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| - (Fade in) Jack (noting his old college buddy's restless demeanor): RLS, V-man? (Vlad's right eye twitches) Vlad (sighing): No, Jack, I'm just not sleeping enough at night. Jack (with eyes alight with hope): Ghosts? I can blast them for you. Danny (popping his head out the kitchen door): How about some cherries, Uncle Vlad Jazz and I made some chocolate covered ones last night." Vlad (in a suspicious tone): How sweet. Jack: I'll have some too. Danny (quipping, ducking back into the kitchen): One order of cherries coming up. (A minute later, he returns with a plate full of chocolate covered cherries: some are large and plump and others are just plump) (Jack, not being hungry, chooses a smaller one, so as not to disappoint his children) (Jazz peeks her head through the door and smiles) Danny (conjoled): We made the big cherries just for you, Uncle Vlad. Please try one. Vlad (sighing): Alright, little badger. (He agrees, reaching for one of the larger cherries) (Five minutes later...) Vlad (wheezing, as he grabs for the glass of milk Danny offers): That was a cotton ball! Danny (whispering): This is only round one, Plasmius And I didn't booby trap the milk. It's clean. Vlad (glareing at the younger half ghost): And it's my serve, young one. Watch your back. (Danny can't hold back the yawn anymore. Stretching his arms and legs, he stands up) Danny: I'm going to head home, guys. It's really late." Tucker (swivelling around in his seat as Sam pauses the big screen): Try around midnight, dude. If you're worried about breaking curfew, you're going to so be busted when you get home. Sam (fingering the remote): Why didn't you tell them you were sleeping over? Danny: (shrugging his shoulders): Didn't think about it at the time. I told them it'd be after curfew when I'd get home, so Mom agreed. Sam (with dark eyebrows raising): That's surprising. Usually, you'd be grounded for even suggesting it. Danny: Dad's been working on her, I think. He's still not to thrilled with the prank Jazz and I played on Vlad. Tucker (chuckling): Speaking of which, has Vlad...? (Danny's eyes flash green for a second) Danny: No, not yet. Sam (prophesied): It's only a matter of time. Watch your back, Danny. (The house is dark and silent, when Danny slips the key into the lock. The air is so still that he can hear the portal beneath his feet humming its siren song) (For a second, he is tempted to... Nah!) (Slowly he creps up the stairs, being silent as he could. His parents have installed some new security devices that are ultra sensitive to his ghost powers, so he has to lay low for a few days until Tucker can make them "ghost friendly" to his ecto-signature) (He stops at the head of the stairwell and stares) (His bedroom door is a jar. An old apple juice jug, tied to a piece of wet string, is precariously perched on top of the door) (His mouth twitched) Danny: Very funny, Vlad. (He pushes open the door and captures the jug before it falls to the ground. He grimaces when he realizes the same wet stuff coating the string is also smeared along the jug's stout body) Danny (muttering, wiping the stuff off on his pants): Ick. I don't know what this stuff is, but I know it's not water. (Saying so, he grabs a pair of boxers and flitts across the hall to wash his hands and changes for bed) Jack: Um, Danny, did you know...?" Maddie: Yeah, Jazz, kind of weird. Whatever that stuff was coating the string, it didn't wash off with soap and water. I noticed." Jack: Whoa, Danny boy! Where'd you get the tan from yesterday?" (Thus runs the conversation at the breakfast table when Danny comes downstairs for brunch) (Jazz has nearly choked on her toast. She hasn't done it) (So it has to be Vlad after all) Danny (exasperatingly commented, as he spins the dial on his locker): Honestly, guys, it was just an empty jug. Dash: Hey, Fenton, how's my main man doing? (Danny cringes at the sound. He leans against his locker and groans. Turning to face the A-list bully, he puts on his best watery smile) Danny: Uh, hi, Dash. Anything I can do for you? Dash (grinning at Danny): Why, yes, you can. It's locker inspection day. Let me give you a hand. (Danny is grabbed by his collar and his pants and tosses like a sack of garbage into the depths of the tiny compartment, the door slamming shut. He can hear Dash cackling to himself as he spins the dial) Dash: See you in class, Fenton. Danny (sighing): He gone? Tucker: Yeah. (Danny turns intangible and slips from his locker back into the school hallway. Regaining tangibility, he reopens his locker and grabs his books) Tucker (complaining): Danny, you should put Dash in his place. Danny (evenly): No. That would be stooping down to his level. Sam: Point taken. So what's with the tan? Danny (shaking his head): Well, I think Vlad managed to get past the new security system somehow and booby-trapped my room. There was some kind of watery gel substance on the string and the jug. Sam: Would explain the- Paulina (smiling at Danny): Hey, Danny, nice tan. (The trio stare after her) Sam (shell-shocked): Did she just...? Danny (finishing for Sam): I believe she did. Tucker' (breathing with a loopy smile on his face): There is a God. (Throughout the school day, Danny can hear the whispering every time his back is turned. A few people out-right point and stare at him. It is Dash who could always be counted on to state the obvious) Dash (laughing, passing him in the hallway): Dye your hair black, Fenton? I never would have guessed. (Danny stops in his tracks. He shakes his head and continues on to class.) (Vlad clicks on the TV with his remote and grabs the large bowl of popcorn) Vlad ( to the large white cat who purred adoringly at him): Showtime, Maddie! Mr. Lancer (holding him back after class): Mr. Fenton, I can understand teenage fashion sense, but why in God's name, would you want to dye your hair black? Danny: I didn't, Mr. Lancer. I just... Mr. Lancer (scoffing): I don't care what you think. Tomorrow, I want to see you back to normal, with or without that tan. Danny (scuffing his toes on the off-white tiles and sighing): "Yes, sir. (He mumbles, leaving the room) (Mr. Lancer stares after the boy) (Vlad smiles and pets Maddie lovingly) Vlad: All is according to plan, my dear. (Maddie purrs her contentment) (Danny shoves his books into his locker, as the last bell rings. A wisp of blue smoke comes out of his mouth and he groans. Danny: Do I even want to turn around to kick your butt? Ember (her sultry voice greets him): Relax, dipstick. I was just passing through. Like the new look, by the way. Trying to merge both your forms? Danny (turning around): I've been getting that all day long. (Ember smiles at him) Ember (holding up a pocket mirror): You look cute with your hair streaked with white like that and the tan, but you might want to do something with your eyes if you want to keep your secret, halfa. (Danny stares at himself: one eye is blue, the other is green. He groans. Danny: I can't go home looking like this! My parents will figure out I'm Phantom for sure. Ember (grinning): How about coming back to the Ghost Zone and jamming with my band? I'm sure we can figure out something. Danny (sighing): I guess. Sam and Tucker had to leave early anyway for some vegetarian/carnivore debate at the civic center today. Vlad (clicking off the TV): Wonderful. Brennan: The dude is seriously creeping me out. (Danny listens from the sound-proof room) Why do we have to keep him here? Ember (tuning her guitar): The old man said to keep him occupied until the formula had a chance to work its way through his bloodstream. Sean: How long is that going to take? Ember (scrutinizing the halfa): Not long. (His hair is all white and his eyes have completely changed to a lambent emerald. She is glad she had insisted on the costume change) (Phantom now sports black leather pants with two chains wrapped around his waist over a white long-sleeved over tunic, and a black duster. White studded boots complete the ensemble) Abram (overlooking Ember's new fashion victim): Should have made him pierce his eyebrow at least. Although, this does beat his old look, hands down. Ember: I agree. (She looks up at the clock on the wall. She motions for Danny to come into the room) (Danny vanishes and reappears at her side) Danny: Yes? Ember: Time for you to go home. (She points at the clock) Danny (blushing): Oh, yeah, thanks. I had an enjoyable time. Sam (speaking for the group): No problemo, dude. We always enjoy having feedback on our music. (The other band members nodd in agreement, then they vanishe in puffs of flame. Danny opens the violet door, then flies off towards the home portal) Vlad (grinning and picking up the remote): Play pranks on me, will you, little badger. Let's see how you fare, with this little slice. (The screens flicker on to show Danny Phantom walks into the kitchen just as his mother pauses in the act of removing the pot from the burner) Maddie (without turning around): Danny, would you hand me the spaghetti sauce on the third shelf? Danny (walking over to the pantry): Sure, Mom. Maddie (turning around to accept the jar): Thanks, sweetie. (She then frowns at Danny Phantom) Maddie (demanding, glaring at him): Phantom, what the hell do you think you're doing masquerading as my son? Danny: Huh? (Maddie grabs him and drags him to the hall closet. Turning on the light, she spins him to face the mirror) Maddie: Explain yourself, ghost. Danny: Oh, uh, uh, this, is, uh, elaborate makeup I borrowed from Sam. You see, she wanted to see what I looked like as a ghost, so she used Phantom as a model. It's a wig and some contact lenses. Maddie folded her arms and cocked a disbelieving eyebrow at him. She plucked a strand of hair from his head, causing him to yelp in pain. "Wig, huh? Very realistic to me," she said. "And your eyes do not have that flat looking appearance contacts give you. Care to try another one?" Danny (paling). Okay, okay! I only a half-ghost. I really am your son, (He admitts) Maddie: Prove it. (Danny sighs and reaches for the warmth inside him, then freezes eyes wide in horror) :Danny: It's gone! I can't change back. Maddie (glaring at him): Where is my son, ghost? (She draggs him back into the kitchen and forces to sit in a chair facing him) Where is he? Vlad (summoning forth a pink ectoplasmic ball, which he tosses into the air): I think I'll give him 'til the count of ten, Maddie. One. Jack (questioned the ghost child in front of him, who sits glumly in the kitchen chair across from him and nodds): So you say, you're really our son, Phantom?" (Maddie has called her husband to come home and help deal with this latest bizarre incident with their enemy) Maddie (interrupting): Well, obviously, he's lying, Jack. No one can be both dead and alive. It scientifically impossible. Vlad: Two. Danny' (both ghost hunters turning to him as he speaks): They are stranger things on earth than we know about. I've been like this since the accident. Something weird has been happening to me all day; I can't even find the living half of me to transform back. I know you guys think I'm playing some cruel sadistic joke on you, but I'm not. Please, you have to believe me." Jack (bending down to the boy's eye level): And why should we? (Dark teal meets emerald) Danny: You can't. You can never fully trust a ghost. Vlad: Three. (Maddie the cat eyes the glowing pink ball. Judging the distance she leaps for it, caught it in her jaws, and meows pitifully when it evaporates in her mouth) Vlad: (scratching her comfortingly behind her ears): Well, since it's gone, Maddie dear, makes no since in finishing the countdown. I might as well as go and fetch my son home. Maddie: Mreow?" (Her master turns into his other self and vanishes leaving a soft cackling laughter in his wake) Maddie (her violet eyes widen as a wisp of blue came from Danny's mouth): What is that? (He shivered slightly) Danny (darting to all corners of the room): My ghost sense. Please be the Box Ghost, please be the Box Ghost, please be the Box Ghost... The Wisconsin Ghost: Hello, Daniel. Danny (muttering, with face palming): Oh, hell. I swear I'm going to find Murphy's ghost and kill him again. Wisconsin Ghost (looking down on the boy from his perch in mid-air): A few of our kin will have beaten you to it, by the time you get free. Danny (snarling, wanting more than desperately to smash the smug grin off his arch-foe's face): What the hell do you want? Maddie (scolding, the ghost child): DANIEL FENTON! What have I told you about coarse language in this house? Danny: Sorry, Mom. It's just...wait...you believe me? Maddie (truthfully): No. It's just you act so much like my son, that my maternal instincts kicked in. Danny: Oh. (Jack points to the last chair available at the table) Jack: 'Sit. (He orders the vampiric scoundrel. Surprisingly, the ghost actually obeys him. Jack Fenton can be downright scary sometimes) (Danny gives him an admirable look) Jack: Alright, apparently, you two have some issues you need to resolve, and Maddie and I are relegated to being negotiators. Phantom here claims to be a half-ghost and our son, while you, Wisconsin Ghost, claim him to be your son. Both stories cannot be right. Maddie (nodding): And no half-truths this time. (She admonishes them) The full truth. (The Wisconsin Ghost, a bit stunned, is muted. Danny Phantom, she noted, is smirking slightly) (These two seem to have quite the history together) Jack: Alright, who's going to spill the beans, first? Vlad (sneering): What are you playing at: good cop/bad cop? I'll I've come to do is retrieve my son and return home. Danny (yelling at Vlad): And I've already told you, fruitloop, I am not your son. Will you guys please unbind me so I can kick his butt all the way back to Wisconsin? (No comes the unanimous reply) (Rats comes the defeated answer) Maddie (after a quick conference with her husband): We're going to leave you two boys alone and go downstairs to the lab. Obviously, you need to talk things over before we can reach a mutual decision. No, Phantom, we're not undoing the Fenton Fisher. Don't even think of escaping," she said, flipping a switch on the wall that activated the Fenton Ghost Shield. (Danny groans, but Vlad grins) Vlad: As you would have it, my dear, you have my word. (Maddie looks at him sternly, before turning on her heel and marching downstairs; Jack following downstairs in the lab) (Maddie turns on the security monitor in the kitchen, while Jack raids the fridge for some fudge) Maddie: Now, let's get to the heart of the matter. (Jack nodds sagely, his mouth full of fudge) (The kitchen appeared with the Winsconsin Ghost releasing the ghost boy from his bonds) Winsconsin Ghost (rubbing his sore limbs): Better? Danny: Yeah. Why did you have to go and tell them that you were my father? You know that isn't true. "Yes, but I've know Jack and Maddie since we were in college. It's easier for them to believe that than for them to believe the truth about half-ghosts." Winsconsin Ghost: At least, you still can transform back, (Phantom mutters, as two rings of dark light form around elder ghost revealing) (Jack's jaw drops open) Jack: Vlad Masters is the Wisconsin Ghost? Impossible, then that means, Phantom was telling the truth. Maddie (clicking off the monitor): I should have been paying attention to all the similarities and nuances. We have to get up there and save our baby boy. Vlad is a very dangerous entity; there's no telling what he'll do to our baby boy. (Grabbing some ecto-gear from a nearby lab table, Maddie and Jack rush upstairs to find the kitchen empty) Jack (muttering): Great. Now, where do we even begin to look? (Vlad carefully sits the boy down on the park bench, then sit down beside him) (The boy ignores him, just sitting looking glumly at the floor. "Why?" was all he asks) Vlad: It was necessary," came the cultured answer. "A time of danger is sweeping across both our worlds. We walk the 'twain, neither one nor the other. They had to know. It's coming and we will need everyone. (Danny Phantom snaps his head up and looked dead into his arch-nemesis' face) Danny: Plasmius, what is coming and what the hell did you do to me? Vlad: The gel, dear boy, contained an ectoplasmic residue coated in plasma, the clear part of human blood. (Vlad looks upwards for a moment, scanning the skies for something unseen) It fuses with your red and white blood cells easing the pain you feel when transforming. It takes a day and a night to absorb into your skin and water won't wash it off. Danny (coughing slightly): Here. I thought you were trying to get some kind of revenge on me for the pranks. Vlad ( in an amused tone): I thought of that, but alas, I am a grown man and immune to such childishness. Danny (choking back a laugh): Uh-huh. I seem to remember a prank war we had not so long ago. Vlad (shaking his head, then shifting his attention to two jumpsuit clad figures running towards them, ecto-guns blazing): That was 3 months ago, Daniel. They're getting slow. Danny (a bit annoyed at him): "Vlad, even at the supersonic speeds Dad drives, it still takes them a good twenty minutes to find a parking spot in downtown Amity. As mayor, you should know that. (Vlad waves a red energy shield before them, effectively blocking off a well-aimed shot from Maddie) Vlad: Later, Daniel. Ah, Maddie, can we just talk about this like civilized folks? Maddie (snarleing at him): You are ecto-scum, ghost. Danny, are you alright, sweetie? Danny: I'm fine, Mom, can you guys not shoot at Plasmius or myself please. Vlad just imparted some life-or-death junk in my lap. Maddie: Oh? Vlad (narrowing his eyes at Jack Fenton, who accidentally set off a small blast in his direction): An asteroid entirely composed of ecto-ranium is set on a crash-collision course with earth. Do you mind? Jack (winking at Danny, while pocketing the small gun): Sorry. My fingers slipped, Vladdie. You were saying? Vlad (glaring at a singed spot on his cape): I have a plan that may work. That is why I chose to expose both of our secrets to you. I am literally risking my life and fortune on this venture. Danny (putting himself between the elder half-ghost and his parents): Plasmius, before we go any further, how did you find out about all of this? Vlad: Clockwork. Danny (muttering): Never mind. Who else did you tell this too, Vlad? (Ember's sultry voice answered) Ember: Us, dipstick. Mr. Lancer: And us, Mr. Fenton. (Both lead groups of humans and ghosts who settled down on the great park lawn. This is a battle for both of their worlds; Sam and Tucker look uneasy sitting next to Prince Aragon, who looks Sam up and down with a hungry gleam in his dark draconic eyes) (Two clock hands appear and begin to move forwards slowly) Vlad: Good, now we can all proceed. Mr. Lancer (glancing at the kids nervously gathered around him, with their parents looking on): Okay, let me get this straight. You're going to denounce yourself to the world, demand total world domination, and somehow still manage to save the world by turning it invisible. (Skulker growled at him from the other side of Plasmius) Sulker: Not invisible, idiot, intangible. Everything hinges on the whelp. He is our king after all. Danny, Sam, and Tucker: (yelling): What? Technus (sneereing): Ghost law, ghost child, might do you some good if you study it for a change. (Maddie and Jack stare at their son, who look skywards) (Clockwork clears his throat. He has taken a seat near the center of the group, but remains silent allowing Vlad to have his say. Now, this venerable of ancient spirits rose to his feet, shifting to the form of a small bucktoothed child and called for attention) Clockwork: There are a few minor details that need to be ironed out. You, Vlad Masters, need to form your own ghost hunting team to discredit Daniel, forcing him to want to be full human again. No, Daniel, this needs to be. Be quiet, please, and listen... (The afternoon wores on, but every one of them know the part they were to play) (All, but Valerie Grey. Her father had made her stay home) Jack (tapping Danny on the shoulder): Go to her, son. We'll play the ignorant parents are a little while longer. Danny (taking a deep breath): Dad," it's Sam I love, not Valerie. Jack (smiling mysteriously): I know. The ring does too. The rest of the story as we know it went down in the annals of history to be known as the Phantom Planet. But as for whatever happened to Vlad Masters, the half-ghost mayor of Amity Park, who are we do say if he truly stayed in space all those years ago, or if he ever came down to Earth again. Danny: Grandfather, did he ever come back down? Grandfather Fenton (laughing, ruffling his hair): Maybe, maybe not. Good story wasn't it? Danny: Yeah, I think Mom's waiting for me now. Grandfather Fenton (chuckling, as the boy runs off): You go and have fun, Danny. Shaking his snow-white hair, the youthful Ghost King produced a shower of emerald sparks. Shadow: Static electro-plasm. Ghost King: How droll, Daniel, to have developed such a useless ghost power. Oh is it, Plasmius? Shadow (unfurling himself to reveal his vampiric mentor): Bring it on, little badger. Bring it on. (Fade out)
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