DANNY PHANTOM: ABSENCE OF LIGHT

CHAPTER 2: NEGATIVE CHARGE

By: PaladinSparkKnight

"Danny Fenton? What…the…?" JD muttered. He'd been hiding by that tree as well, when he'd seen one of his crazy neighbors transform into some kind of ghost-thing!

Danny rushed through the air towards Skulker. The metal ghost wasn't paying any attention to the oncoming ghost-boy. He kept firing off missiles at the scattering children. Suddenly, a ecto-blast hit Skulker in the head, causing him to fall a couple feet. He jerked his head around and saw Danny, his hands still steaming from the firing the blast.

"Did you miss me?" Danny asked jokingly.

"There you are, ghost child," Skulker said, "I was wondering when you'd show up."

"How many times to you have to 'hunt' me before you're going to give up?" Danny asked, raising a brow as another blast of ectoplasm started to form in his hand.

"Skulker isn't a hunter today," Skulker explained, "just doing someone a favor," He put out his arm as two darts folded out. The darts shot out and an electric net formed between them. They shot over to Danny and trapping him within the net. Danny fell back down to the ground. Usually, he'd just faze right out but this net was made of a bit stronger material.

"Say good night, ghost child!" Skulker yelled. Two missile packs came out from his back. The twelve missiles shot down, nearing Danny with every passing second. Danny continued struggling until he managed to blast through it. The missiles were ten feet away. Danny panicked and put an ecto-shield around his entire body, letting the missiles crash right into it. The projectiles stopped and Danny lowered his shield.

"Well, that's enough carnage for one day, don't you think?" Skulker chuckled. He went intangible and flew off. Sam and Tucker ran over to Danny, picked him up and ran towards the tree JD was hiding. They got behind the tree and noticed JD was standing there.

"Oh uh," Sam stammered, "this isn't what it looks like!"

"Danny?" JD asked. Sam and Tucker gasped and Danny started to lift his head, indicating his strength was returning. He stood up. "I can't believe it! You're that ghost-boy I've heard about!" JD went on.

"Look, JD, right? You can't tell anybody!" Danny exclaimed angrily. At that moment, Alexis and Ariel were running over to where the other four were standing. Quickly, Danny changed back.

"JD, is it true?" Alexis asked, "Is Danny really the ghost-boy?"

"Too late," Sam said.

"Listen, you guys haven't told anybody else have you?" Danny asked. Ariel and Alexis looked at each other, then back to Danny and shook their heads. "Good, let's keep it that way. The last thing I need is everybody knowing my secret."

"What's so bad about it?" JD asked, "If I were you, I'd tell everybody!"

"Well, you're not me and I have my reasons so just keep quiet about it alright?" Danny commanded. JD, Alexis and Ariel all nodded.

Over the next week, ghost attacks seemed to be at an all-time high. It seemed like a ghost appeared, at least, 5 times a day. Sam and Tucker tried helping Danny as much as they could and got a lot more done than usual, having the three new kids to the group. It seemed to be Sam and Alexis' jobs to cover for Danny when a ghost attacked, Ariel's job to find a quick place to morph and Tucker and JD ran as distractions.

The six of them were sitting in the Nasty Burger, JD and Tucker trying to figure out how many milkshakes it took to get brain-freeze, while the girls and Danny laughed.

"So, Danny, I've been meaning to ask," JD began, after his head stopped hurting, "How'd you get those powers anyway?"

"Allow me to explain," Sam answered. She reached into her backpack and pulled out what looked to be an overstuffed book of pictures. She flipped to a page somewhere towards the middle of the book. The page was plastered with pictures of Danny's parent's lab. There were some pictures of Danny in a white jumpsuit and Sam near him, apparently setting dials on some box attached to the wall.

"We were going to have Danny explore the Ghost Zone, using the Fenton Portal." Sam said, pointing to a picture of the Fenton Portal. "After setting the dials, Danny went inside and activated the portal."

"Little did we know," Tucker interrupted dramatically, "having Danny inside the time made ectoplasm fuse into his DNA."

"So, all you have to do is be in the portal and turn it on?" JD asked.

"Well, technically," Sam said, "but it's not like we're gonna be making anymore ghost-kids. We have Danny and I think that's enough."

Another hour had gone by and they all agreed it was getting late. JD has been flipping through the photo album. Sam had gotten up and reached down to get her bag. Quickly, JD slipped out a photo before she could turn around.

"Thanks for showing me that, Sam," JD said, smiling as he handed her the album back.

"No problem," Sam replied. The six of them exited Nasty Burger and went their separate ways home. Danny and JD were left walking together as the rest all went off to their respective homes.

"So, what's it like living in a haunted house?" Danny asked.

"I guess it's not too bad," JD answered, "I'm the only who's seen the ghost who haunts the house. My parents don't believe me," JD sighed, lowering his head before looking back up at Danny, "you believe me, don't you?"

Danny laughed, "I'm the kid with ghost powers and you're asking me if I believe there's a ghost haunting your house?" JD paused for a second and then laughed as well.

"HI GUYS!" a shrill voice screamed behind the two boys. They turned their heads and saw Lizzie and some other child ghost floating behind them, "HI JD! This is Kris!"

"HI! I LIKE TURTLES!" Kris screamed, almost as loud a Lizzie did. Kris was the same height as Lizzie. Her hair was blond with a black headband going across the top of her head and had green eyes. Kris wore half-rimmed glasses and a grey sweater with a turtle on it.

"This the ghost that haunts your house?" Danny asked.

"One of 'em." JD replied. They looked at Lizzie and Kris. The two looked back and forth at each other for several minutes, making an awkward silence.

"I still like turtles," Kris muttered.

"K! We're gonna go now!" Lizzie exclaimed. She and Kris flew off and disappeared from sight. Danny and JD just shrugged and walked the rest of the way home. The two said good-bye and went inside their own houses.

JD ran up to his room, jumped onto his bed and pulled out the picture he'd stolen from Sam's album. He looked at it. The picture was of Danny standing in front of the Fenton Portal with all the dials set the correct settings.

"Look out Danny; you're not gonna be the only ghost-kid anymore," JD muttered under his breath.

His cat, poorly named Gato, hopped up onto the bed and stared at his master. "Can I help you?" JD asked his feline companion. Gato dropped his little fetch ball in front of JD. He laughed and threw the ball across the room. Naturally, Gato chased after his toy and smashed face-first into the wall the ball had bounced off of. But, being the brainless cat he was, Gato just continued to swat his ball around the room. Eventually, JD drifted off to sleep.

Large, rumbling, bangs were heard off in the distance. Danny, Sam and Tucker turned around. A large black behemoth was slowly storming towards them, the monsters eyes glowing with dark ecto-energy. The sky had turned a deep crimson as destruction lay all around them.

"Danny! What're we going to do?" Sam cried. Danny turned to Sam, confusion in his expression., staring back to the approaching behemoth.

"I don't know Sam." Danny answered, as the world around him began to grow dark, "I really don't know..."

Danny shot up from his sleep, drenched in sweat, panting. He got up to look out the window, a hard lump in his throat as he thought about the dream. As he approached the window, he sighed in relief. The sky was the normal shade of black, with only a few stars showing due to the lights of Amity Park. He turned around and plopped back down onto his bed. "What was that all about?" Danny asked himself. He decided not to dwell on it and went back to sleep.

The next morning, Jack and Maddie were packing up the Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle, or RV. They were going to a weekend long marriage camp, as much as Jack really didn't want to.

"Now kids, be good while we're gone this weekend." Maddie said to Danny and Jazz, while Jack tried sneaking from the house to the RV with various ghost weapons. "and Jack put those weapons back," Maddie reprimanded, without even looking over at Jack.

"Aww." Jack whined and started pulling his weapons back out. After everything was packed, Jack and Maddie got into the RV and drove off. Jazz and Danny waited for them to be out of sight.

"Well, I'm off to help teens deal with depression!" Jazz said enthusiastically.

"And that's your idea of a fun weekend?" Danny asked sarcastically.

"Yep! C'ya!" Jazz turned around and walked off. Danny sighed and went back up the steps to the door. Just as he put his hand on the doorknob, Danny felt a great rush of wind blow behind him. He turned around and saw various meat products zooming down the street. Danny pulled out his cell phone and punched speed-dial.

"Sam, Tucker, the Lunch Lady's at it again. She's heading to the Nasty Burger!" Danny said. By now, he'd already morphed and started to chase the meat. "Get the others and meet me over there." Danny clicked his phone off and put it away.

JD had seen all this and saw that the Fenton house was completely empty. A slight evil smile spread across JD's face. "Alright girls, just like we planned." JD said. Lizzie and Kris were floating behind him, giggling their butts off about something. The two diminutive ghosts grabbed JD by the arms and went intangible. They fazed through the second-story wall and right through the front door of the Fenton house.

"Alright, we're good." JD said, after the ghosts let him down. JD walked down to the lab with Kris and Lizzie following him and up to the Fenton Portal. "Here it is girls, this is where it's gonna happen!"

"Where what's gonna happen?" Lizzie asked stupidly.

"Lizzie, I've told you, like, five times already!" JD exclaimed, his voice full of exasperation, "Never mind, just go set up the portal like this picture," JD took out the photo and handed it off to the ghosts.

"There's no turtles here," Kris muttered under her breath.

"Just do it," JD growled.

"There'll be turtles later Kris, I promise!" Lizzie exclaimed.

"Yay!" she screamed and flew off to set the portal. JD walked back a few feet, examining the lab. He noticed the rack of white jumpsuits. He contemplated wearing one but decided not to. JD didn't think it'd make much of a difference. "FINSIHED!" Kris yelled from across the room.

"Good," JD said. He took back the photo and went over the portal, making sure the girls did everything right. After, he put the photo down by Danny's computer. "let's do this." Lizzie opened the portal and JD stepped inside. He looked around and eventually found the "On" button.

"Ready out there?" JD called. Lizzie and Kris turned to each other, then back to JD. They both pulled sunglasses out from behind their backs, put them on and gave him the thumbs-up signal. JD nodded. "Here goes everything," He said. And with that, he pressed the button. All around him, a vibrating sound started getting louder and louder. From the back of the portal, a green light started to shine. JD squinted at it as it got brighter. All of a sudden, the light blasted out from where it was, consuming the contents of the portal.

All around, all JD could see was a blinding green light. Wails of lost souls could be heard as the world seemed as if it was spinning at a thousand miles per hour. Outside the portal, Lizzie and Kris were staring dumbly into the green and ghostly light of the Fenton Portal. The light got brighter and brighter until JD could no longer keeps his eyes open to see it. JD yelled in pain as a new force started to slip into his body. If was if a knife was being thrust through his body. Upstairs, Danny, Sam and Tucker opened the front door and walked into the Fenton's living room.

"I can't believe how much meat was wasted today!" Tucker whined.

"Oh, calm down. It's not as if you needed it to survive." Sam snapped.

"Guys, quiet a sec, you hear that?" Danny said. Faintly,they could hear a painful yell. "It's coming from the basement!" The three ran through the kitchen, down the stairs and into the lab. A green aura surrounded the entire lab. Danny spotted Kris and Lizzie floating in the middle of the room, staring into the Fenton Portal and wearing sunglasses, though his attention was drawn to the Fenton Portal rather than the two ghosts. Despite the blinding light, Danny could make out a body, screaming in pain.

The portal started to whine louder, as if it was going to explode. Danny quickly changed to ghost-mode and made a shield round him and his friends. The portal gave of one last ecto-charge and started to quickly shut down. Danny let down his shield and looked into the portal. Slowly, a dark figure limped, steaming from the portal. Its body was completely black, except for its glowing purple eyes. Weakly, it looked up at Danny, who had rushed over to it. Danny looked at the face of the creature.

"Oh my gosh," Sam whispered, "JD?", as the new JD's eyes closed and fell to the floor.

"C'mon, get him over the examination table, quickly!" Danny ordered. Tucker and Sam nodded and immediately picked JD up and put him on the table. After about an hour, JD started coming too. He slowly opened his eyes to another blinding light.

"You mind turning that off?" he asked weakly, getting a gasp from the other three in return, "What?" he asked.

"How're you talking?" Tucker asked. JD gave him a puzzled look. Sam handed him a mirror. JD looked into it and saw what had happened to his face.

"Oh man! What happened!" he exclaimed, he also noticed he no longer had a mouth, "Where's my mouth?"

"JD, calm down," Danny said, "you're gonna have to tell us what you did." Sam had glanced over and saw the photo that JD had sat down earlier. She picked it up and an angry expression went across her face.

"Does this answer your question?" she asked. Danny took the photo from her. He looked from it then to JD.

"So, that's what you did!" Danny shouted, "You used this to get ghost powers, didn't you?"

"AND WE HELPED!" Lizzie shouted.

"But there's still no turtles!" Kris shouted.

"Will you two get out of here?" Danny yelled. The two little ghosts sighed and fazed through the floors. JD had hopped off the table, obviously over the shock of his new body.

"Cool! I'm a ghost now!" JD said. His legs randomly flicked in and out of their normal state and the black ghost tail. JD jumped up and tried to fly. Unfortunately, he got three feet off the ground before crashing back down to the floor.

"JD quit messing around!" Sam snapped at him. JD looked down at his hands.

"I'm not JD anymore." He said, "Just call me Jay Negative!"

"Jay Negative? Riiight. Don't get too used to that name. We're gonna figure out how to change you back!" Danny said.

"Aw, c'mon Danny! This'll be a good thing." Jay said, "I've seen how hard it is sometimes for you to battle ghosts. I could help you! We could be partners!"

"I don't need a partner. And besides, we don't even no if you can change back into your normal form, let alone control your powers!" Danny shouted. JD closed his eyes and started concentrating really hard. Sweat started to drip down the side of his face. Then, a black energy ring shot out from Jay's waist. It split in two, one ring going up and one going down. Within seconds, Jay had morphed back into JD.

"I think I'm good" JD said, smiling smugly.

"Alright, for now, you can keep your powers." Danny said, "I'll take you to the outskirts of town for a little practice but I think you should stay here tonight. Just to make sure you don't accidentally destroy your house."

"We'll stay too, just in case." Sam said. Tucker nodded.

It was 6 am. God only knew why Danny had chosen this early to start practice.

"Ok, we'll start with something basic," Danny, who was already in ghost form, said, "try morphing into ghost mode." JD nodded. He closed his eyes again and concentrated hard. The black ring shot out again and morphed JD back into Jay Negative.

"Good, now for something harder. Faze through this tree," Danny said. Jay ran at the tree and jumped head-first at it. He was confident that he could faze through it, right up until he hit the tree instead of going through it.

"Ow! That hurt!" Jay yelled, getting a laugh from Danny , "Shut up, Danny!" Jay barked as he stood up using the tree as leverage. But, his arm started to slip through the tree, until Jay's whole body had fallen through it. "Ha!"

"Not bad" Danny said, "now we've already establish you have the ability to fly but we better test it again, just to make sure." Danny looked down at the ground and spotted a rock. He smirked, picked it up and threw it hard into the air. "fetch."

Jay jumped up and his legs switched to the ghost tail. He rocketed up to the rock and put his hand out. Instead of grabbing the rock, Jay's hand started to vibrate. Suddenly, a sonic blast shot out from his and obliterated the rock. Jay's eyes widened. "Sweet," he said in amazement. He floated back down to Earth with Danny standing wide-eyed.

"How'd you do that?" Danny asked.

"You tell me 'cause I dunno," Jay replied as Danny's hands started to glow.

"Ok Jay, let's see how you can stand against me," Danny said cockily, as he fired out two ectoplasmic rays. Jay held out his hand and fired off a sonic blast, making the rays shoot off into two different directions, quickly making his fellow halfa angry.

Danny charged at Jay, firing off more ecto-blasts. Jay deflected a good majority of them, the ones he missed skimmed by him, and a few managing to connect, though scars were hard to see on the ghost's dark figure. Danny attempting a sneak attack and quickly fazed into the ground, a mere two feet behind Jay, the other halfa looking all around, sonic energy resonating from his hands. Danny popped up right behind Jay and dealt him a kick in his back, causing Jay to fly ten feet forward and come to a skidding stop on the ground. The new ghost-kid wasn't too happy, and that was obvious as Jay's eyes glowed a dark purple. Then, a purple blast shot out from his eyes and hit Danny square in the chest.

"Optic ghost blasts…nice," Jay muttered to himself. Now it was his turn. He got on his feet and took flight at Danny. Recovering quickly from Jay's optic blast, Danny took off into the air as well. The two ghost-boys flew straight at each other, no more than five feet off the ground. They looked like they were about to collide. Jay decided they were getting to close for comfort and went up, Danny following. Danny started firing off ecto-blasts again, Jay doing his best to avoid them. He needed to get away from Danny, somehow, but how was currently unknown. All of a sudden, a black fog started billowing from Jay's ghost tail. It fell right onto Danny, making him stop chasing him. Jay stopped as well and looked at what happened. The fog was around Danny and this was the perfect time to catch him off guard. Jay switched his legs back to normal and dropped, smashing right into Danny and plowing him right into the ground.

Danny opened his eyes slowly and saw Jay standing next to him. Danny seemed to be in a small crater. Jay laughed and helped Danny up.

"You ok?" Jay asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Danny said, laughing as well, "looks like our powers aren't completely the same."

"Apparently not," Jay answered.

The two ghost-boys morphed back to normal and decided that was all the practice they needed for that day. They hopped into the Specter Speeder and drove back into town. Danny and JD spent the rest of the day explaining and showing off JD's powers to the others.

Unfortunately, the weekend ended and Monday morning came.

It was Monday morning again. Two new students stood on the sidewalk in front of Casper High. One was of medium height, pale complexion and thin build. His hair was snow white that reached the end of his neck and his eyes a deep blue. He had a dark overcoat over his black shirt and black pants. The other was a bigger kid, a lot bigger. He would probably make the football team wet their pants. He stood at least two feet taller than the skinny child and probably two feet wider, with skin a few shades darker. He had baggy blue jeans and a red hoodie with the hood up on, some of his black hair sticking out from under the hood. His eyes were a piercing blue as well. The two looked upon the school.

"Well my brother," the smaller of the two said, smirking, "it seems we have arrived."

-To Be Continued-