Chapter Text
Danny would be the first to say that life has kind of sucked for him recently. In between fighting ghosts, studying for tests, and whatever other bullshit life throws at him he’s pretty booked. And that’s not even addressing the mess with Pariah Dark he hadn’t even unpacked! Thinking back on the terror of not knowing if he will win and save the whole town or not brings him a much unwanted amount of despair, and so he avoids it as much as he can. But still, the body remembers what his mind tries the best to forget and he finds himself flinching every time Dash pushes him too hard into the lockers. These shoves are minimal, he doesn’t even feel them really. He feels them upon his skin like a breeze on a pleasant summer's day, light and airy in a way that should invoke a more congenial manner than the festering fear it invokes instead. Truly they are nothing compared to the hits he took when fighting for his life against the dark tyrant but still each blow reminds him of those that could have unmade him if he was even a little less lucky.
These small interactions, though they invoke past terrors, are almost welcome now. Ever since the town was pulled into Pariah’s pocket dimension people have been avoiding him. You're not even sure why, no one has figured out your identity you’re sure. So why is it that when you reach out to your friends they shy away. Sam and Tucker have declined your past five invitations to hang out, citing sickness, homework, chores. The first time made sense, life moves on with or without you and the dishes need to be done even if they all almost died yesterday to an otherworldly eldritch tyrant. But as time moved on and still you couldn’t pin down a date and time to see your best friends, you started to believe their excuses less and less. You tried to confront them about it of course, but you couldn’t take the wariness and how they wouldn’t even fully look at you as they stuttered out their parents actually needed them to go right on home to do something or the other. Their obvious relief when you dropped it and left hurt deeper than anything you’ve ever felt before.
Even strangers seem to avoid you subconsciously, crowds separating before you in the school hallways. Kids years above you in school who don’t know you from any other scrawny knobby kneed human teenager subtly move out of your way and look at you with something you can’t even fully identify. Something almost like fear follows in your wake as you walk from class to class. You are struck suddenly by the profound unfairness of it all. You save them all from certain death and all you got was this shitty fear aura that has even your own friends looking at you with a new wariness.
But still, he is the town's hero and protector-not that they regard him particularly as such even with all he did to save them. And par for the course for his life, he cannot escape the mental fatigue that comes from the present either. Ie: all the blows he must dodge today to avoid more damage being done to his family and his town. And he seems to be doing a LOT of dodging recently. He’s doing that right now in fact. As Danny drops these musings on his new unease his presence seems to cause everyone, Skulker goes in for another shot against the shield he halfheartedly pulled up to block the first few potshots when he initially started this spat of theirs.
“What’s wrong man, can’t even hit a still target? Are you losing your edge, world greatest hunter?”, goaded Danny with a bravado he no longer really felt. Unlike what you expected based on the hundreds of this exact same fight you’d had before, he didn’t rush in a spout off about hunting you for your pelt and blah blah blah. He simply floated calmly down and landed on the ground before the edge of your shield.
“I need not hit your person, foolish child. I need only to tire you”.
Not sure what exactly that means, you keep the shield up a little more warily now. He’s never acted like this before, always preferring to dive in first while shouting about how he’s going to have your pelt on his wall before long. The frosty gaze with which he looks over your shield is a far cry from the impassioned screaming and yelling you normally get from him. Of all your regular villains, he has always been the most filled with life. Holding a vivaciousness you don’t even typically see in the humans around you in his unrelenting passion for his obsession. You are not sure where this sudden apathy comes from, but it unnerves you in a way that Pariah Dark didn’t even manage. This, combined with all the other unwelcome changes popping up like daisies in your life since you shattered the core of the tyrant king, has you screaming back at him, “What’s your deal man! Normally you’re all gung ho about skinning me alive and displaying my pelt on your mantle or whatever.”
He says nothing and reaches into his back pocket to get something you can’t identify. Most of his weapons, though you might not know immediately what they do, are fairly simple to classify into one of the few categories he sticks to-guns, explosives, etc. A gun is a gun, and no one has ever accused Skulker of being terribly innovative. So you take this new unidentifiable weapon in with a deep wariness. It’s a sleek, almost……..tube looking thing? If you didn’t know better you’d think it was lipstick or one of those slim expensive perfumes you’ve seen Sam’s mom pull out of her purse before Sam stopped inviting you over. Unless Skulker has started exploring his feminine side, in which case slay, you worry he’s finally decided the same dance you’ve been participating in since you died will finally need to change.
You get a good look as Skulker raises it above his head. And once you start looking at it, it drags your attention into its depths. It looks like a glass tube, filled with some kind of shimmering blue liquid? The longer you look, the less certain you are that it's even a liquid. It's shifting in the tube, the blues give way to calming purples, gentle reds, and soothing yellows as the colors shift in a neverending dance that just makes you want to stare forever. Just the sight of it fills you with a tiredness and serenity that has you dropping your hand before you’ve even registered it. This tranquility that has come over you dropkicks you right out of your adrenaline infused battle mode and right into bone deep exhaustion. These past few days after Pariah's defeat have left you isolated, exhausted, and just generally done. Why are you even fighting anymore? You’ve certainly never been thanked for it before.
Before you realize it, your shield has dropped and Skulker has thrown the vial down in front of your feet. A cloud of nebulous gas kicks up in front of you and your previous lethargy is magnified a thousandfold as you breathe this……… whatever it is in. You shakily drop to the ground and try to restart your shield as Skulker creeps closer.
“I am sorry it had to be this way ghostling. I will never suffer the reign of a despot again” , Skulker calls to your falling form as he approaches.
It is here you see that unnerving apathy crack a little and a tinge of pity worms its way into his expression. What has he done to you? What was in that vial that has you feeling like you need to sleep now and never wake? You lazily mull over these questions as your eyes close against your will, too tired to stay open a second longer. Before you fall to the slumber you can feel approaching, you hear Skulker say, “It has been done, take him before our treachery is noticed”.
You manage to briefly open your eyes and see those pesky Observants picking you up. What could they possibly want with you now? When you wake up, you're gonna kick their asses for bugging you like this. All you want is to catch a break and they come in with some new weapon to, what, make you take a nap a little? You feel yourself briefly lifted and placed into something solid and frankly a little uncomfortable. They are making you take a nap and they couldn’t even put you in a bed? The last thing you hear before the darkness takes you is an observant commenting in their multi-layered voice, “There will be no more tyrants over the realms, we will seal him before he can doom us all again. The sarcophagus of forever sleep shall hold him for ages to come.”
As the lids closes over him, he can’t even muster up enough energy to feel panic at that.