Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom. A majority of the characters in the story are owned by Nickelodeon.
Double Clique
Chapter 1: New Game
A blinding light shone in her. She didn't know where she was. Two shadows looked over her. She could barely make out their surgical masks. She must have been lying on her back as she was looking up at them. She couldn't quite make out what they were saying under their masks. As far as she knew, it might've been a language not even heard on Earth.
One of the supposed surgeons held up an anesthesia mask and moved in to place it on her face. The other held up a scalpel and lowered it to her body. The mask should have knocked her out, yet she still felt the sharp pain of being sliced open.
Paulina gasped as she woke up again. This was the third time this morning she was startled awake by a nightmare. The first one saw her running through a jungle to a burning village, the next found her helplessly fending off an invading army, and now this. Was this her own operation that gave her her powers? And the first one was vaguely familiar somehow. She couldn't help but wonder if there was any connection to these horrific dreams.
She looked around from her sleeping bag and noticed it was much brighter in the warehouse. The sun had come out. Morning already. She got up and stretched her limbs and yawned to get herself awake. She continued stretching as sleeping on the floor of an old warehouse wasn't exactly comfortable.
"You're awake," she heard. Paulina looked up behind her and saw Danny Phantom, who she recently learned to be Danny Fenton, Casper High School's least interesting student. She noticed him sporting a back pack as he came down. "Sleep well?" She couldn't tell if he was joking or not.
"Well, I've had these weird dreams," Paulina said, still stretching out. "I feel like I've had them before."
"Were you sure they weren't nightmares?" Danny asked. "It looks like you sweat through your pillow." He pointed to Paulina's pillow, which was so heavily soaked, there was a small puddle underneath.
"Oh, that's just from this," Paulina said, holding out a handful of her hair. Normally long and black, it became an amorphous blob of liquid toward the end. "I can't really shut it off. It's not a big deal." She picked up the pillow, a lot heavier than she thought it would be, and simply concentrated. Within a few seconds, the water in the pillow was absorbing into Paulina's hands until it was completely dry.
"See, good as new," she said, tossing the pillow to Danny.
Danny caught the pillow, impressed with how dry it was. "Wow," he said, "spongey."
"Also, I don't sweat," Paulina added.
Believing he detected a bit of Paulina's popular girl arrogance, Danny informed, "Paulina, girls get sweaty and stinky just as much as guys do."
"No, I just don't sweat!" Paulina said. She explained, "It's like, if I try to, I just absorb it back in again. You know... spongey!" As if making a horrifying realization, Paulina quietly said, "Oh my gosh, I'm so weird..."
"You learn to embrace the weirdness," Danny said. "Take it from the guy with ghost powers."
Danny then unzipped his backpack and pulled out some toaster pastries, bottled water, and a bagged lunch. "I brought breakfast, lunch, and some water for you," he said, distributing the food. "One of the advantages of being a 'growing young man' is you can take as much food as you want and your parents won't question it." He then pulled out some reading materials and said, "I also got you some things to read in case you get bored, though it's mostly fashion magazines from before either of us were born."
Paulina unwrapped her breakfast, and gave a small sigh at the confection covered pastry. "Do you know how many calories are in just the frosting alone?" she asked.
"Try to think of it as extra energy for when we go on patrol together," Danny said.
"Patrol?" Paulina said.
"Yeah," Danny said. "Think of it as your first official day with Team Phantom. I'll even re-introduce you to the rest of the team."
"The rest of the team," Paulina repeated. "You mean Sam and Tucker, right?"
"And Jazz," Danny added. "She's part of the team, too. I don't think you've met Jazz."
"Well, we're all starting over, right?" Paulina brought up. "I may as well be meeting everyone for the first time!"
"That's one way of looking at it," Danny said. "Speaking of meeting everyone, I gotta get to school to tell them the news." Danny took to the air and told Paulina, "I'll see you after school!"
Paulina waved good-bye as Danny phased through the roof and out of the building. Paulina found herself alone in the warehouse again. She could spend the next couple of hours with target practice with the discarded boxes, or reading the old magazines if she got bored with that. In the meantime, she had a whole new first impression to make for Danny's friends.
"To new beginnings!" Paulina said to herself. She then casually bit into her toaster pastry. "Mmm, blueberry."
Unbeknownst to Danny and Paulina, they were being watched. Several warehouses down, a hulking armored ghost was watching them with a highly advanced pair of binoculars. Its various scanning features allowed him to view every detail of Paulina.
"So, the ghost boy has a new ally," the ghost said. "An altered human. Exceedingly rare. Modified by technology not of this Earth. Even more valuable. If I play my cards right, I'll be able capture them both in one fell swoop! Then no one will be able to doubt that Skulker is the Ghost Zone's greatest hunter!"
Skulker activated his jetpack and rocketed away to formulate a plan to capture both of these targets at once.