(Hayden's Apartment)

"How? How can that be Dan Phantom? He's locked in the Fenton Thermos!" Tucker was having a panic attack. Danny frantically pulled the DVD out of the player and slid it back into the case. He stared at it for a minute before standing up.

"We've got to get out of here." He pulled Tucker up, who was still gibbering to himself and turned to Sam. Opening his mouth to say something, he stopped when he noticed a shadow in the hallway.

Sam watched Danny's facial expression go from determined to afraid. "What is it, Danny?" She realized suddenly that he was looking behind her rather than at her and whirled around.

The shadow moved forward slowly, as though it was just as afraid of them as they were of it. It was a man's form, tall and lanky. A voice floated out of the gloom ahead of the figure, the exact voice on the disc.

"I forgot how short I was."

The person came into full view finally. Dressed in a pair of ripped jeans and a black long-sleeved tee, Danny gawked as he was faced with himself. The older Danny, Dan, broke into a grin at the sight of his younger version's facial expression.

"What? You act like you've seen a ghost. Technically, you're only looking at half of one. Or I used to be, anyway…Speaking of which, have you seen Hayden around?" Dan stepped forward, his hands in his pockets.

Letting go of Tucker's arm, Danny transformed and lunged at Dan, pinning him against the wall. His counterpart's eyes grew wide, although he didn't resist.

"Start talking. What does Hayden have to do with you? Why is she in that video!" Danny gripped his twin's arms. Dan grabbed the younger boy's arms and pried him off.

"I'll tell you if you let go! Geez, I'm a psycho…" Dan rubbed his upper arm and set Danny down. "You could just asked, Phantom."

"Don't call me that! You're Phantom, remember? Or did you forget trying to kill our family and erase me?" Danny folded his arms and floated between Sam, Tucker and Dan, glaring.

The man rolled his eyes and rubbed the back of his head. "You are dense."

"Hey!"

"Sorry. Basically, you're getting me confused with someone else. The Dan you're talking about is Dan Phantom. I'm Dan Fenton. There's a big difference."

"Like what?" Danny lost his glare for a moment, now extremely confused. What was he…Dan…whoever he was talk about. Sam spoke up from behind him.

"Wait a minute. Are you saying you're the human Danny from the future?"

Dan nodded in approval of Sam's question. "Exactly. I'm the human side that Dan Phantom split off from. I don't have ghost powers."

"That can't be true. Vlad said that Phantom killed you when you guys separated." Danny set down and balled his fist, prepared to fight.

Dan put up his hands, placating. "No, Vlad didn't. He said some things shouldn't be discussed. Phantom beat me within an inch of my life and left me for dead. Vlad just assumed that I died." He looked down at his hands and sighed. "It probably would have been easier to die."

Danny, seeing the sadness in his older self's face, relaxed slowly and transformed back. "So, what does Hayden have to do with you?" He watched as Dan sat down on the couch and stared at the ceiling, apparently lost in thought.

"She's been on the run from her uncle ever since her parents died. A while back, she happened upon one of Clockwork's medallions and used it to time hop. It was the only way she could stay far enough ahead of her uncle to keep him from catching her."

"Her uncle must be insane." Danny sat down Indian-style on the floor, followed by Sam and Tucker.

"He is. Vlad's always been rather off the deep end."

"Vlad Masters is her uncle! Duh…" Danny shook his head in disbelief. "I thought about that, but I figured it was a coincidence."

Dan sat forward on the couch. "Nope. Vlad's her crazy uncle. As a matter of fact, he's the reason her parent's are dead. You see, he wanted to try and re-create the experiment that your father botched, which led to Vlad being a halfa. Unfortunately, the experiment blew up, which killed her parents. If Hayden hadn't of been right outside the door when it happened, she probably wouldn't have been affected at all."

"What do you mean, affected?"

"Hayden's a half-ghost. That's why Vlad wants her, so he can use her to defeat you. She's got the same powers as you. He hoped that she would be more powerful than he is." Dan sighed.

"But like I said, she's been running from him. She stumbled into my time, and once I heard her story, I offered to help. The Vlad in my time is good, if you'll remember, so we began to devise a plan to stop the Vlad of this time. But, Clockwork caught onto Hayden's trail a long time ago. He's determined to eliminate her from the time stream and prevent her from further messing up the timeline."

He held Danny's gaze as he leaned forward. "I think he's using Phantom to find her. We have to find her before he does and stop him from hurting her."

Danny blinked for a minute. "Wait a minute. You're saying that Hayden's a halfa, Vlad's trying to capture her to use her as some ultimate weapon against me, Clockwork's chasing her and he's unleashed Phantom to kill her, you want to stop him and you don't have any powers!" He stopped to take a breath. His double raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, that's pretty much it. Don't worry about me. I may not have ghost powers, but I've got most of Dad's gadgets. Plus, I'm 21. I have a gun."

"Guns don't kill ghosts, you do know that?" Sam raised an eyebrow at the older Danny. He was good-looking, but he had about as much brains as her Danny. Wait; did she call him her Danny?

Dan gave Sam an innocently surprised look. "Who said anything about shooting ghosts? The gun's for Vlad."


Author's Note: More plot twisty! And no, I'm not reaaallly going to shoot Vlad (cause he's so darn good-looking!). Unless he makes me mad, that is. R&R. (And I'm going to bed, so the next chapter probably won't be till tomorrow. Sorry, Queen.)