Trying to Start Over

AN: Whoop de doo, another Author's Note. So, first of all, thanks to everyone that has followed and/or favorited this story! And secondly, I don't own Danny Phantom or Miraculous Ladybug, only some OCs (ie. the akuma in the last chapter), but trust me, I want to.

Oh, and just to clarify, I'm putting Marinette in 9th grade, at 14 years old, and in this story Danny is 15, so in Paris, he will also be in 9th grade.

"Life is short,/

so make it worthwhile./

Don't spend time grieving,/

just spend it with a smile." -Unknown

*Timeskip: 1 month*

Danny POV

Today is the day, Vlad has told me. After postponing twice, my new guardians are coming to pick me up. Turns out there are superheroes in Paris, and they defend the city against some weird things called akumas.

'Anything is better than ghosts.' I thought as I rubbed the bridge of my nose. I was laying in my room, fingering some pages of my sketchbook, the first one that Sam had gotten me for my 13th birthday. I was extremely surprised when I opened it, but she said she had seen some of my sketches (which were "literally everywhere, even on your walls" she had said), and had decided to get me it so that I wouldn't keep drawing on my walls.

"Daniel! He's here!" I heard Vlad call me from downstairs. It was rather hard to hear, even with my ghostly hearing, so I guess that he was already at the front door. As I walked down the stairs, pulling my suitcase behind me, I heard the door open and a loud voice call out,

"Vlad! Its so good to see you again! I brought along my daughter, and my wife, so you could meet them! How about you call down Daniel so that we can finally meet him face to face!"

"I'm here." I called out as I walked down the stairs from the second floor. "And its Danny, not Daniel." My first view of my new hosts was a large man dressed in a blue t-shirt and tan pants towering over Vlad, beaming at me. A smaller Chinese woman stood at his side, smaller than Vlad, but not by much. And then I noticed who I guessed to be their daughter, a girl around my age, with dark blue hair in twin pigtails, and light blue eyes that were only a shade darker than mine.

"Um…hi." I waved my hand awkwardly at the family standing in front of me, before I was crushed into a bear hug by the man that Vlad told me was my godfather.

"Tom, dear, let poor Danny go. I think your crushing him." I heard a voice come from the side, just before my lungs were refilled with air.

"Thanks, Mrs. Cheng." I wheezed as I crouched down, trying to catch my breath.

"Oh please dear, call me Sabine. You're going to be living with us from now on after all. I'm just so happy that you decided to come back to France with us."

'Oh, right.' I had decided that, a few days ago. We had been talking over a video chat that Vlad had set up, and I had announced my decision that when they came, I would be going back to France with them. It wasn't as dramatic as that sounded, but I had been living with Vlad for awhile, I couldn't help it.

"Sit down and stay awhile Sabine and Tom. Unpack your luggage. You are going to be staying here for a few weeks while you get to know Daniel after all." Vlad bumped into the conversation, which had quickly become awkward. As he led my godparents to the main living room, I walked over to the girl that would be my "little sister" for the next few years.

"Uh…hi." 'Nice job Danny, just make the conversation even more awkward.' I thought as I rubbed the back of my neck. She looked up, a bit startled, before giving me a small smile.

"Hi. My name's Marinette. Nice to meet you Danny." 'Well, at least she seems nice.'

*Timeskip: 1 hour*

"I don't get it Marinette! How are you so good at this game!" I yelled as I tried, yet again, to pull a fast one on the girl sitting next to me as we played Doomed.

"I guess I just have really good luck." She giggled. I shook my head. "I still don't get it. Alright. One more round." As both our players appeared back on the screen, I took a little more time to look at the design of hers.

"What's with the red and black theme with your character? Some inside joke in Paris to use those colors on everything?" First she had appeared with a red and black spotted scarf around her neck, and now her character was designed like that too. She laughed again.

"You could say that." She replied with a smile, just as the game started.

*Paris, France*

"Alright Plagg, claws out!" Adrien yelled as a spider-based akuma showed up on the LadyBlog*. He ran along the rooftops, transformed as Chat Noir, hurrying to where the LadyBlog said it was last spotted. As he got closer to the area, he started to find gigantic webs strung across the streets, and over them, some with people stuck in them. He tried to get some of the people out, but was cut off by a hissing sound coming from behind him.

"How dare you interfere with my plan, Chat Noir." The akuma's distorted speech reverberated along its webs, shaking them and the people trapped by them. As he blocked the akuma's attacks, he thought one thing.

'Where is Ladybug?'

*Amity Park, Wisconsin*

Turns out, three hours had passed since Marinette and I had started to play Doomed. Whoops. Now we were all sitting in the main dining room, waiting for the chef to finish up with dinner.

"So," Vlad began. "how has the bakery been doing Tom?" The tension in the room was so thick, it could only be cut through with a knife.

"It's good. Yeah, good." Make that a butcher''s knife.

"That's... good." Know what, make that a sword.

"Yeah..." Never mind. Make that Fright Knight's broadsword.

"So," I turned to the bluenette sitting next to me, and away from all that awkwardness. "what's this I keep hearing about something called akumas? It seems like no one wants to talk about it, but everyone knows about it. At least, over on this side of the ocean."

"Oh!" She seemed surprised that I even knew about whatever those akumas were. "Akumas are odd. It's almost like they're superheroes, but not. More supervillians. And they try to get these things, I think they're called miraculouses, off of two kids that battle against them. Paris' own superheroes, Ladybug and Chat Noir." She got a far off look in her eyes when she spoke of the people, but I didn't question it. I had gotten used to recognizing the look of hero worship.

"Ah. So kind of like our ghosts." That caught everyone's attention at the table, just as the cook started to bring out the food.

"Ghosts? I didn't think there were such a thing." Sabine said.

"Oh yes, what a perfect topic for conversation!" Vlad shot me a grateful smile. "They were actually very common around here until, well, a few months ago. Most people don't believe it until they see them, but the residents of Amity Park, where ghosts were the most common, weren't most people. They even had their own crime fighting superhero, a ghost called Danny Phantom."

"That's amazing!" Marinette exclaimed. "That does sound almost exactly like akumas! You were right Danny!"

"Oi, don't sound so surprised!" My comment caused everyone to laugh. Soon enough, our chatter died done, just in time for dessert to be brought out. It was gone quickly, which wasn't surprising to me, considering Tom's massive build, and considering the rapid rate of metabolism that had developed since I had gotten my ghost powers, and also in Vlad's case too.

What was surprising to me though, was Marinette. She ate almost as quickly as Vlad and I, and almost as much. I guess she saw me gaping at her daughter, because Sabine spoke up.

"Oh Marinette slow down. You don't want to worry Danny and Vlad." Marinette's head jerked up, as she stared at her mother, before she gained a rather ashamed expression.

"Oh don't worry Sabine, I'm rather used to it. I do live with a teenager after all." At Vlad's jesting comment, my head jerked up.

"Hey!"

*The Next Day*

*Paris, France*

"Hey Adrien." The blond raised his head from where it rested on his arms, blearily blinking his eyes at the redhead sitting behind him.

"What was that Alya? I didn't catch what you said." As the class waited for the teacher to come in, he turned fully around in his seat.

"I was just saying hey." She smiled as she sat down. "Late night?"

"Yeah," The teen model fumbled for a response. "My schedule was really packed, and then I had homework on top of it."

"Rough man!" Nino clapped him on the back as he walked up to the desk, causing Adrien to smother the urge to wince. The akuma had gotten a good hit in on Chat Noir, and without Ladybug's Miraculous Cleanse, he had needed to trap the akuma, and deal without the injury being healed.

"But I did want to ask something, since you said you were up for a while." The redhead spoke up again. "Did you guys pass the Dupain-Cheng bakery anytime yesterday, or this morning? This morning it was completely dark when I passed it."

"Actually yeah, we were near it for one of my photoshoots yesterday. No one was there, and it looked completely dark, just like you said Alya." Adrien said. As the three continued talking, the teacher walked in and began taking attendance.

"Mr. Agreste?" She called out.

"Present." The blond turned around in his seat just in time to hear his name being called. As the teacher continued, she hit Marinette's name.

"Ms. Dupain-Cheng? Is Ms. Dupain-Cheng present today?" As she looked around the room, everyone waited for Marinette to burst through the door in a hurry, but nothing happened.

"I'll have to let Mr. Damocles know." The teacher muttered to herself, shaking her head.

"Ms. Bustier?" Alya raised her hand.

"Yes Ms. Cesaire?" She replied without glancing up from her clipboard.

"Where is Marinette?" As the redhead asked her question, most of the class, excluding Chloe and Sabrina, began muttering in agreement with her question. Ms. Bustier just sighed.

"Mr. Damocles was told two days ago that the Dupain-Chengs would be visiting some family friends in America, but Mr. Dupain, who was the one to let Mr. Damocles know about their plans, had no idea how long it was going to take. Mr. Damocles then informed me of the situation, and told me to inform him of all the days that Ms. Dupain-Cheng was absent." The teacher explained.

*Timeskip: 6 hours*

*Amity Park, Wisconsin*

As I walked around the kitchen in Vlad's mansion, his cooks and maids kept trying to shoo me out of the room. Soon enough, mostly because I was so tired, I went along with what they wanted me to do, and walked into the main dining room.

"Wow." I had never really gotten a good look at this room, since we had jumped straight into awkward conversation as soon as dinner had started last night. "This place is huge." The ceiling was easily 2 stories high, and even with the huge table in the center of the room, there was more than enough room for a few more smaller tables on each side.

"Right? I was just walking around and did you know that in the basement, Mr. Masters has a screening room?" I jumped a bit as I heard a voice coming from behind me, but as I turned around, I realized it was just Marinette.

"Seriously?" She nodded as I swung around to face her. "We can hook up my computer to that screen and play Doomed on the big screen if you want."

"That would be awesome." Marinette beamed at me. Soon enough, we moved down to the basement for a few more rounds of Doomed, completely foregoing any breakfast at all.

"Danny, is Marinette down there with you?" Vlad's voice came from the top of the stairs.

"Yeah Vlad, we're just playing a couple rounds of Doomed." I called up to him, not taking my eyes off the screen.

"Danny, what time did you get up?" He asked me.

"7:30. Why do you ask?" Again, I didn't take my eyes off the screen, still smashing the buttons on my controller as I tried, and routinely failed, to beat Marinette at this game. I heard a sigh from where I presumed Vlad to be.

"I ask because it's now 1 o'clock." As Vlad responded, I dropped my controller and jumped up. Thankfully, Marinette also heard our conversation, and paused the game.

"Seriously?"

"Yes, seriously Danny." I could hear him rolling his eyes. "Now, if you two want to come with us for a late breakfast, since Tom, Sabine and I are going out to lunch, we would very much appreciate it." I looked at Marinette, and after she nodded, called back to Vlad.

"Sure, we'll be right up." Then I turned to Marinette, and gestured to the screen. "We'll be finishing this later." She just smiled at me, before racing up the stairs, laughing as she did.

*I just wanted to clarify something about times and all that. Since there is a general 7 hour difference between Wisconsin and Paris, France, when Danny and Marinette start playing Doomed is 6:00 o'clock pm. This means that it would be 1:00 am in Paris when the akuma attacked, and 9:00 o'clock pm when they had dinner. Also, I asked Fogz15 (my beta and co-author) of whether or not he thought Alya would be up at 1:00 am, updating the LadyBlog and chasing an akuma. He said yes, so there it is.

Also, I'm going to guess there would be a bit of confusion based on when it skipped to good ol' Paris, and about the location of Amity Park in relation to Vlad's mansion.

First, Paris. When it did a location skip, it also skipped to No POV or Narrator POV but I didn't put it because I felt it would clutter up the story.

Secondly, Amity Park and Vlad's mansion. In this story, Amity Park is set in Wisconsin, since the series doesn't give a specific place for Amity Park, so I took some artistic liberty there. But, it does give that Vlad's mansion is located in Wisconsin, so I did take that into account.

Another point, sorry it wasn't included in the top little overview, I just added this in at the end, is how Danny got to Vlad's mansion, and how Vlad got there too. Vlad was able to get back to his mansion using his teleportation powers, but Danny does not have this power. That is why in the first chapter, he flew to Vlad's mansion. Now it wasn't all that long of a flight, as even if it would be a long drive, he was flying. I imagine the two places to be about 24 or 25 miles apart. Also, he even though he was carrying his stuff, it wasn't all that much, and he does have super strength.

Thank you for reading!

~WhiteRosePhoenix


Quick Edit:

Hello all! I was reading through this chapter to try to get a feel for how I was writing it again, and realized there were a few mistakes I needed to fix. It's all good now, but I was also reading through my comments, and a few of you pointed out that Amity Park does in fact have a canonical location (thank you to Multipule-Characters1-Acct and TimeGear).

Now, both of them gave it a different location, one in Illinois and the other in Ohio, and with all of the research I had done earlier and have been doing, I read that there are a ton of different theories about where Amity Park is, but nothing certain has come out. However, Danny Fenton's voice actor, David Kaufman, has come out and said that in his imagination, he places Amity Park somewhere in Minnesota. I've checked, and I don't think that I explicitly said anywhere that Amity Park was in Wisconsin except for the Author's Note section, so just ignore that, but what I said before, that Danny flies to Vlad's mansion, is going to stay (if it does say it somewhere and I just didn't notice, please do let me know).

Thank you all again, and leave any reviews or comments in the comments section!

~WRP