Danny dourly looked at his lunch. One Junior Nastyburger, one small fries, and a small drink. $3.12 and he had had to scrounge through all his pockets to find enough change. This was weak. Tucker could inhale this in one bite. The ketchup, at least, was free. Danny had six small tubs lined up on his tray. He carefully dipped his first french fry into the sauce and twirled up around for maximum coating. He popped it into his mouth and slowly chewed. Maybe if he ate slow enough it would feel like he was eating more ....
"Looks like someone could use a little cheering up," a raspy voice informed him as an attractive, black girl a couple grades higher than Danny, slid into the booth opposite him. She was wearing a tight black skirt with a flowery print blouse. A smear of white powder sat neglected over one ear in her black hair.
"Oh. Hi, Val. Isn't there a job somewhere you're supposed to be working?"
"I don't work all the time..."
"...Just most of the time," Danny finished.
Valerie Grey had been a part of the rich kids clique in school that had always mocked those not so fortunate. People like Danny, Tucker and Sam. Her father ran a security business. When a ghost dog destroyed a business he was supposed to be protecting, he was sued and they lost everything. Without any money Val had been dropped by her circle of friends like so much head lice and she had been forced to take on as many part-time jobs as she could find to help her father make ends meet. It was rare to find her not running off to another job.
"I just got off from Nederman's bakery and don't have anything else till tomorrow." She smiled as she picked up her sandwich. "I guess you could call this a vacation! Man, I'm hungry," she added before plunging her face into a DoubleNasty. "Working in a bakery before eating is not a good idea."
"You don't get free doughnuts as a bonus?" Danny asked.
"They go straight to my thighs." Valerie was a little on the plus size.
"Won't that, too?" Danny asked, pointing with another ketchup laden french fry to the giant burger in her hands.
Val scowled back. "What about you? Looks like someone's put you on a diet!"
Besides the double hamburger she had a super-sized helping of fries and a large chocolate shake. "That Goth. friend of yours trying to turn you vegetarian again?"
"It's not that," Danny protested as he started nibbling his burger. Next to Val's towering tribute to meat it looked more like an appetizer than a sandwich. "This is all I could afford for lunch."
"You kidding me!" Val laughed. "With all the money your parents have?"
"What money? It's all corporate. They plow what money they make back into the company."
"Don't you get any allowance?"
"Yeah, but I guess they figure since they cook and buy all my clothes and stuff, I don't need a lot of extra money. I, uh, kind of ran out early this week."
" 'at sucks," she said around another mouthful of burger.
Danny watched Val eat. She was, Danny had to admit, a very attractive woman. She could easily have any boy in Casper High School, which was why he was he was always amazed that they had dated briefly.
It had started by Val as a way to tick off Sam Manson. Sam didn't like Val. She had good reasons not to, but Val thought it was just personal. So she asked Danny out on a date. Turned out they had a good time, so Val asked him out again. Somewhere along the way a ghost named Technus got involved and started pushing them together. His thinking was that if Danny Fenton was preoccupied with young love he wouldn't have time to thwart Technus as Danny Phantom. In the end that hadn't worked and knowing that what had seemed like love was just the manipulations of a ghost had killed any further romance between them.
Sam didn't dislike Val so much as not wanting Danny close to her, because when the ghost dog was tearing up the company Val's father was supposed to be protecting, Danny Phantom was there trying to collar the dog and drag him back to the ghost zone. While Danny was trying to help Val's dad, in her mind it was all Danny Phantom's fault. She vowed to get even with him. Someone, and wouldn't Danny like to know who, found out about this and had gifted Val with a complete ghost fighting outfit - jet powered airboard, high-powered blasters, a form-fitting protective jumpsuit and more. In what spare time she had, when not working her two or three part-time jobs, Val would fly around the city on that surfboard looking for Danny. Sam simply believed Danny should avoid people trying to kill him.
"So where is little Miss Doom and Gloom?" Val asked unexpectedly. "It's not like you to run around without your posse."
"Her friend Altheria is in town so Sam's been showing her around."
"Without you?"
"It's supposed to be some kind of "Girls Day Out" thing. Jazz was invited. I was told I couldn't come." Jazz was Danny's older sister. She and Val were in the same class.
"What about what's-his-name, the Geek?"
"Tucker? He's video conferencing with T'Keisha." T'Keisha was a gadgetry-loving girl Tucker had meet during summer camp when a ghost had tried to kill them. Though separated by a couple states, they were in constant touch through the Internet.
"Foley has a girlfriend? I expected the world to end first!"
Oh, come on, Tucker's not that hopeless." Danny retorted as he quietly snagged a french fry from Val's plate.
"Wow! You've been dumped by every friend in the world you have," Val teased.
"I've got other friends," Danny declared defiantly.
Val ignored that. She wiped her hands and carefully blotted her lips, not marring her lipstick. She pulled out a small compact and inspected her face in its mirror. Spotting the flour in her hair she brushed out away. Satisfied, she snapped it shut and put it away.
"You know what you need?" she said.
"What?"
"You need to go to a movie."
"I'm broke."
"I'll buy your ticket.'
"Are you asking me out on a date?" Danny asked, confused.
"Heck, no. A date's something you do at night. I want to see that new horror flick, "Chainsaw Zombie with a Hook", but I don't want to go alone. I've got nothing else to do today. You're at loose ends. So why not see a movie together."
"I'm fourteen, it's an R-rated movie. They won't let me in."
"They only check on age when you buy the ticket. They don't actually check on which theater you enter once you're inside. So we buy a couple of tickets for something PG, buy some popcorn and just wander into "Chainsaw Zombie" as it starts."
Danny thought about it. He knew Sam would give him an earful if he went with Val. Against that was his own desire to see the movie. Everyone was talking about it. Besides, he concluded, it was all Sam's fault in the first place for not letting him hang out with Altheria and her today.
"Ok."
If he had known what he was getting into he wouldn't have been so prompt to answer.
***
Val purchased popcorn and drinks as well as the tickets. Getting into the right theater was as easy as she said it would be. They settled down into seats about two-thirds back in the auditorium and sat back to wait for the trailers to start.
They talked about various things; the teachers Danny would be meeting during the next school year; different jobs Val had had. Danny was dying to ask Val about her ghost-hunting but while he as Danny Phantom knew that the girl on the flying surf-board was Valerie Grey, it wasn't something he knew as Danny Fenton. So he couldn't ask her about it without revealing his own secret. Danny really wanted to knew who was supplying her with all the high tech ghost-fighting gadgets. It had to be one of his enemies but he had so many. He would have been astonished to learn that she didn't know either. The stuff just appeared: conveniently placed for her to find. Intellectually, Danny could understand that Val was bad news; he had been chased enough times by her in her ghost-fighting costume to realize that she really wanted to kill him. But she was also the girl who had called him "cute," something only maiden aunts had ever called him before and... how could you hate someone who thought you were cute?
Danny had been had been really packing the popcorn away before the move started. Somewhat guiltily he realized he had eaten half the bag all by himself. He set it down, promising to pace himself, then promptly lost all appetite as the movie started.
The movie opened with a naked couple writhing on a bed. Danny blushed in embarrassment. So this is the difference between an "R" rated movie and the "PG13" ones he had seen. Then, suddenly, unexpectedly, a chainsaw coughed into life. It roared loudly for an instant. The camera tracked away from the impassioned lovers to a blank wall as people screamed, the chainsaw sank into a heavy load and blood splattered on the wall, forming the title of the movie: "Chainsaw Zombie with a Hook!"
Danny swallowed drily. Val had grabbed his hand in a crushing grip. Danny didn't notice because he was squeezing back just as hard. Maybe seeing a "R" rated movie wasn't such a bright idea after all.
The movie, though, soon settled down into a familiar pattern. People laughed at warnings, were chased, died by the zombie. Blood was everywhere. Several times Val had buried her face in Danny's shoulder. Danny didn't mind because he was busy burying his face in her hair. Incongruously, he noticed that it smelled pleasantly of fresh bread and Herbal Essence.
Eventually the movie began to wind down. There were only two actors left standing, a boy and a girl. They had discovered where the zombie's coffin lay buried and had dug it up. Now they were trying to force a shovel under the lid to pry it open. The music turned ominous and the coffin's lid exploded open as a great hook shoved it aside and once again a chainsaw coughed into life. Val buried her head again, but Danny stayed watching, knowing that this time it would be the zombie dying, not the hero and heroine.
The hero swung his shovel. It bounced off the chainsaw with a clatter of metal on metal friction and a shower of sparks. The girl tried to smack the zombie's head with her shovel but it brushed it aside with its hook-hand. It lurched out of it coffin and started shambling after them. Someone in the theater squealed. And the zombie turned and glared out of the screen at them!
With a snarl it turned and leaned through the movie screen into the auditorium. And swung its chainsaw straight at Danny!
"Look Out!" he shouted and shoved Val out of her seat and onto the sticky floor of the aisle. He leaped out of his seat and backed away as the roaring saw decapitated the backs of the seats they had been in just a moment before. Wood, cloth, foam stuffing flew into the air as the saw cut effortlessly through the seats.
"What the--" Val shouted, then groaned, "My blouse -- it's ruined!" trying to brush off spilled soda and popcorn off the silk material.
People were screaming and scrambling to get out of the theater. The monster seemed to ignore those as it finished stepping through the frame of the movie screen into the auditorium. It was about twenty feet tall, just short enough to stand up in the room without hitting the ceiling. It smelled of dirt and day-old garbage. It's face was a pus-oozing shamble. It's clothes all torn and covered in mud. The chainsaw it held in its left hand was filling the theater with a choking mix of smoke and half-burned gasolene.
It was lifting the chainsaw overhead, clearly aiming for Valerie who was trying to get to her feet in the narrow aisle. Danny considered changing into Danny Phantom. He would be able to fight the zombie/ghost in its own terms, but then Val would know his secret. There had to be another way! Danny looked around for a weapon, found a half full large cup of pop and heaved it at the zombie. It hit square in the face, the lid of the carton popping off and splashing brown liquid into its eyes and all down its chin. It roared in anger and tried to wipe the stinging liquid away. With a hook for one hand and a chainsaw in the other it had trouble doing so. This gave Val time to get to her feet and dash for the exit.
"Run, Danny," she was yelling. "I'll get help!" But Danny had waited too long. The monster stood between him and the exit on the other side of the auditorium. It swung the roaring chainsaw at him. Danny flopped to the floor at the blade passed overhead, chopping into another row of chairs. As it passed, Danny hopped to his feet and scrambled up a few more rows. He found a half-filled bag of popcorn and pitched it at the monster. He looked around for more ammunition.
Danny could have "gone ghost" in the now empty movie theater, but he suspected that when Val said she was getting help she really meant she was changing into her ghost fighting gear and would be back in a moment armed to the teeth. In which case it would be better not to confuse her by having two ghosts in the auditorium.
Val's ghost-fighting equipment was made of some kind of nano-technology, he knew. Rather large blaster could spout out of a flat wristband, for instance. And the suit itself just sort of expanded from whatever small container it was stored in. He wondered for a moment how it dealt with the skirt she had been wearing. Did she have to take it off or did the jumpsuit sort of absorb her clothes as it covered her? Going Ghost was a bit easier for Danny since his body seemed to twist through another dimension carrying his clothes with it and bringing out his black jump-suited ghost self.
He was running out of things to throw -- the carton of nachos hadn't sailed well at all -- and running out of rows of seats to retreat up when Val finally soared up out of the Exit hallway and into the theater. She was balanced on a greyish-silver metal jet-powered surfboard, covered in an all-encompassing brownish-orange suit with goggles on her face to see through. A blaster was mounted on her wrist and projecting a stream of energy at the chainsaw wielding zombie.
The zombie turned from Danny to her, allowing Danny a chance to run down the stairs towards the exit. Along the way he picked up a couple nearly full cups of soda. "Armed" he waited near the exit. While he was sure Val had the situation under control, he didn't want to leave her in case something went wrong.
Val had been driving the monster back towards the movie screen but a tight turn took her too close to the ceiling and she slammed into it. She grabbed hold of the jetboard saving herself from a twenty foot fall but as she struggled back on top her board the monster charged.
Danny heaved one of the sodas, hitting the zombie low on the back. The monster slowed but didn't turn around. Danny threw the second carton, missing entirely this time. The monster drew back its chainsaw laughing ghoulishly.
Danny looked around for something else to throw and when he couldn't find anything. risked a brief transformation into Danny Phantom and fired an ectoplasmic bolt that scored the length of the creatures' back. He was back to Danny Fenton before the creature turned around and started lurching towards him. Danny was pretty sure that Val had been too pre-occupied with getting back on her jetboard to see Danny's brief transformation.
The monster had climbed about half up the theater while it had been pursuing Danny earlier and its feet were somewhat encombered by the seats, so Danny ran down the aisle towards the front of the room, skirting along the edge of the movie screen. The monster lumbered around and started after him. Val, back on her board and launched a couple missiles built into the board. They exploded on the monster's back, toppling him part-way back into the screen. The hero and heroine of the movie promptly started attacking him with their shelves.
"Somehow I don't think this was part of the script," Danny mused from where he stood at the back of the auditorium, then turned to see what Val was doing.
She launched another pair of rockets that flew through the screen and hit the monster square on. There was a blinding flash of light and when Danny could see again all that was left was an empty theater and a twenty feet tall movie screen with a big, smoking hole in the middle of it.
Val had already disappeared down the exit tunnel when Danny heard a loud "No-o-o-o!" coming from the back of the room. Sitting in the last seat in the last row was a strangely costumed person. He was wearing a long dark trench coat or maybe a "Matrix" style black leather 'duster.' a large, wide brimmed floppy hat Danny had heard called a 'slouch hat' World War One aviator goggles and a long woolen scarf wrapped around his chin. Nothing of his face was visible to see. The odd man was screaming "No!" and shaking his fists in the air. "You ruined it! You ruined my beautiful movie!"
"Hey buddy," Danny called, "what's your problem?"
He turned to stare at Danny with his large, blank goggled eyes. Slowly he stood, towering at well over six feet in height. "I AM THE MOVIEINATOR!" he screamed. "MOVIES GIVES ME LIFE SO I BRING MOVIES TO LIFE!"
"Are you nuts?" Danny asked, "People could have been hurt."
"I AM THE DIRECTOR, I OUT-RANK THEM!"
"The heck you do," Danny snarled and threw himself at the weird man.-- only to crack his head against the padded wall where the figure had been standing. Danny climbed to his feet, groaning. His breath, he noticed, had turned frosty -- his ghost sense sending an alarm. "Now you tell me," Danny mumbled as he looked around for the spectral "Movieinator" He, or it, was nowhere to be found. Danny was alone in the auditorium.
Danny was at the bottom of the stairs, turning into the exit tunnel when he heard Val called from the exit on the other side of the room. He turned and joined her just as some ushers rushed up. They were armed with flashlights.
"It's OK," they were yelling. "Everything is under control. Please stay calm. Help is on the way." None of the ushers, though, looked willing to enter the theater to see what was going on.
Danny and Val quieted backed into the crowd of movie patrons that crowded the hall.
The theater manager strolled up behind the ushers. He conferred with the ushers for a moment then announced, "No one's to go into the auditorium until the Fenton's have had time to examine it."
"The F-Fenton's?" Danny asked, a chill running down his back.
"Why, yes, the city's foremost authorities on ghost eradication."
"They're coming here..."
"Should be here in just a few minutes."
The manager took a second look at Danny, who may have been sweating.
"This was an "R" rated movie. Aren't you a little young to be seeing an "R" rated movie?"
Danny looked around nervously. The hall he and Val were in lead in one direction to the middle of the building where the concession stand, ticket booth and hallways leading to other wings of the multiplex. In the other direction, maybe fifty feet away was a exit to the building.
"I get that a lot," Danny bluffed. Just then he heard the unmistakable clatter of rubber-clad treads of the Fenton Ghost Assault vehicle, a.k.a. the Fenton Family RV, slamming doors, and his father's booming voice calling out "Where's the problem!"
"Run!" he yelled towards Val and tore off for the exit. Val, he discovered was already heading there. They burst through the doors into the afternoon sunshine and kept running for two blocks, turned a corner and seat down on a bus stop bench to catch their breath.
"Oh, man," Danny sighed, "the last thing in the world I want is to be caught by my parents sneaking into an "R" rated movie."
"Yeah," Val agreed in her raspy voice. "Usually I'm like sneaking into a movie, not sneaking out."
"Yeah. So why did you run?"
"Do I look 18? And I did not want to have to explain to my father why I was dragging underage kids into adult movies."
"Parents!"
"You said it. Course now we'll never know how the movie ended."
"At least it didn't end with us getting killed!" Danny said. Seeing Val straighten out her skirt and brush at the grime on her shirt he added, "sorry about pushing you into the aisle."
"You saved my life! Of course, this blouse will never be the same. I don't think sticky pop residue comes out of silk."
"I'll pay for it."
"Don't bother." She threw her hands down in disgust. "So what the heck happened back there?"
"Some kind of ghost attack. But was the theater haunted, the movie or what?" Danny said
"I never heard about the Cinematorium ever being haunted."
"And if there was some kind of curse on the movie I think we would have heard about it," Danny added.
"So who or what caused the movie to come to life?" Val wondered.
Danny was silent for a while. "Val," he began finally. "Do you remember a strange dude sitting at the back of the theater, wearing a raincoat and hat?"
"No. Sounds like a perv."
"Really. Thing is, he was just sitting there watching after every one else had fled the theater. And after you killed the chain-saw zombie."
"That wasn't me, that was this friend I know. Hates ghosts. She's always ready to kick ghost butt."
Val looked intently at Danny to see if he bought this. Danny in turn, tried as hard as he could to appear as if he was taken in by Val lame excuse. "Thank goodness your friend was able to get here so fast," Danny said, watching Val intently to see if she bought his feigned obliviousness. Later, when recounting this adventure to Sam and Tucker he would realize how ironic this all was because he had so often given out lame excuses for his ghost fighting absences and had hoped people would buy them. But at the moment Danny felt like he was dancing on the edge of a vast precipice, trying not to fall in.
"Maybe that guy you saw didn't run because he thought it was all part of the movie?" Val suggested.
"No. He called himself The Movieinator and said that movies "give him life, so he brings movies to life."
"Movieinator? God, what a lame name. And he wants to bring horror movies to life! What could be worse than a ghost that wants to ruin movies for people?"
Put that way the Movieinator sounded no worse than the harmless pranks of The Box Ghost. But anyone who could conjure up a chainsaw wielding ghost that could tear up wood and metal chairs like so much paper-mache was in the same league as The Fright Knight.
"Man I'd love to give that movie-ruining freak a swift kick in the cojones." Val said.
"Do ghosts even have cojones?" Danny asked.
"They won't when I get done with them!" Val growled.
"You really have it in for ghosts," Danny said
"Ghost ruined my life," Val declared, "and daddy's. I'll never forgiven them for what they did."
A chill run down Danny's back. This was a side of Val he had been blind to. Sam had tried to warn him, of course, and like an idiot he hadn't wanted to listen.
"But what can we do?" Danny wondered, "We ought to leave this to professionals..."
"You mean your parents. But it'll be gone by the time your parents get there. We could look for it at another theater," Val suggested.
"And then what?" Val was right that the Movieinator would be gone if they had to wait for the theater's manager to call in the Fentons. If he were by himself Danny could easily change into Danny Phantom and deal with the Movieinator one on one. But if Val was going to hunt down this movie freak then Danny didn't want to be hanging around any theaters that Val might have under surveillance. She might end up shooting the wrong ghost. If only there was some way to ditch Val....
They were silence for a moment, deep in thought, then Val suggested "we'll do what we did the last time. You keep the ghost distracted while I call up my friend the ghost-hunter."
"Yeah, but we can't just sit in every theater in town hoping for that freak to attack again."
"Maybe we won't have to," Val suggested. "The Movie Palace is showing 'Devil-Queen of the Outlaw Space Mechanoids' down the block."
"It's hardly 'Chainsaw Zombie With a Hook.'"
"But it is all about monsters trying to destroy the world. I think that's close enough." Val said.
Danny was thinking that if you drew a line from his home, FentonWorks, with the Ghost Zone Portal in the basement to the Cinematorium and extended outward it would pass through The Movie Palace. Assuming that this movie freak had escaped from the Ghost Zone through the portal, as was likely the case, then it would have struck the Cinematorium first because it was closest and The Movie Palace would be next in line. But since he didn't want to explain that his parent's creation of a working Ghost Zone portal was probably the cause of the recent influx of hauntings and ghost attacks, he didn't mention that.
They had to wait a bit for the next movie to start and talked some more about what had happened earlier that day. Then Danny remembered that he wasn't carrying a Fenton Thermos. He always had one strapped to his back as Danny Phantom but it would be awkward trying to access that one. Better to run home and pick up another. They agreed to meet in front of the theater fifteen minutes before show time.
The Movie Palace had been built in the 1920s at the height of the opulent movie house trend. There were Art Deco pillars and arches framing tall narrow windows. Tiffany-style rectangular panes of colored glass filled the windows. With plywood panels filling in where age and vandals had broken some of the original glass. Winged lions and Egyptian Princesses ran along the bases. A gash along the length of the front of the building marked where a magnificent marquee once hung, torn down when it threatened to collapse under its own weight.
Inside one could still see glimpses of the splendor that had been The Movie Palace back in its prime, including a sweeping grand staircase leading up to the balconies. Sadly, the staircase was roped off because the balconies, like the marquee outside, were no longer considered safe. The main auditorium which once could house thousands had been cut up into three smaller theaters.
Danny went inside to find Val talking to the manager. From the way he would touch her arm from time to time Danny figured he was trying to ask her out on a date. Danny remembered that Val had said the manager owed her a favor. He hoped she wasn't trading a date for free tickets.
The movie opened with a recap of the first Mechanoids movie, ending with a close up of a lost over-thruster drive bouncing down the street and falling into the sewer. As the hero returned to his normal life as a genius college student, Danny glanced around the theater. "He's there!" he whispered excitedly to Val.
"How did he get in?" she whispered back. "He wasn't there when we entered the theater and I've watched every one who came in since."
"He's a ghost! Walls don't mean much to him."
"So how are we going to stop him?"
"I think he has be present for the movie to come to life. So as long as we're battling whatever monster he creates he'll be stuck here and we can capture him."
"I wish he would get on with it," Val whispered back. "My butt is killing me."
But they had to wait until near the end of the movie again before the movie freak made his move. The Queen of the evil Mechanoid had just eaten the International Space Station and was looking around for something more to fill its maw. The Queen looked like the other sentient machines, a confusing array of pipes and girders, recognizable parts from trucks and airplanes. The wings from a doomed Space Shuttle formed her crown while the nose-cones from a couple F-22 fighter planes acted as a bra.
Its eyes glowed redly for a moment as it looked directed towards the audience. It's rockets flared for a moment pushing the Mechanoid away from the fragments of the International Space Station and closer to the screen. Then it stuck it's arm through the screen and felt around the floor of the theater. People scream and dashed for the exit as the Mechanoid ripped up a half dozen theater seats and stuffed them into its maw. It crunched them with a hearty laugh.
Val quickly whispered that she was going to 'call her friend' and bolted for the exit. Danny had to laugh because he was always using that line when he had to change into Danny Phantom. He popped out of his seat, too, and started running towards the back of the theater.
The Queen Mechanoid must have seen him -- or more likely the movie freak breathing life into the Mechanoid. In either case the monster stretched out its arm to snap at Danny. He ducked to one side and a dozen seat exploded into fragments as the thrusting arm missed him. He found a carton of pop in an arm chair and threw it at the monster but its face was still on the other side of the screen. His missile splashed across the movie screen and dripped down.. In fact the monster was actually too large to get more than its arm into the theater. But that arm was longer than the auditorium was deep. Danny found himself too busy dodging the mechanical limb to get closer to the raincoat covered movie freak sitting in the back row of the theater.
Crouched between two rows of seats while the Mechanoid fumbled around trying to find him, Danny had time to note that the machine, which had looked like an animated pile of junk on the screen still looked like a vague accumulation of vaguely realized junk even though the distance from the mechanoid was now only inches away. He realized that whatever the movie freak was doing, he was only adding a simulation of life to a rough sketch.
Scooting along the seats as the Mechanoid's hand got too close, Danny wished that Val were hurry up and get back.
After a moment the hand started moving in the opposite direction, giving Danny the chance to reach the stairs at the end of the aisle and dash towards the top row where Val had said the Movie Freak was sitting.
"What's the big idea!" Danny shouted as the grabbed at the front of the ghost's trench coat. "Stop doing this!"
"Movies give me life!" The ghost shouted, "So I give life to movies!"
"I was enjoying the movie until you ruined it." Danny cried, swinging a fist at its face. The ghost stood up, towering over Danny, and brushed his blow aside as adults are want to do when children misbehave.
The Movieinator stepped away from Danny and started shaking its fist in the air "Join with me, my son, and we shall take over the Empire!" it shouted to the Queen Mechanoid still trying to climb through the movie screen.
"It's a girl," Danny growled, "and you're not taking over anything," as he fumbled behind his back for the Fenton Thermos. Nothing. He could feel the rough ends of the strap. It had gotten torn off in his initial scramble away from the Mechanoid.
"Rats!" Danny muttered to himself. He threw himself at the ghost's feet, knocking it off its feet. "You're not going anywhere," he grunted as he climbed on top and sought some kind of hold to keep from being thrown off.
"I am the Movieinator!" it shouted and Danny was suddenly face down on the sticky theater floor, the ghost gone.
Just then a familiar buzz filled the auditorium followed by a clank as something fell off the Mechanoid. Val had finally made it back, in her ghost hunting tech.
Danny peeked over the tops of the chairs to see Val flying back and forth over the giant mechanical arm, firing blaster bolts at any exposed wiring present. She must have hit something vital after a minute because the robot still inside the silver screen suddenly burst into fire and dropped out of sight, dragging the giant arm with it out of the auditorium. A moment later Danny could see the burning Mechanoid Queen falling through the depths of space towards the Earth.
"Where's that slimeball that started all this?" Val demanded a moment later as she swung to hover next to Danny.
"Got away," Danny groused. "Turned intangible and slipped through my fingers, the floor, and who knows what else. I lost the Fenton Thermos somewhere. We're going to need it to trap it in." Danny started running up and down the stairs, looking into each row until he spotted the silver gleam of the Thermos. He stuffed it under his T-Shirt since none of his jeans pockets were large enough for the spectral containment device.
"Sorry I couldn't get here sooner," Val apologized, "I, uh, Val couldn't get any bars inside this building and had to run outside to call me." More than likely, Danny thought, Val had had a problem finding a private place to change clothes.
"I could have blasted its sorry ass to hell and beyond," the costumed Val continued, "That would have been the last we'd seen of that movie freak."
"Movieinator. That's what he calls himself."
"Dead meat is what I'll call him the next time I see him," Val swore intensely
Val suddenly screamed with alarm as huge mechanical pinchers closed around her waist and pulled her towards the movie screen.
Another Mechanoid was there, wearing the black solar panels that identified it was Balthose, the Devil's Queen's top lieutenant. It's arm stretched through the movie screen and was trying to pull her through.
Val's jetboard was screaming with power as it tried to pull Val away from the monster's metal arm. Her blaster spit fire in a sustained volley it most ricocheted off the heavy metal plates covering the joints.
"Val!" Danny cried with his heart both in his throat and withering in the pit of his stomach. Without a thought rings of light burst from his waist and flashed towards his head and feet, transforming him into Danny Phantom. A powerful blast of ectoplasm burst from his hand, playing across the metal paw holding Val. Smoke rose from damaged wiring and one digit fall off but the monster retained his grip as Val disappeared through the movie screen and into the movie.
"Nobody Ruins My Movies!" A crazed voice shouted. Danny spun and found the Movieinator back in the last seat in the theater, shaking his fists in the air.
Danny levitated and flashed up and over the seats, catching the ghost by his trench coat. "Bring! Her! Back!" he shouted in its face.
"Never! I do not re-write my movies for anyone. Ever!
Danny drove a punch with all his might into the creatures face. As a ghost Danny Phantom had superhuman strength. The Movieinator flew against the theater wall and bounced back like a rubber ball. It would have collapsed at Danny's feet but he grabbed him again and hauled it level with his face. "Bring! Her! Back!" he ordered.
"I don't take "notes" from underlings." the movie freak declared.
"This isn't a note and I'm not an underling. I'm your worst nightmare -- I'm a movie critic and this one sucked. Now bring her back before I crush the last bit of life out of you!"
"Never! I will never edit a movie to anyone else's dictates."
"Then we'll just have to go in and get her!" Danny snarled.
Keeping a firm grip on the Movieinator Danny flew towards the movie screen and then through it into the vastness of Outer Space.
As he suspected. This movie version of outer space came equipped with a breathable atmosphere.
Looking around Danny saw the Balthose Mechanoid flying towards a mothership that had been hidden behind the frame of the movie screen. The ship was large, shaped like a cube and made of wires and girders and exposed pipes. It might have looked like what a Mechanoid ship would look like except it was an exact replica of a "Borg" ship from Star Trek.
"Not very original, are you." Danny snarled.
"Genius can not be contained to any one movie."
"Oh, shut up."
Danny pushed himself as fast as he could. While he was gaining ground on the Mechanoid it didn't look like he would get to it before it reached the Borg ship. The Mechanoid was flying by means of rockets built into its boots. Danny tried frying one with a blast of ectoplasm. The distance was too far but it distracted the robot for a moment and turned and fired its weapon at him.
Danny dodged the bolt easily and gained rapidly on the momentarily paused monster.
Further blaster volleys failed to distract the robot and moments later both it and Danny were sailing among the open framework of the Borg/Mechanoids mothership.
Because of its size the Mechanoid had to slow down and move cautiously among the open hardware. Danny, slip into a row of girders paralleling the row the Mechanoid was in and sprinted forward, easily dodging around obstructions. When he was even with the giant robot Danny slipped back into the same tunnel it was in and pours all of his energy into a stream of ectoplasm aimed at the base of the machine's neck.
The Movieinator, seeing the great gouts of fire and metal erupting from the machine's body twisted and tore about in Danny's grip. He made Danny's aim wobble a bit but didn't stop him from cutting the head loose from its body.
"No!" the Movieinator screamed. "Your ruining my beautiful movie!"
"It was already a bomb" Danny told it. He flew around some rubble to find Val floating unconscious beside the loosed grip of the deactivated robot. He grabbed her with his free hand and started back towards the movie screen's opening into the real world.
Just as he cleared the edge of the Borg ship he was confronted by the Devil Queen of the Outlaw Mechanoids, looking ever bigger than she had before.
"How did you get here?" Danny challenged. "Weren't you just burned to a crisp in a fiery re-entry to Earth?"
"No One Can Defeat the Devil-Queen of the Outlaw Hordes."
"Mechanoids! You're a Mechanoid." Danny corrected. Turning to the Movieinator, he shook him violently and demanded, "Hey, numbskull, can't you remember your own plots?"
"Movies Give Me Life...."
"Oh, shut up."
Danny twisted around so that the movie ghost was facing the Queen Mechanoid and started flying right at it. The Movieinator twisted and heaved in Danny's grip but could not break free.
The Queen Mechanoid had been reaching for Danny but finding the ghost that was animating it in its path hesitated. Then dissipated entirely just as the out flung Movieinator touched her 'skin.'
Without further hindrance Danny flew around to the rectangle of the movie screen and through it back into the theater. Val's body suddenly gained weight as they passed through the screen, yanking him around. He let her drop the last foot to the floor, spun around and let go of the Movieinator, but before he could flee, Danny pulled out the Fenton Thermos, flipped its lid open and activated its suction function. With a dwindling scream of "N-O-o-o" the movie ghost disappeared inside the device. Danny flipped the cylinder shut just as Val, with a groan clambered to her feet.
For a moment she thought she saw the hatred black and white form of Danny Phantom but by the time she had blinked her eyes to sharpness all she could see was a worried Danny Fenton holding up a Fenton Thermos.
"There they are!" shouted a familiar voice.
"Dad?"
A blaster bolt bounced off a chair near Danny, sending splinters into his face.
"Hey, we're not the gh–"
"Hang on!" Val commanded, as she scooped Danny onto her jetboard and keyed it over into a swirling, snaking dive from the back of the theater to an exit as the corner next to the movie screen. Blaster fire filled the auditorium, only missing them due to Val's reckless maneuvering. She blew away the exit door with a blaster shot just before they flew through the opening in the outside wall. Once clear of the wall she took a steep inside loop that twisted into a corkscrew spiral and lead off in a direction not obvious to the people inside the theater.
She found a small corner lot park several blocks away and pulled to a stop to let Danny off. The instant Val's iron like grip on him let go, Danny's legs turned rubbery on him and he found himself lying on the ground with the sky swirling above him.
"Dan-- Kid, you OK?" Val demanded, concern in her voice.
"Just a little dizzy. I'll be better once everything stops spinning around."
"You sure," she asked again before jetting away. Unable to sit up, Danny lay where he was and watched as she pulled a quick turn and rounded back towards a clump of brush nearby and land behind it. Moments later Val appeared from behind the thicket, pulling down her skirt as she ran. He tried not to laugh thought it was funny seeing her do the things he had to do to protect his secret identity.
"I got here as fast as I could." she said, neither sweating or breathing hard as she would of she had run from the theater. She didn't ask why he was on the ground or if he was OK, forgetting that as Valerie Grey she had no reason to know the answers to those questions already.
Danny pulled himself to his feet once the sky stopped spinning. "It's official," he said as he groped towards a park bench and eased himself down. "Your friend is a worse driver than my dad."
Val looked at him blankly.
"You never driven with my dad, have you? It makes most roller coasters seem tame."
"But you got out alive," Val retorted testily, obviously hurt that Danny was criticizing her flying ability.
"And we got the ghost!" Danny said weakly, holding up the Thermos. "It's all good."
We got the ghost?" she squealed and wrapped in a crushing hug. "I could kiss you!"
Danny braced himself for an equally bone-crushing buss but all Val did was give him a swift, chaste peck on the cheek.
"I'll - ah - take him back to FentonWorks and sneak him unto my parent's containment vault," Danny said. "He'll never bother anyone else again." Danny continued standing uncomfortably for a moment. "Thanks for everything, Val, it was - kind of fun."
"Yeah," she sighed. "We worked pretty good as a team. We ought to do this again!"
I don't think I could survive another day of doing this, Danny thought. "Yeah, ah..." then leaned in and pressed his lips to hers, mostly. Danny's aim wasn't the most accurate. He half expected her to slap him but she only looked a little surprised. Then her eyes opened in surprise.
"Oh Lord, that reminds me, I promised the manager of The Movie Palace to go out on a date with him tonight. I've got to get dressed! I gotta go," and took off before Danny could say anything.
Danny, still feeling the touch of her lips on his, smiled, tossed the Fenton Thermos recklessly in the air, caught it as Danny Phantom, turned invisible and flew away home. If he were the least bit good at it, he would have been whistling.