Chapter 5:
"Dear Mr. Daniel Fenton," Sam Manson read from the note they'd founding Danny's locker, "Our Client has requested that you meet with us tonight regarding a matter of great personal importance."
"What does that mean?" asked Tucker.
"I don't know." Danny scratched the side of his face. "What does the rest say?"
"Meet us between the box store and the sporting goods store at nine, so that we may discuss the matter privately." Sam continued.
"That's a dead alley, Danny," Tucker showed him the map he'd pulled up on his P.D.A.
"It's probably a trap then," Danny said, staring at the P.D.A.
"That's a given." Sam said. "It says that if you don't show up, they'll be forced to reveal their findings to your parents."
Danny felt a surge of horror. "Do you think they're talking about-?"
"…Danny Phantom? It seems like it." Sam's face was stony. "Danny, don't go, if it is about you're secret, then you already know that your parents will understand. Don't risk your life over this."
"I'm not going to risk my life, but a lot of suspicious stuff has been going on, and this may give me the answers."
"You mean the nurses? Dude, get over it." Tucker argued. "It was weird, but it was probably nothing."
"It isn't Tucker. There is something going on here, and I want to know what!"
Sam and Tucker shared a look.
"What exactly do you think is going on?" Sam asked.
"I think someone has been spying on me. Every time I start to get close to finding out who it is, another ghost attacks! And now there's this note!"
"Okay, man. We'll go with you." Tucker reassured him.
"We can't," Sam interrupted, "it says you're supposed to come alone."
"Maybe if you hid in one of the stores nearby, I could call you if I needed help." Danny suggested.
They all nodded in agreement, and the conversation was finished with the ringing of the class bell.
Danny arrived at the alley on the dot of nine. An early fall breeze nipped about his cheeks. Danny pulled his jacket closer. In the shadows of the alley he could see the outlines of two figures in long coats.
One of the figures approached out of the shadows and lifted up a dark fedora.
"Mr. Hartman?" Danny gasped, recognizing the mysterious man who'd visited his parents. "I knew you had something to do with this!" Danny backed up, lowering his body and lifting his arms into a fighting position.
"Daniel," Hartman started.
"Don't call me that!" Danny yelled, memories of his twisted arch foe rising unbidden in the back of his mind.
"Danny then. I apologize for the mystery. My name is Christopher Haunting. I'm a private detective. Please, I don't mean to cause you any harm, but I have some information that is very important to you."
Christopher Haunting held out a manila folder, offering it to Danny.
Danny approached carefully, glancing to the box store window, where he could just barely see two heads peeking out at them. Sam and Tucker, just where they'd promised to be. Secretly, Danny felt a bit of weight lift off his chest. He knew that as long as his friends were there, he could handle anything. Tried and proven.
Danny took the folder from Haunting and tried to read the scientific data and charts it provided. He tried to make sense of it, but any meaning it had evaded him. Haunting apparently saw his confusion, because he approached Danny. Danny at first shook him off, then let Haunting lean over his shoulder and explain.
"It's a DNA test."
"You got my DNA?" Danny asked, the implications dawning over him. "So you hired those nurses who took my blood!"
The other figure giggled, and Danny realized it must have been the blonde, Daisy.
"We were the nurses." She told him, giggling again.
Danny gave Haunting an incredulous look. He then saw the resemblance.
"You were…?"
"Miss Mr. 2002." Haunting gave a little bow and a comforting smile. "One of my many talents. Your father's blood was easier. We lucked into it when we visited your house the first time."
Danny remembered Daisy wiping blood from Jack's brow.
"Why? What does this all mean?" Danny waved the charts.
Chris sighed, looking sad.
"I'm sorry, Danny."
"What!" Anger rose in Danny's voice.
"These charts," Chris pointed to the jagged lines across one of the papers, "Represent the pattern of acids that make up your DNA. Every person, except maybe identical twins, has a completely unique pattern."
Danny nodded, just barely understanding the explanation, but not where the detective was going with this.
"However, family members will have similar patterns, markers in common. If there are seven or more in common, it shows direct relation. A parent or sibling."
"So?"
"The test shows that Jack Fenton is not your father." Chris pointed at the charts.
Danny threw the papers to the ground.
"That's not true! It's a trick!" Danny yelled. He gave a shiver, his breath flowing out, like the smoke of a baby dragon.
"Danny, I'm sorry. I didn't want to have to tell you this, but it's your right to know." Chris held out his arms in apology.
"Who sent you? Who is my father then?" Danny shook off he tears forming in his eyes.
"Our client, your real father, is-"
"Me."
Danny turned on his heel, whirling about to face the all too familiar voice.
"Plasmius! I should of known you'd be behind this!" Danny yelled at his arch foe, his hands curled into fists.
"Plasmi-who?" Chris and Daisy echoed behind him.
Danny ignored them, wincing at dropping his secrecy.
"Ah, Daniel. Ever since I saw you I knew." Vlad started, a wicked little smile forming about the corners of his lips. "It was about fourteen years ago with Maddie… well, sometimes little things happen."
Danny snarled at Masters.
"That's a lie! Mom wouldn't touch you with a twelve-foot pole!"
"Are you so sure? Haunting, you have told him about the tests, haven't you?"
Danny turned his head slightly to look at the private eye. A sad look covered the man's face. Danny felt a little of his anger at the detective melt away.
"The tests don't lie, Danny." The detective answered in a hollow voice.
"Now, Daniel, shall we go home?"
"I'm not going anywhere with you!" Danny glanced to the window, looking for Sam and Tucker to back him up like they'd promised. But no faces peered back at him.
"I am your father, Daniel!" Masters started to grow angry, "You must obey!"
"I don't care what the tests may say, or what you claim about my mother, my dad is Jack Fenton, and you can't change that!"
"If that's how you feel," Masters took a step back, "Then I guess I'll have to change your mind by force!" Two glowing black bands appeared around Vlad Master's waist, separating, erasing Master's form and replacing it with the ghoulish form of Vlad Plasmius.
I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It had to be a dream. Right before my eyes my aristocratic white-haired client was replaced with a caped, black-haired floating demon with pointed ears and teeth.
Daisy screamed in surprise, and Plasmius, as Danny had called him, grinned. He rose into the air above us, red energy glowing from his fists.
"Now, if you'll leave me with my son," Plasmius addressed me, his voice had a haunted echoing quality to it now, "I'll wire you the rest of your fee."
"Now wait a minute!" I yelled.
A red blast shot from his hand, hitting the brick wall behind us, blasting a hole in it.
I shielded my face from the chunks of brick that rained down on us. I turned to face Plasmius again.
"Do you really wish to fight me?" He grinned.
"Yeah, I think I really do! You're not putting a hand on this kid!" I pushed Danny behind me. "I don't know what you are, Masters, but I'm not afraid of you!"
"Then you're a bigger fool than I was told."
That statement burned, but not as much as the red ectoblast that hit me in the stomach, rocketing me backwards into the wall.
"Chris!" Daisy ran to my side, holding my head. "Are you all right?"
I opened an eye and glared at her.
"Sorry, standard question."
Danny was standing between Plasmius and us. He looked back at us for a moment, and I could see the indecision in his eyes. Daisy was holding me and crying.
"Daze, get out of here," I told her hoarsely. She shook her head violently, holding me closer. If it was to be our last moments, I figured at least I'd picked one doozey of a best friend and partner.
"Daniel…" Plasmius hissed. "Come along or I'll be forced to use greater measures." His fists glowed red again and he aimed at Daisy and I.
"Then I guess I'm Goin' Ghost!" The kid yelled.
Daisy and I stared awestruck as the scared kid we'd been observing the past few weeks repeated Plasmius' trick as two white bands formed around his waist, wiping away Danny Fenton and filling in with the Ghost Kid who'd saved my butt on the plane.
"Danny Phantom?" Daisy and I gasped.
Plasmius launched another blast at Daisy and me. This time however, Danny flew up in front of us, blocking it with a glowing green shield. I struggled up to my feet, and grabbed the Fenton Ray which I'd hidden behind the dumpster.
"Oh, one of Jack's little toys… I'm so frightened." Plasmius sneered.
"You should be!" I angled the Fenton Ray at his head. The Ray went off, letting loose a blast and knocking me off my feet. "It has the word Fenton on it, and that means quality… well actually it means explosions forthcoming, but that works too."
Danny grinned and attacked Plasmius with a barrage of ectoblasts. Plasmius blocked the blasts with the red ectoplasmic shield.
Plasmius then split himself into four separate forms, surrounding us. Daisy gasped, and I couldn't help but do the same. I turned my body, letting the Fenton Ray fire wildly. One of the Plasmiuses was hit, and it evaporated into nothing. Danny squared off with another of them as Daisy dodged a second. The third grabbed me from behind and wrestled with me for control of the Ray.
"Now really, Daniel, is this the way to treat your father?"
"You're not my father!" Danny shot another blast at Vlad, who dodged it easily. Danny was getting worried, Sam and Tucker should of come out of hiding, various weapons blazing, and to back him up the moment Vlad arrived.
Vlad grabbed him by the shoulder and banged him up against the wall of the sporting goods store.
"You can't beat me, Daniel, and you can't keep denying that you are just like me." That same sadistic, self-indulgent grin Danny had come to associate with his every meeting with Vlad crept across his enemy's face.
"Indefensible proof in front of your face, and you still refuse to accept that you were meant to be under my tutelage, to follow in my footsteps." Danny looked away from Vlad's red eyes, fighting back the creeping, nagging fear that had been lurking in the back of his mind. He WAS different from Vlad. They may have similar powers, but he used his to help others…
And himself. The guilty memories of using his powers to play pranks on his rivals, to spy on Sam… every time Vlad had seen these things he'd pointed them out. But that was Vlad's sick dream…
Vlad grinned, seeing Danny's resolve weaken.
A green blast shook the wall he'd pinned Danny against.
Vlad turned around to look and Danny phased through the wall beneath his hands. Vlad cursed, seeing that haunting had thrown off the duplicate and fired just when Vlad had Danny within his grasp.
Vlad growled at the detective he'd hired, who was looking far too pleased with himself for helping Danny.
"You'll pay for that."
Danny flew up from the ground, regrouping with Haunting. The two took a fighting stance back to back, facing Vlad and the remaining duplicate.
"You still with me, kid?" Chris asked Danny.
"Yeah, but Sam and Tucker should have been here by now." Danny worried.
Vlad laughed, overhearing his young rival. "I foresaw you preparing a cavalry, so I had a few ghosts in my employ take care of them.
Daisy backed up, joining Danny and Chris.
"Masters, if you hurt them, I swear…" Chris growled.
"Amusing as this is, we have a flight to catch." Plasmius grinned, then shot at Danny, who went intangible quick enough to avoid getting hit, but the duplicate took this chance to shoot the Fenton Ray out of Haunting's hands.
Plasmius then lifted a small control from a pocket in his cape and pressed a single button. The dirt beneath them shook, and a metal plate revealed itself. A bolt of green electricity arced from the metal plate into the air, hitting the three.
Danny hit the ground, the two white bands returned about his waist, replacing his ghost form with his ordinary clothes and coloring. Plasmius hit another button, and a green shield sprouted from the edges of the metal plate, which was now floating a foot above the ground. Haunting pushed himself up off his knees and punched the green shield. It knocked him backwards, his fist giving off a bit of green smoke.
"Masters! Let us out of here!" Haunting demanded.
Plasmius laughed. "You're hardly in the position to demand anything. But we'll discuss your release once we're all back in my castle." Plasmius looked over at Danny, who was being helped into a sitting position by Daisy. "And we'll discuss how sons are supposed to behave towards their fathers."
Danny gave him a defiant look, but was unable to muster the strength to snap a comeback at him.
The plate rose higher, Plasmius flying up above it, guiding it to a plane that had been floating several hundred feet above them.
Danny looked down at the earth, and saw Sam and Tucker running out, far too late to do anything but watch helplessly as their friend was taken away. He gave a small sigh; relieved that at least they were unharmed.
The plate clacked into place in the underbelly of plane, and the roar of the engines told him that they were on their way.
To where, he already knew, but to what? And with two strangers looking on in quiet embarrassment, he started to cry.