Happy Holiday Truce @mostlikelynothuman! I hope I fulfilled your prompts well. Sorry for the delay, I was aiming for around 3-4k words but the story got away from me. I wanted to reach a solid conclusion, but the words kept coming!
easier said than done
word count: 7700
The Fentons haven't given a Ghost Defense Information presentation since before Valerie's Freshman year. She remembered in middle school when the Fentons were given half an hour a year to educate them all about ghosts and what to do if they encountered one. Back then, ghosts were nothing more than fictions of the Fentons' imagination. She remembered howling with her friends, poking at poor Danny Fenton who was doing his best to shrink into his seat.
Much had changed since eighth grade.
Now a sophomore, Valerie's class paid close attention to the Fentons' words as they gave their presentation. She knew much of the content, being a ghost hunter herself, but it was still valuable information nonetheless. Her peers appeared to feel the same way, quiet as they listened to Jack Fenton ramble about the various uses of the Fenton Bazooka.
It seemed that the only person who hadn't forgotten how they treated the Fentons before was Danny Fenton, who she spotted ducking out of the auditorium with his friends before the presentation began. Given past years, she couldn't blame him.
"Now, this here is the Fenton Ecto-radiation Detector, or FERND!" Maddie Fenton held up a compact, metal contraption with coils on one end. "It works similar to a geiger counter, except instead of detecting radiation in counts per minute, we've developed our own unit of measurement. We're petitioning the GIW to adopt it as standard, but that's a work in progress."
Maddie held the device out towards the left side of the auditorium. It beeped every three or four seconds, but no more often than that. "Just like nuclear radiation, there's some background radiation present. In our town, there's much more ecto-radiation present than other places in the world."
Maddie swept the device across the room, slowly pointing it from the left to right side of the room. When it passed Valerie, the device began to beep more rapidly before evening out.
Jack frowned. "That was a weird jump, there."
Maddie moved the detector back in Valerie's direction and stopped. Again, the rapid beeping resumed.
It was her.
It had to be her suit.
But, did that mean it could sense her suit even when it was dormant? Was there that much ecto-radiation affecting her?
The Fentons exchanged careful glances.
"Has anyone in this area come into contact with ghosts recently? Or anything with ectoplasmic material?"
There was a general murmur of "no" from those around her.
Valerie said nothing.
Sometimes, she could hear her ghost detector sound in her mind moments before it activated. There was a high whine before a staccato of beep-beep-beeps! Then, five seconds later, the ghost detector would go off for real, echoing what she had heard in her mind moments before.
This didn't mean anything. She was just getting better at being a ghost hunter. She knew the telltale signs of a ghost attack (drop in temperature, static in the air). The sounds in her head weren't real, it was just her mindâanticipating. Classical conditioning, according to Pavlov.
It wasn't deeper than that.
It wasn't a sign.
That night Valerie dropped her fork at the dinner table.
The detector chimed in her mind, startling her. She should really be used to it by now, but of all the times to let her guard downâŚ
Beside her, her father frowned. Her fork was swimming in alfredo sauce.
"Is everything alright, Val?"
Her ghost detector then went off, for real this time.
"Oh, I see," he said.
The words left her mouth before she could think them. "I'm fine."
She stood from her seat at the table. Her father grabbed her wrist before she left, before she took to the skies.
"Be careful out there, sweetie."
"Of course, Daddy." She forced a smile. "I'll be back before you know it."
Valerie shifted her weight on the stool. She didn't often spend time in Mr. Masters' lab, but it was definitely an interesting space that rivaled the Fentons' own laboratory. There were large, clear cylinders lining the wallsâsome covered with dark sheets. On the opposite wall, there was a circular doorway, which as far as Valerie knew was a prototype meant to emulate the Fentons' portal, despite Mr. Masters' insistence that it was only a storage closet. She didn't comment on the obvious rivalry he still had for his fellow scientists. His contempt for Jack Fenton was clear as day. Not that it was any of her business, of course. Honestly, Valerie was under the impression that one functional interdimensional ghost portal was enough and hoped it stayed that way.
"The diagnostics are much better than I expected, given the extent that meddling Technus has modified your original suit," Mr. Masters set down his tablet on the nearest counter. "I'm more impressed that you had fewer than five viruses. I've managed to remove all of the malware Technus left behind."
"So that means it's safe?"
Mr. Masters hummed. "In a sense. No software is perfect, you know. Though, as much as I hate to admit, there's little I could have done better than Technus when it comes to this latest upgrade. You have quite the state-of-the-art piece of tech there on your hands, Ms. Gray."
Valerie almost felt like floating. "So it is safe!"
"Yes, I suppose so. It's much more efficient than your last suit, by far. However, my only concern isâ" Mr. Masters paused a moment before shaking his head. "Ah, nevermind."
"What concern?"
Mr. Masters' poised expression was replaced by something much more withdrawn.
"Nothing, nothing."
No. That didn't sound like nothing.
Mr. Masters knew something he wasn't telling her.
"Oh, come on. There is something!"
Calculated blue eyes met her own and Valerie suddenly felt like a bug under a microscope. Small and examined.
"Well," Mr. Masters' voice might as well have traveled across a string through a tin canâdistant, "you have to understand that the balance between the human physiology and ectoplasm is a delicate one, Ms. Gray. Your original suit, the one I designed, took this into account. Technus's design does not."
Valerie took a calm breath, trying to keep her head level.
"What do you mean?"
"Your first suit was just that: a suit. This new suit goes beyond just a set of armor equipped with ghost weapons. No, this new suit is a part of you now. You can summon it and its weapons with no more than a thought. You know this."
"But you said⌠that the ectoplasm and life have a delicate balance?"
"Correct." Mr. Masters spun on his heels, putting his back to her. "Your suit can still be removed from your body, which is why I'm not more concerned, but there is a potential that overexposure to the ectoplasm created by your suit can lead to⌠permanent side effects."
Valerie's heart almost stalled.
"Sâside effects?"
"What do you know of ectoacne, Ms. Gray?"
"Not much, besides that you've had it. You're the only person who has."
"Yes, I was. It was a debilitating condition brought on from exposure to a large volume of ectoplasm all at once. Organic matter and ectoplasm do not mix, and when they do the results are catastrophic." His voice lowered. "Even now, I sometimes have flare-ups of ectoacne."
"I could get it too?"
Mr. Masters turned again, a contemplative look etched across his face. "It's unlikely. Even if you were overexposed to ectoplasm, you might develop something similar or nothing at all. Still, it's not a light matter. If you notice anythingâanything at allâtell me immediately."
Enough ectoradiation to set off the Fentons' sensors.
A chiming in her head that precedes the actual alarm.
Smaller instances too, sensitive to electricity in ways she hadn't been beforeâŚ
In a rare moment, Mr. Masters' voice was all genuine.
"Do you promise me, Ms. Gray?"
"Of course," she lied. "I'll tell you right away."
Valerie wasn't the best at navigating in the rain. Phantom didn't have to worry about it, being able to phase through the deluge, but the force of the storm definitely sent her off balance. Diminished vision, rainwater dragging down her boardâthe circumstances weren't looking good.
Still, she plowed on.
It was her duty as the Red Huntress.
If she could just get a shot at the ghost creating the storm, a tornado-esque ghost that seemed to have a broad range of weather-related powers, then maybe she could gain an edge. Or at least give Phantom a better opening to take that spook down.
Above her, there was a green flash of light. Ectoblasts were being exchanged.
Doing her best to shake off the excess water pulling down her board, Valerie soared upwards into the crossfire between Phantom and the tornado ghost.
That was Valerie's mistake, but with limited vision there was little she could've done to avoid it. Her sensors were scrambled and the drag of the board shifted her usual trajectory.
She slammed right into a shot of lightning aimed for Phantom. Or rather, it slammed into her.
All she knew next was white, hot pain. The endings of her nerves frazzled, fried, ceasing to be and slipping into sweet numbness. The ground was above her and she was gliding up with the rain.
Feeling nothing.
Valerie couldn't pinpoint where the pain started and where it ended.
From the tips of her fingertips, spanning the length of her spine, arching around her skull and pressing against her templesâeven breathing was a struggle when her lungs pressed against her broken ribs. There was a high ringing in her ears and she couldn't move her legs a centimeter without sharp pangs of fire.
Above her was the endless expanse of the night sky, dim industrial buildings framing her peripheral vision. She tried to focus on something, anything, but her mind was too clouded. A fit of coughs ripped from her throat, lungs erupting, and something wet left her lips.
Blood.
With a groan, Valerie tried pulling herself to sit upward. Her limbs failed to cooperate, and her head smacked against the concrete behind her once again. She realized too late that her helmet must have broken in the fall because the back of her skull took the whole impact of the collision.
If she didn't already have a concussion, it was probably safe to say one was coming on now.
Something was moving above her. Its movements were a blur, white streaks staining her vision.
Maybe it was an angel. Her mother.
Oh, wouldn't that be nice?
"ValâŚ"
The soundâvoiceâcleaved her forehead in two. She wanted nothing more for the incessant ringing to stop. No more pain.
"... you hear me?"
The figure above her stilled, coming closer into focus. An ethereal white hand materialized in front of her face, fingers outstretched. Valerie mustered enough strength to raise her own hand from the ground.
Her hand passed through the translucent, gloved hand.
Strength leaving her, her arm fell back to the ground. Her knuckles scraped against the wet concrete and Valerie noticed for the first time that it had stopped raining. The ghost defeated?
She hoped so.
She hoped it wasn't all in vain.
When Valerie awoke the second time, she was in her own bedroom. She didn't remember how she had gotten there, but her alarm clock told her that it was somewhere around four in the morning. As she pulled herself to sit up, she realized that all the pain she'd felt before had subsided, or at least most of it. There was still an ache in her head, but nothing that a couple of Tylenol and a few more hours of rest before school couldn't fix.
It was strange, though. She didn't remember flying back to her room after the fight. Had she really taken a shot of lightning to the chest? Had she fallen out of the sky?
If it had happened, then surely she wouldn't be here sitting upright.
It must have been a nightmare. A super vivid, painful nightmare.
But then why was her homework she'd been working on set on her nightstand, not away in her backpack? She'd left it on her bed when she'd flown out. If she'd been the one to return home, then surely she'd put it in her bag before crawling into bed. Not to mention, she was still dressed in her clothes from the day before rather than her pajamas. And the chair in front of her desk was usually piled with discarded clothing, but now all the clothing had been pushed onto the floor belowâthe chair cleared.
That meant one thing.
Someone else had been in her room. Someone had brought her home.
Did that mean it had all been real? She'd been electrocuted and fell hundreds of feet to the ground?
Nothing made sense.
Well, there was one way to find out for sure. If she really had been struck by lightning it would show, right?
She threw off her covers and lifted her shirt. There wouldn't be any injuries, not from a lightning strike that never happened. Because it was all a dream, a nightmare. Besides, her torso didn't even hurtâ!
The bandages wrapped around her abdomen told another story.
No way.
This wasn't happening.
She brought her fingers to the bandages, and sure enough they were real. They were done well too, done by someone experienced. Thankfully, the bandages stopped just below her sports bra, which gave her some semblance of relief.
She couldn't help but wonder how hurt she was underneath the bandages. Despite how hard she prodded, she felt nothing when she poked her fingers against the bandages. There didn't seem to be any bleeding either.
Fuck it.
She found a pair of scissors near her bedside and carefully cut along the bandages. Once undone, she pulled them off her stomach and examined the damage.
There was bright, red scarring that branched across her abdomen in fern-like patterns. The marks were a startling color, pulsating, almost the same red as her suit. She wanted to vomit but kept her hand on her mouth. Nope. She would not soil her bedsheets.
The scars were glowing.
This wasn't right. She didn't feel right!
There was something inside herâin her chest, above the scarsâthat hummed, frantic cold energy. She didn't understand. She was scared. She didn't want this!
Her knees hit the floor below her, except she hadn't fallen out of bed.
She had fallen through it. Her torso was sticking through her mattress and her eyeline was at her comforter. Feeling nothing but unadulterated terror, Valerie screamed.
Why was this happening! How was this happening!
How could she make it stop!
She slammed her hands on her bed, hoping that they too wouldn't fall through the bed. She hoisted herself back up onto her mattress in time for her bedroom door to slam open. Her father stormed in, offensive stance and ectoweapon in hand.
"Val! What's wrong!"
She pulled down on her shirt, conscious that her scars were showing. "Dad! IâIâ" She didn't have an answer for him. She had no idea what had just happened. "Nightmare?"
He lowered the weaponâthe same one she'd asked Mr. Masters to build himâand sighed in relief. "Thank the Lord. I thought you were in real trouble. Not that a nightmare's any good, but I meanâ"
"I know."
His deep brown eyes softened. "I'm glad you're safe."
He crossed the room and sat on the edge of her bed. Valerie hoped he wouldn't notice the cut bandages twisted in her sheets.
"Do you wanna talk about the nightmare?"
"Not really."
Not until she understood what was happening with her. Valerie was already freaking out. She couldn't imagine how he'd take it!
"That's alright. Do you want me to stay a bit or make you something to drink? I have that tea you like."
"No, no. That's fine. I was justâ" Just what? "âjust startled, I guess."
He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah! I have school in the morning, back to bed for me! All good here."
She shooed him away as politely as she could. The frenetic thing in her chest throbbed, longing for something she couldn't begin to name. She pushed it downâdown, down, down!âbecause she knew better than to listen.
"Well, if you need anything, just let me know." Her dad made for the door. "Love you, sweetie."
"Love you, Daddy."
He shut the door, leaving her alone with her thoughts once again.
What did she know?
She left to fight the tornado ghost sometime before midnight. Her room wasn't how she left it and when she fought the ghost, she took a blow of lightning. She remembered being on the ground, writhing in pain, and something reaching for her. A white-gloved hand, her own hand passing through it. Phantom maybe?
It wasn't out of the realm of possibilities. He'd brought her home before, back when they'd been stranded in the Ghost Zone. Had he healed her? Could he do that? He was really powerful enough to heal humans? She'd never seen him do it before, but it would explain the glowing scars.
In short, Valerie got hurt and Phantom healed her. All the weird, bizarre things she'd felt since then were just residual effects from Phantom's powers!
It made perfect sense! Well, other than the part where Phantom healed one of his sworn enemies, but Phantom was never one to be reasonable. He probably felt guilty that she took the blow meant for him and healed her out of some heroic obligation.
The energy in her chest seized once again and Valerie gripped onto her nightstand to keep herself from falling through the bed again. Only one of her legs fell through the mattress, but she recovered faster this time. Ugh, that was a pain.
She hoped the side effects went away in the morning.
This time around, Valerie woke up floating five feet above her bed, the popcorn ceiling just inches from the tip of her nose. Too stunned to even scream, she fell onto her mattress with a sickening creak and slammed her elbow against the wall on the way down. She hissed in pain before resolving to get ready for the day.
It looked like the side effects hadn't faded yet. Neither had the glowing scarring.
After changing from yesterday's clothes into a fresh set of clothesâa warm, wool sweater and black pantsâValerie reached for her phone. It wasn't on her nightstand where she usually placed it, nor left in her pants pockets.
She almost tore apart her room looking for it, until she found the device on top of her seldom-used study-desk with a shattered screen. Oh. When she'd fallen the night before, it must've been in her back pocket. Damn. She couldn't afford a new one anytime soon. Maybe she could persuade Mr. Masters' to provide a replacement?
When she turned the defunct device over, she realized there was a note taped to the back of it.
Call me ASAP - .xxxx
She wasn't sure how Phantom wanted her to call him with a broken phone. Or how a ghost even acquired their own phone, but that was beyond her.
Nonetheless, Valerie had to leave for school soon. Her alarm clock said she only hadâ
Wait.
Her alarm clock was off. Even though it was still plugged in. Hadn't it gone off that morning?
Was she losing her mind?
Valerie unplugged and replugged her clock, to no avail. It was friedâthrough and through.
Weird.
Valerie grabbed her bag, ate a cup of yogurt, and began her trek to school. Once outside her apartment, she called upon her board to give her a quick lift but nothing happened. Oh fuck. Her suit was dead too? Mr. Masters was going to be so pissed!
Not to mention, Valerie had probably already missed the bus!
Her dad was at work, and Valerie didn't have a cellphone.
What the hell was she supposed to do now?
⌠at this point, calling Phantom didn't even seem to be a bad option. Even if all he wanted was some kind of gratitude for saving her life.
Half-a-block away, Valerie spotted a payphone that looked like it hadn't been touched in the past half-decade. She was surprised it hadn't been removed, but Elmerton always was an underfunded area. Luck had it that she had just two quarters at the bottom of her backpack.
Valerie paid and dialed Phantom's number. He picked up on the fifth dial tone.
"Mm, yeah?"
Over the phone, his voice sounded much less distorted than in person.
"Phantom," she said, "you left a note for me?"
"Valerieâ!" It was hard to tell, but it sounded like Phantom dropped his phone. Then a door slammed. His voice was low and quiet when he spoke again. "Val, you have to listen to me carefully. Something happened last night and I can help, but you have to trust me."
She scoffed. "Trust you? Why should I trust you, ghost? Especially since all you've ever done is ruin my life. You think because you healed me last night I'm indebted to you or something? Fat chance."
"Look, I know that things aren't good between us, but this is serious. I hope that I'm not right, but if I am, I'm the only one that can help you."
"What, I'm in danger?"
"Not immediate danger, no, but yes. Sort of."
She growled in frustration. "You're not giving me a straight answer, Phantom!"
"I know, but it's complicated. We need to talk about this in person. Where are you now?"
"No, hold up! You're not telling me anything. How do I know this isn't a trap or something?"
"Val, last night you were struck by lightning, half-died, and fell out of the sky. If I had anything less than your best interests in mind, I would've left you on the ground for the GIW to find you, or worse, the Fentons. You may not have realized it yet, but I've gone through what you're going through nowâor what you're about to go through. The changes, the power slipsâall of it." He inhaled. "Now, should I meet you at your apartment orâŚ?"
"Power slips? Changes?"
Her hand passing through Phantom's⌠falling through her bed⌠waking up mid-air⌠frying her alarm clockâŚ
Phantom knew about those. Power slips. He'd expected those.
"You've had them, then? I expected as much when you kept phasing through your sheets last night. I can teach you to control them, make them stop. You just have to tell me where you are, Val."
This was a nightmare.
"What did you do to me?" she whispered. "What the hell did you do!"
"I wasn't fast enough to stop the lightning strike. This happened because it hit you."
"Liar! I know you did something to me! Youâyou healed me and gave me side effects through your own freaky ghost powers!"
He laughed humorlessly. "I wish it was that simple. You healed yourself, Val. Because the lightning killed youâ"
"Stop it."
"âand turned you intoâ"
"I said STOP IT!"
"âa half-ghost."
"JUST STOP IT!"
The receiver in her hand sparked before falling straight through her hand. It swung from its cord, inches above the ground. Valerie reached for the cord, but her fingers passed through it once again.
"Damn it!"
She kicked the base of the payphone, thankful that at least her feet worked.
Valerie opened the palm of her hand, noticing for the first time that in daylight she could see the space behind her hand. It wasn't just a trick of the lightâher hand was actually transparent. No, intangible.
And as sudden as her revelation, her hand phased back into the visual spectrum.
She grabbed the abandoned cord and held the receiver to her ear once again. Except Phantom said nothing. The call must have dropped.
Good. She didn't have anything left to say to him anyway. Not if he was going to spout nonsense about how she had died last night. Valerie wasn't stupid. Power slips or not, she knew that ghosts couldn't eat, sleep, use the restroomâand she'd done all of those today! Hell, she was breathing right now, wasn't she?
Phantom was delusional. She didn't need his so-called 'help.' She'd figure out a way to rid herself of these damn side effects once and for all.
If only she knew Mr. Masters' phone number by memory. She was sure he'd have some kind of solution. But now she was on her own. No working suit, a strange ghostly affliction, and her arch-nemesis determined to trick her again.
She'd gone against worse odds. After all, she used to call Paulina Sanchez her best friend.
This should be a piece of cake.
None of the ghost equipment in her apartment yielded any answers. It would be nice if she had access to her usual suit and diagnostics, but there was some kind of defectâprobably from when she fellâand she couldn't summon it as she usually did.
That left the miscellaneous equipment she and her father had accrued over the past year or so. Most of their tech was more useful for offense, which left only one ghost detector and an Ecto-radiation Detector. They both seemed to think Valerie was a ghost, which told her that the Fentons really needed to work on refining their parameters because she wasn't a ghost. She just had some side effects. There was a difference.
Defeated, Valerie laid down in front of the couch. She reached behind her for the TV remote, hoping to take a mental break. The dormant energy within had other plans.
It came suddenly, just as it had before when she fell through her bed, but now a thousand times more intense. The feeling was invigorating yet harrowing and sent chills down her spine. From her core, she felt the static sensation run outward through her veins and intuitively Valerie knew that this was her end.
She was going to die.
Ringing filled her ears and Valerie couldn't help recall the events from the night prior. Shooting upwards on her board, rain disorienting her. The white, hot branch of lightning coursing through her core and then everything all at once.
She wasn't there anymore. She was sitting cross-legged on her living carpet, fingers tangled in the beige fibers. The television set was opposite her, her frightened face reflected in the black screen.
From her torso, a white halo of light appeared. She recoiled, bumping her head against the couch. Still, Valerie kept her eyes trained on her reflection and watched in terror as the halo ascended from her torso to the crown of her head. Her suit appeared below the light, the same old armor as always, except it wasn't. It wasn't the same. Even in her reflection, Valerie could see that there was something wrong. She could see the couch behind her bodyâthrough her body.
She was transparent.
She was a ghost.
If it wasn't for the chill that had settled in her veins, she might have tried harder to doubt it. But now, as she stared at her unworldly reflection in the glossy television screen, Valerie knew it was true. She hadn't survived the lightning strike after all.
But how could that be?
She'd had a heartbeat! She was still breathing!
Hell, it wasn't like she'd lost her sense of self. Valerie knew who she was, she wasn't compelled to raze the town or charge some selfish desireâat least not yet.
Would she lose her mind? Would she lose her conscience?
"I don't want this." She pressed her hands against the side of her helmet. "I don't want this!"
She tried to stand, but instead careened sideways, floating parallel to the floor.
Something in her mind chimed, alarms ringing.
Valerie just wanted to stand on solid ground again. She just wanted to step back into her normal, regular life. She wanted her friends and her parents and her comfortable old house with the central heating and walls thick enough that she couldn't hear her neighbors on the other side. She wanted a life of stability where she didn't come home to her father, forehead crinkled, as he thumbed through the bills laid across the kitchen table. She wanted to stop working so hard but knew if she slipped for even a moment that it would all come crumbling down.
She was so fucking tired of pushing herself to the brink and now it had killed her.
What had she left her father with?
Nothing but a husk of Valerie Grayâa ghost of the daughter he once loved. And it was all her fault.
Gravity took hold of her once again and Valerie fell to her knees. The air that entered her lungs felt hollow, a poor imitation of what breathing should be, but that didn't keep her from sobbing. The crying began to fog up her helmet and she jammed the button below her jawline, retracting the helmet back into her suit.
Horror dawned on her when Valerie took in her new visage.
Her hair was still black, but it seemed to take on some kind of iridescence when she movedâreminding her of a peacock's feathers or the face of a DVD. Not to mention, it floated around her head as if she was sitting underwater. The most chilling aspect of her appearance was that her irises glowed bright red, the same red as her scars. The red light bled into her scleras, staining them red too. She looked like a demon.
A real monster.
"No." In a vain attempt, Valerie wiped the tears from her face, but they refused to cease. "No no no!"
Before she could process anything more, the air in front of her shimmered and Phantom appeared before her. He had a solemn look on his usually smug face, green eyes downcast.
"Hi, Val."
She remembered earlier how he'd tried to warn her. How he knew what happened to her, yet dropped her back off at her apartment like nothing had happened. If he'd been kinder, he would've waited for her to wake up. He would've been there to at least tell her in person that she'd died.
Instead, all she got was a cryptic note and a half-assed explanation over the phone.
"The fuck do you want!" she snapped.
"I just want to help you," he said. "I⌠I guess you've realized now, what I meant about what happened last night. I know how you feel."
She scoffed. "Like you could never understand what I'm feeling. You pretend like you know all about me, but you don't know the first thing about my life!"
He sat cross-legged in mid-air and drifted downwards to Valerie's eye level. "You know, I died once too. It's not the same for everyone, but for me I know that I was scared. I didn't want to be a ghost."
⌠well, maybe he could understand more than she thought.
It was hard to think of Phantom as someone who'd once been alive. The only version Valerie knew of him was a devious glory hound that was too territorial and occasionally useful to team up with fend off more powerful ghosts.
But Phantom had been a kid once, like her, and he'd died.
Phantom continued. "I thought all ghosts were evil, unfeeling monsters. I was terrified that I would become like that in time, that I would lose the parts of me that made me who I am."
"And you haven't?"
The Phantom that she knew wasn't anything close to human. He was obsessed with acting the hero and lorded over the town like it belonged to him.
Phantom shook his head.
"I know your opinion of me isn't the greatestâ"
"That's an understatement."
"âbut I do my best to protect Amity Park. I've made mistakes and I understand that I can't undo all of them, but I'm trying to make up for it because that's who I am. Now and when I was human. I didn't lose the parts of me that care about others. If anything, they've grown stronger." Phantom paused. "And I mean, it's not like you're fully dead. You know?"
"Just because I still exist doesn't mean that being a ghost is better," she grumbled.
He shook his head. "No, no. I mean you're still alive. You're a ghost but you're still alive because you have a heartbeat and a living human body. You're in betweenâa halfa."
What fresh hell was he talking about now?
"Huh."
"I was pretty sure when I brought you back to your room last night. You died, but you're still alive. You're not human, but you're not dead. You're something in between, just like me."
"I don't know what the fuck you're trying to pull, but nobody's in between, Phantom! You're either alive, or you're not!" She stood up and took a step back from the ghost floating above her living room floor. "Stop fucking around!"
Phantom floated to meet her eye level.
"If you aren't alive, how are you able to breathe? Or eat? Or sleep? Ghosts don't do those things, well, not in the way that we do them."
"IâIâ"
Valerie didn't have an answer.
Phantom had a point.
"I don't know, alright!" she snapped.
Phantom shut his eyes. For the first time, Valerie noticed that his eyelashes were the same color as his hairâsnow white.
"Deaths like ours aren't common. Your suit imbued your body with so much ectoplasm, that when the ectoplasmic-charged lightning struck you last nightâit killed you and revived you simultaneously." Phantom opened his eyes. "You're suspended in a state between dead and alive, ghost and human."
"How did you die, then?"
He winced. "Not the most polite question to ask a ghost, but I'll let it slide. It was a, uh, ghost portal opening on top of me."
She didn't know what she was expecting. "Damn."
"YeahâŚ"
"I'm sorry, but I'm still lost about what you meant about being both dead and alive."
He shrugged. "I mean, it's what it says on the tin."
"Yeah, I don't get it."
"That's fair. I didn't get it for a long time, either. I didn't have anyone to really tell me what was going on and was guessing blindly at first. I thought for so long that I was just a human with weird ghost powers, that my transformation was just a big power-up. It wasn't. Being a ghost is part of who I am and that took months for me to accept." He shifted his weight, despite gravity not pulling down on him as it should. "You have a ghost form and a human form. Right now you're in your ghost form. Can't say it'll feel the same as it does for me, but do you feel a warmth in your chest, close to your heart?"
It was faint, but amidst the buzzing sensation in her chestâher coreâValerie felt a spot of warmth near her heart. "Yâyeah."
Phantom's eyes lit up. "Good. Now, to change back into your human form, focus on that spark and imagine pushing it through your veins. Grounding yourself, letting that warmth pull you back into human form."
She stared. "You want me to push warmth through my veins?"
"Just to imagine it!"
"That sounds stupid."
"Do you want your human form, or not?"
Valerie groaned. It wouldn't be the first time Phantom made a fool of her. She supposed it wouldn't hurt to try his bullshit advice.
"Fine, fine."
Shutting her eyes, Valerie tried to follow his instructions. For an abstract construct, she imagined her veins flowing outward from her heart, that warmth washing through them and reaching her fingertips and her toes. She felt ridiculous, but sure enough something fell into place.
The cold began to subside. Behind her eyelids, there was a flash of light and when she opened her eyes once again, her suit had vanished. She pulled her hair to her eyes and it was no longer iridescentâher regular coarse, black hair.
Phantom was actually right.
"You did it!" he clapped. "How do you feel? Alright?"
No. No, this still didn't make any sense. She looked human again, but she wasn't. She was still that thing from before, even if she didn't look like it.
Valerie slumped down onto the edge of the couch.
"I'm confused." She ran her now uncovered hands up her arms. "How did you know how to tell me that?"
He took the seat beside her. "Like I told you, I'm like you. I have a human form too."
Maybe it was the chill from him sitting beside her, but the hair on Valerie's arms stood on end. Something about that didn't sit right with herâŚ
"What, you mean you're still pretending to be who you were when you were alive? And going about your life like nothing happened? That you're still human?"
He raised a hand to the back of his neck. "I mean, I'm not pretending. I am still half-alive, so I am part human."
She narrowed her eyes. "You know what I mean."
"Iâyeah. I do. In my human form, I'm still pretending like the accident never happened, yeah."
"That's sick! You'reâyou're tricking people!"
"Am I?" Phantom pulled off his left glove. He grabbed Valerie's hand by the wrist and instinctually, she pulled back.
"Let me go!"
He released her. "Sorry. Justâ" he tapped his own wrist with his index and middle fingers "âhumor me."
Tentatively, Valerie touched her fingers to his wrist. "What am I supposed toâ"
There, under her fingertips was a pulse. A real, living pulse. There was no way in hell! She'd seen Phantom twist through the air, body morphing as if his insides were nothing but liquidâjello. She'd seen him bleed ectoplasmâtoxic neon green! He couldn't have a pulse, couldn't be alive.
"How are you doing that?" she demanded. "How!"
"I already told you, Val. I'm like you. I'm both ghost and human. When I change into my ghost form, I don't stop being human, or at least not wholly. Maybe my pulse is slower than it should be, and maybe my blood's a little too green to be normal. But that's what makes meâmakes usâhalfas. Half-human, half-ghost."
If a ghost like Phantom could have a pulse, and Valerie could change between forms⌠then maybe it was all true. Maybe she could be both alive and dead at the same time. It was absolute madness, of course, but she didn't see any other explanation.
How was she going to live with this?
Sure, it was better than being all the way dead, but Valerie still had to navigate being a half-ghost! Having to deal with power-slip ups and transformations on top of her school and home lives. It was already hard enough as it was!
To her chagrin, Valerie began to sob again.
She didn't even swat Phantom away when he tentatively wrapped his arm around her shoulder, breathing soft assurances that it would all be alright.
How pathetic was that? Leaning on the shoulder of her supposed enemy?
"I can't do this," she admitted. "I can't just⌠go on with my life and pretend that none of this happened. Not like you can."
"What will you do, then?" Phantom asked. "I'll support you, whatever you choose."
She couldn't leave Amity Park. Her dad was here. Plus, as much as she hated their small, run-down apartment, this was her home. She reveled in the nights she spent soaring above the town, feet dangling off her board and touching city lights with her heels. It left her lips chapped and numb, but sometimes she'd retract her helmet just to feel the wind blow through her hair. It was euphoric, mesmerizing.
Now, being whatever she was, she doubted she'd ever feel that way again.
Alive.
Still, she wouldn't leave. Even if pretending to live life as she once had would be painful, it was her only option.
What else could she do?
"I don't know." She felt like a child. "I don't know anymore!"
"Hey, hey," Phantom soothed. "That's alright. I'll help you. Getting through the first few months will be hard, but it gets easier."
"Not my life. My life never gets easier," she despaired. "It's always getting worse and worse. Sometimes I wonder if this is karma."
"Karma?"
"Because I was so spoiled growing up, such a mean little brat. If you knew me, I was awful. Looking down on others, getting everything I wantedâŚ"
"Valerie, that's not karma. That's how little kids are. What's happening in your life isn't a penance for your childhood. Life is just like this."
He wasn't getting it.
"You didn't know me then."
He scoffed. "You mean like the time in first grade when you handed out those expensive valentines candies to the rich kids, and when teacher told you to share with the rest of us you threw a fit? Val, your life is not the way it is now because of that stuff. Trust me."
The valentine candies in Ms. Fletcher's class. She hadn't thought about those in years, nor the mortifying tantrum she threw in front of her peers. She'd thrown the box of truffles to the ground, stomping on the gold-foiled chocolates with a vengeance. She left the room shrieking that Ms. Fletcher ruined their Valentine's Day, that those chocolates had only been for her friendsâthe kids from houses that looked like hers.
Somehow Phantom knew about that.
"How did youâ?"
She found herself again looking into Phantom's green eyes. His pupils looked like the surface of a planet, swirling with ectoplasm. Once in her life, she must have looked into these same eyes and seen a different color. It was startling to realize that this ghost she'd fought with had known her even then, in the slow days of playground parachutes and finger paintings.
Who had Phantom been before he died?
"I've known you for years, Val," Phantom admitted. "I mean, you never liked me. Until recently, I guess? I doubt you'll like me much longer when you realize how much of a liar I am."
Until recently?
Fearing the answer, she asked the burning question. "Who are you as a human?"
Phantom exhaled. "Please, don't freak out."
"No promises."
He considered for a moment, before nodding. "... I'll take it."
From his waist, a halo of white light appearedâsimilar to the one that appeared around her torso before. When the light passed over his midsection, it left behind a white T-shirt and faded jeans. She watched, mesmerized, as the light swept over his head and left behind sharp blue eyes behind green. Color bleeding into his pale white hair, the pull of gravity reassessing itself on his locks. It took her brain several moments too long to catch up with her eyes when the damning realization finally hit her.
She did know him.
"DannyâŚ"
"Yeah."
Danny Fenton, the boy she seemed to keep running into this year. The same boy who caught her affections and the same one she gave up to protect from ghost hunting. The same boy whose smile still made her heart flutter and thoughtful eyes lifted her mood after her preyâPhantomâonce again eluded her.
The same boy who always seemed a bit on edge around his parents' ghost hunting equipment. The same boy who never seemed to be around during those ghost attacks. The same boy who took Dash's punches with a shit-eating grin and welcomed detention slips with a resigned look.
On one hand it made an awful lot of sense, but on the other handâ
"You're kidding me, right?"
He winced. "No. I'm sorry, Val."
"Sorry? Sorry! Danny, I've tried to kill you!"
Danny brushed the back of his neck. "But you never succeeded?"
A snarl ripped through her throat, surprising herself. "Maybe I ought to!"
There was a sudden red tint on Danny's face. Oh God, her eyes were glowing again...
He shot her a knowing look. "And lose the person willing to help you figure out this half-ghost power bullshit?"
Valerie tried blinking the light from her eyes. After a few moments or so, the light dimmed.
"I mean, if you did it then it shouldn't be too hard."
"Hey! Cut me some slack. Given I live with ghost hunters, I've done a pretty good job keeping this whole part-ghost thing under wraps. Thank you."
Oh shit, he did live with ghost hunters.
What the hell.
"That's awful, Danny."
"Hm?"
"That aside from me, your parents are out there trying to kill you too! And you actually live with them!"
"Eh, it's not a big deal. Dad's an awful shot."
"Your mom's not."
Maddie Fenton was largely overshadowed by her husband's ineptitude, but her aim was impeccable. So good that Valerie wasn't sure who would win between the two of them.
"Well, true. I'm good at dodging though. They've only gotten close like," he gestured so-so "a few times."
Valerie gawked. "What the hell is your life, Danny?"
"Everything's complicated with me. I do my best, though. And I meant it when I said I'll help you figure this out. Being half-ghost isn't a cakewalk, I should know. But it does get better."
She found that hard to believe, but Valerie knew Danny Fenton. Maybe it wasn't the wisest decision, given all the lies. But after experiencing the transformation, Valerie could understand some of it. The fear of telling others. It made sense that Danny wouldn't tell her, a ghost hunter, that he was Phantom. Even if they had dated. Danny wasn't stupid.
It was that reason that Valerie trusted him at all.
If Danny said that it would get better, she'd put her faith in him.
Even if the signs said otherwise.
"Alright. Alright, where do I start? With controlling the powers and stuff?"
Danny smiled. "Well, to control your powers, you have to begin using them on purpose. Don't worry, I'll talk you through it."
Valerie still wasn't sure about being half-ghost, but the idea of it was definitely less frightening than it had been a few hours ago.
The humming in her chest was beginning to feel more natural by the hour.
