Could you make a Danny Phantom story where Danny's parents trap him in the Ghost Zone and when he returns he finds out Vlad has enslaved Amity Park?
-t-rex989
A/N: GUYS MY FIRST CHALLENGE.
Okay t-rex buddy I'mma do my best here.
It wasn't right. Danny frowned, curling his legs closer to his body to give him more velocity as he kicks off against a rock, hurdling headfirst towards what should be the Fenton Portal to home.
But it was locked.
Has been locked for—what? Six months? Maybe even more, how could you tell when night blended into day in a land where there was no sun and no moon? As he slammed his shoulder into the door again, he finally gave up, sliding down the slightly faded metal. "Damn it, guys…" He pounded his fist against the door, his eyes tightly closed. "Why did you do it?"
He'd come home late from school one day after fighting off Skulker, he was banged up and tired. All he had wanted was a nice hot shower and to go to bed, but something was off. There was a strange van parked outside his home, and when he'd walked in his mother had just looked at him and shaken her head.
Confused, he headed upstairs only to find that his room had not only been disturbed but utterly cleaned out. There was nothing 'him' left in it. The walls were bare, his bed, his dresser, and his computer, all gone. His closet completely cleaned and the coat hangers neatly placed to one side. Swallowing nervously, he came back downstairs to his parents silently standing in the middle of the living room, faces hard as stone.
"Mom? Dad?" He'd asked, cautiously stepping off the stairs and frowning. "What's going on guys? What happened to my room?"
Jack frowned, his hand behind his back as he took a cautious step forward. "Danny, son…" he started, his tone of voice utterly serious. Danny swallowed nervously, looking up at his Dad.
"Dad…? What's going on?"
"We know." Danny's heart leaped into his throat and he felt like he was going to be sick. They knew? They knew what? "We know you're Phantom, Danny." Maddie said quietly from behind Jack.
Danny shook his head, putting on an uneasy smile. "Haha- um, what? Nah, you guys are so crazy…" he rubbed the back of his neck, trying not to show how bruised he was.
Maddie shook her head and motioned to the television, a clip of him turning into Phantom playing over and over. "We know, Danny." She repeated, her voice wavering but her face remaining impassive.
Danny panicked. "Mom, Dad, I—I didn't mean to keep it from you for so long I just—I please…" stepping forward and reaching a hand out, desperate for them to tell him that it was okay. "Please don't be mad…"
"Danny…" Maddie started, pulling something out from behind her own back, stepping forward. She held something small and square, a small red light bulb sticking out of the top of it, a small needle sticking out one side. "Just let me take a blood sample…"
He swallowed, he knew what blood samples meant, he knew that if she tested his blood, she'd see how utterly inhuman he was. He didn't want that. They were scared enough already. He could sense the fear, it rolled off of him in waves and he tried not to latch onto it, feed from it and make it stronger by scaring them. He'd discovered lately that human emotions played a vital role in the strength of his ghost powers. It revolted him, but it was just another fact he had to deal with. At the very least, he could sense emotions and he knew when to back off.
His eyes never left his mothers' as she stepped forward and took his arm by his wrist, pulling his hand up. He didn't protest; he didn't pull away; he just met her clear eyes with his own as the needle pierced his skin and his blood flowed out.
He finally broke eye contact as the light on Maddie's machine lit up, a harsh beeping emanating from the small machine and Maddie looked back at her husband with sad eyes.
Jack nodded, coming forward as Maddie stepped back, the object behind his back coming into view, revealing it to be a sizable gun, and this time, his aim wasn't off.
Danny's eyes widened with panic and he felt the rings start around his waist. His mother's eyes glancing down to them but his father's never wavered. Even before Danny's transformation was complete, Jack had fired the gun, his aim true. A small bullet pierced Danny's shoulder, the bolt sending an electric shock through his body, and he had collapsed, convulsing, his transformation rings dissipating into the air.
He looked up at his parents through bleary eyes, his vision doubled and blurred as his father's large hand reached for him.
The next thing he knew, he was floating, staring up at the green haze of the ghost zone.
He'd tried to get help; he had tried hard to go to what few allies he had in the ghost zone, but it seemed that his parents had given his computer over to the Guys in White. His allies' homes were ransacked and they were distraught. Unable to help him. The only one he hadn't been able to check was Clockwork's. But he knew he'd be unable to access that realm unless the Master of Time wished to see him.
And for some strange reason, Vlad's portal wasn't there anymore. No giant football, no hole in the dimension, nothing.
So there was nothing left to do but float. And he'd stayed near the portal. Hoping against hope that maybe the portal would open and he'd be allowed back inside; be allowed back in his home.
He was cold, he was hungry and he was lonely. He missed his friends, and despite their betrayal, he missed his family.
"I don't know what I did." He mused to himself, not for the first time. "To make you guys hate me like this." The only upside to this he supposed was the fact that he could float here in his ghost form and not die. His ghostly energy fed off of the abundance of power in the Zone, feeding it and converting it into food for his human form.
He still didn't want to see what his human form looked like after however long he'd been trapped here, though. He was sure it didn't look anything like he did when he entered, he was sure he'd wasted away to almost nothing.
He needed to find a way out of there and the sooner the better.
What was that? Danny opened one eye, glancing in the direction the small disturbance had come from. He had felt something brush past him. Something like—air? Frowning, he slowly floated towards the sensation, gasping as he suddenly spots Kitty, looking odd without Johnny Thirteen and Shadow by her side. She glanced around before ducking into a small, weak looking portal. Danny knew the slightly damp smell of rain and he took the chance while it was available; he shot at full speed towards the portal, keeping his eyes on the ever shrinking area.
Come on, come on… Danny bit his lip as he curled himself into a ball, barrelling through the portal and hitting the ground, bouncing once before rolling, feeling the rain soak into the thin material of his jumpsuit.
Despite the pain and discomfort, Danny started to chuckle, his eyes closed. "I did it." He opened his eyes, almost hurting with the beauty of the gray sky. "I'm home." His chuckling escalated to full-blown hysterical laughter. "I'm home!"
"Yer sure ya wanna celebrate that?"
Danny paused in his laughter, using a finger to wipe away tears of joy before propping himself up on his right arm, looking at the owner of the voice. "Excuse me?" The man he was facing was old, his hair sticking up in every direction, his beard long but not quite as long as Clockwork's ancient form's beard. His eyes were slightly pushed out, giving him a buggy, sickly appearance, and the slight glimmer of madness danced in their depths.
"I said, are ye sure ye wanna celebrate bein' home?" His voice was thick, as if he'd been drinking, and grating pebbles scraping against each other. "It aint exactly a good place t'be."
Danny frowned, pushing himself into a sitting position. "Well…I guess the ghosts must have become more abundant with my absence. I mean, Danny Phantom disappears right?"
The man stared at Danny before rocking back on his heels in hysterical laughter. "Yer—ye think yer Danny Phantom? THE Danny Phantom? That's hooey!" The man leaned over, spitting to the side and Danny cringed. "Danny Phantom abandoned us near abouts a year ago. An' don' go questing fer him. Ye'll be thrown in the Mines if ye do."
"Well, um." Danny frowned. "Alright." Finally he looked around. The sky wasn't the only thing that appeared to be gray. The buildings around this- surprisingly graveyard- were decrepit and falling apart, not even from neglect. They appeared to have been broken by some powerful force.
He hadn't noticed it before, having grown used to its constant presence desensitizing him, but his ghost zone was going off frequently, and he sensed a rather large congregation of ghosts, along with one very powerful, very familiar signature. "Well… this is odd." Standing, he brushed the dirt off of himself, looking at the old man. "You mentioned something called 'The Mines'. I don't remember there being mines in Amity."
"Everyone's heard of the Mines, boy." The man said, "If yer not workin' in them, yer dead. Or looby like me." He cackled, sitting back on a gravestone, disturbing a powdering of dirt that fell against his bare ankles. "There aint no one in the state- hell, in the country who aint heard of the Mines, kid."
Danny shook his head. "Well, I haven't. So either you can explain them to me, or I'll be on my way, I want to try to find my family." If they still want me. The old man paused before glancing at Danny.
"I can do one better. I'll take you to the entrance of the Mines."
Paul—Danny learned the crazy coots name after quietly asking—led Danny through Amity into the lower income areas. He was immensely confused by the lack of human life, and he floated along silently after Paul. The old man hadn't noticed – or hadn't been bothered by—the fact that he was in ghost form.
"And so I says to the girl I says 'if ye wanna piece o'me ye gotta'- ey, Kid, ye listening?" Paul glanced up at him with one of his buggy little eyes narrowed.
"Huh? Oh yeah-yeah, I'm listening." Danny muttered when in fact he wasn't. Paul had a tendency to repeat stories, and this particular one seemed to be his favorite to repeat so far. "I'm just…trying to remember what used to be around here."
"Around here?" The old man paused, looking around. "Houses and warehouses. That kinda thing, mostly apartments, I'd guess." He clacked his teeth together as he walked, a tick he had for whatever reason. "Don't matter now. There's just the Mine now."
Danny nodded silently, following Paul as he continued down the street, a slight skip in his step as if the day were a bright and sunny spring day instead of the gloomy mid-fall day it actually was.
"There!" he climbed on top of a hill overlooking the highway. As he floated to the top of it, he saw that there was no more highway. There was just a huge, gaping hole in the ground. There was such a congregation of ghosts that Danny's ghost sense was a constant stream of mist and he started to shake with the cold flowing through his body. He swallowed as he saw hundreds of people walking in a line into the mine, with a few coming out in a line parallel to the first.
They were like ants into an ant hill for a busy day of work, except that these were not willing workers. "Who…" Danny began and found he had to swallow to wet his dry throat. "Whose done this?"
Paul was silent, watching the people though Danny was sure that the old man could barely see them. He himself could make them out with his advanced ghost senses, but an old human? He doubted that he could make out any detailing.
Danny watched, his jaw clenched as he noticed a woman stumble, and the ghosts guards attention turn to her. He braced himself, turning invisible and starting forward.
"I wouldn't do that, kid…" Paul's warning went unheeded as Danny began to fly full tilt towards the line of humans as the woman who stumbled lost her balance and fell, guards immediately springing and raising their night sticks to beat her.
Damn it… Danny thought as he barreled full speed forward, wincing as the guards begin to beat the helpless woman. He reached her before they had beaten her too badly, though, and for that he was thankful as he stood over her, erecting a ghost shield, deflecting the next few hits. "Stop!"
Up on the hill, crazy old Paul watched with solemn eyes before shaking his head as Danny's shield was easily overpowered, the guards battling Danny to the ground without breaking a sweat and knocking the boy out. He sighed while two picked him up, attaching cuffs to him and drag him away.
"Daniel, you really do like to choose the hardest paths, don't you?" His voice was no longer old and gravelly, his eyes shining with a shine of wisdom instead of insanity.
His form flickered and a staff materialized in the air. A purple robe covered him now, and his ghostly tail fluttered behind him. A clock ticked in his chest, and his old, red eyes tilted in sadness. "I'm sorry, Daniel, but I had to do this. You chose this. Now you have to fix it."
Clockwork watched the scene with a certain amount of disgust boiling in his ghostly belly. Essentially, he had raised this world. Every time line, every possibility, he had nourished and encouraged and brought back from the brink, he had grown to love it, if that were possible for a ghost who sees all, and it pained him immensely to see it crumble and take the path he'd been carefully guiding it against.
Without looking back, the old man created a portal, floating through back into his own lair to watch things unfold as they would.
Because of course, only time would tell what would be of Amity Park.