Chapter 9: Because I Promised

Pariah Dark pressed a hand to his side, where his ectoplasm dripped through the cracks in his armor, and ground his teeth in rage. The wound refused to heal, sapping his strength, and to think, it was measly humans that managed to injure him so!

He tore off the damaged plates of his now useless armor, melting them to slag in his anger.

No matter. The humans had paid for this humiliation hundredfold. He made sure of it.

The King of All Ghosts stalked through the dark halls of his castle, a vicious grin on his face as he remembered the wide-scale destruction caused to the Human World. Now he could finally turn his efforts to the Ghost Zone and crush the resistance of the pitiful fools who refused to accept his rule.

He had barely settled on his throne when his servant arrived, dragging along an unknown ghost.

"My lord," the Fright Knight bowed and shoved the creature forward. "This one was found in the ruins of Far Frozen. It wants to pledge its allegiance to you."

Pariah Dark leaned forward, studying the oddly familiar ghost, when it looked up at him, blue eyes burning with hatred, and screeched.


Phantom crept through the castle, following the secret passages the traitorous knight told him about, when a piercing, nails-on-a-chalkboard sound tore through the air. He immediately abandoned all discretion, bolting towards the maddeningly loud scream.

He blasted through several walls, flying into the cavernous throne room, and paused for barely a second to assess the situation.

The Screech had disintegrated the ancient walls, but Pariah was still standing, weathering the onslaught of destructive energy, though any thralls remaining within the wide area of attack were nothing but dust.

The Fright Knight was curled on the floor, hands clamped over his head, playing up his weakness. Plausible deniability – he wouldn't pick a side until the victor was determined.

It was just the two of them against the King of All Ghosts – Danny and Phantom, alone together as they were always meant to be.


Danny was drowning in his own feelings, missing half of his self and too much humanity crammed into whatever remained. His fear, grief and anger tangled into a painful mess that tore out of his throat in a shrieking wave of destruction, and he barely acknowledged his surroundings, only aware enough to note that Phantom was right – he was more useful as a weapon rather than food.

But Danny couldn't use his power indefinitely. He stuttered, coughing painfully, and tasted ectoplasm in the back of his throat.

Thankfully, his other half had accounted for it, flying towards the somewhat dazed Pariah and snatching the Crown of Fire from his head. Once Phantom was out of the way, Danny Screeched again, ignoring the lancing pain in his throat and the steady drain of energy.


Phantom hit the crown with electricity, steadily increasing the charge. He had to hurry – Danny was weakening and Pariah was fighting his Screech, walking towards the ice elemental with slow but steady steps.

The Crown of Fire cracked and Phantom quickly bit into the artifact, absorbing its energy until it turned to dust.

Pariah noticed. He bellowed in rage and lunged towards Danny, one massive hand closing around him in a crushing grip.

His Screech stifled, Danny lashed out with ice, long shards piercing through Pariah's hand, forcing him to drop the former human, and Phantom added his own power, first a barrage of ecto-blasts then a massive bolt of electricity colliding with the Ghost King.

Pariah responded with his own blood-red blasts and the battle began in earnest.

Phantom created several duplicates, all working in sync to keep the constant barrage of attacks, Danny taking cheap shots with his ice whenever he got the opportunity, but Pariah wasn't the Ghost King for nothing. Even with the debilitating injury inflicted by the human weapons, even after weathering the Screech and losing his crown, he was a force to be reckoned with.

His duplicates were destroyed one by one and Phantom himself was cast down, crashing painfully onto the cracked floor. Pariah towered over him, bleeding from numerous but mostly superficial wounds.

"Why do you fight me, child?" the Ghost King asked as Phantom struggled to stand up. "Do you not understand how futile it is?"

He didn't see a point in exchanging words with the enemy, but a stray glance at his formerly human other half compelled him to answer, "Because I promised."

Pariah laughed, dark and unamused, "Naïve child. You promised?"

Phantom bared his fangs, the remnants of his humanity igniting his core, "Yes, I promised!"

An ethereal howl tore out of his throat, powerful and destructive, and Pariah stumbled back in barely disguised shock. Phantom didn't let up, pouring all his remaining energy into the attack.

A towering wall of glowing blue ice slammed into the Ghost King from the side, forcing a muffled cry out of him. Danny grinned, ectoplasm dripping between his fangs, at the sight of a long spike buried into Pariah's already injured side, and an almost metallic sound of his Screech joined Phantom's Wail.

The Ghost King fell, his ectoplasm pooling on the cracked floor, and more ice appeared, trapping him underneath. Phantom lunged forward, seizing the opportunity, and buried his fangs in Pariah's throat, tearing it open. Pariah thrashed, shattering the ice, but Phantom Wailed again, right in his face, knocking him out.

The ice receded, showing the deep wound almost piercing him through, and Phantom tore into Pariah's body until his hands closed around the Ghost King's burning core.

He pulled with all his strength, frantic and desperate, until something broke and the massive ghost melted into ectoplasm. With a faint feeling of something that might have been triumph, Phantom shoved the core into his mouth and forced it down his throat.

The core burned inside him, its energy so much more than he expected, but the feeling of liquid fire beneath his skin was painfully familiar. Phantom doubled over and screamed, the stolen energy pushing him over the threshold and into a different form. His body rippled, growing in height and bulging with muscle, his outfit shifting as well. His jumpsuit stretched, black and white crawling into a different arrangement, and a ragged-edged cape fluttered down his shoulders.

"We did it?" Danny rasped, coughing up ectoplasm. "We… won?"

"It appears so," Phantom replied, his new voice dark and low.

"Not quite," a third voice interrupted, and the world froze in a haze of blue.

"Clockwork?" Danny asked apprehensively, claws twitching over the Time Medallion that suddenly appeared around his neck. "W-what do you mean?"

"You have won the battle but lost the war. Humanity is on the brink of extinction."

"What?!" Danny shrieked, his voice dipping into the metallic tones of the Screech.

"Despite the time the humans had to prepare, there was never enough anti-ghost tech," the Time Lord explained. "And they were starting to get desperate. Desperate enough to unleash nuclear weaponry and destroy their own world with radioactive fallout."

"…No," Danny whispered, shaking his head in denial. "It can't be… We won!"

"You defeated Pariah," Clockwork replied. "But you can't defeat nuclear winter. This world is about to end and there is nothing you can do about it."