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Amity Park always had its own brand of weird and at this point Danny was not even going to question it. To be totally honest, he had been responsible for opening a rift between dimensions, so it would be valid, fair even, to say most of the new oddities were partly his fault.
The latest event started a while ago but it was only until it became too crowded that he noticed the full extent of what was going on.
Danny wasn’t superstitious, but he had to admit the first time he noticed a connection to his current issue was before the portal accident. He had been hanging out around the lab with his parents while they built it, often asking about what they were hoping to find, what they were doing to this wire or the other, handing them tools or materials to complete their greatest masterpiece. Just when the interior was finished, he noticed a large, dark moth on the left wall of the unfinished portal. His mom saw it soon after but said she couldn’t be distracted from the wiring and asked him to take the insect out of the basement.
With a cup and a folder he found near the lab’s computer, he trapped the moth and took it outside, afraid to hurt the little fellow who managed to get inside their home. Once he made it to the backyard near the tree he used to climb when he was a kid, he left the moth closer to its bark expecting the flying insect to release its hold on the folder. The moth flew upwards and landed on a branch, where a crow promptly swooped down to eat it.
Danny wanted to mourn the poor little insect who escaped the basement intact only to die in a predator’s mouth, but he found the situation oddly ironic. When he told his friends about the whole incident, Sam gave him a gloomy interpretation of deadly omens and tragedy striking. He didn’t pay it any mind until the accident happened and, well… the rest was history.
But that wasn’t his last interaction with animals of that kind. Especially crows.
After the accident flipped his world upside down, the oddities in Amity Park hadn’t been so severe right away. He did, however, notice how the crow from the backyard had decided to follow him everywhere. Danny hadn’t been sure at first if it was the same one, but something about the bird seemed consistent with every sighting he had. Eventually, the crow began to leave shiny, tiny gifts by Danny’s window. Sometimes near the Ops Centre, which he found late at night when he was out stargazing.
But then things got even weirder. If he had to guess a timeline when things took a shift to an eerier direction, he’d guesstimate it was after Pariah Dark’s invasion. Maybe it had something to do with having a whole town transported to a different dimension.
He at first noticed the way most flowers would now bloom during starry nights instead of sunny days, following in some gardens the patterns of his favorite constellations. It made the sight from above look like a mirror image of the stars glued to his bedroom’s ceiling.
Or the way people avoided leaving the city, saying they were getting used to the ghostly “shenanigans” (a terrible euphemism for beings taking over the city and destroying property), and they would feel too bored in any other part of the world. His friends said it felt like staying home with a hot cup of chocolate and a cozy blanket, staring at the rain outside. Like a warm pull keeping them safe and sound. Danny suspected this was Amity Park’s version of Stockholm Syndrome towards the ambient ectoplasm...
And then there were the creepy animals stalking him. All kinds of animals, but the more he searched for Sam’s input, there was always some obscure symbolism about them, linking them to death and bad news. It wasn’t just the gift-bearer crow in his backyard…
One crow became two. Then four. Then seven. “Congratulations, you have a murder,” Sam had joked the day they realized he did in fact have a following. After the ominous signals before his accident, he worried about the possible meaning behind the strange occurrence. Was it another bad omen? Were people dying in Amity that he didn’t notice? Was it a signal for something else?
Paranoia had settled in Danny’s chest but he didn’t dare say a word to his friends. How could he express his fears of not being as alive as they believed? How could he even begin to voice the theory that he was just a dead man walking, in the most literal sense, and that was why the crows were following him?
The crows weren’t suddenly limited to living crows. Ghostly crows, fully formed with green and black feathers, began to join the already-formed murder. Shades of birds he was sure were just as crow-like as the ones fully formed loomed nearby as well. They didn’t appear at the same time. Sometimes the living crows would follow him as Phantom, maybe to be closer to the deathly aura (maybe those crows weren’t alive either, in the first place). The avian shades and ghostly crows began to follow him only as Fenton, usually around ghost attacks. For those, he figured they were attracted to the faint smell of death, goading it to come out in the shape of his ghost form.
It was absolutely creepy and he even had to ask some of his ghost allies so he didn’t lose his mind over this. Johnny had told him it was definitely bad luck, and he should know about that. Ghost Writer shut the door in his face but told Danny he hoped these were ravens haunting him forever more. Frostbite had guaranteed that no, he wasn’t a corpse being followed by crows, and in any case cardinals would’ve been plaguing him; they weren’t, to Danny’s huge relief. “These crows are looking to be at your service, Great One. They have become kindred souls in a way,” the Yeti had said.
Danny only hoped his new kindred souls would understand it was hard living with ghost hunters and having a social life in high school without them following him around wherever he went. Sam was probably the only one digging the goth aesthetic.
Despite his initial concerns, dealing with his new murder wasn’t that big of a problem at home; his parents could be easily distracted to notice anything wrong. But Casper High was an entirely different deal, with everyone paying close attention like vultures to anything that switched the general social hierarchy, in particular if Danny was being considered the odd kid to steer far away from as he went through whatever dark phase this was.
Sam helped Danny a lot on that front, telling everyone stories about how the crows following weren’t really crows but ravens (the A-listers couldn’t tell the difference anyway). And how those ravens were the lost souls of former Casper High players, coming to haunt the halls of the school.
“No, wait, guys, I totally heard Manson say these were old spirits of football players who couldn’t win a game night.”
“I hear these were the quarterbacks who failed to bring home a title!”
“Nuh-huh, I heard these were cheerleaders who didn’t get their backflips right.”
Speculation led to awe when everyone realized Danny Fenton, for whatever reason, was in charge of a small army of ghostly ravens.
“Actually, those are crows,” Mikey once said, earning glares from all the jocks and cheerleaders who had found a tragic backstory to Danny’s following and now wanted him to wear the mascot’s suit in the next game for good luck. “It’s actually really cool because you can say there’s a murder following Danny everywhere,” he tried to explain, but he was silenced by the in-crowd plotting the events for Friday’s encounter against Elmerton’s Jackals.
Danny tried to ignore all the attention his dead and living birds brought him, but it was hard to avoid the gossip or the many invitations to do some show or trick at a game, and even attend someone’s birthday party to scare some relatives.
For some reason, after Pariah’s forced field trip to the Ghost Zone had turned things up a notch in the eerie department, instead of being relentlessly bullied around school for having his “Emo Disney Princess” animals, he was sort of praised about it. Maybe the shift in ambient ectoplasm also gave people a different point of perspective and they were beginning to be kinder.
But no, Mikey was still being bullied. The olive branch seemed to only extend invisibly to Danny and his friends.
Things took a new turn when the school announced for their sophomore year a new class to provide relevant information about ghosts. Ectoscience 101, they called it. Danny and his friends believed it would be a disaster for Phantom’s image and Danny’s mental health if the Fentons were to give the class. That would not only mean learning about Danny’s ghost-detecting bladder, as his classmates liked to call it, but also noticing how close the ghost crows had grown attached to their boy during school hours.
As it turned out, the Fenton parents were too busy to give the class, so they called in a colleague Danny could barely recognize from past conventions and conferences in their paranormal circle. The assigned teacher in this case ended up being Dr. Egon Vekman, a forty-something, up-and-coming para-scientist who admired his parents’ work since college and had followed their career all along.
Danny just hoped he wasn’t too observant and didn’t notice any of Danny’s oddities.
Dr. Venkman was awkwardly funny on their first day of class, introducing himself as a “desk ghost hunter” (which Sam explained meant he didn’t go out shooting ghosts, not that he specifically hunted desks), and an enthusiast of B-horror movies. Sam’s eyes shone in delight at the mention. As their new teacher passed his first roll call, he paused once he reached Danny’s name.
“Fenton—hold on,” Dr. Venkman said with a hint of shock as he turned to see the student in question with a scrutinizing look behind his glasses. “Danny Fenton? Son of Jack and Maddie?” The teen nodded in a slow and unsure way.
Dr. Venkman shook his head with a smile, tossed the list aside, and closed the book he had open on his desk. “Come here, boy! Please!”
Danny felt all eyes staring at him. Even the ghostly crows, who were thankfully invisible as they sat perched by the window, seemed to burn holes at the back of the half-ghost’s head.
“Uh, why?” the Fenton kid replied with suspicion. No one who was friends with his parents could be entirely good news for him.
The teacher barked a laugh. “Relax, kiddo, I’m not gonna bite you!”
“Go, Fenton!” Kwan suddenly shouted, earning a slap from Dash and a whispered ‘don’t encourage him, dude!’
Danny sighed tiredly and headed to the teacher’s desk. “Hi,” he offered in greeting when he reached the man.
Dr. Venkman’s green eyes seemed to appraise the boy and gave him a warm smile. The man ran a hand through his brown curls. “Wow, you’ve grown so much, my boy,” he whispered. He then stood up and patted Danny on the back. “Okie dokie, everyone. As you all know, Ectoscience wouldn’t be what it is today if we didn’t have the extraordinary findings of Drs. Jack and Madeline Fenton, living legends in our field and leading experts in the understanding of ghosts.”
Danny didn’t know what came over him but he couldn’t help to snort at the title, which got the teacher’s attention and inquisitive stare. The teen froze and had to backpedal. “Oh, uh, sorry. I just—I, uh… I can go to my seat, maybe?”
Too bad, too late. The damage was already done and Dr. Venkman’s brow furrowed in worry. “My boy, I’m sure you have enough knowledge about the topic, but it sure can’t be more than what your parents know. Show more respect. Or better yet. Please… enlighten us. You’ll give this class the whole week so we can get our facts straight for the rest of the semester.”
Uh-oh. Danny could feel his friends snickering at his misfortune. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply—”
“Nonsense!” the para-scientist declared with fake nonchalance, the worst brand in his opinion. “I’m sure you know plenty of things to keep our minds busy. If you only have material for one class, that’s fine too, but I do expect everyone to try their best.” He then turned to look at the rest of the class, a dark edge to his gaze completely visible. “It’s for your own survival, after all.” His eyes went back to Danny with a challenging grin. “And I expect much more from you in particular.”
Danny rolled his eyes. Hey, if he was getting in trouble for snorting at the mention of his parents’ expertise, he could pull this rebel vibe all the way through. “Fine, I’ll teach you what I know.”
Dr. Venkman sat in a satisfied way on his desk and offered Danny a marker for the whiteboard. The dude was definitely enjoying this, wasn’t he? Maybe he wanted to prove he was smarter than a Fenton or something. Whatever inferiority complex these scientists were more related to.
Danny accepted the marker and began to fidget with it as he thought where to start that wouldn’t get him into any trouble. Oh, of course! Why not use his own beginnings: the portal. What was the first thing he learned?
Now that he had the chance to teach this class, despite being a student himself, he decided to look for Phantom’s confidence to address his classmates. “Right, so, to start to learn about Ectoscience you first need to understand what a ghost really is.”
Danny spent the next thirty-something minutes listing the different types of ghosts, going from shades to blob ghosts, but also regular ghosts who came back after leaving an unfinished business back on earth, and finally the ghosts who symbolized concepts as complex as Time, going thoroughly to cover how real their sentience was in the whole process.
“Uh, yeah, Valerie?” Danny asked after he was done with his explanations once he saw the girl’s hand shoot up into the air.
The girl shifted a dark curl over her ear as she put her hand down, eyeing the boy with suspicion. “Danny, I want to ask this in the nicest way possible,” she paused and glared. “What. The actual. Fudge?”
Danny knew he had to play dumb so he shifted sheepishly. “What do you mean?”
“Since when did you know this much about ghosts?” she asked, probably wondering why she thought scrawny Danny Fenton wouldn’t be able to defend himself against ghosts.
This brought a smirk to Danny’s face. “What, like it’s hard?” Before Valerie could say anything else, the half-ghost continued. “What can I say? I listen to what the experts have to share.” Thought the experts in this case were definitely not his parents, but rather the ghosts he had befriended and learned from in the Ghost Zone.
Heck, even the crows staring at the whole lecture seemed to know what was up, probably well aware he was saying the truth.
“Thank you, Mr. Fenton!” Dr. Venkman congratulated the teen, placing a warm hand on his shoulder. “This was definitely an enlightening session and I’d love to ask your parents more about some of these interesting concepts covered today. You’ll be officially giving these lectures for the rest of the week.”
Danny paled. “You were serious about the whole week?” On second thought. “Wait, does that mean I’ll get paid for giving your class?” he asked with a raised eyebrow, glaring as the teacher laughed sheepishly.
“Why, of course, though we’ll find other forms of payment. How’s an A+ for the rest of the semester?” Dr. Venkman tried to negotiate quickly. The classroom erupted in protests, everyone calling the treatment unfair.
“I’ll tell you what,” the teacher interrupted, earning the silence of his students. “If any of you can refute with evidence and arguments anything Danny has to say in the next classes, I’ll grant you the A+ and Danny will have to work on the same final project as the rest of you.”
The voices of protest quietened down, some of the vigilante or overachiever variety even probably thinking they would be able to get more information than oblivious Danny Fenton. Though there was also a secondary whisper praising the kid and stating they would be wrong anyway and trusted Danny to prevail.
“That’s what I thought,” Dr. Venkman murmured before he turned excited to the rest of the class. “I hope you enjoyed your new teacher for the week.”
Danny didn’t know what to think of the whole situation. Maybe he could sneak away in the next class and avoid the experience altogether. He didn’t need to learn about ghosts from a human perspective, anyway. He just wanted to live and let live. Or was it after-live and let after-live?
The next two days went over quickly and mostly the same as expected. Ghost crows making themselves known above the rows of lockers as Danny walked inside, living crows perched outside as he fought the nuisances of the day, and gossip swirling all around him about how deeper into the ghost-hunting gig Danny seemed to be.
The worrying part started when a rumor began to state he had a pact of some sort with Phantom.
“Danny probably calls Phantom when a ghost’s nearby. Is he using the ravens to call him?” “For the last time, they’re crows” “Yeah, whatever”
“Phantom also has birds following him!” “It’s because he loves the crowds. Huh? Get It?” “Nah, man, I’m too tired for this punny shit…”
“Maybe they made a ritual to exchange birds! Think about it… they send each other messages. Oh, my god… what if they’re dating??”
Danny tuned everyone out when the most ridiculous theories began to surface. Despite everything, everyone seemed to be nicer to him now. Almost like Amity Park had become this warm place he didn’t want to leave either. A place where everyone, including the blooming flowers following his favorite patterns or the animals looking to help with any favor, seemed to like him now, in their own way.
He tried not to dwell too much on it, but it was hard not to feel the love in the attentive looks in his classmates’ eyes when he went to give his next-to-last lecture on Ectoscience. Even Dr. Venkman, who had been not-so-silently scoffing at Danny’s near-mocking of his parents’ work, grew fond of the kid and exchanged places with him as Danny shared everything he knew about ghosts that could be safe to share.
As he began o talk about the science behind ghosts and their emotions, Danny felt something on top of his head. A ghost crow, great. At least the bird wouldn’t leave an unpleasant surprise on his shoulder. The only surprise, however, was the small nuts and fruits the birds one by one came into the classroom to leave on the teacher’s (or, going by the logic of the next hour, his) desk. It reminded Danny he hadn’t eaten breakfast that morning. How perceptive.
The teen petted the bird on his head and offered his hand to get him off his hair. He belatedly noticed everyone had gone quiet and were staring at the small murder now sitting on the desk behind him, their piercing red eyes watching the whole class.
“Hey, uh, kiddo,” Dr. Venkman said as he cleared his throat. “Are those birds yours?”
Danny furrowed his brow in consideration. Technically speaking, they had been following him around for the past four months or so. But he didn’t claim any ownership of them. “Sort of? Not mine, but like… attached to me?” he confessed. He then realized who he was talking to and blanched. “Oh, but please don’t tell my parents. They’d—yeah, they wouldn’t be too kind to these cute little guys.”
He faintly heard the whispers of “cute?” among his classmates, their expressions showing concern for Fenton.
Dr. Venkman got up and walked towards Danny slowly. The crow in the teen’s hands cawed threateningly, an eerie sound filled with echo and static that seemed to follow most ectoplasmic entities. “Easy,” the teacher said in a low voice as he stopped at the warning sound.
The man’s eyes turned to look at Danny. “Could I… get closer?”
Danny eyed the crow and gave her a slight nod. Before smiling at Dr. Venkman. “Sheryl doesn’t like pets from other humans,” he explained. “But she’ll play nice if you want to see her.”
Dr. Venkman laughed softly as he studied the undead bird from all angles, Sheryl never leaving the guy out of sight but behaving as Danny claimed she would.
“Did you name all the ravens?” Kwan asked in awe.
“Crows!” Mikey groaned.
“That’s not the school mascot,” Dale protested.
“Idiots. Who said they had anything to do with the mascot?” Wes grumbled.
“Why is no one questioning the seven ghosts inside the classroom?” Valerie muttered with a death glare matched by Danny’s crows. Oh, right, she had tried to trap them several times, to no avail.
Danny smiled at the memory and the questions. He turned to his deadly companions fondly. “Yeah, they’re Russell, Poe, Raven—”
“See?”
“That’s a name, dumbass!”
“—Valkyrie, Nell, and… Nom,” Danny finished, each crow raising their wings as if greeting his classmates as their names were mentioned. “Nom will fetch shiny things but he’ll probably eat them too,” he added in a deadpan tone. Nom cawed proudly.
“Danny,” Dr. Venkman said in awe. “Why don’t you tell us all about these birds and give us a demonstration of what they’re capable of in class.”
Oh, Danny knew they were capable of some fowl things, but he didn’t think the class was prepared for that. “Uh, yeah, we can do some light overview.”
The class was mesmerized by the explanation of ghost animals and how the crows had been a gift from Phantom to protect him from any harm, to see if a half-truth would help the half-ghost in the long run.
“So, you really know Phantom?” Paulina asked with huge surprised eyes, shining with hope. “Can he come to class tomorrow?”
Uh-oh. This was dangerous territory. And, as usual, his two best friends only snickered at his expense. They did warn him not to try to mention Phantom. They also told him naming his crow “Nom” was a totally mind-noming idea.
“No, he’s busy? Fighting ghosts an all?” Danny tried to reply.
“Oh, but do you know why living ravens are following him too?” Star asked. An exasperated whisper of "crows” was heard again from Mikey. The blonde cheerleader continued anyway. “I mean…did you give him those in exchange?”
Danny was entering dangerous territory, but he could maybe work with this, in a way. “No, I didn’t give them. Amity Park did.”
Everyone’s eyes widened comically at that. “How did Amity Park give him live animals?” “Didn’t Mayor Masters hate Phantom as much as the Fentons did?” “Are you sure he didn’t just lure them to give people bad omens?”
“Everyone please, settle down,” Dr. Venkman said—when had Sheryl moved to the teacher’s shoulder? “We will listen to Danny’s brilliant explanations and, please, for the love of everything sacred in paranormal science, nothing you hear in this session leaves the classroom.” The teacher turned to face the crow next to his head, who nodded in approval.
Danny didn’t want to unpack any of that right now. “So, yeah,” he began awkwardly as he leaned back against the teacher’s (his) desk. “Amity Park has this weird… vibe? I guess you can call it? There’s ectoplasm everywhere since the portal opened. And since Phantom is keeping the town safe, let’s just say the town’s ectoplasm has collectively decided to keep him safe as well.” Or that’s what he had gathered with his friends and from Frostbite’s visits. “So, the crows are sort of keeping him company in a way. It’s a way to say Amity Park loves him.” And Danny had to smile fondly at that now that he thought about it in that way.
Mikey’s hand was raised now. “Does that mean you got ghost crows from Phantom because their ghost world loves you in a way?” the redhead said with such an awestruck face it made Danny feel under a microscope.
Danny opened his mouth to talk when Nom flew to Mikey’s desk and tilted his head. “No,” the bird said in a horrifying whispering voice. “We love him because he’s our king.”
The class fell silent. The wide eyes from before returning, now matched with paling expressions. Even Sam and Tucker blanched at the words coming out of the otherwise feral crow.
Nom then flew back to sit next to the other birds and cawed as if he hadn’t spoken a single word—since when did they even talk!?
“Holy shit,” Dash exclaimed, reminding Danny of the quarterback’s surprise when Freakshow revealed his secret before Phantom wiped everyone’s memories. “You really are an Emo Disney character.”
Everyone burst out laughing, the tension breaking with that simple expression. At least now that everyone was distracted with a joke, Danny was in more familiar territory and would know how to steer the conversation away from revealing much more than he wanted. After all, he had more important and distressing things to worry about later when he went into the Ghost Zone to ask about the whole King deal. It sure was nothing to crow about at school…