A/N: Hello fellow fanfic readers and writers. Tis I, Devianta, who will be finishing DPSG-1's story, Steadily Fading. Thanks to her permission, I will be writing the conclusion to her amazing story. I hope I can do it justice.
As to be expected, I do not own Danny Phantom, nor do I own the original idea for this story. Please read and review! Tell me if I have lived up to the expectations. Thank you and enjoy!
Change of Heart
I could feel my heart beat drumming in my ears. It was a rather uncomfortable sensation, but I preferred it to the cackling of my murderous boyfriend and the screaming and wailing of his victims. But this temporary sanctuary of semi-silence only numbed a small portion of my pain. I could still see the blinding emerald blasts he shot. I could still see the contorted nightmarish dead bodies littering the streets old soggy newspapers. I could still see the utter destruction he caused as he laid waste to Amity Park.
Hah, amity means friendship and even though I knew he would never do this in his right mind, I nevertheless felt betrayed. He was my first true love. Even though his eyes were drained of emotion and his movements were less passionate than before, he was beautiful. And it hurt me so much to see him playing traitor to himself!
All this pain, all this death, all this darkness that was quickly tarnishing the reputation he worked so hard to create and destroying the trust he labored endlessly to establish between him and the town.
I wished I knew why this was happening.
As I darted into another alleyway to hide, my first one demolished, I could smell the metallic scent of blood. I looked behind me and, peering from behind a crate, was a young woman not much older than myself. Her black hair was matted. It looked like she had just fallen out of bed in the middle of a warzone. Then again, perhaps that is what happened. She stared at me with watering blue eyes. Something was clutched to her chest. I stepped closer and realized that it wasn't a thing. It was a person. Or was a person to be more precise. It was a severed head; originally vibrant blue eyes stared up at me. For some reason I couldn't look away. The eyes looked guilty, I realized. Stupidly, I looked closer. Then I made another discovery. The eyes were the exact same shade as…
"Sam!" a relieved voice sounded. I spun around to be greeted by a young red head carrying an ectoblaster and a thermos. It was Jazz.
"Is the Coffin ready?" my voice soft and quiet. I could barely hear myself.
Jazz nodded grimly.
"Good," I replied. It was the last thing I said to her.
A blast hit a car parked outside the alleyway. The car exploded into a ball of green and red flames. I squeezed by eyes shut. A whistling briefly filled the air followed by a cry of surprise and pain. When I opened my eyes, Jazz was dead, impaled by a piece of green metal.
"Jazz?"
No answer.
I knelt down next to her. I reached a trembling, pale hand out to touch her already blood soaked body. "Jazz?" I asked again. My vision blurred as I watched her immobile face for any signs of life. There were none. "I'm sorry," my voice said, trembling like a red leaf to a tree in the fall. I was just barely holding on.
Standing, I stumbled out of the alleyway. I needed to find Danny's parents. Jazz said, before, that they were all coming together with Tucker. Where were they? Were they… dead?
A sudden blast of green light filled my sight. Shielding my eyes I tilted my head back to look up. It was Danny, or what was left of him. His fists were clenched tightly, his head flung back, toes pointing to the earth. His whole body was stretched out shaking as he laughed. "Stronger, stronger, STRONGER!" he exclaimed, laughing like a mad hatter. The glow around him flared brighter. It was a miniature super nova with him at its center.
With a twitch of his lithe body a wave of energy burst around him obliterating the tops of buildings. When I looked up I noticed that the blast was so clean that the tops of the buildings were still level. Weird.
"No!" screeched someone. "My home! You monster! That was my home! How could you?!"
With a snap of his ghostly fingers the person was silenced.
"How could you, Danny?" I whispered.
"It's not him, Sam," came another voice. It was Tucker.
"You're okay!" I let out a long held breath.
"Yeah," he nodded. Mr. and Mrs. Fenton walked up behind him. Their eyes were almost as blank as Danny's. I wondered how mine looked.
"Where were you?" I asked.
Tucker smiled, but it never reached his eyes. "Catching the other ghost," he said as he held up a Fenton thermos. "Then we had to help Dash out of a tree. Apparently he can jump that high."
I almost laughed at that, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Without another word we nodded to each other and started to fan out. It was now or never and with all the lives that were on the line, it had to be now. As I walked over to the remains of a store, I wondered whether or not Danny's memories were fading. Would he know what we were doing? Would he remember and if he did, would he fight it? Was there even a scrap of humanity left in him? Was that why he didn't kill me when he first woke up?
I sighed. All these unanswered questions were just slowing me down. They could be answered later after I rescued my boyfriend from himself.
I crouched behind a trash can and waited for the signal. I didn't have to wait long. Within a minute a solitary blast rocketed into the sky where it hit Danny. With a growl he whirled around. A blast formed in his hand, but it was never released. Another blast, this time to his right, hit its mark.
I held the thermos in my hands. The cold metal pressed against my finger tips. I'd held it millions of times, literally, but the full weight never really rested in my hands. I now felt that weight. It was my job to capture him. Lifting it unsteadily I took aim at my Romeo. "I hope this helps, Danny."
I never got to push the button. Before I knew what was happening I was pinned against the store front, the Fenton thermos was taken off of me, and my boyfriend was smirking at my shaking form.
"Thought you would get away with that little trick, did you Samantha?" his nearly inhuman voice questioned. Dead eyes tried to smirk but failed. Thin, chapped lips curved upward. They were the same lips I kissed only yesterday. Only a few hours ago, those lips respected the fact that I did not want to be called Samantha.
"Get off of me, Danny. I know you don't want to do this," I said as strongly as I could. Meaning, I was pretty much screwed since I could barely keep on my feet. I was scared, angry, guilty, sad, and too many other emotions to count. "You have to stop this."
A cackle more wicked than the last burst from his mouth causing his small form to rattle unnaturally. Somehow I was reminded of the witches from Macbeth. "Stop?! Not want to do this? Please, Sam. I thought you were smarter than that. Oh wait, you're just a human. You're nothing more than a measly, weak old human, bound by emotions and morals," he mocked. Gloved hands squeezed my wrists painfully. I gasped in pain as I felt my bones break.
"You promised, Danny!" I shrieked as the fire in my arms increased. "You promised you wouldn't be like him! You swore you would fight that!"
He paused in his torture. I don't know what he would have done after that. He wasn't given a chance to respond. A blast of white light caught his form and yanked. He didn't say anything, nor did he scream, as the light dragged him into the cramped depths of the Fenton thermos.
Tucker stood only a few feet away. He sniffed and capped the thermos.
"Thanks, Tuck," I murmured as I fell to the ground. I gasped in pain as the movement jarred my wrists.
Strong arms hauled me back up.
"No don't touch me. No don't touch me!" I protested.
"Oops," said Tucker as he finally realized that my wrists were bent at rather wrong angles. "Sorry."
"Get the Fentons," my voice rasped. My mouth was suddenly dry.
" 'Kay. Oh, and have you seen Jazz?" he asked, spinning around.
I bowed my head. A familiar scream that came from the alleyway was answer enough for him.
A/N: So, how was it? Good? Bad? Please tell me in a review whether I have lived up to the expectations of this story. I will gladly (more gladly than normal, that is) take suggestions, criticisms, and, of course, compliments. So press the little blue button please!