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7 of hearts, 4 of clubs, 4 of diamonds
-◇-
Wes had watched it happen, the moment Danny was taken down and captured by his parents.
The fight had been long and winding, with the youngest Fenton zigging and zagging around blasts while trying to shake his parents from his spectral tail, and the Dr's. stubbornly chasing after him.
The deciding hit had been dealt by his mother, and the net cast by his father.
There had been conflicting responses from the surrounding crowd afterward. Some cheered, some admonished the Fentons for the capture, and others just watched in horrified or unsure silence.
Danny had been panicking as he was dragged away, looking around at all the gathered people, begging for someone to step in, to help.
No one did.
The brief moment of eye contact they'd made; the pure fear, desperation, and pleading in the other boys' features as they passed each other had filled Wes with immense satisfaction, plastering a wicked grin across his face.
Danny had thought Wes would intervene in some way, shape, or form. It was cute, really.
The half-ghost had grossly under-estimated Wes' hatred, and over-estimated his ability to empathize.
Wes savored the moment realization had dawned on Danny's face, shifting his features from fear to horror and mortified dread. In that moment he fully understood how far the disgraced theorist was willing to go to get what he wanted.
The game was locked, his fate sealed.
8 of spades, 4 of clubs, 4 of diamonds
-◇-
Danny didn't show up to any of his classes the next day.
No one paid it much mind, too busy freaking out over the rumors that Phantom had been captured; One "dweeb" not showing up for school wasn't uncommon, hardly a blip on the radar.
The only other students who were clued into the whole truth surrounding the youngest Fenton cornered Wes during lunch, demanding to know what he'd done to their friend.
The venom that laced Sam and Tuckers insults would've stung like acid, and the anger in their eyes almost enough to melt steel.
Too bad for them, Wes had built up an immunity to their intimidation tactics.
A cheshire grin danced across his face as he gave them the simple answer of: "Nothing".
Of course they wouldn't believe him, but it wasn't a lie. For once, he had no part to play in what happened to the ghost boy.
A happy little accident that had shifted the draw in his favor.
The amount of restraint it took to avoid rubbing the fact he knew something they didn't in their faces and walk away was astronomical.
Danny’s little secret still as hidden as the rocks buried deep beneath their feet, as well as Wes' knowledge of the whole situation.
ㅤ
That same night on the evening news, the Dr's. Fenton publicly announced they'd captured the local "town menace" and all residents could sleep easy knowing they were finally safe; How this would be a huge opportunity for the ecto-sciences, and could lead to massive breakthroughs in the field.
And the next morning the town was swarming with GIW agents, exercising their right as a government branch to take custody of Phantom.
8 of spades, 6 of spades, 4 of clubs
-◇-
A week or so later, a small bulletin played in the corner of the local news channel requesting that if anyone came in contact with Daniel Fenton, who had been reported missing, call the Fentons or local law enforcement immediately.
Unease spread through the school quickly. A kid going missing, the disappearance of their favorite hero, along with the uptick in ghost attacks had everyone on edge.
Valerie did her best to pick up the slack Phantom left, but it wasn't enough. She was only human, and didn't have the ghost's ability to regenerate quickly. She couldn't keep up with the speed at which they flooded the city; her injuries accumulated.
The Fentons went out as well, but it was less often than before, too busy dealing with the disappearance of their son to really focus on it.
The hushed whispers passed around the halls claimed they had also gotten into a huge fight with their daughter, and she was looking to stay elsewhere as a result.
All the while Wes' classmates picked on his seeming lack of gusto and "conspiracy nonsense" surrounding the whole situation. They taunted and teased that all it took for him to stop being crazy was his little crush disappearing. Some even joked he was the one who'd orchestrated Danny's disappearance, making grim insinuations he'd done something unseemly.
He only scoffed at them, tearing through his tongue as he fought to reign his anger in. This was a waiting game, and all he had to do was play his cards right. It wouldn't serve to let his temper get the best of him now.
8 of spades, 6 of spades, Queen of diamonds
-◇-
Weeks stretched into a month.
The ghost problem around the city had grown exponentially worse, and the Dr's. Fenton had all but disappeared from the public eye while the Huntress showed up less and less, too injured to push through a majority of the time.
The GIW had used the increase in spectral activity and lack of local hunter intervention as an excuse to set up a permanent base in Amity, but ultimately did more harm than good. Their blatant disregard for civilians and property, as well as general incompetence when it came to hunting the ghosts had served to paint them as an enemy to a majority of the public.
They were arguably worse than the Fenton's had ever been, and everything was in shambles.
Protests regularly occurred outside their headquarters and city hall to demand the GIW leave Amity Park, or demand the release of Phantom.
While initially there had been separate smaller groups with different goals and different reasons for existing,they had started working together after a certain point to rally against their common enemy. Even those who had publicly spoken out against the ghost boy in the past were there lending their voices in support of him now.
It was a waste of time in Wes' opinion. This whole mess was exactly what they had demanded not even 2 months prior, and their sudden change in disposition after seeing the results brought a sneer to his face.
A bunch of morons who couldn't see more than 3 ft in front of themselves, and couldn't make up their minds. It was pathetic, really.
Tucker, Sam, and Jazz had all gone missing as well.
Their disappearances were the straw that ended up breaking the camel's back, and strict curfews and rules were set up by the mayor as a result. Anyone under the age of 25 was not to travel anywhere alone, and must have a group of at least 4 other people with them. Students were not allowed to leave school premises for any reason during the day, and most outdoor activities were to be limited and moved inside whenever possible. Anyone under the age of 18 was to be home by 5pm, and no one was to be out on the streets past 8pm.
Anyone who worked a night shift was basically shit out of luck, and on top of that, most establishments that were considered prime teenager hang-out spots were "temporarily" closed, which caused a huge wave of lay-offs throughout the town.
They were presented under the guise of "protecting the citizens and the cities young ones", with the hollow promise that they were only temporary precautions, but everyone knew the GIW was trying to curb any backlash or resistence.
People were arrested, the hospital was filling up, and there were no safe spaces to turn to, the town became a caged prison.
Wes' classmates were becoming restless. No one knew if the disappearances were supernatural, or orchestrated by someone alive; and with everything on lockdown, it was starting to grate on everyone's nerves.
The only thing they were certain of was that only students from Casper High had been targeted so far.
They didn't know if they'd be next.
Jack of spades, 8 of spades, 6 of spades
The answer was obvious if anyone cared enough to step back and look at all the facts, so that was when Wes finally decided to stir the bees nest a little.
He kept it on the down-low at first, just off-handed comments sprinkled into conversations mentioning how interesting it was that both Fenton children had been targeted first, or how odd it was that only those close to Danny had gone missing, and how weird it was that no one had heard from the Fenton parents since the GIW had come into town. How the Manson's and Foley's had been so vocal when their children first went missing, but had seemingly fallen into silence not long afterwards.
People brushed him off as they usually did, but he knew his comments were slowly eating away at the back of their minds. More and more people started noticing all the strange little coincidences and inconsistencies that didn't quite add up, tacking their own little observations onto the statements they spread along the grapevine.
After a few days, Wes decided to go bolder.
He made more concrete accusations, and to more people.
He said the GIW had taken them, paid or threatened the families with missing children into silence to cover up their tracks. Stated they were clearly not above hurting the general populace if they deemed it "a necessary evil", no matter the reason.
He claimed that If the GIW thought a student had any connection to those that had disappeared, they could and would take them at any point and get away with it; Any of the student body could be next.
The claims spread like wild-fire, and within the day everyone was talking about it. Some people accepted it as truth while others vehemently wrote it off. It sparked a huge controversy throughout the whole school; those that believed the accusations claimed that it made too much sense, there was enough proof of the GIW's constant misdemeanors to back them up, while others wrote it off with disdain, stating it was just another Weston conspiracy theory that he was using to garner attention and couldn't be trusted.
Wes had been careful to make sure all his claims were rooted in what had been experienced over the past month and a half, only slightly altering his observations, and never adding any unnecessary or outlandish theories to his statements that might make people discredit them; the school's rumor mill would take care of that for him by crafting or filling in the blanks themselves.
Though at the end of the day, regardless of what people claimed they did or didn't believe, the rumors had done their job. Everyone was jumpy and suspicious of anything and everything around them, unsure of what to trust.
Wes had effectively weaponized their own fear against them.
Jack of spades, 10 of spades, 8 of spades
-◇-
After a few days of heated discussions and rampant rumors, Valerie disappeared and the whole school erupted into chaos.
It was no secret Danny and Valerie had dated in the past, no matter how briefly, and the timing lining up with Wes' accusations only worked to cement his claims as true.
The news of her disappearance and the supposed circumstances surrounding it spread through the town like a tornado, thanks to Star hijacking her uncle's news segment to demand justice for her friend.
In their outrage, no one else seemed to notice the fact that Damon Grey hadn't reported his daughter as missing himself.
Wes had no doubt she had gone to try and storm the GIW headquarters herself, only serving to add another prisoner to their collection. While most didn't know she was the Huntress, her fighting skill as both was well known and acknowledged by many.
Regardless, wherever she’d gone she had unintentionally made herself a key component in this whole charade; it was something Wes hadn't foreseen or planned, but played into his hand regardless.
It had given him much more credibility than before, and people actually listened to what he had to say as a result.
So Wes took the final step. Nothing and no one was there to stand in his way; This was it.
He made the claim that it was no accident their "hero" and the schools "#1 loser" had gone missing at the same time. Restated what he'd been saying for years: that Fenton and Phantom were one and the same, and that Phantom's capture had been a direct result of their ignorance and refusal to listen.
People believed him.
Wes relished in the horror that truth sparked in some of his classmates, relished in their dread. All the puzzle pieces they had ignored in the past finally clicking into place.
He took every opportunity he could to rub their past misdeeds in their faces. Reminding them that they'd been shoving their little champion into a locker, or dumping trash on him. How they had ostracized their "hero" just because on the surface he didn't fit their definition of "cool".
Every time someone tried to backpedal or make excuses, Wes took the opportunity to loom over them and drill in the point that they had ultimately caused this. If they hadn't been so caught up in their own insignificant little pompous rat race, all this could have been avoided. They weren't there for their hero when he needed it, both in his normal and after life, a guilt they would have to carry for the rest of their days.
He enjoyed watching them squirm under the scrutiny, they had nothing to defend themselves with.
Whatever happened after this, Wes didn't care, they could all burn on this sinking ship together now. He'd gotten exactly what he wanted.
Ace of spades, Jack of spades, 10 of spades
31, game over. Reshuffle the deck.