As Danny burst out of his home-No! He didn't have a home anymore, he thought bitterly. It was raining. It wasn't like a drizzle either. This was a dogs and cats sort of rain. Every drop hurt as it hit his body. Usually, he would enjoy the rain, but not this time. This time, he was simply flying out of town and to God knows where. He was glad though. He didn't have to keep telling lies or keep up a frantic façade. But, something in him hurt. It really hurt. He thought this scenario over so many times, but this time, he wasn't prepared. He thought he was. It was like, you prepare for something but this thing inside of you hopes, it hopes to god for the best outcome. I'm so naïve aren't I? The halfa furiously scrubbed his tears out of his eyes, regardless of the rain. The sky boomed out its sorrow in the form of thunder and lightning. Danny kept flying in the storm, and cried. It hurt so badly. He stopped in midair and held his hands in front of his face. He bawled like a baby, letting his hurt and sorrow come out.

Hey. What are you doing?

Danny kept crying, not hearing the voice.

Hey! What's wrong? Talk to me!

Huh? Who're you?

How the fuzz am I supposed to know? All I know is that you're crying, and it's raining in here. Make the fricken rain stop! I'm going to drown! The voice panicked.

Drown? What the hell? Am I going crazy?

You need to shut up and listen. Why are you crying?

I just-I just thought that my mom and dad still loved me and they don't. They don't even believe I'm their son. Wha - What am I going to do? I was in that god forsaken place for years. Everyone hates me. Danny sniffled a little.

What the fuck? Who are you? WHO ARE YOU?! You're Danny! Fenton or Phantom, it doesn't matter! This Danny is not the one I know! You better man up or I'll kick you in the nuts. So what if your family and friends abandoned you? LIFE GOES ON. The world doesn't have any time to care about you! Now you either buck the fuck up or I'll kick your ass. You have me. Okay? I may be a voice in your head but I'm here. I will be right fucking here. I'm not getting out of your head any time soon, Danny. So, it's okay. Okay?

The ember flared a little and the ebony flame hissed.

Danny stopped his sniffling and smiled a little tentatively.

Lightning flashed in front of his face, almost hitting him.

Whoa! Pay attention!

Now there was lightning bolts hitting everywhere and Danny had to swerve sharply to avoid them. A bolt flashed a second where he was.

I'ma take a nap, I'm tired…. Wake me up when the actions getting good. The voice yawned hugely. It snuggled in a bunch of mind pillows.

Danny meanwhile, had no time to register this as he dodged the lightning. He felt a smile on his face. It had been a long time since he felt an epic adrenaline rush like this. Whoops! That was close! It had been way too long! He whooped and forgot where or exactly what he was supposed to be doing.

Momentarily distracted, he let a bolt hit his neck, where the collar was.

Shit! Was his thought, before he got electrocuted, the electricity enhanced by the collar. He dropped like a stone, towards the ground. Smoke trailed behind him like ribbons from the collar.

Dude! I'm trying to take a – WHOA WHOA! The voice screamed and Danny woke up. He blearily opened his eyes to see the ground rushing towards him. His ears were ringing with the screaming in his head.

He went up straining against gravity. His feet clipped the ground before he shot up like a rocket. He controlled his flying immediately, thanks to the training the GIW had so graciously given him. But as he went up, something flew off his neck and dropped down into space below.

What the friq just happened!? Do I have to control this body of yours because of your ignorance? The voice was really irritated.

Sorry. I wasn't thinking.

Whatever, let me go to sleep!

Okay, okay.

He felt weird. Like something was missing. Eh? He dipped his chin, expecting to feel the collar. But, strangely there was no resistance whatsoever. He brought shaking hands up to his neck, shocked to feel nothing but skin. Well, scars too, but still. He felt a burst of joy and did a loop de loop.

Bolts of lightning jolted him into reality. He was right under the massive thundercloud. He looked at the inky black darkness that was illuminated every time a bolt hit the earth. His sight was blinded for a moment and he yelled as pain pierced his eyeballs. He shut them tightly, and hung in the cold darkness.

Sigh. Absolutely hopeless. Here I am trying to take a fucking nap, and here you are, hanging in the air for anyone to capture. Alright. Let me teach you something. You better be listening. What you do is concentrate. Reach inside of you, and find the cool shiny orb.

The one next to the flames?

Yup. Forget about the flames for a sec. Just feel it. Grasp the feeling and FEEL it in your eyes. Make the power flow into your eyes. This will enable you to see in the dark. To turn it off, just imagine scissors and cut the link between your eyes and your core.

Danny widened his eyes. He could feel the cool energy and it felt good. Everything was green and black.

Night vision is cool, eh? Now go find somewhere to sleep. We'll talk in the morning. I'm really tired, so I'm going to rest however I'm not going to be able to help you next time. Oh and Danny? Overuse your core and you will destabilize like Dani did before you fixed her.

Oh. Okay. Danny looked around the lightning bolts and saw something. There! He shot towards a spattering of bright green lights. When he got closer, he could see a city and he turned visible before landing in a street. He turned off the night vision. He looked around and went into a pizza restaurant. The bell rang as he opened the door and everyone stared at him. He stared back and the crowd resumed to whatever they were doing before. The smell of pizza filled the air and the halfas stomach was rumbling.

"Hello there, dearie!" A cheerful waitress eyed his sopping wet form. She was wearing a pink checkerboard dress with the classic apron. She even had a pink headband. "Looks like you went through a hell of a scrape. Come on over to the counter and I'll feed ya something on the house."

Danny gratefully followed her form to the counter and stools. "Why don't you go and dry up in the bathroom? You're making puddles on the floor, sweetie. Here ya go." She handed him a dishtowel and directed him to the bathroom.

He went into the bathroom and hovered over the sink. He put his feet on the edges and turned intangible, making all the rainwater drain into the sink. After the water drained its way out of him and into the sink, he turned tangible. He hopped down and looked at himself in the mirror.

A scrappy and muscular boy stared back at him with piercing blue eyes. He wasn't a stick but he did have some muscle. Not so much as bodybuilders. His hair had been cut by the GIW, military style, but it was starting to look like his old style. His eyes wandered over his body. He grimaced, fingering one of the holes. Looks like he would have to get something suitable to the public's eyes soon.

He opened the door and went to his seat on the counter where a big plate of pizza was awaiting him. He eagerly bit into it and almost spat it out. The waitress poured his water in the glass and chuckled at him eating. "It's hot. " She warned too late. Danny smirked and took slow and careful bites. "Say, honey. Since, you made a big puddle, mind mopping it up? I did feed you free food." Danny nodded and finished eating. After drinking the water, he grabbed the mop and bucket the waitress handed to him.

"What's your name?" He asked. He couldn't quite see the name tag she had on. "Oh goodness! How rude of me! My names Darcy. Yours is?"

"Danny Newtron." Darcy lifted an eyebrow at the last name but made no comment. She left him to his mopping and served other people. After Danny was done, he bid his goodbyes, but Darcy would have none of it. "You're staying at my place tonight. BU BU BU!" She quickly said after seeing Danny's face.

"I insist. I can pay you to help out the café and in return you help me with anything I need. Okay? It's like this. Free food and board in exchange for working 24/7."

Take her up on her offer. This is a fricken golden ticket. I can sense entirely good intentions on her. Looks like karma decided to give us a break.

Danny nodded after listening to both Darcy and the voice.

"Great!" Darcy turned the open to closed sign and went up to her apartment, Danny trailing behind her.

The apartment was small and cozy. It was filled with old wallpaper and pictures hung from the walls. There was a big couch and a tv.

"First of all, clothes. Honey, you look like a drowned rat, no offence. I still have my nieces clothes here from the cosplay festival. You can take them if you want. Go in the hall and turn to the first door on the right. That's the room where the clothes are." Danny headed to where she directed him and went inside. Oh wow. The room was full of baseball stuff. Baseball wallpaper and baseball bed. Hell, there was even a baseball rug. Danny strolled over to the closet and opened it, revealing leather and hero costumes from the cosplay festival.

He picked out black jeans and a blue shirt with white flames dancing on it. He spotted some black leather fingerless gloves and he grabbed a black leather jacket too. Putting them on, he saw him in a large mirror in the room and noticed that he needed some shoes. He put on black boots with rimmed white at the edges. Not too shabby, Danny, you do clean up good. He admired himself before finding heading over to the baseball shaped bed. He took off his accessories first. He curled up on it and pawed at the pillows, making a nest.


Nightmare

He thrashed as they held him underwater for what seemed like hours. They finally let him up when he blacked out. The next thing he knew, he was being strapped into a table and they cut him open, hoping to see Danny's 'face.' He moaned and weakly tried to move, but it was useless. It was always useless. "Just let me die! Please for the love of God, let me die!" He begged them. He felt something break as Maddie viciously pulled at something. He gaped like a fish, before vomiting up blood. Jack and Maddie ignored him, determined to save their son, not knowing they were in actuality, killing him. They went upstairs to eat some snacks, not bothering to stitch him up. He panted and vomited up some more blood. He gurgled and choked on his blood. Desperately, he spat it out but more and more came until they enveloped him in blood. He blacked out again.


Reality

Danny jerked up and felt himself. He grasped at his face desperately. He sighed as he felt no blood. His heart hammered like a horse in a race. He ran his hand through his hair, breathing deeply in and out. Another nightmare, it's just another nightmare, Danny. He told himself, trying to reassure his body that there was no danger. After he was calmed down, he noticed sunlight stream out of a slit in the curtain. He opened it and looked at the bustling city. He took in the beautiful peaceful view before turning around. He taken 5 steps before he heard screams drifting through the window and he hesitated before looking out the window. All he saw was people running and panicking. Whatever. He was done being a hero. If the city needed a hero, they had the cops.

Morbid much?

Oh. You're back.

Got a prob with that? Too fucking bad. I'm here to stay.

Got a name? Or gender?

I heard that last thought! For your info, I'm a female and you can call me Echo. Oooh, what's cooking? It smells delish!

He stopped and sniffed the air. Pancakes…. He drooled. He hadn't had pancakes for a long time. He opened the door and startled Darcy. "Oh my. I was about to check on you! You want some breakfast? Come downstairs." Darcy smiled at him. Danny smiled back, ignoring the nightmare lingering on his mind. He went to the bathroom and freshened up. As he cleaned his face, something caught his eye on top of the toilet. It was a newspaper.

Jump City Press

Teen Titans strike at crime once again! Pg. 16

Jump City, eh? Danny smiled at himself in the mirror. A change of scenery might just do him good.

Heyyyyy, I changed this chapter too! There's a lot of differences and it seems that I'm going to have to pretty much do everything over again. Im taking down the chapters after the next one to work on them. Im doing this thing for real. Reviews please! :D