Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom. I am just a dedicated fan.

DarkDragonQueen:This story kind of came to my mind a few months before I started it. I didn't really want to write it until I saw a few stories that calmed my nerve. It's an Alternate universe and Sam has never met Danny or Tucker and she's never been to Amity Park until now.

Sorry I didn't update yesterday, but my mother had my laptop th ewhole day and by the time I got it back it was too late. Anyway hope you enjoy this chapter.

Also no flames, but I do accept constructive criticism. Please bear with me because although I know the basics of grammar, I never did look at the detail. Don't worry my grammar isn't horrible where you can't read it, but it isn't exactly perfect where I could go and become an English teacher.

With that said here is chapter twenty of this story.the third to last chapter.

-.oOOo.-

The Judge Part I

By

DarkDragonQueen

-.oOOo.-

Sam sighed as she walked down the street with an overly excited Toya and a very bothered Ember who had her guitar on her back. Two days after her little toy army incident Danny was feeling much better, though Jazz insisted to their parents that he should stay in the house for a least another twenty- four hours before he got up and moving again. Danny was annoyed to say the least. Now he was on lock down and couldn't really sneak out even if he wanted to because now his parents were checking on him every five minutes. So the ghost fighting was still up to Sam who- much to Danny's satisfaction- fought the ghost, put them in the thermos and gave them to Jazz to put in the ghost zone.

Toya proved to be very smart for her age and Ember had taken to calling her Mini Miss Perceptive since she had a eye as keen as Aly's. Toya skipped up the steps to Danny's house and rang the doorbell.

Mr. Fenton looked up as he opened the door not even noticing the four year old.

"Hello... Anyone there?" he asked confused since Sam and Ember hadn't even made it up the steps.

"Down here." Toya laughed and Jack looked down.

"Hello there Toya. Where's Sam and Aly?"

"Hi Mr. Fenton." Toya answered not even bothering to answer the adult's question as she ran past him and to the stairs. "Bye Mr. Fenton." she said running up the stairs and into Danny's room.

"Sorry about her." Sam sighed at the overly energetic child as Jack stepped aside to let the two teens in. "She was really excited about seeing Danny again."

"No problem." Jack said as he closed the door and went back down into the lab.

Sam and a reluctant Ember went up to Danny's room and saw Toya jumping on his bed while a very annoyed Danny attempted to calm the girl down.

"Come on Danny. I want to play." Toya demanded as she jumped

"Toya, I'm really not in the mood." Danny said as his left eye twitched in annoyance.

"Hey kid," Ember snapped walking into the room. "Your jumping is getting on my nerve. Get down and take a break."

Toya immediately obeyed and jumped down. She went and decided to grab Danny around the waist instead. "Come on Danny. You said yesterday you would play with me when you were better."

Danny groaned.

"Well, looks like we'll get rid of the dipstick for a while." Ember smirked.

"What are you doing here anyway?" Danny asked

"Well Miss Perceptive's not feeling too well and she was just kind of lounging around. I was bored and decided to take the body for the day. Your goth girl doesn't trust me in the house without her to watch me. She insisted I come even though I don't need a baby- sitter." the punk rock star shrugged and leaned against the wall

"You're a ghost who wants to take over the world using music, not to mention the fact that you hate adults. I wasn't about to leave you at home with my parents." Sam defended. "It's not like I wanted to be stuck baby- sitting you either Ember."

"Might I remind you I'm about thirty years your senior?" Ember asked

"And you act like you're her age." Sam said nodding to Toya.

"Listen you," Ember started as her hair flared. Obviously that power still worked in this body too.

"If you two do end up fighting," Danny interrupted. "Do it outside so you at least don't destroy my room."

Ember and Sam glared at each other once more before turning away.

"Come on Danny." Toya said still attached to his waist. "I want to go play at the park. Can you take me?"

"I can't. I'm confined to the house for the day and suddenly I'm very thankful for it." Danny said and the cotton candy pink eyed girl let go of him.

"I'll take care of that." Toya yelled running out the room and could be heard jumping down the stairs.

"Danny, I need to ask you something." Sam said and sighed. Toya would be gone for a minute since it was likely she would ask Mrs. Fenton for something while she went downstairs. Sam swore the girl had some kind of power that charmed adults to doing what she wanted them to do. Even Ember had taken a slight liking to the girl and that was definitely saying something.

"What?" Danny asked sighed and sitting in the chair at his computer as Sam sat o the bed and Ember kind of floated a few inches above the ground after Toya had closed the door.

"I'm sensing danger... Grave danger. It's not here yet, but it's near here. It's close and it's bothering the heck out of me. I can barely sleep at night because of this feeling of dread." Sam said a bit frustrated.

"You too?" Ember and Danny asked a bit surprised.

"I thought maybe it was just a ghost thing." Danny admitted.

"Huh?"

"Before I got sick I sensed a bunch of ghost and went to check it out. There was a crowd of ghost saying they felt something too. Their worried and I mean really worried if they were here in our world in a meeting when most ghost don't get along too well." Danny explained

"What ghost are we talking about?" Sam asked

"There were a lot I didn't know and then there's the really malevolent ones like Skulker, Desiree, Principal Palprin and they hate any contact with other ghost usually."

"Did you get anything they were saying?" Sam asked

"They were talking about a judge and being wiped out of existence."

Ember visibly paled (well, paler than she normally was). Danny and Sam immediately took notice of this.

"What's wrong Ember?"

"Oh no," she whispered and there was a hint of fear in her eyes.

"What?"

"The judge."

"Who's that?" Sam asked

"Every different type of race has one. The judges choose one person to represent all of their race." Ember seemed a bit bothered. "Then their judge, if they pass, their race is spared and their left alone until the next judgment which is usually thousands of years. They fail and... well we're destroyed."

"So you mean if the judgment is failed, the race in turn is killed?" Sam asked

"That's putting it lightly." Ember rolled her eyes. "More like being wiped from existence for around five hundred years."

Sam and Danny couldn't find anything to say.

"But maybe it's not that... Maybe it's something else." Danny suggested

"If it were something else the ghost wouldn't be worried about it dork. Their easily riled up so bad that they have to meet." Ember replied

"That's true. Last time they did that was with Pariah Dark and even then they didn't decide to do anything until battle time." Danny muttered

"Pariah Dark?" Sam asked

"I'll explain later." Danny sighed

"Wait, I'm included in this?" Sam asked

"Our race is the undead." Ember said as if she were talking to a child. "You died and were brought back to life and have some very unique abilities that could be mistaken as ghost powers. Yes, you're included as is anyone else like you."

Sam sighed. "Still it could be anything.

"Hopefully it won't be just anything..." Danny muttered.

"What did you say dipstick?" Ember asked as she and Sam having caught what Danny said turned to him.

"Nothing." he sighed

Sam kicked up an eyebrow and reminded herself to ask Danny about that later...

They got no further into the conversation though for at that moment Toya burst in with a small ball of unopened potato chips and threw her arms around Danny's waist again.

"Come on. Your mom said it was alright for you to go out and I want to go play at the park." she said and Danny very much bothered by the girl tried to pry her off.

"Toya..." Danny sighed. She wasn't usually this active according to Sam, but Toya seemed to think they had been playing when Danny was chasing her and they hadn't finished because Sam and Aly interrupted. "Fine. Let's go."

-.oOOo.-

"Come on Danny can't you run faster." Toya giggled hiding behind a tree.

"You're the one that's teleporting. That's cheating. You say no ghost powers." Danny said as he tried to grab the girl and failed as she teleported again.

"No," said a giggling Toya in the tree. "I said you can't use your ghost powers. I never said we couldn't use our ghost powers."

Danny sighed putting his hand over his face. This girl was smart for only four.

"That's it." he said and went ghost behind a tree without Toya noticing from behind a fountain. Sam laughed as he snuck up invisible behind Toya and then...

"Ahh," Toya half laughed, half screamed. "You cheat. You couldn't use ghost powers."

"If you can so can I." Danny said and tickled the small girl in his arms.

"Danny... stop... it... That hurts." Toya laughed

"Only if you say I'm done playing with you." Danny smirked

"Okay, I'm done. You can sit down and talk to," Toya grinned. "Your girlfriend."

Danny nearly dropped her in surprise. The girl couldn't be that smart at four.

"Who told you that?" he asked

"Ember calls you dipstick right?" she asked

"Yeah."

"Well, she's always saying the dipstick's girlfriend so I thought Sam was your girlfriend." she shrugged."Isn't she?"

"No... sort of... Augh." Danny groaned as he carried the girl to where Ember was playing around with tune on her guitar and Sam had her head leaned back with her eyes closed.

"Okay, I think I get it..." Toya frowned. "I'll ask Ember later."

Obviously the girl had taken a liking to Ember as well, but there was no surprise. Ember was of course another ghost.

At that moment the sky which had steadily been darkening up without their group noticing got a little darker. Sam snapped her head up and opened her eyes, Danny turned around narrowing his eyes, Ember looked up from her guitar and even Toya's eyes glowed a bit brighter as she dropped her smile and replaced it with a frown.

Instinct took over as Danny who had been about to change back stopped the transformation while instead of Sam, Black Phoenix was now next to him. Even Ember who refused to help Danny and Phoenix when they were fighting stood up and readied her guitar as all three of them made sure they blocked Toya behind them.

In the spot where the sky was darkest, something was coming down from it. Lightning seemed to flash, but neither of them noticed as it came down. It was a large eagle, but it was gold. It landed and off of it floated a woman in a long dress that bellowed in the wind behind her. In her hand was a jewel that floated a few inches above her hand. She slowly walked to them. It was so graceful it looked like she was gliding.

"Who are you?" Danny asked

"I am your Hatimah." she said as she stopped in front of them.

"Our what?" The three teens asked.

"It comes from an male Arabic name Hatim which means judge." Toya explained and the teens merely nodded not bothering to ask how she knew of this.

"It is you whom I seek." she locked eyes with Ember

"If you can catch me." Ember said as she struck a note on her guitar. The sound waves were absorbed by the red spiky crystal.

"You cannot fight me." Hatimah said and the crystal glowed and Embers eyes glazed over. Her life flashed in front of her eyes, but two memories stuck out.

A young girl with dark brown hair just below her shoulders ran upstairs to her sisters room.

"Alicia," ten year old asked. "Where's my guitar?"

"I'm not sure Amber. I think Mom moved it. " the fifteen year old shrugged looking back down at her homework

"It's Ember now."

"Ember?" Alicia raised an eyebrow looking at her little sister

"It's what I going to be called when I'm a huge rock star. I'll go on stage and the whole crowd will chant my name and never forget it. In return I play music even better."

Alicia laughed. "Well then Ember," she emphasized. "Mom's downstairs so go ask her so you can rock on."

"Relax guys," Ember rolled her eyes as the member of her band stood with her at the airport. "I'll be back next week and in time for the auditions. We a going to win without even trying."

"Yeah, that manager did like you." said Flame one of her best girl friends

"And if you're in we're in." said Flames brother Pyro.

"And then it's concerts, tours, albums..." said Flare the other girl in the band and the youngest.

Her plane was called saying it was boarding.

She looked at them and gave a smile before running to board the ship. Around two hours later the Ember stared out the window. They were going to be landing soon. Her sister's husband was coming to pick her up. She couldn't wait to see her new niece... not that she would admit this to anyone. It might ruin her rep as a goth punk.

Suddenly the plane seemed to drop and then raise a bit. Ember was snapped out of her thoughts as she became alert to see what was going on. The plane started to drop again, but this time it didn't come back up. Screams were heard as the plane fell and a voice over the speaker yelled that the plane was crashing and to prepare for impact.

'Prepare for impact. How the hell are we supposed to do that? The plane is crashing!' she thought and then her thought drifted elsewhere. 'I'll never be a rock star now. I'll never even see my sister and the baby.'

The plane crashed to the ground and Ember screamed. Her last thought before everything went black and her soul left her body was, 'I hope they don't forget my name.'

Ember was snapped out of her trance like state with a gasp to see Black Phoenix shaking Toya trying to snap her out of one. She blinked.

"She's fine, but Hatimah does something and your whole life flashes before your eyes." Ember stated

"The girl's only four what is there to see?" Black Phoenix asked herself keeping a hand on Toya's shoulder as she looked at the judge.

"Okay judge lady, that's enough," Danny said floating up into the air and shooting a ghost ray at Hatimah.

The woman moved the jewel over in the path of the ray and it was absorbed.

"Do not interfere with the judgement. I will find someone to judge." At that moment Toya snapped out of her trance and Hatimah got back on the eagle and it rose into the sky once again. The sky went back to it's normal color and the three teens stood there in their thoughts.

"Guys," Toya spoke tilting her head as she spoke. "I'm not sure but I've heard about this. I think it's almost time for the judgement."

-.oOOo.-

This was so hard to write. It's the third to last chapter. I can't believe it. I'm almost done. The sequel won't be out for about thirty to sixty dayssince I have another story I'm just itching to write. Here's your sneak peek:

"We can't fret over what going to happen if you guys fail, we have to figure out what were going to do now so it doesn't come to that." Tucker suggested.

"First things first then, who's Hatimah going to judge?" Danny asked.

"He's right." Sam agreed

Everyone in the room looked at the two incredulously. Even Toya was looking at them with her head cocked to the side.

"Shouldn't the answer to that question be obvious." said Toya dryly

"Meaning?" Danny asked

"Isn't it obvious that one of you are going to be judged?"Tucker asked.

"What makes you think that?" Sam asked dryly

"Everything happens to you two!" Aly, Ember's voice, Tucker, Silver Moon, and even Toya exclaimed together.

Silver Moon sighed in exasperation.

"I thought after being half ghost for a year you would have noticed at least that oh clueless one." Tucker said shaking his head.

Next chapter is thesecond to last, then the last andthat wraps up life after death. Don't worry. I've got most of the sequel written, but I want to put something else up first. R&R.