Here's the one-shot I promised! I was going to publish this separately but I was too lazy to do so.

So, this is a cute story of how Danny and Tucker met and became friends prior to PNF.

Enjoy!

Phantom's First Friend

"Danny, are you ready to go to the park?" six-year-old Jazz Fenton asked her four-year-old brother, Danny.

"Ready, Jazz!" the black-tailed merboy replied. In his arms was an old pool toy torpedo that Danny found buried in the sand one day. He had been fascinated with human objects for a few months ever since he found the thing.

Danny and Jazz's mother, Maddie, swam into the foyer where her two guppies were waiting for her to take them to the park.

"Are you two ready to go?" Maddie Fenton asked.

"Yeah," Jazz answered.

"I brought some sea nut butter and jellyfish sandwiches for your lunches," Maddie said, holding up her picnic basket.

"Yay!" the two guppies cried excitedly.

The three merfolk left the house and swam through their small village to reach a coral reef large enough for merchildren to swim and play on. Jazz instantly started looking around to see if her two friends, Johnny and Kitty, were hiding in the coral or amongst the rocks. Danny, however, swam to a small corner of the playground and played quietly with his toy.

This made Maddie concerned for her youngest guppy. The poor boy did not have any friends to call his own. He occasionally played with Jazz and her friends but it was clear that Jazz's friends did not want Danny to play with them at all. When Jazz was Danny's age, she had already became friends with Kitty. Johnny came along about two years later. So why wasn't Danny making any friends? At first Maddie thought it was because of Danny's breed, Phantasma Nereiorum Formant. Now it seemed like it might have had something to do with Danny's sudden fascination with humankind.

Meanwhile, Danny was throwing the pool toy torpedo around, watching with fascination how quickly it zoomed through the water. How did humans make it go as quickly as a fish swam? He also loved how rubbery the torpedo felt when he held it in his slimy hands. The tye-dye pattern on the toy also made it look like a multicolored fish.

Danny's toy was suddenly snatched by another merboy who Danny knew quite well. His blond stringy hair and light green eyes went well with the freckles on his cheeks. His fins matched his dark grey tail. This was Jazz's friend, Johnny, who was known as the "Infelix Allec," or "Unlucky Herring."

Danny frowned at Johnny for stealing his toy. "Hey! Gimme back my toy!" Danny yelled.

Johnny just laughed. "Your toy? I don't see your name on it," he said.

"I found it, so it's mine!" Danny argued. He swam up to Johnny's height to get his toy but Johnny kept it out of reach.

"You want it? Come and get it!" he taunted. "Freaky Phantom!"

"Give it back!" Danny shrieked as he swam in circles to retrieve his toy.

"Freaky Phantom! Freaky Phantom! Freaky Phan-whoops!" the toy missile slipped out of Johnny's hands and it sped off to the other side of the playground. Both boys sped off after it.

"Go away, Johnny! It's my toy!" Danny shouted.

"Not if I catch it first!" Johnny taunted.

Both boys swam after the toy torpedo as it zoomed through the coral reef. It did not help that fins and tentacles from the other guppies kept hitting and flicking it in all directions. Occasionally, Danny or Johnny would manage to grab hold of the toy only for the other boy to knock it out of his hand. Eventually, the torpedo fell into the trench on the far side of the playground. It was off limits to the guppies, which was why the playground was so far away from it.

Danny could only look in horror as his favorite plaything fell deeper and deeper into the trench until he could not see it anymore. If it were possible for tears to appear in his eyes they would have been flooded by now. The little Phantom Merman then started bawling.

Johnny floated up from the ground and brushed himself off. "So much for that," he grumbled. "If I had Shadow with me, he'd get it back."

Jazz and her friend Kitty swam up to the two boys, followed by several other guppies who were curious to see what was going on.

"What happened?" Jazz asked as she embraced her baby brother. Danny's only reply was him pointing to Johnny.

Kitty, a Zelum Betta, or "Jealous Betta" narrowed her ruby red eyes (which matched her fins and tail) at Johnny. "Johnny, what did you do this time?" she demanded.

Johnny folded his arms. "I was just having fun," he grumbled. "Not my fault the freak can't take a joke."

"Don't call my brother a freak!" Jazz scolded.

"Well he is!" Johnny argued.

Danny looked up at his sister. "How are we gonna get it back?" he asked.

Jazz looked down into the trench and shook her head. "That toy is as good as gone, Danny," she told him. "Guppies are not allowed into the trench."

"Yeah, guppies," said Johnny. He paused and an evil smile appeared on his face. "Actually, if you go down there, you're considered a grownup."

Danny's head turned towards Johnny. "You mean I can still get it?" he asked with a little uncertainty.

"Johnny…" Jazz warned.

Johnny put his hands behind his back and straightened up as if to look more mature. "If you think you're a grownup, then yeah," he confirmed.

"I think I'm a grownup!" Danny exclaimed.

"Johnny!" Kitty snapped. "We're not allowed down there! You know that!"

Johnny slumped and sighed. "Fine. He can bring someone down with him," he suggested.

Jazz swam up to her friend. "Danny is not going down into the trench!" she declared. Johnny wasn't listening. He was scanning the other guppies who had gathered to see who would go with Danny down into the trench. "Are you even listening to me?"

"I'm going to get the grownups if you don't stop," Kitty warned.

Johnny continued to ignore the girls. He then laid eyes on a dark-skinned Cecaelia boy who was about Danny's age. "You'll go with him," he told the octopus boy.

The Cecaelia was shocked. "What?!" he exclaimed. "I'm not going down there, especially not with the Phantom."

Johnny got into the boy's face. "What's the matter? Scaredy catfish?" he taunted.

"No!" the Cecaelia boy said, trying to sound brave.

"Prove it. Go down with the Freaky Phantom and get his toy," Johnny dared.

"Fine!" the Cecaelia exclaimed. He swam near Danny, keeping his distance from him as if Danny had a disease.

Both Danny and the Cecaelia looked down into the trench and then slowly swam down into it, ignoring Jazz's pleas to come back. Unfortunately, Johnny was holding her back while Kitty swam off to get the adults.

~0~0~0~

The two guppies swam deeper and deeper into the trench in silence. Danny used a light spell to help them see. The Cecaelia boy was surprised that someone who wasn't a member of his race could use magic without reciting an incantation.

"You can do that too?" he suddenly asked Danny.

Danny looked at his companion. "Yeah. I've always been able to do this," he answered.

"That's strange. Only people like me can do magic without saying the spell," the Cecaelia replied.

Danny readily frowned, thinking the other boy was calling him strange. "Well I don't know what to tell you. I've always been able to do magic without saying the spell, so there!" he snapped.

The Cecaelia went quiet. "You don't have to be mean about it," he mumbled.

Danny stopped where he was and looked down. "Everyone is mean to me," he said dejectedly.

The Cecaelia looked at Danny, confused. "'Cause you're the Phantom, that's why," he answered like it was common sense.

"But what does that mean?" Danny asked. "What's so bad about being a Phantom?"

The other boy shrugged. "I don't know. My mommy and daddy just told me that the Phantom brought nothing but bad luck to every ocean and sea in the world."

Danny frowned. "How?"

The boy shrugged again. "They wouldn't tell me."

The two continued swimming downward until they finally reached the bottom of the trench. Everywhere they turned, they were met with darkness, despite the light in Danny's small hand.

"So what are we looking for?" asked the Cecaelia as he lit a light of his own in his hand.

"My toy," Danny answered.

"What does it look like?"

"It looks like the Ops Center on my house."

"What's an Ops Center?"

Danny drew his toy in the sand with his finger from his free hand. "It kind of looks like this," he said. "It's small and it has lots of colors on it."

The other boy frowned. "I've never heard of or seen anything like that," he said. "Where did you get it?"

"I found it on the ground."

"I've never heard of any toy like that before. Where's it from?"

Danny paused before telling the other boy. "I think it's from the surface," he answered.

The other boy blinked and shook his head in disbelief. "The surface? Where the humans live?" he asked for clarity.

"I think so," Danny replied. "There was some writing on the very back and I couldn't read it."

"How did a human's toy get all the way to the bottom of the ocean?" asked the boy.

"I'm not sure. A lot of humans drop lots of stuff into the water," said Danny.

The two boys continued searching through the dark, looking under rocks and into cracks. Soon, however, Danny could no longer stand the silence that returned between him and the other boy.

"So, what's your name?" he asked.

The Cecaelia boy looked up from where he was looking. "I'm Tucker," he said.

"My name is Danny."

Tucker swam over to Danny and shook his hand. "Nice to meet you, Danny," said Tucker.

Danny looked down at their shaking hands and back to Tucker. "Really?" he asked in disbelief. "But I thought you didn't want to be friends with a Phantom."

Tucker nodded. "Yeah, but you're alright. I don't get why Mommy and Daddy think the Phantom is bad luck. You don't seem bad."

"Maybe they got it backwards. Maybe bad luck always follows the Phantom," Danny suggested. "'Cause bad things always happen to me."

Something then caught Tucker's eye. It looked like a multicolored missile or rocket. He swam over and held his light over his head to get a closer look. He picked it up and brought it to Danny.

"Is this what you're looking for?" he asked.

Danny's face lit up. "That's it! You found it!" he exclaimed excitedly. He took it and gave it a huge hug. He then held it to Tucker's light. "See? You can see writing on it on the very end."

Sure enough, the words "Made in China" was branded into the rubbery surface of the pool toy.

"Wow! What does it say?" asked Tucker.

"I have no idea," Danny answered.

Having found what they were looking for, the boys were about ready to return to the playground. Unfortunately, there was a small problem.

"How are we going to get back up?" asked Danny as he looked up.

Tucker looked up too but only saw blackness, even with the light in his slimy hand. How deep was this trench?

"We're really deep in this trench," he remarked.

This got Danny a little scared. "Shouldn't we just swim up?" he asked, clutching his toy to his chest.

Tucker shook his head. "Best if we didn't. We've been swimming everywhere down here. For all we know, we could be in a cave or something and not know it," he stated. "We might bump our heads swimming up and that always hurts."

Danny thought about their predicament and came up with an idea. "What if we make a lot of noise? Someone has got to hear us if we make noise," he suggested.

Tucker furrowed his eyebrows. "What kind of noise?" he asked.

Danny shrugged. "We could scream," he suggested.

Both boys took a deep breath before releasing the loudest screams they could muster.

~0~0~0~

Maddie was close to hysterical after Kitty approached her and the other mothers, telling them what happened at the trench. All of the mothers swam to the trench as fast as they could to make sure their guppies were there and not in the trench. Only two guppies were unaccounted for: Danny and a Cecaelia boy named Tucker. Jazz told her that she tried to stop Johnny from making Danny and Tucker go into the trench, but Maddie didn't care at that moment. All she cared about was getting her other guppy out of the trench. Leaving Jazz with Kitty's mother, Maddie and Tucker's mother, Angela, swam down into the trench.

"How old is your guppy?" Angela asked as she lit a light in her hand.

"Four years old. He'll be five in April," Maddie answered.

Angela smiled. "That's the same age as my son."

Maddie nodded. She knew that Angela would find out about Danny as soon as they found him and Tucker. No point in holding back. "My son is also the Phantom," she said.

Angela looked at Maddie in shock. "Your son?" she asked, surprised.

Maddie nodded again. "He is. That's why he's always being picked on by the other guppies," she explained.

"I'm surprised, given the notorious reputation his breed has," Angela replied.

Maddie stopped swimming and put her hands on her hips. "For your information, my son is nothing like the Phantoms before him. He's the sweetest, most selfless boy anyone has ever met," she defended.

Angela was at a loss. She had heard about the Phantom being the most cold-hearted and brutal merman in history. Here was this mermaid protecting her son, the next Phantom, from the hate and ridicule that came with being the most feared merfolk breed in all of existence. Angela would have to see for herself how this Phantom behaved toward her only child.

Screams broke the mothers from their thoughts. They both swam further down into the trench faster than ever. Maddie cast a light spell so she could also see better. Both mothers followed the screams until they found Danny and Tucker screaming their little lungs out.

"DANNY!"

"TUCKER!"

Maddie and Angela scooped up their respective sons into their arms and comforted them.

"Are you hurt?"

"My poor baby!"

Both boys cried into their mothers' arms. They were both very relieved that their mothers had finally come to their rescue.

"Mommy! I was so scared!"

"I thought I was gonna be trapped down here forever!"

Maddie and Angela hushed their children before swimming back up the trench until they were at the top.

"Mommy!" Jazz cried as she swam to her mother. "You found Danny!"

Maddie grabbed Jazz to join in the embrace. "Yes, I found him and he's fine," she assured her daughter.

Meanwhile, Angela was comforting her son who finally calmed down. "Tucker, sweetie, are you alright?" she inquired.

Tucker nodded. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I didn't want to go down there," he defended. "Johnny made me go down there with Danny."

"Danny?" Angela repeated. She turned towards Maddie and saw the merboy embracing his mother. Maddie was looking lovingly at her son, no hint of resentment anywhere in her eyes.

"Danny is a Phantom, Mommy, and guess what? He isn't bad luck like you said," Tucker said. "Can I play with Danny again?"

Angela made eye contact with Maddie. "Can we set up a playdate? Maybe next week?" she asked.

Maddie looked down at Danny. "Do you want to play with Tucker again next week?"

Danny nodded. "Yeah. Tucker is a lot of fun!" he exclaimed.

Maddie looked back at Angela with a smile. "It's a playdate," she answered.

Both boys cheered, causing the two mothers and Jazz to cover their ears. She didn't show it but Maddie was ecstatic to see that her son had finally made a friend. Granted, Tucker would be Danny's only friend throughout most of his childhood, but the two would remain thick as thieves for years to come.

So there you have it! I figured this would tide you guys over until I post the next chapter of the story.

Please tell me how I did for this! Your reviews mean a lot to me!