My entire life, I have been taught to think positively.
My mom always used to say, "if you have a problem you can't solve, you just have to turn it upside down and look at it from a different angle."
I tried to live the first 16 years of my life with those words in mind. I didn't let it get to me when my dad ran off with a 20-year-old stripper, forcing my mom to take 2 jobs to support us. I didn't let it get to me when my mom's health started declining, and I turned to crime to pick up the slack and help with the bills. All the while lying to the most important person in my life about where the money was coming from.
'See it from the bright side, all the experience you are racking up with your part-time work will help you get a great job in the future,' my mom told me one day from her hospital bed, trying to stay positive even as she slowly withered away from cancer.
It wasn't until I got caught with my hands in a gang member's pocket and was beaten black and blue that I learned how shitty the world truly was.
Don't get me wrong, it wasn't the beating that changed my outlook on life.
When I decided to start a career as a thief, I already made peace with whatever punishment I would receive if I was ever caught. And honestly, it wasn't like I didn't deserve that beating.
No, it was the unlucky hit that smashed my phone that taught me that no matter how positive I was, the world wasn't going to give me a break. After finally managing to drag my weary body home, I went straight to bed and was out like a light the moment my head hit the pillow.
None the wiser of what was happening on the other side of the city.
In my weary state, I didn't notice that the landline - that I barely use - was blinking red, indicating that I had unheard messages.
The next morning I was walking to my mom's hospital room, already making up excuses to tell her about my bruises, when a nurse I had spoken to a few times before took me aside. The nurse's face told me everything I needed to know even before the first word left her mouth.
My mom had died in the middle of the night.
After the doctors had noticed the further decline of her health, the hospital had attempted to get a hold of me so that we could say our final goodbyes. However, they couldn't reach me.
Instead of dying with her only son comforting her, my mom died all alone.
Why am I telling you my depressing sob story, you ask?
Glancing down at the steel pole stuck in my chest and the construction workers running in my direction, I let out a wet-wheezy laugh as my lungs started filling up with blood and other fluids. Well, it is customary to see your life flash before your eyes as you take your last breath, isn't it?
I don't think that turning the problem upside down is going to cut it this time, mom.
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The first thing I noted as I came to was, green. Everything around me had a sickening tinge of green to it, the clouds, the sky? and even the very air around me was green. The second thing I noted was that there was no me. The place where my body was supposed to be, was empty.
A few tests proved that rather than just being invisible, I had no physical body at all. I was nothing more than a consciousness floating around in a place I swear I have seen before. I just can't put my finger on where.
I floated around for an undetermined amount of time, doing absolutely nothing.
My memories are telling me that a normal person should be freaking out after waking up in a strange place without a body, or at the very least, be bored of doing nothing for this long. But for the life of me, I couldn't bring up any emotion other than complete calmness.
I know that I was dead. My memories end after I came down with a serious case of impalement, after all. I don't know what to do with that knowledge, however.
Is this the afterlife?
If it is, I have to be honest, it sucks. The view is awful, and there is nothing to do other than floating around. 3 out of 10 stars would not recommend it.
As I was pondering the meaninglessness of my existence as a floating consciousness that could do nothing and thus had no reason to exist, I noticed that the place where my body would have been, if I had one, was ever so slowly being infused with wisps of green energy.
Having nothing better to do, I observed over a long ass period of time how the toxic green tinge around everything started converging around me. It didn't take me long to notice that the energy was coming together in the form of a body. Well, how someone that never had a biology lesson in their life would picture a human body that is.
It had no bones, organs, or anything that a human should have on the inside. It was essentially just a blob of energy shaped to look like a human being.
And then everything went black.
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A gasp tore from in between my lips as I jolted awake. My heart was beating a mile a minute. I took a deep breath and desperately tried to figure out what was going on.
As I calmed down, I felt the last vestiges of a dream slip away, leaving me with the feeling of forgetting something important, and the image of toxic green light branded in my mind.
Once I was calm enough to think, I looked around the room I found myself in. The room itself was nothing special, just a small bedroom with a bed, closet, and a desk in the corner with a laptop and tv on it. What was worrying, however, is that I didn't recognize the room.
This isn't my room.
Why was I sleeping in a room that wasn't mine?
Where am I?
I paused when I saw my reflection on the television screen.
Th-that's not my face!
What the hell is going on?!
Why am I wearing someone else's face?!
I reached out and touched my face, seeing the reflection doing the same.
It didn't feel like a mask, it felt like a real face…my real face.
That is when I remembered what had happened…I died.
While walking home from the hospital, I came down with a serious case of impale...before I could finish my thought, I had an uncanny sensation of deja vu. I could have sworn that I made that joke before, strange.
What was even stranger was how little the thought of my death affected me. I mean, I was still alive in the body of some poor sod, but I expected my death to have a bigger impact on me than this. It was almost like I had already made peace with my death without even knowing it.
Before I could think further on the oddness of my situation, something stabbed me in the back of the head.
Well, not really, but that is what it felt like.
Glad that I was still in bed, I let myself fall back and curled up in a fetal position holding my head, trying to keep from crying like a little bitch and praying for this to be over quickly. One way or another, even if it meant dying again.
Suddenly 16 years of memories of a life I don't remember living got shoved into my head.
Waves of memories flooded my mind, I could recall events that I haven't experienced and yet had, names, people, and even information that I shouldn't know, but I now somehow did.
I woke up from the state I was in with a croak of a man dying of thirst, feeling like I was two different people.
My head finally stopped hurting, leaving only a headache behind.
I tried making sense of the new memories by arranging them in order, leaving me with 2 sets of memories from childhood till now. Damien Shade was a 16-year-old orphan, a high school student that lived in New York City. He was a nerdy guy that kept mostly to himself. He was also a thief.
What had started as just pickpocketing to act out over his parent's deaths 2 years ago turned into straight-up burglary and theft when the money his parents left him after their deaths started drying up. Luckily, he had never been caught and was bright enough to only steal small valuable, but not too valuable, things that he fenced to different pawn shops around the city for cash.
No real friends to talk about, a few acquaintances he hung out with in school but other than those, nothing.
His only relative was an uncle he was supposed to stay with after the deaths of his parents, but after the first week, his uncle kicked him out for not giving him access to his rather small inheritance to fuel his drinking habits.
And now I was him.
To cut a long story short, I have been reborn in the body of Damien Shade.
The million-dollar question is, how?
How did this happen?
Did Damien die, leaving me to take over his body after his death, or did I kill him while taking over his body?
The last thing Damien remembered doing was getting ready for bed when a toxic green light started shining from his body before falling unconscious or rather dying, seeing as he wasn't here anymore.
Something gnawed at the back of my mind when I thought about that toxic green light…something about a cartoon.
I shook it off and considered my situation. I died, took over a body that was apparently an orphan with little to no money and sticky fingers.
I let out a weak chuckle at that. No matter how much things change, some things stay the same, it seems. Other than the difference in names, Damien could have easily been my doppelganger.
Not having searched the entirety of Damien's memories, I don't even know if this was my earth or just a world similar to it.
When in doubt, watch the news.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Picking up the remote on the bedside table, I turned the tv on before searching for a news channel.
"…in other news, Tony Stark is still missing after the brutal attack on his convoy that took the lives of 14 brave American soldiers almost a week ago…"
Wait. What?
Did she really just say what I think she said?!'
Am I watching Iron Man 1?
I checked the tv channel and saw that it was still on the news channel. I searched through Damien's memories and almost immediately got a reaction back from the name Stark.
Stark Industries was the world's largest tech conglomerate. They had their hands in everything tech-related, from military-grade weapons to civilian products. There were even Stark products in this very room, such as the Stark laptop on the desk.
The name Tony Stark, on the other hand, only brings up memories of an arrogant rich genius who had gone missing not too long ago. And not of the Superhero, Iron Man.
'That means that Tony Stark isn't Iron man yet, and this was the start of the first movie.'
"The primary findings of the investigation suggest that the heinous attack was carried out by the terrorist organization known as the Ten Rings," I tune the news reporter out as she goes on talking about the funeral arrangements of the soldiers and statements made by the military.
Marvel, I'm in the fucking Marvel Universe. As far as Universes go, it was a terrible one to be reincarnated in...it's full of things that could erase me in the blink of an eye. Beings that could destroy planets and kill humans as easily as I could kill ants, and I could do jack shit about it if one wanted to!
Forcibly calming myself, I take a deep breath. While this place is deadly, I should be fine. There is no reason why the powerful beings of this universe would bother with someone like me.
I'm a nobody.
Right? I have never heard of Damien Shade before today.
Then again, I wasn't an expert about everything Marvel. I had watched the movies, cartoons and read some of the comics online, but that certainly isn't enough to know everything about a 60 year spanning comic empire!
Rising out of bed, I walked up to the closet and the full-length mirror I remember being in there.
I had a handsome face, black shoulder-length hair, and blue eyes, just as in Damien's memories. My hair could do with less of an emo/singer haircut and more of a street cut, but that isn't important right now and can be changed later.
After inspecting myself closely, I still don't recognize myself. Maybe I really don't exist as someone significant in Marvel.
Bummer.
I should be happy that I was just another insignificant smuck without any powers that could fly under the radar of the truly powerful but honestly, being powerless in a world like Marvel seems like a waste of being reborn.
Closing the closet, I walked to the desk and sat down.
It doesn't matter that I wasn't a significant character in Marvel. I could still take advantage of my outside knowledge and make a plan. I know a lot of the things that are going to happen and where the skeletons are buried, so to say.
"Yeah, I can do this!" I cheered, slamming my hand on and right through the desk. Not because I broke the desk but because my hand literally went through the desk without leaving any damage behind.
"What the hell?!" I screamed, losing my balance and falling over, again right through the desk and to my bedroom floor.
Looking down at myself, I held in a scream and tried not to freak out…or question why I wasn't falling through the floor and to the center of the earth.
Half of my body was sharing space with the desk.
Unable to stop my freak out completely, I started hyperventilating, the thought of becoming solid at this moment and getting skewered playing out over and over in my head.
Deep breaths…calm down…I just need to get out from under the desk, and everything will be fine.
Moving backward out from under my desk without being able to use my hands to push myself back turned out to be more difficult than I anticipated and left me feeling like a worm. But in the end, I succeeded.
I stood up and took a good look at my body. I was see-through as in...I could literally see through myself like I was a hologram or a ghost.
That's when it all clicked, why that toxic green light had looked so familiar. On the day of my death, I had watched an old favorite childhood cartoon of mine while eating breakfast, about Danny Phantom, the ghost boy.
"It couldn't be, could it?"
No way to know but to test it, I guess. What is it that Danny always says before transforming?
"I'm going ghost!" I yelled and… nothing…I felt my ears redden from embarrassment.
"Bam! Bam!"
"Keep it down in there, I'm trying to sleep!" came from the room next to mine.
I looked around mortified, I completely forgot that Damien had a roommate, 2 of them at that. John, a college student that needed to go to classes tomorrow, and Robbie, who I'm pretty sure is a drug dealer and is probably out at this time.
He always has his part of the rent on time, so I don't really care where it came from. Not that I had a lot of high ground to stand on being a thief and all that.
Let's forget that ever happened, shall we?
So it's not the catchphrase that changes Danny into his ghost form. Maybe I need to imagine myself becoming a ghost.
I closed my eyes and pictured myself turning into a ghost. A split second later, I felt something…energy emerge from deep inside my chest and envelop my whole body. I opened my eyes just in time to see the iconic blue-white transformation circles from the show appear around my waist and move in opposite directions of each other, turning my white shirt black and my black shorts white.
No costume for me, I guess.
"Wow, this is awesome!"
I clenched my hand in a fist, I felt powerful. Like I could lift a mountain over my head without any strain whatsoever like nothing could harm me. Shaking off the feeling of invincibility and the adrenaline surging through my veins, I went to check out my new look in the mirror.
I looked pretty much the same, only my black hair had become shockingly white, and my previously blue eyes had become a haunting glowing green.
Altogether I looked awesome.
Reaching out, I tried touching the mirror. My fingers made contact with the mirror just like it normally would. This time I concentrated on becoming intangible like I was before my transformation. I felt the same energy flow from deep inside my chest, from what I now know is my Ghost Core, and envelop my body turning it intangible.
I reached for the mirror again, and this time my hand phased right through the glass.
"I have powers!" I murmured in disbelief. I let out a happy laugh before stopping myself, remembering that I wasn't alone.
Looking at my whole body, which had gone intangible, I frowned a little. Feeling for the energy that was enveloping me. I felt two layers of it covering each other, one layer to make me a ghost and another to make me intangible.
Reaching for the second layer with my metaphysical fingers, something that came naturally to me, I imagined it only enveloping my right hand. The energy, which I was going to call ecto-energy from now on, obeyed and left the rest of my body, leaving only my right hand engulfed and see-through.
Smiling, I directed my ecto-energy wherever I wanted it to go, hands, feet, and even my head.
After playing around with intangibility for a while, I thought about the next power I was going to test out, invisibility, every teenager's dream power.
Instead of reaching for more ecto-energy from my core, I thought about changing the layer of ecto-energy I was already playing with from intangibility to invisibility. Not sure if it would work.
I shouldn't have worried my ecto-energy obeyed me like an eager puppy, engulfing me and leaving me invisible. I looked in the mirror and saw only the background of my room. There was nothing to show that I was standing in front of the mirror, not even when I moved.
"Boo!" came out of thin air, followed by creepy laughter. This was so surreal.
Already having experience with moving my ecto-energy around, it didn't take long for me to make specific pieces of my body invisible.
I tried making just my skin invisible, but it didn't work. It appears that when I am in my ghost form, I didn't have skin. I was essentially just a blob of ecto energy shaped to look like a human being.
Thinking for a moment, I let my second layer of ecto-energy go back to my core and reached for the first layer of ecto-energy, the one that was keeping me in my ghost form. I let that one retreat back to my core too.
The transformation circle passed around my form, leaving me human again.
Danny Phantom was able to use his ghost powers even when he was in human form. My little accident with my desk has already confirmed that I had the potential to do the same.
Instead of thinking about becoming a ghost, I reached for my core while still human. In my ghost form, all I had to do was think about my core for me to form a connection with it. As a human, I had to concentrate and remember the feeling of connecting with my core as a ghost until I finally made a connection, it was a lot more difficult, but in the end, I succeeded.
It took about 15 seconds.
"Too long," I grunted.
No one is going to wait 15 seconds for me to be done, I could, of course, change into my ghost form, which is almost instant, but there will be times where I want to be stealthy or don't want to expose myself as a ghost.
I made a mental note to practice connecting with my core as a human from now on. I need to get that time down pronto!
After making the connection with my core, it was easy to coax ecto-energy out of it.
The feeling of ecto-energy running through my body as a human was a lot different than as a ghost. When I was a ghost, I was already made out of ecto-energy. Nothing would change by getting more ecto-energy from connecting with my core, but as a human, I could feel the ecto-energy flow through my veins, energizing my body and making it stronger.
The only thing that gave away that I was channeling ecto-energy was my glowing green eyes.
I covered my whole body with ecto-energy and went through the process of becoming intangible and invisible again, which was again different as a human than as a ghost. I wouldn't say more difficult per se, just different. I had to concentrate and think about everything I wanted to make intangible or invisible.
In my ghost form, I was just a big blob of ecto-energy and thus didn't have kidneys, lungs, or even a heart for that matter to worry about. I was literally heartless as a ghost.
But as a human, I had all these organs and other things I needed to think about before I could use my powers. Fortunately, I didn't need to learn a shit load of biology to use my powers as a human. I knew exactly where each vein and organ was located in my body and what would happen if I made one intangible without thinking.
Let me just say that a human without their skin is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen, by far.
Got to scrub my brain with acid to forget that.
I thought about trying to shoot ghost rays but remembered where I was and thought better of it…that and all other ray related powers are benched for later.
What other powers does Danny have? He could fly, manipulate his body, shoot ice, and duplicate himself…all of which isn't really smart to try out inside for the first time. Except for duplication and body manipulation, but if I remember right, duplication took a lot out of Danny at first. Let's try that later.
So that leaves body manipulation, something that can only be used in Ghost form due to its malleable ecto-energy nature.
Turning into a ghost was even easier than the first time, now that I know how it was done.
Manipulating my body form was just a matter of changing what I thought my form was. I thought I looked like me, so that is how I looked only with my colors inverted, but I could also change how I or my clothes looked, heck I could even make a hole where my stomach used to be, what I couldn't change however were the colors of my body and clothes and the size of my body.
That's not entirely true, I could grow my size, but it would also make me thinner until I'm nothing more than a stick. And shrinking my size doesn't work at all, not even a little.
Changing my size must have something to do with how much mass of ecto-energy I have to work with and how much I can compress it.
Maybe later, I can learn to shape my form better. One of the ghosts in the cartoon could shapeshift if I remember correctly.
Now the big question of the day is, do I only have Danny Phantom's powers? Or can I also use the power of other ghosts?
There were a lot of ghosts with cool powers in the cartoon. I know that Danny didn't have his duplication power at first and had to learn it by seeing another ghost use it. Maybe I could learn some of the other ghosts' powers if I try.
There is a lot I need to test out, but not now. First, I need to know which Marvel Universe I'm in and what's happening in it.
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I put my ghost powers at the back of my mind for now and went to research the state of the world on my laptop.
Turning it on, I log in with little difficulty and start searching for answers.
Already knowing what was happening with Iron Man, I skip him and search for The Fantastic Four, the first superhero family. I'm not surprised to find pages and pages about them. They were pretty popular, after all. It seems that they have had their powers for almost 2 years now, which also brings me to today's date. It's 2010, 9 years in the past from my perspective.
Hulk and Bruce Banner gives me only a few news articles about him fighting against the military in and out of the country, nothing about him breaking Harlem…so that hasn't happened yet or won't happen. Who knows.
Searching for Thor finds me nothing but information about Norse mythology, so he hasn't been here yet that's good…I still have time before Gods, Demons, and Aliens get introduced into the mix…or did The Fantastic Four already fight aliens?
Captain America is still only known as the American hero from world war 2 and nothing about him from this time period, which means he is still on ice or Fury has him hidden somewhere.
Spider-Man is already active but hasn't been for long, only a few weeks, and from some of the shaky YouTube videos made of him, he was a kid about my age…No MCU baby Spider-Man it seems, or maybe it's still him but already grown up.
I'm not googling Nick Fury or S.H.I.E.L.D he will probably show up before my door before I can say Motherfucker!
Lastly, I searched for Mutants, I shouldn't have been surprised, but I still was. Hate! There is no other way to put it, countries and organizations are screaming for the death of all Mutants like it was nothing.
How could people with powers be treated so differently from each other, I don't know. The Fantastic Four are idolized and almost worshipped, but the same people that worship them also hate Mutants. It made no sense!
What is the difference?!
I think the writers had some bullshit reason about a sentient bacteria that made people hate Mutants or some shit. That better not be true in this world!
…I hope.
It was pretty obvious that I'm in a mix of Universes seeing that the Fantastic Four and Mutants don't exist in the MCU. Iron Man, however, seems to be following the movie version so far, let's hope that the rest of the Avengers do too.
Leaning back in my chair, I sigh and wipe my hands across my face. That is enough research for today.
It's time to blow some shit up!
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This is a Marvel/Danny Phantom self-insert story.
The story will take place in the Marvel multiverse, the only influence from Danny Phantom will be the SI's powers.