Danny Phantom Outsider Perspecitive Week

Danny Mahealani made his way through the crowd, but couldn’t find who he was looking for. He had to be around here somewhere, and Danny was quickly running out of places to check.

Danny bumped into someone and spun around, “Ethan?”

“Aiden,” Aiden corrected with a scoff.

“Where's Ethan?” Danny clarified.

“I'm looking for him too.”

“I haven't see him in like, half an hour.” 

Last Danny knew, Ethan went to get some ice while he got his body painted, but then he never came back.

Aiden looked around the room, but Danny couldn’t tell if he was looking or trying to think.

“Is something wrong?” He was already getting worried, but Aiden walked off before Danny could say anything else.

“Aiden. Aiden!” Danny called before following him.

He didn’t get far when he bumped into the other Danny.

The poor guy looked more worried than he felt. 

“Have you seen Lydia?” He said as he glanced back into the crowd.

“I haven’t seen her since you two got here, but come on, Aiden might know where she is.” Danny said before he continued to follow the straight twin through the crowd.

======================================

Allison had been enjoying the moment she was having with Isaac, but that ended when she felt something behind his ear.

The pair rushed into the nearest room to get a look in the mirror.

Allison held Isaac’s head and tried to turn it to get a better look under the light. “Turn to the mirror. You see that?”

“What is that?” Isaac asked as he moved his ear out of the way to better see the odd mark.

“It looks like a number five,” she had no idea why it was backwards though.

Isaac turned to her and was quiet for a second before he asked, “Did you hear that?”

She shook her head and watched as he slowly walked over to the bins of ice.

They were shocked to find Ethan slumped on the floor. He did not look good. 

In fact, he kind of looked how Isaac had the night before.

======================================

The Dannys and Adien weaved their way through the crowd towards the outer wall when Danny M. noticed the door to the balcony. 

The door wasn’t even completely open when the other Danny slipped underneath his outstretched arm to get outside.

That’s when Danny noticed Lydia on the ground.

“Aiden, over here!” Danny called back into the room before rushing over to Lydia’s side.

The boys all gathered around her and tried to get her to respond.

“What happened? What happened to her?” Aiden asked, clearly worried.

Danny placed a hand on her and that's when felt how cold she was, “I don't know, but she's freezing. She's practically hypothermic.” 

“We gotta get her inside. Help me.” Aiden said as he scooped Lydia up in his arms.

Danny led the way through the crowd, “Over here! There's a heating vent.” Danny called before adding, “I'll try to find a blanket.”

Of course that would be so much easier if he actually knew this place at all. Unfortunately he just had to blindly guess and try and remember where the bed had gotten shoved off to.

======================================

Isaac tried to get Ethan to respond but the guy was practically catatonic. 

He gave a quick resigned sigh before he grabbed Ethan’s arm with both hands.

“What are you doing?” Allison asked hesitantly.

“It'll trigger the healing.”

Before she could fully process that or brace herself, Isaac broke Ethan’s arm in one quick and powerful twist.

This of course led to Ethan’s howl of pain.

As much as she was thankful for Isaac’s quick thinking, she hated how easy it was for him to do that.

Once Ethan passed back out from the pain, they checked to see if he had a mark like Isaac did.

“It's the same. Exactly the same.” she said.

She wasn’t sure if that was good news or not. 

======================================

Derek woke up to the smell of old oilstains and the grit of asphalt against his skin.

It was bad enough he got jumped, but to have it happen right outside his own home really made it worse. 

At least no one was around to see it. He knew Peter would be the most annoying about it.

He felt something just behind is ear. There was a small mark that hadn’t been there before.

When he found out who did this there was going to be hell to pay.

He tried to focus so he could hunt them down, but there was a distracting thump of bass-heavy dance music.

Now that he was paying attention he couldn’t help but smell all the alcohol and sweat that was coming from the hoard of teenagers throwing a party.

A party that was in his house.

Derek howled in rage and ran back inside to get these stupid kids to leave.

======================================

Scott was really enjoying spending all this time with Kira. She was just so easy to talk to and be around, it felt like they'd known each other forever.

He had been a bit bummed when he overheard that she wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, but he was more than happy to be friends with her.

If it led to something more later, that’d be cool too.

Their alone time on the roof was interrupted when Scott heard Derek’s howl.

“Derek?” Scott stood up trying to pinpoint exactly where he was.

He sounded pissed.

“We should go back inside,” Scott said before taking Kira’s hand and bringing her along.

They made their way inside just in time to catch Derek shouting at everyone to get out.

Everyone had froze for a full three seconds before they all bolted for the door.

As the place cleared, Scott saw that pretty much all of his friends were still in the room.

Allison, Isaac, and one of the twins were just entering the main room. Lydia and the other twin were near the opposite wall with a guy Scott didn’t recognize.

The only person from their group that was missing was Stiles. Maybe he left with that girl who kissed him when they came in.

Now that the room was mostly empty, it was easier to see that there were also a small group of shadowy dark figures scattered about. They reminded Scott of ninjas but they had creepy masks with grotesque smiles covering their faces.

Everyone tensed as the figures turned in unison to stare at Aiden.

“Guys... They're all looking at me.” Adien said as he looked around the room, “Why are they all looking at me?”

The shadow men kept taking single ominous steps towards Aiden. Slowly inching their way towards him.

Scott hesitated, but those shadow guys didn't look like they were up to anything good. Even if the twins weren’t the best people in the world, they didn’t deserve to be attacked either.

Scott and Derek jumped into action to try and fight the invaders.

They were so quick and moved like liquid that it made hitting them nearly impossible.

Despite their best efforts, like Derek literally snapping one of their necks, the figures kept coming. It was like the pair of werewolves weren’t even a threat.

As if to prove the point, Derek and Scott were both knocked across opposite sides of the room with hits that were not easy to bounce back from.

Isaac jumped in to help now that Scott and Derek were down but when the figures pulled out katanas from their chests, Isaac made the reasonable decision to back the hell off.

“Somebody do something!” Allison called out as if there was anyone else left to help.

They was frozen as the figures surrounded Adien and marked him behind the ear.

Adien collapsed and the figures turned towards Scott.

Scott wasn’t going to go down without a fight so he pulled himself back up and let his wolf side come to the surface.

Then he turned and realized Kira was behind him.

He didn’t know if they were after him or her, but he wasn’t going to let them get any closer.

The figures stopped their advances and turned to the window.

Sunlight spilled into the room and the shadowy figures dissolved in the light leaving just as quickly as they had appeared.

“What the hell were those things?” Scott asked aloud, unsure if he would actually get an answer.

Isaac turned to Allison, “Your dad's twenty-four hours are up.”

======================================

Stiles walked into the dark and empty school alone.

As much as he had wanted to stay at the party and keep kissing Caitlin he just couldn’t. 

He had to know.

He had to be sure.

Stiles walked into the chemistry classroom and pulled out the mystery key.

He placed the key into the chemistry closet door and turned it.

It unlocked.

He took a breath.

Why did he have the key to the room that Barrow had been hiding in? How did he even get it?

Stiles walked to the chalkboard and looked at the message that told Barrow to go after Kira.

Just the numbers 19, 53, and 88.

Which, thanks to Lydia, he now knew it translated to Kira.

They still didn’t know who wrote it.

Stiles picked up the chalk with shaking hands.

He wrote the numbers next to the ones that were already there.

They were exactly the same.

It was his handwriting. 

Both times.

u/JokingJoker • 6 h

What are you? Jury, judge, and executioner? YTA! And probably a criminal??

u/VeryScaredyCat678345 • 6 h

You just go around shooting people?

u/HunterInRed OP • 6 h

Not humans.

u/VeryScaredyCat678345 • 6 h

And your ex isn’t human???

u/DairyQueen  • 5 h

Same girl.

u/SlothLife420 • 5 h

INFO. Have you hit your ex in the past? You say you don’t try to hit him anymore, but have you done it before?

u/HunterInRed OP • 5 h

Yes. He heals quickly though so it’s fine

u/SlothLife420 • 5 h

That doesn’t sound fine?? If he had to heal that means he got hurt.  What do you shoot him with if it’s not normal guns?

u/HunterInRed OP • 5 h

They’re energy weapons.

u/SlothLife420 • 5 h

Do you live in the future?? Are you aliens?

u/HunterInRed OP • 5 h

I wish he was an alien. It would be better

---

u/PiffPaffPuff • 6 h

What does he do to threaten you and all those people? Typical, a man threatening a woman and then the woman gets blamed for defending herself. NTA. 

u/HunterInRed OP • 6 h

He has been in a lot of fights and put people in danger.

u/SlothLife420 • 6 h

Then shouldn’t you help him??? Has someone in this situation tried calling the cops?

 I’m guessing you’re in the US, we have law-enforcements for this

u/PiffPaffPuff • 5 h

God forbid a girl does anything by herself

u/Revululution • 5 h

ACAB

---

u/FluffigKatt • 5 h

YTA. What kind of disguise could he be wearing for you to think it's okay to shoot him? A deer costume?

u/HunterInRed OP • 5 h

I found out recently that he’s half something horrible and he dresses like that half. Sorry, I can’t really go into more details than that.

u/FluffigKatt • 5 h

Am I reading this right? You found out he's half a race you don't like, or part of a minority group or something and you started blasting??

u/HunterInRed OP • 5 h

No. He’s not part of a minority. It’s something that happened fairly recently. He’s half something horrible and these “people” act a certain way and dress a certain way and they’re DANGEROUS.

u/FluffigKatt • 5 h

He's gay?? Bi??? And you bring out your gun? It's 2025! Not the 16th century! 

---

u/Vitamin_D_Deficient • 4 h

INFO

You said his friends think YTA. What does your ex say?

u/HunterInRed OP • 4 h

I don’t think he really cares. I think he’s used to it because his parents do the same

u/Vitamin_D_Deficient • 4 h

They shoot him???

u/HunterInRed OP • 4 h

Yes. Like I said; a lot of people in our town have weapons. It’s not that weird

u/ManyHolesManyUses • 4 h

It is very weird

u/Perpetual_State_Of_Confusion • 4 h

I have so many questions

u/Vitamin_D_Deficient • 4 h

Where do you live???

u/ManyHolesManyUses • 4 h

You can’t ask her to dox herself

u/Vitamin_D_Deficient • 4 h

I just wanna make sure I add this batshit insane town to my list of places never to visit

---

u/KeyBinding8474562 • 3 h

Now you know it’s him and you’re still doing it? 

u/HunterInRed OP • 3 h

I usually don't hit him, he's very fast OR good at dodging. 

u/KeyBinding8474562 • 3 h

OH MY- Stop!!! Doesn’t anyone call the police??

u/HunterInRed OP • 3 h

It’s fine. And it's a bit hard to stop now that we've gotten used to it OR it's a bit like a tradition now. OR like how we hang out. 

Sometimes I want to kill my ex but I didn’t mean it LITERALLY!

u/HunterInRed OP • 3 h

It’s fine, he’s already dead.

u/KeyBinding8474562 • 3 h

JESUS. Did you kill him?

u/Vitamin_D_Deficient • 3 h

She finally shot her shot

u/KeyBinding8474562 • 3 h

Don’t joke about this! Where do you live?? Can someone check up on this guy? I’m getting really worried.

u/HunterInRed OP • 3 h

He’s fine. This is besides the point, I just wanted to know if I was an asshole

u/KeyBinding8474562 • 3 h

Yes! YTA!!! Stay away from him!

---

u/WestOftheWest • 3 h

Is this about Danny?

u/WestOftheWest • 1 h

Your silence speaks volumes. I’ll talk to you in school tomorrow

u/KeyBinding8474562 • 1 h

You know who she’s talking about?? Is he okay? Are you okay? Where do you live?

u/WestOftheWest • 1 h

I’ll post an update where I finally reveal the truth about Danny and all his lies! Give me 10 minutes, I have all my note ready

u/Vitamin_D_Deficient • 1 h

The mystery thickens!! What truth?? Is the ex actually evil? Maybe OP isn’t the A-hole

u/KeyBinding8474562 • 1 h

It doesn’t really matter!! She stills admits to shooting a person! That’s never okay, no matter what they’ve done. If he’s committed crimes then he should be handled by the court system, not by random civilians.

u/Vitamin_D_Deficient • 1 h

Okay nerd

u/Vitamin_D_Deficient • 10 min

@WestOftheWest where did you go??

u/Perpetual_State_Of_Confusion • 5 min

“Yes, way. Look!” Sophie said, gesturing at the holes and their distinct oval shape.

Max snorted. “Ha. Someone needs to ease up on their calories.”

“Really?” Sophie raised an eyebrow. “You’re fat-shaming a dead person?”

“What?” Max waved her off, “I need to have some fun in my life.”

Sophie ignored him and followed what she was now certain was footprints. Then she paused, confused. “They turner smaller over here.”

Max shrugged, getting back over to his work. “See, not footprints. They don’t just change size like that.”

“Maybe they do,” Sophie defended.

Max gave a snorting laugh. “What? And they’re some sort of dragon-human hybrid? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“We’re talking about ghosts,” Sophie reminded him.

“Yeah?” Max asked, now distracted by his shovel.

Sophie shook her head, getting back to her own work. “Never mind.”

A few sweaty hours later, it was finally time for lunch. Sophie plopped down on the curb and brought out her sandwich, smiling at the realization that they day was half over.

Max sank down next to her with a groan. “You would think this got easier with all the practice we get.”

“Sure,” Sophie agreed. “If only it wasn’t so demotivating to repair the same streets over and over again.”

“You said it,” Max grumbled and dug into his own lunch.

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes before Sophie caught sight of a hole in the wall across the street from them. The fact that it had taken her this long to notice it said a lot about the state of the town they called home.

She paused with her sandwich halfway to her mouth, lowered it, and said, “Is that…” Sophie trailed off.

Max followed her gaze and then tilted his head, narrowing his eyes as he inspected the hole. “Phantom, I think.”

“Hm,” Sophie hummed, bringing up her hand in front of her face and made as if to measure the hole from a distance. “I think he’s gotten a bit taller? Compared to how big the holes usually are.”

“Really?” Max asked, skeptical. “I think he just got hit harder. The dragon, remember?”

“That wouldn’t really make the hole longer, now would it?”

“It would! The force would absolutely make the stone—”

“That’s not how it works!” Sophie cut him off.

Max opened his mouth as if to continue arguing, but both of them were startled by a stern voice from behind. “It doesn’t matter how it happened. Our job is to fix it.”

Both of them straightened up. “Yes, boss!” Before scrambled to get back to their tasks. They had an ongoing bet whether the foreman was a ghost or not, what with his complete disregard for everything a human needed to live, like lunch and toilet breaks.

Still, Sophie could hear Max muttering, “What’s even the point? They’re just gonna tear it up again.”

She gave him a smile. "It's a living. Besides, we still need to make sure the town works for the people actually living in it.”

“...Was that a pun?” Max groaned.

Sophie gave him her most innocent smile. “No?”

“I hate you.”

—-

Sophie let out a deep sigh. “The Fentons again.”

Max groaned. “Why do they still have a driver’s license? And why do they insist on shooting everything?!"

Sophie agreed, but felt like arguing out of principle. “I would rather they shoot the buildings and roads than people.”

Max snorted. “They wouldn't be able to hit people if they tried! For all we know, that’s what they’re trying to do, and their aim is just that shitty.”

“Lucky us, then,” Sophie said as she inspected the impressive ten bent road signs on one small part of the road. She let out another long sigh. “Really, they just had to shoot all the road signs? Again?? Do you think they use them as target practice?"

Max groaned. “And then people wonder why,” and here he put on a clearly fake high pitched voice that Sophie was fairly certain tried to mimic a certain Pamela Manson, “the busses are always late and the traffic is so bad even though we live in such a quaint small town.” He gestured aggressively at the potholes and smoking craters in front of them, “Look at the roads!”

Sophie could do nothing but agree. “Yeah. Really, we have enough work to do as is. We don’t need humans to contribute with more destruction. Maybe we should ask the mayor to talk to them again.”

“That went so well last time. Remember their attempts at driving the flying car through town to minimize damage? Remember the hole in the school when they crashed it??”

Sophie shuddered. “Don’t remind me.”

—-

“This is disgusting,” Max complained, grimacing down at the green on his shovel.

Sophie kind of agreed, but put on a nonchalant tone of voice as she shrugged and said, “It’s just ectoplasm.”

“It’s everywhere!” Max countered, dumping his shovel’s load into the wheelbarrow where it made a disgusting wet sound as it joined the small pile already there. “And it feels like snot!”

Sophie raised one eyebrow. “Know how that feels, do you?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Max said as he slung his shovel around, spraying droplets of ectoplasm in an arch around him.

Sophie jumped back, “Careful with that!”

“I thought you didn’t care,” Max taunted her with a smile.

“Doesn’t mean I want it on my clothes! Why isn’t the decontamination team here? They have the right clothes for this!”

“Something about a possible leak of concentrated ectoplasm in a residential area.”

“Let me guess. The Fentons?” Sophie asked tiredly as she dumped her own shovel-full of green slop into the wheelbarrow.

“No idea, but I wouldn’t bet against it.”

She paused. “Hey, wanna go after work and egg their house?”

Max raised an eyebrow. “You really think they’ll smell it over whatever they have down in their basement?”

Sophie slumped in defeat. “That’s fair.”

“But,” Max tapped his chin with one gloved hand, “It would make me feel better. I’m in.”

“Yay!” Sophie did a little happy dance, careful not to slip on any ectoplasm, which was hard considering the hole alleyway was absolutely covered in the stuff.

Max gave the alley another disgusted once over. “Why is it splattered all over? Did a ghost explode or something?”

“Who knows,” Sophie said as she got back to shoveling, “Maybe there are ghost ticks?”

Max shuddered, joining in with filling up their tenth wheelbarrow for the day. “That’s horrifying. Or a vampire ghost! Can you imagine? Disgusting.”

Sophie grimaced, not thrilled by that idea. “Whatever it was, it’s probably going to give us some overtime.”

“We’re lucky mayor Masters gives a lot of funding to the maintenance division. I might actually be able to take that vacation I’ve been dreaming of this year,” Max said, sounding a lot happier all of a sudden.

Sophie added another disgusting load into the pile. How many times had she done this the last few years? How many more times would she do it? “Yeah, true, but it would be nice to have some money over to do something nice for the city. You know, build something new instead of just repairing the same streets and houses over and over. I mean, we have all that money, and the town still looks like... this.” She ended with a gesture around them at the green dripping from the walls, too many potholes to count dotting the ground, a chunk of concrete missing from one of the houses, and two bent lampposts.

“Fair,” Max agreed easily. Then he smiled mischievously and added, “But don’t worry! The Fentons will help!”

“Help the ghosts destroy the city you mean!”

Max pointed at her with a wide smile. “Exactly!”

They both broke out into laughter and got back to shoveling.

After a few minuted Max broke the silence, “Speaking of Masters, I could have sworn I saw him fistfight the Fenton boy last Thursday in the Nasty Burger’s parking lot.”

“What?” Sophie asked, glancing up from her work, “No, you didn’t.”

“I did! And the craziest thing is, I saw him punch through the side of a wall. A brick one!”

“Okay, now I know you're shitting me.” She paused, and hated that she lived a life where she had to ask, “Wait. The Fenton kid or the mayor?”

“What?” Max blinked in confusion.

“Who punched through the wall?”

“The mayor!” Then he paused and seemed to think before adding, “No, both actually.”

Sophie shook her head. “You’re pulling my leg.”

“I’m not!”

“You know what? I don’t care. Let’s just get this done.”

Max gave the walls another disgusted look. “I’ll call the decontamination team and see if they’re done.”

—--

The water pooled on the street, running down the dented asphalt and Sophie just knew that this was gonna be a real pain in the ass to fix.

Max stepped up beside her. “What happened here?”

“No idea. It almost looks like…” She paused as she thought. “Hey, do we know any ghost who has ice powers?”

“Ice?”

“Yeah. I think someone froze the pipes.”

“It’s July!” Max sounded scandalized.

“Then try give the ghosts an almanac,” Sophie deadpanned. Then she groaned into her hands. “This is gonna take ages to fix! We need to dig up the whole street!”

Max seemed lost in thought for a second before saying, “Can’t we just wait a few days for a ghost to do it for us?”

Sophie stared at him, incredulous. “You want to weaponize the ghost fights to do construction work?”

Max shrugged. “It’s time they payed back some of the damage they do.”

“Good luck explaining that to them,” Sophie said.

“If I were a ghost I could just go down there and fix it. No need to dig it all up. Imagine,” Max said dreamily.

Sophie raised one unimpressed eyebrow. “Now you’re gonna kill yourself to do a better job?”

Max laughed, “No! Besides, I don’t think I could do a better job than I already do even if I tried. You could never top this perfection.” He ended with an exaggerated gesture at himself.

Sophie held back her laugh as she deadpanned, “Imagine being so pathetic you’re dying to work.”

Max wagged a finger at her, tutting. “No, no, I want the dead to work.”

“Oooh, that’s much better!” Sophie laughed and Max joined in.

But something about what he’d said earlier about putting ghosts to use stuck with her. Why shouldn’t they try and use the ghosts own powers to fix the problems they caused? “...Do we know any ghost who has fire powers?” Maybe they could melt the ice at the very least.

Max hummed in thought. “Have you heard Ember’s new single?”

—--

“Get down!” Sophie yelled, pushing Max down to the ground.

He yelped as he fell, but soon joined her behind their upturned wheelbarrow. “I thought it was over?!”

“Maybe they started again?”

“What,” Max hissed, “just taking a coffee break from beating the shit out of each other?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Sophie sighed. And they had been so close to finishing up this street.

Max watched the fight in front of them with a frown. “God, they just come out of nowhere. Creepy fucks.”

Sophie agreed. Even if one of the ghosts currently fighting wasn’t the worst of them. Phantom had always seemed to actually care about the people around him, if not the infrastructure. And Sophie guessed that was as good as it would get. The other ghost though, Skulker if her memory served her right, didn’t seem to hesitate to put everyone and everything around him at risk.

Speaking of. Skulker charged up what looked like a big blast, aiming it down at Phantom and towards the street. Absolutely not.

Sophie felt rage and indignation flood through her and before she knew what she was doing she had gotten up from their little shelter and stepped right between the brawling ghosts, brandishing her shovel like a weapon. “Don’t. You. Dare.”

Phantom and Skulker both looked at her with shock clear on their faces.

Phantom breathed out, “What?”

Sophie wasn’t deterred. “We just finished fixing up the holes in this street from last week. If you two break it again, I swear to god I’m gonna kill you again.” She turned to Skulker and his energy weapon, now sizzling out but still aimed towards the street, and growled, “And you. I’ll make your face match the hole I know you put in the wall of the library.”

Phantom held up his hands as he backed up slightly. “Jeez, okay, I’m sorry.” He turned and gestured for the other ghost to follow. “Come on, let’s go to the—”

“Not the park!” Sophie interrupted him, raising her shovel slightly, “We’re holding a festival there on Saturday and there's newly planted flowers. Go out of town!”

Phantom whined, “But that’s so far.”

Sophie crossed her arms. “I don’t care. You can fly.” She made a dismissive wave of her hand. “Shoo.”

“Unbelievable,” Phantom muttered as he flew away.

She could hear the other ghost say to Phantom, “It takes a good hunter to know when you are outclassed.”

And Phantom’s answering, “Keep telling yourself that.”

And then they were gone.

Max came up to her, looking flustered, “That was so stupid!”

“It worked didn’t it?” Sophie said, hefting her shovel over her shoulder to try and disguise her suddenly shaking hands.

Max gave her an incredulous look. “Yeah, I guess it did.”

“Let’s go home.” She gave him a smile. “Imagine! We can actually clock out in time!”

“I need to sleep,” Max agreed, then showed her shoulder, “You should too, and hopefully a dragon attacks so you get a good night’s sleep.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

----

Sophie and Max stepped around the school’s corner, and immediately Max said, with triumph that didn’t match the devastation surrounding them, “Ha! I told you the mayor was fighting the Fenton boy!”

They were gone now, thankfully, but Sophie couldn’t deny that they really had seen the town’s mayor fist fighting a teenager. Rolling around on the ground, throwing insults and everything.

And then, of course since this was Amity, it had gotten strange.

First, Sophie had been sure they were about to become witnesses to the mayor killing a child when he threw the boy straight through a wall.

Secondly, the boy had gotten back up, grabbed the mayor, and flown off.

So maybe they had actually been witnesses to a child kidnapping the town’s mayor?

This was not what she had been expecting when they had gotten the call to fix the parking spaces outside the school.

They both stopped in front of the deep hole in the wall.

Sophie voiced what they were both thinking, “It was the Fenton boy who got thrown through here, right?”

“Yeah,” Max agreed, sounding so very tired.

Sophie felt the need to ask, “And he wasfine, right?”

Max nodded. “Climbed out himself and everything.”

Sophie tried to really take that in. Then she paused as she looked at the hole. She brought her hand up in front of her face as if to measure it. “Doesn’t this look like Phantom?”

Max tilted his head. “You know what? Yeah, it does.”

They exchanged looks.

“you think he would agree to come work for us in the summer?” Max asked, hopefully.

Sophie laughed, “Ask him. I doubt he had the time.”

“Fair,” Max agreed and they both turned silent as they decidedly tried to not think of the implications of all his.

“Well!” Sophie clapped her hands and stepped away. “Let’s go fix some parking spots.”

“And a hole in the wall,” Max added.

It was like how he dealt with the A-Listers. He was scrawny and a nerd, which would usually put him at the bottom of the social ladder, but he’d found a way to make himself useful. The first time Dash had cornered him because of some misplaced aggression, he’d handed over a pristine copy of his math homework and an alliance had been formed. Now, not only were he and his friends not bullied, they always had the best seat in the house for home games. 

It didn’t always work out that way. Helping Kwan cheat on his science test had gotten both in more trouble than Mikey liked to think about, but in general he was pretty good at making things work. 

Everyone else thought the ghosts were a nuisance, and they definitely were, but Mikey? Mikey had seen an opportunity. 

It started, like it always did, with Danny Fenton running off to use the restroom. Mikey didn’t know what kind of device he had that alerted him or if it was some side effect of living around ectoplasm for as long as he had, but that didn’t really matter. The ghosts were what mattered. 

As soon Danny left the room, everyone’s head swiveled towards the windows. Sometimes the ghost would stick to the inside of the school. When that happened, the only signs of the fight would be the crashes and shouting echoing through the hallways. Those weren’t good fights to bet on. There wasn’t enough certainty about exactly what happened.

But, sometimes, sometimes, the ghosts would fight out in the open. Those were the good fights. Well, good for Mikey, they were generally a pain for everyone else. 

The entire class held their breath. Now was the time anything could happen from a fight flying through the wall to the box ghost popping up from the floor. 

The first slip of paper was passed to Mikey. “Three glitter pens on the Box Ghost showing up.” 

Mikey wrote it down and discreetly slipped the gel pens into his bag. Glitter pens weren’t worth a lot in his ledger, but they were worth more than some of the candies or more general stationery. 

A metal body with green flames leaping from its head floated down to hover right outside the window. Tough luck for the owner of those gel pens. 

Almost as one, the class backed away from the window. Wary, but not ready to run. This wasn’t a ghost that targeted humans, well usually. It had webbed Mikey to a wall once. So, it was kinda a jerk.

Paulina passed him a bag of chocolate covered coffee beans and a note betting the ghost boy would wave at her. It wasn’t a great bet when they were inside and Phantom wasn’t. He didn’t stay around to chat most of the time. Mikey wrote down the bet anyway and gave her 3:1 odds anyway. It wasn’t like Phantom hadn’t gotten thrown through a wall before. 

The ghost had settled outside their window, binoculars in hand. A minute later, Phantom floated down beside him. The metal ghost didn’t notice him. Phantom turned to the class, winked and  put a finger to his mouth. 

Paulina would undoubtedly say that counted as her winning. MIkey decided he wasn’t going to give her the win unless Dash looked serious when he threatened to beat him up. 

Kwan passed him a note betting that Phantom would end up being punched into something and forget to phase through. There were two movie ticket vouchers under the note. Kwan must have been confident. Of course, he had a good chance at being right. Phantom forgot to phase through things in a solid 60% of his fights according to Mikey’s records. 

The ghost still hadn’t noticed Phantom. 

Phantom winked at the class again before looking back to the ghost and clearing his throat. 

The ghost jumped, dropping the binoculars in its surprise. Phantom took the opportunity to punch the ghost in the face. 

After that the fight was on and Mikey was too busy oscillating between discreetly writing down bets and watching the fight to think. Well, he did spare a thought to be thankful that Lancer was just as engrossed in the ghost fight as his students. 

Mikey was writing down a bet on two full-size Twix bars that Phantom would use a stolen Fenton gadget when he froze. He knew that hand writing. 

Mikey looked up from his books and, sure enough, Foley was standing there looking much too confident. Mikey glared at him and shoved both the note and the candy back at him. Mikey had thought he’d been clear.  

Foley lifted his hands and refused to take the note or the candy bars, the ass.  

“You know you aren’t allowed to bet,” Mikey hissed, glancing quickly at Lancer to make sure the man was still watching the ghost fight. 

Foley crossed his arms. “It’s not my fault that I have good luck.”

Mikey narrowed his eyes. “Good luck explains how Kwan manages to guess the ghost in 1 in 3 fights. It does not explain how you always know what gadgets Phantom pulls out.” Foley also seemed to have an uncanny grasp of Phantom's moves, timing, and even how often he would interact with people. But it was the gadgets that gave him away.

Foley scoffed, “Please, how on Earth could I possibly know what Phantom’s going to pull out in a fight? And I didn’t even say what it would be this time!”

“Someone has to supply him,” Mikey said, voice low, “And you’re friends with Fenton.” If Foley was Phantom's supplier, Mikey certainly wouldn’t hold it against him. It was probably a good thing overall. Mikey just wasn’t going to let Foley use it to cheat the books. If he was going to supply Phantom, he could do it without fixing fights. 

Foley’s eyes widened and he rapidly shook his head. “No, no,” I just have a program that tracks what he’s used in previous fights with different ghosts and calculates the probability based on that! I don’t know Phantom!”

Well, that was certainly some kind of confirmation. “That’s still cheating,” Mikey said, paused, and decided that, yes, he was going to push it, “Besides, an algorithm like that wouldn’t explain how you knew about the Ghost Lasso. He’d never used it before the fight last Thursday!” Mikey’s own algorithm certainly hadn’t predicted it. 

Foley swallowed, his eyes wide. Mikey regretted pushing him, just a little. Cheering for Phantom in a ghost fight was one thing, actively assisting him and possibly stealing from the Fentons was another. Foley could get into a lot of trouble and Mikey didn’t actually want that. 

Mikey had made up his mind to assure Tucker that he wasn’t going to tell anyway when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

Mikey froze. Fiddlesticks. 

“Mr. Jankowski,” Mr. Lancer started, “I thought we talked about gambling not being an appropriate activity, especially not on school grounds.”

Mikey turned to look him in the eye, putting  on his best innocent face. “It’s not gambling, Mr. Lancer,” he said. Outright denial was enough to stump some people. It certainly worked on his mom.

It didn’t work on Lancer. He stared pointedly at Mikey’s notebook on his desk and the pile of loot poorly hidden in his backpack. He raised an eyebrow. “Is it not?”

Mikey shook his head. “It’s just school supplies and candy. Gambling requires a wager of ‘something of value’ and we’re not using money anymore. I don’t really think a few gel pens and a couple of Twix bars count as being valuable.” 

He hoped not. Mikey had looked up the law on gambling after the last time he got caught. It very clearly stated the gambling meant to “wager something of value.” Of course value was subjective, but Mikey really hoped gel pens didn’t count. The law had also been pretty clear on the consequences of running an illegal gambling ring. 

Lancer held his gaze for several seconds before sighing and running his hand down his face. “Fine,” he said, looking towards the ceiling. Then, “Put me down for two packs of gum for Jack and Maddie Fenton showing up.” 

Mikey stared at him for a few moments before nodding slowly and turning to his notebook. He paused. 

“You know,” he said, “The Fentons showing up are pretty long odds.” It would be different if it were near pick-up time, but it was midday and ghost fights didn’t usually last long enough for the Fentons to both hear about it and get there in time to do anything.

“Yes,” Lancer agreed, “But if they do show up, I’m going to need those chocolate covered coffee beans and, as you said, a pack of gum isn’t anything ‘of value’”

Mikey nodded and wrote it down.

In the distance, he heard screeching tires and a blaring siren that sounded a lot like Jack Fenton’s voice. That was suspicious. Mikey narrowed his eyes at Lancer. The man looked more resigned than anything else. 

William could already feel a headache coming on. When he first began his teaching career, cell phones didn't exist. At least, not as mini computers that could fit into pockets. Now, managing smartphone usage seemed to take a quarter of his day.

"Really? The rest of you all forgot your phones at home?" It was almost offensive that any of these students would think he'd believe that. "Alright, then if I see a single smartphone out, it's a detention after school with me. Your choice."

A shuffling of chairs later, and about a couple dozen muttered complaints, and like magic, every single student had put their phone in its appropriate spot on the phone sleeve.

Record timing for this class, frankly.

Nevertheless, William clasped his hands together and tried again. "Alright, all! Today we'll be going over the chapter of Persepolis that we read in class together yesterday." At the students' blank stares, he added, "So please get your books and notes packets out."

More groans, a few hissy, "For real?" 

Really, what did these kids expect from an English class?

Lancer turned to the whiteboard and wrote ‘Chapter Summary’ in black ink. Hand poised to write more, he asked, "Alright, so can anyone summarize for me what happened in yesterday's chapter?"

As usual, he was only met with the sounds of silence and boredom.

Lowering his hand slightly, he looked over his shoulder and prompted, "What did Marji do? Did she go to school as normal?"

A few shaking heads.

Alright, that was a response if nothing else.

Time to start calling on students. "Mr. Sherman?"

"No, she skipped school," Mikey said.

Lancer wrote 'skipped school' on the board. 

And then, from the last student Lancer expected to pipe up, Dash opened his mouth. "She was smoking that good kush, Lancer!"

Oh boy. 

"Thank you for participating, Mr. Baxter, but she didn't smoke cannabis."

"Then, she should have!" Kwan interjected, always backing up his best friend. What a good kid, if that good kid wasn't also one of the main sources of his daily stress headaches. 

If nothing else, this could be a teachable moment about the delicate relationship between the morality police and the citizens of Iran. So, William began, "Well, you have to remember—"

"Lancer, my guy, if I may," Dash cut in, throwing that charming smile he always did when trying to suck up to the staff members because he'd just gotten caught doing something he wasn't supposed to do.

Still, William was never one to push away a good opportunity for a class discussion, so he entertained it. "What is it?"

"See, I think I got the answer to this whole book."

"Oh god," Sam groaned from across the room.

"And what would that answer be?"

Dash slammed his book on his desk and exclaimed, "Get this! All these guys need to do is get in a room together and smoke a bowl!"

Lancer stared. He couldn't help it. 

He stared.

"Excuse me?"

"Think about it!" Dash ranted as if he were about to solve world hunger. "All these guys are so uptight, right? That's why they're all beefing with each other—"

"Well, I wouldn't exactly call this sort of political tension a beef, but—"

"—so the solution is to just rip a fat bong!"

"Mr. Baxter. Please." William pinched the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb. 

"What, do you not know what a bong is?" Dash asked.

"Do I look like I was born yesterday? No, what I'm trying to get at is you cannot possibly think you can solve conflict in the Middle East with weed."

Dash looked positively offended. "Why not? Look what it did for that Box Ghost."

Danny picked his head up from his desk. "What did what for Boxy?" 

"Wait, you know what a bong is, sir?" Paulina asked.

"Guys," Kwan yell-whispered, "I think Lancer smokes weed."

"The Box Ghost totally rips fat hits. Come on, Fenturd, even you know that," Dash said, ignoring Paulina and Kwan completely now.

"Oh wait, maybe he does," Tucker said in realization. "I mean, that'd make a lot of sense. Boxy's so bad at protecting his boxes."

"Lancer so smokes weed. Look at him," Star yell-whispered back to Kwan. 

"Dumbass, ghost weed isn't a thing," Sam argued.

"Says who? You, Princess Batshit Crazy?" Dash shot back.

Okay, this was getting out of control. Time to use his Teacher Powers and shut this whole conversation down.

"A Tale of Two Cities! Alright, people!" William raised a hand. "Thank you all for this riveting discussion, but I think it's time we get back to our book."

"But Lancer, do you smoke kush?" Star pressed.

To which William wasn't about to give them a single clue. He turned back to the board, writing 'smoked a cigarette' as a bullet point under the chapter summary, and said, "What I do in my personal life is none of your business."

"Oh shit, you're right," Paulina told Kwan.

"You guys are morons. No way Lancer smokes. He's obviously a wine dude," Connie said from the back of the room.

"Yeah," Brittany agreed. "He has a cat and everything."

"Ladies," William tried, shooting them a stern look.

Unfortunately, Dash had already taken the bait, blurting out, "No offense, Lancer, but you go to wine tastings and just chug the whole bottle. I bet that's how you're still able to be a teacher at this school."

"Mr. Baxter, keep that up and you'll be seeing me after class," William said.

Honestly, what was with these students?

Unfortunately for Lancer, Tucker seemingly still hadn't gotten over his previous revelation and decided to take over, turning to Danny with a "Wait, is there a such thing as ghost weed?"

Danny glanced around nervously. "What? Why would I know anything about that..."

Paulina, the most acutely observant and 'people smart' student in the class, caught him instantly. "Why do you look like you're lying?"

"I bet his parents invented ghost weed. That's probably why we have so many ghosts. Danny sells it to them," Star said.

"What? No I don't! I don't even smoke!"

"Liar, liar. I've seen you vape before, Fenturd!" Dash snapped, all previous threats apparently already out of his head. 

Now, it was Danny's turn to look offended. "No, I've never vaped before in my life."

"Then who the hell stole Dale's vape out of the toilet and smoked it? 'Cause I've been saying it was you this whole time."

Paulina guffawed. "Someone seriously smoked Dale's toilet vape? Ew!"

Someone had smoked Dale's toilet vape, actually. William, much to his disgust and horror, had to be the one to confiscate said toilet-vape and deal with the unfortunate, innocent freshman who was just trying to be cool to his equally innocent friends. It ended with an ISS and William issuing a mandatory drug safety class to be held with the school nurse after school for four weeks.

But William wasn't about to tell anyone here that. "That rumor will not be discussed in this classroom."

"You've been telling people what?" Danny hissed.

"Mr. Fenton, Mr. Baxter, please save any further arguments about this topic after class. Now, I believe we were about to begin a discussion about how Marji from the book we're currently reading and discussing ditched school last chapter to smoke a cigarette with some older girls from school. If you could all open your books—"

"Hey, teach! Do you think they have Fantasy over in Iran?" Kwan asked.

Oh, for the love of Lord of the Flies. 

"Fantasy is an American Football thing, genius." Sam glowered from her seat. 

"Hey, don't come for my boy Kwan like that," Dash said.

"Because I was thinking," Kwan continued, unfazed as usual, "that if they can't all come together over ghost weed, they can come together from Fantasy. Because I know sometimes on the football team we can have our differences, but when we're talking fantasy? We all always come together."

"Hell yeah, bro," Dash said, holding out his fist, to which Kwan didn't hesitate to bump with his own.

"Oh, why am I not surprised? A bunch of meatheads throwing their money away on gambling," Sam said.

"Hey! Sports betting is way cooler than gambling," Dash shot back.

"It's gambling," Tucker and Danny said simultaneously in tones that were thoroughly unimpressed.

Connie piped in, still inspecting her nails for chips in the polish, "Yeah, my dad spent like twenty dollars betting on whether the National Anthem at the last Packer's game would be under two minutes. He lost."

Dash ignored her, raising his fist at Danny. "I'll show you gambling after class!"

"Mr. Baxter, please refrain from—"

Suddenly, there was a flash of light and a bang. A ghost shot through the wall, one covered in plants and flowers. His hair was long and braided down his back, and a straw hat sat on his head, amazingly not falling off despite the fact that he crashed straight into William's sad list of chapter events on the whiteboard. 

Another ghost followed, this one an annoyingly familiar cyborg, and also—from experience—heavily armored from head to toe.

"That's what you get for stiffing my girlfriend!" He held up a baggy of what appeared to be ecto-basil. "This isn't the flower we asked for, and you know it!"

"My dude," said the hippie ghost, "She wanted an ounce, I gave her an ounce. Not my fault she didn't specify which strain."

The cyborg raised his fist, and an ectogun appeared on the knuckles. "Scammer! I, the Ghost Zone’s greatest hunter, will make you pay for this!"

And now William had seen enough. He reached under his desk and hit the green button. Sirens went off with Jack Fenton's voice repeating, "Ghost alert! There's a ghost in the school! Everyone calmly evacuate so I can eat fudge—I mean, kill the ghost!" 

"Alright, you heard the announcement! Everyone, get out!" Lancer said.

The students, all too used to this disruption, took their sweet time leaving the classroom. Well, everyone except Daniel Fenton, who was already gone. William hadn't seen him leave, but this wasn't anything unusual. Poor kid was so terrified of ghosts.

"See? I knew there was ghost weed!" Dash said, ribbing Kwan as they exited the room.

"Do you think Phantom smokes?" Kwan asked.

Star nodded vigorously. "And I bet Fenton totally sells it to him!"

William sighed and took one last, longing glance over at his smudged whiteboard. Maybe tomorrow they could finally get through this chapter of Persepolis. 

Third time's a charm, and all.

****

“Children often have simple fears. The Dark, the Hunt, the Lonely—those are big things to a child. But some children are sick, some know loss. Painfully so. And those children belong to the End.”

Despite having known death all his life, it was nothing that Jon particularly feared more than other things. Not even when he died himself. With the Beholding pressed against his mind like an ocean—no not pressed, overrunning was more appropriate—he hated to say he was a little envious.

He did not tell Martin this, of course.

Martin fell silent by his side once more, falling back into a monotonous stride across the hellscape that was the Vast. It will be several days before they leave it, Jon knew already. It was the only way through. He was already tired of the wide, open landscape and valley that welcomed the Eye’s gaze from above like they were at the bottom of a snow globe.

He faintly recalled hearing the term Prairie Madness before and found it an apt description.

He looked at Martin, Trying So Hard Not to Know. And stated (Not Asked—Martin would not forgive him if He Asked): “You want to know what it’s like.”

Martin flinched. “Don’t do—”

“I didn’t. It was a guess.”

Martin looked at him long and hard. “I shouldn’t. That’s—the last one was bad enough.” He breathed in sharply. “But you need another statement, don’t you?”

Jon sighed.

It would be nice. Just one more to tide him over. Because the journey through this domain would be long…

“You don’t have to listen,” he assured. “Or—or I can just wait.”

“It’s fine,” Martin said, and his tone was so thick that Jon couldn’t tell if he meant it or not. Well he Could Tell if he wanted to but he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.

“Okay,” Jon said a beat later. He allowed the Eye push him in the right direction and he let the statement begin.

*

Bright lights accost your eyes, always a bit too bright and a bit too intense for your vision to adjust to. It would help if you could sleep in more than fitful intervals that just draw your breath too much, leaving you reaching your hand to your chest as you try to buck off the invisible weight brought down upon it. There’s never anything there. Just the regular tubes pouring out of your body, hooked up to screens with nonsense lines that spell out your doom.

You’ve been left here. Your stupid bright room has another bed by the window, the one you think looks painted on because the only thing it ever shows is that giant unblinking eye in the sky. The sun never sets, and your sense of time has slipped through your fingers like sand. You want your mom. You want your dad. Or Tessa or Uncle Bobby. Your teacher. Your coach. That one lady at the grocery store who always compliments your backpack even though she’s seen it a thousand times at this point.

You’ll take any of them. But you’re forgotten, and you’ll finish life alone because you stopped earning adults’ love the moment you received the diagnosis of terminal.

North Mercy Hospital is a dump. It’s not even in one of the good parts of Amity, folded between the docks and the outlet mall that’s since been repaired since Skulker blasted Phantom through it. It’s not much comfort that the veil runs thin in this town, you’ve never heard of anyone coming from the other side of the Fentons’ portal reuniting with a loved one.

Emma from math class told you that there’s a bunch of morons from out of town that come looking for ghosts of their loved ones. It’s the main reason the tourist industry hasn’t collapsed since the Fentons punched a hole through dimensions like the fabric of reality was a punch card at the Silver Spoon. That to say: you’re not hopeful. The screens hooked to your body, which has long since stopped responding to you in full—the most you can do on a day like this is salivate or twitch your fingers—might read nonsense but their purpose is clear enough.

Your time is nearly up.

The thought makes your heart race, because while you’d had so little life and you’d spent it all on stupid things. Pushing Tessa around and leaving bruises on her arms, leaving the front door open and letting Bella run into oncoming traffic, never getting the grades, always making a mess of things, that time you threw a bowl and broke the TV.

Your body wasn’t even cut out to live past twelve, subpar. You just weren’t good enough and even your bones knew it. Down to the cellular level.

You are undeserving. You deserve to die.

But you don’t want to. Even if there’s no one left that loves you, you really don’t want it to hurt. You want to be tucked into to bed at night. You want Mom to make you mac and cheese. You want the lights to go down. You want the machines to STOP BEEPING.

You try to wrap your mind around what it will be like to just stop existing. Everything that constitutes you as a person, everything that you like doing boiled down to its most basic form—just flickering out. Going to sleep and never waking up.

Maybe death is a dream that never ends. Maybe that’s what it means to be a ghost.

You hope so. You’ve never actually thought of the town’s ghosts as dead people before. If anything, they’re larger than life figures. Characters, almost.

The bed on the opposite side of your hospital room shifts. The figure tangled in its sheets slowly brings itself to a sitting position and it takes a monumental effort to even slightly tilt your head over to get a better sight. In the time you’ve been here (such a long, long time) the figure has remained inert. Asleep. Or perhaps it’s always been dead.

From the bed, Phantom looks at you with such pained eyes, which isn’t right. Phantom always wins his fights, always comes out on top. He’s the town’s hero for a reason.

But now Phantom cries. Tears welling in those unmistakable green eyes. His chest shudders almost as much as yours does and you realize what this means.

Oh.

You try to shape words with your mouth to ask him the one last question bearing down on your mind, but you’ve been so sapped for strength that nothing more than a groan escapes your lips. Phantom pushes himself to a standing position, and you realize secondly the wrongness in the action.

Phantom flies through the air. He doesn’t walk. That isn’t a thing that ghosts should do. But Phantom does it now, and stops beside your bedside, still crying. “I’m so sorry,” he tells you, voice thick and hoarse. “It’ll all be over soon. I’m so sorry.”

You know this already. But Phantom cradles a gloved hand to your face and you don’t feel the touch as much as you register the weight of it. The skin of your face is pliant under his grip. “I thought that dying would give me the power to stop this from happening, that I could use it for something,” he tells you, dizzily. “But I was wrong. Dying is meaningless. No matter how hard I try, I can’t change anything. My death was meaningless, and so is yours. Death is an unmovable force that comes for us all. Isn’t that terrible?” His eyes glaze for a moment. “Isn’t it… exhilarating?”

Phantom shakes his head. Behind him, the Eye out your window bears down on you closer and closer and your final moment to shine is upon you both now. You’ll be over in less than a minute.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, withdrawing his hand. He leans forward and pulls you into an embrace. Even though you struggle to feel it, you appreciate the gesture—unlike the screens behind you which have taken to screaming. “All I can offer you now is comfort,” he says.

With the end upon you, you fight to make your lips sound out one last question. You need to know. “Will I… ghost?” you heave, face pressed against Phantom’s shoulder.

His grip tightens for a moment and loosens. Phantom answers. “If you’re lucky, no. I hope not.” You don’t have time to understand what that means before your small heart finally stutters to a soft stop and your last exhale leaves your lips. The world crashes down on you, blackness overcoming your vision and you are no more. 

*     

Jon came back to his surroundings abruptly as always, feeling plenty refreshed and trying not to look at the discomfort masking Martin’s face. It was less brutal than most per se, but no less disturbing.

“That—that Avatar,” Martin forced out. “What—?”

“A child ghost. Well, more like half-ghost. He’s… not that fond of his patron. He’s like I was in the beginning. He doesn’t fully understand what he’s serving.” Jon mentally swatted the knowledge away, trying not to fall too deep into the psyche of Danny Fenton. He needed to be grounded here. Now. “He guides them in Death. Other children.”

“I shouldn’t have asked,” Martin said, guilt creeping into his voice. “I never learn, do I?”

Jon, walking around with the personal torment of every single person on Earth in his head, thrashing against each other so loud that they all drown each other out until called upon individually, had to give his partner a reassuring shake of the head. “It’s not your fault, Martin.”

It never was.

So, yeah, the whole of Casper High was having a bad day. Kwan would argue his day was going just a little bit worse than everyone else’s. 

Basically everyone had ended up with ghost powers and ghost powers they couldn’t control, at that. Kwan had seen Lester float through the floor a while ago and Jazz Fenton had been reduced to a floating head. Both of those things were bad, but at least they were more or less together, mentally at least. Okay, maybe Jazz’s day was almost as bad as Kwan’s. 

That didn’t mean that Kwan’s day didn’t suck. He felt like he was going to pieces. He couldn’t focus on anything, which, yeah, was kinda normal if he’d forgotten his meds, but it was different this time. Instead of just constantly going on tangents, his brain felt like it was going in literally eight directions at once. It was… unsettling. Sometimes, Kwan swore that he was actually, physically coming apart at the seams. 

If there were any actual nurses around, Kwan would tell them and maybe try and get some kind of medicine or something. But there weren’t any nurses. There weren’t any doctors. There were just students lining the halls with or in sparsely furnished rooms. It was weird, really weird. Kwan felt too sick to actually care. 

He was doing breathing exercises to try and keep himself together the first time he saw Danny Fenton. He might have said that literally everyone from Casper High was here, but he hadn’t seen Fenton, er, the younger Fenton. The older was across the hall from him with her head in some kind of tube. If Danny had been here and up to walking around, Kwan would have sworn he’d be near his sister. 

“Fenton, you’re in here too?” Kwan asked and stopped concentrating on his breathing exercises.

Before Fenton could respond, Kwan felt that weird coming apart sensation and then he was in two places at once. Literally. He was sure of it. This wasn’t just double vision. There were two Kwans one right next to the other and he was both of them. 

Then it was happening again. “Four,” he said, and there were two more Kwans. “Six,” and two more popped up. “Eight,” another two.

“Who do we appreciate?” the Kwans shouted because that was how the chant ended and he needed to be done multiplying. 

“Us! Us!” he shouted in response because you had to actually respond to finish the thing and self love was important. 

He smiled and looked at himself. Himselves. There were eight of him and he was all of them and all of them were him. It was too much. He needed to get away. 

“Ah! Run for our lives!” the Kwans shouted. He kept running even as his perspective grew more divergent. It freaked him, all of him, out so he kept running more. He was in eight different places at once seeing everything in eight different directions. It was too much. Kwan kept running. 

—

It only took a few minutes for Kwan to stop running. Afterall, running from yourself almost never worked and he was starting to get dizzy from seeing eight different things at once anyway. It took a lot longer to find himself again. 

Part of it was the dizziness. Kwan had never been good at doing two things at once, eight things at once was nearing impossible. Also, his mind was starting to splinter under the weight of controlling eight separate bodies in eight separate locations. He hoped that meeting up with himself would help, but it was impossible to tell. And, there were still no doctors or nurses around to ask!

After getting turned around and forgetting where he was far too many times, Kwan finally got back to where he started. He’d ended up needing to close the eyes of seven of his bodies and walk back with the eighth one, but, hey, it had worked. He was back where he had started next to Jazz Fenton’s embodied head. Also, it looked like Dash had been moved to a room nearby with a TV so that was nice. 

Unfortunately, being together in one space wasn’t making the mind-splintering perspective shift any better. It may have actually been making it worse. He kept finding himself zoning out and forgetting that he was part of a larger whole and the identical people next to him were in fact him. His brain hurt. 

At least he could be his own football team now! That would be awesome! He just needed three more Kwans and, nope, he was already in enough pieces. It was good enough that he could both throw and catch the winning pass! Maybe if he closed his eyes, all of them, and thought football thoughts long enough the mind-shattering identity crisis he was having would go away!

And really, Kwan tried to do that and he did pretty well all things considered. He thought football thoughts through Dash’s commentary on the TV show. He thought football thoughts through Sam Manson crawling into the hallway on the ceiling and through her bickering with Paulina as she did so. He even was able to focus on football thoughts through Jazz Fenton’s frequent calls for a nurse who never showed up. 

He did not manage to keep up football thoughts after Phantom showed up. And when the short guy sitting next to Dash had a really grotesque transformation sequence into a monster, he was not able to ignore that. And he wasn’t able to ignore the sudden introduction of a hot, glowing, floating lady either. 

Those were really hard things to ignore. 

Unfortunately, that did mean he lost his grip on keeping his mind un-splintered. When the glowing, floating lady threw Jazz Fenton’s head, one of the Kwans, but not actual, self-aware  Kwan, caught her. That Kwan was still thinking football thoughts. 

He shouted, “Go long other Kwans,” and threw Jazz Fenton’s head. Then all the Kwans were very quickly thinking football thoughts again even as Phantom phased through them. It was Tucker Foley that managed the catch, which had to show just how off Kwan was. 

Kwan lost the plot a bit after that. His mind wasn’t together and there was no getting it back after all of that, at least not while he was like this.

At some point, Kwan was pretty sure Phantom had turned the lady who had thrown Jazz’s head into green goo, which– Kwan had not known that was a power the ghost kid had, so that was terrifying. Then they kept fighting even after the lady had gotten stuck to the ceiling. She kept leaving sticky bits of green goo behind, too, the human kind, not the ghost kind. Kwan wasn’t entirely sure he saw that right though. The eight different perspectives floating in and out of his awareness made the fight hard to track. 

What he was sure of was he had smelled butterscotch and gymshorts and had suddenly been Kwan again. Kwan. Singular. He was a single person that had a single mind and a single body and a single line of sight. It was the best!

Tumblr Posting Guidelines

#dpopw needs to be the first tag so that your work can be found and reblogged

If you’re posting your entire fic to tumblr, a summary of the fic must be listed followed by a readmore. The beginning of the fic may also be included before the readmore but cannot exceed 150 words or 10 lines of paragraph sections

Any and all ships must be tagged. You can use either the phandom ship names (found here) or just “characterA/characterB,” just make sure you tag. 

All crossovers must have the #crossover tag as well as the media tag (eg. dpxgf for danny phantom x gravity falls)

Content warnings must be included in tags and the summary. Common examples include: blood, gore, death, drugs, body horror, existentialism, etc

Optionally, tag your vanilla Danny Phantom stuff with #dponly. This is more of a statistic tag more than an event tag

If your work is not reblogged, one or more of the above rules may have been missed. Please ensure your post is properly formatted and tagged before asking if I missed you.

AO3 Guidelines

All Ao3 posting rules apply

To be added to the collection, select [Danny Phantom Outsider Perspective Week (dpopw)] in the collection drop down menu when posting your fics. Collection can be found via typing “dpopw” in the search bar.

Summaries must include the prompt day and chosen prompt

Works can be denied for lack of appropriate tags, lack of prompts, or other event rule breaking

FAQ

What is an outsider perspective?

An outsider perspective is a narrative trope where a story is told from a point of view outside the main storyline. It is particularly popular in fanfiction because it allows a series of events to take place completely out of context from the narrative perspective, but the reader already knows, or at least has an idea of, what is happening.

How does this work?

Each day except for “Episode Rewrite Day” and “Reddit Post/Advice Column Day”  will have two perspective prompts. Write from the perspective of a character who matches one of the prompts (or in the format specified by the prompt). Once you write your piece, post it on Tumblr and/or Ao3 and tag it. Any works that are appropriately tagged with #dpopw will be reblogged to this blog and/or added to the Ao3 collection.

Do you have to write for every prompt?

Not at all! Write however much you want about whatever you want. Combine prompts, skip days, go wild! The goal is to have fun!

Are crossovers allowed?

Yes! Crossover day is on Wednesday and has crossover-centric prompts! 

Can I write a non-crossover for crossover day?

Sure!

Are OCs allowed?

Yes! And encouraged!

Why are three prompts on Day 6 instead of two like the other days?

I couldn’t decide which prompt to drop, then realized that, since this is my event, there are no rules except for the ones I make. Therefore, there are three prompts on Day 6.

What happens if I don’t follow the rules?

Tumblr Posting Guidelines

#dpopw needs to be the first tag so that your work can be found and reblogged

If you’re posting your entire fic to tumblr, a summary of the fic must be listed followed by a readmore. The beginning of the fic may also be included before the readmore but cannot exceed 150 words or 10 lines of paragraph sections

Any and all ships must be tagged. You can use either the phandom ship names (found here) or just “characterA/characterB,” just make sure you tag. 

All crossovers must have the #crossover tag as well as the media tag (eg. dpxgf for danny phantom x gravity falls)

Content warnings must be included in tags and the summary. Common examples include: blood, gore, death, drugs, body horror, existentialism, etc

Optionally, tag your vanilla Danny Phantom stuff with #dponly. This is more of a statistic tag more than an event tag

If your work is not reblogged, one or more of the above rules may have been missed. Please ensure your post is properly formatted and tagged before asking if I missed you.

AO3 Guidelines

All Ao3 posting rules apply

To be added to the collection, select [Danny Phantom Outsider Perspective Week (dpopw)] in the collection drop down menu when posting your fics. Collection can be found via typing “dpopw” in the search bar.

Summaries must include the prompt day and chosen prompt

Works can be denied for lack of appropriate tags, lack of prompts, or other event rule breaking

FAQ

What is an outsider perspective?

An outsider perspective is a narrative trope where a story is told from a point of view outside the main storyline. It is particularly popular in fanfiction because it allows a series of events to take place completely out of context from the narrative perspective, but the reader already knows, or at least has an idea of, what is happening.

How does this work?

Each day except for “Episode Rewrite Day” and “Reddit Post/Advice Column Day”  will have two perspective prompts. Write from the perspective of a character who matches one of the prompts (or in the format specified by the prompt). Once you write your piece, post it on Tumblr and/or Ao3 and tag it. Any works that are appropriately tagged with #dpopw will be reblogged to this blog and/or added to the Ao3 collection.

Do you have to write for every prompt?

Not at all! Write however much you want about whatever you want. Combine prompts, skip days, go wild! The goal is to have fun!

Are crossovers allowed?

Yes! Crossover day is on Wednesday and has crossover-centric prompts! 

Can I write a non-crossover for crossover day?

Sure!

Are OCs allowed?

Yes! And encouraged!

Why are three prompts on Day 6 instead of two like the other days?

I couldn’t decide which prompt to drop, then realized that, since this is my event, there are no rules except for the ones I make. Therefore, there are three prompts on Day 6.

What happens if I don’t follow the rules?