It had been a long time since the last truly quiet night in Amity Park, the last night when the skies were empty of anything but clouds and no alarms, sirens, or ectoplasmic zings filled the air, the last night when all its residents were able to sleep deeply, without it being a ghostly plot. They took advantage of it and enjoyed it immensely.
But when they woke up, they had to wonder if they shouldn't have been at least a little suspicious.
.
Danny had a habit of looking up when he went outside. This was mostly because of ghost attacks, but also because people looking to mess with the 'local crackpots' (or just Danny) used to rig pranks to the door (which had, incidentally, fueled Jack's tendency to answer the door with a ectogun in hand and blame random things on ghosts).
This meant that he saw the… thing almost immediately.
He took several steps back. "What is that?"
"A ghost?" called Jack from the kitchen.
"Uh," said Danny, eyes still fixed on the sky. "No." No, he was fairly certain what he was looking at wasn't a ghost. Yes, it was out of range of his ghost sense, but he was still, somehow, absolutely sure it was not a ghost. Or a half ghost, for that matter, although that thought was ridiculous on the surface of it.
No. It wasn't a ghost.
Still.
"You guys had better come see this."
.
The thing in the sky over Amity Park was huge. So big it was hard to really comprehend as a thing that was actually there. It didn't look real, and not in the way that ghosts sometimes didn't look real, lacking substance and texture, but more because of the way its edges were sharp but faded from distance, from the way it hung suspended in the air, from its detailing.
As for its shape… It was roughly humanoid, with giant feathered white wings alternately wrapped around itself and spread wide. From Danny's perspective, he could count at least six, but he thought there might be more. The rest of its body was covered with a kind of armor that included a featureless mask. Something like horns spiraled from its helm.
It was upside down. Head pointed at Amity Park.
Distantly, Danny could hear people shouting about the apocalypse, shouting about angels and demons and the end of things, shouting about ghosts and about how this was just too much.
Danny rather agreed with that last one. This was too much.
"-the figure in the sky appeared sometime last night, between the hours of two and four AM," said the TV. "No one is sure how it arrived, and we have yet to receive any reports of a person seeing it arrive. Thus far, it hasn't made any aggressive moves or attempts to communicate."
He walked back to the couch and sat down. Jack and Maddie were in the kitchen arguing about whether or not and how to shoot the thing. Apparently, something the size of a mountain gave even them pause.
The ticker at the bottom of the TV screen read out the names of schools that had canceled classes. He watched the band go across rather dispiritedly.
Danny had done a lot of things for this town. Vortex, Undergrowth, Nocturne, and Pariah Dark had all been really big, but they'd been, at most, skyscraper big.
This was a lot bigger, and it wasn't even a ghost.
Really, it was too much.
Jazz sat down next to him. "I was worried you'd sneak out."
"Still might," mumbled Danny. "Just. You know. To go up there and see what it wants."
"You think it wants something?"
"It's got to, right?"
"Hm," said Jazz. "I suppose. It could also just… be there. Passing through."
Danny gave her a look. "I'm not going to be picking a fight with something that could level the whole town just by falling. It could probably crush all of downtown with its foot." He slouched down. "Maybe I should just leave it alone."
"Sadly," said Jazz, "if you don't do something, someone else will." She tilted her head at the kitchen significantly. "You know what they're like, and you know what the GIW are like. Plus, they have those hovercraft things. I'm not saying you have to do anything. I'd actually like it if you didn't, but…"
But then he'd have to live with the results. Overall, Danny was action-oriented. He preferred to do something rather than to not do something.
"I guess there's Vlad, too," said Danny. "Even as a human, he's got those helicopters."
"He'd probably work with you on this," said Jazz.
"Yeah, and then he'd ditch me as soon as it got too hard for him. That's what he always does." He stood up. "Cover for me?"
"Always."
.
As Danny got closer, the thing in the sky got bigger and bigger. Which was, of course, how perspective worked, but Danny had been hoping it had been closer than it looked and, thus, smaller. But it was, in fact, farther away than it looked.
Danny thought this was unfair.
With his eyes fixed on it as his destination, he also saw how still it was. It didn't move or breathe. The wind didn't ruffle its feathers. It added to the air of unreality.
Speaking of the air, it was also… humming. No, that was the wrong word for it, but it certainly had some similarities to sound, whatever it was. An energy that wasn't physical, but also wasn't emotion or ectoplasm or anything like that.
He stopped.
He was probably within shouting distance now, right? Assuming this could even hear him. His voice might be too quiet to make its eardrums vibrate, assuming it had eardrums.
"HELLO," he called, the faintest touch of his ghostly wail leaking in. He paused, waiting to see if there was a response.
There wasn't. At least, there wasn't a physical, visible response. Whatever feeling was in the air intensified. Danny felt uncomfortably aware of his own skin. Between his back started to itch to the point where he looked around to see if there was anyone behind him.
There wasn't.
He turned back.
"WE WERE WONDERING WHAT YOU WANTED." He paused again, more from uncertainty than anything else. "WHAT DO YOU WANT?"
This time, there was movement. Movement that looked agonizingly slow, but only by virtue of how big the thing was. Two of its wings unfurled, freeing a hand that pointed down.
At the city?
Danny looked down, trying to determine if it meant the city in general, or if it was pointing at some specific building or–
But then the sensation spilling over his body became too much to ignore, and he curled in on himself, his gloves the only things keeping him from digging furrows into his back. What was this, some kind of supernatural radiation?
Oh, gosh, this was some kind of supernatural radiation. He should probably leave, like, right now.
He should be flying away right now.
Why wasn't he flying away?
He looked up.
The other thing the hand could possibly be pointing at was him.
His eyes rolled back in his head.
.
Phantom's approach was, of course, filmed and broadcasted. Vlad watched. No need to put himself at risk when the boy was perfectly willing to do it for him.
He watched the tiny, blurry picture of Phantom come to a stop, then seem to shout at the angel-like figure. He watched as Phantom curled into a tiny ball, then went limp.
He watched as Phantom fell.
"Fudge buckets." A fall from that height would be unpleasant even if Daniel managed to keep hold of his ghost half.
If he didn't…
Vlad was phasing through his ceiling before the wine glass he'd been holding hit the floor.
.
The eyes of Amity Park were on Phantom as he fell. Perhaps that's why no one immediately noticed the giant creature that had been hanging over their heads all day simply vanishing.
But perhaps the true reason was something else, something more related to the being's nature, whatever it had been.
It was impossible to tell.
.
Vlad caught Daniel. It was a near thing, and Vlad wasn't experienced with catching people falling from the sky at speed, but he did do it, and Daniel's back didn't break or anything.
He would have to count this incident as something to lord over Daniel in the future.
In the meantime, Daniel was spasming, as if he was having a seizure. It was remarkably inconvenient, and also troubling, because Vlad hadn't thought that half ghosts could have seizures while transformed.
He adjusted his grip on Daniel and noticed–
Pausing mid-air, he turned Daniel over. There, on Daniel's back, small but unmistakable, were six snow-white wings.
