A/N: The Ethereal Shade: Thanks for the review, I love your work as well! Like I've said previously, I do like to keep things lighthearted if I can. Of course, there are going to be times that are rough, but our favorite ghost-fighting team'll get through them!
Probably.
Throughout the rest of the day, Star gets the chance to actually talk with Danny and his friends and notices that they have a lot more to say than any of her A-List buddies. It's kind of refreshing, really. Danny walks her through a lot of the background information on ghosts that gets brought up in conversation (which gets a little confusing, turns out ghosts are a lot more complicated than she, or anyone else in Amity likely thought) but even so, she genuinely enjoys her time there. The friendships seem deeper and more genuine, but whether that's caused by the hardships they've faced or simply their personalities... she couldn't say. She hopes it's the latter.
Either way, Star finds herself craving that type of connection. Paulina's nice and all, and (contrary to what others would believe) a very good friend, but this seems… different.
I wonder if... it'd be all right for me to come over sometimes?
It's just a small thought, but Star momentarily forgets that Danny hears all of her thoughts, even the small ones.
"Danny, hey- space cadet, pay attention." Sam snaps her fingers in front of Danny's face, bringing him back to reality.
"Hm? Uh, sorry... what?"
Sam rolls her eyes. "What even was that smile? Anyways, Jazz was asking you a question."
"Oh, sure. Sorry."
"I was wondering if you thought there was anything else she needed." Jazz points down to the assortment of Fenton tech littering the ground.
Danny figures it's best to just describe each one to Star now as they're introducing them. "Spectre Deflector, one of the new ones too. It's in a smaller model, but can stop even me from touching you unless I want to get a nasty shock. It's probably best if you wear this every day, if you can."He turns it over in his hands. The new model is a smaller, black belt with green circuitry patterns running over it. "This one is designed in a way so that it can be worn underneath clothes if, um, you don't want the ghosts to know it's on you. In your case, it won't mess with your uh, style."
Star rolls her eyes. While I appreciate you trying to accomodate my fashion sense, I'd gladly wear that in public than be attacked again.
Danny waves his hands in front of him in a placating gesture. "I didn't mean anything by it! Plus, you obviously wearing Fenton tech is sure to raise some red flags for someone somewhere, and I don't think anyone needs that."
That's… fair too.
He moves on to the next item, a softball-sized metal cube with the similar designs on it.
"This is a personal ghost-shield, one that has the ability to switch between settings. Pretty similar to the ones I'm sure you're familiar with"He presses a button on the machine, and it hums to life. "The one we'll be giving you is super-powerful and invisible, so nobody will know you're even using one. It's kinda heavy, but you can put it in your backpack or purse and forget about it."He deactivates the shield and puts it back, pointing to the next item.
"Fenton phones, basically mini-walkie-talkies. You probably won't have much use for these, but we figured that we'd rather be safe than sorry. They also cancel out spectral noise, so if I ever start to use my ghostly wail you'll want to put these on to, uh… save your eardrums."
Yeah, I've heard that before, definitely not a pleasant experience. It is powerful though, isn't it?
"Yeah I've uh… destroyed a few buildings with it." He cringes. "In my defense, it's hard to make a sound targeted... I'm still working on that."
He motions to the last pile of items, many of which much more familiar to Star. "And lastly; a Fenton thermos, which you know what that does, along with a few different types of blasters. A lipstick-blaster and a wrist-ray, as well as a standard ecto-gun, all beefed up to work on half-ghosts pretty well. Basically, our idea is that if it can stop me, who regularly flies under ghost-radar, it should stop whoever's overshadowing Autumn." He sighs. "Not that I want you to be using any of these. This should be good though, thanks Jazz."
That's… a lot of stuff. Aren't your parents going to be missing these things?
Danny laughs. "No, we've made it a regular trend of ours to take ghost tech, at this point they've just like… accepted it as something ghosts do, steal things. They are confused about how they get past the ghost shields, though."
I see… Star looks over all of the tech with mixed feelings, and then sighs. The rest of team Phantom discusses other plans.
Hey Danny, can I check my phone? I should probably check my messages.
Sure. Danny reaches for Star's phone and thinks for a second, opening it up in his lap and staring blankly down. Actually Star, do you want to just take over? You should be good by now. The foreign ectoplasm that was causing problems is gone, and uh… I think the pain is manageable. He prods at her stomach a bit. The skin is still new and tender though.
Star ponders for a moment, she isn't looking forward to being in pain, but she figures that she shouldn't take up any more of Danny's resources if she can help it. This way she can manage her needy friends, too.
Sure, go for it.
"Hey, guys, I think Star's ready to um, come back."
Tucker nods. "Sure dude, do you want us to do anything?"
Danny shakes his head. "No, just letting you know... I think everything should be fine."
Alright, brace yourself.
Danny slowly starts to recede from her mind. Star feels the strange feeling of being pushed into her body, and the pain gradually comes in waves, throbbing with each heartbeat. She curls in on herself for a moment, clutching her stomach and squeezing her eyes shut. The rest of Team Phantom moves closer to her, not sure what they should do, but feeling like they should be doing… something.
"Star? You good?" She feels a cool hand touch her back. It's soothing, distracting her from some of her pain.
"Yeah, yeah… it's-" she gives a look to Sam and Jazz, "I've had cramps that are worse."
Both of them chuckle and nod knowingly. "Want some ibuprofen? Water?" Sam reaches behind her, already prepared, apparently.
"Do you want-" Star interrupts her by swiping the water and pills out of Sam's hands and basically inhales them, draining almost the entire bottle of water in one go.
"-nevermind."
She sighs and coughs out a quick "thanks" before running her hand through her hair and leaning back against the bed, holding her phone at eye-level. Danny takes a seat next to her.
"I just need to distract myself for a bit, I-" She stops and stares at her phone. "what the hell?!" Her eyes widen, and everyone else leans in to catch a look.
Danny's the first to read her phone screen. "42 new messages?" He raises an eyebrow at her.
"Uuuuuugh. Seriously? I can't have one weekend to myself?" She scrolls through the notifications, the majority of them are actually through their group chat, but only by a small margin. Paulina's next in line, which actually makes sense-
"Ah shoot, it's Saturday, isn't it?" she asks, receiving a few nods from everyone else. She taps on her phone to send a quick message through their group chat.
Sam cracks open a can of soda. "Did you have plans?"
"Yeah." She sends off the text. "Paulina and the rest of the girls usually go out for lunch every Saturday before cheer practice, we meet at the mall and then head over to the school at around 4." She glances at the clock. "And it's almost 4:30 now. Ugh, I didn't even know it was this late, I should have told them I was sick a while ago."
"Well, you did have other things on your mind… literally." Tucker throws Danny a lopsided grin at his own joke, but only receives an unamused stare in response.
"Just tell them you're sick now then." Jazz says. "Otherwise we can drive you back, but before that we need to-"
Star's phone rings, and she scowls down at it.
"It's Kwan." She groans, hesitating. Everyone else looks at her expectantly. She sighs and rubs her face before answering.
"Hey Kwan, sorry, tell Paulina I've been sick all day."
There's a pause and some muffled speech from the other end, before it suddenly cuts out and raises in pitch. The corners of Danny's mouth twitch by likely being able to hear the entire conversation.
"N-no, I- what? Oh, yeah that was probably when I ran out to get NyQuil then." Another pause. "There were some... long lines."
She pinches the bridge of her nose in frustration and listens to the shrill voice for a while longer. "Yeah, sorry Pauly, I didn't think that I would sleep through the entire day. I'll-" more yelling. "Yeah, I'll do that. Okay. Okay, thanks. Yeah. Love you too. Bye."
She hangs up the phone and groans. Long and drown out, it echoes through the room.
"Paulina's super suspicious. She's coming to my house to check on me after practice."
"So she went to your room?" Danny asks, somewhat amused with the situation.
"Well she has a key and a car, so there isn't much stopping-" realization dawns on her, and she quickly sits up.
"The bathroom! Danny, what if she saw-"
Danny shakes his head and points at Jazz, who gestures for Star to relax.
"Don't worry, I handled it. Our parents have a myriad of inventions just for cleaning, so it was basically a push of a button and it was done. The rug and a few towels had to be pitched, though."
"Oh my god thank goodness." She breathes. "I literally owe you guys so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you."
"Don't worry about it." Danny says. "If anything it's more my-" glares are tossed Danny's way. "...our fault in the first place for not being careful enough." He looks at Star. "We dragged you into this, it's our job to protect you from whatever that might mean."
Star looks down at her phone that continues to ping off notification after notification. She silences it.
"You really don't have to blame yourselves, I went unnecessarily far to try to get myself involved. Plus, I don't regret it." She straightens. "If you ever need my help at all, I'd be glad to. I'm sure on Monday Autumn or her ghost or whatever is going to be confused about my… livelihood, so that's going to draw some attention."
"Which actually might be in our favor. What do you think that this ghost wants, anyways? It can't be anyone we know, it's not their MO." Tucker pulls out his old PDA and starts searching through files. "Unless it's someone new, but what could cause them to target Star?"
Danny shakes his head. "It's not her they're targeting Tuck, it's me. She got too close to me, which made that ghost angry... for some reason. I saw it in her memories." He fiddles with the lipstick blaster while he thinks. "Maybe you guys should gear up too. Better to be safe than sorry."
"Danny, we're not Star, we can't be carrying around mini-ghost shields everywhere, we're constantly near you. Same with the Spectre Deflector- you'd be getting zapped constantly." Sam takes the lipstick blaster out of Danny's hand. "And it's not like we can't handle ourselves. Who's been taking care of all of the ghosts while you've been out of commission these past few days?"
"I know you're right, and I'm not trying to say you're, um, weak or anything- just... Look at this guy, he almost killed someone!" He gestures towards Star. "And this is targeted, not like the rest of the ghosts. I'm worried."
"You're always worried, little brother." Jazz stands up. "Here, why don't we at least all get personal ghost shields for at home, when we're most vulnerable. Our parents have a literal closet full of them anyways."
Tucker nods. "I can upgrade them by tomorrow, too. I'd just need you to pump some energy into them, Danny."
"Sure" He agrees, then stands. "Well, cheer practice ends at like 5:30, right? You should probably get home before Paulina invites herself in again."
Star blinks. "Why do you know when cheer ends?"
Sam rolls her eyes. "Please, we need to know when every club meets. We need to. The school is one of the most common targets, so we're constantly there. Gotta know what rooms will be empty."
"Huh, that makes sense." Star braces herself on the bed to help her stand up. Danny hovers by her protectively, obviously holding himself back from helping her.
"Jeez dude, let her breathe for a minute." Tucker teases. "You're on her almost obsessively."
Danny clenches his jaw and flashes a glance at Tucker. "Real funny, Tuck." He sighs. "Maybe I really am getting more ghostly." He mutters.
Star glances between the two of them as she stands to her full height. "I feel like there's something here that I'm not getting."
Danny fidgets a bit under her gaze. "Let's… talk about this later. I have some files with, um... Ghost 101 stuff in it that'll answer a lot of questions you might have." He rubs the back of his neck. "And- I… um."
Jazz steps in. "Almost anything ghostly also pertains to Danny as well." She shoulders Star's backpack. "He is half-ghost, after all."
Star looks at Danny, who smiles sadly at her.
There's a lot more to him than I know, isn't there?
"Sure, if you guys- Danny- is okay with that."
He nods. "The more people that know the basics of ghosts the better. Tuck, if you want to send that stuff over before you get those shields that'd be great." Tucker throws Danny a thumbs up while leaning back in his bean-bag chair.
Danny takes Star's backpack from Jazz, who looks confused at the action.
"Are you taking her back?" she asks.
"Yeah," He shoulders it. "I want you to get Tuck those shields so that we can get everyone protected for tonight." He picks up the other bag containing the Fenton tech.
"Uh, no offense Danny, but I'm not a miracle worker, getting those done tonight is going to be-" Danny leans down to Tucker and whispers in his ear, who's eyes light up. "Done and done, I'll have them finished by 9." He stands, pointing a finger in the air. "Jazz, take me home, I have a date to earn!" Tucker spins around and walks out of Sam's room, a confused Jazz following close behind.
"Wait Tucker, what did he say?!"
Star watches the door slam and looks to Danny, equally confused expression crossing her face. "What did you say?"
Danny hands the other bag to Star and smiles. "Doesn't matter, my parents are in the lab til 8, they aren't getting those shields any time soon." Danny summons his transformation and holds his hand out to Star. "Now hurry, before Jazz tells him!"
Star takes hold of Danny's hand and knits her brows together. "Wait, does this mean that we're-"
Danny turns Star intangible and blasts out the window, turning the end of her sentence into a shrill cry in the night.
Sam opens her window and yells out. "Hey, Danny!"
Danny halts in midair, leaving Star to comprehend that they really are flying holy-
"Don't drop another passenger, okay?" A wicked grin grows on her face.
Danny gives her a thumbs up as Star realizes what's just been said. "I- another?"
And Danny pulls her along into the distance before she can get another word in.
Sam watches the ghost in the sky fly off into the distance fondly, leaning on her window sill and enjoying the cool fall breeze.
Although no matter how much she tries to shake it, Sam can't help but feel the acid taste of jealousy rising in her throat at that very same image.
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
"Ugh, I feel like I just rode every ride at the amusement park back-to-back." Star staggers to her bed and flops onto it, burrowing her head beneath the pillows. Meanwhile, Danny morphs back to his human form and works on setting up the miniature ghost shield.
"Here, if you put it under your bed I can calibrate it to cover your whole room. I'll set a different setting for when you have it in your backpack, and- um… you good?"
Star tosses the pillows off of her head and looks at her phone for a second. She turns to Danny and looks him dead in the eye.
"Tucker told me to tell you that you're an ass."
Danny snickers. "As long as he sent you the files tell him that I'll get him once at the Nasty Burger or something." He tosses the small cube to Star, who catches it.
"He sent me, uh, three folders; 'Ghost info', 'Goodies', and 'Baddies'." She fiddles with the little machine. "So this is the on button, and the dial is the setting?"
Danny nods. "Yeah, go ahead and turn it on. Setting 2 is the personal one, we're going to test it out."
Star presses the button in, feeling the cube vibrate a bit in her hands. A small green light slowly pulses on and off on the top of the shield.
"Okay, now what?" She asks. She looks at Danny and shows him the light.
"Now, it should be a shield that's about 3 feet in radius." He walks up to her with his hand out, clearly meeting some resistance before he can get within arm's length. A faint green hexagonal mesh appears beneath his hand where he presses it. "At this strength even my parents might feel something while they walk through it, so I doubt that Autumn would be able to pass through while she's being overshadowed." He clenches his hand into a fist and reels back back. Danny's eyes glint green for a split second and Star flinches as he punches the shield at full-force. It flashes briefly, but Danny hisses as his hand ricochets off of the forcefield and briefly sizzles, as if he's getting burned.
He shakes out his hand. "Yeah, uh- ow. Nothing's getting through that without some effort… ow, whatthe heck Tucker." It heals almost as fast as it was injured.
Star turns the shield off and picks up the largest of the blasters. "You're not going to ask me to shoot you now, are you?" She points it at him, and he promptly nudges the barrel down with his finger.
He laughs. "Uh, no. I'm pretty confident those work. This, however-" He pulls out the small belt from earlier. "I'd like- wait not the right word- need to test. Don't want to, though." He hands it to Star, and she stands up to clip it around her waist.
"So then I'm assuming I do this-" She presses the button on the belt before Danny notices, and he yelps as an arc of electricity leaps over to him. He jumps away and rubs the arm that got shocked.
"Agh, yes. Press it twice to turn it off. Jeez." He flattens down his hair and crosses his arms. "I've had enough experiences with these for a lifetime, and apparently they don't need to touch you to get shocked anymore." He settles a farther distance away. "basically if a ghost tries to touch you- or you touch it- it sends out a nasty electric pulse. Although, nothing should be touching you if you have the shield too."
Star turns off the belt and takes it off, setting it on the bed. "And these are powered with… ectoplasm?"
"Yeah, they've got little ecto-converters inside each one, which Tucker beefed up. As long as they're just on standby they can last for around a week of nonstop activity, but if they're being stressed for some reason just head over to me and I can charge them back up-" He stops and flattens his hair again. "um… they shouldn't be being stressed, though."
Star runs her fingers across the items lined on her bed. "So do you want me to find you during class or stop by your place once a week?"
Danny shakes his head. "Nah, I'll just head here during patrol, probably just Saturday nights unless something works better for you."
"A weeknight would be better, I'll check my calendar and text you tomorrow some time."
"Sure, sure. And um, hey. I wanted to give you, uh… one last thing." Danny zips up his backpack and swings it over his shoulder, holding out a small packet to Star.
She takes it from him and reads the title. "Halfas?" She thumbs through the packet, which is just page after page of text. There's even a table of contents.
"Yeah. Tucker and Sam are- they're… it's hard to get them to trust people, so I couldn't convince them to send you a digital copy, but- um… I got Jazz to print out a hard copy." He fidgets again, and very noticeably avoids her gaze. "Don't tell them I gave you this. I trust you, and I know that you had a lot of questions about what happened to me and... everything. This should answer those, but you might want to read the Ghost 101 files first. You might be a little confused otherwise."
Star looks at him for a few seconds, and hands the packet back out to him. "Danny, if it makes you uncomfortable I don't need to know anything like this-"
"If you're going to start helping us, you do need to." He interrupts.
Star silences.
"Like I said, it's hard not to read you like a book when I'm literally inside of your head. I know… that you want to help. There's reasons why I trust you, and there's a lot of reasons why I agree you should help us." They make eye contact. "I can always have more close allies, but I'm only okay with it if you know the risks."
Star slowly draws the packet back to her and takes a seat on the bed. She places it in her lap, contemplating.
"And if that doesn't drive the point home, this combined with what I'm about to tell you might." He steps closer to her and taps the packet. His voice deepens. "Once you finish reading this, burn it. Do not make copies, do not put it on any software, nothing. If there's something you feel like you need to know, memorize it. You'll… understand why when you read it."
Star nods without a second thought, coming up with a long list of reasons to justify the validity of that request. Despite being with Danny for the past 24 hours, his voice holds an intimidating quality that creates a spark of fear in Star. "Yeah" she says. "I don't know how much help I can be, but... let me know if you need anything." She grips the packet tighter. "I won't breathe a word of this to anyone."
He steps back and smiles. "I know you won't, you wouldn't have that packet if I even thought it was a possibility." Danny transforms in a flash of light and lifts off of the ground, hovering. "Oh, and make sure Paulina doesn't see any of that ghost tech. If she does and she asks, no, you don't know me, no, she can't get an interview, and, no, you did not get it from Fenton. You're talking your way out of that one." He waves in an extremely childish manner and flashes her a toothy grin.
(She definitely didn't see his sharpened canines.)
"Bye bye~!"
Danny vanishes, leaving nothing but a chill in the air to represent his past presence. Star balks at the empty room.
The way that kid can go from insanely intimidating to immature dork is a power itself. Gives me chills.
Seconds later Star jumps at the sound of her doorbell and quickly scrambles to shove all of the ghost gear Danny gave her under her bed.
"Star, oh Star!" Paulina barges into her bedroom holding a bag of fast food and a tray of drinks. "I convinced coach to end practice early so I can check up on you!" She sets the meals down on Star's desk and removes a light pink drink from its seat, handing it to her. "I also stopped at that vegetarian place we like over past the mall, I got smoothies!"
Star takes a breath and smiles. "Thanks Pauly, I could use something fresh about now." She gratefully receives the drink and takes a long sip out of it, relishing in the cool sweetness after a day full of greasy pizza and soda.
"Gosh, you must've been so bored sitting alone in your house all day." Paulina's eyes flit over to Star, who just laughs nervously at the comment.
"Yeah, I've mostly been sleeping. I ran out briefly, but other than that I've just been... in. Sucks to be cooped up all day." Technically not too far from the truth, but shoot is Paulina suspicious.
"Hm, okay." She pulls a salad of some sort out of the bag. "Just make sure to tell me if you start dating someone, okay?"
Despite the smoothie, Star's mouth suddenly feels like a desert.
"What?"
A/N: Happy New Years everybody! I hope 2019 treats you well!
I'm hoping to get the cover art for this out by tomorrow, so keep an eye out. (It's nothing special really, but people get excited about these types of things. ❛ᴗ❛)
Also, I've written a heafty amount of the Halfa information that Danny gave Star, which explains a lot of how Halfas and ghosts in general work in my universe. The one problem is, I have no idea how to include it in the story. If anyone has any ideas that'd be wonderful!