For ten thousand years I lay dormant!
Finding a way to enroll Dani in school was a mixture of complex machinations of the highest caliber.
At least that's what Danny thought it would be like. It turns out that dropping a new kid into the system was shockingly easy. At least on the surface level, and considering the average intelligence of most of Amity Park, it was unlikely anyone would dive deeper.
Basically, with a bit of help from Tucker finding out where student records were kept and Jazz knowing what the forms needed to say (because of course she would know that), they had managed to insert Dani into their year's roster.
She would now be on attendance rolls and in grade books, which were what the faculty cared about.
The hard part would be figuring out how to sell it to the other students.
Sure some of the teachers might do a double take at Danny Fenton and Dani Fenton being listed next to each other, and the uncanny resemblance might raise an eyebrow or two, but in the end, they weren't paid enough to care.
But high schools ran on rumor and gossip. If you so much as scratched an itch on your leg during first period, by lunch half the school would be talking about your rare contagious skin condition and avoiding you like the plague.
"I mean we have options." Tucker pointed out as they debated the problem. The group of four was sitting in Dani's new room at Sam's house. It was almost as big as the Fenton's family room. Danny was a little envious but considering Dani had been homeless for almost her entire life he was willing to swallow it. She deserved some nice things after all.
It was a little sparse on decorations for now but those would accumulate over time.
"What? Like just going with the cousin explanation still?" Danny checked.
"There's that." Tucker nodded. "But you don't have to stick with it. You could also go for long-lost siblings."
"You're kidding right?" Sam rolled her eyes at him. "We've lived in this town our whole lives and gone to school with the same people for most of it. No one's going to believe Dani is a missing daughter of the Fenton's!"
"I mean I do look the part." Dani pointed out, leaning back on her new bed. "That's the real kicker for all of this isn't it?"
"Honestly yeah." Danny nodded. "Even if we had tried listing you with a different name, people were still going to pick up on the fact we look nearly identical."
"Long lost doesn't have to mean missing though!" Tucker stuck to his idea. "There are other options. Maybe she was sick for years and had to be homeschooled! Or she's been in Juvie for the past ten years!"
"What could she have done to get sent to Juvie at age four?" Sam's bewildered tone sold her confusion.
"I don't know, attempted murder? Four-year-olds can be vicious little monsters." Tucker made clawing motions with his hands.
Dani raised her hand. "Question! What is Juvie?"
Danny stared for a moment. "I'm not a hundred percent sure. Jail for kids I think? At least that's usually the context…"
Sam and Tucker shared a look. "What?" The two Danny's/Dani's asked them.
"So that's the other issue. How much knowledge does Dani have?" Sam asked. "I mean, she's cloned from you but came out full, or well almost full size, and she's properly grown now. But she also has a lot of general information?"
"Yeah." Tucker nodded. "Do you know everything he knows," he pointed from Dani to Danny, "or did Vlad just drop a device on your head that gave you a bunch of general facts and knowledge about the world so you could function."
Dani pursed her lips and thought about it. "I don't know. I don't really remember anything from before my 'birth'" she added quotation marks, "but I also know a bunch of stuff too?"
"You don't remember any weird helmets that give you knowledge but also brainwash you to do Vlad's bidding?" Tucker checked.
"No." Dani shot him a glare.
"I'm pretty sure if Vlad had brainwashing helmets he would have tried using them on me by now." Danny pointed out.
Sam groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. "We're getting offtopic. You two." She pointed at Danny and Dani "What is your relationship? Quickly! The first thing that comes to mind!"
"Clones." They spoke at the same time. Sam slammed her face into her palms and Tucker laughed.
"You can't just say that." The goth girl was despondent.
"Clearly they can though." Tucker reminded her and got a shoulder punch for his trouble. "Ow!"
"You said the first thing that comes to mind!" Danny complained. "That was the first thing I thought of!"
"Me too!" Dani concurred.
"That's not going to…" Sam froze and stared at her hand for a second. "No wait, I take it back, that's brilliant!"
They all stared at her as though she'd become a plant ghost again. "Explain?" Tucker asked.
"We're thinking about this too hard." The girl pointed out. "Anything we come up with is going to run through the school rumor mill and someone might get curious enough to research and find out what the truth is."
"I'm not sure how likely that is." Dani considered.
"You don't know how dedicated some gossipers can be." Sam waved off her concern. "My point is, if we give them something ridiculous from the start no one will believe it. And even if they do believe it, what are they going to do?"
"That way people will just fill in the gaps themselves!" Danny realized. "Sam you're a genius!"
"I'm aware." Sam grinned proudly.
"I guess it is the truth." Dani realized. "We won't even need to worry about keeping our stories straight!"
Tucker was not quite on the bandwagon yet. "I feel like this could backfire. Like, what if the teachers do start asking?"
"We can go for the cousin thing." Danny reminded him. "Or heck even the long-lost twin thing. Dani being sick because of some weird thing our parents cooked up would make sense."
"Until someone calls child services," Tucker muttered but shook his head. "Whatever, I guess if worst comes to worst you guys can just use ghost powers to sort things out."
"When in doubt, ghost powers." Dani and Danny fist-bumped each other.
Sam was mighty pleased with herself. "And now all that's sorted. I guess the only thing left to do is see what happens tomorrow. Until then, want to play some games?"
"Doom?" Danny requested and dragged Dani in with an arm around her shoulder. "This poor innocent child hasn't had the chance to be corrupted by glorious ultra-violence yet." his clone made a puppy dog face.
"Please miss." She roughly applied a cockney accent. "Me ma and pop ain't let me play the high tech interwebs yet. I want to beat other folks to a bloody paste in a digital setting!"
Sam cackled at the exchange. "Oh, Dani you are going to fit right in. We'll get you an account set up. We can have a girls vs. boys match!"
"But you already kick our asses all by yourself!" Tucker protested as they got up to head to the mansion's gaming room.
"I know! Now it'll be even more of a curb stomp!" Sam teased.
As the group of teens settled in for a Sunday night of gaming Danny couldn't help but feel like they were forgetting something. Something important.
Whatever it was he hoped it would be one of those things that sort themselves out.
The next morning Dani stared up at the stone walls of Casper High and reconsidered her life choices.
"I think I've been to haunted insane asylums that are less menacing than this." She openly declared.
"Why would you go to a haunted insane asylum?" Tucker asked bemused.
"To see if they were haunted!" Dani rolled her eyes. "Duh!"
Sam eyed the other girl with concern. "Putting aside the obviously inherited poor decision-making skills." Both Fenton's protested that assessment. "I wouldn't say it's that bad, but it is still pretty bad."
"I feel conflicted," Dani admitted as they walked towards the doors. "On the one hand, Jazz made it sound like it's not that bad. But you guys have all been attaching anchors to my expectations."
"Jazz is just a weirdo." Danny did his sibling duty of insulting his older sister. "School is a mess. You have teachers that don't care and worse the teachers that do! Then there are the bullies and the cliques and unique to our school, the ghosts!"
"Ghosts show up at school?" Dani asked and then slapped her forehead. "What am I saying, of course, they do! I did, why wouldn't others?"
"Some are worse than others. Sometimes it's just a normal attack with the food attacking you, other times you're sucked into the ghost zone while a kid from the fifties puppets your body around, or the school counselor turns out to be a psychopath who feeds on misery!" Danny listed some of the various examples.
With every word, Dani's expression paled. "You know, as fun, as this has been I think I've changed my mind." She did a full one-eighty and started walking the other way. "It's been fun Danny but you know being homeless isn't actually that bad, lots of places to see, people to meet!"
Danny and Sam caught her arms before she could get far and dragged her along with them. She kicked her legs and tried to escape, not using ghost intangibility for some reason, maybe she just didn't think of it.
"Calm down Dani it'll be fine," Tucker promised her, turning around as he walked backward into the building. "Trust me, I'm pretty popular around here and know everyone and everything, I'll make sure noth-" He stopped as collided with a large mass of flesh, muscle, and varsity jacket.
He slowly turned and the burning eyes of a jock glared down at him. "Hey, Jeff." Tucker eeped and tried to talk his way out. "Your muscles look especially large today!" A large hand the size of a dinner plate gripped his skull. "Eep."
"Stupid nerd!" The jock shouted and lifted Tucker with one arm. "Watch where you're going!" He walked a bit further and dropped the techno-geek into a trash can. He then continued about his day as though nothing had happened.
"See!" Tucker grinned as he popped his head out of the trash can, what was hopefully a used tissue on his beret. "He didn't even threaten to break my legs!"
None of this helped Dani's nerves in the slightest and she renewed her struggles. "No!" She screamed as they passed through the doors. "I want to live!" She cried as they began closing behind them.
"I WANT TO LIVE!" She shrieked again as they slammed shut, sealing her doom.
"Stop being such a drama queen," Danny complained. "You're already half dead. What's another halfway? Besides you have superpowers you'll be fine."
When setting Dani up for school they'd carefully arranged her schedule so she'd be with at least one of the others for every period, usually. More of a safety precaution than anything else. Just in case something happened or she got asked a question she didn't have an answer for.
The rest of the group was very adept at coming up with on-the-spot excuses by now.
So they all sat in homeroom together as Mr. Lancer did roll call. Meaning everyone had a front-row seat for the initial reaction.
"Daniel Fenton?" Lancer's tired voice called.
Danny raised his hand and the teacher slightly nodded in acknowledgment. "Here for once, very good." He muttered and checked his name before moving to the next. "Da-" he paused and double-checked his form. "Danielle Fenton?" His confusion was evident.
"Here!" Dani announced, a little eagerly. Despite her earlier fear, she was just as eager to see how people reacted.
Almost as one the whole class turned to look at the girl who had thus far managed to fade into the background. There were a few mutters and glances between her and Danny, mostly general confusion right now.
"Prince and the Pauper." Lancer breathed and looked between the two. "When…" He shook his head, and as expected, decided it wasn't worth his time to try and figure it out.
As he continued with the role call eyes began to drift away from the Danny's/Dani's. The more popular kids went first and bit by bit the other echelons of school society slowly followed.
It was a strange occurrence and answers would be demanded at some point, but Danny was one of the geeks despite the weird stuff about him. Dash would probably try to beat an explanation out of him and talks would probably dance around the cafeteria during lunchtime.
Danny settled in for a boring lecture, feeling a bit pleased with the reaction. Plenty of surprise and confusion but as planned nothing that rocked the boat too much.
At least he was pleased. Until he realized that someone hadn't decided to move on yet.
He met the bewildered, questioning, and angry glare of Valerie Gray and felt himself die a little more. He gulped as cold sweat began to run down his neck.
What were the odds this was the thing he had been forgetting?
Valerie grabbed the two Fenton's after class and stuff them into a janitor's closet. She then slammed them against the wall and ecto-blasters appeared in her hands as she held them both at gunpoint.
"Alright Danny, talk!" She barked at them.
"Me?" Dani pointed at herself.
"No!" Valerie snapped. "Not you Dani, the other Danny!"
"I told you it would get confusing," Danny told her.
"I still like Dani better than Danielle." She remained resolute in her decision.
"Shut up!" Valerie demanded and glared at the male specimen. "What did you do!"
"I don't know what did I do?" Danny decided to play dumb. "You're the one who dragged me to a closet Val! I thought we weren't dating anymore!"
"Wait you two were dating?" Dani looked between them with alarm.
"I swear to God Danny I am not in the mood for you being cute right now!" She leaned in and bared her teeth, "I have had a very stressful weekend and I do not need this."
"Am I cute too?" Dani asked her.
"YOU ARE NOT HELPING DANIELLE!" Valerie shouted, clearly becoming more annoyed the longer this went on.
"I think I'm cute too."
"Wait what do you mean stressful weekend?" Danny was a bit confused. Come to think of it, he hadn't even seen Valerie or rather 'The Red Huntress' at all over the weekend.
"Alright. I'm going to paint you a picture." the girl decided. "Imagine, Friday night, you meet a little girl who turns out to be some sort of half-ghost. You recognize her ghost form because your employer sent you to capture her because, and I quote, 'she wants to destroy him.' So you capture her, capture your arch-nemesis while you're at it and all seems right!"
"That sounds like the opposite of right." Danny pointed out but Valerie continued.
"And then! When you have that despicable no good Danny Phantom right where you want him! He manages to tug your heartstrings just the right way to make you go save the little ghost girl! The two of you rush in and find that Plasmius has attacked your employer and is melting the ghost girl! You and your enemy work together, save the girl, save your boss, and heck Phantom even turns out to be a good sport and agrees to be captured again as he promised!"
"Phantom sounds like a pretty swell guy."
"But you're in a good mood, you saved the day and it feels bad to take advantage like that. You let him go and realize oh right! Your boss just got attacked by a ghost! I better go make sure he's okay! And you go in just in time to see both the ghost and your boss talking to each other like they're on the same page before merging and doing the same transformation she did to switch to ghost mode!" Valerie emphasized the gun pointing at Dani.
"And then, after spending a whole weekend wondering how to deal with the fact your boss and also the mayor of the city Vlad Masters, is an evil ghost, you come into school to find the little girl, now less little, in your class, with the same last name as your ex-boyfriend. Does that picture enlighten you at all?"
Danny held up his hands in surrender. "Alright. Fine. You know what Val, I'm done."
"Done?" She sounded furious.
"I'm done hiding things from you." Danny decided and Valerie's expression changed from one of fury to confusion. "Ask whatever you want, I'll answer."
"I…" She narrowed her eyes. "Fine, how and why is Danielle here?"
"I prefer Dani by the way." Dani helpfully told her.
Valerie rolled her eyes, but Danny answered. "We talked and decided that her being homeless kind of sucks so we should get her a place to stay. She stayed in my room for the night and by the next morning, she had a growth spurt. We think it had something to do with becoming stabilized."
"After that, we talked to Jazz and she suggested we get Dani enrolled in school at least until we're eighteen." Danny finished.
"Okay, that helps a bit." Valerie chewed her lip. Danny knew the question coming but Val didn't seem ready to ask it yet. "How do you two know each other? Are you really related?"
"I mean technically?" Danny rubbed his head. "Not sure how you would put it on a family tree but Dani is my clone, don't ask me how a clone of mine came out female and twelve at first we don't know."
Valerie took a deep breath. "Right. You know what's coming."
"Yeah." Danny sighed.
"Can you do the same thing she can do?" Valerie asked him. "Are you Danny Phantom?"
He almost lost his nerve for a second. He thought of denying everything and bolting. A part of him was screaming this could only end badly, that Valerie would hate him and hunt him forever in human form as well as ghost.
"Yes." The halfa bit the bullet.
Valerie's arms dropped. "God dammit." She cursed and shuddered, looking down.
"Val..?" Danny checked as she didn't say anything or move. He carefully reached out only to have his hand slapped away. She glared up at him, with tears glistening in her eyes.
"Dani, can you go, I think we need to talk." Danny requested, "Could you give us some privacy?"
"Uhhh." She looked between the two. "Are you going to be-"
"Fine!" Danny snapped, harsher than he meant to, and immediately regretted it. "I'll be fine." He told her, "just go to class, Sam and Tucker should be able to help you find it."
As icing on the cake, Dani used ghostly intangibility to duck out of the closet leaving Danny and Valerie alone.
"Why?" She demanded in a hoarse voice. "Why did you pretend to be my friend? To like me? To make me think you loved me?"
"I didn't-" Danny tried but she snapped at him.
"DON'T BULLSHIT ME PHANTOM." She held her guns up again, pointed squarely at him this time. "WAS IT FUNNY TO YOU? SCREWING UP MY LIFE AND THEN MESSING WITH MY HEAD?"
"I never meant to hurt you!" Danny shouted. "I wasn't trying to mess up your life in the first place! I admit it, I was an idiot, I was some kid trying to be a hero and take care of a ghost dog that kept tunneling out of the afterlife! I had no idea what I was doing and it's not fair you got caught up in the collateral!"
"That's it?" Valerie demanded. "You messing up my life was just collateral damage?"
"I know it's not what you want to hear but yes!" Danny told her. "I'm sorry Cujo and I ruined things for you so much. I really am. But everything else, with me and you, being friends and dating and all of that, that was real. I cared Val, I do like you. I knew you were hunting me as Phantom but I knew you had a good reason so I stuck around with you anyway."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"Kind of?" Danny shrugged helplessly. "I mean, look at my parents! I get to hear how they want to tear me apart molecule by molecule every other day and then pat me on the head and tell me how much they love me! My afterlife is a hot mess in case you haven't noticed! Most of my friends have tried to kill me at one point or another, my dad's best friend from college is evil, trying to marry my mom and make me his evil heir or something. He tried to freaking clone me! I fight ghosts every day and a good chunk of the town is still convinced I'm evil ever since Walker possessed the old mayor!"
He looked around aimlessly, "I don't know what else to tell you, Valerie, I have no idea what's going on and I'm mostly taking the punches as they come. Is it that hard to believe I wanted to date you while you were trying to kill me?"
Valerie snorted. That snort became a chuckle which evolved into a laugh and Danny couldn't help it, he started laughing too.
"We're a mess." She decided and wiped her face. "God I… I don't know what to think right now."
"I'm not the best person for advice on thinking," Danny told her.
"No, you're not, you're not doing much of it for yourself." She agreed. "Just, just go to class. Maybe I'll hunt you down and beat the snot out of you later. Maybe I'll call you and we can go out for dinner. I don't know, we'll figure something out."
This… had gone better than he'd been hoping. "I'll see you later Val. And for the record? I know which one I'd prefer."
She glanced at him, half amused. "I'm not sure which one you mean, I'll flip a coin."
With that semi-threat, Danny dashed away, hoping if she did decide to start shooting it would be after he was out of range.
Meanwhile, Dani, Sam, and Tucker sat in Physics as the teacher rambled about some life anecdote that supposedly had something to do with today's lesson.
"So…" Dani started. "Danny and Valerie used to date?"
"Yep." Tucker popped the 'p' as Sam ground her teeth.
"But she was still trying to kill him." Dani pointed out.
"Well, she didn't know it was him per se…" Tucker reminded her.
They sat in silence for a few minutes as the lecture continued.
"It still messed up though." Dani finally said.
"YES." Sam and Tucker agreed in unison.
Remember when I wrote something that wasn't Pokemon?
Me neither.
But I felt the urge to write something today and didn't want to do a big chapter for Zorua Trainer or Gone Ghost so I decided to see if I could crank out a fun little chapter for this.
The Valerie stuff got a little heavier than I meant it to but I think it came to a good conclusion.
Thanks for reading!
EDIT: Oops almost forgot! I have a discord now! Server is discord gg kESdTfhAwG
Links don't work quite right on this site so some manual typing is required. Sorry.
~FriTik
R&R