Disclaimer: own the story, but not teh DP. you know the drill.
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They were furious.
How did Danny know this? He had just burst through the dented doors of the school, only to find Tucker and Sam floating again, in a haze of black. Their eyes were the color of blood and they snarled at him like wild animals as he flew towards them.
"What's the dizzle, Fizzle!" Tucker screamed, launching himself at the ghost boy. Danny had just a moment to think, before quickly turning intangible.
And then the breath was knocked out of his body. He was thrown backwards, through the walls of Casper High and into the school yard. He had forgotten that Tucker still had his ghost powers, and could kick his butt even in ghost mode.
He struggled to catch his breath and stand up. But before he could, Tucker was grinning down at him horribly, his red eyes sparkling in the sunlight.
"You thought you could beat ME?" He reached down and picked Danny up by the front of his suit, holding him in the air until his legs dangled uselessly. Danny was still trying to get a decent breath of air. "Do you know who I am? Do you!" Tucker's breath was like brimstone and burning ozone.
"I know what you are," Danny grimaced. Tucker waited, a smirk on his face. "Seriously in need of a tic-tac."
The smirk disappeared. "Wrong answer!" Tucker howled, hurling Danny into the air with an ectoplasmic blast of red energy.
He righted himself high above the school, ignoring the burning pain that was blossoming throughout his body. "Good," he gasped, rubbing the arm that was still holding the Thermos as he looked down at Tucker. "Now I've got enough distance to figure out what to do."
"Talking to ourselves again, are we?" came a sneer directly behind him. He whipped around to see Sam floating too close to him.
He shot backwards reflexively, while fumbling to open the Fenton Thermos. His hands were shaking too much. In fact, his whole body was trembling. He was dismayed that Sam – no, not-Sam – had this effect on him, but he couldn't quell his rising panic.
She shot right after him, a predatory grin on her pale face. Her eyes, which were now terrifyingly red, flicked down at the Thermos Danny was trying to open and her grin widened.
She thrust her left arm out to the side, and the Thermos was torn from Danny's grasp by invisible fingers.
"No!" Danny shouted, moving to catch it before it could fall to the ground. But Sam was suddenly holding him by the collar, her crimson eyes twinkling unpleasantly.
"You won't be needing that" she said as he struggled to push her away.
"Get away from me!" Danny yelled, somewhat desperately. Sam's grip was vice-like.
A frown flickered across her face, but was replaced by a smug look so quickly Danny wasn't sure it had even been there.
"Oh, are we shy today?" she leered, pushing her face closer to his. His eyes widened. "Nevertheless, you're still going to fall for me!"
And then she was pushing him down through the air, faster than he could comprehend. The wind whistled around his ears.
She slammed him inches into the ground. Pain coursed through his body as twin circles of light flashed around him.
He was back in his jeans and T-shirt, but what concerned him more was that he couldn't breathe. The wind had been knocked out of him for the second time that day, and it wasn't a pleasant experience.
"Am I making you breathless?" Sam laughed viciously and floated upwards.
Then her grin faded as she cocked her head to the side, like she was listening to something. Something that was making her glower furiously as she looked down at Danny, who was still gasping to catch his breath.
"We'll finish this later," she snarled, before rising in the air to join Tucker, who gave one last inscrutable look at Danny; and then they were flying away, leaving a trail of shimmering darkness behind them.
Danny stared up at the blue sky and wondered briefly where the Thermos had gone to as the edges of his vision closed in on him, and all he could see was a pinpoint of blue.
"No," he panted, taking huge gulps of air. He had to follow Tucker and Sam, and to do that he had to stay conscious. He channeled the pain that was coursing through his body, concentrating on its intensity. The blackness receded, and soon the entire sky was blue again.
With a grimace, he struggled to a sitting position. His head was swimming, he was covered in dirt, and he felt like a giant bruise. He supposed he was lucky none of his bones had broken.
With a tired sigh, he closed his blue eyes. Light coursed around him, turning his hair white as snow. When he opened his eyes again, they were green.
"Now the Thermos," he said.
He stood with a groan, and his vision went black, completely and more suddenly than he had been prepared for. Dizzily he held his head, willing the darkness away, willing the stars to stop dancing in front of his eyes. Gradually, his sight returned to him and he scanned the ground. He had to move fast.
The Thermos was only 20 feet away. Danny floated over to it, picked it up and slung it over his shoulder in his carrier. He didn't want to risk dropping it again.
"Now…" He looked up at the sky, but Tucker and Sam were long-gone.
Disappointment filled his mouth with a sour taste. What was he going to do? He supposed he would have to use his parents' ghost-tracking radar…although he wasn't sure how.
But then he saw three black shapes rise from behind Casper High. He watched as they flew east, away from him.
"They must be possessed too. Maybe they're going where Tucker and Sam went," he said to himself. And then he cringed, realizing he did have a habit of talking to himself. A sure sign of…something. He hoped all this ghost chasing wasn't making him Nutters.
He decided action – not thinking – was probably best right now. He rose into the air quickly to follow the black shapes across the city.
Danny was not the only one noticing the strange flight of people (who had previously seemed perfectly normal and not capable of any sort of levitation other than by what machinery could provide) across Amity Park.
A certain irate ghost watched the proceedings from an apartment high-rise with narrowed eyes.
"What's going on?" she shouted, half to herself and half to her ghostly band. The guitarists and the drummer were lounging on the couch, watching the large TV on mute so they could hear Ember. They were actually minions, incorporated visibly into band members to help maintain the illusion. Her illusion. Which was rapidly disintegrating.
Minions were often capricious, but these three were the most loyal she had – they were intertwined and tied to her alone, so they could only feed off the energy her power helped capture.
Not that she was capturing much in the way of power lately.
For some time now, her fan base had dwindled, and Ember hadn't the slightest clue why, until she had heard her song on the radio. That is, it wasn't so much her song anymore as it was a mangled version of it, something that sounded like the screeching wail of a drunken banshee.
Basically, it no longer held the haunting quality that had been capable of ensnaring enraptured listeners. No wonder her flaming hair had all but fallen out – no one was chanting her name anymore.
She patted her blue hair self-consciously and glowered at the air-born humans flitting past her window. There was definitely something fishy going on.
And she was going to find out what it was.
"Come on," she growled to her band, before snagging the remote to switch off the TV. Which was displaying live footage of the flock of flying humans over Amity Park. She tried not to notice. "We're going to get to the bottom of this."
Danny had followed the three students to the very edge of town, over the suburban houses that lined up like toy houses, over the park that seemed strangely deserted, over the Nasty Burger and other half-familiar restaurants and businesses, over the river to the side of town that was old, worn down, derelict.
Even in the sunlight the buildings seemed faded and dark, like they were trying to hide their dingy exterior in the shadows.
Many of the buildings were boarded up and condemned; large yellow cranes and bulldozers filled empty lots, like vultures waiting for a last gasping breath before swooping down to the feast.
The students joined a growing stream of people, who were all flying towards an old abandoned theater in the middle of a sandy clearing.
Danny turned invisible and flew alongside them. There must have been at least a hundred people, and all of them had glowing red eyes. Even without the whole flight thing, it was…unsettling.
Danny entered the theater with a growing sense of unease. Why was Desiree calling her minions out to the middle of nowhere? If she had as much power as she seemed to, it didn't make any sense.
The people around him were all floating, in an orderly way, towards the old theater seats. He hesitated, wondering if he should join them.
He was invisible, but something could go wrong, and if it did he was wearing a very noticeable jumpsuit. He decided instead to hide in a dark corner in the back, crouching invisibly behind a garbage can.
He didn't think anyone would have noticed him even if he had been visible. Everyone was focused intently on the stage.
He looked up, past the dust motes that floated along paths of light splintering through boarded-up windows. And his heart skipped a beat.
Desiree was seated on a golden throne in the center of the stage. She wore a velvet cape that swirled about her feet and a sparkling crown that refracted many colors in the dusty theater. Even though she was far away, he could see the satisfied smirk on her ghostly face.
But what dismayed him the most was the presence of his two best friends, kneeling on either side of Desiree, bowing down before her.
He was standing, shaking with fury, before he realized it. He couldn't let Desiree humiliate his friends like this! He wouldn't!
His mind raced as he clenched his fists, desperate for action. He had to do something, but what? He forced himself to settle down and assess the situation before doing anything rash. He was experienced enough for that, at least.
He thought quickly. He was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a crowd of possessed minions at the command of Desiree. If they all had powers like Sam and Tucker…
With a rare moment of clarity Danny realized the only way to save his friends was to destroy the thing that controlled them.
He glared at Desiree with hatred. He had never hated anything in his entire life, not with an intensity like this. It both surprised and frightened him.
But he forced himself to calm down and think of how he was going to stop Desiree rather than how much he despised her. Hatred wasn't going to help him, he had to control himself and think.
Silently, he sat down next to the garbage can again, wrapped his invisible arms around invisible legs, and waited.
As soon as all of the theater seats had been filled, Desiree raised her arms, a useless gesture just for show, as everyone was raptly and silently attentive anyway.
"I have called you here today for one reason," she said, her voice loud and sinister. She paused, smiling at the waiting audience.
"Power. To not be forced along helplessly in the swirling eddies of the ghost zone, but to roam freely throughout the human realms with more power than anything on Earth…is that not why you have come?"
The minions buzzed excitedly, their eyes sparkling, their heads nodding.
"Before, this was impossible," she continued. "We were all separate, alone in our doom even as we suffered together. The chance occasions into the human realm were brief at best. Even those who tarried were weakened, drained by the strain of remaining here – they had no real strength. But now…" she lifted her head with a malicious grin. "Now we have joined forces, and our strength will not be defeated!"
A roar of applause erupted from the audience, and Danny cringed. This was not sounding good.
"You may be wondering how you can maintain your strength, as you are all still individual. Slowly you can feel the world sapping your power away from you, draining you until there is nothing left to maintain your form here."
The minions were nodding soberly.
"I have found a way to avoid this," Desiree stated with satisfaction. Her crown flashed as the crowd leaned forward.
"By binding ourselves to humans, we have not been able to remain here, even though possession is undeniably the answer. Humans are the link between the spirit world and the physical world. But a single ghost, possessing a single human, does not have enough power to control that human for long. The human is the stronger force within its own body, and the ghost, a foreign entity, is compelled to return to the ghost zone."
Something was occurring to Danny as he listened, something so horrible that he could not allow himself to believe it. He continued listening, dazed, as if in a nightmare.
Desiree turned to Tucker and Sam, who were still bowed down before her.
"Rise, my pets," she commanded. They stood and turned towards the audience, a cloud of darkness surrounding both of them.
Desiree laughed, a sound that chilled Danny to the bone. He found that he couldn't move.
"These two human children are perfect for possession. They are friends of the half-a, and he will not hurt them. Even if hundreds of ghosts are interwoven within."
The audience burst into a buzz of sound, as Danny felt himself pale. This was too diabolical. Of course there was no way Danny could ever hurt his best friends. But…he still held onto the hope that he wouldn't have to. All he had to do was get to Desiree…
"As it is," she was saying, "There are only three ghosts possessing them now. I am the third; I have interwoven my own spirit within them both. It is best that there is more than one human, because if one is harmed, the second will still hold us to the human world."
The audience was becoming wild with excitement.
"As you can see, I am still very much in control of myself – the part of me that is linked to these children is strong enough to hold me here, but not strong enough to weaken me in my own form. Once you link yourselves to the children, you will be free to stay on Earth for as long as you wish."
The ghosts burst into thunderous applause. Danny was wondering what the catch was; there had to be a catch. Desiree would not be offering something so freely, without being sure she was getting something in return. Even if she was a wish granter. She owed nothing to these ghosts, and she was power-hungry.
"Now," Desiree said. "Let us bind these humans so completely they will never break free from us."
Tucker and Sam knelt again, this time facing the audience, and Danny could only stare in horror as the audience rose as one, pushing forward, their eyes hungry with greed.
THANK YOU to all my wonderful reviewers! I wasn't expecting so many so soon, so I stayed up till 5 a.m. writing this just to show my appreciation:)
Karen Rosalie: of course I couldn't stop writing ... but knowing people want to read my story kinda compels me to continue
thefanwithashortattentionspan: sqeee! i'm a favourite:)
CM (Fantastic Bouncy Girl): yep, you guessed right! Frodo LIVES!
cakreut12: wasn't that Vlad episode AWESOME! I can't WAIT till next week!
Kats02980415: Thank you so much for your wonderful reviews - I really enjoyed reading them all and I'm glad you commented on every chapter:) To answer some questions: Danny fell under the spell cuz his Fenton phones fell off so he was susceptible, just like in "Fanning the Flames." And yes, there will be more of Ember to come - I plan the story out before I write it, but a lot of the time it totally changes course as I'm writing. It's kind of like the story is alive, and I'm not in control of it - it goes where it wants to, and I just have to follow it. I wonder if anyone else writes like that, or if I'm just totally weird?
Well now you all know that reviews definitely make my fingers fly, so keep 'em coming!