Disclaimer: I still don't own Danny Phantom. Butch Hartman does, and I somehow doubt that will be changing any time soon. Since I'm not making any money from this, there is nothing for the law-ninjas to sue out of me.
Author's Note: Hey, wow, just about a week and a half lag time between the prologue and this chapter! As always, comments are appreciated!
Chapter One: Old Haunts Anew
"I burned my hand, I cut my face
Heaven knows how long it's been
Since I've felt so out of place
I'm wonderin' if I'll fit in"
-"Learning to Live Again" - Garth Brooks
"What the-?"
Unsurprisingly Dan found himself exactly where he'd been standing ten years ago. Well, floating rather, since the building that had been the Mansons' mansion had long since collapsed. The tall ghost spent several minutes just studying his surroundings; for while the destruction he remembered so well was still clearly in evidence, quite a lot had changed in the time, probably about a year, that he'd been gone.
He could see lights in the distance, a glow that lit the sky near the horizon. If Dan squinted, he was pretty sure he could make out new buildings. Not huts or the ramshackle little hideouts he'd uncovered during his fourth and final rampage in ruins of the city, but actual properly built structures. So somehow the humans had known he was gone and that they could come out of hiding. Dan frowned at that.
More of Clockwork's meddling, I'm sure.
Much of the ghost's immediate surroundings were familiar enough that he didn't spare them much of a glance. Piles of debris, buildings pitched over sideways, the odd musty stink of rusting metal and rotted, moldy wood and concrete. It would probably take decades to clear all the rubble. Dan could more thoroughly appreciate the sheer amount of damage he had done; a veritable sea of debris from horizon to horizon, and all of it done by his hands. He only distantly recalled his high school education, but he couldn't think of any force out of the history books that could boast such a thorough job of razing a city to the ground.
Of course, standing around admiring the scenery wasn't going to answer the question of "What now?" Dan needed to know how much had changed while he was away. He wasn't stupid; while charging right in to what appeared to be the new center of the city was what he wanted to do, the ghost also knew that actually doing so would be a most spectacularly bad idea. He would have to go quietly about gathering information. Very quietly.
Roaming invisibly would work for the most part, but Dan knew Valerie had equipment that could detect ghosts. It was safe to assume the rest of her little Patrol or whatever was left of it had similar gadgets. He would need to disguise himself if he wanted to get in among the city and find out what had happened in his absence.
Dan slapped his forehead when it dawned on him the best way to build a plausible disguise. The outfit would be a dead giveaway however; so his first order of business in the city would have to be petty theft. Luck seemed to be with him for the moment; it was late evening and activity on the streets was extremely limited. He scouted the fringes of the new city, invisible and intangible, peering into houses and wondering why he wasn't finding any shops. Select pilfering from what seemed to be a well-stocked but presently vacant house and several nearby residences yielded a workable outfit, and the ghost retreated back into the wastelands with the loot.
I don't want to do this. Dan groused to himself, hiding in the semi-privacy of a collapsed building. It was an ability that had proved useful in his insane attempt at making sure that alternate timeline went the way he felt it was supposed to; but it was uncomfortable to say the least. In the past, he'd described it to himself as putting on a costume that was poorly fitted. Poorly fitted or not, it was his best bet to wander freely in the city and talk to people without getting an ecto-grenade to the face.
With a wordless grumble, the ghost concentrated, ignoring a brief chill as he felt the white rings scan over him from head to toe. The psuedo-transformation felt even more wrong after the incident with the Ghostcatcher in the past, a fact he chalked up to being more 'in balance' as Clockwork had put it. Apparently that balance hadn't altered the appearance of his "human" guise one bit.
"And after all of that, I still look like this?" Dan grumbled, tugging a lock of his now black hair down for a look. "Well, it will suffice."
It took a long moment for the ghost to wriggle out of the jeans and t-shirt that had been his attire a decade ago, and he had to wrestle with the pilfered clothing for a few minutes to get into his new disguise. The black jeans were too long, so he rolled the cuffs up several inches. The shirt was baggy, so he tied the light jacket around his waist. A backwards ball cap and pair of sunglasses completed the look.
I must look like some kind of idiot dressed like this.
Still, it meant people would see a high school kid dressed rather badly, and not the powerful ghost that they had learned to fear. Which meant he could wander the streets in broad daylight without causing a panic and revealing that he had returned. Dan was certain he was not ready to deal with that yet. No doubt he would have Valerie out for his head; he was singlehandedly responsible for destroying the girl's hometown and killing her father Damon.
The ghost spent the remainder of the night on the roof of one of the newer buildings, surveying the area. There was something funny about the newest buildings, and he couldn't put his finger on it. The new city seemed to be flourishing, but he knew that it should not have been so... lush. It reminded him of something he couldn't quite pin down, and he didn't like it.
At daybreak, Dan descended to land in an alleyway, turning visible and strolling out onto the sidewalk with his hands stuffed in his pockets. As the sun climbed higher in the sky, he was better able to make out just what was wrong with the city.
Vines all over. Buildings that were somehow also trees. Plantlife everywhere, an array of greens and bursts of bright flowers. Dan knew his eyes were probably showing bright red behind his sunglasses as he spotted a familiar figure near the center of town. He very nearly threw caution to the wind and only barely restrained himself from transforming to normal and flying to confront it. Instead, the ghost spat a curse and started running.
The fact he did pass people on the street; aware, uncontrolled people only slightly reassured Dan as he passed by. Of course Undergrowth had never shown up in this timeline! Dan would have remembered having to vaporize something that big. The question now was how long had the oversized weed been in the city, and what was different in this timeline compared to the urban jungle the plant ghost had created in that alternate past?
He pounded across a wide bridge, distantly realizing that the center of the city was almost completely surrounded by a small lake, and stopped up short. There was no doubt that this was the nerve center for the new city, with the slick buildings neatly labeled as the New Amity City Hall, hospital, Patrol headquarters, and a school. Along with a large, almost park-like garden in the middle of it, with the plant ghost its dominant feature.
Closer inspection gave Dan pause. There was no doubt that it was Undergrowth, but the ghost's appearance wasn't like the one he'd fought with in the alternate past. Gone were the thorns and the scowling beak; instead the ghost had a relaxed, content posture and had a great deal of flowers for decoration.
"Ah, out for a morning run?" The ghost spotted him and peered down.
Dan was stopped dead and at a loss for how to respond. There wasn't a hostile rasp in Undergrowth's tone, and Dan wasn't quite sure how to react to the conversational inquiry. Hostility, he could handle. An attack, he could handle. Suspicion, he could handle.
"It should be a nice day for it."
Friendly conversation? He hadn't a clue how to handle that.
Undergrowth apparently noticed Dan's silence, as he adjusted his size down to some six feet as opposed to sixty. "Never seen a ghost?"
Dan shook himself from his momentary stupor. If the ghost wasn't attacking, then Undergrowth could be a valuable source of information. "Just... moved here. So... no."
"I thought I hadn't seen you before." Undergrowth nodded sagely. "Please, make yourself at home."
Dan warily accepted a seat on a boulder. "I didn't know ghosts helped humans."
That seemed to amuse the overgrown plant, because Undergrowth chuckled at the remark, thankfully missing the harshness of Dan's statement.
"Most don't. But I reached a... beneficial compromise... with the humans in this city." Undergrowth gestured at the plant-shrouded buildings nearby. "They help my garden and my children thrive, and I assist them in rebuilding their metropolis."
Dan personally thought that made more sense than the other-timeline Undergrowth's takeover attempt, but refrained from saying as much. "Instead of just taking over? I... ur... heard that this entire place got flattened."
Undergrowth coughed. "Ah, yes. The conditions made that approach... untenable."
So he did try to take over then. Dan narrowed his eyes behind the sunglasses. "So what stopped you?"
"You wouldn't know, having just moved here. It was a few months ago, and the winter weather made new growth all but impossible. The Patrol-" A quick gesture at one of the nearby buildings. "-put a quick end to my strength."
So Valerie and the rest fought him. Why didn't they finish him off?
"I... heard... that those guys don't let ghosts go." Dan fibbed. "That they'll tear them apart, molecule by molecule."
Undergrowth nodded at that. "They could have. But their leader realized my powers, and we came to our agreement. It's far from perfect for me, you realize; but it is a lot better than I could do on my own. Ever since Phantom laid waste to this region and crippled the soil with his destruction."
"Phantom, right." Dan slowly stated. "I've heard about him."
"Yes, that was a ghost you would want to avoid." Undergrowth hissed. "He is responsible for that!"
Dan followed where the ghost was pointing, spying the wastelands in the distance. He didn't say anything, and nearly jumped sky high when a voice from behind startled him.
"G'morning, Undergrowth!"
Dan clenched his hands into fists, hidden away in his pockets. He knew that voice, he couldn't forget it if he wanted to. It took every ounce of restraint he had to turn around slowly, jaw clenched shut and red eyes thankfully hidden behind his sunglasses. It was a familiar sensation, the desire to kill; the urge to inflict hurt and pain, revenge. Hate.
"Good morning, Valerie." Undergrowth responded as the huntress strolled by, jet sled tucked under one arm. "You've got morning patrol today?"
"Yup." Valerie paused, glancing at Dan with a frown. "Do I know you?"
Dan opened his mouth, about to say something sarcastic; something that would have utterly destroyed his cover and started a fight right then and there.
"He just moved here." Undergrowth replied first.
"Oh? Sorry then, you just reminded me of someone I knew." Valerie got a strange look on her face that Dan couldn't quite read.
Then again, he was about ten seconds from trying to kill her.
"Later!" Valerie hopped onto her sled and took to the air, and not a moment too soon.
"That's Valerie." Undergrowth gestured at the departing huntress. "She's in charge of the Patrol."
"I... need to go." Dan bit out, getting to his feet.
"Oh, well take care-" Undergrowth glanced back, only to find Dan already gone.
Dan transformed back to his real self, unable to take the disguise a moment longer as he shot through the ground toward the wastelands. Passing intangible through the ground did reveal where most of the people had been hiding during his last rampage however. He passed through several underground complexes, many with people still living in them. He'd never thought to look underground when he was trying to destroy the city.
He kept on into the wastelands, stopping only when he came to a familiar bit of the wreckage; an area that was slightly better kept than the ruins around it, though it was well beyond the outermost perimeter of the new city's control. Dan scowled, landing near the battered buildings as he kicked the long-toppled Nasty Burger signpost. It wasn't a strong kick, so the sign only shifted slightly as he stalked past it and toward a monument he remembered far too well.
Even listing badly to one side, the stone monument was taller than he was; the proof of his failure staring down at him from five pairs of stone eyes. Even in his madness, he'd actively avoided the location; it was likely the reason that one area was never as heavily razed as the rest of the city. There were signs that the new city had a presence in the graveyard; small flowering bushes planted near the graves in lieu of leaving cut flowers, which would probably have displeased Undergrowth, Dan thought. The area was far from the city center, but obviously the survivors had an interest in protecting it.
"Pheh... maybe coming back here was a mistake." Dan growled into the wind, pacing before the monument. "There's less for me here than there was there."
He knew the statue couldn't hear him, much less respond. The ghosts that Sam and Tucker had become were likely off in the Ghost Zone somewhere. The rest of the Fenton clan must have peacefully moved on, because Dan had never encountered them in the Ghost Zone; he somehow suspected he would have seen or heard something had Jack ended up a permanent resident of the ghosts' world.
"Why did I even come back here?" He paused, glaring up at the statue.
Because you can't stand to see him and his happy life, you idiot. Some annoyingly blunt part of his mind retorted. Because he succeeded where you have failed, he has everything you can never have. And you would have driven yourself insane again if you'd stayed in that past. Seeing him with Sam, and Jack with Mom. It was going to drive you nuts if you didn't get away from that place.
"And I'm going to accomplish so much hiding out here." Dan growled to himself.
That close encounter with Valerie had shaken him, and badly. Dan had thought he had better control of himself, yet that brief encounter proved otherwise. Had Undergrowth not spoken first, or had Valerie stuck around longer to chat up the leafy spook... he would have gone back to old habits in a heartbeat. He wasn't ready to face this world he'd created, but the fire-headed ghost had little choice. The time medallion was gone, and he sincerely doubted he could find Clockwork and badger the Master of Time into sending him back to the past.
No, Dan was stuck in the mess of his own making, and he had to find some way to deal with it. He could go back to old habits, the thrill of the chase, of trying to kill Valerie and destroying the painful reminders of his past. The thought of his conversation with Jazz in that past timeline made that option leave a foul taste.
"Things can change, Danny. You proved it not even an hour ago." She told half of him, while his older half was outside the car, speaking with his past self. " If you can come that far in just one day... Do you really want to cheat yourself out of a chance to do better?"
"But if it goes wrong-"
Jazz didn't give him a chance to finish. "What if it goes right? You're being too hard on yourself." She countered, voice full of the conviction she felt. "You aren't what you were ten years ago when this all started. We're all here and safe, you're not the same upset teenager you used to be."
It was all he could do to stare in wordless shock at Jazz as she continued, driving the point home with impassioned confidence. That she felt so strongly about him and his well being, despite what he had tried to do to her, to everyone left him at a total loss.
"You're a grown man, Danny." Jazz patted him on the shoulder. "Sure, you've had problems, but who hasn't? You can change, just today alone has proven that."
"Jazz..." He managed to squeak out, while his older half was telling his past self how to blackmail Vlad into letting the unresolved matter of the castle's destruction go.
What Jazz said next shocked him to the core, and indeed, that was what convinced him to go through with it despite his dire reservations.
"Whatever happens, I'm sure you'll do the right thing. I believe in you, and I'm proud of you. You just have to give yourself a chance."
In a contrary sort of way, he didn't want to let her down; though Jazz would likely never learn the outcome of her persuasion and whether or not he reverted to old habits. It was simply the principle of the matter, he wanted her to be right.
"A chance. Now how do I get one of those?" Dan mused aloud, covering his current sense of confusion with the snarky attitude he'd mastered over the past decade.
Sure, he could play the do-goodie of half of his past. That would be the "right" thing, after all. The idea didn't sit well with the ghost however. Playing the hero may have been part of his past, but he was no hero now. If anything, he had become the worst sort of villain possible, and he couldn't entirely blame Vlad for it, either. Plus Dan had no desire what-so-ever to help Valerie in any way, shape, or form.
Sam had pointed out he didn't have to stay at Amity Park. There was an entire world out there, millions of places he could be where Valerie wasn't. Other cities, even other countries; heck, there was an entire alternate reality of the Ghost Zone to explore. Which to him defeated the entire purpose of returning to his timeline, trading one form of exile for another. No, he was in Amity Park to stay, he just had to figure out what he was going to do with himself.
Dan was violently rousted from his musings by a beam blast to the back that sent him sprawling in the dirt with a surprised yelp.
"You?" He heard an angry female voice hiss with nothing short of pure rage behind him. "When did you come back, Phantom?"
Dan spun around, mentally cursing himself for not paying enough attention, red eyes widening when he saw who was leveling a large ecto-cannon at his face.
Paulina.
Author's Note: And thus begins the cliffhangers again! My apologies if this chapter seemed a little dry- its purpose is largely to establish the setting for the rest of the fic, including people who may have skipped the three chapters of "After the End" over on Jeremiad. Things will really get moving next chapter, I promise!
As always, many thanks to my wonderful reviewers! Lots of new faces this time around, which makes me go "SQUEE!" with happiness. I just hope I continue to live up to expectations with the story! So virtual chocolate shakes to Angelic Kittens, Fulcon, Yenattirb, KieiNeko, PotterPhan21, my crazy sister OneAmahira, Sqweakie the Wonder Mouse, Anne Camp aka Obi-quiet, tenamanda1988, i AM the Random Idiot, tejdog1, and Kitsuja my beta-reader.
Amusing trivia: The end of this chapter was decided by coin toss. Heads and Valerie would have found Dan at the graveyard. Tails, and it was Paulina. Good to know the author has such a firm grasp on the story, huh? XD