Disclosure

A Danny Phantom fanfic by BenRG

Disclaimer

Danny Phantom and the characters, situations, technologies and locations of the Danny Phantom universe were created by Butch Hartman for Nickelodeon Television. This is a not-for-profit fan work for free distribution through the world-wide web. No infringement of any trademark or copyright is intended or implied.

Censor: T

Book 1 – Jazz Phantom

Chapter 4 – Phantom Family

"And she actually managed to get away!" Danny was complaining into his cellphone. "I feel like a first-time amateur, Sam! I fell for the oldest trick in the book!"

"Well, a variation of it anyway," Sam replied reassuringly. "It sounds to me like she stayed phased inside the structure of the wall and worked her way out of the building that way." There was a pause before Sam spoke again. "Danny… how dangerous do you think this new ghost really is?"

Danny sighed. "I don't think that she wants to be dangerous, Sam," he replied. "She talked about being a 'good guy' after all and the kids who were trapped in the Commercial Science classroom say that she took a lot of risks to beat Ryman. You know the problem, though: Ghosts don't always understand how fragile humans are and can hurt them by accident even if they don't end up hurting them because they are in the way of their achieving their obsession, whatever that turns out to be."

Tucker was also listening in (ah, the miracles of conference calling). "Sounds to me like you are more pissed at yourself than her, man."

Danny was about to take umbrage at that before catching himself and laughing. "Well, I am a bit sore that she did most of the work and got all the praise. How am I supposed to get a reputation as a good guy when everyone else is stealing my press?" Sam and Tucker laughed at that. "In any case, even if she is a 'good guy', maybe especially if she is a 'good guy', I need to catch her and get her back to the Ghost Zone before the Guys in White catch her or, worse yet, Vlad gets his hands on her."

There was silence on the phone line but everyone knew what Danny meant. The GiW agents would certainly rip her apart 'molecule by molecule' whilst that would likely be humane compared to what Vlad would do to a powerful ghost if he decided he wanted to control its powers. "Well, I'll get my computer to outline a search pattern, Danny," Tucker said. "Tomorrow night, we'll hit the streets and search for her in a methodical way. Right now, though, my mind has turned into fudge! Lancer's essays can do that to you."

"Yeah, it's late enough, Tuck. I'll see you at school tomorrow, both of you." Tucker hung up but Sam did not. "Sam?"

There was a long pause. "Yeah, Danny?"

"Do you still have that Spectre Deflector Mom made for you?"

"Yeah, it's at the bottom of my closet somewhere."

"Dig it out and wear it tonight," Danny commanded. "Just in case."

"Why Danny! Special instructions just for me! What did I do to get special treatment?" Sam's voice was flirtatious and teasing. "Why don't you ever give safety advice to Tucker?"

Danny chuckled. "Tucker is paranoid enough that he wears his every night." Besides, Danny added silently, if Tucker were killed, it would tear my heart out. If you were killed, it would turn me into a living nightmare that would kill everything in two universes to try to stop the pain. "You are too brave for your own good, Sam. Please do this for me."

"I will, Danny. I might like living life on the edge, but I'm not one to take stupid risks for no reason." Sam didn't add that Danny, on the other hand, did take stupid risks for reasons that, whilst she understood, she didn't like.

"Thank you, Sam."

There was another long pause before Sam spoke. Danny heard her yawn. "Tucker's right. It's too late to do anything but sleep now. Take care, Danny. Don't do anything stupid as I want to see you in the morning without any new bumps or bruises."

Danny laughed. "You know how careful I am!"

Sam chuckled in response. "That's what I'm worried about. Good night, Danny. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Good night, Sam. Until tomorrow." Danny watched as his cell's display confirmed that Sam had hung up and slowly folded it shut. "I love you," he whispered to himself. He would never have believed if someone had told him that Sam had said exactly the same thing after hanging up.

Danny turned off his reading light, double-checked that his alarm clock was set and then rolled over onto his side to go to sleep. At that moment, a wisp of blue vapour escaped his lips. Danny scowled. "Oh man, why don't they ever let up?"


Jazz had taken the precaution of sneaking out of the house before transforming in an alleyway and launching into a looping airborne patrol pattern over the Upper Amity, the down-scale neighbourhood in which Fenton Works resided. She hoped that she had been far enough away as to not trigger Danny's Ghost Sense.

Jazz was still very tired, especially after the amount of energy she had released during the fight at the school. She had eaten three portions at dinner and was still hungry enough to snack on Mom's disgusting leftovers afterwards; she presumed that her body would metabolise all of that into ectoplasmic energy the same way that Danny's did. On top of the post-fight fatigue, she was feeling last night's lost sleep. However, she was the older one, the responsible one. It was her job to look out for her little brother and that is why she was patrolling for any intruder ghosts that might disrupt her brother's sleep on this school night. The irony that she was disrupting her sleep on a school night naturally didn't enter into her mind. This was just something she had to do.

Having learnt a little from her mistakes, she had a Fenton Thermos strapped to the back of her HAZMAT suit's utility belt. Apart from that one necessary change, the fight against Ryman had given her a degree of confidence in her ability to fight another ghost. Even if she had not yet come close to equalling Danny's astonishing power level, she at least felt she knew enough tricks to get by.

Jazz was tired enough that she didn't really respond to the tingling of her Ghost Sense until the green-white energy blast shot through the air right in front of her face. Jazz went into a twisting, turning dive and looped back up, her ecto-blasts powering up, when she saw who had just attacked was hovering ahead of her. He was looking suitably fierce and powerful, standing on thin air, his arms crossed in front of him and his eyes shining brightly.

"D… I mean… Phantom!" She dropped into a hover and dispelled her energy blasts. As much as it went against the grain to go into a confrontation unarmed, she didn't want to provoke Danny into a pre-emptive attack. "Some way of introducing yourself, Ghost-Boy! What can I do for you?"

"You can go back to the Ghost Zone voluntarily and save me the trouble of having to fight you," Danny snapped. "I really don't have the time for this crap, you know!"

"DANNY! LANGUAGE!" Jazz snapped before covering her mouth and blushing. Stupid, stupid, stupid, she reproved herself. She guessed she must be more tired than she thought to make a slip like that. Still, she had to deal with this confrontation before Danny trapped her in the Ghost Zone. She began looking for a way to escape but she was out in the open and Danny's attacks had the range to hit her several times before she was able to get away, even if she flew at maximum speed. "Maybe I'm not from the Ghost Zone and don't want to go there! Thought about that smart guy?"

Danny was blinking in surprise that the ghost girl had used his given name. It wasn't exactly a secret but it wasn't commonly used by other ghosts. He shook his head and focussed again on the here and now. "What kind of an idiot do you take me for?" he sighed. "All ghosts originate in the Ghost Zone just as all humans originate in the Physical World. That is the way things work."

Jazz licked her lips nervously and raised her hands in a submissive gesture. "Okay, I surrender! I'll go back to the Ghost Zone!" she bluffed. She smiled slightly at Danny's clear surprise. "On one condition," she added. Rather awkwardly, Jazz tried to pose flirtatiously. "I'll show you mine if you show me yours first!" Blank stare. Jazz sighed. "Your lair, idiot! I want to see your place!"

Danny rolled his eyes. "Look, whoever you are, I don't have time for these games…"

"What? What's so wrong with what I'm asking? I'm going to show you the place I stay in the Ghost Zone, is it so wrong for you to show me yours? I'm trying to be co-operative and friendly here!"

Danny felt genuinely abashed by the girl ghost's outrage. Somehow it was just as bad as when Jazz shouted at him for not doing his chores or homework. It made him feel defensive and he didn't like that. "Maybe I don't want you to see my lair!" he shot back. "Maybe I don't want to see yours either!"

"What, aren't you even slightly curious?" Jazz shot back, grateful for all those mock sessions in which she learnt to press her brother's buttons. "Come on! No obligation and no trickery! Don't tell me that you wouldn't want to find at least one ally on our side of the Divide?" Danny was flailing for a response when Jazz cut in. "Or maybe…" She raised an eyebrow and floated closer to her brother. "Or maybe you don't have one to show me!"

"That's… that's ridiculous, every ghost has a lair in the Ghost Zone!"

"So they say," Jazz shot back. "But I don't think you have one! Where is it, if you have one?" Danny stuttered for a moment. Oh, he could lie but that could easily cause later problems if this ghost ever got back into this world. "You see? That hesitation is the clue! You don't have one! Every ghost has a lair. So, if you don't have a lair, then you can't really be a ghost. You're something else, not from the Zone. Just like me. I don't have a lair, so I'm something else, not from the Zone."

Danny suddenly straightened up and scowled angrily, reaching for his Thermos. "I've given you a chance! You're going back no matter what stupid stories…!"

Jazz panicked and used her last card, her voice raised to a shout. "You aren't a ghost at all! You're like me! HALFA!"

Danny froze. Only a few ghosts would openly speak of Danny's nature and all of them were, in some way, either friends or associated with Vlad Masters, aka Plasimus, Danny's arch-foe. "Where did you hear that word?" he asked dangerously, letting go of his Thermos and subtly powering up for a fight.

"From my brother," Jazz said quietly. "Will you listen to me and give me a chance to explain who and what I am?"

Danny locked onto one key phrase. "Your brother? Who is your brother?" Please, God, don't let her be Vlad's sister. I couldn't handle another one of them!

Jazz sighed. "Sam is right," she said at last. "You really are clueless. Am I really so well disguised that you can't recognise me?" Danny squinted as the female-form ghost that claimed to be a halfa floated a little closer. Try as he might, whilst she remained frustratingly familiar, he couldn't place the face, and this was all the worse as she knew about Sam! "I should have told you right away but I didn't want you to feel bad. You already carry such a great weight Danny, and I didn't want to make it any worse."

They were close now and Danny suddenly, heartrendingly, knew this ghost. He was a fool for not realising the first moment that he had seen her! The change of hair and eye colour was not enough to really disguise her identity! He reached out and touched that cold, cold ectoplasmic face, tracing out the shape that was, of course, the third human face that he had ever seen. "Jazz?"


Danny Phantom touched down on the rooftop of an apartment building and watched his… his… his sister land a bit more clumsily a few paces away. "Jazz, what happened to you?" he asked, his voice choked with grief and horror. Had Skulker killed her yesterday? If so, why had she returned? He couldn't think of any spirit that would have less reason to be restless than his sister.

"What happened to you?" Jazz countered with a shaky smile. "It wasn't planned, Danny. One of Skulker's shots wrecked the Portal and he threw me into it." She half-laughed, half-sobbed. "I wasn't even worth his time to kill, so he threw me away like garbage! I don't know if he expected the Portal to kill me or if he thought he was sending me into the Zone! All I know is that it hurt. It hurt so much that I wanted to be dead, that I begged God to let me die."

Danny nodded solemnly. "I remember," he whispered. "No one else should have to know that feeling."

Jazz nodded. "I know," she replied quietly. She leaned forward and wiped away a tear with a white-gloved hand. "Hey," she added. "No tears. I'm over it now, just like you." Jazz sighed and stood back. "Final proof," she announced. Rings of white light appeared and, in the place of the maroon-suited ghost girl stood Jazz Fenton, wearing her usual day clothes.

Danny did not consciously remember returning to his human form, all he remembered was ending up in his sister's arms, crying and shaking. "Why?" he shouted. "Why did this have to happen to you? Bad enough that I'm stuck in this hell! No, it has to happen to my sister too! What did we do? Why are we being punished like this?"

Jazz hugged her little brother tightly. "Oh Danny!" she gasped out, tears starting in her own eyes. "Danny, we can't know why things happen! We're only human! Yes! Human! I'm convinced of that for all our strange gifts!" Danny shook his head in fierce denial and tried to bury himself deeper into Jazz's embrace. "Daniel Scott Fenton! Look at me!" Jazz snapped. Danny looked up, his blue eyes wide. "Danny, do you think that I'm a monster?" Danny shook his head. Never! Jazz was perfect! Everyone knew that! "Danny, my condition is the same as yours! If I'm not a monster, neither are you!"

Danny shuddered and sucked in a deep sob. "It… it just doesn't seem fair," he whispered.

"Fair?" Jazz shrugged and managed a game grin. "Show me an atom of 'fair' or a particle of 'justice' Danny and I'll agree with you. Things like this don't happen on human terms and we can't expect them to abide by them." She sighed and deliberately pushed her little brother slightly away, her hurt, scared little brother who, despite his strength was still only a 15-year-old boy, so she could look into his eyes. "Danny you have your friends who help you. I want you to know that I'm glad this happened, not because I wanted to share your power but because I always wanted to help you too."

There was a long silence before Danny fiercely wiped the tears from his cheeks and looked up into his sister's eyes. "We… we can't keep this secret from Sam and Tucker. They know everything about me and I won't keep it secret from them."

Jazz nodded acquiescence. She didn't have a problem with that. "There is the issue of Mom and Dad," she said quietly.

Danny's eyes opened comically wide. "Jazz! We can't tell Mom and Dad! They'll hate us! They'll try to catch us and experiment on us!" Jazz wished that she could tell Danny that he was being silly but she couldn't. Sometimes she really worried about their parents. "They think that 'Ghost-Boy' is a monster and if they hear about another 'ghost kid' around they'll think the same about you too! They'll never stop hunting you!" Danny shook his head. "No! I won't let that happen! Jazz, you have to pretend that you aren't a halfa! You can't ever use your powers again! I'm willing to take the risk to help people but I won't let you…!"

"HEY!" Danny looked up at his suddenly angry sister. "Look here, buster. You don't tell me what I can and can't do! I'm the older one here and I'm half-way to deciding that it's you who should give up this double life and leave it to the older sibling, the way it should be!" Danny's face flamed with anger and he was about to shout at Jazz when she interrupted him. "Yeah! Not a nice feeling, is it? Being told to give up something so important to you? Well think about that the next time you try to decide for other people what they should and should not do, little brother!" Danny did a 'landed fish' impression as Jazz continued in a quieter tone. "Sam and Tucker have chosen to do this because they… well because they are your best friends and don't want you to go into danger alone. You've chosen to do this because it is something that has to be done. I choose to do it…" Jazz sighed and covered her face. "I don't believe I'm about to say this and I will totally deny it if you tell anyone but I'm going to do this… I'm going to do this because I'm so very, very proud of you little brother. I'm proud of the choices you have made and the path you have chosen and it would be my privilege to fight side by side with you every step of the way."

Jazz grinned and reached forward to squeeze Danny' shoulders. The boy looked up into her eyes and Jazz met that gaze fearlessly. "You are not alone, Danny. I'll be with you in good times and bad."

Danny was silent for a little while longer, clearly digesting Jazz's impassioned words. "Okay," he said at last. Then he grinned mischievously. "But I warn you now that I will put you on the bench if you screw up! Until I am satisfied that you are up to speed, you will do whatever I say! Got that, rookie?" He laughed at Jazz's expression of outrage and, transforming to his ghost form, he took off into the air, shouting insults and taunts through his laughter. Jazz transformed and launched herself into the air just a few seconds behind him, shouting threats and promises of vengeance through her own laughter.

The people of Amity Park would long tell odd stories that night, of the two laughing ghostly children who chased each other through the skies all through the night until dawn.


As the sun began to peek over the horizon, Danny and Jazz, still in their ghost forms, sat on a ledge below the clock on the Amity Sun-Times building and looked out over their home city.

"Jazz?"

"Hmm?"

"What are we gonna call you?" Jazz blinked in surprise so Danny elaborated. "I've got a few aliases. 'Inviso-Bill' and 'Ghost-Boy' seem to be the most common but I prefer 'Danny Phantom'."

Jazz was quiet. "I'm sure that some will call me 'Ghost-Girl' even though I'd prefer 'Ghost-Woman'." Danny laughed quietly, knowing his sister's desire to be seen as 'adult'. "But I'm proud of my family, Danny. I'm proud of who you are and I'm determined to live up to that if I'm given the chance. I think that I'll use the name 'Jazz Phantom' for now." Jazz lit up her powers and used it to draw a symbol in the air, one like Danny's own but with an upward and leftward curling tail at the bottom of the 'P' symbol, turning it into a hybrid with the letter 'J'.

Danny smiled. "It's geeky and inelegant," he said. "I like it."

To be continued…