Oof, this one was a doozy to write! So many parts. Hope you enjoy it. ~Ms. Oregano
xxxxxx
A green and gray hunk of metal flew past the floating doors of the Ghost Zone. A girl with cloud-white hair in a ponytail steered the vehicle, her fluorescent green eyes nervously scanning around for any surprises from a certain ghost.
Sitting far behind her, another halfa made himself and their three friends invisible.
"You doing okay?" Danny said.
"So far, so good," Tara said in a quivering voice.
"You see that island coming up? Make a left turn there. Nice and steady. There you go."
"Now what do I do?"
"Relax, you're fine. Just keep going straight until I tell you otherwise."
"You know, Danny, you make a really good driving teacher," Tucker said. "You're, like, so chill. More chill than my dad was when he was trying to teach me how to drive. You gotta coach me before my next driving test."
"Really, Tuck? Small talk?" Sam whispered. "We're trying not to get our kids killed. Or leave them orphans. Or wiped off our plane of existence. Or break the very fabric of time."
"Just...trying to lighten the mood, I guess."
"Ugh, sorry, I'm just...really high-strung right now."
"No, you're right. Gotta focus."
"Sharp-right here, but be careful. I don't want to bring back a brand-new Specter Speeder all dinged-up to my parents. I won't know how to explain it to them," Danny said with a small chuckle.
"Right," Tara said as she turned the steering wheel.
"So," Danny said, turning to Vanessa, "you remember how to use your Fenton Wrist Ray?"
"Yep," she said.
"And you remember which button to press to work the Jack O' Nine Tails?"
"Yep. Gosh, these weapons are so...antiquated. You sure this is going to work on him?"
"Honestly, I don't know. I just packed anything and everything I could find into the Speeder. But remember the most important thing-if things go way far south, use your time portal ray to get yourself and Tara out of here. Then go back to my time to get Megan."
"I hope she's okay," Tara said.
"She's fine," Vanessa responded. "She was asleep when I left her. And I put in a DoorDash order for her at 6 pm. Left a note for her to open the door when it arrives."
"Was that even safe of us to do?"
"It was safer than bringing a little kid along to a big, scary battle that would undoubtedly further traumatize her."
"Fair. Let's just-WHOA!"
A large band of Ectopuses flew in front of the Specter Speeder, and Tara swerved to avoid them. The four in the back flung sideways, but Danny kept hold of the group, keeping them invisible.
"Ouch…" Vanessa muttered.
"What was that?" Sam said.
"A bunch of ghosts. But...they're not attacking us?"
The Ectopuses floated in front of them, staring at Tara. Then, they parted, making two parallel lines on either side of the Specter Speeder.
"I think they're showing us the way," Tucker said.
"Follow the path," Danny said, and the Specter Speeder moved forward.
They followed the route, making every twist and turn that the ghosts guided them to. They had just passed Walker's Prison when they saw the looming blood-red castle, with windows like eyes and front door like a mouth.
"Pariah's Keep," Sam mumbled.
"I was kinda hoping I'd never have to see this place again," Danny muttered.
Sam pulled Danny closer to her.
They flew into the door of the castle.
Up the once-booby-trapped curved staircase that Danny had to pass to get the Fright Night's sword.
Through the hallway of skeletons holding spears.
And through the doorway that Danny once broke down to take on Pariah Dark.
"Okay...here we go," Danny whispered.
Tara parked the Specter Speeder on the long rug leading up to a throne. Remnants of the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep laid in disarray on the floor beside it. Tara took off her seatbelt.
"You all stay here," she said.
"No way," Tucker said.
"We'll stay invisible behind you," Danny said.
Tara grimaced, then nodded. With shaking hands, she unlatched the door.
xxxxxx
The sound of metal clashing together rang floors below the teenagers.
"Again!" a man in a black and white jumpsuit screamed.
With a collective yell, two men and a woman hurtled towards the medieval cell bars, that illuminated a green color exactly like the walls, with a hoisted bench. The metal bars, however, did not even budge; the force they exerted only pushed them backwards.
A stubby-legged man with ash-grey hair and mustache came hobbling down the stairs to their prison cell.
"Hey! Shut that racket!" Bertrand shouted.
Older Tucker dropped his side of the bench. He dashed towards the bars and grabbed the little man by his jacket collar, lifting him off the ground.
"GET US OUT," Tucker bellowed into his face.
"Fat chance! Boss says you're to stay put until he needs you. Until then, enjoy the generous accommodations. Fit for both ghosts and humans."
"I'm not waiting around like a cow for slaughter!"
He slammed Bertrand onto the bars, knocking him out.
"Sam," Tucker said as he dropped him, "check his pockets. Find a key."
Older Sam stooped down and searched his jacket pockets.
"He doesn't have anything on him!"
"I could've just told you that," Bertrand grumbled as he struggled to get up.
"I don't understand," older Danny said. "He's got me. Why didn't he just kill me when he had the chance? What's he waiting around for?"
Bertrand chuckled. "You think it's as simple as revenge? Please. He didn't become King of All Ghosts with a one-track mind."
Tucker once again raised Bertrand so they were eye-to-eye.
"You better tell us what's going on, or I'll pound your head onto these metal bars so hard, you'll never wake up."
"Isn't that a little dark for the sidekick?" Bertrand said with a sneer.
"I got a hell of a lot tougher once I got a kid. And believe you me, you're not getting in my way of getting back to her."
"Speaking of kids…" Bertrand said, then laughed.
"What do you mean?" Tucker ordered.
Bertrand kept laughing.
Tucker banged him against the bars.
"What do you mean?"
xxxxxx
Tara scanned the room, which was still in shambles after the last battle that took place more than 25 years ago. There was no sign of any ghosts, however.
"Where are you?" she screamed.
Her echo rang.
"Let my parents go!"
No response other than her own echo.
"Coward!"
All of a sudden, cold mist escaped from her lips.
"You're the one I was warned about? The one they all fear?" a deep voice reverberated.
Tara spun on her heel, frantically looking all around her.
"You're even more pathetic than your father."
Boom!
Tara almost fell over as the floor underneath her cracked. She turned to where the loud explosion came from.
He was nothing like the ghost her father had described in his stories.
Instead of white hair pulled back into a ponytail, his long, black hair flowed wildly from the top of his head, where the Crown of Fire sat. As he lifted himself up from his crouched position, she saw that his face was white as bone. His suit was no longer white and black, the remains of when he was once a superhero. Now, he donned a solid black suit, sans cape, and he wore the Ring of Rage. The logo on his chest was a bright green color that burned Tara's eyes to look at.
He opened his eyes, revealing an equally green color, and smiled, revealing his fangs.
"I guess that makes you my daughter, too."
xxxxxx
"Ow ow ow owwww! Fine!" Bertrand yelled.
Tucker stopped shaking him but kept his hold on him.
"Ugh...in case you haven't heard, someone else topped Danny Phantom as the strongest ghost of our time."
"Yeah, yeah, Evil Danny, we get it."
Bertrand smiled sinisterly. "Not him. Someone else born 14 years ago."
xxxxxx
"Well, I have to give you some credit. At least you're a little smarter than your father," he said, walking towards her. "At least you know a losing game when you see one. And, you had the decency to come alone and accept your ultimate fate."
"You have me now. Please, my parents...are they alive?"
"Don't you worry. They're just fine. I mean, no food or water, but alive."
"Let me see them."
"Now is that any way to ask? You had it right before."
He opened his hand, and a red ball of flaming ecto-energy formed.
"Please!"
"That's better. Much better." He closed his hand, and the ball disappeared.
"What do you want with me?" she whispered in a shaky voice.
"Don't you get it by now?"
In an instant, he flew up to Tara and grabbed her by her ponytail, pulling her up from her feet. She screamed from the pain.
"I need you gone to make sure nothing happens to me."
xxxxxx
"Oh no," Danny whispered. His knees buckled, and he fell to the floor. "No..."
"Someone who might just have the power to take him down and poses a threat to his reign."
"Danny!" Sam screamed. "Our daughter!"
Bertrand laughed again, and Tucker yanked him towards the bars, hitting his head and knocking him unconscious. He tossed him on the ground and headed back to his friends.
"We need to get out. Now," Tucker said.
"You think I don't know that? We've been at this nonstop for hours. I'm out of ideas! What do you suggest we do?" Danny yelled back.
"Try using another one of your ghost powers on the wall!"
"Last time I did that, if you recall, the ball of ecto-energy I threw bounced off the walls, nearly blowing off your head!"
"Oh my gosh, I think I'm going to vomit…" Sam muttered as the two fathers continued arguing. She reached her hand out to try to lean against the wall.
"Danny…" she said with wide eyes.
"He's only after my kid, not yours!"
"You think he's gonna stop at just yours? The dude's a legit psychopath. He kills for fun!"
"Danny!" she screeched.
The two men spun their heads.
Sam lifted her chin with pride as she waved her hand-less arm around the wall.
"Maybe Dan did something to those bars to keep humans and ghosts in...and maybe he made the walls ghost-proof...but he sure didn't make the whole castle human-proof."
"Genius," Danny whispered. He transformed into his human self, then stuck his head through the wall.
"Uh, Sam?" came the muffled sound of his voice from the other side. He brought his head back in. "We're at the very edge of the island. If we walk out...we fall."
Sam followed the exact motions her husband just did.
"Well," she said as she brought her head back in, "what if you change midair?"
"What?"
"Yeah, like, you hold onto us, we walk off, and then you go ghost before we crash. Then you fly us back inside, and we put an end to Dark Danny, once and for all."
"Sam, I don't know...what if I don't turn back in time?"
"You can. And you will."
Danny closed his eyes. Finally, he nodded.
"Okay. Hang on."
xxxxxx
"You leave her alone!"
A little voice cried from behind Tara, and the next thing she knew, they were surrounded by a blue cloud of smoke. The gas burned her eyes and throat; she struggled for air.
Dark Danny, however, did not. With one big wave of his other hand, he parted the smoke, allowing it to dissipate around them.
A little girl tugged at Tara's boots.
"Megan?!" Tara cried in between coughs. "No!"
"There's two of you?" Dark Danny said with a laugh. "What other little surprises does Danny have in store for me?"
He reached for the girl's hair, when all of a sudden…
"You touch one strand of hair on that kid's head, and I'll make you think our last fight was child's play."
It was then that Danny, along with his teenage friends, materialized in front of Dark Danny.
"Megan!" Sam yelled. "Megan, how did you get here?"
"I hid behind the bazooka-thing!"
"Megan, you get back here right now!"
"No, I can help! I have a ton of things I made with my science kit!"
Sam turned to Tucker. "What kind of science kit did you give this kid?!"
"Enough!"
Keeping hold of Tara, Dark Danny zoomed up to face his old nemesis and his team.
He stared Danny down, contorting the skin on his distorted face.
"You told me…" Dark Danny began in a hushed voice. He whipped his head up and boomed, enough to make the walls of the castle tremble, "You lied to me, Angel!"
The group followed Dark Danny's gaze to find a gold cage swinging slightly from the ceiling. In it laid a snow-white owl.
"Angel!" younger Danny yelled.
The owl opened his eyes and inched closer to the edge of his confinement.
"I'm...sorry," he said with a quiver. "He...caught me before I could...reach Pandora."
Danny felt as if his gut had sunk to the floor. "Oh no."
"Oh yes," Dark Danny said in a mocking tone. "No one to save you now."
He then aimed his hand at the group behind his younger self and shot them with a green blast. They flew back with a scream, chained onto the wall behind them.
"Although, maybe I should consider adjusting my plans."
xxxxxx
They stood by the wall and clung onto each other.
"On the count of three. One...two…three!"
They jumped.
All Danny could hear was the deafening screams of Tucker and Sam on either ear. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block them out.
"Come on...come on…"
Suddenly, the screams stopped. He opened his eyes again. He looked underneath him. Black pants. White boots. They were floating.
"Yes!" Tucker cheered.
"Ouch, Tucker. My ears."
"Oh, sorry, man."
"Thanks to you two, now I'm old and deaf."
"No time for jokes," Sam said. "Get us back inside!"
With that, Danny zoomed them all towards the castle.
xxxxxx
"You know, it would make for an interesting fight-trying to kill the daughter I would have had if I didn't sacrifice my humanity."
Thud! Tara dropped to the floor.
"But then, even if I did succeed, I still wouldn't be safe," he said, inching closer to Danny. "Maybe the other runt has ghost powers and comes back to avenge her family. No, that wouldn't be smart at all…"
Danny backed up as Dark Danny expanded to three times his size.
"So I guess I'll have to make sure that you don't have a future at all."
"Hey!"
Danny was suddenly shielded off by three adults.
"Leave them alone," older Danny slowly said.