Hello there. Writing went well over the weekend, so here is a Tuesday chapter.

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Chapter 67: to Wound the Tiger

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Despite spending a large potion of his time fighting, Danny was not, by nature, a violent person. Nor was he particularly vengeful, though he could certainly be petty, or at all cruel. As a matter of fact, Danny was rather forgiving. He didn't hold grudges, even when he should.

This was why, despite having more than enough justification to do so, despite having dropped them from his list of 'people,' the thought of killing the GIW agents never even crossed his mind.

Hurting them, however...

As far as he was concerned, that was fine.

There were plants and flowers everywhere in Danny's lair. This would likely appear odd to someone who wasn't very familiar with Danny, because flowers really didn't fit Phantom, thematically speaking. The reason for their presence was mostly because Sam liked plants, and Jazz liked flowers, but, as Maddie had discovered, they served another purpose. Defense. Ghost plants were aggressive, and frequently dangerous, but, once in a lair, they weren't terribly difficult for the lair to co-opt and control.

This was why, when the men made to fire at Maddie, thick, wooden spears shot out of the nearby buildings, driving through the men's arms and legs, pinning them in place, exploding their weapons into a thousand, sharp, jagged, shards that dug deep furrows in their exposed skin. Then, the still-living vines pulsed, and sent out smaller, greener, vines to wind around their limbs, preventing them from pulling free.

At the same time, the temperature plummeted. Frost formed on every surface, crackling and snapping. The wind picked up, icy, cutting.

Paulina screamed.

Danny's vision tunneled, but he was frozen to the spot, clinging to Maddie's sleeve. He was afraid that she would be targeted again, and he had to be ready to pull her out of the way. There was no telling what these people could do, what they were capable of. They might be able to escape.

Then he remembered (memory of a memory of a dream, he didn't know how he knew these things). There were others. These weren't the only ones. There were more of them. They were dangerous.

Maddie wasn't the only one in danger.

He had to protect. He had to keep them safe.

"Get inside!" he half-shouted, now pushing Maddie towards the doorway. "Get inside! Hurry!"

"Danny," said Maddie, horrified, "what-?"

"They were going to shoot you!"

"How can you know th-"

"This isn't the time to argue, Valerie!" snapped Jazz. She was pulling Paulina, who had frozen, to the doorway.

Echo was- Where was Echo? Where-? Had they gotten him?

No.

There he was, walking towards the trapped GIW agents. Incandescent. His aura burnt bright, and as he lifted off the ground, blue-white tendrils that could have been plants, or frost or both (botany in the Infinite Realms was strange) followed his path. Danny could feel his fury, as he stalked closer and closer to the agents, because it was his, Danny's, fury.

(Echo wanted to hurt them. Danny just wanted them to go away.)

(The shadows were not, quite, exactly the same as Danny.)

"You were going to kill her," said Echo, the inhuman reverberation in his voice that had faded to almost nothing returned full force. "You were going to put a hole in her head and her heart. You don't get to do that."

One of the men had managed to keep an arm free, and now he pulled a pistol-type ectoblaster from his belt. Echo smacked it away with the back of his hand, hard enough that Danny could hear bones break. The gun skittered away, across the pavement, coming to rest a couple feet to Danny's right.

Echo raised a hand, icy vines following it up, and twining together to form a long, razor-sharp point. "Would you like me to demonstrate where?" he asked pointing to the man's forehead. The icy point followed the gesture.

Danny's breath caught in his throat. Echo wasn't really going to do that, was he? He wasn't really-

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Echo suddenly shrieked and flickered, dropping to the ground. Danny gasped, and collapsed. The ground trembled. The vines wilted. The vibrant, dark colors of the sky began to bleach.

Jazz whirled, trying to find out why, priming her wrist rays. She saw Sam and Tucker going for their own weapons, even as Maddie dropped to check Danny.

"Looks like we owe the tech guys an apology," said an unfamiliar voice. "This spectral disruptor really did come in handy."

"Alpha! Sir, what happened?"

"Orders, sir?

They were surrounded. Jazz swallowed, and prepared for a hopeless fight. Jazz could fight, but she wasn't a soldier, her weapons weren't designed to hurt humans. They were designed to not hurt humans.

"Cut me out," said Alpha, cradling his broken hand against his side. "Carry out the mission."

"But, sir," said one, "witnesses-"

"Acceptable losses," barked Alpha.

The soldiers nodded, and turned, raising their weapons. "Nothing personal," said one of them, as he trained his gun's sights on Jazz.

"Ready," barked one of them.

"Wh-what," stuttered Paulina. "Wait-"

"Aim."

There was a sharp crack of gunfire.

The soldier who had been holding the spectral disruptor fell, a hole through his device and his leg. There was another shot. Another. The soldiers started to scatter, but a few of them paused, their guns still pointed at the Fenton's and Danny's classmates.

The sky darkened further, throwing the street into darkness. Jazz was just barely able to catch sight of Danny, sitting up, the ectoblaster that Echo had struck from the soldier's hand grasped in his, blood flowing freely from his nose and ears, his face terrifyingly blank, before the darkness became absolute.

A pair of bright green flashes shot down from the rooftops, briefly illuminating their targets. Jazz raised her fists, sighting down her arms to fire her wrist rays. She wasn't afraid of friendly fire. Except for Echo, everyone was behind her.

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By the trapped agents, Echo flickered again, his aura sparking. The shadow pushed himself to his feet, dizzy. It was a new experience, but not one that he enjoyed.

Echo, like Danny, could see in the dark. He saw the agents, some of them still firing (more or less blindly) at the others. He snarled, and launched himself at one of them, a taller, thinner man, who had been fumbling with what Echo took to be night vision goggles of some kind.

This would not be permitted. This would not be allowed.

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Danny felt...

Clear. Focused. Maybe a little light headed. But, connected.

It was like all his emotions had dropped away, leaving only crystalline purpose, right and wrong, a single straight path, no colors, only the gray, the black, the white.

He didn't think that he could stand, indeed, he wasn't. He thought that Maddie might have picked him up, and now they were taking shelter by the walls of one of the buildings. It didn't matter, though. He didn't need to stand.

He just needed to make sure that they couldn't.

Vines began to carpet the street, starting at the edges. They took those agents who had sought out shelter first. Danny could feel their bones snap as the vines wrapped tightly around their ankles, he could hear their screams, feel their wrists be bound as they hit the ground, hit the vines.

He could see Shade and Umbra take aim and fire, as if their eyes were his own, he could see the smoking, circular burn marks they left on their victims. He could feel Fractal, as he angled an icy knife up between the ribs of an agent who was frantically checking a screen on his wrist. He could hear Mirage and Mirror as they both lead men astray with misleading voices and images. He could taste blood, as Echo fought an agent literally tooth and nail.

Then, like the surface of a pool stilling, ripples smoothing, after a stone had been thrown into it, Danny was himself again, his emotions returned, just as they were, just as they should be, stronger for their brief absence.

(But something remained of that moment of clarity. A thought. A conclusion.)

The flowers on the vines bloomed, once again shedding light on the streets. There were teeth among the glowing petals, pearly white and needle sharp.

Danny struggled to stand. Maddie's lower arm had a bloody, fist-size burn mark on it. One of the agents must have hit her at some point. She had been shielding him. Danny forced himself to breathe evenly. This wasn't life threatening, and he could fix it. His eyes flicked to the others. Dash was bleeding heavily from his ear, a chunk of flesh about the size of a penny missing from it. He'd be fine, too. Tucker- Oh, that wasn't good.

Echo, still bloody, came to Danny's side to help him up, even as Fractal slid to Tucker's. Maddie made as if to stop Echo, but thought better of it, instead supporting Danny from the other side. Jazz, Sam and Fractal were all trying to stem the blood pumping from the hole in Tucker's upper thigh.

"It's the femoral, isn't it?" asked Tucker, breathlessly, his face rapidly paling.

"Yeah," said Jazz.

"Stop trying to sit up," said Sam, swinging her backpack off, and pulling out her first aid kit.

"Y'know, I never really expected the GIW to be the ones to kill me."

"You aren't dying, Tucker," said Danny, dropping down next to him. "Help me," he said to Fractal.

"Of course," said the shadow, a touch of anxiety in his tone.

"Did the bullet go through?" asked Danny. "Is there an exit wound?"

"Yes," said Jazz, crisply.

"Okay. Great."

"Me having another hole is great?"

"You not having the bullet stuck in you is great," said Fractal. "Considering that the ones lodged in the walls contain trace ectoranium, I doubt that we could effectively phase the bullet out of you, or otherwise remove it with ghost powers."

"This is going to feel weird," warned Danny. He took Fractal's hand and moved it over Tucker's wound.

"You know what feels weird?" said Tucker. "Being shot. Being shot feels weird. I mean, it isn't like this is the first time I've been shot or anything... Hey, Sam, if I made it my last request, would you ask Danny out? 'Cause, like, we both know that you're the aggressive one in this relationship, yeah?"

"Tucker," said Danny, putting his hands next to Fractal's. Their hands began to glow faintly blue. "You aren't going to die."

"Y-yeah," said Sam. "Stop being such a baby about this."

"Are you using your ice powers on my leg?" asked Tucker. "Is that a good idea? I mean, bullet wounds are bad, but so is frostbite... Not Frostbite, Frostbite is great, but like, frostbite... Heck. Frostbite, frostbite, Frostbite, frostbite... They sound different in my head, okay?"

"I bet a lot of things sound different in your head," said Sam.

"Are you insulting the dying guy? Really?"

"You aren't dying," said Danny. "We need everyone to be quiet now." He watched carefully as the aura around his and Fractal's hands darkened to a more brassy blue, one that matched the glow of Clockwork's amulets (He didn't notice Mirage and Mirror gesture at the vines, causing the plants to grow gags over the mouths of their prisoners). He wasn't healing Tucker the same way he had healed Maddie the other day. (He honestly didn't know what he had done that time, and was hoping that, whatever it was, it wasn't something that he could only access when high on excess emotional energy, or a one-off panic reaction, which was also possible.)

Clockwork had shown him how to do this, but it was difficult. It required focus. The fight had lasted for about five minutes, maybe a little less, so five minutes ago, Tucker hadn't been shot. Five minutes ago, Tucker had been standing there. So... Move there, five minutes ago to here and now. Or, should he just accelerate? Both had their risks, and he couldn't keep the time of Tucker's leg stopped for too much longer. He'd get gangrene.

"Option one," said Fractal, speaking in Esperanto. "With option two, we'd have to make a temporal gradient, so that it wouldn't get weird with the rest of his body, and I don't know how we'd deal with the energy requirements. Remember that short story? As it is, this'll only work because-" Fractal cut himself off. Because Tucker is liminal, and therefore can deal with a chunk of his thigh being replaced by a time-delayed version. They didn't need to give the GIW that information, even in Esperanto.

"Oh. Yeah." Danny swallowed and nodded. Ancients, he shouldn't do this when he had what must be the ghostly version of brain damage, but he didn't have a choice. Tucker was bleeding out.

The blue glow intensified, then flared. When it cleared, the hole in Tucker's leg was gone.

Danny sighed in relief.

"Gosh," said Tucker, "you were right, that feels weird."

"You're weird," said Sam. "Mrs Fenton," she said, "let me take a look at your arm."

Mirage and Mirror, both in Phantom form, began to move then. They were going to question the GIW, as Phantom. Good. Danny had some questions he wanted answered.