Hello! 'Tis me. I usually don't post many stories, but the idea for this one jumped out at me a few days ago. This story idea has probably been used before, but I couldn't help but write it. My mom had asked why my dog, Toto, was staring at her, begging her for food when she didn't have any and I replied, "Because it's what he's used to." Thus, this story was born.
I had meant for it to be a oneshot, like Duplication, but it turned out longer than expected. So it'll be a twoshot and I'll post the second chapter tomorrow, probably, or maybe Monday.
Important: I'm not sure what to call the text between the asterisks, I wouldn't really call it a flashback, so I don't know. I had trouble writing that part, so I'm not sure if it's any good. Thoughts are in italics.
Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.
It's What He's Used To
Fifteen-year-old Danny Fenton sat in his swivel chair, spinning in slow, endless circles. He seemed to do this a lot lately, especially since he had told his parents he was half-ghost. He would sit in the chair for hours, sometimes, thinking about the past few months and all of his regrets. He wasn't really sure if he regretted telling his parents his secret, but he definitely regretted what happened soon afterwards.
Danny had been seriously considering telling his parents he was half-ghost for a while, and with his friends and sister urging him on, he finally told them. They were stunned at first, and a bit more than confused, but they finally understood. His mother was worried about him getting hurt, but Danny assured her that he'd be okay. He had been fighting ghosts for over a year now and had a lot of experience. His father was more proud and excited than worried. He had Danny recall most of his battles (Danny didn't tell them of his evil future self, he wasn't quite ready for that yet) and had him display his powers up close.
It had been great at first, having his parents know his secret. They accepted and supported him, he didn't have to lie to them all the time, and they even helped him out with the ghosts when they could. It didn't last long, though.
A few weeks after that, Danny had a big fight with Skulker. He had been alone at the time, with no one to help him. Even when he tried to call for help, Skulker blew his cell phone to bits with his new, high-powered weapons. The brawl had lasted at least forty-five minutes before Danny had a chance to suck Skulker into the Fenton Thermos. By then Danny had sustained some pretty serious injuries and numerous smaller ones.
When he finally arrived at his house, he promptly fainted and didn't wake up until a few days later. Soon after he regained consciousness he had a big fight with his parents. They had been worried ever since he had come home covered in blood. His fever had been high most of the time and they hadn't been completely sure if he was going to make it. They couldn't have sent him to a hospital because they'd find out he was part ghost, so all they could do was sit there and wait, worrying the entire time. This, apparently, made both of his parents extremely stressed, which may have been why the fight was so intense.
In the end, his parents had decided to ban Danny from ghost hunting. Danny immediately started arguing, claiming that it was his responsibility to protect the town and the ghost would overrun the place if he wasn't able to stop them. His parents had argued back, saying that they were both very capable ghost hunters and that it was their responsibility to protect him.
The dispute went on, until Danny claimed that it was impossible for his parents to prevent him from hunting ghosts because he had ghost powers. He had thought he had won, but his dad suggested that they could remove Danny's ghost half. Of course, Danny had absolutely refused that, and his parents, after seeing their son's panicked look, also decided against it.
His parents left him alone after that, heading down to the lab. Danny was immensely relieved, but also tired. After limping into the kitchen to get some water, he fell asleep on the couch.
The next morning Danny awoke to an odd, tickling feeling on his left wrist. He saw a small green and silver bracelet there. He reached to take it off, not partial to jewelry, but found that he could not. It was stuck. He examined it more closely and found that the word Fenton was inscribed on it. Danny rushed into the kitchen, favoring his swollen right ankle, and found his parents sipping coffee at the table.
"What is this?" He demanded.
"It's something we invented last night, son. We made it special, just for you." His dad replied nervously.
"What does it do and why won't it come off?"
"Well, Sweetie, we made it to help you, to protect you." His mom said, even more nervous than his dad. "Now you won't have to worry about ghosts and you can be a normal teenager."
Danny suddenly understood what the device did. He tried to go ghost. Nothing happened. He tried to go intangible. Nothing happened. He tried to go invisible, float, shoot ectoblasts, and create a shield. Nothing happened.
"You disabled my ghost powers?!" Danny screamed.
"It's for your own good, son. You refused to let us take out your ghost half, so we had to do something so you wouldn't get hurt."
Another row ensued after that. It seemed to go on forever. Danny was shocked that his parents would do such a thing to him, but no matter how much he yelled and argued his parents wouldn't cave in.
So here he was, months later, still bearing the bracelet on his wrist. Danny looked at it with distaste. It was always there, reminding him of what his parents unjustly did to him. He had tried many times to remove it, from greasing his wrist to beating on the bracelet with a hammer. Nothing worked.
His life felt empty without his ghost powers. When he had them, he had sometimes wished that his life was normal, but now he wished the exact opposite. Sure, now he had time to hang out with his friends all the time, but even that got tiresome after a while. They went to the movie theater, amusement parks, Nasty Burger, the bowling alley, each other's houses, and the city park all the time. There are only so many things to do in Amity Park and after a while, they start to lose their appeal. Nothing was as fun as laughing at Technus's stated world domination plans or Skulker's puny ghost form.
Danny also felt very insecure and exposed without his powers. He could no longer protect himself. He had always felt confident of himself whenever Dash beat him up at school when he had his powers. He was a bit smug with the fact that, if he wanted to, he could beat Dash up easily, not that he ever seriously thought about it. But now that he had no powers, he was helpless. If Dash ever decided to seriously injure him, there was absolutely nothing he could to stop him. He was too weak.
Worst of all, Danny now couldn't protect the town. His parents were doing an all right job of it so far, but Danny knew he could do it better. His parents kept the lab locked at all times and even took away his Fenton Thermos so he "wouldn't be tempted to fight ghosts." Danny knew that if the ghosts ever planned an invasion, they would all be doomed. His parents weren't skilled enough to handle a whole mob of ghosts at once. All the ghosts had to do was fly out of the reach of his parents' ectoguns' range or turn invisible and intangible. At least Danny was on the same level as the ghosts, well, he had been, anyway.
Danny sighed and started spinning his chair the other way. He missed the feeling of success when he captured yet another ghost in the Fenton Thermos and the sensation of triumph when he mastered a new power. He missed flying, too. It had always helped him clear his head and cheered him up. Now all he could do is sit in a stupid swivel chair and turn in circles.
Round….and round….and round….and round….and round….
Danny was walking home from school a few days later. He had decided to take the long route home since he was dreading doing the abnormally large amount of homework he had been assigned. Sam and Tucker weren't with him because they had a different perspective and took the normal, shorter way home so they could finish their work as fast as they could.
I swear, all of the teachers must meet secretly and decide on what days they'll give out enormous loads of homework. It can't just be a coincidence that each teacher assigned at least two pages of work. Maybe I'll be a teacher someday, so when the other teachers invite me to their secret meetings, I can collect evidence and expose them!
His musings were interrupted when he heard a fire truck coming down the street, its loud siren blasting in his ears. Danny watched as the vehicle turned left at the end of the street and stopped where Danny could just see the end of it. Interested, he jogged to catch up with it.
It's probably just a cat stuck in a tree. Nothing really serious happens around here often, unless you count the ghosts. Oh well, it's an excuse not to go home and do homework, though.
As Danny neared the end of the street he noticed the billowing black smoke rising out of an apartment complex. Reaching the corner and turning left, he saw exactly what was happening. The building was on fire! Danny could see the huge blazes of scorching fire coming out of many of the windows.
Getting over the initial shock of seeing the horrifying sight, Danny turned to see only three firefighters by the truck, rolling out the gigantic hose and attaching it to a nearby fire hydrant.
"What's going on? Shouldn't there be more of you?" Danny questioned.
"Stay back, kid," said one firefighter. "That building's on fire. Wouldn't want you to get hurt or burned."
"I can see that the building's on fire. Are you going to answer my questions? It seems like there should be more than three of you."
"We got a call from a lady who said the upper stories of this building were on fire." The firefighter holding the hose said, bracing himself against the force of the water that was soon to come out of the hose. "The rest of the men left earlier to help the Fentons stop a pyromaniac ghost. One guy is still at the station, trying to contact some of the men who are on-call at home." The man then concentrated on aiming the hose, which now had water gushing out of it.
Danny heard someone scream from inside the complex. "Aren't you going to send someone in to help those people?" Danny said, getting extremely anxious now. The building had been ablaze for a while now, and the hose wasn't going to put out the huge flames quick enough.
"We can't," said the third fireman, who was also holding to hose, trying to keep it steady so the other guy could aim easier. "We don't have enough men. We both have to hold the hose, and Mark has to stay near the hydrant to control the water pressure."
Danny glanced at the first fireman. He was just standing near the hydrant, turning the knob.
"I can handle the water pressure, and then Mark can go in and save those people!"
"Won't work. You're not certified; I can't allow it."
"So you're just going to stand there and let people die?!" Taking the man's silence as a "yes," Danny turned back to the burning building. The top floors were starting to collapse. If there were people inside, they'd never get out without help.
Frustrated, Danny said his other idea to the fireman. "Okay, then give me one of those oxygen masks and I'll go in."
"No! I'm not letting some kid run into a burning building. You'd die!"
"And if someone doesn't go, more people will die!"
Danny was enraged that the firemen refused to break a few rules to save someone. Another scream came from within the building. Danny knew what to do. He had to save those people! He couldn't just stand there and let them die! Ignoring the shouts of the firemen, Danny ran into the building.
The moment he stepped through the doorway, the temperature immediately rose. It was extremely difficult to see with the smoke; hard to breathe, too.
"Hello!? Anybody here? Shout and I'll come to you!" Danny kept yelling, all the while making his way through the complex, trying to find some way to get to the upper floors where people would most likely be trapped. He jumped over a rocking chair and saw the stairs. They weren't in that bad a condition, but he was still cautious running up them, trying to put as little weight as possible on each step.
Danny started shouting once again on the second story. It was a mess, but he still didn't see many flames, except in the middle of one room where the ceiling had caved in. The fire hadn't made it down that far, yet. There was still hope. Once sure that there weren't any people on that floor, he found the stairs again and ascended to the third floor. The fire was much worse here. Bits of the ceiling had collapsed and flames were spreading.
Danny called out again. "Can anybody hear me? Shout and I'll help you!"
Faintly, he thought he heard a voice come from a room to his right. Danny followed it.
"Hello!?"
"Here," said the voice.
Danny went in the direction it came from. He found a man sitting down with his left leg trapped under a large wooden beam.
"Help. I can't move the beam and I think my leg's broken." He said, coughing.
"Okay. We'll lift it together. Ready?" Danny and the man both pushed the heavy beam off of his leg. The man gave a grunt of pain when it was lifted. His leg had a fairly big gash in it and was bent at an odd angle.
"I don't think I can walk," he said.
"I'll help you. What's your name?"
"Greg."
"C'mon, Greg. Put your arm around my shoulder and lean on me. I know where the stairs are."
Danny supported Greg out of the room and to the stairs, Greg coughing most of the time. On the way to the first floor, one of the steps gave out and both of them went tumbling down the stairs. Danny picked himself off the floor. He was cut in several places and he might have sprained his ankle, but he was okay. He helped Greg up, whose leg looked even worse after the fall. They made it through the front door and out into the open air.
They both breathed deep, grateful for fresh air again. Danny set Greg down near the fire truck and the firemen, who were still working the hose. Mark rushed into the truck to grab two oxygen masks and gave them to Danny and Greg.
"I told you not to go in there!" The guy holding the hose said. "You could've died!"
"But I saved someone! Better than what you did!" Danny retorted, breathing deeply into his mask.
The fireman went on shouting at Danny about some code and breaking the law and other such things, but Danny didn't pay him the slightest attention. "Greg, do you know if anyone else was in the building?"
"Yeah. At least two others. A woman and her son. They live two floors above me."
Without hesitation, Danny dashed back into the building, this time with the oxygen mask.
Please review. Tell me if you think the story is good, or too cliched or if anyone's OOC, or anything else you can think of, even if it's only one word. I know almost nothing about being in a burning building (except what I see on TV), so tell me if anything seems too unreal. I appreciate constructive criticism.