Chapter 1
It was just another day for Danielle, well, not really.
It had been two years since Danny stabilized her, and a year and a half since she last saw him. And over the course of those three and a half years, she took on the identity of just Danielle, a regular girl who just turned twelve last month who was an orphan living alone, well not so much on the alone part any more.
A year and three months ago from that three and a half yeards she ended up in an orphanage for young girls, not wanting to be out and alone anymore not knowing where her next meal would have to be stolen from while learning to control her occasionally out of control ghost half which still remained a secret to the rest of the world other than Danny and his friends and the Ghost Zone… and Vlad.
Then about two months ago, she was adopted from that orphanage by a couple, a very kind man and woman who she learned to call Mom and Dad rather quickly.
When she was first adopted, they lived in an apartment for most of those two months.
And now, they had finally found a house to move into in a place called Peach Creek on a corner of a Cul-De-Sac.
And now, Danielle stood looking out her bedroom window of her new home, looking out over the Cul-De-Sac.
She started her life at 9 years old about, now she was 12, the age most of the Cul-De-Sac kids were now.
"Why did they have to choose a place with so many kids?" Danielle wondered out loud as she looks at the group of kids below.
You see, the thing was, she was stable and all, but no matter how hard she tried, her powers always glitch from time to time, causing a part of her body to go intangible or invisible, the occasional random plasma blast and of course the blue eyes that turned green. And that was her problem.
However, there was an upside to this. All the adults in the Cul-De-Sac were at work from early in the morning to pretty late at night.
Danielle remembered the reason why it had to be around so many kids though. She remembered every word of the conversation.
"Dani sweetie, we just got a job, and were finally going to move into a really nice house," her mother had told her.
"That's awesome! Where?" Dani had replied.
"Were both going to be working as Doctors in a hospital near a neighborhood called Peach Creek," her father exclaimed.
Most kids would have a problem with moving, but Dani didn't really like the apartment nor was she really attached to anything around it, in fact she had been delighted to be getting out of the tiny apartment and into something where she could have space.
Not to mention living somewhere not in a large city would give her safer opportunities to go out for night flights and work on using her powers better.
"Now you see, our jobs are going to take up much of our time so we're going to home a lot less," her mother explained.
Even better, home alone means no one to see her using her powers, glitches or not.
"And the Cul-De-Sac where were going to live has many children there for you to make friends with," her mother continued.
"So, what do you say we start packing up?" her dad asked.
"I'll get on it right away!" she had replied before following her adoptive parents to go retrieve the moving boxes.
She had been so excited then, she'd get the best of both worlds. More literal than anyone could imagine. But then a glitch of her powers reminded her about her slight problem with being around other kids.
However, she guessed that she would be around people she could trust and call friends in a real house living a good life with parents who loved her as Danielle Royam (name of the family she was adopted into) while at the same time having enough alone time to be Danielle Phantom with all the perks of being a half ghost half girl.
But now, she wasn't so sure. These kids seemed to be out all day long playing with echother. They seemed nice enough, but if she wasn't careful, someone was going to figure her out.
But at least summer vacation had just started a week ago, so she could figure out how to hide her powers well enough before school started, you know get a system on what the heck to do. Her parents were currently at work along with all the other adults.
"Time to go meet the neighbors," Danielle sighed to herself… before going intangible and floating down through her bedroom floor to the ground floor below.
Taking a deep breath, she opened the door handle and stepped out into the Cul-De-Sac.
The kids instantly saw her and came over to say hello.
DANIELLE POV
It has been a week since I arrived. It wasn't hard to figure out who I belong though. You see, the first day after learning everyone's names, Rolf had invited everyone over to his farm to show us something.
And of course, my powers just had to glitch. My arm became invisible just as Rolf unveiled a large, very large pig… named Poco. And to those who don't know, poco is little in Spanish.(But I think it's spelled differently, IDK)
"If Poco likes you, Mama says you are good person, if he hates you," Rolf's tone turned dark, "We are to stay away from you!"
"This is going to turn out well," I had thought to myself.
Poco liked Nazz, Johnny, Plank, Kevin, Sara, Jimmy and of course Rolf. However, coming onto Ed, Poco growled, and oddly enough it sounded like Wulf from the Ghost Zone.(Who by the way had become a close friend to me and taught me Esperanto)
Then it came to the Ed. I rolled her eyes because what could a pig possibly know about a person's character.
The pig pushed Ed into Eddy, who knocked Double D over and they all landed in a big pile. The pig growled at them.
"Poco has spoken, he no like the Ed boys," Rolf said.
"What a surprise," Kevin said sarcastically.
Anyway, at this point, I still hadn't noticed my hand was invisible, and lucky for me, neither had the other humans in the area. And I emphasize the word Humans because Poco was not human.
The pig turned to me, a very stern look in its eye.
"Am I really getting started down by a pig?" I thought to myself because the way the pig looked at me was making me feel really uncomfortable, it looked kinda angry, really serious.
Poco then circled me, taking his sweet time on judging me. Then he stopped in front of me, and because of his size, he blocked the other kid's view of me.
It looked down and saw my hand, probably thinking it was just gone at first, that's when I finally noticed I had let it be invisible for so long. My eyes widened and I forced my arm back to normal while still standing as still as possible. The pig freaked a bit when my hand reappeared, and even more when my eyes turned the glowing green.
I don't know how I can explain it, but I can tell when my eyes go green, like how you know when your arm is bent or something is touching you or whatever.
The pig completely freaked out and ran away, my eyes turning back to blue just before the kids were able to see me again.
"Poco, come back please!" Rolf called and ran after his completely freaked out pig.
All the kids looked at me, minus the Eds who were still in the pile Poco threw them into.
"She is cursed, Poco can sense it!" Rolf called while trying to calm his pig.
"You're cursed?" Jimmy asked in fear.
"Uh, no, no, the pig just freaked out!" I lied, but I guess I could say my life was cursed.
First I was a clone of a boy who was turned half ghost by one of his parent's machines, I was betrayed by the first person I ever trusted, then I was very unstable and almost melted into ectoplasm, then I was all alone for a very long time and had to steal to survive and of course the fact I'm a half ghost girl with sometimes uncontrollable powers who would be considered a freak if anyone found out.
Yea, I guess the pig was right to run, but I couldn't let them know that.
"You cannot fool us, Poco has gone loco because of you!" Rolf shouted.
"Really not helping," I muttered.
For a moment all the kids looked at me, then backed away.
"She's gonna make us go loco!" Jimmy cried and ran away, Sara following closely behind.
Kevin half dragged Nazz away while she gave me an uncertain look.
"What's that Plank? Run away? Okay," Johnny said to his wooden bored… I was warned not to comment on the board he talks to.
Then it was just me and the three Eds who were just standing up, Rolf had gone to hide in his house with his over grown ham.
"I suppose you three are going to run away too," I asked a bit harshly.
Eddy began to walk away only to be stopped by Double D talking.
"Dani, I find it highly unlikely that curses exists," Double D informed me.
Not wanting to sound superstitious, Eddy said, "Yea Dani, it's all just mumbo jumbo."
"Oh yea, mumbo gumbo!" Ed sang.
"That's jumbo gravy brain," Eddy corrected.
"I like gumbo Eddy," Ed replied innocently.
I smiled when Eddy face palmed.
So to sum up the past few days after that-everyone forgot about the curse thing, but they still thought I was weird because I decided to make friends and hang out with Ed Edd and Eddy rather than with the 'cool' kids. Which actually works out for me because less people paying attention to me makes my life so much easier, though popularity would be nice, and popularity seems to be what the Ed boys were tyring to get, rather in a strange way though.
Anyway, I quickly adjusted to life with Ed, Edd and Eddy. As far as my secret goes, I had one close call with Ed, but being the 'loveable oaf' as Double D calls him, was easily distracted with something about gravy and forgot all about it.
So into today's events….
As usual, today we were doing on of Eddy's scams. This time he had us gather as many mirrors as possible, wood, black paint, black fabric, nails, hammers and glue. Now what you might ask, 'what the heck are they doing?' and the answer to that would be making a mirror room.
We painted the wood black as we could get it, then hammered and nailed it all together into the shape of a large-ish room, then we draped the curtain over the entrance for a door way, and finally we glued all the mirrors to the inside walls of the room.
I sighed as Ed cracked yet another mirror, but then again, it gave the room a cool effect, what with cracks in half of the mirrors.
"Ed please be more careful," Double D complained.
While we worked, it wasn't surprising to find that Eddy was sitting off to the side mumbling that we weren't working fast enough.
"Finally, we're done," I sighed with relief as I glued the last mirror into place and the black curtain was slid over it all. As a finishing touch, Eddy planted a wooden sign in the ground that read "The Ed's House of Mirrors! 50 cents entry fee per person/plank/doll for five minutes at a time!" painted in big red letters.
"COME ON COME ALL TO ED'S HOUSE OF MIRRORS!" Eddy chanted into the wind for all to hear.
"So do you think anyone will notice the missing mirrors?" I asked Double D.
"I'm sure they will eventually, but I'm still baffled on just how you were able to sneak into Kevin's house to get his mirrors, he has quite the security system," he replied.
"Oh, yea, well, that. I, uh, just guessed on a window to climb through and it happened to have a little less security around it," I lied.
The truth was that I turned intangible and invisible and just went through the walls, but even without that, I was on the streets for a long time, and you can't be on the streets for a long time without learning some sneaky skills for thievery when needed.
But anyway, moving on….
After a minute or two, everyone started coming over to get in on "ED'S HOUSE OF MIRRORS!"
However, within two minutes, Johnny had single handedly broke down all the mirror house's walls, broke a few mirrors, made everyone take their money back and took all our mirrors but a few plus the non-shattered to bits ones.
"Wow, new scheme fail time record," I muttered as I surveyed the damage done.
"Who's keeping track anyway," Eddy muttered, obviously angry about the scheme fail.
Suddenly all the Ed's froze with terrified looks on their faces, I was facing them.
For a second, I thought they were afraid of me. My heart skipped a beat, for a second, I thought that maybe my powers glitches again and they saw, but however, they were looking at something behind me, not at me.
"Um, guys? Hello?" I said waving my hand in front of their faces, then continued, "Earth to Best Friends, you still here or what?"
"Who the heck are you?" a snotty voice came from behind me.
I turned around to see three girls.
One had blue hair cut short, the second was a blonde with buck teeth, and the third had a mountain of curly red hair on opt of her head and it completely covered her eyes.
"Oh, um, hi…I'm Danielle, or Dani for short, but I think the question is, who the heck are you guys?" I replied.
"We're the Kanker sisters, I'm Lee, these are my sisters May and Marie," the red haired girl said gesturing to her sisters in turn.
"Okaaay, and why do they look terrified?" I continued.
"Oh please, they're not terrified of their own girlfriends," Marie said.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up? Girlfriends? Ok, so I've only been here for a few weeks, but I know these guys don't have girlfriends," I said, "And even if they did have girlfriends, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be cowering from them," I replied, looking down to see the Ed close by, on the crowd hugging my feet like a bunch of three year olds expecting to be dragged away from their mothers or something.
"Whatever sugarplum, we just needa borrow them for a minute," Lee said, rolling her eyes.
Sugarplum? Really?
"Yea, no, I don't think they want to," I replied, gesturing the boys who held onto me for dear life apparently. I may not know much, but no way am I going to hand my only friends over to some girls who claim to be their lovers.
"Oh come on Double D, wouldn't you rather hang out with me?" Marie asked my sock-headed friend.
"N-no, i-I've g-g-got o-other p-p-p-plans s-sorry," Double D managed to choke out.
I'd never seen him stutter that badly before, he could barely talk!
"Well, it was nice to meet you three, but we've really got to be going… other plans and stuff" I stated then threw Eddy and Ed over my shoulders and held Double D in front of me. They were literally too scared to move.
I began to walk away, the weight of carrying the three boys not bothering me at all.
And then someone kicked me in the back, and that someone was Marie.
I fell to the ground and dropped the Eds on the process.
I sighed and stood up and turned around to face a very smug looking Marie.
"Wow you are a loser," Marie snickered, her sisters following her example.
I really wanted to just shoot every ecto blast in me at them, but I held back. Maybe I could just punch them- no, I don't want to get too bad of a rep, I'm going to be like Danny, appear to be the loser but know you are the hero.
"How am I the loser?" I asked.
"You're right, calling you a loser is an offence to loser's everywhere," Marie replied.
I clenched my fists and my arm tensed, I really wanted to punch her, and I think I was going to. But then I felt a hand wrap my wrist. I looked down to see Double D shaking his head, as if he knew I wanted to punch Marie.
Double D holding onto my wrist seemed to anger Maria more. So I moved my hand to grab onto his and pull him to his feet. I held onto his hand for a few seconds longer, just long enough afterwards to see Marie's face swell up in anger, a reaction to which I didn't even try to hide my smirk.
"C'mon guys," I said, pulling Ed and Eddy to their feet as well, "We can hang at my place."
As I predicted, Marie went for another kick the second my back was turned. I stepped to the side and Marie ended up kicking a telephone pole, which hurt her foot pretty badly.
I didn't even look back. I heard Ed, Edd and Eddy right next to me.
"That's right, run home like a baby!" I heard Marie shouted as he held her hurt foot.
"Yea, get lost mega loser," Lee added.
"You're such a freak!" May topped off.
I stopped walking. Now being the clone of Danny Fenton, I still have a problem with being called a freak, and a loser and a baby.
I almost snapped, well actually I did. But Ed already had me locked in place before I could kill the three Kanker sisters. Eddy pushed me and I started walking in the direction of my house again.
We walked in the front door and went straight to the kitchen.
"Dani, you do realize you are not anything they said about you," Double D stated as I leaned against the counter.
"How would you know that?" I asked turning away from then to face out the window, "My life has freak, loser and baby written all over it."
'I've lost fights before, some even almost costing what life I have left, I'm a half dead freak with glitchy ghost powers and I'm not nearly as old as I look since I'm just a clone, an imperfect one at that, who's under 4 years old and for a while I almost melted into gross green goop until the original Danny Phantom, who is not a girl, saved me. Yea, that's defiantly got freak, loser and baby written all over it,' I thought.
"How so?" Double D sounded actually concerned.
I took a deep breath and said, "Let's just say my past isn't exactly a happy bed time story and I'm way more of a freak than anyone realizes."
And of course, cue the glitching!
I felt a wave of intangibility wash over my body, not a lot, but defiantly noticeable.
"Crap," I muttered and turned around.
All three of the Eds had taken a large step back from me, all looking concerned.
Then Ed sprang on me saying, "AN ALIEN HAS INVADED HER BODY, FETCH THE HOLY WATER!"
Next thing I knew, Ed had me pinned to the ground.
"Ed! Let go, I'm not an alien!" I cried then added, "…and pretty sure Holy Water is for vampires."
When he didn't let go, I went intangible and stood up, passing right through Ed as I did so.
"I'm not an alien..." I said again then took a deep breath, "I'm half ghost."
"B-but that's not possible… it's biologically impossible to be half dead, let alone be a ghost!" Double D rambled, "Ghost's don't exist!"
"I really, really wish I could tell you they didn't, but they do, I'm living-or half living, I guess, proof," I replied.
"I'm guessing you guys aren't going to leave without an explanation," I sighed.
"Nope, so start talking," Eddy replied firmly.
Eddy sounded calm, but I could tell he was totally freaked out, most people are.
"Well then I guess I should start from the beginning then," I took another deep breath.
"What do you guys know about Amity Park Illinois?" I asked.
"Just that it's supposedly the most haunted town on Earth," Eddy replied.
"And that an anomaly tore it off the map last year," Double D added.
"Well, it really is the most haunted place on Earth due to all the portals between our world and the ghost zone where all the ghosts reside. And last year, a very powerful ghost escaped, and he dragged that town into the ghost zone. But he was stopped by one of the very few good, non-evil, ghosts out there. His name is Danny Phantom."
"Was that you?!" ED suddenly asked.
"Well… yes and no. Danny Phantom and I are well… related… very closely, we're basically the same person other than our ages and genders," I muttered, "I really don't know how to say this, so I'll just say it simply. I am a clone of Danny Phantom, my clone saved Amity Park."
"But I thought clones were supposed to be exactly like the original?" Eddy asked.
"They are. I was one of the imperfect clones. You see, one of Phantom's enemies, Vlad Plasimus, wanted Danny to join him, but Danny refused. So rather than accepting the rejection, Plasimus tried to clone Danny. The first clone could barely hold its form, kept melting into ectoplasm. The second was literally just a ghost skeleton. The third was pretty much just muscle and brawn, and pure rage and also was extremely unstable. And the fourth one… was me. But the first three, they were mindless, couldn't and wouldn't think for themselves, were literally Vlad's puppets. But even though I was unstable, I could think for myself somewhat. However at the time, rather than being a boy and 14 like Phantom, I was a girl and only 9, so I was still an imperfection in his eyes, just another puppet." I stopped to make sure the Eds were still following.
I was surprised to find even Ed paying attention, like I was one of his monster marathon shows, so I continued.
"So he sent me after Danny Phantom, which by the way is also a half ghost like me as a result of a lab accident with his crazy parent's ghost hunting stuff. Anyway, Vlad sent me because I was the only clone who could go from human to ghost form. And I did bring Danny to Vlad like I was told to, but then Danny helped me realize Vlad was bad, that he wasn't going to do anything good for me, just using me to get the perfect half ghost clone of Phantom."
"That's awful," I heard Double D mutter.
"Yea, I know, but it only got a bit worse after that." I replied, they looked to me for more of the story.
"So Danny helped me beat Vlad and break free of his control, but all three of the other clones were melted back into ectoplasm in the process. Anyway, after that, I parted ways with Danny and went out on my own for a while, but being on my own free from Vlad didn't last long. I was still unstable. I would start reverting into ectoplasm if I used too much energy, so I went back to Danny for help. However, when I came out of hiding to go to Dani, Vlad sent someone after me to catch me and bring me back to him. He wanted to know why I survived for so long when I was only mildly sounder than the other clones. He planned to revert me back to ectoplasm completely so he could figure out how to make a perfect stable clone by studding my ecto remains. Gross, I know."
"So what happened, are you still unstable?" Double D asked.
"No, not anymore. You see, Vlad nearly succeeded in melting me down, I was almost completely… gone when Danny, with the help of the hunter who had originally brought me to Vlad, her name in Valerie by the way, came in and helped me. Danny gave me some kind of medice, I don't know what it was, but it completely stabilized me. So after that, I parted ways with Danny again, and even befriended Valerie. I went back off again on my own. I lived on the streets for about two years then ended up in an orphanage for a year then got adopted and… well here I am. My powers are still really glitchy though."
No one spoke for a long time. Ed, Edd and Eddy comprehended my story for quite some time. The silence was killing me.
"What did you mean by being the only clone able to go between ghost and human form?" Double D finally asked.
"Oh, well I'm half ghost, half human. I have a human half," I gestured to my human state I was currently in then transformed, the blue white rings forming around me.
Raven black hair to snow white.
Crystal blue eyes to neon green.
Pale to fair skin.
Blue hoddie to black and white top that revealed my midriff and DP symbol with mismatched white and black gloves.
Red shorts and tennis shoes to black pants with white at the bottom and white shoes.
And finally, the ghostly white glow surrounded my outline.
"… and a ghost half," I finished.
I think Double D was rethinking everything anyone knows about science and stuff while having a mental breakdown. Ed was just staring at me in wonder like I was the coolest thing ever and Eddy was… well he had a blank look on his face so I have no idea what he was thinking. Then his mouth twitched upwards into a smile which meant I might be having an argument on what I would and wouldn't do with my powers as far as money making goes very soon.
"You-you won't tell anyone… right?" I finally asked.
"I don't think they would believe us if we did," Double D replied.
"And besides, if they knew about your powers, we couldn't have fun with them," Eddy rubbed his hands together greedily.
"You do realize there is a limit to what I will do with my powers?"
"Yea, yea sure, whatever you say, Casper," Eddy replied, not sounding convincing.
I smiled and rolled my eyes at the nickname, then transformed back to my human half. Things just got a lot more interesting.