09/27/2011

This takes place almost 4 years after "Phantom Planet," Danny, Sam and Tucker are now 18-19. I'll be going on the theory that, at the end of Phantom Planet, Danny's Secret was only truly reveled to a hand full of people at the North Pole and that the Statues were dedicated to Danny Phantom and not Danny Fenton.

Thus he still has his secret identity to most of the world.

I don't own Danny Phantom


Daniel X

Chapter 1: The Message

Danny shook his head slightly and raised an eyebrow in annoyance when the frustratingly infuriating buzz in his head refused to leave him in peace.

"Amazing," His father declared for the 12-millonth time that day.

"Dad, please!" The teenaged hero practically begged, "Sam's going to kill me, I promised to meet her an hour ago," He said, physically winching when he looked at the clock on the wall, to discover that his hour had turned into two.

"Just one more test, son," Jack stated excitedly and started randomly pushing buttons on the machine that his kid was currently attached too, "This is amazing," He said again in a smaller voice, or at lease in as small a voice as the large, orange jump-suited man could accomplish.

"You said that last time," Danny growled, temped to just rip the fragile, light decorated headset from his head and fly away, while his father wasn't looking. But he deflated after remembering that he did promise that he would help him test some of his new inventions, manly because he felt bad for forgetting the man's birthday the week before.

But he certainly hadn't expected to spend all of 8 hours in his parent's lab; hocked up to a computer that had scanned his entire ghostly structure so many times he'd lost count.

Of course he should consider himself lucky that the machine hadn't hurt him, asides from the buzzing in his head, but his father was still stepping over a carefully drawn line. He was a teenager after all, a ghost; yes, a hero; maybe, but still a teenager. His father couldn't possibly have expected him to sit still this long.

Looking up at the clock again with a grown, Danny slumped back onto the large metal table he was sitting on. 'I am so dead' He thought to himself, 'She's going to drop me like a bad habit.' Even with a little over 6 years of ghost fighting under his belt, Sam Manson was still the only person that ever truly scared him.

"Daaaad," Danny whined unceremoniously, (yeah that was hero-ish.)

"Just another minute, Danny-boy," Jack said still staring dumbfound at his computer, completely unaware of his son's mind-numbing boredom.

"JACKSON ANDREW FENTON!" If it was possible for a ghost to jump two feet in the air while already floating in said air, Daniel managed to pull it off with great success, as his mother stormed down the stairs, fuming angrily, the fire in her eyes focused intently on the man in question, who was trying desperately to blend into the back ground.

"How many times must I tell you NOT to EXPERIMENT on our SON?!" The blue jumpsuit-wearing huntress shrieked.

'Gee, I wander how many kids can say their parents scream that on a daily basis?' Danny thought to himself with a smile, 'Only in the Fenton house.'

"I was just—" Jack started to explain.

"You were just about to take that thing off his head," Maddie answered for him, as Danny's attention was brought back to the stairs where his sisters, Jazz and Dani were currently peaking around the corner to see if it was safe to come down, toting several bags from each arm; courtesy of the mail where the three of them had spent a girl's day out.

Truthfully Dani was his clone, but once his parents had met her and discovered she was living on the streets, his mother had immediately barged into city hall, demanded a set of adoption papers and made her apart of the family, allowing Danny to swap the title 'cousin' for 'sister'.

"Yeah, that – works too," Jack agreed nervously. Somehow finding it in his irritated brain to pity his father, Danny decided to come to his rescue.

"Its okay, mom, I agreed to it," He stated giving her a small smile, which melted away when she turned her furry on him.

"Don't defend him," She practically screeched.

"K," He said stupidly, backing as far away from her as the table would allow, (okay, so maybe 'Sam' wasn't the only one that scared him.

"But Maddie," Jack started again.

"Don't 'but Maddie' me, now shut this atrocity down," She screamed pointing to the computer that was still gathering data from Amity Park's very own Danny Phantom. That is, until he reached up to remove the head set, so that he could escape from his mother's wrath and float over to stand next to Jazz and Dani.

"So much for the birthday plan," Dani concluded, as two rings of light announced the presence of Danny Fenton.

"Well I tried," He stated, relieved that the buzzing in his head had finally decided to cease and desist.

"Weren't you supposed to meet Sam like 3 hours ago?" Dani asked nonchalantly and smirked as her brother (for the lack of a better word) freaked.

"AH," Danny yelled looking at the watch that only now adorned his wrist, "I gotta go," He yelled before disappearing up the stairs, so fast, that he left an alter-image of himself behind, leaving his two sisters behind to share a small laugh at their brother's expense.

Deciding to leave their parents to their bickering, they walked up after him a moment later, where they discovered the front door had been left open in his hast, sue to Danny probably debating that those extra two seconds where two seconds too long to bother with, leaving Jazz to quietly close it herself.

The two girls then quietly made their way up the stairs and stopped at a room labeled 'Dani's Room', where Danny's name crossed out with a big red X; since he was now living on the collage campus, allowing Dani to move out of the guest room and take up residence in his, much to his great displeasure, but there wasn't much he could do about it now.

The room wasn't that different from when Danny had occupied the space, though it was a bit more girly, however, as Jazz walked inside, listing to whatever her little sister was saying, an unconscious smile graced her face.

Because she was Danny's clone, Danielle shared many of the same hobbies and desires as her brother, but just looking at the room around them, showed that she was still becoming her own person.

She still shared his fascination with space; if not necessarily the desire to be an astronaut, in fact it was almost the exact opposite, instead wanting to explore the deep sea. They still listened to a lot of the same music, but Dani was starting to find her own mix, she had made her own friends and her own style and her own way of life.

In fact Jazz was starting to see the differences in her two siblings as much as she could see the similarities, and it was this, that truly made her smile.

Just as Dani turned to say something to her, a wisp of air escaped her lips and a shiver traveled the length of the ghost-girl's spine, announcing the presence of a ghost and Jazz smiled at the look of pure dread that came to her face. Remembering all the times she had seen that same look on her brother's, over the years.

"I think Danny's suffered enough today," Jazz stated, "Why not give him a break?"

"Because he specifically told me 'not to', unless I don't have school or homework," Dani answered dryly

"But you don't have school – or homework," Jazz accused.

"Yeah, I know," Dani muttered sourly, before changing into her ghost-form, causing her long black hair to turn white and her light blue eyes to turn purple, (yet another difference between the two them.)

Over the years, Dani's power had also gradually changed to a rather pretty amethyst-purple, which she was nearly ecstatic about. Considering that purple was about as far from green as the color wheel would allow.

Not that she had a problem with Danny, but she had grown very tired of being compared to him and/or being mistaken for him. There's only so much a ghost girl can take, you know?

"I swear if it's the Box Ghost again, I'm going to –" Dani started to say, just before a voice outside the window yelled –

"BEWARE!"

Jazz couldn't help but laugh as her sister clawed at her hair, muttering a stream of unrepeatable curses, before barreling toward the wall where she became intangible and disappeared, leaving Jazz to quietly set down her bags and silently commend the Box Ghost for his persistence.

But he'd still better hope that he was faster than he was evil.

A black and white, Danny-shaped, blur flew toward the Nasty Burger as fast as his super-human powers could take him, gaining himself applause and gasps of aw from the people below, as he sped toward the Casper High hangout and quickly adjusted so he could drift into the old secluded ally behind the restraint, which he'd used hundreds of times to change back, unnoticed, however, this time, something happened that he hadn't expected.

He hit a wall.

"What the," He cursed loudly, holding his head, as the pain quickly subsided, (ghostly-regeneration; it was a perk,) "How?" He asked the wall in front of him, giving it an evil glare as if he was prepared to scare the answers out of it. But then he noticed something odd to his right – a cat.

While this in itself wasn't all that unusual, it was the fact that this particular cat was currently suspended in the air, as it jumped from the top of a garbage can to the ground.

"Huh," Danny stated before taking notice of a weight around his neck that hadn't been there before and lifted it up to find it to be a – "Time medallion?" He said out loud.

"Daniel," A calm voice suddenly answered, causing said boy to spin around wildly, where he found, none other, than the Ghost of Time, himself.

"Hey Clock," Danny stated, calming down a little, as he came to the conclusion that this ghost wasn't his enemy.

"Danny, how many times must a ask you not to call me that?" Clockwork stated calmly; switching from his adult form to his old man form in the process, though, if he was upset about the nick name, he certainly didn't show it.

Danny took a second to count it out on his fingers before answering, "This will be the 4th time this month," Danny declared proudly.

"Must I really keep reminding you?" The Time Master asked.

"What, I'm in a rush and you just made me run into a wall," Danny informed him sternly, "Give a ghost a break."

"True," Clockwork admitted, reaching into his robes as he changed to his child form, leaving Danny to glare at him.

"You could at least say 'you're sorry'."

"When you're internal, you tend to get your kicks where you can find them," The Master of Time declared with a smile, before handing Danny a blank white envelope, switching back to his adult form as he did so.

"That's a nasty way to give an apology," Danny muttered sourly, as he took the letter. "What's this?"

"The Observants request that you read it," Clockwork answered.

"Okay," Danny said confused, "So what is it?"

"I don't know." These three simply words promptly caused Danny to blink at the ghost in utter shock,

"There's something I never thought I'd hear you say," He declared flabbergasted, causing the time wizard to smile at him again. "So if you don't know then – who does?"

"You, once you read it," Clockwork answered, nodding toward the letter, as he switched back into an Old Man, "But allow me to give you a warning."

"Warning," Danny repeated quietly.

"The Observants went to great lengths to hide this information from me, so whatever it is that they want from you – be cautious." And with that the time master was gone.


R&R

XD