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"...fall into the abyss of nothingness, the oblivion, the End of All. I shall rule this world of life, the land of the living, in conjunction with the land of the dead, the world of darkness. This shall be my kingdom, the kingdom of Niflheim. You of the line of the land of the dead, come to my side and serve thy king, the Ruler of the Underworld!"
Nebilim to Danny Phantom

A fanfiction set in the Danny Phantom universe, with character cameos and interactions from Tales of Symphonia. It features canon characters from the game and characters and skills acquired in the author's Tales of Symphonia fanfictions.

It all begins with a strange supernatural force in the public library that keeps all ghosts, including Danny Phantom, at bay. Over the course of a few days of investigation and the introduction of a mysterious teacher from New York City, Danny discovers there's much more to his world than he originally thought, and an ancient evil is preparing to rise. Just to add to the pressure of his already stressful Hero life, that evil is hell-bent on using him as a vessel... literally!

With the aid of the angelic android called Caleb and guidance from the Heroes of Regeneration, Team Phantom must take the fight to Nebilim directly, traversing the perils of the Book of the Underworld and facing their own inner demons before they can hope to stand a chance against the King of Demons.

Netherworld Nightmare was first published in 2008 by author Digi-Dolphin, who is known for her sporadic and often lengthy hiatuses. It can be found on both her DeviantArt and Fanfiction.net accounts. It's touted as the true prequel to her Burning Black series. Unfortunately, it hasn't been updated since April, 2012.

Bonus Material:


Netherworld Nightmare contains examples of:

  • After-Action Healing Drama: Plenty of examples, mostly on Danny's part.
    • In the second chapter, Danny has his first battle with a ghost from Tales of Symphonia and gets his arms burned. After escaping, he gives himself rudimentary field care, then runs to Sam for better treatment. He's still self-treating the next day.
    • An example of ongoing healing is the battle with Nebilim. Caleb's been taken out of battle completely by Danny's attack at the end of the first phase, and Sam and Tucker stay out of combat to monitor him since he converted his Life Energy to ectomana and is slowly dying as a result and they can't change him back until Nebilim's been defeated and the Book is burnt. They're on a timer counted down by their Soulfire.
  • Aloof Ally: Caleb. He berates Danny for trying to get involved in fighting the ghosts from the Book of the Underworld, then catches him in the middle of a casting of Indignation, just to give him a taste of what he's really up against and force him to back off. He's cold and initially refusing to accept any kind of friendship from Danny. When he finally does give in to The Power of Friendship, it opens up a whole other can of worms, including dirty secrets from Caleb's past.
  • Amplifier Artifact: The "White Armlets" Caleb crafts in FentonWorks uses the same mythril-aionis alloy Caleb was built with and several White Quartz to protect Danny Phantom from possession and allow his ghost attacks to take on a Light Element to be able to hit mana-based ghosts and monsters. The Quartz supply runs out by the time they reach Nebilim, so they become useless in the final battle.
    • The "Topaz Crest" is crafted to replace the White Armlets for Danny and give him a limitless supply of Light Element. It also grants him ghostly versions of many Light-based spells, but at the price of neutralizing his stronger ghost attacks and ice powers, like the Phantom Phreeze and the Ghostly Wail. The Crest is made from a revitalized Topaz and the aionis-mythril from Caleb's dismembered wing.
  • Animal Theme Naming: Caleb nicknames his valued friends after birds, the primary being the Wonder Chef, whom he always calls Wren.
    • After Danny successfully becomes friends with Caleb, he gains the nickname of Raven and is referred to as such from then on by Caleb.
  • Awful Truth: Nebilim continuously mocks Danny for working alongside Caleb, dropping hints that there's more to the android than Caleb lets on, leading the team to grow suspicious of him until Danny finally snaps and figures out for himself what the truth is.
    • In one Trial level, Nebilim focuses his taunting on Caleb himself to demoralize him.
    Nebilim: "See how easily they turn on you over a few comments? Think of how much faster they would have turned if they only knew the truth."
    • The Trial Monsters also tease at this whenever they know Danny is close enough to hear them. Caleb continuously denies their words by repeating 'This is not my Trial' in an effort to keep Danny from focusing any attention to their mocking.
    The Enraged: "These inferior beings are nothing more than cattle for the slaughter. Remember? Remember how you sent billions to die for your goal?"
  • Berserk Button: Danny and Caleb share one in that they do not like it when their friends are threatened.
    • Caleb's Berserk Button tends to throw him into a Limit Break mode called Avenger.
    • The Revengineer has one with no one appreciating his mastery of technology.
    • Don't talk about ghosts, non-humans or their sympathizers around Dame Gray.
    • The Enraged goes apeshit when Valerie rejects her idea of a perfect world.
    • Nebilim does not like being shown up by a bunch of kids again, especially after he possessed Caleb's body and still got defeated by Danny Phantom in phase one.
    • The Wonder Chef usually radiates limitless and unconditional love... until you mess with Caleb. Then he'll rage like a true Italian.
    • Whatever you do, don't call Caleb 'Mithos'. He will totally lose. His. Mind.
  • Betty and Veronica: Sam is the Betty, Paulina the Veronica. Danny has some lingering regrets about his failed relationship with Valerie but appears to be growing a little closer to Sam in part because of Caleb's not-so-subtle encouragement.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: The Wonder Chef is a figure of unconditional love for all life, who will try his best to prevent needless death and will even save his enemies when given the chance. He'll also chew you out for abusing his best friend's kindness, beat you up with lethal food weapons if you trick Caleb into giving up the Wonder Fork and serving you and will cast the Light/Fire spell called Incineration without his signature weapon if you dare harm his best friend Caleb. There's plenty of incentive for the Heroes of Regeneration to tread lightly around him where Caleb is concerned.
  • Big Bad: Nebilim, the King of Niflheim. On lesser levels, the Trial Monsters for each member of Team Phantom and Caleb.
  • Black and Nerdy: Tucker Foley and The Revengineer/The Lustful. Both can do amazing things with computers and technology. Tucker also managed to write a program and install it into Caleb that allowed him to trick his body into unlocking an Over-Limit Mode without taking actual damage, even though the program had a flaw that crashed his systems on the first run.
  • Black Mage: Caleb's Avenger Mode is pure offense, using Dark spells without any care to how much self-damage he gains from casting them.
  • Body and Host: Caleb fears he is one of these until Danny and Wren prove otherwise.
    • Nebilim's goal is to escape the demon seal by using Danny as a Meat Puppet to get around the mana that repels his power.
    • Martel turns Danny into a Soul Jar for a dormant Wren as part of her conditions to let the Wonder Chef out of her protections and join Danny's team for the duration of the Trial.
  • Bonus Material: Phantom Planet's Consequences takes place in the future, connecting the events of this story with the finale of Danny Phantom and the events that start Burning Black.
  • Call-Back: Tucker going power crazy in two episodes of the series comes into play when Danny realizes what sin is fueling Tucker's Trial.
  • Calling the Old Man Out: Caleb gives a snide and bitter speech about how he isn't a hero and only exists to protect real Heroes, warning them of incoming dangers and providing them with guidance and resources, and then being forced to watch them grow old and die as he's unable to do the same. Danny turns it on him by pointing out that it just makes him a hero to Heroes and someone who cares about them enough to mourn their passing, and if that isn't true then Danny has no business calling himself a Hero.
    • Danny does this quite often with Caleb, as the guy is prone to angsting about his past.
    • Danny seems to do this and What the Hell, Hero? a lot to many people, including his own friends, Lloyd Irving, a fake Zelos Wilder, the fake Wonder Chef, and even Caleb's sister the Goddess Martel, Guardian Spirit of the Mana Tree, herself!
  • Child Mage: Genis, even though he's pretty useless against Desiree.
  • City of Adventure: Amity Park. Within the Book of the Underworld, Amity Park is recreated as an apocalyptic wasteland for Tucker's Trial level.
    • The town of Damon-Gray for Valerie's Trial level.
    • Welgaia, where the captured Amity Park citizens were being held.
  • Comm Links: The Fenton Phones are used when Danny dives into the flip side of his Trial level. After revealing the Phones' frequency, Caleb patches his voice to broadcast on it and Valerie also modifies her suit's earpieces to pick up on it as well.
  • Compelling Voice: Yggdrasill used his to disarm and lure Caleb close in an attempt to destroy his soul. Danny broke his hold with a Shut Up, Hannibal! shot to the face.
  • Convenient Color Change: Caleb usually has red mana wings. When he changes into one of his Over-Limit Modes, like Savior or Avenger, his wings change color to correspond with what Element he's venting to be able to use more of its opposing Element.
    • In Avenger Mode, Caleb's wings are white, representing Light Element, since he uses primarily Dark Element spells in that mode.
    • In Tucker's Trial level, all of The Revengineer's androids have wispy green wings, including Caleb 2.0. This is because of the type of power source they're all tapping into.
  • Dead Person Conversation: Every time one of the real Heroes of Regeneration shows up to give advice or help, it turns into this.
  • 11th-Hour Superpower: Caleb's Incineration was originally thought to be this until it was upgraded to Incineration Flambé just in time to OHKO his Trial.
    • Danny Phantom's Topaz Mode neutralizes his original 11th-Hour Superpower Ghostly Wail, but seems to be replacing it with Phantom versions of Tales Of Light spells. When the author last left off, Danny was wondering if there were more of them yet to be unlocked.
  • Emotion Eater: Sam's entire Trial level drained her sin to increase the strength of the Trial Monster, to the point where Sam became blind, nearly mute, unable to move and barely able to feel anything.
    • When her Trial Monster, The Weak, finally appeared, it continued feeding on her sin to self-heal any and all damage it was inflicted with in the battle. Sam destroyed it by replacing the emotion of her sin with faith in Danny and herself.
    • The Enraged grows more powerful the angrier Valerie gets. It loses power when she decides to forgive Danny Phantom for his role in her father's job loss. She still intends to chase Danny out of Amity Park by virtue of still believing she's the real hero.
    • Danny's Trial Monster fed on the unbalanced compromises it forced him and his friends to take in their sleep. As each teen rejected its bargaining and awoke, it lost the power to keep itself in its invincible pre-Trial form and became The Corrupted.
  • Energy Absorption: Exhausted from a near death in Tucker's Trial level, Danny Fenton doesn't have enough ectoplasm to transform into Danny Phantom, let alone generate a shield to protect his team from an incoming attack. Caleb tosses him Caleb 2.0's power source and tells him to drain the ectoplasmic fire inside it, since it's compatible with his ectomana. The boost is enough to not only get him to transform but also project a shield that held its ground against a massive casting of Incineration.
  • Enemy Rising Behind: After his second investigation of the flip side of his Trial level, Danny Phantom is shot from behind by a mystery attacker. He quickly discovers his attacker is himself as Danny Fenton.
    • Caleb is talking with Valerie while in an armory when he detects a familiar mana signature behind him. He's so startled by the identity of the person behind him that he's quickly captured and sedated via secret code with only a brief struggle to show for it.
    • Happens to him again during the fight against his Trial. Caleb's on his way back up in the air when his Trial Monster teleports in behind him and rips one of his wings out of its socket, crippling him in temporary defeat.
  • Evil Counterpart: Each of Team Phantom's Trial Monsters is modeled to look like them in some form.
    • Played With with Valerie's Trial Monster, who looked more monstrous and inhuman the more enraged Valerie became.
    • Also with Caleb's Trial Monster, who first took on the form of the Wonder Chef that was Caleb's best friend and then transformed into a replica of Yggdrasill.
  • Fallen Angel: Nebilim constantly refers to Caleb as this, making Danny -and by proxy his friends- suspicious and wary of Caleb's actions and motivations. Even Caleb's Trial invocation references it.
    • While Caleb accepts the title, he lies about the reason why he possesses it. The Fallen Angel refers to Yggdrasill, whom Caleb is afraid of becoming since his soul originally came from Mithos.
  • Fireballs: One of the spells that the Wonder Chef Wren uses in the battle against Yggdrasill is the basic Fireballs, along with Photon. This leads Danny to believe that Wren isn't very powerful with magic. He's soon proven wrong.
  • Forgot He Was a Robot: Intentional with Caleb as he needs to act as human as possible to keep his cover. Possessing a soul and being called 'living' are used to differentiate him from regular robots and androids. Essentially he is a truly living creature with almost all that that entails who just happens to be an inorganic being rather than an organic life form.
    • He registers pain when Tucker accidentally crossed a pair of wires in a wound he gained during the fight with Valerie's Trial.
    • He's seen panting for air after running from the scene of an ambush by Desiree and Technus 2.0.
  • Friend on the Force: Or more like fans. While all of Amity Park's police officers have ghost threat detection devices in their cruisers, those who support Danny Phantom have theirs patched to mark him as a 'friendly' rather than a 'hostile'.
  • Functional Magic: Rule Magic is primarily used by Caleb and the monsters of the Book of the Underworld, as they're the spells used in Tales of Symphonia.
    • Danny's White Armlets, and later the Topaz Crest, are examples of Device Magic.
    • Ectotechnology, such as the Fentons' ghost hunting gear, can also be considered Device Magic of the ectoplasmic variety.
    • The Eternal Sword Pin seems to be Device Magic as well, operating by granting the wishes of its wielder.
    • On a grand scale, the Book of the Underworld is a combination of Rule Magic and Device Magic in order to act as a potential escape route for Nebilim, but only if conditions are met. It can also be destroyed if other conditions are met. The plot of the story is driven by Team Phantom racing to fulfill their conditions before Nebilim can finish his.
    • Wren's unconditional love is Inherent Gift as it affects everything and everyone around him whether he's controlling it or not. The most obvious signs of it are in his cooking and in the strength of his casting of Incineration.
  • Good Is Not Nice: Caleb saves Team Phantom and potentially other ghost hunters from the school collapsing via Ghostly Wail by attacking Danny Phantom until he's inflicted enough wounds to bleed Phantom out and force him back to Fenton. He gets a What the Hell, Hero? call out but simply shrugs it off and retaliates with cold logic on how it did the job. Surprisingly -or perhaps not-, Danny agrees with and thanks him for stopping the Ghostly Wail.
    • Before Danny gets past his perfect neutrality, Caleb pretty much embodies this trope constantly.
    Caleb, upon hearing Danny complaining: "This is what separates the Heroes from the newbs; if you don't think you can handle this, then fine. Bow out. Remember, I never wanted you to come to begin with. I have no problems with dumping you here and letting you deal with whatever happens after I destroy the Book."
    • Wren curses a blue streak when he gets angered by either the Heroes of Regeneration or Caleb's pre-Trial, slamming his fists against Danny's barrier and generally flying into a rage. Caleb had previously described him as 'gentle, sweet, kind and wholesome'; Wren retorts that he never claimed himself to be that way, he was just 'good'.
  • Group Hug: Team Phantom and Colette give Caleb one after he admits his sin and truly believes he's lost their trust and friendship, reinforcing that he isn't alone, isn't blamed for his actions, and was forgiven for his actions, leading him to finally shed his guilt and begin forgiving himself.
  • Guardian Angel: Caleb, literally. His full title is Guardian Angel of the Heroes of Lore, though he tends to bend how he does his guarding. While he prefers to support Heroes from the background with information and resources, he decides to take on destroying the Book of the Underworld himself to spare the descendants of the Heroes of Regeneration from possibly losing loved ones. He ends up taking Team Phantom with him instead.
  • Heroic Safe Mode: After he is punished yet again for his actions regarding the Wonder Chef and his hopes to revive him, Caleb appears to cross the Despair Event Horizon, conceding defeat to Martel and the Heroes of Regeneration and declaring he no longer has the will to continue waiting for a promise that will never be fulfilled. This fills him with just enough darkness and despair while maintaining his mental clarity because of his friendship with Danny that it plays right into his plans to let Nebilim possess his body so Team Phantom will have a physical target to attack and defeat.
    • From the looks of things in Phantom Planet's Consequences and Burning Black, it appears that Caleb never rebooted and in fact crossed the Despair Event Horizon for real, clinging to the illusion of the Safe Mode just to keep functioning.
  • Heroic Second Wind: Caleb is temporarily defeated by his Trial and nearly resigns himself to giving up after being crippled. It's not until he realizes the motive Wren had in splitting up their grocery shopping the day before he died that he accepts the full power of the Wonder Fork. Doing so gains him complete mastery of the fork's signature spell, Incineration, which allowed him to grade up to his true Special Arte, Incineration Flambé, the only spell that could OHKO his Trial.
  • I Am Not Left-Handed: For much of Wren's time in combat alongside Danny and Team Phantom, he's used basic Fire and Light spells and was even handicapped by Caleb's presence. Once Caleb was gone and he was angered enough by it, he revealed his trump card, much to The Traitor's shock; the ability to cast Incineration without holding the Wonder Fork.
    Danny: "Just goes to show ya, straight up copying what Caleb remembers doesn't cut it against the real deal."
  • Light Is Not Good: Welgaia is populated by thousands of white- and black-winged angels with pretty faces and Light Element magic. They also despise humans and will hunt down and slaughter them if given the chance. The only reason why the Amity Park hostages aren't dead yet is because they're going to be used to create new Cruxis Crystals as soon as Team Phantom and that pesky Fallen Angel are dead and Danny Phantom's been taken prisoner.
  • Memento MacGuffin: Caleb has several that he carries around wherever he goes, the most important are:
    1. The Wonder Fork: Symbol of the vow he made to return it to Wren when the Wonder Chef reincarnates and returns to him.
    2. The Gems of Pact, Pepper's Bell and Sash: Items that belonged to his adopted daughter and mana beast companion.
    3. The Twelfth Spell-Card: Last one in existence that was created by Sheena Fujibayashi for Caleb's birthday, before The Reveal of his soul's origin.
    4. The Wren-Shaped Cruxis Crystal Mount: Kept as a reminder to never fall so far as to use it.
    5. His personal Key Crest: A Key Crest that has space for two Cruxis Crystals, since they come in two different shapes.
    6. His tattered green ribbon: The ribbon he was wearing the day he first met Wren; no matter what happens, how damaged it gets, how lost it may seem, Caleb will move heaven and earth to get it back in his hands and will repair it as best he can to preserve the fabric.
    • The first five play important roles in the story; Caleb's ribbon was only used as a hostage by Danny to get him to reveal how he was captured in Tucker's Trial level.
    • It could be argued that the Trial mementos are these, as they serve to remind Team Phantom of their perseverance over their sins, though Caleb's continues to serve as a reminder of his failure and punishment.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Caleb's response to the 'reward' he gained from defeating his Trial Monster is to abandon all hope of ever being reunited with his best friend. He even abandons calling him 'Wren'.
    Caleb: "I'm sick of it. No more. .... The Wonder Chef is no longer an issue."
  • Our Ghosts Are Different: Martel keeps the souls of the Heroes of Regeneration with her as a council to help in keeping Caleb from going off the deep end. She also has the Wonder Chef's soul as part of that council, but refuses to let him out of a complex magical barrier. During parts of the story, some of those souls appear to aid Team Phantom with advice and even fight alongside them in some battles.
    • Danny can't sense them with his ghost sense, but he feels a strange tingling sensation whenever they touch him instead of anything solid and real.
    • Ghosts that formed after the creation of the Ghost Zone are based on ectoplasm and are immune to magical attacks. Ghosts from before the creation of the Ghost Zone are based on mana and are immune to ectoplasmic attacks. Danny managed to blend the two opposing Life Energy types to create ectomana, giving him an edge in fighting and is the reason why Nebilim is after his body.
  • Out-of-Character Alert: When Caleb is replaced by a fake Zelos Wilder in Valerie's level, he speaks more like the Chosen than the Angel, using terms like 'hunny' and 'violent demonic banshee'. It's not until he shares his thoughts about the Wonder Chef with Danny that Danny catches on that something is seriously wrong with him; 'Caleb' didn't refer to him or Danny by their pet names, the proofs of their pacts of friendship.
    • It happens again when Danny faces his pre-Trial. As annoyed but unsurprised as he is by Caleb's seemingly aloof and callous remarks about trading minor things for his friends' restoration, he immediately calls him out as a fake when 'Caleb' offers to revive Sam in exchange for Danny giving up being a Hero. As Danny put it, the real Caleb would sooner let all his friends and family fall than allow him to stop being a Hero since -to the Guardian Angel- Heroes are more valued.
    • For Caleb, despite seeing numerous suspicious signs, he continues to ignore them in favor of believing Wren had returned, only to confirm beyond all doubts that the fake was truly a fake when he furiously attempted to kill Danny with the Wonder Fork, something the real one could never do so easily because of his unconditional love.
  • Power of Love: Incineration is a spell that bases its strength on how much love its caster possesses. The more love the caster has (be it for food, people, friends, anything), the more powerful the spell becomes. Wren's unconditional love for the world and all life on it makes his version the most powerful to ever exist, with only Caleb's true Special Arte surpassing it by a fraction, as it uses Caleb's love for the Wonder Chef and his ideals, and Danny's friendship, as its source.
    • Danny lampshades this by wondering to himself why someone (the original Yggdrasill) who relied on the Power Of Hate to carry out their agenda would be so dead-set on stealing Wren's body to utilize the Power of Love. He finds out a few chapters later.
  • Power of Trust: Wren's trust in Caleb to continue as the Wonder Chef in place of him gave him his Heroic Second Wind in time to rescue Team Phantom from his Trial.
    • Before that, Caleb finally accepted Danny's offer of friendship in the Welgaia level and as a show of trust gave him the nickname of Raven and left his repairs in Danny's hands.
    • An even bigger show of trust is when Caleb passed the right to hold and use the Eternal Sword Pin to Danny just before they faced Nebilim in the heart of the Book.
  • Public Execution: Eve Voraci attempted this with Caleb in Tucker's level for the fun of it.
  • Showing Off the New Body: Nebilim. Good Lord, Nebilim. As soon as he possesses Caleb, he starts by stripping down to skin-tight pants, shirtless, and sporting knee-high boots with stiletto heels and then practically flirts with Team Phantom, licking his lips and telling Danny that he has a 'delectable figure'. He purrs and coos at the team, and makes it obvious he prefers inhabiting bodies he finds attractive, whether they're male or female, simply because he is a king and believes it only appropriate that he should have attractive host bodies.
  • Shut Up, Hannibal!: Caleb has made it clear throughout the story just how terrified he is of Yggdrasill; when his Trial -in the form of Yggdrasill- tries to break him again after Caleb's Heroic Second Wind brings him back into battle, Caleb shuts him down and practically stalks his Trial into a corner.
    Caleb: "I'm bored with seeing [Wren's] face be used like that. Let's see something new, Traitor. Come on. I'm the Everlasting Wonder Chef. Show me your recipe for my demise. Impress me."
  • Title Drop: For Tales of Symphonia, and done by Nebilim himself.
    Nebilim: "In the end, I shall claim the host body and you will be nothing more than another meaningless name in the lost tales of Symphonia."
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Valerie calls out Danny Phantom for attacking 'Danny Fenton' in the flip side of Danny's Trial level. Later she does it again for all of Team Phantom when she sees them attacking The Corrupted, who takes the form of an angel Danny Fenton with apparently no hesitation or caring.
    • Danny calls out Lloyd Irving after the Eternal Swordsman tries to enlist his help in convincing Caleb to submit to another casting of Martel's seal spell.
      Danny, to a startled Lloyd: "Friends don't lock friends up to suffer forever like that!"
    • While traveling through Casper High, Caleb and Team Phantom come across Valerie as the Red Huntress. Caleb upgrades her gun to be more efficient against the mana-based ghosts and gets called out by Team Phantom for helping someone they view as antagonistic towards Danny. Averted when he points out that the gun was already weak against Danny and his upgrade included the ectomana signature exclusion to make Danny completely immune.


Phantom Planet's Consequences includes examples of:

  • Power of Friendship: Averted in that Danny Fenton's actions to get rid of his ghost half was enough of a betrayal in Caleb's eyes that he galvanized himself against ever being affected by offers of friendship again. This triggers an accelerated corruption of Caleb's soul, which Danny sees as a shadow that passes over Caleb and makes him act cold and uncaring.

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