Danny shifted nervously from foot to foot as he stood behind stage. The school auditorium. That was always fun. So many bad things had come of the auditorium. Danny shiver. Maddie would be on stage soon, announcing to the world her big achievement. Everyone was on the edge of their seats, Danny chewed his nails. Maddie came around the corner in a teal dress. It was professional, giving a no nonsense look, while simultaneously achieving the effect of being elegant. Jack was behind her looking rather uncomfortable in a black suit with an orange shirt.
"Here, let me fix that." Maddie busied herself over Danny's tie, which, due to his nervousness, had been tied backwards. Maddie continued fussing over Danny's appearance, slicking back a stray hair with the universal solvent/gel, mom spit. Danny made a face and tried to slip out of her grip, but her hand was strong and un-wavering.
"Ready?' Maddie asked looking him in the eye.
"No." Danny snorted.
"Well, that will have to do anyway." Maddie took a deep breath and entered the stage, Jack close behind her.
"Greetings Amity Park. It is with great news that we have assembled you here tonight. You may have noticed something missing from our town, a lack of a key element that makes Amity Park famous as the Most Haunted Place on Earth. But tonight my husband, Jack Fenton, and I would like to share with you one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs since black holes. Reanimation! Now typically one would think of reanimation and jump to Frankenstein movies, with the infamous monster of Dr. Victor Frankenstein, and while entertaining, these movies are ludicrous." Maddie took a deep breath.
"Behind this curtain lies the results of our success, but first, some important back ground knowledge. Ghosts as we know them are the post-human remnants of…"
Maddie's voice trailed off as Danny tuned her out, playing with his hands and trying to stop his heart from pounding so loudly. He felt the blood rush to his head and began feeling a bit woozy.
"Hey, you alright?"
Danny shook his head and looked for the source of the voice. Tucker and Sam stood there, Sam holding a glass of water and Tucker holding some ibuprofen. Danny's face lit up.
"Man am I glad to see you two." He wrapped them both in a large hug.
"Water! Danny I'm holding water!" Sam reminded and he quickly let them go.
"You can't imagine what it's been like." Danny sighed. Tucker handed over the ibuprofen as Sam handed him the glass of water.
"Nor can you imagine what it's been like with you gone. I actually went shopping with my mom due to boredom." Sam joked. Tucker nodded.
"Unfortunately with you gone, Dash has picked me as his new favorite punching bag." Tucker admitted, "nothing I can't handle of course, but still, I miss you dude." He cracked a smile. Danny's jaw clenched.
"I can't believe him." Danny hissed.
"Danny calm down." Sam insisted.
"You have bigger things to worry about right now." Tucker reminded. Danny conceded the point and finally popped the ibuprofen into his mouth before downing the glass of water.
"Random observation, but I don't think I've ever seen you with your hair slicked back." Tucker cracked a grin.
"You kinda remind me of Jack." Sam added. Danny choked on his water.
"My father? How?" Danny managed to cough out.
"No, Jack Dawson, you know Titanic? When he had his hair all slicked back at the party." Sam clarified, Danny continued coughing.
"Didn't know you were into chick flicks Sam." Tucker raised an eyebrow. Sam punched him in the arm.
"Shut up Tucker, I don't make fun of you for crying during it." Sam glared. Tucker rubbed his arm.
"Point, painfully, taken." He moaned as Danny took a deep breath.
"I really appreciate *cough* you guys sneaking back *cough* here like this." Danny sputtered.
"Dude, that's what friends do." Tucker stated Sam nodded in agreement. Maddie's speech continued to drone in the background, Jack adding bits and pieces as they went along.
"Any idea what's gonna happen after this?" Sam asked. Danny nodded.
"I'll be attending Casper High, for the time being, I'm staying with my parents, for research purposes. They've put me in the Guest room, I've got a separate set of clothes, a new toothbrush, deodorant, underwear, everything. It's insane." Danny sighed, "Everything is the same yet different, I can't go to my room, Dad keeps giving me looks like I'm about to destroy them all, Mom thinks I'm going to destabilize at any minute… Which honestly is not that comforting of a thought." Danny ran his hand along the back of his neck, "I would go to the ghost zone and confront Clockwork, but the problem is my parents put the portal on lock down until further notice. My DNA signature doesn't completely match my old one, I mean it's close, but the scaner just ends up confused and it's not pretty."
"Sounds rough." Tucker sympathized.
"On the bright side we'll be seeing a lot more of you." Sam tried to smile.
"Yeah, but I'm a missing person in my own home. I'm surprised mom hasn't made a gadget to hunt Fenton down yet. Or perhaps she has and it can't find me because I'm not exactly me… UGH this is a disaster." Danny growled.
"I'm surprised you haven't gone crazy yet." Tucker remarked, earning an elbow to the stomach from Sam.
"If I thought about it the whole time, I would have, I've just been avoiding the whole topic really. Trying not to think about it, it's worked fairly well so far." Danny sighed. Jazz wandered up to the trio.
"Hey Sam, Hey Tucker… How'd you get back here, I thought there were guards to keep that from happening." Jazz wondered.
"Jeez Jazz, don't sound so happy to see us." Sam frowned. Jazz rolled her eyes; she too was wearing a nice dress.
"Of course I'm happy to see you, that doesn't make the fact that you're here right now less interesting." Jazz replied offhandedly.
"Bribed the Guard." Sam admitted.
"There that wasn't so hard, Danny, Mom is building up to her big climax here soon, so Sam and Tucker should probably head out if they don't want to get caught." Jazz advised. Danny nodded and then turned to Sam and Tucker.
"I have to go soon." He sheepishly admitted.
"We are here you know, we did hear everything Jazz said." Sam teased.
"I think I'll record you, just incase you say anything embarrassing I can use for black mail later." Tucker joked receiving a chuckle from Danny and a gaging noise from Sam.
"But enough about science… Presenting to you…" Maddie's voice drifted over their conversation.
"Good luck." Tucker nodded as they two shuffled away.
Danny stepped trough the curtain. The entire room went silent.
"Danny Phantom." Maddie finished hand held out to Danny.
The shocked silence continued.
"Uh… hi." Danny managed. There was silence for a few more seconds, before people realized what this meant. Suddenly clapping erupted, there seemed to be a lot of flashing lights all of a sudden and Danny blinked, his mind felt disconnected from his body as he moved slowly toward his mother.
"Questions?" Maddie prompted. Danny felt like there were a million hands in the audience. The first fourteen or so questions were actually directed toward his mother and father, asking about the science, so Danny was surprised when his mom nudged him.
"Sorry what?" Danny tried to focus on the person holding the microphone through the blinding stage lights.
"Who is going to protect us from the ghosts now?" Danny could tell it was a male, probably high school age. Danny blinked.
"Um… well… there is the Red Huntress… uh… the Guys in White… the Fentons… I guess…" Danny shuffled awkwardly on stage.
"Who were your parents before you died? Are the Fentons your parents now?" Came another voice, they ignored the microphone and opted to shout instead.
"I… uh… I'm not sure I feel comfortable answering that… the Fentons have taken me in, but I wouldn't say they view themselves as my parents." Danny chose his words carefully. The microphone squeaked causing the room to wince. Another person with question.
"What was it like being dead?" another person asked.
"Uh… I don't know… I guess… cold. It was strange, the world looked different, but the same, I had this feeling of being disconnected from the world… yet I was still apart of it. I don't know how to describe it." Danny rubbed the back of his neck.
"Can you show us your powers?" came another inquiry.
"I… I'm human now, I don't have powers, I'm not a ghost." Danny frowned wondering how people could be so stupid. It seemed now that one person had dared to ask him a question, the rest decided to follow.
"How did you die?" This question was the one Danny had actually been expecting.
"Electrocution." He responded simply, "I made the mistake of being electrocuted." Danny added some snark to this reply.
"How can we know for sure you are Danny Phantom?" came a pessimistic voice.
"I suppose you only have my word, or the word of the Fentons." Danny shrugged. This grilling session continued for a few more minutes, some more mundane questions asked, like his favorite colour, how being human felt, if he was single. The torture continued, Danny could feel his skin growing hot under the lights and the attention and the pressure. Eventually his mom saved him by redirecting the conference to plans for the future and wrapping up with a nice speech while Danny sat off to the side. After this, a long parade of people came by shaking his hand, Danny was sure Dash and Kwan had passed, Paulina tried to kiss him, to which Danny responded to mechanically, ecto-scientists ask for a sample of his blood or his hair, to which Maddie shoed them off, saying that Danny wasn't to be experimented upon; a fact which Danny found immensely ironic.
Soon the hub-bub died down, Danny vaguely remembered the trip home and found himself in the guest room getting dressed for bed. As he slipped into pajamas and lay on the bed staring at the unfamiliar ceiling Jazz walked into the room.
"Hey… how are you holding up little brother?" Jazz took a seat next to Danny lying back to look at the ceiling as well. Danny was quiet a moment as he stared at the paint patterns above him.
"Life sucks." He managed. It was Jazz's turn to be silent. The two lay on the bed for a while longer the motion-activated porch light outside went on casting an orange glow into the room.
"You start school tomorrow?" Jazz stated it more as a question that anything else. Danny sighed.
"I know." He sat up and stared out the window. "It's times like this when I would go flying to clear my head, to make sense of everything, to escape the confines of my room and…" Danny choked up, "I miss it. There have been times when I've wanted nothing more than to be human again… fully and truly human. I've got that now… but it's messed everything up. This isn't how I wanted it to go, this isn't what I wanted. I'm just so frustrated with everything." Danny shoved off the bed and began pacing, "I feel like I've been stuffed into a box, I want to scream or maybe cry and I can't… I can't do anything about my situation." The frustration on his face was evident, Jazz sat up with a heavy sigh.
"I don't know what to say Danny." Jazz couldn't offer anything to make the situation any better. Danny gave a mirthless laugh.
"Well it's not often you're found speechless." He commented with an attempt to grin, which faltered horribly.
"Try and get some sleep, you've got a long day ahead of you." Jazz stood and made for the door.
"Yeah, I know." Danny continued pacing as Jazz left. He glanced around the room, familiar and yet alien. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat, tried to make sense of anything. He was struck with a sudden idea, he could re-create the portal incident. The idea festered in his mind, he gave a small manic grin at the thought, and it would be easy right? Danny shook his head realizing that it may not work, nor did he know if he'd be able to exactly recreate the accident, never mind that it would probably just reverse the appearance of his human and ghost halves. Danny sighed sitting on the bed once more. He swung his legs aimlessly, he couldn't think, couldn't be still. Anger bubbled up inside him again and he returned to pacing the floor. There was a soft knock on the door before Maddie entered the room.
"I brought you some sleeping pills, I figured you'd need them." She held two small blue pills in one hand, and a glass of water in the other. Danny took them gratefully. Giving him drugs seemed to be the going rate of comfort these days, he thought grimly as he washed the pills down with water. Maddie parted in silence and Danny returned to the pacing. A million thoughts raced through his head, most of which he couldn't pin down. His brain never lingered on one subject for more then a second or two before another one popped up. School, parents, ghosts, Clockwork, Lancer, experiments, lots of painful experiments, the portal, his foolishness for being on the roof, anger, ghost attacks, dogs, Dash, Paulina, Sam, healing rate, homework… each new thought tormenting him.
Eventually he slowed his pacing yawning and laying down on the bed. His brain was still racing, yet somehow he found himself falling asleep, it was slow at first, his eyes refusing to stay open until he found himself walking down an endless winding path.
The tiles were a glowing purple colour, and the path itself seemed to be immune to the laws of gravity, it turned and twisted and corkscrewed and plummeted, but Danny continued walking on the path.
The rest of the terrain didn't exist, for miles around there was only blackness, the only light seemed to emit from the bricks themselves. Occasionally Danny thought he could make out a door at the end of the path. For some reason he felt as if he reached the end and made it through that door, then everything would turn out ok.
Prompted by this thought Danny began to run toward the door, but it continued to be perilously out of reach. The path began breaking up under his feet prompting Danny to run faster and faster till he was gasping for breath. The breakdown of the glowing stones was faster still than he was and Danny soon found himself slipping from stone to stone falling into nothing. His heart was racing, he continued falling, faster and faster.
Below him he could see fragments of purple stone hitting a reflective surface, as he stared downward he saw himself come into view. Black hair and blue eyes greeted him, but this did not cause any sense of relief, his own reflection grew quickly until he hit the surface shattering it. His whole body hurt, everything was dark, there was a shrill noise reminding him to do something, reminding him of something important, something was wrapped around his abdomen dragging him down, making it hard to breathe. The shrill ringing continued growing louder and closer and the ability to breathe became harder until at last Danny was aware that he was hanging upside down from the bed, the blankets wrapped around his body the only thing that kept him from falling off completely. The lilac rug was inches from his eyeballs, his forehead firmly planted in the ground. The shrill ringing was his alarm clock.
Disentangling himself from the bedding Danny managed to make it to the ground, where he gathered deep breaths of admittedly dusty air. The sun was barely over the horizon, the smell of eggs and bacon wafted into the room from downstairs. Danny took hauled himself to his feet becoming aware that he was shaking badly, his trembling hands took three attempts to turn the alarm off; eventually succeeding. He made his way out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom, the wall lending it's support in his plight. He gripped the rim of the sink as he stared into the mirror. Nothing had changed; he was still stuck as a human Phantom.
Slowly he splashed cold water on his face as if it would wrestle is shaking limbs under control.
After about a minute or so his hands regained their steadiness. He looked back into the mirror, strands of white hair were plastered to his forehead, humanly green eyes stared back at him. Danny turned away from the mirror and made his way back to the guest room, taking his time getting dressed and grabbing his new backpack before heading downstairs.
His stomach gave out a large growl as the smell of breakfast assaulted his senses. Maddie gave him a smile and gestured to a plate.
As Danny took a seat Maddie scrapped the last of the eggs onto a separate plate and sat down with a mug of coffee across from him.
"We'll have to leave in about 20 minutes or so, wouldn't want you to miss your first day of school." Maddie was disgustingly cheerful for so early in the morning. Danny swallowed some egg.
"That truly would be a tragedy." Danny sneered, his words dripping with sarcasm. Maddie rolled her eyes as he finished up his breakfast.
Jack joined them shortly, practically inhaling what must have been half-dozen eggs and at least eight pieces of bacon. Danny finished shortly after; there was still about five minutes before they had to leave.
Maddie nursed her coffee as Jack went into a rant about ghosts, which Danny was mostly ignoring. Time seemed to drag, but eventually Maddie ushered Danny into the Ghost Assault Vehicle and they made their way to Casper High.
As they pulled up Danny took a breath, pulled his hood over his head and made his way into the school.
There was a quick stop at the office to pick up his schedule and a tour from, what Danny judged as an overly friendly Senior, who used the word awesome more that should be legal.
Eventually the bell rang and he was left to attend his first class, surprised when he actually arrived a bit early.
Lancer.
There were maybe three other people in the room. Truthfully Danny was a bit peeved Sam and Tucker hadn't met him already. He took his usual seat leaving his hood up and dropping his bag by his foot.
More students shuffled in, Danny did his best to look inconspicuous, but he still received some strange looks and hushed awe. Lancer looked up from his book noticing Danny for the first time.
"Mr. Fenton, remove your hood." Lancer used his "teacher" voice. Danny hesitated, and Lancer gave him a look. Shaking Danny pulled the hood down, Lancer's face was almost enough to make him laugh, that is if he wasn't so scared.
He tried to reason with himself, that he didn't have anything to be afraid of, that he'd fought worse, been through worse, seen the horrors of Pandora's box, fought the ghost king Pariah Dark, looked into the face of pure evil. Yet nothing stopped him from shaking. Lancer cleared his throat.
"My apologies… Phantom… you're occupying the spot that young Mr. Fenton generally does. It slipped my mind for a moment that he was missing." Lancer nodded, "You're going to be a bit behind on material, see me after class about some tutoring and extra credit opportunities."
"Yes Mr. Lancer." Danny responded automatically. The rest of the period was spent with people staring at him and talking behind their hands. As soon as the bell rang Danny pulled up the hood again, making his way to Mr. Lancer's desk. The English teacher droned on, Danny's eyes began to glaze over when suddenly he was brought back to reality by Lancer's hand on his shoulder. He looked up at the English teacher.
"Is there something wrong?" He looked genuinely concerned. Danny swallowed hard, something he seemed to be doing a lot lately.
"Everything." Danny managed turning to leave before Lancer could say anything in response. Danny made his way through the halls, whispers following him, until he found his locker. His locker wouldn't open, no matter how carefully or violently he twisted the dial.
"There's a trick to it." Came a voice from his right.
Sam.
A smile spread across his face as Sam opened the locker for him.
"How are you?" Danny asked. Sam shrugged.
"Better than you from the looks of it." Sam responded, then glanced around noticing they were attracting attention. She stuck her hand out, "Sam Manson, Ultra-recyclo-vegetarian, and Casper High's resident freak." She introduced, her voice playful. Danny chuckled.
"Danny Phantom, Ex- ghost and former Public Enemy Number 1." Danny took her hand shaking it briefly. Rather than strange looks, Sam was now attracting glares. Danny placed some books in the locker and retrieved some others debating on leaving his backpack in the locker or taking it to class again. Sam continued to hover by the locker.
"What's your schedule like?" She asked, rather than waiting for him to answer though she took it from him peering over it, "You have technology with Tucker, History with both of us, ooh, Gym too, that'll be fun. Seems like you and I have Drama together too." Sam smiled. Danny found himself relaxing as he closed his locker.
"Not a bad schedule then." He smiled. Sam laughed.
"Well, given the fact that it's a high school schedule, I'd say you got off easy." She smiled. Tucker wandered up to them head and hat dripping onto his shirt.
"Sorry man, I got caught up in the toilet." He grumbled. Danny felt his hands clench into fists.
"Dash?" He assumed. Tucker nodded and pulled a towel from his bag.
"Though I must say it's a relief he used a clean toilet this time." Tucker quipped as he toweled off.
The fact that Tucker was keeping a towel in his bag said to Danny that this was an everyday occurrence, and this made him that much angrier. He found himself grinding his teeth. The warning bell rang and he looked at his friends.
"I'm going to fix this ok." He promised. They nodded having faith in him, even if it seemed impossible.
The trio split up each heading for their separate classes.
Math.
Danny grimaced at the door; inside Kwan and Dash were passing a football back and forth across the classroom, Star seemed to be doing her nails. Mikey was bent over finishing up homework at the last minute, though Danny had no doubt that it wasn't his own homework. Mr. Falluca had yet to arrive. Danny tried to slip in unnoticed. It seemed to work until he tripped over his own feet and went flying into a nearby desk.
He felt his face heat up as all eyes were on him, he wished he could just sink through the ground and never come back up. Dash stood over him, Danny winced as he stuck his hand out. It took him half a second to realize Dash was offering him help up. Danny gratefully took the hand as he was hauled to his feet.
"Thanks." Danny muttered. Dash nodded and tried to find his tongue.
"Dash… Dash Baxter, huge fan." He stammered out. Danny gave a tight smile.
"Uh… yeah, I remember." Came his response. Dash turned bright red.
"You remember?" Dash looked as if the gods had named him the chosen one.
"Kinda hard to forget running through the Fentons house while smaller the mice." Danny quipped. Dash broke into a huge grin.
"I knew it was you, a lot of people didn't believe that it really was you, but you remembered." Dash bobbed his head up and down, Danny came to realize he was giving him the bro-nod-of-approval.™
"Yeah… thanks… I think." Danny tried to take a seat across the room but he suddenly found his body being guided by a large hand on the shoulder. A few moments later he found himself sitting between Dash and Kwan as class began. Mr. Falluca looked over his glasses in an attempt to call roll. Things progressed as usual until he got to Danny's name, gave an excited squeak, then disappeared behind his desk. Danny turned red, the entire class laughing as Mr. Falluca appeared moments later to resume class.
Even if Danny had wanted to learn anything about Polynomials, and vectors, and proofs, it wouldn't have been possible from his vantage point.
Dash and Kwan flanked both his eyes, talking excitedly and asking him question. Star was adopting a similar manner, save for the fact that she had draped her self seductively over the back of her desk and Danny was having a hard time not looking down her shirt. Questions varied between, how did you die, to what's your favorite band and would you consider joining the football team and back again to do you want to go to prom with me? Danny wasn't sure who asked the last question, but he was hoping it was Star, given that he didn't want to go to prom with either of his former tormentors. Then again, he didn't really want to go to prom with Star either. Still he said he wasn't planning on going to prom and that if he did he'd consider it: an answer, which did nothing to satisfy anyone.
Feeling emotionally exhausted Danny left math and began the long trek to History. As he entered he made a beeline for Tucker and Sam, who both gave him wide grins as he sat down.
"I swear if I have to do this everyday for the rest of my life I will go insane." Danny slouched in the seat with a sigh.
"Can't be that bad." Tucker reasoned. Danny glared at him from under his hood, "Well at least things can't get any wo-"
"NOOOO!" Both Danny and Sam yelled at the same time.
"You nearly tempted fate! Don't be so careless." Sam glared.
"We all know that things can always get worse." Danny added. Tucker held his hands up in surrender.
"I know, I'm sorry. I made a mistake." Tucker slowly lowered his hands. Lancer entered the room.
"Hood." He spoke as he began writing on the board. Danny obliged, lowering the hood, those who hadn't noticed who he was began whispering to one another, those who had noticed, whispered harder. Lancer turned away from the board the class restless and rowdy.
"Calm down people!" Lancer instructed, "We already knew that Mr. Phantom would be joining us today. No need to cause such a fuss. He's just like anyone else, and I expect you to treat him as such, which predominantly means, no bothering him while you're in this class room." Lancer's words had quieted the room, "Now, we left off last class talking about early Christianity in the middle ages. Does anyone remember what the clergy began wielding once the king banned holy men from carrying swords?"
It was dark, hard to see anything, his arm was still bleeding and it seemed as if this may be the end.
"Sam?" He called into the darkness, the rope tying the two of them together had long since broken, the other end where Tucker was tethered disappeared into darkness, seeming to stretch for an infinity. This had been a bad idea, it had always been a bad idea. He recalled the desperation that led him to this fate.
There was laughter in the distance, something darker than their surroundings lurked within. There was a loud scream.
The rope went slack.
He was all alone now, facing whatever lurked in the darkness.
Red eyes watched this all unfold, offering no visible help or guidance. A sigh escaped the spirit.
"Your Time is up Phatom."
That's all for now folks. I hope to begin updating more regularly, but we shall see. It's been kind of hard integrating Phantom into common society. Hopefully I'll be able to get over this stage soon and progress to the next one. We have a lot of ground to cover before the ends of this story.
Thank you everyone who reviewed, favorite, followed, etc. this story. It means a lot. Especially when I see reviews a year later. It keeps me motivated though it may not seem like it at times.