Phantoms of the Past, Present and Future
Danny Phantom Short Stories
Disclaimer
Danny Phantom and the characters, situations, technologies and locations of the Danny Phantom universe were created by Butch Hartman for Nickelodeon Television. This is a not-for-profit fan work for free distribution through the world-wide web. No infringement of any trademark or copyright is intended or implied.
Author's Notes
This is a collection of some Danny Phantom short stories that I have written. Assume that they are entirely unrelated unless I mention any larger continuity in my introductory notes.
Censor: T – Just for safety's sake
A lot darker this time. The Ultimate Enemy takes a few moments out of his busy schedule to explain to one of his favourite victims exactly why he has chosen to torment him so.
Just to add a little personal note: I hate bullies; I always have and I always will. In my humble opinion, Dash gets off very lightly.
Hatred
In life, he had been Dash Baxter, the A-list "Prince of Casper High". However, Casper High was now a ruin as was all of the Earth. Very few things still lived and fewer still knew and remembered him. Instead, there was only a dreadful empty loneliness and the horrible prospect of an eternity on a dead world knowing that all of his friends had been lucky enough to be spared this torment.
"WHY?" the shade of Dash Baxter screamed as it knelt in front of the shattered tombstone of his girlfriend, Paulina Sanchez. "Why am I still here? Why did I have to come back as a ghost and why has he let me exist when he's destroyed everything else? Why?" the ghost of the young man began to sob. "Why?"
"Now that is an exceedingly good question. I had wondered how long it would take your sub-par intellect to finally realise that your treatment has been... atypical."
Dash knew that voice. Every creature on Earth that could think and associate sound with memory knew that voice and dreaded hearing it, for it would be almost certainly the last thing you would ever hear. The Phantasm. Although he could no longer feel cold, Dash was trembling as he turned to face the menacing black-clad caped figure, its blazing blue hair and shining red eyes known everywhere as the harbingers of oblivion. "Are... are... are you here to destroy me, dude?"
Dan Phantasm chuckled, a sound devoid of any warmth. "Ah Dash! Still the D-grade average mind that I remember from our past!" The Destroyer of Worlds smirked cruelly. "If I wanted to grant you the sweet release of oblivion, Dash, I would have done so without first allowing you the undeserved dignity of letting you know what was about to happen." Phantasm cocked his head curiously and Dash realised that this was a maddeningly familiar gesture. He knew it from somewhere or someone. "Firstly, I think I should ensure that I have your full attention and that we will not be interrupted." The super-powerful evil spirit gestured and suddenly crackling magenta ropes of ectoplasm had bound Dash to Paulina's marker. A magenta bubble of energy formed over the cemetery, isolating the two participants from external interference.
"What... what do you want man?"
"To answer your question, of course!" The Phantasm sat casually on top of another gravestone and grinned malevolently at the weak ghost sitting bound opposite him. "Ah, Dash! This takes me back! So many bad memories! You don't know how often I dreamed of turning the tables and tormenting you as you had so long tormented me! Well, with time, all things change and I suppose that I must have been a good little mass-murderer once or twice because Santa has granted me my wish!" Dash quailed from the demonic laughter.
"What did I ever do to you, dude?" Dash wailed.
"You don't know!" Phantasm marvelled. "You actually... Ah! Well, it isn't surprising. My... appearance has changed much since our youth together at Casper High!"
"You... you were a student at Casper High?"
"Indeed I was! And I knew you very well, Dash Baxter! I knew you very well indeed." Dash wracked his memories, desperately trying to associate the demonic figure in front of him with someone, anyone he had known at school: friend, acquaintance, enemy or just a passing face not worthy of any consideration at all. He came up blank. "You know, you were the very first success that I had in my attempts to bind a soul to this world! You were the very first ghost that I made rather than just appeared by chance after I took a life! I'm proud of that achievement, Dash! When I heard of that car accident during the panic to evacuate this damned city, I had feared that I lost my chance! I was more than pleased to see that my efforts were successful!"
"You... you forced me to be a ghost? Why?"
"For revenge, of course," Dan Phantasm replied with a shrug. He grinned as he watched the terror cross the weaker ghost's expression - Ah! Such terror! Such helpless, agonising dread! Bliss! "As cathartic as it would have been to destroy your ghost form and send you to oblivion, that was too merciful for one such as you." The monster scowled and its eyes flashed bright red. "No... I wanted this to last. I wanted you to know the full flavour of misery."
"I never did nothing to you man!" Dash screamed. "You've got no right! I... I never did nothin'!"
Then there was a most dreadful sound. The Phantasm was laughing uproariously. "You utter fool! I don't need a reason to torment the lesser creatures of any universe! Their pain is my amusement and crushing their hopes and joys into the dirt at my feet is my reason for being!" The creature stood up and strode over to Dash, getting right into his face. "However, you were always a special project. With you, I had reason to want to make it nasty!"
"Why?"
"For hate's sake, of course! Ah, Dash! You I hate! I hate you, even now, more than you can imagine! More than any creature in two universes! I hate you more than those irritating parental failures the Fentons! I hate you more than that self-righteous harpy Jazz Fenton! I hate you more than that ridiculous, insignificant, arrogant little Goth girl Sam Manson! I even hate you more than Valerie Grey, the only person still foolish enough to try to fight me! I hate you Dash Baxter. I hate you and I want you to suffer!"
The Phantasm's voice had risen to a roar. "You cannot have had any clue what it is like, Dash! To dread every day! To know that you will suffer punishment for another's sins! To know that you will be victimised and that those in authority, those who ought to protect you, are too busy winking at your tormentors!" The Phantasm actually seemed to be a little exhausted from its tirade. It fell silent and glared at Dash for a long minute. "Three hundred and twenty six. I kept count."
"What, dude?" Dash was so far beyond utter terror that he found he could actually think and respond.
The Phantasm grunted in annoyance. "That is the number of times you shoved me in my locker during my high school years, Dash. I have also kept count of the number of cruel pranks, wedgies and beatings."
"I... I didn't mean it!" Dash blurted, not even sure what he was trying to excuse. There were so many nerds and losers at school who he acted to keep in their place. This... thing was one of them?
The Phantasm returned to his macabre seat and smirked at Dash. "Oh, you did," he snarled. "If you are sorry now, and I bet you are, it is because you are finally, finally realising that your little 'amusements' have consequences.
"I want you to do something for me, Dash Baxter. I want you to think of all those helpless children you and your accursed 'A-List' tormented over the years. I want you to think about that and realise that the empty horror of your afterlife is a kind of recompense for the torment that you have inflicted on others! And, above all else, I want you to remember a boy named Danny Fenton."
"F... Fenton?" Dash blinked. "You knew the Fenturd? You are doing this to get revenge for him? Why the heck should you care what happened to an ultra-loser like him?"
The Phantasm laughed dangerously. "Oh Dash, if only you knew. You see, you are one of the great formative influences of my afterlife! What I am now is, at least in a small but significant part, due to those injustices you so casually meted out and laughed at." The Phantasm looked Dash right in the eyes and smiled horribly. "Dash... I was Danny Fenton."
"No..."
"Oh yes. And I assure you that I would not have had such a deep need for vengeance and such a keen understanding of sadism if it were not for you!"
"Jeez! Jeez! J... Fenton! Danny! I... I didn't mean it man! I didn't know! I DIDN'T KNOW!"
The Phantasm leant back, steepling his fingers in front of his face and adopting a judicial expression. "A very wise being once taught that doing the right thing is easy if one lives in fear of punishment, Dash. However, the true nature of a being is revealed by what they do when they think they can do so in impunity. You, I think, would have been a much nicer person if you knew that you would eventually suffer the consequences for your sins. However, I think that your true nature was revealed by what you did in ignorance of that fact. How ironic that I, who loathe and despise that weak-minded concept that is 'justice', should have become its instrument!"
"Are... are you saying that you destroyed everything... killed everyone... just to get back at me?"
The Phantasm looked at Dash for a long moment before replying, wondering how best to reply in such a way that would do most harm to the cowering ghost. Finally, he spoke. "Don't flatter yourself, Dash. You were never that significant an influence on me. However, I think it would be good for you to remember that you added just a little spicy edge to my hatred." He chuckled darkly. "You might also want to know that I made the deaths of your pitiful little 'A-List' just that little more lingering and horrible, just as a memorial to those bad old days."
Dash swallowed an impossible sense of nausea, horror worse than what he had known before filling his soul with despair. "You... you are saying they are dead because of me?"
"No, they are dead because their deaths amused me and their screams made me feel all warm and toasty and happy." The Phantasm chuckled malevolently. "However, they suffered that little bit more because of you." The monster took a thoughtful posture, stroking his flaming goatee beard, a sick grin lighting his features. "Paulina, especially, was a tasty dish! Such a strange girl. I am convinced that, on a certain level, she liked what I was doing to her! Were you the one who taught her to like it rough? Naughty boy, Dash!"
Dash sobbed helplessly and crumpled in on himself. The Phantasm laughed. "I hate you, Dash Baxter," he repeated. "I hate you and, in that hate, I have decided that I will grant you a gift that I have given to no other being in the multiverse, human or ghost. I, Daniel Phantasm, Destroyer of Worlds, hereby swear on my power that I will never, ever allow your existence to end, either by action or by inaction!"
The monster that had once been Dash's favourite victim - a meaningless, insignificant boy who could be beaten on without even the slightest fear of consequences - strode over and, with an astonishing gentle touch to the chin, lifted Dash's face so he had to look up into his blazing red eyes. "You will exist forever, alone on this dead world, denied your friends or even the release of oblivion. You will suffer forever, Dash Baxter, both in being alone and without purpose and in the knowledge that, in some small manner, you have been finally and utterly beaten but one who you always dismissed as a loser!"
Suddenly the bubble shield was gone as were Dash's bonds. With a dangerous chuckle Dan Phantasm looked up and saw a red-clad figure flying overhead on a hover-board. "Well, well! Lover-girl is here for another round! I can't possibly stand her up for a date! Toodles, Dash! Enjoy the rest of eternity!" The Phantasm leapt into the air and was gone.
The shade of Dash Baxter wept where he lay at the base of Paulina Sanchez's tombstone. He wept for so long. However, he now knew that, no matter how long he lay here in the dirt, he would always have an eternity left to go. In his youth, Dash had dreamed of being a sporting hero and establishing a reputation that would live forever. He never would have entertained such dreams if he knew exactly what living forever would mean for him.
Justice loves irony.
