Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Danny Phantom, I'm a big fan and was feeling nostalgic.

Note 03/08/2018: Before you ask, yes I know the whole 'Danny's parents reject him and he either runs to Vlad or is saved by him' has been done to death (pun intended) but I felt like trying my hand at it too to take a short break from OC stuff. I have a lot of Danny Phantom stories planned for the future, some AU's, at least one crossover, and some other original works aside from my main series revolving around "The Grimoire." This will be a first person story that switches between Danny and Vlad, but above all else, please know that this is NOT a pompous pep story, I don't approve of their pairing because of the age difference, that's too creepy for me. Sorry if that offends anyone but that's where I stand on this one issue. But I digress, lets move on to the story shall we? And if this beta chapter does well I may write more.

Prologue: One Moment Of Carelessness

Danny's POV

Well...that could have gone any number of ways, but I never expected it to end this way. My life might have been crazy enough while juggling household chores, classes, homework, and ghost-fighting, but now I didn't even have that anymore. Wanna know why? Of course you do. Why else would you be here? Well it started like any other day, I was late for curfew -again- and because I was so dog-tired I walked right past my parents and hastily waved them goodnight while heading upstairs to get ready for bed before they could punish me for it, but there was only one problem-

I was still in ghost-form.

At first they just blinked, sure they were imagining seeing their hated ghost enemy Danny Phantom waltz right into their house and shook their heads. Yet for some reason they couldn't shake off the feeling that something was amiss and peeked around the corner, watching me walk up the stairs, gripping the railing to keep myself steady. Because unfortunately the ghost I ended up fighting on my way home had been none other then Plasmius, who big surprise was being a jerk as usual and toying with me more then anything.

I paused to stifle a yawn when my ghost hearing picked up the distinct sound of a weapon charging and I started to turn my head only to freeze when my mother hissed, "If you value your afterlife, don't you dare move."

Swallowing hard, hoping I was hearing that wrong I turned slowly and asked fearfully, "Mom? What's going on? Crap, i-is there a ghost behind me?"

Unfortunately she answered my question by aiming the ectogun squarely at my chest and replied, "Oh there's a ghost alright, and I'm looking at him. And I'm not your mother. Now, I'm only going to ask you this once...what are you doing in my house?"

"Don't bother asking it questions Mads!" My dad growled, reaching for and then clumsily training his own gun on me too. "It'll tell us anything to save itself, better to capture it first and then-"

"I'm not an 'it!'" I exclaimed before I could stop myself, already starting to shake like a leaf in fear. This was bad, very bad. Jazz wasn't home right now to cover for me. I had to think fast, so I blurted out, "Look, uh, I just...I wandered into the wrong house by mistake, but I don't want any trouble I swear! Just put the guns down, please..."

"Well you got trouble punk! No spook is going to wander into my house and put my wife and kids in danger!" My dad shouted, pulling the trigger before mom could stop him.

I noticed too late that it was one of the newer ectoguns I saw them tinkering with this morning, I couldn't remember what they were supposed to do but my guess is it wasn't anything good. And my guess was right when I dodged the blast too slowly and screamed in pain when it shot clean through my left shoulder. The pain was unlike anything I'd ever felt before, as if I was being shocked and stabbed at the same time. It was so intense that I was afraid I was going to turn human any second now in front of my parents so in a blind panic I phased through the floor, clutching my wound that was drenching my white glove in bright green ectoplasmic blood.

My only chance to fool them was to open the portal and trick them into thinking I'd fled into the Ghost Zone and turn human once I phased back into my bedroom. I had more then enough time to do it but the problem was, would I have the energy...?

I was pretty beaten up after my fight with Vlad but most of those wounds had healed almost instantly as usual, the trade off was that it left me extremely tired and my vision was already starting to swim because of the blood loss. Landing on my feet since flying took too much energy, I stumbled over to the ghost portal and tried to open it. My eyes flew wide open when it stayed shut though. Oh great, so now they fix it so it wouldn't randomly open and close at will. Only when I looked closer I noticed that wasn't the problem, they'd completely shut it off! But why would they-!

It wasn't my ghost sense but I could feel it when they turned on the ghost shield and knew I was running out of time! Grimacing as I fought to stay in ghost form, I phased though the roof again back to the first floor though sadly I wasn't invisible too and my dad shouted, "We got a runner! He's heading back upstairs!"

Man and I thought fighting ghosts was scary, this was a thousand times worse! I mean after the whole Freakshow thing this summer I'd seen with my own eyes how they accepted me once they knew my secret, but, even I wasn't stupid enough to think they'd accept me like this when their guns were blazing. They hated ghosts too much to listen to reason and now they thought their son Danny 'Fenton' was in danger because a ghost was in the house. And they weren't wrong, I was in danger but not because of a ghost. I was in danger because I was the ghost and they were after me!

I barely managed to make it to my room before I tripped over myself and transformed back to my human form, only to scream when a second wave of pain ripped through me and to my horror I was still bleeding. Only this time...it was real human blood.

That's when I knew. There was no hiding this. My mom was smart and she'd realize the ghost-boy and her son were wounded in the exact same place. They'd think that Danny Phantom was possessing me and try to rip my other self out of me to save their son. And when the very idea of that sent a much worse vision of what could happen into my head I completely lost it! I couldn't let that happen! I couldn't let my parents become the reason that I-

There was no time to worry about that now! There wasn't time to do anything! I couldn't even pack my things, I just had to get out of there right now! Swallowing yet another scream of agony I forced myself to move towards the window and flung it open with all my might. Glancing at my bedroom door as I heard their thunderous steps race up them as they beelined it to my room, I choked on a fearful and painful sob and then threw myself out the window. Just not for the reason people usually flung themselves off the second floor of a building...

I just barely had enough time to make myself float in human form before my knees buckled and I gasped, feeling lightheaded and cold. I had no idea if that chill was my ghost sense going off or not but I didn't care. I scrambled to my feet and ran with all my might, briefly pausing to blast the gate to the backyard down before I made it out into the street.

My only saving grace was that it was dark outside, so dark that even the street lamps were dim and barely gave off any light and it would take time for my parents to figure out where 'I' went and climb into the Fenton Assault Vehicle. My first thought was to run to Tucker's or Sam's but they didn't live close enough and I was bleeding out fast. Besides which, if my parents managed to put the pieces together they'd know that Danny Phantom and Danny Fenton were connected somehow one way or another and those would be the first places that they looked. I needed to go somewhere they wouldn't think to look, somewhere they didn't know I knew about or would think to go.

Taking a risk since I needed to catch my breath and at least try to stop the bleeding, I ducked into a nearby alleyway and struggled out of my now ruined shirt, tearing it apart and wrapping the shredded fabric haphazardly around the gaping wound in my shoulder. It still hurt really bad, but not in the way you'd expect. The pain wasn't hot, it was actually cold, like the burn of dry ice on your bare skin. And the pain was making my whole arm go numb almost like I was getting frostbite...

Unable to think beyond just getting myself to safety first, I tried to sit up again and keep moving but my legs refused to cooperate. They were rigid and stiff from running without stopping ever since I made it out the house. Figures my lack of exercise in human form would bite me in the butt again like that time I got shrunk with Dash and had to run away from Skulker.

Too bad the ones chasing me now were much more deadly.

"Come on, come on!" I growled, my eyes flashing green in desperation. "MOVE!"

My weak and blood stained human body refused to obey me so I did the only thing I could do, I forced myself to transform again, biting my fist to stifle another scream when the rings irritated my strange wound and shot into the air after turning my disobedient legs into a ghostly tail.

I knew I wasn't going to be able to hold myself in this form for long so I had to make this count. Looking around frantically I searched for a place to hide. From where I was I could spot the glitzy high class neighborhood just north of me and for a second I considered going to Vlad's when I shook my head. No, he was part of the reason I was in this mess! That stupid fruitloop just refused to lay off of me for one stinking minute after I'd already had a long day after fighting no less then five ghosts all within the space of a few hours, though for once thankfully they showed up AFTER school so I was free to fight them to my heart's content! For all I knew Vlad sent those ghosts after me to make my life more miserable then usual!

My inner rant was interrupted when I spotted my parents turning down the street just below me. With a yelp I tried to turn invisible but instead, I just flickered in and out of view and was forced to fly higher in hopes of hiding behind a cloud or something. That's part of why it was so dark. It was monsoon season and the past few days had been dark and dreary, much to Sam's delight. She loved rainy days because they revitalized the earth as she put it. Shaking my thoughts of Sam away I flew into the nearest cloud, shivering when my clothes were soaked through even though I was fully covered in this form, and prayed that I could throw them off my trail just long enough to-

A low rumble reached my ears and for a second I thought my parents were firing at me when I realized that another rain storm was ramping up. And just my luck, I was smack dab in the middle of a storm-cloud! "Oh come on!" I exclaimed, covering my ears when a booming peel of thunder shook the air around me after a bolt of lighting lashed a few feet away from me.

Seriously it was like everything was out to get me today! So not wanting to get fried by nature's guns too, I shot towards the ground at top speed, not caring anymore if I'd lost my parents or not. I just had to get out of there before I was struck by lighting too. And sadly as if to prove me right, another flash blinded me and I threw my hands in front of my eyes to shield them from the brightness when a second one followed right after and struck me squarely in the back!

A silent scream tore from my lips as everything became pain. The air in my lungs turned to fire, the blood in my veins turned to conduits to the sheer agony filling every fiber of my being, everything just became a world of hurt and if I didn't know any better I would have thought I was trapped in the Fenton Ghost Portal again, blindly searching the walls for the off switch, unable to call out for help and unable to escape. If it wasn't for the fact that I was half-ghost, I know that lighting strike would have killed me. And if not that then the fall would have...

I was dimly aware that I was falling in more ways then one. I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore so they slid closed and a familiar pair of twin rings robbed me of my ghost form once again. And as I fell, I could only pray that by some miracle I would survive and find a way to fix this before I lost my life forever. The other half of it anyway. It was normal and boring at times, but it was still as important to me as keeping my friends and family safe from ghosts. And also, my parents...I didn't want my parents to become murderers if they accidentally killed me. Even if they couldn't accept all of me, I knew they'd never forgive themselves if they killed my human side too. They might hate and even try to remove my ghost half, but they could never hate me enough to do that.

At least, I hoped not...