This was originally written in March when I signed up for Invisobang. Unfortunately life got in the way and I had to drop out of the event early. The work was originally going to be an exploration of Dan's "Lost Day" depicting his experiences during the 10 year gap between the Nasty Burger explosion and the post-apocalyptic future we see in The Ultimate Enemy.
Ground Zero, the planned prologue of the wip, takes place immediately after Phantom is ripped out of Danny
All you know is that you are screaming.
There is fire licking down your skin and melting the tissues of your not-flesh. The ectoplasm splits. Fuses. Molecule-by-goddamn-molecule you are broken apart and put back together.
It is difficult to condense Plasmius into something smaller. You could feel his—(his. Yours. There is no distinction. Not any more)—limbs shrinking, chest being crushed and compressed, sharp features forcibly sanded down to fit the youthful mold that you—the You who was at one point Danny Phantom but no longer—provided.
It's always easier to cut away than to grow out.
Danny taught you that.
But the hardest part about merging, about becoming whole—
No. No, this is wrong. This is not right. You are not whole you are not whole you are not whole you are not—
Synapses begin to fire and your head is screaming to be torn open because it can't—
Who are you?
You are a forty-five-fourteen-year-old high-school-businessman and an only-child-a-younger-brother. You had two best friends: Jack-Tucker and Maddie-Sam and they're dead and gone and—
You died instantly-slowly in a portal-accident-hospital-bed.
Your name is—
Your name is—
Something falls to the floor with a loud thump.
Why it's little Danny! What a clumsy boy he is, falling from the operating table like that. Didn't you warn him to stay still? It's why you strapped him down in the first place. Squirming would only make the procedure hurt, and didn't Danny want the pain to all go away?
Well, it's not going to go away.
You pin Danny to the floor by his throat, thumbs digging into his Adam's apple. Absently, you wonder how much force it would take to pierce through the cartilage. You would like to break it. To split it open like how you would crack open a pomegranate. To see with great clarity the larynx—the voice box—that ordered your own demise.
You press harder.
He is choking, gasping for air. Blunt nails scratch down the side of your arms before holding your wrist in a vice grip, trying to wrench your hands away. Trying to push everything on you again, because it is always Phantom's fault, always Phantom's responsibility. Never Danny. Never weak and plain and human Danny.
Well guess what, Danny?
At least Phantom never cheated on a test!
You laugh gleefully—it sounds grating to your ears—and squeeze.
He tries to kick you off but his pitiful attempts fail. The anesthesia doomed him, but even without it, Danny would never have succeeded.
He had always been weak. Weak before you came along and made him something better, something more. If it wasn't for you, Danny would have died in that fucking portal. Died a disgrace, an idiot. Another line in a long list of examples of why lab safety is so important and how peer pressure could get you killed.
But you— you gave him another chance at life. But if he hated you so much, then fine.
You'll simply take back what you gave him.
Crack.
Danny falls limp. His arms and legs splayed out on the floor, neck tilted at an unnatural angle in your hands.
"What have you done?" Said Vlad—the Vlad that is not Plasmius, not you. You do not turn to look at him. It doesn't matter. He cannot hurt you any more.
You look down at what might have once been your dead body. There's a ring of violent bruises blooming at the throat. Clouded blue eyes reflect your own disjointed appearance. Fear imprints itself onto the face; the horror of his own creation, his own death mask.
You look at this corpse. At this thing that was once you but no longer— because he decided to discard you as if you were nothing—and feel…
Cold.
Unsatisfied.
You look down at your inhuman not-skin, at the flecks of blood that coated the tips of your claws. You look at this body, at this boy whose skin you once inhabited, whose corpse you once breathed life into. Who blamed you for every hurt even though it was He who—
In the span of a snap, your wrathful fury has been doused. Your vengeance stymied by your own stupid, impulsive actions. Now, Danny (half-of-you-hurting-cruel-child-betrayer-betrayer-betrayer) is dead.
The irreconcilable truth is this: death is a mercy.
Death is the ending of a cycle. The ending of life, of thought, of joy and sorrow and suffering. Danny is dead and gone by your own hands, and with him he takes the target of his ire.
But you— monster of two halves, abomination of nature, a writhing mass of half-formed ghosts screaming in agony at the incompatibility that took shape into something vaguely human—do not want this anger to end. Not like this. Not so quickly. Not when Danny has the mercy of an ending while you must go on living an eternity in suffering.
Vlad's voice is shaking, frigid like the last brittle leaf of a dying tree. "What have you done?"
What have you done?
You bare your teeth in an imitation of a smile and stare into the clouded eyes of a boy that played at Heroes.
"Not enough."