Kill it, kill it, kill it.
His hand shot out, fingers encased in tiny ghost shields sharpened to a deadly point. For a second his vision blacked out, then flooded with red.
"Shhh." A gentle voice came in place of the scream he was expecting, Danny reluctantly opened his eyes and saw Jason's energy tipped fingers less than an inch from his face. Between him and his friend was Valery. Her arms wrapped around the boy, holding him tightly and pulling him out of reach of the halfa.
"Please stop me." Jason begged, hearing how broken his voice sounded, but not caring, even as his traitorous hand reached out to end his friend's life. He'd already hurt Dick, and he was close, so very close to hurting the first friend he'd ever had. Even the fog of Freakshow's control couldn't pierce into the agony in Jason's chest that had nothing to do with his burned, bleeding flesh. "Please."
He held onto her, not caring that she'd taken advantage of his trust to hand him over to Vlad Masters. She'd kept him from plunging his hand through Danny's chest, she'd saved his friend's life and he'd never more grateful for anything in his life.
She shushed him and let him cry on her shoulder even though he was covered in ghostly blood and he'd almost shot her. Even though his other hand was reaching up to wrap around her throat. "You have to kill me Valery." He whispered with the last shreds of freewill he had.
"No." She pressed her lips to his forehead and two sharp points dug into the torn flesh at his torso. There was a click and his nerves were on fire. Screams tore themselves from his throat and sharp red energy spun out of him in a frantic last attempt at casing as much damage as possible. The sensation of layers peeling away from him was familiar. Two pairs of arms tried to hold him still while he thrashed around. The hat fell from his head and it's bells sounded a final chime as it hit the ground before dissolving into smoke and dissipating into along with the rest of him.
He didn't know how long it took, but it felt like hours and he was sure he would burn away into nothing. When it was over there were only two arms holding onto him, all of his power was gone, the thin strip of white dangling in front of his face the only sign that he'd ever had any to begin with. Deep breaths of stale air pulled themselves into his lungs and his weak body sagged against the nearest support.
In the time it took him to notice his mind was empty, his body had already given into the compulsion to pull away from Valery, put as much distance between him and all of them as he possibly could. She held him place, his tired muscles incapable of escaping her as she ran a hand through his hair and tucked away the plasmius maximus.
"You can stop fighting now." She said, her voice just loud enough for him to hear. He peeked over her shoulder saw Danny, kneeling in the in the gooey remains of what had once been some of the attacking ghosts. "It's okay to stop fighting now."
"Please tell me that worked." The halfa huffed, wiping away the ectoplasm trailing down from the side of his head.
Jason sighed, relaxing into Valery's hold, he caught sight of the specter speeder blasting a trail through the ghosts enclosing it, Sam hanging out a window with a blaster. Danny was standing in the gooey remains of what could have once been more ghosts.
"The heck did you do?" Jason accepted Danny's hand and let the halfa pull him to his feet, only to be pushed back to the ground, out of the path of a screeching winged ghost that Valery promptly shot down.
"Can we talk about that later?" The huntress asked, taking aim again.
"Catch!" The speeder flew by and Sam dropped two pieces of glinting metal.
Jason held the knives loosely in his hands, looking between the weapons, his friends, and the virtual army Freakshow had under his control. He must have taken too long because Danny nudged him hard enough to put him off balance.
"Are you gonna go nuts on us again?" The halfa asked, a hint of apprehension in his voice.
"Maybe when we get out of this." Jason spun the knives and readied his stance. There'd be time to deal with the fallout when everyone was safe. Until then he'd focus on his mission. The specter speeder positioned itself behind them, Sam and Tucker looking worriedly down at the rest of them. Jason smirked. "You got a plan this time, Boss?"
"Get the staff and break it over Freakshow's head." Danny cracked his knuckles, a grin on his gace and the gash at the side if his head almost healed. "Let's go kick some butt."
.
.
.
It took a few minutes if fighting for Danny to really take note of exactly how many ghosts Freakshow had under his control. He blasted one creepy flying eyeball out of the air and a million more popped up in front of him. They weren't all that strong, but their sheer numbers made Danny worry that he'd tire before Freakshow ran out of minions.
Valery paused in her attacking when she was met by a pack of yapping puppies. "Shoo dogs." She waved her arms. One separated from the pack and chomped down on her foot, she kicked out her leg, dislodging the dog and flinging it away from her. The other dogs were silent for a second, then they growled, the almost cute sound morphing into a loud, vicious snarl when they all turned into huge, slobbering monsters.
Very familiar monster dogs. They were just like the one that had rampaged through Axion labs, costing her father his job. The girl put her blasters away and flexed her fingers, these she'd take care of up close and personal.
Tucker laughed while he steered them through the huge gathering of ghosts, Sam fired a blaster almost as big as her out the window while he used the speeders main ecto-cannon. Who said, you needed ghost powers to put up a fight? The speeder weaved through the tangled body of a huge snake-like ghost. The speeders powerful cannon scorching it's side while they moved.
"You're enjoying this too much!" Sam said, firing one last time before swapping out her spent blaster for a new one. She pulled back its top and caressed the weapon while it powered up, there was a smirk on her face as she blaster a variety of ghosts from the sky.
"You're one to talk." He brought the speeder to an abrupt stop, almost knocking Sam out the widow and making her drop her blaster.
"Tucker!" She complained, pulling herself back inside.
"It's them." The boy pointed, his eyes fixed ahead at the three ghostly vultures approaching. Sam picked up an even bigger weapon from her waiting pile.
She activated it, and like they'd heard the loud clicking the vultures paused in their flying to look at the still speeder. "What are you waiting for?"
"Oh yeah." The geek flicked a switch, turning on the speeders auxiliary power and amping up the cannon. "It's payback time baby." With a gleeful laugh, he threw the speeder into gear and charged at the ghosts. They must have felt the malice coming from the teens, because they screeched and flew the other way, the speeder close behind.
Danny was tossed to the ground by the thrashing of the dragon ghosts he's just beat, and landed in a crouch near Red, who promptly broke into a sneezing fit.
"You can't be getting sick now." Danny groaned, getting a heated glare from his friend.
"That was one time!" Red flicked a bit of green off one of his knives, he ducked under a small blue ghosts and spun around to kick it savagely away from him. "These furry little bastards again." He sneezed as they were surrounded by more of the little rabbit ghosts, and Red sneezed some more.
With cries of "Bunny wraith!" They all hopped at the boys.
"You're all twice as freaking dead!" Red spun his knives and began slashing at the creatures.
Danny kept out of his friend's reach and knocked away some of the ghosts. Something heavy and orange tackled him away from the mound of fuzzy blue, and left him winded on the ground meters away.
Manic laughter filled the air and Danny found himself surrounded by a pack of huge, laughing hyena-like ghosts.
"You guys again, huh?" Flew off the ground and hovered just above them. He didn't see the lughing dig man that had been controlling them before, but they were plenty on their own. The halfa fired of a ghost ray, putting at least three of them out of commission, and inciting the others to leap at him. Danny ducked under them easily. Last time he'd had his friends to protect, now that he didn't have to worry about that he could go all out against the hyenas. He didn't count how any there were exactly, but it only took him a few minutes to move on to the last one. It laughed and charged at him, he threw up a ghost shield, and winced when the hyena crashed into it, laughter cut off by the pained yelp. A ghost ray from each hand was all it took for the ghost to become a few wisps of orange smoke. With any luck it would be a while before he had to deal with them again.
There was a cry of pain and a bull ran by Danny, Reds body flailing in front of its face while he held tightly onto its horns. His knife flashed in his hands and the bull dispersed just in time for Red to be smashed into a wall.
"I'm going on a freaking all meat diet, I swear." Red wiped the ectoplasm covering his hands off on his short cape. "Freaking hate those damn things." He kept muttering curses to himself while kicked off the wall to begin slashing at any ghost stupid enough to get close to him on his path to Freakshow.
Danny followed after his friend, taking out the ghosts higher up while Red beat back any he could reach. The halfa blasted away a few ghosts behind them and almost smashed into a wall of sticky pink when he turned around.
"A memories." Danny knocked away a ghost poff and got closer to Red, who was glaring at the huge bubble-gum blob. "Isn't this the first ghost we all fought together?"
"You sound like Nightwing." Red reached into a pouch on one of his belts and threw some beeping knives at the ghost. They buried deep into the ghosts and exploded, sending globs of sticky pink candy all over the place, he tossed some pellets at the splattered remains and they froze over, covering the ground in ice crystals.
"You've forgotten about me so soon?" Skulker asked with a sadistic grin. "I remember beating you whelps long before you left the Ghost Zone."
"I could do with a rematch." Red brandished his knives, even hidden behind his mask, Danny could still feel the boy's cold glare.
Valery brought her hover board close by. "Oh, this is one I definitely want a piece of." The girl said.
"Get him!" Danny was just about to blast the ghosts when Skulker's body started spazzing out. His robotic limbs flailing and spinning at the joints. Smoke streamed from behind the metal plates and his suit exploded, flinging his head clear to the other side of the huge room.
"Who's the real master of technology?!" Tucker cried gleefully and waved his tricked out PDa before planting a sloppy kiss on its screen and laughing.
"Go Tucker." Danny grinned and waved at the passing speeder, Sam, still handing out the window, waved back and kept shooting at any ghost she got in her sights.
They were close enough now that they could hear Freakshow's ranting, and somewhere in the distance there was a loud explosion.
"You're already too late!" Freakshow waved his staff around, a small cloud of ghost-bugs flowing along with the glowing orb at its end. "There's no way a group of children will be able to stop the next ghost I bring under my control!"
"After this you'll be lucky if you can talk at all after this." The girl said, standing in front of the man and keeping him from running hold of the man. "You wanna do the honors, Red?" She cocked her head at the boy.
"Sure." Red drew back his fist and crashed it into Freakshow's face. There was a cracking sound and blood dribbled down from the man's now misshapen nose. Red grabbed a fist full of the material at the front of Freakshow's and took another swing at him, but the boy's face scrunched up before the blow landed. He looked at the blood on his glove, and behind the mask he squeezed his eyes shut. Strangled sobs were coming from Freakshow, and slowly, in small twitches, Red's fist loosened.
He loosened his hold on Freakshow and the man dropped to the ground in a pathetic heap. Red tugged the staff away and tossed it over to Valery, his own arms dropping to his sides. "He can't do anything without this."
"Red?" Valery frowned at the boy, and Red shrugged nonchalantly, but Danny knew the tense set of his friend's shoulders meant Red was anything but calm.
Danny nodded at Valery's questioning look. If Red wanted to let Freakshow off easy for now, Danny would let him. With a grunt, Valery swung the staff at the throne, cracking the glowing orb against its side. Freakshow's screams were almost drowned out by those of the ghosts as they escaped, while Valery kept smashing his source of power.
The scrawny man tried to stop her, but it was surprisingly easy for Danny to hold him back.
"You don't know what you're doing!" Freakshow cried with honest to goodness tears in his eyes.
"We're kicking your pasty butt." Danny said. With one last swing the staff was shattered, pieces of swirly green gemstone flying breaking apart in a brilliant flash of light. Danny had to turn away to shield his eyes from it.
"Freaking heck that's bright as all heck."
Danny chuckled when Red let out a string of curses and peeled back his domino mask to rub his eyes.
Tiny pieces of the staff began falling back to the ground, and Sam, still leaning out of the speeder reached out a hand to catch some of the sparkling stones. Danny brushed some of the pieces off of his shoulders.
"Man am I glad that's over." Danny sighed and looked down at the sniveling Freakshow. "Let's get outta here guys." He waved his arm at the door and bent to pick the man off the ground and drag him back to the human world.
"Oh I wouldn't be so sure, Daniel."
.
.
.
Vlad smirked, he hovered near the ceiling, a fiery crown resting on his head. Jason would have made a comment on the accessory, but Didn't get the chance before Vlad was talking again. "And, you have my thanks for saving me the trouble distracting this nuisance. However, I do believe a more permanent solution will be in order" He waved his hand and a ghost-ray was aimed at Freakshow.
"What are you doing?" Freakshow cried. "We're partners, you said we'd take over together, you need me, you can't…!" The man was blasted right out of the huge double doors, his screams cut off abruptly, whatever happened to the man, Jason was glad they didn't have to see it. So much for sparing the guy.
"Masters!" Valery growled and charged at her former employer.
The man frowned and the instant red energy crackled at the man's hand Jason leaped between it and Valery, a ghost ray sending them both skidding across the ectoplasm-stained ground. Without the ghostly energy to throw up a shield, he had to take the blast head on, and pain flooded his system, blanking out his vision and bringing it back just in time for his to watch the ceiling collapsing on top of him. He instinctively pulled Valery under him and lifted his heavy duty cape over their heads to shield them from the falling stone. He had to bite his lips to keep from crying out when the heavy debris crashed into his legs though.
"That's a shame." He heard Vlad cackling overhead, and Danny's battle cry as the younger halfa charged at him.
"Red?" Valery coughed, her dirty face barely visible with the few cracks of light that made it through. "Are you okay?"
"Sure." He shifted under the heavy weight, but there was no way they'd be able to dig their way out in time to help Danny. "Damnit." He swore when he felt blood trickling down one of his legs, his circulation was too cut off for him to really feel how bad the cut was, but with all the pressure against the rocks, it wasn't good.
The sounds of a battle above them grew more intense and Jason struggled to free one of his limbs so he could at least attempt to get out from under the heavy rock. The pressure on his legs increase, and he was torn between cursing the stupidity of digging survivors out of rubble when you didn't know what you were doing, and crying in gratitude at the scraping sounds coming from somewhere above him.
A metal claw broke through the rubble, hitting his back hard enough that he was sure he'd be sporting some serious bruising in a few hours, but he gripped it tightly with his now free hand, the other still wrapped around Valery. The gash on his leg was torn further on the sharp rocks while they were pulled out, but when caught sight of the speeder, he was just about ready to hug Sam and Tucker to death.
Vlad spun around from where he'd just sent his opponent careening into the ground and fires double ghost-rays at the speeder. The claw, along with Valery was torn out of Jason's gripped, jarring his shoulders painfully.
"Leave them out of this!" Danny slammed into a ghost shield while Vlad moved closer to where the smoking speeder had crashed.
"Freaking creep." Jason picked up biggest rock within reach and tossed it at the man. It hit the back of the man's head and he spun around to glare at the culprit. "You get a kick outta beating kids, huh?" The boy pulled himself to his feet, biting back a scream when he put weight on his injured leg. Yup, that was stitches at the very least. "Ya know there's a word for nut-cases like you."
The man growled and charged at Jason, who threw down a handful of smoke pellets and dove out of the way. He rolled down the pile of rubble, and this time he did cry out at the pain the uneven surface coughed his leg. Vlad appeared through the smoke one hand reaching out to clamp around the boy's throat and pull him into the air.
"What was that, you cretin?" Vlad demanded, tightening his hold on Jason's windpipe. The only sounds Jason could force out of his throat were garbled nonsense and the man smirked in victory.
Jason got another handful of pellets and slammed them into the man's chest. Vlad coughed, and flung Jason around in his haste to escape the acrid smoke, but didn't let go.
"I said you're a sadistic, cowardly, ugly as sin, creep that shouldn't be allowed near children." Jason choked out. "I'd go on, but there are some words I won't say in front of children." The words were barely audible, but judging by the snarl on the man's face, Masters got the message.
The hand around Jason's throat tightened again and Vlad turned to the younger halfa, a twisted smirk on his face. "Really Daniel." He chuckled darkly. "This is the company you keep now?' His fingers were digging painfully into Jason's throat when he held the boy up to the halfa trapped behind the shield. "I'll offer you one last chance to join me, and I might consider sparing your family, along with the creatures you claim as friends."
"As if you couldn't be more of a fruitloop." Danny growled, bashing his fists at the shield.
"You're sure about that, Daniel?" Electricity coursed through Jason's body, drawing a choked scream from his constricted throat and a curse from Danny's. Wow, Jason would have chuckled at his friend's language if he could have, he really was a bad influence. "And what does your friend think of the suffering he'll endure for your insolence?" He released his hold just enough for Jason to speak.
"I think you're freaking stupid, and you should take the Boss's suggestion to go fuAAAAAHHH." Jason screamed as his muscles contracted at the higher voltage of electricity that was Vlad's retribution. Danny's eyes were widened in horror, and he redoubled his efforts at breaking through the shield.
"You're a spunky one, aren't you." Vlad hissed in Jason's ear. "Maybe I'll keep you around, there are more relics that can take hold of a ghost's mind, many more powerful than anything I'd let Freakshow get his hands on. With some reconditioning, you may make a good attack dog."
Jason, raised one arm high enough that it was level with Vlad's face and lifted one finger in a rude gesture, a painful chuckle escaping his lips at the man's outraged snarl. The shield encasing Danny cracked, and the halfa screamed at his friends to stop antagonizing Vlad.
"On second thought." Vlad's free hand and Jason almost agreed with Danny that maybe he'd gone a bit too far, or maybe he hadn't gone far enough. "That mouth of yours just sealed your fate." Both hands were now wrapped around Jason's throat, twice the amount of energy overloading his system.
If he screamed, he wasn't aware of it, he didn't hear Danny's cries for Vlad to stop, or the rest of his friends hitting the older halfa with all the firepower they had. All he knew was that the pain was the second worse he'd ever felt in his life, they it was all gone, and he was flung out of Vlad's hold and into three pairs of waiting arms below.
Sam, Tucker and Valery collapsed under his weight, but they did break his fall, and he was too grateful that there was no more pain to be overly guilty about that. He rolled off them and onto his back, sucking in deep lungfuls of air, every constriction of his throat hurt like heck, but it was so much better than being freaking strangled and electrocuted. It didn't keep his vision from fritzing out on him though, and when a huge black figure appeared in front of him he was sure the grim reaper was paying him back for whatever had cheated him out of Jason's death.
He was about to sink into blissful oblivion when he heard a voice, the last voice he would have expected to ever hear again.
"On your feet soldier, the wars not over."
Like magic Jason's eyes shot open, taking in the huge man facing down Vlad like the halfa was just another scumbag crawling out of the gutters of Gotham city. When the whited out lenses of the shimmering, black metallic cowl turned to Jason, he was sure it wouldn't have made any difference if Vlad really was a scrawny bank robber, or even Superman himself.
The Batman's shimmering cape fluttered and Jason was left breathless in his wake.