Thanks to the reviewers: Witchdoctor and my brother, who thinks Fenton Thermos' rock and won't tell me what he thinks of the story.
AN: Flashbacks in italics : )
Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom. At all. In any way.
BUT-I do own Alicia, Alysa, Conflagration, Lyric, and all those other characters I made up that may or may not appear in this chapter.
"You'd better hurry Phantom," Vlad warned. "My sources tell me the girl is wearing the watch right now, and it's going to go off within the next three hours."
"Yes!" Tucker exclaimed to the silent SS. "The ureachable, legendary: Level 25!" His PDA beeped in a rapid sequence that began the hidden level. He was so close! His fingers began to move faster than he had ever thoughtt possible as he guided his starship through foreign galaxies. "Nothing can stop me now!"
Suddenly the doors burst open and two figures raced to either side of him. Buttons were pushed, levels were pulled and the seatbelt light flew on. Before he knew it, the speeder was in the air and racing towards Amity Park. In the confusion, he dropped his PDA and heard the fatal sound of it depowering.
"Guys! You just made me lost the game!" Tucker complained. "I was at the legendary level of 25! What gives?"
Without taking his eyes off of the path he was driving, Danny answered Tucker's question. "What's more important Tucker? Losing a game or losing Amity Park?"
Tucker looked at Danny's face to see if he was kidding. His friend was totally serious. Tucker turned towards Sam, who held the same blank expression.
"What happened with the talk with Vlad? What did he tell you?" Tucker asked. "What are we up against?"
"Time." Danny replied. He pushed the throttle forward, increasing the speed of the SS. "Vlad planted a bomb on a watch and gave it to Alicia. It's set to go off within the next three hours."
"We can find her in three hours, right? It can't be that hard." Tucker thought that Danny had made the situation seem alot worse than it was.
"It's going to take us two hours at the least to get home," Danny sighed. "Two and a half at the most. We'll need to get something to stop the bomb and find Alicia."
Sam pulled a cell phone from her pocket. "I'll call her house to see if her mom knows where she is." She dialed the newly memorized number and held the phone to her ear. "Hello? Mrs. Raiyn? I'm Sam Manson, one of Alicia's friends. Is she home? ...no. Do you know where she is? She hasn't come home yet from school? Does she have a cell phone? No...well, okay then. If she comes home, can you tell her to meet me at Danny Fenton's house? Thanks."
Danny and Tucker looked at her expectantly.
"She's not home," Sam sighed dejectedly. "Her mom doesn't know where she is."
"Then the only thing we can do is hurry home," Danny said, and increased the speed even more.
Vlad Masters walked out to the balcony of his hospital room, infuriated. They were married and had TWO KIDS! How DARE that Fenton betray him and steal his love. How DARE he have children with her. Everything was FENTON'S fault. And he would pay.
Vlad transformed into the ghost half he had become accustomed to over the past few months. He didn't usually change in the middle of the day, but he needed to blast something. Alot of somethings.
Some trash was floating in the air. That's what Jack had done."BONZAI!" Trashed his life. He held out his hand and a pink blast incinerated it, sending ashes to the ground.
A paper airplane whizzed past him. Jack had sent the competition flying in the opposite direction. "Hey V-man!" With the flick of a wrist, Vlad sent a more powerful beam to toast the doomed flight.
Vlad came to the conclusion that he would dedicate his life to destroy Jack Fenton. Maddie would be his. The children, well, he could just imagine how annoying it would be to hear the spawn of the devil's voice everyday.
"Uncle Vladdy?"
All Vlad wanted was for the voices to go away. They were haunting him! They were torturing him! They were bent on destroying him!
"Go AWAY!" he screamed, and sent a blast heading towards the last voice he heard in his head. It wasn't any blast though; it contained all the power he could muster. All the anguish and failure and anxiety he had gather the past few years he sent into that exto-plasmic beam.
He sighed with relief.His mind had momentarily cleared and he felt better than he had in days.
Before he could relax, he heard an ear-piercing scream and a thump as something fell to the ground behind him.
Vlad spun around and his face paled.
"Where is she?" Danny frantically shouted as he flew over Amity Park, searching for Alicia. "She couldn't have just disappeared!"
"She's not at the park or next to the school," Sam replied through the Fenton Phones as she ran through the school parking lot. Her eyes shot left and right, desperately looking for the girl.
"She's still not at home," Tucker replied. "And the observatory and library are closed today. Where else could she be?"
"...did anyone check the Nasty Burger?" Danny asked.
After a revealing moment of silence, Team Phantom made their way to their favorite food hangout.
"...and we've been calling him the Studmuffin King ever since!" Alysa finished as she and Alicia broke out in loud laughter.
Alicia wiped a tear from her eye and sighed. "Man, I wish I could've been there to see that." She glanced at her watch and let out a small gasp. "Dang, Mom's going to be worrying about where I am right now! I better get home!"
"Your mom wouldn't mind having a guest tonight, would she?" Alysa asked bashfully.
"Of course not! She'd love to see you!" Alicia smiled brightly. "But that's only if she's in a good mood, and she will only be in a good mood if I'm home soon!"
"We'd better get going then," Alysa said as they stood up and threw away their trash. As they began to walk out of the door, Alysa asked a question. "Alicia, the paper says that there's a ghost boy in this town. Have you seen him yet?"
Alicia's face turned serious, "I have. He's...um, interesting."
"What's he like? Is he good or bad? And-"
"Alysa..." Alicia's face paled. "And he's standing right behind you!"
Alysa turned and saw none other than a panicking Danny Phantom.
As he suspected, Alicia walked out of the Nasty Burger right as Danny flew overhead. "I've found her guys!" Danny signaled to his friends. He received responses of luck and flew down to Alicia and her friend. He floated behind the friend until Alicia saw him.
And for having seen him before, she looked immensly afraid.
"Alicia! I need to speak to you!" he told her.
To his suprise, she took a few steps backwards. "I'm...I'm sorry Mr. Phantom, but I really need to get home. I'm late, and my mother is-" Before she could finish her excuse, she was running off, dragging her friend with her.
"What the-why'd she run off?" Danny asked himself.
"Danny," Sam said over the Fenton Phones. "Did you get the watch yet?"
"No. Alicia ran off before I could." Danny replied. "She's running home with a friend. We've got to stop her before it's too late!"
"Roger that." Tucker said as he began to set a course to cut off the girls.
Danny flew after the fleeing teens.
"Alicia!" Alysa yelled. "Why are we running?!" They ran through an alley and turned left.
The look on her friend's face told her that this was not just a fear of ghost. "I...I can't explain it now." Alicia whispered raspily. "We just can't let him catch us."
"Does he know about-"
"No he doesn't."
"THEN WHY ARE WE RUNNING?"
Danny soared over numerous house tops and finally spotted the two running girls. At 126 miles per hour he dove and flew along side them as they ran.
"Alicia! I just need a minute to talk to-OW!" Danny cried out as he was smacked in the face by Alicia's friend. She hit him hard enough he went sprawling into the wall. Danny pushed the crumbling rock off of him and picked himself up. "What the heck! I'm the good guy here!"
"I can't believe I just did that," Alysa panted. "I hit PHANTOM! We are sooo doomed."
"Just...keep...running..." Alicia quickened her pace. "We'll be home soon..."
Annoyed, Danny flew after the girls, muttering incoherant complaints the entire way. After a minute, he finally spotted them. He knew that he couldn't just fly alongside them and try for a conversation, so he had to devise another way to get the watch from her. A thought popped in his head and he smiled.
Immediately he flew down, and instead of stopping them, he gently lifted the two girls off the ground and into the air by their arms.
"Let go of me!" Alicia screamed.
"Let us down!" her friend tugged on his arm.
"Look, I just need to talk to you for a moment Alicia, then I'll set you down." Danny glared at his neighbor.
She looked thoughtfully and angrily into his eyes, "Looks like I'm right where you want me then. Start talking."
"Finally!" Danny exclaimed. "You have a watch, right?"
Alicia's face tensed up and she nodded, her face instantly on alert. "Why?"
"A bomb was planted in it by a ghost named Plasmius, and it's going to go off within the hour! I need you to give me the watch, I'll destroy it, and the day will be saved."
Danny noticed Alicia and her friend exchange wary glances.
"I can't give it to you."
What?! "Why not? There's a BOMB in it!"
"No. There's no bomb. And regardless, I can't give it to you." Alicia and Alysa suddenly slipped through Danny's hands without warning.
"What? How did she do that?" Danny asked himself. He stared at his hands. "There's no way she could have done that!" He looked below himself and saw the two girls falling quickly to the ground. He momentarily prepared himself to fly quickly and rescue them. Simple...right?
Danny blinked, and then the girls were gone.
They had disappeared midair.
"What the heck?" Danny froze in position. "How-why-what's going on with Alicia Raiyn?"
