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"I've got nowhere else to go!"
The raw desperation in Dani's voice is the first thing that's clear when Danny finds her hiding in the park. It was normal patrol for him that night, routine until Dani had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere again. Though that's not the issue right now.
"I thought Valerie agreed to let you stay at her place?" Danny cocks his head in confusion, taking in Danielle's very rigid form. She tenses and gives the more experienced halfa a sad but telling look. There's a sigh on her end, and she curls in on herself.
"That was the plan, yeah..." Dani mutters, turning her gaze away. "But her Dad started getting really nosey, and after what you did with the computer and the satellite, among other things.... well, I ended up getting kicked out, half human or no..."
Danny swiftly gathers his cousin in his arms. She jolts in surprise, but eventually relaxes into her cousin's embrace. He was her only family, her only contact, her only guardian who was constantly out on the call of duty, and might not be there to catch her when she falls because he's just so busy.
"We'll think of something. I'm sure we can find some place for you to stay," Danny assures his cousin. He rubs her back as they sit down, allowing Dani to vent a while longer.
Eventually though, Danny has to return home. But he can't leave his cousin out on a cold and lonely night like this. She has nowhere to go though, and unless he can sneak her into his house full of ghost hunters and gives her his room...
An idea strikes him. Would this be the time to tell his parents? Maybe if they understood, they could let Dani stay with them!
Though his train of thought backs up. That's a terrible idea. Revealing that there's ghost hybrids, not just one but two ghost hybrids that could live under their own roof? The fact that you can clone these hybrids?? That's just asking to be taken down to the lab and torn apart!
But, Danny's eyes meet the bright green of his cousin's, and the thought of her living with his family, where she should belong, with everyone safe and happy for once... he breaks his gaze with her and pulls out his phone, speed dialing the one person who can help with this.
"Hey Jazz? It's Danny. Can you make up an excuse to come meet me in the park? ...It's something big, yeah..."
"Who are you calling?" Dani asks, sitting up a bit straighter. Danny can't help but join her, but neither are relaxed yet. There's something big coming tonight, that's for sure.
The roar of Jazz's car soon reaches them, and Danny's older sibling comes running in with a spare thermos and wrist ray equipped. Dani jumps at the sight of the weapons, Danny quickly moves to calm both of them down.
"Jazz, this is Danielle," he quickly introduces, making sure nothing is fired at anyone. "She's... well, let's just say she's our cousin?" he adds, a hint of nervousness and uncertainty present.
"Third cousin once removed, I ran away from home!" Dani quickly adds, puffing out her chest as she floats in front of Jazz, who tilts her head at this.
"We don't have a cousin Danielle. And she's a ghost...?" the elder Fenton sibling reasons, taking in just how similar Danielle is to her brother. It's uncanny, actually. Danielle is basically what you would get if her ghost form little brother was actually a little sister.
"We... are related though," Danny slowly informs his sister, turning to Dani again with a somewhat defeated look. "I'll only tell her if you want her to know," he tells the copy of Danny. This only makes Jazz more curious, who is this mysterious ghost girl her brother found.
"I can do it," Dani mutters with a sigh, before bright rings encircle her waist, splitting up and down. Seconds later, a little girl who still had familiarity to Danny, now with the human half, looks up at Jazz with a bit of determination.
"I'm Danielle. I'm a clone of your brother..." she trails off as she says it, but Danny pats her on the back with reassurance. "I'm a clone of your brother," she repeats louder this time, doing her bet to keep calm.
Jazz's eyes had widened the first time, but when Dani had repeated herself, a fond smile found itself on her lips. Clone of Danny or no, now that she knew what was up, the older sibling couldn't help but find it adorable.
"Well, hey! I've always wanted a little sister," Jazz decides, giving Dani a pat on the head while her brother squawks at what she'd just said. Danielle laughs at the noise. Jazz figures that she's going to get along well with the new arrival.
Danny clears his throat to interrupt the two conspiring siblings. "That aside, Dani still needs a place to stay. She was hiding out with a friend, but she can't stay there anymore."
"Yeah, I got found, and it wasn't really a ghost friendly house after that..." Dani elaborates, while Jazz leans the girl against her and strokes her black hair in a sense of understanding.
"I'm hoping she can stay with us. But, not like on a temporary basis. I mean, like, permanently," Danny continues, glad Jazz has taken a liking to Dani, even if it is too much of one for his own pride if this plan succeeds. "And, well, we can't just bring a random girl in to Mom and Dad and expect them to keep her forever too. And they might find out about her ghost half before we get her in the door..."
"Wait, Danny... does this mean your planning to tell them?" Jazz cuts in, following what her brother was thinking. Was he really going to tell them? Jazz can see why he called.
"Yeah. I'm going to tell them, but I... wanted a bit of backup. And we can't just drop the half ghost and Dani thing on them all at once either. It would overwhelm them," her brother continues, rubbing at the back of his neck with nervousness.
"Alright, I see where you're coming from. We'll all drive back to Fentonworks and discuss the plan on the way there," Jazz decides, both versions of her sibling smiling the same smile.
Yeah, she could get used to this.
-
"Alright Dani, you stay in the car. We're going to have a talk with our parents," Jazz tells the girl in the back, who nods her head with a shy smile. They're going to have to go shopping for some better clothes when this is all said and done.
"And if anything bad happens, watch for my signal. Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Danny tells her, giving his clone a nervous smile.
"You can do it, Danny!" Danielle tells him with a smile of her own. Jazz turns off the car and unlocks the doors, stepping out with her brother as they approach the door. It's now or never.
Maddie and Jack are staring in the doorway when the two open it, arms folded and looking disappointed again. Danny's used to the look at this point, but he still finds himself holding his head down in shame at the implications once again.
"It's passed midnight, young man! Where were you? Jazz had to go out and find you!" Maddie begins, her tone stern as she confronts her son once again. How many times has he done this over the last few years now?
"That's right, Danny. We set your curfew for a reason because you could get eaten up by ghosts this late! You're out there unprepared every night nowadays!" Jack adds, tone just as biting as his wife as Danny's head sinks lower.
"Yeah, I know..." he mutters under his breath, a lot less prepared for this than he was mere moments ago. Jazz catches her gaze, and gives him a smile before facing her parents.
"Actually, Danny was hoping to tell you what he's been up to these past few years tonight," the older sibling tells them. She pats Danny on the back with encouragement, and the younger in turn swallows the lump in his throat.
"I've.... been ghost hunting for the past few years," he begins slowly, as he watches the eyes of his parents widen with surprise.
"Ghost hunting? But I never see you with any weapons, and you very well can't hunt ghosts with your bare hands!" Maddie counters, moving her folded arms to her hips. "That's so dangerous, young man!"
"Let me finish!" Danny barks sharply, cutting in on his mother's rant. "Please, just let me finish. The ghost hunting, it's... it's only the tip of the iceberg here. What I have to tell you, it's... big. Like life altering big. Like you might hate me forever if you take it the wrong way big..."
"You really think so Danno? What in ghost hunting is so big you have to hide it from us?" Jack adds, confusion clear as he lets his arms drop to his sides. Jazz ushers everyone to the couch and closes the door so that everyone can be more comfortable.
"I do bring... weapons with me," Danny states, pulling something out of his backpack, which he keeps with him at all times nowadays. Inside is the old and abandoned Fenton Thermos, that Jack had tossed at Phantom years ago. It's a bit rusted around the edges, but the charge is full and still active.
"It that... the thermos the ghost boy stole?" Maddie asks, taking it from Danny and inspecting the condition of the weapon. "It's still in working order, how did you get this from Phantom?" she asks, a bit baffled by this one thermos she thought was lost forever.
"I... I never did take it from him. He still owns it," Danny starts, swallowing hard, "I still own it," he mutters under his breath. His parents jump in their seats.
"Wait, Phantom is here?! The ghost boy is in the house?!" Jack jumps to his feet, but Jazz quickly pushes him down.
"Let him finish, like he said, with what's going on... if you take it the wrong way you might hurt him" Jazz states firmly. "Phantom is here, yes. But he's not here in the way you think."
Danny takes the thermos back from his mother, almost forcefully, like it was his property. Though there's no sign of overshadowing in Danny. His eyes are still the same baby blue she's always known and the Phantom's are green. Then why is he referring to it as his and Phantom's thermos?
"I... have another weapon too. It's not really a weapon, but it does most of the ghost hunting..." Danny finds his voice again, running a hand along the rusted thermos lightly. He's careful to avoid cutting himself on the old edges.
He turns, determination steeled. "Remember the portal accident? In freshman year?" his parents nod, remembering their son had been a bit shocked by the portal. "I... lied about what happened that day..."
With that, Danny lifts at the hem of his shirt, and letting his ghost half shine through in just a flicker. His eyes turn green, and a long, winding, glowing scar in the form of an electrical bold appears under his shirt, the edges of where the electrocution reached present.
He hears his parents gasp. Maddie pulls at the rest of the shirt to inspect the scar at it's fullest, seeing the way it branched from the center of her son's chest and across his full front. He can hide the scar in his human form, mostly. But when in ghost form, well, it works like his eyes, his near death just as much a part of his aura.
Lucky for him he was wearing a full jumpsuit that day, so no one sees the scar on his ghost half.
"What happened? The portal? The portal did this to you?" Maddie exclaims, looking at the scarring with a dread that seized her heart. Jack too had gone pale at the sight, sputtering nonsensically at how badly his own son was hurt by his invention.
Danny's mother puts a hand on his heart to check his pulse. "This looks bad, Danny! A scar like this should leave you as a corpse! You're lucky I can still feel your heartbeat, how did you even walk away from this injury so calmly?"
"Well... the portal also... happened to save me at the same time it was killing me..." Danny continues, pulling his shirt down and quickly returning his eyes to normal. Both parents gasp again when the scar just vanishes without a trace.
"Ectoplasm was present in the startup of the portal," Maddie mutters aloud, trying to reason out how her son was alive. Jazz pats Danny on the shoulder, indicating they should let their parents reason it out on their own before correcting them.
"The portal needed a high amount of electricity in order to use our gathered ectoplasm to make a wormhole to the ghost zone, and Danny clearly got hit by a lot of it," Jack reasons, scratching at his chin.
"The ectoplasm and electricity, combined with physical matter in that high an amount of energetic output might just change the chemical makeup of ectoplasm itself. This allows the molecules of both substances present in the electrical shock to... merge..." Maddie feels more dread crawl up her limbs. Ectoplasm merging with her baby boy? The implications of this could be catastrophic!
"Any idea what they're talking about?" Danny mutters to his sister.
"You know basic chemistry, right? You know how table salt is made?" Jazz replies.
"Yeah, sodium and chlorine. You mix the two and they become salt," Danny reasons, he's glad he was there for that lesson.
"Well, sodium and chlorine are two really unstable elements. Sodium reacts badly in water and chlorine is highly poisonous. But if you mix the two in the right conditions, the harmfulness cancels out due to atomic structures being stabilized. You get totally harmless salt as a result, even if it absorbs water some now," Jazz explains.
"Now, ectoplasm is a radioactive material. It's unstable and doesn't mix with anything under its natural conditions. And your body is full of chemical processes. Add a heaping helping of energy and the two fuse to get a halfa! Tadaa! Ghost-human hybrid," Jazz finishes.
"So you're basically saying I'm salty all the time?" Danny puns with a smirk, before the siblings start chuckling.
"Ghost-human hybrid?" Maddie echoes behind them, causing the both to whip around suddenly startled. Danny's eyes flicker to green a moment, affirming what Jazz had said.
"Uh... well, I mean..." Danny clutches the thermos. "Yeah... yeah, that's the truth. I've been ghost hunting, because the portal electrocuted me and turned me into a ghost-human hybrid. And... and I know that it sounds ridiculous but it's.. true. That's the truth."
Maddie and Jack sit in silence, taking in what's been said. Mere moments ago, it would have sounded ridiculous. But with the truth of Danny's accident, the implications, the way he seemed to react to their equipment, his distancing of himself from them, the ghost hunting, the thermos in his hands at the moment...
"I... I never did take it from him. He still owns it," he'd said. "I still own it," and he'd swiped it back almost territorialy. That was Phantom's stolen thermos. And Danny insisted it was his.
"You're Phantom," Maddie gasps, her hands reaching her mouth. "You're Phantom!" she repeats, solidifying it.
Danny drops his head again, shying away from his parents. Had it not been enough? Were they going to chase him out now? What would happen to him? To Danielle? She's the reason he decided to tell them, and if things go south for both of them...
"So..." Jack clears his throat. He's still wrapping his head around the revelation, but no matter what, Danny is his son. Ghost, boy or something in between. "Why tell us now, Danno?"
"There's one more... bombshell I need to drop. It's.... it's not as big as well, me being your mortal enemy... immortal enemy? Whatever, your favorite ghost to hunt, but it's still really important," Danny finds himself shaking. They haven't pulled out the weapons, that's good. Avoiding the topic of him being Phantom is debatable though.
"It's okay sweetheart. We love you, we always will. And yes, you being... Phantom is going to change a lot of thing from here on in. But we're going to hold on and hope it changes for the better starting now," Maddie finally adds, moving her son into a hug. "You can tell us anything, dear."
"Thanks, mom," Danny returns the hug, really and truly hugging his mother, without fear of her noticing the chill in his skin or the hum of his core through his heartbeat. His heart still beats, and his mother had still heard it.
"Alright, as for why I'm telling you...." another deep breath. "Someone else, one of my enemies, knew about me being a halfa. That's uh... the technical term for ghost-human hybrids in the ghost zone, but they're like really rare and stuff," he swallows as he takes things in.
"Anyway, this guy, he wanted me to be his weapon. With something as one of a kind and rare as a halfa nearby, he didn't want to loose his chance. When I continued to refuse, he grew a bit more drastic and unethical in his measures to secure a halfa he could control," Danny says. It's best to be vague about Vlad until another day.
"He found a way to get his hands on some of my DNA, so he began attempting to... to clone me..." He mutters. Jazz has an idea of who decided to clone Danny, considering her own endeavors with one billionaire who's currently mayor of Amity Park.
"He couldn't get the clones to come out quite right, he needed three versions of my DNA. Human, ghost and mid-morph, whatever that means. I think it has something to do with transforming, I don't really care. He tried to weaponize some failed clones to force me to transform, but they ended up melting..." he grins.
"Except for one clone. The only clone that had a human and a ghost form, but she wasn't what he wanted. When the clone found out my enemy was using her and intended for her to melt away, she helped free me and we both took him down together. Since then she's been in hiding, but well, running out of options..."
Maddie and Jack share a look. It's quite the story. Someone attempting to clone their half ghost son, in order to use his unique biology as a weapon for their gain? Succeeding in a department, but it's not good enough?
"That poor soul, please tell me they're alright," Maddie feels the heavy weight in her heart grow.
"She's in the back seat of my car right now," Jazz assures, giving her mother a smile. She's glad things are turning out okay, just like she'd always hoped it would.
"Well, what are we waiting for? It's a cold night out there, let's welcome her inside!" Jack booms, standing up and looking excited.
"What do you say, little brother? Want to let Phantom introduce his little cousin?" Jazz smirks, elbowing Danny in the arm, causing him to chuckle.
"Alright, alright," The Halfa sighs, feeling the cold spark in his center and hearing the gasps of his parents as he takes his ghost form. "I'll go welcome her inside."
He phases through the wall and outside, leaving wide-eyed and open jawed parents in his wake. Jazz laughs at their expression.
"Yeah, he always gets you the first time with that transformation. It just turns out to be a bit bright after a few months though..." she chuckles, helping them back on to the couch as Danny returns with a little girl beside him.
They both revert to human form as the girl smiles shyly at them. "Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Fenton. I'm Danielle, but you can just call me Dani... with an I," she greets.
Suddenly, there's arms around her as Jack initiates a massive group hug, involving everyone in the room. There's warm laughs that soon follow, and everything feels right.
"Check it out, Mads!" Jack exclaims. "We have THREE kids to embarrass now!"