Chapter Text
Johnny's motorcycle rumbled as he hit the gas. The scenery blurred around him as he weaved around another corner. Phantom yelped behind him as they overshot the same turn and disappeared from view. Within seconds, they were back in view of his side mirror.
"Shadow," he called out, "defend!"
Shadow unfurled from underneath the bike and pounced at Phantom, sending the two careening into a building. Johnny disappeared around another turn, taking out two trash cans and a mailbox as he did. He mentally apologized to Shadow for running off but kept going. There wasn't any reason for Phantom to be going after him tonight. The only thing he'd broken was the speed limit!
... until the little punk had showed up yelling about "needing to talk". Then there might have been a small bit of property damage. Maybe a bit more than a small bit but who really needed all those mailboxes these days? Nobody was keeping track of it anyway especially not himself. He definitely wasn't keeping score or anything. Course not. That'd be dumb. thirty-two.
He continued his high speed get away for a few moments before ducking into an alleyway and killing his engine. Not that his bike made much noise anyway but hey, old habits die hard. He remembered to turn invisible too at the last second, barely missing getting spotted as Phantom soared over head with Shadow hot on his heels.
As the sound of fighting disappeared into the distance, Johnny dipped back into the visible spectrum. After a quick check that his precious cargo of the day was still intact, he sped off in the opposite direction towards Amity Park Mall.
Without his Shadow, driving his motorcycle felt that little extra bit of dangerous. Maybe it was just his memories of life clinging on to his ectoplasm, but driving around in the human realm always made him feel like he was a little alive somewhere inside. The heat of the sun on his back, the little bumps and cracks in the road, and the natural scenery had him both on ease and on edge all at once.
Phasing through the front doors, Johnny slowed his bike to a crawl as he weaved his way through the shopping crowd. While people startled and generally moved out of the way, nobody tried to shoot him anymore. That was nice. While the Fentons and a few others were still a problem, most of the town had gotten used to some ghosts hanging around town. Not everyone, Skulker and Technus were still a blast on sight policy, but a small handful of ghosts had gained the tentative trust of the town. Kitty liked to joke that they were like stray cats in a cafe that had snuck in enough times that they stopped trying to keep them out.
After a few minutes of biking around, he finally spotted the short green hair he was looking for. Kitty was floating next to Ember in front of some kind of clothes shop called "Spooky Shirts, Shoes, and Service". Johnny had never been inside it himself but it was supposed to be a clothing and tourist keepsakes shop, which had jokingly put up a sign declaring themselves ghost friendly. He wondered if the shop owners were still laughing?
"Johnny!" Kitty yelled as he parked his bike, "What took you so long? I thought you were just grabbing my purse."
"Five bucks says it was Dipsticks fault," Ember said as she pointed to his feet. "His Shadow ain't here and there's only one good reason for that."
"I wasn't doin' nothin'!"
Ember scoffed, "You must have done something. The little dipstick doesn't just go after us for no reason. Come on, you can spill what ya did."
"Nothin'," he protested as he handed off Kitties purse, "I was just riding along until he flew up next to me and started telling me to pull over. I told him to save it 'til I got you your purse back. Then he starts yelling 'bout 'This is really important' and 'The sooner we talk the better'. He tried to shoot out Thirteen's tires! Can you believe it?"
"Thirteen's tires?"
Kitty explained affectionately, "He found out people named boats so he named his bike Thirteen."
"Ah, so he is a dork."
"No he's not-"
Johnny tuned out the ensuing argument as the two floated into the shop together. Neither had any human money but Kitty always insisted on bringing her purse with her on these types of outings. They never bought anything but they both liked to see the latest fashion trends, if only to make fun of them. He didn't really get the appeal but that's why it was an activity relegated to "Girl's Night 2.0". Neither of them would tell him what happened at the first Girl's Night but he can guess who put a stop to it.
He was brought out of his thoughts by Shadow slinking back underneath with a low grumble. Beat up but not completely down. They returned willingly. Which meant- "Johnny, I really need to talk to you"- Phantom couldn't be far behind.
"I wasn't doing anything worth talkin' about. Sit on it, will you?" Johnny started for his bike but Phantom darted in front of him.
"Dude, what is you're problem? I just need to talk to you!"
"Dream on, dude. You only ever come after me to take me back to the zone. What else would you need from me, my help?"
"Yes, actually," Danny said, "I do need your help, if you're willing."
Johnny waited for the other shoe to drop. He waited a little longer. A little bit longer. He blinked in disbelieve, "... wait, really? Ya could have led with that."
Danny moved out of the way to allow Johnny back to his bike. "I was trying to do that on the way over here. Now come on, it's a complicated situation and I need Tucker and Sam to help me explain it."
"Okay," Johnny agreed hesitantly as he hopped on his bike, "but why me?"
A flicker of several emotions crossed over Phantom's face before it settled into an easy smile, "You're the best pick for the job."
The best pick for the job? With Johnny's luck, that couldn't mean anything good.
"-and that's the whole situation." Tucker clicked a button on his PDA and ended the presentation. "Any questions?"
"Uhhh-" Johnny glanced over to Shadow, who just shrugged. It had been four maybe five hours since team Phantom had started pelting him with information. He'd stopped really listening about ... two minutes in and started regretting it by the second hour. What had stuck out to him was the talk about some other hero named Batman, something called corrupted ectoplasm, and a pool of some sort. Then he heard the word "politics" and tuned right back out again.
"I told you this was too much all at once," Sam said only slightly smugly.
"It is not-" Tucker defended as the two friends decended into aimless bickering.
Johnny watched awkwardly from the sidelines. Fights were fun but arguments were never his specialty. Shadow didn't seem to mind as it nodded along to each argument sent back and forth.
Peeling his eyes away from the heated words, Johnny looked over to Danny, now in human form, who was flipping through some kind of notebook.
"Here," he offered after finding the page he wanted, "I have the notes from when we first learned about it. It's kinda complicated."
Johnny thanked him and started skimming the pages. "Kinda complicated" was an understatement. From what he could understand, there had been a deal made with a group of humans a really long time ago with the previous king, Pariah Dark. A pool of ectoplasm was placed on earth for the people to... bath in? Weird, but not the craziest thing he'd heard done before. The purpose of the pool was to expand the lifespan of people who bathed in it. In exchange, Pariah Dark got a bunch of riches every decade or something. Classic type of deal.
Something that was only in the ghosts version of the paperwork was that the ectoplasm needed to be cleaned every couple years or so. If it didn't get cleaned, it would become corrupted and "really nasty". If the humans used the corrupt ectoplasm, it could cause all sorts of side effects like mood swings, glowing eyes, inhuman reflexes and strength, and resurrection after death.
... Johnny had to reread that last point a few times before he started to believe it.
Since Pariah Dark had been originally locked up, no one had been ordered to clean out the pool. So it had stayed there uncleaned for close to a thousand years. A pit of corrupt ectoplasm on earth for around a thousand years that can extend life spans, cause mood swings, and resurrect the dead. He didn't need it explained why that was a really bad thing.
It was the rest of the situation that needed explaining.
The rest of the notes were a lot more jumbled, skipping around and with messier hand writing, but still readable. The pool was in a city called Gotham which had it's own protector. Something or someone called Batman was the local hero, who was noted to look a lot like Shadow and occasionally had other bird themed people working along side them to stop crime. Another name that popped up a lot was Robin, who was described as a "walking traffic light". The word sword was written next to the name once with a lot of question marks after it, which was as confusing as it was concerning. The real confusing part was some kind of riddle written in big bold letters and underlined enough times to nearly tear the page.
"Only those who have fully seen through the veil of death may find the Lazarus Pit."
Johnny must have spent too long trying to make sense of it as Danny jumped into explain. "Yah, that specific requirement from the original deal is the problem. What it means is that the only people who can find the pit are people who have seen someone die in front of them or full ghosts, like you. Apparently being half dead aint dead enough." He grumbled out that last part like it had been made specifically to spite him. Which, knowing the little mans luck, wasn't an impossible explanation.
The puzzle peices started to click together in his mind as he pointed at the pages. "So, that's my job? Help you find this pit thing?"
"Yep," Danny nodded with a grimace, "and it's going to take a while."
"Not with my bike it won't." Johnny pointed out, "I'll just phase through everything until I find it. Should take a few hours, maybe a day or two tops."
"That's where you're wrong. Ya see-" Tucker was cut off by Sam pushing him aside and ranting angrily.
"Gotham city is covered in practically every type of curse, smog, and toxin you can think of!" She nearly screech out, catching herself at the last moment. She continued her rant in a barley contained seething hiss, "In the water, the air, and even the building supplies! We don't know why or what caused it but it makes quite a bit of Gotham ghost proof. Sometimes it's just a small section of wall but it can cover an entire city block in some parts. Which means searching is going to take a lot longer than Danny, or either of us, can spare."
Johnny huffed, "oh, so just cus I'm dead means I don't have anything to do?" He could feel Shadow slink back behind him. A reassuring presence that gave him that little extra boost of confidence to keep going. "What would I tell Kitty? What am I supposed to get out of this? Don't you have other ghost friends that could help you out?"
"Alright, alright, one question at a time," Tucker grumbled as he sat in one of the various bean bag chairs. "First off, if you can think of a way to disguise a seven foot tall ghost yeti with an ice arm as a human or update a medieval princess on a couple centuries of history to the point that they don't raise any eyebrows, we're all ears. Most of our ghost friends just don't blend in well enough. You, on the other hand, managed to disguise yourself so well Danny's parents didn't know you were a ghost when you tried dating Jazz."
"Second, uhh-" he looked over at the other two- "how should I phrase the whole 'fake living-identity college' thing?"
Now that grabbed Johnny's attention. He'd never gotten to go to college when he'd been alive, didn't have high enough grades to get in. The parties he heard about was the main draw in, but he'd been eyeing some of the schools with mechanical classes. He'd wanted to understand how his bike worked and save a few bucks by doing the maintenance himself. Maybe he could finally learn how a real engine ran on oil instead of ectoplasm.
The trio explained how they'd use Sam's family resources and Tuckers hacking skills to make him a fake identity and enroll him in Gotham University. He'd get to stay in on campus housing and join any clubs he wanted as long as he met the requirements the club had. He technically didn't have to go to any classes he didn't want to as it wasn't going to be a four year deal. If he couldn't find the Lazarus Pit by the end of the first semester, he'd come back to Amity Park and the trio would think of a new strategy.
As they explained, he was handed a couple of papers on classes and clubs. Looking through the lists he saw lots of classes that he didn't quite understand the names of and a couple that he did. A few even seemed specific to engines or bikes were underlined. But it was a crazy option. He's a ghost. The dead can't live among the living. Right?
"Phantom does," a little voice in the back of his head whispers, "and we could too."
A second chance. Something a lot of ghosts would kill for if the notion wasn't impossible and insane. But here it was, a chance that was sounding more and more plausible with every passing word. Kitty had been pestering him to learn about things other than bikes. He wouldn't really have anything to lose if it went south or he got found out. He'd get to go someplace new which was always exciting. Staying in one spot for so long was starting to cramp his style. His core buzzed in anticipation of the long drive to somewhere else.
He wouldn't be alive but he'd certainly be living.
"... one condition," he paused, watching the three hanging onto every word, "I'm not the one to explain this to Kitty."
Wary groans and mumbled complaints were loud but brief. The sounds quickly turned to excited chatter as details and choices were thrown around with reckless abandon. Johnny just leaned back into the bean bag chair he'd been sitting in and twirled the edges of Shadow around his fingers. There was a lot to chose and think about for the next few weeks. But it seemed like it'd work out well in the end.
Maybe his luck wasn't so bad.