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2025-07-18
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2025-11-01
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3/?
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When Phantoms Fly the Coop

Chapter 2: The Day That Changed Everything

Summary:

It's been two months since that day where everything went wrong; two months, and it's still burned into his memory. After two months, it still haunts his nightmares, 'what if' scenarios where the Justice League didn't stop after 'subduing' him momentarily. He tried not to think about it, but that only made him think about it more.

Notes:

Sooo I realize now that I mentioned my Tumblr and did not link it, so here it is! https://www.tumblr.com/xomintybreezexo

This chapter was posted July 28, 2025 and is 2,975 words.

Sorry, it took so long to update this! My fam and I were on vacation for a bit, and we were winding down from that lol.

Vlad Masters is not an actual halfa, and I will die on this hill. He has enough ectoplasmic energy to be mistaken for half-dead on first glance, but he never died and therefore functions differently from Danny. He's also never had a near-death experience before, unlike Sam and Tucker, who got close to death during the portal accident but didn't die halfway like Danny, and have been in various almost-died situations throughout the show.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

It's been two months since that day. The day his entire life changed.

The day he lost everything.

It had started like any other day, surprisingly enough. He'd woken up early after defeating Nocturn in the dreamscape again, made himself a bowl of cereal, making sure to pour out the contaminated milk, as always. Then he got dressed, brushed his teeth, and turned into Phantom. He had a few hours to kill; he could hang around before school for a bit. 

Danny had been floating around with a few blob ghosts, just chilling as usual, when the sharp, burning pain of an ecto-shot radiated from his left. He doesn't remember much of what was said, just that Valerie Red Huntress didn't want to see him around her turf anymore, that he was a nuisance and a pain.

The incandescent(thanks, Lancer) rage at her audacity to call his haunt her turf.

So, yeah, Danny flew away. He flew as fast as he could above the city, with the citizens they passed cheering her on as she chased him, taking shot after shot, missing shot after shot, and almost hitting some random innocents on her way.

He sighed, knowing the headlines would blame him for her destruction in the afternoon.

All in all, a very typical day for our dear ghost boy.

What wasn't very typical was fucking Superman crashing into him, and trying to hold him steady when Danny had been sent careening down after an ecto-shot got him in the back and sent him off balance. He'd been too stunned by the appearance of a member of the fucking Justice League to move, let alone speak. This was one of his heroes! One of the people who had inspired him to keep fighting for good even when facing hatred and bias from all sides! He couldn't stop the wide, giddy grin from taking over his face at the sight of the Man of Steel.

Maybe they were finally responding to all the calls the Amity Parkers had sent them about the ghost attacks? Maybe they were here to help with the ghosts?! Ooh, he couldn't wait to work with them! Though he was a bit confused. Why was Superman staring at him like he was one of the villains he fought every day? Danny felt his grin slide slowly off his face the longer Superman watched him with that cold, detached look, like Danny was just another problem, another mess to clean up.

"Red Huntress!" Danny tore his gaze away from Superman and to the booming voice. He knew he had stars in his eyes when he saw Wonder Woman, an actual Amazon, standing on the nearest rooftop, hands on her hips and her head raised high. He'd heard so much about her and Themyscira from Pandora and a few fallen Amazons! He was so lost in recalling all the great feats she's done that he almost missed her next words.

"We have come to offer you aid! And a position as the newest member of the team, Young Justice!"

...

Um... What?

Red Huntress...? Red Huntress? That's who they wanted to join the fucking Justice League? 

Red Huntress? The lady who had just been chasing him around town and shooting at him while screaming pure hate and what Danny is pretty sure are ghost slurs? The lady who has terrible aim and was hitting more property and barely missing innocent people? Her?

To say Danny was in shock was an understatement. He missed the various two cents from Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern and Superman. He only clocked back in in time to hear Wonder Woman say this,

"Never before have I seen someone so young, and without so much as a mentor or friend to help out, be so courageous and strong." She sounded proud, like she was about to cry happy tears for Valerie, and Danny probably would have desperately latched onto that pride and happiness to share it if he didn't feel like he'd just gotten hot coals thrown over him. (Uncovering his ice core has made the idea of heat and fire more uncomfortable to him than cold and ice, so he's had to adjust his vocabulary to accommodate)

"...What?" Danny didn't even notice he'd been tied up and left floating until he tried to adjust his hazmat suit's sleeves a second ago. He was covered in glowing, almost translucent bonds. Green Lantern's work then. they were solid enough for him to be able to slip through if he wanted. He also didn't realize he'd said that out loud until the disapproving stares of all of the present people were pinned on him. Red's was outright hateful.

"You can stay silent. We'll bring you to a meta jail soon enough, and you can give your statement during your trial." Danny didn't like any of that. Least of all, how straight-up annoyed Green Lantern sounded.

...Should he be concerned that he's more bothered by a random adult sounding disappointed in him than he is about going to jail for crimes he didn't commit? Probably, but Danny feels like he gets a pass; this is the freaking Justice League after all. The heroes he used to?  looked up to and admired for all their strength and bravery, and all their cool powers and strategies.

And they thought he was a villain. A menace. Just like the rest of the town. Just like Red Huntress. Danny didn't know what his face looked like, but he wasn't going to wait around and hope someone would tell him while they carted him off to jail for existing. 

He slipped through the glowing binds with a practiced ease and made a point to go invisible before flying off. His vision went blurry as he flew, and he struggled to hold in his tears as he flew.

Danny hadn't cried since the portal incident, and he wasn't planning to start now. He didn't have time to cry, not when the town needed saving and his friends needed protecting. But...

He guessed he wouldn't need to protect the town anymore, not with the Justice League showing up. (trespassing on his territory)

There still should be about an hour before school, so he flew to Sam's window. He was almost sobbing when she finally opened the window for him and threw himself into her arms. She didn't even get a chance to ask what was wrong before he was stumbling through the events of the last hour and a half.

====

"Damn it..." Red Huntress, their newest prodigal hero, muttered to herself as she typed on her wrist. She and Clark exchanged looks before turning their attention back to the young woman. They felt it when the villain, Phantom, left, more than they saw it happen. 

"Ah, sorry about that." Hal sounded sheepish. "The threat of prison must've scared that guy back to reality. That was my bad." Extenuating circumstances notwithstanding, that's probably the most genuine apology she's heard Hal give to someone he'd just met before.

Red Huntress sighed heavily. "It's fine. Phantom has a bad habit of coming back no matter what." She sounded irritated, and for good reason. Diana's sure everyone here has those villains that were similar. She hummed, Clark speaking for them all. "We'll be ready for him, after you come back with us to the Watchtower so we can work out the details of your position and salary." He sounded as earnest as always, and it made Diana smile. How optimistic and upbeat he always was, it's truly a beacon for the rest of the league.

Red Huntress turned to her, shock and genuine surprise clear in her body language. "I'm getting a salary...?" She sounded hopeful. Diana smiled sadly. Another struggling young hero without a support system... At least they'd realized their mistake and finally managed to extend an offer of aid and training to her, and resources for damage caused by her rogues.

====

"And then they told me to shut up, and that I was gonna go to prison, and that I was a villain, and, and-" Danny broke out in another round of soft sobs. Tucker knew his ears and wings were drooping low. Sam looked a mix of sympathetic and furious. He got it, honestly. After all they had been through together, all they had fought against and preserved through together.

Danny's death and reincarnation.

Sam finding out she's from a long line of Oreads and Dryads, mountain and tree nymphs. The sudden plant and Earth-related powers after the two of them got a face full of ghost world, while Danny died and got ghost powers, as well as the horns and plants literally trying to swallow her sometimes, made that pretty obvious. It also explained her almost cult like obsession with preserving the environment.

All the ghost fights that forced them to think smarter and work harder, that made them lose sleep and class time and had their grades dropping for all of Freshman and Sophomore year. 

All the cursed ghostly artifacts that affected them on a psychological and physical level.

His being the reincarnation of a long-dead Pharaoh and awakening his own set of powers, and becoming what is apparently called a 'were-sphinx'

Danny having to defeat an actual fucking tyrant by himself because Tucker was too weak to help and got in the way too much and, and-

And how could he forget everything Vlad has done? From being a general murderous nuisance to kidnapping Danny, to actively endangering him as a human and ghost to try to get his way, to cloning one of Tucker's closest friends and being a complete Victor Frankenstein about it. That's right, Lancer, he, Sam, and Danny did read the entirety of Frankenstein, and they wrote an in-depth analysis about it from their separate perspectives, so suck that!

Tucker would never be able to trust the government again after the Guys In White showed up, not that he ever fully had before, but now he knows how awful the government could be towards something they don't understand. And he's no Sam, but he feels like permitting the genocide of an entire species without evidence that they are purely evil, like the Ghost Investigation Ward claims, is both drastic and idiotic. 

He's seen a side of Danny's parents that he hoped to never find in another close friend again.

Too much has happened in two years. This newest development probably shouldn't have surprised him as much as it did, but he felt like this was too sudden. Too unchangeable. The more he thought about it, the more upset he got about it. He didn't know why the Justice League had a sudden interest in Amity Park after two years, but it definitely didn't make him feel better about the past two years, and he knew Sam felt the same. 

But for all he didn't know about the present and the potential futures, Tucker knew one thing.

Danny couldn't stay in Amity Park anymore. He had to leave. Even...

Even if that meant leaving him and Sam behind. He felt a soft whine escape him at that thought, the proto-core his extreme exposure to ectoplasm and all his near-death experiences caused to develop felt a slight strain begin to form, already anticipating the distance that will have to be put between himself and Danny, and maybe even Sam if the cover story they were going with was Danny Fenton running away from home after their friendship fell through.

Time to plan, for the worst, he guessed. Wouldn't be the first time.

====

Danny couldn't stay in Amity Park.

Sam knew this, she knew Tucker knew this, and she knew Danny would have a hard time accepting it, but it was necessary. They didn't have a clear idea of what would or could happen to him now that the fucking Justice League were involved. 

So why..?

Why did she want to scream until her throat went raw and her lungs were depleted? Why did she feel the urge to go fight the Justice League?

Sam knew, logically, that doing that would make things much, much worse, but her core, the center of her very being since that damn accident in that stupid defunct portal, demanded it of her, and more. It screamed that she needed to avenge her beloved, that she needed to preserve the delicate ecosystem that the portal accident had created, that she needed to ensure their continued prosperity no matter the circumstances and odds stacked against her. 

Right now, the only thing she could do that wouldn't result in her, and probably Tucker too, being put on a wanted villains list was to comfort Danny. Plans were forming in her head, but she knew there was only one outcome that would truly work.

Even if it meant saying goodbye to one of her oldest and only friends. 

Sam felt a pang of hurt and strain being placed on her core at the thought, felt it mirrored by Tucker through the bond the three of them shared after the accident. 

"Danny," She started, hearing her voice whisper when she had wanted to sound more confident. More sure. "Danny. You need to leave. Soon." She felt Tucker curl around them, his chest to her back, his wings spreading to cover them gently, like he did when it was raining or too sunny for comfort. She bit back the tears, knew from the soft sniffles behind her and Danny using the dirty sleeves of his hoodie to wipe at his red eyes that she wasn't the only one.

If you had told her two, almost three, years ago that Danny would half-die, she and Tucker would become death-touched enough to unlock genetic secrets and gain their own powers, and go on wacky, sometimes traumatizing adventures and fight ghosts while also having to find time to attend class, do homework and be back home in time for curfew, she probably would have laughed you to hell and back and bleached your shoes and stolen one of each sock.

Oh, how the cookie crumbles... Sam's gonna be honest for a second, as a little going-away treat to Danny.

"Don't worry, Danny, I'll miss you lots, and I'll try not to get too cool while you're gone." She tried to sound snarky and knew she missed the mark, but the soft, watery laugh that tumbled out of Danny was something she would cherish until they saw each other again.

If they saw each other again

====

"And that's what happened, I guess," Danny grumbled, mostly to himself. He nibbled on the cookie Lunch Lady had given him. He made a point not to make eye contact with any of the other ghosts huddled around him at the little table in Lunch Lady's restaurant. There was silence for a long moment. Surprisingly enough, it was Johnny 13, who he was still shocked was here at all, that spoke up first.

"They pushed you out of your haunt?" Johnny sounded pissed, and looked pissed, actually. Danny sighed heavily, trying to push through the self-pity to get some answers that he needed. Distractions that he desperately wanted.

"Why are you guys even here? I thought my being gone would be your ticket to go and do...whatever." A part of him, which he recognized as distinctly ghostly, felt guilty about not knowing what specifically brought his rogues to find and enter the portal and cause mayhem, especially since ghost hunters, ghost experimenters, and Danny himself were beyond that portal at all times.

The gagglefuck of gathered ghosts (alliteration, Lancer would be so proud of him) looked insulted to be honest. That only confused him more. They'd already told him about the play fighting, something he was struggling to wrap his head around. Everything around him stopped, from the ghosts talking at him to the start of small arguments between them, as a thought occurred to him, a rare thing according to Sam. (he missed her so much.)

"Wait, hold the phone, hold everything!" Danny had his hands up, trying to quiet down the other ghosts. Once they were silent and expectant, he continued. "All those times you guys showed up in the mortal realm were to play, right?" The ghosts nodded, and he felt a bit incensed. "Why didn't you tell me that earlier?!" Most of the ghosts seemed unsurprised by his reactions; they had more of a reaction to what he said than to his feelings on the matter. 

"I thought you guys were trying to kill me and destroy the town! I thought every time one of you showed up, I was gonna die again! I thought you guys were going to kill Sam and Tucker, too! Why didn't you ever just tell me that you wanted to play? We could've, like, I don't know, set up playdates? Do you guys even know how much school I missed because of you coming out of nowhere and wrecking shit?" Danny hadn't tried to stay calm or measured as he usually did when dealing with ghosts; he was perfectly entitled to his emotions and to express them whenever he felt necessary.

Damn, looks like he did learn something from Jazz.

The ghosts were looking anywhere but at him, the floor and ceiling and walls seeming very interesting all of a sudden. 

Shockingly enough, it was Nocturn, who he hadn't even realized showed up along with the other Ancients, that broke the awkward silence. "It seems we all have much to explain. Let us begin. You, Phantom, as I'm certain you are aware, are not just any ghost," Nocturn started, his voice like a soft lullaby meant to soothe into slumber. Danny groaned loudly, slumping against the chair he was in as he mentally prepared for a long, boring lecture. What a day.

Apparently, there's a lot to learn about being half-ghost. Yay, Danny, I guess.

Notes:

Sorry again for the late update! I tried to get this out earlier, but the thoughts of how to write this chapter were not coming to me easily. It's a struggle sometimes just to get a draft down lol.

Ya'll when I wrote 'Danny hadn't cried since the portal incident' I meant it. If you go back and look through the show, he never cries, it's insane. Like other characters cry during the show, but not Danny, like ever. I took this knowledge and decided to use it to make this chapter sadder lol.

I also wanted to play up Danny's emotions a bit because he is an extremely traumatized teenager above all else, and teenagers aren't the best at accurately recounting events.

The events I listed in Tucker's pov of this chapter are meant to be out of order, and also (almost) completely off topic because, again, teenagers aren't the most reliable narrators. Especially when emotions are running high.

An Oread is a mountain nymph; they are typically associated with Earth and rocks.

A Dryad is a tree/forest nymph; they are typically associated with nature and the wilds and forests.

Technically, all types of were-creatures can exist, but were-wolves are talked about the most, and I wanted to switch things up for our boy Tucker. This is also partially to set up flashbacks to 'better times' where Tucker is playfully made fun of by Sam and Danny for being a furry, both before and after the portal accident.

Sam mentions the portal accident a lot more than Tucker and Danny because she views everything happening as her fault. She knows, deep down, that none of them would change a thing, even if they had the chance, but all their shared and separate trauma weighs on her and keeps her up at night with the weight of the guilt she feels.

If you couldn't tell by how vague their POVs are, I'm still trying to work out the details of how Sam and Tucker's obsessions would work. They didn't die; they both got very nasty shocks during the accident both times, but they didn't die, so they function a bit differently from Danny.

A part of me feels like I shouldn't spend so much on these random notes for stuff you probably already realized or connected yourselves, especially when I'm pretty sure no one reads these lol

Hope you enjoyed this!

Edit, October 24th, 2025
I tried to fix up the grammar and spelling a bit since I was rereading this chapter like an obsessive freak and noticed some things were off.