Uhm…hi? (sheepish wave) I'm FlikFreak. Some of you may know me, some of you…might not. I've always held a small interest in Danny Phantom, but my interest was recently perked up big time, and then this idea came to mind. I always enjoy watching pilot episodes of any TV show and whatnot, but I never really saw anything that included how Danny first got his powers aside from the intro. I know there's probably a billion other fics like this, but…yeah. I had to get this out of my head. And stuff. I hope it's okay. (scampers off)

The Origins of Danny Phantom

By FlikFreak

Part One: From Normal to Chaotic

It was a normal Saturday morning in the Fenton household. Jazz had left to go out with her boyfriend, and Danny was alone in the kitchen shoving spoonful after spoonful of soggy cereal into his mouth while his parents downstairs were working on their newest invention, the said work usually involving several loud booming noises coming from the basement and the occasional explosion. Sure, it wasn't quite as typical as most other families of the current generation, but to Danny this was all completely routine. On occasion he could even predict the timing of each individual crash that came from the laboratory underneath their home.

BANG!

Yep. Typical Saturday morning, all right.

Danny sighed as he heaved another spoon full of fruit loops in his mouth. It tasted like sawdust. He couldn't believe that on Saturday, of all days, he had run out of things to do. Saturday was sacred; there was no school to take up seventy-five percent of your free time and suck you dry. He was completely bored, and that in itself was just not right. Normally he'd go hang out with his friends, but Sam was babysitting and Tuck was visiting with his grandmother. It didn't help that there was a thunderstorm coming either, and to top it off the local movie theatre was closed for renovation. The new video game he was waiting to get was releasing next week, so there was no reason to visit the local GameStop, either.

He probably would have gone out with some of his other friends, but he was often teased at school for his parent's obsessions, even though he himself wasn't too keen on it either. Sighing, he shuffled to the sink to wash his bowl and put it away. He'd probably just go upstairs to his room and find something to do there.

"Danny! Could you get us the extension cord?"

"Coming, Mom," he answered, groaning. Helping his parents wasn't exactly on the top of his 'fun things to do on Saturday list,' but it was better than sitting around doing nothing. After putting his bowl in the sink, reminding himself to wash it later, he made his way over to a cupboard nearby and pulled out a large, heavy-duty extension cord. They usually came in orange, but the black one was all the store had left at the time they decided to buy one. Not that it was important or anything; Danny was just pretty observant of things like such.

Hefting the cord on his shoulder, he made his way down to the basement laboratory. Normally the lab was off-limits unless his parents needed something, but that was fine with Danny since he never really liked going down there much anyway. Sure, he was always pretty curious about what happened down there, but he also knew that whatever happened in the lab was the cause of his major lack of friends aside from Sam and Tuck.

After pushing open the door to the lab, Danny was met by the sight of his parents welding a few edges on an enormous cylindrical…thing. He honestly didn't know how to describe it; it reminded him of a jet engine on an airplane, only it was a bit smaller and less…rounded. The first thing that Danny managed to say was, "What is that?"

Danny's father, Jack, proudly swept one arm to the side as though he were presenting the object in question to an entire crowd. "This is the Fenton Portal!" He announced grandly.

Oh, that explains everything, Danny thought sarcastically, one eyebrow cocked. Could I get more than just a name, please?

Thankfully, his mother was a bit more practical on the subject and always knew when to explain things. "We've been working on a portal to the Ghost Zone for some time now," she explained. "We'll finally be able to prove that ghosts are real!"

Ghosts again? Danny grumbled inwardly. His parents had always had an odd obsession with them. Banshees, poltergeists; you name it, they knew them. Danny never fit into this niche of his family: while everyone was smart or crazy in some way, he was completely normal, and never once had an A or B on any test in his entire life. Thankfully, he never got lectured on it since his parents were always buried to their necks in their obsessions, but it didn't make it any less of a burden. Deciding to leave his exasperated thoughts for later, he held forward the extension cord to his father. "You needed this?" He asked.

The object in question was snatched out of his hand in an instant. "Thanks, Danny," he heard his father reply before he headed to the wall to plug it in.

As Jack unraveled the rest of the cord, Maddie turned off her welder and exited the miniature tunnel she had created. "Danny, we're about to turn it on. Do you want to watch?"

Danny was, to say the least, extremely doubtful. Ghosts didn't exist. A portal like this couldn't possibly work. Even so, he did have some sort of interest. His parents seemed incredibly excited about this project of theirs, and he didn't have anything better to do that day. He nodded. "I don't see why not."

"It might be dangerous," Jack warned with his customary flamboyant flair. "You should put on a hazmat suit."

As though his mood couldn't be killed any more, the raven-haired boy spared a skeptical glance at the white jumpsuit at the back of the room and sighed, pulling it on and completing it with a pair of black boots and gloves. He felt insanely ridiculous, but he knew better than anyone that a bad fashion statement was better than being fried by some crazy invention.

"This is it!" Maddie exclaimed excitedly. "All of our years of hard work are finally paying off!"

Jack grinned, holding up the plug for the machine and the end of the extension cord. Everyone carefully braced themselves as he plugged the machine in. The electrical hum of the Fenton Portal filled the laboratory, music to the man's ears. A blue light in the back of the portal flickered on, and the machine revved to life. The light grew bright and brighter…

…and then it all stopped.

The Fentons stared at the machine blankly. It had started up just moments before, and seemed like it would actually work as planned, but nothing happened. Jack sighed, his shoulders drooping in disappointment. "I was sure it would work," he moaned. "We quadruple-checked our calculations!"

"It's probably something else, dear," Maddie insisted, smiling her usual way. "Maybe the storm blew one of the fuses.

Danny shuddered, sparing a glance at the portal. For some reason, he had a feeling that his parents were wrong. That thing had to be working. Everything was in place. They were missing something, he knew that, but he also had a strange feeling that it wasn't quite what they were thinking of.

"It's probably the extension cord," Jack said as the group headed back up the stairs. "We'll have to go by the store and pick one up."

"And some spare fuses," Maddie added. "Even if that's not the problem we'll still have a use for them."

"Alright," Jack replied, convinced entirely. "Danny, do you want to come along?"

"No thanks," Danny replied. Sure, if this whole mess hadn't ended up like this he probably would have been bored enough to comply, but seeing as he wasn't keen on being seen in public with his parents (didn't they ever take off those suits?), and he had other matters on his agenda now, like looking at the portal. Seeing his parents upset over their failure was disheartening for him; even though his mother maintained a much more positive outlook on it and his father was an easy man to cheer up, it was tough to see him down at all.

"If you say so," his mother replied, getting the keys from the key rack and heading out the door behind Jack. "We'll pick up dinner, so don't worry about finding any leftovers except for lunch; we'll probably be gone most of the day. Be sure to clean up your room, and if Jasmine comes home, tell her where we went, okay?"

Danny nodded. "Okay."

"Oh, and Daniel," His mother added, peeking from behind the door, "Be sure to change out of that jumpsuit. Those are very hard to clean, and I don't want you getting it messy."

He nodded again, smiling weakly. "Okay, mom."

Maddie smiled and left. Once his parents had closed the front door, Danny felt his curiosity pique once more. After watching the car leave the driveway and take off down the street, he made his way back down the stairs to the basement door, opening it casually and stepping in. The lab was strangely quiet when his parents weren't home. Nothing in it was running – mainly for safety precautions. The newly-built portal on the wall didn't even work, so there was no way it could be turned on.

But it was still plugged in.

Assuring himself that something that didn't function couldn't be a danger to him, Danny stepped forward, pulling on a pair of black gloves just in case. The portal was like a miniature tunnel that only spanned a few yards and didn't go anywhere. The walls were designed as such that he felt like he was inside a giant computer (which technically he was), and at the end of it was some sort of blue, spherical device. Probably where the portal shows up at, he thought as he calmly walked in, feeling along the wall to his left for support. The entire device, though Danny wasn't always keen on his parents' inventions, was rather impressive. It must have taken them ages to build it, much less figure out how it would work. He started to feel a bit bad for them. Maybe all they needed was a replacement part; a better plug, a computer chip, a smooth round object that felt like a…

…wait.

Danny froze as the machine began to hum quietly, picking up in volume. The blue object at the end began to light up and pulse. Panicked, Danny swept his gaze to where his hand was, and found it right on top of a large green button that read "ON." Eyes widening in fear, Danny quickly made for the large red "OFF" button next to it, pressing it several times in rapid succession. Nothing happened to change the current situation. His stupid parents didn't program the power switches right! The only solution he could think of was to unplug the entire machine to force it to power down. He was making his way to the exit when the doors slammed shut, trapping him inside. It didn't take a genius to know that this wasn't going to end well.

The blue light at the end of the portal flickered ominously. Danny felt a wave of relief; the machine still wasn't working properly. Maybe all he had to do was get the doors open and he'd be home free. He made his way over to them, pulling and pushing and shoving with all his strength…but nothing happened. They were stuck fast. Danny had a sinking feeling; he knew he would be in a heap of trouble when his parents got home. He threw his hands in the air in disdain. "This is just perfect," he grumbled to no one in particular. "I have nothing to do on Saturday of all days, and now I'm stuck in a defunct ghost portal! This place is supposed to be off limits in the first place, anyway! Mom and Dad are going to kill me…"

To make matters worse, he could still here the storm raging on outside. A loud crash of thunder reached his ears, much louder than it usually was, though it was probably because he was so frantic everything seemed more vibrant and loud than it really was. Only mildly startled by the sudden burst of lightning, Danny continued to search for an escape. Unfortunately, he didn't find one. He had no choice but to either wait until his parents returned to fix it or break it open and risk getting into even more trouble than before.

He had nearly resigned himself to his first option when the machine fired up unexpectedly, this time louder than ever. The blue light began flashing, unstable for a while, before lighting up completely. Danny pressed himself against the sealed doors in hopes that they would open in time to escape. Unfortunately, they didn't. With a hard swallow, the boy began uttering as many oaths and prayers as he could; if he was going to end up dead, thrown into another dimension or worse, he didn't want to go out without a few last words.

There was a flash, and something slammed into him. Whatever it was, it was unbelievably cold, like someone had just dragged him way too deep into the Antarctic Ocean. An eerie green light exploded from the once-blue node at the back of the portal, filling every bit of his vision with an unearthly glow. An odd tingling sensation, much like when his foot fell asleep, swept over his entire body, gradually numbing him all over. Danny then heard a mechanical whoosh as the doors on the Fenton Portal finally opened. He would have scorned his luck, but given his current situation he barely even thought about it. He felt himself being thrown backward, skidding across the floor to a stop. Darkness quickly overtook him and his head slammed into the wall and his progress was halted.

The last thing he saw were all of the lights flickering off in the laboratory, and the doors of the now-functioning Fenton Portal closing tight.

Don't hurt me! (cowers)