Hello there, this is a continuation of chapter 13 of my Ectober Shorts. I guess the idea snuck back up on me? This is a take (admittedly a somewhat esoteric one) on the portal!Danny AU. Also an excuse to invent more crazy college friends for Jack and Maddie.
Tell me what you think. Would anyone be interested in a continuation?
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Despite the Fentons' best efforts, the death of Vladimir Masters was a media circus. It wasn't exactly surprising. He was rich and famous, and he had been murdered in what looked like a satanic ritual by a college friend, who had gone on to try to murder the son of two other college friends before dropping dead herself. It was a story made for the tabloids, except that it was true and, therefore, fair game for 'respectable' publications as well.
Danny wasn't sure he wanted to go, even now, standing in front of a mirror with a suit on. He supposed he owed it to Vlad to go, in some way, even if Vlad wouldn't, couldn't know that he had gone. Considering what Gula-as-Serena-Goodrich had done to Vlad, if there was anything left of his soul or mind, it would be trapped in the Unworld, wandering and broken. If. Somehow, Danny doubted that there was anything left.
He dearly hoped that there was nothing left. An eternity in the Red Country was not something he would wish on even the very worst version of Vlad. He wouldn't wish it on Dan. The thought of unbeing, of falling into a nothing after death, was a hideous one, but the bare glimpse he had seen down Gula's gullet exceeded it.
But Vlad had been the only person like him. The only person who knew what it was like. It felt right, to mourn his passing. Funerals were for the living as much as the dead.
(Never mind that Danny was both and neither.)
He sighed, and pulled at his tie. It laid at an angle just large enough to be noticeable. Maybe he could ask Jazz, or Mom, for help. Or Dad. But he highly doubted Dad could tie a tie at all.
He left the bathroom and made his way downstairs, into the living room. He paused a moment, staring into the kitchen. It had been cleaned a dozen times since Danny had fought Gula there, with mundane means, technological ones, and spiritual ones. Still, something seemed to linger there. Whether that something was real or imagined, Danny couldn't say.
Jazz did agree that what had happened to him was pretty traumatic.
With some frustration, Danny pushed the thought away. This was his house, his haunt. Whatever it was would go away eventually, because he would make it go away. He pointedly walked through the very spot Gula had caught him, calling on a sense of victory he hadn't felt in the moment of Gula's defeat.
He frowned at the cabinets. He couldn't eat anything, not now. He'd spill something on his suit.
Upstairs, he could hear the rest of his family still getting ready. The clock on the stove claimed that Danny was ready a full twenty minutes before their 'optimistic departure time,' thirty minutes before their 'realistic' time, and forty before their 'desperate' time.
He descended into the lab. The portal, his portal, swirled on the other side. He walked to it, slowly, feeling himself calm as he approached.
Even now, he didn't fully understand his connection to it. It was a part of him, yes. He was a hole in the world, yes. He was a bridge, yes. A door, yes. The portal was his, and it was him, but... He knew, deeply, that he was all those other things even without the portal here, in the basement.
Here, in the basement.
... There was something to that, but he wasn't sure what.
He raised his hand to touch the surface of the portal. The portal, it was an extension of him, but he was the real doorway.
"Danny, are you down here?"
Danny turned away from the portal, and the inklings he had gathered up drained away through the fingers of his mind, falling back towards the core of his being, as they always did.
"Yes?" he called, even as Mom climbed down the stairs.
She was wearing a dress, and there were dark circles under her eyes. The light of the portal danced across them eerily. She paused, halfway across the room, her eyes fixed over Danny's shoulder.
"We're almost ready to go," she said.
"Okay," said Danny. He tipped his head to one side, questioning. She hadn't needed to come all the way down here, to tell him that.
"Is it really you?" she asked, her eyes still on the portal.
Danny looked over his shoulder, and made a face. "Yeah. It is. It's... I don't know how to explain it." He shrugs. "I mean, I can't even explain it to myself."
He gave her a half-smile when he looked back, but she just looked haunted.
After a long, quiet moment, she seemed to catch herself. "We should go," she said, giving a little nod before turning away.
Danny sucked his lips against his teeth, but followed. It hadn't been long. Mom and Dad were still adjusting. He was still adjusting.
He followed Mom upstairs.
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The funeral was... Interesting. Vlad had been something of a recluse, for a billionaire, but he had still known many, many people. Famous people. Celebrities. Important people. Wealthy people. Politicians. Some of them acted shockingly carefree. Others were incredibly dramatic.
Danny felt himself bristling. None of these people had known Vlad. Not really.
He imagined that Vlad would laugh at his thoughts and say that Danny was being a child and that, of course, Vlad had a life outside of Danny and the Fentons.
But it would have been a lie.
Danny pulled at the hem of his suit jacket and looked around with feigned interest. He had been in Vlad's Amity Park mansion more times than he would like to admit, and the executor hadn't been able to find anywhere else suitably opulent in town for the viewing and reception. Vlad's body lay in state in his own home. Where he had been murdered. By a monster that was half metaphor and likely had more in common with him than any human.
Danny stomped down on that thought. Hard.
(Because if that was true about Vlad, it was true about Danny.)
This was all wrong. It all felt wrong. This didn't feel like Vlad's house. All of the furniture had been moved around, the horrifically tasteless Packers memorabilia had been removed, the music was the wrong kind, there were too many people, and-
-and Danny couldn't feel Vlad's portal humming under his feet.
He had always wondered how Vlad had brought it here from Wisconsin. He'd never gotten the chance to ask. No. He'd rejected the chance to ask. For good reason, yes, but he had always hoped...
It didn't matter, now.
"Danny," whispered Jazz, leaning close, "are you okay?"
Danny blinked rapidly. The tears in his eyes retreated to their proper places. He was not going to cry over a man who beat him up once a week.
"I'm fine."
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There wasn't much of a line to view Vlad's body. Danny stood at the back of it and averted his eyes as a semi-famous actress bawled her eyes out over the casket. There were memorial photos everywhere, surrounded by bright wreaths of flowers. Marigolds, lilies, roses, mums... So much death. He was half surprised no one had laid out blood blossoms.
He reached out and touched a lily, the soft white petal flexing under his fingertips, the anther shedding pollen on the ground. Everything was so clear and bright, yet, at the same time, hazy. Like Danny's reality had been upended once again. He let his hand fall back to his side.
The line inched forward.
Because this was Vlad, the viewing area was marked off with velvet ropes, and only one person was allowed to approach at a time. There was a security guard in a black suit standing at the ready, to make sure people followed the rules.
Dad went up first, looming over the casket, ignoring the kneeler. He fidgeted, adjusting his tie, then the hem of his suit jacket. He didn't speak, opening and closing his mouth, but seeming to think better of his words each time. Anger and regret flashed over his face in equal measure. Finally, after what seemed like a prolonged internal struggle, he bent close.
"I'll miss you, old friend."
Mom went up next. She hadn't been very close to Vlad. Not at the end. Not after his heavy-handed attempts to seduce her. Danny thought she might understand more, now, might understand why Vlad had changed.
Maybe that's why she glanced back at him, uneasy.
Danny let himself sag in disappointment. Maybe it was selfish in this setting, but he didn't want to be feared. Not by his family.
She didn't stay with Vlad for long.
Jazz looked back at Danny, questioning. He shook his head, motioning for her to go first.
Mom stood off to the side, waiting. She didn't look at Danny.
Either Jazz didn't have much to say, or the blood rushing through his ears drowned her out. That left Danny.
He walked up slowly, his footfalls loud against Vlad's hardwood floors. At first, he couldn't bring himself to look in the casket, to look at what remained of Vlad. Instead, he traced patterns in the casket's dark red wood. It looked expensive. So did the flower arrangements and the casket's soft silk lining.
With great trepidation, he let his eyes fall on Vlad.
He closed them almost immediately. It was wrong. It was wrong, to see him like this, without a world under his skin, without life, soul, or meaning. It wasn't Vlad anymore.
He turned away.
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After the internment, Danny was aware he was eating too much at the refreshments table. More than was socially acceptable, anyway. He kept getting glares from people he vaguely recognized.
It wasn't his fault. Some people ate when they were upset. Jazz said so. Besides, being half-ghost took up a lot of energy.
He shoved another cookie into his mouth and tried to focus on the way the chocolate chips melted on his tongue.
"Danny," said Mom.
He jumped. Somehow, he had lost track of his family in his contemplation.
"The executor wants to speak with us."
"Me too?" asked Danny, blinking, and surreptitiously shaking crumbs off of his hands.
"Yes, you too. Apparently Vlad wanted you to hear his will read."
"Oh," said Danny, the inside of his mouth drying out.
Did Vlad leave him something? No. That was impossible. Vlad hated him. He was shocked that Vlad even had a will, let alone that it mentioned him.
He followed Mom slowly, snagging a cracker from the end of the table. A few other people were making their way in the same direction, toward the door leading to Vlad's more 'public' office, although some were being turned away by the burly men outside. They let Danny and Mom through with sharp nods.
The executor, a broad-shouldered businessman, sat at Vlad's desk, papers arranged neatly before him, hands folded. There were few people here, and only two open seats, right at the front. With some amusement, he noted that they were labeled. Leave it to Vlad to find a way to keep Mom and Dad from sitting next to each other at his funeral...
"Well," said the executor, as Danny and Mom sat down, "now that we are all here," he gave Danny a look, but then turned it to a group in the corner, "we can begin."
Danny turned to look over his shoulder. There was an older couple, and a middle-aged woman. All of them were frowning.
They looked, Danny thought, a little like Vlad. Actually, a lot of the people here looked like Vlad. Were they relatives? If so, Danny had never heard Vlad mention them.
He inadvertently caught a man's eye, and flinched away from the violent glare. Everyone grieved differently, and Danny had been holding things up, apparently, but that was a bit much, wasn't it? Danny hadn't done anything to them.
The executor tore open the sealed envelope in front of him and worked his way through a generic sounding preamble, and then got to the body of the will. It was here that Vlad's voice came through. Mostly because it was so mean.
"... To my Uncle Jeffrey Price, I leave my shares in Lake Lauren Soap Supplies. I would, however, advise him to sell the shares for the purposes of buying actual soap, something which he does infrequently. To my cousin Liliya, I leave my Edition 8 Black Band Karter K watch. Perhaps then she will finally be on time..."
The atmosphere in the room got heavier and angrier as the list went on. A couple of times Danny had to bite on his knuckles to keep from laughing or crying. It was just so Vlad to lure a bunch of people he hated into a room with promises of wealth only to insult them one last time. His and his family's presence made more sense, in that context. Vlad would probably leave him a fancy chessboard and a snide comment about how he'd never use it because he was too stupid.
Which was just fine with Danny. He'd use that chessboard every day and feel like he was still getting one up on Vlad.
"To my father, I leave five dollars and my Mercedes Benz, license plate 223 RBC. Put together, you should be able to pick up that gallon of milk you left for all those years ago."
The man in the corner stood up, and left the room, slamming the door behind him.
"To my mother, I give ten thousand dollars." There was no explanation, but for some reason this had the woman running out, too.
"To my sister, Larisa, I give my cabin in Maine, details following, and five-hundred thousand dollars to be managed by a trust set up for this purpose, details following." The woman raised her hand to cover her mouth, and nodded.
The list moved into names Danny didn't recognize and small things. A book here and there. An endowment for a university. The gifting of a piece of art. All of it seemed somehow more genuine than what had come before, except for his sister's gift. Sometimes, his parents would tense, but no one else in the room reacted. Danny came to the conclusion that these people simply weren't here.
It made him sad, on Vlad's behalf.
"To Serena Goodrich... ah..." For the first time, the executor stumbled. He glanced around the room, licked his lips and swallowed. "To Serena Goodrich, I give the crystal collection I keep in the cabinet in my blue sitting room. I know you were always jealous of it."
Danny shook his head, trying to rid himself of the buzzing sensation that had overtaken him. It seemed like he was not the only one unsettled by the inclusion of the name.
"To my dear friends, Jack and Madeline Fenton, I leave all my ghost-related patents, details to follow, my blueprints, my partial work, and my other scientific equipment, details to follow, and a sum of five hundred thousand dollars to support their research, to be held in trust, details to follow."
Interesting, but Danny could see the logic behind it. If this bequest had been made before his parents knew about him, it could have ensured him no end of grief.
He rubbed his hands on the sides of his pants. Surely, they had to be getting towards the end, but Danny knew Vlad had far more wealth, not to mention all his companies, that hadn't even been mentioned. Perhaps Vlad had left it to charity to spite his relatives? That would fit with everything else in the will so far.
"To my goddaughter, Jasmine Fenton, I leave my collection of rare books, a list of which is included later in this document. I believe that you will be a better caretaker than your brother."
Danny exchanged a look with his sister. He didn't particularly care for the sound of that, and not just because of the insult. It sort of sounded like he had considered giving Danny the books, but had decided against it.
"Jasmine will also receive the Master's Scholarship, which will pay her way through any college she wishes to attend."
The executor took a deep breath and sipped from a glass of water.
"Finally," he continued, and everyone except Danny leaned forward, anticipatory. Danny, on the other hand, leaned back. "Finally, in my business concerns, fortune, properties, and all other possessions, concerns, and obligations, here and elsewhere, not previously mentioned in this document, I name my godson, Daniel Fenton, my heir. Details to follow."
.
Getting home was a blur. So was everything else.
Here and elsewhere.
Ancients, if Vlad had somehow managed to drag him into some ghostly debt or vendetta with that line... Well, there wasn't really anything he could do about it if he did. Danny would just have to sort it out, as per usual.
His hands flexed around the envelope the executor had given him. Some kind of final words from Vlad. He didn't want to look.
When had he gotten into the kitchen?
"What?" he said out loud, looking between the concerned faces of his family.
"Are you okay, Danny?" asked Mom, pushing a steaming mug into his hands.
Had they been home long enough to make tea? Wow.
"I'm just a little out of it, I guess," said Danny. "I really wasn't expecting that." He let his inner ice rise to his hands, cooling the tea enough to drink comfortably. "I really wasn't expecting that. I just..." He pointedly did not look at the letter. "It's a lot. I won't have to worry about money, though?" He offered. "At least, not until I have to deal with... all that."
He was ridiculously, profoundly grateful that Vlad had stipulated that all of Danny's inheritance would go into a trust until he was twenty-five. He simply had no idea where to even begin.
"I don't understand," he said, looking at his tea. "We hated each other."
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Danny opened the letter later that night. It wasn't in English. The symbols and glyphs swam and burned in front of his eyes and left his tongue tasting of pepper. They weren't translatable, but they left their meaning inscribed on the surface of his mind.
He collapsed back onto the bed, a trickle of blood running from his nose.
Couldn't Vlad have come up with a less dramatic way of getting his thoughts across? Maybe? For once?
Danny rubbed his eyes.
'His heir in all things, in this world and the next,' huh?
Danny just wished Vlad could have gotten over himself while he was still alive.
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"Danny, Jazz," said Jack, the next day. "We, your mother and I, have been thinking. But we want you two to be on board, too."
"Okay," said Jazz, looking up from her book and shifting into a sitting position on her bed. "What's going on?"
Danny, in turn, looked up from the homework Jazz was helping him with. His parents looked odd, wedged into the doorway like that. "Maybe we should go downstairs," he said, "if this is important."
It was. So they did.
They had been using the formal dining room more often, ever since the more-intense-than-usual supernatural battle in the kitchen. It felt weird, none of the chairs matched, and the room was more than a bit dusty, but Mom and Dad hadn't been bringing ectoweapons into the dining room to tinker with them, so it had that going for it.
"So," said Jazz, awkwardly and heroically taking the lead. "What's up."
"Well," said Mom. "You remember that Jack, Vlad, S-Serena, and I were all in the Paranormal Research Club together in college?"
Danny wrinkled his nose, and decided to latch onto the least disturbing detail of that sentence. "I thought it was the Ghost Research Club?"
"That was what the three of us, that is, Vlad, Jack, and I, called ourselves, sometimes," said Mom. "But the actual organization was the Paranormal Research Club, and it was... somewhat more extensive."
"Vladdy put a lot of them in his will," said Dad. He frowned, a deep furrow appearing between his eyebrows. "Hardly any of them came."
"Oh," said Danny. He didn't see where this was going, but the look on Jazz's face said that she might.
"The thing is," said Mom, "we shared our research from back then with the club. The whole club. That was the point. Considering what happened to Vlad and Serena..."
"You're not suggesting we go check them, are you?" asked Jazz.
"You have to admit," said Dad. "Even I have to admit," he sighed, "we are responsible."
"No," said Jazz, forcefully. "Do you have any idea what kind of trouble you could get into? You could die! Even if you didn't, even if you defeated everyone who got into that kind of trouble, what would you do with them? Kill them? People would put together the trail of bodies."
"We were hoping it wouldn't come to that," said Mom, wincing. "Hopefully, Serena and Vlad were flukes-"
"And Danny, too?" asked Jazz, crossing her arms.
"-and we won't have to do anything. But we have to check. Danny, what do you think?"
"I don't-" started Danny, then he reconsidered, biting his lower lip. "Part of the reason," he said slowly, "that I was able to defeat Gula, was because I was on home ground. You didn't even notice anything was off about her at first. I didn't notice at first. Not with her or Vlad." He paused. "You could invite them here, but how would you be able to tell? What if they're just like me? What then?" He understood where they were coming from, but the idea of his parents facing something like Gula alone made him sick to his stomach.
"We've put some things together," said Mom. "Our close range scanners did detect you and Vlad, after all. We just thought that was an error."
"I don't know if they'd pick up something like Gula, though. Gula was... fundamentally different," said Danny, doubtfully. "Gula wasn't a ghost."
"Danny," hissed Jazz, "you can't be thinking of going along with this. Look what happened to Vlad."
"I don't know," said Danny, sinking down into his seat and picking at the edge of the table. "I don't like the idea of something like Gula running around and eating people, and it would be nice to find someone who, you know, isn't crazy, I just..." He sighed.
"We've put together some prototypes," said Dad. "For finding and fighting... Whatever was in Serena. We just don't know if they'll work or not."
"And until then..." continued Mom, before trailing off.
"Until then, you want Danny to fight," said Jazz, crossing her arms.
"Not necessarily!" protested Mom. "Just to be on the lookout. To be... aware."
Jazz regarded Mom suspiciously. "You've already invited some of them over, haven't you? The ones who came for the funeral."
Dad winced. "I hadn't really thought it through," he said. "I got excited to see them, and it just... came out? We hadn't quite realized the possibility that there might be others like- like Serena. Not until the will, and all those names..."
Danny closed his eyes. He couldn't even be mad. "It's probably fine," he said. "I didn't feel anything at the funeral. They're probably all normal."
"Danny, you said, less than a minute ago, that you couldn't sense Serena, or whatever it was."
"How many of them?" asked Danny, choosing to ignore the fact that Jazz was right. "And if I'd been looking, I would have noticed."
"Two," said Maddie. "Only two. Brianna and George. And their son," she added. "Mitchell. He's a little older than Jazz. He wasn't at the funeral, but I know he came with them."
"Great," said Danny. He already dislike Mitchell. "When are they coming?"
"Tonight."
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To be perfectly honest, this wasn't much different in feeling than meals shared with Vlad. College friends of his parents, questionable moral character, intense social discomfort, potential involvement of supernatural entities... It had the works.
At least, that's what Danny kept telling himself as he set the table. He was more nervous than he'd let on to his parents. Yes, he was confident he could hold his own against just about anything on home ground, but that was anything. Singular.
Numbers would be a problem.
If more than one of them was a door to the Unworld, he doubted he'd be able to handle it. That possibility didn't seem likely to him, but then the whole thing with Gula hadn't seemed likely to him, before it happened.
"What did Brianna and George do?" asked Danny, placing a fork with nervous precision. "In your club, I mean."
Mom sighed, her voice echoing in the kitchen. "Well, if I recall correctly, George was always playing around with radio equipment. EMF meters, spirit boxes, that kind of thing. Of course, we disproved most of what he was basing his work on years ago. I don't know if he's still working on that. Brianna... She liked to think she was 'sensitive.' You know that movie, the 6th Sense? Like that."
"Oh. Was she?"
"I don't know," admitted Mom. "I think they got normal jobs, later, but that doesn't mean that they didn't keep things up, quietly, like Vlad did. They did chase after all sorts of ridiculous urban legends, though."
"Like what?" asked Danny. "Just, you know, trying to get an idea of what to expect." If Mom thought they were ridiculous, he had to hear them.
"Ah, the only one I remember right now is something about a demon guarding a bridge." She shook her head. "Demons don't even exist."
"Yes, they do," said Danny, frowning, because, honestly, that was where she drew the line?
The doorbell rang. Well. Shrieked. The doorbell shrieked as the maybe-not-entirely-human guests he might have to fight in a few minutes begged entry, because Ancients forbid that anything be normal in this house. Even the cutlery was ghost shaped.
Ah. No. While he was perfectly justified in resenting how his parents' choices affected him, he really didn't have any room to talk when it came to normality, and he wouldn't want it any other way. Besides, most days, he liked the doorbell. He thought it was funny.
But most days the people ringing it weren't so much of a threat. Potential threat, he reminded himself, taking a deep breath. He checked the ectoweapons tapped to the bottom of the table before going to answer the door. They had, after arguments, agreed that it would be safer for him than than the rest of his family.
"Hello," said Danny. "You must be the Keens." His eyes flicked over them, up and down. They looked normal. Incredibly normal. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Inoffensive clothing. Average faces.
They were smiling. Widely. All three of them.
Suspicious.
He reached out to them with his ghostly senses as they offered him route greetings, letting the information slowly filter through his ghost half. Sometimes the direct signals were a little too much for his human brain, and that's what was in charge right now.
Not really able to pay attention to anything but that, Danny smiled vaguely, and stood aside to let them in.
They didn't make a move to enter.
Brianna said something, and he let up on his focus enough to say, "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that?"
"Aren't you going to invite us in?" she asked, again, annoyance edging her words.
Danny stared at the large, open space between him and the other side of the door, then turned his gaze back to the family of three. He tilted his head.
"What are you, vampires?" he asked. Rudeness would be forgiven, he was sure, even if they were human. He'd just gone through a traumatic experience, and a close family friend was dead.
Another quick scowl passed over Brianna's face, but it was covered quickly by a blinding smile. She made her way up the steps, followed by her husband and son. They each flinched as they crossed the threshold.
Danny smiled bitterly at their backs. None of them were holes in reality, but they weren't all human, either.
His eyelids dropped as he watched them. Alright. He could work with this. He hadn't encountered very many genuine possessions, most ghosts found them to be offensive, but there had been a few.
He wasn't sure if he should be bothered that yet another one of his parents' college friends has something weird going on, or if he should be relieved that it's something relatively simple.
But only relatively. Overshadowing would have been ridiculously easy to solve, even if it was long-term. All he'd have to do was grab the offender and pull them out. Mind control was harder, but once the means, be it a crystal ball, rock music, or a chlorophyll-laden runner, was removed, so was the mind control.
Possession was... harder. Harder to detect, and harder to combat. Crueler, as well. Assuming, of course, that the participants weren't willing, which opened up a whole new range of possibilities.
At least he had a hint. The possessor could cross a threshold uninvited, but didn't like it. Admittedly, that could be simple personal preference, leftover from a life where hospitality held more sway, or a game it played, but Danny didn't think so.
He watched their backs as they interacted with Mom and Dad, watched them move. There was something about it that struck him as wrong.
George raised his hand, and Danny saw it, the twitch of Brianna's and Mitchell's. One entity possessing three people, then. That made things both easier and harder. Easier, because he only had to get rid of one thing, harder, because it had three different people to hide in and manipulate.
What he needed was bread. Maybe a bit of salt.
.
By this point, Danny was pretty sure the culprit was a ghost. A very old, very strange ghost, but still a ghost. Possibly one of the ones that served as inspiration for 'faeries,' once upon a time. There were a lot of those, actually. That's why stories about faeries were so convoluted and contradictory.
He had it on good authority that Tam Lin was a true story.
Despite the ghost's probable age, they had adapted well to modern life. They avoided bread by claiming they were on a carb-free diet. They conversed readily about technology. If he hadn't been actively looking, he would never have guessed that they were possessed.
That was a scary thought.
Danny wasn't anywhere near figuring out how to get rid of the ghost, however. Even snatched conversations with his parents didn't yield any ideas. They had a couple inventions that could deal with overshadowing, but they had never encountered a true possession before. They had thought that recorded possessions were just overshadowing with a different name. Danny tried to explain the difference, but while it was instantly apparent from a ghostly perspective, it was impossible to make it so in a minute's worth of whispering to a human, so he dropped it.
They had made one thing that could combat possession. The Ghost Catcher. However, Danny had... destroyed it. With prejudice. It had seemed like a good idea at the time.
But, honestly, he shouldn't have done that. He had rescued Tucker from a possession with the Ghost Catcher, after all. In other news, Danny could be a bit of an idiot, sometimes, even if he was also an inter-dimensional horror.
Although, that was how he became an inter-dimensional horror, so.
Anyway.
That's why Danny was in his room, googling faeries. He hadn't tried bells, yet. Maybe that would work? Or did they have to be blessed?
Did he even have any bells in the house?
Danny could just ask the ghost what they were here for. They had to have a reason. They wouldn't expose themselves to ghost hunters for no reason, right?
He felt along his connection to his haunt, watching the Keens. They just... hadn't done anything, yet. Nothing that would indicate what they were interested in. No hostile moves.
Wait. One of them had broken away. Oh. Of course. Danny rolled his eyes and stepped into the hallway.
Brianna Keen walked up the stairs. Danny could see Dad's shadow behind her. The people who thought of Dad as nothing more than a loud buffoon (aka Vlad) would be shocked to see this. Dad could be quiet, when he really needed to be.
"Can I help you?" asked Danny. Hospitality had not been observed by them or him, but everything had been civil enough so far.
Except for, well, the possession. That was pretty bad.
"You have your humans well-trained, child."
Oh, this was going to be one of those conversations, wasn't it? He raised an eyebrow, daring them to continue.
"Excuse me? Trained?"
"And you've established yourself quite nicely, here." The ghost was coming forward, now, showing more in Brianna's gestures and the flashes of the backs of her eyes. "It's cute. But, a place like this, it's dangerous, isn't it?"
"How so?"
"For a ghost like you, possessing a hunter's son? Must I spell it out?"
Danny blinked, and tilted his head. They had no idea what he was. Interesting. This could be... fun. Danny rarely indulged it, but he did have a slight, ghostly, predisposition to mischief and frightening people.
"Do you suggest a solution?" asked Danny, curious. His eyes flicked briefly to Dad's shadow. He hoped this wouldn't give Dad doubts. It was just a few days ago the Gula had convinced him and Mom that he was possessed.
"Come with me," said the ghost. "If you prefer this age, you can have the boy. If not, then the man."
"What do you get out of it?"
The ghost inside Brianna examined her fingernails. "It would be useful, to gain an ally. I suspect we each have skills the other lacks."
"Are you lonely?" asked Danny. If that was the case, perhaps they could be convinced to leave via the portal.
The ghost made a clicking sound. "Hardly. There are plenty of humans around. Some are even interesting. No."
"Then what?" asked Danny.
"I only wish to provide a safe place for another of my kind. Is that too much to believe? Have humans corrupted you so?"
"It is hard to believe. How long have you been possessing these people, anyway?"
"Oh, ever since this rude woman disturbed me from my rest. She has some small psychic ability. Nothing impressive." The ghost shook Brianna's head. "She didn't observe even the barest of courtesies."
"Like how you wouldn't break bread with us."
"Or like how you did not invite me in," countered the ghost. "Still, I cannot blame you for that. It would be foolish to so easily give up an advantage over a potential enemy."
This wasn't how Danny had envisioned this confrontation going at all.
"Possessing her and her family is a little extreme, though, isn't it?"
"Perhaps by the standards humans embrace today, but I am well justified. I did not enter into their home. They entered into mine. What did the Fenton boy do to you, that you have taken him?"
Ah. Now, that had gone too far, and this wasn't getting anywhere. Danny crossed his arms, trying to hide his unease.
"I think," said Danny, tapping into his powers just slightly, in a way he was fairly certain a ghost possessing a human couldn't, "that you've misunderstood something important, here."
At first the ghost scowled, but then their eyes went wide. "Liminal... You, a doorway? No." They started to back away. "I would have felt it! I felt Superbia!"
"Would you have? Trying to keep three people together?" Danny was just throwing out random guesses. He was, however, rather disturbed by how quickly the ghost had grasped what he was. Most never did. He'd just been trying to show that he wasn't possessing himself, just trying to show that his powers weren't hampered by his flesh.
Also, who or what was Superbia? Another door?
The ghost waved a hand. "I apologize for my misapprehension. But, you can see, all this time, I have meant you no harm."
"No," said Danny. "But, even though I don't know the Keens, they are my parents' friends."
The ghost fell silent. Danny could vaguely feel them reaching out, searching, pushing through the veils and strands of power that connected him to his haunt. They reached the lab and immediately withdrew, as if burned.
"You can't push me out," said the ghost. "You don't know how."
"Maybe not," said Danny. "But Mom and Dad can probably figure out how, if they have enough time. I just have to keep you from going anywhere."
At some point during the conversation, Dad had crept closer. Danny could now see the top of his head.
"I see," said the ghost. "Well. And my alternative?"
"Just let them go. If you don't hurt anyone else, I won't come after you."
"I've hardly hurt her. I've given her just what she asked for."
"You know what I mean," said Danny.
"I suppose I do. Very well."
.
"That was anticlimactic."
"Don't complain," said Danny, throwing a pillow at his sister. She stuck her tongue out at him. "I might have lost a fight. They were old, and they used rules I didn't know."
"Will they remember?" asked Mom.
They were in the living room, the Keens draped, unconscious, over the furniture. They hadn't stirred since the ghost had left them.
"It depends," said Danny, shrugging. "Tucker remembered, when he was possessed. But he wasn't possessed for very long, and it was a different type of possession."
"Tucker was possessed?" asked Mom, surprised. "When?"
"A while ago. But Mr. Salash didn't. And Karen remembered everything that happened while she was possessed, but didn't remember the possession part, or any of the ghostly stuff. She thought she just made a bunch of weird decisions, or something."
"Who's Karen?" asked Dad. "A friend of yours?" He grinned in a way that turned the word 'friend' into 'girlfriend.'
"No, gross. She's the children's librarian at the library. She's, like, a decade older than me."
"And Mr. Salash?" asked Jazz.
"Seriously, guys? He owns the little grocery store across the street from the downtown Nasty Burger. Do you not know anyone who lives here?"
"We hardly ever go to that grocery store," pointed out Jazz.
"Do you know why some of them remembered, and some of them didn't?" asked Mom.
"No idea. I guess it could be that there are different kinds of possession, but I don't really know anything about that. I try not to even overshadow people."
The look Mom gave him indicated that she still didn't understand the difference between overshadowing and possession, despite his much longer explanation. He sighed.
"I hope they do remember, though," he said.
"Why?" asked Jazz.
"Because of something the ghost said to me. Have either of you ever heard of Superbia?"
"The sin?" asked Jazz. "Like, pride?"
"I think it might be a door."
