Cliffy endings are my favorite thing to do, so I'm sorry to anyone who didn't like that too much. (Ha ha ha! Fun for writers, bad for readers!) Again, thanks for the reviews! Oh, and sorry it took so long, I fell behind on my homework a little (cough) so I had to catch up…

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Only one thought was able to get to Danny's mind before the darkness: Who is he going to tell?

Then, as he would later recount to his friends, he was hit with a swarm of his memories, some forgotten, some fresh in his mind. They passed quickly, so that Danny barely had time to register what he was seeing…

He was staggering out of the ghost portal, green eyes glowing before he collapsed to the ground. He was watching his future self destroy Amity Park. He was walking into Casper High for the first time, and was immediately shoved into his locker by Dash. He was on the edge of a building, staring at Sam after being hit with Ember's 'love song'…

Then as suddenly as these memories had appeared, they vanished. Danny felt himself slip back into consciousness. He opened his eyes to find that he was lying on his bed. Sitting in a chair on the left side of him was a sleeping Jazz.

Jazz blinked. Sitting up straight, she realized Danny was looking at her. "Oh! You're awake!" she stated. She got up and stepped over to the bed. "How do you feel?"

"Like I was zapped with a power line," he said sardonically. "How long was I out?"

"Not too long, actually," Jazz answered. "About an hour. Good, thing, too. Any longer and mom and dad would have been finished with their experiment in the basement."

"How did I get here, anyway?"

Jazz hesitated. "Well, Mr. Lancer brought you here. He bandaged you up, pretty well, too." Danny pulled up his shirt to see.

"Well, never knew he could do medical stuff. Don't know why it never occurred to me, though. He's definitely strict enough to be a doctor." Danny mused.

Jazz stayed serious. "Danny, he knows about -"

" I know he knows my secret," interrupted Danny. "What did he say about it, though?"

She looked surprised momentarily, then shrugged. "He said he wanted to meet you in his office tomorrow morning. But he didn't say anything to our parents about it."

Why would he keep it from my parents? Danny wondered. Not that I'm complaining or anything...

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The next day, Danny, Sam, and Tucker were on their way to school.

"How do you think he's going to react?" Tucker questioned. "I mean, now that he's probably gotten over the shock."

"I'm going to have to find out for myself," answered Danny. "As long as he doesn't whip out an ecto-gun when I walk into the room, I'm pretty much okay with this."

Sam and Tucker stared at him in disbelief.

Sam was the first to say something. "Are you insane, Danny? How is this okay? Lancer could tell anyone! What if he blackmails you or something?"

Danny sighed. "You're overreacting, Sam. I'm sure he wouldn't blackmail me. I mean, what's he going to get out of a fourteen-year old, anyway? A piece of gum and three bucks?"

Sam pondered this for a moment, then said, "Well, I think you should be prepared for the worst." I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if anything happened to you…

"Don't worry, guys. I'll be fine," said Danny as they arrived at the school. "Well, see you guys later, then!" He left for Mr. Lancer's room.

Sam and Tucker looked at each other as they waved their friend good-bye, feeling anxious despite his reassurances.

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"Hello, Mr. Fenton," said Mr. Lancer as Danny walked into the room.

"Uh, hello," Danny answered weakly as he sat down in the chair opposite Mr. Lancer. Now that he was here, he didn't feel quite as confident as he did when he was talking with Sam.

"……"

They sat in an awkward silence, Lancer trying to find a way to start the conversation, Danny shifting nervously in his seat.

Mr. Lancer finally broke the silence. "So, how did, uh well, I mean, why, er…" He stumbled over the words so they came out all wrong. Danny was surprised, he had never heard the teacher at a loss for words before.

Mr. Lancer exhaled noisily. "What I mean to say is, how did, well, you know, this happen?" He indicated the dented walls on either side of him.

"You mean, how did I, get my powers?" Danny asked, looking a little pale.

"Yes," Lancer said, nodding. "For lack of a better word, your 'powers'."

Danny looked down for a moment, deep in thought. He looked up and replied, "I don't really know how. I know when I got them and where I got them, but I don't know why. It's…complicated."

"Just tell me what you know."

"Hmmm." Danny said as he nodded. "Well, my parents have this ghost portal thing that they invented. When they first built it, it didn't work, so they just gave up on it. But then Sam, Tucker, and me decided to check it out. Sam convinced me to go inside just to see what it looked like. Since it wasn't supposed to work, I didn't think there was any harm in it."

Danny paused. Mr. Lancer looked away from his twiddling thumbs to look at Danny. The boy was staring at his feet, so Lancer couldn't see the expression on his face.

Danny continued. "But I was wrong. When I walked into that portal, it was kind of dark. I put my hand on the wall to make sure I didn't trip over something, and my hand hit a button. After that, I remember a burning sensation all over my body, like I was on fire."

He shuddered. Lancer felt a pang of sympathy for him as he was lost in the memory.

"Well," Danny persisted. "The last thing I remember before blacking out was walking out of the portal and seeing the shocked looks on Sam and Tucker's faces. When I woke up later, I don't know how much later, but I was still in the lab, I realized something was different. Sam was trying to say something, but I couldn't make it out. It sounded all muffled. I looked down at my hands and realized, they were glowing. I rushed over to a nearby mirror and looked at my reflection, and well," he changed into his ghost form. "I looked like this."

Lancer was more than a little shocked to see small, withdrawn Danny Fenton transform into the confident ghost boy who was Danny Phantom. Though he now knew about Danny's alter ego, it would still take some getting used to. "Why haven't you told your parents about this? It seems to me that they would be the best people to go to, seeing as they study ghosts as a profession."

Danny looked down. "I-I'm… well, I didn't want them to… what if they don't accept me for what I am?" he managed to get out.

Lancer, who was expecting something along these lines, quickly replied, "Daniel, your friends accepted you, did they not? Why wouldn't your parents do the same?"

Danny answered so softly that Lancer had to lean forward to hear what he said next. "Well, they think that Phantom is Amity Park's number one enemy. They want to capture me and 'tear me apart molecule by molecule'."

Lancer sighed. Well, I'm not getting into these 'family matters.' I'll let him deal with that on his own.

After a few moments of silence, Danny stood and said, "Well, I'd better go get my stuff for first period." He was halfway to the door when Lancer stopped him.

"Daniel. Wait a moment."

Danny turned. "Yeah?"

Lancer looked uncomfortable. "I just wanted to say that, I'm…sorry. For pushing you so hard in my class. I thought you were just a lazy student, and that you needed that extra shove, you know? Turns out you do a whole lot more work than most students around here do!" he finished, letting out a feeble sort of a chuckle.

Except maybe Valerie. "It's alright, Mr. Lancer." Danny answered. "I'm sure that if I was a teacher with a student who didn't do his work, I would have done the same." He left.

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Sam and Tucker of course, were waiting just outside the door.

"How'd it go?" Sam asked.

"He kinda just wanted to know how I got my ghost powers in the first place." Danny answered. "I mean, I'm like a scientific impossibility. I'd be curious too. In fact, I am. How am I a ghost if I'm still alive?" He pondered this as he was walking.

He was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he walked straight into the last person he wanted to see:(apart from Vlad…) Dash Baxter.

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Okay, I know you are all going to hate me for another dumb ending, but I really wanted to get 'er posted. And I have this giant writer's block. It'll take me forever to chisel through it!

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I am the writer's block...

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