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Danny sighed in exasperation when his ghost sense went off. College was hard enough with finals coming up, but with a ghost rampaging throughout Amity Park—again—how could he focus on his studies?
Going to college to study to be an astronaut, especially after his track record with school, was not easy. No big-name school would even accept him, with his grades. Not that it mattered—he had decided to stay local, close to his home town to continue protecting it when ghosts attacked—and they attacked often. It was starting to get annoying.
With this thought in mind, he created an invisible duplicate and sent it to fight whatever ghost had shown up this time. Even at half power, which was normal for a duplicate, he’d still be able to easily beat any of his normal ghostly adversaries. It was probably only the Box Ghost anyhow.
Danny went back to his textbook, deciding to put more focus on that rather than some routine ghost fight and ignoring the flashes of vision he got from his duplicate, leaving it on autopilot. It wasn’t like anything could go too badly.
~~~
Danny, in Phantom form, flew over the skies of Amity Park looking for whatever had set off his ghost sense. A few people looked up and pointed, whispering excitedly as he passed by, and he idly thought about how easy it was to juggle his normal life and his secret ghost hunting life now that he had mastered his duplication powers. No one suspected Danny and Phantom were the same person anymore, especially when they could be seen in the same place at the same time, and Danny did well to keep that power a secret from the public. It divided his focus, sure, so sometimes he would miss some notes in class when Skulker got a particularly nasty upgrade or he would accidentally trip when he was fighting Ember because he was trying to concentrate on a test, but he was slowly starting to get used to having two sets of memories and occasionally new bruises when he merged with his duplicate again.
Phantom slowed his flight, frowning as he dimly realized that, at the moment, he was the duplicate. He’d be the one who disappeared when he merged with Danny again.
He shook the thought away, sighing and speeding up again, looking for the offending ghost.
It wasn’t long before he ran into Walker, fought him, and almost got caught since he wasn’t fighting at full power. He made it out only with the help of Wulf—thank Clockwork for his good timing. Wulf created three portals to escape through and confuse Walker, but they got separated when Walker tried to attack them again, and Phantom was forced into a portal while Wulf held him off.
And now Phantom found himself in a strangely unexpected predicament—he was stuck in an unfamiliar area of the Ghost Zone, with no idea how to get back, and, as he floated aimlessly through the green abyss, he realized that he—the duplicate—had not and could not return and remerge with his original.
How strange, duplicates usually just poofed out of existence when they got too far out of range.
He wondered if the original Danny would notice he had been cut off from his duplicate and would come get him or something. Oh well, might as well keep looking for an exit in the meantime.
~~~
The Phantom duplicate had one flaw in his “find a way out or wait for the original to find me” plan. That was, after Wulf successfully got away from Walker, he had gone to find Danny to see if he got out okay. Danny was, of course, deep in his finals studies, and apologized to the werewolf-like ghost because he didn’t have time to socialize at the moment. Wulf understood and left Danny alone, not realizing that the Danny he saved had been a duplicate.
And Danny was too focused on his textbook to realize that he didn’t know why Wulf had asked him if he got “out” of someplace okay. He had not gained the second set of memories from his duplicate yet, and simply thought that a random visit from Wulf was normal.
He was so busy he hadn’t even realized his duplicate was missing.
~~~
It was probably a whole week before anyone noticed anything strange going on. The ghosts had, thankfully, stopped attacking Amity Park so frequently—except for the Box Ghost, he was about as frequent as they came.
As finals began to die down, only then did Danny question the whereabouts of his usual, more threatening enemies. When he investigated it, he found the reason why—apparently there was a rumor that Phantom was floating around the Ghost Zone, and all the ghosts had been attacking him there instead.
Danny was baffled. Why would a rumor of him being in the Zone have been spreading for an entire week? And why did they persist for an entire week? He had been in finals, for Clockwork’s sake! He didn’t have time to go to the Ghost Zone!
Only when he actually entered the Ghost Zone, as Fenton just to be safe, did he realize why.
There was a tug at the edge of his consciousness that he knew meant there was a duplicate nearby.
There was a duplicate Danny Phantom in the Zone and no one had bothered him in the Real World because of that. Who knew.
But how and why did a duplicate persist this long? Shouldn’t he have felt some sort of energy drain, then? But he hadn’t felt anything at all… He hadn’t even been getting those visions he usually got from a duplicate. So what happened?
Danny flew the Specter Speeder in the direction of the tug on his mind. He could feel it getting simultaneously closer too, which meant the duplicate was gravitating toward him as well. Upon finding the duplicate, Danny was surprised to see him battered and worn, looking exhausted in the same way he did after the all-nighters of studying for finals.
"About time you got here!" were the first words out of the duplicate’s mouth, "Just my luck that no natural portals opened up, like, anywhere! I couldn’t find my way out at all—or to Frostbite’s, or Dora’s, or anyone’s. I don’t even know how long I’ve been here, but I’ve been attacked thirty seven times. Thirty seven!” He complained, and he kept complaining, much to the astonished Danny’s surprise. Sure, it was the same way Danny complained, and Danny could predict what the duplicate would say next, but that was just it. He could predict it, not just know it like he would with a normal duplicate.
This, however it came to be, was not a normal duplicate.
Danny calmed it—him—Phantom, and offered him a ride out of the Zone. Phantom grinned and nodded and hopped into the Specter Speeder, but for whatever reason didn’t remerge with Danny—and for whatever reason, Danny didn’t ask him to.
The ride back to the Fenton Portal was quiet, until Danny said, almost out of the blue, “The ambient ectoplasmic energy here must have stabilized you.”
Phantom blinked, then joked, “Worked for Danielle.”
"You’re technically a clone, so it’s actually possible you could have become stabilized, one way or another." Danny mused, the gears in his head turning—hey, even if he failed at high school he could still be smart, given the opportunity. He didn’t come from a family of geniuses and inventors—nor want to be an astronaut—for nothing. "This place must have recharged your power reserves—you know, so you could stick around longer and… probably be as powerful as we normally are as one person, actually."
"That kind of explains how I could stand being attacked thirty seven times and still could be worse for wear." Phantom shrugged.
"Why didn’t you change back, though?" Danny raised an eyebrow, and Phantom raised an identical one back. "The ghosts wouldn’t have attacked you here—or at least, would’ve had a harder time of it—if you did. Or is it that you can’t change back?"
Phantom scoffed, “Of course I can, I’m you.” And, to demonstrate, the blue-white rings enveloped his body and soon there were two Fentons in the Speeder. Danny blinked in mild surprise, and Phantom—Fenton?—smirked. “It’s just… dude, I’ve been here for what, a week? I would’ve starved to death and died completely of exhaustion.” The duplicate rolled his eyes, “At least in ghost form I can absorb the ambient energy—must’ve been instinct that I stayed that way actually.”
"…Huh," was the original’s only reply. He pulled up the Specter Speeder next to the Ghost Zone’s side of the Fenton Portal, pausing for a moment. "…I kind of feel bad for leaving you in here for a week."
"Hey, no problem—I kicked some annoying ghost butt and you got your finals done. You better have passed." Phantom—Fenton grinned cheekily.
"Of course I did! I mean, I’m pretty sure I did." Danny paused, "…40% sure. Anyway, I just—it doesn’t feel right merging with you again, plus it’ll be one heck of a load if you’ve got a week’s worth of memories." He frowned. "I mean, I kind of feel like I’m not—talking to myself.”
Fenton waved his hand, “Then how exactly are you going to explain to Mom and Dad that you’ve suddenly got a twin? I mean, they could be standing on the other side of that portal right now for all we know.” He remarked, “You can keep me around if you want but we’ll probably re-establish our link once we leave the Zone and it’ll drain your power.”
Danny blinked. “True…” He leaned back, crossing his arms thoughtfully, “But… be honest. Don’t you feel like a different person too?”
Fenton blinked as well. “…Well, yeah. I feel like me. But you feel like you. And we’re both Danny. It’s a weird sensation, because I’ve got this voice in my head reminding me I’m only a duplicate—but I feel real.” He copied Danny’s motions, frowning in deep thought, “And I feel like I’d be sad if I didn’t exist anymore.”
"Me too." Danny realized, "But—if you stick around, how would this even work? I mean, I don’t want to give up ghost fighting—that was just for finals—but if I do what I normally do, then you’d have nothing to do?"
Fenton ran a hand through his hair, sighing heavily. “Yeah, and I don’t want to be stuck only ghost fighting all the time—I’m you. I want to go to school, be an astronaut, whatever. Y’know?” He glanced over, “This is different from Dani. She has her own other being—she never had your memories, your… soul. I’m everything you are—even if I continued existing, I wouldn’t be any different from you.”
"…You could try," Danny mused, "There are those few other hobbies I never got to pick up."
"Yeah, no, I don’t think I wanna break my neck trying to surf or skateboard or something," Fenton laughed, "Besides, it’d get confusing as heck with dating Sam, and hanging out with everyone else—Jazz would probably psychoanalyze us to figure out why we decided to stay separate, or if we became different somehow."
They contemplated that train of thought for a while, before Danny sighed and broke the silence.
"…Better to remerge?"
"Probably." Fenton replied almost sadly, but he grinned in spite of it and tried to keep his tone and expression light.
Danny felt bad for him. “I think I’ll miss ya, dude.”
"I’m you, how could you possibly miss you? Maybe you’re a narcissist."
"Hey!"