Hey there! I know I said I'd get at least a chapter of something out each month, but worry not! This is not the thing. Phantom Age will be coming this month, but until then, have a scene that probably should have been in the original version of The Summoning, right along with Danny's meeting with Valerie.
Those rings. That damning flash of light that accompanied his arrival, and his departure. The signal that Danielle was shifting between life and death. The sign that Vlad was both Plasmius and Masters. Did it mean what she thought it did? It couldn't have, could it?
Valerie shook her head and summoned her hoverboard into existence. The buzz in the back of her head as the metal formed underneath her at breakneck speeds assured her that all of her systems were working fine and that there weren't any ghosts within sixteen hundred feet. Flying out of one of the broken windows, she went searching for some prey to take down. The box ghost hadn't popped up in a bit; he was due. That would take her mind off of it.
Except the Box Ghost still wasn't showing up on her radar, even after doing a perimeter sweep of the town and then the grid that her heads-up display provided. As she soared over the rooftops of her hometown, Valerie's thoughts drifted once more to Phantom. His teleportation rings were the same as Danielle's transformation rings. And while they were black instead of white, Vlad's were still basically the same as Danielle's. "What if... what if he's just like his cousin? After all, I don't know if he's the dead relative or if they're covering for whatever was done to them to make them..." She stopped in the air, just like her thoughts stalled on the idea of what Danielle was. What Phantom could be. Half ghost half human. Half alive, half dead. How did that work? That was against the laws of nature, obviously. 'Said the girl wearing sci-fi armor, riding a hoverboard, and patrolling a city to stop undead creatures of terrifying power from adding to their ranks.'
It was always inconvenient when her mind decided to turn all of her sass back at her, Val decided. It never helped with getting to conclusions on her trains of thought, only circles. "Alright girl, focus." She flew onward, feeling secure in the knowledge that the town was quiet and safe for now. "Do what you did when you realized Phantom isn't evil. What are the facts?" It was almost humorous, how a list of text appeared in the top right corner of her vision. "Danielle Phantom is half ghost, half human. Vlad Masters is also half ghost. Danny Phantom and Danielle Phantom claim to be cousins." 'Claimed' was the operative word there, as Valerie couldn't be sure what their relationship was. All she knew was that Phantom cared deeply for the half ghost. "Phantom is a good person, and fully capable of feeling." After all, she only used the taser on him because he could feel and she wanted the sick satisfaction of seeing him in pain. All for messing up stuff that could be replaced. "Plasmius and Phantom occasionally fight each other, though I rarely see hide nor hair of Plasmius in the skies with Phantom. They evade the news well when they fight." What did that connect to, then?
Valerie banked left and headed towards her apartment at a sedated pace, rising toward the cloudline. "They fight each other, and knowing Masters, it means that he has a lot of plans that eventually involve Phantom at some point." What did she know about Vlad Masters? He was wealthy, a politician, adept at crafting ghost hunting equipment, and insanely intelligent all around. He was used to getting his way, manipulative and sneaky, and seemed to be able to find the right buttons to push on people within a few minutes of meeting them. She had waited in his office while he had meetings before, and her equipment made eavesdropping a breeze. Sometimes you don't need to see someone's face to know how they look.
"Who does he have connections to?" Valerie carved through the air and stopped a couple hundred feet above her apartment building. The only people in Amity Park beside her that she knew Vlad Masters was connected to were the Fentons. But that would mean...
"Danny Fenton... Danny Phantom... that's impossible." She shook her head and descended slowly. "Danny isn't cocky and bull-headed like Phantom is. He's cute and dorky and always talking about space and is too shy to show anyone his drawings unless they beg him to. Phantom charged into situations head fist, threw energy balls around like he was trying out for a team and never hesitated to snark at people and things trying to kill him. Fenton was scrawny, and Phantom was continually showing off with that unprotective skin tight suit of his. It was ridiculous to even consider them to be one and the same.
"Even if Danny's been growing some muscles these past few months… and he started eating more at lunch than usual." She tried to keep an eye on Danny from time to time, help get Dash off his back. She even made him take a couple of self-defense lessons with her. "He knows how to take a punch like it's nothing, though he still got his ass knocked to the ground. He was raised by ghost hunters, though! He can't be half ghost and still be living with people trying the hardest to kill him."
As she hovered through her window into her room, however, Val's own words came crawling back to her. 'The Fentons couldn't catch a ghost if it was living under their own roof.'
'Well, you have a point there.' Phantom had agreed rather begrudgingly. It was like he was both annoyed and relieved about the Fentons' inept hunting abilities. At the time, Val simply thought he was glad that he only had Valerie to worry about in regards to his human enemies. After all, Dr. and Dr. Fenton had some serious weapons, and if Jack could aim, they'd be a dangerous pair for even a ghost as powerful as Phantom.
Looking back with present thoughts, he also seemed frustrated to admit how subpar the scientists were at hunting ghosts, as though it were a stab at his pride. And Danny had said something about wishing his parents were better at what they did. 'Mom's a fighter and could probably handle most of the ghosts all on her own. Dad knows how to make just about anything defy so-called Laws of physics. You'd think a pair of super geniuses like that could manage to catch more than just one ghost in a month.'
The armor retracted to wherever it went, and Valerie grabbed onto the pull-up bar she had installed in her room. Phantom seemed disappointed in the Fentons. Danny was also disappointed in the Fentons. Danielle Phantom, a relation of Phantom, was half ghost, and so was Vlad, who was a close friend of the Fenton family. That only left one thing, didn't it? "I need to talk to Danny."
I'm sorry about this, but in The Summoning, valerie hardly got the star time she deserved. I even started going back and rewriting some of the summoning fic, though I stopped and can't tell you for certain if i'm going to continue that or leave it as is. Anyway, what do you think of Val's logic? Give her time to think, and she's a pretty smart person