Oh, my lovely fans, how I adore thee. It's been too long since this story has seen its former day! Therefore I am resurrecting it from its terrible death and plunging it back into a fresh life! Enjoy the new version with better writing and a brand new setup.

[Unlike my other fanfiction, Insight View, there will be no "first" edition available for 04092015. Some of the plot has changed for the better. However – I will include sneak peeks for ya.]

So, have at it my friends and happy reading.

Disclaimer: Danny Phantom and all related characters are owned by Butch Hartman and Nickelodeon Studios.


04092015

1

Lessons In Inertia

April Ninth 2005

"How many tests do we have left on the list?" Wiping sweat from his brow, Danny Fenton landed catlike on his feet next to his friends.

"Getting tired already?" Sam Manson prompted with a smile.

"Hey," Danny argued, panting slightly. "I don't see you lifting seven-hundred pound objects five times in a row and then try to fly while carrying it across the lab."

"Technically, you dropped it once," Tucker was happy to point out. "So that only means four times butterfingers."

Danny's blue eyes narrowed in a playful glare. "I made it to the halfway point."

"And then what? Tripped on air?"

Even Sam couldn't hold back a laugh and he swiveled his dark gaze to her next but couldn't deny the blush that had crept over his face. "I still made it halfway. Over in fact."

"Don't flaunt the scale ace," Sam teased.

"What's your excuse for this again?" Tucker had wandered over towards a tall, glistening object that sat in the corner and dripped water onto the floor.

"I think he said he wasn't an ice chiseler," Sam answered for him as Danny groaned. "Or something like that."

He stared down at the ice figure he'd tried to create. Before, he'd seen Frostbite sculpt an entire life-size version of Danny himself. Today he'd attempted to make a tree. The result was proving to look more like an oblong UFO as Sam had put it only twenty minutes ago. Quite clearly, he had no future in the artistic department.

"That's right," Tucker taunted, pointing emphatically at the ice disk. "You don't have one."

"What's the next test?" Danny grumbled, ready to distract from his current roast.

Sam and Tucker exchanged comedic glances and then Sam drew her attention back to the clipboard in her hand. "Invisibility – check. Intangibility – check. Ectoplasmic blasts running at full power. Heavy lifting – check. Aim – check. Ice thing – epic fail. So you've got flight speed next."

"That I can do," Danny said gleefully, leaping up into the air and stretching his arms over his head mid-flight. He did a couple warm ups as Tucker grabbed the speedometer from a table in his parents' lab.

Today, his parents were at some convention for ghost hunters. His sister was busy browsing a university she was interested in. He had the whole house to himself – with the exception of Tucker and Sam – and had decided there was no better time than to do a bit of self-testing to see how far his powers had come since the last set of testing seven months earlier. He'd locked the doors, turned off the phones, and had really set his focus on pushing the limits of his powers. Despite his lack of knowledge on how to make an icy figurine, he'd overcome all of his prior records times three.

Now he'd beat another one. It wasn't pride to say he knew he would; he just knew he was fast and had definitely gotten even faster in seven months' time. He flexed his arms, ready for the joyful feel of the wind on his face, even if he wasn't technically outside.

"Ready?" Tucker called from below.

"Ready."

"Five…four…three…two…one! Now!" he shouted, simultaneously pressing down a button on the timer.

Danny took off and the room began to blur as he circled around the lab walls, gaining speed with every turn. Sam had started to watch but stopped when she realized she was getting dizzy and instead, focused on the neon letters glowing from the speedometer's display screen. "One sixty…one eighty, come on Danny…" she urged, sharing a grin with Tucker.

"Ten seconds left," Tucker called out.

"One ninety…" Sam continued. "Two-hundred…two-ten…"

Danny could hear Tucker counting down from ten where he stood on the floor and he pushed himself harder, willing his body to move faster. He could feel the air pulsing around him as he dodged corners more easily and gained speed on the turns.

"Three…two…one!"

He slowed to a halt in front of them and went to land when motion caught up with him and he fell haphazardly to the ground in a dizzy heap. A slightly drunken laugh escaped him as he continued to lie there, seeing imaginary birds circle his head. "Whoa…head rush."

"Dizzy?" Sam asked, holding out a hand to help him to his feet.

"Yeah, just a bit," he replied, swaying slightly. "When you race around the room repeatedly for sixty seconds, you get a bit…woozy."

"It's all a part of momentum, inertia, and speed," Sam stated expertly.

"At least he isn't throwing up," Tucker added as Danny blinked several times, his vision still blurring slightly. "Yet…"

"Well, how'd I do?" he asked curiously as he tried to get his balance back.

Tucker smiled. "Two hundred and fifty."

"Really?" His hopeful smile turned into an ecstatic one. "Awesome!" He high-fived his best friends and whistled, suddenly feeling better than he had all day.

"How's it feel going that fast?" Sam asked, holding onto his hand a little longer.

"Totally awesome. Next time you guys fly with me."

"At that speed?"

"No way, you let me go last time," Tucker argued at the same time. "Thirty feet above the lake if I have to remind you."

"Tucker, you have never let me forget," Danny said, stringing his arms around both their shoulders. "Besides, I caught you."

"Barely."

"After we finish the tests, I say we celebrate. The Nasty Burger is open until eleven," he offered, glad he'd finally had the chance to do the trial period. With everything that had been going on lately, it was nice to get a break from the stress and just relax. Even if relaxing meant doing strenuous activities and he'd probably wake up sore the next morning.

"I think food sounds great. I'm starving and ready for some meat," Tucker agreed.

"What else is new?" Danny and Sam said together, laughing after at their synchronous replies. Tucker just shrugged without argument and rubbed his stomach hungrily.

"What's next on the list?"

But as Sam began to reply, his eyes caught something in the corner he hadn't noticed before. It was covered by a white sheet and was framed into the wall opposite of the Ghost Zone portal his parents had invented almost a year ago. He stared at it curiously, amazed he hadn't seen it when he'd come in or in the several hours they'd been down here. "What is that?"

"What is what?"

He pointed. "Underneath that sheet."

His friends followed his motion but didn't seem surprised when they saw it. Sam shrugged as if unimpressed. "Who knows? Just another gizmo?"

"How long has it been down here?" Danny zoomed over to it, grabbing the white cloth and pulling it off. He gasped at what he'd revealed.

It was an octagonal-shaped tunnel built into the wall. It was similar in width, but much shorter in height than the Fenton portal was. As soon as he'd taken off the sheet, it seemed to activate, making a high-pitched whirring noise. Danny dropped to the ground and his eyes seemed to light up as an eerie, green, luminescent glow shadowed his face. Whatever this new thing was…

It was the portal to something.

"Wow…" His voice seemed to echo back at him in spine-tingling whispers that only he could hear. He stood at the base of the tunnel and peered inside but it was nothing but a dimly lit room full of wires and sketches someone had drawn in chalk on the walls. The tunnel stopped about six feet in and was blocked off by another door that didn't look like it actually opened.

"What is it?" Sam asked, her lilac eyes taking in the box-shaped device at the tip of the portal doors. It looked like a digital alarm clock except it had eight numbers. 04092015 reflected back at them in red glow.

"I don't know. You would think my parents would tell me if they had a new thing," he responded, slightly awed. "They tell me about all the other stuff they make… Well, my dad does at least. I can't believe I didn't see it before."

"Your parents do have a lot of stuff down here," Tucker pointed out.

"It looks like the Fenton Portal," Sam said, bending down to check out a small panel on the left side of it. Danny examined it too and flipped the green button to on.

A thunderous noise reverberated through the whole lab, making the walls shake and the thousands of weapons and inventions in the room rattle. Sam and Danny jumped back as a blinding white light suddenly swirled at the portal opening, continuously moving like ripples in water.

"How did my parents not tell me about this?" Danny asked, unable to believe that his overzealous father would keep this thing – whatever it was – a secret. Even his own mother would surely boast about something this big. They'd talked about the Fenton portal for weeks in advance and then for months after it had been a finished project.

"Maybe it's a surprise?" Tucker offered.

"What does it do?" Sam wondered, mesmerized by the swirling light.

"Why don't we check it out?" Danny suggested, grinning back at his best friends as he stood in front of it. "Maybe it's a teleporter."

"Yeah…why don't you check it out Danny?" Tucker muttered, shoving Danny forward slightly.

"Aren't you guys coming?"

"Um…yeah, I remember what happened last time one of us walked into something like that," he admitted. "And um...well, now you're half-ghost."

Danny glanced at Sam who frowned. "He has a point. Not that I'm not up for trying new stuff. But you're already…"

"Weird?" he said, raising an eyebrow.

"Unique," Sam urged.

"Chickens," Danny teased. "You're soooo supportive." But when neither of them made a move to disagree, he sighed. "Look, I'll go first, but if I come out with a tail or something, I am so shoving you in there."

"Deal," Tucker and Sam replied together even though Danny knew they didn't actually mean it. He took a deep breath and turned towards the opening again, blinking against the harsh light. His heartbeat picked up a notch as he suddenly became very nervous. The Fenton Portal was the reason he had special ghost powers; what would this do to him?

Don't think about it, he thought to himself, inhaling deeply again. Just do it.

He held his hand out cautiously in front of him and inched it carefully towards the spinning light. It breached the opening and it felt like there was mist spraying on his black and white jumpsuit, even though it wasn't actually wet. He pushed the rest of his arm in and screamed when suddenly he felt himself being lifted off his feet and something tugged his entire body towards a vortex with a strength he couldn't fight. Light flashed all around him like a strobe light and he felt like he was being dragged down by some invisible entity. He got dizzy all over again as he moved farther into the tunnel of light. Fog and wind rushed past him in whirlwinds and his body was thrown haphazardly in various directions.

Then without warning, it stopped.

He never fell or landed, even. He was just suddenly aware that he was lying on his back. His eyes were squeezed together tightly and he could feel his heart racing in his chest. He waited for the motion sickness to pass and when it did, let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

He moved his fingers slowly and found it didn't hurt to move. Wherever he'd ended up, whatever had happened to him after he'd entered that portal, he seemed to be unharmed, just disoriented. He opened his eyes and found himself in a quiet darkness on a strange bed with flannel sheets. The lab had completely disappeared. Tucker and Sam too.

"No…" he whispered, frightened. He sat up and tried to make his eyes adjust to the sudden darkness. An alarm clock flashed at him from a bedside table. It read one o'clock. And with the darkness, Danny had to assume it was a.m., not p.m. But it had barely been three p.m. when he'd started training with Sam and Tucker, hadn't it?

He was in a room he didn't recognize at a different time than when he'd left and Sam and Tucker were nowhere to be found. A slight panic started to settle in and a cold chill crossed his skin. What was happening? What had happened?

"Danny?"

He jumped at the voice and let out a strangled cry. Whirling around, he stared into familiar lilac eyes that were full of concern. She reached out to touch him and he realized that even though he knew who she was, she looked so different. Her black hair was longer and she appeared to be…older. And she was dressed in a nightgown that was a deep purple in the darkness. And they were sharing the same bed. Him and Sam.

"Oh."

He went to move away and fell completely off the bed instead.


New chapter names, new details (and hopefully better details), and yet it's still not as lengthy as I pictured. Oh, well – it's gonna get better. And funnier. I have a mix of drama and humor in this one. And lots and lots of evilness.

So, as promised, here is your brand new sneak peek –

Chapter Two: Femme Fatale

"You must be so desperate to tell me such a tale," she whispered against his ear.

"It's the truth!" he shouted, right before she grabbed his chin roughly with her hand.

"I think you can do better with the right persuasion." Her threat was made a promise when her other hand came up with an energized weapon that glowed dangerously in the darkness.

"Do you want me to beg?" he asked, running out of options. "I will – I don't have that much dignity."


Please review and stay tuned for upcoming chapters and edits.

Raina Wolfe