Ahaha, we're not gonna talk about how long this took. XD
Happy holidays! I hope everyone is well! I know it's been a few years. Crazy how time flies huh? When I started this story, I was in high school, and now I'm almost done with college! This chapter has sat partially written for years, no joke, but I finally got around to finishing it. Woo!
It's been so long that you most likely forgot about your interaction, but I'll write out the thank yous anyway XD
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And thanks to those who reviewed: The Horseman's Commander, KelseyAlicia, Invader Johnny, Heart of the Demons, Wolfeather101, SoulMore, jeanette9a, vampireharry the 2, Rocky Rooster, memmek10k, freegirl333, Vgn Golley, yourlistener, RenegadeForLife, jaxinKH, xavex, ClassicCinnamon, and The Read3r! I felt so touched reading some of these comments again. I really appreciate your kind words! :')
My apologies if you were missed! I go off of the email notifs from ffn, but sometimes they don't send correctly or get lost or whatever else.
Anyway stay tuned for several updates at the end of this pretty short chapter, but in the meantime, enjoy! :)
Danny woke up slowly, groaning at the sunlight that streamed into his eyes. He didn't recall when he had finally gotten to sleep last night, thanks to several ghosts that had decided to show up.
Suddenly his eyes went wide as he remembered. It was his birthday! He quickly got out of bed and got dressed, now fully awake. He went downstairs and quickly realized that the house was uncharacteristically quiet. Was no one home?
Shrugging it off, he found some breakfast in the form of cereal. He was sure he would see people later in the day.
A few minutes later, there was a knock at the front door. Upon opening it, he saw his two best friends standing there.
"Oh, hey!" He greeted them.
"Hey. Would you mind running some errands for me?" Sam asked and handed him a folded up paper. She turned to leave before she could get an answer. "Thanks!"
"But-"
"See ya later, dude!" Tucker said over his shoulder. He and Sam speed-walked away, practically running, in the vague direction of the Manson residence. Danny blinked, confused about their odd behavior. They didn't even acknowledge... Never mind. It didn't matter. He opened up the piece of paper, expecting a shopping list
For the first task you complete,
Go where we were attacked by meat.
The boy stood in silence for several confused seconds. What did he just read? What kind of "errand" was this?
"Where we were attacked by meat?" He muttered hysterically under his breath. "Like.. where we've fought the Lunch Lady?" He pondered the idea for a few seconds before shrugging. "Not like I have any better ideas."
In the next few minutes he was flying towards Casper High, wondering what he would find there. It was a good thing it was a weekend; luckily, the only possible witnesses would be the occasional janitor or teacher. He invisibly searched the courtyard first, and then the hallways they were in the first time they met the lunch lady. Nothing seemed to stand out. Puzzled, he stopped to think. Where else would the note be referring to?
With a start he remembered the secret meat-filled basement. That had to be it! He descended through the floor, shivering as he entered the chilly storage room. Surrounding him were dozens of frozen boxes of food and who knew what else. He crinkled his nose as he remembered the last time he had been in the same location, back in the beginning of freshman year. Oh, how different it had been back then.
He flew around for a few minutes before spotting a folded up paper on the floor. Quickly he unfolded it, wondering what it would say next.
Good job finding your second clue,
Now remember when we went to the zoo?
"The zoo?" He questioned aloud, before remembering the whole gorilla incident. "Ohhh, I remember." He giggled to himself when he thought about Skulker getting beat up by the gorilla. Now that had been a good day. "All right. Next stop, Amity Park Zoo."
"I got the cake." Sam announced, effortlessly holding a very large black, white and red cake.
"I got... most of the presents." Tucker squeaked, almost dropping one from the huge pile in his arms.
"Excellent." They looked up to see Vlad floating by the ceiling putting up streamers, his ghost cat floating nearby and playing with one. "Um, Jasmine, could you help him out there?"
Jazz barely managed to catch two falling gifts, glaring pointedly at a sheepish-looking Tucker. "Come on, put those down before something breaks."
Once the presents were put down and the cake was safely on the table, Valerie phased into the room through the ceiling, balancing heaps of snacks, a large pile of pizza boxes, and even a few tubs of ice cream on her hover board. "Hey guys! I'm not late, am I?"
"Nope. We still have approximately thirty minutes before the birthday boy shows up." Jazz said cheerfully, helping her to unload the loot. "Assuming he doesn't get stuck on one of those clues." She pondered for a few seconds. "Which, if we're being honest, is entirely possible."
"I tried not to make them too hard." Sam muttered, shoving the ice cream in the freezer. "If he can't figure it out, that's on him."
Tucker chuckled. "Well, you know how Danny is."
They were currently setting up an abandoned warehouse for Danny's 15th birthday. Vlad had rented it out for the whole day to use, mostly because any other location would have been too obvious. It was supposed to be a surprise party, after all.
Every so often the Huntress would look up towards the half ghost, clearly uncomfortable about letting her guard down. She may have realized that not all ghosts are evil, but she was still wary around unfamiliar ones, especially those as powerful as she knew Plasmius to be. She had found out about Danny's double life a few weeks before, but instead of letting her in on the rest, Vlad instead decided to have some fun with it.
"Who else are we waiting on?" The huntress pondered aloud. "Vlad Masters?"
The others barely managed to keep a straight face.
"I knew we were missing somebody!" Plasmius exclaimed over-exaggeratedly. "Oh my, it is so unlike him to be late. Wherever is that dashingly handsome billionaire?" He pondered, somehow keeping a serious face. Meanwhile Tucker began to crack up and Jazz couldn't hold back an amused smile.
Valerie looked at them in confusion, not getting the joke, before hesitantly shrugging it off. Tucker began to laugh even harder, which turned into a wheeze when Sam elbowed him in the ribs.
It was going to be a long few hours.
Danny zoomed across the sky above Amity Park with almost a dozen "clues" in his hand. He had been all over the city at this point, and he was over the initial excitement. What was the point of all this, anyway?
He slowed down to a stop and peered at the most recently found slip of paper.
Go to where we planned the fall
To the King's reign over all.
Where could that mean? The Ghost Zone where he and Vlad had fought Pariah Dark? His house? That random warehouse the ghosts met in? Probably the last one, since his house would be too obvious. Plus, they hadn't planned anything there as far as he could remember.
He soared over Amity Park, scanning the city with bored green eyes. Finally he spotted a building he thought was familiar from the Pariah situation, and he descended towards it. He phased through the wall, expecting the inside to be empty with another clue hidden inside. Instead, he was met with what looked like a party.
"SURPRISE!"
Startled, he flew back and briefly flickered into invisibility before appearing again, and his eyes glowed a brighter green than before. "What the—what's going on?" He exclaimed upon seeing all of his friends, his sister and the other half ghost. Shocked, he scanned the room to see a huge cake, a mountain of pizza boxes, a large pile of presents in the corner, and streamers everywhere.
"It's your birthday, silly!" Jazz laughed, running towards him and wrapping him in a huge hug.
"Jazz... Jazz! Let go!"
He finally escaped from her grip and looked at the others. "Why—You guys didn't have to—"
"Of course we did, dude!" The techno-geek said excitedly. "You only turn fifteen once!"
"Well, yeah, that's kind of the—" he was cut off by Sam enveloping him in a hug. He was so speechless at how out of character it was that he didn't resist.
"Sorry about earlier. Happy birthday." She said, shooting him a rare smile. The moment was interrupted by Tucker jumping onto them both, making it a group hug.
"You made Sam smile! She never does that!" He exclaimed, stepping back sheepishly when she shot him a glare.
"I know. I'm honored." Danny replied, jumping away with a giggle when she turned her merciless glare onto him. She rolled her eyes with a sigh, not expecting anything different.
He then looked over to a sheepish Valerie.
"Happy birthday, you annoying ghost." She said, punching his arm.
"Aw, that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me! C'mere Val!" She smiled, rolling her eyes fondly as the former enemies hugged.
After they pulled away, Danny looked up at the floating half ghost who was watching the exchange amusedly. The boy grinned and flew up to his level. "Don't tell me you set this up, ya fruitloop."
The man simply smiled, chuckling when Phantom brought him into a hug too. "Happy birthday, kid."
"Aw, I knew you were going soft."
"Shut up." The man muttered, causing the younger halfa to giggle at the response.
"Let's get this party started!" Tucker whooped, causing the room to erupt in cheer and laughter.
The next few hours were filled with eating as much pizza and junk food as they could stomach. Then everyone gathered around to watch Danny, now back to his human form, go through the pile of presents. He got nice gifts from each of his friends and his sister, including the new video games that he wanted among a lot of other things.
Finally it came time for the last gift. He ripped off the paper and opened the box to see… something made out of fabric. He took it out to see that it was a jacket.
"What is this...?" The black and red coat was made out of a relatively thin material, but it seemed to be radiating gentle warmth. He somehow could sense that it had ghost energy inside, and it must have come from a fire core from how warm it felt.
"Well, we know you get cold sometimes." Vlad chuckled at the understatement. "Try it on, would you? It might be a bit large now, but you'll grow into it."
The boy pulled the jacket on and was immediately more comfortable. The cold feeling in his core seemed to lessen for the first time in months. The jacket may have been a size or two larger than his normal size, but it still fit fine. He zipped it up, grinning when he felt even warmer.
"This is amazing! Did you—Did you make this?!"
"We all did." Sam punched him lightly on the arm. "You have no idea how many stages this thing went through."
"There were so many issues to consider, one of which being insulating it enough to prevent inventions from sensing the ghost energy inside." Tucker piped in sheepishly. "Also, we had to make sure it was safe for you to wear without somehow hurting your ice core. Not to mention the aesthetics and practicality of the design..." Sam continued.
Danny felt himself tearing up. "I can't believe that you... How long have you...?"
"I thought of the idea a few months ago. While the ghostly aspect of it was obtainable for me, I didn't have much experience designing clothing." Vlad explained sheepishly. "So I let these two in on it. Without them, it definitely wouldn't have gotten done on time, or this well I might add."
So it has Vlad's ghost energy in it? The boy realized to himself. That must be why it feels so familiar.
"Well, what do you think?" Sam asked gently, smiling at her shocked friend.
"If your goal was to make me cry, you're succeeding." He laughed, wiping away a few tears. "I still can't believe it... I love it!" He yanked his two friends into a hug, followed by the other smiling half-ghost. "Thank you so much!"
"There's one more thing!" Tucker said in a sing-song tone. "Even if this town is stupid enough to not realize your secret so far, I think seeing Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom wearing the same exact custom jacket would be too risky."
"This is the part that took a long time." Sam added. "Well? Try it out!"
"What? What am I supposed to do?" The two other teenagers chuckled at his cluelessness. After a few seconds, he seemed to realize. "Ohhh...Hold on." He summoned his transformation. Once the rings of light passed, he looked down to see a bright white jacket with black and green accents. It had a similar design and placement of colors, but with such a drastic difference, it was unlikely that anyone would realize that they were the same jacket. To top it all off, a small black version of his DP logo was placed off-center on his chest. It was the only difference between the two designs besides the colors, as far as he could tell.
"Thank Clockwork it worked." Vlad muttered. "Do you have any idea how long I had to experiment with chemical compounds and ectoplasmic energy? Plus, I wasn't even sure it would work the same for you..."
If it was possible, Phantom looked even more shocked. His hazmat suit was special because it had gone into the portal with him. How did they manage to recreate that?
"It matches my color scheme and everything!" He looked on the verge of crying with happiness. "You guys! I don't know what to say..."
"Happy Birthday, Danny!" The goth girl said with a smile.
"Here's to another year of protecting this town from ghosts!" Tucker raised his green solo cup of punch. "And this time you get to look stylish doing it!" Everyone cheered and laughed at that.
Now that the presents were all opened, the group celebrated with cake and ice cream. By the time the party winded down, it was getting dark outside.
However, the excitement wasn't quite over yet. Valerie was shocked to see Plasmius change into Vlad Masters in front of her eyes, and then to top it off, he acted completely innocent and said that he was sorry he was late to the party. The rest of the group couldn't hold back their laughter after that. Danny was just glad that Vlad didn't draw it out longer to confuse Valerie even more. Danny ended up telling her to just ignore him like the rest of them did. And he didn't even care that he would be paying for that later.
All in all, it was a good day.
Later that night, Danny ended up at Vlad's place after all of his friends went home. He held a purring Eleanor as he floated in the lab near Plasmius. She seemed to like his new warm jacket almost as much as he did.
"Thank you so much for today." Danny said with a smile. "It was the best birthday ever!"
"Actually, there's one more thing."
"What? No, no, you've done enough, really, you don't—"
"Just close your eyes."
The boy obliged with a sigh, guilty that he was causing all of this trouble but also curious about what the man was planning. He felt Eleanor jump out of his arms, and from the sound of fabric, she ended up on the other halfa's cape.
"I'm putting something over your head." At Danny's confused expression, Vlad chuckled. "Don't worry, it'll make sense in a few minutes. Oh, and put this in." He was handed what felt like a Fenton Phone, which he managed to put in his ear blindly before something lowered around his head. Then something heavy similar to a backpack was lowered down onto his shoulders and strapped on.
After a few seconds of hearing muffled movement around him, sound came through the earpiece. "Can you hear this?"
"Yep." He flinched at the weird echoing when he spoke. "Is there a fishbowl on my head? 'Cause that's what it sounds like."
"Close." Vlad chuckled. "All right kid, are you ready?"
"For what?" He answered amusedly, having no idea what was about to happen.
"You'll see. We're going to teleport, okay? And I'm warning you that it'll feel strange and quite cold, but keep your eyes closed until I say to open them. Believe me, it'll be worth the suspense." He could almost hear the smile in the man's voice, and he didn't know whether to be excited or worried.
"Okay..." He finally responded. He felt Vlad take his hand and seconds later he recognized the odd sensation of teleporting, even more unsettling with no sight.
Suddenly it was cold, and Danny realized they must have been at their destination. He was suddenly very grateful for his new jacket, which continued to radiate warmth despite the freezing temperature.
In addition to the cold, his body felt... weird... and he felt more weightless than usual.
He felt himself being turned in midair. "All right badger... you can look."
He took a breath and blinked his eyes open, suddenly met with blackness all around him dotted with stars. Directly in front of him was the Earth.
They floated in silence for several seconds. The boy was too shocked and awed to say anything. He was... in space! There were endless stars everywhere; above him, below him, and all around. He could see the sun in the distance, white and blinding. He saw the moon off to the side, reflecting the sun's light so it's white surface seemed almost as bright. He knew if he looked close enough, he would be able make out several brighter stars that were some of the other planets in the solar system, far off in the distance.
"What do you think, Daniel?" Vlad nudged him gently. "Beautiful, isn't it?"
The younger halfa turned to look at him in silence, his green eyes shining brightly. "I can't believe... how did you...?"
The man chuckled. "The atmosphere of the Ghost Zone isn't too different from space. Ghosts can withstand more pressure and extreme temperatures than humans, which is why we can exist in space without special gear. And teleporting makes it a lot easier, too." He explained with a wink and a grin.
The boy finally managed to blink back his happy tears. "I can't believe this. You've known we could go to space this whole time and didn't tell me?!"
"Well, then it wouldn't have been special, now would it?"
"I want to be mad, but I can't." The boy's eyes lit up in excitement when he saw something in the distance. "Oh my gosh, we should go to the moon! Can we?"
"Lead the way."
The boy grinned and shot forward at a much higher speed than he anticipated, causing him to start laughing at the strange feeling. The older half-ghost followed amusedly with a bit more control. They picked up speed towards the moon, and on the way Danny marveled at everything around him. He wondered how long it would take to fly to mars, to Saturn, to all of the other planets in the solar system.
Finally he approached the moon's surface. It was so big compared to its normal size up in the sky, back on earth. There were dozens of craters spaced around, some of them bigger than his house.
Slowly, he lowered his feet down to the ground and landed, a small dust cloud puffing up around his boots. He felt the gentle pull of the moon's gravity, though it was noticeably smaller than on Earth.
"I'm actually here..." He said to himself in awe. It didn't feel real. He was actually on the moon! Slowly he kneeled down to inspect the surface. He dug his gloved hand into the ground, feeling the dust and rocks in fascination and watching them sift though his fingers. Smiling, he chose a rock to take home to always remind him of this moment.
Awwww he lived out his dream! :D It probably wasn't quite as good of writing as some other recent chapters, but I hope it was enjoyable anyway!
Anyway folks, I have a bit more of an update now.
This story is my baby. For years I have had so much fun with it, and I hope a lot of you did too! I am so grateful for all of the support, both present and past. A lot of people may have moved on, which I completely understand. Nonetheless I have loved writing about this silly little idea I had years ago.
I have an announcement. I will not be writing any more content for this story specifically. I'm making this decision because I am not entirely happy with the quality of writing and the major plot points, especially in the earlier chapters. I like the "each chapter is its own episode" concept, but I don't like that it caused a lot of the plot and characters in the show to get lost between chapters. So unfortunately, I'm going to let this story remain unfinished, as much as it pains me to do so. I know I said at one point that I would definitely finish this story eventually even if it took a long time. However, I've lost interest in the current way it's going, and I don't really want to write unless I myself enjoy doing it.
That being said, I have a lot of notes about future chapter ideas that I never got to, so if there is interest for that I may post another chapter with the list of chapter ideas that would have been written! I also plan on posting some of the drabbles that I never included to the one-shot side story, Of Fruitloops and Badgers, so keep a lookout for that!
Luckily, I have another announcement! I am working on rewriting a similar story concept, but hopefully better! Since I began this story, I've been immersed in a lot of phandom ideas, theories, and lore from other fanart and fanfics, some of which I am planning to apply to the rewrite, along with my own personal spins. It won't be so similar to the show like this fic was, and the goal is to make it a bit darker and more realistic in some ways. I have already posted the first chapter of the rewrite called "A Sky Full of Stars," so feel free to go find it on my profile, either here on ffn or on archive of our own! And I already have 3 chapters prepared which I plan to post over the course of the next few weeks.
Now I know what you're thinking. "Specter, this story only had an update every 2 years or less! Will the rewrite even be updated again, never mind finished?" And to that I say, you have a good point my friend. I don't know my exact plans for the rewrite, other than to have fun with it. My main goal with writing my silly little fanfics is to have fun! I think that's what anyone's goal should be. So I cannot promise that the rewrite will get very far. But you're free to come along for the ride if you want to. :)
Here's the last update! My friend KelseyAlicia and I have been writing a little multidimensional crossover story based on Ceci Spirit from the last chapter! Since writing that chapter, I've developed her world a lot more, and the story Worlds Collide was born thanks to KelseyAlicia wanting to write about the world with me! It will include the same/similar Danny and Vlad dynamics as this story, so they will live on there too! It's posted on my profile here on ffn, and also posted on her archive of our own and deviantart profiles. Also go check out the other one-shots she has posted about Ceci's world, which are in a collection on my archive of our own profile!
Anyway, this may be one of my last farewells to you, but thank you ever so much for reading! I really appreciate it. I wish you well!
-Specter14