Hello, I've decided to do an extra chapter this week! Yay! This will probably be the last extra chapter for a while, though, since I'm going to be doing Ectober week and NaNoWriMo.
Since most of your reviews were asking about the cliffhanger, I'm going to let this chapter speak for itself, for the most part, but I should warn you that this chapter also has a cliffhanger, because that's the way I am. (But you knew that already, didn't you?)
There may be some spoiler-y things in the below responses, just fyi. Nothing serious.
Ryvaken Lucius Taydra: Thank you for taking the time to leave feedback and for sticking with the story for so long. I hope you have been enjoying it, despite my heavy use of tropes. I vaguely remember saying something like that (it was a long time ago!), and I know I beat up Danny a lot. I do agree that the 'depowered superhero' is a trope that gets used a lot (it is also one that I personally enjoy). However, this is not that trope! Danny does not get depowered as a result of this interaction. He will remain at the same level of recovery. I will, of course, do other terrible things to Danny, and he will get beaten up again (though probably not as badly, for above reasons), because, well, this is ultimately about what I find fun and rewarding, because (despite my buffer) I'm mostly writing this by the seat of my pants, and, finally, because this fic is explicitly about doing as many DP tropes as possible. I want to be up-front with you about that, so you're not disappointed, though I do hope that you will continue to read and like this story.
Black Cat: Ah, yes, the core thing. I was sort of thinking about that time Freakshow melted him. At least, I think that's what I was thinking of. It's been a while. My headcanon is that Danny's core has a sort of 'clean copy' of his body imprinted on it, or saved in it, or however you'd like to say that, and that's partially how his healing factor works. So he could regrow his entire human body. But most of his physical matter heads over to wherever his clothing goes when he goes ghost, and gets copied back onto his body when he turns human (and vice versa), so he hasn't had to do that yet. He thinks. He hopes. Because the other option is that he's really regrowing his entire human body every time he transforms back, and he really doesn't want to think about that. Going back to earlier chapters, Danny kind of exists in triplicate. He's got his human body, his core, and his ectoplasmic body, all of which are connected and bleed into one another.
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Chapter 165: A Better Place
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Ghosts with sufficiently similar ectosignatures could share memories, thoughts, feelings. Sometimes, like with Danny and Ellie, who were similar in all ways, and liked each other on top of that, this sharing could occur over great distances. In the past, Danny and Ellie had picked up each others' experiences despite being on opposite sides of the globe.
The situation with Dan was different. Danny wanted nothing to do with Dan. He didn't want Dan's memories. Consciously or otherwise, he shut Dan out. Dan, similarly, didn't want anything to do with Danny's disgusting feelings.
However, it was hard for Danny to shut out these things when Dan's hand was wrapped around his core.
So he knew. He knew what was going on in Dan's mind, and-
–
Dan had intended to kill Danny right away. Intended to destroy him as soon as he saw him That had been his intention, really, truly. That would have been mercy. Death, with no inkling of what Dan was going to do next.
But then Dan had seen him. He had seen Danny, there, with Pandora, Ellie, and the dragon princess, and he had wondered.
How could Danny go on, making friends, letting people live, knowing what Dan knew? Because he had to know what Dan knew, even if didn't actively remember. The shadows in his lair had said as much. How and why didn't Danny act? Why didn't he do exactly what Dan did, once he knew?
He needed to know, before he killed him.
So he grabbed Danny's core and forced him to know. Forced him to remember, and asked:
"Why?"
–
They had died. They had all died. His mother and father. His sister. His best friends. His teacher.
He had known that what he did was dangerous. He had half-died before they'd even started. Danger was a given. But other than that, none of them had ever gotten seriously injured.
Even if they had, nothing could have prepared him for this. Mr. Lancer hadn't even been on the radar. The worst thing that had ever happened to Mr. Lancer- The closest Mr. Lancer had gotten to the chaos that was a part of the half-ghost's half-life- was getting possessed when Walker took over the town.
Dying...
That hadn't been an option. Not for any of them.
But it had happened.
It had happened, and he was alone.
–
The funerals were awful. The explosion hadn't left much for the coroners and morticians to work with. The coffins were mostly empty.
He cursed the ghosts that had caused the damage to the Nasty Burger. He cursed them again and again and again. He had never seen them before, didn't even know their names. There had been no reason for them to be so vicious. But they had been out for blood- his- and even if he had driven them off, they had done enough damage to the Nasty Burger and its stupid high-explosive secret sauce to make it explode.
He cursed them, and he would have liked to blame them, but he knew. It was his fault. It was his fault, for letting the ghosts do so much damage, for taking the answer sheet for the CAT when he found it somehow stuck to his back, for using it, for cheating, for not owning up to it until after the test, for asking Sam and Tucker to come with him to the parent-teacher conference Mr. Lancer called, for showing up late, for not being able to shield anyone but himself. He was the only one he could blame.
One closed coffin after another passed in front of his eyes. Tombstones rose up from the ground. Madeline Fenton, beloved wife and mother. Jack Fenton, beloved husband and father. Jasmine Fenton, cherished daughter. Samantha Manson, loved by all. Tucker Foley, called to heaven before his time. William Lancer, nothing of him that doth fade.
They put up a monument, statues, where the Nasty Burger had been, where they had died.
It was terrible, terrible, terrible, like walking through a nightmare. His mind barely registered anything that happened around him. Why bother? Everything, everyone, that mattered was gone.
And the priest said,
And his aunt said,
And the principal said,
And Sam's grandmother said,
And Tucker's mother said,
And Star said,
And Valerie said,
"They're in a better place."
He doubted they became ghosts. They would have come back by now, if they did. He didn't have that hope, it's beyond him.
But if the Ghost Zone exists...
If one afterlife exists...
Why not more?
He can believe that, as Vlad comes to take him, as Vlad takes him away from his haunt, from everything and everyone he's ever known, from the graves of his loved ones. He can feel parts of himself pulling apart, fading and falling. It isn't soft. It's an agonizing atrophy in his core.
He went anyway.
He can't stand to leave. He can't stand to stay. He especially can't put together the mental presence to fight Vlad.
The thought that, somewhere, there is an afterlife, a good afterlife, that has welcomed his loved ones with open arms (and they deserve a heaven, if anyone does) sustained him. He knew it was true, because it had to be true. He held on to it, desperately, with both hands. It was a lifeline. His only lifeline. It might have been enough.
(He knew Vlad was trying, but...)
(But Vlad wanted control.)
(He always wanted control.)
(He pushed too hard.)
(He didn't understand.)
But then he turned on the news. He saw what was happening in Amity Park. The ghosts didn't just go away. They were still coming. Amity was still under attack.
It needed a hero.
And-
He can't. He can't do it.
He was in Wisconsin with Vlad, but ghosts were still attacking Amity Park. He should go back. He should help. He wanted to, but the fear, the guilt, the pain all weighed him down. He just. Couldn't. But he had to. That's what he's for, what his powers are for, what his Obsession is for, to help people.
If only he didn't have these human emotions, these human fears and guilt.
He went to Vlad.
There had to be a way to separate him from himself, a more permanent, stable way than what happened with the Ghost Catcher. That way, his ghost half could go back to Amity, his human half could heal without the added weight of Obsession, and they could both be normal for once.
–
It didn't work out that way.
Vlad pulled him out, and he's scared and confused. Worse- He's rejected. The one person who should be on his side no matter what- himself- had abandoned him, cast him out, shed him, like the trash he is. Trash, trash, trash that couldn't even protect the people he loved the most.
And he saw Vlad.
He saw Vlad, who had done so many terrible things to him, and he ran.
It took him hours to calm down, to realize how stupid he was being. He had asked for this, after all. Both sides of him.
He went back. He knew now, that this wasn't going to work. He needed to be whole, if he was to heal. A shortcut wouldn't work. He couldn't fight ghosts like this.
He went back, and saw himself lying dead on the operating table.
No.
His body was so still. It wasn't merely lifeless. It was soulless.
No.
This wasn't possible. It couldn't be possible. He couldn't have lost even himself.
No.
Vlad walked into the room, arms full of vials, jars, and bottles. The man looked up, and saw him, saw the ghost hovering over his own body. His load spilled from his arms, glass containers breaking.
"Dan-" Vlad started.
But he wasn't having any of it. Not with his own tortured corpse lying there. His eyes darted around the room, and he spotted the Ghost Gauntlets.
He dove for them. Vlad had stolen his other half, so he would take Vlad's. He would make sure that Plasmius never hurt anyone ever again, that his human half was the last one who would suffer at Plasmius's hands.
He must have surprised Vlad by coming back, because he didn't put up any fight at all. He tore Vlad's ghost half from him, easily.
Two halves make a whole.
–
Phantom was more emotional than Plasmius. He was full of rage and grief, and, in the fight to dominate the new mind, these things made him stronger. Phantom came out on top.
But he wasn't Phantom. He wasn't Plasmius. Not really. He was neither. He was both. But, mostly, he was Phantom.
But he received things from Plasmius. Dark and deadly gifts. Fragments of personality. Knowledge. Obsession. Madness. The need to control, to have control.
Plasmius's Obsessions reacted poorly with Phantom's, and all of them were starving of loss.
He couldn't control what had happened to his parents, his friends, his teacher, his other half. They were all gone, all dead, and there was nothing he could do about it. He was loveless, and alone, and useless.
"They're in a better place."
They came back to haunt him, those words, that platitude, that comforting phrase.
"They're in a better place."
He had to believe it. He had to believe it or he would lose what was left of his mind.
"They're in a better place."
But if they were in a better place, then wasn't it a good thing that they had died?
"They're in a better place."
If they were in a better place, wouldn't it be great if everyone could go there? Wouldn't he be helping people, if he helped them get there?
–
It was weeks and weeks before he acted on that thought. Part of him, a withered and dying part, knew that it was sick and wrong to even think something like that, let alone act on it. But he also knew that, as a ghost, his chances of getting to that better place were essentially non-existent. He was trapped. And he was so, so tired of seeing all these people, these happy people, when his world was in ruins, when his Obsessions were eating themselves alive.
Even if it was hard, even if he didn't like it, he had to do it.
It was the suffering, at first. The sick, the injured. He was a perfect angel of death. Silent. Swift. All but undetectable. He was releasing them from pain he himself was unable to escape. Then his range expanded. He killed the lonely, the grieving. He knew what that felt like. It was mercy.
He stayed far away from Amity Park. It was their fault his family was gone, their fault he was like this. They didn't deserve his help.
–
By the time he was discovered, and recognized for what he was, he had begun to enjoy his work. He was good at it, and the challenge was nice.
When the GIW tried to stop him, he didn't kill them. He didn't like them enough. They didn't deserve to die. They didn't deserve the better place. They can't stop him.
They weren't the first to try and fail.
They weren't the last.
The armies of the world recognized him as a threat, then. But he had grown powerful. They realized too late that though he was a threat to them, they were not a threat to him.
–
He had killed so many times.
The little piece of him that had objected in the beginning had long since grown silent. He had buried his emotions so deep that he was no longer sure that they existed.
He no longer felt any animosity towards Amity Park. That was, he supposed, a good thing. A hero had to be forgiving.
But he wasn't a hero anymore. He was a villain, a terrible, evil, villain. Not that it mattered. He was only doing what needed to be done. He was sending people to a better place.
He attacked Amity Park.
But they had taken his parents' technology, and forged it into a shield. They drove him away, his old friend Valerie at the forefront. He was impressed. It was the greatest challenged he had in years. It was almost fun. Almost.
To get through the barrier, he needed more power.
–
He went to the Ghost Zone, and laid waste. He collected power and knowledge, victory and vengeance.
Ghosts, a small part of him reasoned, must also go to a better place when destroyed, and if they don't, well... Considering his own torment, he was just freeing them. They should be thankful. Non-existence is better than being trapped here.
He spared his enemies. Ember, Skulker, Technus, the Box Ghost, Johnny. He hated them too much to kill them. It was their fault he was like this, anyway, and their attempts to kill him were educational at times.
He took an especial pleasure in blinding each and every one of the Observants once he had discovered they had sent the ghosts that had caused the death of his family.
He went back to Amity Park, and was repulsed again. Again, and again, and again. He grew stronger. He told Valerie who he used to be. He conquered the Ghost Zone, and acquired the uncertain loyalty of the Fright Knight, and other bloodthirsty ghosts. Soon, there was little resistance to his rule.
The conquest of Earth had fallen to the wayside in the meantime. He knew he had only killed the tiniest fraction of the population of the world, but once he had gotten rid of Amity Park, no one could stand against him. He could pick off the other humans at his leisure. He had nothing but time. They would all die eventually.
Then his hard work paid off. He received a new power, the Ghostly Wail.
It had been ten years since he set foot in Amity Park.
–
It would all be over soon. That was what he had thought, what he had believed, but when he entered Amity Park, intending to put it out of its misery once and for all, he found himself face-to-face with himself.
Not just himself. Sam. Tucker.
He knew what this had to be. Clockwork, the meddler, was a principal member of the resistance against him.
He knows this is a distraction.
Yet-
If his younger self was here, now, then what would become of him? Is time a closed loop, an infinitely branching series of paths, or does it follow rules he could never even guess at?
And could he-?
Was there even a possibility-?
The combination of temptation and threat was too great to resist. He trapped his past self (had he really been that weak, back then?) and returned to the past.
–
His emotions stirred when he saw his old friend, his old family. But he had spent too long on his task to turn away now. It will be painful, but he was going to send them to a better place. He would make sure that his past self would follow the same path he had, and make sure that everyone he had helped was helped, even if he had to become everything he despised.
–
So why, if Danny knew, wasn't he doing just that?
–
The thing about these kinds of connections was that they didn't work just one way.
As Dan pushed memories into Danny and demanded an answer, Danny pushed back repudiating every one of Dan's points, throwing Dan's excuses and 'reasoning' back in his face.
Yes. Yes, Danny knew all this, even as he locked it away, forced it out of his waking mind. He didn't care. What Dan had done wasn't excusable, wasn't forgivable, and Danny didn't want to think about it.
–
Dan wanted to know why.
–
He was making everyone safe and happy in that better place. So why?
–
It wasn't Dan's choice. That's why. It wasn't his choice and it never had been, and he was stealing choices along with lives. If people chose to be unhappy, then, no matter what, that was their choice.
Sometimes things were just out of Danny's control, out of anyone's control, and he had to accept that. He had to understand that, no matter how much he sometimes wished otherwise.
–
He pushed back at Dan.
It was just after he had gotten his ice powers, and there had been a car accident. People had been hurt. Badly. Cars were dangerous. He had always known that, but he was just now understanding it.
If only people didn't use them, they would be safer.
People didn't drive in a blizzard, if it was bad enough.
–
It took a week for Danny to reign in his powers and stop the freak snowstorm.
People had been safe and warm inside their houses, but they had also been trapped, and miserable.
It wasn't right to trap them. It wasn't right to steal their choices.
People weren't happy when their choices were taken.
–
(Even if Dan was right about the other, better, places, it was wrong.)
–
(Even if Dan was right about the other, better, places, all humans would go there anyway, when they died. He wasn't helping.)
Dan had hurt people. He had separated families. He hadn't just 'spared' people from pain. He hadn't just killed people who wanted to die. He had stolen the pain people had chosen, the minutes that they had fought for.
He had maimed people. Ghosts. They didn't deserve that. Danny wouldn't even do that to Spectra, let alone Johnny, Ember, and the Box Ghost. Those three even helped him sometimes.
No, he shouldn't say just those three.
Technus had felt so bad about what had happened to Danny as a result of his attack on Casper High that he had turned himself in to Libra. Skulker had risked his suit and possibly even his skin to warn Danny of the bounty hunters.
The world wasn't black and white.
They deserved peace in their afterlives, if they wanted it.
Both humans and ghosts deserved freedom.
–
Dan separated families. Then he put them back together by killing the survivors. Couldn't he see that there were always survivors? A friend, a relative, an acquaintance, a coworker, a colleague, devastated. There was always grief.
(A stone was thrown into a pool, waves rippling outward.)
(A donor killed too fast, organs unharvested, others countless dead who could have lived, and the grief and the pain, and the people they loved, and the people they could have saved or helped, or hurt, even, and all of it rippling outward without end.)
(Utilitarianism didn't work.)
Lost lives always had a price attached to them.
–
He could have kept everyone in his lair. Could have kept them there, as safe and happy as anywhere. It was a better place.
He didn't. He didn't, because they didn't want to be there.
He tried to convince them, yes, and he would have been so, so happy if they had stayed, but they hadn't. It was their choice. And his.
It was for the best, too, because he had to leave to stop the GIW.
–
People weren't happy without freedom. It was part of the reason Danny never went with Vlad, the other part being the whole "I want to kill your dad and marry your mom" thing. Thank the Ancients he had calmed down, recently.
–
Dan was like Vlad, like the parts of Vlad Danny hated. He wanted control. Always, control. Power was just a means of control. Fear was just a means of control. Killing was just a means of control.
Dan didn't care about helping people. He cared about control.
(And control was just a way of protecting himself. No one else.)
–
Danny hated and feared Dan. He was unforgivable. He was all the mistakes Danny could have made, and missed so narrowly.
Danny would have understood if Clockwork had killed him. Killed him, to prevent Dan.
–
(Danny understood Dan far too well to have any sympathy.)
–
(Danny was terrified.)
–
(But he would make Dan understand.)
–
(Dan never had to do the things he did.)
–
Danny came back to himself with a strangled gasp as Dan pulled his hand from his chest.
His green eyes darted through the air and found Dan's bright red ones. But Dan wasn't looking at Danny. He was looking at something behind Danny, over his shoulder.
Dan snarled, and tossed Danny roughly away. Danny, not expecting that at all, tumbled through the air. He had the very briefest glimpse of a portal zooming towards him, and then-
-nothing.
