Disclaimer: we were meant to live for so much more …oh …why, hello there…um… right, so then, onto the story!
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Danny was aware of the intense pain in his wrists first. And then he was aware of the intense pain in his arms. And his shoulders.
A frown flickered across his face, and he realized that everything was so dark because his eyes were closed.
He repressed a groan as his blue eyes fluttered open.
He was looking down at his red and white sneakers, and he appeared to be standing on a dusty wooden floor. Apparently, he had transformed back to his human form, although he couldn't remember why.
Confused, he decided to assess the situation entirely before panicking. Panicking never did any good.
The pain in his wrists demanded immediate attention. He looked down and saw that they were handcuffed in front of him. The handcuffs were a bright green and strangely cold. His wrists were throbbing.
The pain in his arms and shoulders was an icy kind of pain too, like he was being held by a cold so intense it burned. His eyes flicked to his right arm. A beefy hand encircled his entire bicep, as if it was no more than a twig.
His eyes widened and then flicked to his left arm, which an equally beefy hand with long fingernails was gripping so tightly Danny was sure there would be rather large bruises underneath.
He began to panic.
"The boy is awake," came a booming voice next to him. Danny started and lifted his head up.
Desiree was standing right in front of him! He was looking straight into her eyes, which were entirely black with a red sheen. For some reason they reminded him of the metallic body of an insect. He wondered briefly why he had even thought that.
Desiree smirked at him and stepped back so he could see over her shoulder.
He was back in the theater! Even worse, he was on the stage! He looked out at the minion audience and the darkness that seemed to seethe and roil around them like a stormy lake. And then he looked back at Desiree, remembering everything that had happened.
"Where are Sam and Tucker?" He demanded.
"You will see them very soon," she said with a nasty smile, her voice filled with such malice that Danny couldn't stop himself from shivering.
He thought now would be a good time to change back to his ghost half. He closed his eyes and concentrated. There was a flash of light and then a knife-like pain throughout his entire body.
With a cry, his eyes burst open, light flowing out of them. The light trickled down to nothing in an instant, and everything was dark again. When Danny's eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could see that Desiree was still smirking at him.
"As if I hadn't thought of that," she laughed unpleasantly. "What do you think those handcuffs are for anyhow?"
Danny looked down at them. They were glowing, and seemed to be pulsing. A sick dread filled his stomach. The last tendrils of light from his failed transformation were being sucked into the handcuffs, and they burned frostily against his bare skin.
"Now, we shall begin," Desiree continued.
Danny looked up. Sam and Tucker walked out from behind him.
"Sam! Tucker!" He cried. They ignored him and knelt before Desiree, who was smiling at Danny's distress. Then she turned and addressed the large audience.
"Now, we shall take these children!" she shouted, lifting her arms. "Now, they shall be OURS!"
At her words, the swirling chaos of darkness rose up and descended on Tucker and Sam for the second time that day. They were engulfed so completely that Danny could see nothing but black.
"Nooooooooooo!" He howled, struggling to free himself from the grip of his captors. They just dug their hands into his arms even harder. He was almost certain he was bleeding from his left arm.
The dark was rising from his captors as well. He looked up into one of their faces. It was filled with an awful delight that made Danny want to vomit.
He looked back at the tornado of darkness, despair overtaking his anger. There was nothing he could do. He couldn't get free, he couldn't transform … all he could do was watch. And soon he couldn't even do that. His own tears were blinding him until everything was a blur.
The next thing Danny knew, his captors had let him go and he was lying on the ground in a fetal position, tears streaming down his face.
And Desiree was bending over him. "To think I had actually been worried about the 'great Danny Phantom,'" she sneered. "Why, you're nothing but a little boy!"
She leaned in closer. "And there's nothing you can do," she whispered into his ear. "Your friends are gone, and you'll never get them back."
Danny was too distressed and ashamed to even look at her. He really was useless. Sam! Tucker! They were completely shadowed now.
He buried his head in his arms and sobbed.
He didn't know that Desiree scornfully freed him from his handcuffs. He didn't know that she left, followed by her entire audience. He didn't know that Tucker and Sam left too, without a single backwards glance. All he knew was that he had failed.
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Thirty minutes later, he stood up, with some difficulty, and staggered off the stage. Everyone was gone, and the sun was still shining in dusty streams through the boarded windows.
His eyes felt puffy, like they were bruised or bleeding. His left arm was indeed bleeding from fivedeep fingernail-shaped wounds, and both arms and wrists had purple bruises.
He rubbed his wrists, which were cold and raw from where the handcuffs had chafed them.
He ran a hand through his mussy black hair and let out a long sigh. The last time he had cried so hard, it was because he had broken his arm when he was eight. Since then he had barely shed a tear.
But after that embarrassing cry-fest on the stage,Danny felt strangely better, no longer so hopeless. Even if he didn't have the power to stop Desiree and reclaim his friends, he had to try.
And so he made his way to the front of the theater and stood blinking in the late afternoon sunlight. He didn't have a lot of time.
He leaned on the old door frame and shut his eyes.A cool white light circled his body,transforming his dusty jeans and rumpled T-shirt to the black and silver bodysuit, covering up his bruises and blood.
He opened his eyes and ran a gloved hand through his white hair again. He was exhausted and sore, and it was time to go home.
It took some effort, but soon Danny was rising in the air, flying back to the Fenton lab.
He just hoped he wasn't too late.
Danny was both relieved and somewhat disappointed to find his parents gone when he floated back into his home.
On the one hand, he could search the lab for all sorts of ghost hunting paraphernalia without worrying about being caught.
On the other hand, it would have been nice to have someone else take charge, and then he could just go back to being a regular teenager who only worried about acne and how his voice kept changing mid-sentence. Not that he had acne.
Secretly, Danny had been hoping his parents would force the truth out of him. Then they could go and fix the problem.
He was far too young to carry the weight of this kind of responsibility on his shoulders – he was only 14 for crying out loud! How could anyone expect him to be a hero when he couldn't even drive?
So demonic ghosts were possessing his best friends? It was almost absurd when you thought about it, really. This sort of thing only happened in movies or comic books, or the odd TV show on Nickelodeon.
If someone had asked Danny a year ago what he would have done in this case, first he would have spurted milk out of his nose laughing, and then he would have pointed out the obvious – he would save his friends no matter what happened.
But this wasn't just a hypothetical question anymore. This was real. And Danny didn't know if he was strong enough to save them.
Slightly depressed, he scrounged around the lab in the dark for awhile. The portal was humming, a red light above the door blinking ominously. It was giving Danny the creeps, so he hit the light switch.
And saw that the lab was eerily empty. It looked like his parents had already cleared out a large portion of gadgets and gizmos needed for ghost hunting, but there were still some things left that Danny might be able to use.
The sub-molecular particle disruptor was lying on top of the workbench next to a hammer and a set of drill bits.
"Mom must have fixed this," he murmured, picking it up. It was surprisingly light, and it looked like it would wrap around his arm nicely. "Ooh, Velcro," he said, fastening it around his lower arm and flexing his muscles. Satisfied that it would stay put, he moved on.
It hadn't really worked too well before, but maybe it would give him some time.
Speaking of time…
He looked up at the wall clock anxiously. It was almost 4! The concert started at 7, and if Danny hadn't fixed things by then…
He shook his head and tried not to worry about it.
There was a vacuum-type thing in the corner, which he remembered was supposed to suck ghosts out of humans – the Fenton Xtractor. He stared at it for awhile, wondering if he would be able to carry it around with him.
Probably not. He moved on, regretfully.
Gingerly, he picked up the Fenton Spector Deflector belt – that thing had hurt when it was activated; thankfully he never got the full brunt of its attack. But Vlad hadn't seemed too happy when he was wearing it. Danny snickered at the memory – Vlad had deserved every second of pain he got.
Maybe he could tie it on Desiree super-quick and then she'd…well, she'd suffer. Tempting, but not practical. She'd make him suffer before he could get close enough. He moved on.
Near the portal, there was a strange palm-sized glass half-globe that shone ruby red in the lab's fluorescent light. Danny picked it up curiously. He had never seen it before.
It looked like a jewel, but there was a thick polycarbonate coating on the flat side, and two green buttons were inset into the black surface. One said "REMOVE" and one said "OFF." He stared in wonder at the gleaming thing in his hand.
"What is this?" Danny murmured, turning it over.
There was a label on the back, just like on every other thing his parents had invented. It read "Fenton De-mystifier."
Danny wasn't sure what "De-mystifier" meant, but he decided to keep the jewel, just in case. It was small enough to fit in the pouch that held his Fenton Thermos anyway.
Then he flew upstairs to his room to get the pair of Fenton Phones he had stashed in one of his drawers.
"Ok," he sighed to himself. He was as ready as he was going to be. It would have been nice to have a nap or food or something, but he just didn't have time.
He flew downstairs to the kitchen and grabbed a jar of peanut butter from one of the cabinets. Well, maybe he had time for some food.
He was just starting to spread the peanut butter on a slice of bread, when he heard a gasp from behind him.
"Danny!"
He stiffened, remembering he was still in his ghost form, white hair, black Hazmat suit and all. He closed his eyes and cursed under his breath before slowly turning around.
Hope you liked this chapter - it's not super long, and itwas getting sort of blandish at the end, so I decided to spice it up a bit... don't hate me! runs and hides
As always, reviews are muchappreciated!So close to 100! It's v. cool - you guys rock:)
Kraven the Hunter – Thanks for reviewing all those chapters! wouldn't it be nice if it was that simple? Just one wish, and all Danny's problems are gone! Too bad he is a "C student"…
Chocolatecrazy – I still think the Ember episode is the BEST! (tho the new eppys are pretty darn good too)
The Drewfus – LOL, thanks! the whole DP idea came from Butch's head though, and I shudder to think of a world without his Danny Phantom…
Ginny-Hates-Them – yep! Scary, huh? ;)
Fantastic Bouncy Girl – Ah, Frodo :D
JPElles – sorry!
Lil Bre – oooh, do you like the Weekenders too? Such a good show :)