Changed Destinies

“The woes to come; the children yet unborn shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.”
-William Shakespeare, Richard II



Daniel moaned as what felt like a lance of pain burned through his skull. As he swam in the dark he felt his senses return, or at least he felt awareness of his body beyond his forehead. Unfortunately, he felt like there was a liquid fire flooding his veins. He heard a voice in the darkness, beyond the haze of pain.

Danny, a familiar feminine voice sliced through the agony.

Sam, the seventeen-year-old young man thought desperately. No wait. There’s something else about that voice. He forced himself to move, and received added gut-wrenching pain for his trouble. Never mind[, he said mentally. Leave me alone it hurts too much.

Danny! That voice shouted again, more anxious now. Shit. He heard footsteps, footsteps that receded off into the distance.

She’s going away, he thought to himself. Good, maybe she won’t come back. He sunk back into the suffocating dark, as the paralyzing pain raged on, as images dancing before his eyes. He remembered kissing Sam in his bed. Then Sam’s scream of surprise as powerful hands gripped him. He heard the sound of battle as Sam threw herself at their attackers; he thrashed and struggled against his enemy when he felt the sharp sting of a needle piercing the flesh of his neck.

The sound of footsteps once again broke through his reverie. He struggled to move again, only to feel every muscle in his body seemingly spasm at once as water smashed into his face. Breathing in water, his eyes flew open in a panic as he coughed and blew the water back out.

“Good,” a voice he now recognized instantly said. “You’re all right.” He looked up, his eyes widening in shock as they took in Dani, a concerned look on her face. He could tell it was Dani. Despite the seeming impossibility of it, she was his clone, and possessed the same black hair and blue eyes. She was also, for lack of a better term, quite striking, something which even now threw him for a loop because he couldn’t for the life of him figure out how he’d gotten her decidedly feminine looks from his DNA. She was at the tall end for a girl, the fifteen-year-old settling in at what would almost surely be her full height of around five feet eight inches, with a body that would’ve, if she’d been so inclined, guaranteed her a career as a model any day of the week. A career, if he knew the young woman he thought of as his cousin at all, she manifestly wasn’t inclined to take.

As it stood right now, however, she looked like she’d been going to the University of Hard Knocks. Her black hair was a tangled mess, her clothes ripped and torn in several places and they were stained almost black with sweat, dirt and grime, all of which contributed to the foul smell radiating off her. Capping it off, there was a bruise purpling on her left cheek.

Not that any of it mattered of course, as he shot to his feet and gathered her into his arms, crushing him against her in a desperate hug. “Dani, thank God. What are you doing here?” He looked around her, taking in the setting around him for the first time. They were in a forest, with slender trees in the bright yellow of their autumn coloration. The sun was setting, and the trees were casting their shadows on the green grass.

And, he thought. There’s absolutely no indication of what particular forest we’re actually in.

“Have any idea where we are?” He asked, disentangling from his cousin.

Danielle shook his head. “Not in the least. I only woke up a few hours ago myself.” Her eyes shifted from concerned to a tone of mingled fear and shock, as if she was remembering some fresh trauma.

“Well,” he said, shaking himself. “I’m going to head up, see if I can’t spot a city or town from the air.” He leapt up into the air, shouting, “I’m going ghost!” And willing himself into his ghost form, expecting to feel the buzz of energy as the two concentric rings of etheric energy slid over him. He expected to feel his legs disappear out from under him, and free himself at least partially from gravity’s restraint.

He felt nothing, only shock as nothing happened even as gravity cruelly yanked him back down. He landed on his feet and stumbled backwards in surprise.

“Shit,” Danielle cursed, a worried and pained look on her face. “Not you too.”

Danny gave her a surprised look, as shock, and fear, and an almost overwhelming urge to throw up everything he’d ever eaten stole upon him.

“Whoever grabbed us,” she said softly, putting her hand on his shoulder, “did something to us. My powers are gone, and so are yours.”

---------------------
Danny moved through the forested ridgeline, instinct that had literally been pounded into his very bones keeping the young man scanning his perimeter for threats even as the overwhelming temptation to turn inward gnawed at his psyche. Someone had reached into him and rewrote his very DNA, and in doing so torn out a piece of his soul that he’d finally come to terms with in the last year. He looked at Danni, and despite himself, the questions that always surrounded her came back. The most obvious question was, how the hell was she his clone. A clone was a genetic duplicate in every way, clones don’t become the opposite sex of their progenitor.

There’s always androgen insensitivity syndrome, he thought to herself, remembering something his mother said awhile back. If AIS was the problem, then outwardly he’d be female, albeit with male reproductive organs in place of ovaries.

“Before you ask it’s not AIS,” Danni said matter-of-faclty. “The thought occurred to me myself, so I went to a doctor I know who doesn’t ask any questions. As far as she could tell, I’m a fully female, complete with functioning reproductive organs and eggs, at least when I was examined.”

Danny nodded, not totally surprised. AIS had been a long shot anyway. “Then how-,” he was interrupted by a sudden aggressive yell coming from his right, and a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. Instinct took over, and a fist connected to a well-muscled arm flashed out, connecting with a satisfying meaty thwack. He turned to face his enemy, prepared to see a threat, probably a Guys in White agent, judging from his eyes. His eyes widened, even as aggression gave way to concern almost immediately.

Valerie Gray was standing in front of him, eyes blazing with an enraged deliriousness even as she charged again. Valerie stifled a curse even as he moved out of the way. He’d also noticed the welt on her chest where someone had injected her with something, something which, had at least included something from the same class of sedatives to which Valerie, his ex-girlfriend and still one of his closest friends, was violently allergic. As Valerie charged again, this time at something to her right that only she could see, heedless of the bruise, he revised his assessment.

Judging by her current symptoms, he thought, it’s the precise drug that she has the most problems with. Instead of getting a drowsy mass of flesh, muscle, and bone, they got a maniacal screaming Judo black belt. Then his heart sank as he realized what hadn’t happened. She hadn’t shifted into her Red Huntress mode, meaning they’d managed to restrain her long enough to do whatever they did to them that took her powers, and dump her out here.

Eh, at least I’m sure she gave them hell, he thought to himself before he shook himself and tried to think about ways to restrain his friend until she came down out of the ionosphere. None presented themselves. There is one option though, and, hoping it would work, and she wouldn’t attack him again, he shouted.

“Valerie!”

She turned to look at her mingled confusion and recognition in her eyes. “Pillsbury Dough Boy? Why do you sound so much like Danny?”

Oh, dear God, “Uh, yes, yes I am the Pillsbury Dough Boy,” he said aloud. “You need to come with me, your friends and family are worried about you.”

“Yes, sir, Mister Doughboy, sir.”

“Valerie, are you okay?”

She turned to her and said, “Tinker Belle? Why do you sound so much like Danni, and for some reason, AnnaSophia Robb.”

Danni turned to him, shocked and, it seemed visibly sick. What the fuck? She mouthed.

I’ll explain in a minute, he mouthed back. “Come on, Valerie,” he said soothingly, “let’s get you out of here.”

She nodded, that glazed look in her eyes as she moved forward. “Better stay close to me, there are Heartless about.”

“Of course there are.”

--------

Thirty minutes later, she was still babbling on and apparently thought they were inside Kingdom Hearts. She walked up to him, and angry look on his face.

“I don’t fucking believe this,” Danni growled. “One of the best ghost hunters on the planet has been reduced to a babbling mess who thinks I’m Tinker Belle and you’re the Pillsbury Doughboy. She’s tried to poke you in the belly three times to get you to make that laugh. This is grotesque.”

“I know, but the sedative will clear from her system eventually,” he said, “and hopefully soon because when she’s having an idiosyncratic drug reaction her hallucinations can shift rapidly and at any time. Sure, she thinks we’re advertising and Disney characters now, but any second she could see us as demons and attack us.” Though it does say something good about her character that she’ll fight monsters on instinct instead of run away from them, he decided. He looked at her friend though, and sighed, reality returning. The truth is, she didn’t deserve to have her powers stripped from her, and to be reduced to this undignified mess in front of him. The latter would wear off soon enough, the former…”

He shook his head. Think about all this later, right now, we need to get out of this forest, he looked at the sun dipping below the horizon, causing the sky to blaze a dark orange-red even as the first stars began to peak out, or at least find food and shelter for the night.

An agonized groan from ahead of him took him by surprise, and he looked to see Valerie moaning as she kneeled on the ground. Finally, the tall, dark-skinned young woman looked up at him, a pained expression on her face.

“Danny, did I call you the Pillsbury Dough Boy?”

He nodded. “Yes, you did.”

She closed her eyes. “Ah. On a more important note, why are me, Danni, and you out in the forest in the middle of nowhere? We’re not having some sort of bizarre, partially incestuous orgy are we? Then her eyes widened. “Why can’t I access my powers?”

“I think the Guys in White-,”

“Guys,” Danielle’s voice snapped. “I think we’ve found shelter.”

He turned to view, sitting amidst an overgrown patch of forest, a sizable two-story house. There were four front windows, and they were all boarded up. He walked up to the house and read the sign taped out front, indicating the place had been foreclosed on.

Well, he thought to himself, it’s breaking and entering, but we can pay the bank for the damages later, right now we need to find at least shelter. He moved into position, preparing to batter down the door.

“Wait, Danny,” Valerie called from behind her. “I still have that gift card you gave me for my birthday.” She walked up to the door, noticeably unsteady on her feet, she leaned it against the door and wedged the card inside it. The lock disengaged with an audible pop and she pushed the door open. Danny looked inside and he gasped. The living room had shag carpeting and there was a large sofa across from the fireplace, with firewood still in the bin.

----------

Danielle Fenton sat in the living room, a crackling fire casting it’s orange light and warmth over her, even as she dug beans and meat out of a can of chili with only her fingers. She thought about what she’d found during her perusal of the house. So far, she’d discovered that they were in New Mexico, specifically in the Lincoln National Forest, which was good, as they were still in the United States, and had at least a vague idea where they could find civilization. She’d also discovered that they’d taken everything portable, leaving most of the furniture when the previous owner’s had up and abandoned the place. Almost everything, they’d left some canned goods in the kitchen, and the wood which was lighting up the fireplace.

She looked over at her friends. Valerie Gray was a dark-skinned woman about her height, with short black hair that tended towards being curly, and, surprisingly for someone who didn’t have red hair, green eyes. She was also quite strikingly attractive, which is why Valerie, if what Danny had told her was true, had spent a brief time as Danny’s girlfriend. Unfortunately, what had ended their relationship was her misguided enmity with Danny’s now defunct alter ego, and the fact that even during their relationship he’d been in love with his current girlfriend Sam.

Danny had sprouted into quite a tall young man, of course, fair-skinned and coming in at a full six feet, with a body well-honed from what could only be considered three years of war since he was fourteen. He noticed, unlike last time, that his black hair now had a noticeable streak of white running through it. Valerie, she noted, as she sat on the sofa, had seemed to recover quite nicely from at least one of the indignities she’d endured, she was lucid, though bone tired. She had no doubt that the chili she’d eaten would help replenish her strength, though.

Danny stood up abruptly. “I’m going to make another sweep through the house, see if we’ve missed anything important.”

“Okay,” Danielle said, nodding in agreement. Valerie didn’t say anything she simply nodded. As Danny walked up the stairs, she walked over and took Danny’s seat. She turned to face her, a worn smile on her face, and Danni’s heart abruptly began to burn. Valerie was closer to her than even Danny. And to have her go through this, to have them both go through this…

“How are you holding up?” she said aloud, her voice cracking ever so slightly.

Valerie stared off into the fireplace for a bit, as if searching for answers in the crackling orange light. Finally after a moment she said, her voice tired and ragged, “It’s…hard. I felt like I was able to do some good in this world, and now,” she shook her head. “What about you?” She asked

She leaned back in her seat, a seething ball of emotion inside her. What a question, she thought. Her relationship with her powers had been something altogether different. “You have to understand, unlike you I didn’t have an ordinary life when I got these powers. Instead they were part of me, have been part of me literally as long as I’ve been alive, which has only actually been three years. I feel like something ripped my arm off, or tore out a piece of my soul.” She started blinking back tears, “I mean, I squelched it long enough to get us out of this but,” and she squeezed her eyes shut, the tears flowing freely now. “Oh, God,” and she pitched forward, putting her head in her hands as her body was wracked with wheezing sobs. She abruptly felt warm arms wrap around her and she looked up to find herself being pulled into Valerie’s embrace.

“It’s okay,” Valerie said. “You’ll get through this, I know it.”

“I know, it’s just,” she and, she began to blink back tears. “I wish I had more to fall back on than maturity and social skills that were literally programmed into my brain as my growth was being accelerated.”

“Hey,” Valerie said, tilting her chin up. “No matter what Vlad shoved into your brain, you’ve made it your own. You’re surprisingly mature for a fifteen-year-old.”

She gave a derisive laugh. “Technically I fall into this biological gray area. Physically, you and are adults if you just argue biology, and I could just as easily be twenty if I wanted to. I believe it was Danny’s current girlfriend who arbitrarily decided I was twelve at the time, which was a nice middle ground choice. Not one I necessarily feel I have to measure my legal age out from though, especially since I need to come up with a permanent identity for myself, particularly now.” I’m chronologically three for God’s sake, as long as it’s a realistic choice, it doesn’t really matter at this point

“All right, what age do you want to be then?”

“Lately, I’ve decided I want to be seventeen,” she said. Not that I haven’t presented myself as twenty or twenty-one, strictly to facilitate my ghost-hunting and crime fighting duties of course, but they don’t really need to know that.

“Wait, why not if you had the choice, make yourself eighteen, get out of the ‘minor’ category altogether?” Valerie asked.

“Somehow I didn’t think you’d like the idea of me suddenly being older than you, so in the interest of putting you and Danny at ease-,”

Valerie waved off any further comments.

Danielle sighed. The truth is, her days as a nomadic half-ghost crime fighter had been numbered even before their unknown enemy, presumably the Guys in White, had stolen their powers. She’d had quite the fan following on the blogosphere herself, like Danny and Valerie, and it had only been a matter of time before she couldn’t change identities and bluff her way wherever she was needed. But I had intended to only give up the nomadic part of my life, possibly just settling down in, oddly enough Albuquerque or something. Or more likely going to Amity Park. Now though, she was going to half to adjust to life without any powers to call on. Granted, I didn’t use my powers when I wasn’t pursuing some mission but still. She smiled, as she realized the other thing she had. She’d spent every moment of her free time, which was surprisingly a lot, in public libraries, both among the stacks and on the internet, soaking up information and skills like a sponge, and that had to count for something. I’ve managed to teach myself calculus, I think I’ll be fine.

“Guys!” Danny’s call interrupted her musings. From the sound of it, he’d called from the general direction and the kitchen, and judging from its pitch, probably the basement. “We missed a very big something!”

The two women looked at each other, surprise mirrored in each other’s faces as they got up and walked into the kitchen.

“What did you find, Da-?” She heard Valerie begin only to stop as he revealed the opened out space of wall. Danielle’s eyes widened. Inside was a room, about as big as the original basement. Danielle strode forward and her jaw dropped. In front of the right wall, were two rows of three metal shelves, loaded down with dried foodstuffs, canned goods, bottles of water, in short everything needed to survive a natural disaster. On the left side however, was a rack of rifles, M-16s interspersed with FW-4 EctoRifles. The mass-produced product of FentonWorks, Danny’s own family company, which had undergone a metamorphosis after the asteroid crisis, as the technology of Vlad’s personal design and the now defunct Axion Labs was transferred to their control by the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, with the research data dispersed to other companies. Danielle hadn’t asked what precisely had happened, but evidently at least one of them had figured out that between them, they had managed to develop technology that, if not applied strictly to ghost hunting would advance human technology by five hundred years. That they had technology capable of improving the quality of life, relieving suffering, and give mankind easy access to the resources of their own solar system, and so they’d done it.

The technological revolution that FentonWorks and other companies had set into motion was by no means complete, but even now, so much had changed. Everywhere factories on Earth were shutting down as companies throughout the world shifted their manufacturing capabilities into orbit. Many types of mines were being shut down, the miners being retrained and sent to work mines on Mars and in the asteroid belt, and the immense amounts of money and resources starting to flood was poised to dramatically increase the pace of development in the former Third World.

But they also had quite a substantial market in the people who wanted to protect their friends and family from the more hostile denizens of the Ghost Zone, which apparently the people who’d lived here and presumably built the extra chamber in their basement were.

“What are you thinking?” She heard Valerie ask. “Survivalists?”

“Survivalists wouldn’t abandon all their survival equipment.” Danny responded, and she turned to see him going through the boxes that lined the floor of the foodstuffs shelves. “In particular their weapons.”

“Maybe they had an outbreak of common sense?” Danielle put in, as she turned to watch Danny going through a box on the floor.

“These are boxes of clothes,” Danny said. “Are these in your size?”

She looked down and saw that Danny had found a box of women’s clothing. There were shirts, jeans, underwear, and bras, and all of them it seemed would fit her.

“Oh, look,” Danny said, reaching into another box. “Towels, body wash, shampoo and conditioner.”

She looked up into everyone’s expectant gazes. She sighed. “You want me to take a shower don’t you?”

Danny and Valerie both nodded.

She took an exploratory sniff of her armpit, and cringed. “Not that I didn’t want to do that anyway.”

Danielle threw another log onto the fireplace as she stood her watch in the living room, one of the M-16s from the cache slung over her back. The sun had finally dipped below the horizon right when an exhausted Danny and Valerie had decided to turn in, falling asleep in front of the sofa in two sleeping bags they’d found in the cache. She looked at the clock they’d found in the living room, which was perched on the coffee table, it read 8:00.

She sighed as she thought about the rifle on her back. Proficiency with firearms was, for whatever reason, one of the skills Vlad had programmed her with during her abnormal… “gestation period.” Probably because that bastard wanted me to be ready for anything as one of his minions. She shook his head, she’d often wondered if Vlad had been planning to make an attempt to take over the world even while he’d been running his experiments perhaps even that was part of his plans all along, even when he was focused on just possessing Danny and his mother. She’d been a means to an end, just as all the clones of Danny that had died , dozens of them, as part of his last-ditch to “right the wrong” Madeline did by marrying Jack Fenton and having her son and daughter with him and not Vlad. And when even that ditch had fallen

She shook her head, got up from where she was sitting in front of the fire, and moved to the window. As she walked softly out of respect for her companions, a flash of white light suddenly flashed through the open window. Danielle stopped, wincing at the painfully bright light, as it seemed to follow her even through her eyelids. Abruptly the light disappeared and she opened her eyes, blinking back the black and gold spots that swam in her vision.

She stood there as though rooted to the spot, her mind a blank as she tried to process what she’d just seen. She blinked rapidly as she cleared her head and dove for the window, three years of hard won instinct taking over as she pressed herself to the side of the window and tilted her head around the corner, pushing the curtain aside to look out. She peered into the forest, eyes and ears straining to pick up anything untoward out there among the trees, the bush, and the fallen leaves. There was no unusually bright light source in front of the window, nor any glow or reflection that would indicate one behind the house. There was nothing to be seen out there in the pitch night, save for the slight swaying of the trees.

As she stood there, the all too familiar combination of senses that she associated with her flight-or-fight response began to take over. She could hear her blood pumping in her ears, all the tiredness that had been beginning to take root was washed away, and the emotional edginess that allowed her to react on the slightest sound or shape out of the corner of her eye began take hold It could’ve been a helicopter, she thought to herself, only to think an instant later, No, that’s crazy I would’ve heard a helicopter’s blades. A FentonWorks or Boeing model speeder? No, those have a distinctive low-level roar I would’ve heard that too. It could be a meteor. She heard a moaning sound from behind her, and she steeled herself against the overwhelming urge to turn around.

“Danielle,” Danny said, voice rough with tiredness. “Wha-?”

“There was this weird bright flash of light out the window,” Danielle said. “I’m not sure what it was, but I think we should go outside and take a look just to be sure.”

Five minutes later, the three of them were moving through the forest, the leaves and undergrowth dampening their footfalls, combat flashlights illuminating the black night. Danielle had taken point, moving out front of them, eyes darting, her hand on her trigger. She looked back through the trees towards the house. They were moving in a wide circle around their hideout, hoping to catch anyone aiming to take them by surprise. If they didn’t see anyone within site of the house, they were go back in and Danny and Valerie were to take the watch so she could get some sleep.

“I don’t know guys,” Valerie said. “It was probably just a bolide, they are rather bright.”

Danielle sighed, the thought had occurred to her, but even if they didn’t find anything and defaulted to the meteor explanation, it would still have been a good idea.

The sound of a rustling in the bush stopped her musings and her hand flew up to stop her friends. They immediately raised their weapons, lights shining into the underbrush as they swept the area around them. She stood there listening, ears straining for another sound. After a moment, sighed and turned to look at Danny.

“Do you hear-?” She began, the words dying in her throat as she saw the hooded and cloaked shape looming over Danny, a two-handed weapon being raised into position by mottled grey hands, poised to slice down on Danny’s shoulder. “Behind you!” She shouted right when the blade came slicing through the air. Time seemed to slow in front of her as several things happened at once. Danny whipped himself out of the way of the blade causing it to bury itself in the ground. It’s wielder wrenched it free as Valerie’s shot took it in the torso. It stumbled, staggering back as Danielle pulled her trigger twice, shooting their attacker twice in the chest and knocking him to the ground.

“What,” a heavily breathing Danny managed to bite out, his rifle trained on the creature on the ground, “the-hell-?” He circled around to the front, and approached the hooded shape on the ground cautiously and put the barrel of his rifle in the hood and poked it up curiously. Danny and Valerie both shouted in surprise and stumbled back away from the body, in the process allowing her a clear view of it.

She stepped back in surprise, shock, surprise, and fear flooding him. The figure was humanoid, but it had an oddly shaped head, somewhat reminiscent of the classic “gray” alien, but roughly as large and as thick as that of a human being. She looked down at her bullet wounds, and saw a shockingly violet shade of blood leaking out from the wounds in its torso.

“Did we just shoot-?”

“It sure as hell looks that way.”

They were still standing there trying to process the ramifications of all this when they heard a low-level roar coming in from the northwest. As it got louder, Danielle looked up, mingled hope and fear coming through it. That’s probably a Speeder, she thought to herself. Though who’s flying it?. A minute later, she saw the unmistakable shape of a FentonWorks speeder touch down on the surface. She also saw the shape of the green plasma burst surrounding a stylized F that marked a FentonWorks model speeder. Not that that means the people onboard would be friendly like it used to, she thought, Danny’s family company does mass produce them after all now.

Danny and Valerie had apparently realized the same thing as they were moving through the underbrush, and up into cover behind two large oak trees, shaking herself out of her stupor she moved to a tree next to Valerie, her gun leveled on the fifty ton bulk of the Speeder. The small ship in front of her, illuminated by its own running lights, was twenty-eight feet long and nine and a half feet tall. Unlike it’s predecessor, it was more aerodynamic, with nine foot long stub wings on either side, a welcome change from what was essentially the flying fuel tank that had attacked Vlad’s Colorado base.

The abrupt whirring moan of hydraulics rang out and the large starboard side door began to open and two fair-skinned young women stepped out. One, was a young, dark-haired woman with violet eyes and roughly her height and build. The other was a couple inches taller than her with long-flowing red hair and green eyes. She recognized the woman with the dark-hair instantly.

She opened her mouth only to here Danny’s voice snap over her, “Flash!”

Both women’s eyes lit up in recognition and Sam shouted back what was apparently the countersign, “Thunder!”

Danny and Valerie bounded out from cover, relief on their faces and Danny closed with Sam and kissed her for a long moment.

“Danny, thank God,” Sam said after they came up from the kiss, her eyes flying to the streak of white hair on his head, as if she’d seen it before. “The Guys in White smashed through your bedroom door and-,”

“They did something to our powers,” Danny said, “but there’ll be time to worry about that later.” He beckoned them back into the forest. “Come on”.