Author notes:
1)English is my second language. Forgive me for any mistake.
2)I don't own Danny Phantom.
3)I only own the plot for this AU and the eventual OCs
4)Thanks Truephan, writer-from-hell, Christopher Scott and aryaneragon4ever for your reviews. I hope you like this chapter as well.
Five years passed by after Daniel Plasmius was born. He became a quite active child which caused some trouble for his inexperienced father. It was almost dinner time and Danny was having some fun with Ember in the backyard of his home.
Danny and Ember quickly became good friends and sometimes the now nine-year-old, Johnny, played with them too. Vlad had told Danny about his mother, after all, he didn't want to let the boy to grow up having a wrong idea bout his mother's kin. He told him that Maddie had died of a disease when he was very young. He had considered telling him that she had died of childbirth, but he didn't want his son to feel guilty. Vlad had also asked everyone that knew about Maddie's true fate to never tell it to the boy. And, fortunately, they all agreed.
Danny was currently in his ghost form playing with Ember. The boy only felt the need to change to his human form every once in a while. Vlad didn't know the reason for that. But the boy needed to stay human for a couple of hours every couple of months. He had grown in that pattern after his second birthday.
Vlad, who was wearing a white shirt and trousers, went to check on both kids, in the backyard of his abode, when he saw them both running and laughing from Danny's nanny, Teresa. She was a quite old ghost, four hundred and thirty-two year-old to be exact. She always served the Plasmius family and she was happy about it. She had green skin and red eyes and grayish hair. She was wearing a blue dress, which was dirty because she had tripped while chasing after the two kids.
Danny was wearing a blue shirt and black pants while Ember was wearing a black dress, but she had to admit she didn't like her outfit very much. She could fly well, but running with it was quite a pain for her.
Teresa had to admit she was having some fun playing with kids. She has been the nanny of the Plasmius children for a long time. She even was James's nanny. After all, Vlad's father was just two hundred and five year-old. Because of the long life span among the ghosts, in order to not overpopulate it was a rule that the couples had three children at best, if they had more than that they would have to pay a quite high sum of money or work harder to pay for it. The only person that this rule didn't apply was to the king and his heirs. The king was only allowed to have one child, whether they're male or female. This rule was set to avoid bloody fights for the crown.
Teresa smiled and with a gentle smile she told both kids who were a few feet away from her: "Master Daniel, Miss Ember you really are full of energy, but…" then she suddenly teleported behind the two children grabbing both of them and using her own energy on her hands which strengthened her glow to prevent them from phasing through her grasp. "It's almost lunch time and you need to clean yourselves up. You can play more later."
Vlad chuckled at the scene. He remembered how he could never win against that older ghost. It was her who gave him lessons about teleportation, but the man could only perfect the technique after he heard about a research being made about ghost powers some years ago. Much before he even Maddie. The man shook his head trying to clear his head. It still hurt him knowing that his beloved was dead, but he knew she wouldn't like if he moped about it for the rest of his life. She would like him and Danny to be happy. And he was going to do his best to properly raise his kid.
Vlad approached them and told Teresa with a smile: "I'll take it from here. I hope they didn't give you much trouble."
The nanny chuckled light heartedly as she answered with mirth: "Quite on contrary, Master Plasmius. I love kids. Besides I already expected your kid to be as full energy as you and your father were."
Vlad chuckled as the nanny put the two kids back on the ground. The young hybrid quickly ran to his father and hugged him: "Hi, daddy!" he said cheerfully.
Vlad kneeled and hugged his son back and told him while ruffling his white hair: "I'm glad that you're having fun, Daniel, but you shouldn't give your nanny such a hard time, you know?"
Danny just smiled in response, then he turned to Ember who was approaching them and the turned to his father and asked: "Daddy, can Ember have lunch with us?"
"Of course she will have the meal with us, my boy. In fact I already talked to Skulker about it before she came here. She'll have dinner with us as well. He'll pass by to pick her up at night. It's the least I can do for him after he let you spent the day in his house."
Both kids smiled with the news and Vlad was happy just by seeing his son happy. But then two white rings appeared on his waist and then Danny was in his human form. Vlad had to be glad that everyone in the area knew about Danny's half human status, even Ember.
Immediately Danny placed his hands over his ears to suppress the incoming pain. The young hybrid also didn't like turning human. Not only because he felt out of place among so many ghosts, but especially because his ears seemed to be ringing while he was in his human form and because of that he always stayed in bed until he could transform back to his ghost self. Vlad was also unaware why the boy couldn't transform back immediately like he did when his son was just a baby.
"Are you okay, Danny?" asked Ember concerned. She had seen Danny's human half before, in fact she thought he looked 'nicer' in his human form. But she also thought it must hurt him for some reason to remain in his human form.
"Y-yes…" the boy managed to say. It looked like everytime he turned human his ears would ring louder. He didn't like this feeling one bit.
Vlad sighed as he picked up his son to tend to him. He looked to Teresa and told her: "Miss Teresa, could you take care of Ember for now? I'll tend to Daniel until he can turn back to his ghost self."
The nanny nodded, but Ember was really concerned about her friend: "Can I stay near Danny? I'm worried."
Both adults smiled and Vlad told her: "Actually both of you need to clean up first. When you're done, your more than welcome to keep us company, Ember. I think Danny'll appreciate it."
Ember smiled in response. Than after both kids got cleaned up and dressed up with some clean clothing, the lunch wasn't served until a few hours later until Danny could finally turn back to his ghost self. The ringing was gone, but left an awful feeling in his ear, like it always happened, but, fortunately, it always disappeared after a couple of hours.
After everyone had lunch, the kids started playing some board games, like chess. Vlad knew that this game was complicated, especially for really young kids, but the parent wanted to his son to get used with the rules. But Danny didn't like the game very much, because he had to constantly remember about all the possible moves he could do, so he only played it with his father, because Ember also didn't like the game much either.
After the two kids fell asleep at about 4 p.m., Vlad tucked both on Danny's bed and watched them for a while until he heard someone knocking at the door. It was Wulf, who was wearing his favorite green shirt and pants.
Vlad smiled as he approached his furry friend. They shook their hands and Vlad asked: "Wulf? I'm glad you came. Care to stay here for dinner? I would be glad if you joined us. But, what brings you here? I thought you were going to take a day off from teaching Danny."
"Thanks for the invitation, my friend, but I'm really sorry. I won't be able to continue with my task to teach your boy…" Wulf said with a sad tone.
Vlad's eyebrows creased. He wasn't mad at his friend, he was just confused by seeing him giving up on the task. It wasn't like it was an obligation, but it still made the parent wonder why he would not want to teach Danny anymore.
The werewolf noticed Vlad's confused face and tried to explain the best he could: "You see, my father wants me to start training to become the next leader for my village and he wants me to stay there all the time and help him out in his duties to make me earn some experience at it."
Vlad then said in realization: "Oh! Well, there's no problem in that. I'm glad you could help my son so far, but I'll make sure to prepare Daniel to the entrance exam when he reaches the age of ten."
Wulf shook his head and continued: "But I promised you that you son would receive the best education as possible. But I can find a substitute for me and he's a better teacher than me, actually."
Vlad raised an eyebrow doubting that someone could be smarter than his furry friend: "Really? Who's it?"
Wulf smiled softly as he explained to Vlad: "Well, he's a childhood friend who taught me everything I know now…"
At night of that same day, in a castle located in the center of the Dead Forest, more specifically in the royal chambers, the king of all ghosts, Pariah Dark was lying on his bed without being able to sleep. He was covered by a dark blue sheet while he wore a black night clothing with a flaming green crown printed on the shirt just above his heart.
He gave a frustrated growl as he thought about what he had just discovered with his vulture scouts. He had sent Aragorn and Dora to investigate their disappearance. He originally thought that the stupid birds had gotten lost and forgot their way home. But for five years?
The two dragons overheard two human guards talking about how they liked the anti-ghost gear. Aragorn grabbed both soldiers and tried to turn them invisible, but it seemed not to work on them, so they took them to a deserted area for a quick interrogation.
The guards might be protected from the ghosts' invisibility, intangibility, ecto-blasts and other flashy powers, but the ghost-proof gear wouldn't be able to null the massive physical strength from the huge ghosts.
The humans ended up telling them everything they knew, which was just that some ghost birds were captured, that a noble whose name they could not remember created anti-ghost armors and weapons and also that the man made a public demonstration of what his weapons could do to the birds after he got permission of the kings Manson and Irongrip. It was imperative for the kings to show their people that they had the means to fight against such mighty creatures like the ghosts. Each bird was killed in a different kingdom for that purpose. And the vultures also didn't help one bit when they kept threatening the humans about a ghost retaliation for what they were doing with them.
In the end, Aragon got furious with the two men and crushed both with his dragon paws. His sister disapproved his act, but she didn't voice anything. All she did was tell Aragorn to report what they discovered to King Pariah Dark.
The ghost king was furious to say the least. He didn't know what possibly could have crossed the minds of the humans to even dare thinking about invading his domains. He wasn't very concerned about the so called anti-ghost material. As far as what the dragon siblings reported they had at least managed to kill a couple of guards who were wearing such a thing to begin with.
Then he felt a hand over his muscular chest. He looked to his right and saw tat that his wife was looking at him with a grin. She was red-haired and green eyes. She was wearing a red night clothing with the same flaming green crown on her clothing. Her name was Penelope Spectra Dark.
"What troubles you, my dear?" said Spectra. She could feel her husband's distress and anger. She felt very tempted to feed off of his misery, but she knew better. Pariah would notice if she used her powers on him and she also knew that he had no mercy to people who betrayed him, even if the person was his own wife.
Pariah gave a heavy sigh before he answered: "I hate humans! That's why I decided to cut any relationship between our kinds two hundred years ago. They're disgusting and not trustworthy and now while we speak they're arming themselves against my kingdom!"
Spectra smiled darkly as she moved herself to stay over Pariah's massive form. She looked into her husband's eyes and told him: "Why not kill them all? After all, they're like insects. Nobody feels guilty when they stomp a bug or something like that. They're that insignificant and not worthy of concern."
Pariah just looked at her for a while. He was already planning on doing that. But he was wondering why would his wife be so interested in it as well. After a couple of minutes his eyes went wide in realization and he chuckled darkly before he said: "Thinking with your stomach again, my dear? Don't worry, I'll make sure to keep some humans alive so you can delight yourself feeding off their misery for the rest of their lives. Well, if they manage to have kids you can end up having a good supply of misery for a long time."
Spectra smiled and gave her husband a kiss. After she broke it she said placing her hands on his cheeks: "Thank you, my king. So do you have any plans yet?"
King Pariah didn't like much to discuss war plans with his wife, but he decided to give her an explanation that could satisfy her: "Let's just say I don't intend to let them be the ones to attack first."
In the werewolf village, that same mysterious silver werewolf was at his father's library studying while sitting on a chair while he meditated about what he had figured it out so far about the 'Cave of Beginning'. He wore a simple grey shirt with brown trousers. He still wasn't able to enter it, which frustrated him greatly, but he refused to give up. He experimented with every possibility he could think of.
In his attempts to enter into that place, he discovered something really odd about it. It only blocked things and beings that contained spectral energy. He had discovered that after throwing in several objects. Stones, branches from normal trees located out of the Dead Forest, small pieces of human clothing he collected all got inside of the cave, however, the branches from the trees of the Dead Forest, and ghost clothing hit the invisible wall.
He also tried to see if the problem was with living beings, so he got a white rabbit in a trap he set in the human's domain and took it with him. The rabbit both got in and out of the structure.
The lycanthrope even tried to see if the problem was just with him and picked up fur from other werewolves and even some hair of other ghosts and, after putting them all on the palm of his hand, he blew it really close to the entrance and they all collided with the invisible wall.
But it only rose questions in his mind. Who build built that thing? Why would he place it inside of the Dead Forest and make it ghost proof? How precious is the secret it holds? After all if someone placed such a strong barrier, what is hidden in the depths of that building must be the secret of the ghosts existence or something equally as important.
He closed the book not being able to actually focus on its contents and gave a tired sigh. All those night trips to that building were taking a huge toll on him. He had bags under his eyes and had no idea what to do. He could try 'persuade' a human to go inside of it and bring him what could be inside of that place, but he wasn't about to trust a complete stranger to do it. If that place really held the secret about the ghost's origin, the human could use it against him and all his kin.
The silver werewolf jolted when he felt someone placing a hand over his right shoulder and saying: "Hey, Alphonse[1]. Do you have a minute?"
The silver lycanthrope looked over his shoulder and recognized Wulf grinning at him. "What do you want?" asked Alphonse recognizing that grin on Wulf's face.
Every time the black furred werewolf smiled like that it was because he wanted Alphonse to do a favor for him. It has been like that since the two were cubs.
"Well, I've been wondering if you could help me out with something…" Wulf started.
Alphonse sighed as he gave the other lycanthrope a tired look while he thought: 'I knew it…' But he answered him anyway: "What is it, Wulf? I'm tired right now."
The standing werewolf rubbed the back of his head while he thought of a good way of asking it. He knew Alphonse was the best person for the job, but he also was aware of his stubbornness. He had noticed how his childhood friend has been quite tired during the last years and every time he tried to talk to him, he would quickly dismiss Wulf and tell him everything was okay, which obviously wasn't.
"You see. I have a friend who has a son and…" Wulf started again only to be cut off.
"No." Alphosne said bluntly.
Wulf's eyebrows creased and he said: "You didn't even let me finish!"
Alphonse sighed and explained: "You want me to waste my time giving someone else's kid who I don't even know or care about private lessons. Do it yourself! I'm busy."
Wulf didn't like his tone. Well, he did expect him to refuse, after all the silver werewolf never liked much non-werewolf ghosts, besides adding that to his anti-social nature also made things harder. Wulf always tried to be friends with Alphonse. The black werewolf believed that the silver one had a good heart because when they were kids, Alphonse helped Wulf with his studies. But what the standing lycanthrope didn't know were his motives. Wulf always believed because Alphonse helped him because he was nice, but he didn't know that Alphonse was forced by his father to help Wulf out, because Wulf was the son of the leader of the werewolf village.
And because Wulf was the son of the leader of the werewolf village, there would be consequences if he didn't help him. In fact, he knew all too well how the ghost society worked: They had several different areas, all populated ones had a leader who was responsible of taking care of his area, but they all had to collect taxes to the Ghost King and obey his rules, if a village obeyed all of Pariah's rules they would be left alone and they had some sort of degree of freedom. The title of leader was hereditary and a ghost leader of an area could only be stripped from his title if he, or she, did a poor job at it. The leader, then, would be a person that the ghost king would choose himself and all werewolves knew how horrible it would be for them if that happened, because all substitutes Pariah Dark had indicated so far were notorious for their cruelty and seriousness. King Pariah did nothing with his substitutes, because even if they treated the village badly, they still obeyed the king's rules, so Pariah considered the substitutes he indicated as punishment for the village for daring to disobey him.
The thing was that Alphonse never told Wulf about what made him help the other werewolf back then. The silver werewolf couldn't understand how could Wulf like him so much just because of something he considered to be insignificant.
Wulf tried to persuade him once again: "Look, he's the son of a very good friend of mine and if I could keep teaching him, I would! The problem is that dad now wants me to intensify my training to be the next village leader and because of that I won't be able to get out of here as much as before. Please, do this for me. I promise I'll never ask you anymore favors after this!"
Alphonse was going to refuse. He didn't want to 'waste' time he could use to figure the Cave of Beginning out in teaching a kid. But before he could voice his decision he heard a familiar voice answering for him: "Of course he will, Wulf. My son would be glad in assist you." Said a tall also silver werewolf wearing a bright yellow clothing;. His name was Wolfgang.
Wulf looked unsure at the older werewolf then he looked back to Alphonse. The black werewolf could see that the werewolf next to him visibly cringed when he father answered for him. He didn't understand why Alphonse reacted that way when his father showed up. Wulf always considered Wolfgang to be a quite nice person and he was also pretty famous for making many breakthroughs about ghost's biology.
What the son of the lycanthrope leader didn't know was that the person who truly made all those discoveries was actually Alphonse. Fifteen years ago, Wolfgang had found in his son's room all his research about ghost biology. It showed a better way of how ghosts could channel their energy to improve their variety of powers. Because of it, the ghosts were now able to fire more powerful ecto-blasts, remain invisible, intangible for a longer time and even a way to make teleportation more accurate.
Wolfgang went to the ghost king and presented his son's research as if it were his own, stealing all his credit. When Alphonse tried to confront his father, Wolfgang told him that no one would believe him without evidence and that he would just look like an insolent brat. He finished saying that Alphonse only existed to make his life better and told his son in a mocking tone to 'keep up the good work'.
That was the reason why Alphonse never again left anything written ever again. All his latest finding was in his mind only. He couldn't even decide if he should get angry or laughed at his father whenever he saw him searching for more stuff to steal from him.
Alphonse was really glad that he decided to left the medallion in the box in the depths of the Dead Forest. He didn't want his dad finding it out and besides, now that the fireflies were back, no one has been snooping around in the dark of the night in search for them. He was also glad that his father didn't have the intellect to put two and two together and figure it out that his tiredness and the lack of new projects were linked to the brief disappearance of the fireflies. But not many people would associate these things together, anyway. That was his consolation.
Wolfgang was suspicious of his son. He has been too tired lately and he tried to keep an eye on him, but he always fell asleep when he tried to do it. He was getting impatient with him, but he was sure that whatever his son was plotting he could outsmart him eventually and take the glory for himself. But now he was more concerned in gaining some more 'positive points' with Wulf's father.
"Well, son, you can go teach the boy, but you don't have to, unless you're working on something important lately, of course." Wolfgang said smiling.
But the younger silver werewolf could see through his father's words. He knew of his true intentions. If he chose to help Wulf out, his father would have an excuse to talk with Wulf's father, Nicolas, to get a favor or something and if Alphonse denied, Wolgang would be now sure that his son was working on something big. And Alphonse would never allow his father try take over something he discovered ever again.
"Very well, I shall teach him. What's his name, anyway?" Alphonse said trying to cool down. No one knew what he was working on. Besides, he could use some time to rest. He was pushing himself too hard and his mind hasn't been as sharp as the usual because of his tiredness and lack of sleep. 'A month or two of rest might be what I need to do in order to crack into the Cave of Beginning.' he thought.
Wulf looked at the younger silver werewolf somewhat surprised seeing him to agree and then smiled a bit and said: "It's for Count Vlad's son, Daniel Plasmius."
End of chapter 4
I hope you enjoyed this chapter. See you next update.
More Author Notes:
[1]Yes, I'm using my old OC from my other DP fanfic, Werewolf Tales. Even though he's a ghost in this story, I'll keep all his personality traits in this story.