It was a beautiful autumn evening in Amity Park. The sun had been out all day, but now, just enough clouds had settled in over the Atlantic to create the most dramatic effect on the sunset, brilliant gold, red and orange accented by violet clouds. The ships were all coming into the harbour and young children were being called inside, the older ones heading out for some last-minute adventures before dark. All was as it always was on nights like this. At the Fenton house, that usually meant chaos.

"I am Technus!" the ghost-scientist declared, "Ghost Master of Science and Electrical Technology!"

"We know," Danny, Sam, and Tucker all sighed in monotone unison. With Jazz having dragged the folks off to some event at school, there was no one around to hear the commotion in the lab. Not that it had started from there. Technus had shown up in an ice-cream truck and Danny had been beating him over to here for the last five minutes.

"Then you will know the power in my possession! And soon, I will..."

"Dude, I've already dragged you here. Can't you just go into the portal and save the Fenton Thermos some work?" Technus stared for a moment, then shrugged in defeat.

"Alright. See ya' next time I get out," and with that, he flew into the ghost-zone portal.

"Thanks!" Tucker called after him.

(He's a Phantom)
(Danny Phantom)


Yo, Danny Fenton, he was just fourteen
When his parents built a very strange machine
It was designed to view a world unseen


(He's gonna catch 'em all cuz he's Danny Phantom)

When it didn't quite work
His folks, they just quit
But then Danny took a look inside of it
There was a great big flash
Everything just changed
His molecules got all rearranged!


(Phantom, Phantom)

When he first woke up
He realized
He had snow white hair
And glowing green eyes
He could walk through walls,
Disappear, and fly!
He was much more unique than the other guy!

It was then that he knew what he had to do
He had to stop all the ghosts
That were coming through
He's here to fight
For me and YOU!


(He's gonna catch 'em all cuz he's Danny Phantom)
(He's gonna catch 'em all cuz he's Danny Phantom)

Gonna catch them all cuz he's Danny Phantom

ORIGINS

"That was quite the night of ghost-catching, if I do say so myself," Tucker said proudly, "we managed to round up..."

"One ghost," Sam said, "Technus was the only one around tonight."

"...Right," Tucker said, feeling defeated, "The point is, we've got an hour of free time before we have to head home. Got anything to eat around here?"

"Yeah," Danny said, "I'm pretty hungry myself. Let's make some snacks and head up to my room."

---

The three friends now found themselves lying around upstairs, a bag of pretzels and some cheese crackers lying among them. Danny and Tucker were sitting on the floor, completely absorbed in a comic book; Sam was watching and rolling her eyes.

"Oh, sweet!" Tucker said about one panel, his eyes bulging out behind his glasses. Sam sighed. She needed something to do. After Danny's first fight with Skulker he wasn't allowed to have a TV or a computer in his room, so she had to look elsewhere. There was a bookshelf downstairs that Danny had never talked about or taken anything from. Maybe there was something worth looking at in there.

"I'm heading downstairs," she stood up. Danny nodded, but like Tucker, seemed oblivious to his surroundings. Sighing once more, Sam left the room. The bookshelf was in the den. Mainly it had files and diaries loaded with Jack's ghost notes. There was a book on physics and some yearbooks from college. The only thing that looked interesting was a large, old binder labelled "Family Album."

---

"This is great," Tucker's grin was so big it looked like it was about to burst, "And this is just Issue #1 of this story!"

"Yeah," Danny said, beginning to come back to reality, "Did Sam say where she was going?"

"She left?" just as the two fully pulled out from the comic-book, Sam walked back in.

"Hey," she said, "Found your family album downstairs."

"Really?" Danny got up, "Mom and Dad haven't taken that thing off the shelf since before I got my powers. I don't even remember half of what's in here!"

"Any embarrassing pictures of Jazz?" Tucker walked over.

"Maybe. Why?"

"Payback. All the cool stuff on my PDA got deleted when she thought it was hers and loaded with junk from school! I can't live like this!" ignoring the ranting, Danny and Sam sat down on the bed and opened up the old binder. The first few pages held photos from Jack and Maddie's wedding; not interesting. There were some baby pictures of Jazz (one rather embarrassing one Tucker took out) and Danny.

"Aw," Sam said in an annoying mother voice, "You were so cute then, Danny!"

"Yeah, yeah," Danny mumbled as Tucker and Sam laughed, "Hey, here's a picture of us."

"Where?" Danny pointed at it. Sure enough, the three of them were on the floor of the Fenton's living room around the age of 3. Tucker didn't have glasses or hair then and Sam was in green instead of black, her hair a bit shorter and there being no ponytail. Danny didn't look that much different than he did now; he was shorter and his hair was even messier back then; but not that different.

"Wow..." Sam's voice had a bit of awe in it, "We've been friends for this long. Hard to believe, isn't it?"

"Yeah..." Tucker said, "Hard to even remember our first meeting, too."

"Not with Jazz around," Danny smiled, "She loves to remind me of everything," and with that, their thoughts trailed back to 11 years ago...

---

Jack stood back a few feet from the house to admire his work. He had just begun to mount what was going to be the most amazing ghost-detection satellite ever, linked to his lab in the basement. So far, all he had was the supports, but the rest was on its way.

"Perfect!" he said proudly, "Maddie! Get the camera!" Watching from the window, the five-year old Jazz sighed in embarrassment before closing the window. Building a satellite on the house wasn't likely to attract the neighbours. That was soon proven wrong.

"Howdy, neighbour!" a man called out. He had glasses, a red cap, a goatee, and was carrying a small boy in his arms.

"Hey!" Jack returned the greeting, "Nice to meet ya.' Jack Fenton, Ghost Hunter Extraordinare!"

"Bob Foley. Ghost hunter, eh?"

"Yep. Starting up the detection satellite now!" he now caught the little boy in Bob's arms, "Hey! Who's this little guy?"

"My son Tuck. Three."

"Well, nice to meet ya' Tuck!" Jack smiled, "Hey! Think he'd like to meet my son Danny? Same age as Tuck here."

"Why not? We were heading down to the park, and I'd be happy to take him and bring him back."

"Jack?" Maddie had just come out, "Who's this?"

"Oh, sorry. Maddie, meet the neighbours Bob and Tuck Fenton!"

"Nice to meet you," Maddie smiled.

"He's takin' his son down to the park and Offered to take Danny. Why don't you go get him?"

"Of course! I should tell you, he's a little shy," Maddie headed back in. A few minutes later, she came back out, a short little kid with messy black hair hiding behind her leg.

"Danny," she said, "This is our neighbour, Mr. Fenton. You're going to the park with his son Tucker."

"...Hi," Danny said quickly.

"Hey Danny," Bob smiled, "You want to head down to the park?

"...OK," he came out from behind his mom's leg and followed Bob down the street.

"So, where's the camera?" Jack asked once they were out of site.

---

It was a bit empty down at the park. There were a few older kids skating and playing basketball, and one or two little kids on the slide. A couple sitting on the bench in a dignified manner, oblivious to anything around them. Almost like they were rich.

"Hey, Mansons!" they heard a voice call out, bringing them back to reality.

"Hello, Robert," Mr. Manson said. Their friend was coming over, carrying his son and another little kid walking behind him.

"And who's this?" Mrs. Manson said, smiling at the messy-haired boy.

"This is Danny. He's the Fenton's son."

"Fenton?"

"They just moved in. Ghost-hunters. Is Sam around?"

"Somewhere," Mr. Manson looked around, "She never stays in one place...ah, there she is," a black-haired girl in green clothes fell into view from behind a tree. She quickly got back up on her feet.

"Hi, Mr. Foley," she walked over.

"Hi, Sam," he set Tucker down, "This is Danny. He's going to play with you and Tucker," with that, he sat down with the Mansons and left the kids to their introductions.

"Hi,"" Danny said nervously, "I'm Danny."

"Hi Danny," Sam said, "I'm Sam. You know Tucker already?"

"Kind of."

"Well, I'm Tucker," Tucker smiled, "My dad's a mechan...mechani...he works with cars and stuff."

"My parents hunt ghosts."

"Cool!" Sam said, "Have you seen any?"

"Nope. But my dad has a lab in the basement and he's trying to build something on the roof."

"Cool!" Sam repeated, "All my parents do is go to wherever they work. It's boring. Does your mom do stuff in the lab too?"

"Yeah. More than my dad. My dad's a bit silly. My sister wants them to get 'normal' jobs."

"Who's your sister?"

"Jazz. She's five."

"Why doesn't she like ghosts?" Tucker asked.

"She says that it's not sane or something."

"Oh. Hey, I bet I can throw this rock into that hole in that beehive and close it up," Tucker pointed up into a tree where a beehive was. He tossed a rock he had picked up earlier, trying to aim for the hole. Instead, he knocked the hive off the tree, causing a swarm of bees to fly up and towards him.

"DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADDDD!" he took off, screaming, chased by the infuriated insects. Danny and Sam looked at each other and shrugged.