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starry-bi-sky · 4 months

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Becoming Phantom - Clone^2 (and by extension, clone danny)

I said I would make it, and so i did! Here's a little ficlet of how danny became Phantom - the human ghost-fighting vigilante in the clone^2 and clone Danny au. Since this does include themes of dissection/vivisection, i'll put in a minor trigger warning list down below.

TW: experimentation - implied torture and vivisection/dissection of ghosts TW: Non-graphic mentions of injuries and blood

TLDR: Danny's parents have been catching ghosts ever since the portal was opened after Danny's lab accident. Danny knows this because he can hear them screaming from the basement. After finally telling his friends about it, he resolves to free the ghosts - and he does. He ends up having a conversation with one of the ghosts, and comes to the decision that he will catch ghosts before his parents do to prevent this kind of harm from happening again.

word count check: 4.9k

---------------

His parents caught another ghost.

Danny can tell because he can hear their screaming from the kitchen, even with the doors closed. It's horrific - the voice is doubled over itself like something out of one of Sam's demonic horror movies, and Danny's heart races like he's run a mile at the sound.

It warps and twists, and almost sounds like its saying 'please.'

He rubs his chest uncomfortably, and pushes his breakfast away from him. His appetite lost and his stomach churning with a deep sense of dread.

Across the table, Jazz notices, and her eyes narrow dangerously at his hand gripping his shirt - right over his heart. He just got out of the hospital last month, and he knows what she's thinking - they don't want to have to send him back.

"I'm fine." He blurts out immediately, dropping his hand. He's not fine, but it's because he feels ill as the lights above flicker and another terrified shriek echoes through the floorboards. He swallows, ill. "I- it's just-" his eyes flick to the door to the lab. "the lab."

Jazz's lips press into thin line, and she pushes her chair back and stands up. "I hate that they're doing this," she says, stomping towards the lab. "It's inhumane, Danny. They're people too, even if they don't look like us!"

Before the portal, Danny might've just shrugged his shoulders and not said anything. He never really cared about his parents' ghost hunting stuff, but figured that since they knew more about it, their rants about them being unfeeling were correct.

Now, though? When he's been woken up in the middle of the night by the house rattling and his ears ringing with the pained cries of one of the ghosts' in the basement? His heart beating so fast he thinks he's been transported back to the lab a month ago, lying on the floor after being electrocuted by the portal?

He's really not so sure anymore. And he thinks he's starting to agree with Jazz. This isn't right. He doesn't think so, at least.

An unsure 'hm' comes out of his throat, eyes tracking Jazz as she swings the heavy metal door open and breathes in deep. "HEY!" She yells, her voice miraculously sounding out over the ghost screaming. The screams stop. "MOM! DAD! CUT THAT OUT, YOU'RE SCARING DANNY!"

There's no sound, and Danny sighs a breath of relief. Not that it does much to slow his anxious heart, the shrieks are burned into his ears, and he's already thinking about leaving now rather than later. He can meet Tucker at his house.

His parents - his mom, actually - appears at the entrance to the lab, her hands drip bright, ectoplasm green, and there's splatters of it across the front of her suit and goggles like blood. Danny feels white in the face, and Jazz looks enraged.

Mom pulls off her goggles, frowning apologetically. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. Your father and I just got carried away, we caught this one just this morning by the park." She says, as if that makes it any better. Danny's eyes are glued to the ectoplasm dripping onto the floor. "We'll wait until you get to school."

Danny wishes they wouldn't do this at all. But he just nods mutely, unable to make his lead-heavy tongue do anything. Jazz speaks for him, and whirls on mom like a tornado about to break loose. "At school? This shouldn't be happening at all - it's wrong, mom!"

Jazz has been the only one vocal about this whole thing ever since mom and dad came home with a ghost trapped in one of their nets - their thermos wasn't working - while Danny was on sick leave after he got out of the hospital. Danny still remembers the utter shock he was in after mom and dad came in dragging it behind them.

The ghost looked like a grown woman, but it - she - had the brightest blue eyes he'd ever seen, and ice-like skin. She'd been thrashing in the net, saying something in a hissy, whispering language that made static build behind his eyes. It had surprised him that he could somewhat make out what she was saying.

It had been fascinating. Up until the screaming started.

He watches Mom make a face that looks like endeared annoyance, and she turns to Jazz with a light sigh. "You're a kind girl, Jazz, but ghosts aren't human, sweetheart. We've told you this." And they have, multiple times. It's become a reoccurring argument.

"Does it matter?!" Jazz exclaims, her cheeks turning an inflamed red with indignancy. She looks appalled. "They're still in pain! You're hurting them!"

Danny silently nods, but they don't see. Jazz is glaring at mom with the burning anger of the sun and Mom just looks exasperated. "Your father and I know this already, Jazmine." Mom says, her arms crossing across her chest.

Jazz's mouth drops open.

Danny's almost does the same. The bone-chilling blood rush leaves him shivering, and his vision spots out in black, fuzzy dots for a few seconds. Maybe, he thinks, it's his heart stopping again with the cold horror.

They know this?

And they're still doing it?

He thought he knew his parents - now he's second-guessing himself.

Jazz is just as much at a loss for words as Danny is. And then her expression shutters closed with a fury-kind of icy. "Danny," she says, still staring down their mom. "Go get your stuff, I'm driving you to school."

Normally, he hates how.. parent-y Jazz gets. She acts like a second mom, and like a helicopter one to boot. It drives him nuts on the worst of days. Right now though, he's already rising to his feet before he's even opening his mouth.

"Okay." He croaks, and beelines it up the stairs for his backpack. He doesn't look at mom when he comes back down, he doesn't think he can. He can see her still-dripping hands in the corner of his eye though.

------

"Man, you look like shit." Tucker says the moment Danny sits down in their homeroom class, he's frowning. Danny doesn't say anything to him, he just grunts and drops his head into his arms.

Sam, sitting behind Danny, leans across the aisle and smacks Tucker in the arm. He yelps in pain, and rubs the spot she hit with a glare. "He's right though," Sam says, leaning over his shoulder. "You looked like you were gonna yak over the front row when you walked in."

"It's good that you didn't," Tucker grumbles, "Dash would've killed you."

Danny, despite the shit morning, manages a smile and tilts his head so that his cheek is resting on his arm instead. "Mr. Lancer wouldn't've let him." Sam sniffs, and her fingers are in his hair already - it's been growing out for a while now. He meant to cut it but then the lab accident happened, and he was in the hospital, and then on sick leave, and -- long story short, he was growing it out.

Besides, Sam pulling it back for him was relaxing, and he feels the tension bleeding out of his shoulders already. His anxious heart slowing. "Yeah, he's been weirdly protective since the accident." He says. It was kinda nice, Dash was being forced to back off - finally, more than he was before.

"Probably because if you have a heart attack in class from Dash bullying you, he'll be liable." Tucker snorts, relaxing back into his chair. Up front, the three of them see Dash shoot them a glare from over his shoulder. He probably heard them -- and Tucker doesn't help by giving him an innocent, too-wide grin.

There's a tug, and Danny lifts his head slightly as Sam ties his hair back with whatever hairband she procured out of nowhere. And she says she's not a witch, honestly.

His smile falters, however, when Sam leans back around his shoulder with a frown still evident on her face. "Seriously though, what's up? You were really pale -- paler than normal, that is."

Danny doesn't really wanna tell them - he's kept the whole 'my parents are torturing ghosts' thing to himself ever since he first woke up to the house shaking. It wasn't any secret though that there were ghosts now actually 'infesting' Amity Park though, they'd been popping up ever since the portal turned on.

But Jazz says talking about things helps alleviate stress of what's burdening you, and Danny doesn't usually listen to her. She's his annoying older sister, of course he doesn't. But... this... wasn't really something he wanted to keep secret forever, either.

His teeth sink into his bottom lip, and he averts his eyes. It's like tearing off a band-aid, Danny, he thinks, just... blurt it out. "My parents are torturing ghosts in the basement." He says, only to immediately wince as both Sam and Tucker drop their jaws.

"What!?" They both yell in unison, and Danny ducks his head down as everyone else sitting around them turn their heads.

"Not so loud!" He hisses, peeking through his arms and glaring at the both of them. They both grimace, embarrassment dusting red across Sam's face and Tucker's darkening slightly, and duck their heads down towards him.

"Sorry, what!?" Tucker whispers back at him, his face all scrunched up in disbelief. Sam's redness has faded into pale horror and -- and yeah, yeah, Danny gets it. He feels that way too.

"They keep catching the ghosts and dissecting them." He whispers, and god, he feels sick just saying it. Tucker's face falls slack, and he looks about as ill as Danny feels. "I don't- I don't know what to do about it, I keep waking up to them screaming, and Jazz keeps getting into fights about it with them."

"Oh my god." Sam mutters, her hands pressing together and covering her mouth. Danny nods mutely, chewing on his lip.

"They know its hurting them." He adds, and its still dizzyingly terrifying to think about. He thought he knew his parents. He thought he knew them. He guesses that saying of people being multi-faceted was true. "They don't care."

Sam and Tucker both look green. Or as close to green as they can get. "That's- that's inhumane." Sam breathes, and Danny huffs sardonically - funny, that's what Jazz said this morning. That's what she keeps saying. "And there's really nothing you can do?"

"Not unless I go into the lab myself and release them," he mutters, hiding half his face in his arms. "And I haven't been back in there since I got electrocuted." His parents wouldn't allow it, and it's not like he he was chomping at the bits to go back inside anyways.

...Hm.

"I'm sorry, Danny." Tucker says, his voice low and horrified, "that's- that's awful."

Yeah. He knows.

--------

This is a bad idea. This is a bad idea. This is a bad idea.

Where was Danny you ask? Sneaking down into the lab at sometime past midnight, long after his parents have gone to bed. It's been a week since he said, sarcastically, that the only thing he could do was release the ghosts in the lab, and it hasn't left his head.

Even though he was utterly terrified as he took slow, sneaky steps down the stairs. The thought had been keeping him up at night. He could do it. He could go down into the lab and let them go. He could do something.

It's not like his parents had put a lock on the door. He hadn't even thought about it - if he thought about it, he'd back out. So when he heard his parents go to sleep that night, he waited an hour before sneaking out.

Every sound felt so loud, and his heart had raced in his ears as he creaked open the door to the lab, and closed it behind him for good measure. And his hands were shaking as he reached the bottom of the steps and stepped into the lab for the first time in two months.

And good god, did he almost regret it. There were ghosts in cages of all kinds, and ectoplasm seeping down onto the floor of their cages. They were clutching their chests, of which bled sluggishly through stitched up y-scars. They were moaning, and crying, curled up in the back like frightened animals. And there was a metal table in the center of a room that was stained green, green, green.

"Oh my god." He breathes, horror driving itself up into his throat with the churning of his gut. That's another thing he almost regrets - if only because half a dozen ghosts all snap their heads towards him, and it becomes pandemonium in an instant.

Rattling, yelling, crying, they're all screaming at him. Either to tell him to go away, to give them mercy, or to spew threats at him. It's in that same, hissy language that he's heard before. Whispery, echoing, and overlapping like multiple languages being played backwards and forwards at the same time. It gives him an immediate headache as his mind tries to comprehend and translate it.

Go away. Don't hurt us. Go away. I'll tear you apart. Leave. Leave. LEAVE.

It's all so much. Danny wants to throw himself up the stairs and back up to his room in a prey-driven instinct to flee, flee, flee. He doesn't. He covers his ears and digs his nails into his hair.

He yells. "I'M NOT LEAVING. BE QUIET!" and somehow, it silences everyone in an instant. He looks up, and everyone is staring at him, their multi-colored eyes burning into him.

Tentatively, he lowers his hands, they're shaking. He's still so scared. But courage isn't a lack of fear, its doing something despite it. He blinks back the terrified sting in his eyes, and twiddles with his hands. "I'm- I'm not here to hurt you." He stammers, "I promise. I'm not my parents."

It's silent for a long moment, and then there's an animalistic-like hiss from his left. He turns his head, and there's a ghost of a man curled up in a cage, staring him down with a thunderous look on his face. "Liar." He hisses, his voice warping in that hissy language. There are goat-like horns protruding from his head, and his eyes are yellow and slitted. He's dripping ectoplasm from his chest.

Danny swallows the bile in his throat.

And frowns. "I'm not lying." He says, and the ghost doesn't get hostile, much to his surprise. But there's a ripple of murmurs that spreads through the room like a wave at a ballgame. The ghost that spoke stares at him, then squints.

"You understand us, child?"

And - okay, Danny doesn't like the 'child' comment. He's fourteen for goodness sake, and he bristles silently like it's an insult, but he's no there to argue, he's here to help. So he swallows his pride and starts to walk towards the closed portal.

His legs are shaking, he's afraid they're gonna give out beneath him. The portal scares him, more than it did when he first saw it. But maybe that's because when he first saw it, he hadn't almost died from it.

His heart is pounding in his ears. Is it going to give out again, will he have to go to the hospital again? Despite his insistence that he's fine, Danny's heart hasn't beat right ever since the accident. He's checked. He spent an hour every night with his fingers pressed against the pulse point at his throat, at his wrist, terrified of the slow-beating he could feel thrumming against the skin.

Hearts aren't supposed to beat that slow - that much he knows. He's afraid he's going to drop dead if it drops any lower.

"Of course I do." He swallows, glancing back at the ghost. Everyone's eyes are on him, they burn into him, curious, wary, afraid. He's in front of the portal, in front of the keypad to open it. Shit, did dad put in a password? "Am I- am I not supposed to?"

He pauses to look at the ghost, and the man has moved to stare at him from a new angle in his cage - god he's gonna need to find the key. Mom and dad probably have it in their desk, right?

The ghost is silent. "...No. You're not." He says, and his head tilts to the side as Danny mentally translates in his head. he looks at Danny like he's trying to inspect him, like he's trying to look into him like his parents have looked into the ghost. "What is your name, child?"

"I'm not a child." He bites out, and immediately winces. Shit- he just said not to antagonize them. But the ghost doesn't look offended. In fact, he just grins a sharp, toothy grin like a shark, and raspy giggles and titters echo through the room.

...That's... probably a good sign. "Um," he continues, and turns his back to the keypad. Dad's birthday? He punches into the keys. "I'm- uh, Danny. Danny Fentom- Fanton- Fenton. My parents are- uh, the ones who took you guys." The keypad buzzes and the bar spots red. Wrong password. Dammit.

"Phantom." The ghost says, and the name crawls like a spider across the walls, sneaking up his spine and ringing in the air like the leftover taste of rain and thunder. the rest of the ghosts whisper it amongst themselves.

Danny shivers, it feels like a weight in his chest. It's Fenton, he thinks, but doesn't correct. He doesn't want to push his luck with the being that could tear him apart. "Uh, sure."

He punches in mom's birthday. Wrong. He puts in Jazz's. Wrong. "How come we haven't seen you down here, Phantom?" The ghost asks, and Danny shrugs helplessly. "You are the Danny that the unknown girl yells about?"

He tries his own birthday. Wrong. Fuck. What's the password? The tremor in his limbs worsens with his anxiety, and he tries to keep his breathing steady. What if he can't get this open? What if he can't get them out? He nearly forgets to answer the ghost, and licks his dry lips. "Um- yeah, that's me. The Danny guy." He says, turning to the cages again. "And uh, I don't come down here because my parents don't allow it."

The ghost, uh, goat-man? Tilts his head, there are whispers throughout the room that pick up. And Danny feels like the kid late to an all school assembly and now has to walk past the whole school to find a seat.

Goat-man smiles again, or bares his teeth? "You are the reason why the human doctors haven't cut into us more than they already have." And- that's- that's good? He thinks?

"That's- good, right? You- you don't want to be cut open, so it's good that I, uh, indirectly stopped it a few times?"

A round of titters goes through the room again. The man's grin widens inhumanly so, and Danny's heart spikes with fear. "Yes, it's a good thing, Phantom child." He says, "Why is it that your parents do not let you come down here?"

Danny stares, and swallows again, dry. The back of his neck tingles, and he tastes electricity on his tongue. "I had an accident down here, um, nearly two months ago." His eyes flick to the cable cord where the portal was plugged in, and his heart flutters with the images of green that got burned behind his eyes. He looks away. "The portal, it, ah, electrocuted me. I was in the hospital because it nearly killed me."

"It did kill you." The ghost says immediately, and terror fills up in Danny like water flooding a room. What? What? What? He was alive. His heart was beating, he was alive. "But only for a moment. You've been touched by death, Phantom."

That was so fucking ominous. And terrifying. And terrifyingly ominous. And also really horrifying. Danny does a swift pirouette and turns back to the keypad. Time to figure out the passcode and not think about that, ever again, actually.

"Wow." He rasps, his mind numb as he punches in a random code of numbers and gets a red screen. "How reassuring. Tell death I want a refund." He gets laughter again, and his shoulders scrunch up to his ears.

"It is the reason you can understand us, then." The ghost says behind him. "We are not speaking your language child - rather, you are speaking ours."

Again. Fucking ominous. Danny furrows his brows and stares hard at the keypad - if he was dad, and he wanted to put a password lock on his lifetime achievement in something that was easy to remember and equally important, what would it be?

Oh. Right.

He bites back a groan - how obvious. Danny's an idiot. Or maybe just so scared witless that his brain isn't working right. "Fudge." He grumbles, and punches it into the keypad. It dings green.

Of - fucking - course. Danny rolls his eyes.

He hears a hiss, and Danny rapidly scuttles back as the massive blast doors twisted open like something out of a scifi movie - he'd be geeking out if he wasn't aware of his own rapid heartbeat. Like a gun charging up, an unearthly green glow appears at the back of the tunnel an d then rapidly moves towards him, growing larger and larger.

Danny flinches, half-convinced its going to hit him. He was going to be vaporized, and he brings up his arms to protect himself. But nothing happens, and he peeks open an eye that he closed when the ghost from before murmurs for him to open them.

The portal is - is, well. Indescribable. It fills the dark room with its glow, swirling like a those weird, shimmering liquid dyes put into martini glasses in those aesthetic gifs on the internet. And the light it casts on the walls shimmers and moves like the aurora borealis.

Danny is speechless. It's... oddly beautiful. And terrifying. There's a whole new world in that dimension - if he steps through he won't be on earth anymore.

And... his parents wanted to eradicate the people on the other side of it?

He whirls on foot, his back to the portal - a thing that fills him with dread. his shaking - its worse. Danny almost thinks his feet will give out. "Do - do any of you know where mom and dad keep the keys to the cages?" He asks, but he's already stalking towards the desk on the other side of the room.

The people in the cages grow restless, and they've been silent for the most part - but with the portal open, and him going to find the keys, they'd begun to grow talkative. They were moving more in the cages, talking to each other, excitement filling the air with so much hope Danny could feel it resonating between his ribs.

A new voice, quiet and feminine, speaks up on the opposite side of the goat-man's cage. She's closer to the desk, and she has also been cut open. There are black tears staining her face, and her shock white hair floats like she's underwater. Immediately, on instinct, Danny's head supplies him with a word.

Banshee.

"In the bottom drawer, Phantom." She whispers, her voice lilting and melodic. Her pitch black eyes follow him across the room. "I've seen them put it there after putting us back into our cages."

He nods mutely, and again feels horrified by their treatment from his parents. His pace quickens to the desk, and just as the banshee woman said, there are keys in the bottom drawer sitting on top of a bunch of research papers that have a suspicious green stain on them.

Danny ignores the stain and grabs the keys, holding them up as he closes the drawer. When he turns back to the cages, all eyes are on him. "Um," he rasps, "I found the key." Who do I free first?

His eyes land on the banshee woman first, she's the closest to the desk. And in an arc he follows the lineup to the other side side of the room. He moves to the banshee woman's cage first, and she perks up as he kneels down to the door.

"I'll- I'll go in a circle, first." He announces, fingers fumbling with the key as he inserts it into the hole. The banshee woman had her fingers - clawed and knife-like, capable of tearing out his throat in an instant - around the bars of her confinement. She was staring at him intently.

He hesitates, and looks up. Her eyes are pitch black, he noticed this before, but this close its like its threatening to suck him in and send him swirling through a blackhole. "If- if I free you," he stammers, licking his lips, "will you attack me?"

The banshee woman bares her razor teeth at him, and reaches through the bars to touch his face. It takes all Danny's restraint not to flinch as her nails drag down his cheek softly. "No," she says, "you're freeing us, Phantom. We will not attack you."

Danny.. will just have to take her word for it. He nods, and with a sharp twist of his wrist unlocks the cage with one hand, and flings open the door with the other. In an instant, the banshee dives forward -- Danny thinks she's lunging at him, and flinches violently.

She goes through him instead, leaving him with a bone-deep chill and a heartbeat in his ears. He turns, and sees her dive through the portal like a swimmer diving into a pool.

There is silence throughout the room. And then everyone else begins to clamor once again, just like when Danny first walked in. Danny hurries to hush them - he said he was going around the room! He'll free them, but be quiet, or you'll wake his parents!

He rushes for the next cage, and one by one opens each and every cage. There are cheers, and thank yous, and cries of gratitude. He has to help the weaker ghosts out of their cage and limp them towards the portal. His shirt and hands are stained green with their blood.

(When he goes back up to his room later, he throws it off and throws it away. He can't stand the sight of it, and he scrubs his hands until they're raw.)

It's a lot for Danny to not burst into tears, or to throw up. Until finally he reaches goat-man's cage, and releases him. He is one of the ghosts too weak to fly on their own, and so Danny lets him lean against him and helps him to the portal.

"Will you be okay?" He asks once they are at the threshold, the portal hums softly this close to it. Almost like its trying to beckon Danny inside, like a siren song. Danny ignores it. "Will everyone else?"

"We will heal, Phantom." Goatman says, holding a hand to his chest. He looks tired, this close, and Danny can feel him looking at him, even without any pupils to show it. "Once back inside the Infinite Realms our bodies will heal on its own."

Danny nods silently, and his frown begins to wobble. The stress he's been under is finally starting to take its toll, and he is emotionally exhausted. There is still a lingering taste of fear in the air that doesn't belong to him - but the ghosts that have left. "I'm sorry." He croaks, his voice cracking. "I didn't - I didn't think you guys were human. I'm sorry."

The ghost's expression softens, but he still looks stern. "We aren't human." he says, and Danny frowns, confused. The ghost continues, and reaches out a long finger to tap against Danny's chest, where his heart is. "But do not think for a moment that humanity can be measured by the sound of a heartbeat, child. We are just as humane as you living can be, and we are just as sentient and sapient as you. Do not forget that, and you will not become your parents."

There's nothing for Danny to say to that, except nod once again. His tongue is heavy in his mouth, made of lead. "This will happen again," he continues, and his eyes prick, "they're gonna keep catching ghosts and bringing them down here." And hurting them.

Goatman nods curtly, and raises an eyebrow at Danny. "What will you do to stop them, Phantom?" He asks, "You could keep releasing them after they have been already caught, but that will not stop the pain they face under the hands of your parents."

He's right. He's right. And if Danny keeps releasing them afterwards, his parents will grow suspicious. They'll start sticking around trying to catch whoever is freeing the ghosts. And Danny doesn't want to face what will happen if his parents realize that he's the one freeing ghosts.

His eyes flicker rapidly around the room, trying to think of a solution - what could he do? What can he do?

His eyes land on the thermos sitting on the table.

"I... I could catch ghosts?" He says, unsure, and looks back to the ghost. He nods, beckoning for Danny to continue. "I can catch them in the thermos before my parents do, and then release them back to the Zone."

"That will work." The ghost says, "The thermos doesn't hurt to be in, it's merely cramped. Will you follow through on this?"

"Yes."

The ghost smiles at him a third and final time, his teeth glinting in the green portal light. "Then good luck, Danny Phantom."

He lets go, and disappears into the portal.