A/N: Bit of a warning here, toward the end of this chapter there is a somewhat graphic description of a wound. I considered upping the rating, but then I realized Phantom of Truth (which is an awesome fic) has been uploaded to this site as a T-rated fic and compared to that this is nothing. Still, if that isn't your kind of thing, feel free to skip everything from the sentence "He was wrong." and forward.

Either way, Enjoy!

Chapter 11

Danny's POV

As funny as it was to laugh about Tucker and his food obsession, he had a point. With exception for Jazz, none of them had eaten anything since the day before, and they were all starving.

Jazz and Danny led the group into their kitchen, and together the four all started work on something to eat. They had a bit of an argument about exactly what this meal should contain, but they managed to settle on a pasta/chicken salad – with one serving of meat free salad for Sam, of course.

As they ate, Danny suppressed all thoughts of the outside invasion. Instead, he and the others talked about normal things like school or the weather or that new funny video someone had found on the internet. It felt nice to get a break from the stress, even if it was only temporary.

After they had eaten, though, they decided they couldn't ignore the situation anymore.

"So, what's the plan?" asked Jazz as they sat down in the living room, "I mean, you've got one, right?"

Danny, Sam and Tucker let out nervous laughs.

"Actually… We're still working on that… Sort of," said Tucker, and pointedly refused to look Jazz in the eyes.

"You WHAT!?" exclaimed Jazz and stood up.

"Calm down, sis!" said Danny hastily, "Actually, I do have a plan. I mean, it's not 100% foolproof, and there are a few things I've got to work out, but it's a plan."

Everyone's eyes turned to the boy.

"Please don't tell me you're gonna suggest making friends with that Hel lady," said Sam and Danny winced.

"Actually," he said, "That's exactly what I'm going to do. She's a very powerful ghost and she could be really helpful. Now, I know that it seems like she's leading the army, but I have reason to believe she is being controlled. If I can free her, maybe she'll feel indebted to me or something and help us defeat… whoever is controlling her"

Danny didn't mention that he knew exactly who was controlling her, or exactly how powerful she was. He also didn't mention that he had no idea how he was going to break the mind control – he guessed that red gem – had she called it a mindstone? – had something to do with it, and maybe if he could get to that he could break the spell.

"Well, it sounds risky, but I guess it's all we got," said Jazz, "So, when are we doing this?"

"Okay, first of all, it's me, not we. If I'm gonna have any chance at this I'll need to sneak up on her, and I hate to say this but you guys aren't exactly the best at sneaking," said Danny. He'd learned long ago that saying 'It's too dangerous for you' never worked. "Second, I will be going as soon as possible, but there is a slight problem that needs to be solved first."

"A problem? What is it? The fact that your entire plan revolves around getting help from a psychopath?" asked Sam, sounding decidedly unimpressed.

"Actually, it's the ghost shield. I can't get through it in ghost form, and since the incident when we entered this place the ghost army has placed, like, a billion guards outside. If I go through as a visible human, I'll be toast in an instant" answered Danny.

"Oh! I have a solution to that!" said Jazz, standing up again, "Mom and dad have been working on this thing, that's supposed to allow specific ghosts through the Ghost Shield. They finished it about an hour before they left, but obviously you were gone so we couldn't configure it for you. It's downstairs, we can go set it up right now!"

Jazz excitedly started walking toward the basement door, and Danny stood up to follow her, but his leg picked that exact moment to start hurting. It had been aching on and off since he'd gotten hit, but it hadn't been this bad before.

With a yelp that was half surprise, half pain the boy fell to his knees on the ground. He tried to sit so he would relieve pressure on the wounded leg, but it didn't help.

"Danny!" shouted his friends and sister, but he paid them no mind as they hurried over to help him. The pain in his leg was only getting worse, and it was starting to spread. It felt like he was burning up from the inside, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He screamed out in pain and collapsed on the floor, vaguely aware of his sister picking him up and hugging him as the world faded away.

When Danny woke up, he was in a bed. His leg was still hurting, but nowhere near as bad as it had been before. As he slowly blinked his eyes open, the worried faces of Jazz, Sam and Tucker came into view.

"What happened?" he asked tiredly.

"I don't know, you tell us," said Sam. All the annoyance and sarcasm that had been present in her voice earlier on had completely dissipated, being replaced with a deep worry.

Danny frowned, trying to remember. He'd stood up, and then suddenly pain had shot through his leg and… That was it.

"Leg," he mumbled, "Weird ghost ray"

"That's still bothering you?" asked Tucker in surprise, "But that was ages ago! You usually recover from these things in minutes!"

Jazz just looked confused, so Sam explained.

"Danny got hit by a ghost ray when going through the portal," said the goth, "We didn't think much of it, but apparently it wasn't as regular a ghost ray as it seemed"

"Well, this needs to be looked at," said Jazz determinedly, "Where did you get hit, Danny?"

Danny slowly sat up – using his arm for support – and pointed at a spot on the lower part of his left leg.

"There," he said, "And please be careful; while it's not as bad as before, it still hurts"

He grabbed the bottom of his jeans and started to pull them up, so as to expose whatever potential wound was there, but the fabric caught on something and shot a spike of pain through his leg.

It wasn't that bad; all it did was make him twitch slightly, but his sister noticed.

"Just lay back down, I'll take care of this," said the young woman and bolted out of the room. She came back with a pair of scissors. "When a patient's clothing can't be removed normally without hurting them, a doctor will cut off the clothing. I've seen it on TV, so I think I can do it."

Danny opened his mouth to complain, but Sam cut him off.

"You have at least ten pairs of jeans that are exactly the same as those. Losing one pair isn't that big a tragedy," she said, and Danny had nothing to say to that. Instead, the boy just laid back and stared into the ceiling.

He didn't look, but Danny could hear the sound of Jazz cutting up his jeans. Eventually, the sound stopped, and he felt hands – Sam's, he would guess from the size, - carefully moving away the loose pieces of cloth. This was followed by three stunned gasps.

"What is it, guys?" he asked as he pushed himself up on his elbows to get a look, "Surely it can't be that bad"

He was wrong.

An area about twice as large as his palm had swollen up, and through the middle of it went what looked like a cauterized wound – like if someone had cut him with a really hot knife. The blood vessels around the swelling were highly visible.

How he had been able to walk around with this wound for several hours was a question to which he did not have an answer.

As Danny looked at the wound, it started to hurt more and more – like when you get a papercut and don't notice it until you see the blood and suddenly it starts stinging – but obviously on a larger scale.

No normal ghost ray did this much damage. This ray wasn't meant to scare or control people. It wasn't meant to wreak havoc.

It was meant to kill.

Upon that realization, Danny's eyes promptly rolled back into his head and he fainted.

A/N: Sorry about all the blackouts, I just really like being evil sometimes.

Asgardian words:
Midgard - The human world
Helheim - The Ghost Zone
Asgard - The part of the Ghost Zone where the Asgardians live
Halfling - Halfa
Jotun - Ghost