Hi! This is my first fanfic, so feedback is appreciated! Be as harsh as you want, too. This is rated T for gore.
Valerie's POV
She finally had him. She stood calmly as none other than Danny Phantom writhed in pain at her feet. A few weeks ago she had gotten hold of a collar that could both shock ghosts, and cancel out their ghostly abilities. She had managed to get the collar on Phantoms neck during their latest scuffle. He convulsed as thousands of volts of electricity coursed through him.
Valerie Grey hadn't expected it to work so well, though. Sure, it worked fine on the smaller ghosts she tested it on, but this is Danny Phantom! Amity Park's own ghost "hero", Public Ghost Enemy #1! And he just dropped like a fly! Even those small, weak ghosts had put up some kind of fight, but phantom had succumb to it immediately. She decided to figure out why later. Right now she had a smoking, twitching ghost to relocate.
Danny's POV
Danny Phantom was flying through Amity Park one last time before going to bed. He was on his evening patrol to make sure there were no ghosts to wake him later. The night was beautiful, not a cloud in the sky, a wonderful waxing crescent moon. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. I love the night sky. He thought. Everything was going just fine.
Until he was shot down.
Danny was knocked out of the sky by that one. He knew that it wasn't from another ghost, or his ghost sense would have gone off, so it must have been a ghost hunter. There were a lot of ghost hunters in Amity Park, so it took him a while to sort through the list. Someone with strong weapons and good aim. Ugh, Valerie. Danny internally groaned.
Just as that thought crossed his mind, Valerie in her Red Huntress suit came flying over him on her hoverboard. He groaned and got to his feet and into a fighting stance, although he hoped he could just get away with a quick chat instead of a fight. Valerie landed her hoverboard a few metres away from Danny, and put her hands up in the universal sign of "I don't want to fight", Danny didn't fall for it. He stayed in his fighting stance.
Valerie then did the craziest thing ever. She ejected her wrist mounted ecto-guns and dropped them on the ground. Danny, slightly confused, made the mistake of lowering his guard ever so slightly. Before he had a chance to comment and make some kind of witty remark, Valerie pounced. She clasped the collar around the ghost boys neck and pressed the activation button.
Danny screamed. All he could think about was when he was electrocuted in the portal accident two years ago. He felt the button click under his weight and, all of a sudden, hundreds of thousands of volts of electricity and ectoplasm flowed through him. He screamed a blood curdling, almost glass shattering scream as it happened.
Valerie's POV
Back in Valeries make-shift lab (some abandoned warehouse near the edge of town), Danny was tied to an examination table, with ghost proof cuffs holding his ankles and wrists. He looks so helpless, Valerie quickly cut that train of thought. He is an extremely dangerous ghost, not some kid. She looked back over at him. His neck was charred from the collar, almost coal black. Valerie only felt slightly bad about the scar, although she did think it was strange that he hadn't healed yet.
Valerie checked again to make sure she had everything she needed. Scalpel, cloth, marker, oversized tweezers that could probably be used as barbeque tongs. Check, check, check, and check. Valerie turned back to Phantom as he groaned, slowly regaining consciousness.
"Huh, wha..?" Danny mumbled as his thoughts returned to him. He quickly opened his eyes to see where he was, and who he was with. "Aww, come on!"
Valerie smirked, amused by the ghost boy's frustration. This kid has caused her so much grief, that even the slightest bit of negativity from him made her happy. "I've been waiting for you to wake up, spook. Before i start," She gestured to the table she was standing by earlier, "I have a few questions for you."
"What makes you think i'll answer?" Danny stated defiantly. Valerie simply pointed at the shock collar still on his neck and shook the remote for it teasingly. "I see your point."
"First of all, I want to know why that collar was so effective on you, but not as effective on the smaller test subjects." Valerie demanded.
Danny blinked in confusion, then a look of realization crossed his face. "It reminded me of how I died, and how helpless i was when it happened." He mumbled, looking straight down.
Now curious of how anything could make this ghost kid feel helpless, Valerie prodded on. "How did you die?"
A look of terror flashed across Danny's face before he quickly hid it. He took a deep breath and sighed. "I was electrocuted. There were hundreds of thousands of volts coursing through me." Danny had a distant look on his face, as if he were watching his own death from another point of view. "It was terrifying."
Valerie grimaced, then hid it just as quickly as danny hid his terror earlier. "When?" She probed further.
"Two years ago, August."
Valerie couldn't believe it. Public Ghost Enemy #1 was such a young ghost. She recalled the Fentons saying something about how long it takes for a ghost core to fully mature. They said that a ghost core would be fully mature by it's tenth death day. This kid is extremely powerful, but he's only two? Valerie couldn't imagine how powerful he'd be when his core matured. The very thought made her shiver.
"You got any more questions? I'd rather answer before instead of during." Danny nodded to the table with the scalpels.
"Nope, no more questions, Ghost Boy." Valerie smiled wickedly before turning to drag the table closer to Danny. "Let's get started."
Danny gulped and tried to get as far away from valerie as possible, but given the current situation, that was barely another centimetre away. Valerie tilted the examination table another 45 degrees so that it was completely vertical. She stood directly in front of him. Before doing anything, Valerie removed the shock collar. She gasped. There was so much more damage there than she thought. His neck was almost completely black. There were small lines that looked like lightning, maybe singed veins, running up and down his neck and on his chin. She guessed that if she were to look at his chest, there would be some there too.
Danny tried to turn his head away, but with her left hand valerie grabbed his forehead to keep him still. In her right hand she held a marker. She placed two dotted lines in the centre of his neck in an 'x', right over his adam's apple. She let go of him for a second to check her notes, she had to make sure she had the right spot, after all.
After looking at her notes for a few minutes, she once again grabbed danny's forehead with her left hand, but this time, she had a scalpel in her right hand. Danny tried desperately to pull away, to no avail. "Hold still, Spook." Valerie grunted before stabbing Danny in the throat.
Danny opened his mouth to scream, but only gurgles came out of his mouth. Wide eyed, he looked at Valerie. She only smirked and began to twist the scalpel. Danny kept trying to scream, but nothing came out.
Valerie pulled the scalpel out of the green flesh and looked at her handiwork. Realization dawned on Danny's face when he realized what she just did. She completely mutilated his vocal cords. He couldn't make a sound as Valerie reached back to the table and grabbed a pair of large tweezers. Valerie turned back to Danny with a crazed look in her eye. "No more stupid puns and witty remarks for you, Ghost." She reached the tweezers into the bleeding hole in Danny's neck, and grabbed at what Danny could only guess was his larynx.
Valerie smiled at the green mass on the table. Danny Phantom's voice box. She knew that if she just broke his vocal cords they'd be healed by next week at most, but if she took out his entire voice box, it would take significantly longer to heal, if at all. No more stupid chit-chat from him during their fights, or on the news, or anywhere! She quickly realized that she alone had taken part of that ghosts identity. Her smile grew even brighter, He ruins my life, I ruin his afterlife! Valerie thought with glee.
As Valerie examined Danny's voice box, she started to hear strange whispers that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. The whispers themselves were barely audible, but they echoed everywhere. The sounds were coming from next to her, behind her, i front of her, below her and above all at once. She turned to her spectral prisoner and saw his lips moving. Valerie quickly realized that this was ghostspeak, and activated an experimental translator, hoping it would work. She had never been able to test it before, so she didn't know if it would translate his words or just make them audible.
Sadly, it didn't translate, but at least now Valerie could hear his words. "-pa kas U diro qa ploig cdapq ekquh jv rayih doih!" Danny yelled, clearly ranting.
"Calm down, spook, I can't understand a word you're saying." Valerie stated calmly.
"U gkas qdip." Danny deadpanned. "Qaa xis qdup up qdo okhv hikceico U yik ploig!"
"Since I only came after you tonight to take your voice, I suppose I could let you out now. Valerie started walking towards the controls for Danny's binds."But if you're terrorizing innocent people, then the next time we meet, I'll take more from you." She warned.
"Ub jv rayih yanzp zak'q cnas xiyg U sak'q ca oipv ak vae 'kotq qujo'." Danny grunted as the cuffs released him, dropping him to the ground. "Vae'ro cako qaa bin qdup qujo, Rihonuo." Danny glared as he flew out of the lab, back to Fenton Works.
I'll post the Translation Cipher in the next chapter, as well as translations for everything Danny said.