Author's Note: I'd like to take a moment to recognize Digitaldreamer and her fanart for my story. I absolutely love it, I was really flattered. It can be found by a link in my profile. I'm sorry about all the typos in the chapters: I write them, upload them, then add in a bunch of stuff, and for some reason the space bars don't work well on it. I've fixed them in this one though, and I'll go back to fix the rest.
The story is nearly over. What's to come next? I have about nine or so projects to work on, which can be viewed in my profile as well. Hope you stick around for them all.
Avalanche
"Danny!"
Sam screamed, hoping that maybe Danny would hear her across the distance that separated her from his and Ash's fight. It was all she was able to do. The Box Ghost had grabbed her from behind, like he had in her room, and took her to the edge of the trees. She grit her teeth together and pulled at her bonds to the tree, but to no avail, as the ghost laughedridiculously beside her, giving a speech about something or other that had to do with their final defeat.
Sometimes ghost hunting actually had its boring moments.
She whipped her head to the side to glare at him. Breathing deeply, she blew a strawberry at the ghost, nailing him on the cheek before he could become intangible.
"You dare to befoul the face of the Box Ghost!" he cried in rage, running a gloved hand over his face to wipe the spit from it.
A defiant smirk ran over Sam's face at his frustration. That was something she'd wanted to do for two years now. That was, before he did something she hadn't expected. He threw a small metal disc towards her face and it landed perfectlyon her mouth. Before she could blow it away, twoarms came out from the sides andattached to her cheeks. It wasn't painful, but it kept her from speaking. Her eyes grew round and she thrashed about, trying to shake it off of her face and yelping behind it.
"Now, BEWARE, insolent human, and pay for your foolishness!" he shouted, pulling a small box from behind him. Sam stared at the blue button as the ghost pressed it down. The cuffs around her wrists and ankles suddenly felt like seering hot metal against her skin. She threw her head back against the tree andtried to scream, but the mask muffled the sounds. She winced as the pain faded away, holding back small tears with all her energy.
Watching the scene play out before him from so far that he could barely make it out was Danny. He stared with his mouth open in surprise and fear for her. The Specter laughed behind him.
"Precious, precious Samantha," he spat mockingly. "Shame on you; you're supposed to be a hero. Aren't you going to save her, Danny?"
Danny didn't think, but felt his fists clench and his anger swell inside of him. The taunts and jokes about his forbidden feelings had reached their limits. He turned sharply and struck the Specter with as many ghost rays as he could send in sequence, the lights burning his eyes. The ghost was thrown off course, leaving Danny free to turn and race to the tree line as fast as he could.
The distance between them disappeared in seconds. His momentum carried him forward and he stuck his elbow out to meet the Box Ghost in the head, sending both of them into somersaults. The Box Ghost hit the button again as he struggled to hold on to it, and the burning sensation went through Sam's body again. She cried out into the mask, and this time Danny could easily see the pain she was in. He turned to the pudgy ghost and grabbed him by the wrist, wrestling the device from his hand and smashing it against a tree. Done with him, he threw the ghost against the tree as well.
For a moment he stood there, taking a moment and catching his breath and blowing the white hairs from his face before he heard Sam's desperate and annoyed noises behind him. He hit himself on his forehead and turned back to where Sam was pinned to the tree. The first thing he did was rip off the mask on her mouth, causing her to yelp in the minor sting.
"Are you okay?" he breathed.
"Don't worry, I'll live," she answered, moving her lips to ease them. She took a moment to study his slightly battered face and worried green eyes before snapping back to reality. Shaking her hands she said, "Try to get the cuffs off."
He nodded and reached up for the bonds on her wrists. As soon as he grasped he grasped them,ready to pull them out, an shock pulsated through his arms and down through the rest of his body. Crying out, he released them and fell backwards to the snow, his hands burning.
"Danny, no!" Sam leapt forward as Danny fell, trying to pull herself away. Groaning, she hit her head against the trunk. Stupid, stupid, of course the cuffs would deflect Danny's ghost powers! That should have been a given. As long as Danny had to fight Ash, he couldn't chance becoming human, which meant she was stuck on the tree until Danny beat him.
And if Danny failed to beat him and the avalanche began, she wouldn't be able to run.
Laughter filled the air from above the two. Danny opened his bleary eyes to see the Specter hovering upside down over him. He was definitely very amused by all of this."I've never actually had to put up a fight with any of the others," he explained. "I'm actually having a pretty good time seeing you squirm, you know."
Danny narrowed his green eyes in a deathly glare. He wanted no more than to constantly hit him with ray after ray until he fell from his smug little place in the sky into the Fenton thermos. His scowl met Avalanche's and the two were in a stand still for a few moments before Danny became invisible and slipped beneath the surface of the snow.
Avalanche straightened himself, put off at the sudden disappearance of the boy. His eyes scanned the snow around him searching for where he'd appear. He got his answer as he felt something cold and wet hit the back of his neck. Reaching back to wipe the snow from his back, he turned, growling with his red eyes glowing, at the set of three Danny Phantoms whistling innocently.
"You immature, little…" the Specter snarled, throwing his hands back and down onto two of the phantoms. The red beams hit them in their chests and one dissipated easily. The other grasped himself around his torso, wincing, but pushing the pain aside. He moved himself back next to the original Danny, who hadn't been touched. Both of them flew forward to begin the battle again.
The Specter lifted his hands and more red icicles formed from his ectoplasm beams. He sent three towards each Danny. The clone was able to protect himself, creating a ghost shield around him, but the others sliced Danny in his side. The familiar searing pain encompassed his side as he gripped the red wounds.
"And yet as fun as this is," said the Avalanche Specter, flying circles around Danny, "it is time consuming."
"Not for long," said both of the half-ghosts. Danny smiled and the double beside him faded away into nothingness. This daring action surprised the Specter, and he paused in front of Sam, staring at him. "There. I got onto you about playing fair," he explained, "so I guess I'll keep it that way."
Avalanche shook his head and chuckled. "You're really stupid. You know that?"
"Yep," he said. With that, he moved up against Ash, his fist prepared to nail him in skull when the Specter raised his hand and caught it. Danny's eyes widened in brief shock before the ghost tried to hit him, and he caught his hand. The two locked their eyes on each other challengingly, pushing against the others hands. "But at least I'm not as stupid as you."
A cry of pain escaped the Specter's mouth. Danny's hands glowed bright green as he pressed down on the Goth ghost's arms until he gave in and fell to the ground beneath them. He tumbled backward a few times, his long black hair, highlighted red in his ghost form, obscuring his vision.
Danny sighed and landed next to the Specter, placing his foot on his chest. "Don't worry, Avalanche. There's a lovely frozen tundra place in the Ghost Zone I'm sure you'll like," he said, reaching back to his belt to grab….
Oh, shit.
He groaned and patted himself around the waist as though it would suddenly appear. "I don't have the thermos!"
The Specter laughed beneath him and reached out to grasp Danny's ankle. He easily flung him aside and stood up, dusting the snow from his coat. "As if I'd allow myself to be trapped in a small cage again," he said.
Again? Danny wondered as he pushed himself up from the snow.
"You've already experienced enough pain," he continued, walking over to Danny, his coat waving in the breeze. "Yet here you are, prolonging both yours and Sam's torture. It'd be so much easier if you'd just give in. She. Doesn't. Care. About. You. Why not just let her die," he growled, reaching down to Danny's head and pushing it into the snow.
No. Danny reached behind him and tried to grasp at the Specter's hands. No!
"And then what?"Sam suddenlyshouted, desperately trying to catch his attention. The silenceshe had upheld was becoming unbearable as she watched Ash lift Danny up by his hair. Ash was getting into his mind again, while Danny just kept using force. Ash had the upper hand when it came to that; why couldn't Danny see? If he wanted to weaken Ash, he had to work in the one field that he hadn't tried yet: psychology. But Danny wasn't good with that, and it wasn't like she could just tell him to play mind games with him.In a way, she felt relieved; finally, something she could help with that she was damn good at, too.
It worked. Still holding Danny up by his white hair, Ash turned to face her. "What happens if he just lets us die?" Sam asked. "You're just going to keep doing this, over and over again. You're a ghost, Ash! You have eternity. Twenty years is nothing in your life. Twenty decades, twenty centuries… it'll just keep going on forever until no more people come here. And if you keep doing this," she added, silently, "then you'll just end up finding more girls like Alice. More girls like me. And you'll destroy them, too."
Ash blinked, his eyes locked on Sam. "So?" he said, sounding indifferent. Sam knew better. Little by little, she could eventually break him down.
"I know you don't want to do this, Ashton," she continued. "I know you don't really want to kill me. You have vulnerabilities. You didn't want to kill Alice either, no matter how much she hurt you. You just tell yourself that so that you'll feel better, don't you?" Ash didn't answer, but his eyes were slowly changing. "Don't you?"
"Shut up," he said. He meant it to sound threatening but his voice faltered. It was but a whisper. Danny looked up, wincing in discomfort, at the Specter's face, astonished at what was happening. How did Sam know what buttons to press? He obviously had missed something incredibly important. But Sam was doing very well at whatever it was… then again that wasn't to be unexpected, when he thought about it.
"How do you know that, in fact, the girls really did like all the boys you killed!" Sam suggested. "Maybe, in the end, all you did was make it to where the girl turned her back on the guy. All you would have been doing was causing them pain that neither of them would have had without you. You don't teach them a lesson; you cause their problems! Everything is your fault."
Danny was fixated on Sam now. She sounded so detached, so interrogative. She was working his way into his head. He couldn't help but be awed by her skill. It seemed as though she knew that everything she was saying was true.
"Alice could've had a chance to love you like you did!" Sam cried. "Just because she liked someone else for a while, that didn't mean she never liked you before them, Ash. It didn't mean she couldn't ever like you in the future! But now you'll never know. Why?Because she's dead. Just like you. Both of you are dead and you're just a love sick, crazy old ghost."
Danny's hair slipped through Avalanche's fingers. He fell to the ground, too entranced by what was happening to even try to hit the ghost.
"Who knows? She might even be a ghost, if you're lucky.What if she is a ghost? You might even see her again. But would she want to see you, after knowing what you've done to so many girls in her name?"
"Please…" Ash said. He fell to his knees; lost in a world only he could see. He looked up and stared longingly into Sam's uniquely colored eyes. "Alice, please. No, Alice…"
"She can't hear you Ash," Sam said coldly. She glared down at him, all of her pity for the pathetic creature leaving her as she channeled all of her anger into her words. "And you know what? She never will."
"No!" he yelled. His gaze turned from pleading Sam, Alice, whoever it was he saw talking, to anger. The Specter lifted his hand, glowing red, and before the boy behind him could do anything the stop him, red beams shot from his palm into Sam's chest.
"Sam!" Danny cried, running to where the two were.
"No!" Ash cried. As though he was suddenly realizing what he had done, he stared at his hands wide-eyed. Sam's body fell limp, but she was still awake. Her breathing was heavy, the only thing keeping her upright were the cuffs around her wrists. "No… Sam, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, Alice!" He fell in front of Sam's feet, looking horrified. "I didn't mean to hurt you, Alice!"
Sam could barely register what was going on. She felt weak, she wanted to pass out, but she couldn't allow herself to. She'd done what she meant to do. Of course, this was an unpleasant side effect.
Suddenly, Danny phased up from the thick snow between them, his raised fists making contact with his jaw, sending him back away from Sam. He floated in a defensive position in front of her and yelled…
"Her name is not Alice!"
As her thinking cleared and the shock of the blast she took began to wear off, she lifted her head and opened her eyes. The back of Danny's head obstructed her vision, but she could see that Ash was distressed. His expression was wild and desperate as he outstretched his hands and the white frozen snow around him began to glow blue before rising up in front of him.
Danny had to think of something to compliment Sam's efforts. He turned and saw her looking at him with a disoriented gaze. She'd been hurt badly; her human body couldn't take what his ghost form could take. Yet she couldn't distract him now. He had to make sure she had a chance of living, first.
He held his hands a foot apart from each other and channeled his ghost ray to the area between them. The collision had a tornado effect and a spiraling ball of ghost energy appeared. He stretched his arms out and the sphere grew wider and wider until it emitted a bright green light around him. It grew until he couldn't open his arms any longer. He was beginning to lose his energy, anyway.
The Specter, with his large, blue snowball, and Danny, with his weapon, stared at each other for brief seconds before Avalanche yelled something incoherent and the snow was sent straight for him. He pushed forward with all his might and the ghost energy flew to collide with the snow. The warm ectoplasm easily cut through the snow, and carried on to where the Specter floated in midair.
As Ash flipped backwards through the air, his coat flew back around his head, revealing a belt around his side. Sam, her strength nearly back to her, saw a brief flash of metal. She gasped.
"He's got the thermos!" she yelled as loudly as her voice would let her.
"What?" He turned back to her, disbelieving. "He's had it the whole time? Aah!" His hand flew to the back of his shoulder, which had been pierced by another icicle. Those blasted things were way to nifty for his sake.
"You have too..." Sam said weakly, "get it from Ash. Forget about me right now, just go... get the thermos."
Danny nodded, understanding that getting rid of the Specter was the best way to keep them safe. "Where is it?"
"On his belt, right side."
In a black and white blur Danny sped to the Specter. "You couldn't hit me if you tried," he said. No time to think up clever puns, he had to work quickly.
Avalanche took the threat and lifted his right arm to stun him. With his side exposed, Danny saw the thermos attached to a holster in his belt. He dove for it at once, but at the last moment the ghost realized what he'd seen and dodged out of the way, pulling his cloak tight around him.
"No, no, Danny," he said, shaking his finger. "I can't have you trapping me within this soup can of yours, can I, when there's still so much that I have to do. I think I'll keep it with me. Maybe I can keep that crazy Box Ghost in it once you're gone."
Danny muttered under his breath exactly where the Specter should keep the thermos.
The Specter raised his glowing red hands and brought them down, aiming for Danny who was now flying around him. "Say that to my face, punk!"
Danny orbited Avalanche and once again rocketed for his left side. This time he was prepared, though. He grabbed Danny's arm, pulling it behind his back and holding him tight.
"Why do you still even fight?" he hissed. "Are you really this stupid? I'm sick of trying to tell you that she doesn't love you!"
"OH MY GOD!" Sam screeched, knocking her head against the tree trunk."BOTH of you are really this stupid!I'M sick of hearing what I feel from you two when you don't even get the fact that I like Danny!"
Time seemed to stop as both Ash and Danny stared at the girl before them.
"WHAT?" Ash bellowed, tightening his grip on Danny's arm. His round, green eyes locked on Sam, both angry and disbelieving.
Wincing, Danny grasped for the fabric of Ash's coat with the little arm space he had. Once he had a grip, he sent an ectoplasmic shock through it, his Ghost Stinger surging into him. He cried out and let go of Danny reflexively.
"How's that for a taste of your own medicine?" Danny asked, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt. Ash didn't seem to notice, though. He was still turned toward Sam, his mouth agape.
"How... How can that be possible? You told me you didn't care for him that way! You said you cared for me!"
Sam closed her eyes and shook her head. "I lied."
Danny smiled behind the furious glare he was giving Ash. "Guess you're at a loss this year, huh?"
Ash shut his eyes tight and shook his head, clearing his mind of the questions flooding it. "Then that means... that I have to do it this time... I have to do it myself again. Like Alice."
Danny didn't know what he was talking about, and he didn't care. A new hope had risen inside of him, along with his anger at the now vulnerable teenager in his hands. He ducked his hand into his cloak and pulled the Fenton Thermos from his belt, popping the lid open. "But you know," he said thoughtfully, "there's one more thing I'd like to do before I send you to the Ghost Zone."
Ash moved his gaze from Sam to Danny, locking his eyes with him. "Just because it turns out she cares for you doesn't mean you have nothing to fear... because my heart is still broken, and my cries still resound through these mountains, even if yours won't."
With that, both Danny and Ash opened their mouths, inhaled deeply, and...
Danny was violentlythrown away from Ash. His Ghostly Wail had been released simutaneously with whatever heartbroken sound came from Ash. The two forces had collided, equal in strength, and both were pushed backwards by them.
Below, Sam screamed, but it was barely audible above the two wails feet from her. She could feel herself being pushed against the tree, her ribs ready to collapse as the tree began to bend backward, the roots nearest to the ghosts lifting up, but still standing. A ringing sound in her ears once the voices began tofade caused her to believe her ears were bleeding.
Ash's cry of sorrow ended, and he fell to his knees in the snow, weakened by the cry. Yards away he noticed Danny fall, as well, struggling to stay in his ghost form. He fell face down into the snow. Now, all Ash had to do was wait for...
The sounds of rumbling above them.
He laughed to himself, standing to his feet. He looked up menacingly at Danny, who was beginning to push himself up. "Too late. Any moment now, the avalanche will reach you, and you're too weak to do anything about it... it doesn't matter if Precious Samantha chose you in time. That is a first. By the way, that's a nifty power you have. Here I was thinking I was the only ghost with a voice so powerful. Oh, and Sam," he added, looking to her, "I am sorry. I really did like you, both for Alice and yourself. Too bad, though, isn't it?"
Sam met his gaze and smirked. "Too bad," she said hoarsely.
"For you," said a voice behind Ash.
Ash swerved around and saw Danny's face inches from him, smiling. Something hit him in the stomach. Looking down, he saw the Fenton Thermos pressed against his chest. Before he could say a word, he felt himself pulled into the small space and then, he could see nothing.
The faint rumbling behind Danny was beginning to get louder. He turned around and sawthe weapon Ash had used to kill them. A huge surge of snow was coming down the side of the mountain, growing closer with every second.
"Danny, help me out of this thing!" Sam said, shaking her fists. Danny ran over to her and almost touched the cuffs before realizing he couldn't. He transformed into Fenton, and grabbed a hold of the bonds. Though well built as a human, he was stronger as a ghost, and the cuffs didn't seem to want to budge.
Sam watched past Danny at the avalanche growing closer and closer to them. "Hurry!"
"I'm trying!" he gasped, putting a foot against the trunk and yanked. Finally the tree released it and it flew behind him. He grabbed the other cuff and this time, with Sam's help, pulled it out as well. After disconnecting her ankles from the tree, Sam dropped to the ground and grabbed Danny around the neck.
"You did it!" she said, overjoyed. "You won. We're alive."
Danny hugged her tightly, not wanting to let go of her. Everything that had just happened was beginning to melt away in the warmth. "Not if we don't get out of here," he whispered. He slinked his arm around her waist and closed her eyes and tried to go ghost.
Nothing happened.
"Oh, no," he said. "No, no, no!"
"What is it?"
"I can't go ghost," he explained."The wail took away all my strength again!"
With these words Sam clung herself to him, closing her eyes to shut out the sounds of the approaching cascade. "Yes, you can. Keep trying."
He did, and after the third time, the familiar rings appeared around his waist. The two looked fearfully at the snow, now only a few yards away, the wind blowing in their faces. "Fly, Danny, fly!" Sam screamed as she felt her feet lifted from the ground.
The avalanche continued below them, blanketing the very tree Sam had been attached to quickly. Danny sighed in relief, leaning his head on Sam's shoulder. The two floated in midair for a few moments, taking their first chance at rest for all it was worth.
"Sam?" he finally whispered into her shoulder.
"Yes, Danny?" she replied.
Danny smiled softly into Sam's sweater, not allowing her to see his expression as her words came back to her. "Did you really mean what you told the Specter?"
Sam blinked as she remembered what she'd screamd and felt her stomach flip. "Um... first, his name is Ash, Danny. Second... yes." She wrapped her other arm around his neck. "I do."
Danny sighed again. "I've been waiting to here that for the past week."
"Only a week?" Sam laughed. "I've been waiting a year, thank you very much. You've finally caught up, though."
Danny lifted his head and pressed it against her forehead. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. "Yeah, I finally did catch you," he said before leaning in and kissing her softly on her lips. The kiss didn't last long, but the embrace that followed it did.
"So," Sam finally said. "What exactly are we going to tell everyone about what happened?"
"You mean besides that I was totally crushing on you and an evil misguided ghost kidnapped you, I fought him, started a huge avalanche which is still going on, and got the girl?"
Sam nodded her head. With that, Danny started flying south in the general direction of the resort, where maybe, if he was lucky, he could get in at least one day of vacation before the trip was over.
Author's Notes: I thank you all for sticking in with me, telling me what you thought of how I wrote, critiquing me, what you thought of Ash, and yelling at me to update. Definitely the fastest I've ever written anything in my life. All your support got this thing over with. All I can say now is: review, critique, and wait for the epilogue of Cold As Ice.
Saramis Kismet