Danny stood with crossed arms, staring with glowing green eyes at the human teenager before him. He shook his shock of white hair out of his eyes and said, "Look, Ryan, I don't have time for this."

Ryan struggled not to sigh in exasperation. "I don't think you quite understand – "

"No, I get it!" Danny's legs dissolved into their ghostly form and he hovered threateningly above the blond's head, glaring down at him. "You've traveled from your other dimension, or Realm or whatever, and now your big bad Armor enemies have followed you here. And you want me to put you in charge of everything to do with them, right?"

Ryan nodded, his face a mask against Danny's glare.

"Well I've got news for you," Danny continued, his voice raising into a pitch that strained his teenaged vocal cords. "We're at war here, and I'm in charge, and I need my crew not to challenge my decisions every second, all right?"

Ryan struggled to keep the frustration from his voice. "We are at war, but a much bigger war than you can have anticipated. The Multi-Realm Defense Force – "

"I don't care about your defense force! I've gotta deal with the here and now, all right? So lay off!" With that Danny stalked off, obviously peeved.

Ryan clenched his fists and his jaw, feeling seriously ticked.

"Calm down," came Cam's voice through his headset – the invisible, intangible one that he wore at all times. "We don't want you storming off site again."

"Right," Ryan sighed, and turned away. Couldn't Danny see that there was absolutely no disadvantage to allowing someone much more experienced and knowledgeable about Armors deal with them? There was no way a group of programmed Armors had truly just left this Realm. It was unthinkable.

Unthinkable...

A drop of emerald ink splatters against my skin. No, not unthinkable…impossible? The Quill shudders, and with a tremor of its soot-colored fibers, it zooms to scratch out the offending word, and ink in a new one. Impossible...

As I scrawl, I'm not quite sure why the muse beckons me write out this particular scene. Just recording, not manipulating, not using my powers to twitch reality into some different form than currently exists. Just watching, and writing, and pondering how this character dynamic might be used to my advantage. For Ryan Hawk, the Realm-traveling child of great power and technology, would be my next victim.

This tension between my next pet and his leader intrigues me, it's true. But can I exploit it? Surely not…either child is too noble to consider even for a fraction of a second truly betraying the other.

I let my thoughts coast on, losing focus on the scene before me. How does one destroy an invincible man? The realm of his abilities, his forms, his weapons, his experience, was astounding to say the least, and endless to say the most.

I feel a low growl in the back of my mind, and turn my thoughts inward. Ah, Drew. My first victim. Now my pet. No worries, child, I assure him, as his lip curls. I'll write you an ending you can't complain about. As soon as I'm finished with this Hawk Fellow…and perhaps your brother, too…

In my mind, he lunges at me. But of course, he can't really. I roll my eyes, finding it easier and easier by the day to feel distanced from Drew Marsetti. At this act of attempted violence on his part, I shut my concentration on him away. Truly, I don't hold his soul captive…he's likely flying free somewhere in the cloudy heavens right now. But as a character in my mind, to maintain correct character behavior? Of course he must loathe me.

Now, for the matter of Ryan Hawk…I surely cannot even dare to approach him in a fight. No, I'll have to pull the strings behind the curtain, as always.

Irony leaves the sweetest touch, of course. Now, what can I utilize…? His rather magnificent suit of armor can supply only ninety minutes of oxygen. How delicious if he were to be somehow locked in a vacuum for ninety-five…. And to be able to say that nothing can defeat his invulnerability – "Nothing," indeed, being the cause of his demise!

I sigh, and flick my wrist at a bothersome ecto-fly. The boy's extra-residential soul, Ray Hammera, would hardly allow that to happen. With Hawk's ability to open gates to different worlds, contain areas from even a bomb's explosion, keep in contact with his little support base through that headset…he'd be able to get out of even such a pickle as, say a vacuum. Although he'd shut off the Realm system upon entering Amity Park, I doubt I can come up with a pocket of vacuum out of nowhere, anyway. A bit more than a simple "twitch" on reality.

I sit at my desk, growing more and more irritable under the light of a green ecto-candle. What could be the catch? The secret weakness? Hawk has two attacks that would each deplete his life by half, but he's fully aware. He would never simply forget in the face of conflict. What is the loophole? The trick?

The Quill bristles on its tip. My scarlet eyes slide to a deep focus on its excited quiver, as my wrinkled purple brows draw together above them. The trick…the trick….

I snap my fingers, and shoot up from my seat.

I've found it.

Ryan Hawk ran through Amity Park with such great speed that, to any watching, he seemed to fly.

"Armors," he repeated into his webcam. "Armors crawling all over the city! Send in that probe, Tom!" Danny Phantom or no Danny Phantom, Ryan couldn't let this pass him by.

I wait within the city. The air on this human plane tastes stale and foul compared to the ectoplasmic oxygen I so prefer. But for this plan to succeed, Hawk must see me in person. Or at least, in ghost-form.

"Hush, Quill," I whisper to my pet, cupping my hand around its plume. "Let us watch…" I gesture with my thin, brittle hands.

Our young hero dashes around the corner. Despite his intense focus upon the Armors gathering in the Realm, I already feel his superior senses registering my presence, and his body changing direction and plan, quick as lightning. But the mind's speed surpasses the body's.

The glowing tattoos of words coiling around my form fly toward Ryan Hawk and knock him back, then whip tightly around his body. "Oof!"

The boy finds his torso and legs bound to a tree, and his arms restrained each at the wrist by a long, glowing cord of purple words. But no matter what moves he attempts to implement, none can avail themselves against the power of my words. Alchemy, dark energy, what use are they against the strength of words? No amount of strength or regeneration serums, no suit or weapon, can allow him to overpower it.

Ryan looks up, and bares his teeth at me with a snarl.

"Welcome!" I declare, motioning to the scene of destruction behind me, in the sun's dying light. The armors seemed to have one objective: destroy every home, every human, and every person on the side of Ryan Hawk or Danny Phantom left in Amity Park. "Behold your enemies!"

I can see his frustration mounting. By now he has probably discovered another of the small "twitches" I implemented with The Quill – binding Ray's ability to communicate with him. Just a fallback, but possibly a vital one.

Danny and other members of his crew dart out of the ghost shield one by one, fighting hopelessly against the overwhelming swarms of Armors terrorizing the city.

"Your mind must be racing," I taunt. His glare's intensity increases tenfold. "But surely you must be reaching a conclusion…"

His eyes dart back and forth as, one by one, his allies begin to fall.

"Only one weapon has the strength to defeat them...."

I cast Narration, just as he reaches his conclusion.

"Soul Arm."

He takes a breath, and uses one of his arms to heft his own, personally developed weapon. The Soul Arm, dependent on the energy and power of the user. For Ryan, its powers would be astronomical – enough to take out, say…an army.

But at a cost.

"Hell's Fury!" he shouts, and the Soul Arm takes its form. A jet-black blaster forms in his hands. Dark energy swirls about the gun's barrel. My scarlet eyes begin to glow with sick joy. I count one, two three…eight cannons form and reveal themselves along the side of the elaborate weapon.

"Danny, retreat!" Ryan calls out. "Get all your men out of the way!"

For once, Danny Phantom doesn't challenge Hawk's orders. I hear a faint "Pull back!" in the distance, as each hero withdraws again into the ghost shield. From my perch, now floating above the protective green dome, I can watch each of Ryan's moves with ease – and avoid the effects of the weapon.

He lifts Hell's Fury. Eight dark meteors shoot from the gleaming barrels.

An entire army of Armors…gone. Ryan Hawk slumps against the tree, feeling the effects already as half his energy is drained to power the attack.

"But they're gone," I hear in his thoughts. "The city is safe…it's worth it."

But as the sun's setting light bleeds a deep red, something appears on the horizon. A line…a formation.

More Armors.

I begin to fly my own way. I don't need to see the only end possible. I can write it out on my own.

"Here, Quill." I snap my fingers, and it trails alongside me, scribbling in the air even as we leave this place.

The young hero knew he had only one option left. He had always been a fighter…an asset, vital to the importance of the Multi-Realm Defense Force. But what good would anything he could do later be, if he allowed an entire Realm to be destroyed – all because he was not willing to sacrifice himself?

The Soul Arm's strength depends upon the strength and power of its user. Ryan had made sure of that himself. His Soul Arm could destroy any other he came up against. But along with depending on power and strength…it took it. One half of his energy.

Half was already gone.

Two halves…make a whole.

"Heaven's Wrath," Ryan whispered, as the endless line of Armors loomed ever closer. But this time, it was not truly endless. The formation had an end. These were the last of the Armors in Amity Park.

The weapon formed itself in Ryan's hands. A spear-tipped gun, with three halo tips that could extend and fire pure energy. The only thing left, really, that could take out an army of this magnitude.

He took careful aim, and fired. With one shot, the entire army was hit with a blast of pure energy so strong that no one survived the hit.

Ryan barely had the strength left to feel his binds breaking. His body fell to the ground, freed, now, of its restraints.

The light left his eyes before he could see the Plagiarized forms of each Armor's carcass disappear. Ryan Hawk died before he learned that his sacrifice…had been against an army of mere shadows.

All in vain.

I smirk as I return to the chaos elsewhere, alongside several of my fellow victims.

A perfect ending.