PROLOGUE

The following prologue is a written adaptation of the origin of Danny Phantom's powers in 'Memory Blank'. The original plot and dialogue is written Steve Marmel, and was directed by Ken Bruce, Gary Conrad, and Butch Hartman and has been adapted for paper with new scenes by DevilBoy216. This portion of the show has been adapted to this story to provide a better chronological flow for readers.

This story also adapts several elements of Butch Hartman's 'Danny Phantom: 10 Years Later' concepts as well as several deleted concepts during the show's development. All credit to Butch Hartman where it is due.

That being said, I do not claim any liking or otherwise favoritism for Butch Hartman. In light of his multiple controversies and wrongdoings, ranging from tracing/plagiarizing artwork to claiming his religious sect can 'cure' Autism (which, being Autistic myself, I take personal offense with), the credit given to him is strictly for story contributions and are not meant to be in praise of his character.

So, to Butch Hartman, Nickelodeon, and Viacom, please don't sue me. I just want to entertain people.

Lastly, the cover art to this story was created by Amethyst-Ocean. You can see more of her work on DeviantArt.

Without further ado, enjoy the ride.


A long time ago, in a city named Amity Park, there lays a small business known as Fenton Works, a business built on hunting and catching ghosts and exploring the theorized extraphysical realm of existence known as the afterlife, run by a family going by the name of Fenton. As per usual in this establishment, not much progresses by way of events.

With the very existence of ghosts and any life beyond death being a nothing more than mere fringe theory, a vague hypothesis at best, there is no place for ghost hunters in today's world. With no use for their inventions, the numerous contraptions created by the Fentons are left to rot in the laboratory stationed in the basement of their home, left untouched and used.

Today, however, three curious children inspect the tools, hoping to find some amusement from the ghost-hunting equipment. These three friends are:

Danny Fenton, the youngest of the Fenton family...

Sam Manson, a goth girl belonging to a rich family...

...and Tucker Foley, a tech-savvy and self-proclaimed ladies' man.

Most often, the friends find their boredom satiated with many activities typical of youths their age, spending time in and out of arcades and fast food restaurants like Nasty Burger. Today, the three friends get ready to explore the pièce de résistance of all the inventions created by the Fentons:

The Ghost Portal, an experimental portal meant to be a gateway to the realm of the undead, to the supposed alternate dimension where people who once were living and breathing beings now exist as vapid forms partially resembling the living creatures that they once were.

Bored as he is to check the equipment, he is not brave enough to explore it unprotected. Finding a safety jumpsuit among the inventions, he placed it on himself, taking precaution before entering the portal. As he changed into the suit, Sam pulled out a camera, taking a picture of Danny just before his venture into the gateway.

"Smile!" Sam said.

The camera gave a blinding flash of light, causing Danny to experience some mild disorientation, coming to him quickly and leaving him just as fast.

"Okay, I showed you the portal, can we get out of here now? My parents could be back here any minute. Besides, they say it doesn't work anyway." Danny said.

Sam and Tucker approached the portal with Danny reluctantly following them; the latter of the three feeling too nervous to step inside for his own safety.

"Come on, Danny, a Ghost Zone? Aren't you curious? You gotta check it out." Sam said.

Hearing his love interest ask him to head inside the device, Danny seemed more courageous from Sam's words, subconsciously wishing to impress her with his bravery.

"You know what? You're right. Who knows what kind of awesome, super-cool things exist on the other side of that portal?" Danny asked.

With his mind made up, Danny zipped up the jumpsuit, preparing to step inside the portal. Before he could do so, however, Sam stopped him to correct one last detail.

"Hang on." Sam said.

On the front of Danny's jumpsuit laid a sticker of the face of Jack Fenton, Danny's father, giving the suit an obnoxious and tacky look to the rest. Sam pulled it off the jumpsuit without a second thought, removing the offending sight and making the jumpsuit more visually appealing to the group.

"You can't go walking around with that on your chest." Sam said.

With the sticker off the suit, Danny nervously stepped inside the Ghost Portal, still carrying his own fears on his chest, investigating for anything of interest. While searching for something for the three to marvel at and satisfy both their curiosity and boredom, however, Danny accidentally pressed a button by leaning his hand against a wall, activating the portal.

To surprise of all, the portal powered on; its lights activating and many sounds of electrical power flowing through the equipment. Before Danny could even realize what he had just done, a flash surged through the portal and over him as he stood in the middle of it, causing ectoplasm to rush through his adolescent body.

Believing all technology inside to be useless and nonfunctional, to see the portal power on was a sight that made every heart sink low, but none so much as Danny Fenton's. Seeing ectoplasmic energy condense around him and sweep through his body, thoughts of fear and terror engulf all rational thought in his mind; this is the day he dies, and he knows it.

The energy that flows through him does not break him down to nothing as he expects, but it instead changes him from the inside out. His DNA and RNA, molecules and atoms, are split apart and put back together in a different order; radically changing him to the genetic level and mutating his body permanently. The light takes him to pieces, and puts the pieces back in the order they desire.

The process is agonizing beyond human comprehension; tearing his body apart at the seams and pulling them back together at the same time. Unable to withstand the immense pain from the mutation his body was undergoing, Danny could do nothing in response but scream.

As anyone would expect from someone in his situation, his screams are loud and agonizing, filling the once empty air with horrified shrieks of torture by scientific accident. The sight and sounds are a spectacle that terrify his onlooking friends, leaving them with the belief that their curiosity and boredom has led to their best friend dying a horrible and bizarre death.

Sam and Tucker, feeling enormous guilt from seemingly sentencing their best friend to his death, have no words come to their mouths, not even screams. Stuck in an impossible situation that neither could have contemplated, the two friends could do nothing but hold each other in terror as they watched Danny suffer the painful mutation within the portal, hoping that the horror show would come to an end.

Expecting the form of Danny Fenton to dissipate and fade to dust under hellfire, they are not given a sight of his death, but instead a macabre birth of sorts.

As his body radically undergoes changes on the inside, it eventually does the same on the outside. His hair turned from jet black to snow white, and his eyes going from an icy blue to a jaded green. Slowly but surely, the face that his friends once knew as Danny Phantom is now the face of a stranger.

Finally, after several minutes of torture that seemingly an eternity to all in the room, Danny emerged from the portal at last, falling to the ground in exhaustion. Sam and Tucker rushed to his aid in hopes that he would be alive, doing anything in their power and frightened mental capacity to help him.

Sadly, all they can muster out of this fearful haze are but slaps to his face and pleas for him to respond, and silent prayers that he will fulfill their requests.

"DANNY!" The two yelled.

Sam, having harbored affections for Danny, held him tight, believing that she may not have another chance to hold him again. Nestling his head against her chest, as if a mother trying to nurture a child back to health, she continued to plead for him to give a response to her cries, hoping that he would soon reply.

"Danny... please say you're okay... Please..." Sam cried.

After several long minutes of waiting, inflicting anxiety and fear on the distressed teenagers, Danny finally regained consciousness; his eyes finally opening to view his temporary caretakers. To their surprise, along with the obvious change of his hair and eyes changing color, his eyes also emitted a glow.

"Ugh... What happened? Feels like I just got beaten by an army of Dash clones." Danny moaned.

"Danny? Uh... You okay?" Tucker asked.

"No... I feel like crap... Do I look okay?"

"Well, actually... You look... different."

"What? What do you mean, 'different'?"

"Well... Uh... It's... complicated."

Confused over Tucker's vague avoidance of the question, Danny got up from the floor and moved to the mirror, struggling against fatigue from his painful experience through the Ghost Portal. Not knowing what he would see in the mirror, he approached it with fear and uncertainty, believing that he had acquired some horrible disfigurement or other injury from his near-death experience.

When he looks in the mirror, what he finds is nothing of the sort, but a surprising change nonetheless. As one would expect from seeing such a drastic change in their appearance, Danny found himself in a heavy state of shock, not knowing how to take or process his new look.

For now, all that remains on his mind is the fear of how to explain the affair to his parents.

"Oh, crap. I am so grounded." Danny said.

His concentration regarding his own immediate problems soon snapped towards another immediate problem that presented itself, coming in the form of rumbling near the Ghost Portal. Just when the confusion was starting to begin, a loud, inhuman roar came from the portal, gaining the immediate attention of the three.

"You're worried about your parents? What was that?" Tucker asked.

To the shock and horror of everyone in the room, a large, translucent being emerged from the portal, terrifying the entire group. The being was large and green, having a huge, exaggerated body, fat and cartoonishly large, and had plenty of teeth in its mouth, with saliva running off them and wetting the floor with its filth.

Sam and Tucker screamed in horror at the sight, cowering in the corner of the lab like two mice fleeing from a cat; an analogy not far from the being's intent with the two.

"What the heck is that thing?!" Tucker screamed.

"What do you think it is?! It's a ghost!" Sam yelled.

The two both hugged the wall, hoping in vain that they would be safe from the monster by merely moving away from it. Their efforts are as vain as anyone would expect from such a strategy; still did the ghost approached them, still snarling and growling monstrously as it prepared to attack its prey.

Helpless as they were against the ghost, there was one more party in the room that held plenty of power to ward off the spirit, but still lacking in the knowledge to apply the power. Danny watched Sam and Tucker cower before the ghost, thinking over how to save them from the imminent threat that hovered before them.

Needing to do whatever he could to save his friends, with no knowledge of what to do, he asserted himself towards the ghost to take its attention away from them.

"Hey! Leave my friends alone!" Danny yelled.

Attempting to make his speech more dramatic, Danny pointed his hand to the ghost as he called to it. Unexpectedly and to his surprise, his gesture had led him to fire an ectoplasmic blast from his hand, unintentionally inflicting harm on the ghost, but ultimately causing it to give him its full attention, fulfilling his goal.

With its attacker in its eyes, the ghost growled louder; its eyes turning bright red with rage as it was pained by its attacker. Within seconds, Danny began to regret his decision, nearly spoiling his underwear from the sight of the angered ghost as it now turned its attention to him.

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!" The ghost yelled.

Though intimidated by the sight of the angry ghost, the sight of the blast of energy from his hand led him to believe that the effects of the portal may have given him some means of fighting the ghost, quickly swaying aside his fears against the spectral being. Remembering his own goal of saving his friends regardless of the cost, Danny began to feel more confident in his approach.

Feeling ready for battle, Danny's eyes glowed a brighter shade of green, giving a cocky smile as he raised his fist with ectoplasmic energy surging through it.

"The name's Phantom. Danny Phantom." Danny replied.

With a vicious roar and a flight straight towards Danny, the invading ghost began its attack towards its new target. Danny, now ready to face the attacker and use his newfound abilities to save his friends, leaped back towards the oncoming ghost, ready to fight it and use his powers to defeat the enemy.

This is just the beginning of a long journey, and the best is yet to come.