A/N:This story takes place in an AU where the events of Kindred Spirits, D-Stabilized and Beauty Marked happen three weeks, one & a half weeks, and half a week (respectively) before Reign Storm, and occurs four days after the events of said episode. As for Valerie during D-Stabilized, she didn't have the Technus suit then in my canon. Also in Reign Storm she was neutral towards Danny when he was in ghost form and didn't like Vlad. Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom. If I did the show would still be on (along with several other shows).
"a," = speech "a," = thoughts "a," = through intercom or television
Danny's Reward
"I have to hurry up for school!" Danny thought to himself as he ran into the bathroom. That was when he realized, "Wait, that's right! There's no school thanks to Pariah Dark!" Thinking back he really couldn't remember what happened after he defeated the ghost king. He thought he remembered seeing some weird cloaked ghosts with eyes for heads floating over him and hearing, "Is he... defeated Pariah... destined.. new... king." "Heh, probably just a dream," Danny said to himself as he walked back to his room to go back to sleep.
Before he could however, his cellphone rang announcing that he had a text. When he checked it, he saw it was from Tucker and read, "Wanna go to the Nasty Burger?"
Checking his clock he saw it was 12:42 P.M, so he texted back, "Sure, meet you there." He closed his phone and got dressed, while thinking, 'Man, I sure have been sleeping in lately. Maybe that fight with Pariah Dark took more out of me than I thought.'
After getting dressed Danny trotted down the stairs to find an empty house. Looking at the whiteboard in the kitchen, he found a note saying, "Gone to a ghost hunter convention in Chicago. Be back by tomorrow. Love you." He also found another note from Jazz saying, "Hanging out with some friends. Be back by five." With his questions answered, Danny walked out the front door and proceeded to go to the Nasty Burger.
About half way there though his ghost sense went off with its signature eerily empty breath. "Oh great, just when I think I'm going to have a day off, a ghost shows up," Danny said exasperatedly. Looking around for a spot to transform in, he noticed that there wasn't a single ghost visible nor was anybody screaming in fear. "Huh, weird," he said to himself and was about to continue on his way when he was tackled by a blue and red blur.
"DANNY!" rang out from said blur as it happened. The colors blue and red triggered his memory and he realized who it was.
"Danielle?" Danny asked, puzzled to see his clone. Last time he saw the halfa girl, she flew off into the sunset after pulling a silly jump scare prank on him.
Danielle looked up at Danny and said, "When I saw what happened here in Amity, I knew I had to get back. So here I am."
"Here you are, now would you please get off of me? People are looking at us weirdly," Danny requested. Dani blinked and realized their position, so she got off of him and helped him up. Now that they were standing, Danny got a good look at his clone and thought to himself, "Wow! The Ecto-Dejecto did wonders on her body!" Danielle had grown to match his height and changed her outfit along with it. Now she was wearing a white long sleeve with a light blue tee-shirt on top of that. Her red shorts were replaced with red jeans, while her red hat was gone completely. Her hair had grown to reach about the top of her thighs and was done up in a pony tail with a red hair band. Seeing all of these changes, Danny gasped and said, "Dani, you're beautiful."
Danielle gasped and turned away to hide her blush upon hearing his compliment. "T-t-thank you D-Danny," she stuttered. She had never been called that before. I mean sure she has been called cute or pretty before, but never beautiful. It also didn't help who was calling her beautiful for you see, she has had a crush on Danny ever since he showed her Vlad was just a lying scumbag. When he saved her life by stabilizing her DNA she fell even further for him. So much so that if asked, she wouldn't hesitate to say that she was in love with him. Once she got control of her face, Danielle turned to Danny and asked, "So what are you doing today?"
Danny smiled and answered, "Well I was going to meet up with Tucker at the Nasty Burger for lunch. Wanna come?" Danielle nodded and walked alongside Danny to the Nasty Burger.
When they got there, they saw both Tucker and Sam sitting at one of the booths looking like they were having an argument over something. As the two halfas got closer they started to be able to hear what they were saying. "You need to tell him at some point or your going to lose your chance," Tucker insisted.
Sam sighed in exasperation and replied, "I know, I know it's just hard to tell someone who you've known for ten years something like that." That was when she finally noticed Danny and Dani. "Oh Danny, you're here and Danielle, is that you?" she greeted.
Tucker turned around and his eyes widened at the sight of Danielle. He blinked a couple of times and said in surprise, "Wow, that Ecto-Dejecto stuff is great for ghosts!"
Danielle giggled and said, "I know right! Now that my DNA is stable I don't have to worry about over exerting myself." Once she finished she turned to Sam and asked, "Mind if I sit here?"
Sam nodded and said, "Sure, that way it'll be even." Danielle nodded and sat down next to Sam while Danny did the same with Tucker.
Once everybody settled in and a waitress came by to take their order, Danny asked his clone, "So where have you been the past few weeks? Last time you were in Amity, you said something about seeing the world."
"Well first I spent three days in London doing all sorts of stuff. For example, I rode the London Eye, I took an invisible tour of Buckingham Palace and I even fiddled around with the Crown Jewels. Then I spent a few days in Paris and did a bunch of stuff there. I visited the Eiffel Tower, I toured the Louvre and just had a lot of fun. Then two days ago I saw a television reporting about what was happening in Amity Park and I just knew I had to come back," Dani explained.
Sam had a curious look on her face and asked, "I know that you couldn't have flown all the way to London from Amity without stopping so how did you get there? And how did you eat?"
"I simply boarded a bunch of planes while I had my invisibility and intangibility on. As for food I simply performed a bunch of 'magic' tricks as a street performer," was Danielle's reply, after which the waitress came back with their tray.
"And nobody suspected a thing?" Tucker inquired while finding his food on the tray. Dani simply shook her head and started eating her burger.
Danny took his food from the tray and asked, "So Danielle, how long do you plan on staying in Amity?"
Dani looked up at him and said, "Actually Danny, I'm not going to be traveling anymore."
"So you're here to stay? Awesome!" Danny celebrated.
Sam on the other hand had a worried look on her face and asked, "If you're going to be staying in Amity Park, where are you going to live and more importantly, are you going to be going to school with us?"
Danny immediately said, "She could stay at my house." Everybody else looked at him in questioning and he explained, "I could say that you're a friend from a while back who lost her parents in an accident that needs a place to stay because she has no other relatives."
Danielle smiled and said, "That could work, but what about school?"
"My parents could enroll you here at Casper High," Danny replied. Danielle considered the option and after a few seconds nodded.
When they finished eating, the original trio decided to give Danielle a full tour of Amity Park, including all of the best restaurants, hangout spots and stores. The foursome was walking through the park when they came upon the wishing fountain. The moment the two halfas got within twenty feet of said fountain, their ghost senses went off. Danny sighed and said, "You would've thought Desiree learned her lesson after what happened last time she tried to cause chaos." Danny and his female clone were about to go off and transform when they saw Desiree materialize in front of a small child and talk to him before giving him a seemingly ordinary, uncursed lollipop before disappearing back into the fountain.
Danielle asked, "I thought Desiree was supposed to corrupt people's wishes, not grant them?"
Tucker answered, "She's supposed too."
"Maybe she's turning over a new leaf," Sam remarked.
Danny responded to that with, "Please, with my luck she probably put cabbage or spinach in the center." He then hid in a bush and shifted before flying over and wishing, "I wish Desiree would come out of the fountain," while Dani shifted then turned intangible to check the kid's lollipop. The genie ghost complied, flowing out of the mouth of the statue in the center in the form of a green mist. Eventually the mist coalesced into a single spot to reveal Desiree.
Said genie ghost saw who wished her out of the statue and smiled enticingly while emphasizing her body and flirting, "Well, aren't we looking handsome on this fine Spring afternoon."
As Danny hadn't ever been talked to like that by anybody, Danny blushed and sputtered before accusing, "U-uhh, t-that's not the point! What's your plan this time? Have people make a bunch of wishes while you gain more and more power?"
Desiree giggled at his reaction to her flirting and answered, "No, I just am granting wishes to grant wishes young halfa."
Danny blinked in surprise and was about to answer when Danielle flew in and informed, "The lollipop was normal. There was nothing special about it other than its origin."
The wish granting ghost saw the intruder and remarked in surprise, "I didn't know that there was a female halfa. Aren't you going to introduce us Daniel?"
Danny snapped out of his surprise and complied, "Well, *clears throat*, Desiree this is Danielle, my clone. Danielle this is Desiree, the wish-granting ghost." Desiree's eyebrow raised at the word "clone" and Danny answered her unasked question very simply, "Vlad."
Desiree immediately scowled at the name of the third halfa and said, "Ugh, that obsessive scumbag is someone who, even though I'm no longer evil, I would take his wishes and make them the absolute opposite of what he wanted. I myself never met the man but I heard from a friend who did that he has holograms modeled after your mom. I thought I had problems but a guy that can't get over his college crush makes me look normal. And that is saying something." Finishing her tirade against the man, Desiree turned to Danielle, stuck out her hand for her to shake and said, "So your something created by that man? Huh, well Daniel is not attacking you so I suppose you must be a fine person. Pleasure to meet you."
Danielle hesitantly took her hand and returned with, "How do you do, I guess." Once the hand shake was over, both women retracted their hands slowly.
Danny, watching the exchange, thought back to what Desiree said and started at the words "...even though I'm no longer evil," and then proceeded to question Desiree with, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on. What do you mean no longer evil?"
Desiree turned to Danny and answered, "When I saw how you were willing to sacrifice yourself to save people who wouldn't return the sentiment and most likely would leave you to die, it made me reevaluate my afterlife and I realized that for the past seven hundred years I have been pretty pathetic. Using abilities that I was originally given to make other people's lives better to do the opposite instead just to make myself feel better is not how I want to spend the rest of my afterlife."
Danny was speechless. He didn't think that by nearly dying to defeat Pariah Dark, he would cause someone who had previously been an enemy to make such a huge change in their life. Okay, their afterlife but you get the idea. Danny stuttered out, "I-I really don't know what to say."
Desiree smiled at the young halfa and said, "Doing what you did for people like us, like me, you proved to a lot of people you aren't just a kid playing hero, you are a hero." Seeing Danny's eyes widen at the "a lot of people" part, Desiree continued, "I'm not the only one who's opinions of you have changed. I can't say exactly how many but I do know that you will have a few less enemies."
Danielle, still skeptical of Desiree, asked, "Why did it take Danny nearly dying to defeat Pariah Dark for you to change? You did say that you have been like you are for nearly seven hundred years, so why now and not during the last seven hundred years?"
"The reason she was like that was because of what happened back when she was living. When she was alive, Desiree was a lowly harem girl being bought and sold to the highest bidders who forced her to sleep with them. She won the heart of a sultan whose eye she caught in a slave market. She was promised freedom and a kingdom of her own but the sultan's wife was jealous and exiled her to the desert with only a water sac and a weeks worth of provisions. Dying of a broken heart, heat stroke, hunger and thirst, Desiree was granted one final wish before she died. She was given the ability to make sure people didn't go through the same pain that she did, but as time passed and wishes were made she grew jealous of her masters and decided to turn the wishes she granted back on the wisher," Danny explained. Both Danielle and Desiree were wide eyed, the former at the story of Desiree's life and afterlife, the latter at the amount of information Danny had about her existence. Danielle flew off to tell Sam and Tucker who had gone to get the Fenton thermos that what she had heard.
Desiree looked down before admitting, "That's the reason I dislike being touched by men. It reminds me of what my former masters forced me to do." She sniffled before bursting into tears from the memories. Danny immediately hugged Desiree regardless of what she might do to him.
Desiree opened her eyes in surprise at the contact and Danny simply told her, "Just let it all out, you don't have to worry about me doing something so sick like that to you." Desiree teared up again, hugged Danny back and continued her crying into Danny's shoulder. Said halfa brought the two of them to a park bench while continuing to comfort the female ghost in his arms.
After a few minutes, Desiree looked up at Danny and asked, "Why? Even after what I've done to you and your friends, you would still comfort like this?"
Danny closed his eyes while thinking up an adequate answer, which came out as, "Even if you have caused my friends and I pain, you don't deserve to just be left alone while remembering something so horrible." Danny opened his eyes, smiled and added, "Plus I hate seeing beautiful women cry." Desiree blushed at his compliment. Only one other person had called her beautiful throughout her existence. This led her to realize that a certain feeling that she hadn't felt for centuries was pulsing through her. Love... she was falling for Danny and she was falling hard. Before when she was flirting with him, she had only been try tease him to get him to stop his attack so that she could explain her situation but now she felt that she couldn't even look him in the eye without blushing.
Desiree pulled away from Danny, looking at the ground and said, "Daniel... thank you." Then she disappeared. Danny blinked in shock that after she had been finished crying, the ghost genie hadn't attacked him. Danny got up and, looking and listening to make sure nobody was around him, transformed back. Just as he did he saw Danielle, Sam and Tucker rushing towards him.
Sam and Danielle got to him first and asked him at the same time, "What happened to Desiree?"
Danny chuckled at his friends' antics and told them, "I let her go."
Sam, Dani and Tucker (who had arrived in time to hear his answer) yelled, "WHAAT?!"
Danny shrugged and explained, "Desiree was never truly evil, she was just bitter about what happened to her when she was living." He then gained a pensive look and sat down. Sam noticed the look on his face and asked, "Danny, what's on your mind?"
Danny smiled and said, "Desiree said that I would have less enemies to worry about thanks to my nearly dying during the battle with Pariah Dark. I was just wondering which ones I wouldn't have to worry about." Little did he know, he would be meeting one of his former enemies in a few minutes, and a current enemy was being taken care of right at that moment.
Which former enemy am I talking about, and what enemy is being taken care of and how? Well, you'll have to wait for the next chapter to find out.