Danny shook his head and slowly came to. His hands were cuffed behind his back, which was up against a support for the platform. Sam (her neck bandaged) and Tucker were nearby, also just coming awake. Most of the captured men were snapping out of their trances, up against the walls and cuffed. There were no ghosts; just a pile of ghost-traps near Danny. Why he wasn't in one he had no idea. He quickly picked out his parents, his sister, Fountain, and Alcala among the prisoners. Fountain and Alcala were facing the corporal, discussing something. Danny tried moving his hands around. There was something strange about his cuffs.
"Sam?" he whispered, in case there was a no-talking policy among prisoners.
"Hmm?"
"What kind of cuffs did they use on me?"
"Ordinary human cuffs..." she got it.
"Why would they use those on Danny?" Tucker asked.
"When they went around to cuff the prisoners, whoever cuffed me probably didn't notice I was a ghost in fighting," Danny quickly stopped talking as a soldier walked by.
"No talking," he said in a New York accent, "Now one of you is supposed to be a ghost-child. Who is it?" he pointed a laser at them. Danny slowly counted backwards in his head; 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...
"Well?" the soldier asked. Danny went ghost, phasing through the cuffs and tossing them at the soldier's head. He kicked the laser out of his hand and caught it, shooting the tranquilliser out of the hand of another guard who had seen what went on.
"Ghost-child is free! The ghost-child is free!" the guard started screaming. Danny freed Sam and Tucker before flying off, kicking one guard into a barrel. The distraction was all that was needed. All the prisoners jumped up and attacked, resorting to kicking since their hands were all cuffed (Fountain couldn't really do anything, but he tried). Alcala knocked out the colonel and was soon freed by Danny.
"You know how to release ghosts from these traps?" he pointed to the pile; Danny didn't, "I'll take care of that, you get the men free!" they moved out. Danny could free the men with his ghost-powers and Sam had stolen some keys from a soldier; Tucker's glasses had been knocked off, so he was looking for those. Fountain soon had his crutches back and was using them for weapons while Jack pulled out the Ghost Gloves. Alcala bent down to the pile of ghost-traps, picking up one. He placed his finger on a small catch on the trap and moved it. Blue smoke poured out of the prongs, forming...
"I am The Box Ghost!" he shouted to a nearby soldier, "You cannot contain me within a three-pronged trap! Now tremble," he raised several boxes in the air, "as you are devoured by..." he read the label, "The Box Company of Chicago Illinois!" he brought the box down on the soldier's head; it didn't hurt, but he was dazed and confused. This situation was drastically different than the battle only minutes before. Several guards had gone back to the vans or to Amity, evening out the numbers. The elements of surprise also worked in their favour.
"Someone get out to those vans and get that equipment!" Alcala barked.
"Where's the Fenton Van?" Jack ran up, "The Fenton RV!?"
"Hid them in a room, Paranormalics probably got to 'em."
"I see them!" Jazz shouted. They were by the other vans, being examined.
"Don't damage the ones that are mine!" Jack shouted to the men heading outside.
---
The Paranormalics agents were lying in the fort, trapped by their own handcuffs. Every piece of equipment, weaponry, and supplies had been taken from them. The Fenton Van, Fenton RV, and the now-marked "Resistance" vans were headed south.
"General Conrad was coming up on a dirt road through the forest from Pennsylvania," Alcala told Jack over the walkie-talkie, "Just follow us to it."
"Yes sir, lieutenant colonel!" Jack saluted for no reason and shut off communications.
---
"Are we there yet?" Tucker asked.
"For the millionth time..." Sam looked about ready to crack, "...NO!"
"OK, I was just asking!" now he sounded annoyed. The drive had been going on for the past five hours with no stopping, and everyone was getting a little restless. Tucker was just the only one who'd been saying the same thing repeatedly ever since the clock struck the third hour.
"Are we there yet?" he said again.
"Mr. Fenton," the walkie-talkie went off, calming everyone's annoyance at Tucker. Maybe it was good news.
"Yes?"
"We noticed movement up ahead. We're going to stop here while Colonel Fountain and I go out to see who it is. Tell your wife and daughter. That's all," he went off. Jack forwarded the information to Maddie and Jazz and then stopped the van. All the vehicles around them did likewise. They could hear the sounds of doors opening and closing up ahead. Then they waited.
"Anyone got a deck of cards or something?" Tucker finally broke the silence, increasing the pain in everyone's headache.
"Tucker," Danny turned to his friend, "For five seconds...please be quiet," that managed to keep him quiet until Alcala walked over.
"It's General Conrad," he said, "He'd like to speak with you and your son. I'll tell the rest of your family," he walked off.
"Well, let's go, Danny," Jack hopped out of the car, Danny following. The general was standing just a few feet away from the van closest to him. Danny had heard his name on the news plenty of times, but had never seen him before. He resembled the picture of President Grant in his history book.
"You're Jack Fenton?" he said in a calm voice.
"The one and only," Jack took Conrad's extended hand.
"So you're Danny Phantom," Conrad turned to Danny, "Good to meet you. Since the only ghosts who've joined us are ones after some peace and quiet they've mentioned plenty of good things about you."
"Uh...thanks," Danny said, not used to hearing things like that, particularly from a U.S. general.
"We've decided it'd be best to stay in the woods as much as possible and only come out to small towns undercover," Conrad turned to Jack again, "We're setting up camp here for the night while I go over some things with Fountain and Alcala."
---
Camp had been set up quickly. Most of the men and ghosts had their own tents; Danny, Sam and Tucker decided to sleep in the Fenton Van. Conrad had his own private tent, where he was now discussing the next move to make with Fountain and Alcala.
"We're back up to 117 men, not counting the Fenton group and ourselves," Alcala was saying, "We outnumber the force in Amity if you wanna..."
"No," Conrad shook his head, "No, I've been doing some thinking. We're only against Bruce, not the country. We occupy any major city or town and we become full-fledged rebels. I think we'd better stick to attacking Paranormalics bases. Now I'm interested in where Bruce and his best men went off to. He's been fairly public about his activities, which gives us an advantage. I'm thinking there was something about that last base of The Order."
"You think it's still around?" Fountain asked.
"I do. The question is, where is it?" the sounds of a quarrel outside halted any further conversation. A ghost and a human outside had broken into a fight by one of the campfires, drawing a crowd. The humans watching cheered for their kindred; the ghosts for theirs (Jack was among the humans, earning him a glare from his wife). The fight was interrupted when a laser passed through the space between the two combatants.
"That is enough," this was the first time in a long while that many of them had heard Conrad's voice be so harsh, "Who is responsible?"
"Traitor," the ghost glared and pointed at the human, "I heard him. Talkin' about how paranormal forces taint and corrupt us, our threat...all the things Bruce has spat out."
"As if you've never said anything negative about us..." the human was cut off.
"Enough!" Conrad shouted, "You are acting like children! Take them both to the prison tent, I'll deal with them later," a few men obliged, "There will be no more quarrels like this amongst ghosts and humans in this camp. And I mean none," fittingly, the fire seemed to burn quicker to match his anger.
---
The next day, everyone moved out early, following the same dirt road. Jazz was now with Maddie in the Fenton RV; at Conrad's request, they had given the Spectre Speeder to one man who was to be a spy. They had been driving for about an hour when the cars started to stop.
"What's going on?" Tucker asked.
"Alcala?" Jack picked up the walkie-talkie.
"Some ghosts are flying around near us, don't know if they're hostile or not," he replied, "Danny, would you mind giving us a hand?" Danny could hear that. He went ghost and phased out of the van, flying over to Alcala and Conrad.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"A-ha!" one of the ghosts shouted to the others; they looked like mountain men, "The halfa is here!"
"Hi," Danny called to them, "Uh, what're you doing here?"
"Some in The Ghost-Zone have suspected that the halfa might join up with this resistance movement to Paranormalics," the one who had spoken before replied, "As it is a worthy cause, and as it is an honour to meet you, we wish to join!"
"What do you think?" Alcala turned to Conrad.
"No reason not to trust them, and we need men," he shrugged, "Welcome to the Resistance, men!"
---
The rest of the day passed with little event, as did the night. The next morning, everyone set off again a bit later than before. Low on gas and food, Conrad decided to send some men into a nearby town to pick some up. Danny's group was among those selected, and Conrad himself went in, disguised. When they went into town, however...
"You General Gary Conrad?" several men walked up; it looked bad.
"What do you want?" the general asked.
"Request permission to join your resistance, sir," Conrad looked at them harder.
"Weren't you men in the raid on Fort Moon I carried out a couple years back in the..."
"The same, sir," all of them smiled.
"Welcome aboard, men."
---
It seemed that Danny and Conrad were figures that people wanted to work alongside with; over the next two days, more and more ghosts and humans came into camp each day. Soon the numbers reached 152, not counting Conrad, Alcala, or Fountain. This made accommodations in camp rather uncomfortable (which, fortunately, Danny, Sam and Tucker didn't have to worry about). The fourth day after escaping the warehouse, the Resistance had just entered Maryland and had begun to set up camp for the night.
"Finally!" Danny heard his dad shout.
"What's going on, Dad?" he asked.
"That spy fellow's finally back with my Spectre Speeder," he murmured. It was indeed coming down from above the trees into the clearing where the group had begun to set up camp. As soon as he landed, the spy rushed over to Conrad. They kept their tone down, but Danny could tell that this information was urgent.
"Men!" Conrad shouted once he had heard it, "We have just discovered the whereabouts of Ken Bruce and his men! The second base of The Order was not destroyed; it has been converted into a new headquarters for an operation that remains unknown to us. It's in Delaware. Have all your things ready with you tonight; the moment I see a single ray of sunlight, we drop camp and move out."