Content warning: Major character death (implied), descriptions of the destruction of (animal) ghosts
AN: One of my least favorites of the bunch, although I still like the original idea. Wanted to go darker and more emotionally-heavy, but between my limited time-frame and my inexperience with writing it just didn't happen.
It was such a slow, gradual change that Danny still doesn't know where it went wrong. Even if he was given another chance, another shot at redemption, he wouldn't know what to change. Last time it was so easy, an obvious mistake with awful consequences, but this time there was no clear turning point.
It started so long ago, although he isn't sure when, exactly, that was. He likes to think that it was somewhere soon after defeating his evil future self, but he thinks it had started even before that.
At first it was so innocent, almost impossible to tell apart from his normal thoughts. Quiet suggestions that he should defend himself from Dash, that he should fight back, not for himself, but for all of Dash's victims.
He could see the justice in this, and he listened. The next time Dash attacked him, Danny fought him off. The nerds had celebrated him, and while Sam didn't approve, Tucker was more than understanding.
When Dash tried again, Danny simply fought back even harder. And the next time, he hit even harder. By the time Dash gave up, not just on Danny, but on all bullying, even Tucker disapproved of his violence. He agreed that it was a good thing that Dash would stop bullying, especially since the other bullies would likely follow his example, but he didn't think it was a good idea to take it this far.
Danny agreed, but the quiet voice inside his head didn't let him say so, so he didn't.
Dash wasn't the only opponent that Danny faced with increasing amounts of violence, however. The ghosts that continued to harass him and his town were also subjected to his wrath. He beat them up far more than necessary to trap them in the thermos, and he got a vicious kind of pleasure from doing so.
He knew it was wrong to go against his moral code like this, but he couldn't bring himself to care. The quiet voice in his head crowed in pleasure, and in doing so it drowned out Danny's own protests.
His senseless violence continued to escalate, and he started going on patrols without Sam and Tucker more and more often. They didn't approve, he knew, but they couldn't scold him about it if they didn't know it had happened.
It was during one of these solo fights that he took the next step towards the inevitable. He was chasing some sort of ecto-animal, barely sentient enough to be aware of its environment, but an absolute pain in Danny's ass. He had caught the critter several times, depositing it into the Ghost Zone every time, but it continued to find its way out.
Even the severe beatings that Danny delivered didn't teach it to stay away, and he was just so tired of fighting this same ghost over and over again. The quiet voice in his mind had an idea to stop the ghost from returning, and Danny gladly obeyed.
He didn't even think about what he was doing as he pinned the critter down with one hand, charging an ecto-blast in the other. He pressed the charged ball of energy against the chest of the small animal and released it, obliterating the core of the ghost. Afterwards, he dutifully sucked up the remaining ectoplasm, dumped it into the Ghost Zone, and promptly forgot about it, never stopping to think about what, exactly, he had done.
The quiet voice continued to encourage him to destroy ghosts (although it never actually said anything along those lines, only that he was taking care of problems in a more permanent way), and so Danny continued to obliterate any non-sentient ghosts that crossed him.
It was only a matter of time before someone spotted Phantom doing so, and word quickly spread. Within the hour, everyone in Amity seemed to know about Phantom destroying other ghosts, and everyone had their own opinion about the matter. Some were glad to see that bothersome ghosts would never return, others thought that Phantom had gone too far, and others still thought that this was the start of a slippery slope, a clear tell that Phantom wasn't the well-behaved ghost he pretended to be.
Sam, Tucker, and Jazz were upset, of course. They knew that Danny had been patrolling without them more and more, and they suspected that he was doing so to hide his violence from them, but they never thought it would be this bad.
They demanded to know why he would do this, but he couldn't tell them. He didn't want to tell them about the quiet little voice that encouraged him, and it's not like he did any real harm. The ecto-animals he destroyed were barely sentient, and did little more than cause trouble. The world was better off without them.
Their protests that people said that about most ghosts, including himself, were ignored.
Their attempts to follow him on patrols went unheeded as well, as they were easy to lose, and he made sure to restrain himself when they were around.
The reality of what he had been doing still didn't hit Danny when he destroyed a humanoid ghost for the first time.
Amity Park had grown quieter. The animal ghosts avoided the city, and even the more intelligent ghosts had started to shy away. Instead of enjoying the peace, Danny grew restless and paranoid, and the voice was quick to strike. It started to encourage him to act pro-actively in his defense of the city, instead of waiting for trouble to come.
As Danny pondered how to achieve this, the voice started pointing him in the direction of ghosts who posed a threat to him, ghosts who might endanger his loved ones.
It was an obvious choice. There were many ghosts who endangered the city, but there was only a single ghost who posed such a clear threat to Danny's family and friends.
And so Danny left for the Ghost Zone, finding his way to Clockwork's tower with surprising ease.
The Fenton Thermos sat on a table, unattended.
Danny removed the empty Thermos that he wore on his back, and replaced it with the Thermos that contained his future self.
On his way out, he glanced at the screens that Clockwork used to view the timeline. He saw familiar imagery of his evil future self destroying Amity Park, and took it as silent encouragement from Clockwork.
He left the tower, and left the empty Thermos.
Actually destroying his future self was easier said than done, however. He knew he couldn't win in a direct battle, and he didn't want to risk the full ghost escaping.
His parents' inventions provided the solution for his troubles. He managed to find a cage strong enough to hold the evil Phantom, and the questionably-named Ecto-Stoppo-Power-Erfier would then be used to strip the ghost of his powers. After that, destroying him was easy, especially when he remembered everything the ghost had done.
Danny still didn't think about what he had done. The voice continued to whisper its approval to him, telling him that the full ghost had it coming, that he deserved it.
The voice continued to encourage Danny's violence, and Danny continued to listen obediently. He grew sullen and withdrawn, with a short fuse and vicious when angered. Mr. Lancer and his parents grew concerned as well, and his sister, Sam, and Tucker hovered around him almost constantly.
They tried to help, in their own ways, but their words were almost incomprehensible to him. The voice, which had steadily grown louder, drowned them out with ease.
They were worried about him, he could tell, but nothing he did seemed to calm them down. He wanted to help them, his friends, his sister, his parents, and his teacher, but he didn't know how.
Luckily, the voice knew.
And, just like before, Danny obeyed.
Suddenly, the voice grew quiet, and for the first time in who-knows how long, Danny had only his own thoughts to keep him company.
He couldn't really remember what he had been doing. He knew that Jazz, and Sam and Tucker, and his parents, and even Mr. Lancer had been worried about him. He had wanted to help them, he remembered, but he hadn't known how.
He knew he had helped them. He just couldn't remember what he had done to achieve this.
It was then that he started to take in where he was. He didn't recognize the area, as it had turned unrecognizable by some sort of great violence. There was debris littered around everywhere, and fire as well. The streets had emptied out, with no one around.
Had a ghost attacked? Were his loved ones safe?
He made to take off, and saw his gloves as he raised his clenched fists.
His gloves, which had once been white, were heavily stained with something red.
He looked at his hands, slowly opening and closing them. The red which stained them glittered, liquid moving as the gloves underneath shifted.
He knew it was blood, but he wasn't sure how he knew. He wanted to blame the (not so) little voice, but it remained silent.
Suddenly remembering the situation, he shoved away his concerns about the blood on his gloves, and whirled around to inspect the area. He saw something moving from the corner of his vision and almost blasted it, but closer inspection showed that he had seen himself reflected in a shattered window.
He was about to laugh at himself for his own stupidity, but something felt off about his reflection, stopping him. Danny drifted closer to the window, and looked at himself.
Ruby red eyes looked back.
His skin was stained by soot, but the color seemed off. Automatically, Danny reached up to wipe some of it off. The skin underneath was discolored, a strange blue rather than his normal tan.
He closed his eyes, refusing to accept what he saw. He turned around, eyes still closed, and tried to force it out of his mind.
Something tickled the back of his neck, a welcome distraction. Until he realized that the tickling was his own hair, and he could feel it flickering like fire. Dread washed over him, heavy and cold.
Opening his eyes again, he pulled down a lock of his hair to inspect. Just as he had feared, it continued to wisp in his hand, despite the lack of wind.
Releasing it again, Danny turned back to look at his reflection. He nervously licked his lips, and shivered as he felt (and saw) a narrow snake-like tongue instead of his normal tongue. He grimaced, and saw the light glint off of his fangs.
"No..." he whispered, but suddenly he knew.
The voice, which had haunted him for months, steadily increasing in volume, didn't just sound familiar because it was his mind's voice. It had sounded familiar because it was his voice, the voice of his future self.
"No," he repeated, stronger, and he whirled around to search the area around him.
His eye was suddenly drawn towards a bright sign in the rubble, and he instantly recognized it, despite the damage done to it. It had once read "Nasty Burger", but most of the letters had been burned or blown off.
He glanced around himself, still looking for his loved ones, but he knew he wouldn't find them. Not alive, at least.
He halted, inhaled sharply, and then turned back to his house. He had to speak with Clockwork.
He had to fix this, somehow.
But Clockwork didn't show himself. The tower was as empty as the last time, and the screens still displayed the same imagery. Danny found himself watching them, and slowly realized that he had misjudged their purpose during his last visit.
They weren't quiet encouragement from Clockwork to destroy his future self. They were a warning of the path he had taken.
He hadn't listened.
Clockwork couldn't change the past, he could only steer the future. And Danny hadn't followed the correction, had instead followed the voice of his future self.
And so Clockwork could do nothing to help him, or his loved ones.
He ruefully thought to himself that this future was inevitable, after all.