Hi everyone! Welcome to my first novel-lenght fanfic written in english! I asked for help to a couple of beta readers, so in the next weeks you shoud find a better version of this chapter; but I HAD to publish it now to see if the story was getting a lil bit of attention at all. It's not like, if I don't get enough follower I won't update, not at all... it's just, I want to know if I somehow nailed it :P So, let me think what you think! A couple of warnings:
-I don't share the same beliefs and/or morals as the main characters. I feel like point it out for personal reasons.
-Abortion mention; mention of a little bit of gore and medically accurate (I hope) details.
-I'm not the mortal avatar of Nickelodeon, hence I don't own Danny Phantom.
The Accident
Chapter 1- The Accident
Maddie and Jack Fenton were, judging by their dirty lab coats, scientists.
They were working in their basement the night that everything changed. Well, at least that was the original purpose of the room when the house was built, anyway. Now, it looked more like a lab. Since they'd moved into that house two years before, they had managed to create a fully functional, high-tech work space. They used to work on their inventions all over the house, but since Jazz had started to crawl around, they decided to confine all the dangerous projects (so, all of them) to the basement.
It was night, but neither of them even thought about going to bed. After years of hard work, tonight, they were finally ready. Five years had passed since last time, but the memory was still fresh in their minds. A flash, the smell of burning flesh, and then their best friend running away screaming. That was the last time they had seen Vlad Masters. He had been hospitalized, but when they tried to visit him, a stark white truck was parked in front of the ER and Vlad was nowhere to be found. His hospital bills had been paid in full by an anonymous group.
Jack believed the government had kidnapped him. They tried to search for Vlad, but every attempt resolved to nothing; so the couple decided to do the only thing they could: to pour their efforts into finding a cure to the disease Jack had accidentally inflicted upon his best friend. Even if they succeeded, they didn't know if they would be able to find him eventually; still, they had to try.
The plan was to recreate the circumstances of the event in order to understand exactly what had gone wrong. So here stood the Fentons in their basement, looking up at their newly-made Ghost Portal. A sight to behold. This time it was a seven-foot-tall octagonal shape in the middle of the room. Maddie had suggested they build it against the wall and create a tunnel behind it that would disperse any overflow energy and stabilize the ectoplasm flux, but there wasn't enough time for that. Also, the city council had forbidden them from digging a hole that big and the Fentons didn't want to enrage them - especially after the concession they had miraculously obtained for the Ops Center they had built on their roof.
Maddie was still having doubts about the portal, though.
"I don't think this is safe, Jack," she said after few minutes spent observing the thing.
"Why not?" asked Jack, gingerly. "We just have to avoid standing in front when we plug it in and it'll be fine."
"And what if the portal... explodes? Or worse, what if it works?" Maddie mumbled, shaking her head. Her long hair was a mess from working almost nonstop over the last twenty hours or so. She felt like she was going to puke. She was barely twenty-seven years old, but these these constant all-night work sessions were starting to take a toll on her.
"That's unlikely, Mads, and you know it." Jack replied, rolling his eyes. "Why are you so scared? We just have to plug it in, then mess with the Ecto-Filter, and we should know what caused the Ecto-Acne. As simple as stealing some kid's fudge- not that I've ever done that." Jack started to sweat. "I mean, fudge is good, but stealing is wrong, very wrong, though he never liked it that much anyway..."
Maddie couldn't help herself and began to laugh.
"Oh, Jack," she said, smiling at him. Seeing the loving glint in her eyes, he blushed.
"We don't have to do this if you don't feel like it..." he conceded.
She shook her head again. "No, you're right. There's only a 0.34 percent chance that there'll be an explosion and our ecto-proof barrier will work just fine." She looked at the the big glass screen that stood off to the side of the portal.
"Soo... are we ready?" Jack beamed.
"Yes, we are."
"To the Fenton Ecto-Barrier, then!" He picked her up bridal style and put her down behind the thick glass.
Maddie sighed at her husband's antics.
"Did you already put a test vial in the Ecto-Filter?" he asked.
"Actually, no. We should collect baseline data for comparison first."
"Ah! You're always right, honey!" Jack took the plug. Without counting to three, he inserted it into the Fenton Electricity Generator. They both looked up at the portal, holding their breaths.
A sparkle.
But nothing happened.
Maddie sighed. "Oh well. There was a 32 percent chance that this would happen." She looked helplessly at the Fenton Electricity Generator. The device was able to sustain a huge amount of power, but several indicator lights on it were red. That meant that there had been an error in the request of energy output from the portal software.
"And now... what?" Jack frowned.
"Let me check; maybe it's just a misplaced wire on the Portal controls panel" she said, moving out from behind the glass' protection.
Everything happened in an instant.
Jack was about to unplug the main wire when he saw a light turning from red to green on the Fenton Generator. That meant that the device had found a way to meet the previous request for energy. Only then did he remember that he had modified the generator just a few days before to allow it to adapt to complex tasks - and had forgotten to tell Maddie. He yanked the plug, but it was already too late. He didn't see what happened because he had turned the other way, but the glass shook and a blinding green light surrounded him. When he could finally look, the light was already gone and the whole room was covered in scorch marks. The first thing he saw was the portal, still buzzing with energy, but otherwise inactive. The second was Maddie's body.
"Maddie!" he roared, launching himself to the figure lying motionless on the floor.
She didn't respond, eyes closed and face pale under a dark veil of soot. He embraced her with a delicacy one would think impossible for his strong arms.
"Mads, come on. Hey," he whispered. Her chest wasn't moving. He didn't dare to reach for a pulse. He cradled her athletic figure as if she were a fragile creature. Maybe she was, after all. Minutes passed that way, the low humming of the various devices was the only sound in the lab.
"Maddie, you can't do this to me. You can't do this to Jazzy-pants." The young man took his wife's hand among his'. They were deathly pale and cooling fast.
"Please..." His voice cracked. When he got no response, he believed he had begin to lose it.
"But again, it's me, not you, am I right?" he laughed hysterically. The laugh died, suffocated by the powerful shuddering that run up his body.
"...not again. NOT AGAIN!" Jack cried. For the second time in his life, the most important person to him had disappeared. Because of him. He believed– no– he was certain that he was going to die from the pain in his chest. He closed his eyes and curled around her, refusing to let go.
After several minutes, he felt movement under him. He jerked upward to see-
His wife's entire body was glowing. A pale white light was surrounding her figure like an unearthly halo - and she was breathing.
Jack remained dumbstruck watching her. He noticed that the ethereal glowing was slowly receding from her head and feet. After a couple of minutes the only thing that remained fluorescent was her abdomen, and then that light died down too. She stirred.
"Mmmhn..." she moaned, her face scrunched up in a frown.
"...Maddie?"
She opened her left eye. "Jack." Her voice was hoarse.
"Oh, thank God." he hugged her with all his might. And that was a lot.
"I can't -uhmph- breathe!"
"Uh, sorry Mads." Jack said, rubbing the back of his head.
"...You modified the generator; didn't you?" She wasn't angry with him. She never was. The joy left Jack's eyes.
"...Sorry, Mads."
She slowly rose to a sitting position.
"Ow, what happened? I thought I was a goner." she said, holding her throbbing head. The nausea she had felt before was returning too, ten times stronger.
"I... I think that a massive ectoplasm poisoning just brought you back to life."
She didn't look surprised, just rolled her eyes. "Great. Now we have to find a cure to two ectoplasm contaminations." She tried to get up and her husband quickly helped her to stand. She wobbled just a little bit.
"You look fine, though. No ecto-acne."
"Hm. Maybe it will appear later. Let's get the ecto-scanners - better safe than sorry."
"I'll get those," Jack pointed to a metal table nearby, "You just rest over there, ok?"
She huffed. "I'm fine. I just feel a bit lightheaded and my stomach wants to start a rebellion, but... ugh, I guess you're right." She let him carry her to the cold surface.
While he rushed to collect the medical equipment, he told her in detail what had happened to her body. She was confused. Why had the light disappeared? The halo took some time to appear, so that was a sign that the ectoplasm had already messed with her cells. But then, it should have stuck to her. The fading didn't make sense at all; ectoplasmic radiation wouldn't disperse so quickly in the atmosphere. So where had it gone?
"Are you ready, Mads?" Jack's thunderous voice shook her from her thoughts.
She nodded. There was no time to waste; if she was still poisoned, every minute would be precious.
"Let's just see if I am still poisoned. Take the Finder."
Jack nodded and took the device from a shelf. He pointed it at Maddie and waited for the results to pop onto the screen. It was still a prototype, so it wasn't able to tell exactly where the radiation was coming from, but it was precise in determining the strength.
After a half minute, detailed readings appeared on the device screen with a faint "Bip!". He frowned.
"It says 0.5 on the ecto-scale. You're still poisoned."
"Fuck." Maddie said, biting her lip.
"Honey..."
"I know; I'm sorry. Power up the ecto-scanner, it should be able to tell us how widespread the contamination is inside my body."
"On it. I'll set up the chem lab and the dialysis machine."
Maddie let out a long breath and closed her eyes. "I guess I have no other choice. I just hope the ectoplasm isn't still in my blood."
"Very unlikely, Mads," replied her husband from her side. He was putting the scanner on a high tripod, pointed directly to the young woman. Its four different lenses lighted up, and it started to emit a low beeping sound.
"I know, I know. But even if it's not in my blood, it could be in something... vital. What if it's in my intestine? Dying that way would be painfully slow."
Jack stopped in his tracks, then mechanically finished setting up. He didn't like what his wife was saying one bit, so he focused on what he had to do.
Maddie relaxed and waited for the machine to do its work. Maybe a surgical operation wouldn't be necessary if she found a way to filter the ectoplasm from her flesh. That could work if it hadn't already damaged her DNA. She bit her lip again, thinking about her "resurrection." It had given her "life", or at least restored function, but that could also mean that her body was compromised - more ghostly than human.
The thought almost brought tears to her eyes. She was too young to die. Her daughter was just fourteen months old, Vlad was still missing, and her research had yet to truly begin.
Maddie felt that she was being too emotional so she did something that, as a scientist, she knew was important to do sometimes: she buried her feelings. She wanted to survive, and needed to stay focused and cool-headed to do so. She hastily swept the wetness from her eyes and sat perfectly still. If her spinal fluid DNA had already changed then there wasn't any hope for her; otherwise, she already had an idea for a device that could artificially separate human and ectoplasm-corrupted DNA.
Two hours later, she was still making plans for the inner workings of such a machine when the Ecto-Scanner beeped cheerfully. Jack had been cleaning the lab, since he had finished setting up any tools that could come in handy in that situation, and quickly was beside her. He pressed a button and their printer started to work. Once it was done Jack took the dozen sheets it had printed and sat next to his wife as she sat up. They read the results together, neither one saying a word.
And then they read the seventh sheet.
"What?!" they both shouted, locking gazes.
"N-no way," she whispered, an incredulous expression on her face.
"Y-you are pregnant..! It's kind of... good news, isn't it?" Jack said, uncertain.
"I guess so..." Maddie trailed off. She had not thought about this scenario.
"Now what?"
The woman, the mother, looked at him with hollow eyes.
"What do you mean? There's only one thing that we can do. The embryo is as good as gone," her voice didn't even waver.
"Abortion, huh?" the man said, rubbing the back of his head. He looked like he wanted to say something.
"Why? Do you have something else in mind?" Maddie asked. She was so tired. Why was Jack making this difficult?
"No, no... I was just thinking... if ectoplasm revived you, maybe the standard abortion procedure... won't be enough to get rid of it. It could, you know... return."
A shiver raced up both their spines.
Maddie took her face in her hands.
"Of course that would happen to me. Sometimes, Jack, I think that what we research is... cursing us. Maybe we should just... give up." First, their best friend. Then, their child's life.
Jack shifted to stand in front of her and took her shoulders in his huge hands.
"Don't talk like this, Mads. This isn't you! Come on!"
She gazed into her husband's confident eyes. Maybe she could do manage to do it. She snorted, but her smirk was the most sour thing Jack had ever seen.
"This is so ironic. My unborn baby saved me by absorbing every single bit of ectoplasm in my body, turning itself into a blob of ectoplasm - and now I have to find a way to destroy it." She took her head between her hands again.
"Mads? You ok?" Jack asked after some time.
She wobbled off the metal table without looking him in the eye.
"I just... need some rest," she said, walking up the stairs and leaving Jack behind in the lab.
The man's legs gave out and he collapsed onto the cold floor. Just then, he noticed that they had dropped the test results on the ground. He reached out to that damned seventh sheet.
On it, the embryo was called "foreign organism #1" and it had 65 percent ectoplasm and 35 percent human DNA. It couldn't be more than three weeks old.
My poor, dead child. He thought, guilt overwhelming him. It's not your fault. I gained some time. Maybe it's already too late, but... I promise I'll try to..! I'll save you.
Edit 12/10/2016: Edited by my lovely betas! Thank you so much guys!