Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
Through the Fire
Chapter One: Ashes to Ashes
Chaos broke loose as multiple ear-shattering explosions detonated from the kitchen of Fenton Works. Any screams would have been unheard in the presence of the deafening crash of glass, metal, tile, wood, and every other manner of building material as the construction was simply crushed and smashed to smithereens from the detonation's awesome force.
Flames instantly burst into existence, quickly consuming the surrounding woodwork. Sharp shards of shrapnel hurtled from the origins of the blast, sheering past unprotected flesh and drawing blood. Danny could taste the metallic liquid as it trickled from a cut right below his eye. The teenage ghost fighter heard Jazz scream as a wave of scorching hot air swept over the group.
The rapidly-spreading fire was quickly turning into a small inferno. The teen ghost-fighter could feel the intense heat down the hallway as acutely as he could feel the adrenaline burning through his veins in pure, undiluted terror.
Everything became worse when Danny realized something. "MOM! DAD!" he shouted, heart sinking as he remembered that they had been in the kitchen at the time of the explosion.
As he strained his ears, he thought he caught a faint "Danny!" in answer.
He looked back for one second, heart torn between going further in for his parents and taking his friends and teacher to safety.
Sam caught his gaze, wide-eyed but rather calm compared to her frozen teacher. "Go, Danny! We'll be fine!" she gasped through the steadily spreading smokescreen. The three teens were scrambling for the door on their knees, dragging their catatonic teacher behind them. Danny nodded in self-reassurance. His friends were capable of taking care of themselves.
"Meet by the flagpole three blocks down. If you're not there when I get back, I'm going back in," he replied, blue-white rings sheering over his body. At the affirmative reply, he plunged into the firestorm as Danny Phantom.
Frantically searching the flames for his parents as he ran through the remains of the living room, he coughed as smoke entered his lungs. Eyes watering, he unleashed a splintering wave of ice at the kitchen entrance. The intense flames hissed and sizzled upon contact, easily melting through the temporary defense.
Holding his breath, Danny plunged intangibly through the small gap created by his ice. Coughing, he navigated the fiery passage, punching past all obstructing objects in his path. It wasn't hard to find his parents. "M-mom! Dad!" he choked out through dry lungs, eyes landing on their fallen figures.
"D-Danny," Maddie said weakly from her position underneath her unconscious husband, obviously injured.
Not bothering to think about her lack of reaction to his ghostly appearance, he stumbled over and carefully lifted his dad's arms around his neck, half-dragging him on the scorched floor.
"G-gotta get out of here!" he gasped, watching his mother crawl to her feet. Fueled by adrenaline, Danny picked Maddie up bridal-style while still carrying his dad and rushed toward the wall that was least-populated by the raging fire.
"H-hold your breath!" he snapped out, lunging intangibly through plaster, concrete, glass, and wood on his way to safety. Three walls and five seconds later, Danny burst into fresh air.
He flew with his two passengers partway to the flagpole and gently deposited his father on the ground. Positioning his mother against a wall, the teen ghost fighter shoved his intact cell phone into her hands. "C-call 911, get to the flagpole if you can! I've gotta get everyone else out!" he hissed through his teeth as he felt each and every one of his minor injuries and burns.
From her propped-up position, Maddie gave her son a look that said 'I know what you're doing, young man.' Her gaze softened. "S-stay safe, Danny."
His tense posture relaxed noticeably. "You too. Don't worry, Mom." Turning, he shot off in the direction of the burning building.
A short distance away from the two rescued ghost hunters, the Box Ghost sat up and spat out a gob of ashes and soot. "This is the last time that I, the Box Ghost, will willingly warn the ghost child's family of suspicious shadows behind buildings! BEWARE!" he declared to the sky.
Danny spotted his best friend half-carrying his sister about a block away from the burning building. "Tucker!" he called. The techno geek looked up and winced slightly at the sight of his friend. Letting gravity take hold of him for a quick and abrupt landing, the teenage ghost hunter stopped his descent in a perfectly balanced crouch. Straightening swiftly, he did a quick inventory of his teammates.
Tucker seemed to be mostly all right considering that he was able to carry Jazz, who was heavier than him, for the distance of one block. A closer look showed that he was limping from a considerably bleeding but shallow gash on his leg. Other than that, though, he was almost completely uninjured beyond minor scratches and burns.
Jazz, on the other hand, was not so fortunate. She was unconscious and seemed completely unaware of the intruders within her personal space bubble, something quite uncharacteristic for her. Though her face was coated with a thin layer of black soot, a shallow cut across her forehead through her hairline bled enough to wash some of it away with a spray of liquid crimson.
Looking around discreetly after discerning that his sister was, in fact, still alive, he noticed something that agitated him. He whirled around to face his friend. "What happened to you guys? Where's Sam and Mr. Lancer?"
Tucker flinched at the question that he knew was coming. "When you left, we made it up to the doorway without a hitch. From there, everything went very wrong. Jazz and Mr. Lancer got knocked out by flying rock shards. I picked up Jazz, but Sam and I couldn't take Mr. Lancer by ourselves even with our combined strength. Sam told me to get help and shoved me and Jazz out the door. That's when a piece of the roof fell and caught my leg. I tried to get back in to help them, but the entrance was completely blocked. I couldn't do anything! My cell phone was useless as scratch, so I was heading to the nearest pay phone to call 911 when you showed up. I did all I could, Danny," he said, bowing his head.
The teen ghost fighter's gaze crystallized. "No need for apologies, Tucker. You did what you could. My parents are partway to the meeting place- I gave them my cell. I'll be back as soon as possible," he said quietly, face devoid of any emotion that his friend could discern.
Tucker looked on worriedly as Danny flew away. The expression would freeze on his face until his teammates and friends returned safely.
The inferno had nearly completely consumed Fenton Works, already climbing steadily onto the roof toward the solid metal Op Center.
The flames and smoke completely obscured Danny's view as he crawled intangibly through the collapsed entrance. His green eyes burned into the blinding darkness that shrouded the fire.
They were already near the door when the explosion happened, so where are they now? Danny thought, sweating feverishly from the intense heat. And where are the fire trucks? Even without Mom calling, they should've noticed by now.
He instinctively dodged as a beam fell behind him. A shower of sparks flew up, forcing the teen to shield his face. He hissed as they burned through his soot-covered glove into his hand. Ignoring it, he shook his hand to rid himself of the slowly-cooling cinders.
"Sam! Mr. Lancer!" he called, sweeping the entrance area with his eyes.
"We-we're over here, Danny!" He heard Sam's frantic voice screaming from his right over the roar of the flames. He dove bodily in that direction, holding onto the voice as if it was life itself. Crawling down low below the constantly lowering smoke cloud while groping blindly, the teen shortly came in contact with something. It was Mr. Lancer's shoe! With renewed fervor, Danny continued his search along the fiery route. "Am I close, Sam?" he yelled.
"J-just a… a few more feet! W-we're right in… front of you!" her voice was so close that he could've been imagining it. Her exhaustion was apparent in her tone of voice and gasping sentences. Danny prayed that the roof wouldn't cave in before he got them out. Suddenly, he saw a shape among the flames. He lunged toward it.
"Mr. Lancer!" Danny coughed, seeing his unconscious teacher lying no less than five feet from the door. Judging by the mark on his face, like Tucker had said, the man had been knocked out by a chunk of flying debris.
"Y-you found Mr. Lancer? I-I'm right next to… him. I got… got trapped under-underneath… a fallin-"
"Sam!" Danny cried, hearing her voice fade to nothing over the crackling of the flames as they continued to twist and gyrate across the floors, walls, and ceiling in a macabre dance of destruction, painting the walls with black, sooty drawings of an empty void.
Why did this happen? How? And in what way is it connected to Sam's reaction to the voice recording? He seethed, insides cold.
Gently heaving his overweight teacher onto his back, the teen's eyes glowed light blue as he began to unleash a continuous wave of ice with both of his hands. The fire in the immediate area hissed and convulsed like a live creature, resisting subjugation, before temporarily dying down in a dull gasp of steam and smoke. Keeping up the ice beam with one hand while the other steadied his living cargo, Danny cleared a visible path to his friend's location.
When he caught sight of the Goth girl's position, his thoughts ran wild with fury. Whoever had set of the explosion would pay. Danny knew this was no accident. The evidence was all too clear.
The large piece of debris had fallen across Sam's lower back, effectively pinning her to the spot. She was unconscious, probably because of shock and breathing in the choking smoke. Danny quickly flew over and turned the beam intangible, throwing it aside with careful calculation to release his best friend. She coughed at the release of pressure.
Nodding in grim relief at the knowledge that his friend was alive and breathing, the half-ghost loosed one last ice beam at the nearby wall. As he tumbled intangibly through the cooled-off wall of the searing hot brick and metal structure, getting as far away from the burning building as he could with a last burst of energy, blue-white rings washed over his tired and injured body and turned him back to normal.
Coughing and hacking, he somehow found the strength to drag himself, his friend, and his teacher the three blocks to the flagpole where Tucker was waiting anxiously. The techno geek's posture relaxed slightly when he caught sight of Sam and Mr. Lancer with Danny.
But it wasn't over yet.
Even from this distance, a great screeching of metal pierced their ears. Danny's eyes widened.
The Op Center!
He forced himself to transform once more, shooting at top speed towards the dangerous structure that rested atop the unstable burning building. He phased through and frantically began punching controls in- to no avail. The system was unresponsive. It didn't take a second for the half-ghost to use his last option.
Back outside, Danny placed both hands braced to the underside of the metal base, forcing himself to ignore the heat as it rose from below and turned the surface into an enormous frying pan. Sweat ran in rivulets down his face as he began to slowly, painfully, turn the great bulk of the Op Center intangible to release it from its moorings. He screamed as the energy drained from his body. He was nearly running on empty.
The effort was not in vain. If anyone had been watching, they would have seen the Op Center slowly slide down Fenton Works, dragging stone and brick to powder behind it. The building got further crushed under the weight grinding into its supports even as it burned.
But at least nothing else is getting crushed, Danny thought faintly.
The half-ghost's vision blackened for one terrifying second. The great metal jet-blimp hybrid dropped in time with Danny's heart. At the last possible second he regained control of the plummeting hunk of metal, lowering it with a shaky, shuddery crunch on the concrete. The gargantuan task finally accomplished, he sucked in a few deep breaths.
Danny had just enough strength to fly almost back to the flagpole. Collapsing to the ground fully untransformed, he half-stumbled, half-crawled the rest of the way. He watched the smoke over the buildings from a distance, knowing that his former home, filled with so many precious memories, had already started burning to the ground.
It hurt.
Tucker's voice broke his thoughts, bringing him back to the present. "We're all alive, and I'm pretty sure that we're all in stable condition. The ambulance and fire department should be here in a few seconds to pick us up. I'm pretty sure that someone would've been able to call even if a pay phone was unavailable. Who can't notice an explosion like that?"
For some reason, this struck Danny as bizarre. A thought hit him like a baseball bat to the head. "I gave my cell phone to my mom." A thought chilled in his veins and froze with solid fear. "Tucker, did you see my parents?"
No! Is it possible? The place I dropped them was close. If the guy was watching for people coming out and somehow found them… If the guy was that desperate- no way they could've… no way! The possibility is-
"Nope, Danny. I didn't see them," the techno geek said seriously, looking up warily from his position on the ground while performing physical inventory on his friends and teacher. "They probably recovered and walked off for help."
Tucker's fear rekindled as his friend's head snapped around, eyes gleaming with renewed terror. "Tucker, my dad was unconscious and my mom was in no condition to run while carrying him. They would never walk off like that without leaving a message. The explosion was no accident. Sam's reaction to the man in the recording… Tuck, someone wanted to kill them!"
Tucker's mouth shut with an audible click. "What are you waiting for, then? Go! I've got everything covered here!"
The teen ghost fighter shook his head gratefully at his friend and ran through his exhaustion, fueled by fear.
Someone did this on purpose, I just know it! But who would plant an explosive in my house, and why? Vlad… no, that would risk killing me and my mom, the top two on his wish list. No one that I know of has both the resources and a grudge against my family unless it was the Guys in White. The Box Ghost said the man was wearing all black, though. The GIW wouldn't stoop so low as to change their uniform.
Anyone could've hired someone to do this. Gah! It could be an outside source for all I know! Danny held his head in frustration. If whoever it is really wants them dead… If they by any chance at all found them after I dropped them off… Mom, Dad, please be all right.
Danny stumbled a few more feet, too tired to run any more. It hadn't been that far, only one and a half blocks, but his body felt as if he had run a five-mile marathon over a mountain. The adrenaline had been sapped from him, leaving him totally, truly drained. For now, he found nothing. Every minute without his parents in sight only fueled his fear.
Suddenly, the teen's smoke-clouded eyes caught a glimpse of two things on the ground near the mouth of an alleyway. The first was Tucker's intact palm-held cubical voice recorder which the Box Ghost had by some miracle left behind. Danny pocketed it to return to its owner later.
His heart sank as he picked up the second item and examined it. The crushed pieces of metal and glass in his hand were the remains of his cell phone! Judging by its position, someone had dashed on the nearby wall to forcefully destroy it.
No! Please, no! Please be safe! Please be alive when I find you! His hand clenched around the shattered remnants of his phone. He ignored the pain when blood dripped from a cut on his palm. Suddenly, he heard footsteps coming in his direction from the opposite end of the nearby alley. Danny instinctively went invisible and stepped backwards through the adjacent wall.
As they came nearer, almost in front of him, a pair of heavier footsteps joined the first. They seemed to pause for a moment. Danny invisibly peered from the wall to look. His heart nearly stopped in his mouth.
Two black-cloaked men wearing black fedoras on their heads stood directly before him, half-turned away. Upon looking at their partly obscured faces, Danny would've charged one of his more intense green-white ecto rays at them on some unknown reflex. But drained of energy, it was all he could do to keep control of his invisibility. Shaking in fury and fear, he had to physically hold his arm back from doing so. A chill washed through his body as one of the men leaned on the wall next to his invisible head. And though he couldn't fully see their faces, over the upturned coat collar, he saw it.
Th-those eyes… I've never seen such cold lack of emotion like that! It's like they could do any despicable thing in the world and feel nothing! J-just like with Dan, but they… they're humans!
Everything about them screamed intimidation, from their slightly raised shoulders and solid stances to their cold eyes and choice of clothing. Danny shivered, already knowing from experience that their voices matched their appearance.
The taller man with long, pale blonde hair almost silver spoke to his apparent partner in, according to Sam, Japanese. As the shorter, heavyset man with dark hair replied in the same language, Danny recognized his voice as the same as the one on the recording. On that train of thought, inspiration struck. He quickly clicked Tucker's voice recorder on.
"…That man believed that they would become annoyances in the future."
"Yes… they know Masters-san, correct, aniki?"
The long-haired man's eyes narrowed. "We cannot remove him at the moment. He is too prominent for it to escape suspicion. We had to be content with removing the Fentons. It did not matter if their children were caught in the explosion. Leader's instructions said to remove the older Fentons no matter who was with them."
The other snorted. "Yes, they did put up quite a fight even with the poison. We probably would've worried if they were at full strength, ne, aniki?"
A cold smirk adorned his face. "You are lucky I'm in a good mood right now. I'm actually answering these irrelevant questions."
The two laughed mirthlessly at some twisted joke as they left the alley.
Danny exhaled a breath that he hadn't known he'd been holding. Losing sight of the men in black, the teen ran further down the alley through sheer willpower. Hot tears of anger formed behind his eyes. Even though he couldn't understand most of the conversation, he'd heard his family and Vlad mentioned. Even worse, he could see dull stains against the dark sheen of the taller man's outer coat.
Definitely blood… Vlad couldn't have hired those men. From what I could make out, they seem to want to kill him more than they wanted to kill Mom and Dad! And if they're leaving now, they might've finished their job. That means… No! I-I won't accept that! He shook his head furiously.
He limped down the alley, previous caution thrown to the wind. He saw signs of a struggle; scuff marks and dents littered the path, scoring right down his direction of choice. The men in black had somehow tracked the Fentons down after Danny left. The crushed the phone was a clue- if it had been used, someone would've come to help by now.
I should've taken them further!
Since Danny's dad had been unconscious, his mom had definitely defended her husband. She probably tried to move both herself and Jack to a more protected area as she fought. However, in her injured and weakened condition, she was nowhere near top form. Though she would have gotten in a few good hits, the men would have eventually been able to overpower her. After that…
Danny tried to deny it, but all evidence pointed to his worst fears being true. It was confirmed when he spotted a hint of blue around a corner. He half-skidded around the bend. "Mom! Dad!" he cried, stumbling over the rough concrete to collapse next to his parents' limp forms for the second time that day.
He checked his mom's pulse. It was erratic, but it was still there. The teen ghost fighter nearly cried in relief. His mother was obviously not in stable condition, but she was still alive. Blood trickled steadily from a wound on her head. She had various small cuts and minor bruises from the fire and self-defense against the men in black, but those would heal after time.
Danny's tense shoulder muscles loosened slightly as he moved to check his father's pulse only for his movement to be stopped by a slender hand. He looked up in shock.
"D-don't bother, Danny… Jack… he's gone… It's too late for… both of us. Th-they poisoned us…" Maddie coughed, blood splashing on the ground.
"M-mom…"
"No time, Danny…" she admonished gently. "Your secret… I… we knew for… only a month… W-we called you while… fighting Phantom… you… You had… that unmistakable ringtone…" she whispered.
"Th-that's when you stopped… stopped showing at my fights…" Danny breathed in shocked realization. He buried his head in his soot-covered hands. "I shouldn't have left you here! I could've–"
Maddie's deep blue eyes softened as she looked at her youngest child. "No, you had to go… you had to save the-them… They would've died… Danny, I'm… proud of you… remember that…"
The teenage ghost fighter's eyes flashed green, face grief-stricken as it dawned upon him exactly what was happening. His home and half his family… taken from him in one strike like a candle flame in the wind. "W-when I catch up with those… those men, I'll… I'll kill them!" he snarled.
A hand closed over the boy's shaking fists. "N-no, Danny…" Maddie reprimanded softly. "I know… you're- you're better than that… D-don't become like… those men… serve justice, not revenge… remember? 'If revenge is a dish best served cold…'"
"'Then justice is the main meal served before it,'" Danny finished, tears falling freely.
Maddie reached up shakily, resting her hand in her son's dark hair and ruffling it gently, like she always had before. "T-take care of your sister… everyone… Give my love to Jazz… Don't worry, Danny… Everything's gonna be all right…"
Her eyes glimmered like twin sapphires as she smiled, gazing for the last time at the face of the one she had finally come to terms with. "D-don't cry, my Danny boy… I don't like to… see you sad…"
Danny choked back the tears even as they continued to stream down his face. He held her hand even as it slowly dropped from his hair, down his wet cheeks, then finally… to the ground. "Mom," he whispered, words echoing across the broken scene of his parents' last stand. The curtain fell sorrowfully over their last battle as they fought to the end, together even in death. His lips slowly formed the words of a nearly silent promise, both to himself and his mother. "I'll try…"
I'll try to keep smiling, Mom…
He never noticed as sirens resounded faintly in the background even as they neared his location. As his world was enshrouded in red and white, the emotional stress coupled with physical exhaustion crashed full force on his body and spirit in a head-splitting wave. He slept.
Yan: You probably want to kill me for killing off Danny's parents and (wince) hurting everyone else, but it's necessary for plot advancement. We had a hard time on this chapter since we both hate killing the characters on-screen (but we somehow end up doing it anyway. Eh, that's just about it for now. Arigato (bows) for reading thus far. Hopefully, you'll still love both us and the story. If it turns out that you hate us but still love the story, then we can still honestly say that we're doing our job. Please let us live, though.
Shadow: Sorry for helping Yan kill off Danny's parents and put Jazz and Sam out of commission temporarily, but Danny needs extra incentive to go after the mysterious bad guys… ones that he never knew about until now. As for how Gin and Vodka found Danny's parents after Danny carted them off… remember that Gin was watching for people coming in and going out. In the last chapter, he told Vodka to join him to keep watch after the fire was started. The rest, they say, is history. They knew nothing more about the Fentons than their names and being a possible threat. Neither of the two believe in ghosts.
Edits: 1/23/13 - Fixed some unnatural wording and logic, removed name references, added Op Center scene.