Attention all former, current and new readers! This is NOT a standalone story; it is part of a faux story lineup I have written as part of a continuation of the TV series. If you have not previously read the stories, or chapters, that come before this one, I highly advise at least giving them a onceover. A list of the stories that I have written for the lineup can be found on my homepage here on this site. It lists the stories in their correct order. However, if you wish to continue, you may do so at your own discretion…you have been warned.
Danny Phantom is owned by Butch Hartman and Nickelodeon Studios. Any OCs are created and owned by me or have been used with permission by their original creators.
At long last! It is finally here! The much anticipated rewrite for A Trip through Time! It has been a long time coming, several years in the making in fact, but it has finally begun.
First and foremost, this is the direct sequel to A Twist in the Dimensions, even if it may not seem like it at first. All of the previous chapters from the original version of this story have been added to what I've come to call, The Nostalgic Version of the two stories. You can read the original story there as a way of comparing how the new one relates to the old one.
With that all said and done, what do you say we jump right in?
Everything was eerily quiet, silent as the dead of night, as Danny slowly opened his eyes to his morning lit bedroom. He blinked the sleep out of his eyes for a moment before he looked down from the ceiling above and to the window where the morning sun was shining through after just barely peeking over the distant horizon.
"Huh?" he groaned, squinting against the morning sun shining in his face. "Awake, already?" he groaned to himself, turning his head as he did so in order to look at the digital clock on the stand beside his bed; it wasn't yet 5:40am. "This early?" he asked himself with a groan before he slowly sat up in his bed. "That's unusual, even for me," he groaned, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
Upon opening his eyes again, and gazing down at the bed sheets covering his feet, he was suddenly hit with a massive headache. He grunted and hissed in mild agony as he grasped his head with both hands and bent forward in his bed. Taking deep breaths to calm himself, he carefully opened his eyes again and scanned his room.
Something felt horribly wrong. This was definitely his room; there was nothing wrong with it, nothing missing or out of place. What seemed so troubling to him though, was the fact that he didn't remember going to bed in his room the previous night. In fact, he couldn't recall even going to sleep at all the previous night!
"What happened last night?" he groaned with discomfort as he released his grasp on his head and lowered his hands to his lap. "I have to try and remember," he urged himself.
Closing his eyes and going deep into thought, he tried to recollect the last thing he could remember. A starry night sky with stars that raced across the heavens much faster than normal was all that came to mind before he reopened his eyes with concern.
"Nothing," he groaned with worry as he turned in his bed and slid his feet out from under the covers before resting them on the cold floor. "I have absolutely no recollection of what happened last night," he declared before his eyes squinted in determination. "But whatever it was, I did not fall asleep in here; of that I am certain," he maintained with steely resolve as he stood from his bed.
He turned his head towards his bedroom door when he heard a pounding noise coming from down the hall. Carefully opening it, and cautiously peering through the crack and down the hall, he spotted Danielle banging on the bathroom door, still wearing her pajamas. Her hair was down, and was a complete mess. She had yet to start cleaning herself up for the day.
"Will you hurry up in there already!" she yelled as she continued pounding on the door. "You're not the only one that has to use the bathroom you know," she shouted at the current occupant through the door. "I really gotta go," she complained as she bounced on the balls of her feet.
"Just give me another minute, will ya!" Jazz shouted back through the door, making Danielle scowl with irritation as she stopped bouncing. "Sheesh! I've got a big day ahead of me, and I need to be ready for it!" she informed the younger girl.
Danielle crossed her arms and huffed, turning her head away with a pout. Her scowl faded when Danny came out of his room and proceeded down the hall towards her. It was clear to her that he'd had a rough night, just by looking in his eyes. "You're up unusually early for a Saturday morning," she pointed out as he stopped in front of her. "And you don't look well rested," she noted curiously as she tilted her head slightly, as if that would give her a better angle on him or something. "Let me guess, didn't wake up feeling quite normal, right?" she inquired of him with a steely resolve of her own, as if she already knew the answer herself.
"Yeah, that's right," he responded, quite surprised that she had managed to guess that he woke up feeling like something was wrong. "How did you know that though?" he inquired of her, curious himself now, though still a bit surprised.
"I felt the same way when I first woke up," she answered him, unfolding her arms and resting her hands on her hips. "Something just felt wrong," she said in a quieter tone as she looked off to the side with concern. "I don't even remember going to bed last night," she claimed, looking back up at him and raising one of her hands to her side. "Let alone falling asleep," she added before putting her hand back on her hip.
This new revelation came as a bit of a shock to him. She had been just as concerned by her surroundings upon waking up as he was. Not by an unfamiliarity with her room, but by not recalling falling asleep in it. He was about to say just as much too, but he was interrupted by the bathroom door finally opening.
Both siblings looked up as Jazz finally emerged through the opening, and they were both shocked and surprised by her appearance. Spinning through the door, she posed in front of her two younger siblings, wearing a beautiful cerulean colored designer dress. The dress settled around her legs when she stopped spinning and turned to face her siblings.
"So, what do you guys think?" she asked them with a delighted smile as she did a quarter turn, holding the hem of her dress up a bit as it fluttered around her legs.
"Pretty, I guess," Danielle complimented with confusion.
"What's the occasion?" Danny asked, folding his arms and looking his older sister up and down.
Jazz's smile quickly faded, only to be replaced with a frown, as if she'd been suddenly offended. She released the hem of her dress from her grasp and straightened, looking him in the eyes with a look of irritation. "It's my prom dress. Why do you think I'm wearing it?" she asked him, furrowing her eyebrows with frustration.
"But I thought you already went to the senior prom," Danny responded, sounding quite perplexed by what she was inferring.
"My senior prom is later tonight, you clueless moron!" she shouted angrily, balling her hands into fists at her side. "It's all Kim and I have been talking about since your birthday, last week!"
Last week? Perplexity was written across Danny's face, because he could have sworn that his and Danielle's shared birthday was over a month ago. He'd only been awake for five minutes and this was the second instance of something just not making any sense to him. His perplexity only angered Jazz even further.
"For Kim's sake, I won't tell her that you forgot about tonight when I meet her at the mall," she growled while glaring daggers at him.
"You're going to the mall dressed like that?" Danielle asked, trying to hide her own perplexity by asking another question to take her mind away from being angry with Danny. It didn't work out as she had intended.
"She and I are having our make-up done professionally," she informed her younger sister with a scowl. "And afterwards, we're having our prom photos taken for the school yearbook, remember? The other day, you said you'd go as long as you could bring Nicole and Becky, and if I promised to buy lunch at the food court afterwards," she reminded the younger girl.
"Uh, I did?" she asked, sharing a glance of uncertainty with Danny who only shrugged his shoulders at her.
"Sometimes, I think you inherited more and more of the clueless gene from Danny than any of us would care to admit," Jazz grumbled angrily. "How could both of you have forgotten something so important like this?" she asked them, clearly insulted by something that neither of the younger siblings were getting. "Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed?" she asked them, looking between them both.
"You have no idea," Danny grumbled with frustration of his own as he began to rub his temple with one of his hands; Danielle doing the same with both hands.
"In any case, be ready to leave in an hour," she advised Danielle before she turned to go back to her room. "And when you see Kim later tonight, don't give her any reason to think that you forgot; Lord forbid she breaks things off," she advised of Danny before she began to walk away, only further confusing him. "Still can't understand her fixation on him," she grumbled to herself under her breath before she disappeared into her bedroom and slammed the door shut behind her.
"Please tell me any of that made sense to you," Danny inquired of his younger sister a few moments after Jazz had left them standing in the hall; confusion still written all over his face.
"Nope, totally lost," she answered, just as perplexed as he was. "None of this is right," she sighed, shaking her head in disbelief. "Didn't she already go to her prom?" she asked of him, turning and looking up at him with concern.
"I could have sworn she did," he acknowledged her question as he put his hands on his hips and looked towards the floor in deep thought. "I mean, it feels like she did, but I just can't remember," he confessed. "It feels like we were busy doing something else, but I can't for the life of me recall what it was," he admitted.
"Yeah, like our minds were preoccupied with something else that was going on," she pointed out. "Or, maybe the lack-there-of?" she asked, more to herself as she too went deep into thought.
"Argh! This is so confusing!" he shouted as he ruffled his hair in frustration. "I can't seem to think straight!" He sighed from mental exhaustion as he slowly lowered his arms back to his side. "Maybe getting some brain food will help," he suggested as he passed by the bathroom and made his way for the stairs.
"Yeah, some breakfast might help us figure out why things seem so off for us," she suggested as she made to follow him.
He paused in mid-step and looked back at her with an eyebrow raised in curiosity. "Weren't you trying to hurry Jazz along so that you could use the bathroom?" he asked of the young girl, who paused in mid-step behind him upon being reminded of her earlier mission.
They both turned to face the bathroom just as their father came rushing down the hall in a hurry, a look of panic and desperation on his face. "Oh boy! I should not have eaten all of those jalapeno chili bean burritos for dinner last night," he groaned in agony, holding his stomach with one hand, and a new roll of toilet paper in the other. He rushed into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him as he did, much to Danielle's horror.
"NO!" she screamed in a panic as she leapt at the closed door and pulled on the handle as hard as she could, but it was locked and would not budge. "I was next in line!" she shouted through the door. "I have to go!" she cried out as she began clawing at the door.
"Oh man, here it comes," Jack groaned from behind the door, making a strained grunt that made Danielle go red in the face as steam began billowing out of her ears out of anger and frustration, much to Danny's amusement, as he chuckled at her misfortune before making his way downstairs.
A bowl of cereal was slammed onto the kitchen table with a few pieces jumping out and landing around it before milk was poured in, half filling the bowl. "Man, I can't believe I somehow got roped into going to the beauty parlor at the mall," Danielle complained, taking a spoonful out of her cereal as Danny sat across from her eating toast and eggs. "I don't think I've ever agreed to such absurdity! And now I'm stuck watching Jazz and Kim get manicures," she huffed before shoving her spoonful of cereal into her mouth.
"Hey now, I've seen you applying lipstick and eyeliner before," he reminded her jokingly. "Besides, in another four years, it'll be your prom, and you'll be the one being all dolled up for her date night," he added with a taunting grin before he took a bite out of his toast.
"Ugh!" she groaned with disgust, clutching her arms as a cold shiver went down her spine, her spoon clattering to the table. "Don't remind me; the little bit I spoof myself up already is more than enough, as far as I'm concerned," she said with an annoyed scowl at her cereal bowl.
"Well, I'm sure it will come and go before you know it," he tried to reassure her, scooping some egg onto his toast before taking another bite. "After all, it feels like Jazz's prom has already come and gone, but we just can't seem to remember it happening, for some reason," he again said with confusion as he looked off to the side in contemplation.
"I almost think we may have been preoccupied with something else at the time," she added, the conversation's new direction taking her mind off from future manicure sessions. "Or perhaps, we were too busy waiting for something to happen that we were expecting," she offered as another possible suggestion for the uncertainty they shared as she prepared another spoonful of cereal.
"It's like trying to remember a dream after waking up," he pointed out. "The longer time passes, and the harder we think about it, trying to remember, the more we forget."
"Until something, or someone, triggers the memory!" she suddenly realized, slamming her fist, and the spoon that was clenched in it, onto the table, making her cereal bowl rattle, spilling a little milk out of it before it settled. "All we need to do is find something that can help trigger the memories that we've forgotten," she offered as a possible solution to their problem.
"Then we should get the answers that we've been looking for," he agreed with her, nodding his head in approval. "We'll start with trying to figure out what may have happened last night that could have affected how we woke up," he suggested. "When you're out, see if your friends can help shed some light on all of this," he suggested. "I'll meet up with Sam and Tucker, and see if I can do the same with them," he explained his similar part in the plan.
"Right," she nodded in agreement.
"This might be the easier course of action to take at the moment," he advised her. "We can figure out what's going on with this reoccurring prom business later. Jazz, and probably Kim, can't help us in this matter," he informed her, shaking his head quite gravely. "Jazz has only added to our uncertainty so far, and who knows what's going on with Kim. We have to tread lightly on this matter, least we only add more confusion to our already high levels of ambiguity," he warned.
"So, that's where we're at right now," Danny sighed with discomfort. He was sitting at a booth in the local food hangout for the students of their school; The Nasty Burger. He didn't have any food set out, but across from him, Sam and Tucker munched away as they listened to his tale. "Danielle and I woke up this morning with absolutely no recollection of what happened last night," he informed his friends. "We're hoping that you guys might be able to help fill in the blank spots for us," he pleaded with them.
Biting into his burger, Tucker munched away happily for a moment before responding. "Sorry dude, can't help ya there," he informed his friend before taking another bite out of his burger.
This worried Danny, but Sam was able to explain.
"We haven't seen you since after school, yesterday, when Jazz and Kim dragged you off," she explained to him before she began sipping from a fountain soda. "Something to do with prom dresses; you'll have to ask them," she suggested, putting her cup back on the table before taking a French fry and munching on it.
'Jazz and Kim?' Danny thought to himself. 'I was with them last night?' he again asked himself in his head. This was certainly unexpected. He hadn't been with his two best friends the previous night. He'd been with his sister, and her friend; but why had he been with them? He couldn't very well just ask Jazz. She was already infuriated with him over forgetting her prom later that night; he wasn't about to add fuel to the fire by telling her that he forgot about what happened the previous night as well, even if he really didn't have any recollection of what happened.
And what was more; Sam said they saw him the other day at school, but for some reason, it felt like this was the first time he'd seen them in a week! Something serious was definitely going on here, and he needed to get to the bottom of it.
As he continued to ponder these new developments to himself, Tucker decided to throw out a possible suggestion to his dilemma. "Maybe you got into a fight with a ghost that wiped your memory or something?" he suggested between mouthfuls of his burger, whilst pointing at his head with his finger.
"Yeah, maybe," Danny acknowledged, not quite believing it, but playing along just to humor his friend's suggestion. "But I don't know of any ghost that is capable of wiping someone's memory clean," he admitted regretfully.
"Well, can't you recall anything from last night?" Sam asked, despite him stating already that he remembered nothing from the previous night. "An image, a voice, anything?" she asked, grasping at straws as she became worried for her friend.
"Nothing," Danny replied, shaking his head before he realized something. "Actually…" he mumbled as he thought back. "Now that you mention it, there was something that came to mind earlier this morning when I first woke up," he pondered.
"Well, out with it," Sam urged him. "What, if anything, do you remember?"
"A starry, night sky," he answered. "Although, the stars appeared to be moving across the sky at an alarming rate," he continued to explain the short vision he'd had before he even got out of bed. "Much faster than normal."
"Hmm, trippy," Tucker said between munches of his burger.
"Everything just seems so weird to me lately, so foreign," Danny described to them as he began to rub his temple with his fingers. "My memories of recent events are just so contorted right now that its making me worried about my mental health. It just feels like there is absolutely nothing right with what's going on around me right now," he grumbled as he looked away from his friends, shamefully, choosing to stare out the window instead.
"You may be right," Tucker agreed after swallowing, so his voice came out clear. "Sounds like there is definitely something wrong with you," he pointed out before he went to go take another bite out of his burger but was stopped by Sam.
"Something wrong with him?" she scoffed before she glared at him. "What about what's wrong with you?" she asked him before she eyed the burger in his hands. "You're eating a veggie burger, which is way beyond normal, even for you."
Tucker's eyes widened as he froze from shock for a moment as he too eyed his burger with worry before he shrugged his shoulders and continued eating as if there was nothing wrong. Danny on the other hand, did not simply look the other way. His friend was a strict carnivore, he didn't eat veggies of practically any kind. So what was he doing eating a veggie burger? This went further beyond normal for him, and well into the realm of implausibility.
"Sorry, I need to go," he apologized to his friends urgently as he stood from the dinning booth. "I need to go find a quiet place where I can think properly by myself for a while," he informed them as he turned to make his way for the door.
"Oh hey, before you go; I'll be by later to drop off your suit," Tucker called out to him just as he was opening the door. "With any luck, I can pick it up from the dry cleaners before you leave tonight," he hoped.
"Hmm?" Danny questioned with confusion, pausing in mid-step out the door. 'My suit?' he thought to himself as he looked down at his hand, holding the door open. 'But my suit is part of my ghost form. How could he have it?' he questioned. "Umm, thanks, I guess," he mumbled back in response before he passed through the door, letting it close behind him before he went ghost and flew away to find someplace quiet where he could think for a little while.
Meanwhile, back in the Nasty Burger where he'd just left his friends…
"He didn't seem all too concerned that I might be cutting it a little close later," Tucker informed Sam with worry.
"I'm sure he's just got a lot on his mind right now," she suspected. "Nothing to worry about right now, he'll get it sorted out. In the meantime…" she said, once again eyeing his burger. "I wonder what other kinds of veggies we might be able to convert you over to," she wondered aloud with a bit of a mischievous grin as his eyes widened with a hint of fear of what may be to come.
Walking out of her bedroom with a yawn as she stretched her arms over her head, Danielle made her way down the hallway before she passed by Danny's room. She paused in mid-step before back-stepping until she could peer into his room through the open door. He was sitting on the floor in front of his bed, seemingly trying to meditate.
"That's strange," she thought to herself as she curiously eyed her brother from the doorway. "He's not in his ghost form, but I can still sense his energy," she thought before she knocked on the door to get his attention.
Immediately, his eyes shot open and he turned his head towards the door to find her standing in the entryway to the hall. He released his breath in a sigh of relief that he hadn't realized he was holding. Whatever had unnerved him, whatever tension he was feeling, eased away knowing that she had come to accompany him.
"Sorry," he apologized. "Even in your human form, you've been giving off ecto-energy. I've sensed you around me all day, even if you're not nearby; so I couldn't accurately sense your approach," he explained. Apparently, she too was emitting energy whilst in her human form.
"Don't think I've ever seen you mediate before," she commented, folding her arms and leaning against the door frame, ignoring the similarities in their emission of energy for the time being.
"Really?" he inquired. "I feel like I've been doing it a lot recently," he informed her as he stood up and proceeded to sit on the side of his bed. "So, how'd things go with the girls today?" he asked, mainly referring to Nicole and Becky.
"Only more confusing questions that need answering," she informed him as she approached and stood in front of him as he continued to sit on his bed, making them eye level with one another. "I asked them about last night and apparently we were all sleeping over at Nicole's house," she explained. "They both seemed a little annoyed that I'd somehow disappeared in the middle of the night and woke up back here," she groaned in thought, turning away in contemplation. "But anyway, apparently we had a weekend arrangement to sleep over at each other's houses. Tonight's sleepover is here and tomorrow's is at Becky's. We go directly to school from her house on Monday," she further explained.
"Hmm, I guess that may explain why you didn't remember falling asleep in your own room last night," Danny figured, pinching his chin with his fingers in thought. "And your choice of wardrobe," he commented, eyeing the gray sweats and white cami she was wearing.
"We're probably just gunna play video games all night," she figured before she looked down at her clothes and pinched her sweats with her fingers and lifted them slightly. "So I'm dressing comfy, but not expecting to get much in the way of sleep," she figured. "Did you get anything out of Sam and Tucker?" she asked, releasing her grip on her sweats.
"Same as you, only more confusing questions that need answering," he sighed with frustration. "We're getting nowhere with this, fast," he informed her. "Apparently I was with Jazz and Kim last night," he began to explain to her. "They dragged me away as soon school got out; but I have no clue as to what we did," he huffed as he tried to think on what may have happened.
"You could always ask them," Danielle suggested.
"Jazz is already upset that we forgot that tonight was her prom night," he reminded her with a glare. "I'm not adding fuel to the fire and telling her that I completely forgot about last night too," he said, shaking his head. "And asking Kim will likely get me nowhere because she would probably tell Jazz anyway which doesn't help the problem."
"Sounds like you're royally boned in that regard," she said with a slight smirk.
"I'm going to bed early tonight," he informed her as he stood from his bed and moved to pull back the blankets. "Hopefully a good, comfortable night's rest will do me some good and help get my thoughts in order."
"Not a bad idea, I suppose," she nodded in understanding. "I'll try to keep the volume down on our game play," she offered him, not wanting to disturb his sleep.
Before either of them could move, the sound of the doorbell rang through the house, making them both look up with interest. "I've got it!" Jazz yelled from down the hall before she zoomed by the door at near supersonic speed. The two siblings quickly glanced at one another before they bolted out the door and made their way down the hall as well, stopping only when they got to the top of the stairs.
Below them in the living room, Jazz was excitedly hugging Kim while Ron stood nearby with a red coat draped in one of his arms. He was wearing a tuxedo and had gotten his hair clean-cut. Kim was wearing a sparkly red, figure hugging dress that matched the red coat her brother was apparently being made to hold for her. Jazz was again dressed in her own cerulean dress; they were prepared to leave for their prom.
A sudden flash brightened the room and the younger siblings glanced towards the kitchen to see Maddie leaning in the doorway while Jack snapped off pictures on a camera. He appeared to be sniffing with joy over the sight of his daughter and her friends. It was only as Jazz was getting her picture taken with Ron that any of them even noticed the younger siblings watching them from the top of the stairs.
"Danny!" Kim squealed with delight, her eyes sparkling with excitement before they turned to concern. "Wait, why aren't you ready?" she asked with worry, the twinkle in her eyes vanishing in an instant.
"Umm, ready for what?" Danny asked, glancing around at the three seniors below in confusion.
"Dude, you better not be bailing on us," Ron scolded as he scowled up at the younger teen threateningly; making a fist with his coat free hand and put it on his hip.
"Bailing on what?" Danny asked, looking down at Danielle with worry as she shrugged her shoulders while looking back up at him with confusion.
"Danny, I swear, you'd better go get changed right now, or I'm gunna march up there and knock the stupid out of you!" Jazz threatened him as she began to seethe with an inner rage that burned in her eyes.
"Changed into what!?" Danny half yelled at no one in particular as he tightly gripped the banister, on the verge of freaking out on his family and friends.
"Danny, what has gotten into you?" his mother asked, quite concerned about how he seemed to be acting.
"Prom night jitters," his father chuckled as he lightly elbowed his concerned wife. "Remember how I was back in the old college days?" he reminded her.
"We're gunna be late if we don't leave soon," Ron said, glancing at a watch that he wore.
"I'm so confused right now," Danielle groaned with displeasure as Danny slouched next to her; he was on the verge of a mental breakdown. Neither of them had any clue what was going on.
"Common, Little Brother!" Jazz snapped at him. "Go put something on!" she urged him. "If not a Tux, then dress pants and a nice shirt, anything! You are not gunna ruin tonight for us just because you're too lazy to put on something descent. If not for me, then at least for her," she said, pointing at Kim who was pouting up at him with big, watery, puppy-dog eyes that shone like crystals.
"Huh?" Danny questioned before he was suddenly struck by a weird sense of Deja-vu. Kim's profile suddenly changed into that of a red-headed girl with green eyes that was also quite proficient with a truly convincing puppy-dog pout. "Ugh," he groaned as he held his head in one of his hands, as if trying to soothe a sudden headache, whilst tightly clutching the banister with the other to support himself.
"Knock, knock!" a familiar girl's voice called out to everyone from the still open front door as Sam suddenly stuck her head into the room. "What is all the yelling I heard about?" she asked as she fully stepped into the entryway.
"Oh good, Sam's here," Danny groaned with some relief, still rubbing at his temple.
"Hopefully she might be able to help us out," Danielle suggested as a possibility to raise her brother's hopes.
"We're running late for our Prom, and he hasn't changed yet," Ron informed the new arrival with a bit of agitation in his voice.
"Sorry, that would be my fault," Tucker suddenly called out, appearing beside Sam in the entryway. He held in one of his hands a clear plastic bag with a Tuxedo hanging on a hook. "I had to pick his Tux up from the dry cleaners so he could wear it tonight. I borrowed it a couple of weeks ago," he explained why he had it.
Danny's eye began to twitch when he realized that the situation was only becoming more worrisome, and he didn't know if he'd be able to handle much more of this in one night. "I need to wake up from this nightmare," he groaned with defeat.
"Danny, what the heck is going on here?" Danielle asked him, quickly growing terrified herself by the situation they had found themselves in. She herself may not be the subject of the current state of affairs, but she was deeply concerned for her older brother, who seemed to have been caught up in the middle of something that he had no prior knowledge of.
"I'll take that!" Kim squealed with excitement as she yanked the plastic covered tuxedo from Tucker, much to his dismay.
"Hey! Careful with those seams!" he called after her. "It's really delicate!"
"Tucker, you are a lifesaver," Jazz thanked him, giving him a side squeeze as thanks, much to his enjoyment.
"All in a day's work for Tucker Foley," he said with a bit of smugness, suddenly forgetting about the tuxedo that Kim had literally swiped from his grasp.
She was now quickly making her way up the stairs. With a delighted smile, she grabbed Danny by the hand and yanked him around, much to his surprise, before she started to drag him down the hall. "Common, we need to get you dressed," she cooed, tossing him a seductive look out of the corner of one of her eyes over her shoulder.
"Wait, what!?" he half yelled in terror when he suddenly realized what she was intending to do. "I think I can manage to get myself dressed," he said with desperation as he used his free hand to try and grasp for anything to hold along the wall as he was dragged down the hall against his will.
"You can't be trusted to do your own hair though," she informed him with a smirk. He quickly glanced back at Danielle, hoping she would help him out of this situation, but all she could do was raise her arms and shrug her shoulders in helplessness, not knowing what he wanted her to do to get him out of this situation. She was just as stunned by the sudden developments as he was. "You never comb it," Kim continued to chastise him. "Sometimes, I feel like I'm dating a hobo."
"Dating!?" Danny screeched before he was pulled into the bathroom before the door was slammed shut behind them.
"Well," Danielle groaned, looking at the door they had disappeared behind before she began to blush a deep red. "That's…a bit awkward," she grumbled before she turned away and looked back downstairs. "Doesn't any of this seem weird to any of you?" she asked the others in desperation.
"What, you mean Danny being clueless, like usual?" Jazz asked her with a glare in response as she folded her arms with frustration.
"That's not surprising," Sam said with a frown, shaking her head with disappointment as Tucker folded his arms and nodded in agreement.
Danielle slumped with disbelief against the banister, using it to support her as she didn't quite trust her legs to support her anymore. How could everyone seem so calm with what had just happened? Kim had never been that friendly with Danny before. She may have admitted once to liking him at one point in the past, but that was short-lived and nothing was ever made of it.
She looked down at Sam as she spoke with Tucker, her words lost due to Danielle's thoughts. Wasn't Danny dating her? She could have sworn she and Danny were an item. Why did she not seem at all bothered with how Kim was behaving towards Danny? Whatever was going on here, it definitely was not normal; and that was starting to scare her.
"Hello, hello!" a young girl's voice called out from the front door as Nicole and Becky suddenly stuck their heads in from the other side of the door frame. "You're front door is open," Nicole called out as she and Becky scanned the room, only now noticing all of the occupants that had turned their attention away from each other to the two pre-teens as they came in from outside.
"What, is everyone having a party or something?" Becky asked curiously, eyeing Jazz's dress with admiration.
"We're heading off to our prom," Ron answered the two girls. "We're just waiting for Danny and Kim to finish up and come downstairs so we can leave," he informed them before he took another glance at his watch.
"Speaking of Danny…" Jazz seemed to recall something. "He and Danielle have been on the verge of existential crisis all day today," she informed them. "I'm hoping to get Danny back into the right frame of mind by making him enjoy himself tonight. Perhaps the two of you can do the same for Danielle?" she asked, glancing up at the younger girl, still leaning against the banister above them, looking like she on the verge of mental defeat.
"Nothing that a couple rounds of viciously killing people on Doomed, and raging against the machine, won't fix," Nicole replied confidently before she swung off a backpack that she had been carrying. Becky did the same and set it on the floor before they began digging through them. As they did this, Danny and Kim finally emerged from the bathroom and rejoined the others.
Danny was now wearing the tuxedo that Tucker had brought. A ton of gel had been slathered into his hair, making it much more manageable to style; it no longer stuck up at odd angles. His face was blushed beat red, likely from having Kim forcibly pampering him in ways that he wasn't quite used to. Speaking of Kim, she had the cheeriest smile as she led Danny down the stairs by one of his arms.
"What do you guys think!?" Kim called down to everyone. "He really cleans up good, doesn't he?" she asked, turning back to him and smiling cheerfully as she playfully tugged on his tie.
"Not too bad," Sam commented, quite genuinely as she looked her friend up and down as Tucker burst into hysterics behind her. "Not gunna lie Kim, I felt a pang of jealousy there for just a moment," she admitted to the older girl, raising one of her hands and pinching her thumb and index finger together.
The heavy feeling Danny felt in his chest rose up, forming a lump in his throat upon hearing her say this. He couldn't help but feeling like Sam was completely out of character for some reason; as was Kim, whom had taken Sam's moment of jealousy as a compliment and only seemed to make her warm up to Danny even more by wrapping her arms around one of his.
"Sorry, but he's mine," she giggled, latching onto his arm with her fingers.
The lump in Danny's throat seemed to swell in size, and only continued to grow as his parents started taking pictures of young "couple".
"Hard to believe it's already been two months," Maddie sniffed with joy, smirking slightly as she continued taking photos; an enthusiastic Kim forcing Danny to pose with her.
"He certainly knows how to catch them," Jack said with delight. "Just like his old man," he smiled with self-gratification.
"Blech," Nicole and Becky faked being sick to their stomachs as they made their way up stairs to join Danielle, who didn't seem to be functioning any better than Danny was at the moment; trying to take all of this in at once was all just too much for her to handle.
"Psst, hey, dude. Any chance you can see about having her hook me up with some of her friends?" Tucker whispered to him, leaning in closer after Maddie was done taking pictures.
Danny only glanced at him nervously while Kim scowled at him with disgust. "I already said no," she hissed at him with a nasty grimace.
With his fears being realized by all the clues being thrown around the room pointing to him and Kim being a couple, Danny could no longer think straight. Sam and Tucker saw nothing wrong with these events, and the mere thought of his friends and family thinking that he and Kim had been dating for two months apparently, had traumatized him to the point of near-complete mental shut down. His eye began twitching again when Kim began dragging him towards the still open front door, after Ron reminded them of the time.
"We're really running late now!" he urged them as they made their way out the door.
"We should probably get going too," Sam sighed, moving to follow Jazz and Ron out the door.
"Yeah, we need to get logged into Doomed before the girls surpass our scores," Tucker replied urgently, casting a competitive glance up at Nicole and Becky.
"Double XP weekend," Nicole called down to him with a cocky grin. "We can level up twice as fast," she pointed out as Becky stuck her tongue out at the older teens. "And your reduced group of two can't beat our group of three so easily," she further taunted, pointing her thumb back and forth between Becky, Danielle, and herself.
"Oh, it's on now," Sam smirked, accepting their challenge before she and Tucker both sprinted out the door.
"Common, if we log on now, we can get a head start on them!" Nicole half yelled excitedly as she Becky grabbed Danielle's arms and dragged her back to her room.
She managed to cast one last look downstairs, meeting Danny's desperate gaze, both begging for help from the other as he too was dragged out the door by his arm before the two pairs of doors slammed shut, cutting them off from each other's view.
In Casper High's gymnasium, loud party music blasted around the nearly hundred students, and few faculty chaperoning the event, as they all either conversed with one another or danced their hearts out. It was a typical senior prom in retrospect, but there was one attendee that wasn't too keen on being there. Not being a senior himself, Danny wasn't too keen on joining in with the others, though that wasn't the main reason for his concern.
Sitting at a table, next to Kim, his date apparently, whom was happily chatting away with Jazz and her brother, he nervously clutched a cup of punch in his hands. His eyes were focused hard on the floor as he frantically searched through his memories, desperately trying to figure out why everything felt so wrong to him. He felt he was on the verge of making a breakthrough, but no answers actually came to him.
He wasn't supposed to be dating Kim! They weren't a couple! But, he felt he was dating someone, he just couldn't quite place his finger on whom he was actually supposed to be going out with. His face scrunched up as he went deeper into thought, but this caught Kim's attention.
"Hey, are you alright?" she asked him with concern as she turned away from Jazz and her brother. She grabbed one of his hands with one of hers and rubbed her thumb on the back of his hand in comfort. "I'm here for you if you need to open up about something," she offered, sounding far more caring towards him than he was comfortable with.
"No, its fine," he rejected, turning his head away before adding, "It's something to do with ghost fighting; you wouldn't really understand," he informed her cautiously. He may have been extremely uncomfortable with her being so unnaturally affectionate towards him, but he still didn't want to hurt her feelings, especially with the special event that they were attending. He hoped she would buy the excuse he'd fed her. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes, noticing that she seemed to be contemplating him for a moment, before she smiled at him.
"Ok," she sighed with defeat; she bought it! Though her smile never wavered. "But if you need help taking your mind off things, just know that I'm here for you," she offered warmly, squeezing his hand in hers.
"You should try having a little bit of fun, rather than sitting around moping," Jazz chastised him, sticking her nose in the air before she took a bite out of a cracker she'd gotten from a plate at the center of the table they were sitting at. "It'll help take your mind off from whatever's been bothering you," she pointed out matter-of-factly.
As Danny glowered at her, the lights began to dim, and the DJ's voice called out to the crowd over numerous large speakers that, until a couple moments ago, were blasting music. "Alright Seniors, it's time to announce your King and Queen!" he called out, receiving applause from everyone in attendance. "Your Prom King this year is…Ronald Masters!" he called out, reading off from an index card.
Acting a bit smug, not being the least bit surprised, Ron stood from the table, much to the applause of everyone else. He made his way towards the DJ table, only to be joined shortly after by another senior girl that had been named Prom Queen. She was very pretty; her make-up caused her whole face to sparkle, even in the dim lighting. With long legs and extreme curves, most guys in the room longed for her, quickly growing jealous of Ron.
Several girls throughout the room were jealous of the girl, mainly due to not being named Prom Queen themselves. Jazz of course was the exception. She wasn't jealous because she hadn't gotten elected by her other classmates, it was due to the fact that her boyfriend was now obligated to dance with the other girl for a bit, leaving her to sit at the table, quietly seething angrily to herself.
Noticing this, Danny took the opportunity to take a harmless jab at her over the way she'd been acting towards him all day. "What's the matter?" he asked her, feigning concern. "Feeling a little jealous?" he asked with a smirk. "You should try having a little bit of fun, rather than sitting around moping," he taunted her, quoting what she had said to him no more than a minute ago. "It'll help take your mind off from whatever's been bothering you," he jabbed again, quoting her again so as to sink his point home. This has the intended effect as Jazz suddenly began blushing as she pouted angrily, steam rising from her head as she turned away from her brother and a giggling Kim.
"So, did that help any?" Kim asked him, still giggling at her friend's misfortune.
"Yeah, actually," Danny replied with another smirk at his sister. "It did a little."
"Great!" she said excitedly, clasping her hands together as she smiled with delight. "Let's keep this gravy train rolling then," she exclaimed with hurried excitement as she grabbed one of his hands and pulled him out of his chair.
"Wait, what!?" he exclaimed himself with renewed worry as he was dragged away from the table with a newly amused Jazz sticking her tongue out at him. He realized she was dragging him out onto the dance floor as she began to explain her intentions.
"Everyone else is out here enjoying themselves," she informed him. "I don't know what's been bothering you lately, but this is a great way to unwind and take your mind off whatever's been keeping you on edge," explained, stopping in the middle of the dance floor and turning around to face him, her eyes sparkling with joy as she looked up at him with the cheeriest smile he'd ever seen.
Truth be told, he didn't really want to dance, let alone with his friend whom was under the impression that they were a couple, when he knew deep down in his gut that there shouldn't have been anything going on between them. He wouldn't be able to figure this out right now; he'd need time to himself to think. But he couldn't very well just take off now without saving face. Instead, he decided to indulge her for the time being, hoping that it would at least make the night end sooner.
"I only know how to slow dance," he explained to her nervously as she began swaying from side to side with the music as he just stood there like an unmoving statue.
This elicited a giggle from her as she reached out and grabbed his hands in hers, forcing him to sway from side to side along with her. "You just need to unwind and cut loose," she instructed him.
Over the next few minutes, he seemed to be getting the hang of dancing free style. He tried pushing the uncomfortable feeling of dancing with Kim out of his mind, merely passing it off as dancing with a friend, rather than a date. This seemed to be working, because he had hardly noticed as more of Kim and Jazz's classmates made their way onto the dance floor.
"Hey, you're not doing too bad, dude!" Ron called out to him, shouting over the loud music as he danced with Jazz; his dance with the Prom Queen done and over.
"See, I told you little bro!" Jazz shouted to him over the music. "You only needed to find a way to enjoy yourself! Just goes to show, nothing is impossible!" she shouted, quite proud of him for finally breaking free of the shell that had him contained all day. But this last statement from her only resulted in unraveling his mind even further than it was before.
He suddenly froze in mid-step as his eyes widened with shock as the word 'impossible' echoed in his head, over and over; growing louder, but somehow more distant, before he felt another wave of Deja-vu sweep over him in the form of a series of flashbacks.
"And you would be?" Danny asked, cocking an eyebrow at someone.
"I've been skeptical from the start," the redheaded girl from his earlier Deja-vu said with a scowl. "I've been tricked into thinking someone was an ally before too, only to have them turn the tables on me, revealing their true intentions."
"I'm not letting you get near that Space Center!" the same redheaded girl yelled angrily as she pulled back on what appeared to be a grappling gun.
"Time to go kid," the redheaded girl growled, glaring at Danny as he returned the glare. They stared daggers at each other for several seconds. "You're gunna have to find another way of killing yourself, if you're that desperate."
"You still don't get it do you?" Danny asked her, his glare never wavering. "You really are a hero then," he said. "Risking your own life to save another, despite the danger involved."
"What am I?" a blue-haired girl asked in a defeated whisper.
"You're half human, and half ghost," Danny answered her solemnly. "Now you're no different than me," he added with a smirk.
"You guys may all think that it's impossible. Well, all I have to say to that is, check my name," the blue-haired girl said with a grin.
Danny grabbed his head in a dizzy state as he staggered on the spot. His head was throbbing, and the loud music was not helping. He needed to get out of there and find someplace quieter, now! Bumping into other couples who glared and shouted angrily at him, he forced his way by them on his way out of the school's gymnasium with a very worried Kim chasing after him.
Finding his way to a water fountain, he splashed water into his face, messing up his hair and returning it to normal, before he looked at his reflection in the mirror on the wall that hung over it. He noted the tired and overwhelmed look in his eyes as he tried to recall the visions he had just seen. The redheaded girl was angry and irate with him, but the blue-haired girl, whom looked eerily similar to the redheaded girl, seemed more worried for herself before regaining some sort of composure. Were they really forgotten memories of some kind, or were they maybe some kind of hallucination brought on by his deteriorating mind set?
"Who was she?" he asked himself in a whisper as he scowled in concentration.
"Danny?" Kim's voice squeaked from nearby.
The images of the two girls faded from his memory as he was drawn back to reality. He turned and found himself facing Kim, whom seemed to be on the verge of tears as she looked at him with great concern.
"What's going on?" she squeaked, her lips trembling fearfully. "You're starting to frighten me," she said, her voice quivering.
He took a moment to consider the amount of worry he was putting his friend through. He didn't want to do that to her, whether they were dating or not; but he was having trouble trying to figure that out for himself.
"I don't know," he answered her as he looked back at his reflection in the mirror. "I just can't seem to remember."
Sometime later that night, long after night had settled, flickering light came from Danielle's room back at Fenton Works. Her earlier apprehension had diminished as she had become deeply engrossed with playing an online game with Nicole. Both girl's tapped buttons on their controllers as Becky watched from the bed with an equal level of excitement in her eyes.
"You're not beating me again, Manson!" Nicole growled angrily before a look of absolute fury spread across her face. "¡Maldita sea! ¡Odio los petroleros incondicionales!" she screeched angrily in Spanish as she chucked her controller. "She's gotta have cheat codes, or something!" she yelled angrily, indicating the TV with a wave of her hand. "I've never known anyone to be this good at Doomed!" she yelled frantically before she grabbed up her controller again and began pounding away at buttons with her thumbs as she concentrated hard on the TV screen.
'Good thing my parents are working down in the lab tonight,' Danielle thought to herself, taking a moment to look away from the game and focus on her friend. 'Any louder, and she'll be waking up the neighborhood,' she thought before hearing the sound of a door downstairs opening and closing. Fearing that her parent's had heard Nicole screeching and were coming upstairs to tell them to go to bed for the night, she turned her full attention towards her bedroom door, which had been left cracked open.
"Cover for me," she said, tossing her controller to Becky on her bed, who only barely managed to catch it in her surprise.
"Hmm," Becky groaned as she gripped the controller in her hands. "Good thing I've been working on my aim," she groaned nervously before she began playing the game in Danielle's stead.
Meanwhile, Danielle had crept towards her cracked bedroom door to peek through, ready to warn her friends to scramble into bed if it was her parents coming to tell them off; but she was quite relieved to see that it was only Jazz, whom had returned home for the night. The older girl skipped down the hall, passing the younger teen's room with a smile on her face; not even noticing, or caring, that flickering light was streaming into the hall.
It wasn't until Danny slowly came up the stairs behind their older sister, than did Danielle's earlier worries suddenly come fleeting back. She had been so successfully distracted that she had completely forgotten about the cause of their earlier worries. One look at Danny's eyes as he slowly shuffled his way down the hall to his room told her that not only was he worse for wear, but something else had happened to dishevel him even further than he was when he was forced to leave with the older teens.
Slowly creaking the door open and sliding out into the hallway, Danny only just caught sight of Danielle out of the corner of his tired and bloodshot eyes as she looked up at him with the same concern that Kim had given him earlier in the night. He knew she was worried about him, he could see it in her eyes. He knew she wanted to ask him what all went wrong, but he stopped her before she got the chance to voice her concerns over his very melancholic state.
"I'm sorry, Danielle," he apologized to her in a defeated groan. "I just don't have the willpower to explain anything right now," he explained, sounding very defeated indeed.
He shuffled by her, slowly and quietly closing the door to his room behind him with a soft click, leaving a very disheartened Danielle standing in the hallway, looking at the closed door as if someone had just died. She may not have been very far off from the truth though, because she herself felt as if she'd just died a little on the inside, seeing him in such a deteriorated state. She didn't know what had happened at the senior's prom, but she felt as if she could relate. Like him, she was being torn apart, not literally, but mentally and emotionally. The world around them seemed to be moving on as if everything were normal; but to them, and them alone, it seemed as if everything they knew was suddenly crumbling down around them. She felt helpless, hanging her head in disgrace as tears prickled from her eyes, not knowing what more she could do.
If there are any DannyxSam fans here who hate seeing Danny paired with an OC, don't worry; I may hint at their one-sided relationship a couple more times, but that's the worst of it I have planned for this story. Maintaining the "relationship" between them was a bit crucial in the original version; having it here is more of a throwback than anything else, and will have no lasting impact on how the rest of the story pans out.
Our two Phantom siblings seem to have found themselves in quite the pickle. Nothing around them seems right; and Danny has started having hallucinations of forgotten memories. Yes, those are lines taken directly from ATitD. From what chapters and context, I will leave to you to figure out.
I have also planted plenty of hints, alluding to the previous story. They are there for a reason as the end goal is for Danny and Danielle to eventually figure out what's going on. But that will have to wait for another time unfortunately.
I would like to thank Google Translate for the Spanish translation at the end; any complaints can be sent to them if there are any problems with the reverse translation.