With the power back on, the Fenton Ghost Prison was working again. Phantom hovered inside it dejectedly while his double sat in a chair across from him, staring. Jack and Jazz had rushed off to deal something or other; Danny had begged off on the grounds that someone needed to guard the prisoner. The rest of his family had been in too big of a hurry to argue. He wanted to release the ghost boy, but if Jack found out, he'd be livid.
Several times during the interval that followed, Danny had taken a breath as though to speak. He had yet to actually say anything, and Phantom was wondering if he should go first when the boy finally got his thoughts in order. "How d-did you…you know…die?"
Phantom smiled and shook his head. "I didn't," he explained. "In my world, Dad's kind of a goof-up, and he couldn't figure out how to get the portal working. So I went in to kind of look around, and I guess I hit a button or something. There was this flash of light, and I passed out. When I came to…" He gestured at himself, "I was half ghost."
Danny stood and walked up to the prison wall. "Dad's kind of a goof-up here, too," he admitted fondly. "At least, he used to be…Him and Mom kind of gave up on it for a while. Then ghosts started showing up because Vlad was sending them from his portal. So Mom and Dad got ours fixed, so we'd have a way to send them back." He stared at his feet for a while before asking, "Is Mom…did she…"
"She's still alive," Phantom answered. "They don't know about me, though. I'm kind of scared to tell them."
Danny grinned sympathetically. "I would be, too. But don't they try to hunt you down, then?"
"All the time," the ghost boy sighed. "All the time. But I don't mind too much. I still get to be a superhero."
They fell into silence then as they tried to figure out how to phrase their next questions. It wasn't everyday a person was able to find out what might have been, and neither of them wanted to waste the chance.
In this world, Danny was fairly popular. Once the ghosts started migrating from Wisconsin, the Fentons had become town heroes, and their children were awarded status accordingly. He knew Sam and Tucker as passing acquaintances only, but he had quite a few other friends. His grades were every bit as bad as Phantom's, though. Some things never change.
Phantom told his own version of events after that. Danny looked thoughtful when he mentioned beating Pariah Dark, but didn't interrupt. He wanted to talk to his father about it.
Once they finished swapping life stories, Danny sighed and walked across the floor to glance upstairs. "I'm getting worried," he confided. "Dad and Jazz should have been back by now "
"I'm sure they're okay…" Phantom tried to reassure the boy. He didn't succeed very well since he didn't really feel it.
Danny sighed again and shifted his weight. "I'm going to try to contact them," he called over his shoulder as he dashed upstairs.
Phantom reverted to his human mode and tried the door. It was locked, of course. Never mind that no ghost could get close enough to touch the door, or that said ghost would simply faze through the wall if the power went out. The door was locked. It seemed a useless gesture.
Or had it been meant for Vlad? The Fentons clearly knew he was Plasmius in this world. If he was half ghost here, they may have built this prison for him. But Danny had been amazed that Phantom was half ghost. Was that because he had never heard of one? Or was he just amazed that there was another one? Phantom resolved to ask as soon as he came back; a resolve that broke the second the boy came charging down the steps.
"They're in trouble!" he exclaimed as he shut off the ghost shielding around the cell. "You've got to get me there! To the hospital! They need my help!"
Phantom hesitated the barest moment. Danny had no powers, no abilities to give him an advantage. All he had was a plasma rifle and his desperate need to save his remaining family members. But, had their roles been reversed, the ghost boy would have felt the same. He shook his head and, fazing through the wall, grabbed his double and raced to the hospital.
"How did they get through?" Jazz yelled to her father. Jack didn't bother to respond; she wasn't actually expecting one anyway.
Pariah had been trying to bring the hospital down for some time. As Amity Park's main storage facility for food and medical supplies as well as medical aid, it was a prime target for an evil dictator trying to crush the people's hope. It was the focus of this day's attacks; the battle at Casper High had been a diversion.
They finished off the remaining few skeletal warriors and looked around. It didn't look good. There were a lot of people down. The Fentons ran to get the generator restarted while the wounded were carried inside.
"Looks like they're okay," Phantom said as he landed across the street.
Danny shook his head. "I don't get it. The person I talked to said-"
"It's just the most horrible thing!" a voice exclaimed overdramatically. The two boys whirled to face a smug, smirking Electra. "Pariah's forces are too strong; I don't think we can beat them."
Phantom stepped protectively in front of Danny. "What do you want?" he demanded, though not as forcefully as he intended. Kat was one of his friends; why was she evil here? It was confusing, and he had to work to remind himself that she was the enemy.
She doffed her hat theatrically and made a grandiose bow before tossing it into the air, where it vanished. "You intrigue me, ghost child," she informed him. "You look at me as though you know me, and are repulsed by what you see. I want to know why."
"Why did you lure us out here?" the ghost boy demanded. He didn't want her to know. The Kat he knew loved information; one of the quickest ways to infuriate her was to know something she did not.
Sure enough, faced with a question instead of an answer, she narrowed her eyes. The ever-present glow of electrical power, usually too faint to see, brightened considerably. Her voice became low and sultry, as though she was trying to put him off his guard by flirting. His Kat had done that on occasion, though never to him, thankfully. "Why don't you tell me what I want to know?" she said quietly. "And I won't reduce your little friend to so much burning meat."
He knew this game, but his Kat never really meant it. He had a feeling this one did. Still, he was confident that he could beat her, if he could make her angry enough. His voice practically dripped with condescension as he replied, "Wow. You mean I know something you don't?"
"Tell me, brat, or face the consequences!"
"I'll take 'consequences' for $200, Alex," he quipped and lobbed an energy blast.
Electra threw up her arms in meager defense of her face and teleported behind the boys. With a startled shout, Danny whirled around and tried to fire, but his rifle inexplicably jammed. He cringed as Electra raised her arm, but her blue lightning met only a green wall of energy.
"Stay behind me," Phantom said as he jumped through Danny, to the boy's alarm. People were starting to gather at the edge of the hospital parking lot. A few shots went past as someone tried to hit the combatants. Electra answered with a low voltage attack that knocked the humans to the ground, but did little damage. They weren't her targets yet.
"Who are you?" Electra demanded. She swung her cane like a bat, but it went straight through Danny's intangible torso. "Why do you know me?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Phantom smirked. He charged forward and carried them both halfway the street. It felt like trying to hang on to a live power line, but it didn't hurt near as much as it used to. He saw Jazz running past them out of the corner of his eye while he and Electra circled warily.
Jack yelled something, but Electra decided to try to decapitate him with her cane, and he couldn't hear what. She cried out suddenly and stumbled back; her form shimmered, as though she lost control for a moment. Phantom used the opportunity to blast her again, then realized the Ghost Shield had come up. He grinned.
Kat had mentioned once, when his Amity Park had been plagued by blackouts, that the power fluctuations hurt her. When Jack put the shield back up, it caused a sudden burst of power.
"You will regret that, ghost boy!" Electra growled. Her eyes shifted from brown to green and back to red as she got her form back under control.
"Come and get me, then!" Phantom taunted. He turned and fled; his opponent appeared before him, but he ducked beneath her and kept going. He needed to get her near the hospital's generator. Jack was going to kill him for this…
He turned human long enough to fall through the Ghost Shield, then changed back. Electra, of course, simply went straight through a hole that mysteriously appeared. That didn't matter; Phantom was counting on it. He heard shouting as the spectators began to panic and checked to make sure that Electra was still focused on him. He hovered above the generator and ignored Jack's enraged shouting.
"You know your dad's an idiot, right?" he asked as the girl started acting cautious. "And you have no taste in clothing."
"Still your tongue, err I cut it out!" Electra interrupted. She was still in character; he needed to infuriate her further. She wasn't stupid enough to attack while he was so close to the generator yet.
He dredged up everything he knew about her, and they traded insults for a while. This wasn't working quite as planned; he was going to have to start fighting again. He jumped forward and swung a punch that connected solidly with Electra's copper cane. She flashed a victorious grin.
"You see?" she laughed. "You uncultured barbarians always resort to violence."
Then it was time for Phantom to display a smug grin as he finally got his opponent lined up with the generator. "You talk too much," he informed her. He threw her against the side of the generator and fired an energy blast. The resulting power surge caused Electra to disperse completely with an anguished cry. She'd be back, but not for a while at least.
He hovered where he was, exhausted, until Jack walked quietly past to restore power a second time. The people had surrounded him in a loose semi-circle, but they didn't seem threatening. Curious, suspicious, and cautious, but not threatening.
Danny slipped through the crowd to join Phantom. "Now, that was cool!" he announced joyously. "How did you know to do that?"
The ghost boy shrugged. "Where I come from, she's a friend. I know all about her."
Jazz stepped warily behind her little brother. "Danny says you beat Pariah in your world."
"Well, I had a lot of help."
"That's more than we've done," Jack called over his shoulder. "How'd you do it?"
Phantom drifted closer, as much to get further away from the staring bystanders as anything else. "Um, my dad invented this ecto-skeleton thing that enhances a person's abilities, and I kind of stole it."
They regarded each other quietly while Jazz and Danny got everyone back inside. "I had an idea for something like that," the older man remarked. "But then Maddie died, and I just didn't care anymore. You really are…Danny, aren't you?"
He didn't seem to need a response, so Phantom didn't supply one. Instead, he helped repair the generator. Jack seemed deep in thought, an unusual occurrence even here. The boy had a feeling he knew what was going through the man's head. Of course, he would help. He was the only one who stood a chance against Pariah even with the ecto-skeleton. The rest of them were only human...