Exposed

by ADraconicScribe

A mysterious caller has revealed that the infamous Danny Phantom is half-human, placing a five hundred thousand dollar prize to the one who exposes Phantom's secret identity. Coupled with Vlad's disappearance, the ghost fighting, and all of the efforts to capture him, Danny and Team Phantom must tread carefully if they are to make it out with their secrets, and their lives, intact.

20. Chapter 20

Warnings: Brief torture and mild gore

Chapter Twenty: Throwing Things

"Madam President, how much did you know about these so-called 'ghosts' before this information was released to the public?"

"I have prided myself on running an open and transparent administration, and so I will not lie to the American people now. I was well aware of the Ghostly Investigation Ward as an agency and its mission to investigate science considered unconventional, unorthodox, or even unreal. However, the GIW did not report the existence of ghosts to their superiors. The agency has become increasingly out of control and independent. So as for the actual knowledge of ghosts, I was as ignorant as the American public."

"What are the possible implications—for our nation, for the world—of this revelation?"

"I don't think we can say anything definitively except that the implications are immense and far-reaching. All of mainstream science up until now has pointed to the idea of 'ghosts' as impossible—though, as we now know, it clearly is possible. We will need intelligent and comprehensive research before we act, which is why I'm appointing a special commission on ghosts to do just that. What facts they uncover will guide our policy and thinking. I currently can't say what other nations' thinking on this is or how they may react."

"Did you or anyone in your administration have anything to do with the cover-up, Madam President?"

"No. As I said before, the GIW were acting entirely on their own, with limited direction from the government. They hid the existence of ghosts from us. Currently, a number of GIW agents have been arrested and many are under investigation. We are a free country, and that means everyone must be held accountable under the law."

"Do you have any sort of plan for these ghosts going forward?"

"I plan on travelling to Amity Park to see the situation for myself. I believe it's imperative that we gather accurate information in order to gauge what must be done. The GIW claim that the ghosts are dangerous, but I think we can all agree that we need a trustworthy, un-biased source to investigate before we as a country decide to act on something."

"Would you be able to explain in detail this commission you're creating?"

"Yes. Its goal will be to find out everything of relevance there is to know about ghosts. I am appointing Doctor Richard Johnson to head this commission—he is a renowned physicist. My hope is that we will arm the American people with facts about this new—and possibly dangerous—topic."

---

One week. Seven days. One-hundred-and-sixty-eight hours. Ten-thousand and eighty minutes. Six-hundred-and-four-thousand-and-eight-hundred seconds. Ticking down—six-hundred-and-four-thousand-seven-hundred-and-ninety-nine, six-hundred-and-four-thousand-seven-hundred-and-ninety-eight—a bomb prepped to explode. It might detonate faster or slower, depending on when exactly the Empress came.

Sometimes Danny thought it was less of a bomb and more of a heart. A poisoned heart, and each contraction pumped the poison down the bloodstream to each organ and limb, bringing it all closer and closer to death. You're being morbid, he told himself. He was lying on a mat in the attic; he wasn't training (it was only four and his parents were home), but he'd wanted to be alone. He'd spent the past two hours with Jazz, looking through the last of their parents' inventions. It was fascinating and terrible to see how many inventions could be made to torment a ghost. There had been things to extract a ghost's core, drain them of ectoplasm, electrocute them until their nervous system stopped working, bring their temperature so high they melted, peel their skin off—

Danny squeezed his eyes shut and rolled over, shuddering. He could see it, his parents, with that gleam in their eye, using those things on him to "cure" him. He could hear them in his mind—if we get rid of the core we get rid of the ghost. Or maybe—when we bleed out that nasty ectoplasm he'll have only blood left. He'll be human then.

He realized his breaths were coming quickly, and he made an effort to slow them down. I'm their son. They wouldn't. They wouldn't. He sat up and opened his eyes. But wouldn't they? They think I'm diseased—they'd think they were helping me.

"You're calm," he whispered to himself. "You're fine, you're calm." He wasn't about to have another panic attack. He wasn't. He just had to stop thinking about it, and he'd be fine. In fact, he was already fine.

Really.

Danny's stomach growled, and he decided he'd been alone with his thoughts long enough. He stood, the mat cold under his bare feet. Determinedly, he focused his mind on the positives of the situation—positives that had absolutely nothing to do with the negatives of his parents. The ghost shield is ready. The city is ready. The GIW isn't running around anymore. No one thinks you're a criminal.

He opened the door and began walking down the stairs. Really, when he thought about it like that, it seemed much better. Maybe Jazz had been on to something when she'd told him that a change in attitude could actually affect his emotional state. He guessed all that psycho-analytical-whatever hadn't been for nothing. Maybe (he'd never admit that Jazz was right—ever).

As he made his way to the first floor, he passed the normal sounds of Jazz playing soft music in her bedroom—something by Mozart, if he wasn't mistaken—and the washer running. It was all so mundane, too mundane. No one would ever guess that housed here was a half-ghost, a full-ghost, and three geniuses. Well, unless they found the basement. Or just looked in anyone's room.

Danny paused before entering the kitchen, trying to detect if the coast was clear. He knew he wouldn't be able to handle his parents right then—he didn't know if he'd keep it together if he saw one of them. And bursting into hysterics wasn't exactly keeping it on the down low. But he didn't hear anything, so he went in, relieved when his eyes confirmed what his ears had heard: nothing.

He took out leftover mac 'n' cheese from the fridge, not bothering to warm it up or put it on a plate. He only took a fork from the drawer and began to eat straight from the container—he'd probably finish it anyway. He heard faint sounds coming from the lab, and he tried not to think about what his parents were doing down there.

If we distill these blood blossoms, we might be able to burn that sickness out of him. His dad's voice sounded deep and distorted in his head, a demon created from a conglomeration of reality and his own deep terror. We'll inject it right in his heart—

Someone was coming up the stairs.

Danny tried not to choke on his food. He swallowed, desperately attempting to fit the lid back on so he could stuff the container back in the fridge and flee. The footsteps were coming closer—he wasn't being fast enough, goddammit. He managed to fling his utensil across the room just in time for his mom to appear in the doorway. It would've been funny had it not been so scary. The half-ghost looked up guiltily, his pulse rocketing so high he thought it might burst a vessel.

"Hi, Danny," his mom said casually, walking in. She wore a slight frown, and her hazmat suit, which was normally pristine, was creased. She bent down and picked up the fork. "What on earth are you doing in here?"

"Um." Should he lie? Don't be stupid, why would you lie about this? "I was eating." She raised her eyebrow and moved closer to him to put the fork in the sink. Danny managed not to flinch.

"I see. Was the fork not cooperating?" she asked, joking. Although she was trying, it was clear the limited cheer was forced. Danny subtly edged away, still attempting to close the lid.

"Something like that," he replied, noncommittal. The container finally clicked closed, and he almost jumped at the noise. You're being ridiculous. You weren't this scared when they were actively trying to end your life, one side of him pointed out. Yes, but that was before they knew I was human. I thought that was their line in the sand. I thought it was my ace in the hole. But if they know Phantom is human, and they're still willing to possibly hurt or kill him, even unknowingly, do they even have a line? Will they really stop if they know it's me, Danny, their son?

His mom hummed. "Did you want anything specific for dinner? I was thinking tonight we could all fend for ourselves—Dad and I are in the middle of trying to get the Portal back up." She opened the fridge. The urge to put his food away and leave warred with the urge to stay as far from his mom as possible.

"That's—that's fine. What happened with the Portal?" He had to act normal.

"We're not sure. When we went down to the lab today, it was just… off. No light, no power, no nothing. It's very strange. It doesn't appear that someone sabotaged it—there's no sign that someone broke in last night, and none of the wires or anything are cut or broken. We think it malfunctioned somehow, but we're not sure. We haven't found anything that short-circuited…" she trailed off, lost in thought. She paused before taking the grapes out of the refrigerator.

"Strange," Danny said. They wouldn't find anything short-circuited or broken. After the accident, the half-ghost had studied his parents' plans for the Portal extensively. More than he'd studied for anything in his life. Last night, he'd spent some time thinking on how to shut it down. He'd decided that the best way would be to hide a few of the Portal's key components so it wouldn't turn back on. Once his parents found that they were missing, it would take them weeks to build new ones. It was a large enough timeframe that the Empress would certainly attack before then.

"It is," his mom agreed. She placed a few grapes in a bowl and washed them, still too close for Danny to comfortably put away his mac 'n' cheese. "You didn't hear or see anything odd last night, did you?"

"No, not a thing," Danny lied, resisting the impulse to rub the back of his neck. He was well aware of his ticks, his body wanting to give him away. But he refused to let it. I am in control. He made himself walk to the fridge—closer to her—and put his food away. He didn't take his eyes off his mom the whole time, the way a person wouldn't take their eyes off of someone with a gun or a bomb.

You're letting your imagination run wild, he told himself. You're thinking about thinks that haven't happened yet—that are never going to happen. They love you. It was his optimism pitted against his pessimism, his logic against his fear, his ghost-half against his human-half. One knew only hatred from them—the other only love.

His mom sighed, and Danny practically ran backward as his mom came to put the grapes back. She eyed him. "Are you okay, Danny? Have we said something to upset you?"

Yes. His throat was suddenly dry. "No, of course not. What makes you say that?" The words sounded right, but everything else was off. Was his voice higher than normal? Would she notice?

"You've been avoiding us, sweetheart. Don't think we haven't noticed. But I don't understand why." Her grapes sat, forgotten, on the counter. Her eyes held Danny's steadily, and her frown was one of soft concern. "Have we been too hard on you about school?"

The half-ghost swallowed. "No. You haven't—you haven't done anything, Mom." Her title—his name for her—fell through his lips like a dead thing. A leaf falling from a tree, a deer falling from a bullet, a son falling from a Portal. "It's fine. I'm just…" He searched for a lie. "I'm a little tense is all. You know, the Empress, Phantom. The GIW. Everything, I guess." Danny found that the easiest lies to tell—and the most believable ones—were the ones that held the most truth.

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize you were taking it so hard. You know you can tell me things, don't you?" I can't. I can't. He found himself nodding, however.

"I do." He didn't. He couldn't. Not so long as she refused to accept half of him as—if not normal—at least a part of him. An important part. "I know I can. You guys have your own problems, though." Problems like prejudice that stopped him from telling them things.

His mom suddenly seemed sad. The corners of her mouth drooped lower, like the sagging branches of a dying tree. "We will always make time for you, sweetheart. Always." But will it be time to help me or time to hurt me? Danny wondered. "And I know the Empress is scary, but we have it well in hand. The police are doing a wonderful job, and your dad and I have done our part. The shield is up, the officers are armed to the teeth, and everyone knows what they're supposed to do. It's nothing we haven't faced before."

Everyone kept saying that, but it wasn't true. The Empress exposed me. She did something no other ghost has done before. If Technus hadn't put his foot down… If he'd told her my human name… The GIW might've captured him. His parents definitely would've done something—though whether they would've protected him… Yes. They would've, and if I'm revealed now, they will. They will!

"I know," he said, trying to inject some certainty into his tone. He leaned against the counter, concealing the shaking in his knees. "And I think it's really good that we're so well prepared." That much, at least, was entirely true.

"Exactly." His mom offered him a tired smile that Danny attempted to match. "And as for Phantom—"

"Can we not talk about Phantom?" Danny interrupted. "Please?" He didn't know what he'd do if she started talking about "curing" or "fixing" him—and he didn't want to find out. His mom squinted, suspicious.

"Why don't you want to talk about Phantom?" she asked, voice level. "You said that was something upsetting you. I want to make you feel better, Danny." Discussing his ghost form with her would do the exact opposite of that, but he wasn't about to tell her directly. He traced the mortar in between the tiles of the counter. It was rough.

"Isn't it enough that I don't want to?" he said quietly. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched his mom's lips tighten. She rubbed her jaw.

"No, it isn't. That's really why you were avoiding us, isn't it? You started doing it right after that conversation we had. Why? How did we upset you?" Sometimes he hated that his mom was so damn smart. Sometimes he hated that he couldn't have inherited any of it, left instead to struggle for Cs and figure out the best way to plan his night so he could do his homework, fight the ghosts, and sleep.

"You didn't," Danny insisted. With the Empress so close, now was not the time for his parents to be putting the pieces together. She was about two years too late.

"No," she repeated. He could tell she was in full processing mode now. Her gaze was focused solely on him, and it was as uncomfortable as it had been in the past. It was as uncomfortable as he'd imagine it would be, with him strapped to a table, her scalpel inching closer and closer—

…want to cure him…

"We did," his mom said. Danny couldn't bring himself to speak. "Is it because he's one of your classmates? I swear, Danny, we're not hunting him anymore—we gave that up as soon as we knew he was human. And we know he's not a criminal. You and Jazz have always supported him; you should be happy!"

I'm not. The resentment simmering below the fear bubbled to the surface. It came whenever his parents said things he "should" do or "should" be. It came when they were disappointed in him, even when he'd done his best. It came when he thought of how things were supposed to be—them loving and accepting all of him, not trying to hunt him or throw him in jail or fix him.

It came like a dog summoned by its master, always clipping at his heels.

"I don't—" He didn't know how to explain it without giving himself away. "I'm not—" He faltered again, and he took a deep breath.

"We only want to help him now," his mom said, eager to defend herself and her ideas. As eager as she'd always been. It was something he'd admired about his parents—this excitement—but now it repulsed him. And scared him. "We're going to save him. We've already thought up a few ways that might cure him—"

"Stop!" Danny cried. "Please." It was barely a whisper. He thought he might vomit. He felt sweat, slick and terrible, run down his back. He wanted to yell at her; he wanted to cry. His mom stood in silence, surprised by his outburst. Why not tell her? A voice suggested. What the hell have I got to lose? "It upset me because you don't know anything about his condition. Were you even going to ask him about 'fixing' him before you did whatever it is you plan on doing to him?"

"Well." She paused, reluctant to admit what she'd really been planning. "No, not exactly. There's no guarantee he'd agree. He's grown used to his condition, reliant on it. But it can't be good for him. We're experts on ghosts; we know what we're doing. We're not going to hurt him, Danny—just cure him. Help him. He's sick. He probably doesn't even realize how badly having ectoplasm in his system is affecting him."

You don't know that! Danny wanted to scream it to the sky, to the universe, the words expanding until they reached the moon, the sun, the stars. Reverberating across the Earth. This was the issue, the crux of it: his parents' arrogance. They thought they knew better than him. They thought they knew everything about ghosts, even when the only time they'd ever studied one was when they were chasing them, shooting at them, or cutting them open.

I am not diseased, he thought forcefully. It sounded like denial, even in his head. I'm not!

He said none of it. He simply turned and began to walk out of the kitchen.

"Danny!" his mom called. "We need to talk about this! Don't run away from me!" Some part of her, though, seemed to realize how upset he was.

She wouldn't hear his side, anyway. She only wanted the opportunity to talk so she could convince him she was right. And he'd said too much, anyway. He'd wasted too much energy. There were bigger problems to be worrying about.

Mainly, a ghost invasion.

---

In the end, the Empress came two days earlier than anticipated.

It was a moment Danny could never forget, seared by panic and fear into his mind like a brand. He was sitting at his desk, reading his latest letter from Dora. It detailed the goings-on of her camp and also how Ember and Kitty were adjusting.

…Kitty is most desperately sad about her lover Johnny. I think Ember is a comfort to her; she and the singer spar and talk regularly, and her countenance becomes lighter and more carefree after. Ember's wound heals rapidly. She does not like being confined here, I think, but she bears it well. I spoke to her about scouting deeper into the woods or helping to erect more defenses—both of which I considered to be more to her liking—and she seemed to cheer at the prospect…

Despite Danny's poor relationships with both of the ghosts, he couldn't help his satisfaction at the news. It was nice to feel like he'd done something good, for once. He finished reading the letter and opened his laptop, deciding that since his ghostly enemies were turning into something like allies, he might as well update it on his ghost files.

It was this reason that he knew the precise time the Empress came—7:17 PM. Everything seemed normal, or at least Danny's new normal. His eyes were dry from lack of sleep, his hair mussed. The only light in his room came from his lamp and his monitor.

Then, his ghost sense went off. It only went off once, alerting him to the presence of many ghosts. There were multiple points from which he felt them, all from the forest to the north of Amity. She has more than one portal, he realized with dawning horror. He could tell that one of the signatures was more powerful than any other Danny had ever felt—except for Clockwork's, maybe. It was crushing in a way Danny hadn't anticipated, as though he were far beneath the sea, millions of tons of water pressing down on him.

He stood from his chair, opening his desk drawer so forcefully it almost fell off. He grabbed the Fenton phones and Fenton thermos from within—he had to get that shield up—but it was too late.

The ghosts were pouring in—Danny could hear the screams from outside, the shrill sounds mixed with terrible, echoing laughter and the sound of ectoblasts. Sirens sounded in the distance. The Empress had opened the portals, mobilized, and attacked in seconds, mere seconds. The portals had been opened outside of Amity, in the forest, so how had they gotten to the city so fast? How could they have underestimated the Empress so badly? He jammed the Fenton phones on his head as Jazz came running into his room.

"Is it her?" she demanded. She was dressed in cargo pants, boots, and a long-sleeved shirt. Over that, she wore a Kevlar vest, and was currently strapping a belt onto her waist—as well as a specter-deflector. "It's her, right?" Panic made her voice higher, and she was paler than normal.

"Yes," Danny replied shortly. Outside his window, the dimness of the night—for the last of the sun's lingering rays were vanishing below the horizon—was lit with the auras of a hundred ghosts. He felt the sudden urge to vomit—there were so many—too many—far more than even Pariah Dark had mustered. Some wore armor that clanged as they flew, others were ghosts she'd clearly recruited—he even saw some of Walker's goons.

He'd never faced so many before. Was there even enough space in his thermos? What would he do with them all, once he'd captured them? This was something he'd been viewing with dread for so long now it almost didn't seem real—this was a dream, a nightmare, and any minute Danny would wake up to realize he still had a week or a day left. It couldn't be now. He couldn't be facing her now. But he was. He was about to confront the ghost who had truly been behind exposing his half-human status, the ghost who had conquered the Zone in less time than it had taken Alexander the Great to conquer the Persian Empire, the ghost who had destroyed Johnny and probably countless others, the ghost who had laid siege to Dora's kingdom, the ghost who had forced the others to either join her, flee, or perish.

He suddenly couldn't breathe. It was hitting him—now. She was here now. She had made his life hell. She was here with an army, and it was Danny's jobto get rid of it. His heart thumped in his ears, a beat accompanied by the roaring hum of his core—it was almost like music. Protect, protect, protect. This was the time his human and ghost halves were most in sync, when his instincts wholly agreed with one another—perhaps one of the only times they were so cohesive. Protect, protect, protect.

Over the din, he heard a terrible screeching noise—the sound of metal twisting and moving. What the hell is that? What other terrible things had the Empress brought with her? In a flash, he had changed into Phantom.

"Technus," he called. The ghost was watching out the window—Danny would've scolded him, but what was the point if the GIW saw him now? The invasion was happening. It was happening now, right outside his window, and Danny had to do something. He would. He always had. "Try an protect them, would you?" The ghost nodded.

The bile that had been rising was tamped down by the strange calm that generally overcame him in these situations. The noise of the invasion outside became manageable. An eerie calm smothered him, cleared his head, stifled his emotions and tamped them down so far Danny wouldn't have been able to feel anything but this if he tried—this determination, this fierce anger. This urge to protect.

He was going to make her pay.

"This is Danny," he said into the Fenton phones as he flew, intangible, out his window. Chaos reigned in the streets below, people desperately trying to get to the school's shield. There wasn't enough room on the road to drive—too many pedestrians, too many ghosts—so they were sprinting, parents clutching their children as ghosts ganged up on them. The stench of burnt flesh permeated the air—these ghosts weren't holding anything back. "We're going to plan B."

"I'm on," Tucker said. Danny heard the sound of a car door slam and an engine start over the line. "And copy that. Heading for the mainstay right now—I'll see what I can do about some of these guys on the way." The half-ghost was proud that his friend's voice hardly shook, steady and calm. "Some of the streets are packed, though—people trying to get to Casper as quick as they can. My ETA's fifteen minutes, give or take." Danny heard the sound of a blaster in the background, and tamped down his worry. Tucker will be fine. He's a good shot.

Before the ghosts in the street realized he was there, Danny decided to use their lack of awareness to his advantage. He wasted no time getting into the thick of it. He barreled into one that was about to spear a young father and his kid—the two had been backed into a corner, nowhere to go. The ghost quickly turned intangible, escaping through him and behind him. He turned tangible after that, aiming his weapon at Danny this time. But the half-ghost rammed his fist into his face and brought out his thermos, trapping the ghost.

"Get to Casper High!" he ordered the man. He nodded shakily, scooping up his daughter—she'd been placed protectively behind him—and running in the direction everyone else was. Danny turned his attention to the other ghosts, his fists lighting up with glowing green energy.

"Sam, you there? I need you on the other mainstay. And Jazz, you're on the third. Just as we planned. I'll get the last, but first I need to get as many ghosts as I can out of the shield's range," Danny told them. If he made himself the most prominent threat, they'd have to take him out first before hurting people, and he could lead them away.

"I'm here, Danny," Sam said. She sounded breathless, and roaring air blasted in the background. "And I'm on it. My ETA's ten minutes, maybe less." Danny frowned as he shot a blast at a ghost who was dangling a child by his leg fifty feet in the air, the mom screaming below. The ghost laughed, but grunted as the shot hit her full in the core. She dropped the child in time for Danny to fly upward and catch him. The boy, mid-scream, stopped and looked up at his savior with wide, teary brown eyes.

"Here," Danny said, depositing the boy gently into what was presumably his mother's arms. "Get to the shield."

"Thank you," the boy's mom sobbed before she raced off. Danny looked up, side-stepping as the ghost from before slammed her enlarged fists—that was an odd power—into the ground where he'd been only seconds before. The sidewalk cracked.

"It's you," she snarled, her face twisted with hatred. She swung again, but it was wild, and Danny easily dodged. "My mistress will defeat you. You are no match for—" The half-ghost didn't wait for her to finish before trapping her in his thermos.

"Yeah, I've heard that one before. Maybe get some new lines," he muttered, shoving the thermos back into his belt. "Jazz, do you copy?" The ghosts that had been terrorizing other people in the street left them to come fight Danny—which was what the half-ghost personally preferred. He kept to the ground—he didn't want to be surrounded on all sides.

"Yes." Jazz also sounded winded. "I'm on my way to the mainstay on foot. I'll be there in twenty minutes." He heard the whine of an ectogun over the call. Abruptly, he wondered where his parents were in all this mayhem. He may have been on rocky ground with them, but he wouldn't be able to bear it if they were hurt. He remembered that they'd gone out shopping or something. He pushed it from his mind. They would be fine; they carried their equipment with them wherever they went, and they had the GAV. That thing was like a small tank.

"Has anyone laid eyes on the Empress?" Danny asked. He'd given them all Dora's description of their enemy, and even with the mess currently going on, he didn't think any of them would miss her. He ducked as the ghosts began firing at him, long distance—they'd seen what he'd done to their friends, and they were wary. But Danny could play that game, too.

"Nope," Jazz replied. "No sign of her." He fired his ectoblasts rapidly—slightly less powered, but much faster than his regular ones. It took concentration and effort, but he was rewarded when a couple of the weaker ghosts dropped, too injured to fly. He swept them up in his thermos, but the others avoided its beam.

"That's a negative," Tucker said.

"No," Sam answered, the same odd wind in the back of her call.

"Alright. The plan is to activate the shield and hold the ghosts off as best we can. Dora and her people will get here eventually to help." They'd discussed it in their letters. Dora had set up guards all over the forest, and they would know that Amity was being attacked.

"Copy that," three voices said, though one was filled with that loud, awful background noise.

"Sam," Danny grunted, lurching backward as one of the ghost's took a swing at him with their sword. He lunged, and they yelped, retreating, only for him to blast them, point-blank. "What is that sound?"

"Um," Sam said, and even though they were in the middle of an invasion, this was perhaps the oddest thing he'd heard. Sam was never hesitant. "So I may or may not be riding a motorcycle." Danny sucked the downed ghost into his thermos and spun around mid-air to face the remaining two. They were sticking together, and one of them created a shield around both of them once they realized Danny's attention was on them.

"What the hell, Sam? Why? How?" Tucker demanded. The half-ghost would've had similar questions, but he was busy. Not wanting to waste anymore ecto-energy than he already had, he flew upward—ten, twenty, thirty feet. The two ghosts watched him, confused. Then, he fell, urging his legs to remain legs and not a spectral tail. Gravity did most of the work for him, and he slammed feet-first into the apex of their shield, shattering it.

They yelled as Danny fell on top of them, flickering into intangibility just a second too late. In their pain and panic, he easily trapped them in the thermos. More ghosts were pouring onto the street, but Danny saw no more people. The half-ghost ignored them in favor of looking for those trying to evacuate to the shield. He flew higher and raced down the street to the next one, where he could hear shouts.

"Well, they aren't the greatest for the environment, but my parents hate them. So I learned how to ride one, passed the test and all that, and rode it when they were being especially irritating. I don't do it normally, but I thought it would be faster with the roads being so crowded." That was… the most Sam-like motivation Danny had ever heard of. Sometimes, he could believe she ran on nothing but spite. Well, spite and vegetables.

The next street over was deserted, but the one after that had fighting. The half-ghost dove, sucking an unsuspecting ghost into his thermos from behind. It was clear that these ghosts were only the foot soldiers; Danny hadn't yet fought a skilled warrior. The man the ghost had been beating was unconscious on the ground, his hair matted with blood and his face swollen. Danny carefully felt his neck for a pulse. He found one, but he wasn't exactly sure what to do with him. He could still hear sirens, somewhere, but he didn't have time to find paramedics. The ghosts here were quicker to catch on; they began to gang up on him immediately, surrounding him and the beaten man, shouting taunts.

"You can't win, Phantom!" He wondered for a split-second how they knew it was him, but he supposed if he could get ahold of the Empress's description, she could get ahold of his.

"Our mistress will destroy you!" one yelled.

"Abomination!" another screamed, glowing spittle dripping onto the ground in front of him.

"Ew," Danny said. They pelted him with ectoblasts, and he created a shield, protecting both him and the man behind him. "God, I know dogs better trained than that." This only seemed to make them angrier, and in addition to ectoblasts, they began to hit the shield with their weapons. Danny backed up, as though he was buckling under the strain, and they pressed forward eagerly.

Instead of the shield breaking however, he turned himself and the man intangible, sinking through the earth and coming up behind the ghosts. Danny left the man on the ground and rushed the ghosts, ripping one's spear from her hands and using it like a staff to slam into them before they knew what hit them. He brought the butt of it down on one's head and jabbed the pointy end at another, making him back off. Then, to ensure they were distracted, he flung the spear at a third and sucked them all into his thermos.

"Hey!" he called to a couple people running past him. He flew down to the ground. "Would you be able to get this man to safety?" he asked, pointing to the unconscious person.

"We can," the woman said, her face crinkling. "C'mon, Roger." Together, she and the man lifted the beaten man up, maneuvering around rubble to keep from tripping. Danny watched them briefly, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

Tucker's voice crackled in his ear. "Danny, we might have a problem." Now, his tone was panicky, and the half-ghost wondered anxiously if he was okay, what had happened. Why did he have to be so far away from his friends?

"We have a lot of problems right now, Tuck—you're going to have be a little more specific," Danny responded, launching himself into the air once more. He soared over buildings, keeping an eye out for something he could help with.

"It's the school—I'm not sure. I just passed it, and something has to be wrong with the shield or something. People are running away from it," Tucker explained. "I can't see anything from where I am, but I keep hearing a God-awful screeching noise. Should I check it out?"

"No," Danny responded, immediately changing direction mid-air. He would've teleported, but he wanted to conserve as much energy as he could. "We need to get the shield up as soon as possible, and I may not have enough energy left to fight if I teleport and turn on all the mainstays."

"Got it," Tucker said. Danny flew as quickly as he could toward the school, thinking desperately about what could've happened. Why were people running away from the one place that could protect them? He tried to feel for an ectoplasmic signature at the school to see if it was stronger than normal, but there were so many ghosts the signatures were blending together, obscuring the others the way a strong smell covered up a weaker one.

He paused only twice while flying: once to fire at a ghost who had a woman cornered, quickly sucking him into his thermos; the other time to save a family trapped in their home's rubble. Each time, he urged them to be careful of going to the school, warning that something was happening. He felt guilty that he'd directed the others toward danger, but there was no time.

The sun had finally finished going down, leaving the sky completely dark. Flashes of green, red, and white lit up the night. Danny could hear the sounds of fighting and blasts in the distance—the police, his parents, Valerie, or the GIW were all candidates. Ghost and human screams echoed everywhere, Danny's enhanced sense of hearing picking them up even when they were far away.

And then he heard the thing he'd been waiting for: a terrible screeching noise, like the one he'd heard before. Like the one Tucker had described. What was it? It ended abruptly, and Danny urged himself faster, the wind blasting back his hair. He could see the glowing of the dome in the distance—and then he saw—saw her. Drawing closer, he could make out the details. She was as Dora had said: at least seven feet tall, if not taller, and emaciated, her cheeks hollow and her joints swollen-looking. Her skin was a light bluish purple with undertones of a sickly green, and her eyes glowed a crimson brighter than any other Danny had seen.

Her hair was long, straight, and brittle, like darkly colored straw. She wore armor made of bones. Skulls adorned her shoulders as pauldrons, and smaller bones—perhaps fingers and cracked, broken ribs—had been sewn into the fabric of her top. She wore old-fashioned leggings and boots, but over it she had a skirt made of femurs and shins and whole feet. They swung as she moved, smacking against one another more hideously than Danny could've imagined.

She was hovering in the air, her back to the shield, silhouetted ominously by the green light that should've been Amity's salvation. Danny could hear shrieks as people who had arrived, expecting safety, turned and sprinted in the other direction. How was she preventing them from getting in? He couldn't see her firing anything.

"I'm at the school," he croaked into the Fenton phones. It was her. He was a wound spring, coiled tightly by fear. "It's the Empress—she's here."

"What's she doing?" Sam asked. Danny didn't reply.

He could see the entirety of the school, though he was still one street away. Police sirens bathed the houses intermittently with red and blue light—though the cars themselves were crumpled, useless heaps. Where were the police? Had they been trying to defend the shield? How had the cars been destroyed? He watched, flying nearer, as a man took his chances and bolted for the school. The Empress merely laughed—a condescending, arrogant, hateful sound, as though instead of vocal chords she had rocks in her throat, grinding together—and held up one hand. Her five fingers were grotesquely long, and before Danny could react, she closed it into a fist.

And somehow, the man exploded.

For a split-second, the half-ghost could see that he was encased in a reddish energy, and then his legs and arms and head were wrenched off by an invisible force, flinging the body parts in all directions. Blood sprayed into the air. The man's headless, limbless corpse tumbled to the ground. Danny's eyes went wide—he screamed—the man was dead now—dead—how dare she—and he teleported—

And he was there, in front of her—still screaming—tackling her into the shield, only she was fast, incredibly, unbelievably fast, turning intangible and bursting through him, behind him. Danny turned on a dime, whipping around to face her, his back to the shield. He could hear Sam or Tucker or Jazz or all three yelling in his ear, asking what was happening.

Up close, he saw more bodies, the wreckage she had wrought. He couldn't tell who they were, but he saw children and teenagers and adults, all clearly, horribly, trying to get to the shield that had been Danny's suggestion. Some were dressed in police uniform, ectoguns lying limply in arms not attached to owners. The smell was terrible. Something nearby was on fire, and the smoke mingled with the sour scent of ectoplasm and cloying blood. And it was in front of his school, right here on the sidewalk, beside the bushes and trees he passed nearly everyday, the sign that said carpool parking only, the bus lane.

He wanted to kneel over the corpses that had once been people and weep; he wanted to scream and rage that it wasn't fair. He wanted to throw up.

She had perverted this place, ruined it, she had killed people, and now Danny was going to kick her fucking ass into orbit.

Wordlessly—he wasn't about to waste his breath with banter—he brought a ectoblast into his palm, firing it point-blank, but she was quick—again—bringing up a wall of crimson energy that easily absorbed his blow.

"It's you, isn't it?" she asked, tone mocking, not seeming to care that he wasn't interested in talking. He didn't care about her motivation, her big plan, her grand speech—she had murdered people under Danny's protection, and he was going to make her pay. "The abomination. The half-ghost." She laughed again, but made no move to fight him, using her telekinesis or otherwise. Danny simply snarled, charging her.

She let him get close before turning intangible, but Danny was ready for that—he turned intangible as well, grappling with her. She grunted in surprise, but then she was away—she had teleported in a flash of red light—Danny immediately dodged to the side without looking, and her kick went over his head.

"What?" she demanded. She sounded irritated now. "Are you mute?" Danny spun mid-air, prepared to try something else—none of his hits were landing—when he felt a pressure, something immense, like a giant invisible hand wrapping around him, freezing him in place. He tried to squirm, get free, but he couldn't. He couldn't even look down. He could hardly breathe.

Was this what an ant felt, when it was being squashed by a boot?

"What did you do?" he demanded. She flew closer, one of her hands extended—the same gesture she had used on that man. Was this the same thing? Was she using her telekinesis to hold him in place? He gritted his teeth, straining, but he wasn't physically strong enough to break her hold.

"Ah, so you can speak. I might've thought a vile thing like you incapable of such higher thought." She loomed above him. Her breath smelled terrible, like fetid meat and rotting fruit. Danny gagged, but he couldn't turn his face away. Almost delicately, she lowered her hand to his face, her fingertips brushing his cheek. Her eyes watched him, malevolent and filled with a sick delight.

This was nothing like Pariah Dark—nothing like anything they'd faced before. She was entirely different—and entirely more sadistic. Against his will, his mouth opened, as though someone had used their hands to force his jaw downward. "Such pretty teeth," she said, reaching inside his fucking mouth to touch one of his back molars. "I think, after all the trouble you've caused me, it would be fitting if I ripped them out, one by one, and then—" She grinned, revealing needle-sharp teeth. "—I'll take your tongue."

Danny's mind nearly went blank—the pressure began on one of his back teeth, he let out a wretched noise, but still he could not move—think, Danny, you have to break her hold! His tooth ripped free, and he sobbed, squeezing his eyes shut—he didn't want the last thing he saw to be her ugly face. Ectoplasm and blood pooled in his mouth.

"Such nice noises you make," she purred, and oh, I'm an idiot. He opened his eyes. "I'll have to—"

She was cut off as Danny wailed. Directly in front of his mouth, she received a full blast of the sound and was forced back. The half-ghost felt the grip around him loosen, and he immediately got out his thermos—if he could simply trap her, he imagined the army would be easier to stop without a leader. He pressed the button, but it went flying from his hands and onto the ground, splashing in a pool of blood. The Empress, her gaunt face contorted with fury, let her hand fall to the ground.

"For that, I'll take your eyes and ears as well as your teeth and tongue before I obliterate you," she said. And he believed her. He spat, ectoplasm and a little blood dribbling from his mouth. The half-ghost wiped it away with the back of his hand. The Empress looked surprised now—disheveled. A few of the bones that had been sewn into her tunic had been blown off. Danny wondered how long it had been that someone had been able to fight her directly, one-on-one.

To quiet the voices in his ear, he said, "We've engaged. Can't talk now." Then, louder, he told the Empress, "You talked about me causing trouble, but I think you got it backwards," he said. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw people taking advantage of the Empress's distraction to get to the shield. Good, he thought, trying not to look at the bodies. He braced himself. "You've caused me a hell of a lot more trouble than I have for you."

He needed to keep her talking; it had been shortsighted before not to speak with her. His anger hadn't dissipated, for he would never be able to rest until she was defeated and long gone. Rather, it had cooled into something that could be contained. His enemies often revealed their plans when they spoke—or other clues on how to defeat them. The Empress likely wasn't any different.

"So righteous," she said, eyes narrowed. "But you're weak. I'm certain it will take mere minutes of my tender touch to have you begging for mercy—pleading with me to end your miserable existence." She smiled at the image, as if she was imagining it now.

"That's fucking disgusting," Danny muttered. As she raised her hand again, ready to make good on her threats, Danny threw his hands high, palms out, and one of the strongest shields he'd ever made sprang into existence. It blocked all forms of ecto-energy—ghosts, ectoblasts, ecto-infused weapons—so why not telekinesis?

If nothing else, he had thought it worth a shot.

He groaned as that same immense pressure tried to crush his shield from all angles, pressing upward and downward. Danny felt his muscles shake at the strain, but the shield didn't crack or break. The Empress screamed in frustration, raising her other hand and also balling into a fist. The half-ghost cried out as more pressure was somehow added—minute cracks began to appear in his dome—he just had to hold out a little longer—there was no way she could keep it up for so long.

"I am your Empress!" she bellowed, her long, dark-purple hair whipping in the wind. "Nothing will stand in the way of what I am owed—of what is rightfully mine. You will cower and bow before me before I slay you, abomination—I promise you that!"

But it was a promise she couldn't keep right away; Danny's shield held, and she was eventually forced to stop using her powers to crush him. He let the green sphere flicker out of existence, though he stayed ready to put it up at a second's notice in case it was a feint. It wasn't—though the Empress was well and truly angry, now. Unlike many of his other foes, however, her anger was tightly controlled. Her movements were exact, precise, calculating.

He had to make her leave, somehow—get out of the shield's range, and then put it up. She was so powerful—she'd already killed at least a dozen people, if not more. A madness unlike Danny had ever known pulsed through his veins—he didn't know if he'd be able to get the thermos to trap her, but he didn't know if he'd be able to destroy her, either. He'd never destroyed a ghost before—nor had he ever killed anyone. But he couldn't—refused, absolutely refused—to let her slaughter any more people. He wondered if he knew any of the bodies scattered below. He didn't know.

He didn't know.

"I'll never bow to a crazy tyrant like you!" Danny shouted, gathering ectoplasm in both hands to blast her with. His throat was raw from his wail, and the empty space where his tooth had been ripped out throbbed, but his voice carried. He let his ecto-ball loose, faster than most others he could throw, but still, she dodged as if it was nothing, not even bothering to shield herself.

Was she being overconfident in her abilities? Or merely realistic in Danny's?

"You will," she said. "You're inferior to me and my army in every way—you're part human, trapped between a deficient form and a far superior one. I'll be doing you a favor, releasing you from that prison you call a body. Bones, heart, lungs—these are all weaknesses ghosts have managed to get rid of. You lag behind us, and my victory is ensured because of it. It is only natural for you to submit to me and my will."

Fuck, she's crazy. Beyond fruit-loop levels—she's an absolute nutcase with a god-complex to boot. Not to mention a murderer. "Natural? We're going to talk about natural?" Danny shouted. "You're the one wearing bones. That's like serial-killer level insane." The Empress twisted her hands, and for a moment he was terrified he'd be immobilized again, but instead, a chunk of ground beneath them surged into the air with a deafening crack, glowing red. Corpses fell from it, down into the pit it was leaving behind. It was at least three times as big as he was. With alarming speed, it rushed toward him. Danny knew that unless she let go of it with her telekinesis, he wouldn't be able to simply go through it using intangibility.

As the giant piece of asphalt, sidewalk, grass, and dirt zoomed toward him, the half-ghost braced himself—he'd teleport at the last minute, get out of the way. It was inches away when he did so, appearing ten feet away in the other direction. He was glad he'd spent all that time practicing in the attic—it was coming in handy now.

She growled and changed the momentum of her rock, flinging it at him with greater speed. He teleported again—soon, she brought up more chunks of land, ripping them from the earth with terrible cracks and creaks. She even lifted up one of the crushed police cars. It became a deadly dance, Danny only one step ahead. One of her objects would get close to him, and he'd disappear, just to land centimeters from another of her objects. They flew through the air at sickening speeds—he could be crushed between two or beneath one, with little time to react, if he teleported to the wrong place.

He started reappearing farther and farther away each time, and, as he hoped, she gradually followed him, until they were down the street from the school. Behind her, he watched as people wasted no time in using the Empress's distraction to their advantage. They streamed into the shield's shelter, far more than the previous trickle. He panted, sweat running down his back and thighs and face. He had stopped paying attention to what Jazz, Sam, and Tucker were saying over the Fenton phones long ago—he listened only for his name.

Half-way down the street, the flying objects stopped. Danny watched, baffled, as the Empress laughed, waving one of her thin, bony fingers at him, tipped with a jagged black nail. "You almost had me—clever abomination you are. Clever, but not as clever as me. I am not so focused on you that I cannot see the bigger picture." She smirked and twirled around, her bone-skirt rattling. Then, she sent the massive pieces of ground and the car hurtling toward the people entering the shield.

"No!" Danny shouted, and in an instant he was there, in front of the people just outside the shield. He watched the auras flicker off the objects—they wouldn't be blocked by a shield—not one Danny summoned or the one behind him.

His brain processed what was happening in an instant—there was no time to grab all the people and turn them intangible, no time to create a wall of ice, only time for one thing, a trick he had already used. He wailed, watching as the people on either side of him dropped, clutching their ears. The objects in front of him crumbled to smithereens, small bits of rock falling to the ground.

Barely a second passed before the Empress was there again, having teleported after him. "Get inside the shield!" he ordered the people, who scrambled to do as he said. Some had blood trickling from their ears, but Danny didn't have time to be guilty. "And then inside the school itself!"

He charged, springing upward into the air to meet the Empress again. "So keen to protect them, are you?" she said coolly. He raced at her, trying to land a blow somewhere—anywhere. But she dodged even as she spoke, keeping ahead of his punches and kicks with ease. "You should thank me for killing them. I have released them from their miserable little lives and given them a chance to move on to something greater, to be given power they have only ever dreamed of! They will shed their inferior skins, letting their filthy blood spill from their veins. They will be purged, beginning anew in a better form, a more powerful form. The superior form."

"I'd say you're crazier than a bag of cats," Danny grunted, still trying to hit her. "But at this point you're crazier than a fucking palace full of cats. A complete psycho."

"I will raze this city to the ground!" the Empress declared, as if she hadn't even heard him speaking. "Then, I will raise it again, stronger and better than before. Just as when humans die they become something better. The flames of destruction always give rise to something greater. And you will not stand in my way." Bits of bone on her clothing suddenly glowed red, coming off of her body. They had been sharpened to deadly-looking tips, and she sent them flying after Danny, so many it was all he could do to evade them. He couldn't teleport anymore, not unless it was an emergency—his core ached, more than the rest of his body.

"You never really explained that," Danny said, trying to keep her attention on him. "You said I'd caused all this trouble for you, but as far as I can tell, I was minding my own business when you decided to fuck me over." He flew around the bones as they trailed him, eager to skewer his flesh.

"You aided the lady Dora in escaping, you got rid of Sir Demortem, and you have taken in my enemies," the Empress said, directing the bones. They blurred in the air. Danny couldn't reply, too busy avoiding them. "Still, for all that, you are a weak, pathetic creature."

"Am I?" Danny challenged. He poured on the speed, managing to get ahead of the bones. Then he turned and fired. The ectoblast was powerful enough that it disintegrated most of them. "I'm holding you off, after all, oh Mighty Empress." Her eyebrow twitched, as if she didn't appreciate the reminder. "In fact," Danny said, "I think Pariah Dark was more of a challenge than you are."

"DO NOT SPEAK OF PARIAH IN FRONT OF ME!" the Empress thundered, charging forward. The terrible, metallic screeching sound echoed through the air as she twisted metal up from the ground, smashing it together through sheer force until it resembled something like a spear. It was the longest, ugliest spear Danny had ever seen, though—at least fifteen feet long. "He was nothing but a poorer copy of myself!"

"—Danny! Danny!" Sam's voice yelled into his ear. "The mainstay's up!" The half-ghost barely had time to process the statement beyond a general sense of relief.

The Empress swung her new weapon at him, and he dodged. It rammed, point-first into the ground, sinking far deeper than it should have been able to. Danny's mind raced. What is she talking about? Can I use this somehow? "Copy that," he said lowly to his friends. "Was he your ex-boyfriend or something?" he asked the Empress. "Did he dump you? Because I can see why—the anger, general insanity, wearing bones as clothes. Not exactly great girlfriend material."

The spear pulled itself from the ground, flying back into the Empress's hand. She jabbed it menacingly, moving closer. Danny tensed. "He deserved what he got, if he was so weak that he could not even defeat you, an abomination of both the human and ghost worlds."

"If you're so great, how come everyone knows about him and not you?" Danny asked. This only seemed to make her angrier, and she hurtled the spear at him, slashing left and right and up and down. Danny ducked and flew, retreating even as she charged closer.

"I WAS THE HEIR TO THE THRONE!" Her weapon shot through the air to the place Danny's head had been not a second before. He could feel the gigantic spear whooshing past, the air ruffling his hair. "I was the elder! Rightfully, it was mine! He was a traitor—a lying, dirty, good-for-nothing traitor! I was always better than him—worthless, terrible thing that he was. Conquering the Zone—ha! That was me!"

Oh, Danny thought. She wasn't his girlfriend—they're siblings. And now that he was looking for it, he could sort of see a resemblance in the shape of her nose and her complete air of arrogance. But why couldn't the ghosts remember her if she'd been the one to conquer the zone? And she called Pariah "traitor"—had he been the one who'd made her disappear all this time? "I mean," Danny said, breathless, ducking under another swipe of her spear, "his army was more impressive."

"HIS ARMY? HIS ARMY? MY ARMY!" she screamed. "And only a section! Those that were truly loyal to me were banished! His plans were my plans, and he executed them more poorly than I ever could've!"

"But, again, no one remembers you," Danny countered, still trying to stay one step ahead of her spear. He was flagging, though—and she was barely showing signs of slowing down. If it came down to a test of endurance, this monster in front of him would win. This crazy murderer would win—and whatever subsequent plans she had for Amity or the rest of the world would become reality. Hundreds if not thousands would die, die ripped apart just like that man had been, just like the other people below him had been.

"Because he made it so! He did not have the power to wipe my name from record—but should anyone have heard it, they would've forgotten it immediately. But no one will forget me now! No one will forget me ever again!" She laughed hysterically, a guttural, feral sound. She's unhinged. And it still didn't make sense to Danny—how, exactly, had Pariah made everyone forget her?"It is delicious indeed that he was locked up in the same manner I was—the one, single scheme he managed to accomplish on his own!"

"You know, now that you say that, I can definitely tell you're related," Danny muttered. "Both bent on world domination, both insane. Both with really bad breath." The Empress growled, her weapon swooshing faster and faster through the air. There was almost a rhythm to it—down, up, back, forward, left, right. He let his instincts take over, trusting that he would be able to evade her.

"Danny!" Tucker shouted over the line. "The second mainstay's up—what's the plan?" The plan? The plan was in shambles—Danny could hardly think he had to move so fast.

All he had left was for Jazz to get to the final mainstay—and then, he had to figure out some way of getting the Empress on the outside of the shield. A ghost suddenly flew up to address the Empress, and, with a glance at Danny, she walled herself in with the new ghost using her red ghostly energy. He wondered, worried, what the ghost was reporting to her—for it was clear that it was a report. He thought hopefully that something had maybe gone wrong, but luck wasn't on his side, if it had ever been.

He used the opportunity to think. "You and Sam need to capture as many ghosts as you can. They're still coming through the portals—we need to make sure we haven't trapped too many in here when we raise the shield," he directed. He wouldn't last much longer against her—she was too smart, too fast, and too strong. He had to get her outside the city limits. But how? She didn't fall for it when I led her away from the shield, even though I was doing it gradually…

Perhaps the answer wasn't that he needed to be moresubtle—perhaps he needed to be less subtle.

"Copy that," Sam and Tucker said in unison.

The ghost inside the Empress's blocky shield stopped talking. Danny prepared himself, tensing like a snake about to strike. The second she dropped her shield, Danny fired, but she was faster. She teleported to the right, out of his blasts, and smiled at him.

"I nearly have your realm in my grasp," she said, her voice lifted high with triumph. "Enough games. I have enjoyed toying with you for too long—I will love breaking you when this is over."

"Toying with me?" Danny snarled. "I don't know where you've been, because we've been pretty evenly matched." It was a surprise, actually—Pariah had been strong, ridiculously strong. Much like his sister. But Danny guessed he was stronger than he'd been before, more able to take on threats like her. It was a good thing.

"You have only thought so because I have allowed you so, abomination," she growled. The half-ghost was certain it was a lie—she seemed to have been giving her all when she'd ripped his tooth out and attempted to crush him. His gum ached at the reminder, though adrenaline had mostly wiped the pain away. This was her way of saving face, soothing her own ego that someone who was half-human had managed to hold his own against her.

She brought up her hands, and Danny immediately summoned a shield, ready to fend off her terrible power again. But it wasn't him she was going for—instead, she gestured at the buildings around him. Their foundations lit with the Empress's familiar energy, and Danny only had time to turn himself intangible before the entire line of houses outside the school's ghost shield came tumbling down.

The noise was deafening, worse than the sound of her crumpling metal. Bricks, glass, wood—everything—landed in a heap in the street. Bits of debris shot into the air—pieces of plaster, broken asphalt. Danny heard people screaming, somewhere. At least one of the buildings had been on fire before, and, unfortunately, this only seemed to allow the flames to spread. An orange glow lit the street.

"Jazz?" Danny coughed. "I really need that third mainstay up." He let go of his intangibility and his shield, looking to see where the Empress had gone.

That turned out to be a mistake.

That same great force pressed down on him once more. He felt one of his ribs crack, and he groaned. Shield, he thought. I need a shield! He heard her laughing, and now the force was pulling at his arms, his legs, he was going to die like that man, just a headless, limbless body falling to the ground—

A shield sprang into existence around him, though he felt his core protest at expending so much energy. The Empress snarled, but Danny could move again. He focused all his attention on maintaining the shield—he had to maintain the shield—his life depended on it—

"Danny!" Jazz's voice crackled through his Fenton phone. "I've got the mainstay! Only yours is left!"

Thank God. His shield cracked, but he didn't care. He let it fall entirely, and he heard the Empress give a whoop of delight—she thought she'd won, that he was too weak, but he teleported right in front of her—he grasped her thin, bony shoulders—and they were gone, together vanished from the spot—

—They reappeared on top of the last mainstay, and even as the Empress started to teleport back, or away, or somewhere, Danny forced her back, from Amity, with a short wail. It hurt, his core was throbbing, his stomach rumbling—he needed food or ectoplasm to restore his reserves—he landed on hands and knees—he thrust his hand into the dirt—where is it? There. He flipped the switch—the Empress was saying something, but he didn't care, couldn't care.

The mainstay buzzed and vibrated underneath him. A bright green light shot out, and Danny scrambled backwards, watching as it arched over the city, meeting with three others far above even the tallest of buildings. Then, the rest of the giant dome filled in—with Danny and the humans on one side, and the Empress on the other.

"You did it!" Tucker cheered over the line.

On the other side of the shield, the Empress had recovered from Danny's wail. The half-ghost sat, waiting to see what she would do. Here on the outskirts of the city, he could see that more of her army was pouring through her portals. God, there was so many. He didn't even have his thermos any more.

"You think this is over, abomination?" she demanded, flying closer until she was nearly touching the shield, only a few feet from where Danny was sprawled on the grass.

"It looks pretty over to me," Danny said, his green eyes burning into hers. "You've lost."

"Have I?" She turned around, the bones of her armor rattling together as she did. Turning to one of the ghosts standing near the closest portal, she said something to him, gesturing at the portal. Danny watched the exchange, trepidation pooling in his gut. What was she planning now? At least the shield had worked, even if had taken a while. He stood, his muscles aching. His stomach felt hollow and his mouth was dry—a sure sign he needed food or ectoplasm.

The half-ghost stood, his legs shaky. He could still hear sounds of battle behind him, but he turned his attention wholly on the Empress.

"Guys," he said, "I'm not sure we're done yet."

"What do you mean?" Jazz asked. "She can't get through the shield." Danny squinted, trying to see what they were doing through the portal, but he couldn't tell.

"She's doing something—and listen, I figured something out." He paused, trying to find the words to explain. "The Empress—she's Pariah Dark's older sister. He locked her up and made everyone forget her, somehow. It's not super clear. But she's bat-shit insane. She was—she was killing people. With impunity." He was embarrassed that his voice broke, but it had been brutal.Watching the man die, seeing the bodies of children and police officers, all doing their best to get to safety.

"Oh, Danny…" Sam trailed off. "It's not your fault." Those words, coming from anyone else's lips, would've been nothing but pity. But from hers, they sounded empathetic. The words weren't looking down on him; they were trying to lift him up.

"I just want to know where the hell Dora and her freaking army is," Tucker said. "Did she take the scenic route?"

"Wait, something's happening." Something immense—but slow—was coming through the portal. It looked to be a mottled, white-ish gray mass of flesh. What the hell? No—there were digits on the end of that flesh, along with giant black talons.

It was a foot—a foot the size of a house. They'd had to make the portal bigger so this thing—whatever it was—could fit through. Following that foot was a head, though it looked less like a head and more like melting skin. It glistened wetly, covered with sores, which wept a yellow, clear substance—like pus. Danny wouldn't have even known it was its face—it had no eyes or ears—except for the slits and the teeth. It had no lips, just a twisted, sagging opening where hundreds of teeth sprouted from pinkish gums. Some were chipped and broken—others gleamed white as if new.

…They were massive, far larger than even myself as a dragon, and malformed as if diseased…

"You know those 'great beasts' Dora mentioned?" Danny asked. His voice sounded far away, even to his own ears. Horror clawed its way up his spine. A thing like that—taller than any of the surrounding trees—might have enough brute force to break even the largest shield. Why didn't she bring it out before? Except he already knew—it was big, and likely strong, but it was also very slow.

"No, don't tell me," Tucker said. "Really. I don't want to hear."

"It's fucking huge," Danny whispered. He watched as it crawled the rest of the way out of the portal. It had four main limbs, each wider than a building, but also smaller limbs jutting from its long body. These couldn't even touch the ground—they simply waved uselessly through the air. "Like seriously big."

The Empress flew up to its face without fear and patted one of its slimy teeth. "Do you like it?" she called down to Danny. "He's going to rip through that shield of yours like it doesn't even exist!" She laughed and, turning, said something to the beast.

The half-ghost couldn't hear what it was, but the creature evidently understood; it reared onto its hind legs and brought its forefeet down on the shield. It blotted out the sky—all Danny could see was its sprawling underbelly, the skin hanging in low folds. It was hairless and scale-less, he noticed, almost absently.

The shield buzzed horribly, the noise so loud Danny resisted the urge to cover his ears. The creature roared in agony, its skin blackened and smoking, but it reared again, prepared to slam down once more. As it did this, the half-ghost saw the Empress and a few other ghosts arranging something.

Whatever it was, it couldn't be good.

"What the fuck is that?" Sam said in his ear.

"The creature," Danny responded faintly. If he'd felt far away before, he felt like he was on another planet now. Everything was murky; he was underwater, watching the surface from below. It blurred—it wasn't real. Nothing was real—he could just sit here and—

A roar sent him reeling upward into reality—not the roar of the beast, but something else. A blue shape, high above, crashed into the creature, slashing with its—or rather, her—teeth and claws.

It was Dora.

"Dora and her army are here," Danny said, suddenly galvanized. He could do this—they'd set up the shield despite the set-backs, the Empress and her beast-thing were outside it—it would be okay.

He could do this.

"I'm going to help her fight it," he told them. They started protesting, but he spoke over them. "You have to get Amity clear of ghosts—start making your way here, but take out as many as you can. We need it to be safe—no more deaths."

"Alright, Danny," Sam said softly. "No more deaths." The others didn't argue, either. The half-ghost saw Dora's soldiers—fewer in number—fly out of the forest, attacking the Empress's forces with everything they had. Hope rose within him. A gentle hope, but hope nonetheless.

Danny wished he knew how to close the portals, but he didn't. He'd have to settle for kicking the ass of any ghost that decided to come through. Above him, the sky returned as the beast focused less on the shield and more on the dragon attacking it. Bright bursts of green flame burned the creature terribly, adding to the smell of seared meat. Danny could've choked on it—it was so thick in the air.

"Phantom!"

He whipped around, slipping into a battle stance without thinking about it. It was—his parents? They were riding in the GAV, his mom driving (thank God), his dad wielding a gun out the passenger's window. Relief came over him like a tsunami—so strong he wanted to drown in it. They were okay—they were okay. The Empress hadn't killed them, and they hadn't died elsewhere.

They stopped just before the shield, hopping out and running toward him. It seemed so normal, for a split-second. As though this were an ordinary day, and he was an ordinary teenager, his parents only here because he'd forgotten something, or they'd seen him and wanted to speak with him. Then the moment ended, and reality re-asserted itself. He was a ghost; these were his ghost-hunting parents. It was all a secret, his life. Or half-life, rather.

"What?" he said as they reached him. "I'm kind of busy here."

"What is that thing?" his mom—Maddie—asked. She shouldered her gun, as though it would do anything up against that.

"We don't really know," Danny answered honestly. "But I'm about to go fight it." Only—his parents were here. With him. On the Amity side of the shield—which he would have to go human to get through… Shit. Panic coursed through his veins, directed by an overactive core.

"Good thinking with the shield, by the way," his dad complimented. Danny only nodded, still freaking out. He wasn't ready for this—his parents weren't ready for this. They thought he was diseased, sick. If they found out Phantom was their son… He suspected their urge to "cure" him would only grow stronger as they fought to "protect" him. But time was running out—Dora screamed as the creature batted at her with a humongous foot. He had to help—he had to. Her soldiers were fighting valiantly, but they wouldn't last forever.

Was this it? Was this the moment his parents would finally find out?
"We needed to know your plan," his mom said. "Though I guess you're the one who took our mainstays. How did you figure out the angles? And the number you needed?" Her eyes had that familiar look of curiosity in them, but Danny didn't have time to humor her.

"That's not important right now," Danny said. "Do you have a spare thermos? I… lost mine." His parents looked startled by the request, but his dad obliged, pulling one of his very own Fenton thermoses from his pocket.

They might not ever love my ghost half, but they tolerate him, Danny thought. That will have to be enough. That is enough. It is. And even if they never accept Phantom, they could never hate Fenton. He wanted it to be true. He needed it to be true.

Danny took the thermos. He cleared his throat. He couldn't bring himself to look them in the eye. "Thank you." Was his voice rougher than usual? On the other side of the shield, the Empress began taking things out of a crate, using her telekinesis. I need to be over there. I need to be over there and damn the consequences.

It looks like the Empress will get what she wanted, in the end.

He turned to them. "How did you find me?"

"Your signature," his mom said, holding up her scanner. She seemed… embarrassed. It was an odd feeling for him to see her have.

"Right. Look, there are still ghosts inside the shield—you have to get rid of them. The huntress and the others will help. Amity needs to be safe," he told them. He tucked the thermos into his belt. His hands trembled, but it wasn't exhaustion. This is it. There will be no taking it back. He could wait until they left, but—but—

Realistically, he needed to be on the other side of the shield now.

"I'm going to go to the other side," he said. "Promise you won't follow."

"Who are those other ghosts?" his dad asked. "Is there a coalition of the Empress's army rebelling? Is it a coupe? A mutiny?"

"They're allies," Danny assured. "That's all you need to know." He took a step forward. "Promise me. The Empress can rip humans apart like they're nothing—she will kill you if you follow me. Do you understand?"

"Phantom—" his mom tried.

"Do you understand?" Danny repeated.

"Yes," his mom said. "We understand—we, we saw the school. We won't follow." Danny held her gaze, gauging her sincerity. Would it hold if she knew her son was about to cross the shield? He hoped it would—he couldn't watch them die. He couldn't.

"The first time I said my name was Phantom," Danny said, in nearly a whisper, "I was stupid. I included my first name—but, well, it never really caught on." His eyes burned, but he refused to cry. Not here, not now, not in front of them. "It's Danny." He saw the dawning realization, but he turned, sprinting—changing into his human form—he threw himself at the shield. He was through—he changed back—he wouldn't look at them—couldn't bear to see the disappointment this time, not this time, couldn't see the hatred, the need to fix him.

He flew into the air, his dad's call of, "Danny!" the last he heard of them. He prayed, with every molecule of his being, that they would not follow.

He surged upward, the wind growing bitter and cold, not that he could really feel it. "Dora!" he shouted. The dragon flew from where she'd been biting at one of the beast's sores—her maw was covered in the clear, yellowish fluid. She smelled terrible, and looked battered, but Danny had never been happier to see her.

He studiously ignored the anxiety that came with the knowledge that his parents knew. They knew, and he didn't know how they were reacting. Did they still love him? Did they still want to "cure" him?
Did it even matter?

"Sir Phantom!" Dora greeted, her voice gruffer in dragon form. "I am sorry we could not come faster." She flew to the side as the beast's head lurched in their direction. It moved unsteadily, as though drunk.

"Don't worry about it!" Danny yelled back.

"There is something odd here," Dora told him. "I can hardly fathom it, but her force is not large enough. Her army is too small, even considering those in the city. You must be wary, Sir Phantom." What was he supposed to make of that? Her army seemed plenty big to him. Why would she bring a smaller army to conquer the human realm? It was bigger than the Zone.

"We can't worry about that now!" he said. "We need to worry about that thing. We have to keep it from breaking through the shield! Any ideas?" He kept an eye on it as they spoke, but it seemed to be enjoying its time without pain. It made no move to bash the shield again.

"You must get inside it!" Dora said. "I cannot in this form—I am too large. But you, intangible, could worm your way to its core, or whatever it might have in place of a core, and destroy it. I shall distract it." Danny didn't want to know what the inside of the creature looked like—at all. It was hideous on the outside, and the smell was overpowering. The inside would be worse. But if Dora thought that was the only way, she was probably right; she'd fought these things before, after all.

Besides, he didn't think blasting at it from the outside would do anything at all; it was just too large. But if he could destroy something vital…

"Okay!" he agreed, trying to get himself ready. "I'm going in!"

He turned intangible and moved closer. He almost couldn't convince himself, though, that the thing couldn't hurt him—it was so large, and the teeth, only feet away, were longer than Danny himself. He took a deep breath and dove in. It was dark, far too dark to see. He was in the creature's tissues. He could feel them vibrate as the creature moved. Its insides were structured nothing like a ghost's—for one thing, it had no ectoplasm.

But it didn't have blood, either.

Danny flew around in the dark, holding his breath and navigating by the feel of the place alone. He was intangible, of course, but if he turned a finger or a hand tangible, he could feel the slimy flesh beneath. He found something like a vein and muscle-esque bunches that contracted and expanded.

He tried to go toward center—both humans and ghosts had their most vital organs, the heart and the core, in the upper-middle of their bodies. So did birds, he was pretty sure. And reptiles. So he just had to find the equivalent of the thing's heart.

It was easier said than done, and eventually Danny would run out of air. He could hold his breath far longer than the average person, especially in ghost form, but he would eventually need oxygen. Finally, he decided he might as well start blasting—at least the glow from his hands would let him see.

He turned his hands tangible and started gathering ectoplasm there. Once he had enough, he started firing in large bursts. The inside of the creature rumbled as it cried out in pain. He kept going, burning the thing from the inside-out. It moved, thrashing from side to side. It's working! He just had to—

Suddenly, something—or someone—wrapped around his torso, pinning his arms to his sides—they must've been intangible, too. He was teleporting, only it wasn't him controlling it.

And he was out, on the ground, the Empress's long, thin arms holding him in place. He heard her chuckle menacingly in his ear. He felt like he barely had enough energy to thrash, but he forced himself to teleport out of her arms and away.

He took in his new surroundings in a second: he was closer to the ground, near the portal the creature had lumbered out of. Hardly any ghosts were coming out of it now, and it was much smaller than it had been. A team of ghosts flew even closer to the ground, setting something up—crystals, Danny could see. Giant, glowing crystals. What the hell? They were being arranged in some kind of pattern, and they were linked together with fine wires.

"Did you really think I was going to let you destroy my creature?" the Empress asked. She sounded amused. Far too amused for someone who'd been kicked out of the city she'd been trying to take over.

There's something I'm not understanding. Dora's warning that something more was going on came back to him. But what is it? How do I stop it?

"It's not a very valuable creature when one person can destroy it," Danny commented. Before he could say anything else, the Empress used her telekinesis to hold him in place once more. She wasn't trying to tear him apart, however—she was merely trapping him. She flew over to him slowly.

A shield, he urged his exhausted core. You have to make a shield, Danny, or you're dead. Please, you have to.

"You are weak," she said, trailing a finger down his face, just to prove she could. If Danny could've moved, he would've shuddered at her touch. All he could see was her ripping out his tooth, her ripping that man apart, the bodies littering the ground—it filled his mind's eye, blotting out the real world. "So tired. So feeble. So human. I believe I owe you pain, do I not? I think I shall pull your fingernails, too. You do not have the strength to stop me. It's been leeched away."

Danny's breath came hard through his nose. Guards surrounded the circle of crystals, keeping away Dora's forces. No one was coming to help or rescue him. "Get away from me," he managed to spit, still struggling to create a shield. Just one. Please, just so I can move. Please. Please. He didn't know if he was talking to God or himself. Or if he was really talking to anyone—just begging into a void.

"You screams were delightful, when I pulled your tooth. But perhaps you're right. You're a unique specimen. I wonder—are you like the other one? Do you have bones?" She clenched her hand into a fist. Danny's arm was twisted, and his bone made a crack as it fractured under the strain. White-hot pain made him shriek, though he tried to stay quiet.

"Ah," the Empress said. "You do." She reached forward—to do what else, Danny didn't know—when one of the ghosts from below rushed up. He bowed deeply to the Empress.

"Mistress," he said. "It's ready. The others are, too. We activate on your order." She smiled, turning to the half-ghost.

"You will enjoy this, abomination. It will be sweet to see your face as your world ends around you." She nodded to the ghost, who flew back down. He and a couple other ghosts began fiddling with the crystals, which glowed brighter.

"What are you doing?" Danny demanded. It was hard to concentrate with the pain. He didn't think, even if he had the power, that he'd be able to create a shield—he couldn't focus, couldn't pay attention.

Was this how he died? At the hands of an enemy he barely knew, though one that had had haunted him for over a month, now. She'd caused him so much pain and suffering. His arm throbbed. He would die without speaking to his parents ever again, not knowing their reaction to what he had done—to who he was.

It would be agony, for the Empress to kill him. He'd be tortured until he no longer knew his name, but he'd die knowing he would not be there to protect Sam or Tucker or Jazz or his parents or Amity. It hurt him. It hurt him like nothing ever had before. The crystals began humming—soft at first, then loudly.

…sweet to see your face as your world ends around you…

No. This was not how the world ended. Not with him here, not with him helpless. He pushed—he shoved—there was a pain in his core—a sharp, stabbing pain—protect them, I have to protect them, please—

And a shield appeared around him. The Empress turned, shock on her face. It was a weakness to keep one's enemies alive just so you could hurt them later. Better to kill them quickly, never give them a chance to fight back. She shouted. Danny could move—he dropped to the crystals. They were so bright they hurt his eyes. He didn't want to drop his shield—he couldn't just use an ectoblast—

His left fist broke one of the crystals into splinters. Its sharp edges cut his knuckles. The light died—he'd done it—he'd stopped whatever she was trying to do—but she was laughing—why was she laughing—

And then the world shattered around him.

---

AN: Longest chapter yet! Sorry it's a day late. And sorry for the cliffhanger, but this really couldn't get any longer lol. Thanks, as always, for your response! Congrats to Moon ninja Luna for figuring out the Empress's identity. The next update should be in a week (though of course please feel free to check my profile if that doesn't seem to be the case). Thank you to my editor TheSteelShadow. Questions: Were the fight scenes okay? Did everything make sense? Were the long, run-on sentences cumbersome or did they add to a feeling of panic and urgency? What did you think of Danny's reveal to his parents (what do you think their reaction is going to be)? What do you think is going to happen next?