's going to wake up."
"Is he Phantom?"
Ellie made a scoffing noise in the back of her throat. "He already told you he wasn't going to say either way, and this is between Danny and Phantom. What makes you think that I'm going to give you a different answer?" She grinned, showing fangs, but the expression was a bit strained. "You know me better than that, Val. Get some sleep, okay?"
"Look," said Valerie, "this isn't- This isn't about me hating Phantom, okay? I've, well, I'd be annoyed, definitely, but, like, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I just... I've seen the ghosts here, and I was wrong. And I- I need to know. I hurt him, and I need to know how to apologize, and what for."
"So, it's about closure," said Ellie, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah, I guess."
Ellie shrugged. "So, you aren't going to want to hear this, but the thing is that you're not the victim here, so you're going to have to wait. If he doesn't, if either of them don't, want to make himself or themselves available to apologize to, that's their business."
"You're not helping," said Valerie.
"Yes, I am," said Ellie. "An apology isn't really going to do any good right now, anyway. Just, like, take a step back, realize that ghosts are also people, and stop overreacting to stuff. Other than that..." Ellie shrugged again. "I know that this place is kinda built for introspection, and that's definitely what I used it for, but this really isn't the time, you know? It's time to sleep. Which what I'm going to do, so please don't glare at Danny, okay? He'll definitely get the wrong idea if he sees you doing it. You know Danny."
Valerie nodded slowly. She knew Danny. Or, at least, she thought she did.
