#i dont remember where daniel came from either also you gotta say his name in spanish daNIEL not DAniel ok very important distinction

[the-acid-pear]

The state of my frogs parallels my very own to the point shame escapes me but here's Daniel. Name is a bit of a pun bc as you can see he kinda is missing a hand (not intended ofc but let's get creative) and a peronista (✌️) so naturally no other name fit him. He's also in a band w Nazareno and Jorge, or at least was. I forgot what his role was. He's also very quiet very chill. Not much going on man just vibing. I thought of giving him half lidded eyes in the past w sharpie.

[ghostsray]

Ch2: Flowers

(prev - next)

"Danny, your clone is adorable," Sam said.

Danny looked away from the plant he was observing and said, "You mean Niel?"

Sam tapped her chin. "Well, Danielle is adorable too. But yes, im talking about Niel, considering he's the one I saw yesterday."

"Oh yeah, you went to Vlad's mansion, right?" Tucker asked from where he was seated among a group of potted plants. "How was he like?"

Sam shrugged. "Like Danny, except peppier, and with a better appreciation for goth culture."

"You turned my clone goth?"

Sam stopped spraying her venus flytrap to point at Danny and say, "Hey, he's his own person, thank you very much."

Tucker leaned back and stared out the greenhouse walls. "I feel left out. How come both of you get to meet this new clone--er, person? I want to see him too..." He trailed off, staring at something in the distance, then pointed out and asked, "Is that him?"

Considering the timing, Danny almost thought Tucker was joking, but then he followed his finger and saw that Niel was, indeed, walking toward Sam's greenhouse. He didn't look very goth in Danny's opinion, although his hair was shaved on one side--but that was more punk than goth. As he got closer, Danny noticed that he was carrying a bundle of yellow flowers in his hand.

Sam went to the greenhouse's entrance and opened the doors to greet him. "So, did you get my adress from the mayor or from Google Earth?" she said.

Niel rubbed his neck nervously. "Did I do something wrong?"

"'Course not, Dracula. Come in." She made way for him, then eyed the flowers and asked, "Are those for me?"

Niel held them out, blushing slightly. "Danny said you like flowers. Uh, completely platonic flowers, of course."

Sam took the flowers from him. "I do like flowers," she confirmed, "though not so much cutting off flower roots and selling their corpses for money."

Niel blinked. "Oh."

Sam have a half-shrug. "It's fine. I'll just give it to my mom, since she loves decorating our house with flower corpses."

"I'll...be sure to get a potted plant next time."

"You better," Sam said. "Meanwhile, I'll go find somewhere to place these dead flowers so they can provide some decoration while they rot away."

Niel looked mortified as she left the greenhouse and went indoors. As soon as she was gone, Tucker burst into laughter.

"Oh man, you should see your face. Nobody is ever prepared for ultra-recyclo-vegan Sam."

Danny watched Niel with a smile as the younger boy glared at Tucker. He nodded at his hair and said, "Nice hairdo."

Niel ran a hand over the shaved part of his head. "It was Sam's idea. Something to make me look different from you." He looked across the various plants in the greenhouse and said, "She really does like plants, doesn't she?"

"You have no idea," Tucker agreed. He gestured across the room and said, "I promise you, every plant in here, Sam named. Like, those two flowers over there--what did she name them again?"

"Hecate and Nyx," Danny supplied. "Or Nyx and Hecate. I don't remember which one's which."

Niel frowned at the twin flowers. "They look the same."

"Yeah, well, Sam has some way to tell them apart," Tucker said. He cupped his mouth with one hand and whispered conspiringly, "If you ask me, I'd say she still has plant-whisperer powers from Undergrowth."

Niel ignored Tucker. He was still scowling at the plants. "Why bother keeping two of the same kind if they're basically the same thing?"

Danny had a sneaking suspicion Niel wasn't just talking about the flowers. Either Sam really trained him to become dark and brooding, or something was troubling the boy.

"Hey," Danny asked, "things okay with your dad?"

Niel shrugged, not tearing his eyes off the plants. "I think so."

"You think?"

"They're good, I think. I mean, yeah. They are." He smiled and added, "I got him to call me by my name."

"Really? That's great," Danny said, and his tone was sincere. He knew how many times Vlad insisted on calling Niel by Danny's name. Yet, for some reason, Niel didn't look as happy as he should have been regarding the news.

Danny was about to ask him what was wrong, but Tucker chose that moment to lean forward and say, "So, are you crushing or Sam, or...?"

Niel spluttered and shouted, "I am not!"

Danny would have felt irritated at Tucker, but he had to admit seeing Niel's face turn as red as Sam's anthuriums was hilarious. Maybe that was what Tucker was going for: lightening the mood a little.

"You're not what?" Sam asked, and the three boys whipped around to see her reentering the greenhouse.

"Nothing," Niel said quickly. He scratched his cheek and turned his attention back to the flowers. "Just appreciating Nyx and Hecate here."

"Hecate and Nyx," Sam corrected.

"Yeah. That." He glanced at his wrist and said, "Um, I guess I should be leaving now."

Sam raised her eyebrows. "You just got here. Don't you want to hang out a bit?"

Danny could tell Niel wanted to, but he shook his head and said, "Dad's pretty strict about my training schedule."

"Training schedule?"

"Yeah. For my ghost powers." His eyes moved to Danny, almost out of reflex. For a long time, the clone had tried to get Danny to join him as his brother, but that was before he started questioning Vlad's integrity. Now, he just kept quiet and looked away.

Sam's lips thinned. "I dont mean to offend you, Niel, but I gotta be real with you. Your dad is kind of a--"

"A horrible villain who wants to take over the world?" Tucker said.

"--a jerk."

Niel crossed his arms, not meeting any of their eyes. "He's the only parent I have. I don't know. I don't know what to feel about him."

"I thought you said things were cool between you last night."

"I did, but..."

"But?"

Niel shook his head. "It's nothing. I better go."

The trio's eyes followed him as he left, but no one tried to stop him.

.

Niel wasn't lying about the training schedule, but the truth was, his training wasn't due for another hour. Rather than return to the mansion, he stopped by an alley on the way.

There was a fast food restaurant nearby, and he bought a takeout burger and brought it with him to a small spot nestled between two buildings. He was disappointed but not surprised when he found it empty. He wasn't sure why he expected otherwise. It would have been dumb of her to stay in one place for long.

"Looking for me?" a familiar voice spoke, and he looked up and saw Danielle Phantom appear in front of him.

"So you did stick around," Niel said.

Dani floated down, stopping before her feet touched the ground so that they were at eye level. "Well, duh. I came to Amity Park because I wanted to see you for myself, and one short conversation this morning wasn't enough for me." Her eyes drifted to the box in his hands, and they sparkled as she pointed and said, "Woah, is that a Nasty Burger?"

Niel handed the burger to her. "I thought travelling around the world homeless might have made you hungry."

"Niel, I know we only just met today, but I think you're starting to become my favorite brother." After accepting the box, she landed on the floor and transformed into human, then she took out the burger and scarfed it down.

Niel watched her with interest. Even though Vlad mentioned her often, he never kept any photo of her. All Niel knew was that she looked like Danny, but younger and female. He guessed that description was true, but it was a bit hard to notice her similarity to Danny from underneath the low wool cap and oversized hoodie she wore--not to mention her incredibly messy long hair.

Niel brought out a small yellow dandelion from his pocket and twirled it in his fingers. Dani paused eating to look at it.

"Didn't you say you were going to give those flowers to Sam?" she asked.

"I did," he replied. "I thought I might keep one to give to you, though, as a sort of welcome gift." He offered her the flower.

Dani eyed it. "I appreciate the gesture, but we're siblings."

"It's a friendship flower! Yellow flowers are for friendship, red flowers are for love."

"I don't know enough about flowers to refute that, so all right." She shrugged and accepted the flower, then after a moment's thought, placed it in her hair. "What do you think?"

"You would have looked cute, if you weren't otherwise so messy."

Dani rolled her eyes. "Pompous rich people," she grumbled, then bit into her burger again, not paying any attention to the grease that ran down her chin.

Niel wrinkled his nose. "Are you sure we're related?"

"Hey, man, ask Vlad."

Niel hesitated. He toyed with his wristwatch and asked, "Was he really that bad to you?"

Dani finished her meal and sucked her fingers. "I thought we established this earlier today. Vlad probably treats you well because you're perfect, but I wasn't so lucky. He just thinks of me as a failed experiment."

"He said your body was unstable, but you seem pretty stable to me."

She chuckled. "I'm not unstable all the time. Trust me, you won't see me looking as pretty as this when I'm emotional."

If her current appearance was pretty, Niel wasn't excited to know how she looked like unstable. Dani observed him for a moment, then said, "I have to say, you really are a nice clone."

"I thought you said I was pompous."

"You are. But you also brought me a burger and a flower instead of taking me to Vlad."

Niel's eyes widened. "Why would I do that?"

"To gain his respect?" She shrugged and said, "That's what I would have done, back when he cared for me. I was almost ready to kill Danny because he told me to. Maybe it's a good thing I turned out to be imperfect and had to leave."

Niel decided to ignore the fact that Dani would have murdered a person and instead said, "You mean you didn't realize it at first?"

"Oh, no. I was stable for like a week before Vlad noticed anything amiss." She saw Niel's troubled expression and quickly added, "It's okay, I'm sure youre safe. You've stayed stable for much longer than I did. You're not a failure."

"I hope not," Niel mumbled, not feeling completely reassured.

Dani gave him a friendly nudge. "Don't worry, you'll be fine. And if you're not, you could always join your super duper awesome sister Dani on her worldly expeditions."

Niel frowned. "By the way, why do you call yourself Danny? Don't you want to go by your own name?"

"Uh-uh," she wagged her finger and said, "I'm Dani, with an I. He's Danny with a Y."

"That has to get confusing sometimes."

"Oh, absolutely. But it's also really funny. Like how there're two Hawkeyes in Marvel comics."

"There's two Hawkeyes?"

Dani gasped dramatically, then placed a hand on his shoulder and said deeply, "Niel, I really need to get you into comics."

Niel slowly moved Dani's hand away. "Okay...but I still find it weird that you want to be called Dani. Why not Elle? or Ellie?"

Dani tapped her chin and said, "You could call me that, if you like. Ellie does sound pretty cute."

"Cool, then. Ellie it is."

Ellie didn't seem to mind his new nickname for her. She wiped her mouth with a sleeve and looked at Niel's watch. "I guess I better leave. If Vlad's treating you like he used to treat me, then you probably have to do some ghost training in a few."

Niel looked down at his wrist. Had time really passed that quickly? "Yeah, you're right. Um...I'd say say you later, but..."

Ellie shrugged. "Why not? No harm in sticking around in Amity Park for a while longer, right?" She jabbed a finger at Niel and added, "Just make sure Vlad doesn't try to capture me or anything. Also, feel free to buy me food whenever we meet."

"I'll keep that in mind," Niel promised.

Niel turned away and began walking home. He glanced over his shoulder to where Ellie had been, but she was gone, probably off to do...whatever it was she did on her own.