The Ghost Child and the Ghostbusters
Chapter 14: The Enemy of my Enemy
Just when Danny thought his day couldn't get any worse this just had to happen. Of all people Vlad was the last person he wanted to see at this moment, especially since he was the cause of all of this trouble as well. Danny was about to say something but his dad jumped in.
"Vlad, buddy what are you doing here?" Jack smiled happily as he greeted a person he always thought of as his oldest friend.
"Well I saw all the trouble and I just came to help." He grinned.
"Oh no, not this time!" Danny shouted out.
"Danny what is it my boy?" Jack asked him.
"Dad he's the cause of all of this," Danny pointed a finger right at Vlad. "He's the one that released that ghost Morbius."
"Now why would you think that Danny?" Vlad said acting as innocent as he could.
"Because he told me himself while I was fighting him Vlad," Danny shot back. "And not only that but he's a half-ghost, he's Vlad Plasmius and he's been sending evil ghosts after me for what seems like forever. He's done nothing but try to mess with my life and used his powers for nothing but evil."
Vlad's eyes widened, he never expected Danny to just blurt out something like that. He looked to see the confused looks going around, although a few were glaring at him. Jazz since she knew all along, and judging by the looks of the Ghostbusters they most likely had been told as well. He looked to Valerie and with the helmet off he could see the uncertainty in her eyes. Jack just looked as confused as ever so that was no big shock to him. But his precious Maddie however was giving him looks that hurt, oh why did love have to hurt so much?
"Well then Danny," Vlad said in a dangerous tone, "Since you feel so prepared to unleash secrets...You should all know that Danny is really Danny Phantom!"
He paused and he was a bit confused as to why there was no reaction.
Danny had a smug look on his face as he crossed his arms. "Already told them."
"...Oh..." Vlad blinked and sighed. "Butterscotch...This is not at all what I had planned so far."
"So...It's true?" Jack said in disbelief.
Vlad signed pinching the bridge of his nose. "Yes, yes it's all true."
"But...But we were best friends Vlad? How could you keep something like this from me?"
Vlad was about to answer but he was suddenly tackled by Danny. Danny didn't know why he was here, but the last thing he needed was for Vlad to throw in some even more insane plan into his life. He was going to act first before Vlad could change and cause trouble. "Val help me out here before he changes!"
Val shook her head, this day had taken her for so many flips she just didn't know what to think anymore. She had been lied to again, but there was one major difference between Danny lying to her and Vlad. Danny hadn't used her, she had been played by Vlad and that made her pissed. And she was eager to use something to let off some steam, she jumped onto the white haired man as she joined the struggle.
"Hold him while I get these ghost cuffs on him!" She shouted out.
"Ghost cuffs?" Danny asked while wrestling with one of Vlad's legs.
"It's something new I've been working on." She admitted.
"I can't change!" Vlad shouted out trying to get out of the grip of the two teens. "Morbius took my ghost half, I came here to help you defeat him and to get my ghost powers back!"
"Wait a second!" Danny paused as he looked at Vlad. "Are you telling me that you lost your powers too?"
"Too? What do you mean...Oh no," Vlad hadn't know that Danny had lost his powers. He had been hoping to aid Danny and now the boy was just as powerless as he was. All in all this plan of his was totally ruined, without Danny Phantom he had nothing left to work with. "All is lost it seems..."
Danny and Val got up off the man as he sat down on the floor and sighed. Danny hadn't seen Vlad look so defeated it was kind of odd to see actually. There was a moment of silence and Danny looked at Val, "So...You going to hit him too?"
"Hell yeah."
"Excuse me?" Vlad looked up hearing something he wasn't sure he heard right. Only to get a kick to the side of his head. "Ow! Raisin breaded buttercups!"
"I swear he swears in the oddest way," Val muttered feeling a bit better. "That's what you get for manipulating me and my family Vlad. Although while everyone is here is there anything else that I should know? Is Jazz a ghost too or maybe a robot? Are there aliens living somewhere? Or is someone here a vampire or were wolf? Is Sam carrying Danny's child or Tucker has a crush on me? Because at this rate I just want to get this all over with! I've had it with surprises, and the next person that give me one I think I'll shot them."
"What?! I am not carrying his kid I've never even slept with a boy I'm only fourteen for crying out loud!" Same shouted out blushing madly.
"And I'm not a robot or ghost," Jazz muttered and noticed her parents looking at her, "I am NOT a ghost or robot!"
"Whoa, I don't got a crush on ya Val, no offence but I prefer girls that I'm not scared of, or who could kick my ass six ways from Sunday." Tucker told her.
Val looked to the Ghostbusters, "Hey don't look at us kid we're still new here and as for vampires and were wolves...well that's a long story but none of us are that." Peter informed her holding up his hands in mock surrender.
Maddie however could start to see this, she had always didn't feel that comfortable around Vlad. He always gave her these looks when he thought she wasn't looking and it kind of creped her out. Now to learn that he was also a half-ghost and used his power for evil, well her opinion of Vlad was even worst then ever before. Especially since he had tried to hurt her own son by the sounds of things. "Well then if you got nothing to add then I say we throw the bum out."
"I'm for that," Jazz smiled holding up her hand. Danny, Tucker, Sam and even Val raised their hands as well.
"Oh come on, look I know that I'm not exactly the most liked in this room but you have to admit one thing." Vlad told them as he was backing up. "There is a bigger and badder threat to the world out there, and even though things aren't what I hoped they would be here. I am still a genius and with my help I'm sure we can come up with something."
There was a moment of silence as everyone looked to each other, there were various looks and feelings about all of this. It wasn't until Egon spoke up as the voice of reason and logic. He said that they should keep him around, at least for the moment. There were of course some arguments against this, but he pointed out that they could use all the help they could get, and at the moment Vlad was powerless so he wasn't much of a threat to anyone.
Danny, Sam and Tucker along with Jazz didn't like this idea the most, with Val right behind them. After all they all now knew just what kind of person Vlad really was and he wasn't one to be trusted. Danny just knew that at some point Vlad would stab them in the back but he also knew that they could use Vlad's help. So he would keep an eye on him, if there was even a hint of something that would indicate that Vlad was up to no good, he would put a stop to it.
"Well then now that is out of the way, we're going to need something to help deal with all of these ghosts." Vlad said looking around at the lab. "And we'll need a lot of gear for this as well."
Jack although not sure what to make of the man that he once thought of as his best and oldest friend in the world, suddenly had an idea. "You know there are a few things that I have been working on."
He went to the wall and pulled open a panel as he then punched in a code. "I got the idea from the Fenton Peeler and that battle suit I made. I was designing new power suits that would be used to fight ghosts there is just one problem with them though."
As the wall opened up, there was what looked like a cross between an armoury and a workshop. There were pieces of technology, parts and unfinished armour laying all over the place. Some of the unfinished suits looked like a type of sci-fi knight's armour. Heavy chest plates with thing black like material for the legs and arms and the seems between the armour by the looks of it. There were even larger attachments that would fit onto the armour as well that were also unfinished.
"As you can see...I never got around to finishing them up." Jack said scratching the back of his neck.
Everyone started to take a look at the equipment. Danny picked up a glove and slipped it on, he flexed the hand as he heard a mechanical enhancement to it as it moved. It fit pretty easily and fit nicely, "Cool so what does this stuff do dad?"
"Well the Fenton Ghost Battle Armour or FGBA, is a light weight battle suit, it using power with agility and speed. It can give the suit wearer slightly increased speed, reflexes and all that good stuff. It also has a few built in defences such as Spectre Deflectors, jump jets, energy weapons, scanners and other features."
"Oh Jack these are so great," Maddie looked at them even though they weren't finished she could see them as being useful.
"Neat," Val said giving it a little look although personally she liked her suit better.
Ray was like a kid in a candy story with the equipment, "This is so cool, with this kind of thing we could really do some damage. That is if we can fix it, but I think if we all pitch in we could get them ready."
Egon looked at all the equipment and then pulled out a pocket calculator that he kept on hand for higher math. He punched in the number of them that he was sure could work on this, then the put in time they had, and then time they didn't have. He put into account all the information he could think of and the results were not encouraging. "By my calculations it would take us three days of nearly constant work to get these ready, if that."
"And in the meantime we'll have hordes of zombies coming down on us, well that's just great," Winston said.
"Are you sure?" Sam asked Egon.
It was Peter that answered, "Trust me kid, when the brain man says something like that chances are he was right. Although I hate it when he's right, when he's right it's never usually good."
"I was right about crossing the streams with Gozer and there being a small chance we wouldn't have caused a nuclear explosion." Egon pointed out.
"Not blowing us up is nothing to be proud of Egon," Peter said to him in a friendly manner. "How about all the times you nearly blow us up on a constant basis with your mad scientist experiments with your trusty lab assistant here?" Peter pointed to Ray.
"Hey...We don't do it that often." Ray said in protest.
"How about the hole in the roof last week?" Peter asked him. "Or the one that nearly burned down the fire house, which there is irony for you. Then how about when you two thought it would be a good idea to try and improve on the ghost bomb?"
"Ghost bomb?" Jack and Vlad asked at the same time.
"Yeah it's something that we made but only used once," Winston said remembering how they used that to close of the dimension that the Boogeyman lived in. "It destroys anything ectoplasmic within its range."
"You think something like that would work on Morbius?" Vlad grinned at the thought of blowing up the ghost but then a thought hit him. "No wait we can't just blow him up like that."
"Why not?" Peter asked.
Vlad had to think fast, "Uh...well...How would we get Danny's powers back or free all the ghosts? What if blowing him up all the ghosts are linked to him?"
Danny wasn't fooled of course, "Also you want to get your powers back as well."
"Well...that would an added bonus I'll admit."
Danny sighed thinking about it, did he really want Vlad to get his powers back? But then if Vlad didn't get them back then how would he get his own back? Although would that be such a bad thing? He could go back to his life before becoming Danny Phantom, then he thought of how he had tried that once before. The truth was Danny Phantom was a part of him, even now he could feel the empty spot inside of him where his ghost half had been.
And even if they did defeat this, ghosts would still come into this world. Sure Skulker would at least leave him alone but not the others. He would need his ghost powers and with the grin on Vlad's face he knew that the older man was thinking along those lines, also the fact that not all ghosts were harmful and some of those could be under Morbius' control this very moment.
"Damn it...He's right, we have to put things back the way they were." Danny admitted.
"I knew you'd see it my way, my boy." Vlad grinned at him.
"Well this is all well and good," Sam interrupted them both, "But without a plan or the time to fix all this stuff up. We're going to have a hard time beating Morbius with what we just have."
"Yeah and we still need to recharge the packs and empty out the traps," Ray said to them all.
All in all no one had an answer to that, they only had a limited amount of time to pull off a counter attack and they just didn't have the equipment that they would need for this. They were going to face an army and they needed to be prepared.
"If there was just a way to get more time..." Danny muttered to himself trying to come up with something.
-Ghost Zone-
Clockwork the master of all time had been watching events unfold. Normally he didn't like to manipulate events unless it was absolutely necessary. The whole Dan Phantom thing was one such case, given that any mistake could had disastrous results, time was a delicate thing. And when fools started to mess with time then things tended to get out of hand, entire history could be rewritten and lost, time paradoxes would run rampant, you could nullify your existence, or if worse came to worse you create a temporal rift from a paradox that would end up destroying half the universe.
Thankfully time had guardians like himself, and others. Beings that looked out for time, given how large it was even he couldn't be everywhere. He just looked after the Ghost Zone and Earth after all, there were others that took care of the rest of the universe. It was things like this, that those damn Observers failed to acknowledge and their overstatement of their so called 'importance'. But now looking at the Fentons and the Ghostbusters he could see that the time was coming.
All could be gained or lost in the next few hours and they did have a chance, the only problem was they didn't have the time to do it. He smirked at that thought, well if they needed time that was something he had plenty to spare. He knew that Morbius would be able to sense him the minute he was on Earth but he didn't plan on actually being there a full minute, at least by his view of time.
He would have to face Morbius that he knew but not now, he wouldn't be able to do it alone not with Morbius with the powers of both Danny and Vlad. He looked away from the portal with the image of the Fenton basement as he prepared himself.
Everyone was wondering on how to fix this, Jack's new ghost battle armour would be just what they needed, but they didn't have the time to finish it. It would take too long, already the ghost and undead army of Morbius was moving through their city. Also add to the fact it wouldn't take long for the zombies to get through the shield and no one was sure they could defend themselves in definitely. The Ghost portal was no option as Danny knew Morbius would have ghosts already set up in place so if they tried to do the experiment that gave him his ghost powers again, with the open portal they would get swarmed.
All in all things were looking a bit grim.
Then in the mist of the room there was a light and Clockwork floated there.
"Ghost!" Jack and Maddie yelled out at once. They weren't sure how the ghost had gotten through the shield but they weren't going to ask. They went for the nearest weapons that they could reach and took aim at the ghost, the Ghostbusters and Val were just as quick. They all figured that Morbius had managed to get past the shield and this was the first attacker he was sending.
"Guys, wait!" Danny yelled out to warn them but he was too late.
Clockwork only smiled as he activated his time staff. The energy beams that were fired at him only froze in place, he worked the magic of his staff again as they only returned to the weapons as if they hadn't even fired. Everyone looked at their weapons for a moment.
"Uh...Egon care to explain?" Peter said looking at his own weapon.
"That is physically impossible," Egon told them, "You can't just put the beams back, that would cause an overload and the packs would have exploded form the ions particles colliding with particle accelerator."
"Yeah beams go back in, we should have exploded I get that." Peter said. "But how come we're not a creator in the ground?"
"Guys I know this ghost," Danny told everyone there, "Trust me I think he's here to help."
"Indeed I am young Danny," Clockwork said to him and then turned to the others. "I am Clockwork, I am the ghost that oversees all time. And to answer your question Dr. Spengler I simply reversed time to the point before the weapons fired."
"Now then I have the solution to your problem. I know you have a chance to defeat Morbius but you don't have the time. I can temporarily increase time inside of this building, to the outside world only a second will have passed but on the inside. Well that will be a different story."
"So why don't you just go back and stop this idiot," Peter said jerking his thumb at a scowling Vlad. "From starting this mess?"
"There are many reasons many of which your brain, especially your tiny one Dr. Venkman." The ghost responded. "But what has happened can't be undone. I was there at Morbius' last defeat and it wasn't easy I'll tell you this. But I can't take him on in his current state, if I knew he was going to take the powers of both Vlad and Danny I would have stepped in sooner."
"Wait you didn't know?" Danny said surprised he figured Clockwork knew everything. "How is that even possible?"
"Come Beings can blind me to their timeline it's not easily done and takes massive powers or knowing how to 'blind' you to time. But Morbius didn't know about me first time around, now that he knows he was ready for me and cast a web over himself. I can't 'see' him in the timelines anymore and given what he's doing now he's making for a very dark future."
"Oh...Well I guess that explains it then." Danny said not totally convinced.
"Well then what are we waiting for?" Ray asked everyone. "We got a lot of work ahead of us and one hell of a battle too. I say we get to work now."
"Indeed," Clockwork smiled as he used his staff to create a time bubble around them all. He wasn't sure of the future, a rare thing but then again he wasn't without hope. These mortals had what it took, he knew that for a fact, and the fate of both worlds rested on them. He just hoped that when the time came for him to do his part he would be up to it once more.
Next up Chapter 15: Stuck in a Moment