DCxDP #10 (continued)
Catch and Release Speedrunning.
(Credit me if this ends up on TT :( please this will also be posted on ao3. Anyone can use or add to any of my posts so long as I am credited @squshymarsh or my ao3 @Theeverlongwhatnow)
Things were going good! Great actually considering just how bad things could have been. But Danny isn’t thinking about that. No sir. Cause if he thinks about what could have been he will have to think of Amity Park. And if he thinks about Amity then he will inevitably circle back to what he left behind there. And sure maybe one day when he’s older than fifteen and not living on the streets an entire country away from everything he’s ever known with only the stuff he left with and his two best friends but now is not that day.
Today he is a grungy fifteen year old walking around dirty alleyways in the grossest city he has ever had the misfortune of being in. All because someone decided they wanted to DoorDash Batburger at five in the morning.
Ah the things he does for money. This may ba a dangerous job for him to be doing. Then again what isn’t dangerous here? He’s in Gotham, the literal air is dangerous on a good day. But Doordashing is better than some of his and Tucker's first suggestions for procuring money. He may not need to eat as often as a normal human but they sure do. Plus if they get enough money they can afford a room at a motel or something. Sam still froths at the mouth at the idea of the luxury of a shower. Danny still teases her about acting like a typical rich girl. Especially when she complains about where they’ve decided to sleep for the night.
She takes it, returns it in kind. They all do. Because if they stop for a moment, think of the reality of their situation. Of the things they’ve sacrificed. People and lives all left in the dust barely settled around fake graves. Then it all becomes too much to handle. They can act like this is just another adventure, just another fun little gag. If they don’t think about it too much.
Danny turns from one street onto another. There’s squealing tires and gunshots down the street he turned opposite of. He doesn’t investigate, doesn’t even turn to look.
He’s not unused to the chaos of crime. Especially not now, it’s why they chose to come here. Because whatever chaos he brings just by existing is balanced out or even swept away by Gotham's. That balance is their peace. The reason they ran from home, a peaceful life.
Of course being a ghost, the one stuck between life and death, is its own flavor of chaos. Something which isn’t conducive to a peaceful life anywhere but here. Sure it’s not unlike what this grimey city has to offer. But it’s different enough that if something were to set off that balance, their peace, then they would be noticeable. And to be noticeable means being seen and being seen means being found.
Within the balance he, Sam and Tucker are just three street kids. A dime a dozen, an unfortunate story shared by so many kids in the city and further.
But if they are seen, they are three kids thought to be dead and not so subtly wanted by a very specific governmental agency. They would be found and they would be dead for real this time.
So no setting off the balance, which means no more getting haunted by phantoms of their past. Meaning. No ghosts.
Though he doesn’t change into his Phantom form anymore, Danny is still him in the way Phantom is still Danny. He was a ghost, a powerful one no matter how well he boxed away and hid that part of him. It only worsened when he started making portals out of ambient ectoplasm one day.
They were invisible to the naked or rather human eye. Only those deeply touched enough by death could see them and those tended to be the ones wanting to come through them.
Ghosts were coming through just like Amity.
The balance is at stake. He would have to stop existing to stop the portals from opening and drawing attention in the ghostly department. Which isn’t exactly possible since both his friends are doing everything possible to make sure his existence is continued. By force sometimes. So comprises, countermeasures and speedruns.
He learned how to open and close portals at will yet he still cannot stop them from opening at random. He can only close them as quickly as he can. Yet sometimes he just isn’t fast enough and a ghostly foe escapes the Zone and crosses the vail into the realm of the living. Threading the balance that their peaceful life relied so heavily on.
Phantom had once been an upholder of balance and peace. One where their lives were constantly at stake. Only sometimes.
He even let the ghosts indulge in their obsessions, letting humans enjoy what ghostly visitors had to offer to Amity. Before returning them to their places.
Now he has become one again though this time there is no indulgence of obsessions. No banter or fights.
A portal opens close to him, a ghost wiggles out in time only to get caught in the new and improved thermos and sent right back to the zone.
Tucker had taken one of the old and mostly busted FentonThermos’ and upgraded then made a new one with improvements. Gone were the days of them having to fight and struggle. Just for the ghost to work off enough energy and Ecto to be able to fit inside the old cruddy thermos’.
These new ones worked so well they souped vortex before the ghostly embodiment of weather had a chance to do much more than make it rain.
Nabbed right out of the air and shoved back into the zone within three minutes of his exit. The first and not the last.
They began timing it. Making a game of it, Ghost Nabbing they call it.
Another bit. Another gag. Just so they don’t have to face the reality of their ghostly friends, their family, trying to speak to them.
Because there’s no way anyone could be worried about failures.
Danny turns into an alleyway. Insulated delivery bag resting against his back filled with warm food. NewThermos clipped to his belt and phone in his hand.
He has Ghost nabbing down to a science now. There are two main parts of the operation. The capture then the release.
First Something sets off his ghost sense, the thermos is grabbed before the mist has a chance to leave his mouth, button clicked and the ghost caught.
Then the portal is opened with one hand, thermos shoved inside with the other and the button is clicked again, thermos withdrawn then the portal is closed by the hand they opened it.
Danny has managed to get his time down to thirty seconds and he’s looking to halve that in the next month or he owes Sam ten bucks.
He can’t make bets with Tucker since he’s the one who repairs the NewThermos and would sabotage it to win.
Goal in mind, he has cut down on anything unneeded in the interactions with ghosts just to shave milliseconds off the catch. Why does he need to know who he’s catching when they are staying long enough to even look at what he’s become?
That’s why he doesn’t question it, doesn’t even look when his Ghost sense goes off as he walks the alley.
Twenty seven seconds. The Thermos timer even says so.
A new record. He moves on heading for the apartment he needs to make this delivery to. No one answers the door when he knocks. He rechecks the address several times. This is it. No one answers the phone number he calls or the messages he sends.
Oh well, free food for him and the others.
———-
Jason is so confused.
What just happened? Where was he? How did he get here? Where was here and why was it so green?
Okay he needs to calm down. First things first. Check his surroundings for danger and clues. Which isn't a hard or long task since he’s now standing on a floating island made of gray dirt, dead grass and cracked sidewalk. The island is no bigger than ten feet in length by five in width. Beyond that it drops off into a void made of greens, purples and blacks. Mist and liquid swishing around like the sky here was a sea of matter trying to create something from its depths.
In that sea of chaotic creation are more floating islands. Some smaller than the one he stands on but most are larger. Like large enough to hold multiple buildings.
Buildings which he recognizes as the ones bordering his terf. Except these aren’t them. More like weird after images of them. The colors are all weird and washed out. Much like the gray dirt below him.
So he’s not in Gotham or he’s in some weird inbetween. Upside down? No dumb reference. It doesn’t even fit.
He moves on to how he got here.
What was the last thing he remembered before being spirited away to where, or when, ever this is.
He had gotten into an argument that nearly ended up with him shooting at Bruce since the old man was being an overbearing whine bag about the Alley and how he runs it. Again. Some choice words were said on both sides then he stormed off to meet the kid delivering his five am batburger so he could go back to his safe house. He’d seen the kid in the alley next to the safe house.
Jason even went to greet the kid. Then he was here. One second he’d been looking at the back of the kids head, wad of cash in hand about to announce his presence. He didn’t have anytime to react while the kid whirled around and pointed something at him. That’s saying something. For someone with bat and league trained reflexes being unable to react in time.
Now he was here. Standing on a floating island surrounded by voids of swirling green.
A green way to similar to something that haunts nightmares.
