Chapter Text
“Finally! I’ve been waiting for hours!” Ember shouted as Danny entered his room on a mid-October Tuesday along with Sam and Tucker. The popstar ghost was seated cross-legged on his bed.
Danny froze and stared at her for a moment. “Ember? What—”
“I need your help with something,” Ember said, hopping off the bed and floating over to the three.
“Since when do you ask for our help with stuff?” Tucker asked warily—understandably so.
“I’m not asking for your help, Techno Geek. I’m asking for Babypop’s,” Ember informed them.
“Same question applies,” Danny said tiredly. He probably should be more on guard, like Sam and Tucker were, but for some reason he never saw Ember as the same level of dangerous as many of his other enemies, which went doubly so now after encountering ghosts like Undergrowth and Vortex. She seemed more like a frenemy… Or maybe even…
“Well, we’re friends, aren’t we?” Ember said, seeming confused. “Friends help each other.”
“Friends?” Sam asked sharply, glaring at Danny with suspicion. “Since when?”
“Hey, this is news to me, too,” Danny told her. Although, come to think of it, his ghost sense hadn’t gone off for her, as it did for ghosts deemed unfriendly or unknown; had he subconsciously started to see her as a friend?
Ember frowned. “Am I missing something? We play-fight all the time, and tease each other and exchange flirty banter and stuff. Is that not friendship?”
Danny mentally paused, considering that. Was that why he wasn’t on edge with her being in his room? Why his ghost sense didn’t go off? Were they friends? The fights did seem more playful nowadays… more like sparring than actual fighting… “When you put it that way…” Danny trailed.
“Danny, no,” Sam asserted. “She’s tricking you! What Ember does isn’t play.”
“Says you,” Ember pouted.
“Ember, just a few weeks ago you, Kitty, and Spectra tried ridding the town of all the men,” Sam pointed out. “That’s not play.”
“Sure it was,” Ember said. “It was fun! Did you see the looks on the women’s faces? They were glad to get a break from guys!”
“But you can’t just get rid of them all like that!”
“Why not? It’s not like it was gonna be permanent—there was no need for you to be a party-pooper. Seriously, you need to have more fun, Spooky.”
“Wait, it wasn’t permanent?” Tucker interjected.
“Nope,” Ember said, popping the ‘p’. “We would’ve brought them back after the girls had their fun. Anyway, let’s go, Babypop, this is time sensitive.”
“What is?” Danny asked, still unsure with the entire situation.
“What you need to help with.”
“Which is?” Danny wanted more info before promising.
“Confidential,” Ember replied.
“Right… Not suspicious at all,” Danny said with an eye roll. “Can you at least tell me where this issue is?”
“My lair,” Ember replied. “Now, let’s go.”
Ember surged forward and grabbed Danny by the wrist, then phased them down to the lab as Sam and Tucker frantically shouted Danny’s name.
Danny allowed Ember to lead him into the Ghost Zone and to her lair, though he wasn’t fully sure why. Did he really see her as a friend? His core said yes but his brain was mildly confused about that. He didn’t think she was tricking him though; might as well see what she needed help with.
Ember’s lair was set up like a large yet cozy basement lounge and recording studio combo, with lots of musical instruments and equipment strewn about, along with beanbag chairs, multiple couches, some tables, a pinball machine, a TV, a corner containing a fridge beside a small counter with a microwave and stovetop, and walls and ceiling littered with band posters and stickers. One could barely make out a multicolored carpet under everything, similar to those found at old arcades. All the furniture was a mismatch of styles and colors, reminiscent of many peoples’ first apartments which tended to have most furniture be hand-me-downs and roadside finds.
Danny’s ghost sense went off as he entered the lair, and the TV switched from on to off.
Sitting on a leather couch in front of the TV, with cans of soda on the table between the two objects, were Kitty, TV remote in hand, and one of the last girls Danny expected to find there: his blonde-haired classmate Star, who had been reported missing a few days prior.
Kitty glared at Ember. “About time you got here!”
“Hey, you said be discreet, so I waited in his room to minimize media picking me up. We’re here now,” Ember told her a little testily.
“What’s Fenton doing here?” Star asked, seeming perfectly at ease, so Danny ruled out kidnapping.
“What am I doing here? What are you doing here?!” Danny asked, baffled at her calm presence among the ghosts, as if she not only knew them but they were friends too.
Star turned to Ember and frowned. “You told me you were bringing Phantom here, not this nerd.”
“Why do you need Phantom here?” Danny asked warily, ignoring the nerd comment and suspecting that the problem Danny had to help with had to do with the girl. He turned to Ember and asked, “Is this related to the confidential thing I need to help with?”
“Look a little closer at her, Babypop,” Ember told Danny, voice unexpectedly quiet and gentle.
Danny followed that instruction. Something did seem… off… but what… Oh. Her skin, a large amount of which was visible thanks to the crop-top and short-skirt combo that was the feature of the orange-and-white Casper High cheerleading uniform, had lost any tanness the summer had given it despite it only being early October, and appeared to be slightly glowing. Her hair, though still mostly long and yellow-blonde and adorned with her usual orange flower hairclip, also had a subtle pattern of tiny slightly-darker starbursts throughout it, swirled in various density clusters, defying physics by gently moving about on their own.
As Danny concentrated, he noticed that, like himself, the girl seemed to not be breathing, and also like him a very faint vibration came from her that became evident when concentrating hard enough. Unlike Danny, however, the girl had no heartbeat, which he should be able to hear when concentrating this hard on her.
“You’re a ghost,” Danny softly concluded, staring at Star with wide eyes. His classmate was a ghost. But how…?
Star gasped. “Ohmygosh. You can tell? Is it that obvious?” she asked, looking distressed at that. She swerved to look at Kitty. “You said people wouldn’t be able to tell!”
“They won’t, don’t worry!” Kitty quickly assured the girl. “You look more human than Ember, and the humans can’t tell she is.”
“Hey!” Ember protested.
“You literally have a fire ponytail, and they don’t wonder why.”
“But Fenton can tell!” Star asserted, ignoring Ember.
“Well duh! I told you, ghosts can sense your core,” Kitty explained.
“Ghosts…? Wait…”
“Oh, way to out me,” Danny said with a non-serious scowl as he crossed his arms. He wasn’t actually upset about being revealed; if Star was a ghost, she’d learn about him sooner than later.
“Ooooh,” Star slowly said with realization. “You’re Phantom, aren’t you? You have transformation powers too.”
“‘Too’?” Danny caught.
“Her special power is changing how she looks,” Kitty supplied.
“Like Amorpho?” Danny asked.
“Not, not to that extent,” Kitty explained. “At least as far as we can tell. Pretty much it’s just superficial stuff, at least for now. Skin tone, hair color, and other general appearance stuff like that. Go on, Star, show him your default.”
Star frowned. “But I don’t like it.”
“You need to get used to it; keeping the human appearance takes energy, so using it 24/7 isn’t sustainable,” Kitty told her gently.
Star sighed. “Fine,” she said sullenly, then her skin shifted to a more ashen blue-grey similar in shade to Kitty, the glow increased, the stars in her hair shifted to a definitely-unnatural holographic gold color, and her dark teal eyes shifted to a lighter glowing teal. Her fingernails shifted to become more pointed, not quite claws but they definitely looked sharp, although the orange polish remained. “It’s ugly, isn’t it?” she asked with a slight pout as she watched Danny examine her look.
Danny gave a start. “Sorry, didn’t mean to stare!” He said. “You’re not ugly, I promise. A lot better looking than lots of ghosts, seriously. It just surprised me. Honestly, I’m still processing the fact that you even are a ghost. How did—wait, sorry, that’s rude to ask.”
“That’s actually the problem,” Ember spoke up. “She doesn’t know.”
“Oh. And you think I can help with that?” Danny asked, mildly confused. “All I know is a few days ago you were reported missing,” he told Star.
“I didn’t even know that much when Kitty found me wandering around,” Star revealed.
“I recognized her from the news report,” Kitty explained. “Unfortunately that’s very common with new ghosts that died very traumatically. Sometimes it comes back to you, sometimes it doesn’t. I was like that too at first; I only remembered because Johnny remembered, and once he explained it came back to me.” Right, the two had died together, in a motorcycle crash, Danny recalled.
“Where’s Johnny now?” Danny wondered. Usually Kitty and Johnny were with each other, unless, “Did you two fight again?”
“Nah, he just left to go see if the police have any info,” Kitty told him, unaffected by the comment regarding them fighting. “We’ve had the news on, but there’s nothing being reported other than that she’s still missing.”
“I’m not missing, my body is missing,” Star corrected.
“Well, yes,” Kitty said. “Blunt, but yes.”
“I don’t like to sugarcoat things,” Star grumbled, a stark contrast from the bubbly personality that Danny was used to seeing at school. It was understandable though, given the circumstances.
Danny vaguely wondered why he was reacting so calmly in the face of his classmate being a ghost. Being dead. Was he just that used to ghosts that it didn’t strike his mind to grieve or even be upset? She’d only been barely an acquaintance, but she still had been a classmate; he should feel something more, right?
“What’s the last thing you remember before becoming a ghost, and first thing you remember after?” Danny asked the girl as he took a seat on the couch beside her.
“Hey, leave room for me!” Ember whined, floating over.
“It only fits three,” Danny told her.
“Then I’ll sit on you,” Ember decided.
“Hey!” Danny protested as Ember sat on his lap.
Star giggled. “You two seem like good friends!” she said, her voice regaining some of its usual chipperness, though still somewhat subdued. “Wow, Fenton, you really have everyone fooled, thinking you’re afraid of ghosts.”
“Call me Danny,” Danny told Star as he pushed Ember off him and into a beanbag next to the couch. “And technically, I never said that,” he pointed out. “You all just assumed.”
“Well, how we were supposed to know you were actually running off to be Phantom?” Star asked with a knowing smile, and Danny realized he’d never actually confirmed that.
Danny sighed, and activated his transformation as Ember floated over to the fridge.
Star gasped with happy surprise. “Ohmygosh, you really are him! Or, you! This is so epic. You’re like Sailor Moon or something.”
“What,” Danny said flatly.
“You know, with the transformation,” Star explained. “The light and the costume change!”
“Uh huh. I’ll take your word for it,” Danny decided.
“What’s with that flash, anyway?” Ember asked from the fridge.
“Yeah, like, come to think of it, other transformation ghosts don’t have that,” Kitty pointed out. “It’s just you and Vlad. Is it a halfa thing?”
“I dunno; probably,” Danny said.
“Have you ever tried, like, just not doing it?” Ember wondered.
Danny gave pause to that. “No, I haven’t,” he realized. Should he try? Yeah, he should try. So Danny focused on not having the ring of light as he shifted back to his human form… Sure enough, it worked. Danny tried it again in the reverse direction. “Huh. Would have been nice to know I could do that a year ago,” he said. He wondered if Vlad knew, then concluded that surely he did, after over two decades; he must just use the ring to be flashy, since that was the kind of thing he would do.
“Yeah, that’ll make hiding way easier,” Ember said matter-of-factly.
Danny shifted back to human form, which he preferred, again without the ring. He turned back to Star. “So, back to what you remember—”
“Hey, wait, why are you switching back?” Star wondered. “I thought we don’t need to hide here?”
“I’m not hiding,” Danny said, somewhat confused, then realized the issue. “Oh, right. You don’t know. My human form isn’t the same kind of shapeshifting you can do. It’s my default.”
“Danny’s a halfa,” Ember supplied as she flopped back into her beanbag, this time with a can of ecto-soda. She tossed a can to Danny, too. “More formally known as a liminal. Means he’s a ghost with some human traits lingering.”
“It’s actually super interesting how that works,” Kitty said. “Liminals are made when a ghost is inside a body when the body is revived, which makes the two merge, because the soul desperately wants to reattach itself to the revived body but already has formed a core and has all the ghost energy already attached to it.”
“Yeah, I was inside the portal when it activated, got blasted with a shitton of electricity and ectoplasm together; basically my ghost formed inside my body at the same exact time it was revived,” Danny explained, as he examined the can in his hand. “Is this ecto-soda stuff safe for halfas?”
“Should be,” Ember said. “Far as I know anything safe for ghosts is safe for halfas.”
“If I die further, I’m blaming you,” Danny joked, popping open the can.
“So, a halfa is like a ghost possessing a corpse?” Star questioned as she picked up her own partly-finished soda from the coffee table.
“No no, that would be a revenant!” Kitty corrected. “In that case, the body is fully dead, then it possesses the corpse. So Danny is definitely not one of those, because then he would look and smell like a corpse. No, a liminal is an actual merge, a true in-between state. Like, he actually has a heart beat, because his heart pumps a blood-ectoplasm mix! Even in his ghost form he has bones.”
Star looked confused at that. “But if you have bones, how do you do make your form go all liquidy and make the ghost tail and stuff?” she asked Danny.
Danny shrugged. “No idea, and I’d honestly rather not speculate too much. Last time I did I discovered that gravity was only constantly activated in human form because I believed it was, and now that that mental block’s gone I keep accidentally floating whenever I’m happy.” Or just in general, doing things like sitting in the air, which felt natural not just in ghost form but also in human form now.
“Oh yeah, ghosts are emotion-based beings so your own beliefs about yourself and your emotions can affect things,” Ember helpfully told Star. “You’re really new, so you’re gonna have some issues with accidental power activation for a bit.”
“I can help with that,” Danny said. “School was really difficult when my powers were settling in. Remember all those dropped beakers and pants-falling incidents?”
Star giggled. “I don’t think anyone can forget that. It even got you noticed by Paulina!”
Danny cringed. “Yeah… anyway, about school, do you plan to go back, or stick around here, or what?”
“Oh, I’m definitely going to go back,” Star said determinedly, not even having to think about it. “That’s why Kitty and I were practicing on getting my old look…” Star squinted her eyes in concentration, and then her skin shifted back to a more human, albeit pale, tone, the glow dimmed, and her eyes and hair returned to the state they’d been in when Danny entered the lair. “Do you really think it’s good enough to pass?”
“Definitely,” Danny said.
“Wait,” Star said, eyes widening in realization. “One sec…” she squinted again, and then a large streak of red appeared in her hair on the right side.
“Ballin’,” Kitty said approvingly. “And hey, you got the gold to fully go away this time!”
“Really?” Star asked happily, grabbing some of her hair to look at it. “Awesome!”
“Glow’s dimmer too,” Ember said approvingly. “Betcha you can get it to go all the way away with practice.”
“Yeah…” Star trailed, looking at Danny. “You know, you look really cute with fangs. How’d I never notice that before?”
“I look cute with what?” Danny asked, then poked at his teeth with a finger. “What the…” Sure enough, his canine teeth were sharp and pointy—small fangs, but fangs nonetheless. “Why?” he whined.
“Huh. Those are new,” Ember said. “She’s right, they’re cute.”
“But… They should be normal teeth…” Danny said. “I mean, they’re new teeth, they got knocked out in a fight with a hockey ghost earlier and reformed, but usually when that happens just regular teeth come back…”
“Well, seems like your mouth wanted fangs this time around,” Kitty said with a giggle. “Halloween is soon, right? Maybe that’s why.”
“I want fangs too,” Star decided. “I wonder…” She squinted her eyes again and ran her tongue over her bared teeth; Danny watched in fascination as Star’s canines shifted into fangs that matched his. “Cool!” the girl declared.
“Damn; wi—would love it if I could do that too,” Danny said. “But, to get rid of the fangs; I don’t want to draw more attention to myself.”
“You sure you can’t?”
“Nah; the form change is due to being a halfa, not a genuine transformation ability. My specialty is ice,” Danny informed her, holding his hand palm-up and forming a small ice crystal in the air like Frostbite had taught him. “Pretty sure ghosts generally just get one major category of ghost magic.” He closed his hand and the crystal dissolved into droplets that evaporated.
“Mine’s music,” Ember supplied. “With the right sounds, I can do different spells. Johnny’s is his shadow thing. Kitty’s is her vanishing kiss.”
“No, mine is charming men,” Kitty said. “If I seduce a human male, he’ll do what I want, and if I don’t want him to remember after he won’t. The vanishing kiss is an extension of that.”
“Eh, details.”
“Huh. I didn’t realize that,” Danny said. That was a very powerful ability! Also… “Hey, wait, does that mean you—”
“Nah, it doesn’t work on halfas,” Kitty interjected, catching on. “That’s why I had to possess Paulina.”
“You possessed Paulina?” Star asked curiously.
“Yeah, last year, the week ‘Paulina’ and I ‘dated’. Kitty was fighting with Johnny and thought dating me would make him jealous,” Danny explained. “Apparently it didn’t occur to her that I might play along if she just told me she wanted to do that in the first place, so she didn’t have to try to trick me into it.”
“In my defense, at the time you were friendly with absolutely zero ghosts, so it wasn’t too far out to think you wouldn’t agree,” Kitty pointed out.
“But why Paulina?” Star wondered. “I mean, yeah, she’s super hot, but isn’t it really unbelievable she’d be into Fenton?”
“Oh, thanks,” Danny said with an eye roll. “But she is into Phantom.”
“Yeah, I blackmailed him,” Kitty said casually as she examined her nails. “Had him thinking that Paulina would tell everyone he’s Phantom if we broke up.”
“Oh! That’s so clever,” Star replied chipperly.
“That’s one word for it I guess,” Danny muttered, then continued in a normal voice, “Anyway, back to why I’m here…”
“Oh, right,” Star said. “We want your help solving my murder, obviously.”
“You were murdered? You remember that?” Danny asked, alert. This would make the first murder in Amity Park since the ghosts started appearing en masse—hopefully ghosts didn’t get blamed for it! Unless a ghost did it…
“No, but that’s what makes sense, right?” Star said. “I mean, ghosts form from violent emotional deaths. I wouldn’t do some sort of crazy murder-suicide thing so obviously someone did it to me.”
“Could also be an accident,” Kitty supplied. “Like, me and Johnny got into the motorcycle crash.”
“But I don’t drive a motorcycle.”
“No, but it could be something else accidental.”
“But then someone would have found my body by now,” Star pointed out. “Unless someone did it by accident and then covered it up… But that still means someone killed me and I want to know who.”
“So the consensus is someone killed you, accident or not,” Danny summarized. “Since there’s no body, and you have the morphing ability, it’s probably a good idea to return to your human life for now.”
“That’s what I was thinking too,” Star said. “If someone killed me, they’ll be shocked to see me around, and then we’ll know who did it.”
“Assuming it’s a human who doesn’t have a good poker face,” Ember pointed out.
“Well, it’s a start,” Danny said, still a little stunned that he was apparently going to be working with Ember, Johnny, and Kitty, along with Star herself, to solve Star’s murder. He felt like he should be reacting more to the entire situation, though—well, it likely hadn’t fully hit him yet, he concluded.
Unless ghosts didn’t react to death in the same way humans did, and that’s something halfas had too? Maybe he could ask…
“Something on your mind, Babypop?” Ember asked, apparently catching onto Danny’s internal conflict.
“Ah, kinda,” Danny admitted. “It’s about learning Star’s a ghost…”
“Oh, she’s the first person you knew as a human and a ghost?” Ember asked. “Yeah, that’s gotta be weird.”
“No, it’s not that,” Danny said. “Or, maybe that is a little weird, but…” He trailed off, not sure how to voice it.
“Ooooh, I get it,” Kitty said. “She’s the first death you’ve experienced since you became a ghost, isn’t it? So you’re confused at why you’re reacting differently than you did as a human, right?”
“Ah. Yeah, that’s right,” Danny confirmed, ignoring the fact that Kitty seemed to be treating him as just a regular ghost. Ember tended to do that too; in fact, the more he interacted with ghosts, the more Danny realized that apparently to ghosts, halfas counted as such. He wondered if humans in general would see it that way too, if they ever found out. The GIW certainly had during the whole Freakshow incident.
“We’ve all gone through that realization,” Ember told him. “You’d probably expect to react stronger because ghosts have stronger emotions in general, but you’re barely reacting at all—it’s normal, don’t worry. We think it’s because we’ve all experienced death ourselves, so it doesn’t seem like such a big deal anymore, you know? Even if it’s someone we knew.”
“Plus her being a ghost dampens it as well,” Kitty chimed in. “Since she’s not really gone, you know? And you know what it’s like being a ghost.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Danny said, relaxing slightly. So, his reaction, or lack thereof, was normal—for a ghost. Not for the first time Danny wondered if he really was more ghost than human; if the ghosts didn’t seem to see a difference… Well, while they were being friendly, maybe he should ask that too. “So, there’s something else that’s been bugging me, too,” Danny said a little nervously. “Are halfas… basically just a variant of ghost? You all seem to be treating it that way—I thought it was more of a hybrid thing?”
“Technically I guess it is more like a third hybrid thing,” Ember acknowledged. “But for all intents and purposes you’re basically a ghost, right? You definitely have a lot more ghost traits than human ones! And you can relate more to us than humans, right? I mean, you did die, which isn’t something humans can empathize with. So, yeah, guess we do treat it more like a ghost variant than a separate thing—but your humans do that too, don’t they, in the opposite direction?”
“Yeah, they do,” Danny said. Honestly, it bothered him a little the way Sam and Tucker seemed to treat it like Danny still being human, but with ghost powers. He knew they understood on a logical level that he was technically a hybrid, that he technically died even if he revived partially after, but they still treated him as more human despite that, to the point Danny could swear that sometimes they felt uncomfortable when he acted too ghostly, although he could just be overthinking that.
“Which do you prefer?” Star asked with curiously.
“What?”
“Which do you prefer people treat you as, human or ghost?”
“Oh.” Danny took a sip of his soda to give himself a moment to think. “Honestly, I have no idea,” he decided to say, not liking the inkling that was creeping up.
“Really? You sure?” Ember asked with a knowing eyebrow raise.
“If you had to pick only one, what would you say you are?” Kitty asked.
Danny hesitated, and really thought deeply about it, using the soda to delay again before answering. “I mean, I guess I identify more as… as a ghost,” he revealed, half-speed heart rate picking up a little; he’d never admitted that aloud to anyone before. “I don’t want to, but I do.” It felt like a dirty secret, that somewhere along the way he’d started identifying more as a ghost than human, something he’d been trying to deny even to himself…
“Mm, thought so,” Ember said. “After meeting you I read up on halfas, and it seems that most start out thinking they’re more human, but then eventually identify as ghosts, usually within a few years. There’s just too many major differences between halfas and humans compared to between halfas and ghosts.”
“Wait, there are books about halfas?” Danny asked, surprised.
“Yup; they’re in the Ghost Zone Library. I’ll take you sometime, it’s huge!”
“Yeah, I’d like that,” Danny said; the more info about halfas he could learn, the better. “So, that means, there’s enough halfas to make books? Or, have been enough, I mean; guess they’re not around anymore. I thought portals were needed though?”
“Nah, there’s some nasty rituals and other sciency things that can do it too,” Ember said. “The portal itself doesn’t matter, the body’s reanimation with the ghost inside it is the important thing. It doesn’t even have to be immediate, if you can attach a ghost to a corpse and then revive it. Frankenstein did that.”
“Whoa, wait, Frankenstein was real?!” Star proclaimed.
“Yep. The so-called ‘monster’ he made was a halfa. Not a very good one since the body was cobbled together by different parts rather than the original one, making it unstable so it didn’t last, but technically that creature was a halfa,” Ember explained. “Later on Frankenstein did that to himself, using his own body, with much more success. Think he’s got a castle on the edges of the USSR.”
“It’s called Russia again,” Kitty corrected. “Seriously, you gotta brush up on modern geography.”
“Wait, he’s still alive? Wasn’t he from the 1800s or something?” Danny asked, on alert. That would make him well over the oldest human ever recorded… Did halfas…?
“Alive is relative, but yeah, no one ended him and he didn’t fade, so he’s still around.”
“Is he a full ghost then?”
“No, of course not…” Ember trailed, then looked at Danny with a frown, seeming mildly confused.
“Oh, honey,” Kitty said with realization. “You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?” Danny asked, feeling like a bombshell was about to be dropped.
“That’s another thing halfas share with full ghosts—you don’t age,” Kitty said gently.
Yup, a bombshell. Danny had started to suspect something was a little off, since he hadn’t seemed to grow at all and hadn’t needed a haircut since the accident, but somehow it didn’t occur to him that that could be because he was literally unaging. “Well, shit,” he said, then realized something. “Wait. That includes mentally, doesn’t it? So I’ll be stuck in puberty forever?”
“It’s not as bad as it seems at first,” Ember said. Right, she had only been 15 when she died. “Yeah, just like your body, your brain chemistry is static, so your mental maturity stays the same, but you can still learn and stuff. But having both teenage hormonal emotions combined with overactive ghost emotions can be super annoying at times.”
“Oh my gosh,” Star said, looking horrified. “Please tell me I’m not going to be getting my period for eternity!”
“Don’t worry!” Kitty hurriedly assured the girl. “Ghosts don’t get those, even if they died during it, so you’re good.”
“Oh, phew,” Star said, relaxing.
“Yeah, that’s definitely a major benefit to being a ghost!” Ember agreed. “You can’t get pregnant, either, so a huge plus if you meet a boy and want to, you know. Or a girl, in your case, Babypop. Ghost, human, doesn’t matter; no condoms needed or anything.”
“Ember! They’re 15!” Kitty chided. “So are you technically!”
“If I’m unaging, that actually makes me 14,” Danny pointed out. Learning halfas were apparently infertile didn’t bother him at all, given his age, but it suddenly made a lot more sense why Vlad was so determined to make him his son, to the point he tried cloning him, instead of just trying to make an heir the usual way. It did however leave the question of how Boxed Lunch formed.
“Even worse!”
“Oh come on. They’ve had sex ed in school,” Ember argued. “Besides, it’s important to know!”
“How old are you?” Star asked Kitty, ignoring Ember’s comment. Danny was curious too; she seemed to be treating Ember more like a younger sister than general friend.
“I’m 18,” Kitty told her. “Johnny is too. The accident happened when we’d just finished high school—we went to Bellwitch High, on the other side of the city. We’d just left a graduation party, so were both pretty tired, and were arguing, and between that and it being dark and raining… Well, you know how that ended.”
Danny had noticed that when asked their age, ghosts always defaulted right to the age they died at, never trying to calculate it based on birth year. Which made sense; Danny had long ago realized that time wasn’t treated the same in the Ghost Zone. Rarely did ghosts keep calendars, and they didn’t sleep nor did the Ghost Zone have any day/night cycle so it was difficult to tell time passage. Danny only knew the time because he wore a watch (analog mechanical, because digital and battery-operated ones short-circuited whenever he transformed, or became emotional because yes, ghost energy could affect electricity), which had been a gift from Jazz with the hope that he’d be more on time if he had one (that plan hadn’t worked too well), but if he didn’t have the watch he’d have no way to even estimate the time.
Danny wondered how long it would take him to start instinctually answering ‘14’ instead of basing it on birth year, now that he knew halfas were unaging… Oh crap, how was he going to tell Sam and Tucker about that? What about Jazz? And his parents eventually would notice… This was really going to put a wrench in things!
Well, at least he knew his parents would likely be fine with him being a halfa… or at least, they had been a few months prior… But that was a unique circumstance and they’d watched him save the world; in a different circumstance, without the rescue part, would the result be the same? A part of Danny said ‘no’, enough so that he still feared them discovering his secret. In fact, despite their words, even at the time a part of Danny couldn’t help but suspect they were lying about it being okay; well, his dad likely wasn’t lying, but his mom could be really crafty, and he wouldn’t put it past her to pretend to be fine with it until they were alone…
“Danny? You okay, Babypop?” Ember asked. “You’re kinda zoning out…”
“Huh? Oh, sorry,” Danny said, snapping out of his brief reverie. “It’s just, really hitting me now. That I’m gonna be 14 forever.”
“Hey, like I said, it’s not as bad as it seems,” Ember said consolingly. “You won’t grow up, sure, but you can still have plenty of fun! Besides, it means you don’t have to do adult things like get a job, which is pretty neat, right? I mean, some jobs are cool, but they’re still jobs.”
“That’s not the issue,” Danny said truthfully. The only time he thought about a job for the future had been the dream of becoming a NASA astronaut, and even then it had only been a vague goal, something he hadn’t truly believed he could achieve even for a while before he became a ghost and had that dream unambiguously thwarted. Besides, he’d technically been to space already. “The issue is that I still live among humans, pretending to be fully one.”
“Oooh, gotcha,” Ember said. “Yeah, the unaging thing really puts a time limit on that, unless you start to travel around a lot, never staying in one place long enough for people to notice.”
“Yeah… Plus even if I do that, my parents still will figure it out. I dunno how they’ll react; you’ve seen how they treat Phantom. And things with Sam, Tucker, and Jazz will eventually get strange—eventually they’ll grow up and get families and stuff, and I’ll be what? People are gonna be mistaking me for their kid, and then grandkid! Can we even stay friends if I’m still a teen and they’re senior citizens?”
“Okay, you’re getting ahead of yourself,” Kitty interjected. “Focus on that stuff as it comes up, not all at once right now, okay? And talk to your humans about it, I’m sure they’ll have better insights than we do.”
“You could find some other halfas and ask them about it, too,” Ember suggested. “I mean, I dunno how much insight they’d have, since they’re mostly elderly mad scientists and unhinged alchemists and stuff that took the search for immortality too far, so never really had many friends and still prefer solitude, but who knows.”
“Ugh, that sounds like Vlad,” Danny said.
“Yeah, from what I hear they’ve all got similarly egotistical personalities, although unlike him they don’t flaunt their money and seek power on the regular… Might be hard to find too, they tend to be the type to hide…”
“Sounds like it might not be worth trying to find them,” Danny concluded. Maybe he could ask Clockwork if he knew if any of them would be nice, or if he knew of any younger ones.
“Hey, question: by Vlad, do you mean the mayor?” Star asked.
“Oh. Yeah, he’s a halfa too,” Danny told her; it wasn’t a secret to any of the ghosts so he didn’t feel like he was giving away the secret by confirming that, especially since Star would be able to sense his ghost core next she saw him. “His ghost form is called Plasmius. Be careful around him; he likes to scheme.”
“Plasmius…” Star trailed, thinking. “Oh, he’s the vampire-like one that released the evil king wannabe?”
“Yeah, that’s him,” Danny confirmed, after taking a brief moment to connect ‘evil king wannabe’ to ‘Pariah Dark’.
“And he’s the mayor? Ugh, major ‘ew’.”
Danny laughed. “Yeah, you said it. The election wasn’t even legit, he just overshadowed everyone to get them to vote for him.”
“I knew there was something suspicious about that election,” Star asserted. “And not just because it was three months early. Shouldn’t people, like, know this though?”
Ember scoffed. “And how do you think that’ll go? He’ll end anyone who snitches. Besides, it’s common courtesy not to out ghosts trying to hide as human, at least when they don’t have nefarious intent.”
“It is?” Danny asked. He’d suspected it, given none of the ghosts had revealed his identity to anyone, even for revenge, but it was good to have confirmation.
“Yup,” Ember revealed, popping the ‘p’. “In most circumstances you’ll end up socially ostracised for doing that. You got a pass for outing Spectra and Bertrand because they were intentionally trying to cause serious harm to humans, which is more taboo. And it was understandable with us as well. But just outing someone who isn’t causing trouble for the humans? Big no-no.”
“Fascinating as this convo is, we’re getting off topic again,” Kitty gently reminded them. “We’ll teach you more about ghost culture later—for now, we have Star to worry about.”
“Sorry,” Danny instinctually apologized; that happened to him a lot, and Jazz often called him out on it too. Also, “Yeah, we should get back to why I’m here. I can’t stay here forever; Sam and Tucker are probably freaking out since you basically kidnapped me, Ember.”
“It wasn’t kidnapping; you could’ve escaped if you wanted to,” Ember pointed out.
“Eh, well, they can get overprotective,” Danny said. “Same for my sister; bet they told her already. But either way, we should tell the three of them about this—Star, I know you want to keep this a secret, but those three can definitely help, and knowing them they’ll be able to tell I’m hiding something and end up figuring it out anyway. I know Phantom is the one people publicly see, but it’s really Team Phantom. Trust me, you want them helping us—it’s a mess when I try to do things alone.” He’d figured that out the hard way.
Star looked a little hesitant, but decided, “Okay. I’ll trust you.”
There was a conveniently-timed knock on the door, in a pattern of 3-2-3.
“That’s Johnny,” Ember said, and with a wave of her hand the door of her lair opened.
Johnny walked through, but looked a bit nervous. “Hey, so we’ve got a bit of an issue…” he trailed, just as three humans pushed past him.
Kitty stood up and put her fists on her hips. “Johnny! Why would you bring them here?”
“Well, apparently their speeder thing is broken, and when they saw me heading to the portal they threatened to thermos me if I didn’t take them to the twerp!” Johnny defended.
“Hey, I’m not a ‘twerp’!” Danny protested.
“Eh, it’s fine that they’re here,” Ember said with a wave; she, Danny, and Star, who was again in her human form, had remained sitting. “We knew they’d show up eventually.” With another wave, the door closed.
Sam, Tucker, and Jazz stopped in the middle of the room as they took in the scene.
“What’s going on?” Tucker asked, clearly confused.
“We thought you were in trouble…” Sam trailed.
Jazz grinned, looking excited. “Oh! Danny, you’ve finally made some ghost friends!” she said happily. “I’ve been telling you you should.”
“‘Finally’?” Ember quoted. “We’ve been friends for like a year! Not our fault Dipstick here didn’t notice.”
“Well excuse me for not being aware that ghost teenagers play-fight,” Danny grumbled.
“Hold up,” Tucker said, finally noticing who was in the room. “Star? What are you doing here?”
“The whole school’s been in an uproar about how you’re missing, but you’ve just been here?” Sam asked with incredulity.
“Wait, did Ember kidnap you too?” Tucker asked sharply.
“No one kidnapped anyone!” Ember forcefully clarified.
“Ember, Kitty, and Johnny have been helping me,” Star told them.
“Helping with what?” Sam asked.
“Figuring out who murdered me.”
The three humans froze at those words, seeming unsure how to react to that extremely blunt and shocking statement.
“Wh-what are you talking about?” Tucker finally stuttered out.
“Yeah, you look alive to me,” Sam said.
“Well, I’m not,” Star informed them. “But I have no memory of my death, and was very confused at first, so these three helped me figure out some things about being a ghost, then called in Phantom, who is apparently Fenton, to help. Johnny was checking if the police had more info…” She sent a questioning look towards the aforementioned ghost.
“Yeah, sorry, but that was a bust,” Johnny told her. “They never found any evidence of foul play, and since your backpack and stuff were gone they’re treating it as a runaway situation.”
“What? I was at school, of course my backpack would be with me.”
“Yeah, well, cops are stupid,” Johnny said. “Didn’t help that your parents apparently easily accepted that explanation, since they didn’t even report the disappearance immediately since they thought you were just acting out. Your mom said you like to act out for attention?” He raised an eyebrow at her.
“Ohmygosh, seriously?” Star said with a groan. “Ugh. To her, ‘acting out’ is wanting to wear the woven friendship bracelet Paulina made me in art class instead of a fancy expensive bracelet. Trust me, I didn’t run away for attention.”
“Well duh,” Kitty said. “You being a ghost proves that.”
“But it might need to be your cover story,” Ember pointed out. “Since you plan to try to keep being human until the body’s found.”
“Oh yeah, that’s true. Ugh, so annoying…”
“Okay, hold up, can we get back to the part where you’re a ghost?” Tucker asked, voice strained.
“What about it?” Star asked, seeming unaware as to why Tucker seemed so stressed.
“What about it? What about it? Star, if you’re a ghost, that means you died! Horribly!”
“Yes, that’s been established,” Star said, in a tone indicating that she thought Tucker was being a little daft. “So did Danny, Ember, Kitty, and Johnny. Get with the program. It was murder and we’re gonna try to figure out what happened.”
“Why are you treating this so casually?!”
Star frowned. “I’m not,” she said angrily, casual tone gone. “For your information, I cried for like an hour earlier. But nothing’s gonna happen if I mope around forever. I died, yes. It’s sad and upsetting. But I can’t keep focusing on that. It’s over and done. What I need to do now is figure out how I died, and crying won’t help with that.”
“Yeah I get that,” Danny said. How often did he push aside his own negative emotions in order to deal with a pressing threat or other issue, until he could safely break down in his room later? Too often to calculate. Even his friends didn’t know how often he cried—he had to put up a strong front, after all. Can’t have a crying superhero. Plus, it was a little embarrassing; ghost emotions were more volatile, and Danny couldn’t help but think if he were still fully human he wouldn’t be reacting so intensely to things. Even the bullying got to him enough to want to cry sometimes (well, a lot of times), even though technically he could fight them off if he used his powers!
Star took a deep breath. “Sorry; didn’t mean to get so angry. I don’t usually…”
“Nah, it’s fine,” Danny told her. “Ghost emotions can be a real pain; I get angrier than I want to sometimes too.”
“Hold up. Ghost emotions?” Sam asked. She seemed to be handling the Star thing better than Tucker was; she had been quiet at first, likely taking a moment to process, and now seemed relatively calm—Sam was generally pretty good at handling stressful situations, able to compartmentalize, whereas Tucker tended to struggle with that a bit.
Jazz, who also could compartmentalize well and thus was more relaxed too, answered her. “They’re talking about how ghosts feel emotions more strongly than humans, and how their emotions flare up quicker. Danny has that too; didn’t you notice?”
“Thought that was just puberty,” Tucker admitted, seeming a little calmer now too.
“Well it’s probably that too.”
“Jazz!” Danny protested, cheeks heating up in embarrassment, then he frowned as it occurred to him that that would be the case potentially forever. Should he tell them now? No, that was a conversation for later; for as long as Danny could put it off, in fact. “We’re getting off track again,” he said. “This is about Star, not me.”
“Right,” Sam said, taking a seat on a beanbag. “So, the police have nothing?”
“Pretty much,” Johnny said, tossing himself into an armchair catercorner to the couch, on the side Kitty was sitting back down on. Tucker took another beanbag, after Ember levitated it over from a pile in the corner of the room. Johnny had a soda; it seemed he had detoured to the fridge without Danny noticing.
“What, no drinks for us?” Tucker said, looking around. “I mean, we’re helping, right?”
“Sorry, kid, but we don’t have any human-safe drinks on hand,” Johnny said apologetically.
“Human-safe?”
“Yeah, these are all ecto-cola. As in, ectoplasm,” Danny explained. “Jazz might be okay, given her small immunity thanks to all the exposure in the house and food, but you and Sam would probably end up barfing.”
“I’d barf too,” Jazz said. “My stomach might be fine with it, but my tastebuds sure won’t be! That stuff tastes like burnt grass.”
“Lawn grass or fun grass?” Johnny asked with a teasing grin.
“‘Fun grass’?” Jazz asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Johnny, don’t corrupt the kids,” Kitty chided.
“Hey, it was a joke! It’s not like I’m offering any. Not, er, like I have any to offer…”
“I don’t get it,” Tucker said, looking mildly confused.
“Kids these days call it ‘weed’,” Johnny supplied with a wink.
“Oh no,” Star said, eyes widening as she abruptly sat up straighter. “Did the police search my room? Please tell me they didn’t search my room!”
“You have pot?” Johnny asked in surprise.
“No, not that, but under my bed is a stash of alcohol, the A-list party was supposed to be at my place, then I disappeared so I guess that didn’t happen… Ugh, I bet they were so disappointed…”
“Do you plan to hide you’re a ghost from them, too?” Danny wondered.
Star nodded. “Yeah. At least until my murder is solved—they could be suspects, after all.”
“You think one of your friends did it?” Sam asked, surprised.
“Well, no, but that’s always the first mistake in crime novels, you know,” Star informed her. “You can’t assume anyone’s innocent just because they were close to the victim—77% of all murders are done by people the victim knew!”
“Guess that’s true,” Sam agreed. “But this is real life, not a novel.”
“No, I’m talking about real life,” Star said seriously. “That’s the actual statistic, the most recent one right from the US Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.”
“Oh,” Sam said. “That’s… higher than expected.” She looked surprised that Star knew that; Danny was surprised too.
“Exactly,” Star said. “So, can’t rule friends out, not yet.”
“How do you know random facts like that yet still are barely passing your classes?” Tucker wondered.
Sam scoffed. “Probably the same way Danny does: she pays attention to what interests her, and all the ‘boring school stuff’ goes in one ear and out the other.”
“Hey! It’s not like I do that on purpose,” Danny complained.
Tucker then took out his PDA. “Okay, back on track. This seems really disorganized,” he announced. “So, let’s make a plan.”
“A plan?” Star asked. “For what?”
“Everything,” Tucker said, making a vague gesture with the hand that held the stylus. “Before we even start working on solving the case, we need to get you back home—you need a cover story for where you’ve been, unless you want to tell everyone you’re a ghost. We also need to make sure you’ve got your powers under control enough that you won’t accidentally use them, because whew, did Danny have issues with that at first! You should have seen him, he was like a fish that suddenly grew legs and had to try to walk.”
“Hey!” Danny protested. “I mean, it’s true, it was a mess, but still.”
“Well, Star isn’t in denial about being a ghost so should have an easier time of it,” Ember reasoned.
“I was not in denial,” Danny asserted.
“Babypop, half the reason Spectra chose your school was because she wanted to, and I quote, ‘taste the delicious misery of the teenage ghost so desperately trying to pretend he’s still human’,” Ember informed him.
Danny winced. That was around the time when he first began to consider that he might be less human than he’d originally thought, and Spectra definitely hadn’t helped with that. “Okay, fine, maybe I was having a bit of an existential crisis. But I wasn’t in denial!”
“Whatever you say, Babypop.”
“Can we get back on topic?” Tucker interjected. “I swear, all of you have ADHD…”
“Tucker, you shouldn’t throw around that term so casually,” Sam chided. “Things like that require an actual diagnosis, and involve more than just distractibility.”
“Actually, I do have a diagnosis,” Star supplied, raising her hand.
“Danny probably should have one too,” Jazz said. “Our elementary school wanted him to see someone about it, but our parents refused.”
“Wait, what?” Danny asked. This was news to him.
“You have enough symptoms to qualify for a diagnosis,” Jazz said. “We can talk more about it later if you want.”
“I’ve got it too,” Ember chimed in. “Spectra diagnosed me a few years ago. Back when I was alive they didn’t believe girls could have it.”
“Spectra can actually diagnose people?” Danny asked skeptically.
“Well, she has an actual psychiatry degree, so yeah,” Ember said. “If you get on her good side, she actually will be helpful.”
“For the record, Kitty and I do not have it,” Johnny supplied.
“But my little brother did, well still does I guess even though I haven’t seen him since my death, so I know how to handle it,” Kitty revealed, and Danny realized that that must be why she reminded him of Jazz earlier; they were both approaching the interactions with ADHD in mind. She must know about Ember, given their friendship; had she known about Star beforehand too? Did she, like Jazz, suspect Danny had it?
“You know, now that I think about it, I have to agree with Jazz,” Tucker said contemplatively. “I was joking before—in poor taste, Sam’s right—but my cousin has it, the inattentive type, and you really do act similarly. I’d look into it more; but for now, a plan,” he said, waving his PDA a little.
“Right,” Danny said, determined to concentrate, even though his thoughts were attempting to wander back to the ADHD thing, wondering if he really could have that. Jazz had been more focused lately on him possibly having some sort of PTSD, which was definitely a fair assessment, but could it be both?
“I can try to see if Spectra can give you a real assessment, like she did for me,” Ember offered, still on that subject.
“Hell no,” Danny immediately replied.
“Guys, talk about this later,” Tucker said with mild exasperation.