A/N: I did not mean to make you guys think I was blaming you for my mistakes. I would never do that. Oh, and I think we have a new reader. I gave the site to a friend. Her name will remain anonymous, but I'll just say that she wants to make this into a movie using her dad's video camera. I'll be helping! YAY! Anyway, on with the chapter!

Chapter Twenty-Four

Trials One, Two, and Three:

Race Against Time

Danny stood dejectedly in the big white room again. The thermos vanished from his hand. He looked at his hand. People were always getting hurt because of him. First Sam, now Keena. If he could have taken care of himself with Tyrone, Keena might not have let Kevin get away and would have stopped him.

"The ghosts will be returned to their dimension," Vlad's voice rang.

"You're going to pay for this, Vlad," Danny said angrily, tightening his hand into a fist. He looked around him, as if searching for Vlad.

"Do not be so mad, Daniel, that girl was risking her after-life by helping you. You should not have sought out help," Vlad said. "It was your own fault." Danny's fist tightened even more. His veins popped just barely and his fingers dug deep into his palm. "All three of those ghosts should not have helped you," Vlad said. "You were risking them."

"Shut up!" Danny shouted. "Just be quiet! I don't want to hear it!" He felt tears burn behind his eyes, but he forced them back. He would not show weakness in front of Vlad. He would not show that his strength was shortening, his patience thinning with the man. He would show Vlad everything he did not want to see in Danny after all of this. Danny promised himself at the beginning of these trials that he would not give Vlad a reason to mock and destroy him from the inside out. From within his heart and conscious. Weakness was not a choice in the matter. It would not drag him down no matter what.

"Fine," Vlad said. "Then let the last round begin. This is a race against time, Daniel. You must make it from point A to point B in thirty minutes. Point B will be the giant tripod on which your friend is. The time will stop when you press the buzzer located on it. Many of your known enemies will be scattered around the playing field. You must either fight or dodge around them. The choice is yours. And by now, your powers should be useless."

As Vlad spoke, the 'playing field' began to form around Danny. It was simple. It was a road leading straight to the tripod. It was at least two miles, Danny figured, because Sam looked really far away. Around him was some parts forest, other parts barren land. To make things worst still, there were many places for his enemies to hide and surprise him in. He looked towards the giant screen. 30.0. The green numbers stood still and unmoving.

"Your time starts now," Vlad's voice said. The time began to run and so did Danny. The faster and more direct his path, the better. He doubted, also, that many of the ghosts here would propose too much of a problem. Unless Vlad got a hold of Ember, Technus, Skulker, and a few others, he should be fine.

That's where he was wrong. Skulker worked for Vlad. He would most likely be here. And if Skulker was here, then so would creatively placed traps. Danny's pace did not falter, though, he still thought that if he could go fast enough, then his enemies would not be able to react fast enough.

"Not so fast!" came an annoying voice. Danny looked over his shoulder. His eyes widened. "Yes! It is I! Technus! Master of all Technology and mechanical devices!"

"One problem," Danny said, speeding into a stop and turning to him, fingers itching to get his anger out on something. "There's no technology here."

Technus's grin fell. He looked around. "You are correct!" he said.

"Which means?" Danny asked.

"You'll just ignore me?" Technus asked uncertainly.

"Don't even count on it," Danny said. "I've been dying to take my anger out on somebody. So I say, hello misplaced aggression!"

Technus tried to get away, but Danny quickly dragged him back. He only time for a few punches here and there. He was not about to waste time. He knew that if Technus was here, then Skulker would be too. Danny knew Skulker would be a much harder opponent than Technus if he should come across him, but the logical side of his mind seemed to be lying dormant. Inside him, something was growing, consuming him little by little. Gradually building up so he would not noticed the change in thought.

By the time Danny finally grew conscious of what he was doing, Technus was on the ground beat up and weak. Danny blinked. He looked at his fists. That was fast. How had he done that so quickly when it had taken him so long to beat him before? Was it because there was no technology for Technus to draw his power on? There was no other explanation.

"But there is one piece of technology here!" Technus bellowed then. His voice knocked Danny out of thought. He looked at him.

"Oh yeah, where?" Danny asked. Technus smiled wickedly. Danny took this as a sign that he wasn't lying and began to run and fast. It would take Technus a few minutes to get together enough technology to become a problem. By then Danny would be able to at least get half way towards Point B. He would have to or else it would mean definite bad news for Sam and himself.

Danny looked over his shoulder. Technus had disappeared in the distance. He looked up at the giant screen. 19.43. Not much time had been wasted. He could still make it there with a few minutes to spare if he didn't have any more interruptions. He smiled slightly at the thought. He would have enough time and save Sam. But the ghosts, if they should come after him, they would keep him from the finish line. He couldn't waste time. Not anymore.

Keeping his eyes on just the road ahead of him was hard. He kept glancing back over his shoulder and up at the clock, then back. He was nearly there. Just about twenty more yards and he was there. Not a minute too soon either. The clock read 8.21. He glanced over his shoulder again and gasped. Skulker and Technus stood there, confidence in their pose. His heart skipped a beat as they both vanished.

He quickly sped into a stop, seeing as Technus and Skulker had both appeared in front of him. He took a step back, fearing the worst. Maybe he could find a way around them. Time was running out and he didn't have any to spare or waste. Eyes wide, he tried quickly to look for a way out of this, eyes scanning frantically around himself.

"Where are you going, whelp?" Skulker asked as he blocked his only means of escape from the two. Danny stood dead in his tracks and gulped. His mouth was suddenly dry. He looked at the clock. Time seemed to speed up, but it was just his imagination. He caught Sam's expression just barely, her looking worried and trying to see the clock. She knew this was coming. She knew they would gang up on him like that.

"I need to get out of here," Danny mumbled. He tried to run around them again. No use. Technus blocked him. "Not so fast!" he said.

"Please!" Danny shouted. "I need to save Sam! I don't have time!" His heart sped, his thoughts whirled in his head. He suddenly felt nauseated, sick to his stomach. He tried going through them, they only pushed him back as if he were nothing more than a mere rag-doll. He couldn't think straight, couldn't control his anger, his anxiety, fear, and many other emotions that seemed to surface everywhere.

They were toying with him. Working on his nerve. "The earth child will not see another day," Skulker said. Danny grimaced. It had such a bad ring to it, the way he said it. It sounded sick, wrong, purely evil. Skulker smirked at Danny's expression. "Before the hunt really begins, however, I believe you may want to watch your friend," he said.

Danny backed up again, trying to get out of their grasp. "No!" he shouted as Technus grabbed his arm.

"Yes, you must watch!" Technus said. "It will be quite the show!"

"Danny!" Sam shouted to him. Skulker held both of Danny's arms behind him, making sure to keep an iron hold on him. The numbers on the clock were red. They blinked and winked at Danny as they counted down.

"Watch, ghost kid," Skulker said. Danny struggled. He could still get to the tripod, stop the horrible tragedy. He could do this, he could! He just needed time to get away from Skulker and Technus!

His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden explosion off to one side. Both ghosts looked away, but Danny was the most surprised one.

"Go, Tucker!" Jazz shouted. They'd come. In the specter speeder, they'd come! Both Jazz and Tucker climbed out of the Specter Speeder, each carrying their own weapon. Tucker pulled out the Fenton ghost Bazooka and fired at Skulker and Technus. They quickly vanished into small mini-portals into the Ghost Zone. Danny felt tears pour down his face. Tears of happiness no doubt. Jazz quickly went to the tripod and pressed the button stopping the time. Danny stood there. He didn't know how Jazz knew how to stop the timer, but he didn't care. Suddenly, Sam appeared beside him.

"You guys came!" he shouted as Sam embraced him. She let go and looked at Jazz and Tucker.

"But how?" she asked.

"It doesn't matter!" Danny shouted before they could answer. He embraced Sam again. Everywhere, the surrounding dematerialized and...

If only that was what really happened. If only Jazz and Tucker had really come and saved Sam. In Danny's mind, he imagined dozens of scenes as the last minutes counted down where Jazz and Tucker appeared with weapons galore to save them. Then Vlad would be defeated. He even imagined that his parents had come because Jazz had no other choice but to drag them out of their ghost hunting convention and tell them his secret to save them. But that's not how things really happened. That's not how things happened in reality. The last second was up. The clock struck down to all three zeroes.

"Danny!" Sam's voice rang out.

"Sam!" Danny shouted, tears pouring down his face. He could not see, he could not rush to her aid. He only felt sadness, grief, and other emotions he couldn't comprehend fill his head. "Sam!" Despite Skulker's grip on his arms, Danny fell to his knees, still crying. He witnessed as the blue light overwhelmed Sam. He heard her painful, never-ending scream as surges of electricity consumed her, it ringing in his ears even after it had stopped.

Skulker let go of him. Danny didn't think it true. He wouldn't believe it. But it was. In his mind he tried to lie to himself that it was all an illusion. That Vlad had lied. That it wasn't Sam. That it wasn't her. But he knew it true. He tried to make himself believe otherwise, but he knew it to be true. To be fact. Sam was gone. And he was to blame. He shouldn't have wasted time on Technus in the first place. It was his fault.

No. The word struck hard at his heart. It wasn't entirely his fault. There was one other person to blame. And he was going to pay. Danny was going to make him pay the same price Sam had to pay for his insolence. It was his fault. He kidnapped her. He put her there. It was his device that killed her.

Danny's shoulders shook. His tears made dark drops on the sandy floor, his fingers making trails on the sand as he balled his hands into half-fists. Without him knowing so, the land around him vanished. He was once again in the giant white room. Once again with the one who killed his best friend in the worst way imagineable.

He sat up and down on his legs, tears still running down his cheeks in wet, warm trails. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stop himself from crying, from showing weakness as he had done so before. He couldn't stop his thoughts from telling him to take this out on Vlad, to teach him a lesson. Most of all, he couldn't stop his mind, his conscious, from telling him that he would never be able to tell Sam how he really felt. To tell her how much he cared.

Tell her he loved her.

E/N: I tried to make it emotional. But it's hard to find perfect reasons for a guy to cry. Oh, and Axel, if you're reading this, just so you know, I really, really, really, REALLY wanted to make Danny cry! Sorry it took me so long to up-date. This chapter had to be perfect. I am a perfectionist, I know. But not always! Right, Danny?

Danny: She lies!

--Airamé Phantom