Greetings! How is everyone? Myself, school…ugh. So hard, and it's eating up my spare time. From now on, I'll try to update whenever I can, but bear with me. I never have a lot of time on my hands except for the weekends.
Now then, we have Chapter 14! I don't own Danny Phantom. (Sighs) How I wish I did.
Phantom Prophecy
Chapter Fourteen: Changing the Rules
Danny didn't know what to do at this point. He hadn't had a whole lot of time to prepare for the time when Dan and Pariah would arrive. Everyone watching the scene looked horrified, and he didn't know what he could do to set things straight.
For now, all he could do was watch as the mighty ghost king spoke.
"I will not let a child defeat me this time. I shall rule this place as I had ruled the Ghost Zone for thousands of years!"
Everyone quickly started murmuring in fear at the unfolding sight.
Danny was somewhat surprised to see that Dan was not saying anything. He was just floating next to Pariah Dark, with a smug grin on his face. He had a certain look in his eyes, as though his mind was caught up in something.
One thing was for sure. Danny knew that whatever his former future self was thinking of, it couldn't be good.
With everyone else still jabbering, Pariah thundered, "SILENCE!"
The people instantly became silent as Pariah then stated, "Henceforth, the damage to your pathetic town shall be minimal under only one condition: Bring forth my Crown of Fire!"
No one said a word. It was clear to nearly everyone in town that they didn't even know what the Crown of Fire was.
But Danny did. Vlad Plasmius had the Crown. He had seen Vlad with the crown after he had knocked it off the ghost king's head last time shortly before locking him in the Sarcophagus.
But why would he come here if Vlad has it? Danny wondered.
"So!" Pariah boomed, "Nobody will come forward! Very well, then. You all had your chance."
Danny suddenly began to think of something else. He took another look at Dark Danny, and thought back to when the future Vlad had told him how after he had come alive, his castle had been destroyed.
If he came here, Danny thought, then he must have told the ghost king to do so in order to find the crown. But why? No one here has it. Wait…he might have done something before leaving Plasmius' castle. So that means…
And once Danny was able to put two and two together, his eyes went wide as he said, "Uh-oh."
Sam turned to him and said, "What? What is it?"
Danny explained, "That jerk didn't come here to lead the king to the crown. He came here to destroy me."
Jazz then asked him, "Then where is the crown?"
Pariah Dark turned to Dan and said, "You, I command you to call out my troops. They are to show no mercy!"
Dan's smile was now gone as he turned to the ghost king. His smile then came back as he said, "Yeah, about that…"
On the ground, Danny and friends gasped as they saw something flying out of the sky. As it got closer and closer to them, they realized that it was a duplicate of Dan!
The clone shot at Pariah with lightning speed, and before the ghost king could even blink, it grabbed hold of the Ring of Rage on Pariah's right hand, and pulled it off!
As Dan formed back into one, he sneered coldly, "They're now my troops."
Pariah looked furious as Dan placed the ring on his right hand. He then shouted, "You have made a very foolish choice, minion! And very useless as well, for you don't know where the Crown of Fire is."
But Phantom continued to smile as he made his left arm intangible. He then phased it inside his chest, moving his hand around inside for a few seconds before pulling an object out.
The object was a spiky red and yellow object the size of a football. It was the Crown of Fire.
"You!" Pariah shouted, "You had the Crown of Fire! I demand to know where you obtained it this instant!"
Dan held the crown in his hands as he responded blandly, "Well, I would tell you, but I'm afraid it's none of your business, your majesty."
And before Pariah or anyone else could stop him, he placed the crown on top of his head. He then began to glow with a bright green light. Lightning flashed across the skies as Dan starting groaning in pain.
Danny's eyes were wide with shock as what he had feared would happen was happening before his very eyes.
After a few moments, the groaning stopped, and Dark Danny floated there with a malicious smile on his face, looking, if that was even possible, more dangerous and more deadly than Danny had ever seen before.
But Danny did not seem to be of Dan's concern for the moment as he turned back to Pariah, saying, "Rule number one, Pariah: Nobody tells me what to do."
Pariah now looked positively enraged at having his power taken away like this. He then bellowed, "Whether you possess my crown and my ring or not, you are still nothing compared to me!"
Dan looked perfectly calm as he responded, "Then let's see who's right."
Without hesitation, Pariah charged at the former Danny Phantom through the air, firing a huge red blast with both hands.
Without even flinching, however, Dan thrusted his arms out, and a tall purple shield appeared in the way of the blast. The blast hit the shield and bounced away immediately.
Pariah swung his arms around in an attempt to grab Dan, but he quickly duplicated into four, and they split apart, attacking the larger ghost on different points of his body. One fired purple beams from its eyes at Pariah's head, another sent multiple purple balls of energy at his torso, the third formed long red whips with both hands and smacked him repeatedly in the back, and the last fired purple ghost rays at his legs.
In pain but not to be outdone, the uncrowned king sent out a blast of aural energy, knocking the four Dan replicas away.
He then formed a long band of red ectoplasmic energy and swung it around in an attempt to mow all four of them out of the air, but they all moved fast and dodged it.
"Come on," the duplicates said in perfect unison, "Even without your toys, I expected a little bit of a challenge."
Pariah growled furiously at being mocked as he shouted, "Minions! Attack the rebel!"
On the ground, the ghostly skeleton simply stood stationary and did not respond.
"Minions!" Pariah yelled again, "Your lord orders you! Attack the rebel!"
Still the skeletons did not move, while Dan cackled malevolently, "You don't get it, do you? You're not the big cheese anymore. I am. I have your little playthings, so I tell them what they can and can't do.
"For instance…get him."
In an instant, the skeletons started jumping up towards Pariah and began swinging their swords at him. Several hit their mark, but Pariah was able to strike the remaining ones with his fists and feet, knocking them down.
But while this happened, all four Dan duplicates fired powerful red ghost rays at him at once. They all hit him right in the chest and he was winded.
Dan then grinned as he formed back into one, saying, "If it took ten years for me to bring the world to its knees before, then it should only take about ten minutes for me to do it this time."
"Wow," Tucker said as he watched, "I forgot how bad that guy was."
Pariah growled as he shot up higher into the air. Then he threw out his arms and sent out red waves of ectoplasmic energy that shot in all directions. Some of it hit the ground and destroyed a few buildings, while the rest of it was able to hit Dan, knocking him to the ground at the base of a tree.
Dan rubbed his cheek and said coldly, "Oooh. I think I may have felt that one."
Pariah then charged towards Dan and fired another large red blast at him. Dark Danny quickly rolled over and the blast missed, instead hitting a tree and obliterating it in one shot.
Dan then swung his fists up and slammed them into the ground. The entire ground began to rumble and shake violently as though it were an earthquake. The people on the ground were shaken as they struggled to stay up. Many eventually fell down to the ground.
As for Pariah, he was on the ground right now, and was being shaken quite a bit as well.
Just then, huge cracks appeared in the ground, running across in separate directions. Several of them would eventually meet, causing huge holes in the ground and collapsing several objects like mailboxes and trees.
Pariah had been forced to fall down on his back due to the shaking.
When it finally stopped, Tucker then spoke, "So that's what an earthquake feels like."
Sam glared at him and then smacked him in the back of the head.
Dan, who hadn't been affected by the shaking since he had flown up into the air after generating it, then said, "You should know the rules, Pariah. If I may quote the Wisconsin Dairy King, 'Kings don't fight. They send other people to fight for 'em.' Royalty 101 and all that jazz. But you have no one to fight for you."
Pariah boomed as he shot up, "You shall be the one that shall reside in the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep from now on, fool!"
He then fired a pair of powerful red beams from his eyes straight at Dan, but Dan easily dodged the attack and flew towards him.
Pariah quickly projected a huge round shield and protected himself with it, leaving Dan to simply hit it.
But Phantom looked unfazed as he started to glow with a dangerous red light while he grabbed the shield with his hands. After a few seconds, the shield began to glow red as well. Pariah now appeared to be straining to keep his shield up while Dan smiled sinisterly.
After a few more seconds, Pariah let out a loud scream as his shield broke apart, leaving himself to fall to his knees.
Dan then said simply to him, "Just be glad that it's not you I want."
He then turned to fly away, but Pariah quickly reached out and grabbed hold of him, throwing him down to the ground hard.
He then shouted, "Tough! You cross me, and you shall pay the worst consequences imaginable!"
Dark Danny just rolled his eyes and said, "Oh, enough of this garbage."
He then opened his mouth and let loose his ghostly wail. It was normally powerful enough, but with the added energy from the Crown of Fire and the Ring of Rage, it showed devastating strength as Pariah was blown away and the waves of energy kept spreading out all over the city.
Buildings were crumbling under the power, debris was getting thrown everywhere, and the people on the street, which included Danny, Sam, Tucker, Jazz, and Valerie, were sent flying backwards.
Pariah was hurled along the ground before crashing headlong into a brick building. He moaned a bit and did not get up.
Dan stopped the wail, looked around at the wreck, and smiled. He then flew up and spoke loud enough for all to hear.
"Well, looks like this town will be under new management."
Danny sat up and watched with his jaw dropped. Pariah had been defeated, and now Dan had all the power he had. He looked around and saw Sam, Tucker, and Jazz with frantic looks on their faces. Valerie was nowhere in sight.
Dan went on, "I am also here for one main purpose. And if I have to destroy everyone in this pitiful town to get it…" His voice shrunk to an icy whisper as he finished, "You'd better start running."
Someone on the ground yelled up to him, "Will you leave as soon as you get what you want?"
Dark Danny looked away and scratched his chin, saying, "Well, a most noble person would do just that. However…I am not a person, nor am I noble."
The people gasped as they knew what he meant. Either way, he would surely destroy them all.
"That being said," Dan said with a smirk, "I have only one question."
He powered a purple ghost ray in his hand as he spoke with venom in his voice.
"Who's first?"
And that's where it ends! Pariah has been overthrown, and now the evil older Danny is ready to take over! And I'm sure you all know what he's mainly after. Anyway, how can Danny and co. handle the danger ahead?
I have another sneak peek for you all, from Chapter 15! Check it out!
Sneak Peek: (Chapter 15)
Danny was thrown backward by the skeletons and he banged his head into a light post. His vision was impaired for a few moments as he was now seeing double.
He fired a ghost ray, but it missed badly and his arm was slashed by one of the skeletons' swords. He yelled out in pain.
They moved to attack again, but another ghost ray struck them from above. Danny looked up and spotted Danielle flying down towards him. Several more skeletons went for Danny's knees with their swords, but Dani quickly grabbed him by the hands and got him out of there.
"Thanks for the lift," Danny praised, "Since when did you learn to duplicate?"
Dani sighed and responded, "I didn't. You hit your head really hard."
Danny looked away as more skeletons jumped toward them. Wulf quickly jumped off a tree branch and struck them with his claws. But some jumped on top of Wulf and tackled him to the ground.
Tucker and Jazz were blasting more skeletons with their weapons, but there were too many for just the two of them to handle. Sam offered to help, but with her bad knee, they told her that would be inadvisable.
Danny and Dani were caught off-guard as one skeleton struck Dani in the hand with its sword. Danielle cried out at being hit and accidentally let go of Danny. He dropped to the ground.
While his female clone engaged in combat in the air, Danny braced for impact as five skeletons larger than him moved in.
But just then, a large tree glowing a light blue whizzed by, crushing the skeletons to pieces.
Danny turned to where the tree had come from and his eyes went wide.
Chapter 15 is on the way!