GHOST PROTOCOL {JLU/DP}

• WALLS •

Dani was furious.

Why wouldn't she be?

Her father's friends had withheld the very important information that her father was dead.

Dani wasn't furious, she was seething!

They were supposed to be her family, her friends!

Dani grit her teeth tightly as she flew after Tucker. "Why didn't you tell me?" She demands. "If something happened to Danny all my letters were supposed to go to you!"

"I n-ev-er o-pened th-em." Tucker croaked out. She deserved his voice, not a notepad.

She frowned in confusion and concern. "Tucker, what happened to your voice?"

"I-I s-top-ped t-alk-ing af-ter Dan-ny died. Th-is i-s th-e fi-rst ti-me I-ve spo-ken s-ince h-e d-ied..."

A lump formed in Dani's throat, hurt shining in her eyes.

"I hate to do this, but what are you talking about?" Jack Fenton asked hesitantly.

Dani clenched her jaw before looking down at the two people under her arms, a vague memory of seeing them before coming to mind, comparing their emancipated forms to the overpowering ones from before, she gave a grin twisted with pain, eyes shining with hurt, turning it to a grimace. "Hi, Mr. Fenton-- I'm Dani Phantom, with an 'i'-- or in other words, your technical granddaughter."

He went slack in shock. "W-what?"

Maddie's breath had caught from her place limp under Dani's arm, only able to shift after six months of nothing but slight shifts in the bed as exercise.

Tucker pursed his lips. He knew her true lineage as he had been the one to figure it out.

Apparently, he told Sam. "Vlad is a mad man. He blames you for the accident twenty years ago. His goals were to kill you, marry Maddie and have Danny as his perfect son-- in that order. It didn't exactly work out that way, considering that Danny repeatedly beat his ass into the ground until he was a pulp," Sam comments dryly, "So, he had to find a new solution. His answer: cloning. Most attempts destabilized-- until Dani over here. You can set them down, we'll take it from here." She says to Dani before turning her attention back to the Fentons, Maddie leaning heavily on Jack. "We later found out that Dani was so stable because Vlad added his and Dr. Fenton's DNA to the human side and used Danny to stabilize the Ghost half." Sam says easily.

"'Ghost half'?" Maddie croaks out.

Dani grit her teeth and de-transformed, revealing her human half. She had the same hair as her Ghost half, though it be obviously dyed as she hadn't touched up her roots in a couple weeks, and she wore round, gold frames with ecto-green lenses with black skinny jeans, a black, cropped Metallica tee and black converse, a neon green belt wrapped around her waist, an outfit that looked quite similar to Sam's, only her shirt was a cropped turtleneck tank, she wore a cropped leather jacket with it and her belt was black, her only color coming from her Ghost hunting gear and her bright green lipstick.

Maddie and Jack couldn't even gasp they were so shocked, but Maddie seemed to be able to find her footing, because she took on her own stumbling weight and made the short way over to Dani.

Tears gathered in Maddie's eyes.

Dani stared at her in frozen, tense horror, worry shining across her expression, her eyes displaying how broken she was-- from Vlad's betrayal, Danny's death-- and showing exactly what would happen if Maddie took this badly-- if either took it badly.

Maddie placed a hand on her face, cupping it. A tearful smile stretched across her face. "My little grandbaby. I'm going to spoil you rotten!"