Danny sighed as he entered the house, as he slipped in the door he could hear his parents ranting again about "putrid protoplasm", and "post human consciousness." Danny rolled his eyes and slouched as he went to sit with Jazz in the kitchen. Of course his parents were pissed, Phantom had once again evaded them. Danny had waited a full half hour before attempting to fly even a little close to the house and de-transform in an alley, electing to walk the last few blocks home.
"I take it Phantom gave them the slip again?" Jazz asked sympathetically. Danny nodded and slumped forward on the table, his head colliding with the table in his exhaustion. It made a soft thump sound but Danny didn't even flinch.
"Took nearly an hour to ditch them… then another half hour to make sure the coast was clear... But yes." Danny gave Jazz a weak smile, looking up from the table, his cheek still pressed against the cool vinyl, "In the meantime I got to spend the rest of my night hunting down Technus, ghost master of all things 'hip' and outdated." Danny sighed, his eyes drifting closed, but his head still resting on the table as if it weighed a ton.
Jazz sighed, she loved her parents and all but at times like this she just wanted to ram their skulls together. They didn't even think about how their obsession hurt their children, that was disregarding the whole Danny is half ghost thing. Even if Danny wasn't half ghost and their parents didn't regularly scream about tearing him apart "molecule by molecule" they weren't exactly the most attentive. Jazz knew that they loved them, but she also realized that they could be quite neglectful.
Danny groaned loudly as he got up from the table he stretched, his body seeming to creak with the effort, or perhaps Jazz was imagining that.
"I need to grab some equipment." he mumbled before wandering in the direction of the stairs and pausing at the bottom. Jack and Maddie were still cursing Phantom and Danny swayed a moment with exhaustion, both mental and physical. After staring at the stairs a good minute he forced himself to go up. Jazz watched from the kitchen doorway before glaring at her parents. Of course Danny wouldn't complain or do anything to stop the ghosts such as demolishing the Fenton Portal, even if it was the source of his trouble she knew he wouldn't do something that would upset their parents.
Jazz frowned, getting a little emotional as she thought about her brother up at night, bandaging himself in the bedroom, the way he flinched when their parents moved to fast, the way the dark circles under his eyes seemed to have become permanent in the last year. Her protective older sister instinct over rode her sensibility and she snapped turning to her parents and yelling.
"Can't you two ever stop to think! You say all ghosts are evil, that they have no emotion, and then you toss around things like post-human consciousness, post-HUMAN! If ghosts were once human, what about dying automatically makes them evil? If they were human once why can't they still be recognized as an intelligent form of humanity, Ecto-Americans! Even if it seems a long way off to give ghosts citizenship… still, how do you really know that they don't have a proper consciousness and sentience!?" Jazz demanded, folding her arms angrily as he sharp gaze pierced them, then without leaving her parents a chance to argue the point Jazz flipped her long orange hair over her shoulder and left her parents behind speechless.
Jazz headed up the stairs to check on Danny, as she reached the door Jazz hesitantly knocked. When there was no answer Jazz let herself in to find Danny collapsed on the bed snoring, he hadn't even bothered to take off his shoes and Jazz sighed pushing the door open fully, though with a little more force than she intended. The door hit the wall with a thud and Danny jolted awake, his hand clenching into fists as he prepared for a fight. It took a few seconds before he noticed Jazz, his face screwed up in thought as he tried to form words, clearly not completely conscious yet.
"I... I was just resting my eyes." Danny lied with a small blush as he rubbed the back of his neck. He didn't want to let Jazz know how tired he actually was, she would try to psychoanalyze him, or worse, force him to sleep when he had a job to do.
"Come on Danny, you need rest." Jazz said predictably , her face was filled with concern as she moved forward and put a hand on his shoulder. "I know I can't make you stay but… please at least get a few hours of sleep before you head out again."
"No... I have a technophiliac running around with another half baked plan to take over the world with technology and make us all his slaves blah, blah, blah. I can't rest." Danny shook his head, trying to convince himself as well.
"Please Danny." Jazz begged, Danny shook his head, pulling away and transforming into his alter ego with a flash of light, floating a few feet off the ground as Jazz sighed.
"Besides, ghosts don't NEED sleep." Danny flashed a grin then turned and flew into a wall forgetting to go intangible and twirling around before proceeding to fall onto the ground face up. He raised a gloved hand as if pointing at the ceiling, his eyes closed. "Though sleep definitely helps." Danny grumbled before changing back into his human form unexpectedly. "I... Uh meant to do that." he informed his sister half-heartedly.
"I'm so convinced." Jazz replied, rolling her eyes.
"Hey I'll be fine." Danny yawned, stretching and standing up once more. "Besides, I can't lose any time when it comes to putting Technus back in the Ghost Zone."
"You need to get some rest, you're like the walking dead." Jazz scolded. Danny burst out laughing at this comment, causing Jazz to blush when she realized what exactly she had said.
"You know what I meant, don't be so morbid." Jazz glared. Danny shot some finger guns in her direction.
"Whatever you say Jazz." He teased, causing Jazz to roll her eyes at his antics.
"You're so immature, I can't believe the fate and safety of this town is in your hands." Jazz teased. Danny folded his arms defiantly and stuck his tongue out, proving Jazz's point about his maturity.
"That's not entirely true, it's in Sam and Tucker's hands too." Danny argued.
"Exactly, Tucker stuck a fry up his nose the last time I saw him." Jazz grimaced, thinking about how his friends were often not much more mature than him.
"Excuse me, but that was on a dare." Danny argued in Tucker's defense.
"And who dared him to do it?" Jazz pressed.
"Sam." Danny stated as-matter-of-fact-ly.
"I rest my case." Jazz folded her arms, "None of you are mature." Danny rolled his eyes.
"Excuse me but Tucker could hack government files with only a PDA, that's not counting what he could do with a computer. And Sam can pull information on the occult, or practically anything, faster than you could blink, she's wicked smart when it comes to figuring out new enemies and their weaknesses. We are a solid team." Danny insisted in defense of his friend. "Plus… I'm kinda the only one with super powers." Danny pointed out, Jazz conceded the point, but still was unwilling to be wrong.
"That doesn't change the fact you need rest." She continued staring down at her younger brother who just shrugged.
"I'll rest when I'm dead." Danny joked with a mischievous smile.
"Danny-" Jazz started but was cut off by Danny's signature battle cry.
"Goin' ghost." He smiled winking at Jazz as two rings of brilliant white light formed moving over his body; black hair were replaced with white, deep blue eyes were replaced with a glowing green, and his street clothes shifted to a black and white HAZMAT jumpsuit. A stylized DP on his chest. In the beginning using the phrase helped him focus his energy better into shifting forms, these days it was more second nature, but the battle cry had become a habit.
Danny suppressed a yawn as he floated upward, he gave an encouraging smile to his sister then waved and floated through the wall before taking off into the night. He had a techno-villain to to catch after all.
Unbeknownst to the Fenton children, downstairs Maddie had come to a sudden and yet simple idea: a human could become a ghost, so shouldn't it be possible to reverse the process?
Maddie suddenly had formulas and theories running through her head as she contemplated this new discovery all triggered because of Jazz's angry comments. If a ghost was indeed post human consciousness it had therefore been human at one time. It therefore stood to reason that they could create a chemical reaction and reverse the death process. If a ghost had a strong enough will to have human form, to have an id and ego, then they simply needed to figure out a way to convert ectoplasm to flesh and blood. Maddie set to work immediately working out an answer and locking herself in the basement with Jack, the two excitedly discussing theories and possibilities and planning experiments.
Danny flew home after having defeated Technus. It was easy enough to pull him into the thermos once Tucker had deactivated the high tech suit Technus had made for himself. He took the time to calculate how much time he had left to sleep before he needed to be up for school, provided he didn't have any more ghostly interruptions, he could get a solid four hours in.
Danny phased through his wall and landed in a heap on his bed changing back to the human and very exhausted Danny Fenton the minute his body touched his bed. As he lay on the cool sheets, and his eyes closed, Danny let the thermos fall from his grip where it rolled and came to a stop beneath his bed, upsetting the technology master contained within.
A soft snore came up from his mouth and the young Halfa fell asleep almost instantly. Jazz peeked into Danny's room for what felt to her like the billionth time that night. Finding him asleep this time, home safe and in bed, Jazz smiled before creeping into the room. She eased Danny's shoes off, tucking him under the covers and brushing his hair from his face, worry still in her eyes. Jazz picked up the thermos gingerly from under the bed and headed to the door, pausing as she looked back at Danny once more.
"I'm proud of you little brother… but… I really wish you didn't have so much on your shoulders." she said softly before leaving. Danny let out a deep sigh and snuggled deeper into his covers, so far his sleep was dreamless, which was an improvement over his usual nightmares.
Jazz snuck downstairs, her parents having finally gone to bed for the night. She emptied the thermos into the ghost zone and returned it to Danny's room stopping to kiss her younger brother on the forehead as he slept before going to her own room to sleep. It wasn't long before the whole Fenton family was sleeping away. Danny in dreamless sleep, Jazz dreaming of college applications, and Maddie dreaming of the theories and ways she could "help" ghosts. Each of them unaware of the turbulent times to come.
A young looking ghost in a purple cloak watched the scene silently, the large clock face was more of a viewing screen and the Fentons, specifically Danny slept on the surface before the scene changed to that of the Fenton lab and an experiment.
The glowing ectoplasm began to wobble and spark before turning into the dark red of blood. A woman in a blue jumpsuit threw her arms around the figure of a huge orange jump-suited man.
Once more the scene changed to that of a boy, his eyes, a deep emerald green were wide with fear. The boy to whom those eyes belonged had backed up against a wall, loose white shirt stained with gruesome red color.
The scene changed again, this time to a grave, the words Danny Phantom chipped into the stone. The same emerald eyed boy was laying flowers on the grave, eyes no longer just a deep human emerald but a glowing acid green. The purple cloaked ghost grew ages in a split second, a long white beard appearing as he turned away from the spying glass.
"Everything is as it should be."