Chapter Text
“This week we’re investigating Amity Park as the home to the ghost known as Danny Phantom as part of our on going investigation ‘Are ghosts real?’.”
The words voiced over the shot of a strange looking town, there was a destroyed sign that said ‘Welcome to Amity Park’ with a giant hole on one side that looked like a body had been thrown through it. Covering the hole was an extra wooden board that had painted on it ‘A safe place to live’.
“Amity Park has in the past five years gained a reputation as a ghost infested town but only recently has it become considered the most haunted place in the world.”
“Number 1?” A voice asked.
The scene changed to show three beings sitting behind a desk. The being in the middle was a glowing teenage boy with white hair. It was assumed he was sitting in his chair but as he bobbed up and down slightly in the frame he could have just as well been floating in mid air. To the left of the teenager was Ryan Bergara and to the right, Shane Madej. Ryan looked slightly ill being so close to the glowing teen while Shane was sitting next to Phantom looking absolutely delighted.
“Yeah. Number one kid.” Ryan said.
“You wouldn’t know anything about that would you?” Shane asked.
“Would I know anything about a town being haunted? What a silly question. Of course I don’t. Besides, we’re here to prove if ghosts are real or not. Amity Park could just be an elaborate hoax.”
“Are you seriously playing the role of the skeptic right now?” Ryan asked.
“Look, I’ve been on Shane’s side since the very beginning. You need to give me definitive proof of ghosts before I’ll believe.”
“Your name is literally Danny Phantom!”
“So maybe I had really awesome parents. That doesn’t prove anything.”
“Yeah Ryan. A name’s not proof. It’s circumstantial at best.”
“Okay fine. You want proof that Phantom here is a ghost that’s haunting Amity?” Ryan said. “Then let’s get into the history!”
“Oooh history.” Phantom said rubbing his hands together.
“Let’s get to it.”
The scene changed from showing the three men to a black screen with a white timeline in the center. Ryan’s voice narrated as visuals popped up to support his words.
“Phantom’s first recorded appearance was in 81 AD, during the incredibly short reign of Emperor Plasmius. Phantom was recorded in this wall fresco as being a chariot racer within the Coliseum, ordered to race for the amusement of the emperor.” Ryan said as a picture of the aged wall fresco appeared.
The fresco showed a figure in all black with white feet, hands, and hair. The figure also had bright green eyes. The figure was painting riding on a chariot. Further along the fresco there was also a painting of a strange blue skinned man sitting on a chair surrounded by luxury and servants.
“Ancient Greek records differ on the events that happened that day but all that is known is that only a year after construction was finished on the coliseum Emperor Plasmius appeared and staged a coup against the Emperor Titus. Plasmius ruled for a total of three months before Phantom appeared and fought in the coliseum. A fire broke out in the coliseum and both Phantom and Plasmius disappeared, leaving Rome in chaos. Some historians believed Phantom to be a myth until recently. Others argued that Phantom was a loyal follower of Titus who dethroned Plasmius in Titus’ name.”
As Ryan talked there were images of ancient Greek scrolls that recorded the events. The scene went black as Shane interrupted Ryan. Words on the right side of the screen in blue appeared to match Shane’s voice.
“So what’s the deal with that Phantom? Seriously.”
“The fire was a total accident.” Phantom said as words in green appeared in the center of the screen. “I mean I totally meant to punch Plasmius in the face and everything but I didn’t expect him to start that fire.”
“Were you seriously there?” Ryan demanded. Words in red on the left side of the screen popped up reading out his words. “Why?”
“Plasmius duh.” Phantom said as if it were obvious. “I mean like…come on. The fresco over there paints him as like a vampire and nobody ever wondered why he looked so weird?”
“Are you saying…Plasmius is a ghost?” Ryan nearly yelped.
“Yep.” Phantom said popping the ‘p’ noise on the word. “I’ve been fighting ghosts like him for a long time, buddy. It’s alright.”
“But why was Plasmius an emperor?”
“Cause he wanted to be? I mean it’s not like it was hard for him to use his power to dethrone, who was it? Titus, right. I could have dethroned the dude no problem. But I don’t see the appeal, I didn’t then either. Plasmius wanted power, he wanted to tell people what to do, he wanted people to fawn over him. I wanted to punch him in the face for hurting people.”
“Okay.” Shane said. “So is Plasmius like your…”
“He’s the Tom to my Jerry.” Phantom answered causing Shane to giggle and Ryan to groan.
“Let’s just keep going on the time line.”
And the time line continued. They moved from 81 AD forward to other seemingly random points in history. Phantom had been spotted in monasteries, in castles, in small villages, in cities. Empires that had long since risen and fallen had recorded Phantom in random places, doing inexplicable things. Well inexplicable till now. Phantom usually interrupted Ryan at some point to defend himself.
A story of Phantom appearing under a little boy’s bed in the 1600’s?
“I was lost! I didn’t mean to pop up there, it was so dusty!”
Phantom at the Salem Witch Trials?
“I knew a couple of those girls and you expect me not to help them get out of there? Come on! I’m not a monster!”
Phantom spotted at the Apollo launches by three astronauts who’d not believed what they saw?
“In my defense, it was the moon landing. I wasn’t going to miss it!”
And so it went, as the time line went on the visual evidence grew better. From worn out frescos and ancient Greek texts to latin scrolls and old English diaries. When the modern camera was invented there were even a few grainy pictures of Phantom. The time line finished with Phantom’s long term appearance in Amity Park as the town’s so called defender.
“So called? I’ve saved Amity like a billion times. Have some respect!”
“Yeah Ryan. This is a superhero here. The genuine article.”
“A superhero who possessed you.”
“Yeah. It was awesome.”
The video cut off then to show the beginning of another episode. Ryan and Shane narrated over the beginning of the video to explain that they’d flown out to Queens to investigate a haunted insane asylum and had ended up catching the interest of Phantom. The now edited video showed a series of clips of Shane demanding to be possessed or attacked while Ryan looked on in despair and fear. Then there was the full clip of the lunchroom haunting, complete with Ryan and Shane being pulled into chairs and dragged into the center of the room.
Then Shane got possessed.
Ryan flung Holy Water into Shane’s face.
“Seriously dude? Water? Come on what are we in 2nd grade? He asked to be possessed. Multiple times! And now you’re gonna fling water in his face?”
“Holy water.” Ryan croaked. “It’s holy water.”
“Well either way some of it got in this nose and that’s not pleasant.” The ghost said rubbing Shane’s nose onto his jacketed arm.
“Who are you?” Ryan asked his voice shaken.
“Oh right.” The ghost said. “Name’s Danny Phantom and I heard you guys were talking shit about me.”
Ryan whined a little while Phantom shook out the limbs on his new body.
“You know, it’s been forever since I’ve had a heart beat. What’s a good BPM for a human? I’ve forgotten and I don’t want to give this guy an accidental heart attack.” Ryan continued to stutter words out that made no real sense. “Dude. Breathe. I promise you it’s fine. You’ve spent the last what? 3 years doing this show trying to meet a ghost. And now you’re meeting one. Surely you had like a plan. You kept saying in the show that you wanted to talk. So talk.”
“You…you’re possessing my friend.”
“He asked for it. Like five times.” Phantom pointed out. The scene changed once again to a montage of Shane asked for ghosts and demons to possess him over the history of the show. Eventually it cut back to Ryan and the possessed Shane sitting in those chairs. “I’m not hurting him either, he’s just sleeping right now. I’m not even going to do any of the freaky shit where I make his head spin on his neck, I’ve heard that leaves the neck sore for weeks after.”
“You can do that?”
“Probably? Not like I’ve ever tried it before.” Phantom said leaning back in Shane’s body. The entire posture of the body, the facial expressions were so different to Shane’s that it caused an almost uncanny valley effect. “Now’s not the time either. Come on, ghost hunter, ask your questions.”
And it seemed with undeniable evidence that ghosts were real, and that they’d possessed his friend. There was only one thing left for Ryan to do.
He fainted.
“Shit!” Phantom shouted. “Spiderman, get out here, help me out with this!”
The video changed back to the office space. Phantom was pointedly not looking at Ryan or Shane while Shane was giggling to himself.
“I can’t believe you fainted!”
“You got possessed Shane!”
“I really didn’t mean to scare you that badly.” Phantom muttered. “I just thought it’d be fun.”
“Once Ryan woke up again.” Shane told the camera. “They worked out a deal where Phantom would come down to our office for an interview. Of course then Ryan had to convince Phantom to stop possessing me.”
The scene changed again to show the same poorly lit cafeteria in the asylum. Spiderman was now standing next to Ryan looking between Ryan and the still possessed Shane. Ryan was trying to compel Phantom to leave Shane using various occult means.
“Dude.” Spiderman interrupted. “Can you possess anyone?”
“Sure. I can possess people, animals, cars, electronics.” Phantom answered still using Shane as a meat puppet.
“You can possess electronics?” Spiderman asked.
“Sure phones, cameras, laptops.” Phantom listed out. “I figured out I could even do it when I possessed a video game once.”
“Dude. You never mentioned this.”
“Oh it happened like two years ago. I was fighting a ghost named Technus, who as you could have guessed by the name, is obsessed with technology. He was haunting that online MMORPRG Doomed.”
“I’ve heard of Doomed! It’s supposed to be the like the indie version of World of Warcraft right?”
“It is so fun, Spidey. You’ve got to play. I’ll show you around once you get an account, you would not believe how awesome it is.”
“Could we get back to the whole ghost haunting an internet game thing?” Ryan interrupted.
“Right. Sorry. Well anyway Technus was trying to beat the game, gain all seven keys and everything. He figured if he beat it, he’d get access to the online score boards and from there he could infect like the entire internet. I’m not really sure how he thought it would work but I didn’t want him to break my game so I possessed my version of it and played the game as myself. Then along with the help of some other pretty great players I trapped Technus in Level Zero which is a glitch that once you go in you can’t get out of.” Phantom explained in the same tone one would use to list out a grocery list.
“Dude. Your life is so awesome.”
“My afterlife is awesome.” Phantom corrected causing Ryan to make a sort of pained whining noise. “Anyway I don’t possess games much, especially online games cause it’s sort of like cheating, but I can.”
“Danny.” Spiderman said. “We have to play. We have to.”
Phantom laughed using Shane’s body and agreed to play. Ryan watched as the two teens discussed if they should start with Fortnite for the meme of it all or if they should work their way up to that.
“Can you get out of my friend please?” Ryan shouted interrupting Phantom and Spiderman’s plans.
“Oh right. Since you said please.” And with that Phantom flew out of Shane’s body, as if he’d slid out of a tight suit. Shane almost immediately crumpled to the ground with a groan but Spiderman jumped forward and caught him.
“Such pretty unicorns.” Shane muttered drunkenly into Spiderman’s neck. “Sparkly.”
“Shane!” Ryan said. “Buddy, stay with me.”
“He’s fine.” Phantom promised. “He won’t even have a headache.”
“I have a question.” Spiderman said as he helped Shane to his feet.
“Shoot.”
“If you possessed me would you have your powers only or yours and mine? Would you become like Ghost Spider?”
“Ghost Spider.” Phantom said his voice awed. “Dude I have no idea what happens if I possess someone with superpowers but it would be so awesome if we got to share our powers!”
“This is the weirdest conversation I’ve ever gained consciousness too.” Shane said.
The scene changed back to the office space. Phantom was now sipping on a mug of something. As he wasn’t vibrating out of his seat, it was safe to assume it wasn’t caffeinated.
“I was fine.” Shane insisted. “I don’t remember any of what was on that clip but I haven’t felt bad since.”
“I wouldn’t do that to you dude. Leaving you with any symptoms of me would be most unwoke.”
“So now we’re going to do the actual interview.” Ryan said ignoring Phantom’s smirk at his phrasing. “Ask you a few questions about ghosts and your history with Amity Park.”
“Sounds good. There better be treats there though.”
The scene changed again to show Phantom sitting in a comfortable looking armchair, the background behind him was a faded gray wall. The entire focus of the scene was Phantom’s glowing body.
“Okay I’ve got a question, Phantom.” Shane said from off screen. “Why are most ghosts from like the 1800s? Like 90% of the haunted houses we’ve gone to have been filled with ghosts from 200 years ago.”
“Well. There’s actually an equal number of ghosts from each century.” Phantom said. “You just don’t notice the one’s from more recent periods of time because they don’t look weird yet.”
“Weird.”
“Yeah like for instance a ghost from a factory in the 1850s. They are going to look obviously from that time period. You know nobody goes around cosplaying as an orphan factory worker so your brain is like…something’s up here right?” Phantom said. “But if there’s a ghost who died in the 1980s of like a cocaine overdose at an ACDC concert and you see him on the street? What’s the first thing you’re going to think? That’s a ghost or that pale guy sure does love Rock and Roll?”
“So basically we only notice ghosts because they look out of place?” Ryan finished.
“Sure if I were to put on some skinny jeans and a t-shirt and go out into New York City in the middle of the day, I’d just look like a regular teenager who uses way too much hair bleach. Plenty of modern ghosts just blend in with society until they can’t anymore and then humans start noticing them and causing a ruckus about it.”
“Aren’t ghosts supposed to haunt humans? Why go stealth?” Ryan asked.
“That’s a very human-centric viewpoint. Why is it that you immediately assume that ghosts are there for human consumption? Most of us were here before you, we’ll be here after you. From a ghost’s perspective, the one’s who live full time on earth at least, it’s humans who do the haunting, not us.”
“But there’s been thousands of recorded cases of ghosts attacking people. Just take the invasion last month!”
“That’s true. Some ghosts are assholes. So are a bunch of humans.” Phantom pointed out. “Overall, ghosts on earth just want to be left alone. They don’t want to have Spirit Boxes shoved in their faces or cameras documenting their homes. They just want to be.”
“Alright. Next question. If someone is living in a house they think is haunted, what should they do?”
“Step one. Record all the evidence of your haunting.” Phantom said. “Just write down everything you notice. Flickering lights, cold spots, doors opening on their own, all of it.”
“Why should you record it?” Shane asked.
“So you can check for mundane causes. If your lights are flickering call in an electrician. If there are weird cold drafts, call a house inspector to check for causes. If your doors are opening, make sure they were installed correctly and that the lock isn’t broken.” Phantom said. “Like 80% of all supposed ghost hauntings are done by things that just happen naturally in older houses. Make sure to especially check for methane leaks, those can kill you and they cause hallucinations so be smart about it.”
“That’s not a very ghosty answer.” Shane pointed out.
“Eh. I’m a realist. Don’t waste your money calling ghost hunters until you’re certain that you have an actual ghost in your house. Ghosts are real, don’t get me wrong. But it’s cheaper and easier to get a methane leak fixed than it is to do an exorcism. Hope it’s a methane leak.”
“Okay so we’ve done all that and we’re certain there’s a ghost. What next?” Shane asked
Phantom hummed thoughtfully for a moment before shrugging.
“Ask them to start paying rent.”
Shane burst into laughter while Ryan groaned.
“Okay but in all seriousness. If you feel in danger, if you have been attacked or harmed in anyway. Get out.” Phantom said. “Some ghosts are malevolent and getting offed by one isn’t a fun time. Call a ghost hunter with experience, The Fentons from Amity Park are actually really good. Hell send me a DM on twitter and I’ll swing by to see what I can do. But if you haven’t been attacked? If nothing bad has happened, just weird things that have creeped you out? Then you’ve got a ghost roommate who’s just trying to get by in the big city. We’re people too you know. We just have like. No rights.”
“No rights?”
“You think I can get some loans as a dead guy?” Phantom asked. “Or buy property? No. Ownership ends with death, dude. In the eyes of all the earth’s governments I am ‘not their problem’. It’s true now and it’s been true for centuries. Ghosts on earth just have to get by as best they can in a world that changes too fast and doesn’t care about them. It sucks but that’s the afterlife for you. So if you’ve got a ghost living in your attic and they’re not causing any problems? Just leave ‘em be. Maybe ask them to do the dishes every once in a while.”
The interview continued with Ryan and Shane asking more questions about how ghosts should be interacted with. Phantom explained why asking a ghost how they died was a bad idea, much to the embarrassment of Ryan who had asked that question far too many times.
“Did you ever possess Spiderman?”
“No. Not yet. He hasn’t asked me about it again and I’m not going to jump a guy. Consent is important. Although I am curious if I’d get any of his spider powers or not.”
“What’s the deal with you and Spiderman?”
“The deal? We’re friends.”
“Word on the internet is that it’s more than that.”
“You mean like best friends?” Phantom asked while wiggling his eyebrows up and down.
“Phantom.” The ghost rolled his eyes and then shifted awkwardly in his seat. Up until this point the teen had been confident and sure. Now his cheeks were slightly greener than normal and he had a more curled in posture.
“No, we’re not dating.” Phantom said rolling his eyes in attempt to make it seem like a joke. “I don’t have a pulse dude so it’s kind of difficult for anyone to get my heart racing.”
The interview ended abruptly there although Shane and Ryan did start teasing Phantom about Spiderman for ten minutes after that question. After the interview with Phantom the video changed to a short excerpt on the history of Amity Park. Ryan and Shane interviewed the mayor briefly, who said that he had the problems within the town under control and then asked them to leave his office. They also met with the Phantom Phan-Club as they were called, a group of local high schoolers who’d been fans of Phantom for over two years.
They investigated the high school with an English teacher who swore using book titles as well as the mall and the town park. Areas well known for ghost attacks. Every place they went showed evidence of huge fights. Broken asphalt and burnt up grass. It was a strange sort of battle field. Phantom said he wouldn’t be with them on the town tour but viewers would catch glimpses of the ghost in the backgrounds of shots. A grainy figure in the distance, or a snatch of white hair and green eyes in a corner.
They finally went to Fenton Works where they met Jack and Maddie Fenton, ghost hunters. The Fentons offered scientific reasoning on the high amount of ghost activity in the town as well as a tour of their lab. The overly excited Jack Fenton talked Ryan’s ear off about the various ghosts they’d both investigated while Maddie and Shane had a slightly calmer discussion about skepticism in the ghost hunting community.
“It’s important to be skeptical.” Maddie said. “That’s what makes a good scientist. We should always question our first assumptions about things. That’s why my husband and I went into this field. We knew we’d be seen as silly but we also thought it was important. If ghosts are real then we need to know how to deal with them.”
“And now you and your husband are considered some of the best in the world.”
“Well. We are very good. Even if we never did manage to capture Phantom.” She said with a small almost rueful grin. “Probably for the best we didn’t. Jack and I know better now that Phantom was never a threat to our town. It took us three years to figure it out but we have.”
Once the tour of the town and all the interviews were done the scene changed back to the office. Ryan, Shane, and Phantom were all sitting in their respective seats.
“So.” Phantom said. “You’ve seen the town now. What do you think? Are ghosts real or nah?”
The video ended with Ryan slapping himself in the face in exasperation.