Danny was tired.
Tired up getting beat up, tired of being tired, tired of hiding, tired of giving everything when no one even appreciated the real him. Danny Fenton, the loser, the un-extraordinary 14 year old, son of the eccentric ghost hunting Fentons. The kid who was afraid of the mere sight of a ghost. At least, that's what everyone thought.
In truth this less than ordinary teen was really the hero of the town - in the eyes of most that is. There were still the stubborn few that questioned Phantom's true intentions. Is he really trying to save the town, or is this "hero act" all a façade? A plot to hide his true intentions?
In truth, it wasn't. Danny had a hero complex. Anyone who bothered to really get to know him would see that. The trouble was, no one really got to know him. There were the few, yes. The few being the only people he could truly trust with his secrets. The biggest one, of course, was the fact that he was half ghost.
He never asked for this, any of it. Not the secrets, scars, or scares he got throughout everything.
Danny was normal once, although it felt like ages ago, it hadn't even been a year. In those months of ghost fights and late nights, he forgot what normal looked like.
Okay, so maybe normal wasn't quite the right word. After all, when you had genius parents who were ghost hunters, and a genius psychological wiz sister. Life was anything but normal.
So maybe normal wasn't the right word, but when a word that comes into existence that means not-a-half-ghost-half-human-hybrid-freak, then that was the old Danny Fenton.
The old Danny Fenton was gone however, in his place was Danny Phantom the witty, wacky, and maybe even a little cocky, superhero. He protected the town from ghosts - evil ghosts. Maybe Danny felt it was his responsibility in the first place. After all, he was the one who made the ghost portal work in the first place.
It was just getting old.
Danny sat on his bed, the house quiet. No sound of explosions or yells coming from the lab. His parents were out shopping, and Jazz was at the library.
He didn't tell anyone, his hero-complex wouldn't allow. He hated dragging people into his problems, although somewhere deep inside of him he knew he should be talking to someone. Probably Jazz, she was one of the few people he trusted anyway. Maybe it wasn't so much of his hero-complex right now, but his pride.
The hero, the towns savior, the ghoul they all looked up to, was having depressing thoughts. Asking himself if it was even worth all the stress anymore? Wondering if he should just get it over with and kill himself - fully?
No, heroes didn't think like that?
Yet, if that was truly the case, why was he thinking all of these down thoughts?
The shield he had put around his emotions were crumbling fast, and soon he found himself on the floor of his bedroom, rocking back and forth, trying his best not to let the tears pooling escape his tired eyes.
Why was he even thinking himself a hero? He wasn't, not even close actually. Phantom was the hero. Fenton was the loser.
Was Clark Kent a loser? Not really.
Tony Stark? Nope.
Bruce Wayne? Uh-uh.
Peter Parker. No.
Sure, they all had their rough moments. But they managed to get through it, their human persona growing stronger with their secret identity - even though some weren't so secret.
The exact opposite was true for Danny Fenton. As Phantom grew stronger and more confident, Fenton grew weaker and wimpier. He wanted to stand up to bullies like Dash and Kwan, but if his confident ghost half leaked into his "weak" human half, his secret would most likely be out, and he couldn't have that.
He refused to let that happen. Sure, people usually accepted the secret identify of their beloved hero. But, when that hero was a ghost, and not all of the population in thought highly of him in first place, the whole acceptance thing was highly unlikely.
A ghost fighting other ghosts? That was absurd in the eyes of many, especially ghost hunters - such as his parents. So, imagine if the crazy revelation that Phantom was only half ghost, and the other half was human.
Then imagine people finding out the human half of Phantom was really the weak Danny Fenton. He's be locked up in a government facility, being experimented on faster than could Jack Fenton wolf down his favorite fudge.
Which believe him, didn't even take a minute, let alone 30 seconds.
Danny whimpered, curling himself into an even tighter ball.
He couldn't afford to think about the what-ifs, because they probably weren't going to happen. Maybe... God, he hoped not, or maybe he did hope they'd find out.
They'd either put him out of his misery, or help him through it. He didn't really care what happened anymore. Heck, Skulker could catch him and he probably wouldn't put up a fight at this point in time.
Danny craned his neck and looked through bleary eyes up to his bed. Should he call Sam? Tucker?
No, he decided, they wouldn't understand; they don't understand. They try, but they could never really know how he truly felt about being different. After all, Sam and Tucker prided themselves on being different, thought it was a good thing in fact.
Sam was proud to be an ultra-recyclo vegetarian, and Tucker was proud to be a techno geek. They liked being different, and he did too at one point, but soon the lies and hiding became too unbearable.
Soon, he hated being different. After all when he had to hide his differences, his friends could show them off. He could too, he supposed, if he wanted to be captured and experimented on - as mentioned before.
The distressed teen buried his wet face into his chest, sobbing uncontrollably. At least if he was full ghost he wouldn't have to keep up with the charade, the bullying. Everything that being human caused actually.
He was beginning to see why he did it. Why he went to Vlad in the first place. Life was a mean and cruel place, emotions were too hard to carry. He now realizes some of the thoughts he had when he showed up on Vlad's doorstep, the only other being like himself. One to be created by and accident; a cruel accident.
Danny was sure Vlad was bullied, then used his newly obtained ghost powers to become rich and successful, to pick on the people who once picked on him. Even though Danny hated the man, he could see why he had done the things he had.
Maybe Vlad was truly the only person who could understand; the only person who could truly help him.
Danny slowly got up from the floor and dried his tears. Fenton turned to Phantom and flew toward away from Amity Park. His hometown, the town he was born and raised in. The town with his friends and family, fans and cynics.
He flew far away, without even a note saying goodbye.
"I have to do this," he mumble to himself. Only for the words to be whipped away by the wind.
Danny never thought his promise would break. Never in a million years thought his Dark future would be better then his Light one.
Never thought that future, would be his only option.
AN: I feel like I've been writing really depressing stuff lately... Oh well! I know that this has been done, but I hope it was different enough for you guys. Think I should continue? Be warned though, if I do, it wont be for a while!
Review and let me know your thoughts!