Universal Disclaimer : Danny Phantom and other characters are owned by Mr. Hartman.

Huge thanks to Nonasuki-chan and ES9 for beta-ing it for me!

Summary :

Alternat Universe For centuries, ghosts have led fairly ordinary, even somewhat peaceful afterlives. Well, as ordinary it could get in the swirling depth of the Ghost Zone. No one would've guessed a young white-haired hybrid would change things so drastically…

Terrene

.:PreChapter:.

Birth

Danny : Besides, I always wanted to go in here. Who knows what kind of awesome, super cool things exist on the other side of that portal?

"Say 'Ghosty,' everyone!"

FLASH!

"Ha! Our very first Fenton-Family-Jumpsuit photo!" Jack gleefully cried, his eyes welling up in tears as he proudly stared at the picture he'd just taken. "I never thought I'd live to see this moment!" Excited, the self-proclaimed greatest ghost hunter busied himself in propelling the photo like a fan and flashed a wide grin at the little toddler cradled in his burly arm.

"Now, don't you just look adorable with that jumpsuit on, Danny boy?" he said boy -clad in white jumpsuit topped with black gloves, boots and belt- giggled as the excited man patted the thin mop of black hair he'd obviously inherited from Jack himself.

"I still say we should've kept that Jack Fenton face sticker on his jumpsuit though," he said with a pout.

"Now, now Jack," Maddie said in a coaxing tone in hopes of not offending her husband, "I know you spent a lot of time making those for Danny and Jazz, but don't you think it'd have been a little weird if there were humungous faces of yourself slapped onto their jumpsuits?" She hoisted up a turquoise-eyed girl in a pink jumpsuit and gestured at her chest to indicate what she meant.

"Mo-ommy! I'm a big girl! I can stand for myself!" The four-year-old furiously protested, wriggling in her mother's grasp. Maddie let go with a chuckle.

"And make sure you don't drop that Fenton Flash again!" She called out to the over-energetic man, whose attention was now diverted to his son again, waving the camera at his tiny face with a playful 'peek-a-boo!'

"Remember, that's already the second camera we had to build this month, honey. And it's only the third day of March!"

It almost feels like I have three children to take care of... Amused, Maddie shook her head at her husband's childish mannerisms that reminded her of their own little children. Speaking of whom-.

"Jackie, honey-.♪ Maddie, honey-." The blue-eyed toddler who'd barely managed to cease giggling repeated in a singsong voice, mimicking his mother's sweet tone. Not exactly the most talented singer in the world, sure, but it wasn't hard to tell he was singing along the tunes flowing from scarlet music box with a green lid clutched in his gloved fingers.

"Cut it wit the Chwistmas song, Danny!" A red-haired four-year-old snapped. "It's March! Way too late for 'Silent Night!'"

"-Jaaaaazzy, honey! ♪♪ Danny honey…" The youngest Fenton paid no heed to his sister's reprimands, his high-pitched voice increasing its volume. He frowned and cocked his head to the side when the music box still continued its melody even after his little song ended.

"Aw, c'mon Jazzerincess! Don't be jealous 'cause your baby brother can sing!" Jack joked as he patted his eldest child's back with a wink, clueless to the fact that Jasmine actually was tone-deaf.

"But he sings that Name-My-Family song everyday! Ever since he got that music box fwom Santa Clause!" Jazz pouted as she glared at her little brother who brought his toy between his teeth to bite it, only to draw it out immediately with a sour look on his face. The girl rolled her eyes before tugging uncomfortably at the pink-and-black spandex jumpsuit her mother had insisted on wearing for the day.

"And mooooommy, can I take it off now? Why do me and Danny have to wear dis un-com-fo-table thing?"

"Because today's a very special day, sweetie!" Maddie happily grinned, "The day we finished the project of our dreams we spent years on!"

"Pwoject?" Danny chirped, his head snapping upwards to meet his mother's excited eyes.

"Yep!" Jack answered, his huge form rocking back and forth in enthusiasm. "It's a special door that leads to the world of ghosts! We'll be able to catch a ghost in no time and tear it apart molecule by molecule!"

"Where's it?" Jazz piped, her head cocked to the side.

"Over there, in our basement," Maddie pointed at the locked door next to the staircase, two pairs of wide eyes following her index finger.

"But," the turquoise-eyed girl made a face, "you said ghosts are mean! What if they come and get me, Mommy!"

"Ghosties only gets meanies. Like yous, Jazzy." The two-year-old offered in a matter-of-fact tone. He giggled when his sister shot him a dirty look.

"Now, kids. Let's not fight. Who's up for a game of-"

"I know!" Danny interrupted his mother, holding out his Silent Night music box. "Ghosty-. Honey-. ♪ Meanie-. Honey-."

"Cut it out!" Jazz warned. "And nothing about ghosts and meanies are honey!"

"Well, at least he came up with different words for his little song, Jazz…" Amused, Maddie chuckled as she tickled her son on his belly. The toddler gasped and burst out laughing, kicking his feet and tossing his arms around wildly in Maddie's grasp. Jazz smiled like a little devil before slowly advancing on his brother with her fingers dancing, ready to join her mother.

A loud grumble chose that moment to erupt, causing the three pairs of bewildered eyes to glance at the source of the noise.

Jack sheepishly grinned at his family. "Um, Maddie? Is it okay if we test our Fenton Portal, like, after dinner?"

"'Can you hit the tiny dot over there with your arrow, Artemis?' Apollo says to his sister. He points at a black figure on the horizon of the sea.

'Of course I can,' Artemis replies. She readies her bow and shoots. It does not miss. Suddenly, a man's scream echoes throughout the ocean. Artemis's eyes grow bigger in horror.

'Oh, no! I must have shot a person!' She cries. Soon, the tides flow towards the shore, carrying a man's body.

'Orion!' The goddess cries when she sees her loved one's limp form. 'I killed Orion! Orion!' She weeps and weeps, and-"

"Shh, Jazzy!" The black-haired toddler hushed his sister, placing his tiny finger on her sister's lips. "Hear dat? Listen!"

"What?" An eyebrow quirked, Jazz lowered her "Greek Mythology for Children" book irritably. Danny had never dared to interrupt her while she read him before. When he wasn't distracted with the Silent Night music box, at any rate -but the blasted toy was secure in his pocket, the switch pointing to "OFF."

"Mommy and Daddy talking! See?" The little kids jumped off from Jazz's pink bed and silently tiptoed towards the door. They slightly opened it, letting the voices from downstairs flow in more freely.

"But we checked THREE times, Jack! I know the calculations were 100 correct!"

"I don't know either, Mads. I don't know either."

"How can it not work? After all these years we spent, after all that work we poured into it-."

"I thought so, too. After all these years we've been treated like crackbrains, after all these years of guilt that followed Vlad's accident…"

"Who's Vwad?" Danny whispered.

"I dunno. Mommy and Daddy's pwoject must not have worked or someffing." Jazz whispered back.

"Aww, no ghosty door then?" The blue-eyed toddler said with a pout that strongly resembled his dad's.

"Uh-huh," the four-year-old replied with a frown, but it soon melted into a mischievous smirk, her inquisitive nature-kicking in. "You thinkin' what I'm thinkin', Danny?"

The younger boy cocked his head in confusion. "What ffinkin..?"

Then his eyes widened when her implication sank in a moment later. "B-but Jazzy, mommy and daddy says-!"

"Pff, you never listens to them anyway. C'mon!"

"But-!" was all Danny could get out before he was seized by the wrist and hauled downstairs.

"Wow…" The two kids whispered in awe as they cautiously looked around their dimly lit surroundings, their voice echoing throughout the dark basement. The sound of their tiny feet tapping at the floor reverberated, its volume magnified to a point where it intimidated the siblings. The orange-haired girl stood on her toes to tentatively turn the lights on.

Unlike the rest of the Fenton Works, the laboratory looked far from inviting and cozy, its burnished metal walls and faded blue examination tables glinting in unfamiliarity. Numbers of oddly-shaped beakers and cylinders filled with glowing substance rested on the tables, along with papers covered in notes they couldn't comprehend.

Jazz anxiously observed her surroundings, her eyes darting back and forth between the door they just came through and the newly revealed lab in front of her.

"Hey, what's that?" Unaware of his sister's unease, the blue-eyed boy cheerfully toddled towards a black board hanging on the opposite wall. He halted in front of it, his tiny head titled upwards as he curiously stared up at the sketch of a green specter scrawled on it.

"Jazzy, it's a gween ghostie!" He burst in a fit of giggles. "Red, blue, orange, gween!"

Jazz slowly followed her brother, warily keeping a watch on her back. "Careful, Danny…"

"Oooh, lookie!" Danny cried, his smile brightening as something resting on a table across the lab caught his eyes. "Mommy's coffee!" He dashed by his big sister and climbed up a stool standing in front of the metal table.

"Danny, wait!"

"See? It's a coffee!" He happily announced, his arm stretched out to the table as he reached for the clear beaker that contained an unknown auburn substance. Unfortunately, his clumsy hands knocked over the beaker and spilled the exotic content all over the polished examination table. The young boy yelped and stepped backward in surprise, falling off from the stool and landing on his butt.

"DANNY!" Jazz hissed as she rushed up to her teary-eyed brother, "you okay?"

He nodded, and the four-year-old let out a sigh of relief before scowling at him, a hand on her hips. "Look at teh mess you made, Danny! Mommy and Daddy are gonna be mad!"

"Aww, Jazzy…" Danny pouted, his tiny fingers reaching into his pocket of his white jumpsuit. When Jazz realized what he was doing, it was too late.

"Hey, I said-"

"Jazzy honey?" The little boy said in a hopeful tone, holding out his favorite toy in one hand and flipping on the switch with the other.

♪ Silent night, holy night

All is calm, all is bright-

"Da-anny!" Jazz sighed exasperatedly as the soft melody radiated from the tiny box. "Turn it off!"

The younger toddler, however, was already occupied by something else, his blue eyes intently fixed at something behind his older sister.

"Danny! I'm talking to you!" The four-year-old irritably snapped, glaring at her brother. Again, no reply. She soon realized with a start that the black-haired toddler's gaze was directed at something behind her. "Jazzy, look. Behind you…"

The red-haired girl turned around, gasping as she did. The furthest wall was nursing an enormous hole coated with spooky electric circuits and buttons dimly gleaming in the dark. A flashing siren that the toddlers only saw on an ambulance lay on top of the metal entrance, emitting a foreboding crimson glow.

"This… is mommy and daddy's prwoject…" Jazz whispered to herself.

Without a word, Danny stood up, staring at the portal as if his gaze were permanently glued there. He abandoned the music box on the metal floor with a clank -which was a first, since he's never let it out of his grasp before except for baths- and plodded towards his parents' project, his blue eyes with no focus as if in a trance. "…Wow…"

"Danny, you shouldn't-" She warned, but her voice trailed off in hesitance.

Truth be told, Danny wasn't the only one curious of what this strange thing was about. Which was why Jazz gave no further protests even when she saw her little brother promptly hop into the dimly-lit machine.

She watched the darkness wash over his tiny form, his milky complexion and the white spandex reflecting blue-ish light as he tottered deeper into the inactivated device. He almost looked like a ghost himself then, his face deathly pale, and it made the little girl's stomach sink in a sense of dread looming over her.

"Hey, Jazzy! A gween button!" was the last thing the blue-eyed toddler uttered before a blinding flash broke loose along with a surge of concentrated ectoplasm charge. He shrieked at the top of his lungs with his eyes clenched shut as white jolts of pure spectral energy burst out and ravenously tore at his form.

Neither Danny nor Jazz -who screamed along with her brother- were aware for the fact that it was going to be the last moment the youngest Fenton would spend as an alive human.

Different shades of green swirls slowly materialized at the mouth of the man-made dimension hole, blocking the little toddler from view. The machine started creaking as pure ectoplasmic energy built up with tremendous pressure every second. It glowed brighter and brighter until the sheer force of spectral power became too much for the portal to endure.

Everything seemed to halt for a second as the power reached its highest point.

And all hell broke loose the next moment, the overloaded portal forcefully spitting out wild crackles of energy into the newly revealed dimension of the dead.

…Along with the two-year-old Fenton buried in them, who was ruthlessly hurled across the endless depth of green swirls.

Flames of spectral energy encompassing the young toddler clawed at his form in frenzy, desperate not to disintegrate into nothing. They attacked every corner of his being, seeping into the semi-conscious boy as the blinding glow enveloping his tiny frame gradually died away.

Only the boy revealed behind the lump of energy didn't look a thing like the blue-eyed toddler he used to be when he entered the portal a few moments ago. Anyone who'd seen him wouldn't doubt that he no longer was an alive being; his unnaturally white hair and eerie shade of brilliant green eyes practically screamed his new status as a spirit.

The very thing his parents hunted down for a living.

As if aware of the life he'd just lost, the toddler screeched for all he was worth as he was plunged deeper and deeper into the realm of the dead, rushing past numbers of floating islands and violet doors. His screams echoed loudly, grabbing attention of a few residents of the Ghost Zone, who merely shrugged and went back to their own business.

Back in the laboratory of Fenton Works, the blinding flash had died down quickly, leaving vivid green whirls to illuminate the spacious room. Contrary to the chaos that had just taken place there, it was now empty of any noise save for the choked sobs of a frightened young girl with her hands stretched out in a desperate attempt to reach out to her brother.

…And the tiny music box carelessly thrown on the metal floor, continuing its serene Christmas melody as if nothing had happened.

Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth…

A/N : Hello everyone! I'm now officially a new authress on FFN. With a soft spot for little kids. xD;; Thanks for reading, and I'll love you forever if you review. (I heart construction criticisms!)

:giggles: Next comes the part where lil' Danny crashes with his canon enemies... (coughEmberSkulkerKittycough)