Chapter 14: Resolution
Uploaded: 5/27/14
Through the open door of the GAV, Danny could now hear the growing sounds of a fight. Ghosts howled, the Guys in White shouted, and people screamed until Danny felt his gut clench with guilt. He'd wasted too much time – he needed to be out there helping!
Danny gripped the edge of the cot. "What's happening?" he asked Tucker sharply.
Tucker opened his mouth to answer, but Maddie moved between the boys. "Oh, no. You're not going anywhere," she said to her son. "Absolutely no more fighting for you today."
"Mom—!"
"She's right, Danny," Jazz cut in. "You're wiped. A minute ago, you couldn't even move!"
With a huff, Danny got to his feet. He swayed a bit, but regained his composure before either his friends or family could help him. "Look, see? I'm fine," he said. At their skeptic glances, he rolled his eyes and added, "Honestly, I feel a lot better!" Briefly, Danny realized he really shouldn't be feeling as well as he did simply by changing forms, but he wasn't about to mention that out loud. The last thing he needed to do was give his parents another reason to keep him. There was also no telling how well they were really taking his so-called secret. He still needed to be careful. No need to over-exagerate anything.
Maddie pursed her lips and tilted her head as she visually scanned her son. He did look notably better. Color had returned to his face and his breathing was no longer labored. "But...how?" she stammered. "How is that possible?"
Jack, who had gotten up when Danny did, squinted confusedly at Danny's feet. "You're leg…" he trailed.
Danny followed his gaze. "What?" he asked, shifting uncomfortably under Jack's stare.
Maddie's eyes widened, catching on as well. "You're putting weight on it! Danny, your leg was –" she stopped as she fully realized that Phantom's leg had been torn almost to the bone (now that she knew he had bones) was, in fact, also her son's leg. "How is that not incredibly painful?" she choked.
Danny shifted his weight back to his good leg. Truthfully, he'd forgotten about the wolf bite. He felt a stinging pain from the wound only now that his parents mentioned it, but he liked to imagine it was waning. The bleeding had stopped for the most part.
Sam sighed when Danny couldn't bring himself to answer. "We've stopped asking a long time ago, Mrs. Fenton," she said. "It's really best to just go with it."
Tucker squirmed. "I seriously hate to interrupt, but I really do need some backup out here."
Forgetting his parents, Danny perked into action. "Coming, Tucker!" he said as he moved around his mother.
"Danny, I really don't think you're ready to go out there," Jazz stressed.
Tucker shook his head. "He can't stay here."
"Thank you!" Danny said, exasperated. Someone knew he had to help. As Danny moved toward the door, he automatically delved deep inside himself for his ghost half – just as he had a million times before – but the moment his rings burst to life, all the pain he'd felt minutes ago came rushing back, pinching every nerve in his body. Danny's knees buckled and he collapsed to the floor, clutching his chest. The ring around his waist fizzled out before it could even part into two.
"Danny!" Sam gasped, dashing to his side. Maddie, Jack and Jazz shadowed her movements, but allowed the teen to help him up alone. Tucker stepped inside and shut the door behind him for privacy.
"What's wrong?" Jazz asked carefully.
Danny grimaced. "I-I can't feel my ghost half," he stammered.
Sam paused. "You don't mean…" she trailed.
Danny took a steady breath and straightened himself while bringing up a hand. "No, I think…," he trailed off, concentrating. A green glow grew slowly into a ball of ectoplasm in his palm. It was weak, but definitely there. "I still have some energy left, just not enough to change." He cut off the energy flow, starving the light out like capped candle flame.
It made sense that if Danny were low on energy, he wouldn't be able to change back. What he didn't understand was why he was so drastically low on energy to begin with…and why it hurt.
Something was definitely wrong.
Still, Danny wasn't about to say that out loud. "I have to go," he said, pivoting on the spot for the cabinet full of ghost weapons. Unlike Tucker, Danny grabbed an ordinary handheld blaster. The larger ones made him queasy.
Prepared, Danny faced Tucker at the door, but his friend held out his palms, stopping him.
"Tucker, what are you doing? You said we have to go," Danny urged, confused.
"I said you can't stay here!"
"Right, I –"
"No," Tucker groaned. "I mean not here or anywhere near here!"
Jack tilted his head. "What do you mean?"
"The Guys in White," Tucker stated as if that was all that needed to be said – and in many cases that would be true. When he didn't get a response, he rolled his eyes and clarified anyway. "Those idiots are pushing the ghosts back in the wrong direction: toward the school. While I was trying to stop them, I overheard one of them order the others to release some kind of anti-ghost gas."
"What!" Sam and Jazz exclaimed together.
"Danny-boy, didn't you say that stuff would…hurt you?" Jack asked slowly, trying to avoid the word 'kill.'
Danny's muscles slackened. He almost allowed the blaster in his hand to fall to the floor, but he tightened his fist at the last moment.
"Jack, with me," Maddie said suddenly as she opened the door the GAV with one hand and pulled her own blaster from her hip with the other.
"Where are we going?" the husband asked even as he moved to follow.
"We're going to have a talk with the government," she said sharply. When her feet touched the grass, she yelled over her shoulder, "Get as far from here as you can, sweetie!"
"What your mother said!" Jack echoed enthusiastically, despite the situation. He punched his right fist into the palm of his left hand with a grin. "We'll take care of this!"
Danny simply watched his parents leave, unable to respond before he lost his chance and the door swung shut behind them. He couldn't move. Suddenly his head felt light and dizzy. His skin turned clammy and cold. Danny realized with an unfamiliar sort of chill that in his powerlessness…he was afraid. He was afraid the GIW would inadvertently kill him before he could save everyone – humans and ghosts – and that he didn't have the power to stop either event from happening. Sure, he'd been without powers in the past, but never without knowing they'd eventually return. Without that half of him to back him up...
Danny forcibly shook himself. Power or no, he couldn't run without trying. He tightened his grip on the blaster in his hand, fingering the trigger reassuringly. He wasn't completely defenseless. He'd save everyone or go down fighting.
"What are you doing?" Sam asked quietly when Danny opened the door.
Danny's resolve diminished slightly at her fearful tone. He had to fight to raise it again. "I have to help," he said, almost pleading.
"You don't have to do anything," Jazz said. "We'll figure this out. Please, just—,"
Danny shook his head defiantly. "Help Mom and Dad," he interrupted. "I'll stop the ghosts, you stop the Guys in White."
"You don't have any power!" Tucker argued.
"I've got enough left. Besides," he said as he waved his Fenton Blaster with an encouraging smile, "that doesn't stop me from being a good shot," and before his friends could argue further, he bolted out the door.
Immediately, Danny could see what Tucker was talking about. Green smoke and ectoplasmic blasts – fired from humans and ghosts alike – flashed across over the field underneath an even drearier coverage of clouds. The GIW lined his side of the field in a manner that reminded Danny of a football team whose colors were white and brighter white. In a far less organized manor, ghosts of all sizes – fewer than earlier, but not by many – were being driven toward the opposite goal post. However, the majority of the fight was still centered on the fifty yard line, and the bleachers themselves were the only protection the students and faculty had from battle.
Danny ran. The wrappings around his chest and shoulders threatened to loosen, stretching and irritating his wounds. He had to force himself to keep a steady stride even as pain shot through him like lightning with every strike of his torn leg against the ground.
Swinging wide of the ghost-on-ghost fight in the middle of the field – and even wider of the Guys in White – Danny found himself in front the metal bleachers under which many of the students and teachers of Casper High still cowered. In retrospect, it was a good hiding place given the circumstances. Even though the ghost shield had never been erected, the metal seats shielded against most of the flying debris while still enabling the humans' innately morbid curiosity to observe the carnage through the slats.
Unfortunately, those slats weren't the one-way mirror they undoubtedly hoped they were. A figure in all white began to shift away from the main group, having spotted movement under the seats. Danny stalked closer with his gun raised, realizing with a dry swallow that this wasn't a government agent. It was Walker.
"Please, please don't do something stupid," he begged under his breath. Danny noted his feet were planted firmly on the ground and his stance wavered slightly, not unlike Technus' did back at school before he... melted.
As if hearing him, Walker suddenly grinned and reached a hand between two benches. Without a conflicting thought, Danny fired.
Green ecto-energy scorched Walker harshly on the side of his face. The force knocked him sideways, sending his signature black fedora flying.
Danny smiled, proud of his shot. "Oh, I didn't know you were bald under there." He stepped closer, protectively sliding himself into place between ghost and humans. "Oops," he shrugged.
The ghost growled, snatching his hat up off the ground. "That's against the rules, gho—"
"Ah!" Danny chided before Walker could spill his secret. He pressed lightly on the trigger of his gun, causing it to charge with a threatening whine. "Plenty more where that come from."
The ghost smiled sadistically as he patted his hat free of imaginary dust and placed it back on his head. "Not as much as you're used to, I'm sure," he quipped darkly, his smile growing.
"Fenton?"
For the second time Danny nearly dropped his gun, but managed to keep it fixed on Walker as he turned to give a sideways glance behind him.
"Who—" Danny started. His surprise quickly turned to annoyance. "Are you kidding me?" Crouched and pressed closely against the inside corners of the metal railings were none other the Dash and Kwan. They were wedged tightly against dozens of other people, which gave Danny no wonder why Walker targeted the condensed group. Still: them? Again? "Can't you two stay out of trouble for, like, two minutes?"
Dash bristled. "Like you would know, Fenton! Where have you been? Hiding under your mom's skirt?"
Before Danny could retort, Kwan took notice of his condition. "Whoa, what happened your leg?" From his low vantage point, the teen had a clear view of Danny's pant leg, which had begun to soak blood through loosened wrappings. The same leg the ghost wolf had sunken his teeth into when Phantom rescued the two earlier.
Phantom, not Fenton.
Maybe he shouldn't have made that last quip after all.
"Hmm, yes, that does look bad," Walker said mockingly.
Danny whipped forward again. Quickly repositioning his gun created a sharp pull on more wounds, causing him to wince briefly.
"And those shoulders... they don't look too well, either," Walker drawled, even though his tee and Sam's dressings covered the area well. "What happened?"
A growl slipped from Danny's throat. "I'm warning you: back off."
The ghost only chuckled, taking another step forward in his confidence. "But your chest," he continued, greedily feeding off the boy's anger. "I bet that bullet really did a number. Is that why you can't—?"
A blast left Danny's gun in a rush. Walker readily threw up a shield. His smile, tinted green and demonic through the energy, only infuriated Danny more. Mercilessly, he held down the trigger. Shots pelted all areas of the shield as Danny used the gun to search for a weak spot. Finally and without warning, the firing stopped.
"Crap," Danny whispered, tapping furiously at the trigger. Nothing happened; the gun had run out of power.
Walker lowered his shield, appearing dazed. He took a weak step back to catch his balance. "You should have brought a larger weapon," he sneered. A hand rose, accumulating green energy. "My turn."
Pain exploded in the center of Danny's chest. Bleachers dented as his body slammed against them. The blast knocked the wind out of him and singed the dressings Sam had applied to his chest. He inhaled shakily, squinting his eyes as he stomped down the rising pain in his shoulder blades and lower back that caught the full force of two of the bench edges.
Screams erupted behind him. "Fenton!"
Before he could open his eyes, a force suddenly gripped Danny's neck and pulled. The world disappeared beneath him as his airflow restricted. He kicked out his legs and gripped at the thing around his neck in a attempt to hoist himself up for air. It didn't him hanging for long. The force squeezed tighter just before tossing him sideways.
Danny fell in a crumpled heap on the grass. He rolled, coughing, as he tried to sit himself upright. More cries echoed beneath the bleachers.
"You are pathetic like this, even in my weakened state," Walker said, dusting his hands before alighting one with more energy aimed at Danny.
"Fenton, move!"
Leaning heavily on his hands, Danny looked up and simply stared at the loaded blast. He could jump out of the way, but what good would that do? Given Walker's angle, the blast could fly directly into the bleachers behind him. Danny closed his eyes. He had to take the shot.
Seconds passed and the blast never came. Danny opened his eyes as Walker began to chuckle.
"Always the clever hero," he said, dismissing the energy. "No powers, no weapons and so you use yourself as a shield. Very brave."
Danny could hear whispers behind him, making him wince. This wasn't the kind of attention he wanted on his human half. Fenton was no hero. He was the wimpy kid that got beaten up most days – the pathetic chicken that ran from ghost fights. After the incident just yesterday with Technus – and now Walker talking nonsense about heroism and powers – he dreaded to imagine what his peers were thinking.
"You still owe me a thousand years," Walker reminded him as if he and the ghost boy were the only beings within earshot.
'Well, this isn't helping,' Danny thought lousily.
"And with my home destroyed," the ghost continued, "I don't exactly have a prison to put you in, do I?" Walker raised a glowing hand at Danny once more. "I should kill you, instead – and it would be easy…but I don't think that's enough punishment for a hero." He spit the last word out as if it disgusted him. Danny watched in horror as Walker's arm rotated toward the section of bleachers nearest to him. "Maybe this is more fitting," he finished.
"Don't!" Danny screamed, jumping unsteadily to his feet. Students began to whimper and panic as they tried to move away from the ghost, but those in the back didn't or couldn't move, trapping those in the front. Danny put up his hands in a placating gesture. "Walker, no! Leave them alone – they have nothing to do with this!"
"That's what makes it the perfect punishment for you!" Walker retorted. "Innocent people will die for your crimes and you will live with that guilt for the rest of your existence!" He laughed with more than just a hint of delusion. "You will create your own prison."
"What the hell did you do, Fenton?" Dash yelled.
"I—," Danny steeled away his response. Focus on the problem. "The Ghost Zone isn't destroyed, Walker! The Guys in White are pumping in a chemical that eats ectoplasm. If I can find the source, I can stop it and the Zone will eventually return to normal. I'm trying to help!"
"Eventually? You don't know what you're saying, punk!"
Danny bit his lip. He knew his parents could find a cure. In the meantime, he thought about the purified ectoplasm reservoirs Clockwork had showed him. The spirit had said the source of the Ghost Zone's energy was a closely guarded secret because evil ghosts could use it to gain virtually limitless power. So, Walker and every other ghost likely didn't know the Ghost Zone could heal itself over time. And he couldn't tell them.
"You're right," Danny said carefully. "I don't know as much about the Ghost Zone as you do; I don't live there. But, please…just don't hurt them."
Walker lifted his chin, considering the proposal. To Danny's relief, the energy in his hand began to dissipate. "I believe that you will fix our home," he said solemnly. He paused, still thinking. "However, you still owe me those years…and I may never have a chance to catch you as powerless as you are." The hand lit up again with energy brighter than before. People screamed, still squirming to move out of the way.
"No!" Danny yelled. Only fifteen feet away and he was still too far. He wouldn't be able to get there in time!
The blast fired.
Danny did the only thing he could. He launched himself from the ground, covering half the distance in less than a second and then threw up a hand. Power surged through him. In milliseconds, green energy sparked in his eyes as a shield sprung from his outstretched arm. It stretched down the length of bleachers, reaching Walker just in time to deflect the blast.
The silence following was deafening. The fight still occurring in the main part of the field became distanced - as if Danny, Walker and the stunned student body had been isolated in glass.
Danny dropped to a knee, falling in sync with his shield and breathing heavily. Black hair hung low over his face, disguising his luminescent eyes as he stared at the ground in attempt to focus solely on his body. It felt as though that little bit of energy had come straight from his life source. He easily felt how little he had left.
And it still wasn't regenerating.
Shock flashed briefly across Walker's face before morphing into amusement. "Stubborn as usual," he said, walking toward Danny still kneeling on the ground. "Always a trick up your sleeve." Walker stopped mere feet from his target. "So," he chuckled lightly, "has the ghost child finally decided to join us?"
"Danny…?" a whisper asked from the crowd of silent shadows. "Are…Are you okay?"
As Danny raised his head to see Walker's scuffed, pointy shoes, the ghost boy's own fear morphed seamlessly into that of anger. "You really shouldn't have done that," he seethed. His fists clenched. The one on his raised knee gripped his jeans while the other – hidden from his peers behind his legs – grasped at blades of grass. There was no point in hiding now. He'd done what he needed to. He couldn't regret it forever.
"Fenton," someone called. It wasn't a question. Forcing his eyes blue again, he looked to the side. Between two bleacher seats, Kwan's hand had reached out to offer him an ecto-gun. Acutally, it was the same one he'd just used. He must have dropped it when Walker had blasted him, and Kwan had squeezed down the row to offer it back to him. He reached out to take it.
"Get him," Kwan encouraged, relinquishing the weapon.
Danny tried to smile as he accepted it shakily.
Walker chose that moment to take one step too close. Danny was ready. He was through playing it safe. Keeping his secret close to his chest was going to get people killed. He'd had enough. His fist on the ground alighted with energy and swung up, delivering an ectoblast beneath Walker's jaw. The ghost stumbled back from the force of the blow. People gasped, unable to see exactly where the blast had come from, but Danny ignored them. He used the opportunity to pick himself back up.
"Why, you punk!" Walker screeched, lightly touching his throbbing jaw line. "It's another thousand years for that!"
"I thought you couldn't hold me, Walker. I'm too clever, remember?" Danny quipped.
The ghost growled and prepared another ectoblast, but Danny was ready for the one, too. He quickly tossed the empty ecto-gun at Walker's head and immediately following it up with another ectoblast of his own. The blast struck the weapon in midair, creating an explosion in Walker's face that delivered a punch much more powerful than Danny had the current power to produce alone. Bits of red-hot metal flew in all directions, clinking as they fell against the bleachers and smoldering where they met grass.
Walker screamed behind the blast of fire and smoke. When the air cleared, he was on the ground. Green ectoplasm dripped from his mouth, nose and fresh scratches in his cheeks. His lips pulled tight with anger.
Danny's knees shook, then gave out underneath him. Heaving large gulps of air, he stumbled to the ground again, the two consecutive blasts having left him winded.
Meanwhile, Walker regained his composure.
"Fenton, watch it!"
He looked up just in time to see a blast sail towards him. Danny fell back on one arm and swung the other out in front to form a shield.
But the energy never came.
The blast slammed into Danny with all its force. His body flung diagonally into the bleachers, twisting and sliding until the back of his head landed hard on a corner. Black filled his vision and clinking sounds rang in his eardrums.
"Enough!" Walker screamed, stalking up to the boy. Both hands engulfed themselves in green flame. "Any last words, punk?" he questioned, his face contorted in a mad craze.
Danny blinked. Color, then shapes, slowly returned to him. His head lolled to the side. "Dragon," he mumbled almost drunkenly.
"What?"
Suddenly, the upper half of Walker's form disappeared inside Dora's serrated jaws, making reality of a scene straight out of Jurassic Park, except the glowing reptile didn't eat him. Her head snapped back, lifted the jailer from the ground and promptly flung him over her shoulder and out of site among the main fight.
Chest puffing up proudly, Dora brought her head back around with a shiver of her wings. She slid her tongue over her teeth, then blew a short spark of fire as if to cleanse herself of Walker's awful taste before lowering her large head down to Danny's level.
The bleachers shook beneath him as people continued to panic and struggle to move out of the dragon's projected path. Danny slid down, landing hard on the seat below him and jarring his head. A hand quickly flew up to grip it before he saw stars again. To the spectator's astonishment, the dragon blew a puff of air into the boy's hair as she sniffed him.
Startled, Danny ruffled his hair back and look up at the dragon. "I owe you big time, Dora," he said. "Again," Danny added with a single chuckle. "But I'm okay, thanks."
The dragon's lips pulled back in a wide, toothless smile even as a scaled brow above one of her bright, reptilian eyes rose and her head tilted - all to display an expression of disbelief. Danny had to give Dora credit for her ability to communicate without powering down to her human form.
Just then, the bleachers began to shake more violently as bangs sent vibrations down the length of the bench. Danny flinched, gripping the seat and turning reflexively to find the source. Dora's head swung to the side as well.
"W-What are you doing!" Danny gaped. Even though most of the saner students had finally managed to disperse, Dash and Kwan were in the process of squeezing themselves through the bleacher's metal slats several feet down the row. "Get back in there; it's not safe!" he continued, feeling stupid for stating the obvious.
Nearly tripping as he freed his shoelaces from the mangled metal, Dash scoffed at the warning. "That's rich coming from you right now, Fenton."
Annoyed by the comment, Dora allowed a low growl to escape through her teeth, forcing the approaching boys to check themselves.
Kwan stopped short, nearly hidden behind Dash. "Isn't..isn't that the dragon that wrecked the place Freshman year?" he asked Danny without taking his eyes off the winged ghost.
Dora and Danny shared a look as the ghost boy shifted uncomfortably. "Um...yes and no," he said cryptically, thinking of the time Paulina and Sam had turned into similar ghost dragons using Dora's amulet. "But she's cool now!" Danny finished, not ftwanting to freak the boys out. The dragon herself huffed with a billow of smoke.
"You're cool... with a dragon?" Dash asked skeptically, but not without a hint of admiration that Danny found to be a bit odd coming from the bully.
The ghost bent her neck in order to come closer to Danny's level, causing him to panic at the association. "Ah - no!" he squirmed, jumping from his seat. Almost immediately, Danny regretted it. His breath caught painfully in his chest, reminding him just how weak he was. Legs buckled and he once more found his knees digging into dirt. Throwing his hands out in front of him with locked elbows, he caught himself on all fours before his face found soil as well.
"Fenton!"
"Hey, man! Take it easy!"
Dora offered a paw for support, enabling Danny to sit back up, then shift to lean against the bottom bleacher bench. "Ah, thanks," he said, hissing as the action stretched his burns. Moving to sit back up again, Danny noticed the boys had walked around to his front - incredibly, closer to the dragon. He opened his mouth to comment but the words halted in his throat. Something in Kwan's grip caught his attention.
"What is that?" Danny asked, nodding toward the jock's loose fist.
Kwan paused, then followed Danny's gesture. "Oh," he said, opening his palm slowly as if he'd forgotten it was even closed. "I found these on the ground where I found your gun." Careful not to allow them to roll off his palm, he lowered his hand to give Danny a clear view. Sure enough, Kwan held not one, but two glass vials of glowing, green liquid.
Frantically, Danny thrust his hands into his pockets, twisting his legs out with more hisses of pain in order to delve deep into the denim fabric. From his left pant leg, he managed to procure a single, matching green vile. Danny met it with dread. "Only one." He scanned Kwan's hand again. "Yours make three." Panic began to rise in him. The hand not holding the vial slowly covered his eye and slid down his face. "I had six," he groaned with disbelief. Frantically, Danny began looking around him, patting the grass in case the green ectoplasm acted as a camouflage. "Do you guys see them?"
The boys moved to either side of him, ducking and bobbing as they wordlessly aided Danny in searching for the missing vials beneath the bleachers.
"Got 'em!" Dash announced, squeezing between two seats on Danny's left as he reached.
"All three?"
The jock pulled himself free slowly, careful not to bump his head on the metal, then slid the three vials into Danny's awaiting hands. Kwan did the same with his.
"But, seriously, Fenton - What are they?" Dash asked, looking at the vials suspiciously.
"Kinda looks like ghost stuff," Kwan thought aloud. His eyes lit. "Oh! Is that how you made that shield?"
Though a part of him probably chose to ignore the difficult questions, Danny was hardly listening. Instead, his mind reeled as he rolled the vials around in his hands. How could he have forgotten about why he'd opened the portal in the first place?
Earlier in his parent's lab, he had stuffed six glass vials in his pockets before he'd leapt into the Ghost Zone, despite his parents' opposition. He remembered how the atmosphere had felt so stale and thin - much worse than just the alien cold he'd grown used to. It was suffocating, like trying to take a breath of air 6,000 feet above sea level without a chance to acclimate.
He'd soon found his way to the "spring" of purified ectoplasm and filled each vial to the brim, corking them securely. Just being near the hidden oasis had filled him with power and confidence, as it always did. He'd been on his way back when he noticed more ghosts than he'd seen on the way in...and all were heading in the same direction he was. That was when Frostbite and his warriors had somehow managed to find him in the swarm.
"And how you up blew your gun in that ghost's face?" Dash continued, bringing Danny out of his thoughts. The jock mimicked his friend's rising excitement. "That was so awesome!"
"Yeah! I got your gun back to you because I thought you needed it. Totally wasn't expecting that!"
Wait.
"That's it," Danny whispered. He looked down at his hands. They themselves seem to glow from the liquid trapped inside the six vials, each throbbing with the ethereal power he knew they held and leaving little left for the imagination. The answer to his pain and powerlessness - the ability to end the fighting lie in his hands (and, previously, in his pockets) the entire time!
Just one vial he could use. He'd save the rest for his parents to use for creating an antidote to speed up the ghosts' recovery, of course...but just one vial wouldn't be missed. He could end the fighting with his own power, on his own terms.
"Dora!" Danny called suddenly, authority in his voice. The dragon swung her neck and snorted, causing the boys to jump. "Can you bring Frostbite here?"
She nodded sharply then turned, taking care not to whack anyone with her tail or wings, but her head came back around to Danny. She frowned, concerned.
"I'll be fine," Danny assured her. "Just hurry; I've got an idea!"
At the prospect of a plan, Dora brightened as her scales shifted with excitement. With a defiant nod swung her head away and took to the air.
With the ghost gone and initial shock disipating, Dash seemed to revert back to his old self. "Can you explain what the hell is going on here?" At Danny's attempted ignorance of the situation, Dash continued "Oh, don't give me that look, Fenton; you knew those ghosts and they knew you! You just told a ghost what to do and it did it!"
"Did you train it?" Kwan asked.
Dash shook his head, turning to Kwan. "No way is that dragon trained. It's smarter than that. And didn't you hear him ask it to do stuff? Right, Fenton?"
But Danny ignored them. The answer lie in the palms of his hand and he still had a problem. Despite Dash and Kwan's presence, Danny gave a final effort in attempting to phase into Phantom. Tentatively, he reached for the spot of coldness inside him. If he hadn't known exactly how to find it, he didn't think he would have. There was almost nothing there. It felt as if he had to reach much deeper. When he finally found the whisper of cold, every cell in his body felt swelled to burst. His energy rings never had a chance.
Gritting his teeth, Danny bit back the pain. He was stuck. The purified ec would have to go into his human body and he'd have to use it there, too. There was no other logical explanation: that bullet had to have been filled with serum. Changing back to his human form probably locked the poison in his ghost half, pausing its effects, and he could still tap into what little energy he had left, but that was it. Once he used that, it was gone. And - even if he could change forms - administering the purified ectoplasm to Phantom would subjugate it to the serum.
If he had any chance of ending this ridiculous battle, he needed the power and he needed it in his human form. Now. There was no way around it.
Danny took a bitter breath, suddenly relieved he'd thought to practice his powers in his human form.
If only he could have rehearsed the very maneuver he was about to try.
I am SO SORRY for the wait! I have been working on this for weeks now that my term is over, but I just couldn't get it right! I guess I had to get back in the swing of it :(
I hope this was worth the wait! Big finale next! It was supposed to be a part of this chapter but I decided to draw Walker's scene out. Much fun after this ;)
And next week I leave for NYC for the engineering internship of a lifetime! I hope to write this next chappie before then, but I just can't promise :(
Shoutout to Represent because I just discovered her, and I believe her stories need more love. So check her out while you wait for mine!
Special thanks to Vivid Obscurity, Winter Cicada, Esoulix'Anne-Louise, EllaDeWriter, and Quartic Moose for your recent reviews that SERIOUSLY helped me through this chapter!
Please review!