[Third Person's PoV]
Both Dick and Danny, who were still leaning against each other for support, blinked in confusion upon hearing the name. The slow fluttering of their eyelids quickened as they processed Vantasma's next words.
"Although you probably wouldn't have heard of him and likely have no clue who he is," the little ghost continued, "Vincent van Gogh wasn't exactly famous in his lifetime. His work was underappreciated, dismissed. No one truly saw the beauty in it back then…" Vantasma's voice softened, tinged with melancholy.
The two teens exchanged bewildered glances, their brows furrowing. It was clear they were wondering if they had both heard the same thing—and upon silently confirming they had, Danny finally spoke, breaking the awkward silence.
"Wait… what are you talking about?" Danny asked, his voice tinged with disbelief. "Vincent van Gogh is considered one of the greatest artists in history. His works are practically worshiped these days." He looked at the ghost like he had grown a second head and casually released his hold on the ectoplasmic lasso. Clearly, he saw no reason to keep the ghost restrained any longer.
Vantasma froze midair, stunned, his mouth hanging open. "Wha–?" he stuttered, eyes widening like saucers. "What do you mean?!"
Dick tilted his head to the side, a skeptical smirk on his face. "Have you just been stuck in this painting the whole time without ever stepping out into the world?"
"I'm not stuck!" Vantasma shrieked, his voice rising several octaves in protest. His translucent cheeks puffed out indignantly as he added, "I can leave whenever I want! I just… I'm just very committed to my job, okay? Dedication isn't a crime!" he huffed, snatching up his floating brush and palette with theatrical flair.
"Then maybe you should commit to catching up with the modern world," Dick said, rolling his eyes. He tapped a small section of his glove, which lit up as a miniature computer unfolded from his wrist. With a few swift keystrokes, a glowing hologram screen shimmered into view. "Because everything you've been doing?" he said dryly. "Pointless."
Vantasma scowled but hovered closer, curiosity beginning to override his pride. Dick pulled up a picture of van Gogh and extended his hand toward the ghost.
"See for yourself," Dick offered, scrolling through detailed biographies, gallery collections, and articles highlighting van Gogh's posthumous fame. "In case you thought we were lying."
With a suspicious glance, Vantasma floated nearer. His glowing eyes scanned the screen intently. The more he read, the more his ghostly body began to tremble. His brush and palette wavered in the air beside him. His voice was no more than a whisper, laden with confusion and pain.
"But… my work… I was supposed to complete his vision. I spent decades trying to make things right, to fix the sorrow in his colors… Are you telling me… it was all for nothing?"
Tears shimmered in his eyes, thick and heavy, and he clenched his spectral stubbs in a desperate attempt to keep them from falling.
Danny sighed softly, sympathy flashing in his eyes. "I'm sorry, but… I don't think you were ever going to succeed," he said gently.
Vantasma turned toward him slowly, disbelief etched across his face. "What?" he breathed, voice barely audible, cracking under the weight of emotion.
Danny stepped forward, his expression solemn. "First of all, these aren't your paintings. They were never yours to fix," he explained. "You said earlier that no matter how many times you tried to correct them, they never came out right. Maybe that's because they weren't meant to be corrected. Maybe they didn't need fixing at all."
He raised his hand, stopping Vantasma from interrupting, and continued. "Art is… it's not always supposed to make sense. People say it's a reflection of the artist's soul, their thoughts, their pain, their story. What you're doing—trying to overwrite that—might be hurting the work more than helping it. You can't just correct someone else's reflection, it would lose their meaning, you would be erasing everything poured into their work. Only the original artist can really decide what would need to be changed."
There was a long pause.
Dick stared at Danny like he was an entirely different person. "Where the hell did that come from?" he asked with raised eyebrows.
Danny gave an exasperated look. "Sam. She's… Artistic in a way and in the way she expresses herself." He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "I listen sometimes when she goes on a ramble"
Dick nodded in understanding, remembering his goth friend. "Makes sense."
Meanwhile, Vantasma floated backwards, stunned. His form flickered, his glow dimming. He looked down at his trembling hands as if seeing them for the first time. His voice wavered.
"Then… What was I doing this whole time? What is my purpose? If I can't heal the pain in those paintings, then what am I supposed to do?" His ghostly form began to swell once more, the pressure of his unresolved sorrow warping his shape. "WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH ALL THIS REGRET?!" he screamed, his voice rising into a furious roar that shook the space around them. "WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH ALL THIS PAIN?!"
In a sudden burst of rage, Vantasma's tentacles lashed out, wrapping around his brush and palette as if to grab them and use them for destruction in a fit of rage.
"Sorry, but I can't let you do that!" Danny yelled, blasting the tendrils away with a surge of ectoplasmic energy. The shockwave made Vantasma shriek louder as the palette and brush flew a distance away, his form trembling with even more fury and confusion.
"Don't intervene," Danny warned Dick, his eyes locked onto the raging ghost.
Dick raised both hands in surrender. "I wasn't gonna. He's all yours, man." He winced slightly, after all he didn't possess the same healing factor Danny did after all.
Danny blasted forward toward the rapidly expanding eldritch monstrosity. The air was thick with the overwhelming presence of shadowy tentacles that writhed and lashed in every direction, a grotesque sea of slime and madness. But Danny, even in pain, moved like a streak of focused power—graceful, agile, and unrelenting. He darted and wove through the chaotic storm, blasting apart tendrils with precise rays of glowing green ectoplasm.
He let loose bursts of energy from his hands, chest, and even his eyes. He twisted through the air like a comet, grabbing multiple tentacles and forcefully entangling them together, his superior strength allowing him to hold them at bay despite their numbers and fury.
One tendril managed to snake its way around the discarded brush and palette once more. The ghostly brush, now dripping with white paint, aimed at Danny and fired a stream of bright pigment like a laser, attempting to erase him from existence entirely.
Danny raised his arms and fired a concentrated blast of Ectoplasma, as they crashed the green energy was erased, painted over as it fought against him, growing closer. Seeing the losing battle Danny shifted away, flying from the attack.
Seeing it failed to make an impact, Vantasma snarled and waved the brush again. Storm clouds, drawn in hurried strokes of swirling gray and deep black, suddenly materialized above.
A deafening thunderclap echoed through the chamber as a lightning bolt, jagged and crackling with raw power, shot toward Danny. He quickly countered with a summoned ectoplasmic shield, absorbing the blast with a grunt before retaliating.
A wave of ghostly fire erupted from his hands, swirling upward in a vortex of green flames. The inferno engulfed the painted sky, consuming the fabricated storm and clearing it in seconds. Vantasma didn't stop. With the brush and palette, he continued conjuring chaotic weather and destructive disasters—tornadoes made of scribbled wind, tsunamis of thick blue ink, earthquakes that split the painted floor beneath.
Danny, undeterred, adapted to every attack. At one point, he vanished, turning both invisible and intangible, cleverly hiding behind one of the thick tendrils as a makeshift smokescreen.
Vantasma's monstrous form loomed over the battlefield, twisting and turning in frustration. He looked around, eyes wild and searching for his target.
Without warning, Danny reappeared inches from his face, his eyes glowing with a fierce light. "Peek-a-boo!"
With all the strength in his form, Danny slammed his fist into Vantasma's face, sending his massive body flying backward. The monstrous ghost was launched like a cannonball, smashing through layers of painted scenery Vantasma had created in his rage. Danny didn't give him a moment to recover. He pursued, striking again and again, raining a storm of punishing blows fueled by both adrenaline and frustration.
"Let me know when you're done throwing your little tantrum," Danny growled, driving his fist into Vantasma's gut. "Because I'm starting to enjoy this!"
The relentless assault continued for several minutes. And slowly, with each hit, Vantasma began to shrink. His monstrous form lost shape and mass, his body reverting to its smaller, original form. At last, he collapsed to the painted floor, no longer threatening—just a sobbing, defeated ghost. His hands trembled as they pressed into the ground, his brush, palette, and even his tiny beret discarded around him.
"I'm sorry… I'm sorry," he cried, his voice cracked with grief. "But I can't help it! I'm so lost… I don't know what to do anymore. Please… just tell me. I've been trying to help for so long, trying to fix everything around me… and now you say it was all meaningless? All that time, all that effort… wasted? So tell me—what am I supposed to do with all this regret?! All this pain?!"
Danny, now floating gently above the ground, landed beside the ghost. He sighed softly, eyes filled with empathy. He knelt on one knee and reached for the small beret, brushing off the dust before placing it gently back on Vantasma's head.
"Well," Danny said with a faint smile, "you're still an artist, aren't you?"
Vantasma sniffled and looked up at him, eyes watery and filled with confusion. Danny's smile was kind—warm in a way that reached deep into the little ghost's core and soothed something raw inside him.
Danny held out both his hands, lifting Vantasma's, and gently placed the brush and palette back into his stubby fingers. "Then you do what any true artist does when they're overwhelmed—when they don't know how to express what they're feeling. You paint. You draw. You create. But this time…" Danny paused and gave him a look of encouragement, "...instead of trying to fix someone else's masterpiece, make your own. Create something new. Something that comes from you. Something so grand and beautiful that even your regrets will have to shut up and listen."
Vantasma's eyes widened. His trembling stopped. He repeated softly, as if clinging to the hope in those words, "Something… that comes from me."
He looked up again, hesitant. "Do you… do you really think I can do that?"
Danny smirked, "Why don't you surprise me? And who knows… maybe you'll surprise yourself too."
A tiny giggle escaped Vantasma's mouth—his tone light, bright, and hopeful. "Something me… that might even surprise you," he whispered, more to himself, before nodding.
He floated upward, standing straighter now, a determined glint in his eye. "Alright… I'm willing to try."
"Good," Danny exhaled with relief. "Now… would you mind helping us get out of this place? Pretty please?"
"Yes," Vantasma said with a nod. "I'd like to leave this place as well."
From a distance, Dick stood leaning on his staff, still nursing his side but smiling at the exchange. His wrist computer silently recorded the moment. The corner of his lips twitched upward.
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