Greetings, guys! I'm tired of talking about how disappointed I am that there aren't many people reviewing or even reading this story, so I'll just cut right to the chase. Just review, and I'll update faster!
Here we go! Chapter 9 is brought to you by me, the guy who doesn't own Danny Phantom or Teen Titans!
Never Easy
Chapter Nine: The Madman's Methods
Danny felt noticeably more tired than usual as he got himself some lunch. Just a turkey sandwich and a soda; he wasn't in the mood for eating very much.
For once, he hadn't gotten any dreams last night. But he had felt somewhat groggy when he got up at almost 10:30 that morning. This didn't waver through a rather cold shower or breakfast, so he was now wondering when he would wake up. And now Tucker and Sam would be out for the day, so he was left to plan out the day's activities by himself.
"Danny!" a familiar voice rang out from behind him as he reached into the refrigerator for some bread.
Surprised, Danny turned around and saw Jack entering the room.
"Dad! Oh, uh, you startled me."
Jack ruffled his son's head playfully, resulting in a scowl from him. Jack paid no mind to this as he said, "Know what today is, son?"
Danny shrugged and replied as he turned his attention back to the lunch he was preparing for himself, "The first of August? The one-month countdown until I go back to school?"
"Well, yes, and yes, but it's also the day of the solar eclipse!"
"Oh. Oh, yeah. I knew about that too," Danny stated nonchalantly, remembering the info Tucker had gotten the other day as he started making his sandwich.
As Maddie, then Jazz entered the kitchen as well, Jack kept rambling, "And hopefully with the abnormal darkness it causes, it might very well bring out some ghosts!"
Danny held his forehead and muttered, "Great. More ghosts is exactly what I need."
Maddie put a hand on her husband's shoulder and said, "Now Jack, we don't know for sure if the solar eclipse will have any affect on ghosts, causing more to appear, or anything else."
While Danny started into his sandwich and soda, Jazz quietly went over to Danny and whispered, "You feel worried?"
"About what?" Danny whispered back.
Jack and Maddie were talking with each other, paying no attention to the conversation that had now begun with their two teenage children.
Jazz replied, "You know…what Slade might be up to."
Danny scowled, "Thanks, Jazz. I had almost forgotten that Slade might be planning something."
Jazz's face fell, "Sorry."
Danny sighed between sips of soda, "Whatever Slade might be up to, I'll face it head on, like I always do."
"Just be careful," Jazz stated as she pat him reassuringly on the shoulder, then got up and started to make lunch herself.
A couple minutes later, Danny had finished with his own little lunch. After putting his stuff away, he turned around and left the kitchen. After a quick brush of his teeth, he went back downstairs, where he called to his parents, "Mom, Dad! I'm going for a walk; I'll be back later."
Cutting a piece of steak, Maddie called back, "Alright, sweetie!"
Jack then yelled, "Just don't be out long! The eclipse happens at 3:00!"
Danny replied, "Uh, sure, Dad."
He then left out the front door, unaware of the back door of Fenton Works that was currently being opened.
Danny stifled a yawn as he continued his slow walk into the downtown region of Amity Park. He didn't really like being here, considering previous experiences in the area, but he had actually been walking without a plan, going wherever his legs took him. In this case, his legs had taken him here.
Other than the fact that he felt more tired than usual, things had been running normally for Danny for the first time in days: no spooky dreams, no creepy flashes in his eyes, no nothing.
But Danny wasn't comforted by this fact. In fact, this just gave him a feeling of anxiousness and dread in the pit of his stomach.
He thought to himself, Why would things be running normal for me today when they had been so much on the weird side for a while now? Wish I had someone to talk about this to.
He looked up to the cloud-free blue sky and pushed his thoughts onto another topic, The solar eclipse. Should probably be cool to watch. Wanting to pursue an astronaut career meant an interest in space and it phenomenons, so he was bound to find it cool. The last one he had seen years ago had been pretty cool.
Out of nowhere, Danny heard what sounded like a stone hitting the ground.
He looked far ahead and saw what looked like a figure looking at him. It then ducked into an alley.
Suspicious, Danny ran forward to see what was going on. He looked inside the alley, and then a second later, wished that he hadn't.
Lined up together inside the alley were a bunch of Slade's robot henchmen in clothing similar to their creator. At least fifty of them, and all were staring straight at him.
Danny sighed, "Just when things had been so normal for today. I'm going ghost!"
He jumped up into the air and transformed into Danny Phantom as he hung there. Without hesitation, he fired a round of ectoplasmic waves along the ground. Many jumped and dodged the attack, although a couple were hit by it.
Without a lot of room to attack, the henchmen maneuvered out onto the main road.
Danny gave a loud grunt as he fired ghost rays at a few of them. They missed and jumped at him. Danny reacted quickly by catching one by the legs, and then throwing it at the remaining robots, crashing into them and sending them all to the ground.
He had no time to appreciate this, though, as more ran towards him. Danny flew up higher to avoid them, but that didn't help as they jumped onto the sides of buildings, then push themselves off, propelling them higher at Danny.
Danny kept firing ghost rays, a couple hitting, but was then struck by two in the air at the same time, sending him crashing down to the ground and bruising his back. He quickly phased through the ground and then came back up into battle.
He then shouted at them, "You can tell your boss that if he wants me, he'll have to come and get me himself!"
Danny got no response, as he had expected. They continued their attempted assault on the ghost boy, who, despite the fact that his moves weren't as accurate as usual, still held up his own pretty well.
With twenty or so remaining, Danny decided to duplicate into two to finish the fight up quickly.
As they approached, one Danny said intensely, "I'll take the left…"
The second Danny finished in an equal tone, "And I'll take the right."
Both Dannys flew at the henchmen and delivered massive kicks, punches, and close-range ghost rays at them. Eventually there were only a few left, and they noticed that Slade was nowhere around.
Danny chose to form back into one as he said, "Geez, this is his plan of attack? Just ambush me with his stupid robots in an alley?"
He blasted the last few with ghost rays, without noticing one attack him from behind and force him into a bear hug.
Knowing that only Slade had the chemical compound inside him that made him immune to ghosts being able to phase through him, Danny phased through his arms and out of him.
Danny then turned and gave the robot a massive punch in the face, knocking it to the ground as well as the mask off of its face, leaving nothing but some type of blank screen on it.
Curiously, Danny walked towards the fallen henchman. He stopped as something took place on the screen. It didn't take long for someone to appear, and it took even less time for the ghost boy to recognize who it was.
"Slade."
Slade replied in pleasure, "Hello again, Danny. Still unsure as to my latest intentions?"
Danny didn't respond. He just glared at Slade in hate.
Slade went on, "Well, since you've been unable to figure out this little mystery, I'll just have to reveal it to you myself."
Danny grumbled to himself, "About time too."
"I'm sure you know that today is when the solar eclipse occurs, 3:00 this afternoon."
He nodded.
"Well, I'm afraid this phenomenon does more than just darken the sky for a while. This also happens in the Ghost Zone, and it causes a period of irregularity for the ghosts who reside there, and anywhere else for that matter."
Danny was feeling uneasy at being told this as he replied, "What do you mean by that?"
"A ghost's energy relies on ectoplasm, and I've learned from my exhibition in the Ghost Zone that there happens to be a pattern of ectoplasmic powder near the Sun, which was left from the very first ghost thousands of years ago. It's something only ghosts can see, which explains why it's never been discovered.
"That, however, will also be blackened out, resulting in ghosts losing the ectoplasmic energy they need."
"Do you mean I'm gonna die?" Danny exclaimed, fearing the worst.
"Not from the eclipse, young man. Ghosts only lose their energy at a brisk pace until the eclipse has passed, in which their energy comes back to them."
Danny now looked puzzled as he retorted, "That's it? I'm just going to lose energy temporarily?"
"Only the first part of the plan, young man."
The screen then turned away from Slade to a large open arch with a series of controls next to it.
Slade explained, "A dimension twister. With the correctly-entered coordinates, I can be transported to any place on Earth."
Danny's mouth gaped. He guessed fearfully, "You're going to use that to come and attack me while I'm losing energy?"
"A close guess, Daniel, but wrong."
A box was then shown on a table that sat in front of the dimension twister, filled with round devices with red bumps on four sides.
"This last part, I actually have you to thank for. Do you recall the very first time you stole for me?"
Danny growled, "Every bit of it."
"I used the power cell to power these grenades," Slade responded, referring to the round devices in the box, "There wasn't enough to power each grenade, but the last machine I stole could make an exact copy of anything smaller than two feet long. I used it to duplicate the power cell until it powered every grenade."
Now feeling very uneasy at the thought of what was to come, Danny asked him, "And…those grenades will do what?"
"Now that they've been powered with the power cell, they'll be powerful enough to destroy any major city in the world. And they will reach any city, once thrown through the dimension twister as soon as it will allow it, at 3:30 today, the time that the dimension fabric is the least stable."
Danny gasped at hearing this but could think of nothing to say.
Slade went on, every word echoing in Danny's mind, "So unless you can stop me before the solar eclipse begins, your powers will begin to die, cities will be destroyed, and your own demise will be met from me."
Danny finally shook off his stunned look and sneered, "You won't get away with this, you creep."
"A fierce confidence, Danny. Let's see whether or not you can back it up. I look forward to seeing you."
The screen flickered and went blank, leaving Danny just staring with a look of disbelief imprinted on his face as he replayed Slade's words in his mind again and again. His tired state had vanished in light of the horror that awaited the world.
Finally he shook his head and remembered that he had until 3:00 before the solar eclipse began and his powers would start dwindling. He frantically checked his watch and saw that it was 2:32.
He moaned hopelessly, "Great. I've only got less than half an hour to stop him before my powers start shutting down."
Remembering his recently acquired line of defense and sure he was going to need it, Danny reached into his pocket and pulled out his communicator. He flipped it open and spoke into it even as he took off into the skies towards Fenton Works as fast as he could, knowing full well where Slade was since he saw him heading there the other day, even if he didn't know where his lair actually was.
"Danny calling Robin. Robin, do you read me?"
After a few seconds, Robin's face appeared. He answered, "Danny? What is it?"
"Robin…we've got trouble. Big trouble."
Oh, boy! I bet you guys weren't expecting something like that, huh? Looks like big trouble on his hands now! The world is in danger from who-knows-how-many deadly grenades, and Danny may soon be able to do nothing about it! But it looks like he's got the Titans coming for back-up! Will it be enough? Let's wait for Chapter 10!
