Most of the chapters have been altered quite a bit, others have been changed completely. The theme is the same as it was originally intended though. I want to thank those who have stuck with the story so far and have been patient with me. I also want to thank those that posted reviews, as you've been a big help in revising this story to hopefully make it better and more enjoyable to read. This is NOT a pairing or slash fic. Thank you. :)
This story takes place between Seasons 1 and 2 of Young Justice, and after Season 3 in Danny Phantom.
Now without further ado, the story that began in 2015, "True Family".
Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice or Danny Phantom. All rights belong to DC Comics and Nickelodeon.
TW/ Warning: This story contains Graphic Depictions/Violence/Blood/Mentions of Death.
Prologue
Amity Park, Illinois
October 22 19:03 EDT
CRASH!
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
A pained groan was heard as metal creaked under his weight while carefully maneuvering himself from on top of the noisy car.
'This is the third time this week… I'm pretty sure they're not even trying to aim at this point,' he thought with a groan.
The drumming of rain on asphalt filled his ears as he slowly began to take in his surroundings again. His eyes adjusted to find himself leaning against an alarming car parked near Amity Park's downtown park and recreation area. The streetlights offered little to no light during the evening rainstorm to any normal resident. But to him? He could see as clear as day.
The teen rolled his radioactive green eyes, 'Which brings me to what I'm even doing here…'
He signed out loud as he turned to face the people who had shot him while being nearly four stories off the ground.
Both donned their usual orange and teal hazmat suits complete with utility belts. One, male, towered over the other and was broader in size, while the other, a female, was slim and curved.
The soon-to-be-sixteen-year-old couldn't help but rub his temples as he felt a headache coming on.
A glowing robot with green flames for hair landed next to him with a confused look. "Aren't those your-" he had begun to say before the teen had successfully cut him off with a disgruntled look. "Don't remind me," he grumbled under his breath.
The two had been fighting- well to be more accurately put, sparring- since the robot has never really been able to take him down over the past two years. Their fight had gone uninterrupted for a while until a large blue beam had come out of nowhere and shot the teen in the back.
It was Jack Fenton, in his orange-clad jumpsuit that finally broke the silence with his boisterous voice. "We got it from here, kiddo!"
"Sorry Dad, but this isn't your fight. The situation is under control," he assured the towering man.
"'Under control'?! Do you have any idea how many buildings and sidewalks you've damaged tonight?" Maddie Fenton, the woman in the blue jumpsuit, scolded.
"Uh… none? We haven't touched the ground," he retorted nonchalantly.
"Why don't you just leave ghost hunting to the professionals, Phantom," the female ghosthunter grunted while aiming her gun.
Whether it was at him or the other ghost next to him, he couldn't tell.
The teen caught the robotic ghost physically cringe, hearing how the teen's mother practically spat his name. However, the teen was beginning to lose his patience.
"'Professionals?'" He asked incredulously. "I'm pretty sure I've been dealing with these guys longer than you have. And as I was trying to explain, I had Skulker handled before you shot me out of the sky!"
The robot, Skulker, seemed more intrigued than uncomfortable at this point. Probably because he had gotten word that the younger half-ghost wasn't getting along with his parents and friends as of late. It must've seemed taboo to the hunter.
"Well you shouldn't have even been out here in the first place," Maddie hissed, it seemed her patience was thinning as well.
"Uh, it's kinda my job?"
"Your job? What job? Sneaking around at night fighting ghosts? Destroying family's houses and company's buildings? Tell me one good reason why you're out here causing damage to our city and how that is your job," she challenged.
Phantom's eyes flashed a brighter green as he grit his teeth together, "Maybe because nobody else in this city knows how to fend off ghosts or even want to. And since nobody else will, it looks like that responsibility falls unto me."
"You're a ghost! How can you keep ghosts away if you are one?! It's because of you that they keep showing up! If Phantom wasn't around, then they wouldn't show up anymore!"
"How many times do I- the ghosts aren't here because of me! If I disappeared, they would still come back and terrorize the people of Amity Park. If I left, there wouldn't be anyone here to protect the city from them!"
"You couldn't even save one person from being killed; how do you expect to save an entire city?!"
Jack's eyebrows furrowed as he placed a hand on his wife's shoulder. "Mads…" he uncharacteristically warned in a stern voice.
He heard a deep growl come from the glowing hunter ghost beside him. He calmed after Phantom raised a hand to stop him from advancing.
The atmosphere became deadly quiet, the only sound being the drumming of rain on asphalt again.
"Do you feel the same way?" the teen barely muttered as he looked at his dad.
He could almost feel something inside him shatter as the large man sent him an apologetic look.
"Phantom?" Skulker asked voice laced with concern.
The ghost teen remained quiet for a minute longer before announcing softly, "I'm going, Skulker… I'll see you later."
The hunter's eyes narrowed. "Phantom, are you sure you want to-?"
"Skulker, please... just leave me alone."
The older ghost sighed and kicked himself off the ground as he flew off.
The teen looked at both of his parent's exhausted expressions, as his own eyes turned sad. Glowing white transformation rings appeared around his waist and split in two as they transformed him back into his human form.
Maddie's eyes and stance lost their tension and fury from before as she took a step towards him.
The sound of the rain seemed to grow louder as he turned, transformed, and took off.
Team Phantom Warehouse
October 22 19:53 EDT
His chest felt as though it were burning as he half-stumbled onto the roof of his warehouse.
'Finally lost them…that was way too close for comfort.'
He took in a couple deep breathes as he tried to calm his adrenaline rush and aching core (the ghost equivalent of a heart).
The Guys In White, or GIW, is a ghost investigation and preventative department for the American government. Their main goals are to capture, investigate, experiment, and exterminate ghostly entities. And guess who their favorite target is…
Phantom groaned as he rolled his aching shoulder. 'They're getting better at aiming for sure. An up for them, and a laser to the shoulder for me. Still, the fact they managed to shoot me down and almost get me again is not something to brush off. I'll need to start being more cautious again.'
The teen turned intangible and slipped through the roof and through the concrete flooring to reveal the hidden base underneath the warehouse.
A while back, not too long after the Dis-Asteroid incident, Damian Gray, Valerie's dad, and partial owner of Axion Labs, gave him papers and rights to a warehouse on the outskirts of town in order to further his study on ecto-weapons and defenses.
Only he, Tucker, Sam, his immediate family, and Mr. Gray knew about it. He often went there when he wanted to be alone, or if he was up late with ghost-related stuff such as research or trying out new powers or weapons. Luckily, he and Tucker had often changed the password and pins to ensure their safety, so he didn't need to worry about any unwanted visitors.
Phantom landed soundlessly and simply stood there as he looked around. He had landed in the living room area, complete with two black-leather couches, one black leather loveseat, all facing a dark gray TV. A steel-framed, blue-tinted tempered-glass coffee table stood in the middle of the couches.
The teen took a shaky breath as he sat on one of the nearby couches.
'I don't know what to do anymore,' he thought as he ran a hand through his hair. 'I've tried finding solutions, but because of these stupid Anti-Ecto Laws, which makes anything that produces ectoplasm on its own 'illegal', and because of the stunt Maddie pulled a month or so ago, I can't even go on a patrol visibly without almost being kidnapped or shot at by the Idiots in White.'
Three months ago…That's when the Dis-asteroid incident happened. That's when he had saved the world from destruction via a giant asteroid. That's when Danny Phantom became a hero to Amity Park and the rest of the world found out that ghosts existed.
But that was three months ago.
Three months ago, he didn't have half of the Amity Park population and other cities thinking that maybe he wasn't cut out for ghost hunting and that ghosts were beginning to become more irritating than dangerous.
Three months ago, Sam was still talking to him, and hanging out with Tucker was a regular.
Three months ago, Maddie hadn't called the GIW and signed him over to them, like some type of animal or property.
Three months ago, he was still living at Fentonworks.
Admittedly, he had contemplated on leaving Amity Park, but it seemed so foreign, the idea of leaving his hometown. The idea came up a few weeks beforehand, but he quickly dismissed the idea after a few reoccurring ghost attacks.
How would the people of Amity protect themselves? How would they defend themselves if there's another invasion? What if-
The teen's thought process came to a halt as a glowing object was seen in the corner of his eye.
Phantom's eyebrows furrowed as he stood and walked over to the kitchen counter and picked up a small scroll and a medallion.
The paper was tan in color with two dark purple rods sticking out of both ends, while the medallion was gear-shaped and had a black center, a gold outer edge, and a black strap. As he turned the scroll around, he noticed a stamp. His eyes widened in surprise as the letters 'CW' were stamped into a glowing purple and blue wax seal.
'Clockwork?'
He looked around for a moment before stopping and mentally facepalming. "Ghost Master of Time, he can literally teleport to anytime or anyplace, Fenton," he reprimanded himself with a grumble. The ghostly teen sighed as he broke the seal and opened the scroll.
Clocktower. The belongings you will need are already packed.
~C.W.
Phantom couldn't help but chuckle. "Good ol' Clockwork… Probably another mission for the talking eyeballs. Alright then, I'm on my way," He smirked as he rolled the scroll back up. "…though you probably already knew that."
He didn't know how long he had been there, all he knew was that by the time he was flying towards Fentonworks, the rain had stopped, and the quarter moon was at its meridian. He noticed a heavy fog settling over the town as he flew towards the house.
Phantom invisibly and intangibly flew inside through the side of the house, emerging in the living room area. He saw a part of his mom's blue jumpsuit in the kitchen and floated silently further into the living room to get a better look.
Sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, untouched, in her hands, was his mother, Maddie Fenton. She seemed out of it as she stared at nothing and glanced over towards the basement. He found this strange as he remembered that his sister, Jazz, had mentioned that his mother hasn't gone down to the basement lab ever since the GIW signing incident.
Jazz had blabbed on about how it might've been because of the shock of him being half-ghost and her not fully comprehending what he was. But honestly, he thought that was just his sister's way of denying what had happened.
He adverted his eyes as he sunk through the floor and made sure the coast was clear before dropping his invisibility. The teen's ghostly aura hardly lighting up the eerie and seemingly untouched lab.
'Guess they really haven't been down here…' He thought as he frowned.
The ghostly teen slowly made his way towards the Ghost Portal, catching a glimpse of himself in a mirror by one of the desks.
He couldn't help but stop and grimace at his reflection.
His ghost half's natural white glow had almost completely vanished after having slowly been fading for the past three months. His once snow-white hair looked almost silvery now, his black and white signature jumpsuit now looked old without the glow, the logo itself was beginning to look tattered and beaten. But then there were his eyes, his glowing toxic-green eyes -much like his natural glow- had faded and now looked more of a natural green. But worst of all, his eyes showed just how exhausted and beaten he felt.
Three months of betrayal, arguments, meetings, and constant late-night patrolling has left the Halfa drained physically and emotionally.
'Skulker was right… I do look a lot worse than the last time he came by.'
Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he turned towards the desk, picked up a pen and a piece of paper, and scribbled a quick note on it.
Phantom placed it on one of the worktables as he walked by, his path leading him towards the portal. The ghostly teen looked around the lab once more before taking a deep breath and walking through the swirling green and black ectoplasmic portal.
CW visited, might not be back for a while. Don't forget to take out the emergency ham, Dad. ~D