Special thanks to my new betas, TacoPanda and kimcat! You guys are great! :)
I have fixed the error in the previous chapter. If you don't want to go back and read it again, the line was:
"How am I supposed to know?" said Ellie, shrugging. "We're probably just from different universes."
In other news, because of a combination of Phanniemay, life stuff that happened this month, and upcoming life stuff, I'm going to be changing my update schedule somewhat come April. I will still post at least once each weekend, but whether I post on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or some combination thereof, will be a ~mystery.~ I might also go on hiatus for May because of Phanniemay. Sorry about that. It could turn out that my writing time won't be affected after all, and my buffer will stretch through Phanniemay once it arrives, but I prefer to warn you. (This is also part of the reason I requested betas, so my chapter quality doesn't fall off.)
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Chapter 123:
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They were a few floors up from the floor where everyone was younger. The floor that they were on now made it so that everyone was an only child.
Everyone was shooting Danny strange looks, and he didn't like it. Did not having an older sister (apparently her name was Jazz?) really change him that much?
He could understand Dale getting weird and becoming... Well, honestly, it looked like he was on drugs. Dale usually lived for his younger siblings, and tried really hard to be a good example for them. Danny guessed that, without them, he didn't have the motivation to keep himself together.
Nathan and Lester being weird was also a given. Even now the twins were each arguing that the other one was a ghost impostor (and asking Valerie to 'take care' of the other one).
A couple other people were wearing different clothing than they had been on lower floors, but that could mean anything. For all they knew, they could be back to normal. In most other ways, everyone else was the same as ever.
Yet Danny was the only one being stared at. Why wouldn't Danny be normal, too?
He flattened his lips out, and drifted slightly away from the group, hugging himself.
Ellie pulled him back. "Ancients, Danny," she whispered, "is Jazz the only reason you eat?"
"What are you talking about?" he asked, shrugging off Ellie's hand.
"You're, like, ten pounds lighter than you usually are, and you're usually only a hundred pounds, and that's with clothes. I can feel your bones through your shirt."
"It's a pj shirt. That's not exactly a miracle."
"When was the last time you ate?"
"Uh, same time everyone else did."
"Before that."
"In Elysium, so, like, a day ago? I don't know. I eat enough."
"You're also, like, half a foot shorter."
"That's ridiculous."
"We're usually the same height," pointed out Ellie.
"Yeah, you're the one that got taller."
"And you've got a white stripe in your hair."
"I've had that forever."
"No you haven't."
"Yes I have."
"Why, and what do you mean by forever?"
Danny shrugged. Much like on the first floor they had visited, everyone, including the remaining ghosts (many had been lost to the playground a few floors back), was hanging on his words, waiting for a story. He shivered. He didn't want to tell a story. He had to be very careful about what he said, otherwise his parents would find out, and then they'd learn his secret, and then he... Like Spectra said all that time ago, if his parents found out, they'd destroy him. This whole... This whole series of events had shown that they certainly had the ability, and that they hated ghosts with a passion.
"Danny?" asked Ellie.
"I'm fine."
"I don't think you are."
"Let's just get out of here," he said.
"Daniel-"
"What do you want, Vlad?" snapped Danny. "For me to tell you that you were right all along?" He bit down on his lip, aware that he was inching ever closer to his inevitable mental breakdown. This stupid Tower had been a stupid emotional roller-coaster and every time he thought about his stupid parents his hope that they would ever be reunited, that Libra would ever let them go free, what with all their anti-ghost rhetoric and beliefs, grew smaller and smaller.
He wanted to go home.
(Although he had to admit, his desire to go home to Amity Park and FentonWorks, rather than, say, go home to his lair, or Clockwork and Long Now, grew smaller every time he thought about it.)
"You don't need to tell me I'm right," said Vlad. His expression was somewhere between stricken and pleased, and Danny would never know how he managed to pull that off. It must be some weird millionaire thing. "But I would like to know what it is you think I'm right about."
Danny glared at him.
"Mimaalemiekikunu, iku elihwun hu?" asked the old ghost. "Eunti maale nyir oonuuwoosevoosiweweewu. Uusuu heenz muu hii aunti?"
"Because I don't know how much is the same and how much is different," explained Danny, "and I don't want to mess everything up."
"Iwoo ib maale buuwu uumee iwu."
"You're just curious, too," accused Danny. "Why do you care so much? This isn't really real, and it's all going to go away once we go up the stairs."
"I think we're all pretty curious," said Ellie.
"Yes," said Vlad, "and I am concerned with what your home life must be like if the absence of Jasmine affects your health so much."
Danny made a hissing noise in the back of his throat. Vlad already knew what his home life was like. Everyone did, really, except for the half-ghost thing. His parents were very... public people.
You know what? Screw it.
He scrubbed his hands through his hair. "I knocked a vat of ectoplasm over onto myself when I was five. Everything got worked out with the hospital, and the school, and CPS, and everything is fine okay?"
"You know what?" said Ellie. "That doesn't really surprise me. What surprises me is that there's even a universe where you're alive without Jazz."
"Whatever," said Danny, sulking. "So I'm a little shorter than most other people, so what?"
"It looks like more than that, Daniel," said Mr Lancer, faintly horrified. "Your health is important. You can't just brush it off like that."
"Well, since it's all new to you, I don't see how it matters. It'll all go back to what you're used to as soon as we leave." He was aware that he was repeating himself, but he really didn't know why everyone was so interested. Danny, his Fenton half, anyway, wasn't interesting. He just a random, underweight, prematurely gray, sickly kid. Honestly, he hadn't realized that all of his classmates knew his first name. They knew he was a Fenton, yes, but, beyond that, beyond Sam and Tucker, none of them really knew him.
He crossed his arms and scowled.
"Danny," said Valerie.
Danny gave her a sidelong glance. Valerie didn't deign to speak to him, even after her fall from the A-list. She only really talked to Danny when Danny was Phantom. She never sounded... Worried? Was that worry he detected in her voice?
"What do you want?" he said. Well. That probably wasn't the best way to respond, but he was in defensive mode, socially speaking.
Valerie bit her lip. "I'm sorry for getting us into this mess," she said, "but, Danny, if Jazz is the only reason your parents haven't seriously screwed you up-"
"They haven't," hissed Danny. "Leave it alone." He jogged ahead, hoping to distance himself from the uncomfortable conversation.
Something ran straight into his side, sweeping him off his feet. Disoriented and in pain (was that a knife in his side?), he scrabbled for purchase on his attacker's body. He found the eyes, at least four of them, and dug in. The ghost gargled, Danny growled. Danny heard shrieks and shouts from his classmates, and his heart rate accelerated to a painful degree. There must be someone else attacking them. They must be in danger. He had to get to them. He had to protect them. He had to-
He couldn't summon any power from his core. He and the ghost tumbled across the floor, rolling as Danny evaded the ghost's attempts to immobilize him and Danny tried to do the same to the ghost. They hissed, spat, and bit. Danny tried to phase himself through the floor, and failed.
This was bad, this was very bad. He couldn't even protect his people. He was so useless, so, so completely useless. What was even the point of him? He should just die.
The ghost was pulled off of him suddenly. Danny scrambled away, looking around wildly for his people, fully prepared to keep fighting.
"Daniel," said Vlad.
Danny ignored him. Where did everyone go? Where were the attackers?
"Daniel," said Vlad again, and this time Danny saw movement out of the corner of his eye.
He flinched, hard.
"It's fine, Daniel. The attackers have been taken care of." Vlad frowned. "Daniel?"
"He's having a panic attack," said Ellie.
"Am... not," said Danny, breathing heavily. Maybe he was having a panic attack. Or something. This didn't feel like his normal panic attacks. There was conversation going on around him, but it was no longer registering. Why was everyone looking at him? He wanted to go back to when everyone ignored him. He didn't like this.
The ghosts were too close to him, too. If Vlad took one more step forward, Danny would bite him. Probably take off a finger. Yeah. That's what he would do.
"... shock to Obsession?" said one of the ghosts. That didn't sound good. That sounded pretty bad, actually.
"But why?" asked Vlad, quietly.
A wisp drifted along the curve of Danny's neck, and he shuddered. It was trying to be calming. But Danny was having a hard time responding. Or doing anything, really. Ellie was off to one side, emanating worry and confusion. She would be confused. The ghost hadn't managed to do more than bruise him. Danny didn't like this one bit.
But if he died, then these bounty hunters would go away, wouldn't they? They wouldn't have anything to hunt anymore. Vlad, Ellie, and the other ghosts could take care of the remaining humans. All Danny had to do was die. All he had to do was let the bounty hunters catch him.
The wisp had crept up to his ear. The tiny, fingernail-sized ghost was sitting in the curved hollow of his ear, singing very softly. It sang about the good things that Danny had done. It sang about the people that he had helped. Danny honestly didn't remember half of what the wisp said he did, but wisps weren't known as liars.
He had helped a lot of people, if he stopped to think about it, and a lot of people would be upset if he died. That would be bad. He couldn't let that happen.
Ever so slowly, with the wisps and other ghosts murmuring encouragement, Danny's sense of self-preservation jump-started itself, and the ugly, painful knot in his chest loosened. He was once again aware that everyone was too close and still looking at him.
"Can you," he started, voice cracking. "Can you guys give me some space?"
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Translation of ghost speak:
Danny glared at him.
"Cherished one, what troubles you?" asked the old ghost. "This is a fictional world. Why not tell your tale?"
"Because I don't know how much is the same and how much is different," explained Danny, "and I don't want to mess everything up."
"Say that it is only true here."
