To My Reviewers, In The Order They Reviewed:
Pterodactyl: You bring up some good points in my constant beating down on my own work, but in my defense, I can sort of explain this. Every writing class I have ever had has always had a teacher constantly on the students cases over even the tiniest issues. People whose writing made me feel so envious it almost hurt would have their work torn to shreds and every flaw pointed out in extreme detail in front of the entire class. A favored mantra of the writing teachers at my high school was 'never be satisfied with your work – that's what arrogant bad writers do', which has resulted in some mental ramifications for me down the road. One, I'm over cautious when it comes to OCs far beyond the point of reason, which is a flaw I freely admit to, and two, I have somehow turned into one of those annoying whining insecure people incapable of taking a compliment like a grown up. Forgive me; I'm working on it.
Oh, and the comment about the plot beginning was placed there at the behest of my beloved beta, my older brother. You see, a lot of people have the reveal of Danny not being his parents biological child as the finishing plot reveal in a story. Now, while that works very well in some stories I've read, I didn't quite feel like dragging it out any longer than necessary, mostly due to the fact that there's a fine line between suspense and just plain filler. Not wanting to tread that line, I used the same thing others have used effectively as a final sweep for the third chapter and my brother felt that I might want to reassure my readers that it was not, in fact, a sign the fic would conclude with chapter four.
Anyway, I'm beyond flattered that you heaped such high praise on me; it's worth more than a dozen generic reviews, if only because it felt like such a genuine compliment. I really was stunned by that, and I hope my writing can meet your expectations in the future. I know that there's a lot of good fanfic out there you could be reading, and I'm not exactly TV Tropes Fanfic Reccs material, but I'm doing my best and I really appreciate the support.
Dances With Death: Yes, I'm aware that numbness and shock is another reaction. I just don't like this odd fandom double standard where girls get emotional and men either get angry or go numb; I feel from personal experience that men have all the emotions women have, they merely express them differently. Hence, emotional Danny. I'm happy to see that you're in agreement that there's more than one way to react to the reveal, however. It's always nice to see someone who's emotionally aware.
Dragon Dancer 123: The dog is there partially for the 'oh crap' line being able to be repeated because I have a twisted sense of humor and thought it was funny. Also, animals sense evil in more than a few paranormal stories, so I figured given Danny's love of dogs a dog would be more appropriate than a cat. (He jumped the fence because the Saluki breed is incredible at it, and as the next chapter will mention, he's a Saluki. It's what they do.)
I had the reveal (or The Reveal, as my brother calls it) hit the readers out of blue because I wanted it to be as random and out of nowhere to them as it was to Danny. That said, it was intentional from the get go; rereading the flashbacks knowing that, they actually make a bit more sense if you think about it that way.
Queen Takhsis: I'm trying not to make it too angsty, but in my defense, anyone who goes through the kind of things that happen in this fic and doesn't angst at all would have to be a sociopath. Hopefully I'll continue to entertain you without going into angst-overload. And thank you for the compliment.
Invader Johnny: Well, admittedly, he takes after his biological mother completely; he doesn't resemble his biological father in this story at all. If you compared his adopted father to his first one, Jack wins by a landslide in the looks department. That said, I've seen many cases of children strongly resembling a single parent, so hopefully your willing suspension of disbelief won't be stretched too much. I mean, in the DP universe a lot of black people have teal eyes and purple is a far more common eye color than it ever has been in real life, so surely 'he looks like his mom' is an acceptable statement here.
Serac: Thank you for reviewing all three chapters individually. It's a nice touch, given how most people would just save time by reading the whole of what I've got up and reviewing. That said, I'm interested by all the ways people keep interpreting events, and yours would make a fantastic plot if only I had thought of it before. It's too late to use that with what I've got written; however, I am definitely filing that away as a plot bunny for the future.
Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. – G.K. Chesterton
Danny was fairly sure he screamed.
Everything ached, and he did mean everything, from his heart beating in his chest to the smallest movement. He was drained of all energy. It was all he could do to stand back and watch. In front of him was a world of colors, dark grays and purples mixing with strands of bright yellow. The fog and smoke danced and twisted until they formed recognizable images, a house with dark wooden walls and intricate golden paint now faded and peeling, a place with long boarded up windows and the smell of dust and rot all around them. He inhaled very slowly, laboriously, and twitched involuntarily. Home. He could see the familiar striped wallpaper in the next room alongside a dark green couch he felt strangely sure he'd seen before.
Two footsteps in front of him were all his warning before the ghost boy appeared out of thin air to stand beside him. All the colors of the world were strangely faded and muted, the world blurry as if viewed in a haze, yet the ghost was distinctly clear. His hair was both black and brown, a mixture of different colored chunks, or perhaps it was a trick of the light as it seemed to change when he stepped into the dim shafts of light from a poorly boarded up window. His skin was different than when Danny had seen him in the yard; it was now deeply tanned, and his facial features gave no clue as to an ethnicity. With a short, snub nose on an angular heart shaped face, he would probably have been creepy enough alive. As a ghost he was even more so. Luckily, Danny was very desensitized to weird things. Between his parents and his double life, you had to get up pretty early in the morning to freak him out.
"Where are we?" Danny asked, feeling groggy. "And who are you?"
"We're in Pharos City, about fourteen years ago." He tilted his head, eyes of Isabelline glinting in the light. "There's something you need to know about this. But no one believes a kid. That's why we're here."
"So you figured you'd just show me. Um, okay, that makes sense, I guess…" Danny managed to get to his feet, although the action was like running a marathon. He noticed that the kid hadn't answered his question. He didn't press the matter. Ember had told him once that she'd made up her name since, after her death, she no longer remembered it. She'd been fairly drunk, but he had no reason to believe she was lying, and that kind of scared him quite frankly. "How are you doing this?"
"I'm not allowed to answer that." His face was permanently devoid of emotion, until a heavy sigh worked its way out of him. "I just want to rest. They'll let me once this is over."
Danny furrowed his brow. It could be the pounding headache, or the fact that he currently felt his heartbeat in his head, or maybe this kid just wasn't making sense. He was voting for the latter, personally. "Who are 'they'? Rest where?"
Once again, he only answered one question. "They're letting me go to Afterworld soon. They promised."
"You, um, I don't mean to be a jerk, it's just… how old are you? Or were you, I guess." The teenager chuckled darkly. "Ghosts and grammar don't mix. Sorry. I can't brain today, I have the dumb."
The boy smiled, a small, shy expression. "I was, um, am, seven. Or eight. I don't remember. I'm really sure it was one of those, though." His smile faded. "I'm not supposed to talk to people. It's not very professional." He said that last word slowly, as if trying not to trip over it. "Sorry. I'm just trying to be good."
Danny's reply, had he been thinking of one (he wasn't, his train of thought was dedicated to how weird his life was) was stopped by the fact that the kid vanished after that. Left in an empty room with his thoughts, the hybrid tried to piece things together in his head. Ghosts were involved in helping him solve his parents' murder. Someone had been after them and he hadn't a clue why or who. His parents (other parents, technically) were in danger in Amity Park from the same evil force. He was clueless as to how to stop this from continuing, clueless in crime fighting, had no knowledge of the paranormal outside of ghosts, and was now stuck in the past. His face met his palm as he groaned. This was beyond not good. This was hopeless. He was beginning to feel that rising heat that came when desperate fear and righteous anger met. Everything was out of his control. Danny Phantom was not fond of that.
As Danny Fenton, his life was always more or less dull. He liked it that way. As Danny Phantom he had responsibilities. Maybe technically they weren't his – no one had assigned him this job of catching ghosts or saving people, but morally speaking he'd had to do it. He worried too much about people, cared for those around him too deeply to just sit back and do nothing. Danny could never help anyone in Fenton form. In Phantom form he felt a moral compulsion, something deep down inside him, tell him to do everything he could for the world around him. These people were good people. Amity Park had a low crime rate, good cops, a loving community full of people who were honest and hard working. He could never have stepped back and watched them suffer once he got his powers. Anyone who messed with any of them had to go through him first.
Then he'd found out that he'd had parents, another set of them. They had been beaten down by Pharos City, a place where crime was out of control and the world was falling apart. Things were down there that couldn't even be comprehended by the rest of the state. There were crimes there that made this case look like nothing. Only in Pharos would a cannibalistic serial killer result in bored shrugs. It was a place of no mercy where the gangs had long run everything and the police were both severely outnumbered and routinely slaughtered on the streets. No one cared about a poor family with a baby boy. That was what made Danny furious. His parents – his parents, who had given birth to him and loved him dearly – had been ripped apart and no one gave a damn. It was like losing Maddie and Jack with the added horror of no one caring other than a handful of his friends, who only cared in a vague, abstract sense.
When he saw the bodies in the ally with Tomor, they had been faceless, nameless statistics. When he realized with a sense of horror that they were in the same situation as his parents guilt twisted his heart and made him want to scream in frustration. Anger was pulsing through him, not at the world for not caring, not at his parents for lying to him, but at himself. He should never have let this happen. He shouldn't have let things get this far in his city. His city was different. It wasn't Pharos. There were people here who cared. They were good, honest people, and he'd let them down. He was a failure. He was lost.
He was, therefore, staying put if only because he needed as much information as possible to catch the killer.
No one messed with his city and his family and got away with it.
Oyuun Tomor was not having a very good day.
It wasn't that he hated Vlad Masters, not really. Tomor had seen more than a few corrupt mayors in his time. Before he came to settle down in Amity Park, he'd lived in New Jersey for many years and worked some extremely tough beats. He'd even spent a year in Pharos City, which was about eleven and a half months than most cops there tended to last. He was no stranger to corrupt people and could grit his teeth and get along with them pretty well for the most part. The problem was that Vlad was so obviously fake. He was completely transparent with his claims of innocence and bourgeois accent. He was also rich, the kind of rich where the son of an immigrant police chief was as far removed from his world as the sun was from the ocean. Yet he insisted on trying to play pretend they were great buddies for the sake of appearances.
Tomor didn't give much of a damn about appearances. He had more than enough scars on his body that proved he'd rather do the right thing than let someone else do it. He had a modest house, an unremarkable car, and dressed mostly in grays and blacks. Vlad wore things that were custom tailored, owned five cars that Tomor knew of and had two houses. All of this would've been fine Tomor if the man hadn't been so flashy, blatant, arrogant and proud of himself. There was nothing wrong with being rich. There were plenty of things wrong with being rich and unable to stop bringing it up. So while normally Tomor would maintain a pleasant neutral expression while making small talk, when to came to Mayor Impaler he didn't even try.
Vlad had once made an empty threat about Tomor's job security. The Mongolian man had replied coldly that every single employee Vlad fired from the Amity Park Police Department had been non-white and if that got leaked to the press, well, he couldn't be held responsible for that. And while no one would notice if some cocaine were to go missing from the evidence locker, Tomor had continued with a happy childish smile and a completely upbeat tone of voice, everybody would notice if it just happened to appear in Vlad's house and a police officer just happened upon the scene. The upper class man had gaped at him as Tomor strode away with his trademark deadpan expression. Ever since then they'd been in midst of an increasingly strained public relations affair. On the one hand, Vlad felt it was important that he appear to be friends with the Chief of Police. On the other hand, Tomor felt that Vlad could be swapped out with one of Tomor's beta fish and no one would notice any difference. It was no secret among those who knew Tomor that he felt the other man was hiding something and would one day end up in jail for something.
And on top of being corrupt and creepy, Vlad had the annoying tendency to call Tomor by his first name. This may not seem like as bad of an offense as the above, but Vlad butchered Oyuun until it was unrecognizable. It was worse than nails scraping on a chalkboard. Even telling Vlad that the only people allowed to say that name were women in the throes of ecstasy and state judges was not enough to discourage this offense, probably because Vlad hated the non bribe taking workaholic as much as he hated him.
"Oyuun!" Vlad chirped. "What a pleasant surprise!"
"Masters," Tomor returned stoically. "I'd snark at you, but unlike you, I work, so I'm very busy. Just here to give you the legally required update on this case and then get back to work."
"My, aren't you a busy bee?" The mayor replied with his best charming smile. "So kind to stop by and do it yourself."
"I thought I might stop by and see if you actually have a heart." He sighed when Vlad narrowed his eyes at him. "I've met Jack Fenton a few times. He's overbearing as hell, wide as a barn, has a man crush on you for reasons I can't fathom… and he's got a kid that, for reasons that are none of your business, may be a target for our local madman."
Vlad was on his feet in an instant; it might have been a trick of the light, but Tomor could've sworn he saw the man's eyes glow for a moment. "What?"
"It's complicated. Basically, though, this guy targets families, and Danny's had a run in with him in the past. Serial killers don't like unfinished business. They're a bit like the mob in that aspect," Tomor added as an afterthought, "And everyone says you're the Fenton's family friend. You never shut up about your power, Masters. Power corrupts absolutely is all well and good as a phrase, but I'd like to think that maybe there's something human left in you."
"Have you alerted the FBI?" Vlad said quickly, expression thoughtful and stormy. "Have they taken any precautions? What have they been doing?"
Tomor barely held in a snide remark about the man's inability to follow the biggest case his town had had in years. "They're not too concerned. Pharos City is a drain on the state's resources and the government's as a whole. With the recession in full swing the crime rate has spiked in so many areas that they're stretched too thin to give half a damn about some small city with only one murderer in it. The only reason they humored us with a few agents is because the murders have crossed state lines."
For once, genuine emotion was on the other man's face. He wasn't just angry, he was furious. Silently, the police chief upgraded his opinion of Vlad from complete monster to jerk with some humanity in tact. "Fine," the rich man ground out, each word dripping with venom. "If they want to ignore this, let them. More glory for you when you catch the man." Before Tomor could ask what he meant, he continued, "I'm donating money from my personal funds to the Amity Park police department. What do you need?"
"In a word, manpower. We have the funds, we have the guns, we even have the expertise on hand, but we just don't have enough people. This isn't Detroit, Masters. We're not equipped to handle this. Amity's a paranormal hotbed of an oddly specific kind. We have ghosts, nothing else. Human depravity is something we're not used to addressing because with Danny Phantom we've never had to." Tomor's fists clenched. "I hate – and I do mean hate – asking you for this, but I need your help. Do I have it?"
"Unconditionally," Vlad said without a trace of his normal animosity. "I will not stand by while families are slaughtered. Work out a detailed list of what you need and you'll have it by tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" Tomor asked incredulously.
There was nothing kind in Vlad's smile. "In America, we have a saying: the lack of money is the root of all evil. I expect that tons of it should therefore be effective at stamping it out."
Tomor kept quiet. There was something lethal and potent in the other man's voice that left no room for argument.
The difference between Danny's own memories and an actual replay of the past was very clear.
Jazz had sat down with him last night and explained it. In essence, the simple version boiled down to a small child's inability to recall details. Visual learners at that age, children were very good at recalling images (Andra's long hair, the dark eyes of his father, a strange shadowy thing that lurked in his memories that he couldn't yet identify). The problem was details were either absent or better recalled than important content. Everything past a certain age, even with the best hypnotherapists on staff, were images and fragments. The problem was simply that children didn't have complicated thoughts and thus anything they didn't understand either got blocked out from memory or left a confusing jumble of contradictions in their head. Danny's notebook full of bits of memory were proof enough of how much of a mess it could be.
The flashbacks themselves were always brief, always very devoid of details, and completely outside of context. What order they happened in, what time of day, and where were gone simply because a four year old hardly cared about those kinds of things. Assuming, that was, that he was actually four years old. Andra hadn't been in any state to tell the Fenton family anything other than that he was a wonderful child who needed protection. She knew they'd made money from their patents; she could see in their large house. They were kind people who fed her and had a wonderful daughter they clearly doted on. She gave Danny away without even telling them his actual name, let alone his birthday or age. There was no paperwork saying he existed, so adoption was legally sound and easy, if a bit paperwork intensive. By then she'd slipped off into the night without a word.
Between his age and the trauma of it all it was only the blatant and graphic trigger that was the murders that had enabled him to remember anything. Unfortunately, whatever freaky power had left him in the past had left him just as cognizant and aware as he was in the present. He was unable to touch anything or be heard by the cat that passed by, but mentally he was all there. At first it didn't seem so bad, and he wondered if there'd been a mistake. He saw a normal family, albeit one that was a bit on the poor side. The build was run down, the father slept on a sofa to let his children have the bedrooms, and there was very little furniture. Still, after a few minutes of Danny wandering the place the man got up and made his family dinner. He was a tall man, a police officer in the uniform draped on the chair was any indication, and he looked exhausted. His skin was dark, just a shade above Tucker's, his hair prematurely gray, but his dark gold eyes were kind and he smiled warmly at his sleepy eyed daughter when she entered the tiny kitchen.
"Riri, are you awake?" he asked, and his voice had an accent Danny tentatively placed as South African. "Blink twice if you are." He grinned at her when she looked hazily at him. "Go get your brothers, please. And you might want to take the pants off your head."
"It's a hat," the five year old informed him, and she walked off with a huff of indignation.
Danny felt his stomach twist. Pharos City. The murders. He couldn't watch this. He wouldn't be here if something horrible wasn't about to happen. He wanted to look away, to try not to watch things go wrong, and he couldn't. This man was just like his dad, setting a little piece of fudge on each plate for his kids' dessert, warming up leftovers and making salad for kids who, like clockwork, all whined about the veggies. There was something undeniably intimate about watching a family in their home. He saw the kids lunge for the fudge, he saw the father struggling to make a little bit of food go a long way, and he saw a house that was well kept and extremely clean despite the obvious poverty. With a pang of horror, he saw that one of the children was the ghost boy that had led them here. The only thing that kept Danny from running was his physical incapability.
The door burst open. "Ataro?" a drunken voice slurred. "Ataro, where the hell are you?"
"Get out, now," he ordered his children, rising rapidly to his feet, but a woman was already in the room. Danny could smell the alcohol on her.
Ataro tensed and stepped forward as if he was a human shield between the woman and her own children. Danny could see both of them in their children; the faces were a mix of both of their features, the mixed hair color a trait of their mother and their height a product of both parents. For a apprehensive moment everyone was quiet and frozen. Then the woman's face crumpled and she wrapped her arms around her husband, burying her face in his neck. Her sobs were audible from Danny's position across the room.
"They – they said there was a cop down town – ripped apart – they said he was black – I thought, I thought, I-" she sobbed disjointedly. "Oh God, I was so scared. I'm so glad you're okay."
Ataro wrapped his arms around her and rocked her gently. "It's alright. It wasn't my beat or my patrol. I was across town. I'm safe. It's okay; it's not my branch of the police handling it. I'm fine, okay? Calm down, you're scaring the children."
She wiped quickly at her face, dual colored hair falling into her face briefly. "I know, I know. I just can't help it. I know I may fight with you, and I run off at the mouth, but I love you and if the last words I said to you were 'I hate you' I… I just…"
"Breathe, Angie," he instructed her firmly. "Sit down, I just reheated dinner. It's okay. How'd the job interview go?"
"Bad. It was, well, I don't have swear words strong enough." Angie inhaled sharply. "I'm sorry. I don't need to rush in having a freak out like this."
He leaned over and kissed her gently on the forehead before sitting down beside her. "It's just a way of expressing love. I know what I would do if it were me in your position. For all the things I've said, I love you just like you love me-"
"You're not gonna kiss, are you?" Riri asked, sounding horrified.
Ataro grinned. "Maaaaaybe."
Riri made gagging noises and put her hands over her eyes. Her brothers took this opportunity to put their salads on her plate and high five each other. The parents laughed, and unknown to them, outside, something stirred. Danny could see it in the shadows. He leapt forward out of instinct before remembering that he wouldn't be able to warn them or stop this anyway. Knees knocking, eyes wide, he could only watch as three pale, yellowy things entered the house and crept through the darkened hallway. Danny couldn't see them clearly until they were nearly on top of the unsuspecting family. They had large, bulbous heads that were far too large for their stick thin bodies; their eyes were tiny almond shape pink eyes devoid of iris or pupils. They walked on the tips of their clawed toes, their silver claws glinting in the light of the single light bulb in the kitchen/living room combo. Nose and ears practically non-existent holes, their thin mouths looked tiny yet opened up to huge, hideous jaws twice the size of a human's, filled with two rows of razor like teeth.
Red on silver. Red blood on silver, glinting on the floor as Danny screamed, a figure he couldn't remember exactly.
"Oh, God, no," he whispered, and then the things lunged.
It wasn't a fight, it was a slaughter. He couldn't look away. He couldn't breathe. He screamed, though, in vain. Heads were crushed, bodies were thrown and broken, skin was ripped open like wrapping paper being ripped off a present. The noises they were making were a sickening mixture of screeches and clicks, half-notes that seemed almost a language. Danny shook and fell to his knees. Seconds became nightmarish hours in his head, and then the struggle was over; injured and dying, the humans lay spread out on the wooden floors without the blessing of death or unconsciousness. Lightning fast, the creatures huddled over them. Danny knew what was coming and still screamed when they began to bite down on them.
"GET ME OUT!" he screamed at whatever power was letting him see this. "LET ME OUT LET ME OUT LET ME OUT!" He clamped his hands down over his ears and began to shake uncontrollably.
There is blood everywhere, absolutely everywhere. It is soaking into his jeans, into his skin; not dried yet, it congealed in globs and sticky dark pools all around him. There is a figure in the midst of the blood standing over one of them, those awful monsters, holding a knife and looking both drained and triumphant. He has hair the color of snow, eyes dark as night and a voice so intense and quiet it commands the attention of everyone around him. Even as Andra asks him if he was okay and grabs Danny, pulling him into her arms and holding him so tightly it hurt, he is talking over her.
"Jocasta, we need to move-"
He cuts her off. "No, we don't. You two do. I'm staying."
"What?" She stares at him with wide eyes. "Are you insane? No one can kill them. This was just a fluke."
"No. No, it wasn't." Jocasta grips his knife tighter. "The eyes. It's the eyes. It always has been and we never realized it. And sunlight! It's not just a matter of stealth, it's lethal! I can do this, Andra. You just need to get this information out there. You need to tell the others and you need to get to safety."
Andra looks at him incredulously and angrily. "And you?" she demands.
"I'm the flame for the moths. They know I know. They think you're an idiot I'm sleeping with. You can leave. I have to stay to keep them at bay." He grabs his coat off the floor and put it on, ignoring the blood on it. "This isn't up for debate. If nothing else, do it for the kid."
"No, no, I won't-"
He grips her shoulders and steps closer. "Listen to me, Andra Elizabeth. Every day of your life you have been selfish as hell. Your life has always revolved around what you wanted. What I am asking you now is to grow up and think about the rest of the world. You have a son. He. Is. A. Toddler." He says each word with particular emphasis. "If you don't leave the only family you have left on this planet is going to die. Listen to me for once in your life. Leave, and never, ever come back."
"You're my family too," Andra says weakly, in a choked sort of voice. "Please, please stay safe." She hands him something that Danny doesn't see in the dim light. "Keep it with you."
"I'm coming back, An-An," he whispers softly, fiercely. "I promise. And I don't lie."
She turns and walks away. Only her son hears her whisper, "Yes you do."
