I don't own Danny Phantom.

I'm Inevitable

Chapter 5: Thriller Night

It's close to midnight, and something evil's lurking in the dark.
Under the moonlight, you see a sight that almost stops your heart.
You try to scream but terror takes the sound before you make it.
You start to freeze as horror looks you right between the eyes,
You're paralyzed.'Cause this is thriller, thriller night
And no one's gonna save you from the beast about strike.
You know it's thriller, thriller night.
You're fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller tonight.

~Thriller Michael Jackson

Danny ran his tired fingers through his sweat covered locks of raven down hair as he took the inventory of damage inflicted to his lean figure. He hadn't wanted to see if he looked as bad as he felt, but he needed to get himself back on his feet, so to speak.

Observation Number One: Intense throbbing head as well as an overall crap feeling.

Observation Number Two: Heavy bruising of chest (where black blast from Ancient guard hit), shoulders and arms, and neck.

He sighed; nothing could be done about his bruises, except to let them heal… Great. Danny groaned at the purple and blue medley on his chest that was almost as grotesque as his immense scarring.

But those bruises were going to be painful.

Observation Number Three: Neck seems to have burns that are really, really bad- not that he could see it, or anything, but they felt… awful. It was like untreated beach sunburn with hot grease spilled over it. They were probably third degree burns too, which was not helping him heal at all.

Danny simply reapplied the thick layer of soothing frost to his burns, knowing it was all he could without asking Vlad for help. And frankly, that was never going to happen.

Observation Number Four: He was really, really dizzy when attempting to stand up.

Not going to try that again.

Observation Number Five: Heart wrenching homesickness… and worry.

He distracted himself from that one, refusing to break down in any way or start bawling randomly. He wasn't going to give the Ancients, Vlad, or anyone the satisfaction of hearing him snap into a spineless heap.

And speaking of spineless, Danny found it very odd that those cowardly Ancient guards hadn't tried to torture him more than what they had done. Well, besides ripping him from all he held dear….

Well it could be worse... Sort of...

But now that he thought about it, the rest of the first day of prison wasn't all it was held up to be anyway. Danny pictured Vlad casting snide remarks as the Ancients pummeled him to a puree, and he pictured something horrible to happen to have his day plummet. In reality, however, Vlad hadn't stepped foot in the basement, nor the Ancients via the Zone. It was as if the universe decided to screw someone else over instead of him!

"Good evening."

Speak of the devil, Danny thought with heavy irony. A silent groan resonated through his head as he fought to keep himself from doing a face palm. This was just his freaking luck…

The quiet halfa raised his shrouded head warily as his glowing electric eyes pierced Vlad's navy orbs. Slipping on a mask of calm, he responded coolly with a short nod of recognition, "Vladimir."

He watched as the older man glided over to him clad in the vampire-like ghost form of his. The billionaire had a strange expression on his face, one of, perhaps, greed. Danny groaned mentally at this. A hungry for money, power, or anything Vlad else was always dangers associated to it like a pair of Siamese twins. It just was a bad emotion to see on Vlad's face…. And he had a sinking feeling building up in his throat that told him that Vlad was greedy for him.

Actually, he was going to ignore how wrong that sounded.

The silver haired man had an obviously fake grin plastered onto his face when he knelt down to the still weak, seated Danny. Vlad grinned wider as he spoke. "Hello my dear boy," a flinch from Danny, "I had hoped to speak with you in greater detail about these arrangements. Are you -"

Danny clenched his fists angrily to keep himself from doing something he would regret. This was testing his patience to no end! "Just talk to the Ancients, all right?" He interrupted with a frustrated tone to his granulated, sore voice. "I have no idea what will be going on, so don't bother talking to me about it. I tend to not like to waste Time, that's the Ancients' job. Their stupidity tends to waste my precious seconds more than others."

SMASH!

"WHAT DID YOU SAY FILTH?"

Danny jolted at the loud noise, holding in a yell. Beakers and bubbling test tubes flew across the room as a new Ancient guard (When had he come in?) slid over an operation table only to land right beside Danny. He felt his eyes widen when Vlad jumped back in surprise as the guard grabbed the young Apprentice's throat.

The muscular guard roared, "HOW DARE YOU!" He squeezed the raw, burnt neck and listened when Danny let out a scream of a banshee. The hooded teen threw his head back, desperately trying to dislodge the guard's calloused grip from his furious burns. The Ancient then took out a taser from his back pocket and maliciously stung Danny with it like an electric line had fallen on the young apprentice, before the guard threw it to the ground as Danny screeched. Punches infused with ectoplasm bolts then attacked the teen's severely bruised chest, causing a symphony of cracks to echo through the lab along with hoarse rasping of air.

And something heavily emotionally stressed besides Danny's ribs seemed to snap. Was it his patience? His fear? His pain tolerance? No one knew, but the results… The only word to describe it could be… Actually there are no words. Right here and there,

Danny was even cooler than Chuck Norris.

He wriggled out of the guard's grasp, took two steps backward to stand up straight, and stared at the Ancient with crazed crimson eyes. All of the pain dissipated under the adrenaline.

"Let's play a little game, shall we?" Danny snickered with a mad look in his scarlet orbs. His voice had obtained a darker and darker quality as he spoke. It was as if a festering parasiet was squelching the pleasant and wise nature of the Time Apprentice.

The Ancient snorted in laughter, but there was no mistaking the pleased hunger in his eyes. He wanted to know if the prisoner was speaking of what he thought he was. He had heard rumors, albeit terrible, but rumors of the side of the the young apprentice of Clockwork's that could destroy, no... obliterate souls. Strangely enough, there was not any ghost that had a first hand account of being attacked by the Demon of Shadows himself. The guard knew it was all bark and no bite. Shrugging casually, he crossed his muscular arms with arrogance as he said knowingly, "What kind of game?"

Danny seemed to stand a little straighter as his intelligent crimson eyes looked demonically back at him. "What else, but a Game of the Demons? It is what I am famous for after all." The Apprentice smirked in pride as he continued, "The rules are simple, as you know. In this Game, souls are at stake."

A nod in understanding from and cruel humor his opponent followed. "I accept your challenge." The Ancient had a looked ecstatic, most likely because he could score some epic brownie points with the Head Ancient if he had The Demon of Shadows' soul.

The Demon's black aura seemed to augment to a prodigious size at the Ancient's acceptance to the Game. The powerful, glowing aura around his form seemed to fidget. The shadow urged for a soul. "Demon Games are quite simple." Danny elaborated with a cunning fox-like smile glued to his face. "They judge a true creature's character and test it. The outcome is determined by the person's ability (or inability) to pass this test. Then the victor will pose a consequence whether it is the loss of a soul to something like eternal torture."

"For this Game in particular," the Demon of Shadows continued with a maniac glint in his eyes and a mad grin, "there is a bomb waiting to go off that will waste even an Ancient. If you diffuse it before it goes off, you win." Crimson eyes glowed as a dark tone overcame Danny's voice.

"Game start."

The Ancient flew into action, bolting up and down, right and left around the lab, searching for a hazard. He started at the tidy part of the lab that had been to the left of the Ghost Zone. This was where Danny knew Vlad to keep dangerous exploding materials.

A logical place to start.

However, upon seeing everything packaged properly with nothing to ignite the materials he continued on.

"Tick tock, tick tock." The Demon crooned in a sing-song voice, "When will the bomb detonate? Two minutes? Two hours?"

Five minutes went by as panic was beginning to set in as the Ancient guard hastily scanned the other side of the room, where he had come in from the Ghost Zone. The place was a wreck. Test tubes full of mystery liquids spilt all over the floor, cabinets, and tables. There was a big puddle of water on the floor that he had looked to have written off of the important list, probably because water isn't flammable. However, there were a few Bunsen burners that were also turned on.

He's getting closer and yet so far away.

A triumphant grin slipped onto the Ancient's face as he ran over to a lit Bunsen burner that had fallen nearly onto an ecto filtrator. The filtrator was boiling at the heat. "Ha!" The Ancient pumped his fist as he stood the burner upright and switched it off. "I win! Give me your soul, little Apprentice! You've lost!"

The Demon raised his eyebrows with a lopsided smirk. He had not enjoyed a game like this in a good while… "Are you sure? Perhaps you should take a look at you feet."

The guard's eyes shot to the concrete floor, looking for anything at all that could be- "Oh shi-"

"That's right." The Demon said cockily as he gestured to the liquid pooling at the Ancient's feet. That liquid he was standing in was spilled upon his entrance today as well as that taser. That thing had just enough energy left to continue vibrating toward the chemical puddle as it was producing the sparks. He had walked right into his own hand-made death trap. The Ancient's gray orbs widened in terror as Danny grinned at him. But then, the Ancient looked at the sparks from the taser with a sadistic smile.

The Ancient guard smirked as he pulled out a pretty random glowing hand gun from his tasseled robe pocket and raised it to his competitor. With a smug expression on his face, the guard raised his eyebrows as if to say, "What now?"

But the Demon didn't even look at the gun. "Are you sure," the shadowy convict hissed, "you want to do that?"

A loud ethereally booming shot was his only answer as Scaeth's mind ran a mile a minute. Within a span of half a second, he was ducking the purple blast that was inches from his hooded face, and the Demon even set an ice shard into the barrel of the gun and spun back to the guard.

Then time seemed to stand still.

The dark figure of the Demon of Shadows stood straight up with the perfect posture of dignity, poise, and pure danger. The black aura surrounding the Demon of Shadows pulsated and glowed the essence of what his prey felt… fear. Eyes, now changed from the scary crimson to blood freezing white, bored into the section between the guard's eyes.

With a voice more present than the shot, the Demon affixed a fierce glare to the guard before growling out in a dark, echoing voice,

"You have cheated, you will serve the penalty."

The white untainted orbs gored into the shuddering Ancient's as if he were searching the guard's very soul.

The Ancient gazed with glazed eyes at the Demon of Shadows and let out a string of curse words and other profanity topped off with, "You'll pay for this! PAY!"

The taser sparks reached the water before the Ancient could run. After all, there was nowhere to run from the Demon that radiated with dark power in the night. There was no running… No hiding… and there was no safety, for of all the things that go bump in the night… The Demon of Shadows is the most terrifying. So as the wraithlike eyes crept upon the Ancients, the guard whimpered. All of the rumors, narratives, he had heard of the Demon's Games were true. Every horror story of the demonic hunter stalking his prey, backing ghosts up into the Game and killing their souls... They were true.

The last thing the insignificant Ancient guard heard was the laughter and a dark baritone voice yelling over his screams,

"The door of darkness has been opened!"

First of all, I do not own The Game of the Demons. I own the name, but the Game itself is actually from the Yu-Gi-Oh! Manga and it's called something in Japanese or the Shadow Games. *Grins*. I loved the idea of the playing for your soul thing and Danny basically- *Shuts self up*. Sorry, can't ruin the next chapter!

Oh, and for the record... Packers won the Superbowl for those of you who don't know.

Vlad's having a field day as the older half ghost is a Cheesehead himself.

Hehe...

Oh, and PLEASE review! I really want to know how you guys view this as it gets more and more interesting and into the plot. And I also apologize for the lengthy wait... This chapter was one that would alter the rest of the story if I missed a detail.

Thanks!

kirby