To Challenge Fate

Disclaimer: I do not lay claim to Danny Phantom, or any other intellectual property that inspired this work of fanfiction. This fic is entirely done as a non profit fun writing project.

Helltanz's notes: this is a rewrite of the first story I posted to FFN, it goes into much higher detail, and actually shows the plot and some of the details that I never got around to making clear, and or posting in all the time its been laying here... So if you're reading this:

Well this got posted back in 2005, this rewrite was started on September 30th 2012, so eventually it might get a third chapter, we'll see.

Now I've been trying to avoid large author notes but this one kind of needs it. This chapter takes place in an alternate timeline (the Future) and to add to the disclaimer above Rifts has contributed greatly to the setting itself. Also slight alterations to the timeline (spacing of events has been made, and I hope I've made that apparent enough.)

-chapter begin-

Ten years was a long time, even if he was functionally immortal. The fact of the matter was being a half ghost had its perks, and its drawbacks. It was rapidly approaching yet another anniversary, he did not celebrate. Well more than one actually this time of year had many. It would yet another anniversary of getting his powers in that miserable portal mishap in his parent's basement.

The Phantom stroked his jaw. So much had happened in ten years. The ten years since his parents had died in that explosion, along with his friends. In that intervening space of time though other friends had died, and others had become his worst enemies. That was just the reality of how grim and terrible the future had become. The explosion had just been the catalyst for his own descent, it had taken time for the rest of the world to follow.

Ten years ago after the explosion he'd gone to live with Vlad leaving Valerie to deal with the ghosts who could now run rampant in Amity Park. In hindsight that was one of the few things he'd come to regret though not entirely for sentimental reason. Valerie's abilities back then had not quite been what they were today, and those fools from the government bungled things rather severely. Serverly enough that it'd set the ground work for another problem. The bungling had lead to the Manson's funding spree.

Back then Danny hadn't cared that Sam's parents had poured the family fortune into science and supernatural research. For a time Valerie, and the Mansons had even worked together. Eventually that had fallen through, turning both of them into enemies, but not before all kinds of new problems had been spawned by that joining of forces.

He'd been too busy back then to notice. Vlad's 'purification process' was flawed, and the consequences of it were still evident. He'd been too busy trying to cope with being an entity that amounted to a pure ghost... without actually being one.

Doctor Daniel Fenton had allegedly died in the attack on Los Angeles several years back. The doctor was a part of Vlad's attempt to get him to cope with his parents and friends' deaths. He'd hired the best experts and tutors to hone his education pushing him into a frenzy of studying and learning to try and get him over the grief. It had failed. Vlad's purification process had blown the cracks in his psyche wider, he'd snapped, and raged and destroyed things. Then he'd settled down and floated back.

After the purification he'd tried to get back into normal life, studying science. It was three years after the 'process' he'd found out about Valerie, and the Mansons teaming up. The Manson fortune had been used to gather all of Fenton Work's up all they needed was Danny's signature on the paperwork to take control. Had he known what a pain it would cause him he'd have never signed it even if he had wanted the money. At the time both sides got what they wanted, he'd gotten the money, and they'd gotten his parent's tech.

The Mansons had turned the anti ghost weapons over to Valerie and her Father, and that should have been that. All things being what they were it wasn't. So while Daniel Fenton had been off on the west coast at college the whole world started going to hell. Manson Industries became the bleeding edge of technology research, and paranormal weaponry. The whole world looked like it was going to be bright and fucking cheery.

Then Valerie had found out what Sam's parents were doing, but by that point it'd been too late to stop the megacorporation except by blowing them up Valerie had blown the lab to hell, and covered it up by using a ghost fight. That should have been the end of it, and Valerie never should have told him about any of it, but she thought she needed to.

Daniel Fenton should have been 34 this year... but that person was supposed to be dead. Valerie was one of the few people alive who knew the truth. That the Phantom was the supposed to have been dead doctor Fenton. Daniel Fenton who was sitting in his 'war room' more occupied by reminscing than what was going on on the screens.

When Valerie had found out she'd come to tell him. It was the first blatant public usage of the genetically engineered weapons the Manson's had developed obstensibly for the government. The monsters had forced his hand, and that was how Valeries knew. Then the Mansons' had tried to bring the building down. Valerie had known he'd survived, but she played a long with the story he'd been killed in the 'gas explosion'. That had been years ago, but like Vlad his aging had slowed considerably even in human... in fact it had seemed to have ground to a halt.

After that, the explosion that was supposed to have succeeded where the nasty burger explosion had failed, he'd started to pull a Vlad, as he had called it back then. He'd taken to using his powers to build an empire, it hadn't been easy especially with the increasing supernatural danger. Back when he'd been a teenager ghosts had been problematic enough other supernatural, and science borne monstrosities had forced him to focus on the supernatural.

That had been how it had started, Wulf... who was dead now, had joined him first. Wulf who'd been his most loyal ally, and had saved him countless times in those early years, who'd finally gotten killed in the line of duty.

It hadn't been long after Wulf had joined him that the Fright Knight had come and 'bent the knee' pledgling himself to the Phantom's service. The two powerful sapient ghosts had added greatly to his ability to gather resources in those early years. While he'd been doing that Valerie, and the Mansons had been busy having their falling out with each other.

The Mansons kept leading the way into the technological revolution, but the fallout gave others time to catch up. It also gave other people, less scrupulous people, time to benefit as well. He wasn't the only apart of that latter group of course.

It was ironic that it had only been after his parents had died he'd started taking school seriously, and then after he 'died' someone had gone and picked up his research. In 2013 while he'd been busy with the Ghost Zone fighting some doctorate student at MIT had gotten an invite from the Mansons after she'd made the break through of the century.

Everyone had different terms for the next big event Daniel called it the welcome to Planet Hell moment whenever it wasn't being discussed in a scientific manner. Most lay people called it the apocalypse, because really that was what it was. In the span of a few short years humanity was knocked back. In a few short years humanity was reduced to a scrambling, barely hangining on to the edge with horrors and monsters all around.

After the End Amity Park had come off better than most. Not that that was saying much. It was certainly true that after the end Valerie, and her dad had managed to make sure the city had held it together, but it had also brought all kinds of other problems to Amity Park. People tried to get to wherever was safe, and well the chaos of the 'Fall' had been just what he, Phantom, had been looking for in life at the time. That brought him back to the present.

Now though? That was the question, it had only with great reluctance that he had allowed himself to be forced into this position. Of course it had taken time for him to adjust to get over that explosion that had ruined his life, and set him on the course. Then again it had taken years for Vlad to get over his own problems. He sighed.

Last reports indicated that Vlad Masters was living in some town on the frontier of civilization. A miserable hold out in the western reaches of what had been Texas... or rather still was he supposed for what little the government could claim to administer. A measley handful of city states.

Doctor van Karman's entry into the war room came without announcement, "The preparations continue apace," He announced, "We expect the device to be ready on schedule."

The device was the technological and arcane monstrosity currently forming the bulk of his efforts and focus to build. If it worked it would be worth it, and if it didn't well, then it didn't, but as a long as it didn't blow up catastrophically, which was always a risk it would be worth it just for parts. He would just have to wait and see.

He'd abandonned the experiments the Mansons had started. Of course they'd had to abandon such experiments as well which was entirely understandable given the lack of resources available to dedicate to such projects particularly at the time. It didn't mean that he didn't want to change things, but this idea that he'd gotten from Vlad's notes was as good as any for actually trying it.

Karman was still talking, but it was mainly about various scientific issues related to power regulation that he wasn't particularly concerned about, "in short," The man stated, "I estimate that we will have an optimum time frame of eight minutes, most likely less though. As it maintaining the portal will be incredibly difficult given the reality of what we are trying to accomplish.

To change fate, to alter the course of history. That was their goal. It was also incredibly risky after the End it'd become readily apparent that the Ghost Zone wasn't the only inhabitted alternate dimension that existed. That was the unfortunate truth that came from Nightingale's journal, that they weren't alone.

What was coming was not simply one force, but dozens with the way opened up in the aftermath of the destruction. In many respects his rampaging had further weakened humanity before they had fully understood just what was already on their doorstep.

Phantom glanced at the screen, production of vital technology was a problematic thing in this time especially since most cities had been laid to waste. This destruction had also meant that entire types of technology had vanished as well. Amity Park was only just now starting to grow again after his last attack, which had been years ago. That was another anniversary that was coming up that he wasn't looking forward to. No doubt Valerie would remember, but nowadays she had more pressing issues to deal with than risk endangering the delicate status quo. He didn't expect any kind words though either.

The past was just that, but it also wasn't forgotten. His rampaging had burned countless bridges, and resources that in this day he could have used, that mankind could have used. Doctor van Karman turned, "Ah there is other news as well,"

Eyes narrowed, even if they were his 'human eyes'. "What news?" In this day it was clear that no news was the best news, news meant that something had changed and it was rarely for the better and that there was problem some threat on the horizon.

"While obviously the situation at the world at large is ... as chaotic as usual there remains the local concerns," The world at large was as much a mess as what had been America was. It was true that it tended to vary, there were certainly places worse off, and then there were those who were doing very well all things considered.

Daniel nodded for the man to continue. He didn't have the energy or the willpower to concern himself with the world as a whole. From the last time he'd cared to check Europe, and Asia might have been a squabling mess between a dozen semi important factions, but they were certainly no worse off than the former United States. South America and Africa might have been worse off, but there were very few who could afford to give a shit. It was pretty much that kind of situation. The whole world was a mess, and anything that was a few hundred miles away started to seem like another world, and that was with access to reasonably modern vehicles.

Such a vehicle was on the screen. The Mansons had made some modifications, particularly the clean energy battery, but ultimately the flat bed hovering all terrain vehicle was based originally on a Fenton Works design. Manson Industries was good at refining technology like that. The heavy flat bed 'hovering trucks' were idea for moving supplies or manpower across the wastes.

Slowly the ectoplasm warped around him, his hair lightened to a pure snow white, and eyes turned bloody red. This was the Phantom the whole world knew, even the aliens, and the monsters. He had gone back to a variant of the Fenton originating jumpsuits, though the cape remained even if the emblazoned logo was gone from his chest.

Only the Fright Knight retained his archaic supernaturally empowered medieval armor amongst the people here. For everyone else it was a mishmash of technology, most people had some kind of vaugely uniform black and white jumpsuit. Plasma based weapons tended to be effective against everything. The energy revolution mass produced by MI, and their competitors had also introduced cheap EM based systems as another option for weaponry as well. This era was nothing if not dangerous so you wanted a weapon that would be effective against all or at least most threats if you could get it. So both weapon types beat out old conventional firearms, even if those were still in use far and wide.

Van Karman handed over a computer tablet presenting the latest bad news. By all rights there wasn't a point about reading about Europe, it was too far away, but places like the midwest, and the old North East Corridor those were much closer, and then there was always Amity Park in particular that was kept an eye on. He tried to keep his spies outside of Valerie's field of vision, but he knew better than to loose track of what was going on in that city.

Of course for all that people like Valerie, and the Mansons had become powerful there were others who he'd never known who had become just as powerful in the wastes of North America. Of course he tended to pay the closest attention on the Manson's corporate domain. That not so little fief of corporate domain was both a boon, and a constant thorn in his side. Then there was Vlad... well as long as he stayed down south he shouldn't become an issue.

Still there were other threats, even if there weren't any raiders stupid enough to attack this facility more organized groups might have the ego to think they could get away with it. He'd just have to make sure things were extra vigiliant. Van Karman estimated of course that totally preventing the apocalypse was unlikely but controlling the descent better... well a crash landing was better than just a crash wasn't it?

-scene break-

Jeremy Manson ran a hand through his thinning blonde hair. Things shouldn't have been like this but they couldn't have helped it, just like they couldn't have stopped Sam from getting killed in that explosion. It was ironic that was precisely how her friend Daniel Fenton had died a few years later, of course they'd had a hand in that. That Valerie girl had gone and messed everything up of course and by the time they'd started getting back on track well it'd been too late. The one twenty as some of the people had started calling was not a pleasant time to live even within the relative safety of the Exclusion Zone of the Megasprawl of the rebuilt city.

His assistant was escorted in by a pair of black clad corporate guards. The full body encompassing uniforms were obstensibly state of the art, for light armor anyway, even having plates on the armor itself, which was a distinct step up from what the rank and file corporate troops had. Of course realistically if something got passed the regular guards chances were they were already playing with extremely dangerous weapons to begin with, or were just that stealthy. Of course that latter was likely to be just that much harder given this place was laden with sensors. "Mister Manson you're reports on production, as well as the information on developing situations as you requested,"

He took the files and started picking through them. It was a routine part of his day to day existence now. Keeping things running meant keeping people under control. A key piece of this was keeping things running on time, keeping factories operating, and churning out supplies, while at the same time providing security. The megasprawl was a corporate kingdom all neatly packaged up. It was true that things had been heading that way even before the apocalypse the US government's empowered conservative, and business friendly administration at the time had been very quick to authorize any powers necessary to deal with hostile threats like ghosts. Then it had stopped being just ghosts, and other threats. It had spread to other supernatural threats, then to ecoterrorists and then to striking workers.

Then the end had come and suddenly there was a flood of chaos. Megastorms, that had probably been fueled by supernatural creatures or powers, had ravaged the closest cities to the coast had been only one problem. The age old fact about cities, and the coast though came to rear its ugly head so it'd been one really big problem.

The ghosts before the End had been bad, but after it'd gotten worse. The dozens of other disasters had gotten piled on. Then on top of the Ghost threat, everything, every other monster and baddie seemed to come crawling out of the woodwork. Nowadays the biggest probable supernatural threat was the Phantom, the latest report on was sitting on his desk. It was true that Phantom wasn't the only supernatural threat he got regular reports on, but he was certainly one of the most pressing ones to conisder.

Most of the information was generic. Strictly speaking there was no proof that Phantom was telepathic, telekinetic sure, but not telepathic. Of course on the other hand there wasn't any conclusive proof he wasn't, which made reports concerning. This had become especially true during his rampaging period. A rampaging supernatural was bad, and then it had potentially gotten worse when Phantom had apparently decided to settle down and form his own little enclave. Neofeudalism was the fancy name given to local areas being ruled by the strongest faction in the area, and in an ironic way the Fright Knight just made it oddly picturesque to imagine.

Of course nowadays Phantom was rarely seen, and in an era were there was limitted national communication, much less international, there were some who claimed he didn't exist at all. Jeremy Manson knew better, and there was a reason a not insignificant portion of available resources went to maintaining the powerful ectoplasmic shield around the city. It was true enough that shield did also protect against other threats as well, but the attack on Amity Park had proven what he and the Fright Knight could do alone... the CEO didn't want consider the outcome of a concerted effort by Phantom's forces.

Still the report in front of him had other repercussions. Even when he'd been a rampaging monster travelling the wasteland there had never been any indication that Phantom was stupid, vindictive and prone to anger, but not stupid. So naturally Jeremy Manson was rightly concerned about the report that there was some kind of device under construction.

"Go get doctor Overfull, and see about raising Amity Park on the line," He didn't particularly like the idea of calling Amity Park, or Valerie Gray particularly but, well he needed every expert he could get his hands on, or talk to.

Jeremy Manson turned his full attention back to the data. This could be the worst case scenario they'd first imagined when the Phantom had first settled down. That worst fear had been that Phantom had been massing for a war of conquest against the whole continent. For over a year they'd waited, and while there was clear activity and building no attack had ever came. Phantom's enclave sat there, growing yes, but no horde had come rampaging across the wasteland towards the last bastions of civilizations... well never in force. These kind of reports though, power transfer couplings, and various systems that were critical to large scale plasma manipulation well Phantom's troops never been lacking for armaments.

Still he was a businessman not an expert in high energy weapons, so he'd just have to ask the experts what this could be, but he already a good idea. If that meant asking all the experts just in case well talking to Amity Park's de facto ruler was acceptable. First thing was first the reality of the day meant they first needed to identify just what it was that Phantom was dedicating such resources to building.

-scene break-

Valerie didn't have the advantage of immortality as a result of supernatural powers, she was getting old just like every other normal person. Phantom's attack years ago had forced her father to rely on crude cybernetics, but it kept him around so the glaring bits of metal weren't so bad. All in all life wasn't good, but it certainly could have worse.

Having to deal Jeremy Manson though that definitely decreased the quality of her day. That corporate bastard didn't look much older than her to tell the truth, but then again there was no telling how much the fat cat had spent on advanced medical treatments. Phantom at least had the excuse of being a freak to explain his lack of aging over the years. Of course it was Phantom that was the reason the corp's king was talking to her in the first place.

Jeremy Manson had always made a show of seemingly not understanding why she had such an issue with the creep. Trying to bring their daughter back from the dead just was all kinds of wrong, what they'd been doing in that lab, it'd been a freakshow. She knew blowing it to hell was exactly the right thing to do, that fact that even today the ground was tainted just proved her right in her opinion. She knew Phantom had destroyed a second complex during his rampage, but there was no telling what Phantom's actual goal's were in doing so...

Just like there was no telling what exact the device was. Manson's spies didn't even have a clear picture of alleged device anyway. What they did have were rumors, and lots of manifests with various parts of complex equipment. Whatever it was there were two things that were clear it was probably bad news, and the grunts didn't know what it was either. Neither really helped their situation. Today the situation was all that was up for discussion though.

Her dad was already piling through the possibilities with the help of his computer augmented mind running through a checklist. "Its possible its a weapon, or a vehicle. It could even a space lift platform of some kind," He added, "The problem is figuring out just what it could be, there are lots things he could use these parts for, and since he stopped rampaging Phantom's motives have always been unknown."

"Yeah," She agreed faintly, "what the worst case scenario?"

One of the Corp Eggheads spoke up, "the worst case, Phantom's forces are well armed, notably with power armor systems as suggested an airship of some kind with plasmic shielding would be very dangerous just for being able to ferry his marauders across terrain." That was certainly the common expectation at least, it might have been a while, but everyone in the upper echelons could recall what happened when Phantom went on a rampage, and for that matter everyone in Amity Park could as well.

Still an airship seemed a little far fetched. Then again a giant energy cannon wasn't likely either, of course if Phantom had some way of directing a beam, well then it wouldn't be so far fetched. Still trying to piece together the answer with incomplete item manifests, and rumors wasn't likely to get them anywhere. At the same time directly attacking Phantom risked waking the monster from his period of, relative, nonagression against the rest of the world.

One of the other 'experts' stroked his chin, "There is another option," He stated after a minute, "we have been monitoring electromagnetic, and other radiation fluctations," The man remarked, it was one of the few ways to pick up on supernatural threats, or high tech targetting sensors for that matter. "We know that many of the supernatural threats congregate in these saturated areas, but we don't have a great deal of information of what goes on in them," For a minute they were wondering what he was getting at, but then Valerie got it, just as soon as he dropped the name and Jeremy Manson grimaced. "The late Doctor Fenton's work was picked up by our R&D head, a doctor Ashcroft which ultimately dealt with a lot of the early research into these so called 'ley lines'. What little we do know is that they're massive reserves of energy,"

"So it could be a conduit of some kind," She remarked. Apparently the doctor didn't know Daniel Fenton was the Phantom, who would definitely know his own research.

The man nodded, "We don't know a great deal about the leylines the areas are simply too dangerous normally to research, but this kind of equipment is suitable for channelling large amounts of energy if he is using one as generator he could focus it through, but the question would still be what it is for, obviously."

Considering everyone involved in the discussion had seen first hand what such high levels of energy could do when unleashed. It was a known factor that there was a lot of suspicion that high energy weapons might have touched off 'the End'. It was also true that these natural resonance points had flared up during the end, so there was that to consider as well.

Of course as had been mentioned they didn't really have any way of monitoring the points. After the End the notable lay lines, the ones they knew about at least, had all almost universally been overrun by somekind of supernatural or just plain weird occurence. The unnatural storms, and other phenomenae of the end had given way to reports of even stranger monsters than had been the norm during ghost attacks. Conclusive confirmation had come only after the End though in the dog eat dog world that had come to pass.

Jeremy Manson frowned, "If Phantom is sitting on one of these sites is it possible he could be attacked by one of the various unnatural factions?" Unnatural, as opposed to outrigh saying demon or monster, or such, "certainly if thats what the base is sitting on it would be very dangerous to attack, especially given Phantom is a supernatural creature himself."

"Attacking Phantom in general is dangerous," If as hypothesized ley lines did actually make supernatural creatures stronger, well Valerie didn't want to think about that, chances were he'd be fucking invicible on his home turf then.

As it was Amity Park was saturated with energy as it was, which actually explained the near constant attacks by monsters. The city wide shield, and various defensive installations, stopped most of the monsters, but occassionally they had to do more to drive off the extra dimensional invaders.

After the falling out between her and the Mansons over their little freaky abomination project she'd retained control of the manufacturing lines for Amity Park's ghost defense. After the End those had had to be expanded. Today they produced divergent designs than what was produced in the megrasprawl of the Corp's city. Amity Park's defenders were equipped with home built weapons, and the town militia was well suited to defending it.

Attacking Phantom though, oh sure there would be volunteers. There were always volunteers to go rushing off into the danger. The question was whether it was worth it, "Do we have a time table on how long the device is expected to be under construction?" How long did they have until they finished it, Valerie wondered, because there was one expert that they didn't have on hand. If they could get Vlad Masters, who was supposedly travelling between cities in the south west well he'd probably be able to figure something out. Of course the question was whether it would do any good, but it was better than rushing in blind.

-chapter conclusion-