Here it is! The sequel to A Tangled Phantom! It's been a long wait, I know, but I was busy with other things. I've gotten started on this, though, so I'll continue working on it when I have time. Right now it's just this chapter, but I know where I'm headed for Chapter 2.
Let me know what you think by dropping a review please!
A Tangled Phantom: In which Sam wishes to be a part of the Tangled universe, and Danny is not happy.
A Thoroughly Tangled Phantom: In which Danny finds himself irrevocably tangled up in the destinies of Rapunzel and Eugene Fitzherbert, and guardian of another world to boot.
DISCLAIMER: I own neither Danny Phantom nor Tangled.
A Thoroughly Tangled Phantom
Chapter 1: Introduction
Then he was in a dark room filled with clocks and a large viewing screen.
Danny had to blink to reorient himself. When he realized where he was, and that he was alone, he did a slow three-sixty, doing his best not to think about what Clockwork would say when he found him here.
Oh, who was he kidding? Clockwork undoubtedly already knew he was here! In fact, he'd probably brought him here. But why wasn't Sam here as well? They'd both interfered in the Tangled universe!
Danny approached the viewing screen that sat at one end of the room. It was swirling green, though as he approached it, the green clouds dispersed to show a familiar town. He exhaled in relief upon seeing that Amity Park was still in one piece, and that his family and friends appeared to be all right.
The image froze as green clouds seemed to form in the middle of the street. A light bulb went off in Danny's head; so he and Sam were to arrive at that point?
"If Sam isn't here, then why am I?" he muttered half to himself and half to the ghost who he knew would be listening, if not just because he was the ghost of time. "Is it because life just hates me that way?"
There was a flutter from a cloak behind him, and Danny shifted, turning around to directly face the adult form of Clockwork. "Let me guess – are you going to tell me I shouldn't have interfered and dump me back there to fix it?"
"If there had been any problem, you would not have been able to succeed," Clockwork said, smiling enigmatically. "The world was, after all, a fictional universe until your friend wished for its existence."
"Wait…so Sam's its mother?" Danny blinked. "That is so weird…"
"She has only one world," Clockwork said, shifting into an old man. He nodded towards the viewing screen. "That of Amity Park, your home."
He had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn't going to be the same case for him at all. "And what about me?"
"You are a half-ghost, Danny Phantom," Clockwork said, confirming Danny's suspicions. "You are of two worlds, but because you are also half-human, to which world you can belong to is malleable. By interfering in the world of Tangled, you have become bound to it."
Danny took a breath, a bad feeling sinking into the pit of his stomach. " 'Bound to it'… Why do I have the feeling that I'm not gonna like what you have to say about this at all?"
"Your home is still Amity Park," Clockwork said, knowing where Danny's thoughts were taking him. "Simply consider it as there having been an addition made."
"What does this addition mean?" Danny asked warily. "I already have a load on my back from taking care of my problems at home. How am I supposed to help out a whole different universe? Alone?" Because he didn't think Sam was included in this at all, even though it had been her wish that had landed him in this problem in the first place. If she was involved, then she would be here. But she wasn't, which meant that this fell onto Danny's shoulders alone.
Clockwork gave a small smile, morphing into a child. "Have faith in yourself. What will happen will happen."
"So I'm supposed to expect to be popping back and forth between two worlds? Like I'm just walking down the street and suddenly I'm in the castle and Pascal is staring at me?"
"Nothing so simple," Clockwork disagreed, relieving Danny. "You will find out."
"Is this one of those things where I'm just expected to sink or swim?" Danny asked, folding his arms across his chest and raising an unimpressed eyebrow. "Because I'm not cool with that, just so you know."
"I know," Clockwork said simply, frustrating Danny.
"Was that all?" Danny said, exhaling gustily.
"Just one more thing," Clockwork said, shifting to an adult. "Good luck."
Danny's eyebrows flew up as he digested that statement. Before he could say anything on it, though, Clockwork had pressed a dial on his staff and he was gone, reappearing in green mist next to Sam, who had no idea what he had just been told.
How was he going to explain this?
12:00 that night
Sighing tiredly, Danny flopped down his bed, massaging the bridge of his nose. He had yet to change out of the clothes Sam had bought (stolen) for him in the Tangled universe.
Truth be told, he was too tired at the moment to bother.
That, and his head was still spinning from the adventure he had had scant hours before with Sam. He'd just finished recounting the main details with his family and Tucker, and then spent over an hour explaining to Sam what Clockwork had told him. His family could wait on that front. She'd been the one to share the experience with him, and as such should first learn what her boyfriend had gotten into.
Flashback:
"Is something wrong, Danny?" Sam asked worriedly after he'd pulled the two of them aside to talk privately in the kitchen of the Fenton household.
"Not as such, no," Danny said, wondering how he was going to phrase this. Then, with all the attitude of a sixteen-year-old boy, he decided to dive head first into it. "I didn't come straight back here after Tucker made that wish. I ended up at Clockwork's."
Sam furrowed her brow. "Why wasn't I there? I wasn't, was I?"
"You weren't. Best as I can understand, it has something to do with me being half-ghost. Clockwork was cryptic on that front." Danny smiled wryly. "But he was cryptic on everything else as well. He told me I'm bound to that universe now, since you made it real with that wish."
"Bound?" Sam sounded alarmed.
"I don't get it myself," Danny said. "I think I'll be going back there. I'm not sure how, and Clockwork wasn't telling me either. He made it sound like Tangled is my responsibility now, just like Amity Park is."
"But it's a whole different universe. How is that possible? We only ended up there because of Desiree!"
"Because we interfered," Danny said, smiling self-deprecatingly. "Since you're 'just a human' "—he used quotation marks—"you just belong here. But because I'm half-ghost, I belong to two worlds, and that can be changed because my other half is human, and we're so adaptable." He raised his voice on the last word. "And that's my guess on why my other world is the Tangled universe now."
Sam bit her lip, reading in-between the lines into what Danny wasn't saying. "I'm sorry, Danny."
'What for?" Danny gave a small shrug. "It's not your fault."
"I made that wish in the first place," Sam said. "It was my idea to interfere. If I hadn't, you wouldn't have to deal with this extra responsibility."
"Hey, I'm just as culpable as you since I went along with it," Danny disagreed, taking her hand and squeezing it lightly. "I could have said no at any point, but I didn't. I enjoyed it just as much as you did. And, hey"—he lifted one shoulder in a shrug—"at least I'll get to see them again. I'll tell them you said hi."
"And that's why I'm jealous," Sam said, sighing. "You get to go back, while I'm stuck here."
"If I belong to two worlds, I think I might be able to figure out how to take other people with me," Danny said. "And when I do, you'll be the first to know."
"Thanks, Danny." Sam smiled at him, squeezing his hand as well. "Are you going to tell your folks? And Tucker?"
"I figured you should know first, since we shared the adventure and all," Danny said. "I'll let them know tomorrow. We've already dropped one bombshell on them."
"Ka-boom," Sam joked dryly, eliciting a startled laugh from her boyfriend.
"At least there's no ecto-goo anywhere," Danny said, chuckling at the mental image that gave him.
Sam made a disgusted face. "One word, Danny: ew."
End Flashback.
Pulling the bed covers over his head after he toed off the leather boots, Danny burrowed his face into the pillow. All things considered, Sam had taken it better than he thought she would.
Now for the rest of his family…
Two weeks later
"Aaargh…" Groaning, Danny stretched out his sore muscles as he dumped his schoolbag on the bed. He soon followed it, rubbing both hands over his face as he mentally ran over the exhausting day he'd just had in his head.
Never mind that the Box Ghost was on cordial terms with him as long as he got his boxes, the rest of the ghosts were still an issue. He'd been working on some kind of treaty, but there were still some (like Technus) that remained a pain in his rear. To compound that particular technological problem, Tucker had called him with some sort of political emergency that apparently only Phantom could smooth over, as it involved a group of ghosts in Europe that wanted to haunt the cemeteries.
Needless to say, he hated politicians, politics, and anything to do with translators with a passion, as it had taken hours to deal with that particular problem.
Now he was home, tired, and wishing that Sam was in town and not off on some sort of trip to look into future college opportunities. It had been her parents' idea, not hers, as she was still only sixteen and had two more years to graduate. They'd been getting by on video chats, but this was the kind of day where he wished she was here to help with lightening the load. His parents tried to help, they did, but they still didn't have the experience to deal with ghosts like Technus, or the political clout he had in the Ghost Zone to talk with other ghosts that were on the opposite side of the globe. Simply put, he was completely alone when it came to dealing with those problems.
Not to mention that he was still worried about unexpectedly being sucked into the Tangled universe. It had been two weeks since Clockwork had told him about being "bound" there and nothing had happened so far. Of course, it didn't mean that nothing would ever happen, but it was a cause for concern.
Frowning mentally, Danny ran his mind over that sentence again, wondering if he'd phrased that correctly. When his sluggish mind refused to respond, he gave up and simply rolled over, muffling a groan into his gloriously soft pillow.
He simply wanted to sleep and not wake up until it was next week. Unfortunately, he had school the next day and Mr. Lancer wouldn't let him slack off simply because they knew he was Danny Phantom now.
'And homework,' he thought dimly, already drifting off. 'Can't forget to read…Grapes of Wrath…'
His last coherent thought was that of grapes arming themselves for battle, before his exhausted mind blissfully drifted off into nothing.
No sooner had he apparently dropped off did a loud noise jerk him from a peaceful slumber and he found himself falling backward to a very painful landing.
Bright lights assaulted him from under his eyelids as his head smarted from the sudden contact against a hard floor. He heard a startled exclamation before he dared to open his eyes, finding himself staring right into the face of a very surprised Eugene Fitzherbert, formerly known as Flynn Rider. Pascal was sitting on Eugene's shoulder, chirping rather confusedly.
"So you two are friends now?" Danny asked dazedly, mildly wondering why he wasn't currently freaking out.
"Why were you in a closet?" Eugene returned, bending down so his hands were resting on his knees. He was wearing the navy blue vest Danny remembered from the end of the movie
"I was in bed," Danny muttered, stirring to prop himself up on his elbows. He was surprised to find himself at the foot of a large wardrobe – or closet as Eugene had called it – with the door open. "Okay…perhaps the better question is why you were opening a closet?"
"Rapunzel wanted to play hide-and-seek," Eugene said, shrugging. He gave Danny a hand and helped him up. "Pascal suggested the closet. If I'd known you were in it, I wouldn't have forced you out."
Danny blinked at the unintended double meaning of that statement. He doubted Eugene even knew that "in the closet" had an entirely different meaning in his world. "Do you know that where I'm from, telling someone that they're in the closet is insinuating that they're gay?"
"They're really happy?" Eugene asked, confused.
"No. It means that they like other men…or women…it depends." Danny shrugged, seeing that Eugene apparently didn't give two hoots about whether someone liked someone else of the same gender. "You don't care about that?"
"I had a neighbor when I was small," Eugene said. "He really liked other guys. They were loud. I couldn't help but notice. It's not much different from liking a woman. They're around, but it's not a big deal."
Danny found himself wishing that his own world was half as accepting as this. Then again, this had been a Pixar universe first, and those were usually rainbows and sunshine. It shouldn't surprise him that a lot of the ugliest things that were in his universe weren't present here.
Pascal gave another loud chirping noise, flickering to a golden color before turning back to his bright green hue.
Eugene gave the chameleon a glance. "Pascal's right. Rapunzel will be wondering what's keeping us." He shot Danny a mischievous grin. "How about you hide while we go look? She'll be excited to see you again. Where's Sam?"
Danny shrugged, and then noticed that he was apparently wearing the satchel he'd gotten last time. Following that, he promptly noticed he was out decked in the same outfit as last time, and that his modern day clothes had mysteriously disappeared. Finding this more than a bit mysterious, he put it out of his mind to answer Eugene's query. "Apparently she's not bound to your world. I got roped into it because we interfered with Gothel. I have no clue how I got here anyway. I was sleeping in my bed at home when you woke me up by dumping me on the floor. How long has it been since we left?"
"'Bout a month," Eugene answered, pushing the closet door closed. "And let me tell you, a lot has happened since then."
"It's only been two weeks at home," Danny said, surprised. "Guess time doesn't run the same way."
"You'll be the best judge of that," Eugene acknowledged. "So…invisibility? We're not expecting guests, so it won't be easy to explain where you came from. It was hard enough explaining why you suddenly left last time."
Danny winced. "Sorry 'bout that. My friend back home made another wish to get us back. If we'd had warning, we would've let you know." He turned invisible. "I'll stay behind you while you go seeking Rapunzel."
"Sounds good." Eugene gave the place where he'd last seen Danny a nod, and then went walking off down the hall.
They passed an empty room and Eugene poked his head into it, saw no one was in there, and continued on.
"You know," he said conversationally to Pascal, "for all we know she's swinging from the rafters above our heads and giggling at our stupidity. What do you think?"
On cue, all three of them looked up, failed to see Rapunzel, and looked at each other again, though neither Eugene nor Pascal saw Danny.
"Guess not," Eugene said, shrugging as he continued on. "So we've searched her bedroom, the bathroom, all the closets we could find, some of the libraries...what haven't we looked into yet?"
"The outside of the castle?" Danny suggested in a hushed tone.
"The rule was to stay inside," Eugene replied. "Otherwise I'd be out there, too." He flicked his thumb at a window. "And she wouldn't have caught me so easily."
Pascal gave an indignant chirp that Danny took to mean that Eugene's hiding place had probably not been very ingenious to start with. For Eugene's pride's sake, he decided to remain silent on the matter and simply continued to follow the two as they scoured the castle for the missing princess.
"We haven't searched this library yet," Eugene muttered, stopping outside a door. He slowly opened it and slipped inside, leaving the door open a crack so Danny could come in as well.
"How many libraries are in here?" Danny asked.
"I lost count," Eugene said dismissively. His eyes were flicking over the bookshelves and the ceiling. "And don't get me started on the bedrooms. Or the bathrooms."
"They host a lot of parties?" Danny offered as a possible suggestion for the sheer number of rooms.
"Aside from the one after Rapunzel came back, there hasn't been one," Eugene said. He went to the window and turned around, using the vantage point to get a better look at the library. "But I think they're planning one as a get-to-know-you party for the other kingdoms in the area." He squinted in the general vicinity of where Danny was standing. "You know, it's really weird to be talking to thin air."
Danny made a noncommittal sound of neither affirmation nor denial and kept his ears peeled for any suspicious noises. His extra keen hearing didn't pick up anything. "I don't think she's in here. I don't hear anything. Why don't you try her room again? You might have missed something."
Eugene made a face. "That's on the other side of the castle." Grumbling disgustedly, he exited the library and began the trek back to Rapunzel's room at a light jog.
They didn't meet anyone other than a couple of servants, who didn't give Eugene any attention. There was one elderly servant who seemed to give the former thief the stink eye, but Eugene ignored him in favor of rounding a corner.
"Some still think I'm going to rob them blind," Eugene informed Danny in a quiet voice, trusting that the half-ghost would hear him. "They forget that if I were going to do that, they'd already be missing half of the valuables."
"Maybe you're biding your time," Danny whispered mock seriously.
"And I'm the king," Eugene blandly shot back. "Those days are behind me."
Pascal gave a contradicting chirp, smacking Eugene's hair with his tail as he did so.
"You steal her crown?" Danny guessed.
"For fun!" Eugene protested. He stopped in front of an elaborately decorated wooden door. "Now shush. This is her room." He furtively looked around. "Technically speaking, I'm not even supposed to go in here. Rapunzel ignores that and drags me in anyway, so I don't really bother to listen."
"I'll help if need be," Danny offered.
"I dove out the window last time," Eugene said modestly, ignoring Pascal's snickers.
"And landed on what?"
"The balcony below this. It's very convenient."
Danny tried not to imagine Eugene diving out a window to avoid the guards and failed. From what he knew about the former thief, he could completely see that happen. Eugene was the kind of guy who'd take risks like that and have it work out.
Eugene pushed the door open and snuck inside the room. Once there, he put Pascal on the dresser and began poking and prodding into all the hiding places. He was looking under the bed when Danny saw the curtain move.
Keeping his mouth shut meant that Eugene was completely startled when Rapunzel let out a triumphant whoop and swung down from her perch on the rafters behind the curtains, using her hair as a rope. She kicked a frozen Eugene in the back, dumping him onto the bed and landing on him, eliciting a surprised oomph from the man as he groaned under the weight.
"Rapunzel," Eugene groaned, unable to even roll over as she was pinning him face first to the bedspread. "Okay…I give… You win!" He muttered the next bit into the cloth, though Danny could still hear him: "For the fifty-second time in a row."
"You were gone for ages!" Rapunzel accused, laying out flat over Eugene's back. She rested her chin on her arms, eyeing the brown hair of the man she had pinned under her.
"I already looked in here," Eugene said, still muffled by the bedspread. "I then looked elsewhere. Do you mind getting off my back?"
Rapunzel obligingly rolled off onto her side, and Eugene resettled himself so he was resting on his elbows, smiling down at the girl with an expression on his face that Danny recognized from the party days at the end of Tangled. It was a lovesick sappy expression that Danny privately decided to never mention, as it would raise Eugene's manly hackles and thus never see the light of day again. And that would just be sad, because it was a very cute expression indeed.
"Besides," Eugene continued, stroking a hand through Rapunzel's tresses and tucking a wandering lock behind her ear, "I met someone who was hiding in the closet."
Somehow, Danny knew he had picked that phrasing simply because of their earlier discussion on gays.
"Really?" Rapunzel was intrigued. "Who?"
Eugene smiled, his brown eyes flicking over the room to look for Danny, who was standing invisibly by the foot of the bed. "Danny?"
With a small smile on his lips, Danny let his invisibility drop, seeing a corresponding expression of delight spread across Rapunzel's face.
"Danny!" She jumped off the bed to pounce onto the half-ghost, hugging him ecstatically. "You're here!" She pulled back to look around. "But where's Sam?"
"She couldn't come," Danny said apologetically. "I'm not sure how I came here anyway. It's something to do with me being half-ghost, but I didn't get all the details because the guy who told me just loves being cryptic."
"Join the club," Eugene said. "I'm taking etiquette lessons from a guy who talks about politics as if it's some sort of game."
"Etiquette lessons?"
"Former thief here," Eugene said, gazing pointedly at the satchel hanging across Danny's body. "If I'm to stay, I have to take lessons. Otherwise I run the risk of disgracing company."
"It's so interesting!" Rapunzel said, pulling her hair down from where it was still tangled up in the curtains. "There's so much to learn that I never even knew about!"
Behind her back, Eugene and Danny shared a mutual look of hatred for the woman who had stolen much of Rapunzel's childhood.
"I'm sure you're doing great," Danny said. "You already knew all about astronomy, didn't you? That involves a lot of math. And you can cook, sew, knit, make paper mâché...what else?"
"Paint?" Eugene suggested.
Rapunzel flushed. "But that's not useful! They want me to be able to talk, walk, eat, and dance properly!"
"Rapunzel, you grew up in a tower," Danny said. "I don't think they're expecting you to be the perfect princess. Just be yourself; you'll be fine that way. Take it from someone who's had that problem."
"What he said," Eugene said, coming up behind Rapunzel to gather up her hair. "I know for sure I'm failing my dance lessons. And eating lessons. Actually, I'm failing just about everything."
Pascal chirped from his spot on the bed, making encouraging motions. He ended up sitting upright with both forelegs resting on his "hips", looking proud and mighty.
"Thanks, Pascal," Rapunzel said, smiling shyly. "I guess I still feel a bit overwhelmed, you know? It doesn't feel quite real. It's only been a month!" She looked up at Danny. "How long are you staying?"
"Not sure," Danny said. "I was asleep in bed when I somehow ended up here. I'd like to stay a while, but I don't know how this will work out. It's been two weeks where I'm from, and I'm wondering why I was brought here now. You guys seem to be doing fine."
There was a slow creeping flush up Eugene's neck that Danny recognized as a mixture of nervousness and embarrassment, though his face remained impassively blank. He had a sudden suspicion as to what being "bound" to this universe would entail, as he was already protector of his own home in Amity Park.
Rapunzel leapt to her feet, beaming at all three of them. "How about we go for fifty-three out of fifty-four?"
There was a groan from Eugene and a disgusted chirp from Pascal. Danny was finding it difficult keeping the grin from his face.
"No." Eugene firmly shook his head. "No more hide-and-seek. If I never see a game of hide-and-seek in my life again, it will be too soon."
"Then what do you want to do?" Rapunzel asked.
"Go outside?" Eugene suggested. A suspicious look crossed his face. "Is there a reason you're keeping to all the private areas of the castle? Are you…playing hooky?"
Rapunzel blushed lightly. "Er—"
There was a noise from outside that Danny's sharp ears caught, though none of the others seemed to have heard it. Remembering what Eugene had said earlier about not technically being allowed in Rapunzel's room, Danny jumped forward to grab Eugene's arm to turn both of them invisible just as the door to the room opened, letting in two palace guards (one of which was the captain of the guards - Danny figured that maybe Maximus hadn't taken over yet) and a stiff looking woman with a steel gray bun and an outrageously pink dress that made Danny think of a mixture of Dolores Umbridge and Minerva McGonagall. Just as this thought crossed his mind, he wished he could scrub it from his mind, as those two characters should never ever be mixed.
"Rapunzel!" the woman reprimanded sternly. "Where have you been?"
Danny could see Eugene exhaling slowly in relief and mouthing a heartfelt "thank you". He squeezed Eugene's arm lightly to signify he'd gotten the message and returned his attention to the scene playing out.
"In my room, ma'am," Rapunzel said quietly, to her credit not seeming shocked at Eugene's or Danny's sudden disappearance. "Why are they here?" she asked, looking at the guards.
"Fitzherbert is missing," the captain said, eyes flickering around the room suspiciously as if he expected the former thief to be hiding somewhere within it.
"What do you want with Eugene?" Rapunzel asked.
"Manners, Rapunzel!" the woman snapped.
"I want to know!" Rapunzel fired back, jutting her chin out stubbornly. "He hasn't done anything wrong that you should be looking for him!"
The captain's eyes narrowed. "Some valuables have gone missing, including the queen's jewelry."
Rapunzel sounded incredulous. "You think Eugene did it?"
"One of the servants identified him, princess," the captain said unapologetically.
"That's not proof!"
Danny could feel Eugene stiffening in his grip, and he adjusted it so that he was holding the man's shirt in his other hand.
"It's just a precaution," the captain said, unflinchingly meeting Rapunzel's eyes.
Remembering the time the captain had looked at Eugene so suspiciously when he'd brought Rapunzel back, Danny suddenly knew that this was the reason for why he'd been brought back now.
Oh why, oh why did he have to be the guardian of two worlds?
So what'd you think? This story isn't going to be just one plot; it's going to a series of multiple one-shots in this universe. So that means I'm taking ideas! If you guys want to see something happening in this story, shoot me a review or a PM and I'll add it to the list.
