A/N:
Sorry! Fanfiction glitched out on me! I had no idea it broke like that. It should be fixed now.
I was always curious why, when the Fenton Ghost Catcher split Danny into his human and ghost half, Phantom was obsessed with heroics. Yet when in Ultimate Enemy, when Vlad pulls Phantom out with the Ghost Gauntlets, that he goes nuts and rips the ghost out of Vlad...with ends with them fusing and becoming "Dark Danny". It's been a while since I've watched the show, but this question has lingered for a while.
So this is the result many fanfic readings and the mind-numbing stress of my final college semester. Without further adieu, let the story begin.
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Flipside of Fate
Pain.
All he felt was pain.
Stiff fingers refused to curl. Sticky eyelids were stuck shut. Breathing was a battle between his lungs and the air. His heart throbbed like a marching militia, demanding that he rise, its command sparking synapses in his dazed brain. Fear was purest motivation. Adrenaline surged and pulsed, numbing aching limbs and forcing reluctant muscles into action. With a thick gasp, Danny jackknifed up, eyes flying open with an ethereal flash of green.
Sirens blared all around him. Smoke tainted the air—toxic and reeking. Around him laid twisted rubble. A long beam of metal speared the earth not six inches from his arm...had it hit him, he would be dead. Well, deader. Whether Danny's ghost half could survive his human half dying in such a way, he did not know.
Then the events of the past few hours crashed down on him like a meteor.
Danny struggled to his feet then staggered. Knees and bloodied palms slammed back against the concrete, his legs unable to support his weight. Shouts echoed distantly amongst the siren calls. He crawled forward, blue eyes zeroed on the ruin ahead.
"No," he whimpered. After everything he'd done. Fighting his evil future self, jumping through time, doing everything he could to circumvent disaster... He failed. The people he wanted to save—needed to save—were dead. Just like before...just like he planned.
I'm inevitable.
With his ghost powers depleted by his ghostly wail, the final confrontation with Dark Phantom led to the very crossroad he and Clockwork wished to avoid. Danny stared at what remained of the Nasty Burger. He knew that the future was not set in stone, his learning the ghost wail ten years prior to Dark Phantom proved that. And he also knew that failure to walk the path of good would end in him being cut from the timeline. But this...No wonder his alternate self wanted free of human emotions. He never knew one could feel this kind of agony.
Danny shut his eyes and collapsed. The thunder of footsteps told him that rescue was coming. They would drag him into an ambulance and heal all the physical hurts. That is, if they weren't distracted by his no longer human vitals.
'You know we can't stay,' whispered a low voice inside Danny's head. He groaned. Ever since he split himself with the Fenton Ghost Catcher a few weeks ago, his ghost half seemed to gain a higher level of self awareness. He felt more separate than before when he was mostly ghost instincts overlapping human ones. Every dodge, punch and ghost sense came from the Phantom—a fact Danny was aware of on a primitive level. But his existence as something separate, a complete whole fused to another, did not occur to Danny until they reunited.
His skin crawled, the chill of his ghost core returning, cooling his blood and slowing his heart.
Hands pulled him onto a gurney.
'They will find out the truth. We will become a science experiment. Do you want to be ripped apart, molecule by molecule? I sure don't.'
"M...maybe that'd be better...no m-more...Dark Phantom," Danny twisted on the gurney, too weak to fight the paramedics who hurried to hold him down. If they destroyed him, he could not wreck havoc on the world. He could die...maybe even completely, and join his family in the afterlife.
The Phantom fell silent.
Unlike when they were separate, when he and his ghost half were one, Phantom was not purely driven by the desire to do good. He was obsessed, yes—there is no ghost in existence without an obsession. But it was with defending his territory instead of being the ultimate hero. Neither good nor evil, he desired the complete control of Aminty Park's safety. Like an old guard dog chained to the same tree for all his life, Phantom balked and snarled at the idea of anything ectoplasmic trespassing and causing harm to his designated town of humans. Danny had an inkling suspicion that the Fenton Ghost Catcher did not separate Fenton from Phantom when it split ghost from human. They were two mismatched halves instead of the complimentary wholes they were in truth.
He felt the Phantom itching against his veins, his slowly recovering power a reminder of how vulnerable he was right now. It would be hours before his core was stable enough for him to 'go ghost'. But as it was, human Danny wasn't human enough right now to go to the hospital. Not sure if it was completely himself who did it, or if his ghost half spurred his instincts into high gear, but Danny lurched against the paramedics and twisted free. The second his shoes hit the gravel, he ran.
Danny was good at running.
People chased after him. His body shrieked in rebellion. He ignored everything to keep moving.
Warmth crept down his cheeks.
Tears.
Everyone he cared for was dead. He could not go back to his old life—not without too many questions being asked. He had nothing. He had no one.
'Not quite true.'
"I'm n-not going to him. If I do..."
Images of Dark Phantom laughing manically as he leveled cities flashed at the front of Danny's mind. The blue-skinned ghost hovered over the devastation, hands glowing, red eyes illuminated. His flaming hair flickered in a passing breeze. He was one of the most powerful specters to ever exist, a lethal combination of Danny and Vlad's ghost halves without an ounce of the human morality. All that drove him was his obsession. Not with protection, like Phantom, nor with power, like Plasmius. Dark Phantom sought the willful destruction of anything in his path, be it spirit or mortal.
'Who is to say that his obsession is unalterable?'
Danny scanned his surroundings and ducked into an alleyway.
"He's evil. Vlad's ghost half is..."
'As indifferent as I about the state of the world. Plasmius apart from Vlad is no more likely to run amok than I. Left alone, I'd guess he'd attempt to assume rule over the ghost zone, not ravage it.'
That couldn't be true. Future Vlad spoke of how his ghost side overwhelmed Danny's, corrupted him. Plasmius was evil. It was his evil that turned the protective Phantom into a menace.
Danny shuffled to a stop, his whole body shaking. He wasn't sure how he managed to run in the first place. Leaning against the brick behind him, Danny rubbed his cheek with the back of a palm. His hands were too torn up and would leave blood behind instead of removing the grime-thick tears creeping towards his jaw.
"Shut up," he said. "If I go to Wisconsin...let Vlad rip us apart...I'll mess up the future."
The Phantom seemed to snort, 'If I do recall correctly, you aren't there to mess up the future. Dan kills you.'
"Who?"
'Dark Phantom? It is reasonable to assume that if I am the dominant personality in the fusion between myself and Plasmius, that my name would remain Danny. Thus, if I outgrew that name like he, I would call myself Dan.'
Phantom was rationalizing the evil future version of him. He sounded as if he...wanted to be him. Danny swallowed thickly. How did one fight against themselves when half of them had ghost powers and front seat tickets to his instincts? He shook his head. This was crazy. He was crazy. He was talking to himself!
'We need to keep moving, Danny.'
Jerking away from the wall, he noticed the wail of emergency sirens.
"I can't become Dark Phantom. I'd rather turn myself in to the Guys in White than allow for that future to happen!"
That's when he felt it. A wrench in his chest below where his human heart pounded. It was like someone twisted an icy dagger into Danny's diaphragm. His teeth clattered. He felt sick.
'I am not letting you destroy us because you're afraid of what might happen.'
Danny choked.
He knew ghosts, despite being dead, had potent survival drives. His parents warned him endlessly about the fact that ghosts would manipulate, lie and even kill in order to follow through with their obsession. Even benign ghosts like the Box Ghost, whose havoc was meddlesome at best, became dangerous if someone intervened in the midst of their singular desire.
Phantom, despite his desire to protect those in his territory from outside ghosts, was no different in his nature. He was what turned meek Danny Fenton into a hero. His obsessive nature tainted Danny's subconscious, filled it with sinews of purpose. Until now, they were harmonious. But two minds could not coexist within one head. Not when one wanted to circumvent disaster, and the other wanted to survive in order to pursue its obsession.
"I-I need to go somewhere...anywhere but to Vlad."
'Why?'
"What don't you understand about turning evil!"
The cold in his gut twisted higher, forming a thick lump in Danny's throat.
'He can protect us. We don't have to separate.'
"If we go...you can't protect this city anymore. You won't be a hero anymore."
Phantom did not reply for a moment.
'I cannot defend my territory while you are in this state of mind. Leaving is best for now. Once we are well, I can return to my duties. Your humanity gives me a great deal of freedom in that regard.'
"What makes you think that we can go back to being the hero? What if we...I..."
Danny's voice faltered. He needed to stop thinking of them as separate. No matter how present the Phantom seemed right now, they were one being. One. Two halves. Perfectly fused. Seamless.
'I won't leave you, Danny,' Phantom murmured, his voice a soft croon. 'As long as you don't try to separate us, we'll be together...even in death.'
"The future..."
He felt Phantom flash a smile, 'I want to survive. Exist. Don't try to destroy me...us...and the future won't happen.'
The cold receded and Danny inhaled deeply. He swept a hand through tangled black hair.
"My family is gone. What if the pain becomes too much?"
'The future happens because you think that removing your humanity would leave you the dominant personality within a ghost. You forget that ghosts feel. We crave. We desire. You rip us apart, leaving me with your regrets, fears and hate. Anyone, even a ghost would lose their sanity if their entire purpose was tainted that way. Of course, we may have been more unified then. You didn't understand the consequences.' Phantom sighed. 'No wonder Dan killed you...the human who diverted his purpose...his obsession.'
"Not helping!"
Phantom chuckled, the laugh reminiscent of Dar...Dan.
'He was quite powerful. When you die, perhaps we'll become Dan. A different Dan. Or, perhaps not. Circumstances of death and all that. Hm...No Plasmius in the mix.'
The truth crept like poison under his skin—Phantom did not fear turning into him. He wanted to become stronger. More obsessive.
No.
They were one.
Phantom and Fenton were one person.
He was just imagining this whole thing. They weren't separate!
'Denial isn't flattering.'
"Daniel Fenton?"
Danny looked up. Standing in the alleyway was a blue-uniformed officer. He held a flashlight, a placating expression on his stern face.
"Come along son. You've had a hard day."
'What's your choice, Danny?'
Shivering, eyes flicking to the looming walls, Danny realized he was trapped. He couldn't run. And he was tired. So damn tired. He sagged against the wall and lifted a hand toward the officer. The uniformed man nodded and hurried closer, muttering something into his radio. As he wrapped his arms around Danny, they both felt a sharp chill.
The officer staggered and Danny phased through his fingertips, right into the wall.
They stared at each other with wide-eyed horror.
'Wrong choice.'