Chapter Text
It’s been years, years and Danny’s doing… better. In his opinion at least. He’s long given up on the idea of ever informing his parents of his halfa status, or any other statuses he’s gained as a result of his heroic actions.
They kicked him out of course. Bad grades and dropping out of school wasn’t a choice they could support without reason. Reason he wouldn’t give them.
It’s just…
School, graduating, university or college, even taking over FentonWorks; all felt meaningless.
Pointless.
In the face of becoming the High Ghost King. Claiming that throne, and all its powers and responsibilities that come with. In the face of that, any desire for schooling had collapsed in the blink of an eye.
And after all, it’s not like he needed a mortal home to go to. He could sleep and watch the stars from roof tops. It was alright, good. In his opinion at least.
Sam.
Tucker.
Valerie.
Jazz.
All said it hurt to look at him and think of him. That’s… not okay. But it is what it is. He can’t expect them to understand his place in the universe now. He can’t expect them to stay, when they have normal mortal lives to live and struggle through. He can’t complain about them fleeing his town, his little home outside of the realm that’s his.
He hopes they all find what they’re looking for, and, for their sake, never think of him again.
Pressing a thumb into his crown, fiddling with it in his hands. The cold blue flames coating metal, a flame burning in microgravity. And its matching ring, filled with tiny almost invisible pits and craters; a tiny moon wrapped around his finger.
Smiling and shifting the crown back to its place on his head, flopping backwards onto the attic floor. One of the many abandoned Amity houses that houses him for now, till he bores of its perspective of the stars and moves again.
He thought the first sensation was a cramp, jolting him from his half awake state.
It’s not like he could true sleep anymore. Too much power running under his skin. Too much awareness of duties and fights he might participate in at a moments notice. It was less paranoia these days, more eagerness to stretch his muscles and power. To let his energy hum, and zip through the sky with purpose.
Pressing a hand to his side, wincing. A deep, folding ache behind his ribs, like something inside him had clenched the wrong way and forgotten how to unclench. He knows his body and how things go for the half dead, all he can do is wait for it to pass.
But much like how he once waited for his life to become simpler. Or waited for his former parent’s acceptance. Or waited for his former friends to place him before themselves for once. Or waited for Vlad to be the man he had so needed him to be, in those younger years. Or waited, perhaps, for Lancer to notice something was so horribly wrong.
Much like all of that, it didn’t pass.
Instead, it… reorganized.
Something slid. Not through him, he’d recognize that feeling in an instant, rather as him. His breath snagging halfway in, lungs stuttering as their rhythm skips and rewrites itself. Coughing once, sharp and confused, and the sound that comes out… is layered. Like two versions of the same noise slightly out of sync.
That’s new. He thought he was far past new at this point. It’s been years since there’s been any change in his state of body. Blinking at the ceiling, “whͪaᴛⷮ ᴛⷮhͪe?”, and his voice echoes in his own throat in a way it never has before.
Danny froze. Then, slowly, he smiles, deciding to test it, “…oͦkaͣy”. The double-sound shivers pleasantly in his ears, “neͤw iͥndeͤeͤd”. Not that he’s complaining, a ghost or two might pester him about going through yet more vocal changes but that’s all, nothing concerning.
Still… he should, arguably, give himself a once over.
Especially considering that by the time he makes it to the mirror, the ache had spread.
It’s…
Not pain exactly. Pressure. Expansion. Like his skeleton had decided it needed more room.
It reminds him of when the Crown and Ring first bound themselves to him in proper. Too much power and energy for one singular body, yet that had to be compacted down into it all the same. Leaving him on the edge of wonder and fear.
He lifts his shirt, eyeing his torso. At first, there’s nothing. Just skin. Skin riddled with scars, raised and gouged in and puckered and stretched. He doesn’t mind his proof of a life half-lived through combat. It made him… him. The him of now, after all.
Then skin moves. Concerning but he’s alone, he’ll wait and mentally note to visit FrostBite for a physical. Maybe he caught some strange ghost parasite…
It doesn’t ripple, or twitch. It shifts position, as if something beneath it has rotated slightly out of alignment with everything else. The faint outline of his ribs blur, rearrange, settle into a subtly different pattern. If it weren’t for his scars he might not have even been able to truly tell anything had changed. He’d wonder about the point but he’s learned that could be rather pointless with him. He‘ll be a little annoyed if his organs are simply being weird again.
Looking and prodding closer, fascinated. “Whͪat is͛ ᴛⷮhiͥs͛ s͛upрⷬoͦsedͩ toͦ do?” A quiet, internal click answers him; startling a laugh out of him. There’s a new feeling now, not the physical kind, rather a more instinctual emotional one? Akin to the feeling a good fight or flight often causes.
Not nervous. Not afraid. Not anymore.
It’s Delight.
Danny’s not sure why he’s feeling this instinctual internal delight, but like always when it comes to his body, he’s trapped along for the ride.
He can almost swear the Crown spins and trills with its own delight.
It escalated quickly after that.
His breathing changed first. Not faster or slower, just… deeper. Each inhale feels like it reaches further than lungs should go, like it brushes against spaces inside him that hadn’t existed yesterday.
This seems like something he should really choose to lay down through, it paid to be cautious at times. Cautious with himself.
So Danny lays back down on his makeshift bed of old blankets and clothes, staring at the attic ceiling, and inhales again.
And again.
And again.
Each breath feels as if it’s carving him out and rebuilding him in the same motion. He’s felt this before, or something close at least. The Crown and Rings power reshaping his internal ectoplasm to handle them. This is simply… more physical, perhaps.
He opens his mouth, “ᴛⷮhis͛ iͥs-”, then stops as his chest expands suddenly mid-sentence, ribs angling outward in a slow, deliberate bloom.
He lays his hands down on the cooling floor, fingers spread out and watching it happen. Watching his body make room for something it hadn’t told him about. Yet he still feels bizarrely delighting. Perhaps he’s become overly desensitized, or weirdly fond, of bizarre shit happening to him. That’s good, he thinks, because after all what else can he do? His body is his body, there’s nothing to be done about it. So, instead of shaking in horror, or calling out to the universe to stop whatever this is, all he can think to say is, “thͪis is͛ s͛oͦ cooͦl”.
Sleep didn’t happen that night. Of course it didn’t. Not because he couldn’t, rather because he didn’t want to miss anything. One part paranoia, and one part plain curiosity. He’s long learned that not paying attention could have fatal consequences, just as he’s long learned that curiosity was endlessly rewarding.
He’s always been the curious type. Watching the sky, space, planets, and stars; learning everything he could about their vast might. Becoming Phantom had killed that for a time, then he realized that the Infinite Realm was much like space, and he wanted to know all that he could. It’s only happenstance that helps him with his role as king, knowing the lands the planets, knowing all its different peoples and plants.
He still yearned to know mortal space more. Massive in its expanse and always something new to discover. Some new star that’s died or been created, its light finally reaching earth and his telescope.
His bodies like space right now, in that way, every minute brings some new adjustment. Subtle at first, like a tiny unnoticeable brown dwarf star, his spine loosening, vertebrae shifting like beads on a string that had decided to rethread itself. He had curled inward on his bedding when that happened. A long, quiet series of clicks travelling up his back, one by one, like a zipper being undone internally. Inhaling sharply -not in pain, but with an extreme sense of foreign awe- as his posture changes without his permission.
Straighter.
Taller.
Better.
That sensation of ‘better’ feels both foreign and not. This… was definitely the doing of his Crown and Ring. Of his place as High Ghost King. That knowledge doesn’t change the fact that his body just felt… better, more right. As if there was finally growing to be enough space for all of the energy that comprised him. Moaning a little, then whispering, ”oͦh, thͪaͣt’s… yeaͣhͪ,̓ ᴛⷮhaᴛⷮ’s͛ beᴛⷮᴛⷮer”. His Crown pulsed its agreeance, as it always did when he seemingly approved of doing something or another while acting as King.
He was barely an adult, still yet a child, the first time he’d noticed it. Cluing him into the fact that the Crown and Ring had something of desire of their own. Not in the way of sentient beings, simply an intrinsic desire that didn’t sway or alter. Isn’t affected by the goings on of the universe, only time and need. Circumstantial changes. Desire connected to him, desire that could only be extinguished by a spark of his own excessive pride and violence, and the universe lashing out at him for his wronging actions. Falling like the kings and queens before him, the universe judging him in infinite ways. He has no intention of ever treading that road of course, regardless of his disconnect to both the living and the dead now. Regardless of his self pride and sureness of might in any fight.
He’ll be fine, alright, good. Regardless of what new thing his place in the universe is forcing him through, his throne, his Crown and Ring, making him suffer through with a smile.
By morning, his appetite was gone.
Not suppressed. Just… utterly irrelevant. He could go a long time without eating, but simply not feeling any desire to eat was new. He’s still half mortal of course, so he should eat regardless of the lack of desire to do so.
He sticks to intangibility when he goes to swipe a sandwich from a coffee shop, he’d rather not terrorize some poor sap with whatever his body was doing to itself. Biting into the bread as he sits back down in his current habitat, pausing halfway through chewing, brow furrowing. Muttering, “thͪiͥs doͦeͤsn’ᴛⷮ feͤeͤl riͥghͪᴛⷮ aͣnymoͦrͬe”.
It’s… not wrong. Just outdated? Like it’s old input meant for something outdated, that the new programming can’t process anymore. Maybe… he doesn’t need to eat anymore? Strange but, in the end, useful. Less living money wasted on food just to avoid passing out or getting sick from nutritional deficiency.
Swallowing anyway, experimentally, purely to see what happens; hoping he doesn’t get sick. He’d hate to have to leave his current spot just because he made the place stink of ectoplasm tainted vomit…
The fact that’s happened more than once is annoying and embarrassing.
He doesn’t vomit, no bile rising up his throat or stomach turning. Instead something in his abdomen responds with a faint, mechanical hum; as if whining over the unneeded invasion of foreign material.
Danny’s grin widens.
The real turning point came with the seams.
Danny spots them in the gym showers. Thin lines tracing along his torso, barely visible until the water hits them just right, and then they catch the harsh light just enough to reveal their presence. Not cuts. Not scars. He’d recognize those anywhere, wouldn’t even make much note of them unless they were a truly unique shape. Like that one that’s shaped like a perfect replica of the Little Dipper; he had to correct it himself a little but still. Pains nothing new to him, cutting himself to modify some scarring was nothing compared to all his other pains.
No, these lines were edges, smooth not jagged. Defined boundaries where there hadn’t been boundaries before.
Running a finger along one and it… parts. Just a fraction, only just a bit; but still. There’s no pain. No blood. Just a precise, controlled separation, like a panel loosening from a chassis.
His body twitching, uncontrolled, in thrilled delight. Danny’s breathing hitches a little, fascinated, genuinely curious over what’s happening and why his body seemed to like it so much.
It reminds him of all his old model rocket ships. But there’s no way it’s anything the same, whispering, “noͦ waͣy,̓ riͥghͪt?”, pressing down lightly again; watching water fall down and drip off the edge.
The seam responds, opening another hair wider, revealing a glimpse of something beneath that isn’t muscle and certainly isn’t bone; it’s much more structured, layered, intentional. Something artificially created, rather than a biological collection of naturally selected shapes picked out by eons of evolution.
Laughing, water running down his face as he goes back to washing his hair, “Iͥ didn’ᴛⷮ eveͤn- I diͥdn’ᴛⷮ evͮen doͦ aͣnythiͥng this͛ tiͥmͫe”. Usually something specific happened to him or he did something stupid, before his body did weird shit like this, so sue him, it’s a bit funny. Maybe years ago he’d run to show his friends, or panic about hiding it from his parents; that’s all in the past now. Instead he’ll just stand beneath the water and pay attention to the feeling. The feeling of water slipping down and over new edges, dripping off of him where they once would have just continued down his body.
Days blur a little after that. Time became secondary to progress.
His body kept making decisions without consulting him, and every single one felt correct.
Necessary.
Perfect.
The ghosts hadn’t even caused him issues, as if knowing that whatever was occurring was truly the correct flight path for him to chart. Perhaps his connection to the Infinite Realm was doing background work to keep them away. There’s no way to know, and no point to ask.
His limbs had elongated slightly, proportions stretching toward something more efficient. Something that allowed him to cut through the skies faster, more precise. Joints were reoriented with quiet, obedient clicks. His skin lost its softness, smoothing into a surface that caught light differently; less like flesh, more like something engineered to endure. It had almost made him think his ghost forms jumpsuit was transferring over and fusing with his human form; the texture just wasn’t the same.
Then there was his senses, those he noticed immediately whenever there was even a slight change. He relied on those senses to survive for so long, after all. They were key to protecting, people, ghosts, his lair, himself.
Now… he could feel more. Feel things he’s sure he couldn’t before. It wasn’t just his sense of physical touch, he could feel entire pressure gradients. Temperature shifts in the air before they happened.
He doesn’t know yet how that’ll be helpful for him, but he’s sure it will be. He’s also sure his terrible luck will find some new horrific, and possibly traumatizing, way to show him how it’s useful.
Then there’s the faint, now ever-present whisper of something vast just beyond his perception, connected to him from up through his Crown. Like invisible cords were connect from somewhere else, down to each of its frosty peaks.
It felt like… instructions. Desire. Directions. Like a leash clipped onto a dog’s collar, yanking the mutt along.
He supposes a collar is an accurate thing to compare the Crown and Ring to, they attached him to his role with an unbreakable lock snapped onto the buckle.
So he followed them instinctively. Out of his little habitat. Out of the makeshift sleeping quarters. Phasing up through the roof.
Each step that lands on the roof shingles is lighter than the last, his body redistributing weight in ways that make gravity feel even more negotiable than ever before.
He… loves that. He’s always loved how gravity could be practically a suggest to him at a moments notice. Getting to exist in zero gravity like an astronaut in the only way he’s sure he ever could. His dream for the life of an astronaut died long ago, yet the ability to defy gravity let him live it in his own way.
But now this, feels like something more, and like something he’ll be less capable of coming back from. Which he finds he’s alright with, gravities been more of a hinderance for a long time. It kept him more human but… he’s not so attached to wanting to come off as human these days. So if his bodies decided it’s fine with that, he’s okay.
He’ll be okay.
He’ll always be okay.
He has to be, and he knows he can be. Especially when this still carries such a strong note of delight.
Glancing up, pulling his Crown into the visible spectrum to grab it down in front of his face. Eyeing the frosted green metal, “yoͦuͧ’ve beͤeͤn worᴋⷦiͥng on thiͥs͛ the whͪoͦle timeͤ,̓ havͮen’ᴛⷮ youͧ?”.
No answer, he supposes. If his Crown or Ring started talking audibly to him he would be quite concerned about his own sanity. Today is not the day Danny’s going to start questioning his sanity. Not yet. He’s sure eventually that’ll happen. Minds aren’t meant for probable immortality after all.
Instead, as he puts his crown back where it belonged atop his head, all he gets is just another internal adjustment. His chest opening slightly along those seams, panels shifting to reveal a soft, steady glow from within; shinning through his shirt.
He should take that off, shouldn’t he? No point wrecking what little wearable clothing he’s got; even if it doesn’t cover him remotely right any more.
Yanking the fabric over his head, bending over to flip it unceremoniously on the shingles. Straightening up and eyeing his chest, the glowing sections under panel-like sections of skin. Danny’s eyes widening, “oh, I aͣcͨᴛⷮually loͦve thͪaͣt”. It was giving some major Tron vibes.
Or perhaps, it was more akin to the aesthetic of a spaceship. That thought only excites him more. His Crown spinning, as if pleased with his delight, delight over what it was likely doing to him.
Twitching, head tilting upwards, to the sky. He was familiar with the longing to fly, to soar through the skies unbound to gravity. Or to flitter about in space, exploring what of the stars and space he could, without going too far from his lair and his responsibilities. This time the pull, the desire, the want, is more insistent, more firm and demanding. Less like it was merely something he wanted to do for his own thrill and enjoyment, more like it was an absolute must.
The tips of his crown get tugged on by those threads, those cords, yanking him along on his leash.
The sky is clear.
The night stars are sharp and waiting. Twinkling for him, welcoming, like they always have been. Yet now, it seems to be just that little bit more than it ever has been before.
Something inside him aligns.
Not emotionally, or even biologically.
Mechanically.
His spine extends, not outward, but upward, segments unfolding in a controlled, elegant expansion that lifts his frame taller than it has any right to be. His arms following next, structures extending from them in layered segments, forming shapes that suggest purpose without explaining it.
He doesn't question it, why would he? He knows there's no point. There usually isn't, or the reason why is one that he'd rather not know... or possibly even needs to not know. If all his time with ClockWork has taught him anything, it's that sometimes it's best not to question certain things. Especially when this feels like the most natural thing that has ever happened to him. Like something truly meant to be, for him at least. He's glad his former friends' and former family aren't here to distract him from this, or try to logic him into panic about how it's 'wrong' or 'ominous' or 'deeply disturbing'. As if the concept of disturbing really even existed when it came to him anymore.
Humming, “Iͥ didͩn’ᴛⷮ eveͤn ᴋⷦnoͦw I was͛ suрⷬрⷬosedͩ to beͤcomͫe thͪiͥs͛", voice now carrying that same doubled resonance as before, only stronger. Perfectly harmonized. “Luͧcͨᴋⷦy me”, he’s not even sure if he means that bitterly, sarcastically, or joyously. Only time will tell, at the end.
The final transformation isn't a singular moment or experience.
It's a sequence. A cascade of physical events.
His body opens; not violently, not chaotically, the way it usually did whenever his body 'opened up' in any way. Instead, he opens with precise, deliberate motion. Panels separating, folding, reconfiguring. Reconfiguring him. Reconfiguring the shell of a being that housed his being and consciousness. Internal structures rotating into place with soft, satisfying clicks.
He can feel himself becoming larger without occupying more space.
Denser.
More complex.
Complete.
Proper.
What the Infinite Realm, what his throne, demanded of him to be.
The last remnants of his old form integrating seamlessly into the new configuration. Everything repurposed, optimized, and understood.
Danny's awareness stretching with it; expanding beyond the limits of a single human or ghostly perspective. He could feel the air around him so so much more than ever before.
The sky is above him, he wants it so. The vast, patient pull of everything beyond, everything in that beyond that he's loved since his childhood eyes first gazed upon it all.
Every star. Every planet. Every pattern of constellations. Every spiral of a galaxy, out of reach. Every black hole and dying sun. The cosmos he's always needed.
He loves it.
Oh how he utterly and truly loves it.
Every second of it.
So he finally lets himself lift up from the roof, not even having to transform, it is so utterly effortless.
No strain.
No hesitation.
Just a smooth departure, as if he has always been meant to leave this way, and everything he's done before now were mere test launches and laughable ones at that.
Below, the house shrinks; he doesn't care to pay it any mind. He doubts he needs anything down there anymore. He cares far more for what's above, above the stars grow ever closer. He's rushing towards them eagerly, full of wonder and delight.
Inside, Danny, whatever version of him that still existed, thrums with quiet, ecstatic satisfaction.
He hadn’t chosen this.
He hadn’t even known.
And yet, it fits him better than anything ever had.