Danny slowly opened his eyes. He just laid there on the ground, his arms and legs out stretched. He looked around. It was dark. But then something came into focus. It was a small rural town; the kind where it was almost deserted because of an intense fight. Old brick houses towered over him like miniature skyscrapers, with cracked windows and their shutters half way off their hinges. The wooden doors had large claw marks carved into them, as if some wild animal had passed through and tried to attack them.

Where am I? he asked himself. Am I...dead?

He looked at his hands and moved them. He could still feel them, but they were ice cold and clammy. He shivered. He was cold and tired. He realized he was lying on a grey cobblestone road, covered with dirt, fresh blood and ashes. He suddenly heard voices in the distance.

"There he is! It's the beast who killed our children!"

"He's still alive? Impossible!"

"Forget how he survived; let's get rid of him once and for all!"

Danny saw an army of shadowy figures in the distance. They were all faceless; their only detail was their glowing eyes which shone like red hot coals. The rest of their bodies were hidden in black fire, embers flickering off their skin and fingertips. They carried flaming torches, silver swords and crosses, gleaming through the darkness and intensifying their lifeless eyes.

Frightened, Danny tried to get up and run or even try to go ghost, but he couldn't. He was pinned down, as if gravity had intensified ten fold. He couldn't move a muscle; he was trapped. The shadow army came closer, their weapons pointing straight at him. One of the villagers threw a torch at him and he felt the heat coming closer and closer to his face.

But then, the torch disappeared into thin air. A gleaming golden light cut through the darkness and the shadow army backed away, hissing as the light came in contact with them. Danny had to squint to see what was happening. The familiar loud howl of a wolf rang in his ears.

Standing in front of him was a wolf with golden fur. It stood on its hind legs with gleaming silver claws and crystal blue eyes. It let out another howl and with one slash of its front claws, the shadow army disappeared into a vapor of grey smoke with a crowd of agonizing screams.

It turned around to face Danny, its silver claws still extended. Thinking the wolf was going to same thing to him, Danny flinched. The wolf cocked his head curiously and its front claws contracted back into its paws. Crouching on one leg, it gently nuzzled Danny with its large yellow snout and licked him playfully on the cheek. Danny laughed, but tried to hide it.

(It alright young one, I will not harm you. I am a friend.)

Danny was surprised the wolf could talk, let alone speak telepathically to him.

"Who…are you?" he asked nervously.

(I go by many names. Golden wolf, angel of the beasts, but you may call me Serenity.)

Judging by her voice, Danny could tell the wolf was female. Her voice was soft and gentle, yet powerful and compelling at the same time. It handed a paw out to Danny to help him up and he took it. He felt dizzy and weak. Serenity gave him another lick, on his forehead this time. A warm feeling washed over him and he suddenly felt his strength slowly returning.

"My name is Danny," he replied as he took a moment to balance himself. "Danny Fenton."

Serenity nodded. (Yes, I know all about you and your counterpart, Danny Phantom.)

Danny was stunned. "How-?"

(Did I know your secret?) interrupted Serenity. (I am of one of the guardians of the Ghost Zone. Clockwork is another one, but of a specific duty.)

"Time," answered Danny simply.

(Correct. My duty is to watch over the animal ghosts of the Ghost Zone. I can take on many forms as I wish, but I usually appear in this form. You have saved one of my kind, one who goes by the name of Wulf.)

Danny was having an instant flash back. Wulf was a werewolf ghost who was captured by Walker a few months ago. He had helped him get into Danny's world by using his special power of opening a portal, just by using his claws. He spoke in an artificial language called Esperanto and only knew a few words in English, so he was difficult to understand.

On the night Walker had sent a massive ghost attack on Amity Park, Danny saved Wulf from Walker's right hand man: Bullet, from being captured. Wulf had returned the favor later by taking a shot from Maddie's Fenton Bazooka and was sent back into the Ghost Zone, along with Walker in the process.

So far, Wulf was his only ghost friend. Danny could still remember Wulf's final words before he had disappeared into the portal.

"Friend, we'll meet again."

Danny had waited for several months now, even after Pariah's invasion and changing his own future. Wulf had still yet to return and fulfill his promise. Danny wanted to get to know him a bit more and even help him map out the Ghost Zone.

Serenity continued. (He is one of my, how should I put this, most visited ghosts. He has told me how you saved him and your great deeds in your lifetime.)

The fourteen year old was puzzled. "But I'm not an animal, so why are you talking to me?"

(I know. But soon you will be, and you will need to end a terrible battle of bloodshed and sacrifice. Anger and power. Good and evil. They need you, Danny Fenton and Phantom, to help them end it or else it will spread like disease all over our world and yours.)

"I don't understand. Who are 'they'? And why are you telling me all of this?"

Serenity bowed her head. (All in good time young one. But I must go now. You must wake up and face your destiny or else everyone is doomed.) The golden wolf closed her eyes and began to fade away. Her golden light grew fainter around her dying image.

"Wait, Serenity!" cried Danny. "Don't go!"

Danny lunged at her, but she was gone and instead landed onto the ground. Her voice called out for him in his head, but it sounded much more serious and worried.

(Beware of your darker half, for he is the one who will show what your true nature is. Remember the ones you love the most. They are the key to your survival…)

Her voice faded away into the returning darkness and Danny suddenly felt himself beginning to fall down through the once vacant road. He let out one final scream and his vision suddenly went black.

Danny's eyes snapped wide open. He was lying on a hospital bed in a white room. His face was covered in cold sweat. A heart monitor was placed on a stand on the left side of him, the thin green line moving in sync with his pulse. A bouquet of red roses was placed in a crystal vase on a night table, reflecting off the sunlight. A plastic mask and tube was placed over his mouth, possibly connected to an oxygen tank, and his arms were covered in white bandages.

I'm back, he thought. It was just a dream. Or was it actually real?

"Danny?"

Danny looked up see Jazz, who sitting beside him. She was crying; her turquoise eyes filled with tears of joy. Sobbing, she wrapped her arms around her only brother and hugged him tightly. She was at a loss for words, which was a big surprise for Danny.

"Mom! Dad! Come over here quick!" she shouted.

Maddie and Jack rushed over to where Jazz was sitting. She was still crying, but she was trying not to show it in her now red eyes. Maddie had removed her jumpsuit hood, revealing her short brown hair and dark violet eyes. She began to cry and Jack did the same.

"Danny! You're okay!" cried Maddie as she kissed Danny on his forehead.

"You gave us quite a scare son," said Jack. "We thought we had lost you. If it wasn't for Jazz, you'd probably been another resident of the Ghost Zone by now."

Well, I'm sort of one right now, Danny thought.

"How long was I out for?" he asked weakly.

"About four days," answered a voice in the distance.

Danny turned his head to see Tucker and Sam in the doorway. Tucker was holding his trademark PDA while Sam was carrying a large bouquet of assorted flowers. Secretly, Danny knew how both of them felt: worried and concerned.

"Tucker, you know I can't fall for the same trick twice," said Danny. He recalled when he had collapsed after fighting the Lunch Lady ghost at Casper High. Tucker had joked around when he had said he was asleep for four days, when it was actually just a couple of hours.

"Sweetie, Tucker's telling the truth," said Maddie, wiping her tears with the back of her hand. "You've been in a coma for over four days now. We were scared that you wouldn't wake up ever again."

Danny's eyes widened. He was in a coma? Four days? He wondered how the other kids had reacted at school, not to mention his teachers. Would he get special treatment or would everything be back to normal?

Sam came over and placed the bouquet near the vase of red roses. "The English department all chipped in to bring you this Danny. Dash and Paulina were even surprised to hear about what had happened. Some of the students and even Lancer came by to visit, too. All of them are worried about you."

"Yeah, dude," added Tucker. "You were out cold when we first visited you. You weren't moving or anything, like a statue."

Danny looked up at his parents. "Mom, Dad. Would you be able to-?"

Maddie nodded at once and ruffled his messy black hair. "Of course, honey. Jack let's go out for a little bit and get some air. I'm sure Danny and his friends have a lot to talk about."

"Sure thing, Maddie," said Jack.

Both of the parents walked out of the room and down the hall. The four teenagers waited until they were out of hearing range for them to talk in private.

"Danny," said Sam quietly. "What exactly happened to you? You know…when you passed out in front of Jazz. She had told me it was a ghost, but she wasn't quite sure."

Danny rubbed his head. "That night…my memory's kind of fuzzy. There was a black blur, so many voices, extreme pain…"

"You don't have to try too hard," said Jazz calmly. "Try to remember what happened before you passed out."

Danny closed his eyes and concentrated. "I don't remember…wait…there was blood, a lot of blood. My whole body hurt so much; it was like being split in two. There were voices screaming in my head; the howling of a wolf. That's all I can remember."

"Can you remember what the ghost looked like?" inquired Tucker. "Maybe we could identify it with your files."

"Everything's so blurry," said Danny. "I don't think I could-"

"Take your time. It's okay," whispered Jazz. "There's no rush."

Danny took a deep breath and concentrated. "It was big and tall."

"Keep going."

"With black fur," continued Danny. "Or was it red and gold?" The raven haired teen shook his head. "No, it was wearing a cloak. But, I could see it had black fur."

"Good. What else?"

"It was some sort of animal. I think it was a wolf, but it was hard to tell."

"Did it have any weapons on him?" asked Tucker.

"It had massive claws," said Danny. "I can remember that for sure."

"That would explain the bandages," said Sam. "Danny, when I first heard what happened that night…my parents…they were actually worried about you."

Danny's eyes widened with surprise. "They were?" he asked. Sam's high strung parents were never actually fond of him ever since Circus Gothica had come to town and still had reasons of filing another restraining order for him.

Sam nodded. "You should have seen them when they first heard about it on the news."

"I was on the news?" repeated Danny. "Like on TV?"

"Well, duh," said Tucker flatly. "Where else could everyone hear about your mishap?"

Danny was starting to sweat. "Did they…you know…when they tested my blood…"

Jazz shook her head. "No. It's strange though. Your blood should have contained ectoplasm mixed with your human blood, but they didn't find a trace of it."

"Does this mean I don't have my powers anymore?" asked Danny.

"Only one way to find out," said Tucker. "Try to go ghost."

Danny concentrated hard for the familiar whitish blue rings to appear around his waist. In a split second, they did and changed him into his ghost form. His white hair shone in the dim sunlight and his bright green eyes gave off a slight glow.

"Well, that answers my question," said Danny as he quickly changed back. "But that's really weird. How could they not find any ghost DNA?"

"Forget it, dude," said Tucker. "The good thing is you'll be back to normal in no time."

A young nurse with long blond hair and bright blue eyes suddenly walked into the room. "I'm terribly sorry to interrupt you, but visiting hours are over. You have to leave."

"That's alright, miss, "said Sam. "We were just about to leave anyways. See you later, Danny."

Danny gave a weak wave to Sam and Tucker and disappeared down the hall along with the nurse. Jazz was just about to head out the door too, before Danny remembered something important to say.

"Jazz?" he asked.

His sister turned towards him. "Yeah, Danny?"

Danny gave a weak smile. "Thanks for not telling them yet."

Jazz closed her eyes, nodded and smiled. "Siblings have to help each other in their time of need. And remember: it's our secret." She gave him a short wink and quietly closed the door behind her.

Danny lay back onto his pillow again. At least some things were taken care of for right now. But something was still bothering him. In his dream, Serenity had said something about his darker half and revealing his true nature. Did this mean his future self would return to fight him again? It didn't make any sense to him at the moment. His head hurt of asking so many questions.

Something else was bothering him since he woke up. His bandages were so itchy that they were driving him insane, but he had tried to ignore the urge to scratch them. Finally, he began to scratch violently at the one on his left arm. It wasn't going away. Frustrated, he began to unravel the bandage. When he finally took it off, he gasped.

He suddenly remembered where the ghost wolf had slashed at him with his claws. The wounds were so deep that they needed serious medical treatment and tons of stitches. He thought there would be a mark or a scar where the wound would have been closed up. But his skin was unmarked; no sign of any scars or scabs anywhere the wounds were.

Uncertain, Danny unraveled the other bandages on his other arm, legs, chest and back. They had the same results as his arm, as if the wounds had never came in contact with him at all. This was seriously weird for Danny to handle and he wasn't sure how this had happened. After all of his ghost fighting, he had always come out with a couple of minor cuts, scratches or bruises which would heal normally in a week or two, but nothing like this.

Maybe this is another ghost power I've suddenly learned, he thought. Maybe I've suddenly learned how to heal myself. He paused for a moment and shrugged. I'd better sleep on it.

Danny closed his eyes and let sleep overcome his senses.

It took half of the morning the next day for Danny to get out of the hospital. It could have gone a little faster for his parents to fill out the paperwork, if Jack hadn't given an hour's lecture about the hospital's risks of not having a security system against ghosts. Jazz thought she was going to die of embarrassment; Danny was starting to regret from ever waking up.

While driving back home in the Fenton RV, a faint image of Serenity flickered in the back of his mind. Danny began to wonder why she came to him in the first place. And why had she given him a warning about his "dark side"? He thought of his evil future self, Dan Phantom, for a moment. From his pale green skin and flaming white hair, to his blood red eyes and chilling evil laughter. Danny shuttered and shook his head. He couldn't come back. Danny had given Clockwork his Fenton thermos that contained the beaten Dan inside. The master of time had assured Danny that he would keep watch over the thermos.

Maybe what Serenity had said was a premonition? Danny was confused of what was going on in his life. Being half ghost and protecting to the town from ghosts was one thing, but now this? Danny knew he wasn't going to tell Sam and Tucker about his dream. Not until he could sort out all of these weird events that have been happening lately.

He was still intrigued of how his wounds had healed so quickly. Once he arrived at home, he shut himself inside the bathroom to make sure he wasn't dreaming the previous night. Nothing; not even the tiniest scratch or scar anywhere on his body. Maybe his theory about his healing powers was correct after all. This was all news to him.

Much to his relief, there was no ghost activity for the rest of the day (if you didn't count the Box Ghost, who had popped out of Danny's closet once he had entered his bedroom.) Everything was beginning to come back to normal. Well, normal as Danny could put it. After all, not many people were half ghost and were visited by a giant talking gold wolf while they were in a coma for four days.

Maddie had miraculously prepared dinner that night without any explosions in the kitchen or even mutating the food. It was meatloaf night; Danny's most hated meal night. But strangely, Danny had three portions of the weird tasting meat without any complaints. Maddie was surprised of Danny's appetite, but she had guessed he was just hungry from eating hospital food. Jack thought Danny had come in contact with some kind of ghost virus. Luckily, Jazz quickly changed the subject before Jack could continue on with his theory of experimenting on Danny's blood.

Danny couldn't sleep later that night. He tossed and turned endlessly in bed. He was restless and bored. He missed being outside and flying around in the cool night sky. With a bit of patience, Danny transformed while his parents were asleep. He was about to head out the window before his door had opened slowly.

"Danny," whispered a familiar voice, "shouldn't you be resting?"

Danny turned around to see Jazz in the doorway with her dark blue housecoat draped tightly around her. "Oh, it's just you Jazz," he sighed. "I thought you were mom for a minute…"

"What made you think of that?" asked Jazz.

The halfa shrugged. "Well, for one thing you're wearing one of her jumpsuits."

Jazz blushed. "I am not!"

Danny flew over to Jazz and lightly touched her with is index finger. Her housecoat turned intangible and quietly dropped to the floor. Danny was correct. Jazz was wearing one of Maddie's black and turquoise blue hazmat suits, complete with hood and oversized bright red goggles.

Danny cocked an eyebrow accompanied by a sly smile. "Well?"

Jazz knew she couldn't lie now. "It's like this," she explained. "I thought I could handle the ghosts tonight while you rest. After all, you just got out of the hospital."

Danny waved a hand. "Jazz, don't worry. I can handle this on my own. It's not like I haven't fought a ghost on my own before. Just go back to bed-"

"No," said Jazz. "I'm still concerned about your safety! I just don't want to lose you again…" Her eyes began to fill with tears again as she crumpled onto the floor.

Danny floated silently for a moment. "Jazz…" he finally said. "I didn't know…that…you know…"

He didn't know what to say about his sister. Ever since he was born, Jazz watched over him like some sort of guardian angel, making sure he didn't get into trouble or get hurt. She stuck up for him as much as she could, whether it was his parents or from bullies. He suddenly felt guilty because he hardly did anything for her in return and always thought she was just another mom to him. But she wasn't; Jazz was just overprotective and concerned. Jazz really did care about him. It was time to give her what she wanted for a changed.

He placed a white gloved hand on her shoulder. Jazz stopped crying and looked up.

Danny calmly smiled. "Are you coming?" he asked.

Jazz wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. She pulled her jumpsuit hood over her head and mounted the goggles over her eyes. Danny looked back at her.

"Do you have a weapon?" he asked, curiously. "I might not be able to protect you when we're out in the field."

Jazz pulled out a Fenton Peeler and a Jack-o-Ninetails from her large side pocket. "Is this enough to satisfy your needs?" she answered. "I also have this." She held up what looked to be a silver lipstick tube in front of his nose.

"Nice," Danny said, flatly. "You're exactly like mom."

"Are we going or what?" demanded Jazz, while she put her weapons back into her pocket.

"Almost, you might feel strange for a minute," said Danny.

"Strange? What do you mean-?"

Jazz stopped in mid sentence. Danny instantly became intangible and flew into her chest. She shivered and then she became stiff as a board. Her eyes flashed a brilliant bright green and faded back to their original turquoise. She told her legs to move, but she couldn't make them do anything her brain commanded. She could still see, feel, and breathe, but nothing else.

"I told you it might feel weird for you," she answered to herself.

Jazz was shocked she was talking to herself. She thought she was going crazy. She tried to answer, but failed.

Danny? Is that you? She thought. Where are you?

"I'm right here," her new voice suddenly answered, placing a hand at her chest where her heart was. "I've overshadowed you."

Overshadowed? She asked. What does that mean? Jazz guessed she could only speak to her brother in thought. She hoped Danny would answer again.

"It means I've taken control of your body," Danny explained. "I can make you do anything I want you to do. Like, move your arms." Jazz's arms moved up and down by themselves. "Or even make you fly." Jazz's feet hovered an inch off the ground, before she faced the window. "I recently mastered the technique of retaining the person's eye color and voice."

Wow! So, does that mean you can use all of your ghost powers while you overshadow me?

"Let's find out!"

Jazz's entire body became intangible and she flew through the window into the starry night.