Changed Destinies

"You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;

I will show you fear in a handful of dust."

T.S. Elliot, The Waste Land

Valerie Gray sighed as she sat at the heavy wooden desk in one of FentonWorks' guest rooms. It had been after one when they'd finally gotten back to Amity Park. Her father, of course, had tried to insist that she stay at home with him tonight, citing the advantages of not being alone, and the gaping hole where the front door of her apartment had been. Her eyelids wanted to close as though they were being dragged down by lead weights, and she wanted to oblige them, but every time she closed her eyes, the images returned, of bullets exploding into a gray-skinned creature's chest and torso. Of the glare in its eye as its blade sliced through the empty air where Danny's arm had been even a heartbeat before. Her eyes would fly open as shock bolted through her. She got up and walked over to the window, half-expecting to see a squad of gray skinned aliens massing across the street to storm the house, after the Guys in White got through with them.

She shook her head, There's nothing out there, and now that the GIW's stolen our powers, I doubt they'll be paying attention to us again anytime soon. Now, all we have to do is figure who those aliens are, what they want, and what their connection is to all this.

If there is a connection, she thought to herself. She shook her head in annoyance. This is ridiculous, she thought. I am going to turn this lamp off, get in that bed, and get some goddamn sleep. She clicked the desk lamp off and, her bed still slightly illuminated by the street lights filtering through the window, found her way to the roughly square-shaped form in the dark. She froze as the unmistakable sound of a car driving up the road, briefly casting the room in the white light from the headlights. She walked over to the window and looked down, and her eyes widened in surprise and concern as she saw a black Ford Taurus pulled up in front of the house. The light was on inside, and she was even more surprised to see what she thought was Paulina and Starr inside.

What are those two doing here at this time of night? She thought to herself. Paulina she'd had no real contact with since that unfortunate incident with that giant ghost dog what seemed to be a lifetime ago, since she'd been ostracized from Casper High's A-list, for no longer meeting the standards she now realized as ridiculous.

High school, she thought to herself. I'm glad I got emancipated, got my GED and got out of that failing shithole when I had the chance. She remembered idly bringing up to Jazz her problems with them, and getting advice, which had turned into a lecture, which (in true Jasmine Fenton fashion) had firmly placed her on the "Adolescence is artificial" faction in developmental psychology and cultural anthropology. The most that place has done for me, was cause me and my friends nothing but pain, by encouraging young men and women who not even a hundred years ago would've been considered adults in all but name to childishly discriminate against their peers for the most ridiculous of reasons, like lack of money, too much money, and getting slobbered on by a giant ghost dog. She sighed, a palpable sense of shame at her previous behavior pattern of, as her dad described it, "taking her grudges, holding onto them until they died, and then having them stuffed and mounted." The sad part is, not counting special classes, the system as a whole isn't even giving an education which makes the skewed emotional development worth it anymore. Which meant that one of the people who had once genuinely been one of her two best friends had cast her off, and her other best friend only maintained contact with her if she wasn't going to be seen by anyone else, and it had all been for basically nothing.

Though from what I've heard they've been trying to turn over a new leaf since the Asteroid Crisis, so maybe there's hope, as she moved towards the door to tell Danny and Sam that they had sudden visitors.

As she walked out the door she saw Paulina and Starr talking furtively, but her pace increased as she saw in how wide their eyes were, and how much their hands were shaking, that they were scared. No, she thought as she closed on the car. No, not scared, honestly, sincerely terrified. As she walked towards the car Starr saw her and put her hand on Paulina's shoulder, gesturing in her direction before she opened her passenger side door and the two of them got out of the car and walked towards her.

"What are you-," she began only to grunt in pain as Starr ran up to her at full speed and collided with her before enveloping her in a giant bear hug.

"What's wrong, Starr?" Valerie asked, instinctively returning her oldest friend's desperate hug, her annoyance and disappointment washed away in that moment.

"We saw something," she began. And like a dam breaking she started going on in a rush about how they'd seen large creatures boarding some sort of ship in front of Paulina's house. Her eyes widened and she grabbed her shoulders and shoved her away from her.

"AndIwassoscaedand-,"

"Starr, Starr! Starr Corner! Slow down, what did these creatures look like? Were they, say about the size and build of adult humans, but with a head the rough shape of the aliens we see everywhere in paranormal documentaries, but with skin a darker shade of grey?"

Starr nodded, with a vigorousness born of anxiety and fear. "Yes. You've seen them before, Val?"

"Yes, I have. I need to get you two inside."

-------------

They stepped inside to see Danny, Sam, and Jazz waiting at the bottom of the stairs. All three of them had their arms crossed in front of them. Sam however, was the only one actively glaring and she was doing that at Paulina. The rest of them were staring at their two new guests with a mixture of surprise and annoyance.

"What is it, Paulina?" Danny asked, cutting straight to the point, his voice rough with exasperation and tiredness, no doubt at getting interrupted from getting any sleep for what seemed to be the umpteenth time tonight. Valerie heard the other woman sigh before she began to pace slightly back and forth on the floor.

"Tonight," Paulina began with a sigh. "Starr woke me up…"

Valerie stood there, stunned into silence along with the rest of them, even Sam had dropped her glare for a look of shock. If what Paulina was saying was true, then these aliens had a more widespread presence on Earth than they thought. And her making up a story doesn't make any real amount of sense, Valerie thought to herself. Why would she do that, and make up aliens that sound like they were exact matches for the one we killed in New Mexico? She felt a shiver crawl up her spine. Whatever they are, there's more of them than we realized.

"Do you have proof of this?"

Paulina nodded, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a jewel case with a DVD in it. "I recorded the whole thing as proof that this happened. Take it if you want to test it to prove I didn't fabricate this."

"No need," Danny said solemnly. "I believe you. Turn the TV on and pop it in the blu-ray player, let's see what we're dealing with here."

Paulina Ortega stared at the video on Danny's television, watching with the rest of them as the…creatures which she could only describe as aliens, silently filed into the glowing interior of their ship before gently lifting off into the night with that same low hum she'd heard earlier that night. Then the recording ended, the screen going abruptly blank before switching to the generic selection menu the DVD burner on her computer had added.

An annoyed sigh caught his attention and she whirled around to see Danny, his arms crossed in front of his chest, his eyes narrowed as he stared at the screen. "Shit," he growled roughly.

From his left, his sister said, her face a mixture of anger and thoughtfulness as she pondered what they'd seen. "They do seem to be members of the same species we saw in-," Jazz said calmly. Her eyes widened as if she suddenly remembered something and she abruptly glanced over at her and Starr before she quickly amended whatever she had been about to say with, "we came across."

Paulina glared as white-hot anger and annoyance flooded her and before she could stop herself, she found herself blurting out, "Hey! I'm not stupid, so please don't act like I am by editing out information."

Jazz glared at her before Danny put his hand on her shoulder, causing her to turn and look at him. "It's all right, Jazz. Tell her what she needs to know."

Jazz, still giving Paulina an irritated look gave a resigned sigh of her own before she resumed talking. "Earlier this evening," she remarked, her voice still tinged with annoyance. "Danny, Valerie, and a cousin of ours, fought and killed an alien that attacked him in a forest without provocation. When Sam and I got there, we retrieved the body and took it to FentonWorks Orbital, so our mother could begin studying it." She paused as she clamped her hand over her mouth to cover up a yawn. "She finished, but since it was getting close to midnight, she's going to present on it tomorrow."

Paulina nodded before turning to look at the clock. It is awfully late, she thought to herself, stifling the urge to yawn herself, but still, she doubted she would be able to sleep, not after what she'd seen, and not after what Jazz had told her. She felt a cold feeling forming in the pit of her stomach, as she abruptly realized just how close she and her friend had come to death. If they had no compunction about attacking Danny in a forest for no reason, then they would've had no problems with killing us both. Starr was probably right when they said that they probably didn't want to attract attention by killing us. One thing though…

"How'd you manage to kill one of them?"

He saw a visibly haunted look on his face. "We shot it."

Shot it? A vision of Danny in hunter's camouflage clothing and face paint occurred to her. "You were out hunting I take it?"

The haunted look on Danny's face rapidly became one of pain. "Not exactly."

She shot Starr a puzzled look. Not exactly? What does that mean? There's something here no one's telling me. She stifled her annoyance: the way she'd treated them all over the years entitled them to not share everything with her.

More to the point, "Can we be there, when the information is presented?" Paulina asked aloud.

"Why on Earth should we allow that, after all you've done?" Sam blurted suddenly, stepping close to her and glaring straight into her eyes. "You've been shitty to all of us for years. You dated Danny just to make me jealous when we weren't even dating then. Why do any of us owe you anything?"

Paulina flinched under Sam's glare, her shame and self-disgust over her actions coming to the surface, along with a palpable sense of anger. Everything the other woman had just laid into her about was absolutely correct. She felt especially ashamed for that little fiasco, particularly the dragon part. Which wouldn't have happened if I hadn't decided to date Danny just to hurt Sam…for what? Because she prefers dark clothing, because her interests run to what was formerly considered the paranormal? If even half the rumors swirling around them since the Miracle in Antarctica are true, I owe her, I owe them all my life and the life of my family, a dozen or more times over. But I'm not going to let her shame into backing out of this.

"You're right, Sam," she said finally, looking her straight in the eye. "I have treated you horribly." She looked over the group assembled in the Fentons' living room. "I've treated you all horribly, and you have every right to be angry at me. But do not expect me to walk away from this because of it."

"Why not?" Danny said suddenly, walking towards her and Sam, giving her a curious look. "You never struck me as being interested enough in this sort of work to pursue this full time."

"That was before 'this sort of work' used my front yard as a docking area," Paulina half-growled, her ire rising. "If they're as aggressive as you suggest they are, then they only spared us because they didn't want to draw attention to that. I can't ignore a possible threat like that, I couldn't ignore it when I joined your attack on Ember and Youngblood to rescue my parents and I can't ignore it now." She turned back to Sam, giving her a sharp glare, "If you really don't want me here, I'll understand, and I'll leave. But I'll try to find out who these creatures are and what they're doing here, on my own. I know how to handle a gun, and I like to think of myself as smart. I have a chance, a slim one of actually doing something to help with this, even if I get killed in the process. But I'd rather work with, work for, someone who might actually know what he's doing. I'll do what I have to, I'll take whatever orders you give me, you say 'jump' I'll say 'how high.'" Unbidden the memory of her actions towards him came to the fore, and she closed her eyes, feeling tears begin to back up. "And perhaps, perhaps, in doing so I can do something to make up for all the pain and misery I've inflicted on you both."

"Same goes for me," She heard Starr declare a second later, causing her to shoot her a surprised look, even though she knew her participation would've went without saying. "Where she goes, I go."

Utter silence descended upon the room and she opened her eyes back up to see the others staring at her, their eyes wide, utter shock on their faces. She wasn't sure however, if it was just because she was tired or that it was actually there, but she was fairly certain she saw a trace of pride in her friends green eyes. She turned to look at Danny staring at an equally wide-eyed Sam, who nodded softly. Danny nodded back before turning to face her again.

"Well," Danny said finally after giving her an appraising stare, "I think…under the circumstances we could certainly use your help."

Paulina nodded relieved . "Thank you."

Danny nodded again. "Yes, well," he looked at the clock on his cable box, which read 2:00 in stark white numbers. "We're all tired, and we should get some rest. It's late. You two are welcome to stay here until…well, later this morning. We still have a couple of guest rooms available at the far end of the upstairs hallway, one of them being my former bedroom."

Paulina nodded, her eyes suddenly feeling like they were being held down by lead weights again. "Thank you, Danny."

"Don't mention it," Danny responded matter-of-factly, "we do have to get some rest before we all trek up to FentonWorks Orbital tomorrow. So, please, let's all go to bed."

As she approached the final two doors facing each other at the other end of the hall, she could've sworn she heard one of the bedroom doors close softly.

Danielle Fenton nodded. Sound in the living room carried exceptionally well up here, and she'd heard every word that had been exchanged downstairs. This "Paulina Ortega" had been listed as a possible candidate for her biological mother by Sam, and so when Valerie had announced she and her friend had shown up, she'd opted to stay behind while everyone else went downstairs to meet her. She'd wanted to listen in, to gain the measure of this person who may have contributed half of her DNA to her, without complicating things with her presence. She had smirked derisively at how Danny had managed to neatly sidestep the issue of her existence and just where and how they found the alien in the footage Paulina had apparently shown her. Telling Jazz to explain to Paulina "what she needed to know" was a discreet way of telling her to remove any references to his erstwhile identity of Danny Phantom, and the thorny matter of who she was. At least until a more appropriate time, when she'd earned their trust.

She sounds to me like a strong, independent young woman, proud yet determined to become a better person through all this; the day when she can be trusted with the full truth of all this will come soon enough. She sighed, a distinct burning sensation. If she does turn out to be my biological mother, she deserves to know what Vlad did to her along with Danny, taking their DNA and making a whole new person out of it, myself, without either of their knowledge or consent.

She walked over to her bed as softly as possible to reduce any possible noise before sliding into the bed. "Good night, Paulina Ortega." She said as she closed her eyes. "Whether you're my mother or not, I'll be honored to meet you tomorrow."

------------------------------

In the inky blackness of space, something slid into orbit over a reddish-orange planet four planets out from its parent star. If it was capable of having such ideas, it would've remarked on the planet's differences to its conventionally habitable neighbor. It had a diameter half that of the third planet out from the star, with forty percent of the gravity of that world. It's core, unlike Earth's, had frozen solid billions of years ago, the two captured asteroids that served as its moons had not created strong enough tidal stresses to keep the core going. As a result, the magnetic field had collapsed, dooming the ocean that had once covered one-third of its surface and slowly stripping away the atmosphere of Mars to the comparatively thin shell it was today. The radiation that would once have been held at bay now had free reign, dooming every unprotected lifeform within seven meters of the surface.

If it had been capable of doing so it would've marveled at the fact that life had a foothold there now. The indigenous population of the third planet had well nearly a dozen installations on the planet, with half a dozen more still under construction. All were domed to provide air pressure with magnetic torus' holding back the radiation and keeping it within normal levels the humans on the third planet had evolved to withstand. Even the open pit mining structures were domed as the humans dug through the lifeless soil for the minerals their civilization back on the third planet required. One by one, it photographed each and every domed structure, transmitting images of them all back to its waiting mothership in the space beyond Pluto. It circled the planet meticulously taking pictures of each installation in its field of view constantly, for hours on end as it floated in its orbit.

Finally, on its fourth such pass over the equator of the planet, it detected something not on the planet below Of course, while it had been diligently recording the position of as many human facilities on the fourth planet as it could locate, it had been keeping an eye on as many of the human ships as it could keep track of. That in and of itself was not an issue, as in reality, as opposed to fiction, hiding any sort of object in space was extremely difficult: they simply emitted too much heat and radiation to stay hidden, even if the infrared sensors on board weren't really capable of learning anything more than the fact that it was there at all. As a result, all the drone's simple programming concerned itself with was that the object was coming towards him on a straight line course, and knew the object wasn't transmitting the codes that identified it as non-hostile. The drone continued taking it's pictures and scans of the installations darting the surface and dutifully transmitting them back towards its waiting mothership in the inky blackness of space.

Finally, the object coming towards it crossed a "threshold" in its programming. Compensating for how long it took the infrared light from the target to reach it and extrapolating its position from that, its programming decided that the risk of detection was now too great, it activated a time-delayed charge, the small amount of oxygen in the drone combining with the force of the explosion to eliminate both the drone and any evidence that it was anything other than an unusually hot object against the background of space, but not before sending off one last transmission to tell it what happened.

Deep in the space beyond Neptune, the mothership received its drone's last transmission, informing it that it had self-destructed to avoid detection. On board the ship, the images of the facilities on the surface were analyzed, and a decision was made. The lumbering bulk, nearly one mile of starship lit off its drives, and headed past Neptune. Headed for the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter where they would wait to carry out the next phase of their plan.