Chapter 1

A/N: Lo and behold the long awaited first chapter of Life's Price. I am so sorry this took so long. A lot of stuff happened in real life, and in between moving and looking for a job , well writing this was like pulling teeth. I decided to change the timeline to be set just before TUE. Also I picture the language of Amestris being German.

Present Day

Danny had woken early that morning. He couldn't sleep after having a nightmare. It wasn't just any nightmare; it had confused him as well as frightened him. A boy who looked just like him save for clothes and surroundings along with a girl who looked similar to Jazz were in a laboratory looking at some new invention , a device that was generating some red liquid. The boy tried to turn it off when it was overheating and something blew off and injured him, and a bunch of that red water came out. When the boy went to check on the girl who seemed to be his sister, she was dead.

'As the red water leaked out the boy looks around for his sister "Jazmine, Jazmine?" he calls "vatch out for the red vater it's-Jazmine? JAZMINE, NO" the girl was lying in a puddle of red water. The boy went over to where she was lying and tried to shake her awake "Jasmine, vake up Jasmine…please, please vake up, " . A gray haired man with two metal legs came up behind the boy and put a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry Danyal, but she is dead" he said, "step avay now"

"No, it-It's not fair. It vas my fault Uncle Vlad" the boy said weakly. Then at least half a year later the boy looked a photo of his sister and him, "It was my fault Jazmine" he said "I'm sorry I vill bring you back, I promise"

The idea of living with Vlad and being close to him disgusted Danny, but the boy seemed to trust him. He remembered Jazz having some debate with a girl who claimed that she had been famous in another life back when he was in middle school. But he didn't believe in that stuff. Still, it was confusing and horrifying. He couldn't stand the idea of losing family in any life.

He shook it off, there was no time to worry about something like that, school was starting and he was going to miss the bus if he didn't start getting ready. He threw his things in his backpack and went downstairs and grabbed a poptart. He had spent so much time brooding on his strange dream that he was running low on time. After he got himself ready his father peeked in "Got something to show you, Danny"

He sighed and got up to see what his dad was so excited about. "It better be good" he thought, "or fast". He looked at his watch. Almost late, Lancer was going to kill him. Danny went down to the lab and right away something flew at him and attached itself to his arm. "What the-"

"Well that's odd" Mom said going over to his arm to look at it.

"What is it?" Danny asked.

"It's meant to track large amounts of supernatural activity" Mom explained, "and measure how much energy is used. But it must be wired wrong. "

"Must be" Danny shrugged. "Look, I gotta get to school you can bring out the Jaws of Life later"

"All right" Mom said. As he ran out the door Danny decided that if anyone asked he could tell them it was a new watch. He found a nice secluded spot and transformed into his ghost half as the bus passed. Riding the bus was something Danny always hated and now didn't have to put up with anymore. Now, flying invisibly over the route to my school he had some peace away from my parents and his crazy life to stop and think over things. The watch started beeping and flashing but he tuned it out-he had a ghost sense for that. He noticed the absence of Valerie, his ghost hunting classmate. "She must have better things to do than chase after me," he thought, "or more important things to do." He somehow doubted Valerie would ever give up chasing him. He landed behind the school and then joined his best friends.

Tucker nearly jumped when Danny tapped him from behind.

"What's with the new gear?" he asked.

"One of my parents' inventions which, as always, suddenly fell in love with me," Danny adjusted the strap of his backpack.

"Well it could be useful," Sam said, "what does it do?"

"Alerts me to Ectoplasmic activity. Basically the same thing as my ghost sense. I turned it down because it kept beeping," he said, "Pretty useless, really". He wasn't going to tell them about the dream with Vlad. It was just a stupid nightmare. He got into class and the first thing Lancer did was remind them that the C.A.T.s were coming up. Danny cursed under his breath; he had been dreading those stupid tests. His sister had practically broken the test with her high score. No doubt everyone would be expecting him to do the same, but between ghost hunting and class work, (and more ghost hunting) he didn't have time to study. Lancer went into a boring English lesson and then Danny doodled on the side of his paper to stay awake. It didn't work and he soon found himself dozing off.

Strange symbols flashed before his eyes, they were sort of like circles. Somehow he knew what they were- transmutation circles. He was remembering all sorts of chemical names, things he knew he hadn't picked up in chemistry class. With them came the memory of a gate and an unearthly figure with a disturbing grin.

"Hello Danny Phantom"

"-FENTON!" Lancer's voice called him back to reality.

Without thinking Danny started rattling off a list of chemical ingredients to something. Lancer cut him off before he was finished.

"Nice try, Mr. Fenton but this is English. Maybe if you had shown such attentiveness during last week's test you would have done better." His classmates were staring at him or laughing. He heard someone whistle and Dash mutter "geek". Lancer cleared his throat and then continued his lecture. Danny looked down at his paper and recognized among a few drips of drool the circles from the Gate. He quickly closed his notebook and tried to focus on the lesson.

At lunch Sam and Tucker caught up with him in the line. He could tell they were both looking at him as if he were about to do something crazy.

"What was with your speech in English? I don't remember even learning that in class" Sam said. "Danny is there something you're not telling us."

"Yeah" Danny said shortly, "I'm a closet chemistry enthusiast. Sorry I didn't mention it"

"Hey it was just a question, man. Chill out" Tucker said. Danny sighed.

"I know. Sorry, I-I don't know where that came from either. I just remembered something I saw at the accident. "he rubbed his head.

"What did all those chemicals make, anyway?" Sam asked.

"They were the ingredients of a human body" Tucker said. Both of his friends stared at him. "What? I read it on a website."

"Weird," Danny said, "what am I going to do with that information, clone somebody?"

"You're the one who brought it up" Sam reminded him as they sat down. Little more was said about the episode, but Danny recalled his nightmare and the words his dream self spoke made more sense. The rest of the day went like any other, more boring school and then of course a ghost attack thankfully near the end of the day This time it was Technus trying to use the school computers to create a monster.

"I , the hip and powerful master of technology will use this place of education to rule THE WORLD" Danny groaned, you'd think a ghostly monster made of possessed computers would have a mute switch. "By the way, you really ought to update your browsers sometime."

"I've been telling the school board that for almost a year now." Tucker shouted. Danny hurled an ecto-blast at Technus's monitor.

"Hey!" Technus shouted, "That's destruction of school property!"

"Yeah, they can bill me later!" Danny turned to Tucker, "can't you give him a virus or something?"

"I'll see what I can do, the school computers have a pretty nice firewall, and they're smart enough not to run on Portals XL "Tucker said.

"I don't think so!" Technus yelled. He made a leap for Tucker and Danny sent an ecto-disc at the computer cords. They were sliced, but the hulking computer monster still seemed to be working. "Ha, ha, foolish ghost child! We're running on ectoplasm now!"

"You've got to be kidding me" Danny said, "You can do that?"

"All that and more" Technus said. "All your bases belong to me, punk!" Tucker sighed and added that to the list of phrases he'd never use again. A shame too, he liked that quote. The possessed hunk of technology burst through the wall and Danny took after it. This was going to take longer than he thought. He cut Technus off in the air above the school. It was the usual thing, banter and exchange of blows, until something in the distance caught Danny's eye. An explosion near his house.

No, at his house.

He froze up, forgetting everything around him save for the explosion. He didn't even hear someone call out a warning and took one of Technus's attacks straight for the chest.

"DANNY!" His body slammed against the adjacent wall of a building and he slid down into the dumpster. The only thing he could think about was his family. Something happened and he should have been there.