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The town of Amity Park had a skyline that looked like it had been chewed on, and not metaphorically. Literally. One building is leaning like something had taken an actual bite out of it. Another just looked like it had been stomped on a lot and then people attempted at fixing it. There was even a scorch mark across Main Street shaped suspiciously like a handprint the size of a city bus.
So, naturally, this disaster looking town was where Daniel Fortieth moved. He had always preferred to live somewhere with a little more character, somewhere that wasn’t monotonous. There was also a pretty massive punk and goth scene in the town, and any place with a lot of alt folks was a more liberal free spirited town. The town also clearly didn’t give a shit about the legal drinking age; he’s positive he’s seen more than 5 different teens absolutely publicly shitfaced…
He had arrived in a rented hatchback that rattled like a box of cutlery and carried exactly three things into his new apartment: a duffel bag, a microwave, and a quiet optimism that had not yet been properly introduced to reality.
“A nice place to live”, the landlord had said as he handed over the keys, “try not to die or get sucked into an alternate dimension. Rent’s due on the first”.
Daniel had laughed. Foolishly,
Then, ten minutes later, a woman that looked like she was made entirely of crackling blue glass literally flew past his window, pursued by a teenage boy in full body spandex who leapt off of a fire escape, flipped midair, and slammed the glass woman through a parked car.
Daniel stopped laughing then.
Instead he watched from his doorway, frozen, as the guy stood up, dusted off his hands, and said something Daniel couldn’t hear over the ringing in his ears. The glass person? creature? thing? villain? whatevertheheck? hissed, reassembled herself, and then just as quickly, got knocked into unconsciousness by a blur of motion.
The guy stood alone in the street afterward, breathing hard. He looked… young. Not in the ‘early twenties his facial hair just hasn’t come in fully yet’ way; rather in the ‘he still had homework somewhere and seeing a single chest hair excites him’ way.
People peeked out of windows, someone goddamn claps. A man’s recording on his phone like this was a street performance, like this was normal.
The boy waves awkwardly, and sucks the person thing into a soup thermos, then starts shouting about ‘letting the clean up crew do their jobs’. What the heck???
Daniel stares for a while. Blinking after a bit, “is that a literal super hero?”, and blinks some more.
Mrs. Alvarez from across the hall leans against his doorway like she’d been waiting for this exact moment, “got it in one, newbie. That’s Phantom”, chewing on something that smelled like cinnamon and mint, “seventeen. Fights half the nightmares in this town. Poor kid hasn’t had a normal weekend in years or something”.
Daniel blinked. “Seventeen?”
“Seventeen last month”, she nods, “we got him a cake and everything. He missed it, there was a lava incident”.
Daniel looks back out the window, the boy- Phantom was now scrolling through his phone while he starts to float off to who knows where.
He swallowed, “doesn’t he have… help?”. Who the heck is letting a freaking teenager run, or float, around fighting crime???
Mrs. Alvarez snorts, “oh, sure. If you count the city council arguing about budgets, while the mayor gets into a prank war with a teenager again. Or when the occasional government agent shows up, breaks something expensive, tries to probably murder Phantom, and leaves. Or when the Fenton’s go ‘hunting’ again with some crazy new weapon and a souped up suv, inevitably breaking the side of some build or another”.
Daniel didn’t laugh at all this time. That was legitimately messed up, and not in a fun or quirky way.
Then the lady ads on, “besides, what’s the worst that could happen? He’s gonna double die?”.
Daniel… has no clue what to make of that…
The next few days introduces him to Amity’s … ecosystem. Both the kind that was trying to beat the shit out of the buildings, the people, and Phantom; but also the actual literal bizarre plant and animal/insect life. The fountain had glowing bug things in it that were apparently ‘good for cleaning wounds’, half of the plants had weird blobs with eyes living in the leaves and soil, there were strange energy wisp things that would swirl around all the towns light bulbs, and an neon pink pitcher plant that ate electronics. Oh and the buildings colours would change sometimes and no one would usually even notice…
As for the ‘villains’, there was Skulker, who seemed to be an actual literal robot and wanted ‘Phantom’s pelt on his wall’. Ew. There was Technus, who controlled technology and once nearly strangled a man into unconsciousness with cords; and who shouted his name and basically all of his plans. There was the Box Ghost, who literally just threw cardboard at people; which fine, was funny if not annoying.
And then there was Phantom, always Phantom. Running or fighting or flying; getting absolutely bodied and getting back up like it was nothing. He could shot lasers and ice beams from his hands, walk through walls, turn invisible, the flying of course, he threw an oil tanker once like a football, and that notable time it looked like he had taken his own head off for a joke.
Daniel started noticing things about the apparently town hero. Kid seemed… overpowered actually. Not that that counted for much when it seemed like all the villains were too, except the box guy. He’s seen three people beat up the box guy with random household items.
But Daniel also noticed other things, the way Phantom limped sometimes when he thought no one was looking. The way his punches got sloppier near the end of a fight. The way he hesitated, not out of fear, but out of exhaustion.
The kid wasn’t some invincible god; he was just… stubborn. Really goddamn stubborn. And also very reckless, based on him messing up for the sake of a pun or too a couple of times; everyone’s groaning to said punning telling Daniel that the puns were extremely common.
He moved through disasters like a spark that refused to go out. Fast and sharp. Tired in a way that sat behind his eyes.
So suddenly, simply watching didn’t feel harmless anymore. It was like being a bystander cheering on a fight while someone else got absolutely shit kicked. He didn’t like it on bit.
As such, it began with a bad idea. Which, in Amity, was apparently practically a civic tradition; there was a bunch of teens drag racing across the rooftops that mourning.
Daniel stood in front of his bathroom mirror, holding a pair of scissors and an old red t-shirt. Glaring at his reflection faintly, “this is ridiculous”, his reflection obviously did not argue; if it did he’d be deeply concerned.
Thirty minutes later, he has:
- A red shirt with a poorly cut lightning bolt stitched on with uneven black thread
- Black leggings he had absolutely no business owning
- A ski mask with eye holes slightly off-center
- Oven mitts (for protection, he reasoned, though from what, he wasn’t sure)
And with all that junk on he stared at himself, “…I look like a discount emergency”… he didn’t take it off; he absolutely should have though.
The first time he tries to help, he almost dies immediately. It’s a bank robbery? Maybe? Or perhaps just a bank attack since the metal suit guy didn’t seem interested in stealing any money, just in wrecking stuff.
Daniel bursts through the door, “STOP, uh, STOP DOING CRIME!”.
The metal suit turns around and eyes him, “…what are you wearing?”.
“Justice”, Daniel tries to make a confident face.
The robot hits him with a chair and Daniel goes down like a sock puppet. And as he lays there, staring at the ceiling, vaguely aware of the chaos unfolding around him, the only thing he can think is that ‘this was a mistake’.
Then something moves past him, a blur of black and white. Phantom. Daniel was so not ready to deal with a disappointed teenager, especially one disappointed over how much Daniel totally sucked.
Phantom flies over the counter, kicks the robot into a wall, and disarms -literally, Phantom ripped his arms off- him in three seconds flat.
The teen hero looks down at Daniel, “…are you okay?”.
Daniel gives him a weak thumbs up from the floor, wheezing, “I helped”.
Phantom stares at him. Then, unexpectedly, he laughs. Not mockingly, not even cruelly. Just… surprised, “you distracted him, I’ll give you that”, shaking his head, “and for some dumbass reason that actually worked. Skulker’s usually not that easily distracted”.
Daniel blinked, “…it did?”.
The metal guy huffs, “I’m right here you know, punk”.
Phantom smirks, “insults are best said to the persons face, anyway, soup time”, and sucks the robot into the… soup thermos, then looking back down to Daniel, “and yeah, it did, you dumbass”, offering him a hand up,“don’t do it again like that, though. You’ll get seriously hurt”.
All Daniel’s got to say to that is, “already did”.
“Fair”, Phantom tilts his head, “you don’t even have any weapons”.
“Nope”.
“No training”.
“Also nope”.
“Then why are you-”, he gestures vaguely at him, “-this?”.
Daniel hesitates, then, responding quietly, “because you look like you’re doing this alone”.
That lands. He can see it in Phantom’s expression, a flicker, quick and guarded. Him speaking a little too quickly, “I’m not alone”.
Daniel glanced around at the wrecked bank, the two torn off metal limbs, the distant sirens. And gives a very pitying, “… okay”.
Phantom sighs, “…you’re still an idiot”.
“Absolutely”.
Phantom crosses his arms, “so, you gonna do that again?”.
Daniel scratches at the back of the mask, “probably?”.
“Oh my zone, then get outta my town”.
Daniel blinks, “I- what?”.
“Get. Out”, he points toward the door, “you’re not trained. You’re not equipped. You’re an out-of-towner and clearly don’t know Amity very well. You definitely just made this worse. Having squishy living folk running right in to a fight is so not helpful”.
Daniel frowns, “I distracted him, you said so”. The reasoning sounds weak even to his own ears. It’s not like he ‘landed a blow’ or tied the guy up or even hacked the suit into ‘malfunctioning’. What he did do was damn near make a causality… a casualty of himself.
“You also distracted me”, rolling his wrist, “which I can totally give you one pass for. One. I had him handled”.
That landed harder than the punch. Daniel trying to wipe himself off a little, wincing, “I just thought-”.
“Yeah”, Phantom cuts in, “that’s kinda the entire problem”. There was no humour in his voice now. No flicker of appreciation. Just frustration stretched thin over something deeper. “You want to help?”, he continues, “call it in or shout GHOST really really loudly. Stay out of the way. Don’t run into a fight wearing kitchen supplies”, shrugging a little, “unless not running in will get you killed faster”.
Daniel muttering, “these are heat-resistant”.
“I don’t care if they’re dragon-proof- well no, I would actually care about that a little, but still. You don’t belong here if you can’t keep your nose out of all the spectral fist fights that happen literally daily and nightly”. The sirens were getting closer. Phantom turns away from him like the conversation was already over, “go home”.
Daniel didn’t. Which, in hindsight, was exactly the kind of decision that kept Amity Park interesting.
The next time Daniel wound up showing up, it was worse. A villain, or ghost as everyone was calling all of them, seemingly made of goddamn plant matter was tearing through a construction site, throwing scaffolding like weapons. Phantom was already there, weaving between collapsing beams, clearly trying -but only partially succeeding- to keep the damage contained.
Daniel hesitates at the edge of the chaos, trying to sus out if Phantom really does have this handled, until he spots a worker trapped under a fallen support and he moves over as fast as he can. Daniel dragging the man free just as a chunk of concrete smashes down where they’d been. Shouting, “go!”, at the man and pushing him toward safety.
For a brief, shining moment, it works; he actually helped. Then Phantom spots him and everything stops; not the fight, just the teen. He lands hard a few feet away, eyes locked on Daniel with something that wasn’t just anger, it fear. The kid was genuinely afraid of Daniel getting hurt. Phantom yelling, “what the hell are you doing?!”.
Daniel panting a little breathless, “helping!”.
“I told you to stay away! You twat!”.
Then a slab of concrete is hurtling towards them. Phantom reacts instantly, a green energy beam shooting from his hand, shattering it midair, but the momentary distraction costs him. The ‘ghost’ surging forward, slamming him into a wall.
Daniel froze, this… that, was his fault. Explicitly. That thought hitting him like ice water.
Phantom recovers quickly -too quickly, like he was used to it- but when he finishes the fight, he doesn’t look relieved; he looks furious at Daniel specially.
“You don’t get it”, he had said later, on a rooftop that smelled like smoke and rain.
Daniel had just stood there, mask in his hands, face bruised and very human, “then explain it”.
Phantom laughed once, sharp and humourless. “Explain it?”, he repeated, “okay. Here”. He stepped closer, jabbing a finger towards the city below.“Every one of those things out there? All the spooky scary ghosties the rest of the world likes to pretend is just some tourist trap crap. They can kill you. Not ‘maybe’. Not ‘if you mess up’. Just, gone. Instantly”.
Daniel winced, “I know that”.
Phantom snapping, “that’s bullshit. Because if you did, you wouldn’t keep showing up like this is a game”.
Daniel was genuinely insulted by that, obviously it wasn’t a game. That was literally why he was getting involved. A teenager shouldn’t be playing hero and risking their lives! And it kind of ticks him off that literally no one seems to actually be helping. “It’s not a game to me”. When all the other ‘town heroes’ or the government showed up they attacked Phantom half of the time even.
Phantom gestured at Daniel’s outfit, “then why are you playing dress-up?”.
That stung. Daniel swallowed, “because you’re doing this alone, and you’re just a teenager. You should be studying or eating burgers, not risking your life for people who can’t be bothered to help”.
Phantom’s expression twisted, “I am seriously not alone”, shaking his head, “and my age doesn’t mean shit”, point his hands at Daniel, “I. Am. Dead. dead kids do not go to school. Dead kids do not die if something decapitates them”, he then turned away, arms crossed tight like he was holding himself together, “you doing this shit only makes things worse”, voice lower now, “I have to watch out for you. I have to think about you. That gets people hurt. The people in this town don’t help because they know to stay out of it”.
“I pulled someone out today-”.
Phantom cuts him off, “and I almost got crushed because I was looking at you instead of the threat!”, waving a hand around and grumbling, “sure a little crushing won’t do much to me but still”.
Silence.
The city hummed below them, distant and indifferent. Daniel looked down at the mask in his hands, “…I don’t want to just stand there and watch”.
“Then don’t watch”, Phantom had replied, “leave”.
“That’s not-”.
“Leave”, Phantom had repeated, firmer that time, “please”, the last word slipped out like it hadn’t meant to be there, and suddenly, it hadn’t been just anger anymore; It had been exhaustion and fear. The kind that comes from carrying too much for too long.
Daniel had hesitated. Everything in him had wanted to argue. To justify. To insist that he could be useful. But the look in Phantom’s eyes… hadn’t been the look of someone who needed help, it had been the look of someone who couldn’t afford it, who would only be burdened by it.
Not like this, Daniel spoke quietly, “… okay”.
Phantom hadn’t looked back as he flew off.
Daniel stayed away, for a while at least. Long enough for the city to feel wrong again. Long enough for every siren to sound like it was mocking him over how useless he had been. Long enough for him to realize something uncomfortable… Phantom was right about almost everything.
What really sunk it in was when an actual dragon attacked the town, Phantom got his arm torn off and just… reattached it; the person who’s garden the limb had landed in gave him shit for messing up her hydrangeas. The teen smiled and bantered right back… he’d rather the townsfolk insult him than help him.
That was impressively messed up.
And the ‘dead kid’ thing… from what he’d asked around that hadn’t been a joke or something Phantom said just to shock Daniel into stopping. His ‘birthday party’ was called a ‘deathday celebration’, the town celebrated a kids death and the kid liked it. No one knew the ‘how’ and it was apparently a bad idea to ask, one of the towns firm rules; apparently ghosts really don’t like that, which Daniel can understand. But… it was impossible not to wonder about, what if the kid died trying to play hero like Daniel had been? The extreme reaction would make more sense then.
He also found a video of the teen fighting an entire army solo and another of him using a wailing power to destroy an entire castle. Phantom was… disturbingly powerful actually, Daniel was a fool to think he could actually help someone that strong in a fight.
The other important thing he learned? Most of the ‘villains’ were only ‘play fighting’ with Phantom and just really didn’t care about damages or bystanders… which made Daniel feel like a massive idiot for interfering with that Skulker guy. It also explained why a ‘ghost’ that could fire actual rocket launchers merely threw a chair at Daniel, you know, instead of blowing his head off.
And the fact that all the villains really were ghosts was a lot to take in too. They were all a bunch of dead people -who probably died awful untimely deaths based on almost all of them looking really young- causing chaos in a random town with a ‘ghost portal’ problem. Apparently there’s even one that’s a literal toddler who plays dress up and drags Phantom into his pretend games, Daniel has yet to see this one but apparently he’s real and has abducted most of the town before… If Daniel ever got abducted by a toddler, even a super-powered one, he’d be too embarrassed to ever mention that to someone.
So yeah, Daniel threw out the mask and his dumb cut up t-shirt. He still felt bad about leaving a kid to fight all alone but… well he was less naive now. It wasn’t so much that no one wanted or cared to help him, it was that no one could help him, and that there basically wasn’t any point; he was already dead after all, things don’t get much worse than that. That, and Phantom clearly liked most of the fighting, the less serious stuff anyways.
The next time some ghost attacks, Daniel doesn’t put on any suit, he doesn’t charge into the fight, he stays back.
Far back.
Helping people evacuate. Guiding them through side streets. Slowly realizing just how used to this everyone is, as everyone evacuated areas and side steps objects like it was second nature. He moves a street cat out of the way at least.
And he does it all with no costume, no shouting, no trying to be something he wasn’t.
Just… useful, from a distance.
He still catches glimpses of the fight -Phantom against something massive and impossible looking- but he doesn’t move towards it. He does not interfere, doesn’t make it about himself, and when it’s over. When the dust settles and the sky stops looking like it might collapse…
Phantom finds him standing on a street corner, directing vehicles towards a safer route like a very under-qualified traffic officer. Phantom walks up, bruised and burned but still standing.
Daniel tensing, speaking carefully, “hey”.
Phantom studies him for a long moment, then he glances at the vehicles he’d been helping, “…you stayed out of it. That’s a good doggie”.
Daniel’s lip twitches a little, “yeah”. He still hasn’t figured out if the wit and banter is to mask Phantom’s fear or if the teen is really this much of a little shit.
Phantom hums, “congrats on being marginally helpful”.
Daniel lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, “yeah, I can do that. Help without… you know. Making things worse”.
Phantom’s mouth twitches slightly, a smirk forming, “good. Do that”, tilting his head, “what’s your name anyways, I think I was too annoyed with your stupidity to ask”.
“Daniel, Daniel Fortieth”.
And suddenly Phantom looks like he wants to kill him, “fucking what”, the teen hero turns away, puts his hands on his knees, and wheezes, “goddamnit what is wrong with my existence. Ancients give me strength”, straightening up and turning to Daniel again, “my full name’s Danny, technically Daniel but no one uses that, Phantom”, quirking an eyebrow, “and the Fenton’s son? Also Danny, aka Daniel. My little missy, Elle, aka Danielle. There’s also a Dan, aka Daniel. Why the hell does my name attract reckless idiots, myself included, ugh”, jabbing a finger into Daniel’s chest, “you should change your name”.
Daniel blinks, “um, no?”. He… he doesn’t know what the heck to do with this information. Why is there four notable Daniel’s??? And what does he mean by ‘my little missy’??? Does this teen have a kid?!?!? With literally the same name as him!?!???!!
This town is bullshit.
Phantom rolls his eyes and starts to walk away. Then, after a step, he stops, “… oh and if you ever put those oven mitts back on and run into a fight again. I will personally throw you into the river and steal all of your left socks”.
Daniel blinks, “…noted”.
Phantom nods once more, mutters, “named goddamn ‘Daniel’, why does the universe hate me so much, oh my zone”, and keeps on walking. And for the first time, helping didn’t feel like trying to be a hero… and like maybe he should be mad at his parents for naming him ‘Daniel’; apparently the name’s cursed.
At least now he feels like he’s learnt where he actually fits in this bizarre little haunted town.
How to be useful in small, unglamorous ways: pulling animals to safety since most of them didn’t know better in the way that people did, creating distractions, turning off open propane tanks, putting out a fire or two… buying a goddamn FentonWorks wrist ray…
And he also learnt that in the short while he’d tried to play hero the town nicknamed him. Apparently nicknames were a major thing here, partly because Phantom nicknamed basically every ghost that ever showed its face. Anyways, the nicknames were… not good. Things like ‘Second Red Menace’, and ‘Spandex Casualty’, and ‘Knock Off Pantyhose Face’, ‘NPC With Delusions’, ‘Polyester Pity’, ‘the Elastic Mistake’, ‘the Non-Stick Nuisance’, and probably the least creative ‘Oven-mitt Man’.
He did mention these to Phantom, Phantom deadpanned that ‘he deserved it’ and later threw a shirt with ‘the Non-Stick Nuisance’ screen-printed onto it. Phantom, was absolutely a little shit.
He could leave, no one would blame him, and no one expected anything from him. Including Phantom.
He didn’t leave.
End.