We were escorted to the village by the two yeti's, which I was thankful for, since I felt completely lost the entire way. I should really come here more often.
"We're here," one snowman told us. I looked around. The village was just as I remembered. It didn't seem like the ghost king had had much of an influence here. I shifted my gaze to Femmy. She was too busy shivering to be impressed with the Far Frozen's village. Instead, she stared at me, asking with her eyes how I could not be affected by the cold at all.
"I shall lead you to Frostbite," I was told by one of the yeti's. He took off and me and Femmy started following him, until she was stopped by the second one's spear.
"Just him." I imagined she killed him ten times over in her mind, but in reality she just stared daggers at him. She lamented the fact she wouldn't be able to keep an eye on me, like she was told to, but she was too frozen to do anything about it. So she just followed the second yeti while he guided her to a place that was hopefully warmer. I trusted the people of the Far Frozen to take good care of her, so I turned around and led the snow monster lead me to Frostbite. Without Femmy around, I could probably explain everything to him, and hope he would lend me the map.
"That is certainly a curious tale. So you're saying you accidentally came here from an alternate reality?" I was sitting across Frostbite in his house, the snowman from earlier standing guard at the door.
"That's right."
"But, if I may be so bold, why come to us? I'm sure Clockwork could send you home if you ask him."
"Well, I kinda messed with his stuff, and, well... I think he'll be pretty mad when he sees me," I told Frostbite while scratching the back of my neck.
"Ha ha hah!" The echo of his laughter made the whole room shake. "Clockwork is a forgiving man, young Phantom. I doubt you have anything to worry about." I was almost convinced at the sight of his broad grin. However, that was not my only worry.
"Well, there's something else too." I took a deep breath. "I would like to defeat the ghost king that rules the Ghost Zone and the human world in this reality."
In a split second, Frostbite's smile disappeared, and made place for a serious expression. "You mentioned you were regarded as the Ghost Zone's savior in your own world, but this is serious business. Do you really intend go against such a powerful foe, to save a world that's not even your own?"
"I might not exist anymore in this world, but my friends and family do. I cannot bear to watch them suffer the way they do. I want to do everything I can to help them."
Frostbite's smile returned. "Spoken like a true hero. So, I take it you've come to request our help?"
"Yes, I have. There's something I'd like to borrow from you."
"And what would that be?"
"The Infi-map." I could hear the guard behind me gasp in shock, and Frostbite's smile turned into a dead-serious expression for the second time in our conversation.
"The Infi-map is our most treasured possession. Our tribe has safeguarded it for centuries, and we've gone to great lengths to keep it away from the ghost king. I fear your request is too great a risk for us."
"Please, if I had it, I could defeat the ghost king before he even had the chance to take the map." Frostbite's expression remained unchanged as silence took over the room, enough to hear a pin drop. I took a breath to calm down. "I will not let you down. I promise." Several moments later, Frostbite finally answered.
"Very well," he started.
"Frostbite!" the guard behind me protested. "You can't seriously-"
"If you truly have a hero's resolve, I shall let you prove yourself with a test. Defeat me in battle, and the map is yours."
"What?" Both on my face and in my voice, my confusion was obvious. This brought Frostbite's smile back, again.
"That should be no difficult task for one who proclaims himself the savior of the Ghost Zone." He stood up, without breaking eye contact with me. "I will see you in the arena in twenty minutes."
"How did you get yourself into this mess?"
I had just told Femmy about Frostbite's condition for lending the Infi-map, and this was the response she gave me. After she was given warm clothes and a hot drink by the people of the Far Frozen, liveliness had returned to her cynical expression.
"I still think it's better to steal the map. Even if they found out, what can a bunch of hairy ice monsters do?"
"Hey! I owe these people a huge debt. Show a little more respect." She took a sip from her drink while glaring at me.
"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing."
She put her hot drink down. "They say you told them you're going to be 'Savior of the Ghost Zone'."
"Hey, they first started calling me that."
"That's not what I heard." I stood still for a few seconds, trying to think up a response. When I failed, I realized I had just lost a battle of sarcasm. That's my field of expertise.
"Look, I just need to know if you've got this. Can you win?"
I nodded. "But... if you've got any advice for me, I'll gladly take it."
She thought for a moment. "You could fool him into thinking cryokinesis is your only power besides the standard ones, and then surprise him with an ecto-blast. Cryokinesis seems these people's specialty, he'll surely underestimate you." I was amazed by this girl's strategic thinking abilities. I guess this was to be expected from one of Vlad's goons.
I smiled. "Thanks." But seriously, I want her around when I'm fighting the king.
"Danny Phantom?" I turned around to the voice that was calling me. One of the Far Frozen signaled my duel with Frostbite was about to start.
"Well, I'll be going then," I told Femmy.
"...Good luck. You'll need it."
I followed the yeti as he escorted me to the arena where Frostbite was already waiting for me. The rest of the village made up our audience. A smile appeared on my face as I remembered the time I trained here with Frostbite. Even though I totally sucked at first, he patiently taught me how to do it right. He'd saved my life, and now it was my turn to thank him for that by defeating the ghost king. And for that, I first had to win this battle.
"I see your people still take every chance for entertainment."
"Ha! Indeed, life can get quite monotonous in this frozen wasteland," Frostbite told me with a big grin.
"I shall hereby explain the rules of this duel!" the ghost that had just escorted me here screamed. "This is a one-on-one battle, meaning outsiders may not interfere. Any ghost powers may be used. The first one to make the other admit defeat will be the winner. Any questions?"
"None," I told him. He looked at Frostbite, who nodded in agreement.
"Then let the battle begin!" He wasted no time in flying out of the arena after he gave the starting sign, and Frostbite and I took battle poses. Then, it seemed Frostbite used his ice powers to materialize something. When the bright light emerging from that something disappeared, they revealed an ice sword at least twice as big as me. Frostbite took it in his hand as if it weighed nothing, taking back his battle stance, and waited for me to make the first move. I decided to copy him, and made a sword out of ice, albeit not nearly as big as his one. Then I jumped off the ground and launched myself toward him.
I pointed my sword at Frostbite as the distance between us rapidly decreased. Instead of getting ready to dodge, he firmly planted his feet on the ground and held his giant ice sword like a shield, one hand holding the grip and the other the end of the blade. Not even half a second later, our swords collided. In this kind of situation, the most fragile of the two swords would definitely break. Well, that one was mine. But I was going too fast and already too close to my opponent to stop. It was a wonder I was able to react just before crashing into Frostbite. I instinctively turned intangible and phased through him, before launching myself into the air. I stopped when I was roughly ten feet above the ground, on the other side of the arena.
He barely gave me time to catch my breath, as he followed up with a rain of icicles he shot at me. I quickly made a shield out of ice and moved it around to cover different parts of my body that would've gotten hit otherwise. After a few seconds of organizing my thoughts, I dropped the shield and started circling around the arena at full speed. Frostbite used a freeze ray to follow me, while the people watching our battle started cheering loudly. I wondered whether it was because they thought I was getting cornered, or just because they really enjoyed watching us. I decided to go with the latter one, and redirected my attention at Frostbite. He still hadn't moved from his earlier spot.
While continuing to avoid his freeze ray, I slowly spiraled closer to Frostbite. While the movement of his arms got relatively slower because of this, I also had to go slower to be able to keep circling, canceling out the effect. When the radius of my circle was almost small enough for his sword to reach me, I came to a sudden halt, turned around in a split second, and guarded myself from Frostbite's freeze ray with a shield of ice. My shield and his ray met with each other, and his blast of ice materialized as a quickly-growing ice crystal on my shield. Frostbite noticed this just before the crystal pierced the hand he'd stretched out to create the ray in the first place, and jumped backwards. He smiled, and the audience's cheers were now ear-deafeningly loud.
I immediately grabbed the chance to take the initiative, and created a bat out of ice. At the same time, I created a ball of cryogenic energy, hit it with my bat and fired it at Frostbite. He guarded himself with his sword, and my ball disintegrated at the impact. I kept firing several more, but all of them were blocked. I hit another ball with my bat, then swiftly dropped it, and shot the next one right out of my hand. Frostbite easily destroyed the first one, but noticed the second one too late. After making an absolutely priceless confused face, he was hit right between his eyes. However, Frostbite is the leader of the Far Frozen, a ghost with an ice core, and someone with tons of experience with cryokinesis. What I'm trying to say, the damage was zero. None. Nada. He didn't have a single scratch. He wasn't even knocked back. He'd taken an ice blast from me, and was unharmed. The audience yelled for me to admit defeat.
This seems like the perfect time to try Femmy's plan. I shot several more freeze rays at Frostbite, all of which hit either his shoulders or his chest, and had zero effect. While I continued to rain my energy balls on him, he casually walked towards me. I noticed both his hands were empty, and realized I hadn't even seen him drop his sword. When he seemed close enough, I stopped shooting ice blasts at him for a moment to prepare a bigger one in my hands. The people watching seemed to think I'd given up, and cheered loudly. Frostbite had almost reached me, and started to prepare an ice blast as well. When I deemed my own ball of energy big enough, I stepped back as a feint, then launched my body forwards and shot my ball at Frostbite, turning it into a blast. Thinking it was just like my previous ones, Frostbite took it without dodging. However it wasn't. Because this ice blast was filled to the brim with regular ectoplasm. This launched Frostbite to the other side of the arena while also creating a dust cloud. The whole arena went completely silent. No one in the audience had any idea what happened. Why was their leader, who had clearly been winning the battle, suddenly blown away? The cloud of dust cleared up, and I saw Frostbite had already stood up. He had his serious look on his face, which meant he hadn't been expecting this. I flew into the air again, and destroyed all of the icicles Frostbite was now throwing at me with ecto blasts. He saw I'd gained the upper hand, and at this rate he wasn't going to win. So he decided to make my test still a bit tougher, and did something I'd never seen him do. He jumped off the ground and flew.
There is not a single ghost that can't fly. Yet I was still slightly surprised at seeing my big, hairy friend defy gravity that easily. Even though I did it myself on a daily basis. I shot several more plasma rays at him, which he avoided by going intangible, while approaching me at neck-breaking speed. When he was at two arm-lengths distance, he stretched his left arm forward, and as soon as we made contact, he fired an ice blast as point-blank. His people, who had been silently watching ever since Frostbite had first been blown away, erupted in loud cheering again.
"Huh?" It was Frostbite who said this. Because, where he expected to see me falling to the ground covered in ice, he instead saw only green smoke where I'd been moments earlier. Where he thought I'd been, to be correct. What he didn't seem to understand was that in the dust cloud from earlier, I'd duplicated myself. He'd been fighting my clone, while my main body was intangible, waiting for a chance. That chance was now. I launched myself at Frostbite, turning visible in the process. Before he could even turn around, I grabbed him from behind, causing him to fall down. I wrapped my left arm and right leg around his neck, left leg around his left arm, and shoved my right hand into his face, ecto-blast ready to fire at a moment's notice. My head being next to his, I could see a grin form on his face as he softly landed in the snow.
"Congratulations, Danny Phantom. You have bested me in battle." I unloaded the ecto-blast in my palm. For several seconds, everyone present in the arena stared dumbfounded at the unexpected outcome. Then, slowly, someone started clapping. The applause grew louder, and louder, and soon it was joined by cheers. I smiled, and removed my limbs from Frostbite's neck and chest, and landed in the snow behind him. He turned around, and smiled at me.
"You have proven your skills. As promised, we will lend you the Infi-map. Use it well, and it could help you on your road to victory against the ghost king."
I returned his smile. "Thanks Frostbite. That means so much to me." Now I could collect the Blood Orbs, and after my parents had completed the ultimate weapon, the final battle would already be there. Even though it seemed like two big tasks, I probably didn't have much time left in this world. After the final battle, I'd be going home. I trusted Sam, Tucker, my parents and Valerie to have kept Amity Park safe and ghost-free, but the sooner I returned, the better. Besides, there was also a pile of schoolwork waiting for me after having missed several days of school. The end of this adventure seemed so far away, and at the same time was so close.
I wonder what Sam and the others from this world will be doing after I leave. If the ghost king is gone, ghosts will most likely go back to the Ghost Zone, and eventually they'll be able to live a normal life. They can go to school again, meet new friends, maybe even find that one special person...
I swallowed. In my own world I was dating Sam, but that would never happen here, since I had already died.
It feels a bit lonely, but as long as they're happy, I'm glad...
That was LONG... I've broken the record for longest chapter in this story twice in a row now, and yet I wanted the full battle with Frostbite in this chapter. If this is a duel, I can't imagine how long the final battle could be... I have no idea yet xD
Anyway, hope everyone enjoyed the chapter (and the whole story for that matter)! Feedback, positive and negative, is always appreciated :D