About this AU: It is very loosely based off of/inspired by the Generator Rex cartoon. You do not need to have watched the show to understand this story. For those who know it, I borrowed a few elements, mainly the EVOs concept (or, in this case, the "ghosts"). The "ghosts" involved in this story are slightly different than canon, but the differences will be shown/explained within the next few chapters.
*I do not own Danny Phantom or (to be safe) Generator Rex.
Prologue: Before
Agent O had a particular distaste for nuisances.
Stains, bugs, people in general—mundane things like that easily irritated him. Rather than listening to his anger management coach and trying to tolerate these nuisances, he preferred "getting his way", so to speak. He disliked emotion. So he learned to wear to a mask. He disliked having to get his hands dirty. So he learned to manipulate others. He disliked those trying to interfere with his business.
So…he learned to kill.
It was like an equation: the same setup, the same conclusion.
From behind darkly-tinted sunglasses, Agent O stared intently at the massive, smoking research facility building before him. The Fentons had been a nuisance to him for some time now. Again and again: starting protests against the Guys in White, meddling with their plans, swaying the public to reject their ideas and proposals. As if the public didn't already have trust issues with an organization focused on the defense against supernatural/paranormal beings, of all things.
It frustrated Agent O, knowing how in the way they were and how he couldn't do anything to stop them.
Citizens of Amity Park knew very well of the tension between Jack and Madeline Fenton and the Guys in White. Any sort of "accident" or "spontaneous death" would immediately throw suspicion unto the organization, and that kind of risk wasn't something the Guys in White could afford. Sponsors were already difficult to retain; getting caught in a crime would cause benefactors to disaffiliate immediately, in turn causing the whole organization to collapse.
Only until very recently did an opportunity present itself, and the directors of the organization would not allow it to pass.
"Agent O, what is your status?"
The question crackled from the small headphone clamped onto his ear. Agent O hesitated before speaking into the microphone hidden underneath his tuxedo's collar, "Currently inactive. No signs of the targets yet."
No response came his other operative, Agent K. No doubt his partner was cursing the Fentons out, trying to reign in some self-control before he broke protocol. Unlike O, K had little to no patience.
"Agent K, any signs?"
His partner didn't respond until a few minutes later.
"No."
The Fentons had made it blatantly obvious of their participation in dangerous, abnormal activities. Self-proclaimed "professional" ghost hunters, they paraded around town in hazmat suits, spewing out nonsense about other dimensions and parallel universes. Normally, the Guys in White wouldn't bother associating with the eccentric couple. But when the husband and wife began hanging weapons and guns from their belts and bringing some very insane (and, admittedly, ingenious) research to the local science symposiums, there was reason to be suspect. With permission from the mayor, the Guys in White had warned the Fentons multiple times to either halt their research or surrender it. This had led to numerous warrants, arrests, and searches—with the Fentons barely avoiding a prison cell. The final order had been perfectly clear: they were to hand over all research, inventions, and data to the Guys in White. Failure to comply would result in termination of personal belongings.
To put it simply, whatever wasn't in the hands of the Guys in White, wasn't in the hands of anyone. By law, because the Fentons had a hidden research building they never spoke of, the Guys in White were to assume terrorist activity and to destroy it upon discovery.
If such destruction indirectly caused the scientists' death, however…well…that was just an unforeseeable outcome.
"Should I launch another missile?"
Agent O hesitated before replying, "Protocol dictates we allow enough time to pass to provide an opportunity to surrender and go on trial. The first missile was the warning shot."
"And if they don't show?"
"Launch the final missile."
After that night, the whole world would shift. Otherworldly portals would form in the atmosphere, bringing with them malicious creatures from another dimension. Society would have no choice but to blame the occurrence on the coincidental timing of the infamous Fenton Lab Explosion. People would tell stories of the seemingly kind Fenton family—and how they had been secretly harboring the apocalypse of the human race. The Guys in White would receive millions of dollars from the government, becoming the official protectors and military of Amity Park—and eventually, the entire globe.
Unbeknownst to them, they would also become the official guardians of one lone survivor.
"Defenses under attack. Backup Power Level at 2%. Systems disengaging. Evacuate. Evacuate. Evacuate."
"Jack!" Madeline Fenton bellowed over the alarms, running aimlessly down the hallways. "Jack! Can you hear me?"
Her lithe, flexible body maneuvered around multiple turns and dead ends. It became harder and harder to catch her breath. Despite knowing the layout of the entire building, every empty dead-end and hallway made her feel more and more lost.
He has to be here, she thought desperately, there's nowhere else he could be.
"Defenses under attack. Backup Power Level at 1.7%. Systems disengaging. Evacuate. Evacuate. Evacuate."
Regardless of the rising heat, her aching muscles, and the building threatening to collapse—she wouldn't leave him. She would not—could not—abandon Jack.
"Defenses under attack. Backup Power Level at 1.5%. Systems disengaging. Evacuate. Evacuate. Evacuate."
Maddie cursed under her breath, halting inside the weapons' chamber. A pit of heaviness and nausea built up in her stomach. Hands grasped the nearest metal table for support, as if it could hold her steady and keep her from falling apart. Granted they were in reckless, life-threatening situations all the time, the severity had never felt so real.
Jack had been acting strange for a while. Leaving their shared bed at night, conjuring up poorly concealed lies when Maddie questioned his whereabouts. Finally, she had decided to tail him and figure out what the hell he was doing.
He led her to their underground research lab. Her small sedan had been too far behind to see if he had brought anything with him, but after waiting 15 minutes she had ventured inside, fury unraveling at the secrecy. They were partners, soul mates, spouses. They never lied to each other. They never went behind each other's backs.
Not even five minutes had passed since Maddie went after him that loud vibrations racked throughout the building. The security system had been activated immediately, alarms blaring and the backup generators providing just enough power to keep the building temporarily stable. Even without knowing for sure, Maddie had a strong guess about who was responsible.
The Guys in White.
She breathed in and out in an attempt to ground herself. Ran her hands through her sweaty ginger locks. Closed her eyes and blocked out the ringing in her ears.
After a moment of relaxing her body and mind, Maddie opened her violet eyes. Though the appearance of the Guys in White had shocked her, she couldn't afford to worry about it. She needed to concern herself with survival, with escaping unnoticed and booking the next flight out of America even if it meant leaving years of inventing and ground-breaking research behind. She would sacrifice everything if it meant avoiding governmental custody.
Many scientists studied basic, harmless specimens: yeast, molecules, insects, particular animals. Her and Jack strayed from those typical areas of interest, and found themselves interested in more…otherworldy specimens. The kind that was hidden to most. Dangerous. Abominable. Could cause the mass destruction of an entire planet.
Compromising that information to pretentious, trigger-happy violent government officials would ensure the apocalypse.
"Damn it, Jack!" Maddie cried out exasperatedly, holding the ends of her hair in a tight grip. Was this how it was in real life—to lose a loved one? To just not know, to just be standing there helpless until eventually you saw the carcass?
Not one room had been left unchecked, not a single one. She had scrutinized every inch and room and crevice of the compound, even the bathrooms (because she wouldn't put it past him) and Jack was still missing and their work was about to be compromised and she didn't know what to do—
A faint call echoed into the room from outside, "Maddie!"
Tears rushed to her eyes. Dear God, he's alive. "Jack! Jack, where are you, answer me, Jack!"
She continued screaming his name and ran out of the chambers, only to realize it wasn't Jack calling her name.
She prayed her mind was lying to her. Perhaps she was becoming delirious from all the chaos, from the possibility that everything—her family, her life's research, the future of the world—was in jeopardy. But the scrawny ten-year-old running down the hallway with gravity-defying raven locks and a NASA t-shirt calling "Mommy" and not "Maddie" couldn't have been anyone else.
Maddie stilled as her baby ran to her with cuts and scrapes and why the hell is he bleeding? He would have ran her into the ground if she hadn't worn off her shock and came to her senses in time to catch and crush him into a desperate hug.
Perhaps if the red alarms weren't casting a strange light into the room or perhaps if she had a stable sense of mind at that moment in time, she would have noticed the tiny, nearly-imperceptible swirls of green in her son's otherwise crimson blood.
"Danny," she whispered, with so much love and affection and (hopefully he didn't notice) fear in her tone.
Before she could pull back and fish for answers, Danny rambled hurriedly into her chest, "Daddy said to leave, we have to go—"
They separated instantly. The familial atmosphere dissipated into one serious and significant.
Staring into Danny's baby blue eyes, the ones that reminded her so much of Jack, Maddie questioned seriously, "Where's Daddy?"
Danny bit his lip, slowly shaking his head.
"Mommy, we need—"
"Daniel, where is your father?"
He averted her piercing eyes, looking down the hallway where a clear EXIT sign hung above a circular, DNA-scanning door. "He said it's really, really important that we—"
"Daniel James Fenton, Daddy is going to die if you don't tell me where he is right now."
His worried, horrified expression made her soften a little. Perhaps she was being harsh, but how else could she make him understand—this whole place was about to be demolished, and if Jack didn't escape with them, he'd be demolished too.
What in the name of God he was even doing here? Her and Jack had sworn to never involve their children in their work. With the Guys in White constantly snooping around and interrogating them, they decided it would be easier if the kids didn't know. If any harm came to them, their children would at least be spared.
Ignoring her curiosity, Maddie gripped her son's shoulders tightly. She gazed evenly at him while she stated, "Danny, I don't know why you're here or what Daddy told you, but your father's in trouble right now and I need to save him."
Danny's eyes stared uncertainly at hers. He hesitated before saying, "…Daddy…he's stopping the explosion."
Her forehead scrunched up. "The explosion?"
"Yeah," Danny gulped, "Of the ghost portal."
Immediately, Maddie's stomach dropped. Her eyes widened and she backed away from Danny, staring down the direction she knew the portal was.
Oh God…it was a suicide mission. She hadn't even considered him to be there.
Without looking at her son, Maddie ordered, "You're leaving. Now."
She began to hear him protest, so she swiveled quickly around and cupped her hand over his mouth. Looking deep into his eyes, she instructed, "Go out the exit. The handprint scanner will recognize your DNA. It leads to a tunnel. Take it all the way down until you reach the end that exits near the park. You know how to get home from there. Go straight to the house, quickly."
From under her hand, Maddie could feel her son biting his cheek as though he meant to say something. To protest.
"Daniel," she said softly, "I need you to do this. For me. For Daddy. For Jazz. Go home, don't come back, and don't tell anyone about this place or about us."
Danny's reluctance came off in palpable waves; she stared at him hard and removed her hand, hoping he would realize, that he would understand…
"Will you come out too?" he whimpered.
She lied while grinning widely, "Of course. If I help Daddy, then we'll both be able to come out."
When Danny didn't budge, she added, "If you don't go, Jazz will be all alone. Don't you want to protect her?"
This seemed to convince him as he nodded and took backward steps down the hall, his body still turned towards her. Right before he took off sprinting, he exclaimed, "I love you!"
Maddie could have sworn she heard sobs mixed in with his out-of-breath panting, but she didn't dwell on it as she steeled herself for the task at hand: she needed to retrieve Jack. Even if the Guys in White found the emergency secret route and encountered her son, Danny would be fine. As powerful and corrupt as they were, they could never shoot an innocent child and get away with it. The second they broke legal conduct, their funding and entire organization would be terminated. It was a risk they wouldn't take.
Plus, any chance out there would give Danny a higher survival rate than being near the portal.
"Okay," she said to herself, trying not to think about her baby on his own. "Ghost portal. He must be in the basement."
She darted for the nearest staircase and glided down the railing. The blaring and robotic voice became a dull murmur in comparison to her frantically beating heart. When she reached the bottom, she leapt gracefully onto the floor and jumped up into a quick-paced jog. The clanking of her boots against the tile reminded her of a clock ticking, counting down how little time remained.
Finally, Maddie reached a giant steel door that had a vault-like structural appearance. She punched in the security code, hastily shoving her hand against a handprint scanner afterwards. Come on, come on…she urged the system.
The second she heard the click, she thrust the door open and threw herself inside. Tears burned at the edges of her eyes when she saw him—a large, burly man in an orange jumpsuit tampering with various chemicals inside containers. An uncontrolled whimper escaped her.
Jack froze, swirling around to face her and widening his eyes.
"…Mads?" he whispered, though whether in shock or horror she couldn't tell.
It took one shared glance for her to run to him and allow herself to be held in his arms. She listened to his hammering heartbeat through the spandex material, relieved at the familiar sound. Jack rubbed smooth circles in her back, his chin resting above her head and tucking her into him while she gripped tightly at his suit. They stood like that for a moment, encompassed by one another.
And then Jack pulled away, grumbling, "You shouldn't be here."
Maddie glared at him. "Neither should you.'
"Mads," he stated, staring defiantly into her gaze, "There's not enough time to explain. You need to go."
"I'm not going without you," she asserted.
He shook his head, lips pursed in a thin line. "I'm not sure how you found out I was here, but you need to trust me. The portal's going to explode."
And right now, she needed him to live. He wouldn't persuade her otherwise. "Babe, leave it—who cares—if we have to make a new one, we will!"
Jack took a deep breath, as if it pained him to say it, "It doesn't work that way. I have to stop it from happening and there's no point in both of us dying!"
She looked over to their creation: the giant, mysterious vortex that led to a foreign dimension. They had built it in a hexagonal shape, big enough so that a miniature hovercraft could fly through, but small enough that it could fit indoors. It was enrapturing to watch; bright green ectoplasm glowed ominously and moved in a constant swirling pattern. Electricity crackled along the edges, creating sparks and drifting in and out of the strange emerald mass.
She shook silently as the faint alarm kept screaming upstairs. "Defenses under attack. Backup Power Level at 0.5%. Systems disengaging. Evacuate. Evacuate. Evacuate."
"Jack," she growled, leveling his assertive gaze with her own, "We're going home. Now."
"No," he calmly stated. "This isn't about us, Maddie. It's so much bigger—so much more important. There's no time to explain but you need to trust me and protect our family."
"Bigger? More important? And just what the hell is more important—"
"I'm sorry."
Maddie nearly slapped him. In fact, she probably would have, had her body not suddenly froze up in paralysis. She collapsed to the ground, a numb sensation taking over. She couldn't touch, couldn't move, couldn't feel. A heavy exhaustion overpowered her mind, making her feel strange and fuzzy. It was like pins and needles, but everywhere.
Ever so slowly, her eyes began to close. The last thing she witnessed was an apologetic expression in Jack's face.
I wrote this years ago. And edited and edited and edited and edited to the point where I just gave up. This is part of a writing experiment for me—I'm trying to get back into it and see if I can change my style.
Updates will, naturally, be slow. Reviews and helpful criticism might motivate me to update quicker but at the moment I don't have a definite game plan, just random outbursts of writing that occur every couple of weeks. Granted, another pair of eyes to point out what I'm lacking or desperately could improve on would be awesome. Does this make sense? Do the sentences flow? Can you get a sense of who the characters are from reading in their perspective?
SOME EXPLANATIONS:
Maddie: I realize it's somewhat unrealistic that an overprotective mother would let her 10 year old son just up and leave, especially when there's a chance of the GiW intercepting him.
Rewatching the show, Maddie puts her kids in danger many, many times, even if indirectly or unintentionally. During ghost attacks, she's usually urging her kids to run away, rather than personally escorting them to ensure they're safe back home. I think that, although Maddie loves Danny dearly, at this point with the building collapsing and everything going to shit, she has no choice but to make him leave alone. She knows that there's a high probability of her and Jack not making it out alive. If Danny stays with her, he's a goner. At least if he leaves through the emergency route, he has a high chance of survival—the only risk being if the GiW somehow bumps into him, which is unlikely considering they haven't even entered the building yet (given their "shoot first, ask questions later" philosophy).
And, granted the Guys in White are ass holes…there's a limit to how much of ass holes they can be (at this point in time anyway). By law, they're clear to immediately destroy the Fenton property if it's assumed that the Fentons are terrorists. But directly and intentionally killing a child they happen to stumble across? No. No amount of "good for the country" explanation will save their hides in that situation. They know this story is gonna explode. They can't risk something like that.
Hence why, in the future, they have a ten-year-old in their custody now.
Guys in White: After I wrote this, I thought of a question that might come up. Why didn't they just steal the Fenton tech instead of destroying it?
Thinking it over, they can't steal it. For one, the Fentons are smart/quirky and the GiW probably wouldn't be able to make sense of their notes or understand how to work their inventions. Another thing: If they take the Fentons' belongings into custody, not bringing down the building, they wouldn't be able to directly or intentionally eliminate the Fentons. Fentons would be arrested, yes, but not killed, and there is a possibility of them hiring a good lawyer and getting out of their punishment.
If the GiW blow up the lab instead, explaining to the public and other officials that they did it to protect the town and that they didn't know the Fentons were inside at the time/that the Fentons refused to surrender, then the Fentons' deaths are considered accidental, and the Guys in White are seen as taking a risk on criminals to prevent any threats towards Amity Park.
I hope I covered any discrepancies.