Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom. Butch Hartman does. I would never dream of making money off his work, this is but one fanatic's homage. So please don't sic the rabid lawyer hordes upon me, there's not much for them to sue out of me.
Author's Note: I apologize profusely for the like, three week delay! As I've mentioned before, my time got absolutely swallowed up by Anime Expo preparations. But my stuff is all ready now, and I was determined to get the next chapter done and posted before the convention. I won't be in town at all this coming week, as I leave Friday for Anime Expo, and immediately after that I'm going on a ghost hunting expedition with three friends to Bodie, a really spooky old ghost town up in the Sierras.
I hope the extra length of this chapter and it's huge dose of action and warped humor will make up in part for the delay. The next chapter won't likely be done for at least two weeks, but we'll see. For those of you who only discovered my stories with Anathema, I strongly suggest you take a gander at some of my other works, namely Jeremiad, since Jeremiad and Anathema are two sides of the same story- Valerie's and Dan's respectively. Anyhow, thanks to all my readers for your patience, and as always, commentary is appreciated!
Chapter 6 - Anger
"Well, I figured you were bound to show up sooner or later." I sneered at the hunter. "What took so long?"
Skulker aimed several of the weapons he carried at me, grinning with the prospect of having located his prey. "I tracked you to Walker's prison, whelp."
He was about to say something else, but I interrupted him. "Oh, what stopped you from hunting me there then, hmm? If I recall, the mighty hunter needed help to escape the prison before. Too scared to try your luck with the warden a second time?"
My crass commentary seemed to anger the armored hunter, for Skulker growled something unintelligible and opened fire with a wide variety of weapons. Had my father still been alive, I'm positive he would have viewed the heavily armed ghost as a Holy Grail of ghost hunting technologies.
"I hunt what I wish, whelp, and had no interest in hunting a caged animal!" The big ghost snapped while he tried to shoot me. His aim was uncomfortably accurate, several shots that I was barely able to evade. Obviously Skulker was far more capable a fighter than either Walker or Aragon; I would have to fight intelligently and not simply with brute force. I found myself rather pleased at the prospect of the challenge.
I darted through the hailstorm of beams and missiles, taking aim and returning fire with a volley of my own. "Well then you of all people should know just how dangerous a caged animal can be when it gets out!"
To his credit, Skulker did evade the vast majority of my blasts, only one clipping him and sending him spinning briefly out of control. He made a swift recovery and glowered at me with one of his trademark predatory grins; obviously the hunter was enjoying the match thus far, and didn't realize yet how badly outclassed he was. After all, he had been subjugated by the cheesehead in the past, and I was now an order of magnitude stronger than Vlad Masters had ever been. If I was able to beat him in my weakness, then I knew the ghost stood no chance against me as I now was.
Skulker started up his jetpack and darted at me, obviously aiming to close the distance and engage me in close quarters. I chuckled and turned away, testing my flight speed, leading the hunter on a wild chase through the Ghost Zone. Obviously enthralled with the chase and the thrill of trying to shoot his prey out of the air, Skulker tore through the green sky after me, his shots narrowly missing, scorching my hair, zapping past my face as I dodged wildly. It almost reminded me of before, those times when the hunter had almost trapped me, always so narrowly thwarted from adding me to his collection.
I hated that.
"Are you quite done playing, Skulker?" I snarled, flipping over midair to face the ghost while flying ahead of him. He obviously wasn't expecting the sudden reversal, my blast knocking him back several dozen feet and shearing both wings off his jetpack.
He spun wildly, temporarily out of control, and I seized the moment. While the armored ghost was reeling, I leapt forward, slamming into his chest at considerable speed, one hand grabbing him by the ankle, the other by the wrist. He fought me, and fought hard; it was no simple task forcing our combined trajectory in one direction as we grappled at such close range. Luckily for me, Skulker couldn't use the vast majority of his weapons in such close quarters unless he wanted to catch himself in the explosions as well.
"No witty banter?" Skulker growled, trying to gain leverage as we tumbled through the air.
"Let's just say I don't need to buy any time with it like I used to." I retorted, sending a blast through my hands and into the hunter's armor. With a satisfying pair of small explosions, the arm and the leg I had hold of were reduced to so much metal shrapnel, and we both plowed through a purple door, coming to a halt on the solid ground beyond.
Skulker struggled to get his battered suit upright, while I landed easily on my feet a short distance away, ready to finish him off. The room we had crashed into was sparse, with a few shelves housing various misshapen gadgets and bits of machinery. In fact, I almost thought I recognized some bits and pieces that had gone missing after that ill-fated garage sale.
"Hey, who dares enter the lair of Technus, master of circuitry and rogue of robotics? Without even knocking first?" A particularly obnoxious voice demanded from somewhere within the room.
Skulker and I both glanced in the direction of the voice, and I found myself raising an eyebrow in irate disgust, while my opponent's expression bordered on utter bafflement. Indeed, as announced, the ghost floating there was Technus... but I honestly did not need to see that much of the ghost. He was brandishing a scrubber brush in a menacing manner, his other hand was held down in front of him, the only thing between me and seeing entirely too much of the spook.
"For crying out loud, does Technus, master of circuitry blah, blah, blah, have to storm out of the shower without grabbing a towel first?" Skulker snapped, mirroring my own disgust at the sight.
"What are you doing here, ghost-child?" Technus yelped, apparently realizing the entirety of the situation. He yanked the shower cap off his head and held that down in front of him along with his scrubber brush, but it honestly didn't help much more than just the one hand did. I would have fried him right then and there, but for the very real probability of seeing things I did not particularly have any wish to see.
"Do us all a favor." I remarked, turning my attention away from the insufficiently covered ghost. "Put some clothes on while I finish my business with Skulker. Then I'll deal with you."
I saw Technus frown in thought out the corner of my eye as I faced the crippled hunter. "That's a very good idea!" The techno-ghost muttered, thankfully ducking out of sight.
"Where did we leave off-?" I smiled at Skulker, who had only managed to get his suit halfway upright. "Oh, that's right. I was about to utterly destroy you now."
"The girl said she crippled you, whelp!" Skulker hissed, aiming what remained of his arsenal at me.
I frowned at the hunter's mention of a girl. Skulker had been in contact with Valerie? When was this, and why would she claim I had been crippled? To my great disgust, I had been severely beaten when I was driven into the Ghost Zone, but then how had Skulker been able to get out to talk to the huntress? Perhaps before I had shed my weakness then, before the portals had been sealed?
"Hn... yes, I suppose she did have me crippled once." I sneered in response, forming a green blast in one hand. "But I got better."
Skulker shouted when my blast destroyed the rest of his suit, the little green ghost landing hard on the ground as metal bits and pieces rained down around him. I strolled over and plucked him up by one tiny green leg, making his expression shift to a rather ticked off cringe.
"You'll pay for this, whelp!" Skulker shook a fist at me angrily, the mighty hunter's true voice thin and almost shrill compared to the deep rumble it was when he had his armor.
"You know, it feels so good to be the hunter instead of the hunted." I chuckled, thoroughly amused at Skulker's miniature struggle to break the grip of my thumb and forefinger.
Before I could finish the hunter ghost off, something metallic arced in at my face from the edge of my field of vision, sparking and shocking me badly when it smashed into the side of my surprised face. That paralyzing shock persisted and intensified, making me yelp out in pain as my body spasmed from the electrical current.
"There's something different about him." I distantly heard Skulker's tiny voice over the crackling.
"Just a few more minutes, and the ghost-child won't be getting in my way any more!" I heard Technus crowing with delight, laughing that stupid laugh of his.
With great effort, I brought one twitching arm around to point roughly in the direction of the technological spook. I couldn't gather myself enough for a large blast, but it was sufficient to send Technus flying, if the sound of his yelp and subsequent impact with the wall was any indication. Instantly the pain ceased, and I dropped to the floor, panting as I recovered my equilibrium. I spun around, glaring death at the ghost, who was picking himself up from a pile of junk.
"Very impressive." Technus remarked, striking an imposing figure as the junk began to whirl around him, forming quickly into a black and green mechanical armor. "But you won't beat me in my own lair, surrounded by beautiful techn-"
I didn't wait to let the long-winded spook finish, flying up and punching his mechanical abomination hard enough to knock the head unit clean off, one foot kicking a hole right through the torso of the thing. With an indignant cry, Technus and his new battle body fell over backwards, scattering junk all over the room.
"A stunning performance." Skulker hovered a short distance away, the tiny green ghost's arms crossed as he surveyed Technus, clearly unimpressed.
"As if you did any better?" Technus retorted, getting his headless machine back on its feet. I watched the exchange, bemused by their bickering.
"I at least know how to use a battle armor." Skulker declared, gesturing roughly in my direction as he continued. "It took him more than a single shot to destroy my suit."
"What, do you think you could do any better with my battle body?" Technus growled. "I'd like to see you try!"
"Ahem." I cleared my throat, getting the attention of both ghosts. "Much as your bickering amuses me, it doesn't much matter. You're both toast."
Skulker seemed to finally realize at last that I fully meant to destroy them both, for he darted into the gap where the head of the machine had been. "Fine, idiot. Let me drive!"
I jumped out of the way as everything metallic in the room lifted into the air, including the broken remains of Skulker's suit. Technus and Skulker were shouting orders and insults at each other as Technus repaired his mechanical battle suit around the both of them. When the rhetorical smoke cleared, the two ghosts stood in a black and green suit that looked rather unsettlingly like a combination of Skulker's armor and one of Technus's monstrosities. I glared my displeasure at the black metal of Skulker's new face, and then down at the rough porthole in the thing's chest, where Technus's sneering mug could be seen.
To my surprise, the thing turned and blasted out the door and into the distance, Technus yelling angrily at Skulker about running away instead of giving me a most thorough pants-kicking. Amused and annoyed, I flew after them. So Skulker had some brains after all, and knew when it was better to run away, did he? I can't say that I objected to the reversal of our previous predator-prey relationship. The idea of hunting him was immensely pleasing, and getting rid of Technus would be a benefit to anyone and everyone.
Something large and green leapt into my field of vision, and at the speeds I was traveling at I had no time to stop. I crashed headlong into the fuzzy green mass and tumbled head over heels with whatever it was I'd hit.
"Gah, get off me!" I growled, shoving the ghost away, but not before something slimy had passed over my face several times.
"Arf!"
No, it can't be that mutt. Despite my thoughts, once I got the brilliant green goop off my face, I could see quite clearly it was, in fact, that mutt. I had been pounced by the dog in his larger and certainly more ferocious looking form, but as I glared daggers, he shrank to his deceptively harmless looking smaller form, yapping with delight.
"What are you doing here?" I growled, annoyed that the interruption had enabled both Skulker and Technus to escape. The dog barked happily, sitting up on his hind legs, tail wagging like a miniature green whip.
Just looking at the little monster made my ire rise. It was that little beast's fault that Valerie ended up hating ghosts in the first place. The cheesehead could never have gotten her into hunting ghosts were it not for Cujo's contribution of wrecking her life and giving her a reason to have a vendetta against ghosts, myself in particular.
"Arf!" Cujo ran over to me, the little ghost leaping into my arms and licking at my face happily, splattering glowing green dog drool all over my suit. The little beast was sickeningly adorable and mindlessly happy to see me. How dare the dog presume I wanted anything to do with him after he set things in motion that had led to Valerie hunting me down. I set the green dog down and looked at the ghost. I wanted to, oh how I longed to just raise a hand and blast the monster into oblivion.
But I couldn't. Some tiny shred of my weakness remained with me yet, that fact alone increasing my rage. The mutt and I stared at each other for several long moments before I settled on a course of action. If I couldn't yet bring myself to simply annihilate Cujo, I could at the very least get him out of my sight and discourage the beast from returning. I smiled at the dog, charging some energy into my foot. With the ectoplasmic boost, it would be enough to send the little ghost flying for miles.
"Arf!" Cujo yapped, tail wagging as I pulled back. The yap quickly turned into a high-pitched squeal of pain as my foot slammed into his chest, the arcing follow-through launching the dog into the distance, his howl of pain fading after several minutes.
Some of the green energy hung in the air still, slowly whirling into a circular pattern. I frowned as I studied this unusual phenomena, my powers had never caused an effect like this before. I raised one hand, gathering some more energy and projecting it at the rotating vortex, which whirled more solidly, almost like...
"... A portal?" I asked no one, a smirk starting to come to my face. My powers always did seem to develop in response to an immediate necessity. At that moment, my greatest need was a way out of the Ghost Zone, and it appeared that my powers had developed a means to create one after months spent sitting in Walker's jail. I poured more power into the strange vortex and watched it expand to a foot in diameter, then two, until it was easily as wide as the portal in my parents' lab or in the cheesehead's basement.
I poked my head through the thing, and smiled widely when I saw the outskirts of Amity Park spread below me, blissfully unaware of my extremely imminent return. I chuckled as I flew through my new portal and studied the scene below me. Amity Raceway, a large racing facility some rich idiot thought was a good idea. Even from where I hovered, I could hear the roar of engines as the racers motored around the oval track. I had never attended any races, but occasionally other events were held at the facility. It would be a perfect warm-up, and would likely get Valerie's immediate attention.
I selected the lead car as my target and fired a green beam down from above, watching the vehicle skid out of control to avoid the shot and causing a chain reaction as panic spread through the stadium stands like a massive fleshy wave. I floated to the ground and daintily touched down on one of the race cars, smiling widely as I pointed one hand down and pumped the fuel tank full of explosive ectoplasmic energy. I allowed myself to be flung into the air by the explosion, lobbing energy blasts at other cars on the track which were trying to get away, their race since forgotten. This was certainly far more entertaining than their earlier driving in glorified circles. Who wants to pay money to watch a bunch of cars going around in circles anyway? Within minutes the entire place was in chaos, stadium seating pockmarked with blast holes, people running everywhere, people lying sprawled in pieces where they hadn't been able to get away from my blasts. It was beautiful.
I was paying attention to the sky, assuming that Valerie had to have either heard the explosions or seen the news or somehow found out I was back. I expected her to show up any moment with her jet sled and guns. I did not expect to be shot in the rear by an ecto-bazooka from below. I growled at the discomfort and spun around, expecting the stupid girl to have tried to sneak up from below.
"Open fire! Burn his eyes out!" Paulina shrieked, clad in an orange and black jumpsuit reminiscent of those absurd outfits I'd talked everyone into wearing when we fought off Ember and Youngblood some time ago. The Latina was joined by several similarly-dressed idiots, all pointing assorted ecto-weapons at me.
"Oh please." I muttered, landing a short distance from the little troop. "Where's your little ringleader? I thought she would be the first one here, not a group of second-rate cheerleaders with pretty toys."
"Second-rate?" Paulina hissed at me, firing that bazooka again. I sidestepped the blast, only to be caught in the flank by a beam from one of the other teens. "I'll show you what this toy can do!"
I admit, for a vapid ex-cheerleader, Paulina had a surprisingly accurate aim. Indeed, most of these uniformly-clad would-be ghost hunters had improved since my first time trying to destroy all these reminders of my past. I ducked and dodged through an impressive flurry of blasts, surrounded on all sides now. A few of the shots did connect, but they only stung slightly, not at all like the last time the teens and bolder adults of Amity Park had attempted to gang up on me before.
I was irritated at Valerie's continued absence. All of these idiots would need to be destroyed, true; but Valerie had a special priority. I launched a quick blast, a circular green shockwave that whipped over the terrain and knocked many of the hunters to the ground. They knew where my intended victim was, so I would simply need to beat it out of them before I consigned them to oblivion. I swept forward and caught a fistful of Paulina's jumpsuit, arcing skyward with the Latina while the group of hunters recovered from my first attack.
"Now then..." I sneered as she shrieked what I assume were assorted obscenities in Spanish. "Perhaps you know the answer to a question I have."
The girl ceased her squirming and glared at me, her blue eyes narrowed to predatory slits. Were she a ghost, I would have expected her to be firing beams from her eyes with an expression that intense. "What makes you think I'll answer your question after everything you did?" She snapped, unfazed or unaware of the extremely fatal plunge that only my fist was preventing.
"I don't know. Maybe because I'm holding you about a thousand feet in the air." I shrugged, Paulina bobbing up briefly with my arm motion and letting out a startled yelp. "Where is she?"
"Where's who?" Paulina snarled, though I could tell that she had realized just how high in the air we were, given she had gone pale beneath her dark complexion.
"Valerie." I murmured, the name full of all the loathing I felt for the huntress, the source of so much of my misery in the past. Paulina flinched at the sight of my fangs, everything about me intimidating despite the fact that the Latina still had an inch or so of height over me.
"Why are you so fixated on Valerie?" Paulina growled, her eyes darting back and forth, looking for something.
"Why do you think?" I smirked, my free hand held up and cradling a small green energy blast. "I want to tear her apart, I want to make her pay for everything. And if you won't tell me where she is, you're of no more use to me."
I'm not quite sure what happened immediately after that. I heard Paulina make a noise like an angry cat, and she twisted in my grip in a way I hadn't thought possible. The next instant I felt five razor sharp talons digging into my face before I reflexively turned intangible. She clawed me! The little witch clawed me like some sort of oversized cat with a scratching post!
I heard Paulina's scream as she plummeted, ignoring an old twinge that urged me to dive to the rescue. It would serve her right to be splattered all over the ground. Perhaps had things gone differently, I might have let her live. The Latina was no replacement for Sam or Maddie, but she certainly was not unpleasant to look at, despite all the bad memories she brought up. But she chose badly, and would pay the price for her error.
I turned solid again as I watched her plunge, my amused smile turning to a displeased scowl when a green and silver blur shot beneath the girl, a hatch in the flying cylinder flung open to safely stop her fall. My scowl deepened when I recognized what had saved her. The Specter Speeder, one of my parents' own devices that was now clearly in the hands of people under Valerie's command.
I sidestepped to the left and right of an energy blast from one of the guns on board the flying ship, splitting myself without hardly a thought. I dove toward the street to start flattening the hunters on the ground, while I also flew at the Speeder, intent on trashing the device and anyone inside it. To my dismay, those on the ground scattered widely among the debris like dozens of little insects scurrying for cover. I blasted out the ones I was able to locate, precision blasts being simply less taxing to my reserves than the massive energy blasts I used to destroy large structures.
The Speeder sideslipped and plunged beneath one of my blasts; clearly the pilot had been flying for some time, or was a techno-geek with a natural talent for flying bizarre contraptions. The device fired at me as it shot beneath me, the blast missing but the craft's jet wake sending me tumbling briefly. I flipped over midair and fired several small blasts at the craft, but the pilot was clever enough to narrowly slip through the volley, rockets roaring as it spun around to face me and return the favor.
I let my duplicate vanish rather than waste more energy taking or evading hits, my frustration mounting. The hunters were well-coordinated, and it would take some time to flush them all out. So I turned my attention to a more convenient series of targets, less organized, unarmed, and panicked. With a laugh I launched myself into the air, aiming larger green blasts into the crowds of people fleeing the battle. A car here, a school bus there, a well-aimed blast to the side of a tall building; the hunters would have to show themselves if they wanted to try and protect the innocent civilians. I laughed when I threw a blast into a crowd of people fleeing a building that had caught fire from a tanker I detonated. The crowd of businessmen and women went flying in all directions, those nearest the blast the most direly wounded, thrown to the ground to bleed out their last.
Words fail me to describe how wonderful it felt to lose myself in the senseless destruction. I could have stopped easily, I didn't have to set about destroying everything that reminded me of the past. But I did, and it was nothing short of euphoria to do so. No longer was my fate to be determined by meager chance and dumb luck. I was my own master, serving no one else, free to do whatever I wished, with no cause for care or concern about the consequences.
Laughing, I chased a group of terrified people down the street, deliberately aiming my shots to narrowly miss them, whipping them into a frenzied panic. They jostled for position, nearly trampling one another in their hurry to get away. Of course, I suppose because I was focusing on them I was not paying enough attention to the FentonWorks building a few miles away. After all, what did I have to fear from FentonWorks?
Oh, that's right, the anti-ghost shield. I had forgotten that particular device until I slammed face-first into the bright green barrier, my intended victims now sheltered from my blasts by the glowing dome. I backed a few feet away from the expanding shield, snarling my displeasure.
I continued my rampage throughout the day and into the night, with admittedly little rhyme or reason to it. I saw a building that was standing, I blew it up. I saw people running, I blasted them, toyed with them, and yes, killed them. Ghost hunters tried to shoot me, so I dodged as best as I could, blocked what I couldn't dodge, and exterminated them with extreme prejudice. Really, I was trying to kill time until Valerie showed her face and I could make her pay.
Things took a turn for the entertaining sometime the next day: early in the afternoon I was met with national guard troops who stood no chance against me, being less adequately armed than even the idiot ghost hunters were. In addition to the civilians, now I had armored trucks to play target practice with. As the day wore on, tanks joined the fray, their shells arguably doing more damage to the surrounding terrain than anything else. Intangibility is truly a wonderful ability; why settle for being bulletproof when you don't even need to take the impact in the first place?
Valerie had to show up, there was simply no way that witch would stand for what I was doing. She had brought herself to shoot me in the guise of my weakness, she had been able to shoot Danny Fenton in the face, I sincerely doubted she would merely run away from me now. Not after she had orchestrated that counterattack nearly two years ago when I had first shed my weakness. I simply had to do enough damage to lure her from whatever hole she was hiding in.
I had taken to staying near the shield so that my chances of toasting people were greater. They had to get past me to get to the safety of that blasted shield. It worked relatively well, though it limited how much of the surrounding city I was able to reduce to ruin. There would be time for property damage later, once the opposition was laid to waste.
I caught sight of movement in my periphial vision and half-turned to face and blast whatever was trying to come from my blind spot. I was momentarily blinded by sunlight, and something metallic slammed into my forehead, knocking me down with an annoyed grunt. I heard the approaching roar of rocket engines- the Specter Speeder again.
"What stupidity is this?" I growled as I got to my feet, grabbing the apparently useless device and stifling a groan when I realized what it was. "The BOOmerang? What sort of idiot tries to hunt ghosts with this stupidly named piece of junk?"
Apparently, the same sort of idiot who uses the Specter Speeder to sideswipe a ghost against an anti-ghost shield. It hurt when the Speeder skidded sideways, smashing into me and driving me painfully into the FentonWorks shield. I heard a hatch on the device hiss open and voices as the pilot apparently bailed out, seconds before I charged energy into my fists and detonated the entire contraption in a brilliant green explosion. I admit I used more energy in the blast than was strictly necessary, but it was a reflex, a defensive action. I imagine most people would have responded in such an overkill manner in my situation.
I strolled casually from the wreckage of the Speeder, fists both charged with blasts ready to launch. I heard the high-pitched whine of jet engines, and looked up, searching for the source of the new yet familiar sound. I smiled wide when my gaze locked on to her angry face, smiled when her face contorted into an enraged expression and she opened fire, a rain of pink blasts that I took care to avoid as I flew to her level.
"I was wondering when you'd show up, Valerie." I sneered, studying her. It had been two years, after all. She had gained some height, her hair still pulled back in the same manner it always had been. She was wearing a form-fitting red and black bodysuit that left her face exposed...
"When I'm through with you-" Valerie hissed, pointing a pair of unfamiliar ecto-blasters at me and firing several blasts at me with them. "-you'll wish you could die, ghost!"
I was surprised by the speed and accuracy of her shots, and a few of the beams did hit. That wasn't what surprised me; these weapons hurt more than anything the other hunters had been using. And her jet sled was of an unfamiliar design...
"So that cheesehead enemy of mine survived after all?" I assumed out loud, my displeasure patently clear. That idiot should have been dead at least half a dozen different ways! "When I'm through with you and your little friends, I'll have to remedy that error."
She said something, but the words were lost in an angry shout from below and a fresh hailstorm of emerald and ruby beam blasts. I think I heard Paulina's voice, the cheerleader again making some remark about violence against my eyes. Always the face, why? I dodged through the rain of energy bolts, Valerie lost amid the confusion briefly before I located her again, rising into the air to face me.
"This time this will be finished." I declared, smiling at the simple fact as I chased the girl, preceeded by a machinegun burst of ecto-blasts. "You don't have a portal handy to throw me into this time!"
Valerie skirted my bolts, her pretty face twisted into an enraged snarl as she blazed past me, so near that her passing nearly knocked me over. "You got that right, Phantom! It's gonna get finished alright!"
I narrowly avoided the blast she tried to put into my head at close range, and turned to face her after she shot past and turned her sled around to face me again. Oh, this would be fun, the idiot hunter seemed to have her nerve back in spades. It was a far cry from the upset and guilt-ridden little girl she had been during our previous encounter.
"Well, well. You've gotten your old spunk back." I smirked at Valerie, shrugging nonchalantly in response to her rage. "Reminds you of the old days, doesn't it? The battles on the way to school-"
She interrupted me, both verbally and with another blast from her weapons. "Shut UP! Danny's dead because of you, and I won't rest until I tear you apart!"
I quirked an eyebrow. So she knew about the fate of my weakness then? I suppose it only makes sense. She had clearly been in contact with my idiot cheesehead archenemy, the only witness to the destruction of my useless humanity. I smirked at her, unable to resist the urge to respond to her fury with suitably witty banter.
"Will that be limb-from-limb or molecule-by-molecule?" I inquired in too-dry a tone as I dodged through her firestorm. To this day I don't know why I didn't simply blast her. Instead I hauled back and threw an ordinary punch, catching her squarely in the shoulder and tumbling her from her fancy new jet sled. Knowing her tactics, I quickly caught hold of the machine, holding it firm as I watched Valerie plummet to her certain demise.
Considering she was plunging toward decidedly solid ground, the demented smirk on her face was rather confusing. I thought she'd simply snapped now that she was faced with her imminent death, but I was not so fortunate. She did something with her shoes, and before I knew it, she had stopped her fall, standing atop the distinct form of her older jet sled. Before I knew it, I was holding my burned wrist and she was recovering the newer sled.
"I swear." I howled, charging at the huntress, intent on ripping her apart, molecule by molecule if necessary. "When I find that cheesehead, I am going to tear Vlad into more pieces than I did my useless human self!"
I was brought up short by several blasts from the other hunters below, and the little witch capitalized on the chance, lunging at me, the fists of her suit glowing pink with energy. She literally leapt at me, forgoing her sled to bodily tackle me. Needless to say, one doesn't generally expect such an insane maneuver from a mere human, and she was able to land several charged punches to my midsection and my face- as always, the face!- before I dislodged her and sent her flying through the air.
"Well just remember that you're part-cheesehead too, ghost!" She snapped at me as her sled deftly caught her.
I snarled a wordless curse. So she knew the whole story then, did she? I chased her, my best shot only managing to scorch that mane of hers. The dogfight likely looked like it was straight from a comic book, an awful lot of wild aerial maneuvers but little to show for it. She barreled out of the way of my blasts, strafing me from a few hundred feet off. I easily deflected the blows- those ecto-shields were a very handy ability.
Granted, they don't do much if you're shielding in front of you, and someone decides to shoot you in the rear. Something scorched my backside, causing me to yelp, both hands covering the injured area out of reflex. Valerie seemed to be likewise surprised, so I spun to see who thought they were being so very clever. I very nearly groaned when I saw the flawless white suits, two men standing amid the wreckage and pointing weapons up at me. The Guys in White, perhaps the only two ghost hunters in the world less capable than my parents?
"Well, here I thought I'd already swatted all the government bugs." I sneered as I dove to attend the two idiots, Valerie momentarily forgotten.
It didn't take long- one blast to knock one of them down, and I was there, blasting the other one quickly as easily into a fine vapor. I was about to give his teammate the same treatment except that Valerie was shooting at me again, nearly slamming into me with that sled as she flew overhead.
"You forget about me, ghost?" She snapped as the wake of her passing played havoc with my flaming hair.
I snarled at the agent, he looked like he'd had something more than just a cleanliness breach. "I guess I'll deal with you later."
I shot into the air after Valerie, skirmishing across the ruins. It was exhilarating, the thrill of being so near to destroying the annoying girl, of having to work at it. She was a challenge, an opponent with the skills apparently to level the playing field against my power. But I would triumph in the end, and she would perish.
"This game can't go on forever, Valerie." I smiled wickedly, licking my lips at the thought of the coming slaughter. "You've got to wear down sometime. You're only human after all."
"And you're just a ghost." She snapped in response, several shots finding their mark and knocking me backwards. I quickly recovered and lobbed a large spherical blast at her, the explosion reminiscent of those I had used on Vlad's castle and Walker's jail.
"Yes, and I don't have to bother with silly problems of sustenance or sleep, or burdensome feelings like kindness or heroism." I grinned as she dodged the blast and I lunged at her. "I'm free to do what I want, while you're trapped by your silly concerns."
"Well I'd rather be trapped by my silly concerns than be a psychotic ghost who's all lonely and bitter about what he lost!" Valerie hissed at me.
I stopped dead midair. How dare she talk about that? I had lost everything! Everything, and she dared to throw it in my face! I trusted her with my secret, was it not enough that she betrayed me when I needed her the most? She had to rub it in, flaunt my loss in my face, gloat that my parents and my two best friends were so much ash blasted into the stratosphere? I clenched my fists, tight enough that had I been human I would likely have drawn blood from my palms. Energy crackled around them, miniature green lightning bolts. I would kill her, rip her limb from limb, tear her apart until what remained would be an unrecognizable mess of shredded flesh!
"This isn't about my problems, Valerie." I told her, my voice held entirely too level as I charged the blast that would be an order of magnitude more powerful than anything I had done before. "This is about your problems. Namely the fact that you're still breathing."
I resumed my lunge, not heeding the cruel smirk on that witch's face, she was clearly enjoying herself, taunting me with my loss. I expected her to fire at me, make some other remark to anger me further, perhaps to dupe me into making a stupid mistake. I didn't realize she already had until her sled went silent and she plummeted along with the thing, my attack missing her entirely. From behind where she had been hovering, her accursed old sled shot forward, I was utterly unaware of the thing until it plowed into my face, blasters catching me point-blank in the eyes and blinding me. I howled at the pain, stunned by the tactic. Had it simply been the sled and Valerie, I would have swiftly recovered and retaliated.
In a moment, my world was consumed entirely by red and green fire, an inferno of ecto-weaponry. If asked, I would be unable to sufficiently describe the pain, weapons searing my body, ecto-bullets ripping into me, scorching my jumpsuit and tearing into me, causing terrible wounds oozing green ectoplasm. I would almost hazard to say it was agony on par with the pain of my creation, that fusion of two inferior minds into a single superior being.
I consider it nearly miraculous that I was able to concentrate through all that pain, and gather enough energy to form a portal. I had to escape, clearly my power was not yet great enough to do what I needed to accomplish, so I had to retreat. The idea was incredibly bitter, but I was not going to be stupid about it, not with my survival at stake. Infuriated, I slipped through the small portal, the silence of the Ghost Zone a welcome relief from the maelstrom I had just escaped. My wounds ached terribly, but they would mend, and there was little I had to fear in the Ghost Zone. All my enemies in the ghost realm were no match for me, injured as I was.
I floated there for a long moment, enjoying the silence before I felt a chill and gasped, nearly sneezing as a red vapor escaped through my nose. My ghost sense?
"So..." I heard a calm voice behind me, laden with a sort of smug patience. "You're Danny Phantom, the evil ghost that everyone has been talking about."