A/N: Hello readers! We are on time for this chapter. Yay for no delays at all! I'm excited to bring you the aftermath of Danny being a jerk in the last two chapters. There aren't any other announcements before the chapter starts. See you on the bottom!
Chapter Summary:
Danny gets a visit with a new potential friend and tries to reconcile with Valerie...
Chapter Specific Warnings:
Physical description of illness, bigoted behavior(mentioned on forums)
Chapter Title:
Haunt(ing): To inhabit or to visit frequently (most often used in reference to ghosts) ... A ghost. ... To make uneasy, restless. ... A lair or feeding place of animals ... Remaining in the mind; not easily forgotten
Rapport: A relationship of mutual trust and respect. A close and harmonious relationship in which the people or groups concerned understand each other's feelings or ideas and communicate well.
Glitch(es): A problem affecting function. ... (intransitive, especially of machines) To experience an unexpected, typically intermittent malfunction.
8:37pm, November 7th, 2005; Amity Park
His flight through his patrol zone took him around the crown of Fentonworks, looking balder and smaller since the Ops Center absconded. The gaping holes in the roof, and chunks of debris made of brick and concrete littering the street, left the area looking scuffed and dilapidated. His parents promised the Ops Center's return in three months, max, but until then they had installed a new ghost shield in the walls. They'd spent the last week, in between helping clean up the toxic waste from Main street where the Center crashed, carving out walls and wiring in the new system. He'd hastily grabbed a few things he'd hidden inside the walls of his room, when they'd warned him they'd be doing construction, and hid them at the bottom of his closet under a stack of dirty clothes for good measure. Jazz had complained the whole time, hands over her ears to block out the banging of holes being punched in the walls, that the entire process was unnecessary. It interfered with her study schedule and threw off her beauty sleep. He'd whined about the mess of dust and the potential asbestos it contained, and fought down screams as every pound of the sledgehammer was matched by his headache. His parents hadn't relented through either of their complaints, assuring them the new shield was imperative until the Ops' attic shield returned.
Now, because he hadn't figured out the new system, he couldn't phase into his room directly without setting off the shield. He'd tried, two days back, and his whole body clenched recalling the electric pain of the damn thing activating. He'd bounced off of it, flying away to let the defense systems in the house reset after Jazz deactivated them, and walked in the front door on foot, day ruined and disappointment immeasurable. The trek up the stairs after the shock almost convinced him to sleep on the cold wood instead of finishing the climb, consequences be damned. After the agonizing crawl up the last few steps and slithering his way into his bed, he'd sworn off using his powers around the new anti-ghost defense.
"The shield is definitely an updated version, it even has entirely new protocols." His friends were talking to him again, after letting him simmer for a few days. He'd sat on his hands only a few hours before apologizing, and they'd accepted. When he'd ended up staying home because of the family dealing with the fallout of the Center's animation, the two of them froze him out of texts, only replying to tell him to sleep. He'd have been more annoyed if he had the energy.
"But, you can bypass them?"
"Who do you think you're talking to?" Tucker's smug reply came through the phones as he hovered just outside of the sensor's new range. A couple seconds of truly monumental keyboard clattering came from his side of the group call before, "I've connected the system to my own, and have control. Give me a few seconds to update the protocols to ignore your ecto-signature, and you'll be back to bedroom intangibility."
"More importantly, he'll stop setting off the defense sensors entirely, right?"
"Part and parcel, Sam, couldn't make those changes without the update." Another few seconds of clacking, and then, "that should do it. Fly closer and give it a try."
He trusted Tucker, no one knew more about technology in this or any other dimension, but that zap and the escape had taken it out of him last time. He hesitantly approached, drifting closer inch by inch, towards the brick wall. He reached out, and felt a ripple of energy pass over his hand and up his arm. "I think I felt something?"
"That's the system scanning you. You're good, dude."
"Weird that I can feel it," he commented, moving the last few feet to his bedroom wall. He straightened his spine and steeled himself, before phasing through the wall, with no fuss or furious alarms. "It worked!" He floated above his bed, the top a tangle of unmade sheets and school textbooks, and made a quick circuit around the room. "Alright! No more shocks, and easier sneak-outs; we're back in business."
"Of course it worked, you have the Technomage on your side."
"Ugh, you are taking that admin title way too seriously."
"You're just jealous of how apt my online moniker is. You wish you could be encapsulated by something as cool as 'Technomage'."
"Yeah, that's definitely the reason, and not how obnoxious you've been since you thought it up."
"Eh, I think Tuck's earned it," he cut in, dropping on top of his mattress with a sigh. The noise got his friend's attention, and he replied while digging a textbook out from under him. "I am feeling better, much less pain in ghost form, but my human one still feels like I've ground glass into all of my joints and taken a blunt object to every muscle."
"That's miserable, but I am glad staying home helped last week."
"It did," he hedged, "but I think it's just run its course. My immune system must be fighting back since I'm improving."
"Do ghosts have immune systems?"
"Must, if they can get sick." He went back to hovering above the bed, then flew out through his bedroom wall once more to finish up his patrol. "I don't know how else to clear an illness without one. It probably works differently than my human one, though. Maybe that's why it took so long to make a dent in this cold."
"With body aches, chills, and fever, I think this is more like a ghost flu than a cold," Sam suggested.
He headed towards his next patrol zone, away from Fentonworks and towards Nasty Burger. "Whatever it is, I'm glad I'm finally beating it back. If I spent too much longer like that, I'd have…." He stopped, taking in the flow of energy around him.
"Danny?"
"Hold on, I think I sense a ghost." He closed his eyes, pushing his ghost sense out to its limits. Still recovering from whatever this was, his powers, sense included, were blunted. Plus, since the machine plague had begun, Amity had been bereft of ghostly activity. He didn't know what to make of that, but he did know that pulse of energy meant there was indeed a ghost. "I definitely do. It must be pretty weak, though, because it didn't set off my mist." He'd discovered recently that only powerful manifestations made his ghost sense visible. For everything under that, it changed the feeling of cold shifting through his core.
"You feel up for confronting a ghost?" Sam's concern wrapped around him, warm and gentle, keeping him company as he sped off towards the collection of ectoplasm.
"I'm getting closer and it's not getting any stronger. It's probably a collection of blob ghosts." They hadn't seen any of them either since it all started. It'd be nice to watch a flock of them chattering and goofing around again. He halted his flight a few meters away, looking for the telltale green glow of a weak group of blob ghosts. Instead, he got the dull white glow of a weak, singular ghost. That could be trouble. He moved closer, taking stock of his energy, and biting back a groan at how little he had. Even a fight with a weak animal ghost could wipe him out for the next two or three days. His core barely chugged along, producing energy lately.
He moved past a set of roofs, into the next street, and saw the ghost in question. It looked like an eel, a very familiar eel. He stopped a few meters away, just observing it meander through the air, spinning in circles. Except, this time, its flight wasn't entirely directionless. It swept in a slow line, from one end of the street to the other, carefully looking around. Was it searching for him?
It looked docile, once again, but they hadn't parted on the best terms. Bracing himself for the worst, he sent out a wave of his energy. Immediately, the eel's lazy circling ended, and it turned around to face him. Seconds passed, the two ghosts staring each other down, before the animal flew closer, slow and cautious. It stopped out of easy reach of an ecto-blast before letting out an inquisitive sounding chirp.
Mrerp? It drifted closer, lethargic undulations carrying it a few feet nearer.
"Hey, little buddy..." He reached out with another wave of his energy, trying to think of friendly thoughts. He watched the ghost approach him faster, then stop only an arm's length away. He reached across the gap, pressing his hand into its head. It closed its eyes and rubbed into his hand, before starting to twine up his arm towards his shoulder. He let it, feeling out its energy for hostility, annoyance, or fear. It felt curious and calm, letting out another chirp while staring at him with its beady bright eyes. "So, um, you're not mad at me?"
"Is it that eel again?" Sam asked. He'd mentioned how much they'd played before Valerie frightened it, so it was a good guess.
"Yup," he felt it swim around his shoulders and then travel down the other arm, energy just as chill as ever. "I think it's in a good mood today."
"It was in a good mood before Valerie started blasting too."
"Yeah," he replied, feeling its tail wrap around his wrist as it brought its head to his chest. It pressed its face against his core, and he hummed when the burst of its energy flared inside him. The feeling of standing on the edge of the pool preparing to jump in for the first time, his first day of middle school, a flash of hugging his sister to end an argument, him and Tucker making up in first grade after their first fight. "It's ok. I'm not mad." It chirped a few times, blinking up at him, its eyes flashing green. "Oh right, you don't, uh," he concentrated, focused on thoughts of happiness. That seemed to do the trick, because the eel rushed up to swipe a thick track of spit across his face with its tongue. "Ok, good, we're friends again, huh?" Another set of noises, this time sounding like trills, and it settled on his shoulders.
He flew over to sit on the closest roof, peering down at the street below, and petting the eel's head. "I think things are good."
"Animals are pretty clear when it's not," Sam replied, giggling down the Fenton phones. He thought back to its snapping jaws and flashing aura, and had to agree.
"Everything's quiet right now in my patrol zones. Maybe whatever this is is dying down if ghosts are coming back?"
"Is that a good thing or?" Tucker, then, taking a break from his programming or gaming to join the conversation. He couldn't decide after listening to him resume typing. He scrunched his nose, like he'd smelled something awful, thinking of Skulker, Spectra, or another of his regular enemies showing up to cause trouble. Outside of feeling like death warmed over, the techpocalypse had been easy. He'd have been bored sick if he hadn't been literally sick.
"I'm not looking forward to Youngblood playing pirate in the middle of downtown or Ember scheming something, but I kinda miss normal." The eel cuddled closer, partially trapping his arms against his torso. He let it.
Mmmreow!
"Is that the ghost?" Tucker came back for a moment, voice coming through the line as if from some distance away. He'd probably set down the phones to go grab a late snack.
"Yeah."
"That sounds like a cat. Are you sure it's an eel?" He took in its limbless body and dark green stripes, fin waving gently in the breeze and with each of its movements. It was still an eel.
"It's not furry enough to be a cat." He reached up to pet its head again, staring up at the sky. This deep into the city, even on the rooftops, you couldn't see the stars. Just knowing they were there lifted his mood though, and he considered flying higher to stargaze since the evening was so dull.
"I might turn in from patrol early, and take a casual flight around town."
"I'm not seeing any new reports," a few seconds of clicking, and then, "except for about user behavior. Yeesh, it's getting nasty on the forums. We might have to start moderating for real."
"We'll think about it this weekend; I'm too bushed to brain that much right now." He scratched under the eel's jaw, sending sparkles of energy along his fingers, and it meeped back and tucked itself closer. He started to move his arms free, when—
Warm. The feeling of settling under his covers on a winter's night, the sensation of his dad's tight loving hugs, the flavor of his mom's no-more-ickies soup, all pulsed through every connection point between him and the eel. It heard his favorite childhood lullaby, and felt his toes curling in the plush carpet in the living room on a snow day, and the warm, warm, warm of drinking in hot chocolate, and soaking into a bath, and standing under the summer sky. Underneath it all sat this tenderness, a gentle press that unknotted his muscles and uncurled the sharp cutting glass around his core. Oh, this feels amazing. He closed his eyes, holding the blanket around his shoulders tighter.
He could sit here all night, soaking in the warm, and the safety, kicking his feet over the edge of the building without care. He felt another wave of relaxing heat wash over him, and he nearly melted into the rooftop, smile splitting his face at the relief from the pain.
"Danny?" The voice was distant, fuzzy, away from the warm, happy place he sat.
"Hey man, answer us…" He blinked open his eyes, trying to place where the voices were coming from. He looked around, finding no one and nothing but the soft, comfortable glow of his new eel friend.
"Danny, if you don't start talking, we're coming to get you." That didn't sound right, it sounded afraid. But he was safe. What was the voice worried about?
"Come on, Danny, please, you're freaking us out!" Us...us... Sam and Tucker! He jolted out of the drowsy place he'd been, core pulses picking up to a gallop. The eel peered up at him, energy going sour and feeling like his sister pressing her hand into his forehead a few days ago.
"Uh, I'm ok, guys."
"Thank god, I was grabbing my shoes."
"Chill, I've only been quiet for like two minutes." The silence from the other end of the call made his stomach hurt. "Right?"
"It was half an hour. We were talking the whole time, but you just...what happened?" He could hear a creak as Sam sat back down into her chair, and the twisting pangs of regret started up in his chest.
"It, but it didn't feel like half an hour." The excuse sounded lame, pointless, as he took in more of the eel's noises and checked the time on his cell. It was a quarter after nine. The animal was getting louder, wrapping closer around him, sounding distressed. "No, it's uh, it's fine bud; I'm fine." He sent some energy across his skin, trying to think chill thoughts. "I think it got upset when I did." He replied to Tucker's question, setting his phone back into a pocket on the jumpsuit.
The thought occurred to him, watching the eel settle down, that it was responsible for the previous good vibes. Curious, he sent out his energy, focusing on the feeling of being warm and safe once more. Instantly, the feeling came back with a whoosh, the eel purring and wrapping tight. More prepared for it this time, he kept his head above the wave of emotion, fighting back tears prickling in the corners of his eyes. Darn it, it likes me, even though I sucked it into the Thermos and dumped it back into the Zone after scaring it. He pet its head, sending his energy back, without concentrating on a single emotion or idea. The unvarnished flow of content between them picked up, and it chittered happily, loud enough to get his friend's attention. "Yeah, that's the ghost again. It's why I got quiet earlier."
"It can't have been that distracting."
"It's kinda zapping me, but in a good way? The energy feels nice, like a deep tissue massage, but for my core." That brought on a flurry of questions, ones he had no way to answer. "I don't know, guys; it just feels like there's less shards of glass poking around in there."
"When did the glass poke-y sensation start?" Sam sounded annoyed at him, and when he considered how much he'd lied about his symptoms, he got her reasoning.
"For a while," he stopped to exchange energy with the eel again, "it's getting better though." A thought came to him, feeling the warmth settle around his core, and he closed his eyes. Sure enough, he had much more energy than he'd had in more than a week. He grinned as the last of the sharp pains fell away, and grabbed the eel's head between both of his hands. "Alright, that's enough. I don't want you to overdo it."
Mmerp? Its beady eyes stared at him, looking, somehow unconvinced despite the lack of humanoid facial features.
He sent over contentment and gratitude, concentrating on the feeling of how much fuller his core felt. "You did good. I'm much better now." That seemed to sell the point to the animal, and it wrapped looser around his shoulders, face shooting up to munch on his hair. "Ugh, no, your spit is so cold, man. Why do you like doing that?"
"Chewing your hair again?"
"Again," he responded, groaning as the now ectoplasm soaked spot on his bangs plopped onto his forehead. "Back into the Zone with you for that; my patrol's over anyway." He gathered the eel up in his arms, flying off towards Fentonworks. He'd fly into the portal, see the little ghost off, and worry about the techpocalypse more tomorrow.
6:54pm, November 8th, 2005; Fentonworks
Tomorrow came, and with it a renewed sense of purpose and energy. He'd slept amazingly well after the eel's visit, even though it took nearly an hour to convince it to fly off alone once they were in the Zone. He'd hummed off-tune on this section of patrol, trading off singing lead to the Dumpty-Humpty album with his friends over the phones. He'd stopped for a moment, pulling up the text thread that led to the admin reports for the website on his phone. Things had devolved into a Cold War, with groups of posters staking out territory in certain sub-forums and viciously mocking outsiders who entered without group approval. How it had gotten so bad in two weeks boggled his mind. It was a testament to the virulent misery infesting the internet. The website was for supporting Amity Park and reporting abnormal activity, but most of the regulars now spent their time rage baiting or trolling. The forum had been a mistake. What were they thinking?
He pulled up the rap sheet of one of the most notorious posters on the site, a GhostTeenReignsSupreme, and whistled as he scrolled back through the list of ban lengths and took in his fellow admins' reasoning. Whoever this was needed a life and to have their internet cut off for a week so they could touch grass. 3,457 posts in two weeks was not normal. "What are we doing about this Supreme person?"
"You mean the forum's biggest Phantom fanatic?"
"Yeah, the one I'm concerned would go through my trash and steal my dirty clothes if he knew who I actually was."
"I don't think they're a stalker."
"Have you seen the pictures they've been posting of me in ghost form?"
"They don't take all of them. I think there's a big group of fans who swap pictures with each other off the forums." He shuddered, nausea kicking up in response to Tucker's reply.
"That's so freaky."
"You're a celebrity!" He heard his friend munching, on dinner at this time of day, sounding far too excited about the idea.
"I'm infamous, that doesn't mean I want to be photographed all the time."
"It comes with the famous ghost boy territory."
"Regardless," Sam said, drawing the conversation back to the original topic, "we might have to do something about Supreme. They haven't threatened to hurt anyone in person, but they are toxic, just a wall of bigotry and insults."
"They have to defend Danny's honor." Tucker was having too much fun.
"By calling everyone homophobic slurs for disagreeing?"
"That's just because they have a limited vocabulary. You can't expect everyone to be as well-learned as you, dear Samantha," Tuck said, adopting a posh accent.
"He's making the forums hostile for other posters."
"I don't know," he flipped through more reports, reading through the interactions, "the posters seem to be giving back as hard as Supreme." His eyebrows rose as he read another report, the description of fornicating with a dog seemed too realistic to just be imagination. "This AnimalLover666 might be a real problem."
"Oh yeah, they definitely shouldn't be allowed around animals," Tucker muttered around another mouthful of food before gulping it down. "I've tracked them back to a specific computer and their hard drive is radioactive, man. Nothing prosecutable, unfortunately."
"Tucker, do you ever consider that all this hacking you're doing is illegal?'
"Things are only illegal if you get caught, Sam, and I'm too good to be caught." He swallowed something else, the tinny clink of his cutlery landing back on his plate following. "Mmmm, that hamburger helper really hit the spot."
"Maybe we should hire some moderators?"
"You got moderator money, Danny?"
"Sam has moderator money, Tucker."
"You're right, she does."
"I am not a piggy bank, you guys."
"You have to do it for the team, Sam, for the good of Amity."
"Just ban the worst offenders."
"They can always register new accounts, unless I zap their IP, but that will cut off a whole household from being able to report. That's not safe." They were back to this point again.
"You're a 'technomage' Tucker, can't you just target it to a single computer?"
"With some type of malware I could, but lots of families only have one computer for the whole household. That could still cut an entire family off from the system."
He heard Sam groan, and went back to scrolling reports. Dear lord, GhostTeen is obsessed. If he wasn't sure they were human, he'd put money on them being a ghost with how often and what they posted. He set off on patrol again, pushing off from the roof of the storage building to head towards the main restaurant strip in Amity at the edge of his southeast territory. "Can you tell how they're accessing the website?"
"It's just normal computer terminals, nothing fancy like a smartphone. They're not even the only problem on the forums." Tucker's voice moved away from the phones, likely walking his plate towards the kitchen to be cleaned.
"We should come up with a more holistic set of rules and enforce them. Maybe this issue is we aren't being strict enough?" Sam offered, a series of clicks coming across as she surfed on her laptop. "I'll come up with a first draft for tighter rules."
"I don't know if that will—" He spotted something in the distance, black and moving fast. That's right, he was near Nasty Burger, this was where their zones intersected. "I'll call you back guys; I need to catch up to Valerie."
"Just text her on the admin channel."
"I can't. She blocked me." He'd discovered it earlier as he tried to catch up to the bulging inbox on the website. His only option was to talk to her in person, and he'd been kind of an ass the last time they spoke.
"Ooooo, good luck then. No way she's in a good mood if she did that." His friends signed off, and he rushed after her, more easily closing the distance now that his symptoms were ebbing.
"Hey Huntress, hold on, we need to talk." He watched her stop on a dime, still slightly awed her new board could do that, and turn to face him from meters away.
"I can't imagine about what. You made yourself very clear the last time we spoke."
He flew closer, and flinched when she moved farther back. Man, he'd really stepped in it.
"I'm sorry, Red, I know I was kind of a grump."
"A grump? You disappear on me after a battle, avoid me for days afterward, claim you don't want to work together, but you were just a wittle grumpy?" She'd moved, the movement stuttering and uneven, as her shouts carried over the gap between them.
"I really am sorry. I was feeling...um, sick, actually."
"Sick? Ghosts can get sick? Is that why you've been so weak lately?"
"Yes." He floated closer, closing the gap in a few seconds, to hover a few feet away. "I'd been feeling like shit for over a week, and my core felt like someone poured molten lead in it, and I took it out on you." He extended his arm for a handshake, "Can we maybe let this go?" He smiled, small, but genuine in her direction, and watched her visor go from clear to black, shutting him out. He really didn't like that functionality.
"Why should I? You feel a little bad, you let me think you'd melted for a few days, and then brush me off when I'm concerned. You say you don't need me? Fine. We can just go back to ignoring each other. It's been working great this last little bit." Her voice was strained, a crack revealing how upset their last conversation had actually made her.
"Red—"
"Don't fucking call me that." She flew farther away, moving back a half dozen feet in under a second.
"I'm sorry, Huntress." He held up his hands, trying to salvage the situation. "How can I make this up to you?"
"By leaving me alone." She crossed her arms, leaning on one hip. He didn't have to see her face to know she was glaring.
"And miss out on all this witty banter?" His joke fell as flat as hers had their last little talk. He coughed and looked away, trying to think of something to get through to her. "I'm feeling better now."
"And I care because?"
"Because, uh, didn't you just say you cared if I died."
"I used to." Ouch. That—she didn't mean that, but it still hurt.
"Huntress," he sighed out her name, floating closer, "be reasonable. We have to work with each other for the foreseeable future, and we have strategy meetings every Friday."
"Then we won't have meetings."
"How are we supposed to contact each other if you've got me blocked on the website and won't speak to me in person?"
"I thought you didn't need my help? I know I sure as shit don't need yours."
"What if something else big goes haywire?"
"I'll see it on the news." She was like talking to a ghost shield. Every suggestion bouncing off, or getting shocked for daring to get close.
He'd brought this on himself, but it didn't make it hurt less. He gave up for the moment, deciding to let her go. She was still too mad to hear him out. Maybe, with a little more time, she'd be feeling less sore and more open to negotiating. "I'm sorry I kept you from patrol. I'll see you around?" He waved, but she did not wave back as she turned and flew off at top speed away from him. Ugh, that was terrible.
Just as he turned to leave, he caught her board giving off a shower of sparks and sputtering in the air. He'd raced towards her, eyes glued to her uneven and then arrested descent. He stopped right next to her, hands hovering just over her form, fighting down his desire to make sure she was alright through touch. "What happened?"
"Busybody."
"Valerie." He knew he sounded forceful then, but he didn't care. "You almost fell out of the sky. I've never seen your board do that without being damaged."
"I'm fine."
"No, you're not. You're a hundred feet in the air and made of squishy organic meat. If you fell—"
"I wasn't going to!"
"If you hit the ground—"
"Phantom, if you don't get out of my personal space, I'm going to blast you." She pulled out a gun, a small one, and he backed away.
"I'm just—that scared me."
"Now you care?" Her visor faded back to clear, face stormy with rage.
"When haven't I cared?" He backed further away until she finally put away her gun. The silence stretched, neither of them speaking. He broke first. "I know I told you I didn't want to talk, but that doesn't mean I wanted something to happen to you." He took a deep unneeded breath, settling his shaken nerves, before continuing, "Are you sure you're good to fly home?"
"It was just a little glitch. I'll run a diagnostic on it after patrol. Are you done auditioning to be my new keeper, or do I need to wait while you fret and moan about how I'm not capable of taking care of myself some more?" Her visor flashed back to black, cutting him off from her expressions, and he felt like sulking.
"As long as you're sure."
"Great." She flew around him, turning back towards Elmerton. "I'll see you around. I'll talk if I think we have something to discuss." She took off, jetboard stable and even as she shrunk into the night.
He watched her fly off, shadows looking deeper and more unwelcoming as she left. He wanted to follow her, but knew her new scanners were far too good for that. He'd only dodged her before by changing to human form, and with the tracker Tucker had placed fried, she could sneak up on him again. He stared at the spot she'd disappeared a few moments longer before turning and heading towards Fentonworks. Nothing would be solved by floating in the gloom giving the wind his puppy dog eyes in hopes she'd change her mind. He'd get through to her later; he always did.
A/N:
Welcome to the bottom, dear reader! Boy, Danny's apology did not go so well, did it? At least he got to hang out with his eel friend. Hopefully, he and Val can work it out before things really get out of hand.
Thank you all for the amazing response these last few chapters. I was a bit overwhelmed with how much attention this got suddenly! Excited to keep you all entertained for the next few weeks!
The post for this coming Saturday is definitely on time, so you'll be able to look forward to that this weekend! Can't wait the long? Check out my blog for bits of Lore, snippets of upcoming chapters, and more!
Blog: balshumetsbaragouin . tumblr . com
See you all on Saturday!