Eternal Enemy

Chapter 1: A Ghost-Free Graduation

Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom or any of its characters.

"Say 'ectoplasm!'"

"Ectoplasm!" sang Samantha Manson and Tucker Foley.

"Wait, Dad, you promised—" Danny Fenton began, as the flashbulb went off in his face. Blinking spots from his vision, Danny shook his head violently, causing the tassel attached to his cap to smack him on the nose.

"You'd think you'd have learned by now nothing will stop your dad's enthusiasm for ghosts, not even when the whole theme of Casper High's graduation is "Ghost-Free,"" Sam pointed out, hands on hips and a gentle smirk on her face. "We have."

Danny glared at his girlfriend of the past three years. "You'd think. What I want to know is, who thought of these stupid tassels? They're nothing but a huge pain." He batted the tassel from his face, only to have momentum work its usual magic as it swung back and hit his nose again.

"They're tradition, Danny," Danny's older sister, Jazz, just back from her second year at Harvard, explained. "Caps and gowns like this date back to…oh, never mind," she said as all three nearly-graduates gave her the same 'excuse us while we nap until you're done with the lecture' expression. She changed what she had been going to say to: "It's just for a few hours. Then you don't have to wear one again until you graduate from college."

"College. Thanks, Jazz," Danny grumbled. Yet another reminder of the huge change that was coming at the end of the summer.

Jazz looked hurt. "Sorry, Danny. I was just trying to be helpful."

"I know." Danny gave her a rare smile and hug around the shoulders, though he had to bend down to do it. After spending most of his life as the proverbial runt of the pack, despite the acquisition of superpowered ghost abilities at age fourteen, he had abruptly, and finally, hit his growth spurt just a few months before. Now he felt as though he towered over everyone, including people like Jazz that he'd once had to look up to. Even Dash Baxter, football quarterback and reformed school bully, was several inches shorter than Danny now.

"I, for one, am looking forward to college," Sam said.

"I know, Sam," Danny replied, trying to hide any exasperation. He'd heard this multiple times over the past year.

"Me, too!" Tucker chimed in. "All those college babes ready to see the potential in a techno-geek. Highest-earning potential salary right out of the gate! And, former mayor of a town under my belt. I'll be running the school in no time."

"Sounds like he's been waiting for this moment," Jazz commented, folding her arms.

"He has," Danny and Sam said together, in the same deadpan tone. They laughed and shared a quick kiss, which Jazz and Tucker politely ignored.

"Awww, look, kids," Jack, the Fenton patriarch, exclaimed. He thrust the family digital camera under their noses. "Isn't this cute?"

"We'll remember this day for years to come," agreed Maddie Fenton, Jazz and Danny's mother. "Our little boy's all grown up."

All four young people crowded around to view the digital camera's screen. Sam and Tucker beamed in the picture, but because Danny had been speaking, his mouth was half-open and at an odd angle.

"Can we retake this?" asked Danny.

"No time for that, son! We have to get to the school! Your mother and I in charge of the Ghost Shield!" Jack cried. He sped off to fetch the family RV, otherwise known as the Fenton Assault Vehicle. He reappeared seconds later with a squeal of breaks, honking the horn.

"Come on, kids!" said Maddie, swinging herself into her usual shotgun position.

"Don't worry, Danny," whispered Jazz as they piled into the back of the RV. "We'll get them to take a better one after the ceremony. They'll have forgotten they took the first one if we all deny it."

"Thanks, Jazz," Danny whispered back. He settled back next to Sam and clipped on his seatbelt. He took a deep breath.

Maybe, just maybe, the graduation's "No-Ghost" theme would hold true, and the only ghost present would be his other half, Danny Phantom. Which he would not have to become in order to fight some intruding ghost, as he had at the Casper High prom. Half the decorations had been wrecked, and he'd gotten punch all over himself, before Skulker the ghost-hunting ghost was finally put safely in a Fenton Thermos and ferried back to the Ghost Zone. No one had been too upset; such incidents were par for the course in Amity Park. In fact, their teacher and prom committee head Mr. Lancer had told Danny privately the following day that he and the rest of the committee were happy that it had only been one ghost, and only half the decorations had been wrecked. They had been bracing themselves for a great deal worse. Everyone was just grateful they had hero Danny Phantom to keep them safe.

How would Danny Phantom fit into life at college? They would all know who he was; saving the world at fourteen tended to get people to remember your face. The days of hiding the connection between Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom were long over, and for the most part he didn't miss them. There were still times when he just wanted to blend in, though. Not enough to give up being Danny Phantom again, but sometimes he did wonder what life would be like if he hadn't had the accident that created Danny Phantom in the first place.

Sam said she knew; she'd been to an alternate universe where Danny's accident had never happened, and that life was downright boring. Danny believed her, but he still pondered at times, like now, about a normal life. Wondered what it would be like to be driving to a normal high school graduation, where the whole spectacle would not be surrounded by a giant green force field built to keep out ghosts.

Sam was right. Bo-ring.

They screeched to a halt outside the school.

"Still standing," Sam muttered. "For now."

"Hey," said Danny. "I just realized that after today it won't be my job to make sure it keeps standing anymore!" He grinned at the thought.

"Feels great, doesn't it?" she said. "We've been telling you graduation is a good thing!"

"I guess it is," Danny agreed.

"Ah, there you are, Daniel." Mr. Lancer spotted them and made his way over. "Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Fenton. Mr. Foley. Miss Manson. Jazz, how are you?" This last was with much more enthusiasm. Jazz had always been, and remained, his favorite student despite her relationship to her troublesome brother and parents.

"Just fine, Mr. Lancer," smiled Jazz. "Harvard's psychology program is second to none! They're even letting me get started on my graduate thesis study early."

"Glad to hear it. You can tell me more after the ceremony. For now," he frowned at Danny, "I need to steal your brother away for a few minutes."

"What for?" asked Jazz.

Lancer's eyebrows rose up towards his bald crown. "He didn't tell you? Daniel here has been voted class speaker."

"What?" Jazz, Maddie and Jack all yelled at once. Danny blushed brick red and shrank back.

"Yes, everyone wants to hear from the great Danny Phantom one more time before they leave Amity Park for good, or something like that," shrugged Lancer. "That's why I'm here. I need to hear the final draft of your speech before the ceremony starts. Come along, Daniel. Let's get this over with so you can line up with your friends."

Danny followed Lancer, glad of the excuse. Jazz had already rounded on Sam and Tucker. Her "why didn't he tell us?" could be clearly heard even from several yards away.

Leave it to Sam and Tucker to explain. They knew why he hadn't told. His parents would make a huge deal out of it, and probably embarrass him more than they were already planning to when he received his diploma. Jack, particularly, would try to coax him to make obscure references to food throughout. Danny simply hadn't had time to tell Jazz about being the speaker since picking her up from the airport earlier that day. But he'd apologize to her after the ceremony. She knew their parents were overenthusiastic about everything. She'd understand. He hoped.

He read his speech to Lancer; normal, boring graduation things about going out into the world. No mention of ghosts, as promised. His fellow students would be a little disappointed, but he did plan to change his hair and eye color at the end of it while keeping the rest of him normal. He'd been working on controlling his transformation for weeks, which had begun as a quest to try to keep from changing back to human when he was exhausted. He still hadn't managed that yet, but what he had discovered was somewhat useful for the times he needed to show off.

Lancer approved the speech's content and sent Danny out to line up with the rest of the graduates. Since he was the chosen speaker, Danny had to walk up front with the valedictorian instead of in alphabetical order. The good thing about this was that he had a great view of the stage so he could give Sam and Tucker thumbs-up as they went by. The bad part was that if he tripped over his own feet, which he had done in rehearsal, he'd have to go ghost and turn intangible in order to avoid getting trampled.

The strains of "Pomp and Circumstance" suddenly swelled around him. There was no more time for nerves. Clutching his speech notes hidden in the long sleeves of his light blue gown, Danny made his way slowly out onto the football field. Row upon row of chairs was set out, and the bleachers were packed. Over it all pulsed the green glow of the Fentons' Ghost Shield.

A loud horn from the Fenton RV told him his parents had predictably chosen to make as much noise as possible. Danny winced, but also hid a chuckle as he passed Sam's parents, who of course looked scandalized at the racket. Nothing could ever reconcile them to the Fenton family's larger-than-life way of doing everything, though they should have expected it at Danny's graduation.

Luckily, other Amity Park parents spotted their own kids filing onto the field and began to cheer and snap photos as well, so the Fentons were almost drowned out by all the other noise.

Danny took careful, deliberate steps all the way across the field to his own seat. He managed not to trip, though he did catch the edge of one foot on a chair leg. The chair wobbled, but Danny made just the toes of that foot intangible so that they passed right through the offending chair without any more problems. Danny grinned to himself. Even the inconvenience of having very large feet that you weren't used to yet could be reconciled with ghost-powers.

Mr. Lancer rose from his place with the rest of the faculty and made his way to the stage. "Welcome, parents, relatives, friends, and particularly our seniors, to the annual Casper High Graduation ceremony!" he began. "It is the time of year when we say goodbye to yet another group of young people and send them out to make a difference in the world."

Danny paid little attention to the rest of Lancer's welcome. It was the same, word-for-word, as it had been at Jazz's graduation two years previous. Instead he let his eyes wander past the stage.

For a moment his heart leapt, and he almost started out of his seat. Staring at him from the other side of the Ghost Shield were not only Skulker, but his old enemies the Box Ghost, the Lunch Lady, Spectra, Bertrand, and Ember. They were hovering all around, trying to find a way in to disrupt things, but the Ghost Shield was holding easily.

Danny reached for his watch and pressed a certain button—his direct link to Jazz just for this occasion. Jazz had a matching watch that would alert her, and through her, their parents, to leave the safety of the Ghost Shield and chase off any ghosts trying to enter the area around the football field.

Danny watched with envious eyes through the Ghost Shield as his parents and sister began the process of capturing all six ghosts inside Fenton Thermoses. Still, he wished it could be him, as he usually did. But he was the class speaker, and the class speaker didn't jump up and fly off in the middle of the ceremony. Particularly not when…

"…Daniel Fenton!" He snapped back when he heard someone speak his name into the microphone. Everyone in the stadium burst into applause, and Danny realized that the valedictorian had finished her speech and it was his turn.

"Ah!" he cried, leaping to his feet and almost falling again. He caught himself and remembered to take it slow the rest of the way. A ripple of laughter coursed across the sea of graduates and went still. Somehow it was still instinct to laugh first at clumsy Danny Fenton, despite the fact that everyone knew he was the hero Danny Phantom.

Danny took the podium and arranged his notes carefully. He glanced behind him, but Jack, Maddie and Jazz were still fighting. They'd miss his speech. Not a disappointment, though he was sorry Jazz wouldn't hear it. He resolved to give her a private reading back at the house, and turned back to the task at hand. He cleared his throat. Then Dash jumped to his feet and shouted, "You rock, Danny!"

The entire student body leapt up spontaneously and began to cheer. "Dan-ny! Dan-ny!"

Danny felt a smile grow on his face despite the fact that he was used to this kind of adulation, particularly when he left Amity Park for any reason. This was what he'd secretly dreamed about, all those years growing up as the school punching bag. For everyone to be cheering his name at graduation. Even though he usually turned invisible when a crowd of this size started cheering him, childhood dreams die hard. He raised his arms in a gesture of triumph, and the cheers swelled to a roar.

"All right, people, settle down!" Lancer ordered from behind Danny. The vice-principal had whipped out his infamous bullhorn. If they weren't careful, Lancer would start playing his special recording of James Joyce's "Ulysses," and no one wanted to hear more than a few sentences of it. Paragraphs had been known to cause day-long headaches in the entire student body when they failed to obey a command from Lancer's bullhorn the first time.

Slowly, grudgingly, the student body settled back into its seats. Danny waited until they all appeared ready, then tried again. "Ahem. Hello everyone. As most of you probably know, I'm Danny Fen…"

Danny trailed away. A hooded man had stood up from the spectators and was making his way down the main aisle of chairs. The crowd turned to see what had caught their speaker's attention. Mutters and whispers spread around, then died, as the speaker stood at the fifty yard line, still as a statue and without a word.

"Yes?" Danny finally demanded as the silence stretched.

The man laughed, and the hair on the back of Danny's neck prickled. Even after three years, he knew that silky self-satisfied chuckle.

"Why, Daniel, did you think I wouldn't come to see you move on to the next chapter of your life? Or perhaps move you on to the next life—permanently?" The man's voice rose with each word. He tossed aside his hooded cloak with a flourish, revealing a tall, elegant man with blue skin and black hair gelled to look like two bull horns.

Vlad Plasmius was back again.

Author's Note: A word from me as we get started. This is not my usual fandom, but the story has been kicking around in my head for...well, let's just say a long, long time. It's also mostly written at this point except for the last chapter so updates will be quite frequent. I wanted to make sure I was fully satisfied before I started offering it for public scrutiny.

I owe much thanks to Cywyllog for previewing, and to Firefury Amahira for our discussion about her fabulous Dan Plasmius-centered stories and for believing me when I swore I had the idea for this fic long before I read hers (though she probably doesn't remember me).

Hope you enjoy,

SamoaPhoenix