Disclaimer: Don't own DP.
Thanks to Above the Winter Moonlight, Cookieplzandthnx, Aipom4, Invader Johnny, Lilith Jae, Crystalmoon39, Zanza Flux, Xand'r Coldhearted, MsFrizzle, Guest, PhantomOfTheBookStore, Brandie, starwater09, Silverstone007, ZoneRobotnik, and Roarri for reviewing last time! You are all amazing, and you make my day. :)
So I realized people may need reminders for the overall plot of these miniseries stories, now that we're switching back and forth every chapter. (Really should have just made these separate stories.) Hope this helps!
Overall Miniseries Summary for Karma: Dan challenges Pariah Dark for the position of Ghost King and loses badly. As a result, Pariah Dark rips out Dan's power core and tortures him to make him an example for other enemies. He then throws a broken Dan to the resistance before claiming the human world as part of his empire. Valerie struggles with what to do regarding their strange prisoner and how to stop Pariah Dark before he destroys them all. Hurt!Dan.
Karma Part 3: Although Valerie may be willing to keep the injured and powerless Dan from fading out in exchange for information to defeat Pariah Dark, many in the resistance feel that Dan still deserves punishment. Genre: Horror/Drama. Rating: High T.
Deliverance
Shot 13: Karma Part 3
Pariah Dark grabbed Dan's bloodied, matted locks and yanked his head up. The half-conscious ghost nearly hung from his chains, unable to resist.
"Well, little conqueror. It has been twenty days. What say you to surrendering now?"
The smallest spark of rebellion straightened Dan's shoulders, and he laughed. The hysterical sound was gurgled, his eyes feverish and rolling up to the dark ceiling of the dungeon with aimless intention. "N-never," he rasped. The vestiges of his pride would not allow him, even under the pain of total annihilation, to surrender to another being.
He was strong. His power core could hold out for a bit longer. He just had to think of a way to escape.
The Ghost King hummed in disappointment. "What a terrible and illogical answer," he said, releasing Dan's hair. The younger ghost's head dropped. "I simply demand obedience, and yet you do not yield. It is as if I must…demonstrate how truly inferior you are." He pressed his hand against Dan's bare stomach, and then a searing pulse tore through skin and tissue, and Dan's eyes widened, his jaw dropping with a sharp inhale that quickly turned to a cry of total agony. Something—many things—began to break within him, his mind shattering into disjointed seizures of light and sound and blood.
Pariah Dark dug his power in deep, slicing through Dan's vulnerable, shaking body with precision. He smiled.
"Worry not, little conqueror. I'll take away what you hold dear, and I will ensure you bow to me yet."
"So you're telling me," Valerie huffed, "That Phantom can't actually regenerate?"
"He has no power core," Vlad said slowly. They were sitting in his small office. "Without it, he needs a constant supply of ectoplasm to keep from fading out. It's a miracle he even survived the loss of it."
"Which means we have to feed him every night?" she complained, running a hand through her ringlet hair. "You've gotta be kidding me."
"Ghost physiology is very similar to that of a human's." Vlad sighed. "Just as we would starve without food, so would he starve without ectoplasm to convert into energy. A ghost's power core is the organ responsible for that, usually. It regulates conversion and regeneration, which is why ghosts are more efficient at healing massive injuries and projecting their power. But without a power core, a ghost is no more capable of supernatural abilities those of us from the Human World."
She thought about the way Dan had struggled to swallow, crying before her at the pain, grabbing at the massive and hardly-healed scar on his torso—right where his power core had once been. "Can we inject ectoplasm, then? You know, like an IV? Speed up the healing process?"
Vlad was hesitant. "We have very limited medical resources, Valerie."
In other words, he was trying to say, the resistance would not approve of using precious materials on their hated enemy. IVs were for emergency health problems, and Dan was relative, expendable. Unworthy.
Valerie rubbed her temples. "Not even just one shot? I mean, have you seen him try to eat?"
The old man gave her a pained look. "I understand it must be difficult."
"It's sick. And he still hasn't healed up anything besides a couple of bruises. At this rate, Pariah Dark will destroy us all before Phantom can write his own name."
Vlad admitted, "It could take quite a while, without a power core." He paused a second, then eyed her with a heavy weight. "Even if we requested special access to medical equipment, I guarantee the others will say that Daniel deserves the pain he is in. And perhaps he does."
A part of her agreed. Most of her didn't. "But he's not the same," Valerie said. "The Phantom that we've got locked away isn't like the Phantom that tried to kill us." She thought about the way Phantom had leaned into her touch, starving for any kind of positive attention. His cold skin had nearly burned her—and not from some ghostly power, but out of the fact that he willingly wanted her to touch him. "This one, I dunno. Whatever Pariah Dark did, it messed him up big time."
"Are you sure he's not the same?" Vlad questioned, albeit not unkindly. "He is injured, yes, but we may very well see his true personality come out once he begins to heal. And then will we wish that we had never allowed him to heal so much. I tend to hope for Daniel's redemption with the heart of a blinded, old man. I am a fool sometimes, you see."
"So what are you suggesting?" Valerie narrowed her eyes.
Vlad looked tired. "I think it's perhaps to our advantage to keep him physically dependent on us."
Valerie felt her righteous side rise with anger. "So you want to keep him crippled now? Dammit, Vlad. You're the one that said we need to be the better man in all of this, that we could turn him into an asset. It's not right to keep him dependent. We either let him heal up and then kill him if we have to, or kill him now and be done with it. I'm not putting up with hand-feeding him every night."
Vlad's sigh was old and worn. "I know, I know." He tapped his fingers on the table. "But we need his cooperation if we're going to obtain information to defeat Pariah. We can ensure his cooperation through dependency. We cannot allow him to regain too much physical strength to oppose us."
"I spent a good hour last night helping him eat," Valerie said, a hand on her hip. "I don't think he's going to be able to do much anytime soon, cooperative or not. I need access to an IV."
"Valerie, the resistance is not going to let you use precious resources on him. Your father won't let you." Vlad gave her a helpless look. "We will simply have to make do. The ectoplasm should provide some basic restorative energy, even if it cannot regenerate his...amputations. Considering his general noncompliance with anyone but you, and considering everyone's hatred of him, it is best if he remains nothing more than a hidden informant. We have many strong men who can take down Pariah Dark with the right information."
To avoid Valerie's righteous ire, Vlad switched topics. "As a matter of fact, Daniel's probably due for another dose of ectoplasm by now. Why don't you go check on him?"
"Why don't you?" she shot back. She looked disturbed by their conversation.
Vlad had the grace to look amused. "Dear girl, he wouldn't even respond to me, remember? Now, if you're so eager to see him heal, then go trot along and make it happen."
Valerie's face faulted.
About twenty minutes later found Valerie standing at the edge of Phantom's cell.
She breathed in deep, clenching the bowl of ectoplasm a bit harder. After yesterday's strange events, she did not know how Phantom would react to her. She did not know how to react to him either, especially now that she knew he was likely to remain this strange shade of himself.
How exactly did one start a conversation off with a worst enemy that they hand-fed, anyways? Was there a protocol for this? Was she supposed to act buddy-buddy to get him to trust her?
…Would he still act the way he did earlier, when he'd nuzzled into her hand?
From beyond the ghost barrier, she stared at him. He had not yet noticed her presence. He sat on the old bench, still leaning his back against the stone wall. His eyes were closed, his tied hands resting on his lap.
He had not moved at all since she'd left over fifteen hours ago. "Good grief," she whispered under her breath, eyebrow raising in concern. The bruises and swelling that had marred his body seemed to have gone down, and his jaw appeared almost even, but he still looked only this side of existent. She wondered if it were possible for a ghost without a power core to leave a body behind when it faded out, like a human did, and then she quickly dismissed the thought because she did not like its implications.
No—Dan needed to survive. For the sake of the resistance. And she would ensure that he did.
She walked through the ghost barrier, allowing her boots to shuffle on the stone floor to alert him of her presence.
His red eyes snapped open with a flinch, first in fear, then in realization, his breath quickening. Perhaps he thought she was coming to torture him. And in a way, she felt that she was.
She set the bowl down on the table before him. "I'm back," she said tiredly. "And I really don't want to be here, again. But you probably already knew that."
He eyed her, saying nothing, waiting for her to make the next move.
He looked so excessively gaunt and tired that Valerie found it hard to look at him for long. It appeared that he had not even struggled with the heavy rope that bound his wrists and kept his shoulders bowed forward in constant pain.
It was not unlike staring at a dying animal inside a cage, and some form of decency again forced her forward.
Dammit, I know this is wrong. It's not right to treat anyone like this.
She pulled a small knife from her belt, and his red eyes widened a fraction. She stopped, then realized what she had done, forgetting that this Dan was probably a lot more skittish than the one she knew by heart. "Relax," she told him, rolling her eyes to hide her uneasiness. She kneeled down on the cement floor and gently wrapped her hand around one of his wrists. He was ridiculously cold in a dead sort of way, his hands a limp, heavy weight in hers. "I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm just freeing you up, okay?"
She lifted his tied hands and cut the rope with a few, precise slices. His hands fell listlessly to his lap, even as his eyes widened in surprise at the release of tension all through his upper body. His wrists were a disastrous mess of ripped skin and ectoplasm, sapphire bruises mottling in rings. A few places shined with strange scars and infection. But they were free.
The realization seemed to hold him spell-bound.
"I don't think you need those," she told him, nodding hard. It was a decent thing to do—not rubbing in his imprisonment when he had no ability to resist anyways. Maybe she was just feeling guilty that this was going to be his afterlife for a long time.
For a second, he stared up at her in shock. Then his red eyes brightened strangely with tears, and he blinked and looked away. Valerie considered the possibility that this was the first time he'd had free arms for weeks. His breaths shuddered a bit as he closed his eyes, and she realized that he was struggling to control real emotions.
She remained silent, keeping her face stone-hard against him as she watched him attempt to distract himself by clenching his fists. He winced, and his fingers twitched in some disjointed curl, shaking. Even though the small action took all of the energy he had reserved, he looked relieved to know that his arms could work and would most likely heal.
"Yes, you still have arms," Valerie affirmed dryly. "Now stop looking yourself over and pay close attention. I'm not here to bust you out, so don't get your hopes up. I'm not here to make you feel good about yourself, so don't expect a psychiatrist. I'm only here to get information from you in exchange for healing you."
She pushed the small bowl of glowing ectoplasm forward. "So," she said, voice dry, "please tell me you can feed yourself this time."
He would not eye her straight, still trying to blink away the strange tears that had surfaced when she'd unbound him. He bit his lip, then hesitantly nodded. It was a slow, mindless nod.
Valerie was not convinced. "Really? Because I'm looking at you, and I think you're lying to me. I don't like being lied to."
Some kind of alarm tilted his shoulders away, and then he nodded harder in fear.
She stood and leaned over the table. His eyes widened at her inclosing presence over him, which was intimidating.
"Look, I wanna know just how bad this is gonna be for us today," she said. "I don't want fun surprises like watching you cry all over yourself. So let's try this instead. Open up that mouth of yours and let me see if you've healed anything internally. You understand?"
Valerie tentatively grabbed onto his chin, and he allowed her to do so, the action far too trusting for her to truly believe it was happening. Whoever this Dan was, she'd perhaps wormed her way into his center of trust—which was both fascinating and disturbing to think about. Or maybe he just didn't have the energy to oppose her.
The latter was probably it.
"Come on, Phantom," she said, trying to keep her voice level. She was not entirely altruistic in her demand; she wanted to know the extent of his current regeneration abilities, to know whether she would one day see him stand with a fully regenerated power core and sharp tongue. "I'm not doing this just to make fun, okay?"
In reply, he exhaled softly in dread. Then, with an uncomfortable wince, he slowly opened his mouth. It looked as though the action pained him, even though his jaw had since healed from being broken.
She narrowed her eyes, trying to peer beyond his fangs. His breath billowed against her face with cold air like that of a snowstorm, uneven with self-consciousness. For a second, she strained her eyes for any sign of regrowth. Then she admitted, "Well, it actually looks better." She released his chin, and he clicked his mouth shut, moving his jaw about as if to test its limits. "The edges are healing over."
He looked almost hopeful and entirely depressed at the same time.
Valerie guessed his question. "Vlad seems to think you can't regenerate lost body parts without a power core. He's probably right, you know. I wouldn't get your hopes up."
Dan nodded slowly, but the small spark of hope fell from the twitch of lips. If what Vlad stated was true, then he was to be powerless and mute. If what Valerie saw was true, then his tongue was healing over without regenerating.
To distract him from falling into total despondency (Valerie really did not want to play psychiatrist), she said, "So now that I know you won't sob and gag like a baby, I feel a lot better about making you eat."
He looked up at the table and the dreaded bowl of ectoplasm. Then he looked at Valerie, fearful expectation and mild irritation in his gaze. It almost looked as if he were saying, You try having your tongue cut out and then eating.
But Valerie was not a sympathetic person, nor was she patient.
"No, you're not getting out of this," she said firmly. "You have to eat again. Don't give me that look—it's for your own good. It's been almost a day. Vlad says you need to eat or you'll backslide. And because you're healing up better, you're going to eat more than you did yesterday."
He exhaled sharply. She guessed he simply did not want a repeat of the pain from the previous night. Or maybe he really did just want to fade out.
"You'll be fine," she told him, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. "Seriously, I'm not going to ask again. Pick up that spoon and eat."
He stared at the bowl, almost as if it were a monstrous mountain to be climbed. He looked tired by the thought of it. But with a wince, he lifted his healing arms and grabbed the spoon on the table. It was a slow and painful process, and by the time he managed to wrap his fingers in a cohesive manner, he struggled to maintain the hold. The determination began to bleed out of him as hopelessness made him weaker. The fact that Valerie was watching so intently made it somehow worse.
Valerie sighed. "I'll be here all night at this rate."
Without any warning, she grabbed the spoon from his shaking hands, railroading over his meager attempts to feed himself in her own impatience. Her fingers brushed against his, and Dan's body froze. He looked at her wide-eyed, perhaps worried that she would punish him for being so incapable. His breath hitched as if he expected her to whack him with the spoon, or worse.
.
"Well, little conqueror. I asked you to stand, and yet you remain slumped in your chains like a petulant child. Do you know what the punishment is for disobedience against the Ghost King?"
Only darkness and lights filtered through now. The distant sound of cackling skeletons.
He cried openly as he tried to stand on broken legs to save the rest of him. Can't I can't I can't, he wanted to beg. I'm trying.
Pariah's horrible smile widened. "It looks to me as if you simply refuse to stand. Why don't you explain yourself? Perhaps I'll lessen your punishment."
His broken jaw was swollen, his chin and front still stained with the blood that still occasionally ran from lips. He looked up wildly in fear, mouth pulsing in pain. I can't I can't I can't—you took it!
The Ghost King was not amused. "It appears you refuse to speak as well."
He became desperate. "Mgh!" He tried to stand on his legs, and they shook. The sound of his own voice warped pain to edges of his cut-out tongue. "Mmm—"
"—Too late, little conqueror. This is twice today you have disobeyed me when all I asked for was a simple request."
Tears streamed down his face as he stared at his captor in total hopelessness. He could not win. No matter what he did, he was always the loser. Every new punishment for not obeying weakened his responses, which meant more punishment. Which meant more of himself being mutilated. The never-ending cycle had begun to break him, and he knew it. He just wanted it to end—fade out or give in.
The Ghost King tilted his head. "But perhaps you're starting to understand after all. Are you having second thoughts? Do you want to obey me?"
Dan inhaled, then slowly nodded, if only to save himself from the consequences.
"Then bow to me as your king. See if you are capable of that." Pariah Dark loosened his chains.
Without the support of the chains, Dan fell to the stone floor not unlike a broken doll. The last of his pride withered. And he bowed on his hands and knees, his forehead nearly touching the floor. His fire hair had long since lost its spark, and it fanned down, covering the sides of his face. It hid his tears, which he could not control.
The Ghost King's voice rumbled in triumph. "How pathetic you are! So desperate to please now, Ravager of Worlds. Perhaps you are teachable yet."
He kicked Dan in the ribs, and the ghost slammed hard on the floor, a ragged sound tearing from his throat. For a second, he lied there, stunned.
"In truth," the Ghost King mused, "I would like to keep you as a slave obedient to my reign. But you, oh Ravager, are to be my example to the Human World of my power. As such your body and soul will be fully broken beyond the point of usefulness. I will ensure that no one rises against me again, for they will look upon your remains and shudder."
.
His immediate reaction of fear and misting eyes did not escape Valerie's sight.
Her lip curled in disgust to hide her disappointment and pity. "Look, I'm not hurting you. I'm helping you. But don't get used to my help, okay?" she demanded. "I need information, and you need to be able to write. That's all this is. Just business. Just an exchange."
When he did not respond, Valerie's voice rose. "Phantom." Her tone was firm but soft, as she did not want to frighten him further. "I don't know what's going on in that head of yours, but I need you to respond to me. Nod if you're going along with this, okay?"
Still no response. His gaze was distant now, staring through her in fear of an invisible thought.
Valerie tapped the spoon on the bowl of ectoplasm. "Hey, space cadet. I'm serious here. Stop ignoring me."
An uncomfortable strain in her voice caught Dan's attention and brought him back to reality. He blinked, seeing that Valerie was not trying to punish him but was instead trying to help him far beyond what he deserved. He nodded slowly, his fragmented mind rising with hope that she was a worthier master than Pariah Dark—despite her every right to exact a greater punishment than what he had endured.
She looked a bit relieved to see him nod. "Good." She dipped the spoon into the glowing ectoplasm and held it up. "Now, come on. I'm not gonna wait here all day."
He hesitated for a second, his mind's eye unable to think beyond the simple fact that Valerie was sitting before him, strangely patient in her own way.
Pariah had taught him that he was unworthy of everything but hatred, which was what made Valerie's distant concern a strange and wondrous phenomenon. Like a waterfall in a desert.
And so he obeyed her without question.
By the fourth night, Dan had healed up enough to feed himself. He was wildly uncoordinated and he exhausted easily, as if his wasted muscles needed to relearn basic patterns. But Valerie said nothing and instead gave him a solid nod of approval after he finished a whole bowl of ectoplasm by himself. He looked more clear-minded, if not slightly absent of his usual character. He was still hardly more than reactive to her.
At the very least, he was more open with his reactions, responding with a wider range of emotion than just fear and confusion. He no longer even appeared ashamed in her presence, but then Valerie figured they'd already breached the boundary of shame several times, between her feeding him and wiping his face and him openly crying before her in pain and sorrow.
She tried not to think about anything too much besides her core objective, which was to learn about Pariah Dark. And so late on the fifth night of Phantom's imprisonment, she descended to the cellar with a notebook and pen in hand, determined to obtain her hard-earned information.
She made her steps loud so as to alert Dan of her presence. She was going outside of their traditions and did not want to alarm him. But when she reached the last step and gazed at him from beyond the ghost shield, she realized he looked almost pleased by her presence, head tilting in curiosity.
"So now that you're halfway coherent," she said point-blank, formally announcing her presence with all of her usual tact, "I need you to do something for me."
One of his white eyebrows twitched up.
She pushed the notebook and pen before him on the table. "I've held up my deal in helping to get you better. I know you're still healing, but I need you to start holding up your side. I need you to tell me everything, like what happened to make Pariah Dark—" Dan winced "—escape his sarcophagus. What happened to you. How we can stop him."
He swallowed hard, but a deal was a deal. He nodded. He gently raised his arms (he had learned not to force this broken body of his into moving quickly), and grabbed for the pen.
But his arms and hands shook as he attempted to press the pen to paper. His white eyebrows furrowed a bit harder in concentration, then frustration as his body refused to cooperate with his mind. The act of writing was far more delicate than simply scooping food into his mouth, and he had not written anything in over ten years. For a second, Valerie looked as if she would stop him and say they could try again tomorrow, but he eventually managed to make his fingers work.
How did I get here? The writing was nearly illegible and shaky, slanting a hard left. Valerie narrowed her eyes to decipher it.
"You mean here—like the resistance building?"
Dan nodded, red eyes curious.
Valerie was surprised that such a question would be his first attempt at decipherable communication. "Pariah Dark dropped you off." She figured it would not help to remind him of the shameful pomp and circumstance with which Pariah had declared superiority.
His face twisted, and he grabbed for the paper. Barrier. Ghosts can't get in.
Valerie began to understand what he was really asking. "Pariah Dark took down our barrier," she said simply. "It wasn't hard to cart you back after that..."
She remembered it had been utterly silent when she realized that no one was going to touch Phantom. So she'd taken it upon herself to lift his broken body onto her jet sled and walk alongside it, guiding them both back to headquarters. It'd been something of a long and difficult process—especially under the hesitant gazes and trigger-happy fingers of the other resistance members, and the open green glow of the Ghost Zone that warned them of imminent danger.
Dan looked as if he could not truly comprehend her words. Barrier gone?
"Yes, it's gone." The thought made her a bit bitter, irritated that she had to repeat herself. "All of it."
He looked surprised and fearful. From the remnants of his time before the dungeons, he could recall that the Shield was nearly impenetrable. Perhaps he was not as safe from his previous master as he thought.
He pressed his lips together until they were bloodless, trying to make his handwriting more comprehendible. He succeeded only slightly. What else has King done?
The ghost hunter gave him a disgruntled look, especially when she realized that Phantom did not contest Pariah's title. "We're in the Ghost Zone," she said flatly. "And we're now part of his empire, where he'll most likely find out you're still existent and come back to get you. Unless you help us." She did not want him to think that he was somehow free of Pariah Dark, or that they would continue to shelter him without an equal exchange. "That's what this is about. You understand? That's it."
Something shifted in his eyes, and he looked away. He was silent for some time, appearing as though he wished to ask a thousand questions. He eventually settled on one.
What do you want to know?
Over the next hour, Dan's mind frazzled from Valerie's bullet-fast questions. She had not yet asked about his specific time as a prisoner under Pariah Dark, and the two carefully skirted around it—Valerie, because she did not want to upset Dan enough to miss out on information more important to the resistance's cause, and Dan, because he did not think he could even write what had happened to him.
Eventually, his energy ran out, the pen nearly limp in his shaking hands. He breathed a little harder as he became more irritated with his own limitations. Valerie had been asking about the layout of Pariah Dark's castle—in hopes that knowing the nooks and crannies would help for stealth operations. Her eyes had trained on him in great interest when she realized how much he really knew.
Since Valerie was probably the only person who could dictate his future, then Dan figured as long as he stayed useful, she would keep him hidden away from the Ghost King. But now he could hardly write. He was losing his usefulness.
He could not afford to be useless to her.
Valerie leaned back, raising a brow at the way Dan was fighting a losing battle with himself and becoming more fearful of the consequences. "Okay, hot-shot," she sighed. "You're obviously wearing down, and I think my butt fell asleep in this chair a long time ago. Let's stop for now."
He looked up at her in confirmation, and she nodded. Then he exhaled in relief, the pen immediately falling onto the table. He winced as he lowered his hands. He'd left the edges of the paper stained with ecto-blood splotches, from where the raw skin on his wrist had cracked open.
Valerie grabbed the papers without fear or disgust and began to fold them. "We got a lot done," she said, tucking them into a zipper pocket of her battle suit. "I'm going to debrief my dad and the others with this, and then I'm going to send out scouts to make sure you're not lying to me about the way to Pariah's castle."
He looked somewhat pained by the fact that Valerie was still suspicious of him.
She huffed, "What? Do you really expect me to trust you? After all the shit you've put me through? I don't care if you're crippled or not—your brain's messed up. I need to make sure you're not leading us into a death trap."
A blush of shame tinged his cheeks. His thin lips opened, as if he wished to speak, but then he seemed to remember that he couldn't. He wanted to tell her he had no reason to lie or disobey. He wanted to obey.
She stood up from the table. and began to walk out of the cell, but then she turned around. "Look, it's just a precaution. I don't think you're stupid enough to lie to me. And if all of this intel checks out, then….maybe, I dunno, I'll make things a little easier on you."
The unexpected addition to their deal made Dan blink. Valerie had no reason to make his imprisonment easier, even if he was being truthful. The deal was sanction from the Ghost King and healing in exchange for information—nothing more.
Valerie eyed him. "I don't know what you'd really want, but maybe we can get you real clothes or something, with a shirt."
So far, no one, not even Vlad, had offered Dan a decent set of clothes. He was still stripped to those threadbare pants of his, which did not shield against the draft in the cellar.
In response to Valerie's suggestion, Dan felt something swell within his chest, and it was a warmth he had never felt in his entire afterlife. As he marveled at its feeling, he searched within himself to find its source and grab on. He did not understand it, but whatever it was, he did not want it to disappear, and he feared it would—as all good things did for him.
Valerie raised a brow at the funny expression of confusion and awe on his face. "Get some sleep, Phantom." Then she left him behind in the cold silence of his cell.
As Valerie slept later that evening, her mind fluttered with images of the information Dan had told her. Repeating the information and deciphering his horrific handwriting for her father and Vlad had strengthened her grasp on it, and even her dreams were attempts to work through several different stealth invasions of Pariah Dark's castle. Their electronic drones had begun to scout through the Ghost Zone—so far, Dan's intel was correct, as they now had solid coordinates to the castle.
Her dreaming mind was a haywire of possibility, with images of what could be the greatest military strike in human history. Led by her.
She was smiling in her sleep.
But as she dreamed, something began to interrupt it. From a faraway distance, noises that were not a part of this dreamland began to invade. She began to hear shouts, and so she burrowed deep into her blankets, her smile twitching into a frown of irritation.
Her half-conscious mind pled with any higher power for the noise to shut up, but instead of dying out, the shouts only got louder, mixed with hysterical laughter. Then the sound of crashing objects tore her dream world down. Valerie shot up from her bed, eyes wide. Shouts. Wait a minute—Oh my god, her mind blitzed. Phantom went crazy. He regenerated his core. He's killing people. It was all an act.
She stumbled out of her bunk and slammed hard on the floor, haphazardly reaching for her nearby blaster. "Dammit," she breathed in disbelief as the nanoparticles of her suit began to form about her. "How I could I be so stupid; he was planning this!" Her heart was pounding in total rage and fear, and she began to run, turning down the hall to the door for the cellar. "He was faking it; dammit, he was faking it!"
She feared that he was capable of great illusion. Maybe some hidden power where he could make himself look like anything—including a mutilated version of himself. Maybe this whole thing was just a conspiracy alliance between Phantom and Pariah Dark to take the resistance down from the inside. She felt horrifically used and abused, because she was just starting to believe that maybe this new Dan would not be so bad. That maybe she could take his broken foundations and rebuild him into something better.
I'm an idiot. I bet he was secretly laughing at me the whole time. Her face flamed in embarrassment in shame. Dammit, he played me into helping him!
But as she nearly flew down the cellar steps, blaster raised, she came across a much different scene than she imagined. Instead of a red-washed massacre and a laughing Phantom, she pulled up short to the sight of several resistance members crowded around Phantom's cell, standing perfectly healthy and whole. And laughing themselves.
Her heart stopped in confusion.
Through the spaces of people's arms and bodies, she caught sight of him. Phantom was leaning shakily on his hands and knees, trying to drag himself away. And from the short glance, she caught a pool of green blood, the hanging of straggled hair hiding his face. She saw someone raise what looked to be a lead pipe, and she froze, eyes widening.
The lead pipe blurred down, and the fragment of Dan that she could see between people suddenly collapsed to the floor, his limbs giving way under the brunt force, disjointed.
Valerie inhaled sharply, and she yelled out, "What the hell is going on here?!"
Her yell barely had an effect on the scream and jeering crowd, as her voice was just one of many—easily overpowered. They cheered louder.
She realized that whoever had started this was still beating Dan. She pushed resistance members aside without thinking, face twisted in absolute fury. A few of them fell under her strength. And she saw that lead pipe raise again over the heads of the crowd, and she reacted immediately, jumping into the center of the circle. In a quick slide, she twisted her body and raised her hand.
The lead pipe hit her palm with a solid slap, and she grunted with pain as she gripped onto it, allowing the pipe to fall a bit further to save herself from broken bones. It was slick with green blood.
People gasped at her sudden intrusion and her strength to jump before a swinging weapon.
And when Valerie looked up at the leader of the mob, she found herself staring eye-to-eye with one Dash Baxter. His eyes were red and bloodshot. The veins on his arms were bulging with exertion, still in the act of pushing the pipe down against Valerie's strength. He looked about as shocked as anyone else.
For the longest time, no one said anything, the cheers and shouts slowly stopping at the strange sight of Valerie standing over the beaten Dan Phantom, seemingly…protecting him?
She wrenched the pipe away from Dash, and it clattered to the floor. People began to back away once they noticed that Valerie emanated absolute anger.
While she was partially satisfied to know that Phantom wasn't in fact attacking the resistance, she felt vindicated by her own disbelief in his docility. It somehow made the fact that he was being beaten while she cursed his name all the worse. Her own shame spurned an extra weight of fury to her voice.
"What the hell," she said sharply, "is going on here?!"
A few people winced at the way her voice raised.
"Did he attack you?" she demanded. "Any of you? Did he somehow manage to break out of his cell, which still has the barrier up?"
No one said anything or dared to cough. Under the fire gaze of Valerie the Ghost Slayer, their words burnt up. They knew they were caught in something decidedly not self-defense.
Beside her feet, Dan Phantom trembled in shock, trying to force himself back up. Without looking back, she gently pressed her foot against his back. "No," she ordered. "You stay there." Phantom, whether he heard her or not, easily collapsed back to the floor, even under the smallest push of her foot. It was better for him to remain beside her, where she could protect him. Then she raised her finger at Dash. "And you have thirty seconds to explain yourself."
He nearly smiled, half-crazed. She realized suddenly this man was incredibly drunk. "I needed to get it out of me. You know?" A particular bloodlust infected the normally caring glint in his eye, which contrasted strangely against…tear tracks on his face? "I couldn't stand it anymore. I knew he was healing down here. I couldn't stand it. I kept waiting for you to off him, and you didn't."
Valerie blinked, mind reeling. "Off him?" she repeated, eyes narrowing.
"Yeah," he nodded. "We figured you'd kill him sometime. But first we wanted some payback." He looked at Valerie as if she understood him. "Is that why you're mad? Cause you didn't get first hit? You can take some strikes still. He stopped crying out a while ago, but he knows he's dominated now." Dash's smile was twitchy, his voice slurred. "Like a bitch."
Her lip curled in disgust. "I don't get high off beating crippled mutes with a lead pipe," she said, voice halted. The more she heard Dash speak, the more she wanted to punch him soundly in the mouth. "I hate Phantom as much as you do, but I'm not sick enough to become him in the name of revenge."
Dash's eyes narrowed. "What—?"
But Valerie turned to the crowd. "I can't believe you people," she yelled at them, her voice rough with righteous anger. "We say we're better than the shit we fight, right? We say we're humans, right? So why is it that you've woken me up from my nice, warm bed only to show me that hey, congratulations, all twenty of you can take turns beating up one defenseless prisoner who can't even plead for help?! You feel special now? You feel good that you've sunk to his level?"
A verbal tongue lashing from Valerie was never really pleasant.
She eyed each and every resistance member, memorizing their faces. "We all have reasons to hate him, I get that. But he was giving us valuable intel in exchange for physical sanction from harm. And now—" she ran a finger through her hair, realizing she probably looked half-insane, "—you've probably ruined it, in the name of what? Some stupid revenge scheme, while we're all on the brink of extinction with Pariah Dark out to enslave us? Your stupidity disgusts me. I'm reporting all of you. Get out of here now, while I still think you look human and not like target practice."
As a high-ranking officer in the resistance, Valerie held incredible sway over the fates of several people. They paled and backed away. When they didn't move fast enough, she snarled, "Now."
The cellar quickly emptied out, with the exception of Dash. The drunk man remained, staring at her.
Dash looked surprised. "Are you really protecting him?" That crazed, off-kiltered look came back, and he hounded on her, "Is that what's been going on down here? Valerie, you keeping something important a secret?"
"What the—?"
"—You fucking him on the side when we're not looking? Cause I've wondered sometimes. Is that why you're protecting him?"
Her nose scrunched, not entirely because of Dash's alcohol breath. She was starting to get worried about the fact that Phantom was still lying on the ground, panting, bleeding out. She wouldn't be able to assess his injuries until everyone—especially Dash—left. Her heart swelled with great annoyance and indignation, especially at Dash's crude insinuations. "I've been gathering valuable intel on how to destroy Pariah Dark," she said, every word pointed. "Or I was. Until you all decided to go bat-shit crazy."
Dash stood tall against her, purple eyes hard. He moved closer to intimidate her with his height. "He killed Paulina. He deserves this. I don't care what you think we can get out of him. He deserves pain. All of it. Every kind."
Valerie said, voice hard, "Maybe, but we operate under rules, Dash. If we don't, then we run the risk of abusing power, like what you just did." She pushed him back. "So why don't you start acting like a human being instead of a psychotic killer with a power complex."
Dash's tears returned, in both total brokenness and anger. Especially when drunk, he could never take an order, and he hated it when someone opposed him or called him out on failure. "No!"
He raised his fist and swung at her in a disjointed wave of rage.
Valerie smoothly avoided the punch, ducking beneath it, and then she used his own moment against him to twist his arms into a painful lock, eyes hard in disappointment.
He struggled against her hard. "He killed Paulina," his voice hitched, ragged. "She—"
"—I know," Valerie said. She could feel Dash's hard muscles clench beneath her touch. "I know. But we've got bigger problems now, and we can't afford this."
Dash's tears flowed without shame. "I want him to pay," he whispered, voice cracking with pain. "I—Paulina. I loved her. He killed her in cold blood." He struggled harder against Valerie. "I need to do this. Stop protecting him!"
She struggled to hold him back, her own muscles straining to keep him in a lock hold. He was too strong for her in a basic match of brute strength alone. She said, voice raising, "He's worth more alive—got it? We have to be the better men about this. We have to think about the consequences."
"Why?" Dash demanded.
"Because if we're not, then how are we any different than him?" Valerie shot back, eyes hard. She shoved him away. "When you come in here and beat him while he's down—how is that better? How does that make anything better? Dammit, Dash." She rubbed her temples. "We had a chance. A chance to turn his mind around. Now I don't know if he's got one left, and I doubt he'll cooperate with us if he does. So if Phantom fades out, and Pariah Dark kills us all, I'm blaming you."
Dash's eyes brightened with new tears. "I'd rather die," he said forcefully, "than accept help from that killer. You just don't understand. You've never loved anyone. You don't know what it's like."
In irritation, Valerie grabbed his ear and dragged him down to her level so they were face-to-face. "Let's get something straight," she said lightly. "While I've spent ten years fighting Phantom so that I could protect the people I loved, you've spent ten years just exercising and drinking beer. Paulina died that day because you and her group weren't mentally prepared. So yeah, you go ahead and act tough, but you're always afraid of the real fights." She released him. "And I always have to clean up your messes."
Before he could respond, Valerie pointed to the stairs. "Get out of here, Dash," she said tiredly. "I know why you did this, but that doesn't change the fact that you went outside prisoner protocol for the hell of it. So you're going to report upstairs to my father and explain that we can't make battle plans anymore because you felt like beating a crippled mute into the ground."
Dash paled a bit, his tears flashing. "You think I'm going to forgive him just 'cause he's injured? When did you get so righteous, Valerie? Why do you care?"
"This is business," she shot back, eyes narrowing. "A deal that we can't afford to let fail, and I'm not stupid enough to let my anger control me. So get out of here, now. That's an order."
Dash's jaw set, even as he inhaled shakily. But he nodded, because she was ultimately her superior officer, and he left, clenching his fists as he drunkenly staggered up the cellar stairs.
The second he was gone, Valerie turned to Phantom and inhaled sharply.
"Oh my god," she breathed, really looking at his broken body for the first time. She looked down at the tracker on her suit, and she realized that Phantom's signature hardly registered. Her face paled. "Oh no. Oh shit."
Valerie dropped down beside Phantom. "Dammit, don't fade out on me, okay?" His bare back was mottled with open wounds, where Dash had slammed the sharp edge of the metal pipe again and again. She could already see the near-black bruises forming down his spine, visible even through the scabbing wells of blood.
Whatever improvement he'd made over the last five days was gone.
She bit her lip and gently tried to turn him on his back, fearing that his front was perhaps worse. He was totally limp, nonresistant to her touch. His bloody lips cracked open in a gasp of pain as she managed to turn him over, his raw back pressing into the stone floor. Valerie steeled herself against the sight of his face, because she figured it would be bad.
And it was.
He looked up at her dazedly, one eye already swollen shut, the other nearly so and half-way gouged out—as if he were crying blood. She didn't know how many hits he'd taken, but his features were distorted almost beyond recognition. Green blood dripped from his nose and lips, and bruises bloomed all over him, his long, white hair sticking to his face in sweaty clumps. His right arm was black with footprints, bent awkwardly at the elbow and swelling. His fingers on each hand looked broken.
Valerie swallowed hard, realizing that her own friends had done this, and she had slept through a good part of it. Her own friends had done this. What if she hadn't woken up at all? How would she have known what happened? Maybe he would have faded out, and there'd have been no evidence that they'd personally beat him out existence.
She would have thought that perhaps he escaped, or willed himself to fade out.
"Can you hear me?" she asked him, trying to keep her voice calm. "Phantom, come on. I need you to respond to me. Give a grunt or something."
His lips moved in trembles, as if he were trying to speak. Blood was pouring from his mouth and down his temples. The slits of his eyes were unable to focus on anything, blurred with blood and tears.
Valerie quickly activated the comm on the arm of her battle suit.
"Kwan?" she demanded, voice short. "If you're not up already, get your butt over to Phantom's cell. We need medical, stat."
It took a heart-stopping second or two to receive a response. Kwan's voice was rushed and groggy, and the rustle of sheets echoed in the background. "What did he do now? Who's hurt? I thought I heard voices, but then they stopped and—"
"—It wasn't Phantom who did anything. It was everybody else, and they did it to him. He's in bad shape. Worse than before."
The man seemed to hesitate. Then: "Give me sixty seconds," he said, and he shut the comm down.
She turned back to Phantom. "Look," she said, grimacing. "We're taking you to the infirmary. You're not gonna last if we don't."
And in that second, she realized with horror that Phantom was choking on his own blood, suffocating as it welled thickly down his face. "If you even make it to the infirmary," she breathed, eyes widening. She needed to do something, now. So she tried to gently sit him up, in hopes that gravity would drain the blood welling in his lungs.
He moaned and leaned on her as a drowning man would on rocks or a beach shore, desperately attempting to catch his breath. She was the only source of stability—of solid hands not turned against him. Every breath pained him now, his ribs expanding shallowly because many were broken and puncturing his lungs. He leaned his head back on her shoulder, his swollen brain and dilated eyes barely recognizing that Valerie was helping him.
Perhaps she was only a hallucination. Perhaps everything was a hallucination, and he was really still lying on the cell floor back in Pariah Dark's castle...
Whatever mental improvement Valerie had made with him disappeared as he lost all thought of hope or security, the careful foundations of trust and humanity she'd been trying to set with him shattering under the pressure. It was a lie. It was all a lie. This shoulder of Valerie's that was holding him up was a lie too.
Without even thinking, Valerie's fingers tightened around him. Her tracker alerted her that Phantom's ectoplasmic signature was growing weaker and more unstable. Something in the feel of his body against hers was less than solid. She truly feared that he was fading out.
"Don't you dare fade," she demanded. "You stay here."
His cold tears soaked into the fabric of her suit, mixed with the slimy and strange substance of ectoplasmic blood. His breaths were uneven and pained. She could feel how much he wanted to let go—to let himself fade into nothing.
"They won't come back," Valerie promised, voice rough. It was hard for her to be comforting towards this strange prisoner of hers. "Okay? This won't happen again. Just…stay here." She could not afford to lose him. The resistance could not afford to lose him.
Just then, a loud ruckus stumbled down the stairs. Valerie looked up and, in relief, realized it was Kwan and a couple of associates, all carrying a gurney. They looked bedraggled and confused and worried.
Kwan called out, eyeing with shock the broken Phantom leaning against Valerie, "What all happened?"
"What do you think happened?" Valerie said dryly to hide her worry. "Stop stalling; get working. Now."
Sometime later, Valerie stood outside the medical wing of the resistance building, gazing into one of the rooms where they had placed Dan. He was on an IV of ectoplasm now—of course. Damien Gray, the resistance leader, had personally ordered for it upon hearing the news that their only informant had been nearly beaten to death. A good portion of the resistance was on total lockdown for insubordination, breaking of prisoner protocol, and direct sabotage of an intelligence operation.
Valerie thought lock-down was too easy of a punishment. But then, she knew that her father would not have even punished them had Dan no information to provide them. She was lucky enough to get the IV.
"So, how bad is he?" Valerie asked wearily. The Dan Phantom who was lying limp on a white bed hardly seemed like himself, his features were so distorted or otherwise wrapped in bandages.
Kwan crossed his arms in worry. He looked like a doctor now with his white coat and glasses, even though he wasn't one yet. "If he were human, he'd be dead right now. Internal contusions, broken bones, ruptured organs from rib punctures. It took me an hour to reset all of his bones. I would have never guessed before, but he has a skeletal structure just like a human being, which is actually really fascinating to think about, considering that ghosts are supposed to be—"
Valerie gave Kwan a dry look, not interested in an anatomy lesson.
Kwan stopped himself, at least having the grace to see past his own enthusiasm. "I mean, yes, he's in critical condition. With the help of that IV, he'll probably survive. I think. I mean, his ribs already reset themselves, so that's good."
Valerie didn't want to think about the possibility that Phantom would fade out, so she asked, "What's his recovery time? I need to get important information out of him, which is kinda hard to do if he can't communicate."
He backtracked. "Well, I don't know," he admitted slowly. "I administered an anesthetic, so he'll sleep for now, depending on how his body reacts to medicine. But Valerie, I'm just a med student. I can set bones and take blood, but I haven't taken a full year of pharmacology yet, and I definitely don't know how ghost anatomy works. The dose I gave him could keep him under a couple of hours or a couple of days. I'm sorry. This is the best I can do."
Valerie rubbed her temples to hide her frustrations. It would not be fair to take her stress out on Kwan. "I know, I know," she sighed. She tried to give him an appreciative look. "I figured you wouldn't want to help at all, so this means a lot. Phantom's not popular around here. I wouldn't blame you if you'd refused."
Kwan could always see on the bright side. "I want to survive against Pariah Dark," he said, nodding hard. "If that means keeping an old enemy alive, then I'll do it." But he suddenly looked guilty. "Although I still stuck him hard with the needle." He added softly, "For Paulina."
Valerie nodded, a worn and tired sigh sapping all of her remaining energy. She swallowed hard, feeling old. "Yeah, for Paulina."
And so as Phantom slept off his injuries in a medically-induced sleep, Valerie sat in a chair outside of the room, a .40 colt in her hands, loaded with bullets. The resistance could not afford to lose the information Dan had on Pariah—even at the cost of human life.
A/N: Sorry I've been gone for so long, but I had a lot of personal issues to take care of.
So I began to think about this miniseries and realized that Valerie and Dan aren't some isolated system. They're existing alongside a whole bunch of people trained to hate Dan. It was both fun and painful to write this, because a part of me thinks that he probably deserved what he got, but the other part of me was like, "No! A threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere!" (quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.)
I had some trouble with Dan's characterization, mostly because I write him as an evil person, and him as the powerless victim is still very much unexplored territory for me and for this archive! I dunno, was his character believable here? I think in a conversation with Zanza Flux, we talked about how if it was Vlad's ghost energy (his core) that made Phantom evil, then would it make sense that Phantom, without a core at all, would have no impulse towards evil? And if he did manage to regenerate a core, would he regain those tendencies? I'd love to know if you feel comfortable with the way I've constructed his mind in this miniseries, or if you feel I need to adjust something to be more true to the character of Dan. I tried to provide some flashbacks as justification for his behavior, but I'm not sure if that was enough.
If you have time, please leave a review with your thoughts, questions, or requests! Thanks!
