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: Stop the presses! New chapter... ON TIME! ... assuming FFN stops acting up so I can actually post it. ... Oh, there we go.
Chapter 21: The Last Journey Home
"In time, we'll see the past unwind
Alive, still wandering our fallen land
One more time we stare into the blackened sky
For tonight, in our hearts now we feel
One last time, see our destiny revealed..."
-"The Last Journey Home" - Dragonforce
"What was that?" Sam stared at the ceiling as though she could discern what the noise was if she stared holes in the reinforced panels.
Dan's demeanor changed from snarky to a silent snarl, the tall ghost tensing. "I've got a good idea what it is and a bad feeling that I'm right."
Even Valerie looked at him in surprise, anger momentarily forgotten. "Then spit it out, ghost!"
Red eyes shut briefly in contemplation, the fire-headed ghost taking a steadying breath before speaking a single word.
"Maghnus."
Vlad was already tapping away at a console, fingers nimble across the keys despite his age. In moments, he had an image up on screen; the view from one of his security cameras showing a disjointed scene. The sun still glowed overhead, the yellow orb a seemingly brilliant, blinding eye in a sky gone incongruently dark. Fluffy white clouds drifted past bands of bright green wisps, and the occasional floating door or landmass. Despite the mansion's distance from the nearest town, the camera's audio still picked up the distant roar of panic on the wind.
"Are... are we in the Ghost Zone?!" Danny yelped.
"... Somehow, I don't think that's quite the case, my boy." Vlad murmured darkly. "Unless something managed to pull the entire inner solar system into it. The Ghost Zone, if you'll recall, doesn't have sunlight."
"Then what happened, Vlad? Cut to the chase already!" Valerie snapped at the billionaire.
Vlad stood up and faced the huntress and the gathered group. "Recall what I just said about ghost portals, and destroying a part of the dimensional barrier." He tapped his cane lightly against the screen. "If I were to hazard a guess, what we see here is what happens when the entire barrier is destroyed."
"In other words," Dan remarked acidly, "Maghnus found a way around that whole issue of needing a portal, and we're out of time to waste arguing over who did what a decade ago."
He leveled a pointed look at Valerie, who glared back.
"I am not letting you have the Reality Gauntlet, ghost." She hissed.
"I gathered as much." The fire-headed spook retorted. "And if history is any indicator, three quarters of the Ascendancy against Maghnus isn't enough to destroy him anyway."
"Guys, we really don't have time for this-" Tucker bemoaned. "We've gotta figure out a plan to take the guy down!"
"...Much as I hate to cut him any slack," Sam pointed offhandedly at Dan. "I'd rather have him on our side in this one."
"Seriously, Valerie, we're not asking you to give him the Gauntlet." Danny explained in a softer tone. "But we all need to cooperate, or we're all toast."
"Daniel is right, you know." Vlad chimed in. "With his brute strength and combat experience, and your wielding the Reality Gauntlet, we might have a chance to stop Maghnus. Without that, I fear Maghnus will simply destroy us all before you could bring the Gauntlet to bear against him."
"So you want me to protect her?" Dan raised one eyebrow, expression showing his displeasure at the notion.
"Look, if it bugs you that much, don't think about it as protecting Valerie." Danny cut in. "Think of it as protecting everybody else... or... I dunno, as just taking Maghnus down?"
"Pheh. Whatever. The enemy of my enemy and all that garbage." Dan grumbled, standing up and stalking over to Valerie, who took a step back instinctively.
"If you try anything, ghost, I swear I'll-"
"Give it a rest, would you? I haven't killed you yet." Dan snapped, extending one hand. "Much as I'd rather not... Truce?"
Valerie stared at the proffered hand like it was some sort of poisonous snake, one eyebrow sneaking up her forehead incredulously. After a long moment of staring Dan in the eyes, trying to discern what he was trying to pull, she reluctantly accepted the shake.
"Truce. For now." She growled. "Until Maghnus is out of the picture."
"Now that we're all friends, we have things to prepare, and precious little time to prepare them in." Vlad noted dryly. "First of all, there seems to be quite a gathering of ghosts on my front lawn that needs to be addressed."
"There's what?" All eyes, save for Dan's turned to stare at Vlad.
"Huh, I guess Wulf took what I said literally." The tall ghost remarked offhandedly.
The entire group left Vlad's underground lab, exiting the mansion to find that indeed, a very large gathering of ghosts was ambling around the manor grounds. From the anxious murmuring that created a dull buzz in the air, it was clear that the gathered ghosts were probably just as uneasy as anyone else. Angry muttering went up when Dan appeared.
"So the rumors were true!" Skulker's voice boomed above the crowd, arm cannon already leveled at Dan. "He did come back!"
"Oh goodie, first we have one psychopath, now we have two of them to deal with?" Technus groused from the power armor's torso.
"Here to finish the job, punk?" Johnny snarled, his Shadow growling agreement.
Dan slapped his forehead at the lukewarm welcome. Not that he had really expected anything less from the ghosts when his return finally became public knowledge, but the timing was pretty lousy.
"If you so much as touch one greasy hair on Johnny's head, I swear I'll-" Kitty hissed, one hand held up like the female ghost was ready to claw somebody's eyes out.
"Guys! Guys, cool it!" Tucker cut in front of Dan, waving his hands in the air for attention.
"Why should we?" Ember countered. "It's probably his fault we're in this mess anyway!"
"She has a point, you know." Vlad quipped in a whisper. "Technically speaking, it is his fault Maghnus is loose."
"Shut up, old man." Dan snapped in an equally low voice.
"And right now, we will need his help to get out of this mess." Dora came up next to Tucker, one hand finding his, king and queen standing commandingly over the crowd.
"Li diris al mi li estas batal kontraŭ Maghnus." Wulf pushed and shoved his way to the front of the crowd. "Ni bezonas la perfidulan helpon elpoenti, alie nin ĉuj ..os esti mortigita!"
"What the heck is the overgrown fleabag blabbing about?" Ember complained, wrinkling her nose as if the giant canine had an unpleasant odor.
"I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT HE IS SAYING EITHER!" Box Ghost shouted from the back of the crowd, his toddler daughter sitting on his shoulders.
Tucker rubbed the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "Wulf says that we need Dan's help to stop Maghnus. Without it, we're all as good as gone."
That set the crowd to murmuring in muted confusion and uncertainty as small knots of conversation erupted debating the information. Virtually everyone present had narrowly escaped Dan's wrath, and most had lost someone they considered a friend, or at least a close associate. In comparison, only a handful had encountered Maghnus, though most had run-ins with the tyrant's troops. They had all heard the story about the Mattingly-Foley estate being overrun.
"And is putting up with another king of ghosts such a bad thing?" Skulker demanded. "Is serving a new ruler worse than... cooperating with Phantom?"
"Considering what the cursed one is responsible for... A new king may not be such a bad thing." A hulking yeti ghost declared, one frozen arm clearly indicating who he meant was cursed. Dan rolled his eyes at the declaration.
"Actually, Skulker, Frostbite-" Tucker began, when Dan stepped forward and cut him off.
"Let me put it in a way you can understand." The tall ghost sneered at the crowd. All the ghosts backed away from his approach. "Working with me means everyone has a chance at surviving. Not working with me means you all die. Game over, fat lady sings, and so on."
"And why should we believe you?" Ember demanded, brandishing her guitar.
"According to a book of Ghost Zone history that Danny and Sam found, Maghnus plans to destroy everything with that gauntlet of his." Valerie stormed forward as well, ignoring Dan as she came up alongside him while holding the Reality Gauntlet high. "And if he can get his hands on this, he's gonna destroy every single one of us so he can remake everything the exact way he wants it!"
If anyone else had come forward with that information, it probably wouldn't have had such an impact on the mob's opinion. Everyone knew about the things Dan had done... and Valerie's intense, personal hatred for the fire-headed ghost was nigh legendary even in the Ghost Zone. It was commonly accepted knowledge that none of the ghosts had anything close to the claim for vengeance the huntress had. Aside from Danny, Sam, and Tucker, she had lost the most to the deranged rampages over the past decade. So for her to step forward advocating cooperation with him, however indirectly; for Valerie and Dan to be standing not a foot apart, without trying to rip one another to pieces... that left an impression.
"Indeed. And with Maghnus having found a way to the real world, I suspect he's already preparing his offensive. He wants the Reality Gauntlet, and he wants it very badly." Vlad chimed in. "I imagine it won't be all that long before his armies are on the march searching for it."
"You imagine right." One of the Observants stated grimly. "According to our information network, Maghnus and his forces are mustering already. They may very well be on the march now. Unfortunately, our forces suffered badly in an attempt to stop Maghnus, so our information is no longer as complete as it once was."
"So work with us, guys!" Tucker pleaded. "We'll need all the help we can get!"
"What about him?" Technus complained. "What happens after we help you?"
"Leave that for after we win." Valerie stated darkly. "There's a very good chance we won't survive long enough to worry about it anyway."
"How uncharacteristically morbid of you, Valerie." Dan sneered at her, then shrugged. "Not that I can argue with it, after barely escaping Maghnus in one piece myself."
"So is it settled then?" Vlad inquired.
A general disgruntled murmur of agreement answered the query.
"Okay then, let's get organized then. We've got an entire army to take down, not just a tyrant!" Tucker worked his way into the crowd, he and Dora working on sorting ghosts into groups according to their abilities.
"Daniel, might I have a word with you?" Vlad beckoned Danny back inside the mansion.
"Now what, fruit loop?" The shorter ghost quirked an eyebrow, following the old man inside, Sam following.
"I wish you'd lose that bad habit of yours." The billionaire rolled his eyes. "It isn't as though we're still enemies."
"Old habits die hard." Sam remarked dryly.
"Precisely what I wished to address, actually." Vlad chuckled. "You don't intend to simply sit on the sidelines while your worse half is thick in the fray of battle, do you Daniel?"
The black haired ghost blanched. "How'd you know?!"
"And more importantly, what are you up to?" Sam leveled an accusatory stare at Vlad.
"Daniel has the experience." Vlad began to explain. "He has gone against an opponent similar to Maghnus when he fought Pariah. He has the skill, all he lacks now is the power, due to becoming a ghost from just the human half of a hybrid; effectively Daniel's potential power is at least half of what it would have been without the incident in my lab a decade ago."
Danny and Sam exchanged confused glances. What was the old man getting at, other than stating the obvious? Vlad walked over to a shelf and flipped up a Packers helmet that was on display, pushing a button hidden beneath it. With a slight whirring noise, the wall panel slid aside, revealing a small hidden room, with an all-too-familiar piece of Fenton equipment stored inside.
"Hey, that's-!" Danny yelped, recognizing the powered armor despite the fact it had clearly undergone considerable revisions and rebuilding.
"Your father's Ecto-Skeleton, which I stole after your battle with Pariah." Vlad confessed. "I had been working to improve the design when... the accident... occurred, and it was all but entirely destroyed when my castle exploded. It's taken me quite some time to extract it from the ruins, but I was recently able to finish the repairs and upgrades."
"And you're telling me all this now because-?" Danny prompted.
"Consider it an inadequate attempt by an old man to atone for his crimes if you will, Daniel." Vlad gazed at the suit, cringing at some memory. "However misguided my actions were, I have always wanted the best for you. Right now, simply giving you a better chance at surviving this is all I can do. Your reduced strength means effective suicide going into battle with the opponents we face. With this, however..."
"A hundred times my current power." Danny finished the statement. "What about the power drain problem?"
"Did I not just say that I'd been upgrading it? Pay attention, Daniel!" Vlad remarked with mild exasperation. "It took some doing to convince Technus to give me his old staff; working with Skulker, he hasn't needed it. The suit uses that as a power supply rather than tapping the pilot directly. It should in theory give you a much greater boost than the original version. Perhaps as much as two-hundredfold your unaided power."
"Two hundred times?! That doesn't reek!" Danny yelped, surveying the suit with newfound admiration.
Sam watched the exchange with a thoughtful expression. Something had always seemed not quite right with her friend after Danny had finally manifested as a ghost. Aside from his physical weakness, his moods had always seemed flat. He never quite came off as gloom and doom depressed, but his emotions always lacked a certain intensity he'd had when he was alive; almost as though his emotions were just a pale shadow or dim reflection of the real thing. She hadn't enough experience with Vlad before and after the disaster to be sure, but she suspected the billionaire was likewise not quite what he used to be. It made a certain sort of sense, both half-ghosts were now only half of what they had once been; now living as half-empty shells of what they used to be.
That had changed in the past several weeks though. The change had been subtle; if she wasn't so close to Danny so much of the time Sam probably wouldn't have realized it. Ever since Phantom had returned from his jaunt and imprisonment in the past, Danny had been becoming more lively, his personality regaining some of its lost luster. It had been most apparent that first time they'd seen the fire-headed ghost when he blundered on their lair; her friend had been quiet about it, but the look in Danny's eyes when he stood his ground against the taller ghost had that same defiant determination she remembered so well from his days as the protector of Amity Park. It was almost as though the mere proximity of Danny's tainted other half was enough to put some of his old spunk back into him. Certainly Danny's personality had begun to shift from being extremely passive to active involvement in events.
That led to other thoughts, a possibility that could be achieved using the Reality Gauntlet. Couldn't Phantom simply be broken back down into his component halves and restored to the originals? She frowned as she pondered it, while Vlad helped Danny get strapped in to the power suit. He probably wouldn't want to be split after a decade of being... whatever he was; but could the fire-headed ghost DO anything about it if everyone else agreed?
He'd have to be caught off guard if at all. Sam frowned. Reality Gauntlet or not, we'd still have to be able to hit him to do anything.
There were other reasons it was a bad idea as well. Danny seemed distraught enough over his worse half's actions over the past ten years, and that was only with the knowledge of what had happened. Restoring the split ghost halves would probably include the memories of the past decade as well, and the goth didn't really want to imagine what horrors Dan had first-hand recollection of. She couldn't subject Danny to that sort of trauma with a clean conscience; given how much he blamed himself for Dan's actions already, to give him those direct memories of it as well would be pure cruelty, something she would never put her friend through. Heck, the trauma alone would probably drive him mad just like Dan had been during the rampages.
"All set, Daniel?" Vlad stepped back as the suit powered up, Danny's head seemingly tiny in the bubble dome looming a good ten feet off the floor.
"Looks like." The ghost confirmed, apparently glancing over a console Sam couldn't see from the ground, the suit's right arm giving a thumbs-up.
The sight brought back memories that the goth would rather have forgotten; the panic from Pariah's invasion and siege of Amity Park. Tucker's worried expression after Danny had filched the armor from the Fentons' lab; her own fear for Danny's safety. That cold knot of anguish in her gut that she was watching her dear friend leave, and knowing that it was very likely he wouldn't return.
This time, the stakes were even higher, but he wasn't rushing into the battle all alone.
--
Tucker looked at the unofficial leaders of the makeshift battle group, a single thought running through his head. Why me?
Dan and Valerie were shooting dirty looks at one another at every available opportunity, which was making battle planning... trying, to say the least. When they weren't glaring, they were bickering and sniping verbally over trivial details.
"I am not putting myself in front of the meat grinder so you can relax and enjoy the show." Dan growled.
"Well somebody's gotta keep him busy so we can get him with the Reality Gauntlet!" Valerie countered. "Isn't that the entire point of the plan?"
"Both of you, knock it off!" Tucker finally interjected over the squabbling.
"You're both acting like spoiled young children." Dora admonished. "Or like an old married couple."
Valerie looked horrified at the latter implication, while Dan recoiled in disgust. At least it shut them up for the moment. The silence was broken by the insistent beeping of Valerie's armband communicator. Raising an eyebrow, she shot Dan one last foul look before she answered the call.
"Valerie h-"
"Valerie!" Paulina shrieked on the other end, the Latina's face pale beneath her tan complexion, eyes wide in horror. "You guys need to come quick, it-it's terrible!"
"What happened?" The huntress responded sternly, trying to ignore her own sinking feelings.
"F-first everything went all weird like that time the town got pulled into the Ghost Zone-" Paulina stammered, the occasional hiccup indicating just how close Amity Park's unofficial mayor was to total panic. "A-and then... I was on my way to j-join you guys when... Valerie, it's terrible!"
"Would you stop blathering like a frightened little rabbit and spit it out already?" Dan snapped, leaning over Valerie's shoulder to peer at the tiny communicator screen.
"Personal space, jerk!" Valerie elbowed him back with a snarl. "Paulina, tell me. What's going on?"
"I-I dunno. I couldn't see the city from my position, but then, I-i heard it-" Paulina paused to try and regain some modicum of vocal control. "Back toward th-the city and... and there was just... I dunno what it was!"
"Keep talking, Paulina." Valerie responded with all the forced calm she could muster, oblivious to Dan peering over her shoulder again.
"It's... there was this big... black thing. Black and silver, like... almost like an explosion, and then all this wind and..." The Latina stammered. "Valerie, it's all gone! There's nothing left!"
"There's what?!" Dan and Valerie yelped in unison, too startled to bother glaring at one another.
"I-I headed back after it cleared... ohmigod, Valerie, it's all gone. Everything!" Paulina wailed. "There's ghosts swarming the area-"
The Latina must have shifted her arm, the image on Valerie's screen changed, the view fuzzy from the distance; details were hard to make out save for the motion of countless green forms, one much taller in the distance than the rest of the mass.
"That's him!" Dan snarled, fists clenched, about ready to launch into the air.
"Hold on, now is hardly the time to abandon all reason and rush blindly in." Vlad caught the tattered ends of the ghost's cape. "That didn't accomplish all that much the first time you tried it, did it?"
"Paulina, stay out of sight. Try to find any survivors and get them away from there. We're coming as fast as we can!" Valerie instructed in a tight voice. "Oh, he'll pay for this-!"
The huntress whipped around, nearly smacking Dan in the face with the Gauntlet, and aimed the weapon at a clear area of ground. In a flash of golden light, some sort of aircraft appeared, the vehicle looking like something straight out of a science fiction film; a blunt-nosed, bulbous craft with some sort of bays hanging off the sides, and a large set of thruster nodes hanging off the rear.
"Wow, Valerie, it almost looks like a smaller version of the ship from Battlespace Galactika!" Tucker observed. "I didn't know you liked sci-fi shows like that."
"Save it for later, we need to get to Amity Park, and we need to get there fast."
The area surrounding Vlad's mansion turned into a mess of barely organized activity as ghosts boarded the transport and final preparations were made. Danny and Sam were among the last to board, the Ecto-Skeleton a tight fit in the already crowded ship.
"We're counting on you." Vlad noted solemnly, the toddler Box Lunch sitting on the ground next to the billionaire. "My mansion may be safe from the battle for now, but if you fail..."
"Right." Danny nodded. "We can't lose this one."
The black haired ghost cracked a slight grin, though it was clear the expression was forced as he backed up and the safety door rolled down and latched shut. With a tremendous roar of thrusters, the ungainly craft lurched into the air. Once airborne, it lost all pretense of clumsiness and shot over the horizon in an instant, the sonic boom all that remained of its departure.
--
"What the-?!"
Valerie pulled back on the throttle, the craft slowing to a crawl as it neared Amity Park. What was left of it, at least. Disbelieving silence hovered over the cramped command bridge as everyone surveyed the destruction from several thousand feet in the air. Where the city center once stood was a crater, several miles wide and possibly almost as deep. It was unnatural, sheer sided and clean cut, revealing parts of the Underground to the sky as if someone had taken a cross-section of the region. Water flowed into the bottom of the smooth crater from pipes and hidden reservoirs that had been sliced open; it was the only sign of movement in the bowl shaped crater. The ruins of the Outlands ringed it; the crater had consumed the entire New City and most of the near Outlands; and most likely a considerable portion of the old Outlands beyond the ruined shield towers of Dan's rampages.
The view was crystal clear; not so much as a speck of dust remained of the city center, no smoke rose to the sky as a black pillar marking the destruction. It was as though some cosmic scoop had dropped from the sky and carved out the giant crater, taking all the material within away. No blasted debris scattered outward from the crater; there wouldn't be any survivors; it hadn't been an explosion in the normal sense.
Amity Park was gone, wiped from the face of the earth as though it had never existed; and at the rim, flanked by countless veiled ghosts towered Maghnus, the silver gleam from the gauntlet on his left arm shining bright enough to make the sunlight seem wan, waiting for them.
Author's Note: Four more chapters to go!! Random trivia: This chapter is the only one in the entire fic series to use a song's title for the chapter title, AND use a quote from the same song. Something about "The Last Journey Home" and the lyrics and everything that just felt right for this one. The stakes have never been higher, and Maghnus has launched the first, and presumably deadly strike against Valerie and Dan's home turf.
Anyway, once again a heap of thanks to my super cool reviewers: When I started this series, I didn't expect to get even 50 reviews back on Jeremiad. And here we are, over 300 reviews just on Indemnification. You guys are some serious taskmasters, and I like to think it's in part due to you guys that I've kept even remotely to a regular schedule; I start to feel all guilty and like I'm letting you guys down when I miss my deadlines! So an early bag of virtual Halloween candy and some eggs, toilet paper, and other trick-playing equipment to: Selofain, Phantom-Akiko, Calovan, Skandragon Blackheart, BaronOBeefDip, Fulcon, Belthasar, Akino Ame, i AM the Random Idiot, Granite Ghost, spiritmind675, Anne Camp aka Obi-quiet, Nobody Famous, Mappadouji, Moony's Metamorphmagus, Angelic Kittens, Luiz4200, and Sukoru!