Shatterglass

A Danny Phantom Fanfic by Quill N. Inque

I do not own Danny Phantom.

Chapter 2: Fallout

(A/N: I'm gonna say one more time that the song I mentioned at the beginning of chapter one goes REALLY well with the first part of this installment. Seriously, you should go to Youtube and pull it up right now. ^^)

Somewhere…

It was raining.

In and of itself, this was not a remarkable occurrence, but the steady sheets of cold rain that beat a slow, mournful tattoo on all and sundry was notable because it provided an almost cinematic backdrop for young Danny Fenton's misery.

This was not a thunderstorm or mighty gale. Rather, the clouds overhead were a solid, murky slab of cold grey that occasionally rumbled with the sound of distant thunder as they cast a pall of gloom over all who espied them. The downpour that soaked Danny to the bone and made chills rack his body was not the deluge of the movie theaters, either. Rather, it was possessed of a slow, mournful and sluggish pace that saturated Danny all the way down to his underwear.

The once-proud hero pulled the hood of his jacket even tighter over his head, so as to suffuse the infamous face that now dominated every post office and police station in America. A small shake of his weary head forced sheets of water from Danny's raven hair as he kept his head averted from all who passed him by. How many of them had Vlad convinced with his lies? How many of the people Danny had vowed to defend now howled for his blood in a frenzy of rage and bigotry?

His stomach rumbled, but Danny forced himself to ignore the gnawing emptiness in his belly. He had not had time to grab any money or other necessities before he'd had to flee for his life. He hadn't even had time to try and explain everything to his friends and family.

Danny felt a familiar lump rise in his throat. Doubtless his mother and father and sister thought him some kind of scourge for the crime he'd supposedly committed. And the way his luck was going, Sam and Tucker probably wouldn't want anything to do with him either.

The hero gritted his teeth and clenched his fists so hard that his knuckles grated. Plasmius had cost him everything through the heartless machinations he'd so callously set forth, and the utter delight with which the villain had wrecked Danny's life only made the unbridled fury in his veins boil all the hotter.

Some lucid part of Danny's brain realized the black, morbid emotion he now felt for what it truly was.

For the first time in his life, Danny Fenton felt the bitterness and rage of unrestrained, unfettered, genuine hate.

The word in and of itself is vastly overused in common everyday speech, but make no mistake, this was hatred of the purest kind, the blind rage and primal lust for vengeance that for so many countless centuries had made men betray brothers and start wars. Though he wasn't willing to admit it to anyone, even himself, Danny burned with a cold, merciless flame against his mortal enemy while every part of him cried out for the immediate pleasure of ripping Vlad's head off with his bare hands. And despite Danny's attempts to silence it, this lesser part of Danny wantedVlad to materialize right here and right now so that he could kill him and feel the hot spray of his enemy's blood against his skin, and then have Vlad come back as a full-fledged ghost so Danny could blast his foe into a blackened smear of sizzling ectoplasmic grease.

Danny was hungry, cold, wet, broken, and bitter. Vlad's swift and merciless vengeance had left the once-proud hero friendless and homeless while breaking his spirit in such a way that Danny was reduced to an empty husk of the young man he had been only a few days before. The hero was now fighting with himself as much as he was fighting Vlad's schemes. Danny was torn like a piece of rice paper between his unholy thirst for revenge and the inherent goodness that screamed at him to keep fighting the good fight against impossible odds.

The rain continued unabated, and its foreboding thrall completed a masterpiece of misery as Danny Fenton continued his never-ending flight for safety he knew he'd never find.

Danny knew damn well that every law enforcement agency in the country was bent on hunting him down like the animal they believed him to be. Deep down, the ghost boy knew he couldn't outrun them forever.

All the while, the bitterness and anger that festered inside of him like a pool of rancid water threatened to guide Danny Fenton with a dark hand further and further down the ruinous path into the all-consuming void…

Amity Park

Despondency reigned inside the familiar red brick structure that the Fentons called home in the wake of the disaster. It was eerily quiet, not unlike the silence of a graveyard with its pervading air of misery that cast a gloomy pall over the once-happy household.

Danny's parents, Maddie and Jack, sat like stone-faced statues upon the living room couch, and Maddie's husband's arms were wrapped around her in a sign of silent reassurance as he tried vainly to comfort his distraught spouse.

"It's got to be some kind of misunderstanding," he said, his tone soft with both tenderness and grief. "I can't believe our son has had ghost powers all of this time and has never told us! But we love him! I wonder why…"

Jazz Fenton, slouching against the far wall, glanced up at this. "Right, Dad," she said sarcastically. "I'm sure all of that ranting about dissection and experimentation had nothing to do with it."

"But…he….he…" Maddie couldn't bring herself to finish the description of Danny's supposed crime.

Jazz shook her head vigorously. "No," she said, her voice firm as a rock against a rushing tide. "Danny would never kill another person, Mom. He may be powerful, yeah, but he's not…evil."

Maddie began sobbing afresh. "But all of the evidence?"

"It smells like a setup," Sam growled. "Everything about the case just seems too airtight."

"Exactly," Tucker Foley said, glancing up from his Nintendo DS. "But the difficult part is gonna be proving all of that."

"And that's assuming we can even find Danny at all," Jazz added, wiping her eyes. "We have no idea where he is, or where he's heading."

"Better than abandoning him like everyone else has," Sam whispered to herself. "I'm gonna go upstairs and do some thinking," she declared suddenly, the glint of an idea rushing through her brain.

"You do that, Sam," Jack said absently, running his fingers through his wife's hair. "See if you can think of anything that might help our son."

Sam grinned inwardly as she clomped up the stairs. I already have …

Danny's parents could not have known it, but it was not to anyplace in the Fenton home that Sam headed off to in such a hurry. It was rather to the Fentons' upstairs laboratory that the brave young woman was bound, with only the bare necessities for human travel contained in a hastily packed plastic grocery bag.

Sam took a seat in the pilot's chair, and the swift push of a green button detached the rooftop workspace with a great hiss of releasing air, and two sleek, jet-like wings sprouted from either side to give the metal structure the appearance of some sleek combat airfact. The great whine of the Fenton Jet's engines began to grow louder as she prepared for takeoff-

"Going somewhere?"

"Gaaah!" Sam cried, startled, before whirling around to face whoever was standing behind her.

Jazz and Tucker smiled back. "We thought you could use some help," Tucker said slyly. "We won't do much good sitting around, after all."

"We're coming with you," Jazz declared in a tone that would accept no argument.

A grateful smile split Sam's face. "Then help me get this thing airborne," she said. "The sooner we find Danny, the better."

Jazz sank into a chair behind and to Sam's left, flipping a series of switches as she did so. "Thrusters at one hundred percent," the older girl said with a fierce smile. "Weapons and shields are armed and ready."

Tucker lit up a series of buttons, which glowed a soft, muted yellow as the jet slowly rotated in midair. "Cloaking enabled," he said smugly. "We're now invisible to any radar that might pick us up."

Sam nodded at him as she gripped a large, bar-like lever in her slender hand. A heaving pull set it ratcheting downwards, and the Fenton Jet shot a trail of green flames from its afterburners before it began screeching on its way.

As the G-Forces abruptly forced her back in her seat, Sam gritted her teeth and grimly committed every fiber of her being to the mission she'd set for herself.

"Hang on, Danny," she whispered. "We're coming…"

Meanwhile, in the bowels of the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building in Washington D.C…

It is a widely held stereotype of law enforcement that coffee is the life force of everyone who wears a badge. Popular shows like NCIS had done even more to reinforce the image of the grizzled cop with a Starbucks cup in his hand, much to the chagrin of police departments and agencies across the country.

But anyone who had ever encountered FBI Agent Thomas Brody knew without a shadow of a doubt that, in his case, the coffee addiction stereotype was not a stereotype as much as a solid fact.

The steaming cup of Colombian dark roast now clutched in Brody's fist was part of a package deal, so to speak.

But even so, despite his "addiction," Brody was widely regarded as one of the most talented agents in his field. The street-smart, tough-as-nails investigator had spent almost two decades bringing America's worst to justice with almost dogged determination.

This was, by far, Brody's greatest strength as an investigator. His sheer persistence and stubbornness in his dedication to closing each case made him an inexorable foe to the criminals he hunted, but even more terrifying than his relentlessness was that he had a cold, almost surgical patience to go with it. Brody was known for waiting months or even years to bring down his quarry, setting up dozens of pieces to fall like dominoes in just such an order when the time was right.

Brody's appearance reinforced his embodiment of the quintessential cop. He was no longer young, that much was certain: Brody's once-black hair was now streaked liberally with gray, and above his short, rounded nose his green eyes were flecked with the telltale silver specks of nearsightedness's onset. It was only for this reason that Brody kept a pair of wire-rimmed glasses in the pocket of his white Oxford shirt, which was in turn partially concealed by the black sport coat he now wore. His slacks were of the same, monotonous color, as Brody preferred functional garb, and the only concession he made to style was the crimson tie he wore at his throat.

Brody was tall, but not as tall as some, and his large hands could move with a dexterity that belied the sausage-like fingers they sported. He sported a hard potbelly that continued to blatantly defy any and all trips to the gym, and a pair of black dress shoes covered his feet. Those feet bore the signs of a lifetime of wear and tear in the form of an ever-present ache that at times made it painful for Brody to walk, and for that reason he kept a bottle of Tylenol close at hand wherever he went. A Sig Sauer semi-automatic pistol, scratched and pitted through years of service, was clearly visible on Brody's hip.

All in all, this was not the kind of person one wanted coming after him, but unfortunately Lady Luck had apparently forsaken young Danny Fenton.

Brody had received a memo only just this morning stating that he'd been appointed the leader of a special task force charged with apprehending the villainous ghost boy while being exempted from international customs and extradition treaties, courtesy of the United Nations. Danny was, after all, an American by birth, so it was only fitting that an American lead the investigation that brought him in.

Brody had downed an entire cup of coffee in a single swig after reading the orders from his superiors. Of all the aspects of his work, he hated arresting kids and teenagers the most. For Christ's sake, the Fenton kid was no more than fourteen!

The agent shook his head sadly. He'd seen the exploits of Danny Phantom on the news many times before. How could it be possible, Brody wondered with a touch of melancholy, for someone like that to go from hero to murderer so quickly?

Brody quaffed the rest of his Starbucks before crushing the cup in his fist. Though he hated the idea of hunting down the boy, the fact was that Danny had taken another man's life. No matter what services he'd rendered in the past, Fenton had to answer for what happened in Amity Park that day.

A knock on his office door made Brody abandon his ruminations.

"It's open," he said simply.

The knob turned to admit a tall, spindly, dour-looking fellow with pasty white skin. "Are you coming to the briefing or not?" the man asked.

Brody stood, appraising his new colleague thoroughly. "O'Malley, right? From the CIA?"

"Yes," O'Malley said in his usual mournful tone. "We've met before."

"Yeah," Brody winked smarmily. "I remember. You tried to hinder the Ribben case last fall."

"I did nothing of the sort," O'Malley replied, his eyes narrowing slightly.

"Of course not," Brody agreed with false sincerity as he walked out the door. "The CIA always denies everything, right?"

"Save that hostility for the Fenton boy," O'Malley shot back, following Brody into the conference room.

"You're late," a haughty voice declared, before Brody had even begun to pull out his chair at the head of the long, hardwood table. "I hope you are not planning on such idiocy in all the debriefings."

Brody glanced at the speaker, and the first thing that came to mind was that the short man in an Army dress uniform had the face of a rat. His cheekbones were sharp and bladed, his nose pointed and curved, and two slightly enlarged front teeth protruded even when his mouth was closed. The man possessed a sneaky, pompous air about him that immediately grated on Brody's nerves, and he couldn't help but picture this man in the role of Igor in Frankenstein.

O'Malley took that moment to make a few introductions. "Agent Brody, meet Major Andrew Skyrme. He's the U.S. military liaison for the task force."

"Charmed," Brody said, his voice flat.

O'Malley didn't notice as he pointed down the rows of seats. "Tanya Brentwell, of Homeland Security," he said, pointing to a fair-haired woman on Brody's left. "Benjamin Slate, of the National Security Administration," he continued, and a dark-skinned man with a shining bald head nodded curtly. "Kyosuke Tanaka, liaison to the United Nations." A tall, Oriental man with handsome features smiled genially. "Agents K and O of the Guys in White." The two immaculately clad operatives gave the smallest of nods, their stoic expression never changing. "And lastly…Vladimir Masters, CEO of DALV corporation."

"What is a businessman doing here?" the grim-looking Slate asked. "This is no place for economics!"

"Mr. Masters has agreed to provide us with top-notch equipment and any additional funding we may require," O'Malley said calmly. "By ourselves, we do not have the proper technology to deal with such a…unique threat."

"What's your point?" Tanaka inquired, his voice clipped and soft. "Surely our combined resources would be more than enough to bring this Fenton boy into custody. There is no way he can escape the forces we are all bringing to the table here."

"Did any of you read his file?" Brody asked with exasperation. "This kid isn't just some delinquent! He's got abilities right out of Marvel Comics, for crying out loud! He can turn invisible, pass through walls, lift ten times his weight with his bare hands and has…what did you call it again?" he asked O'Malley.

"Ectoplasm," the CIA operative clarified. "We believe that it has somehow mutated Fenton's genetics, and that it is from this that he has acquired his superhuman powers."

"Don't underestimate him," K growled. "Brody's right. As a ghost, Fenton ranks a solid seven on the Ecto-Scale. And that means he has enough power to level an entire city without even breaking a sweat."

That last declaration brought instant silence.

Brody smiled grimly. "Now that we are all aware of the gravity of the situation, perhaps we can begin…"

Much later…

Vlad Masters smiled smugly to himself as he walked calmly down the street from the FBI headquarters. What blithering idiots these people were, to play right into his hands!

The ridiculously expensive cell phone buzzed in the pocket of Vlad's Armani slacks, and he flipped it open to hear the voice of his minion, the Fright Knight, on the other end.

"Orders, Master?" the ghost asked humbly.

Vlad grinned maniacally. "The wheels have begun to turn, my servant. You may proceed as planned."

The Fright Knight sounded confused. "But…was not framing the boy the plan?"

"Hardly," Vlad snorted. "That was merely one of the many cogs in my machine. Ruining Daniel was only a preface to the outcome as a whole."

"But you even said-"

Vlad cut him off. "You may recall that I am not an honest person," he stated casually. "I did not want young Daniel to know everything just yet, therefore I lied. He has no idea that his nightmare is just beginning…"

A/N: I'm back, and better than ever! I went to the eye doctor this morning and I am very happy to say that, other than a small scratch that will heal with time, my eye has not sustained any permanently debilitating injury. Thank God for that, I say: after all, these eyes are the only pair I've got! XD Thank you all once again for your patience and understanding, and know that the next installment will be up very, very soon! What diabolical plan does Vlad have in mind? Will Jazz, Sam and Tucker find Danny before Agent Brody? And will our hero ever be able to clear his name? Find out in coming chapters!

Your humble servant,

-Quill N. Inque