Welcome back to the Theorists saga! Something I didn't even expect to become a saga, but when an idea comes to me...
...who am I to ignore it?
I took a break from my ongoing fic, Fire with Fire, to revisit the Recognized universe as part of my ongoing development of a [hopefully worthy] sequel (release date TBD since not a single scene has been drafted yet). And it reminded me that there was a particular morning early in the Recognized events when Amorpho caused a bit of chaos in Amity Park….
While the previous installment of The Theorists can be read independently, this chapter takes place during the story's events in chapter 4 and the "Forever Phantom" episode of season 3 of the show. This installment is, therefore, more Wes-centric, though Marvin does make at least a cameo.
I do not own Young Justice nor Danny Phantom.
THE THEORISTS
02
The Curious Incident of the Dannys in the Daytime
Thursday, March 15 — 10:30
"Wes?"
The boy laid flat on his back, hands pressed against his face. The soft whisper of the school's climate control system blanketed the room with white noise while gracefully jostling a potted plant's broad leaves. Two paper cups of water sat forgotten on the coffee table, one adjacent to the therapist in her chair, the other beside Wes Weston on the office's overstuffed sofa respectively.
"Wes, sweetie?" the counselor tried again, shifting to sit more comfortably.
Wes managed a pathetic whimper and a small shake of his head.
"Wes, I can't help you if you don't talk."
"Three of him," he murmured from behind his hands.
The counselor leaned forward in her chair, notepad still resting on her crossed legs. "What was that?"
Wes turned his head and removed his hands so the woman could see his crazed eyes. "There were three of him, Dr. Markway! In one place! No...four...six? Three for sure."
The counselor's eyebrow quirked. "Sweetie, how can there be three of one person?"
"I don't know! Duplication? Cloning? Force projections?"
"Three whos?" Markway asked with her pencil perched.
Three hours prior…
Wes took a deep breath of the morning air. It was a day right on the cusp of spring, the cloudless sky a welcome contrast to the preceding months of wintery grey.
It was happenstance that his route to school took him past the Fenton residence. It hadn't mattered much when he started at Casper High, but it became more and more advantageous for the boy. On this particular morning, Wes rounded the corner just as Danny Fenton ran up the front steps into his house.
"Huh," was all the situation elicited from Wes before he continued along the street. However, twenty feet down the sidewalk, he noticed a second Danny standing perplexed at the curb.
"I'm going ghost!" this new Danny shouted, oblivious to Wes' proximity, and transformed into Phantom before Wes could even reach for his phone. With single-minded intensity, the ghost phased through his front door and disappeared.
"Wait, what?" Wes muttered with a double-take.
The boy paused and readied his cell phone's camera app. After a few moments of tension-mounting silence, the brick house's windows rattled. A barrage of rockets blew out the roof, narrowly missing the behemoth on top. Wes crouched and shielded himself as small debris rained down on him.
As the clattering of rubble lessened, the boy slowly lowered his arms and looked up at the Fenton residence. He started recording, the camera aimed up at the imposing structure.
Oddly enough, Danny—still Phantom—simply opened the front door and closed it behind him like a normal person, as if it were completely natural for a ghost to respect tangible barriers.
"FENTON!" Wes barked.
"Gah!" Phantom reeled back with a squawk. "Weston, what the hell are you doing here?"
"No denial! Fentonhood confirmed!"
"No, you moron, I'm just tired of sounding like a broken record." The glowing teen checked for any other threats then refocused on the ginger. "Actually...Fenton's missing...aaaannnd I'm helping look for him! Yeah. Now, will you get that camera out of my face?!" he finished with a shove to the device. It bounced to the pavement but remained intact thanks to its protective case. "Ah, finally sprang for the Otterbox, huh?"
Wes bent down and hurriedly scooped up his phone. "Yeah, Dad was getting tired of replacing it so I saved up my allowance to- Hey, don't distract-!"
He looked up too late, as Phantom was already haphazardly rocketing away.
Wes sighed and began trudging to school, the phone still grasped in his hand just in case. Boredom bubbled up, and the beleaguered teen switched to the phone app. A few rings later and he heard a comfortingly familiar voice.
"Yo, what's up, Wes?"
"Hey, Marvin," the redhead greeted. "Weird morning. I just saw two Dannys outside Fenton Works."
"Bro, doesn't that *disprove* your theory?"
"No, two *human* Dannys. And it was weird; well, more weird than usual. Like… I saw one of them transform into Phantom right in front of me."
A sharply indrawn breath came from the other end of line. "Outside?"
"Yeah."
"Like…in the open?"
"Yeah."
"And nobody else in your town knows his secret yet?!"
"That's what I keep SAYING!" Wes finished with a desperate shout, unable to contain his frustration. Running his free hand down his face, Wes moaned, "I'm surrounded by idiots."
"Well, that's why we're here."
"Exactly. Actually, now that I think about it, he came out the door…like a normal person and not a ghost… What's up with tha-OW!"
Wes' phone went flying once more as someone shoved past him. The figure paused in its sprint to look back, revealing it to be Danny Fenton.
"Hey, watch it, Fen-" Wes gasped "-Fenton! Wait…Fenton!?"
The fleeing boy contorted to continue jogging while simultaneously looking backwards with shockingly bloodshot eyes. "Uuhh, that's me, Billy Fenton!" he said with a halfhearted salute. 'Billy' continued running in the direction of Casper High.
Dumbfounded, Wes stared after his nemesis until a quietly yelling voice snapped him out of it. He retrieved the phone, now sporting a hairline fracture across its tempered glass screen protector. "Hey, I'm back," he directed into the mic.
"Okay, what just happened?" Marvin asked.
"I…really don't know," Wes admitted. "Something's up. Gotta go."
Without waiting for a reply, Wes ended the call and pocketed his phone, breaking into a sprint to chase after the fleeing Fenton. He finally caught up about a block from Casper High. Wes' reward was the sight of two human Dannys colliding while a ghostly third hovered above as Phantom.
"What!?"
The roar of an oncoming cacophonous Fenton RV muted the redhead's outcry. The dopplegangers scattered in three different directions like opposing poles of a magnet. Wes whipped out his phone for yet another video attempt but was once more struck from behind, this time with enough force to knock him to the ground. He grunted upon impact with the pavement, and the would-be paparazzi's head lifted just in time to see Danny's red and white ringer tee dart around a corner.
"How many of you are there!?" the frazzled teen howled.
Wes rushed to his feet and broke out in a running pursuit. This Danny ducked behind a car before re-emerging and running in the opposite direction. Skidding a bit, Wes altered his course to follow.
"Young man! Excuse me, young man!" a feminine voice called out.
Distracted to a stop, Wes turned around and saw two heavily armed, hazmat-suited adults approaching on foot. "Mrs. Fenton?" he asked.
"Have you seen our son?" Maddie inquired as the pair pulled to a stop next to the boy.
Deer in headlights. "I—yeah, actually."
"Did you see where he went?"
"Which one?"
"Which one?" the woman parroted, brow furrowing.
"Look, I don't know what's going on, Mrs. Fenton. I think your son can duplicate himself or something because I've seen, like, five of him in the last ten minutes."
"This kid's off his rocker, Mads," Jack muttered.
"I'm not!" Wes insisted. He noticed movement over Mrs. Fenton's shoulder and gasped. "There goes one now!"
The two Fentons glanced behind them to where their uncharacteristically curvaceous son covered his face in the middle of the street. "Danny!" the parents chorused.
"Oh no! Please don't look at my facelessness! I must live in exile!" Danny cried in an oddly pitched voice as he ran.
As the Fentons took off after their son, Wes slowly backed away, spun on his heel, and headed back to the main street. "Okay, this is normal, this is fine…. There's just…a lot of Dannys. Because he can…*clone* himself. That's a thing…right?" he assured himself, suppressing a twitch in his eye as his feet subconsciously carried him in the direction of Casper High. "This is just…normal Danny Fenton shit."
And then, he turned.
Two more Dannys collided with each other a few hundred feet away while another flew by overhead in Mr. Lancer's arms.
Mr…Mr. Lancer's?
Psychotic break imminent, Wes released an ear-splitting scream of terror, frustration, and confusion. As one of the grounded Dannys began running towards him, the redhead tumbled over himself to change direction. He beelined for the safety of the school on a route that would hopefully avoid any and all things Fenton.
The door burst open, and Dr. Markway jumped from her chair in surprise. Football star Kwan literally dragged the team's quarterback Dash Baxter in behind him.
"Kwan!" the counselor exclaimed.
"You've gotta help him! He-" Kwan froze when he saw who was already on the couch. "Weston?"
"Is Dash alright?" Wes replied.
Kwan ignored the boy and returned his attention to the therapist. "He's totally catatonic! You've gotta help him!"
"But I'm already in a session-" Dr. Markway began.
"Wait, Kwan...you know what 'catatonic' means?" Wes interrupted with a deeply sarcastic drawl.
"Tell anyone I'm smart and you're dead, Weston! I have a reputation to uphold!" Kwan growled.
The counselor sighed. "Wes, I think perhaps it would be best if we continue our session later. Waking comas take precedence."
"Of course you don't care," Wes grumbled as he shouldered his backpack. His indignant fury mounted as he stood. "Nobody cares. Something weird is going on with Danny Fenton, but no, let's help the football star." He paused in the doorway with feet spread at shoulder width and pointed dramatically at Dr. Markway. "One day, you'll see! You'll ALL see!"
The glass in the door rattled as it slammed behind the departing boy.
Dr. Markway huffed a beleaguered sigh. Kwan situated Dash on the sofa while the therapist went to her cabinet to find and withdraw the Baxter file.
"Thank you, Kwan, you may go," the counselor informed as she returned to her chair.
"I'll be right outside if you need me, okay, buddy?" Kwan told his unresponsive friend. Getting only silence in response, the dejected teen left the room.
"So, Dash," Dr. Markway began. "Tell me what's going on."
"It happened," the boy whispered, eyes wide and locked on the ceiling.
"What did?" She braced herself mentally, ready for what might prove to be a lengthy session.
"It—it came true." Eyes squeezing tightly shut, Dash took in and released a shuddering breath. "There were two of him!"
"Wait, Wes was telling the truth?" Markway asked disbelievingly. "There were multiple Danny Fentons running around today?"
"What? No!" the quarterback protested. "Two Mr. Lancers!"
"Ah," the woman said, sinking back in her chair. Searching the assembled notes on her lap, she eventually clarified, "Nightmare number thirty-five, right?"
"Thirty-six."
"Alright, tell me what happened."
This installment's references and Easter Eggs:
- Dr. Markway: named for the main character in one of the most iconic pieces of horror cinema, The Haunting (the original 1963 version, to be clear)
- "I'm surrounded by idiots": Scar's famous barb in The Lion King
- Danny/Billy having bloodshot eyes: this is Wes' misinterpretation when he sees Amorpho's red eyes as 'Billy' flees
- Nightmare number 36: A callback to the Forever Phantom episode itself
- Just how many Dannys are there? 5. At certain points in the morning, Wes encounters Danny himself, Dick, Amorpho, Tucker, and Sam.
- The chapter title itself (The Curious Incident of the Dannys in the Daytime): a nod to the famous line in the Sherlock Holmes short story, The Adventure of Silver Blaze, "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time," off of which that story's plot hinges (and also the novel of the same name by Mark Haddon which I had to read in high school)
Ok so I'm leaving this story's status as complete since each of these installments stand independently as-is and I have no set plans for continuations, but there will more than likely be future oneshots involving both Wes and Marvin. So, keep an eye out for more Theorists fun and, sometime in the near-ish future, a Recognized sequel perhaps…? ;)
Check out my tumblr agentianlegend for more random fandom fun!