DP one-shot: A Twist in Fate

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.


          He could not believe what he saw……the tombstones of his loved ones, the people he cared about more than anyone else in this world: his family, his two best friends –they were gone, non-existent, dead.  It was what he had foreseen 10 years into the future, and vowed to prevent the dreadful accident. In the end, he had failed to safe them, more importantly, failed to keep his promise to them.

          Currently laying in the rubble of the aftermath that was his current tragedy, Danny could only groan in pain, his thoughts running in circle with his disbelief of what had just happened.

          The Nasty Burger restaurant had been blown to oblivion at the detonation of a leaking gas tank, taking the lives of young Daniel Fenton's family and friends. One may think that there was not anything he could do about it, but Danny – naturally, short for 'Daniel' – was not your average kid. For he was part-human, part-ghost!  And for that reason, he should have been able to fly into the place, turn his family and friends intangible at his touch, and they would all have escaped the explosion unscathed.

          Apparently, this had not been some rescue mission where the hero simply rescued the hostages, got applaud, and flew off into the sunset to continue to do 'good'. No, this fight had probably been like nothing any hero had ever had to go through. At least, Danny had never been through something like this since he became the 'protector of Amity Park'. In this fight, He overcame the obstacle of battling his dark future-self. However, this 'evil self' had come from a twisted combination of his own ghost-half and the ghost-half of the other known ghost hybrid in existence – his arch nemesis, Vlad Plasmius.

          Taking on the ghostly personas of the two hybrids, he called himself Dan Phantom. How the monster came to be was something Danny would never have expected, (period). Desperate, his future self had ran into the arms of his arch nemesis. Not only did Vlad become his legal guardian as stated in his parents' will, he had also given in willingly.

          Danny had met the Vlad of the future, a defenseless old man whose powers had been stripped by none other than himself. That Vlad had told him how it all happened. It seemed that with nowhere else to go since the tragedy that dawned him, he came to Vlad, the only person on the planet who could possibly hope to understand his situation. Apparently, the death of his loved ones had affected him so deeply that it drove him to getting rid of his human-half to rid himself of his human emotions, so that the hurt would go away.

          Vlad had honored his wishes and aided him in the surgical removal of his ghost-half.  The Ghost Gauntlets were designed to do exactly that.  The surgery had been a success, but the down side of it had been that the freed Danny PHANTOM had ripped the ghost out of the older hybrid -- which definitely had not been part of the plan. Ultimately, the two ghost halves merged to form a whole, and thus Dan Phantom was born.

            And what became of Danny's human half?

          " Some things are better left unsaid…" ,the future Vlad had said.

          " Was I that much of an emotional wreck? ",Danny timidly murmured to himself as he laid still under  the rubble from the blast. The injuries he had sustained were not something to be taken lightly: he could feel his already crushed ribs poking at his chest and his right arm felt painfully dislocated. Apart from that, the fresh cut on his forehead was the least of his worries. These injuries were not near-fatal enough to cause immediate death though, especially when the boy's ghost powers allowed him enhanced healing abilities. A normal human would take months to fully recover from the injuries covering Danny's body. However, he would probably heal in a week if not a couple of days.

         But then, whether or not he should have died, did not matter to Danny right now. The sole reason he had dedicated his entire life to keeping his town safe from the reappearing hostile and malicious ghosts that would come to haunt, were now gone. The very reason he had lived this hero business up and beyond was to protect his family and friends -- and they were gone!

         From this moment forth, their deaths would serve him as a painful reminder that it was not always glorious being a superhero.

          Dan Phantom had been more than a challenge to Danny; He had almost a decade of experience handling his ghostly abilities. As for Danny, it had only been months since the accident which gave him his powers. His parents , Jack and Maddie Fenton, being  two of the world's leading ghost experts, had been working on a ghost portal and had soon given up on the contraption due to unresolved technical difficulties. But then, who would think that his dad would be dumb enough to put the 'ON' switch on the inside of the portal?

          Danny found that out the hard way. His two best friends had prompted him into entering the portal, resulting in the fusion of his human DNA with Ectoplasm -- ghost DNA -- at the accidental activation of the portal.

          In spite his gaining ghost powers, the fact that he is part human was an apparent weakness. Whereas his dark future-self was a full-fledged ghost, and the possibilities of what he could do were endless.

          Dan Phantom is all powerful, no doubt about it. With years of practice, his powers had heightened to the extent that he could reduce a city as big as Las Vegas into ashes within mere minutes. Heck, he reduced almost the entire world into ashes 10 years in the future, and it was not until he attained his Ghostly Wail that he managed to finally take down the force field that enveloped Amity Park -- his dead human half's hometown  --  and of course, the town itself. It was the very same power Danny had managed to obtain in his present time, proving that the future might not be as set in stone as Dan thought it was. With it, he could finally budge and throw Dan off his feet during their fight, but it ultimately did so much.

          The evil incarnate had appeared weakened by the surprise offence, but Danny had suffered much dire consequences. He was immediately drained of his power after the Ghostly Wail's usage, forcing him back into his human form. He could no longer put up a fight, and it must have been by sheer luck that he managed to trap the malevolent ghost in the Fenton Thermos -- A ghost-trapping device shaped like a thermos. If his aim had missed, he dare not imagine what would have become of him.

          " It's not like he could have wasted me anyway…", Danny murmured once more before allowing himself to drift into unconsciousness, the sound of sirens ringing in his ears.

          …I'm to turn into that monster sooner or later, whether or not my angst and grief drives me into ripping the ghost part out of me…that with the help of a particular 'family friend'.

         " Like me, my future, it's inevitable."

         It was one of the more significant things Dan had said to him during the ultimate battle between the contradicting Good and Evil. Danny thought he could prevent the horrible outcome: the death of his loved ones. But now that that part of the phase was settled, he would become Dan Phantom, and it was only a matter of time.