#fullghost danny | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

wastefulreverie · 6 years

Text

Phanniemay18 Day Eleven: Stars

Day Eleven: Stars

Genre: Hurt/Comfort

Words: 2052

Valerie groaned as her suit tormented her for the third time that night. The ghost alert on her wrist buzzed insistently, causing her to almost smack herself in the arm in pure annoyance. She had a test to study for, and none of these ghosts would allow her any time to actually be active in her own life. Not to mention, that aside from the Fentons (who hadn't been quite enthusiastic since... the accident), she was the only ghost hunter, so that meant she had to take care of almost every ghostly threat within Amity Park. Nevertheless, ghost hunting was her responsibility as the Red Huntress, so therefore, no matter how tired she was, she couldn't turn away from the impending battle. Whoever it was, she just hoped that they would let her cram them in a thermos so she could actually pass Lancer's exam, otherwise, she was looking at a new brand of hell called summer school.

She kicked off from the ground, allowing her suit to activate her jet-sled and to propel her into the air. She leaned into the momentum of the board and programmed her GPS to fly her to where the ghost was staying idle in one position over the park, hovering at approximately 6,000 feet in the air. As Valerie flew, a light breeze brushed past her as she soared, higher and higher into the darkness of the sky, further away from the artificial city lights below and up towards the clouds. Even though she was flying into battle, she was half tempted to remove her helmet so she could feel the cold winds flutter through her hair, but thought better of herself. She was here to dispose of the threat, nothing else, and then she would return home.

Focus, Valerie, she chastised herself.

Finally, she saw it. She was over the lowest clouds now, with only an expanse of pure black and faint white pinpricks above her. Hence, the darkness of the night sky didn't hide her prey very well; his ethereal white glow illuminated the immediate area around him, drawing Valerie's eyes to him like a moth to a flame. She smirked. Gotcha!

The ghost itself wasn't very intimidating. From behind she could see that he had the stature of a young boy, maybe somewhere around thirteen, with iridescent pearl white hair. He wore plain beige pants with a plain black and sky blue shirt with matching Converse. From where Valerie floated, he looked practically harmless! After all, unlike most of her foes, he wasn't purposely wreaking destruction upon the town, which was a pleasantly nice break from her usual chaotic brawls. However, she had to remind herself that he was still a ghost, so he had to be contained for the safety of the town. Furthermore, as a veteran fighter, Valerie knew not to let a ghost's looks deceive her. That ghost's appearance was nothing more than a mirage; his true power could be more immense than a ghost ten times his size. They were tricky creatures to classify when it came to strength evaluation.

She snuck behind him, half expecting him to sense her presence, but he remained none the wiser to the stealthy human huntress floating just feet away from him, trying to decide the best strategy for this situation. Pulling the thermos out on him first thing would probably be a bad move; unless a ghost was already weakened from a prior attack, it was unlikely that even a weak specter would stay thoroughly contained. So, the other option was to initiate a strong attack before he noticed her, which meant she should hurry, because he wouldn't stay unaware of her stalking him for long.

Just as Valerie pulled her giant blaster onto her shoulder, preparing to fire at the new ghost, he looked back at her, startled.

Valerie was floored. She... she recognized this ghost.

His green eyes reflected eerily in the visor of her suit, and the ghostly light from his body cast odd shadows across his face. It looked so familiar, yet so wrong. Valerie half wondered if she had fallen off of her board, into some sort of dream, but she found that the boy in front of her was startlingly legit. As she gaped at him, he looked back just as surprised, and his puzzled expression gripped Valerie's heart with a sympathy she didn't know she had.

There was no doubt about it in Valerie's mind. This was the ghost of Valerie's old classmate, Danny Fenton. The same boy who had died in an untimely accident in his parents' laboratory two years ago. The boy who had lowered all the flags in the city, the boy whose face was all over the television for weeks, the boy people cried for at the many candlelight vigils. Valerie herself had attended his funeral, with the rest of the city, wondering hopelessly how something so tragic could have occurred.

And he was a ghost.

“Please don't shoot me,” he whispered.

Valerie almost fell off of her board in shock. It was unnerving to hear his voice crackle with the warbled sound of a ghost's. She'd never really been close to him when he was alive, but he was one of those people that everyone just knew. Now here she was, faced with an impossible dilemma; shoot him, or not. He was a ghost (evil, malevolent, killer!), but he was also the sweet boy Valerie knew from school that had died so, so young. Decisively, Valerie quickly made up her mind. She abandoned her blaster and let it recede and compress back into her suit.

“D – Danny Fenton?” she asked, heedfully. She didn't know how much he could remember from his life. From what she could tell, some ghosts recalled their Earthly existence perfectly, while some failed to remember anything.

But as she said the former human's name, his faced turned to one of recognizable bafflement. Valerie noted that his reaction suggested that it had been a very long time since he had heard his own name spoken, presumably since before his death.

“How...?” his voice sounded so crippled, yet hungry for any form of recognition. In hopes of reuniting with someone who remembered his identity, he frantically scanned Valerie's afflicted form. “Do you know me?”

Valerie didn't know how to answer. So far, Danny wasn't showing any malevolence on the surface and appeared quite genuine, but she knew that all that could chance in a second. Thus she carefully pressed one of the buttons hidden on the inside of her wrist, and her visor retreated back inside her suit, allowing her head to be completely exposed to the brisk winds of the unrelenting sky.

The ghost stared back at her in wonder, evidently trying to place her name and where he knew her from. Finally, he responded to her spontaneous reveal, with a dubious tone. “...Valerie? From school?”

She nodded, numbly.

“Why are you... here? In the sky, with a hoverboard?” he asked, sounding both awkward and confused. Even after death, that boy is a nervous wreck, Valerie thought, incoherently.

She pursed her lips. “I hunt – uh... I keep ghosts out of Amity Park,” she corrected herself.

What was she thinking? He was a ghost, and she just admitted that she came here to hunt him down. Stupid stupid stupid!

“But...” Valerie continued quickly, noticing his volatile look of panic, “I won't hurt you, unless you're hurting somebody else. I promise. I... just do this because there's so many ghosts who destroy our city... and somebody has to make sure Amity is safe.”

“Oh,” he said, understanding. “That makes sense. A lot of the other ghosts get carried away, so I can understand that. It's not their fault they happened to get stuck with violent obsessions, a lot of them are really nice, but that doesn't make their actions good, I guess.” He paused, and looked back at Valerie graciously, “Oh, and thanks for not shooting me.”

All of what he was saying was going too quickly for Valerie's head to process. She'd never had a real conversation with a ghost before, likewise a ghost of somebody she had known when they were alive. It was simply too surreal for her to be talking to Danny Fenton's remains of post-life consciousness like they were two old colleagues meeting in a coffee shop.

“I'm sorry,” she said, “what do you mean by 'obsessions'?”

“Oh, for a ghost to form and stay in existence, we have to have some kind of obsession or unfulfilled reason keeping us here,” he explained. “It's basically what drives each of us and our actions, and if we don't indulge in it enough, we can become really weak and sick. It takes a lot for someone to get over their obsession, and if they do, they get to move on to what's next, whatever that is.”

Valerie thought of some her common enemies. Skulker, obsessed with hunting; Ember, obsessed with fame; Technus, obsessed with technology; Spectra, obsessed with others' misery; Box Ghost obsessed with... you know; etc. From the standpoint Danny was offering, it made sense now why they did what they did, and she felt herself being slightly impressed. But that left another pressing question.

“What's your obsession?” she blurted.

As he processed her words, Danny's green eyes blazed aggressively and he clenched his fists, which thereafter began to glow green. Then, his expression placated once again and he lost all signs of hostility.

“Sorry,” he said, quickly. “That's just something that's taboo to ask, but since you didn't really know I'm okay with it. You can assume a ghost's obsession, but you don't really ask because it's really personal. It's up there with asking about how someone died.”

He turned to where he was floating on his back now, “My obsession,” he said, “is space. When I was alive, my dream was to be an astronaut so I could explore the planets and stars and see all of it, but... I never got the chance because of Mom and Dad's portal killing me and stuff.”

The way he phrased his death so casually made Valerie slightly sick, but she fought her revulsion for his sake. She could still remember the grim faces of her friends when all of the students were corralled into the gym when they made the official announcement. That day had made it clear: Danny's death was to be respected, not a light matter.

He laughed, “I guess that's why like all the other ghosts, I came into the human world tonight. All I ever wanted was to get to space, and the Ghost Zone is a great substitute for that but... it's not real. Sure, it's an infinite abyss full of potential exploration... but... there's no stars,” he remarked, almost bitterly. “How can it can it be space with no stars?”

He gestured upwards. Valerie looked back up at the sky, and now that her eyes had adjusted to the night's darkness, the stars were so much more visible. Tonight, their light was completely unparalleled thanks to the absence of the new moon. They glittered across the expanse with a celestial elegance beyond the naked eye, with a limited variety of visible hues: blues, yellows, oranges, and primarily stark white. Valerie wasn't knowledge of astronomy was minimal, so she couldn't place any constellations besides than Orion's belt and the only star she could accurately name was Polaris. Nonetheless, it was still breathtaking, and she could respect why a boy like Danny would chose something this beautiful as his obsession.

“Stars... only exist here, in the real world,” Danny whispered. “And God, I missed them so much.”

Valerie knew it was getting late, and even though he was harming anyone, Danny eventually had to return to the Ghost Zone. The thought thoroughly depressed her, and she was starting to regret her choices as a ghost hunter. But... what was the real harm in stargazing with this poor boy who had lost so much at such a young age?

“Can we watch the stars a little longer?” she implored, softly, staring back up at the enchanting cosmos with hummed a song of euphoria within her.

Danny's responsive smile was mildly bittersweet.

“We have all the time in the world.”

276 notes · View notes