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Kindred Spirits	By : RedelliaValentinos Category: +1 through F > Danny Phantom Views: 206 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom, I don't own any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from writing this story, I write this purely for the enjoyment of writing. It's just me and a keyboard and my wild brain.

Chapter List
- 37
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- 39
Vlad takes three days to recover from his meltdown. The process itself had been quick, as Frostbite said it would be. His body had gone molten and his skin cracked on the surface. The bedding and his clothes were both quite ruined, thoroughly reduced to a fine ash. There was some minor damage to the four posters, but nothing severe enough to warrant serious repair or outright replacement. Frostbite had stayed through the whole thing, even assisting in sharing some cold energy to cool Vlad down afterwards.
Several hours are lost in the shower, scrubbing the ash from his skin. Whether the water was hot or cold, soap or no soap, it was a battle. But he managed to get clean, and he redressed into fresh clothing blessedly devoid of brimstone and sulphur.
Once he'd reached a more appropriate temperature, as appropriate as possible considering his condition, Vlad finally glanced at the mirror on his dresser. He found one little change. A small one. An annoying one, however minor.
"Well. That's going to be a challenge," he huffed, "I hate working with enchantments."
Everything was normal, save for a faint overheated hue to his skin that was steadily fading...and Plasmius' horns jutting from his head. Colored black instead of his oxygen-deprived ghostly side, he suspects they'll change color when he changes forms. It's not impossible to deal with, just tiresome.
They spend the next four days in the library sifting through the collection of tomes Vlad has hoarded over the years. Frostbite huffs words of distrust and discomfort at the presence of certain titles, some simply because Vlad, of all people, has them. Others because they still exist or because he knows where they came from and can guess just how the halfa got them.
Vlad ignores it all in favor of digging out a concealment spell, of which there are several. Each one with a different purpose. Magic is not simple. Not universal. One concealment spell does not work on everything. Each one has to be tailored to what needs to be hidden.
They do eventually find one, and with some toggling, wordplay and a few minor...accidents, they manage to narrow the concealment to just his horns. Frostbite locks the enchantment into a ring, allowing Vlad to either hide or reveal his horns at his own discretion. Put simply, wear the ring to conceal, remove it to reveal. It'll spare him the frustration of having to memorize the incantation.
When he finally looks at his reflection again after so many days, in the bathroom mirror and wearing the plain black ring on his right thumb, Vlad sighs in relief. Now, he can go outside. Now, he can go out in public. Now, he can feel just a little normal. Just a pinch.
"This-self lies to itself far too much."
"Stuff it. I'm allowed a little white lie to preserve what remains of my sanity, every now and again."
Plasmius snarls and glowers in a corner.
Vlad sighs. "If for nothing else, I'd like to avoid startling Daniel for the moment. ...please?"
"...for the boy, then."
-
Danny decides, after taking a few days to process his...to process the changes, that there's really no point in hiding the nonsense from his friends anymore. He genuinely tried to keep it under wraps. But they noticed him in school the next day. He was fidgeting and fussing and shifting around all over the place in his seat.
Initially, they thought it was just anxiety. They were approaching the end of the school year soon. They knew his grades had dropped, and that they were climbing back up. And end of the year meant tests galore. But the behavior stopped whenever he stood up or laid on his front at home, which seemed to be his new preferred position. He was far more jumpy than usual, too. At one point, during lunch, Tucker bumped into him trying to get to the table and Danny yelped, jumped out of his seat and stormed off. He came back later when lunch was almost over and his food had been seized by jocks looking to start a fight, and meekly apologized to Tucker, promising it wasn't his fault. That there was just a lot going on.
From there, Sam suspected the absolute worst. An ugly picture painted itself in her head, and when she pried at Danny for answers, he promised it was nothing like what she was imagining and that he would explain it when he was ready.
One week after his death anniversary, he had enough of the odd looks and called them over to his house. Jasmine watched him fret and worry at the house, bundling movies into his arms, setting up in the living room and then running upstairs to check that the lock on his door still worked. When he started throwing his body weight at it to test durability and timing in case his parents felt the need to bust it down, she grabbed him by the ear and hauled him down the stairs.
"Maybe you should do this somewhere else," Jasmine suggested, "Maybe at the old factory? Mom and dad checked that place for activity already, so they haven't gone back."
The light bulb that went off in his head had practically burst from a power surge. He gave her a hug and bolted out the door, leaving her dizzy and frazzled by the wake of his vortex.
...Danny caught up with his friends about halfway to the factory. By the time he reached them, he had calmed down significantly.
"I thought we were going to your place," Sam said in a confused tone.
"Changed my mind. Way too much security," Danny replied.
Tucker blinked. "Oookay, where to, then?"
"The old factory. It's more...open."
"Open? Half of the roof caved in two years ago. It's open, alright," the goth quipped.
Danny has to physically seize his throat muscles to stop himself from chittering in agreement. He doesn't want them hearing his sounds just yet. But he does smile. "One man's trash is another man's skylight!"
It's easily worth the slap to the back of the head.
-
The factory is hardly even reminiscent of a factory, anymore. It's empty, the machinery and components were removed and its rooms hollowed out over forty years ago. It may as well be a giant warehouse. With the exception of half of the roof being demoted to flooring, it's still fairly solid.
Tucker kicks a stray piece of metal across the room. "So, you're finally gonna tell us why you've been so nuts, but you brought us to to an abandoned building to do it."
Danny winces at the scraping sound of the scrap running across the floor. It's just a little too much for his ears. Maybe if he were about one hundred feet away, it wouldn't hurt.
"Yeah, well, can't really do this at home. Not safely, anyway. Um..." He looks at them.
They stare back, quizzically. Unsure of where the conversation is headed. Danny wants to start with a lead up. But he figures, clobbering one over the head with the hard facts has worked for him and Vlad pretty well. So far.
"Look, whatever you do, don't freak out."
Sam raises a brow. "Okay..."
"And, don't run away. Please? I promise, I'm not gonna do anything, no one's gonna get hurt, don't panic, don't scream, don't flip, and no pictures or videos. I haven't even asked Vlad about doing this, so, I'm gonna be in enough trouble, as it is."
He doesn't give them time to process anything. He just dips down into his skeleton and lets his instincts do the rest. The cold he keeps inside rushes to the surface of his skin just as the room lights up. Sam and Tucker turn away at the flash. When they look back...
It's hard to recognize him right away. Danny can sense the ambient discomfort and curls his fingers inward to keep them hidden. He manages to stand upright by curling his tail in a half circle on the floor and stiffening the muscles slightly. It's...awkward. He hasn't changed since his fit in the Far Frozen. He hasn't wanted to. He's comfortable in it, the cold, when on the surface, feels like home. But...
"Dude... What are you?" Tucker approaches first, tilting his head slightly in confusion. There's a faint blue aura surrounding Danny's form that Tucker suspects will be more visible in the dark. Danny is also a lot taller, now, so his eyes flow down to examine his legs. "This is gonna sound weird, but, can I...?"
Danny shrugs, not sure what he's asking for. He watches his friend get down on one knee and reach a hand towards his right leg. The tip of Danny's tail gives a nervous twitch.
Without a magnifying lense, Tucker knows he can't see much. But as Danny shifts slightly, altering his weight distribution, he can actually see the ice flex. Almost akin to a fiber mesh, but no air gets through. If he squints hard enough, he can barely see the tiny hexagonal structures of crystal inside. He flicks a finger against the surface and receives a light ting. The sound vibrates through the limb in a weird way, making Danny jerk away slightly.
"Sorry!" Tucker says quickly, "I was just curious! But..." he stands back up, "This is both really weird and really cool at the same time."
"How do you even walk on those?" Sam asks.
Danny visibly perks up. He crouches down like he did in the Far Frozen and lets his tail raise according to what comes naturally to him. He tucks his arms in close, again, because it just feels right. And he starts to walk around. Against the floor, his steps sound like knocking on hollow wood. But it doesn't take anything away from the fact that Tucker is just fascinated by the whole thing. Danny's not sure how to interpret his friend's reaction. It's a good thing he didn't run. But given the nature of the change, he's not exactly ready to decide that everything is fine.
Sam watches on, arms folded and watching his every step. Her face is devoid of reaction or feeling while Tucker starts happily babbling that he has an ice raptor for a friend. Danny, very slowly, very nervously approaches her. Coming to a stop, his tail lowers so he can stand up a little straighter.
"How did this..." she motions towards his whole form, "How'd this happen, exactly?"
Danny changes back. Conversation requires speech. He curls his tail up behind him to keep it off the splintery floor, unintentionally keeping it hidden.
"Um... Do you remember the accident?"
Sam shrugs. "Only that there was an accident. You and Jazz haven't exactly been forthcoming about it."
Danny winces, but takes the stab to heart. "Yeah, uh..." he takes a breath, "Okay. Mom and dad spent, like, three years building a ghost portal, and when they turned it on, it didn't work. I wanted to look at it, it's the only mildly interesting thing they've ever built, so I went inside of it, and, well..."
"Well...?" Sam snarls.
"...well, I found out why it wasn't working."
"They built something that didn't work and it didn't blow up? I gotta hear this one," Tucker joked and sat down on the ground like a kindergartner, bright eyed and eager to learn.
"Dad put in an extra power switch. Which I found while I was in it, and, zap."
Sam raises a brow. "Just... Zap? That's it?"
Danny gives a shaky chuckle. "More like zap, coma, nightmare, coin toss and wake up in Wisconsin with a total stranger that was in college with mom and dad and find out I died halfway and so did he because mom and dad built something else that failed years ago. Uh, that one did explode, by the way."
"Wait, back up," Tucker pauses for a moment, "you died?"
"Only halfway!" Danny answers quickly.
"And how does that work?" Sam asks calmly, but her face is beginning to morph into disbelief, and, faintly, like she's fighting back tears.
Danny gives an exhausted eye roll. "It's very, very annoying. Basically, the time I spent in the coma meant that when I woke up, everything came down on me, kind of all at once. My powers, my ghost form, my core, accidental blizzard... It's a lot. But I just got the whole 'ice raptor' part last week."
"So, why have you been jumping ten feet in the air every day?" Tucker inquires.
"Oh... That. Yeah. That's because of this," he gives a half turn to reveal his black tail, with all of its spines, "I've been keeping it tucked in under my clothes. But it's been a pain in the ass ever since I got it."
That seems to snap Sam out of her funk. She avoids a squeal, but eagerly goes for him, and turns Danny around fully to see. "Now that's cool!" She fusses at the back of Danny's hoodie to see how far up his spine it goes. Danny lets her, glaring off into space. But when her fingers brush against just the edges of the upper pair of spines, he jumps with a shout and pulls away.
"Don't do that! It's sensitive!"
Tucker laughs. At least it all makes some amount of morbid sense, now.
"So," Sam wonders allowed, eyes still locked on the black appendage that's swaying back and forth in agitation, "What about Vlad? I mean, I'm assuming he's the 'total stranger from Wisconsin,' right?"
Danny nods and backs away a little when he feels her start to drift closer.
"Does he have a tail, too?" Tucker asks, fighting back a laugh when Danny has to keep backing up and dodging Sam's curious hands.
"No, he's different."
"What is he?"
"Um..." Danny dodges another grab for his tail while a faint hue of pink comes to his cheeks, "He's gonna be mad enough, already. I don't really think he'd want me to tell you."
The pink darkens to a red and catches Sam's attention.
"You're blushing! Is there something else you're not telling us?" she folds her arms up and glares at him, though there's very little malice in it.
"No!"
"You're gonna tell us, eventually," Tucker comments.
Danny's tail coils around his leg, "Not voluntarily, I'm not!"
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Kindred Spirits