Chapter 19: Hellfire and Brimstone
"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee."
Ezekiel 25:17"Hemingway once wrote, 'The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.' I believe in the second part."
Detective Somerset, Seven
Evil…
…cannot exist without good…
Endgame. Last round. Down to the wire. Check and mate. Bottom of the Ninth. Golden Goal time. The world is watching.
Vlad Masters' nose was almost touching the crystal orb on which he had observed everything since he removed himself from the proceedings. How he had gotten this close to the orb, like a child watching television, he did not know or care: he is utterly absorbed in all he has seen. Danny's second return, his raging battle against Flammadea in which he should have perished a thousand times over and yet did not until now, seemingly, finally, and just when Vlad had finally allowed himself to relax and decide that everything was well again, here came something even worse then the inklings that had plagued Vlad for the past few dozen minutes, the fact that the last stand was being made by someone so inappropriate. Even the fact that he was surely doomed did not bring comfort to the fact that here was the last one you'd expect, of all times and above all NOW…
The bar was utterly silent: the ghosts had long stopped making bets, arguing, making comments, speaking among themselves, or making any noise at all. They cannot, not with what they had witnessed. It had been as if the reality they had grown to accept had been yanked out from under them, and after so long in that confusion, not knowing which way was up any more, when the reality they knew had seemingly reasserted itself and when things seemed stable again…here came something out of left field. None of the ghosts knew what to say, so they just watched, and waited. Perhaps some might have pondered the obvious, but the obvious had held no sway at all in this little drama that was ending its last act, and by now the ghosts had accepted the possibility that anything could happen…
J'onn J'onzz was furiously trying to re-position another satellite above Amity Park, needing the device to properly aim the fusion cannon shot if it indeed became necessary, and needing it to see in close as well. In his current situation, with his original satellite shattered by an eruption of pure evil masquerading as fire, he could only see the Earth itself, his adoptive home, not Mars, filled with strangeness and inconsistencies and outright horrors the Martian people had never conceived of, and yet something J'onn wished to protect, something he would have gone down to protect at this very moment if he could, but as it had been said, his species was useless in the face of fire, for good reason, and in the horrible timing such events had, there was no one on the Watchtower that could be sent down that could do more then present themselves as new targets for the unholy wrath J'onn only vaguely knows. And he knew that there were those who were willing. But he would not senselessly sacrifice teammates, not now. So all he could do was type on his control panel and hope that those who had been part of the situation could settle it before it was forcibly settled for him, and them…
And around the world…there were those who were aware of the situation, in varying degrees. Several governments had begun to notice the strange atmospheric anomaly that had appeared above the United States of America. Other pyrokinetics, on both sides of the moral compass, sensed strange feelings within their bodies: some, like the females known as Fire, Firebrand, Spitfire, and Firecracker (notice a theme?), wondered if they were experiencing some kind of vacillation in their forms that was their power's equivalent to PMS: others, like the female Volcana and the mysterious Brimstone, just noticed it and dismissed it as some strange quirk of their abilities. Minor spellcasters and magicians noted ripples and fluctuations in several mystical fields, uncertain of just what these oddities foretold. Indeed, the one who knew the most was one who knew the least, in magickal abilities anyway: Llarenes Morath, a minor sorceress specializing in bad luck, known to the world mostly as Jinx, a member of the Troika, the trio of teenagers from the troublesome H.I.V.E organization…a teenager who has been struggling with unresolved feelings for some time towards a certain man, a man that had gone to Amity Park for this mission and found himself trapped in a circle of hell. She originally cast the spell to know what the man known as Cyborg was doing, perhaps to help sort out her emotions, and yet she had found herself witnessing, in bits and pieces, a battle that could decide the fate of the world. It both scared her in its power and intensity and humbled her in the fact that Cyborg had gone to face such danger, with such little help. Tough moral questions of whether she could ever do something like that, at least not without a great deal of backup were for the moment unconsidered: she was far too afraid that she had seen the last of the metal teenager. But she did not know for sure, so she sat in her room, within the circle of power she made, her eyes closed, as images randomly flashed to her like a distorted picture show from hell, and waited to see if Cyborg, or anyone else, would live or die.
And somewhere else, in a T-shaped tower…Robin had an odd feeling of foreboding, like he was missing out on something. Perhaps he should hail Noel and see what was going on…
Yes, in more then a few ways, the world was watching…So what are YOU doing here, Jack Fenton?
A question that no one could answer, not even Jack Fenton himself, if he had been actually asked. At least, he could not give a satisfying, settled answer, but then again, that had been the case for most of Jack Fenton's life.
He had been fascinated by ghosts almost from the moment he could comprehend the world, though he could not recall what it was, a book, perhaps a movie or TV show, or maybe even a youth-forgotten encounter with the supernatural, that had sparked the interest/obsession that had grown to define his life. But he could remember the first time someone shot it down: he had been six, and he had been certain a ghost lived in the arts closet of his kindergarten class. His teacher, a sour faced female who probably shouldn't have been teaching young children, for a variety of reasons that were unimportant and irrelevant now, had sternly informed him that there were no such things as ghosts, and that the missing crayons had other, more normal explanations. When he had persisted, she had nicely but firmly told him to shut up.
(On a side note, Jack had returned to the school when he was 23 to investigate more fully, only to find the building had been torn down when he had been occupied with other events in his life. A pity…)
She wouldn't be the first one to tell him that he was a fool, that ghosts didn't exist, that he maybe even mildly insane for his viewpoint, but Jack had never wavered in his belief. Most people considered, on top of the ghost thing, for him to be not all that bright, and he had to admit, he tended to focus on such a narrow spectrum of things that it could come off that he was a dunce, though he never told anyone about that fact: those who cared for him didn't need to know and he could care less about those who didn't care for him. But Jack knew that in modern times, it was easy to lose faith in things you once held important and seize on trivial matters like they were the greatest quests in life. Jack had his belief, and his quest: he would find ghosts, if necessary hunt them and take them down (he expected that to be the primary need) and then study them. He had been blessed with a mate who shared his passion, and a family he was sure would come around eventually, and he never wavered. Oh sure, there had been a few casualties (Vladdie came to mind. But Jack was sure that he could win him back eventually. After all, true friendship never died!), but none that had ever made him question if his life was indeed a waste of time.
No matter how many people told him ghosts didn't exist. Even though he hadn't had any hard proof for nearly his entire life. Even when his own DAUGHTER was lecturing him from her psyche texts and telling him he was mentally damaging her and his son. Many men would have had doubts, maybe even crises of faith, but Jack held fast to what he believed. He built the Fenton Ghost Portal, the Fenton Thermos, and everything else alongside Maddie with the surefire belief that one day his perspective would be realized as true.
And then, it had happened. He'd finally seen a real ghost (never realizing it was his own son), and it had snowballed from there, eventually climaxing in the massive ghost attack on Amity Park. It seemed like everything had finally come up roses for Jack Fenton. Now everyone shared his belief in ghosts, and he and Maddie had credibility, not to mention a clear target: the evil ghost boy Inviso-Bill.
And then, much like now…it had all gone to hell.
The ruckus raised by the ghost attack had attracted the attention of some so-called experts…but Jack knew what they were from the moment he met them: elitists. They were not believers like him: they were arrogant smarmy craven opportunists who demonstrated their so-called expertise by tearing down the foundations of everyone else who had an opinion that was not theirs, distorting the truth and the studies until Jack's claims, the things he had witnessed with his own eyes, things OTHERS had seen, looked like mad, foolish obsessions…much like everyone had always claimed them to be.
The people of Amity Park didn't have a chance: raised to believe in a reality that had vanished around them, and hardly any of them possessing the mental acumen to adapt to that collapse, they had quickly seized on the 'experts' studies and conclusions, that there had been no ghosts, it had been some kind of gas leak, or bad food, or a bad dream they had all somehow shared. Hell, most of them would have probably accepted the possibility it was all an illusion beamed into their head by a satellite from space…because after all, as ludicrous as that was, it seemed more feasible then believing ghosts existed, didn't it?
But Jack Fenton refused to be humiliated, and he refused to let his views be compromised, even if all his support had quickly abandoned him. He had put on a happy face for the experts while he and Maddie had quietly schemed to get them out of town as soon as possible, a relatively easy task: snobs like them always saw small cities as below them, overflowing with hicks, the equivalent of reading See Spot Run when they had to be reading the latest overlarge tomb of quantum physics theories, because they were intellectual giants and had to look it for the world…in any case, Jack had gotten rid of them. Deciding that devoting his energy to re-convincing the townfolk that they had indeed seen ghosts would be a waste of time, he and Maddie had thrown themselves into the last thing they believed in: the capture of the evil ghost Inviso-bill. They would do their job, the town could either fall in line or keep their heads buried in the sand. Most preferred the latter. It was what they did best. Well, let them believe what they wanted. Jack has his own beliefs.
And then…even they started to be challenged.
Oh sure, Inviso-bill didn't disappoint in his showing up and causing trouble…until Jazz had pointed out several strange coincidences. Inviso-bill never showed up to cause trouble by himself: there was ALWAYS something else around, some other kind of ghost or spirit. Jack had theorized that Inviso-bill had many ghost partners…and then Jazz had pointed out that if they were all Inviso-bill's partners, why was he always fighting with them? Jack had no answer to that, and surprisingly, neither did Maddie, who was even more determined to capture Inviso-bill then he was. Jazz had suggested that maybe they had read Inviso-bill wrong. Jack and Maddie had scoffed at that: look at the proof! He was always there when there was trouble, causing property damage and…getting in the way to prevent humans from being hurt if they came into the line of fire. And…never coming after Jack or Maddie: in fact he seemed to try and avoid them, and considering how much trouble they gave him, Jack would expect some kind of counterattack on their selves, which never came: the worst he would do would be to distract them or disarm them. And…doing other things that clashed with the whole "evil ghost boy" label. In fact, when Jack took several tapes and compared Inviso-bill's exploits…there wasn't much of an evil vibe at all. More of…the opposite.
Jack hadn't completely changed his opinions though: ghosts were inhuman creatures not of this world, after all. Inviso-bill could just be misjudged…or he could be planning some grand Machiavellian scheme that had ensnared Jazz. But he never got any readings of evil ghost energy from his daughter, so if she was indeed being controlled by something, it was beyond his ability to read, and he knew something like that was impossible. Jazz's opinions were her own, and it appeared they might even be accurate.
Even so, he kept on his toes. Just because he held strong onto his views didn't mean he was a blind zealot. He and Maddie had dialed down their aggression towards Inviso-bill, regarding him more with wariness then hostility. They had even stopped referring to him as Inviso-bill, on the grounds that Jazz didn't think he looked like a Bill, instead referring to him as "that white haired ghost/kid". But Jack never stopped being cautious: the second Inviso-bill/White haired ghost kid who Jack and Maddie really needed to think of a new name for showed his true colors (hence proving he had been deceiving them all along), Maddie and he would take him down, once and for all.
But that never happened.
Instead, something else had come to Amity Park. Something so angry and violent and vengeful that even now Jack Fenton could barely comprehend it. Something that made Inviso-bill look like a choirboy…an opinion that Jack Fenton had actually adapted. It had taken him some time to wake up after his vehicle had crashed, and even longer to flip the Fenton RV back on it's side…a task made considerably more difficult then it already was due to the fact that his town was being blasted apart around him. How Jack Fenton had escaped being barbequed by the falling fireballs, wayward fire blasts, the endless explosions and collapsing buildings, and not to mention the fire behemoth that had treated Amity Park like its own personal Tokyo, he didn't know. But he had. In the process, he'd managed to get the Fenton RV, via chains and built in jacks, back on its wheels. Maddie and Jazz were inside, in special "protection" capsules that were actually part of an escape system that Jack hadn't fully activated. The special metal the Fentons had acquired several months ago had gone on two places: the armor for the now gone F.U.M.B.L.E and as the shielding in the capsules. It would take a few hundred pounds of TNT to rupture them. As for why Jack Fenton hadn't completed the escape procedure and ejected the capsules, he didn't trust that they wouldn't end up beneath a collapsed building or in another buried-alive situation, considering the state of ruin around him. And he didn't have time to drive out of town to put them in a safe place. So in the Fenton RV they were, his wife and daughter's blank expressions still fresh in Jack's mind, their souls stolen by a force that was malevolent beyond Jack's wildest nightmares.
And Inviso-bill had fought her. For a town that he owed nothing, for people who at first feared him and then denied him, he'd fought, fought with more fury and determination then anything Jack had ever seen. Even against a power that kept proving itself his superior, he never backed down, not in the slightest. He had fought all the way to the bitter end.
What are you doing here, Jack Fenton?
Maybe Jack couldn't answer that question, but he knew the answer to another. He had to stop this psychotic fire spirit. Not just because it was his life's quest, to seek out ghosts and battle them if it came to it…but also because he owed it to the white haired ghost. No matter his previous motivations, in the end Inviso-bill, or whatever his name was, had displayed a nobility so shining that even Maddie wouldn't have been able to ignore it. He'd died for Amity Park, fighting all the way down…and now no one was left to stop this fire spirit. No one except him.
And he'd tried. He'd activated every weapon on the Fenton RV and emptied all their power cells, projectile ammo, or whatever they used into the fire spirit, while Jack had jumped out with the Fenton Bazooka, newly modified to fire powerful spectral harming blasts as well as open up holes to the Ghost Zone (and in the heat of the moment, why Jack Fenton didn't try that feature was lost to time. Perhaps he felt it wouldn't work). He fired until the Bazooka had overheated and he'd had to stop to let it cool, watching the cloud of smoke…a smoke cloud that had produced the fire spirit, not harmed in the slightest…and looking mad as hell that its battle for supremacy had not yet ended.
And if the ghost could defeat four members of the world famous Teen Titans, and then overcome such a powerful will as the one the white haired ghost had demonstrated, and then take all those shots in the back, after all the effort needed and expended for its previous two victories, and come out unharmed…then that interrupted ending seemed destined to be very short.
Jack Fenton was afraid. But he did not let the fear control him. Whatever people might say of him…he was not a coward.
Though, as Flammadea looked down upon Jack Fenton with furious eyes, not believing that A) This idiot was the last stand, and B) He'd actually shot her and hurt her a bit, and C) She STILL hadn't claimed total victory…he might soon not be anything at all.
"…You are under arrest for grand assault, massive property damage, and attempted genocide! Come peacefully!" Jack Fenton found himself saying, as he brought the Bazooka back up.
His words reached Flammadea…and her anger was replaced with amusement at the (to her) preposterous demand. Who did he think she was?
Well, she'd show him. One last spot of fun before she got down to the serious business of scouring the world of the male sex.
"Hmmm…let me think…" Flammadea said. "Um…no."
And Flammadea zapped down towards Jack.
Jack didn't blink: he hadn't expected surrender. Unfortunately, the Fenton RV didn't have any more ordnance to be utilized, but Jack was still loaded for bear…though in truth he'd rather be facing A bear, as Flammadea blasted down towards him, even as he lined her up and squeezed the trigger. A blast of green energy flew at Flammadea.
With a short, mocking laugh, she dodged it with ease. If she was trying to discourage Jack, he didn't show it, as he resighted her and fired again. Flammadea again dodged effortlessly, starting to draw in close. Jack aimed and fired, and missed again. Laughing, Flammadea held out her arm as she began forming a flame weapon, even as she finally drew close to the ground, and Jack Fenton…
Dropped the Bazooka, even as he showed scary grace for a man his size as he darted to the size, reaching behind him. Flammadea, still in a headlong downward charge, barely managed to stop before she hit the ground.
As Jack pulled the Fenton Ghost Fisher from behind his back, playing out the line, and even as Flammadea started to turn towards her so-called opponent, he swung it out in a wide horizontal swing. The white line flew perfectly, as it streamed out and wrapped around Flammadea, the silver cord completely entangling her before she realized just what had happened. That was the cost of not taking an opponent seriously: he could spring things on you that you didn't realize the full extent of until it was too late.
And Flammadea found herself suddenly tied up, bound…by a MALE…
Her rage came roaring back, as Flammadea's noise of surprise turned into a howling shriek of fury as she tried to break the line. But the Fenton Ghost Fisher had been well designed: its cable was unbreakable and inescapable to ghosts…
But then again…Flammadea had gone far beyond a normal ghost…
The line snapped/disintegrated after several seconds of Flammadea exerting her power and her rage against it, her arms being freed with another scream, as Flammadea looked for the man who had DARED imprison her when she should have been forever beyond such a possibility ever again…
And found that he hadn't gone far. In fact, he was standing still. He probably had to, to make sure the last of the armor that was appearing over him came on right.
"What the…!"
Jack fired the Fenton Ghost Peeler, and Flammadea screamed as it struck her, and then her body was suddenly ripped apart, her features disappearing as fire was stripped off her like it was an old coat of paint, her body being ripped into a mass of twisting fire strands…
That flared up and swiftly reformed into Flammadea in a second. She did not look happy.
"That hurt…" She growled. "IT HURT!"
"Oh dear." Jack said within the suit. The bad news was, the suit severely limited his movement, which would probably be a bad thing in regards to the fairly large white blast of fire that Flammadea was now shooting at him. The worse news was it would take several more seconds for the armor to completely retract back into the Peeler (that was a curse of having such a large frame), which was several seconds he didn't have.
The good news was, Jack Fenton always had a back door for problems. In this case, literally, as the back of his armor snapped open and Jack stepped out of the suit like he was a snake discarding its skin. He was in mid-leap away from the discarded armor where the fireball blew the Fenton Peeler suit into something more resembling burnt sparkly confetti, but he wasn't thinking of that, as he landed, rolled, and sprang back to his feet. The fire spirit wasn't slowing down, and she was relentless. So he had to be even more so.
Flammadea was turning to face her foe (he had escaped, that she wasn't surprised at, considering the sheer luck his son had, the Irish had had nothing on that bastard boy…) as Jack unhooked something from his belt and threw it at her. It exploded with a bang/pop a few feet from her, as supercompressed goo, the same that made up the Fenton Ghost Glob weapon on the gone Fenton-copter, surged at her, trying to engulf her in its sticky folds.
Flammadea glanced at it, and with a brief flash, the blueish-green color of the ooze turned to black and then disintegrated into wet ash. Far too easy. She was getting bored: time to wrap this up.
Jack wasn't about to be treated like a present though: as Flammadea started for him, he reached behind him again and yanked out the Fenton Ghost Wide Shot, a special one shot cannon that was designed to thwart the possibility of the ghost dodging by firing out an extremely wide blast (which required a lot of power, and hence there was only one shot). Jack didn't have to worry about Flammadea dodging it…not like it mattered: the wide blast didn't even slow her down, as it slammed into her and petered out without even stopping her forward momentum. Jack was already forgetting that weapon as he moved onto the next, drawing twin pistol-like weapons from his sides and opening fire. Flammadea took about fourteen shots before she waved a hand at the weapons and ultra-fast needles of fire tore them from Jack's hands. Flammadea was right in close now: she could see the sweat starting to bead on Jack's face…as he pulled the Fenton Anti-Creep Stick from a leg sheath and swung at Flammadea's head in a downward swing. As you might have guessed, a wooden baseball bat (with the word Fenton on it!) wasn't the best weapon to use on a fire being. Left with only a small part of the sheath after the initial blow, Jack dropped it as he stumbled back, grabbing for his belt. Flammadea was too busy being amused with the whole "hitting fire with wood" situation to stop him from pulling out another grenade and throwing it at her. Thick smoke exploded out from the device, obscuring Jack from Flammadea. She chuckled and utilized a heat trick to call up a windy gust to blow the smoke away.
"Do you really thing you can run…"
And then a metal fist swung from the smoke.
"WHO SAID I WAS RUNNING!"
The Fenton Ghost Glove slammed into Flammadea, sending her flying backwards as she had been completely unprepared for it. Flammadea hit the ground, in utter disbelief, and then her eyes widened as Jack Fenton was in the air, coming down towards her. She turned into a fire stream and flowed away from the blow as it came down on the ground, punching yet another hole in Amity Park's extremely battered streets (and that extremely battered state might have had more to do with the creation of the hole then Jack Fenton's actual strength). Flammadea reformed and looked at Jack, who has his dukes up like a classic 30's boxer.
"Come on! You want to destroy this town? You go through me!" Jack snapped.
He really should have stopped talking. His taunts and demands tended to make Flammadea amused, interrupting her anger. And her anger might have guaranteed him a quick death. Her amusement on the other hand…
"Oh?"
Jack Fenton suddenly found his hands burning, and he yelled and reared back as his Ghost Gloves heated up, glowing red on the outside. Jack managed to yank his hands out before little more then patchwork first-degree burns could result. As his melting gauntlets fell before him, Flammadea chuckled.
"You suffer Jack Fenton." She said. "Suffer from unwarranted delusions of grandeur."
And she fired twin fireballs from her eyes. Not AT him though, at the ground before him, the explosion sending him tumbling back like a rag doll. Flammadea sighed in the way people do when they realize a good time is coming to an end and they don't want it to, but it must.
Jack sat up from where he was, shaking his head with a mild groan. Those gloves had been his last offensive weapon, and now all he had…was the Fenton Bazooka lying a few feet from him. Jack took another second to recover and then dove for the weapon, rolling up and snatching it at the same time, the Fenton RV looming behind him again as he aimed at Flammadea, who had started for him once more. She didn't much seem to care he had retrieved something that could mount another offensive. That should have been an indication.
Not for Jack Fenton.
He fired. The green blast flew out and struck Flammadea, her form briefly vanishing in the explosion and then returning to sight as she continued walking on from where she had been blasted.
Jack fired again. The blast flew true, but once again had no effect. Jack refused to relent. Explosion after explosion erupted on the ground as Flammadea was shot but not stopped, as she got closer and closer to Jack.
She was five feet from him when Jack finally panicked, just a bit, and dropped his weapon's barrel down a tad as he reached to a dial on his bazooka, grabbing the power switch and turning it up as far as he could, past all the safety protocols, right into the red, and as he got the gun back up and straight Flammadea was right in front of him.
It was a good thing that Jack had a large frame and that the Bazooka had no kickback: the resulting blast/explosion that came when he shot Flammadea at point blank range would have tossed him ass over elbows backwards otherwise. The high power blast caused the Bazooka to overheat again, and unable to hold it, Jack dropped it to his side, coughing on the dust cloud his weapon had kicked up…
As it blew away, revealing an unmarred Flammadea.
Jack gaped at her.
"If you honestly thought that would work…" Flammadea said. "You haven't been reading the story close enough."
Flammadea's backhand was as light as she could make it: it still threw Jack backwards like he'd been hit by an 18-wheeler, not to mention the fact it burned a hole in his outfit and seared his chest. His backwards trip stopped just before he struck the Fenton RV, and he tried to recover, as Flammadea smirked again and held her hand out to her side. She'd had enough. Time to burn and then turn, to the task of more burning anyway, as white fire erupted on her hand. Jack managed to get up.
And Flammadea lanced at him. She wanted to see the look in his eyes just before she vaporized him.
She thrust back her hand.
As Jack yanked his last device from his belt and held it out.
It rather looked like the Fenton Ghost Incapacitator, except it was bulkier and didn't have as clear of a 'weapon' look to it. Because it wasn't a weapon. It was a defense mechanism.
And as Flammadea thrust out her hand to fire, Jack activated it.
As Flammadea found herself firing her blast right into a mini version of the shield that had surrounded the Fenton-copter, protecting it from Danny's ectoblasts among other things. After all, chances were the Fentons had started small and worked their way up when designing such a shield, right?
But what Jack Fenton had was only a prototype. As such, the incredible blast Flammadea directed at it blew it out immediately, and didn't even block all the power behind the shot, as Jack was thrown backwards again, against the side of the Fenton RV, the back of his skull slamming against the metal as strange colors exploded in his vision.
But it worked well enough to deliver the nastiest effect of the shield.
Whatever was fired into it…was returned. Threefold.
The backlash sent Flammadea into the sky like she'd been shot out of a cannon, out of control. She only managed to regain herself when she was a few hundred feet away and several stories above the ground.
Jack tried to regain his senses, even as part of him wondered why. It was over. He was out of any and all weapons. And he hadn't even bothered Flammadea.
In a physical sense anyway. Emotionally…
"YOU…" She hissed, once again enraged. "YOU….YOU BASTARD!"
And Flammadea thrust her hands out before her. Fire exploded between her palms, going from red to white to blue within a second. She'd had enough of Amity Park. With this blast, she'd turn it, and the last man standing, into nothingness.
Tucker Foley was torn. He wasn't sure if he should be grateful if he was alive, or curse the fact that he wasn't dead.
The Titans had given him good protection in their hastily constructed rock shield, but not enough to completely guard against the Armageddon that had erupted from the final war between the Titans and Danny and the fire spirit now called Flammadea. Eventually, his rock fortress had been battered open by something or other (fortunately Tucker had not been battered with it), and upon deciding that staying put might not be a good idea in a now halfway knocked down mini-fortress, he had pushed his way out…
And found Amity Park in ruins. It seemed like every second building had been knocked down, fires were burning everywhere, and the Titans and Danny were nowhere in sight. What had happened? He'd been awake for nearly twenty minutes (most of them spent in the rock stronghold the Titans had made for him) and he still didn't know. The last thing he remembered before everything had gone black was a horrible voice saying "Wrong" and then…
Hell.
He didn't know what to do, where to go, what to think. So he just pressed on, hoping a building didn't fall on him or the street didn't collapse under him or the fireballs raining down on his ruined city didn't land on him or he didn't attract the attention of something bad who would want to finish the job of whatever had been done to him that had called for him to be placed in that rock prison for his own assumed safety…
So you can't blame him for not expecting anything good.
"Tucker?"
Considering all the noise Tucker had been hearing beforehand, it was amazing there was now enough quiet for Tucker to hear the hesitant voice. He glanced to the side…and to his utter amazement, saw Samantha Manson crawling around a pile of wreckage half blocking an alleyway.
"Sam?" He said incredulously.
"Tuck…you're ok…but…" Samantha said, and then realized that if Tucker wasn't hideously burned, the Titans had probably fixed him up, the healer Raven anyway, and since he seemed more shocked to see her then scared, maybe it would be better not to tell him that Sizzle/Flammadea had used him, through Sam as a host, to do her best impression of a wicker man.
"You're ok!" She interrupted/finished. Tucker didn't pick up on the subtle stop: thank god for some small favors.
"Sam…I mean…what happened?" Tucker said, as he looked around on the ruined street.
"Sizzle did. She…oh geez, so much…" Sam said, as she stumbled towards Tucker (noting how strange he looked without his beret), and then she tripped and stumbled forward. Good old Tucker was quick on his reaction time though, and caught her.
"Where's Danny?" She asked, and coughed.
"I…I don't know." Tucker said.
And then motion caught his eyes.
Normally, tall buildings would have blocked the sight, but Amity Park didn't have many tall buildings left. So Tucker got a clear view as Flammadea completed her trip through the sky, courtesy of Jack's mini shield device…and a clear view of her violent reaction, as she began to form her city destroying blast, which had already grown bigger then her. Tucker gulped, as his stomach and heart suddenly filled with ice.
"Uh…Sam…" He whimpered. "We better go."
Sam did not reply. And considering he was still holding her up somewhat, that alarmed him.
"Sam…SAM!" Tucker snapped/whispered as the fireball grew. "We have to go! Sam!"
No answer. Sam seemed to be staring into space…except from the look he could get from his angle, she didn't seem out of it…just…distracted or something…
"SAM!"
"Look." She said.
Tucker stared at Sam, and then looked back at Flammadea. Ok, she was forming a fire blast and…Sam wasn't looking at that.
And as Tucker's eyes, distracted, perhaps expectedly, by Flammadea's temper tantrum, came onto the view that had frozen Sam…he suddenly realized he didn't have to run any more.
Flammadea couldn't see anything except, in a metaphysical sense, the divine anticipation within her: this city below her may have provided her with her ticket out of the Ghost Zone, and eventually her recently obtained godhood, but it had also been the source of immense frustration for her: too much not going her way, not to mention too much of being reminded of terrible things that lurked in the blackness of her past. It had left her with an overall sour taste in her mouth. But that would all be over within seconds: the fireball before her, now over twice her size, would make the previous crater she had blasted in the city look like a pothole. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
With a sharp, quick laugh, she finished forming her blast and prepared to throw it. Her motion to do so involved her swinging her arms back above her at a rough forty-five degree angle. The motion also caused her peripheral vision to swing to the side as well.
And that was what caused her to see it out of the corner of her eye.
She froze in mid-throw.
Flammadea blinked, and then, sure she had to be seeing things, turned her head more to fully take in the fleeting image she had seen at the edge of her vision, certain that it would disappear.
It did not.
The fireball above Flammadea shimmered and then collapsed in on itself, vanishing as Flammadea completely turned her body to face what she had seen, her eyes and expression consumed in numb shock.
Danny Phantom floated there, a hundred or so feet away. His outfit had by now been reduced to a state that could be described as a step above rags, thin tendrils of ripped, wispy black material fluttering around him in the slight breeze. Exposed skin showed angry red burns, including a burn that was across the entire right vertical part of his face. But these injuries did not make up for the fact that he should have been free floating ash, not a slightly singed physical form. But yet there he floated, all limbs attached, his hands at his side, his fists loosely clenched, his white hair shimmering above him as his face showed a look of deep angry intensity.
All his previous escapes, Danny could have explained. Either an outside force had intervened, or he had managed to combine his powers with luck in order to slip from the jaws of death. But the last time had seemed truly hopeless. He had no power left, no allies left to him until it was too late, no escape from the deadly Soulsearer flame, the fire that would supposedly destroy ectoplasm in all its forms. And he had escaped death too often already. It was quite clear that the Grim Reaper had designs on Daniel Fenton, and it had seemingly, finally, gotten what it wanted.
But Danny had refused it.
In the end, that had been all. As the Soulsearer had come down, Danny had indeed experienced the phenomenon of watching his life flash before his eyes…and he'd relived everything Sizzle and Flammadea had done to him. And chief among those images were of the people he cared about. All the suffering she had caused…not to him, but to those around him. And what she would do with no one to stop her.
And he knew then he could not die. Even if death seemed certain and inescapable.
He refused to.
Many had attempted to stand death down, but death could rarely be defied. After all, it was inevitable.
And maybe it was…but Danny had decided that that inevitably would come later.
BUT. NOT. NOW.
As the Soulsearer had come down…
In the farthest reaches of Danny's mind, even as he screamed his defiance, in a memory that was already fading into nothingness, Danny could have sworn, as everything went to white, that he had seen…something.
And even if he had seen something…he would have never understood it…
For what he had seen was seemingly a dusky skinned gothic woman, her skin as pale as the moon, her hair as black as midnight, wearing casual black jeans, a black shirt, and a black suede jacket, a golden ankh hanging around her neck, looking at him…and then shrugging her shoulders.
"If you insist, kid."
And then he'd found himself back in the reality he knew, at the bottom of a large crater, his body once again wracked with pain…but the pain quickly faded, as Danny realized that somehow…he was alive.
And with that feeling…came the determination that now coursed through him. If he had escaped Death's grasp, or been allowed to leave it through some manipulation of power…then his quest was clear. Oh, it wasn't like it had been vague before, but now it was crystal within Danny's mind.
He had tried so hard to do what he thought was the right thing. He had tried to be the hero. He had tried to hold up the world and not shrug.
But now he knew…that there was only one way this could ever end. And now, more then ever, no matter how much more power Flammadea seemed to have then him, no matter how hopeless it seemed…Danny would end it. Even if it cost him everything.
But it had to end.
And that reality was what shone out from his face, as he looked at Flammadea, not speaking, not feeling a need to, not knowing what to do at the moment but knowing what had to be done.
And Flammadea looked back, for the first time at a complete loss. All the other times, all the previous certain deaths, she could have accepted a reason for their failing. They may have all SEEMED certain, but nothing WAS certain. But her last time…it had been certain. Supreme. Absolute. Death herself could not have delivered as perfect a finishing blow.
And yet…here the boy was. Again. Alive.
And for the first time…Flammadea began to have doubts about something. Doubts as if she had truly escaped death as it was usually known. Wondering if all this time…if her quest for freedom and her revelry back in the world of the living was in fact part of a grand punishment for her so-called sins. Instead of burning in traditional hellfire and brimstone, she was offered what she wanted most of all, and given it…and yet for all she accomplished she never seemed to accomplish anything. It was her hell: confronted by a manifestation of the sex she loathed so much, one that seemed immortal, unstoppable…
…No. She was being foolish. The boy must have been saved by one of the Titans: she may have blown them away but they'd demonstrated a resistance to being blown up before. That Raven girl perhaps? She looked around to see if any of the Titans had shown up around her as well.
No…apparently not. If a Titan had saved Danny, it must have been in a last gasp effort, counting on Danny to do the actual fighting. Flammadea smirked. What a waste.
Well, for all her desire for her battle to end, she hadn't much cottoned to the last part of the battle being against Jack Fenton. That was like ending a movie with the protagonist fighting the goofy comic relief rather then the main bad guy.
Well…she had said the only way she would know if Danny Phantom was dead was if she had ripped his heart from his chest and ate it.
And if that didn't stop him…
"Heh." Flammadea said, looking at Danny. "Heh heh heh heh heh…you know kid, I give up. You ARE immortal."
Danny didn't reply, but his fists clenched tighter.
"Well boy, I guess I must salute you. For all my efforts, there you stand…or float." Flammadea chuckled. "But since you insist so much on surviving, well…I guess I'll just have to adapt. You might be everlasting…but somehow I doubt all those fools that cling to you are."
Danny's eyes flashed green. Flammadea didn't notice.
"So I guess, instead of killing you…I'll just have to kill them. Heh. I can live with that. In a way, it'll be even more fun. I can do a different thing with each one. I can turn them all against you in futile desire to escape the agonies I will bring against them. Instead of dying for your sins, you can live with them forever. Well done kid. Well done." Flammadea mocked.
One of Danny's gloves had been shredded. On that hand, his knuckles went white.
"So come on boy! Let's do the usual song and dance! After I deal with you again, I can get to taking out the trash." Flammadea said, and grinned wickedly.
And then the power hit her. It wasn't a physical blow, it wasn't an energy blast, it wasn't anything the naked eye could see…and that made it even worse as it slammed into her, knocking her back a few feet, as the mocking joy in her face suddenly morphed back into utter shock, because the power she felt was absolutely immense and…
No way…there was no way…
"Trash…trash?" Danny growled.
Green energy exploded on Danny's hands.
"Are you talking about my friends?"
Danny's eyes vanished in emerald power.
"ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT MY FAMILY!"
And the ground began to shake.
"………..No." Flammadea said.
And then Danny threw back his head and screamed.
A green aura erupted around him and expanded out, and then, as Flammadea recoiled, the earth below and the heavens above suddenly glowed green, and then gigantic pillars of energy erupted from above and below, spiking around Danny, as the earth shook and Danny bellowed.
"WAHHHHHHHHHHH!" Vlad Masters screamed as a mammoth pulse of power flashed from the orb he had witnessed this all on and blew him backwards across the room.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Was the general cry in the ghost bar as everything was consumed in chaos: tables, chairs, refreshments, and ghosts being sent flying and crashing into each other as the tremendous power surge spiked out through the crystal and echoed through the Ghost Zone.
Tucker was absolutely speechless, even as the ground shook underneath him. This was impossible. Danny was half ghost, and he had a fair amount of power, but this was beyond anything he should have ever been capable of. How in hell could Danny make the earth move?
Unless…
From underneath the rug that had been thrown over him via the power emanating from the observing orb, Vlad peered out. His face was awash in a shock that rivaled, and possibly even surpassed Flammadea's.
"No…no…IMPOSSIBLE!" Vlad yelled in a voice that was almost a shriek. "I AM THE ONE! NOT HIM! NOT HIM!"
And in the bar, Skulker looked over the side of an upturned table, his face also awash in shock, disbelief…and despite himself…some wonder.
"Could it be?" He said to himself, in a whisper only he could hear. "Could the Ghost Child be…the…?"
And back in Amity Park, Jack Fenton, still a bit dazed but possessing enough of his cognitive functions to comprehend what he was seeing, and feeling, as he looked upon the return of the white haired ghost child…
And realized something. Less then twelve hours ago, when he and his wife had come upon the earlier battle between the white haired ghost and the vicious fire spirit, he had aimed his newly composite Fenton Ghost Tracker at the two and tried to measure the power of the fire ghost. The reading had been so high it had almost immediately shorted out the device.
Except now Jack Fenton realized he hadn't been reading the fire ghost. He had been reading the white haired ghost. Reading the power that lay within him…
Power Danny was barely aware of. All he could think of was Flammadea's words, and the images in his head of all she had already done to his loved ones, and what she planned to do, and what he had to do.
And he was determined to do it. He didn't care how: he would succeed. By any means necessary.
Daniel Fenton. Danny Phantom. A Halfa, half ghost and half man…and in that combination the key to something older then memory and beyond human comprehension…
Something that could only be brought about…and within…if…
Flammadea's expression slowly changed from stunned shock to murderous rage. Once again, the impossible had been made possible. By the boy. By goddamn Danny Phantom.
But she was through letting that happen. No matter what she was feeling coming from the accused male child, she knew her destiny. And it was high time the boy finally learned it, and his as well, as she clenched her own fists and began calling upon all her power again. Fire exploded around her, twisting and waving in strange, terrible shapes, heat so intense it melted the street below her.
The pillars of green energy disappeared, as the huge aura around Danny briefly expanded out even more and then shrank back in around Danny.
As Flammadea finished her own charge up and, with a mad shriek, flew across the air at Danny. Once again, he matched her move, zapping in towards the Lord and Master of the Inferno.
"Sam…" Tucker said, as he saw the green and red auras streak towards each other, each trailing radiant energy behind them. "We might want to get down."
Sam listened, throwing herself on the ground.
As Danny and Flammadea met, their auras once again expanding, twisting around each other, each shining light trying to overwhelm the other before it exploded outward in blinding radiance.
The first blow was so loud that Tucker almost went deaf, despite the fact that he was holding his hands over his ears. The shockwave knocked the trying to get up Jack Fenton back on his rear end despite the fact that he was nearly a mile away. Several nearby still standing buildings, some weakened and some not, instantly collapsed under the force of the energy coming from the twin powers.
And that was just the first of many. Seismographs around the world read each blow as a mini-earthquake, and around the world those tapped into the flow of the powers and energies of the strange and mystic experienced everything from mild tremors to nosebleeds to pounding migraines. Jinx only got a brief glimpse of the clash before it felt like someone had slammed a sledgehammer between her eyes, knocking her senseless for most of what followed.
It was time for the end, but that end may yet prove to extend beyond one being and encompass part of if not the entire world.
As Danny and Flammadea traded blow after blow, punches, kicks, slashes, lashes, bludgeons, impacts, and possibly even a few strikes that would need new words to be invented to describe them. Indeed, for some of the clash, the world around them seemed vague and far-flung, as if reality as they knew it was being rent to pieces around them. Neither noticed: they were locked in the classic feud, the eternal dynamic of this existence, in a state beyond anything most people would ever know. One desired to save the world, and the other to destroy it.
And both were quite certain that their desire would win out.
Yet…
Flammadea zapped away from Danny. Though her conscious mind was too addled with rage and insanity to comprehend anything but her aforementioned destiny, a tiny part of her brain had begun to nag at her about a certain detail. She and Danny kept hitting each other…but Danny didn't seem to be much affected. Indeed…it could be said he didn't seem to be affected at all. The same could not be said for her: wherever Danny had pulled this latest miracle (he was worse then a friggin' Popple when it came to yanking junk out of his ass!), it had empowered him a great deal. And though she was too good at concealing pain to show the fact that his blows were affecting her…they were. They had hurt. But if that was the case, Danny should be feeling at least, and certainly more, pain then her. But his face was a mask of stoicism. She supposed he could be hiding it like she was…except she had been abused her whole life: Danny had not. The concept that he could mask pain as well as her was ludicrous. But if he wasn't hiding his pain, that meant…something she would not accept.
So, on the surface, all the tiny nagging doubt managed to influence on her was her choice to stop the war of blows and switch tactics. Which she did, as she did the aforesaid zapping away from Danny and fired off a blast of white flame at him.
Danny flew above it and fired off his own green blast. Flammadea dodged in turn and tried again, this time sending off a dozen white flame blasts from her hands. Danny thrust out his hand and a green shield appeared in front of him, the fire blasts striking it and exploding, but Flammadea was already on her next move, as she swirled into fire and vanished.
And as Danny lowered the shield, she reappeared…all around him. Her eight clones laughed and prepared to strike…
And Danny lanced to the right and behind him and smashed his fist into Flammadea's face, knocking her away, her seven other clones vanishing in puffs of fire as Flammadea found herself knocked out of her concentration. Somehow, Danny had found the real her, instantly, and…DAMN HIM!
Flammadea stopped and lashed out with a backhand across Danny's face. Danny whirled with the blow and slammed his heel across Flammadea's own face, knocking her to the side. Yelling in rage, she extended out several fire tendrils to attack Danny with, only to find them all missing as Danny swooped it and punched her across the face again, and again once more. Flammadea kicked out and knocked Danny away, and then came after him with a lashing fire sword/whip.
Her blow passed through his body, which suddenly turned all green and then broke into vanishing trails of energy. Flammadea didn't even get to blink at this new move before Danny slammed into her from the side with a kick, and then another punch, and as Flammadea reeled Danny reached out, seized her by her body, not flinching in the least from the heat, and then a gigantic blast of green power detonated on her, throwing her backwards and up into the air again. Danny flew up after her, as Flammadea recovered, screamed, and flew back at Danny, slamming into him and sending them both down towards Amity Park.
Amity Park's lone stadium lay below the town, having been struck by a few fireballs but otherwise ok, as the two forces grappled and struck at each other as they streaked towards the ground. They smashed through the roof, and there was a brief second of peace before green and red power streaked out from the roof and then from the entire building as the entire structure disintegrated into a billion flying pieces of debris as a gigantic explosion of power and flame blasted from within it. Huge clouds of dust plumed out from the destruction, mammoth billows of dirt and smoke filling the streets around the now gone stadium.
Flashes of light exploded through the cloud: if anyone had been around to observe they might have seen silhouettes of a male and female form striking each other in the light flashes. Those flashes went on for about fourteen seconds before there was a brief, sudden silence…
And then all the smoke was blown away, along with every piece of debris that weighed less then a hundred pounds, revealing Danny and Flammadea, standing on the ground, their fists connected, each having struck the other at the same time, their respective arms trembling as if each was still pressing on their opposite with all their might, and indeed they were, their eyes locked together…
And Flammadea flinched.
Danny's follow up punch sent her smashing through several more buildings and into the parking lot of Amity Park's largest mall. The building wasn't in the best shape: its sheer size ensured that at least some of the fireballs and attacks going around the city would strike it. However, it was still standing, and considering the town was abandoned there was still a fair amount of cars in the parking lot, some having been destroyed by the fireballs…and more joined those pre-destroyed vehicles as Flammadea was smashed through the gathered masses of them, the two-ton machines smashed away from her like toys, causing a rain of cars to fly across the parking lot, into the sides of the mall, and into any nearby standing buildings. She finally stopped herself a few feet from actually striking the mall.
She gasped, and then found herself holding her chest. That had hurt. That had really, really hurt…what was…
Danny was coming for her. Flammadea's head snapped back up as her eyes locked on him, and then she screamed and lashed out her hand in a wave. A gigantic eruption of fire blasted from the ground for nearly one hundred feet on either side of her and expanded outward, completely destroying the parking lot and any cars that had escaped Flammadea before…as Danny's image was struck by the fire, flashed green, and then broke apart. Another 'ghost image'.
As the real deal streaked in from Flammadea's side and punched her across the face, and even as she was in mid-reaction to the blow Danny seized her by the hair and flew forward, ramming Flammadea's face into the side of the mall and dragging it across, burning a large line across roughly seventy feet of the building before he shoved forward even harder, sending Flammadea melting/crashing through the wall and the two stores behind it at an angle before she flew out into the main mall walkway, and even as she tumbled back through that Danny came crashing through the wall behind her. A green energy blast exploded on his hand, and he hurled it after her, the blast flying true and striking the fire deity, an explosion erupting from the attack even as it continued to push Flammadea back, blasts of energy smashing out through the stores nearby the thrashing goddess. From the view outside the mall, a line of smoke eruptions blasted from within the building and continued down its length before Flammadea came smashing out the other end of the structure and flew into another building, which collapsed on her with one final blast of power.
As the remains of the shopping center came crashing down behind Danny, expensive clothes and electronics and many other products reduced to so much junk, he flew out of the hole he had made with Flammadea's body. He flew a few more dozen feet and stopped, waiting, his feet floating a few inches off the ground.
The building exploded off Flammadea in a storm of fiery wreckage. Danny wordlessly turned intangible and let whatever shrapnel that had flown his way go through him, and then turned solid again as Flammadea reappeared, as mad as he had ever seen her.
"YOU FUCK!" She screamed, and thrust out her hands. Within a few seconds, she had formed a blue ball of fire as big as her. "DIEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
The ball flew out at Danny, melting a deep groove through the street underneath it.
Danny didn't move. He just held out his hand.
The giant blue fireball struck his palm…and stopped dead. Flammadea's eyes went wide.
Streaks of green crackling energy radiated out from Danny's hand, arcing over the fireball, the green power first entwining around it and then consuming it, remaking it into a crackling emerald sphere.
Danny fired it back at Flammadea.
She was too stunned to dodge.
The explosion shook the streets of Amity Park, the shockwave blasting the remains of the mall and any nearby buildings into pieces no larger then a paperback book. Another blast of black smoke and dust plumed up from the detonation, forming another mushroom cloud. Debris rained for miles around.
From the top of the cloud, several streams of fire burst and flew together, forming back into Flammadea, as she gasped for air. This wasn't happening. Not again. Not at her peak, after everything she had done. He was just a stupid boy. She was fire itself. She was forever. She could not be being outdone by…
Danny was floating up to her level nearby. Blazing eyes of hate fixed on him.
"Four minutes remaining…""YOU BASTARD!" She screamed, as red darkening to midnight black fire formed on her own palm. "BURN!"
She fired the Soulsearer blast at Danny. The attack went at a speed that could have given Speed Force users pause.
Danny dodged it, flitting to the side, just a bit, so the blast flew past him, missing by a few inches. His expression did not change. Flammadea gaped at the dodge, and then she screamed and fired another Soulsearer blast. Danny dodged it again. Flammadea's eyes literally shot off sparks.
"Stop…MOVING!" She screamed/growled, as she held out her hand, her fingers flexed, as orbs of black fire glowed at each fingertip. "YOU…WILL…BURN!"
And Flammadea fired off a stream of Soulsearer blasts, at different levels, angles, and speeds. The deadly ghost harming flame onslaught didn't even raise the slightest bit of change on Danny's face, as he zipped and zapped around every single blast. Flammadea fired at him for nearly fifteen seconds before she had to let off, and she didn't want to do so. She had to do so because she was…tired.
But…she couldn't GET tired any more. Not with her power! She couldn't!
Yet once again, here she was, and Danny, who had stopped moving again, didn't have a scratch on him.
"Arrrrrrrgggghhhhhhh…!" She snarled. "Why can't I hit you?"
And finally, a change, one Flammadea had never expected.
Danny sneered at her.
"Go ahead."
Flammadea blinked. Surely he hadn't…
"HIT ME." Danny challenged. "Take your best shot. Make it count."
Flammadea stared.
And then with one final scream she reared back and fired off another lancing blast of Soulsearer, aiming right for Danny's face.
The blast struck him just below the left eye. It threw his head back, and Flammadea gloried in the boy's stupidity, as she waited to see bits of blackened skull and gray matter go flying…
Which never happened.
And Flammadea found herself in numb shock once again as Danny turned his head back. An angry red burn now shone below his left eye, but that was the only sign that she had made her attack. An attack that should have been fatal. Instead…
"That didn't count." Danny replied.
And Flammadea lost it, as she screamed and formed twin balls of Soulsearer, firing them off. They struck Danny dead on and consumed him in an explosion, even as Flammadea fired off more and more of the deadly black fire, not caring about her exhaustion, not caring about the world she had to purge, only caring that this boy had to die, she had to kill him, had to, had to, HAD TO…
After several dozen smaller attacks Flammadea stopped, held her hands above and before her, forming one last beach ball sized orb of Soulsearer, and hurled it into the heart of the explosion she had made. The echoing blast sounded like an erupting volcano.
Gasping for air she didn't technically need, Flammadea looked upon what she had wrought. If forming just two blasts of Soulsearer drained a host to the point of uselessness, then after all that…no, it didn't matter. She still had more then enough, and besides, the bastard boy was finally…
The last of the smoke cleared…by being blown away by a brief surge in a shimmering green aura.
Of all her previous stares, Flammadea's reaction had just been shock. But this time, as Danny's aura faded back into him, revealing him none the worse for wear after all she had done…there was more then shock. There was complete and utter horror.
Danny looked upon her expression, but he betrayed no joy in it. Only grim ruthlessness.
"So…the monster who would destroy mankind…can't even destroy one little boy." Danny said.
"Wha…what…." Flammadea stammered. "What…what are you made of?"
Danny's eyes flashed green.
"RAGE."
The blow sounded like a nuclear bomb going off, as Danny cleared the distance between himself and Flammadea before she even knew what was happening and punched her across the face, so hard her features distorted out and snapped back, and then Danny slammed his fist across her face again, causing the same effect, his own face a mask of fury.
"I! AM! MADE! OF! RAGE!" Danny screamed, each word punctuated by a blow that shook the heavens, and as Danny finished his avowal he turned his final punch into a spin, twirling several times before he swung his leg out low and curved it up into a thunderous pistoning impact between Flammadea's eyes.
Flammadea didn't just fly back from the impact: her body was torn apart, the wind ripping her thrashing form apart until there was nothing but several writhing fire strands and vague shapes. Danny looked upon the mass, and then held his hands out to his side, forming a T, green power igniting on his hands and going all the way up his arms, and as the strands of fire began to converge into a general shape Danny slammed his arms together and fired off a blast of green power.
But Flammadea seemed to still have enough wherewithal left to know what was going on, as her barely formed body tore apart and twisted into retreating strands of fire away from the deadly blast. Danny didn't blink; he just shifted position slightly and fired off another blast of green power. Flammadea dodged that. Danny cut loose, firing dozens upon dozens of ectoplasmic blasts after the flame goddess, but her twirling form dodged them every time. Finally, in a case of déjà vu, Danny stopped firing.
Flammadea's fiery tendrils stopped running and merged, Flammadea quickly reforming. Though she didn't look happy, she looked like she was in a better mood then she had been a minute ago, as she raised a hand and waved it at Danny.
"Well, you might have discovered your accursed immortality anew, but your aim certainly hasn't improved."
Danny looked at her, and then he raised his right palm. Flammadea expected an attack, and was a bit surprised when none came.
Then he spoke.
"Look up."
Flammadea blinked.
And then she glanced skyward.
And found a ball of green energy floating above her. Several balls, to be precise. As Flammadea watched, another one moved into her line of sight.
And then her eyes widened as she realized that Danny hadn't just been firing wildly.
She jerked her head down, and found to her horror she was now surrounding by balls of floating ectoplasm, on every side of her, the last few moving in around Danny as he looked at her.
His eyes betrayed nothing.
He just clenched his fist.
And quicker then she could escape, the balls all converged on Flammadea.
Despite all the carnage wrought, some of Amity Park was still standing.
That all changed with the detonation of Danny's greatest attack: the shockwave knocked all the remaining buildings down like they were constructed of Popsicle sticks and kindergarten glue. In one swift moment, Amity Park's downtown went from gutted to utter ruin, and only the fact that they were in areas where no buildings were saved the few remaining humans in the city from being crushed by the collapse. Godzilla WISHED he could have smashed a city as effectively as Danny's attack had.
Several seconds passed, as Danny lowered his hand, and then took a few deep breaths.
And then the smoke cleared, revealing Flammadea. But unlike her assault on Danny mere moments before, she did not look like she had taken Danny's ectoball mass and shrugged it off. Indeed, her face almost seemed dazed, as she clutched her chest, or specifically, the area of her chest where the Sumerian artifact lay. She glared at Danny with baleful eyes, a vindictive expression that swiftly morphed into mad joy, emphasis on mad.
"Heh heh he…HA!" Flammadea screamed. "Did you think that would get me? You fool! You can't kill me! I'm already dead! I am fire, the very essence of life in its purest form! You can't stop me! NOTHING CAN!"
Danny looked at Flammadea. His eyes briefly shimmered green again.
"The reason you're still here is because I didn't put everything I could have into that strike that would be needed to destroy you." Danny said.
"You're bluffing." Flammadea scoffed.
"Maybe so, but I know this. You're not a purity of anything Flammadea. You're a perversion, an aberration."
"Fuck you."
"Think about it Flammadea. You speak of fire bringing life, and you are right! And fire also brings destruction! But something you do not understand, something you have never understood…is that the two are linked! One cannot exist without the other! Think, Flammadea! For once stop hating, and start thinking!" Danny said. "The sun that allows life on Earth, it's the same sun that makes the Sahara desert a baking arid wasteland and yet also makes the South American rainforests the greatest cradle of life on the planet! Fires that burn down forests can also release seeds that HAVE to be burned in order so they can sprout properly! A volcano may destroy an island, but its ash is rich in nutrients that will allow the life that perished by its molten rock and gases to return! The phoenix had to die so its offspring could be born! Fire brings destruction, but in the ways of nature and the world, it will also bring the rebirth from that destruction. But you…you only bring destruction, and nothing else! The only life you care to preserve is your own! The rest of life is there for you to decide on whether it lives or dies! That is not the way the world should be! Even YOU must know that!" Danny said.
Flammadea cocked her head.
"And sometimes, things have to change…" She said, in a voice so low Danny could barely hear it. "Sometimes, Nature realizes that its ways no longer work. The system it created is being overwhelmed by those who would use its gifts to take more then they ever need or deserve. And this is one of those times, boy. Nature is angry, and its wrath will be felt."
"That's not nature, that's YOU!"
"NATURE, I, IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE! WE ARE ONE AND THE SAME! OUR WILL SHALL BE DONE! THE WRONGS WILL BE MADE RIGHT!"
Danny's eyes narrowed.
"I wish it didn't have to be this way." He said. "But I guess some things can never change."
Flammadea smirked.
"You don't know how right you are."
And Flammadea looked down at the ground, and her eyes flashed.
The explosion was so small, and Danny was so high up, he barely saw it. Indeed, his altitude at first prevented him from making out exactly what the point of the explosion was…and then he saw two figures finish their brief tumble out onto open ground…figures that even Danny could recognize. His heart nearly stopped.
"What great friends you have, eh?" Flammadea chuckled, as she detonated a small explosion behind where Tucker and Sam had been hiding to watch. Oh, she had known they were there: her senses were tapped into any and all kinds of heat, including the unique heat a body made. An infra-red scanner might not have been able to pick up the forms of the two teenagers against the flaming, ruined city, but she could. Though on the surface it looked like her first blast had been off, it wasn't. She wanted them out in the open, where Danny could see. "Even when the world is falling down around them, there they are, hanging around, if only to provide support for good ol' Danny Fenton, who doesn't need it anyway because he's fucking IMMORTAL. BUT THEY'RE NOT!" Flammadea said, as a blast of blue fire appeared on her hand.
"NO!" Danny screamed. And if you're wondering why Danny didn't just zip over to Flammadea and knock her out of her attack before she launched it, well, he might have seemingly taken everything the fire goddess could dish out before without blinking an eye…but some looks can be deceiving. And on top of all the effort he had expended on his last attack on her…let's just say that he wasn't in the same tiptop shape he'd been in a minute before. His teenage inexperience struck again, in the fact that he hadn't known when to conserve energy.
And that was going to cost him.
"I made a promise boy. And I ALWAYS KEEP MY PROMISES!" Flammadea shrieked. "IF YOU WON'T BURN, THEY WILL!"
And Flammadea launched her fireball.
And Danny took off after it, chasing after the streaking blast of doom like his life depended on it…and in a way, his life was the unimportant thing. He should have known that Flammadea wasn't done, that she had a trick up her sleeve, that her utter lack of mercy was as great a power as the fire that fed her.
Tucker and Sam should have run, but with the attempt to recover from how their observation of the battle had suddenly become their brief trip through the air and unpleasant landing, and then the sudden awareness that a giant ball of blue fire was heading right for them, they were frozen in the way some humans become, watching their death head toward them like they were just observing a movie, and Tucker even noted that it was strange, such a hot blast of fire should have reduced him to ash long before it got near enough to actually strike him, it must be Flammadea's amazing manipulation abilities at work again…
And Sam, as the ball filled her vision, couldn't help but admit the turquoise flame actually looked rather pretty…
As Danny got around the ball and zipped in front of his friends literally half a second before the ball struck.
"NO!" He screamed.
The blast sent out an eruption of flame at a 45-degree angle that was nearly three hundred feet long and a hundred feet high. And while Danny managed to take the brunt of the attack, the backlash was still more then enough to sent Sam and Tucker flying like rag dolls. Even as the immense agony of the blow washed over Danny, he still had enough self-awareness to see how Tucker and Sam were flying, that they would be dashed to pieces by the landing, and with a brief hand gesture he managed before he was completely consumed by pain, their forms were encased in green energy, the makeshift shields taking all the bone snapping organ pulping impacts as Sam and Tucker bounced across the ground and came to rest several hundred feet away. The trip had still knocked them both senseless though, but all things considered, that was truly the very least that could have happened to them.
And it was a state Danny almost envied, as the smoke cleared around his prostrating form, Danny on his hands and knees, making strange noises of pain through his teeth. The back of his outfit was completely gone, that entire frame of his body covered with hideous burns. This hadn't been like the previous attacks Danny had soaked up from Flammadea: with all those Danny had been in a combat mindset, directing his powers into the proper defenses, which allowed him to stand in the face of all her assaults, including the Soulsearer barrage, and take it. But this had not been a prepared defense: this had been a panicking knee jerk reaction, and Danny had had no time to form a proper shield of any kind. And it had cost him dearly, as once again he found himself in agony and in a low energy state.
He hissed one more time and then shoved himself back up, ignoring the scream of pain in his back. He had taken everything Flammadea had dished out so far, he HAD to…
And then Flammadea was there, as with a scream that seemed to have more then a little laughter in its undertone, she dropped from the sky and struck Danny across the face. Danny's brief flight from the blow was interrupted via a grabbing fire tendril, which seized him and reeled him back to Flammadea's crazy-happy face.
"You see boy? It's not who or who doesn't have the greatest power, it's who you know, and better yet, what you KNOW they'll DO!" Flammadea laughed.
"You're a coward." Danny spat back. Flammadea's happy expression faded back into her usual rage.
"Defiant to the end. And this IS THE END!" Flammadea screamed, and then she slammed Danny into the ground with her fire tendril and then hurled him through an upturned stone chunk of debris, the piece of granite shattering into bits as Danny was thrown through it. Danny rolled along the ground and tried to get up when twin fireballs blew him into the air, and even as he flew Flammadea appeared on the other side of him and lashed out with a kick, slamming Danny into the ground and ripping open the tender flesh of his back as he was sent dragging along the rough stone of it. Green fluid leaked from his wounds, as Danny came to a stop.
He lay still for a bit.
And then he turned over, shoved himself up, and as Flammadea landed near him, he turned around. Though the back of his outfit had been blown to nothing, the front, despite several earlier tears, was still holding up due to Danny's 'collar'. For a moment, Danny had the crazy thought that he was glad he hadn't been reduced to being bare-chested yet, because he didn't have much of a chest, or at least that was what all the boys in gym always said…
And then reality returned to him, as he looked at Flammadea. He wondered where the power had gone, the one that he had had just moments ago…
And he didn't care. It didn't change what had to be done, power or no power, as he struck a combat pose.
"Heh." Flammadea said. "You really should learn another position boy. Might make your life less painful."
Danny didn't answer.
He just briefly twisted one wrist, and then, in pure Neo fashion, he gestured towards Flammadea.
Bring it.
Sparks flashed in Flammadea's eyes.
And then the ground under Danny exploded, throwing him upward, even as Flammadea zapped above him and smashed him down into the rock and earth, Danny barely landing before Flammadea was there, kicking out and smacking Danny like a soccer ball across the ruins of Amity Park. Danny recovered in mid air and landed on his feet…and then Flammadea was ramming a fist into his gut, knocking the wind out of him, and then lacing her hands together and swinging them up, smashing them across Danny's forehead and making him go stumbling back…
And then one of Flammadea's fire tendrils surged out, formed into a point, and then rammed forward, piercing through Danny's right shoulder. Danny's scream of pain came out in a gasp, and then the tendril yanked him forward and Flammadea planted several punches across his face before snapping up her leg and kicking Danny into the air, and then, the tendril still through his shoulder, brought him back down into the ground, shards of shattered stone flying up from the impact. Danny spasmed once and then stopped moving.
Flammadea smirked.
And then Danny started coughing, more green fluid leaking from his mouth, as he feebly tried to get up. Flammadea shook her head in a "can you believe this guy?" expression.
"I guess it's time for the end of this dance." Flammadea said, and held out her hand. Her fingers extended out, the fire flowing from perfectly manicured fingers to cruel claws. "Let's see you get up from this."
Danny's vision was blurry, darkness creeping on the edges, and all he could see was a blur of red heading for him…
Which solidified into five talons of flame, going for his chest.
Danny's left hand snapped up, grabbing for Flammadea's wrist, stopping the claws an inch from his torso. Smoke rose from his palm, but he ignored that pain: there were more important things to consider at the moment. Flammadea's eyes narrowed at this, but only for a moment.
"Fighting all the way down, refusing to just roll over and die. How disgustingly male." Flammadea said.
Danny didn't listen, but his defiance didn't seem to do anything except draw out the seeming inevitable…and maybe it was inevitable. He was using everything he had, but that didn't seem to be enough to hold back Flammadea. And he didn't have anything else he could use.
And maybe…that was for the best. After all, it wasn't like he'd ever backed down, had he? He'd stood and fought to the utterly bitterest end, and he didn't have anything left. Why fight when there was no point?
Why go on when there was no hope?
Why do anything…when it was just seemingly better to do the easier thing…
And Danny remembered why this all had come about.
And he realized that he wasn't doomed. He had one last option.
But it was so terrible that even the prospect of his impending death didn't spur him to use it. He couldn't. Not even after everything that had happened.
So he tried to fight on without it, tried to keep Flammadea's hand from sinking into him and removing his living, beating heart, something he was sure even HE couldn't come back from…but she was just so strong…and so angry…and there was so much pain…
He couldn't…
But he had no other options…
But if he did it, was he any better then…
If he didn't, he'd die, and who would that help?
But…
"That's a good boy." Flammadea said, as Danny's resistance finally faltered a tad and her claws closed the distance, now a mere millimeter from Danny's exposed skin.
"Huh….no…" Danny hissed. Flammadea looked amused.
"No?"
"No…Flammadea…please…don't make me…"
Flammadea had been glorying in the fact she had finally made the boy beg, until the last words, which just confused her…
"What?"
"Don't make me…I don't want to…do it…" Danny begged. "Please…stop…"
"Well well, it seems you have forgotten just who is KILLING WHO HERE!" Flammadea growled, and shoved harder. The points of the fire claws pierced Danny's chest, and he screamed, but he kept fighting.
"Please…don't make me…" Danny gasped.
Battle not with monsters, lest you become a monster. And when you gaze into the abyss, be aware the abyss also gazes into you…so said Nietzsche…
"I'll make you do whatever I want. And you know damn well what that is…" Flammadea said. Her claws sank in another inch. Danny screamed again.
"That's a boy…"
"Please…"
"Just be a good boy…"
It was down to his life or his supposed morals. If he did what he could…did that make him as bad, if not worse, because he knew better…
But…if he died…
"Now…just be a good bastard and go to hell." Flammadea said.
The claws sank in…
"…I'M SORRY!" Danny yelled, as he brought his right arm up, somehow doing it despite the damage to his shoulder, and clamped it on Flammadea's face.
Flammadea may have refused to change, and she thought that refusal had been it. But even she didn't know what had happened during the brief time that she had joined hands with Danny Phantom, seemingly for him to help her, only for her to violently reject said help, her sickness too deep to be uprooted…
But something had been done anyway, as for a brief moment, Danny had indeed been connected with Flammadea. And he had begun to carry out his promise. But all he had gotten was a few brief moments to do what he had planned to do.
But that was enough to get the memories.
The memories that drove Flammadea, the horrific events that had shaped her life and death, every single bit of pain and humiliation and misery forced on her by human scum. The images had been so horrifying to Danny that he had immediately repressed them, shoving them into a corner of his mind and concentrating on the task at hand. But they were still there. And no matter what happened, Danny had been willing to keep them…but in this situation, there was only one choice for him to survive: he did not have the strength to repel Flammadea, so he had to use something else.
And as much as he loathed the fact, loathed himself for it, in the end his survival instincts won out over his moral compass, as he grabbed ahold of Flammadea's face and again established a link with her.
And he fired all the memories he had taken back into her, taking years and years of atrocities and combining them into one giant horrendous sideshow that he shot right into her, forcing her to relive everything she had been used for, abused for, and worse within the space of a second.
Flammadea didn't just stop shoving her claws into Danny's chest: she recoiled away like she had been struck. She stumbled back several feet from Danny before she stopped.
And in her face, Danny saw a trembling terror, a face seemingly on the verge of tears, a terrified little girl not understanding why she had to go through this, a girl who had grown up, a girl who had become such a terrible thing.
Evil spawns evil.
And if good does nothing…then all is lost.
And despite all she had done to him, as Danny looked upon Flammadea's face, at eyes that wanted to shed tears but no longer could…he no longer felt any anger or righteous vengeance towards her. All he felt was pity.
"I'm so sorry Haley." He said.
Flammadea just blinked several times.
And then…
Danny had though he had seen anger. He had thought he had seen hate. He had thought he had seen murderous vehemence. And he thought that Flammadea couldn't manifest an expression with those emotions any greater then she already had towards him.
But the look that came over her face then was so unbelievably powerful Danny almost had a heart attack right then and there. In that expression, he truly saw hell.
And its fire quickly followed, as Flammadea made a wordless, almost soundless noise of absolute fury and lashed out, so utterly consumed in anger that all she really did was throw a weak fireball at Danny, lacking any comprehension to do anything greater. It was still enough to send the once again standing Danny tumbling back several dozen feet, as Flammadea continued to make gibberish noises, no words in any language able to express her fury.
For a little while anyway, as Danny stood up again and Flammadea's eyes, clouded with her overwhelming wrath, focused and locked onto him.
"HALEY ANN ROXX IS DEAD!" She shrieked. "SHE WAS NEVER ALIVE TO BEGIN WITH! I AM FLAMMADEA! I AM THE QUEEN OF ALL FIRE! I AM THE DESTINY OF THE WORLD AND THE WRATH OF THE WOMAN AND NOW, I AM ANGRY!"
Flammadea floated up off the ground, and then a twenty foot around tower of fire exploded up around her, washing up over her even as it shot up into the angry black clouds, as threads of fire suddenly lit up within the clouds, covering Amity Park with malignant radiance, and the earth began to shake again as the fire washed around Flammadea, somehow flowing around her so her own form of fire didn't become obscured or consumed by the eruption.
"And YOU, DANIEL FENTON, JUST LIKE HER, ARE DEAD!" Flammadea screamed, as she held her hands out before her, as several dozen tendrils sprouted from her back and flowed out around her. Balls of fire began appearing at the end of the tendrils, some red, some white, some blue. And in the hands of Flammadea came the black Soulsearer fire.
And Danny realized that this was it.
It was time.
"I'm sorry Sizzle, Flammadea, whatever your name may be. What happened to you wasn't right. But neither is this. You've made your choice. Now I have to make mine." Danny said. He didn't know how much power he had left, as he brought his hands to his sides, but he vowed to use every last bit of it, as he began to concentrate, even as Flammadea screamed again and her fireballs grew larger.
And all around the world, pyrokinetics suddenly found their talents raging out of control. Katherine Grant, known as Spitfire, was sitting with her father, Ted Grant, known as Wildcat, and several of his teammates in the legendary Justice Society of America, for a quiet dinner, when she suddenly found fire spilling from her mouth, setting the table ablaze and nearly the whole room before the leader of the team, the rather goofily named but nowhere goofy at all Mr. Terrific managed to use his high tech "T-Spheres" to erect a shield around Katherine, a shield she threatened to burn through anyway, if she didn't burn through the floor first. Elsewhere, Beatriz LaCosta, known simply as Fire, suddenly found the green flame she commanded flaring up out of control: if she hadn't happened to be nearby a large river in which she found she had to dump her fire into, much property damage could have resulted. In the latest HIVE Academy, Jinx was finally recovering from the backlash of Danny's ascension when alarms began to go off around her, and Jinx, responding on instinct, got up and headed for the alarm, which turned out to be one of her classmates, Scorcher, who Jinx didn't know all that well but knew was acting unlike herself, as she screamed obscenities about men and attacked anything that moved with her own fire blasts, nearly roasting another of Jinx's classmates, a plant controller called Floral, before the grunts of the HIVE turned a mass of fire extinguishers on her, and even that that only slowed her down a bit.
The world shook. The heavens burned.
And green power appeared between Danny Phantom's hands, an orb of emerald energy, a tiny light manifesting before the darkness, as Flammadea continued her wordless screaming and cursing. Danny's pity had not faded, but it was once again matched by grim determination, as his own power grew. It still seemed pathetically small before Flammadea's amassed rage, but Danny did not think of that: only of the all important thing, the reason that he was still standing after all this, the NEED TO DO WHAT HAD TO BE DONE.
Flammadea grinned. Lucifer himself would have trouble matching what lay within that smile.
"NOW……BURN!"
And Flammadea thrust her arms forward, and all the fire blasts spewed forth, the red, white, blue, and black flames all spiraling together to form one giant blast of dark fire, pure evil power let loose upon the earth.
And with his own cry, Danny thrust his own arms forward, firing off a green lance of power. With Flammadea floating some distance off the ground, the two blasts flew at each other at a rough thirty-degree angle, and struck.
Power exploded outward, blowing away anything that wasn't nailed down and pretty much everything that was as well. The green and dark blasts shoved at each other, spraying out from the point of impact…and then Danny's began to be pushed back, almost easily. Flammadea's eyes shone with madness.
"GO TO HELL!" She screamed.
Danny's blast crumbled beneath Flammadea's wrath, pushed back and back to where Danny stood, still firing despite the seeming hopelessness of it all, even as his blast grew shorter and shorter…
"GO TO HELL! GO TO HELL! GO TO HELL!" Flammadea screamed.
Danny's blast disappeared entirely, the only thing left a green glow on his hands, as the dark fire washed over him. It didn't just burn him, it also seemed to chill him, eat at him like it was a living thing. The green glow was the only thing keeping it from completely enveloping him, and even that was fading…
"GO TO HELL! GO TO HELL!"
Danny closed his eyes, as he felt it all coming down…
And then, he remembered.
Jazz's expression of utter terror upon being freed, horrified by what she had seen within Sizzle...
His mother consoling him when it looked like Sizzle had doomed her to die…
His father standing against all odds…
Danny's eyes opened again.
Tucker bursting into flames…
And Sam's expression of utter agony as Sizzle forced her to harm him…
"GO TO HELL! GO TO HELL! GO TO HELL!"
And his eyes shone bright green.
"YOU FIRST!"
And Danny thrust his arms out, and his blast returned, doubled, tripled, quadrupled, overwhelming Flammadea's dark fire blast like it was nothing and scattering it to the winds as Flammadea suddenly found her power gone and her vision filling with green.
"AAAAAAIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"
Flammadea was consumed by the blast, her silhouette vanishing, as the gargantuan attack flew up above Amity Park and briefly bathed it all in emerald before it punched a hole through the black clouds above the city and flew off into space.
Cracked and smoking, the Sumerian artifact clattered to the ground.
And then, silence.
Gasping for air, Danny lowered his arms. His whole body felt numb, dead, almost nonexistent in its weariness, as if it was as insubstantial as Danny was when he turned intangible. Around him, tiny bits of debris began falling, even as Danny took after their example and fell to his knees. He took in several more gasping breaths, staring at the ground.
And then he heard the clicking noise. He recognized it. It was the sound of a weapon being armed.
Though it seemed like the small action would requite more effort then the act of running a marathon, so exhausted was Danny, he managed to push himself up and look at what had made the noise…not surprised to see his father standing there, holding a battered Fenton Ghost Bazooka, a Bazooka that was aimed at him. But Danny, as he looked at the sight, found he couldn't care less. In a way, it was oddly fitting. He gave up so much, only to get arrested or zapped into the Ghost Zone. Yeah, that would just be the perfect end to this utterly marvelous three days.
And yet…at the same time, Danny's cynicism was tempered by the fact that something seemed a bit off. True, his dad was aiming the Ghost Bazooka at him, but he wasn't demanding a surrender, he wasn't crowing over capturing Inviso-bill, he wasn't even holding the weapon in a perfect aim: the barrel was a bit off, the weapon held somewhat loosely in Jack Fenton's hands. He looked more like he was aiming the Bazooka at Danny because he had no idea what else to do, rather then any real desire to do Danny harm.
So Danny just looked at him, still halfway hyperventilating, as his Dad's face came into full view from the dust and debris…and Danny knew he'd been right. There wasn't any anger on that face, or aggression, or even a "have to do my job" grimness. Instead there seemed to be confusion, and a wary fear that people who are not certain that their ordeals are over yet wear.
Danny looked at his father, and wondered if he knew just whom he was aiming the Bazooka at. And if that would make any difference.
And then the Bazooka shifted slightly, the end tilting down. The gun was still in a position so it could immediately be brought back up if needed, but Danny wasn't expecting that to happen.
Nor was he expecting the question that came.
"Why?"
Danny blinked, staying silent for a few seconds, not quite understanding the question at first.
"…You mean, why do this?" Danny asked.
"…Aren't you supposed to be evil?" Jack asked. Danny suddenly had a terrible urge to burst out laughing.
"What do you think?" He said instead.
"…You always seemed to be at the center of trouble. You always seemed to be involved in something…I thought there might be some benefit we couldn't understand or hadn't uncovered yet…I thought there was a reason…you were a ghost…and…and…" Was All Jack Fenton could say.
"I suppose you had your reasons." Danny said, and winced as one of his many injuries reminded him of its presence. "I suppose what's important is, what do you think now?"
Silence.
"…That fire ghost was evil. Whatever its reasons might have been, I know it was evil. And you stood against it. You stood where even heroes known for facing down great powers failed to stand. And as far as I can tell…you did it for no money, no applause, no recognition except the possibility for the blame to once again be laid on your shoulders, for no real gain to speak of. With all the things that seemingly every human being in this modern world hold more precious then anything else not being there…you still did it…all on the basis of idealism, and you did it again, and again, and again, fighting on when any sane man would have laid down and died long ago."
The Bazooka shifted again, and then with a shoving motion, Jack tossed it on the ground.
"How could I have been so wrong?"
Danny would have smiled, except his jaw ached too much from all the punches that had been slammed into it. Well, if anything, at least this would stop his parents from hunting him.
"We all make mistakes Jack. In the end, we're only human." Danny said, managing to avoid calling his father 'Dad.'
"And what are you?" Jack asked.
"Me…" Danny said. "I'm a Phantom."
"That all?"
"…No. In the end that…"
And then Danny felt it. His eyes went as wide as saucers.
"MOVE!" He screamed, as he thrust his hand out at his father, somehow finding one last wring of power within himself to fire out an ectoblast, an attack meant to be more of a shove then an assault, an attack that struck Jack Fenton and sent him flying away with a startled cry, as Danny's terrified eyes looked skyward.
"DIE!" Flammadea screamed.
And then her line of fireballs came down, a row of giant red blasts aimed along the ground at Danny, ones that Danny was far too weak to dodge, and he screamed as one struck and blew him away, the ones following completely obscuring him from sight.
"Oh no!" Jack said as he tumbled: he could barely see what had happened due to his twirling viewpoint, but he had seen the Phantom get caught in the blast and vanish, and then any other agonizing Jack Fenton wanted to do was interrupted as his head struck a rock that was sticking off the ground a bit, knocking him senseless as he came to rest some distance away.
"Ha….ha ha ha ha ha…" Flammadea gasped from where she was floating, high up in the sky. "Close boy. But not close enough. You may have blown off the artifact, but I don't need that. My power is my own. MINE!"
The clouds began to rumble, as Flammadea held her hands before and shrieked with laughter.
"MY OWN! FOREVER! NO MATTER WHAT! I AM FIRE! AND LIFE INCARNATE! NOW AND FOREVER, I AM THE LORD AND MASTER OF THE INFERNO, FLAMMADEA…!"
The last word was a bit muted, as Flammadea seemed to lose her enthusiasm in mid-bellow. She had seen something. Something very strange.
One of her hands was…flickering.
Flammadea stopped her glorying and looked at her right hand.
Tongues of fire were licking from it, brief tiny spurts that momentarily marred the perfection illusion of flesh that her body had. Confused, Flammadea turned her hand around, looking at the back, and then at the palm again. She focused, and the flickering flames stopped. But as soon as she stopped focusing, they started again.
"You only got one part right." Said a female voice Flammadea had not expected to hear again. "The now part."
Flammadea turned to look at Raven, floating in the sky nearby. The girl was a mess: her cape was so shredded that it now looked more like a bonnet then a cloak, and her bathing suit outfit looked like all it would take was a sharp tug to completely remove it. But there she floated.
And she wasn't alone. She had one hand out, forming a dark energy platform, on which Savior stood, and he, likewise, had a Shimmer strand out which formed a platform a dozen feet away on which Cyborg was positioned. Flammadea glanced to her other side and wasn't surprised to see Starfire floating there.
How all four of them had not only escaped death from her blast, but also the fact that Amity Park had been reduced to burnt ruins in her battle with Danny, Flammadea didn't know. Superheroes could be worse then cockroaches: just when you think they're down and squashed, they start moving again. But that fact didn't much bother Flammadea. All four looked as messed up if not more so then Raven, and had Flammadea not been distracted, she would have laughed at them: what were they going to do, mount another offense? With what?
But…she had other things on her mind, as she suddenly felt something she hadn't felt in forever. A chill. In her hand. Flammadea looked down at the appendage again, and found that the hand was not only flickering with fire spurts, it seemed to be dissolving, the fingers and nails briefly becoming cruder constructs of flame like they had been in her old body. Flammadea stared at it, uncomprehending. What was going on?
"The inevitable. The one you ensured." Raven said, and Flammadea looked up at the goth.
"…What?"
"It was a question we were baffled by long before this." Raven went on. "Where were you getting your power? How did you seem to be so much stronger then before? Even focusing your power through hosts, and this Sumerian artifact…something didn't add up. No being can pull power out of nowhere. It had to come from something. And now, we finally know what was giving you your edge Flammadea. Yourself."
"What?"
"Simple science." Savior continued.
"Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be transferred from one form to another." Cyborg added.
"And that applies to everything. Including you." Starfire finished.
"If a human being exerts themselves, they use resources from their body. Sugars, fats, water, and so on. But if humans want to keep exerting themselves, they have to replace what they used. If they don't, their body can't keep going. And if they somehow keep pushing themselves without replenishing their stores…then their bodies can start breaking down. Malfunctioning. In some cases, dying. But that's a human being. Ghosts seem to be different. But not so much that a similar rule can't be applied to them. You've got power, Flammadea. And rage can be a power multiplier. But even rage has its limits. And when that limit is surpassed, and one insist on going on…other sources of power have to be found. And if, say, you're so consumed with rage and hate that you don't even notice that fact, well, you might be able to get away with it for a while…but eventually, a price is going to have to be paid."
And Flammadea suddenly felt a lurching twist within her chest, and she gasped out a breath of hot air, and then her arm once again became cold, colder, and she found she wasn't just loosing high definition of the limb, she was losing any definition at all.
"No…this can't happen! I'm already dead!" She cursed.
"Maybe so, but you still exist, Flammadea. You still have a form. And that's where you've been getting all the extra power. You've been cannibalizing your own body to feed your rage and destructive desires. And you got away with it for a while. But I'm afraid you've finally hit the edge Flammadea. You've taken so much that your body is starting to break down. A process that could have been reversed, if only you'd been aware of it. But you weren't."
"NO! MY POWER…!"
"Has peaked. You've used up everything you could, and beyond that. Now…nothing's left Flammadea. You are the Lord And Master of the Inferno…but not forever. I'd say you have a little under ten minutes."
Flammadea's eyes blazed. No, they were lying! She couldn't be…breaking down, ceasing to exist! She had to destroy the male sex! It was her destiny! She had the power! She…
Had the equivalent of a heart attack, as she gasped and hunched over, holding her body. She could feel it. Whether it had been extraordinary timing or the loss of the Sumerian artifact, her form was now starting to come apart from within. She looked frantically around.
"Don't bother trying to possess us." Raven said. "Even if you could get through the blocking spell, the way you enhanced your body with that ritual would burn us out in seconds. There's nothing you can do Flammadea. It's over. It's time for the end. Why not make it peaceful?"
Another heart attack. Flammadea gasped in pain, hunching over again.
And then…she started to laugh.
"Hah…ha ha…so be it then." Flammadea said.
And she reared back and screamed, and heat exploded from her body, driving all the Titans back from it as they gaped in shock.
"Raven! I thought you said she was out of power!" Cyborg yelled.
"I said her power had hit its limit and that her body was breaking apart because she forced herself beyond it! I never said she was powerless!" Raven yelled back.
"SO BE IT!" Flammadea screamed again. "IF I HAVE TO GO, I'M TAKING AS MUCH AS THIS GODFORSAKEN FUCKING WORLD AS I CAN WITH ME!"
"Oh shit, she's going to do a suicide blast!" Savior cursed. "Raven, didn't you consider this?"
"I'm psychic, dear lover. I'm not omnipotent." Raven said, as Starfire flew in to be close with her teammates.
"How much can the crazy bitch muster?" Starfire asked, and blinked as everyone gaped at her for her choice of words. "I believe that is an appropriate description from your language to depict her!"
"If these readings are accurate, and they keep rising at the level they are…she can put enough behind one blast to blow most of the Eastern Seaboard off the map." Cyborg said, looking grimly at his arm, and then at his teammates. "Any suggestions?"
"Yeah." Savior said, as the Shimmer sprang from his other arm and formed into a fancy looking sword. "Take her down! TITANS, GO!"
And the Titans were on the attack, Starfire carrying Cyborg and Raven carrying Savior as they flew in to strike.
But by now a ball of fire had appeared around Flammadea, and unlike all the other times where she had manipulated the heat of such things so it would be far less then normal, it wasn't happening now. And the heat was insane, driving the Titans back before they could get anywhere near her. Cyborg armed his sonic cannon, as best he could with the way his body was messed up, and began firing, as Raven chanted a spell and hurled bolt after bolt of black energy at Flammadea. Neither attack even seemed to be noticed.
"DAMMIT FUCK!" Savior cursed. "KEEP ATTACKING!"
And even as the Titans resumed their futile assault, even as Flammadea gathered everything she had left in her disintegrating body and prepared to unleash it all at once, none of the Titans recalled that the cloud of fire was still spewing its wrathupon the earth, and its edge was finally starting to encroach on a large facility in the mountains, panicking men and women running around as they tried to make sense of what was happening, and what could happen if the fireballs started falling on the plant, a possibility for whichthe JLU satellite was still prepped to fire…
"90 seconds remaining."
"May all the gods in all cultures, worlds, and realms have mercy on their souls." J'onn said, as the main JLU satellite began to actually open up into weapon mode. "And mine."
Danny's eyes fluttered open, suddenly aware of a blistering heat. Well, that wasn't exactly a new experience for him, but this was different. It was too…focused…too…
The slight twitch of his body considering getting up sent a shockwave of agony through Danny, and he nearly passed out again. He coughed, and then opened his eyes as he saw what was in the sky.
He saw Flammadea, in a ball of fire, and though he didn't know the details, he knew this was it.
For him. He was done. He had used up absolutely everything, plumed his utter depths, and in the end it hadn't been enough. And from the flitting figures he could see around the fireball, frantically attacking it and having no success at all, it looked like that would prove to be his doom.
Something else caught the corner of his eye. He looked to the side from where he lay on his back.
Sam lay there, unconscious, sprawled across the rock like a broken toy. He stared at her for a bit.
Sam. Perhaps she'd suffered more then any of them. At least his sister and mother couldn't remember being hosts for Sizzle/Flammadea. The fire spirit had saved that special agony for Sam alone. She had to remember, in some way, what Sizzle had made her do. In the end, for all the suffering she had inflicted on him, at least Danny could bear it knowing he'd done everything to the best of his ability. But Sam…
Somehow, though a moment ago he had thought it was impossible, Danny found himself pushing up onto his feet, stumbling over to Sam, collapsing in the dirt beside her. He spied Tucker out of the corner of his eye, nearby, but he didn't think he had enough left for two trips. Indeed, with the difficulty he had turning Sam over, he might be on the verge of passing out again.
"Oh Sam…Sam…" Danny said, looking down on Sam's face. He brushed the dirt off, and noticed how peaceful she looked. At least she would have that. She would go to whatever lay beyond not knowing pain or fear. At least, he could give her that.
Bits of the ground and earth were floating up from the insane force Flammadea was summoning. It seemed even greater then the fire blast she had directed at Danny, the one he had dug so deep to counter. Was that even possible? How could she top that (especially knowing the factor of her body breaking down that Danny himself does not know)? Well, people making suicide charges can sometimes take a dozen bullets when a non-final mindset will just ensure one shot will prove fatal.
Whatever it was…he couldn't stop it. He couldn't save Sam, or Tucker, or his Dad, or Mom, or the Titans, or even himself. He just…
The glimmer caught his eye.
Danny kept amazing himself, as his head turned to the latest thing to catch his gaze. What was that?
And how in the hell could he be moving, considering he had been so sure his limbs were on the verge of falling off? Danny didn't know, as he gently laid Sam's head down and got up, and began tottering towards the glimmer, some distance away. He did not know how he knew the way, but he did.
Though in the end, when he finally came across what he had seen, the bitter irony of it nearly made him fall into a crazy laughing fit that he would never escape as his brain flew off the skids and into the same clouds of madness that empowered Flammadea, and kept her from realizing her fatal flaw until it was too late.
It was the Sumerian artifact. Flammadea's series of blasts from the air, after he had been so certain she was gone, must have somehow blown it over in this direction without breaking it. They didn't make that kind of quality any more, Danny crazily mused, and then harsh reality reasserted itself, as Danny fell to his knees. What good could this do him?
"You…" Danny said, as he picked up the hand-sized octagon, the rough stone warm to the touch. "What was the spell…Laptop Dingle Dingle…heh, why bother? We're all damned. And it's all my fault."
"GOD DAMNIT!" Cyborg cursed, as he tried a stupid move and fired missiles at Flammadea. Those worked about as well as the Fenton Anti-Creep Stick. "RAVEN! YOU HAVE ANY ICE SPELLS LEFT?"
"I can barely keep myself aloft, much less summon more ice, thank you very much, but hey, why not give it a try…" Raven muttered to herself. "All that can happen is that I'll have an aneurysm, but hey, in a bit I'll be vaporized into ash so may as well get to it…Azarath Mentrion Zinthos!"
A blast of ice flew Flammadea's way…and was snuffed out within fifteen feet of her. Raven moaned and nearly passed out, Savior grabbing her while doing a strange balancing trick with the Shimmer which distributed the weight of the two of them so it looked like they were floating in mid air for a bit without Raven holding them up. The strain for such a tactic was murderous though, and Savior nearly passed out himself before Raven recovered. Flammadea continued her mad laughing.
"She's gathering for the blast…she might be vulnerable then…maybe we can disrupt her concentration…only chance we have left!" Raven said.
Danny stared at the Sumerian artifact, thinking his bleak thoughts…and then his eyes strayed to the bit that was broken off, that made the last part of the last line of the message unknown. To think that his greatest problem had once been bullies ruining a sketch by stepping on it. If the only problem he had in his next life was obscure ancient languages, they maybe…
And then the artifact began glowing. A soft green. Danny blinked.
And then, green energy flowed out from the end of the broken word, forming into a symbol. Danny didn't recognize it though…and then the other words became alit in green and then floated off the artifact, as if written on the air itself. And then…Danny found the words shifting, reforming…
For true untranslated, look lost word…Into English.
Danny stared at the now readable sentence.
For true power, look within.
"…What power…?" Danny asked. "I don't have any power left."
Do you believe that?The words were strange: they partly sounded like Danny was thinking them and partly sounded like another voice entirely. In a normal state, Danny would have found this strange: here, he accepted it as simply as he would have accepted that he needed air to live.
"What else do I have? I did everything…not enough…"
What do you want?
"…I…I…" Danny said, and looked back at Sam. "I want to help them. None of them deserve this. I just want to help…all I ever wanted…"
Then that is all you need.
"…you must be kidding me…" Danny said. "What could…"
And then Danny felt it. It felt like warm water, running up through his arm…water that emerged as green shimmering sparks of power, as the Sumerian artifact floated up from Danny's palm.
"Heh…heh heh…" Flammadea laughed to herself. She might have been dying, or ceasing to exist, but the way there was sure one hell of a ride. Time for the last peak.
The fireball around Flammadea began to retract.
"SHE'S PREPARING! GO! NOW! NOW!" Raven yelled.
The fireball around her completely vanished, leaving Flammadea…
As Starfire flew in with a scream and punched the fire deity with all her might. Her blow would had smashed a train engine, even as it burned all the flesh off her knuckles…and all it did was drive Flammadea back a bit. She didn't seem to show any more effects, as she grinned.
As Cyborg, carefully tossed by Starfire, dropped down before her and let loose with every last bit of juice his sonic cannon had. The tremendous impact blew Flammadea back and broke bits of fire off her body, but it didn't seem to do anything else. Cyborg cursed, even as his arm overloaded and start to break apart, as Starfire swooped in and caught him, even as Savior hurled himself through the air at Flammadea, lashing out with myriad Shimmer strands…
And then a tendril of fire smacked Savior right out of the attack and sent him flying off in another direction.
"ARGH! WHY ME!" He cursed, as Raven appeared from the shadows behind him and caught him. "TOSS ME BACK! EVERYONE…!"
And then a strange sensation washed over Savior. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but it felt like when the sun came out from behind the cloud and got rid of the shadows on the ground as it washed over you…magnified by the power of ten.
Raven's eyes went as wide as saucers.
"Oh no."
Danny stared at the power coming from his hand, forming a shimmering orb around the Sumerian relic, marveling at it. Where was this coming from? He was so certain he was tapped out…
And it didn't matter.
What matters to you?
"I have to save them." Danny said.
What are you willing to give up?
"Everything I have and more."
Are you sure?
Danny's eyes glowed as green as the power emerging from his palm.
"Yes."
And the orb grew brighter, the power flowing from within Danny growing stronger, and stronger, concentrating around the artifact, the key…
Danny never knew just what he had found. Savior and Raven had theorized about certain things, but they had not shared what they had spoken of with him. The closest he had come to knowing what this was was Vlad's alarmed mutterings, and considering that had only been one confused sentence that Danny had immediately forgotten, it might as well have never happened at all. And even the older Halfa had not understood what Danny was now doing…
There was a key to the power, and it was one designed to weed out the unworthy, designed to be a test virtually no human, by instinct or by nurture, could accomplish. You could not desire power. You could not be aware of what you could be. All you could do was wish for other things, for whatever reason, but they could not be based in selfishness. You had to wish for the power without desiring to use it.
Vlad had never learned that, and hence never understood that what he had found was in fact nothing. Those who could be keys could very well find part of what they sought, perhaps even a fair part, but by the very nature of knowing what he wanted, Vlad had doomed himself to never find the true source of it, its heart, where the true power lay.
A power that Danny, in his quest to save his town, his friends, his family, and the world, had touched on, never questioning on what it was or where it came from, just acting…a power he was now fully joined with, as it obeyed his wish to do what he wanted…what had to be done.
Perhaps Danny would not survive the experience. And even if he did, he may never reach the same state needed to do what he had done now. It may be a peak he never touched again.
But he didn't care. He knew what he needed, and it responded, as the orb grew brighter, and brighter, the artifact spinning within it.
For a moment, the power was his.
Danny Phantom.
The Primmortal.
And the power surge stopped.
Danny shut his eyes.
And then he opened them again, as he looked upon his desire.
And then the world went to hell.
"Ha ha ha ha…HA HA HA HA HA!" Flammadea laughed. "GOODBYE EVERYONE! IT'S BEEN A BLAST! BUT NOW IT'S TIME FOR DESTINY! I'LL TURN YOU AND YOUR CITY AND EVERY MALE I CAN AND ABOVE ALL ELSE THAT FUCKING BOY INTO CINDER AND ASH!"
And Flammadea slammed her arms up.
And fire erupted down from her body, a massive surge of flame nearly five hundred feet around, an ultra concentrated blast that shot down towards Amity Park.
"OH NO!" Starfire screamed.
Savior looked at Raven.
"Now what do we do?"
Raven's face was many things. Angry. Afraid. Sorrowful. But above all…grimly accepting.
"We die."
Danny saw the utterly mammoth blast start coming down, almost right at him it seemed. It filled the entire sky.
He could almost swear he heard Flammadea laughing.
He looked down at his orb, so small in comparison. But no despair filled him.
"I'm sorry Haley." He said to himself, as the fire blazed down towards him. "I'm sorry for what they did to you. I'm sorry for how much you suffered. I'm sorry I couldn't do anything else to help. I just hope…that in this…you will find the peace you craved…that you…deserve."
And Danny's head snapped up, looking at the doomsday blast, even as he threw his arm back.
"NOW…BE…GONE!"
And he hurled the orb towards the blast.
Flammadea laughed and laughed: she could feel her body start to disintegrate anew, but she was certain she'd take in the rest of the show before she was all gone, and Savior anguished that the last thing he heard would be the laughter from a soul poisoned to its core…
And then Danny's orb struck the fire blast. It was like an ant attacking a dinosaur.
But the blast stopped. Dead.
Flammadea's laughter cut off.
"What?"
The two attacks warred briefly, shining beams of light coming from the green orb as it shoved against the massive fire blast, Danny standing on the ground, his arm still held out and locked as if he was willing the orb forward.
And then Flammadea's fire blast exploded. Fire spewed outward in every horizontal direction, filling the whole sky with fire, but a fire that did not touch the ground below it.
"NO! WH-WHAT HAPPENED?" Flammadea screamed. The Titans, so certain a moment ago that they were doomed, were just as stunned, as the fire cloud spread out and burned underneath them.
As part of it briefly glowed green, and then Danny's orb came shooting out from the flames.
Raven saw it, and then she got a taste of what Jinx had felt as what it was slammed into her empathic senses: POWER.
"RUN!" She screamed, as she flew off as fast as she could with Savior. Starfire didn't need to be told twice as she too took off as fast as she could with Cyborg, as the orb headed straight for Flammadea.
Flammadea found herself staring at the green orb, somehow seeing within it at the artifact that lay at its core…
As the Titans zapped down through the fading flame cloud, Savior somehow spotting Sam and Tucker on the ground and grabbing them with Shimmer lines as Raven booked it across the sky…
Danny held his pose…
And Flammadea, as she watched the orb fly in, somehow saw Danny's face shining from within.
"No."
And then the orb struck her.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH………!" Flammadea screamed, as the power reached out, ripping deep into her form, and pulling her apart by her very atoms.
"DAMN YOU FENTON!"
And then Flammadea vanished in an explosion of green. The light lit up the entire sky of Amity Park for a brief moment before the green turned into an outright explosion of fire, flame that expanded and expanded out, reaching down towards the ground.
Danny lowered his arm.
As he realized the fire was still spreading, coming down before him in a skyline spanning cloud, a cloud of fire that stopped just before him.
As the burning flames twisted into a gigantic face, a face barely recognizable, a face that let loose with an inhuman roar as Flammadea bellowed her wrath…a roar that turned into a wail as the face turned up and then split apart into nothing, all features vanishing into the fire.
And strangely…a soft, contented smile came over Danny's face.
As the fire cloud washed over him and carried him away, one last destructive force striking down upon him and the Titans, as the shockwave smashed into them like the moon was landing on them and scattered them all to the winds.
As the massive fire cloud that consumed the center of Amity Park expanded out even more, and then suddenly contracted, going up towards the fire spewing clouds, withdrawing into itself and into nothing…and then streams of golden light exploded out from the epicenter, thousands of them, streaming out and away from Amity Park (though two dipped down into the actual city), a brilliant shower of luminescence that went on for several seconds.
And then, with one final blast, the clouds were blown away in a circle and scattered to nothing, leaving only the clear night sky.
And up on the Watchtower, J'onn eyes widened as the clouds flashed green, then red, then gold, and then suddenly scattered. Within three seconds, the atmospheric disturbance had vanished entirely.
J'onn waited a few more seconds to make sure his senses weren't tricking him, and then, with a sign of relief, he reached over and hit the emergency shutdown for the satellite cannon, stopping it with a little over fourteen seconds left.
"Well done children." J'onn said. "Well done."
J'onn's words might have been oddly appropriate: the last blast may have very well cooked the Titans well done. But you and I know better…
Coughing, Cyborg managed to force the wreckage off himself. The last blast had cost him his right arm, and both his legs felt wonky. But he was alive, as he coughed on the dust.
"Yo!" He called. "Anyone there?"
"In one piece so far…" Raven said as she suddenly popped up next to Cyborg. Cyborg managed to see Savior step up beside her just before his jacket completely disintegrated. Savior looked annoyed, and that brought a brief smile to his face before his mind returned to more important things.
"Star! Anyone! Anyone there?" Cyborg called again.
"I am here!" Starfire replied from a distance, and a few moments later she came through the dust. She had Tucker slung over her shoulder: the black teen appeared to still be waking up. "That was highly unpleasant. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give it a 7 in last gasps."
"What the hell happened?" Savior asked.
"Danny." Raven said. "It looks like the rookie came through."
"Uhhhhhhhhh…" Tucker moaned. "Just five more minutes Mom-AH!" Tucker screamed, as he fully regained consciousness and found himself looking into Savior's face. "AH! IT'S NOT MY FAULT!"
"You appear uninjured in any severe way." Savior said, and stepped back and turned, leaving. Tucker looked over at Starfire, as he tried his feet and found he could keep them.
"His people skills really need work."
"He needs a vacation." Starfire agreed.
"Maybe…uh…guys…?" Tucker asked, getting everyone's attention. "Where's Danny?"
"Yeah, where is Danny?" Cyborg asked.
Starfire noticed the figure approaching from the smoke first, and a smile began to appear on her face…and then she saw just what the figure was, and it faded, even as Raven saw it, gave it a quizzing look, and then her own face fell.
"Oh no……."
Sam emerged from the smoke.
Danny was in her arms, his own arms and legs hanging limp towards the ground. He did not move.
"…aw no…not after all this…not after THIS…!" Cyborg cursed to himself as he ran for the pair. Sam collapsed, more under the weight of what had happened finally sinking in then a lack of strength. Cyborg pulled Danny from her arms.
"Damn it, no pulse!"
"…Danny?" Tucker asked.
"Well, here we are again kid."
"I guess so."
"All right…one, two, three, four, five…" Cyborg said as he began CPR: his one hand provided more then enough strength.
"…Do something! You can heal people!" Tucker said to Raven.
"…I can only heal. I can't…revive…" Raven said.
"So, you want to go now?"
"Do I have a choice?"
Cyborg proceeded to the breath of life, as Sam knelt nearby, her eyes beginning to fill with tears.
"Well actually…sorta."
"What?"
"You know, you superheroes make my job complicated. Everyone else has a set time, but with you, you're here, you're not, you're here, you're not, all the time! Makes it hard to nail down a set period, you know? I don't mind making repeated trips, but it's not the way things go, y' know?"
"Come on! Don't give up on me kid!" Cyborg said, as he continued his efforts. He even did so when Savior grimly walked up and a Shimmer strand flowed out and into Danny's ear. Savior stood there for several seconds, and then his eyes closed, his face angry, harsh, and poignant.
"So, you want to go now?"
"Will it change anything?"
"Well no. Eventually it'll come time for you to go with me. But considering who you are, you get what a lot of people don't. Options."
"Who am I, a superhero?"
"Among other things."
"Cyborg…" Savior said, putting a hand on Cyborg's shoulder. "He's brain-dead. He's gone."
"…No…Danny…" Starfire said, as her own eyes began to tear up.
"He gave up everything to save us. The noblest of all sacrifices…" Savior said, trying to sound like the sad but stoic leader who had to get everyone to carry on. But in reality, he wasn't doing very well: his voice even cracked a bit on the word sacrifices.
Sam pulled herself over to Danny and laid his head in her lap, and as her tears began to fall, she fixed Danny's hair. It was somewhat in his eyes, he hated that…
"You were too good for this world…" She managed to whisper, weeping. "You always were…"
"I'd rather not go now."
"You sure? Might be best to get it over with now. I don't know the details of the future. That's my brother's job."
"…I believe I'd like to stay."
"So you want to put it off?"
"Yes."
"Peachy-keen! Then I'll see you later."
"…That's it? You're not mad?"
"Mad? Why would I be angry? You'll come to me eventually Danny. It's the way things are. But I can handle it if they swing a little differently at times. Keeps me on my toes!"
"…Who are you?"
"Oh, I think you know Danny. Now fly! Fly my pretty!"
Her laughter was strangely compelling…
"Well…in the end…" Savior said, and found he didn't have a quote that could provide any comfort. "Sigh…those who run from what's important, die every day…those who die for what's important…live forever…if only in our hearts…oh kid…kid…"
And then Danny surged up, coughing violently, and nearly giving everyone a heart attack.
"…………….Danny?" Sam said.
"…Is it over? Can I go home?"
"…OH DANNY!" Sam almost shrieked, hugging Danny so tight she nearly killed him again via a broken neck.
"…He's ALIVE?" Cyborg gasped. Starfire looked just as shocked.
"…That's impossible. He was brain dead. His skull was no more capable of supporting life then a toaster. How in…what the…I mean…THE HELL?" Savior said, goggling at the newly revived Halfa.
"Miracles." Raven said, as Tucker, who had at first tried to hide the fact he had started on a crying jag and then just headed over to where Danny lay with Sam. "They're our stock in trade Noel. Sometimes even when all is lost."
"Yes but…I mean…oh, who cares." Savior said.
"…Flammadea?" Danny asked.
"Gone. You did it Danny. You saved the day!" Tucker exclaimed.
"Though the town could use some work." Sam said, her eyes still shining with tears.
"Oh…they're just…things…people are what's important…now…can I go to sleep?" Danny asked, his voice faint.
"Just make sure you come back to us again." Sam replied.
"That's why…I did…" Danny said, and then his head went limp again, but this time in the peaceful rest of slumber.
"Joy…all is well…all is…I am beeping." Starfire said. She reached for her skirt and pulled out her communicator.
"You still HAVE that?" Cyborg asked.
"I thought it was broken with the previous impact that knocked us out of the fight…maybe the last one knocked it back into working order?"
"I'll answer." Savior said, taking the communicator. He expected it to be J'onn, or maybe Robin.
He did not expect to see the grim scowling face of Batman staring from the communicator. Savior arched an eyebrow. The Dark Knight must have just gotten back from the mission he was on.
"Good evening Batman." Savior said.
"Perhaps, Savior, you could explain to me that when I arrived back at the Watchtower, it was resetting itself back from a firing state, a firing state you ordered it to be put into, under a duress so strong you somehow convinced J'onn of it's importance, with a target that was RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CONTINENTAL UNITED STATES?" Batman growled.
Savior didn't answer at first: instead he looked around at Amity Park…what was left of it. Besides the hospital, a good chunk of the suburbs, and ironically, the heavily shielded against any kind of ghost attacks Fenton household, everything else was in ruins, smashed, broken, burned. Fires raged in several places, but they seemed to be dying, as if the loss of their master was too much to endure.
And…there was his team, and Danny and his friends, all alive. Some against odds so insane they were even greater then air spontaneously transforming into gold.
All thanks to Danny Phantom.
"There was a fire." Savior replied. "But we put it out."
And before Batman could answer, Savior snapped the communicator shut.
To Be Concluded
