Hello! I'm sorry for posting so late today, I had no internet this morning and then some things happened. This will be the last regular Sunday update. My school is doing in-service next week, and then school starts, so I'll be busy. I will still be updating on Fridays, and I have enough written currently that I should be able to keep doing Friday updates until mid-November, even if I can't find time to write more. Just FYI.

One more announcement-type thing before I start answering reviews. I am trying to give humans and ghosts in this diverse backgrounds, and to draw ghosts from multiple cultures, but I am, for better or worse, a middle-class twenty-something white girl living in rural America. If you notice that I'm relying on offensive stereotypes, or that I've portrayed something incorrectly, please call me out on it! I try to do research, but I know internet sources aren't always accurate.

Anne Camp: Puns. :)

Potkanka: Yes, that's exactly what I'm trying to tell you (It's also a call back to a vision Issitoq had at the end of chapter 103... gosh, that's a long time ago, now). I'm glad you like Danny's awareness. He's too worn out to put up an act, and even if he wasn't, doesn't feel like there's a reason for putting up an act right now. In proper, formal, ghost etiquette, you always use a person's chosen name, and individual Realms and communities have rules about names. But there's not actually any Zone-wide rule about not using names that are already in use. That would be hard to enforce, anyway, in the case of names like Jack, or John, or whatever. It is, however, considered really bad taste to take the name of a widely-known ghost, or to impersonate that ghost, especially if it's a more unique name, and, if it ever gets back to that ghost that someone is using their name there's probably going to be a fight. That is to say, it is a big no-no, but it isn't Taboo. It's kind of my idea, in the back of my head, that names are one of the things that the arbiters in the Feathers of Ma'at deal with. Like, if two ghosts are fighting over a name, they might go hire a Feather to decide who gets it, or something. I don't know if I'll ever use that idea, though... Sorry for the ramble.

ObsidianBlackCat: Super cool to see that you've made an account! If you write anything for DP, you can be pretty sure that I'll read it. I'm glad you liked the action!

grapeytae: If Vlad could have digested it, it would have. It would have made Danny stronger, too, if he had been able to digest before it started messing with him. Kinda like a pineapple. You have to eat it, before it eats you. It wouldn't have made him stronger than Dan, though. Dan's eaten a lot of other stuff, too. Side note: How did you get FFN to let you have two comments on the chapter? Does it allow that now?

ice16wolf: It's really great to hear that you've been following this story for so long! I hope you had a good time abroad, and if you're back that you're having a good time now, too.

Thank you all for reading and reviewing! And now, the story!

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Chapter 154: Fire and Ice

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Ellie arced under the hull of the ship, shooting ice from her fingers to combat the fire eating it. She frowned as the fire vanished. She wasn't really well-versed in the anatomy (Architecture? Whatever.) of ships, but she thought that bit of crispy, cracked, and cut wood might have been the rudder, and she had the impression that it was pretty important, at least on water-bound ships. On Ghost Zone vessels? She had no idea.

Either way, it wasn't currently her problem. She'd put out the fire, that's all she could do for it.

The ghosts that had been on-duty guarding the ship's underside, those that weren't fighting, waved at Ellie as she curved back up, ectoblasts at the ready.

In the middle distance, Pandora fought with 'Surtr,' the two large ghosts slamming each other into the floating islands (which were mostly just very large, mostly featureless boulders) that surrounded the Tower.

Ellie wasn't getting involved in that fight, not when she was already so tired from navigating the Tower. She was smarter than that. Barely.

Could she do anything about the snake tangled in the sails? She examined the problem with a critical eye. No... Probably not. Not without damaging the ship more, or getting in the way of the Elysian sailors and soldiers already working on the problem.

So-?

She ducked out of the way of a ghost, one of the mercenaries, surprisingly. She'd thought most of them had gone already.

Well, she'd been looking for a fight.

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Dr. Iceclaw took Danny's temperature with the large pad of one finger. Considering how the ship was shaking, he was loath to use any of his equipment. Apparently, one of the machines had broken.

Danny leaned into the coolness of Iceclaw's touch.

"You're far too hot," said Dr. Iceclaw, frowning.

"I know," said Danny. "That's why you have to take out the amulet. It's making me hot."

Dr. Iceclaw's touch shifted to Danny's stomach. "Hm."

"Please take it out," begged Danny. "It shouldn't be there."

"No," agreed Iceclaw. "It shouldn't. But..." He glanced at his equipment, which was strapped to the walls of his cabin. "I can't just pull it out. I don't know what I'm dealing with, and I'm not sure..." he trailed off again, as if reevaluating what he was going to say. The ship trembled around them again. "I'm not sure that your core will easily tolerate someone reaching into you at this point. Not unless you trust them absolutely."

"It's one of the Amulets of Mattingly, and I do trust you."

Iceclaw gave Danny a strained half-smile. "I'm afraid that whatever I do, without more information, and without a more-" the ship shook and keeled to one side, before stilling, "-stable environment, I'm afraid it will only do more damage."

Danny moaned, and leaned, exhausted, into Dr. Iceclaw's cool bulk. "Oh. You feel nice."

"Ah," said Dr. Iceclaw. "That... Might be a good idea, actually. I can keep you cool until we-" the ship jerked to the side once again, "-are clear of this battle."

Taking that as implicit permission, Danny snuggled closer to the larger ghost, laying his head down on Iceclaw's soft white fur. He sighed.

Sam, who had been leaning in the doorway to brace herself, took a step into the room. Danny saw that several of his classmates were gathered outside the door.

"How did you even manage to swallow one of the Amulets of Mattingly, anyway?" she asked.

"Oh," said Danny. "I forgot I didn't tell you. We were on a floor of the Tower that makes it so that everyone is nobility or something, except it wasn't working properly for me and Ellie, I think it was broken, and then Aragon came in, and we were fighting, and I pulled the amulet off with my teeth, and then I turned into a dragon, and we were all fighting and it was still in my mouth, and I moved the wrong way and I swallowed it."

"It wasn't working for you?" said Sam. "The floor, I mean."

"No," said Danny.

"Hey, yeah, that was weird," said Mikey. "I thought that the only reason a floor wouldn't work would be-"

Sam whirled, and from the look on Mikey's face, Danny would guess that he was getting a full blast of Sam's trademark glare. She turned again, face completely pleasant.

"Didn't Dora knight you that one time?"

Danny frowned. "Oh, yeah. I guess she did. Does that count, though?"

"I mean, I think it should," said Sam. "Knights are nobles, just very minor ones, right?"

"I think so." Danny bobbed his head slowly, and tried for a smile. "Yeah. That makes me feel better. I was a little worried that... Well, never mind."

The ship jerked again, and Danny pressed into Dr. Iceclaw. His classmates made various sounds of dismay.

"What's happening up there?" asked Paulina.

"A big fight," said Sam.

"Why don't we just go?"

"I'm sure they're trying," Danny said. "Where are the rest of you? Mr. Lancer? Sarah? Mia?" He tilted his head to see if he could spot them beyond the door. He knew there were other people missing, but, now that he had some relief, he was having trouble focusing enough to everyone straight in his head.

"I don't know," said Kwan. "I think they went down different way than we did."

There was the sound of running feet down the corridor, and everyone turned their heads.

"Who-?" asked Danny.

Jazz rounded the corner. "Hey!" she said. "How are you doing, Danny?"

"Not great," said Danny. "What's happening out there?"

"A giant snake got tangled in the ropes and sails and stuff," said Tucker, following soon after Jazz.

Both Jazz and Tucker were smudged with dirt and sweat, but otherwise seemed unharmed.

"A giant snake?"

"Yeah," said Tucker. "Everything is going fairly well, otherwise."

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This was an accurate assessment.

Even the most tenacious of the mercenaries had fled, once Pandora had soundly beaten 'Surtr,' and flung him into the distance, the animals were just that, animals, and the natives of Missing Theory, the scientists and researchers, were not inclined to pick fights with the Elysians and the Egyptians. They might have been crazy, but they did have a sense of self-preservation.

The snake in the rigging had been somewhat difficult to deal with, but they had gotten it out, eventually.

After that, the ships, both the Elysian ship and the Egyptian one, began to limp away from the Tower.

Pandora, shrinking, touched back down on the deck of her ship. That had been quite a fight.

Danielle landed nearby, then collapsed. Pandora looked at her with sympathy.

"Are you injured?" she asked.

"Not really," said Danielle. "I'm just tired."

Pandora raised an eyebrow. She had heard similar things from the Phantoms before.

"Well," revised Danielle, "I'm sort of bruised, and I might have sprained my wrist, but I'm pretty sure nothing's broken, and nothing's really bleeding. Much. Nothing serious." The dog, Cujo, landed on the deck next to her and started licking her.

"Mhm," said Pandora, choosing to drop the subject. Danielle was better about her health than Daniel. Somewhat.

The captain flew over to Pandora, and started in on his initial report, distracting Pandora from Danielle. After a few minutes, she held up her hand.

"That's enough for now," she said. "I believe I understand the general situation. Send a messenger to the Egyptians. Thank them for their aid, and find out how their craft fared."

The captain nodded. Pandora looked back at Danielle and offered her a hand, which she took.

"Let's go see how your brother is doing."

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Danny looked up at Pandora and Ellie, then shrunk farther into Iceclaw's thick fur.

"Hi," he said, miserably.

"Hello," said Pandora. "You do not look very well, Daniel."

Danny shrugged. "I swallowed, um, one of the Amulets of Mattingly. Aragon was there."

"There are likely other things the matter," said Iceclaw, "but I cannot confirm that until I can start running scans, which I cannot do until I can be sure this ship is not going to shake itself to pieces underneath us."

Pandora sighed. "It should not. Our enemies seem to have left, for the time being. I cannot guarantee their future actions."

Iceclaw shook his head. "I suppose that will have to do. Little one, I must put you down to set up my machines."

"Okay," said Danny, reluctantly, letting go of Iceclaw's fur.

Iceclaw gently set Danny down in a chair, and formed an orb of ice to give to him. Danny hugged the orb like his life depended on it.

(A rather unhelpful part of his mind suggested that it very well might.)

Iceclaw began to unhook his various interesting (and vaguely intimidating) medical machines from the wall, and waved a hand at the other people in the room.

"You all need to leave. Close the door."

"What about Jazz and Ellie and Sam and Tucker?" asked Danny.

Dr. Iceclaw hesitated. "I don't think there's enough room for all of them," he said, finally. "Perhaps only one."

Danny thought about it for a minute. "Jazz? Will you stay?"

"Yeah," said Jazz, "of course. I wouldn't be much of a big sister if I didn't, right?"

She sounded tired, and Danny felt guilty for making her do yet another thing, but he really needed the support.

"Thanks," said Danny.

"I will be returning for your report in an hour, Dr. Iceclaw," said Pandora. "Daniel. I'm glad to have you back."

"I'm glad to be back," said Danny.

Pandora nodded. "Now, for the rest of you children," she said, turning, and stepping out of the room, "I want to know how this situation-" the door closed, cutting off the rest of her sentence.

Before too long, Iceclaw had used all of his machines on Danny. He had been getting progressively less and less happy about whatever he was seeing. Danny was beginning to get a bad feeling. Well. More of a bad feeling. He had already been feeling pretty crappy.

Iceclaw sat down in front of Danny.

"It's bad, isn't it," said Danny, resigned.

"Well. Yes," said Dr. Iceclaw. "I'm afraid so. The, ah, condensed version is that I cannot remove the amulet. Not here, with the tools that I have, and certainly not by myself."

"What? Why not?"

Iceclaw grimaced. "As a result of a combination of your unique biology, and the normal function of a ghost core, it appears that you have attempted to effectively digest the amulet."

Danny gave a hesitant nod. That would happen to anything he swallowed, so he wasn't sure why it mattered.

"The amulet, being an artifact with a large amount of... call it ontological inertia, has tried to resist that, and has largely succeeded. Largely." Dr. Iceclaw made another face. "It would be better if it had succeeded completely. As it is, a good part of the energy- the ectoplasmic structure- you've drawn from it has wound up tangled around one of your primary silver cords, and a number of minor ones. You know what silver cord is?"

Danny nodded. "They're the ghostly analogue of a nervous system. My parents just called them strands. I guess that doesn't sound as good..."

"Yes. Well. I can't remove it while it's like that."

"And you can't untangle it?" asked Danny, seeing where this was going.

"No. Not without special tools, or a much better understanding of the artifact. Then, even if I could remove it from around your silver cord, your core won't let me near it. It's too irritated. It would lash out at anyone you don't trust implicitly. Now, considering your current condition, it wouldn't hurt me terribly, but it would hurt you when I flinched."

"Could Ellie do it?" asked Jazz.

Dr. Iceclaw considered it for a moment, then shook his head. "No. She doesn't have the skills necessary, or the familiarity with the artifact."

"Pandora?" suggested Danny.

"Maybe. She may have training... She is much older than I am... Might know more about the artifact than I..." He shook his head. "I will ask her. Before that, I have to do more measurements to see how tangled it is. This will likely be an operation requiring multiple persons."

"Could Dora?" asked Danny.

"Princess Dorathea of Mattingly?"

Danny bobbed his head. "Mhm."

"You trust her?"

"Yeah."

"Possibly," said Dr. Iceclaw. "I will have to talk to Lady Pandora about sending a message to Mattingly and the Far Frozen for more equipment. The longer that thing stays in you, the more damage it will do."

Danny swallowed. "What kind of damage is it doing?" he asked.

"You have a cold core," said Iceclaw. His lips twitched. "As you well know The finer structures of your ectoplasm do not cope well with excessive heat. So far, all the important structures of your core are intact, but some of the ectoplasmic shadows of your organs are degrading. This is a dangerous situation for you, because it means that if your normal organs are damaged, they will not be able to heal."

"Right," said Danny.

"If the heat becomes more severe, it will damage your core." As he said this, Iceclaw summoned more ice. "It is, therefore, very important to keep you cool."

"I'm always cool," mumbled Danny, pressing up against the ice. "Always cool..."