Chapter 4

I fly to the house, stopping outside my open window. Jazz is inside talking to the me imposter. I'm not really paying attention to what they're saying, I'm too worried about Jazz inside with that monster.

Hey, I'm worried about Jazz. Surely that's a good sign!?

Unfortunately, I don't have time to contemplate the meaning of my humanity because Dan turns around to face Jazz and returns to his true form. The menacing, muscular ghost-man Sam calls 'Jerk Danny'. The expression on my sister's face turns from concern to complete and utter terror.

"You-you're not Danny!" she yells defiantly.

Oh Jazz, if only you knew. I fly in through the window and stand in between my sister and Dan. Jazz has her hands over her face, but she registers my presence.

"Danny?" she says, incredulously. I don't dare turn around, she can't see me like this. Ever, if I can help it.

"Well, look at you," Dan says, eerily echoing the one that had recently become part of me, "I guess you've decided your fate then. Good choice." He gestures at my eyes.

"What is he talking about, Danny?" Ah jeez, I forgot Jazz was still here.

"Run, Jazz" I say quietly, without looking at her. Oh, no. My voice is dropping in pitch.

"Danny?" she puts her hand on my shoulder. I shrug it off. What is this stupid, weak human girl thinking of, questioning me?

I shake my head again, to clear these terrible thoughts from my mind. If Jazz doesn't leave now, she never will. I won't be able to trust myself around her, for now anyway.

"Jazz. Run," my voice has almost reached the low pitch of my older, darker self.

"What's wrong with your voice Danny? Are you okay?" my sister seems oblivious to the imminent danger ahead. If not from the Dan in front of us, then, I hate to say it, from me. I sigh, it has to be done. I look up at Dan, who smirks. He's just enjoying the show, there'll be no trouble from him for now.

I turn to face Jazz, but keep my head hung. My hair falls over my face, masking my change in features.

"Danny, what about the evil you behind you! Aren't you going to fight him?!" Great. Now she chooses to realise that she's in danger.

"Jazz. I am telling you for the last time," my voice has now totally metamorphosed. I look at Jazz from underneath my hair, she takes a step back, shocked. I sigh again. Here we go.

I look up at her and smile menacingly, giving her full view of my red eyes. I bare my fangs at her as I grin wider. She lets out a small gasp.

My new voice makes the next word sound even more sinister than I expected. But it has the intended effect.

"Run", I say.

Jazz stands, frozen in place for a few seconds. But eventually, she backs away from me slowly and then turns on her heel and runs out of the room.

"Wow Danny boy, I didn't know you had it in ya," Dan chuckles from behind me, sounding like our father.

"Shut up, you! I will ne – "

"Never become me? But look at yourself Danny. From my perspective, it looks like you're already well on your way. Me? I'm inevitable."

I open my mouth in protest, and then close it again. He has a point.

I did just scare my own sister out of my bedroom.

Then I get a brainwave. If I can fool this Dan into thinking that I am becoming him, he'll be more likely to help me. Hopefully he won't be able to tell I'm lying, seeing as I'm not directly connected to him like I was to the other Dan. It's my only option, so I'll have to give it a try.

I channel the darkness within, fully aware that it might overtake me. But I have one chance to do this, and I can't risk Dan not believing me. If only I could maybe find a way to control it… but that'll have to wait until later. I focus on the anger that has been slowly growing inside of me and intensify it. The heat overtakes me even more so than it had before, this time radiating from my whole head, and not only my eyes.

"Whoa there dude", Dan says, "Want to tone it down a notch maybe?" He steps aside from the mirror to reveal my reflection yet again. What I see makes me put my face in my hands in exasperation. Again? Seriously? The changes never stop, apparently. I take my face out of my hands again to get a better look. My normal, well normal-ish, hair has erupted into a full head of white-hot flames. Literally. They flicker off of my head and dissolve into the air, but the fire never dies down. Weird. And a little bit creepy. But manageable.

Time to kick the game into action.

"Awesome", I say, seemingly totally absorbed with my new appearance. I notice something else in the mirror too and I wince, my skin has a faint blue tinge to it. Okay, that's really creepy.

"Awesome?" Dan echoes, seeming surprised.

I turn around to face him, ready to put my plan into action.

"You heard me. And I gotta say I am loving these fangs!" That part was actually true, unfortunately.

"Wha- what do you mean?" he asks incredulously, and I can see the ghost-man really is baffled.

"You said it yourself dude, I am well on my way to becoming you," my new, bassy voice makes it sound like Dan himself is saying the words, which in a way I guess he is.

He looks taken aback, as if he didn't expect me to surrender to fate so easily. Then a small smile curls the corners of his lips.

Oh, no. He does know what I'm thinking. I brace myself for the inevitable fight to come, and then become aware of the power coursing through me. I am quickly becoming as powerful as Dan, I could easily take him on. I am about to charge up my own ghostly wail when Dan offers his hand to me.

"What?" I squeak, unable to hide my own surprise.

"Whaddaya say we take down this miserable town?" He actually sounds genuine. But I know that I should at least pretend to trust him, until I can achieve what I came here to do. I take his hand and shake it.

Then, making good use of my new voice, I say what I know Dan has been wanting to hear since this whole time travel fiasco started:

"Let's destroy Danny Phantom."

"That can't have been Danny," I say to myself, running away from the house and in the direction of the Nasty Burger.

My logical brain tries to deny the inevitable: "He had the same voice as the dark Danny, his eyes were red, and his skin had a faintly blue glow. That wasn't your brother." My voice is barely more than a breathless whisper as my strides get shorter and I try to run faster, but that's okay. I am only talking to myself at any rate.

But the more I try to reason that the ghost-boy in the room wasn't the Danny I knew and loved, the more my gut feeling demands to be noticed.

As soon as he, and I for that matter, thought I was in danger, he rushed into the room putting himself in between me and the warped version of Danny that presented the threat. And he had warned me to run. True, he had to scare me into running away, but that could have just been the quickest and most efficient way of getting me out of danger. It had to have been the real Danny.

But, his eyes... and his skin… and his – his voice. They weren't Danny's. They were Dan's.

But how? Unless…

Dan Phantom isn't a regular villain. He is Danny. A possible version of him anyway, but something that Danny could become. And did become, in an alternate reality. I stop in my tracks, totally forgetting about the Nasty Burger, and the inevitable explosion that gets everyone into this mess in the first place. Reality has dawned on me, and I feel like bursting into tears because I know what Danny has done. I don't know why he ever would do something like that, but that is not the issue.

The issue is that my brother is turning into the very thing he promised us all he would never become.

My brother is turning into Dark Dan Phantom.