Author's Note:

So basically, Currently-Lurking (Hollyflash) and I were discussing the amazing mess the Jazz Phantom AU could be, and this happened: Two seasons worth of Danny Phantom plotline, completely different because Jazz being the half ghost changes so much about everything. Eventually it was all too delightful to leave unwritten, so in the course of three hours, I tapped out the beginning.

Prepare for something kind of wild from start to finish. Comedy, drama, angst, all of it - that's why I categorised the fic as General.

Enjoy! (And please review. I do try to check out the fics of reviewers to return the favour, when I can. Plus, they're great motivation. Concrit is quite welcome too.)

Ch. 1: You and What Toaster

A set of bright but apprehensive teal eyes started at the base of that incredibly useless contraption, then found themselves floating up to the very top of its rim; a great big metallic abyss stuck in the side of the basement wall. A machine which was under construction by Maddie and Jack Fenton for three years, only to find out that the fruits of their labour had been unsuccessful.

Jazz gave a self-satisfied little laugh. Of course it'd been unsuccessful. They'd spent the better part of their lives researching methods to dig their way into a dimension that didn't exist. They called it the Ghost Zone, but aside from the ridiculous name for an equally ridiculous concept, no part of it had any basis in reality.

… And yet here she was, staring at their failed invention.

A shudder tickled at the very centre of her being, but she wasn't sure why. This thing didn't work, so what was there to be scared of? What she did know, however, was that she needed to be here, needed to see it before her parents ripped it back out of the wall and started over. No one was home — no one would know, and no one could stop her. And as much as she didn't believe in ghosts, the Fenton Ghost Portal still held a few microns of her curiosity.

That and — though she would never admit it to anyone except to herself in absolute private — she was trying just a little to procrastinate on her midyears revision. The task was gargantuan, as it always was for over-achievers, and her brain sorely needed a break.

As she looked up at this thing a small part of her felt bad that the portal hadn't fired to life. Her parents had dragged both her and her brother down into the basement laboratory simply to witness its grand switching on, only for it to spark and fizzle out so sadly. She'd never seen them that depressed in her life, so depressed that rather than cooking the celebratory meal they were going to have, they'd left the house to haul themselves to the Nasty Burger. Danny had gone too, never to pass up an opportunity for fast food, but Jazz had resolved to continue studying.

At least, until now.

She made a few more haphazard steps towards the portal, side-eyeing the cupboard beside it and then looking away. Maddie had always insisted on wearing hazmat suits whenever one was handling the equipment down here, and Jazz had found her unfortunate self suited up in one more than several embarrassing times in her life. She just really couldn't appreciate the things like her parents did. In any case, the portal didn't work, so what possible danger would it be to her? It wasn't like she was going to be touching anything hazardous.

Still, a shot of apprehension flashed through her veins. She couldn't explain the why of that, either. But she was going to keep on walking, walking to the inside of that portal, to inspect the cables and electronics which lay within.

The portal's metallic gizzards refused to show themselves in the dark. It had its own lighting system, she remembered — the lights inside the basement were unfortunately inadequate for brightening the interior of the machine. She looked around inside, squinting. There were metal plates in here covered with buttons, but she at least knew which was which, as they were all appropriately labelled. There was, of course, the startup button, bizarrely placed far inside the portal, which she avoided like the plague. Beside it however was a large handle-switch which controlled the lights. After making absolutely sure she wasn't confusing it with anything else, Jazz gingerly pulled it down.

Whining. Electric whining. Green lights blared around the outside rim of the portal, and for a moment Jazz's heart leapt to her throat — was it possible the switch was miswired with that button? Had she just turned it on while she was still inside? No… no! She had to get out. She had to get out now!

But she couldn't. Her foot caught on one of the wires running along the bottom of the portal, tripping her over and smacking her face straight into the cold metal floor. Lights started blinking.

… And then, they stayed on. The whining stopped. Jazz looked up. The inside of the portal was perfectly visible, now, and she felt silly, so silly, for ever thinking her parents would be stupid enough to mislabel the damn on button. They may have been maniacs, sure, maniac ghost hunters — but they knew what they were doing with technology. They knew about safety. And they certainly knew about double-checking every label they put on something.

The girl got to her feet, still a little shaken that she was half-expecting to get shocked to death. Ludicrous! Still, one scare was well and truly enough for one day, and her schoolwork was starting to seem significantly more interesting than being convinced she was about to die. She was careful this time not to trip over any wires, keeping her eyes firmly planted on the floor. She went back over to the lever and pushed it up to turn the lights back off. The only working parts of the Fenton Ghost Portal died down, and she was left in darkness.

She took a step. There was another wire she didn't see. Jazz wobbled as she tried to maintain her balance, thrusting a hand out to the wall on reflex to steady herself. What it found, however, was not a wall, but a control panel.

The on switch.

The portal was whining, but this time far more dangerously. Jazz's breath set up shop in her throat as she thought one thing and one thing only; get out! And she bolted, different lights inside the portal racing around her and outpacing her to the end until she found herself immobile in one of those strange moments. A moment where time had ground to a halt, and her mind could only hold a single thought; the knowledge that this was it, that she wasn't going to make it.

She didn't even have time to thrust a hand out into the open. She hadn't gotten far enough.

Electric conductors flared to life. Bright green engulfed her vision, and with an odd distance, she heard something so loud that it tore through her eardrums — was it her own voice? White-hot pain flared and spidered through every one of her veins, splintering them apart, but somehow she was dissociated from it. Distantly aware that this was happening, but able to think strangely clearly about the situation as it was playing out…

She was going to die. Something deep inside her, something screaming, was telling her that. The voltage of the Fenton Portal was extremely high and the amplitude more than sufficient to kill a grown human. Her parents had repeated those words to her and Danny over and over again, making absolutely sure they understood the seriousness of electrical safety. And today, she'd ignored their warnings. … Why had she ignored their warnings? Boredom? Scepticism? It was too late to correct any of that now! She was going to die, and she had no one to blame except herself. Not that it would matter when the timeless oblivion finally claimed her mind…

The stream of consciousness slammed to a halt, replaced by the searing reality of the bright neon light, the horrific, unspeakable pain. Now she knew for sure that the odd sound destroying her hearing was indeed made up of screams coming from her own mouth.

Finally, after what seemed like hours or even days, everything snapped to black.

Jazz collapsed on the floor.

When Jazz's eyes fluttered open, she was greeted by a frightening sea of brilliant green light. In front of her lay endless hypnotic swirls, taunting her eyes with their inherent impossibility. Where was she? The… the inside of the ghost portal? With a squint she could make out those trademark Fenton electronics, the cables which ran across the floor — but all of these were engulfed in that green light too, supposed "ectoplasm" running through the veins of this enormous and terrifying machine.

Her memory sliced its way back into her mind, unforgiving of the strange circumstances. She'd been in here when the portal had turned on. The pain. The screaming. … Those frightening moments of tranquil introspection. And she was awake?

… How was she even alive after all of that? She should've been dead! … It'd certainly hurt enough.

Before she figured anything else out, however, she needed to get the heck out of this portal. Those glowing swirls in front of her must have been the exit into the lab, because she was facing that exit when it had turned on. Did… did that mean the portal was working? Surely that couldn't mean something as dreadful and impossible as the Ghost Zone was… behind her?

No, don't look. Just get out, her mind insisted.

First thing was first — she had to get up. Jazz reached out in front of her body to push herself up off the floor, but quickly stopped in cold shock.

That hand was glowing.

Was it some kind of strange after-effect from ectoplasm-enriched electrocution? How could it even… be like that, how was it possible to glow? Her mother had always said that ghosts glow, but—

Jazz's thoughts hit a solid wall.

You're not breathing.

You're not breathing. You're not breathing. Now those words, such simple words with such heavy implication, danced around her head. Her heart would have shuddered to a stop, but indeed that too had already happened; there was no thudding in her chest, no soft urge to continue drawing breath. In that moment it was as if she was simply existing as a concept rather than as a living being, and her surroundings suddenly seemed that much more bizarre than they had before. What did all of this mean? She had to know. She had to know.

Jazz slowly brought herself to all fours and looked around. Beneath her lay not her twisted, deadened corpse, only more metal and wires. But nonetheless, she glowed, glowed persistently, with no signs of it dying down. The aura was white and soft, and probably would have been a calming thing to see had this not been so completely and dreadfully wrong.

"After effects," she whispered to herself, praying to all the gods she didn't believe in. "It's just after effects."

Then she stood up, and kept going up.

A strangled yelp writhed its way through her vocal chords before she could stop it. The floor got further and further away from her feet until she found herself hitting the ceiling of the portal with a soft thump, and there she remained stuck because she legitimately had no idea how to get back down. It was as if a switch had flicked on inside of her without warning, and now every trace of gravity had been removed. Her body was light, far too light, as if it were made of something little more than mist in spite of being persistently solid.

Why was all of this happening? She wasn't dead! She couldn't be dead! Where was the body, the corpse? But, just as equally… if that wasn't true, why was she stuck floating up at the ceiling?

She… she didn't believe in ghosts!

Maybe she was hallucinating. At this point it seemed to be the most plausible option — yes, it was entirely likely she was still down on the floor, unconscious or comatose, her body attempting to recover from the shock and distracting her with the wildest delusion it could come up with. As a psychologist-in-training, she knew the brain was more than capable of cooking up all kinds of strange things that felt completely real — especially when under immense stress.

… But unprofessionally, this all felt far too real.

Right, she thought, try to think rationally.

The floor, at least a metre below her feet, taunted her.

Is this real?

Not without hesitation, Jazz gave the ceiling a tentative push — just enough to send her back to where her feet could meet terra firma. … Had her jeans become white?

Is this permanent?

She crouched when she got to the floor, latching onto a pipe that ran through the centre of the portal to stop herself from bouncing back up. She still felt weightless — letting go would mean another strange trip into Things Humans Shouldn't Be Able to Do Land, and she steadfastly denied herself that opportunity. Jazz crawled inelegantly along the floor with the pipe as her guide.

Ghosts don't exist.

When she stopped moving, the inertia sent a wave of persistently floating hair past her face. It was white. Snow white. Stark white. Whatever way you wanted to describe the purest white you could think of, and like the rest of her body, it glowed. She tried to ignore it — the swirls were before her, but the pipe ended here. For a stretch of several feet there was nothing to hold on to, and she realised with a start that she was just going to have to jump.

No.

Jazz swallowed, nerves racing. Maybe once she got out of this portal her body would be back to normal. None of this could be real. Maybe it was just the environment she was in now, making her this way. Yes — she'd be perfectly human when she emerged on the other side, and she would never dare speak of this lab accident to her parents ever. She would keep it to herself, a silent insane knowledge of what had gone on here today, and she would go on living her life as normal.

There is no body. I'm not dead. I'm not a ghost.

The girl took a breath she didn't need and kicked away from the floor in the direction of the portal's end. A strange, cold sensation washed over her skin the moment she passed through the swirling ectoplasm, and she half-expected to drop like a stone to the floor on the other side. She had all four limbs braced and readied for it, even. But none of that happened — instead, she emerged into her parents' relatively normal basement laboratory, still floating. Still glowing.

"I'm not a ghost!" she screamed into the empty house. The sound echoed away from every wall, repeating itself, taunting her.

"I'm not a ghost," she whispered, falling gently towards the floor.

Jazz tried to call out for someone, anyone, but the house was empty. No one could hear her.

Somehow she'd managed to cement herself to the ground. She still felt as if she might be spirited away at the slightest gust of wind, but at least keeping both feet on the floor was an improvement. What wasn't an improvement was everything else - she was either suffering the biggest hallucination of her life, or the Fenton Portal had done something truly unspeakable. It was only with great self-control that she fought back her own tears, even if she could still feel them tickling at the surface of her eyes.

Jazz regretted everything. Regretted taking that study break, regretted looking in that damn portal, regretted… she took a forced breath, shuddering. Her arms were braced firmly against herself, both elbows clasped in either hand, and otherwise she was staring at the perfectly normal floor. It taunted her. Yet the tiles below did not move, made no action, because they couldn't — they were inanimate objects. But their very existence seemed to be what disturbed her; how could everything around aside from that damned portal be so normal, so regular, and yet here she was, defying logic and reality? It… it didn't seem right.

For a time she simply knelt upon the ground, staring downwards, attempting and failing to process this bizarre situation. Half of her mind howled that she couldn't be a ghost, that it was impossible, that it defied the very world as she knew it… and the other half knew she was wrong.

Slowly and not without a tremor, she pushed herself up to her feet. This time she at least managed to stay at ground level, but for how long would that last? Regardless of this, she needed to get to the mirror. Needed to see her face. One way or another, she had to truly know what she looked like. The girl slowly put one foot in front of the other, then repeated the movement. She was walking, and though it was unsteady, it was certainly a lot more stable than whatever strange force had sent her careening upwards.

Like in all good laboratories there was an emergency basin, and this one came equipped with the mirror that she sought. She didn't see herself, though, until she'd walked around to the other side of a long shelving column and revealed her reflection.

Terrified green glowing eyes stared back at her. The exact colour of ectoplasm. Surely this was an eye colour that could only be possessed by a ghost.

Jazz placed her hands against the glass, each finger slowly pressing down against its cool, smooth surface. She couldn't hold back the tears anymore — each time she blinked they would run from her eyes, racing down her cheeks like little neon dewdrops. After they left her, they vanished into nothingness, not even having enough time to fall into the sink.

… Is this what she really deserved for her utter foolishness?

"Mum!" she cried once more, her voice echoing in that way that was so unnatural. But when she spoke again she didn't have the strength of will to manage anything more than a whisper. "Help me."

Help didn't come.

She couldn't stay down here much longer, not with the awful green glare of the portal casting its evil light over her, not with the reflection of that thing staring back at her. Jazz turned towards the stairs, walking slowly, numbly. The world felt surreal in its insistence of normality, and no matter what she did or how she thought, she couldn't stop it. Everything normal suddenly looked different, intimidating. It was an illustrated separation between the world of the expected and herself in her current state.

As she ascended the stairs, she wasn't even sure her feet had really made contact with each step.

The world on the ground floor remained surreally normal. The fridge whirred. The smoke alarm beeped, begging for enough attention for someone to change its battery. And the dull light from the late afternoon dusk filtered in through the windows, brightening the space just enough to see. She couldn't stand it. She couldn't stand any of this. And suddenly she found herself running, bolting up the hallway stairs, missing at least two at a time. The regularity of everything pounded at her mind. No. No. No!

If everything was normal, then she could never participate in this world the same way ever again.

Jazz went to burst into her room. The door was closed. This of course didn't seem to matter, because before she even realised what was happening or what she was doing, she was passing straight through the solid material as if it wasn't even there.

… Only barely did she catch sight of her own form shifting back to the realms of tangibility. The door had run through her being in a way that felt acutely violating; she tingled with the after effects of power she didn't dare entertain she had, because every new emergence was another nail in a terrifyingly literal coffin.

Thoroughly shaken, Jazz lay herself down less than carefully upon her bed. Bearbert Einstein, stuffed and inanimate though he may have been, sat next to her pillow and watched over her. Right now, he was the only thing she had.

Jazz wrapped herself as firmly as she could within her blankets, took Bearbert into her arms, and held him tighter than she ever had before.

Please don't let this be happening… please.