I know what you're thinking. No, I didn't die in some horrible freak-chariot-racing accident while at Latin Competition (yes that is seriously something we do there). I just got super busy. I've been working on this chapter since I got back and just finished it yesterday. That's how busy I am. And I will remain this busy until school gets out (for me, that's May 30) so expect few updates, if any, until summer. I know and I'm sorry. But trust me, it's worse for me.
Special thanks to Luiz4200 for suggesting Valerie make an appearance. I finally got around to putting her in it. Let me just say that this is NOT her first time talking to Danny since the Disasteroid and I mention that in there.
Invader Johnny also has brilliant ideas! Vlad's sister. Ooh, me likey! But we'll have to see. And he, along with peppymint suggested Dani. Another we'll see.
IJ actually suggested Dani living with Ember and I think that would be awesome. However, I don't think I can pull it off.
Thanks to all my other reviewers! Enjoy!
Danny's body hit the ground with a sickening thud. A huge dark blur of a ghost stood over him. A red smile flashed on the figure's huge head.
Maddie tried to scream, to call out to her son, but when she opened her mouth, no sound came out. She reached at her side and searched frantically for a weapon. Finding none, she looked up to see the dark ghost point one of her own ecto-weapons at her son's chest.
She was sobbing now. She could feel the tears running down her cheeks and choking her throat, yet still she couldn't hear her cries. As the ghost's smile got wider and his finger tightened around the trigger, Maddie felt a pain-filled scream shake her body. This time the sound of it exploded into her ears.
"Mom!"
Maddie opened her eyes to find Danny's worried eyes boring into hers. He had her shoulders in a firm grip, though that didn't stop her from shaking because of the cold sweat the dream had left her in.
"Danny?" she croaked. His name sounded strange to her ears, but saying it felt better.
"Mom, are you okay?" Danny said quietly. She couldn't read the emotions in the question as she was still finding her bearings. She was on the couch. The house was dark. She remembered coming downstairs since she couldn't sleep and putting the TV on. She must have dosed off.
After a few calming breaths, she was able to reach up and take Danny's hands off her shoulders while saying, "Yes, I'm fine."
"Mom, you were screaming in your sleep," Danny stated plainly. The emotion was all too obvious now. The worry was always obvious, but she could sense there was anger too. Not anger directed at her, but the kind of anger Danny seemed to show most often these days, the mad-at-myself-and-it's-all-my-fault kind. Maddie instantly understood what she had just done and cursed herself for being so weak. It may have been a dream, an uncontrollable and random firing of neurons or a vision from her subconscious, whichever you believe, but still it wouldn't have happened and she wouldn't have reacted so strongly to it if she could just come to terms with Danny's . . . strength? . . . responsibilities as a half-ghost? . . . tendency to get himself out of deadly situations with luck that she didn't trust he would always have? Oh who was she kidding? That wasn't going to happen.
"I'm sorry, Honey," she whispered, looking down at her hands twisting in her lap, "I just . . . it's a lot to process." They hadn't had a chance to talk since the meeting that morning, even after the ghosts left.
"I know, I know," Danny said getting up to pace in front of the couch, "It wasn't fair of me to suddenly dump all that on you."
"No," Maddie didn't whisper now. She firmly took Danny by the wrists and made him sit next to her on the couch. "Danny, I'm your mother. You can and should share these things with me. You shouldn't have to carry these kinds of burdens by yourself." Maddie saw the surprise in Danny's eyes at the strength of her voice and was spurred by it to keep going. She was determined to not add to his burdens by making him think she might crack under the anxiety of it all.
"It was just a dream. That's all," she made sure to keep eye contact that would help reassure him. It didn't work as well as she had hoped.
Danny sighed. "I always knew that if you found out about what I do, you'd worry," he said, not bothering to whisper any more either, "I thought by the time you found out I'd have come up with some way to help, but I haven't." He ran his fingers through his hair and looked down at the ground. With a more determined expression, he looked back up at her. "I mean, if there's anything you can think of . . ." he trailed off, somewhat unsure of where he had been going with that thought.
"I'll let you know," Maddie assured him, "but really I'm fine. It's just been a long day, well, more like a long week."
"I know what you mean," Danny nodded with a small smile.
"In fact, you should be in bed too," Maddie realized, "Why are you up?"
"Oh, I was on the phone with Valerie," Danny explained, "I called her to ask her to come over tomorrow, you know, both for Vlad's session and because she needs to know about what's going on with the Fright Knight and everything. We hadn't talked since the awkward conversation we had shortly after the whole Disasteroid thing so we had some catching up to do."
"Aw, well that's nice," Maddie smiled warmly, "but seriously we both need sleep."
"True," Danny said getting up, "Night Mom."
"Goodnight Danny," Maddie replied, also getting up. After a hug the two went upstairs to go to bed.
Vlad knocked on the door to Fenton Works, feeling somewhat nervous. This was the first time since his first day of "therapy" that Danny was not waiting for him on the front steps. He hadn't had to knock since that day and doing so now brought back the uneasiness that had been with him then. He took a deep breath to calm himself. This was no big deal. It didn't mean anything. They probably weren't going anywhere this time and that's why Danny didn't wait outside for him.
The door opened and Danny greeted Vlad with a polite "Hey" (so different from how he used to be welcomed, Vlad noted) and invited him inside. That's when Vlad saw her and realized that maybe he did have a reason for being nervous about today. She was sitting on the couch laughing at something Tucker, who was sitting beside her, had just said. Sam sat on the other side of her and noticed Vlad first. She gave him a weak, yet sympathetic, smile that seemed to show that she had been against the idea of surprising him. Next she shot Danny a look that seemed to confirm this. Vlad turned to Danny as well.
Danny didn't even wait for him to say anything. "You were gonna have to face her sometime," he offered as his only excuse.
"A little warning still would have been nice," Vlad shot back.
"What's wrong, Vlad," Valerie suddenly spoke up, "not happy to see me?"
Vlad turned to meet Valerie's penetrating eyes. He opened his mouth to respond and nothing came out. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Well . . . I'm just surprised and . . ." after a quick weighing of the options in his mind, he decided to play it straight, "well no, not happy. Why would I be? Out of all the people here you probably have the most reason to hate me."
Valerie smiled smugly. "True, but we're supposed to work things out. And don't worry; Danny didn't let me bring any weapons."
"Thanks for that," Vlad muttered to Danny as they walked into the living room to join everyone else. Danny sat down next to Sam, leaving Vlad to sit across from all of the teens in a chair by himself. Now he felt even more uneasy. The arrangement felt like one in a court room. There was no doubt that he was the one on trial here and the smirking, wise-cracking teenagers were both his jury and judge.
"So," Vlad started, hoping to ease some of the tension and convince himself that they were not doing what he thought they were doing, "I believe the best way to start would be with an apology."
"That probably would be best," Valerie said lightly.
Vlad opened his mouth.
"But I don't want to hear it," Valerie firmly stated before Vlad could get a word out. Now he was just confused. His face went blank as he tried to figure out what this meant. Valerie laughed at him.
"Look, before you hurt yourself trying to 'read me' or whatever it is manipulative jerks like you do in order to mess with people-"
Vlad opened his mouth again, this time to protest.
"I know, I know, ex-manipulative jerk, whatever," Valerie interrupted again, "but we need to lay our cards down on the table and just deal with them and my first card is I'm not ready to forgive you." Valerie kept her eyes locked on Vlad's and when she paused here he nodded solemnly.
Valerie continued, "You can't apologize to me using words. I'm gonna have to see the change in your actions. I mean, you put me through a lot. I trusted you and the whole time you were using me, making me do things that, if I'd known better, wouldn't want to be doing. You made me a bad guy too. I'm still trying to forgive myself."
She gave a nervous glance in Danny's direction and he gave her a reassuring smile. She turned back to a nodding Vlad. "I understand completely," he said.
"You do?" Valerie asked, sounding surprised.
"Yes," Vlad answered truthfully. There was something about his voice . . . something different about it that really got to Valerie. It lacked the confidence and arrogance it used to have when he addressed her, and yet it was still him. It was just so . . . genuine. It had Valerie beginning to let her guard down sooner than she had planned to. But she didn't want to let him see that.
"And you take full responsibility?" she questioned skeptically.
"Of course."
"You're not mad?" She sounded almost like she wanted him to be.
"No," Vlad responded, his candid tone still not faltering.
"Aw man," Valerie mumbled under her breath.
"What?" Vlad looked from her to Danny as if he was afraid he'd done something wrong.
"Nothing," Valerie was quick to reply. But it was obvious something was up. The other teens seemed to be holding back laughter.
"Yah nothing," Danny said in a tone that told the others to cut it out. But then he smiled mischievously. "Except she owes me a smoothie," he added and all the teens but Valerie let out their giggles.
"What, you bet on my reaction?" Vlad asked, not expecting to be right. But he got nods in return.
"Val thought you'd say something mean or get mad when she refused your apology, but I told her I knew you wouldn't," Danny explained, "She didn't believe me, talking about how she knew you better because of all the time you used to spend together before . . . you know."
"So he bet me and I took it," Valerie finished, "guess I won't make that mistake again."
"The not giving me a second chance part or the betting with Danny part?" Vlad wanted to know.
"Who said I'm giving you a second chance?" Valerie snapped.
Vlad looked startled.
"Gotcha," Valerie said with a sly smile.
Vlad gave her a sheepish yah-you-got-me look. The conversation took on a light tone from there. They mainly discussed Vlad, how he thought his rehabilitation was going and awkward things like that. While discussing Vlad's trial, the date of which had still not been announced, Maddie, followed by Jazz and Jack, came into the room to check on everybody and offer refreshments.
Everyone had just thanked Maddie for the lemonade when suddenly a blue wisp of smoke appeared on Danny's breath. At almost the exact same moment a shout came from somewhere above them in the house, "Danny!" Everyone who knew her well enough instantly recognized Ember's smooth, demanding voice.
"I'm downstairs!" Danny casually called back.
"Well you might wanna be upstairs!" came the smart reply. Danny rolled his eyes. These little cuz-we're-allies-and-we-want-to-know-your-every-move meetings were getting old. He was already getting up and opening his mouth to excuse himself when there was a strange noise that sounded like a huge wind hitting the house.
Danny's ghost sense went off again, stronger this time, and his eyes went wide. Without an explanation, he dashed to the stairs and changed so that he could fly the rest of the way to the roof.
"Should we-?" Tucker began to ask and even before he finished everyone was up out of their seats and running up the stairs and then to Jazz's room to get to the Op-Center.
On the roof, er top of the Op-Center, they found Danny (in ghost mode) flanked by Skulker and Ember. The three were staring up at the tornado of ghost skeletons that was swirling down on to the house.
A dark hooded figure appeared at the other end of the roof and began making its way toward them. The skeletons seemed to disappear, save for a few that landed on the roof and followed the hooded ghost as if they were his body guards.
Danny instantly recognized them as part of the skeleton army that occupied Amity Park when the Ghost King was in control of it. This was not a good sign. Everyone else (his family, friends, and Vlad) seemed to gradually realize this as well. Danny could hear them a few feet behind him, gasping and whispering to one another.
The hooded ghost got closer. Though his family, friends, and Vlad were keeping their distance (probably because of Skulker and Ember, Danny reasoned) he could feel them go rigid as the dark figure stopped to stand in front of him threateningly. It then unsheathed a sword from a hidden belt at its side and pointed it directly at Danny.
Out of the corner of his eye Vlad saw Maddie grip Jack's arm as the sword came out and was jabbed so that it hung in the air just a few inches from Danny's nose.
"You." The voice was full of disgust and hatred, but was somehow lacking in the creepy department. Not that any ghost could creep Danny out. Still, he had been expecting something more . . . menacing, you know, something that would send shivers down his spine, what with the whole hood-hiding-his-face thing. But this? There was something off about this. Maybe it's not his terrifying features that he's keeping hidden, but his identity. The thought floated through Danny's mind just as the mysterious, though ultimately not scary, hooded ghost spoke again.
"The Knight has a message for you."
"For me? How special," Danny replied coolly, surprising some of the people behind him, mainly his parents. Vlad furtively glanced at them and saw that Jack was holding Maddie's hand and allowing her to squeeze it really hard when she needed to, which was basically anytime someone moved.
The mystery ghost showed no reaction to Danny's light tone, but pointed his sword towards the edge of the Op-Center to Danny's left, motioning for him to go over to it. With an annoyed glare, Danny walked to the railing and looked down to the street in front of his house. Ember and Skulker followed him, but this didn't stop everyone else from coming to have a look as well. Danny smiled to himself, proud of his team for not letting their fear get the better of them. His smile vanished when he saw the eerie presence that had consumed his street.
Green eyes of the ghost skeleton army glowed up at him from where they stood tall and still in some kind of strange formation. Danny soon realized it wasn't just a pattern; it was a message:
THE KING WILL RISE.
Danny recovered sooner than anybody else. He turned back to the hooded ghost. "Cute," he said cuttingly, "You guys do halftime shows?"
The ghost showed no emotion in reply. Not that Danny could have seen anything with that stupid hood in his way.
"No? Well, you can tell the knight that I said not even in Pariah Dark's royal dreams!" Danny spat, putting sarcastic emphasis on the word "royal."
This got a reaction from the oh-so-mysterious one. "Fool!" he seethed, "The Knight and King each have more power in one finger than you will ever have in your entire body!"
"Alright, I've had enough of this," Danny replied, sounding angry, "If you're gonna insult me than at least do it to my face. Enough with the hood, take it off."
The ghost didn't move.
"I knew you sounded familiar," Danny said smugly. He sighed, "Come on, let's see which one of you is a traitor."
The hood came off in an instant.
"I am not a traitor!"
"Ooh! It's Sam's ex!" Tucker yelled, laughing before he was painfully elbowed in the side by his goth friend.
"I have always been loyal to the Fright Knight and Ghost King," Prince Aragon explained, "Who do you think granted me power over my kingdom?"
"You mean the kingdom we helped your sister take from you so that it could be ruled properly and not as some brain-washed, dark-ages wasteland?" Sam put in, taking a step forward so that she was next to Danny and so Ember and Skulker now stood on either side of them somewhat protectively.
"My sister," Aragon said disdainfully, directing the words at Danny as if Sam weren't even there, "will be put back in her proper place when the King is awakened and makes right what you made wrong. If only you could get your girl back in her proper place as well."
Danny was in front of Sam, blocking her dive for Aragon, before anyone else even figured out what the strange medieval ghost had meant.
"It's not worth it," he said calmly to her. Sam glared at him but put her hands, which had been in I'm-gonna-literally-rip-you-apart position, back at her sides.
"Listen," Danny said venomously, turning back to Aragon, "I don't care if you're the Knight's little pet dragon, I will face his wrath if you dare to insult her, or anyone here for that matter, again."
"Oh so you get a go at him but I don't?" Sam interjected from her position at Danny's side, "How is that equal treatment? And besides, aren't you forgetting that the only way we were able to beat him last time was with a dragon on our side? Which at the moment we don't have!"
"Okay first of all," Danny said gently, "you know I'm always happy to have you by my side in a fight when you're armed," he nodded at her wrist-ray-less wrist, which Sam then hid guiltily, "and secondly," he turned back to Aragon so that what he said next was directed more at him, "he can't touch me. That would be disobeying orders."
Aragon's jaw dropped. Danny laughed. "The Fright Knight told you just to scare me, didn't he? He wants me uninjured for the real fight."
Aragon didn't have to answer; his expression showed that Danny had guessed correctly.
"Man, I could tell you'd been demoted," Danny chuckled, looking Aragon, who was dressed more like a knight than a prince, up and down, "but to be taking orders from a knight, you must be really desperate."
"Foolish Half Ghost! You cannot get away with insulting me, Knight's orders or not!" Aragon yelled furiously and threw his hands up in the air in expectation of his form changing into that of a dragon. Sam, Skulker, and Ember even took steps back.
Nothing happened.
"That's what I was hoping you'd say," Danny smiled smugly.
Aragon looked at him blankly. Then his face practically turned purple with rage as a second Danny appeared next to the original, casually swinging the prince's amulet around his finger.
"Oh I'm sorry," the second Danny said cruelly, "you need this to change, don't you?"
"How dare you-" Aragon began to scream, but Danny cut him off as his two selves merged into one.
"Save it," he said, tossing Aragon the amulet and catching him off guard so that he almost dropped it. "Come back when you're ready for a real fight."
And with that he turned his back on the "prince" and began walking to the door that led back into the Op-Center. Once at the door, Danny turned to make sure his team was following him. They were. And Aragon and the skeletons had silently disappeared.
"Oh I could have taken him right then and there, Master, the little braggart tempted me so," Aragon whined to the Fright Knight in their lair hidden somewhere deep in the Ghost Zone.
"I know," the Fright Knight replied coolly to his pacing lackey, "but you must be patient. The King will take such pleasure in watching him fall. We cannot deprive him of that."
"Yes, how you are right," Aragon sighed.
"Now, you didn't forget your mission did you?" the Fright Knight asked with an edge that threatened extreme consequences if he had.
"Of course not, he was there, I saw him," Aragon replied hurriedly.
"He is definitely . . . good?" the Knight questioned.
"I'm not completely sure how changed of heart he is, Master," Aragon answered, "I know only that it is true that he cannot use his ghost half due to some sort of device on his arm and he does indeed stand on the side of the Phantom."
The Fright Knight thought this over. "This is good. He will be easy to take and bend to our will. And . . ." Here the Knight seemed to grin maliciously, "then the King and I can have our revenge on both of those arrogant Halfas!"
I know. It's sorta a cliffie. I'm sorry. I couldn't resist.
I might as well announce now that I think what I'm gonna do is write a collection of one-shots to come after this story since Dani and Vlad's sister probably won't get to be in this but I want to write about them. Plus I've got some other little Vlad-being-good mini-stories that can only happen after he's rehabilitated (as well as some deleted scenes from this story) that can go in there. So all that will come out after this is over which might not be till summer. Sorry. Again. But who knows, maybe I'll find time. And maybe Johnny Depp will knock on my door tomorrow and ask me to write for his next movie. Yah, uh huh, no.
