A/N Man, I love these two. This is about a year and a quarter after the Christmas episode of Zim, and early season three for Danny Phantom.
Dib wouldn't have agreed so easily to the move except for one thing.
The ghosts.
Professor Membrane had decided to move to Amity park for their famous technology center, Axion Labs. Originally, Dib had pleaded with his father for days not to leave, until he began doing some research of his own on the town. Apparently, it was the most haunted place in the United States, maybe even the world. On top of that, there was a supposedly ghost hero of the town who looked-and, from some of the quotes he'd found, sounded-like an old cartoon superhero. From the few scattered videos, his voice even sounded like a normal teenager, albeit a boastful one. Dib realized that maybe this wouldn't be such a bad thing after all...
"So, I want you to give Agent Roswell the Zim case Agent Darkbootie." Dib concluded to his mentor. Only they knew that they knew each other in real life. The shadowy figure nodded.
"If you're sure, Mothman..." Dib nodded.
"I am. I'll still keep tabs on him, but I'm..." He leaned closer to the screen. "I'm in hi skool now. It's all running in a sort of twisted loop. I could use some fresh paranormal blood." It was true-now that two and a half years had passed, all of Zim's schemes were starting to get old. The only reason he'd had another agent assigned on the case was to keep Zim in line. He doubted he'd need it though. Zim had actually calmed down a bit over the years, and they'd just about gotten to the point of tolerating each other. Dib was almost going to miss the alien. He'd even given him his cell number, although he got the feeling he'd regret that later.
But, no matter. He was in Amity Park now. The ride hasn't taken very long, with Dib searching through his notes about ghosts and Gaz playing her game. They'd moved into a small house near the Labs. Today was Dib's first day as a freshman at Casper High, he was just tying up a few loose ends from home. He sighed. "Agent Mothman signing off."
"Good luck, Mothman." Agent Darkbootie said encouragingly as Dib turned off his monitor. The teen sucked in a deep breath, twirling a hand around his backpack, where he'd stowed a few ghost hunting weapons of his own invention. The other brushed through his signature hairstyle. Showtime.
"Hi, my name is Dib Membrane." He greeted. The paranormal investigator had been looking around and listening to the class, gauging their reactions to him. Most were doodling or whispering to each other, but he'd heard one pair of girls whispering about him being a vampire. He internally laughed-honestly, he probably would have thought the same thing if a slender, pale kid wearing what looked like a cape waltzed into class. Mr. Lancer, the teacher, nodded at Dib.
"So, Mr. Membrane, can you tell us more about-" Two things happened at once. One, a slim black haired kid scurried into class, obviously hoping to slide in unnoticed. And two, something started vibrating in Dib's trench coat pocket. Mr. Lancer seemed to split his attention, looking first at the kid, then back to Dib.
"Danny, late again?" The boy stopped, his shoulders drooping.
"Sorry, Mr. Lancer." His voice sounded somehow familiar, but for the life of him Dib couldn't remember where from.
"Instead of detention, you'll be Mr. Membrane's guide today." The teacher turned back to Dib. "As for you, no phones in class."
"But Sir, it's not a-"
"No buts! Being new doesn't excuse-"
"It's not a phone! It's an ectoplasmic energy detector!" Mr. Lancer's eyes widened.
"What?" Dib sighed. Might as well be out with it.
"I'm a studying paranormal investigator. My focus used to be aliens, but when I heard about the ghosts here I figured a little shift could be helpful." The teen pulled out what looked like a small, green and white building block, but with small buttons on the left side and two lights on top-one green and one white. The green one was slowly blinking. "Why this thing is malfunctioning, I don't know, I made it-" Someone laughed.
"No wonder it's broken! The shrimp looks like he couldn't fix his hair, much less something like that!" Dib scanned the class to see the boy who'd spoken, and his gaze fell upon a large, blonde boy in a letter jacket. Wonderful, he'd been in skool for ten minutes and already had a bully. Just his luck. Dib sucked in a breath, deciding to stand up for himself- he definitely didn't want this to be a repeat of his old skool. He said, his voice completely serious,
"In elementary skool, I built an arm mounted weapon that shot food as projectiles in less than twenty four hours, and it worked. I think I could make a fairly decent functioning energy detector, especially with something as distinctive as ectoplasm. Anyone else have something to say about the way I look or my inventions?" No one said a word, but an African American boy with a red beret and glasses in the third row had his eyes wide, smiling with curiosity. "Good." Dib turned to Mr. Lancer, who looked a cross of confused and impressed. "Is that all?"
"Yes, you can sit next to Danny Fenton." The teacher pointed at the teen that had walked in late, and the boy's blue eyes widened. If Dib didn't know better, he'd say he almost looked… scared? Dib shrugged it off and reshifted his backpack, moving down the aisle to sit next to Danny. The detector started beeping louder, and Dib finally shut it off before looking up to meet Danny's wide blue eyes. He looked familiar, but Dib had no idea how. Maybe he'd gotten in the paper and Dib had seen him while researching the town's ghosts.
"So, Danny, right?" Dib held out a pale hand to shake. "Short for Daniel, right?" The teen nodded at Dib.
"I prefer Danny." Dib smiled weakly.
"Okay, Danny then. I have one of the worst names on the planet, hence going by the first three letters. I can sympathize."
"What is it?" Danny's voice was curious, but still had an undertone of… something. Tension?
"Dib…othen. It's Dibothen. See why I don't like it?" Danny laughed.
"I see your point, dude." Dib grinned, albeit a bit crookedly, like always. He could tell he was going to like Danny.
As class let out, Dib decided to follow Danny. After all, he had been assigned as his guide… "So, anything I should know about the skool?" Danny gave him a funny look.
"How come you put so much emphasis on the 'ch' part?"
"It's not 'ch', it's-" Suddenly, Danny's breath wafted out like it was cold. Oddly enough, the boy didn't shiver, but his eyes did widen.
"Great, twice in one day?" Danny muttered. "Uh, I have to use the bathroom!" He suddenly broke away from Dib and ran down the hall. Dib glanced at him, then back at the restrooms-which were at the opposite end of the hall.
"What the heck…? Hey! Danny!" Dib shifted his backpack, racing after the boy. Years of chasing after various paranormal creatures, combined with his lithe frame, made it easy to dodge around everyone, so he caught sight of Danny ducking into a classroom. "Danny?" He felt a sudden chill-what on earth could Danny be doing? Automatically, he wrapped his coat around himself, his next class long since forgotten as his investigator instincts took over. He peered into the slightly dusted over window, the nametag underneath it saying that this was the office of a 'Miss Spectra'-well, was, as it was quite obviously empty. Danny was looking around, making sure no one could see him. Dib had a bad feeling that he really wasn't supposed to see whatever was about to happen, but he brushed it off. He creaked the door open just a tad, noticing Danny had started to say something.
"-Going ghost!"
What? Dib wrinkled up his face in confusion. The words were all simple, but the order in which he used them didn't make any sense. Suddenly, Dib had to blink as a bright light appeared around Danny's waist, and split into two milky white rings that traveled up his chest and down his legs. His shirt and pants, as the odd rings passed over them, changed from white and blue to midnight black. As the light passed his fingers, white gloves appeared. But when the rings passed over his chest Dib finally shook out of his shock. Appeared on the chest of his only new friend, Danny Fenton, was the symbol of the ghostly superhero he'd so relentlessly researched. Danny Phantom. A moment later, the rings finally flickered out of existence over Phantom's head, their work done. His facial skin was tanner then before, and his eyes were deep toxic green, not to mention the boy's hair had been turned snow white. He jumped into the air and grinned, grabbing something white and green that looked sort of like a cylinder before shooting out of the room like a bullet, not even noticing Dib as he rocketed through the halls. Dib heard screams coupled with cheers down the hallway around a corner, but he barely noticed as the boy stumbled into the classroom Phantom had been in.
"What just happened?" Dib had seen many things in his fourteen years, but seeing someone he'd just started getting to know turn into a… ghost was one of the strangest. "How is that even possible?" Okay, aliens, werewolves, even zombies and possessed ponies, those he could deal with. But seeing someone who was, well, dead, interacting normally with people, seemed almost to the end of even his wide open mind. "Okay… so apparently Danny…. Fenton, wasn't it? Is Danny Phantom… okay, that's probably one of the worst name disguises ever. It makes sense though…." He dug into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. It was a newspaper article, with the best full body picture of Phantom that Dib could find. He'd caved to his father and come to Amity Park in hopes he could meet a real life ghost… he'd never expected anything like this. The teen ran his finger along the body in the photo, realizing the similarities he hadn't had time to compare.
"I would have figured it out, but this was a little too sudden…" Dib mused to himself. "Do I tell Phantom I know, or do I just try and capture-"
"Hello?" He heard in a male voice. The door creaked open, and Dib saw two kids come in, one looking nervous, the other angry. The nervous one was the boy who'd seemed interested when Dib had stood up for himself earlier. He was fiddling with his purple backpack strap. The other was a black haired goth girl that Dib didn't recognize. Her hands were balled into loose fists, falling next to her green criss-crossed black skirt.
"You're the new kid, right?" The girl asked. Dib suddenly realized she had purple eyes, and he wondered if that was some sort of genetic mishap, but he waved it off. People in his old town had purple and green hair naturally, he couldn't complain.
"Yeah, but why do you care?" The girl strode right up to him, keeping her intimidating gaze on the boy the whole time.
"We saw you looking in the window, and-"
"Wait, wait. Back up. Who are you two?" Dib refused to get lectured from someone he didn't even know.
"I'm Sam, and he's Tucker. We're Danny's friends. I don't know what you think you saw, but-"
"Wait, you two know him?" He stood up and gave 'Sam' a glare right back, readjusting his glasses.
"Yes. We're his best friends. " Well, if they're his best friends, then they'd probably know…
"You… you know, don't you? How is it possible?" Dib asked, more to Sam.
"I don't know what you saw, but-"
"I saw everything. I saw Danny turn into a ghost. I just want to know HOW. Humans don't just become something dead. Is he, like, a ghost who can change his appearance to become human?" Sam sighed.
"Nothing we say is going to change your mind about this, is it?" Dib shook his head.
"Nope. So, can I have the story?" They heard a scream from down the hall that sounded suspiciously like Danny, but Sam and Tucker barely flinched.
"Okay… his parents are ghost hunters. " Dib winced-that had to suck if he set off ghost detection devices like the ectoplasmic energy detector. "They built a portal to the ghost zone-"
"Wait… there's an entire dimension of ghosts?" The research possibilities were endless!
"Yes, but we can explain that later. Anyway, at first the portal didn't work. As a joke, I convinced Danny to go inside it. It turns out that the 'on' button was on the inside and… he got electrocuted and we think that all the energy from the ghost zone pouring in… well, you saw what happened."
"That's… that's incredible! So he's like, half ghost?" Tucker nodded.
"After he started getting more control, he decided to use his powers to stop the ghosts coming through the portal." Dib couldn't believe that someone, when given powers like Danny had been, would use them for good. Although, it would explain why Phantom would fight ghosts-he wasn't a traitor, he was helping humans!
"Wow…" Dib breathed.
"Are you going to tell? It would destroy Danny, literally. There are a lot of-" Dib made a snap decision.
"No, I won't say anything. If he's kept it a secret this long, then I wouldn't want to spoil it. I do want to ask something though…"
"Of course, there has to be a catch." Tucker muttered, but they both seemed happy that Dib had agreed not to reveal Danny. Dib smirked and reached into his backpack, pulling out a small ecto-gun.
"Let me help fight ghosts."
In the beginning, Dib had been reluctant to leave the place where he'd been born and grew up. But one thing helped Amity park quickly feel like a new, better home.
The ghost fighting.
A/N And, there you go. This turned out a little longer then I thought, but I like it all the same. I do plan to write a longer story with Dib and the Danny Phantom world, but it's still in the works and probably won't be out for a while. Well, I hope you all liked it, especially you, Cryptological Mystification! Rate and review, please, all opinions welcome!
Edit: The other story is up now, so if you like these two together the story's on my profile. It's called 'Crushing the Code'.