A/N: Written for DP Angst Day 2018 (first posted on my tumblr but only by about five hours). Dark fic, with spoiler-y warnings being applicable, blood included. Pre-D-Stabilized and canon divergent before that point. Standard disclaimers apply.

Valerie narrowed her eyes and increased the speed of her jet sled, trying to keep up with her weaving prey. "Hold still, ghost scum!" she yelled. He didn't oblige, of course. He wasn't that stupid. He was actually a lot cleverer than people gave him credit for, especially considering how many people he'd fooled into thinking he was the good guy.

Sure, she'd teamed up with him to fight ghosts in the past, but that didn't mean his motives had been good. If she'd learned anything, it was that ghosts were territorial. He'd claimed Amity Park as his space; he'd just been trying to protect his haunt. It might've looked like self-sacrifice when he'd tried to go up against Pariah Dark, but that didn't mean self-preservation wasn't a motive. If you destroyed what held a ghost to this world, they'd get destroyed, too.

She wished she knew what held Phantom here, but the Fentons hadn't figured it out, either. And she knew there had to be something. She didn't want to ask too many questions during their ghost lectures—she had to keep up appearances—but Phantom was in this world more often than the Ghost Zone. There had to be a reason for that.

If she couldn't get him now, then she'd eventually find out what that reason was, track it down, and destroy it.

But in the meantime, she had a new weapon she wanted to try out on him. Mr. Masters had actually presented this one to her in person. It was easy enough to operate—a dart gun, basically, with optional tracking features. It looked like something he'd ripped off of Skulker's suit and redesigned, but it was lightweight and pretty accurate even with her limited practice time.

Understandably, though, Phantom didn't want to get hit.

"Why can't we just take the night off for once?" Phantom hollered back as he zigzagged along ahead of her. "Don't you have an English test tomorrow you should be studying for?"

Valerie ground her teeth. She did have a test, and the fact that Phantom knew that—! "I'll take the night off when you stay in the Ghost Zone where you belong!"

Phantom actually pulled up short. "Seriously?" he whined as she drew up to him, not about the waste the opportunity to shoot him point blank. "I do not belong in the Ghost Zone!"

"You're a ghost, aren't you?"

Phantom crossed his arms. "Not every ghost starts off in the Ghost Zone. There's a harmless ghost in Wisconsin, the Dairy King. He stays in this world and doesn't bother anyone. Then there's Plasmius, who's also part of this world and bothers everyone. And me. And we're not alone. C'mon, if you hunt ghosts, you've gotta know there are different kinds. You can't lump me in with Skulker and the Box Ghost."

"Watch me," growled Valerie as she pulled the trigger.

Phantom was too surprised to dodge. He'd expected her to continue the conversation, not the fight. He was too trusting if he thought she'd overlook an opportunity like this. They hadn't called a truce, and he hadn't given her any reason to.

The dart hit true, right in the middle of his chest. She smiled. Finally.

She saw him frown—probably trying to flicker intangible—but the dart stayed where it had been planted.

Something sparked, so small she wouldn't have noticed if it hadn't been so dark.

He screamed.

And then he fell.

Valerie dove to follow him, surprise and confusion and—consternation? For Phantom?—fighting for dominance.

Phantom crashed through the shrubbery and hit the ground hard. He writhed in the bottom of the resulting crater, and for a moment his scream cut off—as if he'd had breath to knock from his body. Valerie let her sled collapse and carefully dropped to the ground, all too aware of the Ghostly Wail that could erupt from Phantom's mouth at a moment's notice. She'd weather those shockwaves much better on the ground.

He'd curled into a fetal position, softly keening. She shifted her feet and scowled; scowling was easy, and it felt…safer…than worry. "You don't need to act," she muttered, but her heart wasn't in it. She still felt uneasy. Sure, it was a new weapon, and apparently the dart had something in it or was coated so that it couldn't be phased through, but—

Another flash, another shriek from Phantom. It came again, bright and blinding. Valerie squinted, glad of her tinted visor. It looked like lightning, but from a dart? That didn't make sense. And judging from the show Phantom was putting on—a show it was very hard not to believe, despite her resolve—it was almost like….

Phantom's wild eyes found hers, and for a moment lucidity sparked behind them. "Make it stop," he begged. "Please!"

More lightning, racing from the dart and across his limbs. A frown pulled at her face. It shouldn't do that; it should go right through him, straight to the ground. Ectoblasts weren't electricity, not really, so being a ghost shouldn't—

"Make it stop!" he howled, clawing futilely at his chest. He couldn't seem to make his fingers grasp the dart. "Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop!"

No Ghostly Wail.

Maybe he hadn't fallen because of shock or pain; maybe he'd lost the ability to fly, too. She knew the Fentons had developed a Spectre Deflector. Was this something similar, except in dart form?

The arcing electricity began running more frequently, and Phantom's cries blurred into wordless keening, only occasionally punctuated by her name ripped from his throat by sheer force of will.

Valerie swallowed.

This was harder to watch than she'd anticipated.

She'd wanted to see Phantom destroyed after he'd ruined her life, but….

But he'd never seemed so human before.

She crossed her arms and tried to summon the iron will that seemed to have abandoned her. "You've been hit with worse, Phantom," she sneered. "Skulker got us both once, remember?"

She got no reply from Phantom, but in truth, she wasn't sure he'd heard her. Skulker had knocked her out that one time. Knocked them both out, from what she could tell, which couldn't be an easy feat where a ghost was concerned. And maybe that's what Mr. Masters had intended with this weapon—that the 'pain' (it couldn't be real pain if the Fentons were right about ghosts not being able to feel that) would be enough to overwhelm Phantom and knock him out.

Except that wasn't happening.

Sure, Phantom had gotten stronger, but if that had been Mr. Masters' plan, he would have accounted for that and then some. This—

Phantom's scream reached new levels and he suddenly arched his back as if he were possessed by another ghost and had become nothing more than a puppet. A ring of white light appeared around his middle, different than the blinding flashes of before in its steadiness. Valerie stared. "What the—?"

The ring vanished.

Phantom collapsed back to the ground, panting. "Val," he croaked, "you've gotta…. I can't take this. You've gotta take it out. I don't think I can—"

Another cry was ripped from his throat as electricity danced over his body, and Valerie flinched.

The ring reappeared.

Disappeared.

"Valerie, please." It was barely a hoarse whisper now. "I can't…. I can't…. This might actually kill me."

Any sympathy Valerie had been feeling abruptly disappeared. "You're already dead, ghost scum. If you think—"

"I know," he interrupted, struggling to sit up. His fierceness faded as his energy flagged, and he fell back without ever managing to pull himself upright. "This is…. This is from Vlad. He knows. He's…he's trying to get me to change."

Valerie crossed her arms. "Where I get my gear doesn't concern you."

He didn't hear her, though. The shock had come again. The shock and the screams. To think she'd actually been falling for it.

When this latest bout ended, Phantom reached for the dart again—slowly, deliberately—but it just sent out another wave of electricity. This time, the white ring appeared while the other electricity was still sparking, lighting up the night far more than her headlamp did and casting an eerie glow around what was now a small clearing in the brush just outside of town. The ring held steady for a few long seconds before wavering and blinking out of existence again. When it—and the arcing electricity from the dart—was gone, Phantom's eyes rolled to meet hers. "See? I can't…. You need to help me. I can't take it out. I think…." He swallowed. "I think it needs human hands. I just…. I trigger it this way. It won't stop reacting until it touches human flesh. Valerie, please."

"You're getting what you deserve, Phantom. You destroyed my life."

"That's not—!" Phantom broke off in a fit of coughing, managed to curl back up onto his side, and spit out ectoplasm. He seemed relieved that the electricity hadn't come again, but Valerie was pretty sure it wasn't out of juice. Mr. Masters knew how strong Phantom was; he wouldn't cut corners on a weapon designed to take him down. It probably just needed to build up a charge again, giving Phantom a few moments of grace while he was too worn out to take advantage of them.

"That's not what happened?" guessed Valerie. "That's not what this is about? Pull the other one, ghost boy. I'm not about to fall for your lies."

Phantom couldn't seem to muster the energy to look at her anymore. "He's just using you, Val," he murmured. She pursed her lips, not wanting to dignify that with another denial he'd ignore. "It's about him and me, not me and your misplaced desire for revenge."

She snorted. "You fixating on him because he moved here after you tried to claim our town as your own? That's low, even for you. Mr. Masters has done a lot for this town."

"That's one way of putting it," muttered Phantom. "Look, Val—"

The electricity returned, spiderwebbing over his body as his mouth opened in a wordless scream. The strange ring returned almost immediately, and this time it started to split into two.

Where they pulled apart, she could see a sliver of white where his black suit should be.

And then the rings snapped back together, and the black returned.

"What the heck is that supposed to be?" demanded Valerie as soon as the electricity had died down again.

Phantom didn't answer here, opting instead to lie limply on the ground and pretend to draw in rapid breaths.

"Phantom!"

Nothing.

He's trying to get me to change. Was this what Phantom had been talking about? She still had no idea what it meant, but—

I trigger it this way. Why say that, implying that there was a way he wouldn't trigger it?

It won't stop reacting until it touches human flesh. That just made no sense. Well, it made sense that Mr. Masters would design a ghost hunting weapon like that so that it was harmless to humans beyond the damage a normal dart would do, but— But why would Phantom say that like he had? In that context….

Valerie risked getting onto her knees and raising her protective visor. As a courtesy, she shut off her headlamp so she didn't blind him. Assuming that were even possible. "Phantom, if you want my help, you better tell it to me straight and fast. What was that? And what were you talking about earlier with Mr. Masters' dart?"

Phantom opened his eyes, and she jerked back. Even in the dim moonlight, they were unmistakably blue. Blue! Not the bright blue that warned of his ice powers, but—

He blinked.

His eyes were green again.

She wondered if she was losing her mind.

"I can't."

She waited.

He didn't say anything else.

She crossed her arms. "You better."

His eyes drifted closed. "Can't."

"Can't what, tell me? Explain? Find the energy to talk? You better muster it somehow if you want my help after what you've done to me, buster."

"Jus' can't," he mumbled. Maybe he wasn't even really hearing her. He might not be lucid right now. She had no idea how this dart affected ghosts. If the electricity was disrupting his internal energy fields, he might be hallucinating—or on the verge of melting into ectoplasmic goo. His usual ghostly glow was practically nonexistent now; if it weren't for the way his suit caught the moonlight, he'd look completely human.

She poked his shoulder, just to see how solid he was, and he flinched.

It set off the dart.

She was close enough that she could feel the hair on her neck stand on end, and she scrambled backwards in an attempt to save the electronics she wore. Just because she was human, didn't mean the dart wouldn't fry the technology she used.

She was ready for the appearance of the rings this time, ready when they started to split apart to see whatever she could see. Phantom's face was screwed up in pain, and his cheeks glistened with tears—crocodile tears, likely as not—because whatever this was, he didn't want her to see it.

He didn't want her to know about it.

From what he'd said, Mr. Masters knew about it, but—

The rings stopped, started to close again, and another shockwave was sent out from the dart. They sprang apart, farther than before, and Valerie watched with wide eyes. As the rings inched over Phantom's body, his familiar suit vanished. In its place seemed to be a white shirt and jeans.

She knew ghosts could change their appearance, and not just the ones like Skulker whose outer appearance was only a shell anyway. She also knew that there were ghosts that wore modern(ish) clothes. Just because she'd always seen Phantom in his suit, didn't mean he didn't stick with casual dress when he wasn't out hunting down other ghosts or terrorizing the town.

Except, if that were the case, if it were really so simple, he wouldn't be fighting this so hard.

The rings closed again, but far slower than before.

"Valerie, please," whimpered Phantom.

Was it just because it was dark and she was imagining things, or were the tips of his hair darker now?

"Phantom, what is this?"

He mumbled something in reply, but it didn't make any sense. What the heck was a mid-morph sample supposed to be? Ghosts changing forms wasn't a big deal. They were ghosts. They were just made up of ectoplasm anyway, and—

He was coughing again. This time, whatever he spit up was darker than ectoplasm.

Something shimmered, and his usual silver boots were replaced with dull red shoes.

She activated her headlamp again.

Saw blood.

The electricity returned, and she knew Phantom didn't have the energy to fight it. He still tried, screwing his eyes shut in concentration, but within seconds she could see a pair of jeans, and even as she watched, his hair darkened to match his eyebrows.

He suddenly looked heart-wrenchingly familiar, and she began to feel sick.

The electricity didn't stop until she saw her dart buried in the centre of the red oval on Danny Fenton's T-shirt.

Something chimed. "Mid-morph sample acquired," a voice chirped in her ear, sounding eerily like Maddie Fenton's.

"Danny?" Valerie whispered, afraid to speak too loudly now.

He didn't move.

This might actually kill me.

Valerie retched as the realization hit her. Her suit reacted, withdrawing as she dropped to her knees in front of him. Her hands landed in his blood. It stained them, making a mockery of her moniker. This wasn't supposed to be why she was called the Red Huntress!

She swallowed back bile. She didn't understand exactly what had happened, but this didn't feel like a trick. This was…. This was real, somehow. It shouldn't be, but it was, and it was horrible, and, oh, god, this was all her fault, what if he actually—! "Danny, I'm sorry. Please wake up. Please be okay."

She reached a bloody hand towards him to try to feel for a pulse and hoped she hadn't just done what she thought she had, that Danny would recover, that he'd be okay, that they could figure this out and move forward somehow, and she'd sort out whatever was going on with Mr. Masters, and—

"Please be okay," Valerie whispered again before holding her breath, trying to feel something besides her own heartbeat pulsing in her fingertips.

She wasn't religious, but that didn't matter now. She began to pray to anyone who might be out there and listening. Right now, until she found out how he was, it was all she could do. Please be alive. Please have a pulse. If he didn't, if she couldn't find one….

Please be okay, Danny.