THE PHANTOM'S REALM: ROYAL ORIGINS

CHAPTER ONE:

"And then I thought, maybe this is the moral.
In the same way my folks loved their old Christmas quarrel.
Everyone celebrates in the way of their choosing.
I was so busy whining, I started abusing
the ones I loved most and I ruined their cheer.
I'll try to be better, come Christmas next year."

Danny smiled as he finished retelling the story of his pervious Christmas. Danielle, who was sitting on his bad, had broken into giggles halfway through and hadn't stopped since.

"Okay, okay. You can stop now." He told her, playfully rolling his eyes as he set 'The Fright Before Christmas 2' down. Dani giggled harder.

"As if! You were stuck in rhyme!" She said through her laughter.

"You know Danny," Another voice said from the door. "It was pretty funny."

The halfas turned to see Danny's older sister Jazz standing in the doorway. Danny scowled and Dani laughed harder.

"Surprised you didn't hear me coming." Jazz commented at Danny's confused face. Danny shook his head.

"No, I knew you were there. It's just… what are you wearing?" He questioned, pointing to her head.

There, on top of her red hair, was a teal and snow-white Santa hat, the tip hanging behind her head. Jazz placed her hands on it, as if protecting it from Danny's teasing.

"What? I thought it was cute." She defended herself. Danny shot her a deadpan look.

"Jazz, Christmas isn't for another whole week." Danny admonished. Jazz shook her head, grinning, as the hat flung back and forth.

"It's never too early for Christmas spirit, little brother. Now, hurry up and get ready or I won't drive you to school." Jazz threatened as she began retreating the room, but stopped at Danny's huff.

"Jazz, hello? Half-ghost? Ghost powers? I think I'll manage." He said sarcastically before sighing. "Do we really have to go today, though? It's Christmas!" Danny tried to get out of going, lamely I might add.

"Not for another whole week." Jazz shot back, smiling at Danny's expression. "Suck it up for a little longer. Only two more days until break starts, anyway."

Danny sighed as he got up from his bed before turning to Danielle, who was flipping through the book Danny set down, giggling at the pictures.

"We're off to school, Danielle. Remember, the only things you can't do are, leave the house and go into the lab. Wouldn't want mom and dad seeing you, especially not in your ghost form." Danny instructed seriously.

"And he forgot another important one; don't break anything." Jazz added, half-glaring at her brother. The halfas sighed as one.

"No promises." They said in unison, chuckling after. Jazz rolled her eyes but Danny scoffed.

"Please, even if she did we'd be the only one's who'd notice, okay? Mom and dad have spent every ounce of their time in the lab for over two weeks now, why would they come out now?" Danny retorted.

"Danny they have to eat sometime." Jazz argued, but Danny shot her another look.

"Dad took the microwave downstairs yesterday, about three dozen hot-pockets and four cases of fudge. I think they'll be fine." He said hotly.

"You can never be too careful, Danny. What if they-" Jazz started, but Danny interrupted.

"Jazz, she's been lazing around the house in her ghost form for the past two weeks and mom and dad have yet to bat an eye, or even gun, in her direction. Hell, she's had her friend sleep over four times." He insisted. Jazz sighed.

"Dani, try not to stay in ghost form, please? It'll be hard enough to explain you, let alone ghost you." Jazz said softly. Dani nodded, before breaking into a grin.

"Does that mean Izzy can still come over?" She asked hopefully. Danny smiled and Jazz groaned, before answering with a small smile of her own.

"As long as you don't break anything." She said slyly. The Phantom's sighed softly at the deal breaker.

"Come on Danny, we'll be late." Jazz said, as if it was the end of the world, and left Danny's room.

"Oh no, what ever would I do if that happened? It's surely never happened to me before!" Danny shouted sarcastically, smiling at Dani's huff of a laugh.

"I'll come home for lunch and we can work on you're ice powers more, okay? You know where the food is and you can find me in Casper if you need anything." Danny told her. Dani nodded in understanding.

"Bye Danielle, I'll be home soon. Remember, don't eat all the fudge again." Danny said, ruffling Dani's hair before darting out of the room.

"Man, you eat two pounds of fudge one time!" Dani protested lightly as she giggled. She could hear Danny's huff from the stairs, before she sighed lowly.

"Who attacked you already?" Sam asked worriedly as Danny walked into class, late, with a bruised forearm.

"Dash." Danny said sourly. Tucker and Sam exchanged worried glances.

That had been happening more frequently in the last few weeks. The bulling Danny usually endured had increased and the rest of Team Phantom had to deal with it now too, probably because word around the school was they 'were being even freakier than usual'.

Paulina and Star relentlessly tormented Sam, taking her things and ruining them, publically humiliating her and quite a few physical confrontations, none of which were dealt with by the school. Danny had asked Sam several times if she wanted him to complain to Lancer, seemingly the only teacher that noticed anything, but she always stopped him.

Tucker was bullied harder too, along with Danny. They were both assaulted by Dash and Kwan multiple times a week, taking beatings that were worse than the two high school kings had ever done before. Hell, they hit hard enough to bruise Danny, which was a bad sign, and fractured Tucker's forearm twice.

Even Jazz was starting to be bullied for spending so much time with 'Freak Trio'. Her friends purposefully excluded her from everything, wouldn't socialize with her at all outside of school and hardly at all in school. Her teachers either didn't notice or didn't care, as long as she kept achieving her stellar marks.

"It's nothing I can't handle." Danny insisted at their exchanged glance. Sam and Tucker didn't look convinced but didn't push the matter any further.

"Come on, we should get to class." Sam said quietly. Danny and Tucker nodded, before a puff of blue mist crept out of Danny's mouth. He sighed in return.

"Go ahead, get to Lancer's room. I'll handle this one." Danny said, moving to turn around. Tucker called to him.

"You sure? What if you need backup?" He asked seriously. Danny shook his head.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. It's probably just The Box Ghost anyways." The halfa replied before running down the hallway and turning the corner.

Both Tucker and Sam saw the flash of light from the transformation before they decided to get to class themselves.

"Come on, he'll be fine." Tucker insisted on Danny's behalf and led Sam the opposite way by her elbow.

Although both of them threw worried looks in the direction Danny disappeared in.

Danny sighed as he sat in his history class. Mr. Lancer was substituting for their regular teacher Mr. History, really Henry Isaac Story but that's a tale for another day, and was currently going on about important figures in World War II, but Danny couldn't make himself pay any attention yet.

Instead he doodled. He doodled his fights from today. So doodles of Danny Phantom beating up The Box Ghost, Desiree, multiple Ectopuses and The Box Ghost again were all on Danny's paper by the first half hour of class.

Luckily he wasn't alone and his partner-in-crime Tucker was also doodling, but he appeared to be drawing plans for his new PDA, not anything ghost related. Yet.

That was how it went for the better part of class, until Lancer noticed they weren't paying attention through the whole class.

"Mr. Fenton, Mr. Foley! If you have time to be drawing ridiculous notions then you surely have time to pay attention to todays lesson on Oswald Schmidt, even if he is from the World War II era." Lancer lectured, making Danny and Tucker's heads shoot up in sync.

"Oh come on Mr. Lancer, when I am ever really going to need to know about hundred year old Nazi War criminal that went missing and is probably long dead by now anyway?" Danny asked sarcastically.

Lancer glared at Danny a moment before reaching for the piece of paper the teenager had been doodling on and raised his eyebrows incredulously.

"And when would a town ever need to know how to defend itself from ghost attacks?" He asked sarcastically back.

Ghosts. That's right. Some ghosts used to be alive and have actual human lives. What if this Schmidt guy came back as a ghost and he'd have to fight him? It might pay off to pay attention to this lesson.

"Good point." He said, looking at the notes Lancer had on the board.

Lancer turned around, satisfied, band Danny looked to Tucker and Sam to see what they thought, when he saw Sam's eyes hadn't even left the board and was still jotting things down. That was an unusual sight for Danny, since the three of them had more or less stopped caring about their grades, although Danny more so, in favor of stopping more ghost attacks than ever.

"Sam why are you so focused?" Danny asked finally, when Sam stopped taking notes. She seemed to hesitate for a minute before, sighing out her reasons.

"My grandma Ida is a holocaust survivor, actually." She said quietly. Danny and Tucker exchanged glances.

"Really? How come we didn't know that?" Tucker asked, gesturing to himself and Danny.

"Well it's not like anyone really knows everything there is to know about anyone else, there are things about me that you don't know and there are things about you that I don't know." Sam said with a small shrug.

"Wait, but I thought Grandma Ida was born here, in Amity Park?" Danny added suddenly.

"She was but she and her parents ended up in Auschwitz from 42 to 45, but nobody will tell me why. My parents 'don't want to corrupt me' or 'taint my innocence' or whatever, and I don't think Grandma Ida would want to talk too much about it." She told him, mocking her parents along the way. She paused a moment before, "Both of my great-grandparents died there."

Danny and Tucker both knew it was better to stay silent than offer any condolences.

LINEBREAK

Danny, Tucker, Sam and Jazz all trudged home after the long day at school. The Trio had told Jazz about the war criminal Oswald Schmidt to see if she remembered anything about him, which she did, luckily. She was telling them how she'd look for her old notes, but was stopped by an explosion in the distance.

"Hey, that sounded close to FentonWorks, Danny." Sam said, turning to the blue-eyes boy only to see he wasn't there anymore.

She looked straight ahead to see he was already four blocks away, sprinting to FentonWorks, no doubt. The three of them just sighed before following slowly behind the halfa.

"Danielle! Are you-" Danny called as he slowed his run into his house, to see Dani sitting on the couch with a carton of ice cream. "Yeah, you're fine." He noticed.

"Danny! You heard the-" She cut off as she heard Jack Fenton's booming voice from downstairs.

"Get the Fenton Fire Extinguished, Mads, we got a hot one!" He was calling. Danny shook his head, half amused, half disappointed.

"What are you watching?" Danny asked as he turned around to face the TV.

"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs!" Dani replied happily.

"How long have you been taking Jazz's VHS tapes?" Danny asked, now completely amused.

"You've been doing what now?!" Jazz's voice came from the doorway. The Phantom's turned to see Jazz, Tucker and Sam coming into the house.

Dani shrugged.

"I found some one day and decided 'what the hey, I'll give it a shot' and then, umm, well… I'm hooked." She explained, weakly.

Jazz rolled her eyes.

"So, which one's your favorite?" She asked as she sat on the couch next to the glowing girl.

"The Little Mermaid Trilogy, definitely, but I really liked Wreck-It Ralph and Frozen too." Dani replied. Jazz's eyebrows rose.

"How'd you even see those? I only have the first Little Mermaid." Jazz told her. Dani blushed.

"I watched them on Danny's laptop." She admitted shyly. Danny rolled his eyes. "Oh but, hey, that weird glowing envelope over there appeared just a few seconds ago. Let's talk about that, huh?"

Danny turned his eyes to the coffee table and sure enough, a lime green envelope that emitted a ghostly glow.

"What is it?" Tucker asked out loud.

Sam and Jazz shrugged and Danny hiccupped, his ghost sense activating in unison with the appearance of the object. Dani's eyes glossed over the item and she grabbed it before turning back to her family.

"It's addressed to Danny Phantom." She said, thrusting it into Danny's hands. Danny sighed before opening it.

"To: Danny Phantom; for your eyes only.

For centuries the Ghost Zone has been looking for its new King after Pariah Dark. Only now, has it chosen you. It is partly due to your involvement in Pariah's invasion but you are also the only ghost in the whole Ghost Zone who meets all the qualifications perfectly to fulfill the job.

Think about this, Daniel. It could do a lot of good for everyone.

I understand if you need time to think, but just know the Ghost Zone would be a better place with Danny Phantom as King. Should you accept the crown, the coronation will take place on the Winter Solstice.

Timeless Fortune,

Clockwork"

"Wow. I'm gonna be a Princess!" Jazz squealed in excitement.

"Wait to kill the suspense, Jazz." Sam said sarcastically. Dani rolled her eyes.

"What suspense? This is a prequel."

Aaaaand scene!

So, how do you like it so far? Good? Bad? Meh?

I'm gonna try and update again soon so watch out, and also watch for updates on "The Phantom's Realm" because I'm thinking about putting up some omakes or 'deleted scenes' of sorts. What do you think about that?

I promise the next chapters will be longer than this one was, this was just to set things up, so this won't be regular length.

Until then, enjoy the prequel ladies and gentlemen!