Ghost of a Dream
"…It seemed I had woken from a dream, to find a nightmare"
Danny smiled down on the small town of Amity Park as he flew on his daily patrol; below him, the town's citizens cheered for him as he passed over them, and when his ghost sense suddenly went off, the cheers grew louder still as he prepared himself to catch whatever ghost had strayed into his territory again.
Over the past year, Danny Phantom had become famous for his ghostly guardianship over the small town that boasted the title of "Most Haunted City In America" (and possibly the world), and just a week ago, Danny Fenton had also become famous, hailed as the savior of the world, when, during the course of saving the world from a giant asteroid, it had been revealed that Phantom and Fenton were one and the same.
And so here he was, the Savior of the Earth and the Ghost Zone, back in his old haunt, patrolling the town against invading ghosts bent on testing his boundaries; just like old times.
The only difference, really, from then and now, was that Danny no longer had to fear his parents—whether for or from, he no longer had to worry about people targeting them for knowing him, without their knowledge, or fearing what they could do to him if they caught his ghost half, not knowing he was their son.
As Danny flew off in the direction his ghost sense was directing him, he grinned as he caught the familiar siren of the Fenton Family Ghost Assault vehicle as it roared around the corner, following closely behind him, his parent's ready to help him fight the ghost at a moment's notice—even Sam and Tucker were still helping with the ghost fighting, though they no longer rode the scooters; nope, with Tucker's influence as mayor, he was able to commandeer some of the hovercraft the GiW used, and now both he, Jazz, and Sam were patrolling different parts of the city, on the lookout for ghosts.
Danny smiled again at the thought of his girlfriend, but the grin quickly melted off of his face when he saw the ghost that was floating over the city, laughing maniacally as a storm brewed over his head.
"I really should have expected this to happen" Danny thought to himself, as he spied the Box Ghost, shouting loudly in his nasally voice, as he directed various packages into large piles on top of buildings, smirking as evilly as was possible for a ghost obsessed with boxes could.
"Ok, seriously? Do we have to do this every week, Box Ghost?" Danny said, annoyed as he crossed his arms in midair, ghostly tail flicking behind him in annoyance, like a cat's. "What's your great, doomed-to-fail scheme this time?" The teenaged ghost-boy asked impatiently.
The Box ghost scowled at the casual dismissal, crossing his arms as well, and Danny raised an eyebrow when he saw that one of the Box Ghost's feet was heavily bandaged, and then lowered his brows in concern when he saw that it stained with blue ectoplasmic blood, almost soaking through the glowing bandage.
"Hey, are you all right? What happened to your hand?" Danny asked, reaching out a hand of his own, his usual sympathy and good nature overriding the urge to just suck the little blue ghost into the RV.
The Box Ghost appeared touched at Danny's display of concern, and he lowered his hands to his side, causing the boxes he had been controlling to drop to the ground, spilling out their contents of various electrical wires, rubber ducks, and what looked like alarm clocks. The pudgy ghost looked at Danny, head tilted to the side as he considered whether or not to answer,
"You, ghost boy, are the first to notice my grievous injury!" The little blue man proclaimed in his usual, annoying and dramatic voice, "I had been exploring the deepest parts of the ghost zone, when I came across a creature so vile and evil, it was not afraid of ME!" He shouted; throwing his uninjured arms out in a gesture that seemed to indicate that the concept was unbelievable.
Danny rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath, "Box Ghost, no one is afraid of you!"
Luckily, the ghost in question didn't seem to notice either action, and continued his rant—er, story.
"When I told it to beware my amazing powers, the creature just scoffed—SCOFFED!—and sent a ball of white fire at me! Luckily, I used my incredible agility, and was able to dodge most of the blast! But! Alas! He managed to hit my hand and it super-heated the ectoplasm in it, causing it to MELT!"
Here, the Box Ghost let out an aggrieved wail, clutching the injured hand to his chest, face looking on the verge of tears, and Danny gasped at the news, wincing in sympathy while he wondered if there was a way to help the poor ghost—he might be annoying, but he wasn't evil, and no one deserved to have their hand…melted, and have no way to fix it—from the look of that bandage, it was in worse shape than Danny cared to think about.
"If you're hurt so badly, why would you come out here and pick a fight? I could have hurt you!" Danny demanded, wondering what he would have done if he had seriously hurt the chubby green man in a fight, and feeling relieved that he hadn't just rushed into battle and attacked the ghost.
"I had no choice! The Creature forced me to come here!" the Box Ghost shouted unhappily; face twisting with anger and something akin to desperation, his eyes wide as he suddenly swooped in close to Danny, wings flaring, making the ghost boy flinch back, before leaning forward cautiously when the blue ghost pointed to a familiar looking device on his arm, though the teen couldn't quite remember where he had seen it.
"What is that?" Danny asked, and jumped a little in mid-air when the screen on the watch-like device suddenly blazed into life, showing static for an instant before the image of a bound and gagged woman appeared on the screen, staring at the camera in fear as the ghostly woman shivered in the corner of a dark room, barely visible but for the faint glowing of her skin.
"Emma!" The Box Ghost whispered, terror evident in his unusually quiet voice as he stared at the tiny screen, "The Creature! It kidnapped my fiancée, Emma, who you know as the Lunch Lady!" He cried, and Danny gaped at the man before him in shock—fiancée, Emma, the Lunch Lady? WHAT?
"Wh-why would he kidnap her? What does he want from you? And—when the heck did you start dating the Lunch Lady!?" Danny exclaimed, his mind stuck on the single fact that the Box Ghost and Lunch Lady had been going out—oh crap. He thought to himself, paling slightly, I have a feeling Box Lunch is going to be showing up sometime soon…
"I do not know! All I know is he said he would destroy her if I did not bring these boxes here!" The Box Ghost wailed, and Danny, upon hearing those words, immediately flew down to the nearest pile of boxes, and tapped the Fenton Phone on his ear, activating it, so that he could talk to his parents.
"Mom, Dad, get the ecto-medical kit out! The Box Ghost—his foot—it's really bad, see if you can help him, alright? Some evil ghost attacked him and kidnapped the Lunch Lady, and told him if he didn't bring these cubes here, he would destroy her! I've gotta check out what's in these things, and make sure they're not dangerous" Danny informed his family and friends in a single breath as he landed on the roof, and immediately heard his father's enthusiastic confirmation, while Jazz and his mom started shooing away the crowd of fans that had gathered in the streets, knowing that whatever was about to happen could be very dangerous, especially for the untrained villagers of the city.
Taking a deep breath, Danny prepared himself for all manner of traps and blatantly evil devices that would inevitably spring from the boxes, and after exhaling, he reached forward, towards the closest box and ripped it open.
Inside the box, lying in seemingly-innocent piles, were little packets of Nasty Sauce; not so innocently, was the odd-looking alarm clock that sat perched on top of the pile, the little red numbers counting down from 15, while the bloody-looking smiley-face that had been drawn on the top gave Danny a fanged smile, before narrowing it's eyes and laughing inaudibly.
"Crap!" Danny shouted, eyes widening as fear and alarm filled him; with a cry, he grabbed the box and its contents and flew straight into the air, ignoring the confused questions his parents were shouting in his ears as he concentrated on flying as far above Amity as he could.
Flying as fast as possible, Danny's sensitive ears could pick up every mechanical whiz and whir of the bomb.
Glancing into the box, Danny saw that he had less than five seconds left; with a grunt, he tossed it as far above his head as he could, dove to the side, and threw one of the light sabers on his utility belt at it; the resulting explosion, even at the height where no planes dared to fly, shook the windows of the buildings below, threw Danny back well over a hundred feet, and the wave of fire scorched the white trim of his suit pitch black, burning his skin before he was able to correct his flight path and steer himself away from the explosion, clutching his chest with a pained moan, tears gathering unwillingly in his eyes from the fire burning his torso.
"Danny! What's going on? Was that a bomb!?" Maddie Fenton's worried voice sounded over the comms, and Danny hissed at the sudden shout in his ears, his breaths coming in adrenalin-rushed panting. "DANNY! Answer me!" His mother shouted, and Danny winced again, rubbing his ear shakily before he activated his own comms and spoke.
"Y-yeah, mom, it was a bomb—I think there might be more down there in the boxes," Danny gasped into the microphone, "You have to get all the people away from here, I don't know when they'll go off!" Danny quickly spoke before his voice dissolved into a coughing fit; he began to fall out of the air as the violent coughs wracked his body.
"Danny!" The cries rang out below, but Danny could hardly hear the voices over the roaring in his ears as he struggled to draw in breath; without his willing it, he felt the heavy blue warmth of his human half surge to the forefront of his mind, and before he knew it, the blue-white rings had flashed over his torso and legs, and he found himself plummeting to the ground in his human form, vision blackened and blood surging past his lips with every hacking cough that tore through his burned and ruined frame.
"Danny!" He heard the panicked voice as if though underwater felt something slam into his side; he suddenly found himself cradled in a protective cage formed by slender but strong arms. He could feel the person who held him trembling as they shouted words that were nothing more than indistinct echoes in his ears as his head swam dizzily from lack of oxygen; even in the darkness behind shut eyes, he could feel an even deeper darkness closing in over his consciousness; he shied away from the lack of light even as it drew closer and closer.
His body spasmed in agony, a flash of red breaking through the darkness when he felt something brush against his chest, and the sickening sensation of skin being peeled from his flesh; with a hoarse scream, he jolted back into awareness, eyes flashing open, searching blurrily for the threat, arms flailing in an attempt to beat back whatever was attacking him.
Before his eyes had even focused, his arms had been pinned down to a cool table, and when he tried to kick out with his feet, his legs were pinned down as well; they connected to the metal with a wet squishing noise, and something freezing cold splashed onto his limbs from the impact, their coldness so intense that they quickly began to burn his skin, little points of molten lava, but nothing compared to the raging volcano that was boiling on his chest; ready to explode at the slightest provocation into a fiery torrent of red pain and black shards of that would threaten to drown him again.
With the new pain came a newer clarity and blue eyes finally focused enough to see the teal-suited form of his mother hovering over him, a crimson-coated scalpel held in one black-gloved hand, her eyes wide as she stared down at the blackened form of his chest, while Danny's father stood off to the side, one massive but gentle hand holding his arms down, while the other kept his legs solidly on the table, unaware of the burning blue liquid that was now splattered over his orange jumpsuit, burning holes into his son's ragged jeans and bare arms, too focused on his wife's swift and careful movements with the scalpel as she finished cutting the scorched tee-shirt off of Danny's chest, the fabric grotesquely fused to his burned flesh, to hear the sizzle and pop of the blue ectoplasm that had spilled across the table, mixing with the crimson tide of blood that poured from the cuts and scrapes on Danny's arms and legs.
Waves of agony washed through him with every snip and careful pulling of fabric, until he felt a small pinprick of pain, almost insignificant compared to the rest of the warning signals rushing to his brain, and his head flashed to the side, panicked sky blue eyes meeting the concerned turquoise ones of his sister as she silently pushed on the plunder of a sterile syringe, a packet of some clear fluid clenched in her fist, as tears poured down her face.
The minutes passed by in a medicated haze that was somehow worse than the unrelenting pain from before; everything took on a surreal tone; colors swirled together and voices clamored to be heard apart from one another, the words sluggish to reach his numbed mind, sensations equally dulled as he felt the faint brush of a cool cloth being gently wrapped around his torso, the gentle hands of his father holding him aloft while his mother worked carefully to bandage the wound with a feather-light touch, leaving Danny feeling as if he were floating in the air, vertigo rushing through him as his head felt disconnected to his body…
He could barely even hear the panicked voices of his family as they shouted over his body, rushing through the RV in a confused flurry of motion and distant sound.
He didn't even know Sam, Tucker and Valerie had arrived until he felt a warm hand grab his in a tight grasp, and felt the faint brush of purple warmth against his mind that always signified Sam's closeness, and saw through blurry eyes the distinctive form of the Red Huntress and the equally familiar stop-light color scheme of Tucker's new battle-suit, decked out in various technical gadgets, though the familiar sight was lost in the darkness that once more encroached on the young halfa's vision and mind.
He didn't even remember why he was injured anymore, or why the Box Ghost was floating in the back corner, clutching his freshly bandaged (though no less soiled by the equally fresh blue ectoplasm that seeped through the layers of fabric) hand to his portly chest, staring at him in confused nervousness, as if he didn't quite grasp what was happening.
He didn't even realize the magnitude of what he had seen in the box before the bomb had gone off until he saw, as if from a great distance, the first flicker of white fire, blue skin, and blood red eyes.
It was only after the first spray of blood splattered over him and he heard the screams of his family and friends that he realized the true horror of what had happened—what had escaped.
Who had escaped.
The last thing he saw before he plunged into the darkness was the impossible figure of his future self, crouched over the blood-soaked remains of his friends and family, before the hulking figure sprang towards him, eyes ablaze, hands outstretched into claws, and the mane of fire licking along the ceiling of the RV, setting it alight with white and blue flames that floated in an unfelt breeze, like flower petals as they swirling in a maelstrom of death, consuming everything they touched, until nothing remained but the darkness.