Danny Phantom

Invasion

Author's Notes: In parts of this chapter, I mention scenes from certain Danny Phantom episodes. Take note that while these events happened, it wasn't in the same sequence that the cannon time-line did. Danny and Sam didn't hook up (at that time, anyways), Tucker never became mayor, and obviously, Vlad came back after awhile when the din had died down about him being an evil ghost. There are others, but I'll let you make those observations for yourselves. And if you think Dan's a bit crazy, imagine being locked in a thermos for fifty years and not losing your mind.

Chapter Eleven:

One By One

Danny never knew he had such remarkable reflexes, but he just barely managed to throw up a ghost shield in time to stop the blast from disintegrating them on the spot. The glowing green orb wrapped around them, shining brighter as the explosion grew more intense. Danny was shaking with the effort of holding it in place, but he didn't let up. He couldn't, knowing that if he did, they would all die. Zim tried to help by fortifying the shield with a plasma dome of his own, helping to ease Danny's burden.

And at last the roaring subsided and then stopped altogether, the light dimming and the debris finally falling back to Earth. It rained down on them, kicking up dust and obscuring the world from view. Still the shield held, until Danny thought the debris had mostly finished dropping on them, and he dropped to one knee. The shield flickered and died away. All around them was smoke. The rings flashed around Danny's middle and split, returning him to his human form. He tipped forward and caught himself on his hands.

"Danny..." Sam whispered, touching his shoulder gently. He peer up at her through his raven hair and gave her a weak smile.

"It's been fifty years since I saw you last..." he whispered, hanging his head again. "I thought I'd lost you again... for good..."

She scooted up closer to him.

"Sorry, Sam," he moaned, and then tipped over, out cold.

"Danny!"

High in the sky the four of them were gathered, whispering about their plans.

"I'm certain that should have taken care of the rest of his shifters and thrown the little ghost brat off our trail for now. We must find Ravial first. She must be the first to fall if we are to find Kalliva. I think we ought to split up. I'll take Miriana and we'll hunt down Ravial. Dan, you and Jaston take out Kalliva. Last I heard, she was in the waters of the Caribbean. I'm fairly certain I know where Ravial hides. Once we finish those two, Jaston I want you to find Cirria and dispose of her. While Jaston is taking care of the Air goddess, I will go to heaven and take care of my mother and worthless siblings. Miriana, you are to enter hell and dispose of my father and uncles. Dan, you remove Clockwork. Once that has been completed, all of you must meet me in Heaven to usurp the power of the Gods."

The other three nodded in accord and then turned to go their separate ways. Depravity and Dan were forced to carry their counterparts, for though they had gained unearthly powers, flight was not among them.

With a dark grin and a wicked gleam in her eyes, Depravity set off to kill Mother Earth herself.

Ravial had never cared for the given name. She thought it far too... limited. It didn't describe her very well. So Ravial was known by most cultures as Mother Earth, the giver of life and creator of nature. It was her self-appointed name. Once she'd discovered that Mobieus had changed his own name, she followed suit. Of course, Mobieus also had one other name that he often refused to acknowledge, and that was Father Time, and it was this name that inspired Ravial to alter her own. And so she became Mother Earth.

Ravial's sanctuary was nearly impossible to find if one didn't already know its hidden location. She'd made it just so, hopping to avoid prying mortal eyes. And it worked, for the most part. Occasionally, someone lost their way and discovered her in her little wood, but they never saw her.

It had remained that way for as long as she could remember being here on this Earth, and it was all about to change in a whirl of destruction, because in an instant, the trees had uprooted and been blasted into splinters, the bushes torn to shreds, and the animals blown away.

"What is this?!" she shouted, shielding herself from the debris. It was as though the wind itself was attacking her, lashing at her in sharp gusts that cut and bruised even her immortal body. She stumbled and fell back, hard. And through the falling debris there was someone... or two of them, the shapes were so distorted it was difficult to tell, and they were moving towards her slowly.

"Auntie Ravial..." she whispered. The wind stopped.

"Who... who's there?" she said, her voice trembling.

"Auntie Ravial, how can you forget your favorite niece? Or did you abandon me like the rest of them?"

Ravial's eyes widened slightly in shock. "You," she whispered, standing. "You're supposed to be with Mobieus."

"All that green, wasn't a good view. I like it better out here," she replied, placing a hand on her hip and giving the elder goddess a sneer. "Speaking of here..." she whispered, and approached the goddess. "I need something, something only you can give me. Of course, the others will, too, but only you have this power."

Ravial stepped back. "And what is that?" she asked coldly. "Perhaps I should call your mother?"

The ancient shook her head. "Mobieus has certainly done that by now, no need to bother. And what I need is for you..." she hissed, zipping forward and coming eerily close to Ravial's face, "Is for you to die." From her hands the daggers morphed and she thrust them at her aunt. Had they been regular daggers, it might not have mattered, and Ravial wouldn't have had to fling herself to the side to avoid their bite. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case, for it was Depravity that was trying to kill her, and her hands were wrapped in utter darkness.

Ravial dashed to the side, throwing up her hands. Beneath them the very Earth shook and exploded up, leaping at Depravity at the command of the Earth Goddess. The Ancient of evil plowed through it with her bare fists, bashing her way to Ravial. Vines and trees lashed next, wrapping up in her arms and restraining her. The goddess stopped, waving a hand and the stones and soil returned to the surface.

She approached Depravity. "Child, have you gone mad?" she whispered, coming closer.

Unseen, a twisted smile crossed her blood-red lips.

The waters were clear and blue, something Dan had never really cared for. Even as Jaston stared into the waters with admiration, green blasted from the dark entity's hand and into the water, spraying it up into Jaston's face.

"Well that wasn't necessary," he muttered, crossing his arms.

"Then maybe you should get to work. Where is she?" Dan retorted.

Jaston sighed and raised his arm. "There," he pointed.

"Can you swim?"

"Yes..."

Without another word Dan dropped him into the water and took off, laughing maniacally as he sent a volley of searing hot plasma at the small crab that Jaston had pointed out to be Kalliva in her disguise. The green energy impacted, and the islet was blown away. A mushroom cloud shot up, obscuring everything from view. Dan continued to laugh.

"That was a tad unnecessary, wasn't it?" called Jaston from the water, who was keeping himself afloat.

"Just a bit of fun," replied Dan, who crossed his arms. "Though I doubt that was enough to kill her. Give it a few seconds, and then the fun really begins."

And he was, indeed, correct, as only a few moments later, a torrent of water shot up, and within it, the mistress of the seas. Kalliva's deep blue eyes locked with Dan's fierce red once, hers cold with fury.

"Who dares disturb me?" she rumbled, the water around her swirling in her blue hair.

"I do believe that was me, but then, you should have known that."

She glared at him. "You impudent fool, you shall see the wrath of the sea for your transgressions!"

"Yawn. Stop talking," he snarled, zapping up to meet her. He smiled. "How about we put your threat to the test?" he whispered, pulling back a hand and thrusting his fist forward into her ribs. She was sent careening back, splashing in the water. He snickered.

She appeared at the surface again. "How is it that you can strike me? You are but a mortal!"

"Wrong," he hissed, once more just inches from her. "I surrendered that a long time ago." With another crack she was sent flying, this time into the air. She stopped herself and weaved her hands through the air. A column of water shot up, knocking into Dan and shooting him into the sky. More water came around and balled around him, encasing him in a sphere that moved wherever he did.

"Now you shall suffer the wrath of the sea!" she roared, preparing another devastating attack. At least, she had been, until she herself was attacked. The force of the blow knocked her back into the water, sputtering and confused. "Who?" she rumbled, blasting up out of the water once more.

"That would be me," Jaston whispered. "You aren't as threatening as you think you are. Now, if you'd be so kind as to just hand over the orb you possess."

Her eyes widened. "What? There... no... there is no orb!"

"Danny! Wake up! Depravity's gone!"

"Silence! He is merely unconscious. He exerted much of his... stuff... when he shielded us from the plasma she nearly cooked us all with."

Dib was inspecting Danny as though he were an animal on the side of the road. "No injuries that I can see. He must be exhausted for some reason. He never really told us what happened to him while he was in the Ghost Zone..." he muttered, kneeling and checking the unconscious teen's pulse. It was there, and strong, so there was no real need to worry... was there?

Sam shook her head. "It could have been anything... we never finished the map of the Ghost Zone, and unless he got the infi-map from Frost Bite, I doubt he did anything else but wander from door to door, looking for a way to the past to stop this horrible thing from happening."

Danny groaned. Right now, though he could hear everything they were saying, all he knew was the harsh pounding in his head, and that if it didn't stop, his brain was liable to explode. "S-Sam..." he mumbled, rolling onto his back. "Where'd she go?"

"I don't know... she vanished after the building exploded."

"Exploded... oh damn!" he said, shooting upright, headache forgotten. "The Shifters! Xanu!" he shouted, scrambling to his feet and bolting across the destroyed parking lot and into what was once the warehouse. It was totally and completely destroyed. There were parts here and there, but not much had survived the wave of plasma in-tact, and even a life-form that was only partly organic would have had a hard time even remaining whole as a machine. There were parts, and there was blood, but there were no bodies. It made Danny sick to his stomach. He clenched his fists.

"Damn her..." he whispered, memories flashing across his vision. "She's done this before, remember?" he asked, turning to Sam, who looked nearly as ill as Danny himself. Zim scrambled up behind them, more shocked than disgusted. Dib had elected to stay behind, knowing full well what had happened and what anger it would cause him if he looked.

"Remember what she did?" he asked again, as Sam stared at the ground. She nodded slowly.

"I remember... It was the 'ides of march,' wasn't it? The same night as the prom. She forced you to kill her and you sent her... it... to hell, and she reunited with... oh, I don't remember which on it was. I'm still having trouble dragging up memories...

Danny had just left his house when the street in front of him exploded. He went intangible and snatched the arms of his two friends at nearly the last moment. Bits of pavement flew through them and into the wall behind them, leaving large scars in his family's metal-framed home. A flash of light and silence hit Danny like a brick to the face, and then came the deafening explosion. Danny thought his brain was being jerked out his ears from the pain that explosion caused. But soon the noise faded, and Danny's clenched jaw relaxed. When the blast settled, Danny opened his eyes to survey the scene and bit back tears at what he saw.

The entire block had nearly been destroyed. The burning wreckage of houses lined either side of a tar pit that had been the street only moments ago. The metal-framed Fenton home, the only building not in ruins, was blackened and scarred with the force of the explosions. People lay in horribly mangled heaps, or were crying and screaming, or were simply dead. There was tar and blood and ash everywhere. But what Danny saw next was perhaps the worst of all.

In the middle of the wreckage was a shadow, a being like in the fortress, but it was lighter than he remembered it being. It had a face as well, rather than just sadistic eyes. A pernicious smile graced its lips as it looked satisfactorily at its handy work. Danny's rage exploded. To do something this... cruel was unforgivable, but to thoroughly enjoy it was a cause for damnation.

"How could you? How could you hurt all these innocent people like that? You... you sick, twisted whore!" Danny roared, and in a moment he'd gone ghost.

"Didn't I tell you that I'd be back? Now, I believe there is a gift I must give you." The smile widened. "I am going to give you pain."

Spectral energy flared up around the enraged ghost boy. "I won't let you hurt one more person! I'll bury you right here!"


"My body hasn't functioned properly in over fifty years..." she whispered, blinking away tears. "And that night Vlad got to Tucker... wait, what about them? Who's still alive?"

Danny sighed. "Lancer's still alive."

"You're kidding."

"No, we saw him. Lancer, Jazz, my parents, but only by a thread. They're on life-support, courtesy of Jazz's house. Paulina..."

Sam lowered her head. "Actually... er... not so much."

Danny pushed the disturbing thought out of mind. "I guess Vlad's still alive and kicking. I guess the world forgot about what happened with the asteroid."

She giggled slightly and nodded. "We have to find Depravity. Who knows what she's doing out there. She didn't even bother to give us a long-winded monologue."

Danny's thoughts turned to Technus, as such things were quite his specialty. Apparently Sam had been thinking the same thing, and the pair laughed.

"What is so amusing?" Zim asked, clearly not as amused as they were.

"Nothing. C'mon, let's move. We've got to track her down. We should split up, we're going to need the help." Dib approached to listen. "Okay, so here's the plan. Sam, I want you to go back to Minnesota and talk to Jazz. See what she's got in the way of weapons, and no specter deflector is going to help us. Dib, go with her, and see if they have a portal. If they do, I want you and Sam to take whatever you can and see if you can track down some ghosts. You know the ones," he said, locking eyes with Sam. She nodded. "Zim, track down the rest of the shifters. They can't have all been in that building. Track them down and take them out. Don't kill them, just incapacitate them so we can question them later."

"And you?"

"Me? I'm headed to Wisconsin. Think I'll pay a little pleasure-visit to an old friend."

"N-n-no..."

"Yes. Now stop struggling, or I'm going to cut your ethereal throat."

"Depravity you must stop! You know not the power you toy with-"

CRACK!

"SILENCE! Do not speak to me in such a manner. I will not tolerate it. Now... hold... still..."

There wasn't much else the earth Goddess could do. She was locked within the air, unable to move anything but her jaw. All she could do was watch while the icy-white fingers slid into her flesh. It burned, and at the same time, it was like freezing her insides, and in no way a mortal man could do. Depravity wasn't just reaching into her body, she was going past the barriers of the ethereal and piercing Ravial's very being. It was painful, in such a way that it was beyond description or comprehension by a human mind. Such a pain was so intense, that an ounce of it was quite enough to cause the mind to implode.

"Close..." she whispered, her eyes deepening in their bloody color.

"NO! You mustn't do this! It is to much for you!"

"I SAID SILENCE!" she shrieked, her eyes nearly bulging. Her fingers curled within the flesh, and the wounded Goddess screamed. And then the fingers struck something. "Ah... what's this now? I think I've struck gold..." she whispered.

"Please Depravity! PLEASE! Do not do this! I beg of-"

Her body when limp. Depravity extracted her hand, and within it, held a shining green orb that was brighter than a 75-watt light bulb. Immediately upon the orb leaving Ravial's body something hit the planet like a sack of rocks. Around Depravity the forest seemed to just... die. The trees became brown and shed their leaves. The grass lost its color. Plants withered and died. All that was left was the decay in the wake of the lost of nature. Animals turned on one another, attacking without cause or without warning. Even pets began to act strangely, running and hiding from one another. It was as though nature had simply gone from the world.

And in some truth, it had, as the prone form of its Goddess lay peacefully on the forest floor, her physical body wavering in and out of existence.

"Well that was eventful," Miriana commented, eying the body. "She looks like she's fading."

"She is. If she is without her very essence for too long, she will cease to exist. But that is of no consequence, not in my new world. Come, we have work to do. And we must hurry before the tremors begin and it will be impossible to walk within a city without a building collapsing on your head."

"You're the ghost, reach in and rip it out!"

"Why me? You're psychic, you should know where it is!"

"FINE!"

Jaston didn't much like the idea of reaching into someone's existance and then ripping it out, but Dan did have a point. Ghost or not, he was confined to two planes of existance: this one, and the Ghost Zone. The removal of the orb took careful knowledge of a different plane, one that the ghost could not ascertain, due to the fact that it was the ethereal plane and much out of his reach. So it was left to the clairvoyant serial killer to do the work instead. The subject in question, the goddess of the sea, was laying still, her eyes reflecting the brutal pain she'd undertaken in only moments, courtesy of Dan Phantom.

Jaston wasn't going to ask just was Dan had done, because it was all too clear that whatever it was, it had taken down a goddess. Jaston had been so busy talking that he hadn't even noticed Dan escape his watery prison.

"Noooo..." she moaned, turning her head. Dan chuckled in the insane way that made Jaston's hair stand on end.

"Killing, killing, oh what fun, one by one till the job is done..." he said in a sing-song voice, placing a glowing hand over her mouth. "Be quiet now. Your voice makes me ill."

She struggled, but it was no use. She was bound too tight, and her body was frozen, and still wracked with pain. There was little she could do.

"Ah! Here we are..." whispered Jaston, and with a great deal of chanting and flourishing moves of his hands, his fingers sank into her flesh.

She shrieked. and was smacked rather hard by the flaming-haired ghost whose eyes made her very soul crawl. "Shut up. You're going to die faster, the more you scream, and as much as I love seeing you in pain, your screaming is wearing my nerves thin."

"And just a gentle pull..."

"Bye bye, birdie," he whispered, and then the life vanished from her eyes. The orb Jaston held was deep blue, and as deep as the sea (or so it seemed, though in truth it was merely the size of a small apple) as he stared into its depth. His concentration was broken when Dan spoke again.

"I suggest we move. The storm's coming," he said, grabbing the other by the wrist and yanking him up. As though on command the seas sprang up and claimed their mistress in their blue depths as though mourning her. They lashed about violently, sending up an array of harsh waves to try and claim the wrong-doers, but it was far too late and Dan was too high for the water to reach.

The same went for all over the globe, as the waters turned from calm to increasingly violent. Ships wrecked, coastal cities were leveled, and storms raged throughout the world. And it got worse every minute.

The pair approached land.

"It appears that Lady Depravity had the same effect with Mother Nature," Jaston mused aloud upon catching sight of the brown forests and dead flora that covered the land.

"Ah, I love the sound of chaos in the evening. Music to my ears," Dan said, smiling darkly. "One by one till the job is done."