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Being friends with a rival ghost has its pros and cons. The pros are that Danny can call on them whenever he needs help fighting a bigger, badder ghost. The cons are that this does nothing to stop his ally from attacking him whenever they like.
He was awoken in the dead of night (pun intended) by his ghost sense escaping his throat. He quickly transformed and flew outside, preparing to fight a ghost wreaking havoc. Instead, he was met by Johnny, who asked for a spar.
Danny sighed and ran a hand across his face. “Really? You couldn’t have picked a better time for this?”
“Of course not!” Johnny delightfully replied. “All the humans are asleep, so you don’t have to worry about hurting any of them.”
That was…surprisingly thoughtful. Still didn’t make it any less annoying. Danny fixed him with a glare and said, “Johnny. I’m half human. I also need to sleep.”
The ghost’s eyes widened, and his mouth formed a circle. “Oh.”
Danny rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Can you go back to the GZ so I can get back to bed?”
Unfortunately, he already knew the answer he would receive when Johnny’s face twisted into a wicked smirk. “But you’re already here, aren’t you? And I do have some energy I need to let out…”
“Dude, I swear…”
Danny didn’t have time to finish his threat because the biker ghost was already sending his shadow to attack him. Inwardly, Danny groaned. Here he thought that he was making good progress this year in befriending his previous enemies, but it turns out they’re too trained in Hating Danny On Sight to fully stop torturing him.
Danny blocked another swing from the shadow. He formed a ball of ectoplasm in his hands and used its light to fend the phantom off. As he watched it retreat, he bared his teeth at Johnny with a growl, trying to convey clearly that he wasn’t happy.
For some reason, Johnny had the opposite reaction. He held up a hand to hold his shadow back and stared at Danny. “Wait, do that again,” he said.
Danny frowned, confused. “Do what?”
“Bare your teeth.”
Danny was Hella Confused, but he did as he was asked. Johnny clapped his hands and laughed.
“You’re growing baby fangs!”
“…What.”
The older ghost got closer until he was floating right in front of Danny’s face. He pointed at the halfa’s mouth, and his face adopted the kind of expression Jazz would make if she saw a baby animal. “Right there,” the ghost said with a smile, “the cutest, widdwestbaby fa–”
All of a sudden, a light enveloped Johnny, and he looked down to see the halfa sucking him into a Fenton thermos. “Hey! Not fair!” he whined, his voice shrinking as he went in.
“Sorry, but you deserved it,” Danny spoke into the cylinder before he closed it.
He sunk from his spot in the air until his boots touched the ground. As soon as he did, he thought about what Johnny said. Now that he noticed, his gums were hurting. When he touched them with his tongue, he felt something sharp growing among his teeth. What did Johnny say? Fangs?
Danny looked at the building sitting across from his home. The lights indoors were all turned off, and the windows perfectly reflected the street and Danny on it. Danny let himself hover an inch off the ground and floated toward the glass. Once he got close enough, he studied his reflection.
Over the years, his ghost form had changed into something a bit more…ghostly. Before, the only parts of his appearance that changed were his eye and hair colors. Now, his hair became wispy, his skin grew tinted green, and even the freckles that had long ago faded from his human skin now literally glowed in ghost form.
Danny ignored these details. (He especially ignored how uncomfortable he felt seeing himself look less and less human.) Instead, he opened his mouth and focused on the trait Johnny pointed out to him.
Sure enough, two small, white points were growing from where his canine teeth should be. Danny stared. Were those really going to grow into fangs? Honestly, he’s not sure why he was surprised. Pretty much every ghost he knew had fangs. Even Vlad did, and he’s a halfa too.
He grinned at his reflection, and the reflection grinned back, showing off his brand new pair of fangs. Danny tried to imagine what the would look like on him once they grow, replacing the small points with something longer and sharper.
This was a mistake.
Suddenly the image before him seemed eerily familiar. Wispy hair, almost like fire. Greenish skin bordering on teal. Growing muscles underneath his jumpsuit. And fangs.
The grin was gone from Danny’s face, but the reflection still smiled. Since when had its eyes turned red?
Danny took a shaky step back.
It was him.
The thermos slipped from his hands with a clunk. He gulped.
He was turning into him.
Fire entered Danny’s nose. Fire, and the smell of burning flesh. He whipped around, eyes out of focus. The Nasty Burger. It was gone. The flames licked the sky and danced on where the building once stood.
His family. His friends. He couldn’t save them.
“No,” he softly said, as if that could erase the scene before him.
He dropped onto his knees on the pavement. The smoke stung his eyes and filled his lungs. He couldn’t breathe.
“No,” he repeated, gasping and gripping onto his hairs. “No, no, no.”
His eyes fell on the thermos next to him. The metal surface reflected Danny’s face, but it wasn’t the face he saw in the mirror yesterday. It was his face from tomorrow. Red eyes, wispy hair, and grinning at him with long, sharp fangs.
An ecto-blast shot past his ear, jolting Danny back to reality. He looked up, his eyes finally focusing on someone standing over him…someone wearing a teal jumpsuit and red goggles…his mom?
But he saw her die, didn’t he? There was the explosion, and…and she was blasted apart like everyone else…and then…oh, right.
It felt like he was finally waking up. The air around him was clear. He wasn’t in front of the Nasty Burger, he was in front of his own house. And even if he was there, the restaurant would still be standing. The explosion never happened. Clockwork erased that timeline.
His family was still alive. Maddie was still alive.
A fact that helpfully made itself apparent by the gun she was pointing at him.
“Why are you doing that?” his mother asked, snapping him out of his reverie.
“Doing what?” he replied.
“Pretending to cry.”
Danny touched his cheeks. Was he really crying? Sure enough, his gloves came back wet.
“Answer me, phantom,” Maddie’s voice cut through his thoughts, sharp and bitter.
Danny let his hands fall onto his lap and gulped. “I’m not pretending.”
“Of course you are,” Maddie stated matter-of-factly. “Ghosts can’t shed genuine tears. After all, it’s not like they can feel–”
“Yes, they can,” Danny suddenly snapped. “They feel! All they do is feel! That’s why they’re aggressive. Not because they lack emotion, but because they’re created from it! Not that it matters to you, since you never listen to what I say.”
Maddie’s jaw dropped. As soon as the words left Danny’s mouth, he knew it was out of character for him. Phantom was a smooth ghost who only spoke to tell bad puns and mock his enemies. He neversnapped at anyone like that. A part of him felt ashamed for yelling at his mother, but he wasn’t in the mood to feel guilty about it.
He averted his eyes and wiped at his tears. Man, he must have looked pathetic. Why was Maddie even out here? Of course, he had forgotten that his parents had almost as little sleep as he did. She was probably pulling an all-nighter working on some new invention to kill him when she noticed the ghost having a breakdown outside their house.
Danny tried to ignore the embarrassment he felt and pushed himself to his feet. If Maddie noticed the way he shook as he pulled himself up, she didn’t comment on it. He took a deep breath. The smell of fire still lingered in his nose.
“Never mind,” he said, not looking at her as he spoke. “I’m not in the mood to deal with you tonight.” He turned away and prepared to take flight, but a hand suddenly gripped at his wrist, and he turned back to see Maddie holding on to him.
“Wait,” she said. After a moment of hesitation, she let go and…lowered her gun? “Let’s assume I believe what you said, about ghosts feeling emotion. Why are you crying?”
Danny had to assure himself that he wasn’t dreaming. Talking and not shooting? That was new. He must have stared at her for a long time in surprise, because she frowned and urged, “Well?”
He blinked and looked down. “It’s nothing.”
“So you are faking?”
“What? No!”
“Then what is it?”
He bit his lip. How could he even begin to explain it? Hey, no biggie, but I sort of saw an alternate timeline where I went evil and killed you, which happened a long time ago but apparently I’m not as over it as I thought. Yeah, no. Instead, he asked, “Why do you care?”
He looked up and saw something soften in her face. Her brows knitted, but in an I’m-willing-to-hear-you kind of way, just like the days in his childhood when she sat next to him in bed, ready to soothe him as he woke up crying from another nightmare. It made him meet her eyes, forgetting for just a moment that they were supposed to be enemies. She was not Maddie the ghosthunter, but Mom.
Then the illusion broke when she said, “With how much power you have, it is my duty as a ghosthunter to make sure you dont step out of line. Anything that would cause you to act differently from usual should concern me.”
His chest crumpled. Of course she didn’t care, and why would she? He was a ghost. This was nothing more than another duty for her as a ghosthunter.
He tried not to show his disappointment, but it must have shown anyway because Maddie asked, “Did I say something wrong?”
“No,” he lied. “Of course not.”
She sighed. “Of course not.” She crossed her arms and turned away, then muttered under her breath, “I don’t know why I thought I could help a ghost. I can’t even help my own children.”
Danny guessed he wasn’t meant to hear that last part, but he did. He stared at her incredulously and asked, “What?”
She stiffened, then quickly said, “Nothing. I don’t need to tell you about my family life.”
He took one step toward her, then immediately took a step back when she aimed her gun on him. Right, he forgot she didn’t holster that.
“I mean it,” she warned. “This isn’t about me.”
He stumbled and fell onto the pavement. Maddie stood over him, still aiming her weapon at him. Were they not just having a moment? Obviously not. Maddie Fenton was never one to have moments with a ghost.
“Really, quit breathing. I know you don’t need to do that.”
Danny only then noticed how hard his chest was rising and falling. He gulped. “I can’t keep doing this,” he suddenly spoke.
The hand holding the gun faltered. “Doing what?”
His eyes stung, but he held back his tears because he knew she would tell him he was faking again, and he didn’t want that to happen. Instead, he fixed his eyes on the red goggles that covered hers and said, “Fighting you, being your enemy, until the day you die.”
Maddie remained calm as she said, “You’re a ghost. I’m a ghosthunter.”
“That doesn’t mean we have to fight.” He gestured between them and added, “I mean, we were just having a conversation. At least until you pulled out your gun again.”
“Is that why you brought me out here?”
“I didn’t. You came on your own.”
“You were acting strange,” she replied. “You still didn’t answer why.”
His core thrummed against his chest as he continued to stare into her gun. Why are you crying? Because he’s still scared of becoming his evil self. Because he doesn’t want to hurt his family. Because every time he closed his eyes, he saw their scorched remains, and he doesn’t want to be the person to cause that to happen.
“I don’t want to be a bad ghost,” he answered.
Maddie tilted her head. “That can’t be it,” she spoke in her snobby scientist voice. “Ghosts dont have a sense of right and wrong–”
“Would you stop making assumptions about ghost morals? I’m the ghost here, not you.”
That was the second time he snapped at her. He tore his eyes away from her, instead choosing to glare at the street. Maddie was quiet. “…You’re serious,” she finally said.
“Yeah, no shit.”
She lowered her gun…just slightly. “That still doesn’t explain things,” she said. “Why the sudden reaction? The tears?”
His eyes landed on the thermos that lay a few feet away, reflecting his green skin and wispy hair and glowing eyes on its surface. His gums hurt.
Danny shut his eyes and gulped back bile. “I…I did something bad, okay?” he said, his voice small. “I thought I could forget about it, but I can’t. I–I don’t want it to happen again.”
A moment of silence hung between them, broken only by the soft whistle of the breeze. He hoped she wouldn’t ask, but he knew the question was coming anyway. “What did you do?”
His hands shook. He gripped them into fists, but that did nothing to ebb his emotions.
“Phantom,” Maddie urged. “What did–”
“I killed people!” The tears escaped his eyes, which opened to reveal toxic green irises that shone brighter than the streetlights. He faced Maddie, his expression contorted in guilt and pain and Ancients why do his gums still hurt as he cried, “I killed people. They died, and it was because of me. I killed them.”
He waited for her to get angry at him, to shoot him. Instead, she gave him a reaction he didn’t expect.
“Now I know you’re faking,” she said, lowering her gun completely.
He blinked away his tears. “What?”
“Feeling guilt over someone’s death? Ghosts can’t care about that.” She held up a hand and continued, “Before you argue again about whether ghosts have morals or not, I’m talking about the concept of life and death. You’re dead, so you shouldn’t be able to bother over whether others are, too.”
Danny sat back and let those words sink in. Was that why his alternate self had seemed so heartless? He had removed his humanity, and along with it, any sympathy he had left toward life. If Danny had fully died in that portal, would he…?
He shook his head. He didn’t want to think about that. “But I don’t want others to suffer the same fate I did,” he argued.
“That’s not what other ghosts seem to think,” Maddie pointed out. “Even if your obsession was saving others, it should be easy for you to get over a few deaths after some time has passed. It simply doesn’t make sense for you to care.” She crouched until she was at eye level with him and inquired, “So tell me, Phantom. What makes you so different?”
“…I don’t know.” What else could he say without revealing his secret? He truthfully told her, “I never asked to be this way.”
She scrutinized him, as if looking at him could somehow reveal the truth. After a while, she sighed and stood up…and holstered her gun.
“I can never understand you,” she said. “You’re just…so human. Your emotions, your thinking, your morals, even your appearance.”
He perked up. “You think I look human?”
She looked at him as if he just said the dumbest thing on the planet. “Of course you do,” she answered. “Even if you’ve changed since your first appearance, the change isn’t nearly as much as it should be for such an increase in power as yours. Other ghosts your power level would look much more monstrous. But not you. You may grow claws and fangs, but you can still pass as a person.”
Danny was dumbfounded. Here he was worried that he might be losing his humanity, and now he was proven wrong by none other than one of the world’s leading ghost researchers, his own mother. He thought that was as much relief as he could feel, and then she said,
“You’re not a bad ghost, Phantom.”
He bit the insides of his mouth to keep himself from crying again because dammit he’s already cried enough times this night already. Instead, he blurted out the thing that was on his mind in that moment, which was, “You’re not a bad mom.”
Mom faltered. For a second, Danny worried that he screwed up. He should not have said that, now she’s going to try shooting him again and then everything that just happened would be a waste… But she didn’t do that. He couldn’t read her face well from underneath her mask, but something crossed her face. She observed him silently, and he squirmed, wondering what she saw. She opened her mouth to say something, but then changed her mind and turned away without a word, leaving the halfa behind as she went back indoors.
Danny sat in the middle of the empty street, watching his mom leave. What just happened? He wasn’t sure, but Mom just left without leaving him an injury, which he didn’t think could be possible. The world lit up around him as the sun rose from the east.
Shit, he had to return home before someone could walk into his room and find it empty. He fumbled around until he caught the thermos, then paused to look at his reflection. He saw…himself. No evil alternate self. No monster from the future. Just Danny Phantom, existing in the present.
He grinned, showing off his brand new pair of fangs.
Now that he thought about it, having fangs sounds pretty cool.