"This is ridiculous." Vlad crossed his arms over his dark yellow sweater vest. "I can't believe Dad dragged me down here."
"Well, it's been my parent's life for the past three years, so at least pretend to be interested." Jazz replied, nudging the thin boy with a particularly sharp elbow.
"Just shows they don't have anything worthwhile to do- ow!" Another elbow, this time from Sam.
"I think it's kinda cool, so shut it, Vladdy-pants."
"Call me that again, why don't you-"
"Kids!" Mr. Masters threw a scathing look at the teens, and all of them except Sam straightened up. "Jack and Maddie are going to plug it in."
"Are you prepared to gaze into a world beyond our own, full of goblins, spooks, and ectoplasmic demons?" Maddie said in a spooky voice, while Jack waggled his fingers and made an 'OOooOOOO~!' sound.
"Uh-huh," mumbled all of the teens in unison. Danny tugged at his shirt.
"Is it dangerous to be this close?"
"Good question, sweetie! The energy should be contained within the magnetic field coming from the reinforced beams holding it open, so we'll be perfectly safe." Maddie ruffled his hair, before turning to Jack and nodding.
"Ghost Zone, here we come!" He held up both ends of the plug and grinned at the rest of the room before slamming them together-
-And getting nothing except for a few sparks from the force of the blow.
"Huh?" Confused, he pulled the plug apart again, and clicked it back together.
Nothing.
Maddie grabbed the plug "What on Earth... our calculations were right this time! We fixed the problems from the proto-portal that ended up in space..."
"Are you sure it's entirely plugged in?"
"I checked three times, Alex!" Maddie said to Vlad's father, frazzled, as she ran a hand through her hair. She headed for the stairs. "Let me look over the calculations again... Jack, did you leave the notebook at the library?"
Jack, Alex, and Jazz followed her, and that left Vlad, Tucker, Sam, and Danny in the lab alone.
"I told you it wouldn't work."
"Man, though, it would have been interesting to see... how did your mom put it?" Tucker asked.
"Goblins, spooks, and ectoplasmic demons?" Danny arched up into his toes, baring his teeth at Tucker in an eerie grin.
"...On second thought..."
"It's not like they even exist." Vlad scoffed. "The prototype when they made in college just opened to the vaccum of space."
"Try telling that to my parents." Danny sighed.
"Hey, Vlad. If you're so sure that nothing can happen, go in." Sam nudged his shoulder.
"I have nothing to prove-"
"Come on, at least take a look." Danny said. "My parents haven't let me near it. Besides, I did always sort of wonder if there was something super cool on the other side of this portal." Danny started tugging on a white and black hazmat suit, and Tucker waved a green one in front of Vlad.
"What, are you chicken?" Sam grinned. "Danny's doing it."
"Danny is- oh, fine." Vlad rolled his eyes, but zipped up the green suit, fluffing up his ponytail after he pulled the zipper up to his chin.
They both walked in at the same time. Danny examined the left half, while Vlad ran his fingers along the right wall.
"If nothing, it does look really impressive." He admitted.
"So, you admit my parents aren't-" Danny started with a smirk, leaning his hand against the wall, but before he could finish his sentence, his palm clicked something and everything split into pure agony.
Electricity arched Danny's back, and an unending scream forced past his lips. Faintly, he could hear Vlad screeching in pain, and he could just barely make out a bent-over figure with green flames licking around it.
Everything hurt, everything hurt so much, he reached out and managed to brush against the figure's back, and as he collapsed he grabbed it's hand- his, it was a him but for the life of him he couldn't remember the name.
Danny stretched out his free hand and was suddenly dragged from shocking pain to burning nothingness, and then he saw black as he felt nothing at all.
"Danny? Danny! Danny, please wake up, oh god, Danny, DANNY!"
"Come on dude, wake up, wake up, wake up wake up wake up wakeupwakeup-"
"Gah!" Danny shot up, setting a hand to his head. "Holy crap, what happened? What's going on? What-"
His glove was white.
So was, for that matter, the messy hair half-floating in front of his face.
"What the hell...?"
"Uh, Danny..." Sam's skin was even paler than usual. "Look down."
The first thing that Danny noticed was that the suit was mainly black, not white like it usually was.
The second, and probably more important thing, was that he was glowing.
"Yah!"
"Five more minutes…" Three heads whirled around to stare at the other boy that had gone into the portal. Vlad was in similar shape to Danny- he was glowing a faint white, and his hazmat suit had seemingly inverted, from light green to deep blue with black gloves and boots instead of white.
One difference, though, was that his hair wasn't snowy white like Danny's- it was a pale cream, and flickered like a dying campfire.
"Vlad…" Danny scooted over on his knees, then reached out a hand, biting his lip. His heart would be racing, but he couldn't feel it at all. There was only a steady pulse that was far too slow, and seemed timed to the gentle ebb of the glow around him. Setting a hand on Vlad's shoulder, he shook him- or at least, he tried, seeing as his hand disappeared into Vlad's body. He yanked it out and tried again, more frantic this time. "Vlad, wake up!"
"I said five more- huh?" Vlad's fingers twitched against the tile and his eyes blinked open.
His irises were deep red.
"Woah." Danny turned his head. "Do mine look like that?"
"Nah, yours are green." Tucker waved a hand in the general direction of his own face, but he swallowed. "They're glowing, though."
"This isn't real. This can't be real, I'm just dreaming, no way." Danny squeezed his eyes shut.
"What can't be real?" Behind him, Vlad rubbed his eyes. "Where am I?"
"You're in the Fenton's basement, and you both accidentally turned on their ghost portal." Tucker helpfully supplied. "And I think it turned you two into ghosts."
"What?" At that, Vlad flew up, grabbing Tucker by the collar with wide eyes. "I'm not- that can't be- ghosts don't exist!"
"All evidence to the contrary." Sam said, and Vlad glared at her. "What? I'm as freaked out as you guys are, but I'm trying to lighten the mood."
"Not doing a very good job, Sam." Danny muttered, grabbing a particularly shiny gun and trying to figure out his reflection from the circular distortion.
"Your parents are the ghost freaks, this is your fault!" Vlad turned to Danny, who just took a step back, his foot sinking into the tile.
"Uh, Vlad?"
"I can't believe this! I had to take off of school to visit your stupid family in the middle of stupid Amity Park, and now I'm never going to graduate or go to college or become a billionaire-"
"Vlad!"
"What?" He snapped, and Danny pointed at his feet.
"You're floating."
Vlad stared down, and his eyes widened as he started pinwheeling his arms and legs. "Yaaaaah!"
"Woah, neat!" Tucker took a step closer, but Vlad jumped up higher.
"Don't touch me!"
"So we can fly?" Danny closed his eyes and leapt into the air, only to fall flat on his face. "Oh, come on, that's not-"
"Pfffft- oh my god, your face is-" Vlad started, before suddenly dark black rings appeared around his waist. "Huh?" The rings split in two, traveling up and down his body, and suddenly he wasn't glowing, with his old hair and clothes back.
He was also ten feet in the air, and Tucker scrambled forward to catch him before he hit the ground. "Whoof! Man, lay off the dairy."
"I'm… normal again?" Vlad stared at his hands for a moment, before jumping out of Tucker's arms. "I said don't touch me!"
"Geez, rude." Tuck mumbled, before running over to Danny. "Wait, if he can do it-"
"-You probably can too!" Sam finished. "Just think about… I dunno, your blood? Warm skin? A heartbeat?"
"That sounds like a serial killer."
"Shut up, Tuck."
Danny squeezed his eyes shut, and felt Sam's thin hand rest on top of his. "You can do it."
"Okay. Here goes nothing." Danny held up his hands, trying to think of himself in the mirror. Black haired, blue-eyed, pale Danny Fenton.
A flash of white light burst across his closed lids, and when he opened them, he was in the old white hazmat suit.
Sam immediately grabbed him in a tight hug. "It worked!"
"Woah." Suddenly he was keenly aware of his heartbeat and the rush of blood in his ears. He rested his chin on Sam's shoulder for a moment before pulling away and unzipping the hazmat. It suddenly felt suffocating.
"Danny, are you all right?" Danny barely had time to react before he was smothered in blue, his mother wrenching him upand pulling him into another tight embrace. "Tucker texted us, said that there was some kind of accident, and- and-" Her grip loosened as her eyes widened. "The portal…"
"We…" Danny trailed off.
"We figured out how to turn it on. You installed the power switch on the inside." Vlad crossed his arms. He, too, had taken off his protective suit.
"Oh heavens, it was that easy?"
Danny opened his mouth to tell her everything, when his hand brushed one of the guns.
His parents didn't just study ghosts, they wanted to hunt them.
Ghosts. Like he now was.
"Yeah, w-we unplugged it, turned it on, then plugged it back in." Danny said. Both Sam and Tucker gave him funny looks, and Tucker mouthed 'what are you-' before glancing at the lab table full of weapons. 'Oh.'
"Great job, sweetie!" Maddie placed a kiss on Danny's forehead. "But, Tucker said there was an accident… are you all right?"
"I tripped and my hand fell into the portal. I was kinda screaming out of shock, it doesn't really hurt that bad." Danny held up his left hand as proof, but Maddie grabbed it.
"Danny, it looks awful!"
"Huh?" He craned his neck, and was shocked to see electrical burn lines extend out from a circle in the palm. "Oh, wow, that-"
"I'm calling the hospital."
"R-really, Mom, I'm fine."
"Daniel Fenton, we are getting that looked at. Your father will take you, and I'll check to make sure the portal is stable." She pointed upstairs. "Vlad, your father is here too, he can decide what to do with you."
"Yes M'am." Vlad nodded, but Danny couldn't help but notice that he was floating half an inch off the ground again.
Danny had an itching feeling this was the beginning of something big.
A/N: This is an ooooold au of mine but I never did anything with it. I really love the idea, but can't think of what to write for it so suggestions are welcome. There might be Pompous Pep in the future- or at least one-sided Pompous Pep. You'll have to see which side, eheheh.
Comments are wonderful and encourage me to write more!