Disclaimer: I still don't own Danny Phantom. Butch Hartman does, and I somehow doubt that will be changing any time soon. Since I'm not making any money from this, there is nothing for the law-ninjas to sue out of me.
Author's Note: I'm sorry, don't kill me! I really honestly meant to get this chapter done a LOT sooner than it ended up being, honest! But there was the tail end of school, and then I got very badly distracted by a recent Phoenix Wright addiction... (and I do mean badly. I was losing sleep for a period of about 2 weeks over it as I was puzzling out the cases in both games. Lots of sleep.) And then I had to help my sister move into her new apartment. Coupled with a light case of writer's block, and yeah...
Chapter Two: Reap What You Sow
"Eternal silence cries out for justice
Forgiveness is not for sale
Nor is the will to forget"
-"Cry for the Moon" - Epica
Valerie expertly guided her jet sled into the second-floor launch deck of the Patrol headquarters, and in moments the huntress had the device stowed. She was in for lunch and a break; since she had taken the morning patrol, she had the afternoon off. Later she would take the evening patrol, but she wouldn't be on the graveyard shift until the following month when the schedules reversed.
It's not like we really need constant ghost patrols anymore though. Valerie mused as she headed up to the fourth floor of the building; the officer apartments. Since Phantom was locked up in that Fenton Thermos, we haven't had much in the way of ghost trouble.
She idly wondered about that other timeline once in awhile. That other Danny had prevailed, or so Clockwork had told her. He had succeeded where she and dozens of others had failed; he'd fought Phantom, and won. He hadn't gone through the terror of loss that the Danny of her timeline had.
Still, the circumstances of that timeline wouldn't change anything about this one, and that was still the number one priority. The city had been fortunate to gain the assistance of the plant ghost Undergrowth; it was thanks to their agreement that the reconstruction was proceeding as rapidly as it was. Indeed, a lot had changed over the past year, in ways that she would never have thought possible.
Humans were working with some ghosts to the benefit of both. All thanks to the efforts of the Patrol in the real world; and the ghostly incarnations of Sam, Tucker, and Danny in the Ghost Zone. There were still plenty of ghosts that had no wish to accept any restrictions on their behavior, and these were quickly dealt with by the Patrol whenever they managed to sneak into the human world. Heck, even the government's own Guys in White team was taking its cues from the New Amity Park Ghost Patrol in the treatment of "ectoplasmic Americans."
Valerie shut the door of her apartment behind her and put on a microwave sandwich to warm up. Something was bugging her, and the huntress simply could not put a finger on what. She had seen nothing unusual on her morning patrol, she'd only spoken briefly with Undergrowth on her way out on said Patrol...
Who was that kid she'd seen chatting with the leafy ghost? That had to be it. The teenager looked oddly familiar, she was certain of that. The question was why? Who did that boy remind her of so much as to nag at the back of her mind all morning? Fully half his face had been obscured by large sunglasses, yet the memory of him looking at her from behind the tinted lenses made her blood run cold. She wasn't one to jump to conclusions, but Valerie also knew well to trust her gut feelings.
Which were telling her on no uncertain terms that the kid was dangerous. Extremely dangerous.
That makes absolutely no sense. Valerie frowned in thought as she retrieved her lunch and plunked down on the small couch in the front room. What could be so dangerous about a kid? One that's barely in high school, at that?
Then again, a decade ago Danny Phantom was 'barely in high school' and capable of incredible feats with his powers. Valerie almost dropped her sandwich at the wild thought that hit her.
That can't be him! He's gone, sealed up in that Thermos and in Clockwork's care. Phantom is gone, and he's never coming back!
It took the huntress several moments of deliberately pacing her breathing to calm down. The more she thought about it, the most she thought she recalled the resemblance between her memory of fourteen-year-old Danny Fenton and the kid she saw just hours ago. It couldn't have been Danny himself. She knew the ghost of the teen's humanity personally, Danny's ghost no longer looked fourteen. Phantom, however...
"Amusing." He sneered, crossing his arms over the emblem on his chest, the insignia there now a mockery of everything he had once stood for. "I wonder, can you really shoot me, Valerie? Would you shoot your dear friend?"
"I wouldn't shoot my friend. But that's not a problem." She growled in response, ignoring the pain from her broken ribs and her broken heart as she pointed her gun at him, at that face. At the boy that had once been her friend. "You're not him."
Even injured as he was, he still managed to smirk at her as though he hadn't just had the green goo beaten out of him. "Are you so certain of that?"
She was close, so close to pulling the trigger and ending the nightmare. The grip of her gun was slippery from sweat, her white-knuckle hold on the weapon the only thing keeping it trained on the ghost boy. Then, right before her eyes, he changed, the action a perfect reverse of what he had demonstrated just two weeks prior, when he told her he was Danny Phantom and the bottom dropped out of her universe.
"D-danny?" With a gasp she stammered out the name, stepping backward in surprise, her resolve quaking as much as her aim.
"That's right..." He purred, taking a step forward to match her faltering one back. "You can't shoot little old me, right, Val? We're pals, aren't we?"
It was his eyes that did it.
Had they been blue, or even glowing green, she would have relented and been unable to fight. Instead, they were brilliant red, twin pools of burning hate; a stare that made her blood run cold and gave her the strength to ignore her grief and pull the trigger.
"No, you're just over reacting." Valerie said aloud, shaking her head as though the motion would dispel the unpleasant memory. "It was probably just some surly high school kid with a problem with authority. That's all."
"Valerie, do you read me?"
Her attention was instantly pulled to her wristband. Paulina was on patrol, and the Latina seldom contacted headquarters unless...
... Unless there was a problem. A big one.
"Val here. Wha-" Valerie was cut off by the enraged hiss from the other end of the conversation.
"He's back. At the Nasty Burger!"
Valerie didn't even remember leaping from the couch, running down two flights of stairs and throwing herself out the second floor launch deck, the alarms blaring throughout the New City. She was in her apartment one moment, and the next she was tearing across the sky, rifle and autocannon powered on and ready.
It was all too familiar a sensation, anger and fear all rolled up in a thick wrapping of pure hatred. If he was back, she'd make sure he wasn't for long.
---
In hindsight, the way Dan handled the Latina's presence wasn't one of his more brilliant moves. The smart thing to do would have been to turn intangible, turn invisible, and get the heck out of the area. Clearly, there was a lot of pent-up anger and that was not going to see or listen to reason. So what's an ex-psycho ghost to do?
He tried to reason with her.
"Paulina! I-"
And got a mouthful of beam blast for his efforts, tumbling the ghost head over heels against a stray boulder.
"We just got started over!" Paulina snarled, aiming the weapon for a second burst. "You aren't going to take it all away, not again!"
Dan had to dodge a flurry of bazooka blasts that punctuated the statement. He was too surprised by the Latina's unexpected arrival to react properly; instead he was scurrying out of harm's way and trying to get a word in edgewise.
"I don't-"
Paulina snarled a curse and fired another round, the thing pulverizing what was left of the Nasty Burger signpost Dan had been standing in front of just a second prior.
This isn't going to get me anywhere. Dan scowled to himself, dodging the ongoing assault. He was slightly surprised that it was easy to refrain from returning fire. Given how he'd reacted when he simply saw Valerie, the ghost half-expected a similar burst of anger toward Paulina; especially given she was openly attacking him.
Still, if he hoped to talk reason into the Latina, he needed enough of an opening in her barrage to complete a sentence. Given that she didn't seem inclined to leave such an opening, he would need to somehow make one. Meaning he would need to disarm the woman, and do so without accidentally hurting her. Easier said than done, Dan wasn't used to holding back in a fight and it was a given fact that Paulina would lash out.
Instead of evading the next blast, the ghost duplicated himself; one copy going to the right, the other left around the bright beam. The tactic gave Paulina an extra target to shoot at; Dan's idea was to create a gap in her barrage long enough for at least one of him to get a word in.
"When the rest of the Patrol gets here, you'll pay for what you did to Danny!" Paulina hissed, shooting a hole in the ghost's plan by pulling a second large gun out of her pack and adding a large beam cannon to the bazooka barrage.
The 'rest of the Patrol?' Dan pondered, scowling. Then I don't have much time to reason with Paulina before she gets here.
Throwing caution and diplomacy to the wind, Dan let his duplicate take a hit and disappear, using the momentary pause to dash in and catch the Latina's wrists. He must have grabbed a little harder than he'd intended since Paulina yelped, her weapons falling from her grip as she tried to pull herself free.
"Listen to me!" Dan shouted at the struggling woman. "I'm not going to-"
"Let me go!" Paulina shrieked loud enough to make the ghost's ears ring from the volume and pitch, her left leg shooting out on a low trajectory.
Dan barely had time to register that he thought he heard an echo, before something exploded against his backside and drove him forward and down onto the incoming kick. Then he was too busy registering nothing but blinding, searing pain emanating from the point of impact to care about that. With a squeaky yelp the ghost released Paulina and fell over, curling onto his side in a futile attempt at trying to somehow lessen the discomfort from his groin.
"I said to let her go!" A familiar voice sounded from somewhere above, laden heavily with disgust and hate that was crystal clear even over the noise of jet sled engines.
So that was the echo I heard. Some coherent part of Dan's mind noted while he staggered painfully back to his feet to face the threat.
"I swear I'm gonna rip you to little pieces, Phantom!" Valerie snarled, catching him full in the face with a pink blast from her autocannon.
Still reeling from Paulina's lucky shot, the blast sent Dan flying backwards. He was stopped by the Fenton monument, slamming into the back of the thing with enough force to pitch the large stone carving forward at an awkward angle. Cringing, he slid to the ground, leaving several new cracks in the weathered memorial.
"You-" Dan hissed at Valerie, barely catching himself from acting on the instinctive desire to lash out at the huntress.
He heard rather than saw the rest of the Patrol arriving shortly after Valerie. This was not going to end well if he stayed. If Paulina wouldn't let him explain himself, there was no way the rest of the Patrol would, let alone Valerie. Not that he wanted to explain a thing to the huntress. Sticking around was not going to help his case in the slightest.
"How'd you get back here, Phantom?" Valerie snarled, glaring at him through the targeting scope of her gun.
"Don't." Dan bit out. "Call. Me. That."
It was a stupid thing to fixate on given the situation, but then it was keeping with his current track record. Perhaps fixing his attention on the name thing was simply a way to fend off the temptation to simply toss the past several months right out the window. At that moment, reverting to old habits and blowing the lot of them away was sounding increasingly tempting.
I need to get out of here.
"I'll call you whatever I want to, ghost." Valerie hissed, charging her gun.
I need to get away.
"I have a name, thank you very much." Dan retorted, getting to his feet and slowly moving away from the memorial. "I would prefer you use it."
I have to get away from here.
"Yeah, whatever, Phantom!" Valerie opened fire, her blast missing the statue by just inches thanks to Dan's steady movement away from it. "All units, open fire!"
I have to get away from her
Dan finally snapped out of his stupor and hastily ripped open a portal to the Ghost Zone. He wasted no more time diving through the green tear that promised safety; the cacophony of weapons behind him sharply cut off as the gap closed behind him, replaced with blissful silence.
---
"He got away!" Valerie punched the unyielding stone memorial in frustration, pacing to and fro.
He's back.
That ghost, that monster that was supposed to be beaten and never to return had done the impossible.
That murderer.
Phantom was back. She'd seen it with her own eyes though she desperately wanted to disbelieve it. He couldn't be back, not now; not when she and the rest of the city was finally moving past that ever-present fear of the past decade.
He's back.
What would happen to the city now? They had no giant ghost shield yet to defend the New City; and he already had found a way to get past that long-defunct safeguard. Undergrowth likely would not stand a chance in a fight with the ghost; and though the huntress was loathe to admit it, the Patrol would not stand a chance even with their new weaponry.
That monster.
Valerie felt her knees start to buckle and she sank to the ground, staring at the spot the ghost had just been standing at moments ago. Was it worth even trying to fight anymore? They had all lost so much already, would fighting and trying to stop a seemingly unstoppable force be worth merely prolonging their misery until the inevitable?
Phantom is back.
"Valerie!" Paulina slapped her superior officer across the face. "Snap out of it!"
"Wha-" Valerie looked up at Paulina in a daze.
"We have to tell the city." The Latina had a serious expression. "And start to figure out what to do about him. He was acting... odd... don't you think?"
"Odd?" Valerie frowned.
"He could have killed me before you and the others got here." Paulina noted. "But he didn't."
Valerie climbed back to her feet, finally finding solace in a familiar emotion that had served as a bulwark against fear and uncertainty during the ghost's deadly rampages before. It was a spark that had rested dormant for the past year, dully smoldering. Anger. Hate.
"He was just toying with you, I bet." Valerie spat, fueling that dim memory of her hatred with the fresh encounter, turning the old spark into a hot fire. "We don't know how long until he comes back. We've gotta prepare."
"That's more like the Valerie I know." Paulina grinned, the expression without humor.
It was an expression Valerie recalled all too well, that fake smile beneath eyes wide with terror.
Somehow, they'd driven Phantom away a second time. A good third of the city lay in burning ruin around them, but they'd... they hadn't won, but they hadn't lost, and that was good enough for them.
"Ohmigosh, Valerie, you did it!" Paulina nearly bowled her clean off her feet in an enthusiastic hug as the rest of the Patrol burst into hyperactive babble around her.
"You guys did great!" Valerie thumped Paulina on the back, grinning like a maniac. "That last attack tore that spook a new one!"
"Awesome idea using two jet boards!"
"Yeah, we showed him!"
"Nothing could have survived that!"
"Did you see the look on his face when that hit him?"
And then came the laughter. That hollow, almost hysterical laughter. Half-crazed from fear, on the brink of tears at the horrible destruction. It was either laugh or scream, or worse break down entirely.
So they laughed with the empty relief of survivors, the sound flat on the wind, lost amid the stomach-turning stench of the slaughter...
"Let's go." Valerie shook herself out of the memory, stopping dead as another thought hit her. "Danny-!"
"Danny?" Paulina looked confused by the sudden panic on the huntress' face. "What abou-... OH!"
"Phantom's loose in the Ghost Zone." Valerie confirmed. "We've got to warn Sam and the others that he's back. Now."
"You've got the funny ghost phone." Paulina noted as the massed Patrol started back to headquarters.
Valerie already had the aforementioned device out and was punching in the number.
"Come on, pick up- Sam!" Valerie clutched the special communicator to her ear. "Listen, it's an emergency!"
"Whoa, Valerie?" The ghost goth's voice clearly conveyed a raised eyebrow. "What's with the panic, you sound like you saw-"
"Sam?" Valerie frowned when she heard Sam gasp in shock, a loud clatter indicating that Sam had dropped the phone. "Sam? Say something!"
The only answer was a shriek, the sound muffled by distance.
"YOU!"
---
Sam backed away from the door to the lair she shared with Danny; or rather the ghost of Danny's humanity. Unlike the flame-headed nightmare that was standing in the doorway with a surprised look on his fierce face; Danny's dead human self was exceedingly weak by ghostly standards. There was no telling what the nightmarish ghost would do when he saw Danny; after all, he'd been the one to kill the teen in a deranged sort of self-torture a decade ago when the troubles first began.
"What are you doing here?" Sam managed to snap at the ghost, reaching the wall and hitting a button to sound the alarm.
"This is your-" Whatever Dan was about to say was cut off first by the blaring siren and then by a loud roar from the basement that rumbled the entire lair.
Sam didn't seem fazed at all by the commotion, indeed she was almost grinning about it. The ground heaved, throwing Dan backward and out the door as the floor fractured, permitting two large figures access to the main room and the startled ghost.
The first was familiar though he hadn't seen it in years. The large reptilian body was covered snout to tail with pale blue scales, topped with a pair of neon-green horns and ridges clear down its spine. A golden necklace hung clasped at the great dragon's throat, while thoroughly angry red eyes glowered at Dan above a mouth full of very sharp teeth.
The second one felt like it should have been familiar, though Dan couldn't quite place where he would have seen it. Sam gave a cheer when the behemoth came up from the lower level. Compared to the blue dragon, this one was far more impressive a specimen, scales shading from a brilliant red on its head to yellow on the underside of the neck and belly, then grey down its back, and finally pitch black on its body; the underpinnings of its wings reversing that shading from black to red. Like the blue one, this beast had neon-green horns, though in the form of a magnificent crest rather than a meager pair, matched by several spines sticking out of the dragon's tail.
It was one thing to be generally known as the baddest, most deadly ghost in all of the Ghost Zone. It was quite another to look up and see two large somethings that seemed all teeth and claws charging with clearly unfriendly intent. Dan did what any reasonable person would do when confronted unexpectedly by such a sight.
That is, he made all possible speed to get out of their way. He heard the jaws snapping shut right behind him, almost snagging his cape. A hasty duplication brought him out of the path of an immediate blast of green flames. The assault was too sudden, Dan didn't have enough time between attacks to decide if he wanted to blow the two beasts away or simply run.
"We can't let him get at Sam!" The larger of the two dragons bellowed, the voice sounding familiar though Dan couldn't place it.
"You attacked me, not the other way around!" Dan snarled back as his duplicate darted away from the smaller blue reptile.
The two against one melee began to split into a pair of fights as one dragon each chased one copy of the fire-headed ghost. Dan planned it that way, leading the two dragon ghosts far enough apart that they couldn't help each other. Now if he could just try and talk to Sam...
That alone would be tricky. It had been over ten years since he'd spoken with Sam. Dan had to keep in mind that this Sam was not the one that had helped him through his madness; had helped him come to the decision to return to this accursed timeline. This was the Sam that had apparently watched helplessly as he tore his humanity apart; she had seen the slaughter he was responsible for as it occurred.
It probably wasn't a stretch of the imagination to assume that this Sam hated him; hated him for his actions with a vehemence only slightly less than that of Valerie.
Dan led the two ghost dragons further away, using the confusion of the melee to cover the manifestation of a third duplicate. If he could get a few words in edgewise without the beasts breathing down his neck, perhaps he could make some progress. While his other two copies led the dragons on a wild chase, the third made an invisible beeline for the ghost goth's lair.
Sam wasn't alone.
Author's Note: Well, it's certainly above and beyond my 5-page minimum for a chapter. Again, I'm sorry I kept you guys hanging on that cliffhanger for so long. (So she says after once again leaving everyone on ANOTHER cliffhanger...)
Sorry I didn't quite manage to reply to all my reviewers after I posted the previous chapter. I'll try to be better about it this time! As always, a great big shout-out to the folks who've been nice enough to review the fic. Fireworks and flammable entertainments go out to Angelic Kittens, Fulcon, Yenattirb, KieiNeko, tejdog1, i AM the Random Idiot, Anne Camp aka Obi-quiet, Sqweakie the Wonder Mouse, Moony's Metamorphmagus, Twilight-Phantom66, Eleirah, zara2148, and Selofain!