Disclaimer: I still don't own Danny Phantom. Nickelodeon and Viacom do, and they are very big companies armed with lots of money and lawyers. Since I'm not making any money from this and I never will be, there is nothing for the law-ninjas to sue out of me.
Author's Note: Oh ye gads, I am appalled at myself. Two weeks! That's supposed to be my update deadline! Two weeks! Fourteen days! And here we are, two months later, and I finally kick down the writer's block, distractions, and schoolwork to get the next chapter out. I'm so sorry guys, and I'll do my best not to leave you guys hanging that long again!
Chapter 17: The Needle in the Haystack
"She can't forgive, nor forget the past
These ineffable feelings and hurt that last evermore"
-"Veniality" - Epica
"If the so-called Watcher who wrote this book is to be believed, and I see little reason to doubt him, the Reality Gauntlet is the only weapon that can effectively even the odds against Maghnus." Vlad paced the lab floor, the clacking of his cane creating a jagged rhythm that matched the general uneasy feelings of those present. "The power of the Ring of Rage and the Crown of Fire, the so-called Lesser Ascendancy is clearly insufficient; otherwise Dan would have fared far better than he did in single combat with Maghnus."
"And if he got his butt kicked..." Danny stared at the floor. "Then that means the rest of us would do even worse against the guy."
"Forget about him, how the heck are we supposed to even find this other gauntlet thing?" Paulina cast a glance at the others, just as lost as she was as to where to start such a search.
"That would be the million-dollar question, wouldn't it?" Vlad mused. "With sufficient time, I'm certain I could devise some sort of device that could detect the relevant energy emissions."
"That's great, except two problems." Sam noted dryly. "One; we don't know if we've even got that much time. Two; there's that tiny problem of trying to find something that could be hidden anywhere in an area several thousand miles across."
"There's one other issue that we should consider as well." Vlad cut in. "Obviously, the most effective way to fight Maghnus with his magic gauntlet would be to utilize the entire remaining parts of the Ascendancy against him. The ring, the crown, and the gauntlet. However, I don't believe I need to elaborate on what the problem is with that particular strategy."
A long silence fell over the room; there was little need for the billionaire to explain the problem. Dan had the power of the Lesser Ascendancy, the Ring and the Crown; and that power could not be taken from the fire-headed ghost. In order to utilize them and the Reality Gauntlet against Maghnus meant doing something none of them wanted to do: entrust the gauntlet to Dan.
"Um... I can't help with that problem, but..." One of the older Patrol members in the room spoke up uneasily. "I might be able to help narrow down the search perimeter for the gauntlet."
That immediately grabbed everyone's attention. He was one of the oldest members of the Patrol, well into his forties, Paulina recognized him as a recruit that had joined up shortly after Dan's second rampage in Amity Park years ago. He was tall and well-built, looking young for his age, though a haunted look lingered in eyes often shielded by sunglasses.
"This was classified information at the time..." He began uneasily. "My... former employers... well, we had the Reality Gauntlet."
"You what?!" Paulina yelped.
"Wait, your former empl-" Vlad paused and peered closely at the man, recognition dawning across his face. "Wait... you! Fudge brownies! You were one of the Guys in White!"
The man cringed, but nodded somberly at the billionaire's accusation. "We were dispatched to Amity Park eight years ago after reports of an unchecked ghost rampage in the area. I was lucky enough to survive, but the rest of the unit was wiped out. The Patrol commander's intervention is the only reason I got out intact."
"That was Dan's second rampage..." Paulina frowned at the memory. "I remember after the first day, the military tried to help, too."
"Yes, yes, we all know the history." Vlad interrupted, suddenly impatient. "But you said you might know something that can hasten the search for the gauntlet?"
The ex-agent coughed and nodded. "We had acquired the Reality Gauntlet and all the gems relating to it. As per command mandate Delta Pi Alpha, paragraph 42, subclause 13-37, the Guys in White were authorized to utilize any and all means available to combat the ghost kid." A trace of wry humor crept into the man's voice at the easy repetition of the old procedural jargon. "We had the device stored at the Amity Park prison; there was an inmate locked up there who had experience with ghostly artifacts. We had planned to question him about the gauntlet so we could use it against Phantom."
"Ghostly artifacts?" Sam exchanged a confused look with Danny.
"That inmate wasn't a former ringmaster by any chance, was he?" Danny remarked with a cringe.
"Ringmaster of the Circus Gothica, and ringleader of a ghost-powered crime ring." The agent confirmed.
"So that's what happened to Freakshow." Sam snorted. "So you guys had the gauntlet there, then what happened?"
"Take a wild guess." The ex-GiW sighed. "The prison was destroyed during the first rampage event a decade ago. We never had the opportunity to send salvage units to relocate the gauntlet. Unless scavengers went through the prison ruins, it should likely still be in that area."
"Okay, hold on a second..." Paulina fussed with one of the computer consoles in the lab area, quickly calling up an overhead map of the city. "That's way out in the Outlands... I don't think refugees would have had a chance to go through that area. We were all concentrated in the areas near the Underground."
The map showed the current city boundary, with overlays indicating the original city's sprawl. An additional overlay indicated where the Underground was; all within the area covered by the long-defunct anti-ghost shield. A red marker blinked on, marking the prison's location.
"I would be surprised if that area's seen a human visitor in a good ten years, at least." Vlad observed.
"We'll need heavy equipment flown in to clear the debris." Paulina frowned.
"Not necessarily." Dora spoke up, fingering her amulet. "I can handle any of the heavy lifting. And as soon as Tucker returns, he can help as well. Just because I'm a queen does not mean I can't pull my own weight... especially when Maghnus is currently sitting on my throne!"
"Speaking of Tuck..." Danny broke the brief silence quietly. "Do you think he found them yet?"
There was no need to specify who "they" were; no one was sure what was going to happen if Dan and Valerie were left to their own devices. If anything was certain, it was that such an encounter would not be pleasant, and more likely to turn into a battle than not.
"Well I don't hear any explosions." Vlad remarked mockingly.
"That doesn't mean a whole lot." Sam rolled her eyes at the billionaire.
--
"Why'd you interrupt?!" Valerie whirled on Tucker, and for a moment the techno geek almost thought he was going to be addressing the business end of her cannon. "You heard what he was saying!"
"Does it really matter who did what then?" Tucker could have changed back to human form, but decided not to; the extra height and imposing appearance gave him a slight psychological edge that he thought helped chill the huntress' temper.
Valerie was visibly quaking with anger, though calling her angry was probably an understatement. The woman was positively furious, and Tucker suspected it had less to do with his arrival and more to do with whatever Dan had said before he'd arrived to break it up. Trying to pin the slaughter of the past decade on Valerie, apparently.
I can't blame her for being mad. Tucker thought to himself. What did he say to her though? I don't think I've ever seen her so livid!
"How can you stand him?" Valerie hissed. "After everything he did, how can you stick up for him?"
"Look, the others are trying to organize a strategy to find that gauntlet." Tucker forcibly changed the topic. "We should get back."
"After what he did to your best friend, you defend that... that monster!" Valerie went on as though the royal geek hadn't spoken. "How? Why? He killed Danny!"
"Valerie!" Tucker's roar at least shut the huntress up. "We're going back now. Or at least I am."
He crouched for a moment, vast wings spread to make that first vital downsweep to throw himself into the air. Valerie couldn't get into too much trouble by herself, and Dan had disappeared for parts unknown. Tucker didn't want to subject himself to Valerie's irrational behavior if it could be avoided; he had bigger issues to worry about.
The whine of Valerie's jet sled blasting into the sky accompanied the thunderclap of Tucker's wings, the huntress' expression frigid as they both headed toward Patrol headquarters in the city center. She didn't say anything further to Tucker, she refused to even glance in his direction; as if he wasn't even there.
Works for me. Tucker slowed down, letting Valerie get well ahead of him before he shifted back to his normal form and grabbed his phone, dialing quickly.
"Guys? Valerie's on her way back, and she's pretty ticked off."
"What happened?" Paulina's voice buzzed over the speaker.
With a sigh, Tucker set to explaining the fight he'd had to break up.
--
"Thanks for the warning. We'll see you at the prison ruins then." Paulina hung up and surveyed the assembled search team. There hadn't been much point in Tucker following Valerie all the way back to headquarters when he was already halfway to the prison ruins, so she'd told him to go on ahead.
Vlad would not be accompanying them; the billionaire had rightfully claimed that an abandoned wreckage in the middle of the Outlands was no place for him to be. He had tweaked one of the lab's portable ecto-scanners that they would bring however; it was untested, but Vlad hoped that perhaps the device would help them locate the gauntlet and its gems.
Fully half of the Patrol force would be participating in the search led by the former Guy in White who knew the original layout of the prison; and most were in the upstairs launch deck making sure their gear was ready. The other half would remain at headquarters to handle routine patrols and to guard the portal. Common sense had many wanting to just close it off, but the ghosts present had prevailed in that argument. A reasonable compromise had been reached; ghosts fleeing Maghnus would be permitted through, but at the first sign of the tyrant or his minions, they would close it off. Most of the denizens of the Ghost Zone already knew the rules; they could come through the portal provided they behaved and followed the city's laws. It wasn't perfect, there was no way the city could cope with a massive influx of Ghost Zone refugees no matter how good relations were between the city and the ghosts; but it would work as a temporary arrangement, they just had to find that gauntlet and stop Maghnus before the temporary measures failed.
Easier said than done. Paulina mentally complained before addressing the others. "You guys go on ahead. I'll talk some sense into Valerie and we'll head out after you."
"You? Talk sense into her?" Danny tried to wipe the doubtful look off his face at a glare from the Latina. "I don't mean you can't, but she's... well, you know!"
"Real smooth, Danny." Sam rolled her eyes. "You always know exactly what to say to a girl."
"I didn't mean it like that!" He protested weakly as the goth herded him out the door.
"I can't say I disagree with Valerie about him-" Sam nodded in Paulina's direction as she floated toward the stairs. "-but we do have bigger problems. I wouldn't want to try and tell her that though. Good luck."
"Tucker didn't say where he went after the argument, did he?" Danny frowned in thought as he and Sam drifted through the ceiling to head outside.
"Nope... just that he flew off after verbally biting Valerie's head off." Sam scoffed.
"Y'know, somebody should track him down." The usually soft-spoken ghost declared with uncharacteristic firmness.
"You aren't suggesting-"
"Somebody needs to, Sam. And I'm not going to be much use searching those ruins."
Sam rounded on Danny at the self-depreciating comment. "More use than you will be if you do track him down and get yourself obliterated! He's dangerous!"
"Sam, you think I don't know that?" Danny didn't raise his voice, and he didn't need to. "I was there, I know first hand how dangerous he is. After that, I'm not scared of anything else he could do to me."
"You might not be, but what about me-" Sam faltered; even the year of sharing a lair with Danny in the Ghost Zone hadn't helped the goth ghost quite openly acknowledge her feelings for her friend. "-and Tucker, too. I mean... don't you care about making your friends worry?"
"You mean that 'technology obsessed, lizard-brained traitor'?" Danny managed a wry grin, quoting back one of Sam's own rants about Tucker's stance regarding Dan. "Just trust me, okay? Please?"
"Danny..." Sam sighed, relenting grudgingly. "Just... be careful. I-...we lost you once already. Don't put everybody through that again."
"I promise." Danny smiled slightly before he took off.
--
"That no-good, scale-brained...!" Valerie groused under her breath as she stalked toward the break room. "How dare he stick his stupid snout into my business like that-!"
That was punctuated by the sharp slam of the door she kicked open. Patrol headquarters was almost completely silent, all the members either out on patrol or wisely staying out of their commander's way. Several of them probably recalled all too clearly their encounters with Valerie after the old city's shield had fallen; the huntress in her present mood no doubt brought back uncomfortable memories of trying to deal with the halfway insane woman that had stalked the ruins like a red-clad shadow hunting Phantom over a year ago.
Contrary to the rest of the building, someone was waiting in the break room, arms crossed and a stern look on her tanned face.
"Looks like you're in a wonderful mood, Valerie." Paulina commented dryly, the Latina's tone unusually hard.
"You would be too if Phantom-" The huntress poured extra venom into the name. "-tried to pin the blame for all his killing on you!"
"Okay, I guess that would be pretty aggravating." Paulina admitted after a brief pause. "But you have been provoking him at every opportunity since he showed back up."
"I have not!" Valerie protested indignantly. "He-"
"I know what he did." The city mayor cut her off sharply. "And I'm not going to forgive him for it, either. But you need to back off on him."
"Don't you dare tell me you've softened up on that murderer!" Valerie all but shrieked.
"Valerie, listen to yourself." Paulina clearly had to force her calm tone and expression, if the slight twitch of one eyebrow was any indication. "You're raving like a lunatic."
"I am not!" She protested with a huff.
"Let me ask a question then. If left on your own right now, what would you be doing?" Paulina asked bluntly.
"What do you think I'd be doing?" Valerie snapped in response. "Tracking him down to finish him off!"
"Because there isn't something more important you should be doing?" The Latina stressed the words while trying to hold back the sarcasm.
"He destroyed the city and-"
"And right now he's not doing anything, and we've got bigger things to worry about." Paulina interrupted icily. "Namely the ghost that kicked his butt from here to next Sunday!"
"But he-"
"Isn't doing anything different from what we're trying to do- stop Maghnus!" Paulina broke in again, cutting Valerie's tirade off before it could get started. "You've been obsessing ever since he showed up again! It's like..."
"Like what?" Valerie growled.
"Like the six months after the shield fell." Paulina replied flatly. "When you were a crazed woman bent on that one goal to the exclusion of everything else. That might have worked well enough then, when he was the only threat to the city. But right now he's not the big threat, and I don't like to admit it, but we'll probably need his help to deal with the real danger!"
Valerie fell silent, her expression furious. She had no good retort to Paulina's accusations, and loathe though she was to admit it even to herself, the ghost wasn't an immediate danger to everyone. Maybe that was why she was constantly needling him; if she got him angry enough, maybe then he would make himself a threat and thereby justify her desire to hunt him down and finish him off.
"Let's get going." Paulina let her own expression soften once it became clear Valerie wasn't going to go off on another tirade. "We've already got every person we can spare from the Patrol and City Hall helping look for that other gauntlet in the old prison ruins. Don't want him finding it, right?"
"Over my dead body!"
Paulina withheld a slight sigh at the huntress' sudden enthusiasm about the gauntlet. Well, motivation is motivation, I guess. Hopefully this won't bite us all on the rear later.
--
Danny flew slowly, scanning the ground a hundred feet below as he searched the still ruins for movement. He wasn't sure where exactly he was going, his search certainly had no real organization to it. It was a hunch, driven by a decade's worth of musings. Something had been bothering him for a long time, and Danny hadn't been able to talk to any of his friends about it; it was deeply personal, and he knew that try though they might, Sam and Tucker, and especially Valerie wouldn't have been able to understand it if he had tried to explain it.
His hunch pulled him toward a location in the ruins he visited as infrequently as possible; he'd only been there once since he'd manifested as a ghost, and that only at Sam's urging. He spied movement below, a flicker of white and black against the shades of grey and green that marked the grave site.
Dan stood there, arms crossed, staring up at the battered statue that towered above even his impressive height. Danny couldn't see the other ghost's expression, all he could see was the jagged cape billowing out behind the other ghost in the wind. If he was aware of Danny's presence, he made no indication of it.
Danny touched down silently a dozen feet behind the other ghost, his own gaze drifting toward the statue that held his other half's stare. Five pairs of cold and unseeing stone eyes leered down at the two ghosts, sightless gazes carrying silent accusation. Sam and Tucker may never have blamed him for what happened, but that was little consolation after the years spent isolated in the Wisconsin wilderness.
"Come to pick up where Valerie left off?" Dan growled, not turning around. "She covered all the accusations quite thoroughly already."
"That's what I heard." Danny replied noncommittally. "I think we already had our argument years ago. In Wisconsin."
"I'm not going to apologize." Dan glanced at Danny over one shoulder to glare with one red eye..
"I know." Danny responded, eyeing the grave marker and ignoring the taller ghost's glower. Why had his other self come here of all places? The statue was a blatant reminder of the past that the tall spook had been running from for ten years. Running from and trying to erase from existence by whatever violent means necessary. Why had Dan stopped running?
"What do you want?" The fire-headed ghost finally growled, turning around to face his shorter counterpart.
"Answers, mostly." Danny paused, considering how to voice what he wanted to ask, preferably without getting his head blasted off for the effort. "I'll be the first to admit that if it wasn't for your help back there in the Ghost Zone, we would have all been toast."
Dan snorted at the not-quite-thanks. "You're all too weak to take Maghnus on."
The other ghost raised an eyebrow at the bravado. "Right, let's take a moment to remember who it was that Valerie found beat to within an inch of his afterlife, shall we?"
Dan bristled at the reminder of how badly he'd lost in his first encounter with the ghost king's deranged brother. If not for Tucker's quick thinking after Valerie had found him senseless in the ruins, he would have been little more than a memory himself.
"Seriously though." Danny backed off a few steps when he saw the taller ghost clenching fists in barely-restrained anger. "I know what you became ten years ago. I was there. But you're not the same ghost that killed me eleven years ago. The you from just a year ago would have killed Valerie on sight, rather than let her get away with all that provocation."
"I haven't changed." Dan protested with a growl, though Danny caught an undercurrent in the taller ghost's tone that indicated his heart wasn't in the denial. "The very same mismatched fusion of Danny Phantom and Vlad Plasmius." He tone was mocking as he recited the names of his two halves.
"Right, that totally disturbing fact aside-" Danny cringed at the thought. "You've changed since you came back from the past. You're sane, for starters. What happened?"
Dan snorted at the question, forcing himself to unclench his fists. The urge to blast his other self would always be there, a temptation to erase his weakness. He resisted, self-control he was still learning to master, taking a few calming breaths. "We're pretty ingenious in that other timeline."
Danny nodded slightly. He had assumed that his alternate past self, the him with friends and family and a happier life had something to do with Dan's change in behavior. "So what'd I... ur... he... no, wait, I guess we? Gah, I hate time travel." Danny groused, trying to wrap his incomplete high school education around the issue of alternate time streams and other selves. "What'd we... yeah, let's just go with that. What'd we do?"
"The Ghostcatcher. And Jazz with all her psycho-babble." Dan's answer was simple, and cut out a great many of the details of that traumatizing, yet ultimately beneficial experience. Ten years of rampaging, ten years of trying to burn the painful memories away in a deranged attempt to forget the trauma that had driven him mad in the first place. It had been thanks to his sister's clever thinking and deft handling of the situation that had allowed the traumatized half of him to finally move past all those deaths.
Danny's glowing blue eyes widened at the explanation. "Wait, you were split back into the two-? And you fused back afterward?!"
Dan nodded once, not meeting his other self's gaze. "It was this-" He gestured at himself. "Or oblivion. I may be quite messed up, but I am not suicidal."
"That could be argued, y'know." Danny remarked dryly, feeling comfortable enough or bold enough to needle the other ghost. "Not that I can really blame you."
The two stood there as another awkward silence fell over the graveyard. That certainly explained Dan's seemingly uncharacteristic shift in behavior. Danny glanced up at the likeness of Jazz carved into the stone. Of course it would have been her to piece together some psychological issue that turned his worse half into something other than an insane killer.
"Why are you bothering me?" Dan muttered. "Of all people, I would think you the least likely to forgive anything."
"Of all people, I think I've got the most reason to." Danny countered quietly, more to himself than to Dan.
"Stop talking nonsense." The taller ghost frowned, ill at ease since Danny didn't seem to be reacting to him the way most people did. He expected anger, maybe like how Valerie was, or Sam. Tucker's uneasiness at least, civil but wary like someone dealing with a half-wild dog and not sure about how safe it was. "Why should you be so uselessly forgiving of anything? Or did having your arms torn off addle your wits?"
Danny flinched, hands clasping his arms near the elbows; the pain of his demise something never far from his thoughts. "Because I was useless. You said it yourself a decade ago. I was too useless, too weak. I couldn't save anybody. All this isn't your fault, or Valerie's."
"In case you've forgotten, it was no thanks to her that we went to Wisconsin in the first place and agreed to Vlad's asinine operation." Dan growled, not wanting to let anybody give the huntress any slack for her role in events. "Why are you being so... forgiving?"
"Because..." Danny tore his gaze from the statue to look Dan square in the eyes. "Maybe if I can learn to forgive you... I'll be able to forgive myself."
Dan stared agape at the shorter ghost, not having expected such a statement. Danny pressed on in the silence, not sure if the taller ghost would interrupt if he waited.
"It was my weakness that caused it all. Those test answers." Danny blurted in a rush. "The others don't see it, or maybe don't want to, but I remember. Taking the answers, cheating on that test. If I hadn't-"
"Lancer wouldn't have called for that meeting at the Nasty Burger." Dan finished the statement. "In case you forgot, that's as much on my head as yours. Still, it's an improvement not to have someone jumping down my throat about the past. Things have changed."
Silence fell over the pair again, slightly more companionable than when Danny had first arrived. Unlike the others, he had a far different perspective on the fire-headed ghost. Fifteen years of shared experience and memory, two sides of the same coin. Danny suspected it was similar for Vlad in dealing with Dan; the similarities a jarring reminder of just how bizarre their situation was. Sure, part of him wanted to hate the taller ghost for what he'd done, but by rights, wouldn't he have to despise himself as well?
"Getting into a shouting match with Valerie isn't going to convince her you've changed, you know." Danny finally said, pushing his previous thoughts out of his mind in favor of a more recent subject..
"I know." Dan outright hissed, seemingly back to his usual unpleasant self. He hadn't intended for his blunt discussion with the huntress to degenerate into a shouting fight and then an actual fight. It had just... happened. He turned away from the grave marker and from Danny, a stray breeze tugging at his cape.
"So what are you going to do now?" Danny asked, opting for a slightly less agitating topic. "I think Tucker wants to get everyone to work together to deal with Maghnus."
Dan raised one glowing hand, green energy swirling into a portal in the air in front of him, apparently having reached some decision on the subject. "I'm going to stop Maghnus. With or without Valerie's help. I don't need her help to repay him the beating he gave me."
"You realize Maghnus is way more powerful than you are, and that's without even considering that gauntlet of his?" Danny raised an eyebrow. At least Dan wasn't going to try and find the Reality Gauntlet before Valerie and the others. Changed or not, the idea of the fire-haired ghost armed with a powerful device like one of the Gauntlets of the Ascendancy was terrifying.
Dan snorted derisively at the remark, already halfway through the portal as he turned to stare his weaker self right in the eyes.
"So was Pariah."
Author's Note: Trivia time! The end of this chapter, from Dan's "I'm not going to apologize." to the very end was almost entirely written over a year and a half ago. October 2006. Dan and Danny's discussion was a scene I had in my head back when I was still organizing the story, and back before I was even halfway through writing Benediction. The draft from then did undergo some expansion and modification here, but pretty much the core content of the scene was done before the fic was even started.
Once again, I apologize for the two month delay. It was a combination of factors: Smash Bros Brawl coming out a week after I got the last chapter done, a deluge of school projects, and a good old fashioned round of writer's block. I'll try to make my two week deadline this time, but I have to warn you guys I might be a little late on it again. I've got a final paper to write next weekend for my cinema class, and I still have a LOT of work to do on my animation final project before the end of May.
As always, a hearty THANK YOU to my super cool and moderately patient reviewers, both for the kind words and the death threats. Chocolate covered strawberries to: Anne Camp aka Obi-quiet, Selofain, Phantom-Akiko (THANK YOU AGAIN for that awesome fanart of Valerie finding Dan!), Akino Ame, Eleirah, Fulcon, Moony's Metamorphmagus, Tie-dyed Trickster, i AM the Random Idiot, doinstuff, Luiz4200, Enray, Skandragon Blackheart, Angelic Kittens, darkness over day, zara2148, Sukoru, and Epic Failure!