analog
adj. in which the value of an object is represented by a continuously variable quantity.
n. something that is analogous or similar to something else; similar in appearance.
It was like the rumble of thunder.
When he was younger he used to love storms. The rain, the howl of the wind, the flash of lightning and the crash of thunder; his early fascination with the power of nature was probably what lead him to his love of astronomy. It also set him apart from his sister, Jazz, who had been rendered inconsolable by a particularly violent storm early in life and continued to hate them well into her childhood. Danny, in his youngest days, never understood why she would be afraid of something so awesome.
He could understand that kind of fear now. The rumbling was far too close for his comfort, and it sounded worse than he had ever heard before.
...It didn't even sound that much like thunder.
The din was pierced by a scream of pain that sounded far too much like his own, and his eyes shot open as purple ectoplasm shot inches in front of his face. He had somehow fallen asleep upright like he was on the Shuttle or something. Fallen asleep, or... Was he in a lab?
Was he strapped into some stupid metal tube in a lab?
Danny groaned in exasperation. "Oh man, what has that fruitloop done now...?"
The question had been directed at the ceiling, and he had hardly expected it to answer, but answer it did. A very familiar syrupy voice chimed happily, "Containment units overheating, dearest heart! Releasing pods, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon! Failure in coolant couplings 6, 12, and 20, sweetums."
He had just finished wondering what his mom was doing in what was presumably Wisconsin when the hermetic hiss of a breaking seal sounded, and the glass in front of him swung open. The next thing he knew, the straps released, and he was dumped in an undignified heap in front of the pod.
"Danny!" The voice came from across the lab. The ghostly teen shook himself off and flew up to meet his 'cousin' Danielle. She threw herself at him in a hug before backing away, eyes full of hope, to ask, "Did you beat Vlad? Can we get out of here now?"
Danny just looked back at her in confusion. "Uh, what? Was I fighting Vlad?"
"Should I just call him Plasmius? They're the same person."
"I know they're the same person, Dani, it's just that I don't remember how I got here."
"Oh jeez, did he hit you in the head? You've been fighting him for like ten minutes cuz!" She motioned around the room, which was indeed Vlad's lab; or at least, what was left of it. Warning lights were flashing in every corner and most of the equipment was smoking or sparking, if not upended and on fire.
"Are you sure? I just woke up in some kind of tube thing..."
A look of panic crossed her expression, but any further conversation was interrupted when the ceiling collapsed, followed shortly by Vlad in ghost-form and... Danny Phantom.
He looked exactly like Danny, right down to the black and white jumpsuit. It was eerie to say the least, watching... Himself, or at least a very convincing copy, pummeling Vlad into the rubble until ectoplasm splattered out of the man's broken nose.
The clone didn't stop his assault until after an unconscious Plasmius reverted back to a very disheveled Vlad. Still breathing heavily, the copy stood up, bracing his hands on his knees on the ascent, before wiping the back of a filth-covered glove across his forehead in a vain attempt to remove the sweat and ghostly blood covering it.
"Danny?" Dani asked again, far more cautiously this time. The clone below them turned around, the victorious smile draining from his face as soon as he saw the original Danny was with her.
"Watch out Dani, it's one of Vlad's clones!" the clone shouted, charging up another ectoblast and taking to the air. Danny dodged it with a yelp, before firing back one of his own.
"Dani, it's the evil clone trying to trick you! Don't believe it!" Danny had turned to face Danielle, to make sure she heard his urgent warning. She was only looking back and forth between the two ghostly twins, looking increasingly like cornered prey. "Danielle? Come on, don't worry, you're saf— Oof!"
The next thing he knew, Danny was on the floor, the clone slowly descending from above him, a fist wreathed in spectral flames held aloft. "Nice try, but I'm the one who actually fought Vlad while you were in your cloning vat."
"Containment unit," he replied, rising to his feet and raising a fist of his own, "The computer didn't say anything about it being a cloning tank or whatever. I was just in there to hold me back from kicking Vlad's butt myself."
The clone blinked. "You hate Vlad too?"
Danny nodded. "Of course I do. The guy's a crazed-up fruitloop."
The fight visibly left the clone, who lowered his fists and floated over toward Danielle carefully. "Hey, were there any other clones in on the scheme to trick me into coming here, or was it just you?"
She shook her head, before addressing them both. "Nope. Not that I saw anyway. If you both say you hate Vlad, it's probably true."
Clone-Danny seemed to consider that for a moment before turning back to Danny, who lowered his fists. He wouldn't fight his copy if he didn't need to. "OK, so I'll believe that you're on my side here. But you're going to need to realize who the clones are here."
Danny scoffed. "Well obviously I know I'm real, so you two must be the clones. Not that it's a bad thing," he added hastily, attempting to placate the duplicate.
It didn't work. "Oh yeah? Do you even remember how you got here?"
"I—" Well, no, he didn't. He just remembered going to bed after fighting Skulker, then waking up in the pod. "Not really, but—"
"I remember everything," the clone cut in, "I remember getting dragged in here, I remember Vlad taking a huge chunk of skin off my arm to get my DNA, the stupid brain scan, all of it. I remember slipping out of his restraints during his stupid bad-guy speech and then kicking his butt, and I know I'm real!"
Danny was about to give a biting reply of his own when Danielle interjected. "Uh, Danny? Dannys? Where is Vlad anyway?" She pointed to the spot where Vlad had been lying unconscious, and where he was now nowhere to be found.
"Questions compounding questions!" Vlad's smug voice sounded from near the portal, his hand above a conspicuous red button. "Yes, this is all quite a mystery to you, I'm sure. Such a shame you'll never find out the answers. Taa!" With a small wave with his other hand, he pressed the button. Predictably, the computerized voice of their collective mother made one last announcement.
"Initiating self-destruct sequence, my cuddly cheese curd! Laboratory will detonate in 15 seconds."
"That son of a-!" Danielle fired a quick ectoblast at the portal as her 'father' retreated through it; the gateway closed behind him, and the plasma bounced harmlessly off the blast doors. There was a fire in her eyes when she rounded on the other two. "Truce?"
Danny and his clone looked at each other, evaluating carefully, before looking back to Danielle. "Yeah, OK." "Truce."
She nodded, "Alright! Now let's get out of here."
As it happened, it had not been Vlad's Wisconsin lab; the explosion itself was almost enough to propel the trio half of the way back home. Aside from the ringing in their ears and the receding wail of firetruck sirens, the remaining 5 minutes of flight was spent in uncomfortable silence, until they landed in the front entryway to Fentonworks.
The clone was the first to speak. "The house seems empty, I think we've got some time to figure this out... What are we going to tell my mom and dad?"
Danny bristled at that. "You mean my mom and dad."
Clone-Danny frowned. "We agreed that we all hated Vlad, not that you weren't a clone."
"Look, you said Vlad took a chunk out of you, right? On your arm?" The clone nodded. "Well, then there'd still be a mark there, right?"
The clone rolled his eyes, before removing one of his gloves. "Of course, there's no way it'd heal that fast. Look—" He pulled back his sleeve.
The skin was spotless. Unblemished.
"Wait, what?" A confused look dawned on the clone's face before he frantically ripped off his other glove and pulled back that sleeve in turn. There was no mark to be found. "I don't understand, where's the scar? The cut? It's..."
"It's not there," Danny said as gently as he could.
The clone met Danny's eyes, a growing look of devastation on his face. Danielle laid a comforting hand on his shoulder until he found his voice again. "What... What are we going to do?"
Danny sighed and slumped down onto the bottom step on the staircase. His parents would need to know. The idea was terrifying. It wasn't that he thought his parents would hate him for what he was, although there was some small part of him that worried about that... But they had seen every threat ever made on his half-life. Half of them had been televised, after all. Would they try to stop him from saving people? Danny quite enjoyed his status as the town's protector. It was hard to imagine losing that.
He looked at the two clones eyeing him carefully. There was also their lives to consider, now. Would his parents not just accept him, but them as well? They had nowhere else to go, and Danny couldn't abandon what were basically another two siblings, even if they had been brought into the world in an unusual way.
"We're going to have to tell them the truth. The whole truth."
"What?! Are you crazy? I've been... You've been hiding 'Phantom' from them for half a year!"
Danny stood abruptly, walking over to his clones. "There are some things more important than my secret. Our secret, now. If I want my parents to accept me for who I am... I'd be a hypocrite to not accept you. Both of you," he added, giving Danielle a small smile.
"I... Don't know what to say."
"Just say you'll stand by me for this."
"I think he means he didn't expect you to be so cool about this. It really means a lot to me, cuz," Dani said.
Danny winked down at her. "I know. But I'm looking forward to getting to hang out with two people who will actually laugh at my jokes."
A crack of laughter and a small hug later, the trio broke up just in time for a key to jiggle in the front door's lock. Danny smiled. "Sounds like mom and dad are home now." He transformed back into human form, the other two following his lead. "Ready for the big reveal?"
The other two nodded back at him. The door cracked open.
"Hey Mom and Dad, I have something to—"
Danny swallowed his words. The door swung open, and he was looking at the surprised face of Danny Fenton, flanked on either side by Tucker Foley and Sam Manson.
With wide eyes and a trembling hand, Danny grabbed his own sleeve and pulled it back.
Author's Note: Happy October! To celebrate the spookiest of months, a loose anthology centering around Danny and his clones. This story will update every Tuesday this month, culminating in Halloween, by which time I suspect the word "clone" will no longer seem real to me. And fear not, regular readers of mine; Amity Park After Dark has an update coming out tomorrow, the 4th.
n.b. The fact that today is also the 60th anniversary of the launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, is really just a pleasing coincidence, given my well-documented interest in the race for space.
08/10/2017 - Many thanks to reviewer and actual linguist imekitty for pointing out some ambiguous wording and suggesting a correction.