Disclaimer: I own nothing from Danny Phantom

Chapter 13: Urgency

Vlad's POV

As tedious and menial as my tasks were that day, I was happy knowing that things were finally falling into place while I continued preparing to move to Amity Park to be closer to Danielle. It was hard enough letting her go the first time, but the second was even more so since I finally got the chance to get know my little badger better. And since Danielle had forgiven me after my genuine attempt to surprise her went horribly wrong in every possible way, she seemed much more open and at ease speaking to me afterwards which greatly warmed my heart.

I was worried for her though because sadly it didn't take long before Danielle was once again tapped in that vicious cycle and continued to struggle to keep her grades up, to find the time to deal with things at home with her parents, the bully problem at school, all while still constantly fighting ghosts on top of all that. She's gotten a lot better at handling most of it, at least from what I've heard, but all that ghost-fighting still took a heavy toll on Danielle to the point where she often fell asleep in the middle of our conversations. The poor girl was being much too hard on herself, and I had a feeling I was adding extra pressure onto her since Danielle clearly wanted to prove herself in my eyes and impress me with her growing mastery over her ghost powers and combat skills in general...

I hated seeing her do this to herself. And I wished there was a way I could lift some of the burden off her shoulders as far as how many ghosts she usually fought on a daily basis, but sadly, at least one of her enemies was an occasional employee of mine and while I made my warnings clear, most of my threats were not being taken as seriously since I was not there to personally make good on them. Obviously I could always send my minions there to do it for me, but most of them were mainly kept in my employ as spies and weren't exactly built for combat. That's why I needed to change that, and soon.

I had a few ideas, but I needed someone who wouldn't make an enemy of Danielle simply because she 'ruins' the fun for most ghosts by sending them back to where they came from, like the pilot I hired who as it turns out held a grudge against her for capturing Technus before he could get a part he needed to repair some private plane he was building as a side project. Sadly, there wasn't much I could do from here without alerting Danielle to my presence and making her feel as though I was being overbearing and overprotective like her brother. It was a delicate balance between giving her room to grow, and making sure I could be there when she actually needed my assistance with more than just her homework.

The good news was, at least by doing all of this that meant I was one step closer to buying out Axion Labs. And the construction work was well underway for my new home in Amity Park. Regardless of the progress I had made, today turned out to be a long, grueling, and monotonous day of nothing but business meetings so I was looking forward to checking in on Danielle before retiring for the night.

The last time we spoke she seemed excited about some circus or another with an unusual Gothic theme visiting their town and her friend Samson bought tickets for all three of them so they were going to enjoy it over the weekend. I could see the appeal to some extent, given how even I am also quite interested in the occult thanks to my love of ghostly relics and artifacts with real power inside of them. Although, to be honest I was concerned that her parents wouldn't approve of her going to such an event or they might complicate matters by insisting on tagging along to make sure there weren't any 'real' ghosts hidden among the performers...

If only I had realized sooner that such a thing was actually a very real possibility.

While I was expecting at least one more important business call before the end of the day, since it was rather late I presumed they were planning to call me at a more reasonable hour in the morning instead when I did not hear from them sooner. Once it became clear I was not going to be getting that last call, I decided it was about about time I got ready for bed and called Danielle. However, when my phone suddenly rang just as I was about to leave my office, I begrudgingly answered it without thinking or checking the caller ID because after sitting through so many business calls today, it was almost an automatic reaction...

"Vlad Master's speaking..." I began in a blunt but courteous tone of voice, cursing my bad luck that someone would call now when what I really wanted to do was talk to Danielle as usual to see how their first day visiting to the circus went.

Needless to say I was stunned when instead of receiving a formal greeting in return from the person I was expecting a call from, I heard a choked sob on the other end of the line as Danielle's voice just barely registered in the speaker, "Oh my god, Vlad...I...it's really you this time..."

Alarmed by how weak and exhausted she sounded I rushed to my feet and demanded, "Danielle, what's wrong?"

Danielle tried to respond but the only word, or name rather, that made it past her lips was 'Freakshow' and after that I heard a muffled clatter when the phone slipped from her hand and fell to the ground. After that, all I could hear was the sound of rushing water and trees swaying in the wind which suggested she was somewhere outside...

"Danielle! Can you hear me? Please say something! DANIELLE!" I shouted, visibly shaking because I was afraid she was badly injured or possibly even on the verge of death and I had to reach her, IMMEDIATELY.

Dropping the phone, I transformed and flew straight to my ghost portal in the lab because I knew there was no way I could teleport to Amity Park fast enough, even if I did so in rapid succession. After all, even my power had limits, so my best chance to reach her quickly was to go through the entrance of her parent's ghost portal instead. Knowing them, they probably didn't even know how to lock the damn thing so opening it would be all too easy. If almost every ghost who happens upon it could easily get through it undetected, then I could too. Obviously I had several of my ghostly minions there already and could have ordered them to drop what they were doing to go find Danielle, I didn't want to waste valuable time organizing the search that way so I decided to rely on myself as well as the tracking device I installed in her new phone for emergencies such as this...

Normally I could easily keep myself calm and plan these things out more carefully but this time was different. This time my dear little badger was either in terrible danger, or at the very least deeply distraught and she needed me by her side. But I was taking no chances and my fingers shook as I strapped on the watch-like device which I used to communicate with my minions, to gather or search for information stored on my supercomputer, or in this case track down specific energy signatures which I was going to do now to reach the Fenton Portal as quickly as possible.

I memorized it's location in case of such an emergency where I had to reach Danielle quickly, but since the Ghost Zone is constantly shifting and changing, sadly there is no surefire method of reaching it through memory alone. As such, I was going to have to rely on the tracking device to make it there as quickly as possible. At least in the Ghost Zone I could easily teleport most of the way there without worrying nearly as much about wasting valuable time since time doesn't work as one might expect in the Ghost Zone.

In fact, in some places, it doesn't exist at all.

The point is, I wasn't about to let anything get between me and rescuing Danielle from whatever peril she had found herself in. And did not hesitate to drop absolutely everything to find her since I knew it had to be serious if Danielle let herself show me any of her vulnerability or weakness. Danielle's pride usually stopped her from admitting anything was wrong. This time was different though since she just barely managed to call me before losing consciousness soon after, as such, I already knew something was very very wrong...

My only clue I had to work off of though was the name 'Freakshow' who as it turned out is the ringleader of the circus Danielle and her friends were going to visit, Circus Gothica. Something must have happened between them if his name was the first thing Danielle tried to tell me before collapsing. And if he's the one who did this to her, Freakshow will not live long enough to regret his actions. Anyone who so much as scratches her is as good as dead or doomed to a slow and painful torture, and if they were already a ghost, then total annihilation was what awaited them by my hand.

In a blinding blur of green and purple, I teleported several times through the Ghost Zone to get at least within a mile of the Fenton Ghost Portal. But strangely enough, I could almost sense it's power humming for myself since it was so familiar I almost didn't need the energy reading feature on my tracking device. Relieved that I made it there without incident, I opened it and poked my head inside, scanning the Fenton Works lab for any signs of life. In the end I detected nothing so I wasted no time flying out of the portal and phasing through the roof to get my bearings.

After that I began to gather as much information from the local news and papers and discovered that recently there had been a string of ghostly robberies that started just before the circus rolled into town that was currently set up next to an old train station. And to my shock, I saw there was even a video clip of Danielle on the news participating in those robberies, but there was something...off about her. For one thing her eyes were glowing a hellish red, not their usual bright green, and the feral smile on her face was rather unsettling...

Putting two and two together, I suspected Freakshow had something to do with this ghostly robberies somehow since the other ghosts accompanying Danielle during that excursion did in fact look like circus performers. It almost reminded me of the bank robberies I had done all those years ago in order to speed up my rise to power so I could use them to destroy Jack Fenton either literally or figuratively. But if this Freakshow had somehow managed to find a way to control Danielle and these other ghosts, then he must to have some sort of power over them, such as a spell or maybe a relic of some kind.

Apart from that, this so-called Circus Gothica was not as acclaimed as it appeared to be so Freakshow didn't actually hold much power over the masses. Well, with the exception of a small cult following of goths and other rebellious teenagers such as Danielle's friend Samson. Speaking of which, while searching for answers I found a short video clip someone had uploaded to the internet talking about a brand new act that wasn't advertised on the Circus Gothica pamphlets. From what I could gather, it was about a fallen angel with broken wings walking the tightrope while wearing a tattered black robe...

But I didn't need to see her face to know it was Danielle hidden underneath the hood, because I could sense it somehow. Then I watched as a strange boy was also dragged into the 'act', clearly aware the danger was very real since there was no net down below to catch him if he fell. And the fact that Danielle was the one putting an innocent bystander in danger told me all I needed to know about Freakshow. Clearly he's dangerous if Freakshow all too willing to attempt to murder in front of a live audience and then cover up what was really happening before their very eyes by making it all seem like it was just another part of the show.

Thankfully, Danielle managed to snap out of her trance just long enough to save that unfortunate soul from falling to his death. I was relieved about that as well because I knew she never would have forgiven herself if someone had been badly injured or even died because of her. Unfortunately, the person taking the video was too far away to record what she said to the young man I could only assume was Danielle's friend Samson after he was safely lowered to the ground. It wasn't long before Freakshow regained control of her before he approached the pair menacingly.

Even from a distance, I could tell that whatever Freakshow said to him that was was a warning of some kind. And once that was taken care of, Freakshow then strolled off with Danielle in tow who lazily floated behind him as if being pulled along by invisible chains like some kind of animal. As they exited the stage, my eyes fell on the unusual staff Freakshow was holding and just seeing it made me feel a bit strange. It was almost as if there was a pleasant hum in the back of my mind, but that feeling was extremely easy to resist.

That's when it finally dawned on me that that staff was had to be what was controlling Danielle! Not only that, but I faintly remembered seeing something like it once in a book of ancient magical artifacts I had. It's original name was lost to history so it appeared to only be called the crystal orb staff. And according to the entry, its power had something to do with blood magic that was used to create a special type of energy capable of controlling almost any ghost by entrancing them and making them addicted to its presence.

To put it simply, it as if it was a drug to them, making them complacent and eager to serve whoever controlled the staff. And in all honesty, I couldn't believe it was real, let alone in the hands of a lowlife such as Freakshow. But how could he have come to possess something so old and powerful...? Still, the fact that he could control so many ghosts at once with that staff without them being in direct contact with the orb disturbed me deeply; although this would explain how the recent string of robberies couldn't be traced back to Freakshow since I had done something similar in the past by simply turning invisible altogether to evade detection.

And judging from all the footage I've seen of Freakshow himself, I highly doubt he ever puts that staff down which suggests he's afraid of what would happen if he lost control over his underlings who were clearly not there by choice. And sadly, now Danielle was one of them since I for one knew she would never do anything of the sort of her own free will such as put innocent lives in danger or rob banks. In fact, I must admit it's rather vexing sometimes how selfless she is since it makes it difficult to convince Danielle to tell me what's troubling her in most cases since she's afraid of coming across as 'selfish,' which frankly I think is ridiculous since that's part of our human nature in order to survive!

At any rate, after watching the most recent news report informing the citizens of Amity Park that Freakshow had been arrested and charged not only with theft, but the possible kidnapping of two local teenagers since her friend Trish informed the authorities that Samson and Danielle were still missing and last seen somewhere by the river on the opposite side of town. But since I already knew this problem was ghost-related, I had to make sure I found Danielle before the police did just in case she's still in ghost form as a defense mechanism. As such, my only concern was finding Danielle before anything else happened to my beloved little badger...

Once I know she's safe, I'll make sure this Freakshow learns the true meaning of fear, I thought darkly as I flew off in the direction Danielle had last been seen.