Paradoxical (by timydamonkey)
Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, nor am I making any profit from writing this fanfic. Do I even need to include that last bit? Whatever, it's there now.
Author's Note: Looong author's note… I'll only do this for this prologue. This prologue, too, should be the onlypart with the wacky writing style… and this prologue, being a prologue, will be short.
Anyway…well, what do you know? My first Danny Phantom fic! I have way too many ideas in this fandom, I'm telling you. This can work as a one-shot – though certainly not as well – so I'm planning on making it into a chaptered fic. Updates will be sparse at the moment – I'm writing this when I'm meant to be revising for exams – it just won't get out of my head!
I've never seen anybody try and write something like this before. Then again, it's not like I've read every Danny Phantom fic, is it? Whatever, I'm babbling too much. The point is: please review, and let me know if I screw up with consistency or making characters OOC or anything. (Most noteable and intentional characterization differences are Danny and his parents).
Prologue – Nightmare World:
They'd told him they were evil.
Daniel Fenton – more commonly known as Danny – didn't tend to believe things if he'd just been told and never seen them, but they were his parents and they didn't lie to him. They were Jack and Maddie Fenton, successful ghost hunters – well, apart from the fact that they hadn't seen a ghost in a long, long time.
They had seen one, though, and that was why they'd become ghost hunters. A passing interest in ghosts suddenly became a mission to obliterate all of them, just because of that one day. After all, ghosts may have once been human, but from what they'd seen, they were violent, wanting to cause trouble for no reason – and Jack had almost been killed.
It was certainly powerful motivation.
They'd told him they were like demons. They were malevolent spirits, unsatisfied with what had happened in their lives and so using their deaths to make other people just as miserable. Maybe, they'd said, it was a cycle, and that spawned more ghosts when they died, and sooner or later there'd be more ghosts than humans, and the humans would suffer for it.
His sister – Jasmine, known as Jazz - told them they were silly; that that sort of thing never happened. Ghosts weren't real. Jack tried to sentence her to an hour in the Fenton Stockades. Maddie refused to allow it.
When they were in college, they and a friend – Vlad Masters – had been curious, and tried to access the Ghost Zone, home of all ghosts. It had failed, only resulting in Vlad getting a horrible case of ecto-acne. They'd back off, startled, and he'd never spoken to them again. They hoped he would.
Jazz said it was because he realized what a stupid idea it had been, how he could have been killed. She was seven or eight at the time, but it was a time when she sounded far older than it. Perhaps it was because she'd heard their tale so many times that she had nightmares about it – and she couldn't accept a nightmarish reality.
They'd told him stories of ghosts, one in particular. From the way they spoke of it, it seemed to be the embodiment of evil.
This was the ghost that almost killed Jack. Maddie had only been caught in the crossfire very lightly, but she wasn't going to forgive anyone – especially a ghost - attempting to murder him.
It had been the night of their honeymoon.
The ghost had black hair, formed like horns, and they'd said it could probably spear somebody on them. It – for that was all it was to them; an it – had unnaturally red eyes and pale blue skin. The clothing they couldn't remember too well, just remembering a spatter of the colours red and white ("probably colours of demons!"). It was a ghost, and ghosts were everything that was wrong with the world.
First and foremost, though, they'd told him never to trust them – that even they appeared human, there was nothing human about a ghost. They were all nothing more than killing machines… and that was what terrified him.
They hated ghosts; he knew that. What he didn't know was why they were trying to create a ghost portal that, from what it sounded like, would connect the two worlds. It scared him.
His parents told him that they wanted to be able to study one… and of course, it would be a wonderful opportunity to try out the weaponry they'd spent a great portion of their time working on, made especially to be effective against ghosts.
He didn't really think he wanted to see one. To be honest, he didn't know what he was doing there, standing around while his parents jabbered on. They were down in the basement – the lab - now, and they'd stopped. Grinning, his father announced, "This is it… The Fenton Ghost Portal! What do you think, Danny?"
Looking at where his father was gesturing, he saw a big… thing. It was the only word for it, as it looked like nothing he'd ever seen before. This was the thing his parents had been working flat-out to make. He scrutinized it carefully.
"This is it… the grand opening!" Jack grinned. He held two ends of wire in his hand, while his wife stood off to one side just behind Danny, holding an ecto-gun. They wanted to be prepared, he supposed, and his mother was there to protect him. He smiled slightly.
His father connected the circuit.
The portal made a wheezing sound, and several sparks shot out, but otherwise it did nothing. It looked like it had blown a fuse or something. His parents didn't say anything and he looked up, but their heads were bowed and they trounced off in a gesture of… was that defeat?
They'd put so much into that project…
And really, it was because of that realization that everything went wrong.
It was dark and very late when Danny crept downstairs. The sound of snoring could be heard, and he figured his family were all fast asleep. He didn't know quite why, but he felt like he was being dragged towards that stupid ghost portal… he just couldn't keep the disappointed look on his parents face off his mind…
When he reached the lab he stood and stared for a minute. What was he doing? He was shaking. Ghosts terrified him. He thought the portal was a bad idea. What was he doing there? He should go back up and go back to bed.
But looking at it couldn't hurt anything, right?
He went to step into the portal, but felt a little self-conscious. He remembered what happened before and worried about going inside… but why he should he go back now? To calm his unease a little, he put on a predominately white – though not without black gloves and similar accessories – hazmat suit.
He stepped into the portal, staring at it. He was pre-occupied looking at it, how high-tech it was, dimly he thought that Tucker would love to see technology this advanced, even if didn't seem to work, and he had to admit it was pretty –
He tripped over a wire. He'd barely realized there were wires inside there, and as he tripped he snatched hold of the side of the portal, staring at what was in front of him. There was a panel with two buttons – on and off. His parents… they hadn't just forgotten to switch it on had they?
He wanted to back away. He was scared. If it worked, the portal could lead to ghosts. He'd never known a ghost, but he already knew he hated them, knew what sort of creatures they were. Why shouldn't he hate them?
His finger crept forward almost of its own volition and pressed the button. There was a blinding flash of light.
There was a lot of pain. He screwed his eyes up tight and thought that maybe he heard screaming, but perhaps it was all in his head. Either way, it hurt, and when the sensation faded away after what seemed like hours but had probably only been a few minutes, he opened his eyes.
The first thing they registered was that there was a green swirling vortex of some sort in front of him. Had he fixed it? The second thing he noticed drove that out of his mind, though; his feet didn't seem to be touching the floor. He was hovering in midair.
That wasn't possible! He spun around, and on the shiny surface of the outside of the ghost portal, he saw his reflection. His breath hitched in his throat as he froze in fear, barely breathing. At least, Danny thought, if he even could breathe.
He remembered…
They'd told him they were evil… they were all nothing more than killing machines…Danny screamed.
Author's Note: Please review. I'd really like to know how well or badly this is received.
I'll put up a next chapter preview whenever I have some written. Presently my only pre-written scene is part of the one where Danny meets Vlad... and that's got quite a while before I get to it.