#...but well I have heard stories about people who have rigged their meters to steal electricity so I guess they have a reason.

[asjjohnson]

What if Danny's more powerful than he realizes? And what if the Fentons don't pay an electric bill?

The Fenton parents knew their ghost portal and other experiments would take a lot of energy.

The ecto-converter wasn't the first of its kind.

Of course not. It was just their latest model—a more portable, more universal model.

They had always had an energy converter and overflow storage container built into their ghost portal. Their electricity bills would have been through the roof otherwise.

They had temporarily plugged in several cords to provide enough electricity to power the portal on, but, once it was open, they had always planned on sapping the ambient ghostly energy to keep it running.

It had worked perfectly. In fact, they hadn't received an electric bill since.

Within a month, someone from the electric company had investigated, scratched their head in confusion, replaced their meter. And, when the new meter never changed from the row of zeros, the company shut off their service.

Not that the Fentons noticed. They weren't using it anyhow.

---

Danny had struggled to control his new ghost powers. He worked hard to learn them, and slowly built up his stamina and strength.

He'd always barely won his fights, only just managing to be good enough.

He viewed himself as being of average strength. He was on the same level as the other ghosts he's met.

The only reason he'd defeated Pariah Dark was that suit's 100x power boost (or had it said 100%? he wasn't too great at math), and he'd been completely drained afterward. Everyone knew Pariah Dark was above and beyond any other ghost. Undefeatable. Danny definitely wouldn't have expected to win in a fair fight, and hadn't been sure he even could with the suit.

He'd defeated his alternate future self, but that was mostly due to his parents' gadgets (plus his resolve to never turn into him). The guy hadn't even been that powerful—he was just a slightly older version of Danny, after all. There was no reason to think being away from home for a day would make Danny stronger, or that his alternate self being under the Fenton Works' roof for a day would make him weaker.

Besides, he's been away from home other times and nothing had changed then. Like when he and his mom were stranded in Colorado. ...Yeah, he'd been wearing a specter deflector most of the time—but still. And his dad and sister hadn't mentioned the power going off back home, and if Danny were powering their house, then of course the lights would've gone out. It's not like a bunch of ghosts would've randomly shown up at the house, just to recharge their battery or something.

And there was also that time his whole family had taken a vacation out west and left the house alone for days. Even with his parents putting Fenton Works in low power mode, everything would've shut off before they'd gotten back. It's not like, say, Vlad had come over to bug their house, and then spent hours upon hours with a bunch of his ghost stooges digging through his parents' blueprints and research ...right?

He could think of at least three ways, right off the top of his head, Vlad could've found out they were going on a trip, and he does not want to think about that.

Aaanyhow... the point is—there is absolutely no reason that him going to college in Florida would lead to, after just his second day of classes, his family being completely without electricity. Or for his eyes to start glowing bright green even in his human form, or his hair to start floating on its own, or for ghosts to start showing up from ghost portals that keep appearing around Danny for no reason and those ghosts bowing to him, or any of the other crazy things going on right now!?!!?1!

Seriously—what is going on?!??!!!!

#danny phantom #danny fenton #what if #asj post #ghost king au #maybe? #oh look his ability to make ghost portals has developed. good luck learning to control that. #I think I remember noticing an error in the Reign Storm episode about 100x vs 100% ...The two mean completely different things? #Danny looks at the meter that says 100% power remaining and is like 'oh look this says it's giving me 100 times my normal power.' Danny no. #Also Vlad isn't superpowered from his portal accident—he just got acne. #well yeah Vlad got ghost powers but not anything out of the ordinary. Danny's portal accident was pretty different. #I'd thought of this in January but hadn't been sure I could make it sound interesting enough. #It's normal for US electric companies to shut off service to a house without notice if they suspect someone could be stealing electric. #If you need to fix something close to your electric meter you should probably call them first because they might panic and cut you off. #...but well I have heard stories about people who have rigged their meters to steal electricity so I guess they have a reason.