This chapter is a tad longer than usual. I also hope it clears up any confusion.
The Origins of Danny Phantom
By FlikFreak
Part Nine: Reassurance and Unease
He didn't know whether he was running or flying, but Danny was going as fast as he possibly could. He barely noticed that the world around him was dark and dreary, with various doors and bits of land floating in midair. Unable to control himself, he felt his head swivel around to see a glowing green octopus racing after him. He recognized it as the one from school. As he ran from it, it continued chasing after him.
Looking ahead, Danny desperately searched for a way out. As though the answer to his prayers, he saw a shift in the air ahead. The void before him rippled, and a glow of green beckoned him forth. Deciding it was his only way out, he raced for it. As he entered, however, his vision became consumed by an eerie, flickering light, and an electric current ran through him, wracking him in pain. He felt as though he were being ripped in half…
Danny sat up in bed with a start, gasping for breath. Whatever that nightmare was, it had seemed vaguely familiar…and yet, he didn't recognize it at all. With a sigh, he wiped the sweat off his forehead and glanced at the bedside clock. "Three-thirty in the morning," he muttered. "Lovely…I'll have to wake up in less than four hours."
The image of himself in the mirror suddenly glared back at him. "You're not very good at this, are you?"
Danny shook his head, sitting up in bed. Crazy or not, speaking to his mirror would probably help alleviate some of the stress. "To be honest, no. I'm not."
Mirror-Danny crossed his arms. "You know what's causing this whole ghost mess, though. It's your parents' portal. You can only get rid of their main entry point if you knock it out of commission."
"But I can't just destroy it!" Danny protested. "If I do that, they'll will never forgive me!"
"Then you'll have to just turn it off," Mirror-Danny suggested flatly. "Unplug it or something. Cut the flow of power from it."
"Or I could hit the 'off' button."
"No can-do, remember? The portal filled up that entire machine. We have no clue how to work it yet, so you'll have to do things the hard way."
"How did I even get into this mess?" Danny groaned, making for his bed and sitting down. "I just wanted to see if I could fix it and make my parents happy."
"Make you parents happy?" Mirror-Danny replied, his expression softening to a strange curiosity. "What do you mean?"
Danny's shoulders drooped a bit. "I never really liked ghosts, but it wasn't that I hated them or anything. I just wasn't interested. I want to be an astronaut, my sister wants to teach at Yale, and my parents are obsessive ghost hunters. That portal downstairs is their life's work, and as annoyed I was that they even considered building it, it just struck a nerve to see how upset they were when it didn't even start up, so I thought I could fix it for them. You know, it would cheer them up and stuff."
"But it didn't go the way you wanted it to," Mirror-Danny added quietly, "Did it?"
"No," Danny replied, sighing, "It didn't...and now I'm stuck being some half-ghost freak. Not only that, but that ghost came through the portal that I turned on. Everything's my fault."
"Well, you might have been the one to mess up all this stuff, but that doesn't mean you can't fix it."
"But how? I barely know where to start other than catching that feral, and who knows what'll happen if more ghosts make their way through."
Mirror-Danny smirked. "It's true that other ghosts are bound to make their way through that portal, but not all ghosts are cut from the same cloth, if you get my meaning."
Danny felt doubtful. "You mean not all ghosts are evil?"
"Exactly," Mirror-Danny replied. "Some just scare people away because they want to be left alone. Others tend to help people out without them knowing. I'm sure if an evil ghost had the powers you did, he'd probably use them to hurt people, but you don't do that. Half-ghost or not, you use what you're given to protect others. For that, you've got my admiration."
Whoever it was in the mirror, he had a point. Besides, having these powers wasn't too terribly bad. Other than it being incredibly cold whenever a ghost came close, he was actually used to it by now. Getting rid of it would probably be just as strange as getting it in the first place.
"Besides, it's natural to be scared of something like this," Mirror-Danny continued. "Fear is what makes us brave. You can't have one without the other."
Danny smiled. "I don't know who you are, but you're right. Thanks." He rolled over in bed, checking to make sure his alarm was still set, and went back to sleep.
Mirror-Danny looked on with a small grin. For a brief moment, however, his image flickered uneasily. He glanced down at his hands, his smile quickly fading to an expression of sad disbelief. "Looks like I don't have much longer," he muttered.
Danny woke up late after all, but it wasn't too much of a problem for him. He grabbed a quick breakfast and simply flew to school as a ghost. He even went faster than most cars on the street. For a while, Danny detested the thought of using the product of a freak accident to avoid being tardy, but it was his only option if he wasn't going to have any more absences.
Flying wasn't actually half-bad, though. It was like sky-diving, only going forward and not down. It was also relaxing; the wind going past and whipping his hair behind him, the view from above…Danny couldn't help but smile during the experience. It was a bit of a shock, however, when he noticed that his legs had been replaced by some form of spectral tail, but when he found that his legs would appear again at will, he dismissed it.
After making his way into the bathroom to go back to human form, he headed straight out into the hall for his locker. Sam and Tucker were waiting for him.
"There you are," Sam said in her usual dark tone. "Why didn't you walk to school with us?"
"Slept in," Danny answered. "I had a nightmare that woke me up a few hours too early. It wasn't easy getting back to sleep." He conveniently left out the bit where he spoke with his mirror, instead distracting himself with opening his locker.
"That doesn't explain how you still managed to get to school so fast," Tucker pointed out. "If you walked you wouldn't be here yet."
Danny grinned. "That's because I didn't walk," he replied, making sure no one was close enough to hear him whisper. "I flew."
Sam's eyes widened. "You what?" she exclaimed. "What if someone saw you?"
Danny shrugged. "I doubt it. If anyone saw me, they wouldn't know it was me anyway. You didn't, after all." He closed his locker. "Come on, let's head to cla-" Danny stopped short when he saw his breath again, the accompanying chill not far off. Sam and Tucker noticed, and stopped along with him.
"Hey, Fen-toad!"
Unfortunately, more trouble was waiting for them.
"Could Dash possibly pick a better time to pick on you?" Sam groaned.
Danny was about to complain when he was struck with an idea. He had to do his best to suppress a grin. "Actually, this is the perfect time for him to pick on me."
A few minutes later saw Dash storming down the hallway with Sam and Tucker discreetly guarding a nearby locker, Danny locked inside. For a moment, the two friends thought that Danny wasn't planning to accept or even want Dash to pick on him, but after a quick few words they knew precisely what to do. Once Dash was out of sight and the hallways were decently clear, they turned to the locker. "The coast is clear, Danny!"
The ghostly form of their friend flew out of the locker, somewhat see-through at first before solidifying outside of his metallic prison. "Okay," he began. "That ghost is somewhere around here. I'm going to track it down. You two head to class. Cover for me if you can." With that, he was off.
Invisibility was very handy for exploring the halls when there were still kids around. Flying was taking a bit more getting used to; having a spectral tail instead of legs allowed him to move much faster. There were no signs of the feral ghost until he reached the track outside the gym. The ghost was indeed there, searching about for something.
It won't be searching for long, Danny though, grinning. He flew downward, readying the Fenton Thermos. "Hey, octo-wuss! Looking for something?!" Man, I have to come up with something better than that…
Corny or not, it got the ghost's attention. Angered, the beast raced for him, raising a tentacle to lash out. Danny, however, was one step ahead, and simply opened up the Fenton Thermos in its direction. Please work! He cried silently as he flipped the device on. A blue light shot out of it, encasing the octopus and downsizing it as it was sucked into the opening of the device like a vacuum. The recoil of the creature becoming entrapped in the device knocked Danny backward through the air a bit, but he quickly recovered and screwed the cap back on. He wiped the sweat off of his brow. "Whew…that was easy."
"Well, well, well, if it isn't Phantom."
Danny froze on the spot, gazing about wildly. "Who's there?!"
"What a pity. Don't you recognize me?"
"Why would I recognize you?" Danny replied hotly. "I'm not this 'Phantom' person, whoever he is."
"But you smell like him. You must be him. How can you not be?"
Danny narrowed his eyes, clutching the thermos tightly. "Listen, I don't know who you are or what you want with me, but I don't particularly feel like dealing with you right now. I have an algebra class to go to."
"You always were the funny one, Phantom. Unfortunately, your little games won't last long. Do you truly think that you are powerful enough to defeat me?"
"Who are you?!" Danny demanded. "And why are you still following me?"
"Fool."
It happened quickly. A blast of white-hot energy erupted from the shadows nearby, slammed into Danny's back and sending him crashing into the bleachers. Though thankfully the pain of hitting the bleachers wasn't as terrible as it could have been, whatever had hit him was still stinging like mad. In the shock, Danny felt himself shifting back to human form.
"The human? Impossible!"
"The human?" Danny echoed as he managed to push himself to his feet. "What, did I become famous when I got electrocuted, too?"
"Silence, mortal!"
A hand suddenly grabbed Danny around the neck, lifting him off the ground. Whatever was attacking him was apparently invisible, but completely capable of inflicting harm. "Let go!" Danny wheezed, struggling.
"I may not know where Phantom is," the voice growled, spitting out each word as though it were poison, "But I cannot allow a human to get in my way!" The invisible tormentor flung Danny across the field, allowing him to skid to a halt near the football goal. Danny could barely stand, but he could make out the air rippling as his transparent assailant flew off.
Sam and Tucker were quickly on the scene. "You okay?" Sam asked, helping him up.
"I've seen better days," Danny replied in a grunt. His body still ached. "Can you guys help me get out? I feel like my limbs are going to fall off."
"You need to get to the nurse," Tucker said, his eyes showing clear concern. "I don't think anyone else saw all that, but I'm amazed you're not more hurt than you are."
Danny couldn't agree more. He didn't answer his friend, however; his mind had wandered. Why was that ghost calling him Phantom? Who was Phantom? Did this all have to do with the incident with the portal? That aside, he felt incredibly dismayed at the sudden defeat he had suffered. He caught the octopus, but now he had another attacker to deal with, and he had a strong feeling that no one was safe so long as it was around. The question was, how do you defeat what you can't see?
"The feral is gone," Clockwork announced. "It would seem that someone has been trying to take it down and finally succeeded."
"Phantom, no doubt," one of the councilmen said.
"But it's too strange," another councilman pointed out. "If he ran from the feral previously, why would he fight it?"
"Phantom is in hiding," Clockwork replied. "The human has been the one battling the feral."
"The human containing Phantom's signature?! Impossible!"
In response, Clockwork turned away briefly. "The human indeed carries Phantom's signal, but I believe that his capability to defeat the beast are far from impossible. Highly unlikely, perhaps, but still very much achievable. Phantom, however, has not made a single move."
"We cannot allow Phantom to roam freely!" A councilman cried frantically. "You know what the future holds for him!"
Clockwork crossed his arms casually. "Phantom no longer roams freely," he said in reminder, "And he will not be for much longer."
There was an eerie silence in the chamber as everyone came to the same conclusion. Noting the foreboding vale that had been cast upon them, Clockwork nodded in confirmation. "Correct. The signal that I recognized as Phantom himself was the weak one. He has less than a day left to exist."
"And after that…?"
Clockwork exited. "The task very well might remain with the boy. After all, it is only a matter of time…"
So...um...I hope that cleared up a few things, maybe? Oh, well...next chapter soons!
