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Disclaimer: I do not own "Danny Phantom"
Kites rise highest against the wind -- not with it. Sir Winston Churchill
The day Danny disappeared, nobody said anything. There were a few phone calls, some minor
lies, and the normal vague answers from Sam and Tucker. And, to be completely honest, Maddie
and Jack were too wrapped up in their newest experiment to really notice. They had just gotten
back from testing a new ecto weapon and had collected some very interesting information
about the local ghosts.
"Yeah, I just talked to him." Sam said. They went to Tucker's house and rang the doorbell. Tucker
answered.
"Tucker, have you seen Danny?" Jack asked.
"He just left."
"If he comes back, tell him we're worried and we're sorry for whatever we did."
"I'll relay the message when I see him. Although, he should be home soon."
The next day, they went back to Sam's. Sam answered the door.
"He's spending the night with Tucker, I think."
When he didn't show up for school the next day, people started getting worried. Sam and Tucker
quietly whispered denials that they knew where he was and were very fuzzy about when they'd
seen him last. Maybe lunch, they thought.
"Sam said he spent the night with you, Tucker." Jack said.
"No, he didn't spend the night, I thought he went home."
"I haven't heard from him today." Jazz and Sarah said when Maddie asked them.
"I'll try calling him, though. Mom." Jazz said.
"Maybe he'll come home soon." Sarah said, helpfully.
By the time school let out, Danny's parents were a bit frantic and Sam and Tucker were looking
nervous. Where could he be? Phone calls were made, people talked to, houses searched.
"I haven't seen him." Kwan said, not wanting to let the frantic parents know that he didn't care.
"I don't know where he is." Dash said.
"I'm so sorry, he's not here." Paulina's mother said.
"I'm sure he's fine – I'll call you if I see him." Mikey's mother said.
Supper wasn't eaten that night; the closest anyone came was some fast food hamburgers that
were bought and forgotten in the backseat of the Fenton vehicle. No one could find the stomach
to eat when they were out looking for the missing teen, not even Jack Fenton.
"Where did he go?" Sarah asked.
"Did he run away?"
"He didn't have any reason to."
"Was he kidnapped?"
Jazz whispered to Sarah in the back of the RV.
"Can you contact him?"
"No. He won't answer. It's possible that he's in trouble and he doesn't want us involved."
"I'm so sorry." Pamela Manson said.
Night fell around Amity Park, but Fenton Works was lit up like light bulbs were going out of style.
Police were there, talking to Maddie, filling out a missing persons report, and starting to
coordinate some kind of search. Jack was still out, driving around town, searching various
places he thought Danny could be found. Locked in Danny's room, Sam, Tucker, Sarah, and Jazz were
working on a way to look for Danny in the Ghost Zone without being captured by one of the
nastier spirits.
"What was he wearing the last time you saw him?"
"Blue jeans and a white shirt with a red oval in the middle, and red shoes with white on the toes." Maddie said.
"Did he have any reason to run away?"
"No."
"I'm sure we'll find him, just hang in there."
"I hate to ask, but did he have any enemies?"
"Just bullies at school, you know, plain old high school bullies."
The next day, the search was in full swing. The three teens and one pre-teen excused themselves
from school to join the search, quickly sneaking off to the Fenton's lab and through the portal.
Sealed away in the Fenton's speeder and armed with the latest in ghost hunting technology, the
friends swept the Ghost Zone for hours. When the fuel ran low, they were forced to return to
their world, having seen no sign of their missing friend.
"Got what he deserved, most likely." Walker said.
"Don't bug me." Bullet snapped.
"I haven't seen the whelp." Skulker sneered.
"Beware!" the Box Ghost yelled.
In Amity Park, the police were having just as little luck finding him. With no clues as to what
happened to him, no leads to follow, and no real idea as to where he vanished from, the search
was dead before it really even began. They sent out a BOL to the surrounding areas with Danny's
description, checked the local hangouts, shelters, hospitals, and transportation lines, and shook
their heads.
"Have you seen him?"
"Have you heard anything?"
"Could this be a case of abduction?"
"Where should we look next?"
When the local news media got wind of Danny's disappearance, they sunk their teeth into it and
raised the question nobody had bothered to ask, except for three teenagers who kept to
themselves. Could he have been taken by ghosts? He was the son of world famous ghost
hunters, after all. The Fentons, taken aback by the question, quickly mobilized their technology.
Watching on with hopeful expressions, Sam, Tucker, Sarah, and Jazz waited while the Fentons
scanned the areas they had just searched.
"The Ghost Zone is a scary place." Jack said.
"I hope he's not in there." Maddie said.
"We're scanning for any signs of human-world matter."
"Danny, where are you?"
"Where are you indeed?" Sarah asked.
"We're all very worried about you."
Nothing came of any of the searches. The next day dawned, and the day after that, and the
gloomy day after that. Life in Amity Park rolled forwards, Sam, Tucker, Jazz, and Sarah were
finally being forced to go back to school and the police were calling off what little searching they
had been doing. They'd start again, they promised, if they could find any sort of clue that would
help them figure out where Danny had gone. Maddie sat on her couch, staring blankly at the
television, unable to do any work. Jack drove the Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle in bigger and
bigger circles, all the while knowing that he wouldn't find his son.
"Have you seen him?" he would ask people, after handing them a picture.
"I'm looking for my son; he's missing."
"I'm so sorry, he hasn't been here."
"Call if you see him?"
"Give me your phone number."
It was one week after Danny disappeared when a hiker found something out in the woods a
handful of miles from Amity Park. He carted the bloody tennis shoe back to the police station,
where it was examined, poked and prodded, and the blood analyzed. Finally it was determined
to belong to the missing Danny Fenton and the search resumed. There were also some strange
burns on the shoe and, after some investigation; they decided the burns were the result of
evaporating ectoplasm.
"Could he have been chased by ghosts?"
"What if he's hurt?"
"It looks like he was attacked."
"We're probably looking for a body."
Police and volunteers combed the area, finding plenty of scorched leaves and a few dead birds,
but no body. Around dusk on that first day, one of the searchers stumbled across a puddle of
dried blood. People stood around, already deciding in their own minds that was Danny's blood
and that there was too much lying on the ground for him to have lived. In the hearts of the
rescuers, Danny Fenton was dead.
"I'm sorry, is there anything I can do?"
"The blood results came back – it's Danny's."
"He lost too much blood."
"I'm sorry, but the chances of him being alive aren't very good."
Not far away from the pool of blood, someone found week-old tire tracks left in the dirt. Casts
were taken of the tracks and experts compared them against different kinds of vehicles. A large
tank would have left those kinds of tracks, the searchers whispered to themselves, looking at the
tracks and the bent twigs and leaves all along the tracks' route back to the road with their own
brand of logic. Every eye in town turned to the only people in the area equipped with tanks – the
Guys in White.
"The government took Danny?"
"What does the governor have to say about this? I wonder what Danny knew that they wanted to
keep quiet."
"And where did Phantom go - has anyone seen him recently?"
The Guys in White were quick on the comeback. They hadn't been in the area, they denied any
knowledge of the missing teenager, and although they did have tanks, the track patterns didn't
match up. A local investigator was allowed complete access to the GIW facility and he came out
stating that neither Danny Fenton nor Phantom was being held inside.
"Who else has a tank?"
"The Fenton RV!" Sarah whispered to Sam.
"I'm so sorry he's gone."
"The school is holding a candlelight vigil tonight."
"I'm sorry for you loss; I brought you a Bundt cake."
Unfortunately, the shoe, the blood, and the strange tire tracks were the only things found. More
days passed as the trail grew colder and colder, the depressing search tailing off once again. No
doubt Danny had been kidnapped, hurt quite badly, thrown in some sort of tank, and then
carted off. A body was out there, somewhere, and nobody could find it.
"I wonder who has him."
"The chances of finding him aren't good."
"I feel so sorry for the Fentons and Danny's friends."
"Danny... where are you?"
Sam and Tucker made it through the days in a blur, going through the motions at school. They'd
run out of things to check; nobody had seen either Danny or Phantom in either world. Vlad, to
their great surprise, seemed more distraught at Danny's disappearance than they had expected.
He was almost friendly when they went to visit. It was only later that they learned that Vlad was
throwing more resources – human and ghost – into the search for Danny than anyone was
aware. Topping their list of things they thought were strange was the number of times Plasmius
was seen hanging around Fenton Works.
"Do you know where he is?" Sam asked him point blank.
"I'm worried about Danny."
"No, Samantha, I don't know. If his own half-sister can't find him through telepathy, there's no
way I could find him."
"I'm not sure he's dead – I think he's lost." Sarah said
"I think he's being held against his will." Jazz said.
Two weeks after Danny vanished, the media managed to put together two random pieces of
information. Danny Phantom had been seen in that area the day Danny disappeared, and the
ghost hadn't been seen since. Maybe their town specter had been defending the boy... or had
taken Danny someplace. The police began a half-hearted search for the ghost, already knowing
they wouldn't find hide nor hair of the elusive phantom.
"Is Phantom really a hero?"
"Where has the ghost gone?"
"Could Danny be a trophy on Phantom's wall as we speak?"
"Phantom: hero or villain, next on your local news."
Nothing really came from their search. Both Danny and Phantom were just gone, without a
trace, and nobody in either world could track them down.
"The search is being called off."
"We're so sorry."
"He's in a better place."
"We'll keep an eye out for him."
And so it was, two weeks and six days after Danny vanished, that Sam and Tucker sat down with
Danny's parents and started to talk. They explained about the accident and what the three of
them had been doing ever since.
"Danny... he's half-ghost."
"I'm sorry we never told you."
Through it all, Maddie and Jack just said still, faces pale from disbelief, and waited for them to
stop talking. Sam and Tucker talked about how they thought maybe a ghost had got him – or
some people thinking he was Phantom. After talking for nearly three hours straight, Sam and
Tucker left Maddie and Jack sitting on the couch, still staring in disbelief. Neither adult had ever
said a word.
"... Danny..."
"...Phantom..."
As one, the two quietly got to their feet after the door had clicked shut behind the two friends.
They walked slowly up the bridge and stopped in front of the door to the weapons vault. After
gazing at the door for the longest time, Jack finally reached out and pushed open the door.
Inside rested the experiment they had been working on when Danny had disappeared; an
experiment they hadn't gone near or looked at in nearly three weeks. And suddenly, everything
made a horrible amount of sense.
"It's a nightmare."
"What have we done?"
Inside the vault, behind a ghost shield, was Phantom.
"Danny?"
Jack pressed a button and released their son.
"Danny, why didn't you tell us?"
"You're ghost hunters. I was afraid that if you knew, you wouldn't hesitate to experiment on me."
"You might understand better if you saw the video under his bed." Sarah, having followed them, said.
The parents rushed upstairs to look under Danny's bed.
"Why didn't you answer me when I tried contacting you through telepathy?"
"I was afraid you'd come down here and get yourself hurt, or worse, especially if you were Sarah
Phantom."
Maddie knelt down so that she could see into the dark little crevice. Her face twisted in
confusion as she pulled out a box filled with old Fenton gadgets. She pulled the Fenton Finder
out of it.
"Now what on earth are all of these doing here?" she asked her husband. Most of them were
defective anyways. After deciding to solve that puzzle later, she shoved the box aside and
reached back under. This time, she pulled out a tape.
The tape was for the security camera that they kept in the lab. Looking at the date, she realized
that it was three years old. Curious as to whether or not it was the very tape her daughter had
indicated, she stood up. She needed to watch the tape. As she made her way up to the Op center
where the tape-player was, with Jack behind her, she had to keep reminding herself that this
wasn't an invasion of privacy. It was her house and if anything happened in the lab that could
have endangered Danny, she needed to know.
The tape made a click sound as she slid it into the old VCR. The screen above it came to life.
Unlike most people, she and Jack had bought a very detailed recording system so that they
could catch everything on tape. She pressed the fast-forward button, whirring through hours of
her and Jack tinkering with her inventions. The Fenton Portal immediately caught her attention.
It wasn't finished!
Maddie suddenly realized what tape this was. It was the day that she and Jack had created the
Fenton Portal; their greatest accomplishment. The day that Danny was caught in that lab
accident.
Finally, she came to a stop. She and Jack plugged in the Fenton Portal, eager to show their kids,
but all they got was a few sparks. She watched as they left the lab, as did Danny and Jazz. She
sighed and pressed fast forward again. Come on! Where did it start working? She set it back to
normal the moment Danny, Sam, and Tucker reappeared on the screen.
"Well, that's it," Danny said to his friends while motioning to the portal.
Sam walked up next to it and studied the contraption. "Wow, so this thing's really supposed to
open up a portal into a dimension filled with ghosts?"
"Pretty much," her son replied.
"Huh, I don't about all of the ghost-hunting stuff, but this looks pretty high-tech to me," Tucker
commented while examining the machine.
"Hey, Danny," Sam piped up, "Think you could pose in front of it so that I could take a picture?"
"Sam," Danny groaned.
"Please?" she begged.
The boy caved. "Fine." He walked over to a cabinet and grabbed out a white and black jumpsuit
his size. He held it up next to him in front of the portal.
"Smile!" Sam exclaimed happily as she flashed a picture. Danny wasn't smiling.
He lowered the suit as Sam came over to him. "Okay, I showed you the portal. Can we get out of
here now? My parents could be back any minute. Besides, they say it doesn't work, anyway."
Sam gazed into the portal again. "C'mon, Danny. A ghost zone? Aren't you curious? You gotta
check it out."
Danny followed her, standing in front of the portal. He was still clutching the suit. "You know
what? You're right. Who knows what kind of awesome, super-cool things exist on the other side
of that portal?"
Danny then slid on the jumpsuit and zipped it up with a serious expression on his face. Maddie
almost giggled when she saw Jack's face shown on the chest. That man.
"Hang on," Sam demanded, approaching him. She ripped the sticker off of the suit and held it
up. "You can't go walking around with that on your chest." She pointed to the sticker as she
spoke.
No more words were exchanged as Danny, her son, turned toward the broken portal and
disappeared inside of it. Maddie's stomach clenched and she desperately wished that she could
see what was going on inside of that contraption. Her breath caught in her throat and she felt
like screaming as green-white light suddenly exploded from the Fenton the Portal, her son's
terrified and pain-filled screams accompanying it.
What happened next horrified and shocked her beyond belief. Instead of her lovable son Danny
stumbling out of the portal, out came Danny Phantom. He looked weak and hurt as he let his
bright green eyes close and his agonized body drop to the floor. Maddie glanced back at the
now-working portal. No Danny Fenton. She wanted to believe anything but what was staring her
straight in the face. There was absolutely no way that her son was the ghost boy. He was alive!
He had to be!
Sam and Tucker held back for a few minutes before rushing over. "Danny!" they screamed. Fear
and worry overflowed their voices.
Maddie held her breath and watched the scene for a few minutes before deciding that Danny
wasn't getting up anytime soon. She reluctantly hit the fast forward button. Sam and Tucker
didn't leave the room, simply moved away after some time and sat by the wall. Sam separated
from the dark-skinned boy to move to a corner, quietly shaking and, from what Maddie could
tell, restraining tears. It looked like a few had leaked out, though. The woman bit her lip as the
girl started shouting something at Tucker, who had probably been trying to find comfort from
her. Finally, Danny woke up.
Maddie let the tape play on normal again.
Danny groaned and let his now-ghostly eyes flutter open. Sam and Tucker stayed where they were, simply observing.
"What...what happened?" her son moaned as he attempted to get up. He had managed to get
into a sitting position when he looked over to where his friends were.
"Guys?" New tears began to fall down Sam's face as Tucker tried to look at his best friend. He
seemed terrified, as he should have been. Finally, Tucker flinched a bit. This seemed to have
worried Danny. "Guys, what's wrong?" he repeated, his panic rising.
"Danny..." Sam croaked, but then choked off as she buried her face, unable to look at him anymore.
"Dude...you might want to...take a look at yourself," Tucker sobbed.
The ghost boy's face filled with dread as he glanced down at his hands and then his body. He
gasped. Without hesitation, he weakly shoved himself up and dashed to the bathroom. He
stayed in there for a few horrible moments before he came back out, looking devastated and
stunned.
"I...I can't be a ghost! I just can't be!" he wailed.
The girl in the corner continued to shiver and watch her friend as he fell to his knees.
"The...the portal...the light...I...no!" he screamed again. He buried his face in his glowing,
silver-gloved hands.
His two friends finally seemed to work up enough courage to get up and make their way over to
him cautiously. Sam bent down and laid a hesitant hand on Danny's shoulder, shivering slightly.
"D-Danny...you're...you're a ghost. You're...dead," she ground out.
"But I can't be dead!" Tears formed in his eyes, as they did in Maddie's.
Sam suddenly lunged forward and latched onto him. They hugged while they cried. All of a
sudden, a blue-white ring formed around his waist and split. The two rings moved in opposite
direction, traveling vertically on his body. Finally, they disappeared and everyone gasped as
Danny Fenton -plain, human, Danny Fenton- was left in his place.
"What just happened?" Tucker asked after a few moments of dead silence.
"I think...I think I'm still alive," Danny responded, examining his hands. The jumpsuit had
mysteriously disappeared.
"That would mean that you're...half-ghost," Sam realized quietly.
Maddie decided to shut off the tape. She'd seen enough.
"Danny's half-ghost. He's Danny Phantom." Jack said.
"And I'm Sarah Phantom." Sarah said, phasing into the Ops center, Danny in tow.
"I got my powers because...You remember that accident in college with Father?"
"Yes." Jack said, speaking for his wife as well, since Maddie seemed to be struck dumb.
"Father is the Wisconsin Phantom, and he passed his powers down to me. I have some powers
he doesn't have, as does Danny, but we don't use our powers for personal gain. Father over-
shadowed the voters on Election Day."
"You fight ghosts as well, Sarah?"
"Yes, sir. The only reason I haven't been fighting ghosts is... I haven't had the heart to fight
without Danny. We can go down to the lab and show you our powers." Jazz came up.
"You finally told them?" She asked, noticing their serious expressions.
"You knew, Jazz?" Jack asked.
"Yes. They begged me not to tell."