Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom! I wish I did.

Chapter 4: fighting the tears.

Place: somewhere near Casper High.

"You're no match for me!" Dan said while he pulled Danny up.
Danny quickly launched some ecto blasts, so Dan had to release him. Danny flew away, hoping Dan would follow him out of Amity Park, but Dan didn't move.
"Foolish boy, did you really think I would follow you? I'm here for the destruction of your friends, so you'll turn into me. I don't want to kill you! You're only making things easier!"
And Danny returned towards Dan, and began to launch fists towards Dan's face. But Dan easily dodged them, and countered Danny's attack by hitting him in the face, sending Danny towards the ground.

0000

In Clockworks castle, the observants and Clockwork were watching the battle between Danny and Dan.
"It is not going right. Dan will beat Danny! You must do something!" one of the observants noticed.
"I can't." Clockwork answered. "Our only hope is this boy, fighting to save his friends and Amity Park with all of its citizens." Why doesn't he try to use the Ghost Bullet? Clockwork thought.

0000

"Valerie, we have a new target." Tucker said firmly.
"Yeah, we're going to beat up this Dan Phantom!" Valerie cheered.
"Let's go." Tucker said while moving towards the door. "Maybe I should go upstairs to say goodbye to Danny."
"You should go now. Or else there won't be an Amity Park to protect." Sam answered.

0000

After a while Tucker and Valerie reached the battlefield, where they saw Dan and Danny floating in mid-air, waiting until the other made his move. Dan noticed Tucker and Valerie.
"Glad you came back." Dan said to Tucker and Valerie, and he launched an attack on Danny. "So you can see me beating the hell out of this weak excuse for a ghost, and I don't have to search the whole town for you."

In Dan's hand something was glowing in a green color. While aiming at Danny, Tucker pulled out his gun, and Dan quickly shot Tucker's hover board, causing Tucker to fall off, hitting the ground.

"Tucker!" Valerie yelled. She flew to Tucker, but before she could grab his body, Dan appeared in front of her.
"I didn't think so" Dan said, before launching his ghostly wail. Valerie was send flying, and Danny also was hit.
"Did you really think you could stop me?" Dan asked Danny. "Well, you probably don't know where your sister or girlfriend is?"
Danny didn't answer.
"I thought so." Dan stepped on Danny's left arm. "You still don't know?"
"No, I don't." Danny answered.
"You're lucky I need you alive!" Dan said to Danny.
Dan walked towards Tucker.
"Sleeping Beauty, wake up!" he yelled.
"What?" Tucker said.
"Where are Jazz Fenton and Sam Manson?"
"I don't know!"
Dan shot off Tucker's left middle finger.
"Still don't know?"
"Ok, Foley works building, please don't hurt me!" Tucker gave in.
"If you lay one finger on them!" Danny shouted, before fainting.
"What would you do, kill me?" Dan asked, while he threw Tuckers finger to Danny before he flew towards the Foley works building.

0000

"Are you sure Sam?" Jazz asked her black haired friend. "Are you sure Danny is still alive?"
"Well, Dan Phantom still exists, so Danny should be alive also. If he wasn't Dan would be gone."
"Clever thinking for some girly girl." Dan phased through the ceiling.
Sam and Jazz didn't move.
"I suggest that you start running." Dan said. And so Jazz and Sam began running away, fleeing from their fate, delaying their death.

0000

Darkness surrounded Danny, but there was a white light shining on him. Images floated towards him, showing his past, present, and the future. And the future was a bad one. Dan ruled the ghost and human world, bodies lying everywhere, Amity Park destroyed, while the morning sun climbed up in the sky. Danny closed his eyes, so the light wouldn't blind him, but after a while he got used to the light, and he opened them again. He began to walk through the rubble and eventually he came past the Nasty Burger, Casper High, and he ended at the biggest pile. There where some neon-letters lying around, and Danny recognized them as the letters of Foley Works.

What happened here? Danny thought, and then he saw a tiny skeleton, belonging to a child, and a larger one. He couldn't bare it anymore, and began to run away. But how fast he ran, how many turns he made, he always ended at the Foley works location. But when Danny almost broke down, he heard a voice, coming from the inside of Danny.
"The future can be changed. You only have to go back in time, and make sure that Tucker never gets the chance to talk to the Guys in White!" the voice within said.
"Who are you! And why should I listen to you!" Danny yelled.
"I am you, but at the same time I'm not you. Just see me as your conscience. And no matter how much you try, I'll be here, no matter what, so you'd better listen. About beating this Tucker so he''l keep his mouth shut…"
"NEVER! I'll never beat up someone innocent!"
"You'll have to, if you want your life back!"

And with that the voice and the visions disappeared, only to be replaced by Valerie, shaking Danny until he 'woke up'.
"Phantom, you'll have to save our friends!" she said.
"And what could I do? Dan knocked me out, hardly breaking a sweat!"
"I always knew that you're no hero. Always saying you were protecting the people, but when the other ghost is stronger than you, you give up. Where's the heroism in that!" Tucker said, still sobbing in pain over his left middle finger, which now lied next to Danny. (A/N: Is heroism a word?)
"Like you know anything about that! You betrayed me, so that Dan could escape now! But fine! I'll go after Dan, as long as you shut your mouth about things you don't know a thing!"
And with that Danny stood up, and took of in the direction of the neon letters of Foley Works, while Valerie looked confused, because she didn't know about what they where talking.

0000

Sam and Jazz separated while running from Dan, and Dan copied himself in two, so he could chase both. Jazz found her way out of the building, and after she left the building, there where explosions inside Foley works, which caused the building to collapse, and the Dan that was inside the building, flew out of the rubble with a wide grin on his face. He then merged together with the other Dan.
"Two down, one to go." He said while looking down on Jazz, who was fighting against her tears.

0000

A few minutes before
"Run, but you can't hide, little miss goth turned preppy" one of the two Dan's said.
Sam was racing towards young Danny's room, took him out of his bed, and stepped in a closet to hide. Just in time, because Dan entered the room.
"Where are you? Come out, come out, wherever you are. I won't hurt you"
Sam looked down on her son, who was still sleeping.
How can he sleep in a time like this? She thought.

When Dan couldn't find Sam, he decided to blow up the house, but when he was charging up, young Danny woke up, and began to struggle to get out of the position he was in.
"Mommy? Where am I?" he asked, only to get ssh-ed. But it was already to late. Dan opened the closet, and saw Sam and young Danny sitting. Quickly Dan closed the door, and putted the bed in front of the closet door, so it couldn't be opened.

"It was a pleasure knowing you two" Dan said, before blasting through the whole place, causing things to explode and the building to collapse. Quickly after that, Dan flew out of the rubble with a wide grin on his face. He then merged together with the other Dan.
"Two down, one to go." He said while looking down on Jazz, who was fighting against her tears.

Jazz ran away, through the streets of Amity Park, only to be followed by Dan, who left a trail of destruction behind him. She ran through alleys, climbed over fences, but whatever she did, she always was followed by Dan, she couldn't shake that horrible ghost off. At a certain moment Jazz ran into an alley, which had a dead end. Dan landed, and walked slowly towards Jazz, knowing she couldn't go anywhere.

"Finally Jazz, it's time to say goodbye. Any last wishes?"
Jazz shook her head no.
"Good, time to say goodbye." And when Dan said that, he was shot in the back by two blasts. When he turned around, he saw that the two blasts where fired by Tucker and Valerie.
"Step away from that woman, punk!" Valerie said.
Dan did listen to them, but charged for an attack on both of them, when someone shot him from above. When the group looked in the sky to see the shooter, they saw Sam standing on top of a roof. She had some scars and bruises, but she was alive.
"How can this be?! You couldn't survived that! You're no more than a pathetic human!" Dan yelled in anger, anger because his plan didn't work out as he planned it.
"The only pathetic one here is you, my lame excuse for a future" Danny said, while becoming visible again, and punching Dan in the guts.
Tucker took advantage of the situation, and now that Dan didn't pay attention, he uncapped a thermos, and began to suck Dan into it. Like all ghosts, Dan didn't like it when he was sucked into such a tiny place, so he began to scream the usual "I'll be back!" stuff.
"Hopefully this is the last of his terror." Tucker said.

"But how did you escape?" Jazz asked.
"Your brother saved us. Just before the building collapsed, he rushed in, and rescued (young) Danny and me."
"Speaking of him, where is my son?" Tucker asked.
"He's in the lab, it was still intact."
"You left our son in the lab! The lab with the ghost-portal! Are you crazy! What if he changes into" while looking at Danny Phantom "that!"
"Uhmz, I can hear you Tuck" Danny said. "But I'll forgive you for that. That's what friends do. They don't betray each other, right?"
Right when Tucker wanted to comment, the lid flew of the thermos, and Dan escaped.
"Foolish humans. Didn't Clockwork tell you that a thermos couldn't contain me!"
Danny blushed, causing his face to look like a tomato, but Dan didn't pay attention. He flew off, knowing that he couldn't win if there where 4 persons fighting him at the same time.

TBC

It took long to make something that wasn't total nonsense (although this wasn't good either). I'll try to finish the last chapter of this part tomorrow, it's going better than this chapter :P)