Invasion

Author's notes: After having watched a long series of cartoons, I think I've finally found an idea worth writing down. I won't reveal too much, so here it is, the story "Invasion."

DISCLAIMER: DANNY PHANTOM IS PROPERTY OF BUTCH HARTMAN AND NICKELODEON. INVADER ZIM IS PROPERTY OF JONEN VASQUEZ.

Chapter One

Vertigo

If you were to ask Daniel Fenton if he was going to have a normal day, he would likely say, "Probably not." Because normal just wasn't normal for Danny. No two days were ever the same. But that day, the day he got the mysterious phone call, would be the beginning of the worst years of his entire life. It all started with three teenagers looking for entertainment...

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

Danny stopped in his tracks, and glanced over his shoulder. Aside from his two best friends, who else would be knocking on his door in the middle of summer? "You guys go ahead, I'll get the door," he said to his friends, who glanced at each other and shrugged with identical looks of confusion. Their looks were the product of his recent strange behavior. He never usually acted this quiet or reserved, and lately he'd been a great deal of both. But it was none of their concern unless he chose to share it, so neither of them said anything about it. Of course, they might have if they'd have known they'd never get the chance.

"AUGH!" he screamed. A loud ZAP! followed.

"Danny?" the asked in unison. It might not have been the best idea, in hindsight, to go looking for him. They might have gotten away if they hadn't.

"Hello, children," a man's voice said. He was tall and dark. Where eyes should have been, a band of metal was instead, and he was garbed in black that didn't seem to be fabric. He turned his head slightly to address the men behind him. "Get them."

"Yes, sir!" said the nearest to him, a strange looking creature with ashy skin and a Mohawk. All of his companions were of a strange variety, and none of them, save the man wearing black, looked even remotely human. This proved to be truer than they would ever want as the men started to morph, their limbs twisting into sharp metal tentacles as they shot after the pair. Both of them screamed as they turned on their heels and ran like they never knew they could.

"Danny? Jazz? What's going on up here?" said another voice, a man's that was recognizable, but neither of them were in a fit state to answer. Thick metal had wrapped itself around them both like cold steel ropes and held them fast, pressing them to the ground, keeping them rooted where they now sat, crumpled under the weight of the metal. The man in the orange jumpsuit entered the room. "Hey! Who the heck are you?" he demanded upon seeing the man in black with his boot pressed to his son's chest.

He never got an answer to his question, because he was wrestled to the ground but a moment later. His wife was brought in behind him in moments, her arms and legs bound by metal ropes, her weapons inaccessible.

The man in black hoisted the boy up from the ground by the front of his shirt.

"No! Please leave him alone!" the woman screamed as her son was held in a choke-hold and dragged towards an sinister-colored hole that had appeared in the middle of their living room. Of all the unnatural things that occurred in their home, that had been by far the strangest. The boy gritted his teeth. There was really nothing he could do about it. The man holding him was wearing dampening gloves (gloves that suppress the natural abilities of ghosts, similar to how a Plasmius Maximus might work) and he couldn't seem to fight off the effects, so there was no hope of the change. His father had been wrestled to the ground, a feat requiring at least four men, and he heard his sister upstairs screaming in protest of her restraint. He could hear behind him his friends as they struggled with their assailants, but fighting no less than the giant man held fast to the ground.

"I gave you the terms, I gave you time to come up with the money and the weapon, but you chose to defy my wishes! Now you'll pay!" the man screamed. His eyes would have been bulging if he had any. The spit, however, was flying from his mouth, and a vein had popped in his forehead.

"But we don't have that kind of money!" she shouted. "And you gave us three hours!"

"Then say goodbye to your boy!" he spat and yanked him towards the hole.

"NO!" his father rumbled from the floor and in his anger bucked the men off of him that had been holding him down. They tumbled back, throwing the man off of the woman and she twisted to her feet and tackled him.

The confusion allowed the boy to yank free and bolt out of the room. Without thinking, he sprinted through the kitchen and yanked open the basement door. It was all he could do to keep from falling down the stairs as he sprinted at top speed down the dark stairs into the lab, the man in black close behind him. As he passed, he snatched something off the table and stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans.

The portal loomed ahead, closed. He smashed the button on the console in trying to open it. Reluctantly, and with much complaint from the gears and springs, it did. He tapped a few keys on what was left of the console. Locked, it beeped.

The shot rang through the house, followed by a scream. The boy held his arm as the gaping wound dripped with blood.

"You're not going anywhere, brat. You're going to die for your parents' mistake. Now... any last words?"

He glared at him and slid back into the swirling green of the portal. "Go to hell!" he called as the mists claimed him and the portal door slammed shut.

"NO!" the man screamed and lunged forward, then slammed a fist into the portal door as he crashed into it. "I will not relent, child, until everyone you know is destroyed!" he snarled to the closed door. "I will have my revenge! And no matter where you hide, no matter how long I have to wait, I WILL HAVE THAT WEAPON!"

"Now class, I want you all to take a good look at this horrible place. This is what you all have to look forward to. Doom... doom... doom..." said their frightening teacher. The children were wandering the fifty-year-old ruins of a city they had once called Amity Park. No one really knew what had happened, there were so few survivors from the incident. But from what the pictures said, it had once been a great city, fraught with strange things that boggled the mind. Everyone had said that Amity Park was a great place to live, even if its citizens were a little crazy. Now it was a wasteland, a terrible place of fear and death and destruction, a harbinger of bad memories and whispers of tragedy long ago.

Dib, however, saw it as a perfect research opportunity. There had been rumors about this city, rumors of ghosts and monsters and other rather "insane" things. But that was because most of humanity chose to ignore and excuse away things that weren't "normal." And that meant there was something here that was begging to be explored.

It was with this wonder-filled urge for exploration that he found himself wandering alone through empty city streets that, despite the lack of bodies, felt crowded with something… life maybe? Dib didn't know, but he did know it was not only fascinating, but extremely exciting. Back home, the only paranormal things he got to deal with anymore ever since Mysterious Mysteries had cracked open a "Expose" case on the paranormal of the city was Zim and his horrible robot dog.

Dib paused. He hadn't realized he'd been thinking so vigorously, but he hadn't even noticed that he'd wandered away from the group. Well, every but Gaz, who was walking along, eyes glued to the screen of the little red hand-held game in her tiny hands.

"It's amazing, isn't Gaz?" he asked, his voice thick with awe.

"Meh," was her uninterested response.

"How can you say that?" Dib asked her, quirking an eyebrow, his tone offended.

She growled. "Dib, you're bugging me."

Dib had stopped paying attention. Before him was a huge brick-and-steel building, covered in what could have been colorful flashing signs at one point. A huge, ominous metal contraption was perched precariously atop the structure, looking like it could fall over at any moment. Dib didn't seem to take notice.

"WOW!" he shouted excitedly.

"You're stupid," Gaz muttered, fixing her eyes on the game slave and trudging away.

Dib couldn't believe where he was, couldn't believe the scientific discoveries that awaited in the old metal building with the worn sign on the front that was no longer intelligible. With a wide smile, he slipped inside the door and peered around the house. It was still fairly intact, so he was able to make out the various rooms and furniture and decorations. He made his way to the second floor first.

There were four rooms, each of them strikingly different from the next. The first he visited was very clearly a guest room. It was relatively unadorned from the blank white walls to the simple, flat blue blankets and pillows. A single lamp on the lone end table was caked in dust. He turned and closed the door behind him gently, careful not to disturb whatever ghosts haunted this strange house.

The next room had clearly belonged to a girl. The walls were painted in a fierce shade of pink, the bed slathered in the remains of stuffed animals that had grown thin and decrepit with time and neglect. Posters of boy-bands plastered the walls. A desk in the corner was home to an ancient laptop. Dib had never seen an antique from the turn of the century, and the thought that he had found one in-tact was enough to make him short of breath. "No way!"

It no longer worked, as the power had gone out a very long time ago. But he tapped the keys anyways, watching them bounce back up. He smiled, then silently slipped back out the door again.

The third room was certainly interesting. It was obviously the master bedroom, with a larger-than-life bed, a great bathroom, and gadgets and doo-dads strewn all over the floor, caked in something long since dried up. It wasn't quite as interesting as the last room.

So he closed the door again and made his way to the last room. Already he could tell it was different, because the door was missing. It had been ripped clean off its hinges and lay in a pile of splinters on the ground, along with everything else that had been in the room at one time. The shattered remains of a desk, a computer, model rockets, ancient clothing, and a few gadgets that Dib didn't recognized had been thrown unceremoniously on the floor. The windows were smashed, the bed torn to ribbons. Something, obviously, hadn't wanted whoever had inhabited this room back… or they had been very, very angry. But Dib couldn't see any blood, so if they'd been murdered, it hadn't been here.

Dib went to explore the rest of the house. It was the same as any other house. Couches, kitchen utensils, the fridge, it was all normal.

And then there was the basement.

It was different. In fact, it was completely abnormal. It was a laboratory filled to the brink with a wide assortment of strange looking instruments and devices that were covered in (what had once been but had now dried) green goo. And even more strange and intriguing was the enormous metal door in the wall with the blinking green console. Human curiosity grabbed hold of him and he pushed the big red button on the console.

Behind him, peering around the corner, was a green-skinned boy with black hair and no ears. As an alien, and without his disguise, he looked like every little boy's picture of the space alien who visits the earth to conquer the planet. Bug antennas, huge red eyes, and if called upon, eight legs. Zim had been following his arch nemesis in the hopes of stealing whatever technology he might discover. It wasn't for the same reasons as before, but the activity had become a habit. He was so used to his plans failing, now it was just routine. But as soon as the metal doors slid open, those thoughts vanished.

"WHAT THE-?" Zim shouted as the great doors revealed not a room, but a portal, filled with swirling green mists and eerie sounds. Dib whirled around.

"Zim!" he shouted. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm observing you, filthy human! I was hoping to gain more intelligence about this wretched planet by finding out who else might destroy it and eliminate other possible threats." Zim had monologue again. He'd have to fix that.

Dib stared at him. "What?" he asked, his eyes wide. "That made absolutely no sense!"

"Not to a filthy earth monkey like yourself!"

The two continued to argue for several minutes. All the while, behind them, a ghostly figure slid from the green mists and fell to his knees, breathing heavily.

His eyes flashed green as he got to his feet, his entire body trembling. "Do you have any idea what you've just done?" he snapped. The two boys stopped and stared before shouting in sudden surprise and fear.

Zim shot up into the air on four metal legs as he stared down his opponent. "What kind of monster are you?"

The ghost child stared at them for a moment before raising his eyebrows. "Monster?" he said, slightly taken aback. And then his face split into a wide grin and he laughed for a few minutes. He hadn't realized how long it had been since he'd been here. Perhaps he'd reacted a little harshly, but right now it didn't seem to matter.

"Yes, yes, I'm hilarious but you did not answer my question!" Zim shouted.

He looked up, a grin still plastered on his face. A pair of rings appeared at his waist and split, changing the black jumpsuit to jeans and a tattered white and red t-shirt, and his eyes and hair inverted from white and green to black and blue. An ugly scar jutted up his left arm.

"You're... you're human?" Zim asked, shocked.

Dib and Zim sat on the floor, listening to the strange teen tell his horrible tale. A few awkward minutes had passed, and finally, Dib had asked the boy who he was. Rudimentary introductions had been made, and they found themselves mesmerized by his strange mannerisms. Neither was quick to forget the glowing rings.

"Now I can't quite remember everything that happened... but I think it started back with that phone call..." he said, furrowing his brow in concentration.

"Hello," he said, picking up the receiver. "Fenton Works Ghost research, can I-"

"Is this Daniel?" came a harsh voice from the other end.

"Yes... who is this?"

"Shut up and listen carefully, you half-breed freak!"

Danny stopped. "Okay, who the hell is this?" he snarled into the receiver. He'd just about had it with that name.

"You are to deliver an ultimatum to your parents in my stead. Normally I deliver such demands personally, but I'm at something of a distance, and cannot be quite as… personal about it. I require fifty million dollars in U.S. currency… and a little something special."

"And what if they don't do it?"

"Then... you'll die."