Note: It was pointed out to me that replacing previous chapters would mean that people could not review/be notified correctly of the new chapters. As a result, I will be posting the "new" chapters on this same story, but chs 1-14 are NO LONGER VALID. I will slowly be removing them as this story progresses and the need for notification/reviewing ability is no longer a concern.

Breath of Life – Chapter I
Rule Number One

Tuesday would always be Danny's least favorite day of the week. While most people had problems with Monday- because it was Monday- Danny always seemed to have the most trouble on Tuesday. Always, always Tuesday. It all started with every teen's worst nightmare and greatest dream: high school. The land of the cliques.

Academically speaking, high school was supposed to be a student's chance to discover where their interests truly lay. The electives list was usually a solid two pages longer than the one intermediate schools handed out, and all the classes went more in-depth on their topics. It was meant to be a time of discovery and learning.

Socially speaking… well, it wasn't anywhere near that pretty. The social hierarchy was instinctively ingrained the moment one first walked through the door, and first impressions dictated where you would stand for the rest of your high school life. Of course, people wielded their advantages like weapons and clawed their way as high as they could get. Part of the popular crowd in middle school? The trick was to sashay inside with lackeys in tow and make it very clear that a new cool crew was in town. A prime example in Danny's class were the A-Listers. They had the routine down to pat by seventh grade. Everyone else simply filed inside as quietly as possible in an effort to avoid attracting attention.

Danny? He missed the first day of school; a Monday. He made the mistake of venturing into the basement to talk to his father, and was rewarded with a cracked wrist for his trouble. Then again, if he hadn't reflexively dived out of the way of… whatever contraption Jack had sent flying when he tripped, it might have been a lot worse. He spent the rest of the day in a doctor's office and being doted over by his parents.

Thus, his first day of school… was a Tuesday.

He already had an iffy reputation with Tuesdays, so he wasn't too surprised when he opened the doors and walked smack into the A-Listers. Alone.

Things didn't turn out well; especially not since he was already Dash's favorite victim.

So, yeah. Danny hated Tuesdays. He figured it was probably mutual.

"FENTON!"

"Ugh," Danny groaned and let his head hit his locker with a thump. The students around him squeaked and jumped back. They were all eager to get out of the danger zone. No one wanted to be near the Freak Trio when Dash was on his way. "Of course, Dash has math on Tuesdays."

Tucker patted his shoulder sympathetically. "Better start running, dude.

Sam snagged Danny's literature book out of his locker and accepted the red folder she was handed as well. "We'll get your stuff to class."

Danny had such wonderful friends. "Thanks guys. I'll see you later."

Without further ado, the black-haired teen took off down the hallway just in time for Dash's blonde head to come around the corner. A single glance revealed why the jock was after his favorite victim once again; a bold red C was circled atop his chicken-scratch math homework.

Wait, Danny blinked and looked again. Oh, great. A C-minus. "I'm doomed," he sighed and weaved through another unmoving mass of students. It was moments like this that he wished he had more of Dash's bulk; after all, people were more likely to move out of the way of a charging bull than a toothpick.

He managed to avoid his fate for a full ten minutes- well past the tardy bell for the next class- but he couldn't outrun the football jock forever. Sometimes he wondered if Sam was right about needing to get in shape.

Danny whined rather pathetically as his back was slammed into a wall of lockers. Dash always looked rather menacing up close, but Danny had long since learned the trick of focusing on something else to avoid letting dread overwhelm him. Such as how ridiculous it must have looked for Dash- the Jock of Casper High- to be outrun by the kid with the second-lowest grade in gym. Tucker beat him out by a few points for the lowest grade. Maybe it was all the running away from Dash.

"Hey, new record." Danny wheezed while studiously ignoring the voice in the back of his head that told him not to poke the bear. "Getting slower there, Dash?"

He could almost see the guillotine he'd built himself drop at the same rate that Dash's eyes narrowed.

"If I get detention because of you, Fen-toenail, you'll be spending the rest of the week getting very familiar with the inside of this locker!"

The smaller teen's self-preservation kicked in just in time to stop him from pointing out that he was already very familiar with the inside of most of the lockers in school. This was probably why Dash let him off with a warning by simply stuffing him into the locker and marching off to his next class.

Danny sighed as his eyes adjusted and stared at the cold metal of the locker door an inch in front of his nose. While he could bypass the code needed to unlock the locker from inside, the only way to actually open it was from the outside. "It'd be really useful if I could phase through things," he muttered and resigned himself to waiting for rescue.

About five minutes later, he heard the voices of Sam and Tucker calling down the hallway. Danny grit his teeth as he wedged one of his hands free and banged on the door in front of him. "In here," he called and peeked through the slits in the metal. It only took a minute for his friends to determine the correct locker.

"Can you reach the latch?" Sam asked.

"Yeah," Danny affirmed and fidgeted until he was holding back the small piece of metal that was tied to the locker's code dial. The door swung open a moment later and Danny toppled out without its support.

"Ow!" He yelped when he hit the ground and reached one hand up to hold his shoulder, which throbbed quite painfully. Lucky I didn't dislocate it. Danny noted mentally.

Tucker helped him to his feet and examined the shoulder he was holding. "You all right, dude?"

Danny nodded and dropped his hand. "Fine. Just sore."

Sam had moved the length of his sleeve out of the way and was scowling quite fiercely. "You're going to have a bruise."

"Duly noted," was the flat response. He'd have another one tomorrow, most likely. "Thanks, guys," Danny added in a softer tone. "How'd you both get out of class anyway?"

"Bathroom," Tucker and Sam chorused.

Ah, the classic fallback. "We'd better get back before Lancer gives us all detention." He glanced at a clock on the wall and winced. "Well, you two anyway. I'm probably doomed regardless."

"That's not cool, man." Tucker complained for him. Then his expression lit up mischievously. "We should prank Dash. Get back at him!"

"Normally I would jump at the chance, but this is Dash we're talking about, remember? Football star? Anything happens to him and all he has to do is point a finger in our direction- doesn't matter if he knows it was us or not." Danny sighed with no small dose of resignation.

"So, fight the system!" Sam argued, moving to stand in front of him. "You have the bruises as proof and there're a ton of people who see this stuff happen every day! You think the other victims won't leap at the chance to get Dash expelled?"

"Shh!" Danny and Tucker hissed immediately, glancing around at the hall. Still empty, but one could never be too careful when Sam started talking about 'fighting the system'. Plus, it was Tuesday, and Danny was present. That was asking for trouble.

When no one jumped out of the shadows and started screaming about social treason, both male members of the trio relaxed. Sam rolled her eyes at their antics, but didn't press the matter. They all knew Danny wouldn't risk upsetting the delicate balance he'd created. As long as he was available for bullying, Dash seemed to leave the others alone. Making a formal complaint ran the risk of putting him off-limits for Dash's bullying, and still failing to get the jock expelled. Years of living in the Fenton household left him at least used to rough days. He would hardly wish that on his fellows on the bottom of the social hierarchy.

"Look," Danny spoke up; ever the peacemaker. "We just need to get through English, and then all we have left is lunch and two classes. We can all plot Dash's untimely demise after school. Where no one can hear us."

"I'm just saying your life would be a lot easier without Dash after you all the time," Tucker pointed out as the trio began to head back to class.

"He's right," Sam agreed with a shrug, but then smirked. "Although I don't think your gym grade would agree."

Danny sighed as he opened the door to class as quietly as possible.

"There you are, Mr. Fenton. Finally decided to come to class, have you? Well, maybe you'll learn the importance of conducting yourself in a timely manner in detention after school today."

"Sorry, Mr. Lancer." The teen apologized while Sam and Tucker both shot him helpless looks and slunk back to their seats under Mr. Lancer's watchful gaze. Danny busied himself with accepting his slip from Mr. Lancer and hastened to his seat. Flipping open his folder, he noticed his chapter summary must've been turned in; so at least he had that going for him.

Yes, he truly did have such wonderful friends.

Casper High's Freak Trio had a routine that was almost infallible. Immediately after school, the three would head over to the Nasty Burger and spend a good hour there. It usually involved a fruitless attempt to calm Tucker's insatiable appetite. After Danny or Sam decided their wallets had suffered enough, the three would head over to either Danny or Tucker's house; typically, Danny's.

Today was very much a typical day in that regard, which was why the three could currently be found lounging in the Fenton's living room. They had the house to themselves for the moment. The three older Fentons were all at the store grabbing much-needed household supplies and, in Jazz's case, materials for her new class project.

The three of them were dutifully working through their homework for the day. With Danny's help they'd already completed the science worksheet they'd received, and had now split off to focus on the classes they didn't share. Tucker and Sam were sitting on the floor and focused on flipping through a history textbook. Sam broke off to glance at the worksheets next to them and muttered a page number to Tucker, who obligingly turned to it. Danny had commandeered one of the couches to stretch out over. He was using one of his class folders as a makeshift surface to write on, and had a calculator in the other hand. The math homework he was supposed to be completing, however, was mostly blank.

Danny stared at the third problem on the paper without really seeing it.

Solve for X.

That was the question, wasn't it? An awfully deep thought for math homework, sure, but that tended to happen when life got difficult.

Start with two excitable ghost hunters. Add two less enthusiastic children. Multiply by a long-dreamed of invention. Subtract success. Divide by failure. Equals X. Solve for X.

But what was X? A pre-determined factor? This wasn't math. It moved and changed. Actions altered the outcome. But, in this case, could X be narrowed down to a single all-encompassing solution? Could X equal success? But what factor was missing here? What could be added in to change the ending? If they ran the numbers and everything came out correct- because, yes, it all pointed to success- what was missing? What changed X? What had they overlooked that changed the equation from X equals success to X equals failure?

The blue-eyed teen distractedly tapped his pencil and stared at the numbers he'd just been entering into the calculator. The equations stared back at him from the page. Problems that needed to be solved. Where to begin? That was easy. It'd been ingrained in him since birth by his science-oriented parents. Start with what you know.

With what he knew? He knew the answers lay under his feet; in the lab his parents had built so long ago. Where the single invention they'd poured their hearts and souls into had failed.

"Danny!" Jack cried as he threw the door to his son's room open with a bang. Said teen's vision was filled with orange hazmat as his father's hand latched onto his shoulder and dragged him away from the computer he'd been hunched over. "Come, quick! Your mother and I have something to show you!"

Danny flailed reflexively, taken entirely by surprise, and then froze when his hand glanced off the mouse and the window he'd been on closed. A rather pathetic wine escaped his throat in time with the door swinging shut on his doom. That had been his English essay. His nearly complete English essay. Danny groaned inwardly and prayed the auto-save function had kicked in recently. For all his time working on school- people didn't become astronauts on failing grades- he seemed to have the worst luck with homework. It was only thanks to Jazz's help and some extraordinary paranoia that he had managed to turn in most of his assignments since Kindergarten.

"Dad," Danny started and quickly stopped when they reached the stairs and he was forced to stumble down after Jack while compensating for the awkward angle his captured shoulder caused. "What are you doing?" He continued when they reached the relative safety of the first floor.

Immediately, Jack Fenton erupted into an unintelligible mimic of spoken English, practically bursting at the seams in boyish excitement. Danny, who could only faintly pick out every third or fourth word, gave up on communication and instead focused on attempting to escape the vice-tight grip on his shoulder. His left hand was going numb. Certainly not a good sign.

Thankfully, years of practice had made him into an old hand at escaping his parents' trademark Grip of Excitement. He waited until they arrived in the lab and then planted his feet and leaned back as far as he could. Jack overcompensated for the sudden resistance and instinctively released Danny to avoid hitting the ground. This left Danny without an opposing force to balance his weight and he quickly tumbled to the floor. But, hey, he was free now.

Jazz sighed as she helped him to his feet and patted his shoulder gently. "That's one way to do it, I suppose."

"It was either that or amputate my arm," Danny muttered. Jazz thought about that for a moment, and then nodded. That was… probably pretty accurate.

Danny dusted himself off and glanced around the lab. The younger Fentons were usually kept out of the lab; both by their parents and themselves. The place was akin to a ticking time bomb. Every time he or Jazz came down here, something went wrong. A prototype exploded, the shelf of beakers collapsed, an invention misfired, the few ectoplasmic samples they'd collected got mixed up, and on and on. And all of that was with every Fenton in the house being experienced in lab care. Honestly, sometimes Danny wondered if the lab was cursed… or something. There had to be some sort of explanation for the sheer number of times something went wrong down here.

Shaking off the memories, Danny focused on the present state of the lab. It… was a wreck. There was metal scrap everywhere, screws, bolts, and tools were scattered all over the place, cables covered every surface, and there were a least a week's worth of old dishes laying on the desks. The presence of the latter at least reassured Danny that whatever his parents had been doing down here lately had been purely engineering. They wouldn't risk contaminating their precious samples. So, state of the lab aside, the biggest dangers down here at the moment were tripping and sharp objects.

Danny turned his attention to his parents. While they were obviously quite excited, it was plainly obvious that they were equally exhausted. Dark circles hung under their eyes and their hazmat suits were rumpled and dirty… dirtier. Than normal, that is. His parents frequently emerged from the lab bearing odd stains and such, but not usually to such an extent. Actually, now that he thought about it, he'd had leftovers for a few nights now and hadn't seen much of his parents. In fact, the last time he'd seen them for longer than a minute had been almost five days ago. He'd certainly heard them plenty. It was impossible to ignore the banging that had been coming up from the lab, or Jack hollering in response to whatever Maddie had said.

They were also standing in the only clear space in the whole basement. In front of them were two chairs, which Jazz and Danny resignedly made their way over to. Sitting down gave them a clear view of what Maddie and Jack were so excited about. A massive, octagon-shaped opening had been cut into the wall. The tunnel reached far enough back that the end was covered in shadows.

This, in and of itself, was nothing new to either Fenton child. The Ghost Portal had been there for a few years by now. It was usually covered in blueprints and hastily written notes, or filled with loose wires and metal panels. It had become such a fixture, that Danny didn't even really acknowledge it whenever he came down to the basement.

However, now it sat like a gaping maw. The papers had been shuffled off to the side, and all the loose parts had been tucked neatly into place. Danny stared as realization dawned on him. It was complete. The Ghost Portal was complete. His parents had finished it, and he had a front row seat to it. The same project that he'd literally grown up hearing about was… over. Done. Finished. Complete. It was… bizarre. This idea that he wouldn't be sitting through any more dinners where his parents chucked numbers way over his head into the air.

Danny stared into the gaping maw that was the Ghost Portal and tried to shake off the feeling of his neck prickling. He'd never really felt… settled around the thing, but it was easy to ignore when it was simply another part of the chaos. Now it seemed to be staring at him. There was something about it, or maybe its purpose, that made him uneasy.

At the same time, he was eager to see it work. Both he and Jazz had grown up on ghosts. Their parents had never really let the subject drop. Sometimes he wondered if they had taught them everything they'd ever learned in class about the subject. Obviously, they hadn't really. Danny couldn't begin to understand the formulas his parents used for predicting and manipulating something that was supposed to be the exact opposite of… well, science. But, still. He certainly had the theory down to pat. As a result, Danny had found himself spending hours on the internet scouring all the information he could find on the supernatural. He'd even offered up ideas whenever his parents were in a rut; not that he'd ever admit to it. Jazz, on the other hand, disapproved heartily of her parents' ventures into the 'unknown'. She even made it a point to avoid anything having to do with a concept of the afterlife or the undead. A difficult feat, to be sure, but something she managed to an extent.

"You finished the Portal," Danny pointed out the obvious in an effort to get things rolling. His parents had been chattering about possibilities to each other while the younger Fentons settled into their seats. He'd been mostly tuning it out. The concept of the portal was fairly easy to understand. In short; it punched a hole into another dimension. The longer explanation covered the whole "no, not really a hole" thing that was typical of really complex subjects, but Danny preferred the shorter one. He really didn't want to have his head full of ghost-science all the time.

"We did," Maddie enthused, "and we wanted you two to have a front row seat. Today is going to be a great step forward for the scientific world."

Danny tried, but he couldn't really avoid staring. Normally, his parents were a bit more down-to-earth about their projects. After all, there was always a chance of failure. But… it almost sounded like his mother wasn't even really considering the fact that they wouldn't succeed at… the whole accessing-another-dimension thing.

"All we have to do is plug it in," Jack continued, "and then BOOM, baby! We'll have unlimited access to the Ghost Zone."

Maddie practically skipped over to her husband; extension cords in hand. "If you'll do the honor, Jack." She handed him the plug, while she kept ahold of the outlet extension herself.

Danny leaned forward despite himself; just vaguely noting Jazz doing the same. It wasn't, necessarily, that he thought it would work, but that he couldn't help hoping it would. His parents' excitement was infectious, and… well, they had been working on this for longer than he'd been alive. If this actually worked- if the portal turned on… the implications were enormous. His parents weren't wrong in that regard. A functioning ghost portal would change science as they knew it. And not just science… if they encountered ghosts, what would that say about the world's idea of an afterlife? Or just life in general? How many "supernatural happenings" that had been dismissed before would need to be revisited? The four Fentons were- quite possibly- standing on the edge of a new world.

"And now," Jack announced theatrically with the seriousness only he possessed, "for the most important event since the creation of fudge!"

Danny would never admit to laughing. Ever.

The plug snapped together and Danny watched as the Portal hummed to life. The gauges on the side began to glow and the needles fluctuated wildly. For a moment, he would've sworn he felt a cool breeze, and then…

The needles swung back down and the glowing lights faded. Stillness hung over the lab as the four Fentons stared at the portal; almost like they believed that all they needed to do was wait a few more seconds. Like it was just a delay.

A full minute passed in complete silence before reality settled in. Danny swallowed tightly and tried to ignore the sudden nausea that churned in his stomach.

It didn't work.

The portal didn't work.

The thing his parents had been working on for over a decade- that they were so sure they had finally gotten right- didn't work.

Jazz broke the silence first, "Mom… Dad… I-"

She broke off and Danny realized she didn't know what to say. They could only watch as their parents retreated from the lab without saying a word.

"Jazz," Danny found himself turning to his sister for the first time in a long while, "are they…?" He stopped. What was he going to ask? If they would be okay? That felt a little silly in light of what just happened.

Besides, it wasn't too hard to see that she didn't have the answer either.

Five days later, things weren't any better. Danny knew he couldn't really expect his parents to just bounce back from a blow like this, but it was still strange to see them so down. This was hardly the first of their inventions to fail, and it certainly wasn't even the most spectacular among them. Normally, Jack and Maddie would sulk for an hour or so and then dive right back into it. They'd crunch numbers and hypothesize until they found the problem and corrected it. The Fenton household never really had a quiet day.

But now… his parents just seemed to be drifting. Jazz talked to them every day and tried to coax them out of their depression, but neither really seemed willing to wake up. Danny made an effort to distract them whenever he was around, but the results were always short-term. In fact, the whole reason their parents were out of the house today was because he and Jazz had purposefully allowed things to run low in the house; like toilet paper and food. Hopefully getting them out of the house would help them some, but…

Danny released a sigh and stretched on the couch. He wasn't getting anywhere with his homework, and he wouldn't be until he could focus for more than ten seconds at a time.

"Okay," Sam declared and shut her history book with a slam. Both Tucker and Danny jerked in surprise. "That's the third sigh in as many minutes. What's eating at you, Danny?"

"Me?" Said teen squeaked and earned a flat stare from the goth that plainly said are there any other people named 'Danny' here? He shrugged helplessly in response. "I just… Mom and Dad are still pretty down. I don't know what to do."

"Well, the thing they've been working on since before you were born didn't work, man." Tucker pointed out helpfully. "You can't really expect them to be fine in just a couple days."

"I don't!" Danny defended hastily. "I just… didn't think they would still-" He let out a frustrated breath. "I don't know. I thought they would be more focused on figuring out why it didn't work, but they haven't even looked at the lab."

"That is unusual," Sam agreed and frowned thoughtfully at the ceiling.

Danny fidgeted and finally gave up doing homework as a bad job. He shuffled through his papers and replaced them in their respective class folders. "I just don't get why it didn't work." The youngest Fenton commented, puzzled. "I mean, I'm not a ghost expert, but it's impossible not to pick up a few things with parents like mine. From what little I could tell, they did have things right. And it's not like mom and dad to get so worked up unless they're pretty confident it'll work."

"We could always go check it out if it's bothering you that much. Maybe they forgot to flip the switch to 'ON'." Tucker snorted, referencing the elder Fenton's usual habit of overlooking the small things.

"Tuck." Danny narrowed his eyes in warning and Tucker raised his hands in the universal gesture of surrender.

"Okay, bad joke. Sorry. But seriously, man, if this is messing with your head that much, let's go look at it."

Danny rolled his eyes, but Sam spoke up with interest. "Actually, that sounds pretty cool. Imagine if we got it working! We could meet a real ghost!"

"Uh-oh," Tucker bantered, "she's going all goth-voodoo on us again." Although, Danny noted he didn't refute the idea.

"Guys," Danny complained. "C'mon. You know I can't. Anyone whose name does not end in Fenton isn't allowed in the lab." It was a rule his parents were very, very strict about. Jazz and Danny suffered through safety courses quite regularly and even they were frequently warned away from the lab. A lot of the things down there were extremely dangerous if mishandled. The Fentons had already had a few close calls; they really didn't want to drag anyone else into it. Exceptions were made every once in a while, but only while both Maddie and Jack were in the lab and things were relatively safe.

"Aw, Danny," Tucker pleaded. "We'll be careful; scout's honor."

"You're not a boy scout," Sam and Danny chorused.

Tucker chose to ignore the very valid point. "Look, we won't touch anything in the lab. We just go down for a second and check out the portal, then leave. Easy!"

"Tuck…" Danny paused. It wasn't that he didn't trust them, but it was literally the most important rule in the house.

"Your parents let us down there pretty frequently," Sam pointed out. "It's not like we don't know how to behave in the lab."

Danny hesitated for another minute, but he couldn't quite disagree with that. It was true that Sam and Tucker spent about as much time in the lab as Danny and Jazz. They were no strangers to the equipment down there, and they were by no means stupid. If they said they wouldn't look at anything but the portal, he trusted them.

"Fine," he conceded to cheers from his best friends, "but only for a few minutes. And only to check out the portal!"

Sam and Tucker quickly abandoned their history homework in favor of following Danny down to the lab. Said teen flicked on the lab's lights and revealed that in was in the same state of disarray it had been in a few days ago.

"Whoa," Sam and Tucker chorused as they hurried over to the portal and peered inside. The top of it was well out of reach and made all three teens feel quite small in comparison. Danny lingered a few paces back and watched the portal warily. He tried to ignore the uneasy feeling churning in his stomach. It felt like the portal was staring back at him… waiting.

"Okay," Sam spoke up. "I'll admit that this is really cool." She was looking over the gauges on the control box next to the portal. "Ectoplasmic Concentration?" She read off the label. "Filter Contamination?"

"Mom and Dad thought they'd need a way to keep the portal 'clean', so to speak. They were worried that any loose ectoplasm would 'collect' around the edges and de-stabilize it." Danny explained and wandered over to look at the controls himself. It was all pretty interesting, even if he never really felt comfortable around the thing. "It works a bit like a lint trap in a dryer."

"Can a portal have an edge?" Tucker wandered aloud and Danny just shrugged. It was one of those really complicated subjects that he never really bothered to remember. It wasn't like he needed to know what was defined as a portal's edge. Tucker accepted his non-answer and took a step closer to the portal. "Can we check out the inside?"

Danny froze. His first and most immediate answer was no, but he didn't really have a valid reason why not. As far as he- and science- was concerned, it was just an empty tunnel. Sure, it was a very space-age looking tunnel, but it was… just a tunnel. Barely even that. Just a hole in the wall.

"Please, Danny?" Tucker pleaded when he sensed his friend's reluctance. "I won't ask for anything else."

The youngest Fenton sighed and shoved down the uneasy voice in his head. He was being ridiculous. The whole thing was harmless. He only felt like this because he knew his parents wouldn't be too pleased to find them down here. "Fine," he agreed and then paused with another glance at the portal. "Just… let me check it out first. Mom and Dad might've left something loose in there… or something."

He headed over to where his parents stashed the safety gear and plucked his white and black hazmat suit off the wall. Maybe a bit excessive, but the familiar suit helped to settle his nerves a little bit. His parents always kept hazmat suits for Jazz and himself down here just to be on the safe side.

"Better safe than sorry?" Sam asked.

"I guess," Danny agreed with a motion somewhere between a nod and a shrug.

Danny took a few slow steps into the portal and paused to wait for his eyes to adjust to the lack of light. The portal was smaller on the inside than it seemed. If he stretched, he could just brush the top of it. For all its space, the uniform walls made everything feel quite a bit more claustrophobic. There were small slits in the metal that, when he looked through, revealed dozens of cables weaving their way through the walls.

"Find anything?" Tucker called, voice echoing off the metal.

"Not yet," Danny called back distractedly. The unease that had settled into his stomach finally seemed to be lightening. Without it bothering him, he found it much easier to focus on his curiosity instead. This was, after all, his parents' favorite project. And beyond that, it was designed to open a door to another dimension. How awesome was that? That was something ripped straight out of the pages of a sci-fi comic. Why hadn't he been more interested whenever his parents talked about this before?

He was almost to the back of the portal now. It was difficult to see since none of the lab's light quite reached here. Danny paused for a moment and tried to pick out the shape of the screws in the walls. It seemed a bit easier than it should have been. In fact, when he looked closely, it almost looked like-

The walls were glowing.

Danny shivered and took a step back. Now that he was looking for it, he could see that he was right. For as dark as it was in here, he could see the details on the metal quite clearly. He could even hear the faint hum of electricity. Danny's eyes widened in realization. His parents had never unplugged the portal.

He was inside the portal and it was turned on.

The black-haired teen took another hasty step back and stumbled when he lost his balance. He reached out instinctively to catch himself and then froze when something gave under his hand. Time seemed to slow down as he turned his head to look. Sitting innocently under his palm was a green button marked with the word ON. Tucker's words echoed in his head.

"Maybe they forgot to flip the switch to 'ON'."

Danny had no time to react before a dull roar swept through the wall around him. Electricity sizzled and crackled in the air and he heard gears churn behind the metal. For a moment nothing happened, and then the air around him seemed to tear. It twisted in front of him, shimmering like the pavement during a heat wave, and then collapsed in on itself.

It felt like a great weight had suddenly latched on to his limbs. One moment, he was simply standing there, the next something was pulling him in every direction at once. It yanked on his atoms until he felt like he couldn't stand anymore without scattering into millions of pieces, and then it let go. Danny snapped back into place with the force of a moving train and screamed. Energy traveled through his limbs as the blue glow of the walls of the portal were replaced with endless green. It consumed his vision in the same way the fire was consuming his limbs. He felt like someone had frozen him in place and then lit his toes and fingers on fire. It slowly crawled its way over him; following the paths carved into his skin by thousands of knives. Every single one of his molecules were shaking; pierced by pins aimed directly for their hearts. It felt as though he was slowly turning to ashes; one cell at a time. The pain was most prominent where the cold of his limbs met the tips of the fire. Then, suddenly, it began to expand. It stretched up over his wrists and ankles and clawed to his elbows and knees. Slowly, inch by inch, the fire pushed its way to his heart, where the cold collected into a dense ball. As if in an act of mercy, the pain fell away piece by piece with each finger that disintegrated into eternal numbness. It continued until he began to wonder how much of himself was left. His ears were ringing and spots were filling his vision, but he still couldn't see anything except green- endless green. Danny let out another garbled sound when the pain in his chest spiked and the fire that had consumed his limbs finally reached the ball of condensed cold. Everything spun away; consumed entirely by the sensation of pure, unfiltered agony. The green vanished into black, the ringing in his ears was replaced by silence, and then- nothing. Darkness. A void lacking any sort of sound or touch.

"DANNY!"

…Danny?

He snapped his eyes open to another burst of agony. It started from his heart and churned like an angry hurricane. It spread from there along his veins and scraped along his bones like knives. His muscles shivered and spasmed under the assault. It felt like he was being rebuilt from scratch, molecule by molecule, only for whatever was doing the building to be dissatisfied by the result and start all over. His nerves sparked and snapped in a torturous cycle; each new signal informing his brain over and over that he was in a great deal of danger.

He felt the air wrench once more and that feeling of being pulled in more than one direction returned. A bloodcurdling cry reverberated through the air and it took a moment to realize that he was the source. His cells were already stretched to thin; one force attempting to put him back together, while the other yanked him apart.

"DANNY!"

The sound came again and, abruptly, he was free.

…who?

He gasped for air and recoiled at the strange sensation of his limbs being whole once more. He could still feel the electricity rolling through his limbs, and the screaming of his atoms made it difficult to concentrate, but whatever had been reconstructing him finally seemed to be coming to a conclusion. There was a weight in his chest that kept building with each passing second. It sent out tendrils of ice that seemed to spiderweb along his bones.

Despite all of this, something nagged in his mind. There! Just through the green- the endless green that churned in every direction- was a shadow. A silhouette of something- someone- familiar. It was-

Too close. They're too close!

He lunged, vocal cords tearing under the strain of the scream he emitted, and pushed through the pain that dragged at his limbs. One step. Two.

"DANNY!"

Too close. They're too close! Away! Get away!

Save them!

Protect.

He reached, pushing through the green that was solidifying around him, and ignored the searing in his spine. His mind was sluggish and the ringing in his ears had returned with a vengeance. His heart felt like it was beating too fast; struggling to keep him on his feet just a few seconds longer. Then he felt his hands brush something warm, and he was there. The silhouettes stared at him- lavender and turquoise- and, with a monumental effort, he dragged what little strength he still had to the front and pushed.

The shadows vanished and he staggered backwards from the force. That darkness was eating away at his vision again. He couldn't find it in him to stay on his feet. Everything was sliding away, no matter how hard he fought to focus. He felt as though the world was slipping away; ebbing and flowing like the tide. The pain in his limbs sparked and faded in time with it and he clung to the moments of clarity with the desperation of a dying soul.

And then-

"DANNY!"

-it vanished.

It was the most horrible thing Sam had ever heard. One moment everything had been fine, and then the lab had lit up like a firework. The portal, once dormant and dark, had hummed to life. The gauges she'd been looking at began to glow and the needles in them waved about wildly. In a moment almost straight out of a horror movie, she watched as Danny was illuminated by green light that seemed to originate from the air itself and then-

He was gone.

The once-empty portal was consumed by green light… and then the screaming started. Awful, ear-piercing cries that echoed off the walls of the lab. It never seemed to end. Where one bone-chilling sound faded, another began. It felt like entire minutes ticked by in which the only sounds were Danny's bloodcurdling cries of pain.

Tucker staggered forward a step, hands outstretched as though he could simply reach inside and pluck Danny out, and snapped Sam out of her horrified daze.

Another cry came from within the portal and Sam responded in kind. "DANNY!" She screamed and looked around frantically. They had to get him out of there! There had to be a way to turn it off, or shut off the power, or-

"Tucker!" Sam cried over another of Danny's screams. "The plug; find the plug!"

Her friend didn't seem to hear her; gaze fixed on the green glow of the portal. "Danny?" he whispered at another scream, eyes wide. And then, again, as if the situation was finally kicking in. "Danny. Oh, god. DANNY!"

"We have to help him!" Sam shouted and grasped Tucker by the shoulders. When he still didn't seem to notice her, she gave him a fierce shake. Tucker staggered in her grip and finally tore his eyes away from the portal. "Find the plug!" She repeated. Tucker took a moment to process her words and frantically nodded- only to freeze once more. Sam paused for a moment, confused by his sudden change, and then caught on to what he'd noticed.

Silence.

Danny's not screaming anymore. Sam realized with dread and slowly turned her attention back to the portal. The green light was receding; leaving the lab in total darkness. The overhead lights must have gone out during the power surge. The two horror-struck friends stumbled closer to the portal, desperate for a glimpse of the third member of their trio, but before the light completely disappeared it seemed to lurch and then slowly become… solid. The light seemed to bend and then begin to melt in on itself, becoming akin to a fluid. It expanded once more until the new liquid-like substance, as bright and green as before, filled the whole tunnel. It churned wildly, spilling out over onto the lab floor, and then receded- only to expand once more. Again and again it receded and expanded; brightening and dimming in some twisted parody of a heartbeat. Then it seemed to produce more of itself, collecting until the portal was packed so dense it had nowhere to go-

And then another scream ripped from the portal.

"DANNY!" Sam cried reflexively. For a moment it seemed as though her wishes were answered. A hand appeared from the portal, followed by another, and then an elbow, a shoulder-

And there he was. Sam watched as Danny looked at them without really seeing them. His eyes were glazed, teeth clenched, and his skin was slick with sweat. He was shaking so violently it was amazing he was on his feet. Tucker reacted first and reached for his blue-eyed friend, only to be beaten to the punch by said teen. Sam started when Danny grasped her wrist. He drew in a shuddering breath and then, before they had time to react, pushed.

Sam and Tucker found themselves several feet away from the portal and could only watch as Danny staggered back, consumed by the liquid-like substance once more. They watched in terrified awe as he seemed to change. White crept through his hair until the raven-black color was replaced with that of snow, the white of his hazmat vanished under the black that spread over it like ink, and the familiar sky-blue eyes were slowly eaten away by neon green.

"DANNY!" Sam screamed again, as though her voice alone could drag him back.

And then he was gone; disappearing back into the green of the portal. The liquid substance churned once more and then exploded outwards. Sam and Tucker flinched back as blinding light erupted once more and slowly faded; leaving only an ominous, swirling green doorway in its wake. There was a long moment of silence where both Sam and Tucker stared; waiting- hoping- for Danny to appear once more.

He didn't.

That was how Jack and Maddie Fenton found them, having arrived back home just in time to hear the portal's final bang. Crouched on the floor, clinging to one another in shock, and waiting for someone who would never emerge.

Woo! One chapter down. I like this much more than the original. And you've got five more pages of content, too. I'm a little worried the trio's dynamic is off; I haven't really written much DP fanfiction in a while and I'm probably rusty. Hopefully I'll get more into the rhythm of it, and can come back and do some touching up if that's the case.

Also, this fic is quite long time-wise; covering the span of several years. So, I'm going to include a timeline at the end of each chapter. Yay!

Timeline – if I had to pick a year this story takes place in; it would be 2009.

Year 1

August 24, Monday – First day of school. (Chapter 1) (All day)

September 24, Thursday – The portal doesn't work. (Chapter 1) (In the afternoon)

September 29, Tuesday – The portal accident. (Chapter 1) (In the afternoon)