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: Sorry for the delay getting this chapter out after Anime Expo, a few scenes gave me all sorts of grief trying to sort out. My Ember costume (a pic can be found here: www. deviantart. com/ deviation/ 36287297/) went over well, though, and I have to thank my friends Bulma, Mary, and Rachel for their help getting all the makeup on. It took something like two hours each morning to get into costume because of the body paint! Anyways, as always, reviews are appreciated!
Chapter 7 - Rage
I whirled around, taking a fighting stance as I spun to confront whoever thought to ambush me. It was a ghost I did not recognize, slender from old age, white beard nearly trailing to where his feet would have been had if he'd had any. A jagged scar ran across one brow, but the better part of his head was obscured by the cloak he was wearing. He didn't appear overly threatening, only carrying a slim staff with a clock in one end. On further examination, the ghost did seem to have a fondness for time pieces, wearing several watches and seemingly carrying a large pendulum clock in his chest.
"Who are you and what do you want?" I muttered, wiping goo from one of my many injuries.
Without so much as a raised eyebrow, the ghost transformed, now resembling a toddler, complete with two large front teeth. "I am Clockwork, master of time. I've heard a great deal about your antics."
"Come to stop me then?" I growled, firing an energy beam at the ghost.
"I suppose that would be ideal." His voice came from behind me, and I whirled again, to find him in yet a third form, that of a healthy twenty-something man. Not that I am any judge of it, but I suppose this Clockwork could be described as rather classically handsome in that form, in between the two extremes of youth and age. Well, as handsome as an 'odd manifestation of ectoplasmic energy and post-human consciousness' could be, at any rate.
"If you know so much about my antics," I bit out, trying to ignore my injuries for the moment. "Then you should know better than to mess with me!"
I fired another blast, but to my frustration the ghost seemed almost to teleport. He was in front of me, and then he was not; he was behind me again, chuckling dryly at my frustration. "I am not here to fight you, Danny. I only wished to speak with you." The ghost stated, avoiding more of my blasts.
Given I was in rather poor condition already thanks to my recent encounter with Valerie, and since this Clockwork didn't seem overly hostile, I lowered my fists, the dangerous glow fading. I couldn't explain why, but there was something immensely irritating about the ghost's demeanor, a sort of smug know-it-all attitude that reminded me slightly of the cheesehead. "So speak."
"It's not too late to change your future." Clockwork stated simply. "And I believe you won't like the results if you refuse to change your ways."
"Change my ways?" I snapped. "I'm perfectly happy the way I am."
"Really?" Clockwork raised one eyebrow, tone implying his doubt. "If you're no longer troubled by 'burdensome feelings', then how could you be happy? Or are you merely refusing to acknowledge your own emotions, warped as they are?"
He did have something resembling a point, I admit. I was no longer consumed by grief and guilt, right? If I was truly free of those useless emotions, it would make sense that happiness ought to be gone with the rest of them. What was this ghost trying to do? What did he mean about my allegedly 'warped emotions' that I apparently wasn't accepting? I had little patience for his mind games.
"What are you getting at?" I hissed at the ghost, considering trying to blast him again.
"It's not too late to change the future." Clockwork reiterated his apparent point. "Unless you want to see everything and everyone you care about destroyed."
That was it? That was his point? Clearly this ghost wasn't as on top of the latest news as he thought he was. He was a little too late with this revelation, given that everyone I cared about had already been dead for a few years. "You're a little late with that, Clocky. I already saw everyone I cared about destroyed."
"As I am well aware." Clockwork stated, perfectly patient in the face of my increasing annoyance. "And if you continue living your life this way, you will probably see it again."
I dare say my expression bordered on abject confusion at that declaration. "What are you blathering about?" I managed to ask through my bewilderment. "Again? They're dead, gone, the fat lady has sung."
"I suppose it is too much for you to understand in your current state." Clockwork shook his head slightly. "Very well, we will have to do this the hard way."
I braced for a fight, but the ghost merely clicked a button on his staff. Then he was gone, almost as if he'd never been there. I spun around looking for him, expecting an attack and quite honestly wanting a good fight to flush out my frustration. What did that ghost mean with his cryptic nonsense? They were all dead, there wasn't so much as a recognizable shred of flesh left of my family and friends. To my relief and annoyance, it seemed that Clockwork had simply vanished away entirely.
With no immediate threats looming, I drifted through the Ghost Zone, looking for a suitably secluded place where I could hole up until my injuries were mended. It had taken several months in Walker's prison to recover the first time. Granted, the way the guards and Walker routinely smacked me around did little to accelerate the process. I needed someplace secure and deserted, where I wouldn't be unpredictably attacked while vulnerable. I smiled, an idea coming to me. There was one place virtually all ghosts dared not go, a place that would serve ironically well as my new lair.
Pariah's Keep.
The fortress was largely as it was when I had fought the ghost king years ago. Inhospitable, empty, and certainly eerie. I could even still see the large trenches that had been carved into the stone floor by the ecto-skeleton's oversized feet. A shame that the cheesehead never finished his upgrade of the device. I fondly recalled the vast power that had been at my command with the suit, the massive energy blasts capable of detonating several city blocks worth of terrain. If I had been capable of such feats in my weakness, it was delightful to imagine what I would be capable of now with that particular piece of equipment.
But that was little more than an idle daydream. Like so many other things in my past, it was surely no more than ruin now, a burned out hull long since departed from its former glory. I only had the here and now, and my aching wounds for company as I surveyed the silent fortress. The Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep stood where I last recalled it, locked tight and clearly undisturbed, and the Fright Knight was nowhere to be seen.
There wasn't a great deal to do while I waited. I spied the ghost king's empty throne, and decided to add further insult to Pariah's defeat by getting quite comfortable in the oversized chair. At which point my injuries finally took their toll, and I somewhat lost consciousness. I must have been out for several days, perhaps even several weeks, as my wounds were in much better condition when I awoke to a disturbance in my adopted lair.
"I thought you said you were taking me somewhere special, Johnny!"
"I did! Just you and me, Kitten, alone together-"
"-In the ghost king's fortress! What if he wakes up?"
"He's not gonna wake up! Don't you trust me?"
I raised an eyebrow as I listened to the bickering from a neighboring room. I knew those voices. Johnny 13 and his quarrelsome girlfriend Kitty, both ghosts who had caused me considerable personal grief with their relationship problems. I smiled as I lifted myself from Pariah's throne, charging a small blast in one hand. I suppose it would be a favor if I ended their bickering forever. At the very least, the biker and his shadow would make an excellent warm-up exercise before I resumed my pursuit of Valerie's destruction. I floated to the heavy wooden door, a snappy one-liner primed and ready.
"You never care about how I feel! It's always about you and your stupid shadow!"
"Whoa, Kitty, hold on! I'll be better, I promise! C'mon, just gimme another chance!"
I was about to throw the door open and fire off the aforementioned one-liner when the door was flung open from the other side rather unexpectedly and I found myself standing eye-to-eye with a very startled Kitty. We both stopped, largely from the unexpectedness of it. My plan had been to open the door, shoot off a one-liner about waking up something worse than the ghost king, and then blasting the two ghosts into oblivion. Simple plan, very easy to remember, but very easy to derail.
"Danny-?" Kitty yelped, clearly not having expected to find me there in the midst of the lovers' quarrel. "What are you doing here-?"
I could see Johnny in the room past Kitty, sitting on the floor with the markings of a slap showing nearly pink on the biker's face. He spotted me and narrowed his eyes, glaring daggers. I was surprised he hadn't opted to sic his stupid shadow on me yet. "What's that punk doing here? Kitty?"
I frowned, not catching whatever the greasy ghost was hinting at about my presence. Clearly neither had heard the news about my exploits in destroying Walker's prison, otherwise I doubt they would have been so calm about the encounter. "I was minding my own business." I snapped, ignoring Kitty and not noticing the sly look on her face as she closed the remaining distance.
"What do you think he's doing here, Johnny?" Kitty purred, leaning close.
"What were the two of you do-MMPH!"
Of all things, I was not expecting that. Kitty abruptly latched onto me and very nearly knocked me to the floor as she pressed her lips against mine. And I stupidly sat there while she did it, and while she started exploring my mouth with her tongue. Through my shock, I heard Johnny's angry shout, but I was still trying to process the fact I had some female ghost on top of me trying to play tonsil hockey. Kitty finally came up for air, smiled at me, and ran a finger in circles lightly against my chest. "Just play along. Johnny's been a total jerk, so I want to make him jealous." She whispered. "You call it a fake-out make-out, right?"
Furious, I leapt back up, throwing the female ghost off and into the wall hard enough that she left a Kitty-shaped dent in the stone. "That still has the words make and out in it!" I hissed. "How dare you try to use me in your stupid lovers' quarrels!"
"Kitty-!" Johnny was over by the wall helping his bruised girlfriend to her feet in a flash before he turned to glare daggers at me. "I don't know what's up with you, punk, but you pick a fight with my girl, you pick a fight with me, dig?"
"Oh please." I sneered, fists already glowing and ready for a fight. "You honestly think you stand a chance?"
"Shadow!" Johnny pointed in my direction as his shadow flitted up from the ground with a growl. "Attack!"
I sidestepped the black mass as it shot forward, almost lazily firing a green blast after it. I was still a far cry from fully recovered, but I had regained more than enough power to deal with Johnny 13 and his useless shadow. The blast only put a small hole in the formless black spook, which quickly filled back in as it turned to face me again, white fangs gleaming in stark contrast to its black body.
"Honestly, you would have had a better chance of surviving this if you'd just run away-" I began to declare when I felt a stabbing pain in my shoulder. I snarled, one hand grasping at the injury as I spun around to see what caused the ache.
Johnny stood there with a sneer on his greasy face, a shiny switchblade coated now with glowing green goo held in one hand. "What was that, kid?"
"Get 'im, Johnny!" Kitty cried from the sidelines.
I narrowed my eyes as I glared at the ghost, reaching instinctively behind me and catching Shadow by the throat as the black spook tried to take me from behind. The knife wound ached considerably, but it was minor compared to what I'd endured in the past. I watched Johnny's confident smirk drop as I charged a large quantity of energy into my fist, the green glow surrounding Shadow and holding the spook in place. Green escalated to blindingly white, and I heard the biker's shadow cry out in pain before it dissipated, reforming helplessly as an actual shadow at Johnny's feet.
"M-my shadow-!" The biker yelped, beginning to clearly realize how outclassed he was.
"Johnny, look out-!" Kitty shouted, her warning a bit too slow to do her boyfriend any good.
Johnny whirled around just in time to see me flying at him, bodyslamming him against the stone wall. I didn't give him a chance to recover, floating back a few feet and launching a machinegun volley of small energy blasts at him. I was displeased to find I couldn't quite summon enough power just yet to simply blow the ghost away entirely, but this would suffice. Enraged by my actions, Kitty lunged like an oversized cat, ready to try her claws out. I barely spared the obnoxious ghost a second glance, raising one hand in her direction and blasting her back against the wall.
"When you pick a fight with me-" I smiled wickedly at Johnny's prone form as he slid to the floor in a mangled heap. "-you say hello to oblivion, dig?"
Johnny struggled to try and get upright, but it seemed his mangled legs wouldn't hold his weight. Kitty hobbled over to her boyfriend, both watching me with scared eyes as I stalked forward, fists glowing. Something slammed into me from the side, the impact sending me through the wall before I recovered my trajectory.
"C'mon, we don't have much time!"
"I'm moving, I'm moving!"
"Well hurry up, Tucker! If he gets back here before we get out of here, we're all toast!"
I must have been hearing the muffled voices wrong. Two new voices, both sounding uncomfortably familiar as I dug out of the rubble and proceeded to the room where Johnny and Kitty were. An unfamiliar vehicle was parked in the room, having knocked in the far wall, and two ghosts were helping haul Johnny and Kitty into it. I admit, the sight stopped me in my tracks, they'd been dead for some time already, how could they possibly be there in the Ghost Zone?
"You-!" I gasped around my surprise at the two figures, so impossibly familiar. The green-skinned one slammed a hatch shut on the strange vehicle, while the one with the blue complexion spun to face me, violet eyes wide.
There was little doubt. It had to be Sam and Tucker, or some passable manifestation of my two friends, busy loading my two most recent victims up and apparently aiming to make some sort of getaway. "You can't be here!"
The black-clad female ghost put her hands on her hips and floated there glaring at me as the vehicle behind her revved up. "... What are you going to do, Danny? Vaporize us?" Her tone was laden with bitter sarcasm.
"You're supposed to be dead! Both of you!" I growled. "I killed you all!"
That was the truth, was it not? It was my fault they had all died, therefore it wasn't a stretch to say that I had killed them myself. The ghost matched my glare with one of her own.
"And you should be too!" She snapped, and I spied tears on her face. "After what you did to-!"
Was she referring to the death of my weakness? Of that useless human half I had torn apart? How would she know about that? She had been dead for at least a week by the time of the operation that created me.
"You want to join that useless fool in oblivion?" I snarled, not understanding how they could be there, not believing they could really be my friends. They were nothing more than poor manifestations, certainly not the real thing. I had no friends, they were all dead and gone.
"Danny, why won't you come to your senses?" Sam pleaded. "We're your friends, the Danny I know would never act this way."
"The Danny you knew has been dead for a long time." I growled, charging a blast. "And you shouldn't exist anymore. I'll have to fix that, won't I?"
Sam sighed heavily. "I was afraid you'd react this way. Tucker, hit it!"
The vehicle, a black and green contraption that looked to be a salvaged Ghost Zone Police van revved up, a large turret on top spinning to face me. Tucker's voice emanated over the loudspeaker. "Hitting it!"
I raised a shield, expecting an attack. Instead the weapon spewed a thick green fog that quickly filled the room and clouded my vision. I found myself coughing from the murk, trying desperately to fan the fumes away from my face and losing sight of my intended targets. I heard the van crash through a wall, and fired wildly in the direction of the sound. To my frustration, the haze cleared and revealed what I already knew: They had gotten away and I had no idea where they had gone.
I stormed through the hole they'd knocked in the wall, glaring at the green expanse beyond, annoyed at the escape of those ghosts. I could probably give chase, but I frankly didn't want to. Those faces, mocking me from the grave was not something I wished to see again. Not unless it was to destroy them and lay them permanently to rest.
I raised one eyebrow as I began to take in the rest of the surrounding scenery, red wisps from my nose mingling with the dredges of the green smoke. Several ghosts had the castle surrounded, many goons I didn't recognize, and several familiar faces in the throng. I suppose I should be flattered that they went to such trouble to try and take me down.
"There he is!" I heard Skulker's voice over the angry murmur.
"We'll make the ghost-child pay for what he did!" I heard Technus voice agreement.
The angry mob surged forward, a myriad of weapons primed. Well, if I couldn't take out my frustration on Valerie, or on those mocking ghost incarnations of Sam and Tucker, then these idiots would suffice. And there were an awful lot of said idiots. I smiled widely, showing my fangs, and lunged into the fray.
I would like to say that it was an epic battle, an entire army against me, but that would be something of an exaggeration. By and large the nameless goons proved to be quite similar to Aragon's guards, a bunch of useless spooks hardly worth the trouble it took to vaporize them en masse. I was rapidly warming up from my apparently long nap, all those goons were good for was the equivalent to stretching before undertaking real exercise.
I was knocked off my feet and pinned to the ground by a massive green hand, and I quickly surmised that I couldn't simply phase through it or effectively break the thing's grip.
"I wish that bully can't move so we can get rid of him for good!"
"So you have wished it..."
I'm certain my expression clearly said, "You have got to be kidding me." Looming above me was the owner of the hand pinning me down: Desiree, that obnoxious wish-granting ghost. With a wave of her free hand, she worked her magic, and to my extreme displeasure I found myself paralyzed from the neck down. Floating next to her, in a rather stark contrast and an unusual pairing was Poindexter, that idiot black-and-white ghost from the 1950s.
The other ghosts began to gather around, priming weapons or energy blasts of varying sorts. I didn't much relish the idea of receiving a Ghost Zone equivalent to the beating I had taken in Amity Park, but if I didn't figure out something rather quickly, I was going to. I tried to move my arms, tried to marshal the energy to blast my way out, to no effect.
"You've interfered with my spells for the last time!" Desiree crowed.
An idea hit me, and I smirked up at the genie. "I don't think so."
"What do you think you can do, buster?" Poindexter frowned at me.
"I wish-" I cleared my throat and addressed Desiree in an extremely smug tone. "-for you to cease existing."
Her visible eye widened and she recoiled, releasing her hold on me, her expression terrified. "No!" She shrieked, squirming as the green mist that signaled her magic began to whirl about. "I... I must obey. Nooooooooooo-!"
I can only assume it was a painful way to go, Desiree's voice hit a nearly inaudible pitch as she shrieked and thrashed. If I hadn't been so stupid in my weakness, I would have thought of that years ago. Poindexter floated back from the flailing genie, a horrified expression on his pinched face as Desiree disappeared within a thick plume of her magical smoke. Within seconds, the mist cleared, and there was no sign of the wish-granting spook.
With a cruel smile I felt my paralysis fade away and I was again in control of myself. I hardly spared Poindexter a second glance, firing a large blast at him as I took to the air again. With my resurgence, the remainder of the ghost army began to fall apart. The foolish stupidly kept trying to fight, and I know the smarter of my enemies chose wisely to abandon the battlefield. Skulker and Technus managed to shoot me with a strange palm-mounted weapon that largely only tingled when the blue beam struck.
"And what was that supposed to accomplish?" I sneered, firing a small blast that took one arm off the mechanical armor.
"It didn't work?" Technus yelped, his face recoiling in surprise.
"It should have shorted out his powers!" Skulker also yelped. "Why didn't the whelp turn human?"
I laughed outright. That was what they tried to do with that useless weapon? They had some weapon specifically intended for dealing with a half-ghost? Something like the cheesehead's stupid contraption? Ha! Clearly that weapon had been their last gamble, and it had failed.
"Clearly your information is sorely lacking." I managed to declare in between peals of laughter. "You can't make me turn human when I discarded that weakness years ago."
"You did what?" Technus yelped as the battle armor took several steps back in fear, or perhaps simple shock.
A red viewing device popped out of the armor and briefly obscured Skulker's face, the gadget beeping. I floated there with my arms crossed, figuring I would humor the idiots long enough for them to realize I was no longer the exact prey that they'd been after. I watched the metal giant frown in thought as the device told him what I already knew: There was no "half-human" in my equation, not anymore.
"What happened to you, ghost-child?" Skulker murmured, more to himself than to me.
"More than you can imagine." I snapped in response, charging a blast in one hand. I do so enjoy answering rhetorical questions!
"We should run away now." Technus observed, apparently shaking his partner from his thoughts. "Before he 'lays the smackdown' on both of us?"
They dodged my shot and returned fire with a thick volley of missiles, all of which missed me by a considerable margin. I heard the roar of a jetpack, and for the second time that day I found myself blinded by a plume of smoke. I snarled a wordless curse and fired blindly, hearing an explosion. When the smoke cleared, I couldn't confirm if I had actually hit Skulker and Technus or if they'd escaped me a second time.
"Very impressive."
I spun to face the latest threat, only to find that Clockwork ghost, a green key in one hand. He also had a small sack hooked to his belt that he lacked before, his expression thoroughly unreadable.
"You." I declared, charging energy into both hands.
"This is your last warning, Danny." Clockwork stated, waving that key at me. "The other ghosts you've terrorized have made their opinions on the matter known, and I see no reason not to follow their recommendation."
"Recommendation?" I hissed. "What recommendation?"
"That you must be eliminated." Clockwork stated calmly, as if he were merely discussing the weather.
"Oh, I already took care of their little recommendation." I chuckled, figuring that was what the organized army of ghosts had been about.
Clockwork simply smiled slightly and turned, floating inside the castle, unhooking the bag from his belt as he went. I gave chase of course, how dare he just turn his back like I was of no consequence! The ghost was deceptively swift, by the time I cleared the wall, he was already in the throne room and approaching the ghost king's sarcophagus. My eyes widened as I realized what he was doing, a stray memory of Plasmius informing me just what that key was. The Skeleton Key, vital to locking Pariah Dark up... or releasing him like the idiot cheesehead had done before he stole the ecto-skeleton.
"What are you doing?" I yelled as I closed the distance, my voice cracking unintentionally on the shout. "Don't you know what's in that thing?"
Powerful as I was, I didn't want to try my luck against Pariah a second time. I could swear that I fired at Clockwork, but I don't recall ever seeing my shots actually launched or hitting anything. To this day I'm not sure what exactly happened there. Clockwork smoothly slid the key into the lock of the sarcophagus, sighing as he turned it. "Of course I know. I helped put him there in the first place."
"You wha-" I was interrupted by the thing bursting open, the giant figure of the ghost king stomping from it, a fierce scowl on his scarred face.
"Who has woken me from the forever sleep?" Pariah's voice boomed as he swept the room with his one good eye.
"I did." Clockwork stated plainly.
"You?" Pariah apparently recognized the ghost, and apparently shared my distaste for him. "Why would you release me, timemaster?"
"The ghosts have agreed to serve you." Clockwork explained, utterly calm in the face of the ghost king's barely withheld wrath. "They believe you are the only one who can destroy-" Clockwork gestured at me with his staff. "-him."
I confess I took a step back when the giant turned and looked at me, painted face turning to a displeased scowl. "The half-ghost child?"
"Yes." Clockwork nodded, "The very same one that put you back into the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep."
Pariah's generally immobile face managed to twist into an impressive snarl at that little reminder of our last encounter. For the first time since I came into my current existence, I felt fear. It was only on account of the ecto-skeleton that I had been barely able to beat the ghost king before. I was far more powerful now than I had been then, but I knew from memory that neither my weakness nor the cheesehead had fared well against the giant without augmentation.
"And if I destroy this child?" Pariah turned to give Clockwork a dark look.
"Then every ghost in the Ghost Zone will bow before you." He offered the ghost king that sack he had been carrying. "And I believe this is yours."
Pariah grabbed the leather sack and dumped the contents into one armored hand, face cracking into a wide grin as he held up the glowing green crown. How had Clockwork gotten hold of the Crown of Fire, anyway? I knew from memory that the cheesehead last had the thing. I had no time to ponder that puzzle however, for Pariah chuckled and replaced his crown, shouting as its power took hold.
"I accept your terms, timemaster." Pariah boomed, the giant ghost turning to face me, spiked mace materializing in one hand. "It is time that this world acknowledged its king!"
Clockwork vanished, leaving me alone in the trashed room with the ghost king, who stepped forward menacingly, the entire castle quaking with his footfalls. I took several steps backward to maintain some distance, mind whirling. My survival was at stake, and I was not sure how my power would compare against this black-clad figure of nightmare.
"None of your snappy banter, eh child?" Pariah sneered. "And no armor."
I charged a blast, nearly slicing my lips on my fangs as I bit out a reply. "Maybe I don't need either one, stoneface!"
I fired a moderately-sized blast, merely testing the waters. Still sneering, Pariah batted the blast aside like it was nothing, the redirected beam tearing a new hole in the wall. That certainly did not bode well for my chances. Pariah fired a massive red energy beam at me in response, the shot hitting me square in the chest and punching me through several walls before I came to a stop.
"Oh really?" The ground shook as Pariah landed in front of me. "What happened to all that power you were so proud of?"
I staggered to my feet, clutching at my battered ribs. "You want power?" I hissed, charging a mammoth blast, akin to the giant explosions I had used on Walker and Aragon. I really shouldn't have put so much power into a single shot, my wounds from before had not yet entirely healed. But I was concerned and yes, even afraid and desperate. I still clearly recalled the terrible power Pariah possessed, and those memories made the foundation for my fear.
With a wordless shout, I launched the giant green sphere at the ghost king. He merely smiled in the face of the destructive energy and clapped his hands together with a loud clang of his gauntlets. To my horror, he easily launched a red blast into the heart of mine, bringing the blast to a halt midair as forces collided. "Is this all you have to fight me with? This is nothing compared to your power before."
Was he saying I was stronger in my weakness than I was now? No, he had to merely be making reference to the ecto-skeleton that had been boosting my powers a hundredfold the last time we fought. I growled and poured more power into my blast, the green orb tottering toward Pariah like a swimmer fighting a strong current. The ghost king's visible eye narrowed warily as he increased the power of his blast, green and red halted midway between the two of us for just a moment. Then, like a needle to a balloon, the red beam pierced my energy blast and surged forward. I had no time to dodge and was engulfed in the blast.
I think I blacked out for a moment, for when I came to my senses I was sprawled on the floor, my jumpsuit badly shredded. Pariah stood towering above me, a smug smile on his painted face. I struggled to get upright, stunned at the full force of the ghost king's power. I knew there was no way I could beat him, not yet. So I turned my thoughts instead to escape. I hissed in pain when Pariah grabbed the front of my suit and hefted me to his eye level.
"How weak are the ghosts now, if you terrorized them enough to release me?" The ghost king boomed.
I ignored the belittling commentary and focused my efforts on prying the huge hand open that was holding me aloft. Despite my best efforts however, I couldn't make Pariah's hand budge in the slightest. The ghost king smiled in slight amusement at my efforts.
"Squirm all you like, child." Pariah sneered. "This world and the human world shall be mine!"
"The only one destroying the human world-" I growled, swiping one hand and tearing my jumpsuit entirely, leaving Pariah holding only a scrap of the elastic material and leaving myself shirtless. "-is me!"
Panting from the effort, I fired another energy blast, this one aimed right at the ground and angled slightly toward the ghost king. The explosion had the desired effect, throwing a shockwave and thick cloud of dust and smoke at the giant, momentarily blinding him. I didn't waste the moment on witty banter, I flew away as fast as my injuries would permit.
"Run, child!" I heard the ghost king shouting angrily. "You cannot run away forever!"
I bit back the urge to shout back that I didn't plan to, and dashed into the first door I came to, mulling over this new development. My recovery had been set back another several weeks, possibly several months. Valerie would have to wait, I clearly would have to find a way to destroy Pariah; otherwise he would deal with me, and then move on to the real world.
The thought of the ghost king and his armies running loose in Amity Park rankled. That city was my territory to do with as I wished, not his. Pariah had no means of getting out of the Ghost Zone however, with my parents' portal broken and the cheesehead's likely no more than scrap metal. I had to recover my strength and lay out a plan. Pariah was powerful even without his powerful little trinkets, it would be suicide to try and take him down when he had them.
I borrowed another ghost's lair to hide in, forcibly removing the obnoxious pajama-clad Klemper and began to formulate my plan. My first priority was recovering my strength and evading the ghost king's forces. If all the other ghosts truly had agreed to serve him in exchange for taking me down, that meant I was all alone in incredibly hostile territory. If one ghost found me, then it wouldn't be long before Pariah arrived to finish what he attempted in the castle. My second priority would be to increase my own strength, which was only a matter of time. Another year, perhaps two, and my power would likely be leaps and bounds beyond what I was presently capable of. My third and final priority was to somehow weaken Pariah, to somehow remove the advantage of the Ring of Rage and Crown of Fire.
The next two years proved vastly educational. I learned stealth and perfected cunning. I practiced restraint and came to better pick my fights. Just because I could vaporize a large group of ghosts didn't mean it was a good idea, for it would attract Pariah's attention. My injuries took longer to heal than I would have liked, but I was almost constantly moving, always on the run. I used duplicates as decoys, and my plan finally came together. I figured out how I would destroy the ghost king.
The plan was deceptively simple. I split myself three ways as I neared the keep. Two of me hid, lying in ambush, while I approached the guarded front gate. I was mildly surprised to find the Fright Knight standing sentry. Hadn't that fool worked out a deal with Plasmius before? Clearly the Halloween spook cared only to spare his own hide by working for the winning side. It took him a long moment to recognize me, and I can't particularly blame him. With my suit so badly trashed in my last encounter with Pariah, I had opted for a slight change in costume.
I kept the black and white color scheme, after all, why mess with such a classic? For some inane reason I kept the nested DP emblem, but beyond that I had added some variety to my attire, a better balance between the classic black and sinister white. Oh, and let's not forget the cape, a jagged white affair with a black inner lining. I had found myself missing the familiar weight of a cloak the past few years, and finally rectified that lack. It certainly beat tying a bedsheet around my neck.
"You-!" The Fright Knight leveled his weapon at me.
"Yes, me." I retorted dryly. "Get out of my way, I want to speak with King Pariah."
I didn't give the spook a chance to respond. I blasted him from the left, where I lay in ambush, and sent the black and purple spook flying into the distance. The me standing before the door kicked the portal open but did not enter. I figured the blasts outside would likely draw the ghost king's attention, and sure enough I heard his mammoth footsteps approaching.
"Come to surrender, child?" Pariah sneered down at me, still several feet taller than I was despite a growth spurt I'd had in the past two years.
"Why don't we take it outside?" I smirked, acting confident in my plan despite the fact I still had some concerns. It was a gamble, and if it failed, I was not likely going to survive. But then, it wouldn't be the first time I'd gone into a fight and taken such a gamble. "I'm ready to kick your butt this time."
"Oh really?" The ghost king grabbed his mace from thin air.
"Yeah, really." I floated back from the gate, judging the positioning from three different points of view. "And quit calling me a child."
It was an afterthought really. I hadn't given the passage of time that much thought, but it did occur to me that I was just shy of twenty years old now, what I recalled from Plasmius notwithstanding. Had things gone differently, I would be out of high school at that moment, perhaps getting into college and pursuing that old dream of becoming an astronaut. But that had all turned to ash in one giant explosion.
"Very well!" Pariah boomed as he stepped past the gates. "I accept your ch-"
He was interrupted by a small green beam lancing out from the right, where one of me lay in ambush. The shot was utterly harmless, kinetic rather than explosive; and not aimed directly at the ghost king. His one good eye widened at the clang as the tiny beam narrowly missed his mismatched horns, instead firmly striking his crown and propelling it off to the left, where I leapt up and caught it, smirking wickedly.
With a wordless shout of rage, Pariah lunged at me, but I let that duplicate disappear. The Crown of Fire was warm in my hands, I could veritably feel the power emanating from it. Small wonder the cheesehead had desired it for himself. The crown was the easy part, I had to get the ring away from the now-enraged ghost king. How would I get something like that off Pariah's massive hand, considering he was quite clearly ticked off now? I doubted I could just slip it off his finger, the ghost king would smash me to bits if I got that near.
"Over here, old man!" I taunted from where I shot the crown from his head.
Apparently forgetting the me that currently held the crown, Pariah threw his mace at me, the speed likely enough to smash my skull in. I raised a green barrier, the impact of the mace enough to shatter it and send me flying backwards, though I was spared the direct blow. I needed to stun him just long enough to get the ring!
"Give it back!" Pariah howled, firing a beam from his good eye at me. That duplicate disappeared in a poof of green energy. I had the crown, but I can't particularly say that the ghost king seemed weakened from the loss. Angry, yes; but weakened?
"Get it if you can!" I retorted from where I floated, holding it.
In retrospect, that was not one of my brightest moves, reminding Pariah where his crown was. Oddly enough though, like so many of my battles in the past simple luck prevailed. He turned to face me, launching a gargantuan red energy beam at me. It was easily leaps and bounds beyond my most destructive blasts, too massive to evade, and too powerful to block or deflect with a shield. So what did I do? I cringed, expecting the searing pain, the crown in one hand held out in front while I covered my face with my other arm.
I was knocked backward by an explosion, a metallic shattering sound lost amid the detonation, my vision clouded by a thick glowing green haze. I distantly heard Pariah let out a gasp that I can only describe as stunned stupid. I was horribly disoriented in the haze, energy pricking at me in a manner that distantly reminded me of that terrible heat of my creation.
"No-! My crown!" Pariah howled. I was confused, what had happened to the crown?
My memory caught up to events then as my vision cleared. The blast had never hit me, I realized. The blast had barely begun to scorch my hand when it hit the crown. The explosion wasn't so much Pariah's blast as it was the Crown of Fire exploding from the impact, wrapping me in a haze of its power. The ghost king had destroyed his own crown, his own power source!
That pricking sensation had to be some sort of radiation from the explosion, it felt incredible! The crown's power seeped into me, the ghost nearest to the explosion that had destroyed that power's original vessel. I threw my head back and laughed long and loud at the unplanned success, and it was Pariah's turn to step back in uncertainty.
"Well, that likely makes things a bit more fair, doesn't it?" I smiled, showing my fangs. "What was it you'd said before? About all this power being a burden?"
Pariah frowned, pale face twisting into an angry scowl. "Don't think you have the upper hand yet, child!"
I sidestepped his lunge, now confident enough in my strength to fight in close quarters. I still needed to get that ring away from him, after all. Gone was Pariah's earlier confidence, his swings were more wild, a certain sign of panic, or something near to it. For his considerable size, the ghost king was extremely fast, I darted around a flurry of beam blasts and mace swings.
"I don't need the upper hand." I retorted, jumping the mace and briefly touching down on its surface, my feet narrowly avoiding the spikes. I sprang off of it and leapt over Pariah's head, one hand catching hold of the longer of his horns.
He snarled and turned toward the walls of the castle, clearly hoping to dislodge me or impale me against the stone. Anticipating the ploy, I fired a small beam at the base of the horn, slicing through it and landing behind Pariah before he could try and smash me.
"Why you-!"
"Hey, isn't the saying that you should take the bull by the horns?" I chuckled at my banter, dodging more mace swings and parrying others with the broken horn. I had it in hand, so why not use it to add insult to injury?
I had a flash of inspiration and blasted Pariah in the chest, throwing him back momentarily, long enough to again duplicate myself. In an instant where only I had stood, I was now split four ways. Clearly the infusion of power from the shattered crown had boosted my own strength considerably, as it was no longer any effort at all to split myself so many times.
"This is over." I smiled. Three of me lunged at the ghost king, pinning him down with green bands of energy and basic brute strength. I strolled over, spying the Ring of Rage on Pariah's right hand, clenched tightly into a fist. Well, so much for that idea of just slipping it off while he was pinned down.
"Never!" Pariah hissed, straining to break free. Even with my augmented strength, I would not be able to hold him for long. "This world is mine!"
"Was yours." I replied, firing a precision blast at the giant ghost's shoulder. It was most pleasing to hear his shriek of pain as the green beam sliced through his armor like a surgeon's scalpel, cleaving his right arm from his body. The three of me holding him down had a hard time dealing with his pained thrashing as I grabbed the dismembered arm and forced the hand open. Smiling wickedly, I yanked the Ring of Rage off. "Without the crown or your ring, you are nothing."
Pariah finally succeeded in breaking my hold, my three selves flying in all directions. But it was too late. He was injured, and I now held both the keys to his power. I watched his horrified expression as I held the ring in my hand, my closed fist glowing bright green as I tightened my grip, shattering the trinket. I'm not sure who shouted louder then- Pariah in despair, or myself from the sensation as the power lanced through me. It wasn't exactly painful, nor was it pleasant. It was power. Raw, absolute power, and it was mine. Surely this would be more than enough to accomplish my goals now. Valerie and her little goon squad wouldn't stand a chance against my new strength!
I heard Pariah struggle to his feet a short distance away, and I let my duplicates vanish. I wouldn't need to duplicate myself to finish this.
"Long live the king." I sneered, pointing a hand at the crippled giant and gathering my strength. I wanted to see just what I could do.
Pariah had no more words, he simply stood there glaring at me in defiance. He was beaten, but clearly was not going to beg for mercy. He grabbed his mace with his remaining hand and charged forward, weapon held for a wide overhead swing.
I let him close the distance before I fired, the green blast putting all my previous efforts to utter shame. The shockwave rolled likely for miles throughout the Ghost Zone, the thundercrack rumble heralding the fall of the ghost king. When the blast faded and I could see and hear again, there was nothing left of Pariah's Keep, the massive island was blown entirely to pieces, leaving nothing recognizable behind.
I floated there, surveying my handiwork. Nothing could stop me now, with such power at my command! I knew precisely what I wanted to do with my newfound strength, too. I raised one hand, the swirling green vortex spinning into existence with hardly a thought. I could see Amity Park vaguely through the green portal, the sprawling metropolis ripe now for the taking.
I chuckled, realizing the date. Valerie's birthday. And I had a very special present to give her.
Closing Note: Pariah is surprisingly tough to write. I guess Reign Storm doesn't quite give him enough screen time to really develop his personality beyond the fact that he is some sort of tyrant. I was originally planning to do more with Dan versus Pariah, but at 12 pages long I felt I should quit dicking around and cut to the chase.
By the way, people, WingsofMorphius, perhaps one of the most famous fic authors in the fandom has decided to set up the first ever DP Fanfiction Awards. ( wingsofmorphius. deviantart. com/ journal/9434581/ #journal). So head over there to nominate your favorite stories in a wide range of categories!
As a second by the way, if you've only read Anathema thus far, I do highly recommend you also check out my first story, Jeremiad. It covers the same storyline as Anathema, but it tells the tale from Valerie's point of view. And in the coming weeks, keep an eye open- you never know when I'll start writing my third multi-chapter story, Benediction!