"Normal Speech"

'Normal thoughts'

~locations and transitions~

No Beta Reader

Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom

Warning! Mention of drowning ahead

Chapter 1: Into Something more

Throughout the centuries, humans have made it one of their goals to explore and understand the world they live in.

Humans have gone to the highest point of the highest mountain, they have gone to each corner of the world, exploring deep within massive maze-like cave systems, and dived far into the blue sea.

Despite all of the exploring humans have done there are still things that we do not understand. The one element they have studied extensively is the spiritual, such as ghosts, specters, and the afterlife.

All other unknowns have been shoved to the side and labeled as fictional and unrealistic. Despite this thought process, there have been those that had seen the unexplained for brief moments throughout human history but the people who saw them were never believed.

Mysteries of the world continue to remain mysteries and many continue to remain secret.

Yet it can take one of these moments to change the life of someone forever.

In the middle of the ocean was a silver high-tech boat that had a radar dish on it, spinning in every direction. In random parts of the boat was green lining and on the side of the boat was a large green flame that had a stylized "F" on it.

"Jack, did you catch any readings on the scanner?" Came the question of an adult woman who was wearing a blue full-body jumpsuit and orange goggles covering her eyes. She was looking at a small silver scanner that was using the radar dish to look for some signal.

"Not yet, Mads." Came the booming voice of a large man that was wearing an orange full-body jumpsuit with blue goggles over his eyes. He was in the cabin of the boat, looking at another screen that was sending out ultrasounds that were adjusted for specific signatures. He turned a few nobs that were under the screen with a massive grin on his face. "It won't be long now!"

"Daddy, why are we out here?"

Jack turned around and looked at the one to speak. His smile got bigger as he answered. "This is the best place to be looking for ghosts, Jazzy-pants."

"But there isn't anything here!" Came the slightly pouty voice of a nine-year-old Jazz Fenton who was sitting on one of the seats that was bolted to the ground.

Jack shook his head as he pointed out the window. "You don't see anything now, but that's because the ghosts are hiding from the greatest ghost hunters in the world!" He then pressed his face on the glass as he glared at the water. "But they can't hide forever, we will find them and rip them apart molecule by molecule." Lightning lit up the sky with the loud thunder rumbling throughout the area.

Jazz crossed her arms and pouted even more. "Maybe one day I will understand what goes on with your head." Was her mumbled complaint.

Maddie came in and shook her head to get the water off her jumpsuit's hood before she pulled it off. "The rain has been going on for hours. It might be messing with our scanners and hiding the ghosts from us, but are you sure that we will find anything out here?" She directed her question to Jack as she put her scanner down.

Jack turned to his wife with his grin not diminishing. "Of course, Maddie! What better place to look for ghosts than the Bermuda Triangle!? With all the mysterious disappearances that happened here, it's obvious that ghosts are involved."

Maddie smiled as she agreed with him. She smiled at her daughter before she frowned for a second. She looked around and asked. "Jazz, where's your brother?"

Jazz opened her mouth to answer till….

*Ping*

"Mads! We got something!"

Maddie dropped her question and ran over to Jack as they were now looking at the screen to see what they detected. They frowned as the thing that they caught disappeared after the first ping. They began to meddle with the device in order to catch what they detected before.

Jazz frowned as she looked out the window at the stormy weather and the harsh wobbling they had been in for hours.

Outside of the cabin was seven-year-old Danny, wearing a yellow raincoat to keep some of the water from the rain off him.

Though he was still wet as the crashing waves had already soaked him.

He held his stomach as the back-and-forth bobbing the boat was doing was making his stomach churn. He had a hand on the starboard wall as he tried not to feel sick. After a minute of breathing, he felt his stomach feel better before he continued walking. He brought his other hand up and smiled at the space shuttle toy he had.

It was a simple toy space shuttle that had a sticker on the wing that said "Apollo 11"

He then began to wave it around in the air and rand around the boat. "Pssssssshhhhhhhh~ pssssssshhhhhh~" He played with his little spaceship, imaging it being in space and the raindrops were laser fire from aliens. As he was running he had to stop for a second to avoid slipping since the whole boat was made from metal.

The boat was called the "Fenton boo~oat". It was built by the Fenton adults, named by the patriarch, so that it would be protected from any ghost attack that would come their way. But since it was made of metal and soaked by the rain, it was extremely slippery.

Danny though thought it was fun and he would run before sliding on it to make his space shuttle fly faster. He continued to play with his shuttle as the storm began to make the waves harsher. A large wave crashed on the side of the boat, causing him to slip and hit the side of the cabin. "Owie~" He rubbed the back of his head to make it stop hurting but he realized that it was the hand that once held the shuttle. He looked around to see where it went and he saw that it had slid to the bow of the ship. He got up from the ground and ran over to it with his hands stretched out so he could grab it.

A large wave caused the ship to bounce like a seesaw. Danny slipped because of the action and landed on the ground with his raincoat causing him to slip toward the bow. When he stopped, he opened his eyes to see his space shuttle in the air. The first thing his brain thought was that it was flying on its own and he smiled at the sight. It was then that he saw that it was falling and he got up as it fell from above him. He ran toward the edge of the boat as he looked up at the falling shuttle. When he got to the side he jumped up to try and catch it but due to him being shorter than the wall, he could only watch as it fell of the side of the boat. He had a sad smile on his face as he lost sight of it. He stood there slumped at the loss of his shuttle.

Suddenly another large wave lifted the boat off the water. With Danny not being heavy and not grabbing anything, suddenly found himself in the air. He felt accelerated at the feeling of weightlessness but he suddenly got the sensation of falling and before he could let out a sound, he was underwater.

Danny began to flail his arms trying to get back to the surface of the water. However, with him not being a strong swimmer due to him being seven, as well as the harsh thrashing of the water, he found himself sinking further and further down into the sea depths. His chest began to hurt with the lack of air and when he could no longer hold his breath, he opened his mouth, letting out the air he had inhaled as he fell into the water. The soft light that he could see over him began to fade as his vision became darker and darker. Whether it became darker because he was sinking further or his consciousness was fading, he did not know or even think about. He finally closed his eyes as the pain in his chest became too much.

Unseen by the boy was a silhouetted figure that moved quickly through the water around him. It kept its distance and circled him, watching to see if he did anything. The figure tilted its head in confusion as it watched as his flailing slowed down to nothing. It moved closer to the boy and saw that the boy had lost consciousness. This confused the figure more as this was not a place for anything to sleep. It was then that it looked up to see the bottom of a boat, which told the figure that the boy must have fallen off the boat. It panicked as it realized that the boy wasn't sleeping but drawing. Moving closer, the figure grabbed the boy and was about to swim up to the surface to help the boy back up. However, the moment the figure grabbed the boy, it realized something: the boy was not unconscious. The figure pulled back its hand and its body language showed the sadness it had. It floated next to the boy's sinking body for a minute before it perked up. It looked up to the boat before nodding in an unspoken decision. It then swam to the side and twirled around the boy, causing the swirling water to stop the boy's descent. Once the boy was now floating in the swirl of water, the figure moved closer to the boy and wrapped its arms around him. At the spot where their chests met, a spark of blue light appeared before growing to the point of blinding.

"Danny! Where are you?" Came the calling voice of Maddie Fenton as she was looking for her son.

"Danny-boy!? You find a ghost out here?"

Jazz walked around to the side of the cabin and began to walk toward the bow. She paused for a second before she began running. "Danny!" she found Danny laying on his back at the bow of the boat and ran over to make sure he was ok. She stood over him with her looking down at his face to see if there was anything wrong. "Danny?" she suddenly felt a squirt of water hit her face, with Danny being the one spitting it at her face.

Once Danny finished spitting the water fountain at her face, he gave her a big cheeky smile. "Spa~zzy~ Ja~zzy~"

Jazz frowned at Danny as she wiped off the water he spat at her. She turned around and called out. "Mo~m! Danny spat at me~!" She ran back to where her parents were while pointing at Danny.

Danny got up and was about to run after her but paused when he saw his shuttle on the ground next to him. He picked it up and smiled as he held it in his hand but his smile became a frown when he saw that the "Apollo 11" sticker that was on the side of it was gone. "Aw." He then remembered that Jazz was about to tattle on him before he ran after her. "No, I didn't!"

Under the surface of the water was the figure watching for any sign of something going wrong. But when it heard the boy, "Danny" based on the first shout, shout after the female that called out for him, it knew that Danny was alright. Nodding, he turned around and swam away, with its tailfin propelling it deeper into the sea.

~seven years later~

Sam Manson, the goth ultra-recyclo vegetarian or as Danny calls it: "won't eat anything with a face on it", was sitting next to Tucker Foley, the techno-geek, waiting for things to end.

"Is he done yet?"

"No."

"...is he done yet?"

"...no!"

"...how about now?"

"Tucker, shut up and just wait! He should be done soon!"

Tucker slumped as he was bored just waiting for Danny. "But we've been here for hours~" Was he whine as he threw his head back.

Sam rolled her eyes as she looked at her watch. "Tucker, it's only been forty-five minutes. How is it that you can waste hours of your time staring at your PDA's screen but you can't sit here for even an hour watching this."

Tucker lifted his head as he gave her a dry look. "Because my baby is more entertaining than this."

Sam sighed as she just looked ahead and continued to wait.

*WHISTLE~* "Alright, you maggots, times up!" Ms. Tetslaff blew her whistle before calling out to the ones she was supervising. She watched as the students came out of the school pool before they grabbed their towels.

The last one out was Danny Fenton as he climbed up the ladder and grabbed a towel.

"Fenton!"

Danny turned to Ms. Tetslaff as she walked up to him. He saw her pull out her stopwatch and looked at the time on it.

Ms. Tetslaff narrowed her eyes at the time before nodding. "You've gotten better. Keep this up and you might become our number-one swimmer in a couple of years."

Danny didn't know if she was demeaning him or praising him. He already knew that he was the second fast swimmer on the school swim team but it wasn't like he was really aiming for it. "Um, thanks?"

Ms. Tetslaff nodded before she shouted to the rest of the swimmers. "Alright, you water ballerinas, hit the showers and head home!"

Danny draped his towel over his shoulders as he waved to his friends before he went to the locker rooms to change. When he was in the locker room, he was patted on the back by his fellow swimmers. He looked up and smiled at them since he was the smallest of the whole team. Despite that, he was respected by the rest of the team since he was the second-fastest swimmer, just behind the captain. Once Danny was finished getting dressed, he gave his goodbyes to the rest of the team and began to make his way to the main entrance where he knew his friends were.

"Fentonio!"

"Oh, man." Danny turned around to see an angry Dash Baxter. He didn't know why the football quarterback was mad but whatever it was, the blonde jock was going to take it out on him. He began running with the football player chasing him.

"Get back here, Fenturd! Imma take my fumble out on you and your hide!"

Danny groaned at Dash's excuse. "Why can't he just find a tree to take his anger out on." He thought about what he just said and groaned again. "But then Sam would take that out on me. Why do people like to take things out on me?" He continued to run away from the jock till he saw his chance to get away.

Coming up was a window that was left open and Danny smirked at the sight.

Once Danny was close enough, he bent his knees before he dove through the window. He rolled on the grass before getting up and running.

Dash poked his head out the window and shouted. "You can't get away from me, Fentoinail!"

Danny looked over his shoulder and smiled. "Well, at least I got away today." He looked back ahead to see his friends waiting at the entrance to the school. He stopped in front of them before putting his hands on his knees and panted. He held up a finger to tell them to give him a minute. "Sorry…. Dash…. Was mad about something."

Sam put her fists on her waist with a raised eyebrow. "What was he mad about this time?"

"He fumbled the football."

Tucker chuckled at that. "I would have loved to see his face when he dropped that."

Danny stood up straight and pulled out a water bottle from his backpack. He took a few gulps of the water before giving Tucker a dry look. "It looked pretty angry from what I saw." Once he felt better, he gestured for them to follow him. "Come on, you guys wanted to see the ghost portal that my parents said they were going to turn on today, right? We should head there 'cause I don't know how long they will wait since they are super excited about it."

The three began to make their way to the Fenton household to see the crown jewel of the Fenton adults.

The three teens made it to the Fenton household and paused when they saw Jack and Maddie Fenton walking out of the building.

Danny went up to them and asked. "Hey, guys, what's up?"

Maddie smiled sadly at Danny as she patted Jack on the back. "Well, your father got overexcited and decided to plug in the ghost portal. But when we did, it didn't turn on the way we wanted it to. Your father was so distraught that I am taking him to the store so he can get some fudge. You, kids, have the place to yourself for a bit since Jazz went to the library before we could even invite her."

Danny watched as his parents left, leaving him and his friends in front of the house. He looked at his friends and shrugged. "Wanna see the portal anyway?"

Sam shrugged with Tucker looking at his PDA, looking indifferent.

The three entered the household with the teens dropping their back on the couch before heading downstairs. When they made it to the basement lab, they saw what the Fenton parents were so excited about.

The frame of the ghost portal that framed a hole that was in the wall was a metal octagonal shape with a light on the top of it. Wires and conduits can be seen leading up to the frame with consoles on each side of the lab.

Sam and Tucker were in awe at the sight as they had never seen it before. After a few minutes of staring at it, Sam looked at Danny with a wide smile. "Hey, you should check it out."

Danny looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "Wait what?"

Sam moved over to him and slapped his shoulder. "Come on, think about it. You could see what's inside. Imagine the discovery you could make."

Danny rubbed his neck as he nervously looked at it. "What's there to discover? You heard my parents, they said it didn't work."

Sam brought her hands in a whatever gesture. "So? Just means that there's nothing to worry about. Check it out and see what's inside."

Danny looked to Tucker for his opinion, only to see the techno-geek just give a shrug. Danny sighed as he looked back at the ghost portal. He felt his curiosity get to him before a smile came to his face. "Eh, why not? Besides, a ghost portal sounds super cool." He thought about going inside before he looked down at himself and his normal clothes. He turned around and went over to a large locker and pulled out a white and black jumpsuit.

Tucker raised an eyebrow at that. "You have your own jumpsuit? I thought your parents were the only ones to wear those."

Danny moved behind a large piece of equipment and began to take off his clothes so he could put on the jumpsuit. "My parents made it for me in case I took up their ghost-hunting obsession and joined them in the lab." He finished putting on the jumpsuit and zipped it up as he walked out from behind the equipment.

Sam made a disgusted look as sh walked up to him. "Ok, there are a lot of things I can take but this-" she reached up and ripped of the grinning face sticker of Jack Fenton. "- is not one of them." she crumpled it up and threw it in the trash. "You walking around with that on your chest is just disturbing to imagine.

Danny had to agree. He didn't get why his dad wanted to put his face on everything and he was glad that his mother was able to convince the man to not do it for everything they made. But there were a few things that still did. Thankfully, the jumpsuit only had a sticker on it.

Danny walked up to the frame of the ghost portal and tried to look inside. He could only see a foot or two in with the light from the labe but any deeper was too dark to see.

Tucker called to his friend. "If you find any babes in there, let me know."

Danny rolled his eyes before he began to make his way inside. He went in slowly as he didn't want to trip on anything. He didn't know if there were wires or pipes or a part of it that jutted out.

"Find anything yet?"

Dany jumped at Sam's shout and turned to the entrance to shout back. "Yeah, I found out that you can't see anything in pitch darkness!" He continued to walk deeper in and pressed his hand on the wall so that he could at least know where the wall was. After a few more steps, he felt his hand press on something. He turned his head to what his hand had pressed and saw something light up. As he moved his hand, he saw it was a green light that lit up some words underneath it. He was able to read the word "on" before a flash of green light took up his vision and his entire body felt nothing but pain.

Sam and Tucker had to cover their eyes as the Ghost portal lit up in green light and a sound took up the whole room.

"AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH~"

Sam and Tucker would have called out to their friend but the pitch of Danny's scream caused them to clamp their hands over their ears

As Danny screamed his lungs out as his body was continuously bombarded with energy.

Inside his body, his molecules began to rearrange while green energy-like substances began to attach to his DNA. However, as it attached to his DNA strands, those very strands began to ripple, almost to the point that they were shredded. Yet before they could shred the green energy latched on and kept the strands intact. In doing this, the strands began to shift in color, from a pale coloration to a light blue that shimmered.

Within Danny's chest, the green energy began to take up the form of a spherical object that was barely the size of a marble. Once the shape was made, light blue energy began to encircle it before entering the orb.

As for Danny's body, the color of his blue eyes began to shift from baby blue to deeper blue. Portions of his skin began to harden before returning to normal skin, the side of his neck began to ripple, and his legs began to buckle as they lost strength holding him up. Suddenly those changes were brushed away as the color of his hair switched from black to snow white, and his jumpsuit's colors inverted. He shut his eyes as he tried to walk out of the portal he was in. He stepped out of the portal and held himself up by holding himself up by the frame of the portal.

Sam and Tucker finally pulled their hands away from their ears but the ringing still didn't leave for a few more seconds. They looked up and saw who they assumed to be Danny holding himself up on the side of the Ghost portal. They called out as they ran over to him. "Danny!"

Danny had a hand over his face till he heard his friends call him. He looked up from his hand and saw them running toward him.

His eyes were now a glowing neon green as some blue faded away to give way to the green. When they got to him, he fell to his knees and heaved in whatever air he could.

"Danny, are you ok?" Was Sam's question as she put her hand on his shoulder only to be startled at how it went through him. "Danny?"

Danny finally caught his breath and looked up at them. "What…. Happened?"

Tucker shook his head. "We don't know. The thing turned on and you screamed like crazy that it hurt my ears."

Sam punched Tucker n the shoulder before she looked at Danny. "Anyway, you should look at yourself in the mirror. You don't look like yourself anymore."

Danny tilted his head in confusion before he got up and moved to a sink that was in the far corner of the lab. Once he made it there, he looked into the mirror and was shocked to see the changes that happened to him. He gripped his hand and pulled it down to see that it was indeed white. "What the hell?!" He turned on the sink and splashed some water on his face, hoping that it would clear up his vision but when he looked again, he was still with white hair and an inverted jumpsuit. He splashed more water on his face a few more times but it didn't change. "What the hell happened to me?!" He then pressed his hand on the mirror and to his shock, when he put his weight on his arms, his arms fell through the wall and his face smacked onto the mirror. "Ow!" due to his position, he tried to stand back up but thanks to his constant splashing, the floor became wet and he slipped on it. Falling to the ground, he hit his head on the ground and held it in pain. "Ow!"

His friend ran over to him and helped him up by picking him up under his arms. But as they did this, his arms went through their hands and he fell to the ground again.

Sam thought about what he had just done and couldn't help but think. "Danny, I think I know what happened to you?" Seeing him give her his attention, she brought up her idea. "I think you became a ghost."

Danny immediately jumped up to his feet in shock. "Are you saying I'm dead!?" he gripped his hair as his mind thought about that till he remembered. "Oh man, if my parents find out about this, they are gonna rip me apart 'molecule by molecule'!" He took another step and slipped again on the water on the ground.

Tucker and Sam winced when they heard the loud crash Danny did.

Dany held his head once again as he continued to panic. "What am I gonna do?! Is there any way for me to become alive again!" Suddenly, a ring of white light appeared around his waist and ran across his body.

Once the light died down, Sam covered her eyes with a blush on her face as Danny was now in his underwear.

Dany looked down at himself to see that he was no longer in the jumpsuit and he pressed his hand on his body to feel his heart beating. "I'm Ali~ve!"

Sam grumbled at this. "Yeah, that's great, now put some clothes on."

Danny then realized that he was basically naked in front of his friend and ran over to behind the equipment he used to change and put on the clothes he left behind. Once he got dressed he rejoined his friends and was about to say something when they heard from upstairs.

"Ki~ds, we're back!"

The three teens began to panic and look around as if they had done something extremely wrong and were trying to find a way to cover it up.

Suddenly, the two Fenton adults came down with a bag of fudge in their hands and froze at the sight of the portal working.

Jack's frown turned into the biggest grin ever and he was suddenly bouncing up and down. "Maddie! It works! It works!" He hugged his wife as she hugged him back.

"I know, Jack! All our hard work finally paid off and we got the portal to work!"

The two adults continued to cheer till Jack let his wife down and snapped his fingers. "This calls for celebratory fudge!" He grabbed Maddie then ran up the stairs so they could go to the store again and get more fudge, this time for celebration purposes.

Danny was a little stunned by the whol thing his parents did and looked at the bags of fudge that they left on the ground.

Tucker asked. "Why didn't they just us the fudge they had already?"

Danny sighed as he rubbed his head. "That's just dad being dad."

~later~

Danny and his friends talked about what had happened to him for a bit before the two adults came back to celebrate the activation of the ghost portal. The teens didn't get to talk about it much but they decided to talk about it more later.

Now it was night and Danny really just wanted the day to end. He was now in his bathroom, which was connected to his bedroom.

His family, despite being seen as the town kooks were actually very wealthy. They had bought a building that had a bathroom in each of the bedrooms and with how they had been able to create their own power source, the only thing they need to worry about was the water bill.

Danny turned on the faucet and filled the tub with water. This was something he enjoyed doing to relax after something stressful happened. And being a teen meant that something stressful was always happening. He removed all of his clothing and stepped into the tub and enjoyed soaking his body in the water as his arm hung off the side. He closed his eyes and thought about what that portal did to him and how he was going to deal with it. He knew he still had those weird ghost powers since earlier his hand slipped through his glass, causing him to drop it to the ground. He sunk deeper into the water till his mouth was submerged and he blew some bubbles. His body felt more relaxed than before and could feel all the stress leave him.

He suddenly heard a splash and opened his eyes to a… bizarre sight. Poking out of the other side of the tub….. Was a large fin. He stared at it for a second before. "Whaa~?"

~far under the ocean surface~

A figure stopped swimming through the deepest waters and looked up to the surface. It felt a small spark resurface, one that it hadn't felt in years.

A smile could be seen appearing on the figure's face before it swam in the direction it was heading before with more excitement.

End of chapter

Here is my own spin on the Mer-Danny trope. Normally from what I have read before, Mer-Danny fics tend to have him be a hidden mermaid from parents that hunt for them or he was born as one with his parents being mermaids too. I felt like combining the mer-danny aspect with the original ghost-hunting theme.

As such, he still has his ghost powers but now he has more. More will be explained in future chapters so I hope you look forward to it.

What color should Danny's tail be?

Now, the reason I didn't give a description of the one that saved Danny was that I was unsure of what the figure would look like. I am going to make the figure female but there was one thing I didn't know if I should do or not. I had the idea of having this be a crossover with "The Little Mermaid" which would save me the trouble of coming up with a design for the mer-character but that also limits what I can do with future interactions. Let me know if you think I should make it that crossover or not.

Also, the last thing I want to bring up was that I am thinking of the possibility of expanding the world of the supernatural. Not just mermaids but other mythical creatures as well. Centaurs, harpies, dryads, and other such creatures. Again, let me know in a review if I should go this route or not. Your opinion here does affect how the story will go. Please and thank you.

Also, I want to say this upfront. Sam will NOT be a pairing choice. In fact, I am not sure if Sam and Tucker will be prominent in the majority of the story. In canon, they have a lot of problems to their character. Sam is a girl that can be overbearing and tend to push her ideals a bit too hard. Tucker is extremely self-centered and only seems to have his own benefit in mind in almost everything he does.

We will see how this story's future will be

Also, if you have a better suggestion for the fics name, I wouldn't mind if you put it in a review (coming up with names for the fic is something I still struggle with)

Flames will be ignored.

Criticism is accepted

Ideas are taken into account and considered

Positive reviews are appreciated

Favs and Follows are motivation

And your enjoyment in reading this is the goal

So please Read, Favorite, follow, and review