Chapter 4: Deadlier Then The Male
"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear."
-Ambrose Redmoon
"So you showed up…stupid fool." Sizzle said. "I was kind of hoping I'd have to hunt your bony little ass down."
"Well, you found me. Come on, let's settle this." Danny said, raising his fists.
"Hmmmm, you mean let's get away from here before I burn your school down…hmmmmm…" Sizzle said, her face (well Valerie's face) getting a pondering look. "I'd rather do both."
And Sizzle slammed out her hands and the whole hallway filled with fire as Sizzle ignited every bit of oxygen there was, a solid wall of flame that exploded towards Danny and enveloped his form before he could even emit a scream.
Sizzle smiled.
And then Danny's form reappeared, barely visible in the smoke, as his body was now nearly see-through. Danny went tangible again, with a small comfort: Sizzle's flames may have been horrifically powerful, but at least they abided by real world physics.
Sizzle's smile turned into a clenched tooth look of pure fury.
"I'll turn every drop of water you have in your body into HOT MIST!" She screamed, as she reared back her hand and slashed it out, lines of deadly fire lancing from the motion, the bigger, nastier brothers of the fire daggers she had used either, arcing waves of energy that ripped into the floor, ceiling, and slagged lockers.
Danny did two things.
First he checked to make sure no one was behind him.
Then he went through the nearest wall. Intangibly, of course.
He found himself in a classroom, looking a small group of students who were being helped out through an open window by their teacher. Danny recognized him: it was Mr. Petrie. Danny had him for History and an occasional Social Studies class: he was rather humourless with his thin mouth and drawn features, but he was a good teacher, and he was looking at Danny's floating form with a good deal of shock.
"Keep going! Get out of here! Quickly, before…!"
"KNOCK KNOCK!"
The door exploded off its hinges and Danny whirled away at the last second, as the wooden door embedded itself two feet into the wall near the windows Mr. Petrie was helping the last few students out of. This clearly freaked him out, but he showed his strength of character as he continued helping the students out and didn't just jump out the window himself.
Sizzle started heading into the room, and then hit a wall, or as much of a wall as Danny could erect in a second, as he flew into a corner of the room and let loose with several twin-handed EE blasts that slammed into the desks and sent them tumbling towards Sizzle in a storm of wood and metal. Danny wasn't worried about Valerie, at least not in a callous way. Sure, she and his sister were about ten light years away on the caring scale, not to mention the whole ghost hunter thing, but he wasn't going to hurt her if he could avoid it. No, he was sure Sizzle would protect her host and prevent any of those desks from causing contusions or concussions or cuts or any of the C Words that stood for injuries, and it would give Mr. Petrie the needed few seconds to get the last of the students out.
The piles of desks stood there for a moment before a red glow lit from within them and then, with a furious scream, Sizzle smashed them all away from her, as desks slammed into the walls, ceiling, blackboard (shattering it) desk (severely denting it), windows (breaking them and sending any students who were nearby running for their lives, which probably saved them from being cut to shreds by flying glass), and the ectoplasmic shield Danny had formed in front of Mr. Petrie and the last student, a female, who hadn't made it out yet. The strange angle of the impact and resulting feedback caused Danny to be tossed violently to the left, ending up near the spot where had fired the blasts that had thrown the desks originally.
Sizzle approached again, as Danny got up, ready…
And then he noticed that Sizzle wasn't even looking at him. She was looking at Mr. Petrie, who was now helping the last girl out…which involved, at the end, for him to touch her rear end. But it was just a shove to help her out the window. There was nothing sexual about it, just what he was doing to help…but Sizzle didn't see it that way.
"You have no right to touch her like that." She hissed, and raised her arm.
"NO!" Danny screamed.
Mr. Petrie was just about to leave through the window himself when his back erupted in flames, and much like Kwan, his thoughts of escape vanished in the pain as he staggered back and screamed, even as the fire began to spread to his front, even as Sizzle chuckled as the dancing marionette she had created…
And then Danny was there, arriving with a thick rug that was bundled up in a closet in the back of the room, a rug that was laid out in the winter for students to wipe their boots on, a rug Danny had grabbed and now threw over Mr. Petrie even as he bore down on him and shoved him to the ground, smothering the flames, even as he wrapped the rug around the teacher and stood up, yanking the rug over one shoulder as he fired an EE blast at Sizzle with his other hand, a blast that sent her stumbling back a few steps, even as Danny turned and sprinted for the window.
"Sorry about the exit!" He yelled as he slung the teacher bundle off his shoulders and into his arms and then tossed it right out the window and into the arms of a few students who had come back to help, nearly knocking them over.
"Should have worried about your ass boy."
Danny felt fear bloom in his guts, as he tried to turn…
The flame blast didn't just shatter the remaining windows, it shattered the entire WALL, the whole part of the building exploding out as the students fled the firestorm of debris, smoke billowing out after it as what was left collapsed, the wind carrying Sizzle's mad, triumphant laughter.
For the first time in his life, Tucker was glad he didn't have a car.
Because if he had, he would have hopped in and fled the war zone his school was becoming, confident that Danny could take care of himself. Without one, he was forced to just sort of mill around…and it was then he remembered.
…have the Incapacitator…?
…in my locker…
"Oh no." Tucker said. He stopped, gave it some thought, and unable to decide if he should be brave and foolish or smart and cowardly not to mention a bad friend, he pulled out his PDA.
"Should I go back into the school to Danny's locker and get the Incapacitator for him?" He typed into the system's question answering computer.
SYSTEM ERROR.
"No, System Error would be 'Me Hit PDA In Screen With Big Rock'" Tucker replied.
YES YOU SHOULD.
"Ok now…wha? Tucker?" Sam said as she turned around and saw Tucker running back from to the school. "What are you doing?"
"What the computer told me!" Tucker tossed over his shoulder.
To Sam, it almost made sense.
The dust and smoke began to clear, as Sizzle finally stopped her laughing…
And found she had nothing to laugh about, as Danny stood revealed, his arms crossed and the ectoplasmic shield he had formed finishing fading away. The impact of the blast had torn through his whole body, but he had managed to get a shield up and it had held.
"You…fucker." Sizzle hissed.
"The sentiment's returned." Danny said as he lowered his arms, trying to hide the fact he'd like to do nothing more then collapse. "Why did you do that? He was trying to HELP that woman, and you light him on fire? What kind of a nutcase are you?"
"That was no help." Sizzle, er, fired back. "That was just the latest example of all the violent, violating repression your breed have heaped on mine for eons. It doesn't matter if they THINK they have good intentions, their true desires are always the same! HUMILATE US! REPRESS US! RUIN US! AND YOU'LL ALL BURN FOR IT!"
"Lady, you got some issues." Danny said, as his strength finally kicked in again, and good thing, as Sizzle fired another lancing blast of flame at him as he flew up and over it.
"Let's see how great you are when you don't have a shield to hide behind!" Danny yelled, as he turned intangible and flew into Valerie's body. The struggle was brief and fierce, and then Danny and Sizzle's thrashing forms came ripping out of her, tumbling and smashing/melting right through the wall, as Danny pulled himself away from Sizzle.
"Ok, fight's on even ground now, so come on psycho! I'm ready for you!" Danny yelled.
Sizzle backhanded Danny across the entire hallway. He slammed into the lockers at the end so hard he left a dent, and slid down to the ground.
"Ok, I guess I wasn't so ready." Danny moaned.
"Uhhhh…what…." Valerie said, staggering around, and then she screamed as Sizzle flew back in and slammed into her back. She fell to the ground, spasmed once, and then Sizzle's visage lit up in her eyes again.
Danny was getting to his feet, abet tenderly, as Sizzle stepped through the hole Danny and she had made. Hate flashed across her countenance again, and she did a few quick hand motions. Danny's eyes widened.
"That can't be good."
"BURRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNNNNNNN!" Sizzle screamed as she thrust out her hands and fired off dozens of quick, lightning fast fireballs.
"I hate it when I'm right!" Danny yelled as he dodged/rolled to the side, as the fireballs slammed into the lockers and the entire wall erupted with explosions as Sizzle vaporized everything where Danny had just been standing.
Fortunately, it wasn't where he was standing now, as he tried another roll and tripped over his feet and landed…at the feet of someone else.
Danny looked up.
"Fahrenheit 451! What in the name of Stephen King is going ON in here?" Mr. Lancer yelled.
"You might want to add a few zeroes to that first one for an answer, Mr. Lancer." Danny said as he got up. He wasn't that surprised to see Mr. Lancer still in the school: nuclear war could be happening and he'd still be hanging around Casper High. Danny theorized it was the only real thing in his life that gave it meaning, and their troubles aside, Danny let him have that…except it had kept him in the school, and since he was a man, that pretty much made him another slab of meat for Sizzle to try and cook extremely well done.
Mr. Lancer was looking at Danny with a quizzical look.
"You! The white haired entity that's ALWAYS around when trouble starts!…And how do you know my name?"
"Uh…Internet?" Danny ventured.
"Well I…" Mr. Lancer began, and then another scream of fury, this one very close, slammed into Danny's ears.
"SAVE IT BUDDY!" Danny yelled as he flew forward and grabbed Mr. Lancer, flying down the hallway as a huge fireball slammed into the spot where they had just been standing. Mr. Lancer screamed.
"It's ok sir! I will get you to safety!" Danny said.
"I'm not screaming at this! IT'S THAT!" Mr. Lancer said, pointing behind him. Danny didn't turn to look, it would slow him down. "1984! Is that Valerie Grey?"
"No! It's something inside her, controlling her! Valerie is blameless!" Danny yelled.
"Yes, I gathered that from the fact that she's MAKING A HUGE BALL OF FIRE IN MID-AIR!"
"BURNNNNNNNNN!"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Mr. Lancer screamed. "GO LEFT!"
Danny did so.
"No, your OTHER LEFT!"
Danny jerked himself into a hard spinning right and half a second later a huge blast of flame flew past his side, searing him, and then he had to top that maneuver as the hallway had run out of room, as he did an insanely tight turn into the hallway that branched off from the just ended one, half a second before the fireball hit the wall at the end of the chase hallway. Danny flew on, the explosion licking at his heels, as he flew down the hallway.
And then he saw something, and stopped.
"Hey! Keep flying! You're not too old for me to take over my knee, young…thing!" Mr. Lancer said.
"Mr. Lancer…" Danny Phantom said, as he switched his posture from horizontal to vertical in front of the door he had noticed: the boy's locker room. He put the teacher down.
"Would you like to save the student who is being forced to do all this damage and also save what is left of your school?"
"Do I have to?" Mr. Lancer asked.
"Yes." Danny replied.
When Sizzle turned and started walking down the hallway the two had been in, she found they were gone. But that didn't matter: she knew where to look. She could smell the stench of the boy, who should have died for her, died screaming in agony, and instead he fought her, and so she would make his agony ten times greater…
She walked into the men's locker room, Valerie's shoes long gone and the moist tiles hissing beneath her bare feet, as she followed the stench (which may or may not have been an actual smell, but work with me here) into the next room: the school pool.
She did not find the boy.
Instead, she found a bald man with a beard and rolled up shirtsleeves standing on the other end of the pool.
"You! Hey you! You're in a lot of trouble young lady!" Mr. Lancer yelled. Much to most of our amazement, he did not manage to reveal the fact that he was pants-pissingly terrified. "You, uh, deserve a million demerits! You have no school spirit! Uh, your mother wears army boots!"
"He must be suicidal." Sizzle said, as she called upon her mastery of heat and lifted Valerie's body a few inches off the ground as she started floating over the water.
"Uh…your parents must be VERY disappointed in you!"
Sizzle's eyes blazed.
"A SUICIDAL MASOCHIST!" Sizzle yelled, and flew faster…
"HAAAAAAAAAA!" Danny yelled as he dove down from above, slamming into Sizzle's back and driving both of them into the pool with a loud splash.
"The Haunting of Hill House! It worked!" Mr. Lancer said. "Yes! I am so totally tubular!"
Then Mr. Lancer noticed the water was beginning to boil.
"Uh…." Mr. Lancer said, and then ran for it. He figured he's done enough heroics for the next…eon or so.
As the water went from slightly bubbling to full on steaming, and then violently raging like the lord and master of all Jacuzzi's.
Danny burst from the water, flying up to the ceiling, and then dashed to the side as a bolt of flame exploded from the water and flash-fried the section of ceiling where he had just been, as the water in the pool suddenly exploded outward like Moses parting the Red Sea, as Sizzle screamed and fired another line of fire at Danny, and having discovered dumping Sizzle in water wouldn't dampen her flame powers, Danny decided to utilize the Saotome Desperation move. For those who don't watch anime, that move is: run away until you can think of a better plan.
And Danny did, flying into the nearest doorway.
And stopping.
"Huh, girl's locker room." Danny said, as he looked around in what was in normal situations the most forbidden of areas. "Gee, they have a nicer paint job…."
"AAAAAIIIIIYEAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"
The lockers at the end of the room began to explode like they were loaded with dynamite.
"I hate you hormones!" Danny yelled as he flew away from the detonating lockers, dodging shards of red hot metal as he flew out the door, the explosion of fire barely missing him as he landed on the ground. He was starting to get tired, and decided to conserve energy by running for a bit.
"Ok, we've got two down. What's the third number for Danny's combination lock?" Tucker asked his PDA.
WHAT?
"Perhaps this hot soldering iron will refresh your memory!" Tucker said. So how did Tucker get a hot soldering iron, and why didn't he just use it to cut Danny's lock off if he indeed had it? Beats me. I just work here.
IT SHOULD BE 12.
"The age when he first experienced the dreaded Rear Admiral. Danny always was a masochist." Tucker said, as he spun the lock towards 12. It clicked open. "Ah, my momma didn't raise no fool!"
I DID ALL THE WORK.
"Oh look, a PDA on the floor to be conveniently stepped on, now what was that?"
NOTHING. NOTHING AT ALL.
It didn't take long for Tucker to find the Fenton Ghost Incapacitator, and he gave a happy laugh as he did so.
"Now to find Danny!" He said as he stood up, and closed the locker door.
And found Danny standing right behind it.
"GUAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"Dude, what are you doing there?" Tucker panted.
"Funny, I was going to ask who was stupid enough to be committing locker robberies when there's a nutso fire spirit running around the school! Then AGAIN…"
"Ah quiet man! I…"
"CHHHHHHHAAYYYYYYYYHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The wall at the end of the hallway, which Tucker and Danny were about a third of the way down, exploded outward as a massive fireball flew through it.
Tucker froze stock still at his impending death.
Then Danny reminded him he could move by grabbing him and pulling him to the ground, the fireball wooshing a foot above their heads and giving poor Danny a nasty first degree burn on his cheek as it flew down the hallway and exploded against the far wall, blowing another hole to the outside.
"Danny, why didn't we just go intal?" Tucker complained as Danny frantically got up, dragging Tucker with him.
"I'm worn out! Need some time to rest! Can't do it!"
"Then fly us out of here!"
"Can't do that either!"
"Oh really…" Said a voice at the end of the hallway.
The two boy's faces turned towards Sizzle's form, standing in the hole she had just made. Then they looked at each other in horror.
Sizzle raised her hand…
"RUN." Danny said.
And snapped her fingers.
The lockers right next to her exploded as Danny and Tucker took off at a sprint, each set of lockers promptly following in suit, explosions filling the hallway behind them as Danny and Tucker ran for their lives. In the process, Tucker dropped his PDA.
MOMMY, I'VE FALLEN AND I CAN'T GET UP. The Screen said, and then the poor thing was blown to bits.
The two boys ran, really understanding the concept of tunnel vision, as everything fell away from their sight except the hole that would save them, even as the lockers continued to detonate behind them, catching up to their forms, the flames hungrily reaching for an appetizer of white and dark meat (sorry if that sounds racist…)…
"AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" The two boys yelled as they dove forward and out the hole, the fire flash consuming the air above them half a second later, even as a second explosion knocked them forward and sent them tumbling forward a dozen more feet, as smoking bits of bricks and mortar rained down around them.
For a moment the two boys lay there, gasping.
"That's it. I am off action movies, FOREVER." Tucker vowed.
"Me too. I'll stick with Cannes." Danny replied, as the two got up. Tucker was about to stagger away when he recalled the whole reason he was in the school. "Danny! I…"
A line of flame thirty feet long and a foot wide slashed down on the ground between the two, throwing Tucker backwards with a cry. Danny would have made his own noise, except the line didn't just stop at striking the ground: it curled around and suddenly was circling around Danny, and before he knew it he was trapped as the fiery rope drew tight, pinning his arms to his side. He screamed as it burned him.
"Damn you BOY…" Sizzle growled as she stepped out, the other end of the line extending from the top of her right hand. "DAMN YOU!"
And the line coiled up and then lashed down, slamming Danny into the ground and adding to his pain.
"WHY! CAN'T! YOU! JUST! DIE!" Sizzle snarled, punctuating each word with a ground slam, and then she reeled the battered and burned Danny in so she was face to face with him, even as she lifted her left hand as flames enveloped it.
"I'm going to boil out your eyes." She said.
Danny's eyes fired blasts of ectoplasmic power, slamming into Sizzle's face and knocking her backwards, her flame rope dissipating. Danny whirled back into the air, his flight powers back "on line", and swooped down.
"SORRY VALERIE!"
Danny's foot slammed into Valerie's stomach, knocking the wind out of Sizzle as Danny spun over her form. Sizzle turned, her hand awash in flame, but it was Danny's hands that made the first move, as he slammed a left hook, then a right hook across Valerie's face, and then laced his fists together and did a double-fist uppercut that smashed across Valerie's face and sent her flying through the air, crashing down a few dozen feet away.
"I'll make it all up to you somehow. I swear." Danny said, as he flew after her.
Sizzle's hand, from where she was laying, clamped down onto the grass underneath her palm, and the thin plant follicles instantly vanished, as well as the topsoil beneath it, as Sizzle looked up at the approaching Danny Phantom who would not die and kept protecting his fellows and who had touched her AGAIN…
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The fire exploded from all around Sizzle, as if Vesuvius had been reborn on top of her and decided that it wanted to out-do Pompeii, an unholy eruption of flaming wrath that vaporized the ground for fifteen feet surrounding her and vomited out a massive storm of arcing fireballs. Danny Phantom barely escaped being reduced to nothing by the original upward eruption, only to have one of those fireballs slam into him and blow him out of the sky.
"RUN!" Sam screamed, as the students scattered under the onslaught of flame, the spheres arcing down and detonating wherever they landed, blowing holes in Casper High and the field and road around it. Fireballs landed in the nearby parking lot and sent off a chain reaction of explosions as the vehicles blasted and burned, even as students ran for their lives, the fact that they were moving targets seeming to be enough…
It's siren screaming, a fire engine was finally pulling up, until one of Sizzle's flame bombs came down on top of it, exploding the rows of hose and causing the truck to lurch crazily to the side and then overturn, falling down on its flank as fireman spilled out like ten pins. Two police cars that were right behind it crashed into the underside, and a few seconds later the whole pile exploded, throwing the firemen and police officers through the air and slicing them up with shrapnel.
Squealing, a second fire engine fought to avoid crashing into the pileup, as the driver yanked the wheel hard to the side and plowed onto the school grounds, it's huge wheels throwing up clumps of dirt and grass, as the driver slammed on the brake before he could accidentally run over any of the remaining students, and he set the stick, opened the door and started climbing out.
And found himself staring at a young black girl…whose eyes happened to be on fire.
And then his truck exploded out from under himself, Sizzle blowing the gas tank and lifting the truck straight up, even as the whiplash movement threw the driver away, as the truck tipped up and then fell over onto its back like a fallen beast from biblical times.
It also happened to fall right in front of Danny, who was trying to get up, holding his burned chest, as he stared at the huge truck, and then his eyes were fixed to one spot as the red paint of the truck suddenly became the glowing red of molten metal, and then a hole appeared and Sizzle walked out, having literally walked right through the vehicle, melting her way through the steel structure like it was made of jello.
"Enough fucking around." Sizzle said, as she raised her hand. "Start screaming."
Danny screamed all right: screamed a battle cry as he flew forward before Sizzle could attack, grabbing her by her front and jamming his foot into her chest as he rolled/pulled backwards, throwing Sizzle over his head and into the air. He was sure she (or rather, her host) would either stop the fall or survive the landing though, and Danny's mind raced furiously as he tried to think of something, ANYTHING, even as Sizzle's host body put on the brakes a few seconds before it landed and flipped over so its feet were on the ground.
"DANNY!"
Danny's head jerked at the sound of Tucker's voice, as his friend, his clothes covered in soot, ran up to him.
"Tucker get out…!"
"Danny, I brought the Incapacitator! Use it!" Tucker said, as he finally got back to Danny after all the chaos that had just happened, as he tossed the hand-held neutralizer at Danny.
A loud growl got Danny's attention even as he grabbed the device, and he turned his head back to Sizzle, whose eyes were fixed on Tucker, as Tucker quickly became aware he had awakened Sizzle's ire towards his person.
"You help him?" Sizzle growled. "Then I'll show you black jungleberry!"
And Sizzle snapped out her arm and fired a huge fireball at Tucker.
For the second time in ten minutes, Tucker saw his impending death, and this time, Danny was too far away to shove him away…
"NOOOOOOO!" Danny screamed.
And then Sam was there, violently shoving Tucker to the side as the fireball encroached on her being, and if Danny hadn't just screamed, he would have screamed even LOUDER as the fireball struck Sam and she vanished in the explosion.
"Oh no…Sam…why did…" Danny stammered, as Tucker looked at the spot where Sam had stood, the spot where he would have been standing if not for her…
The smoke cleared.
Sam was revealed, her arms crossed before her and her body coiled up in the posture of the defensive, but she was unharmed, as she uncrossed her arms and looked at herself for a second, and then she looked at Sizzle, who looked utterly furious at this.
"Your fire can't hurt females. That's the observation I got from talking with Danny. So I figured I'd use that." Sam said, even though there was an undertone to her voice that indicated she couldn't believe it had worked.
"TRAITOR!" Sizzle screamed.
"Lunatic." Sam replied. "DANNY!"
"WAY AHEAD OF YOU!" Danny yelled as he stood up and aimed the Incapacitator. Sizzle's eyes snapped to him.
"NO! NOT AGAIN!"
Danny fired the Incapacitator.
And Sizzle shot from the hip, a needle of flame that lanced out from her hand and struck the weapon, blowing it up in Danny's hand as he reared back and yelled at the sudden pain…
Even as the blue bolt struck Valerie in the forehead.
She went down like a ton of bricks.
For a moment, there was silence, as scattered students, firemen, and policemen, who a moment ago had been trying to make some distance between them and the site, suddenly stopped at the silence and turned to look.
Screaming, Sizzle pulled herself from Valerie's body, and the witnesses resumed their running, deciding that hanging around had been a bad idea, because now they were seeing things, they HAD to be seeing things…even as Sizzle floated up, her now flaming visage alight with rage.
"GOD DAMN YOU!" she screamed, as she slammed her hands together, and fire gushed forth from them, aiming right at the three and showing she didn't need a host to generate flame, but Danny was there, as he flew between Sizzle and his friends and countered with a two handed EE blast. The twin blasts slammed into each other and a war of dominance raged for a few seconds before the blasts finally just detonated in the middle, throwing Danny backwards and sending him down in a heap with his friends while Sizzle was pushed back herself. Danny scrambled back up, at the ready, even as Sizzle looked at the still living boy, and her rage grew ever deeper, even as the fire on and around her torso and head leapt higher and fiercer to reflect her anger.
"I will burn your life, and everything in it." Sizzle said, and then she coiled in on herself and vanished in a wisp of smoke.
Silence.
The fires went out.
And Danny collapsed, utterly exhausted, as the circles re-appeared and returned him to normal. He coughed violently and for a moment was worried he was going to vomit, but he didn't. A small comfort.
"Danny!"
And then Sam and Tucker were there, trying to help, even as Tucker offered him a bottle of water he had kept somewhere, and even as Danny gazed bleary eyed at the spot where Sizzle had been, and at the ruins around him, and he wondered if he had accomplished anything at all today.
Except the fact that when Sizzle showed up again, she'd be madder then ever.
"Danny! You're ok!" Maddie Fenton said as the door opened and Danny Fenton walked in, trying extremely hard to hide the fact he was on the verge of total collapse, as his mother got up from where she was sitting at the table, during which she had been making frantic phone calls for the past two hours trying to locate her son in the chaos that was Casper High, ran over to him, and grabbed him in the way only relieved mothers can.
"Hey mom…" Danny said lamely as she hugged him: normally he would have protested but after today it felt good. "I still need air."
"Danny? What in the name of the spirit of St. Louis happened?" Came a familiar voice, as his father came in from another room. "I turn on the TV and there's all this pandemonium at your school and I drive there and you're nowhere to be found and there's fire trucks and police cars everywhere…it was a ghost, wasn't it? That same ghost that was here yesterday!" Jack said, his eyes alight with the fervor that he entered whenever the supernatural seemed to be close.
This time though, he wasn't going to get anywhere.
"JACK FENTON." Maddie snapped, cutting her husband off before he could get started. "Danny looks like he's been through hell, so please honey, GIVE IT A REST FOR NOW!"
Jack looked stunned.
"Right. Sorry son, Maddie." He said, as Maddie led Danny over to a couch, which he sat down gratefully on.
"Danny, what happened? Where were you? I was calling everywhere, I even called the MORGUE, and a mother…"
"Sorry Mom…I don't know. That ghost…she showed up again, attacked the school, I don't know why, and then that white haired ghost showed up and fought with her, and I had brought the Incapacitator prototype for protection and I decided to help him because he saved Jazz but there was fire everywhere and running and screaming and…but I'm ok." Danny said. "That white haired ghost saved all our butts."
"Yes, he's a strange one. Almost makes me want to stop hunting him. Almost." Jack said.
(In case you were wondering, Danny didn't call himself Inviso-bill because he wanted the nickname to die, and after a comment by Jazz to her parents back when they more believed that Danny was a bad guy that their so called white haired enemy didn't look like a Bill, Jack and Maddie had strangely agreed and tried to decide on a new name for Danny's ghost self. They had yet to think of one though, so mostly they just called him "the white-haired ghost". Indeed, several subtle comments by Jazz had caused Danny's parents' attitude toward his ghost self to change: even his mother now regarded him with more wary suspicion then outright aggresiveness. If Danny wasn't a straight C student, he might have picked up on the fact that this pretty much proved Jazz knew who he was and was doing her best to help him from the sidelines. It wasn't a fully won battle yet, but it was better then the days after Walker's attack. It made him think briefly of Wulf: he hadn't seen the lupine spirit since the incident, and he'd looked. He hoped he was all right, but for now, he had to focus on his latest, and much bigger problem...after he got some sleep...)
"Danny…are you sure you're all right?" Maddie asked.
No, actually, if you saw me in my Halfa form and how it really is a Halfa now because the half of my body that isn't burned is bruised, you'd know I'm not all right, but my Halfa injuries don't carry over to my normal form and they seem to heal faster when my Halfa form is in "storage" but still I'd rather not go ghost for a bit…say a month, because while my wounds don't carry over my exhaustion sure does…
"I'm ok Mom. I just want some sleep. Dad, please…could I give you a report later?" Danny said, his eyes pleading, and even that look was enough to get around Jack Fenton's fanaticism.
"Sure Danny. You rest. If you need anything, just call." Jack said, as Danny gratefully got up and headed for the stairs.
Jack watched him go, his concerned look gradually hardening into determination.
"Jack…" Maddie said, as she looked at her husband, her eyes mirroring his.
"The new Thermos is finished. I think I'll give it to Danny to take with him tomorrow, he seems to run into the white haired ghost a lot. He can hand it over. As for this whole situation…I salvaged all the gear from my lab that I could. And then there's our…new project…Maddie, remember how our original plan was to finish polishing it up over the course of this week?"
"Yes."
"You think we can finish it tonight?"
"If I have to turn back all the clocks in town." Maddie said, as she pulled her hood up.
"You know Maddie, I know at times I act positively child-like when it comes to ghosts, but I always figured that we'd eventually run into a hostile one. I thought the white haired one was hostile, you did too...butthose conflicting reports and those so called experts...well, now I'm not so sure.But I have no doubts on this ghost: it's hostile. It's beyond hostile. It's mad. And it clearly just wants to make war. Well Maddie, if some spirit wants to come through my gateway, threaten my family, raze my town, and wanting to play war, then it will find that Jack Fenton is ready to shoot off more then his big fat mouth!" Jack said, as he stomped out of the room, Maddie following as they prepared for a long night.
So was Danny, as he made his way up the stairs and managed a few more steps before his vision blurred and he started to stumble. He was vaguely aware of a door opening.
"Danny!" Came Jazz's voice, and then his sister was there. "Are you ok?"
"Just…need rest…" He whispered.
"Oh Danny…" Jazz said, looking at her exhausted brother, her heart going out for what he had sacrificed. "It's ok. You can rest now. You've done enough for today." She said as she went around him, slipped her head under his shoulder, and began helping him to his room.
"Darn straight." Danny said, his mind fading already.
"Just relax…relax…" Jazz said, as she opened the door to Danny's room, which was dark and had its shades drawn, but enough light spilled in from the hallway so she could see the bed, as she somewhat helped/mostly carried Danny to his bed and laid him down.
"You need anything?" She asked. Danny just muttered: he was already dozing off. "Ok."
And Jazz quietly left the room, shutting the door behind her.
Danny muttered happily as his brain recognized it was going to finally get to sleep…
And then his bedside light turned on.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Danny screamed, going from dead in the water to full fledged rapids, to coin a metaphor, as he jerked up at the suddenness, his body tangling in his bedsheets, as he tried to turn and defend and attack and…
Stop, confused, looking at what was at the desk next to his bed.
A white line. A floating white line of energy.
A white line he followed back to a hand, which was attached to a white haired and garbed teenager who was sitting in the corner on a chair, where he had been sitting in the dark for who knew how long, and even as Danny goggled at this strange sight he realized the stranger wasn't alone: next to him was a female in a long purple robe, the top pulled up to shadow her face in a beak-headed cowl.
"Daniel Fenton?" Savior asked.
"Huh?" Danny said, looking at the two, as Savior got up and walked over to the bed.
"I'm Savior. That's Raven. We're the Teen Titans." Savior said seriously. "And as Arnold once said, come with us if you want to live."
