Danny remembered how excited his parents had been to show off their newest invention, the Fenton Molecular Destabilizer. They explained that this was their most powerful weapon to date and that it could literally tear a ghost apart molecule by molecule.

All Danny could think at the time was how much trouble this thing was going to give him when Danny Phantom was inevitably targeted by his parents once more.

But even Danny had no idea what would happen next.

He had tried to fly away as fast as he could. But the destabilizer's beam was as fast as it was strong. He was hit.

Danny had experienced plenty of physical pain in his life. And his tolerance for pain has only improved since becoming a superhero.

But the second he was blasted, he was faced with the worst agony he ever felt in his life. If felt like knives dipped in lava were tearing through his insides and cutting out chunks of his body.

Oh god, oh god, this hurts. Please, somebody, make it stop. Make it stop.

Danny floated in the air writing and screaming like he was at the receiving end of a beatdown from some invisible force. But there was no invisibility here, no enemy Danny can fight back against. The battle was not external, but rather raging within him as his own body tore itself apart.

He was quickly sapped of his strength and no longer able to stay in the air. He came crashing down to the hard pavement, only adding to the pain he was already feeling.

He laid uselessly on the ground moaning. He forced his eyes downward. There were open wounds on his body caused by his skin literally tearing itself apart at the molecular level. From those wounds spurted out green ectoplasm. Danny had never been hurt so bad that he had anything bleeding out of him before.

Bleeding out of him…blood…his blood.

That's when Danny realized: he was dying. He was actually dying.

He often joked with his friends about being "half-dead." Dealing with ghosts most of his life, death was something he never really took seriously. Especially after he became half ghost. Being dead just means being a ghost, and he's halfway there anyway. And he gets to have cool powers. Death is not so bad, right?

But now as he faced the possibility that this would be the end of his human life, he found himself, for the first time, terrified of death.

He saw two figures loom over him, one very large and a slightly smaller one.

"Nice shot, Maddie!"

"Thanks, Jack. Its molecules are breaking apart even as we speak." Maddie looked at the destabilizer and then seductively back at her husband. "But we can always speed up the process."

"Oh! Oh! Can I fire it this time?" Jack asked as he jumped up and down like a child getting a present.

"Alright, just be careful. A blast from this thing would be fatal to a human."

If Danny's face wasn't already white, it would have become white after hearing that. He might already die just from one shot, he would definitely die if he got hit twice. "No…don't…please…"

As Jack pointed the destabilizer at him, the ghost boy looked up at his parents with pleading eyes. "Mom…Dad..."

Jack and Maddie gasped. It couldn't be…

It's been scientifically proven that mothers can distinguish their own babies' cries from other children's. Who's to say they lose that ability just because they get older? Because at that moment, both Jack and Maddie recognized their baby boy's cry to them.

The definite answer came to the Fentons in the most horrific way when a ring of light suddenly surrounded the ghost boy's torso. It separated into two separate rings and moved up and down the boy's body.

Jack and Maddie watched as the white-haired, green-eyed, ghost boy transformed into their black-haired, blue-eyed, human son.