A/N: First of all, I know this is a complete deviation from all my other stuff at the moment. I had been taking a break from fanfiction, just so everyone's clear on that.
….
But I kinda came back to the fold anyway. (sheepish grin)
I'll be working on the other stuff as soon as I can get to it. I've already started on some of the new chapters!
(cough) Anyway, this is an experiment. If you like, review and tell me so, so I can keep going, or abandon on the side of the road.
P.S. This a shorter first chapter than what I usually do, but this IS an experiment. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't Danny Phantom. If I did…well, let's just say I'd have plans. (wicked grin)
---------------
Gender Benders
Chapter One: A Big Misunderstanding
"So…what are we gonna do about this 'Talent Show' thing?"
Sam scowled marvelously as she punched her friend Tucker in the arm. "Absolutely nothing whatsoever," she growled.
She looked to her only other best friend in the world for support and saw that he wasn't paying attention to the conversation at all. "Danny?"
"Huh?" muttered her raven-haired friend, "What were you saying?"
"Hello? The Talent Show? Were you even in that classroom?" she said, her voice teasing.
She smiled as Danny groaned, and snuck in an appreciative glance at her longtime friend and half ghost.
Sam remembered how, back in the days of freshman year (not that long ago actually, only a year), Danny had been a scrawny kid. Honestly, she wasn't surprised when all his fighting finally started to affect his build. Unfortunately nobody else seemed to notice his new, ahem, physique, as he wore the same baggy clothes he had ever worn. Sam didn't seem to mind though. She could admire him any –
Oh cripes…she was not going to think like that anymore! Yeesh, after all that yelling about how she wasn't involved with Danny, and she was the one that had to get all mushy anyway. I hate my life, she thought morbidly.
"Ah, it's not like I have any talents anyway," said Danny casually, "Lancer's gonna make sure I don't get involved because of my extensive history with accident-prone disasters."
Both Sam and Tucker gave their friend a pointed look and Danny blinked in surprise, embarrassed, "Uh…I mean no talent that I can expose, right?"
"Oh," said Tucker grinning as he absently kicked a rock off the sidewalk, "Then yeah, I guess you're right Danny. No talents to speak of at all."
Danny shot a dark look at Tucker from under his bangs, but both of his friends saw that he didn't mean it at all. "Thanks for your unwavering support."
"No prob!" answered his best friends in unison.
He sighed and ruffled his raven colored hair with his free hand, "Agh…but really? I don't want to do it. You think Lancer will let us off the hook?"
"Ha!" barked Tucker loudly, "You think Lancer's let us off the hook for anything? Ever? At All?"
Danny shoved his hands in his pockets and rolled ice-blue eyes skyward while Sam tried not to laugh.
"Besides," Tucker said seriously, "what would you do, if we have to do this…'Talent Show' thing?" He flipped out his ever present PDA and started typing things into it. Sam had always wondered what on earth he kept in that thing.
"Well, I would probably do a poetry slam," said Sam proudly, "I'm pretty good at it now."
Tucker shook his head and muttered something that sounded like, "Goth maniac," in low tones. Sam gave him a narrow glare and he cringed. Looking away from his PDA, Tucker spoke up. "I think I might do some kind of 3-D animation of some sort…you know, like Pixar and all that? I know how, and I think it would work."
"You know CGI?" asked Sam, her eyes widening with Danny's. This was new.
"Yeah," Tucker shrugged casually, "But I've never done anything that big before. It'd be good practice."
"What about you Danny?" asked Sam with an air of casual conversation, "What do you think you'll do?"
The halfa sighed and looked up at the afternoon sunlit sky. "I might have to –"
He gasped and his breath turned to mist.
All three friends shared a knowing look.
Danny grumbled under his breath, "…go ghost."
A large amount of property damage and quite a few insults later, Danny had touched down in front of his house and changed back to his human self. Skulker was such a pain in the butt. A few moments later, Sam and Tucker ran up to meet him.
"Are you guys ok?" asked a weary looking Danny, his shoulder leaning up against his home's brick wall.
"Wow…that was the worst timing ever," huffed Tucker as he finished running.
"No," fought Sam, though she was breathing heavily as well, "There have been worse times. Much worse."
The three teens smiled at each other somberly, remembering those times, which really weren't that long ago. Danny waved an impatient hand at his friends and headed to the front door of his house.
"I'll talk to you guys online later," he said as he unlocked the door, grinning, "See you."
"Bye Danny!" "See you later!" called his two friends as they started their walk back to their respective houses.
Sam wrote a few lines of poetry in her black and purple diary with her black pen, humming to herself. She was lying on her stomach, sprawled on her bed, a few black candles burned next to her on her black dresser. She had her feet rested on her pitch colored pillows, and a small breeze drifted in from an open window, ruffling her black gauze drapes. Shifting from arm to arm, Sam rustled her sheets which were…well, let's put it this way, they weren't pink.
Prepping for her so-called poetry slam was a must. There was simply too much inexperience for her to go up on stage and regurgitate some pre-packaged stereotypical Goth "Life is a hateful pit of despair" garbage. This time, she was going back to the classics…some Shakespeare, maybe a little Blake….
Her eyes drifted over her Lit book, and she caught a bit of Shakespeare.
"In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes.
For they and thee a thousand errors note.
But 'tis my heart loves what they despise,
who in despite of view is pleas'd to dote."
She couldn't help but grin. If she could come up something that was less than half as good as Shakespeare, she would be honored. And it would hopefully blow her parents' minds. They couldn't say no to poetry.
"Ah," she sighed to herself as her IM rung at her from her laptop. "That would be Danny."
TypicalHaunt: hey sam
Raveninflight: Danny!
TypicalHaunt: you still typing in 'perfect english'?
TypicalHaunt:
Raveninflight: …
And they continued in that manner, teasing and sniping at each other until Tucker "Technogeek0110" came back on, and then the subject somehow slipped back to that damnable "Talent Show."
Sam typed quickly, asking her question from earlier in the day. What on earth was Danny going to do? Honestly, though she loved him, she had no idea what special talents he had acquired over his lifetime. Aside from the obvious.
Raveninflight: Soo…Danny. What are you going to do?
TypicalHaunt: i dunno…
Technogeek0110: yeah, what are you gonna do? dance?
Raveninflight: Oh dear lord, I hope not.
TypicalHaunt: hey!
Raveninflight: Come on; you are a boy doomed to a life with two left feet.
Technogeek0110: she's got a point ya know
Raveninflight: Indeed. I speak the truth.
Raveninflight: P
TypicalHaunt: haha…i'm dyin' here.
Technogeek0110: you could do what you did during sam's "save the frogs"
spiel…
TypicalHaunt: …murders in cold blood
Raveninflight: HA! You two kill me.
TypicalHaunt: i gtg.
As Danny signed off, obviously in a hurry, Sam couldn't help but frown. She paused in her typing and snuck a quick glance out her window, a worried look crossing her countenance.
She hoped it wasn't anything too serious.
"Mmm, chocolate. Woman's best friend."
The woman would have sounded completely normal to any general passerby. It is a known fact that every woman, or girl, loves her chocolate.
The reason people screamed at this statement, instead of giving off a polite giggle, was because this particular woman was floating. And glowing. It was a sure sign of the abnormal, and in Amity Park, this meant that (save for about five or six particular people) it was time to head for the hills.
This is how a normally packed mall emptied in less than five minutes.
"Uh, Miss?"
The woman turned, her eyes glowing a bright silver color. Dark locks drifted in the air, and her outfit, though a bit Xena-ish, looked fit for royalty. She bit off a piece of the chocolate in her hand and smiled winningly. "Yes?"
Danny floated a few feet behind the strange chocolate-fixated ghost. He blinked in confusion at the lack of hostility, and then grinned shrugging. "You're kind of scaring away the customers. Mind going somewhere else to buy chocolate?"
She frowned and quickly finished her chocolate, lowering herself to the ground as she did so. "You look awfully young," she said, not unkindly, "For a ghost, especially."
Danny decided to touch down and walk over. "Aren't you a ghost?"
The woman smiled, her eyes shining even in the store's fluorescent lighting. "I am a goddess."
Privately, Danny thought this was ridiculous. But, saying that out loud might make the situation worse. "Really?" he couldn't help but drawl.
She frowned again, this time unkindly. "You do not believe me." Her voice had gone from warm and sunny to cold and icy in a split second. Danny was strongly reminded of Jazz or Sam…or even his Mom, on one of their off days.
"What are you, really?" he asked again, shifting his feet and arms into a defensive stance. He smirked, "Aside from someone stuck in 'that time of the month.'"
This, however, was the wrong thing to say.
The woman's eyes turned completely white, and her clothing seemed to morph into a battle-ready suit of ancient armor. A bow and arrow appeared in her hands and the glow around her intensified to the point where even Danny had to shield his eyes.
"You DARE," she all but roared. She put a foot forward and shot an arrow in Danny's direction. He collected his instincts and went intangible just in time for the arrow to hit the air where he was previously.
Whoa, that was FAST! How did she do that?
He didn't get another chance to think as a slew of arrows pelted the space around him, and he danced around them, using muscles he didn't even know he had.
"Men!" she hissed, as she shot more arrows at the offending ghost's direction. "They are ALL the SAME!" She held up a hand to her lips and whistled sharply. An instant later, two hunting dogs appeared by her side, growling and snarling. "Get him!" she cried. "No man who insults Artemis of the Hunt shall live to see his next sunrise!"
Though Danny had slept through most of Lancer's Literature classes, the name 'Artemis' rang a bell. He blasted the dogs with two bursts of ectoplasmic energy, and they went down successfully. Danny flew upwards towards the skylight, just out of range.
"Hey, you were the one stealing chocolate!" he shouted down to the crazy woman. "Don't blame me for your weird cravings!"
"ARGH!" she screamed, "You shall PAY for your insolence, ghost child!" Her hands dropped her bow and shot out a beam of bright silver that sliced through the air, hitting Danny straight in the chest and snapping his head backwards. The blow pushed him into the skylight and outside into the sky, where he proceeded to drop like a stone into the concrete, creating a large crater when he hit.
The woman's eyes returned to their normal silver, and her clothes shifted back to the ancient formal gown she had worn previously. She smiled, her eyes dark with retribution, then faded away, a piece of chocolate still in her hands.
Soon, you shall understand EXACTLY what it is like…ghost boy.
"You look like you've been run over by a truck."
"Thanks Jazz," muttered Danny, holding his head with an ice pack, "The support is well appreciated."
Jasmine, or Jazz, smiled down on her little brother. "I'm sorry to hear that she got away," she said, her voice warm, "You'll get her next time, Danny."
"What kind of 'goddess' is she anyway?" he asked to no one in particular. "Goddess of Chocolate Addicts and Bad Temper?" His voice took on a bitter note. "I still don't understand how she moved so quickly…no ghost I've ever fought, and that includes myself, ever moved that fast."
"What was her name? You never told me," asked Jazz as she opened her laptop, starting it up.
"Uh," said Danny, "She said something about regretting insulting 'Artemis of the Hunt' or something like that."
Jazz, who had been typing peacefully, twitched violently. "WHAT?" she practically yelled.
Danny scooted backwards in surprise before frowning. "I take it you recognize the name?" he said needlessly.
"Danny," Jazz started patiently, "How many of Lancer's lectures did you sleep through? Did you miss the first half of the semester?" She glared at him. "Artemis is the Greek Goddess of the Moon and of the Hunt! She's famous in Greek mythology!"
Her little brother looked guilty. "It did ring a bell," he said sheepishly. He blinked at his sister's huff and tilted his head. "I guess that means she really was a goddess."
Jazz delivered a perfectly executed 'duh!' look in his direction. Danny frowned before yawning and looking at the clock.
"Oh man, I have to sleep," he said tiredly. Jazz managed a small smile and patted him on the back.
"You might not get her, but I'm sure she'll get over whatever you did to her to make her mad," she said in an encouraging manner. "Good night little bro."
Danny yawned again, and waved his own 'good night' back. After falling backwards onto his bed and turning off the lights, he wondered briefly why the gnawing feeling in his stomach hadn't left him yet.
Eh, forget it. He flipped over and sighed to himself. I'm going to sleep.
It was a cold morning when he awoke.
The rain outside wasn't pouring. And it wasn't raining. It was deluging down in an unbroken torrent of water.
He shuffled himself deeper into his sheets and prayed to any deity nearby for it to be a Saturday instead of the Monday he was expecting it to be. A quick squint at the calendar on his wall proudly proclaimed the date as a Monday; no such luck.
He groaned audibly and twisted himself into an impossibly curled position.
I refuse to get up…this is cruel and unusual punishment.
His eyes blinked sluggishly as his mind fought with his body; one wanted to sleep in sweet slumber, the other insisted that, if he was late to class again, somebody was going to kill him.
Still, his body refused to move as it reminded his mind firmly that at around 3:00am this morning he had been stuffing that annoying Box Ghostinto a Fenton Thermos.
Danny Fenton was tired, and probably a whole slew of other synonyms, and he didn't want to wake up.
So, he fell back to sleep, only slightly aware that his bed seemed bigger than usual, and his hair was a long ways past his shoulders.
Danny awoke again with his older sister's voice calling his name urgently.
He had found a way to shuffle himself completely under his covers, so Jazz was currently shaking him by the shoulder.
"Danny! Wake up!" she said, her voiced raised slightly, "You're gonna be late!"
He deigned to give her a moan and a muffled mutter of, "I feel horrible Jazz…can't I be sick for once?"
Pausing, he cleared his throat. His voice sounded weird and a little bit…off. Maybe he was sick.
Apparently, Jazz noticed too. "Danny? Wow, maybe you are sick," she said concerned, unintentionally following his train of thought.
Sighing, he reached out from under his covers and brought himself to sit up in bed, rubbing his eyes. He was tired yes, but he still managed to notice his sister freeze and tense up, her eyes widening.
He shifted his gaze to her, absently noting that something had brushed his elbow when he had turned his head. "Jazz?" he said, now a little worried.
Jazz opened her mouth and then quickly shut it. She repeated this action a few more times before completely closing her jaw completely.
"Jazz," Danny repeated, this time his tone was irritated, "What are you staring at?"
"Y-you should go look in the mirror Danny."
"I know what I look like at 7:42 in the morning Jazz, thanks," muttered Danny as he tried clearing his throat again to make his voice a little less high-pitched and nasally. Dangit…maybe he really was sick.
"No," said Jazz, her voice wobbly and squeaky, "Really, you should just take a quick look in the mirror." She jerkily gestured to the mirror on his bureau, her body still stiff.
Or…maybe Jazz had finally snapped. Climbing quickly out of bed, Danny stumbled a little and shook his head. My center of balance is off, he thought absently to himself. Ignoring the strange light-as-a-feather feeling he was getting, he shuffled his way over to blink at himself in his mirror.
When his eyes finally focused, he blearily realized, with mounting horror, that his hair had become a blanket of black over his shoulder and down his back.
That, and his pajamas didn't fit correctly in the right places anymore.
"J-Jazz?" his voice came out squeaky.
"Yes?" she asked, her tone revealing that she was still in deep shock.
"I think I'm going to fall asleep again," he said, and no sooner had the words been spoken, Danny Fenton, long-time veteran of saving the world and fighting evil megalomaniacs, pitched over in a dead faint.
"Where is Danny?" muttered a miserably wet Sam Manson.
"I think he could still be running to get here," answered Tucker, much more cheerfully than Sam, as he had brought the marvelous invention some call "The Umbrella."
"I'm going to kill him for this," she replied testily, her hair starting to curl at the ends as they heated up from her simmering annoyance.
"And we might not make it to class if we stay," sighed Tucker, his PDA beeping at him noisily; the alarm he had set for them to get to school on time had gone off.
Sam's cell rung loudly in her backpack and she picked it up, growling, "Hello?"
"Sam?" cried a familiar voice through the phone, "Is that you?"
Sam raised a single eyebrow. "Jazz? How'd you get my number?"
"That's not important!" she yelled into the phone, "There's something seriously wrong with Danny!"
"What!" cried Sam, tossing her compiled list of "Things to Thoroughly Embarrass Danny For" to the four winds. "What happened! Is he hurt?"
There was a long pause after that statement, and Sam could have sworn she heard a small scuffle ensue before a different, yet extremely familiar voice, joined her in conversation.
"Sam?" the new voice asked wearily, "It would be awfully great if the two of you can rush over to my place really really quick. There's been an…accident."
Sam felt a wave of dread encompass her before she realized something. "Danny? Is that you?"
There was a long groan on the other end before… "Yes Sam, it's me. Could you and Tucker –"
"Come over? Yeah," said Sam quickly, "Sure."
She could practically hear Danny smile with relief over the phone, "Thanks Sam."
"This is not what I had in mind when I suggested breaking it to them slowly."
Jazz frantically held up a pink dress before throwing it out, not noticing the horror-filled expression that crossed Danny's face.
Still digging, she barely looked back at her younger brother as she said, "I think they'll take it like grown teenagers. They've seen weirder stuff before right?"
Danny's expression only grew with silent terror as he glanced anywhere but down. "I wouldn't count on that," he muttered, knowing exactly how a "grown teenager" would react in a situation like this, as he had gone through all five stages of denial and it wasn't even past 8:00am yet.
Jazz held up a light grey shirt and black jeans and threw them in Danny's direction. "These will have to do for now," she said, her voice still a little shaky. Danny could tell she was really worried; she hadn't blamed him for anything yet.
"Thanks Jazz," he sighed, grateful for the little things in life.
It was then that the door bell rang.
Sam tapped her foot impatiently. She looked up and down and around, and tried to keep herself occupied. It wasn't working.
"I thought," she muttered, "he said that this was important."
Jazz, Danny's older sister and pseudo-adult, grinned weakly. "It – it is. Yes."
Tucker sighed and morosely tapped at his PDA. "We are so late," he said to no one in particular.
Jazz sighed as well. "Look, you think I don't go to the same school? We're all late," she returned wearily. "It'll be just a moment more. I could only teach him so much in ten minutes."
Both Tucker and Sam frowned. "'Teach?'" they asked in unison, raising an eyebrow each.
"JAZZ!" cried a voice that Sam immediately recognized as Danny's…but, just as on the phone earlier, it had a strange, high, more nasally tone to it. "I DON'T KNOW WHAT THIS THING DOES!"
Jazz jumped into the air as if she was electrocuted. "I'm coming!" she yelled back, some sort of stress making her voice squeak. Quickly, she ran upstairs.
Tucker and Sam blinked as one.
The conversation they heard went as follows:
"You didn't have to scream at me!"
"Oh, I think I have more right to scream than anyone else in the house at the moment."
"Oh jeez, it was just this stupid strap. You made it sound like the apocalypse."
"Jazz, to me, this is the apocalypse."
"You know I could take that as an insult."
"But you're not going to, because this is the apocalypse."
"Oh hush. Are you coming out or not?"
"Yeah, yeah…."
Tucker looked apprehensive and Sam shivered as she felt an ominous sense of foreboding fill the room. This, she felt, was Not Good.
Jazz reappeared at the bottom of the stairs.
And behind her, Sam noticed with a horrible sinking feeling in her stomach, came…"Danny?" she asked, her voice barely registering on the same level of normal human hearing.
Long pitch-black hair practically stood up on end. Those familiar ice-blue eyes stared right back at her, completely on edge. Sam saw Danny…but she didn't understand how she did.
Because at the moment, her best friend was not exactly of the male persuasion anymore.