Yay! Chapter 2! This chapter is a long one…

Chapter 2: Danielle's return

It was lunchtime, and Danny was telling Sam and Tucker about his dream. Making sure not to leave out any details, he described everything to the letter. When he finished, he took a deep breath, and looked at both Sam and Tucker. Their jaws were dropped, and they were at a loss for words.

"Do you think," Danny asked, "the dream was a warning? Like something like this is going to happen?"

"Danny, you're half ghost, not clairvoyant." Sam smirked.

"Yeah," Tucker agreed, "He's locked up in Clockwork's tower. There is no way anything like that could happen."

"I guess you're right." Danny sighed, "It's just the pain felt so real!"

"That's the thing about dreams," Sam comforted, "they always seem real."

Danny looked at both of them, then sighed. As he sighed, his ghost sense went off. He gasped, and looked up. There, towering over the school, was a giant green ghost blob. All the students started screaming, and running in every direction.

Danny slid under the table and transformed into Danny Phantom. He went intangible, and flew up straight through the table. Turning solid, he flew to the ghost, who was picking trees up by the root, and tossing them up in the air.

"Hey! Glob Ghost!" Danny yelled. "You picked the wrong day to mess with this school!"
He began to charge up his ecto plasmic energy blasts, but he never got a chance to fire them. Out of nowhere, a green ecto blast hit the ghost, which blasted it back several feet. Danny was stunned. He didn't fire that. He turned his head and gasped. Floating not 20 feet from him was his super-powered cousin, Danielle.

"Danielle?" Danny gasped.

"Talk later. Fight now!" She yelled.

She fired another ecto blast at the ghost. Danny flew at the ghost. He punched the ghost in the chest, which caused the ghost to fall back and splat to the ground. Danny grabbed the Fenton Thermos, and sucked the ghost inside it.

Danny and Danielle flew down to the ground, then transformed into their human forms. Tucker and Sam ran up to Danny, and gasped when they saw Danielle.

"Danielle!" Sam and Tucker cried, as they ran towards Danny.

"Hi guys!" Danielle said, smiling. She turned to Danny who was still in shock.

"Are you going to just stand there, or are you going to hug your cousin?" Danielle teased. Danny smiled, and gave her a big hug.

"Where did you go?" Danny asked.

"I went lots of places." Danielle chuckled. "I needed to clear things up in my mind. The whole 'my dad is evil' thing was hard to take in. But the important thing is that I'm back!"

"Are you going to stay?" Tucker asked.

"Of course I am!" Danielle smirked.

"Well if she is going to stay," Sam said, sounding serious, "Where is she going to live?"

"At my house, of course." Danny said defensively.

"What are you going to tell your parents." Sam asked. Danny started to speak, but stopped.
"Good Point." Tucker said, "I mean you can't just go up to your parents and go, 'Mom, Dad, this is Danielle. She's my super-powered clone of a cousin, created my archenemy, Vlad Masters.' I mean, how weird would that be?"
They all stared at him, annoyed. "What? It's true!" Tucker said, defensively.

Danny thought about it for a couple of minutes. He then snapped his fingers and yelled, "I got it!"

"What?" Danielle asked, suspenseful.

"I know what to say to my Mom and Dad."
"Well…" Sam said, anxiously.

"We'll say that she is an orphan."
"An orphan?" Danielle, Sam, and Tucker yelled at once.

"An orphan?" Maddie and Jack asked.
Danny and Danielle where Danny's house. Danny had just explained that Danielle was an orphan. Jazz was sitting on the couch listening to the whole conversation.

"Yeah… It's a volunteer outreach program. We take in an orphan for a couple of weeks. Our orphan evaluates us, and if I do well taking care of her I get tons of extra credit towards college." He said, trying to make it seem plausible.

"Well, if it's for college…" Jack began, but was interrupted by Maddie.
"Do you remember your parents?"
Danielle thought for a moment, then sighed, "No. They died when I was a baby. I don't even know their names. All of my records were burned in the fire."
Danny jerked his head so hard, his neck cracked.
"Fire?" Jack and Maddie said together.

"Yeah, the first orphanage I was at burned to the ground. All of the records destroyed." She paused, and took a deep breath. "That's why they created this program," She continued, "For all the lost and forgotten orphans."
"You know," Danny said, trying to keep the story going, "Some families grow attached to their orphans, and end up adopting them." Danny stared at Danielle, who stared at Maddie.

"Adoption?" Maddie coughed, "It's to early for that." She looked at Danielle, and smiled. "Well, if she is going to stay, she'll need a place to sleep."

"What about the guest bedroom in the op-center?" Danny asked.

"Okay," Jack said, "Just as long as she doesn't press any buttons."
"I won't," Danielle smiled, as Maddie took her upstairs. Jack walked into the kitchen, leaving Danny and Jazz alone.

"She's not really an orphan, is she?" Jazz asked, skeptical.

"How could you tell?" Danny asked.

"I doubted it from 'extra credit for college'." Jazz giggled.

"I was making it up as I went along."

"So who is she, really?" Jazz asked.

"A clone, created by Vlad." Danny sighed.
"She's a clone? Wait, by Vlad?" Jazz cried.

"He created her to get to me, but she saw right through him and helped me defeat him." Danny explained.

"So she has…" Jazz began.

"Ghost powers, yes. But she's unstable. If she uses too much power at once, she'll melt." Danny explained.

"Melt?" Jazz asked, grossed out.

"Yeah. And I don't know how to stabilize her. It's not like I can just ask Vlad, because…"

"Because if you bring her to Vlad, he'll destroy her?" Jazz asked, scared.

"Right." Danny said, freaked out by the very thought of that.

Jazz smiled, put her hand on his shoulder, and whispered, "Don't worry Danny. She's in good hands. Her secret is safe with me."

"Thanks Jazz." Danny sighed, and walked upstairs.