A/N: Holy dialogue, Batman.
Leppers – Thank you! I'll keep the current names for now, and change them over for the final version!
Anomaly25 – I don't think I've ever enjoyed writing something so much. :P Even I'm impatient to see how this all will end!
… – I'm trying to be good! No cliffie this time, see?
Animeobsessed3191 – And I completely needed to hear that pun. XD Well done!
Ice-Song – No, I'm finished now. :P
Jimmy the Gothic Egg – Yeah, I had; my updating has only slowed down recently because of real life, but I had been updating once a day or once every two days, when the story first started!
dArkliTe-sPirit – Er, well, you'll find out by the 4th paragraph…:P
Divine-Red-Crayon – Vlad would be in the same predicament…though there's a different twist to each of their stories. The same kind of Plot Device that enabled Danny to get his powers without being covered in ecto-acne and all that, plus a few other variables that I'll explain, probably in the next chapter!
Galateagirl – I know, and I still haven't seen it! -waits impatiently for someone to put it up for download-
Ohka Breynekai – Yes, I keep peering out my windows, looking for people screaming and carrying sticks. :P
Littlekittykat – No such thing as coincidence in this story. XD Thanks for the compliments!
HAlFa34 – As you have wished it--!
And many thanks to zero9g9, mrit, shukuen, Crazy Billie Joe Loving Freak, Phantom of a Rose, L'ange-Sans-Ailes, SilverstarsEbonyskies, Kagome M.K, conan98002, HokiPoki1213, enigmatic penguin, Fanficaholic, Epyon Zero and The Adversary for reviewing! Sorry about the painful ending last time and the long wait in between. n.n; This chapter's shorter than I'd have liked it, but I'm still deep in thought about where to take Danny next!
Estrelas
Chapter 18
By Shimegami-chan
Valerie regarded the unconscious ghost boy with interest. Phantom had completely passed out after a few minutes of convulsing, white-faced and slack-jawed. His hands had relaxed finally, allowing the green liquid that coursed through him to pour freely out of the invisible wound in his chest.
"Hey! Get away from him!"
"Hmm?" Valerie turned and found herself looking at an elderly man with dark skin, thick spectacles and an angry frown on his face. "No, sir, I can't do that. This thing is a ghost, and I'm a member of the Amity Park Ghost Squad."
"I know who you are, Valerie." The man rolled his eyes. "What I want to know is what the heck you're doing to Danny?" The man edged past her and knelt to check the ghost's pulse (something Valerie thought was kind of amusing, but she had to be more concerned with the newcomer). She frowned—there was something familiar about him...
"Wait…Tucker?"
"Who else?" He'd changed a lot since they'd seen each other last, but now the ghost hunter recognized his voice, which was as infuriating as it had ever been. She watched, open-mouthed, as he began to gently shake the ghost's shoulder to rouse him. "Danny? Danny, man, wake up! It's me, Tuck!"
"You want to—God! What the hell is with you?" Valerie demanded. "No question of what Danny, who happens to be dead, is doing here? How did you even find us?"
Tucker held up small green object for her to see. "He was wearing these. He sent out an SOS—and it's easy enough to track down one stray ghost when you've got a Fenton Ghost Finder. Now, would you mind telling me what happened, and why he's gushing green blood?"
"Am I missing something here?" Val shrieked. "For example, why I'm the one shooting down this ghost for impersonating Fenton and you're treating me like I'm crazy?"
Tucker shut up and turned his head away, suddenly paying more attention to the injured teenager than his attacker. Again he shook Danny's shoulder, and getting no response, turned the ghost boy over onto his back and began inspecting the wound. As soon as the Danny lay still again, the ectoplasm poured out in twice the quantity, spilling all over Tucker's hands. The man cursed and tried to apply pressure to the iridescent area the liquid was coming from. "I, uh…I really don't know what to say to that. Were you and Danny just here talking, or something, and you happened to shoot him, or what?"
"That. Is. Not. Danny," Valerie empathized, stomping her foot like a child. "Have you completely lost it, or what? Danny died fifty years ago. That's Phantom. The ghost, you know?"
"Oh." Tucker frowned and looked down at the spook. "But he looks like Danny."
Valerie groaned. Was Tucker Foley completely senile, or what? She hadn't seen the guy in a few years, but this seemed like a stretch. He ought to be in a nursing home or something. "He looks like Danny because he was trying to convince me that he was Danny. He was telling me all these crazy things after I found out his secret, saying he was a half-ghost, and all this—"
"Say what? He told you?" Tucker stared at her in disbelief.
"Told me—what, did Phantom tell you the same thing? Please don't say you actually believed that cockamamie story, Tucker Foley." Valerie glared at him.
"He didn't need to. I was there when he had the accident that turned him into a half-ghost." The man averted his gaze, keeping focused on the injured Danny. Valerie could see that his hands were trembling slightly.
"I don't understand," she said slowly. "How could that be?"
"If Danny finally told you the truth, then I'm not going to lie either," Tucker said, his face oddly pale. "Danny Phantom really is Danny Fenton. He always has been."
"That's not possible. He's done something to you, he has to have," Valerie protested, clenching her fists.
But Tucker shook his head. "No. He was in an accident with his parents' Ghost Portal when we were in freshman year. We were messing around with it, because it was broken, and the power got turned on while he was inside. Ever since then…he's had these ghost powers. But you have to understand that he was never trying to make trouble, especially not for you, I swear it." Tuck's aqua eyes seemed to drill into Valerie's, right through her tinted faceplate. "He only kept it a secret because he didn't want you to hate him."
Torn, the hunter came a little closer to the halfa, who had begun to convulse again but was showing no signs of regaining consciousness. "I…well, that's insane. Who'd believe something like that? Maybe you're possessed, too."
Tucker shook his head. "No…sorry."
"Okay, if Danny really was the ghost kid, then why does he fight me?" she argued. "Why does he do things like…kidnap the mayor? What about the time when he tried to kill Jazz? You can't tell me that Danny Fenton of all people would try to murder his own sister."
"He was set up. He was framed. All those times, Danny got stuck with the blame for something that another ghost had done!" Tucker insisted, gesturing wildly with his free hand. "Jazz knows he wasn't behind the incident at the school, why don't you ask her?"
"Maybe I will!" Valerie said heatedly. "I was just on my way back to Jazz's, as a matter of fact…" She stopped short, remembering a detail of her meeting with the elder Fenton that afternoon. "Wait a minute…"
"What?" Tucker seemed more focused on Danny, who appeared to be coming around.
"There was a boy at Jazz's this morning, a boy who looked exactly like Danny," Valerie breathed. "Jazz said he was her nephew. I thought he was Danny at first, but then I saw his eyes…and he had green eyes, just like Phantom."
"Easy," Tucker told her. "Danny can do that kind of thing anytime."
"I don't believe it." Valerie rocked back on her heels, stunned. "It's crazy."
Tucker nodded. "Crazy, yeah, but it's true. Danny? Hey, Danny--!"
"Sam?" the half-ghost croaked, forcing open his eyes. His pupils were dilated, almost to the point where they obscured the irises.
"Uh…no. It's Tuck. Are you alive, man?"
"Tucker!" Danny breathed in sharply, an action which apparently resulted in a great deal of pain. "Uh…so to speak, I guess. What—how—"
"You sent a distress signal," the dark-skinned man informed him, holding up the third set of Fenton Phones. "I still keep these things on my desk with the volume on blast. And who's 'Sam'?"
"Where's Valerie?" Danny hissed in pain, trying to blink his eyes until they focused.
The hunter crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm still here."
"Oh, great."
"Hey!" Tucker's voice was insistent—looking down, the ghost could see that he now had both hands flat on Danny's chest, stemming the flow of green goop that was trying to pour out of it. "Hate to be the one to say it, but do you have any idea what's happening to you?"
"No," Danny groaned, "but you could try asking Val."
"The gun was designed to remove outside entities from the human body," she replied mechanically. "Forcing ghosts out of the possessed."
"So what'll it do to a half-ghost?" Tucker asked.
"How the hell should I know?"
"It hurts. A lot," Danny wheezed. "Feels like it's trying to rip the ghost half right out of me."
"Okay, so really it's doing what it's supposed to, just having a lot of trouble." Tucker made a face.
"So it's true," Valerie said suddenly, putting her hands on her hips. "You really are him."
"I'm sorry," Danny managed to say, not even knowing himself why he felt he should apologize. "I wish I could have said something before."
"Yeah, like maybe when I was crying because I thought you were dead?" she snapped.
"I was…er, I am, kind of…"
Tucker made an exasperated sound. "Can we maybe talk about your gaping chest wound instead, Danny? Hello?"
"Well, you haven't changed, I see." Danny laughed, but it turned into a gasping cough that caused him to curl up into the fetal position. "…ow."
"We can't exactly take him to a hospital. What do you think…?" Tucker looked at Valerie, whose face was unreadable behind her the mask. "Val?"
"I don't care," she finally said, her voice emotionless. "I don't care if he once was human, or is half-human, or what. He's still a ghost, and a ghost that right now I'm pretty ticked off with." She turned on her heel and marched out of the parking lot without looking back. "He can just be thankful that I didn't stick around to finish the job."
Danny looked up at his best friend with woeful eyes. "Oh, that was cold."
"She has a point." Tucker rolled his eyes and peered at Danny's hands to see if the flow of ectoplasm had stopped. It hadn't. "This is some reunion, by the way. I wasn't sure if I'd ever hear from you again. Where've you been?"
"Hiding in an attic, forgetting I exist," Danny said miserably. "Listen, maybe you should call Jazz—she might know what to do…" He turned over onto his back again, heaving for breath, both hands clamped onto his chest. "At this rate Danny Phantom will lose everything he's got."
"How do you feel?" Tucker worried as he brought Jazz's number up on his cellphone.
"It's not as bad as it was at first," Danny told him through gritted teeth. "Problem is that I don't really know what it's doing to me."
"Did you try going ghost?" Jazz's phone rang once, twice, three times.
"No," Danny replied, "but I will."
Distracted, Tucker watched the halfa struggle with his power, paying only half-attention to the telephone conversation. He explained to Jasmine where they were and what was happening as Danny lay on the pavement, half transformed, the most interesting abnormalities appearing each time he tried to morph to his ghost half. First he had reformed with black hair, then with distinctly green eyes, then with the upper half of his body in human mode. He didn't seem able to entirely turn into Danny Phantom, no matter how many times he tried. By the time Tucker returned the phone to his pocket, the result was a black-haired, blue-eyed Danny with no legs and wearing a white t-shirt over his black jumpsuit. "Ummm…well, at least you aren't bleeding anymore." As he spoke, though, green liquid began to seep through both fabrics. The ghost boy glared. "Sorry."
"Is she coming?" Danny kept trying, with varied results. Now his hair was white, but so was the jumpsuit, and his legs were still missing. "Gah,"
"Yeah, she's coming." Tucker sat down beside his best friend. "She said to stay put."
"We should have gotten that stupid gun from Val," Danny seethed, finally managing to make his lower half re-form. The ectoplasm was now bubbling through the white spandex of his suit.
A transmission on the Fenton Phones caught both their attention, before he could try it again, though; both man and ghost were still wearing the devices in their left ears when the line crackled and came to life. "Danny? Are you there?"
"Who's that?" Tucker asked, one hand moving to his head to reply.
"Let me." Danny coughed and raised his hand to his ear with some difficulty. "I'm here. Is everything all right?"
"Yes! I mean, no! But what about you, did something happen? The Fenton Phone was making some weird noises earlier."
"Uhh…we handled that problem. I think." Danny grimaced. "I'm mostly fine now. Are you okay?"
"No." Sam's voice sounded furious. "They're taking me back to Whipstaff. Right now."
The halfa's eyes widened. "What? Why?"
"They agreed not to turn you in if I came quietly. Danny, listen, I don't want to go back, but I have to, or else they'll call the Ghost Squad and you know those guys will be looking for me, too! What should we do? Did you talk to Jazz?"
"Nnnnnno." Tucker was pantomiming something that Danny couldn't really pay attention to. "I, uh, got held up. Jazz is on her way here now."
"Should I go along with it? Would you be able to find me there?" Sam asked worriedly. "What if—ah—!" Her voice was obscured for a moment by a rustling sound, as though she'd covered her ear with something. "Seriously, it's polite to knock, you know!"
A pause. Tucker and Danny both listened with held breath as Sam's voice rose an octave. "No, I'm not!"
Who is she? Tucker mouthed. Danny waved for him to shut up, still waiting anxiously for the girl to turn her attention back to him. Obviously someone had intruded on her back at the house.
"Oh, please," she said sarcastically. Danny hoped it was one of her parents and not Spectra, even more so when he heard her next words. "Stay back! What are you doing?"
"Sam!" he cried helplessly into the microphone. "What's going on? Can you give me a clue here?"
She did, after muttering a curse. "Come on, Dad. Why would you want my earrings?"
Dry-mouthed, Danny forced himself to sit up, pressing the earphone closer so that he could hear better. There were a lot of scuffling noises in the background, and much of the male voice speaking far away from the microphone was indiscernible, but it was pretty clear what was happening—Sam's father had seen the Fenton Phones and caught on!
"Let go of me! You have a lot of nerve! Dad!" The scratching noises were so loud now that Tucker winced and clenched his fist. Danny continued to listen, hardly daring to breathe. If Sam let him get at her, he'd see instantly that the earrings obviously had speakers…and it wouldn't be safe to contact Sam while they were in his possession. Maybe they could even be traced back to FentonWorks.
The noises kept up for a bit, for so long that Danny could hardly stand it…and then suddenly stopped. He blinked and touched his ear to ensure that the receiver was still on, and it was, though Sam's Phones had stopped transmitting to them. Dumbly, he pressed the switch to mute his own transmissions.
"Well, then." Tucker lowered his hand. "New girlfriend? She ghost, or human?"
"Human, obviously," Danny said, not bothering to conceal his irritation. "She's living in my old house with her grandma. Well…she was."
"I notice you didn't deny the girlfriend comment," Tucker replied dryly, "but I guess we've got bigger worries. Besides the fact that you're still losing your ghost half all over the pavement."
"Yeah." Danny sighed. He hadn't even noticed that the goop was soaking into his white Hazmat from the waist down, causing his legs to glow frighteningly. "Her parents found out that she'd been spending time with me. They're not too happy about it."
"Hmmm…Whipstaff, eh?" Tucker said thoughtfully.
"You know it?"
"Yeah," the former geek admitted. "My son and his kids live there."
"You're a grandpa?" Danny couldn't hold back a laugh.
Tucker looked pained. "It was kind of hard to send you the announcements, man, seeing how I Jazz and I couldn't find you."
"Sorry," Danny apologized again, looking away. "I was stupid. I've already admitted it."
"Whatever, it's in the past now." Tucker averted his eyes from the wound on Danny's chest, which was bubbling disconcertingly. For his part, the half-ghost seemed to have mostly recovered himself physically after the incomplete transformation, despite the fact that the injury was more apparent than ever. "So…this girl…"
"Sam," Danny supplied. "She helped me come to terms with all of this. And now her parents are going to drag her home, and I might never see her again…"
"You really do like her!" Tucker exclaimed excitedly. "Unbelievable! What happened to all that 'my human life is over,' 'I can never get involved with anyone,' stuff? You told this girl you were a half-ghost? And then you admitted it to Valerie too? What's going on here?"
"I met Sam as Phantom," Danny explained. "And that's a long story, but I wasn't really thinking at the time about what I'd decided before I went into hiding. Once I got involved with her…Tuck, there's no going back now. She accepts me for what I am. She…she accepted me even before she knew I was half-human."
"That's some girl," Tucker said, appreciation evident in his voice.
"But this could be it," Danny said miserably. "Unless she calls me on the Fenton Phones, I might never find her again. I've never been to Whipstaff. I don't think she even told me her last name. If she did, I don't remember it…"
"It can't be that hard to find out, if she was living in your old place," Tucker reasoned.
"Still…"
"Danny, come on. Sam can wait, can we just concentrate on making sure you don't die here?"
Danny glared at him. "Like I could."
"Sorry, sorry." Tucker placed both hands on the ghost boy's shoulders and forced him to lie down. "Get horizontal, you're less likely to aggravate it there. But the bleeding's slowing down, do you think it's stopping any?"
"No." Danny winced. "I think I'm just running out of ectoplasm."
"Not really the kind of thing you can get a transfusion for. At least not one that'd be, uhh, sterile. We could always go into the Ghost Zone and raid a hospital or something…well, you'd have to do it, because I'm too old and feeble for hospitals. Er, adventures."
"Shut up, Tuck." Danny couldn't help but grin as he said it, though. He'd definitely missed his best friend.
"Danny!" Both of them turned their heads at the sound of Jazz's voice and accompanying footsteps. "Oh my God, what happened to you?"
The halfa knew he looked a sight. He was still half-transformed, white-haired and blue-eyed, and his jumpsuit's colours seemed to be inverted. Danny and Tucker could appreciate the irony of that much more than Jazz could, but it was getting harder to tell what colour the hazmat was, since it was coated in the glowing green substance. "Uh…hi?"
"Good grief." Jazz dropped to her knees and inspected the injury, which looked as though it might boil over and consume Danny's hands at any moment. "What did you say Valerie was trying to do to you?"
"She had a weapon that could 'depossesses'—er, should that be 'dispossess'? I don't know. Um, something to force a ghost out of a human's body. It didn't work."
"I can see that," Jazz said sarcastically.
"On the other hand, she took off after only shooting him once," Tucker said brightly. "I think he's doing pretty well, all things considered."
Jazz was taking stock of the botched transformation. "Did she short you out or something? What's with your suit? Where's your aura? You're not glowing at all."
"Sure I am; all this ectoplasm is probably enough to light up a whole house," Danny said through gritted teeth.
"He can't go ghost," Tucker said helpfully.
"At least not completely," Danny added. "Here—let me try again—" He concentrated on Phantom, visualizing the familiar visage and feeling of ethereal power that had coursed through his veins. But when the transformation rings cleared and the crackle of energy faded, he was back in his human form, without so much as a hint of ghostly attributes. "Er…that wasn't what I was going for."
He tried again, and this time when the rings had disappeared, there was no change whatsoever, except for his eyes, which were an iridescent green.
"Hey, at least you stopped bleeding," Tucker pointed out. "How's the pain?"
"Gone," Danny confirmed, though a gentle prodding at his chest alerted him that something was still amiss. Perhaps he really had just run out of ectoplasm to expel. Whatever that means.
"So you can't transform at all?" Jazz inquired.
Danny blinked, and his eyes reverted back to blue. "Uh…I guess not. A temporary side-effect?"
"You'd better hope it's temporary." The retired psychologist sighed. "What happens if it's permanent? If you can never go ghost again?"
Never go ghost again…it was terrifying. Go on living like this, forever, unable to die? Could he even cross over if he couldn't access his ghost side? The thought made Danny sick. What would happen to Amity Park without him…? "Okay, then…we have to find some way to fix it."
"Well, I'm open to suggestions!" Jazz said, obviously distressed. "Especially considering that the entire town knows you're Phantom now!"
"They what?" Tucker stared at Jazz in disbelief.
"This guy was photographed kissing his very human girlfriend out in the middle of the street!" She jerked a thumb at Danny, who blushed. "And when, exactly, were you going to let me in on the fact that Sam was more than just a friend, huh?"
The halfa held his hands up in defense. "Okay, I admit it, I screwed up! And she's not my girlfriend, though I was hoping she could be eventually. As much as I'd like to discuss that, figuring out this weird injury is probably going to have to come first!"
"I can't believe you're getting a girl now. Does she know you're like, four decades older than her?"
"Tucker!"
Jazz intervened, rolling her eyes. "And how old are you, Tucker? Just because Danny's acting like a teenager doesn't mean you have to follow his example."
"I'm an old man. I have a right to be crotchety and obscene now."
"Tucker."
"All right, all right." The dark-skinned man helped Danny unsteadily to his feet. "So what should we do?"
"Do you think you could figure out that weapon, if we could get it?" Jazz asked.
Tucker shrugged. "It's worth a try."
"Well, we don't have a lot of time to work with. There's no telling who'll be showing up on my doorstep once they remember Danny's connection to me…and without his ghost powers, it's a little harder to be discreet. Danny, can you walk?"
"Yeah." The half-ghost looked down at himself disbelievingly. "I feel fine now, physically, just a bit exhausted. And I feel cold—" he held a hand over his chest "—right here."
"Okay." Jazz sighed. "Come on, let's go see Valerie."
Danny groaned. "Do I have to?" The idea of actively seeking out Valerie didn't exactly sound great to him, considering that their last encounter had ended in him getting shot. Though, in retrospect, he had kind of goaded her into doing it, thinking it wouldn't affect him. Brilliant move, Phantom.
Heh. Maybe I should go back to thinking of myself as 'Fenton' again…in case I'm stuck like this for a long time…
Forever was a very long time. Danny shivered and followed Jazz to the car, trying to put that particular worry out of his mind.
-to be continued…