Hello again! I hope you are all enjoying the story so far! As promised, here is the 3rd chapter. I most likely wont be able to update this story for the next few days due to work, but I will try my best!

Oh and a BIG thank-you to everybody who took the time to read and review! Your input is most appreciated! Thanks so much! :)

Snowleopard0 = Glad you're enjoying it so far! :)

krikanalo = Thank you so much for your reviews! And your feedback is most appreciated :)

chicaalterego = Thanks for reading! With regards to the whole Danny not wondering about M'gann being green, I thought that since Danny fights ghosts who sometimes have different colored skin that he wouldn't be bothered too much by it. Besides, he is half ghost, and she is an alien; Who is he to judge? Oh and I will give you a spoiler for a later chapter! Danny becomes very interested in M'gann, but maybe not in the way you may think ;)

Thanks again!

BayGirl_31

I do not own Danny Phantom, Young Justice or their characters. All rights belong to their respective owners.


Location: Mount Justice

Date: September 3rd

Time: 1901 EST

The team watched in fascination as their new friend, who claimed he was a ghost, devoured the plate full of food in front of him in record time. Once finished, he laid the plate down on his lap, leaned back on the couch with his eyes closed and rubbing his stomach. "Ahh… That hit the spot, and tasted amazing too." Upon hearing this, M'gann grew a large smile and clutched her hands together in front of her appreciatively. It is the first time anybody, besides Wally that is, openly stated how much they enjoyed her cooking.

"Dude! You ate that almost as fast as me!" Kid Flash exclaimed.

"Yeah," Artemis agreed, "When was the last time you ate? You're basically nothing but skin and bones."

"Hey!" Danny retorted. "I'm more than that. See," Danny said while flexing his left arm and pointing at it with his right, "That's totally a muscle!" To this, KF chuckled a little since it wasn't that big of a muscle at all. "And I haven't actually eaten anything in about 2 days, give or take. I never really eat all that well anyway. Between the horrible food at school and my mom's terrible cooking that can easily kill me, I don't exactly have a balanced diet. I basically run on Nasty Burger. Heh heh. I'm surprised I'm not the size the Fenton blimp!"

"I don't understand. How can a mother's cooking be as awful as you describe to be able to kill you?" M'gann asked.

Danny nervously scratched the back of his neck and regarded M'gann with a small smile. "Well you see, my parents don't exactly know about me being half ghost and they're, sort of ghost hunters. And since they don't know, mom has a tendency to cook with ectoplasm-rejecting ingredients that don't exactly mix well with my ghost half."

"Wow. Must be hard for you stay whelmed?" Robin asked the young Halfa.

"Whelmed?"

"Yeah, you know not overwhelmed or underwhelmed, just whelmed."

Danny gave his signature chuckle. "Nice play on words. I don't know really. I guess after almost a year of fighting ghosts, being hunted by your parents, slipping grades, getting bullied in school, and always having to tell stupid lies to cover up my identity and extra-curricular activities, you kind of get into a rhythm or pattern that's comfortable and stick with it. Plus my two best friends and my sister help me out a lot as well."

"Don't you ever want to tell your parents? Don't you think that would make things easier?" KF asked. "I know my parents are cool with my powers and risking my neck every day to keep the world safe."

"Trust me, not a day goes by that I don't want to just come out and tell them, but certain… events from past encounters with a few of my ghostly enemies kind of tainted my name. Now both my parents want to, and I quote: catch the ghost boy so we can tear him apart, molecule by molecule." Danny used a tearing motion to emphasize the meaning of the threat. Sighing, he added "I know that they are my parents and they will accept me no matter what, but there is always a part of me that is still afraid that the scientist in them will take over and, next thing I know, I'm strapped down to a table being dissected by my own parents!" His hand unconsciously went to his chest and started tracing a large 'Y' pattern with his finger. "It was bad enough the first time." He added just barely loud enough to be heard. The team's eyes widened at this statement.

"Y-you mean…?" M'gann tried to ask, but stopped when Danny dropped his head and moved it more to the side, away from the gaze of the Martian. "Oh no, Danny!" M'gann's hands flew to her mouth as she started to tear up.

"What do you mean by that?" Robin asked with still wide eyes. "You don't mean that your own parents caught and tried to dissect you before do you?"

Danny's face became that of a tortured soul. His face became hard, angry, and most of all scared. "It wasn't my parents then. It was actually a government agency created to capture ghosts called the Guys In White. I just finished a hard night fighting two of my usual enemies, Skulker and Ember, but they teamed up this time. The fight really drained me and when the GIW attacked me, I was an easy target.

"When I woke up I was strapped down to an examination table with ghost-proof bindings and scientists surrounding me. I asked them what they wanted, but they only answered with smiles and a 'You'll find out soon enough ghost-boy' and left me alone, strapped to that cold table. They came back not long after though and I soon found out what they were smiling about. I was their new experiment.

"The examination table became surrounded by people decked out in white lab coats and, once a bright overhead light was turned on, they began to take off the top part of my suit using some kind of ectoplasm destabilizing agent for better access to my chest." Danny began tearing up at this point. The memories were hard on him and the scars, both physical and mental, will never completely heal. "They never even had the decency to put me under, or even to use numbing medications. They said that ghosts don't feel so I didn't need it. Boy were they wrong. I was forced to feel and watch my own vivisection."

There was silence throughout the cave. Nobody could comprehend how that must have felt to watch and feel your own body being cut open and examined. It wasn't right, but most of all it wasn't human.

M'gann came over to Danny with tears streaming down her face and surprised him with a hug. "Oh Danny, how can they do something so horrible to you. Don't worry, we won't let anybody hurt you like that ever again, I promise." Danny hugged her back, tears silently streaming down his scarred face "Thanks."

The atmosphere in the room was thick, and made the team a little uncomfortable. They wanted to change the subject, but nobody knew what to say.

"So, we seem to be working backwards here." Robin noted while trying to get back to a less sensitive subject.

"Indeed. I believe that it would benefit us if we were to know all that has happened to you. Why don't you start by telling us how you have obtained your powers? You did say that your parents did not know you are part ghost, which would imply that you were not born like this, am I correct?" Aqualad inquired.

Danny wiped his eyes and nodded. "Yeah, you're right. I guess that starting from the beginning would be the best way to approach this. Let's see. For as long as I can remember, my mom and dad were always trying to create new inventions they claimed would be able to harm and capture ghosts. Ghosts that, may I add, they never had any proof even existed in the first place. I grew up with their crazy inventions always failing, and the ones that worked usually resulted in our food trying to kill us. But there was this one invention they worked on for a long time, one that had a prototype from their college days, so they were sure that it would work after years of fixing their calculations. They called it the Fenton Ghost Portal, said that it would allow us to enter the realm of ghosts so they can observe and study them.

"But then, on the day they were to complete the portal and turn it on, it didn't work. All that work, and all their hopes were dashed when the portal failed to power up. Seeing the look of failure, sadness, disappointment and worst of all, defeat, I knew I had to do something to try and help them. I couldn't stand seeing them so down so I decided that I would go in and see if I could fix it, you know, see if there was a loose wire or a panel that wasn't completely installed. I told my two best friends, Tucker and Sam, what happened and they took an interest in it and came down there with me. Sam was really the one who convinced me to go in since I was having second thoughts about it all, saying how cool it would be if a realm full of ghosts really did exist, and of course I listened to her. So I pulled on my Hazmat suit, which Sam demanded we take a picture of in front of the portal, and then I proceeded into the portal. It was darker in there than I thought, so I placed my hand on the wall for support, and sort of pressed the 'ON' button. Who knew my parents were actually so clueless that they would put that inside of the portal?

"It was then that the portal became flooded with light and green energy. I was basically electrocuted as ghost-DNA bound itself to my own. In hindsight, it is probably the only reason I am still here. I will probably never experience something as painful as that for as long as I live. Anybody else probably would have died. It only lasted a few seconds, but to me it felt like hours, and when it was all over I managed to stumble out of the portal where my friends ran over to check on me. I fell to my hands and knees when I reached the outside of the portal, and when I looked up to my friends, their faces wore expressions of complete shock and fear. My hand started to feel weird, almost numb, and when I looked down to see what the damage was, it wasn't there. My hand had turned invisible but then reappeared right in front of my eyes. I looked back to Tucker and Sam and asked them what was going on, and they just pointed to a mirror on the wall of the lab, I guess they were still in too much shock to do anything else.

"I ran to the mirror and when I did, I looked like this." Danny said while motioning to his entire body. "I don't always look like this. I have a human form but I haven't been able to turn back since I got here. I think my energy is still screwed up thanks to my trip here. Anyway, we soon realized that I was turned into a ghost. We thought that I was actually dead until I just randomly turned back to normal. Turns out I was actually turned into a half-ghost, or 'halfa', and I'm therefore half dead. So my friends and I have been fighting off ghosts while learning more about my powers, ghosts, and the ghost zone since then, but have kept my identity a secret from my parents and originally my sister as well, but she's smart and figured it out. You see, my town sees me as public ghost enemy #1, all based on crimes I didn't commit! One 'crime' was taking the mayor of Amity Park hostage, but I never done that. One of my enemies named Walker, who is the rule-obsessed warden of the prison in the Ghost Zone, overshadowed the Mayor, dragged me outside, made a scene, and made it look like I was the bad guy! Then this other time, a ringmaster named FreakShow used a special staff to control ghosts and make them steal items for him, including me. I had no control over my own actions and it resulted in me stealing from various places. But we managed to stop him and all the stolen items were returned. But people don't want to listen to the ghost's side of the story, they would much rather shoot first and ask questions never."

Throughout his story, the team never interrupted, never so much as moved. They paid complete attention.

"Dude…" was all that KF could say.

"Wow, Kid Mouth speechless? I think that's a first." Artemis commented.

"It appears that you have been through much my friend. It must be hard to protect a town that does not seem to want or value the protection you provide." Danny nodded to what Aqualad said. "Yeah, it gets hard sometimes, but I just can't let the ghosts run wild and hurt people y'know. Sam thinks that it's part of my 'obsession', but I don't know. If someone was in trouble, it is only natural to want to help right?"

"What do you mean by obsession?" Robin asked, wanting to be sure he got every detail.

"An obsession is basically a ghost's drive to do something, especially the deeds that they are known for. For example, a ghost can have a hunting obsession like Skulker, a technology obsession like Technus, a box obsession like the Box Ghost, a rule obsession like Walker, or an obsession with something they can't have like Plasmius. Sam thinks defending innocent people and protecting my friends and family is my obsession."

"So, how did you get here? I mean, you kind of just fell out of a random hole that opened up in our living room and crashed into our coffee table. Not exactly an entrance we're used to." Artemis stated, crossing her arms.

"I'm not 100% sure actually, but I have a good idea. Thankfully my enemies have a tendency to tell me their plans before they try to do me in so… OK anyway, how I got here. So I just finished fighting Technus when my arch enemy Plasmius showed up. As usual, I thought that he was just up to his normal fruit-loopish plans of fighting me, killing my dad, marrying mom, and having me as the 'perfect half-ghost son'. Well, that was still his plan, minus the fighting part. Turns out he got his hands on another Infi-Map, a magical map that brings you wherever and whenever you want should you ask it. It is very powerful and, if in the wrong hands, very dangerous. I thought my friend Frostbite had the only one, I never knew there were others so I wasn't exactly prepared when Plasmius showed up waving his map in front of me. Turns out that map can do one more trick that Frostbite never told me about; It can send people to other dimensions or timelines where they can't return unless that specific map that was used were asked to bring that person back from where they were sent. I guess it worked so here I am." Danny suddenly found his lap very interesting as his mind wandered back to Amity Park and what would happen to it now that he was gone. "I don't know how long I am stuck here for. It could be a few days, or it could be forever. I just hope everyone back home is safe."

Superboy finally asked a question, even if only to try and gauge the newcomer as a threat, asset, or ally. "So what kind of powers do you have? We haven't even seen you fly or disappear or anything 'ghostly' yet."

Danny grinned. "Lots. Do you have a training facility or something I can use to show you? It's easier to show than to explain. I will also need a couple of sparring partners." Robin immediately raised his hand and Superboy stepped forward, showing he also wanted in.

"Robin, please show everyone and our guest to the training room while I contact Batman. Please don't engage in battle until I return and give the all clear." Aqualad ordered. Robin nodded and left with the rest of the team, plus Danny, to go to the training area. They decided to head to the gym since it was larger and allowed for a greater range of possible techniques to be used than the training platform.


So here ends another chapter. If the story feels like it is going slow, it is probably because it sort of... is. I wanted to be sure that the Team found out about Danny's history, powers and what not while at the same time realizing what he went through and what he is going through now.

Hmm... I wonder how Batman will react to this news? ;)

BayGirl_31