The Phantom Book
Chapter One: Aftermath
Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom, Nickelodeon does.
Well Hello There, fellow Danny Phantom fan, If you are new, please go read the prequel to this story called The Phantom Files, as this is its sequel.
As for my returning fans, welcome back, I know I said that I would be working on other stories and in a way I have done that but the will of this storyline is strong, and I have fun with it so there is that. I hope you enjoyed the previous story and are looking forward to what I have in store.
On with the Show:
"I, Danny Phantom, am really the ghost half of Danny Fenton," those are the words, that public declaration, which shook the world, and would change Danny's life forevermore. Danny was currently floating above the clouds, basking in the sun for an hour or so, he needed the time to decompress and think. He knew his life was about to become very busy, and very public. "That is the price you have to pay for freedom," he said to himself. "In the long run however, it will become easier," he said to himself, as if trying to justify to himself still that he made the right decision to reveal it all to the public. "There is no going back now, no do-overs, no erasing memories, you made your choice and have to stick with it," he said to himself, fighting down the part of his mind that was questioning his decisions.
"Talking to yourself now, Daniel? That is not very becoming of a hero," a friendly voice said. Only one being regularly calls him by his full first name. Though he was puzzled as to why his ghost sense hadn't let him know there was a ghost there. He turned around to see the Master of Time floating there.
"Clockwork, what are you doing here, and how long have you been there," Danny asked, confused, while he was always glad to see the ghost, it sometimes carried a darker purpose.
"Somethings I just need to watch in person, like you revealing yourself to the world. Don't worry, Dan is locked in the clock tower, I changed the rules of my realm so that he can't leave without my permission, also I have been here perhaps the entire time, or perhaps just arrived," Clockwork addressed his question and concern at the same time, with a bit of classic time humor. "It must be a hard thing, outing yourself like this," he said, in his signature grandfatherly tone, considering he shifted to his older form.
"I thought long and hard about it, Clockwork, it had to be done," Danny said, firmly, then asked a question that he had been wondering for a while, "don't take this the wrong way, but what is with your seemingly keen interest in my life?"
"I was expecting that question, after resetting the timeline and taking Dan back to my realm, the Observants that ordered me against you, said that both good and evil you were now my responsibility, so I take that a bit literally, making sure things go all right. The Observants think they can control me, but only because I allow them to think that they can. If I so desired, I could take the entire lot of them down, but I choose not to. Corrupt as they are, they are still currently a necessary evil for the Infinite Realms."
"Huh, makes sense," Danny said, not really knowing what to say to it.
"I must take my leave, I will see you later on," with a swish of his time scepter, Clockwork was gone.
Realizing how long he been up there, Danny started to fly for home, taking a long route, overlooking the town that he had defended for so long.
Returning to the Clock Tower, Clockwork went about his usual duties, not entirely caring what Dan was up to. As he worked however, he suddenly felt a light wave of exhaustion come upon him, but this was no ordinary exhaustion. It was the first sign of the Time Sleep. Taking a moment to steady himself, 'the time sleep is nearly upon me, I only have about a year before I must sleep, I better get my affairs in order before I am out for a week,' he thought to himself.
There already was a large crowd of reporters and people outside the FentonWorks as the Fenton RV rolled up to the house, "that was fast, figured we would beat them here," Jack said, referring to the crowd.
"They probably raced over here from the conference," Maddie agreed.
"You guys want me to phase us into the house? So we can avoid them?" Danielle asked, and offering to use her powers.
"Nah, I'll just pull into the garage, Danny once used that intangibility on me and it felt weird," Jack said, recalling the Vlad reward trap, and Danny getting them out of it, "probably also safer for the RV, with all of these people here." Jack pulled the RV around to the side of the house and backed into their garage, shutting the garage door, as to keep anyone else out.
It was sometime later, when Danny returned home, phasing invisibly through the front door, as he changed back, he heard Jazz say, "I still can't believe we did that, knocking over a local government, though necessary, and then revealing the big secret to the world."
"It all needed to be done, dear sister," Danny said, as he walked into the living room and sat down.
"I am not denying that, it is just still a lot to process," she said.
"It will sink in soon enough, and soon, we need to get to work taking care of the new mountain of stuff we have to do," Maddie said.
"Fortunately, we have all of summer to get it done," Danny said.
It was nearly sunset that Danny got a phone call. Danny answered his phone, curious as to who could be calling him, "Hello?"
"Mr. Fenton or do you prefer Mr. Phantom," the voice on the line said. Danny's eyes narrowed a bit, it sounded governmental, almost military.
"Fenton works," Danny said, getting a funny feeling that it was the Guys In White. A moment later, his suspicions were confirmed.
"Mr. Fenton, this is Agent Alpha of the Guys in White, I am the head of the organization," the voice said, identifying who it was.
"I figured I would be hearing from you guys soon, just not that soon, what do you want?" Danny asked the head of the GIW, not really wanting to have a long conversation with the government organization which hunted him for a while and has tried to destroy the Ghost Zone, which would have destroyed the Earth as well.
"Well normally, I would have sent a team to your house for you, but we got new orders today. The President has both called us off the hunt for you, and we are to stand by for further reassignment orders until after you and your family meet with him," Agent Alpha said.
Danny was incredulous, the President of the United States, one of the powerful men on the planet wanted to speak with him and the family, "tell him we accept his invitation, and will be there. When must we meet with him?"
"One week from today, he did also tell us that we have to investigate everything to do with Vlad Masters, if there is anything you want to tell us about him, we would be willing to share information with you," Agent Alpha said.
"Well, there are his two mansions, we will deal with the one here in Amity Park, there is his one in Wisconsin, which I don't know if he had rebuilt after I sent you guys after him, his lab is underground, my sister has informed me that the main entrance is behind a fireplace in his library, and there is his Rocky Mountain retreat and secret labs in Colorado, then there is Vladco which has Axion labs as a subgroup, which we will deal with," Danny explained. "There is specific information that may be contained in the computers in his retreat that is of great importance to us, though we may be able to get the information from his labs here," he said, thinking of Danielle.
"May I ask what this information is about so that we can contact you if we find it?" Agent Alpha asked, a bit confused, having figured that all the information that they may come across would be of equal interest.
Sighing, Danny answered the request, "Information on Vlad's illegal cloning experiments."
"I see, this has to do with the young girl that was with you at the conference," Agent Alpha concluded the reason behind the odd request.
"My younger sister, yes," Danny said, "we need to know if she will age properly or if not, see how we can go about fixing it."
"I see, we will touch, Mr. Fenton," the line went dead, Danny closed his phone and put it away, everyone else looked at Danny with a raised eyebrow.
"The head of the Guys in White called, apparently the President wants to meet with us in a week from today, as well as we are to work somewhat together on tracking down Vlad, and that we will be in contact," he told them. There was a shock of a lifetime, that the President wanted to meet with them.
The Next Day,
There was a knock at the door. Jack and Maddie answered it. A man in a suit was there. "Mr. And Mrs. Fenton?" the man asked as he removed his hat in greeting.
"Yes?" both of them answered in question.
"I am here on behalf of Mayor Montez, who has temporarily resumed leadership of the city until the next election," the man said.
"Huh, he came back, interesting," Jack said.
"What can we do for him?" Maddie asked, concerned about what the mayor wanted.
"The Mayor wants to speak with you, he would not say what for, but he did say that it is just business, and not about the fact that you technically initiated a coup d'état," the man said. Both parents flinched a bit, it was technically true that they did overthrow a local government, but they did not assume power over the city.
"We'll meet with him, when do we need to head over there?" Maddie asked, thankful that the Mayor wasn't going to have them arrested to sedition, 'or at least not yet,' she thought.
"Tomorrow, at noon, have a good day, Mr. & Mrs. Fenton," the man said, as he put his hat back on and walked away.
"So, both the President and the Mayor want to speak with us, as if life didn't have more surprises for us," Jack said as they closed the front door.
"Though it is perhaps the best way to achieve some of our goals for this town and for Danny," Maddie said. Without further interruptions, they went back down to the lab to work on their inventions, for a little normalcy after the chaos of the past week and looking ahead at the chaos yet to come, but they would take it in stride.
There you have it everyone, the first chapter of this continuation of what I am now dubbing the Phantom Saga, or the Saga of the Phantom, I'll play with it.
I'll be honest, this idea has evolved, it began about Danny writing a book about his experiences, but then I got ideas that I want to use so, it is going places. Some of you have even influenced my ideas, so please do suggest them, if I can use them, I will, with my own twist on it, of course. Don't worry, the writing of the book will still be a big part of this story, eventually, but there are ideas I wish to explore, so I don't know if I will keep this story named the Phantom Book, it may take the name of the series that I have just named, we'll see.
If anyone is curious, I am sitting at about 40 pages worth of material, including this chapter so, there is some good stuff coming. Stay tuned.
One last thing, if anyone is a fan artist and is open to do commission work, let me know as there are ideas l have for later that I want to have in a visual form so that everyone can see their glory.
All right I am gone, for now.
The Emperor of the Multiverse is out. Peace.