Dash was sitting upstairs in his room playing on his computer when he heard loud banging on the front door. It made him jump and he looked at his door. When it continued he groaned. He didn't want to go answer the door for whatever kind of solicitors were out there. They were lucky his dad wasn't home though. He would ream into them for banging on the door like that.
Dash stood up and started heading down the stairs. He hoped it would just be girl scouts trying to sell him cookies. Actually, maybe he should go back and get his wallet. He was in the mood for some girl scout cookies.
He was about to turn back around when the pounding grew even louder and more frantic. Dash furrowed his eyebrows. Girl scouts wouldn't be that demanding about him buying some cookies. It had to be something else.
He reached the door and peeked out the side window. When he saw two heads of black hair, a beret, and long red hair his eyebrows shot up into his hair. What? What did they want from him?
He opened the door right as Fenton raised his hand up for another fit of pounding. Fenton looked up and made eye contact with him and sighed.
"Phew. I didn't think you were home."
"What are you doing here?"
"Running away from the government. And my parents." Danny ushered Dash back into his house, Sam, Tucker and Jazz following in behind him. Jazz shut the door behind them and locked it.
"What? Why are you running from the government? Why'd you come here?" Dash was flabbergasted and confused. What was going on?
"Believe it or not, there was an alternate reality where you found out who I was and you were willing to help us so we're hoping that's still the case." Danny said as he made eye contact with Dash again. There was nothing in his eyes to indicate this was some kind of prank or that he was lying. But he was still confused.
"What? Who you are? But you're Danny Fenton?"
"Yeah, but I'm also Danny Phantom."
Dash just stared at him. His brain was swimming now. He didn't want to believe it but now that Danny had spoken it out loud there was no unseeing it. How had he never noticed this before?
"What?" He squeaked.
Tucker laughed. "Danny, I think you broke him."
"Why'd you come here?" Dash ignored Tucker. He still didn't understand that part. Why pick your bully's house of all places?
"Well, we did have a plan." Jazz started. "But with everything that's happened, our plan didn't end up working."
"We were going to go into the ghost zone. It's really hard for humans to find their way around in there, let alone a specific ghost. But our parents locked the portal and removed our permissions so we couldn't unlock it anymore." Danny looked angry.
"And then we were going to go to our hideout that we have as plan B." Tucker waved his hand around in the air. "But the GIW found that. Somehow. I don't actually know how they found out about that one. They're crawling around all over the place out there."
Sam huffed. "Sure wish we still had the reality gauntlet, Danny." She glared at him. "It sure would help, we could just erase the GIW memories with it and go back home."
"We already talked about that, Sam. What if it had fallen into the wrong hands again? Freakshow was ready to destroy reality, we couldn't risk that happening again." Danny glared back at her.
"Okay, yeah, but why here?" Dash asked again.
Danny looked at him. "Well, you're my bully. We needed to go somewhere they wouldn't expect. This would be the least likely place. So they won't come here first. And like I said, we knew that you'd help us because you've done it before."
"Why don't I remember it then?" Dash whispered.
"Because we erased everyone's memories with the reality gauntlet. It was pretty handy." Sam said.
"You had a reality bending device at your fingertips and all you did was erase our memories?"
"And destroy it." Danny said.
"You could've used it for so many things!" Dash exclaimed. "You could've made yourselves popular, gotten back at us for bullying you! You could've done so much."
"We don't want to be popular." Sam scoffed.
"Speak for yourself." Tucker mumbled.
"To mess with reality like that would make us no better than Freakshow." Danny said. "That's why we just erased everyone's memories and destroyed it."
"But why'd you erase everyone's memories? You being Phantom would make you the most popular kid in school."
"Because we were in the same situation as we are right now." Danny shot him a look. "We were on the run from the GIW. At least that time we didn't have to worry about my parents."
"Well what are you going to do now that you're here? Dash asked.
"We're going to make a new plan so we can get out of here." Danny said.
"What if we found Wulf?" Tucker walked over to the living room and sat down on the couch. "If we could find Wulf he'd just be able to open a portal to the ghost zone for us."
"But there's no guarantee we'd be able to find him." Jazz said as she followed Tucker. "We need an actual plan that we can follow through on."
"Vlad's got a portal." Sam said. "If we can sneak into his house then we can use his portal to get into the zone."
"That might be what we have to go with for now. Once we leave and get there, we can make an actual plan once we-" Danny got cut off with a loud bang. Dash watched Danny turn his head and he followed where his eyes landed.
The GIW broke down the front door.
"Freeze! You're all under arrest under the anti-ecto laws! The four of you are aiding and abetting that ectoplasmic scum!"
"Shit!" Danny shouted. "We gotta go!"
"How are you going to carry everyone?" Jazz asked, panic in her voice.
"Just come here!"
Danny stepped closer to Dash and wrapped an arm tightly around his back and it sent a tingly feeling over Dash's skin. He did the same with Jazz on the other side.
"Sam, Tucker, it's time for a piggyback ride!"
Dash could feel as Sam and Tucker jumped on top of Danny and wrapped their arms around his shoulders.
"I'm going ghost!" He shouted.
A white ring appeared around Danny's waist and all Dash could do was gape at him. Danny already told him that he was Phantom, but it was another thing to see him transform. Dash could feel as the warmth seeped out of his body, replaced by a cold chill that made Dash glad he was wearing a jacket.
The rings passed over his head and his feet and once they were gone, Danny squatted a little bit and then shot up into the air, pulling Dash and his friends with him.
"How did they find us so fast?" Sam shouted over the wind. "I thought Tucker hacked into their systems and removed your ecto-signature from their database!"
"I did! I even did the same with his parents' inventions! They must've gotten his ecto-signature when they confronted us earlier today!"
"Where are we going now?" Dash asked. Was he considered a criminal now?
"We've only got one viable plan now!" Danny shouted. "We need to make it to Vlad's portal and get into the ghost zone!"
"I have to go to the ghost zone with you guys?" Dash didn't know what was even in there. Other than ghosts, obviously.
"The GIW consider you a criminal now and they aren't afraid to abduct humans. If you get convicted in a case against the GIW, I don't know what they'll do to you."
"They abduct humans?!" Dash yelled. "What the hell? How do they get away with that?"
"Because they're a branch of the government." Sam shouted into his ear.
"Why are you guys on the run anyways? What happened?"
"My parents saw me transform and they called the GIW and reported it. They think I'm some evil ghost and that I'm overshadowing Sam, Tucker, and Jazz with my duplicates."
"The GIW are smarter than our parents, though." Jazz shouted around Danny at Dash. "Our parents always immediately jump at the idea that when something seems weird that it must be because someone is a ghost or overshadowed by a ghost. The GIW knows that we're not ghosts, though."
"How do we prove to them that we're not in the wrong?" Dash asked.
"I mean, we kind of are based on the laws that are in place." Danny winced.
"How are you supposed to fix this then?" Dash asked. "You dragged me into this without any way to fix it?"
Danny was silent for a moment. The mayor's house was coming into view when Danny spoke again.
"We were running out of options. I hoped that we'd be able to come up with a solution before the GIW found us. I didn't think they'd find you with us."
"Are they going to believe that I'm not with you guys? I wasn't even involved in any of this until today."
They flew through the roof of Vlad Master's house. They quickly flew through the different floors of the house until they reached a basement that was reminiscent of the Fenton's lab. It had lots of equipment and on the far end of the room was a swirling green portal.
"Probably not." Danny looked shiftily around him. "Okay, it doesn't look like Vlad is here. Let's go. We're going to find my lair in the ghost zone. All the ghosts always tell me that I have one. I think they've been vandalizing it so it should be easy to find."
"Have you ever been to your lair before?" Jazz asked.
"No, but I think I'm just supposed to know where it is." Danny said, shrugging. "If we can't find it we can always go to the far frozen instead."
"How often do you guys go to the ghost zone?" Dash looked warily at the portal in front of them.
Tucker waved a hand around in front of Dash's face. "At least twice a week. We started out by mapping the zone but the zone shifts so we had to figure out the rate that that happens at too. That was not fun."
"Most of the ghosts in here are pretty cool though. Not all of them are evil. Even the 'evil' ones we see in Amity Park are just nuisances because they're bored. We take notes on all of them too."
"Why do you-"
A heavy door slid open at the other end of the lab.
"Okay, time to go!" Danny tightened his grip on Dash and pulled him through the portal. Dash closed his eyes, expecting to feel some sort of resistance but nothing happened.
Dash opened his eyes and they widened when he saw their surroundings.
The inside of the ghost zone looked similar to the portal itself. There were lots of green swirls off in the distance but the sky itself looked like a mix between black and green. Purple doors floated around everywhere and there was no land to land on.
He squirmed around anxiously in Danny's grip. "What happens if we fall?"
Danny looked down. "I'm not sure. I don't actually know if the ghost zone has a bottom or not. I've never been down that low before."
Dash gulped and continued looking around them.
"So Danny, any idea where your lair is supposed to be yet?" Sam asked.
"I can feel something drawing me in this direction." Danny nodded at where they were going, squinting off into the distance. "Hopefully it's my lair and not a siren or something."
"Sirens are pretty ladies in the ocean, my dude. I don't think there'll be any here." Tucker said.
Danny shrugged. "You never know."
They flew for a while until they came up to a random looking purple door. Danny took a deep breath and opened it. Inside was just a regular bedroom. It was decorated much in the same way as Danny's bedroom had been the last time Dash saw it, but had obvious differences. Danny set them down and they all looked around.
"Well, I guess this is home sweet home now." Danny said, his hands on his hips.
"I don't know about you guys, but I'm exhausted." Sam flopped backwards onto the bed.
"Me too." Tucker landed beside her, face down on the mattress.
"What do we do now?" Dash asked. He was still reeling from everything that's happened so far. "How are we going to survive here?"
Jazz frowned and looked at Danny. He looked a bit nervous himself.
"Let's just… get some rest first. We can figure everything else out later once we've gotten some sleep."
—-
"We are calling this meeting to inform you on what is happening with your children." Agent O looked at the Fenton's, Manson's, Foley's, and Mr. Baxter.
"They were taken over by spookums!" Jack slammed his hands down on the table they were sitting at.
"Mr. Fenton, we have already discussed that your claims you made when you called us were not correct." Agent O's frown deepened. "Your children are not being overshadowed by ghosts."
A collective sigh could be heard inside the room coming from all the parents but Mr. Baxter.
"Where are they then?" Pamela asked. "Why are we here if they're not being overshadowed?"
"Because they are aiding and abetting a wanted specter."
Shouts of protest erupted from the parents sitting around the table.
"My son has nothing to do with ghost's!" Mr. Baxter slurred. "He's too much of a wuss to be involved in anything like this."
The Manson's and Foley's shouted their agreement.
"Our Sammykins would never!"
"Tucker is too busy with his friends to get into anything like that!"
The protesting parents all looked at the Fenton's. Maddie's mouth thinned into a flat line.
"Actually, we saw Sam and Tucker with Jazz and Danny when the… incident happened."
"If Dash wasn't involved in whatever this incident was, why am I here?"
"What was this incident?" Pamela shot daggers at the Fenton's. "If Sam got hurt in your dangerous lab, I swear-"
"No, it's nothing like that." Maddie said, shaking her head. "We were getting groceries when we saw Jazz, Danny, Sam, and Tucker. We were about to ask them if they needed a ride when something happened to Danny. He turned into Phantom."
"We don't know when that spook replaced our son but we pulled out our weapons and tried to subdue him but he took Jazz, Sam, and Tucker and ran. We went back home and removed Jazz and Danny's portal permissions and then we called the GIW."
"What?"
"Where are they now?"
"What does my son have to do with this?"
"Your children ran with Phantom when he tried to escape." Agent O said. "They started with going back to the Fenton's lab. We have records of them trying to access the ghost zone. We were already on our way to respond to the Fenton's call when we saw them flying away."
Agent O sat down in the chair that was across from the parents on the other side of the table. "We found their little hidey place out in the woods but they never arrived. Luckily, we were able to get Phantom's ecto-signature again and once it was done processing in our devices, we tracked it to Mr. Baxter's house where we found his son also collaborating with Phantom."
"What do you mean by collaborating?" Mr. Baxter asked. "How do you know that's what was happening? My son has never been seen hanging out with any ghosts."
"Phantom took your son with him when we arrived and they made their escape. We see no reason why your son wouldn't be helping him when the rest of the children were."
"My son would never associate with the likes of them. He was always raised to associate with the best. Not with any of those freaks."
"Excuse me?"
"How dare you-"
"We don't know anything about your son's personal life." Agent O interrupted the chorus of shouts from the angry parents. "We only know that Phantom went to him when they were out of options."
"Well, where are they now?" Maurice asked. "Can you even tell us that?"
"We believe that Phantom is looking for another way into the ghost zone. We believe he will take your children there with him."
"How will you get them back?" Angela grabbed her husband's hand.
"We will be working closely with the Fenton's to do some deep travel inside the ghost zone. We'll take a vehicle made for ghost zone travel with multiple different tracking devices that can pinpoint the locations of both ecto-signatures and live world objects. This will give us a better idea of where to find them."
"What will you do with Phantom?" Maddie asked.
"We will bring him back to our labs. We believe Danny is still inside him somewhere. It's just a matter of separating him from Phantom. It will take some time, but we believe we can cure him of Phantom's ectoplasmic contamination."
"And the rest of our kids?" Jeremy asked.
"They will be brought safely home. We will notify you as soon as we get them back."
Dash stared at Danny where he was pacing back and forth across the room. He was still in his ghost form. It still baffled Dash. How could that wimpy geek be the heroic Phantom?
"Maybe if we can get to my parents and convince them I'm not some evil ghost? I don't know how to get the GIW off our backs though."
"What if we traveled backwards through time and stole the reality gauntlet from ourselves right before you destroyed it?" Sam was leaning backwards into one of the bean bags that was inside the lair. "Then we'd be able to just poof our problems away like we did the first time."
Danny frowned at her. "I don't think the ghost zone or the infimap is going to have a portal that will lead us directly to that moment. And even if it did, the chances of another portal opening back to this time would be even slimmer. How would we get back?"
"I don't know, by using the reality gauntlet to get us back here?"
Tucker looked up from the video game he was playing on the tv. "Would that just rewrite everything or would it actually put us back in our timeline?"
Sam groaned. "Do we even have a way out of this one?"
"Are we gonna be stuck here forever?" Dash asked. "What are we going to do for food? It's been two days and we still haven't figured that out. I want to go home."
"We'll figure something out." Jazz walked up to Dash and placed a hand on his shoulder. "We always do."
"You better." Dash crossed his arms over his chest. "I don't want to be stuck here forever."
"We won't be stuck here forever." Danny said. "We just need more time to-"
The door splintered apart across the room and Dash covered his face to avoid being hit by it. When he looked up he saw some kind of floating ship in front of them. The man at the front of the vehicle started speaking through some speakers that sat on top of the roof.
"This is the Ghost Investigation Ward! Put your hands up and surrender peacefully!"
"What the fuck?" Danny shielded his eyes from the lights that were blinding them. "How were they able to find us so soon?"
"Put your hands up or we will be required to use force!"
"Danny! What do we do?" Jazz asked.
"Just get behind me." Danny took a defensive stance and summoned two ectoblasts to his fists. "We're just going to have to-"
Dash jumped back from where he started walking towards Danny when his scream permeated the air. The GIW had shot some kind of electric shot weapon at Danny and it sent him to the ground, making him immobile.
The man inside the ship waved a hand and a group of agents exited the ship and surrounded Dash and Danny and his friends.
A couple men made their way to Danny but one walked up to Dash, pointing an ectogun at him.
"Put your hands up!"
Dash complied with wide eyes. He raised his hands into the air and let the agent spin him around. He heard him holster the gun and pull a pair of handcuffs out before putting them on around his wrists. Dash was being escorted to the ship when he heard a yell coming from where Danny was still laying on the ground.
He turned his head to see Sam rushing forward to punch an agent that was walking towards Danny in the face. She spun around and kicked the next one over before a different agent snuck up on her and picked her up around the waist, trapping her arms to her sides. She struggled and tried to get out of his grip while the men handcuffed Danny and put all sorts of devices on him. After they put the last one on, Danny transformed back to his human form.
Sam leaned as far forward as she could and headbutted the agent who was holding her in the head. He groaned when her head slammed into his but he didn't let go.
"I need some help over here!"
Another agent raced over to Sam and plunged a needle into her neck and Dash watched in horror as her body went limp in the agent's arms. What Danny said when they were still at his house two days ago rang in his ears again.
They aren't afraid to abduct humans.
The panic finally started to settle inside Dash's stomach when something was suddenly being poked into his own neck. He saw another agent to his left that hadn't been there before holding another needle. His vision started going blurry and everything was fading away.
"Load them up, boys." That first agent shouted into the lair. Dash didn't even make it into the vehicle before his vision faded to black.
Dash groggily woke up. He couldn't remember what happened. Where was he? Why were his hands cuffed to this chair?
His eyes shot open but he had to shut them almost immediately with how bright it was in the room he was in. The bright lights bounced off the white walls and Dash tried to squint his eyes back open. There was nothing besides this chair and a bed in this room.
He was studying the door that was in the wall to his left when it suddenly opened. In walked a GIW agent. His suit was immaculately white and his sunglasses were so dark that Dash couldn't see through them. After looking at him for a few moments, the memories Dash had from before he woke up came back to him and his eyes widened. This was the agent that tracked them to Danny's lair.
"I'm sure you know why you're here." The agent said.
Dash shook his head. Dash was barely associated with either Phantom or Fenton. Maybe if he explained how it all happened, they'd let him go.
"You and your friends were arrested for aiding and abetting a wanted specter." The agent said.
"But I wasn't!" Dash said. "They came to my house and just walked in! I barely had time to process anything before you guys showed up and then they took me with them!"
"We've seen how you and your friends interact with Phantom." The agent said snidely. "We have probable cause for suspicion with your involvement."
"How do I prove I'm innocent? That I had nothing to do with any of this?"
A menacing smile grew on the agent's face and Dash tried to shrink away from him in his seat when the agent leaned in closer to him.
"You don't." Dash's heart stopped in his chest. "Your parents have all been informed that you tragically died at the hands of Phantom, who we finally captured and were able to apprehend. There's nothing for you to go back to. You no longer have a life. According to the law, you're as dead as the ghosts we experiment on here."
"What?" Dash whispered.
The agent abruptly stood back up and walked away from Dash. "Your first round of experimental research starts tomorrow. If you're going to help these specters, you might as well do your part and help us in our battle against them."
"No. No, no, no!" Dash shouted as the agent walked towards the door. "You can't do this! I haven't done anything wrong!"
"The fate of you and your friends is already sealed." He opened the door and stepped out, turning back around to face him. "This is where you'll spend the rest of your days."
Dash watched as the door slid shut and he could feel himself hyperventilating. This couldn't be what the rest of his life would be. There had to be a way to get out.
There had to be.