Danny Phantom: Origins
Chapter Two: Enter the Ghosts
The next morning, Danny Fenton woke up to the sound of his name being called.
"Danny? Danny! Sam, I think he's waking up! Danny, are you okay?" he heard Tucker's voice say. Danny then opened his eyes to find himself in his bed, with Sam and Tucker on either side of him; evidently they had spent the night in his room.
"Sam? Tuck? Ow… my head hurts…" Danny said, sitting up on his bed.
"Whoa… take it easy, man." Tucker said
"How are you feeling?" Sam asked.
"I feel… strange…"
"You look strange too." Tucker said bluntly.
"What're you talking about?" Danny asked curiously, getting up from his bed. He then walked to the mirror-desk his mother had given him to take a good look.
"Danny, I just wanna warn you that this might be a bit of a shock for you." Sam said.
"Don't worry, Sam. He can handle it." Tucker reassured her confidently.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!" Danny screamed in horror, as what he saw in the mirror wasn't his usual self. His reflection – and consequently, he himself – was wearing the same protective suit he remembered from last night, only with different colors. Not only that, his hair had gone from black to snow-white. He shut his eyes tight, hoping when he opened it he would be normal again, but when he opened them, he found himself even more shocked as his eyes had become green in color, and to freak him out even more, they were glowing.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!" he screamed again.
"Then again, maybe not." Tucker said.
"Kids, is everything alright up there?" came Maddie's voice from downstairs. This caused Danny to jump out of panic, and once again he found himself suspended in midair.
"AAAAAAAAAHHH!!" Danny screamed for the third time.
"Danny! Shhh! You're parents might come up here!" Sam said.
"Yeah. Calm down, man." Tucker said.
"Calm down? You're telling me to calm down? Would you be able to calm down if you found yourself mutated?" yelled Danny exasperatedly.
"Kids, are you sure everything's fine? I'm coming up." Maddie said.
"Quick, Danny! Get down here and hide!" Sam said.
"Or better yet, turn back to normal." Tucker added.
"I… I dunno how!" Danny said, panicking.
"Well then hide!" Sam said, as Danny unconsciously turned invisible just in time, because just then Maddie opened the door.
"Kids? Is everything-?"
"Everything's fine, Mrs. Fenton. Tucker just had a nightmare." Sam said, thinking quick.
"Really? 'Cause that scream earlier sounded a lot like Danny…" Maddie said.
"Danny? He's… uh… at the… toilet! Yeah. He's in the bathroom." Sam said, pushing Maddie outside.
"If you say so, Sam… Are you sure everything's okay?"
"Uh… eheh… Peachy." Sam said nervously, closing the door.
"'Peachy'?" Tucker said, lifting an eyebrow. Sam just grumbled and pushed him out of the way. Just then, Danny suddenly transformed back to normal, causing him to fall, hard, on both Sam and Tucker.
"Sorry guys," Danny said, standing up, "but I haven't quite got the hang of this. Whatever this is." he added, helping his friends up.
"Wait, you don't remember?" Tucker asked.
"Is there anything in particular I'm supposed to remember?" Danny returned.
"Oh, well… sit down." Sam said, motioning him to the side of the bed. "Tell us the last thing you remember and we'll start from there."
It turns out Danny could hardly remember anything from the previous night, save for going to the lab and checking the Ghost Portal. After that everything was pretty much a blur to him, so Sam and Tucker filled him in on what happened afterwards.
"So you're saying these… powers I have are… ghost powers?" Danny said once they had finished.
"It's only logical. It is a Ghost Portal, after all." Tucker said.
"And my parents…?"
"They don't know about it. Yet." Sam confirmed.
After a few minutes' silence, Tucker said, "Sooo… whaddaya gonna do now that you've got ghost powers?"
"I… dunno. I haven't even got control over them yet. Though I could use them to get back at Dash and his cronies." Danny said.
"Well, you'll have to work on that later. School's out for about a month." Sam said.
"What? Why?" Danny asked, dumbfounded.
"Oh yeah, you were out most of the morning. It was just reported in the morning news that an explosion of unknown cause happened last night at Casper High, destroying most of the school." Sam explained.
"And I've estimated that the repairs might take at least a month." Tucker added, pulling out his trusted PDA.
"A month, eh?" Danny said.
"Yeah." Sam said. "Plenty of time for us to help you get the hang of your ghost powers, eh?"
"What do you mean 'we'?" Tucker complained.
"Oh, and I suppose you have something better to do?" Sam said sarcastically. "I thought so." she said when he didn't respond.
Two weeks had passed, and since then Danny had only managed to master the transformation and flight, albeit with some difficulty. He hasn't managed to get a grasp on any of the other abilities yet; he still finds himself phasing through the bed, having spoons pass through him, and on more than one hilarious occasion his legs became intangible, causing his pants to drop.
Danny's parents found out that the ghost portal was functional the previous week, when they finally decided to accept failure and start work on their new invention, currently called "Ghost in a Bottle", which supposedly can catch ghosts. Seeing that their portal actually worked ("I guess it takes some time to kick in." Danny had told them) got their spirits back up and in no time at all they had all kinds of new designs for ghost-hunting gadgets.
Despite having been opened, though, Jack and Maddie didn't make an attempt to pass through the Ghost Portal, reasoning that once they went in, ghosts would start coming from the other side. They theorized that even though the Portal worked both ways, its presence wouldn't be known until something actually passed through.
The remainder of the 'holiday' passed by and before they knew it, Danny, Sam, and Tucker were back in school.
"Good morning class," Mr. Lancer said on their first day back, "I hope you've been studying during our not-so-brief break, because we're having…" he took out his briefcase and unlocked it, "… a pop quiz." he finished, earning the moans and grumbles of complaint from the class.
"Man, that quiz was murder!" Tucker said during recess.
"Yeah, tell me about it." Sam agreed. "I mean, that quiz had stuff we haven't even started on! Right Danny? Danny?" she said, waving her hand in front of Danny's face.
"You might as well give up, Sam." Tucker said, pointing to a girl in the direction Danny was facing.
"Paulina." Sam muttered heatedly, crushing the soda can in her hand.
"What's up with you?" Tucker asked.
"It's nothing." Sam replied, obviously annoyed. "I just have a small thing against popular… hey is she waving at us?" she said confusedly.
"No way." Tucker said, shocked, as Danny waved back wordlessly with enthusiasm.
Just then, one of Paulina's friends passed by from behind them, which suddenly explained everything.
"See? I told you 'no way'. Hey, why is everybody laughing?" He added, for everyone around them was pointing at their direction – to be precise, at Danny. Apparently he was so embarrassed at what had happened that he had unintentionally triggered his intangibility, causing his pants to once again fall off, but this time in front of practically the whole school.
"Oh great. That was the most embarrassing moment of my life!" Danny said exasperatedly.
"Yeah. You just destroyed your whole reputation. Before you even had one. That's gotta be a record of some sort." Sam said.
"Thanks for the support, Sam." Danny said sarcastically.
"Anytime."
"You seem happy." Tucker pointed out.
"Do I? I'm not feeling happy, if that's what you're implying. I mean, why should I be happy?"
"Why indeed?" Tucker said suspiciously, folding his arms.
Danny got home that day to find quite a surprising sight: his parents were struggling with what seemed to be real ghosts. Not only that, there were two others floating around, apparently attacking Maddie and Jack.
"Danny! Perfect timing. Give us a hand before- oh, too late." Jack said, disappointed as one of the ghosts they were struggling with broke free and zoomed out of the house.
"Was that a-?" Danny asked, nonplussed.
"Ghost." Jack said, finishing Danny's sentence. "Yes, we just found out that they've been coming out of our ghost portal. Goodness knows how long they've been at it."
"So you're saying… ghosts have invaded Amity Park?"
"Well, not 'invaded'… it's really more along the lines of 'infiltrated'."
"Invaded, infiltrated, same thing basically. The point is they're here, right?"
Jack and Maddie nodded.
"And… possibly more of them are coming, right?"
They nodded again.
"But no need to worry, son, because we have this!" Jack exclaimed, pulling out a metallic thermos from his jumpsuit.
"A thermos?" Danny said, slightly confused.
"Wrong. It's our new ghost-catching device. The Fenton Thermos!" Jack shouted proudly. "And this invention actually works." he added.
"Uh… Jack?" Maddie said.
"Yes dear?"
"Danny's already in his room." she said, pointing upstairs.
"You're saying ghosts have invaded Amity Park?" Sam said over the phone, later that night.
"Wait a second, Tucker's calling. I'll put it on three-way." Danny said. "You were saying, Sam?"
"So ghosts have invaded Amity Park?" Sam repeated.
"Well actually, my dad prefers 'infiltrate', but yeah, they're here."
"You do know it's the same thing, basically, right?" Tucker said.
"That's what I told my dad."
"Guys, focus! There are ghosts in Amity Park. We've got to do something!" Sam said urgently.
"Why us?" Danny complained.
"I guess the fact that we caused the Portal through which they came to open has something to do with it." Tucker said.
"Precisely. And now that you have ghost powers, Danny, you're more cut out for this than anyone else."
"Yeah, think about it, man. You could be a hero."
"I dunno, guys. Ghost fighting? It sounds dangerous." Danny said doubtfully.
"You're the only one who can do it, Danny." Sam said. There were indistinct sounds over the phone, and then she said, "Listen guys, I gotta go now. Danny," she paused, "you're the only one who stands a chance against the ghosts. Think about it. Good night." she said, closing the phone.
"Yeah, I gotta go too, man. See you at school." Tucker said.
"Yeah. Bye."
"Hey, have you heard? Have you heard?" Danny and Sam overheard someone say, two days later, at the cafetaria.
"Yeah. Another ghost sighting, right?" replied the other.
"Yeah, only this time it was less of a sighting and more of an attack." said the first, sitting down.
"What d'you mean?"
"Well, different from the previous ones, this ghost was, and I quote 'aggressive'. The guy actually got hospitalized for it."
There was still more to the conversation, but Danny and Sam left to find Tucker.
"You see, Danny? They're getting hostile!" Sam said, walking up the stairs. "You've gotta do something!"
"I know, I know! But what can I do? Most of the places these things happen are some miles away from home. You can't expect me to just fly off, leave home."
"Actually, I do." Sam said bluntly as they passed a crowd of running people. "Hey, why are all these people running?"
Suddenly somebody turned into the corridor running, screaming, "GHOST! There's a GHOST!"
"Oh. That's why." Sam said, as if the matter were nothing.
"You seem calm." Danny commented.
"Of course. I mean, it's just a ghost, how bad could it be?" Sam said confidently.
Just then, a giant, green figure crashed through the wall, sending a few lockers and large chunks of wall flying at their direction.
"That bad!" Danny said. "Stand back, Sam. I'm going ghost!" he said. "Hey, that's a nice catchphrase." he added, just before transforming. The ghost obviously noticed Danny, and went flying straight at him.
"All right, Danny. Let's see what you've got." Danny said to himself, flying at the ghost.
Author's Note(s)
I have absolutely no idea how three-way phone calls work, but all I know is they exist. (I don't think it exists where I am)
It's not as much as a cliffhanger, as it is a bad case of writer's block. Kindly review.