It was getting close to dawn when Jazz and Danny got home. Phantom had returned earlier to tell Jack what happened. He hovered in the air, trying to stay awake, and didn't pay much attention when Jazz came down into the lab.
"He's asleep," she said in answer to her dad's raised eyebrow. "It wasn't quite as bad as it looked."
"But it was still broken?" At Jazz's nod, he sighed. "He shouldn't have to deal with this; he's just-"
He was interrupted by a blue flash of light followed by a thump. "Ow!" Phantom yelped. He stood and rubbed his arm where he had landed on it. After a few seconds, Jazz started to laugh, earning a peevish glare from the ghost boy. He returned to ghost form and walked over to inspect the ecto-skeleton. "Is it ready?"
"Whenever you are," Jack answered, not bothering to hide his own amusement.
"Maybe you should get some sleep first," Jazz pointed out. Phantom stuck his tongue out at her and flew upstairs to sleep on the couch.
Danny leaned on his crutches to stare out the window and pout while his family finished loading the ecto-skeleton into the Assault Vehicle and got ready to leave. They wanted to find Pariah before they let Phantom use it to minimize the time it would have to drain him.
They had all come up to say goodbye; the morose attitudes Jack and Jazz wore had done nothing to ease his concern. He should be there. He had let his mother down, and now he was letting the rest of his family down. And all because of a stupid broken leg. He could still fight. He could!
"Oh, who am I kidding?" he muttered. If he went with them like this, they would be stuck protecting him. It would be a repeat of when Maddie…
He stared at the retreating form of the RV, then stared at nothing for a while. As a half-ghost, Phantom could heal from just about anything pretty quickly. Most damage even disappeared completely when he transformed, he said. Danny grinned; he had been planning on this since he first found out what Phantom was. Alone in the house with no one to stop him, this seemed as good a time as any.
He limped over to his closet and sifted through the pile of clothes until he found what he was looking for: black jeans and a black, long-sleeved shirt. He got changed, mindful of the cast around his leg, then limped to the dresser to find the sticker he had made. It would be his emblem. For now, it was white, but if this worked, it would be a white "P" inside a black "D".
Downstairs at last, he paused in the kitchen for a pair of shears, then went the rest of the way to lab to cut off his cast. If this worked, he wouldn't need it anymore. If it didn't work…
It wouldn't matter anyway.
He shut off the Ghost Portal from the main switch before opening the door. Phantom had said he pressed a button while he was inside it, and Danny thought he knew exactly which one. His dad had put an on switch inside the portal for some reason, probably the same reason the control for the emergency op-center was in the fridge. He paused for a moment to wonder if Phantom's dad was that weird, then tossed his crutches out and hit the button.
Phantom stared out the back window of the RV to watch his double stare out his window. Danny had really wanted to come; there was a moment when they all thought he would try to stow away. But he had finally acquiesced to remaining at home.
"Maybe we should have brought him anyway," Jazz sighed from the passenger seat. Phantom drifted toward the front.
"He would have been in danger," Jack responded.
"He's in danger no matter where he is with things like this. At least if he came with us, he wouldn't be stuck waiting for us to come home like he does Mom."
A long, subdued silence followed that seemed to beg for a change of subject. "Um, maybe you should put the Ghost Shield up," Phantom said quietly. "In case Electra shows up…" Jack hit the appropriate switch. The distinctly uncomfortable silence returned. Finally, the boy asked, "So…where're we going?"
The pause was just long enough to make Phantom think he was being ignored before Jazz answered. "Pariah's using the police station as his base of operations. I think he called it ironic." She shook her head in what might have been disgust. "Anyway, we know Fright Knight's there, and Pariah might be."
"Anyone else I should know about?"
Father and daughter exchanged glances. "What do you mean?" she asked. Phantom shrugged and named off a few of his enemies.
"Oh, they've been dealt with already," Jack interrupted. "They came here trying to get away from Pariah, and we sent them back…what, a few months ago?"
Jazz nodded. "Something like that, yeah."
The RV slowed to a stop as the police station came into view. On the roof, Fright Knight sat astride his bat-winged horse to quietly watch the foolish interlopers. There was no reason to attack yet; they were only harmless humans.
"Okay, here's the plan," Phantom said as he fazed through the ecto-skeleton and went human to activate it. "I deal with Fright Knight, you guys deal with the skeleton ghosts, then I get inside and suck Pariah into the Fenton Thermos. Sound good?"
"We'll deal with Fright Knight," Jack contended, hefting a Ghost Bazooka. "You just get inside and find Pariah."
The boy started to argue, but the looks of grim determination on his companions' faces silenced him. Instead, he switched back to ghost mode with the ecto-skeleton and nodded. The three of them shared a moment of quiet camaraderie, then Phantom launched into the air while Jack and Jazz started running.
The slightly green-tinted ceiling swam slowly into focus. The ceiling was supposed to be white, so why was it green? Danny sat up slowly; he felt strange. It wasn't painful, just really, really strange. He realized the green ceiling was being caused by light from the open Ghost Portal and got to up close it. At least, that was the plan. Unfortunately, the plan would have to wait as he noticed that he was no longer touching the ground. In accordance with Murphy's Law, the second Danny noticed that he was hovering, he fell.
"Ow…" he said into the floor. He sat up and looked himself over with a grin. White jeans, white shirt, black emblem…he pulled his hair down to note that it, too, was white now. His hands and feet were bare, but his leg wasn't broken anymore. He willed himself back into the air and drifted unsteadily over to close the Ghost Portal, then landed. "I'm not dreaming!" he shouted happily. Blue rings appeared to pass over him, then, turning him into a human again. He sulked for a moment before changing back. This ghost thing wasn't as easy as it looked.
Danny willed himself to go intangible, then jumped into the air. While he did succeed in getting airborne, he forgot to concentrate on staying intangible and crashed into the ceiling. This, in turn, caused him to become human again, and he crashed to floor. "Darn it!" he exclaimed. He stood, closed his eyes, and took a few deep breaths. If Phantom could do it, he could, too. They were just two different versions of the same person, after all.
No, this wasn't nearly as easy as it looked.
Danny opened glowing green eyes and drifted into the air. He knew what he could do, and he knew more or less how to do it; it was simply a matter of mind over matter. He actually made it through the ceiling this time.
Outside, the newly made ghost boy looked up longingly at the sky and decided that he did not want to fall from that high up. He flew low to the ground and practiced his ectoplasmic energy blast on various targets. He had decent aim, even if he couldn't always get it to work.
"Intriguing," remarked a voice that sent chills down Danny's spine. Startled, he unconsciously reverted to human mode and fell to the ground. He scrambled to his feet and backed away from the slowly advancing Electra. "The ghost child's human pet, if I'm not mistaken."
"Uh…I-I'm not…anybody's pet…" the boy stammered. He was trying to be brave. He would have felt a little better if he could have been in ghost mode, but he was too scared to be able to focus.
"Humans are worthless creatures," Electra said vaguely. "I used to love to torment them. It's fun, watching them panic…"
Danny backed into a building and gulped. Of course, since he was so desperate to go intangible now, the power steadfastly refused to activate. "Wh-wh-what do you want?" he attempted to demand.
Electra removed her hat with a grand flourish and grinned menacingly. "To be left to my own devices. Tell me, boy. Why does the other one persist in attacking me?"
"You attacked us!"
"I did no such thing! When first we met, I was merely laughing at the foolish antics of ants. The second, when I sent for you, I only wanted information. It wasn't until our third meeting that I decided on a preemptive strike. Now, boy, who is he?" When Danny hesitated, attempting to bravely refuse, she leaned closer and let her eyes spark. "Tell me, or I will make you wish I had never been born."
The boy whined slightly. "Phantom. It's Phantom. That's his name."
Electra smiled, and her eyes slid from red to brown. "Now, that's better, isn't it? You're a smart boy. Where are you off to, smart boy?"
"To help beat Pariah…" he answered quietly.
"A worthwhile cause."
Danny creased his eyes in confusion. "You're not working for him?"
"Oh, Brightness, no!" she laughed. "I'm a free agent, boy. The only ghost willing to work for Pariah Dark is Fright Knight, and that only because he's mad as a hatter." She paused to look thoughtful, then added, "Well, and that skeleton army of his, but they don't count. They don't think."
"But you have attacked us!" Danny argued. "You tried to kill my dad!"
"Yes. And think back, if you will, to who started that fight."
Danny stared at Electra. True, Jack was the one who had actually attacked first, but she would have. Right? She was a ghost, and ghosts were evil.
But Phantom was a ghost, and he wasn't evil. In fact, Danny was a ghost now, too, and he wasn't evil, either. "…Then, will you help us fight Pariah?" he asked tentatively.
Electra laughed lightly. "Oh, my dear boy, I am not a warrior. I am a thespian. My passion is the arts, not violence. Though I will confess, I am quick to anger and quicker to destroy. Be on your way, then, but be warned. You have piqued my interest. Cheerio!" She replaced her hat and tipped it slightly, then vanished into thick red smoke.
Danny stood where he was for several minutes, then tilted his head back against the wall and breathed a sigh of relief. It took a while longer before he noticed that he was sinking into the concrete. He gave a half-hearted chuckle as he floated back out and reverted to ghost mode. At least she didn't try to kill him.
A/N: ARGH! You have no idea...I keep having to correct where I've called Phantom "Danny", so if you see a reference to Danny that looks like it should be more correctly interpreted as Phantom, please tell me so I can fix it.