Danny Phantom: The Halfa Revamped
Senior year. For many it means the final hurdle before the independence of college. For Danny Fenton, it means many things, many of which he has yet to discover. For four years, he has battled ghosts of all shapes and sizes, and at the same time has worked to finally become the admirable hero that always bubbled inside him. But, as in many stories, the hero must have a main lady to dance the great dance with…
Chapter 1: Danny's Dream
"That is it; that is the final straw! Farewell, Danny Phantom!"
Plasmius shrieked in hatred as he lifted his glowing hand into the air. Danny clutched his injured arm and shut his eyes as Plasmius brought down his hand, firing one last ray of magenta energy. Danny sighed defeatedly and he waited for death to end his suffering…
But it never came…
Danny dared to look up and found, much to his surprise, that Plasmius had vanished and in his place stood another figure. Hidden in shadow at first, it began to give off an oddly warm light. As the figure approached, the light revealed her slender figure. She was no older than Danny, and her hair shone white as snow, with a single streak of pale purple running down the left side. Danny finally focused on her face, and just before the light blinded him, he could see a pair of glowing amethyst eyes, and a mouth curled into a nervous smile as she said three inaudible words to Danny…
"GAAAHHHH! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!" Danny shouted as he fell out of his bed and onto the floor. He stared at the ceiling as he breathed in heavily. His face then turned agitated and he grunted as he rose. That dream, it had been haunting him for two weeks straight.
He stood and faced the mirror on his wall. But instead of his normal reflection looking back at him, the boy in the mirror seemed to look just like him apart from the stark-white hair and green eyes that glowed in the night. Danny sighed and told his Phantom half, "Is this some sort of sick side-effect to ghost powers! That dream won't go away…what the hell does this mean?"
His reflection responded with, "Well, you know that felt way too real to be just a dream. And the fact that she showed up at the end only made it fishier…" Danny shook his head and said, "I know I've seen that girl before…I know that I have…I just can't place where…"
His Phantom half chuckled and said, "Well, next time our ghost sense goes off, maybe we'll be lucky and come across Miss Foxy-Mystery Ghost Girl instead of someone like…err…The Box Ghost or Skulker."
Danny shook his head to clear the fog in his mind. His Phantom self disappeared from the mirror and he was able to look at his human, real half. He couldn't help but feel pleasantly surprised. Last time he had really looked himself over, he was a stick-thin little freshman of very little maturity or power. But now, it was apparent that four years of ghost-hunting, running from Dash and getting chased by ghost hunters had helped him to fill out rather nicely. His once skinny arms now were lean with muscle without being overly bulky. His torso was now much more toned and, much to his joy, he had a six pack. He had never had one of those…ever.
Danny sighed again as he phased into his closet, emerging in his trademark jeans and t-shirt, except now the shirt was a deep blue with the words, "I eat ghosts for breakfast", printed in neon green across the front. He glanced at the clock and found that, for once, he was up early and actually had time to himself.
He crept downstairs so as not to wake anyone up. He opened the fridge in the kitchen and pulled out the orange juice, pouring himself a glass as he phased his hand through the cabinet nearby to pull out his morning cereal.
He placed his breakfast on the table and was about to eat when Maddie Fenton, his mother, sleepily walked in and stopped. "Danny? Is that you?" He nodded and returned to eating his breakfast. Maddie shrugged, still somewhat shocked to see her son actually up early.
After gulping down his cereal, he made sure his mother wasn't looking as he crept down to the lab. He opened a drawer with his certified "Fenton Works Keycard" and extracted two small metal objects. They resembled the Jack-O-Nine Tails his father had created. He ran back upstairs and just as he opened his backpack to put the objects in, his mother asked, "Danny, what is that you're holding?"
"Uhh…umm…good question…they're…" Danny suddenly smiled with a brilliant idea. "I'm doing a presentation in Forensics class on supernatural crimes and I need to bring in a couple spectral scanners for the project." Maddie smiled and said, "So, you've finally found a love for ghost hunting? I'm so proud of you son!"
She kissed Danny on the cheek and went back to reading the newspaper. Danny saw the headline out of the corner of his eye and forced back a laugh. It read, "Danny Phantom spotted near Nasty Burger, suspected of foul ghostly activity with infamous Meat Monster."
The truth was Danny had spent the previous night forcing the Lunch Lady ghost out of Nasty Burger and into the Fenton Thermos, again. As seven o'clock rolled around, he hefted his backpack on and yelled "Goodbye!" as he turned intangible and flew off the porch. He smiled smugly as he reached his school building within five minutes of leaving his house. His flight speed was among many of his powers that had progressed over the past four years.
He found his locker in the already crowded hallway and began placing his books inside. His hand made contact with metal inside his back pack and he smiled. He pulled out his two items from the lab. He placed one on his belt and stowed the other one away again. Just as he was about to close his locker, he heard a familiar voice call his name. "Hey Danny! I'm surprised you're up this early after the night you had last night." Danny smiled as he turned to face his friend, Sam Manson. Still the self proclaimed Goth as she was four years ago, she had also changed her wardrobe slightly. While her precious combat boots remained a staple, as well as her neon green hair elastic, she now wore black faded jeans and a black tank-top that read "I'm a creature of the night doomed to a family of morning people."
Danny laughed and said, "Yeah, after that whole Lunch Lady incident I had to chase the Box Ghost out of three packaging plants. I swear, that guy gets stupider every time I hit him…"
Sam couldn't help but laugh. As Danny kept fiddling with the books in his locker, Sam took to her recent habit of staring at Danny. Her eyes unconsciously took their fill of his now muscular form, and got lost in the depths of his messy black hair and ice blue eyes.
Danny glanced at Sam and found her staring at him so adoringly, causing them both to blush quite impressively and look the other way. "S-so…Sam, I actually wanted to talk to you about something…would you like to…" But Danny stopped halfway through his sentence and sighed exasperatedly. Sam turned around and found out why. Her look went from confused to angry as Paulina, still as preppy and pompous as ever, came walking down the hallway.
She pointedly ignored Sam as she walked right by Danny, eyeing him over quite enthusiastically. She smiled and chuckled to herself as she walked off. Sam looked just about ready to throw something, seeing Paulina eyeing Danny like that. She hadn't even been giving him a second glance until this year, when everybody discovered how Danny was suddenly desirable.
Sam turned to Danny, fully expecting him to be staring after Paulina with that puppy-dog stare he always used with her. He was watching Paulina, but something was different…he wasn't looking at her with adoration, but with what appeared to be…disgust? Sam cautiously said, "You've never used that glare on Paulina before, you usually leave that job to me."
Danny chuckled grimly and said, "Yeah, well I found out something interesting about her…she ignores me completely back when I was a lovesick fourteen year old kid, and when I stop giving her attention she starts suddenly eyeing me like a slab of prime rib. She is vain, pompous, spoiled, annoying, and just so…" Sam and Danny both said, "Dumb!" at the same time. They exchanged surprised looks and laughed, also blushing slightly.
Tucker Foley, Danny's other best friend, then appeared around the corner. Unlike his friends, his outfit do jour had not changed at all. He walked on up to his friends and said, "Man Danny, if you had gone ghost, that glare you gave Paulina would've toasted her where she stood!" He noticed the remnants of a blush across both their faces and sighed, saying, "Another blushy moment…for the love of god, would you two just go out already!"
Sam glared at Tucker and turned back to Danny. "So, what were you gonna tell me before the Spanish spectacle showed up?" Danny made to speak but the bell rang.
"Shoot, I'll ask you again at lunch, see ya around!" Sam ran off to her first class, psychology. Danny shut his locker and Tucker finally got a good look at him, more specifically, the bags under his eyes…
"Yo, Danny! You don't look so hot, did you get any sleep last night?" Danny looked around nervously and said, "Listen, we need to talk, NOW." They stationed themselves behind the crowds moving to their classes and Danny explained. "Tuck, I had the dream again…"