Danny had only been fighting Vortex, a villain that he's fought before, so it should've been easy right?
He should've known all the right moves, the best strategies, the best way to defeat this foe. But something happened, something was wrong he could tell. He didn't inherit any new ghost powers this time around. No weather catastrophe's tied to his fluctuating teenage emotions.
But something was wrong.
It had all started with a particularly nasty zap of lightning. It hadn't felt too bad at first so he thought nothing of it since it didn't cause much of a problem. He's suffered worse where the electrical department was concerned anyways. So what could this measly zap do to him?
He first noticed the pain one day when he was doing homework for once in his bed. At first it was just a twinge in his chest, kind of like when you've been laying in bed for too long. It was something he could ignore for the time being.
Later on in the week Danny arrived at home, ready to go upstairs and dump his backpack in his room. He made it up the first couple of steps when the pain in his chest doubled. With each heartbeat, the pain doubled again and again. Danny collapsed on the floor, knocking over a table with a vase on it. He tried to pull himself up off the floor, when another beat pulsed through him and he fell back down with a thud. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears and his arms felt like weights, he couldn't move them. It felt like when you wake up in the middle of the night and you slept funny and your arm is so asleep it won't move.
Danny started to panic, which in retrospect should have been one of the best things not to do. His heart rate started going up, causing the pulsing pains to happen again and again and again.
He laid shaking on the floor, his vision beginning to get fuzzy. It felt as if he's been laying on the floor for hours, even though it had probably only been minutes.
As he laid on the ground, he heard the front door open and two sets of feet walked in. He opened his eyes to see a pair of combat boots and a pair of brown shoes running towards him. Sam and Tucker always walked in without knocking.
They turned him over onto his back and he looked up at them through lidded eyes. Sam had one hand on his shoulder and the other on his foreman, worriedly looking between him and Tucker. Tucker was currently on the phone with someone, but by now the blood rushing in his ears was too loud to hear anything anymore.
Tucker finally got off the phone and began saying something, taking his hand. He could tell that they were trying to reassure him, tell him that it would be okay.
But Danny knew this wasn't something he could come back from. It had been festering too long until it became just enough to drop him.
As Danny laid there, looking at his two best friends, a certain kind of understanding overcame him. He wasn't sure where it came from, or why he knew this to be true. But he was dying. Like dying, dying.
As Danny laid there, he knew he wouldn't come back as a ghost. He was certain that this was his last leap in this life and consciousness, He wouldn't be coming back as Fenton or Phantom.
Danny raised his head slightly, looking at Sam. Tears in her eyes, she took his hand and squeezed. Danny squeezed both her and Tucker's hands, then leaned his head back, looking at the ceiling. He closed his eyes, and through the pulsing in his body, he could faintly feel one of his friends shaking him.
He let out one final breath. His head tilted to the side, and the loose grip he had on Sam and Tucker's hands went limp.