Disclaimer: Don't own DP.

Hey, everyone. Thank you again for your continued support and all of your praise and criticism. I really appreciate everything you do for me. I hope you enjoy this next installment!


Chained

Chapter 29


Summary of last chapter: Phantom saves Valerie from being executed for treason by Agent O, which makes Valerie believe that that they can still bring Danny back from being a psychotic full-ghost. Meanwhile, Valerie realizes that the half-human Danielle is still beyond the barrier. She finds Danielle, and they work together to get injured ghosts off the battlefield even though they cannot enter back into the hospital themselves because of their human blood. A group of GIWs then shoot Valerie down and use advanced technology to keep her alive for interrogation back on their convoy. She refuses to disclose Phantom's obsession to them, but Agent M realizes Pantom's obsession is most likely a living person. In the meantime, Danny attacks the CGIA on his own in revenge, brutally murdering his tormentors, which terrifies even his own family and Sam. The CGIA then uses stored Ghostly Wails against Phantom to take him down, and they shoot him with extraction wires to drain his power.


From within Convoy 3, Valerie could hear muffled Ghostly Wails pounding the ground. She imagined that Danny Phantom had slaughtered most if not all of the CGIA by now. She imagined he would burn the ship next without a second thought.

Silent tears slipped from her eyes uncontrollably. She had never been good at admitting her faults or failures, but none of them had ever affected her this much. She felt a strange pain that unfurled deep from her collar bones, wrenching her heart sideways.

She did not intend to fail Danny again, or allow anyone to get hurt because of her mistakes. But it seemed that failing was all she was ever meant to do. She was going to die, they were all going to die—Danny would become a total monster. And it was all her fault.

A shadow flickered in the light outside the door. She hardly even registered the sound of someone opening the door. She supposed it didn't matter anymore. Nothing did. She had to pay for her mistakes. Maybe she deserved whatever torture they were about to spring on her. Knowing the CGIA's tactics, her visitor was probably some special forces interrogator with a great love of inflicting pain.

"Hmm," a man said, "what have we here? An injured Valerie Gray?" His voice echoed within the dark and quiet room. Valerie did not look up. She kept her head down, tearful eyes trained on the tiles before her.

"Not even a grunt of a hello or a sarcastic statement?" Black combat boots entered her vision. "That's very unlike you, Valerie."

Still, she said nothing. She was imagining the fate Agent O had originally planned for her—torture, incarceration at a maximum security prison, death…

Then the air about the GIW blurred. The man's body twisted until a familiar ghost with wrappings for a face and a trench coat for clothes floated before her.

A white-wrapped hand tilted up her chin. Its cold fingers soaked up the tears slipping down her skin.

"Need a little help?" Amorpho asked kindly.


The many still-remaining Guys in White approached Phantom. He was lying flat on his back, gasping in pain. His fingers shook over the wire port that had dug deep into his torso. "N-no," he gurgled. He tried to bear his teeth and twist his expression into hatred, but the GIWs surrounded him nevertheless.

For one merciful second, he thought that perhaps they would simply grab him and drag him back to the Convoys. But a sharp pain exploded at the side of his face, and he jerked with a scream. Before he knew it, the GIWs were actively kicking him with their steel-toed boots and slamming the blunt-end of their weapons into his body.

Their shouts and laughs and triumphant echoes pounded deep into his ears as his skin began to bleed green, blood vessels breaking. He tried to curl up to protect himself, and his red eyes squeezed shut. Not again not again not again…!

Something between a sob and a scream of hatred escaped from his raw throat. His mind spun.

"Look at it," one Guy in White sneered. "It's so weak now."

Another GIW pressed his foot against the wire port. "This is for Agent Y," the GIW said, eyes hard with revenge. Then he jammed his foot hard into Phantom's side.

Phantom cried out as the wires sunk deeper into his body, cutting into organs and soft tissues. He still managed to twist his face into a snarl at the name of Agent Y—one of his main torturers in years past. Ecto-blood slipped from between his lips. His core pulsed madly to compensate. "He…" Phantom rasped out, "d-deserved worse…" He swallowed back blood and glared up in defiant hatred.

The agent's face faulted, and he twisted around to his comrade. "Damn, it's still talking. What's its level?"

I'm not an it, not an it. Phantom's bleeding throat was raw from crying out. But something about the agent's consternation gave him new energy. A spike of hatred—the need to destroy—rocked through him.

Another agent looked down at a meter in his hands. "He's still too powerful. Meter's fluctuating back up. We need to increase the energy extraction to maximum output and get him down to a level 5 so we can lock him up."

"But we have the wires cranked to high already—what more can we do?"

Phantom closed his eyes. His core was in spasms, but it was still pulling in energy from the air to compensate for every drain. As long as his obsession held out, he could too. "Sam," he breathed out mindlessly, in a last ditch attempt to reach her. His hand raised up without aim, his eyes sightless as he searched with his power.

One of the GIWs raised their hands to the comm in their ear. "Commander, we're having difficulty lowering his energy levels; he's regenerating too quickly. How can we drain him?"

From within the observatory control center of the Convoy, Agent M gazed upon the shaking body of Phantom, then looked back at the hospital on the horizon. He pressed the button on the comm, narrowing his eyes at the sight of the battlefield before him. "We can flat-line his power by having him use it for us. We'll kill two birds with one stone if we make him destroy the ghosts' base of operations." He turned to his subordinates within the control center. "Initiate Wail sequence, and straight-line it to the building."

"Yes, sir," said Agent T. "Confirming Wail sequence and targeting at the ghost structure. Extraction levels for Wail at maximum power." He pushed the button. "Firing now!"

With the Convoys fully drained, the wires pulled directly from Phantom to create a Ghostly Wail. Phantom screamed, bowing under the pressure as his insides scrunched. Tears leaked from his eyes. And before he knew it, the Convoy's artillery reverberated his own Wail—straight towards the hospital.

Phantom's eyes widened as he watched the hospital's barrier waver under a direct hit. No doubt everyone within it was panicking. Whatever they'd done to make it strong before, it wasn't there now.

Pure fear and hatred energized him. "No!" He began trying to pull out the wires again, wincing at the feeling of how they tore into soft tissue. His shaking, blood-stained fingers only managed to pull them out slightly, and even the smallest bit made him cry in agony.

He would not allow himself to be used as puppet. He would not allow the CGIA to harm anyone. His mother, his sister, Sam—He would become their indirect killer if he did not stop the CGIA from using his power against them.

But by the fifth time, the barrier unfolded, shuddering under the weight, leaving the hospital wide open.

"Sam!" he cried out, reaching his hand towards the hospital as he struggled to his hands and knees. He tried to locate her mind, but he was too fragmented, his mind too scattered. He needed to tell her to get below ground, a place that his Wail would not hurt her.

He was sobbing now, his red eyes wide and desperate. If he couldn't stop the CGIA from draining him, Sam would die. He'd die. They'd all die.


Danielle shivered in shock, intangible alongside Vlad deep beneath the ground just outside the hospital barrier.

"Let me go," she begged angrily, her face streaked with tears. "Can't you hear that?! People are dying!"

"Do be quiet," he hissed, closing his eyes to listen to the sounds of the Wails. They were stronger than the CGIA's reserved power—most likely, these were coming from Danny himself. "It's either us or them. We simply need to support our allies while Danny fights off the CGIA."

"Oh, yeah. We're really supporting them down here," Danielle retorted sarcastically, her fingers trying to pry Vlad's deadlock from her elbow. "You just wimped out!"

"My concern is the hospital, and keeping everything safe from further massacre," he said, voice firm. "I will not needlessly place you in danger."

"No, you just don't want me getting captured and them getting ahold of your DNA," she hissed. "Stop acting so righteous."

But before Vlad could respond, a horrific hum shook the earth, and the grounds of the hospital moaned with the sound of technology winding down.

"…The barrier's been compromised," Vlad said hurriedly. "That's our cue to provide a replacement."

Danielle was still suspicious of his motives, but she nevertheless relented. "You mean like overshadowing the barrier? Like we did last time?"

Vlad grimaced. "We won't have a barrier to boost our power. I'll need your help to construct a front shield—just enough to buffer against any friendly fire or enemy squads while Danny finishes off the enemy."

But as he flew them up to the surface of the earth, he came across an entirely unexpected sight. The ground to the hospital was shredded with deep lines of power, the GIWs were standing at attention—and there was Danny, shaking on the ground.

Vlad's eyes widened when he realized his mistake. Danny had not been in control of himself—the Wails had not been geared at the CGIA. It was the CGIA attacking everyone through Danny.

Vlad saw the barrier fully dissipate, and his heart stopped. "Maddie," he breathed, red eyes widening. This was much worse than he expected. He and Danielle would not just be protecting the hospital from stray power and GIWs, they would have to directly oppose Danny Phantom himself. His breath stalled uneasily. He turned back around with Danielle still imprisoned in his clutches.

Danielle's eyes were wide in horror. "Ohmigod," she cried. Her fingers sparked instinctively with power.

From across the far distance, she could see Danny leaning on his hands and knees, attached to wires, shaking hard. He was crying, and all of the wires suddenly glowed white hot.

Vlad released Danielle suddenly, eyes widening. "Shield—Now!"

Without questioning him, Danielle raised her hands. Her green shield spread out from her fingers, interlocking energies with Vlad's magneta power. Seconds before the first reverbs of the Wail hit, their shields connected fully. The brunt nearly sent them both back, and the two half-ghosts struggled to maintain their positions.

Both could feel Danny's agony riddled within the Wail.

Danielle's arms shook. "Can't Danny stop it?" she begged breathlessly.

Vlad grimaced as he narrowed his eyes at Danny, sharpening his gaze. The boy appeared to have collapsed under the drain. "He's not in control," he said, worried. "And they're going to keep using him."

The wires about Danny glowed hot again, and a second Wail stormed at them. A scream—Danny's scream—echoed with it.

Although the strain was enough between Vlad and Danielle, Vlad knew they would eventually tire out. Danny's power core was used to such abuse. The boy would still last for far too long.

Shoulder to shoulder, he and Danielle stood to protect the hospital and all of its inhabitants as the second wave blasted through. Danielle was grimacing at the strain even though her brow was knit with great determination.

Vlad looked at her from the corner of his eye. "Status quo has changed," he winced. "We'll be obliterated if we don't get Danny away from the CGIA. One of us needs to detach him from those wires."

For a second, he almost commanded Danielle to remain behind. But then a thought hit him. "And you're adapted for stealth," he breathed. Pain and hesitance crossed his face. "You're the best one of us to go."

"Go? Go where?"

"Into the convoys," he told her quickly. "We need to shut off their power source to Danny. I'll stay here and buy us time. Don't make me regret this decision."

"You mean…you're gonna take on Danny's Wails by yourself?" she breathed, green eyes widening in shock. "Without me? That's like, suicide!"

"It will be suicide for us all if we don't stop the CGIA from using Danny," he snapped. "Now go. And don't get captured!"

She swallowed hard. Then she nodded softly, caught between being grateful and irritated for his concern. "Trust me, I won't. And…don't you die either." She quickly disappeared, turning intangible and flying beneath the ground to remain hidden.

For a second, Vlad looked a bit surprised by Danielle's almost-concern for him as well. But then another Wail reverberated straight into his sole shield. A rough cry of pain rose from his throat, despite how hard he tried to hide it. His red eyes squeezed shut, his burned arms shaking. These Ghostly Wails were much stronger than the ones the CGIA had used previously. These were fresh, built from the power core of a high-level ghost instead of merely a level 6. And though he himself was powerful, he could not handle such repeated abuse from a high-level Warrior Class ghost like Danny.

He could feel himself giving way under the drowning roars. From across the large distance, he could see the near-lifeless body of Phantom trying to pull the wires from his body. It was no use.

The wires glowed white again.

Vlad growled. "No," he whispered, swallowing hard. He could feel himself weakening. "I will not let them die."

He was in a power play with Danny, however unwilling the both of them were. And he did not want to be a martyr. Sweat began to bead down his temples, his power core revving higher to compensate for the strain of such heavy-handed attacks. "Come on, Dani," he breathed, fairly begging to the air. "Don't fail me now."

A third Wail shook him to his power core and left him gasping.


Valerie flinched away from Amorpho in shock, watery eyes wide. "What the—?"

"We were never properly introduced in all the chaos," the ghost said. He bowed before her in a sweep of wrappings and a tilt of his hat. "Amorpho, the shape-shifter extraordinaire. At your service."

A week ago, she knew she would've bagged and grabbed him, turned him over to the CGIA with no second thought. And now…

She closed her eyes in relief as Amorpho phased her through her handcuffs. "Thank you." The words rolled off her tongue so easily now. Tears slipped down her face without shame. "Thank you."

"You are quite welcome," he said, his own voice cultured and nasal, a hint of mischief glinting off the edges. "I enjoy good tricks, and the CGIA most certainly deserves a trick or two."

"They deserve more than that," she muttered, wincing as she stood from the chair. She checked her body over, irritated that the CGIA had taken all of her weapons and her communication devices. But at least her burn and the bullet wound in her elbow were closed. Whatever their technology was, it worked damn well. "Any idea what's happening out there?"

Amorpho shrugged helplessly. "I've been too busy playing tricks here."

Valerie moved to the door. Something about his ignorance made her worry heighten. "Come on," she said shortly. "Maybe we can figure some way to shut this convoy down before we go back out."

"Ooh, I would love that trick," Amorpho hummed in appreciation. He grabbed onto Valerie's arm, and she stiffened in surprised, half-ready to backhand him on instinct alone. He realized his mistake

"I only meant to turn us intangible," he explained, raising his hands.

Valerie eyed him before she grumped a bit. "Well…give me some warning next time," she said, tentatively holding out her hand. She did not know to what extent she trusted this ghost, but she knew he had probably saved her life. That was good enough for her.

"And here I thought you were a bit more docile with ghosts now that you fight with us." Amorpho grabbed onto her hand, and the cold power of intangibility washed over them. They flew through the walls and down the fairly abandoned corridor.

"Trust me," Valerie said, her mouth setting with wry embarrassment. "Old habits die hard."

But the green light of the Ghost Zone leaked through one of the windows from the outer corridor. Valerie glanced out as they past, and then she nearly whiplashed Amorpho back when she realized what she had seen.

She looked out the window again, to the frontlines. "Oh my God." The ghost beside her gave a noise of frustration, until he himself followed her gaze.

His glasses slid down the wrapped bump of his nose—the closest he could get to expressing shock. "Oh dear."

Before their eyes, Phantom was on his hands and knees, hooked up to extraction wires. The distant roar of a Ghostly Wail from another Convoy shook the world again.

Her mind's eye flashed back to the Central Containment Chambers in the now-burned down headquarters. Phantom leaning hard against the barrier of his cage. Phantom coughing up blood and rasping for help.

Danny.

"Oh God," she said, fear pounding into her. "They've got him; they're controlling his powers!"

She grabbed Amorpho's hand and dragged him along, and he barely managed to keep his hat atop his head, his red eyes widening

"We gotta stop it," Valerie breathed, "or they're gonna kill everyone."

"What did you have in mind?" Amorpho asked uneasily, the corridors flying past them in a flurry.

Valerie's mind was racing in total fear as she calculated the risks per move. "We gotta get to the extraction equipment he's hooked up to. Shut that down, shut down the wires."

"But they'll notice us like this," the ghost complained. "I can't pretend to be a GIW if you're supposed to be back in confinement!"

Dammit, he had a point. Another thought hit her. "Wait, you said you could shape-shift into anything, right? Even into another ghost?"

"Of course," he said, almost indignant. "Anything."

"Then turn into Danny Phantom," she demanded quickly. "You'll fly me to the active Convoy, and you'll act as a distraction for the GIWs while I disarm the generator. Got it?"

The wrappings of his face twisted as if to show confusion. "Won't they know it's not the real Danny?"

"Trust me," she promised, "they know Danny can duplicate. All you have to do is send them on a wild goose chase, then turn into one of them when the coast is clear."

The ghost tentatively nodded, then scratched at his face wrappings. "I suppose it is a rather delightful trick. Very well, Red Hunter. I will follow your lead."

Then Amorpho quickly transformed into the image of Danny Phantom. Valerie suddenly grew disconcerted at how close she was to him, and how Amorpho had seemed to stretch higher than his natural height to mimic Danny's. His shoulders broadened. His face wrappings softened into pale, pink flesh, and his trench coat tightened into a signature black and silver jumpsuit.

"Is this acceptable?" he asked, modulating his voice into shades of difference. Amorpho's typically nasal tone lifted to Danny's deep, clear tenor.

Valerie blinked in surprise at how well Amorpho could mimic Danny. She flushed unintentionally. "Uh, y-yeah, actually."

The Red Hunter's strange reaction did not go unnoticed. "Do you…appreciate this form?" Amorpho teased, Danny's face twisting with curiosity and amusement.

She glared at Amorpho in horror. "Of course not," she seethed, her face darkening a deeper red. "I'm not attracted to ghosts; why the hell would you ask that?!"

Amorpho shrugged, but the dark glint in his eye suggested that he was thinking of new tricks to play. "I never used the word attracted," he said lightly. "My, my, Valerie—what secrets are you hiding?"

She jabbed her elbow into his side. "Nothing, now let's get a move on," she huffed angrily, embarrassed.

The ghost's lips stretched wide. Then one of not-Danny's arms locked around her, and Valerie's heart skipped a beat at how physically real the not-Danny felt. Before she could think about it further, Amorpho swept them through the walls of Convoy 3 to the outside world. The sounds of cries and Ghostly Wails echoed harder, then they were suddenly flying though the hull of Convoy 2.

"Any particular idea of where to find these…generators?" Despite his perfect imitation of Danny's voice, a slight inflection made her remember that this being was not Danny. It kept her grounded.

"Probably deep in the central hull," she said. "If they're anything like the Spectral Energy Generators I saw at headquarters, they would have had to wheel them in from a lower docking port. And there's no way they'd keep their power source exposed in the open."

Amorpho flew them deeper into the convoy, tilting at a sharp angle to fly down. Valerie's fingertips tightened into the not-Danny's jumpsuit. Unlike Danielle, Amorpho was a haphazard flyer. It made Valerie desperately miss her jet sled. But at the very least, the several GIWs they flew past were none the wiser, their instruments already blitzing from the massive influx of harvested ghost power back into the ship's hull.

Amorpho grimaced. "I can sense Phantom's power," he whispered, almost in disgust. "It's getting stronger." He took a sharp left, then stopped short. "It's on the other side of this wall—hear the hum?"

"Can you sense any GIWs near it?"

"Quite a few. It may be difficult to deceive them all."

He softly dropped her to the floor, and Valerie landed with a grimace, her mostly healed wounds still tender. "Just stick with the plan," she said. "Okay?"

The ghost nodded, a weak but quirky smile twitching his lips. "I will try, but I would suggest hiding for now," he said. "I'm going to raise a lot of ire."

Valerie spotted a convenient pile of cargo just off the corner of the corridor, and she began backing away. "Don't get too cocky," she commanded wearily.

Amorpho saluted her with a delightful jaunt in the line of his shoulders. It almost reminded her of the real Phantom for a second.

Then Amorpho phased into the room, and the GIWs stared in shock. "Why, hello," he said merrily, twisting Danny's face into a bright smile. "Is this an important control room? That I need to destroy?" He raised his hand and shot an ectoplasmic beam straight at one of the guards.

The man narrowly avoided the small attack, and immediately, every single GIW mobilized against him. The guards' rifles lit up a bright green, pushing alarms on their armored suits. "We have active ghost activity!" one of them cried as they began to circle up. "Danny Phantom on premises—I repeat, Danny Phantom on premises!"

Amorpho laughed, some nasal spark of his true self leaking through in Danny's voice. "Catch me if you can, suckers!"

The GIWs burst down the door, all of them haphazardly shooting at Amorpho's tail, which dived down the halls, farther and farther away from the generator room.

Some truly impressive insults from Amorpho echoed down the hall, mixed with cackles in Danny's voice.

"Oh, good grief," Valerie muttered under her breath, eyebrows raised as she peered out from behind some cargo crates. She waited for the coast to clear and for Amorpho's laughing to fade in the distance, along with the shooting. Then she stood up from her hiding spot behind some cargo crates, and she quickly snuck through the wide-open vault door into the generator room.

Immediately, she was hit with a thickness in the air reminiscent of palpable power—some kind of life teeming from the tall, black generators in the room. It was disconcerting and unnatural, as if she could feel Danny's presence around her. It made her feel almost ill.

.

Phantom glared at her and rasped out, "You try having your body raped for its life source and see how well y-you," he squeezed his green eyes shut, "fight it."

.

Cold water stormed down her spine with the nausea of déjà vu. It was like being trapped in the burning headquarters of the CGIA all over again. Valerie desperately began to look around the room for an off-switch. The generators themselves still appeared impenetrable from the outside—all slick metal and blinking lights. "Come on," she whispered. Her heart was beginning to pound. "Gotta be around here somewhere."

The generators suddenly hummed to a higher decibel, and the blinking lights died. The entire room shook as the cables glowed, the rumble nearly unbalancing her. And then the sound of another Ghostly Wail echoed in the distance.

Valerie's breath hitched, teal eyes widening. "Danny."

Every second she wasted was another second Danny spent in submission to the CGIA's will. "Shit," she breathed. She looked over the pattern of controls along the back wall, grimacing at how alien the buttons appeared. Everything was labeled by numbers, with no guarantee that any of them matched up with the generators themselves. "Who the hell designed this?"

Time grew precious; she did not know how many minutes Amorpho's stunt would provide her. And before she knew it, several white-suited bodies ran by the door. "—On our way to your coordinates, sir!" came voices and the pounding of feet.

Valerie froze over the buttons. "Oh, no." She hid behind one of the generators, realizing that it was in fact a horrible place to hide—what if they came into the room and walked around? Her hands began to shake as she leaned against the generator's side, feeling its cold life. If they walked in, she'd probably be shot.

Several GIWs peered into the door on their way past the room, and they stopped suddenly, backtracking with rifles raised. "The generators are insecure! Three of you—stay behind here!"

"Yes, sir!"

Valerie closed her eyes, heart sinking. Several curses flew through her mind. With no weapons, outgunned in every way, she had no ability to fight two heavily-armed combatants.

The GIWs entered into the room, rifles still raised at high alert. Valerie tensed up. Their footsteps grew closer. If one of them walked by just so, maybe she could grab a hold of their weapon—

"What the—?" One of them locked the rifle on Valerie's heart, and before she could move a blast echoed in the room with a flash of green.

For one wild moment, Valerie believed she'd been shot. But then she realized the flash of green had instead struck the GIW, whose chest was slowly staining red. He crumpled to the floor.

A red-eyed GIW stood, its hand raised out. "Valerie!" Amorpho's nasal voice called out to her, his disguise's face twisted in worry. He'd returned just in time. "Duck!"

Valerie did not question him, and she dropped to floor just as Amorpho shot out at the second GIW to enter the room.

"Halt, scum!" called out the remaining GIW to Amorpho, raising his weapon to shoot.

The morphing ghost realized he was pinned, and he froze.

The GIW moved to pull the trigger. But a powerful lightning suddenly encapsulated the GIW, and he convulsed before dropping to the floor.

And then all was silent.

Valerie stared wide-eyed at Amorpho. "…Holy...Was that you?"

He looked just as shocked. "No, it wasn't."

Danielle appeared huffing, eyes a bit wide and face pale. "Heya," she said, trying to pass it off as if she hadn't just shot at real people. "Long time no see, Amorpho. Didn't expect to see you here."

The false GIW wavered, and Amorpho shed the skin with a frown in every line of his body. "How did you know it was me?" he complained.

"Because you're a ghost pretending to be a GIW?" Her eyes widened as she realized the second person in the room. "Valerie!" She bounded over in waves of relief. "You're okay! How?"

Valerie gratefully grabbed onto Danielle's hand, and the young ghost pulled her up without effort.

"CGIA tech," Valerie said distractedly, both thankful for Danielle's presence and yet unable to show it. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Was gonna ask you the same thing, but Danny's taking serious punishment right now, and I'm supposed to be saving the world." Danielle laughed nervously and looked at the generators. "Is this what he's hooked up to?"

Valerie nodded quickly. "I can't find a shut-down button."

"Oh, man," Danielle eyed it, frowning in fear. "I don't know anything about tech. Tucker would be good for that. Can we get a signal through?"

"No," Valerie snapped in frustration. "They took my gear from me. You got a comm?"

Embarrassed, Danielle shook her head.

Valerie grumped in frustration, "Of course not. Why would anything ever work right?" She rested her sweaty forehead against the generator, feeling it hum. "Shit." She slammed her fist against it. "So they still don't want these damn things to turn off, huh."

Then it hit her. "Wait a minute." She blinked slowly, mind racing. A wonderful and strange thought teased the edges of her hope. "They're designed to unleash energy. The GIWs rigged the first ship to blow with something. I bet it was a generator. Which means…" She turned around, teal eyes scanning the control center, "…even if we can't shut it down, there's gotta be a manual override to reverse this one too!"

"Uh, Valerie?" Danielle said, worried. "We're still on the ship. Let's not blow it up."

"No, no, it won't blow up," she said, breathless with a sudden excitement. "The generator's connected to Danny. He'll absorb it right back. Get it?"

The Red Hunter began frantically searching about the generators and the controls. "Help me out!"

Danielle's eyes lit up in sudden understanding. "Right!" And she and Amorpho joined the search, upturning boxes and cables, scanning the controls.

"There's gotta be a manual override to drain them," Valerie said, eyes narrowed in frustration. "They wouldn't let themselves be sitting ducks if their wireless failed."

"Perhaps they've hidden it to control its use?" Amorpho offered, tapping his knuckles against the wall, the ragged edges of his wrappings bobbing frantically to his movements. "We're running out of time here. The CGIA will be back once their guards don't respond to check-ins."

"I know, I know," Valerie breathed. But she realized the wall to the right of the visible control panel contained a biometric fingerprint scanner. With no apparent reason for existing, with all of their controls out in the open.

Something about that made her hopeful. Maybe unlocking the scanner would unlock what they needed.

She turned around. "Amorpho—check it out. Do you remember what either Agent O or M looked like? Somebody with total clearance?"

"Of course," he said, body straightening in curiosity as he stared at the scanner. He morphed into the older Agent M, his body growing tall and acetic, his pale face sharpening and sinking in with wrinkles.

Without hesitating, he pressed his hand against the scanner. The scanner turned green. "Identity confirmed," said the scanner.

Suddenly, a whole slew of hidden controls popped out of the wall, reconfiguring into its own mainframe. Black control levers and gauges were each marked with a particular attack—all of them Danny's. Danielle looked sick. An entire copy of Danny Phantom's power core was systematically labeled for militarized use.

Valerie tried not to think about it. Her eyes searched above the controls to see a lever labeled Drain Override. "Found it!" she cried out, She reached up to grasp the lever, and she pulled down hard.

But she cried out as her arm and side grabbed strangely, and tears leaked from her eyes. Her hands slipped from the lever. "Damn," she winced, fear rising. "It's…not as easy as it looks." Danielle quickly flew beside her. Her small hands grabbed the lever and pulled as well. Despite her own power, the lever did not budge but inches, internal mechanisms jamming the gears.

"It…it's stuck!" Danielle cried out. She forced her entire body down on it, floating up to get better leverage. Valerie inhaled a shaky breath, and she winced as she grabbed onto the lever just below Danielle's hands, adding her weight. The fragile scab over her side tore open, slowly leaking new blood over the dried crusts.

Valerie fought through it, fighting down a cry of pain. The lever still did not move. Panic overwhelmed her. Not again not again not again—can't fail again—

Amorpho rubbed his chin worriedly. "You know, maybe there's a safety switch somewhere," he suggested. He began, tapping into his memories of pretending to be a technician. "They like hidden safety precautions." A sudden thought hit him, and he turned to the main control panel. And under the mainframe of the control panel was a switch with a Generator Safety. He leaned down and flipped it. "There," he said in satisfaction, voice cheeky. "Now try it again."


Shaking and crying in the debris of the battleground, Phantom stared with blurry eyes at the hospital before him. His entire body ached with the violating abuse of the CGIA, but his will to resist had grown weaker and weaker. Numerous GIWs had come to stand about him, crushing their combat boots on his arms so that he could not pull at the wires in his torso. He'd tried screaming in anger and then in fear, but that had done nothing to alleviate his pain.

His body lightly convulsed under the drain. He could barely see the glow of magenta light shielding the front of the hospital, which gave him hope that someone was resisting for him. He did not know how to resist any more for himself. The world was a swimming warp of pain. The CGIA knew exactly how much abuse his power core could take.

But then something strange happened. Just as the generator was moving to collect more energy, the wires' glow dampened, then turned a strange green. The decibel frequency of the wires lowered. And his eyes snapped open in confusion. "What the…?"

One of the GIWs kicked his face at the sound of his voice. "Shut up!"

Despite the abuse on his body (he felt so detached from it now), he could feel his insides begin to sing. There was a pull moving towards him from within the wires themselves.

It was in drops at first. His body drank it in the way desert ground would devour rain—desperate, instinctive relief. It was power. Oh, it was power. And it was his own.

He didn't know who had done it, but someone else was also resisting for him.

Phantom chuckled in near hysterics, the tears in his eyes slipping down his bruised and bleeding face. "F-funny thing about the generator," he rasped. But then his face twitched into a emotionless mask, his bruises healing over, his limbs strengthening. "You put a reverse switch on it."

And suddenly, all the power from the Phantom Generators in the convoy burst down the lines back into Danny Phantom's body.


Vlad nearly collapsed in relief as he saw green light emanate from Phantom's fallen form. In the far distance, he saw Phantom tear the wires from his body and throw off the GIWs holding him down.

The older half-ghost stumbled to his knees, swaying uneasily. His magenta shield flickered and died in an instant, his concentration broken by his gratefulness. Ecto-blood had begun to trail from his nose and lips, his heart pounding an uneven rhythm. He felt as if he were disjointed, his limbs made of jelly.

"Sh-she did it," he rasped in awe. Never before had he been so thankful for Danielle's existence—somehow, she had pulled through to save him from his own martyrdom. He closed his eyes.

It wouldn't matter now if Danielle were temporarily captured or not—Danny Phantom would avenge her. He would avenge them all. He would reverse the status quo to ensure the CGIA could never rise again.

Vlad fell back without much thought. He lay there on the ground, staring up at the green sky, realizing he had overextended his own abilities beyond anything he had ever done before. But Maddie was safe. Danny was free. Danielle had saved them.

He allowed his eyes to close in unconsciousness.


Phantom looked at the wires that had defined his life for two years. In the silence of the second, they appeared so mindless and simple. Then he looked at the nearest GIW, who was staring in horror, and smiled. "It's nice," he said lightly, "when you're the one in power." And he blurred, mindlessly slitting the man's stomach as he flew by.

The GIWs began to regroup against him, their leaders shouting orders.

Phantom began to seethe as he split himself into three, then four as he flipped through the ranks. A new sort of calculation had overcome him. He was no longer going to mindlessly destroy the CGIA. He was going to injure every last one of them on a personal basis—to make them feel every inch of the agony he had felt.

His red eyes tightened with revenge and pain, his hatred siphoning deeper into his blood. "You tried to kill Sam," he breathed softly, his power mounting. His mind blitzed with rage, and his face twitched with an insane smile. "You tried to kill me!"

He swooped down, grabbing onto the now-dead wires still coated with his own blood. He swiped them at the nearest GIW, the sharp ends whipping through the man's armor. Then man's fingers instinctively pressed the trigger to his blaster, but Phantom easily avoided the misguided shot. The GIW dropped down in a gasping flail, shuddering in pain.

The ghost cried, laughing. His breath hitched strangely. It felt good to see someone else suffer. Oh, it felt so good.

He raised the wires again, even as his vision blurred with tears. "You like that?" he mocked, voice hard. "You like that?!"

Danny Phantom swung around, red eyes glowing with the deepest of pains. The last of his injuries had healed. His clones were assaulting targeted GIWs, while other GIWs attempted to shoot or capture the clone attacking their comrades.

The stakes were rising against the CGIA. There were probably one-hundred combatants left.

The man he had struck with the razor-sharp wires suddenly stopped struggling on the ground, having bled out to death, unable to regenerate or clot his injuries quickly as ghosts could. "Ninety-nine," Danny breathed, mind sharp. He smiled.

His dreams of a world with Sam as his queen, no one to challenge them, were so close.

Ninety-nine, and he'd be free. Forever.

He raised the wires again, eyeing his next targets—the man who had kicked his face. The GIW was quickly retreating behind his comrades, as if he knew he were next. Danny raised up into the air, snapping the wires off of their main cable. "Soon to be ninety-eight," he whispered, red eyes tracking the man. His blood began to race with excitement of the kill.

But just as Danny began to raise his hand, the entire fabric of the world twisted.

The ectoplasmic charge in the air became palpable, and he faltered, as did the GIWs below him. "What the—?" Phantom's eyes narrowed, half in irritation and half in curiosity at the unexpected interference from an unknown source.

White, jagged lightning crackled across the sky above them all, widening into a rip in time and matter. The streaks remained, stretching as a portal that seemed to encompass the entire sky. And from the sky purged an army of ghostly soldiers, boasting the insignia of the Ghost Council. They appeared little more than animated skeletons, but their armor was bright silver and glowing with power not their own. There were several hundred in all, spanning beyond the horizon of the visible eye. They were not unlike the skeletons Pariah Dark had once used to conquer Amity Park.

Phantom called out mockingly to the CGIA, "Oh look, it must be the cavalry!" His free fingers curled into a bright, ectoplasmic blast. "Here to help me destroy you!" But worry leaked into his face. The ghosts did not appear to be moving either to assist him or to destroy the CGIA. They were motionless, as if awaiting orders.

Something was very wrong. Even the GIWs remained paused at the sight, suddenly aware that this—whatever this was—was far beyond them.

In the blur of the second, a cloaked being approached Phantom, materializing before him without subservience. Its smooth voice said, "Danny Phantom, Warrior-Class Level-One. You are hereby ordered by the Ghost Council to cease this fight on hallowed grounds, or we will engage our armies against you."

His face twisted darkly, in surprise and betrayal. "What? No!" he snapped. "I won't stop until they're all dead." His face twitched into an uneven, disturbing smile. A laugh escaped his lips. "Every last one. For everything they did."

"This is a truce zone," the messenger stressed

"I don't care."

"By the decree of the Ghost Council, you—"

"—Shut up!" he swooped his hand across the air, and a beam of light shot the messenger nearly halfway across the battlefield. He seethed, breathing hard. "This fight is mine. Mine." Something broken crossed his face. "You can't take it away. I won't let you."

But the Ghost Council's army began to suddenly advance forward, swooping down to the battlefield. The remaining GIWs formed a tight circle around each other in rings, their battle masks falling back down, inching closer to their convoys.

For a second, Phantom himself seemed to hesitate, the lines of his body turning with uncertainty. He looked as a child would in the dark. Then he split himself again, facing twisting in pain and hatred. "I'll take you all on!"


"Holy shit," Valerie breathed, eyes wide as Danielle and Amorpho exited with her out of the Convoy. "Who the hell are these guys?!"

Danielle swallowed hard. "Oh man, it's the freakin' Ghost Council."

"The who?"

"The leaders of the Ghost Zone. Oh man." Danielle looked nauseated. "Oh, this is so bad."

Valerie began to sneak forward on foot behind some of the heavy artillery that had lost their operators. Amorpho and Danielle followed. "Just looks like a bunch of freaky skeletons," the Red Hunter concluded. "Can't be too powerful."

Tears began to bubble in Danielle's eyes. "Val, this is just their army. The ones calling the shots have run this place for millennia. They're Ancients. They were the ones who sealed Pariah Dark away. We must've really pissed them off for them to show their faces here."

"How did we piss them off?" Valerie scoffed. "We're freakin' saving their asses from an invasion."

"And we kind of led the CGIA into a major ghost stronghold," Danielle whispered shakily. She halfway seemed to hide in Valerie's shadow, peeking out from over the older woman's shoulder. "It's bad to fight on truce grounds."

"Well what can we do?" Valerie huffed. Millennia of ruling did not impress her. She refused to let this Ghost Council scare her. "We can't let them get to Danny. I haven't fought this hard to give up now."

Danielle's mind raced. "Uh, okay. So they told Danny to stop fighting, and they've got an army, but it's just a bunch of skeletons. Is there anything else you think they'll use to stop him?"

Valerie watched as the Ghost Council's army clashed hard with the barrier Danny Phantom had surrounded himself with, shooting at them all from behind it. The remaining CGIA began to shoot alternatively at both the skeletons in their way and at Phantom while he was distracted.

Valerie's eyes were worried as she surveyed the battlefield. She looked back at the hospital and realized a part of the army looked to be branching off towards it. "Oh, shit."


The sky darkened again, this time a heavy, suffocating black. Electrical energy twisted as the dimension yawned open in a shudder, widening into a small portal. Two beings cloaked in dark gray flew through, their features entirely covered.

They were two members of the Ghost Council.

Phantom did not notice them, as his attention strained between hundreds of faceless skeletons and the remaining GIWs. His fear had driven his will to greater heights, his powers reaching towards new stretches of mass attacks.

"It appears," said the first Council Member, the Elder, "that I have either underestimated this half-breed's power or his insanity." His voice was deep and gravelly with an age beyond count. He frowned, the glow of his red eyes twisted in displeasure. "I cannot tell which."

"He barely flinches at our armies," agreed the second Council Member, tilting its head. The voice was distinctly feminine, aged with centuries but still smooth with vibrancy. "He is the strongest Warrior Class we have seen in millennia; should I consider intervening myself to stop him?"

"Our armies were meant as an intimidation tactic for the CGIA, not for Danny Phantom," Elder said with a scoff. "My hope was that these humans in white would leave upon realizing the power they challenged. But it appears Phantom has already broken the sacred truce on these lands too many times to count. The time we gave him to prove himself worthy was obviously wasted on indulging baser instincts."

Bodies on both sides rested skewed beneath them. It was the most destruction they had seen since Pariah Dark had first attempted a hostile takeover of the Zone.

Elder pushed down his hood to better see the battle. "It is good that I revoked Clockwork of his powers," he said, almost in sorrow. "He would most likely still attempt to spare this psychotic half-breed's life."

The Council Member of War bowed her head. "As you are the Master of Wisdom and Knowledge, Elder, I defer to your expertise in this matter. I shall command our troops as you see fit."

But the Master of Knowledge watched far above the battle, and instead of Phantom, his eyes were trained on Sam, who stood at one of the windows of the hospital, looking on in horror. "It is not your moves, War, that I need to command."

Elder had once observed that (after)life was a chess game, and in order to topple a king, one needed to bring in the queen.

And Sam was nothing if not the perfect pawn to force Danny Phantom's compliance.


"Oh my God," Sam breathed, staring from behind the front glass of the hospital. "Danny's in so much trouble. We gotta do something." She turned around, breath uneven. "If we want to see Danny again, we have to help somehow."

Jazz knew that glint of determination in the other woman's eye, along with the wild emotions clouding her reason. She watched Sam turn around, and she quickly grabbed for her arm. "Sam, don't go out there," she begged. "This is way above us now, okay?"

"They're gonna kill him," her voice cracked. "Danny needs help! There's too many of him. We've got to back him up against these guys, whoever they are."

"Seriously, you–"

"—And you can't expect me to stay here anymore," Sam snatched her arm away from Jazz, turning with righteous anger in her eyes. "He's your brother, Jazz. Don't you want to save him too?"

Jazz's face broke into barely-constrained agony. "You know I do."

"Then help me fight them!" Sam said. She looked around at the front lobby, still sporting several injured ghosts. Few had been able to regenerate in quick order.

Among them was Walker, who had sustained only minor injuries. He was smoking a cigar as he leaned against a table, watching out the window with a critical eye. "That would be against the rules," he said, voice even. "That there is the Ghost Council's army. Their justice overrides even my jurisdiction."

Sam's face twisted, and she turned around to stare at Walker. "A Ghost…Council? Wait, they're actually real?"

"They stay out of basic affairs," Walker affirmed, nodding hard. "But any ghost who opposes their will suffers great consequences. It is best to not interfere."

A thought hit her. "And what about a human?" she breathed.

"Humans aren't meant to be in the Ghost Zone at all," he said dryly. "They rule only ghosts."

"So they won't target me then," Sam concluded. That settled it. She grabbed one of Skulker's abandoned assault weapons from the desk of belongings that had racked up in the chaos of caring for the injured. She figured he wouldn't mind, as he was still unconscious on the floor, hooked up to electrical machines to repower his exoskeleton. "We need to figure out some way to stop them from hurting Danny, but that means going out to the front. Who's with me?"

For a second, no one moved. Then Dora stepped forward. "Well…we're already traitors," she said hesitantly. "If the Ghost Council manages to capture Danny Phantom, they will also prosecute us for fighting in this truce zone. The punishment is quite heavy for such things. Perhaps we should…at least make them understand why."

Dora's words seemed to jog the concern of others. They all looked at each other in growing unease.

"We knew the risks of disobeying rules," Walker reminded everyone, breathing in deep in his cigar to hide the shake of his hands. He breathed out a sigh of smoke. "Everyone must pay for breaking law. It's best to stay here and not add to the list of charges."

"But what is a charge if it is unjust? In some way or another, we have all felt the sting of the CGIA. The Ghost Council should know that our fight is just," Dora said, voice raising. "That we are not deserving of further punishment."

From a cot in the corner of the room, a gasping moan echoed. It was Ember, who had begun to awaken from her unconsciousness, only to feel the full brunt of her missing leg. "Sk," she gasped, green eyes wide and sightless. Her voice was but a horrific rasp. "Skulk—"

Jazz dropped down beside the cot, grabbing onto the ghost woman's hand. "She's still not pulling in energy," she worried, "and she can't convert mine to help her." The stump of Ember's leg still bled thick with green blood, despite the heavy bandages about it. At this rate, she would fade out. "Can anyone spare some energy?"

A tired and worn Kitty winced as she stood from the floor. Her clothes were splattered with burns, and her gait was uneven. "I can," she said breathlessly. "If you give me some."

Jazz grabbed her shaking hand. "Of course."

The ghost woman closed her haggard eyes. "Ember's my friend, got it?" she whispered. "We can't let her fade. W-we can't let more people get hurt."

Kitty touched Ember's burnt shoulder, and immediately she gasped at the pain of transferring her own limited energy. Jazz nearly had to hold her up. Watching the infamously spirited and rebellious singer still struggle to breathe made them more worried. Ember's blood glowed brighter, but it did not seem to make her wounds heal.

Their resources were running out.

Something about that made Sam feel scared and unsettled. She turned around to the weary crowd. "Look, we're all going to be in big trouble if we can't stop this battle. We have to make the Ghost Council see that Danny isn't an enemy to destroy, and that you're not just mindlessly breaking truce laws." She looked around at them, one by one. "If we can get enough of us, we might be able to drive a line to the Council Members—see them floating up there?"

"Sam, it's insanity to try," Jazz said tiredly, voice breaking. "I don't want anyone to die. Maybe—Maybe we can wave a white flag or something. We'll get their attention; tell them what's really happening here!"

Sam nearly laughed, her purple eyes hard with fear. "You think they're gonna care about a damn flag? They sent an army, and they're targeting Danny. We have to send a message back to them."

Aragon stood up, eyeing his sister with a dark eye that was not unkind. "War is not won by surrender," he nodded to Sam and Dora. He rubbed his injured wrist. "Our best interest is to support Phantom and entreat the Council to listen to us by confronting them directly."

For the first time, Sam looked at Aragon with something more than general disinterest or derision. The ghost who had once kidnapped her and nearly forced her into marriage was…supporting her?

The medieval king set his jaw. "I have no brothership with Phantom, make no mistake. But I also have no interest in being annihilated or otherwise incarcerated. This is entirely for the good of my kingdom."

It was enough for Sam. She nodded. "We better get going, then."

No one else stood up, all apprehensive with lowered eyes. Sam knew they had already given so much. Everyone had given too much.

And so for better or worse, Sam re-shouldered Skulker's assault rifle and moved to open the doors, eyes hard with tears. She walked outside the hospital with strong and unwavering steps.

Dora turned to Aragon, a real fear moving her forward with uncertainty. "You really should stay behind. If you fade out, the kingdom will have no king."

Her older brother, somewhat of both a tormentor and a companion, looked away. His voice was rough. "And if I allow you to go without me," he said, "there will be no one to replace me should I fall."

Then his eyes began to glow red. He swooped out the door, the lines of his body unraveling with light.

Dora swallowed hard, almost touched at her brother's distant concern. "Neither of us will fall today, brother." She breathed in deeply, then followed him out. Their forms expanded into the sleek and powerful lines of dragons.

With little décor, Sam quickly mounted Dora, who then swooped them straight into the fray, followed by Aragon.


From within the panicking Convoys, Agent M saw the figure of Sam, and his eyes widened. "What the—?" The woman upon the blue dragon looked human, bandages on her arms stained with splotches of red from what appeared to be previous injuries. But she wasn't attacking Phantom. She was shooting at the skeleton army and the GIWs—both of Phantom's enemies now—as her entourage of dragons flew through the air.

He recalled the strange name that had echoed across Phantom's lips. Sam.

A name.

"Of course," he breathed. "His obsession. It's a person. Her."

A brilliantly calculated smile crossed his face. "And if we kill the obsession, we kill the ghost." He turned around to Agent T. "Run a biometric scan on that girl, now."

"Right away, sir." Tense seconds passed as their technology scanned and honed in on the girl riding the dragon. "Biometric scans state a ninety-nine percent match with one Samantha Manson, home address from Amity Park. There's several pictures of her with Phantom from years past."

Agent M smiled brilliantly as the puzzle pieces clicked together. "Sam. That's the name he called out. We can use her to permanently end Phantom."

"Sir, if we annihilate her, Phantom will fade out, won't he? We'll lose our investment. Agent O said that—"

"—I'm not Agent O," M said shortly. "And Phantom is a rabid dog that needs to be put down. Upload her image into the holographic interface."

"Uh, yes, sir." And so Agent T transmitted Sam's image and her coordinates to the remaining GIWs. The image immediately popped up on their visors.

Agent M leaned forward, broadcasting his old and strong voice to his troops. "All units, redirect primary target orders to the human woman in purple, aka Samantha Manson. I repeat, redirect primary target orders to the women in purple, Samantha Manson!"

One of his commanding officers responded, "Sir, do you wish us to apprehend her for questioning?"

"No, lieutenant. Shoot to kill. That's an order."


A/N: I hope this is a satisfactory cliff hanger! The final battle scene will be up next! And for the record, Amorpho is such an undervalued semi-villain in the DP archive. I really enjoy writing him.

As an aside, the existence of ancient ghosts is canon according to the history of Pariah Dark in the episode Reign Storm. I simply expanded their unknown background here and gave them titles. The Elder, the Master of Knowledge and Wisdom, first appeared in Chained back in Chapter 16 as the ring-leader of the Ghost Council and who revoked Clockwork's powers, so I've been dying to get to this point in the plot for a long time.

Anyways, please leave me a review with your thoughts, questions, predictions, and/or requests! I take your opinions into consideration with each chapter, and I love knowing what you think. Happy Holidays to everyone!