#Vlad changed for the better after he learned about Dan | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

inthememetime · 2 years

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DP × DC but it's a tired and burnt out Danny that makes landfall in Gotham, in this AU Danny is a halfa but it is his sister that plays the role he does in Canon and he only got his powers via ectoplasm contamination. He got burnt out acting as his sisters occasionally sidekick and her alibi in regards to their parents, so after he finally graduated from Casper High he opted to find himself while Jazz joined the Justice League.

So here we have a severely overtired and burnt out Daniel Fenton working at a local Lexbucks Coffee Shop when out of the blue he gets involved in the usual Gotham drama that results in a drive-by shooting wherein Danny gets shot. Danny, being a Halfa, gets up despite having been visibly shot in locations that would be fatal to anyone else but for him it's nothing and he goes back to work.

So begins the interest in Gotham's newest criptid; The Undead Barrista.

👀👀👀

(Lmk if you'd like to read this on my A03, and/or a version from his coworkers POV!) Ok so I did a fic!

Length: short boi. Save about 10-15 minutes.

Summary: see ask above. PLUS Danny sasses Gotham's Rogues Gallery into submission and finds out he really wasn't as useless as he felt.

Danny was second; he was the second child. The second smartest child. The second best as dealing with people. The second one to DIE and get superpowers.

At first, it was exciting! Phantom and Wraith, superhero duo of Amity Park! But Jazz- or Wraith, when she was in ghost form- had the ability to make people feel safe. To calm down situations before they ever started.

Danny had the ability to tear enemies to shreds, destroy infrastructure, and scare people.

Even Sam and Tucker agreed, although not in so many words. They didn't need to; after Dan, after they knew what he'd probably become, things really changed. He was watched, less to make sure he was safe, and more to make sure he didn't become Dan.

When he started sympathizing with that Fruitloop, Vlad, he knew something had to change.

So he flew up, up, into Earth's orbit, so he could look at the planet below. He didn't know how long he stayed there, but when he saw the sun set over the Himalayas, he felt something in him... settle, somehow. And he came to the realization he needed to leave.

It wasn't their fault- his sister, Sam, Tucker. He was the worse liar, so their parents suspected him of everything. He dealt with ghosts better than people, so Wraith was more trusted. As they aged, and Wraith looked the same but older and Phantom started looking like Dan- well. It wasn't the people of Amity Park's fault, either. Besieged by monsters, who would want to rely on one?

He got his things and left. He left a note saying he needed a fresh start, and then took off. He didn't leave the name of the city he was moving to. He didn't know.

That was how he became a barista at a Lexbucks in Gotham with a tiny loft apartment. And for the first time since he was 15, he was happy. Really, truly happy. He made friends in an astronomy club, and got together every other Friday withe people to watch old movies.

He was about to start a management program at Lexbucks. He would be 'needed' by Clockwork every Monday for an unknown amount of time (it was hard to tell time when CW paised as needed. Sometimes Monday lasted weeks, if he thought it was warranted.)

Clockwork being Clockwork, that sometimes meant he needed to solve some ghost issue, or fix a paradox, or come over for dinner, or take a vacation. (Was there a portal in his closet? Yes. Yes there was.)

He saw Frostbite once a week too, Gotham being closer to the Far Frozen, and was learning Greek- both ancient and modern- from Pandora.

He was finally going to ask out Eduardo from the bookstore across the street today.

That meant, of course, he was shot right outside his apartment. Danny left for work around 3 AM; his apartment was pretty close to the edge of Crime Alley, he was the store opener and they started serving customers at 4 AM. A match made in hell.

He heard the gunshots before he felt them, and reflexively turned invisible to change into Phantom. The drive by shooting ended as quickly as it began, leaving Danny to curse and change his shirt. Dammit.

Ah well. Gotta love Tuesdays, right?

Next Tuesday was when Condiment Man walked into the Lexbucks. Probably to try and rob it, but it was difficult to understand over all the giggling from his regulars.

"Bring Gotham to-"

"Sir, this is a Lexbucks. Please just order your coffee, tea, other drink, or something to eat."

Condiment Man gaped for a moment. "I- I don't want coffee. I want villainy."

He nodded. "Fair. But this is a Lexbucks. No villainy, just coffee, tea, sodas, food. No evil available except the evil inherent in corporations."

"I. Um. Ok?"

After a moment, Danny cleared his throat. "So about your order?"

"Um. Well. Can I order you to join me in my quest to bring Gotham to its knees?" He asked nervously.

"Kinky." He said, and Condiment Man sputtered. "But no." His calm demeanor changed in the blink of an eye. "Get your hand off the trigger for that mustard right now, or you'll be cleaning every inch of this place with a toothbrush until it sparkles!"

Condiment Man yelped and left. The locals- regulars and newbies- started laughing. He was pretty sure somebody started crying. His tips were glorious.

Maybe Tuesdays weren't so bad after all.

XxXxXx

"I got a hit on Danny!"

Jazz spun around. "Really? You're sure, Tuck?"

"About 50%, the video is pretty grainy. But you tell me somebody else who deescalates villains with sass."

"Where?"

"That's the problem. They were using a VPN. It's somewhere in the US, probably Gotham, Metropolis, or League City- Gotham Rogues get around sometimes."

Jazz's face started to fall. "Tucker, thank you, but- it's been 5 years. Are we sure his face didn't totally change? I mean, remember Vlad's before and after?"

He sighed heavily. "Jazz, we failed him. I failed my best friend. I missed that he was hurting for 3 years before he ran. No matter what that note said, I was probably part of the problem. Give up on him of you want. But I'm gonna keep looking."

God, those notes had been like kicks in the teeth. If it was Vlad, he'd say it was orchestrated. But it was Danny. He very much did not blame them. He didn't want to go. And what was carefully not said, but pieced together when they compared the note left for him, Sam, Jazz, and the elder Fentons was they were the biggest reason he left.

XxXxXx

"I, the Baffler, will bring chaos and confusion to Gotham's streets with your assistance, Undead Coffee Person!"

That was, oddly enough, better than Inviso-Bill. Still. "Hey man, this is a Lexbucks. And I have a name."

He seemed delighted. "Wonderful! What is your villain name?"

"No, no, no villain name. I'm not a villain. Just a barista. My name's Jack. What's your order?"

The baffler seemed. Well. Baffled. "But aren't you going to join me in my life of crime?"

Danny sighed heavily. "Dude. I just wanna pay my bills. Coffee, tea, what do you want?"

"You can pay your bills with crime!"

The Baffler seemed so honestly pleased it was hard to get angry. Just a big guy in a dumb costume, and Ancients he missed his dad. But then he shot the cash register. "See? Crime!"

Danny snarled and, quick as a blink, The Baffler's hamds were frozen to the counter. "You have ice powers?!"

"And you have dumbass powers, you knockoff Riddler. I'm calling the cops."

XxXxXx

"You must be truly desperate to come to me for help," Vlad said with amusement plain on his face.

Sam narrowed her eyes, and Tucker scowled. "Yeah, well, we need untraceable cash, and you're the kind of guy to keep that on hand."

"And why do you need it?"

Sam grit her teeth, but replied, "let's just say if we find what we're looking for, the number of halfas might be back up to 4."

His eyes flashed brightly. "Well, then. How much do you need?"

XxXxXx

"Together, we will bring Gotham into the next ice age!" Mr. Freeze roared.

Danny narrowed his eyes. "Doctor, this is a Lexbucks. What do you want to order?"

"You, too have powers of ice! Together, we can bring Gotham into the cold!"

He sighed. "Ok. So frozen. Small, medium, or large?"

"I- I am ordering destruction, not coffee!"

Danny pointed to the menu. "Do you see destruction on the menu here? No. No, you don't. Your order?"

He gaped. "Chai latte? Mocha cappuccino? You seem like a smoothie kind of guy, want one of those?"

Mr. Freeze cleared his throat. "What kind of smoothies do you have?"

XxXxXx

"Are you seriously going behind my back with Plasmius?"

Wraith stood, arms crossed with a scowl. "Oh back off, you're nowhere near as scary as Phantom. Or even Skulker." He snapped.

Batman cleared his throat. "I'm told you have information about an incredibly dangerous illegal meta in Gotham?"

Sam shook her head. "I wish I could say I couldn't believe this. He's your brother."

Jazz swallowed. "You don't even know for sure if this is Phantom. This could be a legitimate threat."

"Every time I start to wonder why he left, all I have to do is remind myself about-"

"Sam."

"He's our best friend, Tucker! And she just might've gotten him thrown into Arkham, because Batman doesn't believe in rehabilitation!"

And another argument began.

XxXxXx

"I'm so sorry, Jack. I really like you, I do! It's just..." Eduardo trailed off, shaking underneath Danny's jacket.

"It's ok. You didn't sign up for getting kidnapped by the Penguin in a sick job offer."

He smiled a little shakily, and Danny hugged him tightly. "I'll see you around, ok?"

"Thanks, Jack."

Why the hell was he so broken up over a guy who didn't even know his real name?

XxXxXx

Thursday began at the sight of the Joker prowling around. Danny let his jaws drop and released a hiss that made fully grown ghosts back the hell up, following it by the unearthly rattle he learned from Fright Knight.

The Joker backed up. Swallowed. Put on his trademark grin, and stepped back in. Albeit a little further from the front counter. "Now, now, kid, I'm a clown! Kids love clowns, yeah?"

Another hellish hiss echoed from behind the Joker. He paled, then stiffened as a massive blue hand was on his shoulder. "Perhaps this isn't the best place for you."

The Joker laughed shakily. "Hey, pal, I'm-"

Plasmius' glowing eyes flashed, and the Joker's started glowing red. The clown's face fell slack. "This isn't the best place for you."

"This...isn't the...best...place....for me." The Joker slurred.

"Leave." Commanded the vampire ghost.

The Joker staggered out drunkenly. Plasmius turned his attention to the counter. "Can I get a large black coffee? With a shot of espresso, please."

Danny cocked his head and tried not to laugh at Kristen's face when the fruitloop sat next to her. "Sure. Kristen?"

She looked at him, wide-eyed. "He's not going to hurt or overshadow you. Right, Plasmius?"

"Of course," he agreed magnanimously.

Plasmius drank his coffee at the store. He bought a blueberry donut. Gave him a $500 tip. "The number hasn't changed. Call me, and we'll see about moving you before Batman and his friends crash the place."

"I can fly, you know."

"He has multiple jets. And besides, from what I've heard, Wraith is helping him track down the big, scary meta."

"Thanks for the warning, Plasmius. I'll think about it."

The elder halfa nodded and left, phasing through the door.

Jazz was hunting him. Jazz was hunting him. His sister was- it wasn't fair. He left her the entire territory of Amity Park. She had the undivided love and attention of everyone in Amity Park. Inside the roll of $100 bills was a business card.

He pocketed it, and yet another super came in. Plasmius was right. They were hunting him. Red Robin frowned at the menu.

"Hey, do you still have the mint hot chocolate?"

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Small, medium, or large?"

"Large, please." Red Robin waited in silence while his drink was prepared. "So, Jack Walker isn't your real name."

Danny shook his head. "Nah. If you're going to arrest me, might as well just call me Danny."

He observed him carefully, then nodded. "I'll see you around, Jack. Try to keep out of trouble."

XxXxXx

"He isn't a threat!" Tim snapped.

"You deliberately disobeyed me! We agreed not to approach the person who can use mind control!"

"You agreed, B. Wraith, just leave him alone, ok? He just wants to make his coffee and leave every day."

"Is he my brother or not?"

"Does it matter? He left." Tim snapped. "That guy is just trying to make a living. He's not going to hurt anyone who doesn't start trouble."

Jazz embraced both Sam and Tucker, feeling real, true hope for the first time in years. "It's Danny! Guys it's Danny, we can bring him home!"

"None of you are leaving until we can bring him in for questioning."

Jazz's face hardened, then she agreed. That was alright. She had a secret weapon. Two of them, actually.

XxXxXx

"Jack, you've got people asking for you."

Danny groaned.

"Sorry Jack, you're the one who made the rule about people in weird suits with guns."

"Yeah, fair. Thanks."

He stepped out behind the counter, and froze. "Danny?"

He swallowed. Blinked to make sure he was seeing what he thought. "Mom? Dad?"

For the first time in 5 years, he was embraced by his parents. He didn't feel bad about the tears. He couldn't. "Let's go home, baby. Let's go home."

"I can't. I- I'm not..."

"It's ok, Danny. We know now. About Phantom."

"I'm so sorry we made you feel your only recourse was running away."

XxXxXx

He had started to get the idea Jazz might be hunting him in a violent way. The only violent thing was the force of her hug, and the way her nails dug into his shoulder to keep him close.

Danny couldn't quite understand her over the blubbering, but that was fine; he had always been a sympathetic crier. Although the way all of the bats, Constantine, and Superman were shifting awkwardly, trying not to watch them while watching them, was pretty funny. It got worse when Sam kicked Batman in the knee and joined them. Then there was Tucker, and his mom, and- his dad was squeezing them tight enough to pick them up a few inches.

It took a ridiculous amount of time to get them all to stop crying- and Danny included himself. He had a good 5 years of believing he did nothing but harm to his human(ish) family to cry over.

"So just to be clear. You are not a villain."

"Yep. Used to be in the hero game, even."

"And you're not going to start being a villain."

He chuckled. "No, I won't."

"For now, your stay in Gotham is fine, though you should start using your legal name. If you don't like Danny Fenton, you can always legally change it. Can we call on you if we get a ghostly threat closer to home?"

"Absolutely."

"Wait! Danny, you're going home, though, right? With us?" Jazz asked hopefully.

"I'd like to visit," he said quietly, "but Jazz- I scare humans. Pretty badly."

"The ghosts negotiate with you, they listen to you! And people- look, now that Phantom's not there stopping fights by talking to ghosts before they start, or helping the new dead solve their murders- well. Phantom has been missed."

"Jazz, you do all that too. And you calm humans down way better than I ever have, so-"

"Danny," Tucker interrupted, "please, buddy. You don't have to stay, just come for a week. Things are different now. Promise."

And. Well. Even if they were wrong, he missed them. So much. "I can do a week."

#condiment man #the baffler #vlad masters #plasmius #sam manson #tucker foley #mr. freeze #halfa!jazz #batman #the penguin is referenced #the joker was not prepared for 2 halfas #red robin #tim drake #danny phantom #dp x dc #Danny deescalates using sass #long post #30 minute-1 hr read

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pbeltarts · 1 year

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I can’t remember where i saw this mentioned but someone pointed out how danny NEVER cries in the show. Like plenty of characters cry, just never danny, and mind you crying is necessary for emotional regulation. The phandom can use this as angst potential. Imagine characters seeing him cry and just going: “oh shit this is serious.” or theres some kind of last straw and Dan just kinda lets it all out at once and starts bawling. Im actually kinda begging u to make a comic based on this lil detail.

Bro in a remake I would love to explore Danny's relationship with his emotions in response to how he's handling his trauma. Because it wasn't done in the original and I think its such a let down!! The only major emotion I remember Danny expressing regularly, that got a slight spotlight, was anger. And that was interesting!

But imagine Danny starting out as an anxious teen, just starting his highschool career. He wants confidence, he wants to be brave, but its not that easy- and then the transition happens. Now, on top of a confusing puberty he doesn't want (because he's trans), he's struggling with this whole other biological change that no one can help him with. He doesn't feel like he can tell his parents for fear of what they'll do, he doesn't tell his sister yet because what if she tells their parents... the only people who know is his two best friends.

And so the anxiety is still rly bad, but he's learning to just brunt force through it because now? He's the only one who can protect people from the mistake he made. He feels responsible and despite the fear he feels, he has to move foward.

(Frankly, this whole 'get through the fear' thing I think would be mounted early on, as a "starting point" where we see Danny struggling p soon after getting his powers, eventually choosing "I can't do this" and wanting to just put it away and not think about it but something happens that sort of forces his hand and he has to do something and use these powers and the success of this proves to him that he CAN do this.)

From there we see Danny go from anxious and scared, to more confident and mischievous as he gains better control of his abilities. Its still awkward at times, its still bumpy but you can see the small change over time- and then he runs into his first biggest problem, Vlad.

Someone he should be able to relate to, someone he should see as a confidant, but instead Vlad treats him like Dash does. Like a freak, a burden, a loser. And it hurts so much more because Vlad is better at everything Danny is just brushing the surface of. And when he loses to Vlad? That puts this nail in the coffin of "I have to get better faster"

So Danny hardens. Subtly at first, spending more and more time as Phantom and practicing and training and at first his friends just think its a phase he's getting through- but he doesn't get through it. He just hardens more. No more goofy Danny, or anxious Danny. Just Danny Phantom, hero of Amityville, the person who faces any monster without fear. He starts not talking to his friends, to his family. He can't open up because they don't get it.

And then he's jailed in the ghost prison. Another trauma, another nightmare, but one he can't easily deal with and escape. It puts a lot of new pressure on him, being there and being surrounded by danger, and having to operate in this way that keeps him alive- to the best of his ability. He makes it out, luckily and barely, and there begins the start of the cracking. Because it was so fucking scary.

More and more I think we should see these moments in Danny's life that warp how he copes with them and see how he changes in response to them, and how the PEOPLE he relents this to help or hinder him.

#danny phantom #thoughts #drabbles #not art #sorry for long post but i LOVE EMOTIONAL EXPLORATION IN STORYTELLING

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pokelolmc · 5 months

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Fixing TUE Part 2.5--How I'd change Dan's story.

This is my take on Dan's narrative as "Danny's evil future self" in my analysis of The Ultimate Enemy. You can find part two here:

(Part 2), Part 2.5, (Part 3)

The episode tried to play the "alternate timeline evil self" straight, but turning Dan into a Danny and Vlad fusion causes it to veer off the "Dan is Danny turned evil" mark and contradict the episode's previous setup.

I'll admit, I got a bit negative in the last post, so it's a good thing this is more about ideas for improvements.

The obvious choice is either: make Dan literally just Danny/Phantom as an adult, turned evil (to play into the original narrative) or keep the fusion aspect and subvert the narrative.

So, while it'd make for a much more straightfoward/correct "villain self" story if Dan really was just if "Danny woke up and chose violence", I think I'd stick with the fusion aspect. Because that leaves so many interesting questions to explore about identity and moral responsibility--and it'd create an interesting twist on the typical "alternative villain self" trope.

Let's say that the new version of the episode follows a similar portrayal of Dan to canon initially--"Dan is Danny's evil future self", "Danny is going to become Dan" (without Clockwork's commentary, since he knows better)--and Danny agonises over it (after he actually makes legitimate moral mistakes in the episode and feels guilty about it, like actively abusing his ghost powers to cheat the CAT).

Then he finds out how Dan was actually created, and it's treated like a plot twist. The final act reveals that Dan is a fusion of two ghost halves, and Danny's not responsible for Dan in the same way he thought he was. Alternate!Phantom is still a part of Dan, but Dan and Danny's dynamic is different now.

In-universe, maybe the reason Dan only identifies as Danny is he didn’t want to remember the truth of his creation, and went into complete denial. The fact that he was born from Danny and Vlad's deep grief/loss/loneliness/emotional pain was too much for him to confront. It was one massive, overwhelming, toxic concoction. So, he decided he’d rather forget it. Since Vlad’s human half was still alive somewhere and could meet him again (reminding him of his fusion nature), his mind could’ve chosen to disconnect from the Plasmius component of his identity.

Instead, he deluded himself into believing that he was just a Danny who turned evil after he lost his loved ones and “purified” himself of his painful human half, since Danny’s identity was the most convenient to appropriate (with his human half being dead, and all) and the fusion woke up with Danny's logo.

Ironically, he didn’t actually lose his painful emotions. The halfa-splitting sorted deep emotional pain into the two ghost halves—based on the mental states/desires of the halfas when the separations occurred (eg., Danny’s desire to remove his pain). Rather than “ridding himself of emotions”, he became that negativity/pain incarnate, and it came out in the most destructive and monstrous way possible. After all, anger and wrath can come from a defence/vent for unacknowledged pain.

When Danny learns of Dan's backstory, he has to take a step back to process it all. He knows that Alternate!Vlad's too weak to kill him, even with the Ghost Gauntlets, so he reluctantly trusts his nemesis(...?) and makes a deal--if Vlad knows anything that could be used to stop Dan, give it over to Danny and he can go after Dan himself to undo everything in the past. No fight for the sake of a cutaway gag, here--we get some relationship development (on Danny's end, at least).

Vlad reluctantly agrees (he believes there's no way Danny can win, but he doesn't have much else of a choice--he's backed into a corner, and just thinks "What the hell? I've got nothing...")...and that triggers him to admit what happened ten years ago. Then he gives Danny the Ghost Gauntlets willingly and gets all serious:

"...Daniel?"

"...Yeah?"

"You have to promise me one thing?"

"What do you mean?"

"Just swear it!"

"O-okay, okay! Jeez! I swear. Happy?"

Vlad looks down pensively before his sunken, hollow eyes bury into Danny's with alarming clarity.

"If you fail...NEVER go to me. Leave Amity Park, move to another country, hide in the Ghost Zone...I don't care. Just...stay away from me, at all costs. If I chase you, run. Run like the world depends on it."

For someone who's never seen Vlad want nothing to do with him before...acting more like Danny's response to Vlad's advances in the past...it's bizarre. It prompts him to question what's really going on in Vlad's head in his own timeline, and what if there's something still in him like this?

So Dan's backstory actually affects the plot, and plays a role in the climax of the episode. And even though he doesn't show up in person, we address Vlad's responsibility in Dan's creation and he gets to contibute, willingly and meaningfully--by providing Danny with Dan's backstory (not just the Ghost Gauntlets Danny stole from him in combat).

It could come into play as a psychological weapon, to shatter Dan's denial— “I’m not you, Dan…I CREATED you!”, “You’re not me, you were MY MISTAKE!”, causing Dan to have a third-act breakdown (technically not main!Danny's mistake, since he's not Alternate!Danny, but he's putting it in the words Dan used in order to correct him). Then the Ghostly Wail can finish him off...or maybe he's strong enough that the Ghostly Wail doesn't end him, and it's the shock of the revelation that immobilises him enough for Danny to get him into the thermos.

#danny phantom #the ultimate enemy #danny fenton #dp rewrite #tue analysis #10 dp episodes with missed potential

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dani-halfa · 1 year

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I was thinking about the upcoming graphic novel again, ¨A Glitch in Time¨. The premise revolves around Dan escaping from the thermos under Clockwork’s watch (somehow).

The thing is, what if one of the reasons Dan still exists in the main timeline is because one of his halves is still evil, you know, Vlad Plasmius? Yes, the accident with Danny loosing his family was prevented and Danny didn’t cheat in the test... but Vlad? He still remained evil and got worse over time. Dan was not just created by Danny getting traumatized and his ghost half removed. It was after Phantom fused with Plasmius that he turned completely chaotic evil. So, what if to fully stop Dan from happening both halves need to change? Not only one part. I think that would be an interesting twist to the story rather than just having to beat Dan to the ground. Instead of the conflict being only a physical one, it could be an emotional/psychological one too. And i believe it would be better if the protagonists don’t learn about this until the very end after they have defeated Dan. Maybe Clockwork explains to them that it was a possible solution but he wasn’t sure if it was going to work. It would be better than them knowing from the start of the story.

#Danny Phantom #Danny phantom a glitch in time #Dan Phantom #Vlad Masters #the ultimate enemy #dp speculation

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aikoiya · 7 months

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If Ancient Vlad had changed his ways after the Series Finale, what would he be like in the ‘Danny Phantom: AGIT’ Comic? 💚 Would Vlad be horrified of the Clockwork + Dark Dan Evil Fusion? 💙 Would he be raising Dark Dan + Ellie? 💜 How would Vlad feel about ‘Phantom Planet’ being reversed? 🖤 Would Vlad get along with Danny and his Human Allies?

Vlad would be horrified at what his little Badger had become. It'd be like looking into a dark mirror. Then to learn that Dan didn't just aspire to kill all humanity, he actually went & did it in his timeline.

It'd also bring into perspective just why Clockwork is needed. It's also possible that by this point, Danny might've told Vlad about the Masters of All Time episode, which would obviously have been much different & would've had a very different focus. Though, I'm not sure what the long-term effects of it would've been. Perhaps... The Witch Trials would've gone on for much longer? Maybe a lot more people would've died? And, depending on what the false-pastor's true goals were, there'd have also been that to deal with. Maybe Danny's time would've been openly ruled by witches & warlocks with everyone under their thumb. Not sure...

Also, Vlad would be helping Team Phantom from the beginning & the team wouldn't feel the need to have him be tied up.

Also-also, MAYAN/AZTEC PHANTOM DESIGN!! I DEMANDETH IT!!

And, Imma say abso-freaking-lutely Vlad's gonna be raising Ellie & Dan!

Which, BTW!

If Vlad does manage to stabilize the other clones, I really like @kitty-av's names & personalities for them!

Though, I'm gonna have to give the one she calls Danté a different name as I have that one slated for Dan after AGIT.

Maybe Damien?

So, that would end up being Daniel (Danny), Damien (the skeleton clone without legs), Dominic (the clone that shrinks), Dorian (the big, beefy Frankenstein boy), Eleanor (Danielle), & Danté (Dan).

At the same time, in order to fully stabilize them, I feel like it'd take more than just Danny's midmorph DNA. Like, yeah, that'd certainly help, but it wouldn't fix their problem, I don't think.

The main issue, I think, is that Vlad seemed to mainly use ectoplasmic means to clone them, which likely means that their human halves probably have faults in them. Maybe it even corrupted their DNA to a degree?

Basically, if they had organic, human bodies, they'd likely be much more stable.

As it stands, their ectoplasm seems to be keeping their human DNA together, but it shouldn't have to do that.

My thoughts are that Vlad will need to mix human cloning technology with his own ghostly cloning technology. Where he'd build pods to put them in & when they destabilize inside, the machine will use the combination of their ENA (ecto-dna) with their human DNA & Danny's midmorph DNA to create a fully-stable, human body with ectoplasm suffused into every cell like Danny.

If we really wanna go big, he might even have to get them a secondary, female donor.

However, this would essentially erase the effects of whatever speed-aging agent that Vlad used to make them the age they are, thus reducing them to their actual, physical ages of only a few months. And even then, Damian would still be missing his legs & Dominic would be missing an eye, but those are things easily worked around using biomedical engineering (prostheses).

Dan's clone would likely be different in that it'd have been made the right way the first time, while the others were unstable already, so Vlad wouldn't have been able to risk using the speed-aging agent on them for fear of exacerbating their already unstable DNA.

Honestly, I think Vlad would be relieved because, let's be real here, while he was fused with Pariah, chances are, he probably went on a rampage & killed a lot of people.

If Clockwork undoes Phantom Planet, then those people are back, which would make him feel much better.

Another thing is that, because we've set up the story the way we have, Danny's parents would still know about his identity & Jack would still be in open support of him, though Maddie's progress would be set back. Possibly even quite a bit.

The biggest difference would be that the whole dang town would no longer be clued in.

I also forgot that Jack being openly supportive of Phantom & Maddie no longer being hostile towards him would definitely change some things in the town.

For instance, the GiW would be openly against them & might even try to arrest them.

And the A-Listers might have a better opinion of them. Especially Dash & Paulina, as they are some of Phantom's biggest, non-team member human supporters.

Not sure what else, but those are definitely things to take into account.

Speaking of the GiW, I see Jack eventually becoming actively & openly opposed to the Anti-Ecto Acts & would make that fact very well-known, which would get Sam quickly on his side, quick & in a hurry. I see them, the rest of Team Phantom, as well as all Phantom's phans creating a sort of activism group with the goal of repealing the acts.

Whether they'd actually manage it, is another story.

DP Ask AU Masterlist

#dp #danny phantom #ancient vlad au

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underforeversgrace · 8 months

Text

healing the wounds we hid - 5

title: healing the wounds we hid

words: 3,374

Finally, the sequel to broken trust and the wounds hidden behind! (Refresh here on AO3 or here on Tumblr)

Story Summary: Now that his father knows, Danny's life is changing for the better. Jack encourages him to let his friends and the rest of the family into his small word. Unbeknownst to Danny, Jack is secretly worried about how Maddie will react to the news upon her return to Amity - and how to confront Vlad once Jack learns his true identity. Amidst it all, an enemy lurks and plots their revenge.

Chapter 5 of 11: Being With You

AO3

Tumblr Chapter One

(Tumblr Chapter Five will be here)

Beta by: @probably-dead and @scarletsaphire!

This one has surprise art from @duchi-nesten! She knew Savant Par was in the fic and gave me a lil treat! See their post here.

~~~~~~

The three of them walked towards Danny’s house after school. He knew he needed to tell his father about their discovery today, and as much as he trusted his father now… it still felt shameful, to do something so ghostly. Even though Jack had known for so long about what he was, and Sam and Tucker hadn’t, he still felt stronger with the two of them.

Part of him wondered if that was related to the emotion eating, if they were purposefully channeling positive emotions to him, channeling strength.

“Man, I still can’t believe Ember was a ghost!” Tucker lamented.

“I can!” Sam said. “The way her music was basically mind controlling people!”

“Not basically mind controlling,” Danny corrected. “It was straight up mind control.”

Tucker continued to mourn his favorite singer being part of an evil plot to take over the world, and Sam continued to be righteous about how much stuff in the popular view was doing the same thing, just on a less literal basis. Danny was just laughing, occasionally throwing in more bits and pieces of the story. He had nearly two years’ worth of stories to tell and two friends ready to hear all of it.

“Oh, can I ask about a specific incident?” Sam asked once she got bored of the Ember conversation.

Danny shrugged. “Sure.”

“The Ghost King incident - Parrish Dark or something? What happened with that?”

“Pariah Dark. And what all do you know? I, uh… wasn’t feeling too well after it and missed the media coverage.”

“We don’t know much,” Tucker admitted. “Inviso-bill stole the Fenton’s battle suit and flew off into the Ghost Zone, somehow remotely taking down and putting the shield back up. Half of what the news was talking about was wondering how the hell you even got within the shield, especially concerned you apparently had some control over it. Do ghost shields not affect you?”

“I can pass through them when I’m human,” Danny answered. “I can’t pass through them as a ghost, but the ecto suit had remote access to the shield, since it’s powered by ectoplasm too.”

“Cool! Man, I can’t wait to talk to your parents about how they got that level of interactivity between their devices and -“

“Anyway,” Sam interjected, cutting him off before he could go too far down the tech geek rabbit hole. “Like Tuck said, half of it was you being inside the shield, the other half was wondering if you’d decided to challenge Pariah Dark and stake claim over Amity yourself. Though they did mention a few times that you’d given yourself a name as you flew away - called yourself Phantom.”

“I will forever be grateful that people only heard me say Phantom because of the suit’s interference,” Danny said with a laugh. “What I said was Danny Phantom. Drew up a fancy logo and everything. Get it? Danny Fenton, Danny Phantom?”

The other two both groaned at the pun.

“Dude, secret identity much?” Tucker said.

Danny smiled sheepishly. “That was only like five months after my accident and I was just so over being called Inviso-bill, y’know? When I realized that was all they heard, I went with it.” Danny paused. No more secrets. No more lies. He reminded himself before continuing. “And I didn’t need to challenge Dark,” Danny admitted. “He challenged me when he tried to claim Amity Park.”

“Really?” Tucker asked.

Danny fidgeted before continuing. He wasn’t used to openly discussing his ghostliness and he kept having to remind himself they weren’t going to run away. “Amity Park is my haunt. Under ghost custom, the people here are mine.” The three had stopped walking and while they looked at him with confusion, they didn’t seem repulsed by the idea. He forced himself to keep talking. “Even if it wasn’t, one of my Obsessions is protecting Amity. He tried to stake claim over my home, my haunt, my people, my life.”

He realized he had growled out the last part, the memory still sending a surge of anger and the desire to protect within him. He cleared his throat before continuing. “He knew Amity was mine when he tried to take it. He didn’t think I was a threat. And, honestly, if I hadn’t stolen that suit, I probably wouldn’t have been.”

“And then what?” Sam asked.

“Well, not much, honestly. The other ghosts helped take down the weaker ones in the king’s army and I accepted Dark’s challenge. I won,” he said with a shrug, deciding it was fine to not tell them everything - they didn’t need to know how afraid he’d been, how he’d felt his soul being ripped apart by the suit, how he’d accepted death as blackness had consumed him, how much pain he’d been in.

How he had wondered if this death would finally grant him the peace he’d been denied the first time he died.

“That is so fucking cool!” Tucker said, practically with stars in his eyes as he looked at Danny.

“What?” Danny asked, confused. That was not a response he’d been expecting.

“Tucker’s right,” Sam agreed. “You took on a super powerful ghost king by yourself and beat him.”

“You’re a legit badass, dude!”

Danny just laughed and they resumed walking towards FentonWorks. His initial reaction was to question them not reacting to the whole ‘this is my town and I ghost-own everyone in it,’ but he didn’t. They didn’t care. They didn’t care about his weird ghost stuff and they continued to prove it with every word and action.

“Danno!” His dad shouted as soon as Danny opened the front door. “How was school?”

Danny shrugged, tossing his backpack to the floor. Sam and Tucker’s quickly joined his. “It was school. Thank the Ancients it's Friday!”

“‘Thank the Ancients?’” Sam repeated.

“Oh, uh. Kinda like ghost gods. But, like, verifiably real? One of them’s a friend.” Danny answered.

“Is that the time one?” Jack asked.

“‘Time one?’” Tucker asked, his and Sam’s faces growing steadily more bewildered.

“Clockwork. He controls time.” Danny supplied.

“When the hell did you meet the ghost god of time?” Sam asked.

“That’s… it’s not a story I like to tell. Something bad happened and Clockwork intervened. I’ll tell you the full story one day, okay?” Danny tried not to grimace as he forced the memories down.

“Dude, how many stories do you have?”

Danny grinned sheepishly at Tucker. “Enough of them.”

Jack, who knew some of the story, intervened. “Danny, I actually wanted to talk to you. Sam and Tucker can join if they want to!”

“I need to talk to you, too. Everything alright with you, Dad?” Danny asked as he plopped down on the couch, Sam and Tuck following to either side while Jack sat in one of the chairs.

“Well, your mother will be home in a week,” Jack started. Danny immediately tensed, though he relaxed some when both his friends went for his hands. Right. He had them and he had his father. “So, I want us to talk to Jazz tonight, bring her in, so all of us are on the same page when Maddie gets home.”

“Are you sure about all of this? Telling her? Do we… do I have to?” Danny asked, hating how small his voice sounded, how afraid he still was of his own mom.

“We can’t hide it from her, son,” his father said softly. “Keeping it secret this long… it’s been hard. You know your mother loves you.”

“More than she hates ghosts, though? Can you guarantee that?”

When his father’s face fell, his eyes on the ground between them, Danny felt a shiver of ice down his spine at the wordless answer. “I can’t,” he admitted. “I love her, and I trust her, but…”

“You really think Mrs. F will hate him, even though he’s her son?” Tucker asked, throwing a worried glance Danny’s way.

“It’s not that. I’m not entirely sure if she’ll even be able to believe in hybrids. We had contemplated the idea in college and tossed it out, it was simply impossible, study after study we did seemed to confirm that.”

“So you’re worried she won’t believe he’s Danny?” Sam asked.

As uncomfortable as the conversation was, as much as the idea of his mother hating him hurt, his core still hummed with some sense of contentment. His friends seemed to be invested in the conversation, invested in keeping him safe.

Jack nodded. “What’s more likely? A scientist believing something she’s disproven several times, or believing that a ghost has possessed her son?”

“And you don’t know if we can ever convince her I’m still Danny, do you?” Danny asked, though the answer was written all over Jack’s face.

“You found out on accident and believed it. What convinced you?” Tucker asked.

“Has he told you how I found out?”

“Uh, yeah. You found some kind of video on a flash drive.” Sam answered.

“That’s all they know. I didn’t go into more detail.” Danny provided and again the other two looked at him in confusion. He knew he had made it seem like the video Jack found was some random, silly thing, instead of the good-bye it had been. He motioned to his father, letting him know it was okay to continue.

Jack cleared his throat. “Well… to keep it short, it was a video Danny had filmed in case he never came home… if he was never able to come home again.” Horror and realization dawned on their faces and Danny grimaced. He hadn’t been sure if they had fully understood the risks he took. This confirmed that they didn’t.

“What I do is dangerous, guys. The other ghosts, the human hunters… being kidnapped or dying is always a possibility.” Danny admitted. His friends’ grips on his hands tightened and their desire to protect struck him so hard he was nearly breathless.

“Maddie and I nearly killed him, about six weeks before I found the video,” Jack added, guilt on his weary face. “So he filmed the good-bye video, as Phantom. Told the story of who he’d been before his accident, what the accident did to him, and then he transformed. I can’t explain it, what convinced me. But all the pieces fit. Suddenly I could see Danny in everything Phantom did.”

“I know what you mean,” Tucker mumbled.

“You could just show her the video? It convinced you, wouldn’t it convince her?” Sam asked.

“Danny erased it.”

“No, I didn’t,” Danny said. “I deleted the video journal. I haven’t removed anything from the main USB. But I don’t want her or anyone else finding out that way. No one was ever supposed to see that, I just forgot to record another version.”

Jack sighed, running his hand down his face. He looked older than Danny had ever seen him. “Either way, we have to tell her. And I want us to tell Jazz tonight. I’ve already called her and asked her to be home for a family meeting.”

Danny pulled his hands away from his friends, instead placing his elbows to his knees, resting his head in his hands, eyes shut tight, as he thought about telling Jazz, telling Maddie. Jazz he was fine with - he’d never been afraid of her rejection, not really. He’d been afraid she wouldn’t be able to keep it secret. The most he was afraid of with her was the psychoanalysis - he wasn’t dumb, he knew the life he led caused a myriad of issues. Maddie, though…

In his mind, he heard the echoed laugh of another female scientist, felt the memory of a burn along his chest. The healed scar beneath his shirt twitched with phantom pains and he pressed a hand to where he knew the three lines intersected.

Maddie had always been the one he was more afraid of, between his parents. Maddie was the better shot, the crueler scientist, the one who went into the most detail of what she wanted to do to a ghost while Danny tried to eat his cereal.

“Danny, no,” Jack said, standing and moving in front of him, kneeling down to his level. “I won’t let that happen to you again, okay? I will protect you, you will never end up like that again. Not from Maddie or the Guys in White or anyone else. Do you understand me? As long as I’m alive, I will never let that happen to you again.”

“Never let what happen again?” Tucker asked.

“You haven’t told them. Shit,” Jack muttered, glancing at the two teens with guilt on his face.

Danny just pressed his eyelids tighter against each other, tears falling as he pushed away memories of sadistic laughter and restraints and an explosion of electricity as even his core was cut into. So familiar to the electricity that had initially killed him. “The Guys in White caught me once. Please… please don’t ask me about it. My secret is safe and I survived, that’s all that matters.”

“Danny…” Sam whispered, still pressed against his side.

Tucker said nothing, wrapping his arms around Danny and pulling him close, just like he’d done in the clearing. Danny let him. After spending so long touch starved after his Accident - untouchable as Phantom, isolated from his friends, afraid of his family - he found himself eagerly seeking warmth and comfort every time it was offered to him.

“Fine, let’s tell Jazz,” Danny conceded after a moment of silence, finally cracking his eyes back open. “We can - Dad, what the hell is that?” He asked, shooting back up into a sitting position as he noticed the purple bruises on his father’s neck, just barely visible over the neckline of his jumpsuit.

Jack immediately tried to pull up the fabric, trying to hide the injury like he had before, but Danny stopped him. He batted his hand away and pulled down on it, letting the light of the living room show dark, angry splotches coloring his skin. Danny’s stomach dropped.

He’d had enough hands wrapped around his own neck - enough bruises he’d spent hours trying to cover in the mirror - to know what it looked like when someone had been choked out. “Dad?” He asked again.

Jack sighed and stood, walking away from him. “I was going to tell you.” He finally said after several moments.

“Tell me what?” Danny asked, pulling away from Tucker’s embrace and standing as well. He felt bad for his friends - they’d gotten pulled into family drama, his family drama - but he still didn’t want either of them to leave.

“Do you remember the first time you called me? The injury from Skulker?”

Danny frowned. “Barely. I’d lost a lot of blood. My memories are spotty.”

“I’d asked you to talk to me, so I would know if you lost consciousness.”

“I don’t remember any of that.”

“I asked you to tell me about Skulker. You told me you were a unique ghost.” Jack finally turned around, blue eyes full of regret. “Told me you were one of only two.”

Danny’s eyes widened. That wasn’t good - what else had he said?

Jack continued when Danny remained silent. “You called the other guy a fruit loop.” No no no. “Do you know how many times I’ve heard you call Vlad that?”

“No,” Danny whispered in horror, thoughts spiraling rapidly out of his control.

“I had no idea who the other ghost was, you didn’t give a name. Had no clue who Vlad’s ghost half could be. And then Monday at the Nasty Burger, with Plasmius. And he called you little badger. I’d always thought it was just a godfather’s cute nickname for his godson. I was wrong, wasn’t I?”

“Dad!” Danny panicked, glancing at his father and then at his friends behind him. “You can’t know that! Vlad’ll kill you if he ever finds out you know! Oh, Ancients, Sam and Tuck…!” He trailed off, berating himself for letting this happen, for telling anyone his secret, for ever making that stupid video.

“Danny, Danny, calm down,” Jack said, grabbing Danny’s shoulders, grounding him. “I’m fine. I talked to him today.”

“You what?” Danny asked, staring at his dad in horror, before anger flared inside him. “Did he do that?” he growled.

“Danny, it’s fine, I’m fine, we just talked,” Jack said. “Let me talk before you start to panic, okay? Can you do that for me?”

“I don’t panic…” Danny mumbled but didn’t interrupt when Jack spoke again.

“Sure you don’t, son,” Jack teased. “But I talked to Vlad, okay? Everything is fine, he isn’t going to hurt me or you. And he doesn’t need to know anyone else learned his secret.”

“If everything is fine, why do you have bruises?”

Jack shrugged. “Those are from before we talked.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were going there? You know what Plasmius is like.”

“He’s my friend and I hurt him. It was my responsibility.”

Danny grumbled but dropped the topic for now. He and Vlad would be having some strong words - and fists - the next time they saw each other.

“Jazz will be home soon,” Jack said, glancing at the clock near the front door before heading to the kitchen. “I’m going to order pizza, okay?”

“Do you want us to stay?” Tucker asked, getting up to stand beside Danny.

“Please?” He answered.

“We’re right here, Danny,” Sam said, grinning. “Do you want to tell him about the other thing before or after Jazz gets here?”

Danny groaned. He’d completely forgotten about that with everything else that had happened since walking in the front door. “Before.”

“I have to run to the bathroom, wait for me before telling him?” Sam said, going up the stairs before either boy could answer.

For the first time since Danny’s revelation, he and Tucker were alone with each other. He turned to his friend, mouth open but words failing him. He focused again on the emotions that weren’t his, the feeling of love still just as strong as it had been before.

“Okay, dude, I swear, it isn’t the superhero thing!” Tucker said as he saw Danny’s hesitation. “I think I’ve felt that way for a long time, and it hurt so bad when you left and then being around you hurt and then when you asked to talk to us and then I just kind of realized it but I didn’t want you to think I was just crushing on you because I found out you’re Phantom so I didn’t mention it but I know you felt it during lunch and I hope it’s okay and doesn’t ruin our friendship and -!”

Danny cut off Tucker’s rambling, stepping into his personal space and deftly snaking his hand around Tucker’s head. He pulled him down until their lips pressed together. Tucker relaxed against him instantly, wrapping both of his arms around Danny’s back, a pleasant warmth against the chill.

Danny knew he was being impulsive, taking something new that he’d never had before and running with it. But it just felt right, pressed against Tucker even as they pulled their faces apart because of Tucker’s need to breathe.

“I know you’ve been through a lot,” Tucker whispered. “Even more than I originally thought, apparently. But I’m going to be by your side for everything, now. I’m not going anywhere. Understand me?”

Danny chuckled, letting the stress of the earlier conversation and the fear of conversations still to come slip away from him, even if for only a moment. “Understood.”

Tucker grinned and Danny was again melting into the warmth of the other boy’s lips.

“Man, I’ve been anticipating this since middle school,” Sam said as she descended the stairs. Both boys jumped, rapidly pulling away from each other, blushing hard. Sam just shrugged. “You two have been setting off my gaydar for years. The only ones surprised here are you.”

Danny and Tucker just grinned sheepishly at her as she laughed, throwing each other sidelong glances.

No matter what happened next, Danny knew he had people in his corner. Dad, Sam, Tucker - his support group kept growing, and hope was a warm feeling inside of him as he prayed his sister and his mother would be joining the group soon.

#grace writes #danny phantom #danny fenton #invisobang #invisobang 2023 #invisobang2023

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dannyphantom-justiceleauge · 3 years

Note

This may be a minor gripe but something that has kind of bothered me about discussions and depictions of Dan is how often people seem to forget that Dan isn't just an older evil Danny, he's a combination of Danny and Vlad's ghost sides. Like people always talk about him like Danny threw away his humanity and turned evil but that's not even true. Sure, we can say that Dan is the result of Danny's action but that's a little unfair. (1/2)

(2/2) Him cheating on a test, coincidentally putting his loved one's in a position where they could be killed, is absolutely not his fault. Letting Vlad take away his ghost powers with a strange contraption might not have been the smartest move, but we are talking about a grieving CHILD here, of course he isn't going to make the best decisions. If anything Vlad's the one to blame here, and even then, it's not like he could predict what happened

---

you aren't wrong, my friend. it really isn't entirely danny's fault and the whole 'if you cheat on a test, you'll loose everything you love' moral is confused at best. i think as fandom we find it more interesting to look at danny's potential evil and moral struggle with himself. so simplifying it to be dan is a worse case scenario of danny makes the conflict less abstract.

particularly because when it comes to self blame danny isn't going to go easy on himself just because it was excusable mistakes.

i think another talking point should be how danny is the target of the time assassination more than vlad is, even though vlad is part of the evil whole. you could argue that danny is the catalyst of his friends death and vlad inventing the claw things. but vlad invented the claw things. maybe because his human side survived and acted relatively harmless from then on? or maybe it's because the observants based on the available evidence recognized danny as more of a threat. i think that fits actually, for all vlad tried to be an evil mastermind, his achievements outside of terrorizing a teenager and theft isn't particularly impressive. danny was the one who got shit done. all his fights he finished one way or another and i could see how that would bleed into dan defeating everyone.

the real question is how to we fix this. ideally we could shape this idea so it's less confused, though i do honestly find the dynamic of half danny, half vlad interesting. if for not other reason. than two half ghosts make a whole. actually that's something else to be said about dan. his self-loathing is what led him to killing his human half, another negative aspect coming from danny.

i wonder if we could frame it like fusion, from su. obviously dan isn't stable or healthy, or based on love. he's most comparable to malichite. but with less internal debate. dan took the best and worst of both of them. danny's determination, danny's fighting ability, danny's anger, danny's sarcasm, vlad's anger, vlads lack of morals, vlads schemes, vlad's control. heck, vlads desire to rule the world. i don't think we ever got that from danny.

maybe if vlad was more involved in the fight with dan it could have been used as an opportunity to compare and contrast their characters. to go we're not so different you and i. danny gets to recognize that he has that dark potential. vlad gets to be humbled by the fact that what he wants isn't good for anyone, especially himself. and to be fair, we do see some of that humbling with future vlad, but none of that character growth is given to present vlad, so, really it's just another vehicle for danny angst. it also depends on what you want to do with vlad though. he's a fascinating character and could be given redemption under the right circumstances or be a character who has the opportunity for redemption but chooses not to be redeemed every time.

that fits him and makes him both a more pathetic and despicable villain. it's hard to pity someone who ignores the opportunities to heal and grow.

as for danny, he becomes far more aware of the consequences his actions, especially his selfish and cruel ones can have. because that potential was always there. he has a history of abusing his powers. perhaps for this specific incident him abusing his powers can be something less understandable than almost cheating on a test that he couldn't study for through no fault of his own. (maybe i just have flexible morals?). maybe it could be something more character relevant, like he did something particularly vlad like, maybe he set up a prank at the nasty burger to get dash but it set off the explosion that killed his family. or maybe he did something particularly cruel and manipulative. there are better catalysts than a test. either way he recognized that he should never go that far again and strive to avoid being actively cruel.

he also has the opportunity to recognize that vlad does have a human half, even the one he's fighting everyday. he can face some conflict in it's not entirely clear what trait belongs to vlad and what trait belongs to him. he can empathize with vlad and he can recognize that situations aren't always in black in white. those who fly the highest, fall the hardest, after all.

it can be a growing experience. and while making it solely a danny goes bad and learns not to do evil kind of story. maybe we could cut vlad from the equation and just have danny face himself, full evil refection. i think exploring both vlad and danny through this fusion is far more interesting. especially because we can build on what's revealed about vlad in these episodes, in later ones. danny sees a future where vlad chills and that maybe his vlad could get their. later he see vlads past and what he lost to become who he is.

and then there's vlads turning point episodes. i don't know when motherly instinct took place but maddie fully recognizing he's a bastard and rejection him, was a turning point for his sanity, and danny helped it along. then we have danny rejecting him repeatedly, then we the clone episode, which we can all agree was a desperate move on his part, that danny once again thwarted. and we can all agree that this was the cannon turning point for his character where he stopped fighting for a family and started trying to be danny's villain. in that episode, i think danny could potentially pity vlad enough to try and reach out. he's not going to justify what vlad did and he's not going to apologize for stopping him. he went too far. he hurt danny and dani, he crossed a moral line that can't be justified even with his desperation. but if he changes...

he lost this time but if he changes, maybe they'll reach the point where they're ready to accept him.

i think the same thing could be said about his relationship with jack and maddie. if he changes, if he reaches out. if acts like less of a crazy fruitloop, his friends would be there for him. jack is still trying to be there for him, even if he's being oblivious about vlad's faults. vlads the one driving wedges into his relationships and pushing everyone away.

and that's so freaking human and understandable.it would be such a cool thing to explore with his character.

i could also see a potential arc where after valerie finds out vlad and masters are the same person she tries to get close to him, both to sus out how evil he is and to understand him as a halfa. afterall danny got her to acknowledge dani as human enough, the same would apply to vlad/plasmius, right? only he's a bad person and the more she uncovers about vlad masters the man, the more she realizes it's not the ghost half that's evil. but this is a double edged sword because, vlad is getting attached to her and encouraging her to be more evil. he's encouraging her to go darker and darker in her fight against ghosts and her fight specifically against phantom. to the point where she finally draws the line and says, i'm not doing that! boom exploring the moral ambiguity of her character and getting her to take a hard stance on her morals, because there's a line too far for her.

and boom a further breakdown of vlads character because he finally had someone outside the fentons to redeem him. she could have helped pull him out of the hole he'd been digging himself into. she wanted to help him. he got attached to her, but he and his bad decisions decided to dig himself deeper instead. so once again he's 'abandoned and betrayed'.

from that point, i think it'd be time for him to finally face jack head on. not through manipulative schemes. not through veiled threats and insults. but the full confrontation of 'i always hated you. you ruined my life. you're the reason i lost everything'. which is really just his own self loathing speaking. and jack... empathetic jack can see that vlad desperately wants help. and jack would offer it to him. jack would try to hug it out and apologize and give vlad the love and friendship vlad's been fighting to steal this whole time.

and vlad would reject it.

he'd probably lash out a jack and go into a full breakdown/world destroying attack. could finally put the stolen crown to use and try declaring himself king and embracing his megalomaniac thing and actually be a threat this time. and THAT would be our series finally. everyone teaming up to fight 'king vlad'. danny probably finding out that he's technically king because he beat pariah dark but the matter being a bit confused because he had help. val and danny trying to find the ring of rage or at least find someone who can make one. secrets are out. i imagine vlad, upon revealing himself to jack would out danny to make danny as sad and alone as him. except nope, his family still loves him and val has had the character development to come around to him. (she's still gonna punch danny for lying for so long.) the ghosts will come and help because no one wants another tyrannical kind and vlads obviously off his rocker.

ah, the could have beens

anyway, i didn't mean for this to become a full vlad character analysis and rewrite when we were supposed to be talking about dan, but hey, i'm a simple creature. i like good writing, and i have to rewrite things myself, so be it. - Hestia

#dpjl #hestiawrites #danny phantom #vlad masters

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thesoulspulse · 3 years

Text

Regarding My Good Vlad AU (Alternate Timeline)

I mentioned in the other posts about my Good Vlad AU that his timeline would be very different than the canon one which is similar to what I tried to do in my fanfic “Lost Soul” which is about a genderbent Danny and unlike this AU still has semi-villainous Vlad from the get-go. That said, this Vlad has a bit of a dark side too but it’s not for the same reasons. My Good Vlad is more like a spoiled man-child who doesn't know any better not to be selfish sometimes so Danny has to keep him in check and he’s not afraid to pull his punches when it comes to making others regret ever messing with Vlad Masters or his son-in-all-but-blood. And in exchange Vlad helps protect him and offers the guidance Danny never got from him in the show regarding his powers so he had to learn about everything on his own...

Yes Vlad, you get to be a good guy! Let’s find out how by going over some important plot points that would have either never happened or I'd have to change to fit this AU.

To keep things organized let’s go by season!

Season 1:

Bitter Reunions

As explained in an earlier post, this Vlad actually wanted to reconnect with Jack since they reconciled after the accident and planned to tell him and Maddie his secret at the reunion. All that changes when Danny’s secret is revealed to him too after their fight the night before when Vlad accidentally knocks him out while defending himself. He manages to talk to Danny later privately in his lab the next day and not only apologizes for the misunderstanding but offers to help Danny, giving him plenty of time to think about his offer to start training together.

Shades of Gray

Instead of making Valerie a ghost hunter to spy on Danny, Vlad makes her one as a way to help lighten Danny’s workload from dealing with so many ghosts. Vlad is still keeping tabs on Danny but it’s more to make sure he’s not up against something he can’t handle on his own.

Maternal Instinct

This never happened because for one thing, this Vlad realized years ago that it wasn't love he felt for Maddie it was a deep admiration. Not only that, but he just wants to be a part of their lives again since they stayed friends before drifting apart as Vlad's stay in the hospital lasted longer than expected and he insisted that Jack and Maddie go back to living their lives until he recovered. Plus, this Vlad is an avid supporter of animal rescue whether they’re living or ghost so he'd never experiment on them like he did in this episode.

Million Dollar Ghost

Again, Good Vlad would never do this to Danny since he cares so much about him and doesn't want to make his life even harder. If anything, he'd put a price on the head of any ghost who dares to seriously injure Danny or personally hunt them down himself to punish them. Nobody messes with his little badger and gets away with it!

Season 2:

Reign Storm

If this happens, it's only because Good Vlad had good intentions at heart and wanted to take the Crown of Fire and Ring of Rage away from Pariah Dark and never imagined opening the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep would actually wake the Ghost King up. Think of it as a more innocent fruitloop moment where Vlad just does things his way to try and help and it goes horribly wrong. He feels guilty about it too and Danny's just really exasperated with him the whole time they're trying to stop him and his army together.

The Ultimate Enemy

Technically speaking this never would have happened because the only reason Dan was created is because Vlad's 'evil ghost half' corrupted Danny's and drove him mad. So in this case, even if Danny lost his friends and family, Vlad would do everything in his power to help Danny recover emotionally from the terrible loss.Not to mention this Vlad isn’t really evil, he’s just super scary if you hurt the people he cares about. And since they're on good terms in this AU Vlad wouldn't be dumb or selfish enough to resort to the whole 'remove his humanity' nonsense just to win Danny over.

Secret Weapons

Even if Danny and Jazz still got into a fight, Jazz would have no reason to try to expose Vlad like she tried to in the show to prove to her brother she can be helpful. In fact, maybe this could actually be how Jazz discovers Vlad's half-ghost too since they never got around to telling her. Maybe she becomes curious to find out more and when Danny goes there to get her back since she was upset with him, Vlad helps smooth things over and offers to help Jazz at least learn some basic self-defense so she can help Danny by not putting herself in harm's way.

Masters of Time

Honestly, I might be able to still get this to work if Vlad gets ecto-acne again because of one of his own experiments gone wrong (which lets face it is probably what happened in the original episode off screen because canon Vlad originally planned to infect Jack to give him a taste of what he went through) and Danny asks to go back in time to find a way to fix this not because Vlad blackmails him, but because he cares about his uncle/mentor a lot. And instead of trying to stop the accident from happening Danny's curious to learn more about Vlad's past and goes to see him at the hospital, shocked to discover how many of the same ghost power problems they shared after what happened to them so it becomes an indirect bonding moment for them. Maybe Danny even comforts Vlad during a particularly bad day at the hospital and sits in the room with him invisibly all night to make sure he'll pull through.

Kindred Spirits

As much as I love Danielle and wish the other clones had more of a chance in life to be part of Vlad's family and turn a new leaf for the guy, my Good Vlad would never feel the need to clone Danny since they're already as close as they can be even if he knows Danny can never officially be his son even if he treats him that way. And he wouldn't dare break Danny's trust by cloning him without permission just to have a family of his own. Someone suggested that maybe the Guys in White could clone Danny instead but the problem there is they're part of the government and it would have given away Danny's secret about being half-human too since they'd have a genetic match on record from when he was born.

Season 3:

Eye For An Eye

I'm going to say Vlad still becomes mayor in this AU but it's because he wants to implement more policies to keep the ghost population under control for Danny's sake. It's not to spite him like in the canon episode. I did something similar in my fanfic “Lost Soul.”

Infinite Realms

This definitely still needs to happen but because Good Vlad absolutely loves collecting magical/supernatural artifacts. So this time when Vlad steals it from Danny, Danny only chases after him because Vlad's acting like a kid with a new toy he doesn't want to give up and keeps causing trouble with so it's more of a comical episode. Oh and by the way, Vlad doesn't use Blood Blossoms against him this time around either. Vlad does something else to keep Danny and his friends busy so he could snag the map to begin with. So really, it would all just be a big game of keep away until Danny finally catches him and convinces Vlad to give the Infimap back to Frostbite.

Torrent of Terror

Instead of controlling Vortex as a means to look good to the masses during a massive heatwave in Amity Park, Vlad does it to genuinely help out in his own special Vlad-way and again it goes horribly wrong and Danny has to help him fix this mess. Good Vlad wouldn't run away from this fight either like canon Vlad did so maybe he just gets knocked out or something, not sure. Plus if Danny ended up with weather controlling powers it might actually be kinda fun for Vlad and Danny at first and they bond by pulling pranks on other people until it becomes clear that they still need to deal with Vortex, not to mention changing the weather at will would be even harder to hide from Danny's parents than his usual ghost powers.

D-Stabilized

Again, if Vlad never clones Danny, then Danielle wouldn't exist for any of this to happen sadly.

Phantom Planet

Let's face it, this was all canon Vlad's fault. Good Vlad would have no reason to be in space or steal the Infimap again, or if he was studying that meteor he'd be a lot more careful and the explosion that sent it hurdling towards the Earth never would have happened since he and Danny wouldn't be fighting up there. So lets say...it still happens because it's the Guys in White looking for more methods to fight ghosts and figure the Ectoranium would be perfect for that instead? Maybe Vlad could still try to save the earth with Danny's help but isn't a total moron that reveals his secret to the world, rather as mayor he works WITH Danny Phantom and the other ghosts for the sake of both their worlds since they're flip sides of each other.

Then, like Valerie, maybe Vlad makes that team of ghost hunters to help Danny live a normal life where he doesn't have to fight ghosts so he can relax instead and hang out with his friends. But then the Disasteroid thing happens and he has to get back to work by convincing the ghosts to help them save the world with the plan that he AND Vlad came up with as soon as they realized they can't touch that meteor. Of course, after all is said and done it's revealed that the Guys in White were responsible and Vlad motions to have them permanently disbanded or put under new management, aka his so he can keep them in check personally so they can never go after him or Danny.

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constellaj · 3 years

Note

Please talk more about your reboot!

16: If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?

okay so how i would re-do CANON is completely different from how i would talk abt a reboot so im gonna touch on a couple things in both contexts! the reason for the difference is canon rewrites imply i can go back in time and introduce dp fresh and new, before anyone knows what it is; but for a reboot, id be working with an audience that has a better understanding of the source material, so i dont need to spend as much time explaining, but i also need to keep everything recognizable

Valerie

REWRITE: i would def make it more danny's fault that her dad lost his job, like danny was intentionally being reckless and shattered some security stuff, and he has a whole mini lesson about learning to not just run in guns blazing. i would probably remove the dating stuff with her and danny (and tuckers crush) too, I think them wanting to be good friends is good enough for freshman year

REBOOT: the fandom already knows valerie exists, so i would actually skip the whole shades-of-gray introductory episode and have her be present as the huntress from day 1-- probably even before danny got his powers. cujo is also HER dog, and her backstory-- we'd find out in like, season 1, that a natural ghost portal (maybe one wulf opened) ripped open on her dog and killed him, and since then shes had a vendetta against ghosts cause of how reckless they are and their disregard for life-- of course, cujo isnt actually dead. cujo is a halfa. a puby halfa. anyway instead of a hoverboard she actually rides cujo around cause he can fly and its big and epic. valerie has BEEN amity parks ghost-eradicating superhero for at least a year (tho shes been in the shadows abt it) and her hatred towards danny actually just becomes really petty, like them flying next to each other chasing skulker just going "I got this. no I got this. no I got this" and they just get in each others' way and its a mutual grudge.

BOTH: i am NOT keeping in vlad giving her the suit to watch danny under any circumstances. it was only utilized half assedly in canon (when vlad couldve just had an invisible duplicate watching him instead) anyway, and I dont have any reason to keep it in a reboot either. instead i want her tech to be a combination of half-stolen and half-gerryrigged stuff and she slowly slowly learns how to build her own.

I also dont want anyone knowing her secret identity, except maybe her dad, and sam or tucker. i think it works better if danny isnt privy to this magic info

Freakshow

REWRITE: i would honestly just remove him. the episodes hes in arent particularly interesting, theyre just generic "we need a plot about x" filler and he's not compelling enough a character (at least in writing) to carry a better plot that another antagonist couldnt. i'm serious

REBOOT: unfortunately in a reboot he's gonna have to pop up somewhere or else ppl will be like "where IS HE" so I'm going to stick with running some kind of ghost circus, maybe a few occult things, but cut out a lot of the spooky magical knowledge and mcguffin stuff. maybe i could make him like, someone from vlad/jack/maddies college who always felt pushed around by them and so he has a vendetta? and theyd be the only reason he even learned abt ghosts in the first place. idk in either way I want to force him into being irredeemable but also include LYDIA (the tattoo girl ghost) way more-- I want to give her an arc that ends in her tossing freakshow aside and running off to be a ghost vigilante.

BOTH: dear god the infinity gauntlet is stupid that needs to GO AWAY. especially for the reboot cause it would exist in a post-mcu world and way too many people would complain about it

Vlad

REWRITE: amp him up to a far more sinister and villainous character. the crushing on maddie isnt enough, I want to show him on-screen performing experiments on ghosts and himself, dismissing everyone else cause he thinks hes smarter than them. i want him to be actively sabotaging the fentons at every turn. i would also clarify that he doesnt actually want danny as a son, but as a trophy-- a line where danny says something along the lines of "you don't want a son. you want a slave". i want to make him a character who wants to destroy the entire planet and put it in the ghost zone so he can be the true ghost king and i want to make this all evident from day one. if i'm writing a series villain you can bet i'm going to write a GOOD one. less petty drama here and more actual stakes.

REBOOT: it seems silly but sense with reboot we have the benefit of hindsight and recognizing that vlad wasn't a big series villain, theres no way i'd actually go back and write him to be such. for starters, of course, theres the fact that anything he does would really be an exaggerated part of the original, and it would bore an audience to see the same story again-- theres also the fact that it doesnt seem right to take a character who was treated as a joke half the time and suddenly make them big and important. no, instead for my reboot i want to lean into the petty gay uncle vibe. he had a crush on jack and now just casually insults him. he moves mansions every now and again by just haunting the family who lives in the one he wants, and taking over-- i mean, who is gonna believe that an actual ghost haunted you. he dislikes danny not because he has some concept of 'evil' and 'good' but bc danny is just too damn active. of course he actually does care about danny and his safety deep down, it's just on the surface they have very conflicting motivations-- not to mention that danny has been raised on legends from his parents of the villainous Wisconsin Ghost, who has to be stopped at all costs.

BOTH: i want jack and maddie to KNOW he's a half ghost and to actively be hunting him down for it, maybe bc they think hes possessed, or been a ghost tricking them this whole time, or the victim of a tragic lab accident who needs to be put to rest, etc. whatever the case it will give vlad actual tangible reason to despise them and genuinely suspect they dont have dannys best interests at heart. i think it would be neat if vlad was cynical and every time danny hit him with the "I'll expose us both. at least theyll still love ME" vlad could be like in the back of his head "oh god theyre going to kill this child"

Dani

REWRITE: cut her out. we don't need her character at all. maybe replace her with a more ominous shadow duplicate / clone that actually looks like danny himself and doesnt really have a name? you could probably combine her and dark dans characters for their arcs

REBOOT: instead of a clone from vlad, she's a guys in white creation using some of dannys dna after he was captured (and vlad broke him out bc he was like "ugh i guess i have to save this child")

BOTH: vlad actually cares abt her (duh), shes nonbinary (double duh), she gets the funny dissolve into goo powers

i had more i thought i was gonna write but this post is already very long and also im running out of coherency for this LUL

#ask #danny phantom #long post #adpRewrite

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flutteringdreams-matw · 3 years

Text

Out of Time (13)

First/Last

Read on AO3

Word Count: 6532

Previously: After a brief team up between Vlad, Valerie, Dani and Danny against Dan, the evil spectre goes after the Fentons. With Danny injured, the others rush off to find his family. Just when Danny starts to think he can recover he remembers the last person involved in the original future - Mr. Lancer.

Now: Fentons and friends v. Dan duplicates. Fights, observant parents enraged Dan and some relevations...maybe.

Please let me know what you think! Feel free to drop a reply or reblog whatever. Next chapter will be out on Sunday (link will be in the replies!)

Jack frowned as he destroyed two more of the shadow ghosts. In the confusion of the attacks and recognition that Danny was finally back in the city, he barely noticed when most of the ghosts disappeared. "I know you're there!" the man yelled angrily. "Show yourself before the might of Jack Fenton!" His frown deepened when nothing jumped out at him. It was too quiet. Jack brought the Fenton Bazooka down to his side and searched the skies for a familiar black and white blur. Even the fighting above the city had stopped. The worried father's left hand turned on the switch on the Fenton Phone. "Tucker, what's happening?"

The line of the Fenton Phone crackled to life. "There's still shadows around the town," his son's best friend told him. "But a lot of them are leaving to go attack the perimeter. Ethelwulf's out there, so they're probably trying to take him out."

Jack's chest tightened slightly. "And Danny?" he asked fearfully.

He heard Tucker sigh worriedly. "Gone - he's not coming up on the scanners," Tucker replied. "It's like he vanished again - but he must still be here somewhere. Clockwork lost sight of him when he, Danielle, Plasmius and the Red Hunter were fighting Dan. I don't think he would leave again without checking in with us."

Jack hummed in agreement, scanning the skies again. "There's something else going on," he said murmured. "It's too quiet."

"Agreed," Tucker confirmed. Jack heard a small beep on the line before the teen spoke again. "Mrs. F - how does your end look?"

"I've got no hostiles," she replied quickly. "Though the Red Hunter's here - they said we're in danger."

Jack frowned as he heard Tucker swore under his breath. "Does Red know where Danny is?" He heard Maddie relay the question to the ghost hunter, getting a muffled reply before she responded.

"The office building off of Third Street," Maddie told them evenly, trying to mask her worry in the face of the hunter. "Jack, how close are you?"

"Very," he replied, holstering the bazooka and taking out the scanner. There was still no sign of Danny on it. "I'll get him, Mads."

He heard some more muffled noises on the other end before his wife spoke again. "Jack, Phantom said Dan is coming after us. Be careful."

"I'll keep my eyes peeled from here Mr. F," Tucker added. "Just get to that building. I don't know why Danny isn't coming up on the scanner, but I have a bad feeling about it."

"Will do," Jack replied, hearing the line of the Fenton Phones go dead. He looked down at the scanner, changing it to scan for ghosts above Danny's ecto-levels. It pinged, showing three entities on the scanner - none of them were at that office building. "Come on Danny," he murmured to himself. "Where are you?"

"Dad?"

:-=-:

Maddie heard the line disconnect, turning to the mysterious Red Hunter with a frown. "What else did Phantom tell you?" she asked, trying to mask any emotion that would give away her concern. Jack will find him. He'll be okay.

"Not much," Red's robotic voice replied. Maddie still couldn't figure out their age nor their gender. "Just that Dan was coming for your family."

Maddie nodded, again pushing aside her worry. She needed to prioritize. "Okay. How stocked are you? I need to reload a couple of my bazookas after the shadow attacks. I think I have a couple extras if you need them." Red nodded, and Maddie led them back to the RV. "I saw you fighting up there," Maddie commented, attempting to make conversation. "Must have been intense."

"You have no idea," Red said darkly. "Dan uses this sonic power - think Phantom called it a wail?"

"Ghostly Wail, yes," Maddie agreed. "Phantom has that too."

Red stopped. "Phantom has that power too? Along with those electric attacks?" they exclaimed.

"Yes," Maddie answered. "Wait - electric attacks?" The mother paled slightly. "He was using his core powers?"

Red cocked their head to the side. "Core powers?" they said weakly. "You know what - I don't think I can handle another surprise today."

Maddie chuckled fondly. "With Phantom involved - I take it there were many." She beckoned Red onward, turning the corner to where the parked Fenton RV waited for them. She opened the trunk, tossed a bazooka to the hunter and rummaged for a Fenton staff.

"Mrs. Fenton," the Red Hunter started apprehensively.

"Yes dear," she replied, still looking for her staff.

"Your truce with Phantom started last summer right?"

Maddie stopped her mission and looked at Red. "That's not the question you want to ask," Maddie retorted, "Is it?"

Red looked at her, startled. Maddie noted that they must be young if her question made them falter. "No," they said. "But honestly Mrs. Fenton, I don't think you'd believe me if I told you."

Maddie smiled wryly. "Oh, you'd be surprised." She turned back to the RV with a triumphant cry, reaching inward and grabbed the Fenton Staff. "Phantom is… well he's remarkable. The more I learn about him, the more I realize how wrong Jack and I were about everything. All we needed to do was listen." She grabbed more ammo from a drawer on the left and started to change a couple empty cartridges. Maddie glanced at the Red Hunter as they looked on apprehensively. "So, have you been listening? Or did you go in guns blazing like my husband used to?"

Red shifted guiltily. "More like…observing," they said. "Phantom told us to take a shot if we had it." Red started to reload their weapons also. "And we were going at it - Dan duplicated himself into 4. I was struggling then Phantom… Phantom got hit real bad. Phantom said to take it..."

Maddie swallowed nervously. "Did you?" she asked.

Red shook their head. "There was this light - something that leads me to think… Mrs. Fenton I don't think Pha- "

"Mom!"

:-=-:

Jack's head whipped up at the voice, mouth hanging open as Danny walked towards him. There wasn't a scratch on him; blue eyes looking at him confused and a bit of something else. "Danny!" Jack called out, rushing forward in relief. "We've been looking for you! What happened?"

Danny's head tilted to one side, still confused. "I don't remember," he said. Jack stopped a few feet away, confusion and scepticism growing at the boy's response. "The last thing I remember is going to bed last night."

Patience Jack he reminded himself. "R-really?" Jack asked. He watched 'Danny' closely, realizing that he seemed to have shrunk an inch or so from yesterday. "Nothing at all?" the boy shook his head.

Jack frowned slightly, left hand inching toward his side for a smaller ecto-gun. "We're fighting an evil version of Phantom," Jack said evenly, watching the teen's reactions in front of him. Blue eyes were narrowed at Jack's left hand. He swallowed slowly, more alarm bells ringing in his ears. "From the future; he has most of Phantom's powers. But Phantom will stop him."

The boy's eyes flashed red for a second before settling back to blue. "Will he?" Not-Danny asked darkly. A Ghostly Wail sounded in the distance, a look of annoyance crossing the imposter's face as he faltered slightly. Jack pushed aside any worry from the wail and pointed the ecto-gun toward the teen in front of him.

"He will," Jack told him simply. "Just like how I'll stop you from hurting my family."

Blue eyes widened slightly before he laughed menacingly. Not-Danny's face contorted into one of anger and frustration, full of malice as he stared at Jack. "Your family? Don't you mean our family?"

"You aren't my son," Jack told him darkly. He fired the ecto-gun, hitting the imposter in the chest. The teen faltered slightly, red eyes now glaring back at the man in front of him.

"But I was your son," he replied sinisterly. White rings of light appeared around his waist, transforming him into a much taller figure. Blue skin, flaming white hair, long cape and piercing red eyes stared back at Jack. Dan Phantom had made his reappearance. The ghost frowned at Jack's lack of reaction. "You know... I pictured this going differently." He raised a hand lighting it in green energy before he was knocked to the side by a small white and black blur.

"You stay away from him!" Danielle yelled, sending a large ecto-blast toward the downed ghost. "Jack! You okay?"

Jack smiled in relief. "Better that you're here kiddo! Want to give me a hand?"

Danielle smiled back. "Oh - you have no idea."

:-=-:

Red and Maddie both turned at the exclamation. Danny Fenton was running toward them with a giant grin on his face. "Mom! I'm so glad I found you."

Red started to move toward the boy, but Maddie grabbed the hunter's elbow. "Danny?" she called out. "What are you doing here?" Red noticed how rigid the woman went and how her eyes moved as if she was characterizing a threat.

"It's - wait is that the Red Hunter with you?" Danny asked, looking between the two.

"Didn't know your son was a fan," Red said jokingly.

Maddie frowned. "When you last left Phantom," she whispered urgently. "What condition was he in?"

"Mrs. Fenton?" Red reacted.

"Mom?" Danny asked again, continuing toward them.

Maddie moved quickly, pulling the Red Hunter behind her and drew her ecto-gun, aiming it directly at her son. The boy stopped, putting his hand up fearfully. "What was the last thing I said to you," the mother asked threateningly.

"Mom? You're scaring me a bit," he said.

"Mrs. Fenton! That's your son!" Red yelled, grabbing the woman's arm.

"What was the last thing I said to you Danny?" Maddie repeated, putting her finger on the trigger.

"Wait! Mom, this is crazy!?" Danny yelled out to her. "It's me!" When Maddie didn't budge, he turned desperately to the hunter. "Valerie! Tell her she's crazy!"

Valerie stiffened, turning to Maddie with wide eyes. The elder Fenton nodded, narrowing her eyes at 'Danny.' "Dan, I presume?" Maddie questioned.

'Danny' blinked, before blue eyes became red and a nasty smile came across his face. It looked so alien on her son's face. "How'd you know?" Dan asked menacingly. His eyes drifted toward Valerie. "Oh right, you didn't know I knew. Whoops."

"Among other things," Maddie replied coolly. She turned to the teenage hunter. "Valerie Gray right? 9th degree black belt and a wicked ghost hunter?" Valerie nodded absently. "Valerie - I need you to focus right now okay?"

"He knew?" she whispered in surprise. "All this time?"

Maddie cursed internally as Dan's hands lit up in green energy. "Valerie, that isn't Danny," she told her urgently. "Dan is manipulating Danny's image - I swear to you that isn't him."

"Well - not anymore," Dan drawled, looking at his hands with fake interest. "Then again, not like either of you ever paid attention to me."

Maddie's eyes narrowed. "Don't you dare blame us for what happened to you - that was your choice."

Dan chuckled, holding out his hand toward them. "Don't you mean… it was his choice?" He fired an ecto-blast directly towards his mother and Valerie.

:-=-:

The ghost growled at the newcomer, pushing aside his cape as he stood. "You're teaming up with a ghost?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at his father.

"Danny and the Fentons have had a truce since last year," Danielle said smugly, launching herself at the ghost again. Dan dodged, only to be blasted by Jack Fenton.

Dan snarled as he got back up. "A truce huh?" He flew at the orange clad man, dodging a few of the attacks and landed forcefully in front of him. "Did he tell you who I am then? How I came into existence?" Dan stood tall, smirking into the man's gaze. "How he destroyed the entire world?"

Jack's eyes narrowed. "He'll never become what you are," he told the ghost of his son. "Never. Danny promised us he'd defeat you - just like he did last year."

Dan stood up straighter, cocking his head to the side as red eyes studied the man in front of him. Danielle flew protectively in front of the father, ecto-blast at the ready as they both glared at the evil ghost. Dan's eyes widened finally, taking a few steps back in shock. "You know?" he breathed, looking between the ghost in front of him to his father. "You know my secret?"

Jack's eyes softened slightly as he saw a small glimpse of his son in the evil spectre. Danielle frowned between the two men, her arms still ablaze with green energy aimed toward Dan. A kaleidoscope of emotions came across his face, as if he was having more than one conversation before it disappeared. Dan threw his head back as a deep unsettling laugh erupted from his mouth. Jack and Danielle tensed as his eyes focused on them again.

"He told you," Dan said, his body shifting his stance into one more animalistic. His body was hunched, red eyes looked deranged and hungry for something. "He had the guts to come clean and you and Mom accepted him?" He smiled cruelly. "Oh, this is going to be good."

:-=-:

Jazz dove behind a car, dodging another ecto-blast that came her way. She clutched the bazooka tightly, peering upward to locate Dan. "Where is he?" she murmured, teal eyes scanning the skies.

"Come on out Jazz," Dan drawled. She heard him land as she ducked behind the car. "All I want to do is catch up with my dear older sister… well I guess younger sister now."

Jazz frowned, recognizing something off in Dan's dark tone.

"I know you're listening," Dan continued. Jazz jumped as he made a car explode with an Ecto-blast. "Isn't that what you always told me? 'I'm here for you Danny,' 'Talk to me Danny,'? Well I'm talking!" Another explosion, closer this time made Jazz turn, watching as a flaming car rolled across the road.

She swallowed, mind racing. Why does he want to talk? Why is he so fixated on me listening? Jazz frowned again, ignoring her pounding heart as Dan's footsteps came closer. He's referring to me as his sister… the last time he spoke about us it was in past tense. Jazz's eyes widened. Could it be? Jazz gasped as the car she was hiding behind was lifted into the air. The red-head scrambled upright and away, staring up into the face of the older Phantom.

"Found you," he sneered, throwing the car to the side.

Jazz raised the bazooka and took aim. "You were saying," she said, eyes narrowing.

Dan scoffed. "Really Jazz? The bazooka? I thought the peeler was more your speed."

Jazz put her hand on the trigger. "You said you were talking," Jazz repeated. Her adrenaline and nerves were squashed by her burning curiosity and theories as she looked the ghost over. She felt slightly vindicated to see that he looked injured. Danny must have gotten him. "So talk."

Dan's eyes widened incredulously, tilting his head to the side. "Braver than I thought," he said darkly with a small chuckle. "It won't help you. Don't you want to know where your Danny is? I can see those wheels turning in that big brain of yours."

Jazz's glare faltered for a second before she shook her head. "It's not Danny I'm thinking about," she said evenly. "It's your sudden change of tense." Dan looked at her in confusion. "Your timeline doesn't exist anymore - but you don't belong here. Your friends and family died."

Dan snarled in her direction. "And yet you're right in front of me!"

"But I'm not your Jazz," she said gently. She saw what she was missing now. "I'm his big sister. Not yours."

Dan roared, making Jazz flinch as he released a blast behind him. "He'll lose you too. He doesn't deserve this timeline - what good did he do to deserve this? Not cheat on a test? He should suffer, just like I have!"

"You're different people," Jazz continued. "Danny made his decision a long time ago. He's come a long way from the darkness you caused."

"I caused? I caused!?" Dan shouted. His ghostly aura flared at her words. It took everything in her not to run away. "This was all his fault. Danny Fenton - playing the hero. He's no hero Jazz. All that good you think he's done? He'd throw it away in an instant if it was hard work. Why'd you think he never told Mom and Dad?"

Jazz moved backward slowly, bazooka still aimed at Dan. Come on, use your research and knowledge of the subject, she told herself matter-of-factly. This is still a version of your brother - you know his insecurities, his fears. "You might not have," she told him. "But my brother did."

Red eyes widened at her words. "What?" he whispered. Something shifted in the air around her, making Jazz shiver. "What did you say?"

Jazz swallowed again. "Danny told them last summer," she said, confirming her theory. "We've been fighting as a family ever since."

Dan's wide eyes looked through her, the blue flames on his head flaring dangerously as his temper rose. "Why does he have it so easy?" he roared, ecto-energy exploding around him.

Jazz was thrown back at the display of power, skidding across the road with a yelp. Her ankle twisted beneath her as she fell, bazooka sliding a few feet away. She was right - Dan was jealous of her brother. She reached for the bazooka and finally fired, hitting true. Dan didn't register that he was hit, dark red eyes staring directly at her. She moved to get up, wincing as she felt a twinge of pain in her ankle. Dammit. Her teal eyes widened as Dan smiled cruelly, walking toward her. I'm a sitting target!

"He will pay for what he did to them," Dan vowed menacingly. "He's barely much of a threat now anyway. Once he watches you all die, he'll be too broken to stop me."

"Not today Phantom!"

:-=-:

Maddie pulled Valerie to the ground, dodging it before returning fire. Valerie, finally breaking out of her stupor, summoned her sled and pulled the Fenton onboard. She turned, flying away from Dan.

"Hang on Mrs. Fenton!" Valerie yelled, making the sled go faster. Maddie frowned, turning back to see the now familiar white light come alive around Dan's waist, before transforming him into his true form. The ghost snarled as he took off, giving chase behind them. Maddie fired, watching Dan dodge as he gained.

"Valerie, we need to split up," Maddie said.

"Nope - not happening," the girl retorted. "That thing wants you dead remember?"

"I do," Maddie replied. "But we need to divide his attention. I hit him low, you hit him high?"

Valerie turned; head tilted a little before she understood. "Got it." Valerie dived, coming close to the ground as Dan let out a volley of attacks. The teen dodged them, nodding to Maddie. The elder jumped off the jet sled, skidding across the ground and hit a clean shot at Dan.

"I'm right here!" she yelled, shooting rapidly at the incoming ghost. "Why don't you come at me?"

Dan growled, dodging a few blasts as he landed heavily. Red eyes found violet, an eerie smile forming. "You don't even know half of what Danny's been into, have you?"

Maddie dropped the ecto-gun and took out the Fenton Staff, twirling it in place. "Perhaps - but you're not Danny!"

Dan chuckled, mocking her with a hurt gesture. "Now, that stings a little," he said sarcastically. "Just because I killed my weaker half and destroyed the world, I'm no longer a Fenton? Like I don't have any of my memories?"

Maddie's eyes softened a bit, but her voice still had an edge to it. "No," she said. "It's because you forgot who you are."

Dan faltered, eyes widening at the implication of her words. Maddie took that as an opening, rushing forward with her staff. She used it to jump up into the air, moving it fluidly to strike. Dan was thrown back with a grunt as Maddie continued to attack. Eventually, he managed to hold up his arms to block, growling in annoyance. His hands alighted in green energy as he thrust them outward, pushing Maddie backward.

"You knew?" Dan asked with wide eyes. "You knew whole time?" Maddie pursed her lips, eying Dan warily as he continued to process. The evil ghost shook his head. "No, there's no way… I would have-" he broke off, suddenly looking far away.

Maddie frowned, standing straighter and putting a hand on her ecto-gun. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Valerie coming in for an attack; she needed to stall him. "I found out last year," Maddie said. "Danny told us everything."

Dan's eyes glowed red, turning back to the mother with a small smirk. "Oh Mom," he spat menacingly. "Not everyth-"

"Eat this Phantom!" Valerie cried out, shooting one of her blasters and hitting Dan in the back. He disappeared mid-sentence, leaving a trail a smoke from where the blast hit.

Maddie let out a relieved sigh as Dan disappeared, nodding as Valerie flew back toward the ground. "Nice shot."

Retracting her sled, Valerie lifted the tint in her visor, letting the woman see her smile. "I've been waiting to do that." She inclined her head toward Maddie. "You okay? Did he say something to you?"

"Nothing that I didn't know already," Maddie replied quietly. She looked out in the distance with a frown, bringing her hand up to the Fenton Phone in her ear. "Jazz? You there sweetie?" No response. "Jazz?" she tried again, worry starting to creep up for her daughter.

Valerie frowned also. "Phantom was worried about her too," she said. Maddie's head turned quickly at to the girl's face. "He sent Plasmius over to her."

"Why Plasmius?" Maddie murmured to herself, dread creeping up within her.

"He said she was the most in danger I think?" Valerie answered. "Mrs. Fenton - Plasmius and Phantom are probably the only ones that can take that ghost one on one. With Phantom injured - Plasmius in the next best thing. She'll be fine."

Maddie was silent for a few moments. "Think you can track him?" she asked the hunter.

"Plasmius?" Valerie asked. Maddie nodded. "What are you thinking?"

Maddie rubbed her arm absently. "If Phantom's worried about Jazz and sent on his arch-enemy to protect her, then she might be in more danger than we realised."

:-=-:

Dan turned to be blasted by a magenta blast of energy.

Jazz gasped in surprise as Plasmius flew at Dan with such intensity. "Vlad?" she questioned.

Noticing the young girl, Vlad promptly duplicated in two, leaving one to clash with Dan and the other to head in her direction. "Are you alright Jasmine?" he asked.

Jazz attempted to stand again, but faltered as the pain in her ankle flared again. She winced, rubbing it as she looked up at Plasmius. "Think I sprained it," she said.

Dan roared as he traded punches with Plasmius' duplicate, getting both of their attention. Jazz frowned, noticing that Dan didn't use any of his ghost powers.

"He's getting tired," Vlad said, answering her unasked question. "Dan has been duplicating non-stop and clashing with all of us. About damn time too; don't know how much longer any of us can keep him at bay without that shield."

A whine of an ecto-gun made both of them look up as both Valerie flew into the fray, Maddie on the back of her sled with bazooka raised at Dan. She fired, hitting both Plasmius and Dan, making Vlad's duplicate disappear. Valerie continued the onslaught with a barrage of missiles toward the Dark Phantom. Dan looked up at them both, snarling before he stopped, glaring at the four foes.

"To be continued I think," he said snidely, smiling. His eyes met Jazz's, gleaming with malice. "Let's see if your precious Phantom is stronger than me." Dan disappeared, making Jazz frown.

"Jazz!" Maddie called out. Valerie flew over, retracting her sled as both women touched down. "Honey, are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Jazz confirmed as Maddie ran over to her. "Just twisted my ankle." The mother nodded, letting out a small breath before she glanced at the older hybrid and nodded. Vlad gave her a small smile that she did not return.

"It's not like him to retreat," Valerie said, breaking up the reunion.

"He's not retreating," Plasmius said quietly.

Jazz shook her head. "He's jealous," she corrected. "I thought it was something like human envy but isn't that." She winced as Maddie helped her up. "That evil Phantom was born out of his worst failure and never recovered. Our Phantom managed to overcome that failure to get to where he is today, and has all of the future Phantom's deepest desires - or at least the desires he had when he was 14."

Maddie frowned. "So he wants to destroy Phantom?"

Jazz paled. "Not just destroy," she said. "I think he's trying to punish Phantom." Jazz locked eyes with her mother. "Mom, we need to find him. Dan's unstable and has 10 years on our Danny Phantom."

"Your father's on it," Maddie assured, hugging her daughter tightly. "Phantom will be okay."

Valerie exchanged a worried frown with Plasmius. "I know you all know Phantom a bit better than I do, but I doubt he'll be up for a fight if it comes his way."

"Ms. Gray is right," Plasmius confirmed. Valerie scowled in his direction as he revealed her identity to Jazz. The red head barely blinked at the admission. "Daniel will try to lure him out of the city by himself to try and keep you out of the way. He won't make it."

Maddie bristled at that man's assessment. "And how would you know what he can and can't do?" she snapped.

Vlad's eyes narrowed in frustration. "Really, we're going to do this again?" he retorted. "How many times do I have to tell you, we're the same Maddie."

Maddie pursed her lips. "You are not the same!" she argued. "The choices he made? Miles different than what you chose."

"And yet here we are, fighting a future version of him that embodies everything that you believe me to be," Vlad replied coolly. He sighed tiredly. "Do you even know, truly know, how many times that boy barely makes it out of these fights alive?"

"Plasmius," Jazz warned, frowning in thought as she looked between the two adults. Maddie gestured for Valerie to take Jazz, storming up to Plasmius furiously.

"How dare you," she accused. "Of course I do."

Vlad shook his head. "You've seen the recoveries, Maddie," he said softly. "You've never seen him in mid-battle. You've never seen what he had to go through to make it back."

Maddie stood, fuming silently. "And you have?" she asked at last.

"How do you think he survived Pariah?" The three women stiffened at his words. Vlad sighed again. "You've known the truth for less than a year, my dear. It's not your fault that you didn't know. The only reason he's alive right now is because I created the ecto-enhancers." Maddie frowned in confusion at the name. "Daniel is not going to stop if he believes you all are in danger - and trust me when I say that Dan will kill him without our help."

Maddie swallowed, ignoring Jack's voice in her ear as he called for anyone to respond to him; she could hear it in his voice. "If you cannot figure out how to separate their ecto-signatures, even with Plasmius' help, then you must be prepared to accept what Danny decides to do. Along with the consequences that come with it." Clockwork's warning rang in her mind as she stared at Vlad. She knew Vlad was right; Danny was going to fly into battle regardless of what was best for him.

"I believe in him," Maddie said softly. "I may not have been there for him, but I'm here now Vlad. I know what he'll do, what he thinks he'll need to do. If he's going to lure Dan out of the city, then we're going after him. Jack and I are going after him."

The adults stared at each other in grim understanding before Jazz gasped.

"You know," Jazz said softly. "Mom, you know don't you?"

"Know what?" Valerie asked, questioningly. A second later, she gasped too. She turned to Jazz. "Wait, you both know?"

Jazz furrowed her brow at Valerie's question before her eyes widened.

Vlad turned his attention to the teen hunter. "How'd you figure it out?" he asked quietly.

"What was it? 'For such a smart girl, she's very easily led.'" Valerie quoted angrily.

Plasmius sighed. "I guess there's not much to say about that then." Valerie opened her mouth to retort. "At least for now. If we're going to help Daniel, then we're going to need to get past the shadow ghosts and take out as many as we can so we don't leave the town defenceless.

"And how, are we going to do that?" Valerie asked irately. Her answer came as the ground rumbled beneath her feet and the massive energy of the Fenton Shield took over the town.

:-=-:

Jack's eyes widened, making a move to attack but Dan disappeared with a faint pop, leaving him running into thin air. "Danny," the worried father said, turning to Danielle. "Where's Danny?"

Danielle's eyes widened, realizing what Dan's disappearance meant. "I left him at an office building," she replied, pointing off in the distance to a building a few blocks away. "Follow me!"

Danielle flew, Jack following quickly behind - ignoring the burning in his legs from the amount of running he had to do. Get to Danny. "How was he?" he asked, frowning as ran.

Danielle's mouth grew thin, looking down with familiar green eyes as she answered. "Not up for a fight if one comes his way."

Dread crept up into Jack's stomach again, quickening his pace. "Then we have to find him before Dan does." They turned a corner, Danielle pausing for a second before nodding and heading right. As they came up to the building, Jack stopped, out of breath as he looked at the damage to the downtown core. The amount of debris was only amplified by broken windows, gaping holes in brick buildings and large burns above them. "Some party," he joked, narrowing his eyes as he caught his breath.

Danielle smiled a lop-sided smile - so eerily similar to Danny's that another pang of worry hit him with full force. Danielle continued, oblivious to his turmoil. "You had to be there," she quipped, her smile fading slightly. "Come on - he should be around floor 3 or 4." She flew upward, leaving Jack outside with a small frown.

"Sure - leave me to the stairs," he said bitterly, kicking the door in as he broke into the building and headed up the stairs. "Not like I'd appreciate the lift or anything." By the time he reached the top of the third flight of stairs, he huffed deeply, grabbing onto the wall to steady himself. Definitely need to train some more. He rubbed his face tiredly, remembering that he barely slept over the last few nights before adrenaline kicked in again. Danny; he had to find him.

"Danny!?" he yelled into the office. It was bitterly cold - someone had cranked the air conditioner. Odd - there's no one here. "Son! It's me!"

"Jack!" Danielle's alarmed voice made him race over to her. He saw her floating ahead of him, back toward him as she blocked a row of cubicles. As he reached her, he stopped looking at the floor in front of them.

Various bottles of water littered the floor along with an ice bucket that was half melted. Dried ectoplasm smeared the wall and part of the cubicle. A few scorch marks of thin lines were against the wall. He swallowed thickly, trying to hold back his emotions as surveyed the scene.

"He was right here," Danielle whispered softly. "We - we told him to wait here - That we would protect you from Dan."

Jack stepped forward a little bit, looking at the marks on the cubicle as Danielle kept floating in shock. "Danny," he whispered, putting his hand out to touch a bit of ectoplasm. Jack turned his head to Danielle, who stared at him blankly. "He wasn't taken," he told her matter-of-factly. He turned back to the rest of the floor, walking toward another cubicle and seeing a smeared handprint of ectoplasm along the top. "It looks like he moved this way."

"Jack," Danielle whispered, getting the man's attention. "Danny wasn't okay when I left him," she told him thickly. "He… he couldn't... Dan had him by the throat and then his hands lit on fire." Tears welled up in her eyes as she looked at him worriedly. "Something's wrong with his core - something about it overheating. We need to find him."

Jack's mind raced with the implications of her words. Immediately he brought his hand to the Fenton Phone in his ear. "Does anyone have eyes on Danny?!" he said tersely, moving quickly through the office to retrace his son's steps. He stopped at the giant hole in the wall, finding no other evidence that Danny was still there. When static reached his ears, Jack's frown deepened. "Maddie? Jazz? Tucker?" Danielle flew towards him, mirroring his worry and impatience. "Fenton 2 to base! Do you read me?" Again, static reached his ears, anger getting the best of him. Jack's face darkened as he turned abruptly.

"Jack?" Danielle called nervously, floating behind him.

To hell with being patient. "We were wrong," Jack said with self-loathing. "Danny needs us - now. Where would he go?" He turned to Danielle, the girl flinching under his intense gaze. "What else did he tell you? He told Red that Dan was going after us, where would-" Jack stopped, eyes widening as another thought catching up to him. "Jazz. Who's with Jazz?"

Danielle bit her lip. "Danny told Plasmius to go to her. Said she was the most in danger."

Jack growled. "That has to be it. He must be going to Jazz - Danny doesn't trust Plasmius."

Danielle's brow furrowed in thought. "He doesn't," she agreed slowly. "But this is bigger than them. Plasmius saved Danny back there. If it wasn't for that jerk, I don't know if -" Danielle gasped suddenly, a deep rumbling from beneath them cutting through their conversation. Jack turned to the broken wall in the building to see a deep green shield appear around the town. It flew outward, stretching over the downtown area, past the part and stopped just shy of Elmerton.

Jack's eyes widened, recognizing what the shield meant. He took out the scanner, setting it for a lower level of ghosts and saw quite a few ghosts being pushed out of the town. Small optimism came back to the man as he turned to the confused half-ghost behind him. "Come on - he's must still be in the city. We'll find him."

:-=-:

It was chaos in the Fenton Lab.

Tucker looked up from the control console in a daze, watching Frostibite bandage one of the Far Frozen's ghosts from the battle outside. There was still no sign of Danny's ecto-signature on the scanner, and still no word from Mr. Fenton on if he managed to find him.

Why aren't I out there? He thought angrily as he looked at the shield code again. He sighed, resigned before he looked over to Clockwork. "Any sign?" he asked the Time Master, who still sat on his chair glancing at the screens.

Clockwork shook his wearily.

"Damn," Tucker swore.

"Tucker of Tech - I need your assistance," Frostbite called over.

Tucker sighed, rushing over to Frostbite and another injured Far Frozener. "Can you hold this still?" Frostbite asked, gesturing to a large splint on the furry ghost's arm. Tucker nodded, looking queasy at the small sight of ectoplasm from the broken arm.

The ringing phone of the Fenton's lab made Tucker jump. Shooting a quick apologetic glance to the injured yeti, he turned back to the Master of Time. "Clockwork - can you get that? It might be important."

Frostbite froze the ghost's arm, creating an ice cast as Tucker hastily retracted his hands. The ghost nodded in thanks, and Frostbite gave him a pat on the shoulder. "Now to find some more gauze," the yeti leader said.

Tucker nodded, walking back toward Clockwork. "Who is it?" he asked the Time Master. Clockwork shrugged in respond. "What do you mean you don't know who's on the phone?"

"You asked me to get it," Clockwork replied. "I have it."

Tucker looked at him incredulously. "Did you answer it?" he asked, frustrated.

"I was supposed to it?" Clockwork retorted.

Tucker let out a long sigh. "Clockwork, you're the Master of -" Tucker broke off as he noticed movement at the workbench with unmodified prototypes. "For the love of all things technology Frostbite don't touch that!" Frostbite jumped, dropping the Ghost Gabber and breaking it. "Seriously, the Fentons haven't adjusted all their weapons yet! You're lucky it's just the Gabber. Check the infirmary for more gauze - Mrs. F has them stacked." Tucker sighed, inwardly vowing to never be left alone with so many ghosts without Danny present. He took the phone from Clockwork, who red eyes twinkled as he hovered by his side. "You've reached FentonWorks Base Operations."

"Sound and the Fury - Mr. Foley!" Mr. Lancer's voice exclaimed from the other end. "What are you doing down there?"

"Mr. Lancer?" Tucker asked in disbelief. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion and exasperation. "What - you know what, never mind. The Fentons have me manning coms while they're out 'kicking ghost butt.' What's wrong - there's kind of a lot going on at the moment." His eyes drifted across the lab and back to the scanner. Nothing yet. Where are you Danny?

"More than whatever evil ghost we're facing demolishing the entire town? Or rather, the school?" Tucker could hear the sarcasm in the teacher's voice and was willing to bet he had his disappointed teacher face on.

"What!?" Tucker exclaimed. He pulled the phone closer to the chair, rolling himself back to the console. He checked the scanners again. "Damn, he must have duplicated again without us knowing. You okay Mr. Lancer? How did you escape?"

Mr. Lancer started to answer, but a different voice beat him.

"Tuck."

Tucker stiffened, eyes widening. It was quiet, raw but unmistakably his voice. He didn't dare to breathe, worrying that it may his mind playing tricks on him, but he wanted to desperately believe it was him; that he was okay. Eventually a soft whisper escaped Tucker lips.

"Danny!?"

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neondrawsthethings · 3 years

Text

Uhm... Hey everyone lol. And welcome to my Danny Phantom & Flynn Fenton story.

I am alive, I’ve just been so busy with personal stuff and college. I mostly wanted to post this because I am an avid fan of Danny Phantom and I absolutely wanted to talk about the video Butch put out a few days ago with Danny having a “mysterious older brother.”

This has actually inspired me to write for the first time in a millennia and while I’m a bit late to the party and very nervous, I really wanted to make my own version of the story on top of expressing my opinions. So here we go!

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I don’t like Butch like most people in the Phandom but I just want to preface this by saying that I think that his idea for a mysterious older sibling for Danny isn't a bad one, but the execution of it was very poor. The issues I mostly have of it is that it messes up some consistencies with the show, it has plot holes and instead of making Jack and Maddie slightly incompetent with people's safety, it makes them out to be negligible criminals.

A Summary Of The Original Story:

The original story went that they had 3 kids, Flynn Fenton (who's age was not disclosed but he might have been about 10), Jazz Fenton who was 4 at the time and Danny who was 2. Jack and Maddie had created a uncompleted Ghost Portal that Flynn had turned on, wandered too close to when it somehow started working and was subsequently grabbed by a mysterious ghost from the other end. The portal suddenly stopped working afterwards. Jack and Maddie found out about this after reviewing security footage in the lab, which they coincidentally didn't have when Danny had turned into a ghost.

After the whole incident, they hid the fact that Jazz and Danny had an older brother for years and take their time getting the portal to work again so they could save their son. Years pass and Jazz suddenly has a dream about Flynn and eventually confronts their parents over what happened and they tell their kids everything.

As for Flynn, Butch goes off in a tangent about a ghost who was responsible for the uprising and rebellion against Pariah Dark. I forget her name, but it was edgy and she honestly looks like a cartoon concept design for Thor's sister in Ragnarok, but if she had a Spiderman appeal to her.

Anyway, once Pariah was sealed away in the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep, she wanted to rule the ghost zone fairly and with justice. Or something. However chaos ensued now that the ghosts were free to do as they please without Pariah's wrath hanging over their heads. Over time, trying to keep balance in the Ghost Zone took a toll on “Thor’s sister” and she one day stumbled across and open portal and saw Flynn on the other side. She essentially kidnapped him and raised him to be her soldier for justice. Like the Winter Soldier.

The logic for this was that humans have ghost powers in the Ghost Zone. I mean, yeah they can fly and phase through things, but it was never actually mentioned whether or not humans had super strength in it. But go off Butch. Then he goes on to explain that in some reference to the Ant Man movie, over time Flynn just sort of gained powers as he became "one with the Ghost Zone" and became a powerful protector called "Exodus." Then Fartman went on to mention it was a reference for a machine in the Halloween episode.

So yeah, eventually Danny finds him and they've kind of got that dynamic of "I think you're the bad guy in this situation" when they aren't and duke it out until Danny eventually convinces this dude they're related. Oh yeah and Flynn had no memories of his human life.

Gonna be honest, I might have misremembered a few things but it’s honestly close enough.

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The issues I have with this concept are as follows:

⦁ Jack and Maddie have essentially been the direct cause for 3 people being harmed (and sorta killed) in some way by their Ghost Portal experiments. This doesn't even border on negligible at this point. It basically is, especially considering they should have learned not to let Danny near their experiments after losing their first son.

⦁ They come off as criminals considering they hid all traces and knowledge of Flynn from Danny, Jazz and most likely all family members and didn't even report his disappearance. They even had cameras in their lab and that honestly puts across the idea that they disabled them in case one of their other kids gets hurt.

⦁ There's already a ghost who considers himself to be the law of the Ghost Zone and it would appear that Butch forgot he created Walker for that exact purpose.

⦁ The female character who was responsible for putting away Pariah Dark honestly isn't well fleshed out. She can imprison the most powerful ghost in existence but is essentially useless at stopping lesser ghosts from causing chaos? Even if she did have help, how exactly was she capable of such a feat to begin with?

⦁ This messes with the cannon a bit considering there are some plot holes that can't really mix well with the established story.

I saw some of these concerns were also mentioned by the Phandom. Giving Butch the benefit of the doubt here, I don't hate the concept but I think it needs to be worked on more. I've read about what some people's opinions were and at least the ones that gave real critiques had some good ideas. Like maybe making the sibling either Jack's or Maddie's and it would have helped with their obsession of ghosts.

I have my own plot hole filled ideas with how this could maybe be told better. I'm not a storywriter and this might come off a little edgy, but man I love coming up with ideas. So here's mine:

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My Story:

After the incident with Vlad, Maddie and Jack decide that their ghost hunting days are over and resolve to live a normal family life. They have their first son Flynn, who had solidified their decision to quit ghost hunting and settle. After a few years, Jazz and Danny were eventually born and it seemed they had the perfect life.

One day while vacationing in a wooded area (location can change), Flynn had wandered not too far from the camp. Then a flash of light suddenly burst in front of him and he could see a whole other world. Jack and Maddie were alerted to the sound and ran towards where it came from. They gasped at what they saw and knew exactly what Flynn was staring into; a ghost portal.

Before they could yell for him to stay away, a hand suddenly reached out and pulled Flynn in, the portal immediately closing as soon as he entered. Maddie and Jack were devastated. No one believed them when they explained what happened to their son, and this incident became the catalyst for them to start their ghost hunting careers again.

They worked tirelessly for years to get the portal to work again. Jazz had eventually chalked up their obsession to being a coping mechanism because they couldn't handle the guilt of losing Flynn and were in denial that he was gone. Danny was more of a social outcast than ever because people assumed his parents had something to do with Flynn's disappearance.

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Now with regards to why Flynn was pulled into the Ghost Zone, I would actually like to think Clockwork played a hand in it. I watched the Blood of Zeus recently and I kind of wanted to play around with an idea that inspired this next part.

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Clockwork knows that Dark Dan was never going to stay imprisoned forever. The fact that he still exists, even outside of time, was an omen he needed to heed. So maybe he meddled with a few future possibilities. Maybe he tried to get Maddie and Jack to realise Ghost Hunting was something they shouldn't mess with after hurting Vlad, which led to their decision to settle for a family. Maybe... He wanted Flynn to exist for a purpose.

He was the one who pulled Flynn into the Ghost Zone. Clockwork told Flynn that he would be the key to saving the future from Dark Dan, but withheld information on who he really was until he was old enough. He taught him everything he needed to know on how to defeat Dark Dan and trained him over the years in combat.

Going off the idea that Danny is kind of really average in comparison to the rest of his family, Flynn is a technological prodigy. He created weapons that Vlad could only dream of creating and can utilise technology that puts Tucker to shame. Once he was old enough, Clockwork finally revealed who Dark Dan was and how he came to be.

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As for the fighting portion of everything, I'm honestly not too sure how I could go about writing it. Obviously they team up to destroy Dan for good and Flynn gets reunited with everyone. He might actually prefer to stay in the Ghost Zone and be Clockwork's assistant. Idk.

This is as far as I can go with regards to the story and it was super fun to write. Hope you guys enjoyed reading it too!

#danny phantom #flynn fenton #dp #flynn #I've never posted a real story online before #have mercy on me #lol #and I gotta say that the original story really felt attention grabby on Butch's part

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darks-ink · 3 years

Text

Commission for @kaiofficialdp, featuring Dan and their OC Kai. Thank you Tumblr for eating the linebreak, please don’t do it again when I go to post this please

---

Kai slowed his already casual flight as his eye caught on a speck of sharply contrasting white and black. Neither of those colors were rare in the wastelands around Amity Park, but together? Together, they were most commonly found on Dan.

He steered towards the speck. And, as he had expected, found Dan. The ghost was sitting on the edge of some ruins that Kai didn’t care to identify. Dan’s posture, slumped forward and leaning his elbows on his knees, with his face down-turned, suggested that he was moping.

Or so Kai thought, at least, until he came closer. Now he could more clearly see the set of Dan’s shoulders, the tenseness in his muscles, the emotional flickering of his hair. Even with his face hidden from Kai, it was clear that Dan wasn’t just moping. No, he was genuinely distressed.

Well, he can’t let that lie, can he? If something was serious enough to distress Dan, maybe Kai could help.

Touching down on the same crumbling ruins as Dan was sitting on, Kai landed almost silently, bar the quiet patter of debris stirred by his boots. Dan didn’t respond in the least, but this was not particularly surprising, as very little in the wastelands was a threat to him.

“Dan,” Kai greeted him, crouching down next to Dan. He only got a grunt in response.

“You look…” Kai paused, digging for the right word, “…troubled. You look troubled, Dan.”

A black gloved hand flapped vaguely in his direction. “It’s nothing,” Dan hissed back, but it felt dispassionate, without heat.

“It doesn’t look like nothing,” Kai countered, narrowing his eyes. “Tell me what happened. Was it Valerie? Something in Amity?”

Dan snarled, his lip curling, then shook his head. Remained quiet.

Kai sighed, placed his own gloved hands on the edge of the ruins, and kicked his feet out in front of him, sitting down next to Dan. The dust would doubtlessly stain his black coat, but that was easy enough to fix later.

“What can I do to help?” he prodded, since Dan still hadn’t answered his prior question. What could possibly stop that ghost from answering?

Dan just sighed, deeply and heavily, before flapping his hand at Kai again. “Go away.”

Now that was just weirdly out of character for Dan. Kai wavered for a moment before setting his shoulders and, unable to meet Dan’s eye, settled for staring at him earnestly. “No. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing,” Dan said, after a long pause. “Nothing new.”

Kai clenched his jaw, but Dan still didn’t look up at him, and likely didn’t even realize. “So it’s something old?” He wasn’t sure what to do with that information. If something had just happened, he could help, could maybe fix it or something. But something in the past? That had never bothered Dan before.

Or had he just kept it hidden from Kai?

Dan sniffed, twisting his head towards Kai, finally. His red eyes were narrowed, his mouth drawn in a grimace, fangs glinting in the low light. “You’re still not leaving?”

“I wanted to help,” Kai countered, shifting slightly to sit more comfortably. “And that’s still true. If it’s something in the past I probably can’t change it, but talking about it might help.”

He got a skeptical snort in return for that. “It happened a decade ago,” Dan said, faux casually. “I highly doubt that you could change that.”

Well, fair enough. “Talk about it, then,” Kai insisted. Even if he wasn’t the best at emotional stuff, he could at least sit down and listen. That alone might help some.

“It’s stupid.” Dan grunted, as if displeased with himself. “It happened so long ago. What’s the point of all this if I’m feeling emotional about it now?”

“Sometimes it takes a little time for something to settle in,” Kai offered, but it felt silly even to himself. That usually meant hours, or perhaps days. He couldn’t imagine it taking years, but, well, he wasn’t exactly an expert, was he?

Dan snorted, clearly just as convinced as Kai himself was.

“I thought I had gotten away from it all,” Dan finally said, voice so soft it was almost a whisper. “I had pushed it all away, gone through all that just to get away from this stuff. And now…” He made a sharp, derisive noise. “Now this.”

Kai cast around for the right words to use, to comfort his partner. “You can’t heal from the past just by ignoring it,” he finally settled on, fiddling with his fingers and wondering if touching Dan would help. “Tell me, Dan. Let me help.”

“All the stuff that happened years ago finally caught up to me,” Dan said, his black-clad fingers combing through his flaming hair. “Everything that I pushed away, that I thought I’d gotten over… It’s finally hitting me.”

Dan shook his head suddenly, jerkily, then snarled, “It’s hitting me again.”

---

It was stupid, was all it was. After all he’d done to separate his weak, pathetic human side, to get rid of those hindering emotions, they just came back? Absolutely ridiculous. What was the point of becoming an all-powering full ghost if he could still be haunted by his memories, by emotions he had left behind a long time ago?

Just obscene. That’s what it really was. Horrifically stupid. He was supposed to be beyond this! He had moved past it all years ago, when he split his human side away and merged with Vlad’s ghost instead. So why did it come back now? Why was he suddenly overwhelmed by events that transpired a decade ago?

Every time he closed his eyes, he could see the fireball that took out the Nasty Burger, and his loved ones with it. Every moment of silence was filled with the phantoms of their screams, the pressing silence that followed the explosion.

Whenever he approached Amity, his eyes were inevitably drawn back to the place where it had all happened, to the charred place that, to this day, remained untouched by Amity’s survivors.

To the statues that rested in front of it. The permanent marks of his friends, his family. Set in stone, forever the same. Unchanged and unchanging.

He made a sharp noise, aware of Kai watching him. Keen vermilion eyes were set on him, impossible to dismiss. Despite his earlier attempts at getting his partner to leave him alone, Kai insisted on being here.

Well, if he wanted to hear it so badly, why not?

“A decade ago, my family and my friends died,” Dan said, his voice low and rough. He stared ahead of himself, not meeting Kai’s eyes. “My father, my mother. My elder sister. My two closest…” He scoffed, harshly, then corrected, “My only friends.”

Kai didn’t speak, so Dan continued on. “They were at the Nasty Burger, all five of them, because of me. Do you know how much extremely flammable and explosive material they keep there?” A sharp humorless cackle. “Let me tell you, they had a lot of it! And most of it not particularly ghost-proof either! So if a ghost fight ever happened there, like for example, if amazingly heroic Danny Phantom shot a few ecto-blasts while chasing a ghost…”

Dan snapped his fingers. “Whoosh, just like that. Just one spark, and then everything goes. Like a big chain of fire and explosions.”

They sat in silence for a moment, as Dan’s mind relentlessly replayed his memories of that day. Sometimes he wished he could reach into his core and just rip out those pesky thoughts, the recordings of the whole chain of events. Why would he ever need that information, anyway? It had happened. It had led to this, to the here and now. That was all he needed to know, wasn’t it? What good was it for him to remember all of it to such a degree? To get caught up in emotions over it?

No good, that was the answer. It was absolutely pointless. If anything, it was actively harmful, a distraction and a bother.

“It’s not your fault that Nasty Burger didn’t properly secure their material,” Kai pointed out, finally, breaking Dan out of his chain of thoughts. “If they possessed material that so easily caught on fire when exposed to ecto-rays, they should have guarded it better, especially in a town such as Amity Park.”

Dan scoffed, unconvinced. “Yeah, right. The other ghost didn’t fire any rays. It was only me, and only because I was so focused on chasing ‘em. If I had held off until we were away from the restaurant, from the people… Or if I had behaved better, and none of them had come to the Nasty Burger in the first place!”

He forcibly snapped his mouth shut, teeth loudly clacking. What on Earth was he doing? Spilling emotional garbage all over his partner? Ugh. Bad enough that he was feeling these dumb emotions that he should’ve been over, but now he was spewing them at Kai as well? What was next, telling Valerie? Yikes.

“There’s no point in blaming yourself,” Kai told him, posture stiff, clearly uncomfortable with the task of making Dan feel better. “Perhaps you could have prevented it, but you can’t take the entire blame for it. And you have learned from it, haven’t you? It was a mistake, but one you won’t make again.”

“Hard to repeat it when I only had the one family to get killed,” Dan scoffed, shaking his head.

“You have me,” Kai pointed out, raising a challenging eyebrow at Dan. “Or do I not count as a loved one?”

Dan hummed at that. Well, Kai wasn’t wrong, was he? Instead of acknowledging that, however, Dan changed the topic entirely. “It’s not like I can repeat what happened afterwards, anyway. Hard to split off my ghost half when I am already full ghost.”

Kai made an agreeing sound at that. “And even if you could, where would you find a second half to stabilize yourself with?”

“Hm.” Looking back, it was rather stupid of Vlad to not have considered that. Dan hadn’t even needed to overpower the older half-ghost, as the element of surprise had been enough, both to split Vlad and to merge with the separated ghost half. “Once was enough.”

“Are you feeling better, then?” Kai leaned forward to catch Dan’s eye, but he looked away. “Now that you’ve talked?”

Dan harrumphed, unwilling to admit that it had helped at least a little. He still felt terrible, still felt haunted by the past, but… talking about it had eased the strain some. “I could’ve managed,” he retorted instead.

Kai caught his eye, staring at him intently, like he was trying to find the words to tell Dan in Dan’s own eyes. Clearly Kai didn’t know what he was doing either, struggling to find the right things to say, to find a way to comfort Dan. “You’re allowed to miss them, you know?” Kai settled on. “Even if you’ve been around so long without them, there’s nothing wrong with missing them. Acknowledging it, being willing to process the pain instead of shoving it away, that might help.”

“Oh, how would you know?” Dan dismissed with a flap of his hand. “I’ve been fine so far, and I’ll be fine for longer.”

“Will you?” Kai countered, leaning back slightly. “What do you want me to tell you instead, then? That at least your parents and friends aren’t suffering? That they would be proud of how strong you’ve become?” Kai scoffed. “That you’re better off without them holding you back?”

Dan huffed, squinting at his partner. “You’re not the type to tell me things you don’t sincerely believe.”

“Fine.” Kai shifted suddenly, standing up next to Dan. With a few short movements he dusted off his black jacket, then with a jerk, offered his gloved hand to Dan. “Come on. Moping around here clearly isn’t going to fix it.”

“And what do you plan to do instead?” Dan asked, raising an eyebrow but already extending his own hand to grasp Kai’s.

“I’m sure we could find something to do that would make you feel better,” Kai said, pulling Dan up. “Shall we?”

Dan looked at the navy fingers tangled with his own. “Yes,” he agreed. “Let’s.”

#danny phantom #commission #dark writes #dan phantom #writing commission #I don't think I've ever actually written Dan/Dark Danny before... wild

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