Chapter 11 - Falling Rain
A/N: Well, here we are, now on the eleventh chapter...from what I see among reviews, a lot of you were waiting for this, and I'll deliver...but I feel a lot of you will want to kill me for what I'm about to leave you...
Well, only one way to find out...Chapter 11...
White particles of falling snow blinded her face as she continued running to catch up with Tucker and Jazz. She was hoping in her mind that she wasn't too late...
The streets were oddly empty, and Sam was wondering why there was no one around...after all, it was still a little past one o'clock, and there wasn't even a car that was driving on the road...
She took the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to run past all of the lights in a frenzied effort to find one of her friends...
...And saw Tucker. He was leaning against a lamppost, kneeling.
Skidding against the slippery walk to brake, Sam ran over to him. There was a look of anguish on his face...it looked like he was hurt.
"TUCKER!" she yelled, getting his attention.
He let out a pained, "Sam?"
She knelt down next to him. "What happened?"
Tucker let out another pained yelp as the agony on his face remained. "My...knee..." he said, clutching it.
She gasped. "Oh, man, are you all right?"
"No..." he said in a pained whisper. "I was running to catch up with Jazz and I slipped on the sidewalk...as I was falling, my knee crashed against the lamppost...I think it's broken..." He yelped again as he continued grasping it.
"Where's Jazz?" she asked in a low tone, with some fear within it.
"Sh-she's still running to help Danny..." he said. "I caught up with her, but as I was doing so, I slipped...she ran over to help me a little bit, but then took off for Danny once again...I tried to stop her by yelling out to her, but I couldn't...I can't even stand..."
Sam was still in disbelief. "Tucker..." she said. "I have to get you to the hospital..." She attempted to help him off the ground, but he pushed her hand away.
"You can't carry me all the way to the hospital!" said Tucker. "It's over a mile from here!"
"What do you want me to do, then?" she asked.
He stared at her as if there was no other possibility in the world. "You...you have to go after Jazz..." he strained out. "You can stop her..."
Sam's eyes widened as her disbelief grew. "But I can't do that...I promised Danny..."
"You have to go!" yelled Tucker, as if it took all of his strength to say that. "We may have promised Danny that we would stay behind, but sometimes we have to break our promises...and this is an exception! Jazz could get hurt!"
"But...but what about you?" she yelled. "I can't just leave you here!"
"I'll be fine!" he said. "Please...we've already lost a lot of time...you have to go after her!"
More conflict arose in Sam's head. Now she was faced with staying with Tucker or going after her best friend, who was basically flying towards a battlefield. Precious seconds ticked by, as she once again was faced with making a difficult choice.
Far up in the sky, a frightening flash occurred in the grey sky, accompanied by loud booms...it seemed to be a warning sign of oncoming danger...she was too scared to move...
When her silence continued, Tucker forced out two last words.
"SAM! GO!"
A look of pain spread across her own face as she said softly, "I'm sorry, Danny..."
Facing Tucker, she said, "OK...I'll...go after her."
"I'll be fine here," he repeated. "You have to go after Jazz...please...she could get hurt..."
Smiling sadly, and taking one last look at him, she ran off. Once again, that same prayer that she would be on time remained in her head...
Hope was her only weapon now.
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Danny continued flying, in a desperate search for Spectra. He was quite sure that she had flown in this direction, but couldn't find any trace of her. She had disappeared once again.
He stopped in mid-flight to take a quick glance around...but there was nothing...just the regular snow, some buildings around...
...and a giant green flash of light that careened into his face.
"AHHH!" he screamed, as the surprise attack knocked him backward into a wall.
Looking up with dazed eyes to locate the attacker, his line of vision locked with the treacherous Spectra, in her black and ragged form.
"Well, look who decided to show up!" she said, her red eyes glowing more fiercely than ever.
"This ends now!" screamed Danny, flying up to her level. His head still aching from the earlier assaults, he charged her at full speed. Spectra, not expecting it, was knocked a few feet back before she regained control. Then she charged at him herself, her hands outstretched. Danny luckily, flew out of the way before she could drain him of any misery he held.
He started chasing after her in vengeance, his anger at an all time high as he flew after her back and forth, dodging through buildings or simply phasing through them.
But as they descended into a dark alley, Spectra blended in perfectly with the darkness and disappeared. When Danny flew right through it and emerged on the other side, no one was in front of him. He immediately stopped and looked around, floating in the air.
Taking her chance, Spectra flew out of the dark and charged into his back, sending him spiraling towards the pavement. As his face hurtled towards a manhole cover in the street that just happened to be in the direction he was falling, he knew that it was like reliving the nightmares again...
As his head collided with it, he knew another wound to his already damaged forehead was more than he needed...
Forcing himself to stand up again, he evaded another one of Spectra's blasts and played the dodging game again, zigzagging in every possible direction to avoid the blasts. When she stopped, he flew up and sent some of his own in her direction, all of which also missed, as she spun around him in a tight circle, her speed unfortunately raised...
Danny stopped before he got dizzy and took a breath. Meanwhile, Spectra, her hands glowing green again, flew at him at high speed in an attempt to grab him. Sensing her intentions at the last second, he spun out of the way, evading the attack...
...but also causing the Fenton thermos to fall out of his possession and land with a clank on the street.
Looking at each other in wild surprise, and letting the events of the current situation run wildly in fast-forward, both ghosts flew towards it at full speed, both reaching for it...
Spectra snatched it first.
Danny, his hand having missed the strap by inches, cursed himself for the grave error on his part, and flew out of the open before Spectra could see him. He hid in a corner, where he turned invisible, hoping she would not detect him.
"Where are you, ghost boy?" Spectra asked with a mocking laugh, the thermos charged in her hand. "Come on and show yourself...I have a little present for you!"
Her own ghost sense honing in on him, he knew that he could not stay in one place...he flew through the building behind his back in order to throw her off the scent...but she kept right on following him, maybe not in his direct path, but still in his general direction...when he ran out of space, he phased through the building again, back into the open...
When he watched her phase back into the open herself, hot on his trail, he knew he couldn't avoid her forever...but he also didn't want to risk getting trapped in his own thermos...he couldn't just send a blast out of her hand, it would give away his position and she would capture him in her already-charged thermos...or rather, his thermos, stolen by her...he started sweating, fearing she would locate him at any moment...
And a brilliant idea came to his head...
Quietly wiping some of the perspiration and blood on his forehead, he let it collect in a puddle in his hand. When there was enough, he flung the mixture away...
Spectra's sense detected his DNA in the sweat as it flew past her. "So there you are!" yelled Spectra, turning her back on Danny's true position and sending the thermos' blue light towards the spot of the thrown distraction.
His plan a success, he became visible again as his right hand blasted a ghost ray, which hit the distracted Spectra in the back. Screaming, and spinning wildly out of control spread-eagled, Spectra flew face first into the street, not moving. Her clutch-less hand opened, the thermos rolling out of it...
...and towards a storm drain.
His heart racing, he quickly sped up in the air to retrieve it before it rolled right into the sewer, his hands reaching desperately...
...but to see another hand grab it before he could.
Flying past the area once again and into the unknown, he stopped once again to face his rival.
Only to be shocked to see that there was now a new rival on the field...
Valerie.
Time seemed to slow down as it sunk in that she was the one standing there on her jet sled. Endless torrents of panic flew in and out of his stomach as they just stood there facing each other, lightning now starting to strike the background. Though he couldn't see it, he could easily picture a very angry face behind that mask she wore.
Just like the battle from before, she happened to come in at the wrong time once again.
But now she had the Fenton thermos...
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Meanwhile, Sam had finally caught up with Jazz.
"Sam!" yelled Jazz when she found her. "Get out of here! You could get hurt!"
After she caught her breath, Sam looked directly at her and said, "I could get hurt? I'm here to make sure that YOU don't get hurt!"
"I can take care of myself!" she yelled. "But Danny's still young...he has to realize that he can't do everything on his own!" As she took out the Fenton Peeler, she remembered her own promise to him during that one night a few weeks ago after his first dream...
"But Danny's also the one with the ghost powers!" said Sam, watching as Jazz activated the weapon and let the metallic suit surround her.
"It doesn't matter," said Jazz. "I'm still going after him, and no one is going to stop me..."
Sam placed herself directly in Jazz's way, stretching out her arms. "You're going to have to go through ME to do it, then!"
"Sam, let me go!" yelled Jazz. "I have to help Danny!"
When she refused, Jazz had to go to extremes. She moved Sam out of the way. With the power of the suit, it was an easy task.
"I'm sorry," yelled Jazz as she ran past her.
Sam, however, still wasn't giving up, as she shook it off and continued running after her.
"Jazz, please!" she yelled. "YOU HAVE TO GET BACK HERE!"
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His panic was reaching high levels again, as the stand-off continued.
Danny watched as Valerie broke off the contest and looked down, examining the thermos in her hand. She then set it in his direction.
"Been waiting a long time for this..." she said, ready to pull the switch.
Danny approached her cautiously. "Valerie..." he said, trying to coax her out of her rage, "please..."
"STOP CALLING ME BY MY FIRST NAME!" she screamed, still pointing it in direction. He could see that her hand was shaking on the activating button. "YOU RUINED EVERYTHING!"
"Valerie..." he repeated with his hands up, palms facing her. "I didn't..."
"YES YOU DID, WHATEVER YOU'RE ABOUT TO SAY!" she yelled, still pointing the thermos at him as if it were a gun. "You took my house, my father's job, my life...you are responsible for EVERYTHING!" Her voice was shaking, as if she was crying at the same time.
She activated the trigger...Danny flew out of the way, the light missing him by inches.
"Valerie..." he tried again, trying to use the same caution once again. "the ghost dog...that was not my fault...it wasn't even mine..."
"YOU LIAR!" shouted the ghost hunter. "You call yourself the protector of this town?" she yelled out, the haunting words fading back into Danny's memory. "I'm the only one who knows what your TRUE intentions are!"
Activating the thermos again, she pointed it directly at Danny, who flew out of the way just in time again, but this time jumping over her so that he could snatch the thermos out of her hand. Valerie looked at him angrily and took out one of her guns as he strapped the thermos to his waist again.
"Please..." he begged. "I don't want to fight you...I just want to..."
"Enough of your talk!" she screamed. "I've been done talking! A LONG TIME AGO!"
As he dodged another shot from Valerie, his heart filled with an emotion that he had never had towards Valerie for a while now...hate. It was building up inside of him in his frustration of an inability to get through to her.
"Valerie..." he said again, anger now rising in his voice. "Don't force me..."
"Why would I? You took everything away! Even my friends!" she shouted. Then her voice became shaky again, as hurting memories came back to her. "You took Danny away..."
"Danny?" he asked incredulously, trying to put that mistake into the void. "What are you talking about?"
"Don't play dumb with me, ghost!" she yelled, firing another round of gun blasts that Danny had to avoid. "You were the one who told Fenton to stay away from me! You made me lose my friends!"
"I had nothing to do with that!" yelled Danny. "All that talk was...SPECTRA!"
She had gained conciousness again, and was right behind Valerie...
"VALERIE!" he shouted. "Turn around!"
"Don't try and fool me, ghost!" said Valerie. "I'm up to your tricks!"
"NO!" he yelled. "LOOK BEHIND YOU!"
"Do you think that I'm that du-AAUGGHH!" she screamed, when Spectra got a hold of her.
"Oh, poor little kid!" said Spectra, her hands on Valerie's shoulders, absorbing her misery. "There, there, tell Spectra all about it..." Valerie started going limp in Spectra's hands.
Danny had finally had enough of her. His rage reaching higher points, he flew towards Spectra with everything he had.
Danny rammed into her stomach, which caused Spectra to accidentally drop Valerie. She fell to the ground.
Looking down at the ghost hunter to see if she was all right, Danny flew up at Spectra so he could target her again, his eyes no longer glowing green, but now brown from a mid-transformation.
"LEAVE..." - he punched her in the gut - "MY..." - he blasted an ectoplasmic ray at her head - "FRIENDS..." - he grabbed her tail and threw her towards a building's dumpster - "ALONE!" Spectra hit the bottom of the dumpster and it shut upon her.
Danny phased through the dumpster and yanked her out into the open. Holding her by the neck, and a charged hand ready to blast her again, he was shaking with fury.
"Ohh...anger!" said Spectra, laughing. "You do realize that letting out this much anger leads to disastrous results..."
"NOT CARING!" yelled Danny, blasting her in the stomach, which forced her away, screaming and flying away in a circle.
Spectra righted herself and morphed her hand into a lasso. Taking hold of a surprised Danny, she swung him around like a bolo and let him go, his back crashing against another wall.
His right shoulder was hurting.
Gingerly testing it and touching it, it throbbed quite painfully...
...but it wasn't broken...
He sat there, with once-again blurred vision, staring straight ahead. Spectra landed in front of him, her eyes glowing brighter and her smile wider than ever.
Danny looked at her in absolute hate...his anger consuming...
"How the mighty have fallen!" she laughed out. "Oh, Danny, you always have seemed to come up short during these past two weeks...but now, there's nothing here that can stop me..."
He could only blink at the realization that she was right...Spectra was only fought off the last time because Jazz was there to help him...but now he was alone...
"I suppose I should leave you alone and let you stew in your own miseries..." she said. "But what can I do, just letting a free treatment slip through my fingers...I couldn't be that way, shouldn't I?"
She reached out her hands to grab him.
And he was glowing green...vulnerable and weakened...
But somewhere in that mind of his...another presence had laid dormant...
But with all the emotions he held, that presence was starting to stir...
"You're mine!" Spectra yelled, now coming towards him faster...
It was suddenly as if time was freezing once again...Danny's green eyes swiftly blinked as the words of the other ghost went through one ear and out the other. During the moments his eyes were closed, he could actually feel the message being relayed in every part of his head before the sound resonated out the other ear. But like a trigger word at the same time...it awakened the presence within.
When his eyes opened again after the blink, his eyes were no longer green.
They were ruby.
His rage was well beyond his control now...that presence was taking over him just like Freakshow's crystal orb...the green light surrounding him now turned scarlet, matching the color of his eyes. All other human emotions seemed to fly off into the void...only anger remained...
Before Spectra could touch him...he caught her by the wrist. Spectra, surprised, but also quivering in fear of Danny's new transformation, looked at him at awe as she couldn't find any ability to break free, even by trying to phase out of it...
"GET AWAY FROM ME..." yelled Danny, now getting up from where he sat. Now his voice had changed...no longer was it the voice of the carefree adolescent ghost, but now of a dark, deep voice that resembled something of a possible future...
The Dan Phantom out of the half-ghost had arisen from within.
Spectra was now absolutely terrified, as she continued struggling in vain to get away. She tried everything with her other hand...blasts, rays, everything...but Dan put up a shield with his own free hand, the projectiles uselessly bouncing off of it. She screamed.
As her screams came through, something in the new Danny heard that, and then awakened. It was the adolescent Danny, now having switched places with his evil self in some sort of blackened prison in his own mind.
"Where am I?" he thought. It was rather strange...it was like a dark world full of shadows...there was no light at all...he was trapped...trapped in some sort of darkened orb...
But as he continued looking around, the idea was rather clear...he knew that this was the place where his true evil ghost spirit was locked, now free, due to his uncontrollable rage...
He heard more screams for help...and the noises seemed to be coming in with a deafening echo...Danny whirled around, where his eyes met some sort of strange and vibrant light, almost like an old-fashioned projection screen. The light suddenly morphed into a setting, where he instantly recognized the world he was just in...Danny realized that he was now looking through his own eyes, which were under control by the new him, where he could not reach out to anyone...
Dan continued holding Spectra aloft, walking out of the alley.
Once he was out in the open, his anger-heightened senses detected something flying behind him. Turning quickly, he saw it was an ectoplasmic blast from a now conscious Valerie. His hand blocked it, and like lightning, he flew up to Valerie and took her by her wrist as well. He held up both ghost hunter and ghost at the same time in his hands, both panic-stricken.
Danny continued watching himself in fear as her pressed his face against his own sight...
Dan let go of their wrists. But before they could fly away to freedom, he simply waved his hand...and paralyzed them. He flew around them so he could see their faces, both panic-stricken.
"WELL, LOOK WHAT WE HAVE HERE..." said Dan. "TWO PEOPLE WHO WISH TO DESTROY ME..."
He blasted both of them with ghost rays, but they still remained paralyzed.
But Valerie he hit only once...more blasts lashed out at Spectra, hitting her over and over again
"Let me go!" yelled Valerie, scared about Spectra's fate. "Please, let me go!"
"Oh, no!" said trapped adolescent Danny, now starting to beat against the walls of his prison. "Valerie! NOO!"
He watched, however, as Dan moved up to her and give her a surprising offer. "I GUESS I SHOULD...I HAVE NO QUARREL WITH YOU..."
He waved his hand in front of her so that she was no longer paralyzed. But instead of letting her fly away, he grabbed her by the wrist again and threw her away. She landed in some bushes.
Dan turned his attention back on Spectra, who was still cowering.
"HMM...WHAT SHOULD I DO?...OH...I KNOW SOMETHING PERFECT..."
Adolescent Danny, still trying to beat his way out back into control of his body, was trying everything he could to break out of his own prison...
"NO!" he screamed. "How do I get out of here?"
As much as he hated to admit it, Spectra was right...his anger was leading to disastrous results...this was probably how Dan Phantom came to be in the first place...
"Let me back in!" he screamed, beating in his prison. "Let me back in!"
"SOMETHING I OWE YOU FOR THESE TWO WEEKS..." said Dan.
Dan Phantom opened his mouth and took a deep breath...Spectra still trying to struggle free...
The adolescent stopped beating and stared in horror through his own eyes...his uncontrollable side of rage was about to summon up his ghostly wail!
Using that was way too dangerous...Valerie was in the area...
He had to break through somehow...he had to hurry, as Dan Phantom finished taking in breath...
"Get me out of here!" he yelled. "I'm sorry!" he screamed, his anger seeming to lower in volume as sincerity began taking its place. "I'M SORRY! PLEASE LET ME OUT OF HERE!"
The first few waves started erupting from Dan's mouth as time slowed to a near crawl...
It was too late...
Realizing the new mess, Danny screamed out one last "NOO!" and shook his head at the same time in disbelief, his hands covering his face
...but at the same exact moment, no longer was he feeling anger, but pity...and desire for change...
The new emotions quickly swept aside the anger...and at the same time, some breach occurred...suddenly, he was forced through it and he was spinning wildly through a tunnel of light and shadow, his mouth still screaming the same phrase...he had no clue where it was leading to...
But meanwhile, Danny's outward appearance was changing...the red light around him disappeared, and his eyes turned back to green...
Danny had successfully regained control of his body...while still screaming "NOO!" except there was another thing added...
His wail was still in effect, and he could not stop it...
There was nothing he could do except change its course...
At the last second, Danny tilted his head so that the waves would target something other than Spectra, who was now free of her paralysis. They simply blew her away...off into another direction...
Danny was also careful to make sure that Valerie was also out of range...the new target was now locked towards an open and empty street that seemed safe enough...
But unfortunately, it wasn't. In fact, it made things a lot worse. A million different heart attacks came to him at the same time, as he saw two people run directly into the street...
He watched helplessly in slow-motion as both of them were lifted off their feet in the path of the ghostly wail...
Danny's stomach churned unpleasantly as he heard the two people scream...one flew off to the right, where the person crashed through a window headfirst in a nearby building, while the other was forced back against an old building, some type of suit disappearing around her...
Panicking...Danny quickly flew towards the one that crashed through the window, praying that the person was still alive...
...but when he found the person, for a few split seconds, his heart had stopped beating.
It was Sam.
From the way that she looked, sprawled on the old floor, Danny absolutely felt sick. Her clothes were completely torn up and blood-soaked pieces of glass littered the floor all around her. The fingers on one of her hands were disfigured from being torn up from broken glass and one of her legs was broken. Her left arm was bending at a horrid angle, and her now unruly raven hair was draped around a once delicate face, now bleeding from being scarred by flying shards of glass.
She wasn't moving.
Danny's heart racing, he flew over to her and tried to see if there was any sort of pulse.
But with his shaky hands, he couldn't read if there was one...
"NOOOOO!" he screamed to the heavens, as tears welled up in his green eyes. "SAM!" Only lightning and thunder heeded his call.
"Why didn't you stay?" he said, choking back tears. "I TOLD YOU TO STAY! WHY DIDN'T YOU?"
Then another scream came to his ears, interrupting his cries of agony.
Danny quickly phased out of the building and looked at the other person he had forgotten about. He watched a girl, with two broken legs, desperately trying to crawl away from the old building. He looked up, and saw that his wail had disturbed an old billboard atop it. It had become loose, and was already falling...
"Crap!" he cried. He flew at high speeds in order to save the girl, but she was just too far away...
With one last scream, the billboard fell right on top of her. After a few seconds, she too, was silent.
Danny stopped in mid-air, his heart stopping again as he started taking in one more horrifying nightmare.
"No..." he thought. "That scream...it sounded like Jazz's..."
It couldn't be possible...no...Sam was already enough...but no, it couldn't be...not Jazz, too...
Going intangible, he dropped through the billboard and pulled out the girl.
When her unconscious body was brought out into the light, he screamed in agony as his greatest nightmares were confirmed.
Jazz wasn't moving, either...
Other than her broken legs, Danny could see evidence of head injury...her clothes were also torn up, and numerous cuts and bruises covered her body, most of them severely.
He broke down right there as tears flowed down his face like rivers, kneeling down next to his sister.
"NOOO! JAZZ!" he screamed, pounding the street until his knuckles bled from the pounding. "NOO! NOT YOU, TOO!"
His thoughts running at a million miles per hour...it came on one conclusion that he was wishing with all his might.
A nightmare...this had to be another dream. If only he could wake up from it...
He built up ghost energy in his hand and shot it directly into his stomach...
All he received was one aching stomach...instead of waking up like he was wishing, he only got sicker, as he proceeded to throw up from the combined stress of seeing both his sister and Sam, plus his own attack.
Then it came forward that this was not a dream...it was reality...
He continued bawling...the worst part was that this time, everything was his fault...he was the one who summoned all the anger, the one who broke him away from Valerie, the one who set off the ghostly wail...
...the one who caused the pain of two of the most important people of his life...
His dreams...they were a signal...a signal that if his anger got out of control as a ghost, then that was how the future would end up...that was what Spectra was talking all about...
...Even if what happened in those dreams wasn't exactly how it ended up, it was still a sign of foreshadowing...
...He ignored them...it was all him...ALL his fault...
Danny cursed himself...nothing ever went his way...
Through tears, he looked at his sister lying there on the ground...
What was he doing here? He shouldn't be here, just grieving...
He had to get both Sam and Jazz to the hospital...
...so they could have a chance at life...so he could have another chance...
Praying that there was enough time, and tears continuing their flow, he flew through the other building and gingerly lifted Sam's body out into the open, and carefully lay her next to Jazz. He tried to be as careful as possible.
But when he was ready to lift them up and fly them away, something stopped him.
A gun was pointed at his head.
"YOU DAMN GHOST!" yelled a voice.
Danny turned around. It was Valerie.
"DAMN GHOST!" she yelled again, looking at Sam and Jazz. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"
"I didn't do this," Danny protested. But he knew deep down, that he did...
"YOU ARE SO GOING TO PAY FOR THIS!" she screamed, her gun shaking. "YOU KILLED THEM! NOW I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" However, it was strange for her to say this if he himself was already dead...
"I did not kill them..." he tried saying, but was cut off.
"YOU DID, TOO!" she screamed.
"THEY'RE NOT DEAD!" he yelled back, praying at the same time in the back of his mind that it was true. He moved away from her and towards Sam and Jazz, but she moved in his way.
"GET AWAY FROM THEM, OR I SWEAR I'LL SHOOT YOU!" she screamed.
"I'm taking them to the hospital," he said. "Now move out of the way!"
"LIAR!" she yelled. "YOU? TAKING THEM TO A HOSPITAL? SINCE WHEN DID YOU EVER CARE?"
Danny's remorse was now turning into annoyance. "I'VE ALWAYS CARED FOR PEOPLE! WHY DO YOU THINK I PROTECT THIS TOWN?"
"YOU NEVER CARED FOR ME!" yelled Valerie. "AND YOU DON'T PROTECT THIS TOWN, YOU'RE JUST LIKE THE OTHER GHOSTS I'VE FOUGHT!"
"I AM NOT LIKE THE OTHER GHOSTS YOU'VE FOUGHT!" he countered back. "Now please...get out of the way!"
"NO!" she screamed, still pointing the gun at him. "I CAN'T TRUST YOU!"
Another lightning bolt flashed the background as the argument continued. "Please, Valerie...I just want to get them to the hospital...they probably don't have a lot of time left..."
"WHAT THE HECK?" she yelled. "WHAT IS SO DAMN IMPORTANT ABOUT HELPING THESE PEOPLE ALL OF A SUDDEN? YOUR GUILT?"
Danny couldn't take it anymore. He had already lost a lot of time, and his patience was thinning.
"FINE!" he yelled. "YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY I CARE SO MUCH ABOUT THESE TWO PEOPLE?"
There was no other way out of this...it was the only way he could make her move...he moved about three feet back from her.
"HERE'S YOUR STUPID ANSWER!" he yelled.
Two blue rings appeared around his waist and he let them travel in the north and south directions over his body...the body suit disappeared, the ghostly D on his chest trading places with a red oval on a white shirt, his blue pants and shoes coming back...his hair and eyes returning to their original color...
Valerie dropped her gun in shock, letting it clank against the ground.
"Fenton?" she said in disbelief. "I've been fighting...you...the whole time?"
A million questions ran through her mind...along with a million differrent emotions...she was just too shocked to make any move...
Her best friend? A GHOST?
How was that possible?
No...
This had to be some sort of trick...yes...a trick...
But Danny's tears continued flowing...
"I know what you're thinking," he said painfully. "But this is no trick..."
Valerie just continued looking at him, wondering what to do.
"Now you know...everything..." said Danny. "Now please...move...I just want to get them to the hospital...please..."
She wasn't sure if she could trust him...but for some reason, she couldn't think of anything else. And behind that mask of hers, anger was dissipating. Sadness was taking its place, as she drooped her shoulders...
Slowly moving aside, she let him pass.
Danny slowly walked pass her and slowly picked up Sam and Jazz. When he was ready, he went ghost again.
It made Valerie flinch.
But before he left, he had one last thing to say.
"I'm sorry..." he said, before he flew off.
And Valerie suddenly found herself all alone again...she wasn't sure what to think...she just couldn't believe that the whole time...she was hunting her best friend...these were her own realities...
What was there left to do?
She looked up at the sky.
Somewhere up in the clouds, the air grew warmer...no longer was there any snow falling over the area...
And as the first few drops fell on her face, she knew the magnitude of everything that had happened...
Nothing but gloom remained as she sadly picked up her gun, and turned homeward...tears streaming down her own face of knowing the truth of her best friend...
But the weather continued in its toll over Amity Park...as the phenomenon through sayings had suddenly become true...
Instead of the light snow, a rain storm had taken its place...
...for no happiness remained...
A/N: Review, please...