Hello! :D
First off, I believe I owe everyone an apology for the author's note in the previous version of this story. I accidentally made it harder to understand than intended, and I should have been more specific in my reasons WHY I made these changes. -Smacks head on brick wall.-
It won't happen again.
Anyway, here are the changes and why I did them. In the last Danny Phantom episode 'Phantom Planet,' Danny and Sam became a couple, the entire world learned Danny's secret, and Vlad was knocked off the face of the earth. (Actually, it was more like knocked right in the face with an asteroid while in space. But, you get the point ;)) Plus, the world learned his secret as well. As I wanted 'The Phantom Retribution' to be a sequel to 'Keep Holding On' while having it take place after as many episodes as possible, all of this posed a problem. My reason for wanting it to take place after as many episodes as possible was this: I originally published 'Keep Holding On' (yes, that title was borrowed from my favorite Avril Lavigne song, which the story was based upon :)) before the premiere of 'Urban Jungle' and 'Phantom Planet.' Therefore, none of the previously mentioned incidents existed in 'Keep Holding On,' Vlad was not the Mayor of Amity Park, and Danny did not have ice powers. So, in order for 'The Phantom Retribution' to be a sequel to 'Keep Holding On,' take place after as many episodes as possible, make Vlad the Mayor, and allow Danny to have his ice power, I had to make the series seem as if the last episode was 'Keep Holding On.' Although I'm sure most of you hate math (I'm a nerd, so I love math :P), let's look at it like this:
Danny Phantom Series – Phantom Planet + Keep Holding On + The Phantom Retribution How This Story Is Possible.
Plus, I would love to continue after this story is finished, making it a series of it's own while continuing the show. Only it wouldn't be as fun if the whole world knew of Danny's powers
Phew. I hope that explanation was much more clear than the last. Heck, when I read the last one, even I was going 'What?' And I wrote it! Pretty sad :(.
So, if you still don't wish to read this because you don't want 'Phantom Planet' to be out of the picture, that decision is yours. I won't blame you, as it is my favorite episode, and I hated doing this in the first place :(. But I did it anyway, as I have been looking forward to this story for nearly a year. But if you join me on this story, I will do my best to give what I claimed it would have: action, comedy, suspense, and fluffy Danny and Sam romance. Every single review is appreciated and anticipated more than you know, and every one will receive a response (except for anonymous reviews. Unfortunately it gives me no way to contact you.)
So, if you plan to read, many thanks, and I wish you happy reading!
Note: This chapter is more like a prologue.
Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not now, nor will I ever, own Danny Phantom :(.
The Phantom Retribution
"No fear of death…
Only of what you leave behind…"
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The hand of time flows differently for everyone. Depending on whom is asked, each passing second produces a different sensation.
For some, each tick is quiet, light – life and circumstance are happy and sound. Everything is well contented, time flowing leisurely and comfortably. For others, each toll is loud, hard – troubling or painful happenings and situations make time pass bitterly, slowly.
For him… each tick sent a shiver - a convulsion of rage down his spine. They tolled loudly, ringing in his ears. Or maybe the ringing was so profound because the clock was in his head. It announced each second that passed – each second he'd spent trapped in an inescapable prison, unable to do as his burning desires commanded, things that could only be accomplished outside the tiny prison – like a hard finger stabbing into his ribs, constantly reminding him why he'd been sentenced inside eternally binding iron walls in the first place.
But the jabbing finger was unnecessary in reminding him why he was here. Because he wouldn't let himself forget.
His reign of terror had been halted by the most clichéd event of all ironies, one of the most frequently voiced warnings in history: Don't let your past come back to haunt you. It was only a figure of speech, warning people not to make mistakes and choices they'd regret later. But in his case, it was unbelievable how literal it was.
No situation came back to haunt him to remind him of some past mistake; he had no regrets to disturb his plans in the first place. He only wished it would have been that easy. A simple memory would be easy to dispose of.
No. The thorn in his side, the knife to cut off his whole future wasn't his past.
It was his past self.
In his time, when he was the most powerful being in existence, he became confident. No obstacle that tried to block his path ever delayed him for long. He was always stronger than every single one of them. A single sweep of his hand, and the obstruction would be no more. He came to believe nothing could stop him, nothing that tried to impede his exploits would have the means to bring it to a standstill. Because nothing could stop him. No enemy that came before him couldn't be destroyed or frightened into hiding. Some even allied with him, too afraid to live in the shadows while knowing what their fate would be when he tracked them down.
None could ever hinder his time in power. None could ever sway the inevitable flow of time that lead him to his rightful place as the most powerful and feared creature on earth.
But it was then, only when he believed himself invincible, that the only thing to stop him had been disturbed.
The thread of time had been cut.
He had been cheated. A warning was given to his past self, throwing a wrench into his entire timeline. It was because of one simple warning - one simple choice made by a meddler who had no business in the matter in the first place - that he sat trapped where he was now.
Ever since he had been cursed into the prison known as the Fenton Thermos, Dan Phantom had no power to do anything. Only exist. He could no longer make choices, wreak havoc that once gave his life meaning – he couldn't even escape. All he could do was sit in silence, boiling with hate most vile deep within his being for the ones responsible for it all.
He could still recall the memory as if it had happened only moments before. He could see his young past-self emerging out of nowhere, claiming he would never see this future – Dan's present – happen. He backed his reasoning with a promise made to the ones he loved. What a shameful and weak claim Dan found it to be. Never did he think it would turn out to be enough to destroy his future.
Until it had.
He had to escape. He couldn't bear the constant of his meaningless existence. He had to fulfill his purpose, his desires. He needed to satisfy his undying thirst for destruction. When he wasn't causing some kind of demolition to the city or agony to a worthless human bystander that cowered in fear in his presence, everything was empty. A void – a gaping hole - sat in his chest where his sense of purpose used to reside. He needed something to fill the hole. Just a simple blast of ghost energy obliterating an automobile, or a cackle and a fang-revealing grin that left a mortal shaking in fits of terror would be something.
But escape was beyond him. He'd tried every power in his possession to break free of the iron walls boxing him in, but nothing, not even a dent was left when he fired away in mighty, rage fueled blows. Not even the coveted (at least in his eyes) Ghostly Wail left a single mark against the ecto-coated barrier. And failure after failure only provoked his mind into thoughts of untold wrath, making him call out oaths of revenge in angry roars, his only answers being the ringing echoes of his own voice.
So he would sit, stationary as a statue, chin in his hand, one armed wrapped around his brawny, leather adorned legs. Hour after hour, day after day, time passing him at a speed that eluded him, he pondered how to escape. Many different ideas and formulas would form during his thoughts. But none, no matter how creative or clever were ever enough to break the only barrier standing between him and his true existence. Each time he discarded a plan into the failure pile, his anger scale rose. His body began to shake under the pressure of the blinding frustration.
Before long, his pondering sessions brought forth no new ideas. Instead, he just sat, imagining and contemplating the destruction of those responsible for these inescapable circumstances. How he would torture them slowly, making every waking moment of their existence an agonizing, unbearable nightmare. How he wouldn't cease the onslaught until they were holding onto life at the very end of their pitiful ropes, begging him for death. Only then would he destroy them. These appeasing contemplations of revenge soothed him for a time.
But before long, they weren't enough. Imagining and not doing were intolerably depriving. It was like a lion living off grass. It could keep you alive, but only for so long. The call of the hunt, the unbearable thirst for blood, the natural born need for destruction would soon become the voice in your head that controlled your thoughts, reminding you of your undying needs. It would drive you mad until you answered its call and gave into your desires.
He was beginning to lose control. The straw had piled up one piece at a time, and the one to topple the pile was dangling loosely above. He tried to soothe himself with mental images of the faces of his old victims. He pictured them twisted in terror, the same way they had been during his reign of destruction. All different faces, all different types of fear stared at him through his memories.
The faces stared back at him constantly as he refused to let them elude him. They were the only thing that kept his sanity; that is, as much sanity as a masochistic ghost could muster. The crease in his brow deepened the harder he concentrated, eyes fastened tightly shut, as if they were gripping the images the same way a hand would hold fast to another.
Because these images were all he could see, he began examining them more closely.
He'd been sifting through an array of faces, much like a string of videos, one starting immediately after the other. He'd focused only on the horror reflecting on each face, feeding off the twisted terror like a needed drug. Now, he slowed the videos to about half the regular speed, carefully scrutinizing the differences in the expressions. As the slower paced video dragged along, he could see something he hadn't before.
He played the first video, one of a civilian he had no need, or care, of recognizing. They needed no individual recognition. They were all his prey.
The figure was displayed from the waist up, their back facing the 'camera'. Then, the head snapped around, although appearing deliberately stalled in the slowed video pace, hair swooshing around the face as if underwater. When the eyes met his, and recognition clouded them over as they realized who was standing before them, a specific kind of expression shifted the features. A kind of glaze covered the eyes, as if trying to shield themselves from the prying stare that looked hungrily into their enlarged orbs. The pupils shrank instantaneously, quickly even for the slowed video, until they were no more than slits. The mouth began to open at the same time lines creased the forehead, all in preparation to release a shattering scream.
This, he recognized, was fear of him. The corners of his mouth upturned into a smug, satisfied grin.
The video cut off, and the next one began.
There were two things about this video he hadn't realized before. The first was that he knew who this person was. Not that they held any more importance to him than the others. He simply knew because they were in his past. And, if his plans of revenge worked the way he premeditated, they were in his future as well.
It started off the same as the first video, the bottom of the 'screen' cut off at the waist and showing everything above, the back turned to the onlooker. The head began to turn, much like the first. But the difference was, it did not turn all the way around to look him in the face. It stopped when the eyes were looking somewhere behind the camera to the left.
He had been so wrapped up in feeding off the looks of terror he hadn't even realized that a select number of people in these images hadn't turned to look straight in his direction.
And, once the swiveling raven locks made their way around and revealed the face, he noticed the expression wasn't the same.
This time, a glaze didn't cover the eyes. Instead, the orbs enlarged, and all light shining inside vanished, the same as a candle flame being blown out. When the light rekindled, it was only from a fiery explosion of horror and panic. The pupils grew so large they covered the violet shade of the irises. The creases in the forehead were shallow, but only because all facial muscle was being used to open the mouth. A sharp intake of breath prefaced the arrangement of the mouth, the lips opening and closing in an O formation. As he heard it many times before, he recognized it as a desperate cry of the word 'No.'
He played each of the two different videos once more, studying them as closely as he could. The line creasing his forehead deepened until it pulled his brows down into a V, the corners of his mouth turning down into a hard, puzzled frown. He'd identified the source of the second type of fear the first time he viewed it. There was no confusion there. It was fear of loss. The face looked past him and at someone else in a different direction because they saw someone they cared about on the brink of death.
What puzzled him was why that fear was so intense. In the vault of memories he'd viewed countless times, he hadn't seen a horror more severe. Not even the fear of him had appeared so unbearable. How could anything be more frightening than he? How could the cause of this fear be so much worse than the on of him?
The video ended, but another didn't start. Instead, Dan stared into the sea of darkness behind his eyelids, like staring into a blank TV that had been shut off after an extremely long movie. He couldn't understand – this fear of loss. It was more terrifying than he? How could it?
It didn't take him long to find the answer. All he had to do was sift through a very rarely opened folder in the vault of his memories.
The ones he could still recall from his days as a human.
He remembered feelings. He could identify what emotion a person was going through by studying their face and behavior. He remembered what kinds of mental and physical changes he would go through when emotions used to seize him.
But that was all. He could only remember what it was like to feel; but he could no longer feel. It was like seeing an emotion without sympathy or empathy because you knew nothing of it. It had been that way since the moment he'd given up his human side. He'd first realized it when he'd looked into the face of his human half, just after morphing into the being he was now, cowering and shivering in a corner, staring up at the ghostly nightmare with the fear Dan craved swallowing his eyes.
Dan could tell what the human boy was feeling; because he recognized it. He could still remember what an emotion looked like. But his old instincts – the ones that would have sympathized with the poor creature and felt the same pain along with it – were gone.
Instead, he had acted on his new instinct and destroyed the mortal with little effort.
He could remember emotion – he could remember the effects it had on people and the ties it made that held people together. But he couldn't understand why.
Clearly, as he had seen after examining the different fears in the videos of memories, the fear of loss was much more excruciating than the fear of him. He remember why it was so painful; because of the emotional ties. When an emotion bonded two people together, it became like a strong, invisible chord. When that chord was severed – when the two were separated, whether it be by circumstance or death – it had the same effect as a choice had on Dan's timeline.
It destroyed.
Dan clenched his teeth with gradually increasing pressure, setting his jaw in a hard square. A shake slowly racked his frame, eyes still staring into the sea of black. He couldn't understand. If this pain was so unbearable, if the severing of this emotional tie had the power to destroy, why did people allow those ties to form? Why become so attached – so dependant - on something that would bring the worst pain imaginable when it was gone?
A sheen of sweat dampened his face as he began to heave in deep breaths, his shaking body increasing in convulsions. Mortals were like leeches - attaching themselves to something so delicate and living off of it like there was no other way to stay alive. It made him sick. They made him sick. They were a twisted kind, one he was glad he no longer had any birth ties to; not after he'd willingly given up that leeching, human side of his.
He had been so wrapped up in his rage he hadn't even noticed how his body began to convulse. He was shaking so violently, his form was almost a blur. His eyelids were squeezed shut, flashes of red light exploding against the darkness. Everything since he had been sentenced in this metal thing suddenly crashed down on him at once; the inability to escape, the failures that followed, the memories of the past he held onto for survival, the realization that something in this world caused more fear than he, the truth behind the emotionally dependant and weak leeches that called themselves humans.
They needed to be destroyed. They were sick leeches, feeding off of what they claimed was the most precious thing in life, yet it was the source of their ultimate demise. But he couldn't escape. There was no way to get out, no way to exterminate the parasites that plagued the outside world.
In an instant, it all dropped on top of him like a mountain of boulders crashing onto his head.
A fire exploded in the darkness behind his eyes.
In an instantaneous, involuntary motion, Dan was on his feet in a blur, arms raised, head facing the ceiling, mouth wide open in a blood-curdling shriek.
It was like his anger had taken a physical form. Crimson shockwaves flew from his body at every angle, like multiple lightning bolts flying out of a bursting black sky. The aftershock of sound was identical to a crack of thunder, raising the volume as the bolts slammed into the metallic sides of the thermos. Dan didn't even know of the power that rolled off of his body like a storm. He could only prolong his shriek of anger, only seeing the wall of fire that burned behind his eyes.
When the bolts crashed into the walls of the Thermos, the effects were instantaneous. The tips of the blood-colored streaks ripped through the metal as effortlessly as a thunderbolt would reduce a tree trunk into splinters on contact. As the walls were barraged on all sides, the entire prison shattered as easily as a thin sheet of glass, with a sound of the like.
The length of the scream was unknown to Dan; it was impossible to discern an amount of time during his state of rage. But he had noticed when a physical change came on as suddenly as the horrific outburst.
The first thing he noticed was the wall of fire; it suddenly disappeared as quickly as a candlewick being smothered. The next was that all was quiet, signifying the silencing of his cry. The next was the instant change in his body. It had been so hot, so tense during his cry; his shaking muscles had flexed to their limits, his tight skin shining in a thick sheen of sweat.
Now, his strength had been sapped in the time it took for a balloon to pop. Every muscle had gone lax and become sore, searing with an unbearable, burning pain. The sweat on his skin had gone cold, his lungs frozen in his chest.
For a prolonged moment, his deadened body was still. Then he fell forward, landing hard against a cold, iron floor.
But he never lost consciousness. He lay on his stomach, his cheek pressed against the cold iron, lungs working in heaving, convulsing breaths like a fish out of water. Not a single inch of his body wasn't searing with agony. Muscle spasms wracked his frame, pulsing every time his heart wrenched a beat. Gasps and cries rang out of his lips with every forced breath. To an onlooker, he would have appeared to be having a seizure.
He couldn't count the minutes – or hours – that dragged on as his body wracked with horrific convulsions. There was nothing in his mind to concentrate on, to distract him from the pain. He became a slave to it, feeling nothing but the spasms and shivers that assaulted him.
He wasn't sure how long it had taken him to realize that the convulsions had begun to numb. He may have blacked out for a short time, although he was unsure. While staring at the insides of his eyelids, he could feel the slow recovery his body had been taking.
He body had become still, no longer seizing, other than the occasional muscle spasm that made a limb twitch. His breathing had steadied immensely, exhaling normally and inhaling with minimal sharpness. His skin was tight and damp with cold sweat, the searing pain dulled into a persistent soreness that pounded in his ears with each heartbeat. A dull throb assaulted his head in rhythm with his pulse, but he had been released from the chains of agony, allowing him to try to put the events into check.
He wasn't sure what had happened. He accessed his memories and tried to play the most recent back, looking for clues as to the cause of the sudden incident. He remembered how he'd been viewing old memories, learning of the different types of fear and their causes. How he realized that there was a fear worse than one of him, one that revealed humans to be emotional leeches.
The echo of anger pulsed weakly in his brain. Dan winced suddenly as a small flame licked into the black of his eyes, only to disappear as quickly as it came.
Dan's breathing slowed as a realization began to slowly trickle into his thoughts. When he'd felt his failures and the sick behavior of humans crash down on him, he'd become angry. More so than he'd ever been before. It had burned inside him, desperately trying to burst out of him like magma rocketing out of a volcano. Then his body acted of its own accord, leaping to its feet and screaming, knowing it as an action for releasing pent up rage.
But something else had happened. A massive wall of fire had burst into his vision, and loud sounds had cracked all around him. He'd never even opened his eyes to see before his screaming suddenly stopped, seemingly in the same instant it had started.
His eyebrows and lips twitched as he pulled them down in a shallow frown. What had caused all the noise?
Slowly, breathing coming in steady gasps, Dan's eyelids slid open. Multiple blinking was required to clear the fuzzy vision before him. When everything came into sharper focus, it took him a moment to realize why his surroundings confused him.
The closest thing in his line of vision was a metallic floor, tiny slivers of metal scattered all along its surface. The floor only stretched a few short feet before ending in a jagged edge, a swirling emerald and onyx-colored sky just beyond it. His eyes moved upward, trailing the jagged edge of eye level floor. He found the same results just above his head, the only difference being that the floor ended just inches in that direction before the multi-colored sky began.
He stared, eyes focused on one of the green swirls that waved around slowly as if it was being viewed under gently disturbed water. Slow seconds ticked by before he remembered it was the walls of the Thermos he should be seeing. His breathing paused as confusion fell away and realization took its place.
He wasn't in the Thermos anymore.
He was in the Ghost Zone.
More time ticked by as he lay still, eyes widened in shock. How had this happened? How had he finally escaped after so many failed attempts? What had he done differently?
He blinked for the first time in minutes, his lungs forcing in a needed breath of air. He tried to piece the events together, trying to uncover this phenomenon. When the anger had crashed down on him, the following events blurred in a second. He found the memory and played it back in his head, searching for something he may not have noticed before, something that would answer his questions. The shriek was clear; shrill and raged. The wall of fire was clear, burning like a scorching inferno.
But there was something more than that. Something other than anger had been released. It was more like the anger had… rolled off of him. In a physical sense.
Like a power.
The possibility sent invigorating jolts through Dan's veins. His eyes stared blankly ahead, his lips gradually turning upward into a maliciously ecstatic grin.
He had found the power to escape. It had been his own power, fueled by rage that had destroyed the prison. The grin gracing his features became smug, revealing pointed teeth as it grew.
A newfound elation pumped through his body like an intoxicating endorphin, giving him the strength to move his arms and place his palms against the floor at his sides. His head expanded with pride, taking up too much room for him to notice any pain.
With a surprisingly small amount of effort, he pushed himself up with his hands, pulling his feet underneath him and lifting himself up to full height. A short wave of dizziness made him sway for a moment before numbing away along with all other pain, leaving him to bask in the glow of pride that smothered him. He turned his head slowly from left to right, examining the extensive damage his new power had managed. As his face turned slowly across the room, the malicious and prideful smile threatened to split his face in two.
The domain that had housed his prison had been made mostly of iron. His head swelled with unbearable smugness as he realized almost the entire thing had been destroyed. It had shattered into microscopic pieces just as the Thermos had; the only bit of structure that remained was the small peninsula of floor that stretched away from the only remaining corner of the room that stood behind him, left and right walls still attached and reaching as far as a few short feet before ending in jagged edges like the flooring. The ceiling was completely gone. The only evidence left of the missing pieces of the obliterated room were the tiny metal slivers that covered the floor like sand, and the bits that floated lazily in the air like dust.
Once he had examined the room by turning full circle, his chest had swelled, his wide grin unchanged. He'd been the one to cause this obliteration, gaining back his long sought after freedom in the same turn. The aura of power he'd once basked in, the one that told him he was the most powerful being on earth came over him; his sense of purpose had returned.
His only regret; not knowing what his new power looked like.
Despite the adrenaline that pumped through his system, giving him the strength to stand, he knew he was not completely whole. The new power, even in all its greatness, demanded quite a price. He could feel the subtle pulls on his muscles, reminding him that his body was still drained and in need of much rest. And he was still unsure exactly how to summon this power. It couldn't be as easy as summoning a Ghost Ray. And much practice would be needed so his limits could be set. His smile finally faded and a short wave of anger rushed through him as he realized this power tested the limits of his once assumed 'unlimited strength.'
As the anger pulsed through his system and faded away like a passing shadow, Dan was taken off guard by a sudden change. The colors in his vision suddenly flickered like an old television screen, altering quickly between normal color and multiple hues of red. To an onlooker, his eyes appeared to be shifting from normal red ones to orbs giving off a low wattage of crimson light. At the same time, a prickle poked at his gloved hand, and he lifted it swiftly to look. Through his flickering vision, he could see small sparks dancing around his palm and fingers, like the ones caused by static shock. Whether his vision was normal or bathed in crimson, the sparks remained red.
As soon as the anger had passed, his vision went back to normal, and the sparks disappeared. He stood still for a few moments, examining his hand, moving his fingers ever so slightly.
Slowly, the realization brought another toothy smile to his lips. Without even trying, he'd found the key to the power;
Anger.
Eyes still on his hand, Dan sifted through his memories before selecting one that caught his eye. It was the one of the girl from his past, the one that had ignored his presence and let her fear be that of loss.
Dan's face became hot.
Leech.
Suddenly, all colors in his vision altered to countless shades of red, the sparks reappearing in larger numbers in his hands, this time dancing up the length of his arm.
The smile that graced his lips was no less than monstrous. He could now summon the power at his own will. The only thing left would be the test of his limits.
He closed his hand into a tight fist around the sparks. They wriggled through the cracks in his fingers and continued their dance routine around the shape of his balled up hand.
He would find the ones who imprisoned him and use his newfound power and knowledge to bring them their well-earned suffering. Even when he wasn't the most feared thing, he knew how to be the maker of the thing most feared.
Retribution was at hand.
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If you're reading this sentence, that means you actually finished the chapter. A big thanks to you, valued reader!
I look to entertain and please readers with my work and hope I've accomplished that so far. I will update as often as I can and look forward to seeing you again!
Chapter Playlist:
'Numb'-Linkin Park
'In The End'-Linkin Park
'Whisper'-Evanescence
What's a chapter playlist? If it's not already obvious, it is a list of songs that inspire each chapter of my writing. Although I don't require music to write, certain music can sometimes set a certain mood and allow the correct feel to enter a particular event in a story. I'll post one for each chapter. Kudos for reading!
