A/N: Thank you for the reviews! This chapter is the start of some changes! Enjoy!
Chapter Five
Suicide Mission, But With a Ghost
Danny woke up with a violent start.
His body convulsed from the memory of the pain he just experienced and his ghost half felt like it was trying to rip itself out of him and flee. Confusion filled him as he felt a familiar softness under him. His eyes adjusted to the light, revealing he was in his bedroom, laying on top of his covers. The eerie green glow of the Ghost Zone flooded in through his wide-open window along with a strong breeze. The lights in his room were off, but the ghostly glow lit up the room significantly.
Dazed and panicked, Danny scanned the surrounding room. Vlad, the Fright Knight, and Pariah Dark were nowhere in sight, but Valerie was at his side. She was kneeling on the floor, leaning on the edge of his bed, with her head on her folded arms.
He called her name, relieved to see her, only she didn't stir. Danny moved closer to her, getting a better view, and he felt his heart stop, and not just because the Ring of Rage was gone.
His eyes traced up her arm to see a large gash on her left forearm, which was bleeding freely on his bed sheet. She had several scratches on her face and body, with her clothes ripped and bloodied. He could only assume her skin was covered in bruises, but the eerie glow from the Ghost Zone made it hard to tell.
Danny swallowed as he knelled down next to her. His hand shook as he reached out, placing a finger on her neck.
She was warm. He could feel her heartbeat.
He cursed as some weight lifted off of him. At least she was alive.
He pushed a bit of hair out of her face. He could see her right eye was swollen and her upper lip busted.
Did she fight both the Ghost King and the Fright Knight to save him?
The Fright Knight, who was no laughing matter, and the Ghost King, that literally every ghost in the entire zone fled to the human world to escape? When he himself trembled with fear when he finally came face to face with the ancient ghost?
Her breathing seemed shallow, and he worried about the possibility of broken ribs. Gently as he could, he lifted her from the floor and laid her on the bed. The movement woke her.
Danny held her shoulders down as she moved to spring up, eyes frantically scanning the room. Once her eyes adjusted to the low light, she locked eyes with him.
"Danny," Valerie breathed, relieved as she laid back down, and he felt his heart clench. "Are you okay?"
"Am I okay?" he asked in disbelief. "Val, are you serious? What happened to you?" He slowly sat down on the bed, afraid of jostling her battered body too much.
"I'm glad you're okay," she said with a smile, avoiding his question.
Danny felt fire behind his eyes and he refused to let any tears fall.
"Seriously, Val, what happened? Who… who did this to you?"
"He called himself the Ghost King. He had you and Masters unconscious... He said he would take you guys into the Ghost Zone… I'm not sure why... but I just couldn't let that happen. Glad I know Taekwondo," she joked at the end.
Danny would not point out how knowing Taekwondo, even being a black belt, would have never been enough to save them from the Ghost King. He would not pressure her for the whole details, because he was sure in her current state, that if he kept pushing, she would tell him the whole truth and that wasn't fair to her.
"Why were you guys outside the Ghost Shield?" she asked, voice weak.
Danny wanted to respond with asking why she was out there too, knowing that she might drop the question if she had to answer, but that was kind of crappy given what she had just done for him.
"I got into a fight with Vlad," he answered honestly as he moved closer on the bed.
"You don't like him very much, huh?" she asked with a chuckle that made her flinch in pain.
"No. Did I ever tell you he has a thing for my mom?" Danny said with a forced laugh as he reached out and grabbed her left hand in his.
"Ew!" she said in genuine disgust. "Sorry I saved him." Danny notice her eyes were slowly closing and her speech was slurring.
"You're forgiven," he choked out as her eyes closed.
He felt hot tears leak down his cheeks as her hand went limp in his.
He spent the next several minutes frantically checking her pulse over and over and bandaging the worst of her wounds with the first aid kit he kept in his room.
Suddenly, the door to his room flung open.
"Danny, you're okay!" Sam's relieve voice called out to him. "Your dad and mom said you've been up here this whole time with Valerie-," Sam started but stopped once she flicked on the light. She and Tucker both gasped and quickly closed the door. "Whoa. What happened to her?"
Danny ignored the part where his parents must have seen Valerie in his room and didn't pay enough attention to the state Valerie was in and left her bleeding on his bed.
There was a lump in Danny's throat that he tried to clear, but he only let out a small, involuntary sob. He angrily clinched his teeth together and wiped away a few tears that still clung to his cheeks.
"You name it," he could finally get out. "Fright Knight, Ghost King, Vlad."
Me, he thought.
His temper had caused him to pull that sword from the ground before he knew what it was.
"All of my enemies. Everything I thought I could handle, but I couldn't."
The bed sank with pressure and Sam was next to him with a comforting arm wrapped around his shoulders. Tucker was next to him and sat on his other side, placing a gentle hand on his arm.
"Dude, you can't blame yourself for this," Tucker assured. "It's not your fault."
"Maybe not," Danny said, unconvinced. "But it is my responsibility."
Danny and Tucker waited outside of his closed room as Sam took over bandaging the wounds covered by Valerie's clothes and changing her into a pair of Danny's sweats and tee-shirt.
"I've patched you up enough that I think she'll be fine until we can get her to a hospital," Sam told him as she exited the room.
"Thanks Sam," Danny said as he hugged her tight.
"No thanks needed," Sam assured as she hugged him back. Once they parted Sam looked off to the side. "I can't believe she risked her life to save you. Do you think she saw you change?"
Honestly, Danny had no clue.
"I don't know. She didn't hint at anything before she passed out. Not that it matters."
"No, it doesn't," Sam agreed.
"I think we all owe her big-time," Tucker added, they all nodded.
Danny sent a text to Jazz about Valerie being hurt by a ghost attack and recovering in his room. He didn't bother to wait for a response before going ghost, turning intangible and invisible, and taking his friends with him up to the top floor of Fenton Works to the Operations Center. With the ecto-skeleton finished, his parents were explaining to a group of people how it worked. The group included all of their parents, some police officers, the mayor, and various members of the community. The tone was bleak, with people worryingly muttering to themselves. Several people were near hysteria, concerned that they had missing family members, unsure if they were just outside the city before it transitioned or if something far worse had happened.
Everything had escalated so quickly, Danny had failed to appreciate what exactly happened.
Amity Park was in the Ghost Zone.
That meant there was a gaping hole left on Earth where an entire city just vanished off the face of the Earth. That had to draw the attention of the entire world.
Not to mention, the people of Amity Park themselves had to be terrified. It was one thing to have the Box Ghost rearrange your attic, Klemper popping up at parties looking for new friends, and Ember throwing random concerts in parks (as those were actually pretty fun as long as the audience stayed under a few hundred so she didn't get to powerful). Yet, this? This was something undeniably strange and world shattering. Amity Park couldn't pretend anymore that ghost weren't a part of their lives and posed a very real threat.
Because, did anyone have a chance against a ghost powerful enough to transport an entire city across dimensions?
He listened to his parents give an overview of the ecto-skeleton, as he had been to busy the last couple days to appreciate what his parent had created. Danny was aware of the fact it didn't have an official "Fenton" name. That worried him, as his father named everything. This meant it was unfinished or his father was too distracted, either options didn't bode well.
The mechanized battle suit enhanced the users abilities a hundredfold with physical augmentations through the neural interface. It could enhance the user's strength, speed, durability, and stamina by allowing the interface to wire itself to its user's nerves, letting the suit respond with the same speed as any natural limb with a thought. Yet, like any part of the body, it required both physical and mental energy. It wasn't enough to provide it with fuel, it needed a user's energy as well to operate, which made it incredibly dangerous.
Then, suddenly, an argument broke out. Everyone present was more than willing to be the one to pilot the untested machine. Apparently, his dad using it earlier left him severely drained, with only operating the lower half, and his mom was convinced that anyone who use the suit would be on a suicide mission. Even when Maddie explained that detail, everyone there still wanted to operate the ecto-skeleton. The argument went on for several minutes with the clear winner being his mom to operate the machine, as she was the only one with the knowledge and physical stamina to work it.
"I can't let her do that," he whispered as they floated near the ceiling.
"Danny, you'll die if you operate it," Sam point it out, worried.
Danny flew his friends up to the roof, one level above the Ops Center. He sat them far away from the retractable hatch that would open to reveal the launch pad with the ecto-skeleton.
"I'm the only one who has a chance at saving our lives," he said and his friends didn't protest. There was no point, as they knew he would not let his mom sacrifice herself.
Danny left them on the roof, asking Tucker to get ready to disengage the Ghost Shield, and returned to the lower floor.
"What the…" Danny muttered as he saw everyone unconscious on the ground. Hazy, pink knockout gas still lingering in the room, forcing Danny to stay intangible. The room flashed red as a countdown started over a loudspeaker and a shrill klaxon pierced the room. To Danny's horror, there was a familiar red-clad figure in the silver suit's dome cock-pit.
"Valerie!" he called out across the room.
"Back off, ghost!" she yelled back, glancing up and looking around for his unknown location. "I don't know how you got in the Fenton's Ghost Shield, but this is my fight," she said with surprising strength in her voice.
"No, it's not. Not anymore," he said to himself as he flew towards the suit.
The room shook as the hangar doors above them opened and the suit powered on. LED lights at the waist lit in a familiar pattern. His parents had incorporated components of a Specter Deflector into the design. He knew he had only seconds before she initiated a ghost shield around the ecto-suit. Quickly, he phased through metal into the tiny operators cockpit meant for one. Unfortunately, she was already attached to the neural transmitters and, from what his mom said, they were painful to attach and remove.
"Gah! Get out of here!" she yelled but didn't make a move to shoot him, probably because of the confined space. She was a quick learner and was already initiating the suits booster rockets.
"Are you crazy? Do you really think you can take on the Ghost King in your condition?"
She stubbornly refused to look at him.
"Who better than to go into a suicide mission than someone who's already half dead?"
Morbidly, Danny wanted to laugh, as he understood that sentiment too well.
"How about someone who's already dead?" he argued back.
That caused her to look him in the eyes. She reached up and retracted her helmet.
"I don't get you. Isn't this… your king? Why would you want to defy him?"
"I firmly believe in a democracy."
She rolled her eyes. "That's not an answer."
The suit was now ready to take off.
"Being dead isn't all it's cracked up to be. I rather not see you end up like me."
She turned back to the panel and the suit's rocket boosters launched them into the air.
"At least let me help," he blurted as panic filled him. "Look! The dashboard says you're only at twenty-five percent energy! There's no way that's enough. Let me… let me overshadow you!"
"What!" she yelled, skeptical of him. He knew it was still a sore spot with her. He had overshadowed her last time they were in the Ghost Zone together, after escaping Skulker, without gaining her consent.
"I can act like a battery," he explained as they were now flying to the Ghost Shield. Hopefully, Tucker would have good timing to let them out without letting in anyone else. "If you won't let me pilot it, at least let me keep you from dying."
"How do I know you just won't turn us around and kick me out?"
"I could have overshadowed you already," he pointed out, causing her to grimace at the thought. "But you're already hooked in to the suit, and I don't know how to detach you from it. There's a chance I could phase you apart, but there's also a chance that it's so connected to your nerves I would only end up phasing the wiring from the machine, ruining everything.
"And I could still overshadow you and just pilot it myself… but you're strong-willed. Keeping control over you last time took my whole focus. I wouldn't be able to do that and fight a ghost army at the same time. What I'm saying is, we need to work together."
They were jammed so close together in the small cockpit that every one of his senses was flooded with her. The scent of healing ointment stung his nose and mixed with her shampoo and sweat. He could hear her breathing, shallow and uneven, and her once smooth skin was covered in nasty cuts and bruises. The small space lead him to be pressed at her side, feeling her hard red suit dig into him. She visibly flinched whenever she needed to use her left arm and was moving slower than normal. Still, even in her battered and bruised state, she just stared at him. For a long moment she thought it over, her dark, vivid green eyes, still so strong and stubborn despite her condition, holding his pleading ghostly ones.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she nodded her agreement.
Danny let out of breath he was holding.
"Let's do this, partner!"
And with that, he overshadowed his willing host.
