Two Kinds of Prologues

Two months. That was how long it had been since his mother was declared a missing person, and no evidence of her disappearance had surfaced in the interim. It frustrated Adrien even more than he already was.

After his short reprieve from schoolwork during the initial investigation, his father ordered that he return to his studies. His mother had been in charge of his schooling, but with her gone, his father assigned Nathalie to take over in addition to her usual work as his assistant. He didn't mind the work; he enjoyed learning. He was tired of the atmosphere. His father had become a reclusive man since his mother's disappearance, throwing himself into his work and barely speaking more than a sentence a day to Adrien. Nathalie, though she spoke to him more often than his father, wasn't much better. She was professional, formal, and apparently emotionless. Not once in the entire time he knew Nathalie had he seen her smile.

It was Nathalie's professionalism that frustrated Adrien when it came to his homeschooling. His mother had been more engaging in his lessons, and that made being homeschooled bearable. Without that, he'd rather study on his own. Except, he craved human interaction. Even when it was modeling business, he enjoyed being able to talk to his coworkers.

Thankfully, he had a plan that would return the engaging lessons and grant him the social life he wanted. He had been putting together this plan for a while, regardless of his mother's presence or lack thereof, and her vanishing only made him even more determined to make it happen.

With a little help from Chloe, come September, he'd be attending public school for the first time. He could hardly wait for his first day.

Across the town of Amity Park in a hi-tech basement, Danny was poking around with his two best friends, Sam and Tucker.

"Guys, we really shouldn't be down here without my parents. We could get in serious trouble if we messed up some project of theirs," Danny protested as Tucker went from table to table examining his parents' various inventions while Sam took pictures with the camera she had brought with her.

Tucker dismissed his concern with a wave of his hand. "Relax. We're not touching anything, just observing. I don't even know what most of this stuff does, but it looks hi-tech and that is cool."

Sam rolled her eyes. "Trust you to geek out over something without even knowing what it does." She snapped a picture of whatever Tucker was looking at, regardless.

"I know it does something involving ghosts, and I think that's enough," Tucker retorted. Leaving the table he was at, he walked over to a strange gaping hole in the wall. "Hey, what's this? Some sort of funky-shaped closet?"

Danny shook his head. "Nah, it's just some dumb portal my parents built recently. They're trying to access this Ghost Zone thing that they think exists. I was down here when they first tried turning it on, but nothing happened. Of all their inventions, that one has been the biggest dud yet."

"A dud, huh?" Tucker smirked at the Ghost Portal, and Danny instantly didn't like the look on his friend's face. "I dare you to step inside it."

"What? No way, I am not doing that. Sam," Danny refused, looking to his female best friend for support.

Sam snapped another picture of some other project in the room, finally turning towards the boys. "Hey, we're already being typical rebellious teenagers by coming down here without your parents' okay." She formed a smile that matched Tucker's. "I say we take it a step further, and do something dumb."

"Are you siding with Tucker because you agree with him, or because you want this to be another way of sticking it to your parents?" asked Danny, raising an eyebrow.

"Mostly the second one," the girl admitted, "but, ghosts are sort of cool."

"Ooh, if you're going in the portal, put on a jumpsuit like your parents." Tucker found where Danny's parents kept the family's jumpsuits, and shoved a white and black one at him that appeared his size.

Danny held up an objective hand. "Whoa, I did not agree to this."

Sam snapped a picture of Danny holding the jumpsuit. "Just do it. You know we're going to bug you until you do."

He threw his head back with a loud groan. "Ugh, fine, but you guys are paying the next time we go to Nasty Burger." The black-haired boy started to slip into the suit.

"Wait," Sam protested for a moment, reaching out and peeling a sticker bearing Danny's father's face off of it. "Don't want to meet ghosts with this thing on your chest."

"Not going to meet any ghosts," he muttered, pulling the suit on. "Ugh, don't know how Mom and Dad wear these."

"Aw, look at you," Tucker teased with a smile. "It looks like you're ready to join the family business."

Danny crossed his arms. "Not in this lifetime. If there's a career I'm going into, it's being an astronaut."

"Okay, now stand over by the portal and the gauges like you're ready to get working," Sam said, pointing at a spot by the machine. Danny rolled his eyes, but went where she directed. She took a picture. "Now, the moment we've been waiting for. Walk inside it."

"Yeah, the main event," Tucker commented, gleefully rubbing his hands together.

"You guys are enjoying this way too much," said Danny as he peered inside the inactive portal. "This is a really bad idea."

"Dude, just walk to the back and then walk back out, then this will all be over," Tucker urged him.

"And I'll take a picture on your way out," Sam added, "make it look like you just came back from a mission inside the Ghost Zone."

With his friends insisting, Danny decided to get it over with, and stepped inside.

"Well, I'm two steps in and it's really dark in here. How'd my parents even get anything done with this kind of lighting?" Danny said as he got further in.

"Almost at the end there, man," Tucker encouraged, still able to see Danny's form from his watching area.

Without warning, Danny spun around right as Sam took another photo. "You know what? This is stupid. I'm not going all the way-!"

In his haste to turn back, Danny blindly swung a hand out and brushed a panel in the machine, accidentally pressing a green button.

ZAAAAAAP!

"Danny!" Sam and Tucker yelled as the portal filled with blindingly green light.

All they could hear in return was a fourteen-year-old boy's pained screams.

In a small massage parlor elsewhere in town, a green little creature lifted his head, aware of the shift in the balance.

They get their powers from magic jewelry. He got his powers from an accident. Their enemies come from evil butterflies. His enemies come from another realm. Those are the differences between them. The similarities? They are teen superheroes with absurdly wealthy men as their adversaries.

I must be crazy for starting another multi-chapter project, but this idea stood out to me. I liked the idea of combining both shows to make one awesome story. I'll be upfront with everyone, this is going to follow the shows' stories merged into one setting. The twist? The Miraculous Ladybug side will have a stronger sense of continuity! By pairing Miraculous Ladybug with a continuity-driven show like Danny Phantom, everything will have to follow an order to an extent. My goal with this is to follow both shows through their second seasons, and then diverge from canon a bit because both shows' third seasons are garbage. That said, I won't be totally adhering to canon entirely until then, I do have plans for changes that make sense plot wise and for character development.

Not counting the prologue, I have written up to chapter seven just to prove to myself that juggling these two shows together can work. I was originally going to wait until I got to at least Lady WiFi to upload, but I'm too excited to share this to wait. Tune in next week when I post the first chapter, which will be the Origins chapter.