It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and Tucker was pounding on the Fentons' front door.
"You know you don't have to knock that hard, right?" said Sam, standing off to the side with an eyebrow raised. Tucker simply shrugged, unrepentant.
"You never know when Mr. Fenton is talking too loudly to hear it. That's happened a few times." Tucker moved to knock again, but the door opened before he could, revealing Danny's older sister, Jazz.
"Hey, Sam. Hey, Tucker," she greeted, opening the door wider to let the two younger teens in.
"Hi, Jazz," said Sam. "Is Danny awake yet?"
Jazz frowned a little. "I'm not sure. He's almost never awake this early."
Sam blinked. "It's one in the afternoon."
"It's Saturday," Jazz replied back. "Plus Mom and Dad woke us up early last night to get us to witness the 'Grand Reveal' of one of their weird inventions. It didn't work, obviously, so they got us up at two in the morning for nothing." Jazz rolled her eyes in annoyance, and Tucker looked a little interested.
"A new invention, huh? What was it?"
"Doesn't matter," Jazz waved him off, leaving Tucker to slump. "Mom and Dad just sort of gave up on it when it didn't work. They're out of the house, by the way, so it'll be just you and Danny."
"You're going out, huh?" asked Sam.
Jazz smiled. "Yup. Going to the bookstore. I'll probably be there all day. When Danny wakes up, don't let him stay in bed all day, alright?"
Tucker refrained from rolling his eyes. Sam did no such thing. "Okay, mother dear, we'll get Danny up and out of bed soon enough." Jazz raised an eyebrow at the sarcasm, but didn't say anything as she raised a hand in goodbye to both of them and went out the door.
When the door was closed, Tucker turned to Sam. "Should you really antagonize her so much?"
"What? She always talks as though just because she's older, we can't think for ourselves. It's annoying."
"Yeah, I get it." Before Tucker could say anything more, they heard a noise and turned towards the stairs to find Danny clumping down tiredly, yawning a bit and still in her pajamas.
"Well, good morning, Sleeping Beauty!" Sam chirped gleefully, and Danny froze in place, snapping her eyes open and taking in the sight of her two best friends standing there with wicked smirks and raised eyebrows. Danny slowly began to turn red under their scrutiny, and she cleared her throat.
"Sam. Tucker. Heh, hi. W-What are you doing here so early...?" she said, turning even redder as Sam began to snicker into her hand.
"Girl, it's nearly 1:30. We're not early, you're late," Tucker said behind a wide smile, and the sight of Danny going even redder made the two collapse with laughter. Danny frowned and grumbled at them, turning to blush at the floor.
"Yeah, well, s'not my fault," she muttered when they'd gotten under control, and Tucker cleared his throat a little before trying to speak again.
"Uh, yeah, Jazz said something about that. Some sort of failed project or something?" Danny sighed.
"Yeah. They've been working on this for years. You should've seen Dad's face - he was devastated." Danny frowned as she recalled the events of last night. She'd never seen them so excited over something. "When all the stupid thing was spark and die..."
Sam folded her arms. "When Jazz talked about it, she didn't seem to think it was that big a deal."
Danny only scoffed a bit. "Yeah, well, you know what Jazz thinks of my parents' profession. She makes her opinion about it as subtle as a flying mallet. She isn't very sympathetic about it, 'cause she just sees it as another example of her being right and them being wrong."
She slumped onto the couch in the living room, and felt more than saw Sam and Tucker sit down on either side of her. "I mean, I don't like it much either, since my parents get no respect around here whatsoever, but I know how much this meant to them. I... I think they might actually quit over it. It's that bad."
Sam and Tucker looked at each other over Danny's head, sharing the same half-thought. They had a silent debate, arguing with only eyes and expressions. Sam was the one who spoke aloud. "Well... what if we tried to fix it?"
Danny blinked, turning to her. "Wait. What?"
"Y-Yeah," Tucker said, having lost the debate, "Your parents are geniuses, no matter what their reputation is. They must have blueprints and notes that we can look at, see if there's something that they couldn't see because they've been working on it too long. How long did you say they were working on this thing?"
"...Years," Danny offered reluctantly. "The last couple of weeks have been really hectic for them, though."
"See? They've been at it so long, it's probably something small that they overlooked and couldn't figure out where it went wrong. We could probably find it easily. What do you say, Danny?" Sam asked, looking at her with curiosity and excitement. Tucker looked unsure, but seemed like he couldn't help his curiosity either.
Danny frowned, thinking. The memory of her parents' disappointed faces steeled her resolve. "...Alright," she said finally, standing up and heading towards the basement. "But no messing with anything else, got it? The lab's filled with all sorts of weird and crazy stuff, and I don't want anything to happen just from us leaning on the table wrong or something stupid like that."
"Gotcha, Danny," said Sam, and her eagerness was contagious. Both Tucker and Danny smiled slightly as they headed downstairs.
When they hit the bottom, Sam and Tucker's jaws dropped, while even Danny, who'd seen it before, marveled a little at how intense the sight was. Carved into one wall of the lab was a large tunnel, lined on every inch of the inside with wires and gagetry. Several wires ran through the gaping hole into the consoles that sat just outside. Without power, the entire apparatus was black and lifeless.
"Danny..." said Tucker breathlessly. "This is what your parents have been working on?"
"Yup," she said, looking at it critically. "The Ghost Portal. It's meant to be some sort of gateway between this dimension and the one where ghosts live. They know that world exists because there have been reports of natural portals all over the world, though they're unstable and never last long enough for humans to go through and explore it without risk of getting trapped there. This was supposed to be the first man-made portal. But, as you can see," Danny waved at the lifeless machinery, "it didn't work. They had no clue what went wrong."
"Well, that's what we're here to find out, isn't it?" Sam said enthusiastically, and without another word she went to one of the many paper-strewn desks and picked up the first Portal-related blueprint she found. Danny and Tucker looked at each other dubiously, but followed suit.
For a couple hours, they studied the plans and compared what they found to the life-sized model they had in front of them. Tucker, as the most tech-savvy of them all, was able to check the machine properly. Danny and Sam followed his lead. Slowly, they went through just about every detail the Fentons could've possibly overlooked. All that was left to check out was the inside.
With Tucker the only one able to understand if anything changed on the monitors outside and Sam unable to fit any of the available jumpsuits due to her size, Danny was the reluctant volunteer for the expedition. Zipping up the white and black jumpsuit in her size and bemusedly tearing off the Jack sticker she found on the breast of it, Danny looked up nervously at the Portal that seemed to loom above her. "I... I'm not sure I should do this..."
"Oh, come on, Danny," said Sam, all but bouncing on the balls of her feet. "This doesn't excite you? Being able to see what could be on the other side of that Portal?"
"Well... yeah, I guess..." Danny mused. Drawing in a breath in order to muster her courage, she stepped in before she could chicken out again. It was frightfully dark, and Danny had to cautiously feel her way along the walls of the tunnel.
"Do you see anything that looks out of place, Danny?" she heard Tucker's voice call out, and Danny frowned.
"I can't see much of anything, actually. The light doesn't reach very far in here." Danny shook her head in exasperation. "Hang on, I'm coming back out. See if you can find a flashlight or something."
"Will do," she heard Tucker say, but as Danny turned back around, her feet got tangled in a wire and she fell to the side. With a yelp, she stumbled into the wall, vaguely feeling something depress under her palm as she tried to catch herself.
"You alright?" she heard Sam call, and Danny shook her head as she regained her balance, looking curiously at the section of wall her hand was on, trying to see what had moved.
"...Uh, yeah, I'm-" she started, but was abruptly cut off by an alarm and flashing emergency lights.
[Warning: Portal activation imminent.] a mechanical voice droned throughout the lab, and all three teens stopped and stared at the ceiling, shocked by the sudden activity. [Portal doors closing to contain energy output.]
"Wait, what?" Danny said, but her answer came in a sudden slamming sound, and she looked forward to find the doors to the Portal firmly shut in front of her.
"Oh, God!" she cried, rushing forward to try and pry the doors open. She heard Sam and Tucker give similar cries, and heard fists pounding on the doors. She started pounding, herself. "Sam! Tucker! Tucker, get me out of here!"
"I'm trying!" she heard him yell, and heard faint typing even through the ongoing alarm. Sam continued to pound on the door. "It's not letting me do anything!"
Danny looked along the walls, trying to see some sort of button that would open the doors from the inside. She found no such thing, and so continued to try prying the doors open. She felt her nails give from the pressure, but her panic and adrenaline didn't allow her to register the pain. Suddenly, the mechanical voice came again.
[Activation imminent. 60 percent... 70 percent...]
Danny looked behind her and saw the back of the tunnel glowing green. The tunnel started to light up along the walls, the lights slowly approaching her and the core glowing brighter and brighter. She screamed in total fear.
"Sam! Tucker!"
"Tucker, get her out of there!"
"I'm trying, Danny, I'm trying so hard, but it's not letting me-!"
[80 percent... 90 percent...]
The tunnel glowed brighter. Danny pressed her back against the doors, screaming and sobbing in fear and pain as the wires began to flow with electricity and a thick, dense energy that saturated every breath she took.
"Danny! Danny!"
"I can't stop it! It's not stopping, I can't-!"
[100 percent complete. Portal activating.]
Danny gave one last scream as the noise went abruptly silent, and the space filled with light. Her scream cut off as her world went green.
Sam and Tucker watched, horrified, as the frame of the Portal lit up as it was supposed to. Sam stood back from the doors, the silence chilling her more than the sound did. Tucker had fallen from the chair, staring blankly at the closed doors.
[Activation complete] came the dreaded voice. [Portal opening.] The doors slowly slid open, revealing a glowing green field of swirling energy. It cast the entire lab in its glow. It might've looked beautiful, had it been any other time. But instead of admiring the portal, the two teens instead searched its surface frantically, looking for their missing friend.
"D... Danny?" Sam called out timidly, not sounding anything like herself. Any confidence or excitement she had that day had vanished completely, leaving behind a scared little girl. "Danny?" she called again, her voice going higher with fear. Tucker couldn't find his voice at all, certain in his mind of what had just happened.
Before Sam could call out again, a hand shot out and gripped the edge of the portal, causing her to scream. Tucker sat up straighter, unsure. The white gloved hand was not the same color as Danny's jumpsuit.
The hand gripped tighter, seeming to double check its purchase before a boot the same color shuffled through the Portal. It hit the ground hard, stumbling over the few inches of metal between the bottom of the portal and the floor of the lab, and with the loss of balance the rest of the body fell through, tumbling a couple steps forward before landing face first onto the floor.
Sam backed up several steps, crashing into a table. This was not Danny. This... being wore a jumpsuit that was mostly black, and had long silver hair that fell down its back and lay along the floor of the lab in a glowing halo around its head. Even the body itself was glowing. What was this thing? Where was Danny?
"D-Danny?" she called again, staying well away from the mysterious figure and turning back towards the Portal. If this thing could come out, surely Danny could too? "Danny!?"
The figure groaned. "S... Sam...?" it whimpered, and Sam started with a yelp. She fell to the floor, her legs no longer able to hold her weight. She barely noticed Tucker come up beside her, putting one arm around her shoulders protectively as the other held one of the Fentons' many weapons. He had no idea if it worked, but he prayed it did.
"H-How do you know her name?" he demanded, sounding far braver than he felt. The thing groaned again.
"Tu... Tucker? 'Zat you...? Wha..." it said, trying and failing to lift itself from the ground. It finally managed to sit up, and held one hand to its head. "God, what jus' happened... my hea's killin' me... and..." it lifted a hand to its throat, sounding startled. "And what the hell happened to my voice?"
"Answer me!" Tucker screamed, cringing as he heard his voice crack a little. He cringed again as the thing's head snapped up, revealing large green eyes the same color as the Portal. "How do you know our names? What are you!?"
"Wha... Tucker it's me. Danny? What, you don't recognize me?" The thing seemed genuinely hurt and confused. Tucker didn't lower the gun one bit.
"The hell you are. Danny's a- Danny doesn't look a thing like you. You're not Danny."
The thing winced, blinking as it looked back and forth between him and Sam, staring a little too long at the silent girl and causing Tucker to draw her closer to his body. It looked back at Tucker, looking for all the world like he was in the wrong.
"What do you mean I'm not Danny? Of course I'm Danny! I-!" It cut off abruptly as it made a double take at its hands, which were flailing emphatically with its words. It took a hand and looked puzzled at it. "What is up with my suit? And what is this silver stuff-ow!" It pulled on its hair with a shout of surprised pain. Tucker didn't know what to make of it.
Suddenly, the thing shot up and Tucker nearly pulled the trigger until he realized that it wasn't going for them, but rather the mirror situated somewhere behind them. Tucker and Sam both turned and stood slowly, finding that the being was staring at its reflection with the most dumbfounded look either of them had ever seen.
It ran a hand over its cheek, trembling. It ran the other through its hair, which was completely messy and all over the place. It kept staring as though it couldn't believe what it was seeing. "I... I'm a girl," it whispered, as though saying it too loudly would break some sort of spell. Tucker and Sam shared a glance, but Tucker never put down the gun, unsure of what was happening.
"I... I'm a girl. I'm a real girl. Oh, my God, I'm... I..." Its eyes widened and it abruptly looked back at Tucker and Sam, making the two of them flinch and for Tucker to raise his gun up to aim straight at its head. The thing winced and lifted its hands as though to calm him down.
"Tucker... Tucker, I'm Danny, okay? I... we grew up together, remember? I did all this weird and perverted stuff, but you knew it was 'cause I was trans, 'member?" Tucker nearly dropped the gun in surprise. The thing smiled. "Yeah. Only you, me, and Sam know that. And Sam, Sam-" it turned to the goth girl and Tucker raised the gun again. It ignored him. "Sam, you gave me this beautiful, beautiful comb for my birthday, which is how you let me know that you knew, and I always wanted to wear it, but my hair was too short and I was scared of wearing girl stuff in public, but Sam, I can wear it now because my hair- God, look at my hair!"
It giggled and held up the silver hair that went down to its lower back, and Tucker forgot his gun completely at the look of joy on the thing's face. "My hair, Sam! I'm a girl! I'm a real girl, and I don't have to hide anymore, trapped in the wrong body!" It put its hands to its chest and began to twirl. "Oh, my God, I'm free! I never thought-"
It stopped so abruptly that Tucker flinched again and started to raise the gun, but Sam stopped him. The look of realization on Sam's face made him recall the thing's actual words and it started to dawn on him too. "Danny...?" Sam whispered for the first time in a while, but the thing- Danny- didn't acknowledge it. She felt along her chest very slowly, lifting another hand to her neck and searching there.
"Where... where's my pulse?" she whispered, and Sam and Tucker both paled. "Where's... what..." She turned back to the mirror and leaned against the sink, but before she could take any true stock of her appearance, her body seemed fade somewhat and she tumbled through the sink with a scream. Tucker dropped the gun, both he and Sam calling Danny's name in panic.
Danny sat up with a groan, holding her head again. The other two kneeled on either side of her. Danny looked at her hands in fear.
"Sam... Tucker..." she looked up at the two of them with unfamiliar green eyes. "...Guys...? ...Am I dead?"
Before either of them could answer, as if they could answer a question like that, a ring of bright white light formed around the poor girl's waist, blinding all three of them. The light burned through their eyelids, and disappeared after a moment. Sam opened her eyes first, gasping and bringing her hands to her mouth. Tucker looked next and toppled over at the sight of a normal, black-haired, male Danny.
Danny herself opened her eyes and looked at her hands, which were the same as they'd ever been. She hesitantly lifted a hand up to her neck and sobbed when she felt a weak but steady pulse under her fingers. She stood up shakily, with help from her two friends, and looked again at the mirror.
She stood silently as she stared at her reflection, seeing the black hair, the blue eyes, and the Adam's apple that quivered as she swallowed. Turning back to look at her two best friends, it was all she could do to fall forward and cry into their shoulders. Sam and Tucker began to cry as well, wondering just what happened.
No one had any idea what would happen next. And that scared the hell out of them.
Origin chapter, at your service. Many, many thanks to my first and most helpful reviewer, NebulousMistress! But don't let her be the only one - if anybody has any helpful hints, criticism, or advice for me, or just wants to pitch me a scenario they'd like to see in this AU, please review and let me know!