Author's Note: The narrative in this chapter may jump around a bit. Hopefully, you'll be able to follow the narrative fine without any further explanation from me, but just in case, read what is written down carefully so you don't get lost.

BEGIN TRANSMISSION #10

"Welcome, Mr. Manson," greeted a voice that echoed out all around him.

The room was a gigantic circular affair, with evenly spaced archways, each with a thick pane of glass in it that looked out on to a thick metallic shutter. There were many pillars that stretched from the black, polished floor, like an ebony mirror, to the domed ceiling above and on the floor was painted a shield. It was the Fenton Family's Coat of Arms – quarterly argent and gules, a cross quarterly sable and argent between in the first and fourth quarters a fleurs-de-lis sable and in the second and third quarters a crescent argent.

In the centre of the room was a golden pillar with a throne carved into its base. Carved a good three metres above the top of the seat was a symbol that was like a cog and within its hole was a capital F atop a capital W; it was the symbol of the FentonWorx Corporation.

Seated in the throne was a young girl, about sixteen years of age, with long red hair that trailed behind her like a cascading waterfall of cinnabar. She was dressed completely in white, her face pale, her eyes stared out in front of her with a dead intensity and her lips formed into a concrete smile.
"I personally did not think you would get this far," she said emotionlessly, "Daniel Manson."

"You don't think much of me, do you?" retorted Phantom, as he slid into a defensive position on the polished black floor. He laughed abruptly and bitterly at the comment. "Well, guess what? I don't think much of a fake, so I guess I'm not very impressed with you, either."

"How dare you?" echoed a voice all around him. "How dare you call Lady Fenton that?"

There was a flash of light and then three humanoid robots appeared. One was large and muscular, black with a Stetson hat; he was Praetor Clay. The second was red, with black ponytails; she was Praetor Kimiko. The third was green with a tanned face; he was Praetor Raimundo. All three of the remaining Praetors, glared at him angrily as they stood in between Phantom and Fake Jasmine.

"You're not gonna harm one hair on Ms. Fenton's head," stated Clay sternly.

"We'll cut you down before you even try," added Kimiko, whilst Raimundo stared on silently.

Phantom was surprised to see that the three Praetors had repaired themselves so quickly. Then again, the damage he inflicted on them wasn't so extensive that they couldn't be repaired in record time. These Praetors were well built, after all. There was no way he could have destroyed any of them, not even the shortest of the four. Yes, he couldn't destroy Praetor Omi; he didn't really have the heart when it came down to it. In the end, he didn't have to…

"Why did you come and rescue her?" the voice had said, echoing around what had been, in effect, an execution chamber.

Phantom had recognised that voice, as he had stood amongst the twisted metallic wreckage of Valerie Grey's former executioners. At the time, there had been no need for him to turn round to face the Praetor. He had known from the moment the voice sounded that it had belonged to Omi, the Head of the Dong Shui Battalion.
"Get out of here," he had whispered to Valerie calmly. "I'll stall him."

"I don't need your charity, robot," Valerie had said in response. She had glared up at him with dry eyes, the sort that all youths in Amitropolis had. "I can take care of myself."

There had been no time for Phantom to respond to Valerie's comment. He had turned his back to her and had faced Omi with a determined expression on his face.
"What was that?" he had asked Omi. "I didn't quite catch it. Must be hard to get normal-sized people to hear you from all the way down there." At the time, he had thought it would rile Omi up enough for him to completely forget about Valerie.

However, he had noticed that the composure of Omi's face had not changed. That had come as a surprise to him, though it shouldn't had done so.

Omi had remained completely calm despite Phantom's taunts. There had been no outburst unlike with Kimiko.
"I may be small," he had said in response to Phantom's taunt, "but I have great power. Trees and mountains may shatter my body, but harsh words will do no such thing."

"Isn't that supposed to be, 'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me'?" Phantom had conjectured.

"Whatever," Omi had said dismissively. "You know the true meaning to what I intended to say." He twirled his spear round in what was an impressive display of his skills and then slammed its blunt, orbed end into the ground. "I do not know how you defeated Praetor Kimiko and Raimundo, but you will not escape from me." He sighed. "It is a shame that I have to fight you," he had told Phantom pompously. "After all, I am required by my programming to protect human beings. But you are not human, are you? Your robot side stops you from being more compassionate and human.

"Your human side stops you from being stronger than me. You can never become as great as me. You have no chance against me. You might as well surrender now." The Praetor had not sneered all that time he had been talking with Phantom. Omi's face had been calm and collected. His words had sounded as if they had contained great meaning and wisdom.
"Sometimes, when I think about you, I pity you," he had continued. "If you will not do what is right and surrender your life, then please allow me the honour of putting you out of your misery."

Phantom could remember having been a little off-put by the Praetor's words. Despite what Omi had said, or had intended to say, words did hurt and Omi's had been barbed, pointed words.
"You," he had began, "You don't know anything about me. I'm plenty compassionate, unlike you. There's no way I'm going to loose to a pompous fruit loop like you."

The rage that Phantom had felt when he faced Praetor Omi was still in his heart. It was something akin to hatred in the way it burnt inside him. As he faced the three remaining Praetors and the Fake Jasmine, he couldn't help but hate them, the way they acted as if they were the good guys, as if they were the ones being unfairly treated.

What did they know about being unfairly treated? They were the ones that lived in the Five Towers, beyond the reach of the crime and the tough life that most Amitropolitans had to suffer.

Without warning, all three Praetors rushed straight at Phantom…

The ground had burst in front of Omi and a huge gush of water had rushed out.

It had then struck Phantom straight in the chest and had knocked him off his feet. The water had spread and he had found his head had been submerged in a stream of ice cold water that smashed into him with the force of several punches. He had not been sure whether his human face would survive in the frigid water. The force of it and the coldness of it were bound to have damaged it irreparably, or so he had thought at the time.

As Phantom watched the three Praetors rush straight at him, he expected to feel the force of their blows and he expected it to feel like the rush of water that Omi had struck him with.

"Stop!"

All three Praetors skidded to a halt on the black, polished floor as if it were ice. Perhaps, for metallic feet like theirs, it was like ice to them. Yet they did so effortlessly, or at least, it had seemed that way to Phantom. Neither of them advanced any further. They had merely turned round to look at the one that had given the order, Fake Jasmine herself.

Fake Jasmine appeared calm, like she always did in her broadcasts.
"You are no match for him," she told them sternly. "Leave!" She then remained silently, seated there in her throne, staring out sightlessly in front of her.

"But…" began Raimundo, only to receive a stern, sightless gaze from Fake Jasmine. "As you wish, m'lady." He then turned to face Phantom. "You're lucky," he said and smiled, before he disappeared through the floor.

The others looked reluctantly back and forth between where Raimundo had once stood, Fake Jasmine and Phantom. It seemed as if they were torn between their programming and the orders that Fake Jasmine had given. Not only that, but there was something else and Phantom knew exactly what it was; they wanted to ignore Fake Jasmine's orders and kill him, Phantom. It was to have been their revenge against him.

Phantom noticed that Kimiko looked severely disappointed, like a jilted girlfriend, as she disappeared. He couldn't help but think what a date with her would be like; no doubt they'd end up fighting to the death. Heck, they'd probably start fighting the moment the date started. She so clearly wanted him dead, after all.

Just like Omi. He had been so adamant that Phantom did not survive that despite his defeat, he had still attempted to kill him. It had all happened so quickly that he hadn't known what hit him. Omi had rushed up to him and had grabbed on to him. The idea had been to self-destruct and take out Phantom with him, yet Omi had not anticipated Valerie Grey coming back to help the cyborg.

Valerie had knocked Omi backwards. The shock had made the Praetor loose his grip on Phantom, which had been just as well, for only then had Phantom been able to whisk Valerie away to safety. If Phantom had not been released, all three of them would have died in the explosion.

"I must admit, Mr. Manson, you've been quite a pain in the posterior," stated a voice from seemingly behind Fake Jasmine, disturbing Phantom from his recent memories. "You constantly hid from me, perhaps subconsciously or maybe even consciously. Either way, you did a good job of escaping my grasp, but you had to let your guard down eventually and I'm glad you did it so soon too." The speaker emerged from the darkness and it wasn't whom Phantom expected it to be.

The man was bald, with a pale face and a beak like nose, with a grin that seemed grotesquely large, almost like that of a clown. His lab coat was white, contrasting greatly amongst his black clothes and gloves.
"The moment you let yourself be captured by Praetor Clay in that FentonWorx warehouse, you were mine," he continued with a satisfied grin, as he leaned on his walking stick, which seemed to have bat-wings carved into it below its orb-shaped grip.

"Who…? Who are you?" asked Phantom curiously.

"The man that built the cybernetic implants that are now a part of you," was the bald man's reply. "The name is Dr. Frederick Gotik. It is, of course, a pleasure to meet you."

"What if they do find out? What then, Danny?" Sam had asked Danny the day after he had destroyed the Insurgent construction robot.

Phantom went pale at Dr. Gotik's words. Surely, not? Had the recent attempt on his life by Walker's Geists merely been an attempt to retrieve the cybernetic implants that he had wrongly been given?
"You…?" he began, only to trail off. "This has all been…?"

Dr. Gotik laughed.
"The game we played with you? Certainly," was his reply. "It was a more subtle plan on my part. We sign you up, get you to do a few things for us and then we take back what is rightfully ours." He chuckled. "It was a shame that 'someone' miscalculated your strength, or rather, the power of the Phantom Armour. Heaven forbid anyone should think that what you've achieved had anything to do with you."

The look on Phantom's face prompted Dr. Gotik to continue.
"What? Did you think that anything was under your control?" he asked Phantom curiously. "Your powers, your achievements, all were thanks to my technology, the Phantom Armour. It was designed to give its recipient the powers of a Geist and the strength of a Geist."

What was Gotik getting at? Phantom couldn't quite understand.
"Yeah, but I was the one controlling those powers," he protested against Gotik. "So, it was all my achievement."

"Wrong," drawled another voice.

It was no doubt that the voice belonged to General Walker. Phantom could never forget that voice with its Southern accent. He could never forget the authoritative boom to it that seemed to come straight from the diaphragm of Walker's barrel-chested frame. It seemed as if he would never forget the voice in his entire life and that always the memory of that voice would come in a small package deal, accompanied with the memory of Walker's knowing smile as he black-mailed him into pledging allegiance to the Blue Bow Army and to the FentonWorx Corporation.

There was it was, on Walker's lips, almost as if he had read Phantom's mind and had put that smile on his face so as to not disappoint.
"What did you ever do for Amitropolis?" he asked Phantom. "Defeat Skulker? Well, guess what? He died, because we triggered his self-destruct system. You didn't retrieve the CHAOS, our troops did. The only reason you were there was for us to gather combat data on the Phantom Armour."

"The Phantom Armour was practically carrying you all that time," mentioned Gotik with a smile on his lips. "All those fancy combat moves, none of them were because you thought of doing them. It was all the Phantom Armour." He chuckled at the thought. "A pathetic little worm like you, capable of bringing down the world's greatest combat robot ever built?" he exclaimed. "Bah! Utter nonsense. I've seen your grades. They're pathetic. You're not very smart. The only good quality about you wasn't yours to begin with."

He then motioned to Walker with his head.
"Now, if you would be so kind as to give up the Phantom Armour," he said calmly, as General Walker advanced on Phantom, "I would be very grateful."

"I… I don't understand," protested Phantom with a shake of his head. "Why?" He then looked towards Fake Jasmine, whom had said nothing throughout the entire conversation. "And what about her, huh? Did you build her too?"

Dr. Gotik laughed.
"I built and programmed her," he said carefully, as he turned round to look at Fake Jasmine. "She's a wonderful piece of work, isn't she?" he commented with a sigh. "I'm quite proud of her, I must admit, but not quite as proud of the Phantom Armour."

"You planned it all from the very beginning, didn't you?" commented Phantom. "The moment you found out the Phantom Armour was lost, you recreated Skulker to increase the Insurgent attacks. You thought that whomever had the Phantom Armour would use it to become a superhero vigilante and come out into the open to fight against Skulker. All this time, you were working on the CHAOS, am I right?" He paused for a while and from Dr. Gotik's grim expression and dour silence, he knew he was right, so he continued, "But you couldn't test it out on your own. If you did, the G3 would know and they'd have shut you down. Even reprogramming Fake Jasmine to obey you wouldn't have done the trick, so you got Skulker to steal the CHAOS. He would test it out for you and you'd have none of the risk."

A smile soon spread across his lips, as he noticed that Gotik's expression seemed to get grimmer with every second.
"Skulker never modified the CHAOS to allow him to control the minds of humans," continued Phantom calmly. "He wasn't skilled enough to do it and nor was anyone else in his outfit. Technus couldn't have modified it, he wasn't qualified. He was built to fix normal household items, not military technology; he was incapable of modifying the CHAOS, even with the blueprints. The option to control human minds must have been built in from the very beginning, by you."

The surprised look on Dr. Gotik's face remained for a quite a while, but it soon disappeared into a smile.
"That is quite good," he laughed. "I'm impressed. Tell me, for how long have you been playing dumb, hm? How long have you been acting stupid?"

That was a good question, Phantom had to admit. He wasn't going to tell Dr. Gotik the answer to that question, though. There was no way he was going to tell Gotik of how long he had spent in the hospital after the operation by Dr. Manson, and how he had felt a strange presence in the room with him. He was not going to tell Gotik of how the strange presence had talked to him and told him how she suspected that he was in danger.

It had nothing to do with the fact that he didn't remember. Danny could still remember the events in the hospital as if they had happened only the day before. He could still remember how the voice had talked to him soothingly, how it had told him of the Phantom Armour and what it was capable of doing. It had told him of how she had managed to thwart an attempt to steal the Phantom Armour, but in the chaos that ensued, it accidentally got lost amongst the mail sorting rooms and had ended up packaged and sent off to the Gordon King Hospital.

Of course, Phantom had to admit that he wouldn't have been able to completely figure everything out, had he not fallen into Dr. Gotik's office on his way up. The lab book that he had found next to the photograph he had knocked over was enough proof he needed. Like any good scientist, Dr. Gotik had kept a record of every experiment he had done and every modification he made to his CHAOS. The entire thing helped slot everything into place.

"The silent treatment, eh?" exclaimed Dr. Gotik calmly. "Well, it doesn't matter how clever or stupid you really are. You're not going to leave this place alive. Why should I care what you think or what you know?" He then turned to look at General Walker. "Albert, if you would please?"

"There's one thing I don't get, though," continued Phantom, as if Dr. Gotik had said nothing. "How'd Valerie Grey figure into it all?"

Walker laughed.
"She wasn't supposed to be there," he said calmly. "It was supposed to be her father, but she somehow stole the armour we'd given him and took his place." He reached to his side slowly, brushing away his white trench coat to reveal a gun in its holster by his side. "Not that it mattered," he continued. "She did exactly what we told her to."

The way Walker slowly reached for his gun seemed brash and smug to Phantom, as he stood there. He couldn't believe that Walker felt so confident that he would slowly reach for his gun, when he, Phantom, could so easily stop him.
"Stop!" he called out to Walker. "Don't you dare try to…" he began, only to be interrupted as he was engulfed in a brilliant flash of light.

It emanated from within. The light passed over his body and where it passed, the metallic armour disappeared to be replaced with cloth and flesh. Soon, there was no Phantom left standing there in front of Walker. There was only Danny, defenceless, wearing only the long-sleeved sweatshirt with its twin-red stripes down each arm and slightly baggy jeans held up by a belt. He wasn't even wearing any shoes. Danny stood there in the white socks he had been wearing when the sirens had gone off; in the blind panic of hearing the sirens he had completely forgotten to put his shoes on.

Gotik laughed.

Walker laughed.
"Dare try to what?" he asked Danny mockingly.

"You stupid boy, did you really think you could use my invention as you please?" asked Dr. Gotik chidingly. "I built the Phantom Armour and I can shut it down whenever I please. If I had so chose to, I could have shut it down completely when you fought against Skulker and let him take your life." He grinned. "You only got up here because I allowed it," he told Danny. "You think you could have got here all by yourself? Rubbish! Pure rubbish. Playtime is over. It's time you grew up and stopped playing 'superheroes'."

"This is the real world, boy," said Walker, as he pulled out his gun and aimed it at Danny. "The real world has real consequences. Did you really think I'd let you play the vigilante and not punish you? It was an offence to be a vigilante and still is." He sneered. "I have not forgotten how you broke the law," he stated in a matter-of-fact tone. "Let me tell you this. Despite what you may have thought when I made you join the Blue Bow Army, no one is above the law. No one is rewarded for breaking it. Eventually, everyone will get their just desserts."

A smile spread across Walker's lips, as he saw the look of pure terror on Danny's face.
"It's time you were sentenced, Daniel Manson," he said sternly. "For your crime of vigilantism and your crimes against the FentonWorx Corporation, I hereby sentence you to death." He pulled the trigger.

Danny winced. He expected to be hit in the chest. The anticipation of the searing bullet piercing his flesh made him shudder in pure terror. His mind focused on the agonising pain and the possible coldness of his body, as his life and blood left him. Danny feared his own demise. In the split second it took, he despised Gotik, despised Walker and the FentonWorx Executives, he hated himself and wished that everything had been different.

"Why?" croaked a weak and unsteady voice.

Not feeling the pain, Danny opened his eyes and looked towards Walker. He saw the pale-faced man was not facing him, but rather where Gotik once stood. Danny gasped, as he saw Gotik lying on the floor with his head raised trembling, eyes focused with a look of betrayal on Walker. He couldn't understand it, but a part of him wasn't surprised. How could he be surprised that someone whom had betrayed him would also betray Dr. Gotik as well?

Walker's lips were set into a grim straight line, as he looked down on Gotik with smoke pouring twisting out of the barrel of his gun like a grey snake.
"You broke the law," was Walker's simple response. "Everyone who breaks the law must be punished, even you, Dr. Gotik. There will be no exception. No one is above the law, except for me, because I make the law." His lips soon curled into a small smile, before he continued, "I am the Police, the Judge, the Jury, the Jailer and the Executioner."

He then turned round to look Danny, a wild glint in his eyes that sparkled with a hint of madness that Danny had never seen in him before. Walker swivelled round in his position like a gun turret, the barrel of his firearm kept dead straight in front of him, its angle to his body not altering once.
"Now for you, Daniel Manson," he stated calmly. "I must admit, you have served me well, but even you must be punished. If the New World Order is to be complete, those who have sinned in the Old World must be eradicated. Those that betrayed me – Sir Rupert Greenhithe, the G3 and the FentonWorx Corporation, all must be punished and you will have the honour of being the first."

Danny couldn't understand it. How did Greenhithe and the G3 betray Walker? How did the FentonWorx Corporation betray him? Was all that he had done been out of revenge and revenge for what? It made no sense, but then again, from the mad look on Walker's face, he doubted there was much logic behind the General's reasoning.

It was then that Walker noticed something. Danny's sleeves were so long they reached down to his knuckles and his hands were clenched, such that he could not see them. A paranoid look spread across his face. Was it possible that Danny Manson was hiding something in his sleeves? He couldn't believe it. This young boy was nothing more than a gnat to him. Walker pulled the trigger.

"What is this?" exclaimed Walker in surprise, as he stared in disbelief at the still standing Danny Manson. "Impossible!" He pulled the trigger again and again. "Who… What are you?" he cried in disbelief. "Why can't I kill you?" Walker cried out in rage and flung his gun at Danny. It didn't hit.

"You've got to fight back, Danny," echoed a voice within Daniel's mind. "Fight back."

"But how?" asked Danny out loud, without giving a thought as to where the voice had come from.

Did it matter? He recognised that voice now. It was the same voice that had spoken to him in the hospital when he had been recovering. It was the same voice that had spoken to him in the Five Towers. Whoever the voice belonged to, they were looking out for him.

"You!" exclaimed Walker suddenly. "So you were the one helping him! But… I'd thought you'd disappeared."

"Disappeared?" exclaimed the feminine voice through Danny's mouth. "No, not really. I've been around, looking after the people of Amitropolis. Someone had to."

There was suddenly a flash of blinding light. It enveloped Danny and blinded Walker, forcing him to shield his eyes. The glow burnt like the flare of an acetylene torch. The way Walker shrank away from the bright glow, one would have thought the glow was hot as an acetylene flame too. He backed away from the light, shirking away like a shadow mortally wounded by light.

Slowly, the glow began to subside and there in Danny's place stood the black-armoured cyborg known as Phantom.

A golden glow floated not too far away from Danny's head like some firefly.
"I've overridden Gotik's hold over the Phantom Armour, Danny," the voice told. "You should be able to use your Geist powers against Walker and that impostor now."

Phantom smiled.
"Thanks, Jasmine," he thanked the golden glow.

There was a brief moment of silence. The voice said nothing in reply to Phantom's comment. It was as if it had been caught out by his words.
"I guess you're not as dense as I thought," the voice said. "And call me, Jazz. I hate being called Jasmine."

Walker cried out in rage, a terrible roar of anger that echoed all around them.
"Little girl, you and your family really know how to flaunt the rules, don't you?" he growled angrily. "First, you and FentonWorx buy out my security company; now you would relinquish control of the CHAOS from me?" From the very look on his face, it seemed as if he was about to burst with rage. No one in the history of mankind had ever looked as angry as he did.

Yet in an instant, the rage disappeared from his face. He smiled even, as he crossed his arms behind his back.
"Rule #56," recited Walker sternly, "resisting against the authorities is a punishable offence." Walker swivelled round neatly on his black boots to face Fake Jasmine. "Lady Fenton, it is your duty to pass judgement on these two delinquents and to put into action your sentence."

"Deliberating…" announced Fake Jasmine, as she stared in front of her sightlessly. "Conclusion – Daniel Manson must be executed."

Phantom watched as Fake Jasmine rose from her seat. That was probably an understatement. Fake Jasmine unfolded before him, but even that statement did no justice to what she did. Jazz's impostor seemed to unfold forever in an increasingly complex manner; her arms elongated and her body seemed to expand. The fabric of her dress tore to reveal a green translucent slime and her face, a mask, shuddered and shook until it fell off to shatter on the polished floor.

What stood, for lack of a better word, before him was like a large, green, translucent sculpture of Jasmine Fenton made out of some gelatinous substance. Danny would have described it as snot. Whatever it was, it didn't really matter, for in the centre where a heart would have been if she were real, was some kind of mechanical core connected to wires that trailed down through her body and into the throne.

"The CHAOS Core!" exclaimed Jazz.

Fake Jasmine thrust out her right hand and the arm seemed to elongate forever, her fingers seemed to stretch too, until the entire arm was nothing more than a mass of ectoplasmic tentacles. The tentacles smashed into the ground, cracking it and throwing up debris into the air. Phantom had dodged them successfully. That didn't matter to her. She flicked her arm sideways and the tentacles lashed out at the cyborg and caught him in the side.

The cyborg heard Walker laugh as he was knocked aside by Fake Jasmine's tentacles. Phantom paid it no attention, as he became intangible and let the next blow go right through him.
"Is that all you've got?" he taunted Fake Jasmine. "Geez, you're slow!" He fired off a shot at the CHAOS Core. It struck Fake Jasmine, but served only to dent her body.

"I could say the same for you, cyborg," sneered Walker, as he watched the dent slowly disappear. "Did you really think you could beat Fake Jasmine that easily?" He turned round to face Phantom, as he said those words, and was suddenly hit by a plasma blast to the chest.

There was a smile on Phantom's face, as smoke seemed to rise from his hand. A part of him hoped that the blast wasn't strong enough to mortally wound Walker; the other part of him hoped that the blast hurt a great deal. He was suddenly hit in the face by a glob of green gunk that knocked him over backwards. It clung on to him tightly, as Fake Jasmine spun round, blobs of green slime breaking off and flying through the air.

It clung on to his face tightly. He felt as if he were being submerged in water like during the fight against Omi. Phantom couldn't breathe. He grabbed at the slime and tried to pull it off, only to find that it would not come away from his face. The grip was tighter than he expected it to be.

Fake Jasmine seemed to bulge, her entire body bending over sickeningly. She, or rather, it, seemed to slither through the air like some Chinese dragon. Her head expanded, or rather, her mouth. The thing's mouth became a huge chasm, as Fake Jasmine snaked her way towards Phantom. She swallowed him whole.

Walker smiled, as he walked closer towards the incapacitated cyborg, a burn mark on his white military uniform.
"Not so smug now are you?" he commented, as he watched Phantom struggle within Fake Jasmine's gelatinous body. He then looked up at the golden light that floated high above in the air, where it could not be harmed by the fighting. "What do you think of your champion now, Ms. Fenton?" he shouted up to her. "He don't seem so tough now, does he?"

He laughed a short, abrupt laugh.
"Soon, Ms. Fenton, I will find you," Walker called out. "You cannot hide behind that Cyber Ghost for much longer. I will find out where you're hiding and you will be punished for breaking the rules too. You cannot escape the long arm of the law."

There was suddenly an explosion and Walker found himself covered in green slime.

"Yeah, I could have gone intangible and walked out," commented Phantom, as he stood there with slime on his own body, "but I thought this way would be more fun."

"You will pay for that," snarled Walker angrily, as he saw the gelatinous mess that used to be Fake Jasmine. He gasped. "The CHAOS Core!" he exclaimed in disbelief, as he noticed that it was no longer encased in the slimy body of Fake Jasmine. He then turned round to face Phantom, whom had also noticed it lying there on the floor, unprotected and ripe for destruction. "Guards!" he shouted.

Five Geists suddenly rose up out of the floor to stand in between Phantom and the CHAOS Core. Each one bore large shields that protected most of their body. If Phantom were to destroy them, he would have to wait until the shields were dropped down. There was no other w…

A strange expression suddenly spread across Phantom's face. It looked as if he was annoyed with someone or as if he had just realised he was being stupid. The latter option was probably the most likely. After all, he had just realised that his Geist Circuitry hadn't overheated yet. He could just go intangible and walk, or rather run, straight through the Geists with no problems.

If only it were that simple.

Much to Walker's surprise, not to mention Phantom's surprise, the green gelatinous gunk that covered them and the entire floor suddenly started to move. It slid off their bodies, slid off the floor and started to congeal behind the five Geists. The blobs of green slime started to clump together like the viscous gunk in lava lamps. It bubbled and grew, engulfing the CHAOS Core and the five Geists.

"Daniel, you would harm your sister?" called out the voice of Fake Jasmine from the mass of green goo.

"W-w-what?" exclaimed Phantom in disbelief.

"Don't listen to her, Danny," called out Jazz from above him. "She's not your sister."

Fake Jasmine's face formed in the gelatinous mass. Another copy of her face formed within it, until her body became a column of translucent faces.
"But he is a Fenton," stated Fake Jasmine in several voices, as many as there were heads on her hideous, cancerous body. "Not Daniel Manson, but Daniel Fenton. I recognised his DNA. He is a Fenton, through and through."

"The Fentons' son?" exclaimed Walker in disbelief, as he turned round to look at Phantom. "Impossible!" he protested. "That cannot be Daniel Fenton; he died during Skulker's first attack on Amitropolis!" He shook his head in disbelief. "Impossible," he called out again, as he turned to look towards Fake Jasmine. "You're obviously malfunctioning."

"I cannot malfunction," stated Fake Jasmine in protest. "Only imperfect humans malfunction, or should I say, go insane?" Though all her faces were at different angles, some facing the floor, others facing skywards, all turned their gaze towards Walker or appeared to, anyway. "You are the only insane one here, General," stated Fake Jasmine calmly. "To think that you could rule? An imperfect, irrational human, like you? Perhaps it is best if you were to experience true rationality."

Green, translucent tentacles that dripped viscous green fluids, sprouted out from the mouths of Fake Jasmine's face. They ensnared Dr. Gotik's body and pulled it into her. Others lashed out and grabbed Walker.

"Let go of me!" cried Walker angrily, as he tried to wrest free from the tentacles. "Stop it! I command you! Let go of me, you… you… FAKE!" He struggled and thrashed within Fake Jasmine's octopus-like grasp, but was unable to break free. Walker couldn't. The tentacles were neither solid enough to snap nor liquid enough for him to cut through. "No, let go. Let go!" he screamed, as he was pulled towards Fake Jasmine.

Phantom watched almost helplessly, as the slime engulfed Walker. He saw the pale face turn to his, those eyes seemed to plead to him and he heard Walker plead for his help.

"Danny, what are you doing?" protested Jazz. "Save him!"

The cyborg's conscience was torn. After what Walker had done, he should save the General? Why should he let the General live? Walker had tried to kill him and had intended to do so ever since he had signed up to the Blue Bow Army. That man, that shambles of a man, had even tried to kill his sister. What if he were to save Walker? Would he then betray him then? Phantom couldn't trust this man. He had betrayed even Dr. Gotik, whom he had helped. What guarantee would he have that he himself would no be betrayed by Walker again if he were to save him?

Then there was the issue of what Fake Jasmine had said. Had she been malfunctioning? Was he really a Fenton and if he was, what did that mean? And if he was a Fenton, that meant Walker had also threatened to kill his real sister, Jazz Fenton. How could he trust that man? Why shouldn't he just let Fake Jasmine dispose of Walker, the way the General had wanted to dispose of him?

And the key answer was in that last question itself. Phantom knew that was the answer, the other side of him. He could not let Walker die. It wasn't just because he would end up being like Walker, the very man that he now despised. Phantom realised that it wasn't in his nature to let Walker go that way.

"Hold on!" cried Phantom, as he fired a beam of energy at Fake Jasmine first and severed the tentacles that pulled Walker in towards her cancerous body. He rushed towards the gelatinous mass, only for the ground to rupture and green slime spurted out. "Don't you dare!" he shouted at Fake Jasmine, as he fired another shot at her. "I won't let you harm anymore people!"

"You would fight your own sister, Danny?" asked Fake Jasmine curiously and it sounded as if she and Dr. Gotik were speaking together in unison. "I'm family, Danny. Not the Mansons. They're not your family. I am. Come, give your sister a hug."

"How's about I don't?" retorted Phantom, as he leapt over another huge chunk of displaced marble in his rush towards Walker. He tripped over another chunk of marble that suddenly sprang upwards like some springboard.

"Come, give me a hug, Danny," called out Fake Jasmine. "Don't be shy."

Slime burst out from the ground. How far had Fake Jasmine's green body spread? Had she permeated the floor below and spread underneath them? Perhaps it didn't even matter, as the slime fell upwards, making it look as if Phantom were upside-down.

Hands grew from the slime. A myriad of hands and arms reached out for Danny. They grabbed him and pulled him down to the ground, as Fake Jasmine called out to him.
"Go to Hell!" shouted back Phantom, as he became intangible and let the hands and arms go through him. Then he ran. Phantom ran as fast as he could towards Walker. "Walker! Give me your hand!" he called out, as he extended his own hand out towards the slowly sinking General.

Phantom became solid again and reached out for Walker. He plunged his hand straight through the slime and attempted to grab the General by his hand. His fingers went through nothing but slime.
"No!" he screamed, as he watched Walker slowly fade out of existence.

The shock of it brought him down to his knees. Phantom couldn't believe he could not save Walker in time. How was it even possible that he had failed?
"You," he said with his head lowered. "You… Why?" he exclaimed, as his hands clenched tightly into fists of pure rage. "Why did you do this? Why did any of this have to happen?"

"Why did what have to happen?" asked Fake Jasmine curiously and she sounded as if several copies of Dr. Gotik and Walker were speaking in unison with several copies of herself. Her body quivered and began to ripple. "Why are you so sad, Danny? Why do you look so sad? Come, let your sister comfort you. I will hug you, kiss you and make everything better."

"He's dead now," stated Phantom, as he looked up at the hideous bloated cancer that slithered towards him. "So many people have died now because of FentonWorx, because of Gotik, because of Walker… BECAUSE OF YOU!" He rose back up to his feet slowly, yet deliberately, a grim, enraged expression on his face. His eyes, which used to glow an eerie green in his robotic form, now grew with a fiery green brilliance. "Didn't you think enough people have died because of… whatever twisted reasons the Corporation decided on?" he practically screamed at Fake Jasmine. "You had to add one more death to it all?"

Fake Jasmine's green, translucent body had taken on a new sheen. She seemed to glow with some twisted, holy light with great angelic wings spread out behind her. The cancerous form that she had once taken had disappeared and now in her place was some robotic angel holding a sword that flamed like the fires of Hell.
"He is not dead," said Fake Jasmine and her lips moved with every word she spoke. "He lives on inside of me, as will all humans, as will all robots. I am the angel that will wipe away the sorrow of this world."

She smiled and it was a comforting smile, a sweet and peaceful smile. There seemed to be no insanity in her expression. Fake Jasmine seemed calm and serene. It really was as if she were a real angel, come down from the Heavens to bring redemption to the people of the world and lift them away from the corruption and the darkness.
"I am not just your sister, dear sweet Danny," she told him. "I am everyone's sister. Under the power of my light, the darkness will fade away and everyone will live forever through me."

"But…" began Phantom, only to trail off. He could not continue. There was something so enticing about Fake Jasmine, about the light with which she shone. He could see a halo above her head. Phantom could see that the light was good. He wanted to touch it. He wanted to be bathed in it. "Jasmine?" he said in a perplexed tone of voice, as he walked towards her awaiting arms.

The angelic Jasmine was smiling, as she waited there in mid-air with her arms spread wide.
"Come give your sister a hug," she called out to him. "Let me take away your worries. You need not worry anymore. No one will need to worry anymore. There is no need to think about the troubles of the world. There is no need to think anymore. Let me take your thoughts away. I will think for you. I will worry for you. Under one mind, there will be no more opposing views. No more ideals to fight over. There will be no more conflict and no more war."

"Mr. President," announced a voice. "The Metratron is ready to fire."

The President of the United States, a shrewd man, sat there grimly in his office. He had been waiting for this moment for a long time. Under his guidance, he had led his nation through dire times. His country had survived insurgency from within countless times. The President had, through martial law, prevented his country from fragmenting and dying under the grip of terror that the robot Insurgents had perpetrated.

Out of the range of the CHAOS, the President had been able to command his troops in securing more and more satellites and diminishing its broadcast range. Now the Metatron Satellite, which was supposedly a communications satellite, had been won back from the Insurgents.

It had been a stroke of genius on the part of the military to disguise an orbital weapon as a communications satellite. Built by the diminishing Rachaelis Trust, it was his country's last hope. It was aimed at the FentonWorx Corporation's Headquarters in Amitropolis. When he gave the sign, it would fire an energy beam upon the Five Towers and utterly destroy it.

For a long time, the members of the Rachaelis Trust had lobbied for FentonWorx's destruction. Yet he had been unable to do anything against FentonWorx, until it had started the Insurgency not so long ago. The Rachaelis Trust had been overjoyed when he froze the Corporation's assets and placed the final nail into G3's most prized company. Yet that had not been enough. FentonWorx continued its Insurgency despite his actions.

The President, a member of the Rachaelis Trust, was furious. Not only had the Corporation failed to die, but he had ended up looking a fool for being incapable of destroying the G3 company. His credibility as Leader had gone down the drain. FentonWorx had to pay for his humiliation.
"Fire," he ordered calmly.

And high above them, above the Earth's stratosphere, the Metatron Satellite began to charge its cannon.

"Forgive me."

More light started to shine through the windows, despite it being the mid-afternoon. It was as if someone outside had switched on several glaring lamps. The light was impossibly bright. It could not have come from the sun. There was no way it had come from anything on Earth.

"What is going on?"

If it was any consolation, the no one in the Metatron's range felt anything, not even the President. It was as if they had been at ground zero of an atomic explosion. They were vaporised instantly.

"Danny," the voice called out to him. "Danny!"

That voice sounded so familiar to him. Where had he heard it before? Whose voice was it and where were they?

"Danny…"

Eyes flickered open and then slowly slid shut again. They tried to open once more, but the eyelids felt so heavy that he was unable to keep them open. In that brief moment, he had seen something, but he was not quite sure what it was. It looked like some kind of light? A doctor's flashlight, perhaps? No, it seemed different from one of those, but he wasn't quite sure why he thought that.

Memories were fleeting. They were intangible; there but not quite there, these memories lingered there like ghosts and probably were ghosts. After all, what is a ghost but the memory of someone kept alive by the living? Yet these memories were poor ghosts indeed, for he could not even see their shape or form. He wanted to touch them, feel them and know them. Yet they were beyond his reach. He could just taste them on the tip of his tongue, yet their flavour, their scent, was unrecognisable.

"Danny, please wake up."

"Danny, what's wrong?" asked Fake Jasmine.

Phantom had stopped in his tracks. He had been walking straight towards Fake Jasmine and her open arms. Yet he had stopped, as memories came back to him. They were memories of darkness, a soft yet somehow warm darkness. That darkness, for a long time, had been due to the bandages wrapped around his head. For a long time, he had existed in that darkness, lying there on the hospital bed with his head bandaged, until that voice had called out to him. It was that memory that had made him stop dead in his tracks.

The voice that had called out to him in the hospital had been that of the real Jasmine Fenton, or Jazz, as she liked to be called. It was the memory of the real Jazz that made Phantom stop. The tenderness in the real Jazz's voice was nothing like that of the Fake Jasmine. It was warmer than that of Fake Jasmine's; it had more emotion.

"You… You're not my sister," stated Phantom sternly, as he looked up at the angelic robot, a pale imitation of the real Jazz Fenton. "You're not my family."

"Yes!" called out Jazz in triumph. "That's it, Danny! You tell her!"

The Fake Jasmine continued to smile, as if her face was a mask like the old one that now lay in shards on the floor.
"I'm sorry you feel that way," she told him, "but thanks to you, I now know the truth. Walker was right. I was in error. You are not the real Daniel Fenton. You're not even the real Daniel Manson, because there never was a Daniel Manson." She laughed, most likely at Phantom. "You think I'm a fake?" she asked him. "Look in the mirror and you will see that you're just like me."

Phantom smiled at her remark, something that Fake Jasmine did not even expect to see.
"I'm nothing like you," he told the robot. "You know why? Coz I have a family that loves me, no matter what. I have friends. You? You don't have any of that. There's no fakes here except for you and your fake love and your fake peace." He focused plasma energy into his hands, as he braced himself.

"You are going down!" shouted Phantom, before he fired a blast of plasma energy straight up at the Fake Jasmine.

END TRANSMISSION #10