A young infant was fast asleep, curled up in his crib while snoring softly. The wind outside was gently tapping his window, and snores coming from two other rooms leaked through his bedroom's thin walls. And despite these noises the boy slept on, ignorant to the world. Well, he was, until a bright blue flash seeped under his doorway, while a new presence settled inside of the quiet home.
This presence was just as quiet, as it floated off of the floor, and through the baby boy's door to avoid making a single sound. And when the figure fully entered, the glowing white flame of hair slightly illuminating the room, the boy whimpered. Something was telling him that this man was not friendly. He wouldn't be like his mom, who didn't stop hugging and kissing him as they drove home for the very first time, and he wouldn't be like his dad, who babbled on in a funny way about how he'd become a ghost hunter in the future. No, he would probably hurt the boy, that was what his brain told him.
And yet, before the boy could cry out for the two people who could stop this man, said man took him into his arms and started to hum lowly. It filled the 2 month old with serenity and calm. Eventually, he couldn't help but fall back asleep, while the figure proceeded to pick up a bag and stuff it with the baby stuff that belonged to the boy: clothes, some bottles, diapers, a few toys, etcetera. And once the bag was filled with what was necessary, the figure threw it over his shoulder, and in another flash, he had stolen Danny Fenton.
Dan spent the next few hours waiting for the boy to wake up again. Said child was asleep on an old mattress, in the corner of a mostly destroyed lab, with a starry blue blanket thrown over him. His breaths were even, and his fingers were curled around the soft fabric in bliss. In this state, he was unaware of Dan, who had finally finished repairing the Fenton Portal he'd destroyed to prevent Danny from using it.
Well, he'd said destroyed, but it was really just a few key points in the portal that he had destroyed, ones that the halfa didn't know about. So obscure that the 14 year old would have never found them in time. And, now that they were repaired, the portal was ready to be turned on once more, though not for travel.
While exacting revenge on a human Danny would be great, hell he did so before, this plan required the boy to be a halfa. After all, a 2 month old human can hit and cry, but a 2 month old halfa can fire ectoblasts and turn invisible. One was clearly more helpful than the other. So, taking the child, who had started to stir, Dan placed the baby boy in the completed portal, and turned it on. Next, he grabbed the plug and extension cord, and smiled at the boy.
"Happy Death-day, Danny." He spoke with a fanged grin, as he jammed the plug into the socket, and caused the portal to spark.
Within moments, a green flash filled the room, along with the pained cries of a toddler. Once the light died down, Dan shut the portal off, and approached the boy slowly. He was amazed that, instead of the ecto-goop he'd partly expected, there was a small halfa before him, with brilliant white hair and glowing green eyes, screaming bloody murder.
Dan chuckled before he went to pick up the boy, only for him to turn intangible, and float through the ceiling. And, though mildly impressive, the act left Dan feeling far more annoyed than anything else. So, floating up after Danny, Dan found him wailing in the middle of a dismantled living room, where the only piece of furniture partly standing was the couch.
Grumbling, Dan lifted the boy from under his arms and leered at him. This, however, just succeeded at making the young Danny cry even louder, while also adding wiggling to get away. The growling now accompanying the leer probably wasn't helping either, so Dan sat on the couch, still holding the crying infant, and tried to think through the noise. What did he like as a child again?
Sifting through the cries in terror and the sadism that normally held his attention, the full-ghost managed to find a very old memory. He was amazed he could remember it, but he did. He could see it, himself from when he wasn't Danny Phantom, Vlad Plasmius, or Dan Phantom. He was just Danny Fenton, a young infant crying at being left alone.
And then Maddie would rush in, holding a warm bottle of formula to appease the pained cries of abandonment. It worked every time, she had told him when she was alive, so it would probably work now. So, setting Danny down on the couch, Dan proceeded to read the instructions on making the solution to his problem. As he read the label, however, he found himself becoming steadily annoyed.
"Would you shut up!" Dan snapped towards the infant, who then proceeded to cry louder. "Why am I doing this again…?"
Then Dan remembered, as the halfa continued to kick and scream with the force of a warrior. In his movements, the boy transformed back into his human form, reminding the full ghost that this was Danny. That he had been Danny. That this Danny could become him. Maybe even help him? Besides, when he inevitably goes back in time to fight the Danny who was responsible for putting him in the thermos, would it not be hilarious to see the look on Danny's face when he sees himself by Dan's side?
With that in mind, Dan gave up on trying to read the label with this racket. Instead, he adjusted the struggling toddler so he wouldn't fall off the couch with all of his squirming, and flew out of FentonWorks, quite easily seeing as it was missing the entire second floor and the majority of the ceiling. He then flew around the immediate vicinity before finding just what he needed.
Following a man towards, what Dan assumed to be was shelter, was a woman. In her arms was a bottle and blanket, while a makeshift sword was on her back. She looked ragged and tired, along with the man, so this wouldn't be hard at all.
Turning invisible and intangible, Dan snuck up to the woman, before he placed his hands near her head. Then, just as the assumed couple stopped to unlock a door, where soft snoring could be heard from the other side, Dan became visible and tangible. And within another second, the woman's head was snapped, and the makeshift sword had been jammed through both the door, and the man's chest.
With that done, Dan picked up the bottle before looking over the pale-yellow blanket. He then shrugged and threw it over his arm, before flying back to Danny, who was still sobbing, but much less now.
Heating the bottle with his powers, he held the boy as best he could, vaguely remembering how to do that from health class so long ago. He also wished that his human half hadn't slept through so much of it now, but sealed his annoyance so he could focus on feeding, and not choking, the child, whom of which had mostly stopped crying now that he was eating.
Once that was taken care of, Danny smiled at him, which was odd, to say the least. It now had the full-ghost wondering when the last time someone actually smiled at him was. The last time was probably about 10 years ago… Shaking his head, Dan took the smiling infant back downstairs, and sat with him on the mattress, putting the yellow blanket he had found over him.
And as the toddler slept, Dan also wondered what sleep had been like. What food had tasted like; he hadn't had a burger for awhile now. What had rational thought been like? Not simple remembering, or thoughts of battle tactics and murder, but of simple things. Such as how was he going to get to school on time, or what clothes he was going to wear? Granted, those things were easy to answer: he wasn't getting to school on time, and that was a choice between a T-shirt and Jeans, or some overly expensive suit.
A frown etched it's way on his features. He hadn't thought like this in years, mostly because he didn't want to. Then again, being trapped in the thermos while now holding the reminder of how you got there in the first place can change how someone thinks. 'Well, that's not good.'
Leaving the sleeping boy on the mattress, Dan turned the ghost portal on, and decided to kill something. He was raising the boy to be like him after all, and if he wasn't like him, then how could Danny be? So he left the portal open, knowing something would want to investigate, and waited. Might as well get the boy used to waking up to the smell of ectoplasm now, right?
