In Your Time

"Well, first things first…" the adult ghost said, drawing a key from somewhere in his suit. If it were anything like Fenton hazmat, it probably had plenty of pockets he could've had the key in. As it were, he seemed to pull the key out of thin air.

Was that a thing ghosts could do?

Adult Danny slid the key into the lock of Jumpsuit Danny's cell, and opened the door.

"You have a key to the containment chamber?" his newly freed counterpart asked.

"Yeah; Mom and Dad made me a copy when they realized I might need one." Adult Danny shrugged.

"They know you hunt ghosts?" Tall Danny exclaimed, wide-eyed.

"I mean, it comes with the territory."

After a heavy pause, Girl Danny stared at him in shock. "Wait."

"YOU TOLD THEM?" Tall Danny boomed, irises flaring to a piercing blue.

"I did."

Jumpsuit Danny finally spoke, voice low and eyes lower. "But how? Don't they still hate ghosts when you're from?"

"Not since I turned eighteen," Adult Danny said, slowly, as though carefully choosing his words.

"What changed?" Jumpsuit Danny flicked his gaze toward him, a deeper question behind his eyes.

"Well, to put it lightly, it's hard to hate ghosts when your son is their king."

"You're the king of ghosts?" Danny asked.

"You're the only one of us who isn't yet."

"I- what?" Jumpsuit Danny didn't look that much older than him. Did he seriously become the ghost king before he turned fifteen?

"I probably shouldn't elaborate. Time stuff." Right. Of course the adult was the one who cared about causing a paradox.

Girl Danny huffed. "Wow. You're fun."

"You know it, kiddo."

She glared at him. "I'm not that much younger than you!"

"I'm twenty. You're a child," he said, emphasizing their height difference.

"In your time, I'm not!"

"Still a kid here."

She grumbled, and Tall Danny planted an elbow on her shoulder to rest his head on.

"Hey, chin up, kiddo," he said with a grin.

"Don't you start." She shook him off.

Help

Danny wanted these ghosts out of his house. Even if they were him, this was his timeline. He was here first, and he didn't want them doing anything worse than what they already had. "So why are you here? Or, now, I suppose."

"Like I said, I need your help. All of you."

"With what?"

"Something even the king of all ghosts can't handle on his own."

What?

The room started spinning-

No.

It... rose? Whatever happened, the floor was a lot closer, and Danny couldn't feel where his feet touched the ground. From the waist down, it almost felt like... swimming? Four sets of hands gripped his arms, dragging him upward. Something shifted , and Danny's feet were back on the lab floor.

Where had he felt that before?

He looked to the other Dannys, but none of them seemed to find the last ten seconds unusual. Was that normal for ghosts? For Danny?

And then it clicked.

The bathroom sink.

He'd fallen through the floor.

"Are we sure he can fight?"

"You kidding? He's the most important part of the whole plan."

"No." He wasn't going to go fight some ghostly abomination, and definitely not because some ghost who was trespassing in his parents' lab had told him to. "This is way too dangerous. I won't. I… I can't."

Adult Danny shook his head, an unspoken apology on his face.

"You don't get it. You're the only one who can."

"So... What?" Tall Danny glared at Adult Danny, clearly annoyed at the idea. "You expect us to believe Yellowjeans here is some sort of 'Chosen One'? Well, newsflash: we're him . He's not any more powerful than us because he had his Accident a few days early."

"You're right." Tall Danny's eyebrows shot up, and Danny found himself picking up the annoyance he left behind. So he was the most important part of the "plan" one second, then just another Danny the next? What was he, bait?

"I'm right?"

"He is just like us. He's a Phantom."

"Phantom?" Wasn't that another word for ghost? Definitely sounded a lot like "Fenton". Maybe if he hadn't been wrapped up in all this, he would've changed his name to that. Couldn't let his parents find out their son was a ghost, after all.

"Danny Phantom. That's what we all decided to call ourselves, after the Accident."

Way Too Dangerous

"I can't believe you talked me into this," Danny groaned, eying the floating purple doors and swirling green mists around them like they might reach out and strike him dead at any moment.

Too late for that, he supposed.

" I can't believe I used to be such a scaredy-cat." He looked over and found Tall Danny rolling his eyes, now purple.

"It's called having a sense of self-preservation," Danny said. "Maybe you should try it sometime."

Tall Danny's eyes flashed blue again as he turned to scowl at him.

"Maybe you should try caring about someone besides yourself for once."

"Wait." Jumpsuit Danny piped up. "With our Obsession, how is he so self-centered?"

"Because he doesn't share it," Adult Danny explained. Not like it explained much to Danny, though.

"What?" Girl Danny asked. "How is that even possible?"

"Think about it. When he went into the Portal, what was he thinking about? Surely not double-checking that it was safe for Sam and Tuck, right?"

"He seemed more worried about himself. I did scare him a bit."

"'Self-preservation', huh?" Tall Danny mumbled, eyes cooling to a contemplative green.

"That's why we need him, isn't it? His Obsession is different, so his instincts are, too." Jumpsuit Danny seemed to be understanding all this a heck of a lot better than Danny was.

"Exactly. And those instincts are precisely the ones we need to beat this guy."

"To beat this guy." Was Danny really going to be part of this?

Saving the world?

Fighting ghosts?

This seemed way too dangerous, but if the other Dannys were okay with it, and they were right that his sense of self-preservation was… heightened, somehow?

Maybe…

"I'm still not sure about this, but four Dannys probably know better than one, right?"

"In most timelines, yeah." Adult Danny planted a hand on his shoulder.

"...I'm not going to regret this, am I?"

"Let's hope not."

Elle

"Are we there yet?" Girl Danny asked.

"No."

"Are we there now? " She repeated, bobbing closer to Tall Danny with a questioning pout.

"Clearly not," he intoned.

"Okay."

She fell behind him a bit, humming for a few minutes as the rest traveled in silence.

"Are we there yet?"

Of course.

"Elle! When we're there, you'll know!" Tall Danny snapped.

"Oh, okay." She grinned, either because she didn't understand that he was mad at her, or because that had been her plan all along.

Wait a second.

"Elle?" Danny asked.

"Yeah? What's up, T-Shirt?" She tilted her head toward him, still smiling.

He glared in response. "Don't call me that."

"'Kay." Satisfied, she turned back.

"Wait! That's not what I-" he huffed. "Your name is Elle?"

"Yup! Used to go by Dani －with an 'i'－ but that got confusing pretty quick."

"Ah. Cool."

"You hear that, guys? This one thinks I'm cool." She jabbed a thumb in his direction.

"Sure. Kiddo."

She groaned, and Tall Danny smirked at the turn of events.

A brief pause, and...

"Are we there yet?"

Elle was already beaming.