Weapons

A Danny Phantom Fanfic

Summary: "Am I a weapon, Mom? Is that all that I am?" Danny has been asked to take lives one too many times, and his entire family is getting sick of it.

Rating: T for mentions of violence and a few curse words.

Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom, but am thanking Butch Hartman everyday for creating it.

Maddie knew, ever since the first government official came to the door asking for "The Ghost Child", that Danny was haunted by what these people wanted. It wasn't like they were doing anything to hurt him—not on the outside, at least. But what they asked haunted and frightened him and had him waking up in the middle of the night, sometimes.

The door slowly slid closed behind yet another prospector, Maddie's hands clutching the door knob. These people who came for the ghost child had no souls. Plain and simple. Danny had given up his life, his security, and his secret for all of them, so that the earth and all of its inhabitants would be safe and at peace. So what do they keep coming for?

"Young man, I don't think that you see the possibilities! If Russia saw what we have on our side, they'd stop being a threat to us at all. Think of the possibilities!" said the army general.

"It'll take you a week at most, son. Just go in, decimate a few cities, be a little respectful to the U.S ambassador there to show that you are U.S. property, and China will be under our thumbs. We'd never have to worry about them again," said the air force guy.

As soon as that man had spoken, Maddie had snatched away his tea cup (which she'd kindly offered. She rarely took them out at all) and told him to get out.

The other people who came had similar claims. Clearly, to them, he was little more than a thing to use for the advancement of the military. Even foreign generals and presidents and whoever else came asking for his help to crush one country or to keep some other country off of their land. Anyone could see the toll that this was putting on the young man.

Maddie leaned her head forward on the door and sighed. She lifted her head and looked toward her baby boy, who rubbed his arms as he headed for the kitchen. He slowly changed from Phantom to Fenton, looking at her. "You want somethin' to eat?" When Maddie slowly shook her head, he continued his slow trek toward the kitchen and food, floating a foot above the ground.

This was clearly hurting her baby. He was, after all, only that. A baby. He didn't deserve this. Sure, he had saved the world, but Maddie had a bad feeling that if one more person came in asking him to kill, he would lose it.

Danny had spent over a year using his powers to keep peace in town—to keep everyone (but himself and the ghosts, apparently) safe. Now, just shy of a week after the Disasteroid thing, men would pop up daily asking him to use his powers for war. Maddie wasn't sure how much her little boy could take.

Clearly not much more, judging by the dejection and shame that left his body in waves wherever he went. Danny was trying more and more to spend less time at home, so that he wouldn't have to talk to these cruel men with their cruel reasons.

For the second time that day, Maddie sighed and slid the deadlock closed, grouching to herself about disrespectful assholes breaking her son's morale. She knew that it wouldn't be the last time in the week, even though it was Sunday afternoon, that the deadlock would be opened for some idiot asking for Danny, nor would it be the last that the deadlock would be closed again.

Maddie went to check on her son, to make sure that he wasn't doing something stupid (he did that when he got frustrated). Her eyes softened and she leaned on the doorjamb, feeling her son's pain.

Danny sat with his head in his arms. A thinly filled sandwich sat on a plate off to the side with a small bite taken out of it. Danny's shoulders were shaking a little, and it took Maddie a moment to decide whether Danny's frustrations were pooling into tears. He wasn't making any noise, but he could have been holding them back and, judging by his stance, that was probably the case.

Maddie stalked over to her son slowly and rubbed a warm hand slowly up and down his back, hoping to help him rather than embarrass him further. "It's okay, sweetie. You don't have to listen to any of them."

Her words didn't seem to help the fifteen-year-old much, because he nuzzled even further into his arms and blew out a shudder of a sob. So she fell silent. After a while, she hummed the lullaby that she had used on him, once upon a time. He seemed to calm, fighting back his tears. He sat up and passed his shaking fingers roughly through his hair, looking up at his loving mother.

Maddie felt her heart split in two at the confusion and pain and anger in her son's eyes. This was so much for a fifteen-year-old to handle. No normal person was put through this once in a lifetime. And here was her strong young man, sitting through many in a week.

Danny pressed his fingers into the corners of his eyes, shuddering at the tears that slowly seeped from his eyes and down his fingers. "Is that all that I am, Mom?" he asked.

"Is what all that you are?" Maddie pulled out a chair and dropped into it, tracing her long, dull nails gently up his available arm.

"A weapon. Am I a weapon, Mom? Is that all that I am?"

"All that you are? Baby, did you not see what you did? All of the people that you saved, all on your own? You did what Vlad couldn't even do, wasn't brilliant enough to do," Maddie cooed. She watched her boy, who sniffled pathetically.

"Then why don't they see that? They don't see the kid that I am, all that they see is the Phantom inside," Danny whimpered. He braced himself, and a cold chill swept through him and even into Maddie.

Phantom sat where Fenton had, still looking so hurting and pathetic. "Is this all that I am? Am I just a weapon to them? Can't I do anything else? Can't I be anything else? Or am I destined to be the military's toy for the rest of my life?" he pleaded.

Maddie smiled at her little man. Ghost or no, this was still her boy and, now that she knew, she would treat him no differently. "If you keep turning them down, I think that they'll catch on."

"But how many times will that take?" Danny's anger spiked and then settled. He flopped forward onto the table, his messy white hair doing nothing to cushion his fall. "How many times do I have to listen to some military crackpot tell me that, 'oh, ghost child, you just have to kill a hundred thousand people in Czechoslovakia; with your powers that'd take you a minute, right?' and 'oh, ghost child, just do me a favor and assassinate this president in South Africa and then my country will be at peace, that won't take you long, right?' And half of them have come from around the freakin' world! Not just from the good old USofA, from everywhere! They tried to get me to kill someone here! Like... why? What did I do to them?!"

Maddie sighed and reached forward to stroke his back again softly, mind-numbingly calming. She just let her son rant; he obviously needed it.

"I don't understand! Why do they want me to do this when I don't want me to do this? I don't want to do this at all, Mom! I don't want them to come back but they're going to keep coming back until I tell them to shove off, won't they? And even then, they won't listen," Danny ranted. He lifted his head a little, only to drop it onto the table forlornly.

"Daniel," Maddie cut her young hero off firmly, gripping his forearm. "Stop it. That's quite enough of that. And of this..." Maddie pushed Danny's head up, crooning at the red mark on his forehead. "You're not helping yourself."

"Well, they-"

"I know, sweetheart. I know. People are horrible and they totally deserve to be locked away forever for daring to make you think like this but come on. Hurting yourself and being stupid isn't going to make them go away."

"Then what will? They're not going to listen to me when I say 'no'! That one guy, Admiral Jenkins or whatever, he's come back like three times! I don't know how many more times I can say 'no'!"

Maddie didn't dare tell her son how many times Jenkins, Admiral for the U.S. National Guard, had showed up when Danny was out. Maddie couldn't even count how many times he'd shown up on her fingers, and Maddie knew that it wasn't about to stop any time soon. For whatever reason, Admiral Jenkins wanted Danny. But Maddie wasn't going to let him have her boy.

"Or that one guy from Guyana or wherever! He's come twice now but he has a reason but I can't kill a person I can't!"

The man from Guyana claimed to be a speaker for the People's Party of Guyana. He said that his country was overrun by a 'horrible dictator whose living is killing children and feeding the elderly to the panthers'. While Maddie herself doubted that the elderly were fed to animals, she had heard of problems in Guyana and she knew that the country was struggling. And she knew that her son would feel guilty whether he said yes or no.

At least, Maddie decided, that man was kind. Yes, he'd come twice, but he'd been desperate. And the second time he had apologized for disturbing them and, though there was no promise that he would not return, that was better than what the others had done.

Danny still didn't look too convinced in his own usage. He turned his head away, looking at the picture of the family on the wall.

Maddie puffed out a cheek, dropping her hand. "Well... Daniel, do you want to be a weapon?"

Danny looked to his mother, clearly looking downright offended that she thought he might. "No!"

"I didn't think so." Maddie nodded. "If you don't, stop thinking of yourself like that. You can prove to them that that's not all that you can do. Show them just what being Danny Phantom has done for you, and for this town. Show them the statue. Remind them what Danny Phantom did for all of them."

"They won't listen to that," snorted Danny reproachfully, glowering at his hands which, Maddie realized, were starting to glow green.

With a sigh, Maddie reached forward and clamped her hands around Danny's, waiting for the hybrid to power down his ecto ray. "I know that it's frustrating, Danny. Too many of these people are politicians; they are trained to not only kiss up to people, but to be persistent and not accept 'no' as an answer. And they know how to pick and pick at a person until that 'no' turns to a 'maybe' turns to a 'yes'."

"Okay, so what do I do when 'no' is my answer?" Danny demanded.

"Then you makethem understand that you won't take life. You're so brave, love, and I'm so proud of you for doing all of this. So proud."

"I don't wanna be brave anymore. I want all of these people to go away," Danny pouted. His hand slipped out from beneath his head and he tumbled to rest on his arm.

"Danny..." Maddie breathed. She huffed and sighed. She stood and went to the kitchen counter, where a tiny model statue stood. She took it up and dropped it in front of her son. "Daniel, look at me."

Danny lifted his head after a few moments, frowning at her and then at the statue. "What?" he asked, clearly looking confused about the statue.

A tiny Danny Phantom stood proudly, one arm supporting an itty bitty Earth. Maddie let Danny take it when he reached for it.

"Is this you, Danny?"

"Half of me," Danny sighed.

Maddie took it from him and turned it to face her. "No. It's all of you. I see you when I look in this little guy's face. Danny, what were you doing, that they built a statue of you?" she asked.

Danny made a face at his confused mother. "You know," he said.

"Yeah, I do know. But I don't know if you do. Do you remember what you did to get this statue of you? Here," Maddie handed it back, setting it in front of him. "Maybe looking at it will help."

Danny sighed again, not taking it. He set his chin on the table, glaring into the eye of his likeness. "I was protecting the Earth," he breathed.

"How?"

"Turned it intangible."

Maddie nodded. "Exactly. You didn't go around blowing up the Disasteroid, did you know? No, you took the defensive and turned the Earth intangible. No weapon could do that, because weapons are built for destroying, not protecting."

"So?"

"So," Maddie replaced the statue on the kitchen counter, turning to face her son, "No weapon could do what you did. Go ahead for a fly outside, see how many people run up to greet you and shake hands with you. See how many lives you've changed, even before the Disasteroid thing. Look at all of the people who look up to you. You are like Superman to these people, Danny. They know that you'll protect them, not harm them. They know that you aren't a weapon." She puffed out a breath, "It's ridiculous, Danny. These people have seen you at your worst and at your best and they know better than you do the good that you can do."

"They haven't seen me at my worst... I've seen me at my worst, and what they think is nothing compared to what I know," Danny grumbled darkly.

Maddie turned her head, eyeing him curiously but knowing that that was not what he'd want to talk about. "The point is, Danny, that these guys know that you won't hurt them. They know that you aren't a weapon. And they'll be able to prove it to anyone who comes asking."

Danny peered up to his mother curiously. He shook his head. "But that won't mean anything, because look at what I can do."

"Exactly!" Maddie exclaimed excitedly. "Look at what you can do! You turned the whole world intangible, Danny! You got a billion ghosts and six billion people, many of whom were completely against you, on your side with a speech, where Vlad had to show his evil side to people who loved him and threaten them with certain death before he was able to get them on his side, and even then it didn't work!" Maddie took his hands firmly into hers. "Look at what you can do. The good that you can create. No one else can do that like you can." She kissed her son's hands, never looking away from him.

"No one can destroy things like I can, though. Trust me, Mom. I know. The problem is that I can do what these people are asking. If I wanted to, I could use my Ghostly Wail and completely decimate all of Rome or someplace like it!"

Maddie pursed her lips and smiled at him. "Why are you so against your own goodness?" she asked gently.

"Because I've seen what I can do. And these people have seen it, too. That must be why they're asking. They must know what I can do." Danny sighed.

Maddie huffed in frustration, taking her son's face into her hands. "Perhaps. But that's not all that you can do. You know that. You can protect people, better than you can destroy them. I know that you can."

Danny gave a reproachful look but laughed sourly. "Right. That's what these people see, right? That's why so many of them are coming asking me to kill, kill, take life, take life, right?" He stood and shook his head. "I'm going to my room. Phantom and I need a break before the next general comes through. If they do when I'm napping, do me a favor and leave me alone?"

Maddie's eyes softened. "...Of course, Danny." She watched him as he left the kitchen, following him out. She stopped at the bottom of the staircase and watched as he floated to the top, not once touching the ground. She wanted to go up and comfort him, but she couldn't think of what to say-maybe he just needed some time.

Well, those dishes weren't about to clean themselves. Maddie forced a small smile on her face and went to the kitchen to pick up Danny's dirty dishes. She took some cling wrap and wrapped the plate and sandwich for later. Then she went downstairs to continue her research on non-painful ghost-catching weapons.

Maddie was down there for about forty minutes when she heard the gentle knock, knock on her front door. With a sigh, she dropped her project and slowly trudged up the stairs. She looked toward the second floor to see if Danny had heard the knock, but it didn't look like it. Sighing again, she pushed herself toward the door. She unlocked the deadlock, made sure that the chain was in, and opened the door a little. "Hello?"

A tall man in military green grinned at her brilliantly. "This must be the Phantom family! Excuse me, but may I speak to your mother?"

At first Maddie was flattered-very momentarily-and then she remembered what he'd called them. "The Phantom family?"

"Or, better yet, to the boy hero himself. The Phantom boy, where is that kid? I need to speak with him. Some man to man business needs to go down between us. Say, could I come in?"

Maddie couldn't place the accent. Oh, but she didn't care. He'd called them the Phantoms? And Danny the Phantom boy? "Some man to man business? What do you mean?" Checking to make sure her key was in her pocket, she closed the door, pulled out the chain, and slipped outside. She leaned back on the door, not letting this person near her baby.

"I mean business. My government needs powers like his. I haven't seen anything like it in my whole life. If we had him, we could finally wage war on Libya, and win. We need that to happen. We need that territory!" the man insisted, shaking with anticipation.

This man... he was going to use her son, her Danny, to wage war on another country. He was going to use Danny to start war. It was one thing to help end one, but to start one? Maddie had heard quite enough.

"Now, you listen here, sir," she spat. She was shaking with outrage. "My Danny-it's Danny Phantom, not the ghost boy-is not a weapon. I will not let you near him if all that you are going to do is make him start a war. That war has nothing to do with Danny, nothing! And until you do a little bit of research about us, you aren't allowed near any of us. We are the Fentons, not the Phantoms! Note the sign, jerkoff!" Maddie jammed her thumb upward. She poked the man in the chest and then pushed him off of her front step. "You get out of here. Get away from my house, off my street, out of my town, and away from my Danny!"

The man's mouth was dropped with sudden fright. A thousand soldiers were nothing compared to a vengeful mother. He was frozen where he was.

"Well? Get out of here! You sick, horrible person, get your ass away from my boy!"

With a cry of fright, the man scrambled to his parked car and quickly drove off, not to be seen in Amity Park again.

Maddie stormed inside and slammed shut the door, locking it and, for good measure, throwing a chair in front of it. She went to the garage and took out a wooden board, snatching up some paint and scrawling on it a phrase to keep ambitious seekers of Danny and his powers far away.

From that day forth, on the wall there was glued a thick wooden board. On it read, "If you're here for Danny Phantom, you're unwelcome. The next man or woman coming to use Danny Phantom for his powers will be Fenton Anti-Creep Stick-ed into the Ghost Zone. ~The Fentons" They never did face problems with ambitious seekers of Danny again.

I really, really liked this one! :) You all can thank my modern world history teacher for this. He said something about someone being a weapon, and I thought of this. I could easily have done this in the Fullmetal Alchemist archive (Roy Mustang as the main character, of course). But I am pretty proud of this. I think I did Maddie in character... and Danny...? I think that would stress out anyone.

WHATEVER.

Thanks for reading, all! Please review! All reviews will be replied to via PM unless you're anonymous. Then you're stuck.

~Until next time,

YAJJ