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: Whoo, between the Danny Phantom Online website launch, the MikomiCon story deadline, and... oh yeah, my younger sister One Amahira getting engaged in Las Vegas after months of secret scheming by her boyfriend, I barely got this done by my two-week deadline!
Chapter Six: Search and Hunt
"After the night he died
I wept my tears until they dried
But the pain stayed the same
I didn't want him to die all in vain
I made a promise to revenge his soul in time
I'll make them bleed down at my feet"
-"The Promise" - Within Temptation
"Dan!" Tucker roared, taking full advantage of the sheer volume a dragon's set of lungs could generate. "C'mon man, this isn't funny!"
It had been a few hours, yet after the initial explosion there was no sign of a fight. Dora was checking elsewhere in the Ghost Zone, but neither had found any indication of anything wrong. None of the ghosts either of them spoke to knew anything other than having heard a single explosion. No fighting...
...And no Dan.
Tucker knew just how powerful Dan was. There was no way the ghost's sheer brute strength could be topped by anybody. Yet they were supposed to meet up two hours ago; when Tucker went to the meeting place, Dan was nowhere to be found. The fire-headed ghost was always on time, and usually early. The earlier explosion, coupled with his absence had the royal geek quite frankly worried.
You better not have gone back to old habits. I trusted you! He growled to himself. I probably should have known better, but I did anyway!
If Dan had reverted to his destructive habits, it was imperative that Tucker give warning to Sam and Danny as well as Amity Park. Though what good any of them could do was unknown, they at least deserved warning. On the other hand, Dan's disappearance and only one known explosion had Tucker worried on some level more about Dan's well-being. Dan's rampages in the past had never consisted of a single blast and then silence; his rampages had been just that, a series of explosions one after another. Dan couldn't stop at just one.
If we can't find him... or find out what happened to him soon... Tucker cringed as he flew on. I'm gonna have to expand the search... which means telling Sam and Danny... and Valerie.
---
It was getting toward evening, and Valerie was looking for a likely spot to set up camp for the night. She'd left word with headquarters that she was going on a long range patrol and wouldn't be back that night; it wasn't unusual for her to take on the tedious patrols deep into the wastelands that could last from a few hours to a week. The huntress was used to the rough conditions and sometimes quite frankly, she enjoyed the time to herself.
Perhaps it was simply the fact that during those bleak months after the shield fell, Valerie had been one of the very few people who boldly struck out in the desolation. Others grouped together for support and some false perception of safety; she had maintained a largely solitary existence for those six months. Between her own madness and the isolation, she had become accustomed to being by herself; at times being around everyone in the New City made her extremely uncomfortable and longing for that quiet time with just her thoughts for company.
The scenery brought back memories as she found a likely spot and landed her jet sled in the lee of a toppled skyscraper. She no longer needed to worry about setting up camp in a hidden location, but it was a habit that she suspected she would never shake.
"Where are you hiding, Valerie?" That voice crooned, the silky tone doing little to cover the steel of the ghost's rage beneath it.
She remained deadly still in her hiding place, a tiny pocket in the rubble of a collapsed building. It hadn't been comfortable, nor easy to get into; it probably wasn't all that safe either. On the other hand, it was hidden, and someone outside the wreck wouldn't realize easily that there was anywhere to crawl into among the debris. She had been napping, a fitful rest consisting of a few minutes of light sleep broken up by long stretches of silent vigilance.
He had stolen up on her sometime in the night, but didn't know where she was. He had probably seen her heading toward the area earlier, and had lost track of her location among the scorched debris of the city. She was honestly surprised those pointy ears couldn't hear her heart pounding in her chest as she peered through the merest slit of an opening in the concrete rubble around her.
She silently readied one of her weapons, already knowing this was not a good time to take a shot at him. She wasn't in a position to make a rapid getaway, so actually attacking the ghost was not an option. She could only wait, stay silent, and hope the ghost moved on. That was one thing she could usually count on; now that the city lay in ruins, the ghost seldom wasted his energy on random giant blasts into the wreckage.
No, he wanted to see his victims. This she knew. He wanted to see her, to kill her personally. He would be satisfied with nothing less, and that was one of her few advantages in the high stakes game of tag she was playing with him. If she could destroy him, her revenge would be carried out; the deaths of Danny, of her father, of every single one of the ghost's victims would be avenged.
If she lost... she would be just one more victim.
She held her breath when he came into view, cape tousled by the breeze, body softly lit by the inherent faint glow ghosts had. The years had altered his form drastically; there was no way he could trick her the way he almost had when it all began. The tall, muscular monster bore very little resemblance to her Danny now. That was fine, it made it that much easier to hate him, for who he was, what he had done.
"I know you're here somewhere, Valerie." He taunted again, unaware that she was no more than twenty feet from where he had landed. "Can't fight anymore, can you? You never could, so it's not as though it's a surprise."
She bristled silently, but remained still. It was a common trick, he was trying to bait her out into the open with his taunts. Her only strength was stealth; without that she knew he could kill her easily, and that he wouldn't waste a moment in doing so. As long as she kept her cool, he would not find her.
It had been remarkably easy to reign in her temper after the shield fell. In a way, she no longer truly felt much of anything. He had taken the joy from her life; and then loaded it with so much grief and sadness that she had become immune. The worded barbs that in the past would have merited a snappy retort no longer elicited more than a flicker of her old temper; and that more a memory, a shadow of the past that lay dead around her than any real emotion. There was only one thing she really felt anymore, above and beyond the hunger and thirst and exhaustion that she distantly knew were just as deadly as the ghost.
Hate.
He had taken everything else, the only thing he could not take from her was her hatred. She hated him with an intensity that defied description, a hate as deep as the ocean, as vast as the sky. It would have been disturbing had she thought about it, about the sheer intensity of her hatred. He was never far from her thoughts, she obsessed about what she would do to stop his madness. She was willing to give up her own life for him, in exchange for his death; she would go happily to her demise so long as he went with her.
The crackle of her wristband communicator snapped Valerie back to the present, shaking away the dark memories. She didn't need to worry about finding the most inaccessible of hiding places now; she just needed protection from the mundane dangers of the wastelands. She propped her jet sled against a boulder of concrete and glanced at her wristband.
"Hey, Valerie?" It was Sam on the other end, a confused look on the goth ghost's face.
"What's up?" Valerie's tone betrayed her taut nerves; had there been any word about him?
"Danny and I heard an explosion earlier." Sam frowned. "Just the one though. Have you noticed anything... well, weird?"
Valerie thought back. She had thought she'd heard a gunshot earlier, though nothing had been found. Had it been an echo through the portal of a blast in the Ghost Zone?
"Nothing here... you guys are okay, right?" Valerie finally responded.
"Oh yeah, I mean, the lair rattled pretty bad, but that's all. Tucker and Dora said they're looking into it right now, too." Sam's shrug was visible even on the tiny wristband screen.
"Well, I'm doing a long range sweep into the Outlands, but keep me posted."
---
"Right. Talk to you later!" Sam set the chrome and green communication gadget down, glancing over at Danny. "Danny?"
The quiet ghost didn't respond, he seemed distracted.
"Danny!"
"Huh-?" Danny snapped back to the present with a brief shake of his head. "Um... sorry. So Valerie's okay?"
The goth nodded once. "She hasn't found anything either. I hope Tucker's okay."
The worry about the royal geek drew a chuckle out of Danny. "I'm sure Tuck can take care of himself."
An amiable silence fell over the pair. There was no doubt that the two ghosts were a couple, though they weren't nearly as open about it as some. There was no inclination toward making it official with a marriage the way Tucker had with Dora; they were just... comfortable... in one another's presence. An outside observer might go so far as to describe them as stuck in the first awkward stages of a high school romance; a possibly accurate assessment given the difficulty many ghosts had in moving beyond whatever obsessions had led to their ghostly existence. Danny's obsession was the way life was before the explosion a decade ago; and Danny was Sam's obsession.
Sam looked at Danny for a long moment, a thoughtful frown creasing her features briefly. "Are you okay, Danny? You've been pretty out of it."
"I have-?" Danny tried to look innocent, but Sam wasn't going to fall for the goofy space cadet routine. "I dunno. I'm... worried."
"About him?" Sam hated the pained look on her friend's face whenever the subject came up, but there was no avoiding it.
Danny shrugged. "I guess that, yeah. But I can't shake the feeling something really bad is happening. Maybe something worse than... him."
"What makes you say that?" Sam quirked an eyebrow.
Another shrug, a sheepish grin. "Maybe I'm just worrying about nothing. I almost thought I heard something earlier, like his voice, but I was probably imagining it. It's been tense since he showed up again, after all."
---
"CAESAR SALAD!"
It took Vlad a moment after his outburst to take stock of his lab. There had been a sound; no, a shockwave, and a fair portion of it had rattled through his ghost portal. That wasn't what had startled such an exclamation out of him; something else had stabbed at his consciousness.
Or had it?
As he sat back down in his comfy chair, he began to wonder if perhaps his mind had played a trick on him. Whatever had shot through the portal had been impressive, the shockwave disturbing lab equipment and making the entire building groan at the abuse. He was getting older, and he knew he was nowhere near the physical condition he'd been in his prime. That had to be it, he must have moved wrong and pinched a nerve. That would explain the pain that had shot down his spine; he moved wrong when he jumped at the shockwave.
Yet why did he have such a feeling of impending doom?
The billionaire took several calming breaths, ignoring his unease and getting to the tedious process of setting the lab back to rights. The quaking had toppled things off the work tables and spilled things across the floor. It would take him some time to clean it all up.
"Vlad, you there?"
A monitor in the wall lit up, drawing the ex-villain's attention to the red and black dragon on the screen.
"Of course I'm here." The old man responded waspishly. "Where else would I be?"
"Vlad, I'm serious here. When did you last see Dan?" The dragon's expression was grim.
"Him?" The question caught Vlad by surprise. "Why, he was here earlier today. We were watching the football game. The fool still thought Favre was an excellent player and an advantage for the Packers."
"I don't care about the game. Did anything weird happen? Was he acting weird?" Tucker sounded quite worried, Vlad realized belatedly.
"Weird? No." Vlad raised an eyebrow. "Why do you ask?"
The dragon on the comm screen heaved a huge sigh. "I was supposed to meet up with him a few hours ago. He's missing."
"Missing?" That had Vlad's attention, particularly in light of that apparent blast that rattled his house. "Would this have to do with any... unusual... activity in the Ghost Zone?"
"I think so." Tucker responded glumly. "There was a huge explosion; rocked the castle pretty bad. Danny and Sam felt it, too. We haven't found anything yet though, which is weird. I thought maybe Dan was up to his old tricks again."
"You know as well as I do that if that were the case there would be more than a single explosion." Vlad snorted.
"Yeah, that's why I'm worried. If he's missing, and there was a blast... why? I thought you'd know something." The royal geek sighed again. "I think I'm gonna have to tell the others then. Oh man, Valerie's gonna kill me!"
Vlad couldn't help a sinister chuckle at the dragon's fretting. "If I recall, establishing a rapport with Dan was originally your idea."
Tucker hung up on him.
---
Several hours of searching had turned up nothing. No damage, no ghosts in a panic... and no Dan. Tucker was out of reasons to stall, and he was not looking forward to how his friends would react. The royal geek took a few deep breaths, mentally steeling himself, and entered the doorway to his friends' shared lair.
"Sam? Danny?" He peered into the front room. "You guys here?"
"Tucker! You guys find anything?" Sam was relaxing on one of the dark sofas floating in the front room and perked up the moment she spotted him.
"Ur... nope." Tucker let himself in. "And... I kinda need to talk to you and Danny about that."
"About what?" Danny's head peered from the stairwell; apparently he'd been down in the 'lab' portion of the lair.
"About D-... about him." Tucker cringed at the looks his two friends gave him.
Danny joined Sam on one of the couches, the two giving Tucker confused and concerned looks. He remained standing and swallowed hard, trying to put his confession into words; and hoping they wouldn't flip out on him. Danny probably wouldn't react badly; the ghost would likely be disappointed, maybe hurt by Tucker's actions. No, if either of them was going to take the news badly, it was going to be Sam. For all her help in organizing rescue efforts over the past decade, the goth ghost had a loathing for Dan second only to Valerie.
And he was most decidedly not looking forward to telling her about the situation.
"Well... y'know how he's been back, but nobody's seen him?" Tucker said into the leaden silence. "Um... I kinda... I have. A lot."
"You what?!" Sam exploded, springing to her feet.
"Did he see you?" Danny yelped at the same time, still not quite getting what his friend was saying.
"Yeeeeah. To both." Tucker decided the floor was particularly interesting. "The first time was after he first showed up, when I followed him."
"Don't tell me you've been trying to hunt him down by yourself!" Danny yelped.
"Danny, I'm crazy, not stupid." Tucker glanced at his friend. "I've... been meeting with him."
"WHAT?!" Danny and Sam both shouted in surprise.
"How could you?" Sam demanded, anger flashing across her pale face. "After what he did! After he killed Danny!"
"You should have told us, Tuck." Danny's expression was pained, clearly indicating the betrayal he felt. "So we could warn Val-"
"Who could do... what, exactly?" Tucker cut his friend off, his own anger rising. "So she could throw her Patrol at him... to do what? Make him mad?"
"Tucker-" Sam tried to get a word in edgewise, but the royal geek wasn't going to meekly accept their scorn without getting his fair say in.
"No, let me finish, Sam!" Tucker interrupted her, earning an irate scowl from the goth. "Seriously, think about it. If we tried to fight him, what would the end result be?"
"Well, we might-" Danny paused. "... I mean, Val could-"
"Valerie couldn't hurt him any better now than she could a year ago!" Tucker exclaimed, voicing a truth they all knew but never really wanted to admit to knowing. "There's nothing any of us could seriously do to stop him."
"So you want us to just sit back and not even try?" Sam hissed. "You want us to just sit back while he destroys everything?"
"No! That's not what I'm saying!" Tucker shot back, keeping a firm hold on his temper lest he accidentally transform in the middle of their living room. "What I'm saying is he decided on his own that he's not gonna do that anymore, and picking a fight isn't going to help keep him from going nuts again!"
A charged silence descended over the room, Tucker and Sam leveling challenging glares at one another. In the past, it generally wasn't hard for Sam or Danny to get the techno geek to back down; but that was well in the past, and long before Tucker had taken on the responsibilities as the heir-apparent to the Mattingly castle. One doesn't command by being a pushover, after all; the experience of running the castle alongside Dora, and acting as the official liason between the real world and the Ghost Zone had given him the confidence he needed. And oh how he needed it then, staring down a clearly furious Sam.
It was Danny who finally stepped in after several long, tense moments.
"He decided what?" In the silence, the black haired ghost's soft voice sounded like a shout.
"He told me himself." Tucker let his own expression soften as he addressed his friend. "That first time, when we fought him. He may have duplicated himself, but he didn't attack. Not once, despite having two very angry dragons trying to tear him to bits. I chased him down and we talked."
"I'm not forgiving him." Sam crossed her arms, still shooting Tucker withering glares.
"I'm not saying anybody has to forgive him." Tucker rolled his eyes. "Heck, I won't forgive him either. What I'm saying is we can't stop him by force, but he's decided on his own not to do that stuff anymore. I'm saying we need to encourage that, just to keep him from going back to those habits!"
"He has a point, Sam." Danny admitted, refusing to meet Tucker's eyes. "But he's got something to do with that explosion earlier, doesn't he?"
"I... don't know." Tucker admitted, pointedly ignoring the dark scowl from Sam. "I was supposed to meet with him today hours ago, and he's always on time. Probably because he doesn't have much else to do, but... he wasn't there. I waited around to see if he was just late, but he never showed."
"He's probably off blowing something else up as we speak." Sam remarked acidly.
"Then why just one explosion Sam? You guys know as well as I do that if he's gone back to old habits, it wouldn't just be one blast." Tucker countered. "I think... maybe something else happened, and he was involved."
"Anyway, we do need to know where he is." Danny admitted. "That's why you finally told us, isn't it?"
"Yeah." The royal geek sighed. "Dora and I have been looking since the blast, but since we haven't found anything... honestly dude, I'm worried. With how powerful he is, what the heck made him disappear?"
"It'd serve him right!" Sam sniped.
"Tucker's got a point, Sam." Danny reiterated. "What if it's something worse?"
"That's why I need to expand the search. We have got to find him... or at least find out what happened." Tucker massaged the bridge of his nose in frustration. "Vlad didn't notice anything weird about him earlier today, either."
"Oh, so the fruit loop is in on it, too?" Sam remarked in a scathing voice.
"Yes, Sam, he is." Tucker suspected it would be months before Sam forgave him for this, if ever. "He's been visiting with Vlad a lot, and earlier today they were watching a football game."
That at least made Sam's expression shift briefly from anger to surprise. She probably was having a hard time imagining the archvillain and the fire-headed ghost engaging in such a ... normal... activity. To be honest, even Tucker had trouble with that one. Given Danny's wide-eyed expression, he simply couldn't compute the idea at all. Their expressions would have been funny had Tucker not been more concerned about the situation at hand.
"You're going to have to tell Valerie." Danny remarked once he dismissed the football thing from thought. "He can make portals to and from the Ghost Zone. What if he's in the real world right now?"
Tucker paled at that. He hadn't thought about that particular ability in the midst of his distraction. Things would only get worse if Valerie blundered across the ghost without warning. Even on good behavior, Dan harbored an obvious hatred for Valerie that bordered dangerously close to violence. From what the royal geek had been able to coax out of the ghost, Dan seemed to blame Valerie for... something. It would be like oil and fire if the ghost and the huntress blundered into each other somewhere.
"I'd... better get going and do that." Tucker inched for the door. "Call me if you find anything!"
"I can't believe him!" Sam blurted after Tucker left. "How can he be worried about that... that monster?!"
Danny shrugged, lost in thought.
---
Valerie was enjoying the light of her small campfire as the late afternoon gave way to evening twilight. The day of flying had taken the edge off her anxiety, tense muscles finally starting to relax as she ate a light dinner.
Until her ghost radar started pinging weakly, snapping her to attention as she doused the fire and jumped to her feet. Something had just slowly come into the device's range, and all that relaxation was gone in an instant. She didn't take to the sky on her jet sled, old habit made her tuck the device under one arm and creep toward the source while keeping under the cover of debris. It was getting dark, and she knew she would be hard to spot against the ground; whereas she'd be an easy target in the air.
Is it him? Is that... if it is, I swear I'll-! Valerie growled to herself as he clambered up a mound of smashed concrete. There was a shallow valley amid the ruins, the bottom of it blanketed by shadow, a featureless void. The first stars peeking out overhead did nothing to illuminate it.
But the faintly glowing trail of green certainly did.
It was Phantom, face down in the dirt.
He wasn't moving.
Author's Note: And I should start running for my life again, shouldn't I? Is he alive? Is he dead(er? He IS a ghost, after all.) If he is alive, is Valerie going to finish him off? I suppose you'll just have to wait and see!
Anyway, as mentioned previously, my website, www. dannyphantomonline. com is officially open, so if you feel so inclined, check it out, join the forums, and just have fun! Also as mentioned previously, my younger sister is now engaged to her boyfriend of the past 5 years. It was an elaborate plan that ultimately entailed Mom lowering the ring on a red ribbon to them, him untying in and dropping to one knee and popping the question, with all my sister's friends and family in attendance. She thought that it was just her and him in Vegas to see Phantom of the Opera and to visit his dad. Needless to say, she was surprised, and she DID say yes. ;)
Anyhow, as always, many many thanks to my super cool readers who didn't chase me down with chainsaws after the last chapter. Ice cream sandwiches to: Angelic Kittens, BaronOBeefDip, Sukoru, Basia Orci (did I update soon enough to spare your sanity?), Fulcon, Sasia93, Anne Camp aka Obi-quiet, Luiz4200, Moony's Metamorphmagus (EEP! Pitchforks!), Sqweakie the Wonder Mouse, Les, i AM the Random Idiot, and Selofain!