The Snow Turned into Rain

A/N: Hello again, people! Another DP fanfic (second one, in fact). Once again, I hope you will enjoy this one, hopefully as much as I will enjoy writing it. For those reading this, I say again, thank you. Please send a review, no flames, but constructive criticism would be appreciated. This is somewhat different from my usual writing style, and I need feedback upon how it is.

Once again, because I have to, to avoid getting sued...

Disclaimer: I do not own the Danny Phantom characters, they are owned by Butch Hartman. But the storyline is my own...don't use it without my permission.

Before I start, I know I took some quotes, and I know that some of them may be off by a word here and there. But they're close enough...well, at least in my opinion.

OK, I've spoken too much...on with the fanfic...

Chapter 1 - The Brewing Storm

Everyone who had visited the town at some point has seen it.

After miles of seeing countryside, the twists and turns in the road finally led up to a large sign.

With large, bold, and colorful letters, it boasted of a city that was dubbed, "A Nice Place to Live!" If you continued down the path, it would lead you into the center of a large city...

After all, the town was named Amity Park. Fun places, such as Amity Pier, were one of many great places for the young crowd to hang out and relax, while enjoying a beautiful sunset over the water. The Nasty Burger, albeit well-known for creating a potentially deadly sauce, was also a hang-out for the young residents. Even video gamers could test their luck at the arcade located on the boulevard.

And it was nearing the end of November, which meant the holiday season was just around the corner. It was that time of year for people to spend countless dollars on gifts for those they cared about, bringing more happiness to the scene. Even though it wasn't December yet, the adolescents of Casper High were already thinking about the upcoming winter vacation and making plans.

Yes, it seemed that the name fit perfectly with the city.

But for a certain portion of the town, the word amity was a lost cause.

Despite all the talk of friendly atmosphere, Amity Park had a dark side. An area untravelled by most of the public and was left to fester in its own demise. It seemed to be getting worse every year.

The mayor thought of doing something about it, but never seemed to get around to it.

Welcome to the run-down district of the city. A forgotten and desolate area, the streetlamps here flickered on and off periodically. The once smooth streets of asphalt were cracked and torn up from poor maintenance over the years. That beautiful sunset could not be seen through the jungle of mice and rat infested buildings. Many people were afraid of going into that part of town because it was such a dangerous area.

Even police were afraid to go there. Crime here was so bad that police on duty usually flipped a coin to see who would be the one wandering the streets in that district, while the rest remained in the other areas of the town or the police station.

Not exactly your everyday paradise to live, right?

Try telling that to a certain girl...

In the beginning, she never thought she would even end up in this part of town, let alone live in it. But after all the hardships her and her father went through in the past year, it was the only place that she and her father could afford, something cheap enough in their price range. For her, being able to afford a home with these financial struggles was a paradise of her own.

Though many people didn't see it, Valerie Gray was a tougher person than others thought.

She lived with her father in the tiny three-room apartment. The longer she seemed to live there, the more she became used to the occasional leak in the ceiling or the continuous flicker of the ten-year old television set. And with the holidays fast approaching, an occasional breath of cold air flew through the cracks in the old building.

For some reason, however, that wind seemed strangely warm for the holidays...

That old television set gave the reason why, as it was turned onto the nightly news. From the blurred and poorly contrasted picture, one could make a very faint outline of the weather forecastings.

The weatherman's seemingly cheerful voice tried to break the bad news.

"There's a warm front coming in from the west, and that means possible rainstorms. Sorry folks, I know the holidays are approaching, but it seems that we're going to start this year with some rain." He laughed a little, his attempt to raise the spirit of the situation.

Light laughter followed from the anchorwoman, who seemed to be thinking along the same lines.

Valerie was doing pull-ups from a bare wooden bar hanging from the ceiling. The forecaster's attempt to make light with the current situaion made her sick. That rainstorm would probably force a hole in the already-cracked ceiling, possibly forcing them to live somewhere else...

But snow was also pretty bad. Between choosing whether to be wet or freezing cold, it was hard to determine what was the lesser of two evils.

And they couldn't afford a heater yet...

But the weather seemed to be the thing that was currently the least of her worries. She seemed very pissed at the moment at something else - there was only one thing on her mind right now as she continued listening to the anchorwoman's reports...

"Heh...thank you for that report. And here's some late-breaking news! It seems that Amity's famous resident Danny Phantom has risen in approval rating from the public after he recently saved a bus from falling after the driver lost control of the vehicle."

Those were it - the trigger words. Valerie stopped her pull-ups and looked at the television in rage. That name was the one thing she did NOT want to hear at the moment...

Danny Phantom...this was all HIS fault...he did all of this to her...he was responsible...

In fact, who knew...maybe he was the one who probably forced the bus to lose control, and then saved it himself to make it look good for the news...

As the news continued about the story about the rescue, she pretended not to hear it as she kept reminiscing of her past life.

She wasn't always this way...she actually had it all...

...before HE came into it...

She used to be rich...she could buy almost anything she needed, depending upon the level of her splurging.

How one ghost could ruin everything? It was beyond her knowledge. Either way, she hated them, which was the reason she was a ghost hunter.

During the times she wasn't hunting them, she was Valerie Gray, another teen at Casper High school, an African-American girl dressed in orange and yellow clothes and white shoes.

But when there was some ghost wreaking havoc, that outfit changed...

Her ghost hunter outfit was a skintight red suit, her face covered by a mask that could only be seen through one way. She could see people from inside the suit, but people could not see her eyes, unless in very bright light.

She seemed to become more edgy with each passing day, wishing to take out her revenge on the things she hated so much. Her father, of course, knew nothing about it during her early days as a ghost hunter - she kept it a secret.

Believing that this new behavior was still bitterness about adapting to a new life, her father had been telling her that she had to let it go. Things, of course, would never be the same, but he was quite persistent with that phrase, believing that eventually, "Time would heal all wounds."

She was quite stubborn because she wanted to cling onto the memories of that life she wanted desperately. But she knew that it would never be the same. After much personal conflict, she consented to start rebuilding her social life once again, hoping that she could get her mind back on track.

She knew, at least, that there was nowhere to go but up.

Sure, she was now starting to climb her way back onto the social spectrum, but as she continued her climb, she was starting to notice differences in her old friends. These people she thought she knew were, as she found out, very different. People like Paulina, Dash, and Kwan were extremely shallow in behavior. All they seemed capable of doing was simply have people judge them, to make themselves more vulnerable to the social world. Paulina was always obsessing about her looks, and Dash and Kwan were only interested in showing off their physical abilities.

Valerie pretended to be blind to those attributes at first, but as time moved on, it became more and more obvious that she had been hanging with the wrong crowd all along.

Though they were talking to her again, it was all superficial. She was rebuilding from absolutely nothing, and she seemed to be surrounded by those who were still lost in the other world, the world of fame and glory.

They didn't care for her. They only cared for their own, damn selves.

She wanted to find a new set of friends - she wasn't desperate, but she needed someone she could actually count on, because for some reason, now that she was poor, there wasn't a soul who seemed to be willing to listen to the actual her; she was treated like an outcast.

But then came the day she came to know another outcast like herself...someone she had never thought she could see herself with.

In fact, Danny Fenton's friendship kind of hit her in the face unexpectedly.

She hated him in the beginning. He seemed to be getting in the way of everything, such as with an earlier project that involved a flour sack, and pretending to take care of it as if it were a child. Her boiling point seemed to be at an all-time high during that point, because Danny was her partner...

He was so insensitive...her grades were already at an all-time low and she was holding down two jobs...her ghost hunting and the Nasty Burger mascot, Nasty Ned...

She wanted him to take over most of the work taking care of the flour sack...after all, he didn't seem to do anything important, except hang out with his friends...that way, her grade could raise with his expertise...

Some partner he was...he got angry and demanded she do her fair share...

That's why she hated him...he didn't know what her life was like with two jobs and school...she was already through enough, and now he was giving her more grief with this dumb project...she didn't have any time for this!

Memories flooded back to her...her own voice echoing the earlier thoughts of Danny...

"...I got stuck with insensitive, uncaring, Danny FENTON!"

There were rocks involved somehow, but she had long forgotten what that was all about. She could only remember the boiling rage inside of her at that moment...trapped in the Ghost Zone with that stupid teen ghost after she lost the flour sack from some ghost named Skulker...

Why they worked together was beyond her knowledge...she was only concerned of getting away from Skulker...

But the last-minute partnership worked...together they were able to escape the Ghost Zone.

Before they left, however, they had a conversation...she was holding the beat-up flour sack in her hands when she was speaking...

"Well, at least it stopped crying...(she turned to him)...I guess I was a little harsh on you before. I never knew a ghost could be anything but trouble."

The words he said next seemed true. "That's because you never took time to know one."

He offered a truce. Because he helped her before, she decided to take it...

She couldn't remember what happened next...he overshadowed her and she didn't remember anything else after that...she only remembered waking up in her bed...

And Fenton was right there, holding her Nasty Ned costume.

How he got in, she didn't care...one thing was for sure...

She was outraged. Thinking that his knowledge of her as Nasty Ned was to be used as blackmail, she snatched it out of his hands.

"YOU BETTER NOT TELL ANYONE ABOUT THIS, YOU HEAR ME! YOU BETTER NOT!"

But he wasn't...in fact, it was strange, but he just came for the flour sack. Nothing else.

"Wow," he had said, eyeing the mascot costume. "I didn't know this was the kind of job you were talking about."

Valerie's voice echoed that of the ghost kid. "That's because you never took the time to know me."

Danny seemed to take the sentence to heart.

In fact, that was when the talking started...

He offered to take over her job as Nasty Ned one day to say he was sorry for acting the way he did during that project.

And even more defining moments...he started talking to her many times after the project was over...she had expected him, to like all others, stop talking because he was no longer involved with her...but for some reason, he did...

An odd feeling passed through her as the talking continued. Their conversations were a little clumsy, but for some reason, she was kind of liking it...

Then came that one day...the day that she started talking back...

While Danny was hiding from his enemy, Dash, he ran under the same table that she was under. She was avoiding Nathan, a geek who had a helpless crush on her...

Why he picked the same spot, she didn't know. She kind of assumed it was fate. But one thing was certain...they knew that they were going to be there for a while.

She looked at Danny. He had a smile on his face, his "thank you," because she had let him share her hiding spot.

She didn't sense it coming, but now there was this peculiar feeling coming over her...

...that feeling of acceptance...

The next thing that came out of her mouth sealed it.

"Want to - compare book reports?"

Fenton, after hearing that, smiled back at her.

So there were some things that they had in common...over the next few days, their friendship became more and more closer, and they seemed to be patching up their differences in the past.

And the weird thing was, that during those few days, she felt another strange feeling...

...attraction?...

She was starting to like him!

She wasn't sure it existed, but soon, she found that she was confessing this to herself. And to the unexpected surprise of Danny's two close friends, Tucker Foley and Sam Manson, she told them too.

They responded by foisting Nathan upon her.

She might have been upset there, but it still didn't change her thoughts about Danny.

Needing someone who was supportive of her was something she always wanted, rather than a blind attempt in the past where she had to impress others by flashing around material wealth.

This friendship started with one simple question about a book report...

Danny was the first one to recognize her for who she really was, and not for judging by outside appearance, ability, or materialism. He saw her as the Valerie Gray underneath all those masks she had to wear in order to get friends in the first place. She was glad he existed.

OK, so that was ONE positive aspect that was brought upon her when her life was changed. She had a new-found ability to see people from the inside instead of outside appearance.

But still, that couldn't change about what happened to the rest of her...

She still held that grudge...to HIM...that ghost kid...

That truce was a farce. She only trusted him during that crisis, not for the rest of the time...she had planned to let it last only until she got out of the Ghost Zone, but he disappeared after that, and she, therefore couldn't do a sneak attack.

Besides, why should she accept a truce? Look what he did to her!

He was responsible for destroying her house and for causing the termination of her dad's first job...

...All because of some ghost dog he explained later that he could not control...

"Yeah, right," she thought as she continued doing pull-ups.

He had caused her so much pain that a lot of her own time was spent on capturing or fighting ghosts. Her time was devoted to them.

She could take her frustration out on other ghosts that existed in Amity Park, such as that annoying blue one that incessantly mouthed out "Beware!", but she was waiting...watching...hoping to get that ghost kid at just the right time.

And it seemed like that time could be sometime soon.

Vlad Plasmius, her employer, had just given her some new equipment. New guns and weapons were now at her disposal, and her flying machine was now faster than ever. As she smiled about her new choice of weaponry, she was frowning on the inside upon the last thing that was done to her.

Keeping her ghost-fighting life a secret was something she was willing to take with her to the grave.

It didn't last long, however. Her cover was blown, mere months in her career, during the Pariah Dark crisis.

The Fenton suit was ready to be used to destroy the evil that surrounded the town. That ghost kid was there, as usual, in the superhero mode, trying to fight off the ghosts...

Once again, she didn't know whether she could trust him, but she had to help in the fight to save the town from going under control of the evil ghost king.

She assumed the truce was still in effect, at least in his head...

So when everyone was knocked out from the hand-slapping fest about who should enter the Fenton suit, she felt it was her duty to perform the half of her job to protect the town. She would enter the suit, and with her power and experience, she would save everyone.

Then HE came along. They had an argument about who would enter the suit. Each wanted to be the hero to save Amity Park, and neither was willing to back down.

It was about this time her father came into the room...

"You're not the boss of me!" she remembered saying.

"No," he said. He then looked at her father. She would never forget what happened next...

Caught off guard by her father's appearance, she looked at him as well. That gave that ghost kid the perfect opportunity...she had let her guard down...

He ripped off her mask...then he said, "But HE is!", pointing out the other person in the room.

Exposed...as a ghost hunter...in front of her father!

Whether or not he had reneged on his part of the deal during that time with Skulker, one thing was absolutely certain.

That truce was history, evil ghost king or not. She wanted to strangle him.

"You're dead, ghost kid!" she had said.

And if her father wasn't there to stop her, she most likely would killed him...

That stunt got her into a lot of trouble...her father was now keeping a constant watch over her ghost hunting, and she was grounded for months...

Now that her father was involved in her personal career, apart from her other career at the Nasty Burger, she could no longer find any sort of trust in that ghost kid...

His fate on her list was sealed as her number one enemy.

She wanted to know everything there was about him so she could use it against him. There were pictures of him around her room. Ectoplasmic samples in various jars were also stored, along with any vital information that she had about this ghost kid, such as close friend he had, if any...

Now tired of her pull-up work, she was done for the night. Before she turned the lights off, she stared into his face on a picture tacked upon her wall, the tack piercing through his forehead...

His face seemed to be taunting her, almost as if he was speaking through the picture, "You want me? Come and get me!"

"Someday, Danny Phantom," she thought. "I don't care whether it's me or anyone else that does it, but you ruined my life, and I'll make sure that yours is also ruined!"

That insignia, the silver D on his chest, was the last thing she saw before she turned out the light.

If only she knew the truths...

...the truth that the ghost kid she hated was really Danny Fenton, her best friend. It was due to an accident that occurred in his parents' lab...

...and there was another truth...that he was currently fighting a battle with a ghost, who had the same grudge to ruin his life...

...and Danny Phantom was losing that fight, terribly...

A/N: Is this all right? Send me some reviews, please.