There's a certain point in one's life, say like when swirling green portals don't phase them, that one might begin to question their own sanity. To look upon a neon green vortex of which it is uncertain where it leads or where it came from, and not feel surprised at all to see it, means there is probably something a little bit odd about them. This is what young Daniel Fenton thought as he gazed nonchalantly at the toxic green portal placed haphazardly on the wall between the stalls and sinks of the Casper High's boys bathroom. 'Hmm.' He thought with no real enthusiasm. 'That should not be there.' Of course considering it was was the middle of his English lesson and he was not in class he shouldn't really be there either, so who was he to judge the portal? Maybe it just really needed to pee. Being the polite half ghost he was, Danny thought to give the portal some privacy, and he very quickly left the bathroom. Left unawares that the portal snapped closed as soon as he was gone.

It appeared again on his way back home and rather than be unnerved Danny regarded it as a stranger once met on a late night, seen again many years later. 'We meet again old friend.' He thought dramatically as he skirted around the Portal, that was now snuggled between two trees in the park path he'd taken as a short cut. The portal seemed to hum with an urgency, one Danny was all too happy to ignore. See defeating so many foes, turning a planet invisible to avoid a disasteroid, becoming the king of ghosts and keeping his ghostly alter ego a secret from his parents and town since the young age of 14, led the now 16 year old to regard random portals to unknown places with a special kind of careful wariness. Not because he was afraid but simply because he was tired and really didn't want to bring any extra trouble to his already troublesome life. For one, it was hard enough to keep a secret when a life of crime fighting had inevitably given him quite a new look. The fact people seemed to be getting smarter meant that the connection of similarities between himself and the town hero Phantom where hitting a little too close to home. If he was seen poking around portals, well it just wouldn't be a pleasant string of questions he'd be stuck answering.

Ignoring the portal didn't seemed to work though because when he got home he was met with one open on the stairs that lead to the second floor, more importantly his bedroom. He felt rather scandalised by this blatant betrayal on the portals behalf. Here he was, just minding his own business and the portal seemed adamant about stalking him and barring him from the bliss that was face-planting into his bed and laying there until dinner. This was his usual schedule, granted it was often disrupted, but that was usually by disgruntled ghosts that didn't like their new ruler being a half dead child. Danny was all too familiar with this, expected it even, and so the interruption was not so frustrating. However the portal was a new level of disruption, and so he was certainly not happy to see it. "Shoo!" He said as if the portal would listen, unaware of two pairs of eyes watching him. "Go away. I want to go upstairs. It's incredibly rude just sitting there you know. Off with you." He murmured. When the portal didn't respond, as expected, he rolled his eyes, walked to the side of the stairs and scaled that, climbing over the railing and trudging up to his room, leaving the portal. The witnesses watched as the rejected vortex snapped closed, disappearing as if never there in the first place.

If Madeline and Jack Fenton were the average parent they might have been concerned about their son's sheer lack of alarm towards the portal. But they weren't the average parent. In fact their daughter Jazz would even go so far as to describe them as the 'absent' parent. She practically raised Danny herself, the 18 year old was now off at college now which meant that for the most part Danny looked after himself. He'd been unlucky enough that his parents had come upstairs to be parents at the particular moment he'd come across the portal on the stairs. Not because they had questions for him, no they passed off his lack of concern as 'knowing his mother and father would handle it'. No he was unlucky because their thoughts of actually functioning as a family were cast aside in favour of examining the staircase, it was probably haunted after all.

Eventually Danny got hungry, this didn't happen often anymore as his metabolism was kind of wigged out. He burned through most of the food he ate instantly but the energy from it lasted him days, and if he spent time in the Ghost Zone regularly the energy he absorbed from there sustained him for even longer. But this was one of those days where he'd neither eaten nor been to the Ghost Zone for a while. So inevitably he was hungry. He admittedly was a little surprised to see his parents examining the staircase still, machines of all kinds were spread precariously on some of the steps. He figured they'd have given up by now, he guessed this was where he'd inherited that unnerving persistence of his. He gave a heavy resigned sigh before jumping over the rails and landing on the first flaw, rolling his feet so he landed both without injury and silently. He was sure that if he hadn't sighed they'd have been none the wiser to his presence. But he had, and so Madeline's lilac eyes turned towards her son, remembering she'd been planning on taking Danny and her husband to dinner as an attempt to bond. But Danny was already heading to the kitchen and Jack was immersed in the examination of the staircase. She felt a little guilty that once again she'd let her job distract her. There was some noises in the kitchen and she stood, running her finger affectionately through her husband's hair, Jack grinning up at her like the lovable goof he was before she moved towards the kitchen to check on her son.

Danny was cooking. She shouldn't have been so shocked, she couldn't remember the last time she cooked but her children always had dinner cooked. It was obvious that they handled themselves. But the way Danny moved around the kitchen was a sight to behold. She watched silently as he worked and slowly a stew that smelt heavenly was put together. He turned around, mouth open as if to call out to someone but paused, his brow creasing before he mumbled something that distinctly sounded like, 'I miss Jazz.', which made Maddie smile softly. One thing Maddie knew for sure was that she was blessed with children who had a strong sibling bond. He spotted her in the doorway and scratched the back of his neck timidly. "Hungry?" He asked.

As if to answer for her, Jack appeared in the doorway claiming he was famished. Danny's face ghosted a smile for a second, but before she could see it properly her son had turned around to spoon the stew into some bowls. She and Jack sat down as he placed the bowls down alongside a basket of bread rolls. "I didn't know you could cook, Dan-my-man." Jack bellowed, lacking an inside voice as usual.

"Jazz taught me." Danny replied, his placid expression strained. Maddie recalled Danny hated being called Dan for some reason, but Jack often forgot, Danny never had the heart to be upset at his father for it. He ate it relative silence and Maddie was quietly lamenting as she realised the boy felt awkward eating dinner with his own parents. They had been absent that much in his life that eating dinner together seemed foreign. Like sharing a table with a stranger. Danny ate one bowl and advised them to eat the rest, stew should be fine in the fridge, it wasn't likely to mutate but he advised it simply to be sure no one was going to be attacked by ghost stew. The idea was entertaining but the real thing not so much. Mutated food was surprisingly vicious. He excused himself and was gone before Maddie could think of anything to get him to stay a while. She stirred the stew glumly.

"Jack... Are we bad parents?" She asked softly. Jack lowered the bowl that he'd been practically drinking stew from and gazed at his wife with a look akin to a confused puppy.

"Why would you think something like that?" Jack asked.

"Sometimes Danny seems more like a stranger than our son. Do you even know what his first word was? I don't." Maddie said sadly. Jack's brow creased as he tried to think back. He did not recall what his son's first word was either.

"Jazzie." The two turned towards the doorway. Danny was back, he walked over to the sink and filled a glass with water, drinking slowly.

"What was that, sweetie." Maddie asked smiling at him. He didn't smile back and her own smile fell.

"My first word. It was 'Jazzie'. I said it before I walked for the first time, I walked to Jazz and called for her. That's why you don't remember it. She said you were down in the lab, building a prototype of the Ghost Portal when it happened." He put the glass down and headed to the door. The words didn't make Maddie feel any better, in fact it was worse. Not only did she not remember her sons first words or steps, she hadn't even been present.

"Danny, I think your father and I will be taking a break from ghost hunting." She said. Jack looked surprised but didn't protest. Danny paused and sighed, looking back with a tired smile.

"Please, don't make promises you can't keep. Not again. You've said it so many times. I'm tired of waiting for it to be true."

Maddie felt like her heart was torn by those words. She watched as Danny left and she stared at the table, eyes burning with tears. She wanted to get mad at him, state she meant what she said. But he was right, she'd said this before, promised she was going to pay more attention to them. And now she looked back on it those promises had barely survived an hour let alone a true enough length to be considered a break. She walked out to talk to him, perhaps show him she cared even though she wasn't always there. Except when she walked out of the kitchen she found her son staring at another portal, this one situated in front of the door to the lab. He looked fed up as he shook his head and walked up stairs. Maddie was surprised when, once again, it snapped closed as soon as Danny's attention was elsewhere.

The next morning Danny woke to find the portal on his roof, he ignored it and went about preparing for school. He had to go out the back door because it sat annoyingly, and seemingly smugly to him at least, at the front door. He met with Sam and Tucker and spotted it in several places on his way to school. He was even almost thrown into it when Skulker decided to show up. It seemed the portal didn't want to be subtle at all because in the middle of English it turned up right in front of his desk making him yelp and scoot backwards. The class stared at him confused as the portal closed again. It reappeared at lunch, drawing everyone's attention again. But this time Danny reacted differently, with a frustrated kind of scream the teen threw his lunch at the portal. "Go away! Stalker Portal!" He snapped. The A-Listers were too busy being shocked to think to even tease Danny for his freaky behaviour. Even more so when the portal seemed to listen. They watched as his head dropped onto the table with a thunk. During maths Danny was running late and the portal opened up just as he was trying to enter the class room. "Damn you, you blasted vortex of ultimate frustration! Damn you and your spiralling green swirls!!" Came Danny's voice, harsh and angry. They heard him stomp away, the portal closing and he stomped back in, the teacher didn't even have the energy to reprimand him for being late.

Dash didn't trip Danny as he passed to get to his seat. The look on Danny's eyes was murderous and it was actually terrifying to see. He slipped into his seat and seemed to glare at nothing in particular. And then the portal opened up to his left and Danny jumped up and threw his entire desk in. "Go away!" He shouted, stamping his foot like a child throwing a tantrum. As if to spite Danny further the portal closed and opened almost immediately on the other side, spitting the desk back out at his feet. Dash frowned as Danny's eyes seemed to glow the same colour as the portal. "May I be excused?" He said through gritted teeth. The teacher nodded and Danny rushed from class. The portal closing again once he was gone. No doubt off to follow him wherever he went.

Paulina wasn't stupid, okay perhaps she wasn't the smartest girl in the world. But she wasn't foolish enough to deliberately fall into a portal. It just sort of opened up in the direction of where she was walking. And she was in such an empowered motion of walking that her momentum was too enforced for her to stop before entering the sudden pool of green. Luckily someone decided that her being whisked away to some kind of alternate hell dimension was possibly not a grand idea. She felt herself get yanked back to a safe distance away from the portal and looked back, toying with the idea of actually thanking the one who'd saved her. She turned her head to see Danny releasing his hold on her arm, his icy blue eyes flaring with annoyance at the portal. Now Paulina had cause to believe that just about anyone would save her, except perhaps, three loser students that didn't seem to like her all that much. One being Tucker Foley. One rejection to many seemed to have turned his misguided affection into dislike. The other being Samantha Manson, the goth absolutely hated Paulina and the Latina girl was sure the goth would have gladly let her meet her end via the portal. The third was Danny who she was admittedly rather cruel too. She remembered hazily, that she had faked dating him, the reason why was rather blurry. She actually rather liked it, not that she would admit that. Danny had been considerate and genuinely cared about her opinions and not just her looks. She'd found the fact that so far her best date had been with the loser made her skin crawl slightly initially.

But now, looking back on it and gazing at the boy who seemed to be having a glaring contest with the portal he'd just saved her from, she was thinking it was perhaps, not the worst thing ever to admit. "Thank you, Danny." She said sweetly, remembering how the awkward fourteen year old would blush and trip over his words when ever she so much as looked at him let alone spoke to him. Sixteen year old Danny didn't respond the same. He shot her a quick smile, though it lacked any affection, as if asking as politely as possible why she was still there. She frowned upon realising that like Foley, Fenton had lost interest in her. But unlike with Foley, the loss of adoration from the boy seemed to make Paulina feel like she'd missed out on something.

She grabbed his arm in an attempt to re-establish her power as the alpha female of the school, going to pull it close to her to initiate some kind of bashful reaction. She was mildly hurt when he shrugged her off. "Did you want something?" He asked in a painfully bored tone, not even looking at her. She frowned again, thinking she was losing her charm she smiled at some nerd passing by, he tripped and fell, she could practically see the little hearts in the boy's eyes. So it wasn't her. She noticed, having not let go of his arm entirely just yet that, under the baggy red hoodie, his arm was rather firm. She squeezed experimentally and raised an eyebrow.

"Do you work out?" She asked in a genuinely curious tone. He looked away from the portal finally, and into her eyes. She wondered when exactly he'd grown to be not only eye-level with her, he'd always been short, but his face was more angular, having lost a lot of the babyish curves of a young male. His eyes were like frozen lakes that bore down upon her own teal eyes with a hardened gaze as he looked from her face to her hand on his arm.

"I suppose so." He answered stiffly, eyes searching for what ever scheme Paulina was cooking up. Except she wasn't, she was going with the flow right now. She squeezed his arm again in blatant disregard for the fact practically the entire school was watching. She noticed Danny had filled out a lot, not quite as burly as a footballer, leaner, like a swimmer possibly, or a gymnast. She had a secret appreciation for this body type, she never really liked the big, built like a truck, guys. But that's what was in so that's what she 'liked'.

"What do you do?" She asked. He stared blankly at her, unsure of what she was attempting to gain from this conversation, Paulina wasn't sure about it herself. "As a workout, I mean. You're still kind of lean. Swimming?"

He seemed, for a moment to forget who she was and where they were. His shoulders slumping slightly, she hadn't even realised he was so tense. He shook his head, shaggy black bangs falling to cover his eyes as he looked down for a moment, contemplating if speaking to her was wise. "Martial arts... Bit of Gymnastics too, I guess." He answered finally, those sparkling eyes looking back at her. She didn't want to admit it, but Danny had grown up handsome. She wondered how she was only noticing Now, but she knew why. Danny had a habit of falling off the radar. She barely had known he'd existed until she'd clashed with Sam. And he'd faded again soon after. It was like he deliberately avoided the spotlight, which was failing now due to the portal business. He moved and suddenly his arm was no longer in her grasp, she gazed at her palm, she'd almost forgotten she was holding him. Her hand had fit so well against his arm. He didn't say another word to her, instead opting to walk away. She watched him go wondering what had changed. When had he become so much more than a loser?

Dash was... Confused. Danny was drawing more attention to himself than usual, and when that happened Dash usually responded with a beat down, though that hadn't happened in a while, the attention or the beat downs. Except this time he couldn't. There was something predatory about Danny. He'd changed, big time. It became apparent to most of the school with the whole interaction with Paulina. Dash hadn't seen it but high school gossip was nothing if not lightening fast. He was rounding the corner trying to get to his last class when he spotted the loser trio. Not so much losers anymore, more like wallflowers. They usually stayed out of the way and avoided the spotlight more than they ever had before. The goth girl, and if Dash ever admitted it to Paulina she'd skin him alive, looked hot, she wore black jeans and a purple jacket, now rather than skirt and leggings, with her usual shirt and boots and wore her hair down loose. She was very pretty, and her gothic style seemed more sexy than loser like, that and she was fit, she was giving the cheerleaders a bad look she was that fit. Foley was actually working the tech nerd thing. Gone where his blocky glasses, substituting it with contacts. His weird had thing was gone too. The boy had dropped the yellow sweater and cargo pants, wearing a yellow T-shirt, black jeans and a blue denim jacket. He was still usually carrying around a PDA but it was no longer nerdy as much as it was interesting. And he'd filled out too, fit but not overly muscly. Like he was someone who exorcised regularly but leisurely. Then there was Danny. Black jeans matching his friends, red and white sneakers, he switched out his red and white T-shirt for a black and white one of a similar design, and over that he had a red and white hoodie.

Now Danny, Danny looked like someone who exorcised regularly and took it seriously enough to be ripped. But not too ripped. Dash hadn't wailed on Danny in almost a year so that explained how he'd not noticed the change but it was still a drastic change. "Hey Fenton." He called. The boy stiffened and he turned around looming resigned. A look, Dash recalled, that Danny would give when Dash had been about to beat him up. Dash realised that was what Danny was expecting to happen, Dash wasn't sure why, the Jock wasn't too bright but he wasn't a complete numbskull. He had the basic self preservation skills to know that Danny as he currently was, could definitely go toe to toe against Dash and probably come out victorious. There was the predatory look in his eye again. Like a a large wild cat sizing up a plump injured deer before sinking it's gleaming fangs into the pitiful creatures neck. And Dash felt like the deer sometimes. "I heard you saved Paulina. Nice work." He said. The look of confusion on the boy's face was priceless. He stared at Dash for a while as if expecting him to turn it into an insult. But Dash just shrugged and slipped into the classroom. Danny followed seconds later and took his usual seat, leaning forward and whispering something to Sam. She frowned and looked at Dash so he could guess what they were talking about. Danny then leaned back at when the portal appeared behind him he let out a hiss and if looks could kill large green masses of unknown energy that portal would be dead three times over. But other than that he ignored it.

One would probably be wondering, if one was somehow unaware of the nonchalance the school had for weird ghostly anomalies, why no one was questioning why the portal seemed to be following the youngest Fenton around. This is because most of them just assumed that it was some kind of failed experiment from his parents. The ghost hunters were known more for their messed up machines rather than their actual hunting skills, however minimal they were. They assumed that like two years ago, Danny had been caught in the crossfire. Two years ago, there had been an accident in the hunters lab which had led to the working ghost portal and the subsequent infestation of ghosts into the town. Danny Fenton had been electrocuted the day it was completed and turned on. Though the details where vague everyone knew he'd spent around a month in the hospital recovering. Danny also turned up with injuries occasionally and so there was a rather vicious rumour that his parents experiment on him.

Dash wasn't thinking about that at all, though, he was more worried about the fact that this portal seemed to be trying to steal Danny away. Waiting for his curiosity to take hold or for one of his classmates to wander in so Danny would go after them. And he would, as seen with Paulina he wouldn't just let someone go in. Dash felt a little guilty for having beat up such a nice kid for so long.

After school Dash spotted Danny walking home, dodging the portal that seemed to have stepped it up a notch in its 'catch Fenton' game, appearing in his line of motion over and over again. Dash watched as Danny would veer to the side or growl in frustration as he's forced to backpedal. "What even is that thing trying to do?" Dash jumped nearly a foot in the air, he turned to see Paulina was standing next to him.

"It's trying to catch Fenton." Dash answered when his heart wasn't trying to smash through his rib cage.

"Why?" Paulina continued.

"How the heck would I kno-" Paulina shrieked loudly, cutting off his words and he followed her fearful gaze to where a kind of tentacle whipped out of the portal. Danny stood on it, he just up and stood on it, grinding his heel until an inhuman scream came from the portal.

"Piss off." Danny snapped as the tentacle withdrew. The portal left and Danny continued to walk home like nothing happened.