Chapter One: The Untold Irony

Like most people in Amity Park, Wes knew very little about Danny Phantom. Even the town's residential ghost hunters (who believed in the paranormal long before any of the townspeople), the Fentons, couldn't figure out much about him. At first, he appeared to be a simple malevolent ghost, kidnapping the mayor and robbing department stores (there was even a rumor about him destroying Christmas, but Wes wasn't sure if he believed that one). But after a while, people began to notice... he wasn't purposely wrecking the town; he was protecting it from other ghosts. Not long after he saved Amity from the King of Ghosts, a fanbase originated around him. Most of it was just girls from Wes's school who wanted to date him, but apparently some guys are in it too (notably one Casper High quarterback).

Like most, Wes believed him to be a hero. It would be pretty disrespectful to the guy's afterlife if he said otherwise. But that was before one Dash Baxter approached red-headed Wes Weston on a particularly warm September afternoon.

Wes had been at his locker getting his geometry textbook for sixth period. Completely engrossed in his own world, he turned around and walked right in the King of the A-Listers and quarterback, Dash Baxter. Or Wes's friends on the basketball team liked to call him, the world's smartest bulldozer. Dash instinctively grabbed Wes's shirt and pulled him closer, "Watch where you're – wait a minute, do I know you?"

After Dash let go of his shirt, Wes looked at the jock with wide eyes. In the past two years Wes had been in only two of the same classes with Dash, and during those classes he always tried to avoid him. While Wes didn't really speak up much during school, he like to think of himself as somewhat smart. All the way through the tenth grade, the lowest grade Wes had ever made was a B. He figured that being around someone like Dash wouldn't do much good, so he had subconsciously started avoiding him (as he did with many other students). But back to the problem at hand...

"I'm – uh – Wes Weston. I'm in your fourth period economics class."

"Are you sure?" Dash wondered. "It sounds familiar, but it doesn't seem right."

Dash sounded genuinely stumped. Wes was stuck there while Dash was pondering where he recognized Wes. Wes thought to himself, the faster I get out of here, the better.

"I'm also on the basketball team. Player number two... Weston, y'know?"

"Nah, that's not it either."

Now Wes was confused too. Where else could Dash had seen him. It's not like he had much of a social life.

"Oh!" Dash said suddenly, "I know now. Say, has anyone ever told you that you look a lot like Danny Phantom?"

Wes was immediately taken aback, "I do?"

"Yeah," Dash grinned. "Y'know, he has the green eyes, kinda like yours, except his glow. That and you basically have the same hair style."

Wes shrugged, "I never realized that I looked that much like a dead guy. Or that his eyes glow. That's pretty freaky."

"Well you can't really tell through all the news footage," Dash said offhandedly. "I only know because I've met him in person before! We had this whole adventure and everything!"

Now that Wes knew about. He remembers the week back in their Freshmen year when Dash bragged to everyone about his time with the elusive ghost boy. Apparently they'd been shrunk by one of the Fentons' crazy inventions (seriously, how have these people not been arrested before?) that also caused Phantom to lose his ghost powers, so he had to rely on Dash for help. Talk about low. Dash also gave the Fentons' son (who was also in their grade) a hard time about it because it was his dad's fault the two got stuck in that predicament. At the time, Wes was surprised that Fenton took Dash's wrath so easily – almost like it was some kind of routine. That was another reason Wes avoided Dash, he was known for his bullying.

Remembering this, Wes quickly made some excuse about being late for math class and ducked out of Dash's sight. Wes thought he was in the clear when a tanned goth-girl approached him out of nowhere, "Hey I overheard some of what you were talking about with Dash. What exactly did he say about Phantom?" the girl piled on him.

Wes fought the urge to roll his eyes. So she was one of those girls. "He just said I looked like Phantom. Then he started to recount his whole Honey I Shrunk the Kids with Phantom adventure again."

The girl looked somewhat satisfied and – what was that? – relieved. "Oh, I get it." she laughed, "You sort of do look like Phantom."

Moments later, she walked off. Wes was left completely confused by the odd encounter. The way she had said that he looked like Phantom had been weird... almost like she was talking to someone who wasn't there. Strange.

Wes couldn't get either of the strange encounters out of his head for the remainder of the day. It was bothering him: did he really look like the elusive ghost boy? He asked his friend Justin during basketball practice and was once more taken aback at his answer.

"You know... now that I think about it, you really do look like Phantom. And I should know, I'm in his Phan Club."

"You what? How come this is the first you've told me about it?" Wes looked at his friend questionably, wondering what else he knew about the ghost boy that he had neglected to mention.

"I don't know... it never really came up. And it's not like I'm the only guy on the team in it. A lot of us have support for Phantom."

"So..." Wes grinned a little, "if you're in the Phan Club, maybe you could tell me what girls have a thing for Phantom. If I do look like him, maybe I can convince them I'm one of his living relatives or something."

Justin smirked, "Yeah right. Even though you might look like Phantom, no girl would be that dumb.

"You never know!" Wes protested as Justin started laughing.

For the next few days, Wes took it as a compliment whenever someone mentioned that he looked like Phantom. But after a while... Wes started to get annoyed. Apparently word had gotten around, and people were calling him 'The Phantom look-alike'. Normally Wes would've liked this kind of attention from his peers, but there was something that was troubling him. He couldn't exactly figure out what made him look so much like Phantom. Sure, he had green eyes and was kinda lanky like Phantom... but Wes's eyes were more human-looking and Wes himself was taller than Phantom. Not to mention that his hair wasn't even the correct color. After the fifth day, the name 'Phantom' rung in Wes's mind with a hint of irritability.

By lunch of the following Tuesday, Wes was literally on the edge, ready to burst at any moment.

"Hey – aren't you the Phantom look-alike...?" asked a Freshman girl as she walked by his table in the cafeteria.

Wes snapped. "I am not the Phantom look-alike! Okay? I don't know why any of you guys keep saying I look like him, because I don't! I'm not dead! You see this, this is me breathing!" Wes quickly gesturing to his throat as he inhaled a breath of air. "I'm not a ghost, so I don't know why any of you are comparing me to him! Hell, we don't even have the same hair color... by a long shot! So why do you people keep telling me I look like him, huh? It's not like I literally am Phantom!"

Everyone in the cafeteria fell silent. The Freshman girl who had triggered his outburst let out an awkward, "Eep!" and ran away to rejoin her friends. Wes was feeling slightly better about himself, getting everything off of his chest. But that feeling was short lived, because the next few words he heard were ones that he would never forget.

"Hey guys, we should start calling Weston 'Phantom' if it really bothers him that much, am I right?" Dash Baxter chortled.

Wes looked at the smirking football players in horror when he realized his social life was about to get a whole lot worse.

"Hey Phantom, would you mind repeating your little rant for us? You might want to speak up this time, I mean, you are a ghost after all.

"It's not that bad." Justin attempted to convince Wes for the third day in a row. Ever since his outburst in the cafeteria on Tuesday, everyone in the school had started pretending Wes was Phantom. For the past three days, people had screamed 'Phantom' and 'Ghost' at him as he walked down the hallway. They attacked him at his locker, asking him details about Phantom's latest ghost battle. Not to mention that it was Friday now, and he was pretty sure he had heard every 'dead joke' in the book. What was even worse was that some of the teachers seemed to be in on it. On Thursday when he had been staring off into space, contemplating on what he should do in this situation, his history teacher had asked if Watergate was too boring and if he'd rather be fighting a ghost. Even the losers thought it was funny, especially that creepy goth girl from over a week ago.

Needless to say, Wes was miserable.

"You say that, but you're not the one who the entire student body has started personally harassing."

Justin frowned, "It's not harassment. It's just a few jokes. I mean listen to yourself Wes, you're building it up to be something it isn't."

Wes deadpanned, "You're a horrible friend."

"And you're a complete cynic."

The two were silent for a few moments before Justin spoke again, "Y'know, if it's really that bad, maybe you can try talking to Ishiyama about it."

"I knew you weren't the brightest, but are you a fucking moron?" Wes said.

"What's so bad about going to the principal?"

"These are fifteen year-old meat-heads. They already know that this is bothering me. If I get authority involved, it's basically a green-light for more tormenting."

"True..."

"True," Wes repeated sarcastically. "Seriously Justin, what's gotten into you? You're usually the one who's like 'fuck the adults, teenage-'

Wes was cut off by another one of their teammates approaching them, "Hey Phantom, are you alright? You look a little dead on the inside too."

A bubble of rage and frustration rose within Wes. He couldn't fucking take this anymore. From that moment on, Wes knew, he had to find a way to stop this. There had to be some way to make everyone realize that this wasn't funny anymore (nor had it been to start with). Out of all the things that he could be made fun of, this was possibly the most mediocre. I mean, why Phantom anyway? He didn't look like Phantom, at all! With almost 500 students in Casper High there had to be someone else that looked more like him, right?

After practice on Friday, Wes spent most of the night flipping through the previous year's Yearbook to see if he could find anyone else who looked similar to Phantom. Out of 543 students, 264 of them had been male. Not including the Senior Class (who had already graduated since this was last year's Yearbook), students who had moved, and Wes himself that left 184 candidates. Wes had made a list of traits to look for that supposedly made someone 'look similar' to Phantom. Such as the same hairstyle and green eyes.

Following four hours of hastily comparing everyone's yearbook photo to a picture he had printed out of Phantom, Wes had composed a list of fourteen individuals who shared a vague resemblance to Phantom. On the top was a boy named Danny Fenton (the same Fenton boy that Dash bullied) and on the bottom was Mikey Hobaken. After looking at the pictures a few times, Wes noticed that Fenton really looked like Phantom. A lot. They were so similar it was sort of scary. Hell, they even shared the same first name. Wes thought he knew coincidence, but this was too freaky. He started wondering why people were calling him Phantom and not this kid. Probably because Danny Fenton was one of Casper's notable lowest of the low losers and nobody wanted to give him the satisfaction of comparing him to the 'great' ghost hero. Right now, Wes would do anything to be invisible. That Fenton kid didn't know how lucky he was.

Danny couldn't stop laughing at the pure irony of the social catastrophe Wes Weston had become in the past few days. It had started one day when Dash and Wes were talking about him the hallway. Well, not him: Phantom. But Danny was Phantom... so they technically were talking about him.

Danny hadn't been there, he'd heard about it from Sam. According to her, she'd heard bits of pieces of Dash comparing Phantom's appearance to someone – and being Sam, she intended to find out who. So she had cornered Wes and found out that Dash had said that Wes looked like Phantom. Oh... the irony. When she repeated her story to Danny and Tucker minutes later, the trio shared a few laughs. The thought that Dash had believed Wes to look like Phantom, when he used the real Phantom as a punching-bag every time he got an F on a test was downright hilarious. They had already known the people of Amity Park were unbelievably oblivious, but this was close to crossing the line.

For the next few days, more and more people started telling Wes that he looked like Phantom. As Wes's irritation became evident, the more the trio reveled in the irony. By Tuesday, almost the entire student body had heard about Wes's resemblance to Danny's ghost form. Though Danny didn't ask, he slowly started to wonder if Sam was the one circulating that Wes was Phantom's look-alike. Danny decided would never know unless she told him, because he was way too scared to ask her without fearing being sucked into a thermos.

After Tuesday, everything spiraled downward for Wes. By that point, everyone had actually started calling him Phantom, and pretending that he was the ghost boy. It was a good thing that Danny didn't need to breath as much as a normal person, because if he did, he probably would've died (well, fully died this time) of laughter. By that point Danny was sort of sorry for Wes. After all, what he was going through was one of the reasons Danny dreaded exposure. But it wasn't like he could do anything. It was a High School thing, it would come and go in the blink of an eye. And in the meantime, Danny and his friends would laugh about it without a care in the world.

I can't believe how many views I've gotten on this in just the past four days. This is my first Fanfiction on this site, so it's really surprising how easy it is to actually get views. So, I guess thanks to anyone who's really reading this right now. Also, I probably won't be very consistent with updates - just to let you guys know. It could be a day or a month before the next one, because I honestly have no time management.

Edit (7-14-17): This chapter used to be two chapters, but I merged it into one because the first two chapters were notably shorter than later ones.