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

Epilogue

A few weeks later…

"Okay," Jack Fenton said. "I think the time has come to surrender and get to bed."

Maddie Fenton looked up from where she was staring at a print-out of the latest ectoplasmic valance readings from various parts of the town. "Is there something wrong, dear?" she asked absently.

Jack laughed. "Only that I've been staring at this print-out for ten minutes and I can still only see gibberish!" Jack yawned. "I'm heading up to bed." The bear-like man grinned at his wife and best friend and waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Wanna come tuck me in?"

Maddie grinned back, narrowing her eyes sensually. "Maybe in five minutes, Jack. I've got to finish making all the equipment safe."

Jack nodded and kissed Maddie on the cheek, the auburn-haired woman leaning into her lover's touch just a little.

Maddie watched Jack walk up the stairs. Then she leant back in her high lab stool as far as she could go without overbalancing and stretched her arms. You know, I think I'm getting old. These all-nighters are getting harder every day! Maddie sighed. It would be nice to get some help around the lab from the kids but, no matter how hard she and Jack tried, they had never been able to get Jazz or Danny even remotely interested in their work. Indeed, from their reactions (especially recently), Maddie sometimes felt that their kids really seemed to be frightened of them and their work, something that tore at Maddie's heart.

There was something else. For some time now, a wall had been growing between her and Danny. They had been so close when Danny was young but now she hardly knew what the boy was up to when he was out with his friends. Maddie suspected that he was being bullied at school, but the boy was stubbornly uncommunicative about this and all other aspects of his life.

It had only really got bad over the last year, though. Danny thought that he had hid it from her and, to give the boy credit, he did hide it well but Maddie was smart enough to see how he came home sore and aching from injuries that he did not feel able to tell her about. Worse still, she was aware that he was sneaking out some nights, often not returning until the early hours of the morning. She was still working on getting enough courage to approach the Mansons and the Foleys to see if Danny's friends were also involved in these late-night shenanigans.

Now, Jazz had started doing the same thing! She loved her oldest child and, in her drive for perfection and knowledge, saw a lot of herself reflected back. However, one thing Jazz would never be able to manage was being sneaky. She knew that her daughter had started sneaking out at night too and had been trying to hide that she had been coming home hurt and scared…

There was a loud 'thud' that echoed through the basement laboratory as Maddie slammed her fists down on the worktop. She didn't know what hurt her more – that her kids were in trouble or that they didn't feel they could come to her or Jack for help.

She knew that Danny and Jazz were confiding with each other but they had been ultra-careful not to leave even a hint as to what was happening. Frankly, she had to face the frustrating fact that her children seemed to know each other's cares and concerns far better than either of their parents.

Maddie sighed and looked down at the paranormal activity reports sent every day from the office of the Chief of Police. Just to make things that much more interesting, there was a new ghost in town – one apparently allied to that blasted 'Ghost-Boy', Inviso-Bill, Danny Phantom or whatever it was called. Oddly enough, this one seemed to have a female form. A partner? Even a life-mate? There was some evidence to suggest that some ghosts formed co-operative partnerships, possibly even associated for their entire existences.

Maddie threw her pen down onto the reports. No, she told herself furiously. This is what started it. Jack and I have become so focussed on our work and so detached from the kids that we barely know them anymore! Now they are in trouble and can only turn to each other and their friends, not us! I've got to prioritise. Starting from tomorrow, I am going to show Danny and Jazz that they mean more to me than some mass of ectoplasm energised by neural energy echoes ever could! I am going to earn their trust again and I am going to find out what is happening to them!

Maddie sighed and stood up, ready now to join her husband for the night. I just wish that this new Ghost-Girl hadn't appeared just when Jazz seems to have got sucked into whatever is happening with Danny. For some reason, my professional and personal problems seem to multiply in synch!


"Damn it."

"We lost her again?"

"I don't know what's happening. Sometimes the scanner gets a firm lock on her trace and then she just fades out as if she doesn't exist! Maybe she's learnt a new trick!"

"Or maybe that piece of junk is as defective as everything else that comes out of R&D these days!"

From where she was hidden in a pile of festering garbage, the girl child known variously as Dani, Danielle Masters or Dani Phantom watched as the two agents of the GIW (General Intelligence Works or, colloquially 'Guys In White') glared at their suddenly-useless ectoplasmic activity tracers and turned away. Long accustomed to the requirements of stealth, she completely held in her desire to giggle at their frustration. She was glad she had worked out a way to completely internalise her ectoplasmic aura, making it nearly impossible for her to be detected non-visually so long as she kept her concentration.

The agent known as 'O' turned a knob on the side of his scanner, increasing its sensitivity. "Come on, come on," he growled.

This partner, 'K', slapped him on the shoulder. "Give it up, man," he advised. "She's got us beat today and we don't have the time to waste on her!"

O looked at K in surprise. "We don't?"

"Nah, haven't you been listening to the scuttlebutt in the break room? There's a new 'good' ghost in Amity Town! It's a female-form this time and it has been seen closely co-operating with the Ghost-Boy! Even has the same powers!"

O blinked in surprise. "So… the Ghost-Boy has a girlfriend?" That bit of intelligence made Dani's concentration slip for just a moment. O's scanner bleeped. "Wait a minute, I've got… no… Damn it! Gone again!"

"Forget about it, O, it was probably just a short-circuit or something."

O sighed and turned off his scanner, K quickly following suit. "So, talk to me about this new ghost in Amity Town."

"You'll hear all you need to know at the mission briefing," K said. O raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, we're being sent after her. The Top Floor figures that, as she's newer, she might not know all the tricks that Inviso-Bill does. If we can catch and study her, then we might get a clue on how to catch her 'brother'."

O and K turned to leave. After she was certain they were gone, Dani transformed into her ghost form and phased out of the garbage pile, rising up into the air. They were going to Amity Park! Danny was in danger! In a life full of only the weirdest and, occasionally, most abusive of relationships, Dani treasured her relationship with her 'cousin', Danny Fenton. Of all the beings she had met, only he had treated her with unconditional respect and love. She owed it to him to let him know that the GIW were after him… and his… 'girlfriend'?

That bit didn't seem to feel right to Dani. Danny had occasionally formed alliances-of-convenience with ghosts but she knew that he felt closer to his human half than his ghost half and she found it improbable to say the least that he would try to start a relationship with a ghost, especially given their obsessive/monomaniac personalities.

Dani thought furiously for a moment. K had said that the new 'Ghost-Girl' seemed to have the same powers as Danny did… Dani's eyes opened wide enough so that they could have popped out. There were only three ghosts that she knew of with these powers – herself, Danny (who was, genetically, nearly-identical to her) and her 'creator', Vlad Masters, who had got his powers from an identical accident to the one that empowered Danny. That this new 'Ghost' had those powers… meant that she was a halfa too!

Dani shook her head before going invisible and intangible and flying higher up into the sky. She angled back, turning her upward path into a ballistic curve that carried her away from the city of Chicago and towards Amity Park. Whoever this halfa was (and Dani couldn't wait to meet her) she was in trouble and it was up to Dani to warn her that the GIW was on her trail.

After all, that is what heroes do and heroics was kind of the 'family business'.

To be continued in Book 2 – Trinity