ghostly conquer

22

This is a new fact of reality which has been folded into the collective human understanding of existence known as life, with mixed results in the department of acceptance. Wondering for so many years as to what lies beyond mortal life and what waits on the other side, human beings are given yet another stark reminder in a lesson it has taught itself, yet never learned:

'Be careful what you wish for'.

Long before gaining the answer to its question, humans had sought to answer the question by means of philosophy and fantasy, combining them to create a new concept called religion. Once devised as a mere guess comprised of what little facts were available to them, it had soon become reality in the minds of many human beings across the globe.

Over time, their own creation no longer became their means as an educated guess to the questions of the universe, but a coping mechanism against fear that the answers they would find would not be to their satisfaction... and as a means of control for those who would manipulate those still of belief.

After gaining the answer to the afterlife through the hard means of science, most of the human race had shed this concept, as if children putting away their toys as they matured and grew with new information. The change has been a long and gradual path to find enlightenment over the past 10 years...

...but, just as there are still people needing hope against the horrors of everyday life, and those who would control those same people for their own ends, the concept of religion has not yet completely died off. It lives on now in the form of theocratic governments, street gangs, paramilitary groups, and other such loose organizations grouping around shared goals of malevolence.

Danny Fenton, stripped of his ghost half and all his powers that came with it, has come into many close encounters of those same groups, but, after surviving through all the ordeals, he has at last been put to another facet that the knowledge of the afterlife that has been on the back of many minds, but rarely touched upon by the masses:

If ghosts exist, can one connect with with their dead loved ones?

He has found the answer is 'yes'.

Murdered alongside the rest of the Fenton family, Jazz Fenton has returned from her death in the form of a ghost, the same spectral being which she and her family have been hunting for years. Just as each ghost she has fought against has had a purpose and a reason for its existence, she now exists for one of the same goals she held during her years of life as an older sister:

Give Danny all the support she can give him.

Within a small, dingy apartment, something that thought to be long extinct with technological advances in the past few years, she continues to follow through that task, lightly tapping a warm, wet washcloth on the head of Danny Fenton as he laid in an old spring bed, another antique of the past.

The apartment is owned by Danielle Phantom, the female clone of Danny created by Vlad Masters. Despite being generous enough to allow both estranged members of her family (if she can be considered family by the unique circumstances of her existence), she has no interest in the two at the moment, instead putting her focus on flipping through TV channels with her cat, Spooky, sitting on her lap.

After changing through several channels and not being able to find one she could settle on, her attention returned back to the Fentons for an update on Danny's state.

"He doing better?" Danielle asked.

"Getting there. He had a rough patch out there." Jazz said.

"Yeah. He would've been dead if not for me, you know."

"I do know that. And thank you for saving his life."

Giving off a look of surprised disappointment from Jazz's show of thanks, Danielle returned back to her television, continuing to flip through channels to find something of her interest to watch. Jazz, having given Danny enough attention and care, moved to Danielle to talk to her.