Work Text:
"Danny, you just hit five hundred subscribers," Tucker announces dramatically upon walking into Danny's bedroom. Danny blinks, his new ProCam momentarily forgotten.
"Wait, what? Seriously? How?"
"People like daring you to do dangerous stuff because they're too chicken to do it themselves," Sam deadpans.
Oh. Danny's never thought of it like that before. Well. He doesn't see any reason to stop making videos after he accidentally posted that first one last year. They're kind of fun if he's being honest, and definitely more fun than the boring workouts he was doing before. Sam and Tucker think he's being an idiot, but come on. What if he's missing his ghost powers and has to jump out of a three-story building onto a trampoline on the ground?
Exactly.
Plus, the parkour runs are a blast. Someone dared him to do one a while back, and he was hooked on the idea after watching a couple on ViewTube. If he's being truthful, he can't really say that the stunts he pulls in those are all necessary for chasing after a ghost, but he hasn't been able to let loose like this with anything else for a long time. They're his stress reliever from school, from the constant ghost attacks, from his parents... He deserves this much. He says so as a last resort argument whenever Sam or Tucker tries to convince him to stop. It always works.
Or at least, they haven't yet come up with a counter-argument that'll convince him. So, he'll just keep taking stupid dares and doing parkour.
"Does that make me famous?" Danny asks. He returns his attention back to fiddling with the ProCam. He's been meaning to do a live stream for a while. He's got a decent camera for it after months of saving up, and now he just needs a location.
"Phantom's notoriety isn't enough for you?" Sam asks dryly.
"People hate Phantom, not Fenton."
"Mmm, I'm pretty sure at least one person hates you," Tucker says, chuckling. "Some joker's daring you to do a Q&A during a run over at Old Abandoned."
Oh. Speaking of locations...
Sam facepalms. Tucker looks up, his amused grin fading upon seeing the look on Danny's face. "Danny. Man, come on. That's an awful idea, that's why I'm making fun of it!"
"I mean, it sounds like a pretty cool idea for my first live stream," Danny responds.
"Danny, no," Sam groans.
"Danny, yes."
The Saturday afternoon sky is overcast, casting a dimmed gray light on the run-down building as Danny and his viewers take it in. A chain-link fence separates him from the compound. He backs up from it as he starts speaking, the camera strapped to his head moving along with him.
"Hello, Internet! I'm Danny, and I do parkour stuff and stupid dares. So I'm finally doing that live stream that I promised I would do forever ago. Mostly because of a dare, of course; xXRockerChickXx wanted me to do a Q&A while doing a run at Old Abandoned, and I thought it was a great idea. You guys apparently have a lot of questions, for whatever reason."
He stops walking, hopping back and forth a couple times, before taking a running start towards the fence. He jumps and latches onto it about halfway up, quickly scaling it and landing with a quiet grunt on the other side. He pops up and resumes speaking.
"Normally, I case these places out before doing a run or whatever. But! I figured I could share my exploration with y'all. Now, obviously I need both hands to do my thing, so my buddy Tucker helped me set up a program that'll pick someone's comment to read aloud to me every so often in this handy little earpiece I got. Y'all won't hear it, though, it'll just bold or something in the comment section. Make sure to write 'Hey Danny' before it so the AI will pick it up. And, uhhhh... that's it. Ask away, people!"
The first comment appears in the 'Live Chat' section.
NateOfTheKnight: Hey Danny, isn't this place haunted? People have gone missing here.
Danny laughs, scaling a small ledge before answering. "Well. I guess if something happens to me, then you guys are all witnesses, aren't you?"
The discussion continues in the comments as he tries the handle of a door covered in vines. Locked. He moves on, climbing up a rusty ladder next to the door.
NateOfTheKnight: His lack of concern concerns me.
samarilynmanson: @NateOfTheKnight His parents are ghost hunters, I think he'll be fine.
WaterIsSoWet: Hope he has his tetanus shot.
Star Butterfly: How many people have gone missing here? just out of curiosity.
NateOfTheKnight: @Star Butterfly I'm... not actually sure? I just know that people have.
NateOfTheKnight: I probably read it somewhere? Maybe?
Danny runs at a nearby wall and scrambles part of the way up it, gripping the top edge with his fingertips before gravity can drag him back down. It looks for a moment like he's going to fall, but then he manages to pull himself up and onto the uppermost rooftop of the building.
obi kwan kenobi: what even is old abandoned? like, before it was old and abandoned
xXRockerChickXx: When I was a kid, it was a hospital. Then it got turned into a factory.
TF4TooFine: it's also been a parking garage, an office building, a prison, and I think a high school at some point?
WaterIsSoWet: @xXRockerChickXx uh. Wasn't it a hospital like a hundred years ago... how old are you??
xXRockerChickXx : That's a pretty rude question, don't ya think? ;)
dbaxindahouse: hey fenturd, what r u hiding in those first 50 vids huh? That how long it took u 2 stop crying when u worked out? 2 chicken 2 show ppl???
Stretched out before the camera is an elongated partial dome of windows. It's about three feet tall, and it's connected to the rooftop on one side. He walks around it; there's a broken window, and when he tries to move the pane it comes away entirely. He pauses as he seems to register the question and huffs in annoyance as he puts the pane down.
"First off, Tucker, why the heck does your little program recognize 'Fenturd' as my name? Second, to answer your question, Dash, there's just some stuff I don't need the Internet to see. Call it whatever you want, I guess." His voice shifts to something like amusement. "I didn't realize you watched my videos, Dash! Guess I can't be that lame if you're here."
Danny climbs in through the empty window frame and ends up on a ledge near the windowed ceiling. There's a metal walkway about ten feet underneath him, and he shifts his weight slightly. It's the only warning his audience gets before he does a front flip down onto it. The walkway is suspended a distance above a large space with some vague white shapes in it, but the sunlight trickling in through the grimy window panes is barely enough to penetrate the near-darkness, even with the recently liberated window.
dbaxindahouse: hey fenturd, shut up, ur still lame
Wes2Weston: stuff you dont want the internet to see... like the fact that you're aGHOST???
samarilynmanson: oh god who invited him?
Val_Gray: @Wes2Weston What are you talking about??
Wes2Weston: @Val_Gray Thanks for asking! I mean he's a ghost. Specifically, Danny Phantom!!!I don't know how he does it but he basically told me himself and no one believes me about it! His eyes do a weird glowy thing when he's really mad and his friends are IN ON IT!!
Wes2Weston: hey danny, I'M ONTO YOU!!!
Near the ceiling of the room is a latticework of metal pipes and bars. The camera darts a couple times between Danny's slightly crouched legs and a horizontal metal bar about six feet away. It stretches down a bit further than any of the others do. There's nothing underneath it but a long drop to the ground, and he seems to be measuring the distance between himself and the bar. After a moment, he jumps, pushing off of it with the foot that lands and rolling out his momentum in another walkway on the other side of the bar. Upon standing, he straightens and clicks on a flashlight. Its beam penetrates the semi-darkness.
"Hey, Wes, I didn't know you watched my videos, too! I'm getting all sorts of surprise fans, how you doing, bud? That was more of a comment than a question, but I'm glad you're with me today!" The grin is audible in his voice like he already knows what Wes is "onto him" about, despite not having seen the previous comments.
The flashlight highlights a series of white tarps draped over objects of various sizes. There's a staircase down from the walkway to the ground, and Danny heads towards it.
Star Butterfly: Hey Danny, why did you start making these videos? they just kinda showed up outta nowhere.
He laughs. "Yeah, well. I mean, I was already making videos to like, figure out my weak areas when I worked out or trained or whatever. I just forgot to set one to private instead of public one day and, um... someone dared me to climb a flagpole? Heh. Things kinda snowballed from there."
The flashlight bounces around the room as Danny descends. "I guess this room was for storage or something," he says, "or maybe shipping things? I dunno. Not sure why they'd all be covered, but—"
He stops talking upon stepping off of the staircase, and the camera jerks from the object in front of him to the rest of the room. It's not immediately clear what caught his attention. Then, a quiet sound is heard; something rolling, perhaps, or being dragged. It's followed by a muted 'clink.'
Danny whips the flashlight around. The beam finally lands on a glass bottle a distance ahead of him. It rests gently against one of the mystery objects, rocking slightly as a hidden breeze flutters the tarp it's sitting on.
"Oh. I guess... I kicked it by accident," he says idly. He walks deeper into the room.
NateOfTheKnight: But wouldn't he have heard himself kicking it and like, jumped or something? And that clink sounded a lot further away than the bottle actually was.
NateOfTheKnight: Hold on, was the window back in place?
obi kwan kenobi: @NateOfTheKnight man, chill
TF4TooFine: @NateOfTheKnight window?
NateOfTheKnight: The window he took out to get inside. The room seems dimmer, kinda? And it was only for a split second in the upper part of the frame, but when he turned around just now it seemed like the window was back in place.
WaterIsSoWet: @NateOfTheKnight I just clicked back a few seconds in the stream. He turned his head too fast to see the window clearly, but it didnt look any different to me
NateOfTheKnight: okay...
Val_Gray: so weirdness aside
Val_Gray: hey, Danny. What's it like having ghost hunters as parents? Do they teach you anything about ghost hunting? Just curious.
"Hey, Valerie! To tell you the truth, uh..." He pauses, turning momentarily to stare at the doorway that exits the room. After a moment, he resumes speaking with no explanation. "To tell you the truth, it's pretty annoying sometimes. I mean. They're cool, I guess, but a lot of the time the ghost hunting is just... stifling. I love my parents, honestly, but I really wish they'd chill with the whole 'saving people, hunting ghosts, family business' thing."
He lightly kicks a nearby covered object, resulting in a dull, resounding 'thud.' He lifts the tarp off of it, revealing a refrigerator on its back. There are chains wrapped around it to keep it shut, padlocked together. Mysterious dark brown stains are smeared around the side of it, like someone with dirty hands had tried desperately to open it. On the front, underneath the chains and in the same dark stain, is an odd symbol that resembles an inverted tree with three roots reaching upwards.
King.
The word isn't spoken aloud. It's simply known, suddenly and definitely.
Danny stares at it before quipping, "Not touching that with a thirty-foot pole," and replacing the tarp. He turns and navigates to the exit of the room, entering a long hallway. The walls are covered in sloppy graffiti. There's trash strewn everywhere; an overturned cart, empty spray paint cans, food wrappers, and stray papers, among other things. Doors line the walls.
Val_Gray: Hey, Danny, have your parents TAUGHT you anything, though? Like, techniques for hunting a specific ghost, for example? Do you have any tech on you in case that place is haunted or something?
samarilynmanson: Are you sure YOU'RE not the ghost @Val_Gray? Cause you kinda sound like that hunter ghost Skulker right now, lol. ;)
Val_Gray: I'm just curious, Manson. What's with the winky face?
samarilynmanson: oh nothing
NateOfTheKnight: Right, so we'rej ust not gonna talk about that murder fridge? Got it.
Danny chuckles. "That's a pretty specific question, Val. Got something you wanna tell me? But to answer your question, no. They've tried teaching me things, but I, uh. I prefer learning on my own. And I don't have anything on me, why would I?" He stares for a long time at a repeat of the symbol from earlier, drawn over a spray painting of a crown and a ring.
Val_Gray: Hey Danny, would you say you're decent in defending yourself, at least? Especially with all of the training you were talking about.
"Uh. I guess?" he responds, turning from the wall and continuing down the hallway.
Val_Gray: Hey Danny... then why do you let Dash push you around? And why do you run away when a ghost shows up?
dbaxindahouse: lol as if he could ever fight back, that wimp
samarilynmanson: dash shut up
Wes2Weston: well, I dunno about that first question, but every time Danny Fenton runs away from a ghost, Danny Phantom shows up not long after. Has anyone ever seen them in the same place?
obi kwan kenobi: weird, never noticed that. that's just a coincidence tho right?
"I dunno, Valerie," Danny sounds resigned as he speaks, opening up a nearby door. "Sometimes you just have to pick your battles. And for that second bit, I'm still. Uh. Working up the courage to face a real..."
He trails off, shining the flashlight around. It's a windowless classroom. Unlike the disarray of the hallway outside the first room, this place seems pristine. The desks are arranged in neat rows, the floor is spotless. The walls are bare save for a chalkboard at the front of the room, but there's no sign of the damage or deterioration that seems to plague the rest of the place. The chalkboard has something on it, but Danny hasn't lingered the flashlight on it long enough for anyone to see what it is.
"This feels... wrong," he murmurs. The room does seem off, even to his audience. No one is sure how to put it into words until:
NateOfTheKnight: Hey Danny... it doesn't look like there's any dust on those desks by you.
"Really? With how old this place is?" He drags a finger over the surface of the nearest desk and examines it. There's nothing on his finger. He shines the flashlight on the other desks close to him. They seem to lack dust as well. "You're right. That's so weird. This room is... weird."
TF4TooFine: Hey, Danny. Um. What does that chalkboard say?
The flashlight beam stills on the chalkboard at the front of the room. It reads 'YOU CAN'T LEAVE' in large, distorted letters. Danny moves closer to it, lightly touching an 'A.'
"Woah. This isn't chalk, this is... these letters are scratched into the board." He pauses, and the camera darts downwards to the chalk tray. "There's some perfectly good chalk right here, I dunno why they didn't just use that."
WaterIsSoWet: lol THAT'S what he comments on??? I feel like he should be a bit more bothered or something
Val_Gray: okay I don't get how he can train for months to fight ghosts and still run away when a ghost shows up, but NOT be freaked out by this.
NateOfTheKnight: Hey Danny, maybe you should get out of there.
TF4TooFine: hey Danny, I kind of agree with @NateOfTheKnight. You should come back when, you know, you're not live streaming and you can check it out more. Safely.
He approaches another door. It's off to the left of the chalkboard but out of view from the room's entrance.
"Nate, thanks for being concerned, but I'm fine, dude. And now I'm just curious. Someone was in here recently enough to do some spring cleaning, dust off all the desks, for whatever reason. What's up with that? Plus, they clearly don't want me to leave, if this wonderful little message on the board means anything."
NateOfTheKnight: That was a joke. He's joking, right?
Star Butterfly: @TF4TooFine why would you tell him to come back??
TF4TooFine: um
TF4TooFine: I just know this du de, and I know he's already hooked on checking out this building because he's crazy. Convincing him to abandon ship and forget about the place won't work, so. Compromise.
Danny reaches for the door, oblivious to the chat moving on. "And Tucker! I got this, man. I've gone through scarier." He sounds for a moment like he's going to elaborate, but then he doesn't add anything. He pulls open the door, revealing a small closet. Inside is another desk, and someone is slumped over it. Messy hair covers the face, but their head is resting on an outstretched arm.
The hand poking out of the end of the long-sleeved sweater and dangling over the edge of the desk is skeletal, bone streaked in dark red.
Wes2Weston: !!!
samarilynmanson: um
TF4TooFine: w h a t
dbaxindahouse: he totally set that up rite???
Val_Gray: why isn't he reacting?!?!?!
NateOfTheKnight: oh my gOSH
obi kwan kenobi: jesus
WaterIsSoWet: asfdsakfld;sjaf
xXRockerChickXx: Jeez, that's creepy.
Star Butterfly: is that...?
NateOfTheKnight: HEY DANNY WHY THE HELL ARE YOU REACHING FOR IT!!!?
"Jeez, Nate, it's not real. The color of the bone is off." Danny picks up the hand and pulls back the sleeve, revealing the screws in the joint of the wrist. "It's just one of those model classroom skeletons. Someone dressed it up and put it here. As a prank, I guess? Or maybe it was whoever cleaned the desks."
He tugs at the black hair, and it comes away too easily. It's a wig. The skull underneath it is painted with dozens of iterations of the same dark, inverted tree symbol from the fridge and outside.
King. Again.
He examines the hand more closely. The streaks are actually more sloppy repetitions of the symbol. The camera doesn't move for a long moment.
WaterIsSoWet: "the color of the bone is off"???? ???
Wes2Weston: he keeps doing that. Just like... staring at things. Like the doorway earlier, AND the fridge, AND the graffiti. It's kinda creepy.
NateOfTheKnight: Can we just say that Danny in general has been acting pretty creepy here? In a cool way, though, I think.
obi kwan kenobi: okay but. what's with this king thing?
Star Butterfly: wait, you mean the weird picture? I thought that, too!!!
WaterIsSoWet: me too, but I swear I've never seen it before.
dbaxindahouse: look I didn't sign up for this creepy shit, I wanted to see parkour
dbaxindahouse: hey fenturd do a flip
The comment seems to shake Danny out of whatever frozen, contemplative state he's in. "Dash, what...?" He pauses. "You know what, Dash? You're right. I told you guys this was parkour in Old Abandoned and I haven't been delivering. Sorry about that."
Danny heads back towards the desks. He leaps onto the nearest one and jumps onto the one behind it, running across the tops before jumping off of the back of the last desk. The screen is a blur of motion as he does a front flip onto the ground. "Happy?"
He starts heading for the door. "To be honest, I probably should have just went ahead and cased this place out first. Runs are supposed to be seamless, and—"
He stops and makes an odd noise almost like a sigh, and a small puff of air visibly escapes from his mouth. He groans and mutters something under his breath, before stalking out the door.
WaterIsSoWet: hey, Danny, what was that? Is it really that cold in there, or are you smoking something? Lol
dbaxindahouse: he's totally smoking something, the little freak
obi kwan kenobi: dash what the hell
dbaxindahouse: what?
"Water is not wet and you can fight me on it," Danny says brusquely, arriving at the end of the hallway. He glances in both directions, before turning left. "And it just got super cold in here, that's all."
NateOfTheKnight: but it's like 80 degrees out
WaterIsSoWet: water is very wet. And anyways, doesn't a sudden drop in temperature mean a ghost is around?
xXRockerChickXx: Temp drops only happen if a ghost wants it to happen, so that's not really always true
Wes2Weston: um @xXRockerChickXx how do you know that?
xXRockerChickXx: I know things. :) :) :)
Danny's walking slows significantly. "Uh. Y'all this has been a pretty boring stream, right? Zero parkour, this building is super deserted and abandoned and there's nothing much to see so—"
Val_Gray: hey danny, are you trying to get rid of us?
"No! No, I would never," he sputters unconvincingly. Then he coughs, and another mist like the one from earlier appears.
Val_Gray: Hey Danny. Well, I, for one, would love to continue watching. This has been a very... enlightening experience. I'd like to see it out.
NateOfTheKnight: Hey Danny, I feel like you're not going to leave that place if you end the stream, so I just wanna keep watching for my own peace of mind so I know you're okay.
dbaxindahouse: okay so. No parkour?
WaterIsSoWet: hey Danny, yeah please keep streaming. I know what xXRockerChickXx said, but that's the second time your breath was visible on camera so if there's a ghost nearby, I wanna see it.
Danny sighs. "Fine, fine, I'll keep... wait. xXRockerChickXx?"
xXRockerChickXx: Hey Danny Dipstick! I was hoping to lay low, but you know I'm here now so. Hey! This is all hilarious to me, by the way. Took ya long enough. :) :)
"Rocker chick... oh. Wow, I'm an idiot, I can't believe... you and I are having a talk later." He continues walking.
Star Butterfly: hey, uh. This might be a bad time, but
Star Butterfly: did anyone else see someone walk by the doorway while he was still in the classroom?
NateOfTheKnight: THANK YOU, I thought I was crazy and didn't wanna say anything
WaterIsSoWet: I just played it back to the classroom. There's nothing there.
NateOfTheKnight: what if
NateOfTheKnight: what if it's not something that will show up in the playback?
WaterIsSoWet: that doesn't really make sense, tho???
Danny reaches another door. He sighs again, before opening it.
He's back in the room with the objects covered in tarps. This time, however, the creepy fridge is uncovered and upright about ten feet in front of him. "What the heck?"
obi kwan kenobi: ???
WaterIsSoWet: uh. Isn't this the first room he was in?
NateOfTheKnight: That's impossible. He didn't circle back, and there was only one door in the room... this is somehow the same entrance he left out of. What???
samarilynmanson: Hey Danny, don't go in there. You can come back later.
Val_Gray: @samarilynmanson You and @TF4TooFine have been suspiciously quiet until now, what gives?
samarilynmanson: @Val_Gray Really? You're gonna do this now?
Danny makes a frustrated noise, sounding more annoyed than confused as he steps into the room and glances around. "Fine. You know what? I'm gonna deal with this. I can't have one day to myself to goof off, jeez."
TF4TooFine: Hey Danny, you might want to BE. CAREFUL.
Val_Gray: Yes, I'm gonna do this now. @TF4TooFine @samarilynmanson Why does it seem like you two are trying to warn him or something? Do you know something we m don't???
Wes2Weston: @Val_Gray Of course they do! They're probably in on it!
TF4TooFine: Wes, dude, you sound crazy right now
obi kwan kenobi: What are y'all even talking about?
NateOfTheKnight: you guys the murder fridge MOVED BY ITSELF or was moved BY SOMEONE. Isn't that kind of more important right now??
"I know, Tuck," Danny says dismissively as he turns around. Instead of showing the flat wall of the other side of the hallway, the doorway instead leads to the same long, graffitied view of the hallway visible when Danny first left the room of objects.
Star Butterfly: okay, that's definitely not the hallway he came out of. Right?
WaterIsSoWet: everything about this entire situation is wrong.
Danny seems unperturbed by the changed hallway. He turns back towards the fridge. It's closer to him this time, only feet away, and the odd symbol on it has been joined by a circle and what looks like a simplified crown. The exhale of visible air from Danny appears again.
He throws his hands up in the air. "Look!" he says to the empty room. "Whoever's in here, quit it with the creepy stuff and come out already. I just wanna get this over with."
There's another slow, ominous roll, followed by the 'clink.' It sounds exactly like when Danny was in the room earlier. He glances to his left; when he faces the fridge again, next to it is a tall, heavyset silhouette with long hair. They're glowing and hovering about a foot off the ground, with some sort of round object in hand. Menacing white eyes shine out from the darkness of the rest of the silhouette. Their hair shifts and floats in the air, as if it were underwater. It's quite obviously a ghost, though not one that any of those watching recognize.
The figure starts to approach Danny, but an eerily familiar green light blasts them to the other side of the room. The source of the light comes from somewhere on Danny's person, but it's unclear where.
dbaxindahouse: holy shit i take it back, this is better than parkour
NateofTheKnight: Oh my gosh, that's who passed by the classroom earlier. It has to be.
Val_Gray: I thought he didn't bring any ghost weapons?
WaterIsSoWet: didn't he say he's never actually faced a ghost before? Kinda weird that he isn't freaking the hell out.
The camera shifts and Danny's face is in view. He took off the camera, and he's now talking directly to it. "Okay. I know what I said earlier, but I don't wanna break this camera, so I really have to cut this—"
dbaxindahouse: hey fenturd don't you DARE, it's just getting good!
He closes his eyes and takes a sharp breath like he's praying for patience. "Look, Dash—"
It happens in a blur of motion. He seems to get hit by something, hard, dropping the camera in the process. He grunts at the impact just as the camera hits the ground. The screen settles just in time to see Danny land on one of the larger objects several yards away, hard enough to completely obliterate whatever is underneath the tarp. Despite his distance from the camera, his groan is clearly audible.
samarilynmanson: @TF4TooFine his mic is still on! Can't you turn it off remotely or something??
TF4TooFine: I can't, he has to
TF4TooFine: HEY DANNY, DISCONNECT YOUR MIC
Val_Gray: WHY?? What are y'all trying to hide???
Star Butterfly: hey danny omg are you okay???
Danny gingerly touches his side, not seeming to hear Tucker or Star's comments. His hand comes away red. The rolling sound happens yet again, and there's movement on the ground near Danny's feet. It's a large metal ball that hit him, a little bigger than a beach ball. It's attached to a chain, and the grating sound appears to be the sound of the ball being dragged back by the chain. The walking shadow appears onscreen a moment later. A quiet 'clink' sounds as the metal sphere is fully retracted into whatever the figure is holding.
Danny grunts and struggles to peel himself from the wreckage below him. The wooden plank that injured him is clearly visible, poking through the tarp after he stands up. The figure stops moving. Danny shifts and balls his hands into fists, feet spread in what looks like a fighting stance. He closes his eyes and seems to steel himself for a long moment.
When he opens them, they're glowing an acid green.
obi kwan kenobi: HOLY S H I T
samarilynmanson: TUCKER STOP THE STREAM
NateOfTheKnight: !!!!!
TF4TooFine: I CAN'T, HE'S GOTTA DO IT MANUALLY
Wes2Weston: THAT'S THE GLOWY THING I FREAKING KNEW IT OH MY GOD
xXRockerChickXx: oof
"Who are you?" Danny growls.
"You are the King, and you must be contained," the figure says in a deep, raspy voice. They gesture to the fridge, which is now missing its chains. The door is wide open.
WaterIsSoWet: THAT'S the king thing??? He's ROYALTY?
NateOfTheKnight: We gotta call his parents or something! @samarilynmanson @TF4TooFine
samarilynmanson: NO, he'll be fine. He always is.
Wes2Weston: @samarilynamanson What the hell does THAT mean?! Ghosts can still die or be destroyed or whatever, can't they?!
obi kwan kenobi: @Wes2Weston okay but look at him, he's clearly ready to throw down
samarilynmanson: @Wes2Weston Ghosts can die but Danny's been through worse than this
samarilynmanson: wait
Wes2Weston: SO HE'S A GHOST?!?!?
samarilynmanson: I didn't say that
Wes2Weston: you didn't have to, you basically just confirmed it without saying it!!!
TF4TooFine: CAN WE TABLE THIS ARGUMENT FOR WHEN DANNY ISN'T BLEEDING AND IN TROUBLE??
samarilynmanson: I know, im on my way over there
TF4TooFine: same
dbaxindahouse: the hell do you two think ur gonna do?
samarilynmanson: shut up dash
"Unbelievable," Danny says, sounding exasperated. "First off, I never wanted to be king. Second, I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be a sarcophagus and not a creepy fridge, and third... I'm not going in there." He shifts again, and a white ring appears at his waist. It splits in two. One ring heads upwards, and the other moves towards his feet.
obi kwan kenobi: wtf???
Star Butterfly: um what is happening
Standing there is Danny Phantom.
He winces. His hand briefly goes to the same spot on his side, where Danny Fenton had injured himself seconds ago.
WaterIsSoWet: I'm confused, where did he go?
Val_Gray: that's him, you idiot
Val_Gray: Fenton is Phantom. That's what he's been hiding
Val_Gray: I can't believe I've been so stupid
Wes2Weston: BOOM. What did I say? WHAT did I say???
Phantom pushes off the ground, hovering in the air. His fists start glowing, charged and surrounded by the same energy that had blasted the hostile ghost earlier. He rears back. A glowing ball of electric green grows between his hands, before—
"Wait!" the figure cries. They drop their weapon and raise their hands in surrender. "I can't. I can't do this anymore. You weren't actually supposed to get hurt, are you okay? Ugh, I hate the sight of blood. Or ectoplasm."
WaterIsSoWet: w h a t
NateOfTheKnight: wait, was this planned???
obi kwan kenobi: there's no way. Right?
But Phantom just seems confused now. The energy in his hands fades slightly. "What?" he says.
"I... You weren't supposed to get hurt," the figure repeats.
"What the heck are you talking about?" Phantom lands on the floor but keeps his distance.
The figure closes the fridge and leans against it, sliding down it into a seated position on the floor. "I just wanted a realistic reaction from the protagonist. You were supposed to be frightened and running around, not fighting back."
Phantom squints, obviously skeptical. "What are you...?" And then it seems to click. "Ghost Writer?!"
WaterIsSoWet: who?
TF4TooFine: I can't believe this.
TF4TooFine: Im going to bed.
Star Butterfly: @TF4TooFine It's 5 in the afternoon.
TF4TooFine: And?
samarilynmanson: I knew this was a bad idea. Guess we're canceling the rescue.
"Are you okay?" the 'Ghost Writer' repeats softly, an odd juxtaposition to the dark rasp of their voice.
"Yeah, I'm fine, I heal super fast," Phantom says dismissively, briefly looking down and prodding at his side. He refocuses on the Ghost Writer. "Can we go back to the part where you... what. You planned this?"
"Yes, I'm writing a novel!" the other ghost chirps. "It's a supernatural horror mystery featuring a teenage protagonist. I don't know anything about teenagers, so I figured I'd. I don't know. Recreate my book to see how a real teenager would react."
"What?!"
Ghost Writer shrugs. "I asked Ember, and she came up with this. This building didn't exist last week. I just planted the memory of it in all you kids' heads. She said one of you would come along to explore eventually. To be honest, I couldn't decide what it used to be, so I just left it up to y'all to decide."
xXRockerChickXx: Guilty! :) It's amazing what you come up with when you're bored out of your mind.
obi kwan kenobi: wait, you're Ember? Ghosts can use ViewTube?
NateOfTheKnight: Uh, possibly more pressing question but ghosts can just chANGE OUR MEMORIES???
samarilynmanson: not all of them, this one's... special. He's also harmless.
NateOfTheKnight: somehow I don't feel better
Wes2Weston: I told ALL of you, and now you see!! My work here is done, so I'm leaving.
samarilynmanson: good riddance
"I wasn't expecting you of all people to show up," Ghost Writer continues. "But I figured I'd work with it. I even put in the whole 'king' thing. Get it? Since you're the Ghost King and all. Except you don't scare easily enough." Ghost Writer seems to be pouting at this. "You ruined it."
"I ruined?!" Danny sputters. "I just wanted to do parkour and make a... video..." Danny trails off. His eyes land on the camera, and his expression falls. "Oh, crap."