A/N: I don't ever own any of the characters.
Brace Yourself-Chapter 8
As Danny begins to grab Tucker to start their dash to the volcano, Tucker resists and feverishly cries, "Did I tell you that Skulker also put Sam over the lava pits? We don't have much time! So, go on without me! I'll just weigh you down!"
Danny, determined to save both of his friends insists, "I won't leave you here!"
Before Tucker can protest, Danny starts to bring the vine up to his mouth. But before he finishes, he answers Tucker's bewildered look, "I'll explain later. But first…"
And then adding more shock to Tucker's system, Danny trips the wire, which sends the cage Tucker had been in crashing to the sharp spikes below. The noise the cage makes while it is shredded to pieces is deafening.
Terrified, Tucker screams, "But that'll bring Skulker here!"
Danny replies, "That's what I'm betting on!"
He quickly finishes tying the vine around his mouth, grabs Tucker, makes them both invisible, and races off to the other side of the island. When he realizes that Tucker is indeed weighing him down, he concentrates harder, repeating to himself, 'I hafta go faster, I must go faster…'
And suddenly, for the first time, Danny reaches supersonic speed, much to Tucker's delight.
Tucker grins as he watches the ground whiz by.
Meanwhile, Sam, who is also bound and gagged, is suspended over the lava pits in a cage similar to the one that Tucker had been in.
'Ohmygosh!' She sweats, and not only because of the intense heat. 'That candle over there has almost burned through the rope!' Her eyes follow the rope with dread, as she sees that that rope is keeping her cage from plummeting. And she gasps silently—because of the gag---and anxiously utters, 'As if that weren't bad enough! Of course, it would be burning through another rope. And of course, that rope would be smaller and on its last thread!' She forces her eyes to trace the path of this rope. She gulps when she realizes that when it finally burns through, it will activate a firing mechanism for the ray gun pointed directly at her.
Panicking, she struggles with her bonds, but they hold her firmly. She makes another effort, but then the force of her exertion causes one of the cords of the main rope to snap, inching her cage lower. She immediately stops her struggle. 'Looks like I'm a goner,' she fretfully thinks, and then, thinking of Danny, her eyes begin to well up. 'I wish you were here, so that I can tell you…' But she doesn't finish, as her tears silently choke her.
Seeing that the cage where Sam is held is rapidly approaching them, Danny slows just enough to drop Tucker off in a safe clearing and supersonics over to Sam.
Sam sees the black and white blur headed toward her, and shrieks a muffled scream. 'What is that? Oh, no! Wasn't I in enough trouble without having some monster attack me, too?' Forgetting about the rapidly deteriorating rope, she panics and grapples with her bonds, trying desperately to escape this newest danger. But for all her efforts, the cage and rope shift precariously, as the rapidly approaching creature charges at her. Closing her eyes, Sam thinks, 'I don't know what will be worst: to be vaporized, boiled or eaten!'
Turning intangible, Danny grabs her, she screams a muffled scream and resists, but he pulls her even closer to him and soars away just in the nick of time as the ray strikes and the cage falls. He quickly descends with Sam to the other side of the clearing where Tucker is.
He zaps her bonds and pulls off her gag. She finally opens her eyes and clearly relieved that it's Danny and not a wild beast, embraces him and says, "Oh, Danny, it's you! I really thought that that was the end! I thought you were some sort of monster, because I've never seen you fly like that before!" She shudders at the thought again. "But I'm so glad that it's over! All the time I thought that I wasn't going to make it wasn't the worst part. It..it was the thought that I might not see you--or Tucker-- again!" They both smile in embarrassment. And then finally noticing the oddity of the vine, she adds, "Aren't you supposed to swing from one of those?"
"Mmmphrh!! Mmmphrh!!" Danny begins, then, irritated with himself for not remembering the darn thing, quickly yanks the vine off his mouth and continues, "You know how my braces were a homing device? That vine kept them from working! And, er, so did the frog goop!"
Sam skews up her face, at his last comment, and he adds, "I'll explain it later. Right now, you, me and Tu.."
"Tucker!" Sam screams.
Danny looks toward Tucker and sees that Skulker is aiming his ray gun right at his friend.
Totally flabbergasted, Danny asks Skulker, "But how did you know?"
Skulker smugly answers, "A hunter has his secrets. Now,…" He begins to pull the trigger of the ray gun and continues, "..his pelt is mine!"
Danny screams, "NO!" and instinctively supersonics over to them, getting between the ghost hunter and Tucker. Then, many things happen all at once: Skulker fires, hitting Danny right in the mouth. Danny is stunned by the impact, but his braces explode off of his teeth. And finally, what's left of them spray Skulker like bullets.
With Skulker momentarily distracted by the remnants of the braces, Danny forces himself up and taking a deep breath, assaults Skulker with his "ghostly wail", jettisoning Skulker far away from where the three friends are.
Danny sinks to his knees, losing just enough power that his hair changes back to his raven human hair. Sam and Tucker rush to his side and help him up.
"Are you all right, dude?" Tucker asks, concerned and relieved.
"Oww!" Danny responds, touching his mouth. Then smiling, he continues, "I think so. And how about that? The braces are off!"
Tucker, pointing to his glowing orange wristband, adds, "Great! And speaking of 'off', can you get this thing off of me?"
Sam chimes in, "And me? There's only one time of year that orange goes with black!"
Danny, lifting his own glowing orange wristband for them to see, moans, "I tried! My ghost rays had no effect!" Then he stops at the sudden idea. "My ghost rays? Hey, wait a minute!"
He materializes his 'wulf claws' and quickly slashes the wristbands off a very nervous Sam and Tucker, and then himself.
Sighing in relief, Tucker says, "Thank goodness! It's a good thing Skulker likes to brag. He told me that those wristbands were designed to make us vulnerable in the Ghost Zone."
"You don't have to say that twice!" Sam agrees. "I knew that there was a reason why we couldn't phase through the cage or our bonds."
Suddenly, Danny wills two bluish white rings around him to complete his full transformation into Danny Phantom. "I'm feeling much stronger now."
"That was quick!" Sam observes. "Usually your 'ghostly wail' really saps your strength."
"Yeah, I know. But it is odd that it didn't this time. I don't know why for sure, but maybe my encounter with Wulf has made me stronger? But who cares, so long as we can get out here sooner!"
"Good!" Tucker replies. "No telling how many more traps Skulker has in this place."
Danny answers, "Well, I can tell you that I've sampled enough of them to last me a long time. So, let's not wait to find out about any more. Let's get out of here!" He immediately soars upward, grabbing Tucker as he flies by. Tucker, in turn, grabs Sam's hand as Danny and he hover over her. With his free hand, Danny materializes his 'wulf claws', tears a hole in the dimension, and the three of them escape into the Real World.
