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Shot Summary: After being captured and sealed away for years, Dan Phantom wakes up to the sight of a familiar woman in a red battle suit.

Chapter warnings: Brief language.


Deliverance

Shot 41: The Woman in Red Part 1


Heavy, double-lead doors pulled apart, the ectoranium panels rising up with a hydraulic hiss. A reverberating hum echoed off thick, cement walls. Then the final bars retracted one by one as the fluorescent lights above flickered to life.

A platform moved forward from out of the darkness.

A short distance away, a woman in red stood apprehensively. Her dark lips were pressed tight in a thin line as she watched the platform move, and she raised an ectogun in anticipation. There, in the middle, was a male figure. The powerful form was strapped to a cement chair, the head bowed forward in unconscious sleep. A glowing muzzle was steeled across the man's mouth. Loose locks of white hair straggled down his face.

"You sure about this?" a voice over her comm said in worry.

She pressed the comm in her ear. "I'm sure. He's our only option at this point."

"Just…be careful. We'll be watching overhead if you need anything."

"I'll be fine," she said, then turned off the comm and called out, "Unlock sequence code Alpha, Tango, Romeo, 3, 7, 0."

A smooth, female AI voice sounded from the technology. "Unlocking sequence activated."

The woman then called, "Engage awakening sequence: 4, 4, 0, Gray. Restriction level five."

"Awakening sequence engaged," the AI affirmed. "Restriction level five."

The lines across the man's muzzle lit up as pure ectoplasm began to seep into him. The muzzle retracted from his face, revealing his sharp jaw and cracked lips. His face twitched—and for a second or two, he looked as if he were in pain. Then his lips opened for breath, and blood red eyes snapped open. His white hair began to flicker on the ends, then raise around him in an unholy halo.

The instant she cocked the blaster in her hand, his eyes flickered to her.

And then a demonic smile split his face. "Valerie," he greeted, his voice a deep, baritone vibration. "How nice of you to visit me in my…incarceration." His eyes carried a spark of wild insanity, and it made her take a step back.

"I'm not here to visit, ghost," the woman said. Her voice was clipped, but smooth. Controlled. "I need information."

The instant she spoke, his smile faltered into a deep frown. His red eyes narrowed. Then his lips curled into a snarl. His voice deepened in anger, and it rumbled the walls. "You're not Valerie."

The woman did not falter. "We're not here for small talk," she said. "I need information."

His eyes glowed hot in rage and confusion. "You're not Valerie," he accused. His gloved fingers twitched as he began to struggle against his bonds. His sharp eyes roved of her. Her suit, though red, was paneled in sections foreign to Valerie's suit. This looked sleeker, the body lit with red lines that glowed. The woman herself was less curved than Valerie, her stature shorter. Though she had ringlet hair pulled back in a low ponytail, her skin was a shade lighter than Valerie's. Her nose was a bit narrower. The infamous Dan Phantom began to seethe. "Who are you? Where is Valerie Gray?" The cognitive dissonance of staring at a not-Valerie left him disoriented. "I will speak with no one but Valerie Gray."

For a time, the woman eyed him. Then she lowered the blaster and faced him straight. Her eyes were still a familiar, brilliant teal. "Valerie Gray is dead," she said. Her voice carried no rasp, but was instead smooth and clinical. Precise. "She was my grandmother."

The ghost seemed to freeze entirely, his face tightening. The heat and rage in his eyes dulled to an unblinking red. For a second or two, he said nothing. And then, "What?"

She raised her chin. "Valerie Gray is dead. I am here to obtain information from you regarding—"

"—What year is it?" he demanded. He looked almost panicked. "Tell me, what year?"

She told him, taking note of such an odd request.

His mind raced. "…Sixty years?" he breathed.

"You've been in cyro-sleep," she said, walking closer. She was cautious of him, for no one had seen him since her grandmother had successfully captured and locked him away in the basement of the Resistance (now the Amity Park Defense Center). The ghost was as terrifying to behold as the legends suggested, but his face was sharp in a terribly handsome way. "I woke you up to discuss an imminent threat. My grandmother's records state you knew more about the Ghost Zone and its inhabitants than anyone else."

His face twitched. "Records?" he repeated, voice raising. A wild, dangerous undertow of emotion husked his voice. "Sixty years?"

"Yes, we have established it's been sixty years since you were awake. Now, I need to know everything you have on—"

A snarl erupted from him, and a vein appeared down his neck as he fought against his arm restraints. "No," he said. "No. Valerie is not dead. You are lying. You are attempting to keep me disoriented so that I will comply. This is an illusion—an illusion!" He stared at her in great distrust, but a deep fear seemed to drive him. On some level, he knew something was wrong. The woman had Valerie's eyes.

She holstered her gun in her thigh belt, almost in a Valerie-way. "My identity is irrelevant." She found it odd—his interest in Valerie. It was going to be difficult to make him focus. "My grandmother's death is also irrelevant, and I don't care if you believe me. All I need is information."

The ghost gaped openly, speechless at how the woman passively wrote off his anger and demands. Surely, this was some shadow-dimension—a false reality. If Valerie were here, she would have already risen to the bait of his anger, and they would have been engaging in a delightful shouting match of wits. His eyes narrowed again. "You cannot expect me to give you anything if you give me nothing in return."

The woman measured his will, then nodded. "That is fair," she said. "An equivalent exchange, then. Answer my questions truthfully, and I'll answer yours truthfully. Deal?"

He stared at her in great suspicion. "I suppose," he said. This not-Valerie seemed much too controlled. He imagined he would not obtain much information of value. He tilted his head. "Tell me, how did your bitch of a grandmother die, anyway?"

The calculated insult rolled off her shoulders. "My grandmother died of illness," she said. Her sharp, all-too-familiar eyes were measuring him, as if she were gaining information by virtue of the nature of his questions alone.

"What kind of illness?" he demanded.

"A human kind," she said.

"That's a very indirect response," he complained.

"It was a very complicated illness."

He redirected. "How old was she?"

"I believe she was forty-eight."

An odd flicker of pain crossed his face, but it quickly shadowed out. He tried to cover the uncomfortable line of his mouth with a self-satisfied huff. "Serves her right," he said. "I hope she died in pain and agony."

The young woman blinked in boredom. "I wouldn't know."

Something about her passivity to her own kin—the great Valerie Gray, Military Defense Commander, Slayer of Ghosts—struck his sense the wrong way. "Why don't you know?" he demanded sharply.

She shrugged. "She died before I was born."

A great chasm breeched between them at that, and Phantom was again at loss for words. Valerie Gray. Dead in a mysterious way, with naught but this cardboard slip of a girl as her descendent. He thought to inquire further on her death, but then he sniffed haughtily. "Probably for the best. She would have despised you. A corruption of her DNA. A failure to her name."

The woman's full lips stretched into a smile, but it did not reach her eyes. "My grandmother's records state your favorite tactics included psychological warfare and emotional baiting. But her opinion of me is irrelevant. Because she is dead."

Phantom hissed at her, lip curling in anger. "Who was your grandfather?"

"His name was Kwan. He was her doctor."

And suddenly, he could see it now. The distortion of Valerie's features and the lighter skin. It made sense. "That idiotic coward?" he snarled, unable to control the incredible anger he felt. "She reproduced with Kwan?" His laugh was a bitter, awful sound. "Oh, that is rich. That is just rich."

The woman remained silent, watching him.

Dan realized he was giving away something about himself. And so he stared at her, his glowing, red eyes hard. "So then. What is your name?"

She raised her chin. "You may address me as Lieutenant Gray."

"...Lieutenant, huh?" His eyebrow raised. "Is that your first name?"

Her face twitched, perhaps in the first example of her irritation. "No, that is my title. And that's the only name you need."

He seemed to have other questions, but he diverted. "How old are you?"

"Twenty."

"Aww. Just a baby," he mocked.

"With all due respect," she said dryly, "you have a body fashioned to exhibit the appearance of a male in his early twenties. If I am a baby, what does that make you? A toddler?"

He grabbed onto the irritated string in her voice, craving it. Valerie. It reminded him of Valerie—of known things. He smiled cruelly. "Oh, you have no idea the experience I have. The things I'm capable of."

She clasped her hands behind her back. "On the contrary, I know your record very well. I suppose your actions would coincide with a toddler throwing a tantrum."

His smile fell, and he snarled at her. "I've decapitated people for lesser insults."

"I suppose you would." Her tone suggested her lack of surprise and general disappointment. That sparked his anger even higher.

"You would beg for mercy if I were not in these chains," the ghost declared hotly, his muscles tensing against his bonds.

The young lieutenant watched him grow despondent over his inability to escape. His attempts to jerk at the straps down his arms became fewer—his jaw tightening with some kind of terrible pride and shame. At some level, he knew he was at her mercy.

"You must feel great hatred for my grandmother," she dared to say.

His head tilted, and a sardonic smile stretched his thin lips over sharp, glinting fangs. "There's a fine line between love and hate," he said. "You're probably still too young to understand things like that."

"Did you feel both of those for her?" she asked.

"With great intensity," he said. His voice was dangerous and uneven. "Especially as I stare at you."

He was unused to any image of Valerie withstanding him without great emotion attached. This young woman before him was a smooth stone, well-trained, obviously an intellectual. Likely more devious and underhanded than she let on. But in truth, the worst of it was seeing Valerie and not-Valerie in her tanned face. That the world had left him behind.

That Valerie had left him behind.

"I know what she did to capture you," the young lieutenant admitted, although her gaze suggested her words were not for comfort or his benefit.

He raised a tired brow. "And what do you believe she did?"

"The official records simply state that she lured you into a net of ectoranium."

He huffed. "Of course they would say that. She wrote the record."

"But, given your abilities, I'd always wondered how she managed it. Until today." There was a terrible knowledge in her eyes. She knew now what the infamous Valerie Gray had done to trick him. The pain written all over Phantom's face—his betrayal at seeing that Valerie had children by Kwan—

—She'd manipulated him into that net, using a tactic older than time.

Phantom tensed slightly in his chair, and his face twitched. "But you will not speak of it," he said. "To do so would be to tarnish your precious grandmother's memory and by proxy your own."

"On the contrary, her ploy suggests she did not return your affection." The woman's head tilted. "But I don't think she was entirely heartless."

"And what makes you say that?" The ghost's voice was rough with anger and pain.

"She built your containment center with restriction levels. That meant she never intended to keep you locked away in permanent sleep."

His dark, red eyes snapped to her. "Restriction levels?"

"Yes—a way to control your power." She clasped her hands behind her back. "I am now seeking to use it for our mutual benefit. The ghost portals recently broke down and allowed several ghosts back into the human world, including one named Nocturne. He's causing…problems. Our records on other ghosts are slim at best. Tell me everything you know about these ghosts coming across our border, and I will release you from a Restriction Five to a Restriction Four."

His eyes narrowed. "What does that mean?"

"Increased mobility in this cell room instead of that chair. You would not be able to access any of your power, of course."

Dan seemed to contemplate her words for a minute, tearing each syllable apart in his mind. He desired freedom, but he snarled at her in displeasure of her deal. He felt powerless. Even in death, Valerie Gray's blood still cowed him. "So I would just be a monster under your bed. An asset locked away in the basement for your use."

"For now," she nodded

A disbelief raged through him at the realization that this descendent of Valerie was so openly heartless against him. "Your arrogance is disgusting. I am not some sniveling prisoner who will submit for the sake of a morsel. Make me a better offer."

She raised a dark, sculpted brow. "You're not exactly in a position to bargain. I can make it much harder for you."

"And I can snap that neck of yours," he said. "Like a toothpick."

Silence fell between them, his words ringing in the air.

"Very well," she said eventually, "I will return you to storage without engaging your sleep protocols. You'll sit there in the dark with nothing but yourself." She lifted her chin. "And with these walls, you'll likely fade out from a lack of ectoplasmic energy by the end of the year."

The threat was very real. The promise of cognitive isolation left him feeling odd and desperate. "You wouldn't."

"Unlike my grandmother," she said, "I don't care to protect you from yourself. And if you are not going to help me, then I see no point in keeping you around."

"And your precious information?" he hissed. "What then if you destroy me?"

"There are always three options for obtaining information," she said. "You were simply the easiest one. I will pursue my second option and will expect to have answers in the next week."

So. He was expendable to her. And in that moment, he saw Valerie—cold, cruel, manipulative Valerie. His black heart bled, and he laughed something bitter. "Oh, you are truly of her blood. You vixen. Tell me that is your first name. Vixen."

Her lip curled without amusement, and she began to back away. "No."

"How unfortunate," he said, voice turning downward as he struggled against his bonds once more. "It seems quite fitting for you." His answers were growing more sarcastic and sharp. She assumed she'd worn out her welcome and that he was about to throw an infamous tantrum.

"And destruction seems fitting for you," she said lightly. "Goodbye, Phantom. We won't meet again." She turned around and walked away, her ringlet hair swinging in her ponytail—a flash of Valerie—

And then a panic came over him, which was that this woman was leaving. His only tie to life. His only tie to Valerie. "Dammit," he called at her, "don't you leave me here. Don't you leave me like this!"

She simply raised her chin. "Initiating lock sequence—Alpha, Tango, Romeo, 3, 7, 0—"

"—No!" he cried out roughly. He couldn't go back in the dark. Months would pass. He would go insane long before his energy levels would deplete, even without a source. Valerie was leaving him again. Valerie had deceived him again. "No—Valerie—!"

The metal of his muzzle locked forward again, slamming tight his mouth and turning his voice into a muffle. Then, the heavy, ectoranium-lined gate slammed down between them, and the various other security locks re-hinged.

"My name's not Valerie," she said to him, even though she knew he could no longer hear her. But she could hear him.

Oh, she still could.

"Initiate sleep sequence?" asked the AI.

Lieutenant Gray paused. "Negative." And then she turned away, listening to the muffled shouts of agony that came from within Phantom's containment cage.

They were torn with rage and with something undeniably human. A pain and a fear. Something deep.

She knew what all he had done, how many he had killed, and now she knew the depths to which her own grandmother had sunk to ensnare him. But none of that undid the queasy twist in her stomach—that, in some way, it was cruel to make him fade out over a long time. To keep him aware during it.

She pressed her comm. "I'm done here. Didn't find out anything good."

"Is he still secure?"

"Yes. But I've engaged protocols to drain him. He's just a liability to keep around at this point."

"…Do you have the clearance to make that decision?"

Her face twitched. "Of course I do."

And as she walked out of the basement, something cold struck her—as if she were being watched. She thought that was quite odd, given that the ectoranium would block any supersensory abilities of Dan Phantom and the Amity Park Shield had not gone down in decades. It was impossible for another ghost to be in there with her.

In paranoia, she looked around but saw nothing, even as the hair on the back of her neck prickled.

She pressed her comm again. "Hey, you getting any weird readings from the basement?"

"A blip here and there. Must be some residue left over from opening the gates."

The granddaughter of Valerie Gray looked about once more as she began to climb up the steps. "Right," she said slowly. Her full lips pressed together into a line. She raised her blaster, fully anticipating some clone of Dan Phantom to strike from the side.

But nothing was there.

"And you're not sensing anything else?"

"Uh, no, Lieutenant. Nothing."

One of the pipes overhead quivered slightly.

Fear wormed its way into her. And for the first time in her life, she began to skip steps in a desperate attempt to get away from the basement, where all of her grandmother's secrets lay. The fear began to build as her radar bleeped faster and faster. She trained her blaster in that direction as she fled.

There was a presence—something powerful incoming—

And then a shimmering altered the air.

The lieutenant steeled her heart and began to shoot. Bright green light stormed from her blaster—but then a barrier appeared around the shimmering, and it harmlessly bounced off.

From out of the air came forth a purple-cloaked being. A ghost with pale, blue skin and red eyes, with a scepter that slammed against one of the concrete steps over which he floated. When he looked at her, she caught sight of a black mark that streaked down one of his eyes.

"Lieutenant Gray," he said simply. "I would speak with you."

Although the lieutenant had faced several ghosts, none of them had so tested her confidence. This one before her—the power was palpable in waves, like the inhaling and exhaling of breath, or of the ticks of a clock.

Her knees weakened slightly, but she managed to hold her ground, eyes wide. She went to press her comm.

He immediately raised his hand, and the metal of her comm button rusted away in her grasp, which made her heart skip and her nose burn with his power. She quickly pulled her hand away, only to notice that the blaster in her hand had rusted too, its sleek metal now mottled and brittle with holes. It fell to pieces in her grasp, then turned to dust.

"I am not here to fight," the ghost said. His voice was a smooth water, deep like oceans. "I am here to speak with you, granddaughter of Military Defense Commander Valerie Gray, the Ghost Slayer."

The young woman gaped at him, nearly thinking to call forth other weaponry, only to acknowledge that his presence was beyond anything she'd felt—even more aweing than that of Dan Phantom. "Who are you?" she demanded quickly, still backing away. "How did you get in here?"

"My name is Clockwork, Master of Time," he said. "Your Shield does not affect me, as I have power beyond it. But I am not here to display my power for you. Rather, I am here to help you."

"Help me?" she asked. Her smooth voice was clipped hard. "Ghosts don't help humans. Not altruistically."

His blue lips tilted. "The same could be said of humans, can it not? You have saved hundreds of people from the mischief of invaders—but you do it because you aspire to raise your reputation above that of your grandmother's. You want people to worship you as they do her."

The ghost's words were a straight cut to her soul, so terribly accurate that it made her face blush. It was suddenly difficult to maintain eye contact with him, and she looked away. "That is not true," she lied.

"Is it?" His sharp and strong features began to sink into bony angles and wrinkles. The change startled her, and she stepped back when she realized she was now staring at an old man. "Your grandmother's initial motivations were not much better, I suppose. She wanted to eradicate all ghosts as revenge for the loss of…material possessions."

This was the second time today that her dead ancestor had stolen the attention from her. It struck a cord deep within her—a raw nerve. Her face twitched with an anger that she usually managed to lock tight. "And what does she have to do with any of this? Why does any of this matter?"

"Quite a lot," Clockwork said casually. "I watched over her as I now watch over you. I am here to council you that you've made an irrational decision."

That did it. Her face twisted in such a way that mimicked Valerie's own unbridled hate. "She is dead," the young woman snapped. "And I don't care for your council. If you don't leave now, Iwill use force if necessary to remove you."

The old ghost raised a brow. Then he slammed his scepter down again, and the pulse of power that reverberated was so strong that it wobbled the concrete steps and made her stumble until she fell hard.

She gasped in pain as her tailbone and spine struck against solid edges, her mind scattering. She grasped fruitlessly for the railing, in hopes to keep herself from falling off to the stories below. Fear pounded in her now. She looked back up at Clockwork, face red with embarrassment and terror.

Clockwork walked forward. "You cannot remove me," he declared. "I see all things and know what you think, even before you act. But today, you have done what I cannot overlook." His red eyes narrowed, not unkindly. "For what reason have you relegated your prisoner, Dan Phantom, to fade out in darkness? He will soon descend into madness and will be no help at all in securing peace between our worlds."

The woman inhaled shakily, wide eyed as she struggled to hide her pain from the fall. She forced herself to sit up, then winced as she stood again. "He killed five billion people. Lying in the waste of his own madness until he fades seems…fitting."

"Perhaps it is," Clockwork nodded. "But you've not decided his fate out of love for your people. You knew he would deny your request. You wanted him to."

She fell silent.

The ghost continued. "Your actions today were out of your desire to be superior to Valerie Gray, was it not? To end what she could not? To confirm that she, for all of her heroism, had a fatal flaw? You've suspected it ever since you discovered the Restriction technology."

"She could have destroyed him," the girl said, voice hardening. "And she didn't."

"And you could have helped him," Clockwork snapped. "But you have not." He eyed her and the way her limbs shook in a fraction of well-hidden fear.

That left them both in an odd silence. Although still fearful of this strange and powerful presence, the woman said, "Why would I help him?"

Clockwork said, "Because it is in your best interest." He tapped old fingers on his scepter, and some miserable amusement came over him. "Today, you perpetuated the cycle of evil, lowering yourself to commit acts of manipulation and intimidation for your own benefit. Your grandmother would be cross if I did not warn that you are destroying yourself, as she did to herself. You cannot win a war on evil by doing evil."

Her jaw set in some typical fashion upon being scolded. She almost thought to challenge Clockwork on his judgment, but she felt his power and knew that she was far out of her league. It would benefit her, at the very least, not to irritate this ghost.

It bothered her that she found some sense in what he said.

"So what's your stake in all of this?" she demanded more quietly, mind racing. "Why save me or Phantom from anything?"

The Master of Time beheld her. "Because I should hope that one day my charges might have rest from their own insanity." He tapped his scepter on the ground. "Now, give Phantom three days of isolation. He will lose hope of your return by then, and it will be easier to enlist his help against Nocturne. He will be your criminal informant until such a time that he can fade out willingly."

And before she could respond, Clockwork was gone—the air about the basement as still as if nothing had disturbed it, leaving the young woman alone in her own trembling.


A/N: So this is part 1 of 2, providing you'd be interested in a follow-up. I have several new stories to publish for this collection, but I kept coming back to this idea of dead-Valerie and Phantom confronting her own wayward descendant.

By the way, sorry for my absence this last few weeks. Several small disasters (including tornadoes and getting my credit card hacked) made fanfiction take a back-burner.

Please review and let me know your thoughts, questions, ideas, etc. Thanks!