The last place Dan expected to find himself was the remnants of Troll Market with Griddle at his shoulder, invisibility around him like a cloak and the Fenton Thermos in hand. Over the years he had more or less given up the superhero career, instead taking on more of a neutral Reaper role that had him guiding souls to the Ghost Zone if they died with regrets, preventing them from passing on. The Fenton Thermos which had once been a prison for the worst types of ghosts imaginable, was now a ferry that allowed him to carry these lost souls about until he could find a natural portal gate to deposit them into.
It wasn't always as thrill seeking as being a superhero had been, but he no longer had to explain away mysterious bruises or lie about where he had been (although that may have more to do with the fact that he no longer had parents/siblings to report to). He also wasn't a child who saw the world through only black and white lenses. There was no good versus evil, just people who thought themselves to be the heroes of their own stories. It also explained why his 'enemies' never really attempted (more than once) to attack him as Fenton and not Phantom.
Griddle's stories held no candle to the light that was Troll Market, Dan was coming to find and in the worst way possible. Great glorious geodes of various colours glowing electrically beneath the earth had instead been replaced with dull grey and dead crystals that crumbled beneath your touch or even a bump of your shoulder. Dullness swept across the market save for a few spaces where lights had been hung up to illuminate the way like the gladiatorial ring off to the right and the library deeper inside. From what Griddle had told Dan, there had once been a day where the market had shone so bright you had to squint to see and the Heartstone shone so brilliantly that there was nothing you could do to block it out. But now? Inky black veins crept up the beloved rock, dulling its brilliance and in turn, slowly poisoning that which remained within the market.
Dan watched from the corner of his eyes as Griddle sadly mourned the lives of his friends and family who had outlived him by only so much. He watched as that sorrow shifted to anger and rage at the blackened soldiers—"By Deya's grace! Gumm-Gumms in Trollmarket!"—who littered the cavernous shelves and wandered between the abandoned buildings like mindless zombies and back again. After collecting the latest lost soul, Dan moved gently around the stone body in which it had come from, barely taking not at the odd angle it had crumbled into. It wasn't the most pleasant of jobs but it had to be done and by doing so, Dan felt that he was atoning for all the things he had done as a young superhero, especially when he had first been starting out.
"Young Phantom, or is it Masters now?" Croaked a familiar voice, pulling Dan from his thoughts and away from Griddle who stood seething at a pair of Gumm-Gumms.
"Clockwork?" Dan puzzled, turning to the ancient master of time. "What're you doing topside?"
"I come with an important task for you, boy" Clockwork intoned in a rather grandfatherly tone, hands clasped over the top of his staff which was currently acting like a cane. "It must be completed with the utmost haste"
"Er, sure, what is it?" Dan's eyes trailed over the long beard that hung down below his knees as the elderly ghoul spoke. Despite popular belief, ghosts and ghouls didn't always use Ghoulish, in fact the majority of them used whichever language they had spoken in life. But the guttural language was their mothertongue and so all instinctively knew it upon death, particularly as it was a way to bridge whatever gap there may be between ecto-beings.
"A new soul has joined our brethren—"
"—Yeah, there's been a fair few tonight" Dan used the thermos to gesture at the bodies littered about them.
"—Don't interrupt"
"Sorry"
"As I was saying, a new soul has joined our brethren but Fate has other plans for it. You must find this soul and return it to its body before the cord is severed forever"
"Uh, right now?"
"Do you not understand the word 'haste' boy?"
"No—no, I do, sorry I, er, who—who is it? This new soul?"
"Claire Nuñez" And with that, Clockwork vanished as if he had never been there. Dan rolled his eyes at theatrics. Despite being this all-powerful master of time, Clockwork never dirtied his own hands by directly meddling with the timeline, instead manipulating others to do so. It had been rather frustrating in the beginning, particularly when he didn't know what was going on. Actually, to be honest, it was still rather frustrating now.
But with that command in mind, Dan called out to Griddle who was still staring off into the distance with barely concealed rage & eyes bleeding red and told him what was happening. In turn, he pulled the Booo-merang from his back pocket and programmed it to find the soul in question. Another one of his family's inventions the appropriately named boomerang was something that he had taken before he left more so that his friends and family couldn't track him so easily with it. The whole point in leaving was to keep them safe and he couldn't do that if they were tracking him halfway across the dimensions.
Following after the Booo-merang, Dan eventually found the little soul orb nestled between the branches of an outcropping tree far above the gathered cheering trolls who had somehow survived whatever had happened in the market. If Dan had to hazard a guess, it probably had something to do with the traces of magic crackling around Claire's soul. Princess Dorathea had told him once that that was common for magical folk—witches in particular—stating that magic wound its way through your very being and so it would only make sense to find it interwoven with your soul when you died.
Admittedly, it did take a few tries to yank the soul free from the tree before he could hold it properly in his hands. Dan always liked new souls, they were warm in his cool hands and not yet cold like the freshly deceased bodies they had emerged from. Sometimes you could feel a faint heartbeat inside like it was still alive and they looked like crystal tadpoles that held everything that made you, you. "And here I thought I was the one who was suicidal maniac" He murmured, tracing the intricate engravings decorating the exterior of the orb and watched as the magic danced across his fingers making him feel electrically alive. "I wouldn't recommend doing that again, little one"
"Claire!" Jim gasped, suddenly bolting from where he had collapsed against a kind-faced troll with several extra limbs and eyes. "Claire! Aaarrrggh! Is she—?"
"…" There was no reply from the hulking mossy troll that held her body, although despair was clearly written across his face.
"No—! Claire!" Jim's knees buckled and he collapsed next to the girl with tears streaming down his face like little waterfalls. After pocketing the Booo-merang once more, Dan descended into the mess of giant trolls who easily towered over him and weeping humans as he made his way over to Claire's body.
"Jim—! Jim! Look!" Toby gasped wetly, pointing towards where Dan stood with Claire's soul tucked into his hands. Still cloaked in invisibility, he knew that the sight must've looked like something out of a fairy tale or a horror movie with the little glowing orb floating through the air and back towards the body from whence it came.
"Wha—?" Jim blearily glanced up as what little light illuminated him in a violet glow. "Cl-Claire? Is—is that you?"
Dan barely restrained himself from smacking away the hand reaching out to touch the soul as he lowered it towards her chest. Just barely. Souls were pure things and it didn't take much to corrupt them, no matter how power hungry or humble the person may have been in life. Ice collected at his toes, spreading across the grass as he alighted next to the fallen girl's body. The petty part of him grinned at the sight of frost clambering up armoured toes, across silver legs and over stone fingers. It wasn't enough to hurt anyone, no more than a Winter's kiss really, but it was enough for the juniors to go reeling backwards at the sudden cold spot. It wasn't much, just enough to give him enough breathing room to insert Claire's soul back into her body.
As if watching in slow motion, the soul lowered down from his hands and seeped into her clothes, then flesh and then bones before returning to the hole in which it had first settled. His mint hands were pressed against her chest, awaiting with bated breath and hoping that the cord between soul and body was still intact. A hush had fallen over the crowd by this point and Dan was sure you'd have heard a pin drop like thunder even against the mildewy grass. Thankfully they didn't have to wait long before Claire began to cough and splutter, eyes blearily peeling open and head rolling towards those around her. Dan wasn't sure if she had noticed him or not, but from what he could understand those that did see them upon waking often referred to them as 'guardian angels'.
"Did—did we d-die?" Claire croaked, her voice hoarse as Dan floated upwards just in time for others to take his place. As much as Dan enjoyed the new souls, watching someone awaken from a near-death experience was just as good if not better.
"Almost" Aaarrrggh replied, cradling Claire close enough that she was all but nestled into his fur.
"But a life of 'almost' is a life of never!" Toby laughed hysterically as if in doing so, he'd be able to avoid bawling. Not that that didn't stop the tears gathering in his eyes. "WE MADE IT!"
"Claire!" Jim breathed, pulling the brunette to her feet and into a tight hug where he buried his head into her shoulder. "I thought I lost you…"
"I'm here Jim" Claire returned the hug, clinging to his cyan armour. "I'm alive"
"YEAH! WOOHOO!" Eli cheered from atop the sewer tunnels, going so far as to jump off the top where he would've splattered against the ground if not for Steve's fast reflexes.
"Thanks guys" Jim acquiesced, loosening his hold on Claire just enough so that he could turn and speak to his peers. Relief was replaced by amusement as he watched Steve manhandled Eli like a little brother, hauling him back onto the sewer tunnel but remained gripping tight to the back of his shirt like he was worried he jump off again. "I owe ya"
"Yeah, you owe us, big time" Steve grinned.
"Maybe you can start by answering a few thousand questions?" Eli proposed.
"We'll talk. Later" Jim retorted.
"Yes!" Both Steve & Eli chorused, fist-bumping in delight.
"Our home is gone and Vendel is dead. Who will lead us now?" Sighed a troll that Griddle excitedly referred to as 'Blinky the librarian' who stared out upon the masses of trolls with unbound hopelessness. Jim finally removed himself from Claire (after much prodding from the girl and insistence that she was truly all right) and approached Blinky with a wonky-looking and oddly decorated staff in hand that he could barely hold even with his own two hands. "His staff?"
"Your staff" Jim amended, offering it to him.
"Master Jim—!" Blinky backed off, all four arms in the air and hesitance in his eyes. Looking around though, you could see the respect this troll wielded just by how the others bowed to him without question.
"Don't make it weird" Aaarrrggh commented, pushing Blinky to picky up the staff with his own four hands and cradle it close like a long lost memento of a loved one.
"What now, Blink?" Toby asked as both he and Claire joined Jim at his side, linking their hands with his.
"We survived another day" Blinky replied, thinking aloud as he went "But these forests are not secure. We will wait until midnight and seek out a safe haven. Gunmar will not give up and he'll have an army…"
The next time Dan met up with the Trollhunters gang was several weeks later when he had found Claire passed out in the woods mere meters from one of the many campgrounds around Arcadia. In her hands lay a staff that she was desperately clinging to and from the look of her bruised and battered bare feet, he could only assume she had been sleepwalking (also evident by the rumpled pyjamas she wore). Ever so carefully, Dan had picked her up and carried her back to his van since he had no clue where she lived nor how to explain her current state. Somehow he didn't think that Councilwoman Nuñez would be so understanding no matter his story. Thankfully his futon bed folded out into a double and so they were both able to easily fit inside with enough room for Cujo to wiggle his way under the covers.
Placing her in the bed was another task in of itself and took a few tries to get her in. Honestly he was just surprised he didn't wake her. Not wanting to receive whichever wrath he may face in the morning, Dan took the time to scribble out a message on a sticky note (rereading it a few times to make sure that he hadn't written in Ghoulish) before he stuck it to her forehead and climbed in next to her. Falling asleep with another body beside him (excluding Cujo) felt odd at first, after being alone for so long but Dan soon got used to it and tears gathered in his eyes as he was reminded of the days when he would sleep with Jazz when he had a nightmare or sleepovers with his friends that ended with them lumping together in a dog pile of messy limbs and wayward blankets.
Claire,
Don't freak out! Found you passed out in the woods, think you might've been sleepwalking. You seemed okay—bandaged your feet for ya—but take it easy anyway. Toilets are located in the green building to the right. Payphone is under the lamp, next to the map—you may wanna call someone & let them know where you are. Extra change is in the flower pot.
—Dan
P.S. The green lump on your feet is my dog, Cujo. He'll just lick ya to death.
P.P.S. Watch your step when you get out, there's a bit of a lip.
When Dan next awoke it was to the sound of someone banging rather rudely on his side door in the wee hours of the morning (the sun hadn't even risen yet!). "Hm?" He blinked blearily as he opened the sliding door after scrambling out of bed and around Claire who had curled herself around Cujo much to his delight. He was well aware of the state of his bed hair and mismatching pyjamas, but paid them no mind. Before him stood Jim and Blinky both looking rather concerned as they tried to peer inside Amity.
"Where's Claire?" Jim demanded as Dan's eyes wandered over to the pair just beyond their shoulders who were poking their noses into one of the natural ghost portals he'd discovered in Arcadia. It took far longer than he would care to admit for him to register what they were doing and when he did, he rocketed from the van and ghosted through the pair before him in his haste to reach Toby and Aaarrrggh.
"Hey! Hey!" Dan hissed, ignoring the shocked looks and suppressed shudders from the pair behind him as he did his best not to wake the other campers. "Get away from that!" Toby, it appeared, had a death wish as he curiously stuck his whole hand inside the small green portal much to Dan's chagrin. See, the thing was whilst the dead could move between the Mortal Zone and the Ghost Zone with relative ease, whenever a mortal tried to do so they would die slowly and painfully unless otherwise abated. Sam and Tucker were the only two outliers that Dan knew of to this rule; he suspected that because they were within close proximity the two times his parents' Ghost Portal exploded with him inside, they must've absorbed some residual ectoplasm. Not enough to completely rewrite their DNA, mind you, but just enough so that they didn't die horribly within the Ghost Zone. "Oi! Domzalski! I'm talking to you!"
Yanking the pudgy boy away from the portal, Dan quickly set about inspecting him for any malformations or deformities that were common with idiots whose curiosity often got the better of them concerning the Ghost Portals. Skeletal fingers and toes were the most common sign—a disturbing symptom where your flesh & muscles turned translucent and showed the bone like a real-life x-ray. "Wha—wha ith it?" Toby asked around the fingers in his mouth and upon noticing the grim expression on Dan's face as he manhandled him.
The halfa didn't reply, just gripped the junior by his waist and hauled him back to the van. Despite his lean stature, Dan was able to easily heft Toby up under his arm like a sack of potatoes as he made his way back over to Amity with a disgruntled troll on his heels. Upon popping Amity's trunk, Dan found Jim had clambered inside and was talking in hushed whispers with Claire who had awakened at some point. A smirk played at his lips when he noted how they both jumped at the sudden reveal and deposited Toby on the end of the bed next to them.
Bookended by Aaarrrggh and Blinky, Dan plucked the needed ingredients from the various compartments beneath the bed as he set about cooking up the alchemic potion Frostbite had taught him long ago. "What—what are you doing?" Toby queried as he watched Dan slice up the redwood bark into neat strips before depositing them into the kettle where it sat waiting on the cooktop next to his feet.
"Fixing an idiot who doesn't know when to stop poking a Ghost Portal" Dan replied absently, moving onto the frozen raspberries. "Seriously, why would you keep poking something that'll kill you?"
"K-kill me? Am I gonna die?"
"Not yet" Dan reassured him as he slapped on a pair of elbow length industrial gloves and full face gas mask just so he could pull free a few of the dried blood blossom petals that lay wrapped tight inside a locked, airtight container.
"Is that even safe?" Claire warily eyed Dan's get up as Toby scrambled backwards across the bed and away from the supposedly dangerous substances clenched between tong claws. Dan didn't reply for a moment, instead taking the time to crush up the petals with gritted and pained teeth before adding them to the kettle and shutting the lid. "Well? Is it?"
"It's fine, completely safe for mortals" Dan eventually replied, wincing slightly as he pulled off all of the safety accoutrement from his self and tucked them away in their various places. "I just can't touch it. Actually, I hear they taste like sherbet"
"…I—I—you were there" Claire stammered, stumbling over her words in an effort to get them out over the deafening silence. Clearly she'd had something on her mind for a while—possibly whatever she and Jim had been discussing when they had returned.
"Hm?" Dan hummed, jerking an eyebrow in question.
"With Gunmar. You put me back—I died and you put me—my soul back into my body!"
"You remember that? Odd, most people don't"
"Ghost? Souls? Mortal?" Blinky blinked, brows furrowed at the wording the halfa had used. "Wait—! Don't tell me! You're not…?"
"Er, it's complicated" Dan brushed off with a shrug as he spared a glance over his shoulder at the six-eyed troll before turning back to the whistling kettle. "Here, drink this" He handed Toby a cup of steaming liquid, hissing slightly in pain when some of it escaped from the cup and landed on his hand.
"What is it?" Toby warily accepted the cup.
"Medicine. Drink"
"You still haven't answered any of our questions!" Jim huffed indignantly, a protective hand clasped tightly with Claire's as Toby sipped from the cup. "And what about earlier? What about those powers?"
"What, indeed" Dan hummed, completely refusing to answer the question properly as he tided up. Jim's expression grew frustrated at the lack of an answer, veins bulging & face growing red. Not that Dan gave in at that, because how were he supposed to explain to a 16 year old that he was actually much older than he appeared? How was he supposed to explain that he was a half-dead emperor who'd runaway ten years previous and was still being hunted by the Ghost Isolation & Elimination Ward (aka the Guys in White) all because he held ectoplasm in his system? Was he supposed to tell them that all those fancy powers were the result of more than incident with an unstable Lazarus Pit? When it was put into laymens terms like that, Dan knew just how well it would go over. Not.
Later that day found Dan meandering across the school courtyard on the way to his next class when he spotted Douxie Casper—another senior from their rival school Arcadia Oaks Academy—standing in the middle of the courtyard and surrounded by a gaggle of swooning girls. The story behind their meeting was an odd one; one that involved the mage entrapping him inside a barrier in the hopes to either perform and exorcism for repel him from the mortal plane. None of which had resulted in success, only in Cujo deciding to swallow both mage and familiar before he was told to spit them out.
"…C-Bomb, was it?" Douxie smoothly handed back the books Claire had dropped when she had woven her way through the small crowd. "Consider me blown away, because you are nuclear"
"So, uh…" Jim hastily joined Claire at her side as she chuckled softly at the compliment and blushed brightly at the attention. "What brings you to our humble school? And what'll it take to send you back?"
"The Battle of the Bands is coming up" Douxie replied pulling out a flyer for the event which he hand to Claire, mischief swimming in his eyes at Jim's blatant jealousy. "Ash Dispersal Pattern, that's my band, will be crushing it. But we're encouraging others to give it a shot"
"Didn't you open up for Papa Skull at the Boxtop?" Claire gasped. "You were sick!"
"Well, it looks like I'm not the only one" Douxie chuckled as Claire ended with a sneeze.
"Claire!" Darcy appeared at her right, sliding in and pushing jealous little Jim out of the picture. "We should enter!"
"We could be a cover band!" Mary added, coming in from the left. "Call ourselves…Oh! Oh! Mama Skull!"
"I don't know" Jim suddenly burst through and snatched the flyer from Claire's hand before slamming it back against Douxie's chest in irritation. He may as well have been drawn a line between the two with the way he was marking his territory. "Y'know, really? Mama Skull? I don't know, I don't know. I mean, it's the end of the school year and we're already pretty booked up with all those after school activities"
"Actually" Claire vindictively snatched the flyer back from Jim. "A friend of mine told me, I need more balance"
"Count us in!" Mary cheered.
"Ka-boom!" Darcy cried, throwing her arms wide.
"Shotgun on vocals!"
"I look forward to seeing you again, fair Lady Claire" Douxie farewelled before sauntering off.
"12th Century wizard, my ass!" Dan muttered under his breath with a roll of his eyes, before moving on with the warning bell playing in his ears.
