Phantom slowed his flight somewhat as he neared the police station. He expected Fright Knight to ride out to meet him, but the ghostly dragoon merely continued to watch. Although his face was invisible beneath his bucket-shaped helmet, the boy thought he seemed to smirk. He shrugged mentally and continued through the wall.
Inside the station appeared to be deserted. A dead plant sat forgotten in its cracked pot in the far corner. Phantom walked slowly around a wall to the main room, prepared to deal with anything Pariah decided to throw at him.
Anything that is, except for what he saw.
"A ghost using his powers to help humans?" sneered his opponent. "How very quaint…"
Phantom blinked in confusion, completely at a loss for words. Well, at least now he knew what happened to Plasmius and Maddie. "You beat Pariah?" he asked, bemused.
Vlad chuckled evilly and rose from the throne-like chair that had once belonged to Pariah. "Phantom wasn't it?" he confirmed as he strode over to a clear plastic cage containing the ghost of a red-haired woman in a blue hazmat suit. Maddie glared defiantly at her captor, who smirked and turned his attention back to the ghost boy. "And this," he gestured derisively toward the ecto-skeleton. "What is this? It looks like something that idiot Jack Fenton would build."
"He's not an idiot!" Phantom exclaimed, interrupting Maddie about to say the same thing. She gave him a strange look that he pretended not to notice. Doubtless, she had noted the similarities in appearance between the ghost boy and her son and was beginning to wonder if Danny was still alive. He would correct her on that point later; for now, Vlad was approaching.
He twisted the Ring of Rage around on his finger, a gesture designed to bring Phantom's attention to the fact that he was wearing it, as though the Crown of Flame wasn't obvious enough. He radiated an aura of smug superiority as he mocked the ghost boy. "Well, if you really want to trust your existence to a device made by that idiot, who am I to argue? Less work for me."
"My husband is twice the man you'll ever be, Vlad Masters!" Maddie interjected angrily.
Vlad turned his head slightly. "Ex-husband, my dear. Ex-husband. It's 'Til death do us part,' remember?"
Phantom used the exchange to come up with some kind of plan. If it were Pariah, he simply would have used his newfound access to his duplication powers to beat him senseless like he did last time. Vlad, however, required a certain craftiness of which the fourteen-year-old boy was in short supply. "So how did you do it?" he asked, pretending to be interested. Like all egomaniacs, Vlad liked to broadcast his grand intelligence, and it gave Phantom a little more time to think.
True to form, Vlad smirked slightly. "Oh, it was easy really. The Fright Knight was, shall we say…less than happy with Pariah. He came around to my way of thinking rather quickly. After that, it was nothing more than a simple cognitive exercise to topple the 'King of Ghosts'. I, then, took him apart, molecule by molecule." He gave a low, menacing chuckle. "He certainly won't be trying to oppose me, again."
With the ecto-skeleton, their power levels were close to matching. Vlad was dangerous because he knew the benefits of stealth and cunning, something that Pariah never bothered to care about. Phantom had the advantage of knowing all about Vlad while remaining a mysterious element himself. Now, if he could just figure out how to use that advantage.
Unable to put the actual battle off any longer, he dodged Vlad's first blast and returned with one of his own. Maybe he'd figure something out along the way.
While Phantom entered the station, the Fentons started blasting skeleton ghosts, a process that would have been considerably easier if not for the large trench that prevented them from bringing the Assault Vehicle. There were quite a few ghost warriors, although they weren't wielding any kind of projectiles. Normally, they would still have been a problem by sheer force of numbers, but they attacked in such small groups that they were easy to pick off at a distance. The problem was going to be Fright Knight. He was still watching, waiting for them to run out of power fighting the army.
Jack and Jazz began firing with their plasma rifles. Although they couldn't send ghosts back to the Ghost Zone, they could cause enough damage to make them disperse for a while. When those ran out of power, they were forced to switch to Ghost Bazookas. It was easier to get rid of the ghosts, but it also meant that by the time they banished the last ones and Fright Knight attacked, they only had three shots left between them.
"Jazz," Jack said quietly. "Take care of your brother."
"You are not doing this alone, Dad," Jazz forcefully responded.
"Someone has to take care of Danny! Now, go home!" With a wordless battle cry, he charged forward. All previous attempts to defeat Fright Knight from a safe distance invariably failed, and he wanted to be closer before he used his last shot. Even if it meant his own life, he was going to make it count. He had only made it a few feet, however, when a white blur came out of nowhere to knock the Fright Knight from his horse.
Danny was very proud of himself for succeeding in that sneak attack. He honestly didn't think it would work. He rubbed his knuckles where they had hit Fright Knight's armor. "I made it!" he yelled happily with a wave to his family.
Deciding to simply take it in stride and deal with it later, Jack yelled to Jazz to grab more weapons, then charged forward, wielding his Bazooka like a club. He certainly wasn't going to try firing it, now; it might pull Danny in.
"Danny!" he yelled. "When your sister gets back, go help Phantom!"
"I'm not going to leave you!" Danny argued, inexpertly dodging a kick from the Black Pegasus.
"That wasn't a suggestion! We can't use the Ghost Bazookas with you here!"
"No one's going anywhere!" Fright Knight exclaimed. "Except to a dimension where your worst fears become reality!" He swung the Soul Shredder at Jack, who blocked with his own weapon. They became locked in a fierce struggle for the upper hand that was brought to a halt when a blast of plasma hit the ghost square in the head.
Jack tossed the now-defunct Bazooka aside and turned to catch a plasma rifle. Danny hesitated a few seconds longer. He was afraid if he left, he would never see them again. But his father was right; they couldn't send Fright Knight back to the Ghost Zone without the risk of sending him as well, something they would never do. He gave Fright Knight a parting energy blast and fled for the police station. Although he couldn't see it, that proved to be the turning point in that particular battle.
He paused at the door to go intangible and slid through, then slowly floated forward, unwittingly mimicking his double from earlier. The sounds of battle were loud and fierce, and he didn't feel comfortable trying to take on Pariah directly. He was afraid of getting in the way like he thought he had outside. Instead, he took an adjacent corridor to the main room and activated his invisibility to slip through the wall without being seen.
It was a testament to his priorities that the first thing he saw was his mother. He clapped his hands over his mouth as his voice threatened to betray him and shot across the room to duck behind the prison. He couldn't touch the wall from the outside as a ghost, so he went human again and tapped on it.
Startled, Maddie jerked around and froze. She opened her mouth to say something, then remembered that she did not want to draw Vlad's attention to her son and chose to look worried instead.
The boy grinned happily and snuck around front to try the door, but it was apparently modeled after the ghost prison at Fenton Works. Maddie had insisted they put a lock on the door, just in case. She was probably regretting that now.
"Danny," she whispered, then pointed to the control panel on the other side of Vlad's throne. He nodded understanding, went invisible again, and dashed across. Behind him, Maddie opened her mouth to speak again, but words escaped her. Instead, she once again began wondering about the current status of her son's existence.
Phantom howled in pain and collapsed to the ground. He managed to stay in ghost mode, but it was a fight to do so. The ecto-skeleton was done for, and so was he. The world was starting to spin before his eyes. He went intangible and fell from the machine, not that it would actually help prolong his life. Maybe as a full ghost, he'd have a better chance against Vlad.
His enemy was speaking again, but he wasn't paying much attention. He just wanted this to be over, now. Movement caught his eyes as something black dashed between Maddie's prison and the throne. He snapped his focus back to Vlad's face, lest the older ghost realize something was amiss behind him. It occurred to the boy to wonder why Danny was there when he was supposed to be home with a broken leg, but all thoughts were driven away as Vlad cried out in rage and whirled around.
Maddie backed away swiftly, the Crown of Fire in her hands and an expression of victory on her face. "Come on, Vlad," she taunted him as only she could. "Come and get it."
"Woman," Vlad answered warningly. "I love you, but you are sorely trying my patience."
"Ew!" Danny exclaimed, switching to ghost mode. "Dude, that's my mom!" He fired an energy blast, but Vlad recovered from his surprise at meeting another half ghost and swatted it aside.
"Oh, now, that's just-" he began. A sudden blast of pale blue light cut him off as he was sucked into the Fenton Thermos, shouting his wrath.
"I should be surprised by this," Phantom good-naturedly addressed his double. "But I'm not." Danny shrugged.
"Okay," Maddie broke in. "Will someone please-"
"Mom!" Jazz yelled as she and her father entered the room. They ran forward; after a moment, Danny joined them, and they shared a very tearful reunion.
Phantom blinked in confusion as the image suddenly froze. His attention was drawn by a weight around his neck, and he glanced down to see a gold medallion with the initials "CW" engraved on it.
"I'd say it's time to go home, wouldn't you?"
"Clockwork!" he exclaimed, turning.
The old ghost bowed slightly. "I apologize for letting my…counterparts drag you into this."
"The Guardians of Space, you mean?"
Clockwork nodded solemnly, suddenly a small child. "Time and space are interrelated, I'm afraid. They are rather more meddlesome than I, however. This world was an experiment for them; one that they botched. They manipulated you into coming here to fix their mistakes, and now, I'm here to take you home."
Phantom looked back at the frozen moment of pure joy and shook his head. "Can I say goodbye?" he asked.
Clockwork smiled. "Time…in!" he said, hitting the button on top of his staff and allowing time to resume.
Phantom took a few steps forward and waited until the happy family noticed him. "Black would've looked better," he said affably, nodding at Danny.
"I didn't want to copy you too much," the boy answered sheepishly, unconsciously brushing his emblem. Then he drew himself up, and said with just a touch of arrogance, "White's more distinctive anyway." They shared a laugh, then Jack stepped forward.
"Thanks, Phantom," he said. He shook hands with the ghost boy, then relieved him of the Fenton Thermos. "We really couldn't have done this without you."
"I couldn't have done it, either, if Danny hadn't showed up," he refuted. He gestured toward Clockwork, standing patiently behind him. "It's time for me to go home, now."
"We won't forget you," Jazz piped up suddenly. She laughed slightly and ruffled her brother's white hair. "How can we?"
Maddie drifted forward slightly. "Thank you."
Phantom smiled, then turned. "I'm ready."
The once again aging ghost nodded to the family and hit the button on his staff. "Time…out!"
A/N: Well, just the epilogue left. I have to say, the ending of this one turned out better than I thought it would. I was considering just having Phantom disappear with Clockwork, but this is more meaningful. I think, anyway.
I really...shouldn't confess this, but I have to. I wasn't actually planning on this chapter when I wrote it. In fact, I was halfway through a fight with Pariah when this hit me, and I had to start again. But I like it better this way.