.
The moment you doubt whether you can fly,
you cease for ever to be able to do it.
- J. M. Barrie
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Jazmine lay still on the asphalt, hair in disarray. Her clothing was torn in some places, singed in others by ectoblasts. Something dark pooled beneath her.
Danny's mind tried to tell him that it was blood, but the thought was denied, because if it really was blood then there was already so much, almost too much…
He stared at the spreading pool of darkness; his sister's chest didn't move. She didn't breathe.
Another few seconds of disbelief, and Danny's core told him that she was dead.
Skulker had raised his blaster again, and Danny swung his head around to stare in dawning comprehension as it was aimed at Tucker.
They weren't only here for him – they were also here for his friends. After all, every member of Team Phantom was a nuisance to invading ghosts; it made sense to wipe all of them out in one go.
Tucker backed away, fiddling frantically with his PDA. Maybe given enough time, the boy could have hacked into his attacker's new and improved suit, but Danny doubted it.
A blast of light from Skulker's gun, and the smartest boy in town buckled at the knees, eyes wide and mouth working without words as he hit the ground. His glasses skittered across the asphalt on impact, giving Danny an unobstructed view of Tucker's terrified expression as the boy lay there gasping raggedly for air.
Blood began to pool beneath him, too.
Then Sam was there, wonderfully, obnoxiously stubborn, even in the face of such horrible odds. She waved around the busted Thermos, screaming for Danny to get up and save everyone.
Yeah, right.
Like two broken legs and a ghost-proof net that sent bolts of fire through his bones was something that Danny could simply shrug off because she believed in him.
It was Walker who shot Sam point blank in the side of the head. Her face, frozen halfway through calling Danny's name, fell slack as her body hit the ground with a dull smack.
More blood, but this time it spilled across her face in dark little streams on its way to the puddle beneath her head.
The only sound was Tucker, his raspy, desperate breathing like sandpaper across Danny's stunned brain.
They were all too far gone. Death seeped through the air, weighing down on Danny's core and scrambling his thoughts as surely as the glowing net encasing his limbs scrambled his powers.
The ghosts turned towards their true prize, Walker motioning for his lackeys to stand aside. Danny lay still, staring at his two enemies. They'd actually done it… They'd actually…
His eyes prickled with tears, and Danny sniffed as the first one spilled down his cheek. "You killed them," he whispered.
"About damned time, too," Walker grumbled.
"This one's not dead," Skulker said, his voice easily conveying barely-restrained glee. He prodded Tucker with a metal boot, its spiked toe puncturing the boy's side. The felled teen wheezed in pain, his body jolting.
"Get away from him!" Danny bellowed, thrashing against the net. "Damn it, he's already hurt too badly, just let him die in peace!"
"You're not in any position to make demands, Punk," Walker said, lifting his foot and planting it on the ghost boy's chest. Danny gasped as he applied pressure, grasping Walker's leg and trying to yank the warden off balance. Walker simply smirked, growing in size like a kitchen sponge dipped in water.
The pressure on Danny's chest increased and he wheezed, loosening his grasp on the other ghost's leg. His ribcage burned at the weight on top of it, and Danny feared that he was about to feel it bend and shatter when Walker grunted and stepped off him. "Behave," the warden snapped, kicking Danny in the gut instead.
Danny yelped at the new pain in his abdomen, curling around the injury with a gasp.
Skulker was still across the parking lot, standing over Tucker and watching the exchange with obvious amusement. "Don't break him too much," he called, "I want his pelt in one piece."
Walker waved a dismissive hand. "I won't break the skin," he shouted back, "but a few more bones shouldn't be a problem."
He turned back to Danny, and the ghost boy stared at that awful white face, his terror mounting with every moment. "I thought you wanted to imprison me," Danny said. He had to get out of here. Keep them talking, buy some time, and pull off a spectacular last-minute escape. He'd done it plenty of times before, so why not now?
Walker smirked, and Danny shivered at the vision that this produced. It was a look that promised pain, the type of agony that only ended with death. "Skulker only wants your pelt, boy. Once he's done with you, I get your ghost – you owe me nine thousand years. It'll be easier to cage you when you can't turn human, anyway."
Danny shuddered, turning away from that particular concept. He'd escape – he always escaped, sometimes with only seconds to spare. Everything would okay after all this was over; he'd go home, ready to fight another day.
The bodies in their pools of blood caught his gaze, and Danny forced himself to look away. Not here. Not now. Even as the world tilted off-balance, he couldn't afford to focus in it. Once he was out of this mess, he could grieve. If he didn't focus on the task at hand, he'd tear apart; their loss would pull at his seams, unpicking him like a mistake in sewing class, because that's all he really was.
They were lying there, the girls already dead and Tucker on his way, because all Danny ever seemed to do was make mistakes. Every new power, every stronger enemy, presented risks that they'd only managed to survive by the skin of their teeth.
They'd toyed with death like it was some sort of game, and the problem with games is that when luck's involved, you're eventually going to lose. Nine times out of ten, ninety-nine out of a hundred, it didn't matter; all it took was that one failure, and they wouldn't get another turn.
This was that time, and as Danny lay on the cold, hard ground, with asphalt sticking uncomfortably into his skin and blood spreading beneath his sister's and friends' cooling bodies, he kicked himself for not realising that this was bound to happen eventually. It was simple probability, after all.
Too bad that he sucked at maths.
Walker lifted his foot once more, positioning it over Danny's chest. "I'm going to enjoy this," he sneered, meeting Danny's eyes once again.
Danny's heart beat fast in his ears, fluttering in panic like a bird caught in a trap.
"Wait and let him watch this first," Skulker said, and Danny sighed involuntarily as Walker paused and stepped away from him again.
This brief respite did little to clear his head, and Danny looked towards Skulker. There was nothing more Team Phantom could do – they'd already lost. Walker's guards ringed the parking lot, still and solemn as they watched the scene unfold.
They never kept out of the fighting, unless there was no doubt that victory was theirs. Danny knew this – he'd seen it before. The notorious Team Phantom had fallen, and there was nobody left to stop Walker and Skulker from consummating their scheme.
The hunter leaned down, grasping Tucker's hair in one large hand. He straightened back up, dragging the dying boy off the ground.
Blood sheeted from the hole in Tucker's chest, and he gasped like a fish left to die on the riverbank. His mouth was open wide, drawing air in ragged breaths as Tucker hung limply from his captor's grasp.
Skulker's other hand held a sword – the very same Fenton Machete that Danny himself had had strapped to his back for the majority of their fight. Once he was caught in the net, the guards had removed the ghost child's weapons, leaving him not only bound but utterly helpless.
Danny lay there powerless and panting, his cheek pressed against the rough bitumen. He couldn't watch this. Death in battle was one thing, but execution? The cold-blooded murder of his best friend while Danny just laid there?
He clenched his fists – he couldn't watch this, but nor could he look away.
The gleaming blade was lifted, and it sat against Tucker's throat, reflecting the fluorescent streetlamps along its length.
"This is what you get for being a hero," Skulker sneered. "Watch closely, Whelp – it's time for you to learn what death really is."
"Put. Him. Down."
Danny started at the voice, glancing in its direction.
Somebody walked through the ring of guards uncontested. After all, what was just another human to their boss?
She strode into the middle of the parking lot, titian hair flaming in the fluorescent lamplight. Danny stared at his mother, struggling to figure out what she was doing here. It was the middle of the night – shouldn't she be in bed?
Maddie glanced his way, locking eyes with her son. Danny continued to stare at her, and the woman's brow knitted. "What's going on here?" she demanded.
Danny swallowed nervously. "Well-"
"Quiet," Walker growled, his foot returning to rest against Danny's windpipe, effectively cutting off the ghost boy's words.
Maddie's hand curled around the gun at her hip. Her gaze was fixed unwaveringly on the ghosts, and Danny realised that she, too, must be tearing apart inside at the sight of his companions dead on the bitumen.
Tucker moaned, a pitiful, desperate sound. The blade at his throat glinted, its edge darkening with blood as it opened a fine wound in the teen's frail flesh. "Put your weapons on the floor," he demanded.
Maddie lifted her head, but didn't move her hand from the blaster. "So you can kill me, too?"
This time it was Skulker's turn to growl. The sound was predatory and inhuman, and Walker chuckled as Maddie's shoulders stiffened.
"We're only here for the whelp," the hunter explained, and Danny flinched as his mother's gaze flicked back to him. The foot against his throat pressed harder, and he wheezed in an attempt to suck in even the smallest amount of air.
"Well, it seems you have your prize," Maddie said, and Danny's gut tightened. Was she just going to hand him over? To leave him with these ghosts who so obviously wished him harm?
His mother's eyes were clear and furious. "I'll let you have him," she said, "so long as you can give me a satisfactory answer."
Off to the side, Danny noticed some of Walker's guards smirking; as if there was any doubt that their boss and his hunter friend would leave with the trussed-up ghost boy as their trophy. One human huntress wasn't going to change that.
He felt like he'd been kicked in the stomach, and tears prickled behind Danny's eyelids. She was going to leave him! He was her son, but she was still going to… Oh.
Danny blinked through the white bangs that had fallen across his eyes during his earlier struggles.
Of course she'd leave him.
The thought sent a stab of grief through him, and the tears spilled over, trailing down the halfa's temples and into his shining nacre hair.
The harsh creases around Maddie's mouth softened in surprise at the boy's tears, and Danny watched her silently, begging her without words to help him.
Skulker released Tucker's hair and the boy dropped, hitting the ground with a sob. He stirred slightly, only to recoil at the pain that the movement obviously caused; Danny could feel his friend's life seeping away, like a tide drawing slowly from the shore.
In a flash of light, Skulker had teleported to hover in front of Maddie. The woman's jaw clenched, her fingers tightening around her gun, but she didn't draw it. Not yet.
"Well," Skulker drawled, "ask away."
Maddie stood firmly in place, glaring at the flaming hunter before her. "If all you wanted was Phantom, why did you kill these children?" she demanded in a loud, clear voice. To the assembled ghosts, she was calm, confident, powerful.
Only Danny could interpret the grief in her eyes.
He knew her. He knew what she would do once Skulker answered her question. And the bodies strewn around them told him how their confrontation would end.
Danny's hurting heart twisted at the mere thought, choking him with his anguish.
Skulker shrugged, the large hands of his suit moving carelessly out to his sides. They left an opening. A weakness.
"They're all part of the whelp's little team," he said. "They got in the way, so we decided to eliminate them. We don't want those kids to try and rescue him like they always do."
Maddie nodded once, her gaze dipping to the armoured chest of the ghost in front of her. "I see," she murmured.
Skulker shrugged again, glancing in the direction of Walker. It was a look asking for confirmation – to kill or not to kill?
In that moment of distraction, Maddie made her move. She stepped up against Skulker, one hand hooking beneath the chin of his helmet while the other one ripped the blaster from its holster. She jammed the barrel beneath the gap between Skulker's cuirass and cuisse, angling skywards and directing the shot up through the empty suit.
The resulting blast blew apart the hunter's armour, sending mangled pieces flying in every direction.
Well, she'd certainly done better than Danny had initially thought she would.
A battered gauntlet skidded across the ground, landing a couple of metres away from the ghost boy. Its fingers were still wrapped tightly around the hilt of the Fenton machete.
Walker's foot lifted off his throat, and Danny gasped at his sudden renewed ability to breathe in more than shallow little bursts. The extra oxygen finally began to clear the sluggishness from the halfa's mind, and he wriggled as the warden launched himself at Maddie, ectoblasts flying.
Her ecto-protective suit reflected to blasts, and the woman spun, retaliating with shots of her own. The guards surged forwards, their own hands lighting up in a combined assault against her.
Danny rolled across the ground, coming to rest against Skulker's disembodied gauntlet. He scrabbled for the weapon, pushing his fingers through the tight mesh of the net and prising the blade from the glove's grasp. Angling the weapon, he laid it against his prison, hooking the tip under a few of the strands.
A pull, and Danny grunted as the blade refused to cut the rope binding him. The edges frayed around its bloody blade, revealing a core of metal.
The halfa moaned in frustration – they really hadn't been taking any chances with his capture.
In the middle of the parking lot, Maddie had lost her gun. She moved quickly, unclipping a thermos from her belt and angling it at the nearest attacking guard.
Too slow.
Walker's arms snaked around Maddie from behind, one hand clamping over her mouth. The other one prised the thermos from her grasp, dropping it to the ground. She twisted and bucked, moving to throw her captor over her shoulder, but Walker lifted the two of them into the air.
Maddie's fists rained blows against the unfeeling ghost.
"Well, well, well," Walker drawled. "Attacking the Warden, are we? That's against the rules."
Danny stiffened. "No, let her go!" he screeched, thrashing against his net. "You're here for me, so just let her go, please!"
Walker's eyes glimmered wickedly. "You know, boys, I do think that the punk down there will be a little lonely locked up by himself," he said. "How about we give him a cellmate?"
The hand covering Maddie's mouth lit up, and Danny realised in one sickening instant that he was about to watch his mother have her head blown off.
"Don't!" he screamed, bucking against the net with all his might, sawing at the strands with the machete even as it cut into his own skin. All the while, he kept his gaze on Maddie as well as he could through the tears that streamed from his eyes.
He needed to get out.
He needed to save her.
Despite the pain, despite his current weakness, despite the net that cancelled out his powers, Danny lifted a hand that glowed white. Brilliant bolts of lightning arced unbidden from his fingers, striking Walker whilst harmlessly dissipating against Maddie's suit.
The huntress dropped to the ground, deliberately rolling as she landed.
More lightning burst from Danny's hands, striking the guards, streaming straight through their defensive shields like light through a window. With each successful hit the targets collapsed, unmoving.
The net sizzled, falling away in burning, melting chunks, and Danny sat up with a groan.
Maddie stared at him from where she crouched on the asphalt, and Danny stared at his hands in wonder.
"What was that?" he heard her ask.
Danny shook his head numbly, clenching and unclenching fingers that tingled. His core burned like an overcharged battery, sizzling with such excessive power that felt like it was leaking from his very pores.
Light flickered bright blue off to one side, and Danny tore his gaze away from his hands. Maddie had scooped up the fallen thermos and was now sucking up the prone forms of Walker and his employees.
The halfa braced himself, waiting for the nauseating tug of that blue vortex.
Maddie capped the contraption before it could reach him, and Danny blinked up at her in confusion. "What was that?" she asked again, aiming the thermos at the boy.
Danny scrubbed a hand across his eyes, wiping away his tears. "I don't know," he confessed, "I've never done anything like that before."
Maddie frowned, and in the ensuing silence, Danny realised that Tucker's breathing had grown so shallow that it was a wonder that it hadn't stopped altogether.
He eyed the thermos in his mother's hands. "Why aren't you sucking me up?"
Maddie took a step towards him. "Where's my son?" she demanded.
Danny sighed, closing his eyes for a moment at her question. What could he say? He was so close to falling apart, with the dead and dying sprawled around him, and all his mother could do was pick at his secret.
He knew why she'd asked that – where Sam and Tucker were, Danny was also. It made sense that Maddie would be looking for the missing body. He had to tell her. After all this, she deserved to know.
Jazz's crumpled corpse drew his gaze, and Danny sighed again.
He'd tell her soon. Once they were away from here, and the bodies had been moved to a safe place. She wouldn't be able to handle finding anything out until everything else was as stable as it could get.
Tucker wheezed and rasped, and Danny looked at his mother again. "He's safe," he promised. "He's alive."
A tear slipped down Maddie's cheek, glinting in the lamplight. "That's not what I asked."
Danny shrugged. "That's all I can tell you right now," he said. "Let me go, and I promise that I'll bring him home to you."
Maddie closed her eyes with a shaky exhalation before pinning Danny under her gaze once more. "Swear that you'll bring him back."
He nodded. "I swear upon Death himself that I will bring your son home."
She nodded as well, gaze finally moving away from Danny and taking in the carnage around them. Maddie clipped the thermos back onto her belt with fingers that trembled. "Ghosts can sense death," she said, looking at Danny once again.
It wasn't a question, but he nodded anyway.
"Who's still alive?" As she spoke, her voice cracked, and more tears shone as they slipped down her cheeks like rain on a window.
"Tucker's still breathing," he told her, his own eyes growing hot with fresh tears. "The others… they're both…"
Maddie made a strangled sound and rushed to Tucker's side, speaking quickly and quietly to the dying boy before whipping out her phone.
Danny took the opportunity to lift himself into the air, his broken legs throbbing as they dangled beneath him. With a flourish of thought, they morphed into a ghostly tail and the pain dulled to a deep ache.
He hovered there, unsure of what to do. Should he go home despite his broken legs? Take refuge in Clockwork's lair until they healed? Try to convince the Master of Time to give him another chance to prevent his sister and friends from slaughter?
As Danny contemplated this, the unfamiliar power that sizzled through his every cell sent a pulse down his left hand. The third finger, the one where a ring would sit if he were to ever marry, lit up with a brilliant green light.
The light sluggishly began to take form, shifting to wrap around the base of his finger in a band. It faded slowly, and Danny's gut twisted in horror as the ring appeared in its wake.
"This can't be right," he murmured, fingering the jewellery as Maddie rapidly relayed their location to an emergency operator.
He needed to get to Clockwork.
Flicking his tail, and immediately regretting the unnecessary movement at the pain it caused, Danny angled himself towards home and the portal that lay beneath it.
Before he could rise more than a few metres off the ground, Maddie began to talk to the dying boy again, promising him that help was on the way.
Danny clenched his fists and soared away from the parking lot without looking back. He briefly debated waiting until the ambulance arrived, just to see if Tucker would survive, when his core chilled with the brush of death.
Danny halted his ascent as he finally choked on a sob, shivering as the soul of his closest friend soared right past him, climbing into the reality of souls that have passed on.
It was a place where Danny could not follow, and as the halfa trembled amidst the starry darkness, something whispered to his soul that this could never be reversed.