Disclaimer: I don't own DP.
Thanks to the following for reviewing last time: sharkyskadi, Lady Audentium, Invader Johnny, DiaUmbralumen, hrisi292, .106, jamzilla024, Roses-R-Rosie, Alena-lee, and JadeliketheGem! I really appreciate it, thank you so much!
So this is a brief intermission to publish Lady Audentium's yearly birthday present, which has been a tradition for a while now. Lady Audentium was for a time one of the few other dark gray content creators in existence, haha, and I am honored to know her. The featured villain of this story is Irony, who is a ghost OC of Lady Audentium's.
Please know that I will return to the Fifth Element (the new human!Dan story from chapter 71) right after this brief intermission. My plan was to get the human story updated next, but then I realized I was running up against the traditional time that I upload a birthday fic. While this intermission chapter is a birthday request from Lady Audentium, I do hope that you can enjoy reading it as well!
Chapter Summary: Sequel to Crystalline. A ghost Valerie struggles with her own powers and with the powerful ghosts invading her and Dan's territory.
Chapter warnings: Language, reference to death. Deathy references. Sexual innuendos and description.
Deliverance
Shot 72: Intermission: Crystalline Part 2
The ghost of Valerie Gray stood at the precipice of a great cliff, her crystalline armor glimmering in the sunlight. Her dark curls floated freely in the wind. The vibrations of her ectoplasmic signature brought ghosts from far dimensions to gaze upon her, but none dared to get close, for many reasons.
Although she was a ghost now, Valerie Gray was still at heart a hunter and openly despised her own kind. And if that were not enough to keep the bravest away, then the shadow of Dan Phantom was.
Wherever she stood, the infamous Dan Phantom stood beside her, looming as a guard dog—or, perhaps more.
"Why do you guard here," he murmured to her curiously. His hair flickered in the wind, brushing against her own.
The female ghost grumped. "Because I can see Amity Park," she retorted defensively. She waved her hand. "It's the perfect view. I see every pillar and substation."
Dan rolled his eyes. "You seem to think it will crumble without you."
Valerie's gold eyes slid to him. "It will never crumble," she promised.
"I'm beginning to suspect, Valerie dear—"
"—I am not Valerie dear," she snapped—
"—that you are more of a ghost than you think," he murmured, his deep voice soft against her ear. His soft, cool lips brushed against the shell of her ear, and she inhaled with a breath she did not need. "You have obsessions."
Her breath hitched as she stared out at Amity Park.
"And your obsessions," he declared to her, eyes red eyes narrowing in great want, "are attractive to me."
She pulled away, one of her dark curls flicking him in the face, catching on the elfin tip of his ear. "Why?"
"Because for as much as I desire to destroy Amity Park, you desire to preserve it." There was a pout in his voice, but it was playful. "There is a particular level of opposition to you, Valerie. It produces…vibrations."
He waved his hand airily between them.
Valerie turned to stare at him.
And then she raised her hand and shot him with an ectoblast that left him stumbling backward into a tree.
Later that day, the image of the ghostly Valerie Gray and Dan Phantom swirled within a bauble, floating above the teal, pupil-less eyes of one ghost.
"Boring," cried a petulant, high-pitched voice out into the wilderness. The little ghost named Irony was hanging upside from a tree. Her green hair flitted about in the wind as she swung, her arm outstretched as she held open her little viewing portal. "Talk, talk, talk—that's all they do anymore. It's so boring."
She groaned, the portal suddenly dissipating into white sparks that fell from her fingers. They harmlessly bounced off the grass beneath her.
Her socked feet wiggled in displeasure.
"I want the death and the big booms," she whined. "And the screaming." She petulantly allowed her arms to fall with gravity, her sleeves falling over her fingers. She swung there for a time, her short hair a halo about her.
Her sweet voice echoed off the trees in a sad pout. "I miss the screaming."
In the distance was the well-known Amity Park—the last human stronghold in Northern America, with a few satellite cities it dared to call protectorates. Its shield hummed in a way that vibrated the earth around it for a great distance, with several internal and external upgrades to combat the rising waves of ghosts across the land.
The young ghost, Irony, stuck her tongue out at it.
It was such arrogance on the part of the humans to assume they held any true power.
"Maybe it's time someone reminded them of their place," she pouted. "And distract that dumb Phantom with the slayer girl so the screams and the city are mine."
Tendrils of an idea began to form in her mind.
And then the idea solidified.
The entire socket of Irony's eyes began to glow a bright teal. And then, as she flipped down to the earth, the whole of Amity Park suddenly began to tremble. The earth beneath it raised up in a roar of tectonic plates. Heavy clods of dirt fell, and the base platform for Amity Park began to detach from the ground itself.
Numerous pipes, hanging from the earth, burst into pieces. The buildings groaned.
And then the gap between the scarred earth and the hovering ground of Amity Park began to widen into a great chasm. The towers of the ghost shield began to buckle under the force of the gravity distortion.
Irony giggled. "Yes, yes, yes," she cooed to herself, her body glowing brighter as she held Amity Park in her grasp.
The ghost shield flickered.
Tower 9's generator burst in stress, exploding in a puff of smoke and fire. Then towers 8 and 10 overloaded from the stress of the loss of Tower 9. Both of them blew.
And suddenly, there was a chain reaction in which the powerful, indomitable towers of Amity Park's ghost shield exploded. An alarm sounded as the shield began to lift up from the ground, dying back into its main generator at the top of the highest building.
Irony leaned forward, perking her ear toward the city.
Beneath the alarm and the roaring scream of the earth, were the screams of thousands of humans as well.
Her face split into a dark smile. "Yes," she called happily. "Scream, little humans, scream."
And then she turned her hands.
The full of the city began to tilt strangely in the air, with several towers slipping sideways from their place to drop off the edge of the floating earth. They crashed to the ground, along with cars, bicycles, plants—buildings began to screech on their foundations.
Irony narrowed her eyes and turned her hands at a harsher angle, her body glowing bright.
Amity Park keened in pain on its foundations as it tilted. The earth beneath it swung up slowly, and several of its buildings began to crumple. Glass fell. Light poles unhooked from the earth to slam against the ground.
And the ground tilted again until the ruined city hung in the sky upside down, blaring a static alarm that cut in and out from the strain on the remaining city generators.
A few skyscrapers hitched on their foundations.
All the lights flickered and died—as did the emergency alarms.
"Amity Park," Irony murmured. Then she tilted her head, and her eyes narrowed to delighted slits. "Amity Dark."
Valerie Gray was sitting cross-legged, her crystalline armor glinting in the sunset as she attempted to manifest an ectoplasmic barrier of her own. Her dark brows furrowed in irritation and great pain as only a few red sparks flicked to life between her fingers.
Dan had told her time and again that she had a beautiful power core. A powerful one.
Perhaps even one equal to his own.
And yet, for all of his odd sweet nothings, Valerie felt useless. She lowered her fingers, huffing. And then the line of her full mouth tightened. "Stupid," she snapped at herself softly. She drummed her fingers on her knee.
Dan manifested before her.
In the blur of the moment, his head came to rest upon her lap, his red-wine eyes staring up at her in curiosity. He was a soft weight, his broad shoulders fitting against her side and down her leg. His hair flickered against her, kissing against the armor on her stomach. "Valerie dear," he murmured. "Did I hear you insult yourself just now? Please do it again, so that I might better commit such to memory."
His irises searched hers as she looked down. There was a merriment in him and the strangest of concerns as well.
On habit alone, Valerie's armored fingertips wove into his hair. She ran her hand through it, in curiosity of his ghosthood and the way his hair moved as silk and yet flickered as flames. "Don't make me hurt you," she grumped, lightly digging her fingertips in against his skull.
The man groaned. "Oh, hurt me, Valerie," he responded with a tilt of his lips, his mouth stretching to reveal a sharp, brilliant fang. "I miss your violence, as much as I adore your affection. Imagine the trouble we could get ourselves into."
She flicked his skull. "Stop being weird." Her gold eyes turned away from him, and she glanced out in the distance, her face tight. "I still can't even make a barrier."
A silence fell between them.
His white brows knitted together in emotion. He remained laying in her lap.
She felt his eyes upon her.
"Power," Dan said suddenly, his baritone voice smoothing out into something that Valerie feared to call comforting, "must be exercised. It is like a muscle—the more you use it, the easier it becomes."
Valerie growled. It was a mix of a moan. "Yeah, and I've tried to exercise it," she complained to him. She leaned back on her hands, her pretty face flushing with a green blush. "I can manifest weapons just fine, but anything else, and I'm a fuckin' disaster. I thought you said, 'Oh, it's so much better being a ghost than a human.'"
"Because it is," he murmured up at her. "The human world and all of its distortions are at your fingertips. You are perfected in power, as a ghost."
"Oh, don't give me that static," she complained. "It's a nightmare. I can't sleep—"
"—Because you do not need to—"
"—can't eat—"
"—you can, but why—"
"—and I can't even make a barrier on my own, now that the Discord dude isn't controlling me," she whined. "Barriers are, like, puny ghost shit. Little baby problems."
His voice hardened in a mix of amusement and irritation. "You are a baby in terms of ghostly existence. You have been dead for less than a month."
Her gold eyes blinked. And then, in a wave of sorrow, she tried to shove him off of her.
The man twisted playfully and slammed her down to the earth, towering over her on his hands and knees. "I could show you how to make barriers," he murmured against her, his lips inches from hers. The black of his flickering cape covered them both. "I could teach you everything I know."
He and Valerie had always exhibited an odd relationship—but ever since her transformation into a ghost, things had changed. Dan was protective of her in ways he'd never been before. Valerie did not always push away his pursuits at closeness, and she even sought him out on occasion, in desire of a hand to hold. A shoulder to lean on.
His long fingers were a chill against her torso—she could feel him even through her armor.
But she did not move from her position beneath him.
His lips stretched in a demonic, wild way. "Or," he murmured suddenly, his head tilting. His flickering, white hair handsomely brushed against his sharp cheeks. "I could use your ghostly weaknesses against you."
His hand stroked down her hip.
Now this, she was familiar with. Her full, dark lips pressed together to hide a quirk of amusement. "I'm not defenseless, you know," she huffed up to him. She knew the line of his mouth well, and the soft of his lips, and the way his facial hair was silk against her jaw as they kissed. She knew the lines of his fangs and just how sharp they were. "I can still shoot your ass."
Dan had a wide mouth. Sometimes, when he smiled, he looked unnatural, as if he could eat a star. "Oh, but my precious Valerie dear," he moaned to her, lowering against her. His hips jammed against her own with intention. "Would you shoot the only being who desires your pleasure—" His lips brushed against hers—"as much as your misery?"
It was all she could do to not react in a way that would result in more hip jamming.
"We're out in the open," she complained half-heartedly to him. "Don't get gross with me out here." But there was an appreciative glint in her eye as she reached up to stroke his face, which was smooth and angled in a way she had found handsome for some time.
"These are our lands," he murmured to her. "We can get gross to whatever extent we want—and no other ghost would challenge us."
There was another pause between them.
She whispered wryly, "What happened to just showing me how to make a barrier, huh?"
"I'm now in the mood to tear down barriers with you," he murmured, "rather than build them up."
"And what barriers are those?" she dared to tease back in a deadpan, her rough voice soft.
His gloved fingers clinked against the hard of her crystalline armor. "Hm. Why don't you take a wild guess, Valerie."
Her hand slipped from his cheek to gently grab onto the front of his collar, pulling him down closer to her lips. "I know what you're thinking," she whispered, allowing her full lips to brush lightly against his. "But I'm not playing this game out in the open."
Then she shoved him off, her ghostly strength sending him careening back.
She raised up on an elbow. "I might not even play it at all."
The male ghost pulled himself up from the dirt where Valerie had shoved him. His handsome face twisted in pain and irritation. "You tease," he snapped at her. "You touch me as a lover would, and then you push me away."
Valerie's lips stretched. She somewhat lazily shrugged her shoulders. "And you play like you're gonna get a soul, and then you say shit like, 'I wish all humans would die.' Or crap like that."
He slammed his fist in the ground in mild irritation, turning his face from her to pout like a child. "You always hold morality against me."
"But just think." Her rough voice lilted in a tease. "What fun we could have instead, if you stopped hurting people."
Dan's face turned back to hers.
It fell silent between them.
An uncertainty flickered across his features. "You do not know," he said roughly, "what you ask me to give up. It would be the equivalent of me demanding that you give up your obsession with protecting Amity Park. It is a core of you, just as my hatred is a core of me."
Her armored fingers ticked on the dirt in displeasure. "…And then you wonder why I hesitate to kiss a murderer like you," she deadpanned.
But there was a discomfort in her. Protecting Amity Park was as natural of an instinct as breathing had been for her, when she was human and alive. Could she even exist, without that instinct? Is that what Dan meant—that he, as a ghost, could not exist without his hatred?
The wind fluttered between them both in the silence.
"I hold no deceits as to who or what I am," he snapped to her. "You lay on the dirt by me. You rest in my lair. You accept my strength and my help as you seek to strengthen your own control. Clearly, you have no moral qualms with using me for your own ends—and yet you do not offer the same to me."
Valerie's lips pressed together. The tease and enjoyment in her slipped away in the wind somewhere. "What the hell is that supposed to mean, huh?"
"Simply that you are a hypocrite," he challenged. "If I am so excessively abhorrent to you, then do not seek my presence or accept my help. And I will allow you to suffer through your growing pains with your core, and learning your abilities."
Her armored fingers clenched into the dirt.
Dan's red eyes did not reflect with a humor either—but instead, the powerful being suddenly materialized away. His eyes remained a scar against the air for a time as his form faded out.
It left Valerie alone in the swaying wind, as a singular figure within the valley, her crystal armor glinting with a sharp edge that belied her own irritation.
And for all of her knee-jerk emotions and the snarling curl of her lip, there was a spark of hurt in her.
And an uncertainty.
That perhaps Dan was right. He was so terribly good at sniffing out hypocrisies.
The ghost woman moved to sit cross-legged, her back bowing forward a bit in exhaustion. "You don't know what it's like," she complained softly to the air. "You're the only ghost I can stand, so what am I supposed to do." Her rough voice sharpened. "And if you're so pissed off, then why the hell do you kiss me back sometimes, you stupid boy?"
No answer.
Valerie huffed, crossing her arms.
And it was then, as her huff became a whine, that she heard a strange noise. Her increased hearing picked up the sound of a distant roar. And then the earth beneath her began to tremble with the ripples of a great power.
She gasped, her golden eyes widening in surprise as the hairs on the nape of her neck raised.
A ghost.
There was another ghost, and it was very, very powerful.
But not Dan.
She sprung to action, turning around, daring to lift up from the ground to search for the ghost and the source of the earthquakes.
And her dead heart stalled, when her eyes landed upon the far-distant site of Amity Park hanging in the sky, broken, tilting on its foundations like a winding clock—its ghost shield broken, towers fallen into crumples onto the scarred, gaping earth beneath.
Her full lips dropped open in horror.
The ghost of Valerie Gray appeared to the broken Amity Park in a sonic swoop, materializing in with a crackle of panic. The ectoplasmic blood in her veins rushed as she stared at the ruins of her city, which loomed like a floating mountain. "Oh my god," she breathed, eyes wide.
She tentatively reached out her armored hand, only to retract it from the nearest skyscraper, which ached on its joints, hanging upside.
And then she recoiled away, her gold eyes narrowing with hot tears as she suddenly flew through the wreckage. "Daddy?" she called, her voice ripping in pain. "Paulina? Anyone?!"
The buildings still buzzed with the aftereffects of the ghost shield. A churn twisted in her as she slowed, suddenly breathing hard in the midst of the anti-ghost power that lingered. Her fingers shakily reached out toward the peaks of the light red emergency pods, fitted deeply into the cracked streets above her head.
Silent. Everything was so silent.
She reconfigured the armored plates on her arm, staring down at the buttons in increasing terror. "Daddy?" she called, attempting to reach him through their communication frequency.
Static buzzed back for a time.
Then, finally, a distorted buzz of her father's voice responded. It was tight with panic. "—alerie—! Can—hear me—?"
Her eyes widened as her lungs hitched with air they did not need. "Daddy? Yes, yes, I hear you. Are you alright? Is everyone in the emergency pods? Anyone hurt?"
There was a pause. Her entire body tensed in anxiety.
"—We're okay," came her father's voice. "But—stuck. –Bumps and bruises—fear—"
Her heart cracked open wide, her power core revving up in emotion. "Don't you worry about anything. I'm gonna find who's responsible for this."
Her ghostly face suddenly darkened. "And I'm gonna rip their core out."
Suddenly, behind her, something cold began to manifest. It seeped through her glimmering armor to goose-bump her skin beneath and churn her stomach. "Oh, wow," came a sweet girl's voice—light and airy and nonchalant. "That's so violent. I should tell on you."
Valerie turned around, her gold eyes tense.
Before her floated the ghost of a young girl. She was short with wild purple hair and green skin. An oversized sweater hung off her shoulders, and her little feet twitched in delight in cat-footie socks. "You're so mean," the ghost said lightly. "I think I will call you Meanie."
Valerie's pretty face faulted, but she could not shake the chill of the girl's power—which was significant. "Who the hell are you?"
"Irony's the name," she chirped, her purple hair bouncing in her excitement. Something about her eyes seemed too dark for the innocence she exuded. She giggled. "And you're Meanie."
The older woman activated a blaster, which materialized into her hand, glimmering with the same crystal paneling as her armor. "Did you do this to Amity Park?"
The ghost named Irony tilted her head, peeking beyond Valerie's shoulder to stare at the broken city hanging upside in the sky. "Yeah. It's great, right? Not even Phantom could do that."
Valerie's full lips stretched. "You're right. Because I would never let him."
And then she shot her blaster.
The power that surged through the air was a bright white, burning with the reflections of a full spectrum of light and color.
The little girl's eyes widened, and then suddenly, she dissipated.
The blast struck the trees in the distance, splintering limb after limb—felling a great trunk—
Irony appeared once more in a blur, her eyes narrowing in a petulant irritation. "That was a mistake," she hissed to Valerie. The glow around her slight form darkened to a pure black, her face shadowing. She raised her hands to strike.
Suddenly, Valerie felt a power leeching into her core. She gasped uneasily, reaching for her heart.
She felt frozen, as if there was a gravitational pull keeping her from moving. The power of the girl, Irony, was holding her in place, as if Irony herself was far larger in power and strength than her little form suggested.
And a great surge of darkness, lifting up from the earth, began to screech toward her.
Valerie's gold eyes widened. She attempted to spark her fingers with a barrier, only for her power to cut out, her core still untrained.
But then suddenly, a barrier pulsed around her—a dark gray color, shimmering with red. Irony's power struck against it, and the barrier warbled, holding back the battering ram of the darkness. Its red wisps tightened at the front to strength the barrier. Valerie gasped and, from within the barrier, saw the lithe form of Dan Phantom floating behind Irony.
His red eyes were narrowed. "You dare," he snarled in a boom, "to interfere on my territory, with my humans?"
Irony spun around to face him, eyes unsettled with a wildness. "They're so annoying," she pouted. "Just like you. Amity Park, Amity Park—the unshakable, grounded stronghold. Now it hangs in the sky." Her pout twisted into a giggle. "Isn't it great?"
Phantom's barrier still swirled around Valerie as she floated there, eyes wide.
His handsome face twisted in hatred. "You impertinent, little—!"
Irony shot him in a blur, sending him careening backward in a great wave of gravity distortion. The barrier around Valerie suddenly disappeared from his broken concentration.
Then Irony turned to her. "How about some girl-talk?" she chirped suddenly, twisting Valerie up.
Valerie gasped, reaching out disjointedly in panic as her body moved of its own volition, to float in a stand before Irony.
The girl lifted up as well, sitting in the sky as if it were the most natural thing to do.
"So, I don't really like you," Irony said, tilting her head, her eyes wide and innocent. But there was an even greater wildness within them now—a darkness swirling. "I don't like that you're one of us now, and I want it to stop."
"I don't give shit if you dislike me," Valerie hissed. "You sure as hell don't control me."
The girl leaned forward. "Controlling people is what I do," she said, head tilting. She lifted up. "And I can curse people too." Her cute face twisted in a pout. "So don't piss me off if you don't want your face holes rearranged, okay?" And then she perked up again with a giggle. "Because rearranging face holes is fun. I like to do that."
Valerie's eyes slid to Dan, her face in a tight, unsettled fury. The ghost was still on his hands and knees in the grass from a direct blast from Irony, his cape hanging halfway off of him from a broken clasp. They both stared at each other in the silence, speaking words they did not feel like speaking aloud.
Then Valerie turned to the girl, narrowing her gold eyes. "…You got serious problems, kid," she deadpanned, "to talk like that."
"No," Irony corrected lightly, "you have problems." For as small and innocent as she appeared, her powers sent a chill down Valerie's spine. "So you get to decide how much I help you."
She blinked. "…What?"
"Don't act stupid with me," Irony said petulantly. She blinked, smiling in a playful way. "You want to come back to life so bad. You hate being a ghost." She crossed her ankles, still sitting in as if on a lounge in the air. "I hate ghost-you too. So. I could curse you back into a human."
Valerie narrowed her eyes. "Yeah, right. I'm not stupid. Even if you could, it'd be in exchange for what?"
Irony hummed. "The truth is, I want Amity Park," she said. "To make it my home."
Her face twisted. "What? Why?"
The little girl huffed. "It thinks it's so tough and strong. But I need a playhouse and little humans to torment in this realm, and what better place to set up camp than the final human stronghold?" She waved her hand as if she were speaking of the weather.
Back on the ground, dark gloved fingers tightened into the dirt. "Amity Park is my town to torment," Dan cut in angrily. "Not yours. Find another city, you little twerp."
Her eyes narrowed. "Um, I wasn't talking to you? So how about you shut up." And then she clenched her fist in.
Dan's throat tightened. He swallowed hard, his red eyes widening as he fell completely silent—an invisible pressure ripping at his vocal cords. He raised a hand to his neck, and then he made a strangled noise.
Dark tendrils of gravity distortions held him down.
Irony turned back. "It's just between us girls," she promised, leaning in. "I won't even tell anyone the truth if you take my offer. And why wouldn't you take it? Don't you remember what it's like, to be alive?" She pouted. "My parents made sure I wouldn't live long enough to enjoy it. But I do remember. It was nice."
Her little green fingers made a slight motion in the air.
Valerie's full lips dropped open. She felt her heart beat. She felt her body shift in need of air—tendrils of human existence, her whole body buzzing with the power of Irony, who held her in a state both dead and alive.
Waiting.
Valerie's gold eyes re-flickered back to her human teal. Her face broke in pain. "I—I can't," she said, voice rough. "I can't accept your deal. No matter how bad I don't wanna be a ghost."
The veneer of a human existence suddenly faded away from her, leaving her fully as a ghost once more.
Irony's lip curled, but not in a kind way. "Oh, come on. You're just scared because the last time you made a deal with a ghost, it went sideways." She opened up her arms. "I'm giving you a really clear deal, here, lady. You could be human again. I wouldn't have to deal with the Ghost Slayer being one of us. I just need my kicks and giggles, you know?"
"At the expense of living human beings," Valerie snapped.
The young girl's eyes suddenly narrowed to slits. Her purple hair rose up of its own volition, her eyes darkening to red. "Yes, at the expense of living human beings." She leaned in. "That's what makes it fun."
Valerie swallowed down emotion, never having been more tempted to fight a child—but perhaps that was exactly what this Irony was going for. "Where'd you get the idea that this kind of shit was fun, anyway? What'd your parents do to you?"
Irony blinked. For a time, the shadows in her hesitated. And then she flew backwards. "That doesn't matter," she retorted, "because they said they loved me but didn't." Her small fingers began to glow. "Just like the human race believes it's so strong, but it isn't. And just like you're so sure you won't accept my deal, but deep down, it's all you really want to do. Because you don't care about Amity Park that much, if it means not being a ghost."
There was a pause in the air for a time.
Valerie seethed where she floated, her dark curls surging wildly as her power core revved. "How dare you," she snarled. Her sharp, armored fingers sparked red with power. The crystal panels down her sides surged with a darkness. "How dare you accuse me of being like that."
Irony moved forward. "How ironic would it be," she murmured, "if Amity Park's best defender was the one to sell it out."
"I said, no." Valerie's face twisted in great hatred, her gold eyes straining red. Something alien raged up within her—an uncontrollable rage. Her lips curled into a snarl, and a burst of power flared from her, breaking Irony's hold over her. She shot at the girl.
Irony blurred out of the way, giggling. "Yeah, like I can't see through that act." She waved her hand, and suddenly, Valerie felt her power core stall. "Tell you what, I'm feeling super generous right now. So how about I just…grant the curse, and you can blame whatever happens next on me. I'm sure Amity Park would love to have you back. And I'd love to have you out of the way."
But as the girl moved to wave her hand, suddenly Valerie blurred forward. She grabbed for Irony's neck and slammed her against the nearest tree, with bark splintering off.
The girls' eyes widened in surprise, her lips dropping open, stunned.
"Listen here, you little shit," Valerie hissed. "I got people. Family. Maybe you don't get that, and I don't care anymore." She tightened her grip on Irony's throat, feeling the girl's strong power core flicker with fear. For the first time, she enjoyed it. A demonic, strange pleasure seeped through her in the midst of her anger. "Amity Park is mine. It's mine. I am Amity Park."
Her power core heightened, her glow expanding until she glowed like a star.
Irony pushed back against her, her pale face bleeding green from the pressure that Valerie was exerting on her neck, her blood building up in her cheeks. "Stop," she demanded, her voice halted and weak. "Stop."
Valerie clenched in, her gold eyes burning red. Her pretty face twisted in harder in a ghostly rage. "No. Amity Park is mine, it's all mine. And I'll rip you to shreds for trying to take it away from me. Like I give a shit about being human," she seethed, "when Amity Park can be mine."
Irony squeaked, her big eyes wide as Valerie's armored fingers clenched in on her small neck. The sharp edges of the crystal cut into her skin, drawing green blood.
It was then that a black-gloved hand grabbed onto Valerie's shoulder and wrenched her back. Valerie's fingers slit across Irony's neck in the blur as she cried out in surprise and rage.
There was a tumble of sky and the vision of Dan's cape.
In the blur of time, Irony shakily reached up to her throat in pain, touching the green-bleeding wounds across her neck. Her eyes widened. And then she began to float back, haunted.
Dan's voice was rough. His red eyes were slit in full hatred. "You do not know the power you test. Put it back. Amity Park—all of it. Now."
Valerie behind him had become something entirely alien—her white teeth almost seeming to sharpen as she tried to swipe at Irony once more. Dan's hand held her strong from reaching her target, but her armored fingers dug into his arm, slitting his jumpsuit and drawing blood, and he grimaced.
Irony floated there in a loss, suddenly looking for all the world like her true age—a child.
She shakily called out, "You're…protecting me?"
"No." Dan's voice was flat. "I'm protecting her. From herself. I otherwise would shred you myself."
Irony's power core hitched as she looked at Valerie, whose entire form glowed in utter, seething hatred.
"As if you could," she whispered, but her voice was unsteady in pain and for the first time, failed to have the confidence she usually did. She held her throat in great fear, having never been so attacked. "But…maybe I'll wait on Amity Park, then. Until you get your dog on a tighter leash."
And she waved her hand.
In the distance, the broken city of Amity Park began to tilt once more in the air. Every joint of the buildings groaned and creaked in a racket, a few junctions giving away. Glass shattered, spilling to the earth along with pipes and street lights. And then it stood shakily, right-side up. And it lowered back to the earth, settling in upon the scar in the earth from being torn away.
The great human stronghold stood once more, naked without its shield, its tall buildings hanging crooked in the skyline.
Irony materialized out, bottom lip quivering in a mix of genuine pain and a disquiet over the violent ghost that was Valerie Gray. "I can't believe you hurt me," she cried, her voice wavering on the hand.
And then she was gone.
The moment Irony's power dissipated from the city and from valley, the red in Valerie's eyes began to fade away.
Her fingers slipped down Dan's bloodied arm.
Her full lips dropped open for a breath of air that she didn't need, her power core settling back into a quiet rev, Amity Park. She looked down at Dan's arm in consternation, gazing at the deep lacerations her own hands had carved into his skin and the welling drop of glowing, bright green blood.
Dan's ectoplasmic blood dripped onto the grass between them with a hiss.
With his good arm, he reached out to her, grabbing her chin.
She gazed up at him, her gold eyes wide in shock.
"Do you know me?" he murmured.
The ghost woman stood there, latching on hard to the calming, deep rhythm of Dan's power core, which vibrated around her in the silence. "Yes," she whispered. Then she pulled away in distant shock, still staring at his arm.
Already, his wounds were beginning to heal, as they always did. His jumpsuit was beginning to reknit, the skin beneath smoothing over as if her brief insanity had never happened.
Dan's jaw clenched, his handsome face tight in great turmoil. "Good."
And then he stroked her cheek, feeling more protective over her than he ever hard. "I would not see you fall," he murmured, "to baser instincts as a ghost. For you are better than me. You would mourn that brat and likely still will."
Valerie pulled away in confusion and loss, suddenly feeling out control all over again. "Did I—destroy her?"
"No. She is powerful like us, and likely to return as nuisances do." His lips pressed together. "But perhaps she will not infringe upon Amity Park again."
That spark of wildness still existed in Valerie's gold eyes. She turned back, her mind rewiring, whispering, "Amity Park."
And then she blasted off, leaving him alone in the open Wastelands beside the ruined city.
He lowered his hand, eyes dark. And for the first time, his eyes were dark with contemplation—that Valerie truly was like him. Ghost-like in her obsessions.
With a raw, hot wire beneath it that would set her off if exposed.
Dan did not see Valerie for nearly two days. He knew she had gone to be among her people—to offer her inhuman strength in resetting the ghost shield, realigning skyscrapers, fixing all the pathetic human technology. He half-thought to arrive himself to tear down her work, but he knew now there was a thread in Valerie tied too close to the survival of the city. That in attempting to destroy Amity Park while it was vulnerable would inspire that demonic side of Valerie to resurge. As beautiful as her anger was, it also unsettled him, for she had not been in control. Just as he had not been in control when he had first destroyed the world.
If he pushed it, he feared perhaps Valerie Gray the Ghost Slayer could destroy even him in a fit of rage.
And he would not blame her, and instead knew that Valerie would mourn him afterward.
He could not allow that to happen.
"I wonder," he murmured, "if your beloved humans know just how much of a ghost you are at heart, Valerie dear. That you covet and obsess as ghosts do now."
But there was no response, for she was not with him.
He nevertheless felt a terrible delight for this wild spitfire of a ghost slayer, and felt so strangely protective of the soul he knew was struggling against the weight of her own core. Lost in her abilities. Fighting to contain control.
So beautiful. So raw.
"Whatever are we going to do with you, I wonder," the powerful ghost mused, looking down at the broken clasp to his cape. His fingers glowed as he fed a small strand of his power into the metal. His cape's flickering sides rustled against him.
He was lonely without her. He'd almost forgotten how quiet the world was without her at his side.
Eventually, as another day passed, Valerie returned to Dan. Her crystalline form glimmered in the opening of the cave that was their shared lair—a place out of the sun, hidden away from curious eyes.
Her armored fingers clenched into the rock.
And then slowly, crystalline panel after crystalline panel began to shutter away, sinking down beneath her skin. It left her lithe form in a tight red and gray jumpsuit.
Vulnerable.
"Dan?" she called out, her voice rough.
He materialized before her upon the sheets she had long ago accepted from her father, who had told her that she simply could not sleep out in the wilderness like an animal. "Ah," Dan murmured, his eyes roving over her form, searching. "The prodigal ghost returns."
Valerie winced. Her bare, dark hand slipped away from the rock. She slipped deeper inside the cave, her bright glow lighting up the walls in a bright away that made Dan's power core crave to be next to her. "The city's in better shape now. Got a working shield up. But I, um…I might have a problem," she whispered shakily.
"Oh?"
Valerie swallowed hard. "You're right," she said. "I've got obsessions. Amity Park is one of them. I can't—" Her gold eyes looked to the side in vulnerability—"I can't…put anything above it."
Dan leaned back against the cave wall, crossing his arms. The slight wind from the entrance flickered his hair and his cape in the silence.
She bit her lip. "Is that what drives you to hate people?" she whispered, waving at herself. "That automatic, deep something? That just makes you do—anything to…keep that part of you?"
He remained silent, then nodded.
Her breath hitched. She ran a frazzled hand through her curls. On occasion, they seemed to float on their own, like the snakes of Medusa's hair. "How do you control it?"
"You know I don't, Valerie dear."
She stepped forward. "That's not true," she argued. "You've not tried to attack Amity Park, for real, in a long time. You don't start each morning anymore trying to tear down the shield to kill people." Her breath hitched. "You say your obsession is to destroy Amity Park, but…but you don't." There was a genuine fear in her—a fear in herself. "I wanna know how you control that part of you. Because I remember now, I hurt you. I tried to slit that girl's throat. It's too much."
His nose wrinkled. He stood up in a blur. He'd pulled his hair out of his tie, and it fell down his shoulders as starlight. He dared to reach out to her just as he was. "Obsessions can morph over time, but they are always tied back to the heart of what so drives our existence as ghosts. And they always inform our actions."
Valerie swallowed hard. "I don't want to be like that," she whispered. "I don't like that part of me. So if you feel so much hate for Amity Park, how do you not attack it."
Dan's fingers gently cupped her chin. His body's glow mixed with hers until they stood as a star together. "I feel that my own obsessions are in a state of transition," he confessed to her, searching her eyes. "For I desire the destruction of Amity Park. But…you said it yourself, you are Amity Park." He leaned forward. "And there are many forms of destruction. To make something undone."
Valerie's eyes searched his own. She felt the distance between them. Between his lips and hers. "You want to undo me?" she whispered.
"I ache to make you unravel," he agreed. "And that stays my hand against the physical city and the idiotic insects you call your people, even if I can never wipe away the impulse to see them suffer."
Her curls intertwined with his flickering strands in the wind.
Her power core hummed in time with his as she reached up to wrap a hand around his wrist, pulling his fingers away from her chin. "You wanna see me suffer?"
"Yes. But only in the best of ways." His lips brushed against hers. "There are so many ways to make you suffer. Pleasurable ways, that I could make you scream and writhe for me, as I tear down your shields." His gloved fingers traced one of her covered collarbones, sinking lower to trace the heavy curve of her breast. "As I conquer you and fill you with myself."
Valerie's eyes had closed. Her dark brows knitted together, her bare hand still holding his wrist but not stopping him.
"I do not feel a desire for violence," he whispered, "when I think of being with you."
His fingers slipped down the side of her breast, inspiring goose-bumps upon her.
"Perhaps," he murmured, "you might yet think of other…means of protecting the physical city, that does not fuel your violence."
She swallowed hard. "Like what?"
"Protecting it in a different way." His long fingers stilled upon her waist. "By opening to me. We both desire a release from the drives inside us. I want you, though I despise Amity Park. You want to protect Amity Park while yet you desire me as well. I am quite certain that this could be a…particularly rewarding compromise for us both."
Her pretty face flushed. "Don't get cocky," she deadpanned.
His lips stretched, his too-wide mouth dangerous.
She hesitated for a time. A turmoil of emotion washed through her. "It doesn't really matter what I do, does it," she whispered. "They already think I'm just a ghost. They know you follow me. That I'm with you sometimes."
Dan tilted her chin. "Is that what they said to you, after you labored like a slave in their name? That you are just a ghost?"
Her gold eyes narrowed. She poked his chest. "You better watch it, buddy. That sounded like an insult."
"Merely an observation," he murmured. "Your body and mind could be put to better use than that."
"It was a mess; I had to do something," she complained. "Everything was shifted off balance—they have to rebuild nearly every single damn—"
Dan moved forward, capturing her lips with his own.
Valerie squeaked in surprise against him, her gold eyes widening for a time. And then her core flared in time with his, feeling its tendrils search her out, dancing around her own aura, slipping behind her shields to sink right between her legs.
Her lips moved against his in great want, in desire of him and of the strange stability he offered—that she knew his violence. And that perhaps her need to protect Amity Park in fact converged with a deeper want to give into writhing beneath him.
A perfect meeting point of her every need, within him.
She relaxed into his kiss, stretching his lips with her own in increasing confidence. Her bare fingers dared to reach for his, feeling the difference in the size of his palm.
With him, she felt emotion that—no matter human nor ghost—she knew to be consistent.
Valerie pulled away, her dark brows knitted together, her core aching to feel him surround her. "I hate you," she whispered. Her fingers intertwined with his.
Dan leaned his forehead against hers. "I hate you too."
He squeezed her hand, in awe that for as much as he despised Amity Park and enjoyed the screams of the masses, he desired that the only screams from Valerie, its greatest champion, would be screams of ecstasy—gasps in his ear—
And somewhere, a healing Irony floated cross-legged, holding a mirror to gaze at her throat. She whined, patting her now-healing skin in worry that Valerie's injuries would somehow be permanent. As it was, the lacerations were now thin, green lines scabbed over. "What a mean lady," she pouted. "Trying to slit my throat. Stupid mindless ghost. Probably still on an immature obsession rage—what a weird thing to be obsessed with too. A city. Didn't see that coming."
She tilted her head as she stared at her mirror. And then her eyes brightened, and its surface began to ripple like water.
It formed an image of Dan Phantom and Valerie Gray. And they were—
She blinked. Her eyes widened. "Gross. Oh my god, yucky!" The mirror cracked into a spiderweb, the image distorting. She tossed the mirror away, and it lopsidedly careened into the nearby tree. The mirror shattered completely, the image upon it flickering away. "I did not need to see that."
The two of them were sucking face and touching each other.
Irony shivered in disgust, and then she quieted, her thin brows furrowing together.
She sniffed. "But. I guess that's….not the worst. Two enemies trying to make babies or whatever. He hated Valerie. She hated him. It's a little ironic." She rubbed her throat. "I'll take it as a consolation prize."
And then there was a devious quirk in her lips, her mind already scheming a way around inciting their obsessive instincts while still trolling them. "…For now."
And then her tiny form disappeared in a wisp.
A/N: And that concludes this drabble. Thanks all for reading this far, and happy birthday again to the wonderful Lady Audentium!
Next installment should be a continuation of the Fifth Element (the new human!Dan story).
Please review with thoughts, questions or ideas! Thanks again for reading, dark gray fam!
