As soon as my body thudded to the floor, the whine of what anyone in Amity Park knew as an ecto-weapon hit my ears and Samantha Manson pointed the gun at me. I squealed and inched away as Phantom laid a hand on the barrel, lowering it himself.

"God, don't shoot him. Geez, Sam."

The echo in his voice and chill his presence brought to the air made my neck hair prickle, and I stood up, trying to not shake in the face of these nerds. Where was my bravado I had been known for back in Casper?

"Where… where's Danny? Why are you guys in here? What-"

The ecto gun was shoved into my chest, effectively knocking me down, the pistol whining as it again powered up. "Enough questions, Baxter. We've got our reasons and you don't need to know them."

Phantom held his hand out, offering me a hand up. I took it, my eyes widening at the fact that my hero and I were touching. As I stood, he turned to Sam, and a strange, echo-y sound came from his mouth. However, only seconds after he emitted the sound, my brain somehow translated it.

Sam, chill. He's got a right to-

She echoed the sounds back, her face scrunching in anger.

Says who? Because he lives here? His dad is your ENEMY, Danny. Let's find Vlad and-

"How do you know my dad?" My question stopped their waves of conversation and Phantom swirled to me, panic in his green eyes.

"How did you understand that?!" I shrugged and his eyes darkened as his aura glowed brighter with a tinge of green and black. "That….That's Ghost Speak! Unless you're trained in it, or a ghost, you can't-" He backed up then, and a lightbulb seemed to go off in his head as Techno-Geek spoke aloud.

"Unless he's also part ghost." My gaze swiveled to the african american and I snorted. These guys had really lost it.

"Loser, I'm human. I'm fully alive, thank you very much." Moron.

Phantom began to pace, hands behind his back as he made rounds, looping between myself and the Goth. "No, no. Your dad is Vlad Masters. You were born after his lab accident, right?" Before I could even nod the affirmative, the pacing increased. "Which means he could've transferred ghost energy and even dormant, you'd have special abilities… I never understood why the paranormal activity was so high at Casper. It's wasn't just because of me. It was because of you! They sensed your ghostly presence, even though it's too weak for me, a full ghost could probably pick up on it."

"His extraordinary athleticism." Tucker put in. "His strength and speed, definitely ghost qualities."

"But I'm alive. I'd have to be… well, gone. There's no such thing as part ghost."

Phantom stopped dead -no pun intended- and he smirked. "Oh, isn't there?"

Bright, brilliant white light flooded the area as twin rings diverged from his waist and traveled polar opposites. As they faded away, my heart skipped in my chest as the black haired, blue eyed human stood in front of me.

My brain decided it couldn't handle the information that Danny Phantom was Danny Fenton, and I hit the floor.

"Nice going, Danny."

"I thought the situation called for dramatic effect, Sam. He wouldn't have believed me otherwise."

"Now he'll blab! You can't honestly trust a MASTERS to keep their damn mouth shut! Especially this one. Shit, Danny. That really wasn't necessary."

"Tuck, help me out."

A pause. Then, "D, I don't think I can. I...I agree with Sam. Paulina is the biggest gossip on earth. When he tells her, what's gonna happen to your secret identity?"

Secret….. My eye cracked open and the arguing trio stood above me. "Who are you trying to be, Clark Kent?"

My light humor caused a ripple of effects. Sam dropped the gun and it misfired, the shot going astray and laying waste to an entire corner of equipment and a few small fires starting, offsetting the sprinklers on the ceiling. Desperate to avoid the stray shot, Tucker jerked backwards and placed his hand on a red button, sending blaring alarms through the room.

PORTAL SELF DESTRUCT ACTIVATED. SELF DESTRUCT IN 15...14...13…

Danny's eyes widened and he and Sam threw themselves, slipping and sliding from the puddles of water, to the panel boards across the room. As I shakily stood, I realized the room -which I hadn't paid much attention to earlier- was clearly a lab, or reminiscent of the one Fenton had in his own basement. Everything was stainless steel and sterile, and I stared at the huge metallic set of doors that reminded me of the Fenton Portal.

What the hell, Dad?

"Dash! Help me deactivate this thing! Help me find a button!" Phant-Danny cried, and I quirked a brow. I began searching but I couldn't figure out how I was supposed to know what to even look for. Then Danny grabbed my hand and dragged me to the portal doors, where the monotonous voice still counted down.

5...4...3...

"You're his son! Maybe your DNA is enough of a match for the system!" Danny shouted over the noise, and although I doubted it, my eyes grew wide with shock as my hand went up against the glass panel and as the device scanned it, the monotone spoke.

MASTERS IDENTIFIED. WHAT IS YOUR WISH?

"Uhhh… Turn off the portal destruct?"

COMMAND RECOGNIZED. COUNTDOWN STOPPED. HAVE A COOKIE.

My eyes widened in surprise as a freshly baked cookie popped up from what looked like a decked out toaster, while Danny muttered something about how this was definitely a Fenton original. Tucker grabbed it and then made a face.

"Ick, Macadamia nut!"

As we all began to relax, I stared at Danny and crossed my arms. "Explain. Now. You, me being a . Everything." My eyes widened as I realized I hadn't conjured up the conversation between my dad and Phantom. "Starting with what map you gave my dad!"

Danny winced, and his hand went up to rub his neck. "Okay. So… we probably should explain your dad first…"

It could have been hours or minutes that I sat on the drenched floor and took in the fact my father wasn't what I thought he was. As Danny finished with his own story of becoming half ghost, my head was spinning. I looked up, tears forming in my eyes.

"And the map? What's he going to do with it?"

Danny glanced to Sam and then sighed, running a hand through his now stark-white hair. "I gave it to him so he could change your mom's future with the gauntlet. So she could get better, and he could make you and Emilie his heirs."

Sam elbowed him and shook her head. "No. They, or well, Dash… You're already his heir. But the life you could have had being raised by him…"

"We could make your mother healthy, or reverse your reality so that you were raised here, with me all the time! We just need to find it."

Dad's voice rung in my ears and I swallowed. "So where is this… thing?"

Danny grinned, his lopsided hair falling into his eyes as he jerked his head toward the large hole in the wall.

Shit, no. Don't tell me...

"With an ally, in the Zone." He paused and then began to pace, glancing at his friends every few minutes. "The issue, Dash, is that even ghost relics have a limit to their power… bringing back the dead…"

He shook his head sadly. "It can't be done. Even If your dad doesn't know she's gone, he's now on a quest that is useless… and it could potentially end very badly. If he tries it, the gauntlet could backfire. It was created to bend to the users will," Danny explains at my confused look, "but if the will of the user is that the gauntlet expends a power greater than it possesses, then the gauntlet will backfire, and could actually cause harm to your dad."

Danny's green eyes blazed brighter than I'd ever seen them. "He and I have been enemies for a long time, but i don't need him reeking havoc in my worlds."

"How would he…?"

Danny walked over to a chalkboard in the lab and began drawing rather shitty pictures. When he finished he turned to me and pointed. "So, everything in the Ghost Zone is connected to each other in one way or another. They all draw from the same power source, and ultimately they can all interact with each other. The Reality Gauntlet, Pandora's box, the Ring of Rage and Crown of Fire to name a few… They're all able to directly or indirectly influence each other."

He looks to me and I nod to show I'm getting it. "So if one powerful item is thrown out of its natural balance, it could theoretically throw the others off as well, because they would try to overcompensate for the loss of the one relic. The issue is here, because as I said, everything in the ghost zone exists in a very delicate balance"

He taps his chalk creations again. "If Pandora's box tries to pick up the slack created when the gauntlet burns its power out after it backfires, the box could open. There are not words to tell you how very, very bad that would be."

I shuddered. Something told me Danny knew exactly what could happen and it wasn't pretty.

Running A hand through my hair, I looked to the trio.

"So what do we do?"

Danny glanced at his friends and sighed, kicking at the floor.

"We were going to go get him. I don't suppose you'll go back with your pals and forget all about this?"

I rose a brow and Danny winced. "When you do certain things, you look way too much like your father, Man. Alright well, let's go!" He extended his hand to me and i stared at it as Sam hissed at him.

"Danny! He can't-"

I curled my lip at her. "Oh, I'm going, like it or not. He's my dad, Sam. If he's gonna be stupid, I want to try and stop it. I'm angry at him but I don't want a bunch of people to suffer because he's a psycho."

Tucker snorted and wiggled his brow. "Hey D, maybe you're brothers. He thinks Vlad is crazy, too!"

I swung my fist at the dweeb and hit him harder than I'd meant to, as he skidded back a few feet. I flinched. "Uh, sorry, didn't mean to be that rough…"

The heavy silence in the air hung for a few moments as they all gaped at me, then with shock, Danny spoke, voice low and shocked. "Did you just… apologize?"

My eyes narrowed, then I realized how it must look to them and I nodded slowly, shock coursing through me as I couldn't recall a time I had been even vaguely nice to these kids. My eyes widened with another realization. "Danny, why didn't you ever get ghostly revenge on me for all the shit I pulled? I know you pranked me once or twice, but…"

Danny smiled as he transformed back into Phantom and continued grabbing random things from my dad's lair and stuffing it all in a green backpack he'd created. "I've seen what letting my anger fester and burn could do. It wasn't worth it in the end. I can't say I never thought of it, but my powers are to protect my town, nothing else. Personal gain… it's selfish. It just isn't me."

I nodded and held out my hand to him. At his flinch, I bit my lip and then offered my hand again, and he took it, looking confused. "Respect, Phantom… er, Fenton. That takes some real guts." Phantom looked stunned and then I grinned, grabbing his glowing bag and hoisting it over my shoulder. "You guys ready to find my dad?" Without waiting for a response, I hit the Open button and stared into the void.

I was trying to figure out exactly how I was going to travel in this ghost world when somebody behind me pushed me through the portal.