I do not own Danny Phantom.
Hormones
Alternate
Samsara
The first time he dies, he wakes up screaming. Something is wrong with him. He feels different, detached. The Lab is wash-out, borderline monochrome. The only things that stand out are that damnable portal and his friends.
From the looks on their faces, he knows something is wrong. His perspective is too high; he seems to be looking down on them. It's only then that he realizes he's floating above the ground. He panics, flails around, eventually bumping into the frame of the Portal. Under any other circumstances, it would've been funny.
It isn't now.
He freaks out, begs Sam and Tucker to call his parents, confident that they'll be able to help him, fix him, anything.
They stay with him the entire day, keeping him company. Eventually, he calms down enough to actually land. The floor feels different, somehow. Less solid than before. He decides not to think about it, instead marveling over his new appearance in the smooth metal of the lab equipment.
He starts floating again when he panics as his reflection disappears. His parents return from their trip, only to find Sam and Tucker seemingly talking to empty space. When Danny notices his parents, a great weight is lifted from his shoulders. He calms, and he returns to visibility. He still floats and nothing he seems to do stops it.
He doesn't register the shocked look his parents share, or how strained their smiles suddenly are. He bids farewell to Sam and Tucker, confident that his parents will have a solution. They leave and he is left alone with his parents.
First the questions. Then the tests. Then the interrogations.
Denial. Guilt. Anger. Depression. They never get further.
The questions turn cold. The tests obsessive. The interrogations brutal.
"What have you done with our son?"
He tries to find the words, but nothing convinces them. He tells them stories from his childhood, hidden fears, even the secret stashes in his room most teenage boys have. They are not convinced.
Maddie thinks it's possession. Jack thinks it's shapeshifting.
They argue, but Jack somehow convinces Maddy to test his idea first.
They jury-rig a Ectoplasm-Destabilizer in the hopes of revealing the nature of the imposter. They ask Danny to stand in it. Eager, trusting, he walks into the circle of humming circuitry, ignoring how his flesh, his substance wants to crawl away.
Jack flips the switch, and Danny knows only pain and the agony of coming undone.
He wakes screaming.
The day unfolds much like the first time. He gets a quicker grip on his new-found state, somehow familiar. He doesn't put any stock in the hallucination or nightmare or whatever it was. It's natural that someone would have nightmares after a traumatic experience, wasn't it?
His parents return from their trip, and it plays out much the same. But his input leads to Maddie winning the argument. The Portal is modified. Gutted and reconfigured, the skeletal frame seems even more sinister.
They switch it on, and the drain begins. It begins and goes on and on, an eternity of fading away.
He wakes screaming.
He tries again and again, faith in his parents winning over any past experience.
He dies again and again.
He wakes screaming.
He has had enough of dying. He tries to calm down. His… ghostliness only seems to be active when he's excited. He has Sam and Tucker to help him through it. They talk about normal stuff, games and movies and homework and rumors. Slowly, ever so slowly, that feeling of otherness fades. The world seems more solid.
He makes them promise not to call his parents and he sends them away. He needs time to calm more, figure out what the hell is happening with him.
His concentration is broken when his parents barge into the lab hours later, as is his faith in his friends. Some promise.
He conceals it better, but the tests find him out again.
This time he tries to escape, but they take it as a sign of something, and shoot him with God-knows-what.
He wakes screaming.
That pain was new and sharp. More visceral, in a way.
This time around, he calls his sister. He doesn't tell her over the phone, but her anger quickly fades. What is a tutoring session compared to this?
With Jazz's help, Danny manages to calm enough to turn back to himself. The feeling of elation is new and sweet. He hugs his sister and his friends, they spend the day talking. Eventually Sam and Tucker head home and the siblings turn in.
Danny falls asleep, a smile on his face.
He wakes screaming in surprise. The sirens hidden throughout the house are blaring and he can hear his parents shouting. He glances at his clock, the faint light brighter than he remembered.
01:47
He frowns, wondering what could be the source of his rude wake-up call.
He gets his answer as Maddie kicks open the door, an energy pistol trained at him.
The song and dance is familiar to him.
He wakes screaming.
It is not a scream of pain or sadness or loss or despair. It is one filled with frustration.
He keeps getting caught by his parents. Each life, he manages to last a bit longer. But he always slips up somehow. Walking to close to an Ecto-Detector. The time he froze the shower-head. Playing with his burgeoning intangibility without making sure he was alone.
Stupid things. All dangerously so.
The day has become routine. He handles Sam and Tucker with ease, interjecting just enough vulnerability into his voice to guilt them into keeping their promise. He meets with Jazz with a cheesy grin plastered on his face, teasing her about her tutoring session. He brushes his teeth, takes a shower, climbs into bed. He does not dream.
He wakes screaming.
Triumph. Defiance. Joy.
He made it an entire week. Fooled and avoided and outsmarted and outplayed his parents and every devious little trap they put up around the house. Ectoplasmic anomaly, indeed.
But he had been too focused on his parents. Sam and Tucker got worried from his absence. They call Jazz. Jazz tells the 'rents. They look closer at him. And he gets caught.
But now he knows. It's possible. Just gotta play along.
The scene plays out par excellence. He knows the steps, the words, the tone. Everything.
Just a series of steps, meaningless in their uniformity.
This time he goes through the effort of going to school, hanging out, playing games, doing homework, vegging out on games and television. And things are better.
He can almost pretend he's normal again.
Then the ghosts start showing up.
He wakes screaming.
The feeling of choking on mystery meat forced down his throat... it joins his collection of horrible experiences. It's quickly growing.
He wakes screaming.
Crushed under a shipping container.
He wakes screaming.
Flayed.
He wakes screaming.
Burnt.
He wakes screaming.
Choked.
He wakes screaming.
Poison.
He wakes screaming.
Stabbed.
He wakes screaming.
Ambushed in human form.
He wakes screaming.
Possessed friends.
He wakes screaming.
Electrocuted.
He wakes screaming.
Drowned.
He wakes screaming.
Phased into a wall.
He wakes screaming.
But he wakes stronger each time. His powers grow, but so does his apathy.
He's lost count when it happens. He realizes he's boredwith Sam and Tucker. They're just so fucking predictable after a while. He decides to shake things up, and tells them about the loops. He proves it, predicting events days in advance. They believe, and in that belief he gets new ideas.
He spends a couple of lives exploring the Zone. He joins ghosts that would otherwise be enemies. He hunts with Skulker. Brainstorms with Technus. Gets Ember to teach him guitar… and some other things. He teases Desiree's story from her. He becomes Dora's champion and Aragon's favored errant.
He meets the Far Frozen and unlocks more of his powers. He becomes a bounty hunter for Walker. He annoys Youngblood. He convinces the Fright Knight to binge on Hammer films. He hijacks Johhny-13. He seduces the secret of emotion eating out of Spectra.
Then he runs into Pariah Dark for the first time.
He dies. Swatted down like a fly.
He wakes screaming.
His eyes blaze with a new challenge, something he has never fought before. He disappears directly into the Zone, leaving a bewildered Sam and Tucker behind.
He dies again.
And again.
And again.
AND AGAIN.
He gives up. After dying so much, he decides to fuck around for a couple of lives.
He becomes a superhero.
Then he becomes a superhero that seduces anyone he finds attractive. Hero-rep is pretty useful for that.
He goes back to the Far Frozen and leads them on a Crusade against Aragorn's Keep.
He challenges Technus to recreate the Matrix and spends months subtly sabotaging his attempts.
He steals all of Skulker's trophy's and create the first Zone-wide Scavenger Hunt.
He then goes back to Pariah Dark. Not as a enemy, but as a minion.
He studies under him, learning little tips and tricks. Little things that quickly stack, turning him from a powerful brawler into a skilled soldier. He learns the secret to Pariah's power…
Then Pariah turns on him, killing him before he could snatch those fucking artifacts away.
This time he manages to nab them, but as soon as he tries to tap into them, the power overwhelms him. It blisters his skin and boils his eyes. He is left a quivering pile of misery, unable to stop the Fright Knight from executing him.
He decides to ignore Pariah from then on, save for occasionally making sure he still sleeps.
He spends a loop in Amity, staying as close as he can to what he remembered he was like once upon a time. It's boring until the first month passes. Then new things happen. New and exciting things.
And some a lot more pathetic.
Dear old Fruitloop… The fun he had with infinite lives and that bastard…
AN: Gonna stop here now. May continue this at some point, or expand on some of it.
Also, Pariah Dark is a scary SOB here... AU, remember?
But the idea of a Groundhog Day Loop is hella entertaining for me. The concept just appeals to me. The possibilities of a hero steadily growing more and more unhinged and apathetic as he relives and relives and relives, over and over again… *desperately tries to stop maniacal giggling*
And yeah, know this isn't really a Groundhog Day Loop, but meh. Details. The base concept is similar, so there…
Just for the record, the definition of Samsara (according to Google, anyway) is "the cycle of death and rebirth to which life in the material world is bound." See how it fits? *Grins*
But yeah, not quite back to writing. Have an exam re-write to get through Tuesday, then I'm free!
Until then though… hope you read, enjoy and review.
~GrinGrin
Written: 19/06/2015
Posted: 19/06/2015