Disclaimer: I own neither Danny Phantom, nor Thir13en Ghosts and any of it's models. I just had one hell of an idea.

Partial credit goes to queenskellington75, since I first launched this idea at her without warning during a Danny Phantom roleplay, not really caring that she'd never seen the movie in the first place.

Nyaa.

=^o_o^=

Chapter 1

Danny grunted as his head swam through the black fog. He felt like he'd been slugged over the head with a mallet. Sure enough, when he ran a hand through his messy black hair, some blood flakes clung to his hand.

A voice called out to him, pulling him out of his haze. "Hey… Danny? Danny!"

"Ugh… What…?" He sat up on the bed, looking around. He wasn't sure where he was, but it looked elaborate. The bed was a king-size, with a gaudy gold, green and purple color scheme of sheets, pillows and blankets. The walls, ceiling and floor all seemed to be made of a thick glass, with delicate runes carved into them.

"Danny! Danny Fenton! Earth to the ghost child!" the disembodied voice shouted.

His ears rang, but he recognized the voice. "Wait… you…"

A deep chuckle seemed to rumble the room. "Yes, me. Your evil, future self." Dan Phantom's voice filled the young halfa with a boiling rage instantly. "Oh, why so angry? Aren't you happy to see me? Or do you just hate yourself?"

"I can't see you! Why don't you show yourself so we can talk?" Danny demanded, jumping to his feet. He swayed as his blood rushed away from his head. "Or are you too scared?"

"Scared? Of you?" – There was a laugh. – "No, I'm not scared of the mighty hero. But, I didn't want to kill you outright. After all, you crammed me in that godforsaken soup can."

"So you locked me up? Nice alternative…" Danny frowned, crossing his arms.

"I thought it rather poetic. I'll let you get comfortable with your new… surroundings."

There was a click and the electronic hum of a sound system went dead.

Danny shook his head; obviously Dan had acquired more of Vlad's Fruit Loop-behavior than he thought. Summoning the twin white rings that activated his ghost form, Danny Fenton became Danny Phantom and rose into the air. Turning intangible, he made to leave the room.

He slammed into the wall, bouncing him back into solidity and onto his butt. Rubbing his head, he berated himself. Of course Dan wouldn't lock him up somewhere he could phase through walls, even if they didn't lead outside. After all, the guy had been trapped in a Fenton Thermos for a long time, and it was all thanks to Danny…

"Well, that didn't work, did it?" Dan's balk made Danny jump. Laughter rang throughout the house before cutting out again.

Fine, so even something as simple as moving through the house wasn't going to be simple. Fantastic. As the glass door slid open, Danny grimaced. The thought of Dan being at the controls left him with a sour feeling in his stomach.

He walked into the glass hallway and looked around. The glass rooms were all filled with strange odds and ends. He got a creepy vibe when he passed a bathroom, desperately hoping that he wouldn't have to use it with his future self watching through the cameras. That thought was just a bit too far beyond uncomfortable with him.

As he wandered, Danny came across a staircase that led below the house into what appeared to be a very dark basement made of some black material, which was also covered in the same rune-engraved glass as the rest of the house. If the glass weren't in the basement as well, he would have been just fine in going downstairs to try and find a way out; with the glass there, however, well… he'd seen plenty of horror movies that told him to avoid the basement unless absolutely necessary.

"Awww, what? Not gonna go into the spooky-looking basement, Danny?" The teen gritted his teeth as Dan's voice aired through the house once again. "Can't say I blame ya. See, I found this really neat blueprint for a portal that opened the gateway to Hell itself, and it required twelve ghosts and a human sacrifice to work. The human sacrifice was actually a fail-safe that I would really rather do without, but the clock wouldn't work without it except as a giant, aesthetic death trap. I thought about putting a copy in my fortress of solitude…"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it, you're sick and twisted and a total Fruit Loop like Vlad."

"Vlad? That old badger ain't got nothin' on me." Dan mocked Danny's voice and gave a laugh. "Anyway, I kicked the 'clock' part out of the design… Spending a few months with Clockwork kinda does that to a person. Besides, I knew you'd hurl your dumb ass into the death trap if you knew it would stop Hell from literally rising. Tell me, Danny, have your balls dropped yet?"

"What?" Danny looked around incredulously. "What… What does that have to do with anything?"

"Just making sure you were paying attention. Still not cursing, either, I see. What are you now, 15? Nah, still 14, I bet. Fuck, I don't remember any of my birthdays. That's the downside of being me. So, how does it feel to go through voice changing a year too late? Wait 'til ya wake up with morning wood. Those were good times… Couldn't keep a cat around for 2 years…"

"You're too crazy for even a lonely-guy cat."

"Stop leading the conversation off-topic, you little weasel. As I was trying to tell you, the original plans – the part I kept – required twelve specific types of ghosts that I thought would be fun to throw into that little glass thermos with you… Oops, did I say thermos? I meant hell hole. Sorry, my bad!"

"You really lost it somewhere along the line, didn't you?"

"Oh, you have no idea!" the man snarled into the microphone. "After a ten-year reign, what do you think a few months in a soup can felt like to me? Do you have any idea how bored I was? How royally pissed off I am?"

Danny rubbed his ear as an electronic screech sounded throughout the sound system. "Jeez! Sorry I asked…"

"Of course, my memory of books is perfect – hat's off to Vlad for finally being useful to me. It's the only thing that helped keep me sane, once I recalled the plans for the box you're in. See, right now, you're not floating in the middle of the Ghost Zone. You're in the Human Realm." Danny's eyebrows shot up. "That's right. You're where people are! And the twelve ghosts in there with you? They live in the world of the living, too. They do way more than the ghosts back in Amity… and for the next twelve hours, every hour, on the hour, another ghost will be let loose. I don't want to give everything away right now, but I guess you should be allowed to know you have a very limited window of time to go downstairs and see the ghosts in their cages."

Danny's eyes scanned the glass rooms for a moment, catching sigh of a distant clock. It was just a few minutes until the hour – high noon, in fact. "I thought most horror movies took place at night, Dan. Are you trying to be original or something?"

"Nah, I just figured it'd be fun to have a twelve-hour movie to get me through the rest of the day. I prefer to work after midnight. I dunno if that's when you'll get out, but then again, horror movies do seem so much better in the early 'AM' hours… That's something you and I agree on! Hot damn!"

Gritting his teeth, Danny turned around and marched down into the basement. In the darkness, he reflexively felt around for a light switch, and was genuinely surprised when he found one and it actually worked. There were office lights overhead and tubes of lights under the glass of the floor, all leading into a maze beneath the house that was full of what appeared to be empty holding cells.

At least down here there were solid, black walls, though.

He tried to steel his nerves as he ventured forth, peering into each empty case. Danny couldn't help but notice that not only were there more runes in the glass of each room, but there was a title etched into their doors, along with a number.

"Wow… I really hope these aren't 'ghostly titles' or something…" Danny stopped before one in particular. "The Hammer? Jeez, I hope MC Hammer isn't in there…"

Suddenly a large black man covered with railroad spikes appeared, snarling as he slammed the hammer impaled into his wrist against the door. Danny yelped, flailing backwards and hitting the doors of the cell across from 'the Hammer'. There was a loud growl and something slammed against the glass behind him, bumping Danny forward. He turned and wished he hadn't when he saw 'the Juggernaut' in all of his gigantic, bullet-hole filled glory.

"…You're way scarier than the comic book villain. Did you know that?" Danny attempted to joke nervously. The Juggernaut snorted, a mean cloud of steam spreading against the glass as he sneered. "Something tells me you'd really like to rip my head off, so… I'm gonna go over here…"

He quickly rounded a corner and leaned against a wall that wasn't attached to a cell, doubling over to try and undo the dizzy spell he was suddenly struck with. Those two men were huge! The fact that they looked almost as homicidal as Dan actually was wasn't a comforting thought, either.

"I'm so gonna die the rest of the way." he whimpered with a dry gulp.

"Not necessarily." a voice piped up from the cell beside him. "Even though the clock itself isn't really in here, this is still a clockwork-house with a lock that relies on the thirteen souls within it. He just… changed the key, that's all."

Danny stood bolt upright and clenched his eyes shut. "You're not another angry, homicidal ghost that apparently died a very nasty, unnatural death, are you?" he asked hopefully.

The voice gave a chuckle that reminded Danny of his mom. "Angry and homicidal? No. Nasty, unnatural death? Afraid so… I was trying to save my kids from a house fire… I made it to the hospital, but it's still pretty evident what killed me."

He took a deep breath and braced himself before walking in front of the cell, making sure to look up at the title first. The Withered Lover, #4. Slowly, he lowered his eyes to the ghost inside and resisted the urge to gasp, or do anything that would do so much as give the illusion of a sudden movement.

The woman inside the cell even looked a little like his mother, with short brown hair and worn, motherly hands… but those hands were burned, and so was half of her face. She was wearing a hospital gown and attached to an IV drip. He couldn't help but notice that she looked like she was very, very tired and in pain, in spite of the soft smile that she was giving him.

"Oh… S-So… um…" Danny fidgeted nervously, looking at the floor as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"It's alright. I know how bad it looks. Don't feel guilty." The woman made as if to walk over to him, but gave a slight moan of pain and sighed. Still smiling, she said, "My name is Jean. Jean Kriticos. What's your name?"

"Danny Fenton." He looked up, trying to maintain eye contact without wincing in sympathy-pain. "So, Mrs. Kriticos, how do you know so much about Dan's plan?"

"I was one of the first ghosts captured, and he really likes to hear himself talk." She gave a dry chuckle, shaking her head in disdain. "You can call me Jean, by the way."

"Alright Mrs. Kri… Jean. Sorry." Danny smiled a little. "You don't mind helping me get out of here?"

"I'll do what I can, but I'm afraid getting out of here won't be that easy. Unless our… gracious host missed some critical step in the construction process, the only way out of here is to lay each ghost to rest." Jean sighed wistfully. "And I don't think he did."

"That makes two of us." The teen frowned and ran a hand through his hair. "How do I 'lay them to rest'? I don't have to… kill them, do I?"

"You mean again?" She laughed slightly. "That's one of two ways, and the second is only possible when the ghost has deceased family. If you can put their rage out, and make them realize that they weren't as responsible for their deaths as they think they are. It's something only reserved for mad ghosts, and it rarely works because… Well, you saw George and Horace."

"You mean… the Hammer… and the Juggernaut?" Danny gulped again at the thought. He certainly didn't want to fight them, but he could see how trying to reason them was just as hopeless an option. "Yeah… Yeah, I get it."

"Luckily, the house starts off by releasing the weakest ghost first, and their power-related threat level progresses with time. You won't face those two for quite awhile. The Juggernaut comes last in the Black Zodiac."

"The… Black Zodiac?" It sounded like something straight out of one of Sam's goth books.

"That's how the list of ghosts needed for the original contraption was described, since there was originally twelve until the thirteenth, the sacrifice known as 'the Broken Heart', was discovered by the occultists who tried to build it centuries ago. It wouldn't actually open the portal unless such a human was intended as a sacrifice, and was in the vicinity."

"Oh. Okay, well… Who all is in the Black Zodiac? What am I in for?"

Jean opened her mouth to respond, but a grandfather clock sound chimed throughout the house a single time before Dan's voice rejoined them: "Tick, tock, tick, tock. Time to meet your first playmate, Danny."

"What? I… I thought it was almost noon, not one…" Danny muttered, then jumped as the walls of the house began shifting.

"It's the announcement of the first ghost. The First Born Son, Billy." Jean shuffled nervously, looking around. "Danny, he's a mean little boy, and he is a homicidal ghost, but beneath it all, he's just a lost child. You're no match for him down here – it's like hide and seek for him, and he's almost half your size. Get upstairs. Get upstairs now."

"But I – "

"Now, Danny Fenton." Jean barked like an angry mother.

Eyes wide, Danny nodded and ran for the stairs, ignoring the cackles and jeers he got from a ghost in a straitjacket as he passed its cell. His mind raced as his body moved; how strong was the ghost; was there a way he could save energy by defeating the first few ghosts in human form; where would Dan be hiding once Danny got out of this hell-box; all the questions snapped through his head like slingshot pellets.

He came to a halt when he reached the foot of the stairs and found a little boy standing at the top. Billy was dressed like a cowboy, but had an Indian headband with feathers in lieu of a wide-brim hat. Then there was the steel-tip arrow with its head protruding from the child's forehead.

Billy's eyes narrowed down at Danny. Then an eerie smile spread across his blue lips.

"Play with me."

=^nwn^=

I hope this does good for a first chapter's purpose! I just wanted to lay down the foundation of the fanfic and how it pulls from both Danny Phantom and Thir13en Ghosts; hopefully neither overshadows the other too much, although this is obviously not a happy story.

Nyaa.

There is one thing I want to say before you continue. Even though this story has Dan as the evil antagonistic asshat who designed the whole thing (good heavens, I love that man), Danny will not be showing down against him at the end of this fic. That said, I want to leave you to wonder whether or not Danny gets out alive. Have fun with that!

Nyaa!