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Amorpho thought he was clever.
Sure, he told Billy he wasn’t going to come back to Amity Park ever again. He said that, but he didn’t actually MEAN it. After all, there’s a portal to the human world right in the middle of the Ghost Zone’s deadlands! Who wouldn’t want to hang around there, feed on all that bountiful human emotion, walk around in the living’s shoes!
Billy wasn’t going to stop him from coming back! It’s not like he’d even know Amorpho is even coming back as long as he’s convincing! So, on his way out of the portal, he takes one of the big and fancy looking guns off the table in order to sell his disguise a bit better. What it does, Amorpho doesn’t know, but considering who he’s planning on disguising as, it should be able to convince Billy he’s the real one.
Plan in place, he shifts and melds his form into black armor with red highlights, the gun he nabbed off the counter also changing to match the color palette Amorpho has in mind. It’s a new power he picked up in order to sell his shapeshifting a bit better…
Still, the weapon molds itself to the mental image in his head, and soon, an exact copy of the Red Huntress floats through the walls of Fentonworks and out into Amity Park.
-
Across town, Valerie feels her soul leaving her body as she works at the Nasty Burger. She doesn’t have much of a choice, not a lot of places take a high schooler’s resume in town that pays any better. She can’t exactly get paid to do her Huntress work any longer either, seeing as she told Vlad she quit a few weeks ago.
Could you blame her, though? She’s been caught up doing the dirty work of some ghost since her freshman year! Some… some, half-ghost thing or whatever he is, who used her own emotions against her knowing what she wanted and why she hated ghosts. The nerve of that jerk! The next time she sees that guy, she’s not going to show him ANY mercy.
A customer yelling at her to hurry up with their order snaps her out of her daze. Man, she REALLY needs a vacation. But Axiom is owned by that certain asshole who will not be named, and they’ve been throwing her dad through the ringer with his job. So, Valerie has to keep working overtime here. And, just because she isn’t paid to do it anymore doesn’t mean she can stop being the Red Huntress. The ghost infestation in town is just too severe to just up and quit.
Stacking burgers and fries onto a tray, Valerie lets out a long sigh before forcing a smile and handing the impatient customer their order. Her due diligence done for the next five minutes, she retreats to the back to get some water before she has to deal with the next Karen and her five kids that’ll inevitably worm their way into the crowd when the dinner rush starts. Though as she sits down and chugs some cheap ice water from the drink machine, a glance out the window nearly has her spit it out.
Valerie rushes out the back door to see if what she saw out the window is actually real. And, yes, it appears that her suit is flying around on its own again. The last time that happened, her own suit nearly destroyed Axiom. But, the upgraded one can’t fly around on its own, that’s impossible! To double check, she manifests the gauntlets built into the left hand of the suit, and like usual, the ectoplasm charged technology wraps around her fingers and wrist as her mind commands it.
That settles it, then. Her suit is still attached to her body and there’s a poser running around pretending to be her right now. The gauntlet itself beeps with a proximity warning, so it’s likely that a ghost is the one running around like her. Valerie rolls her eyes. Not in the mood for this, and dreading the upcoming dinner rush she doesn’t want to exhaust herself for, she dematerializes the part of her suit wrapped around her arm and walks back into the Nasty Burger to finish her shift.
Worse comes to worse, Phantom will deal with the imposter huntress for the second time, and then it’ll actually be worth it to jump shift and actually get back out there. When she’s done her shift though, she’s going to ask for the weekend off. At best, the fake huntress is going to make a fool out of itself and Valerie can watch it do an absolutely horrible job of impersonating her, and at worst, well, she’ll have free time over the weekend to obliterate it before it gets too far.
At least Valerie can safely say her new suit is possession proof. As unsettling as it is to have it running around under her skin at all times, there’s at least some comfort in knowing that no other ghosts can use it against her. It’s a bit creepy, and a lot unsettling, but it’s hers and it listens to her commands just from mental input, and on top of it all, it’s effective at doing its job, so she can deal with how unsettling it is for now.
One of the managers calls for Valerie to hurry up, and she ducks back into the kitchen to go catch up with the approaching flood of impatient customers. The last thing she needs is to be fired from the job that actually pays her. With a deep sigh, Valerie heads back behind the counter, puts on a winning smile (that isn’t strained at all) and goes to take Karen’s five Mini Nasty Meal orders for the next fifteen minutes of her shift. She wishes her paying job was as easy as ghost hunting, because if there is a hell, it’s behind a counter dealing with people like this for the rest of eternity…
-
For one Danny Fenton, he can’t help but wonder: why him?
His day has been lovely so far, waking up to his dad’s panicked voice shouting “where’s the Ecto Rip-n’-Tear!?” all over the place, because some moron thought they were funny and decided to steal one of the prototype weapons from the lab. Danny doesn’t know WHAT moron, mind you, but it’s probably a ghost.
Come to think of it, that’s probably why his ghost sense interrupted him at three in the morning. He rolled over that morning with the hearty thought of “Screw It” and went back to bed, because there’s enough ghost hunters around that he can take one night off, right?
Apparently not, now that one of Dad’s weapons went missing while he was asleep. So knowing it’s probably his fault a ghost got its hands on the Rip-n-Tear because he wanted to sleep in isn’t helping his mood. And the cherry on top of today’s experience? The Red Huntress is on his tail and insistently trying to shoot him out of the sky with a weapon Danny’s never seen before.
His attempted patrol to look for the ghost who took his Dad’s gun certainly took a turn. Though, he’s never seen Valerie’s aim this… bad before. She’s usually a way better shot than this, and spitting insults at him the whole time. Today, she’s suspiciously quiet. It’s irking him, what might be wrong with her today. Lack of sleep? Injury while ghost hunting? Vlad?
Danny can easily relate to all three at the same time. Rolling his eyes, he taps into his Fenton Phones and calls in the rest of his team. “I’ve got Red distracted, but I still don’t see any sign of the ghost. Are you guys getting anything?”
“Negative,” Tucker’s voice comes back. “I’m doing a sweep in the Specter Speeder and I’m not picking up anything other than you on the radar, and Valerie’s suit.”
“Same here,” Sam chimes in. “Picking up zilch on ground patrol, Danny. Wherever this ghost is hiding, they’re doing a good job of it.”
“Joy,” Danny rolls his eyes. Can today get any better?
Swinging up and around to avoid another blast, Danny aims for Valerie’s board to try and knock her off balance now that she’s closer to the ground. The aerial fight appears to have drawn a crowd, so Danny swerves a bit further back to keep either of them from getting mixed up in it. Last thing he needs is something bad to happen that would blow Valerie’s cover… or his.
Another blast just barely misses singing Danny’s spectral tail as he weaves around a few trees to get some distance. Valerie appears hot on his heels, firing more poorly aimed pot shots in Danny’s general direction. Seriously, what is up with her aim today??
Not important, what is important is that he draws this fight away from the crowd before attempting to calm Valerie down. Sure, it’s worked “wonders” in the past before, but it’s still worth a shot. Danny’s managed to at least get Valerie to stop shooting every now and again so here’s hoping today is one of those days. Because the last thing he needs is a new burn mark to go home to without retrieving Dad’s new toy.
Why’s it called the Rip-n-Tear anyway? Danny was kinda turning out the latest motivational speech his Dad was giving about his new weapon and how it’s going to blow up this, that and the other thing, because he’s heard the same thing like a million times now, and the basic point is he should avoid getting shot by it if wants to avoid a painful, molecule by molecule death, so details weren’t the priority.
Sighing loudly, Danny uses some particularly tight turns to try and get Valerie off his tail for the time being. It seems to work a little too well, as the huntress is left looking a bit dizzy as Phantom zips and zaps circles around her in a way she can’t seem to keep up with. More to add to the mega suspicious pile, Danny supposes as he slows down a bit.
“Still nothing?” Danny asks his team, taking the moment to recon with them while Valerie recovers.
“Nope,” Sam answers.
“Nada,” Tucker replies.
“Damn it…” Danny growls under his breath, fangs curled into a snarl. “If I don’t find that gun, Dad’s gonna kill me! …the rest of me. You get the point.”
“Why would he do that? It’s not like it’s your fault the gun’s missing,” Tucker points out.
“He blamed the ghost kid for taking it, didn’t he?” Sam retorts, chuckling when Danny sighs even louder over the headset. “I’m going to assume that exasperated groan of despair is a yes, then.”
“Yeah yeah,” Danny dismisses her sarcastically, only to yelp and dodge another blast from Valerie. Guess the huntress is back on her feet again, so the game of chase continues. Danny quickly gets his head back into action, diving down below ground to throw Valerie off again.
He emerges near the Nasty Burger, looking around and growing more frustrated. “Where the hell is it!?” He all but shouts as he zips around the building like an anxious lightning bolt. He checks the dumpster, and the back door, the vents, and still there’s no ghost running around with one of his parents' weapons! It’s gotta be around here somewhere, he can sense its energy.
“If only Valerie wasn’t distracting me I would have found it by now-” he gripes angrily, only to almost run headfirst into one of the employees taking out the trash.
“Hey! Watch where you’re-” a familiar voice shouts. “...Phantom!?”
“Valerie!?” Danny shouts back, nearly jumping out of his boots. “Wha- but you’re…. But that’s… but-” he mutters, dumbfounded. If Valerie was here, then who was running around with-!?
“Game over, Billy!”
The fake huntress comes around the corner, guns blazing as Danny quickly pushes Valerie out of the way of the raining blasts. There’s only one ghost that calls him Billy like that-
Suddenly, a thick and searing pain nails him dead center in the chest.
“I got him!!” Amorpho cheers. “...oh.”
“Danny!” Two pairs of shouts ring in his Fenton Phones, but the sound starts to fade in his vision as the pain seems to get worse the longer it lingers, like the burn from the blast is tearing him apart from the inside-
“Oh…. that’s why it’s called the Rip-n-Tear….” Danny wheezes before passing out entirely.
-
Valerie can only stare in shock as Phantom passes out in front of her. She wasn’t expecting the fake to be carrying an actual weapon with them, one capable of taking out Phantom, no less. She was barely able to do it herself. She can only stare with shock and awe as Phantom lies there on the ground, motionless.
The fake seems to be stunned as well, judging by their body posture. Slack arms, the weapon hanging by their side, just hovering there as a pool of green fluid begins to leak from Phantom around his midsection. Can ghosts bleed? Valerie’s never seen it. They usually disintegrate when you shoot them enough times, from her experience.
There’s a crackling static sound coming from Phantom, and Valerie can just barely make out the communication device in his ear under his white locks of hair. So, he also has backup, huh? That would explain some things…
“Well, I wasn’t expecting it to be THAT effective…” The doppelganger mutters under their breath, looking at the weapon a bit more critically now that they’ve actually hit something with it. Valerie’s a little pissed that she didn’t get to do the dirty work, as she’s been waiting to get back at Phantom for YEARS-
Something bright and almost a pale blue flashes out of the corner of her eye. Valerie looks down at Phantom again, seeing a ring of light flickering around his waist. She knows what that is. She saw a little girl turn into a ghost with it. She saw her ex-boss use a midnight black one to do much the same. The strange existence of a liminal spirit that was both human and ghost at the same time. It gives her whiplash, seeing how obvious this was in context. How had she not seen that as a possibility sooner?
The rings split, passing like two halos over Phantom’s unconscious form. The sickly green fluid leaking from his body turns a stomach churning red and his ghostly form becomes corporeal and solid. Valerie puts a hand to her face seeing Phantom turn into… into…!
Something shoves her out of the way and Sam Manson pushes her over in an attempt to get to Danny. Where the hell had she come from!? Valerie’s just too flabbergasted with everything happening right now to really respond as Sam pokes at a similar communication device to call Tucker over to their location. She lifts the unconscious form into her arms while surveying the area, before turning back to Valerie.
“Did your suit seriously get possessed again!?” She growls out before returning to work on the boy in her arms. “Doesn’t matter. You’re an employee, right? Go get back to the Nasty Burger and get the first aid kit. Tucker will take it from there when he arrives.”
“Are you seriously barking orders at me right now?!” Valerie shouts back. How the hell did she find out about-
“We don’t have time for this! Danny’s life is at stake right now!” Sam shouts, waving a free hand before returning it to Danny’s torso and applying pressure. Practiced motions, like she’s done this before. Danny groans from the pain, but remains unconscious as red begins staining Sam’s hands. She glares at Valerie furiously, motioning her head toward the back door of the Nasty Burger.
Valerie gets the memo and rushes back inside to get the first aid kit. She pushes past a few employees and rips the thing off the wall, rushing back out in time to see Tucker arrive in some big shuttle thing with the Fentonworks logo plastered to the side of it. Tucker had left the cockpit, already dragging Danny inside by the arms while Sam handled keeping pressure on his torso. Valerie takes the first aid kit out to them and grabs Danny’s legs to bring him into the strange shuttle thing.
While Sam and Tucker get Danny lying down in a better position, Valerie turns to the ghost responsible for this whole mess. Materializing one of her gauntlets with pure thought alone, she turns to the doppel and gives them a hefty punch in the gut. Any regular human would be coughing up blood from the force of impact she put into it. Instead, the fake Huntress seems to squish and stretch like goo for a moment before turning into a gray colored ghost with sunglasses.
The ghost stumbles backward, dropping the gun that had also reverted into something that would come out of Fentonworks. It looks around a bit shocked and surprised before Valerie’s gauntlet produces a weapon of her own, firing in its face point blank. The ghost shrieks and retreats, leaving the weapon behind as it phases through the ground to escape.
Valerie puts the gauntlet away. “So are you taking him to a hospital, or…”
Tucker shakes his head. “Can’t really do that. If we take Danny to a hospital the GIW will find out about him. Would lead to a lot of bad stuff.”
“We usually patch him up ourselves,” Sam continues. “It happens a lot. Ghost attacks, ghost defense systems, trigger happy hunters…”
Valerie can feel Sam’s eyes narrow, the implication with her last phrase more than clear. “I’m not going to finish him off if that’s what you’re thinking! He’s my friend, I wouldn’t do that!”
“Yeah. He’s also Phantom. What are you going to do with that information?” Sam presses. “I don’t want you anywhere near him until we know we can trust you to keep this a secret, and that you won’t shoot him again.”
“I don’t take part in destroying humans,” Valerie declares firmly, making sure to put as much force behind the tone as she can. “Whatever this whole half ghost crazy bullshit involves, he’s still half human. I’m pissed that he lied. I’m pissed about everything he’s done up to this point, but I’m not going to kill him over it.”
“Fine. If you’re coming with, you can hop in the passenger seat while we move somewhere a bit less public, I’m staying in the back with Danny,” Sam relents. “Try anything though, and… well, we’ll get back at you somehow.”
“Same goes to you,” Valerie huffs, before climbing into the shuttle thing.
-
Danny wakes up a few hours later. He groans, attempting to sit up, only for Sam to push him back down. His chest stings like crazy and he can’t help a few wheezy breaths once the pain slowly comes back to him.
“Easy there, Armstrong. Don’t want you tearing out the stitches your buddies worked so hard to put in,” Valerie’s voice echoes from beside him, causing him to look on in confusion.
Come to think of it, why is he on a beach in a lawn chair??
Tucker’s voice comes from the other side. “You were still unconscious from blood loss so we went to a beach and set up some stuff. I set up a chair next to you so you’d look like we were just chilling.”
“Of course.” Danny rolls his eyes and watches a few seagulls fly by overhead.
“Seriously though, don’t rip out your stitches. I don’t have any more fenton fishing line until your Dad stocks up on some new stuff,” Sam scolds, before sitting on the ground next to Danny.
“So uh… you doing ok, Val?” Danny asks.
“Huh?” Valerie turns to him. “Oh, yeah. That whole thing. I told you when I met your cousin or whatever my stance on… what’s the word again?”
“Halfas,” Tucker supplies.
“What my stance on halfas are,” Valerie replies. “You’re half human, and I don’t want to end up killing my friend over a grudge. I am going to punch you in the face when your chest heals though, fair warning.”
Danny blinks. “Okay, fair. Did you catch the ghost that caused all the trouble at least?”
“Nah. Figured we’d let your parents handle it. We’re taking the day off,” Valerie sighs. “I brought your dad back his gun and told him a shapeshifter ghost took it.”
“Yeah, your dad’s probably going to be hunting Amorpho for the rest of the week. We won’t have to worry,” Tucker hums.
“Man, when was the last time we took a day off?” Danny mutters.
“Hell if I know,” Valerie sighs. “I’m gonna enjoy it while it lasts, though. I quit my job at the Nasty Burger for this.”
“You what??” Danny tries to sit up again, only to wince and lie back down on his own, whimpering under his breath.
“Yeah. I quit,” Valerie continues. “When I brought your dad’s gun back he offered me a job at Fentonworks. Since I’m not getting paid by Vlad to hunt any more, I took him up on the offer. When were you going to tell me your parents were loaded?”
“They’re what-?!”
“Danny. You guys have a basement lab and a private jet attached to the roof. Are you seriously telling me you didn’t know that??” Sam tilts her head.
“...oh.”
“Guess that means we’re going to be seeing each other on the same side of the fight a bunch if you’re working for the Fentons after our day off,” Tucker hums in Valerie’s direction.
“Guess so. But for now, I’m gonna soak in the sun and enjoy the first day I’ve had off in months,” Valerie declares.
“You and I both,” Danny agrees, leaning back into his chair.
“Good, because if you get up from this chair at any point before sundown I’m going to wreck you,” Sam warns. “If any ghosts attack in the next twelve hours, your parents can handle it, get it?”
“Got it,” Danny sighs.
“Good.”
Tucker pulls a cooler out from behind his seat and sits up. “Now that all that’s taken care of, who wants some popsicles?”
Valerie looks at the cooler confused. “Just like that, huh?”
“Well, if we’re gonna be hanging out more often we might as well let you into the loser squad,” Tucker declares.
Valerie gives Tucker a deadpan look.
“What?”
“Loser squad, really?” Valerie huffs.
“It’s turning the moniker the A-Listers use on us and turning it into a term of endearment,” Sam elaborates. “Besides, we can’t really call ourselves “Team Phantom” in public.”
Tucker hands her a popsicle. “I hereby declare that this initiation ceremony started!”
Valerie takes the red popsicle from him and looks it up and down. She shrugs, before leaning back into her own chair.
Maybe today wasn’t so bad after all.