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Entry tags:	fanfic, vampire

And the Children Shall Lead (1/4)
Title: And the Children Shall Lead
Chapter Title: Awakening
Rated: hard R
Pairing: none
Fandom: Danny Phantom
Danny Phantom belongs to Nickelodeon and its associates.

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This story is a dark fantasy involving vampirism, vore, blood, evil, and death. Emphasis on dark. It is a sequel to And the Children Shall Inherit the Earth.

It was written the middle of 2007.

-----

Jack lay on his back on the floor of the lab, working on his newest pet project. He hummed lightly to distract him from his reason for wanting to build an x-ray machine. Yet the act of working on something not ghost-related still seemed odd, odd enough for his mind to drift where it shouldn’t.

Ever since the attack by that plant-ghost, Underworld? no, Undergrowth, that’s it, Jack had been noticing Maddie wincing in pain, occasionally gripping at something in her belly. And recently he’d been feeling the same thing in himself, the feeling of something… moving. Growing.

Memory of those two months was fuzzy but he knew, somehow he knew that something had happened to them and maybe others. Danny’s friends, maybe someone else…

He shook himself back into work, back into ignoring his mind as it wondered.

What had happened to them?

-----

Jack pulled his family down the stairs to the basement lab using only his enthusiasm. Not a word thus far about what his invention was, only that it was really cool and imminently useful. When they reached the bottom he directed them to the kinda bulky, 8-foot tall structure with a place for someone to stand and glass plates behind. “I call it an x-ray machine!” Jack crowed happily.

Maddie gave Jack a ‘you’re an idiot but I love you anyway’ look. “Jack, the x-ray machine has already been invented.”

“Oh I know,” Jack said. “But I didn’t have one. And now I do!”

“Um, Dad?” Jazz asked. “You do know there’s a reason why most people don’t have x-ray machines, right?”

“Oh don’t worry, Jazzypants,” Jack assured. “I put lead plates in the ceiling so none of the x-rays get out.”

“Why did you want one?” Danny asked. “I mean, I know it’s cool and all but also kinda dangerous, don’t you think?”

“To look inside people,” Jack said as though that were obvious. “And the x-rays come from running electricity through a gas which is kept in storage over there.” He pointed to a locked cabinet. “And even if someone did get everything set up I made sure this baby won’t ever emit enough x-rays to fry anything. Just a little bit of x-rays. Just enough to see inside someone.”

Danny started poking around the machine. It wasn’t built with ghosts in mind so maybe it wouldn’t pose much of a threat… He took a look at the series of glass plates where the x-ray images would be formed. “Glass plates? Wow, Dad, that’s old school.”

“I’m using glass plates and silver nitrate until I can get ahold of some actual x-ray films. Until then these work just as well.”

“Are you sure it’s safe?” Maddie asked.

“Of course!” Jack crowed. “But the kids will never be getting in it, nosiree.”

Maddie relaxed slightly. That was good news.

-----

That night, Danny and Jazz in their rooms for sleep, Maddie and Jack stood in front of Jack’s newest machine. “So why did you make it?” Maddie asked.

“Do you remember what happened those two months? When that plant ghost thing took over?” Jack asked.

“I try not to. It’s not a very nice memory.”

“I remember some of it,” Jack admitted. “I remember being controlled by something then there’s flashes of thirst and hunger then a pen and Danny’s friends but one of them was bad and then something…” He shuddered. “Something burrowing inside me, spreading. Then nothing. The next thing I remember is everybody waking up and the plant thing defeated and the kids being okay.”

Maddie nodded. She’d been having dreams, terrible nightmares of being held in a pen, of something inside her, of being bound by mobile vines inside a flowery cocoon. Of the thing inside her talking to her, whispering sweet evil into her ear, making her think thoughts she’d never wanted, never thought before.

“I need to know,” he continued. “I need to see inside myself to know that the thing isn’t there. That I’m still me inside.”

Maddie stepped between the emitter and the glass plates. “Check inside me, Jack,” she pleaded. “You’re not the only one with those memories. I need to know, too.”

Jack nodded and turned on a red lamp before cutting the lights. The red light wouldn’t disturb the glass plates like fluorescent lighting did. He set up the plates, got the glass emitter out of the cabinet, set everything up. It took a long time, time Maddie took to just watch her husband work. He was a genius of the highest accord, no matter what other people might say. He was just that terrible with people. But things, objects…

Jack fit everything in and retreated to a far wall and a switch. “Are you ready?” he asked.

Maddie nodded and took a deep breath. Jack flipped the switch.

Five seconds of a slight whine and a crawling sensation in her spine and it ended. Maddie released her breath. and stepped out of the machine. “Now what?” she asked.

“Now I develop the plates,” Jack said. “It’ll probably take all night. You should go to bed.”

Maddie shook her head. “Nuh uh, I’m staying right here. I want to know the moment you do.”

-----

It was a confused Danny who stumbled downstairs in the middle of getting ready for school. There was no Mom making breakfast, no Dad puttering about, no yelling he was going to be late, nothing but a closed basement door with those ‘biohazard’ and ‘explosive’ stickers stuck to it. Except there was a new sticker, ‘radioactive’. The door was locked. Odd, he hadn’t known it locked. He knocked.

A tired thumping up the stairs and Maddie unlocked then opened the door. “Oh, hi, Danny. Is it morning already?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I hope you can get your own breakfast. Don’t want to be late for the bus.” She moved a bit mechanically, as though trying to spend as little time aboveground as possible. She got the coffeemaker started and called down the stairs. “Want anything, Sweetie?”

Danny poked his head into the doorway, looking down the stairs to see if there was anything odd. He caught sight of Jack surrounded by a giant pile of books and what appeared to be a giant sheet of glass backlit next to the wall. Maddie pulled Danny away. “We’re just working on something, Danny, nothing to worry about.” Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

Danny nodded, getting worried. He left the basement alone and migrated towards a box of cereal. He poured himself a bowl and handed the box to Jazz when she came down.

“Have Mom and Dad been working all night?” Jazz asked him before turning to Maddie. “You know, that’s not healthy. You can get the same amount of work done and better quality if you just let yourself sleep every now and then. The delta rhythms are how the human brain commits information to memory.”

Maddie gave Jazz a glare. “Go to school,” she said, emotionless. She grabbed the fresh pot of coffee and a plate of cookies before slamming the basement door behind her and locking it securely.

“That was strange,” Jazz said. “She’s never blown me off like that before.” Jazz suddenly gasped. “Did I do something wrong? Are they mad at me?”

Danny made a grunting noise and swallowed a mouthful of cereal and milk. “They’re just busy,” he said. “Probably some new invention. C’mon, you’re going to be late for school.”

“What about you?” Jazz asked. “Do you need a ride?”

Danny went ghost. “Nah. I’ll just fly.” He phased through the ceiling and off into the sky.

Jazz scratched her head. Danny’s transforming in the house always set off alarms. And Mom and Dad weren’t coming to investigate? Odd.

-----

In the basement the ghost alarm went off, a ghost in their very own kitchen. Jack and Maddie didn’t care. They were too engrossed in other things. Maddie’s developed x-ray was backlit by a bright white lamp, bones and organs playing a stark white contrast against the black background of overexposed silver nitrate. Open books surrounded them as they drank coffee straight from the pot and munched on cookies. Books on biology, forensics, anatomy, physiology, even one on biochemistry, all to discern what the glass plate behind them meant.

Jack looked back at the plate and back down at the books. Nope. Hours and hours of searching and it was still there.

It wasn’t supposed to be there.

No matter what book they checked, what angle they looked at it in, that wasn’t supposed to be there.

The mass wasn’t a tumor, that much was certain. Tumors didn’t put out tendrils like that, tendrils reaching through all limbs, into fingers and toes, wrapping around organs, inching up the neck towards the brain…

What was that thing? And more importantly, how could they get it out without killing her? Without killing the host?

“It’s a swathe,” Jack said quietly, memory unfuzzing. “The plant ghost thing put one in both of us.”

“The plant ghost’s name was Undergrowth,” Maddie added, her own memory of the ordeal returning.

“Danny’s girlfriend was controlled by Undergrowth. She called the swathes their children.”

“They were round seeds that sprouted into us.”

“’Her body will shelter it as it grows, feeding off of her body until growing strong enough to send fronds to the surface of her skin.’” Jack said, reciting the words Undergrowth had told him of Maddie’s swathe. “‘By then my child will have found a way to exist within the host without causing the host’s death. Enough hosts and my children will be spread far and wide, far enough to repopulate the world with the plants and animals that your unnatural civilization has destroyed.’”

“How do you work that thing?” Maddie asked. “We need to check you.”

Jack shook his head. “We haven’t slept in 48 hours,” he pointed out.

She gave him a look. “Would you honestly be able to sleep now?” she asked.

He shook his head and started showing her how the machine worked.

-----

At school Danny started noticing things. Nothing new, just little things he hadn’t noticed before, things he knew for a fact hadn’t been true before Undergrowth’s two month reign. A wave of guilt washed over him for staying with Frostbite all that time. He shook his head, trying to fling away such thoughts. He’d needed to go to Frostbite to learn control over his new power, without those two months he wouldn’t have defeated Undergrowth, might now even be just another of his chlorophyll zombies, shuffling around randomly while turning into a plant or whatever it was Undergrowth was using them for. Maybe food. Danny shuddered. The idea of being used by a plant as food rather than the other way around was disturbing to him.

Tucker walked past, looking tired again. He’d been tired for weeks now, ever since the thing with Undergrowth. And Sam, Sam seemed distant, almost like she were straining to hear a voice from far away.

They went to class to see Mr. Lancer pale and tired. One of the football players sat with his head on his desk, tired but complaining of nightmares. Everyone else hadn’t changed, just those four.

Danny’s faded attention caught a pause in his teacher’s lecture, glanced up to see him fighting not to pass out. “Mr. Lancer, are you all right?” he asked without thinking.

Lancer didn’t answer. He just stood there for a few moments as though in the middle of some internal battle before continuing exactly where he’d left off.

Danny shivered. There was something wrong. It wasn’t ghosts but there was something wrong. And it was all connected to Undergrowth.

-----

Jazz and Danny returned to an empty house. Cereal dishes were still piled in the sink with no visible sign that Jack or Maddie were alive. Even the half-gallon of milk that Danny had left out accidentally was still on the kitchen table.

“Danny!” Jazz scolded when she saw it. “Do you always need Mom to pick up after you?”

Danny gave her a look. “Where is Mom, anyway? Are they still in the lab?”

Jazz held her nose and poured the chunky milk down the sink, flipping on the water to make all the smell go down with it. “Don’t care. Go check.”

Danny shrugged. The smell started hitting him and his nose wrinkled. He went ghost and sank through the floor to avoid it. He willed himself invisible and hovered just under the ceiling to listen in.

“You were right,” Maddie was saying. “We both have them. The things survived.”

“We need to make them un-surviving,” Jack said firmly.

“How long do you think we have?” she asked in a whisper. “What are they doing to us?”

Danny dropped lower, low enough to see the x-ray plates. His eyes went wide. …Those things… what are they? They’re not supposed to be there!

A ghost proximity alarm went off but Jack merely reached over and turned it off. “If what we were told is true then they’re eating us,” he whispered. “But they’re not. I mean, I feel tired, yeah, but it’s no big deal.”

“If anything I feel like I did when I was pregnant,” Maddie agreed. “I know I’m being fed on but something keeps telling me it’s a good thing.”

Jack stepped close to examine the plates. On Maddie’s there were tendrils crawling up her spine, he couldn’t really tell but it looked like some had already entered her braincase through the foramen magnum. “‘Something tells you?’” he repeated. “I wonder if they’re not intelligent, thinking for us.”

Maddie shuddered. “Don’t say such a thing!” she shouted before seeming to calm, disturbingly quickly. “But that’s true, what if they are? Could we really remove them if they were? They feed on us, Jack. They rely on us to survive. Could you live with killing an innocent, intelligent creature just because it was inside you? Growing, changing, living?”

Jack seemed disturbed by her very sudden mood change but then went through one of his own. “No, I don’t think I could,” he said calmly. “I mean, it’s not like a human, a person. It’s something… more. Something rarer. Something… special.”

Danny had heard enough. He bolted to the kitchen where Jazz was waiting to glare daggers at him the moment he solidified. She never got the chance as he bolted to her, grabbed her by the shirt and started shrieking in terror. “Pod people!” he screamed.

“‘Pod people’?” Jazz repeated. “Danny, calm down and get real! There are no pod people, much less Mom and Dad.”

“Jazz, I’m serious!” Danny kept screaming. “Mom and Dad have x-rays of themselves on the wall in there and there are things inside them making them think things! They’re not Mom and Dad anymore! They’re pod people!”

Jazz snaked a hand up to Danny’s mouth and clamped it over to keep him quiet. Heavy footsteps ascended the lab stairs and the basement door rattled as it unlocked and opened. Jack stepped out. “I heard shouting, something wrong?” he asked.

Jazz and Danny looked at each other. Jazz’s hand was clamped over Danny’s mouth, Danny was gripping Jazz by her shirt and looking ready bolt like a scared rabbit. They looked back at Jack and shook their heads ‘no.’

Jack grinned. “That’s good.” He meandered over to the fridge and started removing the makings for a truly giant ham sandwich. His nose wrinkled as he crossed near the sink. “Wheeo. Did something go bad?”

“The milk went bad,” Jazz said in a tiny voice. “Danny left it out accidentally before school.”

“Eh, that’s no big deal,” Jack said amicably. “Your mother and I have been awake for… almost 60 hours now? So we’re going to eat then go to bed. Think you two can fend for yourselves tonight?”

“Uh, sure, Dad,” Jazz said. She still hadn’t released Danny nor had he released her.

Maddie trudged up the stairs and yawned. She dug something out of the fridge, some slightly ecto-sentient hot dogs, and started biting their little heads off. “My wallet’s on the coffee table, just order a pizza. Have a few friends over if you want but we’re going to bed. K, Sweeties?”

Jazz and Danny nodded. They slowly let go of each other and with great control managed not to run away. Instead they walked calmly to the living room couch. “Okay,” Jazz agreed. “That was really weird.”

“See?” Danny hissed. “Pod people!”

Jazz glared him into silence. “Danny, shut up.”

He shot up, grabbed the phone, and came right back. “I’m calling Sam and Tucker.”

“Fine.”

They both fell silent as Jack and Maddie came in, kissed them both goodnight, and trudged up the stairs to bed. They didn’t even take off clothes, just fell into bed and started to snore.

“I swear I just saw a thread of green in Mom’s hair,” Danny said matter-of-factly. He flinched away when Jazz hit him, getting off the couch and calling his friends.

Jazz laid back on the couch and sighed. Ugh, the house she lived in was so very full of crazy! True she didn’t know what Danny had heard but surely it wasn’t anything pod-person related.

Was it?

-----

Three-way calling was built for this, Danny thought as he finished explaining the situation to Sam and Tucker.

“They will provide nutrients for the children,” Sam murmured without thinking.

Blood drained from Danny’s face. “What?”

Sam closed her eyes and a memory flashed in, something she knew had happened but refused to believe. Pregnant and loved, she looked at the five hosts holding her newborn children inside them. Undergrowth, both father and lover, held her lovingly, protectively. And the ghost boy, that cursed Danny Phantom, tore it all away from her in a shower of ice. She opened her eyes to the vision of her childhood room and the voices of her friends in her ear. “Something I remembered,” she said quietly. “From… then.”

“What was it?” Danny asked frantically. “Does it have anything to do with pod people?! What’s happening to my parents?!”

“Dude,” Tucker scolded. “Chill. Not everything involves you.”

Danny paused for a moment, taken aback. “Wait, what?”

“Give her some space, Dude!” Tucker said. “I don’t think your screaming like a little girl is helping.”

“Thank you, Tucker,” Sam said quietly. “It was when you came to ‘save’ us, Danny,” she whispered. Danny and Tucker were quietly listening, hanging on every word. “The children were nestled in their hosts and you came to tear them out. You tore Undergrowth away from me but not the children. No, you never found them. And they’re growing up.”

“You too?” Danny whispered. “No, not you too, and… oh no, now I’ve revealed that I know about the pod people to a pod person!”

“Words cannot express the dumb that I’m hearing,” Tucker said, deadpanned. “Wow.”

“Hey! Shut up!” Danny scolded. “You didn’t hear what Mom and Dad were saying! You didn’t see the x-rays they’d taken of themselves! You didn’t stand there in the kitchen locked in frozen combat with your sister and have your parents just walk by unnoticing!”

“Well they are your parents,” Sam pointed out.

“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Danny screamed.

“It means your parent’s aren’t exactly observant,” Tucker clarified. “Think about it, a half ghost living under their noses and they don’t notice?”

“Well yeah, okay,” Danny said, slumping onto his bed.

His bedroom door opened. Jazz stuck her head in. “Pizza’s here if you’re still sane enough to care.” She left.

Danny sighed. “I gotta run, guys. But we are continuing this tomorrow.” He hung up the phone without another word.

-----

The next day in class Lancer glared for the fifth time at Danny and his friends. Danny seemed to be trying to convince the other two of something, something Tucker was arguing with him about and Mother seemed to be hiding from.

Wait…

Lancer filed his thinking of Samantha Manson as “Mother” under “really don’t want to know” and stalked up behind Fenton. “Mr. Fenton,” he purred dangerously. “I suggest you turn your attention to the front of the class before you spend the next week in detention. Comprende?”

Danny turned around instantly, face red with embarrassment. “Yes, Mr. Lancer,” he said in a small voice.

“Good,” Lancer snarled.

Danny heard before he saw the drop fall onto his barely-taken notes. Blood. He froze at the sight, the drop of red blood sitting on his notes. He looked up to see Lancer’s lips slick with blood. Lancer appeared to notice the scrutiny and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. A broad smear of red washed the skin and Lancer lapped at it hungrily a few times. He then seemed to realize what he was doing and with great effort stopped himself. He wiped his hand on his pants and walked only slightly unsteadily back to the lectern.

Danny didn’t say another word all class, only stared.

Oh my god…

-----

“Okay, maybe there’s something to your ramblings of weird,” Tucker admitted later that day. “Your parents are ghost hunters, do they track vampires by any chance?”

“They’re affected, too,” Danny pointed out.

“Nah, you said they’re pod people,” Tucker pointed out. “Vampires are totally different.”

“Or are they the same thing?” Sam asked.

“Hey, my parents are not vampires,” Danny said.

“Yeah, they’re pod people,” Tucker answered with a snort.

“Shut up,” Danny scolded.

“No, seriously, what if they’re the same thing only manifested differently?” Sam asked.

A noise caused them to look over to see Lancer stalk in. He made sure the majority of people in the lunchroom were looking elsewhere and brought out a thermous. He popped it open and drank quickly, fast enough that a drop of red fluid ran down the side of his mouth and down his chin and neck. He finished and sighed in pleasure before wiping his face. Red smeared all along his chin, catching in his goatee.

Sam got up despite the frantically whispered warnings from her friends and walked over to her inattentive teacher. “Mr. Lancer?” she asked. “Are you okay?”

Lancer’s eyes shot open and he turned slowly, fearfully glancing down at Sam. “Mother?” he whispered before shuddering. His fearful gaze changed back into the stern eye of their teacher. He left the lunchroom without another word.

Sam walked back to the table in a bit of a shock. Her shock faded and she gave Danny a look. “They’re the same thing,” she said in a tone allowing no discussion.

End Chapter 1