The Magical Phantom

Chapter One: Haunted Beginnings

Danny Fenton shot up in the emergency room with a startled cry and a major headache.

He quickly looked around, determining he was in the hospital and begun to take deep breaths. At first, he had no idea why.

He looked down, seeing his torn and tattered t-shirt with cuts and gashed and bruises along his arms and glimpsing his ruffled hair and bruised face in the reflection from the TV in the corner of the room. He'd been in a fight, it seemed, but with who?

His baby blue eyes drifted to the other side of the room, just now registering its other occupant.

In the hospital bed across the room, looking no better than he did, was his archenemy and fellow half-ghost Vlad Masters. With a start, Danny's eyes flickered green as he turned his arm intangible, letting the IV fall out of his arm and swung his legs around and moved to stand, ignoring the dizziness he felt.

Danny remembered. He remembered everything.

The fight with Vlad, the other ghosts causing panic, his friends and parents trying to help, the explosion. Danny remembered everything.

Gone.

They were all gone.

Tucker, Sam, Jazz, Mom, Dad, Lancer, Valerie.

They had all been in Casper High when it exploded. No, Danny thought angrily, when it was bombed.

It was too much for Danny to think of at the moment. It was all too new, too fresh. It was too real. He glanced over at his fellow halfa. Vlad was the only one who could understand him. He was the only one who knew what it was like to walk the line of life and death. He was the only one who had also lost everything when Casper High exploded.

But he couldn't go with Vlad.

If he went with Vlad, he would become a reality in this timeline. And Danny had promised his friends that he would never turn into that. Even now that they were gone, Danny had no intention of breaking that promise. He would never turn into Dan and never go with Vlad.

So he did the only thing he could do and scanned the room. No cameras. That made things a lot easier for him as he transformed, feeling the chill of his ghost form while the white rings rolled up and down his form as always. Even his HAZMAT suit was torn and scuffed but his bruises and cuts seemed to fade a little. His healing factor was enhanced, but it always worked faster in his ghost form compared to his human form.

Danny Phantom quickly slipped out of the hospital intangibly. He knew Vlad would wake up before anybody got back to them, too, just like he had. They weren't expecting them to be able to do much yet, not yet aware that they weren't totally human. So, Danny felt no remorse at leaving Vlad behind and did the only thing he could think of. He flew straight home, floated downstairs through the floor and jumped into the Ghost Zone.

He just had to keep flying.

"I can't bring them back." Clockwork stated.

Danny stood behind him, his shoulders falling slightly.

"I know." He whispered in a defeated tone. "I didn't think you would, after last time."

They both floated there in silence for a few moments before Danny spoke up again.

"I just needed a place to stay. Somewhere far away from Amity, far away from Vlad." Danny told Clockwork. "I can't go with him, Clockwork. I can't, but there's nobody else they'd send me too."

"You can't stay here." Clockwork said sternly. Danny looked down. "However, I know of a place that a hero like you could be needed."

"What do you mean?" Danny asked, not understanding.

"There's worlds out there, Daniel, where things are very different. `This world could really use you." Clockwork said cryptically.

Danny thought only for a few moments.

"What would I need to do?" Danny Phantom, ghostly hero, had returned.

"And you're sure you want to do this, Daniel?" Clockwork asked the young halfa.

It had been nearly a week since Vlad's attack on Danny's family and friends. Danny had been hiding out with Clockwork since, learning all he could about the new world he was being sent to before he was thrust away from everything he had grown up with and more.

The Master of Overly-Complicated Riddles had told him 'everything he needed to know' for now. There was a war going on at this very moment in some other world and he could help be part of the solution in. Only, there was supposed to be someone there already who was destined to end the war. But, Clockwork knew what was best and thus, the responsibility of stopping the Wizarding War was split between the Potter boy and the young Phantom. The Observants were against this course of action, obviously, but who cares, they were nothing but one-eyed annoyances as far as Danny or Clockwork was concerned.

The only catch so far seemed to be that, in order to properly help, Danny had to attend the school this 'Potter boy' and friends were going to soon attend where starting yearlings were eleven. Danny was already almost fifteen. Clockwork had thus offered a solution, which was why currently Danny was human, standing beside a weirdly large stopwatch.

"No," Danny said nervously, glancing between the time device and its master. "But I don't really have much of a choice."

Clockwork only nodded and swiped his time-staff, sending the hands on the stopwatch spinning rapidly in a counter-clockwise motion and causing a blinding flash of light to emit over Danny's form. A few moments later, the hands on the clock stopped spinning and the light died down to reveal a shorter, younger, eleven year-old Danny.

Luckily, he was very much still Danny, just shorter and even thinner than he was moments ago. His classic outfit seemed to remain largely the same, same the thin red line that now slashed through the filled red circle on his shirt.

"Did it work?" The now pre-teen Danny asked. He winced at the sound of his own voice, which was higher now.

"Can you still access your ghost form and powers?" Clockwork asked.

The other difference from when he was eleven. He was, obviously, allowed to keep his halfa status and memories of being older than he looked. Danny shrugged and triggered his transformation, feeling the cold that had been inside of him since the accident and pushed it out, forcing the rings of light to travel his body once more.

It appeared that Phantom had changed more than Fenton did, because gone was the HAZMAT suit that had become so familiar to him. He was a little disappointed and a lot confused considering the thing had become like a second skin to him. He was kind of going to miss it.

Now, Phantom wore a white, zipper less vest on top of a black t-shirt stylized with the DP emblem in white on his chest, made viewable thanks to his open vest. He now had white fingerless gloves and black sweat pants that had a white stripe going down both pant legs all tied together with snow-white combat boots. Although his eyes still shined an otherworldly green, it appeared that Phantom had gone casual.

"And what of your other powers?" Clockwork asked.

Danny quickly tested out all his powers. Flickering from invisibility to intangibility, letting himself float a few feet off the ground and charging Ecto-energy up in his fists. All the major ones down, he noted, as he pulled at his cryokinesis. After he felt his ice powers rush to his hands, he began to start his Ghostly Wail, but cut it off once he felt the power began to build.

"All work like a charm, Clockwork." Danny said, transforming back to his now normal eleven year-old self. "Is this where I have to handle things myself from?" He jibbed at the time master as he picked up his suitcase even though he knew the answer. It didn't matter, though, he was used to handling things himself.

"I'll always be watching over you, Daniel, whether you believe it or not. Everything is set up to how it should be, all you need to do is follow your guide." The time master informed him.

"Guide?" Danny asked in confusion.

"You will be getting a guide who will deliver to you your acceptance letter as well as make sure you are fully prepared for school. Remember, when asked for your key check your back left pocket, and you're a cat person." Clockwork cleared up.

Sort of.

"Acceptance letter? Key? Cat person? Clockwork, speak Eng-" Danny started to reprimand before he and his suitcase were consumed in a white light and were completely gone once it cleared.

Clockwork smiled a bit as the light disappeared and turned to his monitor, watching Danny land safely.

It wasn't exactly a whole new world Clockwork sent the boy too. It was very much the same Earth; just a hidden part of it that Danny hadn't known existed before. It was for that reason Clockwork sighed as he turned to the next monitor, seeing Vlad sleeping soundly and the next, showing Danielle bouncing on a hotel room bed.

Clockwork sighed again, pausing time and creating two more giant stopwatches beside the other two halfas.

"All is as it should be." He reminded himself, peering out at the three halfas across his monitor screens. Danny needed this. The world needed this.

"Good luck, young Phantom."

Okay so I'm sure you all have some questions.

I had a particularly rough few years and basically I almost failed out of college due to working two jobs and trying to overexert myself too much. I'd rather not talk too much about it, but I was in a really bad place, physically and mentally.

I've recently begun writing again and I'm sorry to anyone who's continued waiting for me on updates, I feel really bad I've kept you all waiting. But all of my stories are really, really far away from the level I feel like I can write at now. Which is why, rather than just try and pick up where I left off, I felt like it would be better for me, you all and this story if I gave it a rewrite.

I chose this story in particular because it was always the one I felt the worst about not finishing (this and Phantom of Heroes but that was never only mine) so this is the story I'm going to try and use to show you all I'm trying my hand at writing again and hopefully I've gotten better.

A lot of things will be the same, as I cannot say for sure yet what things I'll change but the core of the story will still be the same. This chapter was more like a prologue than a chapter, and chapters in the future will surely be a lot longer and closer to the length you were all used to before if not longer.

I hope you all understand why I've decided this and that you show this redux the same love and affection you showed the other. Please don't forget to R&R even if it is only to bitch me out, I don't mean to be petty but if it seems like not enough people are enjoying the redux then it'll pretty much just stop and maybe I'll try writing something new entirely, but I want to give this story another shot first.

And with this story, I'll start replying to your reviews in the authors notes of the chapters if you like, all you have to do is ask by adding TheIceRaven at the end of your review.